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[
"Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark",
"Split and McCluskey-led OMD (1989-1996)",
"What albums did they release during this time?",
"18 June 1988, a top 20 US hit with \"Dreaming\" and a successful \"Best of\" album.",
"Did they do any tours?",
"with a support slot for Depeche Mode's Music for the Masses Tour at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena,",
"Did they play with any other artists?",
"Love's Theme\" by Love Unlimited Orchestra, a track which was written and produced by Barry White.",
"Were they with any other artists?",
"However, it was at this point when OMD broke in two. Graham and Neil Weir left at the end of the 1988",
"Why did they split?",
"Paul Humphreys subsequently called it a day, unhappy with the band's commercial orientation."
] |
C_1d30fe7a2f554dec8fb90121acca7cfd_1
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What did he not like about it?
| 6 |
What did Paul Humphrey not like about Paul Humphreys?
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Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark
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During 1988 the band appeared poised to consolidate their US success, with a support slot for Depeche Mode's Music for the Masses Tour at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California on 18 June 1988, a top 20 US hit with "Dreaming" and a successful "Best of" album. However, it was at this point when OMD broke in two. Graham and Neil Weir left at the end of the 1988 US tour and co-founder Paul Humphreys subsequently called it a day, unhappy with the band's commercial orientation. Finally, Cooper and Holmes left OMD to join Humphreys in founding a new band called The Listening Pool in 1989. This left only McCluskey to carry on, essentially becoming a solo artist working under the OMD banner. McCluskey's first album from the new OMD was the dance-pop Sugar Tax LP in May 1991, which charted at No. 3 in the UK. McCluskey recruited in 1989 Liverpool musicians Raw Unlimited (aka Lloyd Massett, Stuart Kershaw and Nathalie Loates) as collaborators for the making of Sugar Tax: writing credits carefully distinguished between songs written by OMD (i.e., McCluskey) and songs written by OMD/Kershaw/Massett. This iteration of the group was initially successful with hits like "Sailing on the Seven Seas" and "Pandora's Box", with lesser success on fellow chart entries, "Call My Name" and "Then You Turn Away". McCluskey's live band was then formed by Nigel Ipinson (keyboards), Phil Coxon (keyboards) and Abe Juckes (drums) since late 1990. Kershaw, Ipinson and Coxon from 1992 to 1996 contributed to OMD albums and a 1993 tour. The fifth track from Liberator (1993), "Dream of Me", was built around a sample from "Love's Theme" by Love Unlimited Orchestra, a track which was written and produced by Barry White. To release the "Dream of Me" track as an OMD single, however, McCluskey had to agree that the single release of the track would remove the actual "Love's Theme" sample, but still be officially titled "Dream of Me (Based on Love's Theme)", and furthermore would still give a writing credit to White. Paul Humphreys, while no longer part of the group, co-wrote the single "Everyday". Also in 1993, McCluskey made contributions to the Esperanto album, a project by former Kraftwerk member Karl Bartos (then working under the moniker of Elektric Music). McCluskey returned with a rotating cast of musicians for the 1996 album Universal, which featured two songs co-written by Humphreys as well as a holdover from the Esperanto sessions, co-penned by Bartos. The record spawned OMD's first Top 20 hit in five years, "Walking on the Milky Way". CANNOTANSWER
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CANNOTANSWER
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Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD) are an English electronic band formed in Wirral, Merseyside, in 1978. The group consists of co-founders Andy McCluskey (vocals, bass guitar) and Paul Humphreys (keyboards, vocals), along with Martin Cooper (various instruments) and Stuart Kershaw (drums); McCluskey has been the only constant member. Regarded as pioneers of electronic music, OMD combined an experimental, minimalist ethos with pop sensibilities, becoming central figures in the late-1970s/early-1980s emergence of synth-pop.
McCluskey and Humphreys led precursor group the Id from 1977–1978, and re-recorded their track "Electricity" as OMD's debut single in 1979. Weathering an "uncool" image and a degree of hostility from music critics, the band gained popularity throughout Europe with the 1980 anti-war song "Enola Gay", and achieved broader recognition via Architecture & Morality (1981) and its three hit singles. Although later reappraised, Dazzle Ships (1983) was seen as overly challenging, and eroded European support. The group embraced a more radio-friendly sound on Junk Culture (1984); this change in direction led to greater success in the United States, and yielded the 1986 hit, "If You Leave".
In 1989, creative differences saw Humphreys and other members form the spin-off band the Listening Pool, leaving McCluskey the only remaining member of OMD. The group returned with a new line-up and explored the dance-pop genre: Sugar Tax (1991) and its initial singles were hits in Europe. By the mid-1990s, however, electronic music had been supplanted by alternative rock, and both OMD and the Listening Pool disbanded in 1996. McCluskey later conceived pop girl group Atomic Kitten, for whom he served as a principal songwriter, while Humphreys formed the duo Onetwo alongside Propaganda vocalist Claudia Brücken.
In 2006, the band reformed with Humphreys and McCluskey working on material closer in sound to their early output; The Punishment of Luxury (2017) was the group's seventh top 10 entry on the UK Albums Chart. They have also achieved 12 top 20 hits on the UK Singles Chart, as well as three top 20 hits on the US Billboard Hot 100. An influence on many later artists, OMD have sold over 40 million records worldwide.
History
1975–1979: Roots and early years
Founders Andy McCluskey and Paul Humphreys met at primary school in Meols in the early 1960s, and in the mid-1970s, as teenagers, they were involved in different local groups but shared a distaste for guitar-driven rock with a macho attitude popular among their friends at the time. By 1975 McCluskey had formed Equinox, as bassist and vocalist, alongside schoolmate Malcolm Holmes on drums, while Humphreys was roadie. During that time McCluskey and Humphreys discovered their electronic style, inspired by Kraftwerk. After Equinox, McCluskey joined Pegasus, and, later, the short-lived Hitlerz Underpantz, alongside Humphreys. McCluskey would usually sing and play bass guitar; roadie and electronics enthusiast Humphreys, who shared McCluskey's love of electronic music, graduated to keyboards.
In September 1977, McCluskey and Humphreys put together the seven-piece (three singers, two guitarists, bassist, drummer, and keyboard player) Wirral group the Id, whose line-up included drummer Malcolm Holmes and McCluskey's girlfriend Julia Kneale on vocals. The group began to gig regularly in the Merseyside area, performing original material (largely written by McCluskey and Humphreys). They had quite a following on the scene, and one of their tracks ("Julia's Song") was included on a compilation record of local bands called Street to Street. Meanwhile, Humphreys and McCluskey collaborated on a side project called VCL XI, whose name was adapted from a diagram on the back cover of Kraftwerk's Radio-Activity album, reading "VCL 11". This project allowed them to pursue their more obscure electronic experiments.
In August 1978, the Id split due to musical differences. The same month, McCluskey joined Wirral electronic outfit Dalek I Love You as lead singer, but quit in September. Later that month, he rejoined Humphreys and their VCL XI project was renamed Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark. The name was gleaned from a list of song lyrics and ideas that were written on McCluskey's bedroom wall; and was chosen so they would not be mistaken for a punk band. Given that OMD intended to play only one gig, the duo considered their moniker to be inconsequential. McCluskey has since expressed regret over choosing "such a very silly name". The contrasting personalities of Humphreys and McCluskey established the band's dynamic, with the former saying that "two Pauls wouldn't get anything done and two Andys would kill each other." They have further described their creative roles as "The Surgeon" (Humphreys) and "The Butcher" (McCluskey). As working class youngsters OMD had a limited budget, using second-hand "junk-shop" instruments including a left-handed bass guitar (which McCluskey would play upside-down). The pair also created their own devices, with Humphreys "making things out of his aunt's radios cannibalised for the circuit boards". Eventually they acquired a basic Korg M-500 Micro Preset synthesizer, purchased via McCluskey's mother's mail-order catalogue for £7.76 a week, paid over 36 weeks.
OMD began to gig regularly as a duo, performing to backing tracks played from a TEAC 4-track tape-recorder christened "Winston" (after the antihero of George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four). Their debut performance was in October 1978 at Eric's Club in Liverpool. Finding themselves on the cusp of an electronic new wave in British pop-music, they released a one-off single, "Electricity", with independent label Factory Records. The track was supposed to be produced by the Factory Records producer Martin Hannett. However, the A-side was the band's original demo produced by their friend, owner of Winston and soon to be manager, Paul Collister under the pseudonym Chester Valentino (taken from a nightclub called Valentino's in the nearby city of Chester). The single's sleeve was designed by Peter Saville, whose distinctive graphics contributed to OMD's public image into the 1980s. The success of "Electricity" led to the band receiving a seven-album record deal with Dindisc, worth over £250,000.
In 1979 they were asked to support Gary Numan on his first major British tour. Humphreys noted, "[Numan] gave us our first big break. He saw us opening for Joy Division and he asked us to go on tour with him... we went from the small clubs to playing huge arenas. Gary was very good to us." Numan later supported OMD on a 1993 UK arena tour.
1980–1988: Classic line-up
Rather than hire studio time to record their eponymous debut album (1980), McCluskey and Humphreys used their advance payment from Dindisc to build their own Liverpool recording studio, The Gramophone Suite. They predicted that they would be dropped by the label due to disappointing sales, but would at least own a studio. The album showcased the band's live set at the time, and included some guest drums from Id drummer Malcolm Holmes and saxophone from Wirral musician Martin Cooper. It had a raw, poppy, melodic synth-pop sound. Dindisc arranged for the song "Messages" to be re-recorded (produced by Gong bassist Mike Howlett) and released as a single – it gave the band their first hit. Dave Hughes, a founder member of Dalek I Love You who joined OMD in 1980, is featured in the "Messages" video. A tour followed: Winston the tape recorder was augmented with live drums from Malcolm Holmes, and Dave Hughes played synths. Hughes left OMD in late 1980.
The second album Organisation (a reference to the band which preceded Kraftwerk, founded by Kraftwerk's original members Florian Schneider-Esleben and Ralf Hütter) followed later that year, recorded as a three-piece with Humphreys, McCluskey and Holmes. It was again produced by Howlett, and had a moodier, dark feel largely inspired by the passing of former Factory label-mate, and Joy Division singer, Ian Curtis. The album included the anti-war hit single "Enola Gay", named after the plane that dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. The song was intended to be included on the debut album, but was left out at the final selection. The tour for this album had a four-piece band line-up, with saxophonist Martin Cooper (another Dalek I Love You alumnus) recruited for keyboard duties and enlisted as an official group member. The McCluskey/Humphreys/Cooper/Holmes unit came to be regarded as the band's classic line-up. In early 1981, readers of Record Mirror voted OMD the fourth-best band and eighth-best live act of 1980; NME and Sounds readers named the group the eighth and 10th best new act of the year, respectively. In Smash Hits, they were voted both the fifth-best band of 1980 and the eighth-hottest new act for 1981.
Howlett then presided over the recording of a further hit single, "Souvenir", co-written by Cooper & Humphreys. It ushered in a lush choral electronic sound. The song also became OMD's biggest UK hit to date. In November 1981, their most commercially successful album was released in the UK and Europe – Architecture & Morality. The group went into the studio with Richard Manwaring producing. Cooper then temporarily dropped out and was replaced by Mike Douglas, but this change was reversed by the time the album was released and a tour followed. The album's sound saw OMD's original synth-pop sound augmented by the Mellotron, an instrument previously associated with prog rock bands. They used it to add atmospheric swatches of string, choir, and other sounds to their palette. Two more hit singles "Joan of Arc" and "Maid of Orleans" (which became the biggest-selling single of 1982 in Germany) were on the album. "Joan of Arc" and "Maid of Orleans" were originally both titled "Joan of Arc"; the name of the latter single was changed at the insistence of the publishers and to avoid confusion. It became "Joan of Arc (Maid of Orleans)" and later simply "Maid of Orleans". Readers of Smash Hits voted OMD the seventh-best group of 1981, while Record Mirror readers named them the eighth-best band (as well as the 10th-best "new artist") and the third-best live act of the year. The group came close to splitting up in 1982, with McCluskey later saying, "We had never expected the success, we were exhausted."
In 1983 the band lost commercial momentum somewhat, with the release of their more experimental Dazzle Ships album, produced by Rhett Davies. The record mixed melancholy synth ballads and uptempo synth-pop with musique concrète and short wave radio tape collages. Its relative commercial failure caused a crisis of confidence for Humphreys and McCluskey and brought about a deliberate move towards the mainstream. 1984's Junk Culture was a shift to a more pop-style sound and the band used digital sampling keyboards such as the Fairlight CMI and the E-mu Emulator. The album was a success, reassuring the group about their new direction. The "Locomotion" single returned the group to the top five in the UK and was an indicator of the group's newfound sound, notably the adoption of a classic verse–chorus form, which is something the group had often previously avoided. Record Mirror readers named OMD the eighth-best live act of 1984. In 1985, the band expanded to a sextet, adding brothers Graham Weir (guitar, keyboards, trombone) and Neil Weir (trumpet, bass guitar), and released Crush, produced by Stephen Hague in Paris and New York. The success of the single "So in Love" in the US Billboard Hot 100 also led to some success for the LP which entered the American Top 40, establishing the group in the US. During this period, the band also recorded a version of "So in Love" in duet with the French pop singer Etienne Daho.
Later in 1985 the band were asked to write a song for the John Hughes film Pretty in Pink. They offered "Goddess of Love", although the ending of the film was re-shot due to a negative response from test audiences. OMD then wrote "If You Leave" in less than 24 hours and it became a top 5 hit in the US, Canada, and New Zealand in 1986. At the end of this year, the same six piece line-up also released The Pacific Age, but the band began to see their critical and public popularity wane notably in the UK. The album's first single, "(Forever) Live and Die", was a top 10 hit across Europe and entered the top 20 in both the UK and US. Journalist Hugo Lindgren argued that the success of "If You Leave" has concealed from US audiences the group's history of making innovative music.
During 1988 OMD played a support slot for Depeche Mode's Music for the Masses Tour at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California on 18 June 1988. They also released the top 20 US hit "Dreaming" and a successful greatest hits album, The Best of OMD. Graham and Neil Weir left the band at the end of the 1988 US tour.
1989–1996: McCluskey-led OMD and disbandment
As OMD appeared poised to consolidate their US success, the group continued to fracture. Humphreys departed in 1989 amid personal and creative dissension with McCluskey. Cooper and Holmes then left OMD to join Humphreys in founding a new band called the Listening Pool. McCluskey recalled, "We were all in agreement that something was wrong. How to fix it was where we disagreed."
This left only McCluskey to carry on, essentially becoming a solo artist working under the OMD banner. McCluskey's first album from the new OMD was the dance-pop Sugar Tax album in May 1991, which charted at No. 3 in the UK. McCluskey recruited in 1989 Liverpool musicians Raw Unlimited (Lloyd Massett, Stuart Kershaw, Nathalie Loates) as collaborators for the making of Sugar Tax: writing credits carefully distinguished between songs written by OMD (i.e., McCluskey) and songs written by OMD/Kershaw/Massett. This iteration of the group was initially successful with hits like "Sailing on the Seven Seas" and "Pandora's Box", with lesser success on fellow chart entries "Call My Name" and "Then You Turn Away". McCluskey's live band was then formed by Nigel Ipinson (keyboards), Phil Coxon (keyboards), and Abe Juckes (drums) from late 1990. Smash Hits readers voted OMD the sixth-best British group of 1991.
The album Liberator, which ventured further into dance territory, was released in 1993. It peaked at No. 14 on the UK Albums Chart. Lead single "Stand Above Me" peaked at no. 21 on the UK Singles Chart, with follow-up "Dream of Me" charting at no. 24. Paul Humphreys, while no longer part of the group, co-wrote the single "Everyday" (a No. 59 UK chart entry). The fifth track from Liberator, "Dream of Me", was built around a sample from "Love's Theme" by Love Unlimited Orchestra, a track which was written and produced by Barry White. To release the "Dream of Me" track as an OMD single, however, McCluskey had to agree that the single release of the track would remove the actual "Love's Theme" sample, but still be officially titled "Dream of Me (Based on Love's Theme)", and furthermore would still give a writing credit to White.
Also in 1993, McCluskey made contributions to the Esperanto album, a project by former Kraftwerk member Karl Bartos (then working under the moniker of Elektric Music).
McCluskey returned with a rotating cast of musicians for the more organic Universal (1996), which featured two songs co-written by Humphreys as well as a holdover from the Esperanto sessions, co-penned by Bartos. The record spawned OMD's first Top 20 hit in five years, "Walking on the Milky Way".
Though both Liberator and Universal produced minor hits, McCluskey retired the OMD name in late 1996, due to waning public interest. A particular source of frustration was the modest commercial response to "Walking on the Milky Way", over which McCluskey said he "sweated blood", considering it "about as good a song as I could write". BBC Radio 1 refused to playlist the song, which in turn led to high street store Woolworths refusing to stock it. McCluskey said, "I just thought: 'Screw this, I'm not going to bang my head against a brick wall'." A second singles album was released in 1998, along with an EP of remixed material by such acts as Sash! and Moby.
Post-1996, McCluskey decided to focus on songwriting for such Liverpool-based acts as Atomic Kitten and the Genie Queen, and trying to develop new Merseyside artists from his Motor Museum recording studio. With McCluskey focusing his talents elsewhere, Humphreys decided to work with his new musical partner Claudia Brücken, of the ZTT bands Propaganda and Act, as Onetwo. He also undertook a US live tour under the banner "Paul Humphreys from OMD".
2006–2012: Reformation and comeback
An unexpected request to perform from a German television show led the group to reunite. On 1 January 2006, Andy McCluskey announced plans to reform OMD with the McCluskey, Humphreys, Holmes, and Cooper line-up. The original plan was to tour the album Architecture & Morality and other pre-1983 material, then record a new album set for release in 2007. In May 2007, the Architecture & Morality remastered CD was re-released together with a DVD featuring the Drury Lane concert from 1981 that had previously been available on VHS. Through May and June, the band toured with the "classic" line up of McCluskey, Humphreys, Holmes and Cooper. They began their set with a re-ordered but otherwise complete re-staging of the Architecture & Morality album. The second half of each concert featured a selection of their best known hits.
In Spring 2008, a live CD and DVD of the 2007 tour, OMD Live: Architecture & Morality & More, recorded at the London Hammersmith Apollo, was released as was a 25th anniversary re-release of Dazzle Ships, including six bonus tracks. At the same time, a brief October 2008 tour was announced, partly to tie-in with the Dazzle Ships album's 25th anniversary. China Crisis supported OMD on this tour.
In June 2009, an orchestral concert with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic was given in Liverpool. A recording of this concert was released on DVD in December. In November and December, the band returned to arena touring as support for Simple Minds. OMD had performed with Night of the Proms in December 2006 in Germany and renewed the experience again in Belgium and the Netherlands that year. They were the headline act at Britain's first Vintage Computer Festival at The National Museum of Computing, Bletchley Park, in June 2010. On 9 September 2010, Trevor Horn announced that OMD would perform as a special guest at the "first ever gig" of the Buggles. Their 11th studio album, History of Modern, was released in September, reaching No. 28 in the UK Albums Chart. A European tour followed in autumn.
In March 2011, OMD played their first North American tour as the original line up since 1988. In September, the band appeared at the Electric Picnic 2011 festival in Stradbally, Co Laois, Ireland. In November 2011, OMD announced they were getting back to the studio to start work on their latest album, English Electric. On 12 March 2012, the band played a concert at the Smart Araneta Coliseum in Quezon City, Philippines. In August, OMD performed to South African audiences in Cape Town and Johannesburg.
2013–present: Continued acknowledgement
On 29 January 2013, Goldenvoice announced OMD for the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in Indio, California, on 14 and 21 April. On 11 February, OMD announced "Metroland" would be the first single from the forthcoming album English Electric. The single was released on 25 March, and includes the B-side "The Great White Silence". The album English Electric was released in the UK on 8 April and entered the UK album chart at No. 12 and the German chart at No. 10. Reviews for both the album and their concerts have generally been positive. For Record Store Day 2013, on 20 April, a 500-copy limited edition 10-inch picture disc EP "The Future Will Be Silent" from English Electric was made available, which includes a then-exclusive non-album track titled "Time Burns". For Record Store Day 2015, on 18 April, a 1000-copy limited edition 10-inch EP "Julia's Song (Dub Version)" from Junk Culture was made available, which includes an exclusive non-album track titled "10 to 1".
OMD performed a one-off concert at The Royal Albert Hall, London on 9 May 2016 to a sell-out crowd, playing both Architecture & Morality and Dazzle Ships in their entirety, along with other songs that were pre-1983. The only song post-1983 played was "History of Modern Part 1". The concert was recorded and made available on double CD right after the show. A triple LP vinyl recording of the concert was also made available. The band collaborated with Gary Barlow, Taron Egerton and Hugh Jackman on the OMD song "Thrill Me", co-written by Barlow and McCluskey for the soundtrack of the film Eddie the Eagle. In October, work was begun on what was to be their 13th studio album The Punishment of Luxury, which was released on 1 September 2017. OMD toured Europe and North America in support of the album, with Stuart Kershaw replacing Holmes as the band's drummer, due to the latter's health issues.
In 2018, OMD published a book entitled "Pretending to See the Future", which is a first-person "autobiography" about the band. It mixed fan-submitted memories with commentary from McCluskey, Humphreys, Cooper, Holmes, and Kershaw. For people who pre-ordered the book on PledgeMusic, they received a limited-edition flexi-disc containing a previously unheard demo of "Messages" from 1978.
As part of the group's 40th-anniversary celebrations, a UK and European tour was announced in March 2019. OMD won "Group of the Year" and "Live Act of the Year" in the 2019 Classic Pop Reader Awards. A retrospective deluxe boxset entitled Souvenir was also announced in August 2019. The 40th anniversary collection includes the band's forty singles, including new release "Don't Go". It also contains 22 previously unreleased recordings from the group's archive, selected and mixed by Paul Humphreys. Two audio live shows, one from 2011 and one from 2013, are also included together with two DVDs bringing together two more live concerts – Drury Lane in 1981 and Sheffield City Hall in 1985 – plus Crush – The Movie, and various BBC TV performances from Top of the Pops, The Old Grey Whistle Test and Later... with Jools Holland. The boxset was nominated for "Best Historical Album" at the 2021 Grammy Awards.
Artistry and image
James Hunter of Spin wrote that "OMD set about reinventing punk with different applications of dance beats, keyboards, melodies, and sulks", rejecting the genre's "sonic trappings but not its intellectual freedom". The band found commercial success with a style of synth-pop described as "experimental", "minimal" and "edgy". OMD often eschewed choruses, replacing them with synthesizer lines, and opted for unconventional lyrical subjects such as industrial processes, micronations and telephone boxes; the BBC said that the group "were always more intellectual" than "contemporaries like Duran Duran and Eurythmics". Despite the band's experimentation, they employed pop hooks in their music, attaining what AllMusic's Ned Raggett described as "the enviable position of at once being creative innovators and radio-friendly pop giants". They were influenced by electronic artists such as Kraftwerk, Brian Eno and Neu!, as well as more mainstream acts like David Bowie and Roxy Music. OMD drew inspiration from former Factory Records label-mates Joy Division, particularly during the making of Organisation (1980). The group also recorded two Velvet Underground covers.
OMD were indifferent to celebrity status, and avoided the calculated fashion stylings of many of their 1980s peers. During live performances, McCluskey developed a spasmodic dancing style that has been dubbed the "Trainee Teacher Dance"; he explains that it stemmed "from the perception that [OMD] were making boring robotic intellectual music that you couldn't dance to". Journalist Hugo Lindgren noted that the band were perceived as "oddballs, freaks" on the Liverpool scene; McCluskey has identified himself and Humphreys as "synth punks" and "complete geeks". Gareth Ware of DIY called OMD "one of the guiding lights of British synth-pop... albeit one with a disarming naivety and warm characterful nature at odds with the sleek, chic image cultivated by the likes of [the] Human League and Depeche Mode." Critic Andrew Collins said the group represented a wave of "uncool" pop stars who would eventually "become cool" in the public eye.
Mid-1980s style change
The experimental Dazzle Ships (1983) was a critical and commercial disappointment upon release. This prompted OMD to move towards a more accessible sound on the black music-influenced Junk Culture (1984); the band also donned more vibrant garments on the album's accompanying tour. The group continued to incorporate sonic experimentation, although their sound became increasingly polished on the Stephen Hague-produced records Crush (1985) and The Pacific Age (1986).
Some journalists have rejected the group's post-Dazzle Ships reinvention, while others have expressed an appreciation for the new direction. Sean O'Neal of the A.V. Club said OMD would "give up" creatively, while the Quietus founder John Doran wrote, "It's quite popular to see OMD as nose-diving into the effluence after Dazzle Ships but the truth is there is still much to recommend." Although Junk Culture is seen to represent a shift toward a more pop-oriented style, some critics feel that the group did not relinquish their experimental ethos until 1985, the year in which they released Crush. Elements of earlier experimentation have nevertheless been observed on Crush and follow-up The Pacific Age.
Musicians have commented on OMD's mid-1980s output. Michael "Telekinesis" Lerner wrote that Junk Culture "was not something [he] could sink [his] teeth into", adding that he did not invest in the band again until after their reunion. Moby remarked, "Their earlier records were just phenomenal... a few years on they were making music for John Hughes movies, and they were good at it and I'm glad that they had success with it, but it wasn't nearly as creatively inspiring." On the other hand, Tony Kanal of No Doubt said, "[OMD] inspired us to try and do our own John Hughes prom-scene movie moment kind of songs... Junk Culture is great." Angus Andrew of Liars referred to "the complexity and mastery in OMD's later pop material", calling himself "a fan of OMD albums from all of their phases".
Spin journalist Jessica Bendinger wrote in 1988, "[OMD's] music has been colored by continual exploration... which has run the gamut from Gregorian-chant-inspired anthems of love to a union of Orchestral-Motown."
Subsequent reinventions
The McCluskey-led OMD explored a dance-oriented approach on Sugar Tax (1991) and Liberator (1993); critic Ian Peel wrote that the band "defied expectations by updating their sound and becoming, if only briefly, relevant in the 90s". The group disbanded shortly after the release of Universal (1996), on which they strained for a more organic and acoustic sound. McCluskey recalled a negative media perception of the band by the mid-1990s, saying, "At the height of indie rock and Britpop, we were totally out of fashion." Since OMD's 2006 reformation, their material has been seen as more akin to their early output.
Legacy and influence
OMD have been named as pioneers of electronic music, and one of the more important acts of the synth-pop genre; Nightshift identified OMD, and fellow late 1970s debutants Gary Numan and the Human League, as "the holy trinity of synth-pop". AllMusic's Andy Kellman emphasised the band's "inventive albums" and status as "one of the earliest, most commercially successful, and enduring synth pop groups". Hugo Lindgren of the New York Times wrote that OMD cultivated a "legacy as musical innovators", adding, "The genre they helped invent — file under 'synth pop' — proved hugely popular." The band have been recognised as playing a prominent role in defining the sound of 1980s and early 1990s popular music. In particular, "Electricity" (1979) and "If You Leave" (1986) have been identified as two of the most influential records of their era. The group have drawn comparisons to pre-eminent Merseyside act the Beatles, with McCluskey and Humphreys being labelled the "Lennon–McCartney of synth-pop".
OMD often faced hostility from the music press. Record Mirrors Simon Ludgate told how they received a "thorough tarring of the same brush" as then-maligned artist Gary Numan, but were able to weather "this almost certain kiss of death". Ben Walsh of The Independent said that the band "might not attract the kudos of Depeche Mode, Joy Division and New Order, but they were certainly as significant." Despite their difficult relationship with critics, the group have earned a cult following; DJ Chris Evans remarked, "There are fans, and then there are OMD fans. [Their] fans may be among the greatest in the world... they are devout." The band also enjoys a large fanbase within the LGBT community, which McCluskey says they cherish. Architecture & Morality (1981), regarded as OMD's seminal album, had sold more than four million copies by early 2007; Sugar Tax (1991), the record that marked a commercial renaissance for the group, had sold more than three million by the same time period. The experimental Dazzle Ships (1983), which met with a degree of critical and commercial hostility, has been retrospectively praised by critics and cited as one of the band's most influential works. OMD's overall record sales stand in excess of 40 million, with sales of more than 15 million albums and 25 million singles.
Impact on other artists
OMD influenced several 1980s contemporaries, including Men Without Hats and Depeche Mode. Vince Clarke, who established the latter group's electronic direction and later founded Yazoo and Erasure, cites OMD as his inspiration to become an electronic musician. OMD were an important act for Pet Shop Boys, whose singer, Neil Tennant, identified the band as "pioneers of electronic music". The group were revered by Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Howard Jones, Alphaville, Book of Love and Ricky Wilde (songwriter/producer for Kim Wilde), and were also influential on New Order and Tears for Fears' exploration of electronic instruments. "Electricity" was an influence on the fledgling Duran Duran. The band have garnered praise from other synth-pop peers including the Human League's Philip Oakey, Thompson Twins' Tom Bailey, Trevor Horn, and Gary Numan, who credited OMD for "some of the best pop songs ever written". Within the rock genre, the group influenced then-progressive band Spoons, and were championed by ZZ Top, who drew inspiration from OMD's use of synthesizers and onstage dancing.
OMD have been influential on later artists such as No Doubt, Moby, Gary Barlow, MGMT, Paul van Dyk, the Shins, the Divine Comedy, Liars, Owen Pallett, Red Hot Chili Peppers' John Frusciante, the Killers' Dave Keuning, AFI's Davey Havok, Barenaked Ladies' Kevin Hearn, Belle and Sebastian's Stevie Jackson, Spacemen 3's Peter Kember, and Porcupine Tree's Steven Wilson, who said the group's albums "stand up very, very well as experimental pop records with the most enjoyable kind of songwriting." The band's influence also extends to country act Sugarland, physicist Brian Cox, and Steve Lamacq, who became a DJ after hearing "Electricity". 1983's "challenging" Dazzle Ships was a key inspiration for the likes of Saint Etienne, Death Cab for Cutie and Future Islands, while producer Mark Ronson was "completely floored" by the album. Elsewhere, OMD have received endorsements from musicians such as Sash!, Deftones' Chino Moreno, the Charlatans' Tim Burgess, Sharon Van Etten, Hot Chip's Al Doyle, and LCD Soundsystem's James Murphy, for whom the group were childhood favourites. Sash! recognised OMD as widely influential and "one of the leading bands in the 80s and 90s regarding electronic music/production".
The group's songs have been covered or sampled by acts including Gary Barlow, Howard Jones, MGMT, Owen Pallett, Boy George, Kid Cudi, Good Charlotte, Leftfield, Scooter, NOFX, Nada Surf, Angel Olsen and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. OMD are also the subject of two 2001 tribute albums, which feature interpretations by the likes of White Town, the Faint, Mahogany and Acid House Kings. David Guetta, who contributed a remix to 2003's The OMD Singles, described the opportunity to rework the band's material as "a thrill for any electronic musician". The official biography OMD: Pretending to See the Future (2018) features tributes from OMD collaborators Vince Clarke, Moby and Kraftwerk's Karl Bartos, along with peers like New Order's Stephen Morris, U2's Adam Clayton and the Teardrop Explodes' David Balfe.
Band members
Current members
Andy McCluskey – bass guitar, keyboards, vocals (1978–96; 2006–present)
Paul Humphreys – keyboards, vocals (1978–89; 2006–present)
Martin Cooper – keyboards, saxophone (1980–89; 2006–present)
Stuart Kershaw – drums (1993; 2015–present); piano (2010)
Former members
Malcolm Holmes – drums and percussion (1980–89; 2006–2015)
Dave Hughes – keyboards (1979–80)
Michael Douglas – keyboards (1980–81)
Graham Weir – guitar, brass, keyboards, writer (1984–89)
Neil Weir – brass, keyboards, bass guitar (1984–89)
Phil Coxon – keyboards (1991–93)
Nigel Ipinson – keyboards (1991–93)
Abe Juckes – drums (1991–92)
Timeline
Discography
Studio albums
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (1980)
Organisation (1980)
Architecture & Morality (1981)
Dazzle Ships (1983)
Junk Culture (1984)
Crush (1985)
The Pacific Age (1986)
Sugar Tax (1991)
Liberator (1993)
Universal (1996)
History of Modern (2010)
English Electric (2013)
The Punishment of Luxury (2017)
See also
Atomic Kitten
The Listening Pool
Onetwo (band)
References
Notes
Bibliography
Houghton, Richard. OMD: Pretending to See the Future (expanded paperback). This Day in Music Books. 2019.
Houghton, Richard. OMD: Pretending to See the Future (hardcover). This Day in Music Books. 2018.
Waller, Johnny; Humphreys, Mike. Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark: Messages. Sidgwick & Jackson. 1987.
West, Mike. Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark. Omnibus Press. 1982.
External links
Official YouTube channel
English electronic music groups
English new wave musical groups
English synth-pop groups
Factory Records artists
British synth-pop new wave groups
Musical groups established in 1978
Musical groups disestablished in 1996
Musical groups reestablished in 2006
Virgin Records artists
1978 establishments in England
English experimental musical groups
| false |
[
"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",
"\"That's What I Like About You\" is a song popularized by Trisha Yearwood in 1991.\n\nThat's What I Like About You may also refer to:\n\n \"That's What I Like About You\" (Collette song), 1989\n \"That's What I Like About You\", a song by Al Bowlly, 1931\n \"That's What I Like About You\", a song by Dale and Grace, 1963\n \"That's What I Like About You\", a song by John Michael Montgomery from Brand New Me, 2000\n\nSee also\n What I Like About You (disambiguation)"
] |
[
"Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark",
"Split and McCluskey-led OMD (1989-1996)",
"What albums did they release during this time?",
"18 June 1988, a top 20 US hit with \"Dreaming\" and a successful \"Best of\" album.",
"Did they do any tours?",
"with a support slot for Depeche Mode's Music for the Masses Tour at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena,",
"Did they play with any other artists?",
"Love's Theme\" by Love Unlimited Orchestra, a track which was written and produced by Barry White.",
"Were they with any other artists?",
"However, it was at this point when OMD broke in two. Graham and Neil Weir left at the end of the 1988",
"Why did they split?",
"Paul Humphreys subsequently called it a day, unhappy with the band's commercial orientation.",
"What did he not like about it?",
"I don't know."
] |
C_1d30fe7a2f554dec8fb90121acca7cfd_1
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How many commercials did they do?
| 7 |
How many commercials did Split and McCluskey do?
|
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark
|
During 1988 the band appeared poised to consolidate their US success, with a support slot for Depeche Mode's Music for the Masses Tour at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California on 18 June 1988, a top 20 US hit with "Dreaming" and a successful "Best of" album. However, it was at this point when OMD broke in two. Graham and Neil Weir left at the end of the 1988 US tour and co-founder Paul Humphreys subsequently called it a day, unhappy with the band's commercial orientation. Finally, Cooper and Holmes left OMD to join Humphreys in founding a new band called The Listening Pool in 1989. This left only McCluskey to carry on, essentially becoming a solo artist working under the OMD banner. McCluskey's first album from the new OMD was the dance-pop Sugar Tax LP in May 1991, which charted at No. 3 in the UK. McCluskey recruited in 1989 Liverpool musicians Raw Unlimited (aka Lloyd Massett, Stuart Kershaw and Nathalie Loates) as collaborators for the making of Sugar Tax: writing credits carefully distinguished between songs written by OMD (i.e., McCluskey) and songs written by OMD/Kershaw/Massett. This iteration of the group was initially successful with hits like "Sailing on the Seven Seas" and "Pandora's Box", with lesser success on fellow chart entries, "Call My Name" and "Then You Turn Away". McCluskey's live band was then formed by Nigel Ipinson (keyboards), Phil Coxon (keyboards) and Abe Juckes (drums) since late 1990. Kershaw, Ipinson and Coxon from 1992 to 1996 contributed to OMD albums and a 1993 tour. The fifth track from Liberator (1993), "Dream of Me", was built around a sample from "Love's Theme" by Love Unlimited Orchestra, a track which was written and produced by Barry White. To release the "Dream of Me" track as an OMD single, however, McCluskey had to agree that the single release of the track would remove the actual "Love's Theme" sample, but still be officially titled "Dream of Me (Based on Love's Theme)", and furthermore would still give a writing credit to White. Paul Humphreys, while no longer part of the group, co-wrote the single "Everyday". Also in 1993, McCluskey made contributions to the Esperanto album, a project by former Kraftwerk member Karl Bartos (then working under the moniker of Elektric Music). McCluskey returned with a rotating cast of musicians for the 1996 album Universal, which featured two songs co-written by Humphreys as well as a holdover from the Esperanto sessions, co-penned by Bartos. The record spawned OMD's first Top 20 hit in five years, "Walking on the Milky Way". CANNOTANSWER
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CANNOTANSWER
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Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD) are an English electronic band formed in Wirral, Merseyside, in 1978. The group consists of co-founders Andy McCluskey (vocals, bass guitar) and Paul Humphreys (keyboards, vocals), along with Martin Cooper (various instruments) and Stuart Kershaw (drums); McCluskey has been the only constant member. Regarded as pioneers of electronic music, OMD combined an experimental, minimalist ethos with pop sensibilities, becoming central figures in the late-1970s/early-1980s emergence of synth-pop.
McCluskey and Humphreys led precursor group the Id from 1977–1978, and re-recorded their track "Electricity" as OMD's debut single in 1979. Weathering an "uncool" image and a degree of hostility from music critics, the band gained popularity throughout Europe with the 1980 anti-war song "Enola Gay", and achieved broader recognition via Architecture & Morality (1981) and its three hit singles. Although later reappraised, Dazzle Ships (1983) was seen as overly challenging, and eroded European support. The group embraced a more radio-friendly sound on Junk Culture (1984); this change in direction led to greater success in the United States, and yielded the 1986 hit, "If You Leave".
In 1989, creative differences saw Humphreys and other members form the spin-off band the Listening Pool, leaving McCluskey the only remaining member of OMD. The group returned with a new line-up and explored the dance-pop genre: Sugar Tax (1991) and its initial singles were hits in Europe. By the mid-1990s, however, electronic music had been supplanted by alternative rock, and both OMD and the Listening Pool disbanded in 1996. McCluskey later conceived pop girl group Atomic Kitten, for whom he served as a principal songwriter, while Humphreys formed the duo Onetwo alongside Propaganda vocalist Claudia Brücken.
In 2006, the band reformed with Humphreys and McCluskey working on material closer in sound to their early output; The Punishment of Luxury (2017) was the group's seventh top 10 entry on the UK Albums Chart. They have also achieved 12 top 20 hits on the UK Singles Chart, as well as three top 20 hits on the US Billboard Hot 100. An influence on many later artists, OMD have sold over 40 million records worldwide.
History
1975–1979: Roots and early years
Founders Andy McCluskey and Paul Humphreys met at primary school in Meols in the early 1960s, and in the mid-1970s, as teenagers, they were involved in different local groups but shared a distaste for guitar-driven rock with a macho attitude popular among their friends at the time. By 1975 McCluskey had formed Equinox, as bassist and vocalist, alongside schoolmate Malcolm Holmes on drums, while Humphreys was roadie. During that time McCluskey and Humphreys discovered their electronic style, inspired by Kraftwerk. After Equinox, McCluskey joined Pegasus, and, later, the short-lived Hitlerz Underpantz, alongside Humphreys. McCluskey would usually sing and play bass guitar; roadie and electronics enthusiast Humphreys, who shared McCluskey's love of electronic music, graduated to keyboards.
In September 1977, McCluskey and Humphreys put together the seven-piece (three singers, two guitarists, bassist, drummer, and keyboard player) Wirral group the Id, whose line-up included drummer Malcolm Holmes and McCluskey's girlfriend Julia Kneale on vocals. The group began to gig regularly in the Merseyside area, performing original material (largely written by McCluskey and Humphreys). They had quite a following on the scene, and one of their tracks ("Julia's Song") was included on a compilation record of local bands called Street to Street. Meanwhile, Humphreys and McCluskey collaborated on a side project called VCL XI, whose name was adapted from a diagram on the back cover of Kraftwerk's Radio-Activity album, reading "VCL 11". This project allowed them to pursue their more obscure electronic experiments.
In August 1978, the Id split due to musical differences. The same month, McCluskey joined Wirral electronic outfit Dalek I Love You as lead singer, but quit in September. Later that month, he rejoined Humphreys and their VCL XI project was renamed Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark. The name was gleaned from a list of song lyrics and ideas that were written on McCluskey's bedroom wall; and was chosen so they would not be mistaken for a punk band. Given that OMD intended to play only one gig, the duo considered their moniker to be inconsequential. McCluskey has since expressed regret over choosing "such a very silly name". The contrasting personalities of Humphreys and McCluskey established the band's dynamic, with the former saying that "two Pauls wouldn't get anything done and two Andys would kill each other." They have further described their creative roles as "The Surgeon" (Humphreys) and "The Butcher" (McCluskey). As working class youngsters OMD had a limited budget, using second-hand "junk-shop" instruments including a left-handed bass guitar (which McCluskey would play upside-down). The pair also created their own devices, with Humphreys "making things out of his aunt's radios cannibalised for the circuit boards". Eventually they acquired a basic Korg M-500 Micro Preset synthesizer, purchased via McCluskey's mother's mail-order catalogue for £7.76 a week, paid over 36 weeks.
OMD began to gig regularly as a duo, performing to backing tracks played from a TEAC 4-track tape-recorder christened "Winston" (after the antihero of George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four). Their debut performance was in October 1978 at Eric's Club in Liverpool. Finding themselves on the cusp of an electronic new wave in British pop-music, they released a one-off single, "Electricity", with independent label Factory Records. The track was supposed to be produced by the Factory Records producer Martin Hannett. However, the A-side was the band's original demo produced by their friend, owner of Winston and soon to be manager, Paul Collister under the pseudonym Chester Valentino (taken from a nightclub called Valentino's in the nearby city of Chester). The single's sleeve was designed by Peter Saville, whose distinctive graphics contributed to OMD's public image into the 1980s. The success of "Electricity" led to the band receiving a seven-album record deal with Dindisc, worth over £250,000.
In 1979 they were asked to support Gary Numan on his first major British tour. Humphreys noted, "[Numan] gave us our first big break. He saw us opening for Joy Division and he asked us to go on tour with him... we went from the small clubs to playing huge arenas. Gary was very good to us." Numan later supported OMD on a 1993 UK arena tour.
1980–1988: Classic line-up
Rather than hire studio time to record their eponymous debut album (1980), McCluskey and Humphreys used their advance payment from Dindisc to build their own Liverpool recording studio, The Gramophone Suite. They predicted that they would be dropped by the label due to disappointing sales, but would at least own a studio. The album showcased the band's live set at the time, and included some guest drums from Id drummer Malcolm Holmes and saxophone from Wirral musician Martin Cooper. It had a raw, poppy, melodic synth-pop sound. Dindisc arranged for the song "Messages" to be re-recorded (produced by Gong bassist Mike Howlett) and released as a single – it gave the band their first hit. Dave Hughes, a founder member of Dalek I Love You who joined OMD in 1980, is featured in the "Messages" video. A tour followed: Winston the tape recorder was augmented with live drums from Malcolm Holmes, and Dave Hughes played synths. Hughes left OMD in late 1980.
The second album Organisation (a reference to the band which preceded Kraftwerk, founded by Kraftwerk's original members Florian Schneider-Esleben and Ralf Hütter) followed later that year, recorded as a three-piece with Humphreys, McCluskey and Holmes. It was again produced by Howlett, and had a moodier, dark feel largely inspired by the passing of former Factory label-mate, and Joy Division singer, Ian Curtis. The album included the anti-war hit single "Enola Gay", named after the plane that dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. The song was intended to be included on the debut album, but was left out at the final selection. The tour for this album had a four-piece band line-up, with saxophonist Martin Cooper (another Dalek I Love You alumnus) recruited for keyboard duties and enlisted as an official group member. The McCluskey/Humphreys/Cooper/Holmes unit came to be regarded as the band's classic line-up. In early 1981, readers of Record Mirror voted OMD the fourth-best band and eighth-best live act of 1980; NME and Sounds readers named the group the eighth and 10th best new act of the year, respectively. In Smash Hits, they were voted both the fifth-best band of 1980 and the eighth-hottest new act for 1981.
Howlett then presided over the recording of a further hit single, "Souvenir", co-written by Cooper & Humphreys. It ushered in a lush choral electronic sound. The song also became OMD's biggest UK hit to date. In November 1981, their most commercially successful album was released in the UK and Europe – Architecture & Morality. The group went into the studio with Richard Manwaring producing. Cooper then temporarily dropped out and was replaced by Mike Douglas, but this change was reversed by the time the album was released and a tour followed. The album's sound saw OMD's original synth-pop sound augmented by the Mellotron, an instrument previously associated with prog rock bands. They used it to add atmospheric swatches of string, choir, and other sounds to their palette. Two more hit singles "Joan of Arc" and "Maid of Orleans" (which became the biggest-selling single of 1982 in Germany) were on the album. "Joan of Arc" and "Maid of Orleans" were originally both titled "Joan of Arc"; the name of the latter single was changed at the insistence of the publishers and to avoid confusion. It became "Joan of Arc (Maid of Orleans)" and later simply "Maid of Orleans". Readers of Smash Hits voted OMD the seventh-best group of 1981, while Record Mirror readers named them the eighth-best band (as well as the 10th-best "new artist") and the third-best live act of the year. The group came close to splitting up in 1982, with McCluskey later saying, "We had never expected the success, we were exhausted."
In 1983 the band lost commercial momentum somewhat, with the release of their more experimental Dazzle Ships album, produced by Rhett Davies. The record mixed melancholy synth ballads and uptempo synth-pop with musique concrète and short wave radio tape collages. Its relative commercial failure caused a crisis of confidence for Humphreys and McCluskey and brought about a deliberate move towards the mainstream. 1984's Junk Culture was a shift to a more pop-style sound and the band used digital sampling keyboards such as the Fairlight CMI and the E-mu Emulator. The album was a success, reassuring the group about their new direction. The "Locomotion" single returned the group to the top five in the UK and was an indicator of the group's newfound sound, notably the adoption of a classic verse–chorus form, which is something the group had often previously avoided. Record Mirror readers named OMD the eighth-best live act of 1984. In 1985, the band expanded to a sextet, adding brothers Graham Weir (guitar, keyboards, trombone) and Neil Weir (trumpet, bass guitar), and released Crush, produced by Stephen Hague in Paris and New York. The success of the single "So in Love" in the US Billboard Hot 100 also led to some success for the LP which entered the American Top 40, establishing the group in the US. During this period, the band also recorded a version of "So in Love" in duet with the French pop singer Etienne Daho.
Later in 1985 the band were asked to write a song for the John Hughes film Pretty in Pink. They offered "Goddess of Love", although the ending of the film was re-shot due to a negative response from test audiences. OMD then wrote "If You Leave" in less than 24 hours and it became a top 5 hit in the US, Canada, and New Zealand in 1986. At the end of this year, the same six piece line-up also released The Pacific Age, but the band began to see their critical and public popularity wane notably in the UK. The album's first single, "(Forever) Live and Die", was a top 10 hit across Europe and entered the top 20 in both the UK and US. Journalist Hugo Lindgren argued that the success of "If You Leave" has concealed from US audiences the group's history of making innovative music.
During 1988 OMD played a support slot for Depeche Mode's Music for the Masses Tour at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California on 18 June 1988. They also released the top 20 US hit "Dreaming" and a successful greatest hits album, The Best of OMD. Graham and Neil Weir left the band at the end of the 1988 US tour.
1989–1996: McCluskey-led OMD and disbandment
As OMD appeared poised to consolidate their US success, the group continued to fracture. Humphreys departed in 1989 amid personal and creative dissension with McCluskey. Cooper and Holmes then left OMD to join Humphreys in founding a new band called the Listening Pool. McCluskey recalled, "We were all in agreement that something was wrong. How to fix it was where we disagreed."
This left only McCluskey to carry on, essentially becoming a solo artist working under the OMD banner. McCluskey's first album from the new OMD was the dance-pop Sugar Tax album in May 1991, which charted at No. 3 in the UK. McCluskey recruited in 1989 Liverpool musicians Raw Unlimited (Lloyd Massett, Stuart Kershaw, Nathalie Loates) as collaborators for the making of Sugar Tax: writing credits carefully distinguished between songs written by OMD (i.e., McCluskey) and songs written by OMD/Kershaw/Massett. This iteration of the group was initially successful with hits like "Sailing on the Seven Seas" and "Pandora's Box", with lesser success on fellow chart entries "Call My Name" and "Then You Turn Away". McCluskey's live band was then formed by Nigel Ipinson (keyboards), Phil Coxon (keyboards), and Abe Juckes (drums) from late 1990. Smash Hits readers voted OMD the sixth-best British group of 1991.
The album Liberator, which ventured further into dance territory, was released in 1993. It peaked at No. 14 on the UK Albums Chart. Lead single "Stand Above Me" peaked at no. 21 on the UK Singles Chart, with follow-up "Dream of Me" charting at no. 24. Paul Humphreys, while no longer part of the group, co-wrote the single "Everyday" (a No. 59 UK chart entry). The fifth track from Liberator, "Dream of Me", was built around a sample from "Love's Theme" by Love Unlimited Orchestra, a track which was written and produced by Barry White. To release the "Dream of Me" track as an OMD single, however, McCluskey had to agree that the single release of the track would remove the actual "Love's Theme" sample, but still be officially titled "Dream of Me (Based on Love's Theme)", and furthermore would still give a writing credit to White.
Also in 1993, McCluskey made contributions to the Esperanto album, a project by former Kraftwerk member Karl Bartos (then working under the moniker of Elektric Music).
McCluskey returned with a rotating cast of musicians for the more organic Universal (1996), which featured two songs co-written by Humphreys as well as a holdover from the Esperanto sessions, co-penned by Bartos. The record spawned OMD's first Top 20 hit in five years, "Walking on the Milky Way".
Though both Liberator and Universal produced minor hits, McCluskey retired the OMD name in late 1996, due to waning public interest. A particular source of frustration was the modest commercial response to "Walking on the Milky Way", over which McCluskey said he "sweated blood", considering it "about as good a song as I could write". BBC Radio 1 refused to playlist the song, which in turn led to high street store Woolworths refusing to stock it. McCluskey said, "I just thought: 'Screw this, I'm not going to bang my head against a brick wall'." A second singles album was released in 1998, along with an EP of remixed material by such acts as Sash! and Moby.
Post-1996, McCluskey decided to focus on songwriting for such Liverpool-based acts as Atomic Kitten and the Genie Queen, and trying to develop new Merseyside artists from his Motor Museum recording studio. With McCluskey focusing his talents elsewhere, Humphreys decided to work with his new musical partner Claudia Brücken, of the ZTT bands Propaganda and Act, as Onetwo. He also undertook a US live tour under the banner "Paul Humphreys from OMD".
2006–2012: Reformation and comeback
An unexpected request to perform from a German television show led the group to reunite. On 1 January 2006, Andy McCluskey announced plans to reform OMD with the McCluskey, Humphreys, Holmes, and Cooper line-up. The original plan was to tour the album Architecture & Morality and other pre-1983 material, then record a new album set for release in 2007. In May 2007, the Architecture & Morality remastered CD was re-released together with a DVD featuring the Drury Lane concert from 1981 that had previously been available on VHS. Through May and June, the band toured with the "classic" line up of McCluskey, Humphreys, Holmes and Cooper. They began their set with a re-ordered but otherwise complete re-staging of the Architecture & Morality album. The second half of each concert featured a selection of their best known hits.
In Spring 2008, a live CD and DVD of the 2007 tour, OMD Live: Architecture & Morality & More, recorded at the London Hammersmith Apollo, was released as was a 25th anniversary re-release of Dazzle Ships, including six bonus tracks. At the same time, a brief October 2008 tour was announced, partly to tie-in with the Dazzle Ships album's 25th anniversary. China Crisis supported OMD on this tour.
In June 2009, an orchestral concert with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic was given in Liverpool. A recording of this concert was released on DVD in December. In November and December, the band returned to arena touring as support for Simple Minds. OMD had performed with Night of the Proms in December 2006 in Germany and renewed the experience again in Belgium and the Netherlands that year. They were the headline act at Britain's first Vintage Computer Festival at The National Museum of Computing, Bletchley Park, in June 2010. On 9 September 2010, Trevor Horn announced that OMD would perform as a special guest at the "first ever gig" of the Buggles. Their 11th studio album, History of Modern, was released in September, reaching No. 28 in the UK Albums Chart. A European tour followed in autumn.
In March 2011, OMD played their first North American tour as the original line up since 1988. In September, the band appeared at the Electric Picnic 2011 festival in Stradbally, Co Laois, Ireland. In November 2011, OMD announced they were getting back to the studio to start work on their latest album, English Electric. On 12 March 2012, the band played a concert at the Smart Araneta Coliseum in Quezon City, Philippines. In August, OMD performed to South African audiences in Cape Town and Johannesburg.
2013–present: Continued acknowledgement
On 29 January 2013, Goldenvoice announced OMD for the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in Indio, California, on 14 and 21 April. On 11 February, OMD announced "Metroland" would be the first single from the forthcoming album English Electric. The single was released on 25 March, and includes the B-side "The Great White Silence". The album English Electric was released in the UK on 8 April and entered the UK album chart at No. 12 and the German chart at No. 10. Reviews for both the album and their concerts have generally been positive. For Record Store Day 2013, on 20 April, a 500-copy limited edition 10-inch picture disc EP "The Future Will Be Silent" from English Electric was made available, which includes a then-exclusive non-album track titled "Time Burns". For Record Store Day 2015, on 18 April, a 1000-copy limited edition 10-inch EP "Julia's Song (Dub Version)" from Junk Culture was made available, which includes an exclusive non-album track titled "10 to 1".
OMD performed a one-off concert at The Royal Albert Hall, London on 9 May 2016 to a sell-out crowd, playing both Architecture & Morality and Dazzle Ships in their entirety, along with other songs that were pre-1983. The only song post-1983 played was "History of Modern Part 1". The concert was recorded and made available on double CD right after the show. A triple LP vinyl recording of the concert was also made available. The band collaborated with Gary Barlow, Taron Egerton and Hugh Jackman on the OMD song "Thrill Me", co-written by Barlow and McCluskey for the soundtrack of the film Eddie the Eagle. In October, work was begun on what was to be their 13th studio album The Punishment of Luxury, which was released on 1 September 2017. OMD toured Europe and North America in support of the album, with Stuart Kershaw replacing Holmes as the band's drummer, due to the latter's health issues.
In 2018, OMD published a book entitled "Pretending to See the Future", which is a first-person "autobiography" about the band. It mixed fan-submitted memories with commentary from McCluskey, Humphreys, Cooper, Holmes, and Kershaw. For people who pre-ordered the book on PledgeMusic, they received a limited-edition flexi-disc containing a previously unheard demo of "Messages" from 1978.
As part of the group's 40th-anniversary celebrations, a UK and European tour was announced in March 2019. OMD won "Group of the Year" and "Live Act of the Year" in the 2019 Classic Pop Reader Awards. A retrospective deluxe boxset entitled Souvenir was also announced in August 2019. The 40th anniversary collection includes the band's forty singles, including new release "Don't Go". It also contains 22 previously unreleased recordings from the group's archive, selected and mixed by Paul Humphreys. Two audio live shows, one from 2011 and one from 2013, are also included together with two DVDs bringing together two more live concerts – Drury Lane in 1981 and Sheffield City Hall in 1985 – plus Crush – The Movie, and various BBC TV performances from Top of the Pops, The Old Grey Whistle Test and Later... with Jools Holland. The boxset was nominated for "Best Historical Album" at the 2021 Grammy Awards.
Artistry and image
James Hunter of Spin wrote that "OMD set about reinventing punk with different applications of dance beats, keyboards, melodies, and sulks", rejecting the genre's "sonic trappings but not its intellectual freedom". The band found commercial success with a style of synth-pop described as "experimental", "minimal" and "edgy". OMD often eschewed choruses, replacing them with synthesizer lines, and opted for unconventional lyrical subjects such as industrial processes, micronations and telephone boxes; the BBC said that the group "were always more intellectual" than "contemporaries like Duran Duran and Eurythmics". Despite the band's experimentation, they employed pop hooks in their music, attaining what AllMusic's Ned Raggett described as "the enviable position of at once being creative innovators and radio-friendly pop giants". They were influenced by electronic artists such as Kraftwerk, Brian Eno and Neu!, as well as more mainstream acts like David Bowie and Roxy Music. OMD drew inspiration from former Factory Records label-mates Joy Division, particularly during the making of Organisation (1980). The group also recorded two Velvet Underground covers.
OMD were indifferent to celebrity status, and avoided the calculated fashion stylings of many of their 1980s peers. During live performances, McCluskey developed a spasmodic dancing style that has been dubbed the "Trainee Teacher Dance"; he explains that it stemmed "from the perception that [OMD] were making boring robotic intellectual music that you couldn't dance to". Journalist Hugo Lindgren noted that the band were perceived as "oddballs, freaks" on the Liverpool scene; McCluskey has identified himself and Humphreys as "synth punks" and "complete geeks". Gareth Ware of DIY called OMD "one of the guiding lights of British synth-pop... albeit one with a disarming naivety and warm characterful nature at odds with the sleek, chic image cultivated by the likes of [the] Human League and Depeche Mode." Critic Andrew Collins said the group represented a wave of "uncool" pop stars who would eventually "become cool" in the public eye.
Mid-1980s style change
The experimental Dazzle Ships (1983) was a critical and commercial disappointment upon release. This prompted OMD to move towards a more accessible sound on the black music-influenced Junk Culture (1984); the band also donned more vibrant garments on the album's accompanying tour. The group continued to incorporate sonic experimentation, although their sound became increasingly polished on the Stephen Hague-produced records Crush (1985) and The Pacific Age (1986).
Some journalists have rejected the group's post-Dazzle Ships reinvention, while others have expressed an appreciation for the new direction. Sean O'Neal of the A.V. Club said OMD would "give up" creatively, while the Quietus founder John Doran wrote, "It's quite popular to see OMD as nose-diving into the effluence after Dazzle Ships but the truth is there is still much to recommend." Although Junk Culture is seen to represent a shift toward a more pop-oriented style, some critics feel that the group did not relinquish their experimental ethos until 1985, the year in which they released Crush. Elements of earlier experimentation have nevertheless been observed on Crush and follow-up The Pacific Age.
Musicians have commented on OMD's mid-1980s output. Michael "Telekinesis" Lerner wrote that Junk Culture "was not something [he] could sink [his] teeth into", adding that he did not invest in the band again until after their reunion. Moby remarked, "Their earlier records were just phenomenal... a few years on they were making music for John Hughes movies, and they were good at it and I'm glad that they had success with it, but it wasn't nearly as creatively inspiring." On the other hand, Tony Kanal of No Doubt said, "[OMD] inspired us to try and do our own John Hughes prom-scene movie moment kind of songs... Junk Culture is great." Angus Andrew of Liars referred to "the complexity and mastery in OMD's later pop material", calling himself "a fan of OMD albums from all of their phases".
Spin journalist Jessica Bendinger wrote in 1988, "[OMD's] music has been colored by continual exploration... which has run the gamut from Gregorian-chant-inspired anthems of love to a union of Orchestral-Motown."
Subsequent reinventions
The McCluskey-led OMD explored a dance-oriented approach on Sugar Tax (1991) and Liberator (1993); critic Ian Peel wrote that the band "defied expectations by updating their sound and becoming, if only briefly, relevant in the 90s". The group disbanded shortly after the release of Universal (1996), on which they strained for a more organic and acoustic sound. McCluskey recalled a negative media perception of the band by the mid-1990s, saying, "At the height of indie rock and Britpop, we were totally out of fashion." Since OMD's 2006 reformation, their material has been seen as more akin to their early output.
Legacy and influence
OMD have been named as pioneers of electronic music, and one of the more important acts of the synth-pop genre; Nightshift identified OMD, and fellow late 1970s debutants Gary Numan and the Human League, as "the holy trinity of synth-pop". AllMusic's Andy Kellman emphasised the band's "inventive albums" and status as "one of the earliest, most commercially successful, and enduring synth pop groups". Hugo Lindgren of the New York Times wrote that OMD cultivated a "legacy as musical innovators", adding, "The genre they helped invent — file under 'synth pop' — proved hugely popular." The band have been recognised as playing a prominent role in defining the sound of 1980s and early 1990s popular music. In particular, "Electricity" (1979) and "If You Leave" (1986) have been identified as two of the most influential records of their era. The group have drawn comparisons to pre-eminent Merseyside act the Beatles, with McCluskey and Humphreys being labelled the "Lennon–McCartney of synth-pop".
OMD often faced hostility from the music press. Record Mirrors Simon Ludgate told how they received a "thorough tarring of the same brush" as then-maligned artist Gary Numan, but were able to weather "this almost certain kiss of death". Ben Walsh of The Independent said that the band "might not attract the kudos of Depeche Mode, Joy Division and New Order, but they were certainly as significant." Despite their difficult relationship with critics, the group have earned a cult following; DJ Chris Evans remarked, "There are fans, and then there are OMD fans. [Their] fans may be among the greatest in the world... they are devout." The band also enjoys a large fanbase within the LGBT community, which McCluskey says they cherish. Architecture & Morality (1981), regarded as OMD's seminal album, had sold more than four million copies by early 2007; Sugar Tax (1991), the record that marked a commercial renaissance for the group, had sold more than three million by the same time period. The experimental Dazzle Ships (1983), which met with a degree of critical and commercial hostility, has been retrospectively praised by critics and cited as one of the band's most influential works. OMD's overall record sales stand in excess of 40 million, with sales of more than 15 million albums and 25 million singles.
Impact on other artists
OMD influenced several 1980s contemporaries, including Men Without Hats and Depeche Mode. Vince Clarke, who established the latter group's electronic direction and later founded Yazoo and Erasure, cites OMD as his inspiration to become an electronic musician. OMD were an important act for Pet Shop Boys, whose singer, Neil Tennant, identified the band as "pioneers of electronic music". The group were revered by Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Howard Jones, Alphaville, Book of Love and Ricky Wilde (songwriter/producer for Kim Wilde), and were also influential on New Order and Tears for Fears' exploration of electronic instruments. "Electricity" was an influence on the fledgling Duran Duran. The band have garnered praise from other synth-pop peers including the Human League's Philip Oakey, Thompson Twins' Tom Bailey, Trevor Horn, and Gary Numan, who credited OMD for "some of the best pop songs ever written". Within the rock genre, the group influenced then-progressive band Spoons, and were championed by ZZ Top, who drew inspiration from OMD's use of synthesizers and onstage dancing.
OMD have been influential on later artists such as No Doubt, Moby, Gary Barlow, MGMT, Paul van Dyk, the Shins, the Divine Comedy, Liars, Owen Pallett, Red Hot Chili Peppers' John Frusciante, the Killers' Dave Keuning, AFI's Davey Havok, Barenaked Ladies' Kevin Hearn, Belle and Sebastian's Stevie Jackson, Spacemen 3's Peter Kember, and Porcupine Tree's Steven Wilson, who said the group's albums "stand up very, very well as experimental pop records with the most enjoyable kind of songwriting." The band's influence also extends to country act Sugarland, physicist Brian Cox, and Steve Lamacq, who became a DJ after hearing "Electricity". 1983's "challenging" Dazzle Ships was a key inspiration for the likes of Saint Etienne, Death Cab for Cutie and Future Islands, while producer Mark Ronson was "completely floored" by the album. Elsewhere, OMD have received endorsements from musicians such as Sash!, Deftones' Chino Moreno, the Charlatans' Tim Burgess, Sharon Van Etten, Hot Chip's Al Doyle, and LCD Soundsystem's James Murphy, for whom the group were childhood favourites. Sash! recognised OMD as widely influential and "one of the leading bands in the 80s and 90s regarding electronic music/production".
The group's songs have been covered or sampled by acts including Gary Barlow, Howard Jones, MGMT, Owen Pallett, Boy George, Kid Cudi, Good Charlotte, Leftfield, Scooter, NOFX, Nada Surf, Angel Olsen and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. OMD are also the subject of two 2001 tribute albums, which feature interpretations by the likes of White Town, the Faint, Mahogany and Acid House Kings. David Guetta, who contributed a remix to 2003's The OMD Singles, described the opportunity to rework the band's material as "a thrill for any electronic musician". The official biography OMD: Pretending to See the Future (2018) features tributes from OMD collaborators Vince Clarke, Moby and Kraftwerk's Karl Bartos, along with peers like New Order's Stephen Morris, U2's Adam Clayton and the Teardrop Explodes' David Balfe.
Band members
Current members
Andy McCluskey – bass guitar, keyboards, vocals (1978–96; 2006–present)
Paul Humphreys – keyboards, vocals (1978–89; 2006–present)
Martin Cooper – keyboards, saxophone (1980–89; 2006–present)
Stuart Kershaw – drums (1993; 2015–present); piano (2010)
Former members
Malcolm Holmes – drums and percussion (1980–89; 2006–2015)
Dave Hughes – keyboards (1979–80)
Michael Douglas – keyboards (1980–81)
Graham Weir – guitar, brass, keyboards, writer (1984–89)
Neil Weir – brass, keyboards, bass guitar (1984–89)
Phil Coxon – keyboards (1991–93)
Nigel Ipinson – keyboards (1991–93)
Abe Juckes – drums (1991–92)
Timeline
Discography
Studio albums
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (1980)
Organisation (1980)
Architecture & Morality (1981)
Dazzle Ships (1983)
Junk Culture (1984)
Crush (1985)
The Pacific Age (1986)
Sugar Tax (1991)
Liberator (1993)
Universal (1996)
History of Modern (2010)
English Electric (2013)
The Punishment of Luxury (2017)
See also
Atomic Kitten
The Listening Pool
Onetwo (band)
References
Notes
Bibliography
Houghton, Richard. OMD: Pretending to See the Future (expanded paperback). This Day in Music Books. 2019.
Houghton, Richard. OMD: Pretending to See the Future (hardcover). This Day in Music Books. 2018.
Waller, Johnny; Humphreys, Mike. Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark: Messages. Sidgwick & Jackson. 1987.
West, Mike. Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark. Omnibus Press. 1982.
External links
Official YouTube channel
English electronic music groups
English new wave musical groups
English synth-pop groups
Factory Records artists
British synth-pop new wave groups
Musical groups established in 1978
Musical groups disestablished in 1996
Musical groups reestablished in 2006
Virgin Records artists
1978 establishments in England
English experimental musical groups
| false |
[
"How Do They Do It? is a television series produced by Wag TV for Discovery Channel. Each programme explores how 2 or 3 ordinary objects are made and used. The show's slogan is \"Behind the ordinary is the extraordinary.\" The series is broadcast throughout the world on various Discovery-owned networks including:\n\nDiscovery Channel, Science Channel, DMAX and Quest in the United Kingdom;\nScience Channel in the United States;\nDiscovery Channel in Asia, Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Spain, Switzerland, and the Netherlands;\nDiscovery Channel and Discovery Science in Italy.\n\nSeries 1 and 2, which were co-produced with Rocket Surgery Productions, were narrated by Rupert Degas; series 3 and 4 were narrated by Iain Lee; and series 5 and 6 were narrated by Dominic Frisby. In 2008, the UK's Channel 5 began airing the series, presented by Robert Llewellyn. This version was released on DVD in the UK in May 2010.\n\nIn the United States, the series airs on the Science Channel and is narrated by Chris Broyles.\n\nThis programme is similar to the popular Canadian-produced documentary programme, How It's Made, also broadcast on Discovery Channel networks.\n\nEpisodes\n\nSeason 1 (2006) \n\nEpisodes in the first season aired with 60-minute runtimes (including commercials).\n\nSeason 2 (2006) \n\nEpisodes in the second season aired with 30-minute runtimes (including commercials).\n\nSeason 3 (2007)\n\nSeason 4 (2007)\n\nSeason 5 (2008)\n\nSeason 6 (2009)\n\nSeason 7 (2010)\n\nSeason 8 (2011)\n\nSeason 9 (2012)\n\nSeason 10 (2012)\n\nSeason 11 (2013)\n\nSeason 12 (2014)\n\nSeason 13 (2015)\n\nSeason 14 (2016)\n\nSeason 15 (2017)\n\nSeason 16\n\nSpecial\n\nEpisodes 60 minutes long taken the best from series 3 and 4\n\nFIVE (UK) version\n\nSeries 1\n\nEach episode is 30 minutes long and airs on terrestrial UK channel five. Each programme features 2 items from the original series with 1 new item filmed with presenter Robert Llewellyn. Llewellyn also presents links in between the original items.\n\nSeries 2\n\nSeries 3\n\nSeries 4\n\nSeries 4 does not feature a specially shot item with presenter Robert Llewellyn; instead this is a reversion of the Discovery Channel series 5 with filmed links presented by Robert between the items. This series was not made available on Five's online video site.\n\nSeries 5\n\nSeries 5 does not feature a specially shot item with presenter Robert Llewellyn; instead this is a reversion of the Discovery Channel series 6 with filmed links presented by Robert between the items. This series was not made available on Five's online video site.\n\nScience Channel\n\nSeason Unknown\n\nEpisodes in this group aired with 30-minute runtimes (including commercials). On hiatus as of February 2014.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n How Do They Do It?, Discovery Channel UK\n How Do They Do It?, Discovery Channel Asia\n ¿Cómo lo hacen?, Discovery Channel en Español\n Official Youtube channel with \"How Do They Do It?\" videos, among others\n WAG TV\n\nBritish documentary television series\n2000s Canadian documentary television series\nDiscovery Channel original programming\nDocumentary television series about industry",
"\"How Do I Survive?\" is a song by Japanese rock band Superfly, the first released following the release of their debut self-titled album. It was used as the jingle for Mode Gakuen commercials in 2008, and it was later released as the band's sixth single and the first off of second album Box Emotions. \"How Do I Survive?\" became the group's first top ten song on the Oricon charts; it also was the highest the band had then ever charted on the Japan Hot 100, reaching number 3.\n\nTrack listing\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\"How Do I Survive?\" on Superfly's official website\n\n2008 singles\n2008 songs\nJapanese-language songs\nSongs used as jingles\nSuperfly (band) songs\nWarner Music Japan singles"
] |
[
"Billie Holiday",
"1935-38: Recordings with Teddy Wilson"
] |
C_52be57a775c94201a6b8dcb1c2fe9fa9_0
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What happened in 1935?
| 1 |
What happened in 1935 to Billie Holiday?
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Billie Holiday
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In 1935 Holiday was signed to Brunswick Records by John Hammond to record current pop tunes with Teddy Wilson in the new swing style for the growing jukebox trade. They were given free rein to improvise the material. Holiday's improvisation of melody to fit the emotion was revolutionary. Their first collaboration included "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" and "Miss Brown to You". "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" has been deemed her "claim to fame." Brunswick did not favor the recording session, because producers wanted Holiday to sound more like Cleo Brown. After "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" garnered success, however, the company began considering Holiday an artist in her own right. She began recording under her own name a year later (on the 35-cent Vocalion label), producing a series of extraordinary performances with groups comprising the swing era's finest musicians. The sessions were co-produced by Hammond and Bernie Hanighen. With their arrangements, Wilson and Holiday took pedestrian pop tunes, such as "Twenty-Four Hours a Day" (number 6 Pop) and "Yankee Doodle Went to Town", and turned them into jazz classics. Most of Holiday's recordings with Wilson or under her own name during the 1930s and early 1940s are regarded as important parts of the jazz vocal library. She was then in her twenties. Another frequent accompanist was the tenor saxophonist Lester Young, who had been a boarder at her mother's house in 1934 and with whom Holiday had a special rapport. He said, "I think you can hear that on some of the old records, you know. Some time I'd sit down and listen to 'em myself, and it sound like two of the same voices, if you don't be careful, you know, or the same mind, or something like that." Young nicknamed her "Lady Day", and she called him "Prez". Hammond spoke about the commercial impact of the Wilson-Holiday sides from 1935 to 1938, calling them a great asset to Brunswick. The record label, according to Hammond, was broke and unable to record many jazz tunes. Wilson, Holiday, Young, and other musicians came into the studio without musical arrangements and improvised as they performed, dispensing with the expense of having written arrangements, so that the records they produced were cheap. Holiday was never given any royalties for her work, instead being paid a flat fee, which saved the company money. Some of the records produced were successful, such as "I Cried for You", which sold 15,000 copies. Hammond said of the record, "15,000 ... was a giant hit for Brunswick in those days. I mean a giant hit. Most records that made money sold around three to four thousand." CANNOTANSWER
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In 1935 Holiday was signed to Brunswick Records by John Hammond to record current pop tunes with Teddy Wilson in the new swing style for the growing jukebox trade.
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Billie Holiday (born Eleanora Fagan; April 7, 1915 – July 17, 1959) was an American jazz and swing music singer. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and music partner, Lester Young, Holiday had an innovative influence on jazz music and pop singing. Her vocal style, strongly inspired by jazz instrumentalists, pioneered a new way of manipulating phrasing and tempo. She was known for her vocal delivery and improvisational skills.
After a turbulent childhood, Holiday began singing in nightclubs in Harlem, where she was heard by producer John Hammond, who liked her voice. She signed a recording contract with Brunswick in 1935. Collaborations with Teddy Wilson produced the hit "What a Little Moonlight Can Do", which became a jazz standard. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, Holiday had mainstream success on labels such as Columbia and Decca. By the late 1940s, however, she was beset with legal troubles and drug abuse. After a short prison sentence, she performed at a sold-out concert at Carnegie Hall.
She was a successful concert performer throughout the 1950s with two further sold-out shows at Carnegie Hall. Because of personal struggles and an altered voice, her final recordings were met with mixed reaction but were mild commercial successes. Her final album, Lady in Satin, was released in 1958. Holiday died of cirrhosis on July 17, 1959, at age 44.
Holiday won four Grammy Awards, all of them posthumously, for Best Historical Album. She was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame and the National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame. She was also inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, though not in that genre; the website states that "Billie Holiday changed jazz forever". Several films about her life have been released, most recently The United States vs. Billie Holiday (2021).
Life and career
1915–1929: Childhood
Eleanora Fagan was born on April 7, 1915, in Philadelphia, the daughter of African-American unwed teenage couple Sarah Julia "Sadie" Fagan and Clarence Halliday. Sarah moved to Philadelphia at age 19, after she was evicted from her parents' home in the Sandtown-Winchester neighborhood of Baltimore, Maryland for becoming pregnant. With no support from her parents, she made arrangements with her older, married half-sister, Eva Miller, for Eleanora to stay with her in Baltimore. Not long after Eleanora was born, Clarence abandoned his family to pursue a career as a jazz banjo player and guitarist. Some historians have disputed Holiday's paternity, as a copy of her birth certificate in the Baltimore archives lists her father as "Frank DeViese". Other historians consider this an anomaly, probably inserted by a hospital or government worker. DeViese lived in Philadelphia, and Sadie Harris may have known him through her work. Sadie Harris, then known as Sadie Fagan, married Philip Gough, but the marriage ended in two years.
Eleanora grew up in Baltimore and had a very difficult childhood. Her mother often took what were then known as "transportation jobs", serving on passenger railroads. Holiday was raised largely by Eva Miller's mother-in-law, Martha Miller, and suffered from her mother's absences and being in others' care for her first decade of life. Holiday's autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues, published in 1956, is sketchy on details of her early life, but much was confirmed by Stuart Nicholson in his 1995 biography of the singer.
After attending kindergarten at St. Frances Academy, she frequently skipped school, and her truancy resulted in her being brought before the juvenile court on January 5, 1925, when she was nine years old. She was sent to the House of the Good Shepherd, a Catholic reform school, where she was baptized on March 19, 1925. After nine months in care, she was "paroled" on October 3, 1925, to her mother. Sadie had opened a restaurant, the East Side Grill, and mother and daughter worked long hours there. She dropped out of school at age 11.
On December 24, 1926, Sadie came home to discover a neighbor, Wilbur Rich, attempting to rape Eleanora. She successfully fought back, and Rich was arrested. Officials placed Eleanora in the House of the Good Shepherd under protective custody as a state witness in the rape case. Holiday was released in February 1927, when she was nearly 12. She found a job running errands in a brothel, and she scrubbed marble steps as well as kitchen and bathroom floors of neighborhood homes. Around this time, she first heard the records of Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith. In particular, Holiday cited "West End Blues" as an intriguing influence, pointing specifically to the scat section duet with the clarinet as her favorite part. By the end of 1928, Holiday's mother moved to Harlem, New York, again leaving Eleanora with Martha Miller.
By early 1929, Holiday had joined her mother in Harlem.
1929–1935: Early career
As a young teenager, Holiday started singing in nightclubs in Harlem. She took her professional pseudonym from Billie Dove, an actress she admired, and Clarence Halliday, her probable father. At the outset of her career, she spelled her last name "Halliday", her father's birth surname, but eventually changed it to "Holiday", his performing name. The young singer teamed up with a neighbor, tenor saxophone player Kenneth Hollan. They were a team from 1929 to 1931, performing at clubs such as the Grey Dawn, Pod's and Jerry's on 133rd Street, and the Brooklyn Elks' Club. Benny Goodman recalled hearing Holiday in 1931 at the Bright Spot. As her reputation grew, she played in many clubs, including the Mexico's and the Alhambra Bar and Grill, where she met Charles Linton, a vocalist who later worked with Chick Webb. It was also during this period that she connected with her father, who was playing in Fletcher Henderson's band.
Late in 1932, 17-year-old Holiday replaced the singer Monette Moore at Covan's, a club on West 132nd Street. Producer John Hammond, who loved Moore's singing and had come to hear her, first heard Holiday there in early 1933. Hammond arranged for Holiday to make her recording debut at age 18, in November 1933, with Benny Goodman. She recorded two songs: "Your Mother's Son-In-Law" and "Riffin' the Scotch", the latter being her first hit. "Son-in-Law" sold 300 copies, and "Riffin' the Scotch", released on November 11, sold 5,000 copies. Hammond was impressed by Holiday's singing style and said of her, "Her singing almost changed my music tastes and my musical life, because she was the first girl singer I'd come across who actually sang like an improvising jazz genius." Hammond compared Holiday favorably to Armstrong and said she had a good sense of lyric content at her young age.
In 1935, Holiday had a small role as a woman abused by her lover in Duke Ellington's musical short film Symphony in Black: A Rhapsody of Negro Life. She sang "Saddest Tale" in her scene.
1935–1938: Recordings with Teddy Wilson
In 1935, Holiday was signed to Brunswick by John Hammond to record pop tunes with pianist Teddy Wilson in the swing style for the growing jukebox trade. They were allowed to improvise on the material. Holiday's improvisation of melody to fit the emotion was revolutionary. Their first collaboration included "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" and "Miss Brown to You". "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" has been deemed her "claim to fame". Brunswick did not favor the recording session because producers wanted Holiday to sound more like Cleo Brown. However, after "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" was successful, the company began considering Holiday an artist in her own right. She began recording under her own name a year later for Vocalion in sessions produced by Hammond and Bernie Hanighen. Hammond said the Wilson-Holiday records from 1935 to 1938 were a great asset to Brunswick. According to Hammond, Brunswick was broke and unable to record many jazz tunes. Wilson, Holiday, Young, and other musicians came into the studio without written arrangements, reducing the recording cost. Brunswick paid Holiday a flat fee rather than royalties, which saved the company money. "I Cried for You" sold 15,000 copies, which Hammond called "a giant hit for Brunswick.... Most records that made money sold around three to four thousand."
Another frequent accompanist was tenor saxophonist Lester Young, who had been a boarder at her mother's house in 1934 and with whom Holiday had a rapport. Young said, "I think you can hear that on some of the old records, you know. Some time I'd sit down and listen to 'em myself, and it sound like two of the same voices ... or the same mind, or something like that." Young nicknamed her "Lady Day", and she called him "Prez".
1937–1938: Working for Count Basie and Artie Shaw
In late 1937, Holiday had a brief stint as a big-band vocalist with Count Basie. The traveling conditions of the band were often poor; they performed many one-nighters in clubs, moving from city to city with little stability. Holiday chose the songs she sang and had a hand in the arrangements, choosing to portray her developing persona of a woman unlucky in love. Her tunes included "I Must Have That Man", "Travelin' All Alone", "I Can't Get Started", and "Summertime", a hit for Holiday in 1936, originating in George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess the year before. Basie became used to Holiday's heavy involvement in the band. He said, "When she rehearsed with the band, it was really just a matter of getting her tunes like she wanted them, because she knew how she wanted to sound and you couldn't tell her what to do." Some of the songs Holiday performed with Basie were recorded. "I Can't Get Started", "They Can't Take That Away from Me", and "Swing It Brother Swing" are all commercially available. Holiday was unable to record in the studio with Basie, but she included many of his musicians in her recording sessions with Teddy Wilson.
Holiday found herself in direct competition with the popular singer Ella Fitzgerald. The two later became friends. Fitzgerald was the vocalist for the Chick Webb Band, which was in competition with the Basie band. On January 16, 1938, the same day that Benny Goodman performed his legendary Carnegie Hall jazz concert, the Basie and Webb bands had a battle at the Savoy Ballroom. Webb and Fitzgerald were declared winners by Metronome magazine, while DownBeat magazine pronounced Holiday and Basie the winners. Fitzgerald won a straw poll of the audience by a three-to-one margin.
By February 1938, Holiday was no longer singing for Basie. Various reasons have been given for why she was fired. Jimmy Rushing, Basie's male vocalist, called her unprofessional. According to All Music Guide, Holiday was fired for being "temperamental and unreliable". She complained of low pay and poor working conditions and may have refused to sing the songs requested of her or change her style. Holiday was hired by Artie Shaw a month after being fired from the Count Basie Band. This association placed her among the first black women to work with a white orchestra, an unusual arrangement at that time. This was also the first time a black female singer employed full-time toured the segregated U.S. South with a white bandleader. In situations where there was a lot of racial tension, Shaw was known to stick up for his vocalist. In her autobiography, Holiday describes an incident in which she was not permitted to sit on the bandstand with other vocalists because she was black. Shaw said to her, "I want you on the band stand like Helen Forrest, Tony Pastor and everyone else." When touring the South, Holiday would sometimes be heckled by members of the audience. In Louisville, Kentucky, a man called her a "nigger wench" and requested she sing another song. Holiday lost her temper and had to be escorted off the stage.
By March 1938, Shaw and Holiday had been broadcast on New York City's powerful radio station WABC (the original WABC, now WCBS). Because of their success, they were given an extra time slot to broadcast in April, which increased their exposure. The New York Amsterdam News reviewed the broadcasts and reported an improvement in Holiday's performance. Metronome reported that the addition of Holiday to Shaw's band put it in the "top brackets". Holiday could not sing as often during Shaw's shows as she could in Basie's; the repertoire was more instrumental, with fewer vocals. Shaw was also pressured to hire a white singer, Nita Bradley, with whom Holiday did not get along but had to share a bandstand. In May 1938, Shaw won band battles against Tommy Dorsey and Red Norvo, with the audience favoring Holiday. Although Shaw admired Holiday's singing in his band, saying she had a "remarkable ear" and a "remarkable sense of time", her tenure with the band was nearing an end. In November 1938, Holiday was asked to use the service elevator at the Lincoln Hotel in New York City, instead of the one used by hotel guests, because white patrons of the hotels complained. This may have been the last straw for her. She left the band shortly after. Holiday spoke about the incident weeks later, saying, "I was never allowed to visit the bar or the dining room as did other members of the band ... [and] I was made to leave and enter through the kitchen." There are no surviving live recordings of Holiday with Shaw's band. Because she was under contract to a different record label and possibly because of her race, Holiday was able to make only one record with Shaw, "Any Old Time". However, Shaw played clarinet on four songs she recorded in New York on July 10, 1936: "Did I Remember?", "No Regrets", "Summertime" and "Billie's Blues".
By the late 1930s, Holiday had toured with Count Basie and Artie Shaw, scored a string of radio and retail hits with Teddy Wilson, and became an established artist in the recording industry. Her songs "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" and "Easy Living" were imitated by singers across America and were quickly becoming jazz standards. In September 1938, Holiday's single "I'm Gonna Lock My Heart" ranked sixth as the most-played song that month. Her record label, Vocalion, listed the single as its fourth-best seller for the same month, and it peaked at number 2 on the pop charts, according to Joel Whitburn's Pop Memories: 1890–1954.
1939: "Strange Fruit" and Commodore Records
Holiday was in the middle of recording for Columbia in the late 1930s when she was introduced to "Strange Fruit", a song by Abel Meeropol based on his poem about lynching. Meeropol, a Jewish schoolteacher from the Bronx, used the pseudonym "Lewis Allan" for the poem, which was set to music and performed at teachers' union meetings. It was eventually heard by Barney Josephson, the proprietor of Café Society, an integrated nightclub in Greenwich Village, who introduced it to Holiday. She performed it at the club in 1939, with some trepidation, fearing possible retaliation. She later said that the imagery of the song reminded her of her father's death and that this played a role in her resistance to performing it.
For her performance of "Strange Fruit" at the Café Society, she had waiters silence the crowd when the song began. During the song's long introduction, the lights dimmed and all movement had to cease. As Holiday began singing, only a small spotlight illuminated her face. On the final note, all lights went out, and when they came back on, Holiday was gone. Holiday said her father, Clarence Holiday, was denied medical treatment for a fatal lung disorder because of racial prejudice, and that singing "Strange Fruit" reminded her of the incident. "It reminds me of how Pop died, but I have to keep singing it, not only because people ask for it, but because twenty years after Pop died the things that killed him are still happening in the South", she wrote in her autobiography. When Holiday's producers at Columbia found the subject matter too sensitive, Milt Gabler agreed to record it for his Commodore Records label on April 20, 1939. "Strange Fruit" remained in her repertoire for 20 years. She recorded it again for Verve. The Commodore release did not get any airplay, but the controversial song sold well, though Gabler attributed that mostly to the record's other side, "Fine and Mellow", which was a jukebox hit. "The version I recorded for Commodore", Holiday said of "Strange Fruit", "became my biggest-selling record." "Strange Fruit" was the equivalent of a top-twenty hit in the 1930s.
Holiday's popularity increased after "Strange Fruit". She received a mention in Time magazine. "I open Café Society as an unknown", Holiday said. "I left two years later as a star. I needed the prestige and publicity all right, but you can't pay rent with it." She soon demanded a raise from her manager, Joe Glaser. Holiday returned to Commodore in 1944, recording songs she made with Teddy Wilson in the 1930s, including "I Cover the Waterfront", "I'll Get By", and "He's Funny That Way". She also recorded new songs that were popular at the time, including, "My Old Flame", "How Am I to Know?", "I'm Yours", and "I'll Be Seeing You", a number one hit for Bing Crosby. She also recorded her version of "Embraceable You", which was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2005.
1940–1947: Commercial success
Holiday's mother Sadie, nicknamed "The Duchess", opened a restaurant called Mom Holiday's. She used money from her daughter while playing dice with members of the Count Basie band, with whom she toured in the late 1930s. "It kept Mom busy and happy and stopped her from worrying and watching over me", Holiday said. Fagan began borrowing large amounts from Holiday to support the restaurant. Holiday obliged but soon fell on hard times herself. "I needed some money one night and I knew Mom was sure to have some", she said. "So I walked in the restaurant like a stockholder and asked. Mom turned me down flat. She wouldn't give me a cent." The two argued, and Holiday shouted angrily, "God bless the child that's got his own", and stormed out. With Arthur Herzog, Jr., a pianist, she wrote a song based on the lyric, "God Bless the Child", and added music. "God Bless the Child" became Holiday's most popular and most covered record. It reached number 25 on the charts in 1941 and was third in Billboard'''s songs of the year, selling over a million records.Jazz History: The Standards (1940s). Jazzstandards.com. Retrieved November 13, 2010. In 1976, the song was added to the Grammy Hall of Fame. Herzog claimed Holiday contributed only a few lines to the lyrics. He said she came up with the line "God bless the child" from a dinner conversation the two had had.
On June 24, 1942, Holiday recorded "Trav'lin Light" with Paul Whiteman for a new label, Capitol Records. Because she was under contract to Columbia, she used the pseudonym "Lady Day". The song reached number 23 on the pop charts and number one on the R&B charts, then called the Harlem Hit Parade. In September 1943, Life magazine wrote, "She has the most distinct style of any popular vocalist and is imitated by other vocalists."
Milt Gabler, in addition to owning Commodore Records, became an A&R man for Decca Records. He signed Holiday to Decca on August 7, 1944, when she was 29. Her first Decca recording was "Lover Man" (number 16 Pop, number 5 R&B), one of her biggest hits. The success and distribution of the song made Holiday a staple in the pop community, leading to solo concerts, rare for jazz singers in the late 1940s. Gabler said, "I made Billie a real pop singer. That was right in her. Billie loved those songs." Jimmy Davis and Roger "Ram" Ramirez, the song's writers, had tried to interest Holiday in the song. In 1943, a flamboyant male torch singer, Willie Dukes, began singing "Lover Man" on 52nd Street. Because of his success, Holiday added it to her shows. The record's flip side was "No More", one of her favorites. Holiday asked Gabler for strings on the recording. Such arrangements were associated with Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald. "I went on my knees to him", Holiday said. "I didn't want to do it with the ordinary six pieces. I begged Milt and told him I had to have strings behind me." On October 4, 1944, Holiday entered the studio to record "Lover Man", saw the string ensemble and walked out. The musical director, Toots Camarata, said Holiday was overwhelmed with joy. She may also have wanted strings to avoid comparisons between her commercially successful early work with Teddy Wilson and everything produced afterwards. Her 1930s recordings with Wilson used a small jazz combo; recordings for Decca often involved strings. A month later, in November, Holiday returned to Decca to record "That Ole Devil Called Love", "Big Stuff", and "Don't Explain". She wrote "Don't Explain" after she caught her husband, Jimmy Monroe, with lipstick on his collar.
Holiday did not make any more records until August 1945, when she recorded "Don't Explain" for a second time, changing the lyrics "I know you raise Cain" to "Just say you'll remain" and changing "You mixed with some dame" to "What is there to gain?" Other songs recorded were "Big Stuff", "What Is This Thing Called Love?", and "You Better Go Now". Ella Fitzgerald named "You Better Go Now" her favorite recording of Holiday's. "Big Stuff" and "Don't Explain" were recorded again but with additional strings and a viola. In 1946, Holiday recorded "Good Morning Heartache". Although the song failed to chart, she sang it in live performances; three live recordings are known.
In September 1946, Holiday began her only major film, New Orleans, in which she starred opposite Louis Armstrong and Woody Herman. Plagued by racism and McCarthyism, producer Jules Levey and script writer Herbert Biberman were pressed to lessen Holiday's and Armstrong's roles to avoid the impression that black people created jazz. The attempts failed because in 1947 Biberman was listed as one of the Hollywood Ten and sent to jail. Several scenes were deleted from the film. "They had taken miles of footage of music and scenes", Holiday said, but "none of it was left in the picture. And very damn little of me. I know I wore a white dress for a number I did... and that was cut out of the picture." She recorded "The Blues Are Brewin'" for the film's soundtrack. Other songs included in the movie are "Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans?" and "Farewell to Storyville". Holiday's drug addictions were a problem on the set. She earned more than one thousand dollars per week from club ventures but spent most of it on heroin. Her lover, Joe Guy, traveled to Hollywood while Holiday was filming and supplied her with drugs. Guy was banned from the set when he was found there by Holiday's manager, Joe Glaser.
By the late 1940s, Holiday had begun recording a number of slow, sentimental ballads. Metronome expressed its concerns in 1946 about "Good Morning Heartache", saying, "there's a danger that Billie's present formula will wear thin, but up to now it's wearing well." The New York Herald Tribune reported of a concert in 1946 that her performance had little variation in melody and no change in tempo.
1947–1952: Legal issues and Carnegie Hall concert
By 1947, Holiday was at her commercial peak, having made $250,000 in the three previous years. She was ranked second in the DownBeat poll for 1946 and 1947, her highest ranking in that poll. She was ranked fifth in Billboard 's annual college poll of "girl singers" on July 6, 1947 (Jo Stafford was first). In 1946, Holiday won the Metronome magazine popularity poll.
On May 16, 1947, Holiday was arrested for possession of narcotics in her New York apartment. On May 27 she was in court. "It was called 'The United States of America versus Billie Holiday'. And that's just the way it felt", she recalled. During the trial, she heard that her lawyer would not come to the trial to represent her. "In plain English that meant no one in the world was interested in looking out for me," she said. Dehydrated and unable to hold down food, she pleaded guilty and asked to be sent to the hospital. The district attorney spoke in her defense, saying, "If your honor please, this is a case of a drug addict, but more serious, however, than most of our cases, Miss Holiday is a professional entertainer and among the higher rank as far as income was concerned." She was sentenced to Alderson Federal Prison Camp in West Virginia. The drug possession conviction caused her to lose her New York City Cabaret Card, preventing her working anywhere that sold alcohol; thereafter, she performed in concert venues and theaters.
Holiday was released early (on March 16, 1948) because of good behavior. When she arrived at Newark, her pianist Bobby Tucker and her dog Mister were waiting. The dog leaped at Holiday, knocking off her hat, and tackling her to the ground. "He began lapping me and loving me like crazy", she said. A woman thought the dog was attacking Holiday. She screamed, a crowd gathered, and reporters arrived. "I might just as well have wheeled into Penn Station and had a quiet little get-together with the Associated Press, United Press, and International News Service", she said.
Ed Fishman (who fought with Joe Glaser to be Holiday's manager) thought of a comeback concert at Carnegie Hall. Holiday hesitated, unsure audiences would accept her after the arrest. She gave in and agreed to appear. On March 27, 1948, Holiday played Carnegie Hall to a sold-out crowd. 2,700 tickets were sold in advance, a record at the time for the venue. Her popularity was unusual because she didn't have a current hit record. Her last record to reach the charts was "Lover Man" in 1945. Holiday sang 32 songs at the Carnegie concert by her count, including Cole Porter's "Night and Day" and her 1930s hit, "Strange Fruit". During the show, someone sent her a box of gardenias. "My old trademark", Holiday said. "I took them out of box and fastened them smack to the side of my head without even looking twice." There was a hatpin in the gardenias and Holiday unknowingly stuck it into the side of her head. "I didn't feel anything until the blood started rushing down in my eyes and ears", she said. After the third curtain call, she passed out.
On April 27, 1948, Bob Sylvester and her promoter Al Wilde arranged a Broadway show for her. Titled Holiday on Broadway, it sold out. "The regular music critics and drama critics came and treated us like we were legit", she said. But it closed after three weeks.
Holiday was arrested again on January 22, 1949, in her room at the Hotel Mark Twain in San Francisco. Holiday said she began using hard drugs in the early 1940s. She married trombonist Jimmy Monroe on August 25, 1941. While still married, she became involved with trumpeter Joe Guy, her drug dealer. She divorced Monroe in 1947 and also split with Guy.
In October 1949, Holiday recorded "Crazy He Calls Me", which was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2010. Gabler said the hit was her most successful recording for Decca after "Lover Man". The charts of the 1940s did not list songs outside the top 30, making it impossible to recognize minor hits. By the late 1940s, despite her popularity and concert power, her singles were little played on radio, perhaps because of her reputation.
The loss of her cabaret card reduced Holiday's earnings. She had not received proper record royalties until she joined Decca, so her main revenue was club concerts. The problem worsened when Holiday's records went out of print in the 1950s. She seldom received royalties in her later years. In 1958, she received a royalty of only $11.Nicholson, p. 167. Her lawyer in the late 1950s, Earle Warren Zaidins, registered with BMI only two songs she had written or co-written, costing her revenue. In 1948, Holiday played at the Ebony Club, which was against the law. Her manager, John Levy, was convinced he could get her card back and allowed her to open without one. "I opened scared", Holiday said, "[I was] expecting the cops to come in any chorus and carry me off. But nothing happened. I was a huge success."
Holiday recorded Gershwin's "I Loves You, Porgy" in 1948. In 1950, Holiday appeared in the Universal short film Sugar Chile Robinson, Billie Holiday, Count Basie and His Sextet, singing "God Bless the Child" and "Now, Baby or Never".
1952–1959: Lady Sings the Blues
By the 1950s, Holiday's drug use, drinking, and relationships with abusive men caused her health to deteriorate. She appeared on the ABC reality series The Comeback Story to discuss attempts to overcome her misfortunes. Her later recordings showed the effects of declining health on her voice, as it grew coarse and no longer projected its former vibrancy.
Holiday first toured Europe in 1954 as part of a Leonard Feather package. The Swedish impresario, Nils Hellstrom, initiated the "Jazz Club U.S.A." (after the Leonard Feather radio show) tour starting in Stockholm in January 1954 and then Germany, Netherlands, Paris and Switzerland. The tour party was Holiday, Buddy DeFranco, Red Norvo, Carl Drinkard, Elaine Leighton, Sonny Clark, Berryl Booker, Jimmy Raney and Red Mitchell. A recording of a live set in Germany was released as Lady Love – Billie Holiday.
Holiday's autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues, was ghostwritten by William Dufty and published in 1956. Dufty, a New York Post writer and editor then married to Holiday's close friend Maely Dufty, wrote the book quickly from a series of conversations with the singer in the Duftys' 93rd Street apartment. He also drew on the work of earlier interviewers and intended to let Holiday tell her story in her own way. In his 2015 study, Billie Holiday: The Musician and the Myth, John Szwed argued that Lady Sings the Blues is a generally accurate account of her life, but that co-writer Dufty was forced to water down or suppress material by the threat of legal action. According to the reviewer Richard Brody, "Szwed traces the stories of two important relationships that are missing from the book—with Charles Laughton, in the 1930s, and with Tallulah Bankhead, in the late 1940s—and of one relationship that's sharply diminished in the book, her affair with Orson Welles around the time of Citizen Kane." To accompany her autobiography, Holiday released the LP Lady Sings the Blues in June 1956. The album featured four new tracks, "Lady Sings the Blues", "Too Marvelous for Words", "Willow Weep for Me", and "I Thought About You", and eight new recordings of her biggest hits to date. The re-recordings included "Trav'lin' Light" "Strange Fruit" and "God Bless the Child". A review of the album was published by Billboard magazine on December 22, 1956, calling it a worthy musical complement to her autobiography. "Holiday is in good voice now", wrote the reviewer, "and these new readings will be much appreciated by her following". "Strange Fruit" and "God Bless the Child" were called classics, and "Good Morning Heartache", another reissued track on the LP, was also noted favorably.
On November 10, 1956, Holiday performed two concerts before packed audiences at Carnegie Hall. Live recordings of the second Carnegie Hall concert were released on a Verve/HMV album in the UK in late 1961 called The Essential Billie Holiday. The 13 tracks included on this album featured her own songs "I Love My Man", "Don't Explain" and "Fine and Mellow", together with other songs closely associated with her, including "Body and Soul", "My Man", and "Lady Sings the Blues" (her lyrics accompanied a tune by pianist Herbie Nichols). The liner notes for this album were written partly by Gilbert Millstein of the New York Times, who, according to these notes, served as narrator of the Carnegie Hall concerts. Interspersed among Holiday's songs, Millstein read aloud four lengthy passages from her autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues. He later wrote:
The critic Nat Hentoff of DownBeat magazine, who attended the Carnegie Hall concert, wrote the remainder of the sleeve notes on the 1961 album. He wrote of Holiday's performance:
Her performance of "Fine and Mellow" on CBS's The Sound of Jazz program is memorable for her interplay with her long-time friend Lester Young. Both were less than two years from death. Young died in March 1959. Holiday wanted to sing at his funeral, but her request was denied.
When Holiday returned to Europe almost five years later, in 1959, she made one of her last television appearances for Granada's Chelsea at Nine in London. Her final studio recordings were made for MGM Records in 1959, with lush backing from Ray Ellis and his Orchestra, who had also accompanied her on the Columbia album Lady in Satin the previous year (see below). The MGM sessions were released posthumously on a self-titled album, later retitled and re-released as Last Recording.
On March 28, 1957, Holiday married Louis McKay, a mob enforcer. McKay, like most of the men in her life, was abusive. They were separated at the time of her death, but McKay had plans to start a chain of Billie Holiday vocal studios, on the model of the Arthur Murray dance schools. Holiday was childless, but she had two godchildren: singer Billie Lorraine Feather (the daughter of Leonard Feather) and Bevan Dufty (the son of William Dufty).
Illness and death
By early 1959, Holiday was diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver. Although she had initially stopped drinking on her doctor's orders, it was not long before she relapsed. By May 1959, she had lost . Her manager Joe Glaser, jazz critic Leonard Feather, photojournalist Allan Morrison, and the singer's own friends all tried in vain to persuade her to go to a hospital. On May 31, 1959, Holiday was taken to Metropolitan Hospital in New York for treatment of liver disease and heart disease. According to writer and journalist Johann Hari, the Federal Bureau of Narcotics under Harry J. Anslinger, had been targeting Holiday since at least 1939, when she started to perform "Strange Fruit". Narcotics police went to her hospital room, claiming they had found heroin in her bedroom. A grand jury was summoned to indict her and she was arrested and handcuffed to her bed and placed under police guard. According to Hari, after 10 days, methadone was discontinued as part of Anslinger's policy; Hari accused Anslinger of being responsible for her death. On July 15, she received last rites. She died at age 44, at 3:10 a.m. on July 17, of pulmonary edema and heart failure caused by cirrhosis of the liver.
In her final years, Holiday had been progressively swindled out of her earnings, and she died with US$0.70 in the bank. Her funeral Mass was held on July 21, 1959, at the Church of St. Paul the Apostle in Manhattan. She was buried at Saint Raymond's Cemetery in the Bronx. The story of her burial plot and how it was managed by her estranged husband, Louis McKay, was documented on NPR in 2012.
Gilbert Millstein of The New York Times, who was the announcer at Holiday's 1956 Carnegie Hall concerts and wrote parts of the sleeve notes for the album The Essential Billie Holiday (see above), described her death in these sleeve notes, dated 1961:
When Holiday died, The New York Times published a short obituary on page 15 without a byline. She left an estate of $1,000, and her best recordings from the 1930s were mostly out of print. Holiday's public stature grew in the following years. In 1961, she was voted to the Down Beat Hall Of Fame, and soon after Columbia reissued nearly one hundred of her early records. In 1972, Diana Ross' portrayal of Holiday in Lady Sings the Blues was nominated for an Oscar and won a Golden Globe. Holiday was posthumously nominated for 23 Grammy awards.
Legacy
Billie Holiday received several Esquire Magazine awards during her lifetime. Her posthumous awards also include being inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, Ertegun Jazz Hall of Fame, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and the ASCAP Jazz Wall of Fame. In 1985, a statue of Billie Holiday was erected in Baltimore; the statue was completed in 1993 with additional panels of images inspired by her seminal song Strange Fruit. In 2019, Chirlane McCray announced that New York City would build a statue honoring Holiday near Queens Borough Hall.
The Billie Holiday Monument is located at Pennsylvania and West Lafayette avenues in Baltimore's Upton neighborhood.
Vocal style and range
Holiday's delivery made her performances recognizable throughout her career. Her improvisation compensated for lack of musical education. Holiday said that she always wanted her voice to sound like an instrument and some of her influences were Louis Armstrong and the singer Bessie Smith. Her last major recording, a 1958 album entitled Lady in Satin, features the backing of a 40-piece orchestra conducted and arranged by Ray Ellis, who said of the album in 1997:
Frank Sinatra was influenced by her performances on 52nd Street as a young man. He told Ebony magazine in 1958 about her impact:
Films and plays about Holiday
The biographical film Lady Sings the Blues, loosely based on Holiday's autobiography, was released in 1972 and was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Diana Ross for Best Actress. Another film, The United States vs. Billie Holiday, starred Andra Day and was released in 2021. It is based on the book Chasing the Scream by Johann Hari. Director Lee Daniels saw how Holiday was portrayed in the 1972 biopic, and wanted to show her legacy as "a civil rights leader [...] not just a drug addict or a jazz singer". Day was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance and won a Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama in 2021.
Holiday is the primary character in the play Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill, with music by Lanie Robertson. It takes place in South Philadelphia in March 1959. It premiered in 1986 at the Alliance Theatre and has been revived several times. A Broadway production starring Audra McDonald was filmed and broadcast on HBO in 2016; McDonald received an Emmy Award nomination and a record-breaking Tony Award win, becoming the most decorated performer in Tony history with six awards across all four eligible competitive categories. Billie is a 2019 documentary film based on interviews in the 1970s by Linda Lipnack Kuehl, who was researching a book on Holiday that was never completed.
Billie Holiday was also portrayed by actress Paula Jai Parker in Touched by an Angel's 2000 episode "God Bless the Child".
Discography
Billie Holiday recorded extensively for four labels: Columbia Records, which issued her recordings on its subsidiary labels Brunswick Records, Vocalion Records and OKeh Records, from 1933 through 1942; Commodore Records in 1939 and 1944; Decca Records from 1944 through 1950; briefly for Aladdin Records in 1951; Verve Records and on its earlier imprint Clef Records from 1952 through 1957, then again for Columbia Records from 1957 to 1958 and finally for MGM Records in 1959. Many of Holiday's recordings appeared on 78-rpm records prior to the long-playing vinyl record era, and only Clef, Verve, and Columbia issued albums during her lifetime that were not compilations of previously released material. Many compilations have been issued since her death, as well as comprehensive box sets and live recordings.[ Billie Holiday]. AllMusic. Retrieved on November 13, 2010.
Hit records
In 1986, Joel Whitburn's company Record Research compiled information on the popularity of recordings released from the era predating rock and roll and created pop charts dating back to the beginning of the commercial recording industry. The company's findings were published in the book Pop Memories 1890–1954. Several of Holiday's records are listed on the pop charts Whitburn created.
Holiday began her recording career on a high note with her first major release, "Riffin' the Scotch", of which 5,000 copies were sold. It was released under the name "Benny Goodman & His Orchestra" in 1933.
Most of Holiday's early successes were released under the name "Teddy Wilson & His Orchestra". During her stay in Wilson's band, Holiday would sing a few bars and then other musicians would have a solo. Wilson, one of the most influential jazz pianists of the swing era, accompanied Holiday more than any other musician. He and Holiday issued 95 recordings together.
In July 1936, Holiday began releasing sides under her own name. These songs were released under the band name "Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra". Most noteworthy, the popular jazz standard "Summertime" sold well and was listed on the pop charts of the time at number 12, the first time the jazz standard charted. Only Billy Stewart's R&B version of "Summertime" reached a higher chart placement than Holiday's, charting at number 10 thirty years later in 1966.
Holiday had 16 best-selling songs in 1937, making the year her most commercially successful. It was in this year that Holiday scored her sole number one hit as a featured vocalist on the available pop charts of the 1930s, "Carelessly". The hit "I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm", was also recorded by Ray Noble, Glen Gray and Fred Astaire, whose rendering was a bestseller for weeks. Holiday's version ranked 6 on the year-end single chart available for 1937.
In 1939, Holiday recorded her biggest selling record, "Strange Fruit" for Commodore, charting at number 16 on the available pop charts for the 1930s.
In 1940, Billboard began publishing its modern pop charts, which included the Best Selling Retail Records chart, the precursor to the Hot 100. None of Holiday's songs placed on the modern pop charts, partly because Billboard only published the first ten slots of the charts in some issues. Minor hits and independent releases had no way of being spotlighted.
"God Bless the Child", which went on to sell over a million copies, ranked number 3 on Billboards year-end top songs of 1941.
On October 24, 1942, Billboard began issuing its R&B charts. Two of Holiday's songs placed on the chart, "Trav'lin' Light" with Paul Whiteman, which topped the chart, and "Lover Man", which reached number 5. "Trav'lin' Light" also reached 18 on Billboards year-end chart.
Studio LPsBillie Holiday Sings (1952)An Evening with Billie Holiday (1952)Billie Holiday (1954)Music for Torching (1955)Velvet Mood (1956)Lady Sings the Blues (1956)Body and Soul (1957)Songs for Distingué Lovers (1957)Stay with Me (1958)All or Nothing at All (1958)Lady in Satin (1958)Last Recording (1959)
Filmography
Theatrical films
1933: The Emperor Jones, appeared as an extra
1935: Symphony in Black, short (with Duke Ellington)
1947: New Orleans1950: 'Sugar Chile' Robinson, Billie Holiday, Count Basie and His Sextet''
Television appearances
(1) = Available on audio
(2) = Available on DVD
See also
List of awards and nominations received by Billie Holiday
List of craters on Venus
List of people on the postage stamps of the United States
List of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees
References
Bibliography
This Discography is still available: see Facebook page The Billie Holiday Circle.
Further reading
External links
Discography
"Twelve Essential Billie Holiday Recordings" by Stuart Nicholson, Jazz.com
Billie Holiday at the Playbill Vault
Billie Holiday on Find A Grave
Emory University: Billie Holiday collection, 1953-1981
1915 births
1959 deaths
20th-century African-American women singers
African-American women singer-songwriters
Aladdin Records artists
Alcohol-related deaths in New York (state)
American contraltos
American women jazz singers
American people convicted of drug offenses
American prisoners and detainees
American street performers
Ballad musicians
Burials at Saint Raymond's Cemetery (Bronx)
Classic female blues singers
Columbia Records artists
Deaths from cirrhosis
Decca Records artists
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners
Jazz musicians from Maryland
Jazz musicians from Pennsylvania
Musicians from Baltimore
Musicians from Philadelphia
Singer-songwriters from Pennsylvania
Swing singers
Torch singers
Traditional pop music singers
Vocalion Records artists
African-American Catholics
Singer-songwriters from Maryland
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"Don Juan Manuel's Tales of Count Lucanor, in Spanish Libro de los ejemplos del conde Lucanor y de Patronio (Book of the Examples of Count Lucanor and of Patronio), also commonly known as El Conde Lucanor, Libro de Patronio, or Libro de los ejemplos (original Old Castilian: Libro de los enxiemplos del Conde Lucanor et de Patronio), is one of the earliest works of prose in Castilian Spanish. It was first written in 1335.\n\nThe book is divided into four parts. The first and most well-known part is a series of 51 short stories (some no more than a page or two) drawn from various sources, such as Aesop and other classical writers, and Arabic folktales.\n\nTales of Count Lucanor was first printed in 1575 when it was published at Seville under the auspices of Argote de Molina. It was again printed at Madrid in 1642, after which it lay forgotten for nearly two centuries.\n\nPurpose and structure\n\nA didactic, moralistic purpose, which would color so much of the Spanish literature to follow (see Novela picaresca), is the mark of this book. Count Lucanor engages in conversation with his advisor Patronio, putting to him a problem (\"Some man has made me a proposition...\" or \"I fear that such and such person intends to...\") and asking for advice. Patronio responds always with the greatest humility, claiming not to wish to offer advice to so illustrious a person as the Count, but offering to tell him a story of which the Count's problem reminds him. (Thus, the stories are \"examples\" [ejemplos] of wise action.) At the end he advises the Count to do as the protagonist of his story did.\n\nEach chapter ends in more or less the same way, with slight variations on: \"And this pleased the Count greatly and he did just so, and found it well. And Don Johán (Juan) saw that this example was very good, and had it written in this book, and composed the following verses.\" A rhymed couplet closes, giving the moral of the story.\n\nOrigin of stories and influence on later literature\nMany of the stories written in the book are the first examples written in a modern European language of various stories, which many other writers would use in the proceeding centuries. Many of the stories he included were themselves derived from other stories, coming from western and Arab sources.\n\nShakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew has the basic elements of Tale 35, \"What Happened to a Young Man Who Married a Strong and Ill-tempered Woman\".\n\nTale 32, \"What Happened to the King and the Tricksters Who Made Cloth\" tells the story that Hans Christian Andersen made popular as The Emperor's New Clothes.\n\nStory 7, \"What Happened to a Woman Named Truhana\", a version of Aesop's The Milkmaid and Her Pail, was claimed by Max Müller to originate in the Hindu cycle Panchatantra.\n\nTale 2, \"What happened to a good Man and his Son, leading a beast to market,\" is the familiar fable The miller, his son and the donkey.\n\nIn 2016, Baroque Decay released a game under the name \"The Count Lucanor\". As well as some protagonists' names, certain events from the books inspired past events in the game.\n\nThe stories\n\nThe book opens with a prologue which introduces the characters of the Count and Patronio. The titles in the following list are those given in Keller and Keating's 1977 translation into English. James York's 1868 translation into English gives a significantly different ordering of the stories and omits the fifty-first.\n\n What Happened to a King and His Favorite \n What Happened to a Good Man and His Son \n How King Richard of England Leapt into the Sea against the Moors\n What a Genoese Said to His Soul When He Was about to Die \n What Happened to a Fox and a Crow Who Had a Piece of Cheese in His Beak\n How the Swallow Warned the Other Birds When She Saw Flax Being Sown \n What Happened to a Woman Named Truhana \n What Happened to a Man Whose Liver Had to Be Washed \n What Happened to Two Horses Which Were Thrown to the Lion \n What Happened to a Man Who on Account of Poverty and Lack of Other Food Was Eating Bitter Lentils \n What Happened to a Dean of Santiago de Compostela and Don Yllán, the Grand Master of Toledo\n What Happened to the Fox and the Rooster \n What Happened to a Man Who Was Hunting Partridges \n The Miracle of Saint Dominick When He Preached against the Usurer \n What Happened to Lorenzo Suárez at the Siege of Seville \n The Reply that count Fernán González Gave to His Relative Núño Laynes \n What Happened to a Very Hungry Man Who Was Half-heartedly Invited to Dinner \n What Happened to Pero Meléndez de Valdés When He Broke His Leg \n What Happened to the Crows and the Owls \n What Happened to a King for Whom a Man Promised to Perform Alchemy \n What Happened to a Young King and a Philosopher to Whom his Father Commended Him \n What Happened to the Lion and the Bull \n How the Ants Provide for Themselves \n What Happened to the King Who Wanted to Test His Three Sons \n What Happened to the Count of Provence and How He Was Freed from Prison by the Advice of Saladin\n What Happened to the Tree of Lies \n What Happened to an Emperor and to Don Alvarfáñez Minaya and Their Wives \n What Happened in Granada to Don Lorenzo Suárez Gallinato When He Beheaded the Renegade Chaplain \n What Happened to a Fox Who Lay down in the Street to Play Dead \n What Happened to King Abenabet of Seville and Ramayquía His Wife \n How a Cardinal Judged between the Canons of Paris and the Friars Minor \n What Happened to the King and the Tricksters Who Made Cloth \n What Happened to Don Juan Manuel's Saker Falcon and an Eagle and a Heron \n What Happened to a Blind Man Who Was Leading Another \n What Happened to a Young Man Who Married a Strong and Ill-tempered Woman\n What Happened to a Merchant When He Found His Son and His Wife Sleeping Together \n What Happened to Count Fernán González with His Men after He Had Won the Battle of Hacinas \n What Happened to a Man Who Was Loaded down with Precious Stones and Drowned in the River \n What Happened to a Man and a Swallow and a Sparrow \n Why the Seneschal of Carcassonne Lost His Soul \n What Happened to a King of Córdova Named Al-Haquem \n What Happened to a Woman of Sham Piety \n What Happened to Good and Evil and the Wise Man and the Madman \n What Happened to Don Pero Núñez the Loyal, to Don Ruy González de Zavallos, and to Don Gutier Roiz de Blaguiello with Don Rodrigo the Generous \n What Happened to a Man Who Became the Devil's Friend and Vassal \n What Happened to a Philosopher who by Accident Went down a Street Where Prostitutes Lived \n What Befell a Moor and His Sister Who Pretended That She Was Timid \n What Happened to a Man Who Tested His Friends \n What Happened to the Man Whom They Cast out Naked on an Island When They Took away from Him the Kingdom He Ruled \n What Happened to Saladin and a Lady, the Wife of a Knight Who Was His Vassal \n What Happened to a Christian King Who Was Very Powerful and Haughty\n\nReferences\n\nNotes\n\nBibliography\n\n Sturm, Harlan\n\n Wacks, David\n\nExternal links\n\nThe Internet Archive provides free access to the 1868 translation by James York.\nJSTOR has the to the 1977 translation by Keller and Keating.\nSelections in English and Spanish (pedagogical edition) with introduction, notes, and bibliography in Open Iberia/América (open access teaching anthology)\n\n14th-century books\nSpanish literature\n1335 books",
"\"What Happened to Us\" is a song by Australian recording artist Jessica Mauboy, featuring English recording artist Jay Sean. It was written by Sean, Josh Alexander, Billy Steinberg, Jeremy Skaller, Rob Larow, Khaled Rohaim and Israel Cruz. \"What Happened to Us\" was leaked online in October 2010, and was released on 10 March 2011, as the third single from Mauboy's second studio album, Get 'Em Girls (2010). The song received positive reviews from critics.\n\nA remix of \"What Happened to Us\" made by production team OFM, was released on 11 April 2011. A different version of the song which features Stan Walker, was released on 29 May 2011. \"What Happened to Us\" charted on the ARIA Singles Chart at number 14 and was certified platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA). An accompanying music video was directed by Mark Alston, and reminisces on a former relationship between Mauboy and Sean.\n\nProduction and release\n\n\"What Happened to Us\" was written by Josh Alexander, Billy Steinberg, Jeremy Skaller, Rob Larow, Khaled Rohaim, Israel Cruz and Jay Sean. It was produced by Skaller, Cruz, Rohaim and Bobby Bass. The song uses C, D, and B minor chords in the chorus. \"What Happened to Us\" was sent to contemporary hit radio in Australia on 14 February 2011. The cover art for the song was revealed on 22 February on Mauboy's official Facebook page. A CD release was available for purchase via her official website on 10 March, for one week only. It was released digitally the following day.\n\nReception\nMajhid Heath from ABC Online Indigenous called the song a \"Jordin Sparks-esque duet\", and wrote that it \"has a nice innocence to it that rings true to the experience of losing a first love.\" Chris Urankar from Nine to Five wrote that it as a \"mid-tempo duet ballad\" which signifies Mauboy's strength as a global player. On 21 March 2011, \"What Happened to Us\" debuted at number 30 on the ARIA Singles Chart, and peaked at number 14 the following week. The song was certified platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA), for selling 70,000 copies. \"What Happened to Us\" spent a total of ten weeks in the ARIA top fifty.\n\nMusic video\n\nBackground\nThe music video for the song was shot in the Elizabeth Bay House in Sydney on 26 November 2010. The video was shot during Sean's visit to Australia for the Summerbeatz tour. During an interview with The Daily Telegraph while on the set of the video, Sean said \"the song is sick! ... Jessica's voice is amazing and we're shooting [the video] in this ridiculously beautiful mansion overlooking the harbour.\" The video was directed by Mark Alston, who had previously directed the video for Mauboy's single \"Let Me Be Me\" (2009). It premiered on YouTube on 10 February 2011.\n\nSynopsis and reception\nThe video begins showing Mauboy who appears to be sitting on a yellow antique couch in a mansion, wearing a purple dress. As the video progresses, scenes of memories are displayed of Mauboy and her love interest, played by Sean, spending time there previously. It then cuts to the scenes where Sean appears in the main entrance room of the mansion. The final scene shows Mauboy outdoors in a gold dress, surrounded by green grass and trees. She is later joined by Sean who appears in a black suit and a white shirt, and together they sing the chorus of the song to each other. David Lim of Feed Limmy wrote that the video is \"easily the best thing our R&B princess has committed to film – ever\" and praised the \"mansion and wondrous interior décor\". He also commended Mauboy for choosing Australian talent to direct the video instead of American directors, which she had used for her previous two music videos. Since its release, the video has received over two million views on Vevo.\n\nLive performances\nMauboy performed \"What Happened to Us\" live for the first time during her YouTube Live Sessions program on 4 December 2010. She also appeared on Adam Hills in Gordon Street Tonight on 23 February 2011 for an interview and later performed the song. On 15 March 2011, Mauboy performed \"What Happened to Us\" on Sunrise. She also performed the song with Stan Walker during the Australian leg of Chris Brown's F.A.M.E. Tour in April 2011. Mauboy and Walker later performed \"What Happened to Us\" on Dancing with the Stars Australia on 29 May 2011. From November 2013 to February 2014, \"What Happened to Us\" was part of the set list of the To the End of the Earth Tour, Mauboy's second headlining tour of Australia, with Nathaniel Willemse singing Sean's part.\n\nTrack listing\n\nDigital download\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean – 3:19\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (Sgt Slick Remix) – 6:33\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (Just Witness Remix) – 3:45\n\nCD single\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (Album Version) – 3:19\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (Sgt Slick Remix) – 6:33\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (OFM Remix) – 3:39\n\nDigital download – Remix\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (OFM Remix) – 3:38\n\nDigital download\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Stan Walker – 3:20\n\nPersonnel\nSongwriting – Josh Alexander, Billy Steinberg, Jeremy Skaller, Rob Larow, Khaled Rohaim, Israel Cruz, Jay Sean\nProduction – Jeremy Skaller, Bobby Bass\nAdditional production – Israel Cruz, Khaled Rohaim\nLead vocals – Jessica Mauboy, Jay Sean\nMixing – Phil Tan\nAdditional mixing – Damien Lewis\nMastering – Tom Coyne \nSource:\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly chart\n\nYear-end chart\n\nCertification\n\nRadio dates and release history\n\nReferences\n\n2010 songs\n2011 singles\nJessica Mauboy songs\nJay Sean songs\nSongs written by Billy Steinberg\nSongs written by Jay Sean\nSongs written by Josh Alexander\nSongs written by Israel Cruz\nVocal duets\nSony Music Australia singles\nSongs written by Khaled Rohaim"
] |
[
"Billie Holiday",
"1935-38: Recordings with Teddy Wilson",
"What happened in 1935?",
"In 1935 Holiday was signed to Brunswick Records by John Hammond to record current pop tunes with Teddy Wilson in the new swing style for the growing jukebox trade."
] |
C_52be57a775c94201a6b8dcb1c2fe9fa9_0
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What happened in 1936?
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What happened in 1936 to Billie Holiday?
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Billie Holiday
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In 1935 Holiday was signed to Brunswick Records by John Hammond to record current pop tunes with Teddy Wilson in the new swing style for the growing jukebox trade. They were given free rein to improvise the material. Holiday's improvisation of melody to fit the emotion was revolutionary. Their first collaboration included "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" and "Miss Brown to You". "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" has been deemed her "claim to fame." Brunswick did not favor the recording session, because producers wanted Holiday to sound more like Cleo Brown. After "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" garnered success, however, the company began considering Holiday an artist in her own right. She began recording under her own name a year later (on the 35-cent Vocalion label), producing a series of extraordinary performances with groups comprising the swing era's finest musicians. The sessions were co-produced by Hammond and Bernie Hanighen. With their arrangements, Wilson and Holiday took pedestrian pop tunes, such as "Twenty-Four Hours a Day" (number 6 Pop) and "Yankee Doodle Went to Town", and turned them into jazz classics. Most of Holiday's recordings with Wilson or under her own name during the 1930s and early 1940s are regarded as important parts of the jazz vocal library. She was then in her twenties. Another frequent accompanist was the tenor saxophonist Lester Young, who had been a boarder at her mother's house in 1934 and with whom Holiday had a special rapport. He said, "I think you can hear that on some of the old records, you know. Some time I'd sit down and listen to 'em myself, and it sound like two of the same voices, if you don't be careful, you know, or the same mind, or something like that." Young nicknamed her "Lady Day", and she called him "Prez". Hammond spoke about the commercial impact of the Wilson-Holiday sides from 1935 to 1938, calling them a great asset to Brunswick. The record label, according to Hammond, was broke and unable to record many jazz tunes. Wilson, Holiday, Young, and other musicians came into the studio without musical arrangements and improvised as they performed, dispensing with the expense of having written arrangements, so that the records they produced were cheap. Holiday was never given any royalties for her work, instead being paid a flat fee, which saved the company money. Some of the records produced were successful, such as "I Cried for You", which sold 15,000 copies. Hammond said of the record, "15,000 ... was a giant hit for Brunswick in those days. I mean a giant hit. Most records that made money sold around three to four thousand." CANNOTANSWER
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Hammond spoke about the commercial impact of the Wilson-Holiday sides from 1935 to 1938, calling them a great asset to Brunswick.
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Billie Holiday (born Eleanora Fagan; April 7, 1915 – July 17, 1959) was an American jazz and swing music singer. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and music partner, Lester Young, Holiday had an innovative influence on jazz music and pop singing. Her vocal style, strongly inspired by jazz instrumentalists, pioneered a new way of manipulating phrasing and tempo. She was known for her vocal delivery and improvisational skills.
After a turbulent childhood, Holiday began singing in nightclubs in Harlem, where she was heard by producer John Hammond, who liked her voice. She signed a recording contract with Brunswick in 1935. Collaborations with Teddy Wilson produced the hit "What a Little Moonlight Can Do", which became a jazz standard. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, Holiday had mainstream success on labels such as Columbia and Decca. By the late 1940s, however, she was beset with legal troubles and drug abuse. After a short prison sentence, she performed at a sold-out concert at Carnegie Hall.
She was a successful concert performer throughout the 1950s with two further sold-out shows at Carnegie Hall. Because of personal struggles and an altered voice, her final recordings were met with mixed reaction but were mild commercial successes. Her final album, Lady in Satin, was released in 1958. Holiday died of cirrhosis on July 17, 1959, at age 44.
Holiday won four Grammy Awards, all of them posthumously, for Best Historical Album. She was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame and the National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame. She was also inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, though not in that genre; the website states that "Billie Holiday changed jazz forever". Several films about her life have been released, most recently The United States vs. Billie Holiday (2021).
Life and career
1915–1929: Childhood
Eleanora Fagan was born on April 7, 1915, in Philadelphia, the daughter of African-American unwed teenage couple Sarah Julia "Sadie" Fagan and Clarence Halliday. Sarah moved to Philadelphia at age 19, after she was evicted from her parents' home in the Sandtown-Winchester neighborhood of Baltimore, Maryland for becoming pregnant. With no support from her parents, she made arrangements with her older, married half-sister, Eva Miller, for Eleanora to stay with her in Baltimore. Not long after Eleanora was born, Clarence abandoned his family to pursue a career as a jazz banjo player and guitarist. Some historians have disputed Holiday's paternity, as a copy of her birth certificate in the Baltimore archives lists her father as "Frank DeViese". Other historians consider this an anomaly, probably inserted by a hospital or government worker. DeViese lived in Philadelphia, and Sadie Harris may have known him through her work. Sadie Harris, then known as Sadie Fagan, married Philip Gough, but the marriage ended in two years.
Eleanora grew up in Baltimore and had a very difficult childhood. Her mother often took what were then known as "transportation jobs", serving on passenger railroads. Holiday was raised largely by Eva Miller's mother-in-law, Martha Miller, and suffered from her mother's absences and being in others' care for her first decade of life. Holiday's autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues, published in 1956, is sketchy on details of her early life, but much was confirmed by Stuart Nicholson in his 1995 biography of the singer.
After attending kindergarten at St. Frances Academy, she frequently skipped school, and her truancy resulted in her being brought before the juvenile court on January 5, 1925, when she was nine years old. She was sent to the House of the Good Shepherd, a Catholic reform school, where she was baptized on March 19, 1925. After nine months in care, she was "paroled" on October 3, 1925, to her mother. Sadie had opened a restaurant, the East Side Grill, and mother and daughter worked long hours there. She dropped out of school at age 11.
On December 24, 1926, Sadie came home to discover a neighbor, Wilbur Rich, attempting to rape Eleanora. She successfully fought back, and Rich was arrested. Officials placed Eleanora in the House of the Good Shepherd under protective custody as a state witness in the rape case. Holiday was released in February 1927, when she was nearly 12. She found a job running errands in a brothel, and she scrubbed marble steps as well as kitchen and bathroom floors of neighborhood homes. Around this time, she first heard the records of Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith. In particular, Holiday cited "West End Blues" as an intriguing influence, pointing specifically to the scat section duet with the clarinet as her favorite part. By the end of 1928, Holiday's mother moved to Harlem, New York, again leaving Eleanora with Martha Miller.
By early 1929, Holiday had joined her mother in Harlem.
1929–1935: Early career
As a young teenager, Holiday started singing in nightclubs in Harlem. She took her professional pseudonym from Billie Dove, an actress she admired, and Clarence Halliday, her probable father. At the outset of her career, she spelled her last name "Halliday", her father's birth surname, but eventually changed it to "Holiday", his performing name. The young singer teamed up with a neighbor, tenor saxophone player Kenneth Hollan. They were a team from 1929 to 1931, performing at clubs such as the Grey Dawn, Pod's and Jerry's on 133rd Street, and the Brooklyn Elks' Club. Benny Goodman recalled hearing Holiday in 1931 at the Bright Spot. As her reputation grew, she played in many clubs, including the Mexico's and the Alhambra Bar and Grill, where she met Charles Linton, a vocalist who later worked with Chick Webb. It was also during this period that she connected with her father, who was playing in Fletcher Henderson's band.
Late in 1932, 17-year-old Holiday replaced the singer Monette Moore at Covan's, a club on West 132nd Street. Producer John Hammond, who loved Moore's singing and had come to hear her, first heard Holiday there in early 1933. Hammond arranged for Holiday to make her recording debut at age 18, in November 1933, with Benny Goodman. She recorded two songs: "Your Mother's Son-In-Law" and "Riffin' the Scotch", the latter being her first hit. "Son-in-Law" sold 300 copies, and "Riffin' the Scotch", released on November 11, sold 5,000 copies. Hammond was impressed by Holiday's singing style and said of her, "Her singing almost changed my music tastes and my musical life, because she was the first girl singer I'd come across who actually sang like an improvising jazz genius." Hammond compared Holiday favorably to Armstrong and said she had a good sense of lyric content at her young age.
In 1935, Holiday had a small role as a woman abused by her lover in Duke Ellington's musical short film Symphony in Black: A Rhapsody of Negro Life. She sang "Saddest Tale" in her scene.
1935–1938: Recordings with Teddy Wilson
In 1935, Holiday was signed to Brunswick by John Hammond to record pop tunes with pianist Teddy Wilson in the swing style for the growing jukebox trade. They were allowed to improvise on the material. Holiday's improvisation of melody to fit the emotion was revolutionary. Their first collaboration included "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" and "Miss Brown to You". "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" has been deemed her "claim to fame". Brunswick did not favor the recording session because producers wanted Holiday to sound more like Cleo Brown. However, after "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" was successful, the company began considering Holiday an artist in her own right. She began recording under her own name a year later for Vocalion in sessions produced by Hammond and Bernie Hanighen. Hammond said the Wilson-Holiday records from 1935 to 1938 were a great asset to Brunswick. According to Hammond, Brunswick was broke and unable to record many jazz tunes. Wilson, Holiday, Young, and other musicians came into the studio without written arrangements, reducing the recording cost. Brunswick paid Holiday a flat fee rather than royalties, which saved the company money. "I Cried for You" sold 15,000 copies, which Hammond called "a giant hit for Brunswick.... Most records that made money sold around three to four thousand."
Another frequent accompanist was tenor saxophonist Lester Young, who had been a boarder at her mother's house in 1934 and with whom Holiday had a rapport. Young said, "I think you can hear that on some of the old records, you know. Some time I'd sit down and listen to 'em myself, and it sound like two of the same voices ... or the same mind, or something like that." Young nicknamed her "Lady Day", and she called him "Prez".
1937–1938: Working for Count Basie and Artie Shaw
In late 1937, Holiday had a brief stint as a big-band vocalist with Count Basie. The traveling conditions of the band were often poor; they performed many one-nighters in clubs, moving from city to city with little stability. Holiday chose the songs she sang and had a hand in the arrangements, choosing to portray her developing persona of a woman unlucky in love. Her tunes included "I Must Have That Man", "Travelin' All Alone", "I Can't Get Started", and "Summertime", a hit for Holiday in 1936, originating in George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess the year before. Basie became used to Holiday's heavy involvement in the band. He said, "When she rehearsed with the band, it was really just a matter of getting her tunes like she wanted them, because she knew how she wanted to sound and you couldn't tell her what to do." Some of the songs Holiday performed with Basie were recorded. "I Can't Get Started", "They Can't Take That Away from Me", and "Swing It Brother Swing" are all commercially available. Holiday was unable to record in the studio with Basie, but she included many of his musicians in her recording sessions with Teddy Wilson.
Holiday found herself in direct competition with the popular singer Ella Fitzgerald. The two later became friends. Fitzgerald was the vocalist for the Chick Webb Band, which was in competition with the Basie band. On January 16, 1938, the same day that Benny Goodman performed his legendary Carnegie Hall jazz concert, the Basie and Webb bands had a battle at the Savoy Ballroom. Webb and Fitzgerald were declared winners by Metronome magazine, while DownBeat magazine pronounced Holiday and Basie the winners. Fitzgerald won a straw poll of the audience by a three-to-one margin.
By February 1938, Holiday was no longer singing for Basie. Various reasons have been given for why she was fired. Jimmy Rushing, Basie's male vocalist, called her unprofessional. According to All Music Guide, Holiday was fired for being "temperamental and unreliable". She complained of low pay and poor working conditions and may have refused to sing the songs requested of her or change her style. Holiday was hired by Artie Shaw a month after being fired from the Count Basie Band. This association placed her among the first black women to work with a white orchestra, an unusual arrangement at that time. This was also the first time a black female singer employed full-time toured the segregated U.S. South with a white bandleader. In situations where there was a lot of racial tension, Shaw was known to stick up for his vocalist. In her autobiography, Holiday describes an incident in which she was not permitted to sit on the bandstand with other vocalists because she was black. Shaw said to her, "I want you on the band stand like Helen Forrest, Tony Pastor and everyone else." When touring the South, Holiday would sometimes be heckled by members of the audience. In Louisville, Kentucky, a man called her a "nigger wench" and requested she sing another song. Holiday lost her temper and had to be escorted off the stage.
By March 1938, Shaw and Holiday had been broadcast on New York City's powerful radio station WABC (the original WABC, now WCBS). Because of their success, they were given an extra time slot to broadcast in April, which increased their exposure. The New York Amsterdam News reviewed the broadcasts and reported an improvement in Holiday's performance. Metronome reported that the addition of Holiday to Shaw's band put it in the "top brackets". Holiday could not sing as often during Shaw's shows as she could in Basie's; the repertoire was more instrumental, with fewer vocals. Shaw was also pressured to hire a white singer, Nita Bradley, with whom Holiday did not get along but had to share a bandstand. In May 1938, Shaw won band battles against Tommy Dorsey and Red Norvo, with the audience favoring Holiday. Although Shaw admired Holiday's singing in his band, saying she had a "remarkable ear" and a "remarkable sense of time", her tenure with the band was nearing an end. In November 1938, Holiday was asked to use the service elevator at the Lincoln Hotel in New York City, instead of the one used by hotel guests, because white patrons of the hotels complained. This may have been the last straw for her. She left the band shortly after. Holiday spoke about the incident weeks later, saying, "I was never allowed to visit the bar or the dining room as did other members of the band ... [and] I was made to leave and enter through the kitchen." There are no surviving live recordings of Holiday with Shaw's band. Because she was under contract to a different record label and possibly because of her race, Holiday was able to make only one record with Shaw, "Any Old Time". However, Shaw played clarinet on four songs she recorded in New York on July 10, 1936: "Did I Remember?", "No Regrets", "Summertime" and "Billie's Blues".
By the late 1930s, Holiday had toured with Count Basie and Artie Shaw, scored a string of radio and retail hits with Teddy Wilson, and became an established artist in the recording industry. Her songs "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" and "Easy Living" were imitated by singers across America and were quickly becoming jazz standards. In September 1938, Holiday's single "I'm Gonna Lock My Heart" ranked sixth as the most-played song that month. Her record label, Vocalion, listed the single as its fourth-best seller for the same month, and it peaked at number 2 on the pop charts, according to Joel Whitburn's Pop Memories: 1890–1954.
1939: "Strange Fruit" and Commodore Records
Holiday was in the middle of recording for Columbia in the late 1930s when she was introduced to "Strange Fruit", a song by Abel Meeropol based on his poem about lynching. Meeropol, a Jewish schoolteacher from the Bronx, used the pseudonym "Lewis Allan" for the poem, which was set to music and performed at teachers' union meetings. It was eventually heard by Barney Josephson, the proprietor of Café Society, an integrated nightclub in Greenwich Village, who introduced it to Holiday. She performed it at the club in 1939, with some trepidation, fearing possible retaliation. She later said that the imagery of the song reminded her of her father's death and that this played a role in her resistance to performing it.
For her performance of "Strange Fruit" at the Café Society, she had waiters silence the crowd when the song began. During the song's long introduction, the lights dimmed and all movement had to cease. As Holiday began singing, only a small spotlight illuminated her face. On the final note, all lights went out, and when they came back on, Holiday was gone. Holiday said her father, Clarence Holiday, was denied medical treatment for a fatal lung disorder because of racial prejudice, and that singing "Strange Fruit" reminded her of the incident. "It reminds me of how Pop died, but I have to keep singing it, not only because people ask for it, but because twenty years after Pop died the things that killed him are still happening in the South", she wrote in her autobiography. When Holiday's producers at Columbia found the subject matter too sensitive, Milt Gabler agreed to record it for his Commodore Records label on April 20, 1939. "Strange Fruit" remained in her repertoire for 20 years. She recorded it again for Verve. The Commodore release did not get any airplay, but the controversial song sold well, though Gabler attributed that mostly to the record's other side, "Fine and Mellow", which was a jukebox hit. "The version I recorded for Commodore", Holiday said of "Strange Fruit", "became my biggest-selling record." "Strange Fruit" was the equivalent of a top-twenty hit in the 1930s.
Holiday's popularity increased after "Strange Fruit". She received a mention in Time magazine. "I open Café Society as an unknown", Holiday said. "I left two years later as a star. I needed the prestige and publicity all right, but you can't pay rent with it." She soon demanded a raise from her manager, Joe Glaser. Holiday returned to Commodore in 1944, recording songs she made with Teddy Wilson in the 1930s, including "I Cover the Waterfront", "I'll Get By", and "He's Funny That Way". She also recorded new songs that were popular at the time, including, "My Old Flame", "How Am I to Know?", "I'm Yours", and "I'll Be Seeing You", a number one hit for Bing Crosby. She also recorded her version of "Embraceable You", which was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2005.
1940–1947: Commercial success
Holiday's mother Sadie, nicknamed "The Duchess", opened a restaurant called Mom Holiday's. She used money from her daughter while playing dice with members of the Count Basie band, with whom she toured in the late 1930s. "It kept Mom busy and happy and stopped her from worrying and watching over me", Holiday said. Fagan began borrowing large amounts from Holiday to support the restaurant. Holiday obliged but soon fell on hard times herself. "I needed some money one night and I knew Mom was sure to have some", she said. "So I walked in the restaurant like a stockholder and asked. Mom turned me down flat. She wouldn't give me a cent." The two argued, and Holiday shouted angrily, "God bless the child that's got his own", and stormed out. With Arthur Herzog, Jr., a pianist, she wrote a song based on the lyric, "God Bless the Child", and added music. "God Bless the Child" became Holiday's most popular and most covered record. It reached number 25 on the charts in 1941 and was third in Billboard'''s songs of the year, selling over a million records.Jazz History: The Standards (1940s). Jazzstandards.com. Retrieved November 13, 2010. In 1976, the song was added to the Grammy Hall of Fame. Herzog claimed Holiday contributed only a few lines to the lyrics. He said she came up with the line "God bless the child" from a dinner conversation the two had had.
On June 24, 1942, Holiday recorded "Trav'lin Light" with Paul Whiteman for a new label, Capitol Records. Because she was under contract to Columbia, she used the pseudonym "Lady Day". The song reached number 23 on the pop charts and number one on the R&B charts, then called the Harlem Hit Parade. In September 1943, Life magazine wrote, "She has the most distinct style of any popular vocalist and is imitated by other vocalists."
Milt Gabler, in addition to owning Commodore Records, became an A&R man for Decca Records. He signed Holiday to Decca on August 7, 1944, when she was 29. Her first Decca recording was "Lover Man" (number 16 Pop, number 5 R&B), one of her biggest hits. The success and distribution of the song made Holiday a staple in the pop community, leading to solo concerts, rare for jazz singers in the late 1940s. Gabler said, "I made Billie a real pop singer. That was right in her. Billie loved those songs." Jimmy Davis and Roger "Ram" Ramirez, the song's writers, had tried to interest Holiday in the song. In 1943, a flamboyant male torch singer, Willie Dukes, began singing "Lover Man" on 52nd Street. Because of his success, Holiday added it to her shows. The record's flip side was "No More", one of her favorites. Holiday asked Gabler for strings on the recording. Such arrangements were associated with Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald. "I went on my knees to him", Holiday said. "I didn't want to do it with the ordinary six pieces. I begged Milt and told him I had to have strings behind me." On October 4, 1944, Holiday entered the studio to record "Lover Man", saw the string ensemble and walked out. The musical director, Toots Camarata, said Holiday was overwhelmed with joy. She may also have wanted strings to avoid comparisons between her commercially successful early work with Teddy Wilson and everything produced afterwards. Her 1930s recordings with Wilson used a small jazz combo; recordings for Decca often involved strings. A month later, in November, Holiday returned to Decca to record "That Ole Devil Called Love", "Big Stuff", and "Don't Explain". She wrote "Don't Explain" after she caught her husband, Jimmy Monroe, with lipstick on his collar.
Holiday did not make any more records until August 1945, when she recorded "Don't Explain" for a second time, changing the lyrics "I know you raise Cain" to "Just say you'll remain" and changing "You mixed with some dame" to "What is there to gain?" Other songs recorded were "Big Stuff", "What Is This Thing Called Love?", and "You Better Go Now". Ella Fitzgerald named "You Better Go Now" her favorite recording of Holiday's. "Big Stuff" and "Don't Explain" were recorded again but with additional strings and a viola. In 1946, Holiday recorded "Good Morning Heartache". Although the song failed to chart, she sang it in live performances; three live recordings are known.
In September 1946, Holiday began her only major film, New Orleans, in which she starred opposite Louis Armstrong and Woody Herman. Plagued by racism and McCarthyism, producer Jules Levey and script writer Herbert Biberman were pressed to lessen Holiday's and Armstrong's roles to avoid the impression that black people created jazz. The attempts failed because in 1947 Biberman was listed as one of the Hollywood Ten and sent to jail. Several scenes were deleted from the film. "They had taken miles of footage of music and scenes", Holiday said, but "none of it was left in the picture. And very damn little of me. I know I wore a white dress for a number I did... and that was cut out of the picture." She recorded "The Blues Are Brewin'" for the film's soundtrack. Other songs included in the movie are "Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans?" and "Farewell to Storyville". Holiday's drug addictions were a problem on the set. She earned more than one thousand dollars per week from club ventures but spent most of it on heroin. Her lover, Joe Guy, traveled to Hollywood while Holiday was filming and supplied her with drugs. Guy was banned from the set when he was found there by Holiday's manager, Joe Glaser.
By the late 1940s, Holiday had begun recording a number of slow, sentimental ballads. Metronome expressed its concerns in 1946 about "Good Morning Heartache", saying, "there's a danger that Billie's present formula will wear thin, but up to now it's wearing well." The New York Herald Tribune reported of a concert in 1946 that her performance had little variation in melody and no change in tempo.
1947–1952: Legal issues and Carnegie Hall concert
By 1947, Holiday was at her commercial peak, having made $250,000 in the three previous years. She was ranked second in the DownBeat poll for 1946 and 1947, her highest ranking in that poll. She was ranked fifth in Billboard 's annual college poll of "girl singers" on July 6, 1947 (Jo Stafford was first). In 1946, Holiday won the Metronome magazine popularity poll.
On May 16, 1947, Holiday was arrested for possession of narcotics in her New York apartment. On May 27 she was in court. "It was called 'The United States of America versus Billie Holiday'. And that's just the way it felt", she recalled. During the trial, she heard that her lawyer would not come to the trial to represent her. "In plain English that meant no one in the world was interested in looking out for me," she said. Dehydrated and unable to hold down food, she pleaded guilty and asked to be sent to the hospital. The district attorney spoke in her defense, saying, "If your honor please, this is a case of a drug addict, but more serious, however, than most of our cases, Miss Holiday is a professional entertainer and among the higher rank as far as income was concerned." She was sentenced to Alderson Federal Prison Camp in West Virginia. The drug possession conviction caused her to lose her New York City Cabaret Card, preventing her working anywhere that sold alcohol; thereafter, she performed in concert venues and theaters.
Holiday was released early (on March 16, 1948) because of good behavior. When she arrived at Newark, her pianist Bobby Tucker and her dog Mister were waiting. The dog leaped at Holiday, knocking off her hat, and tackling her to the ground. "He began lapping me and loving me like crazy", she said. A woman thought the dog was attacking Holiday. She screamed, a crowd gathered, and reporters arrived. "I might just as well have wheeled into Penn Station and had a quiet little get-together with the Associated Press, United Press, and International News Service", she said.
Ed Fishman (who fought with Joe Glaser to be Holiday's manager) thought of a comeback concert at Carnegie Hall. Holiday hesitated, unsure audiences would accept her after the arrest. She gave in and agreed to appear. On March 27, 1948, Holiday played Carnegie Hall to a sold-out crowd. 2,700 tickets were sold in advance, a record at the time for the venue. Her popularity was unusual because she didn't have a current hit record. Her last record to reach the charts was "Lover Man" in 1945. Holiday sang 32 songs at the Carnegie concert by her count, including Cole Porter's "Night and Day" and her 1930s hit, "Strange Fruit". During the show, someone sent her a box of gardenias. "My old trademark", Holiday said. "I took them out of box and fastened them smack to the side of my head without even looking twice." There was a hatpin in the gardenias and Holiday unknowingly stuck it into the side of her head. "I didn't feel anything until the blood started rushing down in my eyes and ears", she said. After the third curtain call, she passed out.
On April 27, 1948, Bob Sylvester and her promoter Al Wilde arranged a Broadway show for her. Titled Holiday on Broadway, it sold out. "The regular music critics and drama critics came and treated us like we were legit", she said. But it closed after three weeks.
Holiday was arrested again on January 22, 1949, in her room at the Hotel Mark Twain in San Francisco. Holiday said she began using hard drugs in the early 1940s. She married trombonist Jimmy Monroe on August 25, 1941. While still married, she became involved with trumpeter Joe Guy, her drug dealer. She divorced Monroe in 1947 and also split with Guy.
In October 1949, Holiday recorded "Crazy He Calls Me", which was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2010. Gabler said the hit was her most successful recording for Decca after "Lover Man". The charts of the 1940s did not list songs outside the top 30, making it impossible to recognize minor hits. By the late 1940s, despite her popularity and concert power, her singles were little played on radio, perhaps because of her reputation.
The loss of her cabaret card reduced Holiday's earnings. She had not received proper record royalties until she joined Decca, so her main revenue was club concerts. The problem worsened when Holiday's records went out of print in the 1950s. She seldom received royalties in her later years. In 1958, she received a royalty of only $11.Nicholson, p. 167. Her lawyer in the late 1950s, Earle Warren Zaidins, registered with BMI only two songs she had written or co-written, costing her revenue. In 1948, Holiday played at the Ebony Club, which was against the law. Her manager, John Levy, was convinced he could get her card back and allowed her to open without one. "I opened scared", Holiday said, "[I was] expecting the cops to come in any chorus and carry me off. But nothing happened. I was a huge success."
Holiday recorded Gershwin's "I Loves You, Porgy" in 1948. In 1950, Holiday appeared in the Universal short film Sugar Chile Robinson, Billie Holiday, Count Basie and His Sextet, singing "God Bless the Child" and "Now, Baby or Never".
1952–1959: Lady Sings the Blues
By the 1950s, Holiday's drug use, drinking, and relationships with abusive men caused her health to deteriorate. She appeared on the ABC reality series The Comeback Story to discuss attempts to overcome her misfortunes. Her later recordings showed the effects of declining health on her voice, as it grew coarse and no longer projected its former vibrancy.
Holiday first toured Europe in 1954 as part of a Leonard Feather package. The Swedish impresario, Nils Hellstrom, initiated the "Jazz Club U.S.A." (after the Leonard Feather radio show) tour starting in Stockholm in January 1954 and then Germany, Netherlands, Paris and Switzerland. The tour party was Holiday, Buddy DeFranco, Red Norvo, Carl Drinkard, Elaine Leighton, Sonny Clark, Berryl Booker, Jimmy Raney and Red Mitchell. A recording of a live set in Germany was released as Lady Love – Billie Holiday.
Holiday's autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues, was ghostwritten by William Dufty and published in 1956. Dufty, a New York Post writer and editor then married to Holiday's close friend Maely Dufty, wrote the book quickly from a series of conversations with the singer in the Duftys' 93rd Street apartment. He also drew on the work of earlier interviewers and intended to let Holiday tell her story in her own way. In his 2015 study, Billie Holiday: The Musician and the Myth, John Szwed argued that Lady Sings the Blues is a generally accurate account of her life, but that co-writer Dufty was forced to water down or suppress material by the threat of legal action. According to the reviewer Richard Brody, "Szwed traces the stories of two important relationships that are missing from the book—with Charles Laughton, in the 1930s, and with Tallulah Bankhead, in the late 1940s—and of one relationship that's sharply diminished in the book, her affair with Orson Welles around the time of Citizen Kane." To accompany her autobiography, Holiday released the LP Lady Sings the Blues in June 1956. The album featured four new tracks, "Lady Sings the Blues", "Too Marvelous for Words", "Willow Weep for Me", and "I Thought About You", and eight new recordings of her biggest hits to date. The re-recordings included "Trav'lin' Light" "Strange Fruit" and "God Bless the Child". A review of the album was published by Billboard magazine on December 22, 1956, calling it a worthy musical complement to her autobiography. "Holiday is in good voice now", wrote the reviewer, "and these new readings will be much appreciated by her following". "Strange Fruit" and "God Bless the Child" were called classics, and "Good Morning Heartache", another reissued track on the LP, was also noted favorably.
On November 10, 1956, Holiday performed two concerts before packed audiences at Carnegie Hall. Live recordings of the second Carnegie Hall concert were released on a Verve/HMV album in the UK in late 1961 called The Essential Billie Holiday. The 13 tracks included on this album featured her own songs "I Love My Man", "Don't Explain" and "Fine and Mellow", together with other songs closely associated with her, including "Body and Soul", "My Man", and "Lady Sings the Blues" (her lyrics accompanied a tune by pianist Herbie Nichols). The liner notes for this album were written partly by Gilbert Millstein of the New York Times, who, according to these notes, served as narrator of the Carnegie Hall concerts. Interspersed among Holiday's songs, Millstein read aloud four lengthy passages from her autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues. He later wrote:
The critic Nat Hentoff of DownBeat magazine, who attended the Carnegie Hall concert, wrote the remainder of the sleeve notes on the 1961 album. He wrote of Holiday's performance:
Her performance of "Fine and Mellow" on CBS's The Sound of Jazz program is memorable for her interplay with her long-time friend Lester Young. Both were less than two years from death. Young died in March 1959. Holiday wanted to sing at his funeral, but her request was denied.
When Holiday returned to Europe almost five years later, in 1959, she made one of her last television appearances for Granada's Chelsea at Nine in London. Her final studio recordings were made for MGM Records in 1959, with lush backing from Ray Ellis and his Orchestra, who had also accompanied her on the Columbia album Lady in Satin the previous year (see below). The MGM sessions were released posthumously on a self-titled album, later retitled and re-released as Last Recording.
On March 28, 1957, Holiday married Louis McKay, a mob enforcer. McKay, like most of the men in her life, was abusive. They were separated at the time of her death, but McKay had plans to start a chain of Billie Holiday vocal studios, on the model of the Arthur Murray dance schools. Holiday was childless, but she had two godchildren: singer Billie Lorraine Feather (the daughter of Leonard Feather) and Bevan Dufty (the son of William Dufty).
Illness and death
By early 1959, Holiday was diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver. Although she had initially stopped drinking on her doctor's orders, it was not long before she relapsed. By May 1959, she had lost . Her manager Joe Glaser, jazz critic Leonard Feather, photojournalist Allan Morrison, and the singer's own friends all tried in vain to persuade her to go to a hospital. On May 31, 1959, Holiday was taken to Metropolitan Hospital in New York for treatment of liver disease and heart disease. According to writer and journalist Johann Hari, the Federal Bureau of Narcotics under Harry J. Anslinger, had been targeting Holiday since at least 1939, when she started to perform "Strange Fruit". Narcotics police went to her hospital room, claiming they had found heroin in her bedroom. A grand jury was summoned to indict her and she was arrested and handcuffed to her bed and placed under police guard. According to Hari, after 10 days, methadone was discontinued as part of Anslinger's policy; Hari accused Anslinger of being responsible for her death. On July 15, she received last rites. She died at age 44, at 3:10 a.m. on July 17, of pulmonary edema and heart failure caused by cirrhosis of the liver.
In her final years, Holiday had been progressively swindled out of her earnings, and she died with US$0.70 in the bank. Her funeral Mass was held on July 21, 1959, at the Church of St. Paul the Apostle in Manhattan. She was buried at Saint Raymond's Cemetery in the Bronx. The story of her burial plot and how it was managed by her estranged husband, Louis McKay, was documented on NPR in 2012.
Gilbert Millstein of The New York Times, who was the announcer at Holiday's 1956 Carnegie Hall concerts and wrote parts of the sleeve notes for the album The Essential Billie Holiday (see above), described her death in these sleeve notes, dated 1961:
When Holiday died, The New York Times published a short obituary on page 15 without a byline. She left an estate of $1,000, and her best recordings from the 1930s were mostly out of print. Holiday's public stature grew in the following years. In 1961, she was voted to the Down Beat Hall Of Fame, and soon after Columbia reissued nearly one hundred of her early records. In 1972, Diana Ross' portrayal of Holiday in Lady Sings the Blues was nominated for an Oscar and won a Golden Globe. Holiday was posthumously nominated for 23 Grammy awards.
Legacy
Billie Holiday received several Esquire Magazine awards during her lifetime. Her posthumous awards also include being inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, Ertegun Jazz Hall of Fame, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and the ASCAP Jazz Wall of Fame. In 1985, a statue of Billie Holiday was erected in Baltimore; the statue was completed in 1993 with additional panels of images inspired by her seminal song Strange Fruit. In 2019, Chirlane McCray announced that New York City would build a statue honoring Holiday near Queens Borough Hall.
The Billie Holiday Monument is located at Pennsylvania and West Lafayette avenues in Baltimore's Upton neighborhood.
Vocal style and range
Holiday's delivery made her performances recognizable throughout her career. Her improvisation compensated for lack of musical education. Holiday said that she always wanted her voice to sound like an instrument and some of her influences were Louis Armstrong and the singer Bessie Smith. Her last major recording, a 1958 album entitled Lady in Satin, features the backing of a 40-piece orchestra conducted and arranged by Ray Ellis, who said of the album in 1997:
Frank Sinatra was influenced by her performances on 52nd Street as a young man. He told Ebony magazine in 1958 about her impact:
Films and plays about Holiday
The biographical film Lady Sings the Blues, loosely based on Holiday's autobiography, was released in 1972 and was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Diana Ross for Best Actress. Another film, The United States vs. Billie Holiday, starred Andra Day and was released in 2021. It is based on the book Chasing the Scream by Johann Hari. Director Lee Daniels saw how Holiday was portrayed in the 1972 biopic, and wanted to show her legacy as "a civil rights leader [...] not just a drug addict or a jazz singer". Day was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance and won a Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama in 2021.
Holiday is the primary character in the play Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill, with music by Lanie Robertson. It takes place in South Philadelphia in March 1959. It premiered in 1986 at the Alliance Theatre and has been revived several times. A Broadway production starring Audra McDonald was filmed and broadcast on HBO in 2016; McDonald received an Emmy Award nomination and a record-breaking Tony Award win, becoming the most decorated performer in Tony history with six awards across all four eligible competitive categories. Billie is a 2019 documentary film based on interviews in the 1970s by Linda Lipnack Kuehl, who was researching a book on Holiday that was never completed.
Billie Holiday was also portrayed by actress Paula Jai Parker in Touched by an Angel's 2000 episode "God Bless the Child".
Discography
Billie Holiday recorded extensively for four labels: Columbia Records, which issued her recordings on its subsidiary labels Brunswick Records, Vocalion Records and OKeh Records, from 1933 through 1942; Commodore Records in 1939 and 1944; Decca Records from 1944 through 1950; briefly for Aladdin Records in 1951; Verve Records and on its earlier imprint Clef Records from 1952 through 1957, then again for Columbia Records from 1957 to 1958 and finally for MGM Records in 1959. Many of Holiday's recordings appeared on 78-rpm records prior to the long-playing vinyl record era, and only Clef, Verve, and Columbia issued albums during her lifetime that were not compilations of previously released material. Many compilations have been issued since her death, as well as comprehensive box sets and live recordings.[ Billie Holiday]. AllMusic. Retrieved on November 13, 2010.
Hit records
In 1986, Joel Whitburn's company Record Research compiled information on the popularity of recordings released from the era predating rock and roll and created pop charts dating back to the beginning of the commercial recording industry. The company's findings were published in the book Pop Memories 1890–1954. Several of Holiday's records are listed on the pop charts Whitburn created.
Holiday began her recording career on a high note with her first major release, "Riffin' the Scotch", of which 5,000 copies were sold. It was released under the name "Benny Goodman & His Orchestra" in 1933.
Most of Holiday's early successes were released under the name "Teddy Wilson & His Orchestra". During her stay in Wilson's band, Holiday would sing a few bars and then other musicians would have a solo. Wilson, one of the most influential jazz pianists of the swing era, accompanied Holiday more than any other musician. He and Holiday issued 95 recordings together.
In July 1936, Holiday began releasing sides under her own name. These songs were released under the band name "Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra". Most noteworthy, the popular jazz standard "Summertime" sold well and was listed on the pop charts of the time at number 12, the first time the jazz standard charted. Only Billy Stewart's R&B version of "Summertime" reached a higher chart placement than Holiday's, charting at number 10 thirty years later in 1966.
Holiday had 16 best-selling songs in 1937, making the year her most commercially successful. It was in this year that Holiday scored her sole number one hit as a featured vocalist on the available pop charts of the 1930s, "Carelessly". The hit "I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm", was also recorded by Ray Noble, Glen Gray and Fred Astaire, whose rendering was a bestseller for weeks. Holiday's version ranked 6 on the year-end single chart available for 1937.
In 1939, Holiday recorded her biggest selling record, "Strange Fruit" for Commodore, charting at number 16 on the available pop charts for the 1930s.
In 1940, Billboard began publishing its modern pop charts, which included the Best Selling Retail Records chart, the precursor to the Hot 100. None of Holiday's songs placed on the modern pop charts, partly because Billboard only published the first ten slots of the charts in some issues. Minor hits and independent releases had no way of being spotlighted.
"God Bless the Child", which went on to sell over a million copies, ranked number 3 on Billboards year-end top songs of 1941.
On October 24, 1942, Billboard began issuing its R&B charts. Two of Holiday's songs placed on the chart, "Trav'lin' Light" with Paul Whiteman, which topped the chart, and "Lover Man", which reached number 5. "Trav'lin' Light" also reached 18 on Billboards year-end chart.
Studio LPsBillie Holiday Sings (1952)An Evening with Billie Holiday (1952)Billie Holiday (1954)Music for Torching (1955)Velvet Mood (1956)Lady Sings the Blues (1956)Body and Soul (1957)Songs for Distingué Lovers (1957)Stay with Me (1958)All or Nothing at All (1958)Lady in Satin (1958)Last Recording (1959)
Filmography
Theatrical films
1933: The Emperor Jones, appeared as an extra
1935: Symphony in Black, short (with Duke Ellington)
1947: New Orleans1950: 'Sugar Chile' Robinson, Billie Holiday, Count Basie and His Sextet''
Television appearances
(1) = Available on audio
(2) = Available on DVD
See also
List of awards and nominations received by Billie Holiday
List of craters on Venus
List of people on the postage stamps of the United States
List of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees
References
Bibliography
This Discography is still available: see Facebook page The Billie Holiday Circle.
Further reading
External links
Discography
"Twelve Essential Billie Holiday Recordings" by Stuart Nicholson, Jazz.com
Billie Holiday at the Playbill Vault
Billie Holiday on Find A Grave
Emory University: Billie Holiday collection, 1953-1981
1915 births
1959 deaths
20th-century African-American women singers
African-American women singer-songwriters
Aladdin Records artists
Alcohol-related deaths in New York (state)
American contraltos
American women jazz singers
American people convicted of drug offenses
American prisoners and detainees
American street performers
Ballad musicians
Burials at Saint Raymond's Cemetery (Bronx)
Classic female blues singers
Columbia Records artists
Deaths from cirrhosis
Decca Records artists
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners
Jazz musicians from Maryland
Jazz musicians from Pennsylvania
Musicians from Baltimore
Musicians from Philadelphia
Singer-songwriters from Pennsylvania
Swing singers
Torch singers
Traditional pop music singers
Vocalion Records artists
African-American Catholics
Singer-songwriters from Maryland
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"Don Juan Manuel's Tales of Count Lucanor, in Spanish Libro de los ejemplos del conde Lucanor y de Patronio (Book of the Examples of Count Lucanor and of Patronio), also commonly known as El Conde Lucanor, Libro de Patronio, or Libro de los ejemplos (original Old Castilian: Libro de los enxiemplos del Conde Lucanor et de Patronio), is one of the earliest works of prose in Castilian Spanish. It was first written in 1335.\n\nThe book is divided into four parts. The first and most well-known part is a series of 51 short stories (some no more than a page or two) drawn from various sources, such as Aesop and other classical writers, and Arabic folktales.\n\nTales of Count Lucanor was first printed in 1575 when it was published at Seville under the auspices of Argote de Molina. It was again printed at Madrid in 1642, after which it lay forgotten for nearly two centuries.\n\nPurpose and structure\n\nA didactic, moralistic purpose, which would color so much of the Spanish literature to follow (see Novela picaresca), is the mark of this book. Count Lucanor engages in conversation with his advisor Patronio, putting to him a problem (\"Some man has made me a proposition...\" or \"I fear that such and such person intends to...\") and asking for advice. Patronio responds always with the greatest humility, claiming not to wish to offer advice to so illustrious a person as the Count, but offering to tell him a story of which the Count's problem reminds him. (Thus, the stories are \"examples\" [ejemplos] of wise action.) At the end he advises the Count to do as the protagonist of his story did.\n\nEach chapter ends in more or less the same way, with slight variations on: \"And this pleased the Count greatly and he did just so, and found it well. And Don Johán (Juan) saw that this example was very good, and had it written in this book, and composed the following verses.\" A rhymed couplet closes, giving the moral of the story.\n\nOrigin of stories and influence on later literature\nMany of the stories written in the book are the first examples written in a modern European language of various stories, which many other writers would use in the proceeding centuries. Many of the stories he included were themselves derived from other stories, coming from western and Arab sources.\n\nShakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew has the basic elements of Tale 35, \"What Happened to a Young Man Who Married a Strong and Ill-tempered Woman\".\n\nTale 32, \"What Happened to the King and the Tricksters Who Made Cloth\" tells the story that Hans Christian Andersen made popular as The Emperor's New Clothes.\n\nStory 7, \"What Happened to a Woman Named Truhana\", a version of Aesop's The Milkmaid and Her Pail, was claimed by Max Müller to originate in the Hindu cycle Panchatantra.\n\nTale 2, \"What happened to a good Man and his Son, leading a beast to market,\" is the familiar fable The miller, his son and the donkey.\n\nIn 2016, Baroque Decay released a game under the name \"The Count Lucanor\". As well as some protagonists' names, certain events from the books inspired past events in the game.\n\nThe stories\n\nThe book opens with a prologue which introduces the characters of the Count and Patronio. The titles in the following list are those given in Keller and Keating's 1977 translation into English. James York's 1868 translation into English gives a significantly different ordering of the stories and omits the fifty-first.\n\n What Happened to a King and His Favorite \n What Happened to a Good Man and His Son \n How King Richard of England Leapt into the Sea against the Moors\n What a Genoese Said to His Soul When He Was about to Die \n What Happened to a Fox and a Crow Who Had a Piece of Cheese in His Beak\n How the Swallow Warned the Other Birds When She Saw Flax Being Sown \n What Happened to a Woman Named Truhana \n What Happened to a Man Whose Liver Had to Be Washed \n What Happened to Two Horses Which Were Thrown to the Lion \n What Happened to a Man Who on Account of Poverty and Lack of Other Food Was Eating Bitter Lentils \n What Happened to a Dean of Santiago de Compostela and Don Yllán, the Grand Master of Toledo\n What Happened to the Fox and the Rooster \n What Happened to a Man Who Was Hunting Partridges \n The Miracle of Saint Dominick When He Preached against the Usurer \n What Happened to Lorenzo Suárez at the Siege of Seville \n The Reply that count Fernán González Gave to His Relative Núño Laynes \n What Happened to a Very Hungry Man Who Was Half-heartedly Invited to Dinner \n What Happened to Pero Meléndez de Valdés When He Broke His Leg \n What Happened to the Crows and the Owls \n What Happened to a King for Whom a Man Promised to Perform Alchemy \n What Happened to a Young King and a Philosopher to Whom his Father Commended Him \n What Happened to the Lion and the Bull \n How the Ants Provide for Themselves \n What Happened to the King Who Wanted to Test His Three Sons \n What Happened to the Count of Provence and How He Was Freed from Prison by the Advice of Saladin\n What Happened to the Tree of Lies \n What Happened to an Emperor and to Don Alvarfáñez Minaya and Their Wives \n What Happened in Granada to Don Lorenzo Suárez Gallinato When He Beheaded the Renegade Chaplain \n What Happened to a Fox Who Lay down in the Street to Play Dead \n What Happened to King Abenabet of Seville and Ramayquía His Wife \n How a Cardinal Judged between the Canons of Paris and the Friars Minor \n What Happened to the King and the Tricksters Who Made Cloth \n What Happened to Don Juan Manuel's Saker Falcon and an Eagle and a Heron \n What Happened to a Blind Man Who Was Leading Another \n What Happened to a Young Man Who Married a Strong and Ill-tempered Woman\n What Happened to a Merchant When He Found His Son and His Wife Sleeping Together \n What Happened to Count Fernán González with His Men after He Had Won the Battle of Hacinas \n What Happened to a Man Who Was Loaded down with Precious Stones and Drowned in the River \n What Happened to a Man and a Swallow and a Sparrow \n Why the Seneschal of Carcassonne Lost His Soul \n What Happened to a King of Córdova Named Al-Haquem \n What Happened to a Woman of Sham Piety \n What Happened to Good and Evil and the Wise Man and the Madman \n What Happened to Don Pero Núñez the Loyal, to Don Ruy González de Zavallos, and to Don Gutier Roiz de Blaguiello with Don Rodrigo the Generous \n What Happened to a Man Who Became the Devil's Friend and Vassal \n What Happened to a Philosopher who by Accident Went down a Street Where Prostitutes Lived \n What Befell a Moor and His Sister Who Pretended That She Was Timid \n What Happened to a Man Who Tested His Friends \n What Happened to the Man Whom They Cast out Naked on an Island When They Took away from Him the Kingdom He Ruled \n What Happened to Saladin and a Lady, the Wife of a Knight Who Was His Vassal \n What Happened to a Christian King Who Was Very Powerful and Haughty\n\nReferences\n\nNotes\n\nBibliography\n\n Sturm, Harlan\n\n Wacks, David\n\nExternal links\n\nThe Internet Archive provides free access to the 1868 translation by James York.\nJSTOR has the to the 1977 translation by Keller and Keating.\nSelections in English and Spanish (pedagogical edition) with introduction, notes, and bibliography in Open Iberia/América (open access teaching anthology)\n\n14th-century books\nSpanish literature\n1335 books",
"\"What Happened to Us\" is a song by Australian recording artist Jessica Mauboy, featuring English recording artist Jay Sean. It was written by Sean, Josh Alexander, Billy Steinberg, Jeremy Skaller, Rob Larow, Khaled Rohaim and Israel Cruz. \"What Happened to Us\" was leaked online in October 2010, and was released on 10 March 2011, as the third single from Mauboy's second studio album, Get 'Em Girls (2010). The song received positive reviews from critics.\n\nA remix of \"What Happened to Us\" made by production team OFM, was released on 11 April 2011. A different version of the song which features Stan Walker, was released on 29 May 2011. \"What Happened to Us\" charted on the ARIA Singles Chart at number 14 and was certified platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA). An accompanying music video was directed by Mark Alston, and reminisces on a former relationship between Mauboy and Sean.\n\nProduction and release\n\n\"What Happened to Us\" was written by Josh Alexander, Billy Steinberg, Jeremy Skaller, Rob Larow, Khaled Rohaim, Israel Cruz and Jay Sean. It was produced by Skaller, Cruz, Rohaim and Bobby Bass. The song uses C, D, and B minor chords in the chorus. \"What Happened to Us\" was sent to contemporary hit radio in Australia on 14 February 2011. The cover art for the song was revealed on 22 February on Mauboy's official Facebook page. A CD release was available for purchase via her official website on 10 March, for one week only. It was released digitally the following day.\n\nReception\nMajhid Heath from ABC Online Indigenous called the song a \"Jordin Sparks-esque duet\", and wrote that it \"has a nice innocence to it that rings true to the experience of losing a first love.\" Chris Urankar from Nine to Five wrote that it as a \"mid-tempo duet ballad\" which signifies Mauboy's strength as a global player. On 21 March 2011, \"What Happened to Us\" debuted at number 30 on the ARIA Singles Chart, and peaked at number 14 the following week. The song was certified platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA), for selling 70,000 copies. \"What Happened to Us\" spent a total of ten weeks in the ARIA top fifty.\n\nMusic video\n\nBackground\nThe music video for the song was shot in the Elizabeth Bay House in Sydney on 26 November 2010. The video was shot during Sean's visit to Australia for the Summerbeatz tour. During an interview with The Daily Telegraph while on the set of the video, Sean said \"the song is sick! ... Jessica's voice is amazing and we're shooting [the video] in this ridiculously beautiful mansion overlooking the harbour.\" The video was directed by Mark Alston, who had previously directed the video for Mauboy's single \"Let Me Be Me\" (2009). It premiered on YouTube on 10 February 2011.\n\nSynopsis and reception\nThe video begins showing Mauboy who appears to be sitting on a yellow antique couch in a mansion, wearing a purple dress. As the video progresses, scenes of memories are displayed of Mauboy and her love interest, played by Sean, spending time there previously. It then cuts to the scenes where Sean appears in the main entrance room of the mansion. The final scene shows Mauboy outdoors in a gold dress, surrounded by green grass and trees. She is later joined by Sean who appears in a black suit and a white shirt, and together they sing the chorus of the song to each other. David Lim of Feed Limmy wrote that the video is \"easily the best thing our R&B princess has committed to film – ever\" and praised the \"mansion and wondrous interior décor\". He also commended Mauboy for choosing Australian talent to direct the video instead of American directors, which she had used for her previous two music videos. Since its release, the video has received over two million views on Vevo.\n\nLive performances\nMauboy performed \"What Happened to Us\" live for the first time during her YouTube Live Sessions program on 4 December 2010. She also appeared on Adam Hills in Gordon Street Tonight on 23 February 2011 for an interview and later performed the song. On 15 March 2011, Mauboy performed \"What Happened to Us\" on Sunrise. She also performed the song with Stan Walker during the Australian leg of Chris Brown's F.A.M.E. Tour in April 2011. Mauboy and Walker later performed \"What Happened to Us\" on Dancing with the Stars Australia on 29 May 2011. From November 2013 to February 2014, \"What Happened to Us\" was part of the set list of the To the End of the Earth Tour, Mauboy's second headlining tour of Australia, with Nathaniel Willemse singing Sean's part.\n\nTrack listing\n\nDigital download\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean – 3:19\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (Sgt Slick Remix) – 6:33\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (Just Witness Remix) – 3:45\n\nCD single\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (Album Version) – 3:19\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (Sgt Slick Remix) – 6:33\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (OFM Remix) – 3:39\n\nDigital download – Remix\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (OFM Remix) – 3:38\n\nDigital download\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Stan Walker – 3:20\n\nPersonnel\nSongwriting – Josh Alexander, Billy Steinberg, Jeremy Skaller, Rob Larow, Khaled Rohaim, Israel Cruz, Jay Sean\nProduction – Jeremy Skaller, Bobby Bass\nAdditional production – Israel Cruz, Khaled Rohaim\nLead vocals – Jessica Mauboy, Jay Sean\nMixing – Phil Tan\nAdditional mixing – Damien Lewis\nMastering – Tom Coyne \nSource:\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly chart\n\nYear-end chart\n\nCertification\n\nRadio dates and release history\n\nReferences\n\n2010 songs\n2011 singles\nJessica Mauboy songs\nJay Sean songs\nSongs written by Billy Steinberg\nSongs written by Jay Sean\nSongs written by Josh Alexander\nSongs written by Israel Cruz\nVocal duets\nSony Music Australia singles\nSongs written by Khaled Rohaim"
] |
[
"Billie Holiday",
"1935-38: Recordings with Teddy Wilson",
"What happened in 1935?",
"In 1935 Holiday was signed to Brunswick Records by John Hammond to record current pop tunes with Teddy Wilson in the new swing style for the growing jukebox trade.",
"What happened in 1936?",
"Hammond spoke about the commercial impact of the Wilson-Holiday sides from 1935 to 1938, calling them a great asset to Brunswick."
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What happened in 1937?
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What happened in 1937 to Billie Holiday?
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Billie Holiday
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In 1935 Holiday was signed to Brunswick Records by John Hammond to record current pop tunes with Teddy Wilson in the new swing style for the growing jukebox trade. They were given free rein to improvise the material. Holiday's improvisation of melody to fit the emotion was revolutionary. Their first collaboration included "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" and "Miss Brown to You". "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" has been deemed her "claim to fame." Brunswick did not favor the recording session, because producers wanted Holiday to sound more like Cleo Brown. After "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" garnered success, however, the company began considering Holiday an artist in her own right. She began recording under her own name a year later (on the 35-cent Vocalion label), producing a series of extraordinary performances with groups comprising the swing era's finest musicians. The sessions were co-produced by Hammond and Bernie Hanighen. With their arrangements, Wilson and Holiday took pedestrian pop tunes, such as "Twenty-Four Hours a Day" (number 6 Pop) and "Yankee Doodle Went to Town", and turned them into jazz classics. Most of Holiday's recordings with Wilson or under her own name during the 1930s and early 1940s are regarded as important parts of the jazz vocal library. She was then in her twenties. Another frequent accompanist was the tenor saxophonist Lester Young, who had been a boarder at her mother's house in 1934 and with whom Holiday had a special rapport. He said, "I think you can hear that on some of the old records, you know. Some time I'd sit down and listen to 'em myself, and it sound like two of the same voices, if you don't be careful, you know, or the same mind, or something like that." Young nicknamed her "Lady Day", and she called him "Prez". Hammond spoke about the commercial impact of the Wilson-Holiday sides from 1935 to 1938, calling them a great asset to Brunswick. The record label, according to Hammond, was broke and unable to record many jazz tunes. Wilson, Holiday, Young, and other musicians came into the studio without musical arrangements and improvised as they performed, dispensing with the expense of having written arrangements, so that the records they produced were cheap. Holiday was never given any royalties for her work, instead being paid a flat fee, which saved the company money. Some of the records produced were successful, such as "I Cried for You", which sold 15,000 copies. Hammond said of the record, "15,000 ... was a giant hit for Brunswick in those days. I mean a giant hit. Most records that made money sold around three to four thousand." CANNOTANSWER
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CANNOTANSWER
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Billie Holiday (born Eleanora Fagan; April 7, 1915 – July 17, 1959) was an American jazz and swing music singer. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and music partner, Lester Young, Holiday had an innovative influence on jazz music and pop singing. Her vocal style, strongly inspired by jazz instrumentalists, pioneered a new way of manipulating phrasing and tempo. She was known for her vocal delivery and improvisational skills.
After a turbulent childhood, Holiday began singing in nightclubs in Harlem, where she was heard by producer John Hammond, who liked her voice. She signed a recording contract with Brunswick in 1935. Collaborations with Teddy Wilson produced the hit "What a Little Moonlight Can Do", which became a jazz standard. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, Holiday had mainstream success on labels such as Columbia and Decca. By the late 1940s, however, she was beset with legal troubles and drug abuse. After a short prison sentence, she performed at a sold-out concert at Carnegie Hall.
She was a successful concert performer throughout the 1950s with two further sold-out shows at Carnegie Hall. Because of personal struggles and an altered voice, her final recordings were met with mixed reaction but were mild commercial successes. Her final album, Lady in Satin, was released in 1958. Holiday died of cirrhosis on July 17, 1959, at age 44.
Holiday won four Grammy Awards, all of them posthumously, for Best Historical Album. She was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame and the National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame. She was also inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, though not in that genre; the website states that "Billie Holiday changed jazz forever". Several films about her life have been released, most recently The United States vs. Billie Holiday (2021).
Life and career
1915–1929: Childhood
Eleanora Fagan was born on April 7, 1915, in Philadelphia, the daughter of African-American unwed teenage couple Sarah Julia "Sadie" Fagan and Clarence Halliday. Sarah moved to Philadelphia at age 19, after she was evicted from her parents' home in the Sandtown-Winchester neighborhood of Baltimore, Maryland for becoming pregnant. With no support from her parents, she made arrangements with her older, married half-sister, Eva Miller, for Eleanora to stay with her in Baltimore. Not long after Eleanora was born, Clarence abandoned his family to pursue a career as a jazz banjo player and guitarist. Some historians have disputed Holiday's paternity, as a copy of her birth certificate in the Baltimore archives lists her father as "Frank DeViese". Other historians consider this an anomaly, probably inserted by a hospital or government worker. DeViese lived in Philadelphia, and Sadie Harris may have known him through her work. Sadie Harris, then known as Sadie Fagan, married Philip Gough, but the marriage ended in two years.
Eleanora grew up in Baltimore and had a very difficult childhood. Her mother often took what were then known as "transportation jobs", serving on passenger railroads. Holiday was raised largely by Eva Miller's mother-in-law, Martha Miller, and suffered from her mother's absences and being in others' care for her first decade of life. Holiday's autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues, published in 1956, is sketchy on details of her early life, but much was confirmed by Stuart Nicholson in his 1995 biography of the singer.
After attending kindergarten at St. Frances Academy, she frequently skipped school, and her truancy resulted in her being brought before the juvenile court on January 5, 1925, when she was nine years old. She was sent to the House of the Good Shepherd, a Catholic reform school, where she was baptized on March 19, 1925. After nine months in care, she was "paroled" on October 3, 1925, to her mother. Sadie had opened a restaurant, the East Side Grill, and mother and daughter worked long hours there. She dropped out of school at age 11.
On December 24, 1926, Sadie came home to discover a neighbor, Wilbur Rich, attempting to rape Eleanora. She successfully fought back, and Rich was arrested. Officials placed Eleanora in the House of the Good Shepherd under protective custody as a state witness in the rape case. Holiday was released in February 1927, when she was nearly 12. She found a job running errands in a brothel, and she scrubbed marble steps as well as kitchen and bathroom floors of neighborhood homes. Around this time, she first heard the records of Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith. In particular, Holiday cited "West End Blues" as an intriguing influence, pointing specifically to the scat section duet with the clarinet as her favorite part. By the end of 1928, Holiday's mother moved to Harlem, New York, again leaving Eleanora with Martha Miller.
By early 1929, Holiday had joined her mother in Harlem.
1929–1935: Early career
As a young teenager, Holiday started singing in nightclubs in Harlem. She took her professional pseudonym from Billie Dove, an actress she admired, and Clarence Halliday, her probable father. At the outset of her career, she spelled her last name "Halliday", her father's birth surname, but eventually changed it to "Holiday", his performing name. The young singer teamed up with a neighbor, tenor saxophone player Kenneth Hollan. They were a team from 1929 to 1931, performing at clubs such as the Grey Dawn, Pod's and Jerry's on 133rd Street, and the Brooklyn Elks' Club. Benny Goodman recalled hearing Holiday in 1931 at the Bright Spot. As her reputation grew, she played in many clubs, including the Mexico's and the Alhambra Bar and Grill, where she met Charles Linton, a vocalist who later worked with Chick Webb. It was also during this period that she connected with her father, who was playing in Fletcher Henderson's band.
Late in 1932, 17-year-old Holiday replaced the singer Monette Moore at Covan's, a club on West 132nd Street. Producer John Hammond, who loved Moore's singing and had come to hear her, first heard Holiday there in early 1933. Hammond arranged for Holiday to make her recording debut at age 18, in November 1933, with Benny Goodman. She recorded two songs: "Your Mother's Son-In-Law" and "Riffin' the Scotch", the latter being her first hit. "Son-in-Law" sold 300 copies, and "Riffin' the Scotch", released on November 11, sold 5,000 copies. Hammond was impressed by Holiday's singing style and said of her, "Her singing almost changed my music tastes and my musical life, because she was the first girl singer I'd come across who actually sang like an improvising jazz genius." Hammond compared Holiday favorably to Armstrong and said she had a good sense of lyric content at her young age.
In 1935, Holiday had a small role as a woman abused by her lover in Duke Ellington's musical short film Symphony in Black: A Rhapsody of Negro Life. She sang "Saddest Tale" in her scene.
1935–1938: Recordings with Teddy Wilson
In 1935, Holiday was signed to Brunswick by John Hammond to record pop tunes with pianist Teddy Wilson in the swing style for the growing jukebox trade. They were allowed to improvise on the material. Holiday's improvisation of melody to fit the emotion was revolutionary. Their first collaboration included "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" and "Miss Brown to You". "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" has been deemed her "claim to fame". Brunswick did not favor the recording session because producers wanted Holiday to sound more like Cleo Brown. However, after "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" was successful, the company began considering Holiday an artist in her own right. She began recording under her own name a year later for Vocalion in sessions produced by Hammond and Bernie Hanighen. Hammond said the Wilson-Holiday records from 1935 to 1938 were a great asset to Brunswick. According to Hammond, Brunswick was broke and unable to record many jazz tunes. Wilson, Holiday, Young, and other musicians came into the studio without written arrangements, reducing the recording cost. Brunswick paid Holiday a flat fee rather than royalties, which saved the company money. "I Cried for You" sold 15,000 copies, which Hammond called "a giant hit for Brunswick.... Most records that made money sold around three to four thousand."
Another frequent accompanist was tenor saxophonist Lester Young, who had been a boarder at her mother's house in 1934 and with whom Holiday had a rapport. Young said, "I think you can hear that on some of the old records, you know. Some time I'd sit down and listen to 'em myself, and it sound like two of the same voices ... or the same mind, or something like that." Young nicknamed her "Lady Day", and she called him "Prez".
1937–1938: Working for Count Basie and Artie Shaw
In late 1937, Holiday had a brief stint as a big-band vocalist with Count Basie. The traveling conditions of the band were often poor; they performed many one-nighters in clubs, moving from city to city with little stability. Holiday chose the songs she sang and had a hand in the arrangements, choosing to portray her developing persona of a woman unlucky in love. Her tunes included "I Must Have That Man", "Travelin' All Alone", "I Can't Get Started", and "Summertime", a hit for Holiday in 1936, originating in George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess the year before. Basie became used to Holiday's heavy involvement in the band. He said, "When she rehearsed with the band, it was really just a matter of getting her tunes like she wanted them, because she knew how she wanted to sound and you couldn't tell her what to do." Some of the songs Holiday performed with Basie were recorded. "I Can't Get Started", "They Can't Take That Away from Me", and "Swing It Brother Swing" are all commercially available. Holiday was unable to record in the studio with Basie, but she included many of his musicians in her recording sessions with Teddy Wilson.
Holiday found herself in direct competition with the popular singer Ella Fitzgerald. The two later became friends. Fitzgerald was the vocalist for the Chick Webb Band, which was in competition with the Basie band. On January 16, 1938, the same day that Benny Goodman performed his legendary Carnegie Hall jazz concert, the Basie and Webb bands had a battle at the Savoy Ballroom. Webb and Fitzgerald were declared winners by Metronome magazine, while DownBeat magazine pronounced Holiday and Basie the winners. Fitzgerald won a straw poll of the audience by a three-to-one margin.
By February 1938, Holiday was no longer singing for Basie. Various reasons have been given for why she was fired. Jimmy Rushing, Basie's male vocalist, called her unprofessional. According to All Music Guide, Holiday was fired for being "temperamental and unreliable". She complained of low pay and poor working conditions and may have refused to sing the songs requested of her or change her style. Holiday was hired by Artie Shaw a month after being fired from the Count Basie Band. This association placed her among the first black women to work with a white orchestra, an unusual arrangement at that time. This was also the first time a black female singer employed full-time toured the segregated U.S. South with a white bandleader. In situations where there was a lot of racial tension, Shaw was known to stick up for his vocalist. In her autobiography, Holiday describes an incident in which she was not permitted to sit on the bandstand with other vocalists because she was black. Shaw said to her, "I want you on the band stand like Helen Forrest, Tony Pastor and everyone else." When touring the South, Holiday would sometimes be heckled by members of the audience. In Louisville, Kentucky, a man called her a "nigger wench" and requested she sing another song. Holiday lost her temper and had to be escorted off the stage.
By March 1938, Shaw and Holiday had been broadcast on New York City's powerful radio station WABC (the original WABC, now WCBS). Because of their success, they were given an extra time slot to broadcast in April, which increased their exposure. The New York Amsterdam News reviewed the broadcasts and reported an improvement in Holiday's performance. Metronome reported that the addition of Holiday to Shaw's band put it in the "top brackets". Holiday could not sing as often during Shaw's shows as she could in Basie's; the repertoire was more instrumental, with fewer vocals. Shaw was also pressured to hire a white singer, Nita Bradley, with whom Holiday did not get along but had to share a bandstand. In May 1938, Shaw won band battles against Tommy Dorsey and Red Norvo, with the audience favoring Holiday. Although Shaw admired Holiday's singing in his band, saying she had a "remarkable ear" and a "remarkable sense of time", her tenure with the band was nearing an end. In November 1938, Holiday was asked to use the service elevator at the Lincoln Hotel in New York City, instead of the one used by hotel guests, because white patrons of the hotels complained. This may have been the last straw for her. She left the band shortly after. Holiday spoke about the incident weeks later, saying, "I was never allowed to visit the bar or the dining room as did other members of the band ... [and] I was made to leave and enter through the kitchen." There are no surviving live recordings of Holiday with Shaw's band. Because she was under contract to a different record label and possibly because of her race, Holiday was able to make only one record with Shaw, "Any Old Time". However, Shaw played clarinet on four songs she recorded in New York on July 10, 1936: "Did I Remember?", "No Regrets", "Summertime" and "Billie's Blues".
By the late 1930s, Holiday had toured with Count Basie and Artie Shaw, scored a string of radio and retail hits with Teddy Wilson, and became an established artist in the recording industry. Her songs "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" and "Easy Living" were imitated by singers across America and were quickly becoming jazz standards. In September 1938, Holiday's single "I'm Gonna Lock My Heart" ranked sixth as the most-played song that month. Her record label, Vocalion, listed the single as its fourth-best seller for the same month, and it peaked at number 2 on the pop charts, according to Joel Whitburn's Pop Memories: 1890–1954.
1939: "Strange Fruit" and Commodore Records
Holiday was in the middle of recording for Columbia in the late 1930s when she was introduced to "Strange Fruit", a song by Abel Meeropol based on his poem about lynching. Meeropol, a Jewish schoolteacher from the Bronx, used the pseudonym "Lewis Allan" for the poem, which was set to music and performed at teachers' union meetings. It was eventually heard by Barney Josephson, the proprietor of Café Society, an integrated nightclub in Greenwich Village, who introduced it to Holiday. She performed it at the club in 1939, with some trepidation, fearing possible retaliation. She later said that the imagery of the song reminded her of her father's death and that this played a role in her resistance to performing it.
For her performance of "Strange Fruit" at the Café Society, she had waiters silence the crowd when the song began. During the song's long introduction, the lights dimmed and all movement had to cease. As Holiday began singing, only a small spotlight illuminated her face. On the final note, all lights went out, and when they came back on, Holiday was gone. Holiday said her father, Clarence Holiday, was denied medical treatment for a fatal lung disorder because of racial prejudice, and that singing "Strange Fruit" reminded her of the incident. "It reminds me of how Pop died, but I have to keep singing it, not only because people ask for it, but because twenty years after Pop died the things that killed him are still happening in the South", she wrote in her autobiography. When Holiday's producers at Columbia found the subject matter too sensitive, Milt Gabler agreed to record it for his Commodore Records label on April 20, 1939. "Strange Fruit" remained in her repertoire for 20 years. She recorded it again for Verve. The Commodore release did not get any airplay, but the controversial song sold well, though Gabler attributed that mostly to the record's other side, "Fine and Mellow", which was a jukebox hit. "The version I recorded for Commodore", Holiday said of "Strange Fruit", "became my biggest-selling record." "Strange Fruit" was the equivalent of a top-twenty hit in the 1930s.
Holiday's popularity increased after "Strange Fruit". She received a mention in Time magazine. "I open Café Society as an unknown", Holiday said. "I left two years later as a star. I needed the prestige and publicity all right, but you can't pay rent with it." She soon demanded a raise from her manager, Joe Glaser. Holiday returned to Commodore in 1944, recording songs she made with Teddy Wilson in the 1930s, including "I Cover the Waterfront", "I'll Get By", and "He's Funny That Way". She also recorded new songs that were popular at the time, including, "My Old Flame", "How Am I to Know?", "I'm Yours", and "I'll Be Seeing You", a number one hit for Bing Crosby. She also recorded her version of "Embraceable You", which was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2005.
1940–1947: Commercial success
Holiday's mother Sadie, nicknamed "The Duchess", opened a restaurant called Mom Holiday's. She used money from her daughter while playing dice with members of the Count Basie band, with whom she toured in the late 1930s. "It kept Mom busy and happy and stopped her from worrying and watching over me", Holiday said. Fagan began borrowing large amounts from Holiday to support the restaurant. Holiday obliged but soon fell on hard times herself. "I needed some money one night and I knew Mom was sure to have some", she said. "So I walked in the restaurant like a stockholder and asked. Mom turned me down flat. She wouldn't give me a cent." The two argued, and Holiday shouted angrily, "God bless the child that's got his own", and stormed out. With Arthur Herzog, Jr., a pianist, she wrote a song based on the lyric, "God Bless the Child", and added music. "God Bless the Child" became Holiday's most popular and most covered record. It reached number 25 on the charts in 1941 and was third in Billboard'''s songs of the year, selling over a million records.Jazz History: The Standards (1940s). Jazzstandards.com. Retrieved November 13, 2010. In 1976, the song was added to the Grammy Hall of Fame. Herzog claimed Holiday contributed only a few lines to the lyrics. He said she came up with the line "God bless the child" from a dinner conversation the two had had.
On June 24, 1942, Holiday recorded "Trav'lin Light" with Paul Whiteman for a new label, Capitol Records. Because she was under contract to Columbia, she used the pseudonym "Lady Day". The song reached number 23 on the pop charts and number one on the R&B charts, then called the Harlem Hit Parade. In September 1943, Life magazine wrote, "She has the most distinct style of any popular vocalist and is imitated by other vocalists."
Milt Gabler, in addition to owning Commodore Records, became an A&R man for Decca Records. He signed Holiday to Decca on August 7, 1944, when she was 29. Her first Decca recording was "Lover Man" (number 16 Pop, number 5 R&B), one of her biggest hits. The success and distribution of the song made Holiday a staple in the pop community, leading to solo concerts, rare for jazz singers in the late 1940s. Gabler said, "I made Billie a real pop singer. That was right in her. Billie loved those songs." Jimmy Davis and Roger "Ram" Ramirez, the song's writers, had tried to interest Holiday in the song. In 1943, a flamboyant male torch singer, Willie Dukes, began singing "Lover Man" on 52nd Street. Because of his success, Holiday added it to her shows. The record's flip side was "No More", one of her favorites. Holiday asked Gabler for strings on the recording. Such arrangements were associated with Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald. "I went on my knees to him", Holiday said. "I didn't want to do it with the ordinary six pieces. I begged Milt and told him I had to have strings behind me." On October 4, 1944, Holiday entered the studio to record "Lover Man", saw the string ensemble and walked out. The musical director, Toots Camarata, said Holiday was overwhelmed with joy. She may also have wanted strings to avoid comparisons between her commercially successful early work with Teddy Wilson and everything produced afterwards. Her 1930s recordings with Wilson used a small jazz combo; recordings for Decca often involved strings. A month later, in November, Holiday returned to Decca to record "That Ole Devil Called Love", "Big Stuff", and "Don't Explain". She wrote "Don't Explain" after she caught her husband, Jimmy Monroe, with lipstick on his collar.
Holiday did not make any more records until August 1945, when she recorded "Don't Explain" for a second time, changing the lyrics "I know you raise Cain" to "Just say you'll remain" and changing "You mixed with some dame" to "What is there to gain?" Other songs recorded were "Big Stuff", "What Is This Thing Called Love?", and "You Better Go Now". Ella Fitzgerald named "You Better Go Now" her favorite recording of Holiday's. "Big Stuff" and "Don't Explain" were recorded again but with additional strings and a viola. In 1946, Holiday recorded "Good Morning Heartache". Although the song failed to chart, she sang it in live performances; three live recordings are known.
In September 1946, Holiday began her only major film, New Orleans, in which she starred opposite Louis Armstrong and Woody Herman. Plagued by racism and McCarthyism, producer Jules Levey and script writer Herbert Biberman were pressed to lessen Holiday's and Armstrong's roles to avoid the impression that black people created jazz. The attempts failed because in 1947 Biberman was listed as one of the Hollywood Ten and sent to jail. Several scenes were deleted from the film. "They had taken miles of footage of music and scenes", Holiday said, but "none of it was left in the picture. And very damn little of me. I know I wore a white dress for a number I did... and that was cut out of the picture." She recorded "The Blues Are Brewin'" for the film's soundtrack. Other songs included in the movie are "Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans?" and "Farewell to Storyville". Holiday's drug addictions were a problem on the set. She earned more than one thousand dollars per week from club ventures but spent most of it on heroin. Her lover, Joe Guy, traveled to Hollywood while Holiday was filming and supplied her with drugs. Guy was banned from the set when he was found there by Holiday's manager, Joe Glaser.
By the late 1940s, Holiday had begun recording a number of slow, sentimental ballads. Metronome expressed its concerns in 1946 about "Good Morning Heartache", saying, "there's a danger that Billie's present formula will wear thin, but up to now it's wearing well." The New York Herald Tribune reported of a concert in 1946 that her performance had little variation in melody and no change in tempo.
1947–1952: Legal issues and Carnegie Hall concert
By 1947, Holiday was at her commercial peak, having made $250,000 in the three previous years. She was ranked second in the DownBeat poll for 1946 and 1947, her highest ranking in that poll. She was ranked fifth in Billboard 's annual college poll of "girl singers" on July 6, 1947 (Jo Stafford was first). In 1946, Holiday won the Metronome magazine popularity poll.
On May 16, 1947, Holiday was arrested for possession of narcotics in her New York apartment. On May 27 she was in court. "It was called 'The United States of America versus Billie Holiday'. And that's just the way it felt", she recalled. During the trial, she heard that her lawyer would not come to the trial to represent her. "In plain English that meant no one in the world was interested in looking out for me," she said. Dehydrated and unable to hold down food, she pleaded guilty and asked to be sent to the hospital. The district attorney spoke in her defense, saying, "If your honor please, this is a case of a drug addict, but more serious, however, than most of our cases, Miss Holiday is a professional entertainer and among the higher rank as far as income was concerned." She was sentenced to Alderson Federal Prison Camp in West Virginia. The drug possession conviction caused her to lose her New York City Cabaret Card, preventing her working anywhere that sold alcohol; thereafter, she performed in concert venues and theaters.
Holiday was released early (on March 16, 1948) because of good behavior. When she arrived at Newark, her pianist Bobby Tucker and her dog Mister were waiting. The dog leaped at Holiday, knocking off her hat, and tackling her to the ground. "He began lapping me and loving me like crazy", she said. A woman thought the dog was attacking Holiday. She screamed, a crowd gathered, and reporters arrived. "I might just as well have wheeled into Penn Station and had a quiet little get-together with the Associated Press, United Press, and International News Service", she said.
Ed Fishman (who fought with Joe Glaser to be Holiday's manager) thought of a comeback concert at Carnegie Hall. Holiday hesitated, unsure audiences would accept her after the arrest. She gave in and agreed to appear. On March 27, 1948, Holiday played Carnegie Hall to a sold-out crowd. 2,700 tickets were sold in advance, a record at the time for the venue. Her popularity was unusual because she didn't have a current hit record. Her last record to reach the charts was "Lover Man" in 1945. Holiday sang 32 songs at the Carnegie concert by her count, including Cole Porter's "Night and Day" and her 1930s hit, "Strange Fruit". During the show, someone sent her a box of gardenias. "My old trademark", Holiday said. "I took them out of box and fastened them smack to the side of my head without even looking twice." There was a hatpin in the gardenias and Holiday unknowingly stuck it into the side of her head. "I didn't feel anything until the blood started rushing down in my eyes and ears", she said. After the third curtain call, she passed out.
On April 27, 1948, Bob Sylvester and her promoter Al Wilde arranged a Broadway show for her. Titled Holiday on Broadway, it sold out. "The regular music critics and drama critics came and treated us like we were legit", she said. But it closed after three weeks.
Holiday was arrested again on January 22, 1949, in her room at the Hotel Mark Twain in San Francisco. Holiday said she began using hard drugs in the early 1940s. She married trombonist Jimmy Monroe on August 25, 1941. While still married, she became involved with trumpeter Joe Guy, her drug dealer. She divorced Monroe in 1947 and also split with Guy.
In October 1949, Holiday recorded "Crazy He Calls Me", which was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2010. Gabler said the hit was her most successful recording for Decca after "Lover Man". The charts of the 1940s did not list songs outside the top 30, making it impossible to recognize minor hits. By the late 1940s, despite her popularity and concert power, her singles were little played on radio, perhaps because of her reputation.
The loss of her cabaret card reduced Holiday's earnings. She had not received proper record royalties until she joined Decca, so her main revenue was club concerts. The problem worsened when Holiday's records went out of print in the 1950s. She seldom received royalties in her later years. In 1958, she received a royalty of only $11.Nicholson, p. 167. Her lawyer in the late 1950s, Earle Warren Zaidins, registered with BMI only two songs she had written or co-written, costing her revenue. In 1948, Holiday played at the Ebony Club, which was against the law. Her manager, John Levy, was convinced he could get her card back and allowed her to open without one. "I opened scared", Holiday said, "[I was] expecting the cops to come in any chorus and carry me off. But nothing happened. I was a huge success."
Holiday recorded Gershwin's "I Loves You, Porgy" in 1948. In 1950, Holiday appeared in the Universal short film Sugar Chile Robinson, Billie Holiday, Count Basie and His Sextet, singing "God Bless the Child" and "Now, Baby or Never".
1952–1959: Lady Sings the Blues
By the 1950s, Holiday's drug use, drinking, and relationships with abusive men caused her health to deteriorate. She appeared on the ABC reality series The Comeback Story to discuss attempts to overcome her misfortunes. Her later recordings showed the effects of declining health on her voice, as it grew coarse and no longer projected its former vibrancy.
Holiday first toured Europe in 1954 as part of a Leonard Feather package. The Swedish impresario, Nils Hellstrom, initiated the "Jazz Club U.S.A." (after the Leonard Feather radio show) tour starting in Stockholm in January 1954 and then Germany, Netherlands, Paris and Switzerland. The tour party was Holiday, Buddy DeFranco, Red Norvo, Carl Drinkard, Elaine Leighton, Sonny Clark, Berryl Booker, Jimmy Raney and Red Mitchell. A recording of a live set in Germany was released as Lady Love – Billie Holiday.
Holiday's autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues, was ghostwritten by William Dufty and published in 1956. Dufty, a New York Post writer and editor then married to Holiday's close friend Maely Dufty, wrote the book quickly from a series of conversations with the singer in the Duftys' 93rd Street apartment. He also drew on the work of earlier interviewers and intended to let Holiday tell her story in her own way. In his 2015 study, Billie Holiday: The Musician and the Myth, John Szwed argued that Lady Sings the Blues is a generally accurate account of her life, but that co-writer Dufty was forced to water down or suppress material by the threat of legal action. According to the reviewer Richard Brody, "Szwed traces the stories of two important relationships that are missing from the book—with Charles Laughton, in the 1930s, and with Tallulah Bankhead, in the late 1940s—and of one relationship that's sharply diminished in the book, her affair with Orson Welles around the time of Citizen Kane." To accompany her autobiography, Holiday released the LP Lady Sings the Blues in June 1956. The album featured four new tracks, "Lady Sings the Blues", "Too Marvelous for Words", "Willow Weep for Me", and "I Thought About You", and eight new recordings of her biggest hits to date. The re-recordings included "Trav'lin' Light" "Strange Fruit" and "God Bless the Child". A review of the album was published by Billboard magazine on December 22, 1956, calling it a worthy musical complement to her autobiography. "Holiday is in good voice now", wrote the reviewer, "and these new readings will be much appreciated by her following". "Strange Fruit" and "God Bless the Child" were called classics, and "Good Morning Heartache", another reissued track on the LP, was also noted favorably.
On November 10, 1956, Holiday performed two concerts before packed audiences at Carnegie Hall. Live recordings of the second Carnegie Hall concert were released on a Verve/HMV album in the UK in late 1961 called The Essential Billie Holiday. The 13 tracks included on this album featured her own songs "I Love My Man", "Don't Explain" and "Fine and Mellow", together with other songs closely associated with her, including "Body and Soul", "My Man", and "Lady Sings the Blues" (her lyrics accompanied a tune by pianist Herbie Nichols). The liner notes for this album were written partly by Gilbert Millstein of the New York Times, who, according to these notes, served as narrator of the Carnegie Hall concerts. Interspersed among Holiday's songs, Millstein read aloud four lengthy passages from her autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues. He later wrote:
The critic Nat Hentoff of DownBeat magazine, who attended the Carnegie Hall concert, wrote the remainder of the sleeve notes on the 1961 album. He wrote of Holiday's performance:
Her performance of "Fine and Mellow" on CBS's The Sound of Jazz program is memorable for her interplay with her long-time friend Lester Young. Both were less than two years from death. Young died in March 1959. Holiday wanted to sing at his funeral, but her request was denied.
When Holiday returned to Europe almost five years later, in 1959, she made one of her last television appearances for Granada's Chelsea at Nine in London. Her final studio recordings were made for MGM Records in 1959, with lush backing from Ray Ellis and his Orchestra, who had also accompanied her on the Columbia album Lady in Satin the previous year (see below). The MGM sessions were released posthumously on a self-titled album, later retitled and re-released as Last Recording.
On March 28, 1957, Holiday married Louis McKay, a mob enforcer. McKay, like most of the men in her life, was abusive. They were separated at the time of her death, but McKay had plans to start a chain of Billie Holiday vocal studios, on the model of the Arthur Murray dance schools. Holiday was childless, but she had two godchildren: singer Billie Lorraine Feather (the daughter of Leonard Feather) and Bevan Dufty (the son of William Dufty).
Illness and death
By early 1959, Holiday was diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver. Although she had initially stopped drinking on her doctor's orders, it was not long before she relapsed. By May 1959, she had lost . Her manager Joe Glaser, jazz critic Leonard Feather, photojournalist Allan Morrison, and the singer's own friends all tried in vain to persuade her to go to a hospital. On May 31, 1959, Holiday was taken to Metropolitan Hospital in New York for treatment of liver disease and heart disease. According to writer and journalist Johann Hari, the Federal Bureau of Narcotics under Harry J. Anslinger, had been targeting Holiday since at least 1939, when she started to perform "Strange Fruit". Narcotics police went to her hospital room, claiming they had found heroin in her bedroom. A grand jury was summoned to indict her and she was arrested and handcuffed to her bed and placed under police guard. According to Hari, after 10 days, methadone was discontinued as part of Anslinger's policy; Hari accused Anslinger of being responsible for her death. On July 15, she received last rites. She died at age 44, at 3:10 a.m. on July 17, of pulmonary edema and heart failure caused by cirrhosis of the liver.
In her final years, Holiday had been progressively swindled out of her earnings, and she died with US$0.70 in the bank. Her funeral Mass was held on July 21, 1959, at the Church of St. Paul the Apostle in Manhattan. She was buried at Saint Raymond's Cemetery in the Bronx. The story of her burial plot and how it was managed by her estranged husband, Louis McKay, was documented on NPR in 2012.
Gilbert Millstein of The New York Times, who was the announcer at Holiday's 1956 Carnegie Hall concerts and wrote parts of the sleeve notes for the album The Essential Billie Holiday (see above), described her death in these sleeve notes, dated 1961:
When Holiday died, The New York Times published a short obituary on page 15 without a byline. She left an estate of $1,000, and her best recordings from the 1930s were mostly out of print. Holiday's public stature grew in the following years. In 1961, she was voted to the Down Beat Hall Of Fame, and soon after Columbia reissued nearly one hundred of her early records. In 1972, Diana Ross' portrayal of Holiday in Lady Sings the Blues was nominated for an Oscar and won a Golden Globe. Holiday was posthumously nominated for 23 Grammy awards.
Legacy
Billie Holiday received several Esquire Magazine awards during her lifetime. Her posthumous awards also include being inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, Ertegun Jazz Hall of Fame, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and the ASCAP Jazz Wall of Fame. In 1985, a statue of Billie Holiday was erected in Baltimore; the statue was completed in 1993 with additional panels of images inspired by her seminal song Strange Fruit. In 2019, Chirlane McCray announced that New York City would build a statue honoring Holiday near Queens Borough Hall.
The Billie Holiday Monument is located at Pennsylvania and West Lafayette avenues in Baltimore's Upton neighborhood.
Vocal style and range
Holiday's delivery made her performances recognizable throughout her career. Her improvisation compensated for lack of musical education. Holiday said that she always wanted her voice to sound like an instrument and some of her influences were Louis Armstrong and the singer Bessie Smith. Her last major recording, a 1958 album entitled Lady in Satin, features the backing of a 40-piece orchestra conducted and arranged by Ray Ellis, who said of the album in 1997:
Frank Sinatra was influenced by her performances on 52nd Street as a young man. He told Ebony magazine in 1958 about her impact:
Films and plays about Holiday
The biographical film Lady Sings the Blues, loosely based on Holiday's autobiography, was released in 1972 and was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Diana Ross for Best Actress. Another film, The United States vs. Billie Holiday, starred Andra Day and was released in 2021. It is based on the book Chasing the Scream by Johann Hari. Director Lee Daniels saw how Holiday was portrayed in the 1972 biopic, and wanted to show her legacy as "a civil rights leader [...] not just a drug addict or a jazz singer". Day was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance and won a Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama in 2021.
Holiday is the primary character in the play Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill, with music by Lanie Robertson. It takes place in South Philadelphia in March 1959. It premiered in 1986 at the Alliance Theatre and has been revived several times. A Broadway production starring Audra McDonald was filmed and broadcast on HBO in 2016; McDonald received an Emmy Award nomination and a record-breaking Tony Award win, becoming the most decorated performer in Tony history with six awards across all four eligible competitive categories. Billie is a 2019 documentary film based on interviews in the 1970s by Linda Lipnack Kuehl, who was researching a book on Holiday that was never completed.
Billie Holiday was also portrayed by actress Paula Jai Parker in Touched by an Angel's 2000 episode "God Bless the Child".
Discography
Billie Holiday recorded extensively for four labels: Columbia Records, which issued her recordings on its subsidiary labels Brunswick Records, Vocalion Records and OKeh Records, from 1933 through 1942; Commodore Records in 1939 and 1944; Decca Records from 1944 through 1950; briefly for Aladdin Records in 1951; Verve Records and on its earlier imprint Clef Records from 1952 through 1957, then again for Columbia Records from 1957 to 1958 and finally for MGM Records in 1959. Many of Holiday's recordings appeared on 78-rpm records prior to the long-playing vinyl record era, and only Clef, Verve, and Columbia issued albums during her lifetime that were not compilations of previously released material. Many compilations have been issued since her death, as well as comprehensive box sets and live recordings.[ Billie Holiday]. AllMusic. Retrieved on November 13, 2010.
Hit records
In 1986, Joel Whitburn's company Record Research compiled information on the popularity of recordings released from the era predating rock and roll and created pop charts dating back to the beginning of the commercial recording industry. The company's findings were published in the book Pop Memories 1890–1954. Several of Holiday's records are listed on the pop charts Whitburn created.
Holiday began her recording career on a high note with her first major release, "Riffin' the Scotch", of which 5,000 copies were sold. It was released under the name "Benny Goodman & His Orchestra" in 1933.
Most of Holiday's early successes were released under the name "Teddy Wilson & His Orchestra". During her stay in Wilson's band, Holiday would sing a few bars and then other musicians would have a solo. Wilson, one of the most influential jazz pianists of the swing era, accompanied Holiday more than any other musician. He and Holiday issued 95 recordings together.
In July 1936, Holiday began releasing sides under her own name. These songs were released under the band name "Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra". Most noteworthy, the popular jazz standard "Summertime" sold well and was listed on the pop charts of the time at number 12, the first time the jazz standard charted. Only Billy Stewart's R&B version of "Summertime" reached a higher chart placement than Holiday's, charting at number 10 thirty years later in 1966.
Holiday had 16 best-selling songs in 1937, making the year her most commercially successful. It was in this year that Holiday scored her sole number one hit as a featured vocalist on the available pop charts of the 1930s, "Carelessly". The hit "I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm", was also recorded by Ray Noble, Glen Gray and Fred Astaire, whose rendering was a bestseller for weeks. Holiday's version ranked 6 on the year-end single chart available for 1937.
In 1939, Holiday recorded her biggest selling record, "Strange Fruit" for Commodore, charting at number 16 on the available pop charts for the 1930s.
In 1940, Billboard began publishing its modern pop charts, which included the Best Selling Retail Records chart, the precursor to the Hot 100. None of Holiday's songs placed on the modern pop charts, partly because Billboard only published the first ten slots of the charts in some issues. Minor hits and independent releases had no way of being spotlighted.
"God Bless the Child", which went on to sell over a million copies, ranked number 3 on Billboards year-end top songs of 1941.
On October 24, 1942, Billboard began issuing its R&B charts. Two of Holiday's songs placed on the chart, "Trav'lin' Light" with Paul Whiteman, which topped the chart, and "Lover Man", which reached number 5. "Trav'lin' Light" also reached 18 on Billboards year-end chart.
Studio LPsBillie Holiday Sings (1952)An Evening with Billie Holiday (1952)Billie Holiday (1954)Music for Torching (1955)Velvet Mood (1956)Lady Sings the Blues (1956)Body and Soul (1957)Songs for Distingué Lovers (1957)Stay with Me (1958)All or Nothing at All (1958)Lady in Satin (1958)Last Recording (1959)
Filmography
Theatrical films
1933: The Emperor Jones, appeared as an extra
1935: Symphony in Black, short (with Duke Ellington)
1947: New Orleans1950: 'Sugar Chile' Robinson, Billie Holiday, Count Basie and His Sextet''
Television appearances
(1) = Available on audio
(2) = Available on DVD
See also
List of awards and nominations received by Billie Holiday
List of craters on Venus
List of people on the postage stamps of the United States
List of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees
References
Bibliography
This Discography is still available: see Facebook page The Billie Holiday Circle.
Further reading
External links
Discography
"Twelve Essential Billie Holiday Recordings" by Stuart Nicholson, Jazz.com
Billie Holiday at the Playbill Vault
Billie Holiday on Find A Grave
Emory University: Billie Holiday collection, 1953-1981
1915 births
1959 deaths
20th-century African-American women singers
African-American women singer-songwriters
Aladdin Records artists
Alcohol-related deaths in New York (state)
American contraltos
American women jazz singers
American people convicted of drug offenses
American prisoners and detainees
American street performers
Ballad musicians
Burials at Saint Raymond's Cemetery (Bronx)
Classic female blues singers
Columbia Records artists
Deaths from cirrhosis
Decca Records artists
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners
Jazz musicians from Maryland
Jazz musicians from Pennsylvania
Musicians from Baltimore
Musicians from Philadelphia
Singer-songwriters from Pennsylvania
Swing singers
Torch singers
Traditional pop music singers
Vocalion Records artists
African-American Catholics
Singer-songwriters from Maryland
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[
"Don Juan Manuel's Tales of Count Lucanor, in Spanish Libro de los ejemplos del conde Lucanor y de Patronio (Book of the Examples of Count Lucanor and of Patronio), also commonly known as El Conde Lucanor, Libro de Patronio, or Libro de los ejemplos (original Old Castilian: Libro de los enxiemplos del Conde Lucanor et de Patronio), is one of the earliest works of prose in Castilian Spanish. It was first written in 1335.\n\nThe book is divided into four parts. The first and most well-known part is a series of 51 short stories (some no more than a page or two) drawn from various sources, such as Aesop and other classical writers, and Arabic folktales.\n\nTales of Count Lucanor was first printed in 1575 when it was published at Seville under the auspices of Argote de Molina. It was again printed at Madrid in 1642, after which it lay forgotten for nearly two centuries.\n\nPurpose and structure\n\nA didactic, moralistic purpose, which would color so much of the Spanish literature to follow (see Novela picaresca), is the mark of this book. Count Lucanor engages in conversation with his advisor Patronio, putting to him a problem (\"Some man has made me a proposition...\" or \"I fear that such and such person intends to...\") and asking for advice. Patronio responds always with the greatest humility, claiming not to wish to offer advice to so illustrious a person as the Count, but offering to tell him a story of which the Count's problem reminds him. (Thus, the stories are \"examples\" [ejemplos] of wise action.) At the end he advises the Count to do as the protagonist of his story did.\n\nEach chapter ends in more or less the same way, with slight variations on: \"And this pleased the Count greatly and he did just so, and found it well. And Don Johán (Juan) saw that this example was very good, and had it written in this book, and composed the following verses.\" A rhymed couplet closes, giving the moral of the story.\n\nOrigin of stories and influence on later literature\nMany of the stories written in the book are the first examples written in a modern European language of various stories, which many other writers would use in the proceeding centuries. Many of the stories he included were themselves derived from other stories, coming from western and Arab sources.\n\nShakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew has the basic elements of Tale 35, \"What Happened to a Young Man Who Married a Strong and Ill-tempered Woman\".\n\nTale 32, \"What Happened to the King and the Tricksters Who Made Cloth\" tells the story that Hans Christian Andersen made popular as The Emperor's New Clothes.\n\nStory 7, \"What Happened to a Woman Named Truhana\", a version of Aesop's The Milkmaid and Her Pail, was claimed by Max Müller to originate in the Hindu cycle Panchatantra.\n\nTale 2, \"What happened to a good Man and his Son, leading a beast to market,\" is the familiar fable The miller, his son and the donkey.\n\nIn 2016, Baroque Decay released a game under the name \"The Count Lucanor\". As well as some protagonists' names, certain events from the books inspired past events in the game.\n\nThe stories\n\nThe book opens with a prologue which introduces the characters of the Count and Patronio. The titles in the following list are those given in Keller and Keating's 1977 translation into English. James York's 1868 translation into English gives a significantly different ordering of the stories and omits the fifty-first.\n\n What Happened to a King and His Favorite \n What Happened to a Good Man and His Son \n How King Richard of England Leapt into the Sea against the Moors\n What a Genoese Said to His Soul When He Was about to Die \n What Happened to a Fox and a Crow Who Had a Piece of Cheese in His Beak\n How the Swallow Warned the Other Birds When She Saw Flax Being Sown \n What Happened to a Woman Named Truhana \n What Happened to a Man Whose Liver Had to Be Washed \n What Happened to Two Horses Which Were Thrown to the Lion \n What Happened to a Man Who on Account of Poverty and Lack of Other Food Was Eating Bitter Lentils \n What Happened to a Dean of Santiago de Compostela and Don Yllán, the Grand Master of Toledo\n What Happened to the Fox and the Rooster \n What Happened to a Man Who Was Hunting Partridges \n The Miracle of Saint Dominick When He Preached against the Usurer \n What Happened to Lorenzo Suárez at the Siege of Seville \n The Reply that count Fernán González Gave to His Relative Núño Laynes \n What Happened to a Very Hungry Man Who Was Half-heartedly Invited to Dinner \n What Happened to Pero Meléndez de Valdés When He Broke His Leg \n What Happened to the Crows and the Owls \n What Happened to a King for Whom a Man Promised to Perform Alchemy \n What Happened to a Young King and a Philosopher to Whom his Father Commended Him \n What Happened to the Lion and the Bull \n How the Ants Provide for Themselves \n What Happened to the King Who Wanted to Test His Three Sons \n What Happened to the Count of Provence and How He Was Freed from Prison by the Advice of Saladin\n What Happened to the Tree of Lies \n What Happened to an Emperor and to Don Alvarfáñez Minaya and Their Wives \n What Happened in Granada to Don Lorenzo Suárez Gallinato When He Beheaded the Renegade Chaplain \n What Happened to a Fox Who Lay down in the Street to Play Dead \n What Happened to King Abenabet of Seville and Ramayquía His Wife \n How a Cardinal Judged between the Canons of Paris and the Friars Minor \n What Happened to the King and the Tricksters Who Made Cloth \n What Happened to Don Juan Manuel's Saker Falcon and an Eagle and a Heron \n What Happened to a Blind Man Who Was Leading Another \n What Happened to a Young Man Who Married a Strong and Ill-tempered Woman\n What Happened to a Merchant When He Found His Son and His Wife Sleeping Together \n What Happened to Count Fernán González with His Men after He Had Won the Battle of Hacinas \n What Happened to a Man Who Was Loaded down with Precious Stones and Drowned in the River \n What Happened to a Man and a Swallow and a Sparrow \n Why the Seneschal of Carcassonne Lost His Soul \n What Happened to a King of Córdova Named Al-Haquem \n What Happened to a Woman of Sham Piety \n What Happened to Good and Evil and the Wise Man and the Madman \n What Happened to Don Pero Núñez the Loyal, to Don Ruy González de Zavallos, and to Don Gutier Roiz de Blaguiello with Don Rodrigo the Generous \n What Happened to a Man Who Became the Devil's Friend and Vassal \n What Happened to a Philosopher who by Accident Went down a Street Where Prostitutes Lived \n What Befell a Moor and His Sister Who Pretended That She Was Timid \n What Happened to a Man Who Tested His Friends \n What Happened to the Man Whom They Cast out Naked on an Island When They Took away from Him the Kingdom He Ruled \n What Happened to Saladin and a Lady, the Wife of a Knight Who Was His Vassal \n What Happened to a Christian King Who Was Very Powerful and Haughty\n\nReferences\n\nNotes\n\nBibliography\n\n Sturm, Harlan\n\n Wacks, David\n\nExternal links\n\nThe Internet Archive provides free access to the 1868 translation by James York.\nJSTOR has the to the 1977 translation by Keller and Keating.\nSelections in English and Spanish (pedagogical edition) with introduction, notes, and bibliography in Open Iberia/América (open access teaching anthology)\n\n14th-century books\nSpanish literature\n1335 books",
"\"What Happened to Us\" is a song by Australian recording artist Jessica Mauboy, featuring English recording artist Jay Sean. It was written by Sean, Josh Alexander, Billy Steinberg, Jeremy Skaller, Rob Larow, Khaled Rohaim and Israel Cruz. \"What Happened to Us\" was leaked online in October 2010, and was released on 10 March 2011, as the third single from Mauboy's second studio album, Get 'Em Girls (2010). The song received positive reviews from critics.\n\nA remix of \"What Happened to Us\" made by production team OFM, was released on 11 April 2011. A different version of the song which features Stan Walker, was released on 29 May 2011. \"What Happened to Us\" charted on the ARIA Singles Chart at number 14 and was certified platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA). An accompanying music video was directed by Mark Alston, and reminisces on a former relationship between Mauboy and Sean.\n\nProduction and release\n\n\"What Happened to Us\" was written by Josh Alexander, Billy Steinberg, Jeremy Skaller, Rob Larow, Khaled Rohaim, Israel Cruz and Jay Sean. It was produced by Skaller, Cruz, Rohaim and Bobby Bass. The song uses C, D, and B minor chords in the chorus. \"What Happened to Us\" was sent to contemporary hit radio in Australia on 14 February 2011. The cover art for the song was revealed on 22 February on Mauboy's official Facebook page. A CD release was available for purchase via her official website on 10 March, for one week only. It was released digitally the following day.\n\nReception\nMajhid Heath from ABC Online Indigenous called the song a \"Jordin Sparks-esque duet\", and wrote that it \"has a nice innocence to it that rings true to the experience of losing a first love.\" Chris Urankar from Nine to Five wrote that it as a \"mid-tempo duet ballad\" which signifies Mauboy's strength as a global player. On 21 March 2011, \"What Happened to Us\" debuted at number 30 on the ARIA Singles Chart, and peaked at number 14 the following week. The song was certified platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA), for selling 70,000 copies. \"What Happened to Us\" spent a total of ten weeks in the ARIA top fifty.\n\nMusic video\n\nBackground\nThe music video for the song was shot in the Elizabeth Bay House in Sydney on 26 November 2010. The video was shot during Sean's visit to Australia for the Summerbeatz tour. During an interview with The Daily Telegraph while on the set of the video, Sean said \"the song is sick! ... Jessica's voice is amazing and we're shooting [the video] in this ridiculously beautiful mansion overlooking the harbour.\" The video was directed by Mark Alston, who had previously directed the video for Mauboy's single \"Let Me Be Me\" (2009). It premiered on YouTube on 10 February 2011.\n\nSynopsis and reception\nThe video begins showing Mauboy who appears to be sitting on a yellow antique couch in a mansion, wearing a purple dress. As the video progresses, scenes of memories are displayed of Mauboy and her love interest, played by Sean, spending time there previously. It then cuts to the scenes where Sean appears in the main entrance room of the mansion. The final scene shows Mauboy outdoors in a gold dress, surrounded by green grass and trees. She is later joined by Sean who appears in a black suit and a white shirt, and together they sing the chorus of the song to each other. David Lim of Feed Limmy wrote that the video is \"easily the best thing our R&B princess has committed to film – ever\" and praised the \"mansion and wondrous interior décor\". He also commended Mauboy for choosing Australian talent to direct the video instead of American directors, which she had used for her previous two music videos. Since its release, the video has received over two million views on Vevo.\n\nLive performances\nMauboy performed \"What Happened to Us\" live for the first time during her YouTube Live Sessions program on 4 December 2010. She also appeared on Adam Hills in Gordon Street Tonight on 23 February 2011 for an interview and later performed the song. On 15 March 2011, Mauboy performed \"What Happened to Us\" on Sunrise. She also performed the song with Stan Walker during the Australian leg of Chris Brown's F.A.M.E. Tour in April 2011. Mauboy and Walker later performed \"What Happened to Us\" on Dancing with the Stars Australia on 29 May 2011. From November 2013 to February 2014, \"What Happened to Us\" was part of the set list of the To the End of the Earth Tour, Mauboy's second headlining tour of Australia, with Nathaniel Willemse singing Sean's part.\n\nTrack listing\n\nDigital download\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean – 3:19\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (Sgt Slick Remix) – 6:33\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (Just Witness Remix) – 3:45\n\nCD single\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (Album Version) – 3:19\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (Sgt Slick Remix) – 6:33\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (OFM Remix) – 3:39\n\nDigital download – Remix\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (OFM Remix) – 3:38\n\nDigital download\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Stan Walker – 3:20\n\nPersonnel\nSongwriting – Josh Alexander, Billy Steinberg, Jeremy Skaller, Rob Larow, Khaled Rohaim, Israel Cruz, Jay Sean\nProduction – Jeremy Skaller, Bobby Bass\nAdditional production – Israel Cruz, Khaled Rohaim\nLead vocals – Jessica Mauboy, Jay Sean\nMixing – Phil Tan\nAdditional mixing – Damien Lewis\nMastering – Tom Coyne \nSource:\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly chart\n\nYear-end chart\n\nCertification\n\nRadio dates and release history\n\nReferences\n\n2010 songs\n2011 singles\nJessica Mauboy songs\nJay Sean songs\nSongs written by Billy Steinberg\nSongs written by Jay Sean\nSongs written by Josh Alexander\nSongs written by Israel Cruz\nVocal duets\nSony Music Australia singles\nSongs written by Khaled Rohaim"
] |
[
"Billie Holiday",
"1935-38: Recordings with Teddy Wilson",
"What happened in 1935?",
"In 1935 Holiday was signed to Brunswick Records by John Hammond to record current pop tunes with Teddy Wilson in the new swing style for the growing jukebox trade.",
"What happened in 1936?",
"Hammond spoke about the commercial impact of the Wilson-Holiday sides from 1935 to 1938, calling them a great asset to Brunswick.",
"What happened in 1937?",
"I don't know."
] |
C_52be57a775c94201a6b8dcb1c2fe9fa9_0
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What happened in 1938?
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What happened in 1938 to Billie Holiday?
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Billie Holiday
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In 1935 Holiday was signed to Brunswick Records by John Hammond to record current pop tunes with Teddy Wilson in the new swing style for the growing jukebox trade. They were given free rein to improvise the material. Holiday's improvisation of melody to fit the emotion was revolutionary. Their first collaboration included "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" and "Miss Brown to You". "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" has been deemed her "claim to fame." Brunswick did not favor the recording session, because producers wanted Holiday to sound more like Cleo Brown. After "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" garnered success, however, the company began considering Holiday an artist in her own right. She began recording under her own name a year later (on the 35-cent Vocalion label), producing a series of extraordinary performances with groups comprising the swing era's finest musicians. The sessions were co-produced by Hammond and Bernie Hanighen. With their arrangements, Wilson and Holiday took pedestrian pop tunes, such as "Twenty-Four Hours a Day" (number 6 Pop) and "Yankee Doodle Went to Town", and turned them into jazz classics. Most of Holiday's recordings with Wilson or under her own name during the 1930s and early 1940s are regarded as important parts of the jazz vocal library. She was then in her twenties. Another frequent accompanist was the tenor saxophonist Lester Young, who had been a boarder at her mother's house in 1934 and with whom Holiday had a special rapport. He said, "I think you can hear that on some of the old records, you know. Some time I'd sit down and listen to 'em myself, and it sound like two of the same voices, if you don't be careful, you know, or the same mind, or something like that." Young nicknamed her "Lady Day", and she called him "Prez". Hammond spoke about the commercial impact of the Wilson-Holiday sides from 1935 to 1938, calling them a great asset to Brunswick. The record label, according to Hammond, was broke and unable to record many jazz tunes. Wilson, Holiday, Young, and other musicians came into the studio without musical arrangements and improvised as they performed, dispensing with the expense of having written arrangements, so that the records they produced were cheap. Holiday was never given any royalties for her work, instead being paid a flat fee, which saved the company money. Some of the records produced were successful, such as "I Cried for You", which sold 15,000 copies. Hammond said of the record, "15,000 ... was a giant hit for Brunswick in those days. I mean a giant hit. Most records that made money sold around three to four thousand." CANNOTANSWER
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CANNOTANSWER
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Billie Holiday (born Eleanora Fagan; April 7, 1915 – July 17, 1959) was an American jazz and swing music singer. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and music partner, Lester Young, Holiday had an innovative influence on jazz music and pop singing. Her vocal style, strongly inspired by jazz instrumentalists, pioneered a new way of manipulating phrasing and tempo. She was known for her vocal delivery and improvisational skills.
After a turbulent childhood, Holiday began singing in nightclubs in Harlem, where she was heard by producer John Hammond, who liked her voice. She signed a recording contract with Brunswick in 1935. Collaborations with Teddy Wilson produced the hit "What a Little Moonlight Can Do", which became a jazz standard. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, Holiday had mainstream success on labels such as Columbia and Decca. By the late 1940s, however, she was beset with legal troubles and drug abuse. After a short prison sentence, she performed at a sold-out concert at Carnegie Hall.
She was a successful concert performer throughout the 1950s with two further sold-out shows at Carnegie Hall. Because of personal struggles and an altered voice, her final recordings were met with mixed reaction but were mild commercial successes. Her final album, Lady in Satin, was released in 1958. Holiday died of cirrhosis on July 17, 1959, at age 44.
Holiday won four Grammy Awards, all of them posthumously, for Best Historical Album. She was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame and the National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame. She was also inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, though not in that genre; the website states that "Billie Holiday changed jazz forever". Several films about her life have been released, most recently The United States vs. Billie Holiday (2021).
Life and career
1915–1929: Childhood
Eleanora Fagan was born on April 7, 1915, in Philadelphia, the daughter of African-American unwed teenage couple Sarah Julia "Sadie" Fagan and Clarence Halliday. Sarah moved to Philadelphia at age 19, after she was evicted from her parents' home in the Sandtown-Winchester neighborhood of Baltimore, Maryland for becoming pregnant. With no support from her parents, she made arrangements with her older, married half-sister, Eva Miller, for Eleanora to stay with her in Baltimore. Not long after Eleanora was born, Clarence abandoned his family to pursue a career as a jazz banjo player and guitarist. Some historians have disputed Holiday's paternity, as a copy of her birth certificate in the Baltimore archives lists her father as "Frank DeViese". Other historians consider this an anomaly, probably inserted by a hospital or government worker. DeViese lived in Philadelphia, and Sadie Harris may have known him through her work. Sadie Harris, then known as Sadie Fagan, married Philip Gough, but the marriage ended in two years.
Eleanora grew up in Baltimore and had a very difficult childhood. Her mother often took what were then known as "transportation jobs", serving on passenger railroads. Holiday was raised largely by Eva Miller's mother-in-law, Martha Miller, and suffered from her mother's absences and being in others' care for her first decade of life. Holiday's autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues, published in 1956, is sketchy on details of her early life, but much was confirmed by Stuart Nicholson in his 1995 biography of the singer.
After attending kindergarten at St. Frances Academy, she frequently skipped school, and her truancy resulted in her being brought before the juvenile court on January 5, 1925, when she was nine years old. She was sent to the House of the Good Shepherd, a Catholic reform school, where she was baptized on March 19, 1925. After nine months in care, she was "paroled" on October 3, 1925, to her mother. Sadie had opened a restaurant, the East Side Grill, and mother and daughter worked long hours there. She dropped out of school at age 11.
On December 24, 1926, Sadie came home to discover a neighbor, Wilbur Rich, attempting to rape Eleanora. She successfully fought back, and Rich was arrested. Officials placed Eleanora in the House of the Good Shepherd under protective custody as a state witness in the rape case. Holiday was released in February 1927, when she was nearly 12. She found a job running errands in a brothel, and she scrubbed marble steps as well as kitchen and bathroom floors of neighborhood homes. Around this time, she first heard the records of Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith. In particular, Holiday cited "West End Blues" as an intriguing influence, pointing specifically to the scat section duet with the clarinet as her favorite part. By the end of 1928, Holiday's mother moved to Harlem, New York, again leaving Eleanora with Martha Miller.
By early 1929, Holiday had joined her mother in Harlem.
1929–1935: Early career
As a young teenager, Holiday started singing in nightclubs in Harlem. She took her professional pseudonym from Billie Dove, an actress she admired, and Clarence Halliday, her probable father. At the outset of her career, she spelled her last name "Halliday", her father's birth surname, but eventually changed it to "Holiday", his performing name. The young singer teamed up with a neighbor, tenor saxophone player Kenneth Hollan. They were a team from 1929 to 1931, performing at clubs such as the Grey Dawn, Pod's and Jerry's on 133rd Street, and the Brooklyn Elks' Club. Benny Goodman recalled hearing Holiday in 1931 at the Bright Spot. As her reputation grew, she played in many clubs, including the Mexico's and the Alhambra Bar and Grill, where she met Charles Linton, a vocalist who later worked with Chick Webb. It was also during this period that she connected with her father, who was playing in Fletcher Henderson's band.
Late in 1932, 17-year-old Holiday replaced the singer Monette Moore at Covan's, a club on West 132nd Street. Producer John Hammond, who loved Moore's singing and had come to hear her, first heard Holiday there in early 1933. Hammond arranged for Holiday to make her recording debut at age 18, in November 1933, with Benny Goodman. She recorded two songs: "Your Mother's Son-In-Law" and "Riffin' the Scotch", the latter being her first hit. "Son-in-Law" sold 300 copies, and "Riffin' the Scotch", released on November 11, sold 5,000 copies. Hammond was impressed by Holiday's singing style and said of her, "Her singing almost changed my music tastes and my musical life, because she was the first girl singer I'd come across who actually sang like an improvising jazz genius." Hammond compared Holiday favorably to Armstrong and said she had a good sense of lyric content at her young age.
In 1935, Holiday had a small role as a woman abused by her lover in Duke Ellington's musical short film Symphony in Black: A Rhapsody of Negro Life. She sang "Saddest Tale" in her scene.
1935–1938: Recordings with Teddy Wilson
In 1935, Holiday was signed to Brunswick by John Hammond to record pop tunes with pianist Teddy Wilson in the swing style for the growing jukebox trade. They were allowed to improvise on the material. Holiday's improvisation of melody to fit the emotion was revolutionary. Their first collaboration included "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" and "Miss Brown to You". "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" has been deemed her "claim to fame". Brunswick did not favor the recording session because producers wanted Holiday to sound more like Cleo Brown. However, after "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" was successful, the company began considering Holiday an artist in her own right. She began recording under her own name a year later for Vocalion in sessions produced by Hammond and Bernie Hanighen. Hammond said the Wilson-Holiday records from 1935 to 1938 were a great asset to Brunswick. According to Hammond, Brunswick was broke and unable to record many jazz tunes. Wilson, Holiday, Young, and other musicians came into the studio without written arrangements, reducing the recording cost. Brunswick paid Holiday a flat fee rather than royalties, which saved the company money. "I Cried for You" sold 15,000 copies, which Hammond called "a giant hit for Brunswick.... Most records that made money sold around three to four thousand."
Another frequent accompanist was tenor saxophonist Lester Young, who had been a boarder at her mother's house in 1934 and with whom Holiday had a rapport. Young said, "I think you can hear that on some of the old records, you know. Some time I'd sit down and listen to 'em myself, and it sound like two of the same voices ... or the same mind, or something like that." Young nicknamed her "Lady Day", and she called him "Prez".
1937–1938: Working for Count Basie and Artie Shaw
In late 1937, Holiday had a brief stint as a big-band vocalist with Count Basie. The traveling conditions of the band were often poor; they performed many one-nighters in clubs, moving from city to city with little stability. Holiday chose the songs she sang and had a hand in the arrangements, choosing to portray her developing persona of a woman unlucky in love. Her tunes included "I Must Have That Man", "Travelin' All Alone", "I Can't Get Started", and "Summertime", a hit for Holiday in 1936, originating in George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess the year before. Basie became used to Holiday's heavy involvement in the band. He said, "When she rehearsed with the band, it was really just a matter of getting her tunes like she wanted them, because she knew how she wanted to sound and you couldn't tell her what to do." Some of the songs Holiday performed with Basie were recorded. "I Can't Get Started", "They Can't Take That Away from Me", and "Swing It Brother Swing" are all commercially available. Holiday was unable to record in the studio with Basie, but she included many of his musicians in her recording sessions with Teddy Wilson.
Holiday found herself in direct competition with the popular singer Ella Fitzgerald. The two later became friends. Fitzgerald was the vocalist for the Chick Webb Band, which was in competition with the Basie band. On January 16, 1938, the same day that Benny Goodman performed his legendary Carnegie Hall jazz concert, the Basie and Webb bands had a battle at the Savoy Ballroom. Webb and Fitzgerald were declared winners by Metronome magazine, while DownBeat magazine pronounced Holiday and Basie the winners. Fitzgerald won a straw poll of the audience by a three-to-one margin.
By February 1938, Holiday was no longer singing for Basie. Various reasons have been given for why she was fired. Jimmy Rushing, Basie's male vocalist, called her unprofessional. According to All Music Guide, Holiday was fired for being "temperamental and unreliable". She complained of low pay and poor working conditions and may have refused to sing the songs requested of her or change her style. Holiday was hired by Artie Shaw a month after being fired from the Count Basie Band. This association placed her among the first black women to work with a white orchestra, an unusual arrangement at that time. This was also the first time a black female singer employed full-time toured the segregated U.S. South with a white bandleader. In situations where there was a lot of racial tension, Shaw was known to stick up for his vocalist. In her autobiography, Holiday describes an incident in which she was not permitted to sit on the bandstand with other vocalists because she was black. Shaw said to her, "I want you on the band stand like Helen Forrest, Tony Pastor and everyone else." When touring the South, Holiday would sometimes be heckled by members of the audience. In Louisville, Kentucky, a man called her a "nigger wench" and requested she sing another song. Holiday lost her temper and had to be escorted off the stage.
By March 1938, Shaw and Holiday had been broadcast on New York City's powerful radio station WABC (the original WABC, now WCBS). Because of their success, they were given an extra time slot to broadcast in April, which increased their exposure. The New York Amsterdam News reviewed the broadcasts and reported an improvement in Holiday's performance. Metronome reported that the addition of Holiday to Shaw's band put it in the "top brackets". Holiday could not sing as often during Shaw's shows as she could in Basie's; the repertoire was more instrumental, with fewer vocals. Shaw was also pressured to hire a white singer, Nita Bradley, with whom Holiday did not get along but had to share a bandstand. In May 1938, Shaw won band battles against Tommy Dorsey and Red Norvo, with the audience favoring Holiday. Although Shaw admired Holiday's singing in his band, saying she had a "remarkable ear" and a "remarkable sense of time", her tenure with the band was nearing an end. In November 1938, Holiday was asked to use the service elevator at the Lincoln Hotel in New York City, instead of the one used by hotel guests, because white patrons of the hotels complained. This may have been the last straw for her. She left the band shortly after. Holiday spoke about the incident weeks later, saying, "I was never allowed to visit the bar or the dining room as did other members of the band ... [and] I was made to leave and enter through the kitchen." There are no surviving live recordings of Holiday with Shaw's band. Because she was under contract to a different record label and possibly because of her race, Holiday was able to make only one record with Shaw, "Any Old Time". However, Shaw played clarinet on four songs she recorded in New York on July 10, 1936: "Did I Remember?", "No Regrets", "Summertime" and "Billie's Blues".
By the late 1930s, Holiday had toured with Count Basie and Artie Shaw, scored a string of radio and retail hits with Teddy Wilson, and became an established artist in the recording industry. Her songs "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" and "Easy Living" were imitated by singers across America and were quickly becoming jazz standards. In September 1938, Holiday's single "I'm Gonna Lock My Heart" ranked sixth as the most-played song that month. Her record label, Vocalion, listed the single as its fourth-best seller for the same month, and it peaked at number 2 on the pop charts, according to Joel Whitburn's Pop Memories: 1890–1954.
1939: "Strange Fruit" and Commodore Records
Holiday was in the middle of recording for Columbia in the late 1930s when she was introduced to "Strange Fruit", a song by Abel Meeropol based on his poem about lynching. Meeropol, a Jewish schoolteacher from the Bronx, used the pseudonym "Lewis Allan" for the poem, which was set to music and performed at teachers' union meetings. It was eventually heard by Barney Josephson, the proprietor of Café Society, an integrated nightclub in Greenwich Village, who introduced it to Holiday. She performed it at the club in 1939, with some trepidation, fearing possible retaliation. She later said that the imagery of the song reminded her of her father's death and that this played a role in her resistance to performing it.
For her performance of "Strange Fruit" at the Café Society, she had waiters silence the crowd when the song began. During the song's long introduction, the lights dimmed and all movement had to cease. As Holiday began singing, only a small spotlight illuminated her face. On the final note, all lights went out, and when they came back on, Holiday was gone. Holiday said her father, Clarence Holiday, was denied medical treatment for a fatal lung disorder because of racial prejudice, and that singing "Strange Fruit" reminded her of the incident. "It reminds me of how Pop died, but I have to keep singing it, not only because people ask for it, but because twenty years after Pop died the things that killed him are still happening in the South", she wrote in her autobiography. When Holiday's producers at Columbia found the subject matter too sensitive, Milt Gabler agreed to record it for his Commodore Records label on April 20, 1939. "Strange Fruit" remained in her repertoire for 20 years. She recorded it again for Verve. The Commodore release did not get any airplay, but the controversial song sold well, though Gabler attributed that mostly to the record's other side, "Fine and Mellow", which was a jukebox hit. "The version I recorded for Commodore", Holiday said of "Strange Fruit", "became my biggest-selling record." "Strange Fruit" was the equivalent of a top-twenty hit in the 1930s.
Holiday's popularity increased after "Strange Fruit". She received a mention in Time magazine. "I open Café Society as an unknown", Holiday said. "I left two years later as a star. I needed the prestige and publicity all right, but you can't pay rent with it." She soon demanded a raise from her manager, Joe Glaser. Holiday returned to Commodore in 1944, recording songs she made with Teddy Wilson in the 1930s, including "I Cover the Waterfront", "I'll Get By", and "He's Funny That Way". She also recorded new songs that were popular at the time, including, "My Old Flame", "How Am I to Know?", "I'm Yours", and "I'll Be Seeing You", a number one hit for Bing Crosby. She also recorded her version of "Embraceable You", which was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2005.
1940–1947: Commercial success
Holiday's mother Sadie, nicknamed "The Duchess", opened a restaurant called Mom Holiday's. She used money from her daughter while playing dice with members of the Count Basie band, with whom she toured in the late 1930s. "It kept Mom busy and happy and stopped her from worrying and watching over me", Holiday said. Fagan began borrowing large amounts from Holiday to support the restaurant. Holiday obliged but soon fell on hard times herself. "I needed some money one night and I knew Mom was sure to have some", she said. "So I walked in the restaurant like a stockholder and asked. Mom turned me down flat. She wouldn't give me a cent." The two argued, and Holiday shouted angrily, "God bless the child that's got his own", and stormed out. With Arthur Herzog, Jr., a pianist, she wrote a song based on the lyric, "God Bless the Child", and added music. "God Bless the Child" became Holiday's most popular and most covered record. It reached number 25 on the charts in 1941 and was third in Billboard'''s songs of the year, selling over a million records.Jazz History: The Standards (1940s). Jazzstandards.com. Retrieved November 13, 2010. In 1976, the song was added to the Grammy Hall of Fame. Herzog claimed Holiday contributed only a few lines to the lyrics. He said she came up with the line "God bless the child" from a dinner conversation the two had had.
On June 24, 1942, Holiday recorded "Trav'lin Light" with Paul Whiteman for a new label, Capitol Records. Because she was under contract to Columbia, she used the pseudonym "Lady Day". The song reached number 23 on the pop charts and number one on the R&B charts, then called the Harlem Hit Parade. In September 1943, Life magazine wrote, "She has the most distinct style of any popular vocalist and is imitated by other vocalists."
Milt Gabler, in addition to owning Commodore Records, became an A&R man for Decca Records. He signed Holiday to Decca on August 7, 1944, when she was 29. Her first Decca recording was "Lover Man" (number 16 Pop, number 5 R&B), one of her biggest hits. The success and distribution of the song made Holiday a staple in the pop community, leading to solo concerts, rare for jazz singers in the late 1940s. Gabler said, "I made Billie a real pop singer. That was right in her. Billie loved those songs." Jimmy Davis and Roger "Ram" Ramirez, the song's writers, had tried to interest Holiday in the song. In 1943, a flamboyant male torch singer, Willie Dukes, began singing "Lover Man" on 52nd Street. Because of his success, Holiday added it to her shows. The record's flip side was "No More", one of her favorites. Holiday asked Gabler for strings on the recording. Such arrangements were associated with Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald. "I went on my knees to him", Holiday said. "I didn't want to do it with the ordinary six pieces. I begged Milt and told him I had to have strings behind me." On October 4, 1944, Holiday entered the studio to record "Lover Man", saw the string ensemble and walked out. The musical director, Toots Camarata, said Holiday was overwhelmed with joy. She may also have wanted strings to avoid comparisons between her commercially successful early work with Teddy Wilson and everything produced afterwards. Her 1930s recordings with Wilson used a small jazz combo; recordings for Decca often involved strings. A month later, in November, Holiday returned to Decca to record "That Ole Devil Called Love", "Big Stuff", and "Don't Explain". She wrote "Don't Explain" after she caught her husband, Jimmy Monroe, with lipstick on his collar.
Holiday did not make any more records until August 1945, when she recorded "Don't Explain" for a second time, changing the lyrics "I know you raise Cain" to "Just say you'll remain" and changing "You mixed with some dame" to "What is there to gain?" Other songs recorded were "Big Stuff", "What Is This Thing Called Love?", and "You Better Go Now". Ella Fitzgerald named "You Better Go Now" her favorite recording of Holiday's. "Big Stuff" and "Don't Explain" were recorded again but with additional strings and a viola. In 1946, Holiday recorded "Good Morning Heartache". Although the song failed to chart, she sang it in live performances; three live recordings are known.
In September 1946, Holiday began her only major film, New Orleans, in which she starred opposite Louis Armstrong and Woody Herman. Plagued by racism and McCarthyism, producer Jules Levey and script writer Herbert Biberman were pressed to lessen Holiday's and Armstrong's roles to avoid the impression that black people created jazz. The attempts failed because in 1947 Biberman was listed as one of the Hollywood Ten and sent to jail. Several scenes were deleted from the film. "They had taken miles of footage of music and scenes", Holiday said, but "none of it was left in the picture. And very damn little of me. I know I wore a white dress for a number I did... and that was cut out of the picture." She recorded "The Blues Are Brewin'" for the film's soundtrack. Other songs included in the movie are "Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans?" and "Farewell to Storyville". Holiday's drug addictions were a problem on the set. She earned more than one thousand dollars per week from club ventures but spent most of it on heroin. Her lover, Joe Guy, traveled to Hollywood while Holiday was filming and supplied her with drugs. Guy was banned from the set when he was found there by Holiday's manager, Joe Glaser.
By the late 1940s, Holiday had begun recording a number of slow, sentimental ballads. Metronome expressed its concerns in 1946 about "Good Morning Heartache", saying, "there's a danger that Billie's present formula will wear thin, but up to now it's wearing well." The New York Herald Tribune reported of a concert in 1946 that her performance had little variation in melody and no change in tempo.
1947–1952: Legal issues and Carnegie Hall concert
By 1947, Holiday was at her commercial peak, having made $250,000 in the three previous years. She was ranked second in the DownBeat poll for 1946 and 1947, her highest ranking in that poll. She was ranked fifth in Billboard 's annual college poll of "girl singers" on July 6, 1947 (Jo Stafford was first). In 1946, Holiday won the Metronome magazine popularity poll.
On May 16, 1947, Holiday was arrested for possession of narcotics in her New York apartment. On May 27 she was in court. "It was called 'The United States of America versus Billie Holiday'. And that's just the way it felt", she recalled. During the trial, she heard that her lawyer would not come to the trial to represent her. "In plain English that meant no one in the world was interested in looking out for me," she said. Dehydrated and unable to hold down food, she pleaded guilty and asked to be sent to the hospital. The district attorney spoke in her defense, saying, "If your honor please, this is a case of a drug addict, but more serious, however, than most of our cases, Miss Holiday is a professional entertainer and among the higher rank as far as income was concerned." She was sentenced to Alderson Federal Prison Camp in West Virginia. The drug possession conviction caused her to lose her New York City Cabaret Card, preventing her working anywhere that sold alcohol; thereafter, she performed in concert venues and theaters.
Holiday was released early (on March 16, 1948) because of good behavior. When she arrived at Newark, her pianist Bobby Tucker and her dog Mister were waiting. The dog leaped at Holiday, knocking off her hat, and tackling her to the ground. "He began lapping me and loving me like crazy", she said. A woman thought the dog was attacking Holiday. She screamed, a crowd gathered, and reporters arrived. "I might just as well have wheeled into Penn Station and had a quiet little get-together with the Associated Press, United Press, and International News Service", she said.
Ed Fishman (who fought with Joe Glaser to be Holiday's manager) thought of a comeback concert at Carnegie Hall. Holiday hesitated, unsure audiences would accept her after the arrest. She gave in and agreed to appear. On March 27, 1948, Holiday played Carnegie Hall to a sold-out crowd. 2,700 tickets were sold in advance, a record at the time for the venue. Her popularity was unusual because she didn't have a current hit record. Her last record to reach the charts was "Lover Man" in 1945. Holiday sang 32 songs at the Carnegie concert by her count, including Cole Porter's "Night and Day" and her 1930s hit, "Strange Fruit". During the show, someone sent her a box of gardenias. "My old trademark", Holiday said. "I took them out of box and fastened them smack to the side of my head without even looking twice." There was a hatpin in the gardenias and Holiday unknowingly stuck it into the side of her head. "I didn't feel anything until the blood started rushing down in my eyes and ears", she said. After the third curtain call, she passed out.
On April 27, 1948, Bob Sylvester and her promoter Al Wilde arranged a Broadway show for her. Titled Holiday on Broadway, it sold out. "The regular music critics and drama critics came and treated us like we were legit", she said. But it closed after three weeks.
Holiday was arrested again on January 22, 1949, in her room at the Hotel Mark Twain in San Francisco. Holiday said she began using hard drugs in the early 1940s. She married trombonist Jimmy Monroe on August 25, 1941. While still married, she became involved with trumpeter Joe Guy, her drug dealer. She divorced Monroe in 1947 and also split with Guy.
In October 1949, Holiday recorded "Crazy He Calls Me", which was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2010. Gabler said the hit was her most successful recording for Decca after "Lover Man". The charts of the 1940s did not list songs outside the top 30, making it impossible to recognize minor hits. By the late 1940s, despite her popularity and concert power, her singles were little played on radio, perhaps because of her reputation.
The loss of her cabaret card reduced Holiday's earnings. She had not received proper record royalties until she joined Decca, so her main revenue was club concerts. The problem worsened when Holiday's records went out of print in the 1950s. She seldom received royalties in her later years. In 1958, she received a royalty of only $11.Nicholson, p. 167. Her lawyer in the late 1950s, Earle Warren Zaidins, registered with BMI only two songs she had written or co-written, costing her revenue. In 1948, Holiday played at the Ebony Club, which was against the law. Her manager, John Levy, was convinced he could get her card back and allowed her to open without one. "I opened scared", Holiday said, "[I was] expecting the cops to come in any chorus and carry me off. But nothing happened. I was a huge success."
Holiday recorded Gershwin's "I Loves You, Porgy" in 1948. In 1950, Holiday appeared in the Universal short film Sugar Chile Robinson, Billie Holiday, Count Basie and His Sextet, singing "God Bless the Child" and "Now, Baby or Never".
1952–1959: Lady Sings the Blues
By the 1950s, Holiday's drug use, drinking, and relationships with abusive men caused her health to deteriorate. She appeared on the ABC reality series The Comeback Story to discuss attempts to overcome her misfortunes. Her later recordings showed the effects of declining health on her voice, as it grew coarse and no longer projected its former vibrancy.
Holiday first toured Europe in 1954 as part of a Leonard Feather package. The Swedish impresario, Nils Hellstrom, initiated the "Jazz Club U.S.A." (after the Leonard Feather radio show) tour starting in Stockholm in January 1954 and then Germany, Netherlands, Paris and Switzerland. The tour party was Holiday, Buddy DeFranco, Red Norvo, Carl Drinkard, Elaine Leighton, Sonny Clark, Berryl Booker, Jimmy Raney and Red Mitchell. A recording of a live set in Germany was released as Lady Love – Billie Holiday.
Holiday's autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues, was ghostwritten by William Dufty and published in 1956. Dufty, a New York Post writer and editor then married to Holiday's close friend Maely Dufty, wrote the book quickly from a series of conversations with the singer in the Duftys' 93rd Street apartment. He also drew on the work of earlier interviewers and intended to let Holiday tell her story in her own way. In his 2015 study, Billie Holiday: The Musician and the Myth, John Szwed argued that Lady Sings the Blues is a generally accurate account of her life, but that co-writer Dufty was forced to water down or suppress material by the threat of legal action. According to the reviewer Richard Brody, "Szwed traces the stories of two important relationships that are missing from the book—with Charles Laughton, in the 1930s, and with Tallulah Bankhead, in the late 1940s—and of one relationship that's sharply diminished in the book, her affair with Orson Welles around the time of Citizen Kane." To accompany her autobiography, Holiday released the LP Lady Sings the Blues in June 1956. The album featured four new tracks, "Lady Sings the Blues", "Too Marvelous for Words", "Willow Weep for Me", and "I Thought About You", and eight new recordings of her biggest hits to date. The re-recordings included "Trav'lin' Light" "Strange Fruit" and "God Bless the Child". A review of the album was published by Billboard magazine on December 22, 1956, calling it a worthy musical complement to her autobiography. "Holiday is in good voice now", wrote the reviewer, "and these new readings will be much appreciated by her following". "Strange Fruit" and "God Bless the Child" were called classics, and "Good Morning Heartache", another reissued track on the LP, was also noted favorably.
On November 10, 1956, Holiday performed two concerts before packed audiences at Carnegie Hall. Live recordings of the second Carnegie Hall concert were released on a Verve/HMV album in the UK in late 1961 called The Essential Billie Holiday. The 13 tracks included on this album featured her own songs "I Love My Man", "Don't Explain" and "Fine and Mellow", together with other songs closely associated with her, including "Body and Soul", "My Man", and "Lady Sings the Blues" (her lyrics accompanied a tune by pianist Herbie Nichols). The liner notes for this album were written partly by Gilbert Millstein of the New York Times, who, according to these notes, served as narrator of the Carnegie Hall concerts. Interspersed among Holiday's songs, Millstein read aloud four lengthy passages from her autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues. He later wrote:
The critic Nat Hentoff of DownBeat magazine, who attended the Carnegie Hall concert, wrote the remainder of the sleeve notes on the 1961 album. He wrote of Holiday's performance:
Her performance of "Fine and Mellow" on CBS's The Sound of Jazz program is memorable for her interplay with her long-time friend Lester Young. Both were less than two years from death. Young died in March 1959. Holiday wanted to sing at his funeral, but her request was denied.
When Holiday returned to Europe almost five years later, in 1959, she made one of her last television appearances for Granada's Chelsea at Nine in London. Her final studio recordings were made for MGM Records in 1959, with lush backing from Ray Ellis and his Orchestra, who had also accompanied her on the Columbia album Lady in Satin the previous year (see below). The MGM sessions were released posthumously on a self-titled album, later retitled and re-released as Last Recording.
On March 28, 1957, Holiday married Louis McKay, a mob enforcer. McKay, like most of the men in her life, was abusive. They were separated at the time of her death, but McKay had plans to start a chain of Billie Holiday vocal studios, on the model of the Arthur Murray dance schools. Holiday was childless, but she had two godchildren: singer Billie Lorraine Feather (the daughter of Leonard Feather) and Bevan Dufty (the son of William Dufty).
Illness and death
By early 1959, Holiday was diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver. Although she had initially stopped drinking on her doctor's orders, it was not long before she relapsed. By May 1959, she had lost . Her manager Joe Glaser, jazz critic Leonard Feather, photojournalist Allan Morrison, and the singer's own friends all tried in vain to persuade her to go to a hospital. On May 31, 1959, Holiday was taken to Metropolitan Hospital in New York for treatment of liver disease and heart disease. According to writer and journalist Johann Hari, the Federal Bureau of Narcotics under Harry J. Anslinger, had been targeting Holiday since at least 1939, when she started to perform "Strange Fruit". Narcotics police went to her hospital room, claiming they had found heroin in her bedroom. A grand jury was summoned to indict her and she was arrested and handcuffed to her bed and placed under police guard. According to Hari, after 10 days, methadone was discontinued as part of Anslinger's policy; Hari accused Anslinger of being responsible for her death. On July 15, she received last rites. She died at age 44, at 3:10 a.m. on July 17, of pulmonary edema and heart failure caused by cirrhosis of the liver.
In her final years, Holiday had been progressively swindled out of her earnings, and she died with US$0.70 in the bank. Her funeral Mass was held on July 21, 1959, at the Church of St. Paul the Apostle in Manhattan. She was buried at Saint Raymond's Cemetery in the Bronx. The story of her burial plot and how it was managed by her estranged husband, Louis McKay, was documented on NPR in 2012.
Gilbert Millstein of The New York Times, who was the announcer at Holiday's 1956 Carnegie Hall concerts and wrote parts of the sleeve notes for the album The Essential Billie Holiday (see above), described her death in these sleeve notes, dated 1961:
When Holiday died, The New York Times published a short obituary on page 15 without a byline. She left an estate of $1,000, and her best recordings from the 1930s were mostly out of print. Holiday's public stature grew in the following years. In 1961, she was voted to the Down Beat Hall Of Fame, and soon after Columbia reissued nearly one hundred of her early records. In 1972, Diana Ross' portrayal of Holiday in Lady Sings the Blues was nominated for an Oscar and won a Golden Globe. Holiday was posthumously nominated for 23 Grammy awards.
Legacy
Billie Holiday received several Esquire Magazine awards during her lifetime. Her posthumous awards also include being inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, Ertegun Jazz Hall of Fame, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and the ASCAP Jazz Wall of Fame. In 1985, a statue of Billie Holiday was erected in Baltimore; the statue was completed in 1993 with additional panels of images inspired by her seminal song Strange Fruit. In 2019, Chirlane McCray announced that New York City would build a statue honoring Holiday near Queens Borough Hall.
The Billie Holiday Monument is located at Pennsylvania and West Lafayette avenues in Baltimore's Upton neighborhood.
Vocal style and range
Holiday's delivery made her performances recognizable throughout her career. Her improvisation compensated for lack of musical education. Holiday said that she always wanted her voice to sound like an instrument and some of her influences were Louis Armstrong and the singer Bessie Smith. Her last major recording, a 1958 album entitled Lady in Satin, features the backing of a 40-piece orchestra conducted and arranged by Ray Ellis, who said of the album in 1997:
Frank Sinatra was influenced by her performances on 52nd Street as a young man. He told Ebony magazine in 1958 about her impact:
Films and plays about Holiday
The biographical film Lady Sings the Blues, loosely based on Holiday's autobiography, was released in 1972 and was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Diana Ross for Best Actress. Another film, The United States vs. Billie Holiday, starred Andra Day and was released in 2021. It is based on the book Chasing the Scream by Johann Hari. Director Lee Daniels saw how Holiday was portrayed in the 1972 biopic, and wanted to show her legacy as "a civil rights leader [...] not just a drug addict or a jazz singer". Day was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance and won a Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama in 2021.
Holiday is the primary character in the play Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill, with music by Lanie Robertson. It takes place in South Philadelphia in March 1959. It premiered in 1986 at the Alliance Theatre and has been revived several times. A Broadway production starring Audra McDonald was filmed and broadcast on HBO in 2016; McDonald received an Emmy Award nomination and a record-breaking Tony Award win, becoming the most decorated performer in Tony history with six awards across all four eligible competitive categories. Billie is a 2019 documentary film based on interviews in the 1970s by Linda Lipnack Kuehl, who was researching a book on Holiday that was never completed.
Billie Holiday was also portrayed by actress Paula Jai Parker in Touched by an Angel's 2000 episode "God Bless the Child".
Discography
Billie Holiday recorded extensively for four labels: Columbia Records, which issued her recordings on its subsidiary labels Brunswick Records, Vocalion Records and OKeh Records, from 1933 through 1942; Commodore Records in 1939 and 1944; Decca Records from 1944 through 1950; briefly for Aladdin Records in 1951; Verve Records and on its earlier imprint Clef Records from 1952 through 1957, then again for Columbia Records from 1957 to 1958 and finally for MGM Records in 1959. Many of Holiday's recordings appeared on 78-rpm records prior to the long-playing vinyl record era, and only Clef, Verve, and Columbia issued albums during her lifetime that were not compilations of previously released material. Many compilations have been issued since her death, as well as comprehensive box sets and live recordings.[ Billie Holiday]. AllMusic. Retrieved on November 13, 2010.
Hit records
In 1986, Joel Whitburn's company Record Research compiled information on the popularity of recordings released from the era predating rock and roll and created pop charts dating back to the beginning of the commercial recording industry. The company's findings were published in the book Pop Memories 1890–1954. Several of Holiday's records are listed on the pop charts Whitburn created.
Holiday began her recording career on a high note with her first major release, "Riffin' the Scotch", of which 5,000 copies were sold. It was released under the name "Benny Goodman & His Orchestra" in 1933.
Most of Holiday's early successes were released under the name "Teddy Wilson & His Orchestra". During her stay in Wilson's band, Holiday would sing a few bars and then other musicians would have a solo. Wilson, one of the most influential jazz pianists of the swing era, accompanied Holiday more than any other musician. He and Holiday issued 95 recordings together.
In July 1936, Holiday began releasing sides under her own name. These songs were released under the band name "Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra". Most noteworthy, the popular jazz standard "Summertime" sold well and was listed on the pop charts of the time at number 12, the first time the jazz standard charted. Only Billy Stewart's R&B version of "Summertime" reached a higher chart placement than Holiday's, charting at number 10 thirty years later in 1966.
Holiday had 16 best-selling songs in 1937, making the year her most commercially successful. It was in this year that Holiday scored her sole number one hit as a featured vocalist on the available pop charts of the 1930s, "Carelessly". The hit "I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm", was also recorded by Ray Noble, Glen Gray and Fred Astaire, whose rendering was a bestseller for weeks. Holiday's version ranked 6 on the year-end single chart available for 1937.
In 1939, Holiday recorded her biggest selling record, "Strange Fruit" for Commodore, charting at number 16 on the available pop charts for the 1930s.
In 1940, Billboard began publishing its modern pop charts, which included the Best Selling Retail Records chart, the precursor to the Hot 100. None of Holiday's songs placed on the modern pop charts, partly because Billboard only published the first ten slots of the charts in some issues. Minor hits and independent releases had no way of being spotlighted.
"God Bless the Child", which went on to sell over a million copies, ranked number 3 on Billboards year-end top songs of 1941.
On October 24, 1942, Billboard began issuing its R&B charts. Two of Holiday's songs placed on the chart, "Trav'lin' Light" with Paul Whiteman, which topped the chart, and "Lover Man", which reached number 5. "Trav'lin' Light" also reached 18 on Billboards year-end chart.
Studio LPsBillie Holiday Sings (1952)An Evening with Billie Holiday (1952)Billie Holiday (1954)Music for Torching (1955)Velvet Mood (1956)Lady Sings the Blues (1956)Body and Soul (1957)Songs for Distingué Lovers (1957)Stay with Me (1958)All or Nothing at All (1958)Lady in Satin (1958)Last Recording (1959)
Filmography
Theatrical films
1933: The Emperor Jones, appeared as an extra
1935: Symphony in Black, short (with Duke Ellington)
1947: New Orleans1950: 'Sugar Chile' Robinson, Billie Holiday, Count Basie and His Sextet''
Television appearances
(1) = Available on audio
(2) = Available on DVD
See also
List of awards and nominations received by Billie Holiday
List of craters on Venus
List of people on the postage stamps of the United States
List of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees
References
Bibliography
This Discography is still available: see Facebook page The Billie Holiday Circle.
Further reading
External links
Discography
"Twelve Essential Billie Holiday Recordings" by Stuart Nicholson, Jazz.com
Billie Holiday at the Playbill Vault
Billie Holiday on Find A Grave
Emory University: Billie Holiday collection, 1953-1981
1915 births
1959 deaths
20th-century African-American women singers
African-American women singer-songwriters
Aladdin Records artists
Alcohol-related deaths in New York (state)
American contraltos
American women jazz singers
American people convicted of drug offenses
American prisoners and detainees
American street performers
Ballad musicians
Burials at Saint Raymond's Cemetery (Bronx)
Classic female blues singers
Columbia Records artists
Deaths from cirrhosis
Decca Records artists
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners
Jazz musicians from Maryland
Jazz musicians from Pennsylvania
Musicians from Baltimore
Musicians from Philadelphia
Singer-songwriters from Pennsylvania
Swing singers
Torch singers
Traditional pop music singers
Vocalion Records artists
African-American Catholics
Singer-songwriters from Maryland
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[
"Don Juan Manuel's Tales of Count Lucanor, in Spanish Libro de los ejemplos del conde Lucanor y de Patronio (Book of the Examples of Count Lucanor and of Patronio), also commonly known as El Conde Lucanor, Libro de Patronio, or Libro de los ejemplos (original Old Castilian: Libro de los enxiemplos del Conde Lucanor et de Patronio), is one of the earliest works of prose in Castilian Spanish. It was first written in 1335.\n\nThe book is divided into four parts. The first and most well-known part is a series of 51 short stories (some no more than a page or two) drawn from various sources, such as Aesop and other classical writers, and Arabic folktales.\n\nTales of Count Lucanor was first printed in 1575 when it was published at Seville under the auspices of Argote de Molina. It was again printed at Madrid in 1642, after which it lay forgotten for nearly two centuries.\n\nPurpose and structure\n\nA didactic, moralistic purpose, which would color so much of the Spanish literature to follow (see Novela picaresca), is the mark of this book. Count Lucanor engages in conversation with his advisor Patronio, putting to him a problem (\"Some man has made me a proposition...\" or \"I fear that such and such person intends to...\") and asking for advice. Patronio responds always with the greatest humility, claiming not to wish to offer advice to so illustrious a person as the Count, but offering to tell him a story of which the Count's problem reminds him. (Thus, the stories are \"examples\" [ejemplos] of wise action.) At the end he advises the Count to do as the protagonist of his story did.\n\nEach chapter ends in more or less the same way, with slight variations on: \"And this pleased the Count greatly and he did just so, and found it well. And Don Johán (Juan) saw that this example was very good, and had it written in this book, and composed the following verses.\" A rhymed couplet closes, giving the moral of the story.\n\nOrigin of stories and influence on later literature\nMany of the stories written in the book are the first examples written in a modern European language of various stories, which many other writers would use in the proceeding centuries. Many of the stories he included were themselves derived from other stories, coming from western and Arab sources.\n\nShakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew has the basic elements of Tale 35, \"What Happened to a Young Man Who Married a Strong and Ill-tempered Woman\".\n\nTale 32, \"What Happened to the King and the Tricksters Who Made Cloth\" tells the story that Hans Christian Andersen made popular as The Emperor's New Clothes.\n\nStory 7, \"What Happened to a Woman Named Truhana\", a version of Aesop's The Milkmaid and Her Pail, was claimed by Max Müller to originate in the Hindu cycle Panchatantra.\n\nTale 2, \"What happened to a good Man and his Son, leading a beast to market,\" is the familiar fable The miller, his son and the donkey.\n\nIn 2016, Baroque Decay released a game under the name \"The Count Lucanor\". As well as some protagonists' names, certain events from the books inspired past events in the game.\n\nThe stories\n\nThe book opens with a prologue which introduces the characters of the Count and Patronio. The titles in the following list are those given in Keller and Keating's 1977 translation into English. James York's 1868 translation into English gives a significantly different ordering of the stories and omits the fifty-first.\n\n What Happened to a King and His Favorite \n What Happened to a Good Man and His Son \n How King Richard of England Leapt into the Sea against the Moors\n What a Genoese Said to His Soul When He Was about to Die \n What Happened to a Fox and a Crow Who Had a Piece of Cheese in His Beak\n How the Swallow Warned the Other Birds When She Saw Flax Being Sown \n What Happened to a Woman Named Truhana \n What Happened to a Man Whose Liver Had to Be Washed \n What Happened to Two Horses Which Were Thrown to the Lion \n What Happened to a Man Who on Account of Poverty and Lack of Other Food Was Eating Bitter Lentils \n What Happened to a Dean of Santiago de Compostela and Don Yllán, the Grand Master of Toledo\n What Happened to the Fox and the Rooster \n What Happened to a Man Who Was Hunting Partridges \n The Miracle of Saint Dominick When He Preached against the Usurer \n What Happened to Lorenzo Suárez at the Siege of Seville \n The Reply that count Fernán González Gave to His Relative Núño Laynes \n What Happened to a Very Hungry Man Who Was Half-heartedly Invited to Dinner \n What Happened to Pero Meléndez de Valdés When He Broke His Leg \n What Happened to the Crows and the Owls \n What Happened to a King for Whom a Man Promised to Perform Alchemy \n What Happened to a Young King and a Philosopher to Whom his Father Commended Him \n What Happened to the Lion and the Bull \n How the Ants Provide for Themselves \n What Happened to the King Who Wanted to Test His Three Sons \n What Happened to the Count of Provence and How He Was Freed from Prison by the Advice of Saladin\n What Happened to the Tree of Lies \n What Happened to an Emperor and to Don Alvarfáñez Minaya and Their Wives \n What Happened in Granada to Don Lorenzo Suárez Gallinato When He Beheaded the Renegade Chaplain \n What Happened to a Fox Who Lay down in the Street to Play Dead \n What Happened to King Abenabet of Seville and Ramayquía His Wife \n How a Cardinal Judged between the Canons of Paris and the Friars Minor \n What Happened to the King and the Tricksters Who Made Cloth \n What Happened to Don Juan Manuel's Saker Falcon and an Eagle and a Heron \n What Happened to a Blind Man Who Was Leading Another \n What Happened to a Young Man Who Married a Strong and Ill-tempered Woman\n What Happened to a Merchant When He Found His Son and His Wife Sleeping Together \n What Happened to Count Fernán González with His Men after He Had Won the Battle of Hacinas \n What Happened to a Man Who Was Loaded down with Precious Stones and Drowned in the River \n What Happened to a Man and a Swallow and a Sparrow \n Why the Seneschal of Carcassonne Lost His Soul \n What Happened to a King of Córdova Named Al-Haquem \n What Happened to a Woman of Sham Piety \n What Happened to Good and Evil and the Wise Man and the Madman \n What Happened to Don Pero Núñez the Loyal, to Don Ruy González de Zavallos, and to Don Gutier Roiz de Blaguiello with Don Rodrigo the Generous \n What Happened to a Man Who Became the Devil's Friend and Vassal \n What Happened to a Philosopher who by Accident Went down a Street Where Prostitutes Lived \n What Befell a Moor and His Sister Who Pretended That She Was Timid \n What Happened to a Man Who Tested His Friends \n What Happened to the Man Whom They Cast out Naked on an Island When They Took away from Him the Kingdom He Ruled \n What Happened to Saladin and a Lady, the Wife of a Knight Who Was His Vassal \n What Happened to a Christian King Who Was Very Powerful and Haughty\n\nReferences\n\nNotes\n\nBibliography\n\n Sturm, Harlan\n\n Wacks, David\n\nExternal links\n\nThe Internet Archive provides free access to the 1868 translation by James York.\nJSTOR has the to the 1977 translation by Keller and Keating.\nSelections in English and Spanish (pedagogical edition) with introduction, notes, and bibliography in Open Iberia/América (open access teaching anthology)\n\n14th-century books\nSpanish literature\n1335 books",
"\"What Happened to Us\" is a song by Australian recording artist Jessica Mauboy, featuring English recording artist Jay Sean. It was written by Sean, Josh Alexander, Billy Steinberg, Jeremy Skaller, Rob Larow, Khaled Rohaim and Israel Cruz. \"What Happened to Us\" was leaked online in October 2010, and was released on 10 March 2011, as the third single from Mauboy's second studio album, Get 'Em Girls (2010). The song received positive reviews from critics.\n\nA remix of \"What Happened to Us\" made by production team OFM, was released on 11 April 2011. A different version of the song which features Stan Walker, was released on 29 May 2011. \"What Happened to Us\" charted on the ARIA Singles Chart at number 14 and was certified platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA). An accompanying music video was directed by Mark Alston, and reminisces on a former relationship between Mauboy and Sean.\n\nProduction and release\n\n\"What Happened to Us\" was written by Josh Alexander, Billy Steinberg, Jeremy Skaller, Rob Larow, Khaled Rohaim, Israel Cruz and Jay Sean. It was produced by Skaller, Cruz, Rohaim and Bobby Bass. The song uses C, D, and B minor chords in the chorus. \"What Happened to Us\" was sent to contemporary hit radio in Australia on 14 February 2011. The cover art for the song was revealed on 22 February on Mauboy's official Facebook page. A CD release was available for purchase via her official website on 10 March, for one week only. It was released digitally the following day.\n\nReception\nMajhid Heath from ABC Online Indigenous called the song a \"Jordin Sparks-esque duet\", and wrote that it \"has a nice innocence to it that rings true to the experience of losing a first love.\" Chris Urankar from Nine to Five wrote that it as a \"mid-tempo duet ballad\" which signifies Mauboy's strength as a global player. On 21 March 2011, \"What Happened to Us\" debuted at number 30 on the ARIA Singles Chart, and peaked at number 14 the following week. The song was certified platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA), for selling 70,000 copies. \"What Happened to Us\" spent a total of ten weeks in the ARIA top fifty.\n\nMusic video\n\nBackground\nThe music video for the song was shot in the Elizabeth Bay House in Sydney on 26 November 2010. The video was shot during Sean's visit to Australia for the Summerbeatz tour. During an interview with The Daily Telegraph while on the set of the video, Sean said \"the song is sick! ... Jessica's voice is amazing and we're shooting [the video] in this ridiculously beautiful mansion overlooking the harbour.\" The video was directed by Mark Alston, who had previously directed the video for Mauboy's single \"Let Me Be Me\" (2009). It premiered on YouTube on 10 February 2011.\n\nSynopsis and reception\nThe video begins showing Mauboy who appears to be sitting on a yellow antique couch in a mansion, wearing a purple dress. As the video progresses, scenes of memories are displayed of Mauboy and her love interest, played by Sean, spending time there previously. It then cuts to the scenes where Sean appears in the main entrance room of the mansion. The final scene shows Mauboy outdoors in a gold dress, surrounded by green grass and trees. She is later joined by Sean who appears in a black suit and a white shirt, and together they sing the chorus of the song to each other. David Lim of Feed Limmy wrote that the video is \"easily the best thing our R&B princess has committed to film – ever\" and praised the \"mansion and wondrous interior décor\". He also commended Mauboy for choosing Australian talent to direct the video instead of American directors, which she had used for her previous two music videos. Since its release, the video has received over two million views on Vevo.\n\nLive performances\nMauboy performed \"What Happened to Us\" live for the first time during her YouTube Live Sessions program on 4 December 2010. She also appeared on Adam Hills in Gordon Street Tonight on 23 February 2011 for an interview and later performed the song. On 15 March 2011, Mauboy performed \"What Happened to Us\" on Sunrise. She also performed the song with Stan Walker during the Australian leg of Chris Brown's F.A.M.E. Tour in April 2011. Mauboy and Walker later performed \"What Happened to Us\" on Dancing with the Stars Australia on 29 May 2011. From November 2013 to February 2014, \"What Happened to Us\" was part of the set list of the To the End of the Earth Tour, Mauboy's second headlining tour of Australia, with Nathaniel Willemse singing Sean's part.\n\nTrack listing\n\nDigital download\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean – 3:19\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (Sgt Slick Remix) – 6:33\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (Just Witness Remix) – 3:45\n\nCD single\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (Album Version) – 3:19\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (Sgt Slick Remix) – 6:33\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (OFM Remix) – 3:39\n\nDigital download – Remix\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (OFM Remix) – 3:38\n\nDigital download\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Stan Walker – 3:20\n\nPersonnel\nSongwriting – Josh Alexander, Billy Steinberg, Jeremy Skaller, Rob Larow, Khaled Rohaim, Israel Cruz, Jay Sean\nProduction – Jeremy Skaller, Bobby Bass\nAdditional production – Israel Cruz, Khaled Rohaim\nLead vocals – Jessica Mauboy, Jay Sean\nMixing – Phil Tan\nAdditional mixing – Damien Lewis\nMastering – Tom Coyne \nSource:\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly chart\n\nYear-end chart\n\nCertification\n\nRadio dates and release history\n\nReferences\n\n2010 songs\n2011 singles\nJessica Mauboy songs\nJay Sean songs\nSongs written by Billy Steinberg\nSongs written by Jay Sean\nSongs written by Josh Alexander\nSongs written by Israel Cruz\nVocal duets\nSony Music Australia singles\nSongs written by Khaled Rohaim"
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[
"Billie Holiday",
"1935-38: Recordings with Teddy Wilson",
"What happened in 1935?",
"In 1935 Holiday was signed to Brunswick Records by John Hammond to record current pop tunes with Teddy Wilson in the new swing style for the growing jukebox trade.",
"What happened in 1936?",
"Hammond spoke about the commercial impact of the Wilson-Holiday sides from 1935 to 1938, calling them a great asset to Brunswick.",
"What happened in 1937?",
"I don't know.",
"What happened in 1938?",
"I don't know."
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C_52be57a775c94201a6b8dcb1c2fe9fa9_0
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What was recorded with Teddy Wilson?
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What was recorded by Billie Holiday with Teddy Wilson?
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Billie Holiday
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In 1935 Holiday was signed to Brunswick Records by John Hammond to record current pop tunes with Teddy Wilson in the new swing style for the growing jukebox trade. They were given free rein to improvise the material. Holiday's improvisation of melody to fit the emotion was revolutionary. Their first collaboration included "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" and "Miss Brown to You". "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" has been deemed her "claim to fame." Brunswick did not favor the recording session, because producers wanted Holiday to sound more like Cleo Brown. After "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" garnered success, however, the company began considering Holiday an artist in her own right. She began recording under her own name a year later (on the 35-cent Vocalion label), producing a series of extraordinary performances with groups comprising the swing era's finest musicians. The sessions were co-produced by Hammond and Bernie Hanighen. With their arrangements, Wilson and Holiday took pedestrian pop tunes, such as "Twenty-Four Hours a Day" (number 6 Pop) and "Yankee Doodle Went to Town", and turned them into jazz classics. Most of Holiday's recordings with Wilson or under her own name during the 1930s and early 1940s are regarded as important parts of the jazz vocal library. She was then in her twenties. Another frequent accompanist was the tenor saxophonist Lester Young, who had been a boarder at her mother's house in 1934 and with whom Holiday had a special rapport. He said, "I think you can hear that on some of the old records, you know. Some time I'd sit down and listen to 'em myself, and it sound like two of the same voices, if you don't be careful, you know, or the same mind, or something like that." Young nicknamed her "Lady Day", and she called him "Prez". Hammond spoke about the commercial impact of the Wilson-Holiday sides from 1935 to 1938, calling them a great asset to Brunswick. The record label, according to Hammond, was broke and unable to record many jazz tunes. Wilson, Holiday, Young, and other musicians came into the studio without musical arrangements and improvised as they performed, dispensing with the expense of having written arrangements, so that the records they produced were cheap. Holiday was never given any royalties for her work, instead being paid a flat fee, which saved the company money. Some of the records produced were successful, such as "I Cried for You", which sold 15,000 copies. Hammond said of the record, "15,000 ... was a giant hit for Brunswick in those days. I mean a giant hit. Most records that made money sold around three to four thousand." CANNOTANSWER
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Wilson, Holiday, Young, and other musicians came into the studio without musical arrangements and improvised as they performed,
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Billie Holiday (born Eleanora Fagan; April 7, 1915 – July 17, 1959) was an American jazz and swing music singer. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and music partner, Lester Young, Holiday had an innovative influence on jazz music and pop singing. Her vocal style, strongly inspired by jazz instrumentalists, pioneered a new way of manipulating phrasing and tempo. She was known for her vocal delivery and improvisational skills.
After a turbulent childhood, Holiday began singing in nightclubs in Harlem, where she was heard by producer John Hammond, who liked her voice. She signed a recording contract with Brunswick in 1935. Collaborations with Teddy Wilson produced the hit "What a Little Moonlight Can Do", which became a jazz standard. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, Holiday had mainstream success on labels such as Columbia and Decca. By the late 1940s, however, she was beset with legal troubles and drug abuse. After a short prison sentence, she performed at a sold-out concert at Carnegie Hall.
She was a successful concert performer throughout the 1950s with two further sold-out shows at Carnegie Hall. Because of personal struggles and an altered voice, her final recordings were met with mixed reaction but were mild commercial successes. Her final album, Lady in Satin, was released in 1958. Holiday died of cirrhosis on July 17, 1959, at age 44.
Holiday won four Grammy Awards, all of them posthumously, for Best Historical Album. She was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame and the National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame. She was also inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, though not in that genre; the website states that "Billie Holiday changed jazz forever". Several films about her life have been released, most recently The United States vs. Billie Holiday (2021).
Life and career
1915–1929: Childhood
Eleanora Fagan was born on April 7, 1915, in Philadelphia, the daughter of African-American unwed teenage couple Sarah Julia "Sadie" Fagan and Clarence Halliday. Sarah moved to Philadelphia at age 19, after she was evicted from her parents' home in the Sandtown-Winchester neighborhood of Baltimore, Maryland for becoming pregnant. With no support from her parents, she made arrangements with her older, married half-sister, Eva Miller, for Eleanora to stay with her in Baltimore. Not long after Eleanora was born, Clarence abandoned his family to pursue a career as a jazz banjo player and guitarist. Some historians have disputed Holiday's paternity, as a copy of her birth certificate in the Baltimore archives lists her father as "Frank DeViese". Other historians consider this an anomaly, probably inserted by a hospital or government worker. DeViese lived in Philadelphia, and Sadie Harris may have known him through her work. Sadie Harris, then known as Sadie Fagan, married Philip Gough, but the marriage ended in two years.
Eleanora grew up in Baltimore and had a very difficult childhood. Her mother often took what were then known as "transportation jobs", serving on passenger railroads. Holiday was raised largely by Eva Miller's mother-in-law, Martha Miller, and suffered from her mother's absences and being in others' care for her first decade of life. Holiday's autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues, published in 1956, is sketchy on details of her early life, but much was confirmed by Stuart Nicholson in his 1995 biography of the singer.
After attending kindergarten at St. Frances Academy, she frequently skipped school, and her truancy resulted in her being brought before the juvenile court on January 5, 1925, when she was nine years old. She was sent to the House of the Good Shepherd, a Catholic reform school, where she was baptized on March 19, 1925. After nine months in care, she was "paroled" on October 3, 1925, to her mother. Sadie had opened a restaurant, the East Side Grill, and mother and daughter worked long hours there. She dropped out of school at age 11.
On December 24, 1926, Sadie came home to discover a neighbor, Wilbur Rich, attempting to rape Eleanora. She successfully fought back, and Rich was arrested. Officials placed Eleanora in the House of the Good Shepherd under protective custody as a state witness in the rape case. Holiday was released in February 1927, when she was nearly 12. She found a job running errands in a brothel, and she scrubbed marble steps as well as kitchen and bathroom floors of neighborhood homes. Around this time, she first heard the records of Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith. In particular, Holiday cited "West End Blues" as an intriguing influence, pointing specifically to the scat section duet with the clarinet as her favorite part. By the end of 1928, Holiday's mother moved to Harlem, New York, again leaving Eleanora with Martha Miller.
By early 1929, Holiday had joined her mother in Harlem.
1929–1935: Early career
As a young teenager, Holiday started singing in nightclubs in Harlem. She took her professional pseudonym from Billie Dove, an actress she admired, and Clarence Halliday, her probable father. At the outset of her career, she spelled her last name "Halliday", her father's birth surname, but eventually changed it to "Holiday", his performing name. The young singer teamed up with a neighbor, tenor saxophone player Kenneth Hollan. They were a team from 1929 to 1931, performing at clubs such as the Grey Dawn, Pod's and Jerry's on 133rd Street, and the Brooklyn Elks' Club. Benny Goodman recalled hearing Holiday in 1931 at the Bright Spot. As her reputation grew, she played in many clubs, including the Mexico's and the Alhambra Bar and Grill, where she met Charles Linton, a vocalist who later worked with Chick Webb. It was also during this period that she connected with her father, who was playing in Fletcher Henderson's band.
Late in 1932, 17-year-old Holiday replaced the singer Monette Moore at Covan's, a club on West 132nd Street. Producer John Hammond, who loved Moore's singing and had come to hear her, first heard Holiday there in early 1933. Hammond arranged for Holiday to make her recording debut at age 18, in November 1933, with Benny Goodman. She recorded two songs: "Your Mother's Son-In-Law" and "Riffin' the Scotch", the latter being her first hit. "Son-in-Law" sold 300 copies, and "Riffin' the Scotch", released on November 11, sold 5,000 copies. Hammond was impressed by Holiday's singing style and said of her, "Her singing almost changed my music tastes and my musical life, because she was the first girl singer I'd come across who actually sang like an improvising jazz genius." Hammond compared Holiday favorably to Armstrong and said she had a good sense of lyric content at her young age.
In 1935, Holiday had a small role as a woman abused by her lover in Duke Ellington's musical short film Symphony in Black: A Rhapsody of Negro Life. She sang "Saddest Tale" in her scene.
1935–1938: Recordings with Teddy Wilson
In 1935, Holiday was signed to Brunswick by John Hammond to record pop tunes with pianist Teddy Wilson in the swing style for the growing jukebox trade. They were allowed to improvise on the material. Holiday's improvisation of melody to fit the emotion was revolutionary. Their first collaboration included "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" and "Miss Brown to You". "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" has been deemed her "claim to fame". Brunswick did not favor the recording session because producers wanted Holiday to sound more like Cleo Brown. However, after "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" was successful, the company began considering Holiday an artist in her own right. She began recording under her own name a year later for Vocalion in sessions produced by Hammond and Bernie Hanighen. Hammond said the Wilson-Holiday records from 1935 to 1938 were a great asset to Brunswick. According to Hammond, Brunswick was broke and unable to record many jazz tunes. Wilson, Holiday, Young, and other musicians came into the studio without written arrangements, reducing the recording cost. Brunswick paid Holiday a flat fee rather than royalties, which saved the company money. "I Cried for You" sold 15,000 copies, which Hammond called "a giant hit for Brunswick.... Most records that made money sold around three to four thousand."
Another frequent accompanist was tenor saxophonist Lester Young, who had been a boarder at her mother's house in 1934 and with whom Holiday had a rapport. Young said, "I think you can hear that on some of the old records, you know. Some time I'd sit down and listen to 'em myself, and it sound like two of the same voices ... or the same mind, or something like that." Young nicknamed her "Lady Day", and she called him "Prez".
1937–1938: Working for Count Basie and Artie Shaw
In late 1937, Holiday had a brief stint as a big-band vocalist with Count Basie. The traveling conditions of the band were often poor; they performed many one-nighters in clubs, moving from city to city with little stability. Holiday chose the songs she sang and had a hand in the arrangements, choosing to portray her developing persona of a woman unlucky in love. Her tunes included "I Must Have That Man", "Travelin' All Alone", "I Can't Get Started", and "Summertime", a hit for Holiday in 1936, originating in George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess the year before. Basie became used to Holiday's heavy involvement in the band. He said, "When she rehearsed with the band, it was really just a matter of getting her tunes like she wanted them, because she knew how she wanted to sound and you couldn't tell her what to do." Some of the songs Holiday performed with Basie were recorded. "I Can't Get Started", "They Can't Take That Away from Me", and "Swing It Brother Swing" are all commercially available. Holiday was unable to record in the studio with Basie, but she included many of his musicians in her recording sessions with Teddy Wilson.
Holiday found herself in direct competition with the popular singer Ella Fitzgerald. The two later became friends. Fitzgerald was the vocalist for the Chick Webb Band, which was in competition with the Basie band. On January 16, 1938, the same day that Benny Goodman performed his legendary Carnegie Hall jazz concert, the Basie and Webb bands had a battle at the Savoy Ballroom. Webb and Fitzgerald were declared winners by Metronome magazine, while DownBeat magazine pronounced Holiday and Basie the winners. Fitzgerald won a straw poll of the audience by a three-to-one margin.
By February 1938, Holiday was no longer singing for Basie. Various reasons have been given for why she was fired. Jimmy Rushing, Basie's male vocalist, called her unprofessional. According to All Music Guide, Holiday was fired for being "temperamental and unreliable". She complained of low pay and poor working conditions and may have refused to sing the songs requested of her or change her style. Holiday was hired by Artie Shaw a month after being fired from the Count Basie Band. This association placed her among the first black women to work with a white orchestra, an unusual arrangement at that time. This was also the first time a black female singer employed full-time toured the segregated U.S. South with a white bandleader. In situations where there was a lot of racial tension, Shaw was known to stick up for his vocalist. In her autobiography, Holiday describes an incident in which she was not permitted to sit on the bandstand with other vocalists because she was black. Shaw said to her, "I want you on the band stand like Helen Forrest, Tony Pastor and everyone else." When touring the South, Holiday would sometimes be heckled by members of the audience. In Louisville, Kentucky, a man called her a "nigger wench" and requested she sing another song. Holiday lost her temper and had to be escorted off the stage.
By March 1938, Shaw and Holiday had been broadcast on New York City's powerful radio station WABC (the original WABC, now WCBS). Because of their success, they were given an extra time slot to broadcast in April, which increased their exposure. The New York Amsterdam News reviewed the broadcasts and reported an improvement in Holiday's performance. Metronome reported that the addition of Holiday to Shaw's band put it in the "top brackets". Holiday could not sing as often during Shaw's shows as she could in Basie's; the repertoire was more instrumental, with fewer vocals. Shaw was also pressured to hire a white singer, Nita Bradley, with whom Holiday did not get along but had to share a bandstand. In May 1938, Shaw won band battles against Tommy Dorsey and Red Norvo, with the audience favoring Holiday. Although Shaw admired Holiday's singing in his band, saying she had a "remarkable ear" and a "remarkable sense of time", her tenure with the band was nearing an end. In November 1938, Holiday was asked to use the service elevator at the Lincoln Hotel in New York City, instead of the one used by hotel guests, because white patrons of the hotels complained. This may have been the last straw for her. She left the band shortly after. Holiday spoke about the incident weeks later, saying, "I was never allowed to visit the bar or the dining room as did other members of the band ... [and] I was made to leave and enter through the kitchen." There are no surviving live recordings of Holiday with Shaw's band. Because she was under contract to a different record label and possibly because of her race, Holiday was able to make only one record with Shaw, "Any Old Time". However, Shaw played clarinet on four songs she recorded in New York on July 10, 1936: "Did I Remember?", "No Regrets", "Summertime" and "Billie's Blues".
By the late 1930s, Holiday had toured with Count Basie and Artie Shaw, scored a string of radio and retail hits with Teddy Wilson, and became an established artist in the recording industry. Her songs "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" and "Easy Living" were imitated by singers across America and were quickly becoming jazz standards. In September 1938, Holiday's single "I'm Gonna Lock My Heart" ranked sixth as the most-played song that month. Her record label, Vocalion, listed the single as its fourth-best seller for the same month, and it peaked at number 2 on the pop charts, according to Joel Whitburn's Pop Memories: 1890–1954.
1939: "Strange Fruit" and Commodore Records
Holiday was in the middle of recording for Columbia in the late 1930s when she was introduced to "Strange Fruit", a song by Abel Meeropol based on his poem about lynching. Meeropol, a Jewish schoolteacher from the Bronx, used the pseudonym "Lewis Allan" for the poem, which was set to music and performed at teachers' union meetings. It was eventually heard by Barney Josephson, the proprietor of Café Society, an integrated nightclub in Greenwich Village, who introduced it to Holiday. She performed it at the club in 1939, with some trepidation, fearing possible retaliation. She later said that the imagery of the song reminded her of her father's death and that this played a role in her resistance to performing it.
For her performance of "Strange Fruit" at the Café Society, she had waiters silence the crowd when the song began. During the song's long introduction, the lights dimmed and all movement had to cease. As Holiday began singing, only a small spotlight illuminated her face. On the final note, all lights went out, and when they came back on, Holiday was gone. Holiday said her father, Clarence Holiday, was denied medical treatment for a fatal lung disorder because of racial prejudice, and that singing "Strange Fruit" reminded her of the incident. "It reminds me of how Pop died, but I have to keep singing it, not only because people ask for it, but because twenty years after Pop died the things that killed him are still happening in the South", she wrote in her autobiography. When Holiday's producers at Columbia found the subject matter too sensitive, Milt Gabler agreed to record it for his Commodore Records label on April 20, 1939. "Strange Fruit" remained in her repertoire for 20 years. She recorded it again for Verve. The Commodore release did not get any airplay, but the controversial song sold well, though Gabler attributed that mostly to the record's other side, "Fine and Mellow", which was a jukebox hit. "The version I recorded for Commodore", Holiday said of "Strange Fruit", "became my biggest-selling record." "Strange Fruit" was the equivalent of a top-twenty hit in the 1930s.
Holiday's popularity increased after "Strange Fruit". She received a mention in Time magazine. "I open Café Society as an unknown", Holiday said. "I left two years later as a star. I needed the prestige and publicity all right, but you can't pay rent with it." She soon demanded a raise from her manager, Joe Glaser. Holiday returned to Commodore in 1944, recording songs she made with Teddy Wilson in the 1930s, including "I Cover the Waterfront", "I'll Get By", and "He's Funny That Way". She also recorded new songs that were popular at the time, including, "My Old Flame", "How Am I to Know?", "I'm Yours", and "I'll Be Seeing You", a number one hit for Bing Crosby. She also recorded her version of "Embraceable You", which was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2005.
1940–1947: Commercial success
Holiday's mother Sadie, nicknamed "The Duchess", opened a restaurant called Mom Holiday's. She used money from her daughter while playing dice with members of the Count Basie band, with whom she toured in the late 1930s. "It kept Mom busy and happy and stopped her from worrying and watching over me", Holiday said. Fagan began borrowing large amounts from Holiday to support the restaurant. Holiday obliged but soon fell on hard times herself. "I needed some money one night and I knew Mom was sure to have some", she said. "So I walked in the restaurant like a stockholder and asked. Mom turned me down flat. She wouldn't give me a cent." The two argued, and Holiday shouted angrily, "God bless the child that's got his own", and stormed out. With Arthur Herzog, Jr., a pianist, she wrote a song based on the lyric, "God Bless the Child", and added music. "God Bless the Child" became Holiday's most popular and most covered record. It reached number 25 on the charts in 1941 and was third in Billboard'''s songs of the year, selling over a million records.Jazz History: The Standards (1940s). Jazzstandards.com. Retrieved November 13, 2010. In 1976, the song was added to the Grammy Hall of Fame. Herzog claimed Holiday contributed only a few lines to the lyrics. He said she came up with the line "God bless the child" from a dinner conversation the two had had.
On June 24, 1942, Holiday recorded "Trav'lin Light" with Paul Whiteman for a new label, Capitol Records. Because she was under contract to Columbia, she used the pseudonym "Lady Day". The song reached number 23 on the pop charts and number one on the R&B charts, then called the Harlem Hit Parade. In September 1943, Life magazine wrote, "She has the most distinct style of any popular vocalist and is imitated by other vocalists."
Milt Gabler, in addition to owning Commodore Records, became an A&R man for Decca Records. He signed Holiday to Decca on August 7, 1944, when she was 29. Her first Decca recording was "Lover Man" (number 16 Pop, number 5 R&B), one of her biggest hits. The success and distribution of the song made Holiday a staple in the pop community, leading to solo concerts, rare for jazz singers in the late 1940s. Gabler said, "I made Billie a real pop singer. That was right in her. Billie loved those songs." Jimmy Davis and Roger "Ram" Ramirez, the song's writers, had tried to interest Holiday in the song. In 1943, a flamboyant male torch singer, Willie Dukes, began singing "Lover Man" on 52nd Street. Because of his success, Holiday added it to her shows. The record's flip side was "No More", one of her favorites. Holiday asked Gabler for strings on the recording. Such arrangements were associated with Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald. "I went on my knees to him", Holiday said. "I didn't want to do it with the ordinary six pieces. I begged Milt and told him I had to have strings behind me." On October 4, 1944, Holiday entered the studio to record "Lover Man", saw the string ensemble and walked out. The musical director, Toots Camarata, said Holiday was overwhelmed with joy. She may also have wanted strings to avoid comparisons between her commercially successful early work with Teddy Wilson and everything produced afterwards. Her 1930s recordings with Wilson used a small jazz combo; recordings for Decca often involved strings. A month later, in November, Holiday returned to Decca to record "That Ole Devil Called Love", "Big Stuff", and "Don't Explain". She wrote "Don't Explain" after she caught her husband, Jimmy Monroe, with lipstick on his collar.
Holiday did not make any more records until August 1945, when she recorded "Don't Explain" for a second time, changing the lyrics "I know you raise Cain" to "Just say you'll remain" and changing "You mixed with some dame" to "What is there to gain?" Other songs recorded were "Big Stuff", "What Is This Thing Called Love?", and "You Better Go Now". Ella Fitzgerald named "You Better Go Now" her favorite recording of Holiday's. "Big Stuff" and "Don't Explain" were recorded again but with additional strings and a viola. In 1946, Holiday recorded "Good Morning Heartache". Although the song failed to chart, she sang it in live performances; three live recordings are known.
In September 1946, Holiday began her only major film, New Orleans, in which she starred opposite Louis Armstrong and Woody Herman. Plagued by racism and McCarthyism, producer Jules Levey and script writer Herbert Biberman were pressed to lessen Holiday's and Armstrong's roles to avoid the impression that black people created jazz. The attempts failed because in 1947 Biberman was listed as one of the Hollywood Ten and sent to jail. Several scenes were deleted from the film. "They had taken miles of footage of music and scenes", Holiday said, but "none of it was left in the picture. And very damn little of me. I know I wore a white dress for a number I did... and that was cut out of the picture." She recorded "The Blues Are Brewin'" for the film's soundtrack. Other songs included in the movie are "Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans?" and "Farewell to Storyville". Holiday's drug addictions were a problem on the set. She earned more than one thousand dollars per week from club ventures but spent most of it on heroin. Her lover, Joe Guy, traveled to Hollywood while Holiday was filming and supplied her with drugs. Guy was banned from the set when he was found there by Holiday's manager, Joe Glaser.
By the late 1940s, Holiday had begun recording a number of slow, sentimental ballads. Metronome expressed its concerns in 1946 about "Good Morning Heartache", saying, "there's a danger that Billie's present formula will wear thin, but up to now it's wearing well." The New York Herald Tribune reported of a concert in 1946 that her performance had little variation in melody and no change in tempo.
1947–1952: Legal issues and Carnegie Hall concert
By 1947, Holiday was at her commercial peak, having made $250,000 in the three previous years. She was ranked second in the DownBeat poll for 1946 and 1947, her highest ranking in that poll. She was ranked fifth in Billboard 's annual college poll of "girl singers" on July 6, 1947 (Jo Stafford was first). In 1946, Holiday won the Metronome magazine popularity poll.
On May 16, 1947, Holiday was arrested for possession of narcotics in her New York apartment. On May 27 she was in court. "It was called 'The United States of America versus Billie Holiday'. And that's just the way it felt", she recalled. During the trial, she heard that her lawyer would not come to the trial to represent her. "In plain English that meant no one in the world was interested in looking out for me," she said. Dehydrated and unable to hold down food, she pleaded guilty and asked to be sent to the hospital. The district attorney spoke in her defense, saying, "If your honor please, this is a case of a drug addict, but more serious, however, than most of our cases, Miss Holiday is a professional entertainer and among the higher rank as far as income was concerned." She was sentenced to Alderson Federal Prison Camp in West Virginia. The drug possession conviction caused her to lose her New York City Cabaret Card, preventing her working anywhere that sold alcohol; thereafter, she performed in concert venues and theaters.
Holiday was released early (on March 16, 1948) because of good behavior. When she arrived at Newark, her pianist Bobby Tucker and her dog Mister were waiting. The dog leaped at Holiday, knocking off her hat, and tackling her to the ground. "He began lapping me and loving me like crazy", she said. A woman thought the dog was attacking Holiday. She screamed, a crowd gathered, and reporters arrived. "I might just as well have wheeled into Penn Station and had a quiet little get-together with the Associated Press, United Press, and International News Service", she said.
Ed Fishman (who fought with Joe Glaser to be Holiday's manager) thought of a comeback concert at Carnegie Hall. Holiday hesitated, unsure audiences would accept her after the arrest. She gave in and agreed to appear. On March 27, 1948, Holiday played Carnegie Hall to a sold-out crowd. 2,700 tickets were sold in advance, a record at the time for the venue. Her popularity was unusual because she didn't have a current hit record. Her last record to reach the charts was "Lover Man" in 1945. Holiday sang 32 songs at the Carnegie concert by her count, including Cole Porter's "Night and Day" and her 1930s hit, "Strange Fruit". During the show, someone sent her a box of gardenias. "My old trademark", Holiday said. "I took them out of box and fastened them smack to the side of my head without even looking twice." There was a hatpin in the gardenias and Holiday unknowingly stuck it into the side of her head. "I didn't feel anything until the blood started rushing down in my eyes and ears", she said. After the third curtain call, she passed out.
On April 27, 1948, Bob Sylvester and her promoter Al Wilde arranged a Broadway show for her. Titled Holiday on Broadway, it sold out. "The regular music critics and drama critics came and treated us like we were legit", she said. But it closed after three weeks.
Holiday was arrested again on January 22, 1949, in her room at the Hotel Mark Twain in San Francisco. Holiday said she began using hard drugs in the early 1940s. She married trombonist Jimmy Monroe on August 25, 1941. While still married, she became involved with trumpeter Joe Guy, her drug dealer. She divorced Monroe in 1947 and also split with Guy.
In October 1949, Holiday recorded "Crazy He Calls Me", which was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2010. Gabler said the hit was her most successful recording for Decca after "Lover Man". The charts of the 1940s did not list songs outside the top 30, making it impossible to recognize minor hits. By the late 1940s, despite her popularity and concert power, her singles were little played on radio, perhaps because of her reputation.
The loss of her cabaret card reduced Holiday's earnings. She had not received proper record royalties until she joined Decca, so her main revenue was club concerts. The problem worsened when Holiday's records went out of print in the 1950s. She seldom received royalties in her later years. In 1958, she received a royalty of only $11.Nicholson, p. 167. Her lawyer in the late 1950s, Earle Warren Zaidins, registered with BMI only two songs she had written or co-written, costing her revenue. In 1948, Holiday played at the Ebony Club, which was against the law. Her manager, John Levy, was convinced he could get her card back and allowed her to open without one. "I opened scared", Holiday said, "[I was] expecting the cops to come in any chorus and carry me off. But nothing happened. I was a huge success."
Holiday recorded Gershwin's "I Loves You, Porgy" in 1948. In 1950, Holiday appeared in the Universal short film Sugar Chile Robinson, Billie Holiday, Count Basie and His Sextet, singing "God Bless the Child" and "Now, Baby or Never".
1952–1959: Lady Sings the Blues
By the 1950s, Holiday's drug use, drinking, and relationships with abusive men caused her health to deteriorate. She appeared on the ABC reality series The Comeback Story to discuss attempts to overcome her misfortunes. Her later recordings showed the effects of declining health on her voice, as it grew coarse and no longer projected its former vibrancy.
Holiday first toured Europe in 1954 as part of a Leonard Feather package. The Swedish impresario, Nils Hellstrom, initiated the "Jazz Club U.S.A." (after the Leonard Feather radio show) tour starting in Stockholm in January 1954 and then Germany, Netherlands, Paris and Switzerland. The tour party was Holiday, Buddy DeFranco, Red Norvo, Carl Drinkard, Elaine Leighton, Sonny Clark, Berryl Booker, Jimmy Raney and Red Mitchell. A recording of a live set in Germany was released as Lady Love – Billie Holiday.
Holiday's autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues, was ghostwritten by William Dufty and published in 1956. Dufty, a New York Post writer and editor then married to Holiday's close friend Maely Dufty, wrote the book quickly from a series of conversations with the singer in the Duftys' 93rd Street apartment. He also drew on the work of earlier interviewers and intended to let Holiday tell her story in her own way. In his 2015 study, Billie Holiday: The Musician and the Myth, John Szwed argued that Lady Sings the Blues is a generally accurate account of her life, but that co-writer Dufty was forced to water down or suppress material by the threat of legal action. According to the reviewer Richard Brody, "Szwed traces the stories of two important relationships that are missing from the book—with Charles Laughton, in the 1930s, and with Tallulah Bankhead, in the late 1940s—and of one relationship that's sharply diminished in the book, her affair with Orson Welles around the time of Citizen Kane." To accompany her autobiography, Holiday released the LP Lady Sings the Blues in June 1956. The album featured four new tracks, "Lady Sings the Blues", "Too Marvelous for Words", "Willow Weep for Me", and "I Thought About You", and eight new recordings of her biggest hits to date. The re-recordings included "Trav'lin' Light" "Strange Fruit" and "God Bless the Child". A review of the album was published by Billboard magazine on December 22, 1956, calling it a worthy musical complement to her autobiography. "Holiday is in good voice now", wrote the reviewer, "and these new readings will be much appreciated by her following". "Strange Fruit" and "God Bless the Child" were called classics, and "Good Morning Heartache", another reissued track on the LP, was also noted favorably.
On November 10, 1956, Holiday performed two concerts before packed audiences at Carnegie Hall. Live recordings of the second Carnegie Hall concert were released on a Verve/HMV album in the UK in late 1961 called The Essential Billie Holiday. The 13 tracks included on this album featured her own songs "I Love My Man", "Don't Explain" and "Fine and Mellow", together with other songs closely associated with her, including "Body and Soul", "My Man", and "Lady Sings the Blues" (her lyrics accompanied a tune by pianist Herbie Nichols). The liner notes for this album were written partly by Gilbert Millstein of the New York Times, who, according to these notes, served as narrator of the Carnegie Hall concerts. Interspersed among Holiday's songs, Millstein read aloud four lengthy passages from her autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues. He later wrote:
The critic Nat Hentoff of DownBeat magazine, who attended the Carnegie Hall concert, wrote the remainder of the sleeve notes on the 1961 album. He wrote of Holiday's performance:
Her performance of "Fine and Mellow" on CBS's The Sound of Jazz program is memorable for her interplay with her long-time friend Lester Young. Both were less than two years from death. Young died in March 1959. Holiday wanted to sing at his funeral, but her request was denied.
When Holiday returned to Europe almost five years later, in 1959, she made one of her last television appearances for Granada's Chelsea at Nine in London. Her final studio recordings were made for MGM Records in 1959, with lush backing from Ray Ellis and his Orchestra, who had also accompanied her on the Columbia album Lady in Satin the previous year (see below). The MGM sessions were released posthumously on a self-titled album, later retitled and re-released as Last Recording.
On March 28, 1957, Holiday married Louis McKay, a mob enforcer. McKay, like most of the men in her life, was abusive. They were separated at the time of her death, but McKay had plans to start a chain of Billie Holiday vocal studios, on the model of the Arthur Murray dance schools. Holiday was childless, but she had two godchildren: singer Billie Lorraine Feather (the daughter of Leonard Feather) and Bevan Dufty (the son of William Dufty).
Illness and death
By early 1959, Holiday was diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver. Although she had initially stopped drinking on her doctor's orders, it was not long before she relapsed. By May 1959, she had lost . Her manager Joe Glaser, jazz critic Leonard Feather, photojournalist Allan Morrison, and the singer's own friends all tried in vain to persuade her to go to a hospital. On May 31, 1959, Holiday was taken to Metropolitan Hospital in New York for treatment of liver disease and heart disease. According to writer and journalist Johann Hari, the Federal Bureau of Narcotics under Harry J. Anslinger, had been targeting Holiday since at least 1939, when she started to perform "Strange Fruit". Narcotics police went to her hospital room, claiming they had found heroin in her bedroom. A grand jury was summoned to indict her and she was arrested and handcuffed to her bed and placed under police guard. According to Hari, after 10 days, methadone was discontinued as part of Anslinger's policy; Hari accused Anslinger of being responsible for her death. On July 15, she received last rites. She died at age 44, at 3:10 a.m. on July 17, of pulmonary edema and heart failure caused by cirrhosis of the liver.
In her final years, Holiday had been progressively swindled out of her earnings, and she died with US$0.70 in the bank. Her funeral Mass was held on July 21, 1959, at the Church of St. Paul the Apostle in Manhattan. She was buried at Saint Raymond's Cemetery in the Bronx. The story of her burial plot and how it was managed by her estranged husband, Louis McKay, was documented on NPR in 2012.
Gilbert Millstein of The New York Times, who was the announcer at Holiday's 1956 Carnegie Hall concerts and wrote parts of the sleeve notes for the album The Essential Billie Holiday (see above), described her death in these sleeve notes, dated 1961:
When Holiday died, The New York Times published a short obituary on page 15 without a byline. She left an estate of $1,000, and her best recordings from the 1930s were mostly out of print. Holiday's public stature grew in the following years. In 1961, she was voted to the Down Beat Hall Of Fame, and soon after Columbia reissued nearly one hundred of her early records. In 1972, Diana Ross' portrayal of Holiday in Lady Sings the Blues was nominated for an Oscar and won a Golden Globe. Holiday was posthumously nominated for 23 Grammy awards.
Legacy
Billie Holiday received several Esquire Magazine awards during her lifetime. Her posthumous awards also include being inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, Ertegun Jazz Hall of Fame, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and the ASCAP Jazz Wall of Fame. In 1985, a statue of Billie Holiday was erected in Baltimore; the statue was completed in 1993 with additional panels of images inspired by her seminal song Strange Fruit. In 2019, Chirlane McCray announced that New York City would build a statue honoring Holiday near Queens Borough Hall.
The Billie Holiday Monument is located at Pennsylvania and West Lafayette avenues in Baltimore's Upton neighborhood.
Vocal style and range
Holiday's delivery made her performances recognizable throughout her career. Her improvisation compensated for lack of musical education. Holiday said that she always wanted her voice to sound like an instrument and some of her influences were Louis Armstrong and the singer Bessie Smith. Her last major recording, a 1958 album entitled Lady in Satin, features the backing of a 40-piece orchestra conducted and arranged by Ray Ellis, who said of the album in 1997:
Frank Sinatra was influenced by her performances on 52nd Street as a young man. He told Ebony magazine in 1958 about her impact:
Films and plays about Holiday
The biographical film Lady Sings the Blues, loosely based on Holiday's autobiography, was released in 1972 and was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Diana Ross for Best Actress. Another film, The United States vs. Billie Holiday, starred Andra Day and was released in 2021. It is based on the book Chasing the Scream by Johann Hari. Director Lee Daniels saw how Holiday was portrayed in the 1972 biopic, and wanted to show her legacy as "a civil rights leader [...] not just a drug addict or a jazz singer". Day was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance and won a Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama in 2021.
Holiday is the primary character in the play Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill, with music by Lanie Robertson. It takes place in South Philadelphia in March 1959. It premiered in 1986 at the Alliance Theatre and has been revived several times. A Broadway production starring Audra McDonald was filmed and broadcast on HBO in 2016; McDonald received an Emmy Award nomination and a record-breaking Tony Award win, becoming the most decorated performer in Tony history with six awards across all four eligible competitive categories. Billie is a 2019 documentary film based on interviews in the 1970s by Linda Lipnack Kuehl, who was researching a book on Holiday that was never completed.
Billie Holiday was also portrayed by actress Paula Jai Parker in Touched by an Angel's 2000 episode "God Bless the Child".
Discography
Billie Holiday recorded extensively for four labels: Columbia Records, which issued her recordings on its subsidiary labels Brunswick Records, Vocalion Records and OKeh Records, from 1933 through 1942; Commodore Records in 1939 and 1944; Decca Records from 1944 through 1950; briefly for Aladdin Records in 1951; Verve Records and on its earlier imprint Clef Records from 1952 through 1957, then again for Columbia Records from 1957 to 1958 and finally for MGM Records in 1959. Many of Holiday's recordings appeared on 78-rpm records prior to the long-playing vinyl record era, and only Clef, Verve, and Columbia issued albums during her lifetime that were not compilations of previously released material. Many compilations have been issued since her death, as well as comprehensive box sets and live recordings.[ Billie Holiday]. AllMusic. Retrieved on November 13, 2010.
Hit records
In 1986, Joel Whitburn's company Record Research compiled information on the popularity of recordings released from the era predating rock and roll and created pop charts dating back to the beginning of the commercial recording industry. The company's findings were published in the book Pop Memories 1890–1954. Several of Holiday's records are listed on the pop charts Whitburn created.
Holiday began her recording career on a high note with her first major release, "Riffin' the Scotch", of which 5,000 copies were sold. It was released under the name "Benny Goodman & His Orchestra" in 1933.
Most of Holiday's early successes were released under the name "Teddy Wilson & His Orchestra". During her stay in Wilson's band, Holiday would sing a few bars and then other musicians would have a solo. Wilson, one of the most influential jazz pianists of the swing era, accompanied Holiday more than any other musician. He and Holiday issued 95 recordings together.
In July 1936, Holiday began releasing sides under her own name. These songs were released under the band name "Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra". Most noteworthy, the popular jazz standard "Summertime" sold well and was listed on the pop charts of the time at number 12, the first time the jazz standard charted. Only Billy Stewart's R&B version of "Summertime" reached a higher chart placement than Holiday's, charting at number 10 thirty years later in 1966.
Holiday had 16 best-selling songs in 1937, making the year her most commercially successful. It was in this year that Holiday scored her sole number one hit as a featured vocalist on the available pop charts of the 1930s, "Carelessly". The hit "I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm", was also recorded by Ray Noble, Glen Gray and Fred Astaire, whose rendering was a bestseller for weeks. Holiday's version ranked 6 on the year-end single chart available for 1937.
In 1939, Holiday recorded her biggest selling record, "Strange Fruit" for Commodore, charting at number 16 on the available pop charts for the 1930s.
In 1940, Billboard began publishing its modern pop charts, which included the Best Selling Retail Records chart, the precursor to the Hot 100. None of Holiday's songs placed on the modern pop charts, partly because Billboard only published the first ten slots of the charts in some issues. Minor hits and independent releases had no way of being spotlighted.
"God Bless the Child", which went on to sell over a million copies, ranked number 3 on Billboards year-end top songs of 1941.
On October 24, 1942, Billboard began issuing its R&B charts. Two of Holiday's songs placed on the chart, "Trav'lin' Light" with Paul Whiteman, which topped the chart, and "Lover Man", which reached number 5. "Trav'lin' Light" also reached 18 on Billboards year-end chart.
Studio LPsBillie Holiday Sings (1952)An Evening with Billie Holiday (1952)Billie Holiday (1954)Music for Torching (1955)Velvet Mood (1956)Lady Sings the Blues (1956)Body and Soul (1957)Songs for Distingué Lovers (1957)Stay with Me (1958)All or Nothing at All (1958)Lady in Satin (1958)Last Recording (1959)
Filmography
Theatrical films
1933: The Emperor Jones, appeared as an extra
1935: Symphony in Black, short (with Duke Ellington)
1947: New Orleans1950: 'Sugar Chile' Robinson, Billie Holiday, Count Basie and His Sextet''
Television appearances
(1) = Available on audio
(2) = Available on DVD
See also
List of awards and nominations received by Billie Holiday
List of craters on Venus
List of people on the postage stamps of the United States
List of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees
References
Bibliography
This Discography is still available: see Facebook page The Billie Holiday Circle.
Further reading
External links
Discography
"Twelve Essential Billie Holiday Recordings" by Stuart Nicholson, Jazz.com
Billie Holiday at the Playbill Vault
Billie Holiday on Find A Grave
Emory University: Billie Holiday collection, 1953-1981
1915 births
1959 deaths
20th-century African-American women singers
African-American women singer-songwriters
Aladdin Records artists
Alcohol-related deaths in New York (state)
American contraltos
American women jazz singers
American people convicted of drug offenses
American prisoners and detainees
American street performers
Ballad musicians
Burials at Saint Raymond's Cemetery (Bronx)
Classic female blues singers
Columbia Records artists
Deaths from cirrhosis
Decca Records artists
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners
Jazz musicians from Maryland
Jazz musicians from Pennsylvania
Musicians from Baltimore
Musicians from Philadelphia
Singer-songwriters from Pennsylvania
Swing singers
Torch singers
Traditional pop music singers
Vocalion Records artists
African-American Catholics
Singer-songwriters from Maryland
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[
"\"Just What I Always Wanted\" is a song by English singer Mari Wilson, released as a single in 1982. It is from her 1983 debut album Showpeople.\n\nAs Wilson's fifth single release, \"Just What I Always Wanted\" was her first UK top 40 hit, reaching No. 8 in October 1982.\n\nRobin Denselow of The Guardian said of the song: \"With 'Just What I Always Wanted', Mari Wilson found the perfect song to fit her image - emotional, slightly camp & sounding as if it might have been a pop hit back in the early 60s. It was tongue-in-cheek but performed with deadpan panache, treated the same way Mari treats her stage uniform with her long gloves, jewellery & enormous beehive hairdo.\"\n\nTrack listing\nA. \"Just What I Always Wanted\" (Teddy Johns)\nB1. \"Are You There (With Another Girl)\" (Bacharach and David)\nB2. \"Woe, Woe, Woe\" (Teddy Johns)\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\n1982 singles\nLondon Records singles\nMari Wilson songs\nSong recordings produced by Tony Mansfield\n1982 songs",
"Theodore Shaw Wilson (November 24, 1912 – July 31, 1986) was an American jazz pianist. Described by critic Scott Yanow as \"the definitive swing pianist\", Wilson had a sophisticated, elegant style. His work was featured on the records of many of the biggest names in jazz, including Louis Armstrong, Lena Horne, Benny Goodman, Billie Holiday, and Ella Fitzgerald. With Goodman, he was one of the first black musicians to appear prominently with white musicians. In addition to his extensive work as a sideman, Wilson also led his own groups and recording sessions from the late 1920s to the 1980s.\n\nBiography\nWilson was born in Austin, Texas, United States. He studied piano and violin at Tuskegee Institute in Tuskegee, Alabama. After working in Speed Webb's band, with Louis Armstrong, and also understudying Earl Hines in Hines's Grand Terrace Cafe Orchestra, Wilson joined Benny Carter's Chocolate Dandies in 1933. In 1935, he joined the Benny Goodman Trio (which consisted of Goodman, Wilson and drummer Gene Krupa, later expanded to the Benny Goodman Quartet with the addition of Lionel Hampton). The trio performed during the big band's intermissions. By joining the trio, Wilson became one of the first black musicians to perform prominently in a racially integrated group.\n\nJazz producer and writer John Hammond was instrumental in getting Wilson a contract with Brunswick, starting in 1935, to record hot swing arrangements of the popular songs of the day, with the growing jukebox trade in mind. He recorded hit records with singers such as Lena Horne, Helen Ward and Billie Holiday. During these years, he also took part in many sessions with swing musicians such as Lester Young, Roy Eldridge, Charlie Shavers, Red Norvo, Buck Clayton, and Ben Webster. From 1936 to 1942, he recorded for Brunswick Records and Columbia Records. In the 1950s he recorded on Verve Records.\n\nWilson formed his own short-lived big band in 1939, then led a sextet at Café Society from 1940 to 1944. He was dubbed the \"Marxist Mozart\" by Howard \"Stretch\" Johnson due to his support for left-wing causes: he performed in benefit concerts for The New Masses journal and for Russian War Relief, and he chaired the Artists' Committee to elect Benjamin J. Davis (a New York City council member running on the Communist Party USA ballot line). In the 1950s, Wilson taught at the Juilliard School. Wilson can be seen appearing as himself in the motion pictures Hollywood Hotel (1937) and The Benny Goodman Story (1955). He also worked as music director for the Dick Cavett Show.\n\nWilson lived quietly in suburban Hillsdale, New Jersey. He was married three times, including to the songwriter Irene Kitchings. He performed as a soloist and with pick-up groups until the final years of his life, including leading a trio with his sons Theodore Wilson on bass and Steven Wilson on drums.\n\nIn 1979, Wilson was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Music from Berklee College of Music.\n\nWilson died of stomach cancer in New Britain, Connecticut, on July 31, 1986 aged 73. He is buried at Fairview Cemetery in New Britain. In addition to Theodore and Steven, Wilson had three more children, William, James (Jim) and Dune.\n\nSelect discography\n\nSolo\n1942: Columbia Presents Teddy Wilson\n1972: With Billie in Mind (Chiaroscuro)\n1983: Alone (Storyville)\n\nAs leader\n1944: Teddy Wilson Sextet (The Onyx Club New York Original Live Recordings)\n1949: Teddy Wilson Featuring Billie Holiday\n1952: Runnin' Wild (MGM)\n1952: Just A Mood - Teddy Wilson Quartet Starring Harry James & Red Norvo (Columbia EP B-1569/5-1277)\n1955: The Creative Teddy Wilson (Norgran) - also released as For Quiet Lovers (Verve)\n1956: Pres and Teddy (Verve) with Lester Young\n1956: I Got Rhythm (Verve)\n1956: The Impeccable Mr. Wilson (Verve)\n1956: These Tunes Remind Me of You (Verve)\n1957: The Teddy Wilson Trio & Gerry Mulligan Quartet with Bob Brookmeyer at Newport (Verve)\n1957: The Touch of Teddy Wilson (Verve)\n1959: Mr. Wilson and Mr. Gershwin (Columbia) \n1959: Gypsy in Jazz (Columbia)\n1959: And Then They Wrote... (Columbia)\n1963: Teddy Wilson 1964 (Cameo)\n1967: Moonglow (Black Lion)\n1968: The Noble Art of Teddy Wilson (Metronome)\n1973: Runnin' Wild (Black Lion)\n1976: Live at Santa Tecla\n1980: Teddy Wilson Trio Revisits the Goodman Years\n1990: Air Mail Special\n\nAs sideman\n1933–1942: Billie Holiday, The Quintessential Billie Holiday (Volumes 1-9); Lady Day: The Complete Billie Holiday on Columbia 1933–1944 (Columbia)\n1935: Mildred Bailey, Mildred Bailey and Her Alley Cats (Columbia)\n1935–1939: Benny Goodman, The Complete RCA Victor Small Group Recordings (RCA)\n1938: Benny Goodman, The Famous 1938 Carnegie Hall Jazz Concert (Columbia)\n1946-1947: Sarah Vaughan, The Chronological Classics: Sarah Vaughan 1946-1947 (Classics)\n1954: Ben Webster, Music for Loving (Norgran)\n1974: Phoebe Snow Phoebe Snow (album) (Shelter Records)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n Teddy Wilson on BlueBlackJazz.com\n\nTeddy Wilson music, papers, and artifacts, Institute of Jazz Studies, (Rutgers University)\n\n1912 births\n1986 deaths\nMusicians from Austin, Texas\nPeople from Hillsdale, New Jersey\nBig band bandleaders\nSwing pianists\nMainstream jazz pianists\nAfrican-American pianists\nAmerican jazz pianists\nAmerican male pianists\nTuskegee University alumni\nJuilliard School faculty\nBrunswick Records artists\nColumbia Records artists\nVerve Records artists\nAmerican jazz educators\nBenny Goodman Orchestra members\nMusicraft Records artists\n20th-century American pianists\nEducators from Texas\nEducators from New Jersey\nJazz musicians from Texas\n20th-century American male musicians\nAmerican male jazz musicians\nThe Chocolate Dandies members\nBlack Lion Records artists\n20th-century African-American musicians"
] |
[
"Billie Holiday",
"1935-38: Recordings with Teddy Wilson",
"What happened in 1935?",
"In 1935 Holiday was signed to Brunswick Records by John Hammond to record current pop tunes with Teddy Wilson in the new swing style for the growing jukebox trade.",
"What happened in 1936?",
"Hammond spoke about the commercial impact of the Wilson-Holiday sides from 1935 to 1938, calling them a great asset to Brunswick.",
"What happened in 1937?",
"I don't know.",
"What happened in 1938?",
"I don't know.",
"What was recorded with Teddy Wilson?",
"Wilson, Holiday, Young, and other musicians came into the studio without musical arrangements and improvised as they performed,"
] |
C_52be57a775c94201a6b8dcb1c2fe9fa9_0
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Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?
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Are there any other interesting aspects about this article other than Billie Holiday's recording an album with Teddy Wilson?
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Billie Holiday
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In 1935 Holiday was signed to Brunswick Records by John Hammond to record current pop tunes with Teddy Wilson in the new swing style for the growing jukebox trade. They were given free rein to improvise the material. Holiday's improvisation of melody to fit the emotion was revolutionary. Their first collaboration included "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" and "Miss Brown to You". "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" has been deemed her "claim to fame." Brunswick did not favor the recording session, because producers wanted Holiday to sound more like Cleo Brown. After "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" garnered success, however, the company began considering Holiday an artist in her own right. She began recording under her own name a year later (on the 35-cent Vocalion label), producing a series of extraordinary performances with groups comprising the swing era's finest musicians. The sessions were co-produced by Hammond and Bernie Hanighen. With their arrangements, Wilson and Holiday took pedestrian pop tunes, such as "Twenty-Four Hours a Day" (number 6 Pop) and "Yankee Doodle Went to Town", and turned them into jazz classics. Most of Holiday's recordings with Wilson or under her own name during the 1930s and early 1940s are regarded as important parts of the jazz vocal library. She was then in her twenties. Another frequent accompanist was the tenor saxophonist Lester Young, who had been a boarder at her mother's house in 1934 and with whom Holiday had a special rapport. He said, "I think you can hear that on some of the old records, you know. Some time I'd sit down and listen to 'em myself, and it sound like two of the same voices, if you don't be careful, you know, or the same mind, or something like that." Young nicknamed her "Lady Day", and she called him "Prez". Hammond spoke about the commercial impact of the Wilson-Holiday sides from 1935 to 1938, calling them a great asset to Brunswick. The record label, according to Hammond, was broke and unable to record many jazz tunes. Wilson, Holiday, Young, and other musicians came into the studio without musical arrangements and improvised as they performed, dispensing with the expense of having written arrangements, so that the records they produced were cheap. Holiday was never given any royalties for her work, instead being paid a flat fee, which saved the company money. Some of the records produced were successful, such as "I Cried for You", which sold 15,000 copies. Hammond said of the record, "15,000 ... was a giant hit for Brunswick in those days. I mean a giant hit. Most records that made money sold around three to four thousand." CANNOTANSWER
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Holiday was never given any royalties for her work, instead being paid a flat fee, which saved the company money.
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Billie Holiday (born Eleanora Fagan; April 7, 1915 – July 17, 1959) was an American jazz and swing music singer. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and music partner, Lester Young, Holiday had an innovative influence on jazz music and pop singing. Her vocal style, strongly inspired by jazz instrumentalists, pioneered a new way of manipulating phrasing and tempo. She was known for her vocal delivery and improvisational skills.
After a turbulent childhood, Holiday began singing in nightclubs in Harlem, where she was heard by producer John Hammond, who liked her voice. She signed a recording contract with Brunswick in 1935. Collaborations with Teddy Wilson produced the hit "What a Little Moonlight Can Do", which became a jazz standard. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, Holiday had mainstream success on labels such as Columbia and Decca. By the late 1940s, however, she was beset with legal troubles and drug abuse. After a short prison sentence, she performed at a sold-out concert at Carnegie Hall.
She was a successful concert performer throughout the 1950s with two further sold-out shows at Carnegie Hall. Because of personal struggles and an altered voice, her final recordings were met with mixed reaction but were mild commercial successes. Her final album, Lady in Satin, was released in 1958. Holiday died of cirrhosis on July 17, 1959, at age 44.
Holiday won four Grammy Awards, all of them posthumously, for Best Historical Album. She was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame and the National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame. She was also inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, though not in that genre; the website states that "Billie Holiday changed jazz forever". Several films about her life have been released, most recently The United States vs. Billie Holiday (2021).
Life and career
1915–1929: Childhood
Eleanora Fagan was born on April 7, 1915, in Philadelphia, the daughter of African-American unwed teenage couple Sarah Julia "Sadie" Fagan and Clarence Halliday. Sarah moved to Philadelphia at age 19, after she was evicted from her parents' home in the Sandtown-Winchester neighborhood of Baltimore, Maryland for becoming pregnant. With no support from her parents, she made arrangements with her older, married half-sister, Eva Miller, for Eleanora to stay with her in Baltimore. Not long after Eleanora was born, Clarence abandoned his family to pursue a career as a jazz banjo player and guitarist. Some historians have disputed Holiday's paternity, as a copy of her birth certificate in the Baltimore archives lists her father as "Frank DeViese". Other historians consider this an anomaly, probably inserted by a hospital or government worker. DeViese lived in Philadelphia, and Sadie Harris may have known him through her work. Sadie Harris, then known as Sadie Fagan, married Philip Gough, but the marriage ended in two years.
Eleanora grew up in Baltimore and had a very difficult childhood. Her mother often took what were then known as "transportation jobs", serving on passenger railroads. Holiday was raised largely by Eva Miller's mother-in-law, Martha Miller, and suffered from her mother's absences and being in others' care for her first decade of life. Holiday's autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues, published in 1956, is sketchy on details of her early life, but much was confirmed by Stuart Nicholson in his 1995 biography of the singer.
After attending kindergarten at St. Frances Academy, she frequently skipped school, and her truancy resulted in her being brought before the juvenile court on January 5, 1925, when she was nine years old. She was sent to the House of the Good Shepherd, a Catholic reform school, where she was baptized on March 19, 1925. After nine months in care, she was "paroled" on October 3, 1925, to her mother. Sadie had opened a restaurant, the East Side Grill, and mother and daughter worked long hours there. She dropped out of school at age 11.
On December 24, 1926, Sadie came home to discover a neighbor, Wilbur Rich, attempting to rape Eleanora. She successfully fought back, and Rich was arrested. Officials placed Eleanora in the House of the Good Shepherd under protective custody as a state witness in the rape case. Holiday was released in February 1927, when she was nearly 12. She found a job running errands in a brothel, and she scrubbed marble steps as well as kitchen and bathroom floors of neighborhood homes. Around this time, she first heard the records of Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith. In particular, Holiday cited "West End Blues" as an intriguing influence, pointing specifically to the scat section duet with the clarinet as her favorite part. By the end of 1928, Holiday's mother moved to Harlem, New York, again leaving Eleanora with Martha Miller.
By early 1929, Holiday had joined her mother in Harlem.
1929–1935: Early career
As a young teenager, Holiday started singing in nightclubs in Harlem. She took her professional pseudonym from Billie Dove, an actress she admired, and Clarence Halliday, her probable father. At the outset of her career, she spelled her last name "Halliday", her father's birth surname, but eventually changed it to "Holiday", his performing name. The young singer teamed up with a neighbor, tenor saxophone player Kenneth Hollan. They were a team from 1929 to 1931, performing at clubs such as the Grey Dawn, Pod's and Jerry's on 133rd Street, and the Brooklyn Elks' Club. Benny Goodman recalled hearing Holiday in 1931 at the Bright Spot. As her reputation grew, she played in many clubs, including the Mexico's and the Alhambra Bar and Grill, where she met Charles Linton, a vocalist who later worked with Chick Webb. It was also during this period that she connected with her father, who was playing in Fletcher Henderson's band.
Late in 1932, 17-year-old Holiday replaced the singer Monette Moore at Covan's, a club on West 132nd Street. Producer John Hammond, who loved Moore's singing and had come to hear her, first heard Holiday there in early 1933. Hammond arranged for Holiday to make her recording debut at age 18, in November 1933, with Benny Goodman. She recorded two songs: "Your Mother's Son-In-Law" and "Riffin' the Scotch", the latter being her first hit. "Son-in-Law" sold 300 copies, and "Riffin' the Scotch", released on November 11, sold 5,000 copies. Hammond was impressed by Holiday's singing style and said of her, "Her singing almost changed my music tastes and my musical life, because she was the first girl singer I'd come across who actually sang like an improvising jazz genius." Hammond compared Holiday favorably to Armstrong and said she had a good sense of lyric content at her young age.
In 1935, Holiday had a small role as a woman abused by her lover in Duke Ellington's musical short film Symphony in Black: A Rhapsody of Negro Life. She sang "Saddest Tale" in her scene.
1935–1938: Recordings with Teddy Wilson
In 1935, Holiday was signed to Brunswick by John Hammond to record pop tunes with pianist Teddy Wilson in the swing style for the growing jukebox trade. They were allowed to improvise on the material. Holiday's improvisation of melody to fit the emotion was revolutionary. Their first collaboration included "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" and "Miss Brown to You". "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" has been deemed her "claim to fame". Brunswick did not favor the recording session because producers wanted Holiday to sound more like Cleo Brown. However, after "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" was successful, the company began considering Holiday an artist in her own right. She began recording under her own name a year later for Vocalion in sessions produced by Hammond and Bernie Hanighen. Hammond said the Wilson-Holiday records from 1935 to 1938 were a great asset to Brunswick. According to Hammond, Brunswick was broke and unable to record many jazz tunes. Wilson, Holiday, Young, and other musicians came into the studio without written arrangements, reducing the recording cost. Brunswick paid Holiday a flat fee rather than royalties, which saved the company money. "I Cried for You" sold 15,000 copies, which Hammond called "a giant hit for Brunswick.... Most records that made money sold around three to four thousand."
Another frequent accompanist was tenor saxophonist Lester Young, who had been a boarder at her mother's house in 1934 and with whom Holiday had a rapport. Young said, "I think you can hear that on some of the old records, you know. Some time I'd sit down and listen to 'em myself, and it sound like two of the same voices ... or the same mind, or something like that." Young nicknamed her "Lady Day", and she called him "Prez".
1937–1938: Working for Count Basie and Artie Shaw
In late 1937, Holiday had a brief stint as a big-band vocalist with Count Basie. The traveling conditions of the band were often poor; they performed many one-nighters in clubs, moving from city to city with little stability. Holiday chose the songs she sang and had a hand in the arrangements, choosing to portray her developing persona of a woman unlucky in love. Her tunes included "I Must Have That Man", "Travelin' All Alone", "I Can't Get Started", and "Summertime", a hit for Holiday in 1936, originating in George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess the year before. Basie became used to Holiday's heavy involvement in the band. He said, "When she rehearsed with the band, it was really just a matter of getting her tunes like she wanted them, because she knew how she wanted to sound and you couldn't tell her what to do." Some of the songs Holiday performed with Basie were recorded. "I Can't Get Started", "They Can't Take That Away from Me", and "Swing It Brother Swing" are all commercially available. Holiday was unable to record in the studio with Basie, but she included many of his musicians in her recording sessions with Teddy Wilson.
Holiday found herself in direct competition with the popular singer Ella Fitzgerald. The two later became friends. Fitzgerald was the vocalist for the Chick Webb Band, which was in competition with the Basie band. On January 16, 1938, the same day that Benny Goodman performed his legendary Carnegie Hall jazz concert, the Basie and Webb bands had a battle at the Savoy Ballroom. Webb and Fitzgerald were declared winners by Metronome magazine, while DownBeat magazine pronounced Holiday and Basie the winners. Fitzgerald won a straw poll of the audience by a three-to-one margin.
By February 1938, Holiday was no longer singing for Basie. Various reasons have been given for why she was fired. Jimmy Rushing, Basie's male vocalist, called her unprofessional. According to All Music Guide, Holiday was fired for being "temperamental and unreliable". She complained of low pay and poor working conditions and may have refused to sing the songs requested of her or change her style. Holiday was hired by Artie Shaw a month after being fired from the Count Basie Band. This association placed her among the first black women to work with a white orchestra, an unusual arrangement at that time. This was also the first time a black female singer employed full-time toured the segregated U.S. South with a white bandleader. In situations where there was a lot of racial tension, Shaw was known to stick up for his vocalist. In her autobiography, Holiday describes an incident in which she was not permitted to sit on the bandstand with other vocalists because she was black. Shaw said to her, "I want you on the band stand like Helen Forrest, Tony Pastor and everyone else." When touring the South, Holiday would sometimes be heckled by members of the audience. In Louisville, Kentucky, a man called her a "nigger wench" and requested she sing another song. Holiday lost her temper and had to be escorted off the stage.
By March 1938, Shaw and Holiday had been broadcast on New York City's powerful radio station WABC (the original WABC, now WCBS). Because of their success, they were given an extra time slot to broadcast in April, which increased their exposure. The New York Amsterdam News reviewed the broadcasts and reported an improvement in Holiday's performance. Metronome reported that the addition of Holiday to Shaw's band put it in the "top brackets". Holiday could not sing as often during Shaw's shows as she could in Basie's; the repertoire was more instrumental, with fewer vocals. Shaw was also pressured to hire a white singer, Nita Bradley, with whom Holiday did not get along but had to share a bandstand. In May 1938, Shaw won band battles against Tommy Dorsey and Red Norvo, with the audience favoring Holiday. Although Shaw admired Holiday's singing in his band, saying she had a "remarkable ear" and a "remarkable sense of time", her tenure with the band was nearing an end. In November 1938, Holiday was asked to use the service elevator at the Lincoln Hotel in New York City, instead of the one used by hotel guests, because white patrons of the hotels complained. This may have been the last straw for her. She left the band shortly after. Holiday spoke about the incident weeks later, saying, "I was never allowed to visit the bar or the dining room as did other members of the band ... [and] I was made to leave and enter through the kitchen." There are no surviving live recordings of Holiday with Shaw's band. Because she was under contract to a different record label and possibly because of her race, Holiday was able to make only one record with Shaw, "Any Old Time". However, Shaw played clarinet on four songs she recorded in New York on July 10, 1936: "Did I Remember?", "No Regrets", "Summertime" and "Billie's Blues".
By the late 1930s, Holiday had toured with Count Basie and Artie Shaw, scored a string of radio and retail hits with Teddy Wilson, and became an established artist in the recording industry. Her songs "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" and "Easy Living" were imitated by singers across America and were quickly becoming jazz standards. In September 1938, Holiday's single "I'm Gonna Lock My Heart" ranked sixth as the most-played song that month. Her record label, Vocalion, listed the single as its fourth-best seller for the same month, and it peaked at number 2 on the pop charts, according to Joel Whitburn's Pop Memories: 1890–1954.
1939: "Strange Fruit" and Commodore Records
Holiday was in the middle of recording for Columbia in the late 1930s when she was introduced to "Strange Fruit", a song by Abel Meeropol based on his poem about lynching. Meeropol, a Jewish schoolteacher from the Bronx, used the pseudonym "Lewis Allan" for the poem, which was set to music and performed at teachers' union meetings. It was eventually heard by Barney Josephson, the proprietor of Café Society, an integrated nightclub in Greenwich Village, who introduced it to Holiday. She performed it at the club in 1939, with some trepidation, fearing possible retaliation. She later said that the imagery of the song reminded her of her father's death and that this played a role in her resistance to performing it.
For her performance of "Strange Fruit" at the Café Society, she had waiters silence the crowd when the song began. During the song's long introduction, the lights dimmed and all movement had to cease. As Holiday began singing, only a small spotlight illuminated her face. On the final note, all lights went out, and when they came back on, Holiday was gone. Holiday said her father, Clarence Holiday, was denied medical treatment for a fatal lung disorder because of racial prejudice, and that singing "Strange Fruit" reminded her of the incident. "It reminds me of how Pop died, but I have to keep singing it, not only because people ask for it, but because twenty years after Pop died the things that killed him are still happening in the South", she wrote in her autobiography. When Holiday's producers at Columbia found the subject matter too sensitive, Milt Gabler agreed to record it for his Commodore Records label on April 20, 1939. "Strange Fruit" remained in her repertoire for 20 years. She recorded it again for Verve. The Commodore release did not get any airplay, but the controversial song sold well, though Gabler attributed that mostly to the record's other side, "Fine and Mellow", which was a jukebox hit. "The version I recorded for Commodore", Holiday said of "Strange Fruit", "became my biggest-selling record." "Strange Fruit" was the equivalent of a top-twenty hit in the 1930s.
Holiday's popularity increased after "Strange Fruit". She received a mention in Time magazine. "I open Café Society as an unknown", Holiday said. "I left two years later as a star. I needed the prestige and publicity all right, but you can't pay rent with it." She soon demanded a raise from her manager, Joe Glaser. Holiday returned to Commodore in 1944, recording songs she made with Teddy Wilson in the 1930s, including "I Cover the Waterfront", "I'll Get By", and "He's Funny That Way". She also recorded new songs that were popular at the time, including, "My Old Flame", "How Am I to Know?", "I'm Yours", and "I'll Be Seeing You", a number one hit for Bing Crosby. She also recorded her version of "Embraceable You", which was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2005.
1940–1947: Commercial success
Holiday's mother Sadie, nicknamed "The Duchess", opened a restaurant called Mom Holiday's. She used money from her daughter while playing dice with members of the Count Basie band, with whom she toured in the late 1930s. "It kept Mom busy and happy and stopped her from worrying and watching over me", Holiday said. Fagan began borrowing large amounts from Holiday to support the restaurant. Holiday obliged but soon fell on hard times herself. "I needed some money one night and I knew Mom was sure to have some", she said. "So I walked in the restaurant like a stockholder and asked. Mom turned me down flat. She wouldn't give me a cent." The two argued, and Holiday shouted angrily, "God bless the child that's got his own", and stormed out. With Arthur Herzog, Jr., a pianist, she wrote a song based on the lyric, "God Bless the Child", and added music. "God Bless the Child" became Holiday's most popular and most covered record. It reached number 25 on the charts in 1941 and was third in Billboard'''s songs of the year, selling over a million records.Jazz History: The Standards (1940s). Jazzstandards.com. Retrieved November 13, 2010. In 1976, the song was added to the Grammy Hall of Fame. Herzog claimed Holiday contributed only a few lines to the lyrics. He said she came up with the line "God bless the child" from a dinner conversation the two had had.
On June 24, 1942, Holiday recorded "Trav'lin Light" with Paul Whiteman for a new label, Capitol Records. Because she was under contract to Columbia, she used the pseudonym "Lady Day". The song reached number 23 on the pop charts and number one on the R&B charts, then called the Harlem Hit Parade. In September 1943, Life magazine wrote, "She has the most distinct style of any popular vocalist and is imitated by other vocalists."
Milt Gabler, in addition to owning Commodore Records, became an A&R man for Decca Records. He signed Holiday to Decca on August 7, 1944, when she was 29. Her first Decca recording was "Lover Man" (number 16 Pop, number 5 R&B), one of her biggest hits. The success and distribution of the song made Holiday a staple in the pop community, leading to solo concerts, rare for jazz singers in the late 1940s. Gabler said, "I made Billie a real pop singer. That was right in her. Billie loved those songs." Jimmy Davis and Roger "Ram" Ramirez, the song's writers, had tried to interest Holiday in the song. In 1943, a flamboyant male torch singer, Willie Dukes, began singing "Lover Man" on 52nd Street. Because of his success, Holiday added it to her shows. The record's flip side was "No More", one of her favorites. Holiday asked Gabler for strings on the recording. Such arrangements were associated with Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald. "I went on my knees to him", Holiday said. "I didn't want to do it with the ordinary six pieces. I begged Milt and told him I had to have strings behind me." On October 4, 1944, Holiday entered the studio to record "Lover Man", saw the string ensemble and walked out. The musical director, Toots Camarata, said Holiday was overwhelmed with joy. She may also have wanted strings to avoid comparisons between her commercially successful early work with Teddy Wilson and everything produced afterwards. Her 1930s recordings with Wilson used a small jazz combo; recordings for Decca often involved strings. A month later, in November, Holiday returned to Decca to record "That Ole Devil Called Love", "Big Stuff", and "Don't Explain". She wrote "Don't Explain" after she caught her husband, Jimmy Monroe, with lipstick on his collar.
Holiday did not make any more records until August 1945, when she recorded "Don't Explain" for a second time, changing the lyrics "I know you raise Cain" to "Just say you'll remain" and changing "You mixed with some dame" to "What is there to gain?" Other songs recorded were "Big Stuff", "What Is This Thing Called Love?", and "You Better Go Now". Ella Fitzgerald named "You Better Go Now" her favorite recording of Holiday's. "Big Stuff" and "Don't Explain" were recorded again but with additional strings and a viola. In 1946, Holiday recorded "Good Morning Heartache". Although the song failed to chart, she sang it in live performances; three live recordings are known.
In September 1946, Holiday began her only major film, New Orleans, in which she starred opposite Louis Armstrong and Woody Herman. Plagued by racism and McCarthyism, producer Jules Levey and script writer Herbert Biberman were pressed to lessen Holiday's and Armstrong's roles to avoid the impression that black people created jazz. The attempts failed because in 1947 Biberman was listed as one of the Hollywood Ten and sent to jail. Several scenes were deleted from the film. "They had taken miles of footage of music and scenes", Holiday said, but "none of it was left in the picture. And very damn little of me. I know I wore a white dress for a number I did... and that was cut out of the picture." She recorded "The Blues Are Brewin'" for the film's soundtrack. Other songs included in the movie are "Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans?" and "Farewell to Storyville". Holiday's drug addictions were a problem on the set. She earned more than one thousand dollars per week from club ventures but spent most of it on heroin. Her lover, Joe Guy, traveled to Hollywood while Holiday was filming and supplied her with drugs. Guy was banned from the set when he was found there by Holiday's manager, Joe Glaser.
By the late 1940s, Holiday had begun recording a number of slow, sentimental ballads. Metronome expressed its concerns in 1946 about "Good Morning Heartache", saying, "there's a danger that Billie's present formula will wear thin, but up to now it's wearing well." The New York Herald Tribune reported of a concert in 1946 that her performance had little variation in melody and no change in tempo.
1947–1952: Legal issues and Carnegie Hall concert
By 1947, Holiday was at her commercial peak, having made $250,000 in the three previous years. She was ranked second in the DownBeat poll for 1946 and 1947, her highest ranking in that poll. She was ranked fifth in Billboard 's annual college poll of "girl singers" on July 6, 1947 (Jo Stafford was first). In 1946, Holiday won the Metronome magazine popularity poll.
On May 16, 1947, Holiday was arrested for possession of narcotics in her New York apartment. On May 27 she was in court. "It was called 'The United States of America versus Billie Holiday'. And that's just the way it felt", she recalled. During the trial, she heard that her lawyer would not come to the trial to represent her. "In plain English that meant no one in the world was interested in looking out for me," she said. Dehydrated and unable to hold down food, she pleaded guilty and asked to be sent to the hospital. The district attorney spoke in her defense, saying, "If your honor please, this is a case of a drug addict, but more serious, however, than most of our cases, Miss Holiday is a professional entertainer and among the higher rank as far as income was concerned." She was sentenced to Alderson Federal Prison Camp in West Virginia. The drug possession conviction caused her to lose her New York City Cabaret Card, preventing her working anywhere that sold alcohol; thereafter, she performed in concert venues and theaters.
Holiday was released early (on March 16, 1948) because of good behavior. When she arrived at Newark, her pianist Bobby Tucker and her dog Mister were waiting. The dog leaped at Holiday, knocking off her hat, and tackling her to the ground. "He began lapping me and loving me like crazy", she said. A woman thought the dog was attacking Holiday. She screamed, a crowd gathered, and reporters arrived. "I might just as well have wheeled into Penn Station and had a quiet little get-together with the Associated Press, United Press, and International News Service", she said.
Ed Fishman (who fought with Joe Glaser to be Holiday's manager) thought of a comeback concert at Carnegie Hall. Holiday hesitated, unsure audiences would accept her after the arrest. She gave in and agreed to appear. On March 27, 1948, Holiday played Carnegie Hall to a sold-out crowd. 2,700 tickets were sold in advance, a record at the time for the venue. Her popularity was unusual because she didn't have a current hit record. Her last record to reach the charts was "Lover Man" in 1945. Holiday sang 32 songs at the Carnegie concert by her count, including Cole Porter's "Night and Day" and her 1930s hit, "Strange Fruit". During the show, someone sent her a box of gardenias. "My old trademark", Holiday said. "I took them out of box and fastened them smack to the side of my head without even looking twice." There was a hatpin in the gardenias and Holiday unknowingly stuck it into the side of her head. "I didn't feel anything until the blood started rushing down in my eyes and ears", she said. After the third curtain call, she passed out.
On April 27, 1948, Bob Sylvester and her promoter Al Wilde arranged a Broadway show for her. Titled Holiday on Broadway, it sold out. "The regular music critics and drama critics came and treated us like we were legit", she said. But it closed after three weeks.
Holiday was arrested again on January 22, 1949, in her room at the Hotel Mark Twain in San Francisco. Holiday said she began using hard drugs in the early 1940s. She married trombonist Jimmy Monroe on August 25, 1941. While still married, she became involved with trumpeter Joe Guy, her drug dealer. She divorced Monroe in 1947 and also split with Guy.
In October 1949, Holiday recorded "Crazy He Calls Me", which was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2010. Gabler said the hit was her most successful recording for Decca after "Lover Man". The charts of the 1940s did not list songs outside the top 30, making it impossible to recognize minor hits. By the late 1940s, despite her popularity and concert power, her singles were little played on radio, perhaps because of her reputation.
The loss of her cabaret card reduced Holiday's earnings. She had not received proper record royalties until she joined Decca, so her main revenue was club concerts. The problem worsened when Holiday's records went out of print in the 1950s. She seldom received royalties in her later years. In 1958, she received a royalty of only $11.Nicholson, p. 167. Her lawyer in the late 1950s, Earle Warren Zaidins, registered with BMI only two songs she had written or co-written, costing her revenue. In 1948, Holiday played at the Ebony Club, which was against the law. Her manager, John Levy, was convinced he could get her card back and allowed her to open without one. "I opened scared", Holiday said, "[I was] expecting the cops to come in any chorus and carry me off. But nothing happened. I was a huge success."
Holiday recorded Gershwin's "I Loves You, Porgy" in 1948. In 1950, Holiday appeared in the Universal short film Sugar Chile Robinson, Billie Holiday, Count Basie and His Sextet, singing "God Bless the Child" and "Now, Baby or Never".
1952–1959: Lady Sings the Blues
By the 1950s, Holiday's drug use, drinking, and relationships with abusive men caused her health to deteriorate. She appeared on the ABC reality series The Comeback Story to discuss attempts to overcome her misfortunes. Her later recordings showed the effects of declining health on her voice, as it grew coarse and no longer projected its former vibrancy.
Holiday first toured Europe in 1954 as part of a Leonard Feather package. The Swedish impresario, Nils Hellstrom, initiated the "Jazz Club U.S.A." (after the Leonard Feather radio show) tour starting in Stockholm in January 1954 and then Germany, Netherlands, Paris and Switzerland. The tour party was Holiday, Buddy DeFranco, Red Norvo, Carl Drinkard, Elaine Leighton, Sonny Clark, Berryl Booker, Jimmy Raney and Red Mitchell. A recording of a live set in Germany was released as Lady Love – Billie Holiday.
Holiday's autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues, was ghostwritten by William Dufty and published in 1956. Dufty, a New York Post writer and editor then married to Holiday's close friend Maely Dufty, wrote the book quickly from a series of conversations with the singer in the Duftys' 93rd Street apartment. He also drew on the work of earlier interviewers and intended to let Holiday tell her story in her own way. In his 2015 study, Billie Holiday: The Musician and the Myth, John Szwed argued that Lady Sings the Blues is a generally accurate account of her life, but that co-writer Dufty was forced to water down or suppress material by the threat of legal action. According to the reviewer Richard Brody, "Szwed traces the stories of two important relationships that are missing from the book—with Charles Laughton, in the 1930s, and with Tallulah Bankhead, in the late 1940s—and of one relationship that's sharply diminished in the book, her affair with Orson Welles around the time of Citizen Kane." To accompany her autobiography, Holiday released the LP Lady Sings the Blues in June 1956. The album featured four new tracks, "Lady Sings the Blues", "Too Marvelous for Words", "Willow Weep for Me", and "I Thought About You", and eight new recordings of her biggest hits to date. The re-recordings included "Trav'lin' Light" "Strange Fruit" and "God Bless the Child". A review of the album was published by Billboard magazine on December 22, 1956, calling it a worthy musical complement to her autobiography. "Holiday is in good voice now", wrote the reviewer, "and these new readings will be much appreciated by her following". "Strange Fruit" and "God Bless the Child" were called classics, and "Good Morning Heartache", another reissued track on the LP, was also noted favorably.
On November 10, 1956, Holiday performed two concerts before packed audiences at Carnegie Hall. Live recordings of the second Carnegie Hall concert were released on a Verve/HMV album in the UK in late 1961 called The Essential Billie Holiday. The 13 tracks included on this album featured her own songs "I Love My Man", "Don't Explain" and "Fine and Mellow", together with other songs closely associated with her, including "Body and Soul", "My Man", and "Lady Sings the Blues" (her lyrics accompanied a tune by pianist Herbie Nichols). The liner notes for this album were written partly by Gilbert Millstein of the New York Times, who, according to these notes, served as narrator of the Carnegie Hall concerts. Interspersed among Holiday's songs, Millstein read aloud four lengthy passages from her autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues. He later wrote:
The critic Nat Hentoff of DownBeat magazine, who attended the Carnegie Hall concert, wrote the remainder of the sleeve notes on the 1961 album. He wrote of Holiday's performance:
Her performance of "Fine and Mellow" on CBS's The Sound of Jazz program is memorable for her interplay with her long-time friend Lester Young. Both were less than two years from death. Young died in March 1959. Holiday wanted to sing at his funeral, but her request was denied.
When Holiday returned to Europe almost five years later, in 1959, she made one of her last television appearances for Granada's Chelsea at Nine in London. Her final studio recordings were made for MGM Records in 1959, with lush backing from Ray Ellis and his Orchestra, who had also accompanied her on the Columbia album Lady in Satin the previous year (see below). The MGM sessions were released posthumously on a self-titled album, later retitled and re-released as Last Recording.
On March 28, 1957, Holiday married Louis McKay, a mob enforcer. McKay, like most of the men in her life, was abusive. They were separated at the time of her death, but McKay had plans to start a chain of Billie Holiday vocal studios, on the model of the Arthur Murray dance schools. Holiday was childless, but she had two godchildren: singer Billie Lorraine Feather (the daughter of Leonard Feather) and Bevan Dufty (the son of William Dufty).
Illness and death
By early 1959, Holiday was diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver. Although she had initially stopped drinking on her doctor's orders, it was not long before she relapsed. By May 1959, she had lost . Her manager Joe Glaser, jazz critic Leonard Feather, photojournalist Allan Morrison, and the singer's own friends all tried in vain to persuade her to go to a hospital. On May 31, 1959, Holiday was taken to Metropolitan Hospital in New York for treatment of liver disease and heart disease. According to writer and journalist Johann Hari, the Federal Bureau of Narcotics under Harry J. Anslinger, had been targeting Holiday since at least 1939, when she started to perform "Strange Fruit". Narcotics police went to her hospital room, claiming they had found heroin in her bedroom. A grand jury was summoned to indict her and she was arrested and handcuffed to her bed and placed under police guard. According to Hari, after 10 days, methadone was discontinued as part of Anslinger's policy; Hari accused Anslinger of being responsible for her death. On July 15, she received last rites. She died at age 44, at 3:10 a.m. on July 17, of pulmonary edema and heart failure caused by cirrhosis of the liver.
In her final years, Holiday had been progressively swindled out of her earnings, and she died with US$0.70 in the bank. Her funeral Mass was held on July 21, 1959, at the Church of St. Paul the Apostle in Manhattan. She was buried at Saint Raymond's Cemetery in the Bronx. The story of her burial plot and how it was managed by her estranged husband, Louis McKay, was documented on NPR in 2012.
Gilbert Millstein of The New York Times, who was the announcer at Holiday's 1956 Carnegie Hall concerts and wrote parts of the sleeve notes for the album The Essential Billie Holiday (see above), described her death in these sleeve notes, dated 1961:
When Holiday died, The New York Times published a short obituary on page 15 without a byline. She left an estate of $1,000, and her best recordings from the 1930s were mostly out of print. Holiday's public stature grew in the following years. In 1961, she was voted to the Down Beat Hall Of Fame, and soon after Columbia reissued nearly one hundred of her early records. In 1972, Diana Ross' portrayal of Holiday in Lady Sings the Blues was nominated for an Oscar and won a Golden Globe. Holiday was posthumously nominated for 23 Grammy awards.
Legacy
Billie Holiday received several Esquire Magazine awards during her lifetime. Her posthumous awards also include being inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, Ertegun Jazz Hall of Fame, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and the ASCAP Jazz Wall of Fame. In 1985, a statue of Billie Holiday was erected in Baltimore; the statue was completed in 1993 with additional panels of images inspired by her seminal song Strange Fruit. In 2019, Chirlane McCray announced that New York City would build a statue honoring Holiday near Queens Borough Hall.
The Billie Holiday Monument is located at Pennsylvania and West Lafayette avenues in Baltimore's Upton neighborhood.
Vocal style and range
Holiday's delivery made her performances recognizable throughout her career. Her improvisation compensated for lack of musical education. Holiday said that she always wanted her voice to sound like an instrument and some of her influences were Louis Armstrong and the singer Bessie Smith. Her last major recording, a 1958 album entitled Lady in Satin, features the backing of a 40-piece orchestra conducted and arranged by Ray Ellis, who said of the album in 1997:
Frank Sinatra was influenced by her performances on 52nd Street as a young man. He told Ebony magazine in 1958 about her impact:
Films and plays about Holiday
The biographical film Lady Sings the Blues, loosely based on Holiday's autobiography, was released in 1972 and was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Diana Ross for Best Actress. Another film, The United States vs. Billie Holiday, starred Andra Day and was released in 2021. It is based on the book Chasing the Scream by Johann Hari. Director Lee Daniels saw how Holiday was portrayed in the 1972 biopic, and wanted to show her legacy as "a civil rights leader [...] not just a drug addict or a jazz singer". Day was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance and won a Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama in 2021.
Holiday is the primary character in the play Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill, with music by Lanie Robertson. It takes place in South Philadelphia in March 1959. It premiered in 1986 at the Alliance Theatre and has been revived several times. A Broadway production starring Audra McDonald was filmed and broadcast on HBO in 2016; McDonald received an Emmy Award nomination and a record-breaking Tony Award win, becoming the most decorated performer in Tony history with six awards across all four eligible competitive categories. Billie is a 2019 documentary film based on interviews in the 1970s by Linda Lipnack Kuehl, who was researching a book on Holiday that was never completed.
Billie Holiday was also portrayed by actress Paula Jai Parker in Touched by an Angel's 2000 episode "God Bless the Child".
Discography
Billie Holiday recorded extensively for four labels: Columbia Records, which issued her recordings on its subsidiary labels Brunswick Records, Vocalion Records and OKeh Records, from 1933 through 1942; Commodore Records in 1939 and 1944; Decca Records from 1944 through 1950; briefly for Aladdin Records in 1951; Verve Records and on its earlier imprint Clef Records from 1952 through 1957, then again for Columbia Records from 1957 to 1958 and finally for MGM Records in 1959. Many of Holiday's recordings appeared on 78-rpm records prior to the long-playing vinyl record era, and only Clef, Verve, and Columbia issued albums during her lifetime that were not compilations of previously released material. Many compilations have been issued since her death, as well as comprehensive box sets and live recordings.[ Billie Holiday]. AllMusic. Retrieved on November 13, 2010.
Hit records
In 1986, Joel Whitburn's company Record Research compiled information on the popularity of recordings released from the era predating rock and roll and created pop charts dating back to the beginning of the commercial recording industry. The company's findings were published in the book Pop Memories 1890–1954. Several of Holiday's records are listed on the pop charts Whitburn created.
Holiday began her recording career on a high note with her first major release, "Riffin' the Scotch", of which 5,000 copies were sold. It was released under the name "Benny Goodman & His Orchestra" in 1933.
Most of Holiday's early successes were released under the name "Teddy Wilson & His Orchestra". During her stay in Wilson's band, Holiday would sing a few bars and then other musicians would have a solo. Wilson, one of the most influential jazz pianists of the swing era, accompanied Holiday more than any other musician. He and Holiday issued 95 recordings together.
In July 1936, Holiday began releasing sides under her own name. These songs were released under the band name "Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra". Most noteworthy, the popular jazz standard "Summertime" sold well and was listed on the pop charts of the time at number 12, the first time the jazz standard charted. Only Billy Stewart's R&B version of "Summertime" reached a higher chart placement than Holiday's, charting at number 10 thirty years later in 1966.
Holiday had 16 best-selling songs in 1937, making the year her most commercially successful. It was in this year that Holiday scored her sole number one hit as a featured vocalist on the available pop charts of the 1930s, "Carelessly". The hit "I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm", was also recorded by Ray Noble, Glen Gray and Fred Astaire, whose rendering was a bestseller for weeks. Holiday's version ranked 6 on the year-end single chart available for 1937.
In 1939, Holiday recorded her biggest selling record, "Strange Fruit" for Commodore, charting at number 16 on the available pop charts for the 1930s.
In 1940, Billboard began publishing its modern pop charts, which included the Best Selling Retail Records chart, the precursor to the Hot 100. None of Holiday's songs placed on the modern pop charts, partly because Billboard only published the first ten slots of the charts in some issues. Minor hits and independent releases had no way of being spotlighted.
"God Bless the Child", which went on to sell over a million copies, ranked number 3 on Billboards year-end top songs of 1941.
On October 24, 1942, Billboard began issuing its R&B charts. Two of Holiday's songs placed on the chart, "Trav'lin' Light" with Paul Whiteman, which topped the chart, and "Lover Man", which reached number 5. "Trav'lin' Light" also reached 18 on Billboards year-end chart.
Studio LPsBillie Holiday Sings (1952)An Evening with Billie Holiday (1952)Billie Holiday (1954)Music for Torching (1955)Velvet Mood (1956)Lady Sings the Blues (1956)Body and Soul (1957)Songs for Distingué Lovers (1957)Stay with Me (1958)All or Nothing at All (1958)Lady in Satin (1958)Last Recording (1959)
Filmography
Theatrical films
1933: The Emperor Jones, appeared as an extra
1935: Symphony in Black, short (with Duke Ellington)
1947: New Orleans1950: 'Sugar Chile' Robinson, Billie Holiday, Count Basie and His Sextet''
Television appearances
(1) = Available on audio
(2) = Available on DVD
See also
List of awards and nominations received by Billie Holiday
List of craters on Venus
List of people on the postage stamps of the United States
List of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees
References
Bibliography
This Discography is still available: see Facebook page The Billie Holiday Circle.
Further reading
External links
Discography
"Twelve Essential Billie Holiday Recordings" by Stuart Nicholson, Jazz.com
Billie Holiday at the Playbill Vault
Billie Holiday on Find A Grave
Emory University: Billie Holiday collection, 1953-1981
1915 births
1959 deaths
20th-century African-American women singers
African-American women singer-songwriters
Aladdin Records artists
Alcohol-related deaths in New York (state)
American contraltos
American women jazz singers
American people convicted of drug offenses
American prisoners and detainees
American street performers
Ballad musicians
Burials at Saint Raymond's Cemetery (Bronx)
Classic female blues singers
Columbia Records artists
Deaths from cirrhosis
Decca Records artists
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners
Jazz musicians from Maryland
Jazz musicians from Pennsylvania
Musicians from Baltimore
Musicians from Philadelphia
Singer-songwriters from Pennsylvania
Swing singers
Torch singers
Traditional pop music singers
Vocalion Records artists
African-American Catholics
Singer-songwriters from Maryland
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[
"Přírodní park Třebíčsko (before Oblast klidu Třebíčsko) is a natural park near Třebíč in the Czech Republic. There are many interesting plants. The park was founded in 1983.\n\nKobylinec and Ptáčovský kopeček\n\nKobylinec is a natural monument situated ca 0,5 km from the village of Trnava.\nThe area of this monument is 0,44 ha. Pulsatilla grandis can be found here and in the Ptáčovský kopeček park near Ptáčov near Třebíč. Both monuments are very popular for tourists.\n\nPonds\n\nIn the natural park there are some interesting ponds such as Velký Bor, Malý Bor, Buršík near Přeckov and a brook Březinka. Dams on the brook are examples of European beaver activity.\n\nSyenitové skály near Pocoucov\n\nSyenitové skály (rocks of syenit) near Pocoucov is one of famed locations. There are interesting granite boulders. The area of the reservation is 0,77 ha.\n\nExternal links\nParts of this article or all article was translated from Czech. The original article is :cs:Přírodní park Třebíčsko.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nNature near the village Trnava which is there\n\nTřebíč\nParks in the Czech Republic\nTourist attractions in the Vysočina Region",
"Damn Interesting is an independent website founded by Alan Bellows in 2005. The website presents true stories from science, history, and psychology, primarily as long-form articles, often illustrated with original artwork. Works are written by various authors, and published at irregular intervals. The website openly rejects advertising, relying on reader and listener donations to cover operating costs.\n\nAs of October 2012, each article is also published as a podcast under the same name. In November 2019, a second podcast was launched under the title Damn Interesting Week, featuring unscripted commentary on an assortment of news articles featured on the website's \"Curated Links\" section that week. In mid-2020, a third podcast called Damn Interesting Curio Cabinet began highlighting the website's periodic short-form articles in the same radioplay format as the original podcast.\n\nIn July 2009, Damn Interesting published the print book Alien Hand Syndrome through Workman Publishing. It contains some favorites from the site and some exclusive content.\n\nAwards and recognition \nIn August 2007, PC Magazine named Damn Interesting one of the \"Top 100 Undiscovered Web Sites\".\nThe article \"The Zero-Armed Bandit\" by Alan Bellows won a 2015 Sidney Award from David Brooks in The New York Times.\nThe article \"Ghoulish Acts and Dastardly Deeds\" by Alan Bellows was cited as \"nonfiction journalism from 2017 that will stand the test of time\" by Conor Friedersdorf in The Atlantic.\nThe article \"Dupes and Duplicity\" by Jennifer Lee Noonan won a 2020 Sidney Award from David Brooks in the New York Times.\n\nAccusing The Dollop of plagiarism \n\nOn July 9, 2015, Bellows posted an open letter accusing The Dollop, a comedy podcast about history, of plagiarism due to their repeated use of verbatim text from Damn Interesting articles without permission or attribution. Dave Anthony, the writer of The Dollop, responded on reddit, admitting to using Damn Interesting content, but claiming that the use was protected by fair use, and that \"historical facts are not copyrightable.\" In an article about the controversy on Plagiarism Today, Jonathan Bailey concluded, \"Any way one looks at it, The Dollop failed its ethical obligations to all of the people, not just those writing for Damn Interesting, who put in the time, energy and expertise into writing the original content upon which their show is based.\"\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n Official website\n\n2005 podcast debuts"
] |
[
"Billie Holiday",
"1935-38: Recordings with Teddy Wilson",
"What happened in 1935?",
"In 1935 Holiday was signed to Brunswick Records by John Hammond to record current pop tunes with Teddy Wilson in the new swing style for the growing jukebox trade.",
"What happened in 1936?",
"Hammond spoke about the commercial impact of the Wilson-Holiday sides from 1935 to 1938, calling them a great asset to Brunswick.",
"What happened in 1937?",
"I don't know.",
"What happened in 1938?",
"I don't know.",
"What was recorded with Teddy Wilson?",
"Wilson, Holiday, Young, and other musicians came into the studio without musical arrangements and improvised as they performed,",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"Holiday was never given any royalties for her work, instead being paid a flat fee, which saved the company money."
] |
C_52be57a775c94201a6b8dcb1c2fe9fa9_0
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Why wasn't Holiday given any royalties?
| 7 |
Why wasn't Billie Holiday given any royalties for her work?
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Billie Holiday
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In 1935 Holiday was signed to Brunswick Records by John Hammond to record current pop tunes with Teddy Wilson in the new swing style for the growing jukebox trade. They were given free rein to improvise the material. Holiday's improvisation of melody to fit the emotion was revolutionary. Their first collaboration included "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" and "Miss Brown to You". "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" has been deemed her "claim to fame." Brunswick did not favor the recording session, because producers wanted Holiday to sound more like Cleo Brown. After "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" garnered success, however, the company began considering Holiday an artist in her own right. She began recording under her own name a year later (on the 35-cent Vocalion label), producing a series of extraordinary performances with groups comprising the swing era's finest musicians. The sessions were co-produced by Hammond and Bernie Hanighen. With their arrangements, Wilson and Holiday took pedestrian pop tunes, such as "Twenty-Four Hours a Day" (number 6 Pop) and "Yankee Doodle Went to Town", and turned them into jazz classics. Most of Holiday's recordings with Wilson or under her own name during the 1930s and early 1940s are regarded as important parts of the jazz vocal library. She was then in her twenties. Another frequent accompanist was the tenor saxophonist Lester Young, who had been a boarder at her mother's house in 1934 and with whom Holiday had a special rapport. He said, "I think you can hear that on some of the old records, you know. Some time I'd sit down and listen to 'em myself, and it sound like two of the same voices, if you don't be careful, you know, or the same mind, or something like that." Young nicknamed her "Lady Day", and she called him "Prez". Hammond spoke about the commercial impact of the Wilson-Holiday sides from 1935 to 1938, calling them a great asset to Brunswick. The record label, according to Hammond, was broke and unable to record many jazz tunes. Wilson, Holiday, Young, and other musicians came into the studio without musical arrangements and improvised as they performed, dispensing with the expense of having written arrangements, so that the records they produced were cheap. Holiday was never given any royalties for her work, instead being paid a flat fee, which saved the company money. Some of the records produced were successful, such as "I Cried for You", which sold 15,000 copies. Hammond said of the record, "15,000 ... was a giant hit for Brunswick in those days. I mean a giant hit. Most records that made money sold around three to four thousand." CANNOTANSWER
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saved the company money.
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Billie Holiday (born Eleanora Fagan; April 7, 1915 – July 17, 1959) was an American jazz and swing music singer. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and music partner, Lester Young, Holiday had an innovative influence on jazz music and pop singing. Her vocal style, strongly inspired by jazz instrumentalists, pioneered a new way of manipulating phrasing and tempo. She was known for her vocal delivery and improvisational skills.
After a turbulent childhood, Holiday began singing in nightclubs in Harlem, where she was heard by producer John Hammond, who liked her voice. She signed a recording contract with Brunswick in 1935. Collaborations with Teddy Wilson produced the hit "What a Little Moonlight Can Do", which became a jazz standard. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, Holiday had mainstream success on labels such as Columbia and Decca. By the late 1940s, however, she was beset with legal troubles and drug abuse. After a short prison sentence, she performed at a sold-out concert at Carnegie Hall.
She was a successful concert performer throughout the 1950s with two further sold-out shows at Carnegie Hall. Because of personal struggles and an altered voice, her final recordings were met with mixed reaction but were mild commercial successes. Her final album, Lady in Satin, was released in 1958. Holiday died of cirrhosis on July 17, 1959, at age 44.
Holiday won four Grammy Awards, all of them posthumously, for Best Historical Album. She was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame and the National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame. She was also inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, though not in that genre; the website states that "Billie Holiday changed jazz forever". Several films about her life have been released, most recently The United States vs. Billie Holiday (2021).
Life and career
1915–1929: Childhood
Eleanora Fagan was born on April 7, 1915, in Philadelphia, the daughter of African-American unwed teenage couple Sarah Julia "Sadie" Fagan and Clarence Halliday. Sarah moved to Philadelphia at age 19, after she was evicted from her parents' home in the Sandtown-Winchester neighborhood of Baltimore, Maryland for becoming pregnant. With no support from her parents, she made arrangements with her older, married half-sister, Eva Miller, for Eleanora to stay with her in Baltimore. Not long after Eleanora was born, Clarence abandoned his family to pursue a career as a jazz banjo player and guitarist. Some historians have disputed Holiday's paternity, as a copy of her birth certificate in the Baltimore archives lists her father as "Frank DeViese". Other historians consider this an anomaly, probably inserted by a hospital or government worker. DeViese lived in Philadelphia, and Sadie Harris may have known him through her work. Sadie Harris, then known as Sadie Fagan, married Philip Gough, but the marriage ended in two years.
Eleanora grew up in Baltimore and had a very difficult childhood. Her mother often took what were then known as "transportation jobs", serving on passenger railroads. Holiday was raised largely by Eva Miller's mother-in-law, Martha Miller, and suffered from her mother's absences and being in others' care for her first decade of life. Holiday's autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues, published in 1956, is sketchy on details of her early life, but much was confirmed by Stuart Nicholson in his 1995 biography of the singer.
After attending kindergarten at St. Frances Academy, she frequently skipped school, and her truancy resulted in her being brought before the juvenile court on January 5, 1925, when she was nine years old. She was sent to the House of the Good Shepherd, a Catholic reform school, where she was baptized on March 19, 1925. After nine months in care, she was "paroled" on October 3, 1925, to her mother. Sadie had opened a restaurant, the East Side Grill, and mother and daughter worked long hours there. She dropped out of school at age 11.
On December 24, 1926, Sadie came home to discover a neighbor, Wilbur Rich, attempting to rape Eleanora. She successfully fought back, and Rich was arrested. Officials placed Eleanora in the House of the Good Shepherd under protective custody as a state witness in the rape case. Holiday was released in February 1927, when she was nearly 12. She found a job running errands in a brothel, and she scrubbed marble steps as well as kitchen and bathroom floors of neighborhood homes. Around this time, she first heard the records of Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith. In particular, Holiday cited "West End Blues" as an intriguing influence, pointing specifically to the scat section duet with the clarinet as her favorite part. By the end of 1928, Holiday's mother moved to Harlem, New York, again leaving Eleanora with Martha Miller.
By early 1929, Holiday had joined her mother in Harlem.
1929–1935: Early career
As a young teenager, Holiday started singing in nightclubs in Harlem. She took her professional pseudonym from Billie Dove, an actress she admired, and Clarence Halliday, her probable father. At the outset of her career, she spelled her last name "Halliday", her father's birth surname, but eventually changed it to "Holiday", his performing name. The young singer teamed up with a neighbor, tenor saxophone player Kenneth Hollan. They were a team from 1929 to 1931, performing at clubs such as the Grey Dawn, Pod's and Jerry's on 133rd Street, and the Brooklyn Elks' Club. Benny Goodman recalled hearing Holiday in 1931 at the Bright Spot. As her reputation grew, she played in many clubs, including the Mexico's and the Alhambra Bar and Grill, where she met Charles Linton, a vocalist who later worked with Chick Webb. It was also during this period that she connected with her father, who was playing in Fletcher Henderson's band.
Late in 1932, 17-year-old Holiday replaced the singer Monette Moore at Covan's, a club on West 132nd Street. Producer John Hammond, who loved Moore's singing and had come to hear her, first heard Holiday there in early 1933. Hammond arranged for Holiday to make her recording debut at age 18, in November 1933, with Benny Goodman. She recorded two songs: "Your Mother's Son-In-Law" and "Riffin' the Scotch", the latter being her first hit. "Son-in-Law" sold 300 copies, and "Riffin' the Scotch", released on November 11, sold 5,000 copies. Hammond was impressed by Holiday's singing style and said of her, "Her singing almost changed my music tastes and my musical life, because she was the first girl singer I'd come across who actually sang like an improvising jazz genius." Hammond compared Holiday favorably to Armstrong and said she had a good sense of lyric content at her young age.
In 1935, Holiday had a small role as a woman abused by her lover in Duke Ellington's musical short film Symphony in Black: A Rhapsody of Negro Life. She sang "Saddest Tale" in her scene.
1935–1938: Recordings with Teddy Wilson
In 1935, Holiday was signed to Brunswick by John Hammond to record pop tunes with pianist Teddy Wilson in the swing style for the growing jukebox trade. They were allowed to improvise on the material. Holiday's improvisation of melody to fit the emotion was revolutionary. Their first collaboration included "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" and "Miss Brown to You". "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" has been deemed her "claim to fame". Brunswick did not favor the recording session because producers wanted Holiday to sound more like Cleo Brown. However, after "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" was successful, the company began considering Holiday an artist in her own right. She began recording under her own name a year later for Vocalion in sessions produced by Hammond and Bernie Hanighen. Hammond said the Wilson-Holiday records from 1935 to 1938 were a great asset to Brunswick. According to Hammond, Brunswick was broke and unable to record many jazz tunes. Wilson, Holiday, Young, and other musicians came into the studio without written arrangements, reducing the recording cost. Brunswick paid Holiday a flat fee rather than royalties, which saved the company money. "I Cried for You" sold 15,000 copies, which Hammond called "a giant hit for Brunswick.... Most records that made money sold around three to four thousand."
Another frequent accompanist was tenor saxophonist Lester Young, who had been a boarder at her mother's house in 1934 and with whom Holiday had a rapport. Young said, "I think you can hear that on some of the old records, you know. Some time I'd sit down and listen to 'em myself, and it sound like two of the same voices ... or the same mind, or something like that." Young nicknamed her "Lady Day", and she called him "Prez".
1937–1938: Working for Count Basie and Artie Shaw
In late 1937, Holiday had a brief stint as a big-band vocalist with Count Basie. The traveling conditions of the band were often poor; they performed many one-nighters in clubs, moving from city to city with little stability. Holiday chose the songs she sang and had a hand in the arrangements, choosing to portray her developing persona of a woman unlucky in love. Her tunes included "I Must Have That Man", "Travelin' All Alone", "I Can't Get Started", and "Summertime", a hit for Holiday in 1936, originating in George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess the year before. Basie became used to Holiday's heavy involvement in the band. He said, "When she rehearsed with the band, it was really just a matter of getting her tunes like she wanted them, because she knew how she wanted to sound and you couldn't tell her what to do." Some of the songs Holiday performed with Basie were recorded. "I Can't Get Started", "They Can't Take That Away from Me", and "Swing It Brother Swing" are all commercially available. Holiday was unable to record in the studio with Basie, but she included many of his musicians in her recording sessions with Teddy Wilson.
Holiday found herself in direct competition with the popular singer Ella Fitzgerald. The two later became friends. Fitzgerald was the vocalist for the Chick Webb Band, which was in competition with the Basie band. On January 16, 1938, the same day that Benny Goodman performed his legendary Carnegie Hall jazz concert, the Basie and Webb bands had a battle at the Savoy Ballroom. Webb and Fitzgerald were declared winners by Metronome magazine, while DownBeat magazine pronounced Holiday and Basie the winners. Fitzgerald won a straw poll of the audience by a three-to-one margin.
By February 1938, Holiday was no longer singing for Basie. Various reasons have been given for why she was fired. Jimmy Rushing, Basie's male vocalist, called her unprofessional. According to All Music Guide, Holiday was fired for being "temperamental and unreliable". She complained of low pay and poor working conditions and may have refused to sing the songs requested of her or change her style. Holiday was hired by Artie Shaw a month after being fired from the Count Basie Band. This association placed her among the first black women to work with a white orchestra, an unusual arrangement at that time. This was also the first time a black female singer employed full-time toured the segregated U.S. South with a white bandleader. In situations where there was a lot of racial tension, Shaw was known to stick up for his vocalist. In her autobiography, Holiday describes an incident in which she was not permitted to sit on the bandstand with other vocalists because she was black. Shaw said to her, "I want you on the band stand like Helen Forrest, Tony Pastor and everyone else." When touring the South, Holiday would sometimes be heckled by members of the audience. In Louisville, Kentucky, a man called her a "nigger wench" and requested she sing another song. Holiday lost her temper and had to be escorted off the stage.
By March 1938, Shaw and Holiday had been broadcast on New York City's powerful radio station WABC (the original WABC, now WCBS). Because of their success, they were given an extra time slot to broadcast in April, which increased their exposure. The New York Amsterdam News reviewed the broadcasts and reported an improvement in Holiday's performance. Metronome reported that the addition of Holiday to Shaw's band put it in the "top brackets". Holiday could not sing as often during Shaw's shows as she could in Basie's; the repertoire was more instrumental, with fewer vocals. Shaw was also pressured to hire a white singer, Nita Bradley, with whom Holiday did not get along but had to share a bandstand. In May 1938, Shaw won band battles against Tommy Dorsey and Red Norvo, with the audience favoring Holiday. Although Shaw admired Holiday's singing in his band, saying she had a "remarkable ear" and a "remarkable sense of time", her tenure with the band was nearing an end. In November 1938, Holiday was asked to use the service elevator at the Lincoln Hotel in New York City, instead of the one used by hotel guests, because white patrons of the hotels complained. This may have been the last straw for her. She left the band shortly after. Holiday spoke about the incident weeks later, saying, "I was never allowed to visit the bar or the dining room as did other members of the band ... [and] I was made to leave and enter through the kitchen." There are no surviving live recordings of Holiday with Shaw's band. Because she was under contract to a different record label and possibly because of her race, Holiday was able to make only one record with Shaw, "Any Old Time". However, Shaw played clarinet on four songs she recorded in New York on July 10, 1936: "Did I Remember?", "No Regrets", "Summertime" and "Billie's Blues".
By the late 1930s, Holiday had toured with Count Basie and Artie Shaw, scored a string of radio and retail hits with Teddy Wilson, and became an established artist in the recording industry. Her songs "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" and "Easy Living" were imitated by singers across America and were quickly becoming jazz standards. In September 1938, Holiday's single "I'm Gonna Lock My Heart" ranked sixth as the most-played song that month. Her record label, Vocalion, listed the single as its fourth-best seller for the same month, and it peaked at number 2 on the pop charts, according to Joel Whitburn's Pop Memories: 1890–1954.
1939: "Strange Fruit" and Commodore Records
Holiday was in the middle of recording for Columbia in the late 1930s when she was introduced to "Strange Fruit", a song by Abel Meeropol based on his poem about lynching. Meeropol, a Jewish schoolteacher from the Bronx, used the pseudonym "Lewis Allan" for the poem, which was set to music and performed at teachers' union meetings. It was eventually heard by Barney Josephson, the proprietor of Café Society, an integrated nightclub in Greenwich Village, who introduced it to Holiday. She performed it at the club in 1939, with some trepidation, fearing possible retaliation. She later said that the imagery of the song reminded her of her father's death and that this played a role in her resistance to performing it.
For her performance of "Strange Fruit" at the Café Society, she had waiters silence the crowd when the song began. During the song's long introduction, the lights dimmed and all movement had to cease. As Holiday began singing, only a small spotlight illuminated her face. On the final note, all lights went out, and when they came back on, Holiday was gone. Holiday said her father, Clarence Holiday, was denied medical treatment for a fatal lung disorder because of racial prejudice, and that singing "Strange Fruit" reminded her of the incident. "It reminds me of how Pop died, but I have to keep singing it, not only because people ask for it, but because twenty years after Pop died the things that killed him are still happening in the South", she wrote in her autobiography. When Holiday's producers at Columbia found the subject matter too sensitive, Milt Gabler agreed to record it for his Commodore Records label on April 20, 1939. "Strange Fruit" remained in her repertoire for 20 years. She recorded it again for Verve. The Commodore release did not get any airplay, but the controversial song sold well, though Gabler attributed that mostly to the record's other side, "Fine and Mellow", which was a jukebox hit. "The version I recorded for Commodore", Holiday said of "Strange Fruit", "became my biggest-selling record." "Strange Fruit" was the equivalent of a top-twenty hit in the 1930s.
Holiday's popularity increased after "Strange Fruit". She received a mention in Time magazine. "I open Café Society as an unknown", Holiday said. "I left two years later as a star. I needed the prestige and publicity all right, but you can't pay rent with it." She soon demanded a raise from her manager, Joe Glaser. Holiday returned to Commodore in 1944, recording songs she made with Teddy Wilson in the 1930s, including "I Cover the Waterfront", "I'll Get By", and "He's Funny That Way". She also recorded new songs that were popular at the time, including, "My Old Flame", "How Am I to Know?", "I'm Yours", and "I'll Be Seeing You", a number one hit for Bing Crosby. She also recorded her version of "Embraceable You", which was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2005.
1940–1947: Commercial success
Holiday's mother Sadie, nicknamed "The Duchess", opened a restaurant called Mom Holiday's. She used money from her daughter while playing dice with members of the Count Basie band, with whom she toured in the late 1930s. "It kept Mom busy and happy and stopped her from worrying and watching over me", Holiday said. Fagan began borrowing large amounts from Holiday to support the restaurant. Holiday obliged but soon fell on hard times herself. "I needed some money one night and I knew Mom was sure to have some", she said. "So I walked in the restaurant like a stockholder and asked. Mom turned me down flat. She wouldn't give me a cent." The two argued, and Holiday shouted angrily, "God bless the child that's got his own", and stormed out. With Arthur Herzog, Jr., a pianist, she wrote a song based on the lyric, "God Bless the Child", and added music. "God Bless the Child" became Holiday's most popular and most covered record. It reached number 25 on the charts in 1941 and was third in Billboard'''s songs of the year, selling over a million records.Jazz History: The Standards (1940s). Jazzstandards.com. Retrieved November 13, 2010. In 1976, the song was added to the Grammy Hall of Fame. Herzog claimed Holiday contributed only a few lines to the lyrics. He said she came up with the line "God bless the child" from a dinner conversation the two had had.
On June 24, 1942, Holiday recorded "Trav'lin Light" with Paul Whiteman for a new label, Capitol Records. Because she was under contract to Columbia, she used the pseudonym "Lady Day". The song reached number 23 on the pop charts and number one on the R&B charts, then called the Harlem Hit Parade. In September 1943, Life magazine wrote, "She has the most distinct style of any popular vocalist and is imitated by other vocalists."
Milt Gabler, in addition to owning Commodore Records, became an A&R man for Decca Records. He signed Holiday to Decca on August 7, 1944, when she was 29. Her first Decca recording was "Lover Man" (number 16 Pop, number 5 R&B), one of her biggest hits. The success and distribution of the song made Holiday a staple in the pop community, leading to solo concerts, rare for jazz singers in the late 1940s. Gabler said, "I made Billie a real pop singer. That was right in her. Billie loved those songs." Jimmy Davis and Roger "Ram" Ramirez, the song's writers, had tried to interest Holiday in the song. In 1943, a flamboyant male torch singer, Willie Dukes, began singing "Lover Man" on 52nd Street. Because of his success, Holiday added it to her shows. The record's flip side was "No More", one of her favorites. Holiday asked Gabler for strings on the recording. Such arrangements were associated with Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald. "I went on my knees to him", Holiday said. "I didn't want to do it with the ordinary six pieces. I begged Milt and told him I had to have strings behind me." On October 4, 1944, Holiday entered the studio to record "Lover Man", saw the string ensemble and walked out. The musical director, Toots Camarata, said Holiday was overwhelmed with joy. She may also have wanted strings to avoid comparisons between her commercially successful early work with Teddy Wilson and everything produced afterwards. Her 1930s recordings with Wilson used a small jazz combo; recordings for Decca often involved strings. A month later, in November, Holiday returned to Decca to record "That Ole Devil Called Love", "Big Stuff", and "Don't Explain". She wrote "Don't Explain" after she caught her husband, Jimmy Monroe, with lipstick on his collar.
Holiday did not make any more records until August 1945, when she recorded "Don't Explain" for a second time, changing the lyrics "I know you raise Cain" to "Just say you'll remain" and changing "You mixed with some dame" to "What is there to gain?" Other songs recorded were "Big Stuff", "What Is This Thing Called Love?", and "You Better Go Now". Ella Fitzgerald named "You Better Go Now" her favorite recording of Holiday's. "Big Stuff" and "Don't Explain" were recorded again but with additional strings and a viola. In 1946, Holiday recorded "Good Morning Heartache". Although the song failed to chart, she sang it in live performances; three live recordings are known.
In September 1946, Holiday began her only major film, New Orleans, in which she starred opposite Louis Armstrong and Woody Herman. Plagued by racism and McCarthyism, producer Jules Levey and script writer Herbert Biberman were pressed to lessen Holiday's and Armstrong's roles to avoid the impression that black people created jazz. The attempts failed because in 1947 Biberman was listed as one of the Hollywood Ten and sent to jail. Several scenes were deleted from the film. "They had taken miles of footage of music and scenes", Holiday said, but "none of it was left in the picture. And very damn little of me. I know I wore a white dress for a number I did... and that was cut out of the picture." She recorded "The Blues Are Brewin'" for the film's soundtrack. Other songs included in the movie are "Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans?" and "Farewell to Storyville". Holiday's drug addictions were a problem on the set. She earned more than one thousand dollars per week from club ventures but spent most of it on heroin. Her lover, Joe Guy, traveled to Hollywood while Holiday was filming and supplied her with drugs. Guy was banned from the set when he was found there by Holiday's manager, Joe Glaser.
By the late 1940s, Holiday had begun recording a number of slow, sentimental ballads. Metronome expressed its concerns in 1946 about "Good Morning Heartache", saying, "there's a danger that Billie's present formula will wear thin, but up to now it's wearing well." The New York Herald Tribune reported of a concert in 1946 that her performance had little variation in melody and no change in tempo.
1947–1952: Legal issues and Carnegie Hall concert
By 1947, Holiday was at her commercial peak, having made $250,000 in the three previous years. She was ranked second in the DownBeat poll for 1946 and 1947, her highest ranking in that poll. She was ranked fifth in Billboard 's annual college poll of "girl singers" on July 6, 1947 (Jo Stafford was first). In 1946, Holiday won the Metronome magazine popularity poll.
On May 16, 1947, Holiday was arrested for possession of narcotics in her New York apartment. On May 27 she was in court. "It was called 'The United States of America versus Billie Holiday'. And that's just the way it felt", she recalled. During the trial, she heard that her lawyer would not come to the trial to represent her. "In plain English that meant no one in the world was interested in looking out for me," she said. Dehydrated and unable to hold down food, she pleaded guilty and asked to be sent to the hospital. The district attorney spoke in her defense, saying, "If your honor please, this is a case of a drug addict, but more serious, however, than most of our cases, Miss Holiday is a professional entertainer and among the higher rank as far as income was concerned." She was sentenced to Alderson Federal Prison Camp in West Virginia. The drug possession conviction caused her to lose her New York City Cabaret Card, preventing her working anywhere that sold alcohol; thereafter, she performed in concert venues and theaters.
Holiday was released early (on March 16, 1948) because of good behavior. When she arrived at Newark, her pianist Bobby Tucker and her dog Mister were waiting. The dog leaped at Holiday, knocking off her hat, and tackling her to the ground. "He began lapping me and loving me like crazy", she said. A woman thought the dog was attacking Holiday. She screamed, a crowd gathered, and reporters arrived. "I might just as well have wheeled into Penn Station and had a quiet little get-together with the Associated Press, United Press, and International News Service", she said.
Ed Fishman (who fought with Joe Glaser to be Holiday's manager) thought of a comeback concert at Carnegie Hall. Holiday hesitated, unsure audiences would accept her after the arrest. She gave in and agreed to appear. On March 27, 1948, Holiday played Carnegie Hall to a sold-out crowd. 2,700 tickets were sold in advance, a record at the time for the venue. Her popularity was unusual because she didn't have a current hit record. Her last record to reach the charts was "Lover Man" in 1945. Holiday sang 32 songs at the Carnegie concert by her count, including Cole Porter's "Night and Day" and her 1930s hit, "Strange Fruit". During the show, someone sent her a box of gardenias. "My old trademark", Holiday said. "I took them out of box and fastened them smack to the side of my head without even looking twice." There was a hatpin in the gardenias and Holiday unknowingly stuck it into the side of her head. "I didn't feel anything until the blood started rushing down in my eyes and ears", she said. After the third curtain call, she passed out.
On April 27, 1948, Bob Sylvester and her promoter Al Wilde arranged a Broadway show for her. Titled Holiday on Broadway, it sold out. "The regular music critics and drama critics came and treated us like we were legit", she said. But it closed after three weeks.
Holiday was arrested again on January 22, 1949, in her room at the Hotel Mark Twain in San Francisco. Holiday said she began using hard drugs in the early 1940s. She married trombonist Jimmy Monroe on August 25, 1941. While still married, she became involved with trumpeter Joe Guy, her drug dealer. She divorced Monroe in 1947 and also split with Guy.
In October 1949, Holiday recorded "Crazy He Calls Me", which was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2010. Gabler said the hit was her most successful recording for Decca after "Lover Man". The charts of the 1940s did not list songs outside the top 30, making it impossible to recognize minor hits. By the late 1940s, despite her popularity and concert power, her singles were little played on radio, perhaps because of her reputation.
The loss of her cabaret card reduced Holiday's earnings. She had not received proper record royalties until she joined Decca, so her main revenue was club concerts. The problem worsened when Holiday's records went out of print in the 1950s. She seldom received royalties in her later years. In 1958, she received a royalty of only $11.Nicholson, p. 167. Her lawyer in the late 1950s, Earle Warren Zaidins, registered with BMI only two songs she had written or co-written, costing her revenue. In 1948, Holiday played at the Ebony Club, which was against the law. Her manager, John Levy, was convinced he could get her card back and allowed her to open without one. "I opened scared", Holiday said, "[I was] expecting the cops to come in any chorus and carry me off. But nothing happened. I was a huge success."
Holiday recorded Gershwin's "I Loves You, Porgy" in 1948. In 1950, Holiday appeared in the Universal short film Sugar Chile Robinson, Billie Holiday, Count Basie and His Sextet, singing "God Bless the Child" and "Now, Baby or Never".
1952–1959: Lady Sings the Blues
By the 1950s, Holiday's drug use, drinking, and relationships with abusive men caused her health to deteriorate. She appeared on the ABC reality series The Comeback Story to discuss attempts to overcome her misfortunes. Her later recordings showed the effects of declining health on her voice, as it grew coarse and no longer projected its former vibrancy.
Holiday first toured Europe in 1954 as part of a Leonard Feather package. The Swedish impresario, Nils Hellstrom, initiated the "Jazz Club U.S.A." (after the Leonard Feather radio show) tour starting in Stockholm in January 1954 and then Germany, Netherlands, Paris and Switzerland. The tour party was Holiday, Buddy DeFranco, Red Norvo, Carl Drinkard, Elaine Leighton, Sonny Clark, Berryl Booker, Jimmy Raney and Red Mitchell. A recording of a live set in Germany was released as Lady Love – Billie Holiday.
Holiday's autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues, was ghostwritten by William Dufty and published in 1956. Dufty, a New York Post writer and editor then married to Holiday's close friend Maely Dufty, wrote the book quickly from a series of conversations with the singer in the Duftys' 93rd Street apartment. He also drew on the work of earlier interviewers and intended to let Holiday tell her story in her own way. In his 2015 study, Billie Holiday: The Musician and the Myth, John Szwed argued that Lady Sings the Blues is a generally accurate account of her life, but that co-writer Dufty was forced to water down or suppress material by the threat of legal action. According to the reviewer Richard Brody, "Szwed traces the stories of two important relationships that are missing from the book—with Charles Laughton, in the 1930s, and with Tallulah Bankhead, in the late 1940s—and of one relationship that's sharply diminished in the book, her affair with Orson Welles around the time of Citizen Kane." To accompany her autobiography, Holiday released the LP Lady Sings the Blues in June 1956. The album featured four new tracks, "Lady Sings the Blues", "Too Marvelous for Words", "Willow Weep for Me", and "I Thought About You", and eight new recordings of her biggest hits to date. The re-recordings included "Trav'lin' Light" "Strange Fruit" and "God Bless the Child". A review of the album was published by Billboard magazine on December 22, 1956, calling it a worthy musical complement to her autobiography. "Holiday is in good voice now", wrote the reviewer, "and these new readings will be much appreciated by her following". "Strange Fruit" and "God Bless the Child" were called classics, and "Good Morning Heartache", another reissued track on the LP, was also noted favorably.
On November 10, 1956, Holiday performed two concerts before packed audiences at Carnegie Hall. Live recordings of the second Carnegie Hall concert were released on a Verve/HMV album in the UK in late 1961 called The Essential Billie Holiday. The 13 tracks included on this album featured her own songs "I Love My Man", "Don't Explain" and "Fine and Mellow", together with other songs closely associated with her, including "Body and Soul", "My Man", and "Lady Sings the Blues" (her lyrics accompanied a tune by pianist Herbie Nichols). The liner notes for this album were written partly by Gilbert Millstein of the New York Times, who, according to these notes, served as narrator of the Carnegie Hall concerts. Interspersed among Holiday's songs, Millstein read aloud four lengthy passages from her autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues. He later wrote:
The critic Nat Hentoff of DownBeat magazine, who attended the Carnegie Hall concert, wrote the remainder of the sleeve notes on the 1961 album. He wrote of Holiday's performance:
Her performance of "Fine and Mellow" on CBS's The Sound of Jazz program is memorable for her interplay with her long-time friend Lester Young. Both were less than two years from death. Young died in March 1959. Holiday wanted to sing at his funeral, but her request was denied.
When Holiday returned to Europe almost five years later, in 1959, she made one of her last television appearances for Granada's Chelsea at Nine in London. Her final studio recordings were made for MGM Records in 1959, with lush backing from Ray Ellis and his Orchestra, who had also accompanied her on the Columbia album Lady in Satin the previous year (see below). The MGM sessions were released posthumously on a self-titled album, later retitled and re-released as Last Recording.
On March 28, 1957, Holiday married Louis McKay, a mob enforcer. McKay, like most of the men in her life, was abusive. They were separated at the time of her death, but McKay had plans to start a chain of Billie Holiday vocal studios, on the model of the Arthur Murray dance schools. Holiday was childless, but she had two godchildren: singer Billie Lorraine Feather (the daughter of Leonard Feather) and Bevan Dufty (the son of William Dufty).
Illness and death
By early 1959, Holiday was diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver. Although she had initially stopped drinking on her doctor's orders, it was not long before she relapsed. By May 1959, she had lost . Her manager Joe Glaser, jazz critic Leonard Feather, photojournalist Allan Morrison, and the singer's own friends all tried in vain to persuade her to go to a hospital. On May 31, 1959, Holiday was taken to Metropolitan Hospital in New York for treatment of liver disease and heart disease. According to writer and journalist Johann Hari, the Federal Bureau of Narcotics under Harry J. Anslinger, had been targeting Holiday since at least 1939, when she started to perform "Strange Fruit". Narcotics police went to her hospital room, claiming they had found heroin in her bedroom. A grand jury was summoned to indict her and she was arrested and handcuffed to her bed and placed under police guard. According to Hari, after 10 days, methadone was discontinued as part of Anslinger's policy; Hari accused Anslinger of being responsible for her death. On July 15, she received last rites. She died at age 44, at 3:10 a.m. on July 17, of pulmonary edema and heart failure caused by cirrhosis of the liver.
In her final years, Holiday had been progressively swindled out of her earnings, and she died with US$0.70 in the bank. Her funeral Mass was held on July 21, 1959, at the Church of St. Paul the Apostle in Manhattan. She was buried at Saint Raymond's Cemetery in the Bronx. The story of her burial plot and how it was managed by her estranged husband, Louis McKay, was documented on NPR in 2012.
Gilbert Millstein of The New York Times, who was the announcer at Holiday's 1956 Carnegie Hall concerts and wrote parts of the sleeve notes for the album The Essential Billie Holiday (see above), described her death in these sleeve notes, dated 1961:
When Holiday died, The New York Times published a short obituary on page 15 without a byline. She left an estate of $1,000, and her best recordings from the 1930s were mostly out of print. Holiday's public stature grew in the following years. In 1961, she was voted to the Down Beat Hall Of Fame, and soon after Columbia reissued nearly one hundred of her early records. In 1972, Diana Ross' portrayal of Holiday in Lady Sings the Blues was nominated for an Oscar and won a Golden Globe. Holiday was posthumously nominated for 23 Grammy awards.
Legacy
Billie Holiday received several Esquire Magazine awards during her lifetime. Her posthumous awards also include being inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, Ertegun Jazz Hall of Fame, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and the ASCAP Jazz Wall of Fame. In 1985, a statue of Billie Holiday was erected in Baltimore; the statue was completed in 1993 with additional panels of images inspired by her seminal song Strange Fruit. In 2019, Chirlane McCray announced that New York City would build a statue honoring Holiday near Queens Borough Hall.
The Billie Holiday Monument is located at Pennsylvania and West Lafayette avenues in Baltimore's Upton neighborhood.
Vocal style and range
Holiday's delivery made her performances recognizable throughout her career. Her improvisation compensated for lack of musical education. Holiday said that she always wanted her voice to sound like an instrument and some of her influences were Louis Armstrong and the singer Bessie Smith. Her last major recording, a 1958 album entitled Lady in Satin, features the backing of a 40-piece orchestra conducted and arranged by Ray Ellis, who said of the album in 1997:
Frank Sinatra was influenced by her performances on 52nd Street as a young man. He told Ebony magazine in 1958 about her impact:
Films and plays about Holiday
The biographical film Lady Sings the Blues, loosely based on Holiday's autobiography, was released in 1972 and was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Diana Ross for Best Actress. Another film, The United States vs. Billie Holiday, starred Andra Day and was released in 2021. It is based on the book Chasing the Scream by Johann Hari. Director Lee Daniels saw how Holiday was portrayed in the 1972 biopic, and wanted to show her legacy as "a civil rights leader [...] not just a drug addict or a jazz singer". Day was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance and won a Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama in 2021.
Holiday is the primary character in the play Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill, with music by Lanie Robertson. It takes place in South Philadelphia in March 1959. It premiered in 1986 at the Alliance Theatre and has been revived several times. A Broadway production starring Audra McDonald was filmed and broadcast on HBO in 2016; McDonald received an Emmy Award nomination and a record-breaking Tony Award win, becoming the most decorated performer in Tony history with six awards across all four eligible competitive categories. Billie is a 2019 documentary film based on interviews in the 1970s by Linda Lipnack Kuehl, who was researching a book on Holiday that was never completed.
Billie Holiday was also portrayed by actress Paula Jai Parker in Touched by an Angel's 2000 episode "God Bless the Child".
Discography
Billie Holiday recorded extensively for four labels: Columbia Records, which issued her recordings on its subsidiary labels Brunswick Records, Vocalion Records and OKeh Records, from 1933 through 1942; Commodore Records in 1939 and 1944; Decca Records from 1944 through 1950; briefly for Aladdin Records in 1951; Verve Records and on its earlier imprint Clef Records from 1952 through 1957, then again for Columbia Records from 1957 to 1958 and finally for MGM Records in 1959. Many of Holiday's recordings appeared on 78-rpm records prior to the long-playing vinyl record era, and only Clef, Verve, and Columbia issued albums during her lifetime that were not compilations of previously released material. Many compilations have been issued since her death, as well as comprehensive box sets and live recordings.[ Billie Holiday]. AllMusic. Retrieved on November 13, 2010.
Hit records
In 1986, Joel Whitburn's company Record Research compiled information on the popularity of recordings released from the era predating rock and roll and created pop charts dating back to the beginning of the commercial recording industry. The company's findings were published in the book Pop Memories 1890–1954. Several of Holiday's records are listed on the pop charts Whitburn created.
Holiday began her recording career on a high note with her first major release, "Riffin' the Scotch", of which 5,000 copies were sold. It was released under the name "Benny Goodman & His Orchestra" in 1933.
Most of Holiday's early successes were released under the name "Teddy Wilson & His Orchestra". During her stay in Wilson's band, Holiday would sing a few bars and then other musicians would have a solo. Wilson, one of the most influential jazz pianists of the swing era, accompanied Holiday more than any other musician. He and Holiday issued 95 recordings together.
In July 1936, Holiday began releasing sides under her own name. These songs were released under the band name "Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra". Most noteworthy, the popular jazz standard "Summertime" sold well and was listed on the pop charts of the time at number 12, the first time the jazz standard charted. Only Billy Stewart's R&B version of "Summertime" reached a higher chart placement than Holiday's, charting at number 10 thirty years later in 1966.
Holiday had 16 best-selling songs in 1937, making the year her most commercially successful. It was in this year that Holiday scored her sole number one hit as a featured vocalist on the available pop charts of the 1930s, "Carelessly". The hit "I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm", was also recorded by Ray Noble, Glen Gray and Fred Astaire, whose rendering was a bestseller for weeks. Holiday's version ranked 6 on the year-end single chart available for 1937.
In 1939, Holiday recorded her biggest selling record, "Strange Fruit" for Commodore, charting at number 16 on the available pop charts for the 1930s.
In 1940, Billboard began publishing its modern pop charts, which included the Best Selling Retail Records chart, the precursor to the Hot 100. None of Holiday's songs placed on the modern pop charts, partly because Billboard only published the first ten slots of the charts in some issues. Minor hits and independent releases had no way of being spotlighted.
"God Bless the Child", which went on to sell over a million copies, ranked number 3 on Billboards year-end top songs of 1941.
On October 24, 1942, Billboard began issuing its R&B charts. Two of Holiday's songs placed on the chart, "Trav'lin' Light" with Paul Whiteman, which topped the chart, and "Lover Man", which reached number 5. "Trav'lin' Light" also reached 18 on Billboards year-end chart.
Studio LPsBillie Holiday Sings (1952)An Evening with Billie Holiday (1952)Billie Holiday (1954)Music for Torching (1955)Velvet Mood (1956)Lady Sings the Blues (1956)Body and Soul (1957)Songs for Distingué Lovers (1957)Stay with Me (1958)All or Nothing at All (1958)Lady in Satin (1958)Last Recording (1959)
Filmography
Theatrical films
1933: The Emperor Jones, appeared as an extra
1935: Symphony in Black, short (with Duke Ellington)
1947: New Orleans1950: 'Sugar Chile' Robinson, Billie Holiday, Count Basie and His Sextet''
Television appearances
(1) = Available on audio
(2) = Available on DVD
See also
List of awards and nominations received by Billie Holiday
List of craters on Venus
List of people on the postage stamps of the United States
List of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees
References
Bibliography
This Discography is still available: see Facebook page The Billie Holiday Circle.
Further reading
External links
Discography
"Twelve Essential Billie Holiday Recordings" by Stuart Nicholson, Jazz.com
Billie Holiday at the Playbill Vault
Billie Holiday on Find A Grave
Emory University: Billie Holiday collection, 1953-1981
1915 births
1959 deaths
20th-century African-American women singers
African-American women singer-songwriters
Aladdin Records artists
Alcohol-related deaths in New York (state)
American contraltos
American women jazz singers
American people convicted of drug offenses
American prisoners and detainees
American street performers
Ballad musicians
Burials at Saint Raymond's Cemetery (Bronx)
Classic female blues singers
Columbia Records artists
Deaths from cirrhosis
Decca Records artists
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners
Jazz musicians from Maryland
Jazz musicians from Pennsylvania
Musicians from Baltimore
Musicians from Philadelphia
Singer-songwriters from Pennsylvania
Swing singers
Torch singers
Traditional pop music singers
Vocalion Records artists
African-American Catholics
Singer-songwriters from Maryland
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[
"In the field of intellectual property licensing, an advance against royalties is a payment made by the licensee to the licensor at the start of the period of licensing (usually immediately upon contract, or on delivery of the property being licensed) which is to be offset against future royalty payments. It is also known as a guaranteed minimum royalty payment.\n\nFor example, a book's author may sell a license to a publisher in return for 5% royalties on sales of the book and a $5,000 advance against those royalties. In this case, the author would immediately receive the $5,000, and royalty payments would be withheld until $5000 in royalties already paid had been earned — that is, until the publisher's takings from selling copies of the book reached $100,000; after that point the 5% royalty would be paid on any additional sales.\n\nIn some business areas (e.g. film production), it is common practice for the licensee to demand repayment of any advance that is not covered by royalties, whereas in others (e.g. book publication) this practice is unusual.\n\nSee also\n Advance payment\n Royalties\n\nReferences\n\nIntellectual property law",
"Royalty-free (RF) material subject to copyright or other intellectual property rights may be used without the need to pay royalties or license fees for each use, per each copy or volume sold or some time period of use or sales.\n\nComputer standards\nMany computer industry standards, especially those developed and submitted by industry consortiums or individual companies, involve royalties for the actual implementation of these standards. These royalties are typically charged on a \"per port\"/\"per device\" basis, where the manufacturer of end-user devices has to pay a small fixed fee for each device sold, and also include a substantial annual fixed fee. With millions of devices sold each year, the royalties can amount to several millions of dollars, which is a significant burden for the manufacturer. Examples of such royalties-based standards include IEEE 1394, HDMI, and H.264/MPEG-4 AVC. \n\nRoyalty-free standards do not include any \"per-port\" or \"per-volume\" charges or annual payments for the actual implementation of the standard, even though the text of the actual specification is typically protected by copyright and needs to be purchased from the standards body. Most open standards are royalty-free, and many proprietary standards are royalty-free as well. Examples of royalty-free standards include DisplayPort, VGA, VP8, and Matroska.\n\nPhotography and illustrations\nIn photography and the illustration industry, it refers to a copyright license where the user has the right to use the picture without many restrictions based on one-time payment to the licensor. The user can therefore use the image in several projects without having to purchase any additional licenses. RF licenses can not be given on an exclusive basis. In stock photography, RF is one of the common licenses sometimes contrasted with Rights Managed licenses and often employed in subscription-based or microstock photography business models.\n\nSee also\nOpen standard\nRoyalty-free music\n\nReferences\n\nCopyright licenses"
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[
"Billie Holiday",
"1935-38: Recordings with Teddy Wilson",
"What happened in 1935?",
"In 1935 Holiday was signed to Brunswick Records by John Hammond to record current pop tunes with Teddy Wilson in the new swing style for the growing jukebox trade.",
"What happened in 1936?",
"Hammond spoke about the commercial impact of the Wilson-Holiday sides from 1935 to 1938, calling them a great asset to Brunswick.",
"What happened in 1937?",
"I don't know.",
"What happened in 1938?",
"I don't know.",
"What was recorded with Teddy Wilson?",
"Wilson, Holiday, Young, and other musicians came into the studio without musical arrangements and improvised as they performed,",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"Holiday was never given any royalties for her work, instead being paid a flat fee, which saved the company money.",
"Why wasn't Holiday given any royalties?",
"saved the company money."
] |
C_52be57a775c94201a6b8dcb1c2fe9fa9_0
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Was Holiday upset about the royalties?
| 8 |
Was Billie Holiday upset about not receiving royalties for her work?
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Billie Holiday
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In 1935 Holiday was signed to Brunswick Records by John Hammond to record current pop tunes with Teddy Wilson in the new swing style for the growing jukebox trade. They were given free rein to improvise the material. Holiday's improvisation of melody to fit the emotion was revolutionary. Their first collaboration included "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" and "Miss Brown to You". "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" has been deemed her "claim to fame." Brunswick did not favor the recording session, because producers wanted Holiday to sound more like Cleo Brown. After "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" garnered success, however, the company began considering Holiday an artist in her own right. She began recording under her own name a year later (on the 35-cent Vocalion label), producing a series of extraordinary performances with groups comprising the swing era's finest musicians. The sessions were co-produced by Hammond and Bernie Hanighen. With their arrangements, Wilson and Holiday took pedestrian pop tunes, such as "Twenty-Four Hours a Day" (number 6 Pop) and "Yankee Doodle Went to Town", and turned them into jazz classics. Most of Holiday's recordings with Wilson or under her own name during the 1930s and early 1940s are regarded as important parts of the jazz vocal library. She was then in her twenties. Another frequent accompanist was the tenor saxophonist Lester Young, who had been a boarder at her mother's house in 1934 and with whom Holiday had a special rapport. He said, "I think you can hear that on some of the old records, you know. Some time I'd sit down and listen to 'em myself, and it sound like two of the same voices, if you don't be careful, you know, or the same mind, or something like that." Young nicknamed her "Lady Day", and she called him "Prez". Hammond spoke about the commercial impact of the Wilson-Holiday sides from 1935 to 1938, calling them a great asset to Brunswick. The record label, according to Hammond, was broke and unable to record many jazz tunes. Wilson, Holiday, Young, and other musicians came into the studio without musical arrangements and improvised as they performed, dispensing with the expense of having written arrangements, so that the records they produced were cheap. Holiday was never given any royalties for her work, instead being paid a flat fee, which saved the company money. Some of the records produced were successful, such as "I Cried for You", which sold 15,000 copies. Hammond said of the record, "15,000 ... was a giant hit for Brunswick in those days. I mean a giant hit. Most records that made money sold around three to four thousand." CANNOTANSWER
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CANNOTANSWER
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Billie Holiday (born Eleanora Fagan; April 7, 1915 – July 17, 1959) was an American jazz and swing music singer. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and music partner, Lester Young, Holiday had an innovative influence on jazz music and pop singing. Her vocal style, strongly inspired by jazz instrumentalists, pioneered a new way of manipulating phrasing and tempo. She was known for her vocal delivery and improvisational skills.
After a turbulent childhood, Holiday began singing in nightclubs in Harlem, where she was heard by producer John Hammond, who liked her voice. She signed a recording contract with Brunswick in 1935. Collaborations with Teddy Wilson produced the hit "What a Little Moonlight Can Do", which became a jazz standard. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, Holiday had mainstream success on labels such as Columbia and Decca. By the late 1940s, however, she was beset with legal troubles and drug abuse. After a short prison sentence, she performed at a sold-out concert at Carnegie Hall.
She was a successful concert performer throughout the 1950s with two further sold-out shows at Carnegie Hall. Because of personal struggles and an altered voice, her final recordings were met with mixed reaction but were mild commercial successes. Her final album, Lady in Satin, was released in 1958. Holiday died of cirrhosis on July 17, 1959, at age 44.
Holiday won four Grammy Awards, all of them posthumously, for Best Historical Album. She was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame and the National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame. She was also inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, though not in that genre; the website states that "Billie Holiday changed jazz forever". Several films about her life have been released, most recently The United States vs. Billie Holiday (2021).
Life and career
1915–1929: Childhood
Eleanora Fagan was born on April 7, 1915, in Philadelphia, the daughter of African-American unwed teenage couple Sarah Julia "Sadie" Fagan and Clarence Halliday. Sarah moved to Philadelphia at age 19, after she was evicted from her parents' home in the Sandtown-Winchester neighborhood of Baltimore, Maryland for becoming pregnant. With no support from her parents, she made arrangements with her older, married half-sister, Eva Miller, for Eleanora to stay with her in Baltimore. Not long after Eleanora was born, Clarence abandoned his family to pursue a career as a jazz banjo player and guitarist. Some historians have disputed Holiday's paternity, as a copy of her birth certificate in the Baltimore archives lists her father as "Frank DeViese". Other historians consider this an anomaly, probably inserted by a hospital or government worker. DeViese lived in Philadelphia, and Sadie Harris may have known him through her work. Sadie Harris, then known as Sadie Fagan, married Philip Gough, but the marriage ended in two years.
Eleanora grew up in Baltimore and had a very difficult childhood. Her mother often took what were then known as "transportation jobs", serving on passenger railroads. Holiday was raised largely by Eva Miller's mother-in-law, Martha Miller, and suffered from her mother's absences and being in others' care for her first decade of life. Holiday's autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues, published in 1956, is sketchy on details of her early life, but much was confirmed by Stuart Nicholson in his 1995 biography of the singer.
After attending kindergarten at St. Frances Academy, she frequently skipped school, and her truancy resulted in her being brought before the juvenile court on January 5, 1925, when she was nine years old. She was sent to the House of the Good Shepherd, a Catholic reform school, where she was baptized on March 19, 1925. After nine months in care, she was "paroled" on October 3, 1925, to her mother. Sadie had opened a restaurant, the East Side Grill, and mother and daughter worked long hours there. She dropped out of school at age 11.
On December 24, 1926, Sadie came home to discover a neighbor, Wilbur Rich, attempting to rape Eleanora. She successfully fought back, and Rich was arrested. Officials placed Eleanora in the House of the Good Shepherd under protective custody as a state witness in the rape case. Holiday was released in February 1927, when she was nearly 12. She found a job running errands in a brothel, and she scrubbed marble steps as well as kitchen and bathroom floors of neighborhood homes. Around this time, she first heard the records of Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith. In particular, Holiday cited "West End Blues" as an intriguing influence, pointing specifically to the scat section duet with the clarinet as her favorite part. By the end of 1928, Holiday's mother moved to Harlem, New York, again leaving Eleanora with Martha Miller.
By early 1929, Holiday had joined her mother in Harlem.
1929–1935: Early career
As a young teenager, Holiday started singing in nightclubs in Harlem. She took her professional pseudonym from Billie Dove, an actress she admired, and Clarence Halliday, her probable father. At the outset of her career, she spelled her last name "Halliday", her father's birth surname, but eventually changed it to "Holiday", his performing name. The young singer teamed up with a neighbor, tenor saxophone player Kenneth Hollan. They were a team from 1929 to 1931, performing at clubs such as the Grey Dawn, Pod's and Jerry's on 133rd Street, and the Brooklyn Elks' Club. Benny Goodman recalled hearing Holiday in 1931 at the Bright Spot. As her reputation grew, she played in many clubs, including the Mexico's and the Alhambra Bar and Grill, where she met Charles Linton, a vocalist who later worked with Chick Webb. It was also during this period that she connected with her father, who was playing in Fletcher Henderson's band.
Late in 1932, 17-year-old Holiday replaced the singer Monette Moore at Covan's, a club on West 132nd Street. Producer John Hammond, who loved Moore's singing and had come to hear her, first heard Holiday there in early 1933. Hammond arranged for Holiday to make her recording debut at age 18, in November 1933, with Benny Goodman. She recorded two songs: "Your Mother's Son-In-Law" and "Riffin' the Scotch", the latter being her first hit. "Son-in-Law" sold 300 copies, and "Riffin' the Scotch", released on November 11, sold 5,000 copies. Hammond was impressed by Holiday's singing style and said of her, "Her singing almost changed my music tastes and my musical life, because she was the first girl singer I'd come across who actually sang like an improvising jazz genius." Hammond compared Holiday favorably to Armstrong and said she had a good sense of lyric content at her young age.
In 1935, Holiday had a small role as a woman abused by her lover in Duke Ellington's musical short film Symphony in Black: A Rhapsody of Negro Life. She sang "Saddest Tale" in her scene.
1935–1938: Recordings with Teddy Wilson
In 1935, Holiday was signed to Brunswick by John Hammond to record pop tunes with pianist Teddy Wilson in the swing style for the growing jukebox trade. They were allowed to improvise on the material. Holiday's improvisation of melody to fit the emotion was revolutionary. Their first collaboration included "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" and "Miss Brown to You". "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" has been deemed her "claim to fame". Brunswick did not favor the recording session because producers wanted Holiday to sound more like Cleo Brown. However, after "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" was successful, the company began considering Holiday an artist in her own right. She began recording under her own name a year later for Vocalion in sessions produced by Hammond and Bernie Hanighen. Hammond said the Wilson-Holiday records from 1935 to 1938 were a great asset to Brunswick. According to Hammond, Brunswick was broke and unable to record many jazz tunes. Wilson, Holiday, Young, and other musicians came into the studio without written arrangements, reducing the recording cost. Brunswick paid Holiday a flat fee rather than royalties, which saved the company money. "I Cried for You" sold 15,000 copies, which Hammond called "a giant hit for Brunswick.... Most records that made money sold around three to four thousand."
Another frequent accompanist was tenor saxophonist Lester Young, who had been a boarder at her mother's house in 1934 and with whom Holiday had a rapport. Young said, "I think you can hear that on some of the old records, you know. Some time I'd sit down and listen to 'em myself, and it sound like two of the same voices ... or the same mind, or something like that." Young nicknamed her "Lady Day", and she called him "Prez".
1937–1938: Working for Count Basie and Artie Shaw
In late 1937, Holiday had a brief stint as a big-band vocalist with Count Basie. The traveling conditions of the band were often poor; they performed many one-nighters in clubs, moving from city to city with little stability. Holiday chose the songs she sang and had a hand in the arrangements, choosing to portray her developing persona of a woman unlucky in love. Her tunes included "I Must Have That Man", "Travelin' All Alone", "I Can't Get Started", and "Summertime", a hit for Holiday in 1936, originating in George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess the year before. Basie became used to Holiday's heavy involvement in the band. He said, "When she rehearsed with the band, it was really just a matter of getting her tunes like she wanted them, because she knew how she wanted to sound and you couldn't tell her what to do." Some of the songs Holiday performed with Basie were recorded. "I Can't Get Started", "They Can't Take That Away from Me", and "Swing It Brother Swing" are all commercially available. Holiday was unable to record in the studio with Basie, but she included many of his musicians in her recording sessions with Teddy Wilson.
Holiday found herself in direct competition with the popular singer Ella Fitzgerald. The two later became friends. Fitzgerald was the vocalist for the Chick Webb Band, which was in competition with the Basie band. On January 16, 1938, the same day that Benny Goodman performed his legendary Carnegie Hall jazz concert, the Basie and Webb bands had a battle at the Savoy Ballroom. Webb and Fitzgerald were declared winners by Metronome magazine, while DownBeat magazine pronounced Holiday and Basie the winners. Fitzgerald won a straw poll of the audience by a three-to-one margin.
By February 1938, Holiday was no longer singing for Basie. Various reasons have been given for why she was fired. Jimmy Rushing, Basie's male vocalist, called her unprofessional. According to All Music Guide, Holiday was fired for being "temperamental and unreliable". She complained of low pay and poor working conditions and may have refused to sing the songs requested of her or change her style. Holiday was hired by Artie Shaw a month after being fired from the Count Basie Band. This association placed her among the first black women to work with a white orchestra, an unusual arrangement at that time. This was also the first time a black female singer employed full-time toured the segregated U.S. South with a white bandleader. In situations where there was a lot of racial tension, Shaw was known to stick up for his vocalist. In her autobiography, Holiday describes an incident in which she was not permitted to sit on the bandstand with other vocalists because she was black. Shaw said to her, "I want you on the band stand like Helen Forrest, Tony Pastor and everyone else." When touring the South, Holiday would sometimes be heckled by members of the audience. In Louisville, Kentucky, a man called her a "nigger wench" and requested she sing another song. Holiday lost her temper and had to be escorted off the stage.
By March 1938, Shaw and Holiday had been broadcast on New York City's powerful radio station WABC (the original WABC, now WCBS). Because of their success, they were given an extra time slot to broadcast in April, which increased their exposure. The New York Amsterdam News reviewed the broadcasts and reported an improvement in Holiday's performance. Metronome reported that the addition of Holiday to Shaw's band put it in the "top brackets". Holiday could not sing as often during Shaw's shows as she could in Basie's; the repertoire was more instrumental, with fewer vocals. Shaw was also pressured to hire a white singer, Nita Bradley, with whom Holiday did not get along but had to share a bandstand. In May 1938, Shaw won band battles against Tommy Dorsey and Red Norvo, with the audience favoring Holiday. Although Shaw admired Holiday's singing in his band, saying she had a "remarkable ear" and a "remarkable sense of time", her tenure with the band was nearing an end. In November 1938, Holiday was asked to use the service elevator at the Lincoln Hotel in New York City, instead of the one used by hotel guests, because white patrons of the hotels complained. This may have been the last straw for her. She left the band shortly after. Holiday spoke about the incident weeks later, saying, "I was never allowed to visit the bar or the dining room as did other members of the band ... [and] I was made to leave and enter through the kitchen." There are no surviving live recordings of Holiday with Shaw's band. Because she was under contract to a different record label and possibly because of her race, Holiday was able to make only one record with Shaw, "Any Old Time". However, Shaw played clarinet on four songs she recorded in New York on July 10, 1936: "Did I Remember?", "No Regrets", "Summertime" and "Billie's Blues".
By the late 1930s, Holiday had toured with Count Basie and Artie Shaw, scored a string of radio and retail hits with Teddy Wilson, and became an established artist in the recording industry. Her songs "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" and "Easy Living" were imitated by singers across America and were quickly becoming jazz standards. In September 1938, Holiday's single "I'm Gonna Lock My Heart" ranked sixth as the most-played song that month. Her record label, Vocalion, listed the single as its fourth-best seller for the same month, and it peaked at number 2 on the pop charts, according to Joel Whitburn's Pop Memories: 1890–1954.
1939: "Strange Fruit" and Commodore Records
Holiday was in the middle of recording for Columbia in the late 1930s when she was introduced to "Strange Fruit", a song by Abel Meeropol based on his poem about lynching. Meeropol, a Jewish schoolteacher from the Bronx, used the pseudonym "Lewis Allan" for the poem, which was set to music and performed at teachers' union meetings. It was eventually heard by Barney Josephson, the proprietor of Café Society, an integrated nightclub in Greenwich Village, who introduced it to Holiday. She performed it at the club in 1939, with some trepidation, fearing possible retaliation. She later said that the imagery of the song reminded her of her father's death and that this played a role in her resistance to performing it.
For her performance of "Strange Fruit" at the Café Society, she had waiters silence the crowd when the song began. During the song's long introduction, the lights dimmed and all movement had to cease. As Holiday began singing, only a small spotlight illuminated her face. On the final note, all lights went out, and when they came back on, Holiday was gone. Holiday said her father, Clarence Holiday, was denied medical treatment for a fatal lung disorder because of racial prejudice, and that singing "Strange Fruit" reminded her of the incident. "It reminds me of how Pop died, but I have to keep singing it, not only because people ask for it, but because twenty years after Pop died the things that killed him are still happening in the South", she wrote in her autobiography. When Holiday's producers at Columbia found the subject matter too sensitive, Milt Gabler agreed to record it for his Commodore Records label on April 20, 1939. "Strange Fruit" remained in her repertoire for 20 years. She recorded it again for Verve. The Commodore release did not get any airplay, but the controversial song sold well, though Gabler attributed that mostly to the record's other side, "Fine and Mellow", which was a jukebox hit. "The version I recorded for Commodore", Holiday said of "Strange Fruit", "became my biggest-selling record." "Strange Fruit" was the equivalent of a top-twenty hit in the 1930s.
Holiday's popularity increased after "Strange Fruit". She received a mention in Time magazine. "I open Café Society as an unknown", Holiday said. "I left two years later as a star. I needed the prestige and publicity all right, but you can't pay rent with it." She soon demanded a raise from her manager, Joe Glaser. Holiday returned to Commodore in 1944, recording songs she made with Teddy Wilson in the 1930s, including "I Cover the Waterfront", "I'll Get By", and "He's Funny That Way". She also recorded new songs that were popular at the time, including, "My Old Flame", "How Am I to Know?", "I'm Yours", and "I'll Be Seeing You", a number one hit for Bing Crosby. She also recorded her version of "Embraceable You", which was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2005.
1940–1947: Commercial success
Holiday's mother Sadie, nicknamed "The Duchess", opened a restaurant called Mom Holiday's. She used money from her daughter while playing dice with members of the Count Basie band, with whom she toured in the late 1930s. "It kept Mom busy and happy and stopped her from worrying and watching over me", Holiday said. Fagan began borrowing large amounts from Holiday to support the restaurant. Holiday obliged but soon fell on hard times herself. "I needed some money one night and I knew Mom was sure to have some", she said. "So I walked in the restaurant like a stockholder and asked. Mom turned me down flat. She wouldn't give me a cent." The two argued, and Holiday shouted angrily, "God bless the child that's got his own", and stormed out. With Arthur Herzog, Jr., a pianist, she wrote a song based on the lyric, "God Bless the Child", and added music. "God Bless the Child" became Holiday's most popular and most covered record. It reached number 25 on the charts in 1941 and was third in Billboard'''s songs of the year, selling over a million records.Jazz History: The Standards (1940s). Jazzstandards.com. Retrieved November 13, 2010. In 1976, the song was added to the Grammy Hall of Fame. Herzog claimed Holiday contributed only a few lines to the lyrics. He said she came up with the line "God bless the child" from a dinner conversation the two had had.
On June 24, 1942, Holiday recorded "Trav'lin Light" with Paul Whiteman for a new label, Capitol Records. Because she was under contract to Columbia, she used the pseudonym "Lady Day". The song reached number 23 on the pop charts and number one on the R&B charts, then called the Harlem Hit Parade. In September 1943, Life magazine wrote, "She has the most distinct style of any popular vocalist and is imitated by other vocalists."
Milt Gabler, in addition to owning Commodore Records, became an A&R man for Decca Records. He signed Holiday to Decca on August 7, 1944, when she was 29. Her first Decca recording was "Lover Man" (number 16 Pop, number 5 R&B), one of her biggest hits. The success and distribution of the song made Holiday a staple in the pop community, leading to solo concerts, rare for jazz singers in the late 1940s. Gabler said, "I made Billie a real pop singer. That was right in her. Billie loved those songs." Jimmy Davis and Roger "Ram" Ramirez, the song's writers, had tried to interest Holiday in the song. In 1943, a flamboyant male torch singer, Willie Dukes, began singing "Lover Man" on 52nd Street. Because of his success, Holiday added it to her shows. The record's flip side was "No More", one of her favorites. Holiday asked Gabler for strings on the recording. Such arrangements were associated with Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald. "I went on my knees to him", Holiday said. "I didn't want to do it with the ordinary six pieces. I begged Milt and told him I had to have strings behind me." On October 4, 1944, Holiday entered the studio to record "Lover Man", saw the string ensemble and walked out. The musical director, Toots Camarata, said Holiday was overwhelmed with joy. She may also have wanted strings to avoid comparisons between her commercially successful early work with Teddy Wilson and everything produced afterwards. Her 1930s recordings with Wilson used a small jazz combo; recordings for Decca often involved strings. A month later, in November, Holiday returned to Decca to record "That Ole Devil Called Love", "Big Stuff", and "Don't Explain". She wrote "Don't Explain" after she caught her husband, Jimmy Monroe, with lipstick on his collar.
Holiday did not make any more records until August 1945, when she recorded "Don't Explain" for a second time, changing the lyrics "I know you raise Cain" to "Just say you'll remain" and changing "You mixed with some dame" to "What is there to gain?" Other songs recorded were "Big Stuff", "What Is This Thing Called Love?", and "You Better Go Now". Ella Fitzgerald named "You Better Go Now" her favorite recording of Holiday's. "Big Stuff" and "Don't Explain" were recorded again but with additional strings and a viola. In 1946, Holiday recorded "Good Morning Heartache". Although the song failed to chart, she sang it in live performances; three live recordings are known.
In September 1946, Holiday began her only major film, New Orleans, in which she starred opposite Louis Armstrong and Woody Herman. Plagued by racism and McCarthyism, producer Jules Levey and script writer Herbert Biberman were pressed to lessen Holiday's and Armstrong's roles to avoid the impression that black people created jazz. The attempts failed because in 1947 Biberman was listed as one of the Hollywood Ten and sent to jail. Several scenes were deleted from the film. "They had taken miles of footage of music and scenes", Holiday said, but "none of it was left in the picture. And very damn little of me. I know I wore a white dress for a number I did... and that was cut out of the picture." She recorded "The Blues Are Brewin'" for the film's soundtrack. Other songs included in the movie are "Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans?" and "Farewell to Storyville". Holiday's drug addictions were a problem on the set. She earned more than one thousand dollars per week from club ventures but spent most of it on heroin. Her lover, Joe Guy, traveled to Hollywood while Holiday was filming and supplied her with drugs. Guy was banned from the set when he was found there by Holiday's manager, Joe Glaser.
By the late 1940s, Holiday had begun recording a number of slow, sentimental ballads. Metronome expressed its concerns in 1946 about "Good Morning Heartache", saying, "there's a danger that Billie's present formula will wear thin, but up to now it's wearing well." The New York Herald Tribune reported of a concert in 1946 that her performance had little variation in melody and no change in tempo.
1947–1952: Legal issues and Carnegie Hall concert
By 1947, Holiday was at her commercial peak, having made $250,000 in the three previous years. She was ranked second in the DownBeat poll for 1946 and 1947, her highest ranking in that poll. She was ranked fifth in Billboard 's annual college poll of "girl singers" on July 6, 1947 (Jo Stafford was first). In 1946, Holiday won the Metronome magazine popularity poll.
On May 16, 1947, Holiday was arrested for possession of narcotics in her New York apartment. On May 27 she was in court. "It was called 'The United States of America versus Billie Holiday'. And that's just the way it felt", she recalled. During the trial, she heard that her lawyer would not come to the trial to represent her. "In plain English that meant no one in the world was interested in looking out for me," she said. Dehydrated and unable to hold down food, she pleaded guilty and asked to be sent to the hospital. The district attorney spoke in her defense, saying, "If your honor please, this is a case of a drug addict, but more serious, however, than most of our cases, Miss Holiday is a professional entertainer and among the higher rank as far as income was concerned." She was sentenced to Alderson Federal Prison Camp in West Virginia. The drug possession conviction caused her to lose her New York City Cabaret Card, preventing her working anywhere that sold alcohol; thereafter, she performed in concert venues and theaters.
Holiday was released early (on March 16, 1948) because of good behavior. When she arrived at Newark, her pianist Bobby Tucker and her dog Mister were waiting. The dog leaped at Holiday, knocking off her hat, and tackling her to the ground. "He began lapping me and loving me like crazy", she said. A woman thought the dog was attacking Holiday. She screamed, a crowd gathered, and reporters arrived. "I might just as well have wheeled into Penn Station and had a quiet little get-together with the Associated Press, United Press, and International News Service", she said.
Ed Fishman (who fought with Joe Glaser to be Holiday's manager) thought of a comeback concert at Carnegie Hall. Holiday hesitated, unsure audiences would accept her after the arrest. She gave in and agreed to appear. On March 27, 1948, Holiday played Carnegie Hall to a sold-out crowd. 2,700 tickets were sold in advance, a record at the time for the venue. Her popularity was unusual because she didn't have a current hit record. Her last record to reach the charts was "Lover Man" in 1945. Holiday sang 32 songs at the Carnegie concert by her count, including Cole Porter's "Night and Day" and her 1930s hit, "Strange Fruit". During the show, someone sent her a box of gardenias. "My old trademark", Holiday said. "I took them out of box and fastened them smack to the side of my head without even looking twice." There was a hatpin in the gardenias and Holiday unknowingly stuck it into the side of her head. "I didn't feel anything until the blood started rushing down in my eyes and ears", she said. After the third curtain call, she passed out.
On April 27, 1948, Bob Sylvester and her promoter Al Wilde arranged a Broadway show for her. Titled Holiday on Broadway, it sold out. "The regular music critics and drama critics came and treated us like we were legit", she said. But it closed after three weeks.
Holiday was arrested again on January 22, 1949, in her room at the Hotel Mark Twain in San Francisco. Holiday said she began using hard drugs in the early 1940s. She married trombonist Jimmy Monroe on August 25, 1941. While still married, she became involved with trumpeter Joe Guy, her drug dealer. She divorced Monroe in 1947 and also split with Guy.
In October 1949, Holiday recorded "Crazy He Calls Me", which was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2010. Gabler said the hit was her most successful recording for Decca after "Lover Man". The charts of the 1940s did not list songs outside the top 30, making it impossible to recognize minor hits. By the late 1940s, despite her popularity and concert power, her singles were little played on radio, perhaps because of her reputation.
The loss of her cabaret card reduced Holiday's earnings. She had not received proper record royalties until she joined Decca, so her main revenue was club concerts. The problem worsened when Holiday's records went out of print in the 1950s. She seldom received royalties in her later years. In 1958, she received a royalty of only $11.Nicholson, p. 167. Her lawyer in the late 1950s, Earle Warren Zaidins, registered with BMI only two songs she had written or co-written, costing her revenue. In 1948, Holiday played at the Ebony Club, which was against the law. Her manager, John Levy, was convinced he could get her card back and allowed her to open without one. "I opened scared", Holiday said, "[I was] expecting the cops to come in any chorus and carry me off. But nothing happened. I was a huge success."
Holiday recorded Gershwin's "I Loves You, Porgy" in 1948. In 1950, Holiday appeared in the Universal short film Sugar Chile Robinson, Billie Holiday, Count Basie and His Sextet, singing "God Bless the Child" and "Now, Baby or Never".
1952–1959: Lady Sings the Blues
By the 1950s, Holiday's drug use, drinking, and relationships with abusive men caused her health to deteriorate. She appeared on the ABC reality series The Comeback Story to discuss attempts to overcome her misfortunes. Her later recordings showed the effects of declining health on her voice, as it grew coarse and no longer projected its former vibrancy.
Holiday first toured Europe in 1954 as part of a Leonard Feather package. The Swedish impresario, Nils Hellstrom, initiated the "Jazz Club U.S.A." (after the Leonard Feather radio show) tour starting in Stockholm in January 1954 and then Germany, Netherlands, Paris and Switzerland. The tour party was Holiday, Buddy DeFranco, Red Norvo, Carl Drinkard, Elaine Leighton, Sonny Clark, Berryl Booker, Jimmy Raney and Red Mitchell. A recording of a live set in Germany was released as Lady Love – Billie Holiday.
Holiday's autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues, was ghostwritten by William Dufty and published in 1956. Dufty, a New York Post writer and editor then married to Holiday's close friend Maely Dufty, wrote the book quickly from a series of conversations with the singer in the Duftys' 93rd Street apartment. He also drew on the work of earlier interviewers and intended to let Holiday tell her story in her own way. In his 2015 study, Billie Holiday: The Musician and the Myth, John Szwed argued that Lady Sings the Blues is a generally accurate account of her life, but that co-writer Dufty was forced to water down or suppress material by the threat of legal action. According to the reviewer Richard Brody, "Szwed traces the stories of two important relationships that are missing from the book—with Charles Laughton, in the 1930s, and with Tallulah Bankhead, in the late 1940s—and of one relationship that's sharply diminished in the book, her affair with Orson Welles around the time of Citizen Kane." To accompany her autobiography, Holiday released the LP Lady Sings the Blues in June 1956. The album featured four new tracks, "Lady Sings the Blues", "Too Marvelous for Words", "Willow Weep for Me", and "I Thought About You", and eight new recordings of her biggest hits to date. The re-recordings included "Trav'lin' Light" "Strange Fruit" and "God Bless the Child". A review of the album was published by Billboard magazine on December 22, 1956, calling it a worthy musical complement to her autobiography. "Holiday is in good voice now", wrote the reviewer, "and these new readings will be much appreciated by her following". "Strange Fruit" and "God Bless the Child" were called classics, and "Good Morning Heartache", another reissued track on the LP, was also noted favorably.
On November 10, 1956, Holiday performed two concerts before packed audiences at Carnegie Hall. Live recordings of the second Carnegie Hall concert were released on a Verve/HMV album in the UK in late 1961 called The Essential Billie Holiday. The 13 tracks included on this album featured her own songs "I Love My Man", "Don't Explain" and "Fine and Mellow", together with other songs closely associated with her, including "Body and Soul", "My Man", and "Lady Sings the Blues" (her lyrics accompanied a tune by pianist Herbie Nichols). The liner notes for this album were written partly by Gilbert Millstein of the New York Times, who, according to these notes, served as narrator of the Carnegie Hall concerts. Interspersed among Holiday's songs, Millstein read aloud four lengthy passages from her autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues. He later wrote:
The critic Nat Hentoff of DownBeat magazine, who attended the Carnegie Hall concert, wrote the remainder of the sleeve notes on the 1961 album. He wrote of Holiday's performance:
Her performance of "Fine and Mellow" on CBS's The Sound of Jazz program is memorable for her interplay with her long-time friend Lester Young. Both were less than two years from death. Young died in March 1959. Holiday wanted to sing at his funeral, but her request was denied.
When Holiday returned to Europe almost five years later, in 1959, she made one of her last television appearances for Granada's Chelsea at Nine in London. Her final studio recordings were made for MGM Records in 1959, with lush backing from Ray Ellis and his Orchestra, who had also accompanied her on the Columbia album Lady in Satin the previous year (see below). The MGM sessions were released posthumously on a self-titled album, later retitled and re-released as Last Recording.
On March 28, 1957, Holiday married Louis McKay, a mob enforcer. McKay, like most of the men in her life, was abusive. They were separated at the time of her death, but McKay had plans to start a chain of Billie Holiday vocal studios, on the model of the Arthur Murray dance schools. Holiday was childless, but she had two godchildren: singer Billie Lorraine Feather (the daughter of Leonard Feather) and Bevan Dufty (the son of William Dufty).
Illness and death
By early 1959, Holiday was diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver. Although she had initially stopped drinking on her doctor's orders, it was not long before she relapsed. By May 1959, she had lost . Her manager Joe Glaser, jazz critic Leonard Feather, photojournalist Allan Morrison, and the singer's own friends all tried in vain to persuade her to go to a hospital. On May 31, 1959, Holiday was taken to Metropolitan Hospital in New York for treatment of liver disease and heart disease. According to writer and journalist Johann Hari, the Federal Bureau of Narcotics under Harry J. Anslinger, had been targeting Holiday since at least 1939, when she started to perform "Strange Fruit". Narcotics police went to her hospital room, claiming they had found heroin in her bedroom. A grand jury was summoned to indict her and she was arrested and handcuffed to her bed and placed under police guard. According to Hari, after 10 days, methadone was discontinued as part of Anslinger's policy; Hari accused Anslinger of being responsible for her death. On July 15, she received last rites. She died at age 44, at 3:10 a.m. on July 17, of pulmonary edema and heart failure caused by cirrhosis of the liver.
In her final years, Holiday had been progressively swindled out of her earnings, and she died with US$0.70 in the bank. Her funeral Mass was held on July 21, 1959, at the Church of St. Paul the Apostle in Manhattan. She was buried at Saint Raymond's Cemetery in the Bronx. The story of her burial plot and how it was managed by her estranged husband, Louis McKay, was documented on NPR in 2012.
Gilbert Millstein of The New York Times, who was the announcer at Holiday's 1956 Carnegie Hall concerts and wrote parts of the sleeve notes for the album The Essential Billie Holiday (see above), described her death in these sleeve notes, dated 1961:
When Holiday died, The New York Times published a short obituary on page 15 without a byline. She left an estate of $1,000, and her best recordings from the 1930s were mostly out of print. Holiday's public stature grew in the following years. In 1961, she was voted to the Down Beat Hall Of Fame, and soon after Columbia reissued nearly one hundred of her early records. In 1972, Diana Ross' portrayal of Holiday in Lady Sings the Blues was nominated for an Oscar and won a Golden Globe. Holiday was posthumously nominated for 23 Grammy awards.
Legacy
Billie Holiday received several Esquire Magazine awards during her lifetime. Her posthumous awards also include being inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, Ertegun Jazz Hall of Fame, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and the ASCAP Jazz Wall of Fame. In 1985, a statue of Billie Holiday was erected in Baltimore; the statue was completed in 1993 with additional panels of images inspired by her seminal song Strange Fruit. In 2019, Chirlane McCray announced that New York City would build a statue honoring Holiday near Queens Borough Hall.
The Billie Holiday Monument is located at Pennsylvania and West Lafayette avenues in Baltimore's Upton neighborhood.
Vocal style and range
Holiday's delivery made her performances recognizable throughout her career. Her improvisation compensated for lack of musical education. Holiday said that she always wanted her voice to sound like an instrument and some of her influences were Louis Armstrong and the singer Bessie Smith. Her last major recording, a 1958 album entitled Lady in Satin, features the backing of a 40-piece orchestra conducted and arranged by Ray Ellis, who said of the album in 1997:
Frank Sinatra was influenced by her performances on 52nd Street as a young man. He told Ebony magazine in 1958 about her impact:
Films and plays about Holiday
The biographical film Lady Sings the Blues, loosely based on Holiday's autobiography, was released in 1972 and was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Diana Ross for Best Actress. Another film, The United States vs. Billie Holiday, starred Andra Day and was released in 2021. It is based on the book Chasing the Scream by Johann Hari. Director Lee Daniels saw how Holiday was portrayed in the 1972 biopic, and wanted to show her legacy as "a civil rights leader [...] not just a drug addict or a jazz singer". Day was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance and won a Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama in 2021.
Holiday is the primary character in the play Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill, with music by Lanie Robertson. It takes place in South Philadelphia in March 1959. It premiered in 1986 at the Alliance Theatre and has been revived several times. A Broadway production starring Audra McDonald was filmed and broadcast on HBO in 2016; McDonald received an Emmy Award nomination and a record-breaking Tony Award win, becoming the most decorated performer in Tony history with six awards across all four eligible competitive categories. Billie is a 2019 documentary film based on interviews in the 1970s by Linda Lipnack Kuehl, who was researching a book on Holiday that was never completed.
Billie Holiday was also portrayed by actress Paula Jai Parker in Touched by an Angel's 2000 episode "God Bless the Child".
Discography
Billie Holiday recorded extensively for four labels: Columbia Records, which issued her recordings on its subsidiary labels Brunswick Records, Vocalion Records and OKeh Records, from 1933 through 1942; Commodore Records in 1939 and 1944; Decca Records from 1944 through 1950; briefly for Aladdin Records in 1951; Verve Records and on its earlier imprint Clef Records from 1952 through 1957, then again for Columbia Records from 1957 to 1958 and finally for MGM Records in 1959. Many of Holiday's recordings appeared on 78-rpm records prior to the long-playing vinyl record era, and only Clef, Verve, and Columbia issued albums during her lifetime that were not compilations of previously released material. Many compilations have been issued since her death, as well as comprehensive box sets and live recordings.[ Billie Holiday]. AllMusic. Retrieved on November 13, 2010.
Hit records
In 1986, Joel Whitburn's company Record Research compiled information on the popularity of recordings released from the era predating rock and roll and created pop charts dating back to the beginning of the commercial recording industry. The company's findings were published in the book Pop Memories 1890–1954. Several of Holiday's records are listed on the pop charts Whitburn created.
Holiday began her recording career on a high note with her first major release, "Riffin' the Scotch", of which 5,000 copies were sold. It was released under the name "Benny Goodman & His Orchestra" in 1933.
Most of Holiday's early successes were released under the name "Teddy Wilson & His Orchestra". During her stay in Wilson's band, Holiday would sing a few bars and then other musicians would have a solo. Wilson, one of the most influential jazz pianists of the swing era, accompanied Holiday more than any other musician. He and Holiday issued 95 recordings together.
In July 1936, Holiday began releasing sides under her own name. These songs were released under the band name "Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra". Most noteworthy, the popular jazz standard "Summertime" sold well and was listed on the pop charts of the time at number 12, the first time the jazz standard charted. Only Billy Stewart's R&B version of "Summertime" reached a higher chart placement than Holiday's, charting at number 10 thirty years later in 1966.
Holiday had 16 best-selling songs in 1937, making the year her most commercially successful. It was in this year that Holiday scored her sole number one hit as a featured vocalist on the available pop charts of the 1930s, "Carelessly". The hit "I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm", was also recorded by Ray Noble, Glen Gray and Fred Astaire, whose rendering was a bestseller for weeks. Holiday's version ranked 6 on the year-end single chart available for 1937.
In 1939, Holiday recorded her biggest selling record, "Strange Fruit" for Commodore, charting at number 16 on the available pop charts for the 1930s.
In 1940, Billboard began publishing its modern pop charts, which included the Best Selling Retail Records chart, the precursor to the Hot 100. None of Holiday's songs placed on the modern pop charts, partly because Billboard only published the first ten slots of the charts in some issues. Minor hits and independent releases had no way of being spotlighted.
"God Bless the Child", which went on to sell over a million copies, ranked number 3 on Billboards year-end top songs of 1941.
On October 24, 1942, Billboard began issuing its R&B charts. Two of Holiday's songs placed on the chart, "Trav'lin' Light" with Paul Whiteman, which topped the chart, and "Lover Man", which reached number 5. "Trav'lin' Light" also reached 18 on Billboards year-end chart.
Studio LPsBillie Holiday Sings (1952)An Evening with Billie Holiday (1952)Billie Holiday (1954)Music for Torching (1955)Velvet Mood (1956)Lady Sings the Blues (1956)Body and Soul (1957)Songs for Distingué Lovers (1957)Stay with Me (1958)All or Nothing at All (1958)Lady in Satin (1958)Last Recording (1959)
Filmography
Theatrical films
1933: The Emperor Jones, appeared as an extra
1935: Symphony in Black, short (with Duke Ellington)
1947: New Orleans1950: 'Sugar Chile' Robinson, Billie Holiday, Count Basie and His Sextet''
Television appearances
(1) = Available on audio
(2) = Available on DVD
See also
List of awards and nominations received by Billie Holiday
List of craters on Venus
List of people on the postage stamps of the United States
List of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees
References
Bibliography
This Discography is still available: see Facebook page The Billie Holiday Circle.
Further reading
External links
Discography
"Twelve Essential Billie Holiday Recordings" by Stuart Nicholson, Jazz.com
Billie Holiday at the Playbill Vault
Billie Holiday on Find A Grave
Emory University: Billie Holiday collection, 1953-1981
1915 births
1959 deaths
20th-century African-American women singers
African-American women singer-songwriters
Aladdin Records artists
Alcohol-related deaths in New York (state)
American contraltos
American women jazz singers
American people convicted of drug offenses
American prisoners and detainees
American street performers
Ballad musicians
Burials at Saint Raymond's Cemetery (Bronx)
Classic female blues singers
Columbia Records artists
Deaths from cirrhosis
Decca Records artists
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners
Jazz musicians from Maryland
Jazz musicians from Pennsylvania
Musicians from Baltimore
Musicians from Philadelphia
Singer-songwriters from Pennsylvania
Swing singers
Torch singers
Traditional pop music singers
Vocalion Records artists
African-American Catholics
Singer-songwriters from Maryland
| false |
[
"\"Hip Hop Holiday\" is the debut single from New Zealand hip hop group 3 The Hard Way. It reached #1 in the New Zealand singles chart and #17 in Australia. A mid-song reggae breakdown was provided by Bobbylon of the Hallelujah Picassos.\n\nBackground \n\nThe song was built around a substantial interpolation of \"Dreadlock Holiday\" by 10cc. However, the rights were never cleared, resulting in the song being officially credited to \"Dreadlock Holiday\" songwriters Eric Stewart, Graham Gouldman, with all royalties going to the pair.\n\nThe success of the song in New Zealand and Australia led to extensive touring of both countries and the recording and release of band's debut album, Old School Prankstas\n\n\"Hip Hop Holiday\" was nominated for Single of the Year at the 1995 New Zealand Music Awards.\n\nMusic video \n\nA music video was made for \"Hip Hop Holiday\", directed by Clinton Phillips. The video was filmed in Auckland, New Zealand and features the group driving around the city in a convertible and hosting a house party in suburban Auckland.\n\nTrack listings\n\nCD single (DG016, D11633)\n \"Hip Hop Holiday\" (Radio Mix) - feat Bobbylon\n \"Get Down\" (First Up Mix)\t\t\n \"Hip Hop Holiday\" (Freestyle Mix)\t\t\n \"Get Down\" (Extended Mix)\n\nCharts\n\n\"Hip Hop Holiday\" was the first hip hop song by a New Zealand artist to reach #1 in the New Zealand charts. The song was also certified gold in New Zealand.\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n\n \"Hip Hop Holiday\" at Discogs\n \"Hip Hop Holiday\" music video\n\nNumber-one singles in New Zealand\n1994 debut singles\nSongs written by Eric Stewart\nSongs written by Graham Gouldman\n1994 songs",
"The 2017 Holiday Bowl was a postseason college football bowl game, played at SDCCU Stadium in San Diego, California, on December 28, 2017. This was the first time that the Holiday Bowl was played at SDCCU Stadium. Previous to the 2017 season, the Holiday Bowl was played at Qualcomm Stadium. The 40th edition of the Holiday Bowl featured the Washington State Cougars of the Pac-12 Conference versus the Michigan State Spartans of the Big Ten Conference. It was one of the 2017–18 bowl games concluding the 2017 FBS football season. Sponsored by San Diego County Credit Union, the game was officially known as the San Diego County Credit Union Holiday Bowl.\n\nTeams\n\nWashington State \n\nThis was Washington State's fourth appearance in the Holiday Bowl, having lost to #14 Brigham Young in 1981, having defeated #5 Texas in 2003, and having lost to Minnesota in 2016. The Cougars finished the 2017 regular season at 9–3, and were third in the Pac-12 North Division (6–3). The season featured wins against then-#5 USC and then-#18 Stanford.\n\nMichigan State \n\nThis was Michigan State's first appearance in a Holiday Bowl. The Spartans finished the 2017 regular season at 9–3, and were second in the B1G East Division (7–2). The team had upset wins over then-#7 Michigan and then-#7 Penn State. Their three losses were all against teams that finished in the AP Top 20 (#14 Notre Dame, #20 Northwestern and #5 Ohio State).\n\nGame summary\n\nScoring summary\n\nStatistics\n\nReferences\n\nHoliday Bowl\nHoliday Bowl\nWashington State Cougars football bowl games\nMichigan State Spartans football bowl games\nHoliday Bowl\nDecember 2017 sports events in the United States"
] |
[
"Foals (band)",
"Total Life Forever: 2009-2010"
] |
C_d176d19f876d4d3099d259a59f85849e_1
|
What personnel were there on the Total Life Forever album?
| 1 |
What personnel were there on the Total Life Forever album?
|
Foals (band)
|
In August 2009, Foals started recording their second album at Svenska Grammofon Studion in Gothenburg, Sweden. The album, Total Life Forever, has been described by the band members as sounding like "tropical prog" and "like the dream of an eagle dying". The band have described the album as being "a lot less funk" than they had originally planned. The album was produced by Luke Smith, formerly of Clor. The album's title is named after an element of Ray Kurzweil's theory of singularity. The band's frontman, Yannis Philippakis, has professed a longtime interest in futurology, with it informing numerous songs on Total Life Forever. On 1 March 2010, the promotional single "Spanish Sahara" was first played on Zane Lowe's show Radio 1. The Foals' website was updated that night with the video for the track, directed by longtime collaborator Dave Ma, and on 6 March, the Total Life Forever site was launched. There puzzles revealed images, lyrics and sound clips of songs from the album. The last clip appeared on 12 March, with a password entry for Foals' new website. The site was opened on 13 March and presented the art concept and media including samples of songs, photos and videos. Lead single "This Orient" was released on 3 May 2010. The album was finally released on 10 May 2010. "Spanish Sahara" was featured in trailers for season seven of Entourage, season four of Skins and Outcasts. It was also used in the soundtrack of the second season of the E4 drama Misfits. It was released as a full physical single in September 2010, featuring an edited remix starring the strings of London Contemporary Orchestra. In 2015, it was used by French studio Dontnod Entertainment in the game Life Is Strange as the music for one of its final endings. The album was nominated for the 2010 Mercury Prize. In an interview with online magazine Coup de Main, Jimmy Smith said how the band members live together on and off the road - heading to Australia to record demos for their next album together. "It's just like touring with your family, it's nice". CANNOTANSWER
|
produced by Luke Smith,
|
Foals are a British rock band formed in Oxford. The band's current line-up consists of Greek-born lead vocalist and guitarist Yannis Philippakis, drummer and percussionist Jack Bevan and rhythm guitarist Jimmy Smith. They are currently signed to Warner Records, and have released six studio albums to date: Antidotes (2008), Total Life Forever (2010), Holy Fire (2013), What Went Down (2015), and Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 1 & 2 (2019). They have also released one video album, six extended plays and twenty-seven singles.
The band have toured internationally for over a decade, and have featured at many festivals including Glastonbury, Coachella, and Roskilde. They have won a number of awards, including best live act at the 2013 Q Awards while producers Alan Moulder and Flood were awarded 'UK Producer of the Year' for their work on the album Holy Fire.
The band's most recent studio albums, Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 1 was released in March 2019 while their sixth and immediate follow-up, Part 2, was released on 18 October 2019 and became the band's first album to top the UK Album Chart.
History
Formation: 2005–2006
The lead singer of the band Youthmovies, Andrew Mears, originally formed the band Foals. He was present on the band's debut 7" single, "Try This on Your Piano/Look at My Furrows of Worry", but left shortly afterwards to concentrate on Youthmovies's debut album, Good Nature.
Jack Bevan, Lina Simon and Yannis Philippakis were originally in cult math rock band The Edmund Fitzgerald. The group disbanded, claiming that things had become "too serious" and that they wanted to have more "fun making their music".
Walter Gervers and Jimmy Smith were part of a small Oxford band called Face Meets Grill. They met at and formed the band from members of Abingdon School, the same school that Radiohead attended. They played gigs in and around Oxford, and recorded an EP in Hull. After playing Truck Festival in 2004 they separated to follow different paths and careers.
Guitarist Jimmy Smith is the only one of the band members to have completed his degree, at Hull University, each of the other band members quit their respective universities when the band signed to Transgressive Records.
Antidotes: 2007–2008
In early 2007, the band released the limited edition 7" singles "Hummer" and "Mathletics", both produced by Gareth Parton. "Hummer" later featured on the Channel Four teen drama Skins. Philippakis described this period as 'the music was almost a premeditated mix of blending techno and minimalism [and] we'd set ourselves these rules, like 'only staccato rhythms', and 'guitars must be played really high'.
In the summer of 2007, Foals began working on their debut album in New York. It was produced by Dave Sitek of TV on the Radio. However, the band decided to mix the album themselves, stating that Sitek made the first master copy of the album sound like "it was recorded in the Grand Canyon". Philippakis has stated a number of times that Foals and Dave Sitek are on good terms, even though the mix by Sitek was rejected by the band. Foals released their debut album, titled Antidotes, on 24 March 2008 in the UK and on 8 April 2008 in the US. The album was a commercial success in the UK, debuting at number 3 on the UK Albums Charts. The album was a minor success in other countries, charting in Japan, France and the Netherlands. Non-UK versions of the album include the early Parton-produced singles.
Total Life Forever: 2009–2010
In August 2009, Foals started recording their second album at Svenska Grammofon Studion in Gothenburg, Sweden. The album, Total Life Forever, has been described by the band members as sounding like "tropical prog" and "like the dream of an eagle dying". The band have described the album as being "a lot less funk" than they had originally planned. The album was produced by Luke Smith, formerly of Clor. The album's title is named after an element of Ray Kurzweil's theory of singularity. The band's frontman, Yannis Philippakis, has professed a longtime interest in futurology, with it informing numerous songs on Total Life Forever.
On 1 March 2010, the promotional single "Spanish Sahara" was first played on Zane Lowe's show Radio 1. The Foals' website was updated that night with the video for the track, directed by longtime collaborator Dave Ma, and on 6 March, the Total Life Forever site was launched. There puzzles revealed images, lyrics and sound clips of songs from the album. The last clip appeared on 12 March, with a password entry for Foals' new website. The site was opened on 13 March and presented the art concept and media including samples of songs, photos and videos. Lead single "This Orient" was released on 3 May 2010. The album was finally released on 10 May 2010.
"Spanish Sahara" was featured in trailers for season seven of Entourage, season four of Skins and Outcasts. It was also used in the soundtrack of the second season of the E4 drama Misfits. It was released as a full physical single in September 2010, featuring an edited remix starring the strings of London Contemporary Orchestra. In 2015, it was used by French studio Dontnod Entertainment in the game Life is Strange as the music for one of its endings.
The album was nominated for the 2010 Mercury Prize. In an interview with online magazine Coup de Main, Jimmy Smith said how the band members live together on and off the road – heading to Australia to record demos for their next album together. "It's just like touring with your family, it's nice."
Holy Fire: 2012–2013
Holy Fire was released in both the UK and the US on 11 February 2013. The album's lead single, "Inhaler", received its first radio play on 5 November 2012. They played the song "My Number" for the first time on Later... with Jools Holland.
Holy Fire was produced by Flood and Alan Moulder, who have worked with many artists, including Nine Inch Nails, The Smashing Pumpkins, and My Bloody Valentine. The album was recorded at Assault & Battery studios in London.
Yannis Philippakis stated that the recording process had some unconventional moments: "At one point we even made these poor studio interns collect bones. We were inspired by voodoo, these Haitian rhythms. We collected some ourselves, from butchers in Willesden High Road. Mainly cows, I think often they had gristle and cartilage on them, mainly cow and occasionally sheep. We had to order these big pots because one of the shoulder blades was too big! We boiled the flesh away so we could use them as percussion! We wanted to get primitive!"
According to The Guardian: "Their producers, Flood and Alan Moulder, even tricked them by recording their rehearsal in order to capture a more uninhibited sound."
In late November to mid-December, Foals toured the UK for an album preview. The tour was supported by Petite Noir (a close friend of Philippakis's).
In summer 2013, they attended a number of festivals and headlined Latitude Festival in Suffolk in July. The band have recently played a World and UK tour, which ended with two sell out shows at Alexandra Palace in February. The two shows were in stark contrast compared to playing the same venue 7 years earlier to an almost empty room while supporting Bloc Party, a sentiment which lead singer Philippakis did not fail to mention during the live shows.
Holy Fire was nominated for the Mercury Prize in 2013. Q awarded Foals with the Best Live Act award the same year while "Inhaler" received the Best Track award from NME. In a reader-nominated "Best Album of 2013" poll, Holy Fire topped the list; as did single "My Number" in a "Best Song of 2013" poll, beating NME favorites Arctic Monkeys, amongst other acclaimed bands.
What Went Down: 2014–2017
On 2 April 2014, in an interview with NME, Yannis Philippakis said "Over the next month I think we're going to start writing tentatively. We've already got some bits and bobs around some riffs and some vocal melodies. I think until May we're gonna go back to Oxford and write in the 'stinkbox' and see what happens." On 9 June 2015, Foals unveiled a short video teasing an upcoming album in 2015.
Foals shared album track "Mountain at My Gates" on 20 June, premiering the song via BBC Radio 1 as Annie Mac's 'Hottest Record'. On 29 July, the band followed up the track with an accompanying 3D video, filmed on a GoPro HERO. On 6 August, Zane Lowe premiered new song 'A Knife in the Ocean' on his Beats 1 radio show on Apple Music. Foals made public a lyric video for 'A Knife In The Ocean' the same day. The album What Went Down was released on 28 August 2015.
In late 2015, 'Mountain At My Gates' was featured on the official soundtrack of EA Sports FIFA 16.
In 2016, Foals toured the UK and Europe in February/March, followed by a US tour, playing a number of songs from What Went Down as well as previous releases, with support from Peace (DJ set) and Everything Everything (UK).
Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost, Gervers's departure: 2017–2019
In autumn 2017, Foals announced on social media that they were going to start recording materials for a new upcoming album.
On 5 January 2018, they announced that bassist Walter Gervers was departing the band amicably, whilst recording of the fifth album continued.
On 8 January 2019, the band teased their fifth and sixth studio albums, Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 1 and Part 2, respectively. Part 1 was released on 8 March 2019 and Part 2 was released on 18 October 2019.
Following Gervers's departure, it was revealed on 19 February 2019 that Jeremy Pritchard, of British band Everything Everything would join as touring bassist for the band's upcoming live shows of 2019.
Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 1 was preceded by the release via streaming services of Exits, On the Luna, Sunday and In Degrees (a day before the record's release). The album was the BBC 6 Music Album of the Day on its release date.
In March 2019, the band embarked on the first shows of their "Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost World Tour" which currently has dates running throughout 2019 and 2020.
After playing several festivals across the summer of 2019 (including an unannounced set at Glastonbury and a headline performance at Truck Festival), the band released a second set of singles, "Black Bull", "The Runner" and "Into the Surf" in the lead up to Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 2.
Everything not saved will be lost - Part 2 was released on 18 October 2019 through Warner and Transgressive Records. The album cover was shot by famed National Geographic photographer, Maggie Steber. The album became the band's first to reach No. 1 on the UK Album Chart.
On 7 October 2019 "Rip up the Road", a documentary detailing the recording sessions of "Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost" and subsequent 2019 world tour, was announced, with a premiere scheduled for 11 and 15 November 2019 at London's Doc’n Roll Film Festival and thereafter exclusively through Amazon Prime respectively.
On 11 November 2019 "Rip Up The Road" directed by Toby L premiered at the Rio Cinema in Dalston to an audience consisting of the band, friends and family, fans, documentary contributors/crew. The documentary was filmed over a 12-month period as the band embarked upon a world tour. The film hones in on two career highlight shows at London's Alexandra Palace and provides a candid, entertaining and gripping perspective of life on the road and being in a band. It also features their infamous Glastonbury Festival secret set on The Park Stage in 2019.
Life Is Yours, COVID-19, and Congreave's departure: 2020–present
Due to the COVID-19 crisis and subsequent global lockdowns, the band was forced to cancel and reschedule their entire 2020 UK/World tour, in support of Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 2 till Spring 2021.
However, due to the continuing pandemic and ongoing safety restrictions throughout into 2021, the band once again had to reschedule touring until 2022, save for a string of UK summer festival shows during August 2021, which would be the group's first live performances since early 2020.
On 22 September 2021, Edwin Congreave announced that he had left the band to pursue a postgraduate degree in economics. Upon the news of Edwin's departure, the band had also revealed that they had already began working on their next album, this time as a three piece band.
On 11 October 2021, the band announced scoring the opening theme of the Brian Cox-hosted BBC Two science documentary television series, "Universe" with an updated version of "Neptune", re-worked in collaboration with Hans Zimmer's Bleeding Fingers composing collective led by the famed film composer.
On 27 October 2021, the band teased a promotional clip of an iPhone snooze alarm, cryptically revealing the release date of their yet to be announced seventh studio album's first single, "Wake me up" to be released 4 November, 2021. The following day, the single was confirmed by the group with a teaser clip of the audio and music streaming platforms pre-save links respectively.
"Wake Me Up" was premiered and released on 4 November 2021 via BBC Radio 1's Clara Amfo's 'Hottest Record'.
On 10 February 2022, Foals released "2am" and announced the name of their upcoming seventh album as Life Is Yours.
Live
Foals are considered one of the top UK live acts, having won the 2013 Q Award for Best Live Act and twice being nominated for the NME Award for Best Live Act (2011 and 2013).
The band have released several live EPs (Live At Liars Club, iTunes Live: London Festival '08 and iTunes Festival: London 2010), in addition to the full length concert film Live At The Royal Albert Hall, which was directed by Dave Ma.
Frontman Yannis Philippakis is known for jumping off balconies and crowd surfing during the extended interlude of "Two Steps Twice." In October 2013, Philippakis got into a confrontation with a security guard at the Auckland Town Hall in New Zealand, as the security guard attempted to prevent him jumping into the crowd. At the end of the show, Philippakis told the crowd: "I want to say a massive thank you to you and fuck that security-guy."
In April 2020 the band canceled their remaining tour-dates due to the COVID-19 crisis, pushing dates back to 2021.
Musical style and influence
Foals is classified as an indie rock, alternative rock, dance-punk, math rock, art rock, post-rock, post-punk, art punk and indie pop band.
The band's musical influences are varied, with the band members citing minimal techno, Arthur Russell, Krautrock bands such as Harmonia, and Talking Heads, as their main sources of inspiration.
Members
Current members
Yannis Philippakis – lead guitar (2005–present), lead vocals (2006–present), percussion (2008–2013), bass guitar (2018–present)
Jack Bevan – drums, percussion (2005–present)
Jimmy Smith – rhythm guitar, keyboards, synthesizer, backing vocals (2005–present)
Current touring musicians
Kit Monteith – percussion, sampler, backing vocals (2016–present)
Jack Freeman – bass, synthesizer, backing vocals (2020–present)
Former members
Andrew Mears – lead vocals, rhythm guitar (2005–2006)
Walter Gervers – bass, percussion, vocals (2005–2018)
Edwin Congreave – keyboards, synthesizer, backing vocals (2005–2021), bass (2018–2021)
Former touring-musicians
Jeremy Pritchard – bass, synthesizer, backing vocals (2019)
Vincent Taeger – percussion, timbales (2019)
Timeline
Discography
Studio albums
Antidotes (2008)
Total Life Forever (2010)
Holy Fire (2013)
What Went Down (2015)
Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 1 (2019)
Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 2 (2019)
Life Is Yours (2022)
Recognition
Total Life Forever was nominated for the Mercury Prize in July 2010, losing to The xx's xx on 7 September that year. The album was tested again the following year for Best Album in addition to a nomination for Best Cover Artwork at the NME Awards. The single "Spanish Sahara" was nominated by the same group for Best Track on top of being named all-around Best Band and Best Live Act. In July, the MOJO honour awards also nominated Foals alongside Canadian band Arcade Fire for the calibre of their live performances.
Mercury Prize
|-
| 2010
| Total Life Forever
| Best Album
|
|-
| 2013
| Holy Fire
| Best Album
|
|-
| 2019
| Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost - Part 1
| Best Album
|
|}
Ivor Novello Awards
|-
| 2010
| "Spanish Sahara"
| Best Song Musically and Lyrically
|
|}
NME Awards
|-
| rowspan="5" style="text-align:center;"| 2011
|rowspan="2"| Foals
| Best British Band
|
|-
| Best Live Act
|
|-
|rowspan="2"| Total Life Forever
| Best British Album
|
|-
| Best Artwork
|
|-
| "Spanish Sahara"
| Best Track
|
|-
| rowspan="2" style="text-align:center;"| 2013
| Foals
| Best Live Band
|
|-
| "Inhaler"
| Best Track
|
|-
| 2014
| Foals
| Best British Band
|
|-
| rowspan="3" style="text-align:center;"| 2016
| What Went Down
| Best Album
|
|-
| Foals
| Best British Band
|
|-
| "What Went Down"
| Best Track
|
|-
| rowspan="3" style="text-align:center;"| 2020
| rowspan="2"| Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost - Part 1
| Best Album
| style="text-align:center;"
|-
| Best Album in the World
|
|-
| Foals
| Best Live Act
|
|}
Q Awards
|-
|rowspan="3"| 2013
| Holy Fire
| Best Album
|
|-
|rowspan="2"| Foals
| Best Act in the World Today
|
|-
| Best Live Act
|
|-
|rowspan="3"| 2015
| Foals
| Best Act in the World Today
|
|-
|rowspan="2"| "What Went Down"
| Best Track
|
|-
| Best Video
|
|-
| 2019
| Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 1
| Best Album
|
|}
Brit Awards
|-
| 2008
| Foals
| Critics' Choice Award
|
|-
| 2016
| Foals
| British Group
|
|-
| 2020
| Foals
| Best Group
|
|}
iHeartRadio Music Awards
|-
| 2017
| Foals
| Best New Rock/Alternative Rock Artist
|
|}
References
External links
Foals on Music Feeds TV
English indie rock groups
Alternative dance musical groups
Brit Award winners
Music in Oxford
Dance-punk musical groups
NME Awards winners
Musical groups established in 2005
Math rock groups
British musical trios
Musical groups from Oxford
| true |
[
"Total Strife Forever is the debut album by the electronic musician East India Youth. It was released on January 13, 2014 by Stolen Recordings. The album was nominated for the 2014 Mercury Prize.\n\nThe cover of Total Strife Forever was designed by Kohhei Matsuda (of Bo Ningen) and features a portrait of William Doyle by artist Tida Bradshaw.\n\nThe album title is a pun on the Foals album Total Life Forever.\n\nTrack listing\n\nChart positions\n\nReferences \n\nEast India Youth albums\n2014 debut albums\nStolen Recordings albums",
"Total Control is the first solo album by John Norum, best known as the guitarist for Swedish pop-metal band Europe. It was released after Norum left Europe following the release of 1986's The Final Countdown and the tour that followed.\n\nTrack listing\nAll songs were written by John Norum and Marcel Jacob, except where noted.\n \"Let Me Love You\" – 3:23\n \"Love Is Meant to Last Forever\" – 3:40\n \"Too Many Hearts\" – 3:12\n \"Someone Else Here\" – 4:13 (Norum, Jacob, Peter Hermansson)\n \"Eternal Flame\" – 3:14\n \"Back on the Streets\" – 4:11 (Vinnie Vincent, Richard Friedman)\n \"Blind\" – 3:53\n \"Law of Life\" – 4:22 (Max Lorentz, Mats Lindfors)\n \"We'll Do What It Takes Together\" – 3:25\n \"In Chase of the Wind\" – 3:02\n \"Wild One\" (bonus track) – 4:20 (Phil Lynott)\n\nPersonnel\nCredits adapted from AllMusic.\nJohn Norum – guitars, lead and backing vocals\nMarcel Jacob – bass\nGöran Edman – lead vocals on \"Love Is Meant to Last Forever\", \"Eternal Flame\" and \"Back on the Streets\", backing vocals\n\nGuest musicians\nPer Blom – keyboards\nPeter Hermansson – drums\nMicke Larsson – fretless bass on \"Too Many Hearts\"\nMats Lindfors – backing vocals on \"Law of Life\"\nMax Lorentz – Hammond organ on \"Law of Life\"\nProduction\nJohn Norum – producer\nThomas Witt – producer\nPer Blom – co-producer, engineer, mixing\nMats Lindfors – engineer, Mixing\nPeter Dahl – mastering\n\nCharts\n\nAlbum\n\nSingles\n\nReferences\n\nJohn Norum albums\n1987 debut albums\nCBS Records albums"
] |
[
"Foals (band)",
"Total Life Forever: 2009-2010",
"What personnel were there on the Total Life Forever album?",
"produced by Luke Smith,"
] |
C_d176d19f876d4d3099d259a59f85849e_1
|
Did any new musicians join the band for the album Total Life Forever?
| 2 |
Did any new musicians join Foals for the album Total Life Forever?
|
Foals (band)
|
In August 2009, Foals started recording their second album at Svenska Grammofon Studion in Gothenburg, Sweden. The album, Total Life Forever, has been described by the band members as sounding like "tropical prog" and "like the dream of an eagle dying". The band have described the album as being "a lot less funk" than they had originally planned. The album was produced by Luke Smith, formerly of Clor. The album's title is named after an element of Ray Kurzweil's theory of singularity. The band's frontman, Yannis Philippakis, has professed a longtime interest in futurology, with it informing numerous songs on Total Life Forever. On 1 March 2010, the promotional single "Spanish Sahara" was first played on Zane Lowe's show Radio 1. The Foals' website was updated that night with the video for the track, directed by longtime collaborator Dave Ma, and on 6 March, the Total Life Forever site was launched. There puzzles revealed images, lyrics and sound clips of songs from the album. The last clip appeared on 12 March, with a password entry for Foals' new website. The site was opened on 13 March and presented the art concept and media including samples of songs, photos and videos. Lead single "This Orient" was released on 3 May 2010. The album was finally released on 10 May 2010. "Spanish Sahara" was featured in trailers for season seven of Entourage, season four of Skins and Outcasts. It was also used in the soundtrack of the second season of the E4 drama Misfits. It was released as a full physical single in September 2010, featuring an edited remix starring the strings of London Contemporary Orchestra. In 2015, it was used by French studio Dontnod Entertainment in the game Life Is Strange as the music for one of its final endings. The album was nominated for the 2010 Mercury Prize. In an interview with online magazine Coup de Main, Jimmy Smith said how the band members live together on and off the road - heading to Australia to record demos for their next album together. "It's just like touring with your family, it's nice". CANNOTANSWER
|
Luke Smith, formerly of Clor. The album's title is named after an element of Ray Kurzweil's theory of singularity.
|
Foals are a British rock band formed in Oxford. The band's current line-up consists of Greek-born lead vocalist and guitarist Yannis Philippakis, drummer and percussionist Jack Bevan and rhythm guitarist Jimmy Smith. They are currently signed to Warner Records, and have released six studio albums to date: Antidotes (2008), Total Life Forever (2010), Holy Fire (2013), What Went Down (2015), and Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 1 & 2 (2019). They have also released one video album, six extended plays and twenty-seven singles.
The band have toured internationally for over a decade, and have featured at many festivals including Glastonbury, Coachella, and Roskilde. They have won a number of awards, including best live act at the 2013 Q Awards while producers Alan Moulder and Flood were awarded 'UK Producer of the Year' for their work on the album Holy Fire.
The band's most recent studio albums, Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 1 was released in March 2019 while their sixth and immediate follow-up, Part 2, was released on 18 October 2019 and became the band's first album to top the UK Album Chart.
History
Formation: 2005–2006
The lead singer of the band Youthmovies, Andrew Mears, originally formed the band Foals. He was present on the band's debut 7" single, "Try This on Your Piano/Look at My Furrows of Worry", but left shortly afterwards to concentrate on Youthmovies's debut album, Good Nature.
Jack Bevan, Lina Simon and Yannis Philippakis were originally in cult math rock band The Edmund Fitzgerald. The group disbanded, claiming that things had become "too serious" and that they wanted to have more "fun making their music".
Walter Gervers and Jimmy Smith were part of a small Oxford band called Face Meets Grill. They met at and formed the band from members of Abingdon School, the same school that Radiohead attended. They played gigs in and around Oxford, and recorded an EP in Hull. After playing Truck Festival in 2004 they separated to follow different paths and careers.
Guitarist Jimmy Smith is the only one of the band members to have completed his degree, at Hull University, each of the other band members quit their respective universities when the band signed to Transgressive Records.
Antidotes: 2007–2008
In early 2007, the band released the limited edition 7" singles "Hummer" and "Mathletics", both produced by Gareth Parton. "Hummer" later featured on the Channel Four teen drama Skins. Philippakis described this period as 'the music was almost a premeditated mix of blending techno and minimalism [and] we'd set ourselves these rules, like 'only staccato rhythms', and 'guitars must be played really high'.
In the summer of 2007, Foals began working on their debut album in New York. It was produced by Dave Sitek of TV on the Radio. However, the band decided to mix the album themselves, stating that Sitek made the first master copy of the album sound like "it was recorded in the Grand Canyon". Philippakis has stated a number of times that Foals and Dave Sitek are on good terms, even though the mix by Sitek was rejected by the band. Foals released their debut album, titled Antidotes, on 24 March 2008 in the UK and on 8 April 2008 in the US. The album was a commercial success in the UK, debuting at number 3 on the UK Albums Charts. The album was a minor success in other countries, charting in Japan, France and the Netherlands. Non-UK versions of the album include the early Parton-produced singles.
Total Life Forever: 2009–2010
In August 2009, Foals started recording their second album at Svenska Grammofon Studion in Gothenburg, Sweden. The album, Total Life Forever, has been described by the band members as sounding like "tropical prog" and "like the dream of an eagle dying". The band have described the album as being "a lot less funk" than they had originally planned. The album was produced by Luke Smith, formerly of Clor. The album's title is named after an element of Ray Kurzweil's theory of singularity. The band's frontman, Yannis Philippakis, has professed a longtime interest in futurology, with it informing numerous songs on Total Life Forever.
On 1 March 2010, the promotional single "Spanish Sahara" was first played on Zane Lowe's show Radio 1. The Foals' website was updated that night with the video for the track, directed by longtime collaborator Dave Ma, and on 6 March, the Total Life Forever site was launched. There puzzles revealed images, lyrics and sound clips of songs from the album. The last clip appeared on 12 March, with a password entry for Foals' new website. The site was opened on 13 March and presented the art concept and media including samples of songs, photos and videos. Lead single "This Orient" was released on 3 May 2010. The album was finally released on 10 May 2010.
"Spanish Sahara" was featured in trailers for season seven of Entourage, season four of Skins and Outcasts. It was also used in the soundtrack of the second season of the E4 drama Misfits. It was released as a full physical single in September 2010, featuring an edited remix starring the strings of London Contemporary Orchestra. In 2015, it was used by French studio Dontnod Entertainment in the game Life is Strange as the music for one of its endings.
The album was nominated for the 2010 Mercury Prize. In an interview with online magazine Coup de Main, Jimmy Smith said how the band members live together on and off the road – heading to Australia to record demos for their next album together. "It's just like touring with your family, it's nice."
Holy Fire: 2012–2013
Holy Fire was released in both the UK and the US on 11 February 2013. The album's lead single, "Inhaler", received its first radio play on 5 November 2012. They played the song "My Number" for the first time on Later... with Jools Holland.
Holy Fire was produced by Flood and Alan Moulder, who have worked with many artists, including Nine Inch Nails, The Smashing Pumpkins, and My Bloody Valentine. The album was recorded at Assault & Battery studios in London.
Yannis Philippakis stated that the recording process had some unconventional moments: "At one point we even made these poor studio interns collect bones. We were inspired by voodoo, these Haitian rhythms. We collected some ourselves, from butchers in Willesden High Road. Mainly cows, I think often they had gristle and cartilage on them, mainly cow and occasionally sheep. We had to order these big pots because one of the shoulder blades was too big! We boiled the flesh away so we could use them as percussion! We wanted to get primitive!"
According to The Guardian: "Their producers, Flood and Alan Moulder, even tricked them by recording their rehearsal in order to capture a more uninhibited sound."
In late November to mid-December, Foals toured the UK for an album preview. The tour was supported by Petite Noir (a close friend of Philippakis's).
In summer 2013, they attended a number of festivals and headlined Latitude Festival in Suffolk in July. The band have recently played a World and UK tour, which ended with two sell out shows at Alexandra Palace in February. The two shows were in stark contrast compared to playing the same venue 7 years earlier to an almost empty room while supporting Bloc Party, a sentiment which lead singer Philippakis did not fail to mention during the live shows.
Holy Fire was nominated for the Mercury Prize in 2013. Q awarded Foals with the Best Live Act award the same year while "Inhaler" received the Best Track award from NME. In a reader-nominated "Best Album of 2013" poll, Holy Fire topped the list; as did single "My Number" in a "Best Song of 2013" poll, beating NME favorites Arctic Monkeys, amongst other acclaimed bands.
What Went Down: 2014–2017
On 2 April 2014, in an interview with NME, Yannis Philippakis said "Over the next month I think we're going to start writing tentatively. We've already got some bits and bobs around some riffs and some vocal melodies. I think until May we're gonna go back to Oxford and write in the 'stinkbox' and see what happens." On 9 June 2015, Foals unveiled a short video teasing an upcoming album in 2015.
Foals shared album track "Mountain at My Gates" on 20 June, premiering the song via BBC Radio 1 as Annie Mac's 'Hottest Record'. On 29 July, the band followed up the track with an accompanying 3D video, filmed on a GoPro HERO. On 6 August, Zane Lowe premiered new song 'A Knife in the Ocean' on his Beats 1 radio show on Apple Music. Foals made public a lyric video for 'A Knife In The Ocean' the same day. The album What Went Down was released on 28 August 2015.
In late 2015, 'Mountain At My Gates' was featured on the official soundtrack of EA Sports FIFA 16.
In 2016, Foals toured the UK and Europe in February/March, followed by a US tour, playing a number of songs from What Went Down as well as previous releases, with support from Peace (DJ set) and Everything Everything (UK).
Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost, Gervers's departure: 2017–2019
In autumn 2017, Foals announced on social media that they were going to start recording materials for a new upcoming album.
On 5 January 2018, they announced that bassist Walter Gervers was departing the band amicably, whilst recording of the fifth album continued.
On 8 January 2019, the band teased their fifth and sixth studio albums, Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 1 and Part 2, respectively. Part 1 was released on 8 March 2019 and Part 2 was released on 18 October 2019.
Following Gervers's departure, it was revealed on 19 February 2019 that Jeremy Pritchard, of British band Everything Everything would join as touring bassist for the band's upcoming live shows of 2019.
Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 1 was preceded by the release via streaming services of Exits, On the Luna, Sunday and In Degrees (a day before the record's release). The album was the BBC 6 Music Album of the Day on its release date.
In March 2019, the band embarked on the first shows of their "Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost World Tour" which currently has dates running throughout 2019 and 2020.
After playing several festivals across the summer of 2019 (including an unannounced set at Glastonbury and a headline performance at Truck Festival), the band released a second set of singles, "Black Bull", "The Runner" and "Into the Surf" in the lead up to Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 2.
Everything not saved will be lost - Part 2 was released on 18 October 2019 through Warner and Transgressive Records. The album cover was shot by famed National Geographic photographer, Maggie Steber. The album became the band's first to reach No. 1 on the UK Album Chart.
On 7 October 2019 "Rip up the Road", a documentary detailing the recording sessions of "Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost" and subsequent 2019 world tour, was announced, with a premiere scheduled for 11 and 15 November 2019 at London's Doc’n Roll Film Festival and thereafter exclusively through Amazon Prime respectively.
On 11 November 2019 "Rip Up The Road" directed by Toby L premiered at the Rio Cinema in Dalston to an audience consisting of the band, friends and family, fans, documentary contributors/crew. The documentary was filmed over a 12-month period as the band embarked upon a world tour. The film hones in on two career highlight shows at London's Alexandra Palace and provides a candid, entertaining and gripping perspective of life on the road and being in a band. It also features their infamous Glastonbury Festival secret set on The Park Stage in 2019.
Life Is Yours, COVID-19, and Congreave's departure: 2020–present
Due to the COVID-19 crisis and subsequent global lockdowns, the band was forced to cancel and reschedule their entire 2020 UK/World tour, in support of Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 2 till Spring 2021.
However, due to the continuing pandemic and ongoing safety restrictions throughout into 2021, the band once again had to reschedule touring until 2022, save for a string of UK summer festival shows during August 2021, which would be the group's first live performances since early 2020.
On 22 September 2021, Edwin Congreave announced that he had left the band to pursue a postgraduate degree in economics. Upon the news of Edwin's departure, the band had also revealed that they had already began working on their next album, this time as a three piece band.
On 11 October 2021, the band announced scoring the opening theme of the Brian Cox-hosted BBC Two science documentary television series, "Universe" with an updated version of "Neptune", re-worked in collaboration with Hans Zimmer's Bleeding Fingers composing collective led by the famed film composer.
On 27 October 2021, the band teased a promotional clip of an iPhone snooze alarm, cryptically revealing the release date of their yet to be announced seventh studio album's first single, "Wake me up" to be released 4 November, 2021. The following day, the single was confirmed by the group with a teaser clip of the audio and music streaming platforms pre-save links respectively.
"Wake Me Up" was premiered and released on 4 November 2021 via BBC Radio 1's Clara Amfo's 'Hottest Record'.
On 10 February 2022, Foals released "2am" and announced the name of their upcoming seventh album as Life Is Yours.
Live
Foals are considered one of the top UK live acts, having won the 2013 Q Award for Best Live Act and twice being nominated for the NME Award for Best Live Act (2011 and 2013).
The band have released several live EPs (Live At Liars Club, iTunes Live: London Festival '08 and iTunes Festival: London 2010), in addition to the full length concert film Live At The Royal Albert Hall, which was directed by Dave Ma.
Frontman Yannis Philippakis is known for jumping off balconies and crowd surfing during the extended interlude of "Two Steps Twice." In October 2013, Philippakis got into a confrontation with a security guard at the Auckland Town Hall in New Zealand, as the security guard attempted to prevent him jumping into the crowd. At the end of the show, Philippakis told the crowd: "I want to say a massive thank you to you and fuck that security-guy."
In April 2020 the band canceled their remaining tour-dates due to the COVID-19 crisis, pushing dates back to 2021.
Musical style and influence
Foals is classified as an indie rock, alternative rock, dance-punk, math rock, art rock, post-rock, post-punk, art punk and indie pop band.
The band's musical influences are varied, with the band members citing minimal techno, Arthur Russell, Krautrock bands such as Harmonia, and Talking Heads, as their main sources of inspiration.
Members
Current members
Yannis Philippakis – lead guitar (2005–present), lead vocals (2006–present), percussion (2008–2013), bass guitar (2018–present)
Jack Bevan – drums, percussion (2005–present)
Jimmy Smith – rhythm guitar, keyboards, synthesizer, backing vocals (2005–present)
Current touring musicians
Kit Monteith – percussion, sampler, backing vocals (2016–present)
Jack Freeman – bass, synthesizer, backing vocals (2020–present)
Former members
Andrew Mears – lead vocals, rhythm guitar (2005–2006)
Walter Gervers – bass, percussion, vocals (2005–2018)
Edwin Congreave – keyboards, synthesizer, backing vocals (2005–2021), bass (2018–2021)
Former touring-musicians
Jeremy Pritchard – bass, synthesizer, backing vocals (2019)
Vincent Taeger – percussion, timbales (2019)
Timeline
Discography
Studio albums
Antidotes (2008)
Total Life Forever (2010)
Holy Fire (2013)
What Went Down (2015)
Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 1 (2019)
Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 2 (2019)
Life Is Yours (2022)
Recognition
Total Life Forever was nominated for the Mercury Prize in July 2010, losing to The xx's xx on 7 September that year. The album was tested again the following year for Best Album in addition to a nomination for Best Cover Artwork at the NME Awards. The single "Spanish Sahara" was nominated by the same group for Best Track on top of being named all-around Best Band and Best Live Act. In July, the MOJO honour awards also nominated Foals alongside Canadian band Arcade Fire for the calibre of their live performances.
Mercury Prize
|-
| 2010
| Total Life Forever
| Best Album
|
|-
| 2013
| Holy Fire
| Best Album
|
|-
| 2019
| Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost - Part 1
| Best Album
|
|}
Ivor Novello Awards
|-
| 2010
| "Spanish Sahara"
| Best Song Musically and Lyrically
|
|}
NME Awards
|-
| rowspan="5" style="text-align:center;"| 2011
|rowspan="2"| Foals
| Best British Band
|
|-
| Best Live Act
|
|-
|rowspan="2"| Total Life Forever
| Best British Album
|
|-
| Best Artwork
|
|-
| "Spanish Sahara"
| Best Track
|
|-
| rowspan="2" style="text-align:center;"| 2013
| Foals
| Best Live Band
|
|-
| "Inhaler"
| Best Track
|
|-
| 2014
| Foals
| Best British Band
|
|-
| rowspan="3" style="text-align:center;"| 2016
| What Went Down
| Best Album
|
|-
| Foals
| Best British Band
|
|-
| "What Went Down"
| Best Track
|
|-
| rowspan="3" style="text-align:center;"| 2020
| rowspan="2"| Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost - Part 1
| Best Album
| style="text-align:center;"
|-
| Best Album in the World
|
|-
| Foals
| Best Live Act
|
|}
Q Awards
|-
|rowspan="3"| 2013
| Holy Fire
| Best Album
|
|-
|rowspan="2"| Foals
| Best Act in the World Today
|
|-
| Best Live Act
|
|-
|rowspan="3"| 2015
| Foals
| Best Act in the World Today
|
|-
|rowspan="2"| "What Went Down"
| Best Track
|
|-
| Best Video
|
|-
| 2019
| Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 1
| Best Album
|
|}
Brit Awards
|-
| 2008
| Foals
| Critics' Choice Award
|
|-
| 2016
| Foals
| British Group
|
|-
| 2020
| Foals
| Best Group
|
|}
iHeartRadio Music Awards
|-
| 2017
| Foals
| Best New Rock/Alternative Rock Artist
|
|}
References
External links
Foals on Music Feeds TV
English indie rock groups
Alternative dance musical groups
Brit Award winners
Music in Oxford
Dance-punk musical groups
NME Awards winners
Musical groups established in 2005
Math rock groups
British musical trios
Musical groups from Oxford
| true |
[
"Total Life Forever is the second studio album by British indie rock band Foals, released on 10 May 2010 through Transgressive Records. Prior to the album's release, the band described it as sounding \"like the dream of an eagle dying\". It was produced by Luke Smith, and was recorded at Svenska Grammofon Studion in Gothenburg. Upon its release, the album charted in numerous countries worldwide, including number eight in the UK Albums Chart.\n\nPromotion and release\n In January 2009, the band released three semi-instrumental segments of tracks through the band's MySpace profile, giving an insight into the band's recording process. A short three date tour of the United Kingdom took place in April 2009.\n\nDuring July 2009, the band played an intimate show for Rockfeedback, as a warm up for future festival shows and a chance to debut songs from their second album. On 2 July, the band supported Blur during their reunion show in Hyde Park, London, playing an untitled new song which frontman Yannis Philippakis stated was unfinished. Later the same month, the band appeared at the 2009 T in the Park festival, performing new songs \"Total Life Forever\" and \"Dirty Waves\". Both songs had been previously aired during the band's appearance at The Breeders-curated All Tomorrow's Parties festival in May 2009. In September 2009, the band performed at London's Heaven as part of Transgressive Records' fifth anniversary, performing new songs \"Spanish Sahara\", \"Death Surf\" and one other untitled track.\n\nThe album's title was revealed on 24 February 2010. Zane Lowe premiered the promotional track \"Spanish Sahara\" on BBC Radio 1, naming the track his \"Hottest Record in the World\" for 1 March 2010. From 8pm the same day, a remix of the track was made available to download from Foals' official website. The accompanying video was added to Foals' YouTube page on 2 March 2010. A limited number vinyl of \"Spanish Sahara\" was released on 17 April 2010, to mark the 2010 Record Store Day. In support of the album, the band announced a fourteen date tour of Europe throughout April–May 2010, including dates in Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin and the United Kingdom. These were the band's first live performances of the year.\n\nFollowing \"Spanish Sahara\"'s limited release, the album's first official single was announced as \"This Orient\", released on 3 May 2010. The track reached number 97 on the UK Singles Chart. Second single \"Miami\" was then released on 4 July 2010. It reached No. 127 on the same chart. Third single \"Blue Blood\" was released on 8 November 2010.\n\nReception\n\nTotal Life Forever was very well received; many commented how the band's music has matured from their debut album. Review aggregator Metacritic gave the album a normalised rating of 78 out of 100, indicating \"generally favourable reviews\".\n\nQ magazine's Rupert Howe was more reserved in his praise. Calling it \"the schizophrenic second album\", Howe opined that \"while this album carries more instrumental and emotional heft than its predecessor, something remains off-balance\".\n\nBesides being shortlisted for the 2010 Mercury Prize, Total Life Forever brought the band several nominations for the 2011 NME awards, including best album, best track (\"Spanish Sahara\") and best album artwork.\n\nAccolades\n\nTrack listing\n\nPersonnel\nFoals\nYannis Philippakis – vocals, guitar, drums\nJack Bevan – drums\nJimmy Smith – guitar\nWalter Gervers – bass, backing vocals\nEdwin Congreave – keyboard, backing vocals\n\nAdditional musicians\nCaroline Wickberg – additional vocals on \"Black Gold\" and \"This Orient\"\n\nTechnical personnel\nFoals – art direction\nBig Active – artwork\nFoals – artwork\nTinhead – artwork\nFerg Peterkin – engineering, programming\nStephen Marcussen – mastering\nSteve Gullick – photography\nDave Ma – photography\nLuke Smith – producer\nMike Crossey – producer, recording assistant on \"Blue Blood\"\nDaniel Rejmer – engineering on \"Spanish Sahara\"\nCatherine Marks – engineering, mixing on \"Spanish Sahara\"\nAlan Moulder – mixing on \"Spanish Sahara\"\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nCertifications\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Total Life Forever Official Website\n\n2010 albums\nFoals albums\nSub Pop albums\nTransgressive Records albums\nMusic in Oxford",
"Happyendless is a Lithuanian new wave, rock and electronic band formed in Vilnius in 1998. In 2007, the band released their \"Power Forever\" single and became one of the most popular bands in Lithuania at the time. Their first studio album Room For Mistakes was released in 2008, followed by Cinema in 2011. After the departure of their lead singer, Saulius Prūsaitis, who left to pursue a solo career in 2012, the band entered a hiatus until 2018, when the remaining members reunited and recorded the band's third album Kinetika (Kinetics).\n\nBand members \n Andrius Kauklys (1998–present)\n Marius Narbutis (1998–present)\n Saulius Prūsaitis (2005–2012)\nDarius Vaičiulis (1999–2006)\n\nDiscography\n\nStudio albums\n 2008 – Room For Mistakes\n 2011 – Cinema\n2018 – Kinetika\n2020 - Utopia\n\nSingles\n 2007 – \"Power Forever\"\n 2008 – \"Hello Come On\"\n 2008 – \"No Tomorrow\"\n 2009 – \"Sweet Sweet Super Sweet\"\n 2010 – \"Golden Olympic\"\n 2016 – \"Gravitacija\"\n\nCompilation albums \n\n 2002 – Akvariumas\n\nAwards and nominations \n\nLithuanian electronic musicians\nLithuanian new wave musicians\nLithuanian rock music groups\n21st-century Lithuanian musicians"
] |
[
"Foals (band)",
"Total Life Forever: 2009-2010",
"What personnel were there on the Total Life Forever album?",
"produced by Luke Smith,",
"Did any new musicians join the band for the album Total Life Forever?",
"Luke Smith, formerly of Clor. The album's title is named after an element of Ray Kurzweil's theory of singularity."
] |
C_d176d19f876d4d3099d259a59f85849e_1
|
Did Foals go on tour to support the album?
| 3 |
Did Foals go on tour to support Total Life Forever?
|
Foals (band)
|
In August 2009, Foals started recording their second album at Svenska Grammofon Studion in Gothenburg, Sweden. The album, Total Life Forever, has been described by the band members as sounding like "tropical prog" and "like the dream of an eagle dying". The band have described the album as being "a lot less funk" than they had originally planned. The album was produced by Luke Smith, formerly of Clor. The album's title is named after an element of Ray Kurzweil's theory of singularity. The band's frontman, Yannis Philippakis, has professed a longtime interest in futurology, with it informing numerous songs on Total Life Forever. On 1 March 2010, the promotional single "Spanish Sahara" was first played on Zane Lowe's show Radio 1. The Foals' website was updated that night with the video for the track, directed by longtime collaborator Dave Ma, and on 6 March, the Total Life Forever site was launched. There puzzles revealed images, lyrics and sound clips of songs from the album. The last clip appeared on 12 March, with a password entry for Foals' new website. The site was opened on 13 March and presented the art concept and media including samples of songs, photos and videos. Lead single "This Orient" was released on 3 May 2010. The album was finally released on 10 May 2010. "Spanish Sahara" was featured in trailers for season seven of Entourage, season four of Skins and Outcasts. It was also used in the soundtrack of the second season of the E4 drama Misfits. It was released as a full physical single in September 2010, featuring an edited remix starring the strings of London Contemporary Orchestra. In 2015, it was used by French studio Dontnod Entertainment in the game Life Is Strange as the music for one of its final endings. The album was nominated for the 2010 Mercury Prize. In an interview with online magazine Coup de Main, Jimmy Smith said how the band members live together on and off the road - heading to Australia to record demos for their next album together. "It's just like touring with your family, it's nice". CANNOTANSWER
|
Jimmy Smith said how the band members live together on and off the road - heading to Australia to record demos for their next album together.
|
Foals are a British rock band formed in Oxford. The band's current line-up consists of Greek-born lead vocalist and guitarist Yannis Philippakis, drummer and percussionist Jack Bevan and rhythm guitarist Jimmy Smith. They are currently signed to Warner Records, and have released six studio albums to date: Antidotes (2008), Total Life Forever (2010), Holy Fire (2013), What Went Down (2015), and Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 1 & 2 (2019). They have also released one video album, six extended plays and twenty-seven singles.
The band have toured internationally for over a decade, and have featured at many festivals including Glastonbury, Coachella, and Roskilde. They have won a number of awards, including best live act at the 2013 Q Awards while producers Alan Moulder and Flood were awarded 'UK Producer of the Year' for their work on the album Holy Fire.
The band's most recent studio albums, Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 1 was released in March 2019 while their sixth and immediate follow-up, Part 2, was released on 18 October 2019 and became the band's first album to top the UK Album Chart.
History
Formation: 2005–2006
The lead singer of the band Youthmovies, Andrew Mears, originally formed the band Foals. He was present on the band's debut 7" single, "Try This on Your Piano/Look at My Furrows of Worry", but left shortly afterwards to concentrate on Youthmovies's debut album, Good Nature.
Jack Bevan, Lina Simon and Yannis Philippakis were originally in cult math rock band The Edmund Fitzgerald. The group disbanded, claiming that things had become "too serious" and that they wanted to have more "fun making their music".
Walter Gervers and Jimmy Smith were part of a small Oxford band called Face Meets Grill. They met at and formed the band from members of Abingdon School, the same school that Radiohead attended. They played gigs in and around Oxford, and recorded an EP in Hull. After playing Truck Festival in 2004 they separated to follow different paths and careers.
Guitarist Jimmy Smith is the only one of the band members to have completed his degree, at Hull University, each of the other band members quit their respective universities when the band signed to Transgressive Records.
Antidotes: 2007–2008
In early 2007, the band released the limited edition 7" singles "Hummer" and "Mathletics", both produced by Gareth Parton. "Hummer" later featured on the Channel Four teen drama Skins. Philippakis described this period as 'the music was almost a premeditated mix of blending techno and minimalism [and] we'd set ourselves these rules, like 'only staccato rhythms', and 'guitars must be played really high'.
In the summer of 2007, Foals began working on their debut album in New York. It was produced by Dave Sitek of TV on the Radio. However, the band decided to mix the album themselves, stating that Sitek made the first master copy of the album sound like "it was recorded in the Grand Canyon". Philippakis has stated a number of times that Foals and Dave Sitek are on good terms, even though the mix by Sitek was rejected by the band. Foals released their debut album, titled Antidotes, on 24 March 2008 in the UK and on 8 April 2008 in the US. The album was a commercial success in the UK, debuting at number 3 on the UK Albums Charts. The album was a minor success in other countries, charting in Japan, France and the Netherlands. Non-UK versions of the album include the early Parton-produced singles.
Total Life Forever: 2009–2010
In August 2009, Foals started recording their second album at Svenska Grammofon Studion in Gothenburg, Sweden. The album, Total Life Forever, has been described by the band members as sounding like "tropical prog" and "like the dream of an eagle dying". The band have described the album as being "a lot less funk" than they had originally planned. The album was produced by Luke Smith, formerly of Clor. The album's title is named after an element of Ray Kurzweil's theory of singularity. The band's frontman, Yannis Philippakis, has professed a longtime interest in futurology, with it informing numerous songs on Total Life Forever.
On 1 March 2010, the promotional single "Spanish Sahara" was first played on Zane Lowe's show Radio 1. The Foals' website was updated that night with the video for the track, directed by longtime collaborator Dave Ma, and on 6 March, the Total Life Forever site was launched. There puzzles revealed images, lyrics and sound clips of songs from the album. The last clip appeared on 12 March, with a password entry for Foals' new website. The site was opened on 13 March and presented the art concept and media including samples of songs, photos and videos. Lead single "This Orient" was released on 3 May 2010. The album was finally released on 10 May 2010.
"Spanish Sahara" was featured in trailers for season seven of Entourage, season four of Skins and Outcasts. It was also used in the soundtrack of the second season of the E4 drama Misfits. It was released as a full physical single in September 2010, featuring an edited remix starring the strings of London Contemporary Orchestra. In 2015, it was used by French studio Dontnod Entertainment in the game Life is Strange as the music for one of its endings.
The album was nominated for the 2010 Mercury Prize. In an interview with online magazine Coup de Main, Jimmy Smith said how the band members live together on and off the road – heading to Australia to record demos for their next album together. "It's just like touring with your family, it's nice."
Holy Fire: 2012–2013
Holy Fire was released in both the UK and the US on 11 February 2013. The album's lead single, "Inhaler", received its first radio play on 5 November 2012. They played the song "My Number" for the first time on Later... with Jools Holland.
Holy Fire was produced by Flood and Alan Moulder, who have worked with many artists, including Nine Inch Nails, The Smashing Pumpkins, and My Bloody Valentine. The album was recorded at Assault & Battery studios in London.
Yannis Philippakis stated that the recording process had some unconventional moments: "At one point we even made these poor studio interns collect bones. We were inspired by voodoo, these Haitian rhythms. We collected some ourselves, from butchers in Willesden High Road. Mainly cows, I think often they had gristle and cartilage on them, mainly cow and occasionally sheep. We had to order these big pots because one of the shoulder blades was too big! We boiled the flesh away so we could use them as percussion! We wanted to get primitive!"
According to The Guardian: "Their producers, Flood and Alan Moulder, even tricked them by recording their rehearsal in order to capture a more uninhibited sound."
In late November to mid-December, Foals toured the UK for an album preview. The tour was supported by Petite Noir (a close friend of Philippakis's).
In summer 2013, they attended a number of festivals and headlined Latitude Festival in Suffolk in July. The band have recently played a World and UK tour, which ended with two sell out shows at Alexandra Palace in February. The two shows were in stark contrast compared to playing the same venue 7 years earlier to an almost empty room while supporting Bloc Party, a sentiment which lead singer Philippakis did not fail to mention during the live shows.
Holy Fire was nominated for the Mercury Prize in 2013. Q awarded Foals with the Best Live Act award the same year while "Inhaler" received the Best Track award from NME. In a reader-nominated "Best Album of 2013" poll, Holy Fire topped the list; as did single "My Number" in a "Best Song of 2013" poll, beating NME favorites Arctic Monkeys, amongst other acclaimed bands.
What Went Down: 2014–2017
On 2 April 2014, in an interview with NME, Yannis Philippakis said "Over the next month I think we're going to start writing tentatively. We've already got some bits and bobs around some riffs and some vocal melodies. I think until May we're gonna go back to Oxford and write in the 'stinkbox' and see what happens." On 9 June 2015, Foals unveiled a short video teasing an upcoming album in 2015.
Foals shared album track "Mountain at My Gates" on 20 June, premiering the song via BBC Radio 1 as Annie Mac's 'Hottest Record'. On 29 July, the band followed up the track with an accompanying 3D video, filmed on a GoPro HERO. On 6 August, Zane Lowe premiered new song 'A Knife in the Ocean' on his Beats 1 radio show on Apple Music. Foals made public a lyric video for 'A Knife In The Ocean' the same day. The album What Went Down was released on 28 August 2015.
In late 2015, 'Mountain At My Gates' was featured on the official soundtrack of EA Sports FIFA 16.
In 2016, Foals toured the UK and Europe in February/March, followed by a US tour, playing a number of songs from What Went Down as well as previous releases, with support from Peace (DJ set) and Everything Everything (UK).
Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost, Gervers's departure: 2017–2019
In autumn 2017, Foals announced on social media that they were going to start recording materials for a new upcoming album.
On 5 January 2018, they announced that bassist Walter Gervers was departing the band amicably, whilst recording of the fifth album continued.
On 8 January 2019, the band teased their fifth and sixth studio albums, Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 1 and Part 2, respectively. Part 1 was released on 8 March 2019 and Part 2 was released on 18 October 2019.
Following Gervers's departure, it was revealed on 19 February 2019 that Jeremy Pritchard, of British band Everything Everything would join as touring bassist for the band's upcoming live shows of 2019.
Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 1 was preceded by the release via streaming services of Exits, On the Luna, Sunday and In Degrees (a day before the record's release). The album was the BBC 6 Music Album of the Day on its release date.
In March 2019, the band embarked on the first shows of their "Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost World Tour" which currently has dates running throughout 2019 and 2020.
After playing several festivals across the summer of 2019 (including an unannounced set at Glastonbury and a headline performance at Truck Festival), the band released a second set of singles, "Black Bull", "The Runner" and "Into the Surf" in the lead up to Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 2.
Everything not saved will be lost - Part 2 was released on 18 October 2019 through Warner and Transgressive Records. The album cover was shot by famed National Geographic photographer, Maggie Steber. The album became the band's first to reach No. 1 on the UK Album Chart.
On 7 October 2019 "Rip up the Road", a documentary detailing the recording sessions of "Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost" and subsequent 2019 world tour, was announced, with a premiere scheduled for 11 and 15 November 2019 at London's Doc’n Roll Film Festival and thereafter exclusively through Amazon Prime respectively.
On 11 November 2019 "Rip Up The Road" directed by Toby L premiered at the Rio Cinema in Dalston to an audience consisting of the band, friends and family, fans, documentary contributors/crew. The documentary was filmed over a 12-month period as the band embarked upon a world tour. The film hones in on two career highlight shows at London's Alexandra Palace and provides a candid, entertaining and gripping perspective of life on the road and being in a band. It also features their infamous Glastonbury Festival secret set on The Park Stage in 2019.
Life Is Yours, COVID-19, and Congreave's departure: 2020–present
Due to the COVID-19 crisis and subsequent global lockdowns, the band was forced to cancel and reschedule their entire 2020 UK/World tour, in support of Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 2 till Spring 2021.
However, due to the continuing pandemic and ongoing safety restrictions throughout into 2021, the band once again had to reschedule touring until 2022, save for a string of UK summer festival shows during August 2021, which would be the group's first live performances since early 2020.
On 22 September 2021, Edwin Congreave announced that he had left the band to pursue a postgraduate degree in economics. Upon the news of Edwin's departure, the band had also revealed that they had already began working on their next album, this time as a three piece band.
On 11 October 2021, the band announced scoring the opening theme of the Brian Cox-hosted BBC Two science documentary television series, "Universe" with an updated version of "Neptune", re-worked in collaboration with Hans Zimmer's Bleeding Fingers composing collective led by the famed film composer.
On 27 October 2021, the band teased a promotional clip of an iPhone snooze alarm, cryptically revealing the release date of their yet to be announced seventh studio album's first single, "Wake me up" to be released 4 November, 2021. The following day, the single was confirmed by the group with a teaser clip of the audio and music streaming platforms pre-save links respectively.
"Wake Me Up" was premiered and released on 4 November 2021 via BBC Radio 1's Clara Amfo's 'Hottest Record'.
On 10 February 2022, Foals released "2am" and announced the name of their upcoming seventh album as Life Is Yours.
Live
Foals are considered one of the top UK live acts, having won the 2013 Q Award for Best Live Act and twice being nominated for the NME Award for Best Live Act (2011 and 2013).
The band have released several live EPs (Live At Liars Club, iTunes Live: London Festival '08 and iTunes Festival: London 2010), in addition to the full length concert film Live At The Royal Albert Hall, which was directed by Dave Ma.
Frontman Yannis Philippakis is known for jumping off balconies and crowd surfing during the extended interlude of "Two Steps Twice." In October 2013, Philippakis got into a confrontation with a security guard at the Auckland Town Hall in New Zealand, as the security guard attempted to prevent him jumping into the crowd. At the end of the show, Philippakis told the crowd: "I want to say a massive thank you to you and fuck that security-guy."
In April 2020 the band canceled their remaining tour-dates due to the COVID-19 crisis, pushing dates back to 2021.
Musical style and influence
Foals is classified as an indie rock, alternative rock, dance-punk, math rock, art rock, post-rock, post-punk, art punk and indie pop band.
The band's musical influences are varied, with the band members citing minimal techno, Arthur Russell, Krautrock bands such as Harmonia, and Talking Heads, as their main sources of inspiration.
Members
Current members
Yannis Philippakis – lead guitar (2005–present), lead vocals (2006–present), percussion (2008–2013), bass guitar (2018–present)
Jack Bevan – drums, percussion (2005–present)
Jimmy Smith – rhythm guitar, keyboards, synthesizer, backing vocals (2005–present)
Current touring musicians
Kit Monteith – percussion, sampler, backing vocals (2016–present)
Jack Freeman – bass, synthesizer, backing vocals (2020–present)
Former members
Andrew Mears – lead vocals, rhythm guitar (2005–2006)
Walter Gervers – bass, percussion, vocals (2005–2018)
Edwin Congreave – keyboards, synthesizer, backing vocals (2005–2021), bass (2018–2021)
Former touring-musicians
Jeremy Pritchard – bass, synthesizer, backing vocals (2019)
Vincent Taeger – percussion, timbales (2019)
Timeline
Discography
Studio albums
Antidotes (2008)
Total Life Forever (2010)
Holy Fire (2013)
What Went Down (2015)
Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 1 (2019)
Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 2 (2019)
Life Is Yours (2022)
Recognition
Total Life Forever was nominated for the Mercury Prize in July 2010, losing to The xx's xx on 7 September that year. The album was tested again the following year for Best Album in addition to a nomination for Best Cover Artwork at the NME Awards. The single "Spanish Sahara" was nominated by the same group for Best Track on top of being named all-around Best Band and Best Live Act. In July, the MOJO honour awards also nominated Foals alongside Canadian band Arcade Fire for the calibre of their live performances.
Mercury Prize
|-
| 2010
| Total Life Forever
| Best Album
|
|-
| 2013
| Holy Fire
| Best Album
|
|-
| 2019
| Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost - Part 1
| Best Album
|
|}
Ivor Novello Awards
|-
| 2010
| "Spanish Sahara"
| Best Song Musically and Lyrically
|
|}
NME Awards
|-
| rowspan="5" style="text-align:center;"| 2011
|rowspan="2"| Foals
| Best British Band
|
|-
| Best Live Act
|
|-
|rowspan="2"| Total Life Forever
| Best British Album
|
|-
| Best Artwork
|
|-
| "Spanish Sahara"
| Best Track
|
|-
| rowspan="2" style="text-align:center;"| 2013
| Foals
| Best Live Band
|
|-
| "Inhaler"
| Best Track
|
|-
| 2014
| Foals
| Best British Band
|
|-
| rowspan="3" style="text-align:center;"| 2016
| What Went Down
| Best Album
|
|-
| Foals
| Best British Band
|
|-
| "What Went Down"
| Best Track
|
|-
| rowspan="3" style="text-align:center;"| 2020
| rowspan="2"| Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost - Part 1
| Best Album
| style="text-align:center;"
|-
| Best Album in the World
|
|-
| Foals
| Best Live Act
|
|}
Q Awards
|-
|rowspan="3"| 2013
| Holy Fire
| Best Album
|
|-
|rowspan="2"| Foals
| Best Act in the World Today
|
|-
| Best Live Act
|
|-
|rowspan="3"| 2015
| Foals
| Best Act in the World Today
|
|-
|rowspan="2"| "What Went Down"
| Best Track
|
|-
| Best Video
|
|-
| 2019
| Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 1
| Best Album
|
|}
Brit Awards
|-
| 2008
| Foals
| Critics' Choice Award
|
|-
| 2016
| Foals
| British Group
|
|-
| 2020
| Foals
| Best Group
|
|}
iHeartRadio Music Awards
|-
| 2017
| Foals
| Best New Rock/Alternative Rock Artist
|
|}
References
External links
Foals on Music Feeds TV
English indie rock groups
Alternative dance musical groups
Brit Award winners
Music in Oxford
Dance-punk musical groups
NME Awards winners
Musical groups established in 2005
Math rock groups
British musical trios
Musical groups from Oxford
| false |
[
"Foals are a British rock band formed in Oxford. The band's current line-up consists of Greek-born lead vocalist and guitarist Yannis Philippakis, drummer and percussionist Jack Bevan and rhythm guitarist Jimmy Smith. They are currently signed to Warner Records, and have released six studio albums to date: Antidotes (2008), Total Life Forever (2010), Holy Fire (2013), What Went Down (2015), and Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 1 & 2 (2019). They have also released one video album, six extended plays and twenty-seven singles.\n\nThe band have toured internationally for over a decade, and have featured at many festivals including Glastonbury, Coachella, and Roskilde. They have won a number of awards, including best live act at the 2013 Q Awards while producers Alan Moulder and Flood were awarded 'UK Producer of the Year' for their work on the album Holy Fire.\n\nThe band's most recent studio albums, Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 1 was released in March 2019 while their sixth and immediate follow-up, Part 2, was released on 18 October 2019 and became the band's first album to top the UK Album Chart.\n\nHistory\n\nFormation: 2005–2006 \nThe lead singer of the band Youthmovies, Andrew Mears, originally formed the band Foals. He was present on the band's debut 7\" single, \"Try This on Your Piano/Look at My Furrows of Worry\", but left shortly afterwards to concentrate on Youthmovies's debut album, Good Nature.\n\nJack Bevan, Lina Simon and Yannis Philippakis were originally in cult math rock band The Edmund Fitzgerald. The group disbanded, claiming that things had become \"too serious\" and that they wanted to have more \"fun making their music\".\n\nWalter Gervers and Jimmy Smith were part of a small Oxford band called Face Meets Grill. They met at and formed the band from members of Abingdon School, the same school that Radiohead attended. They played gigs in and around Oxford, and recorded an EP in Hull. After playing Truck Festival in 2004 they separated to follow different paths and careers.\n\nGuitarist Jimmy Smith is the only one of the band members to have completed his degree, at Hull University, each of the other band members quit their respective universities when the band signed to Transgressive Records.\n\nAntidotes: 2007–2008\nIn early 2007, the band released the limited edition 7\" singles \"Hummer\" and \"Mathletics\", both produced by Gareth Parton. \"Hummer\" later featured on the Channel Four teen drama Skins. Philippakis described this period as 'the music was almost a premeditated mix of blending techno and minimalism [and] we'd set ourselves these rules, like 'only staccato rhythms', and 'guitars must be played really high'.\n\nIn the summer of 2007, Foals began working on their debut album in New York. It was produced by Dave Sitek of TV on the Radio. However, the band decided to mix the album themselves, stating that Sitek made the first master copy of the album sound like \"it was recorded in the Grand Canyon\". Philippakis has stated a number of times that Foals and Dave Sitek are on good terms, even though the mix by Sitek was rejected by the band. Foals released their debut album, titled Antidotes, on 24 March 2008 in the UK and on 8 April 2008 in the US. The album was a commercial success in the UK, debuting at number 3 on the UK Albums Charts. The album was a minor success in other countries, charting in Japan, France and the Netherlands. Non-UK versions of the album include the early Parton-produced singles.\n\nTotal Life Forever: 2009–2010\nIn August 2009, Foals started recording their second album at Svenska Grammofon Studion in Gothenburg, Sweden. The album, Total Life Forever, has been described by the band members as sounding like \"tropical prog\" and \"like the dream of an eagle dying\". The band have described the album as being \"a lot less funk\" than they had originally planned. The album was produced by Luke Smith, formerly of Clor. The album's title is named after an element of Ray Kurzweil's theory of singularity. The band's frontman, Yannis Philippakis, has professed a longtime interest in futurology, with it informing numerous songs on Total Life Forever.\n\nOn 1 March 2010, the promotional single \"Spanish Sahara\" was first played on Zane Lowe's show Radio 1. The Foals' website was updated that night with the video for the track, directed by longtime collaborator Dave Ma, and on 6 March, the Total Life Forever site was launched. There puzzles revealed images, lyrics and sound clips of songs from the album. The last clip appeared on 12 March, with a password entry for Foals' new website. The site was opened on 13 March and presented the art concept and media including samples of songs, photos and videos. Lead single \"This Orient\" was released on 3 May 2010. The album was finally released on 10 May 2010.\n\n\"Spanish Sahara\" was featured in trailers for season seven of Entourage, season four of Skins and Outcasts. It was also used in the soundtrack of the second season of the E4 drama Misfits. It was released as a full physical single in September 2010, featuring an edited remix starring the strings of London Contemporary Orchestra. In 2015, it was used by French studio Dontnod Entertainment in the game Life is Strange as the music for one of its endings.\n\nThe album was nominated for the 2010 Mercury Prize. In an interview with online magazine Coup de Main, Jimmy Smith said how the band members live together on and off the road – heading to Australia to record demos for their next album together. \"It's just like touring with your family, it's nice.\"\n\nHoly Fire: 2012–2013\n\nHoly Fire was released in both the UK and the US on 11 February 2013. The album's lead single, \"Inhaler\", received its first radio play on 5 November 2012. They played the song \"My Number\" for the first time on Later... with Jools Holland.\n\nHoly Fire was produced by Flood and Alan Moulder, who have worked with many artists, including Nine Inch Nails, The Smashing Pumpkins, and My Bloody Valentine. The album was recorded at Assault & Battery studios in London.\n\nYannis Philippakis stated that the recording process had some unconventional moments: \"At one point we even made these poor studio interns collect bones. We were inspired by voodoo, these Haitian rhythms. We collected some ourselves, from butchers in Willesden High Road. Mainly cows, I think often they had gristle and cartilage on them, mainly cow and occasionally sheep. We had to order these big pots because one of the shoulder blades was too big! We boiled the flesh away so we could use them as percussion! We wanted to get primitive!\"\n\nAccording to The Guardian: \"Their producers, Flood and Alan Moulder, even tricked them by recording their rehearsal in order to capture a more uninhibited sound.\"\n\nIn late November to mid-December, Foals toured the UK for an album preview. The tour was supported by Petite Noir (a close friend of Philippakis's).\nIn summer 2013, they attended a number of festivals and headlined Latitude Festival in Suffolk in July. The band have recently played a World and UK tour, which ended with two sell out shows at Alexandra Palace in February. The two shows were in stark contrast compared to playing the same venue 7 years earlier to an almost empty room while supporting Bloc Party, a sentiment which lead singer Philippakis did not fail to mention during the live shows.\nHoly Fire was nominated for the Mercury Prize in 2013. Q awarded Foals with the Best Live Act award the same year while \"Inhaler\" received the Best Track award from NME. In a reader-nominated \"Best Album of 2013\" poll, Holy Fire topped the list; as did single \"My Number\" in a \"Best Song of 2013\" poll, beating NME favorites Arctic Monkeys, amongst other acclaimed bands.\n\nWhat Went Down: 2014–2017\nOn 2 April 2014, in an interview with NME, Yannis Philippakis said \"Over the next month I think we're going to start writing tentatively. We've already got some bits and bobs around some riffs and some vocal melodies. I think until May we're gonna go back to Oxford and write in the 'stinkbox' and see what happens.\" On 9 June 2015, Foals unveiled a short video teasing an upcoming album in 2015.\n\nFoals shared album track \"Mountain at My Gates\" on 20 June, premiering the song via BBC Radio 1 as Annie Mac's 'Hottest Record'. On 29 July, the band followed up the track with an accompanying 3D video, filmed on a GoPro HERO. On 6 August, Zane Lowe premiered new song 'A Knife in the Ocean' on his Beats 1 radio show on Apple Music. Foals made public a lyric video for 'A Knife In The Ocean' the same day. The album What Went Down was released on 28 August 2015.\n\nIn late 2015, 'Mountain At My Gates' was featured on the official soundtrack of EA Sports FIFA 16.\n\nIn 2016, Foals toured the UK and Europe in February/March, followed by a US tour, playing a number of songs from What Went Down as well as previous releases, with support from Peace (DJ set) and Everything Everything (UK).\n\nEverything Not Saved Will Be Lost, Gervers's departure: 2017–2019\nIn autumn 2017, Foals announced on social media that they were going to start recording materials for a new upcoming album.\n\nOn 5 January 2018, they announced that bassist Walter Gervers was departing the band amicably, whilst recording of the fifth album continued.\n\nOn 8 January 2019, the band teased their fifth and sixth studio albums, Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 1 and Part 2, respectively. Part 1 was released on 8 March 2019 and Part 2 was released on 18 October 2019.\n\nFollowing Gervers's departure, it was revealed on 19 February 2019 that Jeremy Pritchard, of British band Everything Everything would join as touring bassist for the band's upcoming live shows of 2019.\n\nEverything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 1 was preceded by the release via streaming services of Exits, On the Luna, Sunday and In Degrees (a day before the record's release). The album was the BBC 6 Music Album of the Day on its release date.\n\nIn March 2019, the band embarked on the first shows of their \"Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost World Tour\" which currently has dates running throughout 2019 and 2020.\n\nAfter playing several festivals across the summer of 2019 (including an unannounced set at Glastonbury and a headline performance at Truck Festival), the band released a second set of singles, \"Black Bull\", \"The Runner\" and \"Into the Surf\" in the lead up to Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 2.\n\nEverything not saved will be lost - Part 2 was released on 18 October 2019 through Warner and Transgressive Records. The album cover was shot by famed National Geographic photographer, Maggie Steber. The album became the band's first to reach No. 1 on the UK Album Chart.\n\nOn 7 October 2019 \"Rip up the Road\", a documentary detailing the recording sessions of \"Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost\" and subsequent 2019 world tour, was announced, with a premiere scheduled for 11 and 15 November 2019 at London's Doc’n Roll Film Festival and thereafter exclusively through Amazon Prime respectively.\n\nOn 11 November 2019 \"Rip Up The Road\" directed by Toby L premiered at the Rio Cinema in Dalston to an audience consisting of the band, friends and family, fans, documentary contributors/crew. The documentary was filmed over a 12-month period as the band embarked upon a world tour. The film hones in on two career highlight shows at London's Alexandra Palace and provides a candid, entertaining and gripping perspective of life on the road and being in a band. It also features their infamous Glastonbury Festival secret set on The Park Stage in 2019.\n\nLife Is Yours, COVID-19, and Congreave's departure: 2020–present\nDue to the COVID-19 crisis and subsequent global lockdowns, the band was forced to cancel and reschedule their entire 2020 UK/World tour, in support of Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 2 till Spring 2021. \n \nHowever, due to the continuing pandemic and ongoing safety restrictions throughout into 2021, the band once again had to reschedule touring until 2022, save for a string of UK summer festival shows during August 2021, which would be the group's first live performances since early 2020. \n\nOn 22 September 2021, Edwin Congreave announced that he had left the band to pursue a postgraduate degree in economics. Upon the news of Edwin's departure, the band had also revealed that they had already began working on their next album, this time as a three piece band.\n\nOn 11 October 2021, the band announced scoring the opening theme of the Brian Cox-hosted BBC Two science documentary television series, \"Universe\" with an updated version of \"Neptune\", re-worked in collaboration with Hans Zimmer's Bleeding Fingers composing collective led by the famed film composer.\n\nOn 27 October 2021, the band teased a promotional clip of an iPhone snooze alarm, cryptically revealing the release date of their yet to be announced seventh studio album's first single, \"Wake me up\" to be released 4 November, 2021. The following day, the single was confirmed by the group with a teaser clip of the audio and music streaming platforms pre-save links respectively.\n\n\"Wake Me Up\" was premiered and released on 4 November 2021 via BBC Radio 1's Clara Amfo's 'Hottest Record'.\n\nOn 10 February 2022, Foals released \"2am\" and announced the name of their upcoming seventh album as Life Is Yours.\n\nLive\nFoals are considered one of the top UK live acts, having won the 2013 Q Award for Best Live Act and twice being nominated for the NME Award for Best Live Act (2011 and 2013).\n\nThe band have released several live EPs (Live At Liars Club, iTunes Live: London Festival '08 and iTunes Festival: London 2010), in addition to the full length concert film Live At The Royal Albert Hall, which was directed by Dave Ma.\n\nFrontman Yannis Philippakis is known for jumping off balconies and crowd surfing during the extended interlude of \"Two Steps Twice.\" In October 2013, Philippakis got into a confrontation with a security guard at the Auckland Town Hall in New Zealand, as the security guard attempted to prevent him jumping into the crowd. At the end of the show, Philippakis told the crowd: \"I want to say a massive thank you to you and fuck that security-guy.\"\n\nIn April 2020 the band canceled their remaining tour-dates due to the COVID-19 crisis, pushing dates back to 2021.\n\nMusical style and influence\nFoals is classified as an indie rock, alternative rock, dance-punk, math rock, art rock, post-rock, post-punk, art punk and indie pop band.\n\nThe band's musical influences are varied, with the band members citing minimal techno, Arthur Russell, Krautrock bands such as Harmonia, and Talking Heads, as their main sources of inspiration.\n\nMembers\n\nCurrent members\nYannis Philippakis – lead guitar (2005–present), lead vocals (2006–present), percussion (2008–2013), bass guitar (2018–present)\nJack Bevan – drums, percussion (2005–present)\nJimmy Smith – rhythm guitar, keyboards, synthesizer, backing vocals (2005–present)\n\nCurrent touring musicians\nKit Monteith – percussion, sampler, backing vocals (2016–present)\nJack Freeman – bass, synthesizer, backing vocals (2020–present)\n\nFormer members\nAndrew Mears – lead vocals, rhythm guitar (2005–2006)\nWalter Gervers – bass, percussion, vocals (2005–2018) \nEdwin Congreave – keyboards, synthesizer, backing vocals (2005–2021), bass (2018–2021)\n\nFormer touring-musicians\nJeremy Pritchard – bass, synthesizer, backing vocals (2019)\nVincent Taeger – percussion, timbales (2019)\n\nTimeline\n\nDiscography\n\nStudio albums\n Antidotes (2008)\n Total Life Forever (2010)\n Holy Fire (2013)\n What Went Down (2015)\n Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 1 (2019)\n Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 2 (2019)\n Life Is Yours (2022)\n\nRecognition\nTotal Life Forever was nominated for the Mercury Prize in July 2010, losing to The xx's xx on 7 September that year. The album was tested again the following year for Best Album in addition to a nomination for Best Cover Artwork at the NME Awards. The single \"Spanish Sahara\" was nominated by the same group for Best Track on top of being named all-around Best Band and Best Live Act. In July, the MOJO honour awards also nominated Foals alongside Canadian band Arcade Fire for the calibre of their live performances.\n\nMercury Prize\n\n|-\n| 2010\n| Total Life Forever\n| Best Album\n| \n|-\n| 2013\n| Holy Fire\n| Best Album\n| \n|-\n| 2019\n| Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost - Part 1\n| Best Album\n| \n|}\n\nIvor Novello Awards\n\n|-\n| 2010\n| \"Spanish Sahara\"\n| Best Song Musically and Lyrically\n| \n|}\n\nNME Awards\n\n|-\n| rowspan=\"5\" style=\"text-align:center;\"| 2011\n|rowspan=\"2\"| Foals\n| Best British Band\n| \n|-\n| Best Live Act\n| \n|-\n|rowspan=\"2\"| Total Life Forever\n| Best British Album\n| \n|-\n| Best Artwork\n| \n|-\n| \"Spanish Sahara\"\n| Best Track\n| \n|-\n| rowspan=\"2\" style=\"text-align:center;\"| 2013\n| Foals\n| Best Live Band\n| \n|-\n| \"Inhaler\"\n| Best Track\n| \n|-\n| 2014\n| Foals\n| Best British Band\n| \n|-\n| rowspan=\"3\" style=\"text-align:center;\"| 2016\n| What Went Down\n| Best Album\n| \n|-\n| Foals\n| Best British Band\n| \n|-\n| \"What Went Down\"\n| Best Track\n| \n|-\n| rowspan=\"3\" style=\"text-align:center;\"| 2020\n| rowspan=\"2\"| Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost - Part 1\n| Best Album\n| style=\"text-align:center;\" \n|-\n| Best Album in the World\n| \n|-\n| Foals\n| Best Live Act\n| \n|}\n\nQ Awards\n\n|-\n|rowspan=\"3\"| 2013\n| Holy Fire\n| Best Album\n| \n|-\n|rowspan=\"2\"| Foals\n| Best Act in the World Today\n| \n|-\n| Best Live Act\n| \n|-\n|rowspan=\"3\"| 2015\n| Foals\n| Best Act in the World Today\n|\n|-\n|rowspan=\"2\"| \"What Went Down\"\n| Best Track\n| \n|-\n| Best Video\n| \n|-\n| 2019\n| Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 1\n| Best Album\n| \n|}\n\nBrit Awards\n\n|-\n| 2008\n| Foals\n| Critics' Choice Award\n| \n|-\n| 2016\n| Foals\n| British Group\n| \n|-\n| 2020\n| Foals\n| Best Group\n| \n|}\n\niHeartRadio Music Awards\n\n|-\n| 2017\n| Foals\n| Best New Rock/Alternative Rock Artist\n| \n|}\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n \nFoals on Music Feeds TV\n\nEnglish indie rock groups\nAlternative dance musical groups\nBrit Award winners\nMusic in Oxford\nDance-punk musical groups\nNME Awards winners\nMusical groups established in 2005\nMath rock groups\nBritish musical trios\nMusical groups from Oxford",
"Total Life Forever is the second studio album by British indie rock band Foals, released on 10 May 2010 through Transgressive Records. Prior to the album's release, the band described it as sounding \"like the dream of an eagle dying\". It was produced by Luke Smith, and was recorded at Svenska Grammofon Studion in Gothenburg. Upon its release, the album charted in numerous countries worldwide, including number eight in the UK Albums Chart.\n\nPromotion and release\n In January 2009, the band released three semi-instrumental segments of tracks through the band's MySpace profile, giving an insight into the band's recording process. A short three date tour of the United Kingdom took place in April 2009.\n\nDuring July 2009, the band played an intimate show for Rockfeedback, as a warm up for future festival shows and a chance to debut songs from their second album. On 2 July, the band supported Blur during their reunion show in Hyde Park, London, playing an untitled new song which frontman Yannis Philippakis stated was unfinished. Later the same month, the band appeared at the 2009 T in the Park festival, performing new songs \"Total Life Forever\" and \"Dirty Waves\". Both songs had been previously aired during the band's appearance at The Breeders-curated All Tomorrow's Parties festival in May 2009. In September 2009, the band performed at London's Heaven as part of Transgressive Records' fifth anniversary, performing new songs \"Spanish Sahara\", \"Death Surf\" and one other untitled track.\n\nThe album's title was revealed on 24 February 2010. Zane Lowe premiered the promotional track \"Spanish Sahara\" on BBC Radio 1, naming the track his \"Hottest Record in the World\" for 1 March 2010. From 8pm the same day, a remix of the track was made available to download from Foals' official website. The accompanying video was added to Foals' YouTube page on 2 March 2010. A limited number vinyl of \"Spanish Sahara\" was released on 17 April 2010, to mark the 2010 Record Store Day. In support of the album, the band announced a fourteen date tour of Europe throughout April–May 2010, including dates in Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin and the United Kingdom. These were the band's first live performances of the year.\n\nFollowing \"Spanish Sahara\"'s limited release, the album's first official single was announced as \"This Orient\", released on 3 May 2010. The track reached number 97 on the UK Singles Chart. Second single \"Miami\" was then released on 4 July 2010. It reached No. 127 on the same chart. Third single \"Blue Blood\" was released on 8 November 2010.\n\nReception\n\nTotal Life Forever was very well received; many commented how the band's music has matured from their debut album. Review aggregator Metacritic gave the album a normalised rating of 78 out of 100, indicating \"generally favourable reviews\".\n\nQ magazine's Rupert Howe was more reserved in his praise. Calling it \"the schizophrenic second album\", Howe opined that \"while this album carries more instrumental and emotional heft than its predecessor, something remains off-balance\".\n\nBesides being shortlisted for the 2010 Mercury Prize, Total Life Forever brought the band several nominations for the 2011 NME awards, including best album, best track (\"Spanish Sahara\") and best album artwork.\n\nAccolades\n\nTrack listing\n\nPersonnel\nFoals\nYannis Philippakis – vocals, guitar, drums\nJack Bevan – drums\nJimmy Smith – guitar\nWalter Gervers – bass, backing vocals\nEdwin Congreave – keyboard, backing vocals\n\nAdditional musicians\nCaroline Wickberg – additional vocals on \"Black Gold\" and \"This Orient\"\n\nTechnical personnel\nFoals – art direction\nBig Active – artwork\nFoals – artwork\nTinhead – artwork\nFerg Peterkin – engineering, programming\nStephen Marcussen – mastering\nSteve Gullick – photography\nDave Ma – photography\nLuke Smith – producer\nMike Crossey – producer, recording assistant on \"Blue Blood\"\nDaniel Rejmer – engineering on \"Spanish Sahara\"\nCatherine Marks – engineering, mixing on \"Spanish Sahara\"\nAlan Moulder – mixing on \"Spanish Sahara\"\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nCertifications\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Total Life Forever Official Website\n\n2010 albums\nFoals albums\nSub Pop albums\nTransgressive Records albums\nMusic in Oxford"
] |
[
"Foals (band)",
"Total Life Forever: 2009-2010",
"What personnel were there on the Total Life Forever album?",
"produced by Luke Smith,",
"Did any new musicians join the band for the album Total Life Forever?",
"Luke Smith, formerly of Clor. The album's title is named after an element of Ray Kurzweil's theory of singularity.",
"Did Foals go on tour to support the album?",
"Jimmy Smith said how the band members live together on and off the road - heading to Australia to record demos for their next album together."
] |
C_d176d19f876d4d3099d259a59f85849e_1
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Did the album Total Life Forever win any awards?
| 4 |
Did the album Total Life Forever win any awards?
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Foals (band)
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In August 2009, Foals started recording their second album at Svenska Grammofon Studion in Gothenburg, Sweden. The album, Total Life Forever, has been described by the band members as sounding like "tropical prog" and "like the dream of an eagle dying". The band have described the album as being "a lot less funk" than they had originally planned. The album was produced by Luke Smith, formerly of Clor. The album's title is named after an element of Ray Kurzweil's theory of singularity. The band's frontman, Yannis Philippakis, has professed a longtime interest in futurology, with it informing numerous songs on Total Life Forever. On 1 March 2010, the promotional single "Spanish Sahara" was first played on Zane Lowe's show Radio 1. The Foals' website was updated that night with the video for the track, directed by longtime collaborator Dave Ma, and on 6 March, the Total Life Forever site was launched. There puzzles revealed images, lyrics and sound clips of songs from the album. The last clip appeared on 12 March, with a password entry for Foals' new website. The site was opened on 13 March and presented the art concept and media including samples of songs, photos and videos. Lead single "This Orient" was released on 3 May 2010. The album was finally released on 10 May 2010. "Spanish Sahara" was featured in trailers for season seven of Entourage, season four of Skins and Outcasts. It was also used in the soundtrack of the second season of the E4 drama Misfits. It was released as a full physical single in September 2010, featuring an edited remix starring the strings of London Contemporary Orchestra. In 2015, it was used by French studio Dontnod Entertainment in the game Life Is Strange as the music for one of its final endings. The album was nominated for the 2010 Mercury Prize. In an interview with online magazine Coup de Main, Jimmy Smith said how the band members live together on and off the road - heading to Australia to record demos for their next album together. "It's just like touring with your family, it's nice". CANNOTANSWER
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The album was nominated for the 2010 Mercury Prize.
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Foals are a British rock band formed in Oxford. The band's current line-up consists of Greek-born lead vocalist and guitarist Yannis Philippakis, drummer and percussionist Jack Bevan and rhythm guitarist Jimmy Smith. They are currently signed to Warner Records, and have released six studio albums to date: Antidotes (2008), Total Life Forever (2010), Holy Fire (2013), What Went Down (2015), and Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 1 & 2 (2019). They have also released one video album, six extended plays and twenty-seven singles.
The band have toured internationally for over a decade, and have featured at many festivals including Glastonbury, Coachella, and Roskilde. They have won a number of awards, including best live act at the 2013 Q Awards while producers Alan Moulder and Flood were awarded 'UK Producer of the Year' for their work on the album Holy Fire.
The band's most recent studio albums, Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 1 was released in March 2019 while their sixth and immediate follow-up, Part 2, was released on 18 October 2019 and became the band's first album to top the UK Album Chart.
History
Formation: 2005–2006
The lead singer of the band Youthmovies, Andrew Mears, originally formed the band Foals. He was present on the band's debut 7" single, "Try This on Your Piano/Look at My Furrows of Worry", but left shortly afterwards to concentrate on Youthmovies's debut album, Good Nature.
Jack Bevan, Lina Simon and Yannis Philippakis were originally in cult math rock band The Edmund Fitzgerald. The group disbanded, claiming that things had become "too serious" and that they wanted to have more "fun making their music".
Walter Gervers and Jimmy Smith were part of a small Oxford band called Face Meets Grill. They met at and formed the band from members of Abingdon School, the same school that Radiohead attended. They played gigs in and around Oxford, and recorded an EP in Hull. After playing Truck Festival in 2004 they separated to follow different paths and careers.
Guitarist Jimmy Smith is the only one of the band members to have completed his degree, at Hull University, each of the other band members quit their respective universities when the band signed to Transgressive Records.
Antidotes: 2007–2008
In early 2007, the band released the limited edition 7" singles "Hummer" and "Mathletics", both produced by Gareth Parton. "Hummer" later featured on the Channel Four teen drama Skins. Philippakis described this period as 'the music was almost a premeditated mix of blending techno and minimalism [and] we'd set ourselves these rules, like 'only staccato rhythms', and 'guitars must be played really high'.
In the summer of 2007, Foals began working on their debut album in New York. It was produced by Dave Sitek of TV on the Radio. However, the band decided to mix the album themselves, stating that Sitek made the first master copy of the album sound like "it was recorded in the Grand Canyon". Philippakis has stated a number of times that Foals and Dave Sitek are on good terms, even though the mix by Sitek was rejected by the band. Foals released their debut album, titled Antidotes, on 24 March 2008 in the UK and on 8 April 2008 in the US. The album was a commercial success in the UK, debuting at number 3 on the UK Albums Charts. The album was a minor success in other countries, charting in Japan, France and the Netherlands. Non-UK versions of the album include the early Parton-produced singles.
Total Life Forever: 2009–2010
In August 2009, Foals started recording their second album at Svenska Grammofon Studion in Gothenburg, Sweden. The album, Total Life Forever, has been described by the band members as sounding like "tropical prog" and "like the dream of an eagle dying". The band have described the album as being "a lot less funk" than they had originally planned. The album was produced by Luke Smith, formerly of Clor. The album's title is named after an element of Ray Kurzweil's theory of singularity. The band's frontman, Yannis Philippakis, has professed a longtime interest in futurology, with it informing numerous songs on Total Life Forever.
On 1 March 2010, the promotional single "Spanish Sahara" was first played on Zane Lowe's show Radio 1. The Foals' website was updated that night with the video for the track, directed by longtime collaborator Dave Ma, and on 6 March, the Total Life Forever site was launched. There puzzles revealed images, lyrics and sound clips of songs from the album. The last clip appeared on 12 March, with a password entry for Foals' new website. The site was opened on 13 March and presented the art concept and media including samples of songs, photos and videos. Lead single "This Orient" was released on 3 May 2010. The album was finally released on 10 May 2010.
"Spanish Sahara" was featured in trailers for season seven of Entourage, season four of Skins and Outcasts. It was also used in the soundtrack of the second season of the E4 drama Misfits. It was released as a full physical single in September 2010, featuring an edited remix starring the strings of London Contemporary Orchestra. In 2015, it was used by French studio Dontnod Entertainment in the game Life is Strange as the music for one of its endings.
The album was nominated for the 2010 Mercury Prize. In an interview with online magazine Coup de Main, Jimmy Smith said how the band members live together on and off the road – heading to Australia to record demos for their next album together. "It's just like touring with your family, it's nice."
Holy Fire: 2012–2013
Holy Fire was released in both the UK and the US on 11 February 2013. The album's lead single, "Inhaler", received its first radio play on 5 November 2012. They played the song "My Number" for the first time on Later... with Jools Holland.
Holy Fire was produced by Flood and Alan Moulder, who have worked with many artists, including Nine Inch Nails, The Smashing Pumpkins, and My Bloody Valentine. The album was recorded at Assault & Battery studios in London.
Yannis Philippakis stated that the recording process had some unconventional moments: "At one point we even made these poor studio interns collect bones. We were inspired by voodoo, these Haitian rhythms. We collected some ourselves, from butchers in Willesden High Road. Mainly cows, I think often they had gristle and cartilage on them, mainly cow and occasionally sheep. We had to order these big pots because one of the shoulder blades was too big! We boiled the flesh away so we could use them as percussion! We wanted to get primitive!"
According to The Guardian: "Their producers, Flood and Alan Moulder, even tricked them by recording their rehearsal in order to capture a more uninhibited sound."
In late November to mid-December, Foals toured the UK for an album preview. The tour was supported by Petite Noir (a close friend of Philippakis's).
In summer 2013, they attended a number of festivals and headlined Latitude Festival in Suffolk in July. The band have recently played a World and UK tour, which ended with two sell out shows at Alexandra Palace in February. The two shows were in stark contrast compared to playing the same venue 7 years earlier to an almost empty room while supporting Bloc Party, a sentiment which lead singer Philippakis did not fail to mention during the live shows.
Holy Fire was nominated for the Mercury Prize in 2013. Q awarded Foals with the Best Live Act award the same year while "Inhaler" received the Best Track award from NME. In a reader-nominated "Best Album of 2013" poll, Holy Fire topped the list; as did single "My Number" in a "Best Song of 2013" poll, beating NME favorites Arctic Monkeys, amongst other acclaimed bands.
What Went Down: 2014–2017
On 2 April 2014, in an interview with NME, Yannis Philippakis said "Over the next month I think we're going to start writing tentatively. We've already got some bits and bobs around some riffs and some vocal melodies. I think until May we're gonna go back to Oxford and write in the 'stinkbox' and see what happens." On 9 June 2015, Foals unveiled a short video teasing an upcoming album in 2015.
Foals shared album track "Mountain at My Gates" on 20 June, premiering the song via BBC Radio 1 as Annie Mac's 'Hottest Record'. On 29 July, the band followed up the track with an accompanying 3D video, filmed on a GoPro HERO. On 6 August, Zane Lowe premiered new song 'A Knife in the Ocean' on his Beats 1 radio show on Apple Music. Foals made public a lyric video for 'A Knife In The Ocean' the same day. The album What Went Down was released on 28 August 2015.
In late 2015, 'Mountain At My Gates' was featured on the official soundtrack of EA Sports FIFA 16.
In 2016, Foals toured the UK and Europe in February/March, followed by a US tour, playing a number of songs from What Went Down as well as previous releases, with support from Peace (DJ set) and Everything Everything (UK).
Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost, Gervers's departure: 2017–2019
In autumn 2017, Foals announced on social media that they were going to start recording materials for a new upcoming album.
On 5 January 2018, they announced that bassist Walter Gervers was departing the band amicably, whilst recording of the fifth album continued.
On 8 January 2019, the band teased their fifth and sixth studio albums, Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 1 and Part 2, respectively. Part 1 was released on 8 March 2019 and Part 2 was released on 18 October 2019.
Following Gervers's departure, it was revealed on 19 February 2019 that Jeremy Pritchard, of British band Everything Everything would join as touring bassist for the band's upcoming live shows of 2019.
Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 1 was preceded by the release via streaming services of Exits, On the Luna, Sunday and In Degrees (a day before the record's release). The album was the BBC 6 Music Album of the Day on its release date.
In March 2019, the band embarked on the first shows of their "Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost World Tour" which currently has dates running throughout 2019 and 2020.
After playing several festivals across the summer of 2019 (including an unannounced set at Glastonbury and a headline performance at Truck Festival), the band released a second set of singles, "Black Bull", "The Runner" and "Into the Surf" in the lead up to Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 2.
Everything not saved will be lost - Part 2 was released on 18 October 2019 through Warner and Transgressive Records. The album cover was shot by famed National Geographic photographer, Maggie Steber. The album became the band's first to reach No. 1 on the UK Album Chart.
On 7 October 2019 "Rip up the Road", a documentary detailing the recording sessions of "Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost" and subsequent 2019 world tour, was announced, with a premiere scheduled for 11 and 15 November 2019 at London's Doc’n Roll Film Festival and thereafter exclusively through Amazon Prime respectively.
On 11 November 2019 "Rip Up The Road" directed by Toby L premiered at the Rio Cinema in Dalston to an audience consisting of the band, friends and family, fans, documentary contributors/crew. The documentary was filmed over a 12-month period as the band embarked upon a world tour. The film hones in on two career highlight shows at London's Alexandra Palace and provides a candid, entertaining and gripping perspective of life on the road and being in a band. It also features their infamous Glastonbury Festival secret set on The Park Stage in 2019.
Life Is Yours, COVID-19, and Congreave's departure: 2020–present
Due to the COVID-19 crisis and subsequent global lockdowns, the band was forced to cancel and reschedule their entire 2020 UK/World tour, in support of Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 2 till Spring 2021.
However, due to the continuing pandemic and ongoing safety restrictions throughout into 2021, the band once again had to reschedule touring until 2022, save for a string of UK summer festival shows during August 2021, which would be the group's first live performances since early 2020.
On 22 September 2021, Edwin Congreave announced that he had left the band to pursue a postgraduate degree in economics. Upon the news of Edwin's departure, the band had also revealed that they had already began working on their next album, this time as a three piece band.
On 11 October 2021, the band announced scoring the opening theme of the Brian Cox-hosted BBC Two science documentary television series, "Universe" with an updated version of "Neptune", re-worked in collaboration with Hans Zimmer's Bleeding Fingers composing collective led by the famed film composer.
On 27 October 2021, the band teased a promotional clip of an iPhone snooze alarm, cryptically revealing the release date of their yet to be announced seventh studio album's first single, "Wake me up" to be released 4 November, 2021. The following day, the single was confirmed by the group with a teaser clip of the audio and music streaming platforms pre-save links respectively.
"Wake Me Up" was premiered and released on 4 November 2021 via BBC Radio 1's Clara Amfo's 'Hottest Record'.
On 10 February 2022, Foals released "2am" and announced the name of their upcoming seventh album as Life Is Yours.
Live
Foals are considered one of the top UK live acts, having won the 2013 Q Award for Best Live Act and twice being nominated for the NME Award for Best Live Act (2011 and 2013).
The band have released several live EPs (Live At Liars Club, iTunes Live: London Festival '08 and iTunes Festival: London 2010), in addition to the full length concert film Live At The Royal Albert Hall, which was directed by Dave Ma.
Frontman Yannis Philippakis is known for jumping off balconies and crowd surfing during the extended interlude of "Two Steps Twice." In October 2013, Philippakis got into a confrontation with a security guard at the Auckland Town Hall in New Zealand, as the security guard attempted to prevent him jumping into the crowd. At the end of the show, Philippakis told the crowd: "I want to say a massive thank you to you and fuck that security-guy."
In April 2020 the band canceled their remaining tour-dates due to the COVID-19 crisis, pushing dates back to 2021.
Musical style and influence
Foals is classified as an indie rock, alternative rock, dance-punk, math rock, art rock, post-rock, post-punk, art punk and indie pop band.
The band's musical influences are varied, with the band members citing minimal techno, Arthur Russell, Krautrock bands such as Harmonia, and Talking Heads, as their main sources of inspiration.
Members
Current members
Yannis Philippakis – lead guitar (2005–present), lead vocals (2006–present), percussion (2008–2013), bass guitar (2018–present)
Jack Bevan – drums, percussion (2005–present)
Jimmy Smith – rhythm guitar, keyboards, synthesizer, backing vocals (2005–present)
Current touring musicians
Kit Monteith – percussion, sampler, backing vocals (2016–present)
Jack Freeman – bass, synthesizer, backing vocals (2020–present)
Former members
Andrew Mears – lead vocals, rhythm guitar (2005–2006)
Walter Gervers – bass, percussion, vocals (2005–2018)
Edwin Congreave – keyboards, synthesizer, backing vocals (2005–2021), bass (2018–2021)
Former touring-musicians
Jeremy Pritchard – bass, synthesizer, backing vocals (2019)
Vincent Taeger – percussion, timbales (2019)
Timeline
Discography
Studio albums
Antidotes (2008)
Total Life Forever (2010)
Holy Fire (2013)
What Went Down (2015)
Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 1 (2019)
Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 2 (2019)
Life Is Yours (2022)
Recognition
Total Life Forever was nominated for the Mercury Prize in July 2010, losing to The xx's xx on 7 September that year. The album was tested again the following year for Best Album in addition to a nomination for Best Cover Artwork at the NME Awards. The single "Spanish Sahara" was nominated by the same group for Best Track on top of being named all-around Best Band and Best Live Act. In July, the MOJO honour awards also nominated Foals alongside Canadian band Arcade Fire for the calibre of their live performances.
Mercury Prize
|-
| 2010
| Total Life Forever
| Best Album
|
|-
| 2013
| Holy Fire
| Best Album
|
|-
| 2019
| Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost - Part 1
| Best Album
|
|}
Ivor Novello Awards
|-
| 2010
| "Spanish Sahara"
| Best Song Musically and Lyrically
|
|}
NME Awards
|-
| rowspan="5" style="text-align:center;"| 2011
|rowspan="2"| Foals
| Best British Band
|
|-
| Best Live Act
|
|-
|rowspan="2"| Total Life Forever
| Best British Album
|
|-
| Best Artwork
|
|-
| "Spanish Sahara"
| Best Track
|
|-
| rowspan="2" style="text-align:center;"| 2013
| Foals
| Best Live Band
|
|-
| "Inhaler"
| Best Track
|
|-
| 2014
| Foals
| Best British Band
|
|-
| rowspan="3" style="text-align:center;"| 2016
| What Went Down
| Best Album
|
|-
| Foals
| Best British Band
|
|-
| "What Went Down"
| Best Track
|
|-
| rowspan="3" style="text-align:center;"| 2020
| rowspan="2"| Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost - Part 1
| Best Album
| style="text-align:center;"
|-
| Best Album in the World
|
|-
| Foals
| Best Live Act
|
|}
Q Awards
|-
|rowspan="3"| 2013
| Holy Fire
| Best Album
|
|-
|rowspan="2"| Foals
| Best Act in the World Today
|
|-
| Best Live Act
|
|-
|rowspan="3"| 2015
| Foals
| Best Act in the World Today
|
|-
|rowspan="2"| "What Went Down"
| Best Track
|
|-
| Best Video
|
|-
| 2019
| Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 1
| Best Album
|
|}
Brit Awards
|-
| 2008
| Foals
| Critics' Choice Award
|
|-
| 2016
| Foals
| British Group
|
|-
| 2020
| Foals
| Best Group
|
|}
iHeartRadio Music Awards
|-
| 2017
| Foals
| Best New Rock/Alternative Rock Artist
|
|}
References
External links
Foals on Music Feeds TV
English indie rock groups
Alternative dance musical groups
Brit Award winners
Music in Oxford
Dance-punk musical groups
NME Awards winners
Musical groups established in 2005
Math rock groups
British musical trios
Musical groups from Oxford
| true |
[
"Total Strife Forever is the debut album by the electronic musician East India Youth. It was released on January 13, 2014 by Stolen Recordings. The album was nominated for the 2014 Mercury Prize.\n\nThe cover of Total Strife Forever was designed by Kohhei Matsuda (of Bo Ningen) and features a portrait of William Doyle by artist Tida Bradshaw.\n\nThe album title is a pun on the Foals album Total Life Forever.\n\nTrack listing\n\nChart positions\n\nReferences \n\nEast India Youth albums\n2014 debut albums\nStolen Recordings albums",
"Husky are an indie folk band from Melbourne, Australia. They have opened for Neil Young, Devendra Banhart, Gotye, The Shins.\n\nHistory\n\n2007-2013: Quiet Little Rage & Forever So\nIn 2007, the band recorded and mixed an album at Sing Sing Recording Studios in Melbourne, with all songs written and produced by Husky Gawenda. The album was released in 2008 under the title Quiet Little Rage. In 2011 and prior to release of Forever So Gawenda said \"Unfortunately that record didn't get a proper release. We didn't have a label, didn't have any money, didn't know what we were doing. We did everything ourselves, even publicity. It never really got heard [so] to call that our first album would be inaccurate; it's more like a demo, even though we put a lot of work into it.\"\n\nIn March 2011, Husky uploaded \"History's Door\" onto Triple J Unearthed, which gained attain. Gideon Preiss said \"Things started to escalate after Unearthed; we had been doing everything ourselves for a while, but we couldn't be across everything any more; there was too much happening. That's a great problem to have\" and the band signed manager, Bonnie Dalton, who looks after record label Liberation.\n\nThe band's official debut singles were \"Dark Sea\" and \"History's Door\" in August 2011. In October 2011 Husky released Forever So, which was recorded in Gawenda's backyard. The album debuted at number 33 on the ARIA Charts. \n\nBeat Magazine said \"Husky's official debut album Forever So is intimate, affecting and richly textured. Drummer Luke Collins and bassist Evan Tweedie provide deft touches to these carefully-crafted songs, while Californian producer Noah Georgeson captures Husky's aesthetic superbly by working closely with Gawenda and Preiss in the mixing of the album.\"\n\nAt the J Awards of 2011, Husky were nominated for Unearthed Artist of the Year at the J Awards of 2011. \n\nIn February 2012 Husky became the first Australian band to be signed to Sub Pop records, who released Forever So internationally. Husky Gawenda appeared on RocKwiz on 14 July 2012.\n\nAt the ARIA Music Awards of 2012, Forever So was nominated for an ARIA Award.\n\nOn 25 March 2013, Husky Gawenda won the bi-annual Professional Development Award at the APRA Awards (Australia).\n\n2014-2019: Ruckers Hill & Punchbuzz\nIn 2014, Husky commenced promotion for their second album Ruckers Hill. It was released in October 2014 and peaked at number 29 on the ARIA Charts. The album spawned three singles and in December 2014 Husky Gawenda won first prize for the Vanda and Young International Song Writing Competition for song \"Saint Joan\".\n\nLate 2016, Husky announced the release of an upcoming third record for 2017. The first single \"Late Night Store\" was released in November 2016 and a video was premiered at the same period on HighClouds. In June 2017 the band released their third album Punchbuzz. The album peaked at number 32 on the ARIA Charts. The album saw them branch out from their folky-acoustic roots to a more synthy sound, inspired by a year of living in Berlin.\n\nThis was followed in October with the EP Bedroom Recordings..\n\n2020: Stardust Blues\nIn August 2020, Husky released their fourth studio album Stardust Blues. The album was written partly in the Westbury Hotel, an old building in the Melbourne suburb of Balaclava. A sharehouse at the time, members of the band had lived there for years before it was demolished in late 2019.\n\nDiscography\n\nStudio albums\n\nDemos\n\nExtended plays\n\nSingles\n\nAs lead artist\n\nAs featured artist\n\nAwards and nominations\n\nAIR Awards\nThe Australian Independent Record Awards (commonly known informally as AIR Awards) is an annual awards night to recognise, promote and celebrate the success of Australia's Independent Music sector.\n\n|-\n| AIR Awards of 2012\n|themselves\n| Breakthrough Independent Artist\n| \n|-\n\nAPRA Awards\nThe APRA Awards are held in Australia and New Zealand by the Australasian Performing Right Association to recognise songwriting skills, sales and airplay performance by its members annually. \n\n|-\n| 2013\n| themselves\n| Professional Development Awards (Pop)\n| \n|-\n\nARIA Music Awards\nThe ARIA Music Awards is an annual awards ceremony that recognises excellence, innovation, and achievement across all genres of Australian music. \n\n|-\n| 2012\n| Forever So\n| Best Adult Contemporary Album\n| \n|-\n\nJ Award\nThe J Awards are an annual series of Australian music awards that were established by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's youth-focused radio station Triple J. They commenced in 2005.\n\n|-\n| J Awards of 2011\n| themselves\n| Unearthed Artist of the Year\n|\n\nVanda & Young Global Songwriting Competition\nThe Vanda & Young Global Songwriting Competition is an annual competition that \"acknowledges great songwriting whilst supporting and raising money for Nordoff-Robbins\" and is coordinated by Albert Music and APRA AMCOS. It commenced in 2009.\n\n|-\n| 2014\n| \"Saint Joan\"\n| Vanda & Young Global Songwriting Competition\n| style=\"background:gold;\"| 1st\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nAustralian folk music groups\nMusical groups from Melbourne\nMusical groups established in 2007\n2007 establishments in Australia"
] |
[
"Foals (band)",
"Total Life Forever: 2009-2010",
"What personnel were there on the Total Life Forever album?",
"produced by Luke Smith,",
"Did any new musicians join the band for the album Total Life Forever?",
"Luke Smith, formerly of Clor. The album's title is named after an element of Ray Kurzweil's theory of singularity.",
"Did Foals go on tour to support the album?",
"Jimmy Smith said how the band members live together on and off the road - heading to Australia to record demos for their next album together.",
"Did the album Total Life Forever win any awards?",
"The album was nominated for the 2010 Mercury Prize."
] |
C_d176d19f876d4d3099d259a59f85849e_1
|
Were any songs from Total Life Forever used on a soundtrack?
| 5 |
Were any songs from Total Life Forever used on a soundtrack?
|
Foals (band)
|
In August 2009, Foals started recording their second album at Svenska Grammofon Studion in Gothenburg, Sweden. The album, Total Life Forever, has been described by the band members as sounding like "tropical prog" and "like the dream of an eagle dying". The band have described the album as being "a lot less funk" than they had originally planned. The album was produced by Luke Smith, formerly of Clor. The album's title is named after an element of Ray Kurzweil's theory of singularity. The band's frontman, Yannis Philippakis, has professed a longtime interest in futurology, with it informing numerous songs on Total Life Forever. On 1 March 2010, the promotional single "Spanish Sahara" was first played on Zane Lowe's show Radio 1. The Foals' website was updated that night with the video for the track, directed by longtime collaborator Dave Ma, and on 6 March, the Total Life Forever site was launched. There puzzles revealed images, lyrics and sound clips of songs from the album. The last clip appeared on 12 March, with a password entry for Foals' new website. The site was opened on 13 March and presented the art concept and media including samples of songs, photos and videos. Lead single "This Orient" was released on 3 May 2010. The album was finally released on 10 May 2010. "Spanish Sahara" was featured in trailers for season seven of Entourage, season four of Skins and Outcasts. It was also used in the soundtrack of the second season of the E4 drama Misfits. It was released as a full physical single in September 2010, featuring an edited remix starring the strings of London Contemporary Orchestra. In 2015, it was used by French studio Dontnod Entertainment in the game Life Is Strange as the music for one of its final endings. The album was nominated for the 2010 Mercury Prize. In an interview with online magazine Coup de Main, Jimmy Smith said how the band members live together on and off the road - heading to Australia to record demos for their next album together. "It's just like touring with your family, it's nice". CANNOTANSWER
|
"Spanish Sahara" was featured in trailers for season seven of Entourage, season four of Skins and Outcasts.
|
Foals are a British rock band formed in Oxford. The band's current line-up consists of Greek-born lead vocalist and guitarist Yannis Philippakis, drummer and percussionist Jack Bevan and rhythm guitarist Jimmy Smith. They are currently signed to Warner Records, and have released six studio albums to date: Antidotes (2008), Total Life Forever (2010), Holy Fire (2013), What Went Down (2015), and Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 1 & 2 (2019). They have also released one video album, six extended plays and twenty-seven singles.
The band have toured internationally for over a decade, and have featured at many festivals including Glastonbury, Coachella, and Roskilde. They have won a number of awards, including best live act at the 2013 Q Awards while producers Alan Moulder and Flood were awarded 'UK Producer of the Year' for their work on the album Holy Fire.
The band's most recent studio albums, Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 1 was released in March 2019 while their sixth and immediate follow-up, Part 2, was released on 18 October 2019 and became the band's first album to top the UK Album Chart.
History
Formation: 2005–2006
The lead singer of the band Youthmovies, Andrew Mears, originally formed the band Foals. He was present on the band's debut 7" single, "Try This on Your Piano/Look at My Furrows of Worry", but left shortly afterwards to concentrate on Youthmovies's debut album, Good Nature.
Jack Bevan, Lina Simon and Yannis Philippakis were originally in cult math rock band The Edmund Fitzgerald. The group disbanded, claiming that things had become "too serious" and that they wanted to have more "fun making their music".
Walter Gervers and Jimmy Smith were part of a small Oxford band called Face Meets Grill. They met at and formed the band from members of Abingdon School, the same school that Radiohead attended. They played gigs in and around Oxford, and recorded an EP in Hull. After playing Truck Festival in 2004 they separated to follow different paths and careers.
Guitarist Jimmy Smith is the only one of the band members to have completed his degree, at Hull University, each of the other band members quit their respective universities when the band signed to Transgressive Records.
Antidotes: 2007–2008
In early 2007, the band released the limited edition 7" singles "Hummer" and "Mathletics", both produced by Gareth Parton. "Hummer" later featured on the Channel Four teen drama Skins. Philippakis described this period as 'the music was almost a premeditated mix of blending techno and minimalism [and] we'd set ourselves these rules, like 'only staccato rhythms', and 'guitars must be played really high'.
In the summer of 2007, Foals began working on their debut album in New York. It was produced by Dave Sitek of TV on the Radio. However, the band decided to mix the album themselves, stating that Sitek made the first master copy of the album sound like "it was recorded in the Grand Canyon". Philippakis has stated a number of times that Foals and Dave Sitek are on good terms, even though the mix by Sitek was rejected by the band. Foals released their debut album, titled Antidotes, on 24 March 2008 in the UK and on 8 April 2008 in the US. The album was a commercial success in the UK, debuting at number 3 on the UK Albums Charts. The album was a minor success in other countries, charting in Japan, France and the Netherlands. Non-UK versions of the album include the early Parton-produced singles.
Total Life Forever: 2009–2010
In August 2009, Foals started recording their second album at Svenska Grammofon Studion in Gothenburg, Sweden. The album, Total Life Forever, has been described by the band members as sounding like "tropical prog" and "like the dream of an eagle dying". The band have described the album as being "a lot less funk" than they had originally planned. The album was produced by Luke Smith, formerly of Clor. The album's title is named after an element of Ray Kurzweil's theory of singularity. The band's frontman, Yannis Philippakis, has professed a longtime interest in futurology, with it informing numerous songs on Total Life Forever.
On 1 March 2010, the promotional single "Spanish Sahara" was first played on Zane Lowe's show Radio 1. The Foals' website was updated that night with the video for the track, directed by longtime collaborator Dave Ma, and on 6 March, the Total Life Forever site was launched. There puzzles revealed images, lyrics and sound clips of songs from the album. The last clip appeared on 12 March, with a password entry for Foals' new website. The site was opened on 13 March and presented the art concept and media including samples of songs, photos and videos. Lead single "This Orient" was released on 3 May 2010. The album was finally released on 10 May 2010.
"Spanish Sahara" was featured in trailers for season seven of Entourage, season four of Skins and Outcasts. It was also used in the soundtrack of the second season of the E4 drama Misfits. It was released as a full physical single in September 2010, featuring an edited remix starring the strings of London Contemporary Orchestra. In 2015, it was used by French studio Dontnod Entertainment in the game Life is Strange as the music for one of its endings.
The album was nominated for the 2010 Mercury Prize. In an interview with online magazine Coup de Main, Jimmy Smith said how the band members live together on and off the road – heading to Australia to record demos for their next album together. "It's just like touring with your family, it's nice."
Holy Fire: 2012–2013
Holy Fire was released in both the UK and the US on 11 February 2013. The album's lead single, "Inhaler", received its first radio play on 5 November 2012. They played the song "My Number" for the first time on Later... with Jools Holland.
Holy Fire was produced by Flood and Alan Moulder, who have worked with many artists, including Nine Inch Nails, The Smashing Pumpkins, and My Bloody Valentine. The album was recorded at Assault & Battery studios in London.
Yannis Philippakis stated that the recording process had some unconventional moments: "At one point we even made these poor studio interns collect bones. We were inspired by voodoo, these Haitian rhythms. We collected some ourselves, from butchers in Willesden High Road. Mainly cows, I think often they had gristle and cartilage on them, mainly cow and occasionally sheep. We had to order these big pots because one of the shoulder blades was too big! We boiled the flesh away so we could use them as percussion! We wanted to get primitive!"
According to The Guardian: "Their producers, Flood and Alan Moulder, even tricked them by recording their rehearsal in order to capture a more uninhibited sound."
In late November to mid-December, Foals toured the UK for an album preview. The tour was supported by Petite Noir (a close friend of Philippakis's).
In summer 2013, they attended a number of festivals and headlined Latitude Festival in Suffolk in July. The band have recently played a World and UK tour, which ended with two sell out shows at Alexandra Palace in February. The two shows were in stark contrast compared to playing the same venue 7 years earlier to an almost empty room while supporting Bloc Party, a sentiment which lead singer Philippakis did not fail to mention during the live shows.
Holy Fire was nominated for the Mercury Prize in 2013. Q awarded Foals with the Best Live Act award the same year while "Inhaler" received the Best Track award from NME. In a reader-nominated "Best Album of 2013" poll, Holy Fire topped the list; as did single "My Number" in a "Best Song of 2013" poll, beating NME favorites Arctic Monkeys, amongst other acclaimed bands.
What Went Down: 2014–2017
On 2 April 2014, in an interview with NME, Yannis Philippakis said "Over the next month I think we're going to start writing tentatively. We've already got some bits and bobs around some riffs and some vocal melodies. I think until May we're gonna go back to Oxford and write in the 'stinkbox' and see what happens." On 9 June 2015, Foals unveiled a short video teasing an upcoming album in 2015.
Foals shared album track "Mountain at My Gates" on 20 June, premiering the song via BBC Radio 1 as Annie Mac's 'Hottest Record'. On 29 July, the band followed up the track with an accompanying 3D video, filmed on a GoPro HERO. On 6 August, Zane Lowe premiered new song 'A Knife in the Ocean' on his Beats 1 radio show on Apple Music. Foals made public a lyric video for 'A Knife In The Ocean' the same day. The album What Went Down was released on 28 August 2015.
In late 2015, 'Mountain At My Gates' was featured on the official soundtrack of EA Sports FIFA 16.
In 2016, Foals toured the UK and Europe in February/March, followed by a US tour, playing a number of songs from What Went Down as well as previous releases, with support from Peace (DJ set) and Everything Everything (UK).
Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost, Gervers's departure: 2017–2019
In autumn 2017, Foals announced on social media that they were going to start recording materials for a new upcoming album.
On 5 January 2018, they announced that bassist Walter Gervers was departing the band amicably, whilst recording of the fifth album continued.
On 8 January 2019, the band teased their fifth and sixth studio albums, Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 1 and Part 2, respectively. Part 1 was released on 8 March 2019 and Part 2 was released on 18 October 2019.
Following Gervers's departure, it was revealed on 19 February 2019 that Jeremy Pritchard, of British band Everything Everything would join as touring bassist for the band's upcoming live shows of 2019.
Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 1 was preceded by the release via streaming services of Exits, On the Luna, Sunday and In Degrees (a day before the record's release). The album was the BBC 6 Music Album of the Day on its release date.
In March 2019, the band embarked on the first shows of their "Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost World Tour" which currently has dates running throughout 2019 and 2020.
After playing several festivals across the summer of 2019 (including an unannounced set at Glastonbury and a headline performance at Truck Festival), the band released a second set of singles, "Black Bull", "The Runner" and "Into the Surf" in the lead up to Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 2.
Everything not saved will be lost - Part 2 was released on 18 October 2019 through Warner and Transgressive Records. The album cover was shot by famed National Geographic photographer, Maggie Steber. The album became the band's first to reach No. 1 on the UK Album Chart.
On 7 October 2019 "Rip up the Road", a documentary detailing the recording sessions of "Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost" and subsequent 2019 world tour, was announced, with a premiere scheduled for 11 and 15 November 2019 at London's Doc’n Roll Film Festival and thereafter exclusively through Amazon Prime respectively.
On 11 November 2019 "Rip Up The Road" directed by Toby L premiered at the Rio Cinema in Dalston to an audience consisting of the band, friends and family, fans, documentary contributors/crew. The documentary was filmed over a 12-month period as the band embarked upon a world tour. The film hones in on two career highlight shows at London's Alexandra Palace and provides a candid, entertaining and gripping perspective of life on the road and being in a band. It also features their infamous Glastonbury Festival secret set on The Park Stage in 2019.
Life Is Yours, COVID-19, and Congreave's departure: 2020–present
Due to the COVID-19 crisis and subsequent global lockdowns, the band was forced to cancel and reschedule their entire 2020 UK/World tour, in support of Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 2 till Spring 2021.
However, due to the continuing pandemic and ongoing safety restrictions throughout into 2021, the band once again had to reschedule touring until 2022, save for a string of UK summer festival shows during August 2021, which would be the group's first live performances since early 2020.
On 22 September 2021, Edwin Congreave announced that he had left the band to pursue a postgraduate degree in economics. Upon the news of Edwin's departure, the band had also revealed that they had already began working on their next album, this time as a three piece band.
On 11 October 2021, the band announced scoring the opening theme of the Brian Cox-hosted BBC Two science documentary television series, "Universe" with an updated version of "Neptune", re-worked in collaboration with Hans Zimmer's Bleeding Fingers composing collective led by the famed film composer.
On 27 October 2021, the band teased a promotional clip of an iPhone snooze alarm, cryptically revealing the release date of their yet to be announced seventh studio album's first single, "Wake me up" to be released 4 November, 2021. The following day, the single was confirmed by the group with a teaser clip of the audio and music streaming platforms pre-save links respectively.
"Wake Me Up" was premiered and released on 4 November 2021 via BBC Radio 1's Clara Amfo's 'Hottest Record'.
On 10 February 2022, Foals released "2am" and announced the name of their upcoming seventh album as Life Is Yours.
Live
Foals are considered one of the top UK live acts, having won the 2013 Q Award for Best Live Act and twice being nominated for the NME Award for Best Live Act (2011 and 2013).
The band have released several live EPs (Live At Liars Club, iTunes Live: London Festival '08 and iTunes Festival: London 2010), in addition to the full length concert film Live At The Royal Albert Hall, which was directed by Dave Ma.
Frontman Yannis Philippakis is known for jumping off balconies and crowd surfing during the extended interlude of "Two Steps Twice." In October 2013, Philippakis got into a confrontation with a security guard at the Auckland Town Hall in New Zealand, as the security guard attempted to prevent him jumping into the crowd. At the end of the show, Philippakis told the crowd: "I want to say a massive thank you to you and fuck that security-guy."
In April 2020 the band canceled their remaining tour-dates due to the COVID-19 crisis, pushing dates back to 2021.
Musical style and influence
Foals is classified as an indie rock, alternative rock, dance-punk, math rock, art rock, post-rock, post-punk, art punk and indie pop band.
The band's musical influences are varied, with the band members citing minimal techno, Arthur Russell, Krautrock bands such as Harmonia, and Talking Heads, as their main sources of inspiration.
Members
Current members
Yannis Philippakis – lead guitar (2005–present), lead vocals (2006–present), percussion (2008–2013), bass guitar (2018–present)
Jack Bevan – drums, percussion (2005–present)
Jimmy Smith – rhythm guitar, keyboards, synthesizer, backing vocals (2005–present)
Current touring musicians
Kit Monteith – percussion, sampler, backing vocals (2016–present)
Jack Freeman – bass, synthesizer, backing vocals (2020–present)
Former members
Andrew Mears – lead vocals, rhythm guitar (2005–2006)
Walter Gervers – bass, percussion, vocals (2005–2018)
Edwin Congreave – keyboards, synthesizer, backing vocals (2005–2021), bass (2018–2021)
Former touring-musicians
Jeremy Pritchard – bass, synthesizer, backing vocals (2019)
Vincent Taeger – percussion, timbales (2019)
Timeline
Discography
Studio albums
Antidotes (2008)
Total Life Forever (2010)
Holy Fire (2013)
What Went Down (2015)
Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 1 (2019)
Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 2 (2019)
Life Is Yours (2022)
Recognition
Total Life Forever was nominated for the Mercury Prize in July 2010, losing to The xx's xx on 7 September that year. The album was tested again the following year for Best Album in addition to a nomination for Best Cover Artwork at the NME Awards. The single "Spanish Sahara" was nominated by the same group for Best Track on top of being named all-around Best Band and Best Live Act. In July, the MOJO honour awards also nominated Foals alongside Canadian band Arcade Fire for the calibre of their live performances.
Mercury Prize
|-
| 2010
| Total Life Forever
| Best Album
|
|-
| 2013
| Holy Fire
| Best Album
|
|-
| 2019
| Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost - Part 1
| Best Album
|
|}
Ivor Novello Awards
|-
| 2010
| "Spanish Sahara"
| Best Song Musically and Lyrically
|
|}
NME Awards
|-
| rowspan="5" style="text-align:center;"| 2011
|rowspan="2"| Foals
| Best British Band
|
|-
| Best Live Act
|
|-
|rowspan="2"| Total Life Forever
| Best British Album
|
|-
| Best Artwork
|
|-
| "Spanish Sahara"
| Best Track
|
|-
| rowspan="2" style="text-align:center;"| 2013
| Foals
| Best Live Band
|
|-
| "Inhaler"
| Best Track
|
|-
| 2014
| Foals
| Best British Band
|
|-
| rowspan="3" style="text-align:center;"| 2016
| What Went Down
| Best Album
|
|-
| Foals
| Best British Band
|
|-
| "What Went Down"
| Best Track
|
|-
| rowspan="3" style="text-align:center;"| 2020
| rowspan="2"| Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost - Part 1
| Best Album
| style="text-align:center;"
|-
| Best Album in the World
|
|-
| Foals
| Best Live Act
|
|}
Q Awards
|-
|rowspan="3"| 2013
| Holy Fire
| Best Album
|
|-
|rowspan="2"| Foals
| Best Act in the World Today
|
|-
| Best Live Act
|
|-
|rowspan="3"| 2015
| Foals
| Best Act in the World Today
|
|-
|rowspan="2"| "What Went Down"
| Best Track
|
|-
| Best Video
|
|-
| 2019
| Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 1
| Best Album
|
|}
Brit Awards
|-
| 2008
| Foals
| Critics' Choice Award
|
|-
| 2016
| Foals
| British Group
|
|-
| 2020
| Foals
| Best Group
|
|}
iHeartRadio Music Awards
|-
| 2017
| Foals
| Best New Rock/Alternative Rock Artist
|
|}
References
External links
Foals on Music Feeds TV
English indie rock groups
Alternative dance musical groups
Brit Award winners
Music in Oxford
Dance-punk musical groups
NME Awards winners
Musical groups established in 2005
Math rock groups
British musical trios
Musical groups from Oxford
| true |
[
"\"On a Clear Day (You Can See Forever)\" is a song written by Burton Lane (music) and Alan Jay Lerner (lyrics) for the 1965 musical On a Clear Day You Can See Forever. It was subsequently performed by American actress and vocalist Barbra Streisand in the 1970 film adaptation of the musical.\n\nThree variations of the song appear in the film and on the accompanying soundtrack album produced by Wally Gold: the initial version sung by co-star Yves Montand, a reprise version sung by Streisand, and an orchestral version performed alongside a live chorus. The Streisand rendition was released by Columbia Records as a promotional single on 7\" vinyl (with a stereo mix on one side and mono on the other) in July 1970.\n\nThe track received positive reviews from music critics, with many of them listing it as a highlight of the soundtrack.\n\nBackground and release \n\"On a Clear Day (You Can See Forever)\" was introduced by John Cullum in the 1965 Broadway musical of the same name. It was subsequently used in the 1970 film adaptation of the musical, in which Streisand appears as the main character. The song was recorded in early 1970 while filming the movie at Samuel Goldwyn Studios in West Hollywood, California. Three versions of the song are used in the film, and all appear on the accompanying soundtrack album. The song is initially performed in the film by Streisand's co-star Yves Montand, whereas the reprise version is sung by Streisand and the orchestral version is performed with a live chorus.\n\nThe reprise rendition was released as a promotional single on 7\" vinyl in July 1970 by Columbia Records. The standard edition release includes both the mono and stereo versions of \"On a Clear Day (You Can See Forever)\" as the A-side and B-side, respectively. A limited edition version also exists, where the mono version exclusively appears on 7\".\n\nComposition \n\"On a Clear Day (You Can See Forever)\" was written by Burton Lane and Alan Jay Lerner and produced by Wally Gold. According to the official sheet music published by the Warner Music Group, the song is written in the key of E major with a moderately fast beat consisting of 126 beats per minute. Accompanied by the instrumentation of a piano, Streisand's vocals range from G3 to C5. She begins the song with the lyric \"On a clear day, rise and look around you / And you'll see who you are\".\n\nCritical reception \n\"On a Clear Day (You Can See Forever)\" was perceived as a highlight on the film's soundtrack. Vincent Canby from The New York Times lauded the single and album tracks \"Come Back to Me\", \"Go to Sleep\", and \"What Did I Have That I Don't Have\" for being the soundtrack's four best songs. Although AllMusic's William Ruhlmann was critical of the majority of On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, he complimented Streisand's vocal performance on the title track. The staff at Billboard complimented Streisand's performance on \"On a Clear Day (You Can See Forever)\". They wrote that because of its strength, and the strengths of soundtrack songs \"He Isn't You\" and \"What Did I Have That I Don't Have\", the album will likely become a commercial success and is worth purchasing.\n\nTrack listing \n\nStandard edition 7\" single\n A1 \"On a Clear Day (You Can See Forever)\" (Mono) – 2:09\n B1 \"On a Clear Day (You Can See Forever)\" (Stereo) – 2:09\n\nMono edition 7\" single\n A1 \"On a Clear Day (You Can See Forever)\" (Mono) – 2:09\n B1 \"On a Clear Day (You Can See Forever)\" (Mono) – 2:09\n\nOther recordings \nStreisand recorded a live version of the song in 1972, arranged by Peter Matz, which was released that same year on her Live Concert at the Forum album. Live versions by Streisand are also included on her 1994 album The Concert and her 2000 album Timeless: Live in Concert.\n\nRobert Goulet and Johnny Mathis both recorded charting versions of the song in 1965, in the wake of the original musical's success. Goulet's version, from his album On Broadway, reached #119 on Billboard'''s Bubbling Under chart and #13 on the Easy Listening chart. Mathis' recording, from his album The Shadow of Your Smile, reached #96 on the Hot 100 chart and #6 on the Easy Listening chart.\n\nOther artists to record the song include John Cullum, on the 1965 cast album from the original Broadway production; Frank Sinatra, on his 1966 album Strangers in the Night; Matt Monro, on his 1966 album This Is the Life!; Jerry Vale, on his 1966 album Great Moments on Broadway; Shirley Bassey, on her 1967 album And We Were Lovers; Sammy Davis Jr., on his 1967 live album That's All!; Blossom Dearie, on her 1967 live album Sweet Blossom Dearie; The Peddlers, on their 1968 album Three in a Cell; Tony Bennett, on his 1970 album Tony Bennett's \"Something\"; Cleo Laine, on her 1971 album Portrait; and The Singers Unlimited, on their 1975 album Feeling Free.\n\nThe Peddlers’ version was used prominently in the episode “Hazard Pay” from Season Five of Breaking Bad''.\n\nReferences\n\nBibliography \n\n1965 songs\nSongs with lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner\nSongs with music by Burton Lane\nSongs from musicals\n1970 singles\nColumbia Records singles\nBarbra Streisand songs\nFrank Sinatra songs\nJohnny Mathis songs\nYves Montand songs",
"On a Clear Day You Can See Forever is the soundtrack album to the 1970 American film of the same name. It was released by Columbia Records on July 1, 1970 and features singing by Barbra Streisand and Yves Montand, in addition to choral arrangements and live orchestration. No commercial singles were released from the soundtrack, but the reprise version of the title track was released as a promotional single on 7\" vinyl by Columbia. Executively and solely produced by Wally Gold, the album's ten tracks were written by Alan Jay Lerner while the music was written by Burton Lane. The album was reissued on compact disc in 2008.\n\nMusic critics highlighted the compilation's title track and Streisand's singing ability. Commercially, the soundtrack was once Streisand's lowest-performing entry on the Billboard 200, peaking at number 108 in September 1970. However, her other 1970 soundtrack album, The Owl and the Pussycat, would later take its place as Streisand's lowest-peaking album. Nonetheless, On a Clear Day You Can See Forever served as Montand's only charting effort in the United States.\n\nBackground and songs \n\nOn a Clear Day You Can See Forever was released on July 1, 1970, through Barbra Streisand's record label, Columbia Records. The songs were recorded by Streisand and co-star Yves Montand on-set at Samuel Goldwyn Studios in West Hollywood, California in early 1970. Lyrics for the album's ten songs were written by Alan Jay Lerner while the music was written by Burton Lane. On the album's fourth track, \"Melinda\", Luiz Bonfá and Maria Toledo are credited as additional lyricists. Streisand is credited as the sole singer for \"Hurry! It's Lovely Up Here\", \"Love with All the Trimmings\", \"Go to Sleep\", \"He Isn't You\", \"What Did I Have That I Don't Have\", and the reprise version of the title track, while Montand is credited for the standard version of the title track in addition to \"Melinda\" and \"Come Back to Me\". The album's second song is an orchestral version of \"On a Clear Day (You Can See Forever)\" as performed by a live chorus. The album itself was executively produced by Wally Gold and arranged and conducted by Nelson Riddle.\n\nAlthough no songs were released from the soundtrack as singles, the film's title track \"On a Clear Day (You Can See Forever)\" was distributed as a promotional single by Columbia Records in July 1970. Distributed to the radio stations for airplay, the 7\" release featured the reprise version of the song as both the A-side and B-side. The soundtrack was also printed on 8-track cartridges where it was distributed with the same track listing but a revised order. On a Clear Day You Can See Forever was released physically on compact discs on February 5, 2008.\n\nReception \n\nThe soundtrack to On a Clear Day You Can See Forever received generally positive reviews from music critics. The staff at Billboard wrote that the strength of the title track, \"He Isn't You\", and \"What Did I Have That I Don't Have\" made the soundtrack worth buying. They also predicted that the soundtrack would be successful on the Billboard charts due to the film's popularity. Vincent Canby from The New York Times considered \"Love with All the Trimmings\" to be the album's highlight due to its \"lush lyricism\"; among the rest of the soundtrack, he listed \"Come Back to Me\", \"Go to Sleep\", \"On a Clear Day (You Can See Forever)\", and \"What Did I Have That I Don't Have\" as the album's \"four other excellent songs\". AllMusic's William Ruhlmann was more critical of the collection, writing: \"The film was considered to be a low point in the career of Barbra Streisand, and the soundtrack is not much better.\" Although he awarded the album two out of five stars and complimented Streisand's strong vocals, Ruhlmann criticized the decision to include most of Montand's contributions: \"[he] gets a lot of space on the record, making this almost a complete waste.\"\n\nAt the time of its release, On a Clear Day You Can See Forever became Streisand's lowest-charting effort on the Billboard 200 in the United States, whereas for Montand, it served as his highest and only entry. For the week of July 25, 1970, the soundtrack entered at number 192, becoming the week's fifth-highest debut. During its seventh week charting, it peaked at number 108 in the United States, becoming Streisand's first album to miss the top 100 of the chart. In total, it spent a total of 24 weeks on the Billboard 200. Later that year, Streisand's other soundtrack album – The Owl and the Pussycat – would underperform more on the chart, only peaking at number 186 and becoming Streisand's lowest-charting album.\n\nTrack listing\n\nPersonnel \nCredits adapted from the liner notes of the CD edition of On a Clear Day You Can See Forever.\n\n Yves Montand vocals\n Barbra Streisand vocals\n John Arrias CD restoration\n Luiz Bonfá lyrics \n Wally Gold production\n Bernie Grundman CD remastering\n\n Burton Lane music\n Alan Jay Lerner lyrics\n Don Meehan recording engineer\n Nelson Riddle music arrangements, conductor\n Maria Toledo lyrics\n\nCharts\n\nRelease history\n\nReferences\n\nFootnotes\n\nBibliography\n\nExternal links \n \n\n1970 soundtrack albums\nAlbums arranged by Nelson Riddle\nAlbums conducted by Nelson Riddle\nBarbra Streisand soundtracks\nColumbia Records soundtracks\nFilm soundtracks"
] |
[
"Foals (band)",
"Total Life Forever: 2009-2010",
"What personnel were there on the Total Life Forever album?",
"produced by Luke Smith,",
"Did any new musicians join the band for the album Total Life Forever?",
"Luke Smith, formerly of Clor. The album's title is named after an element of Ray Kurzweil's theory of singularity.",
"Did Foals go on tour to support the album?",
"Jimmy Smith said how the band members live together on and off the road - heading to Australia to record demos for their next album together.",
"Did the album Total Life Forever win any awards?",
"The album was nominated for the 2010 Mercury Prize.",
"Were any songs from Total Life Forever used on a soundtrack?",
" \"Spanish Sahara\" was featured in trailers for season seven of Entourage, season four of Skins and Outcasts."
] |
C_d176d19f876d4d3099d259a59f85849e_1
|
Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?
| 6 |
Besides the use of Spanish Sahara in various trailers, are there any other interesting aspects about this article?
|
Foals (band)
|
In August 2009, Foals started recording their second album at Svenska Grammofon Studion in Gothenburg, Sweden. The album, Total Life Forever, has been described by the band members as sounding like "tropical prog" and "like the dream of an eagle dying". The band have described the album as being "a lot less funk" than they had originally planned. The album was produced by Luke Smith, formerly of Clor. The album's title is named after an element of Ray Kurzweil's theory of singularity. The band's frontman, Yannis Philippakis, has professed a longtime interest in futurology, with it informing numerous songs on Total Life Forever. On 1 March 2010, the promotional single "Spanish Sahara" was first played on Zane Lowe's show Radio 1. The Foals' website was updated that night with the video for the track, directed by longtime collaborator Dave Ma, and on 6 March, the Total Life Forever site was launched. There puzzles revealed images, lyrics and sound clips of songs from the album. The last clip appeared on 12 March, with a password entry for Foals' new website. The site was opened on 13 March and presented the art concept and media including samples of songs, photos and videos. Lead single "This Orient" was released on 3 May 2010. The album was finally released on 10 May 2010. "Spanish Sahara" was featured in trailers for season seven of Entourage, season four of Skins and Outcasts. It was also used in the soundtrack of the second season of the E4 drama Misfits. It was released as a full physical single in September 2010, featuring an edited remix starring the strings of London Contemporary Orchestra. In 2015, it was used by French studio Dontnod Entertainment in the game Life Is Strange as the music for one of its final endings. The album was nominated for the 2010 Mercury Prize. In an interview with online magazine Coup de Main, Jimmy Smith said how the band members live together on and off the road - heading to Australia to record demos for their next album together. "It's just like touring with your family, it's nice". CANNOTANSWER
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the Total Life Forever site was launched. There puzzles revealed images, lyrics and sound clips of songs from the album.
|
Foals are a British rock band formed in Oxford. The band's current line-up consists of Greek-born lead vocalist and guitarist Yannis Philippakis, drummer and percussionist Jack Bevan and rhythm guitarist Jimmy Smith. They are currently signed to Warner Records, and have released six studio albums to date: Antidotes (2008), Total Life Forever (2010), Holy Fire (2013), What Went Down (2015), and Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 1 & 2 (2019). They have also released one video album, six extended plays and twenty-seven singles.
The band have toured internationally for over a decade, and have featured at many festivals including Glastonbury, Coachella, and Roskilde. They have won a number of awards, including best live act at the 2013 Q Awards while producers Alan Moulder and Flood were awarded 'UK Producer of the Year' for their work on the album Holy Fire.
The band's most recent studio albums, Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 1 was released in March 2019 while their sixth and immediate follow-up, Part 2, was released on 18 October 2019 and became the band's first album to top the UK Album Chart.
History
Formation: 2005–2006
The lead singer of the band Youthmovies, Andrew Mears, originally formed the band Foals. He was present on the band's debut 7" single, "Try This on Your Piano/Look at My Furrows of Worry", but left shortly afterwards to concentrate on Youthmovies's debut album, Good Nature.
Jack Bevan, Lina Simon and Yannis Philippakis were originally in cult math rock band The Edmund Fitzgerald. The group disbanded, claiming that things had become "too serious" and that they wanted to have more "fun making their music".
Walter Gervers and Jimmy Smith were part of a small Oxford band called Face Meets Grill. They met at and formed the band from members of Abingdon School, the same school that Radiohead attended. They played gigs in and around Oxford, and recorded an EP in Hull. After playing Truck Festival in 2004 they separated to follow different paths and careers.
Guitarist Jimmy Smith is the only one of the band members to have completed his degree, at Hull University, each of the other band members quit their respective universities when the band signed to Transgressive Records.
Antidotes: 2007–2008
In early 2007, the band released the limited edition 7" singles "Hummer" and "Mathletics", both produced by Gareth Parton. "Hummer" later featured on the Channel Four teen drama Skins. Philippakis described this period as 'the music was almost a premeditated mix of blending techno and minimalism [and] we'd set ourselves these rules, like 'only staccato rhythms', and 'guitars must be played really high'.
In the summer of 2007, Foals began working on their debut album in New York. It was produced by Dave Sitek of TV on the Radio. However, the band decided to mix the album themselves, stating that Sitek made the first master copy of the album sound like "it was recorded in the Grand Canyon". Philippakis has stated a number of times that Foals and Dave Sitek are on good terms, even though the mix by Sitek was rejected by the band. Foals released their debut album, titled Antidotes, on 24 March 2008 in the UK and on 8 April 2008 in the US. The album was a commercial success in the UK, debuting at number 3 on the UK Albums Charts. The album was a minor success in other countries, charting in Japan, France and the Netherlands. Non-UK versions of the album include the early Parton-produced singles.
Total Life Forever: 2009–2010
In August 2009, Foals started recording their second album at Svenska Grammofon Studion in Gothenburg, Sweden. The album, Total Life Forever, has been described by the band members as sounding like "tropical prog" and "like the dream of an eagle dying". The band have described the album as being "a lot less funk" than they had originally planned. The album was produced by Luke Smith, formerly of Clor. The album's title is named after an element of Ray Kurzweil's theory of singularity. The band's frontman, Yannis Philippakis, has professed a longtime interest in futurology, with it informing numerous songs on Total Life Forever.
On 1 March 2010, the promotional single "Spanish Sahara" was first played on Zane Lowe's show Radio 1. The Foals' website was updated that night with the video for the track, directed by longtime collaborator Dave Ma, and on 6 March, the Total Life Forever site was launched. There puzzles revealed images, lyrics and sound clips of songs from the album. The last clip appeared on 12 March, with a password entry for Foals' new website. The site was opened on 13 March and presented the art concept and media including samples of songs, photos and videos. Lead single "This Orient" was released on 3 May 2010. The album was finally released on 10 May 2010.
"Spanish Sahara" was featured in trailers for season seven of Entourage, season four of Skins and Outcasts. It was also used in the soundtrack of the second season of the E4 drama Misfits. It was released as a full physical single in September 2010, featuring an edited remix starring the strings of London Contemporary Orchestra. In 2015, it was used by French studio Dontnod Entertainment in the game Life is Strange as the music for one of its endings.
The album was nominated for the 2010 Mercury Prize. In an interview with online magazine Coup de Main, Jimmy Smith said how the band members live together on and off the road – heading to Australia to record demos for their next album together. "It's just like touring with your family, it's nice."
Holy Fire: 2012–2013
Holy Fire was released in both the UK and the US on 11 February 2013. The album's lead single, "Inhaler", received its first radio play on 5 November 2012. They played the song "My Number" for the first time on Later... with Jools Holland.
Holy Fire was produced by Flood and Alan Moulder, who have worked with many artists, including Nine Inch Nails, The Smashing Pumpkins, and My Bloody Valentine. The album was recorded at Assault & Battery studios in London.
Yannis Philippakis stated that the recording process had some unconventional moments: "At one point we even made these poor studio interns collect bones. We were inspired by voodoo, these Haitian rhythms. We collected some ourselves, from butchers in Willesden High Road. Mainly cows, I think often they had gristle and cartilage on them, mainly cow and occasionally sheep. We had to order these big pots because one of the shoulder blades was too big! We boiled the flesh away so we could use them as percussion! We wanted to get primitive!"
According to The Guardian: "Their producers, Flood and Alan Moulder, even tricked them by recording their rehearsal in order to capture a more uninhibited sound."
In late November to mid-December, Foals toured the UK for an album preview. The tour was supported by Petite Noir (a close friend of Philippakis's).
In summer 2013, they attended a number of festivals and headlined Latitude Festival in Suffolk in July. The band have recently played a World and UK tour, which ended with two sell out shows at Alexandra Palace in February. The two shows were in stark contrast compared to playing the same venue 7 years earlier to an almost empty room while supporting Bloc Party, a sentiment which lead singer Philippakis did not fail to mention during the live shows.
Holy Fire was nominated for the Mercury Prize in 2013. Q awarded Foals with the Best Live Act award the same year while "Inhaler" received the Best Track award from NME. In a reader-nominated "Best Album of 2013" poll, Holy Fire topped the list; as did single "My Number" in a "Best Song of 2013" poll, beating NME favorites Arctic Monkeys, amongst other acclaimed bands.
What Went Down: 2014–2017
On 2 April 2014, in an interview with NME, Yannis Philippakis said "Over the next month I think we're going to start writing tentatively. We've already got some bits and bobs around some riffs and some vocal melodies. I think until May we're gonna go back to Oxford and write in the 'stinkbox' and see what happens." On 9 June 2015, Foals unveiled a short video teasing an upcoming album in 2015.
Foals shared album track "Mountain at My Gates" on 20 June, premiering the song via BBC Radio 1 as Annie Mac's 'Hottest Record'. On 29 July, the band followed up the track with an accompanying 3D video, filmed on a GoPro HERO. On 6 August, Zane Lowe premiered new song 'A Knife in the Ocean' on his Beats 1 radio show on Apple Music. Foals made public a lyric video for 'A Knife In The Ocean' the same day. The album What Went Down was released on 28 August 2015.
In late 2015, 'Mountain At My Gates' was featured on the official soundtrack of EA Sports FIFA 16.
In 2016, Foals toured the UK and Europe in February/March, followed by a US tour, playing a number of songs from What Went Down as well as previous releases, with support from Peace (DJ set) and Everything Everything (UK).
Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost, Gervers's departure: 2017–2019
In autumn 2017, Foals announced on social media that they were going to start recording materials for a new upcoming album.
On 5 January 2018, they announced that bassist Walter Gervers was departing the band amicably, whilst recording of the fifth album continued.
On 8 January 2019, the band teased their fifth and sixth studio albums, Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 1 and Part 2, respectively. Part 1 was released on 8 March 2019 and Part 2 was released on 18 October 2019.
Following Gervers's departure, it was revealed on 19 February 2019 that Jeremy Pritchard, of British band Everything Everything would join as touring bassist for the band's upcoming live shows of 2019.
Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 1 was preceded by the release via streaming services of Exits, On the Luna, Sunday and In Degrees (a day before the record's release). The album was the BBC 6 Music Album of the Day on its release date.
In March 2019, the band embarked on the first shows of their "Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost World Tour" which currently has dates running throughout 2019 and 2020.
After playing several festivals across the summer of 2019 (including an unannounced set at Glastonbury and a headline performance at Truck Festival), the band released a second set of singles, "Black Bull", "The Runner" and "Into the Surf" in the lead up to Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 2.
Everything not saved will be lost - Part 2 was released on 18 October 2019 through Warner and Transgressive Records. The album cover was shot by famed National Geographic photographer, Maggie Steber. The album became the band's first to reach No. 1 on the UK Album Chart.
On 7 October 2019 "Rip up the Road", a documentary detailing the recording sessions of "Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost" and subsequent 2019 world tour, was announced, with a premiere scheduled for 11 and 15 November 2019 at London's Doc’n Roll Film Festival and thereafter exclusively through Amazon Prime respectively.
On 11 November 2019 "Rip Up The Road" directed by Toby L premiered at the Rio Cinema in Dalston to an audience consisting of the band, friends and family, fans, documentary contributors/crew. The documentary was filmed over a 12-month period as the band embarked upon a world tour. The film hones in on two career highlight shows at London's Alexandra Palace and provides a candid, entertaining and gripping perspective of life on the road and being in a band. It also features their infamous Glastonbury Festival secret set on The Park Stage in 2019.
Life Is Yours, COVID-19, and Congreave's departure: 2020–present
Due to the COVID-19 crisis and subsequent global lockdowns, the band was forced to cancel and reschedule their entire 2020 UK/World tour, in support of Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 2 till Spring 2021.
However, due to the continuing pandemic and ongoing safety restrictions throughout into 2021, the band once again had to reschedule touring until 2022, save for a string of UK summer festival shows during August 2021, which would be the group's first live performances since early 2020.
On 22 September 2021, Edwin Congreave announced that he had left the band to pursue a postgraduate degree in economics. Upon the news of Edwin's departure, the band had also revealed that they had already began working on their next album, this time as a three piece band.
On 11 October 2021, the band announced scoring the opening theme of the Brian Cox-hosted BBC Two science documentary television series, "Universe" with an updated version of "Neptune", re-worked in collaboration with Hans Zimmer's Bleeding Fingers composing collective led by the famed film composer.
On 27 October 2021, the band teased a promotional clip of an iPhone snooze alarm, cryptically revealing the release date of their yet to be announced seventh studio album's first single, "Wake me up" to be released 4 November, 2021. The following day, the single was confirmed by the group with a teaser clip of the audio and music streaming platforms pre-save links respectively.
"Wake Me Up" was premiered and released on 4 November 2021 via BBC Radio 1's Clara Amfo's 'Hottest Record'.
On 10 February 2022, Foals released "2am" and announced the name of their upcoming seventh album as Life Is Yours.
Live
Foals are considered one of the top UK live acts, having won the 2013 Q Award for Best Live Act and twice being nominated for the NME Award for Best Live Act (2011 and 2013).
The band have released several live EPs (Live At Liars Club, iTunes Live: London Festival '08 and iTunes Festival: London 2010), in addition to the full length concert film Live At The Royal Albert Hall, which was directed by Dave Ma.
Frontman Yannis Philippakis is known for jumping off balconies and crowd surfing during the extended interlude of "Two Steps Twice." In October 2013, Philippakis got into a confrontation with a security guard at the Auckland Town Hall in New Zealand, as the security guard attempted to prevent him jumping into the crowd. At the end of the show, Philippakis told the crowd: "I want to say a massive thank you to you and fuck that security-guy."
In April 2020 the band canceled their remaining tour-dates due to the COVID-19 crisis, pushing dates back to 2021.
Musical style and influence
Foals is classified as an indie rock, alternative rock, dance-punk, math rock, art rock, post-rock, post-punk, art punk and indie pop band.
The band's musical influences are varied, with the band members citing minimal techno, Arthur Russell, Krautrock bands such as Harmonia, and Talking Heads, as their main sources of inspiration.
Members
Current members
Yannis Philippakis – lead guitar (2005–present), lead vocals (2006–present), percussion (2008–2013), bass guitar (2018–present)
Jack Bevan – drums, percussion (2005–present)
Jimmy Smith – rhythm guitar, keyboards, synthesizer, backing vocals (2005–present)
Current touring musicians
Kit Monteith – percussion, sampler, backing vocals (2016–present)
Jack Freeman – bass, synthesizer, backing vocals (2020–present)
Former members
Andrew Mears – lead vocals, rhythm guitar (2005–2006)
Walter Gervers – bass, percussion, vocals (2005–2018)
Edwin Congreave – keyboards, synthesizer, backing vocals (2005–2021), bass (2018–2021)
Former touring-musicians
Jeremy Pritchard – bass, synthesizer, backing vocals (2019)
Vincent Taeger – percussion, timbales (2019)
Timeline
Discography
Studio albums
Antidotes (2008)
Total Life Forever (2010)
Holy Fire (2013)
What Went Down (2015)
Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 1 (2019)
Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 2 (2019)
Life Is Yours (2022)
Recognition
Total Life Forever was nominated for the Mercury Prize in July 2010, losing to The xx's xx on 7 September that year. The album was tested again the following year for Best Album in addition to a nomination for Best Cover Artwork at the NME Awards. The single "Spanish Sahara" was nominated by the same group for Best Track on top of being named all-around Best Band and Best Live Act. In July, the MOJO honour awards also nominated Foals alongside Canadian band Arcade Fire for the calibre of their live performances.
Mercury Prize
|-
| 2010
| Total Life Forever
| Best Album
|
|-
| 2013
| Holy Fire
| Best Album
|
|-
| 2019
| Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost - Part 1
| Best Album
|
|}
Ivor Novello Awards
|-
| 2010
| "Spanish Sahara"
| Best Song Musically and Lyrically
|
|}
NME Awards
|-
| rowspan="5" style="text-align:center;"| 2011
|rowspan="2"| Foals
| Best British Band
|
|-
| Best Live Act
|
|-
|rowspan="2"| Total Life Forever
| Best British Album
|
|-
| Best Artwork
|
|-
| "Spanish Sahara"
| Best Track
|
|-
| rowspan="2" style="text-align:center;"| 2013
| Foals
| Best Live Band
|
|-
| "Inhaler"
| Best Track
|
|-
| 2014
| Foals
| Best British Band
|
|-
| rowspan="3" style="text-align:center;"| 2016
| What Went Down
| Best Album
|
|-
| Foals
| Best British Band
|
|-
| "What Went Down"
| Best Track
|
|-
| rowspan="3" style="text-align:center;"| 2020
| rowspan="2"| Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost - Part 1
| Best Album
| style="text-align:center;"
|-
| Best Album in the World
|
|-
| Foals
| Best Live Act
|
|}
Q Awards
|-
|rowspan="3"| 2013
| Holy Fire
| Best Album
|
|-
|rowspan="2"| Foals
| Best Act in the World Today
|
|-
| Best Live Act
|
|-
|rowspan="3"| 2015
| Foals
| Best Act in the World Today
|
|-
|rowspan="2"| "What Went Down"
| Best Track
|
|-
| Best Video
|
|-
| 2019
| Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 1
| Best Album
|
|}
Brit Awards
|-
| 2008
| Foals
| Critics' Choice Award
|
|-
| 2016
| Foals
| British Group
|
|-
| 2020
| Foals
| Best Group
|
|}
iHeartRadio Music Awards
|-
| 2017
| Foals
| Best New Rock/Alternative Rock Artist
|
|}
References
External links
Foals on Music Feeds TV
English indie rock groups
Alternative dance musical groups
Brit Award winners
Music in Oxford
Dance-punk musical groups
NME Awards winners
Musical groups established in 2005
Math rock groups
British musical trios
Musical groups from Oxford
| 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"
] |
[
"Foals (band)",
"Total Life Forever: 2009-2010",
"What personnel were there on the Total Life Forever album?",
"produced by Luke Smith,",
"Did any new musicians join the band for the album Total Life Forever?",
"Luke Smith, formerly of Clor. The album's title is named after an element of Ray Kurzweil's theory of singularity.",
"Did Foals go on tour to support the album?",
"Jimmy Smith said how the band members live together on and off the road - heading to Australia to record demos for their next album together.",
"Did the album Total Life Forever win any awards?",
"The album was nominated for the 2010 Mercury Prize.",
"Were any songs from Total Life Forever used on a soundtrack?",
" \"Spanish Sahara\" was featured in trailers for season seven of Entourage, season four of Skins and Outcasts.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"the Total Life Forever site was launched. There puzzles revealed images, lyrics and sound clips of songs from the album."
] |
C_d176d19f876d4d3099d259a59f85849e_1
|
How popular was the TLF site?
| 7 |
How popular was the TLF site?
|
Foals (band)
|
In August 2009, Foals started recording their second album at Svenska Grammofon Studion in Gothenburg, Sweden. The album, Total Life Forever, has been described by the band members as sounding like "tropical prog" and "like the dream of an eagle dying". The band have described the album as being "a lot less funk" than they had originally planned. The album was produced by Luke Smith, formerly of Clor. The album's title is named after an element of Ray Kurzweil's theory of singularity. The band's frontman, Yannis Philippakis, has professed a longtime interest in futurology, with it informing numerous songs on Total Life Forever. On 1 March 2010, the promotional single "Spanish Sahara" was first played on Zane Lowe's show Radio 1. The Foals' website was updated that night with the video for the track, directed by longtime collaborator Dave Ma, and on 6 March, the Total Life Forever site was launched. There puzzles revealed images, lyrics and sound clips of songs from the album. The last clip appeared on 12 March, with a password entry for Foals' new website. The site was opened on 13 March and presented the art concept and media including samples of songs, photos and videos. Lead single "This Orient" was released on 3 May 2010. The album was finally released on 10 May 2010. "Spanish Sahara" was featured in trailers for season seven of Entourage, season four of Skins and Outcasts. It was also used in the soundtrack of the second season of the E4 drama Misfits. It was released as a full physical single in September 2010, featuring an edited remix starring the strings of London Contemporary Orchestra. In 2015, it was used by French studio Dontnod Entertainment in the game Life Is Strange as the music for one of its final endings. The album was nominated for the 2010 Mercury Prize. In an interview with online magazine Coup de Main, Jimmy Smith said how the band members live together on and off the road - heading to Australia to record demos for their next album together. "It's just like touring with your family, it's nice". CANNOTANSWER
|
CANNOTANSWER
|
Foals are a British rock band formed in Oxford. The band's current line-up consists of Greek-born lead vocalist and guitarist Yannis Philippakis, drummer and percussionist Jack Bevan and rhythm guitarist Jimmy Smith. They are currently signed to Warner Records, and have released six studio albums to date: Antidotes (2008), Total Life Forever (2010), Holy Fire (2013), What Went Down (2015), and Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 1 & 2 (2019). They have also released one video album, six extended plays and twenty-seven singles.
The band have toured internationally for over a decade, and have featured at many festivals including Glastonbury, Coachella, and Roskilde. They have won a number of awards, including best live act at the 2013 Q Awards while producers Alan Moulder and Flood were awarded 'UK Producer of the Year' for their work on the album Holy Fire.
The band's most recent studio albums, Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 1 was released in March 2019 while their sixth and immediate follow-up, Part 2, was released on 18 October 2019 and became the band's first album to top the UK Album Chart.
History
Formation: 2005–2006
The lead singer of the band Youthmovies, Andrew Mears, originally formed the band Foals. He was present on the band's debut 7" single, "Try This on Your Piano/Look at My Furrows of Worry", but left shortly afterwards to concentrate on Youthmovies's debut album, Good Nature.
Jack Bevan, Lina Simon and Yannis Philippakis were originally in cult math rock band The Edmund Fitzgerald. The group disbanded, claiming that things had become "too serious" and that they wanted to have more "fun making their music".
Walter Gervers and Jimmy Smith were part of a small Oxford band called Face Meets Grill. They met at and formed the band from members of Abingdon School, the same school that Radiohead attended. They played gigs in and around Oxford, and recorded an EP in Hull. After playing Truck Festival in 2004 they separated to follow different paths and careers.
Guitarist Jimmy Smith is the only one of the band members to have completed his degree, at Hull University, each of the other band members quit their respective universities when the band signed to Transgressive Records.
Antidotes: 2007–2008
In early 2007, the band released the limited edition 7" singles "Hummer" and "Mathletics", both produced by Gareth Parton. "Hummer" later featured on the Channel Four teen drama Skins. Philippakis described this period as 'the music was almost a premeditated mix of blending techno and minimalism [and] we'd set ourselves these rules, like 'only staccato rhythms', and 'guitars must be played really high'.
In the summer of 2007, Foals began working on their debut album in New York. It was produced by Dave Sitek of TV on the Radio. However, the band decided to mix the album themselves, stating that Sitek made the first master copy of the album sound like "it was recorded in the Grand Canyon". Philippakis has stated a number of times that Foals and Dave Sitek are on good terms, even though the mix by Sitek was rejected by the band. Foals released their debut album, titled Antidotes, on 24 March 2008 in the UK and on 8 April 2008 in the US. The album was a commercial success in the UK, debuting at number 3 on the UK Albums Charts. The album was a minor success in other countries, charting in Japan, France and the Netherlands. Non-UK versions of the album include the early Parton-produced singles.
Total Life Forever: 2009–2010
In August 2009, Foals started recording their second album at Svenska Grammofon Studion in Gothenburg, Sweden. The album, Total Life Forever, has been described by the band members as sounding like "tropical prog" and "like the dream of an eagle dying". The band have described the album as being "a lot less funk" than they had originally planned. The album was produced by Luke Smith, formerly of Clor. The album's title is named after an element of Ray Kurzweil's theory of singularity. The band's frontman, Yannis Philippakis, has professed a longtime interest in futurology, with it informing numerous songs on Total Life Forever.
On 1 March 2010, the promotional single "Spanish Sahara" was first played on Zane Lowe's show Radio 1. The Foals' website was updated that night with the video for the track, directed by longtime collaborator Dave Ma, and on 6 March, the Total Life Forever site was launched. There puzzles revealed images, lyrics and sound clips of songs from the album. The last clip appeared on 12 March, with a password entry for Foals' new website. The site was opened on 13 March and presented the art concept and media including samples of songs, photos and videos. Lead single "This Orient" was released on 3 May 2010. The album was finally released on 10 May 2010.
"Spanish Sahara" was featured in trailers for season seven of Entourage, season four of Skins and Outcasts. It was also used in the soundtrack of the second season of the E4 drama Misfits. It was released as a full physical single in September 2010, featuring an edited remix starring the strings of London Contemporary Orchestra. In 2015, it was used by French studio Dontnod Entertainment in the game Life is Strange as the music for one of its endings.
The album was nominated for the 2010 Mercury Prize. In an interview with online magazine Coup de Main, Jimmy Smith said how the band members live together on and off the road – heading to Australia to record demos for their next album together. "It's just like touring with your family, it's nice."
Holy Fire: 2012–2013
Holy Fire was released in both the UK and the US on 11 February 2013. The album's lead single, "Inhaler", received its first radio play on 5 November 2012. They played the song "My Number" for the first time on Later... with Jools Holland.
Holy Fire was produced by Flood and Alan Moulder, who have worked with many artists, including Nine Inch Nails, The Smashing Pumpkins, and My Bloody Valentine. The album was recorded at Assault & Battery studios in London.
Yannis Philippakis stated that the recording process had some unconventional moments: "At one point we even made these poor studio interns collect bones. We were inspired by voodoo, these Haitian rhythms. We collected some ourselves, from butchers in Willesden High Road. Mainly cows, I think often they had gristle and cartilage on them, mainly cow and occasionally sheep. We had to order these big pots because one of the shoulder blades was too big! We boiled the flesh away so we could use them as percussion! We wanted to get primitive!"
According to The Guardian: "Their producers, Flood and Alan Moulder, even tricked them by recording their rehearsal in order to capture a more uninhibited sound."
In late November to mid-December, Foals toured the UK for an album preview. The tour was supported by Petite Noir (a close friend of Philippakis's).
In summer 2013, they attended a number of festivals and headlined Latitude Festival in Suffolk in July. The band have recently played a World and UK tour, which ended with two sell out shows at Alexandra Palace in February. The two shows were in stark contrast compared to playing the same venue 7 years earlier to an almost empty room while supporting Bloc Party, a sentiment which lead singer Philippakis did not fail to mention during the live shows.
Holy Fire was nominated for the Mercury Prize in 2013. Q awarded Foals with the Best Live Act award the same year while "Inhaler" received the Best Track award from NME. In a reader-nominated "Best Album of 2013" poll, Holy Fire topped the list; as did single "My Number" in a "Best Song of 2013" poll, beating NME favorites Arctic Monkeys, amongst other acclaimed bands.
What Went Down: 2014–2017
On 2 April 2014, in an interview with NME, Yannis Philippakis said "Over the next month I think we're going to start writing tentatively. We've already got some bits and bobs around some riffs and some vocal melodies. I think until May we're gonna go back to Oxford and write in the 'stinkbox' and see what happens." On 9 June 2015, Foals unveiled a short video teasing an upcoming album in 2015.
Foals shared album track "Mountain at My Gates" on 20 June, premiering the song via BBC Radio 1 as Annie Mac's 'Hottest Record'. On 29 July, the band followed up the track with an accompanying 3D video, filmed on a GoPro HERO. On 6 August, Zane Lowe premiered new song 'A Knife in the Ocean' on his Beats 1 radio show on Apple Music. Foals made public a lyric video for 'A Knife In The Ocean' the same day. The album What Went Down was released on 28 August 2015.
In late 2015, 'Mountain At My Gates' was featured on the official soundtrack of EA Sports FIFA 16.
In 2016, Foals toured the UK and Europe in February/March, followed by a US tour, playing a number of songs from What Went Down as well as previous releases, with support from Peace (DJ set) and Everything Everything (UK).
Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost, Gervers's departure: 2017–2019
In autumn 2017, Foals announced on social media that they were going to start recording materials for a new upcoming album.
On 5 January 2018, they announced that bassist Walter Gervers was departing the band amicably, whilst recording of the fifth album continued.
On 8 January 2019, the band teased their fifth and sixth studio albums, Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 1 and Part 2, respectively. Part 1 was released on 8 March 2019 and Part 2 was released on 18 October 2019.
Following Gervers's departure, it was revealed on 19 February 2019 that Jeremy Pritchard, of British band Everything Everything would join as touring bassist for the band's upcoming live shows of 2019.
Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 1 was preceded by the release via streaming services of Exits, On the Luna, Sunday and In Degrees (a day before the record's release). The album was the BBC 6 Music Album of the Day on its release date.
In March 2019, the band embarked on the first shows of their "Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost World Tour" which currently has dates running throughout 2019 and 2020.
After playing several festivals across the summer of 2019 (including an unannounced set at Glastonbury and a headline performance at Truck Festival), the band released a second set of singles, "Black Bull", "The Runner" and "Into the Surf" in the lead up to Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 2.
Everything not saved will be lost - Part 2 was released on 18 October 2019 through Warner and Transgressive Records. The album cover was shot by famed National Geographic photographer, Maggie Steber. The album became the band's first to reach No. 1 on the UK Album Chart.
On 7 October 2019 "Rip up the Road", a documentary detailing the recording sessions of "Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost" and subsequent 2019 world tour, was announced, with a premiere scheduled for 11 and 15 November 2019 at London's Doc’n Roll Film Festival and thereafter exclusively through Amazon Prime respectively.
On 11 November 2019 "Rip Up The Road" directed by Toby L premiered at the Rio Cinema in Dalston to an audience consisting of the band, friends and family, fans, documentary contributors/crew. The documentary was filmed over a 12-month period as the band embarked upon a world tour. The film hones in on two career highlight shows at London's Alexandra Palace and provides a candid, entertaining and gripping perspective of life on the road and being in a band. It also features their infamous Glastonbury Festival secret set on The Park Stage in 2019.
Life Is Yours, COVID-19, and Congreave's departure: 2020–present
Due to the COVID-19 crisis and subsequent global lockdowns, the band was forced to cancel and reschedule their entire 2020 UK/World tour, in support of Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 2 till Spring 2021.
However, due to the continuing pandemic and ongoing safety restrictions throughout into 2021, the band once again had to reschedule touring until 2022, save for a string of UK summer festival shows during August 2021, which would be the group's first live performances since early 2020.
On 22 September 2021, Edwin Congreave announced that he had left the band to pursue a postgraduate degree in economics. Upon the news of Edwin's departure, the band had also revealed that they had already began working on their next album, this time as a three piece band.
On 11 October 2021, the band announced scoring the opening theme of the Brian Cox-hosted BBC Two science documentary television series, "Universe" with an updated version of "Neptune", re-worked in collaboration with Hans Zimmer's Bleeding Fingers composing collective led by the famed film composer.
On 27 October 2021, the band teased a promotional clip of an iPhone snooze alarm, cryptically revealing the release date of their yet to be announced seventh studio album's first single, "Wake me up" to be released 4 November, 2021. The following day, the single was confirmed by the group with a teaser clip of the audio and music streaming platforms pre-save links respectively.
"Wake Me Up" was premiered and released on 4 November 2021 via BBC Radio 1's Clara Amfo's 'Hottest Record'.
On 10 February 2022, Foals released "2am" and announced the name of their upcoming seventh album as Life Is Yours.
Live
Foals are considered one of the top UK live acts, having won the 2013 Q Award for Best Live Act and twice being nominated for the NME Award for Best Live Act (2011 and 2013).
The band have released several live EPs (Live At Liars Club, iTunes Live: London Festival '08 and iTunes Festival: London 2010), in addition to the full length concert film Live At The Royal Albert Hall, which was directed by Dave Ma.
Frontman Yannis Philippakis is known for jumping off balconies and crowd surfing during the extended interlude of "Two Steps Twice." In October 2013, Philippakis got into a confrontation with a security guard at the Auckland Town Hall in New Zealand, as the security guard attempted to prevent him jumping into the crowd. At the end of the show, Philippakis told the crowd: "I want to say a massive thank you to you and fuck that security-guy."
In April 2020 the band canceled their remaining tour-dates due to the COVID-19 crisis, pushing dates back to 2021.
Musical style and influence
Foals is classified as an indie rock, alternative rock, dance-punk, math rock, art rock, post-rock, post-punk, art punk and indie pop band.
The band's musical influences are varied, with the band members citing minimal techno, Arthur Russell, Krautrock bands such as Harmonia, and Talking Heads, as their main sources of inspiration.
Members
Current members
Yannis Philippakis – lead guitar (2005–present), lead vocals (2006–present), percussion (2008–2013), bass guitar (2018–present)
Jack Bevan – drums, percussion (2005–present)
Jimmy Smith – rhythm guitar, keyboards, synthesizer, backing vocals (2005–present)
Current touring musicians
Kit Monteith – percussion, sampler, backing vocals (2016–present)
Jack Freeman – bass, synthesizer, backing vocals (2020–present)
Former members
Andrew Mears – lead vocals, rhythm guitar (2005–2006)
Walter Gervers – bass, percussion, vocals (2005–2018)
Edwin Congreave – keyboards, synthesizer, backing vocals (2005–2021), bass (2018–2021)
Former touring-musicians
Jeremy Pritchard – bass, synthesizer, backing vocals (2019)
Vincent Taeger – percussion, timbales (2019)
Timeline
Discography
Studio albums
Antidotes (2008)
Total Life Forever (2010)
Holy Fire (2013)
What Went Down (2015)
Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 1 (2019)
Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 2 (2019)
Life Is Yours (2022)
Recognition
Total Life Forever was nominated for the Mercury Prize in July 2010, losing to The xx's xx on 7 September that year. The album was tested again the following year for Best Album in addition to a nomination for Best Cover Artwork at the NME Awards. The single "Spanish Sahara" was nominated by the same group for Best Track on top of being named all-around Best Band and Best Live Act. In July, the MOJO honour awards also nominated Foals alongside Canadian band Arcade Fire for the calibre of their live performances.
Mercury Prize
|-
| 2010
| Total Life Forever
| Best Album
|
|-
| 2013
| Holy Fire
| Best Album
|
|-
| 2019
| Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost - Part 1
| Best Album
|
|}
Ivor Novello Awards
|-
| 2010
| "Spanish Sahara"
| Best Song Musically and Lyrically
|
|}
NME Awards
|-
| rowspan="5" style="text-align:center;"| 2011
|rowspan="2"| Foals
| Best British Band
|
|-
| Best Live Act
|
|-
|rowspan="2"| Total Life Forever
| Best British Album
|
|-
| Best Artwork
|
|-
| "Spanish Sahara"
| Best Track
|
|-
| rowspan="2" style="text-align:center;"| 2013
| Foals
| Best Live Band
|
|-
| "Inhaler"
| Best Track
|
|-
| 2014
| Foals
| Best British Band
|
|-
| rowspan="3" style="text-align:center;"| 2016
| What Went Down
| Best Album
|
|-
| Foals
| Best British Band
|
|-
| "What Went Down"
| Best Track
|
|-
| rowspan="3" style="text-align:center;"| 2020
| rowspan="2"| Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost - Part 1
| Best Album
| style="text-align:center;"
|-
| Best Album in the World
|
|-
| Foals
| Best Live Act
|
|}
Q Awards
|-
|rowspan="3"| 2013
| Holy Fire
| Best Album
|
|-
|rowspan="2"| Foals
| Best Act in the World Today
|
|-
| Best Live Act
|
|-
|rowspan="3"| 2015
| Foals
| Best Act in the World Today
|
|-
|rowspan="2"| "What Went Down"
| Best Track
|
|-
| Best Video
|
|-
| 2019
| Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 1
| Best Album
|
|}
Brit Awards
|-
| 2008
| Foals
| Critics' Choice Award
|
|-
| 2016
| Foals
| British Group
|
|-
| 2020
| Foals
| Best Group
|
|}
iHeartRadio Music Awards
|-
| 2017
| Foals
| Best New Rock/Alternative Rock Artist
|
|}
References
External links
Foals on Music Feeds TV
English indie rock groups
Alternative dance musical groups
Brit Award winners
Music in Oxford
Dance-punk musical groups
NME Awards winners
Musical groups established in 2005
Math rock groups
British musical trios
Musical groups from Oxford
| false |
[
"TLF is a French rap band formed in the 2000s by two MCs from Val-de-Marne, namely Ikbal M'kouboi (known by his alias Ikbal Vockal) and by Alain 2 L'Ombre.\n\nIn 2009, Alain 2 L'Ombre left the formation which was reformed on 2010 with Ikbal, Badoo, Yacouba and Edwige. For the TLF live tours in 2010 and 2011, three new members pitched in: Skalp, Awa Imani and Indila and eventually joined the group. Edwige quit in July 2011, and was replaced by Léa. Alain 2 L'Ombre rejoined in 2012.\n\nCareer\nTLF gained prominence in 2003 with their debut album Talents fâchés (eventually called Talents fâchés Vol. I, a compilation of songs mixed by Kore & Skalp, Rohff, Mafia K-1 Fry, Tandem, Sefyu, La Fouine, Sinik, Kamelancien that promoted a number of artists. It was spearheaded by Ikbal Vockal, an independent music producer alongside Alain 2 L'Ombre who chose to name it TLF (abbreviation for Thug Life Forever). Because of the success of the album, a record label was started name \"Talents Fâchés Records\".\n\nIn 2004, a second album Talents fâchés Vol. 2 was released consolidating the first album. Ikbal and Alain 2 L'Ombre brought in materials from various producers, rappers, Sefyu, Rohff, Tandem, L'Skadrille, Alibi Montana, Sté Strausz followed by Talents fâchés Vol. 3 subtitled La Dalle au mic in 2006 with Rohff, Princess Aniès, Nubi, Médine, Alibi Montana, La Fouine, LIM and finally Talents fâchés Vol. 4 in 2009 subtitled 04 Coins de la France with Rohff, Lim, Larsen, Keny Arkana, Tunisiano, Salif, Alonzo, Nessbeal, Diam's, Soprano. Best of the materials were also included in a compilation Talents fâchés Collector in 2009. A fifth volume of Talents fâchés is planned in 2013.\n\nIn between volumes 2 and 3, TLF also released in 2005 a 2-CD sports compilation Rap Performance produced by \"Talents fâchés Records\".\n\nBesides the compilations, TLF also releases its own albums notably Rêves de rue (2007), Renaissance (2010) and OVNI in 2012 (OVNI meaning Opus Violent Non Identifier), and mixtapes and Ghetto drame street albums.\n\nDiscography\n\nStudio albums\n\nOthers\n2011: Renaissance Edition Deluxe\n\nStreet albums\n2006: Ghetto drame\n2013: Ghetto drame 2 (upcoming)\n\nMixtapes\n2010: Offishal Remix\n\nCompilation albums\n2003: Talents fâchés Vol.1\n2004: Talents fâchés Vol.2\n2005: Rap Performance\n2006: Talents fâchés Vol.3\n2009: Talents fâchés Vol.4\n2009: Talents fâchés Collector\n\nSingles\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nTLF Official page on Skyrock website\n\nFrench hip hop groups\nRappers from Val-de-Marne",
"SN 2020tlf was a Type II supernova that occurred 120 million light years away in the galaxy NGC 5731. The supernova marked the first time that a red supergiant star had been observed before, during, and after the event, being observed up to 130 days before. The progenitor star was between 10 and 12 solar masses.\n\nObservations\nThe star was first observed by the Pan-STARRS telescope in the summer of 2020, with other telescopes such as ATLAS also observing it. It was initially believed that red supergiants were quiet before their demise; however, SN 2020tlf was observed emitting bright, intense radiation and ejecting massive amounts of gaseous material. Observations were also made throughout the electromagnetic spectrum, such as in the X-ray, ultraviolet, infrared and radio wave spectrum.\n\nReferences\n\nSupernovae\nAstronomical objects discovered in 2020\nBoötes"
] |
[
"Foals (band)",
"Total Life Forever: 2009-2010",
"What personnel were there on the Total Life Forever album?",
"produced by Luke Smith,",
"Did any new musicians join the band for the album Total Life Forever?",
"Luke Smith, formerly of Clor. The album's title is named after an element of Ray Kurzweil's theory of singularity.",
"Did Foals go on tour to support the album?",
"Jimmy Smith said how the band members live together on and off the road - heading to Australia to record demos for their next album together.",
"Did the album Total Life Forever win any awards?",
"The album was nominated for the 2010 Mercury Prize.",
"Were any songs from Total Life Forever used on a soundtrack?",
" \"Spanish Sahara\" was featured in trailers for season seven of Entourage, season four of Skins and Outcasts.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"the Total Life Forever site was launched. There puzzles revealed images, lyrics and sound clips of songs from the album.",
"How popular was the TLF site?",
"I don't know."
] |
C_d176d19f876d4d3099d259a59f85849e_1
|
Were there other soundtracks?
| 8 |
Besides the trailers for Entourage, Skins, and Outcasts, were there other soundtracks from the Total Life Forever album?
|
Foals (band)
|
In August 2009, Foals started recording their second album at Svenska Grammofon Studion in Gothenburg, Sweden. The album, Total Life Forever, has been described by the band members as sounding like "tropical prog" and "like the dream of an eagle dying". The band have described the album as being "a lot less funk" than they had originally planned. The album was produced by Luke Smith, formerly of Clor. The album's title is named after an element of Ray Kurzweil's theory of singularity. The band's frontman, Yannis Philippakis, has professed a longtime interest in futurology, with it informing numerous songs on Total Life Forever. On 1 March 2010, the promotional single "Spanish Sahara" was first played on Zane Lowe's show Radio 1. The Foals' website was updated that night with the video for the track, directed by longtime collaborator Dave Ma, and on 6 March, the Total Life Forever site was launched. There puzzles revealed images, lyrics and sound clips of songs from the album. The last clip appeared on 12 March, with a password entry for Foals' new website. The site was opened on 13 March and presented the art concept and media including samples of songs, photos and videos. Lead single "This Orient" was released on 3 May 2010. The album was finally released on 10 May 2010. "Spanish Sahara" was featured in trailers for season seven of Entourage, season four of Skins and Outcasts. It was also used in the soundtrack of the second season of the E4 drama Misfits. It was released as a full physical single in September 2010, featuring an edited remix starring the strings of London Contemporary Orchestra. In 2015, it was used by French studio Dontnod Entertainment in the game Life Is Strange as the music for one of its final endings. The album was nominated for the 2010 Mercury Prize. In an interview with online magazine Coup de Main, Jimmy Smith said how the band members live together on and off the road - heading to Australia to record demos for their next album together. "It's just like touring with your family, it's nice". CANNOTANSWER
|
Lead single "This Orient" was released on 3 May 2010.
|
Foals are a British rock band formed in Oxford. The band's current line-up consists of Greek-born lead vocalist and guitarist Yannis Philippakis, drummer and percussionist Jack Bevan and rhythm guitarist Jimmy Smith. They are currently signed to Warner Records, and have released six studio albums to date: Antidotes (2008), Total Life Forever (2010), Holy Fire (2013), What Went Down (2015), and Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 1 & 2 (2019). They have also released one video album, six extended plays and twenty-seven singles.
The band have toured internationally for over a decade, and have featured at many festivals including Glastonbury, Coachella, and Roskilde. They have won a number of awards, including best live act at the 2013 Q Awards while producers Alan Moulder and Flood were awarded 'UK Producer of the Year' for their work on the album Holy Fire.
The band's most recent studio albums, Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 1 was released in March 2019 while their sixth and immediate follow-up, Part 2, was released on 18 October 2019 and became the band's first album to top the UK Album Chart.
History
Formation: 2005–2006
The lead singer of the band Youthmovies, Andrew Mears, originally formed the band Foals. He was present on the band's debut 7" single, "Try This on Your Piano/Look at My Furrows of Worry", but left shortly afterwards to concentrate on Youthmovies's debut album, Good Nature.
Jack Bevan, Lina Simon and Yannis Philippakis were originally in cult math rock band The Edmund Fitzgerald. The group disbanded, claiming that things had become "too serious" and that they wanted to have more "fun making their music".
Walter Gervers and Jimmy Smith were part of a small Oxford band called Face Meets Grill. They met at and formed the band from members of Abingdon School, the same school that Radiohead attended. They played gigs in and around Oxford, and recorded an EP in Hull. After playing Truck Festival in 2004 they separated to follow different paths and careers.
Guitarist Jimmy Smith is the only one of the band members to have completed his degree, at Hull University, each of the other band members quit their respective universities when the band signed to Transgressive Records.
Antidotes: 2007–2008
In early 2007, the band released the limited edition 7" singles "Hummer" and "Mathletics", both produced by Gareth Parton. "Hummer" later featured on the Channel Four teen drama Skins. Philippakis described this period as 'the music was almost a premeditated mix of blending techno and minimalism [and] we'd set ourselves these rules, like 'only staccato rhythms', and 'guitars must be played really high'.
In the summer of 2007, Foals began working on their debut album in New York. It was produced by Dave Sitek of TV on the Radio. However, the band decided to mix the album themselves, stating that Sitek made the first master copy of the album sound like "it was recorded in the Grand Canyon". Philippakis has stated a number of times that Foals and Dave Sitek are on good terms, even though the mix by Sitek was rejected by the band. Foals released their debut album, titled Antidotes, on 24 March 2008 in the UK and on 8 April 2008 in the US. The album was a commercial success in the UK, debuting at number 3 on the UK Albums Charts. The album was a minor success in other countries, charting in Japan, France and the Netherlands. Non-UK versions of the album include the early Parton-produced singles.
Total Life Forever: 2009–2010
In August 2009, Foals started recording their second album at Svenska Grammofon Studion in Gothenburg, Sweden. The album, Total Life Forever, has been described by the band members as sounding like "tropical prog" and "like the dream of an eagle dying". The band have described the album as being "a lot less funk" than they had originally planned. The album was produced by Luke Smith, formerly of Clor. The album's title is named after an element of Ray Kurzweil's theory of singularity. The band's frontman, Yannis Philippakis, has professed a longtime interest in futurology, with it informing numerous songs on Total Life Forever.
On 1 March 2010, the promotional single "Spanish Sahara" was first played on Zane Lowe's show Radio 1. The Foals' website was updated that night with the video for the track, directed by longtime collaborator Dave Ma, and on 6 March, the Total Life Forever site was launched. There puzzles revealed images, lyrics and sound clips of songs from the album. The last clip appeared on 12 March, with a password entry for Foals' new website. The site was opened on 13 March and presented the art concept and media including samples of songs, photos and videos. Lead single "This Orient" was released on 3 May 2010. The album was finally released on 10 May 2010.
"Spanish Sahara" was featured in trailers for season seven of Entourage, season four of Skins and Outcasts. It was also used in the soundtrack of the second season of the E4 drama Misfits. It was released as a full physical single in September 2010, featuring an edited remix starring the strings of London Contemporary Orchestra. In 2015, it was used by French studio Dontnod Entertainment in the game Life is Strange as the music for one of its endings.
The album was nominated for the 2010 Mercury Prize. In an interview with online magazine Coup de Main, Jimmy Smith said how the band members live together on and off the road – heading to Australia to record demos for their next album together. "It's just like touring with your family, it's nice."
Holy Fire: 2012–2013
Holy Fire was released in both the UK and the US on 11 February 2013. The album's lead single, "Inhaler", received its first radio play on 5 November 2012. They played the song "My Number" for the first time on Later... with Jools Holland.
Holy Fire was produced by Flood and Alan Moulder, who have worked with many artists, including Nine Inch Nails, The Smashing Pumpkins, and My Bloody Valentine. The album was recorded at Assault & Battery studios in London.
Yannis Philippakis stated that the recording process had some unconventional moments: "At one point we even made these poor studio interns collect bones. We were inspired by voodoo, these Haitian rhythms. We collected some ourselves, from butchers in Willesden High Road. Mainly cows, I think often they had gristle and cartilage on them, mainly cow and occasionally sheep. We had to order these big pots because one of the shoulder blades was too big! We boiled the flesh away so we could use them as percussion! We wanted to get primitive!"
According to The Guardian: "Their producers, Flood and Alan Moulder, even tricked them by recording their rehearsal in order to capture a more uninhibited sound."
In late November to mid-December, Foals toured the UK for an album preview. The tour was supported by Petite Noir (a close friend of Philippakis's).
In summer 2013, they attended a number of festivals and headlined Latitude Festival in Suffolk in July. The band have recently played a World and UK tour, which ended with two sell out shows at Alexandra Palace in February. The two shows were in stark contrast compared to playing the same venue 7 years earlier to an almost empty room while supporting Bloc Party, a sentiment which lead singer Philippakis did not fail to mention during the live shows.
Holy Fire was nominated for the Mercury Prize in 2013. Q awarded Foals with the Best Live Act award the same year while "Inhaler" received the Best Track award from NME. In a reader-nominated "Best Album of 2013" poll, Holy Fire topped the list; as did single "My Number" in a "Best Song of 2013" poll, beating NME favorites Arctic Monkeys, amongst other acclaimed bands.
What Went Down: 2014–2017
On 2 April 2014, in an interview with NME, Yannis Philippakis said "Over the next month I think we're going to start writing tentatively. We've already got some bits and bobs around some riffs and some vocal melodies. I think until May we're gonna go back to Oxford and write in the 'stinkbox' and see what happens." On 9 June 2015, Foals unveiled a short video teasing an upcoming album in 2015.
Foals shared album track "Mountain at My Gates" on 20 June, premiering the song via BBC Radio 1 as Annie Mac's 'Hottest Record'. On 29 July, the band followed up the track with an accompanying 3D video, filmed on a GoPro HERO. On 6 August, Zane Lowe premiered new song 'A Knife in the Ocean' on his Beats 1 radio show on Apple Music. Foals made public a lyric video for 'A Knife In The Ocean' the same day. The album What Went Down was released on 28 August 2015.
In late 2015, 'Mountain At My Gates' was featured on the official soundtrack of EA Sports FIFA 16.
In 2016, Foals toured the UK and Europe in February/March, followed by a US tour, playing a number of songs from What Went Down as well as previous releases, with support from Peace (DJ set) and Everything Everything (UK).
Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost, Gervers's departure: 2017–2019
In autumn 2017, Foals announced on social media that they were going to start recording materials for a new upcoming album.
On 5 January 2018, they announced that bassist Walter Gervers was departing the band amicably, whilst recording of the fifth album continued.
On 8 January 2019, the band teased their fifth and sixth studio albums, Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 1 and Part 2, respectively. Part 1 was released on 8 March 2019 and Part 2 was released on 18 October 2019.
Following Gervers's departure, it was revealed on 19 February 2019 that Jeremy Pritchard, of British band Everything Everything would join as touring bassist for the band's upcoming live shows of 2019.
Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 1 was preceded by the release via streaming services of Exits, On the Luna, Sunday and In Degrees (a day before the record's release). The album was the BBC 6 Music Album of the Day on its release date.
In March 2019, the band embarked on the first shows of their "Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost World Tour" which currently has dates running throughout 2019 and 2020.
After playing several festivals across the summer of 2019 (including an unannounced set at Glastonbury and a headline performance at Truck Festival), the band released a second set of singles, "Black Bull", "The Runner" and "Into the Surf" in the lead up to Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 2.
Everything not saved will be lost - Part 2 was released on 18 October 2019 through Warner and Transgressive Records. The album cover was shot by famed National Geographic photographer, Maggie Steber. The album became the band's first to reach No. 1 on the UK Album Chart.
On 7 October 2019 "Rip up the Road", a documentary detailing the recording sessions of "Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost" and subsequent 2019 world tour, was announced, with a premiere scheduled for 11 and 15 November 2019 at London's Doc’n Roll Film Festival and thereafter exclusively through Amazon Prime respectively.
On 11 November 2019 "Rip Up The Road" directed by Toby L premiered at the Rio Cinema in Dalston to an audience consisting of the band, friends and family, fans, documentary contributors/crew. The documentary was filmed over a 12-month period as the band embarked upon a world tour. The film hones in on two career highlight shows at London's Alexandra Palace and provides a candid, entertaining and gripping perspective of life on the road and being in a band. It also features their infamous Glastonbury Festival secret set on The Park Stage in 2019.
Life Is Yours, COVID-19, and Congreave's departure: 2020–present
Due to the COVID-19 crisis and subsequent global lockdowns, the band was forced to cancel and reschedule their entire 2020 UK/World tour, in support of Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 2 till Spring 2021.
However, due to the continuing pandemic and ongoing safety restrictions throughout into 2021, the band once again had to reschedule touring until 2022, save for a string of UK summer festival shows during August 2021, which would be the group's first live performances since early 2020.
On 22 September 2021, Edwin Congreave announced that he had left the band to pursue a postgraduate degree in economics. Upon the news of Edwin's departure, the band had also revealed that they had already began working on their next album, this time as a three piece band.
On 11 October 2021, the band announced scoring the opening theme of the Brian Cox-hosted BBC Two science documentary television series, "Universe" with an updated version of "Neptune", re-worked in collaboration with Hans Zimmer's Bleeding Fingers composing collective led by the famed film composer.
On 27 October 2021, the band teased a promotional clip of an iPhone snooze alarm, cryptically revealing the release date of their yet to be announced seventh studio album's first single, "Wake me up" to be released 4 November, 2021. The following day, the single was confirmed by the group with a teaser clip of the audio and music streaming platforms pre-save links respectively.
"Wake Me Up" was premiered and released on 4 November 2021 via BBC Radio 1's Clara Amfo's 'Hottest Record'.
On 10 February 2022, Foals released "2am" and announced the name of their upcoming seventh album as Life Is Yours.
Live
Foals are considered one of the top UK live acts, having won the 2013 Q Award for Best Live Act and twice being nominated for the NME Award for Best Live Act (2011 and 2013).
The band have released several live EPs (Live At Liars Club, iTunes Live: London Festival '08 and iTunes Festival: London 2010), in addition to the full length concert film Live At The Royal Albert Hall, which was directed by Dave Ma.
Frontman Yannis Philippakis is known for jumping off balconies and crowd surfing during the extended interlude of "Two Steps Twice." In October 2013, Philippakis got into a confrontation with a security guard at the Auckland Town Hall in New Zealand, as the security guard attempted to prevent him jumping into the crowd. At the end of the show, Philippakis told the crowd: "I want to say a massive thank you to you and fuck that security-guy."
In April 2020 the band canceled their remaining tour-dates due to the COVID-19 crisis, pushing dates back to 2021.
Musical style and influence
Foals is classified as an indie rock, alternative rock, dance-punk, math rock, art rock, post-rock, post-punk, art punk and indie pop band.
The band's musical influences are varied, with the band members citing minimal techno, Arthur Russell, Krautrock bands such as Harmonia, and Talking Heads, as their main sources of inspiration.
Members
Current members
Yannis Philippakis – lead guitar (2005–present), lead vocals (2006–present), percussion (2008–2013), bass guitar (2018–present)
Jack Bevan – drums, percussion (2005–present)
Jimmy Smith – rhythm guitar, keyboards, synthesizer, backing vocals (2005–present)
Current touring musicians
Kit Monteith – percussion, sampler, backing vocals (2016–present)
Jack Freeman – bass, synthesizer, backing vocals (2020–present)
Former members
Andrew Mears – lead vocals, rhythm guitar (2005–2006)
Walter Gervers – bass, percussion, vocals (2005–2018)
Edwin Congreave – keyboards, synthesizer, backing vocals (2005–2021), bass (2018–2021)
Former touring-musicians
Jeremy Pritchard – bass, synthesizer, backing vocals (2019)
Vincent Taeger – percussion, timbales (2019)
Timeline
Discography
Studio albums
Antidotes (2008)
Total Life Forever (2010)
Holy Fire (2013)
What Went Down (2015)
Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 1 (2019)
Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 2 (2019)
Life Is Yours (2022)
Recognition
Total Life Forever was nominated for the Mercury Prize in July 2010, losing to The xx's xx on 7 September that year. The album was tested again the following year for Best Album in addition to a nomination for Best Cover Artwork at the NME Awards. The single "Spanish Sahara" was nominated by the same group for Best Track on top of being named all-around Best Band and Best Live Act. In July, the MOJO honour awards also nominated Foals alongside Canadian band Arcade Fire for the calibre of their live performances.
Mercury Prize
|-
| 2010
| Total Life Forever
| Best Album
|
|-
| 2013
| Holy Fire
| Best Album
|
|-
| 2019
| Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost - Part 1
| Best Album
|
|}
Ivor Novello Awards
|-
| 2010
| "Spanish Sahara"
| Best Song Musically and Lyrically
|
|}
NME Awards
|-
| rowspan="5" style="text-align:center;"| 2011
|rowspan="2"| Foals
| Best British Band
|
|-
| Best Live Act
|
|-
|rowspan="2"| Total Life Forever
| Best British Album
|
|-
| Best Artwork
|
|-
| "Spanish Sahara"
| Best Track
|
|-
| rowspan="2" style="text-align:center;"| 2013
| Foals
| Best Live Band
|
|-
| "Inhaler"
| Best Track
|
|-
| 2014
| Foals
| Best British Band
|
|-
| rowspan="3" style="text-align:center;"| 2016
| What Went Down
| Best Album
|
|-
| Foals
| Best British Band
|
|-
| "What Went Down"
| Best Track
|
|-
| rowspan="3" style="text-align:center;"| 2020
| rowspan="2"| Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost - Part 1
| Best Album
| style="text-align:center;"
|-
| Best Album in the World
|
|-
| Foals
| Best Live Act
|
|}
Q Awards
|-
|rowspan="3"| 2013
| Holy Fire
| Best Album
|
|-
|rowspan="2"| Foals
| Best Act in the World Today
|
|-
| Best Live Act
|
|-
|rowspan="3"| 2015
| Foals
| Best Act in the World Today
|
|-
|rowspan="2"| "What Went Down"
| Best Track
|
|-
| Best Video
|
|-
| 2019
| Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 1
| Best Album
|
|}
Brit Awards
|-
| 2008
| Foals
| Critics' Choice Award
|
|-
| 2016
| Foals
| British Group
|
|-
| 2020
| Foals
| Best Group
|
|}
iHeartRadio Music Awards
|-
| 2017
| Foals
| Best New Rock/Alternative Rock Artist
|
|}
References
External links
Foals on Music Feeds TV
English indie rock groups
Alternative dance musical groups
Brit Award winners
Music in Oxford
Dance-punk musical groups
NME Awards winners
Musical groups established in 2005
Math rock groups
British musical trios
Musical groups from Oxford
| true |
[
"Step Up 3D (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) is the film soundtrack for the film Step Up 3D. It was released on July 27, 2010, by Atlantic Records.\n\nTrack listing\n\nTracks not listed\nThere are many tracks that were not listed in the soundtrack.\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nOfficial website\n\nStep Up (film series) albums\n2010 soundtrack albums\nFilm soundtracks\nHip hop soundtracks\nDance music soundtracks\nAtlantic Records soundtracks\nAlbums produced by Tha Bizness",
"Songs from the Cool World is the soundtrack album for the 1992 Ralph Bakshi film Cool World and features songs from David Bowie, Thompson Twins, Moby, and other dance and rock artists from the time. The soundtrack would go on to chart in the Billboard 200.\n\nTrack listing\n\nCD Track Listing\n\nLP Track Listing\n\nSide A\n\nSide B\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\nAlbums produced by Nile Rodgers\n1992 soundtrack albums\nWarner Records soundtracks\nDance music soundtracks\nTechno albums\nRock soundtracks\nFantasy film soundtracks\nComedy film soundtracks"
] |
[
"Rick Barry",
"Broadcasting career"
] |
C_546514e8f7eb4c81a722648e1bfe356e_0
|
What began his broadcasting career?
| 1 |
What began Rick Barry's broadcasting career?
|
Rick Barry
|
Barry was among the first professional basketball players to make a successful transition to the broadcasting profession. He began broadcasting during the 1967-68 season broadcasting Oakland Oaks games because of contractual matters that kept him off of the court. Barry continues to work in the field, a career that began with his own radio show in San Francisco and CBS while still an active player and then with TBS. While working as a CBS analyst during Game 5 of the 1981 NBA Finals, Barry made a controversial comment when CBS displayed an old photo of colleague Bill Russell, who is African-American, and Barry joked that "it looks like some fool over there with that big watermelon grin". Barry later apologized for the comment, claiming that he did not realize that a reference to watermelons would have racial overtones. Russell said that he believed Barry with regard to Barry's racial attitudes, but nonetheless, the two men are reported not to have been particularly friendly for other reasons, unrelated to that comment. CBS did not renew Barry's employment for the subsequent season, with producers later citing the overall negative tone of Barry's game commentary. The next season, Barry did some broadcasting for the Seattle SuperSonics, however a plan for permanent employment fell through when Barry insisted that his then-wife be allowed to join him when the team was on the road, which would have been contrary to team policy. The next year, Barry was featured in a lengthy Sports Illustrated article written by Tony Kornheiser in which he lamented the failure of his broadcasting career to that point, as well as the fact that he'd left a reputation within NBA circles for being an unlikable person. In a rare non-sports venture, he hosted the pilot for the mid-1980s game show Catchphrase; however, when the series debuted in the fall of 1985, game show veteran Art James replaced him (the series itself was short-lived in the US, but was brought over to the UK and is still running). In September 2001, Barry began hosting a sports talk show on KNBR-AM in San Francisco until June 2003, when KNBR paired him up with Rod Brooks to co-host a show named Rick and Rod. The show aired on KNBR until August 2006, when Barry left the station abruptly for reasons not disclosed to the public. CANNOTANSWER
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He began broadcasting during the 1967-68 season
|
Richard Francis Dennis Barry III (born March 28, 1944) is an American retired professional basketball player who played in both the American Basketball Association (ABA) and National Basketball Association (NBA). Named one of the 50 Greatest Players in history in 1996 and 75 Greatest Players in history in 2021, each in a league-wide vote of media, analysts, current and former players and team executives, Barry ranks among the most prolific scorers and all-around players in basketball history. He is the only one to lead the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), ABA, and NBA in points per game in a season. He ranks as the all-time ABA scoring leader in regular season (30.5 points per game) and postseason (33.5) play, while his 36.3 points per game are the most in the NBA Finals history. Barry also is the only player to reach the 50-point mark in a Game 7 of the playoffs in either league. He is one of only four players to be a part of a championship team in both leagues.
Barry is widely known for his unorthodox but extraordinarily effective underhand free throw technique. His career .880 free throw percentage ranks No. 1 in ABA history, and at the time of his retirement in 1980, his .900 percentage was the best of any NBA player. In 1987, he was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. In October 2021, Barry was honored as one of the league's greatest players of all-time by being named to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team.
Barry is the father of former professional basketball players Brent Barry, Jon Barry, Drew Barry, and Scooter Barry, and current professional player Canyon Barry. His wife, Lynn Norenberg Barry, was a star basketball player at the College of William & Mary, where she became the first female athlete to have her jersey number (22) retired.
Early years and college career
Barry grew up in Roselle Park, New Jersey, where baseball was his best sport as a youth. He grew up a fan of local New York Giants star Willie Mays, who wore jersey number 24, and Barry would wear the same number in tribute to the outfielder throughout his basketball career. In 1962, Barry graduated from Roselle Park High School.
Barry decided to attend the University of Miami, largely because the Hurricanes adhered to an up-tempo, pro-style system under head coach Bruce Hale that was conducive to his skills and athleticism. It was there that the three-time All-American met his future wife Pamela, who was the daughter of the head coach. As a senior, Barry led the NCAA with a 37.4 points per game average in the 1964–65 campaign. He and his teammates did not take part in the NCAA Tournament, however, because the Hurricanes basketball program was on probation at the time.
Barry was drafted by the San Francisco Warriors with the second pick of the 1965 NBA draft. He had hoped to be selected by the New York Knicks, his hometown team, but they opted for local Princeton star Bill Bradley in round one instead. It was a slight that Barry would not soon forget. In his second visit to Madison Square Garden as a pro, he went off for 57 points versus the Knicks, including 21 free throws in 22 attempts. He also grabbed 15 rebounds in the 141–137 loss.
Professional playing career
San Francisco Warriors
In Barry's first season in the NBA with the Warriors, the team made a quantum leap from 17 to 35 victories and were in playoff contention until the final game of the regular season. In the All-Star Game one season later, Barry erupted for 38 points as the West team stunned the East team, which featured Wilt Chamberlain, Oscar Robertson, Bill Russell and head coach Red Auerbach among other all-time greats. Later that season, Barry and company extended the mighty Philadelphia 76ers to six highly competitive games in the NBA Finals, something that Russell and the Boston Celtics could not do in the Eastern Conference playoffs.
Nicknamed the "Miami Greyhound" by longtime San Francisco Bay Area broadcaster Bill King because of his long and slender physical build, whippet-like quickness and remarkable instincts, the Barry won the NBA Rookie of the Year Award after averaging 25.7 points and 10.6 rebounds per game in the 1965–66 season. The following year, he won the 1967 NBA All-Star Game MVP award with a 38-point outburst and led the NBA in scoring with a 35.6 point per game average — which still ranks as the eighth-highest output in league annals.
Along with All-Star center Nate Thurmond, Barry carried the Warriors to the 1967 NBA Finals, which they lost to the Philadelphia 76ers in six games. Despite an injured left knee that required cortisone shots on game days, Barry averaged 40.8 points per game in the series, an NBA Finals record that stood for three decades. "The guy was so good that we had to have three different guys guard him at different times," Chamberlain said. "'Cause he would run them all ragged."
Joining the ABA
At odds with Warriors owner Franklin Mieuli over unpaid incentive monies due him, Barry shocked the basketball world when he jumped to the ABA's Oakland Oaks, who overwhelmed him with a historic contract offer. Barry became the first marquee NBA player to jump to the rival league. Not only was the three-year agreement worth a reported $500,000, which would make him one of basketball's highest-paid players, it afforded him the opportunity to play for his former college coach Bruce Hale, who was also his father-in-law. In addition, Barry received 15 percent ownership in the franchise as well as 5 percent of all ticket sales in excess of $600,000 for home games. The ground-breaking deal led him to remark, "The offer Oakland made me was one I simply couldn't turn down."
The courts ordered Barry to sit out the 1967–68 season for the Oaks, upholding the validity of the reserve clause in his contract. At the time, all NBA teams had one-year options on player contracts, however, and the Warriors were quick to exercise theirs. He preceded St. Louis Cardinals' outfielder Curt Flood, whose better-known challenge to the reserve clause went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, by two years as the first American major-league professional athlete to bring a court action against it. The ensuing negative publicity cast Barry in a negative light, portraying him as selfish and money hungry. He was hardly alone in his vision, however, as numerous NBA players also saw the rival league as a rare opportunity to enhance their careers.
Oakland Oaks
The Oaks finished 22–56 in their ABA debut, which Barry spent as part of their broadcast team. Prior to the 1968–69 season, they hired his former San Francisco Warriors coach Alex Hannum to replace Hale, who moved to a front office position. If there was any question about whether Barry would remain the most dominant player in professional basketball, he quickly answered it. In his ABA debut, he averaged a league-high 34.0 points per game and the Oaks became the first West Coast team to capture a league championship in professional basketball history. Barry also paced the league in free-throw percentage in the regular season, a feat he would repeat in the 1970–71 and 1971–72 seasons.
Barry had his season come to an abrupt halt on December 27, 1968, when late in a game against the New York Nets, he was blindsided by Ken Wilburn on a drive to the basket and tore left knee ligaments on the play. He attempted to come back in January 1969, only to aggravate the injury and sit out the remainder of the season. He took part in only 35 games but still was named to the ABA All-Star team.
Even without the arguably the best all-around player in basketball, the Oaks barely skipped a beat. They finished with a 60–18 record under Hannum, dominating the Western Division by 14 games over the second-place New Orleans Buccaneers. In the 1969 ABA Playoffs, the Oaks ousted the Denver Rockets in a seven-game series then swept the Buccaneers in the Western Division finals. In the championship round, they made short work of the Indiana Pacers, 4–1, to capture the league title.
In lieu of a parade in downtown Oakland, a modest victory celebration was held at a restaurant in Jack London Square. It was there that Barry announced, "I see no hope for the rest of the teams in the league."
Washington Caps
Despite their on-court excellence, the Oaks were a disappointment at the gate, partly because of Barry's absence in the final five months of the season, partly because they were the only ABA member that competed in the same market as an NBA team, that being the more established Warriors across the bay. They averaged just 2,800 fans per home game at the state-of-the-art Oakland County Coliseum Arena, slightly more than the league average. By that time, entertainer-business entrepreneur Pat Boone had become the majority team owner, and after more than $2 million in losses over two seasons, he wanted out of the basketball business. In August 1968, the franchise was sold to a group headed by real estate attorney and former Baltimore Bullets owner Earl Foreman, who immediately moved it to Washington, D.C., even though there was no suitable arena in the vicinity at the time.
Reluctantly, Barry played the 1969–70 season with the ABA's Washington Caps. He refused to report to the team at the outset, at one point commenting, "If I wanted to go to Washington, I'd run for president!" He missed the first 32 games before he joined the team, which played in the Western Division, making for a grueling travel schedule. The Caps still managed to finish with a respectable 44–40 record, good for third place in the Western Division. Appearing in only 52 games because of a knee injury, Barry finished the season with 1,442 points (27.7 per game), second-best in the league. The Denver Rockets edged the Caps, 4–3, in the Western Division semifinals. In Game 7 on the road, Barry went off for 52 points, the most scored in a seventh and deciding game in professional basketball history.
Virginia Squires
The Washington Caps became the Virginia Squires after the 1969–70 season, but Barry was openly despondent about playing in Virginia. At the same time, he wanted to continue playing in the ABA. Featured on the August 24, 1970, cover of Sports Illustrated in a Squires jersey, he indicated that he would not return to the NBA if the league paid him "a million dollars a year." He denounced the Squires (and, subsequently, never suited up for them), saying he did not want his kids growing up with a Southern accent. On September 1, 1970, the Squires traded Barry to the New York Nets for a draft pick and $200,000. The negative comments were not the primary reason; rather, Squires owner Earl Foreman was mired in financial troubles and sold Barry to help meet expenses.
New York Nets
After the Squires dealt Barry to the New York Nets, he played in only 59 games in the 1970–71 season because of a knee injury but still made the ABA All Star team. He repeated as an ABA All Star during the 1971–72 season. During the 1970–71 season he led the league in scoring (29.4 points per game) and led the league again in 1971–72 with 31.5 points per game. In both of those years he also led the ABA in free throw percentage as he had in 1968–69. Barry also became the ABA record holder for most consecutive free throws in one game with 23.
In the 1970–71 season, the Nets finished 40–44, good for fourth place in the Eastern Division and a place in the 1971 ABA Playoffs. The Virginia Squires defeated the Nets 4 games to 2 in the Eastern Division semifinals. The 1971–72 Nets finished the season at 44–40, making the 1972 ABA Playoffs by claiming third place in the Eastern Division, 24 games behind the 68–16 Kentucky Colonels. In the Eastern Division semifinals the Nets shocked the ABA by defeating the Colonels 4 games to 2. The Nets then eked out a 4–3 game victory over the Virginia Squires in the Eastern Division finals. The Nets were then edged by the Western Division champion Indiana Pacers, 4 games to 2, in the 1972 ABA Finals.
On June 23, 1972, a United States District Court judge issued a preliminary injunction to prohibit Barry from playing for any team other than the Golden State Warriors after his contract with the Nets ended. On October 6, 1972, the Nets released Barry and he returned to the Warriors.
Golden State Warriors
Upon Barry's return to the Warriors and the NBA, the cumulative effects of knee problems were taking their toll. Barry gradually moved his game away from the basket, where he became the first so-called point forward in league history. That is, Barry took on a role similar to that of a point guard and became the chief facilitator of the offense. While his offensive forays were not as frequent as in the past, he remained an elite scorer as evidenced by his performance on March 26, 1974, when he went off for a career-high 64 points and grabbed 10 rebounds in a 143–120 win over the visiting Portland Trail Blazers.
In 1974–75, the Warriors had a Cinderella season for the ages. The turnaround began in training camp, when Barry was elected captain by his teammates. They went on to capture the Pacific Division crown as Barry responded with the best all-around season of his career. Not only did he average 30.6 points per game, but he also led the league in free throw percentage (.904) and steals per game (2.9) and ranked sixth in assists per game (6.2), the only forward among the top 10 in the category.
In the playoffs, the upstart Warriors turned back the Seattle SuperSonics and Chicago Bulls to capture the Western Conference crown. In the NBA Finals, they shocked the basketball world with a historic four-game sweep of Elvin Hayes, Wes Unseld and the Washington Bullets, widely considered to be the greatest postseason upset in NBA history. The Bullets had posted a league-high 60 victories, 12 more than the Warriors total in the regular season, which led many experts to predict that they would win the series easily. Barry was named NBA Finals Most Valuable Player on the strength of 29.5 points, 5.0 assists and 3.5 steals per game, not to mention his profound impact in a leadership role.
In the 1975 NBA draft, the Warriors selected point guard Gus Williams in the first round. While Williams made immediate contributions off the bench, off guard Phil Smith came into his own in his second season. Barry was not required to carry the team as often, and his scoring average dipped to 21.0 points per game as a result. As the deepest and most athletic team in professional basketball, the Warriors repeated as Pacific Division champions, this time with a league-best 59–23 record. They entered the playoffs as clear-cut favorites to return to the NBA Finals.
After an unusual 10-day layoff, partly to accommodate network television, the Warriors eliminated the Detroit Pistons in round one then were upset in the Western Conference finals by the Phoenix Suns in seven games. The final contest was marred by a fight between Barry and Suns rookie Ricky Sobers away from the ball in the first quarter, during which none of the Warriors came to his aid at the opposite side of the court. Suns broadcaster Al McCoy concocted a narrative that Barry quit in the second half, a charge that lacked tangible evidence and he steadfastly denied. In fact, Barry led his team in points and shot attempts that game. Rather, he said his intent was to get more teammates involved in the third quarter, the game plan that had allowed them to dominate in the regular season.
In the 1976–77 campaign, the Warriors won 46 games the next season with Barry, Smith, and Williams sharing scoring and ball-handling, but were ousted in the second round by the Los Angeles Lakers. Reportedly, Barry and Williams clashed over the ball-handling role, and Williams was traded after the season to the Seattle SuperSonics. Barry averaged 23.1 points per game in his farewell season (1977–78) with the Warriors, but the team failed to make the playoffs.
Houston Rockets
Barry finished his career with the Houston Rockets, playing through the 1979–80 NBA season. The Rockets signed him as a free agent in June, 1978, and the league awarded veteran guard John Lucas to the Warriors as compensation.
In the twilight of his career, Barry continued to make history. In his Rockets debut, he assumed a new role as the first player off the bench. It was not long before he elevated the point forward position to another level. Barry finished with a career-high 502 assists to become the first true small forward to reach the 500 mark in one season. Until then, swingman John Havlicek had been the only forward with as many as 500 assists in a season, but the Boston Celtics swingman also spent considerable time at the off guard spot. Barry averaged 13.5 points per game and established a new NBA record (since broken) with a .947 free throw percentage.
Barry was less of a factor in his final season. The Rockets were swept by the Celtics in the 1980 Eastern Conference semifinals, and when contract talks with Boston and the Seattle SuperSonics failed to produce a contract, he decided to retire.
NBA career statistics
Regular season
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|San Francisco
| style="background:#cfecec;"|80* || || 37.4 || .439 || || .862 || 10.6 || 2.2 || || || 25.7
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|San Francisco
| 78 || || 40.7 || .451 || || .884 || 9.2 || 3.6 || || || style="background:#cfecec;"|35.6*
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || || 37.5 || .452 || || style="background:#cfecec;"|.902* || 8.9 || 4.9 || || || 22.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| 80 || || 36.5 || .456 || || .899 || 6.8 || 6.1 || 2.1 || 0.5 || 25.1
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| 80 || || 40.4 || .464 || || style="background:#cfecec;"|.904* || 5.7 || 6.2 || style="background:#cfecec;"|2.9* || 0.4 || 30.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| 81 || || 38.5 || .435 || || style="background:#cfecec;"|.923* || 6.1 || 6.1 || 2.5 || 0.3 || 21.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| 79 || || 36.8 || .440 || || .916 || 5.3 || 6.0 || 2.2 || 0.7 || 21.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| 82 || || 36.9 || .451 || || style="background:#cfecec;"|.924* || 5.5 || 5.4 || 1.9 || 0.5 || 23.1
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 80 || || 32.1 || .461 || || style="background:#cfecec;"|.947* || 3.5 || 6.3 || 1.2 || 0.5 || 13.5
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 72 || || 25.2 || .422 || .330 || style="background:#cfecec;"|.935* || 3.3 || 3.7 || 1.1 || 0.4 || 12.0
|- class=sortbottom
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|Career
| 794 || || 36.3 || .449 || .330 || .900 || 6.5 || 5.1 || 2.0 || 0.5 || 23.2
Later years
During the 1990s, he coached the Cedar Rapids Sharpshooters of the Global Basketball Association and the Continental Basketball Association, guiding the Fort Wayne Fury to a 19–37 win-loss record in 1993–94. In 1998 and 1999, he served as head coach of the New Jersey ShoreCats of the United States Basketball League. Former Warriors teammate Clifford Ray was his top assistant.
Barry finished second in his division at the 2005 World Long Drive Championship.
Barry is part owner and promoter for the Ektio basketball shoe, which doctor and former college basketball player Barry Katz designed to reduce ankle injuries. He also serves on the company's Board of Directors.
Broadcasting career
Barry was among the first professional basketball players to make a successful transition to the broadcasting profession. He began broadcasting during the 1967–68 season broadcasting Oakland Oaks games because of contractual matters that kept him off the court. Barry continues to work in the field, a career that began with his own radio show in San Francisco and CBS while still an active player and then with TBS.
While working as a CBS analyst during Game 5 of the 1981 NBA Finals, Barry made a controversial comment when CBS displayed an old photo of colleague Bill Russell, who is African-American. He tried to joke that "it looks like some fool over there with that big watermelon grin". Barry later apologized for the comment, claiming that he did not realize that a reference to watermelons had racial overtones. Russell said that he believed Barry with regard to Barry's racial attitudes, but nonetheless, the two men are reported not to have been particularly friendly for other reasons, unrelated to that comment.
CBS did not renew Barry's employment for the subsequent season. Producers later cited the general negative tone of his game commentary, which did not sit well with some players and agents around the league. The next season Barry filled in on a few Seattle SuperSonics broadcasts, but a plan for a full-time position fell through when he insisted that his then-wife be allowed to join him when the team was on the road, which would have been contrary to team policy. The next year, Barry was featured in a lengthy Sports Illustrated article written by Tony Kornheiser in which he lamented the failure of his broadcasting career to that point, as well as the fact that he'd left a reputation within NBA circles for being an unlikeable person. After this, Barry worked with TBS and later on, TNT into the 1989–90 season, mostly as a color analyst but sometimes as a play-by-play announcer paired with Bill Russell. One of the more notable games Barry called as play-by-play announcer on TBS was Game 5 of the 1985 Eastern Conference Finals between the Boston Celtics and the Philadelphia 76ers, where Larry Bird made a last-second steal which sealed the win and the Eastern Conference Championship for the Celtics. After the 1989–90 season, Barry became the color analyst for the Atlanta Hawks' games that aired on TBS, paired with Skip Caray.
In a rare non-sports venture, he hosted the pilot for the mid-1980s game show Catchphrase; however, when the series debuted in the fall of 1985, game show veteran Art James replaced him (the series itself was short-lived in the US, but was brought over to the UK and is still running).
In September 2001, Barry began hosting a sports talk show on KNBR in San Francisco until June 2003, when KNBR paired him up with Rod Brooks to co-host a show named Rick and Rod. The show aired on KNBR until August 2006, when Barry left the station abruptly for reasons not disclosed to the public.
Personal life
Barry is of Irish, English, French, and Lithuanian descent. He was a member of the Kappa Sigma fraternity. He resides in Colorado Springs, Colorado with his wife, Lynn Norenberg Barry. While their youngest son, Canyon, played basketball for The University of Florida, to watch him play, they rented a condominium in Gainesville, Florida.
He has four sons and a daughter with his first wife Pam: Scooter, Jon, Brent, Drew and Shannon. All of Barry's sons were professional basketball players. Barry wrote an autobiography, Confessions of a Basketball Gypsy: The Rick Barry Story with Bill Libby that was published in 1972. He also has a son, Canyon, with his third wife, Lynn Barry, who is a professional player, playing for Chinese club Hunan Jinjian Miye in the 2018–19 season.
When his son Brent won the NBA Championship in 2005 with the San Antonio Spurs, Rick and Brent became the second father-son duo to both win NBA Championships as players, following Matt Guokas Sr. and Matt Guokas Jr. Later, this would be repeated by Bill and Luke Walton, and Mychal and Klay Thompson.
Jon and Brent have also moved to broadcasting after retirement. Jon serves as a game analyst on ESPN while Brent worked as a studio and game analyst on TNT and NBA TV until 2018 when he took a job with the San Antonio Spurs to be vice president of basketball operations.
Scooter won titles in the CBA and the top Belgian League.
Career achievements
Roselle Park High School – Roselle Park, New Jersey (1957–1961)
Two-time All-State selection
University of Miami (1961–1965)
Associated Press First-Team All-America (1965)
The Sporting News All-America Second Team (1965)
Consensus All-America (1965)
Led the nation in scoring (37.4 ppg) as a senior
NBA San Francisco Warriors (1965–1967)
NBA Rookie of the Year (1966)
NBA All-Rookie First Team (1966)
NBA leading scorer in 1967 (35.6 ppg)
ABA leading scorer in 1969 (34.0 ppg)
NBA highest free-throw percentage 1973, 1975, 1976, 1978, 1979, 1980
ABA highest free-throw percentage 1969, 1971, 1972
NBA All-Star Game MVP (1967)
ABA Oakland Oaks (1968–1969)
ABA Washington Caps (1969–1970)
ABA New York Nets (1970–1972)
NBA Golden State Warriors (1972–1978)
All-NBA Second Team (1973)
NBA Finals MVP (1975)
NBA champion (1975)
NBA Houston Rockets (1978–1979)
All-NBA First Team (1966, 1967, 1974, 1975, 1976)
Eight-time NBA All-Star (1966, 1967, 1973–1978)
ABA All-Star First Team (1969–1972)
NBA 50 Greatest Players (1996)
NBA 75 Greatest Players (2021)
Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame (1988)
Sports Hall of Fame of New Jersey (1994)
University of Miami Sports Hall of Fame (1976)
Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement (1975)
15 games in NBA career scoring 50 or more points (5th in NBA history)
115 games in professional career scoring 40 or more points — 70 NBA, 45 ABA (4th in professional basketball history after Wilt Chamberlain, Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant)
NBA records
Regular season
Only player in history to lead the NCAA, ABA and NBA in scoring
Led the NCAA in scoring in 1964–65 (973 points, 37.4 ppg)
Led the NBA in scoring in (2,775 points, 35.6 ppg)
Led the ABA in scoring in (1,190 points; 34.0 ppg)
Youngest player to score 57 points in a game: (57 points, San Francisco Warriors at New York Knicks, )
Free throws, consecutive, ABA game: 23, at Kentucky Colonels,
Assists, forward, game: 19, at Chicago Bulls, November 30, 1976
Playoffs
Scoring 30 or more points in all games, any playoff series: 6 games, vs. Philadelphia 76ers, 1967 NBA Finals
Points, 7-game ABA series: 281, vs. Denver Rockets, 1970 semifinals
Points scored, Game 7, any ABA-NBA playoff series: 52, at Denver Rockets,
Field goal attempts, 6-game series: 235, vs. Philadelphia 76ers, 1967 NBA Finals
Field goal attempts, game: 48, vs. Philadelphia 76ers,
Field goal attempts, quarter: 17, at Philadelphia 76ers,
Steals, quarter: 4, second quarter, at Chicago Bulls,
Tied with many other players
NBA Finals
Highest scoring average (career): 36.3
Scoring 30 or more points in all games, any championship series: 6 games, vs. Philadelphia 76ers, 1967 NBA Finals
Tied with Elgin Baylor, Michael Jordan, Hakeem Olajuwon, Shaquille O'Neal, and Kevin Durant.
Field goals made, game: 22, vs. Philadelphia 76ers,
Tied with Elgin Baylor
Field goal attempts, 6-game series: 235, vs. Philadelphia 76ers, 1967 NBA Finals
Field goal attempts, game: 48, vs. Philadelphia 76ers,
Field goal attempts, quarter: 17, at Philadelphia 76ers,
Steals, 4-game series: 14, vs. Washington Bullets, 1975 NBA Finals (3.5 spg)
All-Star
Field goal attempts, game: 27 (1967)
Steals, game: 8 (1975)
Personal fouls, game: 6, twice (1966, 1978)
Disqualifications, career: 2
Tied with Bob Cousy
See also
American Basketball Association (2000–present)
List of individual National Basketball Association scoring leaders by season
List of National Basketball Association players with most points in a game
List of National Basketball Association players with most steals in a game
List of National Basketball Association players with 50 or more points in a playoff game
List of NCAA Division I men's basketball players with 2000 points and 1000 rebounds
References
External links
Basketball Hall of Fame profile
RememberTheABA.com Rick Barry page
1972 Jim O'Brien biographical article on Rick Barry
Rick Barry and Rod Brooks Home Page at KNBR Radio
Rick Barry Career Statistics
A Voice Crying in the Wilderness
1944 births
Living people
All-American college men's basketball players
American Basketball Association announcers
American men's basketball players
American people of Lithuanian descent
American sports radio personalities
Basketball coaches from New Jersey
Basketball players from Colorado Springs, Colorado
Basketball players from New Jersey
Big3 coaches
Continental Basketball Association coaches
Golden State Warriors players
Golf writers and broadcasters
Houston Rockets players
Miami Hurricanes men's basketball players
Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductees
National Basketball Association All-Stars
National Basketball Association broadcasters
National Basketball Association players with retired numbers
New York Nets players
Oakland Oaks players
People from Roselle Park, New Jersey
Radio personalities from San Francisco
San Francisco Warriors draft picks
San Francisco Warriors players
Small forwards
Sportspeople from Elizabeth, New Jersey
Tennis commentators
United States Basketball League coaches
Washington Caps players
| false |
[
"Roger Ogden is a broadcasting consultant and former president and CEO of Gannett Broadcasting.\n\nBefore becoming head of Gannett Broadcasting, Ogden was senior vice president of Gannett Broadcasting and president and general manager of KUSA-TV in Denver, where he began his Gannett career in 1967. He has worked at WLKY-TV in Louisville, KY, when it was owned by Gannett, and at a non-Gannett station in Denver. Ogden spent two years with NBC as president and managing director of NBC Europe. He was also President And GM For former NBC O&O KCNC-TV Ogden began his broadcast career on Denver radio at the age of 14.\n\nNamed 2007 Broadcaster of the Year by Broadcasting & Cable magazine. .\n\nReferences \n\nLiving people\nYear of birth missing (living people)\nAmerican media executives",
"WIFE 94.3 FM is a radio station broadcasting a country music format. Licensed to Rushville, Indiana, the station is owned by Rodgers Broadcasting Corporation.\n\nHistory\nWIFE first signed on the air on August 5, 1971, as WRCR, owned by the Rush County Broadcasting Company. The station's facilities were built on North Perkins Street, east of the Rushville courthouse square. A Mutual Broadcasting System affiliate, WRCR's format included an \"up-tempo\" mix of popular, rock, and country music in addition to local community news and Rushville Consolidated High School sports. Upon its founding, WRCR's broadcasting hours were between 5:40 a.m. and 10:15 p.m. seven days a week, but WRCR could sign off later in case of a live sporting event running long.\n\nBefore his political career as U.S. Representative for Rushville, Governor of Indiana, and Vice President of the United States, Mike Pence began his radio career on WRCR. His first show on WRCR, a weekly half-hour program called Washington Update with Mike Pence, debuted in 1988 after an unsuccessful debut run for Congress. Pence began hosting a daily three-hour call-in talk show on WRCR in 1992, The Mike Pence Show. WRCR continued to broadcast The Mike Pence Show after it began statewide syndication in 1994. The Mike Pence Show ended in September 1999 as Pence prepared for his successful run for Congress in 2000.\n\nFrom 2000 to 2007, its call signs were WKWH-FM. WKWH-FM was branded \"Power Country\" from 2001 to 2006, and it shared call signs with a co-owned oldies station on 1520 AM, WKWH-AM (now WSVX) licensed to nearby Shelbyville. Its branding was \"94.3 Buddy FM\" heading into 2007. Late in 2006, WKWH began de-emphasizing talk shows and community-oriented programming to play more country music.\n\nOn July 23, 2007, Whitewater Broadcasting took over operations of WKWH from RushShelby Energy, changed the call letters to the current WIFE-FM, and launched the current \"Hometown Country 94.3\" branding.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nWIFE's official website\n\nIFE\n1971 establishments in Indiana\nRush County, Indiana"
] |
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"Rick Barry",
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"What began his broadcasting career?",
"He began broadcasting during the 1967-68 season"
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C_546514e8f7eb4c81a722648e1bfe356e_0
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Where did he broadcast?
| 2 |
Where did Rick Barry broadcast during the 1967-68 season?
|
Rick Barry
|
Barry was among the first professional basketball players to make a successful transition to the broadcasting profession. He began broadcasting during the 1967-68 season broadcasting Oakland Oaks games because of contractual matters that kept him off of the court. Barry continues to work in the field, a career that began with his own radio show in San Francisco and CBS while still an active player and then with TBS. While working as a CBS analyst during Game 5 of the 1981 NBA Finals, Barry made a controversial comment when CBS displayed an old photo of colleague Bill Russell, who is African-American, and Barry joked that "it looks like some fool over there with that big watermelon grin". Barry later apologized for the comment, claiming that he did not realize that a reference to watermelons would have racial overtones. Russell said that he believed Barry with regard to Barry's racial attitudes, but nonetheless, the two men are reported not to have been particularly friendly for other reasons, unrelated to that comment. CBS did not renew Barry's employment for the subsequent season, with producers later citing the overall negative tone of Barry's game commentary. The next season, Barry did some broadcasting for the Seattle SuperSonics, however a plan for permanent employment fell through when Barry insisted that his then-wife be allowed to join him when the team was on the road, which would have been contrary to team policy. The next year, Barry was featured in a lengthy Sports Illustrated article written by Tony Kornheiser in which he lamented the failure of his broadcasting career to that point, as well as the fact that he'd left a reputation within NBA circles for being an unlikable person. In a rare non-sports venture, he hosted the pilot for the mid-1980s game show Catchphrase; however, when the series debuted in the fall of 1985, game show veteran Art James replaced him (the series itself was short-lived in the US, but was brought over to the UK and is still running). In September 2001, Barry began hosting a sports talk show on KNBR-AM in San Francisco until June 2003, when KNBR paired him up with Rod Brooks to co-host a show named Rick and Rod. The show aired on KNBR until August 2006, when Barry left the station abruptly for reasons not disclosed to the public. CANNOTANSWER
|
broadcasting Oakland Oaks games
|
Richard Francis Dennis Barry III (born March 28, 1944) is an American retired professional basketball player who played in both the American Basketball Association (ABA) and National Basketball Association (NBA). Named one of the 50 Greatest Players in history in 1996 and 75 Greatest Players in history in 2021, each in a league-wide vote of media, analysts, current and former players and team executives, Barry ranks among the most prolific scorers and all-around players in basketball history. He is the only one to lead the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), ABA, and NBA in points per game in a season. He ranks as the all-time ABA scoring leader in regular season (30.5 points per game) and postseason (33.5) play, while his 36.3 points per game are the most in the NBA Finals history. Barry also is the only player to reach the 50-point mark in a Game 7 of the playoffs in either league. He is one of only four players to be a part of a championship team in both leagues.
Barry is widely known for his unorthodox but extraordinarily effective underhand free throw technique. His career .880 free throw percentage ranks No. 1 in ABA history, and at the time of his retirement in 1980, his .900 percentage was the best of any NBA player. In 1987, he was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. In October 2021, Barry was honored as one of the league's greatest players of all-time by being named to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team.
Barry is the father of former professional basketball players Brent Barry, Jon Barry, Drew Barry, and Scooter Barry, and current professional player Canyon Barry. His wife, Lynn Norenberg Barry, was a star basketball player at the College of William & Mary, where she became the first female athlete to have her jersey number (22) retired.
Early years and college career
Barry grew up in Roselle Park, New Jersey, where baseball was his best sport as a youth. He grew up a fan of local New York Giants star Willie Mays, who wore jersey number 24, and Barry would wear the same number in tribute to the outfielder throughout his basketball career. In 1962, Barry graduated from Roselle Park High School.
Barry decided to attend the University of Miami, largely because the Hurricanes adhered to an up-tempo, pro-style system under head coach Bruce Hale that was conducive to his skills and athleticism. It was there that the three-time All-American met his future wife Pamela, who was the daughter of the head coach. As a senior, Barry led the NCAA with a 37.4 points per game average in the 1964–65 campaign. He and his teammates did not take part in the NCAA Tournament, however, because the Hurricanes basketball program was on probation at the time.
Barry was drafted by the San Francisco Warriors with the second pick of the 1965 NBA draft. He had hoped to be selected by the New York Knicks, his hometown team, but they opted for local Princeton star Bill Bradley in round one instead. It was a slight that Barry would not soon forget. In his second visit to Madison Square Garden as a pro, he went off for 57 points versus the Knicks, including 21 free throws in 22 attempts. He also grabbed 15 rebounds in the 141–137 loss.
Professional playing career
San Francisco Warriors
In Barry's first season in the NBA with the Warriors, the team made a quantum leap from 17 to 35 victories and were in playoff contention until the final game of the regular season. In the All-Star Game one season later, Barry erupted for 38 points as the West team stunned the East team, which featured Wilt Chamberlain, Oscar Robertson, Bill Russell and head coach Red Auerbach among other all-time greats. Later that season, Barry and company extended the mighty Philadelphia 76ers to six highly competitive games in the NBA Finals, something that Russell and the Boston Celtics could not do in the Eastern Conference playoffs.
Nicknamed the "Miami Greyhound" by longtime San Francisco Bay Area broadcaster Bill King because of his long and slender physical build, whippet-like quickness and remarkable instincts, the Barry won the NBA Rookie of the Year Award after averaging 25.7 points and 10.6 rebounds per game in the 1965–66 season. The following year, he won the 1967 NBA All-Star Game MVP award with a 38-point outburst and led the NBA in scoring with a 35.6 point per game average — which still ranks as the eighth-highest output in league annals.
Along with All-Star center Nate Thurmond, Barry carried the Warriors to the 1967 NBA Finals, which they lost to the Philadelphia 76ers in six games. Despite an injured left knee that required cortisone shots on game days, Barry averaged 40.8 points per game in the series, an NBA Finals record that stood for three decades. "The guy was so good that we had to have three different guys guard him at different times," Chamberlain said. "'Cause he would run them all ragged."
Joining the ABA
At odds with Warriors owner Franklin Mieuli over unpaid incentive monies due him, Barry shocked the basketball world when he jumped to the ABA's Oakland Oaks, who overwhelmed him with a historic contract offer. Barry became the first marquee NBA player to jump to the rival league. Not only was the three-year agreement worth a reported $500,000, which would make him one of basketball's highest-paid players, it afforded him the opportunity to play for his former college coach Bruce Hale, who was also his father-in-law. In addition, Barry received 15 percent ownership in the franchise as well as 5 percent of all ticket sales in excess of $600,000 for home games. The ground-breaking deal led him to remark, "The offer Oakland made me was one I simply couldn't turn down."
The courts ordered Barry to sit out the 1967–68 season for the Oaks, upholding the validity of the reserve clause in his contract. At the time, all NBA teams had one-year options on player contracts, however, and the Warriors were quick to exercise theirs. He preceded St. Louis Cardinals' outfielder Curt Flood, whose better-known challenge to the reserve clause went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, by two years as the first American major-league professional athlete to bring a court action against it. The ensuing negative publicity cast Barry in a negative light, portraying him as selfish and money hungry. He was hardly alone in his vision, however, as numerous NBA players also saw the rival league as a rare opportunity to enhance their careers.
Oakland Oaks
The Oaks finished 22–56 in their ABA debut, which Barry spent as part of their broadcast team. Prior to the 1968–69 season, they hired his former San Francisco Warriors coach Alex Hannum to replace Hale, who moved to a front office position. If there was any question about whether Barry would remain the most dominant player in professional basketball, he quickly answered it. In his ABA debut, he averaged a league-high 34.0 points per game and the Oaks became the first West Coast team to capture a league championship in professional basketball history. Barry also paced the league in free-throw percentage in the regular season, a feat he would repeat in the 1970–71 and 1971–72 seasons.
Barry had his season come to an abrupt halt on December 27, 1968, when late in a game against the New York Nets, he was blindsided by Ken Wilburn on a drive to the basket and tore left knee ligaments on the play. He attempted to come back in January 1969, only to aggravate the injury and sit out the remainder of the season. He took part in only 35 games but still was named to the ABA All-Star team.
Even without the arguably the best all-around player in basketball, the Oaks barely skipped a beat. They finished with a 60–18 record under Hannum, dominating the Western Division by 14 games over the second-place New Orleans Buccaneers. In the 1969 ABA Playoffs, the Oaks ousted the Denver Rockets in a seven-game series then swept the Buccaneers in the Western Division finals. In the championship round, they made short work of the Indiana Pacers, 4–1, to capture the league title.
In lieu of a parade in downtown Oakland, a modest victory celebration was held at a restaurant in Jack London Square. It was there that Barry announced, "I see no hope for the rest of the teams in the league."
Washington Caps
Despite their on-court excellence, the Oaks were a disappointment at the gate, partly because of Barry's absence in the final five months of the season, partly because they were the only ABA member that competed in the same market as an NBA team, that being the more established Warriors across the bay. They averaged just 2,800 fans per home game at the state-of-the-art Oakland County Coliseum Arena, slightly more than the league average. By that time, entertainer-business entrepreneur Pat Boone had become the majority team owner, and after more than $2 million in losses over two seasons, he wanted out of the basketball business. In August 1968, the franchise was sold to a group headed by real estate attorney and former Baltimore Bullets owner Earl Foreman, who immediately moved it to Washington, D.C., even though there was no suitable arena in the vicinity at the time.
Reluctantly, Barry played the 1969–70 season with the ABA's Washington Caps. He refused to report to the team at the outset, at one point commenting, "If I wanted to go to Washington, I'd run for president!" He missed the first 32 games before he joined the team, which played in the Western Division, making for a grueling travel schedule. The Caps still managed to finish with a respectable 44–40 record, good for third place in the Western Division. Appearing in only 52 games because of a knee injury, Barry finished the season with 1,442 points (27.7 per game), second-best in the league. The Denver Rockets edged the Caps, 4–3, in the Western Division semifinals. In Game 7 on the road, Barry went off for 52 points, the most scored in a seventh and deciding game in professional basketball history.
Virginia Squires
The Washington Caps became the Virginia Squires after the 1969–70 season, but Barry was openly despondent about playing in Virginia. At the same time, he wanted to continue playing in the ABA. Featured on the August 24, 1970, cover of Sports Illustrated in a Squires jersey, he indicated that he would not return to the NBA if the league paid him "a million dollars a year." He denounced the Squires (and, subsequently, never suited up for them), saying he did not want his kids growing up with a Southern accent. On September 1, 1970, the Squires traded Barry to the New York Nets for a draft pick and $200,000. The negative comments were not the primary reason; rather, Squires owner Earl Foreman was mired in financial troubles and sold Barry to help meet expenses.
New York Nets
After the Squires dealt Barry to the New York Nets, he played in only 59 games in the 1970–71 season because of a knee injury but still made the ABA All Star team. He repeated as an ABA All Star during the 1971–72 season. During the 1970–71 season he led the league in scoring (29.4 points per game) and led the league again in 1971–72 with 31.5 points per game. In both of those years he also led the ABA in free throw percentage as he had in 1968–69. Barry also became the ABA record holder for most consecutive free throws in one game with 23.
In the 1970–71 season, the Nets finished 40–44, good for fourth place in the Eastern Division and a place in the 1971 ABA Playoffs. The Virginia Squires defeated the Nets 4 games to 2 in the Eastern Division semifinals. The 1971–72 Nets finished the season at 44–40, making the 1972 ABA Playoffs by claiming third place in the Eastern Division, 24 games behind the 68–16 Kentucky Colonels. In the Eastern Division semifinals the Nets shocked the ABA by defeating the Colonels 4 games to 2. The Nets then eked out a 4–3 game victory over the Virginia Squires in the Eastern Division finals. The Nets were then edged by the Western Division champion Indiana Pacers, 4 games to 2, in the 1972 ABA Finals.
On June 23, 1972, a United States District Court judge issued a preliminary injunction to prohibit Barry from playing for any team other than the Golden State Warriors after his contract with the Nets ended. On October 6, 1972, the Nets released Barry and he returned to the Warriors.
Golden State Warriors
Upon Barry's return to the Warriors and the NBA, the cumulative effects of knee problems were taking their toll. Barry gradually moved his game away from the basket, where he became the first so-called point forward in league history. That is, Barry took on a role similar to that of a point guard and became the chief facilitator of the offense. While his offensive forays were not as frequent as in the past, he remained an elite scorer as evidenced by his performance on March 26, 1974, when he went off for a career-high 64 points and grabbed 10 rebounds in a 143–120 win over the visiting Portland Trail Blazers.
In 1974–75, the Warriors had a Cinderella season for the ages. The turnaround began in training camp, when Barry was elected captain by his teammates. They went on to capture the Pacific Division crown as Barry responded with the best all-around season of his career. Not only did he average 30.6 points per game, but he also led the league in free throw percentage (.904) and steals per game (2.9) and ranked sixth in assists per game (6.2), the only forward among the top 10 in the category.
In the playoffs, the upstart Warriors turned back the Seattle SuperSonics and Chicago Bulls to capture the Western Conference crown. In the NBA Finals, they shocked the basketball world with a historic four-game sweep of Elvin Hayes, Wes Unseld and the Washington Bullets, widely considered to be the greatest postseason upset in NBA history. The Bullets had posted a league-high 60 victories, 12 more than the Warriors total in the regular season, which led many experts to predict that they would win the series easily. Barry was named NBA Finals Most Valuable Player on the strength of 29.5 points, 5.0 assists and 3.5 steals per game, not to mention his profound impact in a leadership role.
In the 1975 NBA draft, the Warriors selected point guard Gus Williams in the first round. While Williams made immediate contributions off the bench, off guard Phil Smith came into his own in his second season. Barry was not required to carry the team as often, and his scoring average dipped to 21.0 points per game as a result. As the deepest and most athletic team in professional basketball, the Warriors repeated as Pacific Division champions, this time with a league-best 59–23 record. They entered the playoffs as clear-cut favorites to return to the NBA Finals.
After an unusual 10-day layoff, partly to accommodate network television, the Warriors eliminated the Detroit Pistons in round one then were upset in the Western Conference finals by the Phoenix Suns in seven games. The final contest was marred by a fight between Barry and Suns rookie Ricky Sobers away from the ball in the first quarter, during which none of the Warriors came to his aid at the opposite side of the court. Suns broadcaster Al McCoy concocted a narrative that Barry quit in the second half, a charge that lacked tangible evidence and he steadfastly denied. In fact, Barry led his team in points and shot attempts that game. Rather, he said his intent was to get more teammates involved in the third quarter, the game plan that had allowed them to dominate in the regular season.
In the 1976–77 campaign, the Warriors won 46 games the next season with Barry, Smith, and Williams sharing scoring and ball-handling, but were ousted in the second round by the Los Angeles Lakers. Reportedly, Barry and Williams clashed over the ball-handling role, and Williams was traded after the season to the Seattle SuperSonics. Barry averaged 23.1 points per game in his farewell season (1977–78) with the Warriors, but the team failed to make the playoffs.
Houston Rockets
Barry finished his career with the Houston Rockets, playing through the 1979–80 NBA season. The Rockets signed him as a free agent in June, 1978, and the league awarded veteran guard John Lucas to the Warriors as compensation.
In the twilight of his career, Barry continued to make history. In his Rockets debut, he assumed a new role as the first player off the bench. It was not long before he elevated the point forward position to another level. Barry finished with a career-high 502 assists to become the first true small forward to reach the 500 mark in one season. Until then, swingman John Havlicek had been the only forward with as many as 500 assists in a season, but the Boston Celtics swingman also spent considerable time at the off guard spot. Barry averaged 13.5 points per game and established a new NBA record (since broken) with a .947 free throw percentage.
Barry was less of a factor in his final season. The Rockets were swept by the Celtics in the 1980 Eastern Conference semifinals, and when contract talks with Boston and the Seattle SuperSonics failed to produce a contract, he decided to retire.
NBA career statistics
Regular season
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|San Francisco
| style="background:#cfecec;"|80* || || 37.4 || .439 || || .862 || 10.6 || 2.2 || || || 25.7
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|San Francisco
| 78 || || 40.7 || .451 || || .884 || 9.2 || 3.6 || || || style="background:#cfecec;"|35.6*
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || || 37.5 || .452 || || style="background:#cfecec;"|.902* || 8.9 || 4.9 || || || 22.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| 80 || || 36.5 || .456 || || .899 || 6.8 || 6.1 || 2.1 || 0.5 || 25.1
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| 80 || || 40.4 || .464 || || style="background:#cfecec;"|.904* || 5.7 || 6.2 || style="background:#cfecec;"|2.9* || 0.4 || 30.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| 81 || || 38.5 || .435 || || style="background:#cfecec;"|.923* || 6.1 || 6.1 || 2.5 || 0.3 || 21.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| 79 || || 36.8 || .440 || || .916 || 5.3 || 6.0 || 2.2 || 0.7 || 21.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| 82 || || 36.9 || .451 || || style="background:#cfecec;"|.924* || 5.5 || 5.4 || 1.9 || 0.5 || 23.1
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 80 || || 32.1 || .461 || || style="background:#cfecec;"|.947* || 3.5 || 6.3 || 1.2 || 0.5 || 13.5
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 72 || || 25.2 || .422 || .330 || style="background:#cfecec;"|.935* || 3.3 || 3.7 || 1.1 || 0.4 || 12.0
|- class=sortbottom
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|Career
| 794 || || 36.3 || .449 || .330 || .900 || 6.5 || 5.1 || 2.0 || 0.5 || 23.2
Later years
During the 1990s, he coached the Cedar Rapids Sharpshooters of the Global Basketball Association and the Continental Basketball Association, guiding the Fort Wayne Fury to a 19–37 win-loss record in 1993–94. In 1998 and 1999, he served as head coach of the New Jersey ShoreCats of the United States Basketball League. Former Warriors teammate Clifford Ray was his top assistant.
Barry finished second in his division at the 2005 World Long Drive Championship.
Barry is part owner and promoter for the Ektio basketball shoe, which doctor and former college basketball player Barry Katz designed to reduce ankle injuries. He also serves on the company's Board of Directors.
Broadcasting career
Barry was among the first professional basketball players to make a successful transition to the broadcasting profession. He began broadcasting during the 1967–68 season broadcasting Oakland Oaks games because of contractual matters that kept him off the court. Barry continues to work in the field, a career that began with his own radio show in San Francisco and CBS while still an active player and then with TBS.
While working as a CBS analyst during Game 5 of the 1981 NBA Finals, Barry made a controversial comment when CBS displayed an old photo of colleague Bill Russell, who is African-American. He tried to joke that "it looks like some fool over there with that big watermelon grin". Barry later apologized for the comment, claiming that he did not realize that a reference to watermelons had racial overtones. Russell said that he believed Barry with regard to Barry's racial attitudes, but nonetheless, the two men are reported not to have been particularly friendly for other reasons, unrelated to that comment.
CBS did not renew Barry's employment for the subsequent season. Producers later cited the general negative tone of his game commentary, which did not sit well with some players and agents around the league. The next season Barry filled in on a few Seattle SuperSonics broadcasts, but a plan for a full-time position fell through when he insisted that his then-wife be allowed to join him when the team was on the road, which would have been contrary to team policy. The next year, Barry was featured in a lengthy Sports Illustrated article written by Tony Kornheiser in which he lamented the failure of his broadcasting career to that point, as well as the fact that he'd left a reputation within NBA circles for being an unlikeable person. After this, Barry worked with TBS and later on, TNT into the 1989–90 season, mostly as a color analyst but sometimes as a play-by-play announcer paired with Bill Russell. One of the more notable games Barry called as play-by-play announcer on TBS was Game 5 of the 1985 Eastern Conference Finals between the Boston Celtics and the Philadelphia 76ers, where Larry Bird made a last-second steal which sealed the win and the Eastern Conference Championship for the Celtics. After the 1989–90 season, Barry became the color analyst for the Atlanta Hawks' games that aired on TBS, paired with Skip Caray.
In a rare non-sports venture, he hosted the pilot for the mid-1980s game show Catchphrase; however, when the series debuted in the fall of 1985, game show veteran Art James replaced him (the series itself was short-lived in the US, but was brought over to the UK and is still running).
In September 2001, Barry began hosting a sports talk show on KNBR in San Francisco until June 2003, when KNBR paired him up with Rod Brooks to co-host a show named Rick and Rod. The show aired on KNBR until August 2006, when Barry left the station abruptly for reasons not disclosed to the public.
Personal life
Barry is of Irish, English, French, and Lithuanian descent. He was a member of the Kappa Sigma fraternity. He resides in Colorado Springs, Colorado with his wife, Lynn Norenberg Barry. While their youngest son, Canyon, played basketball for The University of Florida, to watch him play, they rented a condominium in Gainesville, Florida.
He has four sons and a daughter with his first wife Pam: Scooter, Jon, Brent, Drew and Shannon. All of Barry's sons were professional basketball players. Barry wrote an autobiography, Confessions of a Basketball Gypsy: The Rick Barry Story with Bill Libby that was published in 1972. He also has a son, Canyon, with his third wife, Lynn Barry, who is a professional player, playing for Chinese club Hunan Jinjian Miye in the 2018–19 season.
When his son Brent won the NBA Championship in 2005 with the San Antonio Spurs, Rick and Brent became the second father-son duo to both win NBA Championships as players, following Matt Guokas Sr. and Matt Guokas Jr. Later, this would be repeated by Bill and Luke Walton, and Mychal and Klay Thompson.
Jon and Brent have also moved to broadcasting after retirement. Jon serves as a game analyst on ESPN while Brent worked as a studio and game analyst on TNT and NBA TV until 2018 when he took a job with the San Antonio Spurs to be vice president of basketball operations.
Scooter won titles in the CBA and the top Belgian League.
Career achievements
Roselle Park High School – Roselle Park, New Jersey (1957–1961)
Two-time All-State selection
University of Miami (1961–1965)
Associated Press First-Team All-America (1965)
The Sporting News All-America Second Team (1965)
Consensus All-America (1965)
Led the nation in scoring (37.4 ppg) as a senior
NBA San Francisco Warriors (1965–1967)
NBA Rookie of the Year (1966)
NBA All-Rookie First Team (1966)
NBA leading scorer in 1967 (35.6 ppg)
ABA leading scorer in 1969 (34.0 ppg)
NBA highest free-throw percentage 1973, 1975, 1976, 1978, 1979, 1980
ABA highest free-throw percentage 1969, 1971, 1972
NBA All-Star Game MVP (1967)
ABA Oakland Oaks (1968–1969)
ABA Washington Caps (1969–1970)
ABA New York Nets (1970–1972)
NBA Golden State Warriors (1972–1978)
All-NBA Second Team (1973)
NBA Finals MVP (1975)
NBA champion (1975)
NBA Houston Rockets (1978–1979)
All-NBA First Team (1966, 1967, 1974, 1975, 1976)
Eight-time NBA All-Star (1966, 1967, 1973–1978)
ABA All-Star First Team (1969–1972)
NBA 50 Greatest Players (1996)
NBA 75 Greatest Players (2021)
Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame (1988)
Sports Hall of Fame of New Jersey (1994)
University of Miami Sports Hall of Fame (1976)
Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement (1975)
15 games in NBA career scoring 50 or more points (5th in NBA history)
115 games in professional career scoring 40 or more points — 70 NBA, 45 ABA (4th in professional basketball history after Wilt Chamberlain, Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant)
NBA records
Regular season
Only player in history to lead the NCAA, ABA and NBA in scoring
Led the NCAA in scoring in 1964–65 (973 points, 37.4 ppg)
Led the NBA in scoring in (2,775 points, 35.6 ppg)
Led the ABA in scoring in (1,190 points; 34.0 ppg)
Youngest player to score 57 points in a game: (57 points, San Francisco Warriors at New York Knicks, )
Free throws, consecutive, ABA game: 23, at Kentucky Colonels,
Assists, forward, game: 19, at Chicago Bulls, November 30, 1976
Playoffs
Scoring 30 or more points in all games, any playoff series: 6 games, vs. Philadelphia 76ers, 1967 NBA Finals
Points, 7-game ABA series: 281, vs. Denver Rockets, 1970 semifinals
Points scored, Game 7, any ABA-NBA playoff series: 52, at Denver Rockets,
Field goal attempts, 6-game series: 235, vs. Philadelphia 76ers, 1967 NBA Finals
Field goal attempts, game: 48, vs. Philadelphia 76ers,
Field goal attempts, quarter: 17, at Philadelphia 76ers,
Steals, quarter: 4, second quarter, at Chicago Bulls,
Tied with many other players
NBA Finals
Highest scoring average (career): 36.3
Scoring 30 or more points in all games, any championship series: 6 games, vs. Philadelphia 76ers, 1967 NBA Finals
Tied with Elgin Baylor, Michael Jordan, Hakeem Olajuwon, Shaquille O'Neal, and Kevin Durant.
Field goals made, game: 22, vs. Philadelphia 76ers,
Tied with Elgin Baylor
Field goal attempts, 6-game series: 235, vs. Philadelphia 76ers, 1967 NBA Finals
Field goal attempts, game: 48, vs. Philadelphia 76ers,
Field goal attempts, quarter: 17, at Philadelphia 76ers,
Steals, 4-game series: 14, vs. Washington Bullets, 1975 NBA Finals (3.5 spg)
All-Star
Field goal attempts, game: 27 (1967)
Steals, game: 8 (1975)
Personal fouls, game: 6, twice (1966, 1978)
Disqualifications, career: 2
Tied with Bob Cousy
See also
American Basketball Association (2000–present)
List of individual National Basketball Association scoring leaders by season
List of National Basketball Association players with most points in a game
List of National Basketball Association players with most steals in a game
List of National Basketball Association players with 50 or more points in a playoff game
List of NCAA Division I men's basketball players with 2000 points and 1000 rebounds
References
External links
Basketball Hall of Fame profile
RememberTheABA.com Rick Barry page
1972 Jim O'Brien biographical article on Rick Barry
Rick Barry and Rod Brooks Home Page at KNBR Radio
Rick Barry Career Statistics
A Voice Crying in the Wilderness
1944 births
Living people
All-American college men's basketball players
American Basketball Association announcers
American men's basketball players
American people of Lithuanian descent
American sports radio personalities
Basketball coaches from New Jersey
Basketball players from Colorado Springs, Colorado
Basketball players from New Jersey
Big3 coaches
Continental Basketball Association coaches
Golden State Warriors players
Golf writers and broadcasters
Houston Rockets players
Miami Hurricanes men's basketball players
Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductees
National Basketball Association All-Stars
National Basketball Association broadcasters
National Basketball Association players with retired numbers
New York Nets players
Oakland Oaks players
People from Roselle Park, New Jersey
Radio personalities from San Francisco
San Francisco Warriors draft picks
San Francisco Warriors players
Small forwards
Sportspeople from Elizabeth, New Jersey
Tennis commentators
United States Basketball League coaches
Washington Caps players
| true |
[
"Television rights to all Edmonton Oilers games are held by Rogers Media. This includes all regional telecasts, which are carried by Sportsnet West and the overflow channel Sportsnet Oilers, as well as nationally televised games on Sportsnet or Hockey Night in Canada—which may either be broadcast by CBC Television, Citytv, or Sportsnet. The team's broadcast region is shared with the Calgary Flames, and includes all of Alberta, Saskatchewan, Northwest Territories and Nunavut. Most Oilers games are commentated by Jack Michaels and Louie DeBrusk, joined by reporter Gene Principe.\n\nOn radio, the games are aired on CHED called by Cam Moon and Bob Stauffer.\n\nTelevision\nThe TV crews were as follows (where more than one analyst appears for a season, each worked a number of games).\n\nPay-Per-View Television\nThe Pay-Per-View TV crews were as follows (where more than one analyst appears for a season, each worked a number of games).\n\nNotes\nBruce Buchanan was the play-by-play announcer for the Edmonton Oilers television broadcasts on ITV, CKEM and Sportsnet West from 1984 until 2001.\n\nMorley Scott did colour on home games in 1993-94 and 1997-08; others in that role were Ken Brown (1979-85, 1988-90), Gord Garbutt (1985-86, 1991-94, 1995-96), Jim Matheson (1986-88, 1995-96) and Dave Semenko (1994-95). Bob Stouffer did colour commentary beginning in 2008-09. Kevin Karius substituted for Scott when Scott doing games broadcast on pay-per-view beginning in 2005. Colour commentators did not go on the road until at least 1995-96. \n\nOn September 2, 2008, Louie DeBrusk was announced as the new colour commentator for Rogers Sportsnet Edmonton Oilers television broadcasts. DeBrusk replaced former colour commentator Ray Ferraro. He was replaced by Drew Remenda in 2014 but continues to appear as an analyst.\n\nSee also\nHistorical NHL over-the-air television broadcasters\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nSportsnet releases 2019-20 Edmonton Oilers broadcast schedule\nOilers Radio Network\nSportsnet to Broadcast All 82 Edmonton Oilers - NHL.com\n\nEdmonton Oilers announcers\nEdmonton Oilers lists\nLists of National Hockey League broadcasters\nSportsnet",
"Ö1 Inforadio was an Austrian online information radio station broadcast by ORF.\n\nIt broadcast news and information, culture and politics 24 hours a day. Unlike the main Ö1 station, it only comprised spoken word and did not broadcast music.\nThe station was only receivable via an internet stream. Ö1 Inforadio did not broadcast advertisements.\n\nSee also\nÖ1\nORF the Austrian publicly funded radio broadcaster\n\nDefunct radio stations in Austria\nORF (broadcaster)\nRadio stations disestablished in 2011"
] |
[
"Rick Barry",
"Broadcasting career",
"What began his broadcasting career?",
"He began broadcasting during the 1967-68 season",
"Where did he broadcast?",
"broadcasting Oakland Oaks games"
] |
C_546514e8f7eb4c81a722648e1bfe356e_0
|
Was he well liked there?
| 3 |
Was Rick Barry well liked at Oakland Oaks games?
|
Rick Barry
|
Barry was among the first professional basketball players to make a successful transition to the broadcasting profession. He began broadcasting during the 1967-68 season broadcasting Oakland Oaks games because of contractual matters that kept him off of the court. Barry continues to work in the field, a career that began with his own radio show in San Francisco and CBS while still an active player and then with TBS. While working as a CBS analyst during Game 5 of the 1981 NBA Finals, Barry made a controversial comment when CBS displayed an old photo of colleague Bill Russell, who is African-American, and Barry joked that "it looks like some fool over there with that big watermelon grin". Barry later apologized for the comment, claiming that he did not realize that a reference to watermelons would have racial overtones. Russell said that he believed Barry with regard to Barry's racial attitudes, but nonetheless, the two men are reported not to have been particularly friendly for other reasons, unrelated to that comment. CBS did not renew Barry's employment for the subsequent season, with producers later citing the overall negative tone of Barry's game commentary. The next season, Barry did some broadcasting for the Seattle SuperSonics, however a plan for permanent employment fell through when Barry insisted that his then-wife be allowed to join him when the team was on the road, which would have been contrary to team policy. The next year, Barry was featured in a lengthy Sports Illustrated article written by Tony Kornheiser in which he lamented the failure of his broadcasting career to that point, as well as the fact that he'd left a reputation within NBA circles for being an unlikable person. In a rare non-sports venture, he hosted the pilot for the mid-1980s game show Catchphrase; however, when the series debuted in the fall of 1985, game show veteran Art James replaced him (the series itself was short-lived in the US, but was brought over to the UK and is still running). In September 2001, Barry began hosting a sports talk show on KNBR-AM in San Francisco until June 2003, when KNBR paired him up with Rod Brooks to co-host a show named Rick and Rod. The show aired on KNBR until August 2006, when Barry left the station abruptly for reasons not disclosed to the public. CANNOTANSWER
|
CANNOTANSWER
|
Richard Francis Dennis Barry III (born March 28, 1944) is an American retired professional basketball player who played in both the American Basketball Association (ABA) and National Basketball Association (NBA). Named one of the 50 Greatest Players in history in 1996 and 75 Greatest Players in history in 2021, each in a league-wide vote of media, analysts, current and former players and team executives, Barry ranks among the most prolific scorers and all-around players in basketball history. He is the only one to lead the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), ABA, and NBA in points per game in a season. He ranks as the all-time ABA scoring leader in regular season (30.5 points per game) and postseason (33.5) play, while his 36.3 points per game are the most in the NBA Finals history. Barry also is the only player to reach the 50-point mark in a Game 7 of the playoffs in either league. He is one of only four players to be a part of a championship team in both leagues.
Barry is widely known for his unorthodox but extraordinarily effective underhand free throw technique. His career .880 free throw percentage ranks No. 1 in ABA history, and at the time of his retirement in 1980, his .900 percentage was the best of any NBA player. In 1987, he was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. In October 2021, Barry was honored as one of the league's greatest players of all-time by being named to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team.
Barry is the father of former professional basketball players Brent Barry, Jon Barry, Drew Barry, and Scooter Barry, and current professional player Canyon Barry. His wife, Lynn Norenberg Barry, was a star basketball player at the College of William & Mary, where she became the first female athlete to have her jersey number (22) retired.
Early years and college career
Barry grew up in Roselle Park, New Jersey, where baseball was his best sport as a youth. He grew up a fan of local New York Giants star Willie Mays, who wore jersey number 24, and Barry would wear the same number in tribute to the outfielder throughout his basketball career. In 1962, Barry graduated from Roselle Park High School.
Barry decided to attend the University of Miami, largely because the Hurricanes adhered to an up-tempo, pro-style system under head coach Bruce Hale that was conducive to his skills and athleticism. It was there that the three-time All-American met his future wife Pamela, who was the daughter of the head coach. As a senior, Barry led the NCAA with a 37.4 points per game average in the 1964–65 campaign. He and his teammates did not take part in the NCAA Tournament, however, because the Hurricanes basketball program was on probation at the time.
Barry was drafted by the San Francisco Warriors with the second pick of the 1965 NBA draft. He had hoped to be selected by the New York Knicks, his hometown team, but they opted for local Princeton star Bill Bradley in round one instead. It was a slight that Barry would not soon forget. In his second visit to Madison Square Garden as a pro, he went off for 57 points versus the Knicks, including 21 free throws in 22 attempts. He also grabbed 15 rebounds in the 141–137 loss.
Professional playing career
San Francisco Warriors
In Barry's first season in the NBA with the Warriors, the team made a quantum leap from 17 to 35 victories and were in playoff contention until the final game of the regular season. In the All-Star Game one season later, Barry erupted for 38 points as the West team stunned the East team, which featured Wilt Chamberlain, Oscar Robertson, Bill Russell and head coach Red Auerbach among other all-time greats. Later that season, Barry and company extended the mighty Philadelphia 76ers to six highly competitive games in the NBA Finals, something that Russell and the Boston Celtics could not do in the Eastern Conference playoffs.
Nicknamed the "Miami Greyhound" by longtime San Francisco Bay Area broadcaster Bill King because of his long and slender physical build, whippet-like quickness and remarkable instincts, the Barry won the NBA Rookie of the Year Award after averaging 25.7 points and 10.6 rebounds per game in the 1965–66 season. The following year, he won the 1967 NBA All-Star Game MVP award with a 38-point outburst and led the NBA in scoring with a 35.6 point per game average — which still ranks as the eighth-highest output in league annals.
Along with All-Star center Nate Thurmond, Barry carried the Warriors to the 1967 NBA Finals, which they lost to the Philadelphia 76ers in six games. Despite an injured left knee that required cortisone shots on game days, Barry averaged 40.8 points per game in the series, an NBA Finals record that stood for three decades. "The guy was so good that we had to have three different guys guard him at different times," Chamberlain said. "'Cause he would run them all ragged."
Joining the ABA
At odds with Warriors owner Franklin Mieuli over unpaid incentive monies due him, Barry shocked the basketball world when he jumped to the ABA's Oakland Oaks, who overwhelmed him with a historic contract offer. Barry became the first marquee NBA player to jump to the rival league. Not only was the three-year agreement worth a reported $500,000, which would make him one of basketball's highest-paid players, it afforded him the opportunity to play for his former college coach Bruce Hale, who was also his father-in-law. In addition, Barry received 15 percent ownership in the franchise as well as 5 percent of all ticket sales in excess of $600,000 for home games. The ground-breaking deal led him to remark, "The offer Oakland made me was one I simply couldn't turn down."
The courts ordered Barry to sit out the 1967–68 season for the Oaks, upholding the validity of the reserve clause in his contract. At the time, all NBA teams had one-year options on player contracts, however, and the Warriors were quick to exercise theirs. He preceded St. Louis Cardinals' outfielder Curt Flood, whose better-known challenge to the reserve clause went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, by two years as the first American major-league professional athlete to bring a court action against it. The ensuing negative publicity cast Barry in a negative light, portraying him as selfish and money hungry. He was hardly alone in his vision, however, as numerous NBA players also saw the rival league as a rare opportunity to enhance their careers.
Oakland Oaks
The Oaks finished 22–56 in their ABA debut, which Barry spent as part of their broadcast team. Prior to the 1968–69 season, they hired his former San Francisco Warriors coach Alex Hannum to replace Hale, who moved to a front office position. If there was any question about whether Barry would remain the most dominant player in professional basketball, he quickly answered it. In his ABA debut, he averaged a league-high 34.0 points per game and the Oaks became the first West Coast team to capture a league championship in professional basketball history. Barry also paced the league in free-throw percentage in the regular season, a feat he would repeat in the 1970–71 and 1971–72 seasons.
Barry had his season come to an abrupt halt on December 27, 1968, when late in a game against the New York Nets, he was blindsided by Ken Wilburn on a drive to the basket and tore left knee ligaments on the play. He attempted to come back in January 1969, only to aggravate the injury and sit out the remainder of the season. He took part in only 35 games but still was named to the ABA All-Star team.
Even without the arguably the best all-around player in basketball, the Oaks barely skipped a beat. They finished with a 60–18 record under Hannum, dominating the Western Division by 14 games over the second-place New Orleans Buccaneers. In the 1969 ABA Playoffs, the Oaks ousted the Denver Rockets in a seven-game series then swept the Buccaneers in the Western Division finals. In the championship round, they made short work of the Indiana Pacers, 4–1, to capture the league title.
In lieu of a parade in downtown Oakland, a modest victory celebration was held at a restaurant in Jack London Square. It was there that Barry announced, "I see no hope for the rest of the teams in the league."
Washington Caps
Despite their on-court excellence, the Oaks were a disappointment at the gate, partly because of Barry's absence in the final five months of the season, partly because they were the only ABA member that competed in the same market as an NBA team, that being the more established Warriors across the bay. They averaged just 2,800 fans per home game at the state-of-the-art Oakland County Coliseum Arena, slightly more than the league average. By that time, entertainer-business entrepreneur Pat Boone had become the majority team owner, and after more than $2 million in losses over two seasons, he wanted out of the basketball business. In August 1968, the franchise was sold to a group headed by real estate attorney and former Baltimore Bullets owner Earl Foreman, who immediately moved it to Washington, D.C., even though there was no suitable arena in the vicinity at the time.
Reluctantly, Barry played the 1969–70 season with the ABA's Washington Caps. He refused to report to the team at the outset, at one point commenting, "If I wanted to go to Washington, I'd run for president!" He missed the first 32 games before he joined the team, which played in the Western Division, making for a grueling travel schedule. The Caps still managed to finish with a respectable 44–40 record, good for third place in the Western Division. Appearing in only 52 games because of a knee injury, Barry finished the season with 1,442 points (27.7 per game), second-best in the league. The Denver Rockets edged the Caps, 4–3, in the Western Division semifinals. In Game 7 on the road, Barry went off for 52 points, the most scored in a seventh and deciding game in professional basketball history.
Virginia Squires
The Washington Caps became the Virginia Squires after the 1969–70 season, but Barry was openly despondent about playing in Virginia. At the same time, he wanted to continue playing in the ABA. Featured on the August 24, 1970, cover of Sports Illustrated in a Squires jersey, he indicated that he would not return to the NBA if the league paid him "a million dollars a year." He denounced the Squires (and, subsequently, never suited up for them), saying he did not want his kids growing up with a Southern accent. On September 1, 1970, the Squires traded Barry to the New York Nets for a draft pick and $200,000. The negative comments were not the primary reason; rather, Squires owner Earl Foreman was mired in financial troubles and sold Barry to help meet expenses.
New York Nets
After the Squires dealt Barry to the New York Nets, he played in only 59 games in the 1970–71 season because of a knee injury but still made the ABA All Star team. He repeated as an ABA All Star during the 1971–72 season. During the 1970–71 season he led the league in scoring (29.4 points per game) and led the league again in 1971–72 with 31.5 points per game. In both of those years he also led the ABA in free throw percentage as he had in 1968–69. Barry also became the ABA record holder for most consecutive free throws in one game with 23.
In the 1970–71 season, the Nets finished 40–44, good for fourth place in the Eastern Division and a place in the 1971 ABA Playoffs. The Virginia Squires defeated the Nets 4 games to 2 in the Eastern Division semifinals. The 1971–72 Nets finished the season at 44–40, making the 1972 ABA Playoffs by claiming third place in the Eastern Division, 24 games behind the 68–16 Kentucky Colonels. In the Eastern Division semifinals the Nets shocked the ABA by defeating the Colonels 4 games to 2. The Nets then eked out a 4–3 game victory over the Virginia Squires in the Eastern Division finals. The Nets were then edged by the Western Division champion Indiana Pacers, 4 games to 2, in the 1972 ABA Finals.
On June 23, 1972, a United States District Court judge issued a preliminary injunction to prohibit Barry from playing for any team other than the Golden State Warriors after his contract with the Nets ended. On October 6, 1972, the Nets released Barry and he returned to the Warriors.
Golden State Warriors
Upon Barry's return to the Warriors and the NBA, the cumulative effects of knee problems were taking their toll. Barry gradually moved his game away from the basket, where he became the first so-called point forward in league history. That is, Barry took on a role similar to that of a point guard and became the chief facilitator of the offense. While his offensive forays were not as frequent as in the past, he remained an elite scorer as evidenced by his performance on March 26, 1974, when he went off for a career-high 64 points and grabbed 10 rebounds in a 143–120 win over the visiting Portland Trail Blazers.
In 1974–75, the Warriors had a Cinderella season for the ages. The turnaround began in training camp, when Barry was elected captain by his teammates. They went on to capture the Pacific Division crown as Barry responded with the best all-around season of his career. Not only did he average 30.6 points per game, but he also led the league in free throw percentage (.904) and steals per game (2.9) and ranked sixth in assists per game (6.2), the only forward among the top 10 in the category.
In the playoffs, the upstart Warriors turned back the Seattle SuperSonics and Chicago Bulls to capture the Western Conference crown. In the NBA Finals, they shocked the basketball world with a historic four-game sweep of Elvin Hayes, Wes Unseld and the Washington Bullets, widely considered to be the greatest postseason upset in NBA history. The Bullets had posted a league-high 60 victories, 12 more than the Warriors total in the regular season, which led many experts to predict that they would win the series easily. Barry was named NBA Finals Most Valuable Player on the strength of 29.5 points, 5.0 assists and 3.5 steals per game, not to mention his profound impact in a leadership role.
In the 1975 NBA draft, the Warriors selected point guard Gus Williams in the first round. While Williams made immediate contributions off the bench, off guard Phil Smith came into his own in his second season. Barry was not required to carry the team as often, and his scoring average dipped to 21.0 points per game as a result. As the deepest and most athletic team in professional basketball, the Warriors repeated as Pacific Division champions, this time with a league-best 59–23 record. They entered the playoffs as clear-cut favorites to return to the NBA Finals.
After an unusual 10-day layoff, partly to accommodate network television, the Warriors eliminated the Detroit Pistons in round one then were upset in the Western Conference finals by the Phoenix Suns in seven games. The final contest was marred by a fight between Barry and Suns rookie Ricky Sobers away from the ball in the first quarter, during which none of the Warriors came to his aid at the opposite side of the court. Suns broadcaster Al McCoy concocted a narrative that Barry quit in the second half, a charge that lacked tangible evidence and he steadfastly denied. In fact, Barry led his team in points and shot attempts that game. Rather, he said his intent was to get more teammates involved in the third quarter, the game plan that had allowed them to dominate in the regular season.
In the 1976–77 campaign, the Warriors won 46 games the next season with Barry, Smith, and Williams sharing scoring and ball-handling, but were ousted in the second round by the Los Angeles Lakers. Reportedly, Barry and Williams clashed over the ball-handling role, and Williams was traded after the season to the Seattle SuperSonics. Barry averaged 23.1 points per game in his farewell season (1977–78) with the Warriors, but the team failed to make the playoffs.
Houston Rockets
Barry finished his career with the Houston Rockets, playing through the 1979–80 NBA season. The Rockets signed him as a free agent in June, 1978, and the league awarded veteran guard John Lucas to the Warriors as compensation.
In the twilight of his career, Barry continued to make history. In his Rockets debut, he assumed a new role as the first player off the bench. It was not long before he elevated the point forward position to another level. Barry finished with a career-high 502 assists to become the first true small forward to reach the 500 mark in one season. Until then, swingman John Havlicek had been the only forward with as many as 500 assists in a season, but the Boston Celtics swingman also spent considerable time at the off guard spot. Barry averaged 13.5 points per game and established a new NBA record (since broken) with a .947 free throw percentage.
Barry was less of a factor in his final season. The Rockets were swept by the Celtics in the 1980 Eastern Conference semifinals, and when contract talks with Boston and the Seattle SuperSonics failed to produce a contract, he decided to retire.
NBA career statistics
Regular season
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|San Francisco
| style="background:#cfecec;"|80* || || 37.4 || .439 || || .862 || 10.6 || 2.2 || || || 25.7
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|San Francisco
| 78 || || 40.7 || .451 || || .884 || 9.2 || 3.6 || || || style="background:#cfecec;"|35.6*
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || || 37.5 || .452 || || style="background:#cfecec;"|.902* || 8.9 || 4.9 || || || 22.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| 80 || || 36.5 || .456 || || .899 || 6.8 || 6.1 || 2.1 || 0.5 || 25.1
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| 80 || || 40.4 || .464 || || style="background:#cfecec;"|.904* || 5.7 || 6.2 || style="background:#cfecec;"|2.9* || 0.4 || 30.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| 81 || || 38.5 || .435 || || style="background:#cfecec;"|.923* || 6.1 || 6.1 || 2.5 || 0.3 || 21.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| 79 || || 36.8 || .440 || || .916 || 5.3 || 6.0 || 2.2 || 0.7 || 21.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| 82 || || 36.9 || .451 || || style="background:#cfecec;"|.924* || 5.5 || 5.4 || 1.9 || 0.5 || 23.1
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 80 || || 32.1 || .461 || || style="background:#cfecec;"|.947* || 3.5 || 6.3 || 1.2 || 0.5 || 13.5
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 72 || || 25.2 || .422 || .330 || style="background:#cfecec;"|.935* || 3.3 || 3.7 || 1.1 || 0.4 || 12.0
|- class=sortbottom
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|Career
| 794 || || 36.3 || .449 || .330 || .900 || 6.5 || 5.1 || 2.0 || 0.5 || 23.2
Later years
During the 1990s, he coached the Cedar Rapids Sharpshooters of the Global Basketball Association and the Continental Basketball Association, guiding the Fort Wayne Fury to a 19–37 win-loss record in 1993–94. In 1998 and 1999, he served as head coach of the New Jersey ShoreCats of the United States Basketball League. Former Warriors teammate Clifford Ray was his top assistant.
Barry finished second in his division at the 2005 World Long Drive Championship.
Barry is part owner and promoter for the Ektio basketball shoe, which doctor and former college basketball player Barry Katz designed to reduce ankle injuries. He also serves on the company's Board of Directors.
Broadcasting career
Barry was among the first professional basketball players to make a successful transition to the broadcasting profession. He began broadcasting during the 1967–68 season broadcasting Oakland Oaks games because of contractual matters that kept him off the court. Barry continues to work in the field, a career that began with his own radio show in San Francisco and CBS while still an active player and then with TBS.
While working as a CBS analyst during Game 5 of the 1981 NBA Finals, Barry made a controversial comment when CBS displayed an old photo of colleague Bill Russell, who is African-American. He tried to joke that "it looks like some fool over there with that big watermelon grin". Barry later apologized for the comment, claiming that he did not realize that a reference to watermelons had racial overtones. Russell said that he believed Barry with regard to Barry's racial attitudes, but nonetheless, the two men are reported not to have been particularly friendly for other reasons, unrelated to that comment.
CBS did not renew Barry's employment for the subsequent season. Producers later cited the general negative tone of his game commentary, which did not sit well with some players and agents around the league. The next season Barry filled in on a few Seattle SuperSonics broadcasts, but a plan for a full-time position fell through when he insisted that his then-wife be allowed to join him when the team was on the road, which would have been contrary to team policy. The next year, Barry was featured in a lengthy Sports Illustrated article written by Tony Kornheiser in which he lamented the failure of his broadcasting career to that point, as well as the fact that he'd left a reputation within NBA circles for being an unlikeable person. After this, Barry worked with TBS and later on, TNT into the 1989–90 season, mostly as a color analyst but sometimes as a play-by-play announcer paired with Bill Russell. One of the more notable games Barry called as play-by-play announcer on TBS was Game 5 of the 1985 Eastern Conference Finals between the Boston Celtics and the Philadelphia 76ers, where Larry Bird made a last-second steal which sealed the win and the Eastern Conference Championship for the Celtics. After the 1989–90 season, Barry became the color analyst for the Atlanta Hawks' games that aired on TBS, paired with Skip Caray.
In a rare non-sports venture, he hosted the pilot for the mid-1980s game show Catchphrase; however, when the series debuted in the fall of 1985, game show veteran Art James replaced him (the series itself was short-lived in the US, but was brought over to the UK and is still running).
In September 2001, Barry began hosting a sports talk show on KNBR in San Francisco until June 2003, when KNBR paired him up with Rod Brooks to co-host a show named Rick and Rod. The show aired on KNBR until August 2006, when Barry left the station abruptly for reasons not disclosed to the public.
Personal life
Barry is of Irish, English, French, and Lithuanian descent. He was a member of the Kappa Sigma fraternity. He resides in Colorado Springs, Colorado with his wife, Lynn Norenberg Barry. While their youngest son, Canyon, played basketball for The University of Florida, to watch him play, they rented a condominium in Gainesville, Florida.
He has four sons and a daughter with his first wife Pam: Scooter, Jon, Brent, Drew and Shannon. All of Barry's sons were professional basketball players. Barry wrote an autobiography, Confessions of a Basketball Gypsy: The Rick Barry Story with Bill Libby that was published in 1972. He also has a son, Canyon, with his third wife, Lynn Barry, who is a professional player, playing for Chinese club Hunan Jinjian Miye in the 2018–19 season.
When his son Brent won the NBA Championship in 2005 with the San Antonio Spurs, Rick and Brent became the second father-son duo to both win NBA Championships as players, following Matt Guokas Sr. and Matt Guokas Jr. Later, this would be repeated by Bill and Luke Walton, and Mychal and Klay Thompson.
Jon and Brent have also moved to broadcasting after retirement. Jon serves as a game analyst on ESPN while Brent worked as a studio and game analyst on TNT and NBA TV until 2018 when he took a job with the San Antonio Spurs to be vice president of basketball operations.
Scooter won titles in the CBA and the top Belgian League.
Career achievements
Roselle Park High School – Roselle Park, New Jersey (1957–1961)
Two-time All-State selection
University of Miami (1961–1965)
Associated Press First-Team All-America (1965)
The Sporting News All-America Second Team (1965)
Consensus All-America (1965)
Led the nation in scoring (37.4 ppg) as a senior
NBA San Francisco Warriors (1965–1967)
NBA Rookie of the Year (1966)
NBA All-Rookie First Team (1966)
NBA leading scorer in 1967 (35.6 ppg)
ABA leading scorer in 1969 (34.0 ppg)
NBA highest free-throw percentage 1973, 1975, 1976, 1978, 1979, 1980
ABA highest free-throw percentage 1969, 1971, 1972
NBA All-Star Game MVP (1967)
ABA Oakland Oaks (1968–1969)
ABA Washington Caps (1969–1970)
ABA New York Nets (1970–1972)
NBA Golden State Warriors (1972–1978)
All-NBA Second Team (1973)
NBA Finals MVP (1975)
NBA champion (1975)
NBA Houston Rockets (1978–1979)
All-NBA First Team (1966, 1967, 1974, 1975, 1976)
Eight-time NBA All-Star (1966, 1967, 1973–1978)
ABA All-Star First Team (1969–1972)
NBA 50 Greatest Players (1996)
NBA 75 Greatest Players (2021)
Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame (1988)
Sports Hall of Fame of New Jersey (1994)
University of Miami Sports Hall of Fame (1976)
Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement (1975)
15 games in NBA career scoring 50 or more points (5th in NBA history)
115 games in professional career scoring 40 or more points — 70 NBA, 45 ABA (4th in professional basketball history after Wilt Chamberlain, Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant)
NBA records
Regular season
Only player in history to lead the NCAA, ABA and NBA in scoring
Led the NCAA in scoring in 1964–65 (973 points, 37.4 ppg)
Led the NBA in scoring in (2,775 points, 35.6 ppg)
Led the ABA in scoring in (1,190 points; 34.0 ppg)
Youngest player to score 57 points in a game: (57 points, San Francisco Warriors at New York Knicks, )
Free throws, consecutive, ABA game: 23, at Kentucky Colonels,
Assists, forward, game: 19, at Chicago Bulls, November 30, 1976
Playoffs
Scoring 30 or more points in all games, any playoff series: 6 games, vs. Philadelphia 76ers, 1967 NBA Finals
Points, 7-game ABA series: 281, vs. Denver Rockets, 1970 semifinals
Points scored, Game 7, any ABA-NBA playoff series: 52, at Denver Rockets,
Field goal attempts, 6-game series: 235, vs. Philadelphia 76ers, 1967 NBA Finals
Field goal attempts, game: 48, vs. Philadelphia 76ers,
Field goal attempts, quarter: 17, at Philadelphia 76ers,
Steals, quarter: 4, second quarter, at Chicago Bulls,
Tied with many other players
NBA Finals
Highest scoring average (career): 36.3
Scoring 30 or more points in all games, any championship series: 6 games, vs. Philadelphia 76ers, 1967 NBA Finals
Tied with Elgin Baylor, Michael Jordan, Hakeem Olajuwon, Shaquille O'Neal, and Kevin Durant.
Field goals made, game: 22, vs. Philadelphia 76ers,
Tied with Elgin Baylor
Field goal attempts, 6-game series: 235, vs. Philadelphia 76ers, 1967 NBA Finals
Field goal attempts, game: 48, vs. Philadelphia 76ers,
Field goal attempts, quarter: 17, at Philadelphia 76ers,
Steals, 4-game series: 14, vs. Washington Bullets, 1975 NBA Finals (3.5 spg)
All-Star
Field goal attempts, game: 27 (1967)
Steals, game: 8 (1975)
Personal fouls, game: 6, twice (1966, 1978)
Disqualifications, career: 2
Tied with Bob Cousy
See also
American Basketball Association (2000–present)
List of individual National Basketball Association scoring leaders by season
List of National Basketball Association players with most points in a game
List of National Basketball Association players with most steals in a game
List of National Basketball Association players with 50 or more points in a playoff game
List of NCAA Division I men's basketball players with 2000 points and 1000 rebounds
References
External links
Basketball Hall of Fame profile
RememberTheABA.com Rick Barry page
1972 Jim O'Brien biographical article on Rick Barry
Rick Barry and Rod Brooks Home Page at KNBR Radio
Rick Barry Career Statistics
A Voice Crying in the Wilderness
1944 births
Living people
All-American college men's basketball players
American Basketball Association announcers
American men's basketball players
American people of Lithuanian descent
American sports radio personalities
Basketball coaches from New Jersey
Basketball players from Colorado Springs, Colorado
Basketball players from New Jersey
Big3 coaches
Continental Basketball Association coaches
Golden State Warriors players
Golf writers and broadcasters
Houston Rockets players
Miami Hurricanes men's basketball players
Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductees
National Basketball Association All-Stars
National Basketball Association broadcasters
National Basketball Association players with retired numbers
New York Nets players
Oakland Oaks players
People from Roselle Park, New Jersey
Radio personalities from San Francisco
San Francisco Warriors draft picks
San Francisco Warriors players
Small forwards
Sportspeople from Elizabeth, New Jersey
Tennis commentators
United States Basketball League coaches
Washington Caps players
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[
"Hurley Burley (born 1895) was an American Thoroughbred race horse. Her breeder and owner was Edward Corrigan who raced out of the old Washington Park Race Track in Chicago, Illinois. In Corrigan's time, he was the most powerful man in Midwestern racing. Known as the \"stormy petrel\" of the American Turf, Corrigan was the subject of many articles about him (the Kansas City Times, the Courier-Journal, The Louisville Times, to name only a few), all attesting to his murderous temper as well as his loyalty to those he liked. Corrigan campaigned the great filly Modesty, winner of the 1884 Kentucky Oaks, as well as building Hawthorne Race Course near Chicago.\n\nHurley Burley was by Riley who had won the 1890 Kentucky Derby for Corrigan and was a son of the great stallion Longfellow. (Riley was originally called \"Shortfellow.\") Her dam was Helter Skelter, a good racing mare also running under the Corrigan colors.\n\nCorrigan raced Hurley Burley as a selling plater, meaning she competed only in claiming races. As a claimer, she could be bought by a trainer right out of the race. In about 1898, Corrigan claimed a horse the eventual Hall of Fame trainer Sam Hildreth was running. Miffed at the loss of a horse he liked, Lucky Dog, Hildreth retaliated by claiming Corrigan's Hurley Burley for $1,500. His claim wasn't merely to get back at Corrigan though; he'd seen something in the chestnut plater.\n\nUnder Hildreth's colors, Hurley Burley stepped up in class in the racing world. She won nine of her thirteen starts for him, set a Washington Park track record for six furlongs and also one for one mile and twenty yards.\n\nLew Fields and his theatrical partner Joe Weber liked the increasingly popular filly's name, so asked Hildreth if they could use it for a new musical. They liked the name of her dam, Helter Skelter, as well, so they used that too.\n\nWhen she retired from the track, Hildreth sold her for $10,000 to William Collins Whitney. As a broodmare, Hurley Burley was as good as she was a racehorse. Her best foal was the 1906 Belmont Stakes winner Burgomaster, by the Whitney-owned stallion Hamburg. He was also the American Horse of the Year in 1906.\n\nExternal links\nHurley Burley's pedigree\n\nReferences\n\n1895 racehorse births\nRacehorses bred in the United States\nRacehorses trained in the United States\nThoroughbred family 2-h",
"Laurence Guest (3 January 1936 – 14 January 2016) was a British rower. He competed in the men's coxed four event at the 1952 Summer Olympics. He then trained as an accountant, and became finance director of Mirror Group Newspapers in 1977, and later reported to its owner, Robert Maxwell, after he bought the company in 1984. \n\nHe was an accomplished sailor, and was popular and well-liked. In 1969, he was awarded a commendation and certificate of bravery when he rescued two boys from a house which was on fire.\n\nReferences\n\n1936 births\n2016 deaths\nBritish male rowers\nOlympic rowers of Great Britain\nRowers at the 1952 Summer Olympics\nPlace of birth missing"
] |
[
"Rick Barry",
"Broadcasting career",
"What began his broadcasting career?",
"He began broadcasting during the 1967-68 season",
"Where did he broadcast?",
"broadcasting Oakland Oaks games",
"Was he well liked there?",
"I don't know."
] |
C_546514e8f7eb4c81a722648e1bfe356e_0
|
Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?
| 4 |
Aside from Rick Barry's career, are there any other interesting aspects about this article?
|
Rick Barry
|
Barry was among the first professional basketball players to make a successful transition to the broadcasting profession. He began broadcasting during the 1967-68 season broadcasting Oakland Oaks games because of contractual matters that kept him off of the court. Barry continues to work in the field, a career that began with his own radio show in San Francisco and CBS while still an active player and then with TBS. While working as a CBS analyst during Game 5 of the 1981 NBA Finals, Barry made a controversial comment when CBS displayed an old photo of colleague Bill Russell, who is African-American, and Barry joked that "it looks like some fool over there with that big watermelon grin". Barry later apologized for the comment, claiming that he did not realize that a reference to watermelons would have racial overtones. Russell said that he believed Barry with regard to Barry's racial attitudes, but nonetheless, the two men are reported not to have been particularly friendly for other reasons, unrelated to that comment. CBS did not renew Barry's employment for the subsequent season, with producers later citing the overall negative tone of Barry's game commentary. The next season, Barry did some broadcasting for the Seattle SuperSonics, however a plan for permanent employment fell through when Barry insisted that his then-wife be allowed to join him when the team was on the road, which would have been contrary to team policy. The next year, Barry was featured in a lengthy Sports Illustrated article written by Tony Kornheiser in which he lamented the failure of his broadcasting career to that point, as well as the fact that he'd left a reputation within NBA circles for being an unlikable person. In a rare non-sports venture, he hosted the pilot for the mid-1980s game show Catchphrase; however, when the series debuted in the fall of 1985, game show veteran Art James replaced him (the series itself was short-lived in the US, but was brought over to the UK and is still running). In September 2001, Barry began hosting a sports talk show on KNBR-AM in San Francisco until June 2003, when KNBR paired him up with Rod Brooks to co-host a show named Rick and Rod. The show aired on KNBR until August 2006, when Barry left the station abruptly for reasons not disclosed to the public. CANNOTANSWER
|
While working as a CBS analyst during Game 5 of the 1981 NBA Finals, Barry made a controversial comment when CBS displayed an old photo of colleague Bill Russell,
|
Richard Francis Dennis Barry III (born March 28, 1944) is an American retired professional basketball player who played in both the American Basketball Association (ABA) and National Basketball Association (NBA). Named one of the 50 Greatest Players in history in 1996 and 75 Greatest Players in history in 2021, each in a league-wide vote of media, analysts, current and former players and team executives, Barry ranks among the most prolific scorers and all-around players in basketball history. He is the only one to lead the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), ABA, and NBA in points per game in a season. He ranks as the all-time ABA scoring leader in regular season (30.5 points per game) and postseason (33.5) play, while his 36.3 points per game are the most in the NBA Finals history. Barry also is the only player to reach the 50-point mark in a Game 7 of the playoffs in either league. He is one of only four players to be a part of a championship team in both leagues.
Barry is widely known for his unorthodox but extraordinarily effective underhand free throw technique. His career .880 free throw percentage ranks No. 1 in ABA history, and at the time of his retirement in 1980, his .900 percentage was the best of any NBA player. In 1987, he was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. In October 2021, Barry was honored as one of the league's greatest players of all-time by being named to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team.
Barry is the father of former professional basketball players Brent Barry, Jon Barry, Drew Barry, and Scooter Barry, and current professional player Canyon Barry. His wife, Lynn Norenberg Barry, was a star basketball player at the College of William & Mary, where she became the first female athlete to have her jersey number (22) retired.
Early years and college career
Barry grew up in Roselle Park, New Jersey, where baseball was his best sport as a youth. He grew up a fan of local New York Giants star Willie Mays, who wore jersey number 24, and Barry would wear the same number in tribute to the outfielder throughout his basketball career. In 1962, Barry graduated from Roselle Park High School.
Barry decided to attend the University of Miami, largely because the Hurricanes adhered to an up-tempo, pro-style system under head coach Bruce Hale that was conducive to his skills and athleticism. It was there that the three-time All-American met his future wife Pamela, who was the daughter of the head coach. As a senior, Barry led the NCAA with a 37.4 points per game average in the 1964–65 campaign. He and his teammates did not take part in the NCAA Tournament, however, because the Hurricanes basketball program was on probation at the time.
Barry was drafted by the San Francisco Warriors with the second pick of the 1965 NBA draft. He had hoped to be selected by the New York Knicks, his hometown team, but they opted for local Princeton star Bill Bradley in round one instead. It was a slight that Barry would not soon forget. In his second visit to Madison Square Garden as a pro, he went off for 57 points versus the Knicks, including 21 free throws in 22 attempts. He also grabbed 15 rebounds in the 141–137 loss.
Professional playing career
San Francisco Warriors
In Barry's first season in the NBA with the Warriors, the team made a quantum leap from 17 to 35 victories and were in playoff contention until the final game of the regular season. In the All-Star Game one season later, Barry erupted for 38 points as the West team stunned the East team, which featured Wilt Chamberlain, Oscar Robertson, Bill Russell and head coach Red Auerbach among other all-time greats. Later that season, Barry and company extended the mighty Philadelphia 76ers to six highly competitive games in the NBA Finals, something that Russell and the Boston Celtics could not do in the Eastern Conference playoffs.
Nicknamed the "Miami Greyhound" by longtime San Francisco Bay Area broadcaster Bill King because of his long and slender physical build, whippet-like quickness and remarkable instincts, the Barry won the NBA Rookie of the Year Award after averaging 25.7 points and 10.6 rebounds per game in the 1965–66 season. The following year, he won the 1967 NBA All-Star Game MVP award with a 38-point outburst and led the NBA in scoring with a 35.6 point per game average — which still ranks as the eighth-highest output in league annals.
Along with All-Star center Nate Thurmond, Barry carried the Warriors to the 1967 NBA Finals, which they lost to the Philadelphia 76ers in six games. Despite an injured left knee that required cortisone shots on game days, Barry averaged 40.8 points per game in the series, an NBA Finals record that stood for three decades. "The guy was so good that we had to have three different guys guard him at different times," Chamberlain said. "'Cause he would run them all ragged."
Joining the ABA
At odds with Warriors owner Franklin Mieuli over unpaid incentive monies due him, Barry shocked the basketball world when he jumped to the ABA's Oakland Oaks, who overwhelmed him with a historic contract offer. Barry became the first marquee NBA player to jump to the rival league. Not only was the three-year agreement worth a reported $500,000, which would make him one of basketball's highest-paid players, it afforded him the opportunity to play for his former college coach Bruce Hale, who was also his father-in-law. In addition, Barry received 15 percent ownership in the franchise as well as 5 percent of all ticket sales in excess of $600,000 for home games. The ground-breaking deal led him to remark, "The offer Oakland made me was one I simply couldn't turn down."
The courts ordered Barry to sit out the 1967–68 season for the Oaks, upholding the validity of the reserve clause in his contract. At the time, all NBA teams had one-year options on player contracts, however, and the Warriors were quick to exercise theirs. He preceded St. Louis Cardinals' outfielder Curt Flood, whose better-known challenge to the reserve clause went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, by two years as the first American major-league professional athlete to bring a court action against it. The ensuing negative publicity cast Barry in a negative light, portraying him as selfish and money hungry. He was hardly alone in his vision, however, as numerous NBA players also saw the rival league as a rare opportunity to enhance their careers.
Oakland Oaks
The Oaks finished 22–56 in their ABA debut, which Barry spent as part of their broadcast team. Prior to the 1968–69 season, they hired his former San Francisco Warriors coach Alex Hannum to replace Hale, who moved to a front office position. If there was any question about whether Barry would remain the most dominant player in professional basketball, he quickly answered it. In his ABA debut, he averaged a league-high 34.0 points per game and the Oaks became the first West Coast team to capture a league championship in professional basketball history. Barry also paced the league in free-throw percentage in the regular season, a feat he would repeat in the 1970–71 and 1971–72 seasons.
Barry had his season come to an abrupt halt on December 27, 1968, when late in a game against the New York Nets, he was blindsided by Ken Wilburn on a drive to the basket and tore left knee ligaments on the play. He attempted to come back in January 1969, only to aggravate the injury and sit out the remainder of the season. He took part in only 35 games but still was named to the ABA All-Star team.
Even without the arguably the best all-around player in basketball, the Oaks barely skipped a beat. They finished with a 60–18 record under Hannum, dominating the Western Division by 14 games over the second-place New Orleans Buccaneers. In the 1969 ABA Playoffs, the Oaks ousted the Denver Rockets in a seven-game series then swept the Buccaneers in the Western Division finals. In the championship round, they made short work of the Indiana Pacers, 4–1, to capture the league title.
In lieu of a parade in downtown Oakland, a modest victory celebration was held at a restaurant in Jack London Square. It was there that Barry announced, "I see no hope for the rest of the teams in the league."
Washington Caps
Despite their on-court excellence, the Oaks were a disappointment at the gate, partly because of Barry's absence in the final five months of the season, partly because they were the only ABA member that competed in the same market as an NBA team, that being the more established Warriors across the bay. They averaged just 2,800 fans per home game at the state-of-the-art Oakland County Coliseum Arena, slightly more than the league average. By that time, entertainer-business entrepreneur Pat Boone had become the majority team owner, and after more than $2 million in losses over two seasons, he wanted out of the basketball business. In August 1968, the franchise was sold to a group headed by real estate attorney and former Baltimore Bullets owner Earl Foreman, who immediately moved it to Washington, D.C., even though there was no suitable arena in the vicinity at the time.
Reluctantly, Barry played the 1969–70 season with the ABA's Washington Caps. He refused to report to the team at the outset, at one point commenting, "If I wanted to go to Washington, I'd run for president!" He missed the first 32 games before he joined the team, which played in the Western Division, making for a grueling travel schedule. The Caps still managed to finish with a respectable 44–40 record, good for third place in the Western Division. Appearing in only 52 games because of a knee injury, Barry finished the season with 1,442 points (27.7 per game), second-best in the league. The Denver Rockets edged the Caps, 4–3, in the Western Division semifinals. In Game 7 on the road, Barry went off for 52 points, the most scored in a seventh and deciding game in professional basketball history.
Virginia Squires
The Washington Caps became the Virginia Squires after the 1969–70 season, but Barry was openly despondent about playing in Virginia. At the same time, he wanted to continue playing in the ABA. Featured on the August 24, 1970, cover of Sports Illustrated in a Squires jersey, he indicated that he would not return to the NBA if the league paid him "a million dollars a year." He denounced the Squires (and, subsequently, never suited up for them), saying he did not want his kids growing up with a Southern accent. On September 1, 1970, the Squires traded Barry to the New York Nets for a draft pick and $200,000. The negative comments were not the primary reason; rather, Squires owner Earl Foreman was mired in financial troubles and sold Barry to help meet expenses.
New York Nets
After the Squires dealt Barry to the New York Nets, he played in only 59 games in the 1970–71 season because of a knee injury but still made the ABA All Star team. He repeated as an ABA All Star during the 1971–72 season. During the 1970–71 season he led the league in scoring (29.4 points per game) and led the league again in 1971–72 with 31.5 points per game. In both of those years he also led the ABA in free throw percentage as he had in 1968–69. Barry also became the ABA record holder for most consecutive free throws in one game with 23.
In the 1970–71 season, the Nets finished 40–44, good for fourth place in the Eastern Division and a place in the 1971 ABA Playoffs. The Virginia Squires defeated the Nets 4 games to 2 in the Eastern Division semifinals. The 1971–72 Nets finished the season at 44–40, making the 1972 ABA Playoffs by claiming third place in the Eastern Division, 24 games behind the 68–16 Kentucky Colonels. In the Eastern Division semifinals the Nets shocked the ABA by defeating the Colonels 4 games to 2. The Nets then eked out a 4–3 game victory over the Virginia Squires in the Eastern Division finals. The Nets were then edged by the Western Division champion Indiana Pacers, 4 games to 2, in the 1972 ABA Finals.
On June 23, 1972, a United States District Court judge issued a preliminary injunction to prohibit Barry from playing for any team other than the Golden State Warriors after his contract with the Nets ended. On October 6, 1972, the Nets released Barry and he returned to the Warriors.
Golden State Warriors
Upon Barry's return to the Warriors and the NBA, the cumulative effects of knee problems were taking their toll. Barry gradually moved his game away from the basket, where he became the first so-called point forward in league history. That is, Barry took on a role similar to that of a point guard and became the chief facilitator of the offense. While his offensive forays were not as frequent as in the past, he remained an elite scorer as evidenced by his performance on March 26, 1974, when he went off for a career-high 64 points and grabbed 10 rebounds in a 143–120 win over the visiting Portland Trail Blazers.
In 1974–75, the Warriors had a Cinderella season for the ages. The turnaround began in training camp, when Barry was elected captain by his teammates. They went on to capture the Pacific Division crown as Barry responded with the best all-around season of his career. Not only did he average 30.6 points per game, but he also led the league in free throw percentage (.904) and steals per game (2.9) and ranked sixth in assists per game (6.2), the only forward among the top 10 in the category.
In the playoffs, the upstart Warriors turned back the Seattle SuperSonics and Chicago Bulls to capture the Western Conference crown. In the NBA Finals, they shocked the basketball world with a historic four-game sweep of Elvin Hayes, Wes Unseld and the Washington Bullets, widely considered to be the greatest postseason upset in NBA history. The Bullets had posted a league-high 60 victories, 12 more than the Warriors total in the regular season, which led many experts to predict that they would win the series easily. Barry was named NBA Finals Most Valuable Player on the strength of 29.5 points, 5.0 assists and 3.5 steals per game, not to mention his profound impact in a leadership role.
In the 1975 NBA draft, the Warriors selected point guard Gus Williams in the first round. While Williams made immediate contributions off the bench, off guard Phil Smith came into his own in his second season. Barry was not required to carry the team as often, and his scoring average dipped to 21.0 points per game as a result. As the deepest and most athletic team in professional basketball, the Warriors repeated as Pacific Division champions, this time with a league-best 59–23 record. They entered the playoffs as clear-cut favorites to return to the NBA Finals.
After an unusual 10-day layoff, partly to accommodate network television, the Warriors eliminated the Detroit Pistons in round one then were upset in the Western Conference finals by the Phoenix Suns in seven games. The final contest was marred by a fight between Barry and Suns rookie Ricky Sobers away from the ball in the first quarter, during which none of the Warriors came to his aid at the opposite side of the court. Suns broadcaster Al McCoy concocted a narrative that Barry quit in the second half, a charge that lacked tangible evidence and he steadfastly denied. In fact, Barry led his team in points and shot attempts that game. Rather, he said his intent was to get more teammates involved in the third quarter, the game plan that had allowed them to dominate in the regular season.
In the 1976–77 campaign, the Warriors won 46 games the next season with Barry, Smith, and Williams sharing scoring and ball-handling, but were ousted in the second round by the Los Angeles Lakers. Reportedly, Barry and Williams clashed over the ball-handling role, and Williams was traded after the season to the Seattle SuperSonics. Barry averaged 23.1 points per game in his farewell season (1977–78) with the Warriors, but the team failed to make the playoffs.
Houston Rockets
Barry finished his career with the Houston Rockets, playing through the 1979–80 NBA season. The Rockets signed him as a free agent in June, 1978, and the league awarded veteran guard John Lucas to the Warriors as compensation.
In the twilight of his career, Barry continued to make history. In his Rockets debut, he assumed a new role as the first player off the bench. It was not long before he elevated the point forward position to another level. Barry finished with a career-high 502 assists to become the first true small forward to reach the 500 mark in one season. Until then, swingman John Havlicek had been the only forward with as many as 500 assists in a season, but the Boston Celtics swingman also spent considerable time at the off guard spot. Barry averaged 13.5 points per game and established a new NBA record (since broken) with a .947 free throw percentage.
Barry was less of a factor in his final season. The Rockets were swept by the Celtics in the 1980 Eastern Conference semifinals, and when contract talks with Boston and the Seattle SuperSonics failed to produce a contract, he decided to retire.
NBA career statistics
Regular season
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|San Francisco
| style="background:#cfecec;"|80* || || 37.4 || .439 || || .862 || 10.6 || 2.2 || || || 25.7
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|San Francisco
| 78 || || 40.7 || .451 || || .884 || 9.2 || 3.6 || || || style="background:#cfecec;"|35.6*
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || || 37.5 || .452 || || style="background:#cfecec;"|.902* || 8.9 || 4.9 || || || 22.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| 80 || || 36.5 || .456 || || .899 || 6.8 || 6.1 || 2.1 || 0.5 || 25.1
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| 80 || || 40.4 || .464 || || style="background:#cfecec;"|.904* || 5.7 || 6.2 || style="background:#cfecec;"|2.9* || 0.4 || 30.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| 81 || || 38.5 || .435 || || style="background:#cfecec;"|.923* || 6.1 || 6.1 || 2.5 || 0.3 || 21.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| 79 || || 36.8 || .440 || || .916 || 5.3 || 6.0 || 2.2 || 0.7 || 21.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| 82 || || 36.9 || .451 || || style="background:#cfecec;"|.924* || 5.5 || 5.4 || 1.9 || 0.5 || 23.1
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 80 || || 32.1 || .461 || || style="background:#cfecec;"|.947* || 3.5 || 6.3 || 1.2 || 0.5 || 13.5
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 72 || || 25.2 || .422 || .330 || style="background:#cfecec;"|.935* || 3.3 || 3.7 || 1.1 || 0.4 || 12.0
|- class=sortbottom
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|Career
| 794 || || 36.3 || .449 || .330 || .900 || 6.5 || 5.1 || 2.0 || 0.5 || 23.2
Later years
During the 1990s, he coached the Cedar Rapids Sharpshooters of the Global Basketball Association and the Continental Basketball Association, guiding the Fort Wayne Fury to a 19–37 win-loss record in 1993–94. In 1998 and 1999, he served as head coach of the New Jersey ShoreCats of the United States Basketball League. Former Warriors teammate Clifford Ray was his top assistant.
Barry finished second in his division at the 2005 World Long Drive Championship.
Barry is part owner and promoter for the Ektio basketball shoe, which doctor and former college basketball player Barry Katz designed to reduce ankle injuries. He also serves on the company's Board of Directors.
Broadcasting career
Barry was among the first professional basketball players to make a successful transition to the broadcasting profession. He began broadcasting during the 1967–68 season broadcasting Oakland Oaks games because of contractual matters that kept him off the court. Barry continues to work in the field, a career that began with his own radio show in San Francisco and CBS while still an active player and then with TBS.
While working as a CBS analyst during Game 5 of the 1981 NBA Finals, Barry made a controversial comment when CBS displayed an old photo of colleague Bill Russell, who is African-American. He tried to joke that "it looks like some fool over there with that big watermelon grin". Barry later apologized for the comment, claiming that he did not realize that a reference to watermelons had racial overtones. Russell said that he believed Barry with regard to Barry's racial attitudes, but nonetheless, the two men are reported not to have been particularly friendly for other reasons, unrelated to that comment.
CBS did not renew Barry's employment for the subsequent season. Producers later cited the general negative tone of his game commentary, which did not sit well with some players and agents around the league. The next season Barry filled in on a few Seattle SuperSonics broadcasts, but a plan for a full-time position fell through when he insisted that his then-wife be allowed to join him when the team was on the road, which would have been contrary to team policy. The next year, Barry was featured in a lengthy Sports Illustrated article written by Tony Kornheiser in which he lamented the failure of his broadcasting career to that point, as well as the fact that he'd left a reputation within NBA circles for being an unlikeable person. After this, Barry worked with TBS and later on, TNT into the 1989–90 season, mostly as a color analyst but sometimes as a play-by-play announcer paired with Bill Russell. One of the more notable games Barry called as play-by-play announcer on TBS was Game 5 of the 1985 Eastern Conference Finals between the Boston Celtics and the Philadelphia 76ers, where Larry Bird made a last-second steal which sealed the win and the Eastern Conference Championship for the Celtics. After the 1989–90 season, Barry became the color analyst for the Atlanta Hawks' games that aired on TBS, paired with Skip Caray.
In a rare non-sports venture, he hosted the pilot for the mid-1980s game show Catchphrase; however, when the series debuted in the fall of 1985, game show veteran Art James replaced him (the series itself was short-lived in the US, but was brought over to the UK and is still running).
In September 2001, Barry began hosting a sports talk show on KNBR in San Francisco until June 2003, when KNBR paired him up with Rod Brooks to co-host a show named Rick and Rod. The show aired on KNBR until August 2006, when Barry left the station abruptly for reasons not disclosed to the public.
Personal life
Barry is of Irish, English, French, and Lithuanian descent. He was a member of the Kappa Sigma fraternity. He resides in Colorado Springs, Colorado with his wife, Lynn Norenberg Barry. While their youngest son, Canyon, played basketball for The University of Florida, to watch him play, they rented a condominium in Gainesville, Florida.
He has four sons and a daughter with his first wife Pam: Scooter, Jon, Brent, Drew and Shannon. All of Barry's sons were professional basketball players. Barry wrote an autobiography, Confessions of a Basketball Gypsy: The Rick Barry Story with Bill Libby that was published in 1972. He also has a son, Canyon, with his third wife, Lynn Barry, who is a professional player, playing for Chinese club Hunan Jinjian Miye in the 2018–19 season.
When his son Brent won the NBA Championship in 2005 with the San Antonio Spurs, Rick and Brent became the second father-son duo to both win NBA Championships as players, following Matt Guokas Sr. and Matt Guokas Jr. Later, this would be repeated by Bill and Luke Walton, and Mychal and Klay Thompson.
Jon and Brent have also moved to broadcasting after retirement. Jon serves as a game analyst on ESPN while Brent worked as a studio and game analyst on TNT and NBA TV until 2018 when he took a job with the San Antonio Spurs to be vice president of basketball operations.
Scooter won titles in the CBA and the top Belgian League.
Career achievements
Roselle Park High School – Roselle Park, New Jersey (1957–1961)
Two-time All-State selection
University of Miami (1961–1965)
Associated Press First-Team All-America (1965)
The Sporting News All-America Second Team (1965)
Consensus All-America (1965)
Led the nation in scoring (37.4 ppg) as a senior
NBA San Francisco Warriors (1965–1967)
NBA Rookie of the Year (1966)
NBA All-Rookie First Team (1966)
NBA leading scorer in 1967 (35.6 ppg)
ABA leading scorer in 1969 (34.0 ppg)
NBA highest free-throw percentage 1973, 1975, 1976, 1978, 1979, 1980
ABA highest free-throw percentage 1969, 1971, 1972
NBA All-Star Game MVP (1967)
ABA Oakland Oaks (1968–1969)
ABA Washington Caps (1969–1970)
ABA New York Nets (1970–1972)
NBA Golden State Warriors (1972–1978)
All-NBA Second Team (1973)
NBA Finals MVP (1975)
NBA champion (1975)
NBA Houston Rockets (1978–1979)
All-NBA First Team (1966, 1967, 1974, 1975, 1976)
Eight-time NBA All-Star (1966, 1967, 1973–1978)
ABA All-Star First Team (1969–1972)
NBA 50 Greatest Players (1996)
NBA 75 Greatest Players (2021)
Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame (1988)
Sports Hall of Fame of New Jersey (1994)
University of Miami Sports Hall of Fame (1976)
Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement (1975)
15 games in NBA career scoring 50 or more points (5th in NBA history)
115 games in professional career scoring 40 or more points — 70 NBA, 45 ABA (4th in professional basketball history after Wilt Chamberlain, Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant)
NBA records
Regular season
Only player in history to lead the NCAA, ABA and NBA in scoring
Led the NCAA in scoring in 1964–65 (973 points, 37.4 ppg)
Led the NBA in scoring in (2,775 points, 35.6 ppg)
Led the ABA in scoring in (1,190 points; 34.0 ppg)
Youngest player to score 57 points in a game: (57 points, San Francisco Warriors at New York Knicks, )
Free throws, consecutive, ABA game: 23, at Kentucky Colonels,
Assists, forward, game: 19, at Chicago Bulls, November 30, 1976
Playoffs
Scoring 30 or more points in all games, any playoff series: 6 games, vs. Philadelphia 76ers, 1967 NBA Finals
Points, 7-game ABA series: 281, vs. Denver Rockets, 1970 semifinals
Points scored, Game 7, any ABA-NBA playoff series: 52, at Denver Rockets,
Field goal attempts, 6-game series: 235, vs. Philadelphia 76ers, 1967 NBA Finals
Field goal attempts, game: 48, vs. Philadelphia 76ers,
Field goal attempts, quarter: 17, at Philadelphia 76ers,
Steals, quarter: 4, second quarter, at Chicago Bulls,
Tied with many other players
NBA Finals
Highest scoring average (career): 36.3
Scoring 30 or more points in all games, any championship series: 6 games, vs. Philadelphia 76ers, 1967 NBA Finals
Tied with Elgin Baylor, Michael Jordan, Hakeem Olajuwon, Shaquille O'Neal, and Kevin Durant.
Field goals made, game: 22, vs. Philadelphia 76ers,
Tied with Elgin Baylor
Field goal attempts, 6-game series: 235, vs. Philadelphia 76ers, 1967 NBA Finals
Field goal attempts, game: 48, vs. Philadelphia 76ers,
Field goal attempts, quarter: 17, at Philadelphia 76ers,
Steals, 4-game series: 14, vs. Washington Bullets, 1975 NBA Finals (3.5 spg)
All-Star
Field goal attempts, game: 27 (1967)
Steals, game: 8 (1975)
Personal fouls, game: 6, twice (1966, 1978)
Disqualifications, career: 2
Tied with Bob Cousy
See also
American Basketball Association (2000–present)
List of individual National Basketball Association scoring leaders by season
List of National Basketball Association players with most points in a game
List of National Basketball Association players with most steals in a game
List of National Basketball Association players with 50 or more points in a playoff game
List of NCAA Division I men's basketball players with 2000 points and 1000 rebounds
References
External links
Basketball Hall of Fame profile
RememberTheABA.com Rick Barry page
1972 Jim O'Brien biographical article on Rick Barry
Rick Barry and Rod Brooks Home Page at KNBR Radio
Rick Barry Career Statistics
A Voice Crying in the Wilderness
1944 births
Living people
All-American college men's basketball players
American Basketball Association announcers
American men's basketball players
American people of Lithuanian descent
American sports radio personalities
Basketball coaches from New Jersey
Basketball players from Colorado Springs, Colorado
Basketball players from New Jersey
Big3 coaches
Continental Basketball Association coaches
Golden State Warriors players
Golf writers and broadcasters
Houston Rockets players
Miami Hurricanes men's basketball players
Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductees
National Basketball Association All-Stars
National Basketball Association broadcasters
National Basketball Association players with retired numbers
New York Nets players
Oakland Oaks players
People from Roselle Park, New Jersey
Radio personalities from San Francisco
San Francisco Warriors draft picks
San Francisco Warriors players
Small forwards
Sportspeople from Elizabeth, New Jersey
Tennis commentators
United States Basketball League coaches
Washington Caps players
| 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"
] |
[
"Rick Barry",
"Broadcasting career",
"What began his broadcasting career?",
"He began broadcasting during the 1967-68 season",
"Where did he broadcast?",
"broadcasting Oakland Oaks games",
"Was he well liked there?",
"I don't know.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"While working as a CBS analyst during Game 5 of the 1981 NBA Finals, Barry made a controversial comment when CBS displayed an old photo of colleague Bill Russell,"
] |
C_546514e8f7eb4c81a722648e1bfe356e_0
|
What did he say?
| 5 |
What did Rick Barry say that caused a controvery as a CBS analyst during Game 5 of 1981 NBA Finals?
|
Rick Barry
|
Barry was among the first professional basketball players to make a successful transition to the broadcasting profession. He began broadcasting during the 1967-68 season broadcasting Oakland Oaks games because of contractual matters that kept him off of the court. Barry continues to work in the field, a career that began with his own radio show in San Francisco and CBS while still an active player and then with TBS. While working as a CBS analyst during Game 5 of the 1981 NBA Finals, Barry made a controversial comment when CBS displayed an old photo of colleague Bill Russell, who is African-American, and Barry joked that "it looks like some fool over there with that big watermelon grin". Barry later apologized for the comment, claiming that he did not realize that a reference to watermelons would have racial overtones. Russell said that he believed Barry with regard to Barry's racial attitudes, but nonetheless, the two men are reported not to have been particularly friendly for other reasons, unrelated to that comment. CBS did not renew Barry's employment for the subsequent season, with producers later citing the overall negative tone of Barry's game commentary. The next season, Barry did some broadcasting for the Seattle SuperSonics, however a plan for permanent employment fell through when Barry insisted that his then-wife be allowed to join him when the team was on the road, which would have been contrary to team policy. The next year, Barry was featured in a lengthy Sports Illustrated article written by Tony Kornheiser in which he lamented the failure of his broadcasting career to that point, as well as the fact that he'd left a reputation within NBA circles for being an unlikable person. In a rare non-sports venture, he hosted the pilot for the mid-1980s game show Catchphrase; however, when the series debuted in the fall of 1985, game show veteran Art James replaced him (the series itself was short-lived in the US, but was brought over to the UK and is still running). In September 2001, Barry began hosting a sports talk show on KNBR-AM in San Francisco until June 2003, when KNBR paired him up with Rod Brooks to co-host a show named Rick and Rod. The show aired on KNBR until August 2006, when Barry left the station abruptly for reasons not disclosed to the public. CANNOTANSWER
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Barry joked that "it looks like some fool over there with that big watermelon grin".
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Richard Francis Dennis Barry III (born March 28, 1944) is an American retired professional basketball player who played in both the American Basketball Association (ABA) and National Basketball Association (NBA). Named one of the 50 Greatest Players in history in 1996 and 75 Greatest Players in history in 2021, each in a league-wide vote of media, analysts, current and former players and team executives, Barry ranks among the most prolific scorers and all-around players in basketball history. He is the only one to lead the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), ABA, and NBA in points per game in a season. He ranks as the all-time ABA scoring leader in regular season (30.5 points per game) and postseason (33.5) play, while his 36.3 points per game are the most in the NBA Finals history. Barry also is the only player to reach the 50-point mark in a Game 7 of the playoffs in either league. He is one of only four players to be a part of a championship team in both leagues.
Barry is widely known for his unorthodox but extraordinarily effective underhand free throw technique. His career .880 free throw percentage ranks No. 1 in ABA history, and at the time of his retirement in 1980, his .900 percentage was the best of any NBA player. In 1987, he was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. In October 2021, Barry was honored as one of the league's greatest players of all-time by being named to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team.
Barry is the father of former professional basketball players Brent Barry, Jon Barry, Drew Barry, and Scooter Barry, and current professional player Canyon Barry. His wife, Lynn Norenberg Barry, was a star basketball player at the College of William & Mary, where she became the first female athlete to have her jersey number (22) retired.
Early years and college career
Barry grew up in Roselle Park, New Jersey, where baseball was his best sport as a youth. He grew up a fan of local New York Giants star Willie Mays, who wore jersey number 24, and Barry would wear the same number in tribute to the outfielder throughout his basketball career. In 1962, Barry graduated from Roselle Park High School.
Barry decided to attend the University of Miami, largely because the Hurricanes adhered to an up-tempo, pro-style system under head coach Bruce Hale that was conducive to his skills and athleticism. It was there that the three-time All-American met his future wife Pamela, who was the daughter of the head coach. As a senior, Barry led the NCAA with a 37.4 points per game average in the 1964–65 campaign. He and his teammates did not take part in the NCAA Tournament, however, because the Hurricanes basketball program was on probation at the time.
Barry was drafted by the San Francisco Warriors with the second pick of the 1965 NBA draft. He had hoped to be selected by the New York Knicks, his hometown team, but they opted for local Princeton star Bill Bradley in round one instead. It was a slight that Barry would not soon forget. In his second visit to Madison Square Garden as a pro, he went off for 57 points versus the Knicks, including 21 free throws in 22 attempts. He also grabbed 15 rebounds in the 141–137 loss.
Professional playing career
San Francisco Warriors
In Barry's first season in the NBA with the Warriors, the team made a quantum leap from 17 to 35 victories and were in playoff contention until the final game of the regular season. In the All-Star Game one season later, Barry erupted for 38 points as the West team stunned the East team, which featured Wilt Chamberlain, Oscar Robertson, Bill Russell and head coach Red Auerbach among other all-time greats. Later that season, Barry and company extended the mighty Philadelphia 76ers to six highly competitive games in the NBA Finals, something that Russell and the Boston Celtics could not do in the Eastern Conference playoffs.
Nicknamed the "Miami Greyhound" by longtime San Francisco Bay Area broadcaster Bill King because of his long and slender physical build, whippet-like quickness and remarkable instincts, the Barry won the NBA Rookie of the Year Award after averaging 25.7 points and 10.6 rebounds per game in the 1965–66 season. The following year, he won the 1967 NBA All-Star Game MVP award with a 38-point outburst and led the NBA in scoring with a 35.6 point per game average — which still ranks as the eighth-highest output in league annals.
Along with All-Star center Nate Thurmond, Barry carried the Warriors to the 1967 NBA Finals, which they lost to the Philadelphia 76ers in six games. Despite an injured left knee that required cortisone shots on game days, Barry averaged 40.8 points per game in the series, an NBA Finals record that stood for three decades. "The guy was so good that we had to have three different guys guard him at different times," Chamberlain said. "'Cause he would run them all ragged."
Joining the ABA
At odds with Warriors owner Franklin Mieuli over unpaid incentive monies due him, Barry shocked the basketball world when he jumped to the ABA's Oakland Oaks, who overwhelmed him with a historic contract offer. Barry became the first marquee NBA player to jump to the rival league. Not only was the three-year agreement worth a reported $500,000, which would make him one of basketball's highest-paid players, it afforded him the opportunity to play for his former college coach Bruce Hale, who was also his father-in-law. In addition, Barry received 15 percent ownership in the franchise as well as 5 percent of all ticket sales in excess of $600,000 for home games. The ground-breaking deal led him to remark, "The offer Oakland made me was one I simply couldn't turn down."
The courts ordered Barry to sit out the 1967–68 season for the Oaks, upholding the validity of the reserve clause in his contract. At the time, all NBA teams had one-year options on player contracts, however, and the Warriors were quick to exercise theirs. He preceded St. Louis Cardinals' outfielder Curt Flood, whose better-known challenge to the reserve clause went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, by two years as the first American major-league professional athlete to bring a court action against it. The ensuing negative publicity cast Barry in a negative light, portraying him as selfish and money hungry. He was hardly alone in his vision, however, as numerous NBA players also saw the rival league as a rare opportunity to enhance their careers.
Oakland Oaks
The Oaks finished 22–56 in their ABA debut, which Barry spent as part of their broadcast team. Prior to the 1968–69 season, they hired his former San Francisco Warriors coach Alex Hannum to replace Hale, who moved to a front office position. If there was any question about whether Barry would remain the most dominant player in professional basketball, he quickly answered it. In his ABA debut, he averaged a league-high 34.0 points per game and the Oaks became the first West Coast team to capture a league championship in professional basketball history. Barry also paced the league in free-throw percentage in the regular season, a feat he would repeat in the 1970–71 and 1971–72 seasons.
Barry had his season come to an abrupt halt on December 27, 1968, when late in a game against the New York Nets, he was blindsided by Ken Wilburn on a drive to the basket and tore left knee ligaments on the play. He attempted to come back in January 1969, only to aggravate the injury and sit out the remainder of the season. He took part in only 35 games but still was named to the ABA All-Star team.
Even without the arguably the best all-around player in basketball, the Oaks barely skipped a beat. They finished with a 60–18 record under Hannum, dominating the Western Division by 14 games over the second-place New Orleans Buccaneers. In the 1969 ABA Playoffs, the Oaks ousted the Denver Rockets in a seven-game series then swept the Buccaneers in the Western Division finals. In the championship round, they made short work of the Indiana Pacers, 4–1, to capture the league title.
In lieu of a parade in downtown Oakland, a modest victory celebration was held at a restaurant in Jack London Square. It was there that Barry announced, "I see no hope for the rest of the teams in the league."
Washington Caps
Despite their on-court excellence, the Oaks were a disappointment at the gate, partly because of Barry's absence in the final five months of the season, partly because they were the only ABA member that competed in the same market as an NBA team, that being the more established Warriors across the bay. They averaged just 2,800 fans per home game at the state-of-the-art Oakland County Coliseum Arena, slightly more than the league average. By that time, entertainer-business entrepreneur Pat Boone had become the majority team owner, and after more than $2 million in losses over two seasons, he wanted out of the basketball business. In August 1968, the franchise was sold to a group headed by real estate attorney and former Baltimore Bullets owner Earl Foreman, who immediately moved it to Washington, D.C., even though there was no suitable arena in the vicinity at the time.
Reluctantly, Barry played the 1969–70 season with the ABA's Washington Caps. He refused to report to the team at the outset, at one point commenting, "If I wanted to go to Washington, I'd run for president!" He missed the first 32 games before he joined the team, which played in the Western Division, making for a grueling travel schedule. The Caps still managed to finish with a respectable 44–40 record, good for third place in the Western Division. Appearing in only 52 games because of a knee injury, Barry finished the season with 1,442 points (27.7 per game), second-best in the league. The Denver Rockets edged the Caps, 4–3, in the Western Division semifinals. In Game 7 on the road, Barry went off for 52 points, the most scored in a seventh and deciding game in professional basketball history.
Virginia Squires
The Washington Caps became the Virginia Squires after the 1969–70 season, but Barry was openly despondent about playing in Virginia. At the same time, he wanted to continue playing in the ABA. Featured on the August 24, 1970, cover of Sports Illustrated in a Squires jersey, he indicated that he would not return to the NBA if the league paid him "a million dollars a year." He denounced the Squires (and, subsequently, never suited up for them), saying he did not want his kids growing up with a Southern accent. On September 1, 1970, the Squires traded Barry to the New York Nets for a draft pick and $200,000. The negative comments were not the primary reason; rather, Squires owner Earl Foreman was mired in financial troubles and sold Barry to help meet expenses.
New York Nets
After the Squires dealt Barry to the New York Nets, he played in only 59 games in the 1970–71 season because of a knee injury but still made the ABA All Star team. He repeated as an ABA All Star during the 1971–72 season. During the 1970–71 season he led the league in scoring (29.4 points per game) and led the league again in 1971–72 with 31.5 points per game. In both of those years he also led the ABA in free throw percentage as he had in 1968–69. Barry also became the ABA record holder for most consecutive free throws in one game with 23.
In the 1970–71 season, the Nets finished 40–44, good for fourth place in the Eastern Division and a place in the 1971 ABA Playoffs. The Virginia Squires defeated the Nets 4 games to 2 in the Eastern Division semifinals. The 1971–72 Nets finished the season at 44–40, making the 1972 ABA Playoffs by claiming third place in the Eastern Division, 24 games behind the 68–16 Kentucky Colonels. In the Eastern Division semifinals the Nets shocked the ABA by defeating the Colonels 4 games to 2. The Nets then eked out a 4–3 game victory over the Virginia Squires in the Eastern Division finals. The Nets were then edged by the Western Division champion Indiana Pacers, 4 games to 2, in the 1972 ABA Finals.
On June 23, 1972, a United States District Court judge issued a preliminary injunction to prohibit Barry from playing for any team other than the Golden State Warriors after his contract with the Nets ended. On October 6, 1972, the Nets released Barry and he returned to the Warriors.
Golden State Warriors
Upon Barry's return to the Warriors and the NBA, the cumulative effects of knee problems were taking their toll. Barry gradually moved his game away from the basket, where he became the first so-called point forward in league history. That is, Barry took on a role similar to that of a point guard and became the chief facilitator of the offense. While his offensive forays were not as frequent as in the past, he remained an elite scorer as evidenced by his performance on March 26, 1974, when he went off for a career-high 64 points and grabbed 10 rebounds in a 143–120 win over the visiting Portland Trail Blazers.
In 1974–75, the Warriors had a Cinderella season for the ages. The turnaround began in training camp, when Barry was elected captain by his teammates. They went on to capture the Pacific Division crown as Barry responded with the best all-around season of his career. Not only did he average 30.6 points per game, but he also led the league in free throw percentage (.904) and steals per game (2.9) and ranked sixth in assists per game (6.2), the only forward among the top 10 in the category.
In the playoffs, the upstart Warriors turned back the Seattle SuperSonics and Chicago Bulls to capture the Western Conference crown. In the NBA Finals, they shocked the basketball world with a historic four-game sweep of Elvin Hayes, Wes Unseld and the Washington Bullets, widely considered to be the greatest postseason upset in NBA history. The Bullets had posted a league-high 60 victories, 12 more than the Warriors total in the regular season, which led many experts to predict that they would win the series easily. Barry was named NBA Finals Most Valuable Player on the strength of 29.5 points, 5.0 assists and 3.5 steals per game, not to mention his profound impact in a leadership role.
In the 1975 NBA draft, the Warriors selected point guard Gus Williams in the first round. While Williams made immediate contributions off the bench, off guard Phil Smith came into his own in his second season. Barry was not required to carry the team as often, and his scoring average dipped to 21.0 points per game as a result. As the deepest and most athletic team in professional basketball, the Warriors repeated as Pacific Division champions, this time with a league-best 59–23 record. They entered the playoffs as clear-cut favorites to return to the NBA Finals.
After an unusual 10-day layoff, partly to accommodate network television, the Warriors eliminated the Detroit Pistons in round one then were upset in the Western Conference finals by the Phoenix Suns in seven games. The final contest was marred by a fight between Barry and Suns rookie Ricky Sobers away from the ball in the first quarter, during which none of the Warriors came to his aid at the opposite side of the court. Suns broadcaster Al McCoy concocted a narrative that Barry quit in the second half, a charge that lacked tangible evidence and he steadfastly denied. In fact, Barry led his team in points and shot attempts that game. Rather, he said his intent was to get more teammates involved in the third quarter, the game plan that had allowed them to dominate in the regular season.
In the 1976–77 campaign, the Warriors won 46 games the next season with Barry, Smith, and Williams sharing scoring and ball-handling, but were ousted in the second round by the Los Angeles Lakers. Reportedly, Barry and Williams clashed over the ball-handling role, and Williams was traded after the season to the Seattle SuperSonics. Barry averaged 23.1 points per game in his farewell season (1977–78) with the Warriors, but the team failed to make the playoffs.
Houston Rockets
Barry finished his career with the Houston Rockets, playing through the 1979–80 NBA season. The Rockets signed him as a free agent in June, 1978, and the league awarded veteran guard John Lucas to the Warriors as compensation.
In the twilight of his career, Barry continued to make history. In his Rockets debut, he assumed a new role as the first player off the bench. It was not long before he elevated the point forward position to another level. Barry finished with a career-high 502 assists to become the first true small forward to reach the 500 mark in one season. Until then, swingman John Havlicek had been the only forward with as many as 500 assists in a season, but the Boston Celtics swingman also spent considerable time at the off guard spot. Barry averaged 13.5 points per game and established a new NBA record (since broken) with a .947 free throw percentage.
Barry was less of a factor in his final season. The Rockets were swept by the Celtics in the 1980 Eastern Conference semifinals, and when contract talks with Boston and the Seattle SuperSonics failed to produce a contract, he decided to retire.
NBA career statistics
Regular season
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|San Francisco
| style="background:#cfecec;"|80* || || 37.4 || .439 || || .862 || 10.6 || 2.2 || || || 25.7
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|San Francisco
| 78 || || 40.7 || .451 || || .884 || 9.2 || 3.6 || || || style="background:#cfecec;"|35.6*
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || || 37.5 || .452 || || style="background:#cfecec;"|.902* || 8.9 || 4.9 || || || 22.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| 80 || || 36.5 || .456 || || .899 || 6.8 || 6.1 || 2.1 || 0.5 || 25.1
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| 80 || || 40.4 || .464 || || style="background:#cfecec;"|.904* || 5.7 || 6.2 || style="background:#cfecec;"|2.9* || 0.4 || 30.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| 81 || || 38.5 || .435 || || style="background:#cfecec;"|.923* || 6.1 || 6.1 || 2.5 || 0.3 || 21.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| 79 || || 36.8 || .440 || || .916 || 5.3 || 6.0 || 2.2 || 0.7 || 21.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| 82 || || 36.9 || .451 || || style="background:#cfecec;"|.924* || 5.5 || 5.4 || 1.9 || 0.5 || 23.1
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 80 || || 32.1 || .461 || || style="background:#cfecec;"|.947* || 3.5 || 6.3 || 1.2 || 0.5 || 13.5
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 72 || || 25.2 || .422 || .330 || style="background:#cfecec;"|.935* || 3.3 || 3.7 || 1.1 || 0.4 || 12.0
|- class=sortbottom
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|Career
| 794 || || 36.3 || .449 || .330 || .900 || 6.5 || 5.1 || 2.0 || 0.5 || 23.2
Later years
During the 1990s, he coached the Cedar Rapids Sharpshooters of the Global Basketball Association and the Continental Basketball Association, guiding the Fort Wayne Fury to a 19–37 win-loss record in 1993–94. In 1998 and 1999, he served as head coach of the New Jersey ShoreCats of the United States Basketball League. Former Warriors teammate Clifford Ray was his top assistant.
Barry finished second in his division at the 2005 World Long Drive Championship.
Barry is part owner and promoter for the Ektio basketball shoe, which doctor and former college basketball player Barry Katz designed to reduce ankle injuries. He also serves on the company's Board of Directors.
Broadcasting career
Barry was among the first professional basketball players to make a successful transition to the broadcasting profession. He began broadcasting during the 1967–68 season broadcasting Oakland Oaks games because of contractual matters that kept him off the court. Barry continues to work in the field, a career that began with his own radio show in San Francisco and CBS while still an active player and then with TBS.
While working as a CBS analyst during Game 5 of the 1981 NBA Finals, Barry made a controversial comment when CBS displayed an old photo of colleague Bill Russell, who is African-American. He tried to joke that "it looks like some fool over there with that big watermelon grin". Barry later apologized for the comment, claiming that he did not realize that a reference to watermelons had racial overtones. Russell said that he believed Barry with regard to Barry's racial attitudes, but nonetheless, the two men are reported not to have been particularly friendly for other reasons, unrelated to that comment.
CBS did not renew Barry's employment for the subsequent season. Producers later cited the general negative tone of his game commentary, which did not sit well with some players and agents around the league. The next season Barry filled in on a few Seattle SuperSonics broadcasts, but a plan for a full-time position fell through when he insisted that his then-wife be allowed to join him when the team was on the road, which would have been contrary to team policy. The next year, Barry was featured in a lengthy Sports Illustrated article written by Tony Kornheiser in which he lamented the failure of his broadcasting career to that point, as well as the fact that he'd left a reputation within NBA circles for being an unlikeable person. After this, Barry worked with TBS and later on, TNT into the 1989–90 season, mostly as a color analyst but sometimes as a play-by-play announcer paired with Bill Russell. One of the more notable games Barry called as play-by-play announcer on TBS was Game 5 of the 1985 Eastern Conference Finals between the Boston Celtics and the Philadelphia 76ers, where Larry Bird made a last-second steal which sealed the win and the Eastern Conference Championship for the Celtics. After the 1989–90 season, Barry became the color analyst for the Atlanta Hawks' games that aired on TBS, paired with Skip Caray.
In a rare non-sports venture, he hosted the pilot for the mid-1980s game show Catchphrase; however, when the series debuted in the fall of 1985, game show veteran Art James replaced him (the series itself was short-lived in the US, but was brought over to the UK and is still running).
In September 2001, Barry began hosting a sports talk show on KNBR in San Francisco until June 2003, when KNBR paired him up with Rod Brooks to co-host a show named Rick and Rod. The show aired on KNBR until August 2006, when Barry left the station abruptly for reasons not disclosed to the public.
Personal life
Barry is of Irish, English, French, and Lithuanian descent. He was a member of the Kappa Sigma fraternity. He resides in Colorado Springs, Colorado with his wife, Lynn Norenberg Barry. While their youngest son, Canyon, played basketball for The University of Florida, to watch him play, they rented a condominium in Gainesville, Florida.
He has four sons and a daughter with his first wife Pam: Scooter, Jon, Brent, Drew and Shannon. All of Barry's sons were professional basketball players. Barry wrote an autobiography, Confessions of a Basketball Gypsy: The Rick Barry Story with Bill Libby that was published in 1972. He also has a son, Canyon, with his third wife, Lynn Barry, who is a professional player, playing for Chinese club Hunan Jinjian Miye in the 2018–19 season.
When his son Brent won the NBA Championship in 2005 with the San Antonio Spurs, Rick and Brent became the second father-son duo to both win NBA Championships as players, following Matt Guokas Sr. and Matt Guokas Jr. Later, this would be repeated by Bill and Luke Walton, and Mychal and Klay Thompson.
Jon and Brent have also moved to broadcasting after retirement. Jon serves as a game analyst on ESPN while Brent worked as a studio and game analyst on TNT and NBA TV until 2018 when he took a job with the San Antonio Spurs to be vice president of basketball operations.
Scooter won titles in the CBA and the top Belgian League.
Career achievements
Roselle Park High School – Roselle Park, New Jersey (1957–1961)
Two-time All-State selection
University of Miami (1961–1965)
Associated Press First-Team All-America (1965)
The Sporting News All-America Second Team (1965)
Consensus All-America (1965)
Led the nation in scoring (37.4 ppg) as a senior
NBA San Francisco Warriors (1965–1967)
NBA Rookie of the Year (1966)
NBA All-Rookie First Team (1966)
NBA leading scorer in 1967 (35.6 ppg)
ABA leading scorer in 1969 (34.0 ppg)
NBA highest free-throw percentage 1973, 1975, 1976, 1978, 1979, 1980
ABA highest free-throw percentage 1969, 1971, 1972
NBA All-Star Game MVP (1967)
ABA Oakland Oaks (1968–1969)
ABA Washington Caps (1969–1970)
ABA New York Nets (1970–1972)
NBA Golden State Warriors (1972–1978)
All-NBA Second Team (1973)
NBA Finals MVP (1975)
NBA champion (1975)
NBA Houston Rockets (1978–1979)
All-NBA First Team (1966, 1967, 1974, 1975, 1976)
Eight-time NBA All-Star (1966, 1967, 1973–1978)
ABA All-Star First Team (1969–1972)
NBA 50 Greatest Players (1996)
NBA 75 Greatest Players (2021)
Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame (1988)
Sports Hall of Fame of New Jersey (1994)
University of Miami Sports Hall of Fame (1976)
Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement (1975)
15 games in NBA career scoring 50 or more points (5th in NBA history)
115 games in professional career scoring 40 or more points — 70 NBA, 45 ABA (4th in professional basketball history after Wilt Chamberlain, Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant)
NBA records
Regular season
Only player in history to lead the NCAA, ABA and NBA in scoring
Led the NCAA in scoring in 1964–65 (973 points, 37.4 ppg)
Led the NBA in scoring in (2,775 points, 35.6 ppg)
Led the ABA in scoring in (1,190 points; 34.0 ppg)
Youngest player to score 57 points in a game: (57 points, San Francisco Warriors at New York Knicks, )
Free throws, consecutive, ABA game: 23, at Kentucky Colonels,
Assists, forward, game: 19, at Chicago Bulls, November 30, 1976
Playoffs
Scoring 30 or more points in all games, any playoff series: 6 games, vs. Philadelphia 76ers, 1967 NBA Finals
Points, 7-game ABA series: 281, vs. Denver Rockets, 1970 semifinals
Points scored, Game 7, any ABA-NBA playoff series: 52, at Denver Rockets,
Field goal attempts, 6-game series: 235, vs. Philadelphia 76ers, 1967 NBA Finals
Field goal attempts, game: 48, vs. Philadelphia 76ers,
Field goal attempts, quarter: 17, at Philadelphia 76ers,
Steals, quarter: 4, second quarter, at Chicago Bulls,
Tied with many other players
NBA Finals
Highest scoring average (career): 36.3
Scoring 30 or more points in all games, any championship series: 6 games, vs. Philadelphia 76ers, 1967 NBA Finals
Tied with Elgin Baylor, Michael Jordan, Hakeem Olajuwon, Shaquille O'Neal, and Kevin Durant.
Field goals made, game: 22, vs. Philadelphia 76ers,
Tied with Elgin Baylor
Field goal attempts, 6-game series: 235, vs. Philadelphia 76ers, 1967 NBA Finals
Field goal attempts, game: 48, vs. Philadelphia 76ers,
Field goal attempts, quarter: 17, at Philadelphia 76ers,
Steals, 4-game series: 14, vs. Washington Bullets, 1975 NBA Finals (3.5 spg)
All-Star
Field goal attempts, game: 27 (1967)
Steals, game: 8 (1975)
Personal fouls, game: 6, twice (1966, 1978)
Disqualifications, career: 2
Tied with Bob Cousy
See also
American Basketball Association (2000–present)
List of individual National Basketball Association scoring leaders by season
List of National Basketball Association players with most points in a game
List of National Basketball Association players with most steals in a game
List of National Basketball Association players with 50 or more points in a playoff game
List of NCAA Division I men's basketball players with 2000 points and 1000 rebounds
References
External links
Basketball Hall of Fame profile
RememberTheABA.com Rick Barry page
1972 Jim O'Brien biographical article on Rick Barry
Rick Barry and Rod Brooks Home Page at KNBR Radio
Rick Barry Career Statistics
A Voice Crying in the Wilderness
1944 births
Living people
All-American college men's basketball players
American Basketball Association announcers
American men's basketball players
American people of Lithuanian descent
American sports radio personalities
Basketball coaches from New Jersey
Basketball players from Colorado Springs, Colorado
Basketball players from New Jersey
Big3 coaches
Continental Basketball Association coaches
Golden State Warriors players
Golf writers and broadcasters
Houston Rockets players
Miami Hurricanes men's basketball players
Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductees
National Basketball Association All-Stars
National Basketball Association broadcasters
National Basketball Association players with retired numbers
New York Nets players
Oakland Oaks players
People from Roselle Park, New Jersey
Radio personalities from San Francisco
San Francisco Warriors draft picks
San Francisco Warriors players
Small forwards
Sportspeople from Elizabeth, New Jersey
Tennis commentators
United States Basketball League coaches
Washington Caps players
| false |
[
"Say What may refer to:\n\nBooks\nSay What? - Talk like a local without putting your foot in it, by Lonely Planet, 2004 \n\nSay What? by Margaret Peterson Haddix and James Bernardin 2005\n\nFilm and TV\n Say What?, an MTV television series in the 1990s\n\nGames\n Say What?! (video game) Sony music game\n\nMusic\n Say What! (Stevie Ray Vaughan song), a track by Stevie Ray Vaughan from the album Soul to Soul, 1985\n Say What! (Trouble Funk album), 1986 live album\n \"Say What\" (LL Cool J song), a song by LL Cool J\n \"Say What\", a song by Kovas (musician) \n\"Say What\", single by Jesse Winchester, 1981",
"\"Boys! (What Did the Detective Say?)\" is the debut single by Australian rock band the Sports. The song was written by band members Stephen Cummings and Ed Bates and produced by Joe Camilleri. Released in March 1978 as the lead single from the band's debut studio album Reckless (1978), the song peaked at number 55 on the Australian Kent Music Report.\n\nJohn Magowan of Woroni described the song as \"adolescent bravado\".\n\nTrack listing\n Australian 7\" single (K 7089)\nSide A \"Boys! (What Did the Detective Say?)\" - 2:25\nSide B \"Modern Don Juan\"\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\n1978 songs\n1978 debut singles\nThe Sports songs\nSong recordings produced by Joe Camilleri\nMushroom Records singles\nSongs written by Stephen Cummings"
] |
[
"Rick Barry",
"Broadcasting career",
"What began his broadcasting career?",
"He began broadcasting during the 1967-68 season",
"Where did he broadcast?",
"broadcasting Oakland Oaks games",
"Was he well liked there?",
"I don't know.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"While working as a CBS analyst during Game 5 of the 1981 NBA Finals, Barry made a controversial comment when CBS displayed an old photo of colleague Bill Russell,",
"What did he say?",
"Barry joked that \"it looks like some fool over there with that big watermelon grin\"."
] |
C_546514e8f7eb4c81a722648e1bfe356e_0
|
How did that turn out?
| 6 |
How did Rick Barry's controversial comment during Game 5 of the 1981 NBA Finals turn out?
|
Rick Barry
|
Barry was among the first professional basketball players to make a successful transition to the broadcasting profession. He began broadcasting during the 1967-68 season broadcasting Oakland Oaks games because of contractual matters that kept him off of the court. Barry continues to work in the field, a career that began with his own radio show in San Francisco and CBS while still an active player and then with TBS. While working as a CBS analyst during Game 5 of the 1981 NBA Finals, Barry made a controversial comment when CBS displayed an old photo of colleague Bill Russell, who is African-American, and Barry joked that "it looks like some fool over there with that big watermelon grin". Barry later apologized for the comment, claiming that he did not realize that a reference to watermelons would have racial overtones. Russell said that he believed Barry with regard to Barry's racial attitudes, but nonetheless, the two men are reported not to have been particularly friendly for other reasons, unrelated to that comment. CBS did not renew Barry's employment for the subsequent season, with producers later citing the overall negative tone of Barry's game commentary. The next season, Barry did some broadcasting for the Seattle SuperSonics, however a plan for permanent employment fell through when Barry insisted that his then-wife be allowed to join him when the team was on the road, which would have been contrary to team policy. The next year, Barry was featured in a lengthy Sports Illustrated article written by Tony Kornheiser in which he lamented the failure of his broadcasting career to that point, as well as the fact that he'd left a reputation within NBA circles for being an unlikable person. In a rare non-sports venture, he hosted the pilot for the mid-1980s game show Catchphrase; however, when the series debuted in the fall of 1985, game show veteran Art James replaced him (the series itself was short-lived in the US, but was brought over to the UK and is still running). In September 2001, Barry began hosting a sports talk show on KNBR-AM in San Francisco until June 2003, when KNBR paired him up with Rod Brooks to co-host a show named Rick and Rod. The show aired on KNBR until August 2006, when Barry left the station abruptly for reasons not disclosed to the public. CANNOTANSWER
|
Barry later apologized for the comment, claiming that he did not realize that a reference to watermelons would have racial overtones. Russell said that he believed Barry
|
Richard Francis Dennis Barry III (born March 28, 1944) is an American retired professional basketball player who played in both the American Basketball Association (ABA) and National Basketball Association (NBA). Named one of the 50 Greatest Players in history in 1996 and 75 Greatest Players in history in 2021, each in a league-wide vote of media, analysts, current and former players and team executives, Barry ranks among the most prolific scorers and all-around players in basketball history. He is the only one to lead the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), ABA, and NBA in points per game in a season. He ranks as the all-time ABA scoring leader in regular season (30.5 points per game) and postseason (33.5) play, while his 36.3 points per game are the most in the NBA Finals history. Barry also is the only player to reach the 50-point mark in a Game 7 of the playoffs in either league. He is one of only four players to be a part of a championship team in both leagues.
Barry is widely known for his unorthodox but extraordinarily effective underhand free throw technique. His career .880 free throw percentage ranks No. 1 in ABA history, and at the time of his retirement in 1980, his .900 percentage was the best of any NBA player. In 1987, he was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. In October 2021, Barry was honored as one of the league's greatest players of all-time by being named to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team.
Barry is the father of former professional basketball players Brent Barry, Jon Barry, Drew Barry, and Scooter Barry, and current professional player Canyon Barry. His wife, Lynn Norenberg Barry, was a star basketball player at the College of William & Mary, where she became the first female athlete to have her jersey number (22) retired.
Early years and college career
Barry grew up in Roselle Park, New Jersey, where baseball was his best sport as a youth. He grew up a fan of local New York Giants star Willie Mays, who wore jersey number 24, and Barry would wear the same number in tribute to the outfielder throughout his basketball career. In 1962, Barry graduated from Roselle Park High School.
Barry decided to attend the University of Miami, largely because the Hurricanes adhered to an up-tempo, pro-style system under head coach Bruce Hale that was conducive to his skills and athleticism. It was there that the three-time All-American met his future wife Pamela, who was the daughter of the head coach. As a senior, Barry led the NCAA with a 37.4 points per game average in the 1964–65 campaign. He and his teammates did not take part in the NCAA Tournament, however, because the Hurricanes basketball program was on probation at the time.
Barry was drafted by the San Francisco Warriors with the second pick of the 1965 NBA draft. He had hoped to be selected by the New York Knicks, his hometown team, but they opted for local Princeton star Bill Bradley in round one instead. It was a slight that Barry would not soon forget. In his second visit to Madison Square Garden as a pro, he went off for 57 points versus the Knicks, including 21 free throws in 22 attempts. He also grabbed 15 rebounds in the 141–137 loss.
Professional playing career
San Francisco Warriors
In Barry's first season in the NBA with the Warriors, the team made a quantum leap from 17 to 35 victories and were in playoff contention until the final game of the regular season. In the All-Star Game one season later, Barry erupted for 38 points as the West team stunned the East team, which featured Wilt Chamberlain, Oscar Robertson, Bill Russell and head coach Red Auerbach among other all-time greats. Later that season, Barry and company extended the mighty Philadelphia 76ers to six highly competitive games in the NBA Finals, something that Russell and the Boston Celtics could not do in the Eastern Conference playoffs.
Nicknamed the "Miami Greyhound" by longtime San Francisco Bay Area broadcaster Bill King because of his long and slender physical build, whippet-like quickness and remarkable instincts, the Barry won the NBA Rookie of the Year Award after averaging 25.7 points and 10.6 rebounds per game in the 1965–66 season. The following year, he won the 1967 NBA All-Star Game MVP award with a 38-point outburst and led the NBA in scoring with a 35.6 point per game average — which still ranks as the eighth-highest output in league annals.
Along with All-Star center Nate Thurmond, Barry carried the Warriors to the 1967 NBA Finals, which they lost to the Philadelphia 76ers in six games. Despite an injured left knee that required cortisone shots on game days, Barry averaged 40.8 points per game in the series, an NBA Finals record that stood for three decades. "The guy was so good that we had to have three different guys guard him at different times," Chamberlain said. "'Cause he would run them all ragged."
Joining the ABA
At odds with Warriors owner Franklin Mieuli over unpaid incentive monies due him, Barry shocked the basketball world when he jumped to the ABA's Oakland Oaks, who overwhelmed him with a historic contract offer. Barry became the first marquee NBA player to jump to the rival league. Not only was the three-year agreement worth a reported $500,000, which would make him one of basketball's highest-paid players, it afforded him the opportunity to play for his former college coach Bruce Hale, who was also his father-in-law. In addition, Barry received 15 percent ownership in the franchise as well as 5 percent of all ticket sales in excess of $600,000 for home games. The ground-breaking deal led him to remark, "The offer Oakland made me was one I simply couldn't turn down."
The courts ordered Barry to sit out the 1967–68 season for the Oaks, upholding the validity of the reserve clause in his contract. At the time, all NBA teams had one-year options on player contracts, however, and the Warriors were quick to exercise theirs. He preceded St. Louis Cardinals' outfielder Curt Flood, whose better-known challenge to the reserve clause went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, by two years as the first American major-league professional athlete to bring a court action against it. The ensuing negative publicity cast Barry in a negative light, portraying him as selfish and money hungry. He was hardly alone in his vision, however, as numerous NBA players also saw the rival league as a rare opportunity to enhance their careers.
Oakland Oaks
The Oaks finished 22–56 in their ABA debut, which Barry spent as part of their broadcast team. Prior to the 1968–69 season, they hired his former San Francisco Warriors coach Alex Hannum to replace Hale, who moved to a front office position. If there was any question about whether Barry would remain the most dominant player in professional basketball, he quickly answered it. In his ABA debut, he averaged a league-high 34.0 points per game and the Oaks became the first West Coast team to capture a league championship in professional basketball history. Barry also paced the league in free-throw percentage in the regular season, a feat he would repeat in the 1970–71 and 1971–72 seasons.
Barry had his season come to an abrupt halt on December 27, 1968, when late in a game against the New York Nets, he was blindsided by Ken Wilburn on a drive to the basket and tore left knee ligaments on the play. He attempted to come back in January 1969, only to aggravate the injury and sit out the remainder of the season. He took part in only 35 games but still was named to the ABA All-Star team.
Even without the arguably the best all-around player in basketball, the Oaks barely skipped a beat. They finished with a 60–18 record under Hannum, dominating the Western Division by 14 games over the second-place New Orleans Buccaneers. In the 1969 ABA Playoffs, the Oaks ousted the Denver Rockets in a seven-game series then swept the Buccaneers in the Western Division finals. In the championship round, they made short work of the Indiana Pacers, 4–1, to capture the league title.
In lieu of a parade in downtown Oakland, a modest victory celebration was held at a restaurant in Jack London Square. It was there that Barry announced, "I see no hope for the rest of the teams in the league."
Washington Caps
Despite their on-court excellence, the Oaks were a disappointment at the gate, partly because of Barry's absence in the final five months of the season, partly because they were the only ABA member that competed in the same market as an NBA team, that being the more established Warriors across the bay. They averaged just 2,800 fans per home game at the state-of-the-art Oakland County Coliseum Arena, slightly more than the league average. By that time, entertainer-business entrepreneur Pat Boone had become the majority team owner, and after more than $2 million in losses over two seasons, he wanted out of the basketball business. In August 1968, the franchise was sold to a group headed by real estate attorney and former Baltimore Bullets owner Earl Foreman, who immediately moved it to Washington, D.C., even though there was no suitable arena in the vicinity at the time.
Reluctantly, Barry played the 1969–70 season with the ABA's Washington Caps. He refused to report to the team at the outset, at one point commenting, "If I wanted to go to Washington, I'd run for president!" He missed the first 32 games before he joined the team, which played in the Western Division, making for a grueling travel schedule. The Caps still managed to finish with a respectable 44–40 record, good for third place in the Western Division. Appearing in only 52 games because of a knee injury, Barry finished the season with 1,442 points (27.7 per game), second-best in the league. The Denver Rockets edged the Caps, 4–3, in the Western Division semifinals. In Game 7 on the road, Barry went off for 52 points, the most scored in a seventh and deciding game in professional basketball history.
Virginia Squires
The Washington Caps became the Virginia Squires after the 1969–70 season, but Barry was openly despondent about playing in Virginia. At the same time, he wanted to continue playing in the ABA. Featured on the August 24, 1970, cover of Sports Illustrated in a Squires jersey, he indicated that he would not return to the NBA if the league paid him "a million dollars a year." He denounced the Squires (and, subsequently, never suited up for them), saying he did not want his kids growing up with a Southern accent. On September 1, 1970, the Squires traded Barry to the New York Nets for a draft pick and $200,000. The negative comments were not the primary reason; rather, Squires owner Earl Foreman was mired in financial troubles and sold Barry to help meet expenses.
New York Nets
After the Squires dealt Barry to the New York Nets, he played in only 59 games in the 1970–71 season because of a knee injury but still made the ABA All Star team. He repeated as an ABA All Star during the 1971–72 season. During the 1970–71 season he led the league in scoring (29.4 points per game) and led the league again in 1971–72 with 31.5 points per game. In both of those years he also led the ABA in free throw percentage as he had in 1968–69. Barry also became the ABA record holder for most consecutive free throws in one game with 23.
In the 1970–71 season, the Nets finished 40–44, good for fourth place in the Eastern Division and a place in the 1971 ABA Playoffs. The Virginia Squires defeated the Nets 4 games to 2 in the Eastern Division semifinals. The 1971–72 Nets finished the season at 44–40, making the 1972 ABA Playoffs by claiming third place in the Eastern Division, 24 games behind the 68–16 Kentucky Colonels. In the Eastern Division semifinals the Nets shocked the ABA by defeating the Colonels 4 games to 2. The Nets then eked out a 4–3 game victory over the Virginia Squires in the Eastern Division finals. The Nets were then edged by the Western Division champion Indiana Pacers, 4 games to 2, in the 1972 ABA Finals.
On June 23, 1972, a United States District Court judge issued a preliminary injunction to prohibit Barry from playing for any team other than the Golden State Warriors after his contract with the Nets ended. On October 6, 1972, the Nets released Barry and he returned to the Warriors.
Golden State Warriors
Upon Barry's return to the Warriors and the NBA, the cumulative effects of knee problems were taking their toll. Barry gradually moved his game away from the basket, where he became the first so-called point forward in league history. That is, Barry took on a role similar to that of a point guard and became the chief facilitator of the offense. While his offensive forays were not as frequent as in the past, he remained an elite scorer as evidenced by his performance on March 26, 1974, when he went off for a career-high 64 points and grabbed 10 rebounds in a 143–120 win over the visiting Portland Trail Blazers.
In 1974–75, the Warriors had a Cinderella season for the ages. The turnaround began in training camp, when Barry was elected captain by his teammates. They went on to capture the Pacific Division crown as Barry responded with the best all-around season of his career. Not only did he average 30.6 points per game, but he also led the league in free throw percentage (.904) and steals per game (2.9) and ranked sixth in assists per game (6.2), the only forward among the top 10 in the category.
In the playoffs, the upstart Warriors turned back the Seattle SuperSonics and Chicago Bulls to capture the Western Conference crown. In the NBA Finals, they shocked the basketball world with a historic four-game sweep of Elvin Hayes, Wes Unseld and the Washington Bullets, widely considered to be the greatest postseason upset in NBA history. The Bullets had posted a league-high 60 victories, 12 more than the Warriors total in the regular season, which led many experts to predict that they would win the series easily. Barry was named NBA Finals Most Valuable Player on the strength of 29.5 points, 5.0 assists and 3.5 steals per game, not to mention his profound impact in a leadership role.
In the 1975 NBA draft, the Warriors selected point guard Gus Williams in the first round. While Williams made immediate contributions off the bench, off guard Phil Smith came into his own in his second season. Barry was not required to carry the team as often, and his scoring average dipped to 21.0 points per game as a result. As the deepest and most athletic team in professional basketball, the Warriors repeated as Pacific Division champions, this time with a league-best 59–23 record. They entered the playoffs as clear-cut favorites to return to the NBA Finals.
After an unusual 10-day layoff, partly to accommodate network television, the Warriors eliminated the Detroit Pistons in round one then were upset in the Western Conference finals by the Phoenix Suns in seven games. The final contest was marred by a fight between Barry and Suns rookie Ricky Sobers away from the ball in the first quarter, during which none of the Warriors came to his aid at the opposite side of the court. Suns broadcaster Al McCoy concocted a narrative that Barry quit in the second half, a charge that lacked tangible evidence and he steadfastly denied. In fact, Barry led his team in points and shot attempts that game. Rather, he said his intent was to get more teammates involved in the third quarter, the game plan that had allowed them to dominate in the regular season.
In the 1976–77 campaign, the Warriors won 46 games the next season with Barry, Smith, and Williams sharing scoring and ball-handling, but were ousted in the second round by the Los Angeles Lakers. Reportedly, Barry and Williams clashed over the ball-handling role, and Williams was traded after the season to the Seattle SuperSonics. Barry averaged 23.1 points per game in his farewell season (1977–78) with the Warriors, but the team failed to make the playoffs.
Houston Rockets
Barry finished his career with the Houston Rockets, playing through the 1979–80 NBA season. The Rockets signed him as a free agent in June, 1978, and the league awarded veteran guard John Lucas to the Warriors as compensation.
In the twilight of his career, Barry continued to make history. In his Rockets debut, he assumed a new role as the first player off the bench. It was not long before he elevated the point forward position to another level. Barry finished with a career-high 502 assists to become the first true small forward to reach the 500 mark in one season. Until then, swingman John Havlicek had been the only forward with as many as 500 assists in a season, but the Boston Celtics swingman also spent considerable time at the off guard spot. Barry averaged 13.5 points per game and established a new NBA record (since broken) with a .947 free throw percentage.
Barry was less of a factor in his final season. The Rockets were swept by the Celtics in the 1980 Eastern Conference semifinals, and when contract talks with Boston and the Seattle SuperSonics failed to produce a contract, he decided to retire.
NBA career statistics
Regular season
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|San Francisco
| style="background:#cfecec;"|80* || || 37.4 || .439 || || .862 || 10.6 || 2.2 || || || 25.7
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|San Francisco
| 78 || || 40.7 || .451 || || .884 || 9.2 || 3.6 || || || style="background:#cfecec;"|35.6*
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || || 37.5 || .452 || || style="background:#cfecec;"|.902* || 8.9 || 4.9 || || || 22.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| 80 || || 36.5 || .456 || || .899 || 6.8 || 6.1 || 2.1 || 0.5 || 25.1
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| 80 || || 40.4 || .464 || || style="background:#cfecec;"|.904* || 5.7 || 6.2 || style="background:#cfecec;"|2.9* || 0.4 || 30.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| 81 || || 38.5 || .435 || || style="background:#cfecec;"|.923* || 6.1 || 6.1 || 2.5 || 0.3 || 21.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| 79 || || 36.8 || .440 || || .916 || 5.3 || 6.0 || 2.2 || 0.7 || 21.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| 82 || || 36.9 || .451 || || style="background:#cfecec;"|.924* || 5.5 || 5.4 || 1.9 || 0.5 || 23.1
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 80 || || 32.1 || .461 || || style="background:#cfecec;"|.947* || 3.5 || 6.3 || 1.2 || 0.5 || 13.5
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 72 || || 25.2 || .422 || .330 || style="background:#cfecec;"|.935* || 3.3 || 3.7 || 1.1 || 0.4 || 12.0
|- class=sortbottom
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|Career
| 794 || || 36.3 || .449 || .330 || .900 || 6.5 || 5.1 || 2.0 || 0.5 || 23.2
Later years
During the 1990s, he coached the Cedar Rapids Sharpshooters of the Global Basketball Association and the Continental Basketball Association, guiding the Fort Wayne Fury to a 19–37 win-loss record in 1993–94. In 1998 and 1999, he served as head coach of the New Jersey ShoreCats of the United States Basketball League. Former Warriors teammate Clifford Ray was his top assistant.
Barry finished second in his division at the 2005 World Long Drive Championship.
Barry is part owner and promoter for the Ektio basketball shoe, which doctor and former college basketball player Barry Katz designed to reduce ankle injuries. He also serves on the company's Board of Directors.
Broadcasting career
Barry was among the first professional basketball players to make a successful transition to the broadcasting profession. He began broadcasting during the 1967–68 season broadcasting Oakland Oaks games because of contractual matters that kept him off the court. Barry continues to work in the field, a career that began with his own radio show in San Francisco and CBS while still an active player and then with TBS.
While working as a CBS analyst during Game 5 of the 1981 NBA Finals, Barry made a controversial comment when CBS displayed an old photo of colleague Bill Russell, who is African-American. He tried to joke that "it looks like some fool over there with that big watermelon grin". Barry later apologized for the comment, claiming that he did not realize that a reference to watermelons had racial overtones. Russell said that he believed Barry with regard to Barry's racial attitudes, but nonetheless, the two men are reported not to have been particularly friendly for other reasons, unrelated to that comment.
CBS did not renew Barry's employment for the subsequent season. Producers later cited the general negative tone of his game commentary, which did not sit well with some players and agents around the league. The next season Barry filled in on a few Seattle SuperSonics broadcasts, but a plan for a full-time position fell through when he insisted that his then-wife be allowed to join him when the team was on the road, which would have been contrary to team policy. The next year, Barry was featured in a lengthy Sports Illustrated article written by Tony Kornheiser in which he lamented the failure of his broadcasting career to that point, as well as the fact that he'd left a reputation within NBA circles for being an unlikeable person. After this, Barry worked with TBS and later on, TNT into the 1989–90 season, mostly as a color analyst but sometimes as a play-by-play announcer paired with Bill Russell. One of the more notable games Barry called as play-by-play announcer on TBS was Game 5 of the 1985 Eastern Conference Finals between the Boston Celtics and the Philadelphia 76ers, where Larry Bird made a last-second steal which sealed the win and the Eastern Conference Championship for the Celtics. After the 1989–90 season, Barry became the color analyst for the Atlanta Hawks' games that aired on TBS, paired with Skip Caray.
In a rare non-sports venture, he hosted the pilot for the mid-1980s game show Catchphrase; however, when the series debuted in the fall of 1985, game show veteran Art James replaced him (the series itself was short-lived in the US, but was brought over to the UK and is still running).
In September 2001, Barry began hosting a sports talk show on KNBR in San Francisco until June 2003, when KNBR paired him up with Rod Brooks to co-host a show named Rick and Rod. The show aired on KNBR until August 2006, when Barry left the station abruptly for reasons not disclosed to the public.
Personal life
Barry is of Irish, English, French, and Lithuanian descent. He was a member of the Kappa Sigma fraternity. He resides in Colorado Springs, Colorado with his wife, Lynn Norenberg Barry. While their youngest son, Canyon, played basketball for The University of Florida, to watch him play, they rented a condominium in Gainesville, Florida.
He has four sons and a daughter with his first wife Pam: Scooter, Jon, Brent, Drew and Shannon. All of Barry's sons were professional basketball players. Barry wrote an autobiography, Confessions of a Basketball Gypsy: The Rick Barry Story with Bill Libby that was published in 1972. He also has a son, Canyon, with his third wife, Lynn Barry, who is a professional player, playing for Chinese club Hunan Jinjian Miye in the 2018–19 season.
When his son Brent won the NBA Championship in 2005 with the San Antonio Spurs, Rick and Brent became the second father-son duo to both win NBA Championships as players, following Matt Guokas Sr. and Matt Guokas Jr. Later, this would be repeated by Bill and Luke Walton, and Mychal and Klay Thompson.
Jon and Brent have also moved to broadcasting after retirement. Jon serves as a game analyst on ESPN while Brent worked as a studio and game analyst on TNT and NBA TV until 2018 when he took a job with the San Antonio Spurs to be vice president of basketball operations.
Scooter won titles in the CBA and the top Belgian League.
Career achievements
Roselle Park High School – Roselle Park, New Jersey (1957–1961)
Two-time All-State selection
University of Miami (1961–1965)
Associated Press First-Team All-America (1965)
The Sporting News All-America Second Team (1965)
Consensus All-America (1965)
Led the nation in scoring (37.4 ppg) as a senior
NBA San Francisco Warriors (1965–1967)
NBA Rookie of the Year (1966)
NBA All-Rookie First Team (1966)
NBA leading scorer in 1967 (35.6 ppg)
ABA leading scorer in 1969 (34.0 ppg)
NBA highest free-throw percentage 1973, 1975, 1976, 1978, 1979, 1980
ABA highest free-throw percentage 1969, 1971, 1972
NBA All-Star Game MVP (1967)
ABA Oakland Oaks (1968–1969)
ABA Washington Caps (1969–1970)
ABA New York Nets (1970–1972)
NBA Golden State Warriors (1972–1978)
All-NBA Second Team (1973)
NBA Finals MVP (1975)
NBA champion (1975)
NBA Houston Rockets (1978–1979)
All-NBA First Team (1966, 1967, 1974, 1975, 1976)
Eight-time NBA All-Star (1966, 1967, 1973–1978)
ABA All-Star First Team (1969–1972)
NBA 50 Greatest Players (1996)
NBA 75 Greatest Players (2021)
Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame (1988)
Sports Hall of Fame of New Jersey (1994)
University of Miami Sports Hall of Fame (1976)
Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement (1975)
15 games in NBA career scoring 50 or more points (5th in NBA history)
115 games in professional career scoring 40 or more points — 70 NBA, 45 ABA (4th in professional basketball history after Wilt Chamberlain, Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant)
NBA records
Regular season
Only player in history to lead the NCAA, ABA and NBA in scoring
Led the NCAA in scoring in 1964–65 (973 points, 37.4 ppg)
Led the NBA in scoring in (2,775 points, 35.6 ppg)
Led the ABA in scoring in (1,190 points; 34.0 ppg)
Youngest player to score 57 points in a game: (57 points, San Francisco Warriors at New York Knicks, )
Free throws, consecutive, ABA game: 23, at Kentucky Colonels,
Assists, forward, game: 19, at Chicago Bulls, November 30, 1976
Playoffs
Scoring 30 or more points in all games, any playoff series: 6 games, vs. Philadelphia 76ers, 1967 NBA Finals
Points, 7-game ABA series: 281, vs. Denver Rockets, 1970 semifinals
Points scored, Game 7, any ABA-NBA playoff series: 52, at Denver Rockets,
Field goal attempts, 6-game series: 235, vs. Philadelphia 76ers, 1967 NBA Finals
Field goal attempts, game: 48, vs. Philadelphia 76ers,
Field goal attempts, quarter: 17, at Philadelphia 76ers,
Steals, quarter: 4, second quarter, at Chicago Bulls,
Tied with many other players
NBA Finals
Highest scoring average (career): 36.3
Scoring 30 or more points in all games, any championship series: 6 games, vs. Philadelphia 76ers, 1967 NBA Finals
Tied with Elgin Baylor, Michael Jordan, Hakeem Olajuwon, Shaquille O'Neal, and Kevin Durant.
Field goals made, game: 22, vs. Philadelphia 76ers,
Tied with Elgin Baylor
Field goal attempts, 6-game series: 235, vs. Philadelphia 76ers, 1967 NBA Finals
Field goal attempts, game: 48, vs. Philadelphia 76ers,
Field goal attempts, quarter: 17, at Philadelphia 76ers,
Steals, 4-game series: 14, vs. Washington Bullets, 1975 NBA Finals (3.5 spg)
All-Star
Field goal attempts, game: 27 (1967)
Steals, game: 8 (1975)
Personal fouls, game: 6, twice (1966, 1978)
Disqualifications, career: 2
Tied with Bob Cousy
See also
American Basketball Association (2000–present)
List of individual National Basketball Association scoring leaders by season
List of National Basketball Association players with most points in a game
List of National Basketball Association players with most steals in a game
List of National Basketball Association players with 50 or more points in a playoff game
List of NCAA Division I men's basketball players with 2000 points and 1000 rebounds
References
External links
Basketball Hall of Fame profile
RememberTheABA.com Rick Barry page
1972 Jim O'Brien biographical article on Rick Barry
Rick Barry and Rod Brooks Home Page at KNBR Radio
Rick Barry Career Statistics
A Voice Crying in the Wilderness
1944 births
Living people
All-American college men's basketball players
American Basketball Association announcers
American men's basketball players
American people of Lithuanian descent
American sports radio personalities
Basketball coaches from New Jersey
Basketball players from Colorado Springs, Colorado
Basketball players from New Jersey
Big3 coaches
Continental Basketball Association coaches
Golden State Warriors players
Golf writers and broadcasters
Houston Rockets players
Miami Hurricanes men's basketball players
Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductees
National Basketball Association All-Stars
National Basketball Association broadcasters
National Basketball Association players with retired numbers
New York Nets players
Oakland Oaks players
People from Roselle Park, New Jersey
Radio personalities from San Francisco
San Francisco Warriors draft picks
San Francisco Warriors players
Small forwards
Sportspeople from Elizabeth, New Jersey
Tennis commentators
United States Basketball League coaches
Washington Caps players
| false |
[
"\"How Did it Ever Come to This?\" was the last single released by the British band Easyworld. It did not appear on their second and final album Kill the Last Romantic, because it had not yet been written. The band's record label Jive decided the band should record a new track as it was felt none of the tracks on the album were suitable for release. The single charted at #50 in September 2004, missing the top 40 after \"Til the Day\" charted at #27 in February. Easyworld announced their split the following week, though this had been decided in July, after lead singer David Ford informed all concerned that he wished to pursue a solo career. The eventual announcement of the band's split came by accident, after Mark Lamarr revealed the news live on Radio 2. The CD single contains a cover of Candi Staton's \"Young Hearts Run Free\" and \"You Can't Tear Polaroids\" which was written and sung by bassist Jo Taylor.\n\nKill the Last Romantic was due to be re-released containing the single, with a heavy promotional campaign behind it. However, Jive was bought out by BMG, which in turn was bought out by Sony, and the ensuing disruption meant that this plan was shelved. After the band's split the three members negotiated a release from their contracts.\n\nTrack listing\n How Did It Ever Come To This?\n Young Hearts Run Free\n You Can't Tear Polaroids\n\n2004 singles\nEasyworld songs",
"Kunga cake or kungu is an East African food made of millions of densely compressed midges or flies. In his entomophagy book \"Insects: An Edible Field Guide\", Stefan Gates suggest that people can \"make burgers with it, or dry it out and grate parts of it off into stews\" for \"umami richness\". Bear Grylls calls it \"a great survival food\" and describes how vast quantities are caught and turned into kunga cake. American entomologist May Berenbaum discusses the situation where large swarms of midges can cause significant problems for local populations. She cites an example of how Chaoborus edulis swarms form near Lake Malawi and how the local people turn them into kunga cakes as a \"rich source of protein\" which is eaten \"with great enthusiasm\". Explorer David Livingstone (1865) claimed that they \"tasted not unlike caviare\" though Professor of Tropical Entomology Arnold van Huis declared that he did not like it at all.\n\nTo catch the flies a frying pan can be coated in cooking oil and then wafted through a swarm.\n\nReferences\n\nAfrican cuisine\nInsects as food\nDiptera of Africa"
] |
[
"Rick Barry",
"Broadcasting career",
"What began his broadcasting career?",
"He began broadcasting during the 1967-68 season",
"Where did he broadcast?",
"broadcasting Oakland Oaks games",
"Was he well liked there?",
"I don't know.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"While working as a CBS analyst during Game 5 of the 1981 NBA Finals, Barry made a controversial comment when CBS displayed an old photo of colleague Bill Russell,",
"What did he say?",
"Barry joked that \"it looks like some fool over there with that big watermelon grin\".",
"How did that turn out?",
"Barry later apologized for the comment, claiming that he did not realize that a reference to watermelons would have racial overtones. Russell said that he believed Barry"
] |
C_546514e8f7eb4c81a722648e1bfe356e_0
|
What did he believe about Barry?
| 7 |
What did Bill Russel believe about Barry in regards to Rick Barry's controversial comment during Game 5 of the 1981 Finals on CBS??
|
Rick Barry
|
Barry was among the first professional basketball players to make a successful transition to the broadcasting profession. He began broadcasting during the 1967-68 season broadcasting Oakland Oaks games because of contractual matters that kept him off of the court. Barry continues to work in the field, a career that began with his own radio show in San Francisco and CBS while still an active player and then with TBS. While working as a CBS analyst during Game 5 of the 1981 NBA Finals, Barry made a controversial comment when CBS displayed an old photo of colleague Bill Russell, who is African-American, and Barry joked that "it looks like some fool over there with that big watermelon grin". Barry later apologized for the comment, claiming that he did not realize that a reference to watermelons would have racial overtones. Russell said that he believed Barry with regard to Barry's racial attitudes, but nonetheless, the two men are reported not to have been particularly friendly for other reasons, unrelated to that comment. CBS did not renew Barry's employment for the subsequent season, with producers later citing the overall negative tone of Barry's game commentary. The next season, Barry did some broadcasting for the Seattle SuperSonics, however a plan for permanent employment fell through when Barry insisted that his then-wife be allowed to join him when the team was on the road, which would have been contrary to team policy. The next year, Barry was featured in a lengthy Sports Illustrated article written by Tony Kornheiser in which he lamented the failure of his broadcasting career to that point, as well as the fact that he'd left a reputation within NBA circles for being an unlikable person. In a rare non-sports venture, he hosted the pilot for the mid-1980s game show Catchphrase; however, when the series debuted in the fall of 1985, game show veteran Art James replaced him (the series itself was short-lived in the US, but was brought over to the UK and is still running). In September 2001, Barry began hosting a sports talk show on KNBR-AM in San Francisco until June 2003, when KNBR paired him up with Rod Brooks to co-host a show named Rick and Rod. The show aired on KNBR until August 2006, when Barry left the station abruptly for reasons not disclosed to the public. CANNOTANSWER
|
Russell said that he believed Barry with regard to Barry's racial attitudes,
|
Richard Francis Dennis Barry III (born March 28, 1944) is an American retired professional basketball player who played in both the American Basketball Association (ABA) and National Basketball Association (NBA). Named one of the 50 Greatest Players in history in 1996 and 75 Greatest Players in history in 2021, each in a league-wide vote of media, analysts, current and former players and team executives, Barry ranks among the most prolific scorers and all-around players in basketball history. He is the only one to lead the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), ABA, and NBA in points per game in a season. He ranks as the all-time ABA scoring leader in regular season (30.5 points per game) and postseason (33.5) play, while his 36.3 points per game are the most in the NBA Finals history. Barry also is the only player to reach the 50-point mark in a Game 7 of the playoffs in either league. He is one of only four players to be a part of a championship team in both leagues.
Barry is widely known for his unorthodox but extraordinarily effective underhand free throw technique. His career .880 free throw percentage ranks No. 1 in ABA history, and at the time of his retirement in 1980, his .900 percentage was the best of any NBA player. In 1987, he was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. In October 2021, Barry was honored as one of the league's greatest players of all-time by being named to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team.
Barry is the father of former professional basketball players Brent Barry, Jon Barry, Drew Barry, and Scooter Barry, and current professional player Canyon Barry. His wife, Lynn Norenberg Barry, was a star basketball player at the College of William & Mary, where she became the first female athlete to have her jersey number (22) retired.
Early years and college career
Barry grew up in Roselle Park, New Jersey, where baseball was his best sport as a youth. He grew up a fan of local New York Giants star Willie Mays, who wore jersey number 24, and Barry would wear the same number in tribute to the outfielder throughout his basketball career. In 1962, Barry graduated from Roselle Park High School.
Barry decided to attend the University of Miami, largely because the Hurricanes adhered to an up-tempo, pro-style system under head coach Bruce Hale that was conducive to his skills and athleticism. It was there that the three-time All-American met his future wife Pamela, who was the daughter of the head coach. As a senior, Barry led the NCAA with a 37.4 points per game average in the 1964–65 campaign. He and his teammates did not take part in the NCAA Tournament, however, because the Hurricanes basketball program was on probation at the time.
Barry was drafted by the San Francisco Warriors with the second pick of the 1965 NBA draft. He had hoped to be selected by the New York Knicks, his hometown team, but they opted for local Princeton star Bill Bradley in round one instead. It was a slight that Barry would not soon forget. In his second visit to Madison Square Garden as a pro, he went off for 57 points versus the Knicks, including 21 free throws in 22 attempts. He also grabbed 15 rebounds in the 141–137 loss.
Professional playing career
San Francisco Warriors
In Barry's first season in the NBA with the Warriors, the team made a quantum leap from 17 to 35 victories and were in playoff contention until the final game of the regular season. In the All-Star Game one season later, Barry erupted for 38 points as the West team stunned the East team, which featured Wilt Chamberlain, Oscar Robertson, Bill Russell and head coach Red Auerbach among other all-time greats. Later that season, Barry and company extended the mighty Philadelphia 76ers to six highly competitive games in the NBA Finals, something that Russell and the Boston Celtics could not do in the Eastern Conference playoffs.
Nicknamed the "Miami Greyhound" by longtime San Francisco Bay Area broadcaster Bill King because of his long and slender physical build, whippet-like quickness and remarkable instincts, the Barry won the NBA Rookie of the Year Award after averaging 25.7 points and 10.6 rebounds per game in the 1965–66 season. The following year, he won the 1967 NBA All-Star Game MVP award with a 38-point outburst and led the NBA in scoring with a 35.6 point per game average — which still ranks as the eighth-highest output in league annals.
Along with All-Star center Nate Thurmond, Barry carried the Warriors to the 1967 NBA Finals, which they lost to the Philadelphia 76ers in six games. Despite an injured left knee that required cortisone shots on game days, Barry averaged 40.8 points per game in the series, an NBA Finals record that stood for three decades. "The guy was so good that we had to have three different guys guard him at different times," Chamberlain said. "'Cause he would run them all ragged."
Joining the ABA
At odds with Warriors owner Franklin Mieuli over unpaid incentive monies due him, Barry shocked the basketball world when he jumped to the ABA's Oakland Oaks, who overwhelmed him with a historic contract offer. Barry became the first marquee NBA player to jump to the rival league. Not only was the three-year agreement worth a reported $500,000, which would make him one of basketball's highest-paid players, it afforded him the opportunity to play for his former college coach Bruce Hale, who was also his father-in-law. In addition, Barry received 15 percent ownership in the franchise as well as 5 percent of all ticket sales in excess of $600,000 for home games. The ground-breaking deal led him to remark, "The offer Oakland made me was one I simply couldn't turn down."
The courts ordered Barry to sit out the 1967–68 season for the Oaks, upholding the validity of the reserve clause in his contract. At the time, all NBA teams had one-year options on player contracts, however, and the Warriors were quick to exercise theirs. He preceded St. Louis Cardinals' outfielder Curt Flood, whose better-known challenge to the reserve clause went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, by two years as the first American major-league professional athlete to bring a court action against it. The ensuing negative publicity cast Barry in a negative light, portraying him as selfish and money hungry. He was hardly alone in his vision, however, as numerous NBA players also saw the rival league as a rare opportunity to enhance their careers.
Oakland Oaks
The Oaks finished 22–56 in their ABA debut, which Barry spent as part of their broadcast team. Prior to the 1968–69 season, they hired his former San Francisco Warriors coach Alex Hannum to replace Hale, who moved to a front office position. If there was any question about whether Barry would remain the most dominant player in professional basketball, he quickly answered it. In his ABA debut, he averaged a league-high 34.0 points per game and the Oaks became the first West Coast team to capture a league championship in professional basketball history. Barry also paced the league in free-throw percentage in the regular season, a feat he would repeat in the 1970–71 and 1971–72 seasons.
Barry had his season come to an abrupt halt on December 27, 1968, when late in a game against the New York Nets, he was blindsided by Ken Wilburn on a drive to the basket and tore left knee ligaments on the play. He attempted to come back in January 1969, only to aggravate the injury and sit out the remainder of the season. He took part in only 35 games but still was named to the ABA All-Star team.
Even without the arguably the best all-around player in basketball, the Oaks barely skipped a beat. They finished with a 60–18 record under Hannum, dominating the Western Division by 14 games over the second-place New Orleans Buccaneers. In the 1969 ABA Playoffs, the Oaks ousted the Denver Rockets in a seven-game series then swept the Buccaneers in the Western Division finals. In the championship round, they made short work of the Indiana Pacers, 4–1, to capture the league title.
In lieu of a parade in downtown Oakland, a modest victory celebration was held at a restaurant in Jack London Square. It was there that Barry announced, "I see no hope for the rest of the teams in the league."
Washington Caps
Despite their on-court excellence, the Oaks were a disappointment at the gate, partly because of Barry's absence in the final five months of the season, partly because they were the only ABA member that competed in the same market as an NBA team, that being the more established Warriors across the bay. They averaged just 2,800 fans per home game at the state-of-the-art Oakland County Coliseum Arena, slightly more than the league average. By that time, entertainer-business entrepreneur Pat Boone had become the majority team owner, and after more than $2 million in losses over two seasons, he wanted out of the basketball business. In August 1968, the franchise was sold to a group headed by real estate attorney and former Baltimore Bullets owner Earl Foreman, who immediately moved it to Washington, D.C., even though there was no suitable arena in the vicinity at the time.
Reluctantly, Barry played the 1969–70 season with the ABA's Washington Caps. He refused to report to the team at the outset, at one point commenting, "If I wanted to go to Washington, I'd run for president!" He missed the first 32 games before he joined the team, which played in the Western Division, making for a grueling travel schedule. The Caps still managed to finish with a respectable 44–40 record, good for third place in the Western Division. Appearing in only 52 games because of a knee injury, Barry finished the season with 1,442 points (27.7 per game), second-best in the league. The Denver Rockets edged the Caps, 4–3, in the Western Division semifinals. In Game 7 on the road, Barry went off for 52 points, the most scored in a seventh and deciding game in professional basketball history.
Virginia Squires
The Washington Caps became the Virginia Squires after the 1969–70 season, but Barry was openly despondent about playing in Virginia. At the same time, he wanted to continue playing in the ABA. Featured on the August 24, 1970, cover of Sports Illustrated in a Squires jersey, he indicated that he would not return to the NBA if the league paid him "a million dollars a year." He denounced the Squires (and, subsequently, never suited up for them), saying he did not want his kids growing up with a Southern accent. On September 1, 1970, the Squires traded Barry to the New York Nets for a draft pick and $200,000. The negative comments were not the primary reason; rather, Squires owner Earl Foreman was mired in financial troubles and sold Barry to help meet expenses.
New York Nets
After the Squires dealt Barry to the New York Nets, he played in only 59 games in the 1970–71 season because of a knee injury but still made the ABA All Star team. He repeated as an ABA All Star during the 1971–72 season. During the 1970–71 season he led the league in scoring (29.4 points per game) and led the league again in 1971–72 with 31.5 points per game. In both of those years he also led the ABA in free throw percentage as he had in 1968–69. Barry also became the ABA record holder for most consecutive free throws in one game with 23.
In the 1970–71 season, the Nets finished 40–44, good for fourth place in the Eastern Division and a place in the 1971 ABA Playoffs. The Virginia Squires defeated the Nets 4 games to 2 in the Eastern Division semifinals. The 1971–72 Nets finished the season at 44–40, making the 1972 ABA Playoffs by claiming third place in the Eastern Division, 24 games behind the 68–16 Kentucky Colonels. In the Eastern Division semifinals the Nets shocked the ABA by defeating the Colonels 4 games to 2. The Nets then eked out a 4–3 game victory over the Virginia Squires in the Eastern Division finals. The Nets were then edged by the Western Division champion Indiana Pacers, 4 games to 2, in the 1972 ABA Finals.
On June 23, 1972, a United States District Court judge issued a preliminary injunction to prohibit Barry from playing for any team other than the Golden State Warriors after his contract with the Nets ended. On October 6, 1972, the Nets released Barry and he returned to the Warriors.
Golden State Warriors
Upon Barry's return to the Warriors and the NBA, the cumulative effects of knee problems were taking their toll. Barry gradually moved his game away from the basket, where he became the first so-called point forward in league history. That is, Barry took on a role similar to that of a point guard and became the chief facilitator of the offense. While his offensive forays were not as frequent as in the past, he remained an elite scorer as evidenced by his performance on March 26, 1974, when he went off for a career-high 64 points and grabbed 10 rebounds in a 143–120 win over the visiting Portland Trail Blazers.
In 1974–75, the Warriors had a Cinderella season for the ages. The turnaround began in training camp, when Barry was elected captain by his teammates. They went on to capture the Pacific Division crown as Barry responded with the best all-around season of his career. Not only did he average 30.6 points per game, but he also led the league in free throw percentage (.904) and steals per game (2.9) and ranked sixth in assists per game (6.2), the only forward among the top 10 in the category.
In the playoffs, the upstart Warriors turned back the Seattle SuperSonics and Chicago Bulls to capture the Western Conference crown. In the NBA Finals, they shocked the basketball world with a historic four-game sweep of Elvin Hayes, Wes Unseld and the Washington Bullets, widely considered to be the greatest postseason upset in NBA history. The Bullets had posted a league-high 60 victories, 12 more than the Warriors total in the regular season, which led many experts to predict that they would win the series easily. Barry was named NBA Finals Most Valuable Player on the strength of 29.5 points, 5.0 assists and 3.5 steals per game, not to mention his profound impact in a leadership role.
In the 1975 NBA draft, the Warriors selected point guard Gus Williams in the first round. While Williams made immediate contributions off the bench, off guard Phil Smith came into his own in his second season. Barry was not required to carry the team as often, and his scoring average dipped to 21.0 points per game as a result. As the deepest and most athletic team in professional basketball, the Warriors repeated as Pacific Division champions, this time with a league-best 59–23 record. They entered the playoffs as clear-cut favorites to return to the NBA Finals.
After an unusual 10-day layoff, partly to accommodate network television, the Warriors eliminated the Detroit Pistons in round one then were upset in the Western Conference finals by the Phoenix Suns in seven games. The final contest was marred by a fight between Barry and Suns rookie Ricky Sobers away from the ball in the first quarter, during which none of the Warriors came to his aid at the opposite side of the court. Suns broadcaster Al McCoy concocted a narrative that Barry quit in the second half, a charge that lacked tangible evidence and he steadfastly denied. In fact, Barry led his team in points and shot attempts that game. Rather, he said his intent was to get more teammates involved in the third quarter, the game plan that had allowed them to dominate in the regular season.
In the 1976–77 campaign, the Warriors won 46 games the next season with Barry, Smith, and Williams sharing scoring and ball-handling, but were ousted in the second round by the Los Angeles Lakers. Reportedly, Barry and Williams clashed over the ball-handling role, and Williams was traded after the season to the Seattle SuperSonics. Barry averaged 23.1 points per game in his farewell season (1977–78) with the Warriors, but the team failed to make the playoffs.
Houston Rockets
Barry finished his career with the Houston Rockets, playing through the 1979–80 NBA season. The Rockets signed him as a free agent in June, 1978, and the league awarded veteran guard John Lucas to the Warriors as compensation.
In the twilight of his career, Barry continued to make history. In his Rockets debut, he assumed a new role as the first player off the bench. It was not long before he elevated the point forward position to another level. Barry finished with a career-high 502 assists to become the first true small forward to reach the 500 mark in one season. Until then, swingman John Havlicek had been the only forward with as many as 500 assists in a season, but the Boston Celtics swingman also spent considerable time at the off guard spot. Barry averaged 13.5 points per game and established a new NBA record (since broken) with a .947 free throw percentage.
Barry was less of a factor in his final season. The Rockets were swept by the Celtics in the 1980 Eastern Conference semifinals, and when contract talks with Boston and the Seattle SuperSonics failed to produce a contract, he decided to retire.
NBA career statistics
Regular season
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|San Francisco
| style="background:#cfecec;"|80* || || 37.4 || .439 || || .862 || 10.6 || 2.2 || || || 25.7
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|San Francisco
| 78 || || 40.7 || .451 || || .884 || 9.2 || 3.6 || || || style="background:#cfecec;"|35.6*
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || || 37.5 || .452 || || style="background:#cfecec;"|.902* || 8.9 || 4.9 || || || 22.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| 80 || || 36.5 || .456 || || .899 || 6.8 || 6.1 || 2.1 || 0.5 || 25.1
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| 80 || || 40.4 || .464 || || style="background:#cfecec;"|.904* || 5.7 || 6.2 || style="background:#cfecec;"|2.9* || 0.4 || 30.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| 81 || || 38.5 || .435 || || style="background:#cfecec;"|.923* || 6.1 || 6.1 || 2.5 || 0.3 || 21.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| 79 || || 36.8 || .440 || || .916 || 5.3 || 6.0 || 2.2 || 0.7 || 21.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| 82 || || 36.9 || .451 || || style="background:#cfecec;"|.924* || 5.5 || 5.4 || 1.9 || 0.5 || 23.1
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 80 || || 32.1 || .461 || || style="background:#cfecec;"|.947* || 3.5 || 6.3 || 1.2 || 0.5 || 13.5
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 72 || || 25.2 || .422 || .330 || style="background:#cfecec;"|.935* || 3.3 || 3.7 || 1.1 || 0.4 || 12.0
|- class=sortbottom
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|Career
| 794 || || 36.3 || .449 || .330 || .900 || 6.5 || 5.1 || 2.0 || 0.5 || 23.2
Later years
During the 1990s, he coached the Cedar Rapids Sharpshooters of the Global Basketball Association and the Continental Basketball Association, guiding the Fort Wayne Fury to a 19–37 win-loss record in 1993–94. In 1998 and 1999, he served as head coach of the New Jersey ShoreCats of the United States Basketball League. Former Warriors teammate Clifford Ray was his top assistant.
Barry finished second in his division at the 2005 World Long Drive Championship.
Barry is part owner and promoter for the Ektio basketball shoe, which doctor and former college basketball player Barry Katz designed to reduce ankle injuries. He also serves on the company's Board of Directors.
Broadcasting career
Barry was among the first professional basketball players to make a successful transition to the broadcasting profession. He began broadcasting during the 1967–68 season broadcasting Oakland Oaks games because of contractual matters that kept him off the court. Barry continues to work in the field, a career that began with his own radio show in San Francisco and CBS while still an active player and then with TBS.
While working as a CBS analyst during Game 5 of the 1981 NBA Finals, Barry made a controversial comment when CBS displayed an old photo of colleague Bill Russell, who is African-American. He tried to joke that "it looks like some fool over there with that big watermelon grin". Barry later apologized for the comment, claiming that he did not realize that a reference to watermelons had racial overtones. Russell said that he believed Barry with regard to Barry's racial attitudes, but nonetheless, the two men are reported not to have been particularly friendly for other reasons, unrelated to that comment.
CBS did not renew Barry's employment for the subsequent season. Producers later cited the general negative tone of his game commentary, which did not sit well with some players and agents around the league. The next season Barry filled in on a few Seattle SuperSonics broadcasts, but a plan for a full-time position fell through when he insisted that his then-wife be allowed to join him when the team was on the road, which would have been contrary to team policy. The next year, Barry was featured in a lengthy Sports Illustrated article written by Tony Kornheiser in which he lamented the failure of his broadcasting career to that point, as well as the fact that he'd left a reputation within NBA circles for being an unlikeable person. After this, Barry worked with TBS and later on, TNT into the 1989–90 season, mostly as a color analyst but sometimes as a play-by-play announcer paired with Bill Russell. One of the more notable games Barry called as play-by-play announcer on TBS was Game 5 of the 1985 Eastern Conference Finals between the Boston Celtics and the Philadelphia 76ers, where Larry Bird made a last-second steal which sealed the win and the Eastern Conference Championship for the Celtics. After the 1989–90 season, Barry became the color analyst for the Atlanta Hawks' games that aired on TBS, paired with Skip Caray.
In a rare non-sports venture, he hosted the pilot for the mid-1980s game show Catchphrase; however, when the series debuted in the fall of 1985, game show veteran Art James replaced him (the series itself was short-lived in the US, but was brought over to the UK and is still running).
In September 2001, Barry began hosting a sports talk show on KNBR in San Francisco until June 2003, when KNBR paired him up with Rod Brooks to co-host a show named Rick and Rod. The show aired on KNBR until August 2006, when Barry left the station abruptly for reasons not disclosed to the public.
Personal life
Barry is of Irish, English, French, and Lithuanian descent. He was a member of the Kappa Sigma fraternity. He resides in Colorado Springs, Colorado with his wife, Lynn Norenberg Barry. While their youngest son, Canyon, played basketball for The University of Florida, to watch him play, they rented a condominium in Gainesville, Florida.
He has four sons and a daughter with his first wife Pam: Scooter, Jon, Brent, Drew and Shannon. All of Barry's sons were professional basketball players. Barry wrote an autobiography, Confessions of a Basketball Gypsy: The Rick Barry Story with Bill Libby that was published in 1972. He also has a son, Canyon, with his third wife, Lynn Barry, who is a professional player, playing for Chinese club Hunan Jinjian Miye in the 2018–19 season.
When his son Brent won the NBA Championship in 2005 with the San Antonio Spurs, Rick and Brent became the second father-son duo to both win NBA Championships as players, following Matt Guokas Sr. and Matt Guokas Jr. Later, this would be repeated by Bill and Luke Walton, and Mychal and Klay Thompson.
Jon and Brent have also moved to broadcasting after retirement. Jon serves as a game analyst on ESPN while Brent worked as a studio and game analyst on TNT and NBA TV until 2018 when he took a job with the San Antonio Spurs to be vice president of basketball operations.
Scooter won titles in the CBA and the top Belgian League.
Career achievements
Roselle Park High School – Roselle Park, New Jersey (1957–1961)
Two-time All-State selection
University of Miami (1961–1965)
Associated Press First-Team All-America (1965)
The Sporting News All-America Second Team (1965)
Consensus All-America (1965)
Led the nation in scoring (37.4 ppg) as a senior
NBA San Francisco Warriors (1965–1967)
NBA Rookie of the Year (1966)
NBA All-Rookie First Team (1966)
NBA leading scorer in 1967 (35.6 ppg)
ABA leading scorer in 1969 (34.0 ppg)
NBA highest free-throw percentage 1973, 1975, 1976, 1978, 1979, 1980
ABA highest free-throw percentage 1969, 1971, 1972
NBA All-Star Game MVP (1967)
ABA Oakland Oaks (1968–1969)
ABA Washington Caps (1969–1970)
ABA New York Nets (1970–1972)
NBA Golden State Warriors (1972–1978)
All-NBA Second Team (1973)
NBA Finals MVP (1975)
NBA champion (1975)
NBA Houston Rockets (1978–1979)
All-NBA First Team (1966, 1967, 1974, 1975, 1976)
Eight-time NBA All-Star (1966, 1967, 1973–1978)
ABA All-Star First Team (1969–1972)
NBA 50 Greatest Players (1996)
NBA 75 Greatest Players (2021)
Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame (1988)
Sports Hall of Fame of New Jersey (1994)
University of Miami Sports Hall of Fame (1976)
Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement (1975)
15 games in NBA career scoring 50 or more points (5th in NBA history)
115 games in professional career scoring 40 or more points — 70 NBA, 45 ABA (4th in professional basketball history after Wilt Chamberlain, Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant)
NBA records
Regular season
Only player in history to lead the NCAA, ABA and NBA in scoring
Led the NCAA in scoring in 1964–65 (973 points, 37.4 ppg)
Led the NBA in scoring in (2,775 points, 35.6 ppg)
Led the ABA in scoring in (1,190 points; 34.0 ppg)
Youngest player to score 57 points in a game: (57 points, San Francisco Warriors at New York Knicks, )
Free throws, consecutive, ABA game: 23, at Kentucky Colonels,
Assists, forward, game: 19, at Chicago Bulls, November 30, 1976
Playoffs
Scoring 30 or more points in all games, any playoff series: 6 games, vs. Philadelphia 76ers, 1967 NBA Finals
Points, 7-game ABA series: 281, vs. Denver Rockets, 1970 semifinals
Points scored, Game 7, any ABA-NBA playoff series: 52, at Denver Rockets,
Field goal attempts, 6-game series: 235, vs. Philadelphia 76ers, 1967 NBA Finals
Field goal attempts, game: 48, vs. Philadelphia 76ers,
Field goal attempts, quarter: 17, at Philadelphia 76ers,
Steals, quarter: 4, second quarter, at Chicago Bulls,
Tied with many other players
NBA Finals
Highest scoring average (career): 36.3
Scoring 30 or more points in all games, any championship series: 6 games, vs. Philadelphia 76ers, 1967 NBA Finals
Tied with Elgin Baylor, Michael Jordan, Hakeem Olajuwon, Shaquille O'Neal, and Kevin Durant.
Field goals made, game: 22, vs. Philadelphia 76ers,
Tied with Elgin Baylor
Field goal attempts, 6-game series: 235, vs. Philadelphia 76ers, 1967 NBA Finals
Field goal attempts, game: 48, vs. Philadelphia 76ers,
Field goal attempts, quarter: 17, at Philadelphia 76ers,
Steals, 4-game series: 14, vs. Washington Bullets, 1975 NBA Finals (3.5 spg)
All-Star
Field goal attempts, game: 27 (1967)
Steals, game: 8 (1975)
Personal fouls, game: 6, twice (1966, 1978)
Disqualifications, career: 2
Tied with Bob Cousy
See also
American Basketball Association (2000–present)
List of individual National Basketball Association scoring leaders by season
List of National Basketball Association players with most points in a game
List of National Basketball Association players with most steals in a game
List of National Basketball Association players with 50 or more points in a playoff game
List of NCAA Division I men's basketball players with 2000 points and 1000 rebounds
References
External links
Basketball Hall of Fame profile
RememberTheABA.com Rick Barry page
1972 Jim O'Brien biographical article on Rick Barry
Rick Barry and Rod Brooks Home Page at KNBR Radio
Rick Barry Career Statistics
A Voice Crying in the Wilderness
1944 births
Living people
All-American college men's basketball players
American Basketball Association announcers
American men's basketball players
American people of Lithuanian descent
American sports radio personalities
Basketball coaches from New Jersey
Basketball players from Colorado Springs, Colorado
Basketball players from New Jersey
Big3 coaches
Continental Basketball Association coaches
Golden State Warriors players
Golf writers and broadcasters
Houston Rockets players
Miami Hurricanes men's basketball players
Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductees
National Basketball Association All-Stars
National Basketball Association broadcasters
National Basketball Association players with retired numbers
New York Nets players
Oakland Oaks players
People from Roselle Park, New Jersey
Radio personalities from San Francisco
San Francisco Warriors draft picks
San Francisco Warriors players
Small forwards
Sportspeople from Elizabeth, New Jersey
Tennis commentators
United States Basketball League coaches
Washington Caps players
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"Paul Michael Barry is a British songwriter and musician. Some of his best-known songs include \"Believe\" by Cher, \"Hero\", \"Bailamos\" by Enrique Iglesias and 5 times platinum single in the US \"Let It Go\" by James Bay. He has won three Ivor Novello Awards and ASCAP PRS writer of the year 2000. He has scored three US number-one singles, as well as other number-ones around the world.\n\nHis songs have been recorded by James Bay, Lionel Richie, James Morrison, Celine Dion, Ricky Martin, Lemar, Craig David, Tina Turner, Britney Spears, Rod Stewart, Lara Fabian, Ronan Keating, Esmee Denters, JLS, Rebecca Ferguson, The Vamps, Nelly Furtado, Beverley Knight, Mica Paris, Andrew Roachford, and Tom Walker (singer) among others.\n\nHe was born in Edinburgh, Scotland where his band first signed with Bruce Findlay's Zoom Records as lead singer with The Questions while still at high school. Whilst attending University, he went on to pursue his dream with his band signed to Paul Weller's Respond Record label. He co-wrote \"The House That Jack Built\" for Tracie Young reaching number 9 in the UK charts.\n\nSongwriting career\nBarry has five songs on the multi-platinum Cher LP Believe, including \"Strong Enough\" and \"Believe\". He has also co-written more songs for Cher including \"Song for the Lonely\" and \"The Music's No Good Without You\" from the Living Proof album. Barry worked with Enrique Iglesias, initially writing for and later collaborating with him. He has been a source of eight singles from four albums for Iglesias: \"Hero\", \"Bailamos” and \"Be With You\", the latter two songs reaching the number one spot on the US Billboard Hot 100. \"Hero\" stayed at number three in the US for four weeks, and was number one in the UK and several other countries. Other hits include \"Rhythm Divine\", \"Love to See You Cry\" and \"Not in Love\" (featuring Kelis). \n\nBarry worked with Lionel Richie for his Renaissance album, co-writing six songs, including the singles \"Angel\", \"Don't Stop the Music\" and \"Tender Heart\", then on five songs for Richie's Just for You album, including the title track, which Richie re-recorded on his No.1 US album Tuskegee (album).\n\nHe co-wrote the Bryan McFadden/Delta Goodrem duet \"Almost Here\", which first brought the two artists together, and was number one in Ireland and Australia, as well as number three in the UK. Barry worked with James Morrison on two songs for his Songs for You, Truths for Me album, including the first single \"You Make It Real\". He also contributed two songs to JLS debut album JLS and Another World to The Vamps debut album, Meet the Vamps. Barry has co-written James Bay's single \"Let It Go\". He co-wrote Nelly Furtado's songs \"Phoenix\", also co-written by Mark Taylor, for her sixth album The Ride. In 2013 and 2017, he worked with Shane Filan of Irish pop band Westlife on four tracks from the albums You and Me and Love Always, which charted in the top 10 in both UK Albums Chart and Irish Albums Chart. \n\nPaul Barry also co-wrote Cry Out with Tom Walker (singer) for his number one UK album What a Time to Be Alive (Tom Walker album). He co-wrote the single Mama Said from the Mica Paris album Gospel (Mica Paris album). Mica also covered Barry's song In Broad Daylight, written after the murder of George Floyd.\n\nSelected singles discography\n\nAwards\nASCAP PRS, Writer of the year 2000\nASCAP PRS, Song of the year 1999 \"Believe\"\nASCAP PRS, Song of the year 2002 \"Hero\"\nIVOR NOVELLO, Best Song musically/lyrically 1998 \"Believe\"\nIVOR NOVELLO, Best Selling UK single 1998 \"Believe\"\nIVOR NOVELLO, International Hit of the year 1998 \"Believe\"\nNominated – IVOR NOVELLO, International Hit of year 2001 \"Hero\"\nNominated – IVOR NOVELLO, Best Selling UK single 2002 \"Hero\"\nGrammy Awards, Best Dance Recording 2000 \"Believe\"\nNominated, Best Dance Recording 2001 \"Be with You\"\nNominated, Best Dance Recording 2002 \"Angel\"\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n http://swisscharts.com/showperson.asp?name=Paul+Barry\n http://www.ascap.com/eventsawards/awards/prs/\n https://web.archive.org/web/20110718214457/http://www.umusicpub.com/news_readmore.aspx?ID=1406\n\nLiving people\nBritish songwriters\nIvor Novello Award winners\nPlace of birth missing (living people)\nYear of birth missing (living people)",
"Sheet Music is the self-produced eleventh album by American R&B singer Barry White, and the second release on his own CBS-affiliated custom label, Unlimited Gold. One of its three singles, \"Love Makin' Music\", peaking at #25 in the R&B chart.\n\nTrack listing \n\n \"Sheet Music\" (Barry White, Paul Politi) - 7:02\n \"Lady, Sweet Lady\" (Normal Salitt) - 5:40\n \"I Believe in Love\" (Barry White, Austin Johnson, Smead Hudman) - 8:06\n \"Ghetto Letto\" (Barry White, Paul Politi, Vella Maria Cameron) - 5:57\n \"Rum and Coke\" (Al Stillman, Jeri Sullivan, Morey Amsterdam, Paul Baron, Lionel Belasco, Lord Invader) - 2:32\n \"She's Everything to Me\" (Barry White, Bernard Butler) - 2:40\n \"Love Makin' Music\" (Aaron Schroeder, Jerry Ragovoy) - 4:59\n\nSingles \n\n \"Sheet Music\"\n \"Love Makin' Music\" (US R&B #25)\n \"I Believe in Love\"\n\nReferences\n\nBarry White albums\n1980 albums"
] |
[
"Rick Barry",
"Broadcasting career",
"What began his broadcasting career?",
"He began broadcasting during the 1967-68 season",
"Where did he broadcast?",
"broadcasting Oakland Oaks games",
"Was he well liked there?",
"I don't know.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"While working as a CBS analyst during Game 5 of the 1981 NBA Finals, Barry made a controversial comment when CBS displayed an old photo of colleague Bill Russell,",
"What did he say?",
"Barry joked that \"it looks like some fool over there with that big watermelon grin\".",
"How did that turn out?",
"Barry later apologized for the comment, claiming that he did not realize that a reference to watermelons would have racial overtones. Russell said that he believed Barry",
"What did he believe about Barry?",
"Russell said that he believed Barry with regard to Barry's racial attitudes,"
] |
C_546514e8f7eb4c81a722648e1bfe356e_0
|
Did anything else happen in reference to that comment?
| 8 |
Aside from Russell's response, did anything else happen in reference to Rick Barry's comment?
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Rick Barry
|
Barry was among the first professional basketball players to make a successful transition to the broadcasting profession. He began broadcasting during the 1967-68 season broadcasting Oakland Oaks games because of contractual matters that kept him off of the court. Barry continues to work in the field, a career that began with his own radio show in San Francisco and CBS while still an active player and then with TBS. While working as a CBS analyst during Game 5 of the 1981 NBA Finals, Barry made a controversial comment when CBS displayed an old photo of colleague Bill Russell, who is African-American, and Barry joked that "it looks like some fool over there with that big watermelon grin". Barry later apologized for the comment, claiming that he did not realize that a reference to watermelons would have racial overtones. Russell said that he believed Barry with regard to Barry's racial attitudes, but nonetheless, the two men are reported not to have been particularly friendly for other reasons, unrelated to that comment. CBS did not renew Barry's employment for the subsequent season, with producers later citing the overall negative tone of Barry's game commentary. The next season, Barry did some broadcasting for the Seattle SuperSonics, however a plan for permanent employment fell through when Barry insisted that his then-wife be allowed to join him when the team was on the road, which would have been contrary to team policy. The next year, Barry was featured in a lengthy Sports Illustrated article written by Tony Kornheiser in which he lamented the failure of his broadcasting career to that point, as well as the fact that he'd left a reputation within NBA circles for being an unlikable person. In a rare non-sports venture, he hosted the pilot for the mid-1980s game show Catchphrase; however, when the series debuted in the fall of 1985, game show veteran Art James replaced him (the series itself was short-lived in the US, but was brought over to the UK and is still running). In September 2001, Barry began hosting a sports talk show on KNBR-AM in San Francisco until June 2003, when KNBR paired him up with Rod Brooks to co-host a show named Rick and Rod. The show aired on KNBR until August 2006, when Barry left the station abruptly for reasons not disclosed to the public. CANNOTANSWER
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CANNOTANSWER
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Richard Francis Dennis Barry III (born March 28, 1944) is an American retired professional basketball player who played in both the American Basketball Association (ABA) and National Basketball Association (NBA). Named one of the 50 Greatest Players in history in 1996 and 75 Greatest Players in history in 2021, each in a league-wide vote of media, analysts, current and former players and team executives, Barry ranks among the most prolific scorers and all-around players in basketball history. He is the only one to lead the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), ABA, and NBA in points per game in a season. He ranks as the all-time ABA scoring leader in regular season (30.5 points per game) and postseason (33.5) play, while his 36.3 points per game are the most in the NBA Finals history. Barry also is the only player to reach the 50-point mark in a Game 7 of the playoffs in either league. He is one of only four players to be a part of a championship team in both leagues.
Barry is widely known for his unorthodox but extraordinarily effective underhand free throw technique. His career .880 free throw percentage ranks No. 1 in ABA history, and at the time of his retirement in 1980, his .900 percentage was the best of any NBA player. In 1987, he was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. In October 2021, Barry was honored as one of the league's greatest players of all-time by being named to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team.
Barry is the father of former professional basketball players Brent Barry, Jon Barry, Drew Barry, and Scooter Barry, and current professional player Canyon Barry. His wife, Lynn Norenberg Barry, was a star basketball player at the College of William & Mary, where she became the first female athlete to have her jersey number (22) retired.
Early years and college career
Barry grew up in Roselle Park, New Jersey, where baseball was his best sport as a youth. He grew up a fan of local New York Giants star Willie Mays, who wore jersey number 24, and Barry would wear the same number in tribute to the outfielder throughout his basketball career. In 1962, Barry graduated from Roselle Park High School.
Barry decided to attend the University of Miami, largely because the Hurricanes adhered to an up-tempo, pro-style system under head coach Bruce Hale that was conducive to his skills and athleticism. It was there that the three-time All-American met his future wife Pamela, who was the daughter of the head coach. As a senior, Barry led the NCAA with a 37.4 points per game average in the 1964–65 campaign. He and his teammates did not take part in the NCAA Tournament, however, because the Hurricanes basketball program was on probation at the time.
Barry was drafted by the San Francisco Warriors with the second pick of the 1965 NBA draft. He had hoped to be selected by the New York Knicks, his hometown team, but they opted for local Princeton star Bill Bradley in round one instead. It was a slight that Barry would not soon forget. In his second visit to Madison Square Garden as a pro, he went off for 57 points versus the Knicks, including 21 free throws in 22 attempts. He also grabbed 15 rebounds in the 141–137 loss.
Professional playing career
San Francisco Warriors
In Barry's first season in the NBA with the Warriors, the team made a quantum leap from 17 to 35 victories and were in playoff contention until the final game of the regular season. In the All-Star Game one season later, Barry erupted for 38 points as the West team stunned the East team, which featured Wilt Chamberlain, Oscar Robertson, Bill Russell and head coach Red Auerbach among other all-time greats. Later that season, Barry and company extended the mighty Philadelphia 76ers to six highly competitive games in the NBA Finals, something that Russell and the Boston Celtics could not do in the Eastern Conference playoffs.
Nicknamed the "Miami Greyhound" by longtime San Francisco Bay Area broadcaster Bill King because of his long and slender physical build, whippet-like quickness and remarkable instincts, the Barry won the NBA Rookie of the Year Award after averaging 25.7 points and 10.6 rebounds per game in the 1965–66 season. The following year, he won the 1967 NBA All-Star Game MVP award with a 38-point outburst and led the NBA in scoring with a 35.6 point per game average — which still ranks as the eighth-highest output in league annals.
Along with All-Star center Nate Thurmond, Barry carried the Warriors to the 1967 NBA Finals, which they lost to the Philadelphia 76ers in six games. Despite an injured left knee that required cortisone shots on game days, Barry averaged 40.8 points per game in the series, an NBA Finals record that stood for three decades. "The guy was so good that we had to have three different guys guard him at different times," Chamberlain said. "'Cause he would run them all ragged."
Joining the ABA
At odds with Warriors owner Franklin Mieuli over unpaid incentive monies due him, Barry shocked the basketball world when he jumped to the ABA's Oakland Oaks, who overwhelmed him with a historic contract offer. Barry became the first marquee NBA player to jump to the rival league. Not only was the three-year agreement worth a reported $500,000, which would make him one of basketball's highest-paid players, it afforded him the opportunity to play for his former college coach Bruce Hale, who was also his father-in-law. In addition, Barry received 15 percent ownership in the franchise as well as 5 percent of all ticket sales in excess of $600,000 for home games. The ground-breaking deal led him to remark, "The offer Oakland made me was one I simply couldn't turn down."
The courts ordered Barry to sit out the 1967–68 season for the Oaks, upholding the validity of the reserve clause in his contract. At the time, all NBA teams had one-year options on player contracts, however, and the Warriors were quick to exercise theirs. He preceded St. Louis Cardinals' outfielder Curt Flood, whose better-known challenge to the reserve clause went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, by two years as the first American major-league professional athlete to bring a court action against it. The ensuing negative publicity cast Barry in a negative light, portraying him as selfish and money hungry. He was hardly alone in his vision, however, as numerous NBA players also saw the rival league as a rare opportunity to enhance their careers.
Oakland Oaks
The Oaks finished 22–56 in their ABA debut, which Barry spent as part of their broadcast team. Prior to the 1968–69 season, they hired his former San Francisco Warriors coach Alex Hannum to replace Hale, who moved to a front office position. If there was any question about whether Barry would remain the most dominant player in professional basketball, he quickly answered it. In his ABA debut, he averaged a league-high 34.0 points per game and the Oaks became the first West Coast team to capture a league championship in professional basketball history. Barry also paced the league in free-throw percentage in the regular season, a feat he would repeat in the 1970–71 and 1971–72 seasons.
Barry had his season come to an abrupt halt on December 27, 1968, when late in a game against the New York Nets, he was blindsided by Ken Wilburn on a drive to the basket and tore left knee ligaments on the play. He attempted to come back in January 1969, only to aggravate the injury and sit out the remainder of the season. He took part in only 35 games but still was named to the ABA All-Star team.
Even without the arguably the best all-around player in basketball, the Oaks barely skipped a beat. They finished with a 60–18 record under Hannum, dominating the Western Division by 14 games over the second-place New Orleans Buccaneers. In the 1969 ABA Playoffs, the Oaks ousted the Denver Rockets in a seven-game series then swept the Buccaneers in the Western Division finals. In the championship round, they made short work of the Indiana Pacers, 4–1, to capture the league title.
In lieu of a parade in downtown Oakland, a modest victory celebration was held at a restaurant in Jack London Square. It was there that Barry announced, "I see no hope for the rest of the teams in the league."
Washington Caps
Despite their on-court excellence, the Oaks were a disappointment at the gate, partly because of Barry's absence in the final five months of the season, partly because they were the only ABA member that competed in the same market as an NBA team, that being the more established Warriors across the bay. They averaged just 2,800 fans per home game at the state-of-the-art Oakland County Coliseum Arena, slightly more than the league average. By that time, entertainer-business entrepreneur Pat Boone had become the majority team owner, and after more than $2 million in losses over two seasons, he wanted out of the basketball business. In August 1968, the franchise was sold to a group headed by real estate attorney and former Baltimore Bullets owner Earl Foreman, who immediately moved it to Washington, D.C., even though there was no suitable arena in the vicinity at the time.
Reluctantly, Barry played the 1969–70 season with the ABA's Washington Caps. He refused to report to the team at the outset, at one point commenting, "If I wanted to go to Washington, I'd run for president!" He missed the first 32 games before he joined the team, which played in the Western Division, making for a grueling travel schedule. The Caps still managed to finish with a respectable 44–40 record, good for third place in the Western Division. Appearing in only 52 games because of a knee injury, Barry finished the season with 1,442 points (27.7 per game), second-best in the league. The Denver Rockets edged the Caps, 4–3, in the Western Division semifinals. In Game 7 on the road, Barry went off for 52 points, the most scored in a seventh and deciding game in professional basketball history.
Virginia Squires
The Washington Caps became the Virginia Squires after the 1969–70 season, but Barry was openly despondent about playing in Virginia. At the same time, he wanted to continue playing in the ABA. Featured on the August 24, 1970, cover of Sports Illustrated in a Squires jersey, he indicated that he would not return to the NBA if the league paid him "a million dollars a year." He denounced the Squires (and, subsequently, never suited up for them), saying he did not want his kids growing up with a Southern accent. On September 1, 1970, the Squires traded Barry to the New York Nets for a draft pick and $200,000. The negative comments were not the primary reason; rather, Squires owner Earl Foreman was mired in financial troubles and sold Barry to help meet expenses.
New York Nets
After the Squires dealt Barry to the New York Nets, he played in only 59 games in the 1970–71 season because of a knee injury but still made the ABA All Star team. He repeated as an ABA All Star during the 1971–72 season. During the 1970–71 season he led the league in scoring (29.4 points per game) and led the league again in 1971–72 with 31.5 points per game. In both of those years he also led the ABA in free throw percentage as he had in 1968–69. Barry also became the ABA record holder for most consecutive free throws in one game with 23.
In the 1970–71 season, the Nets finished 40–44, good for fourth place in the Eastern Division and a place in the 1971 ABA Playoffs. The Virginia Squires defeated the Nets 4 games to 2 in the Eastern Division semifinals. The 1971–72 Nets finished the season at 44–40, making the 1972 ABA Playoffs by claiming third place in the Eastern Division, 24 games behind the 68–16 Kentucky Colonels. In the Eastern Division semifinals the Nets shocked the ABA by defeating the Colonels 4 games to 2. The Nets then eked out a 4–3 game victory over the Virginia Squires in the Eastern Division finals. The Nets were then edged by the Western Division champion Indiana Pacers, 4 games to 2, in the 1972 ABA Finals.
On June 23, 1972, a United States District Court judge issued a preliminary injunction to prohibit Barry from playing for any team other than the Golden State Warriors after his contract with the Nets ended. On October 6, 1972, the Nets released Barry and he returned to the Warriors.
Golden State Warriors
Upon Barry's return to the Warriors and the NBA, the cumulative effects of knee problems were taking their toll. Barry gradually moved his game away from the basket, where he became the first so-called point forward in league history. That is, Barry took on a role similar to that of a point guard and became the chief facilitator of the offense. While his offensive forays were not as frequent as in the past, he remained an elite scorer as evidenced by his performance on March 26, 1974, when he went off for a career-high 64 points and grabbed 10 rebounds in a 143–120 win over the visiting Portland Trail Blazers.
In 1974–75, the Warriors had a Cinderella season for the ages. The turnaround began in training camp, when Barry was elected captain by his teammates. They went on to capture the Pacific Division crown as Barry responded with the best all-around season of his career. Not only did he average 30.6 points per game, but he also led the league in free throw percentage (.904) and steals per game (2.9) and ranked sixth in assists per game (6.2), the only forward among the top 10 in the category.
In the playoffs, the upstart Warriors turned back the Seattle SuperSonics and Chicago Bulls to capture the Western Conference crown. In the NBA Finals, they shocked the basketball world with a historic four-game sweep of Elvin Hayes, Wes Unseld and the Washington Bullets, widely considered to be the greatest postseason upset in NBA history. The Bullets had posted a league-high 60 victories, 12 more than the Warriors total in the regular season, which led many experts to predict that they would win the series easily. Barry was named NBA Finals Most Valuable Player on the strength of 29.5 points, 5.0 assists and 3.5 steals per game, not to mention his profound impact in a leadership role.
In the 1975 NBA draft, the Warriors selected point guard Gus Williams in the first round. While Williams made immediate contributions off the bench, off guard Phil Smith came into his own in his second season. Barry was not required to carry the team as often, and his scoring average dipped to 21.0 points per game as a result. As the deepest and most athletic team in professional basketball, the Warriors repeated as Pacific Division champions, this time with a league-best 59–23 record. They entered the playoffs as clear-cut favorites to return to the NBA Finals.
After an unusual 10-day layoff, partly to accommodate network television, the Warriors eliminated the Detroit Pistons in round one then were upset in the Western Conference finals by the Phoenix Suns in seven games. The final contest was marred by a fight between Barry and Suns rookie Ricky Sobers away from the ball in the first quarter, during which none of the Warriors came to his aid at the opposite side of the court. Suns broadcaster Al McCoy concocted a narrative that Barry quit in the second half, a charge that lacked tangible evidence and he steadfastly denied. In fact, Barry led his team in points and shot attempts that game. Rather, he said his intent was to get more teammates involved in the third quarter, the game plan that had allowed them to dominate in the regular season.
In the 1976–77 campaign, the Warriors won 46 games the next season with Barry, Smith, and Williams sharing scoring and ball-handling, but were ousted in the second round by the Los Angeles Lakers. Reportedly, Barry and Williams clashed over the ball-handling role, and Williams was traded after the season to the Seattle SuperSonics. Barry averaged 23.1 points per game in his farewell season (1977–78) with the Warriors, but the team failed to make the playoffs.
Houston Rockets
Barry finished his career with the Houston Rockets, playing through the 1979–80 NBA season. The Rockets signed him as a free agent in June, 1978, and the league awarded veteran guard John Lucas to the Warriors as compensation.
In the twilight of his career, Barry continued to make history. In his Rockets debut, he assumed a new role as the first player off the bench. It was not long before he elevated the point forward position to another level. Barry finished with a career-high 502 assists to become the first true small forward to reach the 500 mark in one season. Until then, swingman John Havlicek had been the only forward with as many as 500 assists in a season, but the Boston Celtics swingman also spent considerable time at the off guard spot. Barry averaged 13.5 points per game and established a new NBA record (since broken) with a .947 free throw percentage.
Barry was less of a factor in his final season. The Rockets were swept by the Celtics in the 1980 Eastern Conference semifinals, and when contract talks with Boston and the Seattle SuperSonics failed to produce a contract, he decided to retire.
NBA career statistics
Regular season
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|San Francisco
| style="background:#cfecec;"|80* || || 37.4 || .439 || || .862 || 10.6 || 2.2 || || || 25.7
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|San Francisco
| 78 || || 40.7 || .451 || || .884 || 9.2 || 3.6 || || || style="background:#cfecec;"|35.6*
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| style="background:#cfecec;"|82* || || 37.5 || .452 || || style="background:#cfecec;"|.902* || 8.9 || 4.9 || || || 22.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| 80 || || 36.5 || .456 || || .899 || 6.8 || 6.1 || 2.1 || 0.5 || 25.1
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|†
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| 80 || || 40.4 || .464 || || style="background:#cfecec;"|.904* || 5.7 || 6.2 || style="background:#cfecec;"|2.9* || 0.4 || 30.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| 81 || || 38.5 || .435 || || style="background:#cfecec;"|.923* || 6.1 || 6.1 || 2.5 || 0.3 || 21.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| 79 || || 36.8 || .440 || || .916 || 5.3 || 6.0 || 2.2 || 0.7 || 21.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| 82 || || 36.9 || .451 || || style="background:#cfecec;"|.924* || 5.5 || 5.4 || 1.9 || 0.5 || 23.1
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 80 || || 32.1 || .461 || || style="background:#cfecec;"|.947* || 3.5 || 6.3 || 1.2 || 0.5 || 13.5
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Houston
| 72 || || 25.2 || .422 || .330 || style="background:#cfecec;"|.935* || 3.3 || 3.7 || 1.1 || 0.4 || 12.0
|- class=sortbottom
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|Career
| 794 || || 36.3 || .449 || .330 || .900 || 6.5 || 5.1 || 2.0 || 0.5 || 23.2
Later years
During the 1990s, he coached the Cedar Rapids Sharpshooters of the Global Basketball Association and the Continental Basketball Association, guiding the Fort Wayne Fury to a 19–37 win-loss record in 1993–94. In 1998 and 1999, he served as head coach of the New Jersey ShoreCats of the United States Basketball League. Former Warriors teammate Clifford Ray was his top assistant.
Barry finished second in his division at the 2005 World Long Drive Championship.
Barry is part owner and promoter for the Ektio basketball shoe, which doctor and former college basketball player Barry Katz designed to reduce ankle injuries. He also serves on the company's Board of Directors.
Broadcasting career
Barry was among the first professional basketball players to make a successful transition to the broadcasting profession. He began broadcasting during the 1967–68 season broadcasting Oakland Oaks games because of contractual matters that kept him off the court. Barry continues to work in the field, a career that began with his own radio show in San Francisco and CBS while still an active player and then with TBS.
While working as a CBS analyst during Game 5 of the 1981 NBA Finals, Barry made a controversial comment when CBS displayed an old photo of colleague Bill Russell, who is African-American. He tried to joke that "it looks like some fool over there with that big watermelon grin". Barry later apologized for the comment, claiming that he did not realize that a reference to watermelons had racial overtones. Russell said that he believed Barry with regard to Barry's racial attitudes, but nonetheless, the two men are reported not to have been particularly friendly for other reasons, unrelated to that comment.
CBS did not renew Barry's employment for the subsequent season. Producers later cited the general negative tone of his game commentary, which did not sit well with some players and agents around the league. The next season Barry filled in on a few Seattle SuperSonics broadcasts, but a plan for a full-time position fell through when he insisted that his then-wife be allowed to join him when the team was on the road, which would have been contrary to team policy. The next year, Barry was featured in a lengthy Sports Illustrated article written by Tony Kornheiser in which he lamented the failure of his broadcasting career to that point, as well as the fact that he'd left a reputation within NBA circles for being an unlikeable person. After this, Barry worked with TBS and later on, TNT into the 1989–90 season, mostly as a color analyst but sometimes as a play-by-play announcer paired with Bill Russell. One of the more notable games Barry called as play-by-play announcer on TBS was Game 5 of the 1985 Eastern Conference Finals between the Boston Celtics and the Philadelphia 76ers, where Larry Bird made a last-second steal which sealed the win and the Eastern Conference Championship for the Celtics. After the 1989–90 season, Barry became the color analyst for the Atlanta Hawks' games that aired on TBS, paired with Skip Caray.
In a rare non-sports venture, he hosted the pilot for the mid-1980s game show Catchphrase; however, when the series debuted in the fall of 1985, game show veteran Art James replaced him (the series itself was short-lived in the US, but was brought over to the UK and is still running).
In September 2001, Barry began hosting a sports talk show on KNBR in San Francisco until June 2003, when KNBR paired him up with Rod Brooks to co-host a show named Rick and Rod. The show aired on KNBR until August 2006, when Barry left the station abruptly for reasons not disclosed to the public.
Personal life
Barry is of Irish, English, French, and Lithuanian descent. He was a member of the Kappa Sigma fraternity. He resides in Colorado Springs, Colorado with his wife, Lynn Norenberg Barry. While their youngest son, Canyon, played basketball for The University of Florida, to watch him play, they rented a condominium in Gainesville, Florida.
He has four sons and a daughter with his first wife Pam: Scooter, Jon, Brent, Drew and Shannon. All of Barry's sons were professional basketball players. Barry wrote an autobiography, Confessions of a Basketball Gypsy: The Rick Barry Story with Bill Libby that was published in 1972. He also has a son, Canyon, with his third wife, Lynn Barry, who is a professional player, playing for Chinese club Hunan Jinjian Miye in the 2018–19 season.
When his son Brent won the NBA Championship in 2005 with the San Antonio Spurs, Rick and Brent became the second father-son duo to both win NBA Championships as players, following Matt Guokas Sr. and Matt Guokas Jr. Later, this would be repeated by Bill and Luke Walton, and Mychal and Klay Thompson.
Jon and Brent have also moved to broadcasting after retirement. Jon serves as a game analyst on ESPN while Brent worked as a studio and game analyst on TNT and NBA TV until 2018 when he took a job with the San Antonio Spurs to be vice president of basketball operations.
Scooter won titles in the CBA and the top Belgian League.
Career achievements
Roselle Park High School – Roselle Park, New Jersey (1957–1961)
Two-time All-State selection
University of Miami (1961–1965)
Associated Press First-Team All-America (1965)
The Sporting News All-America Second Team (1965)
Consensus All-America (1965)
Led the nation in scoring (37.4 ppg) as a senior
NBA San Francisco Warriors (1965–1967)
NBA Rookie of the Year (1966)
NBA All-Rookie First Team (1966)
NBA leading scorer in 1967 (35.6 ppg)
ABA leading scorer in 1969 (34.0 ppg)
NBA highest free-throw percentage 1973, 1975, 1976, 1978, 1979, 1980
ABA highest free-throw percentage 1969, 1971, 1972
NBA All-Star Game MVP (1967)
ABA Oakland Oaks (1968–1969)
ABA Washington Caps (1969–1970)
ABA New York Nets (1970–1972)
NBA Golden State Warriors (1972–1978)
All-NBA Second Team (1973)
NBA Finals MVP (1975)
NBA champion (1975)
NBA Houston Rockets (1978–1979)
All-NBA First Team (1966, 1967, 1974, 1975, 1976)
Eight-time NBA All-Star (1966, 1967, 1973–1978)
ABA All-Star First Team (1969–1972)
NBA 50 Greatest Players (1996)
NBA 75 Greatest Players (2021)
Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame (1988)
Sports Hall of Fame of New Jersey (1994)
University of Miami Sports Hall of Fame (1976)
Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement (1975)
15 games in NBA career scoring 50 or more points (5th in NBA history)
115 games in professional career scoring 40 or more points — 70 NBA, 45 ABA (4th in professional basketball history after Wilt Chamberlain, Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant)
NBA records
Regular season
Only player in history to lead the NCAA, ABA and NBA in scoring
Led the NCAA in scoring in 1964–65 (973 points, 37.4 ppg)
Led the NBA in scoring in (2,775 points, 35.6 ppg)
Led the ABA in scoring in (1,190 points; 34.0 ppg)
Youngest player to score 57 points in a game: (57 points, San Francisco Warriors at New York Knicks, )
Free throws, consecutive, ABA game: 23, at Kentucky Colonels,
Assists, forward, game: 19, at Chicago Bulls, November 30, 1976
Playoffs
Scoring 30 or more points in all games, any playoff series: 6 games, vs. Philadelphia 76ers, 1967 NBA Finals
Points, 7-game ABA series: 281, vs. Denver Rockets, 1970 semifinals
Points scored, Game 7, any ABA-NBA playoff series: 52, at Denver Rockets,
Field goal attempts, 6-game series: 235, vs. Philadelphia 76ers, 1967 NBA Finals
Field goal attempts, game: 48, vs. Philadelphia 76ers,
Field goal attempts, quarter: 17, at Philadelphia 76ers,
Steals, quarter: 4, second quarter, at Chicago Bulls,
Tied with many other players
NBA Finals
Highest scoring average (career): 36.3
Scoring 30 or more points in all games, any championship series: 6 games, vs. Philadelphia 76ers, 1967 NBA Finals
Tied with Elgin Baylor, Michael Jordan, Hakeem Olajuwon, Shaquille O'Neal, and Kevin Durant.
Field goals made, game: 22, vs. Philadelphia 76ers,
Tied with Elgin Baylor
Field goal attempts, 6-game series: 235, vs. Philadelphia 76ers, 1967 NBA Finals
Field goal attempts, game: 48, vs. Philadelphia 76ers,
Field goal attempts, quarter: 17, at Philadelphia 76ers,
Steals, 4-game series: 14, vs. Washington Bullets, 1975 NBA Finals (3.5 spg)
All-Star
Field goal attempts, game: 27 (1967)
Steals, game: 8 (1975)
Personal fouls, game: 6, twice (1966, 1978)
Disqualifications, career: 2
Tied with Bob Cousy
See also
American Basketball Association (2000–present)
List of individual National Basketball Association scoring leaders by season
List of National Basketball Association players with most points in a game
List of National Basketball Association players with most steals in a game
List of National Basketball Association players with 50 or more points in a playoff game
List of NCAA Division I men's basketball players with 2000 points and 1000 rebounds
References
External links
Basketball Hall of Fame profile
RememberTheABA.com Rick Barry page
1972 Jim O'Brien biographical article on Rick Barry
Rick Barry and Rod Brooks Home Page at KNBR Radio
Rick Barry Career Statistics
A Voice Crying in the Wilderness
1944 births
Living people
All-American college men's basketball players
American Basketball Association announcers
American men's basketball players
American people of Lithuanian descent
American sports radio personalities
Basketball coaches from New Jersey
Basketball players from Colorado Springs, Colorado
Basketball players from New Jersey
Big3 coaches
Continental Basketball Association coaches
Golden State Warriors players
Golf writers and broadcasters
Houston Rockets players
Miami Hurricanes men's basketball players
Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductees
National Basketball Association All-Stars
National Basketball Association broadcasters
National Basketball Association players with retired numbers
New York Nets players
Oakland Oaks players
People from Roselle Park, New Jersey
Radio personalities from San Francisco
San Francisco Warriors draft picks
San Francisco Warriors players
Small forwards
Sportspeople from Elizabeth, New Jersey
Tennis commentators
United States Basketball League coaches
Washington Caps players
| false |
[
"Anything Can Happen is a 1952 comedy-drama film.\n\nAnything Can Happen may also refer to:\n\n Anything Can Happen (album), by Leon Russell, 1994\n \"Anything Can Happen\", a 2019 song by Saint Jhn \n Edhuvum Nadakkum ('Anything Can Happen'), a season of the Tamil TV series Marmadesam\n \"Anything Can Happen in the Next Half Hour\", or \"Anything Can Happen\", a 2007 song by Enter Shikari\n Anything Can Happen in the Next Half Hour (EP), 2004\n\nSee also\n \"Anything Could Happen\", a 2012 song by Ellie Goulding \n Anything Might Happen, 1934 British crime film\n Special Effects: Anything Can Happen, a 1996 American documentary film\n \"Anything Can Happen on Halloween\", a song from the 1986 film The Worst Witch \n Anything Can Happen in the Theatre, a musical revue of works by Maury Yeston\n \"The Anything Can Happen Recurrence\", an episode of The Big Bang Theory (season 7)\n The Anupam Kher Show - Kucch Bhi Ho Sakta Hai ('The Anupam Kher Show — Anything Can Happen') an Indian TV show",
"A psychon was a minimal unit of psychic activity proposed by Warren McCulloch and Walter Pitts in \"A Logical Calculus of Ideas Immanent in Nervous Activity\" in 1943. McCulloch was later to reflect that he intended to invent a kind of \"least psychic event\" with the following properties:\n it either happened or else it did not happen.\n it would happen only if its was the product of a temporal antecedent.\n it was to lead to subsequent psychons.\n these could be compounded to produce the equivalents of more complicated propositions concerning their antecedents.\n\nThis dual value logic was adopted by Jacques Lacan and applied to psychoanalysis.\n\nReferences\n\nNeurology\nCybernetics"
] |
[
"Opeth",
"Orchid, Morningrise, and My Arms, Your Hearse (1994-1998)"
] |
C_ecf88860a0724b1298539ec6634811b9_0
|
Which album was released in 1994
| 1 |
Which album was released in 1994 by Opeth?
|
Opeth
|
Opeth recorded its debut album, Orchid, with producer Dan Swano in April 1994. Because of distribution problems with the newly formed Candlelight Records, the album was not released until May 15, 1995, and only in Europe. Orchid tested the boundaries of traditional death metal, featuring acoustic guitars, piano, and clean vocals. After a few live shows in the United Kingdom, Opeth returned to the studio in March 1996 to begin work on a second album, again produced by Dan Swano. The album was named Morningrise, and was released in Europe on June 24, 1996. With only five songs, but lasting 66 minutes, it features Opeth's longest song, the twenty-minute "Black Rose Immortal". Opeth toured the UK in support of Morningrise, followed by a 26-date Scandinavian tour with Cradle of Filth. While on tour, Opeth attracted the attention of Century Media Records, who signed the band and released the first two albums in the United States in 1997. In 1997, after the tour, Akerfeldt and Lindgren dismissed De Farfalla for personal reasons, without the consent of Nordin. When Akerfeldt informed Nordin, who was on a vacation in Brazil, Nordin left the band and remained in Brazil for personal reasons. Former Eternal members, drummer Martin Lopez (formerly of Amon Amarth) and bassist Martin Mendez, responded to an ad at a music shop placed by Akerfeldt. Lopez and Mendez were fans of the band and took the ads down themselves so no other musicians could apply for the job. Akerfeldt and Lindgren did not want the Martins to join at first, due to them already knowing each other; they felt that they wanted two strangers so that there wouldn't be two camps in the band, but eventually hired both. Lopez made his debut with Opeth playing on a cover version of Iron Maiden's "Remember Tomorrow", which was included on the album A Call to Irons: A Tribute to Iron Maiden. With a larger recording budget from Century Media, Opeth began work on its third album, with noted Swedish producer Fredrik Nordstrom, at Studio Fredman in August 1997. Although Opeth had Mendez, due to time constraints Akerfeldt played bass on the album. My Arms, Your Hearse was released to critical acclaim on August 18, 1998. CANNOTANSWER
|
Orchid,
|
Opeth is a Swedish progressive metal band from Stockholm, formed in 1989 by lead vocalist David Isberg. The group has been through several personnel changes, including the replacement of every single original member; notably Isberg in 1992. Opeth has consistently incorporated progressive, folk, blues, classical, and jazz influences into its usually lengthy compositions, as well as strong influences from death metal, especially in their early works. Many songs include acoustic guitar passages and strong dynamic shifts, as well as death growls. Opeth is also well known for their incorporation of Mellotrons in their work. The band rarely made live appearances supporting their first four albums, but since conducting their first world tour after the 2001 release of Blackwater Park, they have led several major world tours.
Opeth has released 13 studio albums, four live DVDs, four live albums (three that are in conjunction with DVDs), and two boxsets. The band released its debut album Orchid in 1995. Although their eighth studio album, Ghost Reveries, was quite popular in the United States, Opeth did not experience major American commercial success until the 2008 release of their ninth studio album, Watershed, which peaked at No. 23 on the Billboard 200, and topped the Finnish albums chart in its first week of release. As of November 2009, the band has sold over 1.5 million copies of their albums and DVDs worldwide, including 300,000 collective SoundScans of their albums Blackwater Park, Damnation, and Deliverance in the United States.
History
Formation (1989–1993)
Opeth was formed as a death metal band in 1989 in Stockholm, Sweden, by lead vocalist David Isberg. The band name was derived from the word "Opet", taken from the Wilbur Smith novel The Sunbird. In this novel, Opet is the name of a fictional Phoenician city in South Africa translated as "City of the Moon".
In 1990, Isberg asked former Eruption band member Mikael Åkerfeldt to join Opeth as a bassist, replacing Martin Persson. When Åkerfeldt showed up to practice on the day after Isberg invited him, it became clear that Isberg had not told the band members, including the band's current bassist, that Åkerfeldt would be joining the band. An ensuing argument led to all members but Isberg and Åkerfeldt leaving to form a new project.
Isberg and Åkerfeldt recruited drummer Anders Nordin, bassist Nick Döring, and guitarist Andreas Dimeo. Unsatisfied with Opeth's slow progress, Döring and Dimeo left the band after their first performance, and were replaced by guitarist Kim Pettersson and bassist Johan De Farfalla. After the next show, De Farfalla left Opeth to spend time with his girlfriend in Germany, and was initially replaced by Mattias Ander, before Åkerfeldt's friend Peter Lindgren took on the role of bassist. Rhythm guitarist Kim Pettersson left following the band's next performance, and Lindgren switched to guitar, with the role of bassist falling to Stefan Guteklint. The following year, David Isberg left the band citing "creative differences".
Following Isberg's departure, Åkerfeldt took over vocal duties and he, Lindgren, and Nordin spent the next year writing and rehearsing new material. The group began to rely less on the blast beats and aggression typical of death metal, and incorporated acoustic guitars and guitar harmonies into their music; developing the core sound of Opeth. Bassist Guteklint was dismissed by the band after they signed their first record deal with Candlelight Records in 1994. Opeth initially employed former member De Farfalla as a session bassist for their demo recordings, and he went on to join on a full-time basis following the release of Opeth's debut album, "Orchid", in 1995.
Orchid, Morningrise, and My Arms, Your Hearse (1994–1998)
Opeth recorded its debut album, Orchid, with producer Dan Swanö in April 1994. Because of distribution problems with the newly formed Candlelight Records, the album was not released until 15 May 1995, and only in Europe. Orchid tested the boundaries of traditional death metal, featuring acoustic guitars, piano, and clean vocals.
After a few live shows in the United Kingdom, Opeth returned to the studio in March 1996 to begin work on a second album, again produced by Dan Swanö. The album, titled Morningrise, was released in Europe on 24 June 1996. With only five songs, but lasting 66 minutes, it features Opeth's longest song, the 20-minute "Black Rose Immortal". Opeth toured the UK in support of Morningrise, followed by a 26-date Scandinavian tour with Cradle of Filth. While on tour, Opeth attracted the attention of Century Media Records, who signed the band and released the first two albums in the United States in 1997.
In 1997, after the tour, Åkerfeldt and Lindgren dismissed De Farfalla for personal reasons, without the consent of Nordin. When Åkerfeldt informed Nordin, who was on a vacation in Brazil, Nordin left the band and remained in Brazil for personal reasons. Former Eternal members, drummer Martín López (formerly of Amon Amarth) and bassist Martín Méndez, responded to an ad at a music shop placed by Åkerfeldt. López and Méndez were fans of the band and took the ads down themselves so no other musicians could apply for the job. Åkerfeldt and Lindgren did not want the Martíns to join at first, due to them already knowing each other; they felt that they wanted two strangers so that there wouldn't be two camps in the band, but eventually hired both. López made his debut with Opeth playing on a cover version of Iron Maiden's "Remember Tomorrow", which was included on the album A Call to Irons: A Tribute to Iron Maiden.
With a larger recording budget from Century Media, Opeth began work on its third album, with noted Swedish producer Fredrik Nordström, at Studio Fredman in August 1997. Although Opeth had Méndez, due to time constraints Åkerfeldt played bass on the album. My Arms, Your Hearse was released to critical acclaim on 18 August 1998.
Still Life and Blackwater Park (1999–2001)
In 1999, the ownership of Candlelight Records changed hands, with owner and friend of the band Lee Barrett leaving the company. Opeth signed with UK label Peaceville Records in Europe, which was distributed by Music for Nations. Opeth reserved time at Studio Fredman to begin work on its next album, but recording was postponed while the studio was relocated. Due to time constraints, the band was able to rehearse only twice before entering the studio. Delays with the album's artwork pushed the release back an additional month and Still Life was released on 18 October 1999. Due to problems with the band's new distribution network, the album was not released in the United States until February 2001. Still Life was the first album recorded with Méndez, and also the first Opeth album to bear any kind of caption on the front cover upon its initial release, including the band's logo. Allmusic called Still Life a "formidable splicing of harsh, often jagged guitar riffs with graceful melodies." As explained by Åkerfeldt, Still Life is a concept album: "The main character is kind of banished from his hometown because he hasn't got the same faith as the rest of the inhabitants there. The album pretty much starts off when he is returning after several years to hook up with his old 'babe.' The big bosses of the town know that he's back... A lot of bad things start happening."
Following a few live dates in Europe, Opeth returned to Studio Fredman to begin work on its next album, with Porcupine Tree's Steven Wilson producing. The band sought to recreate the recording experience of Still Life, and again entered the studio with minimal rehearsals, and no lyrics written. "This time it was tough," Åkerfeldt said, "I feel pleasantly blown away by the immense result, though. It was indeed worth the effort." Wilson also pushed the band to expand its sound, incorporating new sounds and production techniques. "Steve guided us into the realms of 'strange' noises for guitars and voice", Åkerfeldt said.
Opeth released its fifth studio album, Blackwater Park, on 21 February 2001. AllMusic has stated that the album "keeps with Opeth's tradition by transcending the limits of death/black metal and repeatedly shattering the foundations of conventional songwriting". In support of Blackwater Park, Opeth embarked on its first world tour, headlined Europe for the first time, and made an appearance at the 2001 Wacken Open Air festival in Germany, playing to a crowd of 60,000.
Deliverance and Damnation (2002–2004)
Opeth returned to Sweden after touring in support of Blackwater Park, and began writing for the next album. At first, Åkerfeldt had trouble putting together new material: "I wanted to write something heavier than we'd ever done, still I had all these great mellow parts and arrangements which I didn't want to go to waste." Jonas Renkse of Katatonia, a long-time friend of Åkerfeldt, suggested writing music for two separate albums—one heavy and one soft.
Excited at the prospect, Åkerfeldt agreed without consulting his bandmates or record label. While his bandmates liked the idea of recording two separate albums, Åkerfeldt had to convince the label: "I had to lie somewhat ... saying that we could do this recording very soon, it won't cost more than a regular single album." With most of the material written, the band rehearsed just once before entering Nacksving Studios in 2002, and again with producer Steven Wilson in Studio Fredman. Under pressure to complete both albums simultaneously, Åkerfeldt said the recording process was "the toughest test of our history." After recording basic tracks, the band moved production to England to first mix the heavy album, Deliverance, with Andy Sneap at Backstage Studios. "Deliverance was so poorly recorded, without any organisation whatsoever," Åkerfeldt claimed, that Sneap "is credited as a 'saviour' in the sleeve, as he surely saved much of the recording."
Deliverance was released on 4 November 2002, and debuted at number 19 on the US Top Independent Albums chart, marking the band's first US chart appearance. AllMusic stated, "Deliverance is altogether more subtle than any of its predecessors, approaching listeners with haunting nuances and masterful dynamics rather than overwhelming them with sheer mass and complexity."
Opeth performed a one-off concert in Stockholm, then returned to the UK to finish recording vocals for the second of the two albums, Damnation, at Steven Wilson's No Man's Land Studios. Although Åkerfeldt believed the band could not finish both albums, Opeth completed Deliverance and Damnation in just seven weeks of studio time, which was the same amount spent on Blackwater Park alone. Damnation was released on 14 April 2003, and garnered the band its first appearance on the US Billboard 200 at number 192. The album also won the 2003 Swedish Grammy Award for Best Hard Rock Performance. On 1 January 2016, Opeth re-released both Deliverance and Damnation in one package, containing CD and DVD versions, along with new mixing.
The band embarked on its biggest tour yet, playing nearly 200 shows in 2003 and 2004. Opeth performed three special shows in Europe with two song lists each—one acoustic set and one heavy set. The band recorded its first DVD, Lamentations (Live at Shepherd's Bush Empire 2003), at Shepherd's Bush Empire in London, England. The DVD features a two-hour performance, including the entire Damnation album, several songs from Deliverance and Blackwater Park, and a one-hour documentary about the recording of Deliverance and Damnation. Lamentations was certified Gold in Canada.
Opeth was scheduled to perform in Jordan without a crew due to the fear of terrorist attacks in the Middle East. Opeth's tour manager distributed 6,000 tickets for the concert, but before the band left for Jordan, drummer Lopez called Åkerfeldt stating he was having an anxiety attack and could not perform, forcing the band to cancel the show. In early 2004, Lopez was sent home from Canada after more anxiety attacks on tour. Opeth decided against cancelling the remainder of the tour, with Lopez's drum technician filling in for two concerts. Lopez promised that he would return to the tour as soon as he could, but two shows later Opeth asked Strapping Young Lad drummer Gene Hoglan to fill in. Lopez returned to Opeth for the Seattle show on the final leg of the Deliverance and Damnation tour. Per Wiberg also joined the band on tour to perform keyboards, after more than a year on tour.
Ghost Reveries (2005–2007)
Opeth returned home in 2004 to start writing new material for its eighth album, and by the end of the year, they had finished writing it. Opeth's European label, Music for Nations, closed its doors in 2005, and after negotiations with various labels, the band signed with Roadrunner Records. Åkerfeldt said the primary reason for signing with Roadrunner was the label's wide distribution, ensuring the album would be available at larger-chain retailers. When news leaked that the band was signed to Roadrunner, who predominantly worked with trend-oriented rock and metal, some fans accused the band of selling out. "To be honest," Åkerfeldt said, "that's such an insult after 15 years as a band and 8 records. I can't believe we haven't earned each and every Opeth fan's credibility after all these years. I mean, our songs are 10 minutes long!" The band rehearsed for three weeks before entering the studio, the first time the band rehearsed since the 1998 album, My Arms, Your Hearse. During rehearsal, keyboardist Wiberg joined Opeth as a full-time member. Opeth recorded at Fascination Street Studios in Örebro, Sweden, from 18 March to 1 June 2005, and released the resulting Ghost Reveries on 30 August 2005, to critical acclaim and commercial success. The album debuted at number 64 in the US, and number nine in Sweden, higher than any previous Opeth release. Keith Bergman of Blabbermouth.net gave the album ten out of ten, one of only 21 albums to achieve a perfect rating from the site. Rod Smith of Decibel magazine called Ghost Reveries "achingly beautiful, sometimes unabashedly brutal, often a combination of both".
On 12 May 2006, Martin Lopez announced that he had officially parted ways with Opeth due to health problems, and was replaced by Martin Axenrot. Opeth toured on the main stage of Gigantour in 2006, alongside Megadeth. Ghost Reveries was re-released on 31 October 2006, with a bonus cover song (Deep Purple's "Soldier of Fortune"), a DVD featuring a 5.1 surround sound mix of the album and a documentary on the making of the record. A recording of Opeth's live performance at the Camden Roundhouse, in London, on 9 November 2006, was released as the double live album The Roundhouse Tapes, which topped the Finnish DVD chart.
On 17 May 2007, Peter Lindgren announced he would be leaving Opeth after 16 years. "The decision has been the toughest I've ever made but it is the right one to make at this point in my life," Lindgren said. "I feel that I simply have lost some of the enthusiasm and inspiration needed to participate in a band that has grown from a few guys playing the music we love to a worldwide industry." Ex-Arch Enemy guitarist Fredrik Åkesson replaced Lindgren, as Åkerfeldt explained "Fredrik was the only name that popped up thinking about a replacement for Peter. In my opinion he's one of the top three guitar players out of Sweden. We all get along great as we've known each other for maybe four years and he already has the experience to take on the circus-like lifestyle we lead as members of Opeth."
Watershed and In Live Concert at the Royal Albert Hall (2008–2010)
Opeth entered Fascination Street Studios in November 2007 to record their ninth studio album, with Åkerfeldt producing. By January 2008, Opeth had recorded 13 songs, including three cover songs. The finished album, Watershed, features seven tracks, with cover songs used as bonus tracks on different versions of the album. Watershed was released on 3 June 2008. Åkerfeldt described the songs on the album as "a bit more energetic". Opeth toured in support of Watershed, including headlining the UK Defenders of the Faith tour with Arch Enemy, an appearance at Wacken Open Air, and the Progressive Nation tour with headliner Dream Theater. Watershed was Opeth's highest-charting album to date, debuting at number 23 on the US Billboard 200, on the Australian ARIA album charts at number seven and at number one on Finland's official album chart. Opeth went on a worldwide tour in support of Watershed. From September to October, the band toured North America backed by High on Fire, Baroness, and Nachtmystium. They returned to tour Europe for the rest of the year with Cynic and The Ocean.
In 2010, Opeth wrote and recorded the new track, "The Throat of Winter", which appeared on the digital EP soundtrack of the video game, God of War III. Åkerfeldt described the song as "odd" and "not very metal." To celebrate their 20th anniversary, Opeth performed a six-show, worldwide tour called Evolution XX: An Opeth Anthology, from 30 March through 9 April 2010. Blackwater Park was performed in its entirety, along with several songs never before performed. The concert of 5 April 2010, at the Royal Albert Hall in London, England was filmed for a DVD and live album package titled In Live Concert at the Royal Albert Hall. The set was released on 21 September 2010, in 2-DVD and 2-DVD/3-CD configurations. For the DVD the concert was split into two sets. The first set consists of the entire Blackwater Park album, while the second set contains one song from every album excluding Blackwater Park, in chronological order representing the twenty years of "evolution" in their music. Åkerfeldt stated, "I can't believe it, but, fuck, we're celebrating 20 years. I've been in this band ever since I was 16. It's insane." A special edition of Blackwater Park was released in March 2010 to coincide with the tour.
Heritage (2011–2013)
In September 2010, Mikael Åkerfeldt stated that he was writing for a new Opeth album. The band announced on their website that they would start recording their tenth album on 31 January 2011, at the Atlantis/Metronome studios in Stockholm, once again with Jens Bogren (engineering) and Steven Wilson from Porcupine Tree as co-producer.
Shortly after mixing was complete on the new album in April 2011, Opeth announced that Per Wiberg was relieved of his duties in the band.
In the press statement, Mikael Åkerfeldt explained the decision, saying, "Mendez, Axe and Fredrik and I came to the decision that we should find a replacement for Per right after the recordings of the new album, and this came as no surprise to Per. He had, in turn, been thinking about leaving, so you could say it was a mutual decision. There's no bad blood, just a relationship that came to an end, and that's that."
Opeth's tenth album, Heritage, was released on 14 September 2011, to generally favorable reviews. The album sold 19,000 copies in the United States in its first week of release and debuted at number 19 on the Billboard 200 chart. Heritage debuted at number four in the band's native country of Sweden.
Heritage became the second Opeth album to not feature any death growls and had a much more progressive style than previous albums from the band, something that Åkerfeldt had been wanting to do for some time.
The first two songs Åkerfeldt wrote for Heritage were in the style of Watershed. After hearing the songs for the first time, Martín Méndez told Åkerfeldt that he would be disappointed if the album continued in that direction. Relieved that Méndez was not interested in doing another conventional Opeth album, Åkerfeldt scrapped the two songs and started the writing process over in a different style. In the press release for Heritage, Mikael Åkerfeldt revealed that he felt as though he had been building to write the album since he was 19 years old. In a review for Allmusic, Thom Jurek called Heritage the band's most adventurous album, describing the songs as "drenched in instrumental interludes, knotty key and chord changes, shifting time signatures, clean vocals, and a keyboard-heavy instrumentation that includes Mellotrons, Rhodes pianos, and Hammond organs".
Opeth supported Heritage with a tour that would last for over 200 tour dates. The tour was the band's first with new keyboardist, Joakim Svalberg, who played on the opening track of the album. During the tour, Opeth played with bands such as Katatonia, Pain of Salvation, Mastodon, Ghost and Anathema all over the world in countries such as the United States, Europe, Turkey, India, Japan, Greece, Israel, Latin America and Sweden. The tour concluded with "Melloboat 2013".
Pale Communion (2014–2015)
On 26 August 2014, Opeth released its eleventh studio album, titled Pale Communion. Åkerfeldt began working on new material as far back as August 2012. In January 2014 he stated, "We've been looking at [tracking the next album at] Rockfield Studios in Wales where Queen recorded "Bohemian Rhapsody", but we haven't made a decision yet, but it will be an expensive album. There's a lot going on, lots of string arrangements that we haven't had in the past." Despite fearing that the band's new musical direction would split Opeth's fanbase, when asked if it will it be heavier or softer than Heritage, Åkerfeldt said, "Maybe a little bit heavier, not death metal heavy, but hard rock/heavy metal heavy. There's also lots of progressive elements and acoustic guitars, but also more sinister-sounding riffs." Åkerfeldt also produced the new album which will include string instrumentation, something that he became interested in doing when working on Storm Corrosion. The band members in Opeth felt rejuvenated after creating Heritage which resulted in closer relationships between them.
The Guardian reviewed Pale Communion positively, calling it "strange, intricate prog-metal genius" somewhat flawed by Åkerfeldt's indulgent vocal styling. The album saw Opeth's highest chart positions in the history of the band with Pale Communion debuting at number 19 in the US, number 3 in Sweden, and number 14 in the United Kingdom. It sold 13,000 copies in its first week of release in the US.
Pale Communion was supported with more touring from Opeth. In 2015, Opeth played several concerts to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the band. At these special shows, the band was doing two sets. The first set is 2005's Ghost Reveries as a ten-year anniversary celebration of the album. The second set spanned the rest of the band's career, celebrating their 25th anniversary. Åkerfeldt expressed excitement for the concerts.
Sorceress, In Cauda Venenum and departure of Axenrot (2016–present)
On 15 June 2016, Nuclear Blast Entertainment announced the signing of Opeth. Three days later, on 18 June, Opeth released a 30-second teaser for their new album, Sorceress. A month later, on 18 July, the band confirmed the album would be released on 30 September, in addition to revealing the artwork and track list. Mikael Åkerfeldt described it as, "A fine little record. My favorite in our discography right now. Of course. That's how it should be, right? It's both fresh and old, both progressive and rehashed. Heavy and calm. Just the way we like it." The album was the first project under Moderbolaget Records, a joint venture between Opeth and Nuclear Blast. Moderbolaget means "the parent company" in Swedish.
On 25 July 2016, in the build up towards the album release, the band posted the first Sorceress: Studio Report on their YouTube channel. In the behind-the-scenes studio tour, it is confirmed that the band had returned to Rockfield Studios where they previously recorded Pale Communion. At the end of the video, there is a 20-second excerpt of a track believed to be from the album featuring heavily down-tuned guitars. On 1 August 2016, the band released a lyric video for the title-track 'Sorceress' on their YouTube channel. On 4 September 2016, Opeth released a lyric video for the second single titled 'Will O the Wisp,' again through their YouTube channel and website. Opeth's video for "Era" was nominated for "Video of the Year" at the 2017 Progressive Music Awards, where they ultimately won "International Band of the Year".
On 2 October 2017, Åkerfeldt said he has been thinking about doing something "twisted" and different for the next studio album, which could be released by mid-to-late 2019. On 20 November 2017, guitarist Fredrik Åkesson stated that the band will not have any gigs in the upcoming months, until the 2018 summer festivals. During this break the band will focus on writing songs for the new album. On 11 July 2018, during an interview with FaceCulture, Åkesson said "I've recorded a lot of solos so far. And Mikael Åkerfeldt has almost already written 12 songs for the new album, so we have more material than enough for an album". On 22 May 2019, the band announced their thirteenth studio album, In Cauda Venenum, due for release on 27 September 2019. On 12 July 2019, Opeth released the first single from In Cauda Venenum entitled "Heart in Hand" in both English and Swedish.
On 16 November 2021, it was announced that longtime drummer Martin Axenrot had left the band due to conflict of interests and will be replaced by Sami Karppinen for the North American tour.
Musical style and influences
As Opeth's primary songwriter and lyricist, vocalist/guitarist Mikael Åkerfeldt heads the direction of Opeth's sound. He was influenced at a young age by the 1970s progressive rock bands King Crimson, Yes, Genesis, Camel, P.F.M., Hawkwind, and Gracious, and by heavy metal bands such as Iron Maiden, Slayer, Death, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Celtic Frost, King Diamond, Morbid Angel, Voivod, and, most importantly, Judas Priest. Åkerfeldt considers Judas Priest's Sad Wings of Destiny (1976) the best metal album of all time, and notes that there was a time when he listened only to Judas Priest. While warming up before Opeth concerts, Åkerfeldt frequently sings "Here Come the Tears" from Judas Priest's third album Sin After Sin (1977). Åkerfeldt later discovered progressive rock and folk music, both of which had a profound impact on the sound of the band.
Opeth's distinct sound mixes death metal with progressive rock. Steve Huey of AllMusic refers to Opeth's "epic, progressive death metal style". Ryan Ogle of Blabbermouth described Opeth's sound as incorporating "the likes of folk, funk, blues, '70s rock, goth and a laundry list of other sonic oddities into their trademark progressive death style." In his review of Opeth's 2001 album Blackwater Park, AllMusic's Eduardo Rivadavia wrote, "Tracks start and finish in seemingly arbitrary fashion, usually traversing ample musical terrain, including acoustic guitar and solo piano passages, ambient soundscapes, stoner rock grooves, and Eastern-tinged melodies—any of which are subject to savage punctuations of death metal fury at any given moment." Åkerfeldt commented on the diversity of Opeth's music:
I don't see the point of playing in a band and going just one way when you can do everything. It would be impossible for us to play just death metal; that is our roots, but we are now a mishmash of everything, and not purists to any form of music. It's impossible for us to do that, and quite frankly I would think of it as boring to be in a band that plays just metal music. We're not afraid to experiment, or to be caught with our pants down, so to speak. That's what keeps us going.
More recently, Opeth have abandoned their death metal sound resulting in a mellower progressive rock sound. When talking about Heritage, guitarist Fredrik Åkesson stated:
In the beginning it took me a little while to get used to the new idea of the sound, not having any screaming vocals and stuff like that. But I think the album was necessary for us to do. Maybe the band wouldn't have continued if we hadn't done Heritage. I think the old Opeth fans understand this album. There's always going to be some haters, but you can't be loved by everyone. Opeth has always been about not repeating ourself. A lot of people don't think Heritage is metal but I think it's metal to go somewhere people don't expect. It doesn't mean we're not embracing the past sound of Opeth.
Vocally, Åkerfeldt shifts between traditional death metal vocals for heavy sections, and clean, sometimes whispered or soft-spoken vocals over mellower passages. While his death growls were dominant on early releases, later efforts incorporate more clean vocals, with Damnation, Heritage, Pale Communion, Sorceress and In Cauda Venenum featuring only clean singing. Rivadavia noted that "Åkerfeldt's vocals run the gamut from bowel-churning grunts to melodies of chilling beauty—depending on each movement section's mood."
Legacy
A number of artists and bands have cited Opeth as an influence, among which are Mayan (a project of Mark Jansen from Epica), Luc Lemay of Gorguts, Soen (a band of former Opeth drummer Martin Lopez), Tor Oddmund Suhrke of Leprous, Disillusion, Caligula's Horse, Klimt 1918, Daniel Droste of Ahab, Becoming the Archetype, Nucleus Torn, Alex Vynogradoff of Kauan, Wastefall, Eric Guenther of The Contortionist, Thomas MacLean and To-Mera, The Man-Eating Tree, Nahemah, Vladimir Agafonkin of Obiymy Doschu, Schizoid Lloyd, Native Construct, Maxime Côté of Catuvolcus, Bilocate, and Jinjer.
In addition, other artists have been quoted expressing admiration for their work including Seven Lions, John Petrucci, Mike Portnoy, Ihsahn, Simone Simons of Epica, Oliver Palotai of Kamelot, Jim Matheos of Fates Warning, and Haken.
Members
Current members
Mikael Åkerfeldt – guitars (1990–present), lead vocals (1992–present), keyboards (1990), bass (1990, 1992, 1997)
Martín Méndez – bass (1997–present)
Fredrik Åkesson – guitars, backing vocals (2007–present)
Joakim Svalberg – keyboards, synthesizers, piano, mellotron, backing vocals (2011–present)
Current touring members
Sami Karppinen – drums (2021–present)
Discography
Orchid (1995)
Morningrise (1996)
My Arms, Your Hearse (1998)
Still Life (1999)
Blackwater Park (2001)
Deliverance (2002)
Damnation (2003)
Ghost Reveries (2005)
Watershed (2008)
Heritage (2011)
Pale Communion (2014)
Sorceress (2016)
In Cauda Venenum (2019)
References
Sources
External links
MNRK Music Group artists
Musical groups established in 1990
Musical groups from Stockholm
Musical quartets
Musical quintets
Roadrunner Records artists
Nuclear Blast artists
Swedish death metal musical groups
Swedish progressive metal musical groups
Swedish progressive rock groups
Swedish heavy metal musical groups
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[
"Turkish singer Hande Yener's discography consists of thirteen studio albums, one split album, five compilation albums, two extended plays (EP) and thirteen singles. In the early 1990s, she met Sezen Aksu and started working as her backing vocalist. She made her debut in 2000, with her first studio album Senden İbaret, which was released by DMC. Two years later, her second studio album, Sen Yoluna... Ben Yoluma..., was released by Erol Köse Production. The album sold one million copies in the year it was released and received a platinum certification from MÜ-YAP. In 2004, her third studio album, Aşk Kadın Ruhundan Anlamıyor, sold 412,000 copies, and in 2006 her fourth studio album, Apayrı, sold 165,000 copies, both of which received gold certifications.\n\nIn 2007, her first electronic music album, Nasıl Delirdim?, was released. She also wrote many of the songs in the album. With her 2008 album Hipnoz and 2009 album Hayrola?, she continued making electronic music. With her eighth studio album Hande'ye Neler Oluyor?, which was released in April 2010, she returned to making pop music. The song \"Bodrum\" from this album topped the music charts in Turkey. Yener was the featured artist on the song \"Atma\" from Sinan Akçıl's first studio album Kalp Sesi, which was released in April 2011. In September 2011, she released her ninth studio album Teşekkürler; followed by a split album with pop rock group Seksendört, titled Rüya, which was released in June 2012. In December 2012, her tenth studio album Kraliçe was released. Its lead single, \"Hasta\", ranked second on Turkey's music charts and topped many radio playlists.\n\nIn 2013, Yener released two songs written and composed by Berksan: \"Ya Ya Ya Ya\" and \"Biri Var\". In April 2014, \"Alt Dudak\" was published as a promotional single from her eleventh studio album Mükemmel, which was released in June 2014. The second single from this album was \"Naber\", for which the footage of Yener's concert at the Harbiye Cemil Topuzlu Open-Air Theatre were used to make a music video for the song. In September 2014, Yener was featured on Berksan's single \"Haberi Var mı?\".\n\nIn 2015, Yener was among the artists whose names were included in Volga Tamöz's second studio album, No. 2, which was released in March. The two made the album's lead single \"Sebastian\". In July, her new single \"Kışkışşş\" was released. In August, a music video for the song \"Hani Bana\" was released, for which she again used the footage of her concert at the Harbiye Cemil Topuzlu Open-Air Theatre. In December, she released her first duet with Serdar Ortaç, titled \"İki Deli\".\n\nAlbums\n\nStudio albums\n\nCompilation albums\n\nEPs\n\nSplit albums\n\nSingles\n\nAs lead artist\n\nAs featured artist\n\nCharts\n\nMusic videos\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\nDiscographies of Turkish artists\nPop music discographies",
"Japanese singer-songwriter Seiko Matsuda has released eighty-two official singles and eight promotional singles.\n\nSeiko released her debut album, Squall in August 1980; it peaked at number two in Japan and has sold over 500,000 copies. The second single from the album, \"Aoi Sangoshō\" became the fifteenth best-selling single of 1980 in Japan. Her second album, North Wind, was released later in the year and became Matsuda's first number one album. One of her best-selling and critically acclaimed albums, Pineapple was released in 1982. The album peaked at number one in Japan and spawned two number one singles. In 1983, Matsuda released her most successful studio album to date, Utopia, which became the third best-selling album of the year in Japan. Her first English-language album, Sound of My Heart was released in 1985. The album was produced by Phil Ramone and peaked at number two in Japan. Her fifteenth studio album, Citron, which was produced by David Foster, was released in 1988 and became Matsuda's twelfth number one studio album. \n\nMatsuda's global debut album, Seiko was released in 1990. The album has spawned a hit single, \"The Right Combination\". The single, which features the guest vocals by American singer Donnie Wahlberg, reached top 20 in Australia and Canada, as well as charting in Japan, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Matsuda's eleventh compilation album, Bible was released in 1991 and has been certified double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of Japan. In 1996, Matsuda released her twenty-seventh studio album, Vanity Fair. The album spawned her best-selling single, \"Anata ni Aitakute: Missing You\", and peaked at number two in Japan. Her third global album, Area 62 was released in 2002. The album has spawned two Billboard Dance Club Songs top twenty singles. Matsuda released the compilation album, We Love Seiko: 35th Anniversary Seiko Matsuda Kyūkyoku All-Time Best 50 Songs, which became her first top three album in 19 years. Her first jazz album, Seiko Jazz was released in 2017 through Verve Records and peaked at number six in Japan.\n\nMatsuda is one of the best-selling music artistsin Japan, having sold over 30 million records nationwide.\n\nAs lead artist\n\n1980s\n\n1990s\n\n2000s\n\n2010s\n\nAs featured artist\n\nPromotional singles\n\nGuest appearances\n\nNotes\n\nSee also\n List of best-selling albums in Japan\n\nReferences\n\nPop music discographies\nDiscographies of Japanese artists"
] |
[
"Opeth",
"Orchid, Morningrise, and My Arms, Your Hearse (1994-1998)",
"Which album was released in 1994",
"Orchid,"
] |
C_ecf88860a0724b1298539ec6634811b9_0
|
Were there any singles released from Orchid?
| 2 |
Were there any singles released from Opeth's album Orchid?
|
Opeth
|
Opeth recorded its debut album, Orchid, with producer Dan Swano in April 1994. Because of distribution problems with the newly formed Candlelight Records, the album was not released until May 15, 1995, and only in Europe. Orchid tested the boundaries of traditional death metal, featuring acoustic guitars, piano, and clean vocals. After a few live shows in the United Kingdom, Opeth returned to the studio in March 1996 to begin work on a second album, again produced by Dan Swano. The album was named Morningrise, and was released in Europe on June 24, 1996. With only five songs, but lasting 66 minutes, it features Opeth's longest song, the twenty-minute "Black Rose Immortal". Opeth toured the UK in support of Morningrise, followed by a 26-date Scandinavian tour with Cradle of Filth. While on tour, Opeth attracted the attention of Century Media Records, who signed the band and released the first two albums in the United States in 1997. In 1997, after the tour, Akerfeldt and Lindgren dismissed De Farfalla for personal reasons, without the consent of Nordin. When Akerfeldt informed Nordin, who was on a vacation in Brazil, Nordin left the band and remained in Brazil for personal reasons. Former Eternal members, drummer Martin Lopez (formerly of Amon Amarth) and bassist Martin Mendez, responded to an ad at a music shop placed by Akerfeldt. Lopez and Mendez were fans of the band and took the ads down themselves so no other musicians could apply for the job. Akerfeldt and Lindgren did not want the Martins to join at first, due to them already knowing each other; they felt that they wanted two strangers so that there wouldn't be two camps in the band, but eventually hired both. Lopez made his debut with Opeth playing on a cover version of Iron Maiden's "Remember Tomorrow", which was included on the album A Call to Irons: A Tribute to Iron Maiden. With a larger recording budget from Century Media, Opeth began work on its third album, with noted Swedish producer Fredrik Nordstrom, at Studio Fredman in August 1997. Although Opeth had Mendez, due to time constraints Akerfeldt played bass on the album. My Arms, Your Hearse was released to critical acclaim on August 18, 1998. CANNOTANSWER
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CANNOTANSWER
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Opeth is a Swedish progressive metal band from Stockholm, formed in 1989 by lead vocalist David Isberg. The group has been through several personnel changes, including the replacement of every single original member; notably Isberg in 1992. Opeth has consistently incorporated progressive, folk, blues, classical, and jazz influences into its usually lengthy compositions, as well as strong influences from death metal, especially in their early works. Many songs include acoustic guitar passages and strong dynamic shifts, as well as death growls. Opeth is also well known for their incorporation of Mellotrons in their work. The band rarely made live appearances supporting their first four albums, but since conducting their first world tour after the 2001 release of Blackwater Park, they have led several major world tours.
Opeth has released 13 studio albums, four live DVDs, four live albums (three that are in conjunction with DVDs), and two boxsets. The band released its debut album Orchid in 1995. Although their eighth studio album, Ghost Reveries, was quite popular in the United States, Opeth did not experience major American commercial success until the 2008 release of their ninth studio album, Watershed, which peaked at No. 23 on the Billboard 200, and topped the Finnish albums chart in its first week of release. As of November 2009, the band has sold over 1.5 million copies of their albums and DVDs worldwide, including 300,000 collective SoundScans of their albums Blackwater Park, Damnation, and Deliverance in the United States.
History
Formation (1989–1993)
Opeth was formed as a death metal band in 1989 in Stockholm, Sweden, by lead vocalist David Isberg. The band name was derived from the word "Opet", taken from the Wilbur Smith novel The Sunbird. In this novel, Opet is the name of a fictional Phoenician city in South Africa translated as "City of the Moon".
In 1990, Isberg asked former Eruption band member Mikael Åkerfeldt to join Opeth as a bassist, replacing Martin Persson. When Åkerfeldt showed up to practice on the day after Isberg invited him, it became clear that Isberg had not told the band members, including the band's current bassist, that Åkerfeldt would be joining the band. An ensuing argument led to all members but Isberg and Åkerfeldt leaving to form a new project.
Isberg and Åkerfeldt recruited drummer Anders Nordin, bassist Nick Döring, and guitarist Andreas Dimeo. Unsatisfied with Opeth's slow progress, Döring and Dimeo left the band after their first performance, and were replaced by guitarist Kim Pettersson and bassist Johan De Farfalla. After the next show, De Farfalla left Opeth to spend time with his girlfriend in Germany, and was initially replaced by Mattias Ander, before Åkerfeldt's friend Peter Lindgren took on the role of bassist. Rhythm guitarist Kim Pettersson left following the band's next performance, and Lindgren switched to guitar, with the role of bassist falling to Stefan Guteklint. The following year, David Isberg left the band citing "creative differences".
Following Isberg's departure, Åkerfeldt took over vocal duties and he, Lindgren, and Nordin spent the next year writing and rehearsing new material. The group began to rely less on the blast beats and aggression typical of death metal, and incorporated acoustic guitars and guitar harmonies into their music; developing the core sound of Opeth. Bassist Guteklint was dismissed by the band after they signed their first record deal with Candlelight Records in 1994. Opeth initially employed former member De Farfalla as a session bassist for their demo recordings, and he went on to join on a full-time basis following the release of Opeth's debut album, "Orchid", in 1995.
Orchid, Morningrise, and My Arms, Your Hearse (1994–1998)
Opeth recorded its debut album, Orchid, with producer Dan Swanö in April 1994. Because of distribution problems with the newly formed Candlelight Records, the album was not released until 15 May 1995, and only in Europe. Orchid tested the boundaries of traditional death metal, featuring acoustic guitars, piano, and clean vocals.
After a few live shows in the United Kingdom, Opeth returned to the studio in March 1996 to begin work on a second album, again produced by Dan Swanö. The album, titled Morningrise, was released in Europe on 24 June 1996. With only five songs, but lasting 66 minutes, it features Opeth's longest song, the 20-minute "Black Rose Immortal". Opeth toured the UK in support of Morningrise, followed by a 26-date Scandinavian tour with Cradle of Filth. While on tour, Opeth attracted the attention of Century Media Records, who signed the band and released the first two albums in the United States in 1997.
In 1997, after the tour, Åkerfeldt and Lindgren dismissed De Farfalla for personal reasons, without the consent of Nordin. When Åkerfeldt informed Nordin, who was on a vacation in Brazil, Nordin left the band and remained in Brazil for personal reasons. Former Eternal members, drummer Martín López (formerly of Amon Amarth) and bassist Martín Méndez, responded to an ad at a music shop placed by Åkerfeldt. López and Méndez were fans of the band and took the ads down themselves so no other musicians could apply for the job. Åkerfeldt and Lindgren did not want the Martíns to join at first, due to them already knowing each other; they felt that they wanted two strangers so that there wouldn't be two camps in the band, but eventually hired both. López made his debut with Opeth playing on a cover version of Iron Maiden's "Remember Tomorrow", which was included on the album A Call to Irons: A Tribute to Iron Maiden.
With a larger recording budget from Century Media, Opeth began work on its third album, with noted Swedish producer Fredrik Nordström, at Studio Fredman in August 1997. Although Opeth had Méndez, due to time constraints Åkerfeldt played bass on the album. My Arms, Your Hearse was released to critical acclaim on 18 August 1998.
Still Life and Blackwater Park (1999–2001)
In 1999, the ownership of Candlelight Records changed hands, with owner and friend of the band Lee Barrett leaving the company. Opeth signed with UK label Peaceville Records in Europe, which was distributed by Music for Nations. Opeth reserved time at Studio Fredman to begin work on its next album, but recording was postponed while the studio was relocated. Due to time constraints, the band was able to rehearse only twice before entering the studio. Delays with the album's artwork pushed the release back an additional month and Still Life was released on 18 October 1999. Due to problems with the band's new distribution network, the album was not released in the United States until February 2001. Still Life was the first album recorded with Méndez, and also the first Opeth album to bear any kind of caption on the front cover upon its initial release, including the band's logo. Allmusic called Still Life a "formidable splicing of harsh, often jagged guitar riffs with graceful melodies." As explained by Åkerfeldt, Still Life is a concept album: "The main character is kind of banished from his hometown because he hasn't got the same faith as the rest of the inhabitants there. The album pretty much starts off when he is returning after several years to hook up with his old 'babe.' The big bosses of the town know that he's back... A lot of bad things start happening."
Following a few live dates in Europe, Opeth returned to Studio Fredman to begin work on its next album, with Porcupine Tree's Steven Wilson producing. The band sought to recreate the recording experience of Still Life, and again entered the studio with minimal rehearsals, and no lyrics written. "This time it was tough," Åkerfeldt said, "I feel pleasantly blown away by the immense result, though. It was indeed worth the effort." Wilson also pushed the band to expand its sound, incorporating new sounds and production techniques. "Steve guided us into the realms of 'strange' noises for guitars and voice", Åkerfeldt said.
Opeth released its fifth studio album, Blackwater Park, on 21 February 2001. AllMusic has stated that the album "keeps with Opeth's tradition by transcending the limits of death/black metal and repeatedly shattering the foundations of conventional songwriting". In support of Blackwater Park, Opeth embarked on its first world tour, headlined Europe for the first time, and made an appearance at the 2001 Wacken Open Air festival in Germany, playing to a crowd of 60,000.
Deliverance and Damnation (2002–2004)
Opeth returned to Sweden after touring in support of Blackwater Park, and began writing for the next album. At first, Åkerfeldt had trouble putting together new material: "I wanted to write something heavier than we'd ever done, still I had all these great mellow parts and arrangements which I didn't want to go to waste." Jonas Renkse of Katatonia, a long-time friend of Åkerfeldt, suggested writing music for two separate albums—one heavy and one soft.
Excited at the prospect, Åkerfeldt agreed without consulting his bandmates or record label. While his bandmates liked the idea of recording two separate albums, Åkerfeldt had to convince the label: "I had to lie somewhat ... saying that we could do this recording very soon, it won't cost more than a regular single album." With most of the material written, the band rehearsed just once before entering Nacksving Studios in 2002, and again with producer Steven Wilson in Studio Fredman. Under pressure to complete both albums simultaneously, Åkerfeldt said the recording process was "the toughest test of our history." After recording basic tracks, the band moved production to England to first mix the heavy album, Deliverance, with Andy Sneap at Backstage Studios. "Deliverance was so poorly recorded, without any organisation whatsoever," Åkerfeldt claimed, that Sneap "is credited as a 'saviour' in the sleeve, as he surely saved much of the recording."
Deliverance was released on 4 November 2002, and debuted at number 19 on the US Top Independent Albums chart, marking the band's first US chart appearance. AllMusic stated, "Deliverance is altogether more subtle than any of its predecessors, approaching listeners with haunting nuances and masterful dynamics rather than overwhelming them with sheer mass and complexity."
Opeth performed a one-off concert in Stockholm, then returned to the UK to finish recording vocals for the second of the two albums, Damnation, at Steven Wilson's No Man's Land Studios. Although Åkerfeldt believed the band could not finish both albums, Opeth completed Deliverance and Damnation in just seven weeks of studio time, which was the same amount spent on Blackwater Park alone. Damnation was released on 14 April 2003, and garnered the band its first appearance on the US Billboard 200 at number 192. The album also won the 2003 Swedish Grammy Award for Best Hard Rock Performance. On 1 January 2016, Opeth re-released both Deliverance and Damnation in one package, containing CD and DVD versions, along with new mixing.
The band embarked on its biggest tour yet, playing nearly 200 shows in 2003 and 2004. Opeth performed three special shows in Europe with two song lists each—one acoustic set and one heavy set. The band recorded its first DVD, Lamentations (Live at Shepherd's Bush Empire 2003), at Shepherd's Bush Empire in London, England. The DVD features a two-hour performance, including the entire Damnation album, several songs from Deliverance and Blackwater Park, and a one-hour documentary about the recording of Deliverance and Damnation. Lamentations was certified Gold in Canada.
Opeth was scheduled to perform in Jordan without a crew due to the fear of terrorist attacks in the Middle East. Opeth's tour manager distributed 6,000 tickets for the concert, but before the band left for Jordan, drummer Lopez called Åkerfeldt stating he was having an anxiety attack and could not perform, forcing the band to cancel the show. In early 2004, Lopez was sent home from Canada after more anxiety attacks on tour. Opeth decided against cancelling the remainder of the tour, with Lopez's drum technician filling in for two concerts. Lopez promised that he would return to the tour as soon as he could, but two shows later Opeth asked Strapping Young Lad drummer Gene Hoglan to fill in. Lopez returned to Opeth for the Seattle show on the final leg of the Deliverance and Damnation tour. Per Wiberg also joined the band on tour to perform keyboards, after more than a year on tour.
Ghost Reveries (2005–2007)
Opeth returned home in 2004 to start writing new material for its eighth album, and by the end of the year, they had finished writing it. Opeth's European label, Music for Nations, closed its doors in 2005, and after negotiations with various labels, the band signed with Roadrunner Records. Åkerfeldt said the primary reason for signing with Roadrunner was the label's wide distribution, ensuring the album would be available at larger-chain retailers. When news leaked that the band was signed to Roadrunner, who predominantly worked with trend-oriented rock and metal, some fans accused the band of selling out. "To be honest," Åkerfeldt said, "that's such an insult after 15 years as a band and 8 records. I can't believe we haven't earned each and every Opeth fan's credibility after all these years. I mean, our songs are 10 minutes long!" The band rehearsed for three weeks before entering the studio, the first time the band rehearsed since the 1998 album, My Arms, Your Hearse. During rehearsal, keyboardist Wiberg joined Opeth as a full-time member. Opeth recorded at Fascination Street Studios in Örebro, Sweden, from 18 March to 1 June 2005, and released the resulting Ghost Reveries on 30 August 2005, to critical acclaim and commercial success. The album debuted at number 64 in the US, and number nine in Sweden, higher than any previous Opeth release. Keith Bergman of Blabbermouth.net gave the album ten out of ten, one of only 21 albums to achieve a perfect rating from the site. Rod Smith of Decibel magazine called Ghost Reveries "achingly beautiful, sometimes unabashedly brutal, often a combination of both".
On 12 May 2006, Martin Lopez announced that he had officially parted ways with Opeth due to health problems, and was replaced by Martin Axenrot. Opeth toured on the main stage of Gigantour in 2006, alongside Megadeth. Ghost Reveries was re-released on 31 October 2006, with a bonus cover song (Deep Purple's "Soldier of Fortune"), a DVD featuring a 5.1 surround sound mix of the album and a documentary on the making of the record. A recording of Opeth's live performance at the Camden Roundhouse, in London, on 9 November 2006, was released as the double live album The Roundhouse Tapes, which topped the Finnish DVD chart.
On 17 May 2007, Peter Lindgren announced he would be leaving Opeth after 16 years. "The decision has been the toughest I've ever made but it is the right one to make at this point in my life," Lindgren said. "I feel that I simply have lost some of the enthusiasm and inspiration needed to participate in a band that has grown from a few guys playing the music we love to a worldwide industry." Ex-Arch Enemy guitarist Fredrik Åkesson replaced Lindgren, as Åkerfeldt explained "Fredrik was the only name that popped up thinking about a replacement for Peter. In my opinion he's one of the top three guitar players out of Sweden. We all get along great as we've known each other for maybe four years and he already has the experience to take on the circus-like lifestyle we lead as members of Opeth."
Watershed and In Live Concert at the Royal Albert Hall (2008–2010)
Opeth entered Fascination Street Studios in November 2007 to record their ninth studio album, with Åkerfeldt producing. By January 2008, Opeth had recorded 13 songs, including three cover songs. The finished album, Watershed, features seven tracks, with cover songs used as bonus tracks on different versions of the album. Watershed was released on 3 June 2008. Åkerfeldt described the songs on the album as "a bit more energetic". Opeth toured in support of Watershed, including headlining the UK Defenders of the Faith tour with Arch Enemy, an appearance at Wacken Open Air, and the Progressive Nation tour with headliner Dream Theater. Watershed was Opeth's highest-charting album to date, debuting at number 23 on the US Billboard 200, on the Australian ARIA album charts at number seven and at number one on Finland's official album chart. Opeth went on a worldwide tour in support of Watershed. From September to October, the band toured North America backed by High on Fire, Baroness, and Nachtmystium. They returned to tour Europe for the rest of the year with Cynic and The Ocean.
In 2010, Opeth wrote and recorded the new track, "The Throat of Winter", which appeared on the digital EP soundtrack of the video game, God of War III. Åkerfeldt described the song as "odd" and "not very metal." To celebrate their 20th anniversary, Opeth performed a six-show, worldwide tour called Evolution XX: An Opeth Anthology, from 30 March through 9 April 2010. Blackwater Park was performed in its entirety, along with several songs never before performed. The concert of 5 April 2010, at the Royal Albert Hall in London, England was filmed for a DVD and live album package titled In Live Concert at the Royal Albert Hall. The set was released on 21 September 2010, in 2-DVD and 2-DVD/3-CD configurations. For the DVD the concert was split into two sets. The first set consists of the entire Blackwater Park album, while the second set contains one song from every album excluding Blackwater Park, in chronological order representing the twenty years of "evolution" in their music. Åkerfeldt stated, "I can't believe it, but, fuck, we're celebrating 20 years. I've been in this band ever since I was 16. It's insane." A special edition of Blackwater Park was released in March 2010 to coincide with the tour.
Heritage (2011–2013)
In September 2010, Mikael Åkerfeldt stated that he was writing for a new Opeth album. The band announced on their website that they would start recording their tenth album on 31 January 2011, at the Atlantis/Metronome studios in Stockholm, once again with Jens Bogren (engineering) and Steven Wilson from Porcupine Tree as co-producer.
Shortly after mixing was complete on the new album in April 2011, Opeth announced that Per Wiberg was relieved of his duties in the band.
In the press statement, Mikael Åkerfeldt explained the decision, saying, "Mendez, Axe and Fredrik and I came to the decision that we should find a replacement for Per right after the recordings of the new album, and this came as no surprise to Per. He had, in turn, been thinking about leaving, so you could say it was a mutual decision. There's no bad blood, just a relationship that came to an end, and that's that."
Opeth's tenth album, Heritage, was released on 14 September 2011, to generally favorable reviews. The album sold 19,000 copies in the United States in its first week of release and debuted at number 19 on the Billboard 200 chart. Heritage debuted at number four in the band's native country of Sweden.
Heritage became the second Opeth album to not feature any death growls and had a much more progressive style than previous albums from the band, something that Åkerfeldt had been wanting to do for some time.
The first two songs Åkerfeldt wrote for Heritage were in the style of Watershed. After hearing the songs for the first time, Martín Méndez told Åkerfeldt that he would be disappointed if the album continued in that direction. Relieved that Méndez was not interested in doing another conventional Opeth album, Åkerfeldt scrapped the two songs and started the writing process over in a different style. In the press release for Heritage, Mikael Åkerfeldt revealed that he felt as though he had been building to write the album since he was 19 years old. In a review for Allmusic, Thom Jurek called Heritage the band's most adventurous album, describing the songs as "drenched in instrumental interludes, knotty key and chord changes, shifting time signatures, clean vocals, and a keyboard-heavy instrumentation that includes Mellotrons, Rhodes pianos, and Hammond organs".
Opeth supported Heritage with a tour that would last for over 200 tour dates. The tour was the band's first with new keyboardist, Joakim Svalberg, who played on the opening track of the album. During the tour, Opeth played with bands such as Katatonia, Pain of Salvation, Mastodon, Ghost and Anathema all over the world in countries such as the United States, Europe, Turkey, India, Japan, Greece, Israel, Latin America and Sweden. The tour concluded with "Melloboat 2013".
Pale Communion (2014–2015)
On 26 August 2014, Opeth released its eleventh studio album, titled Pale Communion. Åkerfeldt began working on new material as far back as August 2012. In January 2014 he stated, "We've been looking at [tracking the next album at] Rockfield Studios in Wales where Queen recorded "Bohemian Rhapsody", but we haven't made a decision yet, but it will be an expensive album. There's a lot going on, lots of string arrangements that we haven't had in the past." Despite fearing that the band's new musical direction would split Opeth's fanbase, when asked if it will it be heavier or softer than Heritage, Åkerfeldt said, "Maybe a little bit heavier, not death metal heavy, but hard rock/heavy metal heavy. There's also lots of progressive elements and acoustic guitars, but also more sinister-sounding riffs." Åkerfeldt also produced the new album which will include string instrumentation, something that he became interested in doing when working on Storm Corrosion. The band members in Opeth felt rejuvenated after creating Heritage which resulted in closer relationships between them.
The Guardian reviewed Pale Communion positively, calling it "strange, intricate prog-metal genius" somewhat flawed by Åkerfeldt's indulgent vocal styling. The album saw Opeth's highest chart positions in the history of the band with Pale Communion debuting at number 19 in the US, number 3 in Sweden, and number 14 in the United Kingdom. It sold 13,000 copies in its first week of release in the US.
Pale Communion was supported with more touring from Opeth. In 2015, Opeth played several concerts to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the band. At these special shows, the band was doing two sets. The first set is 2005's Ghost Reveries as a ten-year anniversary celebration of the album. The second set spanned the rest of the band's career, celebrating their 25th anniversary. Åkerfeldt expressed excitement for the concerts.
Sorceress, In Cauda Venenum and departure of Axenrot (2016–present)
On 15 June 2016, Nuclear Blast Entertainment announced the signing of Opeth. Three days later, on 18 June, Opeth released a 30-second teaser for their new album, Sorceress. A month later, on 18 July, the band confirmed the album would be released on 30 September, in addition to revealing the artwork and track list. Mikael Åkerfeldt described it as, "A fine little record. My favorite in our discography right now. Of course. That's how it should be, right? It's both fresh and old, both progressive and rehashed. Heavy and calm. Just the way we like it." The album was the first project under Moderbolaget Records, a joint venture between Opeth and Nuclear Blast. Moderbolaget means "the parent company" in Swedish.
On 25 July 2016, in the build up towards the album release, the band posted the first Sorceress: Studio Report on their YouTube channel. In the behind-the-scenes studio tour, it is confirmed that the band had returned to Rockfield Studios where they previously recorded Pale Communion. At the end of the video, there is a 20-second excerpt of a track believed to be from the album featuring heavily down-tuned guitars. On 1 August 2016, the band released a lyric video for the title-track 'Sorceress' on their YouTube channel. On 4 September 2016, Opeth released a lyric video for the second single titled 'Will O the Wisp,' again through their YouTube channel and website. Opeth's video for "Era" was nominated for "Video of the Year" at the 2017 Progressive Music Awards, where they ultimately won "International Band of the Year".
On 2 October 2017, Åkerfeldt said he has been thinking about doing something "twisted" and different for the next studio album, which could be released by mid-to-late 2019. On 20 November 2017, guitarist Fredrik Åkesson stated that the band will not have any gigs in the upcoming months, until the 2018 summer festivals. During this break the band will focus on writing songs for the new album. On 11 July 2018, during an interview with FaceCulture, Åkesson said "I've recorded a lot of solos so far. And Mikael Åkerfeldt has almost already written 12 songs for the new album, so we have more material than enough for an album". On 22 May 2019, the band announced their thirteenth studio album, In Cauda Venenum, due for release on 27 September 2019. On 12 July 2019, Opeth released the first single from In Cauda Venenum entitled "Heart in Hand" in both English and Swedish.
On 16 November 2021, it was announced that longtime drummer Martin Axenrot had left the band due to conflict of interests and will be replaced by Sami Karppinen for the North American tour.
Musical style and influences
As Opeth's primary songwriter and lyricist, vocalist/guitarist Mikael Åkerfeldt heads the direction of Opeth's sound. He was influenced at a young age by the 1970s progressive rock bands King Crimson, Yes, Genesis, Camel, P.F.M., Hawkwind, and Gracious, and by heavy metal bands such as Iron Maiden, Slayer, Death, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Celtic Frost, King Diamond, Morbid Angel, Voivod, and, most importantly, Judas Priest. Åkerfeldt considers Judas Priest's Sad Wings of Destiny (1976) the best metal album of all time, and notes that there was a time when he listened only to Judas Priest. While warming up before Opeth concerts, Åkerfeldt frequently sings "Here Come the Tears" from Judas Priest's third album Sin After Sin (1977). Åkerfeldt later discovered progressive rock and folk music, both of which had a profound impact on the sound of the band.
Opeth's distinct sound mixes death metal with progressive rock. Steve Huey of AllMusic refers to Opeth's "epic, progressive death metal style". Ryan Ogle of Blabbermouth described Opeth's sound as incorporating "the likes of folk, funk, blues, '70s rock, goth and a laundry list of other sonic oddities into their trademark progressive death style." In his review of Opeth's 2001 album Blackwater Park, AllMusic's Eduardo Rivadavia wrote, "Tracks start and finish in seemingly arbitrary fashion, usually traversing ample musical terrain, including acoustic guitar and solo piano passages, ambient soundscapes, stoner rock grooves, and Eastern-tinged melodies—any of which are subject to savage punctuations of death metal fury at any given moment." Åkerfeldt commented on the diversity of Opeth's music:
I don't see the point of playing in a band and going just one way when you can do everything. It would be impossible for us to play just death metal; that is our roots, but we are now a mishmash of everything, and not purists to any form of music. It's impossible for us to do that, and quite frankly I would think of it as boring to be in a band that plays just metal music. We're not afraid to experiment, or to be caught with our pants down, so to speak. That's what keeps us going.
More recently, Opeth have abandoned their death metal sound resulting in a mellower progressive rock sound. When talking about Heritage, guitarist Fredrik Åkesson stated:
In the beginning it took me a little while to get used to the new idea of the sound, not having any screaming vocals and stuff like that. But I think the album was necessary for us to do. Maybe the band wouldn't have continued if we hadn't done Heritage. I think the old Opeth fans understand this album. There's always going to be some haters, but you can't be loved by everyone. Opeth has always been about not repeating ourself. A lot of people don't think Heritage is metal but I think it's metal to go somewhere people don't expect. It doesn't mean we're not embracing the past sound of Opeth.
Vocally, Åkerfeldt shifts between traditional death metal vocals for heavy sections, and clean, sometimes whispered or soft-spoken vocals over mellower passages. While his death growls were dominant on early releases, later efforts incorporate more clean vocals, with Damnation, Heritage, Pale Communion, Sorceress and In Cauda Venenum featuring only clean singing. Rivadavia noted that "Åkerfeldt's vocals run the gamut from bowel-churning grunts to melodies of chilling beauty—depending on each movement section's mood."
Legacy
A number of artists and bands have cited Opeth as an influence, among which are Mayan (a project of Mark Jansen from Epica), Luc Lemay of Gorguts, Soen (a band of former Opeth drummer Martin Lopez), Tor Oddmund Suhrke of Leprous, Disillusion, Caligula's Horse, Klimt 1918, Daniel Droste of Ahab, Becoming the Archetype, Nucleus Torn, Alex Vynogradoff of Kauan, Wastefall, Eric Guenther of The Contortionist, Thomas MacLean and To-Mera, The Man-Eating Tree, Nahemah, Vladimir Agafonkin of Obiymy Doschu, Schizoid Lloyd, Native Construct, Maxime Côté of Catuvolcus, Bilocate, and Jinjer.
In addition, other artists have been quoted expressing admiration for their work including Seven Lions, John Petrucci, Mike Portnoy, Ihsahn, Simone Simons of Epica, Oliver Palotai of Kamelot, Jim Matheos of Fates Warning, and Haken.
Members
Current members
Mikael Åkerfeldt – guitars (1990–present), lead vocals (1992–present), keyboards (1990), bass (1990, 1992, 1997)
Martín Méndez – bass (1997–present)
Fredrik Åkesson – guitars, backing vocals (2007–present)
Joakim Svalberg – keyboards, synthesizers, piano, mellotron, backing vocals (2011–present)
Current touring members
Sami Karppinen – drums (2021–present)
Discography
Orchid (1995)
Morningrise (1996)
My Arms, Your Hearse (1998)
Still Life (1999)
Blackwater Park (2001)
Deliverance (2002)
Damnation (2003)
Ghost Reveries (2005)
Watershed (2008)
Heritage (2011)
Pale Communion (2014)
Sorceress (2016)
In Cauda Venenum (2019)
References
Sources
External links
MNRK Music Group artists
Musical groups established in 1990
Musical groups from Stockholm
Musical quartets
Musical quintets
Roadrunner Records artists
Nuclear Blast artists
Swedish death metal musical groups
Swedish progressive metal musical groups
Swedish progressive rock groups
Swedish heavy metal musical groups
| false |
[
"Black orchid or Black Orchid may refer to:\n\nBooks and comics\n Black Orchid (comics), a DC Comics miniseries created by Neil Gaiman \n Black Orchid (character), a character from DC Comics\n Black Orchids, a Nero Wolfe double mystery by Rex Stout\n \"Black Orchids\" (novella), the first story in the above\n Black Orchid (Killer Instinct), a character in the Killer Instinct video game series\n\nFilm and television\n Black Orchid (film), a 1953 film with Ronald Howard\n The Black Orchid (film), a 1958 film with Sophia Loren and Anthony Quinn\n Black Orchid (Doctor Who), a Doctor Who serial\n Black Orchids (film), a 1917 American silent drama film\n\nMusic\n The Black Orchid (nightclub), a Chicago night club from 1949 to 1959\n Black Orchid (band), an Australian gothic metal band\n Black Orchid (album), a 1962 jazz album by the Three Sounds\n Black Orchid, a 1987 Hawaiian album by Peter Moon Band\n \"Black Orchid\", a song by Stevie Wonder from Stevie Wonder's Journey Through \"The Secret Life of Plants\"\n \"Black Orchid\", a jazz tune written by Neal Hefti\n \"Black Orchid\", a song by Avantasia from The Mystery of Time\n “Black Orchid”, a song by Blue October from The Answers\n\nPlants\n Brasiliorchis schunkeana, formerly known as Maxillaria schunkeana, a species of orchid native to Brazil\n Any member of several species of genus Bulbophyllum, commonly called \"Black orchid\"\n Calanthe triplicata or Australian Black orchid\n Coelogyne mayeriana, a species of orchid native to Southeast Asia\n Coelogyne pandurata (Black orchid), a species of orchid native to Borneo\n Coelogyne ovalis, a species of orchid native to Indochina\n Coelogyne usitana, a species of orchid native to the Philippines\n Coelogyne xyrekes, a species of orchid native to Southeast Asia\n Cymbidiella falcigera and Cymbidiella humblotii (Black orchid), species of orchid native to Madagascar and Île aux Nattes\n Cymbidium canaliculatum (Queensland black orchid), a species of orchid native to northern and eastern Australia\n Dendrobium johannis var nigrescens, a species of orchid from Australia\n Disa cornuta, a species of orchid from South Africa\n Dracula benedictii, a species of orchid from Colombia\n Dracula minax, a species of orchid from Colombia\n Dracula ubangina, a species of orchid from Ecuador\n Dracula vampira, a species of orchid found on the slopes of Mount Pichincha in Ecuador\n Fredclarkeara (Truly black orchid), a hybrid genus consisting of the genera Catasetum, Clowesia, and Mormodes\n Grammatophyllum wallisii, a species of orchid from the Philippines\n Liparis nervosa (Black orchid), a species of orchid native to Japan and China\n Masdevallia rolfeana (Black orchid), a species of orchid native to Central America\n Maxillaria variabilis, a species of orchid native to Central America\n Monnierara (Black orchid), a hybrid genus consisting of the genera Catasetum, Cycnoches, and Mormodes\n Ophrys insectifera, a species of orchid from Europe\n Paphiopedilum\n Phalaenopsis mannii, a species of orchid native to Nepal and China\n Prosthechea cochleata (Black orchid), the national flower of Belize that is also known as the Clamshell (or Cockleshell) orchid\n Stanhopea tigrina var. nigroviolacea or Stanhopea nigroviolacea, a species of orchid from Mexico\n Stelis immersa (Black orchid), a species of orchid ranging from Mexico to Venezuela\n Trichoglottis atropurpurea (Black orchid), a species of orchid native to the Philippines\n\nSee also\n Bouquet of Black Orchids, a compilation album by The Tear Garden\nBlack Orchid (fragrance), first perfume released by Tom Ford Beauty",
"Hypnotic is the fourth and final studio album by Wild Orchid. It marks the first and only album released by Wild Orchid since Stacy Ferguson, a former member of the band, left and became a member of the hip hop group The Black Eyed Peas. There are no singles released from this album.\n\nAlbum information\nAfter the departure of Ferguson, Ridel and Sands recorded \"Hypnotic\" under the label Yellow Brick Records throughout 2002. The album was released directly on the band's website on January 15, 2003. The duo hoped that they could get a deal with a major label and officially release the album, but it never happened. The album was only available online, and only 5,000 copies were printed and sold.\n\nThey intended for \"All The Way\" to be the first single, followed by Hypnotic however none of the songs were released to radio. Wild Orchid performed a couple of concerts in support of the album, but never got major publicity for the album.\n\nTrack listing\nAll songs co-written by Stefanie Ridel or Renee Sands unless noted.\n Kiss the Sky - 3:52\n All the Way (Stacy Ferguson, Ridel, Sands) - 2:54\n Hypnotic - 3:29\n It's On - 2:42\n On the Floor - 3:12\n My Lover - 3:17\n Sugarfly - 2:59\n Simon Sez (Ferguson, Ridel, Sands) - 3:47\n Contagious (Ferguson, Ridel, Sands) - 3:27\n All Night Long (Ferguson, Ridel, Sands) - 3:29\n Love in All Control - 2:59\n Let the Record Spin (Ferguson, Ridel, Sands) - 3:14\n Hypnotic (Remix) - 4:00\n\nReferences\n\n2003 albums\nRCA Records albums\nWild Orchid (group) albums\nUnreleased albums"
] |
[
"Opeth",
"Orchid, Morningrise, and My Arms, Your Hearse (1994-1998)",
"Which album was released in 1994",
"Orchid,",
"Were there any singles released from Orchid?",
"I don't know."
] |
C_ecf88860a0724b1298539ec6634811b9_0
|
What was the next album released
| 3 |
What was the next album Opeth released after Orchid?
|
Opeth
|
Opeth recorded its debut album, Orchid, with producer Dan Swano in April 1994. Because of distribution problems with the newly formed Candlelight Records, the album was not released until May 15, 1995, and only in Europe. Orchid tested the boundaries of traditional death metal, featuring acoustic guitars, piano, and clean vocals. After a few live shows in the United Kingdom, Opeth returned to the studio in March 1996 to begin work on a second album, again produced by Dan Swano. The album was named Morningrise, and was released in Europe on June 24, 1996. With only five songs, but lasting 66 minutes, it features Opeth's longest song, the twenty-minute "Black Rose Immortal". Opeth toured the UK in support of Morningrise, followed by a 26-date Scandinavian tour with Cradle of Filth. While on tour, Opeth attracted the attention of Century Media Records, who signed the band and released the first two albums in the United States in 1997. In 1997, after the tour, Akerfeldt and Lindgren dismissed De Farfalla for personal reasons, without the consent of Nordin. When Akerfeldt informed Nordin, who was on a vacation in Brazil, Nordin left the band and remained in Brazil for personal reasons. Former Eternal members, drummer Martin Lopez (formerly of Amon Amarth) and bassist Martin Mendez, responded to an ad at a music shop placed by Akerfeldt. Lopez and Mendez were fans of the band and took the ads down themselves so no other musicians could apply for the job. Akerfeldt and Lindgren did not want the Martins to join at first, due to them already knowing each other; they felt that they wanted two strangers so that there wouldn't be two camps in the band, but eventually hired both. Lopez made his debut with Opeth playing on a cover version of Iron Maiden's "Remember Tomorrow", which was included on the album A Call to Irons: A Tribute to Iron Maiden. With a larger recording budget from Century Media, Opeth began work on its third album, with noted Swedish producer Fredrik Nordstrom, at Studio Fredman in August 1997. Although Opeth had Mendez, due to time constraints Akerfeldt played bass on the album. My Arms, Your Hearse was released to critical acclaim on August 18, 1998. CANNOTANSWER
|
Morningrise,
|
Opeth is a Swedish progressive metal band from Stockholm, formed in 1989 by lead vocalist David Isberg. The group has been through several personnel changes, including the replacement of every single original member; notably Isberg in 1992. Opeth has consistently incorporated progressive, folk, blues, classical, and jazz influences into its usually lengthy compositions, as well as strong influences from death metal, especially in their early works. Many songs include acoustic guitar passages and strong dynamic shifts, as well as death growls. Opeth is also well known for their incorporation of Mellotrons in their work. The band rarely made live appearances supporting their first four albums, but since conducting their first world tour after the 2001 release of Blackwater Park, they have led several major world tours.
Opeth has released 13 studio albums, four live DVDs, four live albums (three that are in conjunction with DVDs), and two boxsets. The band released its debut album Orchid in 1995. Although their eighth studio album, Ghost Reveries, was quite popular in the United States, Opeth did not experience major American commercial success until the 2008 release of their ninth studio album, Watershed, which peaked at No. 23 on the Billboard 200, and topped the Finnish albums chart in its first week of release. As of November 2009, the band has sold over 1.5 million copies of their albums and DVDs worldwide, including 300,000 collective SoundScans of their albums Blackwater Park, Damnation, and Deliverance in the United States.
History
Formation (1989–1993)
Opeth was formed as a death metal band in 1989 in Stockholm, Sweden, by lead vocalist David Isberg. The band name was derived from the word "Opet", taken from the Wilbur Smith novel The Sunbird. In this novel, Opet is the name of a fictional Phoenician city in South Africa translated as "City of the Moon".
In 1990, Isberg asked former Eruption band member Mikael Åkerfeldt to join Opeth as a bassist, replacing Martin Persson. When Åkerfeldt showed up to practice on the day after Isberg invited him, it became clear that Isberg had not told the band members, including the band's current bassist, that Åkerfeldt would be joining the band. An ensuing argument led to all members but Isberg and Åkerfeldt leaving to form a new project.
Isberg and Åkerfeldt recruited drummer Anders Nordin, bassist Nick Döring, and guitarist Andreas Dimeo. Unsatisfied with Opeth's slow progress, Döring and Dimeo left the band after their first performance, and were replaced by guitarist Kim Pettersson and bassist Johan De Farfalla. After the next show, De Farfalla left Opeth to spend time with his girlfriend in Germany, and was initially replaced by Mattias Ander, before Åkerfeldt's friend Peter Lindgren took on the role of bassist. Rhythm guitarist Kim Pettersson left following the band's next performance, and Lindgren switched to guitar, with the role of bassist falling to Stefan Guteklint. The following year, David Isberg left the band citing "creative differences".
Following Isberg's departure, Åkerfeldt took over vocal duties and he, Lindgren, and Nordin spent the next year writing and rehearsing new material. The group began to rely less on the blast beats and aggression typical of death metal, and incorporated acoustic guitars and guitar harmonies into their music; developing the core sound of Opeth. Bassist Guteklint was dismissed by the band after they signed their first record deal with Candlelight Records in 1994. Opeth initially employed former member De Farfalla as a session bassist for their demo recordings, and he went on to join on a full-time basis following the release of Opeth's debut album, "Orchid", in 1995.
Orchid, Morningrise, and My Arms, Your Hearse (1994–1998)
Opeth recorded its debut album, Orchid, with producer Dan Swanö in April 1994. Because of distribution problems with the newly formed Candlelight Records, the album was not released until 15 May 1995, and only in Europe. Orchid tested the boundaries of traditional death metal, featuring acoustic guitars, piano, and clean vocals.
After a few live shows in the United Kingdom, Opeth returned to the studio in March 1996 to begin work on a second album, again produced by Dan Swanö. The album, titled Morningrise, was released in Europe on 24 June 1996. With only five songs, but lasting 66 minutes, it features Opeth's longest song, the 20-minute "Black Rose Immortal". Opeth toured the UK in support of Morningrise, followed by a 26-date Scandinavian tour with Cradle of Filth. While on tour, Opeth attracted the attention of Century Media Records, who signed the band and released the first two albums in the United States in 1997.
In 1997, after the tour, Åkerfeldt and Lindgren dismissed De Farfalla for personal reasons, without the consent of Nordin. When Åkerfeldt informed Nordin, who was on a vacation in Brazil, Nordin left the band and remained in Brazil for personal reasons. Former Eternal members, drummer Martín López (formerly of Amon Amarth) and bassist Martín Méndez, responded to an ad at a music shop placed by Åkerfeldt. López and Méndez were fans of the band and took the ads down themselves so no other musicians could apply for the job. Åkerfeldt and Lindgren did not want the Martíns to join at first, due to them already knowing each other; they felt that they wanted two strangers so that there wouldn't be two camps in the band, but eventually hired both. López made his debut with Opeth playing on a cover version of Iron Maiden's "Remember Tomorrow", which was included on the album A Call to Irons: A Tribute to Iron Maiden.
With a larger recording budget from Century Media, Opeth began work on its third album, with noted Swedish producer Fredrik Nordström, at Studio Fredman in August 1997. Although Opeth had Méndez, due to time constraints Åkerfeldt played bass on the album. My Arms, Your Hearse was released to critical acclaim on 18 August 1998.
Still Life and Blackwater Park (1999–2001)
In 1999, the ownership of Candlelight Records changed hands, with owner and friend of the band Lee Barrett leaving the company. Opeth signed with UK label Peaceville Records in Europe, which was distributed by Music for Nations. Opeth reserved time at Studio Fredman to begin work on its next album, but recording was postponed while the studio was relocated. Due to time constraints, the band was able to rehearse only twice before entering the studio. Delays with the album's artwork pushed the release back an additional month and Still Life was released on 18 October 1999. Due to problems with the band's new distribution network, the album was not released in the United States until February 2001. Still Life was the first album recorded with Méndez, and also the first Opeth album to bear any kind of caption on the front cover upon its initial release, including the band's logo. Allmusic called Still Life a "formidable splicing of harsh, often jagged guitar riffs with graceful melodies." As explained by Åkerfeldt, Still Life is a concept album: "The main character is kind of banished from his hometown because he hasn't got the same faith as the rest of the inhabitants there. The album pretty much starts off when he is returning after several years to hook up with his old 'babe.' The big bosses of the town know that he's back... A lot of bad things start happening."
Following a few live dates in Europe, Opeth returned to Studio Fredman to begin work on its next album, with Porcupine Tree's Steven Wilson producing. The band sought to recreate the recording experience of Still Life, and again entered the studio with minimal rehearsals, and no lyrics written. "This time it was tough," Åkerfeldt said, "I feel pleasantly blown away by the immense result, though. It was indeed worth the effort." Wilson also pushed the band to expand its sound, incorporating new sounds and production techniques. "Steve guided us into the realms of 'strange' noises for guitars and voice", Åkerfeldt said.
Opeth released its fifth studio album, Blackwater Park, on 21 February 2001. AllMusic has stated that the album "keeps with Opeth's tradition by transcending the limits of death/black metal and repeatedly shattering the foundations of conventional songwriting". In support of Blackwater Park, Opeth embarked on its first world tour, headlined Europe for the first time, and made an appearance at the 2001 Wacken Open Air festival in Germany, playing to a crowd of 60,000.
Deliverance and Damnation (2002–2004)
Opeth returned to Sweden after touring in support of Blackwater Park, and began writing for the next album. At first, Åkerfeldt had trouble putting together new material: "I wanted to write something heavier than we'd ever done, still I had all these great mellow parts and arrangements which I didn't want to go to waste." Jonas Renkse of Katatonia, a long-time friend of Åkerfeldt, suggested writing music for two separate albums—one heavy and one soft.
Excited at the prospect, Åkerfeldt agreed without consulting his bandmates or record label. While his bandmates liked the idea of recording two separate albums, Åkerfeldt had to convince the label: "I had to lie somewhat ... saying that we could do this recording very soon, it won't cost more than a regular single album." With most of the material written, the band rehearsed just once before entering Nacksving Studios in 2002, and again with producer Steven Wilson in Studio Fredman. Under pressure to complete both albums simultaneously, Åkerfeldt said the recording process was "the toughest test of our history." After recording basic tracks, the band moved production to England to first mix the heavy album, Deliverance, with Andy Sneap at Backstage Studios. "Deliverance was so poorly recorded, without any organisation whatsoever," Åkerfeldt claimed, that Sneap "is credited as a 'saviour' in the sleeve, as he surely saved much of the recording."
Deliverance was released on 4 November 2002, and debuted at number 19 on the US Top Independent Albums chart, marking the band's first US chart appearance. AllMusic stated, "Deliverance is altogether more subtle than any of its predecessors, approaching listeners with haunting nuances and masterful dynamics rather than overwhelming them with sheer mass and complexity."
Opeth performed a one-off concert in Stockholm, then returned to the UK to finish recording vocals for the second of the two albums, Damnation, at Steven Wilson's No Man's Land Studios. Although Åkerfeldt believed the band could not finish both albums, Opeth completed Deliverance and Damnation in just seven weeks of studio time, which was the same amount spent on Blackwater Park alone. Damnation was released on 14 April 2003, and garnered the band its first appearance on the US Billboard 200 at number 192. The album also won the 2003 Swedish Grammy Award for Best Hard Rock Performance. On 1 January 2016, Opeth re-released both Deliverance and Damnation in one package, containing CD and DVD versions, along with new mixing.
The band embarked on its biggest tour yet, playing nearly 200 shows in 2003 and 2004. Opeth performed three special shows in Europe with two song lists each—one acoustic set and one heavy set. The band recorded its first DVD, Lamentations (Live at Shepherd's Bush Empire 2003), at Shepherd's Bush Empire in London, England. The DVD features a two-hour performance, including the entire Damnation album, several songs from Deliverance and Blackwater Park, and a one-hour documentary about the recording of Deliverance and Damnation. Lamentations was certified Gold in Canada.
Opeth was scheduled to perform in Jordan without a crew due to the fear of terrorist attacks in the Middle East. Opeth's tour manager distributed 6,000 tickets for the concert, but before the band left for Jordan, drummer Lopez called Åkerfeldt stating he was having an anxiety attack and could not perform, forcing the band to cancel the show. In early 2004, Lopez was sent home from Canada after more anxiety attacks on tour. Opeth decided against cancelling the remainder of the tour, with Lopez's drum technician filling in for two concerts. Lopez promised that he would return to the tour as soon as he could, but two shows later Opeth asked Strapping Young Lad drummer Gene Hoglan to fill in. Lopez returned to Opeth for the Seattle show on the final leg of the Deliverance and Damnation tour. Per Wiberg also joined the band on tour to perform keyboards, after more than a year on tour.
Ghost Reveries (2005–2007)
Opeth returned home in 2004 to start writing new material for its eighth album, and by the end of the year, they had finished writing it. Opeth's European label, Music for Nations, closed its doors in 2005, and after negotiations with various labels, the band signed with Roadrunner Records. Åkerfeldt said the primary reason for signing with Roadrunner was the label's wide distribution, ensuring the album would be available at larger-chain retailers. When news leaked that the band was signed to Roadrunner, who predominantly worked with trend-oriented rock and metal, some fans accused the band of selling out. "To be honest," Åkerfeldt said, "that's such an insult after 15 years as a band and 8 records. I can't believe we haven't earned each and every Opeth fan's credibility after all these years. I mean, our songs are 10 minutes long!" The band rehearsed for three weeks before entering the studio, the first time the band rehearsed since the 1998 album, My Arms, Your Hearse. During rehearsal, keyboardist Wiberg joined Opeth as a full-time member. Opeth recorded at Fascination Street Studios in Örebro, Sweden, from 18 March to 1 June 2005, and released the resulting Ghost Reveries on 30 August 2005, to critical acclaim and commercial success. The album debuted at number 64 in the US, and number nine in Sweden, higher than any previous Opeth release. Keith Bergman of Blabbermouth.net gave the album ten out of ten, one of only 21 albums to achieve a perfect rating from the site. Rod Smith of Decibel magazine called Ghost Reveries "achingly beautiful, sometimes unabashedly brutal, often a combination of both".
On 12 May 2006, Martin Lopez announced that he had officially parted ways with Opeth due to health problems, and was replaced by Martin Axenrot. Opeth toured on the main stage of Gigantour in 2006, alongside Megadeth. Ghost Reveries was re-released on 31 October 2006, with a bonus cover song (Deep Purple's "Soldier of Fortune"), a DVD featuring a 5.1 surround sound mix of the album and a documentary on the making of the record. A recording of Opeth's live performance at the Camden Roundhouse, in London, on 9 November 2006, was released as the double live album The Roundhouse Tapes, which topped the Finnish DVD chart.
On 17 May 2007, Peter Lindgren announced he would be leaving Opeth after 16 years. "The decision has been the toughest I've ever made but it is the right one to make at this point in my life," Lindgren said. "I feel that I simply have lost some of the enthusiasm and inspiration needed to participate in a band that has grown from a few guys playing the music we love to a worldwide industry." Ex-Arch Enemy guitarist Fredrik Åkesson replaced Lindgren, as Åkerfeldt explained "Fredrik was the only name that popped up thinking about a replacement for Peter. In my opinion he's one of the top three guitar players out of Sweden. We all get along great as we've known each other for maybe four years and he already has the experience to take on the circus-like lifestyle we lead as members of Opeth."
Watershed and In Live Concert at the Royal Albert Hall (2008–2010)
Opeth entered Fascination Street Studios in November 2007 to record their ninth studio album, with Åkerfeldt producing. By January 2008, Opeth had recorded 13 songs, including three cover songs. The finished album, Watershed, features seven tracks, with cover songs used as bonus tracks on different versions of the album. Watershed was released on 3 June 2008. Åkerfeldt described the songs on the album as "a bit more energetic". Opeth toured in support of Watershed, including headlining the UK Defenders of the Faith tour with Arch Enemy, an appearance at Wacken Open Air, and the Progressive Nation tour with headliner Dream Theater. Watershed was Opeth's highest-charting album to date, debuting at number 23 on the US Billboard 200, on the Australian ARIA album charts at number seven and at number one on Finland's official album chart. Opeth went on a worldwide tour in support of Watershed. From September to October, the band toured North America backed by High on Fire, Baroness, and Nachtmystium. They returned to tour Europe for the rest of the year with Cynic and The Ocean.
In 2010, Opeth wrote and recorded the new track, "The Throat of Winter", which appeared on the digital EP soundtrack of the video game, God of War III. Åkerfeldt described the song as "odd" and "not very metal." To celebrate their 20th anniversary, Opeth performed a six-show, worldwide tour called Evolution XX: An Opeth Anthology, from 30 March through 9 April 2010. Blackwater Park was performed in its entirety, along with several songs never before performed. The concert of 5 April 2010, at the Royal Albert Hall in London, England was filmed for a DVD and live album package titled In Live Concert at the Royal Albert Hall. The set was released on 21 September 2010, in 2-DVD and 2-DVD/3-CD configurations. For the DVD the concert was split into two sets. The first set consists of the entire Blackwater Park album, while the second set contains one song from every album excluding Blackwater Park, in chronological order representing the twenty years of "evolution" in their music. Åkerfeldt stated, "I can't believe it, but, fuck, we're celebrating 20 years. I've been in this band ever since I was 16. It's insane." A special edition of Blackwater Park was released in March 2010 to coincide with the tour.
Heritage (2011–2013)
In September 2010, Mikael Åkerfeldt stated that he was writing for a new Opeth album. The band announced on their website that they would start recording their tenth album on 31 January 2011, at the Atlantis/Metronome studios in Stockholm, once again with Jens Bogren (engineering) and Steven Wilson from Porcupine Tree as co-producer.
Shortly after mixing was complete on the new album in April 2011, Opeth announced that Per Wiberg was relieved of his duties in the band.
In the press statement, Mikael Åkerfeldt explained the decision, saying, "Mendez, Axe and Fredrik and I came to the decision that we should find a replacement for Per right after the recordings of the new album, and this came as no surprise to Per. He had, in turn, been thinking about leaving, so you could say it was a mutual decision. There's no bad blood, just a relationship that came to an end, and that's that."
Opeth's tenth album, Heritage, was released on 14 September 2011, to generally favorable reviews. The album sold 19,000 copies in the United States in its first week of release and debuted at number 19 on the Billboard 200 chart. Heritage debuted at number four in the band's native country of Sweden.
Heritage became the second Opeth album to not feature any death growls and had a much more progressive style than previous albums from the band, something that Åkerfeldt had been wanting to do for some time.
The first two songs Åkerfeldt wrote for Heritage were in the style of Watershed. After hearing the songs for the first time, Martín Méndez told Åkerfeldt that he would be disappointed if the album continued in that direction. Relieved that Méndez was not interested in doing another conventional Opeth album, Åkerfeldt scrapped the two songs and started the writing process over in a different style. In the press release for Heritage, Mikael Åkerfeldt revealed that he felt as though he had been building to write the album since he was 19 years old. In a review for Allmusic, Thom Jurek called Heritage the band's most adventurous album, describing the songs as "drenched in instrumental interludes, knotty key and chord changes, shifting time signatures, clean vocals, and a keyboard-heavy instrumentation that includes Mellotrons, Rhodes pianos, and Hammond organs".
Opeth supported Heritage with a tour that would last for over 200 tour dates. The tour was the band's first with new keyboardist, Joakim Svalberg, who played on the opening track of the album. During the tour, Opeth played with bands such as Katatonia, Pain of Salvation, Mastodon, Ghost and Anathema all over the world in countries such as the United States, Europe, Turkey, India, Japan, Greece, Israel, Latin America and Sweden. The tour concluded with "Melloboat 2013".
Pale Communion (2014–2015)
On 26 August 2014, Opeth released its eleventh studio album, titled Pale Communion. Åkerfeldt began working on new material as far back as August 2012. In January 2014 he stated, "We've been looking at [tracking the next album at] Rockfield Studios in Wales where Queen recorded "Bohemian Rhapsody", but we haven't made a decision yet, but it will be an expensive album. There's a lot going on, lots of string arrangements that we haven't had in the past." Despite fearing that the band's new musical direction would split Opeth's fanbase, when asked if it will it be heavier or softer than Heritage, Åkerfeldt said, "Maybe a little bit heavier, not death metal heavy, but hard rock/heavy metal heavy. There's also lots of progressive elements and acoustic guitars, but also more sinister-sounding riffs." Åkerfeldt also produced the new album which will include string instrumentation, something that he became interested in doing when working on Storm Corrosion. The band members in Opeth felt rejuvenated after creating Heritage which resulted in closer relationships between them.
The Guardian reviewed Pale Communion positively, calling it "strange, intricate prog-metal genius" somewhat flawed by Åkerfeldt's indulgent vocal styling. The album saw Opeth's highest chart positions in the history of the band with Pale Communion debuting at number 19 in the US, number 3 in Sweden, and number 14 in the United Kingdom. It sold 13,000 copies in its first week of release in the US.
Pale Communion was supported with more touring from Opeth. In 2015, Opeth played several concerts to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the band. At these special shows, the band was doing two sets. The first set is 2005's Ghost Reveries as a ten-year anniversary celebration of the album. The second set spanned the rest of the band's career, celebrating their 25th anniversary. Åkerfeldt expressed excitement for the concerts.
Sorceress, In Cauda Venenum and departure of Axenrot (2016–present)
On 15 June 2016, Nuclear Blast Entertainment announced the signing of Opeth. Three days later, on 18 June, Opeth released a 30-second teaser for their new album, Sorceress. A month later, on 18 July, the band confirmed the album would be released on 30 September, in addition to revealing the artwork and track list. Mikael Åkerfeldt described it as, "A fine little record. My favorite in our discography right now. Of course. That's how it should be, right? It's both fresh and old, both progressive and rehashed. Heavy and calm. Just the way we like it." The album was the first project under Moderbolaget Records, a joint venture between Opeth and Nuclear Blast. Moderbolaget means "the parent company" in Swedish.
On 25 July 2016, in the build up towards the album release, the band posted the first Sorceress: Studio Report on their YouTube channel. In the behind-the-scenes studio tour, it is confirmed that the band had returned to Rockfield Studios where they previously recorded Pale Communion. At the end of the video, there is a 20-second excerpt of a track believed to be from the album featuring heavily down-tuned guitars. On 1 August 2016, the band released a lyric video for the title-track 'Sorceress' on their YouTube channel. On 4 September 2016, Opeth released a lyric video for the second single titled 'Will O the Wisp,' again through their YouTube channel and website. Opeth's video for "Era" was nominated for "Video of the Year" at the 2017 Progressive Music Awards, where they ultimately won "International Band of the Year".
On 2 October 2017, Åkerfeldt said he has been thinking about doing something "twisted" and different for the next studio album, which could be released by mid-to-late 2019. On 20 November 2017, guitarist Fredrik Åkesson stated that the band will not have any gigs in the upcoming months, until the 2018 summer festivals. During this break the band will focus on writing songs for the new album. On 11 July 2018, during an interview with FaceCulture, Åkesson said "I've recorded a lot of solos so far. And Mikael Åkerfeldt has almost already written 12 songs for the new album, so we have more material than enough for an album". On 22 May 2019, the band announced their thirteenth studio album, In Cauda Venenum, due for release on 27 September 2019. On 12 July 2019, Opeth released the first single from In Cauda Venenum entitled "Heart in Hand" in both English and Swedish.
On 16 November 2021, it was announced that longtime drummer Martin Axenrot had left the band due to conflict of interests and will be replaced by Sami Karppinen for the North American tour.
Musical style and influences
As Opeth's primary songwriter and lyricist, vocalist/guitarist Mikael Åkerfeldt heads the direction of Opeth's sound. He was influenced at a young age by the 1970s progressive rock bands King Crimson, Yes, Genesis, Camel, P.F.M., Hawkwind, and Gracious, and by heavy metal bands such as Iron Maiden, Slayer, Death, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Celtic Frost, King Diamond, Morbid Angel, Voivod, and, most importantly, Judas Priest. Åkerfeldt considers Judas Priest's Sad Wings of Destiny (1976) the best metal album of all time, and notes that there was a time when he listened only to Judas Priest. While warming up before Opeth concerts, Åkerfeldt frequently sings "Here Come the Tears" from Judas Priest's third album Sin After Sin (1977). Åkerfeldt later discovered progressive rock and folk music, both of which had a profound impact on the sound of the band.
Opeth's distinct sound mixes death metal with progressive rock. Steve Huey of AllMusic refers to Opeth's "epic, progressive death metal style". Ryan Ogle of Blabbermouth described Opeth's sound as incorporating "the likes of folk, funk, blues, '70s rock, goth and a laundry list of other sonic oddities into their trademark progressive death style." In his review of Opeth's 2001 album Blackwater Park, AllMusic's Eduardo Rivadavia wrote, "Tracks start and finish in seemingly arbitrary fashion, usually traversing ample musical terrain, including acoustic guitar and solo piano passages, ambient soundscapes, stoner rock grooves, and Eastern-tinged melodies—any of which are subject to savage punctuations of death metal fury at any given moment." Åkerfeldt commented on the diversity of Opeth's music:
I don't see the point of playing in a band and going just one way when you can do everything. It would be impossible for us to play just death metal; that is our roots, but we are now a mishmash of everything, and not purists to any form of music. It's impossible for us to do that, and quite frankly I would think of it as boring to be in a band that plays just metal music. We're not afraid to experiment, or to be caught with our pants down, so to speak. That's what keeps us going.
More recently, Opeth have abandoned their death metal sound resulting in a mellower progressive rock sound. When talking about Heritage, guitarist Fredrik Åkesson stated:
In the beginning it took me a little while to get used to the new idea of the sound, not having any screaming vocals and stuff like that. But I think the album was necessary for us to do. Maybe the band wouldn't have continued if we hadn't done Heritage. I think the old Opeth fans understand this album. There's always going to be some haters, but you can't be loved by everyone. Opeth has always been about not repeating ourself. A lot of people don't think Heritage is metal but I think it's metal to go somewhere people don't expect. It doesn't mean we're not embracing the past sound of Opeth.
Vocally, Åkerfeldt shifts between traditional death metal vocals for heavy sections, and clean, sometimes whispered or soft-spoken vocals over mellower passages. While his death growls were dominant on early releases, later efforts incorporate more clean vocals, with Damnation, Heritage, Pale Communion, Sorceress and In Cauda Venenum featuring only clean singing. Rivadavia noted that "Åkerfeldt's vocals run the gamut from bowel-churning grunts to melodies of chilling beauty—depending on each movement section's mood."
Legacy
A number of artists and bands have cited Opeth as an influence, among which are Mayan (a project of Mark Jansen from Epica), Luc Lemay of Gorguts, Soen (a band of former Opeth drummer Martin Lopez), Tor Oddmund Suhrke of Leprous, Disillusion, Caligula's Horse, Klimt 1918, Daniel Droste of Ahab, Becoming the Archetype, Nucleus Torn, Alex Vynogradoff of Kauan, Wastefall, Eric Guenther of The Contortionist, Thomas MacLean and To-Mera, The Man-Eating Tree, Nahemah, Vladimir Agafonkin of Obiymy Doschu, Schizoid Lloyd, Native Construct, Maxime Côté of Catuvolcus, Bilocate, and Jinjer.
In addition, other artists have been quoted expressing admiration for their work including Seven Lions, John Petrucci, Mike Portnoy, Ihsahn, Simone Simons of Epica, Oliver Palotai of Kamelot, Jim Matheos of Fates Warning, and Haken.
Members
Current members
Mikael Åkerfeldt – guitars (1990–present), lead vocals (1992–present), keyboards (1990), bass (1990, 1992, 1997)
Martín Méndez – bass (1997–present)
Fredrik Åkesson – guitars, backing vocals (2007–present)
Joakim Svalberg – keyboards, synthesizers, piano, mellotron, backing vocals (2011–present)
Current touring members
Sami Karppinen – drums (2021–present)
Discography
Orchid (1995)
Morningrise (1996)
My Arms, Your Hearse (1998)
Still Life (1999)
Blackwater Park (2001)
Deliverance (2002)
Damnation (2003)
Ghost Reveries (2005)
Watershed (2008)
Heritage (2011)
Pale Communion (2014)
Sorceress (2016)
In Cauda Venenum (2019)
References
Sources
External links
MNRK Music Group artists
Musical groups established in 1990
Musical groups from Stockholm
Musical quartets
Musical quintets
Roadrunner Records artists
Nuclear Blast artists
Swedish death metal musical groups
Swedish progressive metal musical groups
Swedish progressive rock groups
Swedish heavy metal musical groups
| true |
[
"What the Future Holds Pt. 2 is the seventh studio album by the British group Steps. The album was released on 10 September 2021 by BMG Rights Management.\n\nBackground\nIn April 2021, Steps announced what was intended to be a deluxe edition of What the Future Holds would now be released as their seventh studio album, What the Future Holds Pt.2. Claire Richards said of the new record, \"we see What the Future Holds Pt. 2 as the perfect companion piece to the original album. The new record is classic Steps but also explores some brand-new sounds.\"\n\nSingles\nThe first single was confirmed as \"Heartbreak in This City\" remix featuring singer and television personality Michelle Visage. It debuted on BBC Radio 2 on 25 February, and made available to stream/download that same day. The single debuted at number 25 on the Official Singles Sales Chart.\n\n\"Take Me for a Ride\" was released on 29 July 2021 as the album's second single. \n\nA cover of \"The Slightest Touch\" was released on 20 August 2021 as the album's third single.\n\nIn November 2021 and during opening night of the arena tour, Lee Latchford-Evans confirmed \"A Hundred Years of Winter\" was the next single. It was released on 19 November 2021.\n\nCommercial performance\nWhat the Future Holds Pt. 2 debuted at number 2 in the UK Albums Charts with 25,000 units sold, only 2,000 copies behind Manic Street Preachers' The Ultra Vivid Lament. This was the second time the two groups competed for number-one position, after their albums This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours and Step One also charted at number 1 and 2, respectively, way back in 1998. This marks Steps' third consecutive number 2 studio album since their reunion in 2012, next to Tears on the Dancefloor and What the Future Holds Pt. 1. \n\nIn Australia, the album debuted at number 11, Steps' highest peak in the country in 23 years, since their debut album Step One peaked at number 5 in 1998.\n\nTrack listing\n\nCharts\n\nRelease history\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n\n2021 albums\nSteps (group) albums\nPop albums by British artists",
"12 Bloody Spies is a compilation album by American rock band Chevelle. The album was released on October 26, 2018 by Epic Records. The album consists of B-sides, rarities, covers, and remixes recorded between 2003 and 2016.\n\nBackground \nThe single, \"Sleep Walking Elite\", a B-side from the Vena Sera sessions, was released on September 27, 2018. On September 28, the compilation album was announced. The album's second single, \"In Debt to the Earth,\" was released on October 12.\n\nThe song, \"Until You're Reformed\", a B-side from the Wonder What's Next sessions, was originally released in 2003 on Daredevil: The Album. \"Fizgig,\" a B-side from the Sci-Fi Crimes sessions, was originally released on the band's greatest hits album Stray Arrows: A Collection of Favorites in 2012.\n\nTrack listing\n\nPersonnel\nPete Loeffler – lead vocals, guitar\nSam Loeffler – drums\nDean Bernardini – bass, backing vocals\nJoe Loeffler – bass, backing vocals (tracks 5 and 9)\n\nCharts\n\nReferences \n\n2018 compilation albums\nChevelle (band) compilation albums\nB-side compilation albums\nEpic Records compilation albums"
] |
[
"Opeth",
"Orchid, Morningrise, and My Arms, Your Hearse (1994-1998)",
"Which album was released in 1994",
"Orchid,",
"Were there any singles released from Orchid?",
"I don't know.",
"What was the next album released",
"Morningrise,"
] |
C_ecf88860a0724b1298539ec6634811b9_0
|
What year was morningrise released
| 4 |
What year was Opeth's morningrise released?
|
Opeth
|
Opeth recorded its debut album, Orchid, with producer Dan Swano in April 1994. Because of distribution problems with the newly formed Candlelight Records, the album was not released until May 15, 1995, and only in Europe. Orchid tested the boundaries of traditional death metal, featuring acoustic guitars, piano, and clean vocals. After a few live shows in the United Kingdom, Opeth returned to the studio in March 1996 to begin work on a second album, again produced by Dan Swano. The album was named Morningrise, and was released in Europe on June 24, 1996. With only five songs, but lasting 66 minutes, it features Opeth's longest song, the twenty-minute "Black Rose Immortal". Opeth toured the UK in support of Morningrise, followed by a 26-date Scandinavian tour with Cradle of Filth. While on tour, Opeth attracted the attention of Century Media Records, who signed the band and released the first two albums in the United States in 1997. In 1997, after the tour, Akerfeldt and Lindgren dismissed De Farfalla for personal reasons, without the consent of Nordin. When Akerfeldt informed Nordin, who was on a vacation in Brazil, Nordin left the band and remained in Brazil for personal reasons. Former Eternal members, drummer Martin Lopez (formerly of Amon Amarth) and bassist Martin Mendez, responded to an ad at a music shop placed by Akerfeldt. Lopez and Mendez were fans of the band and took the ads down themselves so no other musicians could apply for the job. Akerfeldt and Lindgren did not want the Martins to join at first, due to them already knowing each other; they felt that they wanted two strangers so that there wouldn't be two camps in the band, but eventually hired both. Lopez made his debut with Opeth playing on a cover version of Iron Maiden's "Remember Tomorrow", which was included on the album A Call to Irons: A Tribute to Iron Maiden. With a larger recording budget from Century Media, Opeth began work on its third album, with noted Swedish producer Fredrik Nordstrom, at Studio Fredman in August 1997. Although Opeth had Mendez, due to time constraints Akerfeldt played bass on the album. My Arms, Your Hearse was released to critical acclaim on August 18, 1998. CANNOTANSWER
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released in Europe on June 24, 1996.
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Opeth is a Swedish progressive metal band from Stockholm, formed in 1989 by lead vocalist David Isberg. The group has been through several personnel changes, including the replacement of every single original member; notably Isberg in 1992. Opeth has consistently incorporated progressive, folk, blues, classical, and jazz influences into its usually lengthy compositions, as well as strong influences from death metal, especially in their early works. Many songs include acoustic guitar passages and strong dynamic shifts, as well as death growls. Opeth is also well known for their incorporation of Mellotrons in their work. The band rarely made live appearances supporting their first four albums, but since conducting their first world tour after the 2001 release of Blackwater Park, they have led several major world tours.
Opeth has released 13 studio albums, four live DVDs, four live albums (three that are in conjunction with DVDs), and two boxsets. The band released its debut album Orchid in 1995. Although their eighth studio album, Ghost Reveries, was quite popular in the United States, Opeth did not experience major American commercial success until the 2008 release of their ninth studio album, Watershed, which peaked at No. 23 on the Billboard 200, and topped the Finnish albums chart in its first week of release. As of November 2009, the band has sold over 1.5 million copies of their albums and DVDs worldwide, including 300,000 collective SoundScans of their albums Blackwater Park, Damnation, and Deliverance in the United States.
History
Formation (1989–1993)
Opeth was formed as a death metal band in 1989 in Stockholm, Sweden, by lead vocalist David Isberg. The band name was derived from the word "Opet", taken from the Wilbur Smith novel The Sunbird. In this novel, Opet is the name of a fictional Phoenician city in South Africa translated as "City of the Moon".
In 1990, Isberg asked former Eruption band member Mikael Åkerfeldt to join Opeth as a bassist, replacing Martin Persson. When Åkerfeldt showed up to practice on the day after Isberg invited him, it became clear that Isberg had not told the band members, including the band's current bassist, that Åkerfeldt would be joining the band. An ensuing argument led to all members but Isberg and Åkerfeldt leaving to form a new project.
Isberg and Åkerfeldt recruited drummer Anders Nordin, bassist Nick Döring, and guitarist Andreas Dimeo. Unsatisfied with Opeth's slow progress, Döring and Dimeo left the band after their first performance, and were replaced by guitarist Kim Pettersson and bassist Johan De Farfalla. After the next show, De Farfalla left Opeth to spend time with his girlfriend in Germany, and was initially replaced by Mattias Ander, before Åkerfeldt's friend Peter Lindgren took on the role of bassist. Rhythm guitarist Kim Pettersson left following the band's next performance, and Lindgren switched to guitar, with the role of bassist falling to Stefan Guteklint. The following year, David Isberg left the band citing "creative differences".
Following Isberg's departure, Åkerfeldt took over vocal duties and he, Lindgren, and Nordin spent the next year writing and rehearsing new material. The group began to rely less on the blast beats and aggression typical of death metal, and incorporated acoustic guitars and guitar harmonies into their music; developing the core sound of Opeth. Bassist Guteklint was dismissed by the band after they signed their first record deal with Candlelight Records in 1994. Opeth initially employed former member De Farfalla as a session bassist for their demo recordings, and he went on to join on a full-time basis following the release of Opeth's debut album, "Orchid", in 1995.
Orchid, Morningrise, and My Arms, Your Hearse (1994–1998)
Opeth recorded its debut album, Orchid, with producer Dan Swanö in April 1994. Because of distribution problems with the newly formed Candlelight Records, the album was not released until 15 May 1995, and only in Europe. Orchid tested the boundaries of traditional death metal, featuring acoustic guitars, piano, and clean vocals.
After a few live shows in the United Kingdom, Opeth returned to the studio in March 1996 to begin work on a second album, again produced by Dan Swanö. The album, titled Morningrise, was released in Europe on 24 June 1996. With only five songs, but lasting 66 minutes, it features Opeth's longest song, the 20-minute "Black Rose Immortal". Opeth toured the UK in support of Morningrise, followed by a 26-date Scandinavian tour with Cradle of Filth. While on tour, Opeth attracted the attention of Century Media Records, who signed the band and released the first two albums in the United States in 1997.
In 1997, after the tour, Åkerfeldt and Lindgren dismissed De Farfalla for personal reasons, without the consent of Nordin. When Åkerfeldt informed Nordin, who was on a vacation in Brazil, Nordin left the band and remained in Brazil for personal reasons. Former Eternal members, drummer Martín López (formerly of Amon Amarth) and bassist Martín Méndez, responded to an ad at a music shop placed by Åkerfeldt. López and Méndez were fans of the band and took the ads down themselves so no other musicians could apply for the job. Åkerfeldt and Lindgren did not want the Martíns to join at first, due to them already knowing each other; they felt that they wanted two strangers so that there wouldn't be two camps in the band, but eventually hired both. López made his debut with Opeth playing on a cover version of Iron Maiden's "Remember Tomorrow", which was included on the album A Call to Irons: A Tribute to Iron Maiden.
With a larger recording budget from Century Media, Opeth began work on its third album, with noted Swedish producer Fredrik Nordström, at Studio Fredman in August 1997. Although Opeth had Méndez, due to time constraints Åkerfeldt played bass on the album. My Arms, Your Hearse was released to critical acclaim on 18 August 1998.
Still Life and Blackwater Park (1999–2001)
In 1999, the ownership of Candlelight Records changed hands, with owner and friend of the band Lee Barrett leaving the company. Opeth signed with UK label Peaceville Records in Europe, which was distributed by Music for Nations. Opeth reserved time at Studio Fredman to begin work on its next album, but recording was postponed while the studio was relocated. Due to time constraints, the band was able to rehearse only twice before entering the studio. Delays with the album's artwork pushed the release back an additional month and Still Life was released on 18 October 1999. Due to problems with the band's new distribution network, the album was not released in the United States until February 2001. Still Life was the first album recorded with Méndez, and also the first Opeth album to bear any kind of caption on the front cover upon its initial release, including the band's logo. Allmusic called Still Life a "formidable splicing of harsh, often jagged guitar riffs with graceful melodies." As explained by Åkerfeldt, Still Life is a concept album: "The main character is kind of banished from his hometown because he hasn't got the same faith as the rest of the inhabitants there. The album pretty much starts off when he is returning after several years to hook up with his old 'babe.' The big bosses of the town know that he's back... A lot of bad things start happening."
Following a few live dates in Europe, Opeth returned to Studio Fredman to begin work on its next album, with Porcupine Tree's Steven Wilson producing. The band sought to recreate the recording experience of Still Life, and again entered the studio with minimal rehearsals, and no lyrics written. "This time it was tough," Åkerfeldt said, "I feel pleasantly blown away by the immense result, though. It was indeed worth the effort." Wilson also pushed the band to expand its sound, incorporating new sounds and production techniques. "Steve guided us into the realms of 'strange' noises for guitars and voice", Åkerfeldt said.
Opeth released its fifth studio album, Blackwater Park, on 21 February 2001. AllMusic has stated that the album "keeps with Opeth's tradition by transcending the limits of death/black metal and repeatedly shattering the foundations of conventional songwriting". In support of Blackwater Park, Opeth embarked on its first world tour, headlined Europe for the first time, and made an appearance at the 2001 Wacken Open Air festival in Germany, playing to a crowd of 60,000.
Deliverance and Damnation (2002–2004)
Opeth returned to Sweden after touring in support of Blackwater Park, and began writing for the next album. At first, Åkerfeldt had trouble putting together new material: "I wanted to write something heavier than we'd ever done, still I had all these great mellow parts and arrangements which I didn't want to go to waste." Jonas Renkse of Katatonia, a long-time friend of Åkerfeldt, suggested writing music for two separate albums—one heavy and one soft.
Excited at the prospect, Åkerfeldt agreed without consulting his bandmates or record label. While his bandmates liked the idea of recording two separate albums, Åkerfeldt had to convince the label: "I had to lie somewhat ... saying that we could do this recording very soon, it won't cost more than a regular single album." With most of the material written, the band rehearsed just once before entering Nacksving Studios in 2002, and again with producer Steven Wilson in Studio Fredman. Under pressure to complete both albums simultaneously, Åkerfeldt said the recording process was "the toughest test of our history." After recording basic tracks, the band moved production to England to first mix the heavy album, Deliverance, with Andy Sneap at Backstage Studios. "Deliverance was so poorly recorded, without any organisation whatsoever," Åkerfeldt claimed, that Sneap "is credited as a 'saviour' in the sleeve, as he surely saved much of the recording."
Deliverance was released on 4 November 2002, and debuted at number 19 on the US Top Independent Albums chart, marking the band's first US chart appearance. AllMusic stated, "Deliverance is altogether more subtle than any of its predecessors, approaching listeners with haunting nuances and masterful dynamics rather than overwhelming them with sheer mass and complexity."
Opeth performed a one-off concert in Stockholm, then returned to the UK to finish recording vocals for the second of the two albums, Damnation, at Steven Wilson's No Man's Land Studios. Although Åkerfeldt believed the band could not finish both albums, Opeth completed Deliverance and Damnation in just seven weeks of studio time, which was the same amount spent on Blackwater Park alone. Damnation was released on 14 April 2003, and garnered the band its first appearance on the US Billboard 200 at number 192. The album also won the 2003 Swedish Grammy Award for Best Hard Rock Performance. On 1 January 2016, Opeth re-released both Deliverance and Damnation in one package, containing CD and DVD versions, along with new mixing.
The band embarked on its biggest tour yet, playing nearly 200 shows in 2003 and 2004. Opeth performed three special shows in Europe with two song lists each—one acoustic set and one heavy set. The band recorded its first DVD, Lamentations (Live at Shepherd's Bush Empire 2003), at Shepherd's Bush Empire in London, England. The DVD features a two-hour performance, including the entire Damnation album, several songs from Deliverance and Blackwater Park, and a one-hour documentary about the recording of Deliverance and Damnation. Lamentations was certified Gold in Canada.
Opeth was scheduled to perform in Jordan without a crew due to the fear of terrorist attacks in the Middle East. Opeth's tour manager distributed 6,000 tickets for the concert, but before the band left for Jordan, drummer Lopez called Åkerfeldt stating he was having an anxiety attack and could not perform, forcing the band to cancel the show. In early 2004, Lopez was sent home from Canada after more anxiety attacks on tour. Opeth decided against cancelling the remainder of the tour, with Lopez's drum technician filling in for two concerts. Lopez promised that he would return to the tour as soon as he could, but two shows later Opeth asked Strapping Young Lad drummer Gene Hoglan to fill in. Lopez returned to Opeth for the Seattle show on the final leg of the Deliverance and Damnation tour. Per Wiberg also joined the band on tour to perform keyboards, after more than a year on tour.
Ghost Reveries (2005–2007)
Opeth returned home in 2004 to start writing new material for its eighth album, and by the end of the year, they had finished writing it. Opeth's European label, Music for Nations, closed its doors in 2005, and after negotiations with various labels, the band signed with Roadrunner Records. Åkerfeldt said the primary reason for signing with Roadrunner was the label's wide distribution, ensuring the album would be available at larger-chain retailers. When news leaked that the band was signed to Roadrunner, who predominantly worked with trend-oriented rock and metal, some fans accused the band of selling out. "To be honest," Åkerfeldt said, "that's such an insult after 15 years as a band and 8 records. I can't believe we haven't earned each and every Opeth fan's credibility after all these years. I mean, our songs are 10 minutes long!" The band rehearsed for three weeks before entering the studio, the first time the band rehearsed since the 1998 album, My Arms, Your Hearse. During rehearsal, keyboardist Wiberg joined Opeth as a full-time member. Opeth recorded at Fascination Street Studios in Örebro, Sweden, from 18 March to 1 June 2005, and released the resulting Ghost Reveries on 30 August 2005, to critical acclaim and commercial success. The album debuted at number 64 in the US, and number nine in Sweden, higher than any previous Opeth release. Keith Bergman of Blabbermouth.net gave the album ten out of ten, one of only 21 albums to achieve a perfect rating from the site. Rod Smith of Decibel magazine called Ghost Reveries "achingly beautiful, sometimes unabashedly brutal, often a combination of both".
On 12 May 2006, Martin Lopez announced that he had officially parted ways with Opeth due to health problems, and was replaced by Martin Axenrot. Opeth toured on the main stage of Gigantour in 2006, alongside Megadeth. Ghost Reveries was re-released on 31 October 2006, with a bonus cover song (Deep Purple's "Soldier of Fortune"), a DVD featuring a 5.1 surround sound mix of the album and a documentary on the making of the record. A recording of Opeth's live performance at the Camden Roundhouse, in London, on 9 November 2006, was released as the double live album The Roundhouse Tapes, which topped the Finnish DVD chart.
On 17 May 2007, Peter Lindgren announced he would be leaving Opeth after 16 years. "The decision has been the toughest I've ever made but it is the right one to make at this point in my life," Lindgren said. "I feel that I simply have lost some of the enthusiasm and inspiration needed to participate in a band that has grown from a few guys playing the music we love to a worldwide industry." Ex-Arch Enemy guitarist Fredrik Åkesson replaced Lindgren, as Åkerfeldt explained "Fredrik was the only name that popped up thinking about a replacement for Peter. In my opinion he's one of the top three guitar players out of Sweden. We all get along great as we've known each other for maybe four years and he already has the experience to take on the circus-like lifestyle we lead as members of Opeth."
Watershed and In Live Concert at the Royal Albert Hall (2008–2010)
Opeth entered Fascination Street Studios in November 2007 to record their ninth studio album, with Åkerfeldt producing. By January 2008, Opeth had recorded 13 songs, including three cover songs. The finished album, Watershed, features seven tracks, with cover songs used as bonus tracks on different versions of the album. Watershed was released on 3 June 2008. Åkerfeldt described the songs on the album as "a bit more energetic". Opeth toured in support of Watershed, including headlining the UK Defenders of the Faith tour with Arch Enemy, an appearance at Wacken Open Air, and the Progressive Nation tour with headliner Dream Theater. Watershed was Opeth's highest-charting album to date, debuting at number 23 on the US Billboard 200, on the Australian ARIA album charts at number seven and at number one on Finland's official album chart. Opeth went on a worldwide tour in support of Watershed. From September to October, the band toured North America backed by High on Fire, Baroness, and Nachtmystium. They returned to tour Europe for the rest of the year with Cynic and The Ocean.
In 2010, Opeth wrote and recorded the new track, "The Throat of Winter", which appeared on the digital EP soundtrack of the video game, God of War III. Åkerfeldt described the song as "odd" and "not very metal." To celebrate their 20th anniversary, Opeth performed a six-show, worldwide tour called Evolution XX: An Opeth Anthology, from 30 March through 9 April 2010. Blackwater Park was performed in its entirety, along with several songs never before performed. The concert of 5 April 2010, at the Royal Albert Hall in London, England was filmed for a DVD and live album package titled In Live Concert at the Royal Albert Hall. The set was released on 21 September 2010, in 2-DVD and 2-DVD/3-CD configurations. For the DVD the concert was split into two sets. The first set consists of the entire Blackwater Park album, while the second set contains one song from every album excluding Blackwater Park, in chronological order representing the twenty years of "evolution" in their music. Åkerfeldt stated, "I can't believe it, but, fuck, we're celebrating 20 years. I've been in this band ever since I was 16. It's insane." A special edition of Blackwater Park was released in March 2010 to coincide with the tour.
Heritage (2011–2013)
In September 2010, Mikael Åkerfeldt stated that he was writing for a new Opeth album. The band announced on their website that they would start recording their tenth album on 31 January 2011, at the Atlantis/Metronome studios in Stockholm, once again with Jens Bogren (engineering) and Steven Wilson from Porcupine Tree as co-producer.
Shortly after mixing was complete on the new album in April 2011, Opeth announced that Per Wiberg was relieved of his duties in the band.
In the press statement, Mikael Åkerfeldt explained the decision, saying, "Mendez, Axe and Fredrik and I came to the decision that we should find a replacement for Per right after the recordings of the new album, and this came as no surprise to Per. He had, in turn, been thinking about leaving, so you could say it was a mutual decision. There's no bad blood, just a relationship that came to an end, and that's that."
Opeth's tenth album, Heritage, was released on 14 September 2011, to generally favorable reviews. The album sold 19,000 copies in the United States in its first week of release and debuted at number 19 on the Billboard 200 chart. Heritage debuted at number four in the band's native country of Sweden.
Heritage became the second Opeth album to not feature any death growls and had a much more progressive style than previous albums from the band, something that Åkerfeldt had been wanting to do for some time.
The first two songs Åkerfeldt wrote for Heritage were in the style of Watershed. After hearing the songs for the first time, Martín Méndez told Åkerfeldt that he would be disappointed if the album continued in that direction. Relieved that Méndez was not interested in doing another conventional Opeth album, Åkerfeldt scrapped the two songs and started the writing process over in a different style. In the press release for Heritage, Mikael Åkerfeldt revealed that he felt as though he had been building to write the album since he was 19 years old. In a review for Allmusic, Thom Jurek called Heritage the band's most adventurous album, describing the songs as "drenched in instrumental interludes, knotty key and chord changes, shifting time signatures, clean vocals, and a keyboard-heavy instrumentation that includes Mellotrons, Rhodes pianos, and Hammond organs".
Opeth supported Heritage with a tour that would last for over 200 tour dates. The tour was the band's first with new keyboardist, Joakim Svalberg, who played on the opening track of the album. During the tour, Opeth played with bands such as Katatonia, Pain of Salvation, Mastodon, Ghost and Anathema all over the world in countries such as the United States, Europe, Turkey, India, Japan, Greece, Israel, Latin America and Sweden. The tour concluded with "Melloboat 2013".
Pale Communion (2014–2015)
On 26 August 2014, Opeth released its eleventh studio album, titled Pale Communion. Åkerfeldt began working on new material as far back as August 2012. In January 2014 he stated, "We've been looking at [tracking the next album at] Rockfield Studios in Wales where Queen recorded "Bohemian Rhapsody", but we haven't made a decision yet, but it will be an expensive album. There's a lot going on, lots of string arrangements that we haven't had in the past." Despite fearing that the band's new musical direction would split Opeth's fanbase, when asked if it will it be heavier or softer than Heritage, Åkerfeldt said, "Maybe a little bit heavier, not death metal heavy, but hard rock/heavy metal heavy. There's also lots of progressive elements and acoustic guitars, but also more sinister-sounding riffs." Åkerfeldt also produced the new album which will include string instrumentation, something that he became interested in doing when working on Storm Corrosion. The band members in Opeth felt rejuvenated after creating Heritage which resulted in closer relationships between them.
The Guardian reviewed Pale Communion positively, calling it "strange, intricate prog-metal genius" somewhat flawed by Åkerfeldt's indulgent vocal styling. The album saw Opeth's highest chart positions in the history of the band with Pale Communion debuting at number 19 in the US, number 3 in Sweden, and number 14 in the United Kingdom. It sold 13,000 copies in its first week of release in the US.
Pale Communion was supported with more touring from Opeth. In 2015, Opeth played several concerts to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the band. At these special shows, the band was doing two sets. The first set is 2005's Ghost Reveries as a ten-year anniversary celebration of the album. The second set spanned the rest of the band's career, celebrating their 25th anniversary. Åkerfeldt expressed excitement for the concerts.
Sorceress, In Cauda Venenum and departure of Axenrot (2016–present)
On 15 June 2016, Nuclear Blast Entertainment announced the signing of Opeth. Three days later, on 18 June, Opeth released a 30-second teaser for their new album, Sorceress. A month later, on 18 July, the band confirmed the album would be released on 30 September, in addition to revealing the artwork and track list. Mikael Åkerfeldt described it as, "A fine little record. My favorite in our discography right now. Of course. That's how it should be, right? It's both fresh and old, both progressive and rehashed. Heavy and calm. Just the way we like it." The album was the first project under Moderbolaget Records, a joint venture between Opeth and Nuclear Blast. Moderbolaget means "the parent company" in Swedish.
On 25 July 2016, in the build up towards the album release, the band posted the first Sorceress: Studio Report on their YouTube channel. In the behind-the-scenes studio tour, it is confirmed that the band had returned to Rockfield Studios where they previously recorded Pale Communion. At the end of the video, there is a 20-second excerpt of a track believed to be from the album featuring heavily down-tuned guitars. On 1 August 2016, the band released a lyric video for the title-track 'Sorceress' on their YouTube channel. On 4 September 2016, Opeth released a lyric video for the second single titled 'Will O the Wisp,' again through their YouTube channel and website. Opeth's video for "Era" was nominated for "Video of the Year" at the 2017 Progressive Music Awards, where they ultimately won "International Band of the Year".
On 2 October 2017, Åkerfeldt said he has been thinking about doing something "twisted" and different for the next studio album, which could be released by mid-to-late 2019. On 20 November 2017, guitarist Fredrik Åkesson stated that the band will not have any gigs in the upcoming months, until the 2018 summer festivals. During this break the band will focus on writing songs for the new album. On 11 July 2018, during an interview with FaceCulture, Åkesson said "I've recorded a lot of solos so far. And Mikael Åkerfeldt has almost already written 12 songs for the new album, so we have more material than enough for an album". On 22 May 2019, the band announced their thirteenth studio album, In Cauda Venenum, due for release on 27 September 2019. On 12 July 2019, Opeth released the first single from In Cauda Venenum entitled "Heart in Hand" in both English and Swedish.
On 16 November 2021, it was announced that longtime drummer Martin Axenrot had left the band due to conflict of interests and will be replaced by Sami Karppinen for the North American tour.
Musical style and influences
As Opeth's primary songwriter and lyricist, vocalist/guitarist Mikael Åkerfeldt heads the direction of Opeth's sound. He was influenced at a young age by the 1970s progressive rock bands King Crimson, Yes, Genesis, Camel, P.F.M., Hawkwind, and Gracious, and by heavy metal bands such as Iron Maiden, Slayer, Death, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Celtic Frost, King Diamond, Morbid Angel, Voivod, and, most importantly, Judas Priest. Åkerfeldt considers Judas Priest's Sad Wings of Destiny (1976) the best metal album of all time, and notes that there was a time when he listened only to Judas Priest. While warming up before Opeth concerts, Åkerfeldt frequently sings "Here Come the Tears" from Judas Priest's third album Sin After Sin (1977). Åkerfeldt later discovered progressive rock and folk music, both of which had a profound impact on the sound of the band.
Opeth's distinct sound mixes death metal with progressive rock. Steve Huey of AllMusic refers to Opeth's "epic, progressive death metal style". Ryan Ogle of Blabbermouth described Opeth's sound as incorporating "the likes of folk, funk, blues, '70s rock, goth and a laundry list of other sonic oddities into their trademark progressive death style." In his review of Opeth's 2001 album Blackwater Park, AllMusic's Eduardo Rivadavia wrote, "Tracks start and finish in seemingly arbitrary fashion, usually traversing ample musical terrain, including acoustic guitar and solo piano passages, ambient soundscapes, stoner rock grooves, and Eastern-tinged melodies—any of which are subject to savage punctuations of death metal fury at any given moment." Åkerfeldt commented on the diversity of Opeth's music:
I don't see the point of playing in a band and going just one way when you can do everything. It would be impossible for us to play just death metal; that is our roots, but we are now a mishmash of everything, and not purists to any form of music. It's impossible for us to do that, and quite frankly I would think of it as boring to be in a band that plays just metal music. We're not afraid to experiment, or to be caught with our pants down, so to speak. That's what keeps us going.
More recently, Opeth have abandoned their death metal sound resulting in a mellower progressive rock sound. When talking about Heritage, guitarist Fredrik Åkesson stated:
In the beginning it took me a little while to get used to the new idea of the sound, not having any screaming vocals and stuff like that. But I think the album was necessary for us to do. Maybe the band wouldn't have continued if we hadn't done Heritage. I think the old Opeth fans understand this album. There's always going to be some haters, but you can't be loved by everyone. Opeth has always been about not repeating ourself. A lot of people don't think Heritage is metal but I think it's metal to go somewhere people don't expect. It doesn't mean we're not embracing the past sound of Opeth.
Vocally, Åkerfeldt shifts between traditional death metal vocals for heavy sections, and clean, sometimes whispered or soft-spoken vocals over mellower passages. While his death growls were dominant on early releases, later efforts incorporate more clean vocals, with Damnation, Heritage, Pale Communion, Sorceress and In Cauda Venenum featuring only clean singing. Rivadavia noted that "Åkerfeldt's vocals run the gamut from bowel-churning grunts to melodies of chilling beauty—depending on each movement section's mood."
Legacy
A number of artists and bands have cited Opeth as an influence, among which are Mayan (a project of Mark Jansen from Epica), Luc Lemay of Gorguts, Soen (a band of former Opeth drummer Martin Lopez), Tor Oddmund Suhrke of Leprous, Disillusion, Caligula's Horse, Klimt 1918, Daniel Droste of Ahab, Becoming the Archetype, Nucleus Torn, Alex Vynogradoff of Kauan, Wastefall, Eric Guenther of The Contortionist, Thomas MacLean and To-Mera, The Man-Eating Tree, Nahemah, Vladimir Agafonkin of Obiymy Doschu, Schizoid Lloyd, Native Construct, Maxime Côté of Catuvolcus, Bilocate, and Jinjer.
In addition, other artists have been quoted expressing admiration for their work including Seven Lions, John Petrucci, Mike Portnoy, Ihsahn, Simone Simons of Epica, Oliver Palotai of Kamelot, Jim Matheos of Fates Warning, and Haken.
Members
Current members
Mikael Åkerfeldt – guitars (1990–present), lead vocals (1992–present), keyboards (1990), bass (1990, 1992, 1997)
Martín Méndez – bass (1997–present)
Fredrik Åkesson – guitars, backing vocals (2007–present)
Joakim Svalberg – keyboards, synthesizers, piano, mellotron, backing vocals (2011–present)
Current touring members
Sami Karppinen – drums (2021–present)
Discography
Orchid (1995)
Morningrise (1996)
My Arms, Your Hearse (1998)
Still Life (1999)
Blackwater Park (2001)
Deliverance (2002)
Damnation (2003)
Ghost Reveries (2005)
Watershed (2008)
Heritage (2011)
Pale Communion (2014)
Sorceress (2016)
In Cauda Venenum (2019)
References
Sources
External links
MNRK Music Group artists
Musical groups established in 1990
Musical groups from Stockholm
Musical quartets
Musical quintets
Roadrunner Records artists
Nuclear Blast artists
Swedish death metal musical groups
Swedish progressive metal musical groups
Swedish progressive rock groups
Swedish heavy metal musical groups
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[
"Morningrise is the second studio album by Swedish progressive metal band Opeth. It was released on 24 June 1996 in Europe by Candlelight Records and on 24 June 1997 in the United States by Century Black. The recording sessions took place at Unisound studio, in Örebro, during March and April 1996, and once more the band used producer Dan Swanö. Morningrise was the last Opeth album produced by Swanö. It was also the last Opeth release with drummer Anders Nordin and bassist Johan De Farfalla.\n\nMorningrise showcases Opeth's signature style, exploring the dynamics between the combination of black metal and death metal vocals, and guitar parts with lighter progressive and acoustic elements.\n\nRecording and production\nAfter touring, Opeth returned home to rehearse frequently, and booked Unisound Studio again to record the album.\n\nMorningrise was recorded during March and April 1996 at Unisound in Örebro. They stayed at the residence of the family of Peter Lindgren's girlfriend. Opeth again produced and mixed along with Dan Swanö, similar to how the previous album, Orchid, was recorded. Swanö also engineered the album. This was the last album that Swanö worked on with Opeth. It was also the last album that was recorded with Johan De Farfalla and Anders Nordin.\n\nAs the release of the first album was delayed, they had already written most of Morningrise when Orchid was released. Although some parts of the material recorded date back to 1991, Mikael Åkerfeldt said, \"the material we had been writing felt really fresh and new.\"\n\nAccording to Åkerfeldt, recording Morningrise was \"quite boring\" because of \"the endless drum takes, click track and shit like that\". The band spent most of the time in the studio smoking. Despite the downtime, Åkerfeldt and Nordin wrote a guitar/piano duet, which would have been the album's instrumental track, but they did not have enough time to finish it.\n\nMorningrise includes Opeth's longest song ever recorded, \"Black Rose Immortal\", with a length of 20:15, and is the band's only album where every song eclipses the ten minute mark in length.\n\nArtwork\nÅkerfeldt said that the head of Candlelight went on holiday to Bath, England, and \"he actually walked on the bridge or whatever it is\". Later, he sent Åkerfeldt a postcard with a color version of the same picture that appears on the cover. The picture is of a Palladian bridge, located in Prior Park. The first pressing was released without the \"Opeth\" logo on the front cover.\n\nMusical style and lyrical themes\nAlong with Orchid, Morningrise shows a sound that is influenced by progressive rock, folk, black metal and death metal, but with more clean vocals than that of the previous record. Despite the singing, Murat Batmaz of Sea of Tranquility magazine said that the song \"Black Rose Immortal\" \"ends with one of Akerfeldt's most violent and longest screams in his career which could only be rivaled by his guesting on Edge of Sanity's Crimson album\", and that Opeth created a \"dark atmosphere on this album, which is simply unique.\" The album has a \"dark melancholic\" sound, and features acoustic and jazz styles. However, according to William York of AllMusic, \"Morningrise is, as far as the metal scale goes, possibly their least heavy album\".\n\nMikael Åkerfeldt has stated that following the success of this album, he became tired of its style and the number of \"copycat\" bands using the counterpoint melodies found in this album and its predecessor. He also says that he finds certain sections of Morningrise \"unlistenable\" and was compelled to change Opeth's sound for My Arms, Your Hearse accordingly.\n\nLyrically, the song \"The Night and the Silent Water\" is about the grandfather of vocalist/guitarist Mikael Åkerfeldt, who had died shortly before the recording of the album. \"To Bid You Farewell\", the album's final song, was notable at the time for having a lighter sound and featuring only clean vocals. This album also features Opeth's longest recorded song, \"Black Rose Immortal\", which lasts over 20 minutes. The reissue bonus track \"Eternal Soul Torture\" is a demo that was recorded in 1992, and includes some sections that were reused in the studio track \"Advent\", as well as \"In Mist She Was Standing\" off of the previous album Orchid.\n\nReception\n\nThe album was well-received critically. Vincent Eldefors of Tartarean Desire stated \"ever since I first heard my first Opeth song \"To Bid You Farewell\" ... they have been among my favorite bands\". \"Dan Swanö helped record this epic piece\", said John Chedsey of Satan Stole My Teddybear in his review, and also mentioned that \"generally the songs flow well from one part to the next, though individual songs are not immediately noticeable. The twin guitars work well with each other, creating some great melodies in the guitars, and often lapsing into very tasteful acoustic moods. In my opinion, it's difficult to write on guitar intricate songs that fully involve the listener, but Opeth manages to keep your attention.\" Murat Batmaz of Sea of Tranquility wrote that \"the melodies, both on this song [\"Advent\"] and the entire album, are immortal.\" He also wrote, \"Though I prefer their current lineup, I don't believe Morningrise would have been so amazing without Johan De Farfalla and Anders Nordin adding their touches. They both incorporate subtle jazz harmonies in their playing enriching the psychedelic passages on the album.\" He was also impressed with the guitar riffs, saying \"it is almost shocking how many godlike riffs Opeth are using in their songs. They literally employ tens of changing riff patterns and incomparable melodies on a single track, with which other bands could more than likely write two full albums\" and claimed that the song \"Black Rose Immortal\" is a \"magnum opus\".\n\nWilliam York of AllMusic wrote, \"the tracks here could best be described as miniature audio movies.\" Christian Renner of Metal Crypt praised the album as being \"overall another excellent album worthy of extremely high praise and what would be a masterpiece for most bands turns out to be just another great album from the genius that is Opeth.\" Jim Raggi of Lamentations of the Flame Princess said that \"this is still the most perfect album ever recorded.\" He also stated \"the more personal nature of the lyrics on Morningrise are another thing that make it a much more intense listen than the stories that would follow. It's incredible how everything changed after this album. The lineup, the style, the lyrics ... Opeth has never released less than an excellent album. But they have only released one perfect album.\" Drew Schinzel of Chronicles of Chaos said that the songs are \"melodic and well played, with great vocals and the occasional guitar solo\". However, he also commented, \"maybe I'm just not in touch with my inner-acoustic-child, but the acoustic sections are too numerous, and get old fast.\"\n\nTrack listing\n\nPersonnel\nCredits for Morningrise adapted from liner notes.\n\nOpeth\n Mikael Åkerfeldt – vocals, guitars\n Peter Lindgren – guitars\n Johan De Farfalla – bass\n Anders Nordin – drums, percussion\n\nAdditional personnel\n Stefan Guteklint – bass guitar on \"Eternal Soul Torture\"\n\nProduction\n Dan Swanö – engineering, mixing\n Peter in de Betou – mastering\n Tuija Lindström – album cover\n Lennart Kaltea – photography\n Tom Martinsen – layout\n Timo Ketola – logo\n\nRelease history\nMorningrise was released on June 24, 1996, in Europe by Candlelight Records on CD, and on cassette by Mystic Production. In the same year, it was released in Japan by Avalon/Marquee. The album was released on June 24, 1997, in the United States by Century Black. It was reissued in 2000 on CD by Candlelight Records and on LP by Displeased Records. The LP was limited to 1000 copies. These reissues contains the bonus track \"Eternal Soul Torture\". A special edition was released by Candlelight in 2003. Another LP reissue of Morningrise was released in 2008 by British label Back on Black.\n\nReferences\n\n1996 albums\nAlbums produced by Dan Swanö\nCandlelight Records albums\nCentury Media Records albums\nOpeth albums",
"The Candlelight Years is an Opeth box set compiling their first three albums Orchid, Morningrise, and My Arms, Your Hearse, originally released on Candlelight Records. Although the albums have been released (and even re-released) before, this was the first time they have been collected in one set. It also marks the first time the albums were released in Japan.\n\nThe box set was released on June 28, 2008, and is presented in fold-out digipak packaging. This edition was limited to 2000 copies. The set was re-released on August 25, 2009, in a standard 3-disc jewel casing.\n\nTrack listing\n\nOrchid\n \"In Mist She Was Standing\" – 14:09\n \"Under the Weeping Moon\" – 9:52\n \"Silhouette\" – 3:07\n \"Forest of October\" – 13:04\n \"The Twilight Is My Robe\" – 11:03\n \"Requiem\" – 1:11\n \"The Apostle in Triumph\" – 13:01\n \"Into the Frost of Winter\" (bonus demo track) – 6:20\n\nMorningrise\n \"Advent\" – 13:45\n \"The Night and the Silent Water\" – 11:00\n \"Nectar\" – 10:09\n \"Black Rose Immortal\" – 20:14\n \"To Bid You Farewell\" – 10:57\n \"Eternal Soul Torture\" (bonus demo track) – 8:35\n\nMy Arms, Your Hearse\n \"Prologue\" – 1:01\n \"April Ethereal\" – 8:41\n \"When\" – 9:14\n \"Madrigal\" – 1:26\n \"The Amen Corner\" – 8:43\n \"Demon of the Fall\" – 6:13\n \"Credence\" – 5:26\n \"Karma\" – 7:52\n \"Epilogue\" – 3:59\n \"Circle of the Tyrants\" (bonus Celtic Frost cover) – 5:12\n \"Remember Tomorrow\" (bonus Iron Maiden cover) – 5:00\n\nPersonnel\n\nOrchid and Morningrise\n Mikael Åkerfeldt – vocals, guitar, acoustic guitar\n Peter Lindgren – guitar, acoustic guitar\n Johan De Farfalla – bass guitar, backing vocals\n Anders Nordin – drums, percussion, piano\n\nMy Arms, Your Hearse\n Mikael Åkerfeldt – vocals, guitar, bass guitar\n Peter Lindgren – guitar\n Martin Lopez – drums\n Fredrik Nordström – engineering, production, Hammond organ (on \"Epilogue\")\n Anders Fridén – co-production\n\nReferences\n\nOpeth albums\n2008 compilation albums"
] |
[
"Daron Malakian",
"Biography"
] |
C_b1f276920bc741f9957c9b2c22ad3288_1
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Is System of a Down still a band in light of this project?
| 1 |
Is System of a Down still a band in light of Daron Malakian project?
|
Daron Malakian
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Daron Vartan Malakian was born on July 18, 1975, in Hollywood, the only child to Vartan and Zepur Malakian, ethnic Armenian immigrants originally from Iraq. Vartan Malakian is a painter, dancer, and choreographer and Zepur Malakian is a sculptor who used to instruct college-level sculpture. At a very early age, Malakian got into heavy metal music; his distant cousin played him a Kiss record when he was four years old. Malakian started listening to Van Halen, Def Leppard, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Motorhead and Ozzy Osbourne among others. He always wanted to play the drums, but his parents got him a guitar instead because "You can't turn the drums off." Daron first picked up a guitar at age 11, saying in an interview, "For the first year and a half, I learned how to play by ear, and did alright. After a few years I gained a reputation as being a guitar player in high school. And by 16 or 17 I actually realized it was a good songwriting instrument, and, over anything, that's what I feel like. I don't pretend to be Mr. Guitar Virtuoso." During his teens Malakian listened to thrash metal bands such as Slayer, Venom, Metallica, Pantera and Sepultura. Malakian then began listening to The Beatles and cites John Lennon as one of his biggest influences on him as a songwriter. He also cites other British Invasion bands such as The Kinks and The Who as major influences as well as folk-rock such as trio Peter, Paul and Mary and punk pioneer Iggy Pop. Daron went to Rose and Alex Pilibos Armenian School in the Los Feliz side of Hollywood, which his future bandmates Shavo Odadjian and Ontronik "Andy" Khachaturian (System of a Down's original drummer) also attended. System of a Down vocalist Serj Tankian attended the school as well, but he was many years above Malakian and the others. Malakian attended Glendale High School as a teenager. He is a lifelong fan of the Edmonton Oilers and has a large collection of Oilers-related memorabilia. Malakian met Serj Tankian in 1993, while they both shared the same rehearsal studio in different bands. Tankian was playing keyboard for a band, and Daron was playing guitar and singing for another band. They formed a jam band called Soil with bassist Dave Hakopyan and drummer Domingo Laraino. Shavo Odadjian then became their manager, and then rhythm guitarist. Soil broke up and Malakian, Tankian, and Odadjian (who switched to bass) formed a new band using the name "System of a Down", based on a poem that Daron wrote. The poem's title was "Victims of a Down" but Odadjian thought "system" was a stronger word than "victims." They then recruited drummer Andy Khachaturian, who was replaced by John Dolmayan in 1997. Malakian co-produced System of a Down's albums with Rick Rubin, as well as albums by The Ambulance and Bad Acid Trip (a band on fellow member Serj Tankian's Serjical Strike Records). In 2003, Malakian started his own label, EatUrMusic, on which Amen was the first signed band. The label is now inactive and its current status is unknown. CANNOTANSWER
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formed a new band using the name "System of a Down", based on a poem that Daron wrote.
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Daron Vartan Malakian (born July 18, 1975) is an Armenian-American musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer. He is best known as the guitarist, songwriter and second vocalist of metal band System of a Down, and as the lead vocalist, lead guitarist, multi-instrumentalist, and songwriter of Scars on Broadway. Malakian is known for his distinctive playing and is ranked 47th in Loudwires list of "Top 50 Hard Rock + Metal Guitarists of All Time" and number 11 in MusicRadars poll "The 20 Greatest Metal Guitarists Ever". He is placed 30th in Guitar Worlds list of "The 100 Greatest Heavy Metal Guitarists of All Time".
Biography
Daron Vartan Malakian was born in Hollywood, California, the only child to Vartan and Zepur Malakian. His parents are ethnic Armenian immigrants. Vartan Malakian is a painter, dancer, and choreographer and Zepur Malakian is a sculptor who instructed college-level sculpture earlier in her career. At a very early age, Malakian got into heavy metal music; his distant cousin played him a Kiss record when he was four years old. Malakian started listening to Van Halen, Aerosmith, Def Leppard, Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Motörhead and Ozzy Osbourne among others. He always wanted to play the drums, but his parents got him a guitar instead because "You can't turn the drums off." Daron first picked up a guitar at age 11, saying in an interview, "For the first year and a half, I learned how to play by ear, and did alright. After a few years I gained a reputation as being a guitar player in high school. And by 16 or 17 I actually realized it was a good songwriting instrument, and, over anything, that's what I feel like. I don't pretend to be Mr. Guitar Virtuoso." During his teens Malakian listened to thrash metal bands such as Slayer, Venom, Metallica, and groove metal bands like Pantera and Sepultura. Malakian then began listening to The Beatles and cites John Lennon as one of his biggest influences as a songwriter. He also cites other British Invasion bands such as The Kinks and The Who as major influences as well as folk-rock such as trio Peter, Paul and Mary and punk pioneer Iggy Pop. Daron went to Rose and Alex Pilibos Armenian School in the Los Feliz side of Hollywood, which his future bandmates Shavo Odadjian and Ontronik "Andy" Khachaturian (System of a Down's original drummer) also attended. System of a Down vocalist Serj Tankian attended the school as well, but he was many years above Malakian and the others. Malakian attended Glendale High School as a teenager.
System of a Down
Malakian met Serj Tankian in 1993, while they both shared the same rehearsal studio in different bands. Tankian was playing keyboard for a band, and Daron was playing guitar and singing for another band. They formed a jam band called Soil with bassist Dave Hakopyan and drummer Domingo Laraino. Shavo Odadjian then became their manager, and then rhythm guitarist. Soil broke up and Malakian, Tankian, and Odadjian (who switched to bass) formed a new band using the name "System of a Down", based on a poem that Daron wrote. The poem's title was "Victims of a Down" but Odadjian thought "system" was a stronger word than "victims". They then recruited drummer Andy Khachaturian, who was replaced by John Dolmayan in 1997.
Malakian co-produced System of a Down's albums with Rick Rubin, as well as albums by The Ambulance and Bad Acid Trip (a band on fellow member Serj Tankian's Serjical Strike Records). In 2003, Malakian started his own label, EatUrMusic, on which Amen was the first signed band. The label is now inactive and its current status is unknown.
Scars on Broadway
In 2003, Daron Malakian (lead guitar and vocals), Greg Kelso (rhythm guitar), Casey Chaos (vocals), and Zach Hill (drums) recorded a demo tape entitled Ghetto Blaster Rehearsals, credited to the name Scars on Broadway. However, in 2007, an official letter appeared on the band's website that stated that these tracks are not in any way affiliated with Malakian's later project Scars on Broadway. Incidentally, these demo sessions produced "B.Y.O.B.", which would be a major hit for System of a Down in 2005.
Following System's hiatus, Malakian announced his latest project – Scars on Broadway – a band which would include System of a Down bassist, Shavo Odadjian, and himself. Ultimately, Odadjian was not involved with the band, and instead System of a Down drummer, John Dolmayan became a member. After Malakian and Dolmayan experimented with different musicians (for a period of nine months in 2007 – 2008) the band took form and forged its sound in intense rehearsals and recording sessions (under Malakian's direction at his home studio and Sunset Sound) with musicians Danny Shamoun on keyboards, Dominic Cifarelli on bass, and Franky Perez on guitar and backing vocals for live performances (in the studio Malakian played nearly all the instruments with the exception of drums which were played by Dolmayan and some overdubs provided by the other members). The group released an eponymous album in 2008, which featured the hit single "They Say" (written by Malakian). However, shortly before the tour supporting the album, Malakian cancelled all scheduled concert and TV appearances, blaming a lack of enthusiasm and that his "heart wasn't into touring." This sudden cancellation prompted speculation and rumors that the band had broken up. It was the last that would be heard of Malakian for more than a year.
Malakian stayed out of the public eye following his cancellation of the tour in support of Scars on Broadway's debut album in October 2008. In 2009 Malakian made a surprise appearance (his first in a year) at Shavo Odadjian's Halloween Party and played "Suite-Pee", "They Say", and an unknown song with Odadjian, Dolmayan and Scars on Broadway's Franky Perez on guitar. It was the first time that the band members (minus Tankian, who was working on his second solo album) performed together in more than three years.
In August 2009, Scars on Broadway, minus Malakian, traveled to Iraq for a USO tour across the U.S. army bases. Their setlist consisted of covers as well as a few Scars songs. Guitarist/vocalist Franky Perez stated on his Twitter that "the Scars tunes sound amazing but they're not the same without D..." He also stated before they left that Malakian had given them his blessing. In 2009 Franky Perez mentioned on his Twitter that he and the D-Man (Malakian) were going into studio to jam, this was the first news people have heard about Malakian's whereabouts for about a year.
On November 20, 2009, Malakian played at the Chi Cheng Benefit concert along with Deftones, and also performed with Odadjian and Dolmayan. Malakian, Odadjian, and Dolmayan played "Aerials" and "Toxicity". He appeared on Cypress Hill's 2010 album Rise Up, on one song, "Trouble Seeker", which he also produced.
On May 2, 2010, Malakian reunited with Scars on Broadway at the Troubadour in West Hollywood. It was the first time he had performed with the band since October 2008. The group played songs from their album as well as new songs. Odadjian performed with the band for two songs, playing guitar. On August 20, 2010, Malakian played in Hollywood with Scars on Broadway. On November 29, 2010, it was announced that System of a Down would reunite for a European tour to take place in June 2011. They played at the Download Festival on June 11, 2011. Despite playing a number of reunion shows, the band had no plans to record new material. In October 2011, John Dolmayan expressed his interest in writing new material but cited that band members are all busy with their other projects (such as Daron's Scars on Broadway and Serj Tankian's solo efforts).
On July 29, 2010, Scars on Broadway released their first new studio recording in exactly two years, a Malakian-penned song called "Fucking". On February 24, 2012, System of a Down announced that the Scars on Broadway website was back online featuring a preview of a new song called "Guns Are Loaded".
In 2014, he appeared on Linkin Park's sixth studio album The Hunting Party, for which he provided additional guitars for the promotional single "Rebellion". The promotional single was self-produced by Mike Shinoda and Brad Delson. On August 18, 2016, Malakian performed with the Los Angeles-based alternative music project Millennials
On October 28, 2017, Malakian performed with the surviving members of Linkin Park which played a show at the Hollywood Bowl dedicated to the passing of their frontman Chester Bennington. He performed "Rebellion" alongside SOAD bassist Shavo Odadjian.
On April 23, 2018, Malakian released a song with Scars on Broadway called "Lives" about the history and culture of Armenia.
On July 20, 2018, Malakian and Scars on Broadway released the album Dictator.
Personal life
Unlike the rest of System of a Down, Malakian is not married and has no children.
Malakian is a lifelong fan of the Edmonton Oilers and has a large collection of Oilers-related memorabilia.
Discography
Features
System of a Down
System of a Down (1998)
Toxicity (2001)
Steal This Album! (2002)
Mezmerize (2005)
Hypnotize (2005)
Scars on Broadway
Scars on Broadway (2008)
Dictator (2018)
Other appearances
Production credits
Malakian has also produced a number of albums.
See also
History of the Armenian Americans in Los Angeles
References
1975 births
American musicians of Armenian descent
American experimental guitarists
American male guitarists
American male singers
American heavy metal guitarists
American heavy metal singers
Grammy Award winners
Armenian rock musicians
Lead guitarists
System of a Down members
Alternative metal guitarists
Alternative metal musicians
Sitar players
Living people
Glendale High School (Glendale, California) alumni
Guitarists from Los Angeles
Daron Malakian and Scars on Broadway members
21st-century American singers
Nu metal singers
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[
"Ontronik \"Andy\" Khachaturian (born May 4, 1975) is an Armenian-American musician, producer and DJ. He is known for being the original drummer (1994–1997) of the band System of a Down and founder/lead vocalist (1999–2002) of the alt-progressive rock band The Apex Theory, as well as the member of his band VoKee. He was also the founder/drummer/keyboardist and backing vocalist of KillMatriarch (2010–2012) and currently is working on his solo project, OnTronik.\n\nHistory\n\nSystem of a Down\nKhachaturian was born to Armenian parents in Los Angeles, California, United States. He met Daron Malakian and Shavo Odadjian in high school. Khachaturian then met Serj Tankian when they decided in 1994 to form the band System of a Down. Together, they recorded a demo titled \"Untitled 1995 Demo\" and \"Demo Tape 1\". In 1996, they recorded \"Demo Tape 2\" and in 1997, recorded \"Demo Tape 3\" and \"Demo Tape 4\". In 1997, after spending three years with System of a Down, Andy had to leave the band due to an injury inflicted while practicing Jeet Kune Do and was replaced by John Dolmayan, current drummer of System of a Down.\n\nMt. Helium, VoKee, KillMatriarch and DJ stage\nIn 1998, Ontronik with Art Karamian, David Hakopyan and Sammy J. Watson decided to form the band The Apex Theory, bringing to market 2 music albums and 1 EP. Later, they decided to rename the band Mt. Helium. In 2002, Ontronik left the band because of musical differences.\nAfter leaving Mt. Helium, Ontronik formed a rock band in 2004 with a group of friends, called VoKee. In 2010, Ontronik co-founded the industrial rock trio KillMatriarch and produced the first EP titled \"Order Through Chaos\". In 2012, the band disbanded and currently, Ontronik is working in Los Angeles, California on his OnTronik solo project.\n\nBands\n\nDiscography\n\nSystem of a Down\nUntitled 1995 Demo (1995)\nDemo Tape 1 (1995)\nDemo Tape 2 (1996)\nDemo Tape 3 (1997)\nDemo Tape 4 (1997)\n\nMt. Helium\nExtendemo (EP) (2000)\nThe Apex Theory (EP) (2001)\nTopsy-Turvy (2002)\n\nKillMatriarch\nOrder Through Chaos (EP) (2010)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Khachaturian's official website (archived)\n \n\nAmerican heavy metal drummers\nSystem of a Down members\nAmerican musicians of Armenian descent\nAmerican rock singers\nArmenian rock musicians\nLiving people\n1975 births\nAmerican DJs\n20th-century American drummers\nAmerican male drummers\nNu metal singers\n21st-century American singers\n21st-century American drummers",
"Stray light is light in an optical system, which was not intended in the design. The light may be from the intended source, but follow paths other than intended, or it may be from a source other than the intended source. This light will often set a working limit on the dynamic range of the system; it limits the signal-to-noise ratio or contrast ratio, by limiting how dark the system can be. Ocular straylight is stray light in the human eye.\n\nOptical systems\n\nMonochromatic light\n\nOptical measuring instruments that work with monochromatic light, such as spectrophotometers, define stray light as light in the system at wavelengths (colors) other than the one intended. The stray light level is one of the most critical specifications of an instrument. For instance, intense, narrow absorption bands can easily appear to have a peak absorption less than the true absorption of the sample because the ability of the instrument to measure light transmission through the sample is limited by the stray light level. One method to reduce stray light in these systems is the use of double monochromators. The ratio of transmitted stray light to signal is reduced to the product of the ratio for each monochromator, so combining two monochromators in series with 10−3 stray light each produces a system with a stray light ratio of 10−6, allowing a much larger dynamic range for measurements.\n\nMethods have also been invented to measure and compensate for stray light in spectrophotometers. ASTM standard E387 describes methods of estimating stray light in spectrophotometers. The terms they use for this are stray radiant power (SRP) and stray radiant power ratio (SRPR).\n\nThere are also commercial sources of reference materials to help in testing the stray light level in spectrophotometers.\n\nAstronomy\nIn optical astronomy, stray light from sky glow can limit the ability to detect faint objects. In this sense stray light is light from other sources that is focused to the same place as the faint object.\n\nStray light is a major issue in the design of a coronagraph, used for observing the Sun's corona.\n\nSources\nThere are many sources of stray light. For example:\nGhost orders in diffraction gratings. These can be caused by periodic variations in the spacing of grooves in ruled gratings, for instance.\nLight scattered towards a telescope from particles along the optical path to a star.\nLight emitted by components of the optical system. \nInfrared optical systems are, obviously, especially susceptible due to thermal radiation.\n one way to reduce the effect of stray IR generated within the system is to move from working with DC signals to a narrow frequency band where the amplitude of the stray emissions is smaller. This can be done, for instance, by modulating the source light entering the system with an optical chopper, and isolating the detected source signal component from the detected stray component with a Lock in amplifier synchronized to the chopper frequency. However, this approach is still limited by the dynamic range of the detector. That is, the stray component must not be so great that it saturates the detector.\nReflections from lens surfaces. \nAnti-reflective coatings are used to reduce stray light.\nNarcissus - Specifically, thermal radiation from the infrared detector reflected back to itself from lens surfaces.\nLight scattered from the surfaces of supporting structures within the optical system.\nDiffuse reflection from imperfect mirror surfaces.\nLight leaks in the enclosure of the system. \n This might be the first cause to come to mind, but as this list shows, it is hardly the only source of stray light.\n\nDesign tools\nA number of optical design programs feature the capability of modeling stray light in an optical system, for instance:\nASAP\nFRED\nSynopsys LightTools\nTracePro\nZemax\nA designer can use such a model to predict and minimize stray light in the final system.\n\nSee also\nGlare (vision)\nLens flare\nSpectral power distribution\nVeiling glare\n\nReferences\n\nOptical metrology\nPhotometry"
] |
[
"Daron Malakian",
"Biography",
"Is System of a Down still a band in light of this project?",
"formed a new band using the name \"System of a Down\", based on a poem that Daron wrote."
] |
C_b1f276920bc741f9957c9b2c22ad3288_1
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Do the two bands have similar sounds?
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Do System of a Down and the other band have similar sounds?
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Daron Malakian
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Daron Vartan Malakian was born on July 18, 1975, in Hollywood, the only child to Vartan and Zepur Malakian, ethnic Armenian immigrants originally from Iraq. Vartan Malakian is a painter, dancer, and choreographer and Zepur Malakian is a sculptor who used to instruct college-level sculpture. At a very early age, Malakian got into heavy metal music; his distant cousin played him a Kiss record when he was four years old. Malakian started listening to Van Halen, Def Leppard, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Motorhead and Ozzy Osbourne among others. He always wanted to play the drums, but his parents got him a guitar instead because "You can't turn the drums off." Daron first picked up a guitar at age 11, saying in an interview, "For the first year and a half, I learned how to play by ear, and did alright. After a few years I gained a reputation as being a guitar player in high school. And by 16 or 17 I actually realized it was a good songwriting instrument, and, over anything, that's what I feel like. I don't pretend to be Mr. Guitar Virtuoso." During his teens Malakian listened to thrash metal bands such as Slayer, Venom, Metallica, Pantera and Sepultura. Malakian then began listening to The Beatles and cites John Lennon as one of his biggest influences on him as a songwriter. He also cites other British Invasion bands such as The Kinks and The Who as major influences as well as folk-rock such as trio Peter, Paul and Mary and punk pioneer Iggy Pop. Daron went to Rose and Alex Pilibos Armenian School in the Los Feliz side of Hollywood, which his future bandmates Shavo Odadjian and Ontronik "Andy" Khachaturian (System of a Down's original drummer) also attended. System of a Down vocalist Serj Tankian attended the school as well, but he was many years above Malakian and the others. Malakian attended Glendale High School as a teenager. He is a lifelong fan of the Edmonton Oilers and has a large collection of Oilers-related memorabilia. Malakian met Serj Tankian in 1993, while they both shared the same rehearsal studio in different bands. Tankian was playing keyboard for a band, and Daron was playing guitar and singing for another band. They formed a jam band called Soil with bassist Dave Hakopyan and drummer Domingo Laraino. Shavo Odadjian then became their manager, and then rhythm guitarist. Soil broke up and Malakian, Tankian, and Odadjian (who switched to bass) formed a new band using the name "System of a Down", based on a poem that Daron wrote. The poem's title was "Victims of a Down" but Odadjian thought "system" was a stronger word than "victims." They then recruited drummer Andy Khachaturian, who was replaced by John Dolmayan in 1997. Malakian co-produced System of a Down's albums with Rick Rubin, as well as albums by The Ambulance and Bad Acid Trip (a band on fellow member Serj Tankian's Serjical Strike Records). In 2003, Malakian started his own label, EatUrMusic, on which Amen was the first signed band. The label is now inactive and its current status is unknown. CANNOTANSWER
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Malakian co-produced System of a Down's albums with Rick Rubin, as well as albums by The Ambulance and Bad Acid Trip
|
Daron Vartan Malakian (born July 18, 1975) is an Armenian-American musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer. He is best known as the guitarist, songwriter and second vocalist of metal band System of a Down, and as the lead vocalist, lead guitarist, multi-instrumentalist, and songwriter of Scars on Broadway. Malakian is known for his distinctive playing and is ranked 47th in Loudwires list of "Top 50 Hard Rock + Metal Guitarists of All Time" and number 11 in MusicRadars poll "The 20 Greatest Metal Guitarists Ever". He is placed 30th in Guitar Worlds list of "The 100 Greatest Heavy Metal Guitarists of All Time".
Biography
Daron Vartan Malakian was born in Hollywood, California, the only child to Vartan and Zepur Malakian. His parents are ethnic Armenian immigrants. Vartan Malakian is a painter, dancer, and choreographer and Zepur Malakian is a sculptor who instructed college-level sculpture earlier in her career. At a very early age, Malakian got into heavy metal music; his distant cousin played him a Kiss record when he was four years old. Malakian started listening to Van Halen, Aerosmith, Def Leppard, Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Motörhead and Ozzy Osbourne among others. He always wanted to play the drums, but his parents got him a guitar instead because "You can't turn the drums off." Daron first picked up a guitar at age 11, saying in an interview, "For the first year and a half, I learned how to play by ear, and did alright. After a few years I gained a reputation as being a guitar player in high school. And by 16 or 17 I actually realized it was a good songwriting instrument, and, over anything, that's what I feel like. I don't pretend to be Mr. Guitar Virtuoso." During his teens Malakian listened to thrash metal bands such as Slayer, Venom, Metallica, and groove metal bands like Pantera and Sepultura. Malakian then began listening to The Beatles and cites John Lennon as one of his biggest influences as a songwriter. He also cites other British Invasion bands such as The Kinks and The Who as major influences as well as folk-rock such as trio Peter, Paul and Mary and punk pioneer Iggy Pop. Daron went to Rose and Alex Pilibos Armenian School in the Los Feliz side of Hollywood, which his future bandmates Shavo Odadjian and Ontronik "Andy" Khachaturian (System of a Down's original drummer) also attended. System of a Down vocalist Serj Tankian attended the school as well, but he was many years above Malakian and the others. Malakian attended Glendale High School as a teenager.
System of a Down
Malakian met Serj Tankian in 1993, while they both shared the same rehearsal studio in different bands. Tankian was playing keyboard for a band, and Daron was playing guitar and singing for another band. They formed a jam band called Soil with bassist Dave Hakopyan and drummer Domingo Laraino. Shavo Odadjian then became their manager, and then rhythm guitarist. Soil broke up and Malakian, Tankian, and Odadjian (who switched to bass) formed a new band using the name "System of a Down", based on a poem that Daron wrote. The poem's title was "Victims of a Down" but Odadjian thought "system" was a stronger word than "victims". They then recruited drummer Andy Khachaturian, who was replaced by John Dolmayan in 1997.
Malakian co-produced System of a Down's albums with Rick Rubin, as well as albums by The Ambulance and Bad Acid Trip (a band on fellow member Serj Tankian's Serjical Strike Records). In 2003, Malakian started his own label, EatUrMusic, on which Amen was the first signed band. The label is now inactive and its current status is unknown.
Scars on Broadway
In 2003, Daron Malakian (lead guitar and vocals), Greg Kelso (rhythm guitar), Casey Chaos (vocals), and Zach Hill (drums) recorded a demo tape entitled Ghetto Blaster Rehearsals, credited to the name Scars on Broadway. However, in 2007, an official letter appeared on the band's website that stated that these tracks are not in any way affiliated with Malakian's later project Scars on Broadway. Incidentally, these demo sessions produced "B.Y.O.B.", which would be a major hit for System of a Down in 2005.
Following System's hiatus, Malakian announced his latest project – Scars on Broadway – a band which would include System of a Down bassist, Shavo Odadjian, and himself. Ultimately, Odadjian was not involved with the band, and instead System of a Down drummer, John Dolmayan became a member. After Malakian and Dolmayan experimented with different musicians (for a period of nine months in 2007 – 2008) the band took form and forged its sound in intense rehearsals and recording sessions (under Malakian's direction at his home studio and Sunset Sound) with musicians Danny Shamoun on keyboards, Dominic Cifarelli on bass, and Franky Perez on guitar and backing vocals for live performances (in the studio Malakian played nearly all the instruments with the exception of drums which were played by Dolmayan and some overdubs provided by the other members). The group released an eponymous album in 2008, which featured the hit single "They Say" (written by Malakian). However, shortly before the tour supporting the album, Malakian cancelled all scheduled concert and TV appearances, blaming a lack of enthusiasm and that his "heart wasn't into touring." This sudden cancellation prompted speculation and rumors that the band had broken up. It was the last that would be heard of Malakian for more than a year.
Malakian stayed out of the public eye following his cancellation of the tour in support of Scars on Broadway's debut album in October 2008. In 2009 Malakian made a surprise appearance (his first in a year) at Shavo Odadjian's Halloween Party and played "Suite-Pee", "They Say", and an unknown song with Odadjian, Dolmayan and Scars on Broadway's Franky Perez on guitar. It was the first time that the band members (minus Tankian, who was working on his second solo album) performed together in more than three years.
In August 2009, Scars on Broadway, minus Malakian, traveled to Iraq for a USO tour across the U.S. army bases. Their setlist consisted of covers as well as a few Scars songs. Guitarist/vocalist Franky Perez stated on his Twitter that "the Scars tunes sound amazing but they're not the same without D..." He also stated before they left that Malakian had given them his blessing. In 2009 Franky Perez mentioned on his Twitter that he and the D-Man (Malakian) were going into studio to jam, this was the first news people have heard about Malakian's whereabouts for about a year.
On November 20, 2009, Malakian played at the Chi Cheng Benefit concert along with Deftones, and also performed with Odadjian and Dolmayan. Malakian, Odadjian, and Dolmayan played "Aerials" and "Toxicity". He appeared on Cypress Hill's 2010 album Rise Up, on one song, "Trouble Seeker", which he also produced.
On May 2, 2010, Malakian reunited with Scars on Broadway at the Troubadour in West Hollywood. It was the first time he had performed with the band since October 2008. The group played songs from their album as well as new songs. Odadjian performed with the band for two songs, playing guitar. On August 20, 2010, Malakian played in Hollywood with Scars on Broadway. On November 29, 2010, it was announced that System of a Down would reunite for a European tour to take place in June 2011. They played at the Download Festival on June 11, 2011. Despite playing a number of reunion shows, the band had no plans to record new material. In October 2011, John Dolmayan expressed his interest in writing new material but cited that band members are all busy with their other projects (such as Daron's Scars on Broadway and Serj Tankian's solo efforts).
On July 29, 2010, Scars on Broadway released their first new studio recording in exactly two years, a Malakian-penned song called "Fucking". On February 24, 2012, System of a Down announced that the Scars on Broadway website was back online featuring a preview of a new song called "Guns Are Loaded".
In 2014, he appeared on Linkin Park's sixth studio album The Hunting Party, for which he provided additional guitars for the promotional single "Rebellion". The promotional single was self-produced by Mike Shinoda and Brad Delson. On August 18, 2016, Malakian performed with the Los Angeles-based alternative music project Millennials
On October 28, 2017, Malakian performed with the surviving members of Linkin Park which played a show at the Hollywood Bowl dedicated to the passing of their frontman Chester Bennington. He performed "Rebellion" alongside SOAD bassist Shavo Odadjian.
On April 23, 2018, Malakian released a song with Scars on Broadway called "Lives" about the history and culture of Armenia.
On July 20, 2018, Malakian and Scars on Broadway released the album Dictator.
Personal life
Unlike the rest of System of a Down, Malakian is not married and has no children.
Malakian is a lifelong fan of the Edmonton Oilers and has a large collection of Oilers-related memorabilia.
Discography
Features
System of a Down
System of a Down (1998)
Toxicity (2001)
Steal This Album! (2002)
Mezmerize (2005)
Hypnotize (2005)
Scars on Broadway
Scars on Broadway (2008)
Dictator (2018)
Other appearances
Production credits
Malakian has also produced a number of albums.
See also
History of the Armenian Americans in Los Angeles
References
1975 births
American musicians of Armenian descent
American experimental guitarists
American male guitarists
American male singers
American heavy metal guitarists
American heavy metal singers
Grammy Award winners
Armenian rock musicians
Lead guitarists
System of a Down members
Alternative metal guitarists
Alternative metal musicians
Sitar players
Living people
Glendale High School (Glendale, California) alumni
Guitarists from Los Angeles
Daron Malakian and Scars on Broadway members
21st-century American singers
Nu metal singers
| true |
[
"The Uruguayan Invasion was a musical phenomenon of the 1960s similar to the British Invasion, with rock bands from Uruguay gaining popularity in Argentina.\n\nHistory\nInspired by British bands like The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, many young musicians in Montevideo, Uruguay began to imitate their sounds. Two bands in particular, Los Shakers and Los Mockers mirrored The Beatles and The Rolling Stones respectively. Popular bands of the Uruguayan Invasion sang mostly in English.\n\nIn the mid-1960s, as the British Invasion was at its height in the United States, Uruguayan bands began a similar rise to fame in Argentina. Record labels began rapidly signing Uruguayan rock bands to promote in Argentina. Argentine television shows like Escala Musical were also a springboard for many of the bands' popularity.\n\nLike the British Invasion, the Uruguayan Invasion had died down by the late 1960s, as it became more popular to record harder-hitting Spanish-language music. Spurred on by the band Los Gatos's 1967 hit record \"La Balsa\", most bands began to record in Spanish. With the coming of the military dictatorship in 1973, the Uruguayan Invasion effectively ended.\n\nUruguayan Invasion bands\nLos Shakers\nLos Malditos\nLos Mockers\nKano y Los Bulldogs\n\nSee also\n\n Uruguayan rock\n Argentine rock\n Korean Wave\n Taiwanese Wave\n Garage rock\n\nExternal links\nThe Beat Years\nThe Uruguayan Invasion\n\nArgentine music\nUruguayan music",
"Live from Lawrence was the fourth album in the \"Fresh Sounds From Middle America\" series of compilation albums, and like the previous album in the series it was a collaborative effort by Fresh Sounds Records and the KJHK radio station.\n\nGeneral info\nKJHK held a competition called \"Quest for Vinyl\" for bands that wanted to appear on the compilation. The \"Fresh Sounds\" series was originally devised by Bill Rich, of Talk Talk magazine, as a way to promote regional bands nationally. However, in an interview with the Lawrence Journal-World, execs from several independent record companies cast doubt that such an appearance would be a springboard to greater success for the bands.\n\nThe organisers of this volume in the series were Bill Rich (Fresh Sounds), Brad Schwartz (KJHK station manager), Sam Elliot (KJHJ faculty advisor) and Michael Bassin (KJHK entertainment coordinator).\n\nTrack listing\nSide 1:\n\nSide 2:\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nFresh Sounds Discography\nRate Your Music\n\n1988 compilation albums\nPost-punk compilation albums\nRecord label compilation albums\nFresh Sounds Records albums"
] |
[
"Daron Malakian",
"Biography",
"Is System of a Down still a band in light of this project?",
"formed a new band using the name \"System of a Down\", based on a poem that Daron wrote.",
"Do the two bands have similar sounds?",
"Malakian co-produced System of a Down's albums with Rick Rubin, as well as albums by The Ambulance and Bad Acid Trip"
] |
C_b1f276920bc741f9957c9b2c22ad3288_1
|
What ethnicity is Malakian?
| 3 |
What ethnicity is Daron Malakian?
|
Daron Malakian
|
Daron Vartan Malakian was born on July 18, 1975, in Hollywood, the only child to Vartan and Zepur Malakian, ethnic Armenian immigrants originally from Iraq. Vartan Malakian is a painter, dancer, and choreographer and Zepur Malakian is a sculptor who used to instruct college-level sculpture. At a very early age, Malakian got into heavy metal music; his distant cousin played him a Kiss record when he was four years old. Malakian started listening to Van Halen, Def Leppard, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Motorhead and Ozzy Osbourne among others. He always wanted to play the drums, but his parents got him a guitar instead because "You can't turn the drums off." Daron first picked up a guitar at age 11, saying in an interview, "For the first year and a half, I learned how to play by ear, and did alright. After a few years I gained a reputation as being a guitar player in high school. And by 16 or 17 I actually realized it was a good songwriting instrument, and, over anything, that's what I feel like. I don't pretend to be Mr. Guitar Virtuoso." During his teens Malakian listened to thrash metal bands such as Slayer, Venom, Metallica, Pantera and Sepultura. Malakian then began listening to The Beatles and cites John Lennon as one of his biggest influences on him as a songwriter. He also cites other British Invasion bands such as The Kinks and The Who as major influences as well as folk-rock such as trio Peter, Paul and Mary and punk pioneer Iggy Pop. Daron went to Rose and Alex Pilibos Armenian School in the Los Feliz side of Hollywood, which his future bandmates Shavo Odadjian and Ontronik "Andy" Khachaturian (System of a Down's original drummer) also attended. System of a Down vocalist Serj Tankian attended the school as well, but he was many years above Malakian and the others. Malakian attended Glendale High School as a teenager. He is a lifelong fan of the Edmonton Oilers and has a large collection of Oilers-related memorabilia. Malakian met Serj Tankian in 1993, while they both shared the same rehearsal studio in different bands. Tankian was playing keyboard for a band, and Daron was playing guitar and singing for another band. They formed a jam band called Soil with bassist Dave Hakopyan and drummer Domingo Laraino. Shavo Odadjian then became their manager, and then rhythm guitarist. Soil broke up and Malakian, Tankian, and Odadjian (who switched to bass) formed a new band using the name "System of a Down", based on a poem that Daron wrote. The poem's title was "Victims of a Down" but Odadjian thought "system" was a stronger word than "victims." They then recruited drummer Andy Khachaturian, who was replaced by John Dolmayan in 1997. Malakian co-produced System of a Down's albums with Rick Rubin, as well as albums by The Ambulance and Bad Acid Trip (a band on fellow member Serj Tankian's Serjical Strike Records). In 2003, Malakian started his own label, EatUrMusic, on which Amen was the first signed band. The label is now inactive and its current status is unknown. CANNOTANSWER
|
Daron Vartan Malakian was born on July 18, 1975, in Hollywood, the only child to Vartan and Zepur Malakian, ethnic Armenian immigrants originally from Iraq.
|
Daron Vartan Malakian (born July 18, 1975) is an Armenian-American musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer. He is best known as the guitarist, songwriter and second vocalist of metal band System of a Down, and as the lead vocalist, lead guitarist, multi-instrumentalist, and songwriter of Scars on Broadway. Malakian is known for his distinctive playing and is ranked 47th in Loudwires list of "Top 50 Hard Rock + Metal Guitarists of All Time" and number 11 in MusicRadars poll "The 20 Greatest Metal Guitarists Ever". He is placed 30th in Guitar Worlds list of "The 100 Greatest Heavy Metal Guitarists of All Time".
Biography
Daron Vartan Malakian was born in Hollywood, California, the only child to Vartan and Zepur Malakian. His parents are ethnic Armenian immigrants. Vartan Malakian is a painter, dancer, and choreographer and Zepur Malakian is a sculptor who instructed college-level sculpture earlier in her career. At a very early age, Malakian got into heavy metal music; his distant cousin played him a Kiss record when he was four years old. Malakian started listening to Van Halen, Aerosmith, Def Leppard, Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Motörhead and Ozzy Osbourne among others. He always wanted to play the drums, but his parents got him a guitar instead because "You can't turn the drums off." Daron first picked up a guitar at age 11, saying in an interview, "For the first year and a half, I learned how to play by ear, and did alright. After a few years I gained a reputation as being a guitar player in high school. And by 16 or 17 I actually realized it was a good songwriting instrument, and, over anything, that's what I feel like. I don't pretend to be Mr. Guitar Virtuoso." During his teens Malakian listened to thrash metal bands such as Slayer, Venom, Metallica, and groove metal bands like Pantera and Sepultura. Malakian then began listening to The Beatles and cites John Lennon as one of his biggest influences as a songwriter. He also cites other British Invasion bands such as The Kinks and The Who as major influences as well as folk-rock such as trio Peter, Paul and Mary and punk pioneer Iggy Pop. Daron went to Rose and Alex Pilibos Armenian School in the Los Feliz side of Hollywood, which his future bandmates Shavo Odadjian and Ontronik "Andy" Khachaturian (System of a Down's original drummer) also attended. System of a Down vocalist Serj Tankian attended the school as well, but he was many years above Malakian and the others. Malakian attended Glendale High School as a teenager.
System of a Down
Malakian met Serj Tankian in 1993, while they both shared the same rehearsal studio in different bands. Tankian was playing keyboard for a band, and Daron was playing guitar and singing for another band. They formed a jam band called Soil with bassist Dave Hakopyan and drummer Domingo Laraino. Shavo Odadjian then became their manager, and then rhythm guitarist. Soil broke up and Malakian, Tankian, and Odadjian (who switched to bass) formed a new band using the name "System of a Down", based on a poem that Daron wrote. The poem's title was "Victims of a Down" but Odadjian thought "system" was a stronger word than "victims". They then recruited drummer Andy Khachaturian, who was replaced by John Dolmayan in 1997.
Malakian co-produced System of a Down's albums with Rick Rubin, as well as albums by The Ambulance and Bad Acid Trip (a band on fellow member Serj Tankian's Serjical Strike Records). In 2003, Malakian started his own label, EatUrMusic, on which Amen was the first signed band. The label is now inactive and its current status is unknown.
Scars on Broadway
In 2003, Daron Malakian (lead guitar and vocals), Greg Kelso (rhythm guitar), Casey Chaos (vocals), and Zach Hill (drums) recorded a demo tape entitled Ghetto Blaster Rehearsals, credited to the name Scars on Broadway. However, in 2007, an official letter appeared on the band's website that stated that these tracks are not in any way affiliated with Malakian's later project Scars on Broadway. Incidentally, these demo sessions produced "B.Y.O.B.", which would be a major hit for System of a Down in 2005.
Following System's hiatus, Malakian announced his latest project – Scars on Broadway – a band which would include System of a Down bassist, Shavo Odadjian, and himself. Ultimately, Odadjian was not involved with the band, and instead System of a Down drummer, John Dolmayan became a member. After Malakian and Dolmayan experimented with different musicians (for a period of nine months in 2007 – 2008) the band took form and forged its sound in intense rehearsals and recording sessions (under Malakian's direction at his home studio and Sunset Sound) with musicians Danny Shamoun on keyboards, Dominic Cifarelli on bass, and Franky Perez on guitar and backing vocals for live performances (in the studio Malakian played nearly all the instruments with the exception of drums which were played by Dolmayan and some overdubs provided by the other members). The group released an eponymous album in 2008, which featured the hit single "They Say" (written by Malakian). However, shortly before the tour supporting the album, Malakian cancelled all scheduled concert and TV appearances, blaming a lack of enthusiasm and that his "heart wasn't into touring." This sudden cancellation prompted speculation and rumors that the band had broken up. It was the last that would be heard of Malakian for more than a year.
Malakian stayed out of the public eye following his cancellation of the tour in support of Scars on Broadway's debut album in October 2008. In 2009 Malakian made a surprise appearance (his first in a year) at Shavo Odadjian's Halloween Party and played "Suite-Pee", "They Say", and an unknown song with Odadjian, Dolmayan and Scars on Broadway's Franky Perez on guitar. It was the first time that the band members (minus Tankian, who was working on his second solo album) performed together in more than three years.
In August 2009, Scars on Broadway, minus Malakian, traveled to Iraq for a USO tour across the U.S. army bases. Their setlist consisted of covers as well as a few Scars songs. Guitarist/vocalist Franky Perez stated on his Twitter that "the Scars tunes sound amazing but they're not the same without D..." He also stated before they left that Malakian had given them his blessing. In 2009 Franky Perez mentioned on his Twitter that he and the D-Man (Malakian) were going into studio to jam, this was the first news people have heard about Malakian's whereabouts for about a year.
On November 20, 2009, Malakian played at the Chi Cheng Benefit concert along with Deftones, and also performed with Odadjian and Dolmayan. Malakian, Odadjian, and Dolmayan played "Aerials" and "Toxicity". He appeared on Cypress Hill's 2010 album Rise Up, on one song, "Trouble Seeker", which he also produced.
On May 2, 2010, Malakian reunited with Scars on Broadway at the Troubadour in West Hollywood. It was the first time he had performed with the band since October 2008. The group played songs from their album as well as new songs. Odadjian performed with the band for two songs, playing guitar. On August 20, 2010, Malakian played in Hollywood with Scars on Broadway. On November 29, 2010, it was announced that System of a Down would reunite for a European tour to take place in June 2011. They played at the Download Festival on June 11, 2011. Despite playing a number of reunion shows, the band had no plans to record new material. In October 2011, John Dolmayan expressed his interest in writing new material but cited that band members are all busy with their other projects (such as Daron's Scars on Broadway and Serj Tankian's solo efforts).
On July 29, 2010, Scars on Broadway released their first new studio recording in exactly two years, a Malakian-penned song called "Fucking". On February 24, 2012, System of a Down announced that the Scars on Broadway website was back online featuring a preview of a new song called "Guns Are Loaded".
In 2014, he appeared on Linkin Park's sixth studio album The Hunting Party, for which he provided additional guitars for the promotional single "Rebellion". The promotional single was self-produced by Mike Shinoda and Brad Delson. On August 18, 2016, Malakian performed with the Los Angeles-based alternative music project Millennials
On October 28, 2017, Malakian performed with the surviving members of Linkin Park which played a show at the Hollywood Bowl dedicated to the passing of their frontman Chester Bennington. He performed "Rebellion" alongside SOAD bassist Shavo Odadjian.
On April 23, 2018, Malakian released a song with Scars on Broadway called "Lives" about the history and culture of Armenia.
On July 20, 2018, Malakian and Scars on Broadway released the album Dictator.
Personal life
Unlike the rest of System of a Down, Malakian is not married and has no children.
Malakian is a lifelong fan of the Edmonton Oilers and has a large collection of Oilers-related memorabilia.
Discography
Features
System of a Down
System of a Down (1998)
Toxicity (2001)
Steal This Album! (2002)
Mezmerize (2005)
Hypnotize (2005)
Scars on Broadway
Scars on Broadway (2008)
Dictator (2018)
Other appearances
Production credits
Malakian has also produced a number of albums.
See also
History of the Armenian Americans in Los Angeles
References
1975 births
American musicians of Armenian descent
American experimental guitarists
American male guitarists
American male singers
American heavy metal guitarists
American heavy metal singers
Grammy Award winners
Armenian rock musicians
Lead guitarists
System of a Down members
Alternative metal guitarists
Alternative metal musicians
Sitar players
Living people
Glendale High School (Glendale, California) alumni
Guitarists from Los Angeles
Daron Malakian and Scars on Broadway members
21st-century American singers
Nu metal singers
| false |
[
"Scars on Broadway is the debut studio album by Scars on Broadway, a band consisting of System of a Down members Daron Malakian and John Dolmayan. The album contains 15 tracks, all written by Malakian.\n\nThe album opened at No. 17 on the Billboard 200 with 24,000 copies. As of April 2010, the album has sold 83,000 copies in the US.\n\nBackground\nFollowing System of a Down's hiatus in May 2006, guitarist Daron Malakian announced his new project — Scars on Broadway — a band which would include System of a Down drummer John Dolmayan and himself. Malakian and Dolmayan experimented with different musicians, for a period of nine months in 2007 the band took form and forged its sound in intense rehearsals and recording sessions under Malakian's direction, at his home studio and Sunset Sound; with musicians Danny Shamoun on keyboards, Dominic Cifarelli on bass, and Franky Perez on guitar and backing vocals. The band begin recording their debut album in September 2007.\n\nOn what direction his album will take, Daron Malakian states: \"It will probably be something very heavy mixed in with traditional Armenian and thrash, death, doom, black and dark metal influences. When, or even if, the music comes out, it will still be structured, just like System of a Down's music is.\" Malakian stated the sound will be influenced by classic rock such as David Bowie, Brian Eno, Yes, Neil Young, and Roxy Music, shifting his songwriting away from System of a Down's \"frazzled metal\" to more \"song-based\" work. \"I don't feel we're the mosh-pit band,\" said Malakian. \"That's just where I'm comfortable as a writer right now.\"\n\nOn May 2, 2008, the album was announced. A week later, the band was signed to Interscope Records.\n\nThe band released \"They Say\" as their first airplay single on March 28. The music video for the track was released on June 27. A second single, \"World Long Gone\", was released on September 8, featured a music video directed by filmmaker Joel Schumacher.\n\nReception\n\nReviews for the album were generally positive, with the album holding a score of 73/100 on Metacritic. However, several reviewers were critical of the lyrics. The BBC's Al Fox gave the album a negative review, stating \"It's tough to write a review so overwhelmingly negative in response to somebody's heartfelt outpourings but this kind of old-school rock is tired, worn out, and has as little relevance to today's world as a classical string quartet playing the millionth version of a 300-year-old concerto.\" Similarly, Consequence of Sound gave the album a \"D\" rating, stating \"Scars On Broadway is most definitely worth hearing – if you're a die-hard fan of Malakian's vocals. It's sadly an overall novelty work, with lyrics that unfortunately toe the line of absolute absurdity in some cases\".\n\nRolling Stone, in a 3.5 out of 5 review, stating \"as Scars on Broadway, Malakian shaves System's punk-dervish and metallic-vengeance extremes into straight-on rock glazed with New Wave keyboards and impish-angel harmonies. It is a cleverly barbed normality.\" AllMusic, also giving the album 3.5 out of 5 stars, praised the album's instrumentals but criticized the lyrics. Billboard.com's Gary Graff stated of the album\n\nTrack listing\n\nCharts\n\nPersonnel\nScars on Broadway\n Daron Malakian – vocals, guitars, bass guitar, keyboards, organ, mellotron, production\n John Dolmayan – drums\n Franky Perez – guitars, backing vocals\n Danny Shamoun – keyboards, piano, percussion\n\nProduction\n Dave Schiffman – engineering\n John Silas Cranfield – additional engineering, editing\n Ryan Williams – mixing\n Eddy Schreyer – mastering\nVartan Malakian – artwork\nSandra Cand – artwork\nBrandy Flower – package design\n\nReferences\n\n2008 debut albums\nInterscope Records albums\nDaron Malakian and Scars on Broadway albums\nAlbums produced by Daron Malakian",
"Daron Vartan Malakian (born July 18, 1975) is an Armenian-American musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer. He is best known as the guitarist, songwriter and second vocalist of metal band System of a Down, and as the lead vocalist, lead guitarist, multi-instrumentalist, and songwriter of Scars on Broadway. Malakian is known for his distinctive playing and is ranked 47th in Loudwires list of \"Top 50 Hard Rock + Metal Guitarists of All Time\" and number 11 in MusicRadars poll \"The 20 Greatest Metal Guitarists Ever\". He is placed 30th in Guitar Worlds list of \"The 100 Greatest Heavy Metal Guitarists of All Time\".\n\nBiography\nDaron Vartan Malakian was born in Hollywood, California, the only child to Vartan and Zepur Malakian. His parents are ethnic Armenian immigrants. Vartan Malakian is a painter, dancer, and choreographer and Zepur Malakian is a sculptor who instructed college-level sculpture earlier in her career. At a very early age, Malakian got into heavy metal music; his distant cousin played him a Kiss record when he was four years old. Malakian started listening to Van Halen, Aerosmith, Def Leppard, Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Motörhead and Ozzy Osbourne among others. He always wanted to play the drums, but his parents got him a guitar instead because \"You can't turn the drums off.\" Daron first picked up a guitar at age 11, saying in an interview, \"For the first year and a half, I learned how to play by ear, and did alright. After a few years I gained a reputation as being a guitar player in high school. And by 16 or 17 I actually realized it was a good songwriting instrument, and, over anything, that's what I feel like. I don't pretend to be Mr. Guitar Virtuoso.\" During his teens Malakian listened to thrash metal bands such as Slayer, Venom, Metallica, and groove metal bands like Pantera and Sepultura. Malakian then began listening to The Beatles and cites John Lennon as one of his biggest influences as a songwriter. He also cites other British Invasion bands such as The Kinks and The Who as major influences as well as folk-rock such as trio Peter, Paul and Mary and punk pioneer Iggy Pop. Daron went to Rose and Alex Pilibos Armenian School in the Los Feliz side of Hollywood, which his future bandmates Shavo Odadjian and Ontronik \"Andy\" Khachaturian (System of a Down's original drummer) also attended. System of a Down vocalist Serj Tankian attended the school as well, but he was many years above Malakian and the others. Malakian attended Glendale High School as a teenager.\n\nSystem of a Down\nMalakian met Serj Tankian in 1993, while they both shared the same rehearsal studio in different bands. Tankian was playing keyboard for a band, and Daron was playing guitar and singing for another band. They formed a jam band called Soil with bassist Dave Hakopyan and drummer Domingo Laraino. Shavo Odadjian then became their manager, and then rhythm guitarist. Soil broke up and Malakian, Tankian, and Odadjian (who switched to bass) formed a new band using the name \"System of a Down\", based on a poem that Daron wrote. The poem's title was \"Victims of a Down\" but Odadjian thought \"system\" was a stronger word than \"victims\". They then recruited drummer Andy Khachaturian, who was replaced by John Dolmayan in 1997.\n\nMalakian co-produced System of a Down's albums with Rick Rubin, as well as albums by The Ambulance and Bad Acid Trip (a band on fellow member Serj Tankian's Serjical Strike Records). In 2003, Malakian started his own label, EatUrMusic, on which Amen was the first signed band. The label is now inactive and its current status is unknown.\n\nScars on Broadway\n\nIn 2003, Daron Malakian (lead guitar and vocals), Greg Kelso (rhythm guitar), Casey Chaos (vocals), and Zach Hill (drums) recorded a demo tape entitled Ghetto Blaster Rehearsals, credited to the name Scars on Broadway. However, in 2007, an official letter appeared on the band's website that stated that these tracks are not in any way affiliated with Malakian's later project Scars on Broadway. Incidentally, these demo sessions produced \"B.Y.O.B.\", which would be a major hit for System of a Down in 2005.\n\nFollowing System's hiatus, Malakian announced his latest project – Scars on Broadway – a band which would include System of a Down bassist, Shavo Odadjian, and himself. Ultimately, Odadjian was not involved with the band, and instead System of a Down drummer, John Dolmayan became a member. After Malakian and Dolmayan experimented with different musicians (for a period of nine months in 2007 – 2008) the band took form and forged its sound in intense rehearsals and recording sessions (under Malakian's direction at his home studio and Sunset Sound) with musicians Danny Shamoun on keyboards, Dominic Cifarelli on bass, and Franky Perez on guitar and backing vocals for live performances (in the studio Malakian played nearly all the instruments with the exception of drums which were played by Dolmayan and some overdubs provided by the other members). The group released an eponymous album in 2008, which featured the hit single \"They Say\" (written by Malakian). However, shortly before the tour supporting the album, Malakian cancelled all scheduled concert and TV appearances, blaming a lack of enthusiasm and that his \"heart wasn't into touring.\" This sudden cancellation prompted speculation and rumors that the band had broken up. It was the last that would be heard of Malakian for more than a year.\n\nMalakian stayed out of the public eye following his cancellation of the tour in support of Scars on Broadway's debut album in October 2008. In 2009 Malakian made a surprise appearance (his first in a year) at Shavo Odadjian's Halloween Party and played \"Suite-Pee\", \"They Say\", and an unknown song with Odadjian, Dolmayan and Scars on Broadway's Franky Perez on guitar. It was the first time that the band members (minus Tankian, who was working on his second solo album) performed together in more than three years.\n\nIn August 2009, Scars on Broadway, minus Malakian, traveled to Iraq for a USO tour across the U.S. army bases. Their setlist consisted of covers as well as a few Scars songs. Guitarist/vocalist Franky Perez stated on his Twitter that \"the Scars tunes sound amazing but they're not the same without D...\" He also stated before they left that Malakian had given them his blessing. In 2009 Franky Perez mentioned on his Twitter that he and the D-Man (Malakian) were going into studio to jam, this was the first news people have heard about Malakian's whereabouts for about a year.\n\nOn November 20, 2009, Malakian played at the Chi Cheng Benefit concert along with Deftones, and also performed with Odadjian and Dolmayan. Malakian, Odadjian, and Dolmayan played \"Aerials\" and \"Toxicity\". He appeared on Cypress Hill's 2010 album Rise Up, on one song, \"Trouble Seeker\", which he also produced.\n\nOn May 2, 2010, Malakian reunited with Scars on Broadway at the Troubadour in West Hollywood. It was the first time he had performed with the band since October 2008. The group played songs from their album as well as new songs. Odadjian performed with the band for two songs, playing guitar. On August 20, 2010, Malakian played in Hollywood with Scars on Broadway. On November 29, 2010, it was announced that System of a Down would reunite for a European tour to take place in June 2011. They played at the Download Festival on June 11, 2011. Despite playing a number of reunion shows, the band had no plans to record new material. In October 2011, John Dolmayan expressed his interest in writing new material but cited that band members are all busy with their other projects (such as Daron's Scars on Broadway and Serj Tankian's solo efforts).\n\nOn July 29, 2010, Scars on Broadway released their first new studio recording in exactly two years, a Malakian-penned song called \"Fucking\". On February 24, 2012, System of a Down announced that the Scars on Broadway website was back online featuring a preview of a new song called \"Guns Are Loaded\".\n\nIn 2014, he appeared on Linkin Park's sixth studio album The Hunting Party, for which he provided additional guitars for the promotional single \"Rebellion\". The promotional single was self-produced by Mike Shinoda and Brad Delson. On August 18, 2016, Malakian performed with the Los Angeles-based alternative music project Millennials\n\nOn October 28, 2017, Malakian performed with the surviving members of Linkin Park which played a show at the Hollywood Bowl dedicated to the passing of their frontman Chester Bennington. He performed \"Rebellion\" alongside SOAD bassist Shavo Odadjian.\n\nOn April 23, 2018, Malakian released a song with Scars on Broadway called \"Lives\" about the history and culture of Armenia.\nOn July 20, 2018, Malakian and Scars on Broadway released the album Dictator.\n\nPersonal life\nUnlike the rest of System of a Down, Malakian is not married and has no children.\n\nMalakian is a lifelong fan of the Edmonton Oilers and has a large collection of Oilers-related memorabilia.\n\nDiscography\n\nFeatures\n\nSystem of a Down\n\n System of a Down (1998)\n Toxicity (2001)\n Steal This Album! (2002)\n Mezmerize (2005)\n Hypnotize (2005)\n\nScars on Broadway\nScars on Broadway (2008)\nDictator (2018)\n\nOther appearances\n\nProduction credits\nMalakian has also produced a number of albums.\n\nSee also\n History of the Armenian Americans in Los Angeles\n\nReferences\n\n1975 births\nAmerican musicians of Armenian descent\nAmerican experimental guitarists\nAmerican male guitarists\nAmerican male singers\nAmerican heavy metal guitarists\nAmerican heavy metal singers\nGrammy Award winners\nArmenian rock musicians\nLead guitarists\nSystem of a Down members\nAlternative metal guitarists\nAlternative metal musicians\nSitar players\nLiving people\nGlendale High School (Glendale, California) alumni\nGuitarists from Los Angeles\nDaron Malakian and Scars on Broadway members\n21st-century American singers\nNu metal singers"
] |
[
"Daron Malakian",
"Biography",
"Is System of a Down still a band in light of this project?",
"formed a new band using the name \"System of a Down\", based on a poem that Daron wrote.",
"Do the two bands have similar sounds?",
"Malakian co-produced System of a Down's albums with Rick Rubin, as well as albums by The Ambulance and Bad Acid Trip",
"What ethnicity is Malakian?",
"Daron Vartan Malakian was born on July 18, 1975, in Hollywood, the only child to Vartan and Zepur Malakian, ethnic Armenian immigrants originally from Iraq."
] |
C_b1f276920bc741f9957c9b2c22ad3288_1
|
Did he have any formal training as a musician?
| 4 |
Did Daron Malakian have any formal training as a musician?
|
Daron Malakian
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Daron Vartan Malakian was born on July 18, 1975, in Hollywood, the only child to Vartan and Zepur Malakian, ethnic Armenian immigrants originally from Iraq. Vartan Malakian is a painter, dancer, and choreographer and Zepur Malakian is a sculptor who used to instruct college-level sculpture. At a very early age, Malakian got into heavy metal music; his distant cousin played him a Kiss record when he was four years old. Malakian started listening to Van Halen, Def Leppard, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Motorhead and Ozzy Osbourne among others. He always wanted to play the drums, but his parents got him a guitar instead because "You can't turn the drums off." Daron first picked up a guitar at age 11, saying in an interview, "For the first year and a half, I learned how to play by ear, and did alright. After a few years I gained a reputation as being a guitar player in high school. And by 16 or 17 I actually realized it was a good songwriting instrument, and, over anything, that's what I feel like. I don't pretend to be Mr. Guitar Virtuoso." During his teens Malakian listened to thrash metal bands such as Slayer, Venom, Metallica, Pantera and Sepultura. Malakian then began listening to The Beatles and cites John Lennon as one of his biggest influences on him as a songwriter. He also cites other British Invasion bands such as The Kinks and The Who as major influences as well as folk-rock such as trio Peter, Paul and Mary and punk pioneer Iggy Pop. Daron went to Rose and Alex Pilibos Armenian School in the Los Feliz side of Hollywood, which his future bandmates Shavo Odadjian and Ontronik "Andy" Khachaturian (System of a Down's original drummer) also attended. System of a Down vocalist Serj Tankian attended the school as well, but he was many years above Malakian and the others. Malakian attended Glendale High School as a teenager. He is a lifelong fan of the Edmonton Oilers and has a large collection of Oilers-related memorabilia. Malakian met Serj Tankian in 1993, while they both shared the same rehearsal studio in different bands. Tankian was playing keyboard for a band, and Daron was playing guitar and singing for another band. They formed a jam band called Soil with bassist Dave Hakopyan and drummer Domingo Laraino. Shavo Odadjian then became their manager, and then rhythm guitarist. Soil broke up and Malakian, Tankian, and Odadjian (who switched to bass) formed a new band using the name "System of a Down", based on a poem that Daron wrote. The poem's title was "Victims of a Down" but Odadjian thought "system" was a stronger word than "victims." They then recruited drummer Andy Khachaturian, who was replaced by John Dolmayan in 1997. Malakian co-produced System of a Down's albums with Rick Rubin, as well as albums by The Ambulance and Bad Acid Trip (a band on fellow member Serj Tankian's Serjical Strike Records). In 2003, Malakian started his own label, EatUrMusic, on which Amen was the first signed band. The label is now inactive and its current status is unknown. CANNOTANSWER
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Vartan Malakian is a painter, dancer, and choreographer and Zepur Malakian is a sculptor who used to instruct college-level sculpture.
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Daron Vartan Malakian (born July 18, 1975) is an Armenian-American musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer. He is best known as the guitarist, songwriter and second vocalist of metal band System of a Down, and as the lead vocalist, lead guitarist, multi-instrumentalist, and songwriter of Scars on Broadway. Malakian is known for his distinctive playing and is ranked 47th in Loudwires list of "Top 50 Hard Rock + Metal Guitarists of All Time" and number 11 in MusicRadars poll "The 20 Greatest Metal Guitarists Ever". He is placed 30th in Guitar Worlds list of "The 100 Greatest Heavy Metal Guitarists of All Time".
Biography
Daron Vartan Malakian was born in Hollywood, California, the only child to Vartan and Zepur Malakian. His parents are ethnic Armenian immigrants. Vartan Malakian is a painter, dancer, and choreographer and Zepur Malakian is a sculptor who instructed college-level sculpture earlier in her career. At a very early age, Malakian got into heavy metal music; his distant cousin played him a Kiss record when he was four years old. Malakian started listening to Van Halen, Aerosmith, Def Leppard, Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Motörhead and Ozzy Osbourne among others. He always wanted to play the drums, but his parents got him a guitar instead because "You can't turn the drums off." Daron first picked up a guitar at age 11, saying in an interview, "For the first year and a half, I learned how to play by ear, and did alright. After a few years I gained a reputation as being a guitar player in high school. And by 16 or 17 I actually realized it was a good songwriting instrument, and, over anything, that's what I feel like. I don't pretend to be Mr. Guitar Virtuoso." During his teens Malakian listened to thrash metal bands such as Slayer, Venom, Metallica, and groove metal bands like Pantera and Sepultura. Malakian then began listening to The Beatles and cites John Lennon as one of his biggest influences as a songwriter. He also cites other British Invasion bands such as The Kinks and The Who as major influences as well as folk-rock such as trio Peter, Paul and Mary and punk pioneer Iggy Pop. Daron went to Rose and Alex Pilibos Armenian School in the Los Feliz side of Hollywood, which his future bandmates Shavo Odadjian and Ontronik "Andy" Khachaturian (System of a Down's original drummer) also attended. System of a Down vocalist Serj Tankian attended the school as well, but he was many years above Malakian and the others. Malakian attended Glendale High School as a teenager.
System of a Down
Malakian met Serj Tankian in 1993, while they both shared the same rehearsal studio in different bands. Tankian was playing keyboard for a band, and Daron was playing guitar and singing for another band. They formed a jam band called Soil with bassist Dave Hakopyan and drummer Domingo Laraino. Shavo Odadjian then became their manager, and then rhythm guitarist. Soil broke up and Malakian, Tankian, and Odadjian (who switched to bass) formed a new band using the name "System of a Down", based on a poem that Daron wrote. The poem's title was "Victims of a Down" but Odadjian thought "system" was a stronger word than "victims". They then recruited drummer Andy Khachaturian, who was replaced by John Dolmayan in 1997.
Malakian co-produced System of a Down's albums with Rick Rubin, as well as albums by The Ambulance and Bad Acid Trip (a band on fellow member Serj Tankian's Serjical Strike Records). In 2003, Malakian started his own label, EatUrMusic, on which Amen was the first signed band. The label is now inactive and its current status is unknown.
Scars on Broadway
In 2003, Daron Malakian (lead guitar and vocals), Greg Kelso (rhythm guitar), Casey Chaos (vocals), and Zach Hill (drums) recorded a demo tape entitled Ghetto Blaster Rehearsals, credited to the name Scars on Broadway. However, in 2007, an official letter appeared on the band's website that stated that these tracks are not in any way affiliated with Malakian's later project Scars on Broadway. Incidentally, these demo sessions produced "B.Y.O.B.", which would be a major hit for System of a Down in 2005.
Following System's hiatus, Malakian announced his latest project – Scars on Broadway – a band which would include System of a Down bassist, Shavo Odadjian, and himself. Ultimately, Odadjian was not involved with the band, and instead System of a Down drummer, John Dolmayan became a member. After Malakian and Dolmayan experimented with different musicians (for a period of nine months in 2007 – 2008) the band took form and forged its sound in intense rehearsals and recording sessions (under Malakian's direction at his home studio and Sunset Sound) with musicians Danny Shamoun on keyboards, Dominic Cifarelli on bass, and Franky Perez on guitar and backing vocals for live performances (in the studio Malakian played nearly all the instruments with the exception of drums which were played by Dolmayan and some overdubs provided by the other members). The group released an eponymous album in 2008, which featured the hit single "They Say" (written by Malakian). However, shortly before the tour supporting the album, Malakian cancelled all scheduled concert and TV appearances, blaming a lack of enthusiasm and that his "heart wasn't into touring." This sudden cancellation prompted speculation and rumors that the band had broken up. It was the last that would be heard of Malakian for more than a year.
Malakian stayed out of the public eye following his cancellation of the tour in support of Scars on Broadway's debut album in October 2008. In 2009 Malakian made a surprise appearance (his first in a year) at Shavo Odadjian's Halloween Party and played "Suite-Pee", "They Say", and an unknown song with Odadjian, Dolmayan and Scars on Broadway's Franky Perez on guitar. It was the first time that the band members (minus Tankian, who was working on his second solo album) performed together in more than three years.
In August 2009, Scars on Broadway, minus Malakian, traveled to Iraq for a USO tour across the U.S. army bases. Their setlist consisted of covers as well as a few Scars songs. Guitarist/vocalist Franky Perez stated on his Twitter that "the Scars tunes sound amazing but they're not the same without D..." He also stated before they left that Malakian had given them his blessing. In 2009 Franky Perez mentioned on his Twitter that he and the D-Man (Malakian) were going into studio to jam, this was the first news people have heard about Malakian's whereabouts for about a year.
On November 20, 2009, Malakian played at the Chi Cheng Benefit concert along with Deftones, and also performed with Odadjian and Dolmayan. Malakian, Odadjian, and Dolmayan played "Aerials" and "Toxicity". He appeared on Cypress Hill's 2010 album Rise Up, on one song, "Trouble Seeker", which he also produced.
On May 2, 2010, Malakian reunited with Scars on Broadway at the Troubadour in West Hollywood. It was the first time he had performed with the band since October 2008. The group played songs from their album as well as new songs. Odadjian performed with the band for two songs, playing guitar. On August 20, 2010, Malakian played in Hollywood with Scars on Broadway. On November 29, 2010, it was announced that System of a Down would reunite for a European tour to take place in June 2011. They played at the Download Festival on June 11, 2011. Despite playing a number of reunion shows, the band had no plans to record new material. In October 2011, John Dolmayan expressed his interest in writing new material but cited that band members are all busy with their other projects (such as Daron's Scars on Broadway and Serj Tankian's solo efforts).
On July 29, 2010, Scars on Broadway released their first new studio recording in exactly two years, a Malakian-penned song called "Fucking". On February 24, 2012, System of a Down announced that the Scars on Broadway website was back online featuring a preview of a new song called "Guns Are Loaded".
In 2014, he appeared on Linkin Park's sixth studio album The Hunting Party, for which he provided additional guitars for the promotional single "Rebellion". The promotional single was self-produced by Mike Shinoda and Brad Delson. On August 18, 2016, Malakian performed with the Los Angeles-based alternative music project Millennials
On October 28, 2017, Malakian performed with the surviving members of Linkin Park which played a show at the Hollywood Bowl dedicated to the passing of their frontman Chester Bennington. He performed "Rebellion" alongside SOAD bassist Shavo Odadjian.
On April 23, 2018, Malakian released a song with Scars on Broadway called "Lives" about the history and culture of Armenia.
On July 20, 2018, Malakian and Scars on Broadway released the album Dictator.
Personal life
Unlike the rest of System of a Down, Malakian is not married and has no children.
Malakian is a lifelong fan of the Edmonton Oilers and has a large collection of Oilers-related memorabilia.
Discography
Features
System of a Down
System of a Down (1998)
Toxicity (2001)
Steal This Album! (2002)
Mezmerize (2005)
Hypnotize (2005)
Scars on Broadway
Scars on Broadway (2008)
Dictator (2018)
Other appearances
Production credits
Malakian has also produced a number of albums.
See also
History of the Armenian Americans in Los Angeles
References
1975 births
American musicians of Armenian descent
American experimental guitarists
American male guitarists
American male singers
American heavy metal guitarists
American heavy metal singers
Grammy Award winners
Armenian rock musicians
Lead guitarists
System of a Down members
Alternative metal guitarists
Alternative metal musicians
Sitar players
Living people
Glendale High School (Glendale, California) alumni
Guitarists from Los Angeles
Daron Malakian and Scars on Broadway members
21st-century American singers
Nu metal singers
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[
"Ian Samuel Totman is an English musician best known as guitarist and main songwriter for the power metal band DragonForce.\n\nEarly life\nTotman was born in England and grew up mainly in New Zealand. He moved back to England around age 22 because England's music scene offered numerous shows to attend every week-- an option he did not have in geographically isolated New Zealand. He began playing classical guitar at the age of nine--receiving formal training for several years.\n\nCareer\nTotman was part of the black power metal band Demoniac-- which also featured his future DragonForce bandmate Herman Li. During his time with Demoniac Totman was referred to as Heimdall (the Norse God of vigilance). Demoniac struggled to achieve any real fame outside of Australasia despite releasing three albums and relocating to London, UK. Demoniac split sometime in late 1999 shortly after the album The Fire and the Wind was released. Most of the members went on to form power metal band DragonHeart which later became known as DragonForce. Keyboardist Steve Williams and bassist Steve Scott left Dragonheart to form Power Quest with whom Totman recorded on their demo as well as their first album Wings of Forever. Totman also provided guest instrumentation on the band's following album Neverworld.\n\nAs the songwriter Totman wrote both music and lyrics for a majority of Demoniac's discography.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Totman's profile at DragonForce.com\n DragonForce official website\n\n1979 births\nDragonForce members\nEnglish heavy metal guitarists\nEnglish emigrants to New Zealand\nLiving people\nMusicians from London\nRhythm guitarists",
"Non-formal learning includes various structured learning situations which do not either have the level of curriculum, syllabus, accreditation and certification associated with 'formal learning', but have more structure than that associated with 'informal learning', which typically take place naturally and spontaneously as part of other activities. These form the three styles of learning recognised and supported by the OECD.\n\nExamples of non-formal learning include swimming sessions for toddlers, community-based sports programs, and programs developed by organisations such as the Boy Scouts, the Girl Guides, community or non-credit adult education courses, sports or fitness programs, professional conference style seminars, and continuing professional development. The learner's objectives may be to increase skills and knowledge, as well as to experience the emotional rewards associated with increased love for a subject or increased passion for learning.\n\nHistory\nThe debate over the relative value of formal and informal learning has existed for a number of years. Traditionally formal learning takes place in a school or university and has a greater value placed upon it than informal learning, such as learning within the workplace. This concept of formal learning being the socio-cultural accepted norm for learning was first challenged by Scribner and Cole in 1973, who claimed most things in life are better learnt through informal processes, citing language learning as an example. Moreover, anthropologists noted that complex learning still takes place within indigenous communities that had no formal educational institutions.\n\nIt is the acquisition of this knowledge or learning which occurs in everyday life that has not been fully valued or understood. This led to the declaration by the OECD educational ministers of the \"life-long learning for all\" strategy in 1996. This includes 23 countries from five continents, who have sought to clarify and validate all forms of learning including formal, non-formal and informal. This has been in conjunction with the European Union which has also developed policies for life-long learning which focus strongly on the need to identify, assess and certify non-formal and informal learning, particularly in the workplace.\n\nCharacteristics \n Learning may take place in a variety of locations.\n Relevance to the needs of disadvantaged groups\n Concern with specific categories of person.\n A Focus on clearly defined purpose\n Flexibility in organisation and methods\n\nGoals/objectives \n\n Provides functional literacy and continuing education for adults and youths who have not had a formal education or did not complete their primary education.\n Provide functional and remedial education for the young people who did not complete their secondary education.\n Provide education to different categories of graduates to improve the basic knowledge and skills.\n Provide in-service, on-the-job, vocational and professional training to different categories of workers and professionals to improve their skills.\n Give adult citizens of different parts of the country necessary aesthetic, cultural and civic education for public enlightenment.\n \nCountries involved in recognition of non-formal learning (OECD 2010)\n\nFormal and informal learning\n\nAlthough all definitions can be contested (see below) this article shall refer to the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (Cedefop) 2001 communication on 'lifelong learning: formal, non-formal and informal learning' as the guideline for the differing definitions.\n\nFormal learning: learning typically provided by an education or training institution, structured (in terms of learning objectives, learning time or learning support) and leading to certification. Formal learning is intentional from the learner's perspective. (Cedefop 2001)\n\nInformal learning: learning resulting from daily life activities related to work, family or leisure. It is not structured (in terms of learning objectives, learning time or learning support) and typically does not lead to certification. Informal learning may be intentional but in most cases it is not-intentional (or \"incidental\"/random). (Cedefop 2001)\n\nNon-formal learning: see definition above.\n\nContested definitions\nIf there is no clear distinction between formal and in-formal learning where is the room for non-formal learning. It is a contested issue with numerous definitions given. The following are some the competing theories.\n\n\"It is difficult to make a clear distinction between formal and informal learning as there is often a crossover between the two.\" (McGivney, 1999, p1).\n\nSimilarly, Hodkinson et al. (2003), conclude after a significant literature analysis on the topics of formal, informal, and non-formal learning, that \"the terms informal and non-formal appeared interchangeable, each being primarily defined in opposition to the dominant formal education system, and the largely individualist and acquisitional conceptualisations of learning developed in relation to such educational contexts.\" (Hodkinson et al., 2003, p. 314) Moreover, he states that \"It is important not to see informal and formal attributes as somehow separate, waiting to be integrated. This is the dominant view in the literature, and it is mistaken. Thus, the challenge is not to, somehow, combine informal and formal learning, for informal and formal attributes are present and inter-related, whether we will it so or not. The challenge is to recognise and identify them, and understand the implications. For this reason, the concept of non-formal learning, at least when seen as a middle state between formal and informal, is redundant.\" (p. 314)\n\nEraut's classification of learning into formal and non-formal:\n\nThis removes informal learning from the equation and states all learning outside of formal learning is non-formal. Eraut equates informal with connotations of dress, language or behaviour that have no relation to learning. Eraut defines formal learning as taking place within a learning framework; within a classroom or learning institution, with a designated teacher or trainer; the award of a qualification or credit; the external specification of outcomes. Any learning that occurs outside of these parameters is non-formal. (Ined 2002)\n\nThe EC (2001) Communication on Lifelong Learning: formal, non-formal and informal learning:\n\nThe EU places non-formal learning in between formal and informal learning (see above). This has learning both in a formal setting with a learning framework and as an organised event but within a qualification. \"Non-formal learning: learning that is not provided by an education or training institution and typically does not lead to certification. It is, however, structured (in terms of learning objectives, learning time or learning support). Non-formal learning is intentional from the learner's perspective.\" (Cedefop 2001)\n\nLivingstone's adults formal and informal education, non-formal and informal learning:\n\nThis focuses on the idea of adult non-formal education. This new mode, 'informal education' is when teachers or mentors guide learners without reference to structured learning outcomes. This informal education learning is gaining knowledge without an imposed framework, such as learning new job skills. (Infed, 2002)\n\nBillett (2001): there is no such thing as informal learning:\n\nBillett's definition states there is no such thing as non-formal and informal learning. He states all human activity is learning, and that everything people do involves a process of learning. \"all learning takes place within social organisations or communities that have formalised structures.\" Moreover, he states most learning in life takes place outside of formal education.(Ined 2002)\n\nThe council of Europe puts the distinction in terms of willingness and the systems on which its taking place. Non formal learning takes place outside learning institutions while informal is a part of the formal systems.\n\nValidation\n\nRecently, many international organizations and UNESCO Member States have emphasized the importance of learning that takes place outside of formal learning settings. This emphasis has led UNESCO, through its Institute of Lifelong Learning (UIL), to adopt international guidelines for the Recognition, Validation and Accreditation of the Outcomes of Non-formal and Informal Learning in 2012. The emphasis has also led to an increasing number of policies and programmes in many Member States, and a gradual shift from pilots to large-scale systems such as those in Portugal, France, Australia, Mauritius and South Africa.\n\nCedefop has created European guidelines to provide validation to a broad range of learning experiences, thereby aiding transparency and comparability across its national borders. The broad framework for achieving this certification across both non-formal and informal learning is outlined in the Cedefop European guidelines for validating non-formal and informal learning; Routes from learning to certification.\n\nDifferent countries' approaches\n\nThere are different approaches to validation between OCED and EU countries, with countries adopting different measures. The EU, as noted above, through the Cedefop-released European guidelines for validating non-formal and informal learning in 2009 to standardise validation throughout the EU. Within the OCED countries, the picture is more mixed.\n\nCountries with the existence of recognition for non-formal and informal learning (Feutrie, 2007)\n\nFlexible schooling or participatory schooling \n\nNon-formal education (NFE) is popular on a worldwide scale in both 'western' and 'developing countries'. Non-formal education can form a matrix with formal and non-formal education, as non-formal education can mean any form of systematic learning conducted outside the formal setting. Many courses in relation to non-formal education have been introduced in several universities in western and developing countries.\n\nThe UNESCO institute of education conducted a seminar on non-formal education in Morocco. The association for development of education in Africa (ADEA) launched many programmes in non-formal education in at least 15 countries of Sub-Saharan Africa. In 2001 World Bank conducted an international seminar on basic education in non-formal programmes. In addition to this the World Bank was advised to extend its services to adult and non-formal education.\n\nA report on vocational education, Making Learning Visible: the identification, assessment and recognition of non-formal learning in Europe, defines non-formal learning as semi structured, consisting of planned and explicit approaches to learning introduced into work organisations and elsewhere, not recognised within the formal education and training system.\n\nTypes \n\nCommunity work, which is particularly widespread in Scotland, fosters people's commitment to their neighbours and encourages participation in and development of local democratic forms of organisation.\n\nYouth work which focuses on making people more active in the society.\n\nSocial work which helps young people in homes to develop ways to deal with complex situations like fostering fruitful relationships between parents and children, bringing different groups of career together, etc...\n\nIn France and Italy animation in a particular form is a kind of non-formal education. It uses theatre and acting as means of self-expression with different community groups for children and people with special needs. This type of non-formal education helps in ensuring active participation and teaches people to manage the community in which they live.\n\nYouth and community organisations young people have the opportunity to discover, analyse and understand values and their implications and build a set of values to guide their lives. They run work camps and meetings, recruit volunteers, administer bank accounts, give counselling etc. to work toward social change.\n\nImportance \n\nEducation plays an important role in development. Out of school programmes are important to provide adaptable learning opportunities and new skills and knowledge to a large percentage of people who are beyond the reach of formal education. Non-formal education began to gain popularity in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Today, non-formal education is seen as a concept of recurrent and lifelong learning.\n\nNon-formal education is popular among the adults specially the women as it increases women's participation in both private and public activities, i.e. in house hold decision making and as active citizens in the community affairs and national development. These literacy programmes have a dramatic impact on women's self-esteem because they unleash their potential in economic, social, cultural and political spheres.\n\nAccording to UNESCO (2010), non-formal education helps to ensures equal access to education, eradicate illiteracy among women and improve women's access to vocational training, science, technology and continuing education. It also encourages the development of non-discriminatory education and training. The effectiveness of such literacy and non-formal education programmes are bolstered by family, community and parental involvement. This is why the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 4 advocates for a diversification of learning opportunities and the usage of a wide range of education and training modalities in recognition of the importance of non-formal education.\n\nAdvantages \n\nNon-formal education is beneficial in a number of ways. There are activities that encourage young people to choose their own programme and projects that are important because they offer the youth the flexibility and freedom to explore their emerging interests. When the youth can choose the activities in which they can participate, they have opportunities to develop several skills like decision making skills.\n\nNon-formal learning has experiential learning activities that foster the development of skills and knowledge. This helps in building the confidence and abilities among the youth of today. It also helps in development of personal relationships not only among the youth but also among the adults. It helps in developing interpersonal skills among the young people as they learn to interact with peers outside the class and with adults in the community.\n\nNecessity \n\nFormal education system are inadequate to effectively meet the needs of the individual and the society. The need to offer more and better education at all levels, to a growing number of people, particularly in developing countries, the scant success of current formal education systems to meet all such demands, has shown the need to develop alternatives to learning.\n\nThe rigid structure of formal schools, mainly because of rules and regulations than concentrating on the real need of the students, offering curriculum that leans away from the individual and from society, far more concerned with performing programmes than reaching useful objectives. This called for non-formal education which starting from the basic need of the students, is concerned with the establishment of strategies that are compatible with reality.\n\nReferences\n\nSources\n\nExternal links\nOECD Recognition for Non-Formal and Informal Learning home\nEuropean Cultural Center for Non-formal education in Egypt\nDirectorate General for Education and Culture on Valuing learning outside formal education and training\nCedefop European guidelines for validating non-formal and informal learning - 2nd edition, 2015\nConclusions of The Council of the European Union May 2004\nDepartment of Education, Education and Workplace Relations, Australia Government. Country Report\n\nApplied learning"
] |
[
"Daron Malakian",
"Biography",
"Is System of a Down still a band in light of this project?",
"formed a new band using the name \"System of a Down\", based on a poem that Daron wrote.",
"Do the two bands have similar sounds?",
"Malakian co-produced System of a Down's albums with Rick Rubin, as well as albums by The Ambulance and Bad Acid Trip",
"What ethnicity is Malakian?",
"Daron Vartan Malakian was born on July 18, 1975, in Hollywood, the only child to Vartan and Zepur Malakian, ethnic Armenian immigrants originally from Iraq.",
"Did he have any formal training as a musician?",
"Vartan Malakian is a painter, dancer, and choreographer and Zepur Malakian is a sculptor who used to instruct college-level sculpture."
] |
C_b1f276920bc741f9957c9b2c22ad3288_1
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Can Daron Malakian play multiple intruments?
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Can Daron Malakian play multiple intruments?
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Daron Malakian
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Daron Vartan Malakian was born on July 18, 1975, in Hollywood, the only child to Vartan and Zepur Malakian, ethnic Armenian immigrants originally from Iraq. Vartan Malakian is a painter, dancer, and choreographer and Zepur Malakian is a sculptor who used to instruct college-level sculpture. At a very early age, Malakian got into heavy metal music; his distant cousin played him a Kiss record when he was four years old. Malakian started listening to Van Halen, Def Leppard, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Motorhead and Ozzy Osbourne among others. He always wanted to play the drums, but his parents got him a guitar instead because "You can't turn the drums off." Daron first picked up a guitar at age 11, saying in an interview, "For the first year and a half, I learned how to play by ear, and did alright. After a few years I gained a reputation as being a guitar player in high school. And by 16 or 17 I actually realized it was a good songwriting instrument, and, over anything, that's what I feel like. I don't pretend to be Mr. Guitar Virtuoso." During his teens Malakian listened to thrash metal bands such as Slayer, Venom, Metallica, Pantera and Sepultura. Malakian then began listening to The Beatles and cites John Lennon as one of his biggest influences on him as a songwriter. He also cites other British Invasion bands such as The Kinks and The Who as major influences as well as folk-rock such as trio Peter, Paul and Mary and punk pioneer Iggy Pop. Daron went to Rose and Alex Pilibos Armenian School in the Los Feliz side of Hollywood, which his future bandmates Shavo Odadjian and Ontronik "Andy" Khachaturian (System of a Down's original drummer) also attended. System of a Down vocalist Serj Tankian attended the school as well, but he was many years above Malakian and the others. Malakian attended Glendale High School as a teenager. He is a lifelong fan of the Edmonton Oilers and has a large collection of Oilers-related memorabilia. Malakian met Serj Tankian in 1993, while they both shared the same rehearsal studio in different bands. Tankian was playing keyboard for a band, and Daron was playing guitar and singing for another band. They formed a jam band called Soil with bassist Dave Hakopyan and drummer Domingo Laraino. Shavo Odadjian then became their manager, and then rhythm guitarist. Soil broke up and Malakian, Tankian, and Odadjian (who switched to bass) formed a new band using the name "System of a Down", based on a poem that Daron wrote. The poem's title was "Victims of a Down" but Odadjian thought "system" was a stronger word than "victims." They then recruited drummer Andy Khachaturian, who was replaced by John Dolmayan in 1997. Malakian co-produced System of a Down's albums with Rick Rubin, as well as albums by The Ambulance and Bad Acid Trip (a band on fellow member Serj Tankian's Serjical Strike Records). In 2003, Malakian started his own label, EatUrMusic, on which Amen was the first signed band. The label is now inactive and its current status is unknown. CANNOTANSWER
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He always wanted to play the drums, but his parents got him a guitar instead because "You can't turn the drums off."
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Daron Vartan Malakian (born July 18, 1975) is an Armenian-American musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer. He is best known as the guitarist, songwriter and second vocalist of metal band System of a Down, and as the lead vocalist, lead guitarist, multi-instrumentalist, and songwriter of Scars on Broadway. Malakian is known for his distinctive playing and is ranked 47th in Loudwires list of "Top 50 Hard Rock + Metal Guitarists of All Time" and number 11 in MusicRadars poll "The 20 Greatest Metal Guitarists Ever". He is placed 30th in Guitar Worlds list of "The 100 Greatest Heavy Metal Guitarists of All Time".
Biography
Daron Vartan Malakian was born in Hollywood, California, the only child to Vartan and Zepur Malakian. His parents are ethnic Armenian immigrants. Vartan Malakian is a painter, dancer, and choreographer and Zepur Malakian is a sculptor who instructed college-level sculpture earlier in her career. At a very early age, Malakian got into heavy metal music; his distant cousin played him a Kiss record when he was four years old. Malakian started listening to Van Halen, Aerosmith, Def Leppard, Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Motörhead and Ozzy Osbourne among others. He always wanted to play the drums, but his parents got him a guitar instead because "You can't turn the drums off." Daron first picked up a guitar at age 11, saying in an interview, "For the first year and a half, I learned how to play by ear, and did alright. After a few years I gained a reputation as being a guitar player in high school. And by 16 or 17 I actually realized it was a good songwriting instrument, and, over anything, that's what I feel like. I don't pretend to be Mr. Guitar Virtuoso." During his teens Malakian listened to thrash metal bands such as Slayer, Venom, Metallica, and groove metal bands like Pantera and Sepultura. Malakian then began listening to The Beatles and cites John Lennon as one of his biggest influences as a songwriter. He also cites other British Invasion bands such as The Kinks and The Who as major influences as well as folk-rock such as trio Peter, Paul and Mary and punk pioneer Iggy Pop. Daron went to Rose and Alex Pilibos Armenian School in the Los Feliz side of Hollywood, which his future bandmates Shavo Odadjian and Ontronik "Andy" Khachaturian (System of a Down's original drummer) also attended. System of a Down vocalist Serj Tankian attended the school as well, but he was many years above Malakian and the others. Malakian attended Glendale High School as a teenager.
System of a Down
Malakian met Serj Tankian in 1993, while they both shared the same rehearsal studio in different bands. Tankian was playing keyboard for a band, and Daron was playing guitar and singing for another band. They formed a jam band called Soil with bassist Dave Hakopyan and drummer Domingo Laraino. Shavo Odadjian then became their manager, and then rhythm guitarist. Soil broke up and Malakian, Tankian, and Odadjian (who switched to bass) formed a new band using the name "System of a Down", based on a poem that Daron wrote. The poem's title was "Victims of a Down" but Odadjian thought "system" was a stronger word than "victims". They then recruited drummer Andy Khachaturian, who was replaced by John Dolmayan in 1997.
Malakian co-produced System of a Down's albums with Rick Rubin, as well as albums by The Ambulance and Bad Acid Trip (a band on fellow member Serj Tankian's Serjical Strike Records). In 2003, Malakian started his own label, EatUrMusic, on which Amen was the first signed band. The label is now inactive and its current status is unknown.
Scars on Broadway
In 2003, Daron Malakian (lead guitar and vocals), Greg Kelso (rhythm guitar), Casey Chaos (vocals), and Zach Hill (drums) recorded a demo tape entitled Ghetto Blaster Rehearsals, credited to the name Scars on Broadway. However, in 2007, an official letter appeared on the band's website that stated that these tracks are not in any way affiliated with Malakian's later project Scars on Broadway. Incidentally, these demo sessions produced "B.Y.O.B.", which would be a major hit for System of a Down in 2005.
Following System's hiatus, Malakian announced his latest project – Scars on Broadway – a band which would include System of a Down bassist, Shavo Odadjian, and himself. Ultimately, Odadjian was not involved with the band, and instead System of a Down drummer, John Dolmayan became a member. After Malakian and Dolmayan experimented with different musicians (for a period of nine months in 2007 – 2008) the band took form and forged its sound in intense rehearsals and recording sessions (under Malakian's direction at his home studio and Sunset Sound) with musicians Danny Shamoun on keyboards, Dominic Cifarelli on bass, and Franky Perez on guitar and backing vocals for live performances (in the studio Malakian played nearly all the instruments with the exception of drums which were played by Dolmayan and some overdubs provided by the other members). The group released an eponymous album in 2008, which featured the hit single "They Say" (written by Malakian). However, shortly before the tour supporting the album, Malakian cancelled all scheduled concert and TV appearances, blaming a lack of enthusiasm and that his "heart wasn't into touring." This sudden cancellation prompted speculation and rumors that the band had broken up. It was the last that would be heard of Malakian for more than a year.
Malakian stayed out of the public eye following his cancellation of the tour in support of Scars on Broadway's debut album in October 2008. In 2009 Malakian made a surprise appearance (his first in a year) at Shavo Odadjian's Halloween Party and played "Suite-Pee", "They Say", and an unknown song with Odadjian, Dolmayan and Scars on Broadway's Franky Perez on guitar. It was the first time that the band members (minus Tankian, who was working on his second solo album) performed together in more than three years.
In August 2009, Scars on Broadway, minus Malakian, traveled to Iraq for a USO tour across the U.S. army bases. Their setlist consisted of covers as well as a few Scars songs. Guitarist/vocalist Franky Perez stated on his Twitter that "the Scars tunes sound amazing but they're not the same without D..." He also stated before they left that Malakian had given them his blessing. In 2009 Franky Perez mentioned on his Twitter that he and the D-Man (Malakian) were going into studio to jam, this was the first news people have heard about Malakian's whereabouts for about a year.
On November 20, 2009, Malakian played at the Chi Cheng Benefit concert along with Deftones, and also performed with Odadjian and Dolmayan. Malakian, Odadjian, and Dolmayan played "Aerials" and "Toxicity". He appeared on Cypress Hill's 2010 album Rise Up, on one song, "Trouble Seeker", which he also produced.
On May 2, 2010, Malakian reunited with Scars on Broadway at the Troubadour in West Hollywood. It was the first time he had performed with the band since October 2008. The group played songs from their album as well as new songs. Odadjian performed with the band for two songs, playing guitar. On August 20, 2010, Malakian played in Hollywood with Scars on Broadway. On November 29, 2010, it was announced that System of a Down would reunite for a European tour to take place in June 2011. They played at the Download Festival on June 11, 2011. Despite playing a number of reunion shows, the band had no plans to record new material. In October 2011, John Dolmayan expressed his interest in writing new material but cited that band members are all busy with their other projects (such as Daron's Scars on Broadway and Serj Tankian's solo efforts).
On July 29, 2010, Scars on Broadway released their first new studio recording in exactly two years, a Malakian-penned song called "Fucking". On February 24, 2012, System of a Down announced that the Scars on Broadway website was back online featuring a preview of a new song called "Guns Are Loaded".
In 2014, he appeared on Linkin Park's sixth studio album The Hunting Party, for which he provided additional guitars for the promotional single "Rebellion". The promotional single was self-produced by Mike Shinoda and Brad Delson. On August 18, 2016, Malakian performed with the Los Angeles-based alternative music project Millennials
On October 28, 2017, Malakian performed with the surviving members of Linkin Park which played a show at the Hollywood Bowl dedicated to the passing of their frontman Chester Bennington. He performed "Rebellion" alongside SOAD bassist Shavo Odadjian.
On April 23, 2018, Malakian released a song with Scars on Broadway called "Lives" about the history and culture of Armenia.
On July 20, 2018, Malakian and Scars on Broadway released the album Dictator.
Personal life
Unlike the rest of System of a Down, Malakian is not married and has no children.
Malakian is a lifelong fan of the Edmonton Oilers and has a large collection of Oilers-related memorabilia.
Discography
Features
System of a Down
System of a Down (1998)
Toxicity (2001)
Steal This Album! (2002)
Mezmerize (2005)
Hypnotize (2005)
Scars on Broadway
Scars on Broadway (2008)
Dictator (2018)
Other appearances
Production credits
Malakian has also produced a number of albums.
See also
History of the Armenian Americans in Los Angeles
References
1975 births
American musicians of Armenian descent
American experimental guitarists
American male guitarists
American male singers
American heavy metal guitarists
American heavy metal singers
Grammy Award winners
Armenian rock musicians
Lead guitarists
System of a Down members
Alternative metal guitarists
Alternative metal musicians
Sitar players
Living people
Glendale High School (Glendale, California) alumni
Guitarists from Los Angeles
Daron Malakian and Scars on Broadway members
21st-century American singers
Nu metal singers
| true |
[
"Mezmerize is the fourth studio album by Armenian-American heavy metal band System of a Down, released on May 17, 2005, by American Recordings and Columbia Records. Upon its release, the album received widespread acclaim from critics.\n\nAt a length of just over 36 minutes, Mezmerize is the band's shortest studio album.\n\nBackground\nDespite the time difference between releases, Mezmerize and Hypnotize were recorded within the same time frame. The album features guitarist Daron Malakian sharing most of the vocal work with vocalist Serj Tankian, splitting the vocals at least halfway on many of the tracks. In 2018, Malakian and Tankian both independently revealed that at the time of recording the two albums, Tankian was almost out of the band. According to Tankian, this was because of differences in creative input and financial revenue split.\n\nMalakian wrote \"Old School Hollywood\" after playing in a celebrity baseball game for charity. The song mentions Tony Danza and Frankie Avalon, who also played in the game.\n\nIn \"Radio/Video\", there are lines referring to two people named Danny and Lisa. Malakian commented on the song to Revolver magazine:\n\nIn the same interview, Daron Malakian talked about \"Violent Pornography\"'s \"non-stop disco\" lines:\n\nThe Japanese version of the album contains alternate mixes of \"Soldier Side (Intro)\" and \"Lost in Hollywood\", the former with additional strings and the latter containing slightly different background vocals, while the leaked MP3 version of \"Cigaro\" contains a 4-stick hit intro not present in the retail version. The album artwork is done by Vartan Malakian, the father of Daron Malakian.\n\nReception\n\nMezmerize was acclaimed by critics, scoring 85 at Metacritic based on 19 reviews, indicating \"universal acclaim\". The album debuted at number one in at least 12 countries, including the US Billboard 200, with 453,000 copies, and has since been certified Platinum by the RIAA. It was chosen as one of Amazon.com's Top 100 Editor's Picks of 2005. The hit single \"B.Y.O.B.\" won a Grammy Award in 2006 for Best Hard Rock Performance.\n\nTrack listing\nAll lyrics written by Daron Malakian and Serj Tankian, except where noted. All music written by Malakian, except \"Question!\", written by Malakian and Tankian.\n\nPersonnel\n\nSystem of a Down\n Serj Tankian – vocals, keyboards, acoustic guitar on \"Question!\" (uncredited)\n Daron Malakian – vocals, guitars, bass (uncredited)\n Shavo Odadjian – bass\n John Dolmayan – drums, percussion\n\nVocals\n \"Soldier Side\" - Intro: Daron Malakian and Serj Tankian (both main)\n \"B.Y.O.B.\": Tankian (main), Malakian (second voice)\n \"Revenga\": Tankian (main), Malakian (second voice)\n \"Cigaro\": Tankian (main), Malakian (second voice)\n \"Radio/Video\": Malakian and Tankian (both main)\n \"This Cocaine Makes Me Feel Like I'm on this Song\": Tankian\n \"Violent Pornography\": Malakian and Tankian (both main)\n \"Question!\": Tankian (main), Malakian (backing vocals)\n \"Sad Statue\": Malakian and Tankian (both main)\n \"Old School Hollywood\": Malakian and Tankian (both main)\n \"Lost in Hollywood\": Malakian (main) and Tankian (second voice)\n\nProduction\n Rick Rubin – production\n Andy Wallace – mixing\n David Schiffman – engineering\n Jason Lader – editing\n Dana Neilsen – editing\n Phillip Broussard – engineering assistance\n John O'Mahony – Pro Tools engineering\n Steve Sisco – mixing assistance\n Joe Peluso – mixing assistance\n\nAdditional personnel\n Marc Mann – string arrangements\n Vartan Malakian – artwork\n Brandy Flower – graphic design\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nCertifications\n\nReferences\n\n2005 albums\nAlbums produced by Daron Malakian\nAlbums produced by Rick Rubin\nAmerican Recordings (record label) albums\nColumbia Records albums\nSystem of a Down albums\nAlbums recorded at The Mansion (recording studio)",
"The Ibanez DMM1 was an electric guitar model manufactured by Ibanez.\n\nThe guitar was designed in a partnership with System of a Down's guitarist, Daron Malakian.\n\nThe DMM1 signature model was based on the Ibanez Iceman ICX models, used by Malakian in the past. All DMM1 guitars have graphics done by Daron's father, Vartan Malakian, who also designed the cover-art for System of a Down's double album Mezmerize/Hypnotize. This guitar was a limited-run-model, with only 300 issues made available worldwide.\n\nReferences\n\nDMM1"
] |
[
"Daron Malakian",
"Biography",
"Is System of a Down still a band in light of this project?",
"formed a new band using the name \"System of a Down\", based on a poem that Daron wrote.",
"Do the two bands have similar sounds?",
"Malakian co-produced System of a Down's albums with Rick Rubin, as well as albums by The Ambulance and Bad Acid Trip",
"What ethnicity is Malakian?",
"Daron Vartan Malakian was born on July 18, 1975, in Hollywood, the only child to Vartan and Zepur Malakian, ethnic Armenian immigrants originally from Iraq.",
"Did he have any formal training as a musician?",
"Vartan Malakian is a painter, dancer, and choreographer and Zepur Malakian is a sculptor who used to instruct college-level sculpture.",
"Can Daron Malakian play multiple intruments?",
"He always wanted to play the drums, but his parents got him a guitar instead because \"You can't turn the drums off.\""
] |
C_b1f276920bc741f9957c9b2c22ad3288_1
|
Can he play piano?
| 6 |
Can Daron Malakian play piano?
|
Daron Malakian
|
Daron Vartan Malakian was born on July 18, 1975, in Hollywood, the only child to Vartan and Zepur Malakian, ethnic Armenian immigrants originally from Iraq. Vartan Malakian is a painter, dancer, and choreographer and Zepur Malakian is a sculptor who used to instruct college-level sculpture. At a very early age, Malakian got into heavy metal music; his distant cousin played him a Kiss record when he was four years old. Malakian started listening to Van Halen, Def Leppard, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Motorhead and Ozzy Osbourne among others. He always wanted to play the drums, but his parents got him a guitar instead because "You can't turn the drums off." Daron first picked up a guitar at age 11, saying in an interview, "For the first year and a half, I learned how to play by ear, and did alright. After a few years I gained a reputation as being a guitar player in high school. And by 16 or 17 I actually realized it was a good songwriting instrument, and, over anything, that's what I feel like. I don't pretend to be Mr. Guitar Virtuoso." During his teens Malakian listened to thrash metal bands such as Slayer, Venom, Metallica, Pantera and Sepultura. Malakian then began listening to The Beatles and cites John Lennon as one of his biggest influences on him as a songwriter. He also cites other British Invasion bands such as The Kinks and The Who as major influences as well as folk-rock such as trio Peter, Paul and Mary and punk pioneer Iggy Pop. Daron went to Rose and Alex Pilibos Armenian School in the Los Feliz side of Hollywood, which his future bandmates Shavo Odadjian and Ontronik "Andy" Khachaturian (System of a Down's original drummer) also attended. System of a Down vocalist Serj Tankian attended the school as well, but he was many years above Malakian and the others. Malakian attended Glendale High School as a teenager. He is a lifelong fan of the Edmonton Oilers and has a large collection of Oilers-related memorabilia. Malakian met Serj Tankian in 1993, while they both shared the same rehearsal studio in different bands. Tankian was playing keyboard for a band, and Daron was playing guitar and singing for another band. They formed a jam band called Soil with bassist Dave Hakopyan and drummer Domingo Laraino. Shavo Odadjian then became their manager, and then rhythm guitarist. Soil broke up and Malakian, Tankian, and Odadjian (who switched to bass) formed a new band using the name "System of a Down", based on a poem that Daron wrote. The poem's title was "Victims of a Down" but Odadjian thought "system" was a stronger word than "victims." They then recruited drummer Andy Khachaturian, who was replaced by John Dolmayan in 1997. Malakian co-produced System of a Down's albums with Rick Rubin, as well as albums by The Ambulance and Bad Acid Trip (a band on fellow member Serj Tankian's Serjical Strike Records). In 2003, Malakian started his own label, EatUrMusic, on which Amen was the first signed band. The label is now inactive and its current status is unknown. CANNOTANSWER
|
I learned how to play by ear, and did alright. After a few years I gained a reputation as being a guitar player in high school.
|
Daron Vartan Malakian (born July 18, 1975) is an Armenian-American musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer. He is best known as the guitarist, songwriter and second vocalist of metal band System of a Down, and as the lead vocalist, lead guitarist, multi-instrumentalist, and songwriter of Scars on Broadway. Malakian is known for his distinctive playing and is ranked 47th in Loudwires list of "Top 50 Hard Rock + Metal Guitarists of All Time" and number 11 in MusicRadars poll "The 20 Greatest Metal Guitarists Ever". He is placed 30th in Guitar Worlds list of "The 100 Greatest Heavy Metal Guitarists of All Time".
Biography
Daron Vartan Malakian was born in Hollywood, California, the only child to Vartan and Zepur Malakian. His parents are ethnic Armenian immigrants. Vartan Malakian is a painter, dancer, and choreographer and Zepur Malakian is a sculptor who instructed college-level sculpture earlier in her career. At a very early age, Malakian got into heavy metal music; his distant cousin played him a Kiss record when he was four years old. Malakian started listening to Van Halen, Aerosmith, Def Leppard, Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Motörhead and Ozzy Osbourne among others. He always wanted to play the drums, but his parents got him a guitar instead because "You can't turn the drums off." Daron first picked up a guitar at age 11, saying in an interview, "For the first year and a half, I learned how to play by ear, and did alright. After a few years I gained a reputation as being a guitar player in high school. And by 16 or 17 I actually realized it was a good songwriting instrument, and, over anything, that's what I feel like. I don't pretend to be Mr. Guitar Virtuoso." During his teens Malakian listened to thrash metal bands such as Slayer, Venom, Metallica, and groove metal bands like Pantera and Sepultura. Malakian then began listening to The Beatles and cites John Lennon as one of his biggest influences as a songwriter. He also cites other British Invasion bands such as The Kinks and The Who as major influences as well as folk-rock such as trio Peter, Paul and Mary and punk pioneer Iggy Pop. Daron went to Rose and Alex Pilibos Armenian School in the Los Feliz side of Hollywood, which his future bandmates Shavo Odadjian and Ontronik "Andy" Khachaturian (System of a Down's original drummer) also attended. System of a Down vocalist Serj Tankian attended the school as well, but he was many years above Malakian and the others. Malakian attended Glendale High School as a teenager.
System of a Down
Malakian met Serj Tankian in 1993, while they both shared the same rehearsal studio in different bands. Tankian was playing keyboard for a band, and Daron was playing guitar and singing for another band. They formed a jam band called Soil with bassist Dave Hakopyan and drummer Domingo Laraino. Shavo Odadjian then became their manager, and then rhythm guitarist. Soil broke up and Malakian, Tankian, and Odadjian (who switched to bass) formed a new band using the name "System of a Down", based on a poem that Daron wrote. The poem's title was "Victims of a Down" but Odadjian thought "system" was a stronger word than "victims". They then recruited drummer Andy Khachaturian, who was replaced by John Dolmayan in 1997.
Malakian co-produced System of a Down's albums with Rick Rubin, as well as albums by The Ambulance and Bad Acid Trip (a band on fellow member Serj Tankian's Serjical Strike Records). In 2003, Malakian started his own label, EatUrMusic, on which Amen was the first signed band. The label is now inactive and its current status is unknown.
Scars on Broadway
In 2003, Daron Malakian (lead guitar and vocals), Greg Kelso (rhythm guitar), Casey Chaos (vocals), and Zach Hill (drums) recorded a demo tape entitled Ghetto Blaster Rehearsals, credited to the name Scars on Broadway. However, in 2007, an official letter appeared on the band's website that stated that these tracks are not in any way affiliated with Malakian's later project Scars on Broadway. Incidentally, these demo sessions produced "B.Y.O.B.", which would be a major hit for System of a Down in 2005.
Following System's hiatus, Malakian announced his latest project – Scars on Broadway – a band which would include System of a Down bassist, Shavo Odadjian, and himself. Ultimately, Odadjian was not involved with the band, and instead System of a Down drummer, John Dolmayan became a member. After Malakian and Dolmayan experimented with different musicians (for a period of nine months in 2007 – 2008) the band took form and forged its sound in intense rehearsals and recording sessions (under Malakian's direction at his home studio and Sunset Sound) with musicians Danny Shamoun on keyboards, Dominic Cifarelli on bass, and Franky Perez on guitar and backing vocals for live performances (in the studio Malakian played nearly all the instruments with the exception of drums which were played by Dolmayan and some overdubs provided by the other members). The group released an eponymous album in 2008, which featured the hit single "They Say" (written by Malakian). However, shortly before the tour supporting the album, Malakian cancelled all scheduled concert and TV appearances, blaming a lack of enthusiasm and that his "heart wasn't into touring." This sudden cancellation prompted speculation and rumors that the band had broken up. It was the last that would be heard of Malakian for more than a year.
Malakian stayed out of the public eye following his cancellation of the tour in support of Scars on Broadway's debut album in October 2008. In 2009 Malakian made a surprise appearance (his first in a year) at Shavo Odadjian's Halloween Party and played "Suite-Pee", "They Say", and an unknown song with Odadjian, Dolmayan and Scars on Broadway's Franky Perez on guitar. It was the first time that the band members (minus Tankian, who was working on his second solo album) performed together in more than three years.
In August 2009, Scars on Broadway, minus Malakian, traveled to Iraq for a USO tour across the U.S. army bases. Their setlist consisted of covers as well as a few Scars songs. Guitarist/vocalist Franky Perez stated on his Twitter that "the Scars tunes sound amazing but they're not the same without D..." He also stated before they left that Malakian had given them his blessing. In 2009 Franky Perez mentioned on his Twitter that he and the D-Man (Malakian) were going into studio to jam, this was the first news people have heard about Malakian's whereabouts for about a year.
On November 20, 2009, Malakian played at the Chi Cheng Benefit concert along with Deftones, and also performed with Odadjian and Dolmayan. Malakian, Odadjian, and Dolmayan played "Aerials" and "Toxicity". He appeared on Cypress Hill's 2010 album Rise Up, on one song, "Trouble Seeker", which he also produced.
On May 2, 2010, Malakian reunited with Scars on Broadway at the Troubadour in West Hollywood. It was the first time he had performed with the band since October 2008. The group played songs from their album as well as new songs. Odadjian performed with the band for two songs, playing guitar. On August 20, 2010, Malakian played in Hollywood with Scars on Broadway. On November 29, 2010, it was announced that System of a Down would reunite for a European tour to take place in June 2011. They played at the Download Festival on June 11, 2011. Despite playing a number of reunion shows, the band had no plans to record new material. In October 2011, John Dolmayan expressed his interest in writing new material but cited that band members are all busy with their other projects (such as Daron's Scars on Broadway and Serj Tankian's solo efforts).
On July 29, 2010, Scars on Broadway released their first new studio recording in exactly two years, a Malakian-penned song called "Fucking". On February 24, 2012, System of a Down announced that the Scars on Broadway website was back online featuring a preview of a new song called "Guns Are Loaded".
In 2014, he appeared on Linkin Park's sixth studio album The Hunting Party, for which he provided additional guitars for the promotional single "Rebellion". The promotional single was self-produced by Mike Shinoda and Brad Delson. On August 18, 2016, Malakian performed with the Los Angeles-based alternative music project Millennials
On October 28, 2017, Malakian performed with the surviving members of Linkin Park which played a show at the Hollywood Bowl dedicated to the passing of their frontman Chester Bennington. He performed "Rebellion" alongside SOAD bassist Shavo Odadjian.
On April 23, 2018, Malakian released a song with Scars on Broadway called "Lives" about the history and culture of Armenia.
On July 20, 2018, Malakian and Scars on Broadway released the album Dictator.
Personal life
Unlike the rest of System of a Down, Malakian is not married and has no children.
Malakian is a lifelong fan of the Edmonton Oilers and has a large collection of Oilers-related memorabilia.
Discography
Features
System of a Down
System of a Down (1998)
Toxicity (2001)
Steal This Album! (2002)
Mezmerize (2005)
Hypnotize (2005)
Scars on Broadway
Scars on Broadway (2008)
Dictator (2018)
Other appearances
Production credits
Malakian has also produced a number of albums.
See also
History of the Armenian Americans in Los Angeles
References
1975 births
American musicians of Armenian descent
American experimental guitarists
American male guitarists
American male singers
American heavy metal guitarists
American heavy metal singers
Grammy Award winners
Armenian rock musicians
Lead guitarists
System of a Down members
Alternative metal guitarists
Alternative metal musicians
Sitar players
Living people
Glendale High School (Glendale, California) alumni
Guitarists from Los Angeles
Daron Malakian and Scars on Broadway members
21st-century American singers
Nu metal singers
| true |
[
"Well, I Should Have... (subtitled Learned How To Play Piano) is an experimental jazz album by American comedy actor H. Jon Benjamin. It was released on November 27, 2015, on the Sub Pop label. The album was intentionally recorded to sound bad, since, as the album's title indicates, Benjamin does not know how to play piano, but still does so on the album, and Benjamin has never liked jazz very much.\n\nGuests who appear on the album include Aziz Ansari and Kristen Schaal. The album also features actual jazz musicians such as Scott Kreitzer (saxophone), David Finck (bass), and Jonathan Peretz (drums). Every song on the album but one was mixed by Mark Desimone; the only song he did not mix was mixed by Bob's Burgers creator Loren Bouchard.\n\nTrack listing\n \"Deal with the Devil\" – 3:18\n \"I Can't Play Piano, Pt. 1\" – 3:39\n \"I Can't Play Piano, Pt. 2\" – 3:09\n\"It Had to Be You\" – 5:32\n \"Soft Jazzercise\" – 2:26\n \"I Can't Play Piano, Pt. 3\" – 4:57\n \"I Can't Play Piano, Pt. 4 – (Trill Baby Trill)\" – 5:25\n \"Amy's Song (The Bum Steer)\" – 1:30\n\nReferences\n\nSub Pop albums\n2015 debut albums\nH. Jon Benjamin albums",
"A virtual piano is an application (software) designed to simulate playing a piano on a computer. The virtual piano is played using a keyboard and/or mouse and typically comes with many features found on a digital piano.\n\nVirtual player piano software can simultaneously play MIDI / score music files, highlight the piano keys corresponding to the notes and highlight the sheet music notes.\n\nSee also\n\n Synthesia\n Scorewriter\n List of music software\n\nReferences\n\nPiano\nMusic software\nMusical composition"
] |
[
"Daron Malakian",
"Biography",
"Is System of a Down still a band in light of this project?",
"formed a new band using the name \"System of a Down\", based on a poem that Daron wrote.",
"Do the two bands have similar sounds?",
"Malakian co-produced System of a Down's albums with Rick Rubin, as well as albums by The Ambulance and Bad Acid Trip",
"What ethnicity is Malakian?",
"Daron Vartan Malakian was born on July 18, 1975, in Hollywood, the only child to Vartan and Zepur Malakian, ethnic Armenian immigrants originally from Iraq.",
"Did he have any formal training as a musician?",
"Vartan Malakian is a painter, dancer, and choreographer and Zepur Malakian is a sculptor who used to instruct college-level sculpture.",
"Can Daron Malakian play multiple intruments?",
"He always wanted to play the drums, but his parents got him a guitar instead because \"You can't turn the drums off.\"",
"Can he play piano?",
"I learned how to play by ear, and did alright. After a few years I gained a reputation as being a guitar player in high school."
] |
C_b1f276920bc741f9957c9b2c22ad3288_1
|
Does he have any other family members that are musicians?
| 7 |
Does Daron Malakian have any other family members that are musicians besides his parents?
|
Daron Malakian
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Daron Vartan Malakian was born on July 18, 1975, in Hollywood, the only child to Vartan and Zepur Malakian, ethnic Armenian immigrants originally from Iraq. Vartan Malakian is a painter, dancer, and choreographer and Zepur Malakian is a sculptor who used to instruct college-level sculpture. At a very early age, Malakian got into heavy metal music; his distant cousin played him a Kiss record when he was four years old. Malakian started listening to Van Halen, Def Leppard, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Motorhead and Ozzy Osbourne among others. He always wanted to play the drums, but his parents got him a guitar instead because "You can't turn the drums off." Daron first picked up a guitar at age 11, saying in an interview, "For the first year and a half, I learned how to play by ear, and did alright. After a few years I gained a reputation as being a guitar player in high school. And by 16 or 17 I actually realized it was a good songwriting instrument, and, over anything, that's what I feel like. I don't pretend to be Mr. Guitar Virtuoso." During his teens Malakian listened to thrash metal bands such as Slayer, Venom, Metallica, Pantera and Sepultura. Malakian then began listening to The Beatles and cites John Lennon as one of his biggest influences on him as a songwriter. He also cites other British Invasion bands such as The Kinks and The Who as major influences as well as folk-rock such as trio Peter, Paul and Mary and punk pioneer Iggy Pop. Daron went to Rose and Alex Pilibos Armenian School in the Los Feliz side of Hollywood, which his future bandmates Shavo Odadjian and Ontronik "Andy" Khachaturian (System of a Down's original drummer) also attended. System of a Down vocalist Serj Tankian attended the school as well, but he was many years above Malakian and the others. Malakian attended Glendale High School as a teenager. He is a lifelong fan of the Edmonton Oilers and has a large collection of Oilers-related memorabilia. Malakian met Serj Tankian in 1993, while they both shared the same rehearsal studio in different bands. Tankian was playing keyboard for a band, and Daron was playing guitar and singing for another band. They formed a jam band called Soil with bassist Dave Hakopyan and drummer Domingo Laraino. Shavo Odadjian then became their manager, and then rhythm guitarist. Soil broke up and Malakian, Tankian, and Odadjian (who switched to bass) formed a new band using the name "System of a Down", based on a poem that Daron wrote. The poem's title was "Victims of a Down" but Odadjian thought "system" was a stronger word than "victims." They then recruited drummer Andy Khachaturian, who was replaced by John Dolmayan in 1997. Malakian co-produced System of a Down's albums with Rick Rubin, as well as albums by The Ambulance and Bad Acid Trip (a band on fellow member Serj Tankian's Serjical Strike Records). In 2003, Malakian started his own label, EatUrMusic, on which Amen was the first signed band. The label is now inactive and its current status is unknown. CANNOTANSWER
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At a very early age, Malakian got into heavy metal music; his distant cousin played him a Kiss record when he was four years old.
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Daron Vartan Malakian (born July 18, 1975) is an Armenian-American musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer. He is best known as the guitarist, songwriter and second vocalist of metal band System of a Down, and as the lead vocalist, lead guitarist, multi-instrumentalist, and songwriter of Scars on Broadway. Malakian is known for his distinctive playing and is ranked 47th in Loudwires list of "Top 50 Hard Rock + Metal Guitarists of All Time" and number 11 in MusicRadars poll "The 20 Greatest Metal Guitarists Ever". He is placed 30th in Guitar Worlds list of "The 100 Greatest Heavy Metal Guitarists of All Time".
Biography
Daron Vartan Malakian was born in Hollywood, California, the only child to Vartan and Zepur Malakian. His parents are ethnic Armenian immigrants. Vartan Malakian is a painter, dancer, and choreographer and Zepur Malakian is a sculptor who instructed college-level sculpture earlier in her career. At a very early age, Malakian got into heavy metal music; his distant cousin played him a Kiss record when he was four years old. Malakian started listening to Van Halen, Aerosmith, Def Leppard, Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Motörhead and Ozzy Osbourne among others. He always wanted to play the drums, but his parents got him a guitar instead because "You can't turn the drums off." Daron first picked up a guitar at age 11, saying in an interview, "For the first year and a half, I learned how to play by ear, and did alright. After a few years I gained a reputation as being a guitar player in high school. And by 16 or 17 I actually realized it was a good songwriting instrument, and, over anything, that's what I feel like. I don't pretend to be Mr. Guitar Virtuoso." During his teens Malakian listened to thrash metal bands such as Slayer, Venom, Metallica, and groove metal bands like Pantera and Sepultura. Malakian then began listening to The Beatles and cites John Lennon as one of his biggest influences as a songwriter. He also cites other British Invasion bands such as The Kinks and The Who as major influences as well as folk-rock such as trio Peter, Paul and Mary and punk pioneer Iggy Pop. Daron went to Rose and Alex Pilibos Armenian School in the Los Feliz side of Hollywood, which his future bandmates Shavo Odadjian and Ontronik "Andy" Khachaturian (System of a Down's original drummer) also attended. System of a Down vocalist Serj Tankian attended the school as well, but he was many years above Malakian and the others. Malakian attended Glendale High School as a teenager.
System of a Down
Malakian met Serj Tankian in 1993, while they both shared the same rehearsal studio in different bands. Tankian was playing keyboard for a band, and Daron was playing guitar and singing for another band. They formed a jam band called Soil with bassist Dave Hakopyan and drummer Domingo Laraino. Shavo Odadjian then became their manager, and then rhythm guitarist. Soil broke up and Malakian, Tankian, and Odadjian (who switched to bass) formed a new band using the name "System of a Down", based on a poem that Daron wrote. The poem's title was "Victims of a Down" but Odadjian thought "system" was a stronger word than "victims". They then recruited drummer Andy Khachaturian, who was replaced by John Dolmayan in 1997.
Malakian co-produced System of a Down's albums with Rick Rubin, as well as albums by The Ambulance and Bad Acid Trip (a band on fellow member Serj Tankian's Serjical Strike Records). In 2003, Malakian started his own label, EatUrMusic, on which Amen was the first signed band. The label is now inactive and its current status is unknown.
Scars on Broadway
In 2003, Daron Malakian (lead guitar and vocals), Greg Kelso (rhythm guitar), Casey Chaos (vocals), and Zach Hill (drums) recorded a demo tape entitled Ghetto Blaster Rehearsals, credited to the name Scars on Broadway. However, in 2007, an official letter appeared on the band's website that stated that these tracks are not in any way affiliated with Malakian's later project Scars on Broadway. Incidentally, these demo sessions produced "B.Y.O.B.", which would be a major hit for System of a Down in 2005.
Following System's hiatus, Malakian announced his latest project – Scars on Broadway – a band which would include System of a Down bassist, Shavo Odadjian, and himself. Ultimately, Odadjian was not involved with the band, and instead System of a Down drummer, John Dolmayan became a member. After Malakian and Dolmayan experimented with different musicians (for a period of nine months in 2007 – 2008) the band took form and forged its sound in intense rehearsals and recording sessions (under Malakian's direction at his home studio and Sunset Sound) with musicians Danny Shamoun on keyboards, Dominic Cifarelli on bass, and Franky Perez on guitar and backing vocals for live performances (in the studio Malakian played nearly all the instruments with the exception of drums which were played by Dolmayan and some overdubs provided by the other members). The group released an eponymous album in 2008, which featured the hit single "They Say" (written by Malakian). However, shortly before the tour supporting the album, Malakian cancelled all scheduled concert and TV appearances, blaming a lack of enthusiasm and that his "heart wasn't into touring." This sudden cancellation prompted speculation and rumors that the band had broken up. It was the last that would be heard of Malakian for more than a year.
Malakian stayed out of the public eye following his cancellation of the tour in support of Scars on Broadway's debut album in October 2008. In 2009 Malakian made a surprise appearance (his first in a year) at Shavo Odadjian's Halloween Party and played "Suite-Pee", "They Say", and an unknown song with Odadjian, Dolmayan and Scars on Broadway's Franky Perez on guitar. It was the first time that the band members (minus Tankian, who was working on his second solo album) performed together in more than three years.
In August 2009, Scars on Broadway, minus Malakian, traveled to Iraq for a USO tour across the U.S. army bases. Their setlist consisted of covers as well as a few Scars songs. Guitarist/vocalist Franky Perez stated on his Twitter that "the Scars tunes sound amazing but they're not the same without D..." He also stated before they left that Malakian had given them his blessing. In 2009 Franky Perez mentioned on his Twitter that he and the D-Man (Malakian) were going into studio to jam, this was the first news people have heard about Malakian's whereabouts for about a year.
On November 20, 2009, Malakian played at the Chi Cheng Benefit concert along with Deftones, and also performed with Odadjian and Dolmayan. Malakian, Odadjian, and Dolmayan played "Aerials" and "Toxicity". He appeared on Cypress Hill's 2010 album Rise Up, on one song, "Trouble Seeker", which he also produced.
On May 2, 2010, Malakian reunited with Scars on Broadway at the Troubadour in West Hollywood. It was the first time he had performed with the band since October 2008. The group played songs from their album as well as new songs. Odadjian performed with the band for two songs, playing guitar. On August 20, 2010, Malakian played in Hollywood with Scars on Broadway. On November 29, 2010, it was announced that System of a Down would reunite for a European tour to take place in June 2011. They played at the Download Festival on June 11, 2011. Despite playing a number of reunion shows, the band had no plans to record new material. In October 2011, John Dolmayan expressed his interest in writing new material but cited that band members are all busy with their other projects (such as Daron's Scars on Broadway and Serj Tankian's solo efforts).
On July 29, 2010, Scars on Broadway released their first new studio recording in exactly two years, a Malakian-penned song called "Fucking". On February 24, 2012, System of a Down announced that the Scars on Broadway website was back online featuring a preview of a new song called "Guns Are Loaded".
In 2014, he appeared on Linkin Park's sixth studio album The Hunting Party, for which he provided additional guitars for the promotional single "Rebellion". The promotional single was self-produced by Mike Shinoda and Brad Delson. On August 18, 2016, Malakian performed with the Los Angeles-based alternative music project Millennials
On October 28, 2017, Malakian performed with the surviving members of Linkin Park which played a show at the Hollywood Bowl dedicated to the passing of their frontman Chester Bennington. He performed "Rebellion" alongside SOAD bassist Shavo Odadjian.
On April 23, 2018, Malakian released a song with Scars on Broadway called "Lives" about the history and culture of Armenia.
On July 20, 2018, Malakian and Scars on Broadway released the album Dictator.
Personal life
Unlike the rest of System of a Down, Malakian is not married and has no children.
Malakian is a lifelong fan of the Edmonton Oilers and has a large collection of Oilers-related memorabilia.
Discography
Features
System of a Down
System of a Down (1998)
Toxicity (2001)
Steal This Album! (2002)
Mezmerize (2005)
Hypnotize (2005)
Scars on Broadway
Scars on Broadway (2008)
Dictator (2018)
Other appearances
Production credits
Malakian has also produced a number of albums.
See also
History of the Armenian Americans in Los Angeles
References
1975 births
American musicians of Armenian descent
American experimental guitarists
American male guitarists
American male singers
American heavy metal guitarists
American heavy metal singers
Grammy Award winners
Armenian rock musicians
Lead guitarists
System of a Down members
Alternative metal guitarists
Alternative metal musicians
Sitar players
Living people
Glendale High School (Glendale, California) alumni
Guitarists from Los Angeles
Daron Malakian and Scars on Broadway members
21st-century American singers
Nu metal singers
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[
"John Ashley (c.1734–1805) was the father of a remarkable family of musicians who flourished towards the end of the eighteenth century.\n\nAshley became a member of the Royal Society of Musicians on 7 April 1765. At the Handel commemoration in 1784, he was assistant conductor to Joah Bates. On the same occasion, the double bassoon was played by a 'Mr. Ashley of the Guards', who is sometimes supposed to have been the same individual, but was more probably another member of the family, possibly his brother Jane, who was born in 1740 and died at Westminster on 5 April 1809.\n\nJohn Ashley in 1795 undertook the management of the oratorio concerts at Covent Garden. According to the official book commemorating the 300th anniversary of the Worshipful Company of Musicians, he served as Master in 1804, the year of its bicentenary. He died in Abingdon Street, Westminster, on 2 March 1805, where his wife also died on 22 December 1809, aged 75.\n\nRichard Ashley (1775 – 1836), one of John Ashley's sons, was a performer on the violin, but he does not seem to have made any mark as a musician. He became a member of the Royal Society of Musicians 17 April 1796, and died in October 1836. He was also the father of Charles Jane Ashley, General Charles Ashley, and John James Ashley.\n\nReferences\n\nFurther reading\n\n1730s births\n1805 deaths\nMembers of the Royal Society of Musicians\n18th-century English musicians\n19th-century English musicians",
"In instrumental music performances in Western classical music, \"faking\" is the process by which a musician gives the \"...impression of playing every note as written\" in the printed music part, typically for a very challenging passage that is very high in pitch and/or very rapid, while not actually playing all of the notes in the part. Faking may be done by an orchestra musician, a concerto soloist or a chamber musician; however, faking tends to be more associated with orchestra playing, because the presence of such a large music ensemble (as many as 100 musicians) makes it easier for musicians who \"fake\" to do so without being detected. A concerto soloist or chamber musician who faked passages would be much easier for audience members and other musicians to detect. Orchestra musicians at every level, from amateur orchestras and youth orchestras to professional orchestra players will occasionally \"fake\" a hard passage.\n\nViews\nFaking is considered controversial in orchestral playing; The Strad magazine calls it one of the \"great unmentionable [topics] of orchestral playing\". A professional cellist states that all orchestral musicians, even those in the top orchestras, occasionally \"fake\" certain passages. Professional players who were interviewed were of a consensus that faking because a part is not written well for the instrument may be acceptable, but faking \"just because you haven't practised\" the music is not acceptable.\n\nA musician from the Canadian Music Centre stated that \"...when I hear someone [a musician] say \"I can just fake that\" [music] is akin to nails on a chalkboard.\" The CMC musician states that as a \"...performer I feel obligated to make sure I can play the music as well as I can. If that means I have to woodshed [(practice) a] lick up until the day of the concert that is what I will do, I can't personally accept \"faking\" it as an answer for any kind of music.\"\n\nThe classical music comedy YouTube channel duo TwoSetViolin has made several videos reacting to and criticizing fake classical music portrayals.\n\nExplanations \nOne reason that musicians \"fake\" is because there are not enough rehearsals or time to learn the pieces.Another factor is the extreme challenges in contemporary pieces; professionals interviewed by the magazine said \"faking\" was \"...necessary in anything from ten to almost ninety per cent of some modern works. Youth orchestra members and players in amateur or community orchestras may fake because the parts in professional orchestral repertoire are beyond their technical level. Gigging musicians playing in \"one-off\" pickup groups and local pit orchestras may fake because they do not have time to practice or prepare the music.\n\nOther meanings\n\nIn jazz, the term \"fake\" does not have the same meaning as in Classical music, and as well, it does not carry negative connotations. In jazz, when a jazz quartet \"fakes\" accompaniment parts to a song with a singer, this is a synonym for improvising their backup parts. Improvising backup lines (chord voicings for piano/guitar, basslines for bass, and drum parts for drum set) is an essential skill for jazz musicians. The use of the term \"fake\" in the jazz scene is illustrated by the expression \"fake book\", a collection of lead sheets and chord progressions for jazz standards (commonly-played jazz tunes). The reason the book is called a \"fake book\" is because trained jazz performers are able to improvise accompaniment parts and solos from the chord charts contained therein.\n\nComparison with miming\nThere is some overlap between faking and miming in instrumental performance. The distinction is that with miming, the instrumentalists pretend to play while a pre-recorded backing track sounds over the PA system or, for a broadcast performance, on the audience's TV or radio; with faking, there is no backing track or use of technology. As well, with faking, the performer often plays some portion of the notated music. For example, with a fast scale run, an orchestral musician who is faking may play the first note and the last note. In contrast, a musician who is miming while the recording is playing over speakers does not need to make any sounds at all. They only need move their body, arms and fingers to give the appearance of playing. Indeed, in some miming contexts, the instrumentalists are instructed not to make any sounds at all, as these might be picked up by live vocal mics on the stage.\n\nWhile miming in instrumental performance is most often associated with popular music, due to the widespread use of lip-synching and miming instrumental playing on TV shows such as Top of the Pops (while the recording plays on the viewer's TV speakers), there are examples where producers have hired an orchestra or chamber musicians to appear on a stage and pretend to play, while the spectators (if in a live venue) or viewers (if a broadcast event) hear a previously recorded tape of that orchestra/ensemble (or a different orchestra or ensemble) playing.\n\nSee also\nMiming in instrumental performance\nOffstage musicians and singers in popular music\n\nReferences\n\nMusical performance techniques\nString performance techniques\nDeception"
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[
"Jerry Fodor",
"Biography"
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C_8f42ddf1202a47269d580c8afe007ea3_1
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Where did Fodor go to school?
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Where did Jerry Fodor go to school?
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Jerry Fodor
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Jerry Fodor was born in New York City on April 22, 1935, and was of Jewish descent. He received his A.B. degree (summa cum laude) from Columbia University in 1956, where he studied with Sydney Morgenbesser, and a PhD in philosophy from Princeton University in 1960, under the direction of Hilary Putnam. From 1959 to 1986 Fodor was on the faculty of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. From 1986 to 1988 he was a full professor at the City University of New York (CUNY). From 1988 until his retirement in 2016 he was State of New Jersey Professor of philosophy and cognitive science at Rutgers University in New Jersey, where he was emeritus. Besides his interest in philosophy, Fodor passionately followed opera and regularly wrote popular columns for the London Review of Books on that and other topics. Philosopher Colin McGinn, who taught with Fodor at Rutgers, described him in these words: Fodor (who is a close friend) is a gentle man inside a burly body, and prone to an even burlier style of arguing. He is shy and voluble at the same time ... a formidable polemicist burdened with a sensitive soul.... Disagreeing with Jerry on a philosophical issue, especially one dear to his heart, can be a chastening experience.... His quickness of mind, inventiveness, and sharp wit are not to be tangled with before your first cup of coffee in the morning. Adding Jerry Fodor to the faculty at Rutgers [University] instantly put it on the map, Fodor being by common consent the leading philosopher of mind in the world today. I had met him in England in the seventies and ... found him to be the genuine article, intellectually speaking (though we do not always see eye to eye). Fodor was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He received numerous awards and honors: New York State Regent's Fellowship, Woodrow Wilson Fellowship (Princeton University), Chancellor Greene Fellow (Princeton University), Fulbright Fellowship (University of Oxford), Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He won the first Jean Nicod Prize for philosophy of mind and cognitive philosophy in 1993. His lecture series for the Prize, later published as a book by MIT Press in 1995, was titled The Elm and the Expert: Mentalese and Its Semantics. In 1996-1997, Fodor delivered the prestigious John Locke Lectures at the University of Oxford, titled Concepts: Where Cognitive Science Went Wrong, which went on to become his 1998 Oxford University Press book of the same name. He has also delivered the Patrick Romanell Lecture on Philosophical Naturalism (2004) and the Royce Lecture on Philosophy of Mind (2002) to the American Philosophical Association, of whose Eastern Division he has served as Vice President (2004-2005) and President (2005-2006). In 2005, he won the Mind & Brain Prize. He lived in New York with his wife, the linguist Janet Dean Fodor, and had two grown children. Fodor died on November 29, 2017, at his home in Manhattan. CANNOTANSWER
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He received his A.B. degree (summa cum laude) from Columbia University in 1956,
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Jerry Alan Fodor (; April 22, 1935 – November 29, 2017) was an American philosopher and the author of many crucial works in the fields of philosophy of mind and cognitive science. His writings in these fields laid the groundwork for the modularity of mind and the language of thought hypotheses, and he is recognized as having had "an enormous influence on virtually every portion of the philosophy of mind literature since 1960." Until his death in 2017 he held the position of State of New Jersey Professor of Philosophy, Emeritus, at Rutgers University.
Fodor was known for his provocative and sometimes polemical style of argumentation. He argued that mental states, such as beliefs and desires, are relations between individuals and mental representations. He maintained that these representations can only be correctly explained in terms of a language of thought (LOT) in the mind. Furthermore, this language of thought itself is an actually existing thing that is codified in the brain and not just a useful explanatory tool. Fodor adhered to a species of functionalism, maintaining that thinking and other mental processes consist primarily of computations operating on the syntax of the representations that make up the language of thought.
For Fodor, significant parts of the mind, such as perceptual and linguistic processes, are structured in terms of modules, or "organs", which he defines by their causal and functional roles. These modules are relatively independent of each other and of the "central processing" part of the mind, which has a more global and less "domain specific" character. Fodor suggests that the character of these modules permits the possibility of causal relations with external objects. This, in turn, makes it possible for mental states to have contents that are about things in the world. The central processing part, on the other hand, takes care of the logical relations between the various contents and inputs and outputs.
Although Fodor originally rejected the idea that mental states must have a causal, externally determined aspect, in his later years he devoted much of his writing and study to the philosophy of language because of this problem of the meaning and reference of mental contents. His contributions in this area include the so-called asymmetric causal theory of reference and his many arguments against semantic holism. Fodor strongly opposed reductive accounts of the mind. He argued that mental states are multiple realizable and that there is a hierarchy of explanatory levels in science such that the generalizations and laws of a higher-level theory of psychology or linguistics, for example, cannot be captured by the low-level explanations of the behavior of neurons and synapses. He also emerged as a prominent critic of what he characterized as the ill-grounded Darwinian and neo-Darwinian theories of natural selection.
Biography
Jerry Fodor was born in New York City on April 22, 1935, and was of Jewish descent. He received his A.B. degree (summa cum laude) from Columbia University in 1956, where he wrote a senior thesis on Søren Kierkegaard and studied with Sydney Morgenbesser, and a PhD in philosophy from Princeton University in 1960, under the direction of Hilary Putnam. From 1959 to 1986 Fodor was on the faculty of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. From 1986 to 1988 he was a full professor at the City University of New York (CUNY). From 1988 until his retirement in 2016 he was State of New Jersey Professor of philosophy and cognitive science at Rutgers University in New Jersey, where he was emeritus. Besides his interest in philosophy, Fodor passionately followed opera and regularly wrote popular columns for the London Review of Books on that and other topics.
Philosopher Colin McGinn, who taught with Fodor at Rutgers, described him in these words:
Fodor (who is a close friend) is a gentle man inside a burly body, and prone to an even burlier style of arguing. He is shy and voluble at the same time ... a formidable polemicist burdened with a sensitive soul.... Disagreeing with Jerry on a philosophical issue, especially one dear to his heart, can be a chastening experience.... His quickness of mind, inventiveness, and sharp wit are not to be tangled with before your first cup of coffee in the morning. Adding Jerry Fodor to the faculty at Rutgers [University] instantly put it on the map, Fodor being by common consent the leading philosopher of mind in the world today. I had met him in England in the seventies and ... found him to be the genuine article, intellectually speaking (though we do not always see eye to eye).
Fodor was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He received numerous awards and honors: New York State Regent's Fellowship, Woodrow Wilson Fellowship (Princeton University), Chancellor Greene Fellow (Princeton University), Fulbright Fellowship (University of Oxford), Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He won the first Jean Nicod Prize for philosophy of mind and cognitive philosophy in 1993. His lecture series for the Prize, later published as a book by MIT Press in 1995, was titled The Elm and the Expert: Mentalese and Its Semantics. In 1996–1997, Fodor delivered the prestigious John Locke Lectures at the University of Oxford, titled Concepts: Where Cognitive Science Went Wrong, which went on to become his 1998 Oxford University Press book of the same name. He has also delivered the Patrick Romanell Lecture on Philosophical Naturalism (2004) and the Royce Lecture on Philosophy of Mind (2002) to the American Philosophical Association, of whose Eastern Division he has served as Vice President (2004–2005) and President (2005–2006). In 2005, he won the Mind & Brain Prize.
He lived in New York with his wife, the linguist Janet Dean Fodor, and had two children. Fodor died on November 29, 2017, at his home in Manhattan.
Fodor and the nature of mental states
In his article "Propositional Attitudes" (1978), Fodor introduced the idea that mental states are relations between individuals and mental representations. Despite the changes in many of his positions over the years, the idea that intentional attitudes are relational has remained unchanged from its original formulation up to .
In that article, he attempted to show how mental representations, specifically sentences in the language of thought, are necessary to explain this relational nature of mental states. Fodor considers two alternative hypotheses. The first completely denies the relational character of mental states and the second considers mental states as two-place relations. The latter position can be further subdivided into the Carnapian view that such relations are between individuals and sentences of natural languages and the Fregean view that they are between individuals and the propositions expressed by such sentences.
Fodor's own position, instead, is that to properly account for the nature of intentional attitudes, it is necessary to employ a three-place relation between individuals, representations and propositional contents.
Considering mental states as three-place relations in this way, representative realism makes it possible to hold together all of the elements necessary to the solution of this problem. Further, mental representations are not only the objects of beliefs and desires, but are also the domain over which mental processes operate. They can be considered the ideal link between the syntactic notion of mental content and the computational notion of functional architecture. These notions are, according to Fodor, our best explanation of mental processes.
The functional architecture of the mind
Following in the path paved by linguist Noam Chomsky, Fodor developed a strong commitment to the idea of psychological nativism. Nativism postulates the innateness of many cognitive functions and concepts. For Fodor, this position emerges naturally out of his criticism of behaviourism and associationism. These criticisms also led him to the formulation of his hypothesis of the modularity of the mind.
Historically, questions about mental architecture have been divided into two contrasting theories about the nature of the faculties. The first can be described as a "horizontal" view because it sees mental processes as interactions between faculties which are not domain specific. For example, a judgment remains a judgment whether it is judgment about a perceptual experience or a judgment about the understanding of language. The second can be described as a "vertical" view because it claims that our mental faculties are domain specific, genetically determined, associated with distinct neurological structures, and so on.
The vertical vision can be traced back to the 19th century movement called phrenology and its founder Franz Joseph Gall. Gall claimed that mental faculties could be associated with specific physical areas of the brain. Hence, someone's level of intelligence, for example, could be literally "read off" from the size of a particular bump on his posterior parietal lobe. This simplistic view of modularity has been disproved over the course of the last century.
Fodor revived the idea of modularity, without the notion of precise physical localizability, in the 1980s, and became one of the most vocal proponents of it with the 1983 publication of his monograph The Modularity of Mind, where he points to Gall through Bernard Hollander, which is the author cited in the references instead, more specifically Hollander's In search of the soul. Two properties of modularity in particular, informational encapsulation and domain specificity, make it possible to tie together questions of functional architecture with those of mental content. The ability to elaborate information independently from the background beliefs of individuals that these two properties allow Fodor to give an atomistic and causal account of the notion of mental content. The main idea, in other words, is that the properties of the contents of mental states can depend, rather than exclusively on the internal relations of the system of which they are a part, also on their causal relations with the external world.
Fodor's notions of mental modularity, informational encapsulation and domain specificity were taken up and expanded, much to Fodor's chagrin, by cognitive scientists such as Zenon Pylyshyn and evolutionary psychologists such as Steven Pinker and Henry Plotkin, among many others. But Fodor complained that Pinker, Plotkin and other members of what he sarcastically called "the New Synthesis" have taken modularity and similar ideas way too far. He insisted that the mind is not "massively modular" and that, contrary to what these researchers would have us believe, the mind is still a very long way from having been explained by the computational, or any other, model.
Intentional realism
In A Theory of Content and Other Essays (1990), Fodor takes up another of his central notions: the question of the reality of mental representations. Fodor needs to justify representational realism to justify the idea that the contents of mental states are expressed in symbolic structures such as those of the LOT.
Fodor's criticism of Dennett
Fodor starts with some criticisms of so-called standard realism. This view is characterized, according to Fodor, by two distinct assertions. One of these regards the internal structure of mental states and asserts that such states are non-relational. The other concerns the semantic theory of mental content and asserts that there is an isomorphism between the causal roles of such contents and the inferential web of beliefs. Among modern philosophers of mind, the majority view seems to be that the first of these two assertions is false, but that the second is true. Fodor departs from this view in accepting the truth of the first thesis but rejecting strongly the truth of the second.
In particular, Fodor criticizes the instrumentalism of Daniel Dennett. Dennett maintains that it is possible to be realist with regard to intentional states without having to commit oneself to the reality of mental representations. Now, according to Fodor, if one remains at this level of analysis, then there is no possibility of explaining why the intentional strategy works:There is ... a standard objection to instrumentalism ...: it is difficult to explain why the psychology of beliefs/desires works so well, if the psychology of beliefs/desires is, in fact, false.... As Putnam, Boyd and others have emphasized, from the predictive successes of a theory to the truth of that theory there is surely a presumed inference; and this is even more likely when ... we are dealing with the only theory in play which is predictively crowned with success. It is not obvious ... why such a presumption should not militate in favour of a realist conception ... of the interpretations of beliefs/desires.
Productivity, systematicity and thought
Fodor also has positive arguments in favour of the reality of mental representations in terms of the LOT. He maintains that if language is the expression of thoughts and language is systematic, then thoughts must also be systematic. Fodor draws on the work of Noam Chomsky to both model his theory of the mind and to refute alternative architectures such as connectionism. Systematicity in natural languages was explained by Chomsky in terms of two more basic concepts: productivity and compositionality.
Productivity refers to a representational system's unbounded ability to generate new representations from a given set of symbols. "John", "loves", and "Mary" allow for the construction of the sentences "John loves Mary" and "Mary loves John". Fodor's language of thought theorizes that representations are decomposable into constituent parts, and these decomposed representations are built into new strings.
More important than productivity is systematicity since it does not rely on questionable idealizations about human cognition. The argument states that a cognizer is able to understand some sentence in virtue of understanding another. For example, no one who understands "John loves Mary" is unable to understand "Mary loves John", and no one who understands "P and Q" is unable to understand "P". Systematicity itself is rarely challenged as a property of natural languages and logics, but some challenge that thought is systematic in the same way languages are. Still others from the connectionist tradition have tried to build non-classical networks that can account for the apparent systematicity of language.
The fact that systematicity and productivity depend on the compositional structure of language means that language has a combinatorial semantics. If thought also has such a combinatorial semantics, then there must be a language of thought.
The second argument that Fodor provides in favour of representational realism involves the processes of thought. This argument touches on the relation between the representational theory of mind and models of its architecture. If the sentences of Mentalese require unique processes of elaboration then they require a computational mechanism of a certain type. The syntactic notion of mental representations goes hand in hand with the idea that mental processes are calculations which act only on the form of the symbols which they elaborate. And this is the computational theory of the mind. Consequently, the defence of a model of architecture based on classic artificial intelligence passes inevitably through a defence of the reality of mental representations.
For Fodor, this formal notion of thought processes also has the advantage of highlighting the parallels between the causal role of symbols and the contents which they express. In his view, syntax plays the role of mediation between the causal role of the symbols and their contents. The semantic relations between symbols can be "imitated" by their syntactic relations. The inferential relations which connect the contents of two symbols can be imitated by the formal syntax rules which regulate the derivation of one symbol from another.
The nature of content
From the beginning of the 1980s, Fodor adhered to a causal notion of mental content and of meaning. This idea of content contrasts sharply with the inferential role semantics to which he subscribed earlier in his career. Fodor criticizes inferential role semantics (IRS) because its commitment to an extreme form of holism excludes the possibility of a true naturalization of the mental. But naturalization must include an explanation of content in atomistic and causal terms.
Anti-holism
Fodor has made many and varied criticisms of holism. He identifies the central problem with all the different notions of holism as the idea that the determining factor in semantic evaluation is the notion of an "epistemic bond". Briefly, P is an epistemic bond of Q if the meaning of P is considered by someone to be relevant for the determination of the meaning of Q. Meaning holism strongly depends on this notion. The identity of the content of a mental state, under holism, can only be determined by the totality of its epistemic bonds. And this makes the realism of mental states an impossibility:If people differ in an absolutely general way in their estimations of epistemic relevance, and if we follow the holism of meaning and individuate intentional states by way of the totality of their epistemic bonds, the consequence will be that two people (or, for that matter, two temporal sections of the same person) will never be in the same intentional state. Therefore, two people can never be subsumed under the same intentional generalizations. And, therefore, intentional generalization can never be successful. And, therefore again, there is no hope for an intentional psychology.
The asymmetric causal theory
Having criticized the idea that semantic evaluation concerns only the internal relations between the units of a symbolic system, Fodor can adopt an externalist position with respect to mental content and meaning. For Fodor, in recent years, the problem of naturalization of the mental is tied to the possibility of giving "the sufficient conditions for which a piece of the world is relative to (expresses, represents, is true of) another piece" in non-intentional and non-semantic terms. If this goal is to be achieved within a representational theory of the mind, then the challenge is to devise a causal theory which can establish the interpretation of the primitive non-logical symbols of the LOT. Fodor's initial proposal is that what determines that the symbol for "water" in Mentalese expresses the property H2O is that the occurrences of that symbol are in certain causal relations with water. The intuitive version of this causal theory is what Fodor calls the "Crude Causal Theory". According to this theory, the occurrences of symbols express the properties which are the causes of their occurrence. The term "horse", for example, says of a horse that it is a horse. In order to do this, it is necessary and sufficient that certain properties of an occurrence of the symbol "horse" be in a law-like relation with certain properties which determine that something is an occurrence of horse.
The main problem with this theory is that of erroneous representations. There are two unavoidable problems with the idea that "a symbol expresses a property if it is ... necessary that all and only the presences of such a property cause the occurrences". The first is that not all horses cause occurrences of horse. The second is that not only horses cause occurrences of horse. Sometimes the A(horses) are caused by A (horses), but at other times—when, for example, because of the distance or conditions of low visibility, one has confused a cow for a horse—the A (horses) are caused by B (cows). In this case the symbol A doesn't express just the property A, but the disjunction of properties A or B. The crude causal theory is therefore incapable of distinguishing the case in which the content of a symbol is disjunctive from the case in which it isn't. This gives rise to what Fodor calls the "problem of disjunction".
Fodor responds to this problem with what he defines as "a slightly less crude causal theory". According to this approach, it is necessary to break the symmetry at the base of the crude causal theory. Fodor must find some criterion for distinguishing the occurrences of A caused by As (true) from those caused by Bs (false). The point of departure, according to Fodor, is that while the false cases are ontologically dependent on the true cases, the reverse is not true. There is an asymmetry of dependence, in other words, between the true contents (A= A) and the false ones (A = A or B). The first can subsist independently of the second, but the second can occur only because of the existence of the first:From the point of view of semantics, errors must be accidents: if in the extension of "horse" there are no cows, then it cannot be required for the meaning of "horse" that cows be called horses. On the other hand, if "horse" did not mean that which it means, and if it were an error for horses, it would never be possible for a cow to be called "horse". Putting the two things together, it can be seen that the possibility of falsely saying "this is a horse" presupposes the existence of a semantic basis for saying it truly, but not vice versa. If we put this in terms of the crude causal theory, the fact that cows cause one to say "horse" depends on the fact that horses cause one to say "horse"; but the fact that horses cause one to say "horse" does not depend on the fact that cows cause one to say "horse"...
Functionalism
During the 1960s, various philosophers such as Donald Davidson, Hilary Putnam, and Fodor tried to resolve the puzzle of developing a way to preserve the explanatory efficacy of mental causation and so-called "folk psychology" while adhering to a materialist vision of the world which did not violate the "generality of physics". Their proposal was, first of all, to reject the then-dominant theories in philosophy of mind: behaviorism and the type identity theory. The problem with logical behaviorism was that it failed to account for causation between mental states and such causation seems to be essential to psychological explanation, especially if one considers that behavior is not an effect of a single mental event/cause but is rather the effect of a chain of mental events/causes. The type-identity theory, on the other hand, failed to explain the fact that radically different physical systems can find themselves in the identical mental state. Besides being deeply anthropocentric (why should humans be the only thinking organisms in the universe?), the identity-type theory also failed to deal with accumulating evidence in the neurosciences that every single human brain is different from all the others. Hence, the impossibility of referring to common mental states in different physical systems manifests itself not only between different species but also between organisms of the same species.
One can solve these problems, according to Fodor, with functionalism, a hypothesis which was designed to overcome the failings of both dualism and reductionism. What is important is the function of a mental state regardless of the physical substrate which implements it. The foundation for this view lies in the principle of the multiple realizability of the mental. Under this view, for example, I and a computer can both instantiate ("realize") the same functional state though we are made of completely different material stuff (see graphic at right). On this basis functionalism can be classified as a form of token materialism.
Evolution
Fodor and the biolinguist Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini co-authored the book What Darwin Got Wrong (2010), in which they describe neo-Darwinists as "distressingly uncritical" and say of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution that "it overestimates the contribution the environment makes in shaping the phenotype of a species and correspondingly underestimates the effects of endogenous variables". Evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne describes this book as "a profoundly misguided critique of natural selection" and "as biologically uninformed as it is strident". Moral philosopher and anti-scientism author Mary Midgley praises What Darwin Got Wrong as "an overdue and valuable onslaught on neo-Darwinist simplicities". The book also received a positive review from mathematician and intelligent-design theorist William Dembski.
In a web dialogue, on the adequacy of natural selection as an account for the origin of species, Fodor argues that natural selection cannot distinguish between “a trait that is selected for from its free riders”. John Staddon responded “What seems to be wrong is considering selection in isolation, separated from variation.”
Criticism
A wide variety of philosophers of diverse orientations have challenged many of Fodor's ideas. For example, the language of thought hypothesis has been accused of either falling prey to an infinite regress or of being superfluous. Specifically, Simon Blackburn suggested in an article in 1984 that since Fodor explains the learning of natural languages as a process of formation and confirmation of hypotheses in the LOT, this leaves him open to the question of why the LOT itself should not be considered as just such a language which requires yet another and more fundamental representational substrate in which to form and confirm hypotheses so that the LOT itself can be learned. If natural language learning requires some representational substrate (the LOT) in order for it to be learned, why shouldn't the same be said for the LOT itself and then for the representational substrate of this representational substrate and so on, ad infinitum? On the other hand, if such a representational substrate is not required for the LOT, then why should it be required for the learning of natural languages? In this case, the LOT would be superfluous. Fodor, in response, argues that the LOT is unique in that it does not have to be learned via an antecedent language because it is innate.
In 1981, Daniel Dennett had formulated another argument against the LOT. Dennett suggested that it would seem, on the basis of the evidence of our behavior toward computers but also with regard to some of our own unconscious behavior, that explicit representation is not necessary for the explanation of propositional attitudes. During a game of chess with a computer program, we often attribute such attitudes to the computer, saying such things as "It thinks that the queen should be moved to the left." We attribute propositional attitudes to the computer and this helps us to explain and predict its behavior in various contexts. Yet no one would suggest that the computer is actually thinking or believing somewhere inside its circuits the equivalent of the propositional attitude "I believe I can kick this guy's butt" in Mentalese. The same is obviously true, suggests Dennett, of many of our everyday automatic behaviors such as "desiring to breathe clear air" in a stuffy environment.
Some linguists and philosophers of language have criticized Fodor's self-proclaimed "extreme" concept nativism. Kent Bach, for example, takes Fodor to task for his criticisms of lexical semantics and polysemy. Fodor claims that there is no lexical structure to such verbs as "keep", "get", "make" and "put". He suggests that, alternatively, "keep" simply expresses the concept KEEP (Fodor capitalizes concepts to distinguish them from properties, names or other such entities). If there is a straightforward one-to-one mapping between individual words and concepts, "keep your clothes on", "keep your receipt" and "keep washing your hands" will all share the same concept of KEEP under Fodor's theory. This concept presumably locks on to the unique external property of keeping. But, if this is true, then RETAIN must pick out a different property in RETAIN YOUR RECEIPT, since one can't retain one's clothes on or retain washing one's hands. Fodor's theory also has a problem explaining how the concept FAST contributes, differently, to the contents of FAST CAR, FAST DRIVER, FAST TRACK, and FAST TIME. Whether or not the differing interpretations of "fast" in these sentences are specified in the semantics of English, or are the result of pragmatic inference, is a matter of debate. Fodor's own response to this kind of criticism is expressed bluntly in Concepts: "People sometimes used to say that exist must be ambiguous because look at the difference between 'chairs exist' and 'numbers exist'. A familiar reply goes: the difference between the existence of chairs and the existence of numbers seems, on reflection, strikingly like the difference between numbers and chairs. Since you have the latter to explain the former, you don't also need 'exist' to be polysemic."
Some critics find it difficult to accept Fodor's insistence that a large, perhaps implausible, number of concepts are primitive and undefinable. For example, Fodor considers such concepts as EFFECT, ISLAND, TRAPEZOID, and WEEK to be all primitive, innate and unanalyzable because they all fall into the category of what he calls "lexical concepts" (those for which our language has a single word). Against this view, Bach argues that the concept VIXEN is almost certainly composed out of the concepts FEMALE and FOX, BACHELOR out of SINGLE and MALE, and so on.
Books
Minds without meanings: an essay on the contents of concepts, with Zenon W. Pylyshyn, MIT Press, 2014, .
What Darwin Got Wrong, with Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010, .
LOT 2: The Language of Thought Revisited, Oxford University Press, 2008, .
Hume Variations, Oxford University Press, 2003, .
The Compositionality Papers, with Ernie Lepore, Oxford University Press, 2002, .
The Mind Doesn't Work That Way: The Scope and Limits of Computational Psychology, MIT Press, 2000, .
In Critical Condition, MIT Press, 1998, .
Concepts: Where Cognitive Science Went Wrong, The 1996 John Locke Lectures, Oxford University Press, 1998, .
The Elm and the Expert: Mentalese and Its Semantics, The 1993 Jean Nicod Lectures, MIT Press, 1994, .
Holism: A Consumer Update, with Ernie Lepore (eds.), Grazer Philosophische Studien, Vol 46. Rodopi, Amsterdam, 1993, .
Holism: A Shopper's Guide, with Ernie Lepore, Blackwell, 1992, .
A Theory of Content and Other Essays, MIT Press, 1990, .
Psychosemantics: The Problem of Meaning in the Philosophy of Mind, MIT Press, 1987, .
The Modularity of Mind: An Essay on Faculty Psychology, MIT Press, 1983, .
Representations: Philosophical Essays on the Foundations of Cognitive Science, Harvard Press (UK) and MIT Press (US), 1979, .
The Language of Thought, Harvard University Press, 1975, .
The Psychology of Language, with T. Bever and M. Garrett, McGraw Hill, 1974, .
Psychological Explanation, Random House, 1968, .
The Structure of Language, with Jerrold Katz (eds.), Prentice Hall, 1964, .
See also
Computational theory of mind
Connectionism
Folk psychology
Functionalism (philosophy of mind)
List of Jean Nicod Prize laureates
Special sciences
References
External links
Jerry Fodor's Homepage
Jerry Fodor at the London Review of Books
"Semantics – An Interview with Jerry Fodor", ReVEL. Vol. 5, n. 8 (March 2007).
BloggingHeads dialogue between Jerry Fodor and Elliott Sober
meaningful words without sense, & other revolutions Interview by Richard Marshall
Guardian obituary
Jerry A. Fodor, Philosopher Who Plumbed the Mind’s Depths, Dies at 82 New York Times obituary
Jerry A. Fodor (1935—2017) entry in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
1935 births
2017 deaths
20th-century American essayists
20th-century American philosophers
21st-century American essayists
21st-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American philosophers
20th-century American Jews
Linguists from the United States
American logicians
American male essayists
American male non-fiction writers
American philosophers
American philosophy academics
Analytic philosophers
Cognitive scientists
Columbia College (New York) alumni
Consciousness researchers and theorists
Contemporary philosophers
Fellows of the Cognitive Science Society
History of linguistics
History of logic
History of philosophy
History of psychology
Intellectual history
Jean Nicod Prize laureates
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Jewish philosophers
Philosophers of language
Philosophers of logic
Philosophers of mind
Philosophers of psychology
Philosophers of science
Philosophers of social science
Philosophy writers
Presidents of the American Philosophical Association
Princeton University alumni
Rationalists
Rutgers University faculty
21st-century American Jews
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[
"Museum Fodor () is a former art museum in Amsterdam in the Netherlands. The museum was located at the Keizersgracht in Amsterdam-Centrum in the building that currently houses the Foam Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam.\n\nThe museum was opened in 1863. It was founded following the death of and displayed his art collection. The museum was dissolved in 1993. Fodor's collection is now managed by the Amsterdam Museum.\n\nHistory \n\nThe monumental building on the Keizersgracht canal has a history going back to Carel Joseph Fodor (1801–1860), who worked in the coal trading business. Carel Fodor first bought the Keizersgracht 611. Later he also bought the adjacent warehouse and residential house.\n\nFodor started to collect paintings, drawings and prints from 1834 onwards. His preference went out to contemporary art, works by 'living masters'. Fodor quickly opened up his house to the general public, where many art lovers visited to see his collection by appointment.\n\nWhen Fodor died, he bequeathed his collection to the city of Amsterdam. He also left behind a large sum of money to turn his house into a museum. Fodor destined Keizersgracht 609, the warehouse, in his testament as the exhibition space that should receive the name Museum Fodor. It should become a permanent exhibition space for his personal collection.\n\nThe building was renovated in 1861 by . In 1863, Museum Fodor opened its doors as the first museum of modern art. In the early years the museum attracted a large number of visitors, but as the years passed by these numbers dwindled.\n\nIn 1948 the collection was stored in a depot and the museum became a separate location of the Stedelijk Museum. In 1963 the complete collection was taken over by the Amsterdams Historisch Museum.\n\nMuseum Fodor was dissolved on 1 January 1993.\n\nBuilding \n\nMuseum Fodor was located at Keizersgracht 609 near the Leidsestraat in the center of the canal district in the borough Amsterdam-Centrum.\n\nThe museum building was originally a canal-side warehouse. In 1860, it was owned by Carel Joseph Fodor. In 1861–62, after Fodor's death, the building was turned into a museum by a design of architect Cornelis Outshoorn. The building was elevated with an Italianate facade, made of sandstone, with a straight cornice.\n\nThe building has been a rijksmonument (national heritage site) since 1970.\n\nFrom 1994 to 2001, the was housed in the building. Since 2001, the Foam Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam is located here.\n\nCollection \nThe collection of Museum Fodor consisted of the large collection of paintings, prints, and drawings that Carel Joseph Fodor bequeathed to the city of Amsterdam. Among the paintings was Christus Consolator (1837) by Ary Scheffer, which Fodor had bought from the collection of the Duchess of Orléans. The museum acquired the Atlas Splitgerber in 1879 and a collection of works by Jan and Caspar Luyken in 1889.\n\nFrom 1948, the collection was no longer on display in Museum Fodor. The paintings were moved to the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, the prints and drawings to the Rijksmuseum and the Atlas Splitgerber to the Amsterdam City Archives. Since 1963, Fodor's collection is managed by the Amsterdams Historisch Museum.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n\n \n Museum Fodor/FOAM with photos (Dutch)\n \n\n1863 establishments in the Netherlands\n1994 disestablishments in the Netherlands\nArt museums and galleries in the Netherlands\nArt museums established in 1863\nArt museums disestablished in 1994\nDefunct museums in the Netherlands\nMuseums in Amsterdam",
"Nandor Fodor (May 13, 1895 in Beregszász, Hungary – May 17, 1964 in New York City, New York) was a British and American parapsychologist, psychoanalyst, author and journalist of Hungarian origin.\n\nBiography\n\nFodor was born in Beregszász, Hungary. He received a doctorate in law from the Royal Hungarian University of Science in Budapest. He moved to New York to work as a journalist and to Britain in 1929 where he worked for a newspaper company.\n\nFodor was one of the leading authorities on poltergeists, haunting and paranormal phenomena usually associated with mediumship. Fodor, who was at one time Sigmund Freud's associate, wrote on subjects like prenatal development and dream interpretation, but is credited mostly for his magnum opus, Encyclopedia of Psychic Science, first published in 1934. Fodor was the London correspondent for the American Society for Psychical Research (1935-1939). He worked as an editor for the Psychoanalytic Review and was a member of the New York Academy of Sciences.\n\nFodor in the 1930s embraced paranormal phenomena but by the 1940s took a break from his previous work and advocated a psychoanalytic approach to psychic phenomena. He published skeptical newspaper articles on mediumship, which caused opposition from spiritualists.\n\nAmong the subjects he closely studied was the case of Gef the talking mongoose.\n\nPoltergeists\n\nFodor pioneered the theory that poltergeists are external manifestations of conflicts within the subconscious mind rather than autonomous entities with minds of their own. He proposed that poltergeist disturbances are caused by human agents suffering from some form of emotional stress or tension and compared reports of poltergeist activity to hysterical conversion symptoms resulting from emotional tension of the subject.\n\nIn 1938, Fodor investigated the Thornton Heath poltergeist case that involved Mrs. Forbes. According to Rosemary Guiley \"Fodor asserted that the psychosis was an episodic mental disturbance of schizophrenic character, and that Mrs. Forbes' unconscious mind was responsible for the activities finally determined to be fraudulent. Fodor eventually identified the cause as sexual trauma that had occurred in Mrs. Forbes's childhood, and had been repressed.\" Because he was skeptical of the case, Fodor was heavily criticized by spiritualists and was dismissed from his post at the International Institute for Psychical Research. The spiritualist Arthur Findlay, who founded the institute, did not approve of his research and resigned. Fodor was attacked in the Spiritualist newspaper, Psychic News which he sued for libel.\n\nFodor published two scientific papers on poltergeist phenomena, The Psychoanalytic Approach to the Problems of Occultism (1945) and The Poltergeist, Psychoanalyzed (1948). \"The poltergeist is not a ghost. It is a bundle of projected repressions,\" he stated. With the psychical researcher Hereward Carrington Fodor co-authored Haunted People: Story of the Poltergeist down the Centuries (1951), the book which received positive reviews.\n\nThe psychologist Robert Baker and the skeptical investigator Joe Nickell wrote in most cases Fodor discovered that ghosts are \"pure inventions of the hauntee's subconscious\" and praised Fodor's book The Haunted Mind as vastly entertaining. However, Fodor's belief that some poltergeist phenomena could be explained by psychokinesis has drawn criticism. Henry Gordon has stated that parapsychologists such as Fodor and William G. Roll took a speculative approach to the poltergeist subject, ignoring the rational explanation of deception in favour of a belief in the paranormal.\n\nPrenatal psychology\n\nFodor's work The Search for the Beloved (1949) has been described as an influential text in the field of prenatal psychology.\n\nFodor believed that a pregnant mother could communicate telepathically with the mind and body of her unborn child. He held that the mother could cause physical and psychological events in her unborn child depending on her state of mind. Science writer Martin Gardner noted that although Fodor had contributed to respectable psychoanalytical journals his views on telepathy were pseudoscience.\n\nPublications\nBooks\n Encyclopedia of Psychic Science. London: Arthurs Press, 1934.\n These Mysterious People. London: Rider, 1936.\n The Search for the Beloved: A Clinical Investigation of the Trauma of Birth and Pre-Natal Conditioning. New York: Hermitage Press, 1949.\n Haunted People: The Story of the Poltergeist Down the Centuries. [with Hereward Carrington]. New York: Dutton, 1951.\n New Approaches to Dream Interpretation. New York, 1951. Reprint, New Hyde Park, N.Y.: University Books, 1951.\n On the Trail of the Poltergeist. New York: Citadel Press, 1958.\n The Haunted Mind: A Psychoanalyst Looks at the Supernatural. New York: Garrett Publications, 1959. \n Mind Over Space. New York: Citadel, 1962.\n Freud: Dictionary of Psychoanalysis. Fawcett Premier, 1963.\n Between Two Worlds. New York: Paperback Library, 1964.\n The Unaccountable. New York: Award Books, 1968.\n Freud, Jung, and Occultism. University Books, 1971.\n\nPapers\nFodor, N. (1936) The Lajos Pap Experiments. International Institute for Psychical Research. Bulletin II. \nFodor, N. (1937) I Investigate Another Case of Haunting. Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research: 29.\nFodor, N. (1937) Mysterious Knockings. Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research: 189–90.\nFodor, N. (1939) The Ghost in Chelsea. Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research: 55.\nFodor, N. (1945) A Psychoanalytic Approach to the Problems of Occultism. Journal of Clinical Psychopathology and Psychotherapy, July: 69.\nFodor, N. (1945) The Lure of the Supernatural. Psychiatric Quarterly 20: 258.\nFodor, N. (1946). Sex and Mediumship. Round Robin 2: 11–14.\nFodor, N. (1947) Telepathy in Analysis. Psychiatric Quarterly 21: 171–89.\nFodor, N. (1948) The Poltergeist Psychoanalyzed. Psychiatric Quarterly 22: 195–203.\nFodor, N. (1949) I Psychoanalyze Ghosts. Mechanix Illustrated, September: 150.\nFodor, N. (1956) Was Harry Price a Fraud?. Tomorrow 4(2): 2.\n\nReferences\n\nFurther reading\n\nGlover, Edward. (1950). Freud: Dictionary Of Psycho-Analysis by Nandor Fodor, Frank Gaynor. British Medical Journal. Vol. 2, No. 4695. p. 1479.\nSalter, William Henry. (1934). Review of Encyclopedia of Psychic Science. Journal of Society for Psychical Research 28: 207–209.\n\nExternal links\nBiography of Nandor Fodor\nEncyclopaedia of Psychic Science\nFreud, Jung, and Occultism. Nandor Fodor. New Hyde Park, N.Y.: University Books, 1971. 272 pp.\nThe Search For the Beloved. A Clinical Investigation of the Trauma of Birth and Pre-Natal Conditioning (1949)\n\n1895 births\n1964 deaths\nPeople from Berehove\nHungarian psychoanalysts\nParapsychologists"
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[
"Jerry Fodor",
"Biography",
"Where did Fodor go to school?",
"He received his A.B. degree (summa cum laude) from Columbia University in 1956,"
] |
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Did he have a good relationship with his parents?
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Did Jerry Fodor have a good relationship with his parents?
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Jerry Fodor
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Jerry Fodor was born in New York City on April 22, 1935, and was of Jewish descent. He received his A.B. degree (summa cum laude) from Columbia University in 1956, where he studied with Sydney Morgenbesser, and a PhD in philosophy from Princeton University in 1960, under the direction of Hilary Putnam. From 1959 to 1986 Fodor was on the faculty of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. From 1986 to 1988 he was a full professor at the City University of New York (CUNY). From 1988 until his retirement in 2016 he was State of New Jersey Professor of philosophy and cognitive science at Rutgers University in New Jersey, where he was emeritus. Besides his interest in philosophy, Fodor passionately followed opera and regularly wrote popular columns for the London Review of Books on that and other topics. Philosopher Colin McGinn, who taught with Fodor at Rutgers, described him in these words: Fodor (who is a close friend) is a gentle man inside a burly body, and prone to an even burlier style of arguing. He is shy and voluble at the same time ... a formidable polemicist burdened with a sensitive soul.... Disagreeing with Jerry on a philosophical issue, especially one dear to his heart, can be a chastening experience.... His quickness of mind, inventiveness, and sharp wit are not to be tangled with before your first cup of coffee in the morning. Adding Jerry Fodor to the faculty at Rutgers [University] instantly put it on the map, Fodor being by common consent the leading philosopher of mind in the world today. I had met him in England in the seventies and ... found him to be the genuine article, intellectually speaking (though we do not always see eye to eye). Fodor was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He received numerous awards and honors: New York State Regent's Fellowship, Woodrow Wilson Fellowship (Princeton University), Chancellor Greene Fellow (Princeton University), Fulbright Fellowship (University of Oxford), Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He won the first Jean Nicod Prize for philosophy of mind and cognitive philosophy in 1993. His lecture series for the Prize, later published as a book by MIT Press in 1995, was titled The Elm and the Expert: Mentalese and Its Semantics. In 1996-1997, Fodor delivered the prestigious John Locke Lectures at the University of Oxford, titled Concepts: Where Cognitive Science Went Wrong, which went on to become his 1998 Oxford University Press book of the same name. He has also delivered the Patrick Romanell Lecture on Philosophical Naturalism (2004) and the Royce Lecture on Philosophy of Mind (2002) to the American Philosophical Association, of whose Eastern Division he has served as Vice President (2004-2005) and President (2005-2006). In 2005, he won the Mind & Brain Prize. He lived in New York with his wife, the linguist Janet Dean Fodor, and had two grown children. Fodor died on November 29, 2017, at his home in Manhattan. CANNOTANSWER
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Jerry Alan Fodor (; April 22, 1935 – November 29, 2017) was an American philosopher and the author of many crucial works in the fields of philosophy of mind and cognitive science. His writings in these fields laid the groundwork for the modularity of mind and the language of thought hypotheses, and he is recognized as having had "an enormous influence on virtually every portion of the philosophy of mind literature since 1960." Until his death in 2017 he held the position of State of New Jersey Professor of Philosophy, Emeritus, at Rutgers University.
Fodor was known for his provocative and sometimes polemical style of argumentation. He argued that mental states, such as beliefs and desires, are relations between individuals and mental representations. He maintained that these representations can only be correctly explained in terms of a language of thought (LOT) in the mind. Furthermore, this language of thought itself is an actually existing thing that is codified in the brain and not just a useful explanatory tool. Fodor adhered to a species of functionalism, maintaining that thinking and other mental processes consist primarily of computations operating on the syntax of the representations that make up the language of thought.
For Fodor, significant parts of the mind, such as perceptual and linguistic processes, are structured in terms of modules, or "organs", which he defines by their causal and functional roles. These modules are relatively independent of each other and of the "central processing" part of the mind, which has a more global and less "domain specific" character. Fodor suggests that the character of these modules permits the possibility of causal relations with external objects. This, in turn, makes it possible for mental states to have contents that are about things in the world. The central processing part, on the other hand, takes care of the logical relations between the various contents and inputs and outputs.
Although Fodor originally rejected the idea that mental states must have a causal, externally determined aspect, in his later years he devoted much of his writing and study to the philosophy of language because of this problem of the meaning and reference of mental contents. His contributions in this area include the so-called asymmetric causal theory of reference and his many arguments against semantic holism. Fodor strongly opposed reductive accounts of the mind. He argued that mental states are multiple realizable and that there is a hierarchy of explanatory levels in science such that the generalizations and laws of a higher-level theory of psychology or linguistics, for example, cannot be captured by the low-level explanations of the behavior of neurons and synapses. He also emerged as a prominent critic of what he characterized as the ill-grounded Darwinian and neo-Darwinian theories of natural selection.
Biography
Jerry Fodor was born in New York City on April 22, 1935, and was of Jewish descent. He received his A.B. degree (summa cum laude) from Columbia University in 1956, where he wrote a senior thesis on Søren Kierkegaard and studied with Sydney Morgenbesser, and a PhD in philosophy from Princeton University in 1960, under the direction of Hilary Putnam. From 1959 to 1986 Fodor was on the faculty of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. From 1986 to 1988 he was a full professor at the City University of New York (CUNY). From 1988 until his retirement in 2016 he was State of New Jersey Professor of philosophy and cognitive science at Rutgers University in New Jersey, where he was emeritus. Besides his interest in philosophy, Fodor passionately followed opera and regularly wrote popular columns for the London Review of Books on that and other topics.
Philosopher Colin McGinn, who taught with Fodor at Rutgers, described him in these words:
Fodor (who is a close friend) is a gentle man inside a burly body, and prone to an even burlier style of arguing. He is shy and voluble at the same time ... a formidable polemicist burdened with a sensitive soul.... Disagreeing with Jerry on a philosophical issue, especially one dear to his heart, can be a chastening experience.... His quickness of mind, inventiveness, and sharp wit are not to be tangled with before your first cup of coffee in the morning. Adding Jerry Fodor to the faculty at Rutgers [University] instantly put it on the map, Fodor being by common consent the leading philosopher of mind in the world today. I had met him in England in the seventies and ... found him to be the genuine article, intellectually speaking (though we do not always see eye to eye).
Fodor was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He received numerous awards and honors: New York State Regent's Fellowship, Woodrow Wilson Fellowship (Princeton University), Chancellor Greene Fellow (Princeton University), Fulbright Fellowship (University of Oxford), Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He won the first Jean Nicod Prize for philosophy of mind and cognitive philosophy in 1993. His lecture series for the Prize, later published as a book by MIT Press in 1995, was titled The Elm and the Expert: Mentalese and Its Semantics. In 1996–1997, Fodor delivered the prestigious John Locke Lectures at the University of Oxford, titled Concepts: Where Cognitive Science Went Wrong, which went on to become his 1998 Oxford University Press book of the same name. He has also delivered the Patrick Romanell Lecture on Philosophical Naturalism (2004) and the Royce Lecture on Philosophy of Mind (2002) to the American Philosophical Association, of whose Eastern Division he has served as Vice President (2004–2005) and President (2005–2006). In 2005, he won the Mind & Brain Prize.
He lived in New York with his wife, the linguist Janet Dean Fodor, and had two children. Fodor died on November 29, 2017, at his home in Manhattan.
Fodor and the nature of mental states
In his article "Propositional Attitudes" (1978), Fodor introduced the idea that mental states are relations between individuals and mental representations. Despite the changes in many of his positions over the years, the idea that intentional attitudes are relational has remained unchanged from its original formulation up to .
In that article, he attempted to show how mental representations, specifically sentences in the language of thought, are necessary to explain this relational nature of mental states. Fodor considers two alternative hypotheses. The first completely denies the relational character of mental states and the second considers mental states as two-place relations. The latter position can be further subdivided into the Carnapian view that such relations are between individuals and sentences of natural languages and the Fregean view that they are between individuals and the propositions expressed by such sentences.
Fodor's own position, instead, is that to properly account for the nature of intentional attitudes, it is necessary to employ a three-place relation between individuals, representations and propositional contents.
Considering mental states as three-place relations in this way, representative realism makes it possible to hold together all of the elements necessary to the solution of this problem. Further, mental representations are not only the objects of beliefs and desires, but are also the domain over which mental processes operate. They can be considered the ideal link between the syntactic notion of mental content and the computational notion of functional architecture. These notions are, according to Fodor, our best explanation of mental processes.
The functional architecture of the mind
Following in the path paved by linguist Noam Chomsky, Fodor developed a strong commitment to the idea of psychological nativism. Nativism postulates the innateness of many cognitive functions and concepts. For Fodor, this position emerges naturally out of his criticism of behaviourism and associationism. These criticisms also led him to the formulation of his hypothesis of the modularity of the mind.
Historically, questions about mental architecture have been divided into two contrasting theories about the nature of the faculties. The first can be described as a "horizontal" view because it sees mental processes as interactions between faculties which are not domain specific. For example, a judgment remains a judgment whether it is judgment about a perceptual experience or a judgment about the understanding of language. The second can be described as a "vertical" view because it claims that our mental faculties are domain specific, genetically determined, associated with distinct neurological structures, and so on.
The vertical vision can be traced back to the 19th century movement called phrenology and its founder Franz Joseph Gall. Gall claimed that mental faculties could be associated with specific physical areas of the brain. Hence, someone's level of intelligence, for example, could be literally "read off" from the size of a particular bump on his posterior parietal lobe. This simplistic view of modularity has been disproved over the course of the last century.
Fodor revived the idea of modularity, without the notion of precise physical localizability, in the 1980s, and became one of the most vocal proponents of it with the 1983 publication of his monograph The Modularity of Mind, where he points to Gall through Bernard Hollander, which is the author cited in the references instead, more specifically Hollander's In search of the soul. Two properties of modularity in particular, informational encapsulation and domain specificity, make it possible to tie together questions of functional architecture with those of mental content. The ability to elaborate information independently from the background beliefs of individuals that these two properties allow Fodor to give an atomistic and causal account of the notion of mental content. The main idea, in other words, is that the properties of the contents of mental states can depend, rather than exclusively on the internal relations of the system of which they are a part, also on their causal relations with the external world.
Fodor's notions of mental modularity, informational encapsulation and domain specificity were taken up and expanded, much to Fodor's chagrin, by cognitive scientists such as Zenon Pylyshyn and evolutionary psychologists such as Steven Pinker and Henry Plotkin, among many others. But Fodor complained that Pinker, Plotkin and other members of what he sarcastically called "the New Synthesis" have taken modularity and similar ideas way too far. He insisted that the mind is not "massively modular" and that, contrary to what these researchers would have us believe, the mind is still a very long way from having been explained by the computational, or any other, model.
Intentional realism
In A Theory of Content and Other Essays (1990), Fodor takes up another of his central notions: the question of the reality of mental representations. Fodor needs to justify representational realism to justify the idea that the contents of mental states are expressed in symbolic structures such as those of the LOT.
Fodor's criticism of Dennett
Fodor starts with some criticisms of so-called standard realism. This view is characterized, according to Fodor, by two distinct assertions. One of these regards the internal structure of mental states and asserts that such states are non-relational. The other concerns the semantic theory of mental content and asserts that there is an isomorphism between the causal roles of such contents and the inferential web of beliefs. Among modern philosophers of mind, the majority view seems to be that the first of these two assertions is false, but that the second is true. Fodor departs from this view in accepting the truth of the first thesis but rejecting strongly the truth of the second.
In particular, Fodor criticizes the instrumentalism of Daniel Dennett. Dennett maintains that it is possible to be realist with regard to intentional states without having to commit oneself to the reality of mental representations. Now, according to Fodor, if one remains at this level of analysis, then there is no possibility of explaining why the intentional strategy works:There is ... a standard objection to instrumentalism ...: it is difficult to explain why the psychology of beliefs/desires works so well, if the psychology of beliefs/desires is, in fact, false.... As Putnam, Boyd and others have emphasized, from the predictive successes of a theory to the truth of that theory there is surely a presumed inference; and this is even more likely when ... we are dealing with the only theory in play which is predictively crowned with success. It is not obvious ... why such a presumption should not militate in favour of a realist conception ... of the interpretations of beliefs/desires.
Productivity, systematicity and thought
Fodor also has positive arguments in favour of the reality of mental representations in terms of the LOT. He maintains that if language is the expression of thoughts and language is systematic, then thoughts must also be systematic. Fodor draws on the work of Noam Chomsky to both model his theory of the mind and to refute alternative architectures such as connectionism. Systematicity in natural languages was explained by Chomsky in terms of two more basic concepts: productivity and compositionality.
Productivity refers to a representational system's unbounded ability to generate new representations from a given set of symbols. "John", "loves", and "Mary" allow for the construction of the sentences "John loves Mary" and "Mary loves John". Fodor's language of thought theorizes that representations are decomposable into constituent parts, and these decomposed representations are built into new strings.
More important than productivity is systematicity since it does not rely on questionable idealizations about human cognition. The argument states that a cognizer is able to understand some sentence in virtue of understanding another. For example, no one who understands "John loves Mary" is unable to understand "Mary loves John", and no one who understands "P and Q" is unable to understand "P". Systematicity itself is rarely challenged as a property of natural languages and logics, but some challenge that thought is systematic in the same way languages are. Still others from the connectionist tradition have tried to build non-classical networks that can account for the apparent systematicity of language.
The fact that systematicity and productivity depend on the compositional structure of language means that language has a combinatorial semantics. If thought also has such a combinatorial semantics, then there must be a language of thought.
The second argument that Fodor provides in favour of representational realism involves the processes of thought. This argument touches on the relation between the representational theory of mind and models of its architecture. If the sentences of Mentalese require unique processes of elaboration then they require a computational mechanism of a certain type. The syntactic notion of mental representations goes hand in hand with the idea that mental processes are calculations which act only on the form of the symbols which they elaborate. And this is the computational theory of the mind. Consequently, the defence of a model of architecture based on classic artificial intelligence passes inevitably through a defence of the reality of mental representations.
For Fodor, this formal notion of thought processes also has the advantage of highlighting the parallels between the causal role of symbols and the contents which they express. In his view, syntax plays the role of mediation between the causal role of the symbols and their contents. The semantic relations between symbols can be "imitated" by their syntactic relations. The inferential relations which connect the contents of two symbols can be imitated by the formal syntax rules which regulate the derivation of one symbol from another.
The nature of content
From the beginning of the 1980s, Fodor adhered to a causal notion of mental content and of meaning. This idea of content contrasts sharply with the inferential role semantics to which he subscribed earlier in his career. Fodor criticizes inferential role semantics (IRS) because its commitment to an extreme form of holism excludes the possibility of a true naturalization of the mental. But naturalization must include an explanation of content in atomistic and causal terms.
Anti-holism
Fodor has made many and varied criticisms of holism. He identifies the central problem with all the different notions of holism as the idea that the determining factor in semantic evaluation is the notion of an "epistemic bond". Briefly, P is an epistemic bond of Q if the meaning of P is considered by someone to be relevant for the determination of the meaning of Q. Meaning holism strongly depends on this notion. The identity of the content of a mental state, under holism, can only be determined by the totality of its epistemic bonds. And this makes the realism of mental states an impossibility:If people differ in an absolutely general way in their estimations of epistemic relevance, and if we follow the holism of meaning and individuate intentional states by way of the totality of their epistemic bonds, the consequence will be that two people (or, for that matter, two temporal sections of the same person) will never be in the same intentional state. Therefore, two people can never be subsumed under the same intentional generalizations. And, therefore, intentional generalization can never be successful. And, therefore again, there is no hope for an intentional psychology.
The asymmetric causal theory
Having criticized the idea that semantic evaluation concerns only the internal relations between the units of a symbolic system, Fodor can adopt an externalist position with respect to mental content and meaning. For Fodor, in recent years, the problem of naturalization of the mental is tied to the possibility of giving "the sufficient conditions for which a piece of the world is relative to (expresses, represents, is true of) another piece" in non-intentional and non-semantic terms. If this goal is to be achieved within a representational theory of the mind, then the challenge is to devise a causal theory which can establish the interpretation of the primitive non-logical symbols of the LOT. Fodor's initial proposal is that what determines that the symbol for "water" in Mentalese expresses the property H2O is that the occurrences of that symbol are in certain causal relations with water. The intuitive version of this causal theory is what Fodor calls the "Crude Causal Theory". According to this theory, the occurrences of symbols express the properties which are the causes of their occurrence. The term "horse", for example, says of a horse that it is a horse. In order to do this, it is necessary and sufficient that certain properties of an occurrence of the symbol "horse" be in a law-like relation with certain properties which determine that something is an occurrence of horse.
The main problem with this theory is that of erroneous representations. There are two unavoidable problems with the idea that "a symbol expresses a property if it is ... necessary that all and only the presences of such a property cause the occurrences". The first is that not all horses cause occurrences of horse. The second is that not only horses cause occurrences of horse. Sometimes the A(horses) are caused by A (horses), but at other times—when, for example, because of the distance or conditions of low visibility, one has confused a cow for a horse—the A (horses) are caused by B (cows). In this case the symbol A doesn't express just the property A, but the disjunction of properties A or B. The crude causal theory is therefore incapable of distinguishing the case in which the content of a symbol is disjunctive from the case in which it isn't. This gives rise to what Fodor calls the "problem of disjunction".
Fodor responds to this problem with what he defines as "a slightly less crude causal theory". According to this approach, it is necessary to break the symmetry at the base of the crude causal theory. Fodor must find some criterion for distinguishing the occurrences of A caused by As (true) from those caused by Bs (false). The point of departure, according to Fodor, is that while the false cases are ontologically dependent on the true cases, the reverse is not true. There is an asymmetry of dependence, in other words, between the true contents (A= A) and the false ones (A = A or B). The first can subsist independently of the second, but the second can occur only because of the existence of the first:From the point of view of semantics, errors must be accidents: if in the extension of "horse" there are no cows, then it cannot be required for the meaning of "horse" that cows be called horses. On the other hand, if "horse" did not mean that which it means, and if it were an error for horses, it would never be possible for a cow to be called "horse". Putting the two things together, it can be seen that the possibility of falsely saying "this is a horse" presupposes the existence of a semantic basis for saying it truly, but not vice versa. If we put this in terms of the crude causal theory, the fact that cows cause one to say "horse" depends on the fact that horses cause one to say "horse"; but the fact that horses cause one to say "horse" does not depend on the fact that cows cause one to say "horse"...
Functionalism
During the 1960s, various philosophers such as Donald Davidson, Hilary Putnam, and Fodor tried to resolve the puzzle of developing a way to preserve the explanatory efficacy of mental causation and so-called "folk psychology" while adhering to a materialist vision of the world which did not violate the "generality of physics". Their proposal was, first of all, to reject the then-dominant theories in philosophy of mind: behaviorism and the type identity theory. The problem with logical behaviorism was that it failed to account for causation between mental states and such causation seems to be essential to psychological explanation, especially if one considers that behavior is not an effect of a single mental event/cause but is rather the effect of a chain of mental events/causes. The type-identity theory, on the other hand, failed to explain the fact that radically different physical systems can find themselves in the identical mental state. Besides being deeply anthropocentric (why should humans be the only thinking organisms in the universe?), the identity-type theory also failed to deal with accumulating evidence in the neurosciences that every single human brain is different from all the others. Hence, the impossibility of referring to common mental states in different physical systems manifests itself not only between different species but also between organisms of the same species.
One can solve these problems, according to Fodor, with functionalism, a hypothesis which was designed to overcome the failings of both dualism and reductionism. What is important is the function of a mental state regardless of the physical substrate which implements it. The foundation for this view lies in the principle of the multiple realizability of the mental. Under this view, for example, I and a computer can both instantiate ("realize") the same functional state though we are made of completely different material stuff (see graphic at right). On this basis functionalism can be classified as a form of token materialism.
Evolution
Fodor and the biolinguist Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini co-authored the book What Darwin Got Wrong (2010), in which they describe neo-Darwinists as "distressingly uncritical" and say of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution that "it overestimates the contribution the environment makes in shaping the phenotype of a species and correspondingly underestimates the effects of endogenous variables". Evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne describes this book as "a profoundly misguided critique of natural selection" and "as biologically uninformed as it is strident". Moral philosopher and anti-scientism author Mary Midgley praises What Darwin Got Wrong as "an overdue and valuable onslaught on neo-Darwinist simplicities". The book also received a positive review from mathematician and intelligent-design theorist William Dembski.
In a web dialogue, on the adequacy of natural selection as an account for the origin of species, Fodor argues that natural selection cannot distinguish between “a trait that is selected for from its free riders”. John Staddon responded “What seems to be wrong is considering selection in isolation, separated from variation.”
Criticism
A wide variety of philosophers of diverse orientations have challenged many of Fodor's ideas. For example, the language of thought hypothesis has been accused of either falling prey to an infinite regress or of being superfluous. Specifically, Simon Blackburn suggested in an article in 1984 that since Fodor explains the learning of natural languages as a process of formation and confirmation of hypotheses in the LOT, this leaves him open to the question of why the LOT itself should not be considered as just such a language which requires yet another and more fundamental representational substrate in which to form and confirm hypotheses so that the LOT itself can be learned. If natural language learning requires some representational substrate (the LOT) in order for it to be learned, why shouldn't the same be said for the LOT itself and then for the representational substrate of this representational substrate and so on, ad infinitum? On the other hand, if such a representational substrate is not required for the LOT, then why should it be required for the learning of natural languages? In this case, the LOT would be superfluous. Fodor, in response, argues that the LOT is unique in that it does not have to be learned via an antecedent language because it is innate.
In 1981, Daniel Dennett had formulated another argument against the LOT. Dennett suggested that it would seem, on the basis of the evidence of our behavior toward computers but also with regard to some of our own unconscious behavior, that explicit representation is not necessary for the explanation of propositional attitudes. During a game of chess with a computer program, we often attribute such attitudes to the computer, saying such things as "It thinks that the queen should be moved to the left." We attribute propositional attitudes to the computer and this helps us to explain and predict its behavior in various contexts. Yet no one would suggest that the computer is actually thinking or believing somewhere inside its circuits the equivalent of the propositional attitude "I believe I can kick this guy's butt" in Mentalese. The same is obviously true, suggests Dennett, of many of our everyday automatic behaviors such as "desiring to breathe clear air" in a stuffy environment.
Some linguists and philosophers of language have criticized Fodor's self-proclaimed "extreme" concept nativism. Kent Bach, for example, takes Fodor to task for his criticisms of lexical semantics and polysemy. Fodor claims that there is no lexical structure to such verbs as "keep", "get", "make" and "put". He suggests that, alternatively, "keep" simply expresses the concept KEEP (Fodor capitalizes concepts to distinguish them from properties, names or other such entities). If there is a straightforward one-to-one mapping between individual words and concepts, "keep your clothes on", "keep your receipt" and "keep washing your hands" will all share the same concept of KEEP under Fodor's theory. This concept presumably locks on to the unique external property of keeping. But, if this is true, then RETAIN must pick out a different property in RETAIN YOUR RECEIPT, since one can't retain one's clothes on or retain washing one's hands. Fodor's theory also has a problem explaining how the concept FAST contributes, differently, to the contents of FAST CAR, FAST DRIVER, FAST TRACK, and FAST TIME. Whether or not the differing interpretations of "fast" in these sentences are specified in the semantics of English, or are the result of pragmatic inference, is a matter of debate. Fodor's own response to this kind of criticism is expressed bluntly in Concepts: "People sometimes used to say that exist must be ambiguous because look at the difference between 'chairs exist' and 'numbers exist'. A familiar reply goes: the difference between the existence of chairs and the existence of numbers seems, on reflection, strikingly like the difference between numbers and chairs. Since you have the latter to explain the former, you don't also need 'exist' to be polysemic."
Some critics find it difficult to accept Fodor's insistence that a large, perhaps implausible, number of concepts are primitive and undefinable. For example, Fodor considers such concepts as EFFECT, ISLAND, TRAPEZOID, and WEEK to be all primitive, innate and unanalyzable because they all fall into the category of what he calls "lexical concepts" (those for which our language has a single word). Against this view, Bach argues that the concept VIXEN is almost certainly composed out of the concepts FEMALE and FOX, BACHELOR out of SINGLE and MALE, and so on.
Books
Minds without meanings: an essay on the contents of concepts, with Zenon W. Pylyshyn, MIT Press, 2014, .
What Darwin Got Wrong, with Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010, .
LOT 2: The Language of Thought Revisited, Oxford University Press, 2008, .
Hume Variations, Oxford University Press, 2003, .
The Compositionality Papers, with Ernie Lepore, Oxford University Press, 2002, .
The Mind Doesn't Work That Way: The Scope and Limits of Computational Psychology, MIT Press, 2000, .
In Critical Condition, MIT Press, 1998, .
Concepts: Where Cognitive Science Went Wrong, The 1996 John Locke Lectures, Oxford University Press, 1998, .
The Elm and the Expert: Mentalese and Its Semantics, The 1993 Jean Nicod Lectures, MIT Press, 1994, .
Holism: A Consumer Update, with Ernie Lepore (eds.), Grazer Philosophische Studien, Vol 46. Rodopi, Amsterdam, 1993, .
Holism: A Shopper's Guide, with Ernie Lepore, Blackwell, 1992, .
A Theory of Content and Other Essays, MIT Press, 1990, .
Psychosemantics: The Problem of Meaning in the Philosophy of Mind, MIT Press, 1987, .
The Modularity of Mind: An Essay on Faculty Psychology, MIT Press, 1983, .
Representations: Philosophical Essays on the Foundations of Cognitive Science, Harvard Press (UK) and MIT Press (US), 1979, .
The Language of Thought, Harvard University Press, 1975, .
The Psychology of Language, with T. Bever and M. Garrett, McGraw Hill, 1974, .
Psychological Explanation, Random House, 1968, .
The Structure of Language, with Jerrold Katz (eds.), Prentice Hall, 1964, .
See also
Computational theory of mind
Connectionism
Folk psychology
Functionalism (philosophy of mind)
List of Jean Nicod Prize laureates
Special sciences
References
External links
Jerry Fodor's Homepage
Jerry Fodor at the London Review of Books
"Semantics – An Interview with Jerry Fodor", ReVEL. Vol. 5, n. 8 (March 2007).
BloggingHeads dialogue between Jerry Fodor and Elliott Sober
meaningful words without sense, & other revolutions Interview by Richard Marshall
Guardian obituary
Jerry A. Fodor, Philosopher Who Plumbed the Mind’s Depths, Dies at 82 New York Times obituary
Jerry A. Fodor (1935—2017) entry in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
1935 births
2017 deaths
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American logicians
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Columbia College (New York) alumni
Consciousness researchers and theorists
Contemporary philosophers
Fellows of the Cognitive Science Society
History of linguistics
History of logic
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"The Good Parents is the second full-length novel written by Joan London. It was first published in 2008.\n\nThe book concerns an eighteen-year-old girl, Maya de Jong, who moves to Melbourne and becomes involved in a relationship with her boss. When Maya's parents come to Melbourne to stay with her, they find that Maya has disappeared. London says of the role of parents with older children, \"There's nothing much you can do, except wait and be there\".\n\nAwards and nominations\n\n 2009 New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards, Christina Stead Prize for Fiction.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nInterview with Joan London, ABC Radio National The Book Show, 21 August 2008\n\n2008 Australian novels\nNovels set in Melbourne",
"is a Shinto shrine located in the city of Gifu, Gifu Prefecture, Japan. From long ago, it has been considered a good place for married couples and children to go for good luck. One legend associated with Kashimori Shrine is that when Tenma, a mythical horse, landed behind the shrine, it left a hoof print in stone that can still be seen today. Each year, on April 5, the shrine hosts the Gifu Festival, along with Inaba Shrine and Kogane Shrine.\n\nEnshrined god\nThe Ichihaya-no-mikoto god is worshipped here. His parents are the Inishiki-Irihiko-no-mikoto god (Inaba Shrine) and the Nunoshihime-no-mikoto goddess (Kogane Shrine). Because of the relationship between their three gods, these three shrines have a very close relationship. As this shrine is built for the child of the two other gods, it is the smallest of the three shrines.\n\nReferences\n\nBuildings and structures in Gifu\nShinto shrines in Gifu Prefecture"
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"Jerry Fodor",
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"Where did Fodor go to school?",
"He received his A.B. degree (summa cum laude) from Columbia University in 1956,",
"Did he have a good relationship with his parents?",
"I don't know."
] |
C_8f42ddf1202a47269d580c8afe007ea3_1
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Did he get married?
| 3 |
Did Jerry Fodor get married?
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Jerry Fodor
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Jerry Fodor was born in New York City on April 22, 1935, and was of Jewish descent. He received his A.B. degree (summa cum laude) from Columbia University in 1956, where he studied with Sydney Morgenbesser, and a PhD in philosophy from Princeton University in 1960, under the direction of Hilary Putnam. From 1959 to 1986 Fodor was on the faculty of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. From 1986 to 1988 he was a full professor at the City University of New York (CUNY). From 1988 until his retirement in 2016 he was State of New Jersey Professor of philosophy and cognitive science at Rutgers University in New Jersey, where he was emeritus. Besides his interest in philosophy, Fodor passionately followed opera and regularly wrote popular columns for the London Review of Books on that and other topics. Philosopher Colin McGinn, who taught with Fodor at Rutgers, described him in these words: Fodor (who is a close friend) is a gentle man inside a burly body, and prone to an even burlier style of arguing. He is shy and voluble at the same time ... a formidable polemicist burdened with a sensitive soul.... Disagreeing with Jerry on a philosophical issue, especially one dear to his heart, can be a chastening experience.... His quickness of mind, inventiveness, and sharp wit are not to be tangled with before your first cup of coffee in the morning. Adding Jerry Fodor to the faculty at Rutgers [University] instantly put it on the map, Fodor being by common consent the leading philosopher of mind in the world today. I had met him in England in the seventies and ... found him to be the genuine article, intellectually speaking (though we do not always see eye to eye). Fodor was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He received numerous awards and honors: New York State Regent's Fellowship, Woodrow Wilson Fellowship (Princeton University), Chancellor Greene Fellow (Princeton University), Fulbright Fellowship (University of Oxford), Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He won the first Jean Nicod Prize for philosophy of mind and cognitive philosophy in 1993. His lecture series for the Prize, later published as a book by MIT Press in 1995, was titled The Elm and the Expert: Mentalese and Its Semantics. In 1996-1997, Fodor delivered the prestigious John Locke Lectures at the University of Oxford, titled Concepts: Where Cognitive Science Went Wrong, which went on to become his 1998 Oxford University Press book of the same name. He has also delivered the Patrick Romanell Lecture on Philosophical Naturalism (2004) and the Royce Lecture on Philosophy of Mind (2002) to the American Philosophical Association, of whose Eastern Division he has served as Vice President (2004-2005) and President (2005-2006). In 2005, he won the Mind & Brain Prize. He lived in New York with his wife, the linguist Janet Dean Fodor, and had two grown children. Fodor died on November 29, 2017, at his home in Manhattan. CANNOTANSWER
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He lived in New York with his wife, the linguist Janet Dean Fodor,
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Jerry Alan Fodor (; April 22, 1935 – November 29, 2017) was an American philosopher and the author of many crucial works in the fields of philosophy of mind and cognitive science. His writings in these fields laid the groundwork for the modularity of mind and the language of thought hypotheses, and he is recognized as having had "an enormous influence on virtually every portion of the philosophy of mind literature since 1960." Until his death in 2017 he held the position of State of New Jersey Professor of Philosophy, Emeritus, at Rutgers University.
Fodor was known for his provocative and sometimes polemical style of argumentation. He argued that mental states, such as beliefs and desires, are relations between individuals and mental representations. He maintained that these representations can only be correctly explained in terms of a language of thought (LOT) in the mind. Furthermore, this language of thought itself is an actually existing thing that is codified in the brain and not just a useful explanatory tool. Fodor adhered to a species of functionalism, maintaining that thinking and other mental processes consist primarily of computations operating on the syntax of the representations that make up the language of thought.
For Fodor, significant parts of the mind, such as perceptual and linguistic processes, are structured in terms of modules, or "organs", which he defines by their causal and functional roles. These modules are relatively independent of each other and of the "central processing" part of the mind, which has a more global and less "domain specific" character. Fodor suggests that the character of these modules permits the possibility of causal relations with external objects. This, in turn, makes it possible for mental states to have contents that are about things in the world. The central processing part, on the other hand, takes care of the logical relations between the various contents and inputs and outputs.
Although Fodor originally rejected the idea that mental states must have a causal, externally determined aspect, in his later years he devoted much of his writing and study to the philosophy of language because of this problem of the meaning and reference of mental contents. His contributions in this area include the so-called asymmetric causal theory of reference and his many arguments against semantic holism. Fodor strongly opposed reductive accounts of the mind. He argued that mental states are multiple realizable and that there is a hierarchy of explanatory levels in science such that the generalizations and laws of a higher-level theory of psychology or linguistics, for example, cannot be captured by the low-level explanations of the behavior of neurons and synapses. He also emerged as a prominent critic of what he characterized as the ill-grounded Darwinian and neo-Darwinian theories of natural selection.
Biography
Jerry Fodor was born in New York City on April 22, 1935, and was of Jewish descent. He received his A.B. degree (summa cum laude) from Columbia University in 1956, where he wrote a senior thesis on Søren Kierkegaard and studied with Sydney Morgenbesser, and a PhD in philosophy from Princeton University in 1960, under the direction of Hilary Putnam. From 1959 to 1986 Fodor was on the faculty of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. From 1986 to 1988 he was a full professor at the City University of New York (CUNY). From 1988 until his retirement in 2016 he was State of New Jersey Professor of philosophy and cognitive science at Rutgers University in New Jersey, where he was emeritus. Besides his interest in philosophy, Fodor passionately followed opera and regularly wrote popular columns for the London Review of Books on that and other topics.
Philosopher Colin McGinn, who taught with Fodor at Rutgers, described him in these words:
Fodor (who is a close friend) is a gentle man inside a burly body, and prone to an even burlier style of arguing. He is shy and voluble at the same time ... a formidable polemicist burdened with a sensitive soul.... Disagreeing with Jerry on a philosophical issue, especially one dear to his heart, can be a chastening experience.... His quickness of mind, inventiveness, and sharp wit are not to be tangled with before your first cup of coffee in the morning. Adding Jerry Fodor to the faculty at Rutgers [University] instantly put it on the map, Fodor being by common consent the leading philosopher of mind in the world today. I had met him in England in the seventies and ... found him to be the genuine article, intellectually speaking (though we do not always see eye to eye).
Fodor was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He received numerous awards and honors: New York State Regent's Fellowship, Woodrow Wilson Fellowship (Princeton University), Chancellor Greene Fellow (Princeton University), Fulbright Fellowship (University of Oxford), Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He won the first Jean Nicod Prize for philosophy of mind and cognitive philosophy in 1993. His lecture series for the Prize, later published as a book by MIT Press in 1995, was titled The Elm and the Expert: Mentalese and Its Semantics. In 1996–1997, Fodor delivered the prestigious John Locke Lectures at the University of Oxford, titled Concepts: Where Cognitive Science Went Wrong, which went on to become his 1998 Oxford University Press book of the same name. He has also delivered the Patrick Romanell Lecture on Philosophical Naturalism (2004) and the Royce Lecture on Philosophy of Mind (2002) to the American Philosophical Association, of whose Eastern Division he has served as Vice President (2004–2005) and President (2005–2006). In 2005, he won the Mind & Brain Prize.
He lived in New York with his wife, the linguist Janet Dean Fodor, and had two children. Fodor died on November 29, 2017, at his home in Manhattan.
Fodor and the nature of mental states
In his article "Propositional Attitudes" (1978), Fodor introduced the idea that mental states are relations between individuals and mental representations. Despite the changes in many of his positions over the years, the idea that intentional attitudes are relational has remained unchanged from its original formulation up to .
In that article, he attempted to show how mental representations, specifically sentences in the language of thought, are necessary to explain this relational nature of mental states. Fodor considers two alternative hypotheses. The first completely denies the relational character of mental states and the second considers mental states as two-place relations. The latter position can be further subdivided into the Carnapian view that such relations are between individuals and sentences of natural languages and the Fregean view that they are between individuals and the propositions expressed by such sentences.
Fodor's own position, instead, is that to properly account for the nature of intentional attitudes, it is necessary to employ a three-place relation between individuals, representations and propositional contents.
Considering mental states as three-place relations in this way, representative realism makes it possible to hold together all of the elements necessary to the solution of this problem. Further, mental representations are not only the objects of beliefs and desires, but are also the domain over which mental processes operate. They can be considered the ideal link between the syntactic notion of mental content and the computational notion of functional architecture. These notions are, according to Fodor, our best explanation of mental processes.
The functional architecture of the mind
Following in the path paved by linguist Noam Chomsky, Fodor developed a strong commitment to the idea of psychological nativism. Nativism postulates the innateness of many cognitive functions and concepts. For Fodor, this position emerges naturally out of his criticism of behaviourism and associationism. These criticisms also led him to the formulation of his hypothesis of the modularity of the mind.
Historically, questions about mental architecture have been divided into two contrasting theories about the nature of the faculties. The first can be described as a "horizontal" view because it sees mental processes as interactions between faculties which are not domain specific. For example, a judgment remains a judgment whether it is judgment about a perceptual experience or a judgment about the understanding of language. The second can be described as a "vertical" view because it claims that our mental faculties are domain specific, genetically determined, associated with distinct neurological structures, and so on.
The vertical vision can be traced back to the 19th century movement called phrenology and its founder Franz Joseph Gall. Gall claimed that mental faculties could be associated with specific physical areas of the brain. Hence, someone's level of intelligence, for example, could be literally "read off" from the size of a particular bump on his posterior parietal lobe. This simplistic view of modularity has been disproved over the course of the last century.
Fodor revived the idea of modularity, without the notion of precise physical localizability, in the 1980s, and became one of the most vocal proponents of it with the 1983 publication of his monograph The Modularity of Mind, where he points to Gall through Bernard Hollander, which is the author cited in the references instead, more specifically Hollander's In search of the soul. Two properties of modularity in particular, informational encapsulation and domain specificity, make it possible to tie together questions of functional architecture with those of mental content. The ability to elaborate information independently from the background beliefs of individuals that these two properties allow Fodor to give an atomistic and causal account of the notion of mental content. The main idea, in other words, is that the properties of the contents of mental states can depend, rather than exclusively on the internal relations of the system of which they are a part, also on their causal relations with the external world.
Fodor's notions of mental modularity, informational encapsulation and domain specificity were taken up and expanded, much to Fodor's chagrin, by cognitive scientists such as Zenon Pylyshyn and evolutionary psychologists such as Steven Pinker and Henry Plotkin, among many others. But Fodor complained that Pinker, Plotkin and other members of what he sarcastically called "the New Synthesis" have taken modularity and similar ideas way too far. He insisted that the mind is not "massively modular" and that, contrary to what these researchers would have us believe, the mind is still a very long way from having been explained by the computational, or any other, model.
Intentional realism
In A Theory of Content and Other Essays (1990), Fodor takes up another of his central notions: the question of the reality of mental representations. Fodor needs to justify representational realism to justify the idea that the contents of mental states are expressed in symbolic structures such as those of the LOT.
Fodor's criticism of Dennett
Fodor starts with some criticisms of so-called standard realism. This view is characterized, according to Fodor, by two distinct assertions. One of these regards the internal structure of mental states and asserts that such states are non-relational. The other concerns the semantic theory of mental content and asserts that there is an isomorphism between the causal roles of such contents and the inferential web of beliefs. Among modern philosophers of mind, the majority view seems to be that the first of these two assertions is false, but that the second is true. Fodor departs from this view in accepting the truth of the first thesis but rejecting strongly the truth of the second.
In particular, Fodor criticizes the instrumentalism of Daniel Dennett. Dennett maintains that it is possible to be realist with regard to intentional states without having to commit oneself to the reality of mental representations. Now, according to Fodor, if one remains at this level of analysis, then there is no possibility of explaining why the intentional strategy works:There is ... a standard objection to instrumentalism ...: it is difficult to explain why the psychology of beliefs/desires works so well, if the psychology of beliefs/desires is, in fact, false.... As Putnam, Boyd and others have emphasized, from the predictive successes of a theory to the truth of that theory there is surely a presumed inference; and this is even more likely when ... we are dealing with the only theory in play which is predictively crowned with success. It is not obvious ... why such a presumption should not militate in favour of a realist conception ... of the interpretations of beliefs/desires.
Productivity, systematicity and thought
Fodor also has positive arguments in favour of the reality of mental representations in terms of the LOT. He maintains that if language is the expression of thoughts and language is systematic, then thoughts must also be systematic. Fodor draws on the work of Noam Chomsky to both model his theory of the mind and to refute alternative architectures such as connectionism. Systematicity in natural languages was explained by Chomsky in terms of two more basic concepts: productivity and compositionality.
Productivity refers to a representational system's unbounded ability to generate new representations from a given set of symbols. "John", "loves", and "Mary" allow for the construction of the sentences "John loves Mary" and "Mary loves John". Fodor's language of thought theorizes that representations are decomposable into constituent parts, and these decomposed representations are built into new strings.
More important than productivity is systematicity since it does not rely on questionable idealizations about human cognition. The argument states that a cognizer is able to understand some sentence in virtue of understanding another. For example, no one who understands "John loves Mary" is unable to understand "Mary loves John", and no one who understands "P and Q" is unable to understand "P". Systematicity itself is rarely challenged as a property of natural languages and logics, but some challenge that thought is systematic in the same way languages are. Still others from the connectionist tradition have tried to build non-classical networks that can account for the apparent systematicity of language.
The fact that systematicity and productivity depend on the compositional structure of language means that language has a combinatorial semantics. If thought also has such a combinatorial semantics, then there must be a language of thought.
The second argument that Fodor provides in favour of representational realism involves the processes of thought. This argument touches on the relation between the representational theory of mind and models of its architecture. If the sentences of Mentalese require unique processes of elaboration then they require a computational mechanism of a certain type. The syntactic notion of mental representations goes hand in hand with the idea that mental processes are calculations which act only on the form of the symbols which they elaborate. And this is the computational theory of the mind. Consequently, the defence of a model of architecture based on classic artificial intelligence passes inevitably through a defence of the reality of mental representations.
For Fodor, this formal notion of thought processes also has the advantage of highlighting the parallels between the causal role of symbols and the contents which they express. In his view, syntax plays the role of mediation between the causal role of the symbols and their contents. The semantic relations between symbols can be "imitated" by their syntactic relations. The inferential relations which connect the contents of two symbols can be imitated by the formal syntax rules which regulate the derivation of one symbol from another.
The nature of content
From the beginning of the 1980s, Fodor adhered to a causal notion of mental content and of meaning. This idea of content contrasts sharply with the inferential role semantics to which he subscribed earlier in his career. Fodor criticizes inferential role semantics (IRS) because its commitment to an extreme form of holism excludes the possibility of a true naturalization of the mental. But naturalization must include an explanation of content in atomistic and causal terms.
Anti-holism
Fodor has made many and varied criticisms of holism. He identifies the central problem with all the different notions of holism as the idea that the determining factor in semantic evaluation is the notion of an "epistemic bond". Briefly, P is an epistemic bond of Q if the meaning of P is considered by someone to be relevant for the determination of the meaning of Q. Meaning holism strongly depends on this notion. The identity of the content of a mental state, under holism, can only be determined by the totality of its epistemic bonds. And this makes the realism of mental states an impossibility:If people differ in an absolutely general way in their estimations of epistemic relevance, and if we follow the holism of meaning and individuate intentional states by way of the totality of their epistemic bonds, the consequence will be that two people (or, for that matter, two temporal sections of the same person) will never be in the same intentional state. Therefore, two people can never be subsumed under the same intentional generalizations. And, therefore, intentional generalization can never be successful. And, therefore again, there is no hope for an intentional psychology.
The asymmetric causal theory
Having criticized the idea that semantic evaluation concerns only the internal relations between the units of a symbolic system, Fodor can adopt an externalist position with respect to mental content and meaning. For Fodor, in recent years, the problem of naturalization of the mental is tied to the possibility of giving "the sufficient conditions for which a piece of the world is relative to (expresses, represents, is true of) another piece" in non-intentional and non-semantic terms. If this goal is to be achieved within a representational theory of the mind, then the challenge is to devise a causal theory which can establish the interpretation of the primitive non-logical symbols of the LOT. Fodor's initial proposal is that what determines that the symbol for "water" in Mentalese expresses the property H2O is that the occurrences of that symbol are in certain causal relations with water. The intuitive version of this causal theory is what Fodor calls the "Crude Causal Theory". According to this theory, the occurrences of symbols express the properties which are the causes of their occurrence. The term "horse", for example, says of a horse that it is a horse. In order to do this, it is necessary and sufficient that certain properties of an occurrence of the symbol "horse" be in a law-like relation with certain properties which determine that something is an occurrence of horse.
The main problem with this theory is that of erroneous representations. There are two unavoidable problems with the idea that "a symbol expresses a property if it is ... necessary that all and only the presences of such a property cause the occurrences". The first is that not all horses cause occurrences of horse. The second is that not only horses cause occurrences of horse. Sometimes the A(horses) are caused by A (horses), but at other times—when, for example, because of the distance or conditions of low visibility, one has confused a cow for a horse—the A (horses) are caused by B (cows). In this case the symbol A doesn't express just the property A, but the disjunction of properties A or B. The crude causal theory is therefore incapable of distinguishing the case in which the content of a symbol is disjunctive from the case in which it isn't. This gives rise to what Fodor calls the "problem of disjunction".
Fodor responds to this problem with what he defines as "a slightly less crude causal theory". According to this approach, it is necessary to break the symmetry at the base of the crude causal theory. Fodor must find some criterion for distinguishing the occurrences of A caused by As (true) from those caused by Bs (false). The point of departure, according to Fodor, is that while the false cases are ontologically dependent on the true cases, the reverse is not true. There is an asymmetry of dependence, in other words, between the true contents (A= A) and the false ones (A = A or B). The first can subsist independently of the second, but the second can occur only because of the existence of the first:From the point of view of semantics, errors must be accidents: if in the extension of "horse" there are no cows, then it cannot be required for the meaning of "horse" that cows be called horses. On the other hand, if "horse" did not mean that which it means, and if it were an error for horses, it would never be possible for a cow to be called "horse". Putting the two things together, it can be seen that the possibility of falsely saying "this is a horse" presupposes the existence of a semantic basis for saying it truly, but not vice versa. If we put this in terms of the crude causal theory, the fact that cows cause one to say "horse" depends on the fact that horses cause one to say "horse"; but the fact that horses cause one to say "horse" does not depend on the fact that cows cause one to say "horse"...
Functionalism
During the 1960s, various philosophers such as Donald Davidson, Hilary Putnam, and Fodor tried to resolve the puzzle of developing a way to preserve the explanatory efficacy of mental causation and so-called "folk psychology" while adhering to a materialist vision of the world which did not violate the "generality of physics". Their proposal was, first of all, to reject the then-dominant theories in philosophy of mind: behaviorism and the type identity theory. The problem with logical behaviorism was that it failed to account for causation between mental states and such causation seems to be essential to psychological explanation, especially if one considers that behavior is not an effect of a single mental event/cause but is rather the effect of a chain of mental events/causes. The type-identity theory, on the other hand, failed to explain the fact that radically different physical systems can find themselves in the identical mental state. Besides being deeply anthropocentric (why should humans be the only thinking organisms in the universe?), the identity-type theory also failed to deal with accumulating evidence in the neurosciences that every single human brain is different from all the others. Hence, the impossibility of referring to common mental states in different physical systems manifests itself not only between different species but also between organisms of the same species.
One can solve these problems, according to Fodor, with functionalism, a hypothesis which was designed to overcome the failings of both dualism and reductionism. What is important is the function of a mental state regardless of the physical substrate which implements it. The foundation for this view lies in the principle of the multiple realizability of the mental. Under this view, for example, I and a computer can both instantiate ("realize") the same functional state though we are made of completely different material stuff (see graphic at right). On this basis functionalism can be classified as a form of token materialism.
Evolution
Fodor and the biolinguist Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini co-authored the book What Darwin Got Wrong (2010), in which they describe neo-Darwinists as "distressingly uncritical" and say of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution that "it overestimates the contribution the environment makes in shaping the phenotype of a species and correspondingly underestimates the effects of endogenous variables". Evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne describes this book as "a profoundly misguided critique of natural selection" and "as biologically uninformed as it is strident". Moral philosopher and anti-scientism author Mary Midgley praises What Darwin Got Wrong as "an overdue and valuable onslaught on neo-Darwinist simplicities". The book also received a positive review from mathematician and intelligent-design theorist William Dembski.
In a web dialogue, on the adequacy of natural selection as an account for the origin of species, Fodor argues that natural selection cannot distinguish between “a trait that is selected for from its free riders”. John Staddon responded “What seems to be wrong is considering selection in isolation, separated from variation.”
Criticism
A wide variety of philosophers of diverse orientations have challenged many of Fodor's ideas. For example, the language of thought hypothesis has been accused of either falling prey to an infinite regress or of being superfluous. Specifically, Simon Blackburn suggested in an article in 1984 that since Fodor explains the learning of natural languages as a process of formation and confirmation of hypotheses in the LOT, this leaves him open to the question of why the LOT itself should not be considered as just such a language which requires yet another and more fundamental representational substrate in which to form and confirm hypotheses so that the LOT itself can be learned. If natural language learning requires some representational substrate (the LOT) in order for it to be learned, why shouldn't the same be said for the LOT itself and then for the representational substrate of this representational substrate and so on, ad infinitum? On the other hand, if such a representational substrate is not required for the LOT, then why should it be required for the learning of natural languages? In this case, the LOT would be superfluous. Fodor, in response, argues that the LOT is unique in that it does not have to be learned via an antecedent language because it is innate.
In 1981, Daniel Dennett had formulated another argument against the LOT. Dennett suggested that it would seem, on the basis of the evidence of our behavior toward computers but also with regard to some of our own unconscious behavior, that explicit representation is not necessary for the explanation of propositional attitudes. During a game of chess with a computer program, we often attribute such attitudes to the computer, saying such things as "It thinks that the queen should be moved to the left." We attribute propositional attitudes to the computer and this helps us to explain and predict its behavior in various contexts. Yet no one would suggest that the computer is actually thinking or believing somewhere inside its circuits the equivalent of the propositional attitude "I believe I can kick this guy's butt" in Mentalese. The same is obviously true, suggests Dennett, of many of our everyday automatic behaviors such as "desiring to breathe clear air" in a stuffy environment.
Some linguists and philosophers of language have criticized Fodor's self-proclaimed "extreme" concept nativism. Kent Bach, for example, takes Fodor to task for his criticisms of lexical semantics and polysemy. Fodor claims that there is no lexical structure to such verbs as "keep", "get", "make" and "put". He suggests that, alternatively, "keep" simply expresses the concept KEEP (Fodor capitalizes concepts to distinguish them from properties, names or other such entities). If there is a straightforward one-to-one mapping between individual words and concepts, "keep your clothes on", "keep your receipt" and "keep washing your hands" will all share the same concept of KEEP under Fodor's theory. This concept presumably locks on to the unique external property of keeping. But, if this is true, then RETAIN must pick out a different property in RETAIN YOUR RECEIPT, since one can't retain one's clothes on or retain washing one's hands. Fodor's theory also has a problem explaining how the concept FAST contributes, differently, to the contents of FAST CAR, FAST DRIVER, FAST TRACK, and FAST TIME. Whether or not the differing interpretations of "fast" in these sentences are specified in the semantics of English, or are the result of pragmatic inference, is a matter of debate. Fodor's own response to this kind of criticism is expressed bluntly in Concepts: "People sometimes used to say that exist must be ambiguous because look at the difference between 'chairs exist' and 'numbers exist'. A familiar reply goes: the difference between the existence of chairs and the existence of numbers seems, on reflection, strikingly like the difference between numbers and chairs. Since you have the latter to explain the former, you don't also need 'exist' to be polysemic."
Some critics find it difficult to accept Fodor's insistence that a large, perhaps implausible, number of concepts are primitive and undefinable. For example, Fodor considers such concepts as EFFECT, ISLAND, TRAPEZOID, and WEEK to be all primitive, innate and unanalyzable because they all fall into the category of what he calls "lexical concepts" (those for which our language has a single word). Against this view, Bach argues that the concept VIXEN is almost certainly composed out of the concepts FEMALE and FOX, BACHELOR out of SINGLE and MALE, and so on.
Books
Minds without meanings: an essay on the contents of concepts, with Zenon W. Pylyshyn, MIT Press, 2014, .
What Darwin Got Wrong, with Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010, .
LOT 2: The Language of Thought Revisited, Oxford University Press, 2008, .
Hume Variations, Oxford University Press, 2003, .
The Compositionality Papers, with Ernie Lepore, Oxford University Press, 2002, .
The Mind Doesn't Work That Way: The Scope and Limits of Computational Psychology, MIT Press, 2000, .
In Critical Condition, MIT Press, 1998, .
Concepts: Where Cognitive Science Went Wrong, The 1996 John Locke Lectures, Oxford University Press, 1998, .
The Elm and the Expert: Mentalese and Its Semantics, The 1993 Jean Nicod Lectures, MIT Press, 1994, .
Holism: A Consumer Update, with Ernie Lepore (eds.), Grazer Philosophische Studien, Vol 46. Rodopi, Amsterdam, 1993, .
Holism: A Shopper's Guide, with Ernie Lepore, Blackwell, 1992, .
A Theory of Content and Other Essays, MIT Press, 1990, .
Psychosemantics: The Problem of Meaning in the Philosophy of Mind, MIT Press, 1987, .
The Modularity of Mind: An Essay on Faculty Psychology, MIT Press, 1983, .
Representations: Philosophical Essays on the Foundations of Cognitive Science, Harvard Press (UK) and MIT Press (US), 1979, .
The Language of Thought, Harvard University Press, 1975, .
The Psychology of Language, with T. Bever and M. Garrett, McGraw Hill, 1974, .
Psychological Explanation, Random House, 1968, .
The Structure of Language, with Jerrold Katz (eds.), Prentice Hall, 1964, .
See also
Computational theory of mind
Connectionism
Folk psychology
Functionalism (philosophy of mind)
List of Jean Nicod Prize laureates
Special sciences
References
External links
Jerry Fodor's Homepage
Jerry Fodor at the London Review of Books
"Semantics – An Interview with Jerry Fodor", ReVEL. Vol. 5, n. 8 (March 2007).
BloggingHeads dialogue between Jerry Fodor and Elliott Sober
meaningful words without sense, & other revolutions Interview by Richard Marshall
Guardian obituary
Jerry A. Fodor, Philosopher Who Plumbed the Mind’s Depths, Dies at 82 New York Times obituary
Jerry A. Fodor (1935—2017) entry in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
1935 births
2017 deaths
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20th-century American philosophers
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American logicians
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American male non-fiction writers
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American philosophy academics
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Columbia College (New York) alumni
Consciousness researchers and theorists
Contemporary philosophers
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"Yuri Ponomaryov (; 24 March 1932 – 13 April 2005) was a Russian cosmonaut.\n\nHe married fellow cosmonaut Valentina Ponomaryova in 1972 and the couple had two children before divorcing. As with Valentina, Yuri did not get to fly into space although he did serve on the Soyuz 18 backup crew.\n\nReferences\n\n1932 births\n2005 deaths\nRussian cosmonauts\nSoviet cosmonauts",
"Richard Timothy Jones (born January 16, 1972) is an American actor. He has worked extensively in both film and television productions since the early 1990s. His television roles include Ally McBeal (1997), Judging Amy (1998–2005), CSI: Miami (2006), Girlfriends (2007), Grey's Anatomy (2010), Hawaii Five-0 (2011–2014), Narcos (2015), and Criminal Minds (2017). Since 2018, he has played Sergeant Wade Grey on the ABC police drama The Rookie.\n\nHis film roles include portrayals of Lamont Carr in Disney's Full Court Miracle (2003), Laveinio \"Slim\" Hightower in Rick Famuyiwa's coming-of-age film The Wood (1999), Mike in Tyler Perry's dramatic films Why Did I Get Married? (2007) and Why Did I Get Married Too? (2010), and Captain Russell Hampton in the Hollywood blockbuster Godzilla (2014).\n\nEarly life\nJones was born in Kobe, Japan to American parents. He grew up in Carson, California. He is the son of Lorene, a computer analyst, and Clarence Jones, a professional baseball player and hitting instructor for the Cleveland Indians. He has an older brother, Clarence Jones Jr., who works as a coach. His parents later divorced. Jones attended Bishop Montgomery High School in Torrance, California, then graduated from Tuskegee University.\n\nCareer \nSince the early 1990s, Jones has worked in both film and television productions.\n\nHis first television role was in a 1993 episode of the series California Dreams. That same year, he appeared as Ike Turner, Jr. in What's Love Got to Do with It. From 1999 to 2005, he starred as Bruce Calvin van Exel in the CBS legal drama series Judging Amy.\n\nOver the next two decades, Jones starred or guest-starred in high-profile television series such as Ally McBeal (1997), CSI: Miami (2006), Girlfriends (2007), Grey's Anatomy (2010), Hawaii Five-0 (2011–2014), Narcos (2015), and Criminal Minds (2017).\n\nHis film roles include portrayals of Lamont Carr in the Disney film Full Court Miracle (2003), Laveinio \"Slim\" Hightower in Rick Famuyiwa's coming-of-age film The Wood (1999), and Mike in Tyler Perry's dramatic films Why Did I Get Married? (2007) and Why Did I Get Married Too? (2010), and Captain Russell Hampton in the Hollywood blockbuster Godzilla (2014).\n\nFrom 2017 to 2018, Jones played Detective Tommy Cavanaugh in the CBS drama series Wisdom of the Crowd.\n\nSince February 2018, Jones has played the role of Sergeant Wade Gray in the ABC police procedural drama series The Rookie with Nathan Fillion.\n\nPersonal life\nHe married Nancy Robinson in October 1996. He is also a preacher/minister.\n\nFilmography\n\nFilm\n\nTelevision\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\n1972 births\nAfrican-American male actors\nAmerican expatriates in Japan\nAmerican male film actors\nAmerican male television actors\nLiving people\nMale actors from California\nPeople from Carson, California\nPeople from Kobe\nActors from Kobe\n21st-century African-American people\n20th-century African-American people"
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[
"Jerry Fodor",
"Biography",
"Where did Fodor go to school?",
"He received his A.B. degree (summa cum laude) from Columbia University in 1956,",
"Did he have a good relationship with his parents?",
"I don't know.",
"Did he get married?",
"He lived in New York with his wife, the linguist Janet Dean Fodor,"
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C_8f42ddf1202a47269d580c8afe007ea3_1
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Do they have any kids?
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Does Jerry Fodor have any kids?
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Jerry Fodor
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Jerry Fodor was born in New York City on April 22, 1935, and was of Jewish descent. He received his A.B. degree (summa cum laude) from Columbia University in 1956, where he studied with Sydney Morgenbesser, and a PhD in philosophy from Princeton University in 1960, under the direction of Hilary Putnam. From 1959 to 1986 Fodor was on the faculty of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. From 1986 to 1988 he was a full professor at the City University of New York (CUNY). From 1988 until his retirement in 2016 he was State of New Jersey Professor of philosophy and cognitive science at Rutgers University in New Jersey, where he was emeritus. Besides his interest in philosophy, Fodor passionately followed opera and regularly wrote popular columns for the London Review of Books on that and other topics. Philosopher Colin McGinn, who taught with Fodor at Rutgers, described him in these words: Fodor (who is a close friend) is a gentle man inside a burly body, and prone to an even burlier style of arguing. He is shy and voluble at the same time ... a formidable polemicist burdened with a sensitive soul.... Disagreeing with Jerry on a philosophical issue, especially one dear to his heart, can be a chastening experience.... His quickness of mind, inventiveness, and sharp wit are not to be tangled with before your first cup of coffee in the morning. Adding Jerry Fodor to the faculty at Rutgers [University] instantly put it on the map, Fodor being by common consent the leading philosopher of mind in the world today. I had met him in England in the seventies and ... found him to be the genuine article, intellectually speaking (though we do not always see eye to eye). Fodor was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He received numerous awards and honors: New York State Regent's Fellowship, Woodrow Wilson Fellowship (Princeton University), Chancellor Greene Fellow (Princeton University), Fulbright Fellowship (University of Oxford), Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He won the first Jean Nicod Prize for philosophy of mind and cognitive philosophy in 1993. His lecture series for the Prize, later published as a book by MIT Press in 1995, was titled The Elm and the Expert: Mentalese and Its Semantics. In 1996-1997, Fodor delivered the prestigious John Locke Lectures at the University of Oxford, titled Concepts: Where Cognitive Science Went Wrong, which went on to become his 1998 Oxford University Press book of the same name. He has also delivered the Patrick Romanell Lecture on Philosophical Naturalism (2004) and the Royce Lecture on Philosophy of Mind (2002) to the American Philosophical Association, of whose Eastern Division he has served as Vice President (2004-2005) and President (2005-2006). In 2005, he won the Mind & Brain Prize. He lived in New York with his wife, the linguist Janet Dean Fodor, and had two grown children. Fodor died on November 29, 2017, at his home in Manhattan. CANNOTANSWER
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and had two grown children.
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Jerry Alan Fodor (; April 22, 1935 – November 29, 2017) was an American philosopher and the author of many crucial works in the fields of philosophy of mind and cognitive science. His writings in these fields laid the groundwork for the modularity of mind and the language of thought hypotheses, and he is recognized as having had "an enormous influence on virtually every portion of the philosophy of mind literature since 1960." Until his death in 2017 he held the position of State of New Jersey Professor of Philosophy, Emeritus, at Rutgers University.
Fodor was known for his provocative and sometimes polemical style of argumentation. He argued that mental states, such as beliefs and desires, are relations between individuals and mental representations. He maintained that these representations can only be correctly explained in terms of a language of thought (LOT) in the mind. Furthermore, this language of thought itself is an actually existing thing that is codified in the brain and not just a useful explanatory tool. Fodor adhered to a species of functionalism, maintaining that thinking and other mental processes consist primarily of computations operating on the syntax of the representations that make up the language of thought.
For Fodor, significant parts of the mind, such as perceptual and linguistic processes, are structured in terms of modules, or "organs", which he defines by their causal and functional roles. These modules are relatively independent of each other and of the "central processing" part of the mind, which has a more global and less "domain specific" character. Fodor suggests that the character of these modules permits the possibility of causal relations with external objects. This, in turn, makes it possible for mental states to have contents that are about things in the world. The central processing part, on the other hand, takes care of the logical relations between the various contents and inputs and outputs.
Although Fodor originally rejected the idea that mental states must have a causal, externally determined aspect, in his later years he devoted much of his writing and study to the philosophy of language because of this problem of the meaning and reference of mental contents. His contributions in this area include the so-called asymmetric causal theory of reference and his many arguments against semantic holism. Fodor strongly opposed reductive accounts of the mind. He argued that mental states are multiple realizable and that there is a hierarchy of explanatory levels in science such that the generalizations and laws of a higher-level theory of psychology or linguistics, for example, cannot be captured by the low-level explanations of the behavior of neurons and synapses. He also emerged as a prominent critic of what he characterized as the ill-grounded Darwinian and neo-Darwinian theories of natural selection.
Biography
Jerry Fodor was born in New York City on April 22, 1935, and was of Jewish descent. He received his A.B. degree (summa cum laude) from Columbia University in 1956, where he wrote a senior thesis on Søren Kierkegaard and studied with Sydney Morgenbesser, and a PhD in philosophy from Princeton University in 1960, under the direction of Hilary Putnam. From 1959 to 1986 Fodor was on the faculty of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. From 1986 to 1988 he was a full professor at the City University of New York (CUNY). From 1988 until his retirement in 2016 he was State of New Jersey Professor of philosophy and cognitive science at Rutgers University in New Jersey, where he was emeritus. Besides his interest in philosophy, Fodor passionately followed opera and regularly wrote popular columns for the London Review of Books on that and other topics.
Philosopher Colin McGinn, who taught with Fodor at Rutgers, described him in these words:
Fodor (who is a close friend) is a gentle man inside a burly body, and prone to an even burlier style of arguing. He is shy and voluble at the same time ... a formidable polemicist burdened with a sensitive soul.... Disagreeing with Jerry on a philosophical issue, especially one dear to his heart, can be a chastening experience.... His quickness of mind, inventiveness, and sharp wit are not to be tangled with before your first cup of coffee in the morning. Adding Jerry Fodor to the faculty at Rutgers [University] instantly put it on the map, Fodor being by common consent the leading philosopher of mind in the world today. I had met him in England in the seventies and ... found him to be the genuine article, intellectually speaking (though we do not always see eye to eye).
Fodor was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He received numerous awards and honors: New York State Regent's Fellowship, Woodrow Wilson Fellowship (Princeton University), Chancellor Greene Fellow (Princeton University), Fulbright Fellowship (University of Oxford), Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He won the first Jean Nicod Prize for philosophy of mind and cognitive philosophy in 1993. His lecture series for the Prize, later published as a book by MIT Press in 1995, was titled The Elm and the Expert: Mentalese and Its Semantics. In 1996–1997, Fodor delivered the prestigious John Locke Lectures at the University of Oxford, titled Concepts: Where Cognitive Science Went Wrong, which went on to become his 1998 Oxford University Press book of the same name. He has also delivered the Patrick Romanell Lecture on Philosophical Naturalism (2004) and the Royce Lecture on Philosophy of Mind (2002) to the American Philosophical Association, of whose Eastern Division he has served as Vice President (2004–2005) and President (2005–2006). In 2005, he won the Mind & Brain Prize.
He lived in New York with his wife, the linguist Janet Dean Fodor, and had two children. Fodor died on November 29, 2017, at his home in Manhattan.
Fodor and the nature of mental states
In his article "Propositional Attitudes" (1978), Fodor introduced the idea that mental states are relations between individuals and mental representations. Despite the changes in many of his positions over the years, the idea that intentional attitudes are relational has remained unchanged from its original formulation up to .
In that article, he attempted to show how mental representations, specifically sentences in the language of thought, are necessary to explain this relational nature of mental states. Fodor considers two alternative hypotheses. The first completely denies the relational character of mental states and the second considers mental states as two-place relations. The latter position can be further subdivided into the Carnapian view that such relations are between individuals and sentences of natural languages and the Fregean view that they are between individuals and the propositions expressed by such sentences.
Fodor's own position, instead, is that to properly account for the nature of intentional attitudes, it is necessary to employ a three-place relation between individuals, representations and propositional contents.
Considering mental states as three-place relations in this way, representative realism makes it possible to hold together all of the elements necessary to the solution of this problem. Further, mental representations are not only the objects of beliefs and desires, but are also the domain over which mental processes operate. They can be considered the ideal link between the syntactic notion of mental content and the computational notion of functional architecture. These notions are, according to Fodor, our best explanation of mental processes.
The functional architecture of the mind
Following in the path paved by linguist Noam Chomsky, Fodor developed a strong commitment to the idea of psychological nativism. Nativism postulates the innateness of many cognitive functions and concepts. For Fodor, this position emerges naturally out of his criticism of behaviourism and associationism. These criticisms also led him to the formulation of his hypothesis of the modularity of the mind.
Historically, questions about mental architecture have been divided into two contrasting theories about the nature of the faculties. The first can be described as a "horizontal" view because it sees mental processes as interactions between faculties which are not domain specific. For example, a judgment remains a judgment whether it is judgment about a perceptual experience or a judgment about the understanding of language. The second can be described as a "vertical" view because it claims that our mental faculties are domain specific, genetically determined, associated with distinct neurological structures, and so on.
The vertical vision can be traced back to the 19th century movement called phrenology and its founder Franz Joseph Gall. Gall claimed that mental faculties could be associated with specific physical areas of the brain. Hence, someone's level of intelligence, for example, could be literally "read off" from the size of a particular bump on his posterior parietal lobe. This simplistic view of modularity has been disproved over the course of the last century.
Fodor revived the idea of modularity, without the notion of precise physical localizability, in the 1980s, and became one of the most vocal proponents of it with the 1983 publication of his monograph The Modularity of Mind, where he points to Gall through Bernard Hollander, which is the author cited in the references instead, more specifically Hollander's In search of the soul. Two properties of modularity in particular, informational encapsulation and domain specificity, make it possible to tie together questions of functional architecture with those of mental content. The ability to elaborate information independently from the background beliefs of individuals that these two properties allow Fodor to give an atomistic and causal account of the notion of mental content. The main idea, in other words, is that the properties of the contents of mental states can depend, rather than exclusively on the internal relations of the system of which they are a part, also on their causal relations with the external world.
Fodor's notions of mental modularity, informational encapsulation and domain specificity were taken up and expanded, much to Fodor's chagrin, by cognitive scientists such as Zenon Pylyshyn and evolutionary psychologists such as Steven Pinker and Henry Plotkin, among many others. But Fodor complained that Pinker, Plotkin and other members of what he sarcastically called "the New Synthesis" have taken modularity and similar ideas way too far. He insisted that the mind is not "massively modular" and that, contrary to what these researchers would have us believe, the mind is still a very long way from having been explained by the computational, or any other, model.
Intentional realism
In A Theory of Content and Other Essays (1990), Fodor takes up another of his central notions: the question of the reality of mental representations. Fodor needs to justify representational realism to justify the idea that the contents of mental states are expressed in symbolic structures such as those of the LOT.
Fodor's criticism of Dennett
Fodor starts with some criticisms of so-called standard realism. This view is characterized, according to Fodor, by two distinct assertions. One of these regards the internal structure of mental states and asserts that such states are non-relational. The other concerns the semantic theory of mental content and asserts that there is an isomorphism between the causal roles of such contents and the inferential web of beliefs. Among modern philosophers of mind, the majority view seems to be that the first of these two assertions is false, but that the second is true. Fodor departs from this view in accepting the truth of the first thesis but rejecting strongly the truth of the second.
In particular, Fodor criticizes the instrumentalism of Daniel Dennett. Dennett maintains that it is possible to be realist with regard to intentional states without having to commit oneself to the reality of mental representations. Now, according to Fodor, if one remains at this level of analysis, then there is no possibility of explaining why the intentional strategy works:There is ... a standard objection to instrumentalism ...: it is difficult to explain why the psychology of beliefs/desires works so well, if the psychology of beliefs/desires is, in fact, false.... As Putnam, Boyd and others have emphasized, from the predictive successes of a theory to the truth of that theory there is surely a presumed inference; and this is even more likely when ... we are dealing with the only theory in play which is predictively crowned with success. It is not obvious ... why such a presumption should not militate in favour of a realist conception ... of the interpretations of beliefs/desires.
Productivity, systematicity and thought
Fodor also has positive arguments in favour of the reality of mental representations in terms of the LOT. He maintains that if language is the expression of thoughts and language is systematic, then thoughts must also be systematic. Fodor draws on the work of Noam Chomsky to both model his theory of the mind and to refute alternative architectures such as connectionism. Systematicity in natural languages was explained by Chomsky in terms of two more basic concepts: productivity and compositionality.
Productivity refers to a representational system's unbounded ability to generate new representations from a given set of symbols. "John", "loves", and "Mary" allow for the construction of the sentences "John loves Mary" and "Mary loves John". Fodor's language of thought theorizes that representations are decomposable into constituent parts, and these decomposed representations are built into new strings.
More important than productivity is systematicity since it does not rely on questionable idealizations about human cognition. The argument states that a cognizer is able to understand some sentence in virtue of understanding another. For example, no one who understands "John loves Mary" is unable to understand "Mary loves John", and no one who understands "P and Q" is unable to understand "P". Systematicity itself is rarely challenged as a property of natural languages and logics, but some challenge that thought is systematic in the same way languages are. Still others from the connectionist tradition have tried to build non-classical networks that can account for the apparent systematicity of language.
The fact that systematicity and productivity depend on the compositional structure of language means that language has a combinatorial semantics. If thought also has such a combinatorial semantics, then there must be a language of thought.
The second argument that Fodor provides in favour of representational realism involves the processes of thought. This argument touches on the relation between the representational theory of mind and models of its architecture. If the sentences of Mentalese require unique processes of elaboration then they require a computational mechanism of a certain type. The syntactic notion of mental representations goes hand in hand with the idea that mental processes are calculations which act only on the form of the symbols which they elaborate. And this is the computational theory of the mind. Consequently, the defence of a model of architecture based on classic artificial intelligence passes inevitably through a defence of the reality of mental representations.
For Fodor, this formal notion of thought processes also has the advantage of highlighting the parallels between the causal role of symbols and the contents which they express. In his view, syntax plays the role of mediation between the causal role of the symbols and their contents. The semantic relations between symbols can be "imitated" by their syntactic relations. The inferential relations which connect the contents of two symbols can be imitated by the formal syntax rules which regulate the derivation of one symbol from another.
The nature of content
From the beginning of the 1980s, Fodor adhered to a causal notion of mental content and of meaning. This idea of content contrasts sharply with the inferential role semantics to which he subscribed earlier in his career. Fodor criticizes inferential role semantics (IRS) because its commitment to an extreme form of holism excludes the possibility of a true naturalization of the mental. But naturalization must include an explanation of content in atomistic and causal terms.
Anti-holism
Fodor has made many and varied criticisms of holism. He identifies the central problem with all the different notions of holism as the idea that the determining factor in semantic evaluation is the notion of an "epistemic bond". Briefly, P is an epistemic bond of Q if the meaning of P is considered by someone to be relevant for the determination of the meaning of Q. Meaning holism strongly depends on this notion. The identity of the content of a mental state, under holism, can only be determined by the totality of its epistemic bonds. And this makes the realism of mental states an impossibility:If people differ in an absolutely general way in their estimations of epistemic relevance, and if we follow the holism of meaning and individuate intentional states by way of the totality of their epistemic bonds, the consequence will be that two people (or, for that matter, two temporal sections of the same person) will never be in the same intentional state. Therefore, two people can never be subsumed under the same intentional generalizations. And, therefore, intentional generalization can never be successful. And, therefore again, there is no hope for an intentional psychology.
The asymmetric causal theory
Having criticized the idea that semantic evaluation concerns only the internal relations between the units of a symbolic system, Fodor can adopt an externalist position with respect to mental content and meaning. For Fodor, in recent years, the problem of naturalization of the mental is tied to the possibility of giving "the sufficient conditions for which a piece of the world is relative to (expresses, represents, is true of) another piece" in non-intentional and non-semantic terms. If this goal is to be achieved within a representational theory of the mind, then the challenge is to devise a causal theory which can establish the interpretation of the primitive non-logical symbols of the LOT. Fodor's initial proposal is that what determines that the symbol for "water" in Mentalese expresses the property H2O is that the occurrences of that symbol are in certain causal relations with water. The intuitive version of this causal theory is what Fodor calls the "Crude Causal Theory". According to this theory, the occurrences of symbols express the properties which are the causes of their occurrence. The term "horse", for example, says of a horse that it is a horse. In order to do this, it is necessary and sufficient that certain properties of an occurrence of the symbol "horse" be in a law-like relation with certain properties which determine that something is an occurrence of horse.
The main problem with this theory is that of erroneous representations. There are two unavoidable problems with the idea that "a symbol expresses a property if it is ... necessary that all and only the presences of such a property cause the occurrences". The first is that not all horses cause occurrences of horse. The second is that not only horses cause occurrences of horse. Sometimes the A(horses) are caused by A (horses), but at other times—when, for example, because of the distance or conditions of low visibility, one has confused a cow for a horse—the A (horses) are caused by B (cows). In this case the symbol A doesn't express just the property A, but the disjunction of properties A or B. The crude causal theory is therefore incapable of distinguishing the case in which the content of a symbol is disjunctive from the case in which it isn't. This gives rise to what Fodor calls the "problem of disjunction".
Fodor responds to this problem with what he defines as "a slightly less crude causal theory". According to this approach, it is necessary to break the symmetry at the base of the crude causal theory. Fodor must find some criterion for distinguishing the occurrences of A caused by As (true) from those caused by Bs (false). The point of departure, according to Fodor, is that while the false cases are ontologically dependent on the true cases, the reverse is not true. There is an asymmetry of dependence, in other words, between the true contents (A= A) and the false ones (A = A or B). The first can subsist independently of the second, but the second can occur only because of the existence of the first:From the point of view of semantics, errors must be accidents: if in the extension of "horse" there are no cows, then it cannot be required for the meaning of "horse" that cows be called horses. On the other hand, if "horse" did not mean that which it means, and if it were an error for horses, it would never be possible for a cow to be called "horse". Putting the two things together, it can be seen that the possibility of falsely saying "this is a horse" presupposes the existence of a semantic basis for saying it truly, but not vice versa. If we put this in terms of the crude causal theory, the fact that cows cause one to say "horse" depends on the fact that horses cause one to say "horse"; but the fact that horses cause one to say "horse" does not depend on the fact that cows cause one to say "horse"...
Functionalism
During the 1960s, various philosophers such as Donald Davidson, Hilary Putnam, and Fodor tried to resolve the puzzle of developing a way to preserve the explanatory efficacy of mental causation and so-called "folk psychology" while adhering to a materialist vision of the world which did not violate the "generality of physics". Their proposal was, first of all, to reject the then-dominant theories in philosophy of mind: behaviorism and the type identity theory. The problem with logical behaviorism was that it failed to account for causation between mental states and such causation seems to be essential to psychological explanation, especially if one considers that behavior is not an effect of a single mental event/cause but is rather the effect of a chain of mental events/causes. The type-identity theory, on the other hand, failed to explain the fact that radically different physical systems can find themselves in the identical mental state. Besides being deeply anthropocentric (why should humans be the only thinking organisms in the universe?), the identity-type theory also failed to deal with accumulating evidence in the neurosciences that every single human brain is different from all the others. Hence, the impossibility of referring to common mental states in different physical systems manifests itself not only between different species but also between organisms of the same species.
One can solve these problems, according to Fodor, with functionalism, a hypothesis which was designed to overcome the failings of both dualism and reductionism. What is important is the function of a mental state regardless of the physical substrate which implements it. The foundation for this view lies in the principle of the multiple realizability of the mental. Under this view, for example, I and a computer can both instantiate ("realize") the same functional state though we are made of completely different material stuff (see graphic at right). On this basis functionalism can be classified as a form of token materialism.
Evolution
Fodor and the biolinguist Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini co-authored the book What Darwin Got Wrong (2010), in which they describe neo-Darwinists as "distressingly uncritical" and say of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution that "it overestimates the contribution the environment makes in shaping the phenotype of a species and correspondingly underestimates the effects of endogenous variables". Evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne describes this book as "a profoundly misguided critique of natural selection" and "as biologically uninformed as it is strident". Moral philosopher and anti-scientism author Mary Midgley praises What Darwin Got Wrong as "an overdue and valuable onslaught on neo-Darwinist simplicities". The book also received a positive review from mathematician and intelligent-design theorist William Dembski.
In a web dialogue, on the adequacy of natural selection as an account for the origin of species, Fodor argues that natural selection cannot distinguish between “a trait that is selected for from its free riders”. John Staddon responded “What seems to be wrong is considering selection in isolation, separated from variation.”
Criticism
A wide variety of philosophers of diverse orientations have challenged many of Fodor's ideas. For example, the language of thought hypothesis has been accused of either falling prey to an infinite regress or of being superfluous. Specifically, Simon Blackburn suggested in an article in 1984 that since Fodor explains the learning of natural languages as a process of formation and confirmation of hypotheses in the LOT, this leaves him open to the question of why the LOT itself should not be considered as just such a language which requires yet another and more fundamental representational substrate in which to form and confirm hypotheses so that the LOT itself can be learned. If natural language learning requires some representational substrate (the LOT) in order for it to be learned, why shouldn't the same be said for the LOT itself and then for the representational substrate of this representational substrate and so on, ad infinitum? On the other hand, if such a representational substrate is not required for the LOT, then why should it be required for the learning of natural languages? In this case, the LOT would be superfluous. Fodor, in response, argues that the LOT is unique in that it does not have to be learned via an antecedent language because it is innate.
In 1981, Daniel Dennett had formulated another argument against the LOT. Dennett suggested that it would seem, on the basis of the evidence of our behavior toward computers but also with regard to some of our own unconscious behavior, that explicit representation is not necessary for the explanation of propositional attitudes. During a game of chess with a computer program, we often attribute such attitudes to the computer, saying such things as "It thinks that the queen should be moved to the left." We attribute propositional attitudes to the computer and this helps us to explain and predict its behavior in various contexts. Yet no one would suggest that the computer is actually thinking or believing somewhere inside its circuits the equivalent of the propositional attitude "I believe I can kick this guy's butt" in Mentalese. The same is obviously true, suggests Dennett, of many of our everyday automatic behaviors such as "desiring to breathe clear air" in a stuffy environment.
Some linguists and philosophers of language have criticized Fodor's self-proclaimed "extreme" concept nativism. Kent Bach, for example, takes Fodor to task for his criticisms of lexical semantics and polysemy. Fodor claims that there is no lexical structure to such verbs as "keep", "get", "make" and "put". He suggests that, alternatively, "keep" simply expresses the concept KEEP (Fodor capitalizes concepts to distinguish them from properties, names or other such entities). If there is a straightforward one-to-one mapping between individual words and concepts, "keep your clothes on", "keep your receipt" and "keep washing your hands" will all share the same concept of KEEP under Fodor's theory. This concept presumably locks on to the unique external property of keeping. But, if this is true, then RETAIN must pick out a different property in RETAIN YOUR RECEIPT, since one can't retain one's clothes on or retain washing one's hands. Fodor's theory also has a problem explaining how the concept FAST contributes, differently, to the contents of FAST CAR, FAST DRIVER, FAST TRACK, and FAST TIME. Whether or not the differing interpretations of "fast" in these sentences are specified in the semantics of English, or are the result of pragmatic inference, is a matter of debate. Fodor's own response to this kind of criticism is expressed bluntly in Concepts: "People sometimes used to say that exist must be ambiguous because look at the difference between 'chairs exist' and 'numbers exist'. A familiar reply goes: the difference between the existence of chairs and the existence of numbers seems, on reflection, strikingly like the difference between numbers and chairs. Since you have the latter to explain the former, you don't also need 'exist' to be polysemic."
Some critics find it difficult to accept Fodor's insistence that a large, perhaps implausible, number of concepts are primitive and undefinable. For example, Fodor considers such concepts as EFFECT, ISLAND, TRAPEZOID, and WEEK to be all primitive, innate and unanalyzable because they all fall into the category of what he calls "lexical concepts" (those for which our language has a single word). Against this view, Bach argues that the concept VIXEN is almost certainly composed out of the concepts FEMALE and FOX, BACHELOR out of SINGLE and MALE, and so on.
Books
Minds without meanings: an essay on the contents of concepts, with Zenon W. Pylyshyn, MIT Press, 2014, .
What Darwin Got Wrong, with Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010, .
LOT 2: The Language of Thought Revisited, Oxford University Press, 2008, .
Hume Variations, Oxford University Press, 2003, .
The Compositionality Papers, with Ernie Lepore, Oxford University Press, 2002, .
The Mind Doesn't Work That Way: The Scope and Limits of Computational Psychology, MIT Press, 2000, .
In Critical Condition, MIT Press, 1998, .
Concepts: Where Cognitive Science Went Wrong, The 1996 John Locke Lectures, Oxford University Press, 1998, .
The Elm and the Expert: Mentalese and Its Semantics, The 1993 Jean Nicod Lectures, MIT Press, 1994, .
Holism: A Consumer Update, with Ernie Lepore (eds.), Grazer Philosophische Studien, Vol 46. Rodopi, Amsterdam, 1993, .
Holism: A Shopper's Guide, with Ernie Lepore, Blackwell, 1992, .
A Theory of Content and Other Essays, MIT Press, 1990, .
Psychosemantics: The Problem of Meaning in the Philosophy of Mind, MIT Press, 1987, .
The Modularity of Mind: An Essay on Faculty Psychology, MIT Press, 1983, .
Representations: Philosophical Essays on the Foundations of Cognitive Science, Harvard Press (UK) and MIT Press (US), 1979, .
The Language of Thought, Harvard University Press, 1975, .
The Psychology of Language, with T. Bever and M. Garrett, McGraw Hill, 1974, .
Psychological Explanation, Random House, 1968, .
The Structure of Language, with Jerrold Katz (eds.), Prentice Hall, 1964, .
See also
Computational theory of mind
Connectionism
Folk psychology
Functionalism (philosophy of mind)
List of Jean Nicod Prize laureates
Special sciences
References
External links
Jerry Fodor's Homepage
Jerry Fodor at the London Review of Books
"Semantics – An Interview with Jerry Fodor", ReVEL. Vol. 5, n. 8 (March 2007).
BloggingHeads dialogue between Jerry Fodor and Elliott Sober
meaningful words without sense, & other revolutions Interview by Richard Marshall
Guardian obituary
Jerry A. Fodor, Philosopher Who Plumbed the Mind’s Depths, Dies at 82 New York Times obituary
Jerry A. Fodor (1935—2017) entry in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
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"\"Hong Kong Kids\" or \"Kong Kids\" (Kong Hai; ; Putonghua: Gǎng Hái) is a derogatory expression that refers to a subset of children or teenagers in Hong Kong who are overly dependent on their families, have low emotional intelligence and lack self-management skills. \nThe term \"Kong Kids\" was coined in 2009 in a book titled Kong Kids: The Nightmares for Parents and Teachers published by MingPao. The book argues that there are five negative characteristics common in children born in Hong Kong after the 1990s.\n\nDescription\nThey are typically born during the 1990s to 2000s, are middle-class families, and are pampered and spoiled by domestic helpers.\n\nKong Kids typically have several common characteristics. For young children, they often lack life skills, such as bathing, cooking, and tying shoelaces. They are used to relying on their parents and foreign domestic helpers.\n\nAccording to a survey by People's Daily Online, almost half of the parents who responded said that their children cannot eat, bathe or dress themselves independently and 15% of the respondents even said their children could not use the toilet independently. When faced with difficulty, \"Kong Kids\" expect others to solve the problems, because they are inexperienced with managing setbacks and have low self-esteem.\n\nThey are usually emotional and self-centred. With low Emotional Quotient (EQ), Kong Kids cannot control their emotion in any circumstances, such as dealing with unpleasant situations. They want to be under the spotlight and cared for by everyone.\n\nKong Kids are almost always not willing or able to solve problems by themselves. Being afraid of failure, they evade adversity and rely on parents.\n\nThey are usually weak in interpersonal communication and self-control. Being self-centred, they cannot put themselves into others' shoes and respect others' opinions. They lack basic manners and come into conflicts easily.\n\nMost of the parents are over-protective of their children and shield them from difficulties and injuries. They are often referred to as \"monster parents\". Parents usually hire foreign domestic helpers to take care of their children, spoil them excessively and satisfy most of their requests. Indulging by parents may lead children to narcissism.\n\nKong Kids often love chasing new trends and pursuing well-known brands. Most of them own brand name goods and electronic gadgets such as mobile phones, iPads, iPods, digital cameras, etc. They do not treasure what they have and look for a materialistic life.\n\nCauses\nNowadays, Hong Kong families typically have one or at most two children. According to some educational experts, some so-called 'monster parents 'protect their children so well that they do not allow children to experience any setback. For instance, in 2010, the Hong Kong students could not get on the planes because of a snowstorm in London. The parents then strongly requested the government to assist students stranded at the airport. This issue induced a lot of criticisms towards parents because of their over-protection. The over-protected children hence have low resilience and can hardly overcome difficulties, which results in Kong Kids.\n\nMost parents in Hong Kong also work full-time. This frequently means they employ a foreign domestic helper to take care of their children. According to a survey, nearly 90% of parents employ a foreign domestic helper to take care of their children. The domestic helpers are not responsible for correcting children's behaviour even though the kids behave wrongly. Therefore, some children become rebellious, impolite and disrespectful of others - characteristics of Kong Kids.\n\nFinally, Hong Kong is an exam-obsessed city where most parents emphasise their children's academic results. The parents understate the need for resilience in their kids. Some children are expected to focus exclusively on academic matters, and not housework or other chores. As a result, these kids become dependent, both physically and psychologically, that is, they become Kong Kids.\n\nEffects\n\nDependent individuals\nKids with \"Kong Kid\" symptoms have little ability to care for themselves and poor problem-solving skills. When faced with adversity, they immediately give up which can lead to feelings of melancholia and, in serious cases, suicide. Kong Kids tend to remain childlike and stunted psychologically.\n\nFor instance, in 2011, a snowstorm paralysed the London Heathrow Airport, many Hong Kong students who came home for holiday were stranded at the airport. They stayed in the banquet rooms of hotels or slept in the airport. During that period, those Hong Kong students complained continuously about the situation and that the banquet rooms were like concentration camps.\n\nKong Kids have negative effects on themselves. Being spoiled, they do not know how to take care of themselves but to depend on others to live their lives. Therefore, Kong Kids have low self-care ability when compared to normal kids. For most of the time, Kong Kids' parents will help them to deal with all difficulties they face, such as handling conflicts between friends and communicating with teachers. In short term, Kong Kids lose a lot of social chances and cannot deal with hurdles by themselves while in long term, Kong Kids will lack essential communication skills and initiation of solving problems.\n\nPoor family situations and relationships\nBecause the children rely excessively on others for care, this pressures parents to be responsible for their child's actions. The embarrassment and frustration of managing children's poor behaviour at home and in public prevents the growth of a healthy parent-child relationship and parents may feel frustrated and humiliated by their children's behaviour.\n\nBurdens for Hong Kong's society \nChildren are the future generations, but Kong Kids may not be equipped to survive in the real world as they are unable to interact with and accommodate others. They do not cherish what they have and are less able to tolerate hardships at work and are at risk for termination of employment. This decreases the effectiveness of the workforce.\n\nKong Kids also negatively impact society. Depending on their parents, Kong Kids have low problem-solving abilities. As a result, once they step into society, they cannot solve problems efficiently, decreasing the productive potential of society. Because their parents solve their problems for them, Kong Kids usually lack motivation to work. The short supply of motivated and enthusiastic citizens reduces the society's competitiveness and therefore its affluence.\n\nSolution\nTo avoid children becoming Kong Kids, parents and schools need to cooperate. According to child and education psychologists, parents should stop over-protecting their children and allow them to learn life self-care skills from daily life like buttoning shirts, tying shoe laces and feeding themselves. They should explain to their children the importance of these skills but not simply tell them to follow. Moreover, parents need to give children room to learn being independent. In order to equip children with the ability to cope with adversity, when they face difficulties, parents should let children solve it on their own rather than tackling it for them. While at school, teachers should guide students to develop interpersonal skills. This is a rare opportunity at home as the family size are usually small.\n\nIn media\nIn the book Kong Kids: The Nightmares for Parents and Teachers, written by Wong Ming Lok, Hong Kong Children are defined as those born from the middle of 90s to the early 2000s, which is an affluent era with information explosion.\nOther literature denote Kong Kids as the \"3-low Kong Kid\". According to the newspaper article which originated this term, Hong Kong children have low autonomy, low emotion quotient and also low studying ability. Some of them do not help with the chores. They do not know how to change their clothes, shower themselves, tie the shoelaces and even tidy up Hong Kong children are vulnerable, not adaptable to challenges and difficulties, some of them may commit suicide due to academic pressure, family and emotional issues.\n\nOn 9 July 2011, a video entitled Tai Po Impolite Kong Kid Scolding Parents () was filmed by witnesses to the incident, posted on websites like YouTube, and was reported by the media.\n\nIn the three-minute video, a young boy with his hands on his hips shouted and condemned his parents for \"forcing\" him to accompany them to the Tai Po supermarket. He threatened to call the police and despite a surrounding crowd, spoke foul language when his parents asked him to be quiet. A passer-by, unable to stand the child's behaviour, gave the child HK$20 so that he could take a taxi home and stop harassing his parents. This video hit the local news and magazines.\n\nSee also\n Education in Hong Kong\n \"Four–two–one\" or \"4–2–1\" phenomenon\n Helicopter parents\n Narcissism\n Princess sickness\n Spoiled child\n\nReferences\n\nCulture of Hong Kong\nHong Kong children\nHong Kong society\nParenting\nSocial issues in China\nStereotypes of East Asians",
"\"DINK\" is an acronym that stands for \"double income, no kids\" or \"dual income, no kids\". It describes a couple without children living together while both partners are receiving an income; because both of their wages are coming into the same household, they are free to live more comfortably than couples who live together and spend their money on raising their children. The term was coined at the height of yuppie culture in the 1980s. The Great Recession solidified this social trend, as more couples waited longer to have children or chose not to have children at all.\n\nVariations\n\"DINKER\" means \"dual (or double) income, no kids, early retirement\".\n\n\"DINKY\" means \"double income, no kids yet\", implying that the couple in question is childless only temporarily and intends to have children later, rather than eschewing having children entirely. The British radio sitcom Double Income, No Kids Yet bore this name.\n\n\"GINK\" means \"green inclinations, no kids\", referring to those who choose not to have children for environmental reasons.\n\n\"DINKWAD\" means \"Double income, no kids, with a dog\" \n\n\"DINKYWAD\" means \"Double income, no kids yet, with a dog\" \n\n\"DINKWAC\" means \"Double income, no kids, with a cat\"\n\nSome marketers have proposed \"yappie\" (\"young affluent parent\", adapted from \"yuppie\") as a term to describe similar couples who do have children.\n\nSee also\n\n Childlessness\n Doug, a TV series on which one of the characters has the last name \"Dink\", in reference to the acronym\n Emerging adulthood\n FIRE movement\n Total fertility rate\n Voluntary childlessness\n\nReferences\n\nAcronyms\nFamily\nSocial class subcultures\n1980s neologisms\nChildfree"
] |
[
"Jerry Fodor",
"Biography",
"Where did Fodor go to school?",
"He received his A.B. degree (summa cum laude) from Columbia University in 1956,",
"Did he have a good relationship with his parents?",
"I don't know.",
"Did he get married?",
"He lived in New York with his wife, the linguist Janet Dean Fodor,",
"Do they have any kids?",
"and had two grown children."
] |
C_8f42ddf1202a47269d580c8afe007ea3_1
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What was his first job?
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What was Jerry Fodor's first job?
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Jerry Fodor
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Jerry Fodor was born in New York City on April 22, 1935, and was of Jewish descent. He received his A.B. degree (summa cum laude) from Columbia University in 1956, where he studied with Sydney Morgenbesser, and a PhD in philosophy from Princeton University in 1960, under the direction of Hilary Putnam. From 1959 to 1986 Fodor was on the faculty of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. From 1986 to 1988 he was a full professor at the City University of New York (CUNY). From 1988 until his retirement in 2016 he was State of New Jersey Professor of philosophy and cognitive science at Rutgers University in New Jersey, where he was emeritus. Besides his interest in philosophy, Fodor passionately followed opera and regularly wrote popular columns for the London Review of Books on that and other topics. Philosopher Colin McGinn, who taught with Fodor at Rutgers, described him in these words: Fodor (who is a close friend) is a gentle man inside a burly body, and prone to an even burlier style of arguing. He is shy and voluble at the same time ... a formidable polemicist burdened with a sensitive soul.... Disagreeing with Jerry on a philosophical issue, especially one dear to his heart, can be a chastening experience.... His quickness of mind, inventiveness, and sharp wit are not to be tangled with before your first cup of coffee in the morning. Adding Jerry Fodor to the faculty at Rutgers [University] instantly put it on the map, Fodor being by common consent the leading philosopher of mind in the world today. I had met him in England in the seventies and ... found him to be the genuine article, intellectually speaking (though we do not always see eye to eye). Fodor was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He received numerous awards and honors: New York State Regent's Fellowship, Woodrow Wilson Fellowship (Princeton University), Chancellor Greene Fellow (Princeton University), Fulbright Fellowship (University of Oxford), Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He won the first Jean Nicod Prize for philosophy of mind and cognitive philosophy in 1993. His lecture series for the Prize, later published as a book by MIT Press in 1995, was titled The Elm and the Expert: Mentalese and Its Semantics. In 1996-1997, Fodor delivered the prestigious John Locke Lectures at the University of Oxford, titled Concepts: Where Cognitive Science Went Wrong, which went on to become his 1998 Oxford University Press book of the same name. He has also delivered the Patrick Romanell Lecture on Philosophical Naturalism (2004) and the Royce Lecture on Philosophy of Mind (2002) to the American Philosophical Association, of whose Eastern Division he has served as Vice President (2004-2005) and President (2005-2006). In 2005, he won the Mind & Brain Prize. He lived in New York with his wife, the linguist Janet Dean Fodor, and had two grown children. Fodor died on November 29, 2017, at his home in Manhattan. CANNOTANSWER
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From 1959 to 1986 Fodor was on the faculty of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
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Jerry Alan Fodor (; April 22, 1935 – November 29, 2017) was an American philosopher and the author of many crucial works in the fields of philosophy of mind and cognitive science. His writings in these fields laid the groundwork for the modularity of mind and the language of thought hypotheses, and he is recognized as having had "an enormous influence on virtually every portion of the philosophy of mind literature since 1960." Until his death in 2017 he held the position of State of New Jersey Professor of Philosophy, Emeritus, at Rutgers University.
Fodor was known for his provocative and sometimes polemical style of argumentation. He argued that mental states, such as beliefs and desires, are relations between individuals and mental representations. He maintained that these representations can only be correctly explained in terms of a language of thought (LOT) in the mind. Furthermore, this language of thought itself is an actually existing thing that is codified in the brain and not just a useful explanatory tool. Fodor adhered to a species of functionalism, maintaining that thinking and other mental processes consist primarily of computations operating on the syntax of the representations that make up the language of thought.
For Fodor, significant parts of the mind, such as perceptual and linguistic processes, are structured in terms of modules, or "organs", which he defines by their causal and functional roles. These modules are relatively independent of each other and of the "central processing" part of the mind, which has a more global and less "domain specific" character. Fodor suggests that the character of these modules permits the possibility of causal relations with external objects. This, in turn, makes it possible for mental states to have contents that are about things in the world. The central processing part, on the other hand, takes care of the logical relations between the various contents and inputs and outputs.
Although Fodor originally rejected the idea that mental states must have a causal, externally determined aspect, in his later years he devoted much of his writing and study to the philosophy of language because of this problem of the meaning and reference of mental contents. His contributions in this area include the so-called asymmetric causal theory of reference and his many arguments against semantic holism. Fodor strongly opposed reductive accounts of the mind. He argued that mental states are multiple realizable and that there is a hierarchy of explanatory levels in science such that the generalizations and laws of a higher-level theory of psychology or linguistics, for example, cannot be captured by the low-level explanations of the behavior of neurons and synapses. He also emerged as a prominent critic of what he characterized as the ill-grounded Darwinian and neo-Darwinian theories of natural selection.
Biography
Jerry Fodor was born in New York City on April 22, 1935, and was of Jewish descent. He received his A.B. degree (summa cum laude) from Columbia University in 1956, where he wrote a senior thesis on Søren Kierkegaard and studied with Sydney Morgenbesser, and a PhD in philosophy from Princeton University in 1960, under the direction of Hilary Putnam. From 1959 to 1986 Fodor was on the faculty of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. From 1986 to 1988 he was a full professor at the City University of New York (CUNY). From 1988 until his retirement in 2016 he was State of New Jersey Professor of philosophy and cognitive science at Rutgers University in New Jersey, where he was emeritus. Besides his interest in philosophy, Fodor passionately followed opera and regularly wrote popular columns for the London Review of Books on that and other topics.
Philosopher Colin McGinn, who taught with Fodor at Rutgers, described him in these words:
Fodor (who is a close friend) is a gentle man inside a burly body, and prone to an even burlier style of arguing. He is shy and voluble at the same time ... a formidable polemicist burdened with a sensitive soul.... Disagreeing with Jerry on a philosophical issue, especially one dear to his heart, can be a chastening experience.... His quickness of mind, inventiveness, and sharp wit are not to be tangled with before your first cup of coffee in the morning. Adding Jerry Fodor to the faculty at Rutgers [University] instantly put it on the map, Fodor being by common consent the leading philosopher of mind in the world today. I had met him in England in the seventies and ... found him to be the genuine article, intellectually speaking (though we do not always see eye to eye).
Fodor was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He received numerous awards and honors: New York State Regent's Fellowship, Woodrow Wilson Fellowship (Princeton University), Chancellor Greene Fellow (Princeton University), Fulbright Fellowship (University of Oxford), Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He won the first Jean Nicod Prize for philosophy of mind and cognitive philosophy in 1993. His lecture series for the Prize, later published as a book by MIT Press in 1995, was titled The Elm and the Expert: Mentalese and Its Semantics. In 1996–1997, Fodor delivered the prestigious John Locke Lectures at the University of Oxford, titled Concepts: Where Cognitive Science Went Wrong, which went on to become his 1998 Oxford University Press book of the same name. He has also delivered the Patrick Romanell Lecture on Philosophical Naturalism (2004) and the Royce Lecture on Philosophy of Mind (2002) to the American Philosophical Association, of whose Eastern Division he has served as Vice President (2004–2005) and President (2005–2006). In 2005, he won the Mind & Brain Prize.
He lived in New York with his wife, the linguist Janet Dean Fodor, and had two children. Fodor died on November 29, 2017, at his home in Manhattan.
Fodor and the nature of mental states
In his article "Propositional Attitudes" (1978), Fodor introduced the idea that mental states are relations between individuals and mental representations. Despite the changes in many of his positions over the years, the idea that intentional attitudes are relational has remained unchanged from its original formulation up to .
In that article, he attempted to show how mental representations, specifically sentences in the language of thought, are necessary to explain this relational nature of mental states. Fodor considers two alternative hypotheses. The first completely denies the relational character of mental states and the second considers mental states as two-place relations. The latter position can be further subdivided into the Carnapian view that such relations are between individuals and sentences of natural languages and the Fregean view that they are between individuals and the propositions expressed by such sentences.
Fodor's own position, instead, is that to properly account for the nature of intentional attitudes, it is necessary to employ a three-place relation between individuals, representations and propositional contents.
Considering mental states as three-place relations in this way, representative realism makes it possible to hold together all of the elements necessary to the solution of this problem. Further, mental representations are not only the objects of beliefs and desires, but are also the domain over which mental processes operate. They can be considered the ideal link between the syntactic notion of mental content and the computational notion of functional architecture. These notions are, according to Fodor, our best explanation of mental processes.
The functional architecture of the mind
Following in the path paved by linguist Noam Chomsky, Fodor developed a strong commitment to the idea of psychological nativism. Nativism postulates the innateness of many cognitive functions and concepts. For Fodor, this position emerges naturally out of his criticism of behaviourism and associationism. These criticisms also led him to the formulation of his hypothesis of the modularity of the mind.
Historically, questions about mental architecture have been divided into two contrasting theories about the nature of the faculties. The first can be described as a "horizontal" view because it sees mental processes as interactions between faculties which are not domain specific. For example, a judgment remains a judgment whether it is judgment about a perceptual experience or a judgment about the understanding of language. The second can be described as a "vertical" view because it claims that our mental faculties are domain specific, genetically determined, associated with distinct neurological structures, and so on.
The vertical vision can be traced back to the 19th century movement called phrenology and its founder Franz Joseph Gall. Gall claimed that mental faculties could be associated with specific physical areas of the brain. Hence, someone's level of intelligence, for example, could be literally "read off" from the size of a particular bump on his posterior parietal lobe. This simplistic view of modularity has been disproved over the course of the last century.
Fodor revived the idea of modularity, without the notion of precise physical localizability, in the 1980s, and became one of the most vocal proponents of it with the 1983 publication of his monograph The Modularity of Mind, where he points to Gall through Bernard Hollander, which is the author cited in the references instead, more specifically Hollander's In search of the soul. Two properties of modularity in particular, informational encapsulation and domain specificity, make it possible to tie together questions of functional architecture with those of mental content. The ability to elaborate information independently from the background beliefs of individuals that these two properties allow Fodor to give an atomistic and causal account of the notion of mental content. The main idea, in other words, is that the properties of the contents of mental states can depend, rather than exclusively on the internal relations of the system of which they are a part, also on their causal relations with the external world.
Fodor's notions of mental modularity, informational encapsulation and domain specificity were taken up and expanded, much to Fodor's chagrin, by cognitive scientists such as Zenon Pylyshyn and evolutionary psychologists such as Steven Pinker and Henry Plotkin, among many others. But Fodor complained that Pinker, Plotkin and other members of what he sarcastically called "the New Synthesis" have taken modularity and similar ideas way too far. He insisted that the mind is not "massively modular" and that, contrary to what these researchers would have us believe, the mind is still a very long way from having been explained by the computational, or any other, model.
Intentional realism
In A Theory of Content and Other Essays (1990), Fodor takes up another of his central notions: the question of the reality of mental representations. Fodor needs to justify representational realism to justify the idea that the contents of mental states are expressed in symbolic structures such as those of the LOT.
Fodor's criticism of Dennett
Fodor starts with some criticisms of so-called standard realism. This view is characterized, according to Fodor, by two distinct assertions. One of these regards the internal structure of mental states and asserts that such states are non-relational. The other concerns the semantic theory of mental content and asserts that there is an isomorphism between the causal roles of such contents and the inferential web of beliefs. Among modern philosophers of mind, the majority view seems to be that the first of these two assertions is false, but that the second is true. Fodor departs from this view in accepting the truth of the first thesis but rejecting strongly the truth of the second.
In particular, Fodor criticizes the instrumentalism of Daniel Dennett. Dennett maintains that it is possible to be realist with regard to intentional states without having to commit oneself to the reality of mental representations. Now, according to Fodor, if one remains at this level of analysis, then there is no possibility of explaining why the intentional strategy works:There is ... a standard objection to instrumentalism ...: it is difficult to explain why the psychology of beliefs/desires works so well, if the psychology of beliefs/desires is, in fact, false.... As Putnam, Boyd and others have emphasized, from the predictive successes of a theory to the truth of that theory there is surely a presumed inference; and this is even more likely when ... we are dealing with the only theory in play which is predictively crowned with success. It is not obvious ... why such a presumption should not militate in favour of a realist conception ... of the interpretations of beliefs/desires.
Productivity, systematicity and thought
Fodor also has positive arguments in favour of the reality of mental representations in terms of the LOT. He maintains that if language is the expression of thoughts and language is systematic, then thoughts must also be systematic. Fodor draws on the work of Noam Chomsky to both model his theory of the mind and to refute alternative architectures such as connectionism. Systematicity in natural languages was explained by Chomsky in terms of two more basic concepts: productivity and compositionality.
Productivity refers to a representational system's unbounded ability to generate new representations from a given set of symbols. "John", "loves", and "Mary" allow for the construction of the sentences "John loves Mary" and "Mary loves John". Fodor's language of thought theorizes that representations are decomposable into constituent parts, and these decomposed representations are built into new strings.
More important than productivity is systematicity since it does not rely on questionable idealizations about human cognition. The argument states that a cognizer is able to understand some sentence in virtue of understanding another. For example, no one who understands "John loves Mary" is unable to understand "Mary loves John", and no one who understands "P and Q" is unable to understand "P". Systematicity itself is rarely challenged as a property of natural languages and logics, but some challenge that thought is systematic in the same way languages are. Still others from the connectionist tradition have tried to build non-classical networks that can account for the apparent systematicity of language.
The fact that systematicity and productivity depend on the compositional structure of language means that language has a combinatorial semantics. If thought also has such a combinatorial semantics, then there must be a language of thought.
The second argument that Fodor provides in favour of representational realism involves the processes of thought. This argument touches on the relation between the representational theory of mind and models of its architecture. If the sentences of Mentalese require unique processes of elaboration then they require a computational mechanism of a certain type. The syntactic notion of mental representations goes hand in hand with the idea that mental processes are calculations which act only on the form of the symbols which they elaborate. And this is the computational theory of the mind. Consequently, the defence of a model of architecture based on classic artificial intelligence passes inevitably through a defence of the reality of mental representations.
For Fodor, this formal notion of thought processes also has the advantage of highlighting the parallels between the causal role of symbols and the contents which they express. In his view, syntax plays the role of mediation between the causal role of the symbols and their contents. The semantic relations between symbols can be "imitated" by their syntactic relations. The inferential relations which connect the contents of two symbols can be imitated by the formal syntax rules which regulate the derivation of one symbol from another.
The nature of content
From the beginning of the 1980s, Fodor adhered to a causal notion of mental content and of meaning. This idea of content contrasts sharply with the inferential role semantics to which he subscribed earlier in his career. Fodor criticizes inferential role semantics (IRS) because its commitment to an extreme form of holism excludes the possibility of a true naturalization of the mental. But naturalization must include an explanation of content in atomistic and causal terms.
Anti-holism
Fodor has made many and varied criticisms of holism. He identifies the central problem with all the different notions of holism as the idea that the determining factor in semantic evaluation is the notion of an "epistemic bond". Briefly, P is an epistemic bond of Q if the meaning of P is considered by someone to be relevant for the determination of the meaning of Q. Meaning holism strongly depends on this notion. The identity of the content of a mental state, under holism, can only be determined by the totality of its epistemic bonds. And this makes the realism of mental states an impossibility:If people differ in an absolutely general way in their estimations of epistemic relevance, and if we follow the holism of meaning and individuate intentional states by way of the totality of their epistemic bonds, the consequence will be that two people (or, for that matter, two temporal sections of the same person) will never be in the same intentional state. Therefore, two people can never be subsumed under the same intentional generalizations. And, therefore, intentional generalization can never be successful. And, therefore again, there is no hope for an intentional psychology.
The asymmetric causal theory
Having criticized the idea that semantic evaluation concerns only the internal relations between the units of a symbolic system, Fodor can adopt an externalist position with respect to mental content and meaning. For Fodor, in recent years, the problem of naturalization of the mental is tied to the possibility of giving "the sufficient conditions for which a piece of the world is relative to (expresses, represents, is true of) another piece" in non-intentional and non-semantic terms. If this goal is to be achieved within a representational theory of the mind, then the challenge is to devise a causal theory which can establish the interpretation of the primitive non-logical symbols of the LOT. Fodor's initial proposal is that what determines that the symbol for "water" in Mentalese expresses the property H2O is that the occurrences of that symbol are in certain causal relations with water. The intuitive version of this causal theory is what Fodor calls the "Crude Causal Theory". According to this theory, the occurrences of symbols express the properties which are the causes of their occurrence. The term "horse", for example, says of a horse that it is a horse. In order to do this, it is necessary and sufficient that certain properties of an occurrence of the symbol "horse" be in a law-like relation with certain properties which determine that something is an occurrence of horse.
The main problem with this theory is that of erroneous representations. There are two unavoidable problems with the idea that "a symbol expresses a property if it is ... necessary that all and only the presences of such a property cause the occurrences". The first is that not all horses cause occurrences of horse. The second is that not only horses cause occurrences of horse. Sometimes the A(horses) are caused by A (horses), but at other times—when, for example, because of the distance or conditions of low visibility, one has confused a cow for a horse—the A (horses) are caused by B (cows). In this case the symbol A doesn't express just the property A, but the disjunction of properties A or B. The crude causal theory is therefore incapable of distinguishing the case in which the content of a symbol is disjunctive from the case in which it isn't. This gives rise to what Fodor calls the "problem of disjunction".
Fodor responds to this problem with what he defines as "a slightly less crude causal theory". According to this approach, it is necessary to break the symmetry at the base of the crude causal theory. Fodor must find some criterion for distinguishing the occurrences of A caused by As (true) from those caused by Bs (false). The point of departure, according to Fodor, is that while the false cases are ontologically dependent on the true cases, the reverse is not true. There is an asymmetry of dependence, in other words, between the true contents (A= A) and the false ones (A = A or B). The first can subsist independently of the second, but the second can occur only because of the existence of the first:From the point of view of semantics, errors must be accidents: if in the extension of "horse" there are no cows, then it cannot be required for the meaning of "horse" that cows be called horses. On the other hand, if "horse" did not mean that which it means, and if it were an error for horses, it would never be possible for a cow to be called "horse". Putting the two things together, it can be seen that the possibility of falsely saying "this is a horse" presupposes the existence of a semantic basis for saying it truly, but not vice versa. If we put this in terms of the crude causal theory, the fact that cows cause one to say "horse" depends on the fact that horses cause one to say "horse"; but the fact that horses cause one to say "horse" does not depend on the fact that cows cause one to say "horse"...
Functionalism
During the 1960s, various philosophers such as Donald Davidson, Hilary Putnam, and Fodor tried to resolve the puzzle of developing a way to preserve the explanatory efficacy of mental causation and so-called "folk psychology" while adhering to a materialist vision of the world which did not violate the "generality of physics". Their proposal was, first of all, to reject the then-dominant theories in philosophy of mind: behaviorism and the type identity theory. The problem with logical behaviorism was that it failed to account for causation between mental states and such causation seems to be essential to psychological explanation, especially if one considers that behavior is not an effect of a single mental event/cause but is rather the effect of a chain of mental events/causes. The type-identity theory, on the other hand, failed to explain the fact that radically different physical systems can find themselves in the identical mental state. Besides being deeply anthropocentric (why should humans be the only thinking organisms in the universe?), the identity-type theory also failed to deal with accumulating evidence in the neurosciences that every single human brain is different from all the others. Hence, the impossibility of referring to common mental states in different physical systems manifests itself not only between different species but also between organisms of the same species.
One can solve these problems, according to Fodor, with functionalism, a hypothesis which was designed to overcome the failings of both dualism and reductionism. What is important is the function of a mental state regardless of the physical substrate which implements it. The foundation for this view lies in the principle of the multiple realizability of the mental. Under this view, for example, I and a computer can both instantiate ("realize") the same functional state though we are made of completely different material stuff (see graphic at right). On this basis functionalism can be classified as a form of token materialism.
Evolution
Fodor and the biolinguist Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini co-authored the book What Darwin Got Wrong (2010), in which they describe neo-Darwinists as "distressingly uncritical" and say of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution that "it overestimates the contribution the environment makes in shaping the phenotype of a species and correspondingly underestimates the effects of endogenous variables". Evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne describes this book as "a profoundly misguided critique of natural selection" and "as biologically uninformed as it is strident". Moral philosopher and anti-scientism author Mary Midgley praises What Darwin Got Wrong as "an overdue and valuable onslaught on neo-Darwinist simplicities". The book also received a positive review from mathematician and intelligent-design theorist William Dembski.
In a web dialogue, on the adequacy of natural selection as an account for the origin of species, Fodor argues that natural selection cannot distinguish between “a trait that is selected for from its free riders”. John Staddon responded “What seems to be wrong is considering selection in isolation, separated from variation.”
Criticism
A wide variety of philosophers of diverse orientations have challenged many of Fodor's ideas. For example, the language of thought hypothesis has been accused of either falling prey to an infinite regress or of being superfluous. Specifically, Simon Blackburn suggested in an article in 1984 that since Fodor explains the learning of natural languages as a process of formation and confirmation of hypotheses in the LOT, this leaves him open to the question of why the LOT itself should not be considered as just such a language which requires yet another and more fundamental representational substrate in which to form and confirm hypotheses so that the LOT itself can be learned. If natural language learning requires some representational substrate (the LOT) in order for it to be learned, why shouldn't the same be said for the LOT itself and then for the representational substrate of this representational substrate and so on, ad infinitum? On the other hand, if such a representational substrate is not required for the LOT, then why should it be required for the learning of natural languages? In this case, the LOT would be superfluous. Fodor, in response, argues that the LOT is unique in that it does not have to be learned via an antecedent language because it is innate.
In 1981, Daniel Dennett had formulated another argument against the LOT. Dennett suggested that it would seem, on the basis of the evidence of our behavior toward computers but also with regard to some of our own unconscious behavior, that explicit representation is not necessary for the explanation of propositional attitudes. During a game of chess with a computer program, we often attribute such attitudes to the computer, saying such things as "It thinks that the queen should be moved to the left." We attribute propositional attitudes to the computer and this helps us to explain and predict its behavior in various contexts. Yet no one would suggest that the computer is actually thinking or believing somewhere inside its circuits the equivalent of the propositional attitude "I believe I can kick this guy's butt" in Mentalese. The same is obviously true, suggests Dennett, of many of our everyday automatic behaviors such as "desiring to breathe clear air" in a stuffy environment.
Some linguists and philosophers of language have criticized Fodor's self-proclaimed "extreme" concept nativism. Kent Bach, for example, takes Fodor to task for his criticisms of lexical semantics and polysemy. Fodor claims that there is no lexical structure to such verbs as "keep", "get", "make" and "put". He suggests that, alternatively, "keep" simply expresses the concept KEEP (Fodor capitalizes concepts to distinguish them from properties, names or other such entities). If there is a straightforward one-to-one mapping between individual words and concepts, "keep your clothes on", "keep your receipt" and "keep washing your hands" will all share the same concept of KEEP under Fodor's theory. This concept presumably locks on to the unique external property of keeping. But, if this is true, then RETAIN must pick out a different property in RETAIN YOUR RECEIPT, since one can't retain one's clothes on or retain washing one's hands. Fodor's theory also has a problem explaining how the concept FAST contributes, differently, to the contents of FAST CAR, FAST DRIVER, FAST TRACK, and FAST TIME. Whether or not the differing interpretations of "fast" in these sentences are specified in the semantics of English, or are the result of pragmatic inference, is a matter of debate. Fodor's own response to this kind of criticism is expressed bluntly in Concepts: "People sometimes used to say that exist must be ambiguous because look at the difference between 'chairs exist' and 'numbers exist'. A familiar reply goes: the difference between the existence of chairs and the existence of numbers seems, on reflection, strikingly like the difference between numbers and chairs. Since you have the latter to explain the former, you don't also need 'exist' to be polysemic."
Some critics find it difficult to accept Fodor's insistence that a large, perhaps implausible, number of concepts are primitive and undefinable. For example, Fodor considers such concepts as EFFECT, ISLAND, TRAPEZOID, and WEEK to be all primitive, innate and unanalyzable because they all fall into the category of what he calls "lexical concepts" (those for which our language has a single word). Against this view, Bach argues that the concept VIXEN is almost certainly composed out of the concepts FEMALE and FOX, BACHELOR out of SINGLE and MALE, and so on.
Books
Minds without meanings: an essay on the contents of concepts, with Zenon W. Pylyshyn, MIT Press, 2014, .
What Darwin Got Wrong, with Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010, .
LOT 2: The Language of Thought Revisited, Oxford University Press, 2008, .
Hume Variations, Oxford University Press, 2003, .
The Compositionality Papers, with Ernie Lepore, Oxford University Press, 2002, .
The Mind Doesn't Work That Way: The Scope and Limits of Computational Psychology, MIT Press, 2000, .
In Critical Condition, MIT Press, 1998, .
Concepts: Where Cognitive Science Went Wrong, The 1996 John Locke Lectures, Oxford University Press, 1998, .
The Elm and the Expert: Mentalese and Its Semantics, The 1993 Jean Nicod Lectures, MIT Press, 1994, .
Holism: A Consumer Update, with Ernie Lepore (eds.), Grazer Philosophische Studien, Vol 46. Rodopi, Amsterdam, 1993, .
Holism: A Shopper's Guide, with Ernie Lepore, Blackwell, 1992, .
A Theory of Content and Other Essays, MIT Press, 1990, .
Psychosemantics: The Problem of Meaning in the Philosophy of Mind, MIT Press, 1987, .
The Modularity of Mind: An Essay on Faculty Psychology, MIT Press, 1983, .
Representations: Philosophical Essays on the Foundations of Cognitive Science, Harvard Press (UK) and MIT Press (US), 1979, .
The Language of Thought, Harvard University Press, 1975, .
The Psychology of Language, with T. Bever and M. Garrett, McGraw Hill, 1974, .
Psychological Explanation, Random House, 1968, .
The Structure of Language, with Jerrold Katz (eds.), Prentice Hall, 1964, .
See also
Computational theory of mind
Connectionism
Folk psychology
Functionalism (philosophy of mind)
List of Jean Nicod Prize laureates
Special sciences
References
External links
Jerry Fodor's Homepage
Jerry Fodor at the London Review of Books
"Semantics – An Interview with Jerry Fodor", ReVEL. Vol. 5, n. 8 (March 2007).
BloggingHeads dialogue between Jerry Fodor and Elliott Sober
meaningful words without sense, & other revolutions Interview by Richard Marshall
Guardian obituary
Jerry A. Fodor, Philosopher Who Plumbed the Mind’s Depths, Dies at 82 New York Times obituary
Jerry A. Fodor (1935—2017) entry in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
1935 births
2017 deaths
20th-century American essayists
20th-century American philosophers
21st-century American essayists
21st-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American philosophers
20th-century American Jews
Linguists from the United States
American logicians
American male essayists
American male non-fiction writers
American philosophers
American philosophy academics
Analytic philosophers
Cognitive scientists
Columbia College (New York) alumni
Consciousness researchers and theorists
Contemporary philosophers
Fellows of the Cognitive Science Society
History of linguistics
History of logic
History of philosophy
History of psychology
Intellectual history
Jean Nicod Prize laureates
Jewish linguists
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Philosophers of language
Philosophers of logic
Philosophers of mind
Philosophers of psychology
Philosophers of science
Philosophers of social science
Philosophy writers
Presidents of the American Philosophical Association
Princeton University alumni
Rationalists
Rutgers University faculty
21st-century American Jews
| true |
[
"Bildad ( Bildaḏ), the Shuhite, was one of Job's three friends who visited the patriarch in the Hebrew Bible's Book of Job. He was a descendant of Shuah, son of Abraham and Keturah (Genesis 25:1 - 25:2), whose family lived in the deserts of Arabia, or a resident of the district. In speaking with Job, his intent was consolation, but he became an accuser, asking Job what he has done to deserve God's wrath.\n\nSpeeches\nThe three speeches of Bildad are contained in Job 8, Job 18 and Job 25. In substance, they were largely an echo of what had been maintained by Eliphaz the Temanite, the first of Job's friends to speak, but charged with somewhat increased vehemence because he deemed Job's words so impious and wrathful. Bildad was the first to attribute Job's calamity to actual wickedness, albeit indirectly, by accusing his children (who were destroyed, Job 1:19) of sin to warrant their punishment (Job 8:4). His brief third speech, just five verses in length, marked the silencing of the friends.\n\nSee also \nEliphaz\nZophar\n Elihu\n Bildad is also the name of one of the owners of the Pequod in Herman Melville's Moby-Dick.\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n\nHebrew Bible people\nBook of Job",
"Job Carr (July 2, 1813 - August 10, 1887) was the founder of Tacoma, Washington, United States.\n\nA Union veteran of the United States Civil War, Carr came west in 1864 to settle on a 168-acre claim in what is now Tacoma.\n\nCarr was the first permanent European American settler in the area. He built a cabin on his claim, which doubled as the United States Post Office when Carr was appointed Postmaster. He was an early promoter of Tacoma as a potential terminus for the Northern Pacific Railroad, and encouraged settlement in the new town.\n\nA replica of his original cabin stands near the original location, and serves as a museum of both Carr and of early Tacoma.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nJob Carr arrives at future site of Tacoma\nJob Carr Cabin Museum\n\n1813 births\n1887 deaths\nPeople from Tacoma, Washington"
] |
[
"Jerry Fodor",
"Biography",
"Where did Fodor go to school?",
"He received his A.B. degree (summa cum laude) from Columbia University in 1956,",
"Did he have a good relationship with his parents?",
"I don't know.",
"Did he get married?",
"He lived in New York with his wife, the linguist Janet Dean Fodor,",
"Do they have any kids?",
"and had two grown children.",
"What was his first job?",
"From 1959 to 1986 Fodor was on the faculty of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts."
] |
C_8f42ddf1202a47269d580c8afe007ea3_1
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What did he do after MIT?
| 6 |
What did Jerry Fodor do after MIT?
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Jerry Fodor
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Jerry Fodor was born in New York City on April 22, 1935, and was of Jewish descent. He received his A.B. degree (summa cum laude) from Columbia University in 1956, where he studied with Sydney Morgenbesser, and a PhD in philosophy from Princeton University in 1960, under the direction of Hilary Putnam. From 1959 to 1986 Fodor was on the faculty of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. From 1986 to 1988 he was a full professor at the City University of New York (CUNY). From 1988 until his retirement in 2016 he was State of New Jersey Professor of philosophy and cognitive science at Rutgers University in New Jersey, where he was emeritus. Besides his interest in philosophy, Fodor passionately followed opera and regularly wrote popular columns for the London Review of Books on that and other topics. Philosopher Colin McGinn, who taught with Fodor at Rutgers, described him in these words: Fodor (who is a close friend) is a gentle man inside a burly body, and prone to an even burlier style of arguing. He is shy and voluble at the same time ... a formidable polemicist burdened with a sensitive soul.... Disagreeing with Jerry on a philosophical issue, especially one dear to his heart, can be a chastening experience.... His quickness of mind, inventiveness, and sharp wit are not to be tangled with before your first cup of coffee in the morning. Adding Jerry Fodor to the faculty at Rutgers [University] instantly put it on the map, Fodor being by common consent the leading philosopher of mind in the world today. I had met him in England in the seventies and ... found him to be the genuine article, intellectually speaking (though we do not always see eye to eye). Fodor was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He received numerous awards and honors: New York State Regent's Fellowship, Woodrow Wilson Fellowship (Princeton University), Chancellor Greene Fellow (Princeton University), Fulbright Fellowship (University of Oxford), Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He won the first Jean Nicod Prize for philosophy of mind and cognitive philosophy in 1993. His lecture series for the Prize, later published as a book by MIT Press in 1995, was titled The Elm and the Expert: Mentalese and Its Semantics. In 1996-1997, Fodor delivered the prestigious John Locke Lectures at the University of Oxford, titled Concepts: Where Cognitive Science Went Wrong, which went on to become his 1998 Oxford University Press book of the same name. He has also delivered the Patrick Romanell Lecture on Philosophical Naturalism (2004) and the Royce Lecture on Philosophy of Mind (2002) to the American Philosophical Association, of whose Eastern Division he has served as Vice President (2004-2005) and President (2005-2006). In 2005, he won the Mind & Brain Prize. He lived in New York with his wife, the linguist Janet Dean Fodor, and had two grown children. Fodor died on November 29, 2017, at his home in Manhattan. CANNOTANSWER
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From 1988 until his retirement in 2016 he was State of New Jersey Professor of philosophy and cognitive science at Rutgers University
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Jerry Alan Fodor (; April 22, 1935 – November 29, 2017) was an American philosopher and the author of many crucial works in the fields of philosophy of mind and cognitive science. His writings in these fields laid the groundwork for the modularity of mind and the language of thought hypotheses, and he is recognized as having had "an enormous influence on virtually every portion of the philosophy of mind literature since 1960." Until his death in 2017 he held the position of State of New Jersey Professor of Philosophy, Emeritus, at Rutgers University.
Fodor was known for his provocative and sometimes polemical style of argumentation. He argued that mental states, such as beliefs and desires, are relations between individuals and mental representations. He maintained that these representations can only be correctly explained in terms of a language of thought (LOT) in the mind. Furthermore, this language of thought itself is an actually existing thing that is codified in the brain and not just a useful explanatory tool. Fodor adhered to a species of functionalism, maintaining that thinking and other mental processes consist primarily of computations operating on the syntax of the representations that make up the language of thought.
For Fodor, significant parts of the mind, such as perceptual and linguistic processes, are structured in terms of modules, or "organs", which he defines by their causal and functional roles. These modules are relatively independent of each other and of the "central processing" part of the mind, which has a more global and less "domain specific" character. Fodor suggests that the character of these modules permits the possibility of causal relations with external objects. This, in turn, makes it possible for mental states to have contents that are about things in the world. The central processing part, on the other hand, takes care of the logical relations between the various contents and inputs and outputs.
Although Fodor originally rejected the idea that mental states must have a causal, externally determined aspect, in his later years he devoted much of his writing and study to the philosophy of language because of this problem of the meaning and reference of mental contents. His contributions in this area include the so-called asymmetric causal theory of reference and his many arguments against semantic holism. Fodor strongly opposed reductive accounts of the mind. He argued that mental states are multiple realizable and that there is a hierarchy of explanatory levels in science such that the generalizations and laws of a higher-level theory of psychology or linguistics, for example, cannot be captured by the low-level explanations of the behavior of neurons and synapses. He also emerged as a prominent critic of what he characterized as the ill-grounded Darwinian and neo-Darwinian theories of natural selection.
Biography
Jerry Fodor was born in New York City on April 22, 1935, and was of Jewish descent. He received his A.B. degree (summa cum laude) from Columbia University in 1956, where he wrote a senior thesis on Søren Kierkegaard and studied with Sydney Morgenbesser, and a PhD in philosophy from Princeton University in 1960, under the direction of Hilary Putnam. From 1959 to 1986 Fodor was on the faculty of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. From 1986 to 1988 he was a full professor at the City University of New York (CUNY). From 1988 until his retirement in 2016 he was State of New Jersey Professor of philosophy and cognitive science at Rutgers University in New Jersey, where he was emeritus. Besides his interest in philosophy, Fodor passionately followed opera and regularly wrote popular columns for the London Review of Books on that and other topics.
Philosopher Colin McGinn, who taught with Fodor at Rutgers, described him in these words:
Fodor (who is a close friend) is a gentle man inside a burly body, and prone to an even burlier style of arguing. He is shy and voluble at the same time ... a formidable polemicist burdened with a sensitive soul.... Disagreeing with Jerry on a philosophical issue, especially one dear to his heart, can be a chastening experience.... His quickness of mind, inventiveness, and sharp wit are not to be tangled with before your first cup of coffee in the morning. Adding Jerry Fodor to the faculty at Rutgers [University] instantly put it on the map, Fodor being by common consent the leading philosopher of mind in the world today. I had met him in England in the seventies and ... found him to be the genuine article, intellectually speaking (though we do not always see eye to eye).
Fodor was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He received numerous awards and honors: New York State Regent's Fellowship, Woodrow Wilson Fellowship (Princeton University), Chancellor Greene Fellow (Princeton University), Fulbright Fellowship (University of Oxford), Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He won the first Jean Nicod Prize for philosophy of mind and cognitive philosophy in 1993. His lecture series for the Prize, later published as a book by MIT Press in 1995, was titled The Elm and the Expert: Mentalese and Its Semantics. In 1996–1997, Fodor delivered the prestigious John Locke Lectures at the University of Oxford, titled Concepts: Where Cognitive Science Went Wrong, which went on to become his 1998 Oxford University Press book of the same name. He has also delivered the Patrick Romanell Lecture on Philosophical Naturalism (2004) and the Royce Lecture on Philosophy of Mind (2002) to the American Philosophical Association, of whose Eastern Division he has served as Vice President (2004–2005) and President (2005–2006). In 2005, he won the Mind & Brain Prize.
He lived in New York with his wife, the linguist Janet Dean Fodor, and had two children. Fodor died on November 29, 2017, at his home in Manhattan.
Fodor and the nature of mental states
In his article "Propositional Attitudes" (1978), Fodor introduced the idea that mental states are relations between individuals and mental representations. Despite the changes in many of his positions over the years, the idea that intentional attitudes are relational has remained unchanged from its original formulation up to .
In that article, he attempted to show how mental representations, specifically sentences in the language of thought, are necessary to explain this relational nature of mental states. Fodor considers two alternative hypotheses. The first completely denies the relational character of mental states and the second considers mental states as two-place relations. The latter position can be further subdivided into the Carnapian view that such relations are between individuals and sentences of natural languages and the Fregean view that they are between individuals and the propositions expressed by such sentences.
Fodor's own position, instead, is that to properly account for the nature of intentional attitudes, it is necessary to employ a three-place relation between individuals, representations and propositional contents.
Considering mental states as three-place relations in this way, representative realism makes it possible to hold together all of the elements necessary to the solution of this problem. Further, mental representations are not only the objects of beliefs and desires, but are also the domain over which mental processes operate. They can be considered the ideal link between the syntactic notion of mental content and the computational notion of functional architecture. These notions are, according to Fodor, our best explanation of mental processes.
The functional architecture of the mind
Following in the path paved by linguist Noam Chomsky, Fodor developed a strong commitment to the idea of psychological nativism. Nativism postulates the innateness of many cognitive functions and concepts. For Fodor, this position emerges naturally out of his criticism of behaviourism and associationism. These criticisms also led him to the formulation of his hypothesis of the modularity of the mind.
Historically, questions about mental architecture have been divided into two contrasting theories about the nature of the faculties. The first can be described as a "horizontal" view because it sees mental processes as interactions between faculties which are not domain specific. For example, a judgment remains a judgment whether it is judgment about a perceptual experience or a judgment about the understanding of language. The second can be described as a "vertical" view because it claims that our mental faculties are domain specific, genetically determined, associated with distinct neurological structures, and so on.
The vertical vision can be traced back to the 19th century movement called phrenology and its founder Franz Joseph Gall. Gall claimed that mental faculties could be associated with specific physical areas of the brain. Hence, someone's level of intelligence, for example, could be literally "read off" from the size of a particular bump on his posterior parietal lobe. This simplistic view of modularity has been disproved over the course of the last century.
Fodor revived the idea of modularity, without the notion of precise physical localizability, in the 1980s, and became one of the most vocal proponents of it with the 1983 publication of his monograph The Modularity of Mind, where he points to Gall through Bernard Hollander, which is the author cited in the references instead, more specifically Hollander's In search of the soul. Two properties of modularity in particular, informational encapsulation and domain specificity, make it possible to tie together questions of functional architecture with those of mental content. The ability to elaborate information independently from the background beliefs of individuals that these two properties allow Fodor to give an atomistic and causal account of the notion of mental content. The main idea, in other words, is that the properties of the contents of mental states can depend, rather than exclusively on the internal relations of the system of which they are a part, also on their causal relations with the external world.
Fodor's notions of mental modularity, informational encapsulation and domain specificity were taken up and expanded, much to Fodor's chagrin, by cognitive scientists such as Zenon Pylyshyn and evolutionary psychologists such as Steven Pinker and Henry Plotkin, among many others. But Fodor complained that Pinker, Plotkin and other members of what he sarcastically called "the New Synthesis" have taken modularity and similar ideas way too far. He insisted that the mind is not "massively modular" and that, contrary to what these researchers would have us believe, the mind is still a very long way from having been explained by the computational, or any other, model.
Intentional realism
In A Theory of Content and Other Essays (1990), Fodor takes up another of his central notions: the question of the reality of mental representations. Fodor needs to justify representational realism to justify the idea that the contents of mental states are expressed in symbolic structures such as those of the LOT.
Fodor's criticism of Dennett
Fodor starts with some criticisms of so-called standard realism. This view is characterized, according to Fodor, by two distinct assertions. One of these regards the internal structure of mental states and asserts that such states are non-relational. The other concerns the semantic theory of mental content and asserts that there is an isomorphism between the causal roles of such contents and the inferential web of beliefs. Among modern philosophers of mind, the majority view seems to be that the first of these two assertions is false, but that the second is true. Fodor departs from this view in accepting the truth of the first thesis but rejecting strongly the truth of the second.
In particular, Fodor criticizes the instrumentalism of Daniel Dennett. Dennett maintains that it is possible to be realist with regard to intentional states without having to commit oneself to the reality of mental representations. Now, according to Fodor, if one remains at this level of analysis, then there is no possibility of explaining why the intentional strategy works:There is ... a standard objection to instrumentalism ...: it is difficult to explain why the psychology of beliefs/desires works so well, if the psychology of beliefs/desires is, in fact, false.... As Putnam, Boyd and others have emphasized, from the predictive successes of a theory to the truth of that theory there is surely a presumed inference; and this is even more likely when ... we are dealing with the only theory in play which is predictively crowned with success. It is not obvious ... why such a presumption should not militate in favour of a realist conception ... of the interpretations of beliefs/desires.
Productivity, systematicity and thought
Fodor also has positive arguments in favour of the reality of mental representations in terms of the LOT. He maintains that if language is the expression of thoughts and language is systematic, then thoughts must also be systematic. Fodor draws on the work of Noam Chomsky to both model his theory of the mind and to refute alternative architectures such as connectionism. Systematicity in natural languages was explained by Chomsky in terms of two more basic concepts: productivity and compositionality.
Productivity refers to a representational system's unbounded ability to generate new representations from a given set of symbols. "John", "loves", and "Mary" allow for the construction of the sentences "John loves Mary" and "Mary loves John". Fodor's language of thought theorizes that representations are decomposable into constituent parts, and these decomposed representations are built into new strings.
More important than productivity is systematicity since it does not rely on questionable idealizations about human cognition. The argument states that a cognizer is able to understand some sentence in virtue of understanding another. For example, no one who understands "John loves Mary" is unable to understand "Mary loves John", and no one who understands "P and Q" is unable to understand "P". Systematicity itself is rarely challenged as a property of natural languages and logics, but some challenge that thought is systematic in the same way languages are. Still others from the connectionist tradition have tried to build non-classical networks that can account for the apparent systematicity of language.
The fact that systematicity and productivity depend on the compositional structure of language means that language has a combinatorial semantics. If thought also has such a combinatorial semantics, then there must be a language of thought.
The second argument that Fodor provides in favour of representational realism involves the processes of thought. This argument touches on the relation between the representational theory of mind and models of its architecture. If the sentences of Mentalese require unique processes of elaboration then they require a computational mechanism of a certain type. The syntactic notion of mental representations goes hand in hand with the idea that mental processes are calculations which act only on the form of the symbols which they elaborate. And this is the computational theory of the mind. Consequently, the defence of a model of architecture based on classic artificial intelligence passes inevitably through a defence of the reality of mental representations.
For Fodor, this formal notion of thought processes also has the advantage of highlighting the parallels between the causal role of symbols and the contents which they express. In his view, syntax plays the role of mediation between the causal role of the symbols and their contents. The semantic relations between symbols can be "imitated" by their syntactic relations. The inferential relations which connect the contents of two symbols can be imitated by the formal syntax rules which regulate the derivation of one symbol from another.
The nature of content
From the beginning of the 1980s, Fodor adhered to a causal notion of mental content and of meaning. This idea of content contrasts sharply with the inferential role semantics to which he subscribed earlier in his career. Fodor criticizes inferential role semantics (IRS) because its commitment to an extreme form of holism excludes the possibility of a true naturalization of the mental. But naturalization must include an explanation of content in atomistic and causal terms.
Anti-holism
Fodor has made many and varied criticisms of holism. He identifies the central problem with all the different notions of holism as the idea that the determining factor in semantic evaluation is the notion of an "epistemic bond". Briefly, P is an epistemic bond of Q if the meaning of P is considered by someone to be relevant for the determination of the meaning of Q. Meaning holism strongly depends on this notion. The identity of the content of a mental state, under holism, can only be determined by the totality of its epistemic bonds. And this makes the realism of mental states an impossibility:If people differ in an absolutely general way in their estimations of epistemic relevance, and if we follow the holism of meaning and individuate intentional states by way of the totality of their epistemic bonds, the consequence will be that two people (or, for that matter, two temporal sections of the same person) will never be in the same intentional state. Therefore, two people can never be subsumed under the same intentional generalizations. And, therefore, intentional generalization can never be successful. And, therefore again, there is no hope for an intentional psychology.
The asymmetric causal theory
Having criticized the idea that semantic evaluation concerns only the internal relations between the units of a symbolic system, Fodor can adopt an externalist position with respect to mental content and meaning. For Fodor, in recent years, the problem of naturalization of the mental is tied to the possibility of giving "the sufficient conditions for which a piece of the world is relative to (expresses, represents, is true of) another piece" in non-intentional and non-semantic terms. If this goal is to be achieved within a representational theory of the mind, then the challenge is to devise a causal theory which can establish the interpretation of the primitive non-logical symbols of the LOT. Fodor's initial proposal is that what determines that the symbol for "water" in Mentalese expresses the property H2O is that the occurrences of that symbol are in certain causal relations with water. The intuitive version of this causal theory is what Fodor calls the "Crude Causal Theory". According to this theory, the occurrences of symbols express the properties which are the causes of their occurrence. The term "horse", for example, says of a horse that it is a horse. In order to do this, it is necessary and sufficient that certain properties of an occurrence of the symbol "horse" be in a law-like relation with certain properties which determine that something is an occurrence of horse.
The main problem with this theory is that of erroneous representations. There are two unavoidable problems with the idea that "a symbol expresses a property if it is ... necessary that all and only the presences of such a property cause the occurrences". The first is that not all horses cause occurrences of horse. The second is that not only horses cause occurrences of horse. Sometimes the A(horses) are caused by A (horses), but at other times—when, for example, because of the distance or conditions of low visibility, one has confused a cow for a horse—the A (horses) are caused by B (cows). In this case the symbol A doesn't express just the property A, but the disjunction of properties A or B. The crude causal theory is therefore incapable of distinguishing the case in which the content of a symbol is disjunctive from the case in which it isn't. This gives rise to what Fodor calls the "problem of disjunction".
Fodor responds to this problem with what he defines as "a slightly less crude causal theory". According to this approach, it is necessary to break the symmetry at the base of the crude causal theory. Fodor must find some criterion for distinguishing the occurrences of A caused by As (true) from those caused by Bs (false). The point of departure, according to Fodor, is that while the false cases are ontologically dependent on the true cases, the reverse is not true. There is an asymmetry of dependence, in other words, between the true contents (A= A) and the false ones (A = A or B). The first can subsist independently of the second, but the second can occur only because of the existence of the first:From the point of view of semantics, errors must be accidents: if in the extension of "horse" there are no cows, then it cannot be required for the meaning of "horse" that cows be called horses. On the other hand, if "horse" did not mean that which it means, and if it were an error for horses, it would never be possible for a cow to be called "horse". Putting the two things together, it can be seen that the possibility of falsely saying "this is a horse" presupposes the existence of a semantic basis for saying it truly, but not vice versa. If we put this in terms of the crude causal theory, the fact that cows cause one to say "horse" depends on the fact that horses cause one to say "horse"; but the fact that horses cause one to say "horse" does not depend on the fact that cows cause one to say "horse"...
Functionalism
During the 1960s, various philosophers such as Donald Davidson, Hilary Putnam, and Fodor tried to resolve the puzzle of developing a way to preserve the explanatory efficacy of mental causation and so-called "folk psychology" while adhering to a materialist vision of the world which did not violate the "generality of physics". Their proposal was, first of all, to reject the then-dominant theories in philosophy of mind: behaviorism and the type identity theory. The problem with logical behaviorism was that it failed to account for causation between mental states and such causation seems to be essential to psychological explanation, especially if one considers that behavior is not an effect of a single mental event/cause but is rather the effect of a chain of mental events/causes. The type-identity theory, on the other hand, failed to explain the fact that radically different physical systems can find themselves in the identical mental state. Besides being deeply anthropocentric (why should humans be the only thinking organisms in the universe?), the identity-type theory also failed to deal with accumulating evidence in the neurosciences that every single human brain is different from all the others. Hence, the impossibility of referring to common mental states in different physical systems manifests itself not only between different species but also between organisms of the same species.
One can solve these problems, according to Fodor, with functionalism, a hypothesis which was designed to overcome the failings of both dualism and reductionism. What is important is the function of a mental state regardless of the physical substrate which implements it. The foundation for this view lies in the principle of the multiple realizability of the mental. Under this view, for example, I and a computer can both instantiate ("realize") the same functional state though we are made of completely different material stuff (see graphic at right). On this basis functionalism can be classified as a form of token materialism.
Evolution
Fodor and the biolinguist Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini co-authored the book What Darwin Got Wrong (2010), in which they describe neo-Darwinists as "distressingly uncritical" and say of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution that "it overestimates the contribution the environment makes in shaping the phenotype of a species and correspondingly underestimates the effects of endogenous variables". Evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne describes this book as "a profoundly misguided critique of natural selection" and "as biologically uninformed as it is strident". Moral philosopher and anti-scientism author Mary Midgley praises What Darwin Got Wrong as "an overdue and valuable onslaught on neo-Darwinist simplicities". The book also received a positive review from mathematician and intelligent-design theorist William Dembski.
In a web dialogue, on the adequacy of natural selection as an account for the origin of species, Fodor argues that natural selection cannot distinguish between “a trait that is selected for from its free riders”. John Staddon responded “What seems to be wrong is considering selection in isolation, separated from variation.”
Criticism
A wide variety of philosophers of diverse orientations have challenged many of Fodor's ideas. For example, the language of thought hypothesis has been accused of either falling prey to an infinite regress or of being superfluous. Specifically, Simon Blackburn suggested in an article in 1984 that since Fodor explains the learning of natural languages as a process of formation and confirmation of hypotheses in the LOT, this leaves him open to the question of why the LOT itself should not be considered as just such a language which requires yet another and more fundamental representational substrate in which to form and confirm hypotheses so that the LOT itself can be learned. If natural language learning requires some representational substrate (the LOT) in order for it to be learned, why shouldn't the same be said for the LOT itself and then for the representational substrate of this representational substrate and so on, ad infinitum? On the other hand, if such a representational substrate is not required for the LOT, then why should it be required for the learning of natural languages? In this case, the LOT would be superfluous. Fodor, in response, argues that the LOT is unique in that it does not have to be learned via an antecedent language because it is innate.
In 1981, Daniel Dennett had formulated another argument against the LOT. Dennett suggested that it would seem, on the basis of the evidence of our behavior toward computers but also with regard to some of our own unconscious behavior, that explicit representation is not necessary for the explanation of propositional attitudes. During a game of chess with a computer program, we often attribute such attitudes to the computer, saying such things as "It thinks that the queen should be moved to the left." We attribute propositional attitudes to the computer and this helps us to explain and predict its behavior in various contexts. Yet no one would suggest that the computer is actually thinking or believing somewhere inside its circuits the equivalent of the propositional attitude "I believe I can kick this guy's butt" in Mentalese. The same is obviously true, suggests Dennett, of many of our everyday automatic behaviors such as "desiring to breathe clear air" in a stuffy environment.
Some linguists and philosophers of language have criticized Fodor's self-proclaimed "extreme" concept nativism. Kent Bach, for example, takes Fodor to task for his criticisms of lexical semantics and polysemy. Fodor claims that there is no lexical structure to such verbs as "keep", "get", "make" and "put". He suggests that, alternatively, "keep" simply expresses the concept KEEP (Fodor capitalizes concepts to distinguish them from properties, names or other such entities). If there is a straightforward one-to-one mapping between individual words and concepts, "keep your clothes on", "keep your receipt" and "keep washing your hands" will all share the same concept of KEEP under Fodor's theory. This concept presumably locks on to the unique external property of keeping. But, if this is true, then RETAIN must pick out a different property in RETAIN YOUR RECEIPT, since one can't retain one's clothes on or retain washing one's hands. Fodor's theory also has a problem explaining how the concept FAST contributes, differently, to the contents of FAST CAR, FAST DRIVER, FAST TRACK, and FAST TIME. Whether or not the differing interpretations of "fast" in these sentences are specified in the semantics of English, or are the result of pragmatic inference, is a matter of debate. Fodor's own response to this kind of criticism is expressed bluntly in Concepts: "People sometimes used to say that exist must be ambiguous because look at the difference between 'chairs exist' and 'numbers exist'. A familiar reply goes: the difference between the existence of chairs and the existence of numbers seems, on reflection, strikingly like the difference between numbers and chairs. Since you have the latter to explain the former, you don't also need 'exist' to be polysemic."
Some critics find it difficult to accept Fodor's insistence that a large, perhaps implausible, number of concepts are primitive and undefinable. For example, Fodor considers such concepts as EFFECT, ISLAND, TRAPEZOID, and WEEK to be all primitive, innate and unanalyzable because they all fall into the category of what he calls "lexical concepts" (those for which our language has a single word). Against this view, Bach argues that the concept VIXEN is almost certainly composed out of the concepts FEMALE and FOX, BACHELOR out of SINGLE and MALE, and so on.
Books
Minds without meanings: an essay on the contents of concepts, with Zenon W. Pylyshyn, MIT Press, 2014, .
What Darwin Got Wrong, with Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010, .
LOT 2: The Language of Thought Revisited, Oxford University Press, 2008, .
Hume Variations, Oxford University Press, 2003, .
The Compositionality Papers, with Ernie Lepore, Oxford University Press, 2002, .
The Mind Doesn't Work That Way: The Scope and Limits of Computational Psychology, MIT Press, 2000, .
In Critical Condition, MIT Press, 1998, .
Concepts: Where Cognitive Science Went Wrong, The 1996 John Locke Lectures, Oxford University Press, 1998, .
The Elm and the Expert: Mentalese and Its Semantics, The 1993 Jean Nicod Lectures, MIT Press, 1994, .
Holism: A Consumer Update, with Ernie Lepore (eds.), Grazer Philosophische Studien, Vol 46. Rodopi, Amsterdam, 1993, .
Holism: A Shopper's Guide, with Ernie Lepore, Blackwell, 1992, .
A Theory of Content and Other Essays, MIT Press, 1990, .
Psychosemantics: The Problem of Meaning in the Philosophy of Mind, MIT Press, 1987, .
The Modularity of Mind: An Essay on Faculty Psychology, MIT Press, 1983, .
Representations: Philosophical Essays on the Foundations of Cognitive Science, Harvard Press (UK) and MIT Press (US), 1979, .
The Language of Thought, Harvard University Press, 1975, .
The Psychology of Language, with T. Bever and M. Garrett, McGraw Hill, 1974, .
Psychological Explanation, Random House, 1968, .
The Structure of Language, with Jerrold Katz (eds.), Prentice Hall, 1964, .
See also
Computational theory of mind
Connectionism
Folk psychology
Functionalism (philosophy of mind)
List of Jean Nicod Prize laureates
Special sciences
References
External links
Jerry Fodor's Homepage
Jerry Fodor at the London Review of Books
"Semantics – An Interview with Jerry Fodor", ReVEL. Vol. 5, n. 8 (March 2007).
BloggingHeads dialogue between Jerry Fodor and Elliott Sober
meaningful words without sense, & other revolutions Interview by Richard Marshall
Guardian obituary
Jerry A. Fodor, Philosopher Who Plumbed the Mind’s Depths, Dies at 82 New York Times obituary
Jerry A. Fodor (1935—2017) entry in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
1935 births
2017 deaths
20th-century American essayists
20th-century American philosophers
21st-century American essayists
21st-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American philosophers
20th-century American Jews
Linguists from the United States
American logicians
American male essayists
American male non-fiction writers
American philosophers
American philosophy academics
Analytic philosophers
Cognitive scientists
Columbia College (New York) alumni
Consciousness researchers and theorists
Contemporary philosophers
Fellows of the Cognitive Science Society
History of linguistics
History of logic
History of philosophy
History of psychology
Intellectual history
Jean Nicod Prize laureates
Jewish linguists
Jewish philosophers
Philosophers of language
Philosophers of logic
Philosophers of mind
Philosophers of psychology
Philosophers of science
Philosophers of social science
Philosophy writers
Presidents of the American Philosophical Association
Princeton University alumni
Rationalists
Rutgers University faculty
21st-century American Jews
| true |
[
"The 1907–08 MIT Engineers men's ice hockey season was the 9th season of play for the program.\n\nSeason\n\nThe team did not have a head coach but William Kelly served as team manager.\n\nNote: Massachusetts Institute of Technology athletics were referred to as 'Engineers' or 'Techmen' during the first two decades of the 20th century. By 1920 all sports programs had adopted the Engineer moniker.\n\nRoster\n\nStandings\n\nSchedule and Results\n\n|-\n!colspan=12 style=\";\" | Regular Season\n\n† Princeton records do not include the game played on February 6.\n\nReferences\n\nMIT Engineers men's ice hockey seasons\nMIT Engineers \nMIT Engineers \n1907 in sports in Massachusetts\n1908 in sports in Massachusetts",
"Richard K. Lester (born January 3, 1954 in Leeds, England) is an American nuclear engineer, educator, and author. He is the Japan Steel Industry Professor and Associate Provost at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he oversees the international engagements of the Institute. He previously served as Head of the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering at MIT and he is the founding Director and Faculty Chair of the MIT Industrial Performance Center.\n\nEducation \n\nLester received his undergraduate degree in chemical engineering from Imperial College London (1974). He was a high-school athlete and musician and was a member of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain (1969–72). While at Imperial he was awarded a Kennedy Scholarship to study at MIT (1974–76), where he received a doctorate in nuclear engineering (1979). From 1977–78 he was a Visiting Research Fellow in International Relations at the Rockefeller Foundation. He has been a member of the MIT faculty since 1979.\n\nNuclear power and waste management \n\nFirst at the Rockefeller Foundation and later as a member of the MIT faculty, Lester developed a number of projects focusing on the management and international control of nuclear technology. During the mid-1980s he led a study of the role of innovative nuclear power technologies in restoring the economic viability and social acceptability of nuclear power in the United States and elsewhere.\n\nHe also made contributions to the field of nuclear waste management, introducing the nation's first graduate course on this subject, serving on the National Academy of Sciences’ Board on Radioactive Waste Management, and publishing (with co-author Mason Willrich), Radioactive Waste: Management and Regulation (Free Press, 1978). During this period he held the Atlantic Richfield Professorship in Energy Studies at MIT.\n\nMade in America: Regaining the Productive Edge \n\nIn 1986, as an Associate Professor of Nuclear Engineering, he was appointed Executive Director of the MIT Commission on Industrial Productivity, and led the research that culminated in the publication of Made in America: Regaining the Productive Edge (MIT Press, 1989.). An assessment of America's manufacturing performance and how to strengthen it, Made in America was widely influential in the U.S. and around the world, and for a while was the best-selling volume in the history of MIT Press.\n\nReturning to the themes of Made in America, he later authored The Productive Edge: A New Strategy for Economic Growth (W.W. Norton, 1998), an analysis of America's industrial resurgence during the 1990s.\n\nMIT Industrial Performance Center \n\nIn 1992, Lester founded the MIT Industrial Performance Center (IPC), an interdisciplinary research center for the study of innovation, productivity, and competitiveness that brings together faculty and students from across MIT to explore questions such as: What is needed in order to prosper in a globalizing economy? What skills, what strategies, what technologies, and what new forms of organization are most likely to bring success in particular competitive situations? And how do technological changes now underway shape these options?\n\nWhile heading the IPC, Lester published the following books:\n\n Made By Hong Kong (Oxford University Press, 1997), co-authored with Suzanne Berger.\n Making Technology Work: Case Studies in Energy and the Environment (Cambridge University Press, 2003), co-authored with John M. Deutch.\n Innovation – The Missing Dimension (Harvard University Press, 2004), co-authored with Michael J. Piore.\n Global Taiwan: Building Competitive Strengths in the New International Economy (M.E.Sharpe, 2005), co-edited with Suzanne Berger\n Unlocking Energy Innovation: How America Can Build a Low-Cost, Low-Carbon Energy System (MIT Press, 2012), co-authored with David Hart\n\nDuring this period he was also co-author of two influential MIT reports, The Future of Nuclear Power (2003), and The Future of Coal (2007).\n\nNuclear Science and Engineering \n\nFrom 2009 to 2015 Lester served as Head of the MIT Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering, leading the Department through a period of rapid rebuilding, educational reform, and strategic renewal. Under his leadership, the Department implemented its ‘Science-Systems-Society’ educational triad, which calls for the faculty to work with students to develop their knowledge and capabilities in each of these three intellectual domains. He also encouraged faculty, students, and outside investors to consider the opportunities for new business formation around innovative nuclear technologies, and several notable startups emerged from the Department during this period.\n\nGlobal MIT \nIn 2015 Lester began serving as MIT's first Associate Provost for International Activities. In this role he led the development and implementation of a new MIT strategy for global engagement. His current responsibilities include overseeing processes to enable MIT to engage with the world effectively, with responsible management of risks, and in keeping with the values of the MIT community. He continues to conduct research on strategies for achieving decarbonization of the global energy system while providing adequate supplies of affordable energy to the world's population.\n\nConsultancy and trusteeship \n\nLester serves as an advisor or consultant to corporations, governments, and private foundations and non-profit groups, and lectures frequently to academic, business and general audiences around the world. He recently completed a term as chair of the National Academies’ Board on Science, Technology, and Economic Policy. He previously served as a trustee of the Kennedy Memorial Trust of the United Kingdom.\n\nPersonal \nLester and his wife Anne Columbia live in Brookline, Massachusetts. They have three children, Leo, Caroline, and Isabel.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n Professor Lester Profile, MIT\n The High Costs of Copenhagen: What Obama's pledge to reduce emissions by 83% would mean in practice, by Richard K. Lester, WSJ op-ed, 12/3/09\n \n\nMIT School of Engineering alumni\nLiving people\n1954 births\nMIT School of Engineering faculty"
] |
[
"Phil Hartman",
"Style"
] |
C_f5004bcd827b41ce8db5ff729ef1e178_0
|
What was his style considered?
| 1 |
What was Phil Hartman's style considered?
|
Phil Hartman
|
In contrast to his real-life personality, which was described as "a regular guy and, by all accounts, one of show business' most low-key, decent people", Hartman often played seedy, vain or unpleasant characters as well as comedic villains. He noted that his standard character was a "jerky guy", and described his usual roles as "the weasel parade", citing Lionel Hutz, Bill McNeal, Troy McClure and Ted Maltin from Jingle All the Way as examples. Hartman enjoyed playing such roles because he "just want[ed] to be funny, and villains tend to be funny because their foibles are all there to see." He often played supporting roles, rather than the lead part. He said "throughout my career, I've never been a huge star, but I've made steady progress and that's the way I like it," and "It's fun coming in as the second or third lead. If the movie or TV show bombs, you aren't to blame." Hartman was considered a "utility player" on SNL with a "kind of Everyman quality" which enabled him to appear in the majority of sketches, often in very distinct roles. Jan Hooks stated of his work on SNL: "Phil never had an ounce of competition. He was a team player. It was a privilege for him, I believe, to play support and do it very well. He was never insulted, no matter how small the role may have been." He was disciplined in his performances, studying the scripts beforehand. Hooks added: "Phil knew how to listen. And he knew how to look you in the eye, and he knew the power of being able to lay back and let somebody else be funny, and then do the reactions. I think Phil was more of an actor than a comedian." Film critic Pauline Kael declared that "Phil Hartman and Jan Hooks on Saturday Night Live are two of the best comic actors I've ever seen." Writer and acting coach Paul Ryan noted Hartman's work ethic with his impressions. He assembled a collection of video footage of the figure he was preparing to impersonate and watched this continually until he "completely embodied the person". Ryan concluded that "what made [Hartman's impressions] so funny and spot on was Phil's ability to add that perfect touch that only comes from trial and error and practicing in front of audiences and fellow actors." Hartman described this process as "technical." Journalist Lyle V. Harris said Hartman showed a "rare talent for morphing into [...] anybody he wanted to be". Ken Tucker summarized Hartman's comedic style: "He could momentarily fool audiences into thinking he was the straight man, but then he'd cock an eyebrow and give his voice an ironic lilt that delivered a punchline like a fast slider--you barely saw it coming until you started laughing." Hartman claimed that he borrowed his style from actor Bill Murray: "He's been a great influence on me - when he did that smarmy thing in Ghostbusters, then the same sort of thing in Groundhog Day. I tried to imitate it. I couldn't. I wasn't good enough. But I discovered an element of something else, so in a sick kind of way I made myself a career by doing a bad imitation of another comic." CANNOTANSWER
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was described as "a regular guy and, by all accounts, one of show business' most low-key, decent people",
|
Philip Edward Hartman (né Hartmann; September 24, 1948 – May 28, 1998) was a Canadian-American actor, comedian, screenwriter, and graphic designer. Hartman was born in Brantford, Ontario, Canada, and his family moved to the United States when he was ten years old. After graduating from California State University, Northridge with a degree in graphic arts, he designed album covers for bands including Poco and America. In 1975, Hartman joined the comedy group The Groundlings, where he helped Paul Reubens develop his character Pee-wee Herman. Hartman co-wrote the film Pee-wee's Big Adventure and made recurring appearances as Captain Carl on Reubens' show Pee-wee's Playhouse.
In 1986, Hartman joined the NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live (SNL) as a cast member, and stayed for eight seasons until 1994. Nicknamed "Glue" for his ability to hold the show together and help other cast members, he won a Primetime Emmy Award for his SNL work in 1989. In 1995, he starred as Bill McNeal in the sitcom NewsRadio after declining to return to SNL. He also voiced various characters on The Simpsons, and had minor roles in the films Houseguest, Sgt. Bilko, Jingle All the Way, and Small Soldiers.
After two divorces, Hartman married Brynn Omdahl in 1987, with whom he had two children. Their marriage was troubled due to Brynn's drug use and domestic violence against Phil, who was frequently absent from home. In 1998, while Hartman was sleeping in his bed, his wife shot and killed him, and later committed suicide. In the weeks following his murder, Hartman was celebrated in a wave of tributes. Dan Snierson of Entertainment Weekly wrote that Hartman was "the last person you'd expect to read about in lurid headlines in your morning paper ... a decidedly regular guy, beloved by everyone he worked with". He was posthumously inducted into the Canada and Hollywood Walks of Fame in 2012 and 2014.
Early life
Hartman was born Philip Edward Hartmann (later dropping one "n") on September 24, 1948, in Brantford, Ontario. He was the fourth of eight children of Doris Marguerite (née Wardell; July 17, 1919 – April 15, 2001) and Rupert Loebig Hartmann (November 8, 1914 – April 30, 1998), who sold building materials. The family was Catholic. As a child, Hartman found affection hard to earn: "I suppose I didn't get what I wanted out of my family life, so I started seeking love and attention elsewhere."
Hartman was ten when his family moved to the United States. They first lived in Lewiston, Maine, then Meriden, Connecticut, and then on the West Coast, where he attended Westchester High School and frequently acted as the class clown. After graduating, he studied art at Santa Monica City College, dropping out in 1969 to become a roadie with a rock band. He returned to school in 1972 to study graphic arts at California State University, Northridge. He developed and operated his own graphic art business, creating more than 40 album covers for bands including Poco and America, as well as advertising and the logo for Crosby, Stills & Nash. In the late 1970s, he made his first television appearance on an episode of The Dating Game, where he won.
Career
Early career (1975–1985)
Working alone as a graphic artist, Hartman frequently amused himself with "flights of voice fantasies". In 1975, seeking a more social outlet for his talents, he began attending evening comedy classes by the California-based improvisational comedy group The Groundlings. While watching one of their performances, he impulsively decided to climb on stage and join the cast. His first onscreen appearance was in 1978's Stunt Rock, an Australian film directed in Los Angeles by Brian Trenchard-Smith. After several years of training, paying his way by redesigning the group's logo and merchandise, Hartman formally joined The Groundlings and by 1979 was one of the show's stars.
There Hartman befriended Paul Reubens, with whom he often collaborated on comedic material. Together they created the character Pee-wee Herman and developed The Pee-wee Herman Show, a live stage show that subsequently aired on HBO in 1981. Hartman played Captain Carl in the show, and reprised the role for the children's TV show Pee-wee's Playhouse. Reubens and Hartman made cameos in the 1980 film Cheech & Chong's Next Movie. Hartman co-wrote the script of the 1985 feature film Pee-wee's Big Adventure and had a cameo role as a reporter. He'd considered quitting acting at the age of 36 due to the challenges of finding work; but the success of Pee-wee's Big Adventure changed his mind. After a creative disagreement with Reubens, he left the Pee-Wee Herman project to pursue other roles.
Hartman took more small roles in 1986 films such as Jumpin' Jack Flash and Three Amigos. He also worked as a voice actor in animated television programs, including The Smurfs, Challenge of the GoBots, The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo, and in Dennis the Menace as characters Henry Mitchell and George Wilson. He developed a strong persona providing voice-overs for advertisements.
Saturday Night Live (1986–1994)
Hartman successfully auditioned to join NBC's variety show Saturday Night Live (SNL) in its 12th season, which began on October 11, 1986. He had been recommended for the show by fellow Groundlings and SNL cast members Jon Lovitz, and Laraine Newman as well as Jumpin' Jack Flash director Penny Marshall. He told the Los Angeles Times, "I wanted to do [SNL] because I wanted to get the exposure that would give me box-office credibility so I can write movies for myself." In his eight seasons with the show Hartman became known for his impressions, and performed as over 70 different characters. Hartman's original SNL characters include Eugene, the Anal Retentive Chef and Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer. His impressions include Frank Sinatra, Ronald Reagan, Ed McMahon, Barbara Bush, Charlton Heston, Phil Donahue, and Bill Clintonthe latter considered his best-known impression.
Hartman first performed his Clinton impression on an episode of The Tonight Show. When he met Clinton in 1993, Hartman remarked, "I guess I owe you a few apologies", adding later that he "sometimes [felt] a twinge of guilt about [his Clinton impression]". Clinton showed good humor and sent Hartman a signed photo with the text: "You're not the president, but you play one on TV. And you're OK, mostly." Hartman copied the president's "post-nasal drip" and the "slight scratchiness" in his voice, as well as his open, "less intimidating" hand gestures. Hartman opted against wearing a larger prosthetic nose when portraying Clinton, as he thought it would be distracting. He instead wore a wig, dyed his eyebrows brighter, and used makeup to highlight his nose. In one of Hartman's sketches as Clinton, the president visits a McDonald's restaurant and explains his economic policies in the metaphor of eating other customers' food. The writers told him that he was not eating enough during rehearsals for the sketch – by the end of the live performance, Hartman had eaten so much he could barely speak.
At SNL, Hartman's nickname of "Glue" was coined by Adam Sandler according to Jay Mohr's book Gasping for Airtime. However, according to You Might Remember Me: The Life and Times of Phil Hartman by Mike Thomas, author and staff writer for the Chicago Sun-Times, the nickname was created by SNL cast member and Hartman's frequent on-screen collaborator Jan Hooks. Hartman was very helpful to other cast members. For example, he aided Hooks in overcoming her stage fright. SNL creator Lorne Michaels explained the name: "He kind of held the show together. He gave to everybody and demanded very little. He was very low-maintenance." Michaels also added that Hartman was "the least appreciated" cast member by commentators outside the show, and praised his ability "to do five or six parts in a show where you're playing support or you're doing remarkable character work". Hartman won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Variety, Music or Comedy Program for SNL in 1989, sharing the award with the show's other writers. He was nominated in the same category in 1987, and individually in 1994 for Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program.
By 1993, almost every cast member who was there during Hartman's first year on SNL had left the show, including Jon Lovitz, Jan Hooks and Dana Carvey. Hartman said he felt "like an athlete who's watched all his World Series teammates get traded off into other directions ... It was hard to watch them leave because I sort of felt we were all part of the team that saved the show." This cast turnover contributed to his leaving the show in 1994. Hartman said he thought it was time to leave because the show was "getting less sophisticated" and his style of humor didn't fit with the less intellectual comedy of newer cast members like Adam Sandler. Hartman had originally planned to leave the show in 1991, but Michaels convinced him to stay to raise his profile; his portrayal of Clinton contributed to this goal. Jay Leno offered him the role of his sidekick on The Tonight Show but Hartman opted to stay on SNL. NBC persuaded him to stay on SNL by promising him his own comedy–variety show The Phil Show. He planned to "reinvent the variety form" with "a hybrid, very fast-paced, high energy [show] with sketches, impersonations, pet acts, and performers showcasing their talents". Hartman was to be the show's executive producer and head writer. Before production began, however, the network decided that variety shows were too unpopular and canceled the series. In a 1996 interview, Hartman noted he was glad, as he "would've been sweatin' blood each week trying to make it work". In 1998, he admitted he missed working on SNL, but had enjoyed the move from New York City to Southern California.
NewsRadio (1995–1998)
Hartman became one of the stars of the NBC sitcom NewsRadio in 1995, portraying radio news anchor Bill McNeal. He signed up after being attracted by the show's writing and use of an ensemble cast, and joked that he based McNeal on himself with "any ethics and character" removed. Hartman made roughly per episode of NewsRadio. Although the show was critically acclaimed, it was never a ratings hit and cancellation was a regular threat. After the completion of the fourth season, Hartman commented, "We seem to have limited appeal. We're on the edge here, not sure we're going to be picked up or not", but added he was "99 percent sure" the series would be renewed for a fifth season. Hartman had publicly lambasted NBC's decision to repeatedly move NewsRadio into different timeslots, but later regretted his comments, saying, "this is a sitcom, for crying out loud, not brain surgery". He also stated that if the sitcom were cancelled "it just will open up other opportunities for me". Although the show was renewed for a fifth season, Hartman died before production began. Ken Tucker praised Hartman's performance as McNeal: "A lesser performer ... would have played him as a variation on The Mary Tyler Moore Shows Ted Baxter, because that's what Bill was, on paper. But Hartman gave infinite variety to Bill's self-centeredness, turning him devious, cowardly, squeamish, and foolishly bold from week to week." Hartman was posthumously nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series in 1998 for his work on NewsRadio, but lost to David Hyde Pierce.
The Simpsons (1991–1998)
Hartman provided the voices for numerous characters on the Fox animated series The Simpsons, appearing in 52 episodes. He made his first appearance in the second season episode "Bart Gets Hit by a Car". Although he was originally brought in for a one-time appearance, Hartman enjoyed working on The Simpsons and the staff wrote additional parts for him. He voiced the recurring characters Lionel Hutz and Troy McClure, as well as Duff man (on one occasion) and several background characters. His favorite part was that of McClure, and he often used this voice to entertain the audience between takes while taping episodes of NewsRadio. He remarked, "My favorite fans are Troy McClure fans." He added "It's the one thing that I do in my life that's almost an avocation. I do it for the pure love of it."
Hartman was popular among the staff of The Simpsons. Showrunners Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein said they enjoyed his work, and used him as much as possible when working on the show. To give Hartman a larger role, they developed the episode "A Fish Called Selma", which focuses on Troy McClure and expands the character's backstory. The Simpsons creator Matt Groening said that he "took [Hartman] for granted because he nailed the joke every time", and that his voice acting could produce "the maximum amount of humor" with any line he was given. Before his death, Hartman had expressed an interest in making a live action film about Troy McClure. Many of The Simpsons production staff expressed enthusiasm for the project and offered to help. Hartman said he was "looking forward to [McClure's] live-action movie, publicizing his Betty Ford appearances", and "would love nothing more" than making a film and was prepared to buy the film rights himself in order to make it happen.
Other work
Hartman's first starring film role came in 1995's Houseguest, alongside Sinbad. Other films include Greedy, Coneheads, Sgt. Bilko, So I Married an Axe Murderer, CB4, Jingle All the Way, Kiki's Delivery Service, and Small Soldiers, the latter of which is his final theatrically released film. At the same time, he preferred working on television. His other television roles include appearances on episodes of The John Larroquette Show, The Dana Carvey Show, 3rd Rock from the Sun, and the HBO TV film The Second Civil War as the President of the United States. He made a considerable amount of money from television advertising, earning $300,000 for a series of four commercials for the soft drink Slice. He also appeared in advertisements for McDonald's (as Hugh McAttack) and 1-800-Collect (as Max Jerome).
Hartman wrote a number of screenplays that were never produced. In 1986, he began writing a screenplay for a film titled Mr. Fix-It, and completed the final draft in 1991. Robert Zemeckis was signed to produce the film, with Gil Bettman hired to direct. Hartman called it "a sort of a merger of horror and comedy, like Beetlejuice and Throw Momma From the Train", adding, "It's an American nightmare about a family torn asunder. They live next to a toxic dump site, their water supply is poisoned, the mother and son go insane and try to murder each other, the father's face is torn off in a terrible disfiguring accident in the first act. It's heavy stuff, but it's got a good message and a positive, upbeat ending." Zemeckis could not secure studio backing, however, and the project collapsed. Another film idea involving Hartman's Groundlings character Chick Hazard, Private Eye was also canceled.
Style
In contrast to his real-life personality, which was described as "a regular guy and, by all accounts, one of show business's most low-key, decent people", Hartman often played seedy, vain or unpleasant characters as well as comedic villains. He described his standard character repertoire as the "jerky guy" and "the weasel parade", citing Lionel Hutz, Bill McNeal, Troy McClure, and Ted Maltin from Jingle All the Way as examples. Hartman enjoyed playing such roles because he "just want[ed] to be funny, and villains tend to be funny because their foibles are all there to see".
He often played supporting roles, rather than the lead part. He said "throughout my career, I've never been a huge star, but I've made steady progress and that's the way I like it", and "It's fun coming in as the second or third lead. If the movie or TV show bombs, you aren't to blame." Hartman was considered a "utility player" on SNL with a "kind of Everyman quality" which enabled him to appear in the majority of sketches, often in very distinct roles. Jan Hooks stated of his work on SNL: "Phil never had an ounce of competition. He was a team player. It was a privilege for him, I believe, to play support and do it very well. He was never insulted, no matter how small the role may have been." He was disciplined in his performances, studying the scripts beforehand. Hooks added: "Phil knew how to listen. And he knew how to look you in the eye, and he knew the power of being able to lay back and let somebody else be funny, and then do the reactions. I think Phil was more of an actor than a comedian." Film critic Pauline Kael declared that "Phil Hartman and Jan Hooks on Saturday Night Live are two of the best comic actors I've ever seen."
Writer and acting coach Paul Ryan noted Hartman's work ethic with his impressions. He assembled a collection of video footage of the figure he was preparing to impersonate and watched this continually until he "completely embodied the person". Ryan concluded that "what made [Hartman's impressions] so funny and spot on was Phil's ability to add that perfect touch that only comes from trial and error and practicing in front of audiences and fellow actors." Hartman described this process as "technical". Journalist Lyle V. Harris said Hartman showed a "rare talent for morphing into ... anybody he wanted to be".
Ken Tucker summarized Hartman's comedic style: "He could momentarily fool audiences into thinking he was the straight man, but then he'd cock an eyebrow and give his voice an ironic lilt that delivered a punchline like a fast slider—you barely saw it coming until you started laughing." Hartman claimed that he borrowed his style from actor Bill Murray: "He's been a great influence on me – when he did that smarmy thing in Ghostbusters, then the same sort of thing in Groundhog Day. I tried to imitate it. I couldn't. I wasn't good enough. But I discovered an element of something else, so in a sick kind of way I made myself a career by doing a bad imitation of another comic."
Personal life
Hartman married Gretchen Lewis in 1970 and they divorced in September 1972. He married real estate agent Lisa Strain in 1982, and their marriage lasted three years. Strain told People magazine that Hartman was reclusive off screen and "would disappear emotionally ... he'd be in his own world. That passivity made you crazy." In 1987, Hartman married former model and aspiring actress Brynn Omdahl (born Vicki Jo Omdahl, April 11, 1958 – May 28, 1998), having met her on a blind date the previous year. They had two children, Sean and Birgen Hartman. The marriage had difficulties; she was reportedly intimidated by his success and was frustrated that she could not find any on her own, although neither party wanted a divorce. She was reported to have been jealous and often verbally and/or physically abusive, even sending a letter to his ex-wife, threatening to "rip [Strain's] eyes out" if she spoke to him again. Hartman considered retiring to save the marriage.
Hartman tried to get Brynn acting roles, but she became progressively reliant on alcohol and narcotics, entering rehab several times. On multiple occasions, he removed their children from the household to stay with friends or family because of her drug- and alcohol-fueled outbursts. Because of his close friendship with SNL associate Jan Hooks, Brynn joked on occasion Hooks and Hartman were married "on some other level". Brynn had written threatening letters addressed to Hooks, warning her to not get close to her husband, but they appeared to have never even been sent, being discovered in her belongings following her death.
Stephen Root, Hartman's NewsRadio co-star, said few people knew "the real Phil Hartman", as he was "one of those people who never seemed to come out of character," but he nevertheless gave the impression of a family man who cared deeply for his children. Hartman befriended Joe Rogan during his time on NewsRadio and confided his marital problems to him. Rogan said that he encouraged Hartman to divorce Brynn five times, but "[Hartman] loved his kids and didn't want to leave".
Hartman stated in 1997, though a non-practicing Catholic, he displayed a sense of religiousness. In his spare time, he enjoyed driving, flying, sailing, marksmanship, and playing the guitar.
Murder
On May 27, 1998, Brynn visited the Italian restaurant Buca di Beppo in Encino, California, with producer and writer Christine Zander, who said Brynn was "in a good frame of mind." They had drinks. After returning home, Brynn had a "heated" argument with Phil, after which he went to bed. She entered his bedroom some time before PDT on May 28, 1998, and as he slept, fatally shot him once between the eyes, once in the throat, and once in the upper chest with a Charter Arms .38 caliber handgun. He was 49 years old. She was taking Zoloft, had been drinking alcohol, and had recently used cocaine.
Brynn then drove to the home of her friend Ron Douglas and confessed to the killing, but he did not believe her. They drove back to the house in separate cars, and she called another friend and confessed a second time. On seeing Hartman's body, Douglas called 9-1-1 at Police arrived and escorted Douglas and the Hartmans' two children from the premises, by which time Brynn had locked herself in the bedroom. Shortly afterward, she committed suicide by a self-inflicted gunshot.
The police stated Hartman's death was caused by "domestic discord" between the couple. A friend said Brynn "had trouble controlling her anger ... She got attention by losing her temper". A neighbor of the Hartmans told a CNN reporter that the couple had marital problems. Yet actor Steve Guttenberg said they had been "a very happy couple, and they always had the appearance of being well-balanced".
A wrongful death lawsuit was filed in 1999 by her brother Gregory Omdahl, against Pfizer, the manufacturer of Zoloft, and against her child's psychiatrist, Arthur Sorosky, who had provided samples of the antidepressant to Brynn. Phil Hartman's friend and former SNL colleague Jon Lovitz has accused Hartman's then NewsRadio co-star Andy Dick of reintroducing Brynn to cocaine, causing her to relapse and suffer a nervous breakdown. Dick claims to have known nothing of her condition. Lovitz later said he no longer blamed Dick for Hartman's murder, but in 2006, Lovitz claimed Dick approached him at a restaurant and said, "I put the Phil Hartman hex on you; you're the next one to die." Lovitz then had him ejected from the restaurant. The following year at the Laugh Factory comedy club in Los Angeles, Lovitz and Dick had another argument, with Lovitz slamming Dick's head into the bar. Dick asserted he was not at fault in relation to Hartman's death.
Brynn's sister Katharine Omdahl and brother-in-law Mike Wright raised the two Hartman children. Hartman's will stipulated each child would inherit money over several years after turning 25. The total value of Hartman's estate was estimated at . In accordance with his wishes, his body was cremated by Forest Lawn Memorial Park and Mortuary, Glendale, California, and his ashes scattered over Santa Catalina Island's Emerald Bay.
Response and legacy
NBC executive Don Ohlmeyer stated that Hartman "was blessed with a tremendous gift for creating characters that made people laugh. Everyone who had the pleasure of working with Phil knows that he was a man of tremendous warmth, a true professional and a loyal friend." Guttenberg expressed shock at Hartman's death, and Steve Martin said he was "a deeply funny and very happy person". Matt Groening called him "a master", and director Joe Dante said, "He was one of those guys who was a dream to work with. I don't know anybody who didn't like him." Dan Snierson of Entertainment Weekly concluded that Hartman was "the last person you'd expect to read about in lurid headlines in your morning paper" and "a decidedly regular guy, beloved by everyone he worked with". In 2007, Entertainment Weekly ranked Hartman the 87th greatest television icon of all time, and Maxim named him the top Saturday Night Live performer of all time.
On the day of Hartman's death, rehearsals for The Simpsons were canceled as well as that night's performance by The Groundlings. The season five premiere episode of NewsRadio, "Bill Moves On", finds Hartman's character, Bill McNeal, has died of a heart attack, while the other characters reminisce about his life. Lovitz joined the show in his place beginning with the next episode. A special episode of Saturday Night Live commemorating Hartman's work on the show aired on June 13, 1998. Rather than substituting another voice actor, the writers of The Simpsons retired Hartman's characters. His final appearance on the show, the season ten episode "Bart the Mother", is dedicated to him, as is his final film, Small Soldiers.
At the time of his death, Hartman was preparing to voice Zapp Brannigan, a character written specifically for him on Groening's second animated series Futurama. Even though the role was specifically made for him, Hartman still insisted on auditioning and Groening said he "nailed it." After Hartman's death, Billy West took over the role. Though executive producer David X. Cohen credits West with using his own take on the character, West later said that he purposely tweaked Zapp's voice to better match Hartman's intended portrayal. Hartman was planning to appear with Lovitz in the indie film The Day of Swine and Roses, scheduled to begin production in August 1998.
In 2002, Laugh.com and Hartman's brother John published the album, Flat TV, a selection of comedy sketches recorded by Hartman in the 1970s, which had been kept in storage. John Hartmann commented: "I'm putting this out there because I'm dedicating my life to fulfilling his dreams. This [album] is my brother doing what he loved." In 2013, Flat TV was optioned by Michael "Ffish" Hemschoot's animation company Worker Studio for an animated adaptation. The deal came about after Michael T. Scott, a partner in the company, posted online a hand-written letter he had received from Hartman in 1997, leading to a correspondence between Scott and Paul Hartmann.
In 2007, a campaign was started on Facebook by Alex Stevens and endorsed by Hartman's brother Paul, to have Phil inducted to Canada's Walk of Fame. Among the campaign's numerous publicity events, Ben Miner of the Sirius XM Radio channel Laugh Attack, dedicated the month of April 2012 to Hartman. The campaign ended in success and Hartman was inducted to the Walk of Fame on September 22, 2012, with Paul accepting the award on his late brother's behalf. Hartman was also awarded the Cineplex Legends Award. In June 2013, it was announced that Hartman would receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, which was unveiled on August 26, 2014. Additionally, a special prize at the Canadian Comedy Awards was named for Hartman. Beginning with the 13th Canadian Comedy Awards in 2012, the Phil Hartman Award was awarded to "an individual who helps to better the Canadian comedy community". In 2015, Rolling Stone magazine ranked Hartman as one of the top-ten greatest Saturday Night Live cast members throughout the show's forty-year history, coming in seventh on their list of all 141 members.
Filmography
Film
Television
Video games
Theme park attractions
Discography
1977
America, Harbor
1978
America, Silent Letter
Poco, Legend
1980
Firesign Theatre, Fighting Clowns
References
Book sources
External links
Phil Hartman at Yahoo! Movies
Phil Hartman at The New York Times
Hartman's autopsy and death certificate
Phil Hartman's final night: The tragic death of a “Saturday Night Live” genius, Mike Thomas, Salon, September 21, 2014
1948 births
1998 deaths
1998 murders in the United States
20th-century American male actors
20th-century Canadian male actors
Album-cover and concert-poster artists
American male comedians
American male film actors
American graphic designers
American impressionists (entertainers)
American male screenwriters
American male television actors
American television writers
American male voice actors
American sketch comedians
California State University, Northridge alumni
Canadian male comedians
Canadian emigrants to the United States
Canadian male voice actors
Canadian murder victims
Canadian sketch comedians
Deaths by firearm in California
Male actors from Los Angeles
American male television writers
Murder–suicides in California
Naturalized citizens of the United States
People from Brantford
People murdered in Los Angeles
Primetime Emmy Award winners
Santa Monica College alumni
Comedians from California
Mariticides
Westchester High School (Los Angeles) alumni
Screenwriters from California
20th-century Canadian comedians
20th-century American comedians
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American screenwriters
Comedians from Ontario
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[
"Mainstream jazz is a term coined in the 1950s by music journalist Stanley Dance, who considered anything within the popular jazz of the Swing Era \"mainstream\", and did not include the bebop style.\n\nJazz in the mainstream \n\nAfter Dance defined mainstream jazz in the 1950s, the definition changed with the evolution and progression of jazz music. What was mainstream then would not be considered mainstream now. In a general sense, mainstream jazz can be considered what was most popular at the time: For example, during the Swing era, swing and big band music were in their prime and what target audiences were looking for. Although bebop was introduced into jazz during that time, audiences had not developed an ear for it.\n\nMainstream jazz musicians \nThe jazz musicians listed below were either considered \"mainstream\" musicians, or were influenced by mainstream musicians.\n\nSwing era \n Duke Ellington was an important influence on mainstream jazz; his music during the swing era was not known for breaking rules. \n Coleman Hawkins made significant contributions to big band music prior to introducing bebop to his style. \n Johnny Hodges was a member of Duke Ellington's Orchestra and became a familiar voice within the orchestra itself. \n Benny Carter was a major influence on the big band style. \n Roy Eldridge has been named one of the most influential jazz musicians both within the swing era and to the development of bebop. His trumpet playing was influenced by Louis Armstrong.\n\nMainstream jazz in popular culture \nIn the 1950s and 1960s, jazz was a mainstream part of pop culture. Jazz music was on the radio and Hollywood frequently incorporated jazz in television and films.\n\nReferences \n\n \nJazz genres",
"Jean Delemer (1410 – 1440), was a Flemish sculptor.\n\nBiography\nHe was active in Tournai from 1428 to 1440 and was possibly from Valenciennes. He was probably born in the 1410s as he was paid in 1428 for carving a life-size stone Annunciation group after a painting by Robert Campin for what is now the Church of Saint Quentin in Tournai. His Annunciation group is considered the earliest example of the Late Gothic style. Besides this group, no other works by the sculptor are known.\n\nReferences\n\n1410s births\n1440s deaths\nArtists from Tournai\nEarly Netherlandish sculptors\nFlemish sculptors (before 1830)"
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How did this help his career?
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Phil Hartman
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In contrast to his real-life personality, which was described as "a regular guy and, by all accounts, one of show business' most low-key, decent people", Hartman often played seedy, vain or unpleasant characters as well as comedic villains. He noted that his standard character was a "jerky guy", and described his usual roles as "the weasel parade", citing Lionel Hutz, Bill McNeal, Troy McClure and Ted Maltin from Jingle All the Way as examples. Hartman enjoyed playing such roles because he "just want[ed] to be funny, and villains tend to be funny because their foibles are all there to see." He often played supporting roles, rather than the lead part. He said "throughout my career, I've never been a huge star, but I've made steady progress and that's the way I like it," and "It's fun coming in as the second or third lead. If the movie or TV show bombs, you aren't to blame." Hartman was considered a "utility player" on SNL with a "kind of Everyman quality" which enabled him to appear in the majority of sketches, often in very distinct roles. Jan Hooks stated of his work on SNL: "Phil never had an ounce of competition. He was a team player. It was a privilege for him, I believe, to play support and do it very well. He was never insulted, no matter how small the role may have been." He was disciplined in his performances, studying the scripts beforehand. Hooks added: "Phil knew how to listen. And he knew how to look you in the eye, and he knew the power of being able to lay back and let somebody else be funny, and then do the reactions. I think Phil was more of an actor than a comedian." Film critic Pauline Kael declared that "Phil Hartman and Jan Hooks on Saturday Night Live are two of the best comic actors I've ever seen." Writer and acting coach Paul Ryan noted Hartman's work ethic with his impressions. He assembled a collection of video footage of the figure he was preparing to impersonate and watched this continually until he "completely embodied the person". Ryan concluded that "what made [Hartman's impressions] so funny and spot on was Phil's ability to add that perfect touch that only comes from trial and error and practicing in front of audiences and fellow actors." Hartman described this process as "technical." Journalist Lyle V. Harris said Hartman showed a "rare talent for morphing into [...] anybody he wanted to be". Ken Tucker summarized Hartman's comedic style: "He could momentarily fool audiences into thinking he was the straight man, but then he'd cock an eyebrow and give his voice an ironic lilt that delivered a punchline like a fast slider--you barely saw it coming until you started laughing." Hartman claimed that he borrowed his style from actor Bill Murray: "He's been a great influence on me - when he did that smarmy thing in Ghostbusters, then the same sort of thing in Groundhog Day. I tried to imitate it. I couldn't. I wasn't good enough. But I discovered an element of something else, so in a sick kind of way I made myself a career by doing a bad imitation of another comic." CANNOTANSWER
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often played seedy, vain or unpleasant characters as well as comedic villains. He noted that his standard character was a "jerky guy", and described his usual roles
|
Philip Edward Hartman (né Hartmann; September 24, 1948 – May 28, 1998) was a Canadian-American actor, comedian, screenwriter, and graphic designer. Hartman was born in Brantford, Ontario, Canada, and his family moved to the United States when he was ten years old. After graduating from California State University, Northridge with a degree in graphic arts, he designed album covers for bands including Poco and America. In 1975, Hartman joined the comedy group The Groundlings, where he helped Paul Reubens develop his character Pee-wee Herman. Hartman co-wrote the film Pee-wee's Big Adventure and made recurring appearances as Captain Carl on Reubens' show Pee-wee's Playhouse.
In 1986, Hartman joined the NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live (SNL) as a cast member, and stayed for eight seasons until 1994. Nicknamed "Glue" for his ability to hold the show together and help other cast members, he won a Primetime Emmy Award for his SNL work in 1989. In 1995, he starred as Bill McNeal in the sitcom NewsRadio after declining to return to SNL. He also voiced various characters on The Simpsons, and had minor roles in the films Houseguest, Sgt. Bilko, Jingle All the Way, and Small Soldiers.
After two divorces, Hartman married Brynn Omdahl in 1987, with whom he had two children. Their marriage was troubled due to Brynn's drug use and domestic violence against Phil, who was frequently absent from home. In 1998, while Hartman was sleeping in his bed, his wife shot and killed him, and later committed suicide. In the weeks following his murder, Hartman was celebrated in a wave of tributes. Dan Snierson of Entertainment Weekly wrote that Hartman was "the last person you'd expect to read about in lurid headlines in your morning paper ... a decidedly regular guy, beloved by everyone he worked with". He was posthumously inducted into the Canada and Hollywood Walks of Fame in 2012 and 2014.
Early life
Hartman was born Philip Edward Hartmann (later dropping one "n") on September 24, 1948, in Brantford, Ontario. He was the fourth of eight children of Doris Marguerite (née Wardell; July 17, 1919 – April 15, 2001) and Rupert Loebig Hartmann (November 8, 1914 – April 30, 1998), who sold building materials. The family was Catholic. As a child, Hartman found affection hard to earn: "I suppose I didn't get what I wanted out of my family life, so I started seeking love and attention elsewhere."
Hartman was ten when his family moved to the United States. They first lived in Lewiston, Maine, then Meriden, Connecticut, and then on the West Coast, where he attended Westchester High School and frequently acted as the class clown. After graduating, he studied art at Santa Monica City College, dropping out in 1969 to become a roadie with a rock band. He returned to school in 1972 to study graphic arts at California State University, Northridge. He developed and operated his own graphic art business, creating more than 40 album covers for bands including Poco and America, as well as advertising and the logo for Crosby, Stills & Nash. In the late 1970s, he made his first television appearance on an episode of The Dating Game, where he won.
Career
Early career (1975–1985)
Working alone as a graphic artist, Hartman frequently amused himself with "flights of voice fantasies". In 1975, seeking a more social outlet for his talents, he began attending evening comedy classes by the California-based improvisational comedy group The Groundlings. While watching one of their performances, he impulsively decided to climb on stage and join the cast. His first onscreen appearance was in 1978's Stunt Rock, an Australian film directed in Los Angeles by Brian Trenchard-Smith. After several years of training, paying his way by redesigning the group's logo and merchandise, Hartman formally joined The Groundlings and by 1979 was one of the show's stars.
There Hartman befriended Paul Reubens, with whom he often collaborated on comedic material. Together they created the character Pee-wee Herman and developed The Pee-wee Herman Show, a live stage show that subsequently aired on HBO in 1981. Hartman played Captain Carl in the show, and reprised the role for the children's TV show Pee-wee's Playhouse. Reubens and Hartman made cameos in the 1980 film Cheech & Chong's Next Movie. Hartman co-wrote the script of the 1985 feature film Pee-wee's Big Adventure and had a cameo role as a reporter. He'd considered quitting acting at the age of 36 due to the challenges of finding work; but the success of Pee-wee's Big Adventure changed his mind. After a creative disagreement with Reubens, he left the Pee-Wee Herman project to pursue other roles.
Hartman took more small roles in 1986 films such as Jumpin' Jack Flash and Three Amigos. He also worked as a voice actor in animated television programs, including The Smurfs, Challenge of the GoBots, The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo, and in Dennis the Menace as characters Henry Mitchell and George Wilson. He developed a strong persona providing voice-overs for advertisements.
Saturday Night Live (1986–1994)
Hartman successfully auditioned to join NBC's variety show Saturday Night Live (SNL) in its 12th season, which began on October 11, 1986. He had been recommended for the show by fellow Groundlings and SNL cast members Jon Lovitz, and Laraine Newman as well as Jumpin' Jack Flash director Penny Marshall. He told the Los Angeles Times, "I wanted to do [SNL] because I wanted to get the exposure that would give me box-office credibility so I can write movies for myself." In his eight seasons with the show Hartman became known for his impressions, and performed as over 70 different characters. Hartman's original SNL characters include Eugene, the Anal Retentive Chef and Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer. His impressions include Frank Sinatra, Ronald Reagan, Ed McMahon, Barbara Bush, Charlton Heston, Phil Donahue, and Bill Clintonthe latter considered his best-known impression.
Hartman first performed his Clinton impression on an episode of The Tonight Show. When he met Clinton in 1993, Hartman remarked, "I guess I owe you a few apologies", adding later that he "sometimes [felt] a twinge of guilt about [his Clinton impression]". Clinton showed good humor and sent Hartman a signed photo with the text: "You're not the president, but you play one on TV. And you're OK, mostly." Hartman copied the president's "post-nasal drip" and the "slight scratchiness" in his voice, as well as his open, "less intimidating" hand gestures. Hartman opted against wearing a larger prosthetic nose when portraying Clinton, as he thought it would be distracting. He instead wore a wig, dyed his eyebrows brighter, and used makeup to highlight his nose. In one of Hartman's sketches as Clinton, the president visits a McDonald's restaurant and explains his economic policies in the metaphor of eating other customers' food. The writers told him that he was not eating enough during rehearsals for the sketch – by the end of the live performance, Hartman had eaten so much he could barely speak.
At SNL, Hartman's nickname of "Glue" was coined by Adam Sandler according to Jay Mohr's book Gasping for Airtime. However, according to You Might Remember Me: The Life and Times of Phil Hartman by Mike Thomas, author and staff writer for the Chicago Sun-Times, the nickname was created by SNL cast member and Hartman's frequent on-screen collaborator Jan Hooks. Hartman was very helpful to other cast members. For example, he aided Hooks in overcoming her stage fright. SNL creator Lorne Michaels explained the name: "He kind of held the show together. He gave to everybody and demanded very little. He was very low-maintenance." Michaels also added that Hartman was "the least appreciated" cast member by commentators outside the show, and praised his ability "to do five or six parts in a show where you're playing support or you're doing remarkable character work". Hartman won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Variety, Music or Comedy Program for SNL in 1989, sharing the award with the show's other writers. He was nominated in the same category in 1987, and individually in 1994 for Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program.
By 1993, almost every cast member who was there during Hartman's first year on SNL had left the show, including Jon Lovitz, Jan Hooks and Dana Carvey. Hartman said he felt "like an athlete who's watched all his World Series teammates get traded off into other directions ... It was hard to watch them leave because I sort of felt we were all part of the team that saved the show." This cast turnover contributed to his leaving the show in 1994. Hartman said he thought it was time to leave because the show was "getting less sophisticated" and his style of humor didn't fit with the less intellectual comedy of newer cast members like Adam Sandler. Hartman had originally planned to leave the show in 1991, but Michaels convinced him to stay to raise his profile; his portrayal of Clinton contributed to this goal. Jay Leno offered him the role of his sidekick on The Tonight Show but Hartman opted to stay on SNL. NBC persuaded him to stay on SNL by promising him his own comedy–variety show The Phil Show. He planned to "reinvent the variety form" with "a hybrid, very fast-paced, high energy [show] with sketches, impersonations, pet acts, and performers showcasing their talents". Hartman was to be the show's executive producer and head writer. Before production began, however, the network decided that variety shows were too unpopular and canceled the series. In a 1996 interview, Hartman noted he was glad, as he "would've been sweatin' blood each week trying to make it work". In 1998, he admitted he missed working on SNL, but had enjoyed the move from New York City to Southern California.
NewsRadio (1995–1998)
Hartman became one of the stars of the NBC sitcom NewsRadio in 1995, portraying radio news anchor Bill McNeal. He signed up after being attracted by the show's writing and use of an ensemble cast, and joked that he based McNeal on himself with "any ethics and character" removed. Hartman made roughly per episode of NewsRadio. Although the show was critically acclaimed, it was never a ratings hit and cancellation was a regular threat. After the completion of the fourth season, Hartman commented, "We seem to have limited appeal. We're on the edge here, not sure we're going to be picked up or not", but added he was "99 percent sure" the series would be renewed for a fifth season. Hartman had publicly lambasted NBC's decision to repeatedly move NewsRadio into different timeslots, but later regretted his comments, saying, "this is a sitcom, for crying out loud, not brain surgery". He also stated that if the sitcom were cancelled "it just will open up other opportunities for me". Although the show was renewed for a fifth season, Hartman died before production began. Ken Tucker praised Hartman's performance as McNeal: "A lesser performer ... would have played him as a variation on The Mary Tyler Moore Shows Ted Baxter, because that's what Bill was, on paper. But Hartman gave infinite variety to Bill's self-centeredness, turning him devious, cowardly, squeamish, and foolishly bold from week to week." Hartman was posthumously nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series in 1998 for his work on NewsRadio, but lost to David Hyde Pierce.
The Simpsons (1991–1998)
Hartman provided the voices for numerous characters on the Fox animated series The Simpsons, appearing in 52 episodes. He made his first appearance in the second season episode "Bart Gets Hit by a Car". Although he was originally brought in for a one-time appearance, Hartman enjoyed working on The Simpsons and the staff wrote additional parts for him. He voiced the recurring characters Lionel Hutz and Troy McClure, as well as Duff man (on one occasion) and several background characters. His favorite part was that of McClure, and he often used this voice to entertain the audience between takes while taping episodes of NewsRadio. He remarked, "My favorite fans are Troy McClure fans." He added "It's the one thing that I do in my life that's almost an avocation. I do it for the pure love of it."
Hartman was popular among the staff of The Simpsons. Showrunners Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein said they enjoyed his work, and used him as much as possible when working on the show. To give Hartman a larger role, they developed the episode "A Fish Called Selma", which focuses on Troy McClure and expands the character's backstory. The Simpsons creator Matt Groening said that he "took [Hartman] for granted because he nailed the joke every time", and that his voice acting could produce "the maximum amount of humor" with any line he was given. Before his death, Hartman had expressed an interest in making a live action film about Troy McClure. Many of The Simpsons production staff expressed enthusiasm for the project and offered to help. Hartman said he was "looking forward to [McClure's] live-action movie, publicizing his Betty Ford appearances", and "would love nothing more" than making a film and was prepared to buy the film rights himself in order to make it happen.
Other work
Hartman's first starring film role came in 1995's Houseguest, alongside Sinbad. Other films include Greedy, Coneheads, Sgt. Bilko, So I Married an Axe Murderer, CB4, Jingle All the Way, Kiki's Delivery Service, and Small Soldiers, the latter of which is his final theatrically released film. At the same time, he preferred working on television. His other television roles include appearances on episodes of The John Larroquette Show, The Dana Carvey Show, 3rd Rock from the Sun, and the HBO TV film The Second Civil War as the President of the United States. He made a considerable amount of money from television advertising, earning $300,000 for a series of four commercials for the soft drink Slice. He also appeared in advertisements for McDonald's (as Hugh McAttack) and 1-800-Collect (as Max Jerome).
Hartman wrote a number of screenplays that were never produced. In 1986, he began writing a screenplay for a film titled Mr. Fix-It, and completed the final draft in 1991. Robert Zemeckis was signed to produce the film, with Gil Bettman hired to direct. Hartman called it "a sort of a merger of horror and comedy, like Beetlejuice and Throw Momma From the Train", adding, "It's an American nightmare about a family torn asunder. They live next to a toxic dump site, their water supply is poisoned, the mother and son go insane and try to murder each other, the father's face is torn off in a terrible disfiguring accident in the first act. It's heavy stuff, but it's got a good message and a positive, upbeat ending." Zemeckis could not secure studio backing, however, and the project collapsed. Another film idea involving Hartman's Groundlings character Chick Hazard, Private Eye was also canceled.
Style
In contrast to his real-life personality, which was described as "a regular guy and, by all accounts, one of show business's most low-key, decent people", Hartman often played seedy, vain or unpleasant characters as well as comedic villains. He described his standard character repertoire as the "jerky guy" and "the weasel parade", citing Lionel Hutz, Bill McNeal, Troy McClure, and Ted Maltin from Jingle All the Way as examples. Hartman enjoyed playing such roles because he "just want[ed] to be funny, and villains tend to be funny because their foibles are all there to see".
He often played supporting roles, rather than the lead part. He said "throughout my career, I've never been a huge star, but I've made steady progress and that's the way I like it", and "It's fun coming in as the second or third lead. If the movie or TV show bombs, you aren't to blame." Hartman was considered a "utility player" on SNL with a "kind of Everyman quality" which enabled him to appear in the majority of sketches, often in very distinct roles. Jan Hooks stated of his work on SNL: "Phil never had an ounce of competition. He was a team player. It was a privilege for him, I believe, to play support and do it very well. He was never insulted, no matter how small the role may have been." He was disciplined in his performances, studying the scripts beforehand. Hooks added: "Phil knew how to listen. And he knew how to look you in the eye, and he knew the power of being able to lay back and let somebody else be funny, and then do the reactions. I think Phil was more of an actor than a comedian." Film critic Pauline Kael declared that "Phil Hartman and Jan Hooks on Saturday Night Live are two of the best comic actors I've ever seen."
Writer and acting coach Paul Ryan noted Hartman's work ethic with his impressions. He assembled a collection of video footage of the figure he was preparing to impersonate and watched this continually until he "completely embodied the person". Ryan concluded that "what made [Hartman's impressions] so funny and spot on was Phil's ability to add that perfect touch that only comes from trial and error and practicing in front of audiences and fellow actors." Hartman described this process as "technical". Journalist Lyle V. Harris said Hartman showed a "rare talent for morphing into ... anybody he wanted to be".
Ken Tucker summarized Hartman's comedic style: "He could momentarily fool audiences into thinking he was the straight man, but then he'd cock an eyebrow and give his voice an ironic lilt that delivered a punchline like a fast slider—you barely saw it coming until you started laughing." Hartman claimed that he borrowed his style from actor Bill Murray: "He's been a great influence on me – when he did that smarmy thing in Ghostbusters, then the same sort of thing in Groundhog Day. I tried to imitate it. I couldn't. I wasn't good enough. But I discovered an element of something else, so in a sick kind of way I made myself a career by doing a bad imitation of another comic."
Personal life
Hartman married Gretchen Lewis in 1970 and they divorced in September 1972. He married real estate agent Lisa Strain in 1982, and their marriage lasted three years. Strain told People magazine that Hartman was reclusive off screen and "would disappear emotionally ... he'd be in his own world. That passivity made you crazy." In 1987, Hartman married former model and aspiring actress Brynn Omdahl (born Vicki Jo Omdahl, April 11, 1958 – May 28, 1998), having met her on a blind date the previous year. They had two children, Sean and Birgen Hartman. The marriage had difficulties; she was reportedly intimidated by his success and was frustrated that she could not find any on her own, although neither party wanted a divorce. She was reported to have been jealous and often verbally and/or physically abusive, even sending a letter to his ex-wife, threatening to "rip [Strain's] eyes out" if she spoke to him again. Hartman considered retiring to save the marriage.
Hartman tried to get Brynn acting roles, but she became progressively reliant on alcohol and narcotics, entering rehab several times. On multiple occasions, he removed their children from the household to stay with friends or family because of her drug- and alcohol-fueled outbursts. Because of his close friendship with SNL associate Jan Hooks, Brynn joked on occasion Hooks and Hartman were married "on some other level". Brynn had written threatening letters addressed to Hooks, warning her to not get close to her husband, but they appeared to have never even been sent, being discovered in her belongings following her death.
Stephen Root, Hartman's NewsRadio co-star, said few people knew "the real Phil Hartman", as he was "one of those people who never seemed to come out of character," but he nevertheless gave the impression of a family man who cared deeply for his children. Hartman befriended Joe Rogan during his time on NewsRadio and confided his marital problems to him. Rogan said that he encouraged Hartman to divorce Brynn five times, but "[Hartman] loved his kids and didn't want to leave".
Hartman stated in 1997, though a non-practicing Catholic, he displayed a sense of religiousness. In his spare time, he enjoyed driving, flying, sailing, marksmanship, and playing the guitar.
Murder
On May 27, 1998, Brynn visited the Italian restaurant Buca di Beppo in Encino, California, with producer and writer Christine Zander, who said Brynn was "in a good frame of mind." They had drinks. After returning home, Brynn had a "heated" argument with Phil, after which he went to bed. She entered his bedroom some time before PDT on May 28, 1998, and as he slept, fatally shot him once between the eyes, once in the throat, and once in the upper chest with a Charter Arms .38 caliber handgun. He was 49 years old. She was taking Zoloft, had been drinking alcohol, and had recently used cocaine.
Brynn then drove to the home of her friend Ron Douglas and confessed to the killing, but he did not believe her. They drove back to the house in separate cars, and she called another friend and confessed a second time. On seeing Hartman's body, Douglas called 9-1-1 at Police arrived and escorted Douglas and the Hartmans' two children from the premises, by which time Brynn had locked herself in the bedroom. Shortly afterward, she committed suicide by a self-inflicted gunshot.
The police stated Hartman's death was caused by "domestic discord" between the couple. A friend said Brynn "had trouble controlling her anger ... She got attention by losing her temper". A neighbor of the Hartmans told a CNN reporter that the couple had marital problems. Yet actor Steve Guttenberg said they had been "a very happy couple, and they always had the appearance of being well-balanced".
A wrongful death lawsuit was filed in 1999 by her brother Gregory Omdahl, against Pfizer, the manufacturer of Zoloft, and against her child's psychiatrist, Arthur Sorosky, who had provided samples of the antidepressant to Brynn. Phil Hartman's friend and former SNL colleague Jon Lovitz has accused Hartman's then NewsRadio co-star Andy Dick of reintroducing Brynn to cocaine, causing her to relapse and suffer a nervous breakdown. Dick claims to have known nothing of her condition. Lovitz later said he no longer blamed Dick for Hartman's murder, but in 2006, Lovitz claimed Dick approached him at a restaurant and said, "I put the Phil Hartman hex on you; you're the next one to die." Lovitz then had him ejected from the restaurant. The following year at the Laugh Factory comedy club in Los Angeles, Lovitz and Dick had another argument, with Lovitz slamming Dick's head into the bar. Dick asserted he was not at fault in relation to Hartman's death.
Brynn's sister Katharine Omdahl and brother-in-law Mike Wright raised the two Hartman children. Hartman's will stipulated each child would inherit money over several years after turning 25. The total value of Hartman's estate was estimated at . In accordance with his wishes, his body was cremated by Forest Lawn Memorial Park and Mortuary, Glendale, California, and his ashes scattered over Santa Catalina Island's Emerald Bay.
Response and legacy
NBC executive Don Ohlmeyer stated that Hartman "was blessed with a tremendous gift for creating characters that made people laugh. Everyone who had the pleasure of working with Phil knows that he was a man of tremendous warmth, a true professional and a loyal friend." Guttenberg expressed shock at Hartman's death, and Steve Martin said he was "a deeply funny and very happy person". Matt Groening called him "a master", and director Joe Dante said, "He was one of those guys who was a dream to work with. I don't know anybody who didn't like him." Dan Snierson of Entertainment Weekly concluded that Hartman was "the last person you'd expect to read about in lurid headlines in your morning paper" and "a decidedly regular guy, beloved by everyone he worked with". In 2007, Entertainment Weekly ranked Hartman the 87th greatest television icon of all time, and Maxim named him the top Saturday Night Live performer of all time.
On the day of Hartman's death, rehearsals for The Simpsons were canceled as well as that night's performance by The Groundlings. The season five premiere episode of NewsRadio, "Bill Moves On", finds Hartman's character, Bill McNeal, has died of a heart attack, while the other characters reminisce about his life. Lovitz joined the show in his place beginning with the next episode. A special episode of Saturday Night Live commemorating Hartman's work on the show aired on June 13, 1998. Rather than substituting another voice actor, the writers of The Simpsons retired Hartman's characters. His final appearance on the show, the season ten episode "Bart the Mother", is dedicated to him, as is his final film, Small Soldiers.
At the time of his death, Hartman was preparing to voice Zapp Brannigan, a character written specifically for him on Groening's second animated series Futurama. Even though the role was specifically made for him, Hartman still insisted on auditioning and Groening said he "nailed it." After Hartman's death, Billy West took over the role. Though executive producer David X. Cohen credits West with using his own take on the character, West later said that he purposely tweaked Zapp's voice to better match Hartman's intended portrayal. Hartman was planning to appear with Lovitz in the indie film The Day of Swine and Roses, scheduled to begin production in August 1998.
In 2002, Laugh.com and Hartman's brother John published the album, Flat TV, a selection of comedy sketches recorded by Hartman in the 1970s, which had been kept in storage. John Hartmann commented: "I'm putting this out there because I'm dedicating my life to fulfilling his dreams. This [album] is my brother doing what he loved." In 2013, Flat TV was optioned by Michael "Ffish" Hemschoot's animation company Worker Studio for an animated adaptation. The deal came about after Michael T. Scott, a partner in the company, posted online a hand-written letter he had received from Hartman in 1997, leading to a correspondence between Scott and Paul Hartmann.
In 2007, a campaign was started on Facebook by Alex Stevens and endorsed by Hartman's brother Paul, to have Phil inducted to Canada's Walk of Fame. Among the campaign's numerous publicity events, Ben Miner of the Sirius XM Radio channel Laugh Attack, dedicated the month of April 2012 to Hartman. The campaign ended in success and Hartman was inducted to the Walk of Fame on September 22, 2012, with Paul accepting the award on his late brother's behalf. Hartman was also awarded the Cineplex Legends Award. In June 2013, it was announced that Hartman would receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, which was unveiled on August 26, 2014. Additionally, a special prize at the Canadian Comedy Awards was named for Hartman. Beginning with the 13th Canadian Comedy Awards in 2012, the Phil Hartman Award was awarded to "an individual who helps to better the Canadian comedy community". In 2015, Rolling Stone magazine ranked Hartman as one of the top-ten greatest Saturday Night Live cast members throughout the show's forty-year history, coming in seventh on their list of all 141 members.
Filmography
Film
Television
Video games
Theme park attractions
Discography
1977
America, Harbor
1978
America, Silent Letter
Poco, Legend
1980
Firesign Theatre, Fighting Clowns
References
Book sources
External links
Phil Hartman at Yahoo! Movies
Phil Hartman at The New York Times
Hartman's autopsy and death certificate
Phil Hartman's final night: The tragic death of a “Saturday Night Live” genius, Mike Thomas, Salon, September 21, 2014
1948 births
1998 deaths
1998 murders in the United States
20th-century American male actors
20th-century Canadian male actors
Album-cover and concert-poster artists
American male comedians
American male film actors
American graphic designers
American impressionists (entertainers)
American male screenwriters
American male television actors
American television writers
American male voice actors
American sketch comedians
California State University, Northridge alumni
Canadian male comedians
Canadian emigrants to the United States
Canadian male voice actors
Canadian murder victims
Canadian sketch comedians
Deaths by firearm in California
Male actors from Los Angeles
American male television writers
Murder–suicides in California
Naturalized citizens of the United States
People from Brantford
People murdered in Los Angeles
Primetime Emmy Award winners
Santa Monica College alumni
Comedians from California
Mariticides
Westchester High School (Los Angeles) alumni
Screenwriters from California
20th-century Canadian comedians
20th-century American comedians
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American screenwriters
Comedians from Ontario
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[
"Benjamin Philip Bonetti is a self-help author, NLP Practitioner and hypnotist from England.\n\nCareer \nBefore starting his self-help and life coaching career, Bonetti was in the British Army.\n\nPublications\n\nBooks \n\n How To Stress Less Wiley 2014\n How To Change Your Life: Who am I and What Should I Do with My Life? Wiley 2013\n Fat Mind Fat Body Benjamin Bonetti 2012\n Don't Struggle Quietly Benjamin Bonetti Ltd 2012\n Entrepreneurs Always Drive on Empty Benjamin Bonetti 2010\n Making Your Money Last: 7 Steps to Debt Free Living Benjamin Bonetti 2010\n 365 Ways To Do Your Life's Work Benjamin Bonetti and Terry Elston 2011\n Inspirational & Motivational Quotes Benjamin Bonetti and Terry Elston 2010\n Quotes to Remember - 100 Motivational Quotes Benjamin Bonetti 2010\n\nReferences \n\n1982 births\nBritish self-help writers\nBritish hypnotists\nLiving people",
"My Hero 2 (一本漫畫闖天涯2之妙想天開) is a 1993 Hong Kong comedy film directed by Joe Chu, starring Dicky Cheung and Ng Man Tat. Despite the title, it is not a sequel to the movie \"My Hero (1990)\", starring Stephen Chow.\n\nSynopsis\nThe movie is about Cheung Kin-Hong's (Dicky Cheung) ploy to get a good story involving triads for his comics. He is a comics artist and writer who has not been very successful in the past. Then one day he encounters his hero, Brother Tat (Ng Man-Tat) at his regular cafe. He manages to convince Tat, who happens to be also involved with the triads, to help him get the information he needed for his comics. How did it turn out? Did it help him to succeed?\n\nCast\n\nExternal links\n \n My Hero 2 (1993) at HKCinemagic\n \n\n1990s Cantonese-language films\nHong Kong films\n1993 comedy films\n1993 films\nHong Kong comedy films"
] |
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Did he enjoy playing these parts?
| 3 |
Did Hartman enjoy playing the part of a jerky guy?
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Phil Hartman
|
In contrast to his real-life personality, which was described as "a regular guy and, by all accounts, one of show business' most low-key, decent people", Hartman often played seedy, vain or unpleasant characters as well as comedic villains. He noted that his standard character was a "jerky guy", and described his usual roles as "the weasel parade", citing Lionel Hutz, Bill McNeal, Troy McClure and Ted Maltin from Jingle All the Way as examples. Hartman enjoyed playing such roles because he "just want[ed] to be funny, and villains tend to be funny because their foibles are all there to see." He often played supporting roles, rather than the lead part. He said "throughout my career, I've never been a huge star, but I've made steady progress and that's the way I like it," and "It's fun coming in as the second or third lead. If the movie or TV show bombs, you aren't to blame." Hartman was considered a "utility player" on SNL with a "kind of Everyman quality" which enabled him to appear in the majority of sketches, often in very distinct roles. Jan Hooks stated of his work on SNL: "Phil never had an ounce of competition. He was a team player. It was a privilege for him, I believe, to play support and do it very well. He was never insulted, no matter how small the role may have been." He was disciplined in his performances, studying the scripts beforehand. Hooks added: "Phil knew how to listen. And he knew how to look you in the eye, and he knew the power of being able to lay back and let somebody else be funny, and then do the reactions. I think Phil was more of an actor than a comedian." Film critic Pauline Kael declared that "Phil Hartman and Jan Hooks on Saturday Night Live are two of the best comic actors I've ever seen." Writer and acting coach Paul Ryan noted Hartman's work ethic with his impressions. He assembled a collection of video footage of the figure he was preparing to impersonate and watched this continually until he "completely embodied the person". Ryan concluded that "what made [Hartman's impressions] so funny and spot on was Phil's ability to add that perfect touch that only comes from trial and error and practicing in front of audiences and fellow actors." Hartman described this process as "technical." Journalist Lyle V. Harris said Hartman showed a "rare talent for morphing into [...] anybody he wanted to be". Ken Tucker summarized Hartman's comedic style: "He could momentarily fool audiences into thinking he was the straight man, but then he'd cock an eyebrow and give his voice an ironic lilt that delivered a punchline like a fast slider--you barely saw it coming until you started laughing." Hartman claimed that he borrowed his style from actor Bill Murray: "He's been a great influence on me - when he did that smarmy thing in Ghostbusters, then the same sort of thing in Groundhog Day. I tried to imitate it. I couldn't. I wasn't good enough. But I discovered an element of something else, so in a sick kind of way I made myself a career by doing a bad imitation of another comic." CANNOTANSWER
|
Hartman enjoyed playing such roles because he "just want[ed] to be funny, and villains tend to be funny because their foibles are all there to see."
|
Philip Edward Hartman (né Hartmann; September 24, 1948 – May 28, 1998) was a Canadian-American actor, comedian, screenwriter, and graphic designer. Hartman was born in Brantford, Ontario, Canada, and his family moved to the United States when he was ten years old. After graduating from California State University, Northridge with a degree in graphic arts, he designed album covers for bands including Poco and America. In 1975, Hartman joined the comedy group The Groundlings, where he helped Paul Reubens develop his character Pee-wee Herman. Hartman co-wrote the film Pee-wee's Big Adventure and made recurring appearances as Captain Carl on Reubens' show Pee-wee's Playhouse.
In 1986, Hartman joined the NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live (SNL) as a cast member, and stayed for eight seasons until 1994. Nicknamed "Glue" for his ability to hold the show together and help other cast members, he won a Primetime Emmy Award for his SNL work in 1989. In 1995, he starred as Bill McNeal in the sitcom NewsRadio after declining to return to SNL. He also voiced various characters on The Simpsons, and had minor roles in the films Houseguest, Sgt. Bilko, Jingle All the Way, and Small Soldiers.
After two divorces, Hartman married Brynn Omdahl in 1987, with whom he had two children. Their marriage was troubled due to Brynn's drug use and domestic violence against Phil, who was frequently absent from home. In 1998, while Hartman was sleeping in his bed, his wife shot and killed him, and later committed suicide. In the weeks following his murder, Hartman was celebrated in a wave of tributes. Dan Snierson of Entertainment Weekly wrote that Hartman was "the last person you'd expect to read about in lurid headlines in your morning paper ... a decidedly regular guy, beloved by everyone he worked with". He was posthumously inducted into the Canada and Hollywood Walks of Fame in 2012 and 2014.
Early life
Hartman was born Philip Edward Hartmann (later dropping one "n") on September 24, 1948, in Brantford, Ontario. He was the fourth of eight children of Doris Marguerite (née Wardell; July 17, 1919 – April 15, 2001) and Rupert Loebig Hartmann (November 8, 1914 – April 30, 1998), who sold building materials. The family was Catholic. As a child, Hartman found affection hard to earn: "I suppose I didn't get what I wanted out of my family life, so I started seeking love and attention elsewhere."
Hartman was ten when his family moved to the United States. They first lived in Lewiston, Maine, then Meriden, Connecticut, and then on the West Coast, where he attended Westchester High School and frequently acted as the class clown. After graduating, he studied art at Santa Monica City College, dropping out in 1969 to become a roadie with a rock band. He returned to school in 1972 to study graphic arts at California State University, Northridge. He developed and operated his own graphic art business, creating more than 40 album covers for bands including Poco and America, as well as advertising and the logo for Crosby, Stills & Nash. In the late 1970s, he made his first television appearance on an episode of The Dating Game, where he won.
Career
Early career (1975–1985)
Working alone as a graphic artist, Hartman frequently amused himself with "flights of voice fantasies". In 1975, seeking a more social outlet for his talents, he began attending evening comedy classes by the California-based improvisational comedy group The Groundlings. While watching one of their performances, he impulsively decided to climb on stage and join the cast. His first onscreen appearance was in 1978's Stunt Rock, an Australian film directed in Los Angeles by Brian Trenchard-Smith. After several years of training, paying his way by redesigning the group's logo and merchandise, Hartman formally joined The Groundlings and by 1979 was one of the show's stars.
There Hartman befriended Paul Reubens, with whom he often collaborated on comedic material. Together they created the character Pee-wee Herman and developed The Pee-wee Herman Show, a live stage show that subsequently aired on HBO in 1981. Hartman played Captain Carl in the show, and reprised the role for the children's TV show Pee-wee's Playhouse. Reubens and Hartman made cameos in the 1980 film Cheech & Chong's Next Movie. Hartman co-wrote the script of the 1985 feature film Pee-wee's Big Adventure and had a cameo role as a reporter. He'd considered quitting acting at the age of 36 due to the challenges of finding work; but the success of Pee-wee's Big Adventure changed his mind. After a creative disagreement with Reubens, he left the Pee-Wee Herman project to pursue other roles.
Hartman took more small roles in 1986 films such as Jumpin' Jack Flash and Three Amigos. He also worked as a voice actor in animated television programs, including The Smurfs, Challenge of the GoBots, The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo, and in Dennis the Menace as characters Henry Mitchell and George Wilson. He developed a strong persona providing voice-overs for advertisements.
Saturday Night Live (1986–1994)
Hartman successfully auditioned to join NBC's variety show Saturday Night Live (SNL) in its 12th season, which began on October 11, 1986. He had been recommended for the show by fellow Groundlings and SNL cast members Jon Lovitz, and Laraine Newman as well as Jumpin' Jack Flash director Penny Marshall. He told the Los Angeles Times, "I wanted to do [SNL] because I wanted to get the exposure that would give me box-office credibility so I can write movies for myself." In his eight seasons with the show Hartman became known for his impressions, and performed as over 70 different characters. Hartman's original SNL characters include Eugene, the Anal Retentive Chef and Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer. His impressions include Frank Sinatra, Ronald Reagan, Ed McMahon, Barbara Bush, Charlton Heston, Phil Donahue, and Bill Clintonthe latter considered his best-known impression.
Hartman first performed his Clinton impression on an episode of The Tonight Show. When he met Clinton in 1993, Hartman remarked, "I guess I owe you a few apologies", adding later that he "sometimes [felt] a twinge of guilt about [his Clinton impression]". Clinton showed good humor and sent Hartman a signed photo with the text: "You're not the president, but you play one on TV. And you're OK, mostly." Hartman copied the president's "post-nasal drip" and the "slight scratchiness" in his voice, as well as his open, "less intimidating" hand gestures. Hartman opted against wearing a larger prosthetic nose when portraying Clinton, as he thought it would be distracting. He instead wore a wig, dyed his eyebrows brighter, and used makeup to highlight his nose. In one of Hartman's sketches as Clinton, the president visits a McDonald's restaurant and explains his economic policies in the metaphor of eating other customers' food. The writers told him that he was not eating enough during rehearsals for the sketch – by the end of the live performance, Hartman had eaten so much he could barely speak.
At SNL, Hartman's nickname of "Glue" was coined by Adam Sandler according to Jay Mohr's book Gasping for Airtime. However, according to You Might Remember Me: The Life and Times of Phil Hartman by Mike Thomas, author and staff writer for the Chicago Sun-Times, the nickname was created by SNL cast member and Hartman's frequent on-screen collaborator Jan Hooks. Hartman was very helpful to other cast members. For example, he aided Hooks in overcoming her stage fright. SNL creator Lorne Michaels explained the name: "He kind of held the show together. He gave to everybody and demanded very little. He was very low-maintenance." Michaels also added that Hartman was "the least appreciated" cast member by commentators outside the show, and praised his ability "to do five or six parts in a show where you're playing support or you're doing remarkable character work". Hartman won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Variety, Music or Comedy Program for SNL in 1989, sharing the award with the show's other writers. He was nominated in the same category in 1987, and individually in 1994 for Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program.
By 1993, almost every cast member who was there during Hartman's first year on SNL had left the show, including Jon Lovitz, Jan Hooks and Dana Carvey. Hartman said he felt "like an athlete who's watched all his World Series teammates get traded off into other directions ... It was hard to watch them leave because I sort of felt we were all part of the team that saved the show." This cast turnover contributed to his leaving the show in 1994. Hartman said he thought it was time to leave because the show was "getting less sophisticated" and his style of humor didn't fit with the less intellectual comedy of newer cast members like Adam Sandler. Hartman had originally planned to leave the show in 1991, but Michaels convinced him to stay to raise his profile; his portrayal of Clinton contributed to this goal. Jay Leno offered him the role of his sidekick on The Tonight Show but Hartman opted to stay on SNL. NBC persuaded him to stay on SNL by promising him his own comedy–variety show The Phil Show. He planned to "reinvent the variety form" with "a hybrid, very fast-paced, high energy [show] with sketches, impersonations, pet acts, and performers showcasing their talents". Hartman was to be the show's executive producer and head writer. Before production began, however, the network decided that variety shows were too unpopular and canceled the series. In a 1996 interview, Hartman noted he was glad, as he "would've been sweatin' blood each week trying to make it work". In 1998, he admitted he missed working on SNL, but had enjoyed the move from New York City to Southern California.
NewsRadio (1995–1998)
Hartman became one of the stars of the NBC sitcom NewsRadio in 1995, portraying radio news anchor Bill McNeal. He signed up after being attracted by the show's writing and use of an ensemble cast, and joked that he based McNeal on himself with "any ethics and character" removed. Hartman made roughly per episode of NewsRadio. Although the show was critically acclaimed, it was never a ratings hit and cancellation was a regular threat. After the completion of the fourth season, Hartman commented, "We seem to have limited appeal. We're on the edge here, not sure we're going to be picked up or not", but added he was "99 percent sure" the series would be renewed for a fifth season. Hartman had publicly lambasted NBC's decision to repeatedly move NewsRadio into different timeslots, but later regretted his comments, saying, "this is a sitcom, for crying out loud, not brain surgery". He also stated that if the sitcom were cancelled "it just will open up other opportunities for me". Although the show was renewed for a fifth season, Hartman died before production began. Ken Tucker praised Hartman's performance as McNeal: "A lesser performer ... would have played him as a variation on The Mary Tyler Moore Shows Ted Baxter, because that's what Bill was, on paper. But Hartman gave infinite variety to Bill's self-centeredness, turning him devious, cowardly, squeamish, and foolishly bold from week to week." Hartman was posthumously nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series in 1998 for his work on NewsRadio, but lost to David Hyde Pierce.
The Simpsons (1991–1998)
Hartman provided the voices for numerous characters on the Fox animated series The Simpsons, appearing in 52 episodes. He made his first appearance in the second season episode "Bart Gets Hit by a Car". Although he was originally brought in for a one-time appearance, Hartman enjoyed working on The Simpsons and the staff wrote additional parts for him. He voiced the recurring characters Lionel Hutz and Troy McClure, as well as Duff man (on one occasion) and several background characters. His favorite part was that of McClure, and he often used this voice to entertain the audience between takes while taping episodes of NewsRadio. He remarked, "My favorite fans are Troy McClure fans." He added "It's the one thing that I do in my life that's almost an avocation. I do it for the pure love of it."
Hartman was popular among the staff of The Simpsons. Showrunners Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein said they enjoyed his work, and used him as much as possible when working on the show. To give Hartman a larger role, they developed the episode "A Fish Called Selma", which focuses on Troy McClure and expands the character's backstory. The Simpsons creator Matt Groening said that he "took [Hartman] for granted because he nailed the joke every time", and that his voice acting could produce "the maximum amount of humor" with any line he was given. Before his death, Hartman had expressed an interest in making a live action film about Troy McClure. Many of The Simpsons production staff expressed enthusiasm for the project and offered to help. Hartman said he was "looking forward to [McClure's] live-action movie, publicizing his Betty Ford appearances", and "would love nothing more" than making a film and was prepared to buy the film rights himself in order to make it happen.
Other work
Hartman's first starring film role came in 1995's Houseguest, alongside Sinbad. Other films include Greedy, Coneheads, Sgt. Bilko, So I Married an Axe Murderer, CB4, Jingle All the Way, Kiki's Delivery Service, and Small Soldiers, the latter of which is his final theatrically released film. At the same time, he preferred working on television. His other television roles include appearances on episodes of The John Larroquette Show, The Dana Carvey Show, 3rd Rock from the Sun, and the HBO TV film The Second Civil War as the President of the United States. He made a considerable amount of money from television advertising, earning $300,000 for a series of four commercials for the soft drink Slice. He also appeared in advertisements for McDonald's (as Hugh McAttack) and 1-800-Collect (as Max Jerome).
Hartman wrote a number of screenplays that were never produced. In 1986, he began writing a screenplay for a film titled Mr. Fix-It, and completed the final draft in 1991. Robert Zemeckis was signed to produce the film, with Gil Bettman hired to direct. Hartman called it "a sort of a merger of horror and comedy, like Beetlejuice and Throw Momma From the Train", adding, "It's an American nightmare about a family torn asunder. They live next to a toxic dump site, their water supply is poisoned, the mother and son go insane and try to murder each other, the father's face is torn off in a terrible disfiguring accident in the first act. It's heavy stuff, but it's got a good message and a positive, upbeat ending." Zemeckis could not secure studio backing, however, and the project collapsed. Another film idea involving Hartman's Groundlings character Chick Hazard, Private Eye was also canceled.
Style
In contrast to his real-life personality, which was described as "a regular guy and, by all accounts, one of show business's most low-key, decent people", Hartman often played seedy, vain or unpleasant characters as well as comedic villains. He described his standard character repertoire as the "jerky guy" and "the weasel parade", citing Lionel Hutz, Bill McNeal, Troy McClure, and Ted Maltin from Jingle All the Way as examples. Hartman enjoyed playing such roles because he "just want[ed] to be funny, and villains tend to be funny because their foibles are all there to see".
He often played supporting roles, rather than the lead part. He said "throughout my career, I've never been a huge star, but I've made steady progress and that's the way I like it", and "It's fun coming in as the second or third lead. If the movie or TV show bombs, you aren't to blame." Hartman was considered a "utility player" on SNL with a "kind of Everyman quality" which enabled him to appear in the majority of sketches, often in very distinct roles. Jan Hooks stated of his work on SNL: "Phil never had an ounce of competition. He was a team player. It was a privilege for him, I believe, to play support and do it very well. He was never insulted, no matter how small the role may have been." He was disciplined in his performances, studying the scripts beforehand. Hooks added: "Phil knew how to listen. And he knew how to look you in the eye, and he knew the power of being able to lay back and let somebody else be funny, and then do the reactions. I think Phil was more of an actor than a comedian." Film critic Pauline Kael declared that "Phil Hartman and Jan Hooks on Saturday Night Live are two of the best comic actors I've ever seen."
Writer and acting coach Paul Ryan noted Hartman's work ethic with his impressions. He assembled a collection of video footage of the figure he was preparing to impersonate and watched this continually until he "completely embodied the person". Ryan concluded that "what made [Hartman's impressions] so funny and spot on was Phil's ability to add that perfect touch that only comes from trial and error and practicing in front of audiences and fellow actors." Hartman described this process as "technical". Journalist Lyle V. Harris said Hartman showed a "rare talent for morphing into ... anybody he wanted to be".
Ken Tucker summarized Hartman's comedic style: "He could momentarily fool audiences into thinking he was the straight man, but then he'd cock an eyebrow and give his voice an ironic lilt that delivered a punchline like a fast slider—you barely saw it coming until you started laughing." Hartman claimed that he borrowed his style from actor Bill Murray: "He's been a great influence on me – when he did that smarmy thing in Ghostbusters, then the same sort of thing in Groundhog Day. I tried to imitate it. I couldn't. I wasn't good enough. But I discovered an element of something else, so in a sick kind of way I made myself a career by doing a bad imitation of another comic."
Personal life
Hartman married Gretchen Lewis in 1970 and they divorced in September 1972. He married real estate agent Lisa Strain in 1982, and their marriage lasted three years. Strain told People magazine that Hartman was reclusive off screen and "would disappear emotionally ... he'd be in his own world. That passivity made you crazy." In 1987, Hartman married former model and aspiring actress Brynn Omdahl (born Vicki Jo Omdahl, April 11, 1958 – May 28, 1998), having met her on a blind date the previous year. They had two children, Sean and Birgen Hartman. The marriage had difficulties; she was reportedly intimidated by his success and was frustrated that she could not find any on her own, although neither party wanted a divorce. She was reported to have been jealous and often verbally and/or physically abusive, even sending a letter to his ex-wife, threatening to "rip [Strain's] eyes out" if she spoke to him again. Hartman considered retiring to save the marriage.
Hartman tried to get Brynn acting roles, but she became progressively reliant on alcohol and narcotics, entering rehab several times. On multiple occasions, he removed their children from the household to stay with friends or family because of her drug- and alcohol-fueled outbursts. Because of his close friendship with SNL associate Jan Hooks, Brynn joked on occasion Hooks and Hartman were married "on some other level". Brynn had written threatening letters addressed to Hooks, warning her to not get close to her husband, but they appeared to have never even been sent, being discovered in her belongings following her death.
Stephen Root, Hartman's NewsRadio co-star, said few people knew "the real Phil Hartman", as he was "one of those people who never seemed to come out of character," but he nevertheless gave the impression of a family man who cared deeply for his children. Hartman befriended Joe Rogan during his time on NewsRadio and confided his marital problems to him. Rogan said that he encouraged Hartman to divorce Brynn five times, but "[Hartman] loved his kids and didn't want to leave".
Hartman stated in 1997, though a non-practicing Catholic, he displayed a sense of religiousness. In his spare time, he enjoyed driving, flying, sailing, marksmanship, and playing the guitar.
Murder
On May 27, 1998, Brynn visited the Italian restaurant Buca di Beppo in Encino, California, with producer and writer Christine Zander, who said Brynn was "in a good frame of mind." They had drinks. After returning home, Brynn had a "heated" argument with Phil, after which he went to bed. She entered his bedroom some time before PDT on May 28, 1998, and as he slept, fatally shot him once between the eyes, once in the throat, and once in the upper chest with a Charter Arms .38 caliber handgun. He was 49 years old. She was taking Zoloft, had been drinking alcohol, and had recently used cocaine.
Brynn then drove to the home of her friend Ron Douglas and confessed to the killing, but he did not believe her. They drove back to the house in separate cars, and she called another friend and confessed a second time. On seeing Hartman's body, Douglas called 9-1-1 at Police arrived and escorted Douglas and the Hartmans' two children from the premises, by which time Brynn had locked herself in the bedroom. Shortly afterward, she committed suicide by a self-inflicted gunshot.
The police stated Hartman's death was caused by "domestic discord" between the couple. A friend said Brynn "had trouble controlling her anger ... She got attention by losing her temper". A neighbor of the Hartmans told a CNN reporter that the couple had marital problems. Yet actor Steve Guttenberg said they had been "a very happy couple, and they always had the appearance of being well-balanced".
A wrongful death lawsuit was filed in 1999 by her brother Gregory Omdahl, against Pfizer, the manufacturer of Zoloft, and against her child's psychiatrist, Arthur Sorosky, who had provided samples of the antidepressant to Brynn. Phil Hartman's friend and former SNL colleague Jon Lovitz has accused Hartman's then NewsRadio co-star Andy Dick of reintroducing Brynn to cocaine, causing her to relapse and suffer a nervous breakdown. Dick claims to have known nothing of her condition. Lovitz later said he no longer blamed Dick for Hartman's murder, but in 2006, Lovitz claimed Dick approached him at a restaurant and said, "I put the Phil Hartman hex on you; you're the next one to die." Lovitz then had him ejected from the restaurant. The following year at the Laugh Factory comedy club in Los Angeles, Lovitz and Dick had another argument, with Lovitz slamming Dick's head into the bar. Dick asserted he was not at fault in relation to Hartman's death.
Brynn's sister Katharine Omdahl and brother-in-law Mike Wright raised the two Hartman children. Hartman's will stipulated each child would inherit money over several years after turning 25. The total value of Hartman's estate was estimated at . In accordance with his wishes, his body was cremated by Forest Lawn Memorial Park and Mortuary, Glendale, California, and his ashes scattered over Santa Catalina Island's Emerald Bay.
Response and legacy
NBC executive Don Ohlmeyer stated that Hartman "was blessed with a tremendous gift for creating characters that made people laugh. Everyone who had the pleasure of working with Phil knows that he was a man of tremendous warmth, a true professional and a loyal friend." Guttenberg expressed shock at Hartman's death, and Steve Martin said he was "a deeply funny and very happy person". Matt Groening called him "a master", and director Joe Dante said, "He was one of those guys who was a dream to work with. I don't know anybody who didn't like him." Dan Snierson of Entertainment Weekly concluded that Hartman was "the last person you'd expect to read about in lurid headlines in your morning paper" and "a decidedly regular guy, beloved by everyone he worked with". In 2007, Entertainment Weekly ranked Hartman the 87th greatest television icon of all time, and Maxim named him the top Saturday Night Live performer of all time.
On the day of Hartman's death, rehearsals for The Simpsons were canceled as well as that night's performance by The Groundlings. The season five premiere episode of NewsRadio, "Bill Moves On", finds Hartman's character, Bill McNeal, has died of a heart attack, while the other characters reminisce about his life. Lovitz joined the show in his place beginning with the next episode. A special episode of Saturday Night Live commemorating Hartman's work on the show aired on June 13, 1998. Rather than substituting another voice actor, the writers of The Simpsons retired Hartman's characters. His final appearance on the show, the season ten episode "Bart the Mother", is dedicated to him, as is his final film, Small Soldiers.
At the time of his death, Hartman was preparing to voice Zapp Brannigan, a character written specifically for him on Groening's second animated series Futurama. Even though the role was specifically made for him, Hartman still insisted on auditioning and Groening said he "nailed it." After Hartman's death, Billy West took over the role. Though executive producer David X. Cohen credits West with using his own take on the character, West later said that he purposely tweaked Zapp's voice to better match Hartman's intended portrayal. Hartman was planning to appear with Lovitz in the indie film The Day of Swine and Roses, scheduled to begin production in August 1998.
In 2002, Laugh.com and Hartman's brother John published the album, Flat TV, a selection of comedy sketches recorded by Hartman in the 1970s, which had been kept in storage. John Hartmann commented: "I'm putting this out there because I'm dedicating my life to fulfilling his dreams. This [album] is my brother doing what he loved." In 2013, Flat TV was optioned by Michael "Ffish" Hemschoot's animation company Worker Studio for an animated adaptation. The deal came about after Michael T. Scott, a partner in the company, posted online a hand-written letter he had received from Hartman in 1997, leading to a correspondence between Scott and Paul Hartmann.
In 2007, a campaign was started on Facebook by Alex Stevens and endorsed by Hartman's brother Paul, to have Phil inducted to Canada's Walk of Fame. Among the campaign's numerous publicity events, Ben Miner of the Sirius XM Radio channel Laugh Attack, dedicated the month of April 2012 to Hartman. The campaign ended in success and Hartman was inducted to the Walk of Fame on September 22, 2012, with Paul accepting the award on his late brother's behalf. Hartman was also awarded the Cineplex Legends Award. In June 2013, it was announced that Hartman would receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, which was unveiled on August 26, 2014. Additionally, a special prize at the Canadian Comedy Awards was named for Hartman. Beginning with the 13th Canadian Comedy Awards in 2012, the Phil Hartman Award was awarded to "an individual who helps to better the Canadian comedy community". In 2015, Rolling Stone magazine ranked Hartman as one of the top-ten greatest Saturday Night Live cast members throughout the show's forty-year history, coming in seventh on their list of all 141 members.
Filmography
Film
Television
Video games
Theme park attractions
Discography
1977
America, Harbor
1978
America, Silent Letter
Poco, Legend
1980
Firesign Theatre, Fighting Clowns
References
Book sources
External links
Phil Hartman at Yahoo! Movies
Phil Hartman at The New York Times
Hartman's autopsy and death certificate
Phil Hartman's final night: The tragic death of a “Saturday Night Live” genius, Mike Thomas, Salon, September 21, 2014
1948 births
1998 deaths
1998 murders in the United States
20th-century American male actors
20th-century Canadian male actors
Album-cover and concert-poster artists
American male comedians
American male film actors
American graphic designers
American impressionists (entertainers)
American male screenwriters
American male television actors
American television writers
American male voice actors
American sketch comedians
California State University, Northridge alumni
Canadian male comedians
Canadian emigrants to the United States
Canadian male voice actors
Canadian murder victims
Canadian sketch comedians
Deaths by firearm in California
Male actors from Los Angeles
American male television writers
Murder–suicides in California
Naturalized citizens of the United States
People from Brantford
People murdered in Los Angeles
Primetime Emmy Award winners
Santa Monica College alumni
Comedians from California
Mariticides
Westchester High School (Los Angeles) alumni
Screenwriters from California
20th-century Canadian comedians
20th-century American comedians
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American screenwriters
Comedians from Ontario
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[
"Neezam Abdul Aziz (born 25 April 1991) is a Singaporean professional footballer who currently plays for Warriors in the S.League. He plays as a goalkeeper.\n\nCareer \nNeezam Aziz has been involved in professional football since the age of 20. He started his S.League career with Home United but a constant name on the bench.\n\nHe moved on to Courts Young Lions in 2012, whereby he got his playing time as a first-team keeper. In 2013, he played for LionsXII and won the 2013 Malaysia Super League title. As he did not enjoy much playing time as he did in the Young Lions, he joined the Warriors in 2014.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \nN. Aziz at int.soccerway.com\n\n1991 births\nLiving people\nSingaporean footballers\nAssociation football goalkeepers\nHome United FC players\nYoung Lions FC players\nLionsXII players\nWarriors FC players\nSingapore Premier League players",
"BrainHex is a neurobiology-based typology of gamer personality. It is formed in the early 2010s, by combining several then commonly used player personality typology. According to BrainHex, a gamer could be classified into these categories, based on their motivation to play video games:\nSeekers enjoy exploring a game world. They are likely to enjoy games with rich and expanded worlds full of POIs to discover.\nSurvivors enjoy experiencing fear within a controlled setting and surviving the terror. They are likely to enjoy horror games.\nDaredevils enjoy a thrilling experience that let them behave in risky ways in a virtual world, like driving at high speed in a racing game.\nMasterminds enjoy solving puzzles and coming up with complex strategies.\nConquerors enjoy defeating difficult foes, whether the foes in question are controlled by AI or by other players.\nSocialisers enjoy playing games as a way to socialise.\nAchievers enjoy completing in-game challenges. They are likely to pursue 100% completion.\n\nSee also\nBartle taxonomy of player types\n\nReferences\n\nLiterature\nBusch, M., Mattheiss, E., Orji, R., Fröhlich, P., Lankes, M., & Tscheligi, M. (2016, May). Player type models: Towards empirical validation. In Proceedings of the 2016 CHI conference extended abstracts on human factors in computing systems (pp. 1835-1841).\nPaulin, R. E., Battaiola, A. L., & Alves, M. M. (2014, June). The study of the relations between the brainhex player profiles, MBTI psychological types and emotions as means to enhance user experience. In International Conference of Design, User Experience, and Usability (pp. 732-741). Springer, Cham.\nMonterrat, B., Desmarais, M., Lavoué, E., & George, S. (2015, June). A player model for adaptive gamification in learning environments. In International conference on artificial intelligence in education (pp. 297-306). Springer, Cham.\nVideo game culture\nPersonality tests"
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What parts was he famous for?
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What parts was Hartman famous for?
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Phil Hartman
|
In contrast to his real-life personality, which was described as "a regular guy and, by all accounts, one of show business' most low-key, decent people", Hartman often played seedy, vain or unpleasant characters as well as comedic villains. He noted that his standard character was a "jerky guy", and described his usual roles as "the weasel parade", citing Lionel Hutz, Bill McNeal, Troy McClure and Ted Maltin from Jingle All the Way as examples. Hartman enjoyed playing such roles because he "just want[ed] to be funny, and villains tend to be funny because their foibles are all there to see." He often played supporting roles, rather than the lead part. He said "throughout my career, I've never been a huge star, but I've made steady progress and that's the way I like it," and "It's fun coming in as the second or third lead. If the movie or TV show bombs, you aren't to blame." Hartman was considered a "utility player" on SNL with a "kind of Everyman quality" which enabled him to appear in the majority of sketches, often in very distinct roles. Jan Hooks stated of his work on SNL: "Phil never had an ounce of competition. He was a team player. It was a privilege for him, I believe, to play support and do it very well. He was never insulted, no matter how small the role may have been." He was disciplined in his performances, studying the scripts beforehand. Hooks added: "Phil knew how to listen. And he knew how to look you in the eye, and he knew the power of being able to lay back and let somebody else be funny, and then do the reactions. I think Phil was more of an actor than a comedian." Film critic Pauline Kael declared that "Phil Hartman and Jan Hooks on Saturday Night Live are two of the best comic actors I've ever seen." Writer and acting coach Paul Ryan noted Hartman's work ethic with his impressions. He assembled a collection of video footage of the figure he was preparing to impersonate and watched this continually until he "completely embodied the person". Ryan concluded that "what made [Hartman's impressions] so funny and spot on was Phil's ability to add that perfect touch that only comes from trial and error and practicing in front of audiences and fellow actors." Hartman described this process as "technical." Journalist Lyle V. Harris said Hartman showed a "rare talent for morphing into [...] anybody he wanted to be". Ken Tucker summarized Hartman's comedic style: "He could momentarily fool audiences into thinking he was the straight man, but then he'd cock an eyebrow and give his voice an ironic lilt that delivered a punchline like a fast slider--you barely saw it coming until you started laughing." Hartman claimed that he borrowed his style from actor Bill Murray: "He's been a great influence on me - when he did that smarmy thing in Ghostbusters, then the same sort of thing in Groundhog Day. I tried to imitate it. I couldn't. I wasn't good enough. But I discovered an element of something else, so in a sick kind of way I made myself a career by doing a bad imitation of another comic." CANNOTANSWER
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He often played supporting roles, rather than the lead part. He said "throughout my career, I've never been a huge star, but I've made steady progress
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Philip Edward Hartman (né Hartmann; September 24, 1948 – May 28, 1998) was a Canadian-American actor, comedian, screenwriter, and graphic designer. Hartman was born in Brantford, Ontario, Canada, and his family moved to the United States when he was ten years old. After graduating from California State University, Northridge with a degree in graphic arts, he designed album covers for bands including Poco and America. In 1975, Hartman joined the comedy group The Groundlings, where he helped Paul Reubens develop his character Pee-wee Herman. Hartman co-wrote the film Pee-wee's Big Adventure and made recurring appearances as Captain Carl on Reubens' show Pee-wee's Playhouse.
In 1986, Hartman joined the NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live (SNL) as a cast member, and stayed for eight seasons until 1994. Nicknamed "Glue" for his ability to hold the show together and help other cast members, he won a Primetime Emmy Award for his SNL work in 1989. In 1995, he starred as Bill McNeal in the sitcom NewsRadio after declining to return to SNL. He also voiced various characters on The Simpsons, and had minor roles in the films Houseguest, Sgt. Bilko, Jingle All the Way, and Small Soldiers.
After two divorces, Hartman married Brynn Omdahl in 1987, with whom he had two children. Their marriage was troubled due to Brynn's drug use and domestic violence against Phil, who was frequently absent from home. In 1998, while Hartman was sleeping in his bed, his wife shot and killed him, and later committed suicide. In the weeks following his murder, Hartman was celebrated in a wave of tributes. Dan Snierson of Entertainment Weekly wrote that Hartman was "the last person you'd expect to read about in lurid headlines in your morning paper ... a decidedly regular guy, beloved by everyone he worked with". He was posthumously inducted into the Canada and Hollywood Walks of Fame in 2012 and 2014.
Early life
Hartman was born Philip Edward Hartmann (later dropping one "n") on September 24, 1948, in Brantford, Ontario. He was the fourth of eight children of Doris Marguerite (née Wardell; July 17, 1919 – April 15, 2001) and Rupert Loebig Hartmann (November 8, 1914 – April 30, 1998), who sold building materials. The family was Catholic. As a child, Hartman found affection hard to earn: "I suppose I didn't get what I wanted out of my family life, so I started seeking love and attention elsewhere."
Hartman was ten when his family moved to the United States. They first lived in Lewiston, Maine, then Meriden, Connecticut, and then on the West Coast, where he attended Westchester High School and frequently acted as the class clown. After graduating, he studied art at Santa Monica City College, dropping out in 1969 to become a roadie with a rock band. He returned to school in 1972 to study graphic arts at California State University, Northridge. He developed and operated his own graphic art business, creating more than 40 album covers for bands including Poco and America, as well as advertising and the logo for Crosby, Stills & Nash. In the late 1970s, he made his first television appearance on an episode of The Dating Game, where he won.
Career
Early career (1975–1985)
Working alone as a graphic artist, Hartman frequently amused himself with "flights of voice fantasies". In 1975, seeking a more social outlet for his talents, he began attending evening comedy classes by the California-based improvisational comedy group The Groundlings. While watching one of their performances, he impulsively decided to climb on stage and join the cast. His first onscreen appearance was in 1978's Stunt Rock, an Australian film directed in Los Angeles by Brian Trenchard-Smith. After several years of training, paying his way by redesigning the group's logo and merchandise, Hartman formally joined The Groundlings and by 1979 was one of the show's stars.
There Hartman befriended Paul Reubens, with whom he often collaborated on comedic material. Together they created the character Pee-wee Herman and developed The Pee-wee Herman Show, a live stage show that subsequently aired on HBO in 1981. Hartman played Captain Carl in the show, and reprised the role for the children's TV show Pee-wee's Playhouse. Reubens and Hartman made cameos in the 1980 film Cheech & Chong's Next Movie. Hartman co-wrote the script of the 1985 feature film Pee-wee's Big Adventure and had a cameo role as a reporter. He'd considered quitting acting at the age of 36 due to the challenges of finding work; but the success of Pee-wee's Big Adventure changed his mind. After a creative disagreement with Reubens, he left the Pee-Wee Herman project to pursue other roles.
Hartman took more small roles in 1986 films such as Jumpin' Jack Flash and Three Amigos. He also worked as a voice actor in animated television programs, including The Smurfs, Challenge of the GoBots, The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo, and in Dennis the Menace as characters Henry Mitchell and George Wilson. He developed a strong persona providing voice-overs for advertisements.
Saturday Night Live (1986–1994)
Hartman successfully auditioned to join NBC's variety show Saturday Night Live (SNL) in its 12th season, which began on October 11, 1986. He had been recommended for the show by fellow Groundlings and SNL cast members Jon Lovitz, and Laraine Newman as well as Jumpin' Jack Flash director Penny Marshall. He told the Los Angeles Times, "I wanted to do [SNL] because I wanted to get the exposure that would give me box-office credibility so I can write movies for myself." In his eight seasons with the show Hartman became known for his impressions, and performed as over 70 different characters. Hartman's original SNL characters include Eugene, the Anal Retentive Chef and Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer. His impressions include Frank Sinatra, Ronald Reagan, Ed McMahon, Barbara Bush, Charlton Heston, Phil Donahue, and Bill Clintonthe latter considered his best-known impression.
Hartman first performed his Clinton impression on an episode of The Tonight Show. When he met Clinton in 1993, Hartman remarked, "I guess I owe you a few apologies", adding later that he "sometimes [felt] a twinge of guilt about [his Clinton impression]". Clinton showed good humor and sent Hartman a signed photo with the text: "You're not the president, but you play one on TV. And you're OK, mostly." Hartman copied the president's "post-nasal drip" and the "slight scratchiness" in his voice, as well as his open, "less intimidating" hand gestures. Hartman opted against wearing a larger prosthetic nose when portraying Clinton, as he thought it would be distracting. He instead wore a wig, dyed his eyebrows brighter, and used makeup to highlight his nose. In one of Hartman's sketches as Clinton, the president visits a McDonald's restaurant and explains his economic policies in the metaphor of eating other customers' food. The writers told him that he was not eating enough during rehearsals for the sketch – by the end of the live performance, Hartman had eaten so much he could barely speak.
At SNL, Hartman's nickname of "Glue" was coined by Adam Sandler according to Jay Mohr's book Gasping for Airtime. However, according to You Might Remember Me: The Life and Times of Phil Hartman by Mike Thomas, author and staff writer for the Chicago Sun-Times, the nickname was created by SNL cast member and Hartman's frequent on-screen collaborator Jan Hooks. Hartman was very helpful to other cast members. For example, he aided Hooks in overcoming her stage fright. SNL creator Lorne Michaels explained the name: "He kind of held the show together. He gave to everybody and demanded very little. He was very low-maintenance." Michaels also added that Hartman was "the least appreciated" cast member by commentators outside the show, and praised his ability "to do five or six parts in a show where you're playing support or you're doing remarkable character work". Hartman won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Variety, Music or Comedy Program for SNL in 1989, sharing the award with the show's other writers. He was nominated in the same category in 1987, and individually in 1994 for Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program.
By 1993, almost every cast member who was there during Hartman's first year on SNL had left the show, including Jon Lovitz, Jan Hooks and Dana Carvey. Hartman said he felt "like an athlete who's watched all his World Series teammates get traded off into other directions ... It was hard to watch them leave because I sort of felt we were all part of the team that saved the show." This cast turnover contributed to his leaving the show in 1994. Hartman said he thought it was time to leave because the show was "getting less sophisticated" and his style of humor didn't fit with the less intellectual comedy of newer cast members like Adam Sandler. Hartman had originally planned to leave the show in 1991, but Michaels convinced him to stay to raise his profile; his portrayal of Clinton contributed to this goal. Jay Leno offered him the role of his sidekick on The Tonight Show but Hartman opted to stay on SNL. NBC persuaded him to stay on SNL by promising him his own comedy–variety show The Phil Show. He planned to "reinvent the variety form" with "a hybrid, very fast-paced, high energy [show] with sketches, impersonations, pet acts, and performers showcasing their talents". Hartman was to be the show's executive producer and head writer. Before production began, however, the network decided that variety shows were too unpopular and canceled the series. In a 1996 interview, Hartman noted he was glad, as he "would've been sweatin' blood each week trying to make it work". In 1998, he admitted he missed working on SNL, but had enjoyed the move from New York City to Southern California.
NewsRadio (1995–1998)
Hartman became one of the stars of the NBC sitcom NewsRadio in 1995, portraying radio news anchor Bill McNeal. He signed up after being attracted by the show's writing and use of an ensemble cast, and joked that he based McNeal on himself with "any ethics and character" removed. Hartman made roughly per episode of NewsRadio. Although the show was critically acclaimed, it was never a ratings hit and cancellation was a regular threat. After the completion of the fourth season, Hartman commented, "We seem to have limited appeal. We're on the edge here, not sure we're going to be picked up or not", but added he was "99 percent sure" the series would be renewed for a fifth season. Hartman had publicly lambasted NBC's decision to repeatedly move NewsRadio into different timeslots, but later regretted his comments, saying, "this is a sitcom, for crying out loud, not brain surgery". He also stated that if the sitcom were cancelled "it just will open up other opportunities for me". Although the show was renewed for a fifth season, Hartman died before production began. Ken Tucker praised Hartman's performance as McNeal: "A lesser performer ... would have played him as a variation on The Mary Tyler Moore Shows Ted Baxter, because that's what Bill was, on paper. But Hartman gave infinite variety to Bill's self-centeredness, turning him devious, cowardly, squeamish, and foolishly bold from week to week." Hartman was posthumously nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series in 1998 for his work on NewsRadio, but lost to David Hyde Pierce.
The Simpsons (1991–1998)
Hartman provided the voices for numerous characters on the Fox animated series The Simpsons, appearing in 52 episodes. He made his first appearance in the second season episode "Bart Gets Hit by a Car". Although he was originally brought in for a one-time appearance, Hartman enjoyed working on The Simpsons and the staff wrote additional parts for him. He voiced the recurring characters Lionel Hutz and Troy McClure, as well as Duff man (on one occasion) and several background characters. His favorite part was that of McClure, and he often used this voice to entertain the audience between takes while taping episodes of NewsRadio. He remarked, "My favorite fans are Troy McClure fans." He added "It's the one thing that I do in my life that's almost an avocation. I do it for the pure love of it."
Hartman was popular among the staff of The Simpsons. Showrunners Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein said they enjoyed his work, and used him as much as possible when working on the show. To give Hartman a larger role, they developed the episode "A Fish Called Selma", which focuses on Troy McClure and expands the character's backstory. The Simpsons creator Matt Groening said that he "took [Hartman] for granted because he nailed the joke every time", and that his voice acting could produce "the maximum amount of humor" with any line he was given. Before his death, Hartman had expressed an interest in making a live action film about Troy McClure. Many of The Simpsons production staff expressed enthusiasm for the project and offered to help. Hartman said he was "looking forward to [McClure's] live-action movie, publicizing his Betty Ford appearances", and "would love nothing more" than making a film and was prepared to buy the film rights himself in order to make it happen.
Other work
Hartman's first starring film role came in 1995's Houseguest, alongside Sinbad. Other films include Greedy, Coneheads, Sgt. Bilko, So I Married an Axe Murderer, CB4, Jingle All the Way, Kiki's Delivery Service, and Small Soldiers, the latter of which is his final theatrically released film. At the same time, he preferred working on television. His other television roles include appearances on episodes of The John Larroquette Show, The Dana Carvey Show, 3rd Rock from the Sun, and the HBO TV film The Second Civil War as the President of the United States. He made a considerable amount of money from television advertising, earning $300,000 for a series of four commercials for the soft drink Slice. He also appeared in advertisements for McDonald's (as Hugh McAttack) and 1-800-Collect (as Max Jerome).
Hartman wrote a number of screenplays that were never produced. In 1986, he began writing a screenplay for a film titled Mr. Fix-It, and completed the final draft in 1991. Robert Zemeckis was signed to produce the film, with Gil Bettman hired to direct. Hartman called it "a sort of a merger of horror and comedy, like Beetlejuice and Throw Momma From the Train", adding, "It's an American nightmare about a family torn asunder. They live next to a toxic dump site, their water supply is poisoned, the mother and son go insane and try to murder each other, the father's face is torn off in a terrible disfiguring accident in the first act. It's heavy stuff, but it's got a good message and a positive, upbeat ending." Zemeckis could not secure studio backing, however, and the project collapsed. Another film idea involving Hartman's Groundlings character Chick Hazard, Private Eye was also canceled.
Style
In contrast to his real-life personality, which was described as "a regular guy and, by all accounts, one of show business's most low-key, decent people", Hartman often played seedy, vain or unpleasant characters as well as comedic villains. He described his standard character repertoire as the "jerky guy" and "the weasel parade", citing Lionel Hutz, Bill McNeal, Troy McClure, and Ted Maltin from Jingle All the Way as examples. Hartman enjoyed playing such roles because he "just want[ed] to be funny, and villains tend to be funny because their foibles are all there to see".
He often played supporting roles, rather than the lead part. He said "throughout my career, I've never been a huge star, but I've made steady progress and that's the way I like it", and "It's fun coming in as the second or third lead. If the movie or TV show bombs, you aren't to blame." Hartman was considered a "utility player" on SNL with a "kind of Everyman quality" which enabled him to appear in the majority of sketches, often in very distinct roles. Jan Hooks stated of his work on SNL: "Phil never had an ounce of competition. He was a team player. It was a privilege for him, I believe, to play support and do it very well. He was never insulted, no matter how small the role may have been." He was disciplined in his performances, studying the scripts beforehand. Hooks added: "Phil knew how to listen. And he knew how to look you in the eye, and he knew the power of being able to lay back and let somebody else be funny, and then do the reactions. I think Phil was more of an actor than a comedian." Film critic Pauline Kael declared that "Phil Hartman and Jan Hooks on Saturday Night Live are two of the best comic actors I've ever seen."
Writer and acting coach Paul Ryan noted Hartman's work ethic with his impressions. He assembled a collection of video footage of the figure he was preparing to impersonate and watched this continually until he "completely embodied the person". Ryan concluded that "what made [Hartman's impressions] so funny and spot on was Phil's ability to add that perfect touch that only comes from trial and error and practicing in front of audiences and fellow actors." Hartman described this process as "technical". Journalist Lyle V. Harris said Hartman showed a "rare talent for morphing into ... anybody he wanted to be".
Ken Tucker summarized Hartman's comedic style: "He could momentarily fool audiences into thinking he was the straight man, but then he'd cock an eyebrow and give his voice an ironic lilt that delivered a punchline like a fast slider—you barely saw it coming until you started laughing." Hartman claimed that he borrowed his style from actor Bill Murray: "He's been a great influence on me – when he did that smarmy thing in Ghostbusters, then the same sort of thing in Groundhog Day. I tried to imitate it. I couldn't. I wasn't good enough. But I discovered an element of something else, so in a sick kind of way I made myself a career by doing a bad imitation of another comic."
Personal life
Hartman married Gretchen Lewis in 1970 and they divorced in September 1972. He married real estate agent Lisa Strain in 1982, and their marriage lasted three years. Strain told People magazine that Hartman was reclusive off screen and "would disappear emotionally ... he'd be in his own world. That passivity made you crazy." In 1987, Hartman married former model and aspiring actress Brynn Omdahl (born Vicki Jo Omdahl, April 11, 1958 – May 28, 1998), having met her on a blind date the previous year. They had two children, Sean and Birgen Hartman. The marriage had difficulties; she was reportedly intimidated by his success and was frustrated that she could not find any on her own, although neither party wanted a divorce. She was reported to have been jealous and often verbally and/or physically abusive, even sending a letter to his ex-wife, threatening to "rip [Strain's] eyes out" if she spoke to him again. Hartman considered retiring to save the marriage.
Hartman tried to get Brynn acting roles, but she became progressively reliant on alcohol and narcotics, entering rehab several times. On multiple occasions, he removed their children from the household to stay with friends or family because of her drug- and alcohol-fueled outbursts. Because of his close friendship with SNL associate Jan Hooks, Brynn joked on occasion Hooks and Hartman were married "on some other level". Brynn had written threatening letters addressed to Hooks, warning her to not get close to her husband, but they appeared to have never even been sent, being discovered in her belongings following her death.
Stephen Root, Hartman's NewsRadio co-star, said few people knew "the real Phil Hartman", as he was "one of those people who never seemed to come out of character," but he nevertheless gave the impression of a family man who cared deeply for his children. Hartman befriended Joe Rogan during his time on NewsRadio and confided his marital problems to him. Rogan said that he encouraged Hartman to divorce Brynn five times, but "[Hartman] loved his kids and didn't want to leave".
Hartman stated in 1997, though a non-practicing Catholic, he displayed a sense of religiousness. In his spare time, he enjoyed driving, flying, sailing, marksmanship, and playing the guitar.
Murder
On May 27, 1998, Brynn visited the Italian restaurant Buca di Beppo in Encino, California, with producer and writer Christine Zander, who said Brynn was "in a good frame of mind." They had drinks. After returning home, Brynn had a "heated" argument with Phil, after which he went to bed. She entered his bedroom some time before PDT on May 28, 1998, and as he slept, fatally shot him once between the eyes, once in the throat, and once in the upper chest with a Charter Arms .38 caliber handgun. He was 49 years old. She was taking Zoloft, had been drinking alcohol, and had recently used cocaine.
Brynn then drove to the home of her friend Ron Douglas and confessed to the killing, but he did not believe her. They drove back to the house in separate cars, and she called another friend and confessed a second time. On seeing Hartman's body, Douglas called 9-1-1 at Police arrived and escorted Douglas and the Hartmans' two children from the premises, by which time Brynn had locked herself in the bedroom. Shortly afterward, she committed suicide by a self-inflicted gunshot.
The police stated Hartman's death was caused by "domestic discord" between the couple. A friend said Brynn "had trouble controlling her anger ... She got attention by losing her temper". A neighbor of the Hartmans told a CNN reporter that the couple had marital problems. Yet actor Steve Guttenberg said they had been "a very happy couple, and they always had the appearance of being well-balanced".
A wrongful death lawsuit was filed in 1999 by her brother Gregory Omdahl, against Pfizer, the manufacturer of Zoloft, and against her child's psychiatrist, Arthur Sorosky, who had provided samples of the antidepressant to Brynn. Phil Hartman's friend and former SNL colleague Jon Lovitz has accused Hartman's then NewsRadio co-star Andy Dick of reintroducing Brynn to cocaine, causing her to relapse and suffer a nervous breakdown. Dick claims to have known nothing of her condition. Lovitz later said he no longer blamed Dick for Hartman's murder, but in 2006, Lovitz claimed Dick approached him at a restaurant and said, "I put the Phil Hartman hex on you; you're the next one to die." Lovitz then had him ejected from the restaurant. The following year at the Laugh Factory comedy club in Los Angeles, Lovitz and Dick had another argument, with Lovitz slamming Dick's head into the bar. Dick asserted he was not at fault in relation to Hartman's death.
Brynn's sister Katharine Omdahl and brother-in-law Mike Wright raised the two Hartman children. Hartman's will stipulated each child would inherit money over several years after turning 25. The total value of Hartman's estate was estimated at . In accordance with his wishes, his body was cremated by Forest Lawn Memorial Park and Mortuary, Glendale, California, and his ashes scattered over Santa Catalina Island's Emerald Bay.
Response and legacy
NBC executive Don Ohlmeyer stated that Hartman "was blessed with a tremendous gift for creating characters that made people laugh. Everyone who had the pleasure of working with Phil knows that he was a man of tremendous warmth, a true professional and a loyal friend." Guttenberg expressed shock at Hartman's death, and Steve Martin said he was "a deeply funny and very happy person". Matt Groening called him "a master", and director Joe Dante said, "He was one of those guys who was a dream to work with. I don't know anybody who didn't like him." Dan Snierson of Entertainment Weekly concluded that Hartman was "the last person you'd expect to read about in lurid headlines in your morning paper" and "a decidedly regular guy, beloved by everyone he worked with". In 2007, Entertainment Weekly ranked Hartman the 87th greatest television icon of all time, and Maxim named him the top Saturday Night Live performer of all time.
On the day of Hartman's death, rehearsals for The Simpsons were canceled as well as that night's performance by The Groundlings. The season five premiere episode of NewsRadio, "Bill Moves On", finds Hartman's character, Bill McNeal, has died of a heart attack, while the other characters reminisce about his life. Lovitz joined the show in his place beginning with the next episode. A special episode of Saturday Night Live commemorating Hartman's work on the show aired on June 13, 1998. Rather than substituting another voice actor, the writers of The Simpsons retired Hartman's characters. His final appearance on the show, the season ten episode "Bart the Mother", is dedicated to him, as is his final film, Small Soldiers.
At the time of his death, Hartman was preparing to voice Zapp Brannigan, a character written specifically for him on Groening's second animated series Futurama. Even though the role was specifically made for him, Hartman still insisted on auditioning and Groening said he "nailed it." After Hartman's death, Billy West took over the role. Though executive producer David X. Cohen credits West with using his own take on the character, West later said that he purposely tweaked Zapp's voice to better match Hartman's intended portrayal. Hartman was planning to appear with Lovitz in the indie film The Day of Swine and Roses, scheduled to begin production in August 1998.
In 2002, Laugh.com and Hartman's brother John published the album, Flat TV, a selection of comedy sketches recorded by Hartman in the 1970s, which had been kept in storage. John Hartmann commented: "I'm putting this out there because I'm dedicating my life to fulfilling his dreams. This [album] is my brother doing what he loved." In 2013, Flat TV was optioned by Michael "Ffish" Hemschoot's animation company Worker Studio for an animated adaptation. The deal came about after Michael T. Scott, a partner in the company, posted online a hand-written letter he had received from Hartman in 1997, leading to a correspondence between Scott and Paul Hartmann.
In 2007, a campaign was started on Facebook by Alex Stevens and endorsed by Hartman's brother Paul, to have Phil inducted to Canada's Walk of Fame. Among the campaign's numerous publicity events, Ben Miner of the Sirius XM Radio channel Laugh Attack, dedicated the month of April 2012 to Hartman. The campaign ended in success and Hartman was inducted to the Walk of Fame on September 22, 2012, with Paul accepting the award on his late brother's behalf. Hartman was also awarded the Cineplex Legends Award. In June 2013, it was announced that Hartman would receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, which was unveiled on August 26, 2014. Additionally, a special prize at the Canadian Comedy Awards was named for Hartman. Beginning with the 13th Canadian Comedy Awards in 2012, the Phil Hartman Award was awarded to "an individual who helps to better the Canadian comedy community". In 2015, Rolling Stone magazine ranked Hartman as one of the top-ten greatest Saturday Night Live cast members throughout the show's forty-year history, coming in seventh on their list of all 141 members.
Filmography
Film
Television
Video games
Theme park attractions
Discography
1977
America, Harbor
1978
America, Silent Letter
Poco, Legend
1980
Firesign Theatre, Fighting Clowns
References
Book sources
External links
Phil Hartman at Yahoo! Movies
Phil Hartman at The New York Times
Hartman's autopsy and death certificate
Phil Hartman's final night: The tragic death of a “Saturday Night Live” genius, Mike Thomas, Salon, September 21, 2014
1948 births
1998 deaths
1998 murders in the United States
20th-century American male actors
20th-century Canadian male actors
Album-cover and concert-poster artists
American male comedians
American male film actors
American graphic designers
American impressionists (entertainers)
American male screenwriters
American male television actors
American television writers
American male voice actors
American sketch comedians
California State University, Northridge alumni
Canadian male comedians
Canadian emigrants to the United States
Canadian male voice actors
Canadian murder victims
Canadian sketch comedians
Deaths by firearm in California
Male actors from Los Angeles
American male television writers
Murder–suicides in California
Naturalized citizens of the United States
People from Brantford
People murdered in Los Angeles
Primetime Emmy Award winners
Santa Monica College alumni
Comedians from California
Mariticides
Westchester High School (Los Angeles) alumni
Screenwriters from California
20th-century Canadian comedians
20th-century American comedians
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American screenwriters
Comedians from Ontario
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[
"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",
"Richard C. Muhlberger (born 1938 in New Jersey, United States died March 23, 2019) was an American art critic, and museum curator. He was Curator of Education for the Worcester Art Museum. He later became a professor of art history at Western New England College, and the vice-director for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, but he is best recognized for his analysis of many famous art pieces.\n\nCareer\nSome of the most famous pieces Mühlberger has critiqued are done by Rembrandt, Leonardo da Vinci, and Pablo Picasso. Along with being a critic, Muhlberger was also a writer. He was known for a series containing critiques of illustrious authors. This series is made up of several books, \"What makes a Rembrandt a Rembrandt?\", \"What makes a Van Gogh a Van Gogh?\", \"What makes a Monet a Monet?\", \"What makes a Degas a Degas?\", \"What makes a Cassatt a Cassatt?\", \"What makes a Goya a Goya?\", \"What makes a Bruegel a Bruegel?\", What makes a Leonardo a Leonardo?\", \"What makes a Raphael a Raphael?\", and \"What makes a Picasso a Picasso?\". More of his written works included a series titled \"The Bible in Art\". It contains the following books \"Bible in Art: The Old Testament\" and, \"Bible in Art: The New Testament\". Mühlberger's latest work was called \"Charles Webster Hawthorne: Paintings drawings,and Watercolors\".\n\nWorks\n\nDeath\nRichard Muhlberger passed away in June age 2019, age 81\n\nReferences\n\n1938 births\nWestern New England University faculty\nPeople associated with the Metropolitan Museum of Art\nLiving people\nPeople associated with the Worcester Art Museum"
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"Hartman enjoyed playing such roles because he \"just want[ed] to be funny, and villains tend to be funny because their foibles are all there to see.\"",
"What parts was he famous for?",
"He often played supporting roles, rather than the lead part. He said \"throughout my career, I've never been a huge star, but I've made steady progress"
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C_f5004bcd827b41ce8db5ff729ef1e178_0
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Was he okay with that?
| 5 |
Was Hartman okay with usually played supporting roles?
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Phil Hartman
|
In contrast to his real-life personality, which was described as "a regular guy and, by all accounts, one of show business' most low-key, decent people", Hartman often played seedy, vain or unpleasant characters as well as comedic villains. He noted that his standard character was a "jerky guy", and described his usual roles as "the weasel parade", citing Lionel Hutz, Bill McNeal, Troy McClure and Ted Maltin from Jingle All the Way as examples. Hartman enjoyed playing such roles because he "just want[ed] to be funny, and villains tend to be funny because their foibles are all there to see." He often played supporting roles, rather than the lead part. He said "throughout my career, I've never been a huge star, but I've made steady progress and that's the way I like it," and "It's fun coming in as the second or third lead. If the movie or TV show bombs, you aren't to blame." Hartman was considered a "utility player" on SNL with a "kind of Everyman quality" which enabled him to appear in the majority of sketches, often in very distinct roles. Jan Hooks stated of his work on SNL: "Phil never had an ounce of competition. He was a team player. It was a privilege for him, I believe, to play support and do it very well. He was never insulted, no matter how small the role may have been." He was disciplined in his performances, studying the scripts beforehand. Hooks added: "Phil knew how to listen. And he knew how to look you in the eye, and he knew the power of being able to lay back and let somebody else be funny, and then do the reactions. I think Phil was more of an actor than a comedian." Film critic Pauline Kael declared that "Phil Hartman and Jan Hooks on Saturday Night Live are two of the best comic actors I've ever seen." Writer and acting coach Paul Ryan noted Hartman's work ethic with his impressions. He assembled a collection of video footage of the figure he was preparing to impersonate and watched this continually until he "completely embodied the person". Ryan concluded that "what made [Hartman's impressions] so funny and spot on was Phil's ability to add that perfect touch that only comes from trial and error and practicing in front of audiences and fellow actors." Hartman described this process as "technical." Journalist Lyle V. Harris said Hartman showed a "rare talent for morphing into [...] anybody he wanted to be". Ken Tucker summarized Hartman's comedic style: "He could momentarily fool audiences into thinking he was the straight man, but then he'd cock an eyebrow and give his voice an ironic lilt that delivered a punchline like a fast slider--you barely saw it coming until you started laughing." Hartman claimed that he borrowed his style from actor Bill Murray: "He's been a great influence on me - when he did that smarmy thing in Ghostbusters, then the same sort of thing in Groundhog Day. I tried to imitate it. I couldn't. I wasn't good enough. But I discovered an element of something else, so in a sick kind of way I made myself a career by doing a bad imitation of another comic." CANNOTANSWER
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that's the way I like it," and "It's fun coming in as the second or third lead.
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Philip Edward Hartman (né Hartmann; September 24, 1948 – May 28, 1998) was a Canadian-American actor, comedian, screenwriter, and graphic designer. Hartman was born in Brantford, Ontario, Canada, and his family moved to the United States when he was ten years old. After graduating from California State University, Northridge with a degree in graphic arts, he designed album covers for bands including Poco and America. In 1975, Hartman joined the comedy group The Groundlings, where he helped Paul Reubens develop his character Pee-wee Herman. Hartman co-wrote the film Pee-wee's Big Adventure and made recurring appearances as Captain Carl on Reubens' show Pee-wee's Playhouse.
In 1986, Hartman joined the NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live (SNL) as a cast member, and stayed for eight seasons until 1994. Nicknamed "Glue" for his ability to hold the show together and help other cast members, he won a Primetime Emmy Award for his SNL work in 1989. In 1995, he starred as Bill McNeal in the sitcom NewsRadio after declining to return to SNL. He also voiced various characters on The Simpsons, and had minor roles in the films Houseguest, Sgt. Bilko, Jingle All the Way, and Small Soldiers.
After two divorces, Hartman married Brynn Omdahl in 1987, with whom he had two children. Their marriage was troubled due to Brynn's drug use and domestic violence against Phil, who was frequently absent from home. In 1998, while Hartman was sleeping in his bed, his wife shot and killed him, and later committed suicide. In the weeks following his murder, Hartman was celebrated in a wave of tributes. Dan Snierson of Entertainment Weekly wrote that Hartman was "the last person you'd expect to read about in lurid headlines in your morning paper ... a decidedly regular guy, beloved by everyone he worked with". He was posthumously inducted into the Canada and Hollywood Walks of Fame in 2012 and 2014.
Early life
Hartman was born Philip Edward Hartmann (later dropping one "n") on September 24, 1948, in Brantford, Ontario. He was the fourth of eight children of Doris Marguerite (née Wardell; July 17, 1919 – April 15, 2001) and Rupert Loebig Hartmann (November 8, 1914 – April 30, 1998), who sold building materials. The family was Catholic. As a child, Hartman found affection hard to earn: "I suppose I didn't get what I wanted out of my family life, so I started seeking love and attention elsewhere."
Hartman was ten when his family moved to the United States. They first lived in Lewiston, Maine, then Meriden, Connecticut, and then on the West Coast, where he attended Westchester High School and frequently acted as the class clown. After graduating, he studied art at Santa Monica City College, dropping out in 1969 to become a roadie with a rock band. He returned to school in 1972 to study graphic arts at California State University, Northridge. He developed and operated his own graphic art business, creating more than 40 album covers for bands including Poco and America, as well as advertising and the logo for Crosby, Stills & Nash. In the late 1970s, he made his first television appearance on an episode of The Dating Game, where he won.
Career
Early career (1975–1985)
Working alone as a graphic artist, Hartman frequently amused himself with "flights of voice fantasies". In 1975, seeking a more social outlet for his talents, he began attending evening comedy classes by the California-based improvisational comedy group The Groundlings. While watching one of their performances, he impulsively decided to climb on stage and join the cast. His first onscreen appearance was in 1978's Stunt Rock, an Australian film directed in Los Angeles by Brian Trenchard-Smith. After several years of training, paying his way by redesigning the group's logo and merchandise, Hartman formally joined The Groundlings and by 1979 was one of the show's stars.
There Hartman befriended Paul Reubens, with whom he often collaborated on comedic material. Together they created the character Pee-wee Herman and developed The Pee-wee Herman Show, a live stage show that subsequently aired on HBO in 1981. Hartman played Captain Carl in the show, and reprised the role for the children's TV show Pee-wee's Playhouse. Reubens and Hartman made cameos in the 1980 film Cheech & Chong's Next Movie. Hartman co-wrote the script of the 1985 feature film Pee-wee's Big Adventure and had a cameo role as a reporter. He'd considered quitting acting at the age of 36 due to the challenges of finding work; but the success of Pee-wee's Big Adventure changed his mind. After a creative disagreement with Reubens, he left the Pee-Wee Herman project to pursue other roles.
Hartman took more small roles in 1986 films such as Jumpin' Jack Flash and Three Amigos. He also worked as a voice actor in animated television programs, including The Smurfs, Challenge of the GoBots, The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo, and in Dennis the Menace as characters Henry Mitchell and George Wilson. He developed a strong persona providing voice-overs for advertisements.
Saturday Night Live (1986–1994)
Hartman successfully auditioned to join NBC's variety show Saturday Night Live (SNL) in its 12th season, which began on October 11, 1986. He had been recommended for the show by fellow Groundlings and SNL cast members Jon Lovitz, and Laraine Newman as well as Jumpin' Jack Flash director Penny Marshall. He told the Los Angeles Times, "I wanted to do [SNL] because I wanted to get the exposure that would give me box-office credibility so I can write movies for myself." In his eight seasons with the show Hartman became known for his impressions, and performed as over 70 different characters. Hartman's original SNL characters include Eugene, the Anal Retentive Chef and Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer. His impressions include Frank Sinatra, Ronald Reagan, Ed McMahon, Barbara Bush, Charlton Heston, Phil Donahue, and Bill Clintonthe latter considered his best-known impression.
Hartman first performed his Clinton impression on an episode of The Tonight Show. When he met Clinton in 1993, Hartman remarked, "I guess I owe you a few apologies", adding later that he "sometimes [felt] a twinge of guilt about [his Clinton impression]". Clinton showed good humor and sent Hartman a signed photo with the text: "You're not the president, but you play one on TV. And you're OK, mostly." Hartman copied the president's "post-nasal drip" and the "slight scratchiness" in his voice, as well as his open, "less intimidating" hand gestures. Hartman opted against wearing a larger prosthetic nose when portraying Clinton, as he thought it would be distracting. He instead wore a wig, dyed his eyebrows brighter, and used makeup to highlight his nose. In one of Hartman's sketches as Clinton, the president visits a McDonald's restaurant and explains his economic policies in the metaphor of eating other customers' food. The writers told him that he was not eating enough during rehearsals for the sketch – by the end of the live performance, Hartman had eaten so much he could barely speak.
At SNL, Hartman's nickname of "Glue" was coined by Adam Sandler according to Jay Mohr's book Gasping for Airtime. However, according to You Might Remember Me: The Life and Times of Phil Hartman by Mike Thomas, author and staff writer for the Chicago Sun-Times, the nickname was created by SNL cast member and Hartman's frequent on-screen collaborator Jan Hooks. Hartman was very helpful to other cast members. For example, he aided Hooks in overcoming her stage fright. SNL creator Lorne Michaels explained the name: "He kind of held the show together. He gave to everybody and demanded very little. He was very low-maintenance." Michaels also added that Hartman was "the least appreciated" cast member by commentators outside the show, and praised his ability "to do five or six parts in a show where you're playing support or you're doing remarkable character work". Hartman won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Variety, Music or Comedy Program for SNL in 1989, sharing the award with the show's other writers. He was nominated in the same category in 1987, and individually in 1994 for Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program.
By 1993, almost every cast member who was there during Hartman's first year on SNL had left the show, including Jon Lovitz, Jan Hooks and Dana Carvey. Hartman said he felt "like an athlete who's watched all his World Series teammates get traded off into other directions ... It was hard to watch them leave because I sort of felt we were all part of the team that saved the show." This cast turnover contributed to his leaving the show in 1994. Hartman said he thought it was time to leave because the show was "getting less sophisticated" and his style of humor didn't fit with the less intellectual comedy of newer cast members like Adam Sandler. Hartman had originally planned to leave the show in 1991, but Michaels convinced him to stay to raise his profile; his portrayal of Clinton contributed to this goal. Jay Leno offered him the role of his sidekick on The Tonight Show but Hartman opted to stay on SNL. NBC persuaded him to stay on SNL by promising him his own comedy–variety show The Phil Show. He planned to "reinvent the variety form" with "a hybrid, very fast-paced, high energy [show] with sketches, impersonations, pet acts, and performers showcasing their talents". Hartman was to be the show's executive producer and head writer. Before production began, however, the network decided that variety shows were too unpopular and canceled the series. In a 1996 interview, Hartman noted he was glad, as he "would've been sweatin' blood each week trying to make it work". In 1998, he admitted he missed working on SNL, but had enjoyed the move from New York City to Southern California.
NewsRadio (1995–1998)
Hartman became one of the stars of the NBC sitcom NewsRadio in 1995, portraying radio news anchor Bill McNeal. He signed up after being attracted by the show's writing and use of an ensemble cast, and joked that he based McNeal on himself with "any ethics and character" removed. Hartman made roughly per episode of NewsRadio. Although the show was critically acclaimed, it was never a ratings hit and cancellation was a regular threat. After the completion of the fourth season, Hartman commented, "We seem to have limited appeal. We're on the edge here, not sure we're going to be picked up or not", but added he was "99 percent sure" the series would be renewed for a fifth season. Hartman had publicly lambasted NBC's decision to repeatedly move NewsRadio into different timeslots, but later regretted his comments, saying, "this is a sitcom, for crying out loud, not brain surgery". He also stated that if the sitcom were cancelled "it just will open up other opportunities for me". Although the show was renewed for a fifth season, Hartman died before production began. Ken Tucker praised Hartman's performance as McNeal: "A lesser performer ... would have played him as a variation on The Mary Tyler Moore Shows Ted Baxter, because that's what Bill was, on paper. But Hartman gave infinite variety to Bill's self-centeredness, turning him devious, cowardly, squeamish, and foolishly bold from week to week." Hartman was posthumously nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series in 1998 for his work on NewsRadio, but lost to David Hyde Pierce.
The Simpsons (1991–1998)
Hartman provided the voices for numerous characters on the Fox animated series The Simpsons, appearing in 52 episodes. He made his first appearance in the second season episode "Bart Gets Hit by a Car". Although he was originally brought in for a one-time appearance, Hartman enjoyed working on The Simpsons and the staff wrote additional parts for him. He voiced the recurring characters Lionel Hutz and Troy McClure, as well as Duff man (on one occasion) and several background characters. His favorite part was that of McClure, and he often used this voice to entertain the audience between takes while taping episodes of NewsRadio. He remarked, "My favorite fans are Troy McClure fans." He added "It's the one thing that I do in my life that's almost an avocation. I do it for the pure love of it."
Hartman was popular among the staff of The Simpsons. Showrunners Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein said they enjoyed his work, and used him as much as possible when working on the show. To give Hartman a larger role, they developed the episode "A Fish Called Selma", which focuses on Troy McClure and expands the character's backstory. The Simpsons creator Matt Groening said that he "took [Hartman] for granted because he nailed the joke every time", and that his voice acting could produce "the maximum amount of humor" with any line he was given. Before his death, Hartman had expressed an interest in making a live action film about Troy McClure. Many of The Simpsons production staff expressed enthusiasm for the project and offered to help. Hartman said he was "looking forward to [McClure's] live-action movie, publicizing his Betty Ford appearances", and "would love nothing more" than making a film and was prepared to buy the film rights himself in order to make it happen.
Other work
Hartman's first starring film role came in 1995's Houseguest, alongside Sinbad. Other films include Greedy, Coneheads, Sgt. Bilko, So I Married an Axe Murderer, CB4, Jingle All the Way, Kiki's Delivery Service, and Small Soldiers, the latter of which is his final theatrically released film. At the same time, he preferred working on television. His other television roles include appearances on episodes of The John Larroquette Show, The Dana Carvey Show, 3rd Rock from the Sun, and the HBO TV film The Second Civil War as the President of the United States. He made a considerable amount of money from television advertising, earning $300,000 for a series of four commercials for the soft drink Slice. He also appeared in advertisements for McDonald's (as Hugh McAttack) and 1-800-Collect (as Max Jerome).
Hartman wrote a number of screenplays that were never produced. In 1986, he began writing a screenplay for a film titled Mr. Fix-It, and completed the final draft in 1991. Robert Zemeckis was signed to produce the film, with Gil Bettman hired to direct. Hartman called it "a sort of a merger of horror and comedy, like Beetlejuice and Throw Momma From the Train", adding, "It's an American nightmare about a family torn asunder. They live next to a toxic dump site, their water supply is poisoned, the mother and son go insane and try to murder each other, the father's face is torn off in a terrible disfiguring accident in the first act. It's heavy stuff, but it's got a good message and a positive, upbeat ending." Zemeckis could not secure studio backing, however, and the project collapsed. Another film idea involving Hartman's Groundlings character Chick Hazard, Private Eye was also canceled.
Style
In contrast to his real-life personality, which was described as "a regular guy and, by all accounts, one of show business's most low-key, decent people", Hartman often played seedy, vain or unpleasant characters as well as comedic villains. He described his standard character repertoire as the "jerky guy" and "the weasel parade", citing Lionel Hutz, Bill McNeal, Troy McClure, and Ted Maltin from Jingle All the Way as examples. Hartman enjoyed playing such roles because he "just want[ed] to be funny, and villains tend to be funny because their foibles are all there to see".
He often played supporting roles, rather than the lead part. He said "throughout my career, I've never been a huge star, but I've made steady progress and that's the way I like it", and "It's fun coming in as the second or third lead. If the movie or TV show bombs, you aren't to blame." Hartman was considered a "utility player" on SNL with a "kind of Everyman quality" which enabled him to appear in the majority of sketches, often in very distinct roles. Jan Hooks stated of his work on SNL: "Phil never had an ounce of competition. He was a team player. It was a privilege for him, I believe, to play support and do it very well. He was never insulted, no matter how small the role may have been." He was disciplined in his performances, studying the scripts beforehand. Hooks added: "Phil knew how to listen. And he knew how to look you in the eye, and he knew the power of being able to lay back and let somebody else be funny, and then do the reactions. I think Phil was more of an actor than a comedian." Film critic Pauline Kael declared that "Phil Hartman and Jan Hooks on Saturday Night Live are two of the best comic actors I've ever seen."
Writer and acting coach Paul Ryan noted Hartman's work ethic with his impressions. He assembled a collection of video footage of the figure he was preparing to impersonate and watched this continually until he "completely embodied the person". Ryan concluded that "what made [Hartman's impressions] so funny and spot on was Phil's ability to add that perfect touch that only comes from trial and error and practicing in front of audiences and fellow actors." Hartman described this process as "technical". Journalist Lyle V. Harris said Hartman showed a "rare talent for morphing into ... anybody he wanted to be".
Ken Tucker summarized Hartman's comedic style: "He could momentarily fool audiences into thinking he was the straight man, but then he'd cock an eyebrow and give his voice an ironic lilt that delivered a punchline like a fast slider—you barely saw it coming until you started laughing." Hartman claimed that he borrowed his style from actor Bill Murray: "He's been a great influence on me – when he did that smarmy thing in Ghostbusters, then the same sort of thing in Groundhog Day. I tried to imitate it. I couldn't. I wasn't good enough. But I discovered an element of something else, so in a sick kind of way I made myself a career by doing a bad imitation of another comic."
Personal life
Hartman married Gretchen Lewis in 1970 and they divorced in September 1972. He married real estate agent Lisa Strain in 1982, and their marriage lasted three years. Strain told People magazine that Hartman was reclusive off screen and "would disappear emotionally ... he'd be in his own world. That passivity made you crazy." In 1987, Hartman married former model and aspiring actress Brynn Omdahl (born Vicki Jo Omdahl, April 11, 1958 – May 28, 1998), having met her on a blind date the previous year. They had two children, Sean and Birgen Hartman. The marriage had difficulties; she was reportedly intimidated by his success and was frustrated that she could not find any on her own, although neither party wanted a divorce. She was reported to have been jealous and often verbally and/or physically abusive, even sending a letter to his ex-wife, threatening to "rip [Strain's] eyes out" if she spoke to him again. Hartman considered retiring to save the marriage.
Hartman tried to get Brynn acting roles, but she became progressively reliant on alcohol and narcotics, entering rehab several times. On multiple occasions, he removed their children from the household to stay with friends or family because of her drug- and alcohol-fueled outbursts. Because of his close friendship with SNL associate Jan Hooks, Brynn joked on occasion Hooks and Hartman were married "on some other level". Brynn had written threatening letters addressed to Hooks, warning her to not get close to her husband, but they appeared to have never even been sent, being discovered in her belongings following her death.
Stephen Root, Hartman's NewsRadio co-star, said few people knew "the real Phil Hartman", as he was "one of those people who never seemed to come out of character," but he nevertheless gave the impression of a family man who cared deeply for his children. Hartman befriended Joe Rogan during his time on NewsRadio and confided his marital problems to him. Rogan said that he encouraged Hartman to divorce Brynn five times, but "[Hartman] loved his kids and didn't want to leave".
Hartman stated in 1997, though a non-practicing Catholic, he displayed a sense of religiousness. In his spare time, he enjoyed driving, flying, sailing, marksmanship, and playing the guitar.
Murder
On May 27, 1998, Brynn visited the Italian restaurant Buca di Beppo in Encino, California, with producer and writer Christine Zander, who said Brynn was "in a good frame of mind." They had drinks. After returning home, Brynn had a "heated" argument with Phil, after which he went to bed. She entered his bedroom some time before PDT on May 28, 1998, and as he slept, fatally shot him once between the eyes, once in the throat, and once in the upper chest with a Charter Arms .38 caliber handgun. He was 49 years old. She was taking Zoloft, had been drinking alcohol, and had recently used cocaine.
Brynn then drove to the home of her friend Ron Douglas and confessed to the killing, but he did not believe her. They drove back to the house in separate cars, and she called another friend and confessed a second time. On seeing Hartman's body, Douglas called 9-1-1 at Police arrived and escorted Douglas and the Hartmans' two children from the premises, by which time Brynn had locked herself in the bedroom. Shortly afterward, she committed suicide by a self-inflicted gunshot.
The police stated Hartman's death was caused by "domestic discord" between the couple. A friend said Brynn "had trouble controlling her anger ... She got attention by losing her temper". A neighbor of the Hartmans told a CNN reporter that the couple had marital problems. Yet actor Steve Guttenberg said they had been "a very happy couple, and they always had the appearance of being well-balanced".
A wrongful death lawsuit was filed in 1999 by her brother Gregory Omdahl, against Pfizer, the manufacturer of Zoloft, and against her child's psychiatrist, Arthur Sorosky, who had provided samples of the antidepressant to Brynn. Phil Hartman's friend and former SNL colleague Jon Lovitz has accused Hartman's then NewsRadio co-star Andy Dick of reintroducing Brynn to cocaine, causing her to relapse and suffer a nervous breakdown. Dick claims to have known nothing of her condition. Lovitz later said he no longer blamed Dick for Hartman's murder, but in 2006, Lovitz claimed Dick approached him at a restaurant and said, "I put the Phil Hartman hex on you; you're the next one to die." Lovitz then had him ejected from the restaurant. The following year at the Laugh Factory comedy club in Los Angeles, Lovitz and Dick had another argument, with Lovitz slamming Dick's head into the bar. Dick asserted he was not at fault in relation to Hartman's death.
Brynn's sister Katharine Omdahl and brother-in-law Mike Wright raised the two Hartman children. Hartman's will stipulated each child would inherit money over several years after turning 25. The total value of Hartman's estate was estimated at . In accordance with his wishes, his body was cremated by Forest Lawn Memorial Park and Mortuary, Glendale, California, and his ashes scattered over Santa Catalina Island's Emerald Bay.
Response and legacy
NBC executive Don Ohlmeyer stated that Hartman "was blessed with a tremendous gift for creating characters that made people laugh. Everyone who had the pleasure of working with Phil knows that he was a man of tremendous warmth, a true professional and a loyal friend." Guttenberg expressed shock at Hartman's death, and Steve Martin said he was "a deeply funny and very happy person". Matt Groening called him "a master", and director Joe Dante said, "He was one of those guys who was a dream to work with. I don't know anybody who didn't like him." Dan Snierson of Entertainment Weekly concluded that Hartman was "the last person you'd expect to read about in lurid headlines in your morning paper" and "a decidedly regular guy, beloved by everyone he worked with". In 2007, Entertainment Weekly ranked Hartman the 87th greatest television icon of all time, and Maxim named him the top Saturday Night Live performer of all time.
On the day of Hartman's death, rehearsals for The Simpsons were canceled as well as that night's performance by The Groundlings. The season five premiere episode of NewsRadio, "Bill Moves On", finds Hartman's character, Bill McNeal, has died of a heart attack, while the other characters reminisce about his life. Lovitz joined the show in his place beginning with the next episode. A special episode of Saturday Night Live commemorating Hartman's work on the show aired on June 13, 1998. Rather than substituting another voice actor, the writers of The Simpsons retired Hartman's characters. His final appearance on the show, the season ten episode "Bart the Mother", is dedicated to him, as is his final film, Small Soldiers.
At the time of his death, Hartman was preparing to voice Zapp Brannigan, a character written specifically for him on Groening's second animated series Futurama. Even though the role was specifically made for him, Hartman still insisted on auditioning and Groening said he "nailed it." After Hartman's death, Billy West took over the role. Though executive producer David X. Cohen credits West with using his own take on the character, West later said that he purposely tweaked Zapp's voice to better match Hartman's intended portrayal. Hartman was planning to appear with Lovitz in the indie film The Day of Swine and Roses, scheduled to begin production in August 1998.
In 2002, Laugh.com and Hartman's brother John published the album, Flat TV, a selection of comedy sketches recorded by Hartman in the 1970s, which had been kept in storage. John Hartmann commented: "I'm putting this out there because I'm dedicating my life to fulfilling his dreams. This [album] is my brother doing what he loved." In 2013, Flat TV was optioned by Michael "Ffish" Hemschoot's animation company Worker Studio for an animated adaptation. The deal came about after Michael T. Scott, a partner in the company, posted online a hand-written letter he had received from Hartman in 1997, leading to a correspondence between Scott and Paul Hartmann.
In 2007, a campaign was started on Facebook by Alex Stevens and endorsed by Hartman's brother Paul, to have Phil inducted to Canada's Walk of Fame. Among the campaign's numerous publicity events, Ben Miner of the Sirius XM Radio channel Laugh Attack, dedicated the month of April 2012 to Hartman. The campaign ended in success and Hartman was inducted to the Walk of Fame on September 22, 2012, with Paul accepting the award on his late brother's behalf. Hartman was also awarded the Cineplex Legends Award. In June 2013, it was announced that Hartman would receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, which was unveiled on August 26, 2014. Additionally, a special prize at the Canadian Comedy Awards was named for Hartman. Beginning with the 13th Canadian Comedy Awards in 2012, the Phil Hartman Award was awarded to "an individual who helps to better the Canadian comedy community". In 2015, Rolling Stone magazine ranked Hartman as one of the top-ten greatest Saturday Night Live cast members throughout the show's forty-year history, coming in seventh on their list of all 141 members.
Filmography
Film
Television
Video games
Theme park attractions
Discography
1977
America, Harbor
1978
America, Silent Letter
Poco, Legend
1980
Firesign Theatre, Fighting Clowns
References
Book sources
External links
Phil Hartman at Yahoo! Movies
Phil Hartman at The New York Times
Hartman's autopsy and death certificate
Phil Hartman's final night: The tragic death of a “Saturday Night Live” genius, Mike Thomas, Salon, September 21, 2014
1948 births
1998 deaths
1998 murders in the United States
20th-century American male actors
20th-century Canadian male actors
Album-cover and concert-poster artists
American male comedians
American male film actors
American graphic designers
American impressionists (entertainers)
American male screenwriters
American male television actors
American television writers
American male voice actors
American sketch comedians
California State University, Northridge alumni
Canadian male comedians
Canadian emigrants to the United States
Canadian male voice actors
Canadian murder victims
Canadian sketch comedians
Deaths by firearm in California
Male actors from Los Angeles
American male television writers
Murder–suicides in California
Naturalized citizens of the United States
People from Brantford
People murdered in Los Angeles
Primetime Emmy Award winners
Santa Monica College alumni
Comedians from California
Mariticides
Westchester High School (Los Angeles) alumni
Screenwriters from California
20th-century Canadian comedians
20th-century American comedians
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American screenwriters
Comedians from Ontario
| false |
[
"\"Be Okay\" is a song written and produced by Mitchy Collins, Danielle Bouchard, Christian Medice, Phoebe Ryan, Denis Lipari, and Larzz Principato and recorded by indie pop band Oh Honey. It was re-released in March 2014 as a part of the band's EP With Love (2014).\n\nContent\nAccording to Billboard.com, song is one that mixes an effervescent, melodic chorus with equally upbeat lyrics It was described as a \"sun-kissed, feel-good jam that will help you get over your end-of-summer blues\" by the Huffington Post.\n\nBackground\nAfter releasing their first EP known as With Love in November 2013, which included their first single \"Be Okay\", things began to move quickly for Oh Honey. Sirius XM added Be Okay to their rotation. Not long after, Atlantic Records found the band and Oh Honey became a part of their record label in February 2014. With Love - EP was re-released on March 25, 2014 under the Atlantic Record label.\n\nIn other media\n\"Be Okay\" was featured and covered by the cast of Glee on episode 13, known as \"New Directions\", of season 5. It was also featured on an exclusive music video sung along to by the cast of Red Band Society as a preview for the premiere of the show. A short clip of the song can be heard in a Chili's commercial that debuted near the end of 2014.\n\nMusic videos\n\nOfficial video\nThe official music video for \"Be Okay\" was released on November 5, 2013 on Entertainment Tonight Online. On March 10, 2015, the video hit two million views on YouTube.\n\nCommercial performance\n\"Be Okay\" made it onto Billboards Adult Top 40 chart where it reached number 25. It stayed on the charts for 10 weeks.\n\"Be Okay\" was made available for purchase on the iTunes Store on September 19, 2013. It made the top songs playlist.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Oh Honey Music\n\n2013 songs\nAtlantic Records singles\nSongs written by Phoebe Ryan",
"Okay (stylised as okay.) is the second studio album by British pop punk band As It Is. It is the last album to feature ex-guitarist Andy Westhead.\n\nBackground\nImmediately following As It Is' 2015 album Never Happy, Ever After, the band played shows across the US on the 2015 run of Vans Warped Tour. While on tour lead singer, Patty Walters, struggled with depression and his mental health. He started writing songs during this time in order to cope. During the following year Walters came out to his bandmates about his state and started going through professional therapy. In January 2016, the group took a brief break to unwind, before they started writing for their second album.\n\nThe band went to Los Angeles to start recording the album with producer Mike Green in July 2016.\n\nOkay. is the band's final album to feature lead guitarist Andy Westhead.\n\nConcept and style\nIt was stated several times during promotion of the album the main theme of the album is, \"The idea that it's okay to not be okay\" making a statement about mental health issues and the stigma surrounding them. The concept of \"faking a smile\" is repeated several times throughout the album.\n\nSongs on the album cover topics such as depression, anxiety, divorce, loss, and heartbreak. The aesthetic for the album's promotion was heavily inspired by the 1950s, which was part of an intentional decision to contrast the happy bright sound with the darker and personal lyrical themes.\n\nWith Mike Green in the studio, the band went for a more polished upbeat pop rock sound, more so than the more raw \"emo\" sound seen on some songs on Never Happy.\n\nRelease\nOkay was announced on 22 September 2016, as well as revealing the album's artwork and track listing. In the same announcement, a music video was released for \"Okay\". In October and November, the group supported Sum 41 on their headlining US tour. On 14 October, a 1950s-themed music video was released for \"Pretty Little Distance\", and the song was released as a single. Okay was released on 20 January 2017. On 6 February, a music video was released for \"Hey Rachel\", directed by Joshua Halling.\n\nIn April and May, the group embarked on their first US headlining tour, with support from Roam, Grayscale and Sleep On It. On 9 October, it was revealed that guitarist Andy Westhead left the band two months prior, citing \"feelings and differences had been building up\" over the preceding year. On 8 November, a music video was released for \"No Way Out\", directed by Halling. In November and December, the group supported Waterparks on their US headlining tour. In March 2018, the band went on a UK tour with support from Like Pacific and Grayscale. A jukebox version of \"Hey Rachel\" was released as a single on 13 April.\n\nTrack listing\n\nPersonnel\n Patty Walters – lead vocals, acoustic guitar\n Andy Westhead – lead guitar, backing vocals\n Ben Langford-Biss – rhythm guitar, backing vocals, co-lead vocals \n Alistair Testo – bass guitar, backing vocals\n Patrick Foley – drums, percussion\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\n2017 albums\nFearless Records albums\nAs It Is (band) albums\nAlbums produced by Mike Green (record producer)"
] |
[
"Phil Hartman",
"Style",
"What was his style considered?",
"was described as \"a regular guy and, by all accounts, one of show business' most low-key, decent people\",",
"How did this help his career?",
"often played seedy, vain or unpleasant characters as well as comedic villains. He noted that his standard character was a \"jerky guy\", and described his usual roles",
"Did he enjoy playing these parts?",
"Hartman enjoyed playing such roles because he \"just want[ed] to be funny, and villains tend to be funny because their foibles are all there to see.\"",
"What parts was he famous for?",
"He often played supporting roles, rather than the lead part. He said \"throughout my career, I've never been a huge star, but I've made steady progress",
"Was he okay with that?",
"that's the way I like it,\" and \"It's fun coming in as the second or third lead."
] |
C_f5004bcd827b41ce8db5ff729ef1e178_0
|
Did he ever want to quit?
| 6 |
Did Hartman ever want to quit?
|
Phil Hartman
|
In contrast to his real-life personality, which was described as "a regular guy and, by all accounts, one of show business' most low-key, decent people", Hartman often played seedy, vain or unpleasant characters as well as comedic villains. He noted that his standard character was a "jerky guy", and described his usual roles as "the weasel parade", citing Lionel Hutz, Bill McNeal, Troy McClure and Ted Maltin from Jingle All the Way as examples. Hartman enjoyed playing such roles because he "just want[ed] to be funny, and villains tend to be funny because their foibles are all there to see." He often played supporting roles, rather than the lead part. He said "throughout my career, I've never been a huge star, but I've made steady progress and that's the way I like it," and "It's fun coming in as the second or third lead. If the movie or TV show bombs, you aren't to blame." Hartman was considered a "utility player" on SNL with a "kind of Everyman quality" which enabled him to appear in the majority of sketches, often in very distinct roles. Jan Hooks stated of his work on SNL: "Phil never had an ounce of competition. He was a team player. It was a privilege for him, I believe, to play support and do it very well. He was never insulted, no matter how small the role may have been." He was disciplined in his performances, studying the scripts beforehand. Hooks added: "Phil knew how to listen. And he knew how to look you in the eye, and he knew the power of being able to lay back and let somebody else be funny, and then do the reactions. I think Phil was more of an actor than a comedian." Film critic Pauline Kael declared that "Phil Hartman and Jan Hooks on Saturday Night Live are two of the best comic actors I've ever seen." Writer and acting coach Paul Ryan noted Hartman's work ethic with his impressions. He assembled a collection of video footage of the figure he was preparing to impersonate and watched this continually until he "completely embodied the person". Ryan concluded that "what made [Hartman's impressions] so funny and spot on was Phil's ability to add that perfect touch that only comes from trial and error and practicing in front of audiences and fellow actors." Hartman described this process as "technical." Journalist Lyle V. Harris said Hartman showed a "rare talent for morphing into [...] anybody he wanted to be". Ken Tucker summarized Hartman's comedic style: "He could momentarily fool audiences into thinking he was the straight man, but then he'd cock an eyebrow and give his voice an ironic lilt that delivered a punchline like a fast slider--you barely saw it coming until you started laughing." Hartman claimed that he borrowed his style from actor Bill Murray: "He's been a great influence on me - when he did that smarmy thing in Ghostbusters, then the same sort of thing in Groundhog Day. I tried to imitate it. I couldn't. I wasn't good enough. But I discovered an element of something else, so in a sick kind of way I made myself a career by doing a bad imitation of another comic." CANNOTANSWER
|
discovered an element of something else, so in a sick kind of way I made myself a career by doing a bad imitation of another comic."
|
Philip Edward Hartman (né Hartmann; September 24, 1948 – May 28, 1998) was a Canadian-American actor, comedian, screenwriter, and graphic designer. Hartman was born in Brantford, Ontario, Canada, and his family moved to the United States when he was ten years old. After graduating from California State University, Northridge with a degree in graphic arts, he designed album covers for bands including Poco and America. In 1975, Hartman joined the comedy group The Groundlings, where he helped Paul Reubens develop his character Pee-wee Herman. Hartman co-wrote the film Pee-wee's Big Adventure and made recurring appearances as Captain Carl on Reubens' show Pee-wee's Playhouse.
In 1986, Hartman joined the NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live (SNL) as a cast member, and stayed for eight seasons until 1994. Nicknamed "Glue" for his ability to hold the show together and help other cast members, he won a Primetime Emmy Award for his SNL work in 1989. In 1995, he starred as Bill McNeal in the sitcom NewsRadio after declining to return to SNL. He also voiced various characters on The Simpsons, and had minor roles in the films Houseguest, Sgt. Bilko, Jingle All the Way, and Small Soldiers.
After two divorces, Hartman married Brynn Omdahl in 1987, with whom he had two children. Their marriage was troubled due to Brynn's drug use and domestic violence against Phil, who was frequently absent from home. In 1998, while Hartman was sleeping in his bed, his wife shot and killed him, and later committed suicide. In the weeks following his murder, Hartman was celebrated in a wave of tributes. Dan Snierson of Entertainment Weekly wrote that Hartman was "the last person you'd expect to read about in lurid headlines in your morning paper ... a decidedly regular guy, beloved by everyone he worked with". He was posthumously inducted into the Canada and Hollywood Walks of Fame in 2012 and 2014.
Early life
Hartman was born Philip Edward Hartmann (later dropping one "n") on September 24, 1948, in Brantford, Ontario. He was the fourth of eight children of Doris Marguerite (née Wardell; July 17, 1919 – April 15, 2001) and Rupert Loebig Hartmann (November 8, 1914 – April 30, 1998), who sold building materials. The family was Catholic. As a child, Hartman found affection hard to earn: "I suppose I didn't get what I wanted out of my family life, so I started seeking love and attention elsewhere."
Hartman was ten when his family moved to the United States. They first lived in Lewiston, Maine, then Meriden, Connecticut, and then on the West Coast, where he attended Westchester High School and frequently acted as the class clown. After graduating, he studied art at Santa Monica City College, dropping out in 1969 to become a roadie with a rock band. He returned to school in 1972 to study graphic arts at California State University, Northridge. He developed and operated his own graphic art business, creating more than 40 album covers for bands including Poco and America, as well as advertising and the logo for Crosby, Stills & Nash. In the late 1970s, he made his first television appearance on an episode of The Dating Game, where he won.
Career
Early career (1975–1985)
Working alone as a graphic artist, Hartman frequently amused himself with "flights of voice fantasies". In 1975, seeking a more social outlet for his talents, he began attending evening comedy classes by the California-based improvisational comedy group The Groundlings. While watching one of their performances, he impulsively decided to climb on stage and join the cast. His first onscreen appearance was in 1978's Stunt Rock, an Australian film directed in Los Angeles by Brian Trenchard-Smith. After several years of training, paying his way by redesigning the group's logo and merchandise, Hartman formally joined The Groundlings and by 1979 was one of the show's stars.
There Hartman befriended Paul Reubens, with whom he often collaborated on comedic material. Together they created the character Pee-wee Herman and developed The Pee-wee Herman Show, a live stage show that subsequently aired on HBO in 1981. Hartman played Captain Carl in the show, and reprised the role for the children's TV show Pee-wee's Playhouse. Reubens and Hartman made cameos in the 1980 film Cheech & Chong's Next Movie. Hartman co-wrote the script of the 1985 feature film Pee-wee's Big Adventure and had a cameo role as a reporter. He'd considered quitting acting at the age of 36 due to the challenges of finding work; but the success of Pee-wee's Big Adventure changed his mind. After a creative disagreement with Reubens, he left the Pee-Wee Herman project to pursue other roles.
Hartman took more small roles in 1986 films such as Jumpin' Jack Flash and Three Amigos. He also worked as a voice actor in animated television programs, including The Smurfs, Challenge of the GoBots, The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo, and in Dennis the Menace as characters Henry Mitchell and George Wilson. He developed a strong persona providing voice-overs for advertisements.
Saturday Night Live (1986–1994)
Hartman successfully auditioned to join NBC's variety show Saturday Night Live (SNL) in its 12th season, which began on October 11, 1986. He had been recommended for the show by fellow Groundlings and SNL cast members Jon Lovitz, and Laraine Newman as well as Jumpin' Jack Flash director Penny Marshall. He told the Los Angeles Times, "I wanted to do [SNL] because I wanted to get the exposure that would give me box-office credibility so I can write movies for myself." In his eight seasons with the show Hartman became known for his impressions, and performed as over 70 different characters. Hartman's original SNL characters include Eugene, the Anal Retentive Chef and Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer. His impressions include Frank Sinatra, Ronald Reagan, Ed McMahon, Barbara Bush, Charlton Heston, Phil Donahue, and Bill Clintonthe latter considered his best-known impression.
Hartman first performed his Clinton impression on an episode of The Tonight Show. When he met Clinton in 1993, Hartman remarked, "I guess I owe you a few apologies", adding later that he "sometimes [felt] a twinge of guilt about [his Clinton impression]". Clinton showed good humor and sent Hartman a signed photo with the text: "You're not the president, but you play one on TV. And you're OK, mostly." Hartman copied the president's "post-nasal drip" and the "slight scratchiness" in his voice, as well as his open, "less intimidating" hand gestures. Hartman opted against wearing a larger prosthetic nose when portraying Clinton, as he thought it would be distracting. He instead wore a wig, dyed his eyebrows brighter, and used makeup to highlight his nose. In one of Hartman's sketches as Clinton, the president visits a McDonald's restaurant and explains his economic policies in the metaphor of eating other customers' food. The writers told him that he was not eating enough during rehearsals for the sketch – by the end of the live performance, Hartman had eaten so much he could barely speak.
At SNL, Hartman's nickname of "Glue" was coined by Adam Sandler according to Jay Mohr's book Gasping for Airtime. However, according to You Might Remember Me: The Life and Times of Phil Hartman by Mike Thomas, author and staff writer for the Chicago Sun-Times, the nickname was created by SNL cast member and Hartman's frequent on-screen collaborator Jan Hooks. Hartman was very helpful to other cast members. For example, he aided Hooks in overcoming her stage fright. SNL creator Lorne Michaels explained the name: "He kind of held the show together. He gave to everybody and demanded very little. He was very low-maintenance." Michaels also added that Hartman was "the least appreciated" cast member by commentators outside the show, and praised his ability "to do five or six parts in a show where you're playing support or you're doing remarkable character work". Hartman won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Variety, Music or Comedy Program for SNL in 1989, sharing the award with the show's other writers. He was nominated in the same category in 1987, and individually in 1994 for Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program.
By 1993, almost every cast member who was there during Hartman's first year on SNL had left the show, including Jon Lovitz, Jan Hooks and Dana Carvey. Hartman said he felt "like an athlete who's watched all his World Series teammates get traded off into other directions ... It was hard to watch them leave because I sort of felt we were all part of the team that saved the show." This cast turnover contributed to his leaving the show in 1994. Hartman said he thought it was time to leave because the show was "getting less sophisticated" and his style of humor didn't fit with the less intellectual comedy of newer cast members like Adam Sandler. Hartman had originally planned to leave the show in 1991, but Michaels convinced him to stay to raise his profile; his portrayal of Clinton contributed to this goal. Jay Leno offered him the role of his sidekick on The Tonight Show but Hartman opted to stay on SNL. NBC persuaded him to stay on SNL by promising him his own comedy–variety show The Phil Show. He planned to "reinvent the variety form" with "a hybrid, very fast-paced, high energy [show] with sketches, impersonations, pet acts, and performers showcasing their talents". Hartman was to be the show's executive producer and head writer. Before production began, however, the network decided that variety shows were too unpopular and canceled the series. In a 1996 interview, Hartman noted he was glad, as he "would've been sweatin' blood each week trying to make it work". In 1998, he admitted he missed working on SNL, but had enjoyed the move from New York City to Southern California.
NewsRadio (1995–1998)
Hartman became one of the stars of the NBC sitcom NewsRadio in 1995, portraying radio news anchor Bill McNeal. He signed up after being attracted by the show's writing and use of an ensemble cast, and joked that he based McNeal on himself with "any ethics and character" removed. Hartman made roughly per episode of NewsRadio. Although the show was critically acclaimed, it was never a ratings hit and cancellation was a regular threat. After the completion of the fourth season, Hartman commented, "We seem to have limited appeal. We're on the edge here, not sure we're going to be picked up or not", but added he was "99 percent sure" the series would be renewed for a fifth season. Hartman had publicly lambasted NBC's decision to repeatedly move NewsRadio into different timeslots, but later regretted his comments, saying, "this is a sitcom, for crying out loud, not brain surgery". He also stated that if the sitcom were cancelled "it just will open up other opportunities for me". Although the show was renewed for a fifth season, Hartman died before production began. Ken Tucker praised Hartman's performance as McNeal: "A lesser performer ... would have played him as a variation on The Mary Tyler Moore Shows Ted Baxter, because that's what Bill was, on paper. But Hartman gave infinite variety to Bill's self-centeredness, turning him devious, cowardly, squeamish, and foolishly bold from week to week." Hartman was posthumously nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series in 1998 for his work on NewsRadio, but lost to David Hyde Pierce.
The Simpsons (1991–1998)
Hartman provided the voices for numerous characters on the Fox animated series The Simpsons, appearing in 52 episodes. He made his first appearance in the second season episode "Bart Gets Hit by a Car". Although he was originally brought in for a one-time appearance, Hartman enjoyed working on The Simpsons and the staff wrote additional parts for him. He voiced the recurring characters Lionel Hutz and Troy McClure, as well as Duff man (on one occasion) and several background characters. His favorite part was that of McClure, and he often used this voice to entertain the audience between takes while taping episodes of NewsRadio. He remarked, "My favorite fans are Troy McClure fans." He added "It's the one thing that I do in my life that's almost an avocation. I do it for the pure love of it."
Hartman was popular among the staff of The Simpsons. Showrunners Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein said they enjoyed his work, and used him as much as possible when working on the show. To give Hartman a larger role, they developed the episode "A Fish Called Selma", which focuses on Troy McClure and expands the character's backstory. The Simpsons creator Matt Groening said that he "took [Hartman] for granted because he nailed the joke every time", and that his voice acting could produce "the maximum amount of humor" with any line he was given. Before his death, Hartman had expressed an interest in making a live action film about Troy McClure. Many of The Simpsons production staff expressed enthusiasm for the project and offered to help. Hartman said he was "looking forward to [McClure's] live-action movie, publicizing his Betty Ford appearances", and "would love nothing more" than making a film and was prepared to buy the film rights himself in order to make it happen.
Other work
Hartman's first starring film role came in 1995's Houseguest, alongside Sinbad. Other films include Greedy, Coneheads, Sgt. Bilko, So I Married an Axe Murderer, CB4, Jingle All the Way, Kiki's Delivery Service, and Small Soldiers, the latter of which is his final theatrically released film. At the same time, he preferred working on television. His other television roles include appearances on episodes of The John Larroquette Show, The Dana Carvey Show, 3rd Rock from the Sun, and the HBO TV film The Second Civil War as the President of the United States. He made a considerable amount of money from television advertising, earning $300,000 for a series of four commercials for the soft drink Slice. He also appeared in advertisements for McDonald's (as Hugh McAttack) and 1-800-Collect (as Max Jerome).
Hartman wrote a number of screenplays that were never produced. In 1986, he began writing a screenplay for a film titled Mr. Fix-It, and completed the final draft in 1991. Robert Zemeckis was signed to produce the film, with Gil Bettman hired to direct. Hartman called it "a sort of a merger of horror and comedy, like Beetlejuice and Throw Momma From the Train", adding, "It's an American nightmare about a family torn asunder. They live next to a toxic dump site, their water supply is poisoned, the mother and son go insane and try to murder each other, the father's face is torn off in a terrible disfiguring accident in the first act. It's heavy stuff, but it's got a good message and a positive, upbeat ending." Zemeckis could not secure studio backing, however, and the project collapsed. Another film idea involving Hartman's Groundlings character Chick Hazard, Private Eye was also canceled.
Style
In contrast to his real-life personality, which was described as "a regular guy and, by all accounts, one of show business's most low-key, decent people", Hartman often played seedy, vain or unpleasant characters as well as comedic villains. He described his standard character repertoire as the "jerky guy" and "the weasel parade", citing Lionel Hutz, Bill McNeal, Troy McClure, and Ted Maltin from Jingle All the Way as examples. Hartman enjoyed playing such roles because he "just want[ed] to be funny, and villains tend to be funny because their foibles are all there to see".
He often played supporting roles, rather than the lead part. He said "throughout my career, I've never been a huge star, but I've made steady progress and that's the way I like it", and "It's fun coming in as the second or third lead. If the movie or TV show bombs, you aren't to blame." Hartman was considered a "utility player" on SNL with a "kind of Everyman quality" which enabled him to appear in the majority of sketches, often in very distinct roles. Jan Hooks stated of his work on SNL: "Phil never had an ounce of competition. He was a team player. It was a privilege for him, I believe, to play support and do it very well. He was never insulted, no matter how small the role may have been." He was disciplined in his performances, studying the scripts beforehand. Hooks added: "Phil knew how to listen. And he knew how to look you in the eye, and he knew the power of being able to lay back and let somebody else be funny, and then do the reactions. I think Phil was more of an actor than a comedian." Film critic Pauline Kael declared that "Phil Hartman and Jan Hooks on Saturday Night Live are two of the best comic actors I've ever seen."
Writer and acting coach Paul Ryan noted Hartman's work ethic with his impressions. He assembled a collection of video footage of the figure he was preparing to impersonate and watched this continually until he "completely embodied the person". Ryan concluded that "what made [Hartman's impressions] so funny and spot on was Phil's ability to add that perfect touch that only comes from trial and error and practicing in front of audiences and fellow actors." Hartman described this process as "technical". Journalist Lyle V. Harris said Hartman showed a "rare talent for morphing into ... anybody he wanted to be".
Ken Tucker summarized Hartman's comedic style: "He could momentarily fool audiences into thinking he was the straight man, but then he'd cock an eyebrow and give his voice an ironic lilt that delivered a punchline like a fast slider—you barely saw it coming until you started laughing." Hartman claimed that he borrowed his style from actor Bill Murray: "He's been a great influence on me – when he did that smarmy thing in Ghostbusters, then the same sort of thing in Groundhog Day. I tried to imitate it. I couldn't. I wasn't good enough. But I discovered an element of something else, so in a sick kind of way I made myself a career by doing a bad imitation of another comic."
Personal life
Hartman married Gretchen Lewis in 1970 and they divorced in September 1972. He married real estate agent Lisa Strain in 1982, and their marriage lasted three years. Strain told People magazine that Hartman was reclusive off screen and "would disappear emotionally ... he'd be in his own world. That passivity made you crazy." In 1987, Hartman married former model and aspiring actress Brynn Omdahl (born Vicki Jo Omdahl, April 11, 1958 – May 28, 1998), having met her on a blind date the previous year. They had two children, Sean and Birgen Hartman. The marriage had difficulties; she was reportedly intimidated by his success and was frustrated that she could not find any on her own, although neither party wanted a divorce. She was reported to have been jealous and often verbally and/or physically abusive, even sending a letter to his ex-wife, threatening to "rip [Strain's] eyes out" if she spoke to him again. Hartman considered retiring to save the marriage.
Hartman tried to get Brynn acting roles, but she became progressively reliant on alcohol and narcotics, entering rehab several times. On multiple occasions, he removed their children from the household to stay with friends or family because of her drug- and alcohol-fueled outbursts. Because of his close friendship with SNL associate Jan Hooks, Brynn joked on occasion Hooks and Hartman were married "on some other level". Brynn had written threatening letters addressed to Hooks, warning her to not get close to her husband, but they appeared to have never even been sent, being discovered in her belongings following her death.
Stephen Root, Hartman's NewsRadio co-star, said few people knew "the real Phil Hartman", as he was "one of those people who never seemed to come out of character," but he nevertheless gave the impression of a family man who cared deeply for his children. Hartman befriended Joe Rogan during his time on NewsRadio and confided his marital problems to him. Rogan said that he encouraged Hartman to divorce Brynn five times, but "[Hartman] loved his kids and didn't want to leave".
Hartman stated in 1997, though a non-practicing Catholic, he displayed a sense of religiousness. In his spare time, he enjoyed driving, flying, sailing, marksmanship, and playing the guitar.
Murder
On May 27, 1998, Brynn visited the Italian restaurant Buca di Beppo in Encino, California, with producer and writer Christine Zander, who said Brynn was "in a good frame of mind." They had drinks. After returning home, Brynn had a "heated" argument with Phil, after which he went to bed. She entered his bedroom some time before PDT on May 28, 1998, and as he slept, fatally shot him once between the eyes, once in the throat, and once in the upper chest with a Charter Arms .38 caliber handgun. He was 49 years old. She was taking Zoloft, had been drinking alcohol, and had recently used cocaine.
Brynn then drove to the home of her friend Ron Douglas and confessed to the killing, but he did not believe her. They drove back to the house in separate cars, and she called another friend and confessed a second time. On seeing Hartman's body, Douglas called 9-1-1 at Police arrived and escorted Douglas and the Hartmans' two children from the premises, by which time Brynn had locked herself in the bedroom. Shortly afterward, she committed suicide by a self-inflicted gunshot.
The police stated Hartman's death was caused by "domestic discord" between the couple. A friend said Brynn "had trouble controlling her anger ... She got attention by losing her temper". A neighbor of the Hartmans told a CNN reporter that the couple had marital problems. Yet actor Steve Guttenberg said they had been "a very happy couple, and they always had the appearance of being well-balanced".
A wrongful death lawsuit was filed in 1999 by her brother Gregory Omdahl, against Pfizer, the manufacturer of Zoloft, and against her child's psychiatrist, Arthur Sorosky, who had provided samples of the antidepressant to Brynn. Phil Hartman's friend and former SNL colleague Jon Lovitz has accused Hartman's then NewsRadio co-star Andy Dick of reintroducing Brynn to cocaine, causing her to relapse and suffer a nervous breakdown. Dick claims to have known nothing of her condition. Lovitz later said he no longer blamed Dick for Hartman's murder, but in 2006, Lovitz claimed Dick approached him at a restaurant and said, "I put the Phil Hartman hex on you; you're the next one to die." Lovitz then had him ejected from the restaurant. The following year at the Laugh Factory comedy club in Los Angeles, Lovitz and Dick had another argument, with Lovitz slamming Dick's head into the bar. Dick asserted he was not at fault in relation to Hartman's death.
Brynn's sister Katharine Omdahl and brother-in-law Mike Wright raised the two Hartman children. Hartman's will stipulated each child would inherit money over several years after turning 25. The total value of Hartman's estate was estimated at . In accordance with his wishes, his body was cremated by Forest Lawn Memorial Park and Mortuary, Glendale, California, and his ashes scattered over Santa Catalina Island's Emerald Bay.
Response and legacy
NBC executive Don Ohlmeyer stated that Hartman "was blessed with a tremendous gift for creating characters that made people laugh. Everyone who had the pleasure of working with Phil knows that he was a man of tremendous warmth, a true professional and a loyal friend." Guttenberg expressed shock at Hartman's death, and Steve Martin said he was "a deeply funny and very happy person". Matt Groening called him "a master", and director Joe Dante said, "He was one of those guys who was a dream to work with. I don't know anybody who didn't like him." Dan Snierson of Entertainment Weekly concluded that Hartman was "the last person you'd expect to read about in lurid headlines in your morning paper" and "a decidedly regular guy, beloved by everyone he worked with". In 2007, Entertainment Weekly ranked Hartman the 87th greatest television icon of all time, and Maxim named him the top Saturday Night Live performer of all time.
On the day of Hartman's death, rehearsals for The Simpsons were canceled as well as that night's performance by The Groundlings. The season five premiere episode of NewsRadio, "Bill Moves On", finds Hartman's character, Bill McNeal, has died of a heart attack, while the other characters reminisce about his life. Lovitz joined the show in his place beginning with the next episode. A special episode of Saturday Night Live commemorating Hartman's work on the show aired on June 13, 1998. Rather than substituting another voice actor, the writers of The Simpsons retired Hartman's characters. His final appearance on the show, the season ten episode "Bart the Mother", is dedicated to him, as is his final film, Small Soldiers.
At the time of his death, Hartman was preparing to voice Zapp Brannigan, a character written specifically for him on Groening's second animated series Futurama. Even though the role was specifically made for him, Hartman still insisted on auditioning and Groening said he "nailed it." After Hartman's death, Billy West took over the role. Though executive producer David X. Cohen credits West with using his own take on the character, West later said that he purposely tweaked Zapp's voice to better match Hartman's intended portrayal. Hartman was planning to appear with Lovitz in the indie film The Day of Swine and Roses, scheduled to begin production in August 1998.
In 2002, Laugh.com and Hartman's brother John published the album, Flat TV, a selection of comedy sketches recorded by Hartman in the 1970s, which had been kept in storage. John Hartmann commented: "I'm putting this out there because I'm dedicating my life to fulfilling his dreams. This [album] is my brother doing what he loved." In 2013, Flat TV was optioned by Michael "Ffish" Hemschoot's animation company Worker Studio for an animated adaptation. The deal came about after Michael T. Scott, a partner in the company, posted online a hand-written letter he had received from Hartman in 1997, leading to a correspondence between Scott and Paul Hartmann.
In 2007, a campaign was started on Facebook by Alex Stevens and endorsed by Hartman's brother Paul, to have Phil inducted to Canada's Walk of Fame. Among the campaign's numerous publicity events, Ben Miner of the Sirius XM Radio channel Laugh Attack, dedicated the month of April 2012 to Hartman. The campaign ended in success and Hartman was inducted to the Walk of Fame on September 22, 2012, with Paul accepting the award on his late brother's behalf. Hartman was also awarded the Cineplex Legends Award. In June 2013, it was announced that Hartman would receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, which was unveiled on August 26, 2014. Additionally, a special prize at the Canadian Comedy Awards was named for Hartman. Beginning with the 13th Canadian Comedy Awards in 2012, the Phil Hartman Award was awarded to "an individual who helps to better the Canadian comedy community". In 2015, Rolling Stone magazine ranked Hartman as one of the top-ten greatest Saturday Night Live cast members throughout the show's forty-year history, coming in seventh on their list of all 141 members.
Filmography
Film
Television
Video games
Theme park attractions
Discography
1977
America, Harbor
1978
America, Silent Letter
Poco, Legend
1980
Firesign Theatre, Fighting Clowns
References
Book sources
External links
Phil Hartman at Yahoo! Movies
Phil Hartman at The New York Times
Hartman's autopsy and death certificate
Phil Hartman's final night: The tragic death of a “Saturday Night Live” genius, Mike Thomas, Salon, September 21, 2014
1948 births
1998 deaths
1998 murders in the United States
20th-century American male actors
20th-century Canadian male actors
Album-cover and concert-poster artists
American male comedians
American male film actors
American graphic designers
American impressionists (entertainers)
American male screenwriters
American male television actors
American television writers
American male voice actors
American sketch comedians
California State University, Northridge alumni
Canadian male comedians
Canadian emigrants to the United States
Canadian male voice actors
Canadian murder victims
Canadian sketch comedians
Deaths by firearm in California
Male actors from Los Angeles
American male television writers
Murder–suicides in California
Naturalized citizens of the United States
People from Brantford
People murdered in Los Angeles
Primetime Emmy Award winners
Santa Monica College alumni
Comedians from California
Mariticides
Westchester High School (Los Angeles) alumni
Screenwriters from California
20th-century Canadian comedians
20th-century American comedians
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American screenwriters
Comedians from Ontario
| true |
[
"Pietro Sermonti (born 25 October 1971) is an Italian stage, film and television actor.\n\nLife and career \nBorn in Rome, Sermonti is the son of writer of Tuscan and Sicilian descent, and businesswoman Samaritana Rattazzi from Piedmont, a daughter of Susanna Agnelli. He was a promising footballer in the Juventus' youth team, but had to give up a professional career because of health problems. After graduating from Lycee Chateaubriand de Rome, he enrolled at several drama laboratories and attended the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute.\n\nSermonti made his professional debut on stage in Quer pasticciaccio brutto de via Merulana, directed by Luca Ronconi. He had his breakout in 2003, with the role of Guido Zanin in the TV-series Un medico in famiglia.\n\nSelected filmography \nTre mogli (2001)\nAmore, bugie e calcetto (2008)\nUn amore di strega (2009)\nBoris: The Film (2011)\nReWined (2013)\nI Can Quit Whenever I Want (2014)\nHappily Mixed Up (2014)\nEver Been to the Moon? (2015)\nI Can Quit Whenever I Want: Masterclass (2017)\nI Can Quit Whenever I Want: Ad Honorem (2017)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n\n \n\n1971 births\nAgnelli family\n20th-century Italian male actors\nItalian male film actors\nItalian male television actors\nItalian male stage actors\nMale actors from Rome\nLiving people",
"I Can Quit Whenever I Want: Masterclass () is a 2017 Italian crime comedy film directed by Sydney Sibilia.\n\nIt is the sequel to 2014 I Can Quit Whenever I Want and the second installment in the I Can Quit trilogy. A sequel entitled I Can Quit Whenever I Want: Ad Honorem was released in November 2017.\n\nCast\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\n2017 films\n2017 comedy films\n2010s crime comedy films\nFilms about drugs\nFilms directed by Sydney Sibilia\nFilms set in Rome\nFilms shot in Rome\nItalian crime comedy films\nItalian films\nLatin-language films"
] |
[
"Phil Hartman",
"Style",
"What was his style considered?",
"was described as \"a regular guy and, by all accounts, one of show business' most low-key, decent people\",",
"How did this help his career?",
"often played seedy, vain or unpleasant characters as well as comedic villains. He noted that his standard character was a \"jerky guy\", and described his usual roles",
"Did he enjoy playing these parts?",
"Hartman enjoyed playing such roles because he \"just want[ed] to be funny, and villains tend to be funny because their foibles are all there to see.\"",
"What parts was he famous for?",
"He often played supporting roles, rather than the lead part. He said \"throughout my career, I've never been a huge star, but I've made steady progress",
"Was he okay with that?",
"that's the way I like it,\" and \"It's fun coming in as the second or third lead.",
"Did he ever want to quit?",
"discovered an element of something else, so in a sick kind of way I made myself a career by doing a bad imitation of another comic.\""
] |
C_f5004bcd827b41ce8db5ff729ef1e178_0
|
Any other talents that were "accidentally" found?
| 7 |
Were there any talents besides acting that Hartman "accidentally" found?
|
Phil Hartman
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In contrast to his real-life personality, which was described as "a regular guy and, by all accounts, one of show business' most low-key, decent people", Hartman often played seedy, vain or unpleasant characters as well as comedic villains. He noted that his standard character was a "jerky guy", and described his usual roles as "the weasel parade", citing Lionel Hutz, Bill McNeal, Troy McClure and Ted Maltin from Jingle All the Way as examples. Hartman enjoyed playing such roles because he "just want[ed] to be funny, and villains tend to be funny because their foibles are all there to see." He often played supporting roles, rather than the lead part. He said "throughout my career, I've never been a huge star, but I've made steady progress and that's the way I like it," and "It's fun coming in as the second or third lead. If the movie or TV show bombs, you aren't to blame." Hartman was considered a "utility player" on SNL with a "kind of Everyman quality" which enabled him to appear in the majority of sketches, often in very distinct roles. Jan Hooks stated of his work on SNL: "Phil never had an ounce of competition. He was a team player. It was a privilege for him, I believe, to play support and do it very well. He was never insulted, no matter how small the role may have been." He was disciplined in his performances, studying the scripts beforehand. Hooks added: "Phil knew how to listen. And he knew how to look you in the eye, and he knew the power of being able to lay back and let somebody else be funny, and then do the reactions. I think Phil was more of an actor than a comedian." Film critic Pauline Kael declared that "Phil Hartman and Jan Hooks on Saturday Night Live are two of the best comic actors I've ever seen." Writer and acting coach Paul Ryan noted Hartman's work ethic with his impressions. He assembled a collection of video footage of the figure he was preparing to impersonate and watched this continually until he "completely embodied the person". Ryan concluded that "what made [Hartman's impressions] so funny and spot on was Phil's ability to add that perfect touch that only comes from trial and error and practicing in front of audiences and fellow actors." Hartman described this process as "technical." Journalist Lyle V. Harris said Hartman showed a "rare talent for morphing into [...] anybody he wanted to be". Ken Tucker summarized Hartman's comedic style: "He could momentarily fool audiences into thinking he was the straight man, but then he'd cock an eyebrow and give his voice an ironic lilt that delivered a punchline like a fast slider--you barely saw it coming until you started laughing." Hartman claimed that he borrowed his style from actor Bill Murray: "He's been a great influence on me - when he did that smarmy thing in Ghostbusters, then the same sort of thing in Groundhog Day. I tried to imitate it. I couldn't. I wasn't good enough. But I discovered an element of something else, so in a sick kind of way I made myself a career by doing a bad imitation of another comic." CANNOTANSWER
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He could momentarily fool audiences into thinking he was the straight man, but then he'd cock an eyebrow and give his voice an ironic lilt
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Philip Edward Hartman (né Hartmann; September 24, 1948 – May 28, 1998) was a Canadian-American actor, comedian, screenwriter, and graphic designer. Hartman was born in Brantford, Ontario, Canada, and his family moved to the United States when he was ten years old. After graduating from California State University, Northridge with a degree in graphic arts, he designed album covers for bands including Poco and America. In 1975, Hartman joined the comedy group The Groundlings, where he helped Paul Reubens develop his character Pee-wee Herman. Hartman co-wrote the film Pee-wee's Big Adventure and made recurring appearances as Captain Carl on Reubens' show Pee-wee's Playhouse.
In 1986, Hartman joined the NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live (SNL) as a cast member, and stayed for eight seasons until 1994. Nicknamed "Glue" for his ability to hold the show together and help other cast members, he won a Primetime Emmy Award for his SNL work in 1989. In 1995, he starred as Bill McNeal in the sitcom NewsRadio after declining to return to SNL. He also voiced various characters on The Simpsons, and had minor roles in the films Houseguest, Sgt. Bilko, Jingle All the Way, and Small Soldiers.
After two divorces, Hartman married Brynn Omdahl in 1987, with whom he had two children. Their marriage was troubled due to Brynn's drug use and domestic violence against Phil, who was frequently absent from home. In 1998, while Hartman was sleeping in his bed, his wife shot and killed him, and later committed suicide. In the weeks following his murder, Hartman was celebrated in a wave of tributes. Dan Snierson of Entertainment Weekly wrote that Hartman was "the last person you'd expect to read about in lurid headlines in your morning paper ... a decidedly regular guy, beloved by everyone he worked with". He was posthumously inducted into the Canada and Hollywood Walks of Fame in 2012 and 2014.
Early life
Hartman was born Philip Edward Hartmann (later dropping one "n") on September 24, 1948, in Brantford, Ontario. He was the fourth of eight children of Doris Marguerite (née Wardell; July 17, 1919 – April 15, 2001) and Rupert Loebig Hartmann (November 8, 1914 – April 30, 1998), who sold building materials. The family was Catholic. As a child, Hartman found affection hard to earn: "I suppose I didn't get what I wanted out of my family life, so I started seeking love and attention elsewhere."
Hartman was ten when his family moved to the United States. They first lived in Lewiston, Maine, then Meriden, Connecticut, and then on the West Coast, where he attended Westchester High School and frequently acted as the class clown. After graduating, he studied art at Santa Monica City College, dropping out in 1969 to become a roadie with a rock band. He returned to school in 1972 to study graphic arts at California State University, Northridge. He developed and operated his own graphic art business, creating more than 40 album covers for bands including Poco and America, as well as advertising and the logo for Crosby, Stills & Nash. In the late 1970s, he made his first television appearance on an episode of The Dating Game, where he won.
Career
Early career (1975–1985)
Working alone as a graphic artist, Hartman frequently amused himself with "flights of voice fantasies". In 1975, seeking a more social outlet for his talents, he began attending evening comedy classes by the California-based improvisational comedy group The Groundlings. While watching one of their performances, he impulsively decided to climb on stage and join the cast. His first onscreen appearance was in 1978's Stunt Rock, an Australian film directed in Los Angeles by Brian Trenchard-Smith. After several years of training, paying his way by redesigning the group's logo and merchandise, Hartman formally joined The Groundlings and by 1979 was one of the show's stars.
There Hartman befriended Paul Reubens, with whom he often collaborated on comedic material. Together they created the character Pee-wee Herman and developed The Pee-wee Herman Show, a live stage show that subsequently aired on HBO in 1981. Hartman played Captain Carl in the show, and reprised the role for the children's TV show Pee-wee's Playhouse. Reubens and Hartman made cameos in the 1980 film Cheech & Chong's Next Movie. Hartman co-wrote the script of the 1985 feature film Pee-wee's Big Adventure and had a cameo role as a reporter. He'd considered quitting acting at the age of 36 due to the challenges of finding work; but the success of Pee-wee's Big Adventure changed his mind. After a creative disagreement with Reubens, he left the Pee-Wee Herman project to pursue other roles.
Hartman took more small roles in 1986 films such as Jumpin' Jack Flash and Three Amigos. He also worked as a voice actor in animated television programs, including The Smurfs, Challenge of the GoBots, The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo, and in Dennis the Menace as characters Henry Mitchell and George Wilson. He developed a strong persona providing voice-overs for advertisements.
Saturday Night Live (1986–1994)
Hartman successfully auditioned to join NBC's variety show Saturday Night Live (SNL) in its 12th season, which began on October 11, 1986. He had been recommended for the show by fellow Groundlings and SNL cast members Jon Lovitz, and Laraine Newman as well as Jumpin' Jack Flash director Penny Marshall. He told the Los Angeles Times, "I wanted to do [SNL] because I wanted to get the exposure that would give me box-office credibility so I can write movies for myself." In his eight seasons with the show Hartman became known for his impressions, and performed as over 70 different characters. Hartman's original SNL characters include Eugene, the Anal Retentive Chef and Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer. His impressions include Frank Sinatra, Ronald Reagan, Ed McMahon, Barbara Bush, Charlton Heston, Phil Donahue, and Bill Clintonthe latter considered his best-known impression.
Hartman first performed his Clinton impression on an episode of The Tonight Show. When he met Clinton in 1993, Hartman remarked, "I guess I owe you a few apologies", adding later that he "sometimes [felt] a twinge of guilt about [his Clinton impression]". Clinton showed good humor and sent Hartman a signed photo with the text: "You're not the president, but you play one on TV. And you're OK, mostly." Hartman copied the president's "post-nasal drip" and the "slight scratchiness" in his voice, as well as his open, "less intimidating" hand gestures. Hartman opted against wearing a larger prosthetic nose when portraying Clinton, as he thought it would be distracting. He instead wore a wig, dyed his eyebrows brighter, and used makeup to highlight his nose. In one of Hartman's sketches as Clinton, the president visits a McDonald's restaurant and explains his economic policies in the metaphor of eating other customers' food. The writers told him that he was not eating enough during rehearsals for the sketch – by the end of the live performance, Hartman had eaten so much he could barely speak.
At SNL, Hartman's nickname of "Glue" was coined by Adam Sandler according to Jay Mohr's book Gasping for Airtime. However, according to You Might Remember Me: The Life and Times of Phil Hartman by Mike Thomas, author and staff writer for the Chicago Sun-Times, the nickname was created by SNL cast member and Hartman's frequent on-screen collaborator Jan Hooks. Hartman was very helpful to other cast members. For example, he aided Hooks in overcoming her stage fright. SNL creator Lorne Michaels explained the name: "He kind of held the show together. He gave to everybody and demanded very little. He was very low-maintenance." Michaels also added that Hartman was "the least appreciated" cast member by commentators outside the show, and praised his ability "to do five or six parts in a show where you're playing support or you're doing remarkable character work". Hartman won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Variety, Music or Comedy Program for SNL in 1989, sharing the award with the show's other writers. He was nominated in the same category in 1987, and individually in 1994 for Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program.
By 1993, almost every cast member who was there during Hartman's first year on SNL had left the show, including Jon Lovitz, Jan Hooks and Dana Carvey. Hartman said he felt "like an athlete who's watched all his World Series teammates get traded off into other directions ... It was hard to watch them leave because I sort of felt we were all part of the team that saved the show." This cast turnover contributed to his leaving the show in 1994. Hartman said he thought it was time to leave because the show was "getting less sophisticated" and his style of humor didn't fit with the less intellectual comedy of newer cast members like Adam Sandler. Hartman had originally planned to leave the show in 1991, but Michaels convinced him to stay to raise his profile; his portrayal of Clinton contributed to this goal. Jay Leno offered him the role of his sidekick on The Tonight Show but Hartman opted to stay on SNL. NBC persuaded him to stay on SNL by promising him his own comedy–variety show The Phil Show. He planned to "reinvent the variety form" with "a hybrid, very fast-paced, high energy [show] with sketches, impersonations, pet acts, and performers showcasing their talents". Hartman was to be the show's executive producer and head writer. Before production began, however, the network decided that variety shows were too unpopular and canceled the series. In a 1996 interview, Hartman noted he was glad, as he "would've been sweatin' blood each week trying to make it work". In 1998, he admitted he missed working on SNL, but had enjoyed the move from New York City to Southern California.
NewsRadio (1995–1998)
Hartman became one of the stars of the NBC sitcom NewsRadio in 1995, portraying radio news anchor Bill McNeal. He signed up after being attracted by the show's writing and use of an ensemble cast, and joked that he based McNeal on himself with "any ethics and character" removed. Hartman made roughly per episode of NewsRadio. Although the show was critically acclaimed, it was never a ratings hit and cancellation was a regular threat. After the completion of the fourth season, Hartman commented, "We seem to have limited appeal. We're on the edge here, not sure we're going to be picked up or not", but added he was "99 percent sure" the series would be renewed for a fifth season. Hartman had publicly lambasted NBC's decision to repeatedly move NewsRadio into different timeslots, but later regretted his comments, saying, "this is a sitcom, for crying out loud, not brain surgery". He also stated that if the sitcom were cancelled "it just will open up other opportunities for me". Although the show was renewed for a fifth season, Hartman died before production began. Ken Tucker praised Hartman's performance as McNeal: "A lesser performer ... would have played him as a variation on The Mary Tyler Moore Shows Ted Baxter, because that's what Bill was, on paper. But Hartman gave infinite variety to Bill's self-centeredness, turning him devious, cowardly, squeamish, and foolishly bold from week to week." Hartman was posthumously nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series in 1998 for his work on NewsRadio, but lost to David Hyde Pierce.
The Simpsons (1991–1998)
Hartman provided the voices for numerous characters on the Fox animated series The Simpsons, appearing in 52 episodes. He made his first appearance in the second season episode "Bart Gets Hit by a Car". Although he was originally brought in for a one-time appearance, Hartman enjoyed working on The Simpsons and the staff wrote additional parts for him. He voiced the recurring characters Lionel Hutz and Troy McClure, as well as Duff man (on one occasion) and several background characters. His favorite part was that of McClure, and he often used this voice to entertain the audience between takes while taping episodes of NewsRadio. He remarked, "My favorite fans are Troy McClure fans." He added "It's the one thing that I do in my life that's almost an avocation. I do it for the pure love of it."
Hartman was popular among the staff of The Simpsons. Showrunners Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein said they enjoyed his work, and used him as much as possible when working on the show. To give Hartman a larger role, they developed the episode "A Fish Called Selma", which focuses on Troy McClure and expands the character's backstory. The Simpsons creator Matt Groening said that he "took [Hartman] for granted because he nailed the joke every time", and that his voice acting could produce "the maximum amount of humor" with any line he was given. Before his death, Hartman had expressed an interest in making a live action film about Troy McClure. Many of The Simpsons production staff expressed enthusiasm for the project and offered to help. Hartman said he was "looking forward to [McClure's] live-action movie, publicizing his Betty Ford appearances", and "would love nothing more" than making a film and was prepared to buy the film rights himself in order to make it happen.
Other work
Hartman's first starring film role came in 1995's Houseguest, alongside Sinbad. Other films include Greedy, Coneheads, Sgt. Bilko, So I Married an Axe Murderer, CB4, Jingle All the Way, Kiki's Delivery Service, and Small Soldiers, the latter of which is his final theatrically released film. At the same time, he preferred working on television. His other television roles include appearances on episodes of The John Larroquette Show, The Dana Carvey Show, 3rd Rock from the Sun, and the HBO TV film The Second Civil War as the President of the United States. He made a considerable amount of money from television advertising, earning $300,000 for a series of four commercials for the soft drink Slice. He also appeared in advertisements for McDonald's (as Hugh McAttack) and 1-800-Collect (as Max Jerome).
Hartman wrote a number of screenplays that were never produced. In 1986, he began writing a screenplay for a film titled Mr. Fix-It, and completed the final draft in 1991. Robert Zemeckis was signed to produce the film, with Gil Bettman hired to direct. Hartman called it "a sort of a merger of horror and comedy, like Beetlejuice and Throw Momma From the Train", adding, "It's an American nightmare about a family torn asunder. They live next to a toxic dump site, their water supply is poisoned, the mother and son go insane and try to murder each other, the father's face is torn off in a terrible disfiguring accident in the first act. It's heavy stuff, but it's got a good message and a positive, upbeat ending." Zemeckis could not secure studio backing, however, and the project collapsed. Another film idea involving Hartman's Groundlings character Chick Hazard, Private Eye was also canceled.
Style
In contrast to his real-life personality, which was described as "a regular guy and, by all accounts, one of show business's most low-key, decent people", Hartman often played seedy, vain or unpleasant characters as well as comedic villains. He described his standard character repertoire as the "jerky guy" and "the weasel parade", citing Lionel Hutz, Bill McNeal, Troy McClure, and Ted Maltin from Jingle All the Way as examples. Hartman enjoyed playing such roles because he "just want[ed] to be funny, and villains tend to be funny because their foibles are all there to see".
He often played supporting roles, rather than the lead part. He said "throughout my career, I've never been a huge star, but I've made steady progress and that's the way I like it", and "It's fun coming in as the second or third lead. If the movie or TV show bombs, you aren't to blame." Hartman was considered a "utility player" on SNL with a "kind of Everyman quality" which enabled him to appear in the majority of sketches, often in very distinct roles. Jan Hooks stated of his work on SNL: "Phil never had an ounce of competition. He was a team player. It was a privilege for him, I believe, to play support and do it very well. He was never insulted, no matter how small the role may have been." He was disciplined in his performances, studying the scripts beforehand. Hooks added: "Phil knew how to listen. And he knew how to look you in the eye, and he knew the power of being able to lay back and let somebody else be funny, and then do the reactions. I think Phil was more of an actor than a comedian." Film critic Pauline Kael declared that "Phil Hartman and Jan Hooks on Saturday Night Live are two of the best comic actors I've ever seen."
Writer and acting coach Paul Ryan noted Hartman's work ethic with his impressions. He assembled a collection of video footage of the figure he was preparing to impersonate and watched this continually until he "completely embodied the person". Ryan concluded that "what made [Hartman's impressions] so funny and spot on was Phil's ability to add that perfect touch that only comes from trial and error and practicing in front of audiences and fellow actors." Hartman described this process as "technical". Journalist Lyle V. Harris said Hartman showed a "rare talent for morphing into ... anybody he wanted to be".
Ken Tucker summarized Hartman's comedic style: "He could momentarily fool audiences into thinking he was the straight man, but then he'd cock an eyebrow and give his voice an ironic lilt that delivered a punchline like a fast slider—you barely saw it coming until you started laughing." Hartman claimed that he borrowed his style from actor Bill Murray: "He's been a great influence on me – when he did that smarmy thing in Ghostbusters, then the same sort of thing in Groundhog Day. I tried to imitate it. I couldn't. I wasn't good enough. But I discovered an element of something else, so in a sick kind of way I made myself a career by doing a bad imitation of another comic."
Personal life
Hartman married Gretchen Lewis in 1970 and they divorced in September 1972. He married real estate agent Lisa Strain in 1982, and their marriage lasted three years. Strain told People magazine that Hartman was reclusive off screen and "would disappear emotionally ... he'd be in his own world. That passivity made you crazy." In 1987, Hartman married former model and aspiring actress Brynn Omdahl (born Vicki Jo Omdahl, April 11, 1958 – May 28, 1998), having met her on a blind date the previous year. They had two children, Sean and Birgen Hartman. The marriage had difficulties; she was reportedly intimidated by his success and was frustrated that she could not find any on her own, although neither party wanted a divorce. She was reported to have been jealous and often verbally and/or physically abusive, even sending a letter to his ex-wife, threatening to "rip [Strain's] eyes out" if she spoke to him again. Hartman considered retiring to save the marriage.
Hartman tried to get Brynn acting roles, but she became progressively reliant on alcohol and narcotics, entering rehab several times. On multiple occasions, he removed their children from the household to stay with friends or family because of her drug- and alcohol-fueled outbursts. Because of his close friendship with SNL associate Jan Hooks, Brynn joked on occasion Hooks and Hartman were married "on some other level". Brynn had written threatening letters addressed to Hooks, warning her to not get close to her husband, but they appeared to have never even been sent, being discovered in her belongings following her death.
Stephen Root, Hartman's NewsRadio co-star, said few people knew "the real Phil Hartman", as he was "one of those people who never seemed to come out of character," but he nevertheless gave the impression of a family man who cared deeply for his children. Hartman befriended Joe Rogan during his time on NewsRadio and confided his marital problems to him. Rogan said that he encouraged Hartman to divorce Brynn five times, but "[Hartman] loved his kids and didn't want to leave".
Hartman stated in 1997, though a non-practicing Catholic, he displayed a sense of religiousness. In his spare time, he enjoyed driving, flying, sailing, marksmanship, and playing the guitar.
Murder
On May 27, 1998, Brynn visited the Italian restaurant Buca di Beppo in Encino, California, with producer and writer Christine Zander, who said Brynn was "in a good frame of mind." They had drinks. After returning home, Brynn had a "heated" argument with Phil, after which he went to bed. She entered his bedroom some time before PDT on May 28, 1998, and as he slept, fatally shot him once between the eyes, once in the throat, and once in the upper chest with a Charter Arms .38 caliber handgun. He was 49 years old. She was taking Zoloft, had been drinking alcohol, and had recently used cocaine.
Brynn then drove to the home of her friend Ron Douglas and confessed to the killing, but he did not believe her. They drove back to the house in separate cars, and she called another friend and confessed a second time. On seeing Hartman's body, Douglas called 9-1-1 at Police arrived and escorted Douglas and the Hartmans' two children from the premises, by which time Brynn had locked herself in the bedroom. Shortly afterward, she committed suicide by a self-inflicted gunshot.
The police stated Hartman's death was caused by "domestic discord" between the couple. A friend said Brynn "had trouble controlling her anger ... She got attention by losing her temper". A neighbor of the Hartmans told a CNN reporter that the couple had marital problems. Yet actor Steve Guttenberg said they had been "a very happy couple, and they always had the appearance of being well-balanced".
A wrongful death lawsuit was filed in 1999 by her brother Gregory Omdahl, against Pfizer, the manufacturer of Zoloft, and against her child's psychiatrist, Arthur Sorosky, who had provided samples of the antidepressant to Brynn. Phil Hartman's friend and former SNL colleague Jon Lovitz has accused Hartman's then NewsRadio co-star Andy Dick of reintroducing Brynn to cocaine, causing her to relapse and suffer a nervous breakdown. Dick claims to have known nothing of her condition. Lovitz later said he no longer blamed Dick for Hartman's murder, but in 2006, Lovitz claimed Dick approached him at a restaurant and said, "I put the Phil Hartman hex on you; you're the next one to die." Lovitz then had him ejected from the restaurant. The following year at the Laugh Factory comedy club in Los Angeles, Lovitz and Dick had another argument, with Lovitz slamming Dick's head into the bar. Dick asserted he was not at fault in relation to Hartman's death.
Brynn's sister Katharine Omdahl and brother-in-law Mike Wright raised the two Hartman children. Hartman's will stipulated each child would inherit money over several years after turning 25. The total value of Hartman's estate was estimated at . In accordance with his wishes, his body was cremated by Forest Lawn Memorial Park and Mortuary, Glendale, California, and his ashes scattered over Santa Catalina Island's Emerald Bay.
Response and legacy
NBC executive Don Ohlmeyer stated that Hartman "was blessed with a tremendous gift for creating characters that made people laugh. Everyone who had the pleasure of working with Phil knows that he was a man of tremendous warmth, a true professional and a loyal friend." Guttenberg expressed shock at Hartman's death, and Steve Martin said he was "a deeply funny and very happy person". Matt Groening called him "a master", and director Joe Dante said, "He was one of those guys who was a dream to work with. I don't know anybody who didn't like him." Dan Snierson of Entertainment Weekly concluded that Hartman was "the last person you'd expect to read about in lurid headlines in your morning paper" and "a decidedly regular guy, beloved by everyone he worked with". In 2007, Entertainment Weekly ranked Hartman the 87th greatest television icon of all time, and Maxim named him the top Saturday Night Live performer of all time.
On the day of Hartman's death, rehearsals for The Simpsons were canceled as well as that night's performance by The Groundlings. The season five premiere episode of NewsRadio, "Bill Moves On", finds Hartman's character, Bill McNeal, has died of a heart attack, while the other characters reminisce about his life. Lovitz joined the show in his place beginning with the next episode. A special episode of Saturday Night Live commemorating Hartman's work on the show aired on June 13, 1998. Rather than substituting another voice actor, the writers of The Simpsons retired Hartman's characters. His final appearance on the show, the season ten episode "Bart the Mother", is dedicated to him, as is his final film, Small Soldiers.
At the time of his death, Hartman was preparing to voice Zapp Brannigan, a character written specifically for him on Groening's second animated series Futurama. Even though the role was specifically made for him, Hartman still insisted on auditioning and Groening said he "nailed it." After Hartman's death, Billy West took over the role. Though executive producer David X. Cohen credits West with using his own take on the character, West later said that he purposely tweaked Zapp's voice to better match Hartman's intended portrayal. Hartman was planning to appear with Lovitz in the indie film The Day of Swine and Roses, scheduled to begin production in August 1998.
In 2002, Laugh.com and Hartman's brother John published the album, Flat TV, a selection of comedy sketches recorded by Hartman in the 1970s, which had been kept in storage. John Hartmann commented: "I'm putting this out there because I'm dedicating my life to fulfilling his dreams. This [album] is my brother doing what he loved." In 2013, Flat TV was optioned by Michael "Ffish" Hemschoot's animation company Worker Studio for an animated adaptation. The deal came about after Michael T. Scott, a partner in the company, posted online a hand-written letter he had received from Hartman in 1997, leading to a correspondence between Scott and Paul Hartmann.
In 2007, a campaign was started on Facebook by Alex Stevens and endorsed by Hartman's brother Paul, to have Phil inducted to Canada's Walk of Fame. Among the campaign's numerous publicity events, Ben Miner of the Sirius XM Radio channel Laugh Attack, dedicated the month of April 2012 to Hartman. The campaign ended in success and Hartman was inducted to the Walk of Fame on September 22, 2012, with Paul accepting the award on his late brother's behalf. Hartman was also awarded the Cineplex Legends Award. In June 2013, it was announced that Hartman would receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, which was unveiled on August 26, 2014. Additionally, a special prize at the Canadian Comedy Awards was named for Hartman. Beginning with the 13th Canadian Comedy Awards in 2012, the Phil Hartman Award was awarded to "an individual who helps to better the Canadian comedy community". In 2015, Rolling Stone magazine ranked Hartman as one of the top-ten greatest Saturday Night Live cast members throughout the show's forty-year history, coming in seventh on their list of all 141 members.
Filmography
Film
Television
Video games
Theme park attractions
Discography
1977
America, Harbor
1978
America, Silent Letter
Poco, Legend
1980
Firesign Theatre, Fighting Clowns
References
Book sources
External links
Phil Hartman at Yahoo! Movies
Phil Hartman at The New York Times
Hartman's autopsy and death certificate
Phil Hartman's final night: The tragic death of a “Saturday Night Live” genius, Mike Thomas, Salon, September 21, 2014
1948 births
1998 deaths
1998 murders in the United States
20th-century American male actors
20th-century Canadian male actors
Album-cover and concert-poster artists
American male comedians
American male film actors
American graphic designers
American impressionists (entertainers)
American male screenwriters
American male television actors
American television writers
American male voice actors
American sketch comedians
California State University, Northridge alumni
Canadian male comedians
Canadian emigrants to the United States
Canadian male voice actors
Canadian murder victims
Canadian sketch comedians
Deaths by firearm in California
Male actors from Los Angeles
American male television writers
Murder–suicides in California
Naturalized citizens of the United States
People from Brantford
People murdered in Los Angeles
Primetime Emmy Award winners
Santa Monica College alumni
Comedians from California
Mariticides
Westchester High School (Los Angeles) alumni
Screenwriters from California
20th-century Canadian comedians
20th-century American comedians
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American screenwriters
Comedians from Ontario
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"Wild Talents is a superhero role-playing game published by Arc Dream Publishing and written by Dennis Detwiller, with Greg Stolze, Kenneth Hite, and Shane Ivey, with illustrations by Christopher Shy, Sam Araya, and Todd Shearer. The game was shipped to customers worldwide on December 18, 2006.\n\nPublication history\nShannon Appelcline described the development of Wild Talents, stating that \"It was something that the fans had long demanded: a game that extended the Godlike supers game beyond the constraints of World War II. Between 2003 and 2005, Detwiller and Ivey developed it on Arc Dream's mailing lists and a Yahoo! group — in full view of their fans and with full input from them.\" Appelcline noted that this work also generated a spin-off fan project called Star ORE (2005), a free game by Shane Ivey that used the Wild Talents gaming system, but that \"Unfortunately, as they approached publication of Wild Talents, Ivey and Detwiller realized that they didn't have the money to produce it. To that point, all of Arc Dream's products had been small, saddle-stitched books; the more expensive Godlike and Will to Power rules instead were published by Hobgoblynn. Arc Dream just didn't have the cash flow to publish a 300+ page full-color hardcover book, and they didn't appear to have a way to bootstrap themselves up.\" Appelcline noted that Greg Stolze offered the solution of asking fans for money to finance the project as he had done before, and after Arc Dream did so in June 2006 they were able to publish the game with an initial print run of 1000 that sold out before the end of the year. Wild Talents was revamped in 2010 for a second edition, and Arc Dream partnering with Cubicle 7 allowed for a larger distribution audience.\n\nSetting\nWild Talents picks up the settings started by Godlike after the events World War II with the next step in development of the powers of the Talents. Unlike the first wave of Talents to emerge during World War II, these Wild Talents are unable to counteract each other's powers by will alone. Beyond being a follow-up to Godlike, Wild Talents includes tools and ideas for any superhero setting.\n\nSystem \n\nThe ORE System used by Wild Talents expands on the system introduced by Godlike. Dice pools of d10s are used to perform task checks where sets of matched dice determine success.\n\nReception\nThe reviewer from Pyramid stated that \"Beyond its mechanics, Wild Talents examines the formulation of the superhero universe, presents a sequel to Godlike as an example, and gives a gritty down-at-heel scenario suited to a low-powered Wild Talents game. All of this is presented in a clean looking hardback that includes some fantastic illustrations, of which there are not enough.\"\n\nThe reviewer for Superhero RPG liked the One-Role Engine, saying, \"Once you get over a few terms that could be presented a little better, the One-Role Engine works beautifully for the game.\" The reviewer concluded with a guarded thumbs up, commenting, \"I find some fault with a few drawbacks inherent in character creation [...] but the ORE system offers an unconventional, but well thought-out, way to resolve combat and other moments where the world hangs in the balance.\"\n\nAwards\nIn 2010, Wild Talents 2nd Edition was nominated for an ENnie Award as the year's best role-playing game.\n\nSee also \n Godlike\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n Wild Talents Homepage the official Arc Dream page for the game\n Learn to play\n\nSuperhero role-playing games\nRole-playing games introduced in 2006\nAlternate history role-playing games\nCampaign settings\nContemporary role-playing games",
"Boris Mikhailovich Teplov (; , in Tula, Russia – 28 September 1965, in Moscow) was a Russian psychologist who studied problems of inborn individual differences and talents (e.g. musical talents, warlord talents etc.) and a founder of a Soviet psychological school of Differential psychology. His well-known opponent was Aleksey Leontyev who believed that people's talents are not inborn but rather determined by education and other external influence. Boris Teplov was editor-in-chief of the principal Russian journal on psychology Voprosy Psikhologii.\n\nExternal links\n Temperament and Personality\n Biography \n\n1896 births\n1965 deaths\nRussian psychologists\nMoscow State University alumni\nAcademicians of the USSR Academy of Pedagogical Sciences\nAcademicians of the RSFSR Academy of Pedagogical Sciences\n20th-century psychologists"
] |
[
"Phil Hartman",
"Style",
"What was his style considered?",
"was described as \"a regular guy and, by all accounts, one of show business' most low-key, decent people\",",
"How did this help his career?",
"often played seedy, vain or unpleasant characters as well as comedic villains. He noted that his standard character was a \"jerky guy\", and described his usual roles",
"Did he enjoy playing these parts?",
"Hartman enjoyed playing such roles because he \"just want[ed] to be funny, and villains tend to be funny because their foibles are all there to see.\"",
"What parts was he famous for?",
"He often played supporting roles, rather than the lead part. He said \"throughout my career, I've never been a huge star, but I've made steady progress",
"Was he okay with that?",
"that's the way I like it,\" and \"It's fun coming in as the second or third lead.",
"Did he ever want to quit?",
"discovered an element of something else, so in a sick kind of way I made myself a career by doing a bad imitation of another comic.\"",
"Any other talents that were \"accidentally\" found?",
"He could momentarily fool audiences into thinking he was the straight man, but then he'd cock an eyebrow and give his voice an ironic lilt"
] |
C_f5004bcd827b41ce8db5ff729ef1e178_0
|
Was he straight?
| 8 |
Was Hartman straight?
|
Phil Hartman
|
In contrast to his real-life personality, which was described as "a regular guy and, by all accounts, one of show business' most low-key, decent people", Hartman often played seedy, vain or unpleasant characters as well as comedic villains. He noted that his standard character was a "jerky guy", and described his usual roles as "the weasel parade", citing Lionel Hutz, Bill McNeal, Troy McClure and Ted Maltin from Jingle All the Way as examples. Hartman enjoyed playing such roles because he "just want[ed] to be funny, and villains tend to be funny because their foibles are all there to see." He often played supporting roles, rather than the lead part. He said "throughout my career, I've never been a huge star, but I've made steady progress and that's the way I like it," and "It's fun coming in as the second or third lead. If the movie or TV show bombs, you aren't to blame." Hartman was considered a "utility player" on SNL with a "kind of Everyman quality" which enabled him to appear in the majority of sketches, often in very distinct roles. Jan Hooks stated of his work on SNL: "Phil never had an ounce of competition. He was a team player. It was a privilege for him, I believe, to play support and do it very well. He was never insulted, no matter how small the role may have been." He was disciplined in his performances, studying the scripts beforehand. Hooks added: "Phil knew how to listen. And he knew how to look you in the eye, and he knew the power of being able to lay back and let somebody else be funny, and then do the reactions. I think Phil was more of an actor than a comedian." Film critic Pauline Kael declared that "Phil Hartman and Jan Hooks on Saturday Night Live are two of the best comic actors I've ever seen." Writer and acting coach Paul Ryan noted Hartman's work ethic with his impressions. He assembled a collection of video footage of the figure he was preparing to impersonate and watched this continually until he "completely embodied the person". Ryan concluded that "what made [Hartman's impressions] so funny and spot on was Phil's ability to add that perfect touch that only comes from trial and error and practicing in front of audiences and fellow actors." Hartman described this process as "technical." Journalist Lyle V. Harris said Hartman showed a "rare talent for morphing into [...] anybody he wanted to be". Ken Tucker summarized Hartman's comedic style: "He could momentarily fool audiences into thinking he was the straight man, but then he'd cock an eyebrow and give his voice an ironic lilt that delivered a punchline like a fast slider--you barely saw it coming until you started laughing." Hartman claimed that he borrowed his style from actor Bill Murray: "He's been a great influence on me - when he did that smarmy thing in Ghostbusters, then the same sort of thing in Groundhog Day. I tried to imitate it. I couldn't. I wasn't good enough. But I discovered an element of something else, so in a sick kind of way I made myself a career by doing a bad imitation of another comic." CANNOTANSWER
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but then he'd cock an eyebrow and give his voice an ironic lilt that delivered a punchline like a fast slider--you barely saw it coming until you started laughing."
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Philip Edward Hartman (né Hartmann; September 24, 1948 – May 28, 1998) was a Canadian-American actor, comedian, screenwriter, and graphic designer. Hartman was born in Brantford, Ontario, Canada, and his family moved to the United States when he was ten years old. After graduating from California State University, Northridge with a degree in graphic arts, he designed album covers for bands including Poco and America. In 1975, Hartman joined the comedy group The Groundlings, where he helped Paul Reubens develop his character Pee-wee Herman. Hartman co-wrote the film Pee-wee's Big Adventure and made recurring appearances as Captain Carl on Reubens' show Pee-wee's Playhouse.
In 1986, Hartman joined the NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live (SNL) as a cast member, and stayed for eight seasons until 1994. Nicknamed "Glue" for his ability to hold the show together and help other cast members, he won a Primetime Emmy Award for his SNL work in 1989. In 1995, he starred as Bill McNeal in the sitcom NewsRadio after declining to return to SNL. He also voiced various characters on The Simpsons, and had minor roles in the films Houseguest, Sgt. Bilko, Jingle All the Way, and Small Soldiers.
After two divorces, Hartman married Brynn Omdahl in 1987, with whom he had two children. Their marriage was troubled due to Brynn's drug use and domestic violence against Phil, who was frequently absent from home. In 1998, while Hartman was sleeping in his bed, his wife shot and killed him, and later committed suicide. In the weeks following his murder, Hartman was celebrated in a wave of tributes. Dan Snierson of Entertainment Weekly wrote that Hartman was "the last person you'd expect to read about in lurid headlines in your morning paper ... a decidedly regular guy, beloved by everyone he worked with". He was posthumously inducted into the Canada and Hollywood Walks of Fame in 2012 and 2014.
Early life
Hartman was born Philip Edward Hartmann (later dropping one "n") on September 24, 1948, in Brantford, Ontario. He was the fourth of eight children of Doris Marguerite (née Wardell; July 17, 1919 – April 15, 2001) and Rupert Loebig Hartmann (November 8, 1914 – April 30, 1998), who sold building materials. The family was Catholic. As a child, Hartman found affection hard to earn: "I suppose I didn't get what I wanted out of my family life, so I started seeking love and attention elsewhere."
Hartman was ten when his family moved to the United States. They first lived in Lewiston, Maine, then Meriden, Connecticut, and then on the West Coast, where he attended Westchester High School and frequently acted as the class clown. After graduating, he studied art at Santa Monica City College, dropping out in 1969 to become a roadie with a rock band. He returned to school in 1972 to study graphic arts at California State University, Northridge. He developed and operated his own graphic art business, creating more than 40 album covers for bands including Poco and America, as well as advertising and the logo for Crosby, Stills & Nash. In the late 1970s, he made his first television appearance on an episode of The Dating Game, where he won.
Career
Early career (1975–1985)
Working alone as a graphic artist, Hartman frequently amused himself with "flights of voice fantasies". In 1975, seeking a more social outlet for his talents, he began attending evening comedy classes by the California-based improvisational comedy group The Groundlings. While watching one of their performances, he impulsively decided to climb on stage and join the cast. His first onscreen appearance was in 1978's Stunt Rock, an Australian film directed in Los Angeles by Brian Trenchard-Smith. After several years of training, paying his way by redesigning the group's logo and merchandise, Hartman formally joined The Groundlings and by 1979 was one of the show's stars.
There Hartman befriended Paul Reubens, with whom he often collaborated on comedic material. Together they created the character Pee-wee Herman and developed The Pee-wee Herman Show, a live stage show that subsequently aired on HBO in 1981. Hartman played Captain Carl in the show, and reprised the role for the children's TV show Pee-wee's Playhouse. Reubens and Hartman made cameos in the 1980 film Cheech & Chong's Next Movie. Hartman co-wrote the script of the 1985 feature film Pee-wee's Big Adventure and had a cameo role as a reporter. He'd considered quitting acting at the age of 36 due to the challenges of finding work; but the success of Pee-wee's Big Adventure changed his mind. After a creative disagreement with Reubens, he left the Pee-Wee Herman project to pursue other roles.
Hartman took more small roles in 1986 films such as Jumpin' Jack Flash and Three Amigos. He also worked as a voice actor in animated television programs, including The Smurfs, Challenge of the GoBots, The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo, and in Dennis the Menace as characters Henry Mitchell and George Wilson. He developed a strong persona providing voice-overs for advertisements.
Saturday Night Live (1986–1994)
Hartman successfully auditioned to join NBC's variety show Saturday Night Live (SNL) in its 12th season, which began on October 11, 1986. He had been recommended for the show by fellow Groundlings and SNL cast members Jon Lovitz, and Laraine Newman as well as Jumpin' Jack Flash director Penny Marshall. He told the Los Angeles Times, "I wanted to do [SNL] because I wanted to get the exposure that would give me box-office credibility so I can write movies for myself." In his eight seasons with the show Hartman became known for his impressions, and performed as over 70 different characters. Hartman's original SNL characters include Eugene, the Anal Retentive Chef and Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer. His impressions include Frank Sinatra, Ronald Reagan, Ed McMahon, Barbara Bush, Charlton Heston, Phil Donahue, and Bill Clintonthe latter considered his best-known impression.
Hartman first performed his Clinton impression on an episode of The Tonight Show. When he met Clinton in 1993, Hartman remarked, "I guess I owe you a few apologies", adding later that he "sometimes [felt] a twinge of guilt about [his Clinton impression]". Clinton showed good humor and sent Hartman a signed photo with the text: "You're not the president, but you play one on TV. And you're OK, mostly." Hartman copied the president's "post-nasal drip" and the "slight scratchiness" in his voice, as well as his open, "less intimidating" hand gestures. Hartman opted against wearing a larger prosthetic nose when portraying Clinton, as he thought it would be distracting. He instead wore a wig, dyed his eyebrows brighter, and used makeup to highlight his nose. In one of Hartman's sketches as Clinton, the president visits a McDonald's restaurant and explains his economic policies in the metaphor of eating other customers' food. The writers told him that he was not eating enough during rehearsals for the sketch – by the end of the live performance, Hartman had eaten so much he could barely speak.
At SNL, Hartman's nickname of "Glue" was coined by Adam Sandler according to Jay Mohr's book Gasping for Airtime. However, according to You Might Remember Me: The Life and Times of Phil Hartman by Mike Thomas, author and staff writer for the Chicago Sun-Times, the nickname was created by SNL cast member and Hartman's frequent on-screen collaborator Jan Hooks. Hartman was very helpful to other cast members. For example, he aided Hooks in overcoming her stage fright. SNL creator Lorne Michaels explained the name: "He kind of held the show together. He gave to everybody and demanded very little. He was very low-maintenance." Michaels also added that Hartman was "the least appreciated" cast member by commentators outside the show, and praised his ability "to do five or six parts in a show where you're playing support or you're doing remarkable character work". Hartman won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Variety, Music or Comedy Program for SNL in 1989, sharing the award with the show's other writers. He was nominated in the same category in 1987, and individually in 1994 for Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program.
By 1993, almost every cast member who was there during Hartman's first year on SNL had left the show, including Jon Lovitz, Jan Hooks and Dana Carvey. Hartman said he felt "like an athlete who's watched all his World Series teammates get traded off into other directions ... It was hard to watch them leave because I sort of felt we were all part of the team that saved the show." This cast turnover contributed to his leaving the show in 1994. Hartman said he thought it was time to leave because the show was "getting less sophisticated" and his style of humor didn't fit with the less intellectual comedy of newer cast members like Adam Sandler. Hartman had originally planned to leave the show in 1991, but Michaels convinced him to stay to raise his profile; his portrayal of Clinton contributed to this goal. Jay Leno offered him the role of his sidekick on The Tonight Show but Hartman opted to stay on SNL. NBC persuaded him to stay on SNL by promising him his own comedy–variety show The Phil Show. He planned to "reinvent the variety form" with "a hybrid, very fast-paced, high energy [show] with sketches, impersonations, pet acts, and performers showcasing their talents". Hartman was to be the show's executive producer and head writer. Before production began, however, the network decided that variety shows were too unpopular and canceled the series. In a 1996 interview, Hartman noted he was glad, as he "would've been sweatin' blood each week trying to make it work". In 1998, he admitted he missed working on SNL, but had enjoyed the move from New York City to Southern California.
NewsRadio (1995–1998)
Hartman became one of the stars of the NBC sitcom NewsRadio in 1995, portraying radio news anchor Bill McNeal. He signed up after being attracted by the show's writing and use of an ensemble cast, and joked that he based McNeal on himself with "any ethics and character" removed. Hartman made roughly per episode of NewsRadio. Although the show was critically acclaimed, it was never a ratings hit and cancellation was a regular threat. After the completion of the fourth season, Hartman commented, "We seem to have limited appeal. We're on the edge here, not sure we're going to be picked up or not", but added he was "99 percent sure" the series would be renewed for a fifth season. Hartman had publicly lambasted NBC's decision to repeatedly move NewsRadio into different timeslots, but later regretted his comments, saying, "this is a sitcom, for crying out loud, not brain surgery". He also stated that if the sitcom were cancelled "it just will open up other opportunities for me". Although the show was renewed for a fifth season, Hartman died before production began. Ken Tucker praised Hartman's performance as McNeal: "A lesser performer ... would have played him as a variation on The Mary Tyler Moore Shows Ted Baxter, because that's what Bill was, on paper. But Hartman gave infinite variety to Bill's self-centeredness, turning him devious, cowardly, squeamish, and foolishly bold from week to week." Hartman was posthumously nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series in 1998 for his work on NewsRadio, but lost to David Hyde Pierce.
The Simpsons (1991–1998)
Hartman provided the voices for numerous characters on the Fox animated series The Simpsons, appearing in 52 episodes. He made his first appearance in the second season episode "Bart Gets Hit by a Car". Although he was originally brought in for a one-time appearance, Hartman enjoyed working on The Simpsons and the staff wrote additional parts for him. He voiced the recurring characters Lionel Hutz and Troy McClure, as well as Duff man (on one occasion) and several background characters. His favorite part was that of McClure, and he often used this voice to entertain the audience between takes while taping episodes of NewsRadio. He remarked, "My favorite fans are Troy McClure fans." He added "It's the one thing that I do in my life that's almost an avocation. I do it for the pure love of it."
Hartman was popular among the staff of The Simpsons. Showrunners Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein said they enjoyed his work, and used him as much as possible when working on the show. To give Hartman a larger role, they developed the episode "A Fish Called Selma", which focuses on Troy McClure and expands the character's backstory. The Simpsons creator Matt Groening said that he "took [Hartman] for granted because he nailed the joke every time", and that his voice acting could produce "the maximum amount of humor" with any line he was given. Before his death, Hartman had expressed an interest in making a live action film about Troy McClure. Many of The Simpsons production staff expressed enthusiasm for the project and offered to help. Hartman said he was "looking forward to [McClure's] live-action movie, publicizing his Betty Ford appearances", and "would love nothing more" than making a film and was prepared to buy the film rights himself in order to make it happen.
Other work
Hartman's first starring film role came in 1995's Houseguest, alongside Sinbad. Other films include Greedy, Coneheads, Sgt. Bilko, So I Married an Axe Murderer, CB4, Jingle All the Way, Kiki's Delivery Service, and Small Soldiers, the latter of which is his final theatrically released film. At the same time, he preferred working on television. His other television roles include appearances on episodes of The John Larroquette Show, The Dana Carvey Show, 3rd Rock from the Sun, and the HBO TV film The Second Civil War as the President of the United States. He made a considerable amount of money from television advertising, earning $300,000 for a series of four commercials for the soft drink Slice. He also appeared in advertisements for McDonald's (as Hugh McAttack) and 1-800-Collect (as Max Jerome).
Hartman wrote a number of screenplays that were never produced. In 1986, he began writing a screenplay for a film titled Mr. Fix-It, and completed the final draft in 1991. Robert Zemeckis was signed to produce the film, with Gil Bettman hired to direct. Hartman called it "a sort of a merger of horror and comedy, like Beetlejuice and Throw Momma From the Train", adding, "It's an American nightmare about a family torn asunder. They live next to a toxic dump site, their water supply is poisoned, the mother and son go insane and try to murder each other, the father's face is torn off in a terrible disfiguring accident in the first act. It's heavy stuff, but it's got a good message and a positive, upbeat ending." Zemeckis could not secure studio backing, however, and the project collapsed. Another film idea involving Hartman's Groundlings character Chick Hazard, Private Eye was also canceled.
Style
In contrast to his real-life personality, which was described as "a regular guy and, by all accounts, one of show business's most low-key, decent people", Hartman often played seedy, vain or unpleasant characters as well as comedic villains. He described his standard character repertoire as the "jerky guy" and "the weasel parade", citing Lionel Hutz, Bill McNeal, Troy McClure, and Ted Maltin from Jingle All the Way as examples. Hartman enjoyed playing such roles because he "just want[ed] to be funny, and villains tend to be funny because their foibles are all there to see".
He often played supporting roles, rather than the lead part. He said "throughout my career, I've never been a huge star, but I've made steady progress and that's the way I like it", and "It's fun coming in as the second or third lead. If the movie or TV show bombs, you aren't to blame." Hartman was considered a "utility player" on SNL with a "kind of Everyman quality" which enabled him to appear in the majority of sketches, often in very distinct roles. Jan Hooks stated of his work on SNL: "Phil never had an ounce of competition. He was a team player. It was a privilege for him, I believe, to play support and do it very well. He was never insulted, no matter how small the role may have been." He was disciplined in his performances, studying the scripts beforehand. Hooks added: "Phil knew how to listen. And he knew how to look you in the eye, and he knew the power of being able to lay back and let somebody else be funny, and then do the reactions. I think Phil was more of an actor than a comedian." Film critic Pauline Kael declared that "Phil Hartman and Jan Hooks on Saturday Night Live are two of the best comic actors I've ever seen."
Writer and acting coach Paul Ryan noted Hartman's work ethic with his impressions. He assembled a collection of video footage of the figure he was preparing to impersonate and watched this continually until he "completely embodied the person". Ryan concluded that "what made [Hartman's impressions] so funny and spot on was Phil's ability to add that perfect touch that only comes from trial and error and practicing in front of audiences and fellow actors." Hartman described this process as "technical". Journalist Lyle V. Harris said Hartman showed a "rare talent for morphing into ... anybody he wanted to be".
Ken Tucker summarized Hartman's comedic style: "He could momentarily fool audiences into thinking he was the straight man, but then he'd cock an eyebrow and give his voice an ironic lilt that delivered a punchline like a fast slider—you barely saw it coming until you started laughing." Hartman claimed that he borrowed his style from actor Bill Murray: "He's been a great influence on me – when he did that smarmy thing in Ghostbusters, then the same sort of thing in Groundhog Day. I tried to imitate it. I couldn't. I wasn't good enough. But I discovered an element of something else, so in a sick kind of way I made myself a career by doing a bad imitation of another comic."
Personal life
Hartman married Gretchen Lewis in 1970 and they divorced in September 1972. He married real estate agent Lisa Strain in 1982, and their marriage lasted three years. Strain told People magazine that Hartman was reclusive off screen and "would disappear emotionally ... he'd be in his own world. That passivity made you crazy." In 1987, Hartman married former model and aspiring actress Brynn Omdahl (born Vicki Jo Omdahl, April 11, 1958 – May 28, 1998), having met her on a blind date the previous year. They had two children, Sean and Birgen Hartman. The marriage had difficulties; she was reportedly intimidated by his success and was frustrated that she could not find any on her own, although neither party wanted a divorce. She was reported to have been jealous and often verbally and/or physically abusive, even sending a letter to his ex-wife, threatening to "rip [Strain's] eyes out" if she spoke to him again. Hartman considered retiring to save the marriage.
Hartman tried to get Brynn acting roles, but she became progressively reliant on alcohol and narcotics, entering rehab several times. On multiple occasions, he removed their children from the household to stay with friends or family because of her drug- and alcohol-fueled outbursts. Because of his close friendship with SNL associate Jan Hooks, Brynn joked on occasion Hooks and Hartman were married "on some other level". Brynn had written threatening letters addressed to Hooks, warning her to not get close to her husband, but they appeared to have never even been sent, being discovered in her belongings following her death.
Stephen Root, Hartman's NewsRadio co-star, said few people knew "the real Phil Hartman", as he was "one of those people who never seemed to come out of character," but he nevertheless gave the impression of a family man who cared deeply for his children. Hartman befriended Joe Rogan during his time on NewsRadio and confided his marital problems to him. Rogan said that he encouraged Hartman to divorce Brynn five times, but "[Hartman] loved his kids and didn't want to leave".
Hartman stated in 1997, though a non-practicing Catholic, he displayed a sense of religiousness. In his spare time, he enjoyed driving, flying, sailing, marksmanship, and playing the guitar.
Murder
On May 27, 1998, Brynn visited the Italian restaurant Buca di Beppo in Encino, California, with producer and writer Christine Zander, who said Brynn was "in a good frame of mind." They had drinks. After returning home, Brynn had a "heated" argument with Phil, after which he went to bed. She entered his bedroom some time before PDT on May 28, 1998, and as he slept, fatally shot him once between the eyes, once in the throat, and once in the upper chest with a Charter Arms .38 caliber handgun. He was 49 years old. She was taking Zoloft, had been drinking alcohol, and had recently used cocaine.
Brynn then drove to the home of her friend Ron Douglas and confessed to the killing, but he did not believe her. They drove back to the house in separate cars, and she called another friend and confessed a second time. On seeing Hartman's body, Douglas called 9-1-1 at Police arrived and escorted Douglas and the Hartmans' two children from the premises, by which time Brynn had locked herself in the bedroom. Shortly afterward, she committed suicide by a self-inflicted gunshot.
The police stated Hartman's death was caused by "domestic discord" between the couple. A friend said Brynn "had trouble controlling her anger ... She got attention by losing her temper". A neighbor of the Hartmans told a CNN reporter that the couple had marital problems. Yet actor Steve Guttenberg said they had been "a very happy couple, and they always had the appearance of being well-balanced".
A wrongful death lawsuit was filed in 1999 by her brother Gregory Omdahl, against Pfizer, the manufacturer of Zoloft, and against her child's psychiatrist, Arthur Sorosky, who had provided samples of the antidepressant to Brynn. Phil Hartman's friend and former SNL colleague Jon Lovitz has accused Hartman's then NewsRadio co-star Andy Dick of reintroducing Brynn to cocaine, causing her to relapse and suffer a nervous breakdown. Dick claims to have known nothing of her condition. Lovitz later said he no longer blamed Dick for Hartman's murder, but in 2006, Lovitz claimed Dick approached him at a restaurant and said, "I put the Phil Hartman hex on you; you're the next one to die." Lovitz then had him ejected from the restaurant. The following year at the Laugh Factory comedy club in Los Angeles, Lovitz and Dick had another argument, with Lovitz slamming Dick's head into the bar. Dick asserted he was not at fault in relation to Hartman's death.
Brynn's sister Katharine Omdahl and brother-in-law Mike Wright raised the two Hartman children. Hartman's will stipulated each child would inherit money over several years after turning 25. The total value of Hartman's estate was estimated at . In accordance with his wishes, his body was cremated by Forest Lawn Memorial Park and Mortuary, Glendale, California, and his ashes scattered over Santa Catalina Island's Emerald Bay.
Response and legacy
NBC executive Don Ohlmeyer stated that Hartman "was blessed with a tremendous gift for creating characters that made people laugh. Everyone who had the pleasure of working with Phil knows that he was a man of tremendous warmth, a true professional and a loyal friend." Guttenberg expressed shock at Hartman's death, and Steve Martin said he was "a deeply funny and very happy person". Matt Groening called him "a master", and director Joe Dante said, "He was one of those guys who was a dream to work with. I don't know anybody who didn't like him." Dan Snierson of Entertainment Weekly concluded that Hartman was "the last person you'd expect to read about in lurid headlines in your morning paper" and "a decidedly regular guy, beloved by everyone he worked with". In 2007, Entertainment Weekly ranked Hartman the 87th greatest television icon of all time, and Maxim named him the top Saturday Night Live performer of all time.
On the day of Hartman's death, rehearsals for The Simpsons were canceled as well as that night's performance by The Groundlings. The season five premiere episode of NewsRadio, "Bill Moves On", finds Hartman's character, Bill McNeal, has died of a heart attack, while the other characters reminisce about his life. Lovitz joined the show in his place beginning with the next episode. A special episode of Saturday Night Live commemorating Hartman's work on the show aired on June 13, 1998. Rather than substituting another voice actor, the writers of The Simpsons retired Hartman's characters. His final appearance on the show, the season ten episode "Bart the Mother", is dedicated to him, as is his final film, Small Soldiers.
At the time of his death, Hartman was preparing to voice Zapp Brannigan, a character written specifically for him on Groening's second animated series Futurama. Even though the role was specifically made for him, Hartman still insisted on auditioning and Groening said he "nailed it." After Hartman's death, Billy West took over the role. Though executive producer David X. Cohen credits West with using his own take on the character, West later said that he purposely tweaked Zapp's voice to better match Hartman's intended portrayal. Hartman was planning to appear with Lovitz in the indie film The Day of Swine and Roses, scheduled to begin production in August 1998.
In 2002, Laugh.com and Hartman's brother John published the album, Flat TV, a selection of comedy sketches recorded by Hartman in the 1970s, which had been kept in storage. John Hartmann commented: "I'm putting this out there because I'm dedicating my life to fulfilling his dreams. This [album] is my brother doing what he loved." In 2013, Flat TV was optioned by Michael "Ffish" Hemschoot's animation company Worker Studio for an animated adaptation. The deal came about after Michael T. Scott, a partner in the company, posted online a hand-written letter he had received from Hartman in 1997, leading to a correspondence between Scott and Paul Hartmann.
In 2007, a campaign was started on Facebook by Alex Stevens and endorsed by Hartman's brother Paul, to have Phil inducted to Canada's Walk of Fame. Among the campaign's numerous publicity events, Ben Miner of the Sirius XM Radio channel Laugh Attack, dedicated the month of April 2012 to Hartman. The campaign ended in success and Hartman was inducted to the Walk of Fame on September 22, 2012, with Paul accepting the award on his late brother's behalf. Hartman was also awarded the Cineplex Legends Award. In June 2013, it was announced that Hartman would receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, which was unveiled on August 26, 2014. Additionally, a special prize at the Canadian Comedy Awards was named for Hartman. Beginning with the 13th Canadian Comedy Awards in 2012, the Phil Hartman Award was awarded to "an individual who helps to better the Canadian comedy community". In 2015, Rolling Stone magazine ranked Hartman as one of the top-ten greatest Saturday Night Live cast members throughout the show's forty-year history, coming in seventh on their list of all 141 members.
Filmography
Film
Television
Video games
Theme park attractions
Discography
1977
America, Harbor
1978
America, Silent Letter
Poco, Legend
1980
Firesign Theatre, Fighting Clowns
References
Book sources
External links
Phil Hartman at Yahoo! Movies
Phil Hartman at The New York Times
Hartman's autopsy and death certificate
Phil Hartman's final night: The tragic death of a “Saturday Night Live” genius, Mike Thomas, Salon, September 21, 2014
1948 births
1998 deaths
1998 murders in the United States
20th-century American male actors
20th-century Canadian male actors
Album-cover and concert-poster artists
American male comedians
American male film actors
American graphic designers
American impressionists (entertainers)
American male screenwriters
American male television actors
American television writers
American male voice actors
American sketch comedians
California State University, Northridge alumni
Canadian male comedians
Canadian emigrants to the United States
Canadian male voice actors
Canadian murder victims
Canadian sketch comedians
Deaths by firearm in California
Male actors from Los Angeles
American male television writers
Murder–suicides in California
Naturalized citizens of the United States
People from Brantford
People murdered in Los Angeles
Primetime Emmy Award winners
Santa Monica College alumni
Comedians from California
Mariticides
Westchester High School (Los Angeles) alumni
Screenwriters from California
20th-century Canadian comedians
20th-century American comedians
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American screenwriters
Comedians from Ontario
| false |
[
"Sir Douglas Straight (22 October 1844 – 4 June 1914) was an English lawyer, Member of Parliament, judge and journalist.\n\nLife\nStraight was born in London and was educated at Harrow School. \nUntil 1865 he engaged in journalism, but then became a lawyer and soon developed an extensive practice, especially at the Central Criminal Court, London. \n\nFrom 1870 until 1874 Straight was a member of the House of Commons as Conservative Member of Parliament for Shrewsbury. In 1879 he was made a judge of the High Court of Judicature at Allahabad in India. To mark this appointment Vanity Fair caricatured him: The Hon Mr Justice Straight, the new Judge. After thirteen years of judicial service abroad he was knighted soon after his return from India in 1892.\n\nIn 1876, Straight was admitted by redemption to the Freedom of the Worshipful Company of Bowyers of the City of London. He served two terms of office as Master in 1900–1902 and 1910–1912.\n\nFour years later Straight resumed work as a journalist, serving as joint editor of the Pall Mall Magazine (1893–1896) and then editor of the Pall Mall Gazette (from 1896). He was a well known society personage during this time and as an editor he corresponded with many of the literary names of the day. Straight retired \"from everything except the task of trying to enjoy himself\" in 1909, and died in London five years later, aged 69.\n\nWorks\nIn 1867, Straight wrote a pseudonymous memoir of his time at Harrow entitled Harrow Recollections. By an Old Harrovian, signing the preface with the name Sidney Daryl. This was a pseudonym he went on to use for a number of publications. He wrote plays and stories and about topics that interested him. In 1868, for instance, he compiled Routledge's Handbook of Quoits and Bowls.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n \n\n1844 births\nBritish India judges\nConservative Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies\nEnglish barristers\nEnglish magazine editors\nKnights Bachelor\nPeople educated at Harrow School\nUK MPs 1868–1874\n1914 deaths",
"Alvin Boone Straight (October 17, 1920 – November 9, 1996) was an American man who became notable for traveling on a riding lawn mower from Laurens, Iowa to Blue River, Wisconsin to visit his ailing brother. He inspired the 1999 film The Straight Story.\n\nEarly life\nAlvin Straight was born in Scobey, Montana. He married Frances Beek on October 17, 1946, in Scobey. In 1973, Alvin, Frances, and their family moved to Lake View, Iowa, where he worked as a general laborer. He was the father of five sons and two daughters. Straight was a veteran of World War II, serving as private first class in the United States Army and the Korean War.\n\nLawn mower trip\nIn June 1994, Straight's 80-year-old brother Henry Straight (Palisade, January 4, 1914 - Iowa, June 15, 1998) had suffered a stroke. At the age of 73 and in poor health from diabetes, emphysema and other ailments, Straight could not see well enough for a driver's license, so he decided his only option was to travel on his 1994 John Deere riding lawn mower. \n\nSetting off in early July 1994, Straight drove the mower along highway shoulders, towing a trailer loaded with gasoline, camping gear, clothes, and food from his home in Laurens, Iowa, to his brother in Blue River, Wisconsin. \n\nAbout four days and 21 miles into the trip, the lawn mower broke down in West Bend, Iowa. Straight spent $250 on replacement parts, including a condenser, plugs, a generator, and a starter. \n\nAfter traveling another 90 miles, Straight ran out of money while in Charles City, Iowa. He camped there for a few days until his next Social Security checks arrived in August. He was interviewed by local newspapers. On August 15, Straight's lawn mower broke down again when he was two miles from his brother's house near Blue River. A farmer stopped and helped him push it the rest of the way. At a top speed of , the trip took six weeks in all. After the visit, Straight's nephew and Henry Straight's son, Dayne Straight, drove him back to Iowa in his pickup truck. \n\nHenry Straight recovered from his stroke and moved back to Iowa to be closer to Alvin Straight and the rest of his family.\n\nPaul Condit, president and general manager of Texas Equipment Company, Inc., in Seminole, Texas, heard about the trip and gave Straight a 17-horsepower John Deere replacement riding mower worth $5,000. Straight did not like the media attention from the lawn mower trip. He turned down offers to appear on various TV talk shows including The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and Late Show with David Letterman.\n\nLater years and death\nIn April 1995, Straight attempted to drive a riding lawn mower to Sun Valley, Idaho, but he had to turn back because of cold weather. On November 9, 1996, Alvin Straight died of a heart ailment at a local hospital in Pocahontas, Iowa at age 76. A lawn mower similar to the one he had used on his journey accompanied his funeral procession to the Ida Grove Cemetery. He is buried in Ida Grove, Iowa.\n\nAdaptations\nPlaywright and performer Dan Hurlin and composer and sound designer Dan Moses Schreier adapted Straight's trip into a theatrical production that was billed as an opera. \"The Shoulder\" premiered at CSPS Hall in Cedar Rapids, Iowa in October 1997, presented by Legion Arts. It was also performed in January 1998 at New York's Dance Theater Workshop and Minneapolis' Walker Art Center.\n\nStraight's story was adapted into the film The Straight Story, directed by David Lynch, which starred Richard Farnsworth (in an Oscar-nominated role) as Alvin Straight. When plans for the film began in 1995, Straight signed a contract that ensured he would receive $10,000 plus 10% of the movie's profits, although he died before the film's completion. He said he didn't make the trip to see his brother for the possibility of fame or money.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nThecityofabsurdity.com\n\n1920 births\n1996 deaths\nPeople from Laurens, Iowa\nPeople from Scobey, Montana\nMilitary personnel from Montana\nPeople from Sac County, Iowa\nUnited States Army soldiers\nUnited States Army personnel of World War II\nUnited States Army personnel of the Korean War"
] |
[
"Phil Hartman",
"Style",
"What was his style considered?",
"was described as \"a regular guy and, by all accounts, one of show business' most low-key, decent people\",",
"How did this help his career?",
"often played seedy, vain or unpleasant characters as well as comedic villains. He noted that his standard character was a \"jerky guy\", and described his usual roles",
"Did he enjoy playing these parts?",
"Hartman enjoyed playing such roles because he \"just want[ed] to be funny, and villains tend to be funny because their foibles are all there to see.\"",
"What parts was he famous for?",
"He often played supporting roles, rather than the lead part. He said \"throughout my career, I've never been a huge star, but I've made steady progress",
"Was he okay with that?",
"that's the way I like it,\" and \"It's fun coming in as the second or third lead.",
"Did he ever want to quit?",
"discovered an element of something else, so in a sick kind of way I made myself a career by doing a bad imitation of another comic.\"",
"Any other talents that were \"accidentally\" found?",
"He could momentarily fool audiences into thinking he was the straight man, but then he'd cock an eyebrow and give his voice an ironic lilt",
"Was he straight?",
"but then he'd cock an eyebrow and give his voice an ironic lilt that delivered a punchline like a fast slider--you barely saw it coming until you started laughing.\""
] |
C_f5004bcd827b41ce8db5ff729ef1e178_0
|
Did that remain his style throughout his career?
| 9 |
Did Hartmans's style remain the same throughout his career?
|
Phil Hartman
|
In contrast to his real-life personality, which was described as "a regular guy and, by all accounts, one of show business' most low-key, decent people", Hartman often played seedy, vain or unpleasant characters as well as comedic villains. He noted that his standard character was a "jerky guy", and described his usual roles as "the weasel parade", citing Lionel Hutz, Bill McNeal, Troy McClure and Ted Maltin from Jingle All the Way as examples. Hartman enjoyed playing such roles because he "just want[ed] to be funny, and villains tend to be funny because their foibles are all there to see." He often played supporting roles, rather than the lead part. He said "throughout my career, I've never been a huge star, but I've made steady progress and that's the way I like it," and "It's fun coming in as the second or third lead. If the movie or TV show bombs, you aren't to blame." Hartman was considered a "utility player" on SNL with a "kind of Everyman quality" which enabled him to appear in the majority of sketches, often in very distinct roles. Jan Hooks stated of his work on SNL: "Phil never had an ounce of competition. He was a team player. It was a privilege for him, I believe, to play support and do it very well. He was never insulted, no matter how small the role may have been." He was disciplined in his performances, studying the scripts beforehand. Hooks added: "Phil knew how to listen. And he knew how to look you in the eye, and he knew the power of being able to lay back and let somebody else be funny, and then do the reactions. I think Phil was more of an actor than a comedian." Film critic Pauline Kael declared that "Phil Hartman and Jan Hooks on Saturday Night Live are two of the best comic actors I've ever seen." Writer and acting coach Paul Ryan noted Hartman's work ethic with his impressions. He assembled a collection of video footage of the figure he was preparing to impersonate and watched this continually until he "completely embodied the person". Ryan concluded that "what made [Hartman's impressions] so funny and spot on was Phil's ability to add that perfect touch that only comes from trial and error and practicing in front of audiences and fellow actors." Hartman described this process as "technical." Journalist Lyle V. Harris said Hartman showed a "rare talent for morphing into [...] anybody he wanted to be". Ken Tucker summarized Hartman's comedic style: "He could momentarily fool audiences into thinking he was the straight man, but then he'd cock an eyebrow and give his voice an ironic lilt that delivered a punchline like a fast slider--you barely saw it coming until you started laughing." Hartman claimed that he borrowed his style from actor Bill Murray: "He's been a great influence on me - when he did that smarmy thing in Ghostbusters, then the same sort of thing in Groundhog Day. I tried to imitate it. I couldn't. I wasn't good enough. But I discovered an element of something else, so in a sick kind of way I made myself a career by doing a bad imitation of another comic." CANNOTANSWER
|
" Hartman claimed that he borrowed his style from actor Bill Murray: "He's been a great influence on me - when he did that smarmy thing in Ghostbusters,
|
Philip Edward Hartman (né Hartmann; September 24, 1948 – May 28, 1998) was a Canadian-American actor, comedian, screenwriter, and graphic designer. Hartman was born in Brantford, Ontario, Canada, and his family moved to the United States when he was ten years old. After graduating from California State University, Northridge with a degree in graphic arts, he designed album covers for bands including Poco and America. In 1975, Hartman joined the comedy group The Groundlings, where he helped Paul Reubens develop his character Pee-wee Herman. Hartman co-wrote the film Pee-wee's Big Adventure and made recurring appearances as Captain Carl on Reubens' show Pee-wee's Playhouse.
In 1986, Hartman joined the NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live (SNL) as a cast member, and stayed for eight seasons until 1994. Nicknamed "Glue" for his ability to hold the show together and help other cast members, he won a Primetime Emmy Award for his SNL work in 1989. In 1995, he starred as Bill McNeal in the sitcom NewsRadio after declining to return to SNL. He also voiced various characters on The Simpsons, and had minor roles in the films Houseguest, Sgt. Bilko, Jingle All the Way, and Small Soldiers.
After two divorces, Hartman married Brynn Omdahl in 1987, with whom he had two children. Their marriage was troubled due to Brynn's drug use and domestic violence against Phil, who was frequently absent from home. In 1998, while Hartman was sleeping in his bed, his wife shot and killed him, and later committed suicide. In the weeks following his murder, Hartman was celebrated in a wave of tributes. Dan Snierson of Entertainment Weekly wrote that Hartman was "the last person you'd expect to read about in lurid headlines in your morning paper ... a decidedly regular guy, beloved by everyone he worked with". He was posthumously inducted into the Canada and Hollywood Walks of Fame in 2012 and 2014.
Early life
Hartman was born Philip Edward Hartmann (later dropping one "n") on September 24, 1948, in Brantford, Ontario. He was the fourth of eight children of Doris Marguerite (née Wardell; July 17, 1919 – April 15, 2001) and Rupert Loebig Hartmann (November 8, 1914 – April 30, 1998), who sold building materials. The family was Catholic. As a child, Hartman found affection hard to earn: "I suppose I didn't get what I wanted out of my family life, so I started seeking love and attention elsewhere."
Hartman was ten when his family moved to the United States. They first lived in Lewiston, Maine, then Meriden, Connecticut, and then on the West Coast, where he attended Westchester High School and frequently acted as the class clown. After graduating, he studied art at Santa Monica City College, dropping out in 1969 to become a roadie with a rock band. He returned to school in 1972 to study graphic arts at California State University, Northridge. He developed and operated his own graphic art business, creating more than 40 album covers for bands including Poco and America, as well as advertising and the logo for Crosby, Stills & Nash. In the late 1970s, he made his first television appearance on an episode of The Dating Game, where he won.
Career
Early career (1975–1985)
Working alone as a graphic artist, Hartman frequently amused himself with "flights of voice fantasies". In 1975, seeking a more social outlet for his talents, he began attending evening comedy classes by the California-based improvisational comedy group The Groundlings. While watching one of their performances, he impulsively decided to climb on stage and join the cast. His first onscreen appearance was in 1978's Stunt Rock, an Australian film directed in Los Angeles by Brian Trenchard-Smith. After several years of training, paying his way by redesigning the group's logo and merchandise, Hartman formally joined The Groundlings and by 1979 was one of the show's stars.
There Hartman befriended Paul Reubens, with whom he often collaborated on comedic material. Together they created the character Pee-wee Herman and developed The Pee-wee Herman Show, a live stage show that subsequently aired on HBO in 1981. Hartman played Captain Carl in the show, and reprised the role for the children's TV show Pee-wee's Playhouse. Reubens and Hartman made cameos in the 1980 film Cheech & Chong's Next Movie. Hartman co-wrote the script of the 1985 feature film Pee-wee's Big Adventure and had a cameo role as a reporter. He'd considered quitting acting at the age of 36 due to the challenges of finding work; but the success of Pee-wee's Big Adventure changed his mind. After a creative disagreement with Reubens, he left the Pee-Wee Herman project to pursue other roles.
Hartman took more small roles in 1986 films such as Jumpin' Jack Flash and Three Amigos. He also worked as a voice actor in animated television programs, including The Smurfs, Challenge of the GoBots, The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo, and in Dennis the Menace as characters Henry Mitchell and George Wilson. He developed a strong persona providing voice-overs for advertisements.
Saturday Night Live (1986–1994)
Hartman successfully auditioned to join NBC's variety show Saturday Night Live (SNL) in its 12th season, which began on October 11, 1986. He had been recommended for the show by fellow Groundlings and SNL cast members Jon Lovitz, and Laraine Newman as well as Jumpin' Jack Flash director Penny Marshall. He told the Los Angeles Times, "I wanted to do [SNL] because I wanted to get the exposure that would give me box-office credibility so I can write movies for myself." In his eight seasons with the show Hartman became known for his impressions, and performed as over 70 different characters. Hartman's original SNL characters include Eugene, the Anal Retentive Chef and Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer. His impressions include Frank Sinatra, Ronald Reagan, Ed McMahon, Barbara Bush, Charlton Heston, Phil Donahue, and Bill Clintonthe latter considered his best-known impression.
Hartman first performed his Clinton impression on an episode of The Tonight Show. When he met Clinton in 1993, Hartman remarked, "I guess I owe you a few apologies", adding later that he "sometimes [felt] a twinge of guilt about [his Clinton impression]". Clinton showed good humor and sent Hartman a signed photo with the text: "You're not the president, but you play one on TV. And you're OK, mostly." Hartman copied the president's "post-nasal drip" and the "slight scratchiness" in his voice, as well as his open, "less intimidating" hand gestures. Hartman opted against wearing a larger prosthetic nose when portraying Clinton, as he thought it would be distracting. He instead wore a wig, dyed his eyebrows brighter, and used makeup to highlight his nose. In one of Hartman's sketches as Clinton, the president visits a McDonald's restaurant and explains his economic policies in the metaphor of eating other customers' food. The writers told him that he was not eating enough during rehearsals for the sketch – by the end of the live performance, Hartman had eaten so much he could barely speak.
At SNL, Hartman's nickname of "Glue" was coined by Adam Sandler according to Jay Mohr's book Gasping for Airtime. However, according to You Might Remember Me: The Life and Times of Phil Hartman by Mike Thomas, author and staff writer for the Chicago Sun-Times, the nickname was created by SNL cast member and Hartman's frequent on-screen collaborator Jan Hooks. Hartman was very helpful to other cast members. For example, he aided Hooks in overcoming her stage fright. SNL creator Lorne Michaels explained the name: "He kind of held the show together. He gave to everybody and demanded very little. He was very low-maintenance." Michaels also added that Hartman was "the least appreciated" cast member by commentators outside the show, and praised his ability "to do five or six parts in a show where you're playing support or you're doing remarkable character work". Hartman won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Variety, Music or Comedy Program for SNL in 1989, sharing the award with the show's other writers. He was nominated in the same category in 1987, and individually in 1994 for Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program.
By 1993, almost every cast member who was there during Hartman's first year on SNL had left the show, including Jon Lovitz, Jan Hooks and Dana Carvey. Hartman said he felt "like an athlete who's watched all his World Series teammates get traded off into other directions ... It was hard to watch them leave because I sort of felt we were all part of the team that saved the show." This cast turnover contributed to his leaving the show in 1994. Hartman said he thought it was time to leave because the show was "getting less sophisticated" and his style of humor didn't fit with the less intellectual comedy of newer cast members like Adam Sandler. Hartman had originally planned to leave the show in 1991, but Michaels convinced him to stay to raise his profile; his portrayal of Clinton contributed to this goal. Jay Leno offered him the role of his sidekick on The Tonight Show but Hartman opted to stay on SNL. NBC persuaded him to stay on SNL by promising him his own comedy–variety show The Phil Show. He planned to "reinvent the variety form" with "a hybrid, very fast-paced, high energy [show] with sketches, impersonations, pet acts, and performers showcasing their talents". Hartman was to be the show's executive producer and head writer. Before production began, however, the network decided that variety shows were too unpopular and canceled the series. In a 1996 interview, Hartman noted he was glad, as he "would've been sweatin' blood each week trying to make it work". In 1998, he admitted he missed working on SNL, but had enjoyed the move from New York City to Southern California.
NewsRadio (1995–1998)
Hartman became one of the stars of the NBC sitcom NewsRadio in 1995, portraying radio news anchor Bill McNeal. He signed up after being attracted by the show's writing and use of an ensemble cast, and joked that he based McNeal on himself with "any ethics and character" removed. Hartman made roughly per episode of NewsRadio. Although the show was critically acclaimed, it was never a ratings hit and cancellation was a regular threat. After the completion of the fourth season, Hartman commented, "We seem to have limited appeal. We're on the edge here, not sure we're going to be picked up or not", but added he was "99 percent sure" the series would be renewed for a fifth season. Hartman had publicly lambasted NBC's decision to repeatedly move NewsRadio into different timeslots, but later regretted his comments, saying, "this is a sitcom, for crying out loud, not brain surgery". He also stated that if the sitcom were cancelled "it just will open up other opportunities for me". Although the show was renewed for a fifth season, Hartman died before production began. Ken Tucker praised Hartman's performance as McNeal: "A lesser performer ... would have played him as a variation on The Mary Tyler Moore Shows Ted Baxter, because that's what Bill was, on paper. But Hartman gave infinite variety to Bill's self-centeredness, turning him devious, cowardly, squeamish, and foolishly bold from week to week." Hartman was posthumously nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series in 1998 for his work on NewsRadio, but lost to David Hyde Pierce.
The Simpsons (1991–1998)
Hartman provided the voices for numerous characters on the Fox animated series The Simpsons, appearing in 52 episodes. He made his first appearance in the second season episode "Bart Gets Hit by a Car". Although he was originally brought in for a one-time appearance, Hartman enjoyed working on The Simpsons and the staff wrote additional parts for him. He voiced the recurring characters Lionel Hutz and Troy McClure, as well as Duff man (on one occasion) and several background characters. His favorite part was that of McClure, and he often used this voice to entertain the audience between takes while taping episodes of NewsRadio. He remarked, "My favorite fans are Troy McClure fans." He added "It's the one thing that I do in my life that's almost an avocation. I do it for the pure love of it."
Hartman was popular among the staff of The Simpsons. Showrunners Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein said they enjoyed his work, and used him as much as possible when working on the show. To give Hartman a larger role, they developed the episode "A Fish Called Selma", which focuses on Troy McClure and expands the character's backstory. The Simpsons creator Matt Groening said that he "took [Hartman] for granted because he nailed the joke every time", and that his voice acting could produce "the maximum amount of humor" with any line he was given. Before his death, Hartman had expressed an interest in making a live action film about Troy McClure. Many of The Simpsons production staff expressed enthusiasm for the project and offered to help. Hartman said he was "looking forward to [McClure's] live-action movie, publicizing his Betty Ford appearances", and "would love nothing more" than making a film and was prepared to buy the film rights himself in order to make it happen.
Other work
Hartman's first starring film role came in 1995's Houseguest, alongside Sinbad. Other films include Greedy, Coneheads, Sgt. Bilko, So I Married an Axe Murderer, CB4, Jingle All the Way, Kiki's Delivery Service, and Small Soldiers, the latter of which is his final theatrically released film. At the same time, he preferred working on television. His other television roles include appearances on episodes of The John Larroquette Show, The Dana Carvey Show, 3rd Rock from the Sun, and the HBO TV film The Second Civil War as the President of the United States. He made a considerable amount of money from television advertising, earning $300,000 for a series of four commercials for the soft drink Slice. He also appeared in advertisements for McDonald's (as Hugh McAttack) and 1-800-Collect (as Max Jerome).
Hartman wrote a number of screenplays that were never produced. In 1986, he began writing a screenplay for a film titled Mr. Fix-It, and completed the final draft in 1991. Robert Zemeckis was signed to produce the film, with Gil Bettman hired to direct. Hartman called it "a sort of a merger of horror and comedy, like Beetlejuice and Throw Momma From the Train", adding, "It's an American nightmare about a family torn asunder. They live next to a toxic dump site, their water supply is poisoned, the mother and son go insane and try to murder each other, the father's face is torn off in a terrible disfiguring accident in the first act. It's heavy stuff, but it's got a good message and a positive, upbeat ending." Zemeckis could not secure studio backing, however, and the project collapsed. Another film idea involving Hartman's Groundlings character Chick Hazard, Private Eye was also canceled.
Style
In contrast to his real-life personality, which was described as "a regular guy and, by all accounts, one of show business's most low-key, decent people", Hartman often played seedy, vain or unpleasant characters as well as comedic villains. He described his standard character repertoire as the "jerky guy" and "the weasel parade", citing Lionel Hutz, Bill McNeal, Troy McClure, and Ted Maltin from Jingle All the Way as examples. Hartman enjoyed playing such roles because he "just want[ed] to be funny, and villains tend to be funny because their foibles are all there to see".
He often played supporting roles, rather than the lead part. He said "throughout my career, I've never been a huge star, but I've made steady progress and that's the way I like it", and "It's fun coming in as the second or third lead. If the movie or TV show bombs, you aren't to blame." Hartman was considered a "utility player" on SNL with a "kind of Everyman quality" which enabled him to appear in the majority of sketches, often in very distinct roles. Jan Hooks stated of his work on SNL: "Phil never had an ounce of competition. He was a team player. It was a privilege for him, I believe, to play support and do it very well. He was never insulted, no matter how small the role may have been." He was disciplined in his performances, studying the scripts beforehand. Hooks added: "Phil knew how to listen. And he knew how to look you in the eye, and he knew the power of being able to lay back and let somebody else be funny, and then do the reactions. I think Phil was more of an actor than a comedian." Film critic Pauline Kael declared that "Phil Hartman and Jan Hooks on Saturday Night Live are two of the best comic actors I've ever seen."
Writer and acting coach Paul Ryan noted Hartman's work ethic with his impressions. He assembled a collection of video footage of the figure he was preparing to impersonate and watched this continually until he "completely embodied the person". Ryan concluded that "what made [Hartman's impressions] so funny and spot on was Phil's ability to add that perfect touch that only comes from trial and error and practicing in front of audiences and fellow actors." Hartman described this process as "technical". Journalist Lyle V. Harris said Hartman showed a "rare talent for morphing into ... anybody he wanted to be".
Ken Tucker summarized Hartman's comedic style: "He could momentarily fool audiences into thinking he was the straight man, but then he'd cock an eyebrow and give his voice an ironic lilt that delivered a punchline like a fast slider—you barely saw it coming until you started laughing." Hartman claimed that he borrowed his style from actor Bill Murray: "He's been a great influence on me – when he did that smarmy thing in Ghostbusters, then the same sort of thing in Groundhog Day. I tried to imitate it. I couldn't. I wasn't good enough. But I discovered an element of something else, so in a sick kind of way I made myself a career by doing a bad imitation of another comic."
Personal life
Hartman married Gretchen Lewis in 1970 and they divorced in September 1972. He married real estate agent Lisa Strain in 1982, and their marriage lasted three years. Strain told People magazine that Hartman was reclusive off screen and "would disappear emotionally ... he'd be in his own world. That passivity made you crazy." In 1987, Hartman married former model and aspiring actress Brynn Omdahl (born Vicki Jo Omdahl, April 11, 1958 – May 28, 1998), having met her on a blind date the previous year. They had two children, Sean and Birgen Hartman. The marriage had difficulties; she was reportedly intimidated by his success and was frustrated that she could not find any on her own, although neither party wanted a divorce. She was reported to have been jealous and often verbally and/or physically abusive, even sending a letter to his ex-wife, threatening to "rip [Strain's] eyes out" if she spoke to him again. Hartman considered retiring to save the marriage.
Hartman tried to get Brynn acting roles, but she became progressively reliant on alcohol and narcotics, entering rehab several times. On multiple occasions, he removed their children from the household to stay with friends or family because of her drug- and alcohol-fueled outbursts. Because of his close friendship with SNL associate Jan Hooks, Brynn joked on occasion Hooks and Hartman were married "on some other level". Brynn had written threatening letters addressed to Hooks, warning her to not get close to her husband, but they appeared to have never even been sent, being discovered in her belongings following her death.
Stephen Root, Hartman's NewsRadio co-star, said few people knew "the real Phil Hartman", as he was "one of those people who never seemed to come out of character," but he nevertheless gave the impression of a family man who cared deeply for his children. Hartman befriended Joe Rogan during his time on NewsRadio and confided his marital problems to him. Rogan said that he encouraged Hartman to divorce Brynn five times, but "[Hartman] loved his kids and didn't want to leave".
Hartman stated in 1997, though a non-practicing Catholic, he displayed a sense of religiousness. In his spare time, he enjoyed driving, flying, sailing, marksmanship, and playing the guitar.
Murder
On May 27, 1998, Brynn visited the Italian restaurant Buca di Beppo in Encino, California, with producer and writer Christine Zander, who said Brynn was "in a good frame of mind." They had drinks. After returning home, Brynn had a "heated" argument with Phil, after which he went to bed. She entered his bedroom some time before PDT on May 28, 1998, and as he slept, fatally shot him once between the eyes, once in the throat, and once in the upper chest with a Charter Arms .38 caliber handgun. He was 49 years old. She was taking Zoloft, had been drinking alcohol, and had recently used cocaine.
Brynn then drove to the home of her friend Ron Douglas and confessed to the killing, but he did not believe her. They drove back to the house in separate cars, and she called another friend and confessed a second time. On seeing Hartman's body, Douglas called 9-1-1 at Police arrived and escorted Douglas and the Hartmans' two children from the premises, by which time Brynn had locked herself in the bedroom. Shortly afterward, she committed suicide by a self-inflicted gunshot.
The police stated Hartman's death was caused by "domestic discord" between the couple. A friend said Brynn "had trouble controlling her anger ... She got attention by losing her temper". A neighbor of the Hartmans told a CNN reporter that the couple had marital problems. Yet actor Steve Guttenberg said they had been "a very happy couple, and they always had the appearance of being well-balanced".
A wrongful death lawsuit was filed in 1999 by her brother Gregory Omdahl, against Pfizer, the manufacturer of Zoloft, and against her child's psychiatrist, Arthur Sorosky, who had provided samples of the antidepressant to Brynn. Phil Hartman's friend and former SNL colleague Jon Lovitz has accused Hartman's then NewsRadio co-star Andy Dick of reintroducing Brynn to cocaine, causing her to relapse and suffer a nervous breakdown. Dick claims to have known nothing of her condition. Lovitz later said he no longer blamed Dick for Hartman's murder, but in 2006, Lovitz claimed Dick approached him at a restaurant and said, "I put the Phil Hartman hex on you; you're the next one to die." Lovitz then had him ejected from the restaurant. The following year at the Laugh Factory comedy club in Los Angeles, Lovitz and Dick had another argument, with Lovitz slamming Dick's head into the bar. Dick asserted he was not at fault in relation to Hartman's death.
Brynn's sister Katharine Omdahl and brother-in-law Mike Wright raised the two Hartman children. Hartman's will stipulated each child would inherit money over several years after turning 25. The total value of Hartman's estate was estimated at . In accordance with his wishes, his body was cremated by Forest Lawn Memorial Park and Mortuary, Glendale, California, and his ashes scattered over Santa Catalina Island's Emerald Bay.
Response and legacy
NBC executive Don Ohlmeyer stated that Hartman "was blessed with a tremendous gift for creating characters that made people laugh. Everyone who had the pleasure of working with Phil knows that he was a man of tremendous warmth, a true professional and a loyal friend." Guttenberg expressed shock at Hartman's death, and Steve Martin said he was "a deeply funny and very happy person". Matt Groening called him "a master", and director Joe Dante said, "He was one of those guys who was a dream to work with. I don't know anybody who didn't like him." Dan Snierson of Entertainment Weekly concluded that Hartman was "the last person you'd expect to read about in lurid headlines in your morning paper" and "a decidedly regular guy, beloved by everyone he worked with". In 2007, Entertainment Weekly ranked Hartman the 87th greatest television icon of all time, and Maxim named him the top Saturday Night Live performer of all time.
On the day of Hartman's death, rehearsals for The Simpsons were canceled as well as that night's performance by The Groundlings. The season five premiere episode of NewsRadio, "Bill Moves On", finds Hartman's character, Bill McNeal, has died of a heart attack, while the other characters reminisce about his life. Lovitz joined the show in his place beginning with the next episode. A special episode of Saturday Night Live commemorating Hartman's work on the show aired on June 13, 1998. Rather than substituting another voice actor, the writers of The Simpsons retired Hartman's characters. His final appearance on the show, the season ten episode "Bart the Mother", is dedicated to him, as is his final film, Small Soldiers.
At the time of his death, Hartman was preparing to voice Zapp Brannigan, a character written specifically for him on Groening's second animated series Futurama. Even though the role was specifically made for him, Hartman still insisted on auditioning and Groening said he "nailed it." After Hartman's death, Billy West took over the role. Though executive producer David X. Cohen credits West with using his own take on the character, West later said that he purposely tweaked Zapp's voice to better match Hartman's intended portrayal. Hartman was planning to appear with Lovitz in the indie film The Day of Swine and Roses, scheduled to begin production in August 1998.
In 2002, Laugh.com and Hartman's brother John published the album, Flat TV, a selection of comedy sketches recorded by Hartman in the 1970s, which had been kept in storage. John Hartmann commented: "I'm putting this out there because I'm dedicating my life to fulfilling his dreams. This [album] is my brother doing what he loved." In 2013, Flat TV was optioned by Michael "Ffish" Hemschoot's animation company Worker Studio for an animated adaptation. The deal came about after Michael T. Scott, a partner in the company, posted online a hand-written letter he had received from Hartman in 1997, leading to a correspondence between Scott and Paul Hartmann.
In 2007, a campaign was started on Facebook by Alex Stevens and endorsed by Hartman's brother Paul, to have Phil inducted to Canada's Walk of Fame. Among the campaign's numerous publicity events, Ben Miner of the Sirius XM Radio channel Laugh Attack, dedicated the month of April 2012 to Hartman. The campaign ended in success and Hartman was inducted to the Walk of Fame on September 22, 2012, with Paul accepting the award on his late brother's behalf. Hartman was also awarded the Cineplex Legends Award. In June 2013, it was announced that Hartman would receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, which was unveiled on August 26, 2014. Additionally, a special prize at the Canadian Comedy Awards was named for Hartman. Beginning with the 13th Canadian Comedy Awards in 2012, the Phil Hartman Award was awarded to "an individual who helps to better the Canadian comedy community". In 2015, Rolling Stone magazine ranked Hartman as one of the top-ten greatest Saturday Night Live cast members throughout the show's forty-year history, coming in seventh on their list of all 141 members.
Filmography
Film
Television
Video games
Theme park attractions
Discography
1977
America, Harbor
1978
America, Silent Letter
Poco, Legend
1980
Firesign Theatre, Fighting Clowns
References
Book sources
External links
Phil Hartman at Yahoo! Movies
Phil Hartman at The New York Times
Hartman's autopsy and death certificate
Phil Hartman's final night: The tragic death of a “Saturday Night Live” genius, Mike Thomas, Salon, September 21, 2014
1948 births
1998 deaths
1998 murders in the United States
20th-century American male actors
20th-century Canadian male actors
Album-cover and concert-poster artists
American male comedians
American male film actors
American graphic designers
American impressionists (entertainers)
American male screenwriters
American male television actors
American television writers
American male voice actors
American sketch comedians
California State University, Northridge alumni
Canadian male comedians
Canadian emigrants to the United States
Canadian male voice actors
Canadian murder victims
Canadian sketch comedians
Deaths by firearm in California
Male actors from Los Angeles
American male television writers
Murder–suicides in California
Naturalized citizens of the United States
People from Brantford
People murdered in Los Angeles
Primetime Emmy Award winners
Santa Monica College alumni
Comedians from California
Mariticides
Westchester High School (Los Angeles) alumni
Screenwriters from California
20th-century Canadian comedians
20th-century American comedians
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American screenwriters
Comedians from Ontario
| false |
[
"Yo-pop is a style of Nigerian popular music, popularized in the 1980s by Segun Adewale. The style did not remain popular for long as it was quickly replaced by afro towards the end of the 1980s.\n\nIt was a style influenced by juju music. \n\nNigerian styles of music\nAfrican popular music",
"Joel Smith (born 3 May 1977) is a former Australian rules footballer.\n\nBeginning his career in 1995 as a bright young prospect for St Kilda, Smith was touted as the future of the club.\n\nSmith played in St Kilda’s 1996 AFL Ansett Australia Cup winning side – the club's first AFL Cup win.\n\nHe provided 3 good years of service before being incurring a serious anterior cruciate ligament injury requiring reconstruction late in the 1997 home and away season, missing the Saints' finals series.\n\nA contractual dispute meant he moved to Hawthorn at the end of 1997. While he was injured all throughout 1998 and did not play a game, Hawthorn recognised this talent and kept him on the list.\n\nSmith made his return in the 1999 season and his role at the Hawks was as a running half-back, setting up attacking plays. He has been very successful playing this role throughout his career, and in 2001, won All-Australian selection and the Peter Crimmins Medal. He again won All-Australian selection in 2003, was vice captain in the 2005 season, and consistently finished in the top bunch of players in his club's best and fairest award.\n\nSmith retired at the end of the 2007 season, during which Hawthorn returned to the finals for the first time in 6 years, citing that the rapidly improving Hawthorn side was likely to mean reduced opportunities for him in 2008.\n\nStatistics\n\n|-\n|- style=\"background-color: #EAEAEA\"\n! scope=\"row\" style=\"text-align:center\" | 1995\n|style=\"text-align:center;\"|\n| 4 || 20 || 6 || 7 || 190 || 99 || 289 || 65 || 25 || 0.3 || 0.4 || 9.5 || 5.0 || 14.5 || 3.3 || 1.3 || 1\n|-\n! scope=\"row\" style=\"text-align:center\" | 1996\n|style=\"text-align:center;\"|\n| 4 || 22 || 22 || 22 || 246 || 122 || 368 || 96 || 30 || 1.0 || 1.0 || 11.2 || 5.5 || 16.7 || 4.4 || 1.4 || 1\n|- style=\"background-color: #EAEAEA\"\n! scope=\"row\" style=\"text-align:center\" | 1997\n|style=\"text-align:center;\"|\n| 4 || 16 || 23 || 17 || 207 || 94 || 301 || 63 || 17 || 1.4 || 1.1 || 12.9 || 5.9 || 18.8 || 3.9 || 1.1 || 3\n|-\n! scope=\"row\" style=\"text-align:center\" | 1998\n|style=\"text-align:center;\"|\n| 11 || 0 || — || — || — || — || — || — || — || — || — || — || — || — || — || — || —\n|- style=\"background-color: #EAEAEA\"\n! scope=\"row\" style=\"text-align:center\" | 1999\n|style=\"text-align:center;\"|\n| 11 || 17 || 8 || 12 || 130 || 58 || 188 || 34 || 14 || 0.5 || 0.7 || 7.6 || 3.4 || 11.1 || 2.0 || 0.8 || 2\n|-\n! scope=\"row\" style=\"text-align:center\" | 2000\n|style=\"text-align:center;\"|\n| 11 || 17 || 10 || 5 || 131 || 77 || 208 || 52 || 17 || 0.6 || 0.3 || 7.7 || 4.5 || 12.2 || 3.1 || 1.0 || 0\n|- style=\"background-color: #EAEAEA\"\n! scope=\"row\" style=\"text-align:center\" | 2001\n|style=\"text-align:center;\"|\n| 11 || 24 || 0 || 5 || 315 || 87 || 402 || 82 || 33 || 0.0 || 0.2 || 13.1 || 3.6 || 16.8 || 3.4 || 1.4 || 7\n|-\n! scope=\"row\" style=\"text-align:center\" | 2002\n|style=\"text-align:center;\"|\n| 11 || 5 || 2 || 2 || 62 || 18 || 80 || 19 || 5 || 0.4 || 0.4 || 12.4 || 3.6 || 16.0 || 3.8 || 1.0 || 1\n|- style=\"background-color: #EAEAEA\"\n! scope=\"row\" style=\"text-align:center\" | 2003\n|style=\"text-align:center;\"|\n| 11 || 22 || 5 || 6 || 222 || 92 || 314 || 76 || 43 || 0.2 || 0.3 || 10.1 || 4.2 || 14.3 || 3.5 || 2.0 || 3\n|-\n! scope=\"row\" style=\"text-align:center\" | 2004\n|style=\"text-align:center;\"|\n| 11 || 22 || 7 || 2 || 261 || 106 || 367 || 73 || 48 || 0.3 || 0.1 || 11.9 || 4.8 || 16.7 || 3.3 || 2.2 || 0\n|- style=\"background-color: #EAEAEA\"\n! scope=\"row\" style=\"text-align:center\" | 2005\n|style=\"text-align:center;\"|\n| 11 || 20 || 4 || 4 || 233 || 146 || 379 || 95 || 24 || 0.2 || 0.2 || 11.7 || 7.3 || 19.0 || 4.8 || 1.2 || 5\n|-\n! scope=\"row\" style=\"text-align:center\" | 2006\n|style=\"text-align:center;\"|\n| 11 || 19 || 0 || 1 || 199 || 115 || 314 || 111 || 28 || 0.0 || 0.1 || 10.5 || 6.1 || 16.5 || 5.8 || 1.5 || 0\n|- style=\"background-color: #EAEAEA\"\n! scope=\"row\" style=\"text-align:center\" | 2007\n|style=\"text-align:center;\"|\n| 11 || 17 || 3 || 5 || 147 || 124 || 271 || 93 || 28 || 0.2 || 0.3 || 8.6 || 7.3 || 15.9 || 5.5 || 1.6 || 0\n|- class=\"sortbottom\"\n! colspan=3| Career\n! 221\n! 90\n! 88\n! 2343\n! 1138\n! 3481\n! 859\n! 312\n! 0.4\n! 0.4\n! 10.6\n! 5.1\n! 15.8\n! 3.9\n! 1.4\n! 23\n|}\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n1977 births\nLiving people\nAll-Australians (AFL)\nPeter Crimmins Medal winners\nHawthorn Football Club players\nSt Kilda Football Club players\nAustralian rules footballers from Victoria (Australia)\nMurray Bushrangers players\nYarrawonga Football Club players\nAustralia international rules football team players"
] |
[
"Phil Hartman",
"Style",
"What was his style considered?",
"was described as \"a regular guy and, by all accounts, one of show business' most low-key, decent people\",",
"How did this help his career?",
"often played seedy, vain or unpleasant characters as well as comedic villains. He noted that his standard character was a \"jerky guy\", and described his usual roles",
"Did he enjoy playing these parts?",
"Hartman enjoyed playing such roles because he \"just want[ed] to be funny, and villains tend to be funny because their foibles are all there to see.\"",
"What parts was he famous for?",
"He often played supporting roles, rather than the lead part. He said \"throughout my career, I've never been a huge star, but I've made steady progress",
"Was he okay with that?",
"that's the way I like it,\" and \"It's fun coming in as the second or third lead.",
"Did he ever want to quit?",
"discovered an element of something else, so in a sick kind of way I made myself a career by doing a bad imitation of another comic.\"",
"Any other talents that were \"accidentally\" found?",
"He could momentarily fool audiences into thinking he was the straight man, but then he'd cock an eyebrow and give his voice an ironic lilt",
"Was he straight?",
"but then he'd cock an eyebrow and give his voice an ironic lilt that delivered a punchline like a fast slider--you barely saw it coming until you started laughing.\"",
"Did that remain his style throughout his career?",
"\" Hartman claimed that he borrowed his style from actor Bill Murray: \"He's been a great influence on me - when he did that smarmy thing in Ghostbusters,"
] |
C_f5004bcd827b41ce8db5ff729ef1e178_0
|
Any other idols for him?
| 10 |
Did Hartman have any idols besides Bill Murray?
|
Phil Hartman
|
In contrast to his real-life personality, which was described as "a regular guy and, by all accounts, one of show business' most low-key, decent people", Hartman often played seedy, vain or unpleasant characters as well as comedic villains. He noted that his standard character was a "jerky guy", and described his usual roles as "the weasel parade", citing Lionel Hutz, Bill McNeal, Troy McClure and Ted Maltin from Jingle All the Way as examples. Hartman enjoyed playing such roles because he "just want[ed] to be funny, and villains tend to be funny because their foibles are all there to see." He often played supporting roles, rather than the lead part. He said "throughout my career, I've never been a huge star, but I've made steady progress and that's the way I like it," and "It's fun coming in as the second or third lead. If the movie or TV show bombs, you aren't to blame." Hartman was considered a "utility player" on SNL with a "kind of Everyman quality" which enabled him to appear in the majority of sketches, often in very distinct roles. Jan Hooks stated of his work on SNL: "Phil never had an ounce of competition. He was a team player. It was a privilege for him, I believe, to play support and do it very well. He was never insulted, no matter how small the role may have been." He was disciplined in his performances, studying the scripts beforehand. Hooks added: "Phil knew how to listen. And he knew how to look you in the eye, and he knew the power of being able to lay back and let somebody else be funny, and then do the reactions. I think Phil was more of an actor than a comedian." Film critic Pauline Kael declared that "Phil Hartman and Jan Hooks on Saturday Night Live are two of the best comic actors I've ever seen." Writer and acting coach Paul Ryan noted Hartman's work ethic with his impressions. He assembled a collection of video footage of the figure he was preparing to impersonate and watched this continually until he "completely embodied the person". Ryan concluded that "what made [Hartman's impressions] so funny and spot on was Phil's ability to add that perfect touch that only comes from trial and error and practicing in front of audiences and fellow actors." Hartman described this process as "technical." Journalist Lyle V. Harris said Hartman showed a "rare talent for morphing into [...] anybody he wanted to be". Ken Tucker summarized Hartman's comedic style: "He could momentarily fool audiences into thinking he was the straight man, but then he'd cock an eyebrow and give his voice an ironic lilt that delivered a punchline like a fast slider--you barely saw it coming until you started laughing." Hartman claimed that he borrowed his style from actor Bill Murray: "He's been a great influence on me - when he did that smarmy thing in Ghostbusters, then the same sort of thing in Groundhog Day. I tried to imitate it. I couldn't. I wasn't good enough. But I discovered an element of something else, so in a sick kind of way I made myself a career by doing a bad imitation of another comic." CANNOTANSWER
|
Writer and acting coach Paul Ryan noted Hartman's work ethic with his impressions.
|
Philip Edward Hartman (né Hartmann; September 24, 1948 – May 28, 1998) was a Canadian-American actor, comedian, screenwriter, and graphic designer. Hartman was born in Brantford, Ontario, Canada, and his family moved to the United States when he was ten years old. After graduating from California State University, Northridge with a degree in graphic arts, he designed album covers for bands including Poco and America. In 1975, Hartman joined the comedy group The Groundlings, where he helped Paul Reubens develop his character Pee-wee Herman. Hartman co-wrote the film Pee-wee's Big Adventure and made recurring appearances as Captain Carl on Reubens' show Pee-wee's Playhouse.
In 1986, Hartman joined the NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live (SNL) as a cast member, and stayed for eight seasons until 1994. Nicknamed "Glue" for his ability to hold the show together and help other cast members, he won a Primetime Emmy Award for his SNL work in 1989. In 1995, he starred as Bill McNeal in the sitcom NewsRadio after declining to return to SNL. He also voiced various characters on The Simpsons, and had minor roles in the films Houseguest, Sgt. Bilko, Jingle All the Way, and Small Soldiers.
After two divorces, Hartman married Brynn Omdahl in 1987, with whom he had two children. Their marriage was troubled due to Brynn's drug use and domestic violence against Phil, who was frequently absent from home. In 1998, while Hartman was sleeping in his bed, his wife shot and killed him, and later committed suicide. In the weeks following his murder, Hartman was celebrated in a wave of tributes. Dan Snierson of Entertainment Weekly wrote that Hartman was "the last person you'd expect to read about in lurid headlines in your morning paper ... a decidedly regular guy, beloved by everyone he worked with". He was posthumously inducted into the Canada and Hollywood Walks of Fame in 2012 and 2014.
Early life
Hartman was born Philip Edward Hartmann (later dropping one "n") on September 24, 1948, in Brantford, Ontario. He was the fourth of eight children of Doris Marguerite (née Wardell; July 17, 1919 – April 15, 2001) and Rupert Loebig Hartmann (November 8, 1914 – April 30, 1998), who sold building materials. The family was Catholic. As a child, Hartman found affection hard to earn: "I suppose I didn't get what I wanted out of my family life, so I started seeking love and attention elsewhere."
Hartman was ten when his family moved to the United States. They first lived in Lewiston, Maine, then Meriden, Connecticut, and then on the West Coast, where he attended Westchester High School and frequently acted as the class clown. After graduating, he studied art at Santa Monica City College, dropping out in 1969 to become a roadie with a rock band. He returned to school in 1972 to study graphic arts at California State University, Northridge. He developed and operated his own graphic art business, creating more than 40 album covers for bands including Poco and America, as well as advertising and the logo for Crosby, Stills & Nash. In the late 1970s, he made his first television appearance on an episode of The Dating Game, where he won.
Career
Early career (1975–1985)
Working alone as a graphic artist, Hartman frequently amused himself with "flights of voice fantasies". In 1975, seeking a more social outlet for his talents, he began attending evening comedy classes by the California-based improvisational comedy group The Groundlings. While watching one of their performances, he impulsively decided to climb on stage and join the cast. His first onscreen appearance was in 1978's Stunt Rock, an Australian film directed in Los Angeles by Brian Trenchard-Smith. After several years of training, paying his way by redesigning the group's logo and merchandise, Hartman formally joined The Groundlings and by 1979 was one of the show's stars.
There Hartman befriended Paul Reubens, with whom he often collaborated on comedic material. Together they created the character Pee-wee Herman and developed The Pee-wee Herman Show, a live stage show that subsequently aired on HBO in 1981. Hartman played Captain Carl in the show, and reprised the role for the children's TV show Pee-wee's Playhouse. Reubens and Hartman made cameos in the 1980 film Cheech & Chong's Next Movie. Hartman co-wrote the script of the 1985 feature film Pee-wee's Big Adventure and had a cameo role as a reporter. He'd considered quitting acting at the age of 36 due to the challenges of finding work; but the success of Pee-wee's Big Adventure changed his mind. After a creative disagreement with Reubens, he left the Pee-Wee Herman project to pursue other roles.
Hartman took more small roles in 1986 films such as Jumpin' Jack Flash and Three Amigos. He also worked as a voice actor in animated television programs, including The Smurfs, Challenge of the GoBots, The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo, and in Dennis the Menace as characters Henry Mitchell and George Wilson. He developed a strong persona providing voice-overs for advertisements.
Saturday Night Live (1986–1994)
Hartman successfully auditioned to join NBC's variety show Saturday Night Live (SNL) in its 12th season, which began on October 11, 1986. He had been recommended for the show by fellow Groundlings and SNL cast members Jon Lovitz, and Laraine Newman as well as Jumpin' Jack Flash director Penny Marshall. He told the Los Angeles Times, "I wanted to do [SNL] because I wanted to get the exposure that would give me box-office credibility so I can write movies for myself." In his eight seasons with the show Hartman became known for his impressions, and performed as over 70 different characters. Hartman's original SNL characters include Eugene, the Anal Retentive Chef and Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer. His impressions include Frank Sinatra, Ronald Reagan, Ed McMahon, Barbara Bush, Charlton Heston, Phil Donahue, and Bill Clintonthe latter considered his best-known impression.
Hartman first performed his Clinton impression on an episode of The Tonight Show. When he met Clinton in 1993, Hartman remarked, "I guess I owe you a few apologies", adding later that he "sometimes [felt] a twinge of guilt about [his Clinton impression]". Clinton showed good humor and sent Hartman a signed photo with the text: "You're not the president, but you play one on TV. And you're OK, mostly." Hartman copied the president's "post-nasal drip" and the "slight scratchiness" in his voice, as well as his open, "less intimidating" hand gestures. Hartman opted against wearing a larger prosthetic nose when portraying Clinton, as he thought it would be distracting. He instead wore a wig, dyed his eyebrows brighter, and used makeup to highlight his nose. In one of Hartman's sketches as Clinton, the president visits a McDonald's restaurant and explains his economic policies in the metaphor of eating other customers' food. The writers told him that he was not eating enough during rehearsals for the sketch – by the end of the live performance, Hartman had eaten so much he could barely speak.
At SNL, Hartman's nickname of "Glue" was coined by Adam Sandler according to Jay Mohr's book Gasping for Airtime. However, according to You Might Remember Me: The Life and Times of Phil Hartman by Mike Thomas, author and staff writer for the Chicago Sun-Times, the nickname was created by SNL cast member and Hartman's frequent on-screen collaborator Jan Hooks. Hartman was very helpful to other cast members. For example, he aided Hooks in overcoming her stage fright. SNL creator Lorne Michaels explained the name: "He kind of held the show together. He gave to everybody and demanded very little. He was very low-maintenance." Michaels also added that Hartman was "the least appreciated" cast member by commentators outside the show, and praised his ability "to do five or six parts in a show where you're playing support or you're doing remarkable character work". Hartman won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Variety, Music or Comedy Program for SNL in 1989, sharing the award with the show's other writers. He was nominated in the same category in 1987, and individually in 1994 for Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program.
By 1993, almost every cast member who was there during Hartman's first year on SNL had left the show, including Jon Lovitz, Jan Hooks and Dana Carvey. Hartman said he felt "like an athlete who's watched all his World Series teammates get traded off into other directions ... It was hard to watch them leave because I sort of felt we were all part of the team that saved the show." This cast turnover contributed to his leaving the show in 1994. Hartman said he thought it was time to leave because the show was "getting less sophisticated" and his style of humor didn't fit with the less intellectual comedy of newer cast members like Adam Sandler. Hartman had originally planned to leave the show in 1991, but Michaels convinced him to stay to raise his profile; his portrayal of Clinton contributed to this goal. Jay Leno offered him the role of his sidekick on The Tonight Show but Hartman opted to stay on SNL. NBC persuaded him to stay on SNL by promising him his own comedy–variety show The Phil Show. He planned to "reinvent the variety form" with "a hybrid, very fast-paced, high energy [show] with sketches, impersonations, pet acts, and performers showcasing their talents". Hartman was to be the show's executive producer and head writer. Before production began, however, the network decided that variety shows were too unpopular and canceled the series. In a 1996 interview, Hartman noted he was glad, as he "would've been sweatin' blood each week trying to make it work". In 1998, he admitted he missed working on SNL, but had enjoyed the move from New York City to Southern California.
NewsRadio (1995–1998)
Hartman became one of the stars of the NBC sitcom NewsRadio in 1995, portraying radio news anchor Bill McNeal. He signed up after being attracted by the show's writing and use of an ensemble cast, and joked that he based McNeal on himself with "any ethics and character" removed. Hartman made roughly per episode of NewsRadio. Although the show was critically acclaimed, it was never a ratings hit and cancellation was a regular threat. After the completion of the fourth season, Hartman commented, "We seem to have limited appeal. We're on the edge here, not sure we're going to be picked up or not", but added he was "99 percent sure" the series would be renewed for a fifth season. Hartman had publicly lambasted NBC's decision to repeatedly move NewsRadio into different timeslots, but later regretted his comments, saying, "this is a sitcom, for crying out loud, not brain surgery". He also stated that if the sitcom were cancelled "it just will open up other opportunities for me". Although the show was renewed for a fifth season, Hartman died before production began. Ken Tucker praised Hartman's performance as McNeal: "A lesser performer ... would have played him as a variation on The Mary Tyler Moore Shows Ted Baxter, because that's what Bill was, on paper. But Hartman gave infinite variety to Bill's self-centeredness, turning him devious, cowardly, squeamish, and foolishly bold from week to week." Hartman was posthumously nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series in 1998 for his work on NewsRadio, but lost to David Hyde Pierce.
The Simpsons (1991–1998)
Hartman provided the voices for numerous characters on the Fox animated series The Simpsons, appearing in 52 episodes. He made his first appearance in the second season episode "Bart Gets Hit by a Car". Although he was originally brought in for a one-time appearance, Hartman enjoyed working on The Simpsons and the staff wrote additional parts for him. He voiced the recurring characters Lionel Hutz and Troy McClure, as well as Duff man (on one occasion) and several background characters. His favorite part was that of McClure, and he often used this voice to entertain the audience between takes while taping episodes of NewsRadio. He remarked, "My favorite fans are Troy McClure fans." He added "It's the one thing that I do in my life that's almost an avocation. I do it for the pure love of it."
Hartman was popular among the staff of The Simpsons. Showrunners Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein said they enjoyed his work, and used him as much as possible when working on the show. To give Hartman a larger role, they developed the episode "A Fish Called Selma", which focuses on Troy McClure and expands the character's backstory. The Simpsons creator Matt Groening said that he "took [Hartman] for granted because he nailed the joke every time", and that his voice acting could produce "the maximum amount of humor" with any line he was given. Before his death, Hartman had expressed an interest in making a live action film about Troy McClure. Many of The Simpsons production staff expressed enthusiasm for the project and offered to help. Hartman said he was "looking forward to [McClure's] live-action movie, publicizing his Betty Ford appearances", and "would love nothing more" than making a film and was prepared to buy the film rights himself in order to make it happen.
Other work
Hartman's first starring film role came in 1995's Houseguest, alongside Sinbad. Other films include Greedy, Coneheads, Sgt. Bilko, So I Married an Axe Murderer, CB4, Jingle All the Way, Kiki's Delivery Service, and Small Soldiers, the latter of which is his final theatrically released film. At the same time, he preferred working on television. His other television roles include appearances on episodes of The John Larroquette Show, The Dana Carvey Show, 3rd Rock from the Sun, and the HBO TV film The Second Civil War as the President of the United States. He made a considerable amount of money from television advertising, earning $300,000 for a series of four commercials for the soft drink Slice. He also appeared in advertisements for McDonald's (as Hugh McAttack) and 1-800-Collect (as Max Jerome).
Hartman wrote a number of screenplays that were never produced. In 1986, he began writing a screenplay for a film titled Mr. Fix-It, and completed the final draft in 1991. Robert Zemeckis was signed to produce the film, with Gil Bettman hired to direct. Hartman called it "a sort of a merger of horror and comedy, like Beetlejuice and Throw Momma From the Train", adding, "It's an American nightmare about a family torn asunder. They live next to a toxic dump site, their water supply is poisoned, the mother and son go insane and try to murder each other, the father's face is torn off in a terrible disfiguring accident in the first act. It's heavy stuff, but it's got a good message and a positive, upbeat ending." Zemeckis could not secure studio backing, however, and the project collapsed. Another film idea involving Hartman's Groundlings character Chick Hazard, Private Eye was also canceled.
Style
In contrast to his real-life personality, which was described as "a regular guy and, by all accounts, one of show business's most low-key, decent people", Hartman often played seedy, vain or unpleasant characters as well as comedic villains. He described his standard character repertoire as the "jerky guy" and "the weasel parade", citing Lionel Hutz, Bill McNeal, Troy McClure, and Ted Maltin from Jingle All the Way as examples. Hartman enjoyed playing such roles because he "just want[ed] to be funny, and villains tend to be funny because their foibles are all there to see".
He often played supporting roles, rather than the lead part. He said "throughout my career, I've never been a huge star, but I've made steady progress and that's the way I like it", and "It's fun coming in as the second or third lead. If the movie or TV show bombs, you aren't to blame." Hartman was considered a "utility player" on SNL with a "kind of Everyman quality" which enabled him to appear in the majority of sketches, often in very distinct roles. Jan Hooks stated of his work on SNL: "Phil never had an ounce of competition. He was a team player. It was a privilege for him, I believe, to play support and do it very well. He was never insulted, no matter how small the role may have been." He was disciplined in his performances, studying the scripts beforehand. Hooks added: "Phil knew how to listen. And he knew how to look you in the eye, and he knew the power of being able to lay back and let somebody else be funny, and then do the reactions. I think Phil was more of an actor than a comedian." Film critic Pauline Kael declared that "Phil Hartman and Jan Hooks on Saturday Night Live are two of the best comic actors I've ever seen."
Writer and acting coach Paul Ryan noted Hartman's work ethic with his impressions. He assembled a collection of video footage of the figure he was preparing to impersonate and watched this continually until he "completely embodied the person". Ryan concluded that "what made [Hartman's impressions] so funny and spot on was Phil's ability to add that perfect touch that only comes from trial and error and practicing in front of audiences and fellow actors." Hartman described this process as "technical". Journalist Lyle V. Harris said Hartman showed a "rare talent for morphing into ... anybody he wanted to be".
Ken Tucker summarized Hartman's comedic style: "He could momentarily fool audiences into thinking he was the straight man, but then he'd cock an eyebrow and give his voice an ironic lilt that delivered a punchline like a fast slider—you barely saw it coming until you started laughing." Hartman claimed that he borrowed his style from actor Bill Murray: "He's been a great influence on me – when he did that smarmy thing in Ghostbusters, then the same sort of thing in Groundhog Day. I tried to imitate it. I couldn't. I wasn't good enough. But I discovered an element of something else, so in a sick kind of way I made myself a career by doing a bad imitation of another comic."
Personal life
Hartman married Gretchen Lewis in 1970 and they divorced in September 1972. He married real estate agent Lisa Strain in 1982, and their marriage lasted three years. Strain told People magazine that Hartman was reclusive off screen and "would disappear emotionally ... he'd be in his own world. That passivity made you crazy." In 1987, Hartman married former model and aspiring actress Brynn Omdahl (born Vicki Jo Omdahl, April 11, 1958 – May 28, 1998), having met her on a blind date the previous year. They had two children, Sean and Birgen Hartman. The marriage had difficulties; she was reportedly intimidated by his success and was frustrated that she could not find any on her own, although neither party wanted a divorce. She was reported to have been jealous and often verbally and/or physically abusive, even sending a letter to his ex-wife, threatening to "rip [Strain's] eyes out" if she spoke to him again. Hartman considered retiring to save the marriage.
Hartman tried to get Brynn acting roles, but she became progressively reliant on alcohol and narcotics, entering rehab several times. On multiple occasions, he removed their children from the household to stay with friends or family because of her drug- and alcohol-fueled outbursts. Because of his close friendship with SNL associate Jan Hooks, Brynn joked on occasion Hooks and Hartman were married "on some other level". Brynn had written threatening letters addressed to Hooks, warning her to not get close to her husband, but they appeared to have never even been sent, being discovered in her belongings following her death.
Stephen Root, Hartman's NewsRadio co-star, said few people knew "the real Phil Hartman", as he was "one of those people who never seemed to come out of character," but he nevertheless gave the impression of a family man who cared deeply for his children. Hartman befriended Joe Rogan during his time on NewsRadio and confided his marital problems to him. Rogan said that he encouraged Hartman to divorce Brynn five times, but "[Hartman] loved his kids and didn't want to leave".
Hartman stated in 1997, though a non-practicing Catholic, he displayed a sense of religiousness. In his spare time, he enjoyed driving, flying, sailing, marksmanship, and playing the guitar.
Murder
On May 27, 1998, Brynn visited the Italian restaurant Buca di Beppo in Encino, California, with producer and writer Christine Zander, who said Brynn was "in a good frame of mind." They had drinks. After returning home, Brynn had a "heated" argument with Phil, after which he went to bed. She entered his bedroom some time before PDT on May 28, 1998, and as he slept, fatally shot him once between the eyes, once in the throat, and once in the upper chest with a Charter Arms .38 caliber handgun. He was 49 years old. She was taking Zoloft, had been drinking alcohol, and had recently used cocaine.
Brynn then drove to the home of her friend Ron Douglas and confessed to the killing, but he did not believe her. They drove back to the house in separate cars, and she called another friend and confessed a second time. On seeing Hartman's body, Douglas called 9-1-1 at Police arrived and escorted Douglas and the Hartmans' two children from the premises, by which time Brynn had locked herself in the bedroom. Shortly afterward, she committed suicide by a self-inflicted gunshot.
The police stated Hartman's death was caused by "domestic discord" between the couple. A friend said Brynn "had trouble controlling her anger ... She got attention by losing her temper". A neighbor of the Hartmans told a CNN reporter that the couple had marital problems. Yet actor Steve Guttenberg said they had been "a very happy couple, and they always had the appearance of being well-balanced".
A wrongful death lawsuit was filed in 1999 by her brother Gregory Omdahl, against Pfizer, the manufacturer of Zoloft, and against her child's psychiatrist, Arthur Sorosky, who had provided samples of the antidepressant to Brynn. Phil Hartman's friend and former SNL colleague Jon Lovitz has accused Hartman's then NewsRadio co-star Andy Dick of reintroducing Brynn to cocaine, causing her to relapse and suffer a nervous breakdown. Dick claims to have known nothing of her condition. Lovitz later said he no longer blamed Dick for Hartman's murder, but in 2006, Lovitz claimed Dick approached him at a restaurant and said, "I put the Phil Hartman hex on you; you're the next one to die." Lovitz then had him ejected from the restaurant. The following year at the Laugh Factory comedy club in Los Angeles, Lovitz and Dick had another argument, with Lovitz slamming Dick's head into the bar. Dick asserted he was not at fault in relation to Hartman's death.
Brynn's sister Katharine Omdahl and brother-in-law Mike Wright raised the two Hartman children. Hartman's will stipulated each child would inherit money over several years after turning 25. The total value of Hartman's estate was estimated at . In accordance with his wishes, his body was cremated by Forest Lawn Memorial Park and Mortuary, Glendale, California, and his ashes scattered over Santa Catalina Island's Emerald Bay.
Response and legacy
NBC executive Don Ohlmeyer stated that Hartman "was blessed with a tremendous gift for creating characters that made people laugh. Everyone who had the pleasure of working with Phil knows that he was a man of tremendous warmth, a true professional and a loyal friend." Guttenberg expressed shock at Hartman's death, and Steve Martin said he was "a deeply funny and very happy person". Matt Groening called him "a master", and director Joe Dante said, "He was one of those guys who was a dream to work with. I don't know anybody who didn't like him." Dan Snierson of Entertainment Weekly concluded that Hartman was "the last person you'd expect to read about in lurid headlines in your morning paper" and "a decidedly regular guy, beloved by everyone he worked with". In 2007, Entertainment Weekly ranked Hartman the 87th greatest television icon of all time, and Maxim named him the top Saturday Night Live performer of all time.
On the day of Hartman's death, rehearsals for The Simpsons were canceled as well as that night's performance by The Groundlings. The season five premiere episode of NewsRadio, "Bill Moves On", finds Hartman's character, Bill McNeal, has died of a heart attack, while the other characters reminisce about his life. Lovitz joined the show in his place beginning with the next episode. A special episode of Saturday Night Live commemorating Hartman's work on the show aired on June 13, 1998. Rather than substituting another voice actor, the writers of The Simpsons retired Hartman's characters. His final appearance on the show, the season ten episode "Bart the Mother", is dedicated to him, as is his final film, Small Soldiers.
At the time of his death, Hartman was preparing to voice Zapp Brannigan, a character written specifically for him on Groening's second animated series Futurama. Even though the role was specifically made for him, Hartman still insisted on auditioning and Groening said he "nailed it." After Hartman's death, Billy West took over the role. Though executive producer David X. Cohen credits West with using his own take on the character, West later said that he purposely tweaked Zapp's voice to better match Hartman's intended portrayal. Hartman was planning to appear with Lovitz in the indie film The Day of Swine and Roses, scheduled to begin production in August 1998.
In 2002, Laugh.com and Hartman's brother John published the album, Flat TV, a selection of comedy sketches recorded by Hartman in the 1970s, which had been kept in storage. John Hartmann commented: "I'm putting this out there because I'm dedicating my life to fulfilling his dreams. This [album] is my brother doing what he loved." In 2013, Flat TV was optioned by Michael "Ffish" Hemschoot's animation company Worker Studio for an animated adaptation. The deal came about after Michael T. Scott, a partner in the company, posted online a hand-written letter he had received from Hartman in 1997, leading to a correspondence between Scott and Paul Hartmann.
In 2007, a campaign was started on Facebook by Alex Stevens and endorsed by Hartman's brother Paul, to have Phil inducted to Canada's Walk of Fame. Among the campaign's numerous publicity events, Ben Miner of the Sirius XM Radio channel Laugh Attack, dedicated the month of April 2012 to Hartman. The campaign ended in success and Hartman was inducted to the Walk of Fame on September 22, 2012, with Paul accepting the award on his late brother's behalf. Hartman was also awarded the Cineplex Legends Award. In June 2013, it was announced that Hartman would receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, which was unveiled on August 26, 2014. Additionally, a special prize at the Canadian Comedy Awards was named for Hartman. Beginning with the 13th Canadian Comedy Awards in 2012, the Phil Hartman Award was awarded to "an individual who helps to better the Canadian comedy community". In 2015, Rolling Stone magazine ranked Hartman as one of the top-ten greatest Saturday Night Live cast members throughout the show's forty-year history, coming in seventh on their list of all 141 members.
Filmography
Film
Television
Video games
Theme park attractions
Discography
1977
America, Harbor
1978
America, Silent Letter
Poco, Legend
1980
Firesign Theatre, Fighting Clowns
References
Book sources
External links
Phil Hartman at Yahoo! Movies
Phil Hartman at The New York Times
Hartman's autopsy and death certificate
Phil Hartman's final night: The tragic death of a “Saturday Night Live” genius, Mike Thomas, Salon, September 21, 2014
1948 births
1998 deaths
1998 murders in the United States
20th-century American male actors
20th-century Canadian male actors
Album-cover and concert-poster artists
American male comedians
American male film actors
American graphic designers
American impressionists (entertainers)
American male screenwriters
American male television actors
American television writers
American male voice actors
American sketch comedians
California State University, Northridge alumni
Canadian male comedians
Canadian emigrants to the United States
Canadian male voice actors
Canadian murder victims
Canadian sketch comedians
Deaths by firearm in California
Male actors from Los Angeles
American male television writers
Murder–suicides in California
Naturalized citizens of the United States
People from Brantford
People murdered in Los Angeles
Primetime Emmy Award winners
Santa Monica College alumni
Comedians from California
Mariticides
Westchester High School (Los Angeles) alumni
Screenwriters from California
20th-century Canadian comedians
20th-century American comedians
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American screenwriters
Comedians from Ontario
| true |
[
"A slave contract () refers to an unfair, long-term contract between Korean idols and their management agencies.\n\nConditions \nAspiring K-pop idols, known as \"trainees,\" sign contracts with management agencies when the trainee is as young as 12 or 13 years old. It may take ten years for an agency to groom the trainee and for them to debut on stage, according to the former head of the Korea Entertainment Law Society. Both trainees and K-pop idols who have debuted typically live in dormitories, where their management agencies control their diets, their love lives, and their behavior. Under most contracts, trainees and K-pop idols are required to pay back their management agencies for the cost of singing and dancing lessons, their wardrobes and living costs, among other things. As a result, K-pop idols may not make large profits.\n\nMany K-pop groups often take years to break even, and thus do not receive their share of any profits made from their songs until their trainee debt is paid off. The notable exception to this are groups from the \"Big 3\" companies - SM Entertainment, YG Entertainment, and JYP Entertainment. Trainees under these three companies get paid as soon as they debut and generally do not face trainee debt at all, unless they leave before completion of their contracts.\n\nThe unfair treatment of K-pop singers and trainees has been prominent in the Korean music industry. As a result, agencies including SM, FNC, and DSP were told by the FTC of South Korea to stop canceling trainee contracts on dubious grounds, such as morality clauses. Nonetheless, many pressing issues have yet to be addressed by the FTC of South Korea is the mistreatment from the South Korean entertainment agencies, which are manifested in Draconian and non-standardized contracts. These contracts often create manufactured and controlled identities, in order to maintain a façade of a \"supremely talented and gorgeous, single, heterosexual star, seemingly accessible to fans of the opposite sex\". Two successful idols who signed with Cube Entertainment were dropped from the company due to being involved in romantic relationships. In addition, both male and female idols are expected to achieve and maintain an unhealthily slim figure in order to even be considered for applying to trainee programs.\n\nReforms\nIn 2009, three members of the boy band TVXQ took their management agency SM Entertainment to court, claiming that the agency's 13-year-contract was too long, too restrictive, and gave them almost none of the profits from their success. The following year, in 2010, South Korea's Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) created a rule that limited entertainment contracts to seven years. In 2017, the KFTC again put restrictions on entertainment contracts. Among other things, the 2017 reforms reduced the financial penalties for K-pop trainees that break their contracts early and made it more difficult for companies to force K-pop idols to renew their contracts.\n\nReferences \n\nK-pop\nEntertainment law",
"Bheemana Amavasya is a festival celebrated in South India, mostly in parts of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. It is celebrated on the new moon day (amavasya) of the ashadha month of the Hindu calendar.\n\nAmavasya is the day of no moon occurrence. Any fortnight containing the new-moon is considered auspicious by Hindus. They believe that during this period, their offerings reach their forefathers and in return offerants are blessed. It signifies the beginning of auspicious period, and many pooja's are performed to Hindu deities seeking blessing.\n\nThe last day of Ashada is marked as the very auspicious Bheemana Amavasya. It is believed that on this day Shiva, is impressed by Parvathi's devotion towards him and accepts her as his wife. Parvathi is considered by some schools of Hinduism as the supreme Divine Mother or Lordess and all other goddesses are incarnations or manifestations of her.\n\nParvathi embodies many virtues: fertility, marital felicity, devotion to the spouse, asceticism and power. It is believed if women abstain from consuming food on this day and offer prayers to Lord Shiva, Parvathi would seek a virtuous husband for unmarried women while married women would pray for their husband's long life, success and happiness.\n\nIdols \nUsually idols of Shiva and Parvathi are made using red mud clay, dried and decorated. Idols are made of panchaloha (five materials – gold, silver, copper, bronze and zinc).\n\nReferences \n\nHindu festivals\nFestivals in Karnataka\nReligious festivals in India"
] |
[
"Phil Hartman",
"Style",
"What was his style considered?",
"was described as \"a regular guy and, by all accounts, one of show business' most low-key, decent people\",",
"How did this help his career?",
"often played seedy, vain or unpleasant characters as well as comedic villains. He noted that his standard character was a \"jerky guy\", and described his usual roles",
"Did he enjoy playing these parts?",
"Hartman enjoyed playing such roles because he \"just want[ed] to be funny, and villains tend to be funny because their foibles are all there to see.\"",
"What parts was he famous for?",
"He often played supporting roles, rather than the lead part. He said \"throughout my career, I've never been a huge star, but I've made steady progress",
"Was he okay with that?",
"that's the way I like it,\" and \"It's fun coming in as the second or third lead.",
"Did he ever want to quit?",
"discovered an element of something else, so in a sick kind of way I made myself a career by doing a bad imitation of another comic.\"",
"Any other talents that were \"accidentally\" found?",
"He could momentarily fool audiences into thinking he was the straight man, but then he'd cock an eyebrow and give his voice an ironic lilt",
"Was he straight?",
"but then he'd cock an eyebrow and give his voice an ironic lilt that delivered a punchline like a fast slider--you barely saw it coming until you started laughing.\"",
"Did that remain his style throughout his career?",
"\" Hartman claimed that he borrowed his style from actor Bill Murray: \"He's been a great influence on me - when he did that smarmy thing in Ghostbusters,",
"Any other idols for him?",
"Writer and acting coach Paul Ryan noted Hartman's work ethic with his impressions."
] |
C_f5004bcd827b41ce8db5ff729ef1e178_0
|
Did Ryan teach him anything of note?
| 11 |
Did Ryan teach Hartman anything of note?
|
Phil Hartman
|
In contrast to his real-life personality, which was described as "a regular guy and, by all accounts, one of show business' most low-key, decent people", Hartman often played seedy, vain or unpleasant characters as well as comedic villains. He noted that his standard character was a "jerky guy", and described his usual roles as "the weasel parade", citing Lionel Hutz, Bill McNeal, Troy McClure and Ted Maltin from Jingle All the Way as examples. Hartman enjoyed playing such roles because he "just want[ed] to be funny, and villains tend to be funny because their foibles are all there to see." He often played supporting roles, rather than the lead part. He said "throughout my career, I've never been a huge star, but I've made steady progress and that's the way I like it," and "It's fun coming in as the second or third lead. If the movie or TV show bombs, you aren't to blame." Hartman was considered a "utility player" on SNL with a "kind of Everyman quality" which enabled him to appear in the majority of sketches, often in very distinct roles. Jan Hooks stated of his work on SNL: "Phil never had an ounce of competition. He was a team player. It was a privilege for him, I believe, to play support and do it very well. He was never insulted, no matter how small the role may have been." He was disciplined in his performances, studying the scripts beforehand. Hooks added: "Phil knew how to listen. And he knew how to look you in the eye, and he knew the power of being able to lay back and let somebody else be funny, and then do the reactions. I think Phil was more of an actor than a comedian." Film critic Pauline Kael declared that "Phil Hartman and Jan Hooks on Saturday Night Live are two of the best comic actors I've ever seen." Writer and acting coach Paul Ryan noted Hartman's work ethic with his impressions. He assembled a collection of video footage of the figure he was preparing to impersonate and watched this continually until he "completely embodied the person". Ryan concluded that "what made [Hartman's impressions] so funny and spot on was Phil's ability to add that perfect touch that only comes from trial and error and practicing in front of audiences and fellow actors." Hartman described this process as "technical." Journalist Lyle V. Harris said Hartman showed a "rare talent for morphing into [...] anybody he wanted to be". Ken Tucker summarized Hartman's comedic style: "He could momentarily fool audiences into thinking he was the straight man, but then he'd cock an eyebrow and give his voice an ironic lilt that delivered a punchline like a fast slider--you barely saw it coming until you started laughing." Hartman claimed that he borrowed his style from actor Bill Murray: "He's been a great influence on me - when he did that smarmy thing in Ghostbusters, then the same sort of thing in Groundhog Day. I tried to imitate it. I couldn't. I wasn't good enough. But I discovered an element of something else, so in a sick kind of way I made myself a career by doing a bad imitation of another comic." CANNOTANSWER
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He assembled a collection of video footage of the figure he was preparing to impersonate and watched this continually until he "completely embodied the person".
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Philip Edward Hartman (né Hartmann; September 24, 1948 – May 28, 1998) was a Canadian-American actor, comedian, screenwriter, and graphic designer. Hartman was born in Brantford, Ontario, Canada, and his family moved to the United States when he was ten years old. After graduating from California State University, Northridge with a degree in graphic arts, he designed album covers for bands including Poco and America. In 1975, Hartman joined the comedy group The Groundlings, where he helped Paul Reubens develop his character Pee-wee Herman. Hartman co-wrote the film Pee-wee's Big Adventure and made recurring appearances as Captain Carl on Reubens' show Pee-wee's Playhouse.
In 1986, Hartman joined the NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live (SNL) as a cast member, and stayed for eight seasons until 1994. Nicknamed "Glue" for his ability to hold the show together and help other cast members, he won a Primetime Emmy Award for his SNL work in 1989. In 1995, he starred as Bill McNeal in the sitcom NewsRadio after declining to return to SNL. He also voiced various characters on The Simpsons, and had minor roles in the films Houseguest, Sgt. Bilko, Jingle All the Way, and Small Soldiers.
After two divorces, Hartman married Brynn Omdahl in 1987, with whom he had two children. Their marriage was troubled due to Brynn's drug use and domestic violence against Phil, who was frequently absent from home. In 1998, while Hartman was sleeping in his bed, his wife shot and killed him, and later committed suicide. In the weeks following his murder, Hartman was celebrated in a wave of tributes. Dan Snierson of Entertainment Weekly wrote that Hartman was "the last person you'd expect to read about in lurid headlines in your morning paper ... a decidedly regular guy, beloved by everyone he worked with". He was posthumously inducted into the Canada and Hollywood Walks of Fame in 2012 and 2014.
Early life
Hartman was born Philip Edward Hartmann (later dropping one "n") on September 24, 1948, in Brantford, Ontario. He was the fourth of eight children of Doris Marguerite (née Wardell; July 17, 1919 – April 15, 2001) and Rupert Loebig Hartmann (November 8, 1914 – April 30, 1998), who sold building materials. The family was Catholic. As a child, Hartman found affection hard to earn: "I suppose I didn't get what I wanted out of my family life, so I started seeking love and attention elsewhere."
Hartman was ten when his family moved to the United States. They first lived in Lewiston, Maine, then Meriden, Connecticut, and then on the West Coast, where he attended Westchester High School and frequently acted as the class clown. After graduating, he studied art at Santa Monica City College, dropping out in 1969 to become a roadie with a rock band. He returned to school in 1972 to study graphic arts at California State University, Northridge. He developed and operated his own graphic art business, creating more than 40 album covers for bands including Poco and America, as well as advertising and the logo for Crosby, Stills & Nash. In the late 1970s, he made his first television appearance on an episode of The Dating Game, where he won.
Career
Early career (1975–1985)
Working alone as a graphic artist, Hartman frequently amused himself with "flights of voice fantasies". In 1975, seeking a more social outlet for his talents, he began attending evening comedy classes by the California-based improvisational comedy group The Groundlings. While watching one of their performances, he impulsively decided to climb on stage and join the cast. His first onscreen appearance was in 1978's Stunt Rock, an Australian film directed in Los Angeles by Brian Trenchard-Smith. After several years of training, paying his way by redesigning the group's logo and merchandise, Hartman formally joined The Groundlings and by 1979 was one of the show's stars.
There Hartman befriended Paul Reubens, with whom he often collaborated on comedic material. Together they created the character Pee-wee Herman and developed The Pee-wee Herman Show, a live stage show that subsequently aired on HBO in 1981. Hartman played Captain Carl in the show, and reprised the role for the children's TV show Pee-wee's Playhouse. Reubens and Hartman made cameos in the 1980 film Cheech & Chong's Next Movie. Hartman co-wrote the script of the 1985 feature film Pee-wee's Big Adventure and had a cameo role as a reporter. He'd considered quitting acting at the age of 36 due to the challenges of finding work; but the success of Pee-wee's Big Adventure changed his mind. After a creative disagreement with Reubens, he left the Pee-Wee Herman project to pursue other roles.
Hartman took more small roles in 1986 films such as Jumpin' Jack Flash and Three Amigos. He also worked as a voice actor in animated television programs, including The Smurfs, Challenge of the GoBots, The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo, and in Dennis the Menace as characters Henry Mitchell and George Wilson. He developed a strong persona providing voice-overs for advertisements.
Saturday Night Live (1986–1994)
Hartman successfully auditioned to join NBC's variety show Saturday Night Live (SNL) in its 12th season, which began on October 11, 1986. He had been recommended for the show by fellow Groundlings and SNL cast members Jon Lovitz, and Laraine Newman as well as Jumpin' Jack Flash director Penny Marshall. He told the Los Angeles Times, "I wanted to do [SNL] because I wanted to get the exposure that would give me box-office credibility so I can write movies for myself." In his eight seasons with the show Hartman became known for his impressions, and performed as over 70 different characters. Hartman's original SNL characters include Eugene, the Anal Retentive Chef and Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer. His impressions include Frank Sinatra, Ronald Reagan, Ed McMahon, Barbara Bush, Charlton Heston, Phil Donahue, and Bill Clintonthe latter considered his best-known impression.
Hartman first performed his Clinton impression on an episode of The Tonight Show. When he met Clinton in 1993, Hartman remarked, "I guess I owe you a few apologies", adding later that he "sometimes [felt] a twinge of guilt about [his Clinton impression]". Clinton showed good humor and sent Hartman a signed photo with the text: "You're not the president, but you play one on TV. And you're OK, mostly." Hartman copied the president's "post-nasal drip" and the "slight scratchiness" in his voice, as well as his open, "less intimidating" hand gestures. Hartman opted against wearing a larger prosthetic nose when portraying Clinton, as he thought it would be distracting. He instead wore a wig, dyed his eyebrows brighter, and used makeup to highlight his nose. In one of Hartman's sketches as Clinton, the president visits a McDonald's restaurant and explains his economic policies in the metaphor of eating other customers' food. The writers told him that he was not eating enough during rehearsals for the sketch – by the end of the live performance, Hartman had eaten so much he could barely speak.
At SNL, Hartman's nickname of "Glue" was coined by Adam Sandler according to Jay Mohr's book Gasping for Airtime. However, according to You Might Remember Me: The Life and Times of Phil Hartman by Mike Thomas, author and staff writer for the Chicago Sun-Times, the nickname was created by SNL cast member and Hartman's frequent on-screen collaborator Jan Hooks. Hartman was very helpful to other cast members. For example, he aided Hooks in overcoming her stage fright. SNL creator Lorne Michaels explained the name: "He kind of held the show together. He gave to everybody and demanded very little. He was very low-maintenance." Michaels also added that Hartman was "the least appreciated" cast member by commentators outside the show, and praised his ability "to do five or six parts in a show where you're playing support or you're doing remarkable character work". Hartman won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Variety, Music or Comedy Program for SNL in 1989, sharing the award with the show's other writers. He was nominated in the same category in 1987, and individually in 1994 for Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program.
By 1993, almost every cast member who was there during Hartman's first year on SNL had left the show, including Jon Lovitz, Jan Hooks and Dana Carvey. Hartman said he felt "like an athlete who's watched all his World Series teammates get traded off into other directions ... It was hard to watch them leave because I sort of felt we were all part of the team that saved the show." This cast turnover contributed to his leaving the show in 1994. Hartman said he thought it was time to leave because the show was "getting less sophisticated" and his style of humor didn't fit with the less intellectual comedy of newer cast members like Adam Sandler. Hartman had originally planned to leave the show in 1991, but Michaels convinced him to stay to raise his profile; his portrayal of Clinton contributed to this goal. Jay Leno offered him the role of his sidekick on The Tonight Show but Hartman opted to stay on SNL. NBC persuaded him to stay on SNL by promising him his own comedy–variety show The Phil Show. He planned to "reinvent the variety form" with "a hybrid, very fast-paced, high energy [show] with sketches, impersonations, pet acts, and performers showcasing their talents". Hartman was to be the show's executive producer and head writer. Before production began, however, the network decided that variety shows were too unpopular and canceled the series. In a 1996 interview, Hartman noted he was glad, as he "would've been sweatin' blood each week trying to make it work". In 1998, he admitted he missed working on SNL, but had enjoyed the move from New York City to Southern California.
NewsRadio (1995–1998)
Hartman became one of the stars of the NBC sitcom NewsRadio in 1995, portraying radio news anchor Bill McNeal. He signed up after being attracted by the show's writing and use of an ensemble cast, and joked that he based McNeal on himself with "any ethics and character" removed. Hartman made roughly per episode of NewsRadio. Although the show was critically acclaimed, it was never a ratings hit and cancellation was a regular threat. After the completion of the fourth season, Hartman commented, "We seem to have limited appeal. We're on the edge here, not sure we're going to be picked up or not", but added he was "99 percent sure" the series would be renewed for a fifth season. Hartman had publicly lambasted NBC's decision to repeatedly move NewsRadio into different timeslots, but later regretted his comments, saying, "this is a sitcom, for crying out loud, not brain surgery". He also stated that if the sitcom were cancelled "it just will open up other opportunities for me". Although the show was renewed for a fifth season, Hartman died before production began. Ken Tucker praised Hartman's performance as McNeal: "A lesser performer ... would have played him as a variation on The Mary Tyler Moore Shows Ted Baxter, because that's what Bill was, on paper. But Hartman gave infinite variety to Bill's self-centeredness, turning him devious, cowardly, squeamish, and foolishly bold from week to week." Hartman was posthumously nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series in 1998 for his work on NewsRadio, but lost to David Hyde Pierce.
The Simpsons (1991–1998)
Hartman provided the voices for numerous characters on the Fox animated series The Simpsons, appearing in 52 episodes. He made his first appearance in the second season episode "Bart Gets Hit by a Car". Although he was originally brought in for a one-time appearance, Hartman enjoyed working on The Simpsons and the staff wrote additional parts for him. He voiced the recurring characters Lionel Hutz and Troy McClure, as well as Duff man (on one occasion) and several background characters. His favorite part was that of McClure, and he often used this voice to entertain the audience between takes while taping episodes of NewsRadio. He remarked, "My favorite fans are Troy McClure fans." He added "It's the one thing that I do in my life that's almost an avocation. I do it for the pure love of it."
Hartman was popular among the staff of The Simpsons. Showrunners Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein said they enjoyed his work, and used him as much as possible when working on the show. To give Hartman a larger role, they developed the episode "A Fish Called Selma", which focuses on Troy McClure and expands the character's backstory. The Simpsons creator Matt Groening said that he "took [Hartman] for granted because he nailed the joke every time", and that his voice acting could produce "the maximum amount of humor" with any line he was given. Before his death, Hartman had expressed an interest in making a live action film about Troy McClure. Many of The Simpsons production staff expressed enthusiasm for the project and offered to help. Hartman said he was "looking forward to [McClure's] live-action movie, publicizing his Betty Ford appearances", and "would love nothing more" than making a film and was prepared to buy the film rights himself in order to make it happen.
Other work
Hartman's first starring film role came in 1995's Houseguest, alongside Sinbad. Other films include Greedy, Coneheads, Sgt. Bilko, So I Married an Axe Murderer, CB4, Jingle All the Way, Kiki's Delivery Service, and Small Soldiers, the latter of which is his final theatrically released film. At the same time, he preferred working on television. His other television roles include appearances on episodes of The John Larroquette Show, The Dana Carvey Show, 3rd Rock from the Sun, and the HBO TV film The Second Civil War as the President of the United States. He made a considerable amount of money from television advertising, earning $300,000 for a series of four commercials for the soft drink Slice. He also appeared in advertisements for McDonald's (as Hugh McAttack) and 1-800-Collect (as Max Jerome).
Hartman wrote a number of screenplays that were never produced. In 1986, he began writing a screenplay for a film titled Mr. Fix-It, and completed the final draft in 1991. Robert Zemeckis was signed to produce the film, with Gil Bettman hired to direct. Hartman called it "a sort of a merger of horror and comedy, like Beetlejuice and Throw Momma From the Train", adding, "It's an American nightmare about a family torn asunder. They live next to a toxic dump site, their water supply is poisoned, the mother and son go insane and try to murder each other, the father's face is torn off in a terrible disfiguring accident in the first act. It's heavy stuff, but it's got a good message and a positive, upbeat ending." Zemeckis could not secure studio backing, however, and the project collapsed. Another film idea involving Hartman's Groundlings character Chick Hazard, Private Eye was also canceled.
Style
In contrast to his real-life personality, which was described as "a regular guy and, by all accounts, one of show business's most low-key, decent people", Hartman often played seedy, vain or unpleasant characters as well as comedic villains. He described his standard character repertoire as the "jerky guy" and "the weasel parade", citing Lionel Hutz, Bill McNeal, Troy McClure, and Ted Maltin from Jingle All the Way as examples. Hartman enjoyed playing such roles because he "just want[ed] to be funny, and villains tend to be funny because their foibles are all there to see".
He often played supporting roles, rather than the lead part. He said "throughout my career, I've never been a huge star, but I've made steady progress and that's the way I like it", and "It's fun coming in as the second or third lead. If the movie or TV show bombs, you aren't to blame." Hartman was considered a "utility player" on SNL with a "kind of Everyman quality" which enabled him to appear in the majority of sketches, often in very distinct roles. Jan Hooks stated of his work on SNL: "Phil never had an ounce of competition. He was a team player. It was a privilege for him, I believe, to play support and do it very well. He was never insulted, no matter how small the role may have been." He was disciplined in his performances, studying the scripts beforehand. Hooks added: "Phil knew how to listen. And he knew how to look you in the eye, and he knew the power of being able to lay back and let somebody else be funny, and then do the reactions. I think Phil was more of an actor than a comedian." Film critic Pauline Kael declared that "Phil Hartman and Jan Hooks on Saturday Night Live are two of the best comic actors I've ever seen."
Writer and acting coach Paul Ryan noted Hartman's work ethic with his impressions. He assembled a collection of video footage of the figure he was preparing to impersonate and watched this continually until he "completely embodied the person". Ryan concluded that "what made [Hartman's impressions] so funny and spot on was Phil's ability to add that perfect touch that only comes from trial and error and practicing in front of audiences and fellow actors." Hartman described this process as "technical". Journalist Lyle V. Harris said Hartman showed a "rare talent for morphing into ... anybody he wanted to be".
Ken Tucker summarized Hartman's comedic style: "He could momentarily fool audiences into thinking he was the straight man, but then he'd cock an eyebrow and give his voice an ironic lilt that delivered a punchline like a fast slider—you barely saw it coming until you started laughing." Hartman claimed that he borrowed his style from actor Bill Murray: "He's been a great influence on me – when he did that smarmy thing in Ghostbusters, then the same sort of thing in Groundhog Day. I tried to imitate it. I couldn't. I wasn't good enough. But I discovered an element of something else, so in a sick kind of way I made myself a career by doing a bad imitation of another comic."
Personal life
Hartman married Gretchen Lewis in 1970 and they divorced in September 1972. He married real estate agent Lisa Strain in 1982, and their marriage lasted three years. Strain told People magazine that Hartman was reclusive off screen and "would disappear emotionally ... he'd be in his own world. That passivity made you crazy." In 1987, Hartman married former model and aspiring actress Brynn Omdahl (born Vicki Jo Omdahl, April 11, 1958 – May 28, 1998), having met her on a blind date the previous year. They had two children, Sean and Birgen Hartman. The marriage had difficulties; she was reportedly intimidated by his success and was frustrated that she could not find any on her own, although neither party wanted a divorce. She was reported to have been jealous and often verbally and/or physically abusive, even sending a letter to his ex-wife, threatening to "rip [Strain's] eyes out" if she spoke to him again. Hartman considered retiring to save the marriage.
Hartman tried to get Brynn acting roles, but she became progressively reliant on alcohol and narcotics, entering rehab several times. On multiple occasions, he removed their children from the household to stay with friends or family because of her drug- and alcohol-fueled outbursts. Because of his close friendship with SNL associate Jan Hooks, Brynn joked on occasion Hooks and Hartman were married "on some other level". Brynn had written threatening letters addressed to Hooks, warning her to not get close to her husband, but they appeared to have never even been sent, being discovered in her belongings following her death.
Stephen Root, Hartman's NewsRadio co-star, said few people knew "the real Phil Hartman", as he was "one of those people who never seemed to come out of character," but he nevertheless gave the impression of a family man who cared deeply for his children. Hartman befriended Joe Rogan during his time on NewsRadio and confided his marital problems to him. Rogan said that he encouraged Hartman to divorce Brynn five times, but "[Hartman] loved his kids and didn't want to leave".
Hartman stated in 1997, though a non-practicing Catholic, he displayed a sense of religiousness. In his spare time, he enjoyed driving, flying, sailing, marksmanship, and playing the guitar.
Murder
On May 27, 1998, Brynn visited the Italian restaurant Buca di Beppo in Encino, California, with producer and writer Christine Zander, who said Brynn was "in a good frame of mind." They had drinks. After returning home, Brynn had a "heated" argument with Phil, after which he went to bed. She entered his bedroom some time before PDT on May 28, 1998, and as he slept, fatally shot him once between the eyes, once in the throat, and once in the upper chest with a Charter Arms .38 caliber handgun. He was 49 years old. She was taking Zoloft, had been drinking alcohol, and had recently used cocaine.
Brynn then drove to the home of her friend Ron Douglas and confessed to the killing, but he did not believe her. They drove back to the house in separate cars, and she called another friend and confessed a second time. On seeing Hartman's body, Douglas called 9-1-1 at Police arrived and escorted Douglas and the Hartmans' two children from the premises, by which time Brynn had locked herself in the bedroom. Shortly afterward, she committed suicide by a self-inflicted gunshot.
The police stated Hartman's death was caused by "domestic discord" between the couple. A friend said Brynn "had trouble controlling her anger ... She got attention by losing her temper". A neighbor of the Hartmans told a CNN reporter that the couple had marital problems. Yet actor Steve Guttenberg said they had been "a very happy couple, and they always had the appearance of being well-balanced".
A wrongful death lawsuit was filed in 1999 by her brother Gregory Omdahl, against Pfizer, the manufacturer of Zoloft, and against her child's psychiatrist, Arthur Sorosky, who had provided samples of the antidepressant to Brynn. Phil Hartman's friend and former SNL colleague Jon Lovitz has accused Hartman's then NewsRadio co-star Andy Dick of reintroducing Brynn to cocaine, causing her to relapse and suffer a nervous breakdown. Dick claims to have known nothing of her condition. Lovitz later said he no longer blamed Dick for Hartman's murder, but in 2006, Lovitz claimed Dick approached him at a restaurant and said, "I put the Phil Hartman hex on you; you're the next one to die." Lovitz then had him ejected from the restaurant. The following year at the Laugh Factory comedy club in Los Angeles, Lovitz and Dick had another argument, with Lovitz slamming Dick's head into the bar. Dick asserted he was not at fault in relation to Hartman's death.
Brynn's sister Katharine Omdahl and brother-in-law Mike Wright raised the two Hartman children. Hartman's will stipulated each child would inherit money over several years after turning 25. The total value of Hartman's estate was estimated at . In accordance with his wishes, his body was cremated by Forest Lawn Memorial Park and Mortuary, Glendale, California, and his ashes scattered over Santa Catalina Island's Emerald Bay.
Response and legacy
NBC executive Don Ohlmeyer stated that Hartman "was blessed with a tremendous gift for creating characters that made people laugh. Everyone who had the pleasure of working with Phil knows that he was a man of tremendous warmth, a true professional and a loyal friend." Guttenberg expressed shock at Hartman's death, and Steve Martin said he was "a deeply funny and very happy person". Matt Groening called him "a master", and director Joe Dante said, "He was one of those guys who was a dream to work with. I don't know anybody who didn't like him." Dan Snierson of Entertainment Weekly concluded that Hartman was "the last person you'd expect to read about in lurid headlines in your morning paper" and "a decidedly regular guy, beloved by everyone he worked with". In 2007, Entertainment Weekly ranked Hartman the 87th greatest television icon of all time, and Maxim named him the top Saturday Night Live performer of all time.
On the day of Hartman's death, rehearsals for The Simpsons were canceled as well as that night's performance by The Groundlings. The season five premiere episode of NewsRadio, "Bill Moves On", finds Hartman's character, Bill McNeal, has died of a heart attack, while the other characters reminisce about his life. Lovitz joined the show in his place beginning with the next episode. A special episode of Saturday Night Live commemorating Hartman's work on the show aired on June 13, 1998. Rather than substituting another voice actor, the writers of The Simpsons retired Hartman's characters. His final appearance on the show, the season ten episode "Bart the Mother", is dedicated to him, as is his final film, Small Soldiers.
At the time of his death, Hartman was preparing to voice Zapp Brannigan, a character written specifically for him on Groening's second animated series Futurama. Even though the role was specifically made for him, Hartman still insisted on auditioning and Groening said he "nailed it." After Hartman's death, Billy West took over the role. Though executive producer David X. Cohen credits West with using his own take on the character, West later said that he purposely tweaked Zapp's voice to better match Hartman's intended portrayal. Hartman was planning to appear with Lovitz in the indie film The Day of Swine and Roses, scheduled to begin production in August 1998.
In 2002, Laugh.com and Hartman's brother John published the album, Flat TV, a selection of comedy sketches recorded by Hartman in the 1970s, which had been kept in storage. John Hartmann commented: "I'm putting this out there because I'm dedicating my life to fulfilling his dreams. This [album] is my brother doing what he loved." In 2013, Flat TV was optioned by Michael "Ffish" Hemschoot's animation company Worker Studio for an animated adaptation. The deal came about after Michael T. Scott, a partner in the company, posted online a hand-written letter he had received from Hartman in 1997, leading to a correspondence between Scott and Paul Hartmann.
In 2007, a campaign was started on Facebook by Alex Stevens and endorsed by Hartman's brother Paul, to have Phil inducted to Canada's Walk of Fame. Among the campaign's numerous publicity events, Ben Miner of the Sirius XM Radio channel Laugh Attack, dedicated the month of April 2012 to Hartman. The campaign ended in success and Hartman was inducted to the Walk of Fame on September 22, 2012, with Paul accepting the award on his late brother's behalf. Hartman was also awarded the Cineplex Legends Award. In June 2013, it was announced that Hartman would receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, which was unveiled on August 26, 2014. Additionally, a special prize at the Canadian Comedy Awards was named for Hartman. Beginning with the 13th Canadian Comedy Awards in 2012, the Phil Hartman Award was awarded to "an individual who helps to better the Canadian comedy community". In 2015, Rolling Stone magazine ranked Hartman as one of the top-ten greatest Saturday Night Live cast members throughout the show's forty-year history, coming in seventh on their list of all 141 members.
Filmography
Film
Television
Video games
Theme park attractions
Discography
1977
America, Harbor
1978
America, Silent Letter
Poco, Legend
1980
Firesign Theatre, Fighting Clowns
References
Book sources
External links
Phil Hartman at Yahoo! Movies
Phil Hartman at The New York Times
Hartman's autopsy and death certificate
Phil Hartman's final night: The tragic death of a “Saturday Night Live” genius, Mike Thomas, Salon, September 21, 2014
1948 births
1998 deaths
1998 murders in the United States
20th-century American male actors
20th-century Canadian male actors
Album-cover and concert-poster artists
American male comedians
American male film actors
American graphic designers
American impressionists (entertainers)
American male screenwriters
American male television actors
American television writers
American male voice actors
American sketch comedians
California State University, Northridge alumni
Canadian male comedians
Canadian emigrants to the United States
Canadian male voice actors
Canadian murder victims
Canadian sketch comedians
Deaths by firearm in California
Male actors from Los Angeles
American male television writers
Murder–suicides in California
Naturalized citizens of the United States
People from Brantford
People murdered in Los Angeles
Primetime Emmy Award winners
Santa Monica College alumni
Comedians from California
Mariticides
Westchester High School (Los Angeles) alumni
Screenwriters from California
20th-century Canadian comedians
20th-century American comedians
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American screenwriters
Comedians from Ontario
| true |
[
"Perry T. Ryan (born November 26, 1962) is an American lawyer who writes books on American history. Ryan has authored eight books. These include The Last Public Execution in America (1992), the story of Rainey Bethea, who was legally hanged in Owensboro, Kentucky in 1936. This book was featured on ABC's World News Tonight (Peter Jennings), on ABC's 20/20 (short note by Barbara Walters), on National Public Radio, and on the History Channel. In 1989, Ryan published Legal Lynching: The Plight of Sam Jennings, which chronicled a 1932 Kentucky hanging of a black man accused of the rape of a white woman. Ryan also wrote A Biography of Maurice F. O'Connell: The Story of An American Hero (1996), which celebrated the life of an American soldier of the 29th Infantry Division, who died during the liberation of France in World War II. This book was translated into French in 1998 and it has been used in the public schools of France to teach youngsters about the American contribution to the liberation of their country during the war. Ryan's other books include four genealogies and a church history. He utilizes an expository writing style designed for clarity.\n\nExternal links\n The Last Public Execution in America\n A Biography of Maurice F. O'Connell: The Story of An American Hero \n Biographie de Maurice F. O'Connell \n Kentucky Attorney General\n Kentucky Attorney General, Office of Criminal Appeals\n\nNotes\n\n1962 births\nHistorians of the United States\nKentucky lawyers\nLiving people\nWriters from Kentucky\nAmerican prosecutors",
"This is a list of captains of various ice hockey teams which have represented Canada in international play.\n\nSummit Series team captains\n1972 no captain\n1974 Pat Stapleton\n\nCanada Cup team captains\n1976 Bobby Clarke\n1981 Denis Potvin\n1984 Wayne Gretzky and Larry Robinson (co-captains)\n1987 Wayne Gretzky\n1991 Wayne Gretzky\n\nWorld Cup of Hockey team captains\n1996 Wayne Gretzky\n2004 Mario Lemieux\n2016 Sidney Crosby\n\nWinter Olympics men's & women's team captains\nMen's\n1920 Frank Fredrickson\n1924 Dunc Munro\n1928 John Porter\n1932 William Cockburn\n1936 Herman Murray\n1948 George Mara\n1952 Billy Dawe\n1956 Jack McKenzie\n1960 Harry Sinden\n1964 Hank Akervall\n1968 Marshall Johnston\n1980 Randy Gregg\n1984 Dave Tippett\n1988 Trent Yawney\n1992 Brad Schlegel\n1994 Fabian Joseph\n1998 Eric Lindros\n2002 Mario Lemieux\n2006 Joe Sakic\n2010 Scott Niedermayer\n2014 Sidney Crosby\n2018 Chris Kelly\n2022 Eric StaalWomen's\n1998 Stacy Wilson\n2002, 2006 Cassie Campbell\n2010 Hayley Wickenheiser\n2014 Caroline Ouellette\n2018 Marie-Philip Poulin\n2022 Marie-Philip Poulin\n\nIIHF Canada men's national ice hockey team captains\nNote: The Ice Hockey World Championships were not held in Winter Olympic years, prior to 1992. Until then, the Olympic Ice Hockey champions were considered the Ice Hockey World champions.\n\n1930 Howard Armstrong\n1931 Gord MacKenzie\n1933–1939 No captain\n1947 Did not participate\n1949–1950 No captain\n1951 Hector Negrello\n1953 Did not participate\n1954 Tom Campbell\n1955 George McAvoy\n1957 Did not participate\n1958 Harry Sinden\n1959–1965 No captain\n1966 Terry O'Malley\n1967 Roger Bourbonnais\n1969 No captain\n1970–1976 Did not participate\n1977 Phil Esposito\n1978 Marcel Dionne\n1979 Guy Charron\n1981 Lanny McDonald\n1982 Bobby Clarke\n1983 Darryl Sittler\n1985 Dave Taylor\n1986 Marcel Dionne\n1987 Mike Foligno\n1989 Steve Yzerman\n1990 Paul Coffey\n1991 Doug Lidster\n1992 Glenn Anderson\n1993 Adam Graves\n1994 Luc Robitaille\n1995 Brian Tutt\n1996 Steve Thomas\n1997 Dean Evason\n1998 Keith Primeau\n1999 Rob Blake\n2000 Mike Sillinger\n2001 Michael Peca* and Ryan Smyth\n2002–2005 Ryan Smyth\n2006 Brendan Shanahan\n2007–2009 Shane Doan\n2010 Ryan Smyth* and Ray Whitney\n2011 Rick Nash\n2012 Ryan Getzlaf\n2013 Eric Staal\n2014 Kevin Bieksa\n2015 Sidney Crosby\n2016 Corey Perry\n2017 Claude Giroux\n2018 Connor McDavid\n2019 Kyle Turris\n2020 not held\n2021 Adam Henrique\n2022 TBD\n\nNote: Michael Peca was injured (missed the rest of the tournament); Ryan Smyth replaced him as captain.\n\nNote: Ryan Smyth was injured (missed the rest of the tournament); Ray Whitney replaced him as captain.\n\nIIHF Canada women's national ice hockey team captains\n\n1990 Sue Scherer\n1992, 1994 France St. Louis\n1995–1998 Stacy Wilson\n1999–2001 Thérèse Brisson\n2002–2006 Cassie Campbell\n2007–2013 Hayley Wickenheiser\n2014 Caroline Ouellette\n2015–present Marie-Philip Poulin\n\nNote- The IIHF World Women's Championships tournament, isn't held in Winter Olympic years. The women's national hockey teams participate in the Winter Olympics. Regional championships were held in 1995 and 1996, and the 3/4 Nations Cup has been held yearly since 1996.\n\nWorld Junior (U-20) championships\n\n 1974 Doug Jarvis\n 1976 Fern LeBlanc\n 1977 Dale McCourt\n 1978 Ryan Walter\n 1979 John-Paul Kelly\n 1980 Rick Lanz, Dave Fenyves\n 1981 Marc Crawford\n 1982 Troy Murray\n 1983 James Patrick\n 1984 Russ Courtnall\n 1985 Dan Hodgson\n 1986 Jim Sandlak\n 1987 Steve Chiasson\n 1988 Theoren Fleury\n 1989 Éric Desjardins\n 1990 Dave Chyzowski\n 1991 Steven Rice\n 1992 Eric Lindros\n 1993 Martin Lapointe\n 1994 Brent Tully \n 1995 Todd Harvey\n 1996 Nolan Baumgartner\n 1997 Brad Larsen\n 1998 Cory Sarich, Jesse Wallin\n 1999 Mike Van Ryn\n 2000 Manny Malhotra\n 2001 Steve McCarthy\n 2002 Jarret Stoll\n 2003 Scottie Upshall\n 2004 Dan Paille\n 2005 Mike Richards\n 2006 Kyle Chipchura\n 2007 Kris Letang\n 2008 Karl Alzner\n 2009 Thomas Hickey\n 2010 Patrice Cormier\n 2011 Ryan Ellis\n 2012 Jaden Schwartz\n 2013 Ryan Nugent-Hopkins\n 2014 Scott Laughton\n 2015 Curtis Lazar\n 2016 Brayden Point\n 2017 Dylan Strome\n 2018 Dillon Dubé\n 2019 Maxime Comtois\n 2020 Barrett Hayton\n 2021 Kirby Dach*, Dylan Cozens and Bowen Byram\n 2022 Kaiden GuhleNote: Kirby Dach is injured (missing the entire tournament), Dylan Cozens and Bowen Byram replaced him as captain.''\n\nWorld U18 championships\n 2002 André Benoit\n 2003 Braydon Coburn\n 2004 John Lammers\n 2005 Ryan Parent\n 2006 Ty Wishart\n 2007 Angelo Esposito\n 2008 Cody Hodgson\n 2009 Ryan O'Reilly\n 2010 Erik Gudbranson\n 2011 Ryan Murray\n 2012 Matt Dumba\n 2013 Sam Reinhart\n 2014 Roland McKeown\n 2015 Mitchell Stephens\n 2016 Tyson Jost\n 2017 Jaret Anderson-Dolan\n 2018 Ty Smith\n 2019 Peyton Krebs\n 2020 not held\n 2021 Shane Wright\n 2022 TBD\n\n \nCaptain\nIce hockey captains"
] |
[
"Phil Hartman",
"Style",
"What was his style considered?",
"was described as \"a regular guy and, by all accounts, one of show business' most low-key, decent people\",",
"How did this help his career?",
"often played seedy, vain or unpleasant characters as well as comedic villains. He noted that his standard character was a \"jerky guy\", and described his usual roles",
"Did he enjoy playing these parts?",
"Hartman enjoyed playing such roles because he \"just want[ed] to be funny, and villains tend to be funny because their foibles are all there to see.\"",
"What parts was he famous for?",
"He often played supporting roles, rather than the lead part. He said \"throughout my career, I've never been a huge star, but I've made steady progress",
"Was he okay with that?",
"that's the way I like it,\" and \"It's fun coming in as the second or third lead.",
"Did he ever want to quit?",
"discovered an element of something else, so in a sick kind of way I made myself a career by doing a bad imitation of another comic.\"",
"Any other talents that were \"accidentally\" found?",
"He could momentarily fool audiences into thinking he was the straight man, but then he'd cock an eyebrow and give his voice an ironic lilt",
"Was he straight?",
"but then he'd cock an eyebrow and give his voice an ironic lilt that delivered a punchline like a fast slider--you barely saw it coming until you started laughing.\"",
"Did that remain his style throughout his career?",
"\" Hartman claimed that he borrowed his style from actor Bill Murray: \"He's been a great influence on me - when he did that smarmy thing in Ghostbusters,",
"Any other idols for him?",
"Writer and acting coach Paul Ryan noted Hartman's work ethic with his impressions.",
"Did Ryan teach him anything of note?",
"He assembled a collection of video footage of the figure he was preparing to impersonate and watched this continually until he \"completely embodied the person\"."
] |
C_f5004bcd827b41ce8db5ff729ef1e178_0
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What other techniques did he use?
| 12 |
What other techniques did Hartman use in addition to watching video of his idols?
|
Phil Hartman
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In contrast to his real-life personality, which was described as "a regular guy and, by all accounts, one of show business' most low-key, decent people", Hartman often played seedy, vain or unpleasant characters as well as comedic villains. He noted that his standard character was a "jerky guy", and described his usual roles as "the weasel parade", citing Lionel Hutz, Bill McNeal, Troy McClure and Ted Maltin from Jingle All the Way as examples. Hartman enjoyed playing such roles because he "just want[ed] to be funny, and villains tend to be funny because their foibles are all there to see." He often played supporting roles, rather than the lead part. He said "throughout my career, I've never been a huge star, but I've made steady progress and that's the way I like it," and "It's fun coming in as the second or third lead. If the movie or TV show bombs, you aren't to blame." Hartman was considered a "utility player" on SNL with a "kind of Everyman quality" which enabled him to appear in the majority of sketches, often in very distinct roles. Jan Hooks stated of his work on SNL: "Phil never had an ounce of competition. He was a team player. It was a privilege for him, I believe, to play support and do it very well. He was never insulted, no matter how small the role may have been." He was disciplined in his performances, studying the scripts beforehand. Hooks added: "Phil knew how to listen. And he knew how to look you in the eye, and he knew the power of being able to lay back and let somebody else be funny, and then do the reactions. I think Phil was more of an actor than a comedian." Film critic Pauline Kael declared that "Phil Hartman and Jan Hooks on Saturday Night Live are two of the best comic actors I've ever seen." Writer and acting coach Paul Ryan noted Hartman's work ethic with his impressions. He assembled a collection of video footage of the figure he was preparing to impersonate and watched this continually until he "completely embodied the person". Ryan concluded that "what made [Hartman's impressions] so funny and spot on was Phil's ability to add that perfect touch that only comes from trial and error and practicing in front of audiences and fellow actors." Hartman described this process as "technical." Journalist Lyle V. Harris said Hartman showed a "rare talent for morphing into [...] anybody he wanted to be". Ken Tucker summarized Hartman's comedic style: "He could momentarily fool audiences into thinking he was the straight man, but then he'd cock an eyebrow and give his voice an ironic lilt that delivered a punchline like a fast slider--you barely saw it coming until you started laughing." Hartman claimed that he borrowed his style from actor Bill Murray: "He's been a great influence on me - when he did that smarmy thing in Ghostbusters, then the same sort of thing in Groundhog Day. I tried to imitate it. I couldn't. I wasn't good enough. But I discovered an element of something else, so in a sick kind of way I made myself a career by doing a bad imitation of another comic." CANNOTANSWER
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Phil's ability to add that perfect touch that only comes from trial and error and practicing in front of audiences and fellow actors."
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Philip Edward Hartman (né Hartmann; September 24, 1948 – May 28, 1998) was a Canadian-American actor, comedian, screenwriter, and graphic designer. Hartman was born in Brantford, Ontario, Canada, and his family moved to the United States when he was ten years old. After graduating from California State University, Northridge with a degree in graphic arts, he designed album covers for bands including Poco and America. In 1975, Hartman joined the comedy group The Groundlings, where he helped Paul Reubens develop his character Pee-wee Herman. Hartman co-wrote the film Pee-wee's Big Adventure and made recurring appearances as Captain Carl on Reubens' show Pee-wee's Playhouse.
In 1986, Hartman joined the NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live (SNL) as a cast member, and stayed for eight seasons until 1994. Nicknamed "Glue" for his ability to hold the show together and help other cast members, he won a Primetime Emmy Award for his SNL work in 1989. In 1995, he starred as Bill McNeal in the sitcom NewsRadio after declining to return to SNL. He also voiced various characters on The Simpsons, and had minor roles in the films Houseguest, Sgt. Bilko, Jingle All the Way, and Small Soldiers.
After two divorces, Hartman married Brynn Omdahl in 1987, with whom he had two children. Their marriage was troubled due to Brynn's drug use and domestic violence against Phil, who was frequently absent from home. In 1998, while Hartman was sleeping in his bed, his wife shot and killed him, and later committed suicide. In the weeks following his murder, Hartman was celebrated in a wave of tributes. Dan Snierson of Entertainment Weekly wrote that Hartman was "the last person you'd expect to read about in lurid headlines in your morning paper ... a decidedly regular guy, beloved by everyone he worked with". He was posthumously inducted into the Canada and Hollywood Walks of Fame in 2012 and 2014.
Early life
Hartman was born Philip Edward Hartmann (later dropping one "n") on September 24, 1948, in Brantford, Ontario. He was the fourth of eight children of Doris Marguerite (née Wardell; July 17, 1919 – April 15, 2001) and Rupert Loebig Hartmann (November 8, 1914 – April 30, 1998), who sold building materials. The family was Catholic. As a child, Hartman found affection hard to earn: "I suppose I didn't get what I wanted out of my family life, so I started seeking love and attention elsewhere."
Hartman was ten when his family moved to the United States. They first lived in Lewiston, Maine, then Meriden, Connecticut, and then on the West Coast, where he attended Westchester High School and frequently acted as the class clown. After graduating, he studied art at Santa Monica City College, dropping out in 1969 to become a roadie with a rock band. He returned to school in 1972 to study graphic arts at California State University, Northridge. He developed and operated his own graphic art business, creating more than 40 album covers for bands including Poco and America, as well as advertising and the logo for Crosby, Stills & Nash. In the late 1970s, he made his first television appearance on an episode of The Dating Game, where he won.
Career
Early career (1975–1985)
Working alone as a graphic artist, Hartman frequently amused himself with "flights of voice fantasies". In 1975, seeking a more social outlet for his talents, he began attending evening comedy classes by the California-based improvisational comedy group The Groundlings. While watching one of their performances, he impulsively decided to climb on stage and join the cast. His first onscreen appearance was in 1978's Stunt Rock, an Australian film directed in Los Angeles by Brian Trenchard-Smith. After several years of training, paying his way by redesigning the group's logo and merchandise, Hartman formally joined The Groundlings and by 1979 was one of the show's stars.
There Hartman befriended Paul Reubens, with whom he often collaborated on comedic material. Together they created the character Pee-wee Herman and developed The Pee-wee Herman Show, a live stage show that subsequently aired on HBO in 1981. Hartman played Captain Carl in the show, and reprised the role for the children's TV show Pee-wee's Playhouse. Reubens and Hartman made cameos in the 1980 film Cheech & Chong's Next Movie. Hartman co-wrote the script of the 1985 feature film Pee-wee's Big Adventure and had a cameo role as a reporter. He'd considered quitting acting at the age of 36 due to the challenges of finding work; but the success of Pee-wee's Big Adventure changed his mind. After a creative disagreement with Reubens, he left the Pee-Wee Herman project to pursue other roles.
Hartman took more small roles in 1986 films such as Jumpin' Jack Flash and Three Amigos. He also worked as a voice actor in animated television programs, including The Smurfs, Challenge of the GoBots, The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo, and in Dennis the Menace as characters Henry Mitchell and George Wilson. He developed a strong persona providing voice-overs for advertisements.
Saturday Night Live (1986–1994)
Hartman successfully auditioned to join NBC's variety show Saturday Night Live (SNL) in its 12th season, which began on October 11, 1986. He had been recommended for the show by fellow Groundlings and SNL cast members Jon Lovitz, and Laraine Newman as well as Jumpin' Jack Flash director Penny Marshall. He told the Los Angeles Times, "I wanted to do [SNL] because I wanted to get the exposure that would give me box-office credibility so I can write movies for myself." In his eight seasons with the show Hartman became known for his impressions, and performed as over 70 different characters. Hartman's original SNL characters include Eugene, the Anal Retentive Chef and Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer. His impressions include Frank Sinatra, Ronald Reagan, Ed McMahon, Barbara Bush, Charlton Heston, Phil Donahue, and Bill Clintonthe latter considered his best-known impression.
Hartman first performed his Clinton impression on an episode of The Tonight Show. When he met Clinton in 1993, Hartman remarked, "I guess I owe you a few apologies", adding later that he "sometimes [felt] a twinge of guilt about [his Clinton impression]". Clinton showed good humor and sent Hartman a signed photo with the text: "You're not the president, but you play one on TV. And you're OK, mostly." Hartman copied the president's "post-nasal drip" and the "slight scratchiness" in his voice, as well as his open, "less intimidating" hand gestures. Hartman opted against wearing a larger prosthetic nose when portraying Clinton, as he thought it would be distracting. He instead wore a wig, dyed his eyebrows brighter, and used makeup to highlight his nose. In one of Hartman's sketches as Clinton, the president visits a McDonald's restaurant and explains his economic policies in the metaphor of eating other customers' food. The writers told him that he was not eating enough during rehearsals for the sketch – by the end of the live performance, Hartman had eaten so much he could barely speak.
At SNL, Hartman's nickname of "Glue" was coined by Adam Sandler according to Jay Mohr's book Gasping for Airtime. However, according to You Might Remember Me: The Life and Times of Phil Hartman by Mike Thomas, author and staff writer for the Chicago Sun-Times, the nickname was created by SNL cast member and Hartman's frequent on-screen collaborator Jan Hooks. Hartman was very helpful to other cast members. For example, he aided Hooks in overcoming her stage fright. SNL creator Lorne Michaels explained the name: "He kind of held the show together. He gave to everybody and demanded very little. He was very low-maintenance." Michaels also added that Hartman was "the least appreciated" cast member by commentators outside the show, and praised his ability "to do five or six parts in a show where you're playing support or you're doing remarkable character work". Hartman won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Variety, Music or Comedy Program for SNL in 1989, sharing the award with the show's other writers. He was nominated in the same category in 1987, and individually in 1994 for Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program.
By 1993, almost every cast member who was there during Hartman's first year on SNL had left the show, including Jon Lovitz, Jan Hooks and Dana Carvey. Hartman said he felt "like an athlete who's watched all his World Series teammates get traded off into other directions ... It was hard to watch them leave because I sort of felt we were all part of the team that saved the show." This cast turnover contributed to his leaving the show in 1994. Hartman said he thought it was time to leave because the show was "getting less sophisticated" and his style of humor didn't fit with the less intellectual comedy of newer cast members like Adam Sandler. Hartman had originally planned to leave the show in 1991, but Michaels convinced him to stay to raise his profile; his portrayal of Clinton contributed to this goal. Jay Leno offered him the role of his sidekick on The Tonight Show but Hartman opted to stay on SNL. NBC persuaded him to stay on SNL by promising him his own comedy–variety show The Phil Show. He planned to "reinvent the variety form" with "a hybrid, very fast-paced, high energy [show] with sketches, impersonations, pet acts, and performers showcasing their talents". Hartman was to be the show's executive producer and head writer. Before production began, however, the network decided that variety shows were too unpopular and canceled the series. In a 1996 interview, Hartman noted he was glad, as he "would've been sweatin' blood each week trying to make it work". In 1998, he admitted he missed working on SNL, but had enjoyed the move from New York City to Southern California.
NewsRadio (1995–1998)
Hartman became one of the stars of the NBC sitcom NewsRadio in 1995, portraying radio news anchor Bill McNeal. He signed up after being attracted by the show's writing and use of an ensemble cast, and joked that he based McNeal on himself with "any ethics and character" removed. Hartman made roughly per episode of NewsRadio. Although the show was critically acclaimed, it was never a ratings hit and cancellation was a regular threat. After the completion of the fourth season, Hartman commented, "We seem to have limited appeal. We're on the edge here, not sure we're going to be picked up or not", but added he was "99 percent sure" the series would be renewed for a fifth season. Hartman had publicly lambasted NBC's decision to repeatedly move NewsRadio into different timeslots, but later regretted his comments, saying, "this is a sitcom, for crying out loud, not brain surgery". He also stated that if the sitcom were cancelled "it just will open up other opportunities for me". Although the show was renewed for a fifth season, Hartman died before production began. Ken Tucker praised Hartman's performance as McNeal: "A lesser performer ... would have played him as a variation on The Mary Tyler Moore Shows Ted Baxter, because that's what Bill was, on paper. But Hartman gave infinite variety to Bill's self-centeredness, turning him devious, cowardly, squeamish, and foolishly bold from week to week." Hartman was posthumously nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series in 1998 for his work on NewsRadio, but lost to David Hyde Pierce.
The Simpsons (1991–1998)
Hartman provided the voices for numerous characters on the Fox animated series The Simpsons, appearing in 52 episodes. He made his first appearance in the second season episode "Bart Gets Hit by a Car". Although he was originally brought in for a one-time appearance, Hartman enjoyed working on The Simpsons and the staff wrote additional parts for him. He voiced the recurring characters Lionel Hutz and Troy McClure, as well as Duff man (on one occasion) and several background characters. His favorite part was that of McClure, and he often used this voice to entertain the audience between takes while taping episodes of NewsRadio. He remarked, "My favorite fans are Troy McClure fans." He added "It's the one thing that I do in my life that's almost an avocation. I do it for the pure love of it."
Hartman was popular among the staff of The Simpsons. Showrunners Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein said they enjoyed his work, and used him as much as possible when working on the show. To give Hartman a larger role, they developed the episode "A Fish Called Selma", which focuses on Troy McClure and expands the character's backstory. The Simpsons creator Matt Groening said that he "took [Hartman] for granted because he nailed the joke every time", and that his voice acting could produce "the maximum amount of humor" with any line he was given. Before his death, Hartman had expressed an interest in making a live action film about Troy McClure. Many of The Simpsons production staff expressed enthusiasm for the project and offered to help. Hartman said he was "looking forward to [McClure's] live-action movie, publicizing his Betty Ford appearances", and "would love nothing more" than making a film and was prepared to buy the film rights himself in order to make it happen.
Other work
Hartman's first starring film role came in 1995's Houseguest, alongside Sinbad. Other films include Greedy, Coneheads, Sgt. Bilko, So I Married an Axe Murderer, CB4, Jingle All the Way, Kiki's Delivery Service, and Small Soldiers, the latter of which is his final theatrically released film. At the same time, he preferred working on television. His other television roles include appearances on episodes of The John Larroquette Show, The Dana Carvey Show, 3rd Rock from the Sun, and the HBO TV film The Second Civil War as the President of the United States. He made a considerable amount of money from television advertising, earning $300,000 for a series of four commercials for the soft drink Slice. He also appeared in advertisements for McDonald's (as Hugh McAttack) and 1-800-Collect (as Max Jerome).
Hartman wrote a number of screenplays that were never produced. In 1986, he began writing a screenplay for a film titled Mr. Fix-It, and completed the final draft in 1991. Robert Zemeckis was signed to produce the film, with Gil Bettman hired to direct. Hartman called it "a sort of a merger of horror and comedy, like Beetlejuice and Throw Momma From the Train", adding, "It's an American nightmare about a family torn asunder. They live next to a toxic dump site, their water supply is poisoned, the mother and son go insane and try to murder each other, the father's face is torn off in a terrible disfiguring accident in the first act. It's heavy stuff, but it's got a good message and a positive, upbeat ending." Zemeckis could not secure studio backing, however, and the project collapsed. Another film idea involving Hartman's Groundlings character Chick Hazard, Private Eye was also canceled.
Style
In contrast to his real-life personality, which was described as "a regular guy and, by all accounts, one of show business's most low-key, decent people", Hartman often played seedy, vain or unpleasant characters as well as comedic villains. He described his standard character repertoire as the "jerky guy" and "the weasel parade", citing Lionel Hutz, Bill McNeal, Troy McClure, and Ted Maltin from Jingle All the Way as examples. Hartman enjoyed playing such roles because he "just want[ed] to be funny, and villains tend to be funny because their foibles are all there to see".
He often played supporting roles, rather than the lead part. He said "throughout my career, I've never been a huge star, but I've made steady progress and that's the way I like it", and "It's fun coming in as the second or third lead. If the movie or TV show bombs, you aren't to blame." Hartman was considered a "utility player" on SNL with a "kind of Everyman quality" which enabled him to appear in the majority of sketches, often in very distinct roles. Jan Hooks stated of his work on SNL: "Phil never had an ounce of competition. He was a team player. It was a privilege for him, I believe, to play support and do it very well. He was never insulted, no matter how small the role may have been." He was disciplined in his performances, studying the scripts beforehand. Hooks added: "Phil knew how to listen. And he knew how to look you in the eye, and he knew the power of being able to lay back and let somebody else be funny, and then do the reactions. I think Phil was more of an actor than a comedian." Film critic Pauline Kael declared that "Phil Hartman and Jan Hooks on Saturday Night Live are two of the best comic actors I've ever seen."
Writer and acting coach Paul Ryan noted Hartman's work ethic with his impressions. He assembled a collection of video footage of the figure he was preparing to impersonate and watched this continually until he "completely embodied the person". Ryan concluded that "what made [Hartman's impressions] so funny and spot on was Phil's ability to add that perfect touch that only comes from trial and error and practicing in front of audiences and fellow actors." Hartman described this process as "technical". Journalist Lyle V. Harris said Hartman showed a "rare talent for morphing into ... anybody he wanted to be".
Ken Tucker summarized Hartman's comedic style: "He could momentarily fool audiences into thinking he was the straight man, but then he'd cock an eyebrow and give his voice an ironic lilt that delivered a punchline like a fast slider—you barely saw it coming until you started laughing." Hartman claimed that he borrowed his style from actor Bill Murray: "He's been a great influence on me – when he did that smarmy thing in Ghostbusters, then the same sort of thing in Groundhog Day. I tried to imitate it. I couldn't. I wasn't good enough. But I discovered an element of something else, so in a sick kind of way I made myself a career by doing a bad imitation of another comic."
Personal life
Hartman married Gretchen Lewis in 1970 and they divorced in September 1972. He married real estate agent Lisa Strain in 1982, and their marriage lasted three years. Strain told People magazine that Hartman was reclusive off screen and "would disappear emotionally ... he'd be in his own world. That passivity made you crazy." In 1987, Hartman married former model and aspiring actress Brynn Omdahl (born Vicki Jo Omdahl, April 11, 1958 – May 28, 1998), having met her on a blind date the previous year. They had two children, Sean and Birgen Hartman. The marriage had difficulties; she was reportedly intimidated by his success and was frustrated that she could not find any on her own, although neither party wanted a divorce. She was reported to have been jealous and often verbally and/or physically abusive, even sending a letter to his ex-wife, threatening to "rip [Strain's] eyes out" if she spoke to him again. Hartman considered retiring to save the marriage.
Hartman tried to get Brynn acting roles, but she became progressively reliant on alcohol and narcotics, entering rehab several times. On multiple occasions, he removed their children from the household to stay with friends or family because of her drug- and alcohol-fueled outbursts. Because of his close friendship with SNL associate Jan Hooks, Brynn joked on occasion Hooks and Hartman were married "on some other level". Brynn had written threatening letters addressed to Hooks, warning her to not get close to her husband, but they appeared to have never even been sent, being discovered in her belongings following her death.
Stephen Root, Hartman's NewsRadio co-star, said few people knew "the real Phil Hartman", as he was "one of those people who never seemed to come out of character," but he nevertheless gave the impression of a family man who cared deeply for his children. Hartman befriended Joe Rogan during his time on NewsRadio and confided his marital problems to him. Rogan said that he encouraged Hartman to divorce Brynn five times, but "[Hartman] loved his kids and didn't want to leave".
Hartman stated in 1997, though a non-practicing Catholic, he displayed a sense of religiousness. In his spare time, he enjoyed driving, flying, sailing, marksmanship, and playing the guitar.
Murder
On May 27, 1998, Brynn visited the Italian restaurant Buca di Beppo in Encino, California, with producer and writer Christine Zander, who said Brynn was "in a good frame of mind." They had drinks. After returning home, Brynn had a "heated" argument with Phil, after which he went to bed. She entered his bedroom some time before PDT on May 28, 1998, and as he slept, fatally shot him once between the eyes, once in the throat, and once in the upper chest with a Charter Arms .38 caliber handgun. He was 49 years old. She was taking Zoloft, had been drinking alcohol, and had recently used cocaine.
Brynn then drove to the home of her friend Ron Douglas and confessed to the killing, but he did not believe her. They drove back to the house in separate cars, and she called another friend and confessed a second time. On seeing Hartman's body, Douglas called 9-1-1 at Police arrived and escorted Douglas and the Hartmans' two children from the premises, by which time Brynn had locked herself in the bedroom. Shortly afterward, she committed suicide by a self-inflicted gunshot.
The police stated Hartman's death was caused by "domestic discord" between the couple. A friend said Brynn "had trouble controlling her anger ... She got attention by losing her temper". A neighbor of the Hartmans told a CNN reporter that the couple had marital problems. Yet actor Steve Guttenberg said they had been "a very happy couple, and they always had the appearance of being well-balanced".
A wrongful death lawsuit was filed in 1999 by her brother Gregory Omdahl, against Pfizer, the manufacturer of Zoloft, and against her child's psychiatrist, Arthur Sorosky, who had provided samples of the antidepressant to Brynn. Phil Hartman's friend and former SNL colleague Jon Lovitz has accused Hartman's then NewsRadio co-star Andy Dick of reintroducing Brynn to cocaine, causing her to relapse and suffer a nervous breakdown. Dick claims to have known nothing of her condition. Lovitz later said he no longer blamed Dick for Hartman's murder, but in 2006, Lovitz claimed Dick approached him at a restaurant and said, "I put the Phil Hartman hex on you; you're the next one to die." Lovitz then had him ejected from the restaurant. The following year at the Laugh Factory comedy club in Los Angeles, Lovitz and Dick had another argument, with Lovitz slamming Dick's head into the bar. Dick asserted he was not at fault in relation to Hartman's death.
Brynn's sister Katharine Omdahl and brother-in-law Mike Wright raised the two Hartman children. Hartman's will stipulated each child would inherit money over several years after turning 25. The total value of Hartman's estate was estimated at . In accordance with his wishes, his body was cremated by Forest Lawn Memorial Park and Mortuary, Glendale, California, and his ashes scattered over Santa Catalina Island's Emerald Bay.
Response and legacy
NBC executive Don Ohlmeyer stated that Hartman "was blessed with a tremendous gift for creating characters that made people laugh. Everyone who had the pleasure of working with Phil knows that he was a man of tremendous warmth, a true professional and a loyal friend." Guttenberg expressed shock at Hartman's death, and Steve Martin said he was "a deeply funny and very happy person". Matt Groening called him "a master", and director Joe Dante said, "He was one of those guys who was a dream to work with. I don't know anybody who didn't like him." Dan Snierson of Entertainment Weekly concluded that Hartman was "the last person you'd expect to read about in lurid headlines in your morning paper" and "a decidedly regular guy, beloved by everyone he worked with". In 2007, Entertainment Weekly ranked Hartman the 87th greatest television icon of all time, and Maxim named him the top Saturday Night Live performer of all time.
On the day of Hartman's death, rehearsals for The Simpsons were canceled as well as that night's performance by The Groundlings. The season five premiere episode of NewsRadio, "Bill Moves On", finds Hartman's character, Bill McNeal, has died of a heart attack, while the other characters reminisce about his life. Lovitz joined the show in his place beginning with the next episode. A special episode of Saturday Night Live commemorating Hartman's work on the show aired on June 13, 1998. Rather than substituting another voice actor, the writers of The Simpsons retired Hartman's characters. His final appearance on the show, the season ten episode "Bart the Mother", is dedicated to him, as is his final film, Small Soldiers.
At the time of his death, Hartman was preparing to voice Zapp Brannigan, a character written specifically for him on Groening's second animated series Futurama. Even though the role was specifically made for him, Hartman still insisted on auditioning and Groening said he "nailed it." After Hartman's death, Billy West took over the role. Though executive producer David X. Cohen credits West with using his own take on the character, West later said that he purposely tweaked Zapp's voice to better match Hartman's intended portrayal. Hartman was planning to appear with Lovitz in the indie film The Day of Swine and Roses, scheduled to begin production in August 1998.
In 2002, Laugh.com and Hartman's brother John published the album, Flat TV, a selection of comedy sketches recorded by Hartman in the 1970s, which had been kept in storage. John Hartmann commented: "I'm putting this out there because I'm dedicating my life to fulfilling his dreams. This [album] is my brother doing what he loved." In 2013, Flat TV was optioned by Michael "Ffish" Hemschoot's animation company Worker Studio for an animated adaptation. The deal came about after Michael T. Scott, a partner in the company, posted online a hand-written letter he had received from Hartman in 1997, leading to a correspondence between Scott and Paul Hartmann.
In 2007, a campaign was started on Facebook by Alex Stevens and endorsed by Hartman's brother Paul, to have Phil inducted to Canada's Walk of Fame. Among the campaign's numerous publicity events, Ben Miner of the Sirius XM Radio channel Laugh Attack, dedicated the month of April 2012 to Hartman. The campaign ended in success and Hartman was inducted to the Walk of Fame on September 22, 2012, with Paul accepting the award on his late brother's behalf. Hartman was also awarded the Cineplex Legends Award. In June 2013, it was announced that Hartman would receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, which was unveiled on August 26, 2014. Additionally, a special prize at the Canadian Comedy Awards was named for Hartman. Beginning with the 13th Canadian Comedy Awards in 2012, the Phil Hartman Award was awarded to "an individual who helps to better the Canadian comedy community". In 2015, Rolling Stone magazine ranked Hartman as one of the top-ten greatest Saturday Night Live cast members throughout the show's forty-year history, coming in seventh on their list of all 141 members.
Filmography
Film
Television
Video games
Theme park attractions
Discography
1977
America, Harbor
1978
America, Silent Letter
Poco, Legend
1980
Firesign Theatre, Fighting Clowns
References
Book sources
External links
Phil Hartman at Yahoo! Movies
Phil Hartman at The New York Times
Hartman's autopsy and death certificate
Phil Hartman's final night: The tragic death of a “Saturday Night Live” genius, Mike Thomas, Salon, September 21, 2014
1948 births
1998 deaths
1998 murders in the United States
20th-century American male actors
20th-century Canadian male actors
Album-cover and concert-poster artists
American male comedians
American male film actors
American graphic designers
American impressionists (entertainers)
American male screenwriters
American male television actors
American television writers
American male voice actors
American sketch comedians
California State University, Northridge alumni
Canadian male comedians
Canadian emigrants to the United States
Canadian male voice actors
Canadian murder victims
Canadian sketch comedians
Deaths by firearm in California
Male actors from Los Angeles
American male television writers
Murder–suicides in California
Naturalized citizens of the United States
People from Brantford
People murdered in Los Angeles
Primetime Emmy Award winners
Santa Monica College alumni
Comedians from California
Mariticides
Westchester High School (Los Angeles) alumni
Screenwriters from California
20th-century Canadian comedians
20th-century American comedians
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American screenwriters
Comedians from Ontario
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[
"is a Japanese design concept involving the play and placement of light and dark elements as they are placed next to the other in the composition of art and imagery.\n\nUses\nThis use of light and dark translates shape and form into flat shapes on a two-dimensional surface. Nōtan is traditionally presented in paint, ink, or cut paper, but it is relevant to a host of modern-day image-making techniques, such as lithography in printmaking, and rotoscoping in animation.\n\nSee also\n Negative space\nGestalt psychology\nYin and yang\n\nReferences\nComposition: A Series of Exercises in Art Structure for the Use of Students and teachers by Arthur Wesley Dow (1899)(1855)\nNotan: A Virtual Art Academy building block by Barry John Raybould, MA (2004/2010) Course on Notan\nNotan: The Dark-Light Principle of Design by Dorr Bothwell and Marlys Mayfield (1968/1991)\nThe Interaction of Color by Josef Albers (1963)\nPerception and Imaging by Richard D. Zakia (1997/2001)\n\nExternal links\n Notan: Design in Light and Dark by Sharon Himes\n A guide to Notan: The What Why and How\n Notan – What It Is And How To Use It In Art\n\nJapanese art\nDesign\nPainting techniques",
"The Techniques were a Jamaican rocksteady vocal group mainly active in the 1960s.\n\nHistory\nThe group was formed by Winston Riley in 1962 while still at school, with the initial line-up also featuring Slim Smith, Franklyn White, and Frederick Waite. They regularly performed at Edward Seaga's Chocomo Lawn club, where they were spotted by talent scouts from Columbia Records, who released their first single, \"No One\", released only in the United Kingdom in 1963. Their Jamaican debut came in 1965 when they were introduced to producer Duke Reid by singer Stranger Cole, with Reid-produced singles such as \"Don't Leave Me\", \"When You Are Wrong\", and \"Little Did You Know\" appearing on labels such as Island Records, and Reid's own Duke and Treasure Isle labels. Smith left the group in 1966, to pursue a solo career at Studio One, and later forming The Uniques with White. He was replaced by Pat Kelly. The shift from ska to rocksteady suited The Techniques, with a string of hits in 1967 and 1968 following, including \"You Don't Care\", \"Queen Majesty\", \"I Wish It Would Rain\", \"It's You I Love\", and \"Love Is Not a Gamble\".\n\nThe group left Treasure Isle in 1968, with Riley setting up his own 'Techniques' record label, releasing further sides by the group and also his productions of other artists. The group's line up changed regularly with Riley the only constant member. Other members in the late 1960s included Lloyd Parks, Bruce Ruffin, and Dave Barker. Kelly returned for a time, recording lead vocals on \"What Am I To Do?\".\n\nRiley became one of the most successful Jamaican producers of the 1980s. Kelly and Ruffin enjoyed successful solo careers. Parks worked as a prolific session musician as well as working as a solo artist. Barker found fame as part of the duo Dave & Ansell Collins. Waite emigrated to the UK where he managed Musical Youth, the band including his sons as members.\n\nThe Techniques were briefly revived in 1982, with ex-Paragon Tyrone Evans on lead vocals, releasing a re-recorded \"Love Is Not a Gamble\", and a new album.\n\nDiscography\n\nAlbums\nLittle Did You Know (1967) Treasure Isle\nUnforgettable Days (1981) Techniques\nI'll Never Fall In Love (1983) Techniques\n\nCompilation albums\nClassics (1982) Techniques\nClassics vol. 2 (1982) Techniques\nRock Steady Classics Rhino\nRun Come Celebrate (1993) Heartbeat\nTechniques in Dub (1997) Pressure Sounds\nQueen Majesty (2007) Trojan\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nThe Techniques at Roots Archives\n\nJamaican reggae musical groups\nMusical groups established in 1962\nTrojan Records artists\n1962 establishments in Jamaica"
] |
[
"Bill Edwards (American football coach)",
"Detroit Lions, military service, and Cleveland Browns"
] |
C_a1a2880e800847b8a33b661ee731765d_1
|
How long was Edwards with the Lions
| 1 |
How long was Bill Edwards with the Lions
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Bill Edwards (American football coach)
|
Having built a strong record at Western Reserve, Edwards was in the running for head coaching roles at a number of larger universities and professional teams. He met with officials at Marquette University and was considered a candidate for coaching duties at Colorado University and for the National Football League's Detroit Lions. After visiting with Lions owner Fred Mandel, Edwards ultimately was hired in February 1941 to succeed George Clark. Both Edwards and Dugan Miller signed two-year contracts. Edwards was given a $10,000 annual salary ($166,380 in 2017 dollars), more than double the $4,420 he was paid at Western Reserve. Edwards's stint as the Lions coach was unsuccessful. He guided the team to a 4-6-1 record in 1941, and Mandel fired him after three straight losses to begin the 1942 season as the team's roster was depleted by players' service in World War II. Detroit went on to lose all the rest of its games after John Karcis was named his replacement. Edwards enlisted in the U.S. Navy later in 1942 as America's involvement in the war intensified. While in the military, he served at St. Mary's Pre-Flight, a training program in California, and coached the Air Devils football team there. He also served at a base in Pensacola, Florida. Edwards was discharged in 1946, and spent a year in the sporting goods business in Cleveland, Ohio before reuniting with Brown, who had become the first coach of the Cleveland Browns in the All-America Football Conference (AAFC). Edwards took a position as a tackle coach and remained with the team for two seasons. He coached tackles including Ernie Blandin, Lou Rymkus and future Pro Football Hall of Fame member Lou Groza. The Browns won the AAFC championship in both of Edwards's years as an assistant; the team won all of its games in 1948, turning in professional football's first perfect season. CANNOTANSWER
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signed two-year contracts.
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William Miller Edwards (June 21, 1905 – June 12, 1987) was an American football player and coach. He served as the head football coach at Western Reserve University, Vanderbilt University and Wittenberg University in a career lasting more than 30 years, compiling a win-loss-tie record of 168–45–8. Edwards also coached the Detroit Lions of the National Football League (NFL) from 1941 to 1942, tallying a 4–9–1 record, and served as an assistant coach for the NFL's Cleveland Browns in the late 1940s.
Raised near Massillon, Ohio, Edwards was the son of an immigrant from Wales who worked in the area's coal mines. He played football at Massillon Washington High School and enrolled at Ohio State University, where he stayed for a year before transferring to Wittenberg University. After college, Edwards began his coaching career at high schools in Ohio. He got his first job as a college head coach in 1935 at Western Reserve, now known as Case Western Reserve University, in Cleveland, Ohio and guided the team to a 49–6–2 record over six seasons. Edwards was then hired to coach the Lions, but his brief stay there was unsuccessful, and he was fired at the beginning of the 1942 season. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy later that year and served in the military during World War II until his discharge in 1946.
Edwards spent a year selling sporting goods in Cleveland, returning to football in 1947 with the Browns as an assistant to head coach Paul Brown, a close friend and former Massillon schoolmate. After two years as the team's tackle coach, he was hired by Vanderbilt in 1949. He stayed there for four years and amassed a 21–19–2 record, but resigned in 1953 under pressure from alumni. After two years as an assistant coach at the University of North Carolina, Edwards was hired by Wittenberg, his alma mater, as head football coach and athletic director. He spent the rest of his career there, serving as head coach until 1968 and remaining as athletic director until 1973. While at Wittenberg, he was named the country's college football coach of the year twice, and his teams posted an overall record of 98–20–4. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1986. Edwards, described as a tough but compassionate coach, had an influence on many men he worked with, including Steve Belichick, the father of New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick. Steve Belichick played for Edwards at Western Reserve and with the Lions, and coached with him at Vanderbilt. Edwards was the godfather of Bill.
Early life and college
Edwards grew up in Massillon, Ohio and attended Massillon Washington High School. He was a schoolmate of Paul Brown, who later became the coach of the Cleveland Browns and helped found the Cincinnati Bengals in the National Football League. The son of a Welsh coal miner, Edwards dropped out of school when he was 14 to help his family by working in the mines of East Greenville, near Massillon. He returned three years later, however, and became a star player on Massillon's football team. Edwards was a linebacker at Massillon between 1922 and 1924.
Edwards enrolled at Ohio State University where he captained the Buckeyes freshman football team and was roommates with Paul Brown, his former Massillon teammate. After the season, however, he transferred to Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio. At Wittenberg, he played as a center starting in 1928 and was the captain of the football team in 1929 and 1930. A tough player, Edwards did not like to wear a helmet, saying "you skin your ears a little without them, but I never had any trouble." He won All-Ohio honors at Wittenberg and was named an honorable mention All-American in 1930. One of Edwards's most memorable games as a collegian came in 1928 against the Ohio Wesleyan Battling Bishops. In the last game of a season in which Wesleyan had a perfect record and beat football powerhouses Michigan and Syracuse, Edwards kicked an extra point as time expired and gave Wittenberg a 7–6 victory. Grantland Rice, a prominent sportswriter of the time, called him the best center in college football. Walter Eckersall of the Chicago Tribune named him an All-American.
Coaching career
High school and Western Reserve
Edwards got his first coaching job in 1931, when he was hired as an assistant football coach at Springfield High School. He also taught history at the school. The following year, he got his first head coaching job at Fostoria High School in Fostoria, Ohio. After two seasons at Fostoria, during the second of which the team put in its best performance in 10 years with an 8–2 record, he left to coach the freshman football team at Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio in 1933. When Reserve head coach Sam Willaman died suddenly in August 1935, players lobbied for Edwards to take his place; Edwards got the job. Edwards brought in former Massillon and Wittenberg teammate and Fostoria aide Roy A. "Dugan" Miller as his chief assistant, and the Western Reserve Red Cats went undefeated in his first two seasons as coach. The team had a 49–6–2 record between the 1935 and 1940 seasons under Edwards. In his last season, Western Reserve reached the Sun Bowl in El Paso, Texas against Arizona State and won the game 26–13 on New Year's Day in 1941.
Detroit Lions, military service, and Cleveland Browns
Having built a strong record at Western Reserve, Edwards was in the running for head coaching roles at a number of larger universities and professional teams. He met with officials at Marquette University and was considered a candidate for coaching duties at Colorado University and for the National Football League's Detroit Lions. After visiting with Lions owner Fred Mandel, Edwards ultimately was hired in February 1941 to succeed George Clark. Both Edwards and Dugan Miller signed two-year contracts. Edwards was given a $10,000 annual salary ($ in dollars), more than double the $4,420 he was paid at Western Reserve.
Edwards's stint as the Lions coach was unsuccessful. He guided the team to a 4–6–1 record in 1941, and Mandel fired him after three straight losses to begin the 1942 season as the team's roster was depleted by players' service in World War II. Detroit went on to lose all the rest of its games after John Karcis was named his replacement.
Edwards enlisted in the U.S. Navy later in 1942 as America's involvement in the war intensified. While in the military, he served at St. Mary's Pre-Flight, a training program in California, and coached the Air Devils football team there. He also served at a base in Pensacola, Florida. Edwards was discharged in 1946, and spent a year in the sporting goods business in Cleveland, Ohio before reuniting with Brown, who had become the first coach of the Cleveland Browns in the All-America Football Conference (AAFC). Edwards took a position as a tackle coach and remained with the team for two seasons. He coached tackles including Ernie Blandin, Lou Rymkus and future Pro Football Hall of Fame member Lou Groza. The Browns won the AAFC championship in both of Edwards's years as an assistant; the team won all of its games in 1948, turning in professional football's first perfect season.
Vanderbilt, North Carolina, and Wittenberg
Edwards was hired as Vanderbilt University's head football coach and athletic director in 1949, replacing Henry Russell Sanders when Sanders left to become head coach at the University of California, Los Angeles. Vanderbilt gave the 43-year-old coach a three-year contract paying a $12,500 salary ($ in today's dollars). "I don't like to leave the Cleveland Browns and Paul Brown in particular," he said at the time. "I'll never forget my experiences with the Browns over the past two years." Edwards remained at Vanderbilt for four seasons, building up a 21–19–2 record. He instituted a modern T formation offense to replace Sanders's more traditional single-wing formation. He resigned in 1953 under pressure from Vanderbilt alumni following a 3–5–2 season. He then moved to the University of North Carolina, where he was an assistant on the football team's coaching staff in 1953 and 1954.
Edwards was hired as athletic director and head football coach at Wittenberg, his alma mater, in 1955. He put in a pro-style offense and focused on passing because his players were smaller than many opponents. "We had small players, but little guys can throw the football and little guys can catch it, whereas you need big guys to block for a running game," he said in 1973. Under Edwards, the Wittenberg Tigers were a major success, amassing a 98–20–4 record in 14 seasons and winning the NCAA College Division national championship poll in 1962 and 1964. Edwards's teams were unbeaten three times and lost one game in five of his seasons there. He was named Ohio College Football Coach of the Year in 1957 by his fellow coaches. The American Football Coaches Association named him coach of the year in 1963 and 1964, when the Tigers won all of their games. He was called "a combination of Genghis Khan and Santa Claus" by Sports Illustrated for being both tough and sympathetic to his players.
Later life and death
Edwards resigned from coaching in 1969, when he was 63 years old, although he continued to work at Wittenberg as the school's athletic director. Dave Maurer, his long-time assistant, took over as the school's coach. By the end of his career, Edwards's 168–45–8 overall college record gave him the second-best winning percentage in the country among active coaches with at least 100 wins. Edwards was given a commendation by President Richard Nixon for his achievements as a coach and won a Football Writers Association of America award for contributions to the game. "His retirement is Wittenberg's loss, but more than that, it is college football's loss," University of Alabama coach Bear Bryant said at the time.
Edwards retired in February 1973 after 39 years as a coach and administrator and said he would concentrate on hunting and fishing. He was inducted into the Ohio Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 1979, Wittenberg's Athletics Hall of Honor in 1985 and into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1986. He was also inducted into the Western Reserve Hall of Fame and the Vanderbilt Hall of Fame in 1986. Edwards died in 1987. He and his wife Dorothy had three children.
The tough but compassionate approach to coaching Edwards espoused influenced many men who worked under him, including Maurer, who led Wittenberg to a 129–23–3 record between 1969 and 1983. Wittenberg's football stadium is named Edwards-Maurer Field in honor of both head coaches. The winner of the Wittenberg-Case Western Reserve football game receives the Bill Edwards Trophy.
Edwards was also close with Steve Belichick, who played for him at Western Reserve and for the Detroit Lions and later served as an assistant under him at Vanderbilt and North Carolina. Belichick's son Bill was named after Edwards, who was also Bill's godfather. Bill Belichick later became an assistant coach in the NFL and is the head coach of the New England Patriots as of . At what is now known as Case Western Reserve University, the football stadium, DiSanto Field, hosts its distinguished guests inside the Coach Bill Edwards President's Suite.
Head coaching record
College
Professional
References
Bibliography
External links
1905 births
1987 deaths
American football centers
Case Western Spartans football coaches
Detroit Lions head coaches
Ohio State Buckeyes football players
North Carolina Tar Heels football coaches
Saint Mary's Pre-Flight Air Devils football coaches
Vanderbilt Commodores athletic directors
Vanderbilt Commodores football coaches
Wittenberg Tigers athletic directors
Wittenberg Tigers football coaches
Wittenberg Tigers football players
High school football coaches in Ohio
College Football Hall of Fame inductees
Sportspeople from Massillon, Ohio
Coaches of American football from Ohio
Players of American football from Ohio
| true |
[
"Larry Edwards (born November 4, 1984) is an American football linebacker for the Columbus Lions of the National Arena League (NAL). He was signed by the Bills as an undrafted free agent in 2007. He played college football at North Carolina.\n\nProfessional career\n\nBuffalo Bills\nEdwards was signed as an undrafted free agent by the Buffalo Bills following the 2007 NFL Draft.\n\nAlbany Panthers\nEdwards has played with the Albany Panthers since their expansion season in 2010. Edwards was a First Team All-PIFL selection in 2012. Edwards has re-signed with the Panthers for the 2014 season.\n\nGeorgia Fire\nEdwards played for the Georgia Fire in 2014, a team that was created by the PIFL to replace the Panthers who folded prior to the start of the season.\n\nColumbus Lions\nEdwards joined the Columbus Lions for the 2015 season, and the Lions obtained the best record in the PIFL, earning a berth in PIFL Cup IV. Edwards was named Second Team All-PIFL. The Lions won the PIFL Championship 64–38 over the Richmond Raiders.\n\nGeorgia Firebirds\nOn December 8, 2016, Edwards signed with the Georgia Firebirds.\n\nColumbus Lions\nOn April 25, 2017, Edwards was traded to the Columbus Lions.\n\nReferences\n\n1984 births\nLiving people\nAmerican football linebackers\nNorth Carolina Tar Heels football players\nBuffalo Bills players\nFlorida Firecats players\nJacksonville Sharks players\nPlayers of American football from Tampa, Florida\nAlbany Panthers players\nGeorgia Fire players\nColumbus Lions players\nGeorgia Firebirds players",
"Kalimba Edwards (born December 26, 1979) is a former American football defensive end. He was originally drafted by the Detroit Lions in the second round of the 2002 NFL Draft. He played college football at South Carolina.\n\nEdwards has also played for the Oakland Raiders.\n\nCollege career\nEdwards played college football at South Carolina. During his sophomore year, he started every game at defensive end, recording 64 tackles and five sacks, earning an All-American selection. During his junior year, he moved to linebacker and finished third on the team in tackles with 74 and tied for the lead in sacks with seven. He also earned All-American third-team selection by the Associated Press and was a consensus All-Southeastern Conference first-team choice. During his senior year, he played both linebacker and defensive end and was a semifinalist for both the Lombardi Trophy and Butkus Award after finishing the season with 79 tackles and 3.5 sacks. He also earned an All-SEC first-team selection during his senior year.\n\nProfessional career\n\nDetroit Lions\nEdwards was drafted by the Detroit Lions in the second round of the 2002 NFL Draft. During his rookie year he played in all 16 games and led the team in sacks with 6.5. In 2005, he led the Lions in sacks for the second time with seven. The Lions released him on March 13, 2008. He finished his career with the Lions with 160 tackles and 26 sacks.\n\nOakland Raiders\nOn March 28, 2008 Edwards was signed by the Oakland Raiders to a two-year, $5 million contract.\n\nOn February 20, 2009, Edwards was released by the Raiders. He finished his only season with the team starting 11 of 14 games, recording 48 tackles and five sacks.\n\nExternal links\nDetroit Lions bio\nOakland Raiders bio\n\n1979 births\nLiving people\nPeople from East Point, Georgia\nAfrican-American players of American football\nAmerican football defensive ends\nSouth Carolina Gamecocks football players\nDetroit Lions players\nOakland Raiders players\nSportspeople from Fulton County, Georgia\nPlayers of American football from Georgia (U.S. state)\n21st-century African-American sportspeople\n20th-century African-American sportspeople"
] |
[
"Bill Edwards (American football coach)",
"Detroit Lions, military service, and Cleveland Browns",
"How long was Edwards with the Lions",
"signed two-year contracts."
] |
C_a1a2880e800847b8a33b661ee731765d_1
|
Did he win much when he was with them?
| 2 |
Did Bill Edwards win much when he was with the Lions?
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Bill Edwards (American football coach)
|
Having built a strong record at Western Reserve, Edwards was in the running for head coaching roles at a number of larger universities and professional teams. He met with officials at Marquette University and was considered a candidate for coaching duties at Colorado University and for the National Football League's Detroit Lions. After visiting with Lions owner Fred Mandel, Edwards ultimately was hired in February 1941 to succeed George Clark. Both Edwards and Dugan Miller signed two-year contracts. Edwards was given a $10,000 annual salary ($166,380 in 2017 dollars), more than double the $4,420 he was paid at Western Reserve. Edwards's stint as the Lions coach was unsuccessful. He guided the team to a 4-6-1 record in 1941, and Mandel fired him after three straight losses to begin the 1942 season as the team's roster was depleted by players' service in World War II. Detroit went on to lose all the rest of its games after John Karcis was named his replacement. Edwards enlisted in the U.S. Navy later in 1942 as America's involvement in the war intensified. While in the military, he served at St. Mary's Pre-Flight, a training program in California, and coached the Air Devils football team there. He also served at a base in Pensacola, Florida. Edwards was discharged in 1946, and spent a year in the sporting goods business in Cleveland, Ohio before reuniting with Brown, who had become the first coach of the Cleveland Browns in the All-America Football Conference (AAFC). Edwards took a position as a tackle coach and remained with the team for two seasons. He coached tackles including Ernie Blandin, Lou Rymkus and future Pro Football Hall of Fame member Lou Groza. The Browns won the AAFC championship in both of Edwards's years as an assistant; the team won all of its games in 1948, turning in professional football's first perfect season. CANNOTANSWER
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Edwards's stint as the Lions coach was unsuccessful.
|
William Miller Edwards (June 21, 1905 – June 12, 1987) was an American football player and coach. He served as the head football coach at Western Reserve University, Vanderbilt University and Wittenberg University in a career lasting more than 30 years, compiling a win-loss-tie record of 168–45–8. Edwards also coached the Detroit Lions of the National Football League (NFL) from 1941 to 1942, tallying a 4–9–1 record, and served as an assistant coach for the NFL's Cleveland Browns in the late 1940s.
Raised near Massillon, Ohio, Edwards was the son of an immigrant from Wales who worked in the area's coal mines. He played football at Massillon Washington High School and enrolled at Ohio State University, where he stayed for a year before transferring to Wittenberg University. After college, Edwards began his coaching career at high schools in Ohio. He got his first job as a college head coach in 1935 at Western Reserve, now known as Case Western Reserve University, in Cleveland, Ohio and guided the team to a 49–6–2 record over six seasons. Edwards was then hired to coach the Lions, but his brief stay there was unsuccessful, and he was fired at the beginning of the 1942 season. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy later that year and served in the military during World War II until his discharge in 1946.
Edwards spent a year selling sporting goods in Cleveland, returning to football in 1947 with the Browns as an assistant to head coach Paul Brown, a close friend and former Massillon schoolmate. After two years as the team's tackle coach, he was hired by Vanderbilt in 1949. He stayed there for four years and amassed a 21–19–2 record, but resigned in 1953 under pressure from alumni. After two years as an assistant coach at the University of North Carolina, Edwards was hired by Wittenberg, his alma mater, as head football coach and athletic director. He spent the rest of his career there, serving as head coach until 1968 and remaining as athletic director until 1973. While at Wittenberg, he was named the country's college football coach of the year twice, and his teams posted an overall record of 98–20–4. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1986. Edwards, described as a tough but compassionate coach, had an influence on many men he worked with, including Steve Belichick, the father of New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick. Steve Belichick played for Edwards at Western Reserve and with the Lions, and coached with him at Vanderbilt. Edwards was the godfather of Bill.
Early life and college
Edwards grew up in Massillon, Ohio and attended Massillon Washington High School. He was a schoolmate of Paul Brown, who later became the coach of the Cleveland Browns and helped found the Cincinnati Bengals in the National Football League. The son of a Welsh coal miner, Edwards dropped out of school when he was 14 to help his family by working in the mines of East Greenville, near Massillon. He returned three years later, however, and became a star player on Massillon's football team. Edwards was a linebacker at Massillon between 1922 and 1924.
Edwards enrolled at Ohio State University where he captained the Buckeyes freshman football team and was roommates with Paul Brown, his former Massillon teammate. After the season, however, he transferred to Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio. At Wittenberg, he played as a center starting in 1928 and was the captain of the football team in 1929 and 1930. A tough player, Edwards did not like to wear a helmet, saying "you skin your ears a little without them, but I never had any trouble." He won All-Ohio honors at Wittenberg and was named an honorable mention All-American in 1930. One of Edwards's most memorable games as a collegian came in 1928 against the Ohio Wesleyan Battling Bishops. In the last game of a season in which Wesleyan had a perfect record and beat football powerhouses Michigan and Syracuse, Edwards kicked an extra point as time expired and gave Wittenberg a 7–6 victory. Grantland Rice, a prominent sportswriter of the time, called him the best center in college football. Walter Eckersall of the Chicago Tribune named him an All-American.
Coaching career
High school and Western Reserve
Edwards got his first coaching job in 1931, when he was hired as an assistant football coach at Springfield High School. He also taught history at the school. The following year, he got his first head coaching job at Fostoria High School in Fostoria, Ohio. After two seasons at Fostoria, during the second of which the team put in its best performance in 10 years with an 8–2 record, he left to coach the freshman football team at Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio in 1933. When Reserve head coach Sam Willaman died suddenly in August 1935, players lobbied for Edwards to take his place; Edwards got the job. Edwards brought in former Massillon and Wittenberg teammate and Fostoria aide Roy A. "Dugan" Miller as his chief assistant, and the Western Reserve Red Cats went undefeated in his first two seasons as coach. The team had a 49–6–2 record between the 1935 and 1940 seasons under Edwards. In his last season, Western Reserve reached the Sun Bowl in El Paso, Texas against Arizona State and won the game 26–13 on New Year's Day in 1941.
Detroit Lions, military service, and Cleveland Browns
Having built a strong record at Western Reserve, Edwards was in the running for head coaching roles at a number of larger universities and professional teams. He met with officials at Marquette University and was considered a candidate for coaching duties at Colorado University and for the National Football League's Detroit Lions. After visiting with Lions owner Fred Mandel, Edwards ultimately was hired in February 1941 to succeed George Clark. Both Edwards and Dugan Miller signed two-year contracts. Edwards was given a $10,000 annual salary ($ in dollars), more than double the $4,420 he was paid at Western Reserve.
Edwards's stint as the Lions coach was unsuccessful. He guided the team to a 4–6–1 record in 1941, and Mandel fired him after three straight losses to begin the 1942 season as the team's roster was depleted by players' service in World War II. Detroit went on to lose all the rest of its games after John Karcis was named his replacement.
Edwards enlisted in the U.S. Navy later in 1942 as America's involvement in the war intensified. While in the military, he served at St. Mary's Pre-Flight, a training program in California, and coached the Air Devils football team there. He also served at a base in Pensacola, Florida. Edwards was discharged in 1946, and spent a year in the sporting goods business in Cleveland, Ohio before reuniting with Brown, who had become the first coach of the Cleveland Browns in the All-America Football Conference (AAFC). Edwards took a position as a tackle coach and remained with the team for two seasons. He coached tackles including Ernie Blandin, Lou Rymkus and future Pro Football Hall of Fame member Lou Groza. The Browns won the AAFC championship in both of Edwards's years as an assistant; the team won all of its games in 1948, turning in professional football's first perfect season.
Vanderbilt, North Carolina, and Wittenberg
Edwards was hired as Vanderbilt University's head football coach and athletic director in 1949, replacing Henry Russell Sanders when Sanders left to become head coach at the University of California, Los Angeles. Vanderbilt gave the 43-year-old coach a three-year contract paying a $12,500 salary ($ in today's dollars). "I don't like to leave the Cleveland Browns and Paul Brown in particular," he said at the time. "I'll never forget my experiences with the Browns over the past two years." Edwards remained at Vanderbilt for four seasons, building up a 21–19–2 record. He instituted a modern T formation offense to replace Sanders's more traditional single-wing formation. He resigned in 1953 under pressure from Vanderbilt alumni following a 3–5–2 season. He then moved to the University of North Carolina, where he was an assistant on the football team's coaching staff in 1953 and 1954.
Edwards was hired as athletic director and head football coach at Wittenberg, his alma mater, in 1955. He put in a pro-style offense and focused on passing because his players were smaller than many opponents. "We had small players, but little guys can throw the football and little guys can catch it, whereas you need big guys to block for a running game," he said in 1973. Under Edwards, the Wittenberg Tigers were a major success, amassing a 98–20–4 record in 14 seasons and winning the NCAA College Division national championship poll in 1962 and 1964. Edwards's teams were unbeaten three times and lost one game in five of his seasons there. He was named Ohio College Football Coach of the Year in 1957 by his fellow coaches. The American Football Coaches Association named him coach of the year in 1963 and 1964, when the Tigers won all of their games. He was called "a combination of Genghis Khan and Santa Claus" by Sports Illustrated for being both tough and sympathetic to his players.
Later life and death
Edwards resigned from coaching in 1969, when he was 63 years old, although he continued to work at Wittenberg as the school's athletic director. Dave Maurer, his long-time assistant, took over as the school's coach. By the end of his career, Edwards's 168–45–8 overall college record gave him the second-best winning percentage in the country among active coaches with at least 100 wins. Edwards was given a commendation by President Richard Nixon for his achievements as a coach and won a Football Writers Association of America award for contributions to the game. "His retirement is Wittenberg's loss, but more than that, it is college football's loss," University of Alabama coach Bear Bryant said at the time.
Edwards retired in February 1973 after 39 years as a coach and administrator and said he would concentrate on hunting and fishing. He was inducted into the Ohio Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 1979, Wittenberg's Athletics Hall of Honor in 1985 and into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1986. He was also inducted into the Western Reserve Hall of Fame and the Vanderbilt Hall of Fame in 1986. Edwards died in 1987. He and his wife Dorothy had three children.
The tough but compassionate approach to coaching Edwards espoused influenced many men who worked under him, including Maurer, who led Wittenberg to a 129–23–3 record between 1969 and 1983. Wittenberg's football stadium is named Edwards-Maurer Field in honor of both head coaches. The winner of the Wittenberg-Case Western Reserve football game receives the Bill Edwards Trophy.
Edwards was also close with Steve Belichick, who played for him at Western Reserve and for the Detroit Lions and later served as an assistant under him at Vanderbilt and North Carolina. Belichick's son Bill was named after Edwards, who was also Bill's godfather. Bill Belichick later became an assistant coach in the NFL and is the head coach of the New England Patriots as of . At what is now known as Case Western Reserve University, the football stadium, DiSanto Field, hosts its distinguished guests inside the Coach Bill Edwards President's Suite.
Head coaching record
College
Professional
References
Bibliography
External links
1905 births
1987 deaths
American football centers
Case Western Spartans football coaches
Detroit Lions head coaches
Ohio State Buckeyes football players
North Carolina Tar Heels football coaches
Saint Mary's Pre-Flight Air Devils football coaches
Vanderbilt Commodores athletic directors
Vanderbilt Commodores football coaches
Wittenberg Tigers athletic directors
Wittenberg Tigers football coaches
Wittenberg Tigers football players
High school football coaches in Ohio
College Football Hall of Fame inductees
Sportspeople from Massillon, Ohio
Coaches of American football from Ohio
Players of American football from Ohio
| true |
[
"Anthony Gleeson was a dual player from Tralee, County Kerry. He played at full back for most of his career. Gleeson was unlucky not to have won any senior honors with Kerry, he missed out on the Munster Championship win in 1991 and despite playing in the first round in 1996 did not play another game and therefore did not receive a Munster medal. He did win a Munster Under 21 Championship in 1988. He also played underage hurling with Kerry in the late 80's, he was captain of the team in 1987 when they won the Leinster Minor B Championship. He gave up hurling at a young age to focus on football. He also played with the Kerry Vocational Schools team in the late 80's winning 2 All-Ireland Vocational Schools Championships in 1986 and 1987.\n\nAt club level he played football with John Mitchels. He had little success with the club failing to win a County Championship, he did however played in the 1989 final when John Mitchels were beaten by Laune Rangers. He played hurling with Austin Stacks and won a County Minor Championship with them in 1986. He also played with Dublin club St Vincents.\n\nReferences\n http://www.terracetalk.com/kerry-football/player/101/Anthony-Gleeson\n https://web.archive.org/web/20111009064219/http://munster.gaa.ie/history/u21f_teams/\n\n \n\nYear of birth missing (living people)\nLiving people\nDual players\nJohn Mitchels (Kerry) Gaelic footballers\nSt Vincents (Dublin) Gaelic footballers\nAustin Stacks hurlers\nKerry inter-county hurlers",
"Huddersfield Town's 1986–87 campaign saw the end of Mick Buxton's reign as Huddersfield Town manager, a job he had had for 8 years. Only Clem Stephenson has had a longer reign as manager of the Terriers. He was replaced by Steve Smith in early January 1987, but Town only survived relegation by 3 points, which became a sort of precursor to the debacle that the next season's campaign would bring.\n\nSquad at the start of the season\n\nReview\nThe start of the season was mixed, with no win until 20 September, when they surprisingly beat near neighbours and early league leaders Oldham Athletic 5–4 at Leeds Road despite playing with ten men for much of the game. The main highlight of the early part of the season was a Littlewoods Cup tie against Arsenal, in which Town only lost 3–1 on aggregate.\n\nThe middle part of the season didn't prove to be much better, a run of 4 consecutive losses including a 4–3 loss at Bradford City, but that was reconciled when they beat them 5–2 on 27 December. Just before beating Bradford, Mick Buxton's tenure as Town manager ended after 8 years in charge. He was replaced by coach Steve Smith.\n\nSmith's tenure started with a 4–2 defeat by Norwich City, but during March, Town went on a run of six consecutive draws – a club record. Town finished the season in 17th, just 3 points and 3 places above the drop zone. Little did Town fans know what was going to happen to Town the following season.\n\nSquad at the end of the season\n\nResults\n\nDivision Two\n\nFA Cup\n\nLeague Cup\n\nFull Members Cup\n\nAppearances and goals\n\n1986–87\n1986–87 Football League Second Division by team"
] |
[
"Bill Edwards (American football coach)",
"Detroit Lions, military service, and Cleveland Browns",
"How long was Edwards with the Lions",
"signed two-year contracts.",
"Did he win much when he was with them?",
"Edwards's stint as the Lions coach was unsuccessful."
] |
C_a1a2880e800847b8a33b661ee731765d_1
|
What year did he start with them?
| 3 |
What year did Bill Edwards start with the Lions?
|
Bill Edwards (American football coach)
|
Having built a strong record at Western Reserve, Edwards was in the running for head coaching roles at a number of larger universities and professional teams. He met with officials at Marquette University and was considered a candidate for coaching duties at Colorado University and for the National Football League's Detroit Lions. After visiting with Lions owner Fred Mandel, Edwards ultimately was hired in February 1941 to succeed George Clark. Both Edwards and Dugan Miller signed two-year contracts. Edwards was given a $10,000 annual salary ($166,380 in 2017 dollars), more than double the $4,420 he was paid at Western Reserve. Edwards's stint as the Lions coach was unsuccessful. He guided the team to a 4-6-1 record in 1941, and Mandel fired him after three straight losses to begin the 1942 season as the team's roster was depleted by players' service in World War II. Detroit went on to lose all the rest of its games after John Karcis was named his replacement. Edwards enlisted in the U.S. Navy later in 1942 as America's involvement in the war intensified. While in the military, he served at St. Mary's Pre-Flight, a training program in California, and coached the Air Devils football team there. He also served at a base in Pensacola, Florida. Edwards was discharged in 1946, and spent a year in the sporting goods business in Cleveland, Ohio before reuniting with Brown, who had become the first coach of the Cleveland Browns in the All-America Football Conference (AAFC). Edwards took a position as a tackle coach and remained with the team for two seasons. He coached tackles including Ernie Blandin, Lou Rymkus and future Pro Football Hall of Fame member Lou Groza. The Browns won the AAFC championship in both of Edwards's years as an assistant; the team won all of its games in 1948, turning in professional football's first perfect season. CANNOTANSWER
|
Edwards ultimately was hired in February 1941
|
William Miller Edwards (June 21, 1905 – June 12, 1987) was an American football player and coach. He served as the head football coach at Western Reserve University, Vanderbilt University and Wittenberg University in a career lasting more than 30 years, compiling a win-loss-tie record of 168–45–8. Edwards also coached the Detroit Lions of the National Football League (NFL) from 1941 to 1942, tallying a 4–9–1 record, and served as an assistant coach for the NFL's Cleveland Browns in the late 1940s.
Raised near Massillon, Ohio, Edwards was the son of an immigrant from Wales who worked in the area's coal mines. He played football at Massillon Washington High School and enrolled at Ohio State University, where he stayed for a year before transferring to Wittenberg University. After college, Edwards began his coaching career at high schools in Ohio. He got his first job as a college head coach in 1935 at Western Reserve, now known as Case Western Reserve University, in Cleveland, Ohio and guided the team to a 49–6–2 record over six seasons. Edwards was then hired to coach the Lions, but his brief stay there was unsuccessful, and he was fired at the beginning of the 1942 season. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy later that year and served in the military during World War II until his discharge in 1946.
Edwards spent a year selling sporting goods in Cleveland, returning to football in 1947 with the Browns as an assistant to head coach Paul Brown, a close friend and former Massillon schoolmate. After two years as the team's tackle coach, he was hired by Vanderbilt in 1949. He stayed there for four years and amassed a 21–19–2 record, but resigned in 1953 under pressure from alumni. After two years as an assistant coach at the University of North Carolina, Edwards was hired by Wittenberg, his alma mater, as head football coach and athletic director. He spent the rest of his career there, serving as head coach until 1968 and remaining as athletic director until 1973. While at Wittenberg, he was named the country's college football coach of the year twice, and his teams posted an overall record of 98–20–4. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1986. Edwards, described as a tough but compassionate coach, had an influence on many men he worked with, including Steve Belichick, the father of New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick. Steve Belichick played for Edwards at Western Reserve and with the Lions, and coached with him at Vanderbilt. Edwards was the godfather of Bill.
Early life and college
Edwards grew up in Massillon, Ohio and attended Massillon Washington High School. He was a schoolmate of Paul Brown, who later became the coach of the Cleveland Browns and helped found the Cincinnati Bengals in the National Football League. The son of a Welsh coal miner, Edwards dropped out of school when he was 14 to help his family by working in the mines of East Greenville, near Massillon. He returned three years later, however, and became a star player on Massillon's football team. Edwards was a linebacker at Massillon between 1922 and 1924.
Edwards enrolled at Ohio State University where he captained the Buckeyes freshman football team and was roommates with Paul Brown, his former Massillon teammate. After the season, however, he transferred to Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio. At Wittenberg, he played as a center starting in 1928 and was the captain of the football team in 1929 and 1930. A tough player, Edwards did not like to wear a helmet, saying "you skin your ears a little without them, but I never had any trouble." He won All-Ohio honors at Wittenberg and was named an honorable mention All-American in 1930. One of Edwards's most memorable games as a collegian came in 1928 against the Ohio Wesleyan Battling Bishops. In the last game of a season in which Wesleyan had a perfect record and beat football powerhouses Michigan and Syracuse, Edwards kicked an extra point as time expired and gave Wittenberg a 7–6 victory. Grantland Rice, a prominent sportswriter of the time, called him the best center in college football. Walter Eckersall of the Chicago Tribune named him an All-American.
Coaching career
High school and Western Reserve
Edwards got his first coaching job in 1931, when he was hired as an assistant football coach at Springfield High School. He also taught history at the school. The following year, he got his first head coaching job at Fostoria High School in Fostoria, Ohio. After two seasons at Fostoria, during the second of which the team put in its best performance in 10 years with an 8–2 record, he left to coach the freshman football team at Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio in 1933. When Reserve head coach Sam Willaman died suddenly in August 1935, players lobbied for Edwards to take his place; Edwards got the job. Edwards brought in former Massillon and Wittenberg teammate and Fostoria aide Roy A. "Dugan" Miller as his chief assistant, and the Western Reserve Red Cats went undefeated in his first two seasons as coach. The team had a 49–6–2 record between the 1935 and 1940 seasons under Edwards. In his last season, Western Reserve reached the Sun Bowl in El Paso, Texas against Arizona State and won the game 26–13 on New Year's Day in 1941.
Detroit Lions, military service, and Cleveland Browns
Having built a strong record at Western Reserve, Edwards was in the running for head coaching roles at a number of larger universities and professional teams. He met with officials at Marquette University and was considered a candidate for coaching duties at Colorado University and for the National Football League's Detroit Lions. After visiting with Lions owner Fred Mandel, Edwards ultimately was hired in February 1941 to succeed George Clark. Both Edwards and Dugan Miller signed two-year contracts. Edwards was given a $10,000 annual salary ($ in dollars), more than double the $4,420 he was paid at Western Reserve.
Edwards's stint as the Lions coach was unsuccessful. He guided the team to a 4–6–1 record in 1941, and Mandel fired him after three straight losses to begin the 1942 season as the team's roster was depleted by players' service in World War II. Detroit went on to lose all the rest of its games after John Karcis was named his replacement.
Edwards enlisted in the U.S. Navy later in 1942 as America's involvement in the war intensified. While in the military, he served at St. Mary's Pre-Flight, a training program in California, and coached the Air Devils football team there. He also served at a base in Pensacola, Florida. Edwards was discharged in 1946, and spent a year in the sporting goods business in Cleveland, Ohio before reuniting with Brown, who had become the first coach of the Cleveland Browns in the All-America Football Conference (AAFC). Edwards took a position as a tackle coach and remained with the team for two seasons. He coached tackles including Ernie Blandin, Lou Rymkus and future Pro Football Hall of Fame member Lou Groza. The Browns won the AAFC championship in both of Edwards's years as an assistant; the team won all of its games in 1948, turning in professional football's first perfect season.
Vanderbilt, North Carolina, and Wittenberg
Edwards was hired as Vanderbilt University's head football coach and athletic director in 1949, replacing Henry Russell Sanders when Sanders left to become head coach at the University of California, Los Angeles. Vanderbilt gave the 43-year-old coach a three-year contract paying a $12,500 salary ($ in today's dollars). "I don't like to leave the Cleveland Browns and Paul Brown in particular," he said at the time. "I'll never forget my experiences with the Browns over the past two years." Edwards remained at Vanderbilt for four seasons, building up a 21–19–2 record. He instituted a modern T formation offense to replace Sanders's more traditional single-wing formation. He resigned in 1953 under pressure from Vanderbilt alumni following a 3–5–2 season. He then moved to the University of North Carolina, where he was an assistant on the football team's coaching staff in 1953 and 1954.
Edwards was hired as athletic director and head football coach at Wittenberg, his alma mater, in 1955. He put in a pro-style offense and focused on passing because his players were smaller than many opponents. "We had small players, but little guys can throw the football and little guys can catch it, whereas you need big guys to block for a running game," he said in 1973. Under Edwards, the Wittenberg Tigers were a major success, amassing a 98–20–4 record in 14 seasons and winning the NCAA College Division national championship poll in 1962 and 1964. Edwards's teams were unbeaten three times and lost one game in five of his seasons there. He was named Ohio College Football Coach of the Year in 1957 by his fellow coaches. The American Football Coaches Association named him coach of the year in 1963 and 1964, when the Tigers won all of their games. He was called "a combination of Genghis Khan and Santa Claus" by Sports Illustrated for being both tough and sympathetic to his players.
Later life and death
Edwards resigned from coaching in 1969, when he was 63 years old, although he continued to work at Wittenberg as the school's athletic director. Dave Maurer, his long-time assistant, took over as the school's coach. By the end of his career, Edwards's 168–45–8 overall college record gave him the second-best winning percentage in the country among active coaches with at least 100 wins. Edwards was given a commendation by President Richard Nixon for his achievements as a coach and won a Football Writers Association of America award for contributions to the game. "His retirement is Wittenberg's loss, but more than that, it is college football's loss," University of Alabama coach Bear Bryant said at the time.
Edwards retired in February 1973 after 39 years as a coach and administrator and said he would concentrate on hunting and fishing. He was inducted into the Ohio Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 1979, Wittenberg's Athletics Hall of Honor in 1985 and into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1986. He was also inducted into the Western Reserve Hall of Fame and the Vanderbilt Hall of Fame in 1986. Edwards died in 1987. He and his wife Dorothy had three children.
The tough but compassionate approach to coaching Edwards espoused influenced many men who worked under him, including Maurer, who led Wittenberg to a 129–23–3 record between 1969 and 1983. Wittenberg's football stadium is named Edwards-Maurer Field in honor of both head coaches. The winner of the Wittenberg-Case Western Reserve football game receives the Bill Edwards Trophy.
Edwards was also close with Steve Belichick, who played for him at Western Reserve and for the Detroit Lions and later served as an assistant under him at Vanderbilt and North Carolina. Belichick's son Bill was named after Edwards, who was also Bill's godfather. Bill Belichick later became an assistant coach in the NFL and is the head coach of the New England Patriots as of . At what is now known as Case Western Reserve University, the football stadium, DiSanto Field, hosts its distinguished guests inside the Coach Bill Edwards President's Suite.
Head coaching record
College
Professional
References
Bibliography
External links
1905 births
1987 deaths
American football centers
Case Western Spartans football coaches
Detroit Lions head coaches
Ohio State Buckeyes football players
North Carolina Tar Heels football coaches
Saint Mary's Pre-Flight Air Devils football coaches
Vanderbilt Commodores athletic directors
Vanderbilt Commodores football coaches
Wittenberg Tigers athletic directors
Wittenberg Tigers football coaches
Wittenberg Tigers football players
High school football coaches in Ohio
College Football Hall of Fame inductees
Sportspeople from Massillon, Ohio
Coaches of American football from Ohio
Players of American football from Ohio
| true |
[
"James Nyx Jr. (May 3, 1914 – July 16, 1998), sometimes credited as James Nyx, was an American songwriter for the Motown label. He co-wrote \"Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)\", which became a #9 hit for Marvin Gaye in 1971.\n\nNyx was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, but moved to Detroit in the 1930s, where he married twice and raised a family of eight children. He supported them through jobs requiring menial labor. At one time he was a resident of the Brewster-Douglass Housing Projects, where notable figures such as Diana Ross grew up.\n\nHis start in the music business was working as a janitor and handyman for Tri-Phi/Harvey Records, which was owned by the husband and wife team of Harvey Fuqua and Gwen Gordy Fuqua, sister of Berry Gordy.\n\nHe began to bring lyric ideas to Harvey, who collaborated with him on a few songs, including 1961's \"Grieving About A Love,\" recorded by Lorri Rudolph. and 1963's \"What Can You Do Now\" recorded by Harvey and Ann.\n\nWhen Fuqua sold his labels to Motown Records in 1963, Nyx came along, signing to Jobete Music as a songwriter, but also working as a janitor and an elevator operator. He continued to write with Fuqua, and also Marvin Gaye, but most of his early songwriting work was shelved.\n\nIn July 1970, Gaye produced a song for The Originals, a Gaye/Nyx composition called \"We Can Make It Baby.\"\n\nNyx's real breakthrough came a year later, when Gaye needed collaborators to help with lyrics for his next project, the sessions that became the landmark album \"What's Going On.\"\n\nNyx co-wrote three tracks on the album, \"What's Happening Brother,\" \"God Is Love,\" and most famously, \"Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler).\"\n\nMotown left Detroit the following year, but Nyx did not go with them. He stayed and continued writing songs for a Detroit company named KellGriff Music. One such effort, 1974's \"Outta My Life/I'm One Who Know\" by the Brewster Crew on Lifeline records (T. Rodgers/J. Nyx Jr.) was arranged by David Van De Pitte, who famously did the orchestrations for \"What's Going On.\"\n\nIn the 1990s, it became popular for samples of \"Inner City Blues\" to be used on R&B and rap records, providing Nyx with royalty income.\n\nReferences\n\nMotown artists\nSongwriters from Indiana\nMusicians from Indianapolis\n1914 births\n1998 deaths\n20th-century American composers\nJanitors",
"Fredrik Strømstad (born 20 January 1982 in Kristiansand) is a Norwegian football player.\n\nCareer\nIn 2002, he was loaned to Bærum SK and helped them win promotion to the Norwegian First Division.\n\nHe signed for the French club Le Mans Union Club 72 on June 13, 2008, and joined the club on July 7 the same year.\n\nAfter spending the 2012 season at a new spell in IK Start, he retired from professional football. He did continue in 2013 with seventh-tier club Tigerberget FK.\n\nNational team\nStrømstad made his debut for the national team in the World Cup qualifier against Belarus in October 2005.\n\nPlaying style\nStrømstad is renowned for his work rate and passing ability, and his stamina. He has been compared to former Norwegian midfielder Erik Mykland. When he played for Start he often linked up with teammate Kristofer Hæstad in midfield.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nStart's bio of Strømstad\n\n1982 births\nLiving people\nNorwegian footballers\nNorway international footballers\nIK Start players\nBærum SK players\nLe Mans FC players\nNorwegian expatriate footballers\nExpatriate footballers in France\nSportspeople from Kristiansand\nEliteserien players\nLigue 1 players\nNorwegian expatriate sportspeople in France\n\nAssociation football midfielders"
] |
[
"Bill Edwards (American football coach)",
"Detroit Lions, military service, and Cleveland Browns",
"How long was Edwards with the Lions",
"signed two-year contracts.",
"Did he win much when he was with them?",
"Edwards's stint as the Lions coach was unsuccessful.",
"What year did he start with them?",
"Edwards ultimately was hired in February 1941"
] |
C_a1a2880e800847b8a33b661ee731765d_1
|
Did he go right from the lions to the browns?
| 4 |
Did Bill Edwards go right from the lions to the browns?
|
Bill Edwards (American football coach)
|
Having built a strong record at Western Reserve, Edwards was in the running for head coaching roles at a number of larger universities and professional teams. He met with officials at Marquette University and was considered a candidate for coaching duties at Colorado University and for the National Football League's Detroit Lions. After visiting with Lions owner Fred Mandel, Edwards ultimately was hired in February 1941 to succeed George Clark. Both Edwards and Dugan Miller signed two-year contracts. Edwards was given a $10,000 annual salary ($166,380 in 2017 dollars), more than double the $4,420 he was paid at Western Reserve. Edwards's stint as the Lions coach was unsuccessful. He guided the team to a 4-6-1 record in 1941, and Mandel fired him after three straight losses to begin the 1942 season as the team's roster was depleted by players' service in World War II. Detroit went on to lose all the rest of its games after John Karcis was named his replacement. Edwards enlisted in the U.S. Navy later in 1942 as America's involvement in the war intensified. While in the military, he served at St. Mary's Pre-Flight, a training program in California, and coached the Air Devils football team there. He also served at a base in Pensacola, Florida. Edwards was discharged in 1946, and spent a year in the sporting goods business in Cleveland, Ohio before reuniting with Brown, who had become the first coach of the Cleveland Browns in the All-America Football Conference (AAFC). Edwards took a position as a tackle coach and remained with the team for two seasons. He coached tackles including Ernie Blandin, Lou Rymkus and future Pro Football Hall of Fame member Lou Groza. The Browns won the AAFC championship in both of Edwards's years as an assistant; the team won all of its games in 1948, turning in professional football's first perfect season. CANNOTANSWER
|
CANNOTANSWER
|
William Miller Edwards (June 21, 1905 – June 12, 1987) was an American football player and coach. He served as the head football coach at Western Reserve University, Vanderbilt University and Wittenberg University in a career lasting more than 30 years, compiling a win-loss-tie record of 168–45–8. Edwards also coached the Detroit Lions of the National Football League (NFL) from 1941 to 1942, tallying a 4–9–1 record, and served as an assistant coach for the NFL's Cleveland Browns in the late 1940s.
Raised near Massillon, Ohio, Edwards was the son of an immigrant from Wales who worked in the area's coal mines. He played football at Massillon Washington High School and enrolled at Ohio State University, where he stayed for a year before transferring to Wittenberg University. After college, Edwards began his coaching career at high schools in Ohio. He got his first job as a college head coach in 1935 at Western Reserve, now known as Case Western Reserve University, in Cleveland, Ohio and guided the team to a 49–6–2 record over six seasons. Edwards was then hired to coach the Lions, but his brief stay there was unsuccessful, and he was fired at the beginning of the 1942 season. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy later that year and served in the military during World War II until his discharge in 1946.
Edwards spent a year selling sporting goods in Cleveland, returning to football in 1947 with the Browns as an assistant to head coach Paul Brown, a close friend and former Massillon schoolmate. After two years as the team's tackle coach, he was hired by Vanderbilt in 1949. He stayed there for four years and amassed a 21–19–2 record, but resigned in 1953 under pressure from alumni. After two years as an assistant coach at the University of North Carolina, Edwards was hired by Wittenberg, his alma mater, as head football coach and athletic director. He spent the rest of his career there, serving as head coach until 1968 and remaining as athletic director until 1973. While at Wittenberg, he was named the country's college football coach of the year twice, and his teams posted an overall record of 98–20–4. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1986. Edwards, described as a tough but compassionate coach, had an influence on many men he worked with, including Steve Belichick, the father of New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick. Steve Belichick played for Edwards at Western Reserve and with the Lions, and coached with him at Vanderbilt. Edwards was the godfather of Bill.
Early life and college
Edwards grew up in Massillon, Ohio and attended Massillon Washington High School. He was a schoolmate of Paul Brown, who later became the coach of the Cleveland Browns and helped found the Cincinnati Bengals in the National Football League. The son of a Welsh coal miner, Edwards dropped out of school when he was 14 to help his family by working in the mines of East Greenville, near Massillon. He returned three years later, however, and became a star player on Massillon's football team. Edwards was a linebacker at Massillon between 1922 and 1924.
Edwards enrolled at Ohio State University where he captained the Buckeyes freshman football team and was roommates with Paul Brown, his former Massillon teammate. After the season, however, he transferred to Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio. At Wittenberg, he played as a center starting in 1928 and was the captain of the football team in 1929 and 1930. A tough player, Edwards did not like to wear a helmet, saying "you skin your ears a little without them, but I never had any trouble." He won All-Ohio honors at Wittenberg and was named an honorable mention All-American in 1930. One of Edwards's most memorable games as a collegian came in 1928 against the Ohio Wesleyan Battling Bishops. In the last game of a season in which Wesleyan had a perfect record and beat football powerhouses Michigan and Syracuse, Edwards kicked an extra point as time expired and gave Wittenberg a 7–6 victory. Grantland Rice, a prominent sportswriter of the time, called him the best center in college football. Walter Eckersall of the Chicago Tribune named him an All-American.
Coaching career
High school and Western Reserve
Edwards got his first coaching job in 1931, when he was hired as an assistant football coach at Springfield High School. He also taught history at the school. The following year, he got his first head coaching job at Fostoria High School in Fostoria, Ohio. After two seasons at Fostoria, during the second of which the team put in its best performance in 10 years with an 8–2 record, he left to coach the freshman football team at Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio in 1933. When Reserve head coach Sam Willaman died suddenly in August 1935, players lobbied for Edwards to take his place; Edwards got the job. Edwards brought in former Massillon and Wittenberg teammate and Fostoria aide Roy A. "Dugan" Miller as his chief assistant, and the Western Reserve Red Cats went undefeated in his first two seasons as coach. The team had a 49–6–2 record between the 1935 and 1940 seasons under Edwards. In his last season, Western Reserve reached the Sun Bowl in El Paso, Texas against Arizona State and won the game 26–13 on New Year's Day in 1941.
Detroit Lions, military service, and Cleveland Browns
Having built a strong record at Western Reserve, Edwards was in the running for head coaching roles at a number of larger universities and professional teams. He met with officials at Marquette University and was considered a candidate for coaching duties at Colorado University and for the National Football League's Detroit Lions. After visiting with Lions owner Fred Mandel, Edwards ultimately was hired in February 1941 to succeed George Clark. Both Edwards and Dugan Miller signed two-year contracts. Edwards was given a $10,000 annual salary ($ in dollars), more than double the $4,420 he was paid at Western Reserve.
Edwards's stint as the Lions coach was unsuccessful. He guided the team to a 4–6–1 record in 1941, and Mandel fired him after three straight losses to begin the 1942 season as the team's roster was depleted by players' service in World War II. Detroit went on to lose all the rest of its games after John Karcis was named his replacement.
Edwards enlisted in the U.S. Navy later in 1942 as America's involvement in the war intensified. While in the military, he served at St. Mary's Pre-Flight, a training program in California, and coached the Air Devils football team there. He also served at a base in Pensacola, Florida. Edwards was discharged in 1946, and spent a year in the sporting goods business in Cleveland, Ohio before reuniting with Brown, who had become the first coach of the Cleveland Browns in the All-America Football Conference (AAFC). Edwards took a position as a tackle coach and remained with the team for two seasons. He coached tackles including Ernie Blandin, Lou Rymkus and future Pro Football Hall of Fame member Lou Groza. The Browns won the AAFC championship in both of Edwards's years as an assistant; the team won all of its games in 1948, turning in professional football's first perfect season.
Vanderbilt, North Carolina, and Wittenberg
Edwards was hired as Vanderbilt University's head football coach and athletic director in 1949, replacing Henry Russell Sanders when Sanders left to become head coach at the University of California, Los Angeles. Vanderbilt gave the 43-year-old coach a three-year contract paying a $12,500 salary ($ in today's dollars). "I don't like to leave the Cleveland Browns and Paul Brown in particular," he said at the time. "I'll never forget my experiences with the Browns over the past two years." Edwards remained at Vanderbilt for four seasons, building up a 21–19–2 record. He instituted a modern T formation offense to replace Sanders's more traditional single-wing formation. He resigned in 1953 under pressure from Vanderbilt alumni following a 3–5–2 season. He then moved to the University of North Carolina, where he was an assistant on the football team's coaching staff in 1953 and 1954.
Edwards was hired as athletic director and head football coach at Wittenberg, his alma mater, in 1955. He put in a pro-style offense and focused on passing because his players were smaller than many opponents. "We had small players, but little guys can throw the football and little guys can catch it, whereas you need big guys to block for a running game," he said in 1973. Under Edwards, the Wittenberg Tigers were a major success, amassing a 98–20–4 record in 14 seasons and winning the NCAA College Division national championship poll in 1962 and 1964. Edwards's teams were unbeaten three times and lost one game in five of his seasons there. He was named Ohio College Football Coach of the Year in 1957 by his fellow coaches. The American Football Coaches Association named him coach of the year in 1963 and 1964, when the Tigers won all of their games. He was called "a combination of Genghis Khan and Santa Claus" by Sports Illustrated for being both tough and sympathetic to his players.
Later life and death
Edwards resigned from coaching in 1969, when he was 63 years old, although he continued to work at Wittenberg as the school's athletic director. Dave Maurer, his long-time assistant, took over as the school's coach. By the end of his career, Edwards's 168–45–8 overall college record gave him the second-best winning percentage in the country among active coaches with at least 100 wins. Edwards was given a commendation by President Richard Nixon for his achievements as a coach and won a Football Writers Association of America award for contributions to the game. "His retirement is Wittenberg's loss, but more than that, it is college football's loss," University of Alabama coach Bear Bryant said at the time.
Edwards retired in February 1973 after 39 years as a coach and administrator and said he would concentrate on hunting and fishing. He was inducted into the Ohio Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 1979, Wittenberg's Athletics Hall of Honor in 1985 and into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1986. He was also inducted into the Western Reserve Hall of Fame and the Vanderbilt Hall of Fame in 1986. Edwards died in 1987. He and his wife Dorothy had three children.
The tough but compassionate approach to coaching Edwards espoused influenced many men who worked under him, including Maurer, who led Wittenberg to a 129–23–3 record between 1969 and 1983. Wittenberg's football stadium is named Edwards-Maurer Field in honor of both head coaches. The winner of the Wittenberg-Case Western Reserve football game receives the Bill Edwards Trophy.
Edwards was also close with Steve Belichick, who played for him at Western Reserve and for the Detroit Lions and later served as an assistant under him at Vanderbilt and North Carolina. Belichick's son Bill was named after Edwards, who was also Bill's godfather. Bill Belichick later became an assistant coach in the NFL and is the head coach of the New England Patriots as of . At what is now known as Case Western Reserve University, the football stadium, DiSanto Field, hosts its distinguished guests inside the Coach Bill Edwards President's Suite.
Head coaching record
College
Professional
References
Bibliography
External links
1905 births
1987 deaths
American football centers
Case Western Spartans football coaches
Detroit Lions head coaches
Ohio State Buckeyes football players
North Carolina Tar Heels football coaches
Saint Mary's Pre-Flight Air Devils football coaches
Vanderbilt Commodores athletic directors
Vanderbilt Commodores football coaches
Wittenberg Tigers athletic directors
Wittenberg Tigers football coaches
Wittenberg Tigers football players
High school football coaches in Ohio
College Football Hall of Fame inductees
Sportspeople from Massillon, Ohio
Coaches of American football from Ohio
Players of American football from Ohio
| false |
[
"Maurice LaFrancis Bassett (April 26, 1931May 24, 1991) was a professional American football player. Bassett played fullback for three seasons for the Cleveland Browns. He led the Browns in rushing his rookie year and serves as the namesake for the Cleveland Browns' Rookie of the Year award. He attended Langston University and would go on to serve in the Navy before playing for the Browns.\n\nReferences\n\n1931 births\n1991 deaths\nAmerican football fullbacks\nCleveland Browns players\nLangston Lions football players\nPeople from Chickasha, Oklahoma\nPlayers of American football from Oklahoma\nAfrican-American players of American football\n20th-century African-American sportspeople",
"Gerard Lawson (born January 12, 1985) is a former American football cornerback/kickoff returner He was signed by the Cleveland Browns as an undrafted free agent in 2008. He played college football at Oregon State. He also participated in the 2007 Hula Bowl All Star game where he was awarded the Most Valuable Player Award.\n\nLawson has also played for the Hartford Colonials, Philadelphia Eagles and BC Lions.\n\nProfessional career\n\nCleveland Browns\nLawson was signed to a one-year contract by the Cleveland Browns as an undrafted free agent following the 2008 NFL Draft on April 28, 2008. He played in 20 games for the Browns from 2008–2009, making five special teams tackles and four kickoff returns for 115 yards.\n\nHartford Colonials\nLawson played with the Hartford Colonials of the United Football League in 2010 following his release from the Browns. He returned an interception 41 yards for a touchdown in his debut for the Colonials, and had 23 kickoff returns for 483 yards during the season.\n\nPhiladelphia Eagles\nLawson was signed to a three-year contract by the Philadelphia Eagles on December 24, 2010, to replace Jorrick Calvin, who was placed on injured reserve. He was released on July 28, 2011.\n\nBC Lions\nLawson was signed by the BC Lions on April 24, 2012. He was released by the Lions on June 16, 2013.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nBC Lions bio\nPhiladelphia Eagles bio\nCleveland Browns bio\n\n1985 births\nLiving people\nPeople from the Las Vegas Valley\nPlayers of American football from Nevada\nAmerican football cornerbacks\nAmerican football return specialists\nOregon State Beavers football players\nCleveland Browns players\nHartford Colonials players\nPhiladelphia Eagles players\nBC Lions players\nPalo Verde High School alumni"
] |
[
"Bill Edwards (American football coach)",
"Detroit Lions, military service, and Cleveland Browns",
"How long was Edwards with the Lions",
"signed two-year contracts.",
"Did he win much when he was with them?",
"Edwards's stint as the Lions coach was unsuccessful.",
"What year did he start with them?",
"Edwards ultimately was hired in February 1941",
"Did he go right from the lions to the browns?",
"I don't know."
] |
C_a1a2880e800847b8a33b661ee731765d_1
|
How long was he with the browns?
| 5 |
How long was Bill Edwards with the browns?
|
Bill Edwards (American football coach)
|
Having built a strong record at Western Reserve, Edwards was in the running for head coaching roles at a number of larger universities and professional teams. He met with officials at Marquette University and was considered a candidate for coaching duties at Colorado University and for the National Football League's Detroit Lions. After visiting with Lions owner Fred Mandel, Edwards ultimately was hired in February 1941 to succeed George Clark. Both Edwards and Dugan Miller signed two-year contracts. Edwards was given a $10,000 annual salary ($166,380 in 2017 dollars), more than double the $4,420 he was paid at Western Reserve. Edwards's stint as the Lions coach was unsuccessful. He guided the team to a 4-6-1 record in 1941, and Mandel fired him after three straight losses to begin the 1942 season as the team's roster was depleted by players' service in World War II. Detroit went on to lose all the rest of its games after John Karcis was named his replacement. Edwards enlisted in the U.S. Navy later in 1942 as America's involvement in the war intensified. While in the military, he served at St. Mary's Pre-Flight, a training program in California, and coached the Air Devils football team there. He also served at a base in Pensacola, Florida. Edwards was discharged in 1946, and spent a year in the sporting goods business in Cleveland, Ohio before reuniting with Brown, who had become the first coach of the Cleveland Browns in the All-America Football Conference (AAFC). Edwards took a position as a tackle coach and remained with the team for two seasons. He coached tackles including Ernie Blandin, Lou Rymkus and future Pro Football Hall of Fame member Lou Groza. The Browns won the AAFC championship in both of Edwards's years as an assistant; the team won all of its games in 1948, turning in professional football's first perfect season. CANNOTANSWER
|
Edwards took a position as a tackle coach and remained with the team for two seasons.
|
William Miller Edwards (June 21, 1905 – June 12, 1987) was an American football player and coach. He served as the head football coach at Western Reserve University, Vanderbilt University and Wittenberg University in a career lasting more than 30 years, compiling a win-loss-tie record of 168–45–8. Edwards also coached the Detroit Lions of the National Football League (NFL) from 1941 to 1942, tallying a 4–9–1 record, and served as an assistant coach for the NFL's Cleveland Browns in the late 1940s.
Raised near Massillon, Ohio, Edwards was the son of an immigrant from Wales who worked in the area's coal mines. He played football at Massillon Washington High School and enrolled at Ohio State University, where he stayed for a year before transferring to Wittenberg University. After college, Edwards began his coaching career at high schools in Ohio. He got his first job as a college head coach in 1935 at Western Reserve, now known as Case Western Reserve University, in Cleveland, Ohio and guided the team to a 49–6–2 record over six seasons. Edwards was then hired to coach the Lions, but his brief stay there was unsuccessful, and he was fired at the beginning of the 1942 season. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy later that year and served in the military during World War II until his discharge in 1946.
Edwards spent a year selling sporting goods in Cleveland, returning to football in 1947 with the Browns as an assistant to head coach Paul Brown, a close friend and former Massillon schoolmate. After two years as the team's tackle coach, he was hired by Vanderbilt in 1949. He stayed there for four years and amassed a 21–19–2 record, but resigned in 1953 under pressure from alumni. After two years as an assistant coach at the University of North Carolina, Edwards was hired by Wittenberg, his alma mater, as head football coach and athletic director. He spent the rest of his career there, serving as head coach until 1968 and remaining as athletic director until 1973. While at Wittenberg, he was named the country's college football coach of the year twice, and his teams posted an overall record of 98–20–4. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1986. Edwards, described as a tough but compassionate coach, had an influence on many men he worked with, including Steve Belichick, the father of New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick. Steve Belichick played for Edwards at Western Reserve and with the Lions, and coached with him at Vanderbilt. Edwards was the godfather of Bill.
Early life and college
Edwards grew up in Massillon, Ohio and attended Massillon Washington High School. He was a schoolmate of Paul Brown, who later became the coach of the Cleveland Browns and helped found the Cincinnati Bengals in the National Football League. The son of a Welsh coal miner, Edwards dropped out of school when he was 14 to help his family by working in the mines of East Greenville, near Massillon. He returned three years later, however, and became a star player on Massillon's football team. Edwards was a linebacker at Massillon between 1922 and 1924.
Edwards enrolled at Ohio State University where he captained the Buckeyes freshman football team and was roommates with Paul Brown, his former Massillon teammate. After the season, however, he transferred to Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio. At Wittenberg, he played as a center starting in 1928 and was the captain of the football team in 1929 and 1930. A tough player, Edwards did not like to wear a helmet, saying "you skin your ears a little without them, but I never had any trouble." He won All-Ohio honors at Wittenberg and was named an honorable mention All-American in 1930. One of Edwards's most memorable games as a collegian came in 1928 against the Ohio Wesleyan Battling Bishops. In the last game of a season in which Wesleyan had a perfect record and beat football powerhouses Michigan and Syracuse, Edwards kicked an extra point as time expired and gave Wittenberg a 7–6 victory. Grantland Rice, a prominent sportswriter of the time, called him the best center in college football. Walter Eckersall of the Chicago Tribune named him an All-American.
Coaching career
High school and Western Reserve
Edwards got his first coaching job in 1931, when he was hired as an assistant football coach at Springfield High School. He also taught history at the school. The following year, he got his first head coaching job at Fostoria High School in Fostoria, Ohio. After two seasons at Fostoria, during the second of which the team put in its best performance in 10 years with an 8–2 record, he left to coach the freshman football team at Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio in 1933. When Reserve head coach Sam Willaman died suddenly in August 1935, players lobbied for Edwards to take his place; Edwards got the job. Edwards brought in former Massillon and Wittenberg teammate and Fostoria aide Roy A. "Dugan" Miller as his chief assistant, and the Western Reserve Red Cats went undefeated in his first two seasons as coach. The team had a 49–6–2 record between the 1935 and 1940 seasons under Edwards. In his last season, Western Reserve reached the Sun Bowl in El Paso, Texas against Arizona State and won the game 26–13 on New Year's Day in 1941.
Detroit Lions, military service, and Cleveland Browns
Having built a strong record at Western Reserve, Edwards was in the running for head coaching roles at a number of larger universities and professional teams. He met with officials at Marquette University and was considered a candidate for coaching duties at Colorado University and for the National Football League's Detroit Lions. After visiting with Lions owner Fred Mandel, Edwards ultimately was hired in February 1941 to succeed George Clark. Both Edwards and Dugan Miller signed two-year contracts. Edwards was given a $10,000 annual salary ($ in dollars), more than double the $4,420 he was paid at Western Reserve.
Edwards's stint as the Lions coach was unsuccessful. He guided the team to a 4–6–1 record in 1941, and Mandel fired him after three straight losses to begin the 1942 season as the team's roster was depleted by players' service in World War II. Detroit went on to lose all the rest of its games after John Karcis was named his replacement.
Edwards enlisted in the U.S. Navy later in 1942 as America's involvement in the war intensified. While in the military, he served at St. Mary's Pre-Flight, a training program in California, and coached the Air Devils football team there. He also served at a base in Pensacola, Florida. Edwards was discharged in 1946, and spent a year in the sporting goods business in Cleveland, Ohio before reuniting with Brown, who had become the first coach of the Cleveland Browns in the All-America Football Conference (AAFC). Edwards took a position as a tackle coach and remained with the team for two seasons. He coached tackles including Ernie Blandin, Lou Rymkus and future Pro Football Hall of Fame member Lou Groza. The Browns won the AAFC championship in both of Edwards's years as an assistant; the team won all of its games in 1948, turning in professional football's first perfect season.
Vanderbilt, North Carolina, and Wittenberg
Edwards was hired as Vanderbilt University's head football coach and athletic director in 1949, replacing Henry Russell Sanders when Sanders left to become head coach at the University of California, Los Angeles. Vanderbilt gave the 43-year-old coach a three-year contract paying a $12,500 salary ($ in today's dollars). "I don't like to leave the Cleveland Browns and Paul Brown in particular," he said at the time. "I'll never forget my experiences with the Browns over the past two years." Edwards remained at Vanderbilt for four seasons, building up a 21–19–2 record. He instituted a modern T formation offense to replace Sanders's more traditional single-wing formation. He resigned in 1953 under pressure from Vanderbilt alumni following a 3–5–2 season. He then moved to the University of North Carolina, where he was an assistant on the football team's coaching staff in 1953 and 1954.
Edwards was hired as athletic director and head football coach at Wittenberg, his alma mater, in 1955. He put in a pro-style offense and focused on passing because his players were smaller than many opponents. "We had small players, but little guys can throw the football and little guys can catch it, whereas you need big guys to block for a running game," he said in 1973. Under Edwards, the Wittenberg Tigers were a major success, amassing a 98–20–4 record in 14 seasons and winning the NCAA College Division national championship poll in 1962 and 1964. Edwards's teams were unbeaten three times and lost one game in five of his seasons there. He was named Ohio College Football Coach of the Year in 1957 by his fellow coaches. The American Football Coaches Association named him coach of the year in 1963 and 1964, when the Tigers won all of their games. He was called "a combination of Genghis Khan and Santa Claus" by Sports Illustrated for being both tough and sympathetic to his players.
Later life and death
Edwards resigned from coaching in 1969, when he was 63 years old, although he continued to work at Wittenberg as the school's athletic director. Dave Maurer, his long-time assistant, took over as the school's coach. By the end of his career, Edwards's 168–45–8 overall college record gave him the second-best winning percentage in the country among active coaches with at least 100 wins. Edwards was given a commendation by President Richard Nixon for his achievements as a coach and won a Football Writers Association of America award for contributions to the game. "His retirement is Wittenberg's loss, but more than that, it is college football's loss," University of Alabama coach Bear Bryant said at the time.
Edwards retired in February 1973 after 39 years as a coach and administrator and said he would concentrate on hunting and fishing. He was inducted into the Ohio Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 1979, Wittenberg's Athletics Hall of Honor in 1985 and into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1986. He was also inducted into the Western Reserve Hall of Fame and the Vanderbilt Hall of Fame in 1986. Edwards died in 1987. He and his wife Dorothy had three children.
The tough but compassionate approach to coaching Edwards espoused influenced many men who worked under him, including Maurer, who led Wittenberg to a 129–23–3 record between 1969 and 1983. Wittenberg's football stadium is named Edwards-Maurer Field in honor of both head coaches. The winner of the Wittenberg-Case Western Reserve football game receives the Bill Edwards Trophy.
Edwards was also close with Steve Belichick, who played for him at Western Reserve and for the Detroit Lions and later served as an assistant under him at Vanderbilt and North Carolina. Belichick's son Bill was named after Edwards, who was also Bill's godfather. Bill Belichick later became an assistant coach in the NFL and is the head coach of the New England Patriots as of . At what is now known as Case Western Reserve University, the football stadium, DiSanto Field, hosts its distinguished guests inside the Coach Bill Edwards President's Suite.
Head coaching record
College
Professional
References
Bibliography
External links
1905 births
1987 deaths
American football centers
Case Western Spartans football coaches
Detroit Lions head coaches
Ohio State Buckeyes football players
North Carolina Tar Heels football coaches
Saint Mary's Pre-Flight Air Devils football coaches
Vanderbilt Commodores athletic directors
Vanderbilt Commodores football coaches
Wittenberg Tigers athletic directors
Wittenberg Tigers football coaches
Wittenberg Tigers football players
High school football coaches in Ohio
College Football Hall of Fame inductees
Sportspeople from Massillon, Ohio
Coaches of American football from Ohio
Players of American football from Ohio
| true |
[
"Ryan David Pontbriand (born October 1, 1979) is a former American football long snapper and center. He played college football for Rice University, and was drafted in the fifth round of the 2003 NFL Draft by the Cleveland Browns. He has the distinction of being the highest-drafted pure long snapper in the history of the NFL Draft.\n\nEarly years\nPontbriand attended Clements High School in Sugar Land, Texas, where he was a three-year letterman and a full-time starter on the football team's offensive line. He was a first-team all-district selection as a senior after receiving an honorable mention as a junior. Pontbriand was named his team's offensive lineman of the year during his senior year and was his team's co-captain.\n\nCollege career\nRyan graduated high school and attended Rice University, redshirting his first year of eligibility in 1998. While at Rice, Pontbriand was the team's long snapper, and graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering.\n\nProfessional career\n\nCleveland Browns\nAfter finishing his fifth year at Rice, Pontbriand was eligible for the NFL Draft. In the fifth round of the 2003 NFL Draft, Ryan was selected by the Cleveland Browns with the 142nd overall pick. Pontbriand is one of only thirteen long snappers drafted since 1982. Pontbriand missed only five games with the Browns, which occurred during the 2005 season due to a back injury. Pontbriand was named to the Pro Bowl as the \"need\" player in 2007, 2008.\n\nOn November 29, 2011, he was released by the Browns due to an injury that was believed to be career-ending.\n\nSan Francisco 49ers\nPontbriand signed with the San Francisco 49ers on February 21, 2012. He was brought in to provide competition to Brian Jennings at the position. He was released on June 15, 2012.\n\nReferences\n\n1979 births\nLiving people\nAmerican Conference Pro Bowl players\nAmerican football centers\nAmerican football long snappers\nCleveland Browns players\nPlayers of American football from Houston\nRice Owls football players\nSan Francisco 49ers players",
"Robert Jackson (born December 8, 1993) is an American football cornerback for the Baltimore Ravens of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football at UNLV.\n\nProfessional career\n\nIndianapolis Colts\nAfter going undrafted in the 2018 NFL Draft, Jackson signed with the Indianapolis Colts on May 1, 2018. Jackson was waived with an injury designation by the Colts on September 1, 2018 and subsequently reverted to the Colts' injured reserve list. The Colts released Jackson from the injured reserve list with an injury settlement on October 4, 2018.\n\nHouston Texans\nJackson was signed to the Houston Texans' practice squad on October 9, 2018. He was released by the Texans on October 16, 2018.\n\nCleveland Browns\nJackson was signed to the Cleveland Browns' practice squad on October 31, 2018. He was released by the Browns on December 13, 2018. The Browns re-signed Jackson to a futures contract on January 2, 2019. He remained with the team during the Browns' 2019 training camp, and was waived during final roster cuts on August 31, 2019. Jackson re-signed with the Browns to their practice squad on September 1, 2019. He was elevated to the Browns' active roster on September 20, 2019. He was placed on injured reserve on December 7, 2019 with an ankle injury.\n\nJackson was waived by the Browns on September 5, 2020. The Browns re-signed Jackson to their practice squad on September 6, 2020. He was elevated to the active roster on September 12, 2020 for the team's Week 1 matchup. Jackson reverted to the Browns' practice squad on September 14, 2020. He was elevated to the active roster for a second time on September 17, 2020 prior to the Browns' week 2 game, and reverted to the practice squad the following day. The Browns promoted Jackson to their active roster on October 14, 2020. On January 12, 2021, Jackson was placed on injured reserve. On February 11, 2021, Jackson was waived by the Browns. He re-signed with the Browns on February 20, 2021. He was waived on August 24, 2021.\n\nLas Vegas Raiders\nOn September 1, 2021, Jackson was signed to the Las Vegas Raiders practice squad. He was released on October 13, 2021.\n\nBaltimore Ravens\nOn December 1, 2021, Jackson was signed to the Baltimore Ravens practice squad. On December 5, 2021, Jackson was elevated to the Ravens' active roster in advance of the team's Week 13 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers, He reverted to the practice squad after the game. He was again elevated to the active roster in advance of the team's Week 15 loss to the Green Bay Packers, and reverted back to the practice squad after the game. He signed a reserve/future contract with the Ravens on January 10, 2022.\n\nNFL Career statistics\n\nReferences\n\n1993 births\nLiving people\nAmerican football cornerbacks\nUNLV Rebels football players\nIndianapolis Colts players\nHouston Texans players\nCleveland Browns players\nLas Vegas Raiders players\nBaltimore Ravens players"
] |
[
"Bill Edwards (American football coach)",
"Detroit Lions, military service, and Cleveland Browns",
"How long was Edwards with the Lions",
"signed two-year contracts.",
"Did he win much when he was with them?",
"Edwards's stint as the Lions coach was unsuccessful.",
"What year did he start with them?",
"Edwards ultimately was hired in February 1941",
"Did he go right from the lions to the browns?",
"I don't know.",
"How long was he with the browns?",
"Edwards took a position as a tackle coach and remained with the team for two seasons."
] |
C_a1a2880e800847b8a33b661ee731765d_1
|
What about his military service was he in a war?
| 6 |
What about Bill Edwards military service was he in a war?
|
Bill Edwards (American football coach)
|
Having built a strong record at Western Reserve, Edwards was in the running for head coaching roles at a number of larger universities and professional teams. He met with officials at Marquette University and was considered a candidate for coaching duties at Colorado University and for the National Football League's Detroit Lions. After visiting with Lions owner Fred Mandel, Edwards ultimately was hired in February 1941 to succeed George Clark. Both Edwards and Dugan Miller signed two-year contracts. Edwards was given a $10,000 annual salary ($166,380 in 2017 dollars), more than double the $4,420 he was paid at Western Reserve. Edwards's stint as the Lions coach was unsuccessful. He guided the team to a 4-6-1 record in 1941, and Mandel fired him after three straight losses to begin the 1942 season as the team's roster was depleted by players' service in World War II. Detroit went on to lose all the rest of its games after John Karcis was named his replacement. Edwards enlisted in the U.S. Navy later in 1942 as America's involvement in the war intensified. While in the military, he served at St. Mary's Pre-Flight, a training program in California, and coached the Air Devils football team there. He also served at a base in Pensacola, Florida. Edwards was discharged in 1946, and spent a year in the sporting goods business in Cleveland, Ohio before reuniting with Brown, who had become the first coach of the Cleveland Browns in the All-America Football Conference (AAFC). Edwards took a position as a tackle coach and remained with the team for two seasons. He coached tackles including Ernie Blandin, Lou Rymkus and future Pro Football Hall of Fame member Lou Groza. The Browns won the AAFC championship in both of Edwards's years as an assistant; the team won all of its games in 1948, turning in professional football's first perfect season. CANNOTANSWER
|
Edwards enlisted in the U.S. Navy later in 1942 as America's involvement in the war intensified.
|
William Miller Edwards (June 21, 1905 – June 12, 1987) was an American football player and coach. He served as the head football coach at Western Reserve University, Vanderbilt University and Wittenberg University in a career lasting more than 30 years, compiling a win-loss-tie record of 168–45–8. Edwards also coached the Detroit Lions of the National Football League (NFL) from 1941 to 1942, tallying a 4–9–1 record, and served as an assistant coach for the NFL's Cleveland Browns in the late 1940s.
Raised near Massillon, Ohio, Edwards was the son of an immigrant from Wales who worked in the area's coal mines. He played football at Massillon Washington High School and enrolled at Ohio State University, where he stayed for a year before transferring to Wittenberg University. After college, Edwards began his coaching career at high schools in Ohio. He got his first job as a college head coach in 1935 at Western Reserve, now known as Case Western Reserve University, in Cleveland, Ohio and guided the team to a 49–6–2 record over six seasons. Edwards was then hired to coach the Lions, but his brief stay there was unsuccessful, and he was fired at the beginning of the 1942 season. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy later that year and served in the military during World War II until his discharge in 1946.
Edwards spent a year selling sporting goods in Cleveland, returning to football in 1947 with the Browns as an assistant to head coach Paul Brown, a close friend and former Massillon schoolmate. After two years as the team's tackle coach, he was hired by Vanderbilt in 1949. He stayed there for four years and amassed a 21–19–2 record, but resigned in 1953 under pressure from alumni. After two years as an assistant coach at the University of North Carolina, Edwards was hired by Wittenberg, his alma mater, as head football coach and athletic director. He spent the rest of his career there, serving as head coach until 1968 and remaining as athletic director until 1973. While at Wittenberg, he was named the country's college football coach of the year twice, and his teams posted an overall record of 98–20–4. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1986. Edwards, described as a tough but compassionate coach, had an influence on many men he worked with, including Steve Belichick, the father of New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick. Steve Belichick played for Edwards at Western Reserve and with the Lions, and coached with him at Vanderbilt. Edwards was the godfather of Bill.
Early life and college
Edwards grew up in Massillon, Ohio and attended Massillon Washington High School. He was a schoolmate of Paul Brown, who later became the coach of the Cleveland Browns and helped found the Cincinnati Bengals in the National Football League. The son of a Welsh coal miner, Edwards dropped out of school when he was 14 to help his family by working in the mines of East Greenville, near Massillon. He returned three years later, however, and became a star player on Massillon's football team. Edwards was a linebacker at Massillon between 1922 and 1924.
Edwards enrolled at Ohio State University where he captained the Buckeyes freshman football team and was roommates with Paul Brown, his former Massillon teammate. After the season, however, he transferred to Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio. At Wittenberg, he played as a center starting in 1928 and was the captain of the football team in 1929 and 1930. A tough player, Edwards did not like to wear a helmet, saying "you skin your ears a little without them, but I never had any trouble." He won All-Ohio honors at Wittenberg and was named an honorable mention All-American in 1930. One of Edwards's most memorable games as a collegian came in 1928 against the Ohio Wesleyan Battling Bishops. In the last game of a season in which Wesleyan had a perfect record and beat football powerhouses Michigan and Syracuse, Edwards kicked an extra point as time expired and gave Wittenberg a 7–6 victory. Grantland Rice, a prominent sportswriter of the time, called him the best center in college football. Walter Eckersall of the Chicago Tribune named him an All-American.
Coaching career
High school and Western Reserve
Edwards got his first coaching job in 1931, when he was hired as an assistant football coach at Springfield High School. He also taught history at the school. The following year, he got his first head coaching job at Fostoria High School in Fostoria, Ohio. After two seasons at Fostoria, during the second of which the team put in its best performance in 10 years with an 8–2 record, he left to coach the freshman football team at Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio in 1933. When Reserve head coach Sam Willaman died suddenly in August 1935, players lobbied for Edwards to take his place; Edwards got the job. Edwards brought in former Massillon and Wittenberg teammate and Fostoria aide Roy A. "Dugan" Miller as his chief assistant, and the Western Reserve Red Cats went undefeated in his first two seasons as coach. The team had a 49–6–2 record between the 1935 and 1940 seasons under Edwards. In his last season, Western Reserve reached the Sun Bowl in El Paso, Texas against Arizona State and won the game 26–13 on New Year's Day in 1941.
Detroit Lions, military service, and Cleveland Browns
Having built a strong record at Western Reserve, Edwards was in the running for head coaching roles at a number of larger universities and professional teams. He met with officials at Marquette University and was considered a candidate for coaching duties at Colorado University and for the National Football League's Detroit Lions. After visiting with Lions owner Fred Mandel, Edwards ultimately was hired in February 1941 to succeed George Clark. Both Edwards and Dugan Miller signed two-year contracts. Edwards was given a $10,000 annual salary ($ in dollars), more than double the $4,420 he was paid at Western Reserve.
Edwards's stint as the Lions coach was unsuccessful. He guided the team to a 4–6–1 record in 1941, and Mandel fired him after three straight losses to begin the 1942 season as the team's roster was depleted by players' service in World War II. Detroit went on to lose all the rest of its games after John Karcis was named his replacement.
Edwards enlisted in the U.S. Navy later in 1942 as America's involvement in the war intensified. While in the military, he served at St. Mary's Pre-Flight, a training program in California, and coached the Air Devils football team there. He also served at a base in Pensacola, Florida. Edwards was discharged in 1946, and spent a year in the sporting goods business in Cleveland, Ohio before reuniting with Brown, who had become the first coach of the Cleveland Browns in the All-America Football Conference (AAFC). Edwards took a position as a tackle coach and remained with the team for two seasons. He coached tackles including Ernie Blandin, Lou Rymkus and future Pro Football Hall of Fame member Lou Groza. The Browns won the AAFC championship in both of Edwards's years as an assistant; the team won all of its games in 1948, turning in professional football's first perfect season.
Vanderbilt, North Carolina, and Wittenberg
Edwards was hired as Vanderbilt University's head football coach and athletic director in 1949, replacing Henry Russell Sanders when Sanders left to become head coach at the University of California, Los Angeles. Vanderbilt gave the 43-year-old coach a three-year contract paying a $12,500 salary ($ in today's dollars). "I don't like to leave the Cleveland Browns and Paul Brown in particular," he said at the time. "I'll never forget my experiences with the Browns over the past two years." Edwards remained at Vanderbilt for four seasons, building up a 21–19–2 record. He instituted a modern T formation offense to replace Sanders's more traditional single-wing formation. He resigned in 1953 under pressure from Vanderbilt alumni following a 3–5–2 season. He then moved to the University of North Carolina, where he was an assistant on the football team's coaching staff in 1953 and 1954.
Edwards was hired as athletic director and head football coach at Wittenberg, his alma mater, in 1955. He put in a pro-style offense and focused on passing because his players were smaller than many opponents. "We had small players, but little guys can throw the football and little guys can catch it, whereas you need big guys to block for a running game," he said in 1973. Under Edwards, the Wittenberg Tigers were a major success, amassing a 98–20–4 record in 14 seasons and winning the NCAA College Division national championship poll in 1962 and 1964. Edwards's teams were unbeaten three times and lost one game in five of his seasons there. He was named Ohio College Football Coach of the Year in 1957 by his fellow coaches. The American Football Coaches Association named him coach of the year in 1963 and 1964, when the Tigers won all of their games. He was called "a combination of Genghis Khan and Santa Claus" by Sports Illustrated for being both tough and sympathetic to his players.
Later life and death
Edwards resigned from coaching in 1969, when he was 63 years old, although he continued to work at Wittenberg as the school's athletic director. Dave Maurer, his long-time assistant, took over as the school's coach. By the end of his career, Edwards's 168–45–8 overall college record gave him the second-best winning percentage in the country among active coaches with at least 100 wins. Edwards was given a commendation by President Richard Nixon for his achievements as a coach and won a Football Writers Association of America award for contributions to the game. "His retirement is Wittenberg's loss, but more than that, it is college football's loss," University of Alabama coach Bear Bryant said at the time.
Edwards retired in February 1973 after 39 years as a coach and administrator and said he would concentrate on hunting and fishing. He was inducted into the Ohio Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 1979, Wittenberg's Athletics Hall of Honor in 1985 and into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1986. He was also inducted into the Western Reserve Hall of Fame and the Vanderbilt Hall of Fame in 1986. Edwards died in 1987. He and his wife Dorothy had three children.
The tough but compassionate approach to coaching Edwards espoused influenced many men who worked under him, including Maurer, who led Wittenberg to a 129–23–3 record between 1969 and 1983. Wittenberg's football stadium is named Edwards-Maurer Field in honor of both head coaches. The winner of the Wittenberg-Case Western Reserve football game receives the Bill Edwards Trophy.
Edwards was also close with Steve Belichick, who played for him at Western Reserve and for the Detroit Lions and later served as an assistant under him at Vanderbilt and North Carolina. Belichick's son Bill was named after Edwards, who was also Bill's godfather. Bill Belichick later became an assistant coach in the NFL and is the head coach of the New England Patriots as of . At what is now known as Case Western Reserve University, the football stadium, DiSanto Field, hosts its distinguished guests inside the Coach Bill Edwards President's Suite.
Head coaching record
College
Professional
References
Bibliography
External links
1905 births
1987 deaths
American football centers
Case Western Spartans football coaches
Detroit Lions head coaches
Ohio State Buckeyes football players
North Carolina Tar Heels football coaches
Saint Mary's Pre-Flight Air Devils football coaches
Vanderbilt Commodores athletic directors
Vanderbilt Commodores football coaches
Wittenberg Tigers athletic directors
Wittenberg Tigers football coaches
Wittenberg Tigers football players
High school football coaches in Ohio
College Football Hall of Fame inductees
Sportspeople from Massillon, Ohio
Coaches of American football from Ohio
Players of American football from Ohio
| true |
[
"Brigadier-General Sir Eric Edward Boketon Holt-Wilson (26 August 1875 – 26 March 1950) was a British Army officer who left the army to join the nascent British Security Service (MI5), which developed in time to deal with espionage during World War I. He became the Service's deputy to Sir Vernon Kell, serving through to the beginning of World War II.\n\nFamily life\nBorn in Norwich, Norfolk, in 1875, Holt-Wilson was the son of Reverend Thomas Holt-Wilson and his wife Helen Emily Greene, daughter of Edward Greene. He was educated at Harrow School from 1887 to 1892.\n\nHe was married twice, firstly to Susannah Mary Shaw in 1903 and secondly Audrey Stirling in 1931.\n\nMilitary service\nHolt-Wilson took a commission in the Royal Engineers and then attended the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich (1893-95). On being commissioned after his time at Woolwich he joined 7 Field Regiment, Royal Engineers and was posted to South Africa 1899–1902. On returning from overseas service he became an instructor at the School of Military Engineering, 1903–1906. This was followed by a tour of duty as Cadet Company Commander and Instructor in Military Engineering back at the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich, 1909–1912; this was his last military posting before joining the Imperial Security Intelligence Service.\n\nHis war service in South Africa was excellent and he was mentioned in despatches twice in 8 February and 10 September 1901. He received the Queen's South Africa Medal with five clasps and the King's South Africa Medal with two clasps; and was created a Companion of the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) on 27 September 1901: \"In recognition of services during the operations in South Africa.\"\n\nIntelligence service\nRising public fears in Great Britain of German espionage precipitated the creation of a new government intelligence agency formed by Vernon Kell in 1909. In 1912 Holt-Wilson went to work for Vernon Kell, then the Director of what was termed the Home Section of the Secret Service Bureau with responsibility for investigating espionage, sabotage and subversion in Britain.\n\nHolt-Wilson served on the Imperial General Staff from 1914 to 1924. He remained a loyal and dedicated deputy to Kell and was sacked along with his director by Winston Churchill in 1940.\n\nHonours\nHolt-Wilson was awarded the following orders and decorations:\nWas made a Knight Bachelor (Kt) in the 1933 Birthday Honours\nCompanion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG)\nDistinguished Service Order\nLegion of Honour\nOfficer of Order of the Crown of Belgium\n\nSee also\n Vernon Kell\n\nReferences\n\nSources\nIntelligence and Imperial Defence: British Intelligence and the Defence of the British Empire, by Richard James Popplewell, 1995\n\nMI5 personnel\nRoyal Engineers officers\nBritish Army personnel of the Second Boer War\nKnights Bachelor\nCompanions of the Distinguished Service Order\nGraduates of the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich\nPeople educated at Harrow School\n1875 births\n1950 deaths\nBritish Army generals\nBritish Army personnel of World War I\nMilitary personnel from Norwich\nAcademics of the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich",
"Eugène Lemercier (7 November 1886 – 6 April 1915) was a French artist and soldier in World War I. His letters to his mother are a first-hand account of the war, and are preserved in the National Library of Ireland. He is believed to be the subject of Wallace Stevens' poem \"The Death of a Soldier.\"\n\nEarly life and artistic career\nEugène Emmanuel Lemercier was born in Paris on 7 November 1886. He was the son of Marguerite O’Hagan and Eugène-Augustin Lemercier. His grandmother was the Irish portrait artist Harriet Osborne O'Hagan, and his mother also an artist. His father died before Lemercier born. Lemercier entered the École des Beaux-Arts at age fifteen. He left the École in 1906 to join the army to complete his military service. Lemercier won a number of government prizes for his paintings between 1906 and 1914, for pieces such as La Contemplation, a study for which is held by the National Gallery of Ireland. He had begun a new work, when he was drafted into the army after the outbreak of World War I.\n\nMilitary career and writing\nLemercier's military service began in 1906 when he joined the 106th Regiment of infantry in Chalons-sur-Marne. As Lemercier was enrolled in higher education, his service was just one year. After his drafting back into the army in August 1914, he wrote to his mother almost every day from 4 August 1914 until 6 April 1915. He also wrote to his grandmother, and to a circle of friends. During September and October, Lemercier was in what he called \"the zone of the horrors\", during which time he received no correspondence and he wrote in his diary. His writings are held by the National Library of Ireland (NLI), as a first-hand testimony of the war. He disappeared, presumed dead, during the Battle of Les Éparges in April 1915.\n\nThe collection in the NLI consists of 263 letters and postcards, two journals and photographs, as well as letters from his mother about his correspondence and artworks. The letters were published as Lettres d'un soldat : août 1914-avril 1915.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nDetails of his correspondence in French\n \n\n1886 births\n1915 deaths\nArtists from Paris\nFrench military personnel killed in World War I"
] |
[
"Bill Edwards (American football coach)",
"Detroit Lions, military service, and Cleveland Browns",
"How long was Edwards with the Lions",
"signed two-year contracts.",
"Did he win much when he was with them?",
"Edwards's stint as the Lions coach was unsuccessful.",
"What year did he start with them?",
"Edwards ultimately was hired in February 1941",
"Did he go right from the lions to the browns?",
"I don't know.",
"How long was he with the browns?",
"Edwards took a position as a tackle coach and remained with the team for two seasons.",
"What about his military service was he in a war?",
"Edwards enlisted in the U.S. Navy later in 1942 as America's involvement in the war intensified."
] |
C_a1a2880e800847b8a33b661ee731765d_1
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How long was he in the military?
| 7 |
How long was Bill Edwards in the military?
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Bill Edwards (American football coach)
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Having built a strong record at Western Reserve, Edwards was in the running for head coaching roles at a number of larger universities and professional teams. He met with officials at Marquette University and was considered a candidate for coaching duties at Colorado University and for the National Football League's Detroit Lions. After visiting with Lions owner Fred Mandel, Edwards ultimately was hired in February 1941 to succeed George Clark. Both Edwards and Dugan Miller signed two-year contracts. Edwards was given a $10,000 annual salary ($166,380 in 2017 dollars), more than double the $4,420 he was paid at Western Reserve. Edwards's stint as the Lions coach was unsuccessful. He guided the team to a 4-6-1 record in 1941, and Mandel fired him after three straight losses to begin the 1942 season as the team's roster was depleted by players' service in World War II. Detroit went on to lose all the rest of its games after John Karcis was named his replacement. Edwards enlisted in the U.S. Navy later in 1942 as America's involvement in the war intensified. While in the military, he served at St. Mary's Pre-Flight, a training program in California, and coached the Air Devils football team there. He also served at a base in Pensacola, Florida. Edwards was discharged in 1946, and spent a year in the sporting goods business in Cleveland, Ohio before reuniting with Brown, who had become the first coach of the Cleveland Browns in the All-America Football Conference (AAFC). Edwards took a position as a tackle coach and remained with the team for two seasons. He coached tackles including Ernie Blandin, Lou Rymkus and future Pro Football Hall of Fame member Lou Groza. The Browns won the AAFC championship in both of Edwards's years as an assistant; the team won all of its games in 1948, turning in professional football's first perfect season. CANNOTANSWER
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Edwards was discharged in 1946,
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William Miller Edwards (June 21, 1905 – June 12, 1987) was an American football player and coach. He served as the head football coach at Western Reserve University, Vanderbilt University and Wittenberg University in a career lasting more than 30 years, compiling a win-loss-tie record of 168–45–8. Edwards also coached the Detroit Lions of the National Football League (NFL) from 1941 to 1942, tallying a 4–9–1 record, and served as an assistant coach for the NFL's Cleveland Browns in the late 1940s.
Raised near Massillon, Ohio, Edwards was the son of an immigrant from Wales who worked in the area's coal mines. He played football at Massillon Washington High School and enrolled at Ohio State University, where he stayed for a year before transferring to Wittenberg University. After college, Edwards began his coaching career at high schools in Ohio. He got his first job as a college head coach in 1935 at Western Reserve, now known as Case Western Reserve University, in Cleveland, Ohio and guided the team to a 49–6–2 record over six seasons. Edwards was then hired to coach the Lions, but his brief stay there was unsuccessful, and he was fired at the beginning of the 1942 season. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy later that year and served in the military during World War II until his discharge in 1946.
Edwards spent a year selling sporting goods in Cleveland, returning to football in 1947 with the Browns as an assistant to head coach Paul Brown, a close friend and former Massillon schoolmate. After two years as the team's tackle coach, he was hired by Vanderbilt in 1949. He stayed there for four years and amassed a 21–19–2 record, but resigned in 1953 under pressure from alumni. After two years as an assistant coach at the University of North Carolina, Edwards was hired by Wittenberg, his alma mater, as head football coach and athletic director. He spent the rest of his career there, serving as head coach until 1968 and remaining as athletic director until 1973. While at Wittenberg, he was named the country's college football coach of the year twice, and his teams posted an overall record of 98–20–4. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1986. Edwards, described as a tough but compassionate coach, had an influence on many men he worked with, including Steve Belichick, the father of New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick. Steve Belichick played for Edwards at Western Reserve and with the Lions, and coached with him at Vanderbilt. Edwards was the godfather of Bill.
Early life and college
Edwards grew up in Massillon, Ohio and attended Massillon Washington High School. He was a schoolmate of Paul Brown, who later became the coach of the Cleveland Browns and helped found the Cincinnati Bengals in the National Football League. The son of a Welsh coal miner, Edwards dropped out of school when he was 14 to help his family by working in the mines of East Greenville, near Massillon. He returned three years later, however, and became a star player on Massillon's football team. Edwards was a linebacker at Massillon between 1922 and 1924.
Edwards enrolled at Ohio State University where he captained the Buckeyes freshman football team and was roommates with Paul Brown, his former Massillon teammate. After the season, however, he transferred to Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio. At Wittenberg, he played as a center starting in 1928 and was the captain of the football team in 1929 and 1930. A tough player, Edwards did not like to wear a helmet, saying "you skin your ears a little without them, but I never had any trouble." He won All-Ohio honors at Wittenberg and was named an honorable mention All-American in 1930. One of Edwards's most memorable games as a collegian came in 1928 against the Ohio Wesleyan Battling Bishops. In the last game of a season in which Wesleyan had a perfect record and beat football powerhouses Michigan and Syracuse, Edwards kicked an extra point as time expired and gave Wittenberg a 7–6 victory. Grantland Rice, a prominent sportswriter of the time, called him the best center in college football. Walter Eckersall of the Chicago Tribune named him an All-American.
Coaching career
High school and Western Reserve
Edwards got his first coaching job in 1931, when he was hired as an assistant football coach at Springfield High School. He also taught history at the school. The following year, he got his first head coaching job at Fostoria High School in Fostoria, Ohio. After two seasons at Fostoria, during the second of which the team put in its best performance in 10 years with an 8–2 record, he left to coach the freshman football team at Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio in 1933. When Reserve head coach Sam Willaman died suddenly in August 1935, players lobbied for Edwards to take his place; Edwards got the job. Edwards brought in former Massillon and Wittenberg teammate and Fostoria aide Roy A. "Dugan" Miller as his chief assistant, and the Western Reserve Red Cats went undefeated in his first two seasons as coach. The team had a 49–6–2 record between the 1935 and 1940 seasons under Edwards. In his last season, Western Reserve reached the Sun Bowl in El Paso, Texas against Arizona State and won the game 26–13 on New Year's Day in 1941.
Detroit Lions, military service, and Cleveland Browns
Having built a strong record at Western Reserve, Edwards was in the running for head coaching roles at a number of larger universities and professional teams. He met with officials at Marquette University and was considered a candidate for coaching duties at Colorado University and for the National Football League's Detroit Lions. After visiting with Lions owner Fred Mandel, Edwards ultimately was hired in February 1941 to succeed George Clark. Both Edwards and Dugan Miller signed two-year contracts. Edwards was given a $10,000 annual salary ($ in dollars), more than double the $4,420 he was paid at Western Reserve.
Edwards's stint as the Lions coach was unsuccessful. He guided the team to a 4–6–1 record in 1941, and Mandel fired him after three straight losses to begin the 1942 season as the team's roster was depleted by players' service in World War II. Detroit went on to lose all the rest of its games after John Karcis was named his replacement.
Edwards enlisted in the U.S. Navy later in 1942 as America's involvement in the war intensified. While in the military, he served at St. Mary's Pre-Flight, a training program in California, and coached the Air Devils football team there. He also served at a base in Pensacola, Florida. Edwards was discharged in 1946, and spent a year in the sporting goods business in Cleveland, Ohio before reuniting with Brown, who had become the first coach of the Cleveland Browns in the All-America Football Conference (AAFC). Edwards took a position as a tackle coach and remained with the team for two seasons. He coached tackles including Ernie Blandin, Lou Rymkus and future Pro Football Hall of Fame member Lou Groza. The Browns won the AAFC championship in both of Edwards's years as an assistant; the team won all of its games in 1948, turning in professional football's first perfect season.
Vanderbilt, North Carolina, and Wittenberg
Edwards was hired as Vanderbilt University's head football coach and athletic director in 1949, replacing Henry Russell Sanders when Sanders left to become head coach at the University of California, Los Angeles. Vanderbilt gave the 43-year-old coach a three-year contract paying a $12,500 salary ($ in today's dollars). "I don't like to leave the Cleveland Browns and Paul Brown in particular," he said at the time. "I'll never forget my experiences with the Browns over the past two years." Edwards remained at Vanderbilt for four seasons, building up a 21–19–2 record. He instituted a modern T formation offense to replace Sanders's more traditional single-wing formation. He resigned in 1953 under pressure from Vanderbilt alumni following a 3–5–2 season. He then moved to the University of North Carolina, where he was an assistant on the football team's coaching staff in 1953 and 1954.
Edwards was hired as athletic director and head football coach at Wittenberg, his alma mater, in 1955. He put in a pro-style offense and focused on passing because his players were smaller than many opponents. "We had small players, but little guys can throw the football and little guys can catch it, whereas you need big guys to block for a running game," he said in 1973. Under Edwards, the Wittenberg Tigers were a major success, amassing a 98–20–4 record in 14 seasons and winning the NCAA College Division national championship poll in 1962 and 1964. Edwards's teams were unbeaten three times and lost one game in five of his seasons there. He was named Ohio College Football Coach of the Year in 1957 by his fellow coaches. The American Football Coaches Association named him coach of the year in 1963 and 1964, when the Tigers won all of their games. He was called "a combination of Genghis Khan and Santa Claus" by Sports Illustrated for being both tough and sympathetic to his players.
Later life and death
Edwards resigned from coaching in 1969, when he was 63 years old, although he continued to work at Wittenberg as the school's athletic director. Dave Maurer, his long-time assistant, took over as the school's coach. By the end of his career, Edwards's 168–45–8 overall college record gave him the second-best winning percentage in the country among active coaches with at least 100 wins. Edwards was given a commendation by President Richard Nixon for his achievements as a coach and won a Football Writers Association of America award for contributions to the game. "His retirement is Wittenberg's loss, but more than that, it is college football's loss," University of Alabama coach Bear Bryant said at the time.
Edwards retired in February 1973 after 39 years as a coach and administrator and said he would concentrate on hunting and fishing. He was inducted into the Ohio Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 1979, Wittenberg's Athletics Hall of Honor in 1985 and into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1986. He was also inducted into the Western Reserve Hall of Fame and the Vanderbilt Hall of Fame in 1986. Edwards died in 1987. He and his wife Dorothy had three children.
The tough but compassionate approach to coaching Edwards espoused influenced many men who worked under him, including Maurer, who led Wittenberg to a 129–23–3 record between 1969 and 1983. Wittenberg's football stadium is named Edwards-Maurer Field in honor of both head coaches. The winner of the Wittenberg-Case Western Reserve football game receives the Bill Edwards Trophy.
Edwards was also close with Steve Belichick, who played for him at Western Reserve and for the Detroit Lions and later served as an assistant under him at Vanderbilt and North Carolina. Belichick's son Bill was named after Edwards, who was also Bill's godfather. Bill Belichick later became an assistant coach in the NFL and is the head coach of the New England Patriots as of . At what is now known as Case Western Reserve University, the football stadium, DiSanto Field, hosts its distinguished guests inside the Coach Bill Edwards President's Suite.
Head coaching record
College
Professional
References
Bibliography
External links
1905 births
1987 deaths
American football centers
Case Western Spartans football coaches
Detroit Lions head coaches
Ohio State Buckeyes football players
North Carolina Tar Heels football coaches
Saint Mary's Pre-Flight Air Devils football coaches
Vanderbilt Commodores athletic directors
Vanderbilt Commodores football coaches
Wittenberg Tigers athletic directors
Wittenberg Tigers football coaches
Wittenberg Tigers football players
High school football coaches in Ohio
College Football Hall of Fame inductees
Sportspeople from Massillon, Ohio
Coaches of American football from Ohio
Players of American football from Ohio
| true |
[
"Gavin Merrick Long (31 May 1901 – 10 October 1968) was an Australian journalist and military historian. He was the general editor of the official history series Australia in the War of 1939–1945 and the author of three of its 22 volumes.\n\nEarly life\nGavin Long was born in Foster, Victoria, the eldest of six children of George Merrick Long, a clergyman. He was educated at Trinity Grammar School where his father was headmaster, and All Saints College, Bathurst.\n\nLong completed a Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Sydney in 1922 and worked as a teacher in 1922 and 1923. After working as a jackeroo in 1924 Long travelled to England in 1925 so that he could marry Mary Jocelyn Britten. During his time in England he worked at Australia House and was married on 5 September 1925. Two weeks after their marriage Long and his wife returned to Australia.\n\nJournalist\nAfter his return to Australia, Long worked as a journalist and moved between several newspapers. In 1930 he was made a senior reporter at the Melbourne Argus but was later reduced in rank due to the impact of the Great Depression on the paper. He was appointed a sub-editor at The Sydney Morning Herald in July 1931 and held this job until he was posted to the Herald'''s London office in 1938.\n\nAfter the outbreak of the Second World War, Long was a correspondent to the British Expeditionary Force in France and was evacuated from Boulogne in May 1940. In November 1940, he was sent to Egypt where he reported on the 6th Australian Division during its campaigns in North Africa and Greece. Long was recalled to Australia in mid-1941 where he continued writing on defence matters.\n\nMilitary historian\n\nIn March 1943 Long was appointed general editor of the Australia in the War of 1939–1945, a 22-volume official history of Australia's involvement in the Second World War, on the recommendation of C.E.W. Bean, the editor of the Official History of Australia in the War of 1914–1918. Based at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra, he spent the remainder of the war planning the series and visiting forward areas to interview members of the Australian military.\n\nAfter the war Long played a key role in the official history project. As well as providing guidance to the other authors, he wrote three of the volumes in the series (To Benghazi (published 1952), Greece, Crete and Syria (1953) and The Final Campaigns (1963). He retired as general editor in 1963 as the project was nearing completion and he did not believe that a full-time editor was required. Long's books were well received by reviewers and his close involvement with the other authors gave the series a unity of purpose and method. Long was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1953 for his services as editor of the official history. In 1956 he was awarded the Greek Gold Cross of the Royal Order of the Phoenix.\n\nLong continued to write after his retirement from the official history project. He was a research fellow with the Australian Dictionary of Biography, was part of the team which produced the Australian Government's Style Guide and contributed over 90 articles to The Canberra Times. He also wrote two further military history books, MacArthur as Military Commander (published in 1969) and The Six Years War (1973), which was a concise summary of Australia's involvement in the Second World War. The Six Years War'' was written well before it was published, but its publication was delayed while the final volumes in the official history series were completed.\n\nLong died of lung cancer on 10 October 1968 at his home in Deakin, Australian Capital Territory, and was cremated.\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n\n \n \n \n \n\n1901 births\n1968 deaths\nAustralian people of World War II\nOfficers of the Order of the British Empire\nHistorians of World War II\nDeaths from lung cancer\nGold Crosses of the Order of the Phoenix (Greece)\n20th-century Australian historians\nPeople educated at Trinity Grammar School, Kew\nPeople from Foster, Victoria\nAustralian military historians\n20th-century Australian journalists\nThe Argus (Melbourne) people\nThe Sydney Morning Herald people\nDeaths from cancer in the Australian Capital Territory",
"Albert \"Bert\" Bachmann (26 November 1929 in Zurich - 12 April 2011 in Ireland) was a Swiss military intelligence officer.\n\nEarly life\nBachmann was born in Albisrieden and worked as a printer after leaving school at age 14. As a young man he flirted with communism, joining the youth wing of the PdA. Following the 1948 Communist seizure of power in Czechoslovakia, he changed course and became strongly patriotic. While doing his military service he applied for officer training, and went into military intelligence.\n\nCivil Defence booklet controversy\nIn 1968, he was the lead author of an official civil defence booklet that was distributed throughout the country which provided instructions on how to respond to invasion, through the character of \"Wilhelm Eiferli\". Its warning of the danger from collaborationist elements in the Swiss Left made it the subject of national debate. 'Défense civile' has since been translated for distribution in Japan and Egypt; an attempt by Franco's Spain to buy the right to publish the book was rebuffed by the Swiss military. Bachmann was not involved in the subsequent political controversy- he was on an undercover mission in the Republic of Biafra, a small nation struggling for independence from Nigeria.\n\nReturn to Switzerland\nIn 1976, he was promoted to the rank of Colonel, heading up the intelligence and defense subsection of the Federal Military Department. He had control of three clandestine units, Bureau Ha, a foreign intelligence unit, an Extraordinary Intelligence agency, which monitored internal threats, and Special Service D (Spec D), an organization formed to provide the basis of resistance to an occupation. Expanding Spec D, Bachmann formed Projekt-26, a more widely capable unit. He bought the Liss Ard country estate, near Skibbereen in County Cork in Ireland, as a retreat for a Swiss government-in-exile in the event of an invasion.\n\nSchilling incident\nIn November 1979 Austrian police arrested Kurt Schilling, one of Bachmann's operatives, who was charged with spying on Austrian troops on exercise near Sankt Pölten. As the Austrian government had invited observers from Eastern Europe, it was not clear why he was there. He insisted that he was Swiss and during his trial, he revealed that his mission was to judge how long Austrian forces could last in the case of a Soviet invasion. Due to Schilling's ineptness the judge showed leniency, sentencing him to a five-month suspended sentence and deportation. Die Presse nicknamed him \"the spy who came in from the Emmentaler\".\n\nIn 1979 Bachmann was forced to take early retirement, and an inquiry by politicians exposed many of his contingency plans to the public. The Swiss government sold Liss Ard in the early 1980s, but Bachmann continued to live in the West Cork region following his departure from Switzerland. He reputedly owned a number of properties near Tragumna outside Skibbereen, and ran a riding school in the area for a number of years.\n\nReferences\n\n1929 births\n2011 deaths\nPeople from Zürich\nSwiss military officers"
] |
[
"Bill Edwards (American football coach)",
"Detroit Lions, military service, and Cleveland Browns",
"How long was Edwards with the Lions",
"signed two-year contracts.",
"Did he win much when he was with them?",
"Edwards's stint as the Lions coach was unsuccessful.",
"What year did he start with them?",
"Edwards ultimately was hired in February 1941",
"Did he go right from the lions to the browns?",
"I don't know.",
"How long was he with the browns?",
"Edwards took a position as a tackle coach and remained with the team for two seasons.",
"What about his military service was he in a war?",
"Edwards enlisted in the U.S. Navy later in 1942 as America's involvement in the war intensified.",
"How long was he in the military?",
"Edwards was discharged in 1946,"
] |
C_a1a2880e800847b8a33b661ee731765d_1
|
was he hurt at all during his time in the service?
| 8 |
was Bill Edwards hurt at all during his time in the service?
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Bill Edwards (American football coach)
|
Having built a strong record at Western Reserve, Edwards was in the running for head coaching roles at a number of larger universities and professional teams. He met with officials at Marquette University and was considered a candidate for coaching duties at Colorado University and for the National Football League's Detroit Lions. After visiting with Lions owner Fred Mandel, Edwards ultimately was hired in February 1941 to succeed George Clark. Both Edwards and Dugan Miller signed two-year contracts. Edwards was given a $10,000 annual salary ($166,380 in 2017 dollars), more than double the $4,420 he was paid at Western Reserve. Edwards's stint as the Lions coach was unsuccessful. He guided the team to a 4-6-1 record in 1941, and Mandel fired him after three straight losses to begin the 1942 season as the team's roster was depleted by players' service in World War II. Detroit went on to lose all the rest of its games after John Karcis was named his replacement. Edwards enlisted in the U.S. Navy later in 1942 as America's involvement in the war intensified. While in the military, he served at St. Mary's Pre-Flight, a training program in California, and coached the Air Devils football team there. He also served at a base in Pensacola, Florida. Edwards was discharged in 1946, and spent a year in the sporting goods business in Cleveland, Ohio before reuniting with Brown, who had become the first coach of the Cleveland Browns in the All-America Football Conference (AAFC). Edwards took a position as a tackle coach and remained with the team for two seasons. He coached tackles including Ernie Blandin, Lou Rymkus and future Pro Football Hall of Fame member Lou Groza. The Browns won the AAFC championship in both of Edwards's years as an assistant; the team won all of its games in 1948, turning in professional football's first perfect season. CANNOTANSWER
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CANNOTANSWER
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William Miller Edwards (June 21, 1905 – June 12, 1987) was an American football player and coach. He served as the head football coach at Western Reserve University, Vanderbilt University and Wittenberg University in a career lasting more than 30 years, compiling a win-loss-tie record of 168–45–8. Edwards also coached the Detroit Lions of the National Football League (NFL) from 1941 to 1942, tallying a 4–9–1 record, and served as an assistant coach for the NFL's Cleveland Browns in the late 1940s.
Raised near Massillon, Ohio, Edwards was the son of an immigrant from Wales who worked in the area's coal mines. He played football at Massillon Washington High School and enrolled at Ohio State University, where he stayed for a year before transferring to Wittenberg University. After college, Edwards began his coaching career at high schools in Ohio. He got his first job as a college head coach in 1935 at Western Reserve, now known as Case Western Reserve University, in Cleveland, Ohio and guided the team to a 49–6–2 record over six seasons. Edwards was then hired to coach the Lions, but his brief stay there was unsuccessful, and he was fired at the beginning of the 1942 season. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy later that year and served in the military during World War II until his discharge in 1946.
Edwards spent a year selling sporting goods in Cleveland, returning to football in 1947 with the Browns as an assistant to head coach Paul Brown, a close friend and former Massillon schoolmate. After two years as the team's tackle coach, he was hired by Vanderbilt in 1949. He stayed there for four years and amassed a 21–19–2 record, but resigned in 1953 under pressure from alumni. After two years as an assistant coach at the University of North Carolina, Edwards was hired by Wittenberg, his alma mater, as head football coach and athletic director. He spent the rest of his career there, serving as head coach until 1968 and remaining as athletic director until 1973. While at Wittenberg, he was named the country's college football coach of the year twice, and his teams posted an overall record of 98–20–4. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1986. Edwards, described as a tough but compassionate coach, had an influence on many men he worked with, including Steve Belichick, the father of New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick. Steve Belichick played for Edwards at Western Reserve and with the Lions, and coached with him at Vanderbilt. Edwards was the godfather of Bill.
Early life and college
Edwards grew up in Massillon, Ohio and attended Massillon Washington High School. He was a schoolmate of Paul Brown, who later became the coach of the Cleveland Browns and helped found the Cincinnati Bengals in the National Football League. The son of a Welsh coal miner, Edwards dropped out of school when he was 14 to help his family by working in the mines of East Greenville, near Massillon. He returned three years later, however, and became a star player on Massillon's football team. Edwards was a linebacker at Massillon between 1922 and 1924.
Edwards enrolled at Ohio State University where he captained the Buckeyes freshman football team and was roommates with Paul Brown, his former Massillon teammate. After the season, however, he transferred to Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio. At Wittenberg, he played as a center starting in 1928 and was the captain of the football team in 1929 and 1930. A tough player, Edwards did not like to wear a helmet, saying "you skin your ears a little without them, but I never had any trouble." He won All-Ohio honors at Wittenberg and was named an honorable mention All-American in 1930. One of Edwards's most memorable games as a collegian came in 1928 against the Ohio Wesleyan Battling Bishops. In the last game of a season in which Wesleyan had a perfect record and beat football powerhouses Michigan and Syracuse, Edwards kicked an extra point as time expired and gave Wittenberg a 7–6 victory. Grantland Rice, a prominent sportswriter of the time, called him the best center in college football. Walter Eckersall of the Chicago Tribune named him an All-American.
Coaching career
High school and Western Reserve
Edwards got his first coaching job in 1931, when he was hired as an assistant football coach at Springfield High School. He also taught history at the school. The following year, he got his first head coaching job at Fostoria High School in Fostoria, Ohio. After two seasons at Fostoria, during the second of which the team put in its best performance in 10 years with an 8–2 record, he left to coach the freshman football team at Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio in 1933. When Reserve head coach Sam Willaman died suddenly in August 1935, players lobbied for Edwards to take his place; Edwards got the job. Edwards brought in former Massillon and Wittenberg teammate and Fostoria aide Roy A. "Dugan" Miller as his chief assistant, and the Western Reserve Red Cats went undefeated in his first two seasons as coach. The team had a 49–6–2 record between the 1935 and 1940 seasons under Edwards. In his last season, Western Reserve reached the Sun Bowl in El Paso, Texas against Arizona State and won the game 26–13 on New Year's Day in 1941.
Detroit Lions, military service, and Cleveland Browns
Having built a strong record at Western Reserve, Edwards was in the running for head coaching roles at a number of larger universities and professional teams. He met with officials at Marquette University and was considered a candidate for coaching duties at Colorado University and for the National Football League's Detroit Lions. After visiting with Lions owner Fred Mandel, Edwards ultimately was hired in February 1941 to succeed George Clark. Both Edwards and Dugan Miller signed two-year contracts. Edwards was given a $10,000 annual salary ($ in dollars), more than double the $4,420 he was paid at Western Reserve.
Edwards's stint as the Lions coach was unsuccessful. He guided the team to a 4–6–1 record in 1941, and Mandel fired him after three straight losses to begin the 1942 season as the team's roster was depleted by players' service in World War II. Detroit went on to lose all the rest of its games after John Karcis was named his replacement.
Edwards enlisted in the U.S. Navy later in 1942 as America's involvement in the war intensified. While in the military, he served at St. Mary's Pre-Flight, a training program in California, and coached the Air Devils football team there. He also served at a base in Pensacola, Florida. Edwards was discharged in 1946, and spent a year in the sporting goods business in Cleveland, Ohio before reuniting with Brown, who had become the first coach of the Cleveland Browns in the All-America Football Conference (AAFC). Edwards took a position as a tackle coach and remained with the team for two seasons. He coached tackles including Ernie Blandin, Lou Rymkus and future Pro Football Hall of Fame member Lou Groza. The Browns won the AAFC championship in both of Edwards's years as an assistant; the team won all of its games in 1948, turning in professional football's first perfect season.
Vanderbilt, North Carolina, and Wittenberg
Edwards was hired as Vanderbilt University's head football coach and athletic director in 1949, replacing Henry Russell Sanders when Sanders left to become head coach at the University of California, Los Angeles. Vanderbilt gave the 43-year-old coach a three-year contract paying a $12,500 salary ($ in today's dollars). "I don't like to leave the Cleveland Browns and Paul Brown in particular," he said at the time. "I'll never forget my experiences with the Browns over the past two years." Edwards remained at Vanderbilt for four seasons, building up a 21–19–2 record. He instituted a modern T formation offense to replace Sanders's more traditional single-wing formation. He resigned in 1953 under pressure from Vanderbilt alumni following a 3–5–2 season. He then moved to the University of North Carolina, where he was an assistant on the football team's coaching staff in 1953 and 1954.
Edwards was hired as athletic director and head football coach at Wittenberg, his alma mater, in 1955. He put in a pro-style offense and focused on passing because his players were smaller than many opponents. "We had small players, but little guys can throw the football and little guys can catch it, whereas you need big guys to block for a running game," he said in 1973. Under Edwards, the Wittenberg Tigers were a major success, amassing a 98–20–4 record in 14 seasons and winning the NCAA College Division national championship poll in 1962 and 1964. Edwards's teams were unbeaten three times and lost one game in five of his seasons there. He was named Ohio College Football Coach of the Year in 1957 by his fellow coaches. The American Football Coaches Association named him coach of the year in 1963 and 1964, when the Tigers won all of their games. He was called "a combination of Genghis Khan and Santa Claus" by Sports Illustrated for being both tough and sympathetic to his players.
Later life and death
Edwards resigned from coaching in 1969, when he was 63 years old, although he continued to work at Wittenberg as the school's athletic director. Dave Maurer, his long-time assistant, took over as the school's coach. By the end of his career, Edwards's 168–45–8 overall college record gave him the second-best winning percentage in the country among active coaches with at least 100 wins. Edwards was given a commendation by President Richard Nixon for his achievements as a coach and won a Football Writers Association of America award for contributions to the game. "His retirement is Wittenberg's loss, but more than that, it is college football's loss," University of Alabama coach Bear Bryant said at the time.
Edwards retired in February 1973 after 39 years as a coach and administrator and said he would concentrate on hunting and fishing. He was inducted into the Ohio Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 1979, Wittenberg's Athletics Hall of Honor in 1985 and into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1986. He was also inducted into the Western Reserve Hall of Fame and the Vanderbilt Hall of Fame in 1986. Edwards died in 1987. He and his wife Dorothy had three children.
The tough but compassionate approach to coaching Edwards espoused influenced many men who worked under him, including Maurer, who led Wittenberg to a 129–23–3 record between 1969 and 1983. Wittenberg's football stadium is named Edwards-Maurer Field in honor of both head coaches. The winner of the Wittenberg-Case Western Reserve football game receives the Bill Edwards Trophy.
Edwards was also close with Steve Belichick, who played for him at Western Reserve and for the Detroit Lions and later served as an assistant under him at Vanderbilt and North Carolina. Belichick's son Bill was named after Edwards, who was also Bill's godfather. Bill Belichick later became an assistant coach in the NFL and is the head coach of the New England Patriots as of . At what is now known as Case Western Reserve University, the football stadium, DiSanto Field, hosts its distinguished guests inside the Coach Bill Edwards President's Suite.
Head coaching record
College
Professional
References
Bibliography
External links
1905 births
1987 deaths
American football centers
Case Western Spartans football coaches
Detroit Lions head coaches
Ohio State Buckeyes football players
North Carolina Tar Heels football coaches
Saint Mary's Pre-Flight Air Devils football coaches
Vanderbilt Commodores athletic directors
Vanderbilt Commodores football coaches
Wittenberg Tigers athletic directors
Wittenberg Tigers football coaches
Wittenberg Tigers football players
High school football coaches in Ohio
College Football Hall of Fame inductees
Sportspeople from Massillon, Ohio
Coaches of American football from Ohio
Players of American football from Ohio
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[
"Edward Paulette Hurt (February 12, 1900 – March 24, 1989) was an American football, basketball, and track coach. He served the head football coach at Virginia Theological Seminary and College—now known as Virginia University of Lynchburg—in Lynchburg, Virginia from 1925 to 1928 and Morgan State College—now known as Morgan State University—in Baltimore, from 1929 to 1959. Hurt also had long tenures at the head basketball and head track coach at Morgan State. Across those three sports, his teams at Morgan State won 36 Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association (CIAA) championships and produced two Pro Football Hall of Famers and an Olympic gold medal winner. Hurt's Morgan State Bears football teams won six 6 black college football national championships and 14 CIAA titles. Hurt also served as the school's athletic director from 1958 to 1970. He played college football at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania and Howard University in Washington, D.C.\n\nHurt was inducted into the USA National Track and Field Hall of Fame in 1975 and the HBCU Hall of Fame in 1978.\n\nEarly life\nHurt was born in Brookneal, Virginia. He attended Lincoln University and later graduated from Howard University with an A.B. degree in 1921. The slightly muscled, 150-pound Hurt played football at both schools and was named an All-American at Howard. Hurt also graduated from Columbia University with a M.S. degree in physical education. On August 13, 1922, Hurt married G. Beatrice Reid. The newlywed couple had to postpone honeymoon plans as Hurt had also landed a job in Lynchburg, Virginia to start his teaching career.\n\nCoaching career\nHurt's coaching career began at the Virginia Theological Seminary and College in Lynchburg, Virginia in 1921 where he was hired as a mathematics teacher and doubled as an assistant football coach. He became the head coach there in 1925 and served in that capacity until he moved to Baltimore in 1929. During his stay, his football teams posted a 15–11–4 record and his basketball team won two Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association (CIAA) championships.\n\nMorgan football\nHurt took over the Morgan Bears football team in 1929. The next year his teams won the first of the 14 CIAA championships they would win with him at the helm. More importantly, Hurt built a program that allowed black athletes to showcase their talents where such a venue had been non-existent before. From 1931\nto 1938 Hurt coached the Bears to a 54-game streak without a single loss. During his tenure, Morgan's football teams completed 11 seasons undefeated and, in the 1943 season, opponents failed to score a single point against the Bears. Hurt's success as a football coach was in part due to his mathematics background. He would often diagram plays on the backs of envelopes or milk cartons as the games unfolded. Discipline was also a key. During a halftime speech, when his team trailed by two touchdowns, Hurt angrily kick at a wooden crate upon which one of his big tackles was sitting. He kicked it so hard, his foot got stuck, but nobody on the team cracked a smile. Hurt is a member of the HBCU coaches Hall of Fame and two of his players, Len Ford and Rosey Brown, have been inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. In 1952 Morgan named its then new $1 million gymnasium facility after him.\n\nTrack\nFrom 1929 to 1970, Hurt also coached the track team at Morgan. By the 1950s the Morgan track team was drawing national and international attention. At the 1950 Penn Relays, Hurt's foursome, Sam LaBeach, Bob Tyler, Bill Brown and George Rhoden, won the mile relay in 3:13.6, which broke the Penn Relays' record that had stood for 56 years. Hurt's teams won 13 CIAA Track and Field Championships. Those teams also produced 8 NCAA champions, 12 AAU individual champions, 3 NCAA relay champions, 6 AAU relay champions, 1 Olympic gold-medalist (George Rhoden), 1 Olympic bronze-medalist (Josh Culbreath) and 11 individual or relay championships at the Penn Relays. Hurt was also on the coaching staffs at both the 1959 Pan American Games and the 1964 Olympic Games.\n\nBasketball\nHurt coached the Morgan State University basketball team from 1929 to 1947, winning four CIAA championships. Three of those championships came consecutively in 1931, 1932 and 1933. From 1930 to 1947 Hurt coached the Morgan Bears to a 143–57 record, with the 1930, 1932, 1935 and 1945 teams going undefeated.\n\nDeath and legacy\nHurt died on March 24, 1989, at his home on Montebello Terrace in Baltimore. His memorial service was held one week later on the campus of Morgan State University. His interment was completed at the Arbutus Memorial Park in southwest Baltimore County, Maryland. Hurt was survived by his wife Beatrice, one brother and three sisters. In addition to the Hurt Gymnasium, named is his honor in 1952, a scholarship fund was established in the name of Edward and Beatrice Hurt and the \"Eddie Hurt Invitational track meet\" is held annually at the university.\n\nAwards and honors\n\n1949-named Coach of the year, 1949, Washington Pigskin Club\n1950-named to the Outstanding Coaches of All-Time List by the University of Texas\n1950-Coach of the Year, 1950 Track and Field News\n1952-Morgan State University gymnasium (pictured) named in his honor\n1959-U.S Coach, Pan American Games\nMember, United States Olympic Committee 1960-1972\n1964-awarded United States Olympic Committee service award\n1964-Coach, U.S Olympic track team \n1972-elected to the Morgan State University Athletic Hall of Fame\n1975-inducted into the USA National Track and Field Hall of Fame in \n1978-inducted into the HBCU Hall of Fame\n2004-inducted into the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) Hall of Fame\n\nHead coaching record\n\nFootball\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\n1900 births\n1989 deaths\nAmerican football ends\nLincoln Lions football players\nHoward Bison football players\nMorgan State Bears athletic directors\nMorgan State Bears football coaches\nMorgan State Bears men's basketball coaches\nMorgan State Bears track and field coaches\nVirginia–Lynchburg Dragons football coaches\nTeachers College, Columbia University alumni\nPeople from Brookneal, Virginia\nCoaches of American football from Virginia\nPlayers of American football from Virginia\nBasketball coaches from Virginia\nAfrican-American coaches of American football\nAfrican-American players of American football\nAfrican-American basketball coaches\n20th-century African-American sportspeople",
"Bobby Lee Hurt (born December 6, 1961) is an American former professional basketball player. A strong and athletic big man, he was one of the top high school prospects of the 1981 class. After a controversial recruitment, Hurt committed to Alabama and played 4 seasons with the Crimson Tide: he holds the Alabama record for highest field goal percentage in a season (.664 in 1983–84) and in a career (.631). After a successful college career he was drafted by the Golden State Warriors in the second round of the 1985 NBA draft, and then again in 1986. However, he failed to reach an economical agreement with the Warriors and went on to play professionally in Europe in the top divisions of Turkey, Italy and Spain.\n\nHigh school career\nHurt was born and raised in Huntsville, Alabama, where he attended S. R. Butler High School. Growing up he showed athleticism and a predisposition for sports: he reportedly ran the 100-meter dash in under 10 seconds and high jumped 7 ft in his high school years. He also started playing basketball in his school's varsity team under coach Jerry Rice, and soon experienced success in state competitions: as a sophomore in 1979 he was named MVP of the 4A state tournament and was named in the All-Tournament team.\n\nDuring his senior year he averaged 20.2 points and 13.3 rebounds while shooting 69% from the field. Butler ended the season with a 33-3 record and competed in the Class 4A state tournament, finishing at second place after losing 60–58 to Hayes in the final game. In that tournament, Hurt scored 103 points in four games and recorded 68 rebounds, 26 blocks and 17 games. He won the tournament MVP award for the second time in his career, and again was named in the All-Tournament team. Hurt was selected in the Parade All-America Second Team and earned a spot in the McDonald's All-American team: in the 1981 McDonald's All-American Boys Game he played 17 minutes and he recorded 12 rebounds, 3 blocks and 3 steals; he also scored 19 points, shooting 9/11 from the field and 1/4 from the free throw line. Hurt's 2,288 points at Butler during his 4-year career from 1977 to 1981 are a school record.\n\nCollege career\nHurt was heavily recruited by many colleges during his high school career, since he was the top ranked recruit in the state of Alabama. He considered Alabama, Indiana, Louisville, Maryland and North Carolina, and later South Alabama and Hawaii. During his recruitment he was also under investigation from the NCAA: during his high school career it was alleged that he had received money for various reasons, including $1,100 to pay for dentist bills, from his high school principal Edward Seal. Seal later resigned from his position at Butler. It was also reported that Hurt had contracted a car loan together with Cotton Johnson, a local business owner and Alabama supporter, and that Johnson threatened to make Hurt pay the whole loan and an extra $3,400 had he not signed to play with Alabama. Hurt ultimately signed with Alabama on April 30, 1981 after having restricted his final choice between Alabama, Hawaii and Maryland.\n\nAt Alabama he chose to wear jersey number 34 and during his freshman year he was one of the first options off the bench for coach Wimp Sanderson, who had been hired the previous season. During his first year of college basketball he led the Crimson Tide for field goal percentage and blocks with a total of 45. He started 8 games of that season, and he averaged 10.2 points, 5.5 rebounds and 1.5 blocks while shooting 61.8%. The Crimson Tide reached the Sweet Sixteen during the 1982 NCAA Tournament, losing to North Carolina.\n\nHurt was promoted to a starting role in his sophomore year, and he became the starting center of the team. His numbers improved significantly, and he was selected in the All-SEC 2nd team by UPI and third team by AP; he led his team in scoring (15.3), rebounding (8.9) and blocks with 50 (1.6 per game, a career high). He started all 32 games, playing a total of 1,133 minutes (35.4 per game). The Alabama team was eliminated in the first round of the 1983 NCAA Tournament by Lamar.\n\nIn his junior year Hurt recorded career-highs in several major statistical categories: he was second on the team in scoring with 15.6 points per game behind Buck Johnson's 17.0, and he led the team in rebounds with a 9.1 average. He also recorded 41 blocks, a team high, and shot .664 from the field, which set the all-time record for Alabama. He started all 30 of his games and he played 36.1 minutes on average. He was selected in the All-SEC 1st team by UPI, and in 2nd team by AP. Alabama was the number 9 seed in the Midwest, and lost in the round of 48 to Illinois State during the 1984 NCAA Tournament.\n\nHurt's senior year saw him start all 33 games, and he averaged 12.8 points and 8.6 rebounds: he was second in both categories to junior Buck Johnson. He recorded a total 51 blocks, a career high, and for the fourth year in a row he led the team in blocks per game. He was selected in the 2nd team All-SEC by both AP and UPI. Alabama was the 7th seed in the West and advanced to the Sweet Sixteen, where they lost to no. 3 NC State.\n\nHurt is Alabama all-time leader for field goal percentage in a season (.664, 168 of 255 field goals) in 1983–84 and in a career (.631, 646 of 1024). He also holds the record for highest field goal percentage (100%) when he went 11 for 11 on December 20, 1982 against Texas Southern. He led Alabama for 4 straight years for field goal percentage and blocks. He recorded totals of 1,697 points and 1,012 rebounds. He started 103 of his 126 games at Alabama.\n\nCollege statistics\nSource\n\n|-\n| align=\"left\" | 1981–82\n| align=\"left\" | Alabama\n| 31 || 8 || 25.6 || .618 || – || .591 || 5.5 || 0.4 || – || 1.5 || 10.2\n|-\n| align=\"left\" | 1982–83\n| align=\"left\" | Alabama\n| 32 || 32 || 35.4 || .611 || – || .694 || 8.9 || 0.5 || – || 1.6 || 15.3\n|-\n| align=\"left\" | 1983–84\n| align=\"left\" | Alabama\n| 30 || 30 || 36.1 || .664 || – || .720 || 9.1 || 0.7 || 0.7 || 1.4 || 15.6\n|-\n| align=\"left\" | 1984–85\n| align=\"left\" | Alabama\n| 33 || 33 || 35.5 || .633 || – || .594 || 8.6 || 0.3 || 0.6 || 1.5 || 12.8\n|-\n| align=\"left\" | Career\n| align=\"left\" |\n| 126 || 103 || 33.2 || .631 || – || .656 || 8.0 || 0.5 || 0.7 || 1.5 || 13.5\n|-\n\nProfessional career\nAfter the end of his senior year of college Hurt was automatically eligible for the 1985 NBA draft. The Golden State Warriors selected him in the second round with the 42nd overall pick. Hurt underwent knee surgery in the offseason, and he and his agent had a disagreement with the Warriors management, since Hurt wanted a contract with guaranteed money which the Warriors did not want to concede. He originally wanted to play in Europe, but he did not and was inactive during the 1985–86 season.\n\nThe Warriors selected him again in the sixth round of the 1986 NBA draft, with the 121st overall pick. Again, Hurt and his agent could not find an arrangement with the franchise, thinking that the money offer was insufficient: therefore, Hurt turned down the Warriors' offer and decided to play in Turkey. He signed for Tofaş S.K., a team based in Bursa, and spent two seasons in the Turkish Basketball League.\n\nIn 1988 he came back to the United States and signed for the Wichita Falls Texans in the Continental Basketball Association: in 21 games he averaged 16.2 points and 12.5 rebounds on 55.4% from the field in 34.5 minutes per game. He then moved to Italy, where he joined Auxilium Torino (which was named Ipifim Torino for sponsorship reasons): he played 21 games, averaging 18.9 points and 11.3 rebounds on 68% shooting in 37.1 minutes per game.\n\nHe transferred to Spanish team Tenerife AB for the 1989–90 season: in the Liga ACB he played 36 regular season games, starting 31, and averaged 17.2 points, 11.7 rebounds and 1.4 blocks in 39.8 minutes per game; he also played 9 games in the playoffs, averaging 13.8 points and 10.6 rebounds. He went back to Italy for the 1990–91 season, signing for Birra Messina Trapani; in 40 games he averaged a career-high 23.7 points and 12.3 rebounds on 65.1% shooting in 39.1 minutes per game. The following year he joined Auxilium again: the team had changed name to Robe di Kappa Torino. In 32 games he recorded averages of 16.8 points and 9.8 rebounds shooting 62.1% in 38.5 minutes per game.\n\nIn 1992–93 he returned to Trapani, which was named Tonno Auriga Trapani: he played 40 games and posted averages of 17.7 points and 10.0 rebounds with a 64.9% field goal percentage in 37.5 minutes per game. He ended his career in 1994 after a season with Tofaş back in Turkey.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nProfile at RealGM.com\nStats at Sports-Reference.com\nEuro Stats at Basketball-Reference.com\n Italian league stats\n Spanish league stats\nTurkish league stats\n \n\n1961 births\nLiving people\nAfrican-American basketball players\nAlabama Crimson Tide men's basketball players\nAmerican expatriate basketball people in Italy\nAmerican expatriate basketball people in Spain\nAmerican expatriate basketball people in Turkey\nAmerican men's basketball players\nAuxilium Pallacanestro Torino players\nBasketball players from Alabama\nCenters (basketball)\nGolden State Warriors draft picks\nLega Basket Serie A players\nMcDonald's High School All-Americans\nPallacanestro Trapani players\nParade High School All-Americans (boys' basketball)\nPower forwards (basketball)\nSportspeople from Huntsville, Alabama\nTenerife AB players\nTofaş S.K. players\nWichita Falls Texans players\n21st-century African-American people\n20th-century African-American sportspeople"
] |
[
"Bill Edwards (American football coach)",
"Detroit Lions, military service, and Cleveland Browns",
"How long was Edwards with the Lions",
"signed two-year contracts.",
"Did he win much when he was with them?",
"Edwards's stint as the Lions coach was unsuccessful.",
"What year did he start with them?",
"Edwards ultimately was hired in February 1941",
"Did he go right from the lions to the browns?",
"I don't know.",
"How long was he with the browns?",
"Edwards took a position as a tackle coach and remained with the team for two seasons.",
"What about his military service was he in a war?",
"Edwards enlisted in the U.S. Navy later in 1942 as America's involvement in the war intensified.",
"How long was he in the military?",
"Edwards was discharged in 1946,",
"was he hurt at all during his time in the service?",
"I don't know."
] |
C_a1a2880e800847b8a33b661ee731765d_1
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Was there anything special that made him decide he wanted to co into coaching?
| 9 |
Was there anything special that made Bill Edwards decide he wanted to co into coaching?
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Bill Edwards (American football coach)
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Having built a strong record at Western Reserve, Edwards was in the running for head coaching roles at a number of larger universities and professional teams. He met with officials at Marquette University and was considered a candidate for coaching duties at Colorado University and for the National Football League's Detroit Lions. After visiting with Lions owner Fred Mandel, Edwards ultimately was hired in February 1941 to succeed George Clark. Both Edwards and Dugan Miller signed two-year contracts. Edwards was given a $10,000 annual salary ($166,380 in 2017 dollars), more than double the $4,420 he was paid at Western Reserve. Edwards's stint as the Lions coach was unsuccessful. He guided the team to a 4-6-1 record in 1941, and Mandel fired him after three straight losses to begin the 1942 season as the team's roster was depleted by players' service in World War II. Detroit went on to lose all the rest of its games after John Karcis was named his replacement. Edwards enlisted in the U.S. Navy later in 1942 as America's involvement in the war intensified. While in the military, he served at St. Mary's Pre-Flight, a training program in California, and coached the Air Devils football team there. He also served at a base in Pensacola, Florida. Edwards was discharged in 1946, and spent a year in the sporting goods business in Cleveland, Ohio before reuniting with Brown, who had become the first coach of the Cleveland Browns in the All-America Football Conference (AAFC). Edwards took a position as a tackle coach and remained with the team for two seasons. He coached tackles including Ernie Blandin, Lou Rymkus and future Pro Football Hall of Fame member Lou Groza. The Browns won the AAFC championship in both of Edwards's years as an assistant; the team won all of its games in 1948, turning in professional football's first perfect season. CANNOTANSWER
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spent a year in the sporting goods business in Cleveland, Ohio before reuniting with Brown,
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William Miller Edwards (June 21, 1905 – June 12, 1987) was an American football player and coach. He served as the head football coach at Western Reserve University, Vanderbilt University and Wittenberg University in a career lasting more than 30 years, compiling a win-loss-tie record of 168–45–8. Edwards also coached the Detroit Lions of the National Football League (NFL) from 1941 to 1942, tallying a 4–9–1 record, and served as an assistant coach for the NFL's Cleveland Browns in the late 1940s.
Raised near Massillon, Ohio, Edwards was the son of an immigrant from Wales who worked in the area's coal mines. He played football at Massillon Washington High School and enrolled at Ohio State University, where he stayed for a year before transferring to Wittenberg University. After college, Edwards began his coaching career at high schools in Ohio. He got his first job as a college head coach in 1935 at Western Reserve, now known as Case Western Reserve University, in Cleveland, Ohio and guided the team to a 49–6–2 record over six seasons. Edwards was then hired to coach the Lions, but his brief stay there was unsuccessful, and he was fired at the beginning of the 1942 season. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy later that year and served in the military during World War II until his discharge in 1946.
Edwards spent a year selling sporting goods in Cleveland, returning to football in 1947 with the Browns as an assistant to head coach Paul Brown, a close friend and former Massillon schoolmate. After two years as the team's tackle coach, he was hired by Vanderbilt in 1949. He stayed there for four years and amassed a 21–19–2 record, but resigned in 1953 under pressure from alumni. After two years as an assistant coach at the University of North Carolina, Edwards was hired by Wittenberg, his alma mater, as head football coach and athletic director. He spent the rest of his career there, serving as head coach until 1968 and remaining as athletic director until 1973. While at Wittenberg, he was named the country's college football coach of the year twice, and his teams posted an overall record of 98–20–4. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1986. Edwards, described as a tough but compassionate coach, had an influence on many men he worked with, including Steve Belichick, the father of New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick. Steve Belichick played for Edwards at Western Reserve and with the Lions, and coached with him at Vanderbilt. Edwards was the godfather of Bill.
Early life and college
Edwards grew up in Massillon, Ohio and attended Massillon Washington High School. He was a schoolmate of Paul Brown, who later became the coach of the Cleveland Browns and helped found the Cincinnati Bengals in the National Football League. The son of a Welsh coal miner, Edwards dropped out of school when he was 14 to help his family by working in the mines of East Greenville, near Massillon. He returned three years later, however, and became a star player on Massillon's football team. Edwards was a linebacker at Massillon between 1922 and 1924.
Edwards enrolled at Ohio State University where he captained the Buckeyes freshman football team and was roommates with Paul Brown, his former Massillon teammate. After the season, however, he transferred to Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio. At Wittenberg, he played as a center starting in 1928 and was the captain of the football team in 1929 and 1930. A tough player, Edwards did not like to wear a helmet, saying "you skin your ears a little without them, but I never had any trouble." He won All-Ohio honors at Wittenberg and was named an honorable mention All-American in 1930. One of Edwards's most memorable games as a collegian came in 1928 against the Ohio Wesleyan Battling Bishops. In the last game of a season in which Wesleyan had a perfect record and beat football powerhouses Michigan and Syracuse, Edwards kicked an extra point as time expired and gave Wittenberg a 7–6 victory. Grantland Rice, a prominent sportswriter of the time, called him the best center in college football. Walter Eckersall of the Chicago Tribune named him an All-American.
Coaching career
High school and Western Reserve
Edwards got his first coaching job in 1931, when he was hired as an assistant football coach at Springfield High School. He also taught history at the school. The following year, he got his first head coaching job at Fostoria High School in Fostoria, Ohio. After two seasons at Fostoria, during the second of which the team put in its best performance in 10 years with an 8–2 record, he left to coach the freshman football team at Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio in 1933. When Reserve head coach Sam Willaman died suddenly in August 1935, players lobbied for Edwards to take his place; Edwards got the job. Edwards brought in former Massillon and Wittenberg teammate and Fostoria aide Roy A. "Dugan" Miller as his chief assistant, and the Western Reserve Red Cats went undefeated in his first two seasons as coach. The team had a 49–6–2 record between the 1935 and 1940 seasons under Edwards. In his last season, Western Reserve reached the Sun Bowl in El Paso, Texas against Arizona State and won the game 26–13 on New Year's Day in 1941.
Detroit Lions, military service, and Cleveland Browns
Having built a strong record at Western Reserve, Edwards was in the running for head coaching roles at a number of larger universities and professional teams. He met with officials at Marquette University and was considered a candidate for coaching duties at Colorado University and for the National Football League's Detroit Lions. After visiting with Lions owner Fred Mandel, Edwards ultimately was hired in February 1941 to succeed George Clark. Both Edwards and Dugan Miller signed two-year contracts. Edwards was given a $10,000 annual salary ($ in dollars), more than double the $4,420 he was paid at Western Reserve.
Edwards's stint as the Lions coach was unsuccessful. He guided the team to a 4–6–1 record in 1941, and Mandel fired him after three straight losses to begin the 1942 season as the team's roster was depleted by players' service in World War II. Detroit went on to lose all the rest of its games after John Karcis was named his replacement.
Edwards enlisted in the U.S. Navy later in 1942 as America's involvement in the war intensified. While in the military, he served at St. Mary's Pre-Flight, a training program in California, and coached the Air Devils football team there. He also served at a base in Pensacola, Florida. Edwards was discharged in 1946, and spent a year in the sporting goods business in Cleveland, Ohio before reuniting with Brown, who had become the first coach of the Cleveland Browns in the All-America Football Conference (AAFC). Edwards took a position as a tackle coach and remained with the team for two seasons. He coached tackles including Ernie Blandin, Lou Rymkus and future Pro Football Hall of Fame member Lou Groza. The Browns won the AAFC championship in both of Edwards's years as an assistant; the team won all of its games in 1948, turning in professional football's first perfect season.
Vanderbilt, North Carolina, and Wittenberg
Edwards was hired as Vanderbilt University's head football coach and athletic director in 1949, replacing Henry Russell Sanders when Sanders left to become head coach at the University of California, Los Angeles. Vanderbilt gave the 43-year-old coach a three-year contract paying a $12,500 salary ($ in today's dollars). "I don't like to leave the Cleveland Browns and Paul Brown in particular," he said at the time. "I'll never forget my experiences with the Browns over the past two years." Edwards remained at Vanderbilt for four seasons, building up a 21–19–2 record. He instituted a modern T formation offense to replace Sanders's more traditional single-wing formation. He resigned in 1953 under pressure from Vanderbilt alumni following a 3–5–2 season. He then moved to the University of North Carolina, where he was an assistant on the football team's coaching staff in 1953 and 1954.
Edwards was hired as athletic director and head football coach at Wittenberg, his alma mater, in 1955. He put in a pro-style offense and focused on passing because his players were smaller than many opponents. "We had small players, but little guys can throw the football and little guys can catch it, whereas you need big guys to block for a running game," he said in 1973. Under Edwards, the Wittenberg Tigers were a major success, amassing a 98–20–4 record in 14 seasons and winning the NCAA College Division national championship poll in 1962 and 1964. Edwards's teams were unbeaten three times and lost one game in five of his seasons there. He was named Ohio College Football Coach of the Year in 1957 by his fellow coaches. The American Football Coaches Association named him coach of the year in 1963 and 1964, when the Tigers won all of their games. He was called "a combination of Genghis Khan and Santa Claus" by Sports Illustrated for being both tough and sympathetic to his players.
Later life and death
Edwards resigned from coaching in 1969, when he was 63 years old, although he continued to work at Wittenberg as the school's athletic director. Dave Maurer, his long-time assistant, took over as the school's coach. By the end of his career, Edwards's 168–45–8 overall college record gave him the second-best winning percentage in the country among active coaches with at least 100 wins. Edwards was given a commendation by President Richard Nixon for his achievements as a coach and won a Football Writers Association of America award for contributions to the game. "His retirement is Wittenberg's loss, but more than that, it is college football's loss," University of Alabama coach Bear Bryant said at the time.
Edwards retired in February 1973 after 39 years as a coach and administrator and said he would concentrate on hunting and fishing. He was inducted into the Ohio Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 1979, Wittenberg's Athletics Hall of Honor in 1985 and into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1986. He was also inducted into the Western Reserve Hall of Fame and the Vanderbilt Hall of Fame in 1986. Edwards died in 1987. He and his wife Dorothy had three children.
The tough but compassionate approach to coaching Edwards espoused influenced many men who worked under him, including Maurer, who led Wittenberg to a 129–23–3 record between 1969 and 1983. Wittenberg's football stadium is named Edwards-Maurer Field in honor of both head coaches. The winner of the Wittenberg-Case Western Reserve football game receives the Bill Edwards Trophy.
Edwards was also close with Steve Belichick, who played for him at Western Reserve and for the Detroit Lions and later served as an assistant under him at Vanderbilt and North Carolina. Belichick's son Bill was named after Edwards, who was also Bill's godfather. Bill Belichick later became an assistant coach in the NFL and is the head coach of the New England Patriots as of . At what is now known as Case Western Reserve University, the football stadium, DiSanto Field, hosts its distinguished guests inside the Coach Bill Edwards President's Suite.
Head coaching record
College
Professional
References
Bibliography
External links
1905 births
1987 deaths
American football centers
Case Western Spartans football coaches
Detroit Lions head coaches
Ohio State Buckeyes football players
North Carolina Tar Heels football coaches
Saint Mary's Pre-Flight Air Devils football coaches
Vanderbilt Commodores athletic directors
Vanderbilt Commodores football coaches
Wittenberg Tigers athletic directors
Wittenberg Tigers football coaches
Wittenberg Tigers football players
High school football coaches in Ohio
College Football Hall of Fame inductees
Sportspeople from Massillon, Ohio
Coaches of American football from Ohio
Players of American football from Ohio
| true |
[
"Frank Donald \"Dyke\" Smith (March 17, 1912 – April 16, 1986) was an American football player and coach. After playing two sports in college for Morris Brown, Smith coached a team in Georgia from 1937 to 1938, Cobb High School in 1939, Edward Waters University in 1940, Alabama A&M University in 1941, and Delaware State University (then Delaware State College) in 1942.\n\nEarly life and education\nSmith was born on March 17, 1912, in Cook County, Illinois and grew up in Evanston. He attended Morris Brown College from 1932 to 1936, playing football and basketball. In football, he was the school's starting quarterback, and was named an All-America selection by most black newspapers. In basketball, he played forward, winning All-Southern Conference as Morris Brown won 48 straight games from 1932 to 1933. He was an inaugural inductee to the school's hall of fame.\n\nCoaching career\nAfter graduating in 1937, Smith started a coaching career with a football team in Georgia. In 1939, he moved to Anniston, Alabama, to become the first head coach at Cobb High School, coaching \"anything that anybody wanted to play.\" He accepted a position at Edward Waters University in 1940, spending one season there, before moving to Alabama A&M University in 1941. He compiled a 6–4 record that year with Alabama A&M. Smith was hired by Delaware State College (now Delaware State University) in 1942, compiling a 3–1–1 record in one season before being drafted to serve in World War II.\n\nMultiple of the athletes he coached followed him from school to school, including Felmon Motley, who attended Cobb, Alabama A&M, and Delaware State. When he joined Delaware State, 33 members of the 1941 Alabama A&M team followed him there.\n\nLater life and death\nAfter returning from World War II, he taught social studies and math at several schools in Chicago, Illinois, and Newark, New Jersey. He also coached a semi-professional football team in New Jersey for several years, but did not coach besides that.\n\nIn 1985, Smith was inducted into the Delaware State College Athletic Hall of Fame. Felmon Motley and several other 1942 Delaware State players put their money together to fly Smith to Delaware for a team reunion. \"He really had a nice time seeing all the boys,\" Motley said. \"When I got him back to the airport, he said he was ready to go back and die because he had seen everyone again. He had wondered what had happened to everyone. He had a nice time seeing his friends and the fellows he coached.\" Smith died on April 16, 1986, in Anniston at the age of 74.\n\nHead coaching record\n\nCollege\n\nReferences\n\n1912 births\n1986 deaths\nAmerican football quarterbacks\nForwards (basketball)\nAlabama A&M Bulldogs football coaches\nDelaware State Hornets football coaches\nEdward Waters Tigers football coaches\nMorris Brown Wolverines football players\nMorris Brown Wolverines men's basketball players\nHigh school football coaches in Alabama\nCoaches of American football from Illinois\nPlayers of American football from Illinois\nBasketball players from Illinois\nAfrican-American coaches of American football\nAfrican-American players of American football\nAfrican-American basketball players\n20th-century African-American sportspeople",
"Donald \"Don\" Webb is a Canadian former diver and diving coach, notable for coaching Olympic athletes including Beverly Boys, Judy Stewart and Milena Duchková. He would later coach the Canadian national diving team around 1968 and the men's Olympic team in 1976. Although a professional diver, Webb entered coaching by a chance opportunity to judge a gymnastics competition. His diving career was ended when he fell awkwardly from a dive into a pool and lay unconscious at the bottom for under a minute.\n\nHe is the youngest of eight children and has two daughters to wife Mary Ann Ray.\n\nCareer\n\nDiving\nHis diving interests began at the age of 10, when he joined the YMCA to learn tumbling and diving. His career started at the age of 14, when he professionally toured Western Canada as a carnival high diver. Within four years, he was in Australia, diving off 11-storey buildings in to fire-rimmed watertanks. When he was 30, he won the world high-diving crown in Toronto.\n\nIn 1957, then aged 24, Webb decided to quit diving after a dive off a small platform resulted in him landing on his back in the pool and losing consciousness. He was on the bottom of the pool for under a minute, while none of the 150 spectators were aware there was anything wrong until he was pulled above water by his brother Gerald. Webb escaped the incident with just a bruised head and later explained that he felt he had made a poor approach and should have landed with his feet first. Following the incident, his fiancee pleaded with him to quit diving, which he agreed to and suggested he would instead devote his time to becoming a salesman. Recalling the incident 10 years on, Webb remarked that \"nothing under the sun would get me up there again\".\n\nCoaching\nHis entry into diving coaching was by accidental chance, when he was asked to judge a gymnastics competition which included Judy Stewart, then a gymnast who impressed Webb with her ability. Reflecting on that time, Webb recalled that he \"got a kick out of being involved, and before I knew it, I was coaching Judy on the trampoline\". Initially, he would divide his time between coaching gymnastics and diving, before concluding that Stewart, by then his student, would have a better career chance in diving and he chose to fully commit to dive coaching. He had been coaching Canada's Olympic and national diving team in the 1960 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, although remarked that had considered marking 1968 as the end of his coaching career.\n\nBy 1970, a handful of divers lived with Webb and his wife, where he would transport the divers through snow drifts to and from practice sessions and his station wagon was described as being \"always over-loaded with young Canadians aspiring to become Olympians\". In June 1970, Webb, then described as one of Canada's top diving coaches, announced his intention to retire from coaching after the 1970 British Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh, as he was critical of the fact that coaching diving in Canada was not paid employment and was under pressure to financially support his family. Webb had to fund his own expenses to travel with the team to Edinburgh as the Canadian Amateur Diving Association did not budget to bring Webb along. Webb had recently lost his third job in 10 years due to spending too much time voluntarily coaching divers.\n\nDuring a news conference in March 1974 regarding announcements for the April 1974 Canada Cup diving competition, Webb was asked if he believed the reason that girls dominated Canada's sport scene was because they were more dedicated and able to make sacrifices. In response, Webb disagreed, suggesting that girls were instead more able to make greater sacrifices due to a Canadian society that would place greater expectations on boys to complete their schooling and reach financial independence sooner than girls. Webb further suggested that \"in most Canadian homes, the parents don't get upset if a daughter spends an extra year or so to finish her schooling\". Webb was also known to be coaching the men's Olympic team in 1976. His coaching style was described as \"animated and sometimes volatile\". Webb coached Olympic gold-winning medalist Milena Duchková and arranged her one year visa for her to live in Canada.\n\nIn 1980, he was one of six national team coaches for Dive Canada and praised the federal government in helping Canada reach a healthy position in the world diving scene, with $27,000 provided by Sport Canada to help towards costs. Additionally, he worked as coach for the \"powerful\" Pointe Claire team and in 1984, believed he had \"the best group of divers he's ever been involved with\". By 1990, was credited as helping to make Canada \"a world-ranked power in the sport\".\n\nPersonal\nWebb's father, an enthusiastic sports spectator, worked as a railroad worker and Webb himself was the youngest of eight children. His brother Gerald was a year younger than him and he married Mary Ann Ray.\n\nHe is a father of two daughters, his eldest, Kelly, born c1962.\n\nReferences\n\nCanadian male divers\nDivers from Toronto\nCanadian diving coaches\n\n1930s births\nLiving people\nYear of birth uncertain"
] |
[
"Bill Edwards (American football coach)",
"Detroit Lions, military service, and Cleveland Browns",
"How long was Edwards with the Lions",
"signed two-year contracts.",
"Did he win much when he was with them?",
"Edwards's stint as the Lions coach was unsuccessful.",
"What year did he start with them?",
"Edwards ultimately was hired in February 1941",
"Did he go right from the lions to the browns?",
"I don't know.",
"How long was he with the browns?",
"Edwards took a position as a tackle coach and remained with the team for two seasons.",
"What about his military service was he in a war?",
"Edwards enlisted in the U.S. Navy later in 1942 as America's involvement in the war intensified.",
"How long was he in the military?",
"Edwards was discharged in 1946,",
"was he hurt at all during his time in the service?",
"I don't know.",
"Was there anything special that made him decide he wanted to co into coaching?",
"spent a year in the sporting goods business in Cleveland, Ohio before reuniting with Brown,"
] |
C_a1a2880e800847b8a33b661ee731765d_1
|
Where did he get his start in coaching?
| 10 |
Where did Bill Edwards get his start in coaching?
|
Bill Edwards (American football coach)
|
Having built a strong record at Western Reserve, Edwards was in the running for head coaching roles at a number of larger universities and professional teams. He met with officials at Marquette University and was considered a candidate for coaching duties at Colorado University and for the National Football League's Detroit Lions. After visiting with Lions owner Fred Mandel, Edwards ultimately was hired in February 1941 to succeed George Clark. Both Edwards and Dugan Miller signed two-year contracts. Edwards was given a $10,000 annual salary ($166,380 in 2017 dollars), more than double the $4,420 he was paid at Western Reserve. Edwards's stint as the Lions coach was unsuccessful. He guided the team to a 4-6-1 record in 1941, and Mandel fired him after three straight losses to begin the 1942 season as the team's roster was depleted by players' service in World War II. Detroit went on to lose all the rest of its games after John Karcis was named his replacement. Edwards enlisted in the U.S. Navy later in 1942 as America's involvement in the war intensified. While in the military, he served at St. Mary's Pre-Flight, a training program in California, and coached the Air Devils football team there. He also served at a base in Pensacola, Florida. Edwards was discharged in 1946, and spent a year in the sporting goods business in Cleveland, Ohio before reuniting with Brown, who had become the first coach of the Cleveland Browns in the All-America Football Conference (AAFC). Edwards took a position as a tackle coach and remained with the team for two seasons. He coached tackles including Ernie Blandin, Lou Rymkus and future Pro Football Hall of Fame member Lou Groza. The Browns won the AAFC championship in both of Edwards's years as an assistant; the team won all of its games in 1948, turning in professional football's first perfect season. CANNOTANSWER
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Having built a strong record at Western Reserve, Edwards was in the running for head coaching roles at a number of larger universities and professional teams.
|
William Miller Edwards (June 21, 1905 – June 12, 1987) was an American football player and coach. He served as the head football coach at Western Reserve University, Vanderbilt University and Wittenberg University in a career lasting more than 30 years, compiling a win-loss-tie record of 168–45–8. Edwards also coached the Detroit Lions of the National Football League (NFL) from 1941 to 1942, tallying a 4–9–1 record, and served as an assistant coach for the NFL's Cleveland Browns in the late 1940s.
Raised near Massillon, Ohio, Edwards was the son of an immigrant from Wales who worked in the area's coal mines. He played football at Massillon Washington High School and enrolled at Ohio State University, where he stayed for a year before transferring to Wittenberg University. After college, Edwards began his coaching career at high schools in Ohio. He got his first job as a college head coach in 1935 at Western Reserve, now known as Case Western Reserve University, in Cleveland, Ohio and guided the team to a 49–6–2 record over six seasons. Edwards was then hired to coach the Lions, but his brief stay there was unsuccessful, and he was fired at the beginning of the 1942 season. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy later that year and served in the military during World War II until his discharge in 1946.
Edwards spent a year selling sporting goods in Cleveland, returning to football in 1947 with the Browns as an assistant to head coach Paul Brown, a close friend and former Massillon schoolmate. After two years as the team's tackle coach, he was hired by Vanderbilt in 1949. He stayed there for four years and amassed a 21–19–2 record, but resigned in 1953 under pressure from alumni. After two years as an assistant coach at the University of North Carolina, Edwards was hired by Wittenberg, his alma mater, as head football coach and athletic director. He spent the rest of his career there, serving as head coach until 1968 and remaining as athletic director until 1973. While at Wittenberg, he was named the country's college football coach of the year twice, and his teams posted an overall record of 98–20–4. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1986. Edwards, described as a tough but compassionate coach, had an influence on many men he worked with, including Steve Belichick, the father of New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick. Steve Belichick played for Edwards at Western Reserve and with the Lions, and coached with him at Vanderbilt. Edwards was the godfather of Bill.
Early life and college
Edwards grew up in Massillon, Ohio and attended Massillon Washington High School. He was a schoolmate of Paul Brown, who later became the coach of the Cleveland Browns and helped found the Cincinnati Bengals in the National Football League. The son of a Welsh coal miner, Edwards dropped out of school when he was 14 to help his family by working in the mines of East Greenville, near Massillon. He returned three years later, however, and became a star player on Massillon's football team. Edwards was a linebacker at Massillon between 1922 and 1924.
Edwards enrolled at Ohio State University where he captained the Buckeyes freshman football team and was roommates with Paul Brown, his former Massillon teammate. After the season, however, he transferred to Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio. At Wittenberg, he played as a center starting in 1928 and was the captain of the football team in 1929 and 1930. A tough player, Edwards did not like to wear a helmet, saying "you skin your ears a little without them, but I never had any trouble." He won All-Ohio honors at Wittenberg and was named an honorable mention All-American in 1930. One of Edwards's most memorable games as a collegian came in 1928 against the Ohio Wesleyan Battling Bishops. In the last game of a season in which Wesleyan had a perfect record and beat football powerhouses Michigan and Syracuse, Edwards kicked an extra point as time expired and gave Wittenberg a 7–6 victory. Grantland Rice, a prominent sportswriter of the time, called him the best center in college football. Walter Eckersall of the Chicago Tribune named him an All-American.
Coaching career
High school and Western Reserve
Edwards got his first coaching job in 1931, when he was hired as an assistant football coach at Springfield High School. He also taught history at the school. The following year, he got his first head coaching job at Fostoria High School in Fostoria, Ohio. After two seasons at Fostoria, during the second of which the team put in its best performance in 10 years with an 8–2 record, he left to coach the freshman football team at Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio in 1933. When Reserve head coach Sam Willaman died suddenly in August 1935, players lobbied for Edwards to take his place; Edwards got the job. Edwards brought in former Massillon and Wittenberg teammate and Fostoria aide Roy A. "Dugan" Miller as his chief assistant, and the Western Reserve Red Cats went undefeated in his first two seasons as coach. The team had a 49–6–2 record between the 1935 and 1940 seasons under Edwards. In his last season, Western Reserve reached the Sun Bowl in El Paso, Texas against Arizona State and won the game 26–13 on New Year's Day in 1941.
Detroit Lions, military service, and Cleveland Browns
Having built a strong record at Western Reserve, Edwards was in the running for head coaching roles at a number of larger universities and professional teams. He met with officials at Marquette University and was considered a candidate for coaching duties at Colorado University and for the National Football League's Detroit Lions. After visiting with Lions owner Fred Mandel, Edwards ultimately was hired in February 1941 to succeed George Clark. Both Edwards and Dugan Miller signed two-year contracts. Edwards was given a $10,000 annual salary ($ in dollars), more than double the $4,420 he was paid at Western Reserve.
Edwards's stint as the Lions coach was unsuccessful. He guided the team to a 4–6–1 record in 1941, and Mandel fired him after three straight losses to begin the 1942 season as the team's roster was depleted by players' service in World War II. Detroit went on to lose all the rest of its games after John Karcis was named his replacement.
Edwards enlisted in the U.S. Navy later in 1942 as America's involvement in the war intensified. While in the military, he served at St. Mary's Pre-Flight, a training program in California, and coached the Air Devils football team there. He also served at a base in Pensacola, Florida. Edwards was discharged in 1946, and spent a year in the sporting goods business in Cleveland, Ohio before reuniting with Brown, who had become the first coach of the Cleveland Browns in the All-America Football Conference (AAFC). Edwards took a position as a tackle coach and remained with the team for two seasons. He coached tackles including Ernie Blandin, Lou Rymkus and future Pro Football Hall of Fame member Lou Groza. The Browns won the AAFC championship in both of Edwards's years as an assistant; the team won all of its games in 1948, turning in professional football's first perfect season.
Vanderbilt, North Carolina, and Wittenberg
Edwards was hired as Vanderbilt University's head football coach and athletic director in 1949, replacing Henry Russell Sanders when Sanders left to become head coach at the University of California, Los Angeles. Vanderbilt gave the 43-year-old coach a three-year contract paying a $12,500 salary ($ in today's dollars). "I don't like to leave the Cleveland Browns and Paul Brown in particular," he said at the time. "I'll never forget my experiences with the Browns over the past two years." Edwards remained at Vanderbilt for four seasons, building up a 21–19–2 record. He instituted a modern T formation offense to replace Sanders's more traditional single-wing formation. He resigned in 1953 under pressure from Vanderbilt alumni following a 3–5–2 season. He then moved to the University of North Carolina, where he was an assistant on the football team's coaching staff in 1953 and 1954.
Edwards was hired as athletic director and head football coach at Wittenberg, his alma mater, in 1955. He put in a pro-style offense and focused on passing because his players were smaller than many opponents. "We had small players, but little guys can throw the football and little guys can catch it, whereas you need big guys to block for a running game," he said in 1973. Under Edwards, the Wittenberg Tigers were a major success, amassing a 98–20–4 record in 14 seasons and winning the NCAA College Division national championship poll in 1962 and 1964. Edwards's teams were unbeaten three times and lost one game in five of his seasons there. He was named Ohio College Football Coach of the Year in 1957 by his fellow coaches. The American Football Coaches Association named him coach of the year in 1963 and 1964, when the Tigers won all of their games. He was called "a combination of Genghis Khan and Santa Claus" by Sports Illustrated for being both tough and sympathetic to his players.
Later life and death
Edwards resigned from coaching in 1969, when he was 63 years old, although he continued to work at Wittenberg as the school's athletic director. Dave Maurer, his long-time assistant, took over as the school's coach. By the end of his career, Edwards's 168–45–8 overall college record gave him the second-best winning percentage in the country among active coaches with at least 100 wins. Edwards was given a commendation by President Richard Nixon for his achievements as a coach and won a Football Writers Association of America award for contributions to the game. "His retirement is Wittenberg's loss, but more than that, it is college football's loss," University of Alabama coach Bear Bryant said at the time.
Edwards retired in February 1973 after 39 years as a coach and administrator and said he would concentrate on hunting and fishing. He was inducted into the Ohio Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 1979, Wittenberg's Athletics Hall of Honor in 1985 and into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1986. He was also inducted into the Western Reserve Hall of Fame and the Vanderbilt Hall of Fame in 1986. Edwards died in 1987. He and his wife Dorothy had three children.
The tough but compassionate approach to coaching Edwards espoused influenced many men who worked under him, including Maurer, who led Wittenberg to a 129–23–3 record between 1969 and 1983. Wittenberg's football stadium is named Edwards-Maurer Field in honor of both head coaches. The winner of the Wittenberg-Case Western Reserve football game receives the Bill Edwards Trophy.
Edwards was also close with Steve Belichick, who played for him at Western Reserve and for the Detroit Lions and later served as an assistant under him at Vanderbilt and North Carolina. Belichick's son Bill was named after Edwards, who was also Bill's godfather. Bill Belichick later became an assistant coach in the NFL and is the head coach of the New England Patriots as of . At what is now known as Case Western Reserve University, the football stadium, DiSanto Field, hosts its distinguished guests inside the Coach Bill Edwards President's Suite.
Head coaching record
College
Professional
References
Bibliography
External links
1905 births
1987 deaths
American football centers
Case Western Spartans football coaches
Detroit Lions head coaches
Ohio State Buckeyes football players
North Carolina Tar Heels football coaches
Saint Mary's Pre-Flight Air Devils football coaches
Vanderbilt Commodores athletic directors
Vanderbilt Commodores football coaches
Wittenberg Tigers athletic directors
Wittenberg Tigers football coaches
Wittenberg Tigers football players
High school football coaches in Ohio
College Football Hall of Fame inductees
Sportspeople from Massillon, Ohio
Coaches of American football from Ohio
Players of American football from Ohio
| true |
[
"David Dedek (born 25 January 1971) is a Slovenian professional basketball coach. He was most recently coaching Start Lublin of the PLK until October 2021.\n\nEducation\nAfter two years at primary school Toneta Tomšiča, Dedek moved to Primary School Franceta Bevka. From 1985 to 1989, he attended Vegova Ljubljana, a high school in Ljubljana, Slovenia. In 1989, he enrolled into Fakulteti za elektrotehniko in računalništvo v Ljubljani. He continued his education at Fakulteta za šport, where he has finished his education at the top of his class.\n\nCoaching career\nHis coaching career started back in 1988 when he was a coach of the U16 team at Ježica. He was coaching young players till 1995 when he became the head coach of the team. He was working in Slovenia for the next eight years. He came to Poland in 2003 joining Anwil Włocławek to won the Polish Basketball League title, the first championship in club history.\nAfter Anwil Włocławek he was coaching Śląsk Wrocław, Asseco Prokom Gdynia, Start Gdynia and AZS Koszalin. Midseason 2016 he took over Start Lublin team. In the 4th season he led the team to 2nd place in PLK.\n\nAwards\n\nIndividual awards\n 1998 Coach of the year - ZKT Slovenije\n 2014 Sportsman of the month (january) - trojmiasto.pl \n 2015 Sportsman of the month (may) - trojmiasto.pl \n 2014 Coach of the year - redakcja Sportowe Fakty \n 2014 Coach of the year - Radio Gdansk \n 2015 Coach of the year - Radio Gdansk \n 2020 Coach of the year - redakcja Polski Kosz \n 2020 Best coach - redakcja Polsat Sport \n 2020 City Lublin Award\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n Eurobasket profile\n KD Ježica profile\n\n1971 births\nLiving people\nArka Gdynia basketball coaches\nSlovenian basketball coaches\nSportspeople from Ljubljana\nStart Lublin basketball coaches",
"John Aiken is an American basketball coach who is the current head men's basketball coach at McNeese State.\n\nCoaching career\nAiken began his coaching career in his native Maine assisting at Greater Portland Christian School and Cheverus High School, the latter under former Boston University men's basketball coach Bob Brown, the father of Brett Brown. He'd get his start in the collegiate ranks as an assistant coach at the University of New England before becoming an assistant coach at Belhaven. After serving in the assistant role for four seasons, Aiken was elevated to head coach where he guided the Blazers to a 30–33 record in two seasons.\n\nMoving into the Division I ranks, Aiken joined Heath Schroyer's staff at UT Martin, and followed it up with an assistant coaching stint at Nicholls State. He'd reunite with Schroyer at McNeese State as an assistant coach, and on March 11, 2021 Aiken would be elevated to head coach after Schroyer took on the position of athletic director full time.\n\nHead coaching record\n\nNAIA\n\nNCAA DI\n\nReferences\n\nLiving people\nAmerican men's basketball coaches\nMcNeese State Cowboys basketball coaches\nUT Martin Skyhawks men's basketball coaches\nNicholls Colonels men's basketball coaches\nBasketball coaches from Maine\nSportspeople from Portland, Maine\nYear of birth missing (living people)"
] |
[
"Bill Edwards (American football coach)",
"Detroit Lions, military service, and Cleveland Browns",
"How long was Edwards with the Lions",
"signed two-year contracts.",
"Did he win much when he was with them?",
"Edwards's stint as the Lions coach was unsuccessful.",
"What year did he start with them?",
"Edwards ultimately was hired in February 1941",
"Did he go right from the lions to the browns?",
"I don't know.",
"How long was he with the browns?",
"Edwards took a position as a tackle coach and remained with the team for two seasons.",
"What about his military service was he in a war?",
"Edwards enlisted in the U.S. Navy later in 1942 as America's involvement in the war intensified.",
"How long was he in the military?",
"Edwards was discharged in 1946,",
"was he hurt at all during his time in the service?",
"I don't know.",
"Was there anything special that made him decide he wanted to co into coaching?",
"spent a year in the sporting goods business in Cleveland, Ohio before reuniting with Brown,",
"Where did he get his start in coaching?",
"Having built a strong record at Western Reserve, Edwards was in the running for head coaching roles at a number of larger universities and professional teams."
] |
C_a1a2880e800847b8a33b661ee731765d_1
|
What was Western Reserve?
| 11 |
What was Western Reserve in reference to Bill Edwards?
|
Bill Edwards (American football coach)
|
Having built a strong record at Western Reserve, Edwards was in the running for head coaching roles at a number of larger universities and professional teams. He met with officials at Marquette University and was considered a candidate for coaching duties at Colorado University and for the National Football League's Detroit Lions. After visiting with Lions owner Fred Mandel, Edwards ultimately was hired in February 1941 to succeed George Clark. Both Edwards and Dugan Miller signed two-year contracts. Edwards was given a $10,000 annual salary ($166,380 in 2017 dollars), more than double the $4,420 he was paid at Western Reserve. Edwards's stint as the Lions coach was unsuccessful. He guided the team to a 4-6-1 record in 1941, and Mandel fired him after three straight losses to begin the 1942 season as the team's roster was depleted by players' service in World War II. Detroit went on to lose all the rest of its games after John Karcis was named his replacement. Edwards enlisted in the U.S. Navy later in 1942 as America's involvement in the war intensified. While in the military, he served at St. Mary's Pre-Flight, a training program in California, and coached the Air Devils football team there. He also served at a base in Pensacola, Florida. Edwards was discharged in 1946, and spent a year in the sporting goods business in Cleveland, Ohio before reuniting with Brown, who had become the first coach of the Cleveland Browns in the All-America Football Conference (AAFC). Edwards took a position as a tackle coach and remained with the team for two seasons. He coached tackles including Ernie Blandin, Lou Rymkus and future Pro Football Hall of Fame member Lou Groza. The Browns won the AAFC championship in both of Edwards's years as an assistant; the team won all of its games in 1948, turning in professional football's first perfect season. CANNOTANSWER
|
CANNOTANSWER
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William Miller Edwards (June 21, 1905 – June 12, 1987) was an American football player and coach. He served as the head football coach at Western Reserve University, Vanderbilt University and Wittenberg University in a career lasting more than 30 years, compiling a win-loss-tie record of 168–45–8. Edwards also coached the Detroit Lions of the National Football League (NFL) from 1941 to 1942, tallying a 4–9–1 record, and served as an assistant coach for the NFL's Cleveland Browns in the late 1940s.
Raised near Massillon, Ohio, Edwards was the son of an immigrant from Wales who worked in the area's coal mines. He played football at Massillon Washington High School and enrolled at Ohio State University, where he stayed for a year before transferring to Wittenberg University. After college, Edwards began his coaching career at high schools in Ohio. He got his first job as a college head coach in 1935 at Western Reserve, now known as Case Western Reserve University, in Cleveland, Ohio and guided the team to a 49–6–2 record over six seasons. Edwards was then hired to coach the Lions, but his brief stay there was unsuccessful, and he was fired at the beginning of the 1942 season. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy later that year and served in the military during World War II until his discharge in 1946.
Edwards spent a year selling sporting goods in Cleveland, returning to football in 1947 with the Browns as an assistant to head coach Paul Brown, a close friend and former Massillon schoolmate. After two years as the team's tackle coach, he was hired by Vanderbilt in 1949. He stayed there for four years and amassed a 21–19–2 record, but resigned in 1953 under pressure from alumni. After two years as an assistant coach at the University of North Carolina, Edwards was hired by Wittenberg, his alma mater, as head football coach and athletic director. He spent the rest of his career there, serving as head coach until 1968 and remaining as athletic director until 1973. While at Wittenberg, he was named the country's college football coach of the year twice, and his teams posted an overall record of 98–20–4. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1986. Edwards, described as a tough but compassionate coach, had an influence on many men he worked with, including Steve Belichick, the father of New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick. Steve Belichick played for Edwards at Western Reserve and with the Lions, and coached with him at Vanderbilt. Edwards was the godfather of Bill.
Early life and college
Edwards grew up in Massillon, Ohio and attended Massillon Washington High School. He was a schoolmate of Paul Brown, who later became the coach of the Cleveland Browns and helped found the Cincinnati Bengals in the National Football League. The son of a Welsh coal miner, Edwards dropped out of school when he was 14 to help his family by working in the mines of East Greenville, near Massillon. He returned three years later, however, and became a star player on Massillon's football team. Edwards was a linebacker at Massillon between 1922 and 1924.
Edwards enrolled at Ohio State University where he captained the Buckeyes freshman football team and was roommates with Paul Brown, his former Massillon teammate. After the season, however, he transferred to Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio. At Wittenberg, he played as a center starting in 1928 and was the captain of the football team in 1929 and 1930. A tough player, Edwards did not like to wear a helmet, saying "you skin your ears a little without them, but I never had any trouble." He won All-Ohio honors at Wittenberg and was named an honorable mention All-American in 1930. One of Edwards's most memorable games as a collegian came in 1928 against the Ohio Wesleyan Battling Bishops. In the last game of a season in which Wesleyan had a perfect record and beat football powerhouses Michigan and Syracuse, Edwards kicked an extra point as time expired and gave Wittenberg a 7–6 victory. Grantland Rice, a prominent sportswriter of the time, called him the best center in college football. Walter Eckersall of the Chicago Tribune named him an All-American.
Coaching career
High school and Western Reserve
Edwards got his first coaching job in 1931, when he was hired as an assistant football coach at Springfield High School. He also taught history at the school. The following year, he got his first head coaching job at Fostoria High School in Fostoria, Ohio. After two seasons at Fostoria, during the second of which the team put in its best performance in 10 years with an 8–2 record, he left to coach the freshman football team at Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio in 1933. When Reserve head coach Sam Willaman died suddenly in August 1935, players lobbied for Edwards to take his place; Edwards got the job. Edwards brought in former Massillon and Wittenberg teammate and Fostoria aide Roy A. "Dugan" Miller as his chief assistant, and the Western Reserve Red Cats went undefeated in his first two seasons as coach. The team had a 49–6–2 record between the 1935 and 1940 seasons under Edwards. In his last season, Western Reserve reached the Sun Bowl in El Paso, Texas against Arizona State and won the game 26–13 on New Year's Day in 1941.
Detroit Lions, military service, and Cleveland Browns
Having built a strong record at Western Reserve, Edwards was in the running for head coaching roles at a number of larger universities and professional teams. He met with officials at Marquette University and was considered a candidate for coaching duties at Colorado University and for the National Football League's Detroit Lions. After visiting with Lions owner Fred Mandel, Edwards ultimately was hired in February 1941 to succeed George Clark. Both Edwards and Dugan Miller signed two-year contracts. Edwards was given a $10,000 annual salary ($ in dollars), more than double the $4,420 he was paid at Western Reserve.
Edwards's stint as the Lions coach was unsuccessful. He guided the team to a 4–6–1 record in 1941, and Mandel fired him after three straight losses to begin the 1942 season as the team's roster was depleted by players' service in World War II. Detroit went on to lose all the rest of its games after John Karcis was named his replacement.
Edwards enlisted in the U.S. Navy later in 1942 as America's involvement in the war intensified. While in the military, he served at St. Mary's Pre-Flight, a training program in California, and coached the Air Devils football team there. He also served at a base in Pensacola, Florida. Edwards was discharged in 1946, and spent a year in the sporting goods business in Cleveland, Ohio before reuniting with Brown, who had become the first coach of the Cleveland Browns in the All-America Football Conference (AAFC). Edwards took a position as a tackle coach and remained with the team for two seasons. He coached tackles including Ernie Blandin, Lou Rymkus and future Pro Football Hall of Fame member Lou Groza. The Browns won the AAFC championship in both of Edwards's years as an assistant; the team won all of its games in 1948, turning in professional football's first perfect season.
Vanderbilt, North Carolina, and Wittenberg
Edwards was hired as Vanderbilt University's head football coach and athletic director in 1949, replacing Henry Russell Sanders when Sanders left to become head coach at the University of California, Los Angeles. Vanderbilt gave the 43-year-old coach a three-year contract paying a $12,500 salary ($ in today's dollars). "I don't like to leave the Cleveland Browns and Paul Brown in particular," he said at the time. "I'll never forget my experiences with the Browns over the past two years." Edwards remained at Vanderbilt for four seasons, building up a 21–19–2 record. He instituted a modern T formation offense to replace Sanders's more traditional single-wing formation. He resigned in 1953 under pressure from Vanderbilt alumni following a 3–5–2 season. He then moved to the University of North Carolina, where he was an assistant on the football team's coaching staff in 1953 and 1954.
Edwards was hired as athletic director and head football coach at Wittenberg, his alma mater, in 1955. He put in a pro-style offense and focused on passing because his players were smaller than many opponents. "We had small players, but little guys can throw the football and little guys can catch it, whereas you need big guys to block for a running game," he said in 1973. Under Edwards, the Wittenberg Tigers were a major success, amassing a 98–20–4 record in 14 seasons and winning the NCAA College Division national championship poll in 1962 and 1964. Edwards's teams were unbeaten three times and lost one game in five of his seasons there. He was named Ohio College Football Coach of the Year in 1957 by his fellow coaches. The American Football Coaches Association named him coach of the year in 1963 and 1964, when the Tigers won all of their games. He was called "a combination of Genghis Khan and Santa Claus" by Sports Illustrated for being both tough and sympathetic to his players.
Later life and death
Edwards resigned from coaching in 1969, when he was 63 years old, although he continued to work at Wittenberg as the school's athletic director. Dave Maurer, his long-time assistant, took over as the school's coach. By the end of his career, Edwards's 168–45–8 overall college record gave him the second-best winning percentage in the country among active coaches with at least 100 wins. Edwards was given a commendation by President Richard Nixon for his achievements as a coach and won a Football Writers Association of America award for contributions to the game. "His retirement is Wittenberg's loss, but more than that, it is college football's loss," University of Alabama coach Bear Bryant said at the time.
Edwards retired in February 1973 after 39 years as a coach and administrator and said he would concentrate on hunting and fishing. He was inducted into the Ohio Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 1979, Wittenberg's Athletics Hall of Honor in 1985 and into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1986. He was also inducted into the Western Reserve Hall of Fame and the Vanderbilt Hall of Fame in 1986. Edwards died in 1987. He and his wife Dorothy had three children.
The tough but compassionate approach to coaching Edwards espoused influenced many men who worked under him, including Maurer, who led Wittenberg to a 129–23–3 record between 1969 and 1983. Wittenberg's football stadium is named Edwards-Maurer Field in honor of both head coaches. The winner of the Wittenberg-Case Western Reserve football game receives the Bill Edwards Trophy.
Edwards was also close with Steve Belichick, who played for him at Western Reserve and for the Detroit Lions and later served as an assistant under him at Vanderbilt and North Carolina. Belichick's son Bill was named after Edwards, who was also Bill's godfather. Bill Belichick later became an assistant coach in the NFL and is the head coach of the New England Patriots as of . At what is now known as Case Western Reserve University, the football stadium, DiSanto Field, hosts its distinguished guests inside the Coach Bill Edwards President's Suite.
Head coaching record
College
Professional
References
Bibliography
External links
1905 births
1987 deaths
American football centers
Case Western Spartans football coaches
Detroit Lions head coaches
Ohio State Buckeyes football players
North Carolina Tar Heels football coaches
Saint Mary's Pre-Flight Air Devils football coaches
Vanderbilt Commodores athletic directors
Vanderbilt Commodores football coaches
Wittenberg Tigers athletic directors
Wittenberg Tigers football coaches
Wittenberg Tigers football players
High school football coaches in Ohio
College Football Hall of Fame inductees
Sportspeople from Massillon, Ohio
Coaches of American football from Ohio
Players of American football from Ohio
| false |
[
"The 1941 Western Reserve Red Cats football team represented the Western Reserve University, now known as Case Western Reserve University, during the 1941 college football season. The team was coached by Tom Davies, who was assisted by Coach Ken Ormiston. A notable star halfback was Dom \"Mickey\" Sanzotta, who also served as team co-captain with Paul Hudson.\n\nThe 50th game of the Case–Reserve rivalry, which began in 1891, was played.\n\nSchedule\n\nReferences\n\nWestern Reserve\nCase Western Reserve Spartans football seasons\nWestern Reserve Red Cats football",
"The 1918 Western Reserve football team represented Western Reserve University—now known as Case Western Reserve University, during the 1918 college football season. The team's coach was Frank A. Yocum. Originally was on the schedule, but due to the Spanish flu, Oberlin College was played a second time to fill the cancellation. The Michigan Agricultural game was cancelled due to the team having to go into quarantine.\n\nSchedule\n\nReferences\n\nWestern Reserve\nCase Western Reserve Spartans football seasons\nWestern Reserve football"
] |
[
"Hilltop Hoods",
"1987-2001: Formation and early years"
] |
C_e52eb25f24074bb2947bf6fb1e5b05d7_1
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How was the group formed?
| 1 |
How was the group Hilltop Hoods formed?
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Hilltop Hoods
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Two of Hilltop Hoods' founders first met in 1987 when MC Suffa (aka Matthew David Lambert) and MC Pressure (Daniel Howe Smith) attended Blackwood High School in Eden Hills - a suburb of Adelaide. In 1991 they joined up with DJ Next (Ben John Hare) through a mutual friend and formed an Australian hip hop group. Their name was supplied by fellow local MC Flak (from Cross Bred Mongrels) - the suburb of Blackwood is known by locals as the Hilltop. The band's influences include American hip hop artists: Notorious B.I.G., KRS-One, Gang Starr, Wu-Tang Clan and Public Enemy. At live shows Next was the group's DJ, for recording he contributed audio engineering and all the scratching/turntablism on their early works. He regularly competed in the local DMC World DJ Championships (DMC) tournaments, winning the South Australian DMC championships multiple times. Hilltop Hoods recorded a demo, Highlanders, which was released on cassette tape only. As well as Pressure and Suffa on vocals, the group included MC Summit aka DJ Sum-1, but he did not appear on later Hilltop Hoods work. The group's first official release, in 1997, was a vinyl-only, seven-track extended play, Back Once Again. Production was handled by DJ Debris (Barry John M Francis), turntablism and audio engineering by Next, vocals by Pressure and Suffa. The third track, "Shades of Grey", features Debris with a verse, and was co-written by Francis, Hare, Lambert and Smith. Fifth track, "Mankind Must Suffa" also features a guest verse from Quromystix (aka Quro, Andrew Michael Bradley) - a member of Finger Lickin' Good and later the Fuglemen. "Mankind Must Suffa" is credited to Lambert, Smith, Francis and Bradley. Back Once Again is out of print and unavailable for retail purchase. The group's debut studio album, A Matter of Time, was released in 1999 on CD only. As with Back Once Again, it is now unavailable for retail purchase. All scratching/turntablism is performed by Next, a track, "Let Me Show You", has no vocals - solely showcasing his turntable skills. American MC Bukue One (Tion Torrence) appears for a guest verse on "Deaf Can Hear". The track is credited to Lambert, Smith, Francis, Hare and Torrence. The album was released independently but with financial assistance from Arts SA - the band were inspired, in 2005, to set up their own Hilltop Hoods Initiative, to help local artists. After the album appeared, Next left the group and moved to Melbourne. In 2004 he moved to London. In 1999 Debris, who was also a member of the Cross Bred Mongrels, replaced Next and became the Hilltop Hoods' full-time DJ. Hilltop Hoods founded the Certified Wise Crew - a hip hop collaborative - with local groups Terra Firma, Cross Bred Mongrels and After Hours. Certified Wise Crew has since expanded to include MCs Trauma, Blockade, Kolaps, Flea, with Vents and Funkoars joining in later years. Hilltop Hoods received two nominations for the Hip Hop Act of the Year Award at the Australian Dance Music Awards and again at the 3D World Music Awards in 2001 and 2002. In 2001 the group's second album, Left Foot, Right Foot, was released with Lambert, Francis and M. Veraquth producing. CANNOTANSWER
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In 1991 they joined up with DJ Next (Ben John Hare) through a mutual friend and formed an Australian hip hop group.
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Hilltop Hoods are an Australian hip hop group that formed in 1991 in Blackwood, Adelaide, South Australia. They are regarded as pioneers of the "larrikin-like" style of Australian hip hop. The group was founded by Suffa (Matthew David Lambert) and Pressure (Daniel Howe Smith), who were joined by DJ Debris (Barry John M. Francis) after fellow founder, DJ Next (Ben John Hare), left in 1999. The group released its first extended play, Back Once Again, in 1997 and have subsequently released eight studio albums, two "restrung" albums and three DVDs.
Six of their eight albums have peaked at number one on the Australian Record Industry Association (ARIA) Albums Charts, recently setting the record for most No. 1 Albums by an Australian band or group: The Hard Road (2006), State of the Art (2009), Drinking from the Sun (2012), Walking Under Stars (2014), Drinking from the Sun, Walking Under Stars Restrung (2016) and The Great Expanse (2019). Three tracks have reached the top 10 on the ARIA Singles Chart—"Chase That Feeling" (2009), "I Love It", featuring Sia (2011) and "Higher", featuring James Chatburn (2015) — while a further two tracks — "Cosby Sweater" (2014) and "1955" (2016) — reached the top 5. "1955", featuring Montaigne & Tom Thum, peaked at number 2 in the Australian charts.
Hilltop Hoods have toured both in Australia and overseas, including playing at music festivals: T in the Park, Oxegen, the Big Day Out, Clipsal 500, Southbound, The Great Escape, Splendour in the Grass, Bassinthegrass, Groovin' The Moo, Falls Festival, Pyramid Rock Festival, Rollercoaster, Come Together Festival and Make Poverty History.
The band are one of the most recurrent artists in the history of the Triple J Hottest 100, with 21 songs voted into the annual countdowns since their first appearance in 2003. At the ARIA Music Awards of 2006 they won "Best Independent Release" and "Best Urban Album" for The Hard Road. In 2007, they won "Best Urban Album" for their remix album, The Hard Road: Restrung (2007). They won the same category in 2009 for State of the Art and in 2012 for Drinking from the Sun. In 2009, Debris also won "Engineer of the Year" for his work on State of the Art. The band received their seventh ARIA award in 2014 when Walking Under Stars won in the Best Urban Album category at the 28th ARIA Awards.
History
1987–2001: Formation and early years
Two of Hilltop Hoods' founders first met in 1987 when MC Suffa (aka Matthew David Lambert) and Pressure (Daniel Howe Smith) attended Blackwood High School in Eden Hills – a suburb of Adelaide. In 1991 they joined up with DJ Next (Ben John Hare) through a mutual friend and formed an Australian hip hop group. Their name was supplied by fellow local MC Flak (from Cross Bred Mongrels) – the suburb of Blackwood is known by locals as the Hilltop. The band's influences include American hip hop artists: Notorious B.I.G., KRS-One, Gang Starr, Wu-Tang Clan and Public Enemy.
At live shows DJ Next was the group's DJ, for recording he contributed audio engineering and all the scratching/turntablism on their early works. He regularly competed in the local DMC World DJ Championships (DMC) tournaments, winning the South Australian DMC championships multiple times. Hilltop Hoods recorded a demo, Highlanders, which was released on cassette tape only. As well as Pressure and Suffa on vocals, the group included MC Summit aka DJ Sum-1, but he did not appear on later Hilltop Hoods work.
The group's first official release, in 1997, was a vinyl-only, seven-track extended play, Back Once Again. Production was handled by DJ Debris (Barry John M Francis), turntablism and audio engineering by DJ Next, vocals by Pressure and Suffa. The third track, "Shades of Grey", features Debris with a verse, and was co-written by Francis, Hare, Lambert and Smith. Fifth track, "Mankind Must Suffa" also features a guest verse from Quromystix (aka Quro, Andrew Michael Bradley) – a member of Finger Lickin' Good and later the Fuglemen. "Mankind Must Suffa" is credited to Lambert, Smith, Francis and Bradley. Back Once Again is out of print and unavailable for retail purchase.
The group's debut studio album, A Matter of Time, was released in 1999 on CD only. As with Back Once Again, it is now unavailable for retail purchase. All scratching/turntablism is performed by DJ Next, a track, "Let Me Show You", has no vocals – solely showcasing his turntable skills. American MC Bukue One (Tion Torrence) appears for a guest verse on "Deaf Can Hear". The track is credited to Lambert, Smith, Francis, Hare and Torrence. The album was released independently but with financial assistance from Arts SA – the band were inspired, in 2005, to set up their own Hilltop Hoods Initiative, to help local artists. After the album appeared, DJ Next left the group and moved to Melbourne. In 2004 he moved to London. In 1999 Debris, who was also a member of the Cross Bred Mongrels, replaced Next and became the Hilltop Hoods' full-time DJ.
Hilltop Hoods founded the Certified Wise Crew – a hip-hop collaborative – with local groups Terra Firma, Cross Bred Mongrels and After Hours. Certified Wise Crew has since expanded to include MCs Trauma, Blockade, Kolaps, Flea, with Vents and Funkoars joining in later years. Hilltop Hoods received two nominations for the Hip Hop Act of the Year Award at the Australian Dance Music Awards and again at the 3D World Music Awards in 2001 and 2002. In 2001 the group's second album, Left Foot, Right Foot, was released with Lambert, Francis and M. Veraquth producing.
2003–2007: The Calling and The Hard Road
On 22 September 2003, Hilltop Hoods released their third album, The Calling, which became a commercial breakthrough. In an interview after the release of their fourth album, Suffa revealed that The Calling was recorded on his mother's computer and the simplicity of their 'studio' is the reason why some of the music on the album is in monaural ('mono') sound.
The Calling entered the ARIA Albums Chart in March 2004 and reached No. 53 before exiting the top 100 in September of the same year. By December 2006 it was certified platinum for shipment of 70,000 units, becoming the first Australian hip hop album to achieve platinum status. In March 2012, it re-entered the chart and peaked at No. 50 – eight-and-a-half years after its first release. It featured two singles, "The Nosebleed Section" and "Dumb Enough", which were listed in the Triple J Hottest 100, 2003. "The Nosebleed Section" was ranked No. 17 in the Triple J Hottest 100 of All Time in 2009. Hilltop Hoods' chart and commercial success was a turning point in the Australian Hip Hop scene because it demonstrated widespread support for the genre that reached beyond an underground fan base.
On 1 April 2006, the group followed with their fourth album, The Hard Road, which peaked at number one. It was the first Australian hip hop album to do so. It was certified gold within a week of being released. Its lead single, "Clown Prince", reached the top 30 on the related ARIA Singles Chart. It featured guest verses from New York rapper, Omni, and British MCs, Mystro and Braintax. The Hilltop Hoods received the inaugural Australian Independent Record (AIR) Award for Independent Artist of the Year and Best Performing Independent Album for The Hard Road in 2006. The track, "The Blue Blooded", is a collaboration with Australian MCs: Funkoars, Hau from Koolism, Mortar, Vents, Drapht, Muph & Plutonic, Pegz and Robby Balboa. On 27 April of the same year, Hilltop Hoods performed at the Bass in the Grass music festival in Darwin alongside fellow hip hop group, The Herd. That same day they issued a second single, the title track from the album. Its video includes fellow members from the Certified Wise Crew – Cross Bred Mongrels, Terrafirma and Funkoars.
Following the success of The Hard Road Tour in early 2006, the Hilltop Hoods began their second national tour for the year, The Stopping All Stations Tour, which visited more regional areas of Australia as well as the capital cities. They were supported by Koolism and Mystro. Late that year, Hilltop Hoods released their third single from the album, "What a Great Night". The video shows the group at a club with camera shots panning up and down to reveal a new location. It used special effects and is one of the most expensive video clips for an Australian hip hop group, mirroring the group's rise in success and popularity. Also late in the year the band won the J Award for best album of the year from Triple J. They performed the Homebake Festival and Falls Festival before the end of the year. The Hard Road received the AIR Award for Best Independent Hip Hop/Urban Release in 2007.
2007–2009: The Hard Road Restrung and State of the Art
On 12 May 2007, Hilltop Hoods released their next album The Hard Road: Restrung which is a remix of their previous studio album, The Hard Road, featuring the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra and Okwerdz. It peaked at No. 8 on the ARIA Albums Chart. Like its predecessor The Hard Road, it took out "Best Urban Release" at the ARIA Awards of 2007, with the group going back-to-back in the category. The lead single from the album "Recapturing the Vibe Restrung", its video clip was on high rotation on rage and jtv. That year the group performed at the Southbound Festival (WA), The Great Escape at Newington Armory over Easter, and embarked on a UK tour with a Sydney-based string quartet. They finished the year by headlining the Pyramid Rock Festival on Victoria's Phillip Island over New Year's Eve 2007. In 2008 they performed at the Big Day Out festivals, at Glastonbury Festival and Islington Academy in London. In December their DVD, The City of Light, was released and was nominated as Best Music DVD at the 2008 ARIA Awards.
Hilltop Hoods left their longtime home of Obese Records to start their own label, Golden Era Records, to release their future material. In November 2008 Pressure announced on Triple J's breakfast program that the next studio album, State of the Art, would be recorded with session musicians: "We realised with this one after doing Restrung and having an orchestra that we were a bit less limited. So we're going to have some session musos come in on this one and stuff like that". The album was released on 12 June, with the lead single, "Chase That Feeling", issued as a digital download on 8 May, and featured a return guest appearance by a quartet from the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. The album debuted at number one on the albums chart while "Chase That Feeling" peaked at No. 8 on the related singles chart. By 2010 State of the Art was certified 2× platinum for shipment of 140,000 units.
In early 2009 the Hilltop Hoods performed at the Groovin the Moo festival in Townsville, Maitland and Bendigo. They also performed at Triple J's One Night Stand in Sale, Victoria on 30 May, and at Fat as Butter festival in Newcastle on 25 October where they played several of the tracks from the album. To promote its release the band started a national tour starting on 18 July and performed at most major cities including state capitals. The second national tour that year followed on 11 November with support provided by Vents.
2010–2017: Drinking from the Sun and Walking Under Stars
On 28 July 2010, Hilltop Hoods completed work on a zombie movie, Parade of the Dead, that the group wrote, filmed, and starred in. Using the title from a State of the Art track, it was released on 22 October with the eponymous single. Filmed mostly in Adelaide, the former Adelaide Gaol was used as a "key location".
In late November 2011, the band premiered the single, "I Love It", on the Triple J breakfast show. Featuring Sia, the song peaked at No. 6 on the ARIA chart and was the lead single from their sixth album, Drinking from the Sun, which was released on 9 March 2012. During December 2011, they supported Eminem and Lil Wayne during the Australian leg of Eminem's world tour. The song has since been certified 4x Platinum by ARIA, denoting sales of more than 280,000 units.
Three music videos for "I Love It" were published online in December 2011 by DJ Debris. Three versions were commissioned by the band, involving three different directors: Nash Edgerton of Blue Tongue Films; the Animal Logic animation company; and independent Melbourne, Australia, film-maker Carl Allison.
In January 2012, the group "leaked" a song from the sixth album following the emergence of interest on their Facebook page: "Let's have some fun. If we get 5000 likes on this post we're going to leak a track off Drinking from the Sun"—they received more than 7,500 likes within 10 minutes. Surprised with the magnitude of the response, the band subsequently posted: "Wow. Give me a minute." and posted a link to a new track, "Rattling the Keys to the Kingdom", on YouTube shortly afterward. "Rattling the Keys to the Kingdom" was certified Gold by ARIA in 2018.
Drinking from the Sun became their third number-one album in Australia and also charted on the New Zealand Albums Chart top 40. In mid-April 2012, the music video for "Speaking in Tongues", the album's second single, was published online. Directed by Toby Grimes, the video features Chali 2na and graffiti murals from Brisbane, Australia, artist Sofles.
On 10 May 2012, Hilltop Hoods issued a new EP, The Good Life in the Sun, to celebrate the launch of the 'Speaking in Tongues Tour', which includes tracks from Drinking from the Sun remixed by Suffa. The post contained a link to their website where the EP can be downloaded for free. In July 2012, the video for the third single, "Shredding the Balloon", was published on the band's YouTube channel. Directed by Selina Miles of Unity Sound and Visual, the video had received nearly 1.5 million views as of 1 October 2014. The single was released on 20 July 2012.
In August 2012, Triple J uploaded video footage of the group's tribute to Beastie Boys' member, Adam "MCA" Yauch, who died in May 2012. The group selected "So What'cha Want", from Beastie Boys' album, Check Your Head.
In late September, the music video for "Rattling the Keys to the Kingdom" was published online. It featured numerous Australian hip-hop artists, including Drapht, Urthboy, Def Wish Cast, Dazastah, Layla, Maya Jupiter and Hunter. The band explained in the production notes for the video:
Not only did we want to do something unifying, we also wanted to use the platform we have to promote artists that we think deserve more exposure. Of course, not everyone involved in the filmclip needs exposure, as many of the artists involved have huge followings in their own right. But having these artists involved in the filmclip just further serves to unify and consolidate the scene ... We need to point out that this is by no means a representation of every relevant artist involved in the culture past or present. It's more a cross-section of who we have contact with, who was available and so on.
In November 2012, Hilltop Hoods performed a live show on UStream and announced that the title of the group's next album would be Walking Under Stars—this was then confirmed on the official Hilltop Hoods Twitter and Facebook pages, following their Best Urban Album win at the 2012 ARIA Awards ceremony. The band's Facebook post read:
So it’s now one year to the day since we dropped 'I Love It' and started the 'Drinking from the Sun' journey. Thanks to everyone that’s supported us over the last 12 months, it’s been amazing. We hope you join us late next year for 'Walking Under Stars'. Thankyou, Suffa, Pressure & Debris
The announcement corresponds with a sample on Drinking from the Sun that refers to a band writing with the clear intention of formulating enough material for two albums: "They were recording enough for two albums; that was premeditated." The sample appears on the track, "The Thirst Pt. 3 (Interlude)".
In April 2013, the Hilltop Hoods stated that the development of Walking Under Stars was "well underway", with the trio calling the album Drinking from the Sun "part two"—the latter received a double platinum sales certification in the same month. Additionally, American clothing company Zoo York announced a partnership with the Hilltop Hoods in April 2013, in preparation for the brand's 20th-anniversary celebrations in 2014. Lambert explained: "We've always been fans of Zoo York, they understand hip hop culture, and that's why we can’t wait to work with them."
On 21 June 2014—after the band successfully received the 20,000 likes they requested for a Facebook post—the first preview of Walking Under Stars, titled "The Art of the Handshake", was uploaded to the band's SoundCloud profile—the song is the fourth on the album's track-list. Lambert revealed on 6 August that the song was inspired by the Notes to Self song "All of the Above", which reminded him of "the ridiculous handshakes" of his youth. As part of the songwriting process, Lambert spent a day researching the status of the handshake in countries such as Sweden and India.
The album's first official single, "Won't Let You Down"—featuring Irish singer Maverick Sabre—was released on 27 June 2014. Writing for the Faster Louder website, Matt Shea revealed in early August that the first single was met with a mixed reaction from existing fans of the band: "While many loved it, plenty of Hoods fans at the very least declared it a radio friendly single that had little to do with hip-hop. Others outright disliked it." Lambert explained in media interviews during the week prior to the album's release that the song was recorded at the Red Bull Studios in both London, UK and New York City, US, while the lyrical content is about the partners of the band members and the difficulties of being in a relationship with touring musicians. The single's musical content features Italian singer Zucchero Fornaciari singing a rendition of Ph.D's hit "I Won't Let You Down".
During the band's performance at the 2014 Splendour in the Grass festival, held from 25 to 27 July in Byron Bay, Australia, Lambert exclaimed to the audience prior to the song "Speaking in Tongues", from the Drinking from the Sun album:
The Hilltop Hoods do not give a fuck what race you are! The Hilltop Hoods do not give a fuck what religion you are! The Hilltop Hoods do not give a fuck what sex you are! The Hilltop Hoods do not give a fuck what sexuality you are! We are one people under the music!
Lambert explained that his announcement, a reaffirmation of the sentiment in "Speaking in Tongues", is "very important" to the band.
The band announced the release date for Walking Under Stars as 8 August 2014 in mid-July and, while the album is a Golden Era Records recording, Universal Music Australia acquired the exclusive licensing rights for the domestic market—Universal will also use the license to distribute the album in Canada, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Benelux, while Golden Era continues its partnership with Fontana for the US release. Walking Under Stars was conceived before Drinking From the Sun was written and Lambert referred to the former as "a companion piece" in an August 2014 interview. Lambert also explained that "I'm a Ghost" is four-years-old, while a segment of "Brainbox" originally appeared on the 2012 Golden Era mixtape.
Similar to the band's previous album releases, numerous collaborators appear on Walking Under Stars. Lambert explained on 5 August that "we [Hilltop Hoods] try to do it in the same room" when guest artists record and, for the seventh studio album, the band worked with Sabre, New Zealand soul singer Aaradhna, Brother Ali, Dan Sultan, Drapht, Canadian voice-over artist Dave Pettitt and One Above, the Adelaide producer who also worked on Drinking from the Sun. Lambert explained to TheMusic.com.au website that Sultan is a "gifted" artist who the band loves "as a person as well", and "it was really good to work with [Brother] Ali, who’s an artist that we admire so much."
Walking Under Stars debuted in the number-one position of the ARIA album charts during the week beginning 11 August 2014, providing the band with their fourth chart-topping album since The Hard Road in April 2006. As of 16 August 2014, the Hilltop Hoods have garnered a total of six weeks at the top of the ARIA charts from four number-one albums, three of which are Golden Era Records releases. During the promotion for a national Australian tour in late August 2014, the band revealed that a secret release will "manifest itself" in 2015 and will be the culmination of a multi-album creative project that began with Drinking From The Sun.
"Won't Let You Down" was performed live on the Australian AFL Footy Show television program on 7 August 2014, during an episode that was filmed in Adelaide. The music video for "Won't Let You Down" was published on the Hilltop Hoods YouTube channel on 19 August 2014. Directed by Richard Coburn of the Kojo production company, the video features a narrative in which manufactured pigs heads are used.
The music video for the "Cosby Sweater" single was released on the Hilltop Hoods YouTube channel while the group was engaged in the third stage of their 2014 world tour in North America. Published on 15 September, the video was again directed by Coburn and also features Golden Era artists Briggs, K21 and Trials. The single became the group's first top 5 ARIA single on 15 November 2014, during the fourth, Australian stage of the world tour, on the same date as the group's Melbourne performance at the Rod Laver Arena. "Cosby Sweater" was also performed at the 28th ARIA Awards ceremony on 26 November 2014, where the band also won the Best Urban Album award.
On 30 April 2016, Hilltop Hoods performed their final concert of the 'Drinking from the Sun, Walking Under the Stars' at Perth Arena.I
2018–present: The Great Expanse
On 13 July 2018, Hilltop Hoods released single "Clark Griswold" with Adrian Eagle, an ode to the character from the National Lampoon's Vacation movies.
On 23 November 2018, Hilltop Hoods released the single "Leave Me Lonely" and announced their forthcoming 2019 album The Great Expanse. The album, which features platinum single "Leave Me Lonely," gold selling ARIA Award-winning single "Clark Griswold" ft. Adrian Eagle, and new single "Exit Sign" ft. Illy and Ecca Vandal, was released on 22 February 2019 and debuted at No. 1 on the ARIA Albums Charts. The chart debut made it the group's sixth number one, setting a new ARIA record for most No. 1 Albums by an Australian band or group.
Touring
Hilltop Hoods have toured both in Australia and overseas, including playing at music festivals: T in the Park, Oxegen, the Big Day Out, Adelaide 500, Southbound, The Great Escape, Splendour in the Grass, Bassinthegrass, Groovin' The Moo, Falls Festival, Pyramid Rock Festival, Rollercoaster, Come Together Festival and Make Poverty History.
On 8 December 2012, the Hilltop Hoods were one of two headlines acts (the other was American band, Blondie) for the 2012 "Global Edition" of the popular Australian music, film, comedy and arts festival, Homebake.
A North American "Drinking From The Sun" tour was announced in late February 2013 and the band revealed that it would perform in American cities such as Seattle (the tour's debut location), New York and San Francisco, and the Canadian cities, Vancouver, Montreal, Calgary and Toronto; the tour was scheduled to end in Los Angeles on 9 May 2013. However, on 23 February 2013, the hip hop group announced the indefinite postponement of the entire tour due to a "serious family matter". The Hilltop Hoods were also one of the bands on the "Concerts" roster for the V8 Clipsal 500 Adelaide car racing event, held between 28 February 2013 and 3 March 2013—other Australian hip hop artists, such as Drapht and Vents, also performed at the event.
The group performed at the 2014 occurrence of the Australian festival Splendour in the Grass, performing alongside other musicians, such as Illy, Outkast, and Lily Allen. The band announced an August–September 2014 North American tour in June 2014—including dates in Vancouver and Toronto, Canada, and San Francisco, US—with Minnesota, US, artist Sims, from Doomtree.
In late August 2014, the "Cosby Sweater Australian Tour" was announced in support of the Walking Under Stars album release. The domestic tour run from October to December 2014, and the support acts were Thundamentals and K21.
Their latest national tour was in 2016. This was the "Drinking from the sun and Walking Under Stars Australian Sympthony Orchestra tour" This was the tour that followed the release of the new album which was the 2 most recent albums remastered using the orchestra.
In February 2019, the group supported Eminem's concert tour around Australia and New Zealand, performing to audiences in venues such as ANZ Stadium in Sydney and the MCG in Melbourne.
Awards and accolades
Hilltop Hoods received nominations for the 'Best Hip Hop Act' in 2001 and 2002 at the 3D World Dance Music Awards, they won the Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA) Award for 'Best Up-coming Group' as well as receiving number-one positions in independent charts all around Australia. The 2052 release The Calling achieved platinum certification from ARIA. Two tracks, "The Nosebleed Section" and "Dumb Enough", were listed in the Triple J Hottest 100, 2003, at ninth and 44th, respectively. Their lead single from The Hard Road, "Clown Prince" was released in February 2006, and became their first top 40 hit on the ARIA Singles Chart. In 2006 the group won the J Award.
On Australia Day, 2007, the Hoods claimed five spots in Triple J's Hottest 100 with "The Hard Road" reaching third place. "Clown Prince", "What a Great Night", "Stopping All Stations", and "Recapturing the Vibe" placed 23rd, 41st, 56th, and 77th respectively. The Hilltop Hoods received the most entries in the Hottest 100 that year, and were only one track off equalling the record, set by Wolfmother the previous year. In 2009 "The Nosebleed Section" was voted number 17 in the Triple J Hottest 100 of all time, the highest placed Australian song.
For the APRA Music Awards of 2010, the Hilltop Hoods won the 'Urban Work of the Year' award for "Still Standing", which was written by Francis, Lambert, Smith and Henry Lawes. The band received three nominations at the 2013 APRA Awards: 'Most Played Australian Work' for "I Love It", and two nominations in the 'Urban Work of the Year' category for "I Love It" and "Speaking in Tongues". They won Urban Work of the Year for "I Love It" (featuring Sia).
At the APRA Music Awards of 2020, Hilltop Hoods won Songwriter of the Year and Most Performed Urban Work of the Year for "Leave Me Lonely". As of 2020, The group has won six APRA Awards from 15 nominations.
In December 2020, the Hilltop Hoods were listed at number 27 in Rolling Stone Australias "50 Greatest Australian Artists of All Time" issue.
AIR Awards
The Australian Independent Record Awards (commonly known informally as AIR Awards) is an annual awards night to recognise, promote and celebrate the success of Australia's Independent Music sector.
|-
| rowspan="3" | 2006
|The Hard Road
| Best Performing Independent Album
|
|-
|"Clown Prince"
| Best Performing Independent Single
|
|-
|themselves
| Independent Artist of the Year
|
|-
| rowspan="3" | 2007
| rowspan="2" |The Hard Road Restrung
| Best Independent Album
|
|-
| Best Independent Dance/Electronic Album
|
|-
|themselves
| Independent Artist of the Year
|
|-
ARIA Awards
In 2006 Hilltop Hoods were nominated for five ARIA Awards – the first ever for an Australian hip hop group – winning in two categories: 'Best Urban Release' and 'Best Independent Release'. The following year they won 'Best Urban Release' at the ARIA Awards for The Hard Road: Restrung. The album was also nominated for 'Best Independent Release' and 'Best Cover Art' by John Engelhardt. The DVD City of Light was nominated as 'Best Music DVD' at the 2008 ARIA awards. At the 2009 ARIA Awards they won 'Best Urban Album' for a third time – for State of the Art and DJ Debris won an award for 'Engineer of the Year' for his work on that album. At the ARIA Music Awards of 2012, Hilltop Hoods won its fourth award in the 'Best Urban Album' category for Drinking from the Sun; as of November 2012, the group has won six awards from twenty nominations.
At the 2012 ARIA Awards, established Aboriginal Australian band, Yothu Yindu, was inducted into the Hall of Fame. A photograph of Suffa holding the award in the presence of the band was posted on the Hilltop Hoods' Instagram profile, accompanied by the following comment: "A memory I'll take to the grave. Meeting Yothu Yindi and having them let me hold their Hall of Fame ARIA. What a beautiful induction."
The band was nominated in three ARIA categories in 2014: Best Group, Best Urban Album, and Engineer of the Year. In an October 2014 radio interview, Smith said that the band does not expect to win an award, but wishes the best for the winners; however, the Best Urban Album award was given to the band on 26 November 2014, providing the band with their seventh ARIA award. As from November 2020 they have won ten awards from thirty-six nominations.
!
|-
| rowspan="5" | 2006 || rowspan="3" | The Hard Road || Best Independent Release || ||rowspan="5"|
|-
| Best Urban Album ||
|-
| Breakthrough Artist – Album ||
|-
| "Clown Prince" || Breakthrough Artist – Single ||
|-
| The Calling Live || Best Music DVD ||
|-
| rowspan="3" | 2007 || rowspan="2" | The Hard Road: Restrung || Best Independent Release || ||rowspan="3"|
|-
| Best Urban Album ||
|-
| The Hard Road: Restrung – John Engelhardt || Best Cover Art ||
|-
| 2008 || The City of Light || Best Music DVD || ||
|-
| rowspan="6" | 2009 || rowspan="3" | State of the Art || Highest Selling Album || || rowspan="6"|
|-
| Best Urban Album ||
|-
| Best Group ||
|-
| "Chase That Feeling" || Single of the Year ||
|-
| State of the Art – Suffa || Producer of the Year ||
|-
| State of the Art – DJ Debris || Engineer of the Year ||
|-
| rowspan="5" | 2012 || rowspan="2" | Drinking from the Sun || Best Group || || rowspan="5"|
|-
| Best Urban Album ||
|-
| "I Love It" (featuring Sia) || Song of the Year ||
|-
| "I Love It" (featuring Sia) – Animal Logic || Best Video ||
|-
| Drinking From The Sun || Best Australian Live Act ||
|-
| rowspan="3" | 2014 || rowspan="3" | Walking Under Stars || Engineer of the Year || || rowspan="3"|
|-
| Best Urban Album ||
|-
| Best Group ||
|-
| 2015 || Cosby Sweater Australian Tour || Best Australian Live Act || ||
|-
| rowspan="3" | 2016 || rowspan="2" | "1955" || Song of the Year || ||rowspan="3"|
|-
| Best Video ||
|-
| The Restrung Tour || Best Australian Live Act ||
|-
| 2018 || "Clark Griswold" (featuring Adrian Eagle) || Best Urban Release || ||
|-
| rowspan="7" | 2019 || rowspan="3" | The Great Expanse || Album of the Year || ||rowspan="7"|
|-
| Best Group ||
|-
| Best Hip Hop Release ||
|-
| "Leave Me Lonely" || Song of the Year ||
|-
| "Exit Sign" (featuring Illy and Ecca Vandal) || Best Video ||
|-
| The Great Expanse World Tour || Best Australian Live Act ||
|-
| Plutonic Lab for Hilltop Hoods' The Great Expanse || Engineer of the Year ||
|-
| 2020 || "Exit Sign" (featuring Illy and Ecca Vandal) || Song of the Year || ||
|-
Fowler's Live Music Awards
The Fowler's Live Music Awards took place from 2012 to 2014 to "recognise success and achievement over the past 12 months [and] celebrate the great diversity of original live music" in South Australia. Since 2015 they're known as the South Australian Music Awards.
|-
| 2012
| Hilltop Hoods
| Best Hip Hop Artist
|
|-
J Awards
The J Awards are an annual series of Australian music awards that were established by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's youth-focused radio station Triple J. They commenced in 2005.
|-
| J Awards of 2014
| Walking Under Stars| Australian Album of the Year
|
|-
| J Awards of 2019
| A Great Expanse| Australian Album of the Year
|
|-
National Live Music Awards
The National Live Music Awards (NLMAs) are a broad recognition of Australia's diverse live industry, celebrating the success of the Australian live scene. The awards commenced in 2016.
|-
| National Live Music Awards of 2019
| Hilltop Hoods
| Live Hip Hop Act of the Year
|
|-
Other projects
Hilltop Hoods Initiative
In 2005 the annual "Hilltop Hoods Initiative" was established in association with Arts SA, made possible by a donation from the Hilltop Hoods. Valued at A$10,000 (originally $3000), the Hilltop Hoods initiative helped young and emerging South Australian hip-hop artists to manufacture and distribute a CD. The initiative also included two mentorship sessions with Hilltop Hoods' former manager, PJ Murton. It acknowledges the important role South Australian government assistance played in the development of the careers of the Hilltop Hoods. In 2009, the initiative became a national grant available to entry for any emerging Australian hip-hop artist who have not issued a professional album.
In a Hilltop Hoods newsletter, released on 4 December 2012, the group communicated the following announcement:
In 2013 The Hilltop Hoods and APRA are teaming up again to give a career changing $10K to the most impressive emerging Hip Hop/Soul act in Australia. Aimed at helping fund the manufacturing and marketing of an album release, the grant is open to any act who hasn't yet released anything professionally. Applications will open in early 2013 along with details on how to enter.
Recipients are:
General Knowledge, a three-piece group (2006)
Subsketch, a solo artist (2007)
Jimblah, a solo artist (2008)
K21, a solo artist (2009)
1/6, a solo artist (2010)
Koolta, a solo artist (2011)
Run for Your Life, a musical collective (2012)
Chelsea Jane (2013), Gold Coast, Queensland artist
I AM D (2014), Brisbane, Queensland solo artist
Sarah Connor, a solo artist (2015)
Astro Travellers, a seven-piece group (2016)
MC Sinks, a solo artist from Melbourne, Victoria. (2017).
Hilltop Hoods Remix Shoe
The Hilltop Hoods and DC Shoes collaborated on the production of a limited-edition shoe called "The Hilltop Hoods Remix Shoe"—it was released in stores on 1 February 2008. They are the first Australian music group to design and release their own signature-model shoe. Illustration and Design by John Engelhardt injected its unique style
Golden Era Records
Following its departure from the Obese record label, the group launched its own label in 2009, entitled Golden Era Records. The label's title is described by the band on the label website:
To some people the golden era of Hip Hop was '94. Ask someone a little older and they’ll tell you Hip Hop’s renaissance was back in '88. Ask one of our revered pioneers and they’ll tell you that the golden era came and went three decades ago, before most of today’s Hip Hop heads were born. Whatever the case these so-called golden eras weren’t only defined by the music or the fashion – they were characterised by something less tangible – an atmosphere, a movement.
This label wasn’t established to release throw-back records; instead we hope to make music that throws you back to the way you felt during the golden era of Hip Hop.
Whatever year that was for you.
The label is based in Stirling, South Australia, and, as of December 2012, its roster consists of the Hilltop Hoods, Briggs, Funkoars, Vents, Adfu, K21, and most recently, Shadow
In January 2012, Fontana, an independent marketing, sales and distribution company under the Universal Music Group umbrella, signed an exclusive agreement with Golden Era Records for the American release of Drinking From The Sun, as well as back catalogue titles.
Charity
The CanTeen youth cancer charity announced that the 2-CD fundraising album Australian Hip Hop Supports CanTeen had raised over AU$122,000 as of 15 October 2014. Released in late 2013, the album features contributions from Hilltop Hoods, as well as numerous other Australian hip-hop artists. The initiative was originally conceived of by Robert Hunter, an MC who rapped under the name "Hunter" (SBX), who died from cancer prior to the release of the album.
Through the Dark interactive film
On 11 November 2016 Hilltop Hoods released an interactive film called Through the Dark, which featured their song of the same name. The interactive film project was a collaboration with Google Play Music and was directed by Mike Daly.
Members
Current members
Suffa (Matthew David Lambert) – vocals, engineering, mixing, producing (1991–present)
Pressure (Daniel Howe Smith) – vocals (1991–present)
DJ Debris (Barry John M Francis) – producing, engineering, turntablism (1999–present)
Former members
DJ Next (Ben John Hare) – audio engineering, DJing, turntablism, scratching (1991–1999)
MC Summit aka DJ Sum-1 – vocals (ca. 1996)
DiscographyA Matter of Time (1999)Left Foot, Right Foot (2001)The Calling (2003)The Hard Road (2006)State of the Art (2009)Drinking from the Sun (2012)Walking Under Stars (2014)The Great Expanse'' (2019)
See also
Adelaide Arts and Entertainment
Adelaide Hills
List of Australian hip hop musicians
Music of Australia
Notes
References
External links
Australian hip hop groups
1991 establishments in Australia
APRA Award winners
ARIA Award winners
Golden Era Records artists
Musical groups established in 1991
Musical groups from Adelaide
Obese Records artists
| true |
[
"LovHer was an American R&B girl group. The group was the first female group on the Def Soul label. The group was formed in 1999 by Sisqó, lead singer of R&B group Dru Hill, who wanted to put together a girl group that would present a raw, \"street\" appeal. Like Dru Hill, LovHer's members are known by hip hop nicknames:Talia \"Chinky\" Burgess, Marthea \"Buttah\" Jackson, Serenade, and Kienji Hakeem. LovHer comprised the Baltimore, Maryland, native Chinky who was discovered in a talent show, Kienji from South Central Los Angeles, Serenade and Buttah from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, who were hosting a public-access television cable TV show before auditioning for the co-founder of Dru Hill.\n\nHistory\nIn 1999, LovHer made their first appearance in Sisqó's \"Got to Get It\" music video, and performed vocals on Sisqó's Unleash the Dragon and Return of Dragon albums. Before \"Got to Get It\", LovHer lead singer Chinky had appeared on Dru Hill's Enter the Dru album.\n\nIn 2002, their song \"How It's Gonna Be\" was released as a single from the 2001 Rush Hour 2 soundtrack, and peaked at number 60 on the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. The group was nominated for the Soul Train Lady of Soul award for Best R&B/Soul or Rap New Artist - Group, Band or Duo.\n\nThe group was dropped by Def Soul and recorded an album that was eventually shelved. In 2007, Kienji left the group. After a brief attempt at continuing as a trio, the remaining members of the group split up.\n\nDiscography\n\nSingles\n\"How It's Gonna Be\" (2002)\n\"Girlfriend\" (2002)\n\"You don't Know Me\" (2002)\n\"Commitment\" (2002)\n\"Your Man\" (2002)\n\"Don't Leave\" (2002)\n\"Girls Gonna Do\" (2002)\n\"Do you Know Me\" (2002)\n\"Black Butterfly\" (2002)\n\"Happy Days\" (2002)\n\"Club Interlude\" (2002)\n\"What could've been\" (2002)\n \"Love\" (2002)\n\nCompilation appearances\n Rush Hour 2 soundtrack (31 July 2001) (song: \"How It's Gonna Be\")\n\nReferences\n\nAfrican-American musical groups\nAmerican contemporary R&B musical groups\nDef Jam Recordings artists\nAmerican girl groups",
"\"(How Does it Feel to Be) on Top of the World\" is a song by the British supergroup England United – formed by Echo and the Bunnymen, Ocean Colour Scene, Space and the Spice Girls. The song was written by Echo and the Bunnymen frontman Ian McCulloch and Johnny Marr and released as official theme of the England national football team for the 1998 World Cup. According to Official Charts Company the single has sold a total of 94,000 copies.\n\nBackground and release\nIn 1998, Universal Music Group and the UEFA European Championship called a group of artists to record the official theme of the England national football team for the 1998 World Cup. The supergroup, credited as England United, was formed by the Spice Girls, Echo and the Bunnymen, Space and Ocean Colour Scene. The song was the final single by the Spice Girls released with Geri Halliwell's vocals, until the group's reunion in 2007. It was overshadowed however by \"Three Lions 98\" and \"Vindaloo\". It was released on 2 CD single formats on the same day, the first featuring the standard versions of the song, including an instrumental. The second featuring remixes by Perfecto and an alternative instrumental version. The sleeve designs were of the white home kit (CD1) and the away red kit (CD2).\n\nReception\nAlthough the song was a substantial chart hit in the UK, peaking at #9, critical reception to the song was largely negative. Chris Evans was quoted as saying: \"It is a good pop song, but you can't sing it on the terraces. You can't really get your teeth into the lyrics.\" Charlie Porter in The Times said that it was \"a snivelling apology for an official song\" that \"washes over you\". Matthew Wright, writing in The Daily Mirror quoted footballers Ian Wright and Rio Ferdinand describing it as \"bollocks\" and \"rubbish\" respectively. In 2006 Guardian readers voted it the second worst England football song ever, after 1982's \"This Time (We'll Get It Right)\". BBC reporter Mark Savage describes the song as \"clumsy and boring\". When it was played at Wembley Stadium, it was booed by fans.\n\nLive performances\nThe song was first performed live on TFI Friday on 1 May 1998. On 21 May 1998, a performance of song was recorded for Top of the Pops, which was broadcast on 5 June 1998.\n\nMusic video\nAn official music video was released featuring all the members of England United, with appearances by footballers of the National Team, including David Beckham, Ian Wright and Rio Ferdinand.\n\nTrack listing\nCD one / Cassette\n \"(How Does It Feel to Be) On Top of the World\" – 4:50\n \"(How Does It Feel to Be) On Top of the World (Instrumental)\" – 4:47\n\nCD two\n \"(How Does It Feel To Be) On Top of the World (Perfecto Edit)\"\n \"(How Does It Feel To Be) On Top of the World (Perfecto Remix)\" – 6:00\n \"(How Does It Feel To Be) On Top of the World (Match of the Day Instrumental)\"\n\nCD (International)\n \"(How Does It Feel to Be) On Top of the World (Radio Edit)\" – 4:31\n \"(How Does It Feel to Be) On Top of the World\" – 4:50\n \"(How Does It Feel to Be) On Top of the World (Instrumental)\" – 4:47\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\nEngland national football team songs\n1998 singles\nSongs written by Ian McCulloch (singer)\nSongs written by Johnny Marr\nEcho & the Bunnymen songs\nSpice Girls songs\nSpace (English band) songs\nOcean Colour Scene songs\nFootball songs and chants\n1998 songs\nEngland at the 1998 FIFA World Cup"
] |
[
"Hilltop Hoods",
"1987-2001: Formation and early years",
"How was the group formed?",
"In 1991 they joined up with DJ Next (Ben John Hare) through a mutual friend and formed an Australian hip hop group."
] |
C_e52eb25f24074bb2947bf6fb1e5b05d7_1
|
What was their first recording?
| 2 |
What was Hilltop Hoods's first recording?
|
Hilltop Hoods
|
Two of Hilltop Hoods' founders first met in 1987 when MC Suffa (aka Matthew David Lambert) and MC Pressure (Daniel Howe Smith) attended Blackwood High School in Eden Hills - a suburb of Adelaide. In 1991 they joined up with DJ Next (Ben John Hare) through a mutual friend and formed an Australian hip hop group. Their name was supplied by fellow local MC Flak (from Cross Bred Mongrels) - the suburb of Blackwood is known by locals as the Hilltop. The band's influences include American hip hop artists: Notorious B.I.G., KRS-One, Gang Starr, Wu-Tang Clan and Public Enemy. At live shows Next was the group's DJ, for recording he contributed audio engineering and all the scratching/turntablism on their early works. He regularly competed in the local DMC World DJ Championships (DMC) tournaments, winning the South Australian DMC championships multiple times. Hilltop Hoods recorded a demo, Highlanders, which was released on cassette tape only. As well as Pressure and Suffa on vocals, the group included MC Summit aka DJ Sum-1, but he did not appear on later Hilltop Hoods work. The group's first official release, in 1997, was a vinyl-only, seven-track extended play, Back Once Again. Production was handled by DJ Debris (Barry John M Francis), turntablism and audio engineering by Next, vocals by Pressure and Suffa. The third track, "Shades of Grey", features Debris with a verse, and was co-written by Francis, Hare, Lambert and Smith. Fifth track, "Mankind Must Suffa" also features a guest verse from Quromystix (aka Quro, Andrew Michael Bradley) - a member of Finger Lickin' Good and later the Fuglemen. "Mankind Must Suffa" is credited to Lambert, Smith, Francis and Bradley. Back Once Again is out of print and unavailable for retail purchase. The group's debut studio album, A Matter of Time, was released in 1999 on CD only. As with Back Once Again, it is now unavailable for retail purchase. All scratching/turntablism is performed by Next, a track, "Let Me Show You", has no vocals - solely showcasing his turntable skills. American MC Bukue One (Tion Torrence) appears for a guest verse on "Deaf Can Hear". The track is credited to Lambert, Smith, Francis, Hare and Torrence. The album was released independently but with financial assistance from Arts SA - the band were inspired, in 2005, to set up their own Hilltop Hoods Initiative, to help local artists. After the album appeared, Next left the group and moved to Melbourne. In 2004 he moved to London. In 1999 Debris, who was also a member of the Cross Bred Mongrels, replaced Next and became the Hilltop Hoods' full-time DJ. Hilltop Hoods founded the Certified Wise Crew - a hip hop collaborative - with local groups Terra Firma, Cross Bred Mongrels and After Hours. Certified Wise Crew has since expanded to include MCs Trauma, Blockade, Kolaps, Flea, with Vents and Funkoars joining in later years. Hilltop Hoods received two nominations for the Hip Hop Act of the Year Award at the Australian Dance Music Awards and again at the 3D World Music Awards in 2001 and 2002. In 2001 the group's second album, Left Foot, Right Foot, was released with Lambert, Francis and M. Veraquth producing. CANNOTANSWER
|
Hilltop Hoods recorded a demo, Highlanders, which was released on cassette tape only.
|
Hilltop Hoods are an Australian hip hop group that formed in 1991 in Blackwood, Adelaide, South Australia. They are regarded as pioneers of the "larrikin-like" style of Australian hip hop. The group was founded by Suffa (Matthew David Lambert) and Pressure (Daniel Howe Smith), who were joined by DJ Debris (Barry John M. Francis) after fellow founder, DJ Next (Ben John Hare), left in 1999. The group released its first extended play, Back Once Again, in 1997 and have subsequently released eight studio albums, two "restrung" albums and three DVDs.
Six of their eight albums have peaked at number one on the Australian Record Industry Association (ARIA) Albums Charts, recently setting the record for most No. 1 Albums by an Australian band or group: The Hard Road (2006), State of the Art (2009), Drinking from the Sun (2012), Walking Under Stars (2014), Drinking from the Sun, Walking Under Stars Restrung (2016) and The Great Expanse (2019). Three tracks have reached the top 10 on the ARIA Singles Chart—"Chase That Feeling" (2009), "I Love It", featuring Sia (2011) and "Higher", featuring James Chatburn (2015) — while a further two tracks — "Cosby Sweater" (2014) and "1955" (2016) — reached the top 5. "1955", featuring Montaigne & Tom Thum, peaked at number 2 in the Australian charts.
Hilltop Hoods have toured both in Australia and overseas, including playing at music festivals: T in the Park, Oxegen, the Big Day Out, Clipsal 500, Southbound, The Great Escape, Splendour in the Grass, Bassinthegrass, Groovin' The Moo, Falls Festival, Pyramid Rock Festival, Rollercoaster, Come Together Festival and Make Poverty History.
The band are one of the most recurrent artists in the history of the Triple J Hottest 100, with 21 songs voted into the annual countdowns since their first appearance in 2003. At the ARIA Music Awards of 2006 they won "Best Independent Release" and "Best Urban Album" for The Hard Road. In 2007, they won "Best Urban Album" for their remix album, The Hard Road: Restrung (2007). They won the same category in 2009 for State of the Art and in 2012 for Drinking from the Sun. In 2009, Debris also won "Engineer of the Year" for his work on State of the Art. The band received their seventh ARIA award in 2014 when Walking Under Stars won in the Best Urban Album category at the 28th ARIA Awards.
History
1987–2001: Formation and early years
Two of Hilltop Hoods' founders first met in 1987 when MC Suffa (aka Matthew David Lambert) and Pressure (Daniel Howe Smith) attended Blackwood High School in Eden Hills – a suburb of Adelaide. In 1991 they joined up with DJ Next (Ben John Hare) through a mutual friend and formed an Australian hip hop group. Their name was supplied by fellow local MC Flak (from Cross Bred Mongrels) – the suburb of Blackwood is known by locals as the Hilltop. The band's influences include American hip hop artists: Notorious B.I.G., KRS-One, Gang Starr, Wu-Tang Clan and Public Enemy.
At live shows DJ Next was the group's DJ, for recording he contributed audio engineering and all the scratching/turntablism on their early works. He regularly competed in the local DMC World DJ Championships (DMC) tournaments, winning the South Australian DMC championships multiple times. Hilltop Hoods recorded a demo, Highlanders, which was released on cassette tape only. As well as Pressure and Suffa on vocals, the group included MC Summit aka DJ Sum-1, but he did not appear on later Hilltop Hoods work.
The group's first official release, in 1997, was a vinyl-only, seven-track extended play, Back Once Again. Production was handled by DJ Debris (Barry John M Francis), turntablism and audio engineering by DJ Next, vocals by Pressure and Suffa. The third track, "Shades of Grey", features Debris with a verse, and was co-written by Francis, Hare, Lambert and Smith. Fifth track, "Mankind Must Suffa" also features a guest verse from Quromystix (aka Quro, Andrew Michael Bradley) – a member of Finger Lickin' Good and later the Fuglemen. "Mankind Must Suffa" is credited to Lambert, Smith, Francis and Bradley. Back Once Again is out of print and unavailable for retail purchase.
The group's debut studio album, A Matter of Time, was released in 1999 on CD only. As with Back Once Again, it is now unavailable for retail purchase. All scratching/turntablism is performed by DJ Next, a track, "Let Me Show You", has no vocals – solely showcasing his turntable skills. American MC Bukue One (Tion Torrence) appears for a guest verse on "Deaf Can Hear". The track is credited to Lambert, Smith, Francis, Hare and Torrence. The album was released independently but with financial assistance from Arts SA – the band were inspired, in 2005, to set up their own Hilltop Hoods Initiative, to help local artists. After the album appeared, DJ Next left the group and moved to Melbourne. In 2004 he moved to London. In 1999 Debris, who was also a member of the Cross Bred Mongrels, replaced Next and became the Hilltop Hoods' full-time DJ.
Hilltop Hoods founded the Certified Wise Crew – a hip-hop collaborative – with local groups Terra Firma, Cross Bred Mongrels and After Hours. Certified Wise Crew has since expanded to include MCs Trauma, Blockade, Kolaps, Flea, with Vents and Funkoars joining in later years. Hilltop Hoods received two nominations for the Hip Hop Act of the Year Award at the Australian Dance Music Awards and again at the 3D World Music Awards in 2001 and 2002. In 2001 the group's second album, Left Foot, Right Foot, was released with Lambert, Francis and M. Veraquth producing.
2003–2007: The Calling and The Hard Road
On 22 September 2003, Hilltop Hoods released their third album, The Calling, which became a commercial breakthrough. In an interview after the release of their fourth album, Suffa revealed that The Calling was recorded on his mother's computer and the simplicity of their 'studio' is the reason why some of the music on the album is in monaural ('mono') sound.
The Calling entered the ARIA Albums Chart in March 2004 and reached No. 53 before exiting the top 100 in September of the same year. By December 2006 it was certified platinum for shipment of 70,000 units, becoming the first Australian hip hop album to achieve platinum status. In March 2012, it re-entered the chart and peaked at No. 50 – eight-and-a-half years after its first release. It featured two singles, "The Nosebleed Section" and "Dumb Enough", which were listed in the Triple J Hottest 100, 2003. "The Nosebleed Section" was ranked No. 17 in the Triple J Hottest 100 of All Time in 2009. Hilltop Hoods' chart and commercial success was a turning point in the Australian Hip Hop scene because it demonstrated widespread support for the genre that reached beyond an underground fan base.
On 1 April 2006, the group followed with their fourth album, The Hard Road, which peaked at number one. It was the first Australian hip hop album to do so. It was certified gold within a week of being released. Its lead single, "Clown Prince", reached the top 30 on the related ARIA Singles Chart. It featured guest verses from New York rapper, Omni, and British MCs, Mystro and Braintax. The Hilltop Hoods received the inaugural Australian Independent Record (AIR) Award for Independent Artist of the Year and Best Performing Independent Album for The Hard Road in 2006. The track, "The Blue Blooded", is a collaboration with Australian MCs: Funkoars, Hau from Koolism, Mortar, Vents, Drapht, Muph & Plutonic, Pegz and Robby Balboa. On 27 April of the same year, Hilltop Hoods performed at the Bass in the Grass music festival in Darwin alongside fellow hip hop group, The Herd. That same day they issued a second single, the title track from the album. Its video includes fellow members from the Certified Wise Crew – Cross Bred Mongrels, Terrafirma and Funkoars.
Following the success of The Hard Road Tour in early 2006, the Hilltop Hoods began their second national tour for the year, The Stopping All Stations Tour, which visited more regional areas of Australia as well as the capital cities. They were supported by Koolism and Mystro. Late that year, Hilltop Hoods released their third single from the album, "What a Great Night". The video shows the group at a club with camera shots panning up and down to reveal a new location. It used special effects and is one of the most expensive video clips for an Australian hip hop group, mirroring the group's rise in success and popularity. Also late in the year the band won the J Award for best album of the year from Triple J. They performed the Homebake Festival and Falls Festival before the end of the year. The Hard Road received the AIR Award for Best Independent Hip Hop/Urban Release in 2007.
2007–2009: The Hard Road Restrung and State of the Art
On 12 May 2007, Hilltop Hoods released their next album The Hard Road: Restrung which is a remix of their previous studio album, The Hard Road, featuring the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra and Okwerdz. It peaked at No. 8 on the ARIA Albums Chart. Like its predecessor The Hard Road, it took out "Best Urban Release" at the ARIA Awards of 2007, with the group going back-to-back in the category. The lead single from the album "Recapturing the Vibe Restrung", its video clip was on high rotation on rage and jtv. That year the group performed at the Southbound Festival (WA), The Great Escape at Newington Armory over Easter, and embarked on a UK tour with a Sydney-based string quartet. They finished the year by headlining the Pyramid Rock Festival on Victoria's Phillip Island over New Year's Eve 2007. In 2008 they performed at the Big Day Out festivals, at Glastonbury Festival and Islington Academy in London. In December their DVD, The City of Light, was released and was nominated as Best Music DVD at the 2008 ARIA Awards.
Hilltop Hoods left their longtime home of Obese Records to start their own label, Golden Era Records, to release their future material. In November 2008 Pressure announced on Triple J's breakfast program that the next studio album, State of the Art, would be recorded with session musicians: "We realised with this one after doing Restrung and having an orchestra that we were a bit less limited. So we're going to have some session musos come in on this one and stuff like that". The album was released on 12 June, with the lead single, "Chase That Feeling", issued as a digital download on 8 May, and featured a return guest appearance by a quartet from the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. The album debuted at number one on the albums chart while "Chase That Feeling" peaked at No. 8 on the related singles chart. By 2010 State of the Art was certified 2× platinum for shipment of 140,000 units.
In early 2009 the Hilltop Hoods performed at the Groovin the Moo festival in Townsville, Maitland and Bendigo. They also performed at Triple J's One Night Stand in Sale, Victoria on 30 May, and at Fat as Butter festival in Newcastle on 25 October where they played several of the tracks from the album. To promote its release the band started a national tour starting on 18 July and performed at most major cities including state capitals. The second national tour that year followed on 11 November with support provided by Vents.
2010–2017: Drinking from the Sun and Walking Under Stars
On 28 July 2010, Hilltop Hoods completed work on a zombie movie, Parade of the Dead, that the group wrote, filmed, and starred in. Using the title from a State of the Art track, it was released on 22 October with the eponymous single. Filmed mostly in Adelaide, the former Adelaide Gaol was used as a "key location".
In late November 2011, the band premiered the single, "I Love It", on the Triple J breakfast show. Featuring Sia, the song peaked at No. 6 on the ARIA chart and was the lead single from their sixth album, Drinking from the Sun, which was released on 9 March 2012. During December 2011, they supported Eminem and Lil Wayne during the Australian leg of Eminem's world tour. The song has since been certified 4x Platinum by ARIA, denoting sales of more than 280,000 units.
Three music videos for "I Love It" were published online in December 2011 by DJ Debris. Three versions were commissioned by the band, involving three different directors: Nash Edgerton of Blue Tongue Films; the Animal Logic animation company; and independent Melbourne, Australia, film-maker Carl Allison.
In January 2012, the group "leaked" a song from the sixth album following the emergence of interest on their Facebook page: "Let's have some fun. If we get 5000 likes on this post we're going to leak a track off Drinking from the Sun"—they received more than 7,500 likes within 10 minutes. Surprised with the magnitude of the response, the band subsequently posted: "Wow. Give me a minute." and posted a link to a new track, "Rattling the Keys to the Kingdom", on YouTube shortly afterward. "Rattling the Keys to the Kingdom" was certified Gold by ARIA in 2018.
Drinking from the Sun became their third number-one album in Australia and also charted on the New Zealand Albums Chart top 40. In mid-April 2012, the music video for "Speaking in Tongues", the album's second single, was published online. Directed by Toby Grimes, the video features Chali 2na and graffiti murals from Brisbane, Australia, artist Sofles.
On 10 May 2012, Hilltop Hoods issued a new EP, The Good Life in the Sun, to celebrate the launch of the 'Speaking in Tongues Tour', which includes tracks from Drinking from the Sun remixed by Suffa. The post contained a link to their website where the EP can be downloaded for free. In July 2012, the video for the third single, "Shredding the Balloon", was published on the band's YouTube channel. Directed by Selina Miles of Unity Sound and Visual, the video had received nearly 1.5 million views as of 1 October 2014. The single was released on 20 July 2012.
In August 2012, Triple J uploaded video footage of the group's tribute to Beastie Boys' member, Adam "MCA" Yauch, who died in May 2012. The group selected "So What'cha Want", from Beastie Boys' album, Check Your Head.
In late September, the music video for "Rattling the Keys to the Kingdom" was published online. It featured numerous Australian hip-hop artists, including Drapht, Urthboy, Def Wish Cast, Dazastah, Layla, Maya Jupiter and Hunter. The band explained in the production notes for the video:
Not only did we want to do something unifying, we also wanted to use the platform we have to promote artists that we think deserve more exposure. Of course, not everyone involved in the filmclip needs exposure, as many of the artists involved have huge followings in their own right. But having these artists involved in the filmclip just further serves to unify and consolidate the scene ... We need to point out that this is by no means a representation of every relevant artist involved in the culture past or present. It's more a cross-section of who we have contact with, who was available and so on.
In November 2012, Hilltop Hoods performed a live show on UStream and announced that the title of the group's next album would be Walking Under Stars—this was then confirmed on the official Hilltop Hoods Twitter and Facebook pages, following their Best Urban Album win at the 2012 ARIA Awards ceremony. The band's Facebook post read:
So it’s now one year to the day since we dropped 'I Love It' and started the 'Drinking from the Sun' journey. Thanks to everyone that’s supported us over the last 12 months, it’s been amazing. We hope you join us late next year for 'Walking Under Stars'. Thankyou, Suffa, Pressure & Debris
The announcement corresponds with a sample on Drinking from the Sun that refers to a band writing with the clear intention of formulating enough material for two albums: "They were recording enough for two albums; that was premeditated." The sample appears on the track, "The Thirst Pt. 3 (Interlude)".
In April 2013, the Hilltop Hoods stated that the development of Walking Under Stars was "well underway", with the trio calling the album Drinking from the Sun "part two"—the latter received a double platinum sales certification in the same month. Additionally, American clothing company Zoo York announced a partnership with the Hilltop Hoods in April 2013, in preparation for the brand's 20th-anniversary celebrations in 2014. Lambert explained: "We've always been fans of Zoo York, they understand hip hop culture, and that's why we can’t wait to work with them."
On 21 June 2014—after the band successfully received the 20,000 likes they requested for a Facebook post—the first preview of Walking Under Stars, titled "The Art of the Handshake", was uploaded to the band's SoundCloud profile—the song is the fourth on the album's track-list. Lambert revealed on 6 August that the song was inspired by the Notes to Self song "All of the Above", which reminded him of "the ridiculous handshakes" of his youth. As part of the songwriting process, Lambert spent a day researching the status of the handshake in countries such as Sweden and India.
The album's first official single, "Won't Let You Down"—featuring Irish singer Maverick Sabre—was released on 27 June 2014. Writing for the Faster Louder website, Matt Shea revealed in early August that the first single was met with a mixed reaction from existing fans of the band: "While many loved it, plenty of Hoods fans at the very least declared it a radio friendly single that had little to do with hip-hop. Others outright disliked it." Lambert explained in media interviews during the week prior to the album's release that the song was recorded at the Red Bull Studios in both London, UK and New York City, US, while the lyrical content is about the partners of the band members and the difficulties of being in a relationship with touring musicians. The single's musical content features Italian singer Zucchero Fornaciari singing a rendition of Ph.D's hit "I Won't Let You Down".
During the band's performance at the 2014 Splendour in the Grass festival, held from 25 to 27 July in Byron Bay, Australia, Lambert exclaimed to the audience prior to the song "Speaking in Tongues", from the Drinking from the Sun album:
The Hilltop Hoods do not give a fuck what race you are! The Hilltop Hoods do not give a fuck what religion you are! The Hilltop Hoods do not give a fuck what sex you are! The Hilltop Hoods do not give a fuck what sexuality you are! We are one people under the music!
Lambert explained that his announcement, a reaffirmation of the sentiment in "Speaking in Tongues", is "very important" to the band.
The band announced the release date for Walking Under Stars as 8 August 2014 in mid-July and, while the album is a Golden Era Records recording, Universal Music Australia acquired the exclusive licensing rights for the domestic market—Universal will also use the license to distribute the album in Canada, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Benelux, while Golden Era continues its partnership with Fontana for the US release. Walking Under Stars was conceived before Drinking From the Sun was written and Lambert referred to the former as "a companion piece" in an August 2014 interview. Lambert also explained that "I'm a Ghost" is four-years-old, while a segment of "Brainbox" originally appeared on the 2012 Golden Era mixtape.
Similar to the band's previous album releases, numerous collaborators appear on Walking Under Stars. Lambert explained on 5 August that "we [Hilltop Hoods] try to do it in the same room" when guest artists record and, for the seventh studio album, the band worked with Sabre, New Zealand soul singer Aaradhna, Brother Ali, Dan Sultan, Drapht, Canadian voice-over artist Dave Pettitt and One Above, the Adelaide producer who also worked on Drinking from the Sun. Lambert explained to TheMusic.com.au website that Sultan is a "gifted" artist who the band loves "as a person as well", and "it was really good to work with [Brother] Ali, who’s an artist that we admire so much."
Walking Under Stars debuted in the number-one position of the ARIA album charts during the week beginning 11 August 2014, providing the band with their fourth chart-topping album since The Hard Road in April 2006. As of 16 August 2014, the Hilltop Hoods have garnered a total of six weeks at the top of the ARIA charts from four number-one albums, three of which are Golden Era Records releases. During the promotion for a national Australian tour in late August 2014, the band revealed that a secret release will "manifest itself" in 2015 and will be the culmination of a multi-album creative project that began with Drinking From The Sun.
"Won't Let You Down" was performed live on the Australian AFL Footy Show television program on 7 August 2014, during an episode that was filmed in Adelaide. The music video for "Won't Let You Down" was published on the Hilltop Hoods YouTube channel on 19 August 2014. Directed by Richard Coburn of the Kojo production company, the video features a narrative in which manufactured pigs heads are used.
The music video for the "Cosby Sweater" single was released on the Hilltop Hoods YouTube channel while the group was engaged in the third stage of their 2014 world tour in North America. Published on 15 September, the video was again directed by Coburn and also features Golden Era artists Briggs, K21 and Trials. The single became the group's first top 5 ARIA single on 15 November 2014, during the fourth, Australian stage of the world tour, on the same date as the group's Melbourne performance at the Rod Laver Arena. "Cosby Sweater" was also performed at the 28th ARIA Awards ceremony on 26 November 2014, where the band also won the Best Urban Album award.
On 30 April 2016, Hilltop Hoods performed their final concert of the 'Drinking from the Sun, Walking Under the Stars' at Perth Arena.I
2018–present: The Great Expanse
On 13 July 2018, Hilltop Hoods released single "Clark Griswold" with Adrian Eagle, an ode to the character from the National Lampoon's Vacation movies.
On 23 November 2018, Hilltop Hoods released the single "Leave Me Lonely" and announced their forthcoming 2019 album The Great Expanse. The album, which features platinum single "Leave Me Lonely," gold selling ARIA Award-winning single "Clark Griswold" ft. Adrian Eagle, and new single "Exit Sign" ft. Illy and Ecca Vandal, was released on 22 February 2019 and debuted at No. 1 on the ARIA Albums Charts. The chart debut made it the group's sixth number one, setting a new ARIA record for most No. 1 Albums by an Australian band or group.
Touring
Hilltop Hoods have toured both in Australia and overseas, including playing at music festivals: T in the Park, Oxegen, the Big Day Out, Adelaide 500, Southbound, The Great Escape, Splendour in the Grass, Bassinthegrass, Groovin' The Moo, Falls Festival, Pyramid Rock Festival, Rollercoaster, Come Together Festival and Make Poverty History.
On 8 December 2012, the Hilltop Hoods were one of two headlines acts (the other was American band, Blondie) for the 2012 "Global Edition" of the popular Australian music, film, comedy and arts festival, Homebake.
A North American "Drinking From The Sun" tour was announced in late February 2013 and the band revealed that it would perform in American cities such as Seattle (the tour's debut location), New York and San Francisco, and the Canadian cities, Vancouver, Montreal, Calgary and Toronto; the tour was scheduled to end in Los Angeles on 9 May 2013. However, on 23 February 2013, the hip hop group announced the indefinite postponement of the entire tour due to a "serious family matter". The Hilltop Hoods were also one of the bands on the "Concerts" roster for the V8 Clipsal 500 Adelaide car racing event, held between 28 February 2013 and 3 March 2013—other Australian hip hop artists, such as Drapht and Vents, also performed at the event.
The group performed at the 2014 occurrence of the Australian festival Splendour in the Grass, performing alongside other musicians, such as Illy, Outkast, and Lily Allen. The band announced an August–September 2014 North American tour in June 2014—including dates in Vancouver and Toronto, Canada, and San Francisco, US—with Minnesota, US, artist Sims, from Doomtree.
In late August 2014, the "Cosby Sweater Australian Tour" was announced in support of the Walking Under Stars album release. The domestic tour run from October to December 2014, and the support acts were Thundamentals and K21.
Their latest national tour was in 2016. This was the "Drinking from the sun and Walking Under Stars Australian Sympthony Orchestra tour" This was the tour that followed the release of the new album which was the 2 most recent albums remastered using the orchestra.
In February 2019, the group supported Eminem's concert tour around Australia and New Zealand, performing to audiences in venues such as ANZ Stadium in Sydney and the MCG in Melbourne.
Awards and accolades
Hilltop Hoods received nominations for the 'Best Hip Hop Act' in 2001 and 2002 at the 3D World Dance Music Awards, they won the Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA) Award for 'Best Up-coming Group' as well as receiving number-one positions in independent charts all around Australia. The 2052 release The Calling achieved platinum certification from ARIA. Two tracks, "The Nosebleed Section" and "Dumb Enough", were listed in the Triple J Hottest 100, 2003, at ninth and 44th, respectively. Their lead single from The Hard Road, "Clown Prince" was released in February 2006, and became their first top 40 hit on the ARIA Singles Chart. In 2006 the group won the J Award.
On Australia Day, 2007, the Hoods claimed five spots in Triple J's Hottest 100 with "The Hard Road" reaching third place. "Clown Prince", "What a Great Night", "Stopping All Stations", and "Recapturing the Vibe" placed 23rd, 41st, 56th, and 77th respectively. The Hilltop Hoods received the most entries in the Hottest 100 that year, and were only one track off equalling the record, set by Wolfmother the previous year. In 2009 "The Nosebleed Section" was voted number 17 in the Triple J Hottest 100 of all time, the highest placed Australian song.
For the APRA Music Awards of 2010, the Hilltop Hoods won the 'Urban Work of the Year' award for "Still Standing", which was written by Francis, Lambert, Smith and Henry Lawes. The band received three nominations at the 2013 APRA Awards: 'Most Played Australian Work' for "I Love It", and two nominations in the 'Urban Work of the Year' category for "I Love It" and "Speaking in Tongues". They won Urban Work of the Year for "I Love It" (featuring Sia).
At the APRA Music Awards of 2020, Hilltop Hoods won Songwriter of the Year and Most Performed Urban Work of the Year for "Leave Me Lonely". As of 2020, The group has won six APRA Awards from 15 nominations.
In December 2020, the Hilltop Hoods were listed at number 27 in Rolling Stone Australias "50 Greatest Australian Artists of All Time" issue.
AIR Awards
The Australian Independent Record Awards (commonly known informally as AIR Awards) is an annual awards night to recognise, promote and celebrate the success of Australia's Independent Music sector.
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| rowspan="3" | 2006
|The Hard Road
| Best Performing Independent Album
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|"Clown Prince"
| Best Performing Independent Single
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|themselves
| Independent Artist of the Year
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| rowspan="3" | 2007
| rowspan="2" |The Hard Road Restrung
| Best Independent Album
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| Best Independent Dance/Electronic Album
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|themselves
| Independent Artist of the Year
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ARIA Awards
In 2006 Hilltop Hoods were nominated for five ARIA Awards – the first ever for an Australian hip hop group – winning in two categories: 'Best Urban Release' and 'Best Independent Release'. The following year they won 'Best Urban Release' at the ARIA Awards for The Hard Road: Restrung. The album was also nominated for 'Best Independent Release' and 'Best Cover Art' by John Engelhardt. The DVD City of Light was nominated as 'Best Music DVD' at the 2008 ARIA awards. At the 2009 ARIA Awards they won 'Best Urban Album' for a third time – for State of the Art and DJ Debris won an award for 'Engineer of the Year' for his work on that album. At the ARIA Music Awards of 2012, Hilltop Hoods won its fourth award in the 'Best Urban Album' category for Drinking from the Sun; as of November 2012, the group has won six awards from twenty nominations.
At the 2012 ARIA Awards, established Aboriginal Australian band, Yothu Yindu, was inducted into the Hall of Fame. A photograph of Suffa holding the award in the presence of the band was posted on the Hilltop Hoods' Instagram profile, accompanied by the following comment: "A memory I'll take to the grave. Meeting Yothu Yindi and having them let me hold their Hall of Fame ARIA. What a beautiful induction."
The band was nominated in three ARIA categories in 2014: Best Group, Best Urban Album, and Engineer of the Year. In an October 2014 radio interview, Smith said that the band does not expect to win an award, but wishes the best for the winners; however, the Best Urban Album award was given to the band on 26 November 2014, providing the band with their seventh ARIA award. As from November 2020 they have won ten awards from thirty-six nominations.
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| rowspan="5" | 2006 || rowspan="3" | The Hard Road || Best Independent Release || ||rowspan="5"|
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| Best Urban Album ||
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| Breakthrough Artist – Album ||
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| "Clown Prince" || Breakthrough Artist – Single ||
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| The Calling Live || Best Music DVD ||
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| rowspan="3" | 2007 || rowspan="2" | The Hard Road: Restrung || Best Independent Release || ||rowspan="3"|
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| Best Urban Album ||
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| The Hard Road: Restrung – John Engelhardt || Best Cover Art ||
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| 2008 || The City of Light || Best Music DVD || ||
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| rowspan="6" | 2009 || rowspan="3" | State of the Art || Highest Selling Album || || rowspan="6"|
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| Best Urban Album ||
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| Best Group ||
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| "Chase That Feeling" || Single of the Year ||
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| State of the Art – Suffa || Producer of the Year ||
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| State of the Art – DJ Debris || Engineer of the Year ||
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| rowspan="5" | 2012 || rowspan="2" | Drinking from the Sun || Best Group || || rowspan="5"|
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| Best Urban Album ||
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| "I Love It" (featuring Sia) || Song of the Year ||
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| "I Love It" (featuring Sia) – Animal Logic || Best Video ||
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| Drinking From The Sun || Best Australian Live Act ||
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| rowspan="3" | 2014 || rowspan="3" | Walking Under Stars || Engineer of the Year || || rowspan="3"|
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| Best Urban Album ||
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| Best Group ||
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| 2015 || Cosby Sweater Australian Tour || Best Australian Live Act || ||
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| rowspan="3" | 2016 || rowspan="2" | "1955" || Song of the Year || ||rowspan="3"|
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| Best Video ||
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| The Restrung Tour || Best Australian Live Act ||
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| 2018 || "Clark Griswold" (featuring Adrian Eagle) || Best Urban Release || ||
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| rowspan="7" | 2019 || rowspan="3" | The Great Expanse || Album of the Year || ||rowspan="7"|
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| Best Group ||
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| Best Hip Hop Release ||
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| "Leave Me Lonely" || Song of the Year ||
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| "Exit Sign" (featuring Illy and Ecca Vandal) || Best Video ||
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| The Great Expanse World Tour || Best Australian Live Act ||
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| Plutonic Lab for Hilltop Hoods' The Great Expanse || Engineer of the Year ||
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| 2020 || "Exit Sign" (featuring Illy and Ecca Vandal) || Song of the Year || ||
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Fowler's Live Music Awards
The Fowler's Live Music Awards took place from 2012 to 2014 to "recognise success and achievement over the past 12 months [and] celebrate the great diversity of original live music" in South Australia. Since 2015 they're known as the South Australian Music Awards.
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| 2012
| Hilltop Hoods
| Best Hip Hop Artist
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J Awards
The J Awards are an annual series of Australian music awards that were established by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's youth-focused radio station Triple J. They commenced in 2005.
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| J Awards of 2014
| Walking Under Stars| Australian Album of the Year
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| J Awards of 2019
| A Great Expanse| Australian Album of the Year
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National Live Music Awards
The National Live Music Awards (NLMAs) are a broad recognition of Australia's diverse live industry, celebrating the success of the Australian live scene. The awards commenced in 2016.
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| National Live Music Awards of 2019
| Hilltop Hoods
| Live Hip Hop Act of the Year
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Other projects
Hilltop Hoods Initiative
In 2005 the annual "Hilltop Hoods Initiative" was established in association with Arts SA, made possible by a donation from the Hilltop Hoods. Valued at A$10,000 (originally $3000), the Hilltop Hoods initiative helped young and emerging South Australian hip-hop artists to manufacture and distribute a CD. The initiative also included two mentorship sessions with Hilltop Hoods' former manager, PJ Murton. It acknowledges the important role South Australian government assistance played in the development of the careers of the Hilltop Hoods. In 2009, the initiative became a national grant available to entry for any emerging Australian hip-hop artist who have not issued a professional album.
In a Hilltop Hoods newsletter, released on 4 December 2012, the group communicated the following announcement:
In 2013 The Hilltop Hoods and APRA are teaming up again to give a career changing $10K to the most impressive emerging Hip Hop/Soul act in Australia. Aimed at helping fund the manufacturing and marketing of an album release, the grant is open to any act who hasn't yet released anything professionally. Applications will open in early 2013 along with details on how to enter.
Recipients are:
General Knowledge, a three-piece group (2006)
Subsketch, a solo artist (2007)
Jimblah, a solo artist (2008)
K21, a solo artist (2009)
1/6, a solo artist (2010)
Koolta, a solo artist (2011)
Run for Your Life, a musical collective (2012)
Chelsea Jane (2013), Gold Coast, Queensland artist
I AM D (2014), Brisbane, Queensland solo artist
Sarah Connor, a solo artist (2015)
Astro Travellers, a seven-piece group (2016)
MC Sinks, a solo artist from Melbourne, Victoria. (2017).
Hilltop Hoods Remix Shoe
The Hilltop Hoods and DC Shoes collaborated on the production of a limited-edition shoe called "The Hilltop Hoods Remix Shoe"—it was released in stores on 1 February 2008. They are the first Australian music group to design and release their own signature-model shoe. Illustration and Design by John Engelhardt injected its unique style
Golden Era Records
Following its departure from the Obese record label, the group launched its own label in 2009, entitled Golden Era Records. The label's title is described by the band on the label website:
To some people the golden era of Hip Hop was '94. Ask someone a little older and they’ll tell you Hip Hop’s renaissance was back in '88. Ask one of our revered pioneers and they’ll tell you that the golden era came and went three decades ago, before most of today’s Hip Hop heads were born. Whatever the case these so-called golden eras weren’t only defined by the music or the fashion – they were characterised by something less tangible – an atmosphere, a movement.
This label wasn’t established to release throw-back records; instead we hope to make music that throws you back to the way you felt during the golden era of Hip Hop.
Whatever year that was for you.
The label is based in Stirling, South Australia, and, as of December 2012, its roster consists of the Hilltop Hoods, Briggs, Funkoars, Vents, Adfu, K21, and most recently, Shadow
In January 2012, Fontana, an independent marketing, sales and distribution company under the Universal Music Group umbrella, signed an exclusive agreement with Golden Era Records for the American release of Drinking From The Sun, as well as back catalogue titles.
Charity
The CanTeen youth cancer charity announced that the 2-CD fundraising album Australian Hip Hop Supports CanTeen had raised over AU$122,000 as of 15 October 2014. Released in late 2013, the album features contributions from Hilltop Hoods, as well as numerous other Australian hip-hop artists. The initiative was originally conceived of by Robert Hunter, an MC who rapped under the name "Hunter" (SBX), who died from cancer prior to the release of the album.
Through the Dark interactive film
On 11 November 2016 Hilltop Hoods released an interactive film called Through the Dark, which featured their song of the same name. The interactive film project was a collaboration with Google Play Music and was directed by Mike Daly.
Members
Current members
Suffa (Matthew David Lambert) – vocals, engineering, mixing, producing (1991–present)
Pressure (Daniel Howe Smith) – vocals (1991–present)
DJ Debris (Barry John M Francis) – producing, engineering, turntablism (1999–present)
Former members
DJ Next (Ben John Hare) – audio engineering, DJing, turntablism, scratching (1991–1999)
MC Summit aka DJ Sum-1 – vocals (ca. 1996)
DiscographyA Matter of Time (1999)Left Foot, Right Foot (2001)The Calling (2003)The Hard Road (2006)State of the Art (2009)Drinking from the Sun (2012)Walking Under Stars (2014)The Great Expanse'' (2019)
See also
Adelaide Arts and Entertainment
Adelaide Hills
List of Australian hip hop musicians
Music of Australia
Notes
References
External links
Australian hip hop groups
1991 establishments in Australia
APRA Award winners
ARIA Award winners
Golden Era Records artists
Musical groups established in 1991
Musical groups from Adelaide
Obese Records artists
| true |
[
"TG Now is an album by English industrial band Throbbing Gristle. It was released in 2004 through the band's own record label Industrial Records and was their first album of original material since 1982's Journey Through a Body.\n\nRelease \n\nThe album's 12\" vinyl version was limited to 500 copies and the CD version was limited to 3,000 copies.\n\nCritical reception\nPopMatters called the album \"an appetizing return from a band that had toyed significantly with the idea of what an artistically valid record release might be.\"\n\nTrack listing\n\nPersonnel \n Throbbing Gristle\n\n Genesis P-Orridge – uncredited performance, recording\n Cosey Fanni Tutti – uncredited performance, recording\n Peter Christopherson – uncredited performance, recording\n Chris Carter – uncredited performance, recording\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n\n \n\nThrobbing Gristle albums\n2004 albums",
"Vitals is the fourth full-length release from New Orleans group Mutemath. The album was released on November 13, 2015. It is the group's first release on their own imprint label Wojtek Records, following their departure from Warner Bros. Records and the dissolution of Teleprompt Records. It is also the first studio album featuring Todd Gummerman since he joined the group in 2011.\n\nRecording\nFollowing 2011's Odd Soul, the band started recording material for their fourth album in 2012, and began playing some of the new material live in 2013. Paul Meany in an interview explained that at the end of 2013, \"we had a sobering moment ... [we] listened to what we had, and we had that sinking feeling of like, 'Gosh, this just isn't it. This isn't the record we want.'\" Starting over, the band made a resolution to write a new song each day starting January 1, 2014, until they felt they'd \"got it – got what this album needs to say and what we feel it should represent about where we're at right now.\"\n\nContrasting the recording of Vitals to that of their previous album, Meany has stated that \"The challenge for this record was how few notes could we get away with? We would overplay all the time, recording this record, but then it was a process of trying to now skim it back. What are the essential parts of the song? We were trying to see how loud we could let simplicity happen for each song idea.\" He also explained that the process was highly collaborative, with all band members sharing responsibilities: \"Our approach on this record was not, 'All right, you do guitar. You do bass. You do drums.' It was, 'OK, today we're doing drums. Today we're doing synths.' All four of us, speaking into whatever the part was, were trying to find the best part.\"\n\nRelease\nThe album's title was announced on June 23, 2015. The release date was initially slated to be October 16, 2015, but was later pushed back to November 13. The album was released in Japan on February 24, 2016.\n\nCritical reception\n\nVitals received generally positive reviews upon its release.\n\nTrack listing\n\nCharts\nThe album debuted at #49 on the Billboard 200 and #32 on Top Album Sales with 10,000 units sold on Billboard charts dated December 5, 2015.\n\nReferences\n\n2015 albums\nMutemath albums"
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"1987-2001: Formation and early years",
"How was the group formed?",
"In 1991 they joined up with DJ Next (Ben John Hare) through a mutual friend and formed an Australian hip hop group.",
"What was their first recording?",
"Hilltop Hoods recorded a demo, Highlanders, which was released on cassette tape only."
] |
C_e52eb25f24074bb2947bf6fb1e5b05d7_1
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Did Highlanders get written about in yhe music press?
| 3 |
Did Hilltop Hoods's demo Highlanders get written about in the music press?
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Hilltop Hoods
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Two of Hilltop Hoods' founders first met in 1987 when MC Suffa (aka Matthew David Lambert) and MC Pressure (Daniel Howe Smith) attended Blackwood High School in Eden Hills - a suburb of Adelaide. In 1991 they joined up with DJ Next (Ben John Hare) through a mutual friend and formed an Australian hip hop group. Their name was supplied by fellow local MC Flak (from Cross Bred Mongrels) - the suburb of Blackwood is known by locals as the Hilltop. The band's influences include American hip hop artists: Notorious B.I.G., KRS-One, Gang Starr, Wu-Tang Clan and Public Enemy. At live shows Next was the group's DJ, for recording he contributed audio engineering and all the scratching/turntablism on their early works. He regularly competed in the local DMC World DJ Championships (DMC) tournaments, winning the South Australian DMC championships multiple times. Hilltop Hoods recorded a demo, Highlanders, which was released on cassette tape only. As well as Pressure and Suffa on vocals, the group included MC Summit aka DJ Sum-1, but he did not appear on later Hilltop Hoods work. The group's first official release, in 1997, was a vinyl-only, seven-track extended play, Back Once Again. Production was handled by DJ Debris (Barry John M Francis), turntablism and audio engineering by Next, vocals by Pressure and Suffa. The third track, "Shades of Grey", features Debris with a verse, and was co-written by Francis, Hare, Lambert and Smith. Fifth track, "Mankind Must Suffa" also features a guest verse from Quromystix (aka Quro, Andrew Michael Bradley) - a member of Finger Lickin' Good and later the Fuglemen. "Mankind Must Suffa" is credited to Lambert, Smith, Francis and Bradley. Back Once Again is out of print and unavailable for retail purchase. The group's debut studio album, A Matter of Time, was released in 1999 on CD only. As with Back Once Again, it is now unavailable for retail purchase. All scratching/turntablism is performed by Next, a track, "Let Me Show You", has no vocals - solely showcasing his turntable skills. American MC Bukue One (Tion Torrence) appears for a guest verse on "Deaf Can Hear". The track is credited to Lambert, Smith, Francis, Hare and Torrence. The album was released independently but with financial assistance from Arts SA - the band were inspired, in 2005, to set up their own Hilltop Hoods Initiative, to help local artists. After the album appeared, Next left the group and moved to Melbourne. In 2004 he moved to London. In 1999 Debris, who was also a member of the Cross Bred Mongrels, replaced Next and became the Hilltop Hoods' full-time DJ. Hilltop Hoods founded the Certified Wise Crew - a hip hop collaborative - with local groups Terra Firma, Cross Bred Mongrels and After Hours. Certified Wise Crew has since expanded to include MCs Trauma, Blockade, Kolaps, Flea, with Vents and Funkoars joining in later years. Hilltop Hoods received two nominations for the Hip Hop Act of the Year Award at the Australian Dance Music Awards and again at the 3D World Music Awards in 2001 and 2002. In 2001 the group's second album, Left Foot, Right Foot, was released with Lambert, Francis and M. Veraquth producing. CANNOTANSWER
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CANNOTANSWER
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Hilltop Hoods are an Australian hip hop group that formed in 1991 in Blackwood, Adelaide, South Australia. They are regarded as pioneers of the "larrikin-like" style of Australian hip hop. The group was founded by Suffa (Matthew David Lambert) and Pressure (Daniel Howe Smith), who were joined by DJ Debris (Barry John M. Francis) after fellow founder, DJ Next (Ben John Hare), left in 1999. The group released its first extended play, Back Once Again, in 1997 and have subsequently released eight studio albums, two "restrung" albums and three DVDs.
Six of their eight albums have peaked at number one on the Australian Record Industry Association (ARIA) Albums Charts, recently setting the record for most No. 1 Albums by an Australian band or group: The Hard Road (2006), State of the Art (2009), Drinking from the Sun (2012), Walking Under Stars (2014), Drinking from the Sun, Walking Under Stars Restrung (2016) and The Great Expanse (2019). Three tracks have reached the top 10 on the ARIA Singles Chart—"Chase That Feeling" (2009), "I Love It", featuring Sia (2011) and "Higher", featuring James Chatburn (2015) — while a further two tracks — "Cosby Sweater" (2014) and "1955" (2016) — reached the top 5. "1955", featuring Montaigne & Tom Thum, peaked at number 2 in the Australian charts.
Hilltop Hoods have toured both in Australia and overseas, including playing at music festivals: T in the Park, Oxegen, the Big Day Out, Clipsal 500, Southbound, The Great Escape, Splendour in the Grass, Bassinthegrass, Groovin' The Moo, Falls Festival, Pyramid Rock Festival, Rollercoaster, Come Together Festival and Make Poverty History.
The band are one of the most recurrent artists in the history of the Triple J Hottest 100, with 21 songs voted into the annual countdowns since their first appearance in 2003. At the ARIA Music Awards of 2006 they won "Best Independent Release" and "Best Urban Album" for The Hard Road. In 2007, they won "Best Urban Album" for their remix album, The Hard Road: Restrung (2007). They won the same category in 2009 for State of the Art and in 2012 for Drinking from the Sun. In 2009, Debris also won "Engineer of the Year" for his work on State of the Art. The band received their seventh ARIA award in 2014 when Walking Under Stars won in the Best Urban Album category at the 28th ARIA Awards.
History
1987–2001: Formation and early years
Two of Hilltop Hoods' founders first met in 1987 when MC Suffa (aka Matthew David Lambert) and Pressure (Daniel Howe Smith) attended Blackwood High School in Eden Hills – a suburb of Adelaide. In 1991 they joined up with DJ Next (Ben John Hare) through a mutual friend and formed an Australian hip hop group. Their name was supplied by fellow local MC Flak (from Cross Bred Mongrels) – the suburb of Blackwood is known by locals as the Hilltop. The band's influences include American hip hop artists: Notorious B.I.G., KRS-One, Gang Starr, Wu-Tang Clan and Public Enemy.
At live shows DJ Next was the group's DJ, for recording he contributed audio engineering and all the scratching/turntablism on their early works. He regularly competed in the local DMC World DJ Championships (DMC) tournaments, winning the South Australian DMC championships multiple times. Hilltop Hoods recorded a demo, Highlanders, which was released on cassette tape only. As well as Pressure and Suffa on vocals, the group included MC Summit aka DJ Sum-1, but he did not appear on later Hilltop Hoods work.
The group's first official release, in 1997, was a vinyl-only, seven-track extended play, Back Once Again. Production was handled by DJ Debris (Barry John M Francis), turntablism and audio engineering by DJ Next, vocals by Pressure and Suffa. The third track, "Shades of Grey", features Debris with a verse, and was co-written by Francis, Hare, Lambert and Smith. Fifth track, "Mankind Must Suffa" also features a guest verse from Quromystix (aka Quro, Andrew Michael Bradley) – a member of Finger Lickin' Good and later the Fuglemen. "Mankind Must Suffa" is credited to Lambert, Smith, Francis and Bradley. Back Once Again is out of print and unavailable for retail purchase.
The group's debut studio album, A Matter of Time, was released in 1999 on CD only. As with Back Once Again, it is now unavailable for retail purchase. All scratching/turntablism is performed by DJ Next, a track, "Let Me Show You", has no vocals – solely showcasing his turntable skills. American MC Bukue One (Tion Torrence) appears for a guest verse on "Deaf Can Hear". The track is credited to Lambert, Smith, Francis, Hare and Torrence. The album was released independently but with financial assistance from Arts SA – the band were inspired, in 2005, to set up their own Hilltop Hoods Initiative, to help local artists. After the album appeared, DJ Next left the group and moved to Melbourne. In 2004 he moved to London. In 1999 Debris, who was also a member of the Cross Bred Mongrels, replaced Next and became the Hilltop Hoods' full-time DJ.
Hilltop Hoods founded the Certified Wise Crew – a hip-hop collaborative – with local groups Terra Firma, Cross Bred Mongrels and After Hours. Certified Wise Crew has since expanded to include MCs Trauma, Blockade, Kolaps, Flea, with Vents and Funkoars joining in later years. Hilltop Hoods received two nominations for the Hip Hop Act of the Year Award at the Australian Dance Music Awards and again at the 3D World Music Awards in 2001 and 2002. In 2001 the group's second album, Left Foot, Right Foot, was released with Lambert, Francis and M. Veraquth producing.
2003–2007: The Calling and The Hard Road
On 22 September 2003, Hilltop Hoods released their third album, The Calling, which became a commercial breakthrough. In an interview after the release of their fourth album, Suffa revealed that The Calling was recorded on his mother's computer and the simplicity of their 'studio' is the reason why some of the music on the album is in monaural ('mono') sound.
The Calling entered the ARIA Albums Chart in March 2004 and reached No. 53 before exiting the top 100 in September of the same year. By December 2006 it was certified platinum for shipment of 70,000 units, becoming the first Australian hip hop album to achieve platinum status. In March 2012, it re-entered the chart and peaked at No. 50 – eight-and-a-half years after its first release. It featured two singles, "The Nosebleed Section" and "Dumb Enough", which were listed in the Triple J Hottest 100, 2003. "The Nosebleed Section" was ranked No. 17 in the Triple J Hottest 100 of All Time in 2009. Hilltop Hoods' chart and commercial success was a turning point in the Australian Hip Hop scene because it demonstrated widespread support for the genre that reached beyond an underground fan base.
On 1 April 2006, the group followed with their fourth album, The Hard Road, which peaked at number one. It was the first Australian hip hop album to do so. It was certified gold within a week of being released. Its lead single, "Clown Prince", reached the top 30 on the related ARIA Singles Chart. It featured guest verses from New York rapper, Omni, and British MCs, Mystro and Braintax. The Hilltop Hoods received the inaugural Australian Independent Record (AIR) Award for Independent Artist of the Year and Best Performing Independent Album for The Hard Road in 2006. The track, "The Blue Blooded", is a collaboration with Australian MCs: Funkoars, Hau from Koolism, Mortar, Vents, Drapht, Muph & Plutonic, Pegz and Robby Balboa. On 27 April of the same year, Hilltop Hoods performed at the Bass in the Grass music festival in Darwin alongside fellow hip hop group, The Herd. That same day they issued a second single, the title track from the album. Its video includes fellow members from the Certified Wise Crew – Cross Bred Mongrels, Terrafirma and Funkoars.
Following the success of The Hard Road Tour in early 2006, the Hilltop Hoods began their second national tour for the year, The Stopping All Stations Tour, which visited more regional areas of Australia as well as the capital cities. They were supported by Koolism and Mystro. Late that year, Hilltop Hoods released their third single from the album, "What a Great Night". The video shows the group at a club with camera shots panning up and down to reveal a new location. It used special effects and is one of the most expensive video clips for an Australian hip hop group, mirroring the group's rise in success and popularity. Also late in the year the band won the J Award for best album of the year from Triple J. They performed the Homebake Festival and Falls Festival before the end of the year. The Hard Road received the AIR Award for Best Independent Hip Hop/Urban Release in 2007.
2007–2009: The Hard Road Restrung and State of the Art
On 12 May 2007, Hilltop Hoods released their next album The Hard Road: Restrung which is a remix of their previous studio album, The Hard Road, featuring the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra and Okwerdz. It peaked at No. 8 on the ARIA Albums Chart. Like its predecessor The Hard Road, it took out "Best Urban Release" at the ARIA Awards of 2007, with the group going back-to-back in the category. The lead single from the album "Recapturing the Vibe Restrung", its video clip was on high rotation on rage and jtv. That year the group performed at the Southbound Festival (WA), The Great Escape at Newington Armory over Easter, and embarked on a UK tour with a Sydney-based string quartet. They finished the year by headlining the Pyramid Rock Festival on Victoria's Phillip Island over New Year's Eve 2007. In 2008 they performed at the Big Day Out festivals, at Glastonbury Festival and Islington Academy in London. In December their DVD, The City of Light, was released and was nominated as Best Music DVD at the 2008 ARIA Awards.
Hilltop Hoods left their longtime home of Obese Records to start their own label, Golden Era Records, to release their future material. In November 2008 Pressure announced on Triple J's breakfast program that the next studio album, State of the Art, would be recorded with session musicians: "We realised with this one after doing Restrung and having an orchestra that we were a bit less limited. So we're going to have some session musos come in on this one and stuff like that". The album was released on 12 June, with the lead single, "Chase That Feeling", issued as a digital download on 8 May, and featured a return guest appearance by a quartet from the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. The album debuted at number one on the albums chart while "Chase That Feeling" peaked at No. 8 on the related singles chart. By 2010 State of the Art was certified 2× platinum for shipment of 140,000 units.
In early 2009 the Hilltop Hoods performed at the Groovin the Moo festival in Townsville, Maitland and Bendigo. They also performed at Triple J's One Night Stand in Sale, Victoria on 30 May, and at Fat as Butter festival in Newcastle on 25 October where they played several of the tracks from the album. To promote its release the band started a national tour starting on 18 July and performed at most major cities including state capitals. The second national tour that year followed on 11 November with support provided by Vents.
2010–2017: Drinking from the Sun and Walking Under Stars
On 28 July 2010, Hilltop Hoods completed work on a zombie movie, Parade of the Dead, that the group wrote, filmed, and starred in. Using the title from a State of the Art track, it was released on 22 October with the eponymous single. Filmed mostly in Adelaide, the former Adelaide Gaol was used as a "key location".
In late November 2011, the band premiered the single, "I Love It", on the Triple J breakfast show. Featuring Sia, the song peaked at No. 6 on the ARIA chart and was the lead single from their sixth album, Drinking from the Sun, which was released on 9 March 2012. During December 2011, they supported Eminem and Lil Wayne during the Australian leg of Eminem's world tour. The song has since been certified 4x Platinum by ARIA, denoting sales of more than 280,000 units.
Three music videos for "I Love It" were published online in December 2011 by DJ Debris. Three versions were commissioned by the band, involving three different directors: Nash Edgerton of Blue Tongue Films; the Animal Logic animation company; and independent Melbourne, Australia, film-maker Carl Allison.
In January 2012, the group "leaked" a song from the sixth album following the emergence of interest on their Facebook page: "Let's have some fun. If we get 5000 likes on this post we're going to leak a track off Drinking from the Sun"—they received more than 7,500 likes within 10 minutes. Surprised with the magnitude of the response, the band subsequently posted: "Wow. Give me a minute." and posted a link to a new track, "Rattling the Keys to the Kingdom", on YouTube shortly afterward. "Rattling the Keys to the Kingdom" was certified Gold by ARIA in 2018.
Drinking from the Sun became their third number-one album in Australia and also charted on the New Zealand Albums Chart top 40. In mid-April 2012, the music video for "Speaking in Tongues", the album's second single, was published online. Directed by Toby Grimes, the video features Chali 2na and graffiti murals from Brisbane, Australia, artist Sofles.
On 10 May 2012, Hilltop Hoods issued a new EP, The Good Life in the Sun, to celebrate the launch of the 'Speaking in Tongues Tour', which includes tracks from Drinking from the Sun remixed by Suffa. The post contained a link to their website where the EP can be downloaded for free. In July 2012, the video for the third single, "Shredding the Balloon", was published on the band's YouTube channel. Directed by Selina Miles of Unity Sound and Visual, the video had received nearly 1.5 million views as of 1 October 2014. The single was released on 20 July 2012.
In August 2012, Triple J uploaded video footage of the group's tribute to Beastie Boys' member, Adam "MCA" Yauch, who died in May 2012. The group selected "So What'cha Want", from Beastie Boys' album, Check Your Head.
In late September, the music video for "Rattling the Keys to the Kingdom" was published online. It featured numerous Australian hip-hop artists, including Drapht, Urthboy, Def Wish Cast, Dazastah, Layla, Maya Jupiter and Hunter. The band explained in the production notes for the video:
Not only did we want to do something unifying, we also wanted to use the platform we have to promote artists that we think deserve more exposure. Of course, not everyone involved in the filmclip needs exposure, as many of the artists involved have huge followings in their own right. But having these artists involved in the filmclip just further serves to unify and consolidate the scene ... We need to point out that this is by no means a representation of every relevant artist involved in the culture past or present. It's more a cross-section of who we have contact with, who was available and so on.
In November 2012, Hilltop Hoods performed a live show on UStream and announced that the title of the group's next album would be Walking Under Stars—this was then confirmed on the official Hilltop Hoods Twitter and Facebook pages, following their Best Urban Album win at the 2012 ARIA Awards ceremony. The band's Facebook post read:
So it’s now one year to the day since we dropped 'I Love It' and started the 'Drinking from the Sun' journey. Thanks to everyone that’s supported us over the last 12 months, it’s been amazing. We hope you join us late next year for 'Walking Under Stars'. Thankyou, Suffa, Pressure & Debris
The announcement corresponds with a sample on Drinking from the Sun that refers to a band writing with the clear intention of formulating enough material for two albums: "They were recording enough for two albums; that was premeditated." The sample appears on the track, "The Thirst Pt. 3 (Interlude)".
In April 2013, the Hilltop Hoods stated that the development of Walking Under Stars was "well underway", with the trio calling the album Drinking from the Sun "part two"—the latter received a double platinum sales certification in the same month. Additionally, American clothing company Zoo York announced a partnership with the Hilltop Hoods in April 2013, in preparation for the brand's 20th-anniversary celebrations in 2014. Lambert explained: "We've always been fans of Zoo York, they understand hip hop culture, and that's why we can’t wait to work with them."
On 21 June 2014—after the band successfully received the 20,000 likes they requested for a Facebook post—the first preview of Walking Under Stars, titled "The Art of the Handshake", was uploaded to the band's SoundCloud profile—the song is the fourth on the album's track-list. Lambert revealed on 6 August that the song was inspired by the Notes to Self song "All of the Above", which reminded him of "the ridiculous handshakes" of his youth. As part of the songwriting process, Lambert spent a day researching the status of the handshake in countries such as Sweden and India.
The album's first official single, "Won't Let You Down"—featuring Irish singer Maverick Sabre—was released on 27 June 2014. Writing for the Faster Louder website, Matt Shea revealed in early August that the first single was met with a mixed reaction from existing fans of the band: "While many loved it, plenty of Hoods fans at the very least declared it a radio friendly single that had little to do with hip-hop. Others outright disliked it." Lambert explained in media interviews during the week prior to the album's release that the song was recorded at the Red Bull Studios in both London, UK and New York City, US, while the lyrical content is about the partners of the band members and the difficulties of being in a relationship with touring musicians. The single's musical content features Italian singer Zucchero Fornaciari singing a rendition of Ph.D's hit "I Won't Let You Down".
During the band's performance at the 2014 Splendour in the Grass festival, held from 25 to 27 July in Byron Bay, Australia, Lambert exclaimed to the audience prior to the song "Speaking in Tongues", from the Drinking from the Sun album:
The Hilltop Hoods do not give a fuck what race you are! The Hilltop Hoods do not give a fuck what religion you are! The Hilltop Hoods do not give a fuck what sex you are! The Hilltop Hoods do not give a fuck what sexuality you are! We are one people under the music!
Lambert explained that his announcement, a reaffirmation of the sentiment in "Speaking in Tongues", is "very important" to the band.
The band announced the release date for Walking Under Stars as 8 August 2014 in mid-July and, while the album is a Golden Era Records recording, Universal Music Australia acquired the exclusive licensing rights for the domestic market—Universal will also use the license to distribute the album in Canada, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Benelux, while Golden Era continues its partnership with Fontana for the US release. Walking Under Stars was conceived before Drinking From the Sun was written and Lambert referred to the former as "a companion piece" in an August 2014 interview. Lambert also explained that "I'm a Ghost" is four-years-old, while a segment of "Brainbox" originally appeared on the 2012 Golden Era mixtape.
Similar to the band's previous album releases, numerous collaborators appear on Walking Under Stars. Lambert explained on 5 August that "we [Hilltop Hoods] try to do it in the same room" when guest artists record and, for the seventh studio album, the band worked with Sabre, New Zealand soul singer Aaradhna, Brother Ali, Dan Sultan, Drapht, Canadian voice-over artist Dave Pettitt and One Above, the Adelaide producer who also worked on Drinking from the Sun. Lambert explained to TheMusic.com.au website that Sultan is a "gifted" artist who the band loves "as a person as well", and "it was really good to work with [Brother] Ali, who’s an artist that we admire so much."
Walking Under Stars debuted in the number-one position of the ARIA album charts during the week beginning 11 August 2014, providing the band with their fourth chart-topping album since The Hard Road in April 2006. As of 16 August 2014, the Hilltop Hoods have garnered a total of six weeks at the top of the ARIA charts from four number-one albums, three of which are Golden Era Records releases. During the promotion for a national Australian tour in late August 2014, the band revealed that a secret release will "manifest itself" in 2015 and will be the culmination of a multi-album creative project that began with Drinking From The Sun.
"Won't Let You Down" was performed live on the Australian AFL Footy Show television program on 7 August 2014, during an episode that was filmed in Adelaide. The music video for "Won't Let You Down" was published on the Hilltop Hoods YouTube channel on 19 August 2014. Directed by Richard Coburn of the Kojo production company, the video features a narrative in which manufactured pigs heads are used.
The music video for the "Cosby Sweater" single was released on the Hilltop Hoods YouTube channel while the group was engaged in the third stage of their 2014 world tour in North America. Published on 15 September, the video was again directed by Coburn and also features Golden Era artists Briggs, K21 and Trials. The single became the group's first top 5 ARIA single on 15 November 2014, during the fourth, Australian stage of the world tour, on the same date as the group's Melbourne performance at the Rod Laver Arena. "Cosby Sweater" was also performed at the 28th ARIA Awards ceremony on 26 November 2014, where the band also won the Best Urban Album award.
On 30 April 2016, Hilltop Hoods performed their final concert of the 'Drinking from the Sun, Walking Under the Stars' at Perth Arena.I
2018–present: The Great Expanse
On 13 July 2018, Hilltop Hoods released single "Clark Griswold" with Adrian Eagle, an ode to the character from the National Lampoon's Vacation movies.
On 23 November 2018, Hilltop Hoods released the single "Leave Me Lonely" and announced their forthcoming 2019 album The Great Expanse. The album, which features platinum single "Leave Me Lonely," gold selling ARIA Award-winning single "Clark Griswold" ft. Adrian Eagle, and new single "Exit Sign" ft. Illy and Ecca Vandal, was released on 22 February 2019 and debuted at No. 1 on the ARIA Albums Charts. The chart debut made it the group's sixth number one, setting a new ARIA record for most No. 1 Albums by an Australian band or group.
Touring
Hilltop Hoods have toured both in Australia and overseas, including playing at music festivals: T in the Park, Oxegen, the Big Day Out, Adelaide 500, Southbound, The Great Escape, Splendour in the Grass, Bassinthegrass, Groovin' The Moo, Falls Festival, Pyramid Rock Festival, Rollercoaster, Come Together Festival and Make Poverty History.
On 8 December 2012, the Hilltop Hoods were one of two headlines acts (the other was American band, Blondie) for the 2012 "Global Edition" of the popular Australian music, film, comedy and arts festival, Homebake.
A North American "Drinking From The Sun" tour was announced in late February 2013 and the band revealed that it would perform in American cities such as Seattle (the tour's debut location), New York and San Francisco, and the Canadian cities, Vancouver, Montreal, Calgary and Toronto; the tour was scheduled to end in Los Angeles on 9 May 2013. However, on 23 February 2013, the hip hop group announced the indefinite postponement of the entire tour due to a "serious family matter". The Hilltop Hoods were also one of the bands on the "Concerts" roster for the V8 Clipsal 500 Adelaide car racing event, held between 28 February 2013 and 3 March 2013—other Australian hip hop artists, such as Drapht and Vents, also performed at the event.
The group performed at the 2014 occurrence of the Australian festival Splendour in the Grass, performing alongside other musicians, such as Illy, Outkast, and Lily Allen. The band announced an August–September 2014 North American tour in June 2014—including dates in Vancouver and Toronto, Canada, and San Francisco, US—with Minnesota, US, artist Sims, from Doomtree.
In late August 2014, the "Cosby Sweater Australian Tour" was announced in support of the Walking Under Stars album release. The domestic tour run from October to December 2014, and the support acts were Thundamentals and K21.
Their latest national tour was in 2016. This was the "Drinking from the sun and Walking Under Stars Australian Sympthony Orchestra tour" This was the tour that followed the release of the new album which was the 2 most recent albums remastered using the orchestra.
In February 2019, the group supported Eminem's concert tour around Australia and New Zealand, performing to audiences in venues such as ANZ Stadium in Sydney and the MCG in Melbourne.
Awards and accolades
Hilltop Hoods received nominations for the 'Best Hip Hop Act' in 2001 and 2002 at the 3D World Dance Music Awards, they won the Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA) Award for 'Best Up-coming Group' as well as receiving number-one positions in independent charts all around Australia. The 2052 release The Calling achieved platinum certification from ARIA. Two tracks, "The Nosebleed Section" and "Dumb Enough", were listed in the Triple J Hottest 100, 2003, at ninth and 44th, respectively. Their lead single from The Hard Road, "Clown Prince" was released in February 2006, and became their first top 40 hit on the ARIA Singles Chart. In 2006 the group won the J Award.
On Australia Day, 2007, the Hoods claimed five spots in Triple J's Hottest 100 with "The Hard Road" reaching third place. "Clown Prince", "What a Great Night", "Stopping All Stations", and "Recapturing the Vibe" placed 23rd, 41st, 56th, and 77th respectively. The Hilltop Hoods received the most entries in the Hottest 100 that year, and were only one track off equalling the record, set by Wolfmother the previous year. In 2009 "The Nosebleed Section" was voted number 17 in the Triple J Hottest 100 of all time, the highest placed Australian song.
For the APRA Music Awards of 2010, the Hilltop Hoods won the 'Urban Work of the Year' award for "Still Standing", which was written by Francis, Lambert, Smith and Henry Lawes. The band received three nominations at the 2013 APRA Awards: 'Most Played Australian Work' for "I Love It", and two nominations in the 'Urban Work of the Year' category for "I Love It" and "Speaking in Tongues". They won Urban Work of the Year for "I Love It" (featuring Sia).
At the APRA Music Awards of 2020, Hilltop Hoods won Songwriter of the Year and Most Performed Urban Work of the Year for "Leave Me Lonely". As of 2020, The group has won six APRA Awards from 15 nominations.
In December 2020, the Hilltop Hoods were listed at number 27 in Rolling Stone Australias "50 Greatest Australian Artists of All Time" issue.
AIR Awards
The Australian Independent Record Awards (commonly known informally as AIR Awards) is an annual awards night to recognise, promote and celebrate the success of Australia's Independent Music sector.
|-
| rowspan="3" | 2006
|The Hard Road
| Best Performing Independent Album
|
|-
|"Clown Prince"
| Best Performing Independent Single
|
|-
|themselves
| Independent Artist of the Year
|
|-
| rowspan="3" | 2007
| rowspan="2" |The Hard Road Restrung
| Best Independent Album
|
|-
| Best Independent Dance/Electronic Album
|
|-
|themselves
| Independent Artist of the Year
|
|-
ARIA Awards
In 2006 Hilltop Hoods were nominated for five ARIA Awards – the first ever for an Australian hip hop group – winning in two categories: 'Best Urban Release' and 'Best Independent Release'. The following year they won 'Best Urban Release' at the ARIA Awards for The Hard Road: Restrung. The album was also nominated for 'Best Independent Release' and 'Best Cover Art' by John Engelhardt. The DVD City of Light was nominated as 'Best Music DVD' at the 2008 ARIA awards. At the 2009 ARIA Awards they won 'Best Urban Album' for a third time – for State of the Art and DJ Debris won an award for 'Engineer of the Year' for his work on that album. At the ARIA Music Awards of 2012, Hilltop Hoods won its fourth award in the 'Best Urban Album' category for Drinking from the Sun; as of November 2012, the group has won six awards from twenty nominations.
At the 2012 ARIA Awards, established Aboriginal Australian band, Yothu Yindu, was inducted into the Hall of Fame. A photograph of Suffa holding the award in the presence of the band was posted on the Hilltop Hoods' Instagram profile, accompanied by the following comment: "A memory I'll take to the grave. Meeting Yothu Yindi and having them let me hold their Hall of Fame ARIA. What a beautiful induction."
The band was nominated in three ARIA categories in 2014: Best Group, Best Urban Album, and Engineer of the Year. In an October 2014 radio interview, Smith said that the band does not expect to win an award, but wishes the best for the winners; however, the Best Urban Album award was given to the band on 26 November 2014, providing the band with their seventh ARIA award. As from November 2020 they have won ten awards from thirty-six nominations.
!
|-
| rowspan="5" | 2006 || rowspan="3" | The Hard Road || Best Independent Release || ||rowspan="5"|
|-
| Best Urban Album ||
|-
| Breakthrough Artist – Album ||
|-
| "Clown Prince" || Breakthrough Artist – Single ||
|-
| The Calling Live || Best Music DVD ||
|-
| rowspan="3" | 2007 || rowspan="2" | The Hard Road: Restrung || Best Independent Release || ||rowspan="3"|
|-
| Best Urban Album ||
|-
| The Hard Road: Restrung – John Engelhardt || Best Cover Art ||
|-
| 2008 || The City of Light || Best Music DVD || ||
|-
| rowspan="6" | 2009 || rowspan="3" | State of the Art || Highest Selling Album || || rowspan="6"|
|-
| Best Urban Album ||
|-
| Best Group ||
|-
| "Chase That Feeling" || Single of the Year ||
|-
| State of the Art – Suffa || Producer of the Year ||
|-
| State of the Art – DJ Debris || Engineer of the Year ||
|-
| rowspan="5" | 2012 || rowspan="2" | Drinking from the Sun || Best Group || || rowspan="5"|
|-
| Best Urban Album ||
|-
| "I Love It" (featuring Sia) || Song of the Year ||
|-
| "I Love It" (featuring Sia) – Animal Logic || Best Video ||
|-
| Drinking From The Sun || Best Australian Live Act ||
|-
| rowspan="3" | 2014 || rowspan="3" | Walking Under Stars || Engineer of the Year || || rowspan="3"|
|-
| Best Urban Album ||
|-
| Best Group ||
|-
| 2015 || Cosby Sweater Australian Tour || Best Australian Live Act || ||
|-
| rowspan="3" | 2016 || rowspan="2" | "1955" || Song of the Year || ||rowspan="3"|
|-
| Best Video ||
|-
| The Restrung Tour || Best Australian Live Act ||
|-
| 2018 || "Clark Griswold" (featuring Adrian Eagle) || Best Urban Release || ||
|-
| rowspan="7" | 2019 || rowspan="3" | The Great Expanse || Album of the Year || ||rowspan="7"|
|-
| Best Group ||
|-
| Best Hip Hop Release ||
|-
| "Leave Me Lonely" || Song of the Year ||
|-
| "Exit Sign" (featuring Illy and Ecca Vandal) || Best Video ||
|-
| The Great Expanse World Tour || Best Australian Live Act ||
|-
| Plutonic Lab for Hilltop Hoods' The Great Expanse || Engineer of the Year ||
|-
| 2020 || "Exit Sign" (featuring Illy and Ecca Vandal) || Song of the Year || ||
|-
Fowler's Live Music Awards
The Fowler's Live Music Awards took place from 2012 to 2014 to "recognise success and achievement over the past 12 months [and] celebrate the great diversity of original live music" in South Australia. Since 2015 they're known as the South Australian Music Awards.
|-
| 2012
| Hilltop Hoods
| Best Hip Hop Artist
|
|-
J Awards
The J Awards are an annual series of Australian music awards that were established by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's youth-focused radio station Triple J. They commenced in 2005.
|-
| J Awards of 2014
| Walking Under Stars| Australian Album of the Year
|
|-
| J Awards of 2019
| A Great Expanse| Australian Album of the Year
|
|-
National Live Music Awards
The National Live Music Awards (NLMAs) are a broad recognition of Australia's diverse live industry, celebrating the success of the Australian live scene. The awards commenced in 2016.
|-
| National Live Music Awards of 2019
| Hilltop Hoods
| Live Hip Hop Act of the Year
|
|-
Other projects
Hilltop Hoods Initiative
In 2005 the annual "Hilltop Hoods Initiative" was established in association with Arts SA, made possible by a donation from the Hilltop Hoods. Valued at A$10,000 (originally $3000), the Hilltop Hoods initiative helped young and emerging South Australian hip-hop artists to manufacture and distribute a CD. The initiative also included two mentorship sessions with Hilltop Hoods' former manager, PJ Murton. It acknowledges the important role South Australian government assistance played in the development of the careers of the Hilltop Hoods. In 2009, the initiative became a national grant available to entry for any emerging Australian hip-hop artist who have not issued a professional album.
In a Hilltop Hoods newsletter, released on 4 December 2012, the group communicated the following announcement:
In 2013 The Hilltop Hoods and APRA are teaming up again to give a career changing $10K to the most impressive emerging Hip Hop/Soul act in Australia. Aimed at helping fund the manufacturing and marketing of an album release, the grant is open to any act who hasn't yet released anything professionally. Applications will open in early 2013 along with details on how to enter.
Recipients are:
General Knowledge, a three-piece group (2006)
Subsketch, a solo artist (2007)
Jimblah, a solo artist (2008)
K21, a solo artist (2009)
1/6, a solo artist (2010)
Koolta, a solo artist (2011)
Run for Your Life, a musical collective (2012)
Chelsea Jane (2013), Gold Coast, Queensland artist
I AM D (2014), Brisbane, Queensland solo artist
Sarah Connor, a solo artist (2015)
Astro Travellers, a seven-piece group (2016)
MC Sinks, a solo artist from Melbourne, Victoria. (2017).
Hilltop Hoods Remix Shoe
The Hilltop Hoods and DC Shoes collaborated on the production of a limited-edition shoe called "The Hilltop Hoods Remix Shoe"—it was released in stores on 1 February 2008. They are the first Australian music group to design and release their own signature-model shoe. Illustration and Design by John Engelhardt injected its unique style
Golden Era Records
Following its departure from the Obese record label, the group launched its own label in 2009, entitled Golden Era Records. The label's title is described by the band on the label website:
To some people the golden era of Hip Hop was '94. Ask someone a little older and they’ll tell you Hip Hop’s renaissance was back in '88. Ask one of our revered pioneers and they’ll tell you that the golden era came and went three decades ago, before most of today’s Hip Hop heads were born. Whatever the case these so-called golden eras weren’t only defined by the music or the fashion – they were characterised by something less tangible – an atmosphere, a movement.
This label wasn’t established to release throw-back records; instead we hope to make music that throws you back to the way you felt during the golden era of Hip Hop.
Whatever year that was for you.
The label is based in Stirling, South Australia, and, as of December 2012, its roster consists of the Hilltop Hoods, Briggs, Funkoars, Vents, Adfu, K21, and most recently, Shadow
In January 2012, Fontana, an independent marketing, sales and distribution company under the Universal Music Group umbrella, signed an exclusive agreement with Golden Era Records for the American release of Drinking From The Sun, as well as back catalogue titles.
Charity
The CanTeen youth cancer charity announced that the 2-CD fundraising album Australian Hip Hop Supports CanTeen had raised over AU$122,000 as of 15 October 2014. Released in late 2013, the album features contributions from Hilltop Hoods, as well as numerous other Australian hip-hop artists. The initiative was originally conceived of by Robert Hunter, an MC who rapped under the name "Hunter" (SBX), who died from cancer prior to the release of the album.
Through the Dark interactive film
On 11 November 2016 Hilltop Hoods released an interactive film called Through the Dark, which featured their song of the same name. The interactive film project was a collaboration with Google Play Music and was directed by Mike Daly.
Members
Current members
Suffa (Matthew David Lambert) – vocals, engineering, mixing, producing (1991–present)
Pressure (Daniel Howe Smith) – vocals (1991–present)
DJ Debris (Barry John M Francis) – producing, engineering, turntablism (1999–present)
Former members
DJ Next (Ben John Hare) – audio engineering, DJing, turntablism, scratching (1991–1999)
MC Summit aka DJ Sum-1 – vocals (ca. 1996)
DiscographyA Matter of Time (1999)Left Foot, Right Foot (2001)The Calling (2003)The Hard Road (2006)State of the Art (2009)Drinking from the Sun (2012)Walking Under Stars (2014)The Great Expanse'' (2019)
See also
Adelaide Arts and Entertainment
Adelaide Hills
List of Australian hip hop musicians
Music of Australia
Notes
References
External links
Australian hip hop groups
1991 establishments in Australia
APRA Award winners
ARIA Award winners
Golden Era Records artists
Musical groups established in 1991
Musical groups from Adelaide
Obese Records artists
| false |
[
"Hope Airport may refer to:\n\n Hope Airport (Alaska) in Hope, Alaska, United States (IATA: 5HO)\n Hope Aerodrome in Hope, British Columbia, Canada (IATA: YHE)\n Hope Municipal Airport in Hope, Arkansas, United States (IATA: M18)\n Bob Hope Airport in Burbank, California, United States (IATA: BUR)\n\nid:Bandar Udara Hope\npms:Hope Airport",
"Tymon Mabaleka (1949/1950 – 27 June 2014) was a Zimbabwean footballer and music producer. He was nicknamed \"The Whitehorse\". His career lasted for nearly twenty years in sports and another fifteen years in the music industry.\n\nMabaleka was born in Nswazi in Umzingwane District. He attended Losikeyi Primary School in Bulawayo. He studied at Mpopoma High School and later moved to Mzilikazi High School.\n\nHe played for the Highlanders FC. In 1973, the Highlanders won Chibuku Trophy. He retired in 1982 to become a music producer. He worked for Gallo Records.\n\nMabaleka died in Harare, Zimbabwe from unknown causes, aged 64 or 65. He is survived by his wife, Josephine Mabaleka. He was buried in Bulawayo on July 3, 2014..\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Zimbabwe: Rip, Tymon Mabaleka\n\n1949 births\n1950 births\n2014 deaths\nZimbabwean footballers\nZimbabwean record producers\nHighlanders F.C. players\nAlumni of Mzilikazi High School\nAssociation footballers not categorized by position"
] |
[
"Hilltop Hoods",
"1987-2001: Formation and early years",
"How was the group formed?",
"In 1991 they joined up with DJ Next (Ben John Hare) through a mutual friend and formed an Australian hip hop group.",
"What was their first recording?",
"Hilltop Hoods recorded a demo, Highlanders, which was released on cassette tape only.",
"Did Highlanders get written about in yhe music press?",
"I don't know."
] |
C_e52eb25f24074bb2947bf6fb1e5b05d7_1
|
What was the followup to Highlanders?
| 4 |
What was Hilltop Hoods's followup to Highlanders?
|
Hilltop Hoods
|
Two of Hilltop Hoods' founders first met in 1987 when MC Suffa (aka Matthew David Lambert) and MC Pressure (Daniel Howe Smith) attended Blackwood High School in Eden Hills - a suburb of Adelaide. In 1991 they joined up with DJ Next (Ben John Hare) through a mutual friend and formed an Australian hip hop group. Their name was supplied by fellow local MC Flak (from Cross Bred Mongrels) - the suburb of Blackwood is known by locals as the Hilltop. The band's influences include American hip hop artists: Notorious B.I.G., KRS-One, Gang Starr, Wu-Tang Clan and Public Enemy. At live shows Next was the group's DJ, for recording he contributed audio engineering and all the scratching/turntablism on their early works. He regularly competed in the local DMC World DJ Championships (DMC) tournaments, winning the South Australian DMC championships multiple times. Hilltop Hoods recorded a demo, Highlanders, which was released on cassette tape only. As well as Pressure and Suffa on vocals, the group included MC Summit aka DJ Sum-1, but he did not appear on later Hilltop Hoods work. The group's first official release, in 1997, was a vinyl-only, seven-track extended play, Back Once Again. Production was handled by DJ Debris (Barry John M Francis), turntablism and audio engineering by Next, vocals by Pressure and Suffa. The third track, "Shades of Grey", features Debris with a verse, and was co-written by Francis, Hare, Lambert and Smith. Fifth track, "Mankind Must Suffa" also features a guest verse from Quromystix (aka Quro, Andrew Michael Bradley) - a member of Finger Lickin' Good and later the Fuglemen. "Mankind Must Suffa" is credited to Lambert, Smith, Francis and Bradley. Back Once Again is out of print and unavailable for retail purchase. The group's debut studio album, A Matter of Time, was released in 1999 on CD only. As with Back Once Again, it is now unavailable for retail purchase. All scratching/turntablism is performed by Next, a track, "Let Me Show You", has no vocals - solely showcasing his turntable skills. American MC Bukue One (Tion Torrence) appears for a guest verse on "Deaf Can Hear". The track is credited to Lambert, Smith, Francis, Hare and Torrence. The album was released independently but with financial assistance from Arts SA - the band were inspired, in 2005, to set up their own Hilltop Hoods Initiative, to help local artists. After the album appeared, Next left the group and moved to Melbourne. In 2004 he moved to London. In 1999 Debris, who was also a member of the Cross Bred Mongrels, replaced Next and became the Hilltop Hoods' full-time DJ. Hilltop Hoods founded the Certified Wise Crew - a hip hop collaborative - with local groups Terra Firma, Cross Bred Mongrels and After Hours. Certified Wise Crew has since expanded to include MCs Trauma, Blockade, Kolaps, Flea, with Vents and Funkoars joining in later years. Hilltop Hoods received two nominations for the Hip Hop Act of the Year Award at the Australian Dance Music Awards and again at the 3D World Music Awards in 2001 and 2002. In 2001 the group's second album, Left Foot, Right Foot, was released with Lambert, Francis and M. Veraquth producing. CANNOTANSWER
|
Hilltop Hoods founded the Certified Wise Crew - a hip hop collaborative - with local groups Terra Firma, Cross Bred Mongrels and After Hours.
|
Hilltop Hoods are an Australian hip hop group that formed in 1991 in Blackwood, Adelaide, South Australia. They are regarded as pioneers of the "larrikin-like" style of Australian hip hop. The group was founded by Suffa (Matthew David Lambert) and Pressure (Daniel Howe Smith), who were joined by DJ Debris (Barry John M. Francis) after fellow founder, DJ Next (Ben John Hare), left in 1999. The group released its first extended play, Back Once Again, in 1997 and have subsequently released eight studio albums, two "restrung" albums and three DVDs.
Six of their eight albums have peaked at number one on the Australian Record Industry Association (ARIA) Albums Charts, recently setting the record for most No. 1 Albums by an Australian band or group: The Hard Road (2006), State of the Art (2009), Drinking from the Sun (2012), Walking Under Stars (2014), Drinking from the Sun, Walking Under Stars Restrung (2016) and The Great Expanse (2019). Three tracks have reached the top 10 on the ARIA Singles Chart—"Chase That Feeling" (2009), "I Love It", featuring Sia (2011) and "Higher", featuring James Chatburn (2015) — while a further two tracks — "Cosby Sweater" (2014) and "1955" (2016) — reached the top 5. "1955", featuring Montaigne & Tom Thum, peaked at number 2 in the Australian charts.
Hilltop Hoods have toured both in Australia and overseas, including playing at music festivals: T in the Park, Oxegen, the Big Day Out, Clipsal 500, Southbound, The Great Escape, Splendour in the Grass, Bassinthegrass, Groovin' The Moo, Falls Festival, Pyramid Rock Festival, Rollercoaster, Come Together Festival and Make Poverty History.
The band are one of the most recurrent artists in the history of the Triple J Hottest 100, with 21 songs voted into the annual countdowns since their first appearance in 2003. At the ARIA Music Awards of 2006 they won "Best Independent Release" and "Best Urban Album" for The Hard Road. In 2007, they won "Best Urban Album" for their remix album, The Hard Road: Restrung (2007). They won the same category in 2009 for State of the Art and in 2012 for Drinking from the Sun. In 2009, Debris also won "Engineer of the Year" for his work on State of the Art. The band received their seventh ARIA award in 2014 when Walking Under Stars won in the Best Urban Album category at the 28th ARIA Awards.
History
1987–2001: Formation and early years
Two of Hilltop Hoods' founders first met in 1987 when MC Suffa (aka Matthew David Lambert) and Pressure (Daniel Howe Smith) attended Blackwood High School in Eden Hills – a suburb of Adelaide. In 1991 they joined up with DJ Next (Ben John Hare) through a mutual friend and formed an Australian hip hop group. Their name was supplied by fellow local MC Flak (from Cross Bred Mongrels) – the suburb of Blackwood is known by locals as the Hilltop. The band's influences include American hip hop artists: Notorious B.I.G., KRS-One, Gang Starr, Wu-Tang Clan and Public Enemy.
At live shows DJ Next was the group's DJ, for recording he contributed audio engineering and all the scratching/turntablism on their early works. He regularly competed in the local DMC World DJ Championships (DMC) tournaments, winning the South Australian DMC championships multiple times. Hilltop Hoods recorded a demo, Highlanders, which was released on cassette tape only. As well as Pressure and Suffa on vocals, the group included MC Summit aka DJ Sum-1, but he did not appear on later Hilltop Hoods work.
The group's first official release, in 1997, was a vinyl-only, seven-track extended play, Back Once Again. Production was handled by DJ Debris (Barry John M Francis), turntablism and audio engineering by DJ Next, vocals by Pressure and Suffa. The third track, "Shades of Grey", features Debris with a verse, and was co-written by Francis, Hare, Lambert and Smith. Fifth track, "Mankind Must Suffa" also features a guest verse from Quromystix (aka Quro, Andrew Michael Bradley) – a member of Finger Lickin' Good and later the Fuglemen. "Mankind Must Suffa" is credited to Lambert, Smith, Francis and Bradley. Back Once Again is out of print and unavailable for retail purchase.
The group's debut studio album, A Matter of Time, was released in 1999 on CD only. As with Back Once Again, it is now unavailable for retail purchase. All scratching/turntablism is performed by DJ Next, a track, "Let Me Show You", has no vocals – solely showcasing his turntable skills. American MC Bukue One (Tion Torrence) appears for a guest verse on "Deaf Can Hear". The track is credited to Lambert, Smith, Francis, Hare and Torrence. The album was released independently but with financial assistance from Arts SA – the band were inspired, in 2005, to set up their own Hilltop Hoods Initiative, to help local artists. After the album appeared, DJ Next left the group and moved to Melbourne. In 2004 he moved to London. In 1999 Debris, who was also a member of the Cross Bred Mongrels, replaced Next and became the Hilltop Hoods' full-time DJ.
Hilltop Hoods founded the Certified Wise Crew – a hip-hop collaborative – with local groups Terra Firma, Cross Bred Mongrels and After Hours. Certified Wise Crew has since expanded to include MCs Trauma, Blockade, Kolaps, Flea, with Vents and Funkoars joining in later years. Hilltop Hoods received two nominations for the Hip Hop Act of the Year Award at the Australian Dance Music Awards and again at the 3D World Music Awards in 2001 and 2002. In 2001 the group's second album, Left Foot, Right Foot, was released with Lambert, Francis and M. Veraquth producing.
2003–2007: The Calling and The Hard Road
On 22 September 2003, Hilltop Hoods released their third album, The Calling, which became a commercial breakthrough. In an interview after the release of their fourth album, Suffa revealed that The Calling was recorded on his mother's computer and the simplicity of their 'studio' is the reason why some of the music on the album is in monaural ('mono') sound.
The Calling entered the ARIA Albums Chart in March 2004 and reached No. 53 before exiting the top 100 in September of the same year. By December 2006 it was certified platinum for shipment of 70,000 units, becoming the first Australian hip hop album to achieve platinum status. In March 2012, it re-entered the chart and peaked at No. 50 – eight-and-a-half years after its first release. It featured two singles, "The Nosebleed Section" and "Dumb Enough", which were listed in the Triple J Hottest 100, 2003. "The Nosebleed Section" was ranked No. 17 in the Triple J Hottest 100 of All Time in 2009. Hilltop Hoods' chart and commercial success was a turning point in the Australian Hip Hop scene because it demonstrated widespread support for the genre that reached beyond an underground fan base.
On 1 April 2006, the group followed with their fourth album, The Hard Road, which peaked at number one. It was the first Australian hip hop album to do so. It was certified gold within a week of being released. Its lead single, "Clown Prince", reached the top 30 on the related ARIA Singles Chart. It featured guest verses from New York rapper, Omni, and British MCs, Mystro and Braintax. The Hilltop Hoods received the inaugural Australian Independent Record (AIR) Award for Independent Artist of the Year and Best Performing Independent Album for The Hard Road in 2006. The track, "The Blue Blooded", is a collaboration with Australian MCs: Funkoars, Hau from Koolism, Mortar, Vents, Drapht, Muph & Plutonic, Pegz and Robby Balboa. On 27 April of the same year, Hilltop Hoods performed at the Bass in the Grass music festival in Darwin alongside fellow hip hop group, The Herd. That same day they issued a second single, the title track from the album. Its video includes fellow members from the Certified Wise Crew – Cross Bred Mongrels, Terrafirma and Funkoars.
Following the success of The Hard Road Tour in early 2006, the Hilltop Hoods began their second national tour for the year, The Stopping All Stations Tour, which visited more regional areas of Australia as well as the capital cities. They were supported by Koolism and Mystro. Late that year, Hilltop Hoods released their third single from the album, "What a Great Night". The video shows the group at a club with camera shots panning up and down to reveal a new location. It used special effects and is one of the most expensive video clips for an Australian hip hop group, mirroring the group's rise in success and popularity. Also late in the year the band won the J Award for best album of the year from Triple J. They performed the Homebake Festival and Falls Festival before the end of the year. The Hard Road received the AIR Award for Best Independent Hip Hop/Urban Release in 2007.
2007–2009: The Hard Road Restrung and State of the Art
On 12 May 2007, Hilltop Hoods released their next album The Hard Road: Restrung which is a remix of their previous studio album, The Hard Road, featuring the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra and Okwerdz. It peaked at No. 8 on the ARIA Albums Chart. Like its predecessor The Hard Road, it took out "Best Urban Release" at the ARIA Awards of 2007, with the group going back-to-back in the category. The lead single from the album "Recapturing the Vibe Restrung", its video clip was on high rotation on rage and jtv. That year the group performed at the Southbound Festival (WA), The Great Escape at Newington Armory over Easter, and embarked on a UK tour with a Sydney-based string quartet. They finished the year by headlining the Pyramid Rock Festival on Victoria's Phillip Island over New Year's Eve 2007. In 2008 they performed at the Big Day Out festivals, at Glastonbury Festival and Islington Academy in London. In December their DVD, The City of Light, was released and was nominated as Best Music DVD at the 2008 ARIA Awards.
Hilltop Hoods left their longtime home of Obese Records to start their own label, Golden Era Records, to release their future material. In November 2008 Pressure announced on Triple J's breakfast program that the next studio album, State of the Art, would be recorded with session musicians: "We realised with this one after doing Restrung and having an orchestra that we were a bit less limited. So we're going to have some session musos come in on this one and stuff like that". The album was released on 12 June, with the lead single, "Chase That Feeling", issued as a digital download on 8 May, and featured a return guest appearance by a quartet from the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. The album debuted at number one on the albums chart while "Chase That Feeling" peaked at No. 8 on the related singles chart. By 2010 State of the Art was certified 2× platinum for shipment of 140,000 units.
In early 2009 the Hilltop Hoods performed at the Groovin the Moo festival in Townsville, Maitland and Bendigo. They also performed at Triple J's One Night Stand in Sale, Victoria on 30 May, and at Fat as Butter festival in Newcastle on 25 October where they played several of the tracks from the album. To promote its release the band started a national tour starting on 18 July and performed at most major cities including state capitals. The second national tour that year followed on 11 November with support provided by Vents.
2010–2017: Drinking from the Sun and Walking Under Stars
On 28 July 2010, Hilltop Hoods completed work on a zombie movie, Parade of the Dead, that the group wrote, filmed, and starred in. Using the title from a State of the Art track, it was released on 22 October with the eponymous single. Filmed mostly in Adelaide, the former Adelaide Gaol was used as a "key location".
In late November 2011, the band premiered the single, "I Love It", on the Triple J breakfast show. Featuring Sia, the song peaked at No. 6 on the ARIA chart and was the lead single from their sixth album, Drinking from the Sun, which was released on 9 March 2012. During December 2011, they supported Eminem and Lil Wayne during the Australian leg of Eminem's world tour. The song has since been certified 4x Platinum by ARIA, denoting sales of more than 280,000 units.
Three music videos for "I Love It" were published online in December 2011 by DJ Debris. Three versions were commissioned by the band, involving three different directors: Nash Edgerton of Blue Tongue Films; the Animal Logic animation company; and independent Melbourne, Australia, film-maker Carl Allison.
In January 2012, the group "leaked" a song from the sixth album following the emergence of interest on their Facebook page: "Let's have some fun. If we get 5000 likes on this post we're going to leak a track off Drinking from the Sun"—they received more than 7,500 likes within 10 minutes. Surprised with the magnitude of the response, the band subsequently posted: "Wow. Give me a minute." and posted a link to a new track, "Rattling the Keys to the Kingdom", on YouTube shortly afterward. "Rattling the Keys to the Kingdom" was certified Gold by ARIA in 2018.
Drinking from the Sun became their third number-one album in Australia and also charted on the New Zealand Albums Chart top 40. In mid-April 2012, the music video for "Speaking in Tongues", the album's second single, was published online. Directed by Toby Grimes, the video features Chali 2na and graffiti murals from Brisbane, Australia, artist Sofles.
On 10 May 2012, Hilltop Hoods issued a new EP, The Good Life in the Sun, to celebrate the launch of the 'Speaking in Tongues Tour', which includes tracks from Drinking from the Sun remixed by Suffa. The post contained a link to their website where the EP can be downloaded for free. In July 2012, the video for the third single, "Shredding the Balloon", was published on the band's YouTube channel. Directed by Selina Miles of Unity Sound and Visual, the video had received nearly 1.5 million views as of 1 October 2014. The single was released on 20 July 2012.
In August 2012, Triple J uploaded video footage of the group's tribute to Beastie Boys' member, Adam "MCA" Yauch, who died in May 2012. The group selected "So What'cha Want", from Beastie Boys' album, Check Your Head.
In late September, the music video for "Rattling the Keys to the Kingdom" was published online. It featured numerous Australian hip-hop artists, including Drapht, Urthboy, Def Wish Cast, Dazastah, Layla, Maya Jupiter and Hunter. The band explained in the production notes for the video:
Not only did we want to do something unifying, we also wanted to use the platform we have to promote artists that we think deserve more exposure. Of course, not everyone involved in the filmclip needs exposure, as many of the artists involved have huge followings in their own right. But having these artists involved in the filmclip just further serves to unify and consolidate the scene ... We need to point out that this is by no means a representation of every relevant artist involved in the culture past or present. It's more a cross-section of who we have contact with, who was available and so on.
In November 2012, Hilltop Hoods performed a live show on UStream and announced that the title of the group's next album would be Walking Under Stars—this was then confirmed on the official Hilltop Hoods Twitter and Facebook pages, following their Best Urban Album win at the 2012 ARIA Awards ceremony. The band's Facebook post read:
So it’s now one year to the day since we dropped 'I Love It' and started the 'Drinking from the Sun' journey. Thanks to everyone that’s supported us over the last 12 months, it’s been amazing. We hope you join us late next year for 'Walking Under Stars'. Thankyou, Suffa, Pressure & Debris
The announcement corresponds with a sample on Drinking from the Sun that refers to a band writing with the clear intention of formulating enough material for two albums: "They were recording enough for two albums; that was premeditated." The sample appears on the track, "The Thirst Pt. 3 (Interlude)".
In April 2013, the Hilltop Hoods stated that the development of Walking Under Stars was "well underway", with the trio calling the album Drinking from the Sun "part two"—the latter received a double platinum sales certification in the same month. Additionally, American clothing company Zoo York announced a partnership with the Hilltop Hoods in April 2013, in preparation for the brand's 20th-anniversary celebrations in 2014. Lambert explained: "We've always been fans of Zoo York, they understand hip hop culture, and that's why we can’t wait to work with them."
On 21 June 2014—after the band successfully received the 20,000 likes they requested for a Facebook post—the first preview of Walking Under Stars, titled "The Art of the Handshake", was uploaded to the band's SoundCloud profile—the song is the fourth on the album's track-list. Lambert revealed on 6 August that the song was inspired by the Notes to Self song "All of the Above", which reminded him of "the ridiculous handshakes" of his youth. As part of the songwriting process, Lambert spent a day researching the status of the handshake in countries such as Sweden and India.
The album's first official single, "Won't Let You Down"—featuring Irish singer Maverick Sabre—was released on 27 June 2014. Writing for the Faster Louder website, Matt Shea revealed in early August that the first single was met with a mixed reaction from existing fans of the band: "While many loved it, plenty of Hoods fans at the very least declared it a radio friendly single that had little to do with hip-hop. Others outright disliked it." Lambert explained in media interviews during the week prior to the album's release that the song was recorded at the Red Bull Studios in both London, UK and New York City, US, while the lyrical content is about the partners of the band members and the difficulties of being in a relationship with touring musicians. The single's musical content features Italian singer Zucchero Fornaciari singing a rendition of Ph.D's hit "I Won't Let You Down".
During the band's performance at the 2014 Splendour in the Grass festival, held from 25 to 27 July in Byron Bay, Australia, Lambert exclaimed to the audience prior to the song "Speaking in Tongues", from the Drinking from the Sun album:
The Hilltop Hoods do not give a fuck what race you are! The Hilltop Hoods do not give a fuck what religion you are! The Hilltop Hoods do not give a fuck what sex you are! The Hilltop Hoods do not give a fuck what sexuality you are! We are one people under the music!
Lambert explained that his announcement, a reaffirmation of the sentiment in "Speaking in Tongues", is "very important" to the band.
The band announced the release date for Walking Under Stars as 8 August 2014 in mid-July and, while the album is a Golden Era Records recording, Universal Music Australia acquired the exclusive licensing rights for the domestic market—Universal will also use the license to distribute the album in Canada, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Benelux, while Golden Era continues its partnership with Fontana for the US release. Walking Under Stars was conceived before Drinking From the Sun was written and Lambert referred to the former as "a companion piece" in an August 2014 interview. Lambert also explained that "I'm a Ghost" is four-years-old, while a segment of "Brainbox" originally appeared on the 2012 Golden Era mixtape.
Similar to the band's previous album releases, numerous collaborators appear on Walking Under Stars. Lambert explained on 5 August that "we [Hilltop Hoods] try to do it in the same room" when guest artists record and, for the seventh studio album, the band worked with Sabre, New Zealand soul singer Aaradhna, Brother Ali, Dan Sultan, Drapht, Canadian voice-over artist Dave Pettitt and One Above, the Adelaide producer who also worked on Drinking from the Sun. Lambert explained to TheMusic.com.au website that Sultan is a "gifted" artist who the band loves "as a person as well", and "it was really good to work with [Brother] Ali, who’s an artist that we admire so much."
Walking Under Stars debuted in the number-one position of the ARIA album charts during the week beginning 11 August 2014, providing the band with their fourth chart-topping album since The Hard Road in April 2006. As of 16 August 2014, the Hilltop Hoods have garnered a total of six weeks at the top of the ARIA charts from four number-one albums, three of which are Golden Era Records releases. During the promotion for a national Australian tour in late August 2014, the band revealed that a secret release will "manifest itself" in 2015 and will be the culmination of a multi-album creative project that began with Drinking From The Sun.
"Won't Let You Down" was performed live on the Australian AFL Footy Show television program on 7 August 2014, during an episode that was filmed in Adelaide. The music video for "Won't Let You Down" was published on the Hilltop Hoods YouTube channel on 19 August 2014. Directed by Richard Coburn of the Kojo production company, the video features a narrative in which manufactured pigs heads are used.
The music video for the "Cosby Sweater" single was released on the Hilltop Hoods YouTube channel while the group was engaged in the third stage of their 2014 world tour in North America. Published on 15 September, the video was again directed by Coburn and also features Golden Era artists Briggs, K21 and Trials. The single became the group's first top 5 ARIA single on 15 November 2014, during the fourth, Australian stage of the world tour, on the same date as the group's Melbourne performance at the Rod Laver Arena. "Cosby Sweater" was also performed at the 28th ARIA Awards ceremony on 26 November 2014, where the band also won the Best Urban Album award.
On 30 April 2016, Hilltop Hoods performed their final concert of the 'Drinking from the Sun, Walking Under the Stars' at Perth Arena.I
2018–present: The Great Expanse
On 13 July 2018, Hilltop Hoods released single "Clark Griswold" with Adrian Eagle, an ode to the character from the National Lampoon's Vacation movies.
On 23 November 2018, Hilltop Hoods released the single "Leave Me Lonely" and announced their forthcoming 2019 album The Great Expanse. The album, which features platinum single "Leave Me Lonely," gold selling ARIA Award-winning single "Clark Griswold" ft. Adrian Eagle, and new single "Exit Sign" ft. Illy and Ecca Vandal, was released on 22 February 2019 and debuted at No. 1 on the ARIA Albums Charts. The chart debut made it the group's sixth number one, setting a new ARIA record for most No. 1 Albums by an Australian band or group.
Touring
Hilltop Hoods have toured both in Australia and overseas, including playing at music festivals: T in the Park, Oxegen, the Big Day Out, Adelaide 500, Southbound, The Great Escape, Splendour in the Grass, Bassinthegrass, Groovin' The Moo, Falls Festival, Pyramid Rock Festival, Rollercoaster, Come Together Festival and Make Poverty History.
On 8 December 2012, the Hilltop Hoods were one of two headlines acts (the other was American band, Blondie) for the 2012 "Global Edition" of the popular Australian music, film, comedy and arts festival, Homebake.
A North American "Drinking From The Sun" tour was announced in late February 2013 and the band revealed that it would perform in American cities such as Seattle (the tour's debut location), New York and San Francisco, and the Canadian cities, Vancouver, Montreal, Calgary and Toronto; the tour was scheduled to end in Los Angeles on 9 May 2013. However, on 23 February 2013, the hip hop group announced the indefinite postponement of the entire tour due to a "serious family matter". The Hilltop Hoods were also one of the bands on the "Concerts" roster for the V8 Clipsal 500 Adelaide car racing event, held between 28 February 2013 and 3 March 2013—other Australian hip hop artists, such as Drapht and Vents, also performed at the event.
The group performed at the 2014 occurrence of the Australian festival Splendour in the Grass, performing alongside other musicians, such as Illy, Outkast, and Lily Allen. The band announced an August–September 2014 North American tour in June 2014—including dates in Vancouver and Toronto, Canada, and San Francisco, US—with Minnesota, US, artist Sims, from Doomtree.
In late August 2014, the "Cosby Sweater Australian Tour" was announced in support of the Walking Under Stars album release. The domestic tour run from October to December 2014, and the support acts were Thundamentals and K21.
Their latest national tour was in 2016. This was the "Drinking from the sun and Walking Under Stars Australian Sympthony Orchestra tour" This was the tour that followed the release of the new album which was the 2 most recent albums remastered using the orchestra.
In February 2019, the group supported Eminem's concert tour around Australia and New Zealand, performing to audiences in venues such as ANZ Stadium in Sydney and the MCG in Melbourne.
Awards and accolades
Hilltop Hoods received nominations for the 'Best Hip Hop Act' in 2001 and 2002 at the 3D World Dance Music Awards, they won the Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA) Award for 'Best Up-coming Group' as well as receiving number-one positions in independent charts all around Australia. The 2052 release The Calling achieved platinum certification from ARIA. Two tracks, "The Nosebleed Section" and "Dumb Enough", were listed in the Triple J Hottest 100, 2003, at ninth and 44th, respectively. Their lead single from The Hard Road, "Clown Prince" was released in February 2006, and became their first top 40 hit on the ARIA Singles Chart. In 2006 the group won the J Award.
On Australia Day, 2007, the Hoods claimed five spots in Triple J's Hottest 100 with "The Hard Road" reaching third place. "Clown Prince", "What a Great Night", "Stopping All Stations", and "Recapturing the Vibe" placed 23rd, 41st, 56th, and 77th respectively. The Hilltop Hoods received the most entries in the Hottest 100 that year, and were only one track off equalling the record, set by Wolfmother the previous year. In 2009 "The Nosebleed Section" was voted number 17 in the Triple J Hottest 100 of all time, the highest placed Australian song.
For the APRA Music Awards of 2010, the Hilltop Hoods won the 'Urban Work of the Year' award for "Still Standing", which was written by Francis, Lambert, Smith and Henry Lawes. The band received three nominations at the 2013 APRA Awards: 'Most Played Australian Work' for "I Love It", and two nominations in the 'Urban Work of the Year' category for "I Love It" and "Speaking in Tongues". They won Urban Work of the Year for "I Love It" (featuring Sia).
At the APRA Music Awards of 2020, Hilltop Hoods won Songwriter of the Year and Most Performed Urban Work of the Year for "Leave Me Lonely". As of 2020, The group has won six APRA Awards from 15 nominations.
In December 2020, the Hilltop Hoods were listed at number 27 in Rolling Stone Australias "50 Greatest Australian Artists of All Time" issue.
AIR Awards
The Australian Independent Record Awards (commonly known informally as AIR Awards) is an annual awards night to recognise, promote and celebrate the success of Australia's Independent Music sector.
|-
| rowspan="3" | 2006
|The Hard Road
| Best Performing Independent Album
|
|-
|"Clown Prince"
| Best Performing Independent Single
|
|-
|themselves
| Independent Artist of the Year
|
|-
| rowspan="3" | 2007
| rowspan="2" |The Hard Road Restrung
| Best Independent Album
|
|-
| Best Independent Dance/Electronic Album
|
|-
|themselves
| Independent Artist of the Year
|
|-
ARIA Awards
In 2006 Hilltop Hoods were nominated for five ARIA Awards – the first ever for an Australian hip hop group – winning in two categories: 'Best Urban Release' and 'Best Independent Release'. The following year they won 'Best Urban Release' at the ARIA Awards for The Hard Road: Restrung. The album was also nominated for 'Best Independent Release' and 'Best Cover Art' by John Engelhardt. The DVD City of Light was nominated as 'Best Music DVD' at the 2008 ARIA awards. At the 2009 ARIA Awards they won 'Best Urban Album' for a third time – for State of the Art and DJ Debris won an award for 'Engineer of the Year' for his work on that album. At the ARIA Music Awards of 2012, Hilltop Hoods won its fourth award in the 'Best Urban Album' category for Drinking from the Sun; as of November 2012, the group has won six awards from twenty nominations.
At the 2012 ARIA Awards, established Aboriginal Australian band, Yothu Yindu, was inducted into the Hall of Fame. A photograph of Suffa holding the award in the presence of the band was posted on the Hilltop Hoods' Instagram profile, accompanied by the following comment: "A memory I'll take to the grave. Meeting Yothu Yindi and having them let me hold their Hall of Fame ARIA. What a beautiful induction."
The band was nominated in three ARIA categories in 2014: Best Group, Best Urban Album, and Engineer of the Year. In an October 2014 radio interview, Smith said that the band does not expect to win an award, but wishes the best for the winners; however, the Best Urban Album award was given to the band on 26 November 2014, providing the band with their seventh ARIA award. As from November 2020 they have won ten awards from thirty-six nominations.
!
|-
| rowspan="5" | 2006 || rowspan="3" | The Hard Road || Best Independent Release || ||rowspan="5"|
|-
| Best Urban Album ||
|-
| Breakthrough Artist – Album ||
|-
| "Clown Prince" || Breakthrough Artist – Single ||
|-
| The Calling Live || Best Music DVD ||
|-
| rowspan="3" | 2007 || rowspan="2" | The Hard Road: Restrung || Best Independent Release || ||rowspan="3"|
|-
| Best Urban Album ||
|-
| The Hard Road: Restrung – John Engelhardt || Best Cover Art ||
|-
| 2008 || The City of Light || Best Music DVD || ||
|-
| rowspan="6" | 2009 || rowspan="3" | State of the Art || Highest Selling Album || || rowspan="6"|
|-
| Best Urban Album ||
|-
| Best Group ||
|-
| "Chase That Feeling" || Single of the Year ||
|-
| State of the Art – Suffa || Producer of the Year ||
|-
| State of the Art – DJ Debris || Engineer of the Year ||
|-
| rowspan="5" | 2012 || rowspan="2" | Drinking from the Sun || Best Group || || rowspan="5"|
|-
| Best Urban Album ||
|-
| "I Love It" (featuring Sia) || Song of the Year ||
|-
| "I Love It" (featuring Sia) – Animal Logic || Best Video ||
|-
| Drinking From The Sun || Best Australian Live Act ||
|-
| rowspan="3" | 2014 || rowspan="3" | Walking Under Stars || Engineer of the Year || || rowspan="3"|
|-
| Best Urban Album ||
|-
| Best Group ||
|-
| 2015 || Cosby Sweater Australian Tour || Best Australian Live Act || ||
|-
| rowspan="3" | 2016 || rowspan="2" | "1955" || Song of the Year || ||rowspan="3"|
|-
| Best Video ||
|-
| The Restrung Tour || Best Australian Live Act ||
|-
| 2018 || "Clark Griswold" (featuring Adrian Eagle) || Best Urban Release || ||
|-
| rowspan="7" | 2019 || rowspan="3" | The Great Expanse || Album of the Year || ||rowspan="7"|
|-
| Best Group ||
|-
| Best Hip Hop Release ||
|-
| "Leave Me Lonely" || Song of the Year ||
|-
| "Exit Sign" (featuring Illy and Ecca Vandal) || Best Video ||
|-
| The Great Expanse World Tour || Best Australian Live Act ||
|-
| Plutonic Lab for Hilltop Hoods' The Great Expanse || Engineer of the Year ||
|-
| 2020 || "Exit Sign" (featuring Illy and Ecca Vandal) || Song of the Year || ||
|-
Fowler's Live Music Awards
The Fowler's Live Music Awards took place from 2012 to 2014 to "recognise success and achievement over the past 12 months [and] celebrate the great diversity of original live music" in South Australia. Since 2015 they're known as the South Australian Music Awards.
|-
| 2012
| Hilltop Hoods
| Best Hip Hop Artist
|
|-
J Awards
The J Awards are an annual series of Australian music awards that were established by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's youth-focused radio station Triple J. They commenced in 2005.
|-
| J Awards of 2014
| Walking Under Stars| Australian Album of the Year
|
|-
| J Awards of 2019
| A Great Expanse| Australian Album of the Year
|
|-
National Live Music Awards
The National Live Music Awards (NLMAs) are a broad recognition of Australia's diverse live industry, celebrating the success of the Australian live scene. The awards commenced in 2016.
|-
| National Live Music Awards of 2019
| Hilltop Hoods
| Live Hip Hop Act of the Year
|
|-
Other projects
Hilltop Hoods Initiative
In 2005 the annual "Hilltop Hoods Initiative" was established in association with Arts SA, made possible by a donation from the Hilltop Hoods. Valued at A$10,000 (originally $3000), the Hilltop Hoods initiative helped young and emerging South Australian hip-hop artists to manufacture and distribute a CD. The initiative also included two mentorship sessions with Hilltop Hoods' former manager, PJ Murton. It acknowledges the important role South Australian government assistance played in the development of the careers of the Hilltop Hoods. In 2009, the initiative became a national grant available to entry for any emerging Australian hip-hop artist who have not issued a professional album.
In a Hilltop Hoods newsletter, released on 4 December 2012, the group communicated the following announcement:
In 2013 The Hilltop Hoods and APRA are teaming up again to give a career changing $10K to the most impressive emerging Hip Hop/Soul act in Australia. Aimed at helping fund the manufacturing and marketing of an album release, the grant is open to any act who hasn't yet released anything professionally. Applications will open in early 2013 along with details on how to enter.
Recipients are:
General Knowledge, a three-piece group (2006)
Subsketch, a solo artist (2007)
Jimblah, a solo artist (2008)
K21, a solo artist (2009)
1/6, a solo artist (2010)
Koolta, a solo artist (2011)
Run for Your Life, a musical collective (2012)
Chelsea Jane (2013), Gold Coast, Queensland artist
I AM D (2014), Brisbane, Queensland solo artist
Sarah Connor, a solo artist (2015)
Astro Travellers, a seven-piece group (2016)
MC Sinks, a solo artist from Melbourne, Victoria. (2017).
Hilltop Hoods Remix Shoe
The Hilltop Hoods and DC Shoes collaborated on the production of a limited-edition shoe called "The Hilltop Hoods Remix Shoe"—it was released in stores on 1 February 2008. They are the first Australian music group to design and release their own signature-model shoe. Illustration and Design by John Engelhardt injected its unique style
Golden Era Records
Following its departure from the Obese record label, the group launched its own label in 2009, entitled Golden Era Records. The label's title is described by the band on the label website:
To some people the golden era of Hip Hop was '94. Ask someone a little older and they’ll tell you Hip Hop’s renaissance was back in '88. Ask one of our revered pioneers and they’ll tell you that the golden era came and went three decades ago, before most of today’s Hip Hop heads were born. Whatever the case these so-called golden eras weren’t only defined by the music or the fashion – they were characterised by something less tangible – an atmosphere, a movement.
This label wasn’t established to release throw-back records; instead we hope to make music that throws you back to the way you felt during the golden era of Hip Hop.
Whatever year that was for you.
The label is based in Stirling, South Australia, and, as of December 2012, its roster consists of the Hilltop Hoods, Briggs, Funkoars, Vents, Adfu, K21, and most recently, Shadow
In January 2012, Fontana, an independent marketing, sales and distribution company under the Universal Music Group umbrella, signed an exclusive agreement with Golden Era Records for the American release of Drinking From The Sun, as well as back catalogue titles.
Charity
The CanTeen youth cancer charity announced that the 2-CD fundraising album Australian Hip Hop Supports CanTeen had raised over AU$122,000 as of 15 October 2014. Released in late 2013, the album features contributions from Hilltop Hoods, as well as numerous other Australian hip-hop artists. The initiative was originally conceived of by Robert Hunter, an MC who rapped under the name "Hunter" (SBX), who died from cancer prior to the release of the album.
Through the Dark interactive film
On 11 November 2016 Hilltop Hoods released an interactive film called Through the Dark, which featured their song of the same name. The interactive film project was a collaboration with Google Play Music and was directed by Mike Daly.
Members
Current members
Suffa (Matthew David Lambert) – vocals, engineering, mixing, producing (1991–present)
Pressure (Daniel Howe Smith) – vocals (1991–present)
DJ Debris (Barry John M Francis) – producing, engineering, turntablism (1999–present)
Former members
DJ Next (Ben John Hare) – audio engineering, DJing, turntablism, scratching (1991–1999)
MC Summit aka DJ Sum-1 – vocals (ca. 1996)
DiscographyA Matter of Time (1999)Left Foot, Right Foot (2001)The Calling (2003)The Hard Road (2006)State of the Art (2009)Drinking from the Sun (2012)Walking Under Stars (2014)The Great Expanse'' (2019)
See also
Adelaide Arts and Entertainment
Adelaide Hills
List of Australian hip hop musicians
Music of Australia
Notes
References
External links
Australian hip hop groups
1991 establishments in Australia
APRA Award winners
ARIA Award winners
Golden Era Records artists
Musical groups established in 1991
Musical groups from Adelaide
Obese Records artists
| false |
[
"The Good NetKeeping Seal of Approval or GNKSA is a designation that indicates a piece of Usenet newsreader (client) software meets a set of usability and formatting standards. The name is a play on the \"Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval\", a set of consumer reports issued by Good Housekeeping Magazine.\n\nThe original GNKSA author thought that many newbies to Usenet posted malformed or inappropriately-sent articles because their software did not encourage better netiquette. For instance, software which made it easy to confuse replying to a sender by email with posting a followup to a newsgroup led to users mistakenly publishing what was intended to be a private response, or vice versa.\n\nSome of the guidelines from GNKSA 2.0 \n\nThe user can see the essential header fields, including \"Newsgroups\" and \"Followup-To\".\nThe user can edit all header fields when composing a follow up.\nThere is a clear difference between 'followup' and 'reply'.\nFollowups preserve the Subject and References of the original article, unless the user explicitly changes them.\nNews software respects \"Followup-To\" and \"Reply-To\" specifications.\nWhat the user writes is what gets posted, as is.\n\nAdditional requirements concern accurate From: headers, signature block formatting, and the ability to cancel and supersede articles.\n\nFurther reading \n — version 1.2 of the GNKSA\n — version 2.0 of the GNKSA\n — a proposal for a similar Good Net-Keeping Seal of Approval for Mail User Agents\n\nExternal links\n Official website (site dead, [https://web.archive.org/web/20160417105503/http://www.gnksa.org/gnksa.txt last archived version of the GNKSA rules)\n\nUsenet clients",
"The Queen's Own Highlanders (Seaforth and Camerons), officially abbreviated \"QO HLDRS,\" was an infantry regiment of the British Army, part of the Scottish Division. It was in existence from 1961 to 1994.\n\nHistory\n\n1961–1970\nThe regiment was formed on 7 February 1961 at Redford Barracks, Edinburgh, with the amalgamation of 1st Battalion, Seaforth Highlanders and 1st Battalion, Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders to form the 1st Battalion, Queen's Own Highlanders. This was a part of the defence reforms originally announced in the 1957 Defence White Paper, which saw a reduction in the size of the British Army to reflect the end of National Service.\n\nThe battalion was sent to Singapore in April 1961 from where it was deployed to Brunei in December 1962 in order to help suppress the Brunei Revolt at an early stage of the Indonesia–Malaysia confrontation. This included a successful air assault on the rebel–held Shell oilfields at Seria, with the airfield quickly recaptured and 48 hostages released. Returning to Singapore in February 1962, the battalion went back to Borneo three months later for a further operational tour, mainly consisting of long patrols and manning outlying garrisons on the border with Indonesia.\n\nOn return to Scotland in January 1964, the battalion was based at Milton Bridge Camp, a former facility for German Prisoners of War, located south east of Glencorse Barracks. In June 1964 the battalion moved to Mercer Barracks at Osnabrück Garrison, part of British Army of the Rhine, remaining there until August 1966 when it moved to Wavell Barracks in Berlin. The battalion returned to Redford Barracks in September 1968 from where units were deployed to Sharjah on the Persian Gulf in May 1969, while in July 1970 it undertook ceremonial duties at that year's Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh.\n\n1971–1982\nIn April 1971 the battalion returned to Osnabrück Garrison, from where they were deployed for a total of three separate four–month operational tours at the height of the Troubles in Northern Ireland: November 1971 – March 1972 (East Belfast); July – October 1972: (Dungannon) and December 1973 – April 1974 (West Belfast). In June 1976 the battalion returned to Scotland, this time to Ritchie Camp, West Lothian, from where parts of the battalion were deployed to Belize, Gibraltar and twice to Northern Ireland, April – August 1978 (North Armagh) and July – December 1979 (South Armagh). During this tour, the battalion's commanding officer, Lieutenant-Colonel David Blair, was killed by one of two roadside bombs that took the lives of a total of eighteen soldiers at Warrenpoint, County Down. A total of seven Queen's Own Highlanders were killed in Northern Ireland between 1973 and 1990.\n\nIn March 1980 the battalion was despatched for a tour at Stanley Fort in Hong Kong before moving to Tidworth in November 1981. In spite of it then being the Army's Spearhead battalion – kept in readiness for rapid deployment worldwide – it did not take part in the Falklands War that commenced in April 1982. It was, however, stationed in the Falkland Islands immediately after the war, from July – December 1982, and led the operation to restore normality on the islands. This work resulted in the award to the regiment of the Wilkinson Sword of Peace, bestowed annually on the unit of the British Armed Forces that has made the greatest contribution to community relations.\n\n1983–1994\nIn November 1983, the battalion moved to Alexander Barracks, Aldergrove, as the Northern Ireland resident battalion, and on to Fort George in November 1985. In March 1988 the battalion moved to Buller Barracks in Münster, Germany, from where units were again deployed to Northern Ireland for five months from March 1990 (Belfast) and to Saudi Arabia in January 1991, where they took part in the Gulf War. In the Gulf, the battalion was split up to support other units, including attachments to the 1st Royal Scots and 3rd Royal Regiment of Fusiliers (3RRF) to bring these units up to strength. Three Queen's Own Highlanders serving with 3 RRF were among eleven soldiers killed in a friendly fire incident, when two US A-10 aircraft mistakenly bombed a UK armoured column. After the war, the battalion returned to Münster with a further six month deployment to Northern Ireland (Belfast) from November 1992. The battalion returned to Scotland in October 1993 and moved into Dreghorn Barracks, near Edinburgh.\n\nDue to the Options for Change defence review the battalion was amalgamated with 1st Battalion, Gordon Highlanders on 17 September 1994 to form 1st Battalion, Highlanders (Seaforth, Gordons and Camerons). There was a high–profile, although ultimately unsuccessful, campaign to stop the proposed amalgamation.\n\nTerritorial Army and Cadet Force\nAfter the formation of the Queen's Own Highlanders in February 1961, the part–time Territorial Army units of the pre-amalgamation regiments continued unchanged, with the 11th battalion, Seaforth Highlanders (TA) and the 4/5 battalion Cameron Highlanders (TA). In April 1967 both were disbanded on the formation of the 3rd (Territorial) battalion, Queen's Own Highlanders, which was itself disbanded in March 1969. From then on, the part–time element of all Highland regiments were included within the 51st Highland Volunteers.\n\nThe Army Cadet Force (ACF) units in the northern counties of Scotland retained the designation and cap badges of the Seaforth and Cameron Highlanders until 1968, when they became the North Highland ACF and adopted the Queen's Own Highlanders badge. In 1975 they became the 1st Cadet Battalion Queen's Own Highlanders ACF and, in April 1982, the Queen's Own Highlanders Battalion ACF. In September 1999 the battalion was re-badged under the Highlanders (Seaforth, Gordons and Camerons) and renamed to 1st Battalion The Highlanders, Army Cadet Force.\n\nRegimental museum\nThe Highlanders' Museum (Queen's Own Highlanders Collection) is based at Fort George, near Inverness, Scotland.\n\nTartans\nThe regiment wore the Mackenzie tartan kilt (as worn by the former Seaforth Highlanders) and Cameron of Erracht tartan trews, with the reverse for pipers, drummers and band members.\n\nColonel-in-Chief\n1961–1994: F.M. The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, KG, KT, OM, GBE, AC, QSO\n\nRegimental Colonels\nColonels of the regiment were:\n1961–1966: F.M. Sir Archibald James Halkett Cassels, GCB, KBE, DSO (ex Seaforth Highlanders)\n1966–1975: Gen. Sir Peter Mervyn Hunt, GCB, DSO, OBE, ADC\n1975–1983: Lt-Gen. Sir Chandos Blair, KCVO, OBE, MC \n1983–1994: Maj-Gen. John Charles Oswald Rooke Hopkinson, CB \n1994: amalgamated with The Gordon Highlanders to form The Highlanders (Seaforth, Gordons and Camerons)\n\nAllied regiments\nThe regiment had the following alliances:\n - The Cameron Highlanders of Ottawa (Duke of Edinburgh's Own)\n - The Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders of Canada\n - The Seaforth Highlanders of Canada\n - The Royal Western Australia Regiment\n - The Royal South Australia Regiment\n - 4th (Otago and Southland) Battalion, The Royal New Zealand Infantry Regiment\n - 7th (Wellington and Hawkes Bay) Battalion, The Royal New Zealand Infantry Regiment\n\nReferences\n\nFurther reading\n Regimental H.Q., Queen's Own Highlanders. Queen's Own Highlanders: A Short History. Inverness: Highland Printers, 1961.\n Regimental H.Q., Queen's Own Highlanders. Queen's Own Highlanders 1961–1971. Inverness: A. Learmonth & Son, 1971.\n Lieutenant Colonel Fairrie, Angus. \"Cuidich'n Righ\": A History of the Queen's Own Highlanders (Seaforth and Camerons). Inverness: Regimental H.Q., Queen's Own Highlanders, 1983.\n Trevor Royle. Queen's Own Highlanders: A Concise History. Edinburgh: Mainstream Publishing, 2007. ().\n\nExternal links\nQueen's Own Highlanders Association\nQueen's Own Highlanders Regimental Association (Strathclyde Branch)\nThe Highlanders Museum (Queen's Own Highlanders Collection)\n\nInfantry regiments of the British Army\nHighland regiments\nMilitary of Scotland"
] |
[
"Hilltop Hoods",
"1987-2001: Formation and early years",
"How was the group formed?",
"In 1991 they joined up with DJ Next (Ben John Hare) through a mutual friend and formed an Australian hip hop group.",
"What was their first recording?",
"Hilltop Hoods recorded a demo, Highlanders, which was released on cassette tape only.",
"Did Highlanders get written about in yhe music press?",
"I don't know.",
"What was the followup to Highlanders?",
"Hilltop Hoods founded the Certified Wise Crew - a hip hop collaborative - with local groups Terra Firma, Cross Bred Mongrels and After Hours."
] |
C_e52eb25f24074bb2947bf6fb1e5b05d7_1
|
Did the Certified Wise Crew have any notable live performances together?
| 5 |
Did the Certified Wise Crew have any notable live performances together?
|
Hilltop Hoods
|
Two of Hilltop Hoods' founders first met in 1987 when MC Suffa (aka Matthew David Lambert) and MC Pressure (Daniel Howe Smith) attended Blackwood High School in Eden Hills - a suburb of Adelaide. In 1991 they joined up with DJ Next (Ben John Hare) through a mutual friend and formed an Australian hip hop group. Their name was supplied by fellow local MC Flak (from Cross Bred Mongrels) - the suburb of Blackwood is known by locals as the Hilltop. The band's influences include American hip hop artists: Notorious B.I.G., KRS-One, Gang Starr, Wu-Tang Clan and Public Enemy. At live shows Next was the group's DJ, for recording he contributed audio engineering and all the scratching/turntablism on their early works. He regularly competed in the local DMC World DJ Championships (DMC) tournaments, winning the South Australian DMC championships multiple times. Hilltop Hoods recorded a demo, Highlanders, which was released on cassette tape only. As well as Pressure and Suffa on vocals, the group included MC Summit aka DJ Sum-1, but he did not appear on later Hilltop Hoods work. The group's first official release, in 1997, was a vinyl-only, seven-track extended play, Back Once Again. Production was handled by DJ Debris (Barry John M Francis), turntablism and audio engineering by Next, vocals by Pressure and Suffa. The third track, "Shades of Grey", features Debris with a verse, and was co-written by Francis, Hare, Lambert and Smith. Fifth track, "Mankind Must Suffa" also features a guest verse from Quromystix (aka Quro, Andrew Michael Bradley) - a member of Finger Lickin' Good and later the Fuglemen. "Mankind Must Suffa" is credited to Lambert, Smith, Francis and Bradley. Back Once Again is out of print and unavailable for retail purchase. The group's debut studio album, A Matter of Time, was released in 1999 on CD only. As with Back Once Again, it is now unavailable for retail purchase. All scratching/turntablism is performed by Next, a track, "Let Me Show You", has no vocals - solely showcasing his turntable skills. American MC Bukue One (Tion Torrence) appears for a guest verse on "Deaf Can Hear". The track is credited to Lambert, Smith, Francis, Hare and Torrence. The album was released independently but with financial assistance from Arts SA - the band were inspired, in 2005, to set up their own Hilltop Hoods Initiative, to help local artists. After the album appeared, Next left the group and moved to Melbourne. In 2004 he moved to London. In 1999 Debris, who was also a member of the Cross Bred Mongrels, replaced Next and became the Hilltop Hoods' full-time DJ. Hilltop Hoods founded the Certified Wise Crew - a hip hop collaborative - with local groups Terra Firma, Cross Bred Mongrels and After Hours. Certified Wise Crew has since expanded to include MCs Trauma, Blockade, Kolaps, Flea, with Vents and Funkoars joining in later years. Hilltop Hoods received two nominations for the Hip Hop Act of the Year Award at the Australian Dance Music Awards and again at the 3D World Music Awards in 2001 and 2002. In 2001 the group's second album, Left Foot, Right Foot, was released with Lambert, Francis and M. Veraquth producing. CANNOTANSWER
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Certified Wise Crew has since expanded to include MCs Trauma, Blockade, Kolaps, Flea, with Vents and Funkoars joining in later years.
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Hilltop Hoods are an Australian hip hop group that formed in 1991 in Blackwood, Adelaide, South Australia. They are regarded as pioneers of the "larrikin-like" style of Australian hip hop. The group was founded by Suffa (Matthew David Lambert) and Pressure (Daniel Howe Smith), who were joined by DJ Debris (Barry John M. Francis) after fellow founder, DJ Next (Ben John Hare), left in 1999. The group released its first extended play, Back Once Again, in 1997 and have subsequently released eight studio albums, two "restrung" albums and three DVDs.
Six of their eight albums have peaked at number one on the Australian Record Industry Association (ARIA) Albums Charts, recently setting the record for most No. 1 Albums by an Australian band or group: The Hard Road (2006), State of the Art (2009), Drinking from the Sun (2012), Walking Under Stars (2014), Drinking from the Sun, Walking Under Stars Restrung (2016) and The Great Expanse (2019). Three tracks have reached the top 10 on the ARIA Singles Chart—"Chase That Feeling" (2009), "I Love It", featuring Sia (2011) and "Higher", featuring James Chatburn (2015) — while a further two tracks — "Cosby Sweater" (2014) and "1955" (2016) — reached the top 5. "1955", featuring Montaigne & Tom Thum, peaked at number 2 in the Australian charts.
Hilltop Hoods have toured both in Australia and overseas, including playing at music festivals: T in the Park, Oxegen, the Big Day Out, Clipsal 500, Southbound, The Great Escape, Splendour in the Grass, Bassinthegrass, Groovin' The Moo, Falls Festival, Pyramid Rock Festival, Rollercoaster, Come Together Festival and Make Poverty History.
The band are one of the most recurrent artists in the history of the Triple J Hottest 100, with 21 songs voted into the annual countdowns since their first appearance in 2003. At the ARIA Music Awards of 2006 they won "Best Independent Release" and "Best Urban Album" for The Hard Road. In 2007, they won "Best Urban Album" for their remix album, The Hard Road: Restrung (2007). They won the same category in 2009 for State of the Art and in 2012 for Drinking from the Sun. In 2009, Debris also won "Engineer of the Year" for his work on State of the Art. The band received their seventh ARIA award in 2014 when Walking Under Stars won in the Best Urban Album category at the 28th ARIA Awards.
History
1987–2001: Formation and early years
Two of Hilltop Hoods' founders first met in 1987 when MC Suffa (aka Matthew David Lambert) and Pressure (Daniel Howe Smith) attended Blackwood High School in Eden Hills – a suburb of Adelaide. In 1991 they joined up with DJ Next (Ben John Hare) through a mutual friend and formed an Australian hip hop group. Their name was supplied by fellow local MC Flak (from Cross Bred Mongrels) – the suburb of Blackwood is known by locals as the Hilltop. The band's influences include American hip hop artists: Notorious B.I.G., KRS-One, Gang Starr, Wu-Tang Clan and Public Enemy.
At live shows DJ Next was the group's DJ, for recording he contributed audio engineering and all the scratching/turntablism on their early works. He regularly competed in the local DMC World DJ Championships (DMC) tournaments, winning the South Australian DMC championships multiple times. Hilltop Hoods recorded a demo, Highlanders, which was released on cassette tape only. As well as Pressure and Suffa on vocals, the group included MC Summit aka DJ Sum-1, but he did not appear on later Hilltop Hoods work.
The group's first official release, in 1997, was a vinyl-only, seven-track extended play, Back Once Again. Production was handled by DJ Debris (Barry John M Francis), turntablism and audio engineering by DJ Next, vocals by Pressure and Suffa. The third track, "Shades of Grey", features Debris with a verse, and was co-written by Francis, Hare, Lambert and Smith. Fifth track, "Mankind Must Suffa" also features a guest verse from Quromystix (aka Quro, Andrew Michael Bradley) – a member of Finger Lickin' Good and later the Fuglemen. "Mankind Must Suffa" is credited to Lambert, Smith, Francis and Bradley. Back Once Again is out of print and unavailable for retail purchase.
The group's debut studio album, A Matter of Time, was released in 1999 on CD only. As with Back Once Again, it is now unavailable for retail purchase. All scratching/turntablism is performed by DJ Next, a track, "Let Me Show You", has no vocals – solely showcasing his turntable skills. American MC Bukue One (Tion Torrence) appears for a guest verse on "Deaf Can Hear". The track is credited to Lambert, Smith, Francis, Hare and Torrence. The album was released independently but with financial assistance from Arts SA – the band were inspired, in 2005, to set up their own Hilltop Hoods Initiative, to help local artists. After the album appeared, DJ Next left the group and moved to Melbourne. In 2004 he moved to London. In 1999 Debris, who was also a member of the Cross Bred Mongrels, replaced Next and became the Hilltop Hoods' full-time DJ.
Hilltop Hoods founded the Certified Wise Crew – a hip-hop collaborative – with local groups Terra Firma, Cross Bred Mongrels and After Hours. Certified Wise Crew has since expanded to include MCs Trauma, Blockade, Kolaps, Flea, with Vents and Funkoars joining in later years. Hilltop Hoods received two nominations for the Hip Hop Act of the Year Award at the Australian Dance Music Awards and again at the 3D World Music Awards in 2001 and 2002. In 2001 the group's second album, Left Foot, Right Foot, was released with Lambert, Francis and M. Veraquth producing.
2003–2007: The Calling and The Hard Road
On 22 September 2003, Hilltop Hoods released their third album, The Calling, which became a commercial breakthrough. In an interview after the release of their fourth album, Suffa revealed that The Calling was recorded on his mother's computer and the simplicity of their 'studio' is the reason why some of the music on the album is in monaural ('mono') sound.
The Calling entered the ARIA Albums Chart in March 2004 and reached No. 53 before exiting the top 100 in September of the same year. By December 2006 it was certified platinum for shipment of 70,000 units, becoming the first Australian hip hop album to achieve platinum status. In March 2012, it re-entered the chart and peaked at No. 50 – eight-and-a-half years after its first release. It featured two singles, "The Nosebleed Section" and "Dumb Enough", which were listed in the Triple J Hottest 100, 2003. "The Nosebleed Section" was ranked No. 17 in the Triple J Hottest 100 of All Time in 2009. Hilltop Hoods' chart and commercial success was a turning point in the Australian Hip Hop scene because it demonstrated widespread support for the genre that reached beyond an underground fan base.
On 1 April 2006, the group followed with their fourth album, The Hard Road, which peaked at number one. It was the first Australian hip hop album to do so. It was certified gold within a week of being released. Its lead single, "Clown Prince", reached the top 30 on the related ARIA Singles Chart. It featured guest verses from New York rapper, Omni, and British MCs, Mystro and Braintax. The Hilltop Hoods received the inaugural Australian Independent Record (AIR) Award for Independent Artist of the Year and Best Performing Independent Album for The Hard Road in 2006. The track, "The Blue Blooded", is a collaboration with Australian MCs: Funkoars, Hau from Koolism, Mortar, Vents, Drapht, Muph & Plutonic, Pegz and Robby Balboa. On 27 April of the same year, Hilltop Hoods performed at the Bass in the Grass music festival in Darwin alongside fellow hip hop group, The Herd. That same day they issued a second single, the title track from the album. Its video includes fellow members from the Certified Wise Crew – Cross Bred Mongrels, Terrafirma and Funkoars.
Following the success of The Hard Road Tour in early 2006, the Hilltop Hoods began their second national tour for the year, The Stopping All Stations Tour, which visited more regional areas of Australia as well as the capital cities. They were supported by Koolism and Mystro. Late that year, Hilltop Hoods released their third single from the album, "What a Great Night". The video shows the group at a club with camera shots panning up and down to reveal a new location. It used special effects and is one of the most expensive video clips for an Australian hip hop group, mirroring the group's rise in success and popularity. Also late in the year the band won the J Award for best album of the year from Triple J. They performed the Homebake Festival and Falls Festival before the end of the year. The Hard Road received the AIR Award for Best Independent Hip Hop/Urban Release in 2007.
2007–2009: The Hard Road Restrung and State of the Art
On 12 May 2007, Hilltop Hoods released their next album The Hard Road: Restrung which is a remix of their previous studio album, The Hard Road, featuring the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra and Okwerdz. It peaked at No. 8 on the ARIA Albums Chart. Like its predecessor The Hard Road, it took out "Best Urban Release" at the ARIA Awards of 2007, with the group going back-to-back in the category. The lead single from the album "Recapturing the Vibe Restrung", its video clip was on high rotation on rage and jtv. That year the group performed at the Southbound Festival (WA), The Great Escape at Newington Armory over Easter, and embarked on a UK tour with a Sydney-based string quartet. They finished the year by headlining the Pyramid Rock Festival on Victoria's Phillip Island over New Year's Eve 2007. In 2008 they performed at the Big Day Out festivals, at Glastonbury Festival and Islington Academy in London. In December their DVD, The City of Light, was released and was nominated as Best Music DVD at the 2008 ARIA Awards.
Hilltop Hoods left their longtime home of Obese Records to start their own label, Golden Era Records, to release their future material. In November 2008 Pressure announced on Triple J's breakfast program that the next studio album, State of the Art, would be recorded with session musicians: "We realised with this one after doing Restrung and having an orchestra that we were a bit less limited. So we're going to have some session musos come in on this one and stuff like that". The album was released on 12 June, with the lead single, "Chase That Feeling", issued as a digital download on 8 May, and featured a return guest appearance by a quartet from the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. The album debuted at number one on the albums chart while "Chase That Feeling" peaked at No. 8 on the related singles chart. By 2010 State of the Art was certified 2× platinum for shipment of 140,000 units.
In early 2009 the Hilltop Hoods performed at the Groovin the Moo festival in Townsville, Maitland and Bendigo. They also performed at Triple J's One Night Stand in Sale, Victoria on 30 May, and at Fat as Butter festival in Newcastle on 25 October where they played several of the tracks from the album. To promote its release the band started a national tour starting on 18 July and performed at most major cities including state capitals. The second national tour that year followed on 11 November with support provided by Vents.
2010–2017: Drinking from the Sun and Walking Under Stars
On 28 July 2010, Hilltop Hoods completed work on a zombie movie, Parade of the Dead, that the group wrote, filmed, and starred in. Using the title from a State of the Art track, it was released on 22 October with the eponymous single. Filmed mostly in Adelaide, the former Adelaide Gaol was used as a "key location".
In late November 2011, the band premiered the single, "I Love It", on the Triple J breakfast show. Featuring Sia, the song peaked at No. 6 on the ARIA chart and was the lead single from their sixth album, Drinking from the Sun, which was released on 9 March 2012. During December 2011, they supported Eminem and Lil Wayne during the Australian leg of Eminem's world tour. The song has since been certified 4x Platinum by ARIA, denoting sales of more than 280,000 units.
Three music videos for "I Love It" were published online in December 2011 by DJ Debris. Three versions were commissioned by the band, involving three different directors: Nash Edgerton of Blue Tongue Films; the Animal Logic animation company; and independent Melbourne, Australia, film-maker Carl Allison.
In January 2012, the group "leaked" a song from the sixth album following the emergence of interest on their Facebook page: "Let's have some fun. If we get 5000 likes on this post we're going to leak a track off Drinking from the Sun"—they received more than 7,500 likes within 10 minutes. Surprised with the magnitude of the response, the band subsequently posted: "Wow. Give me a minute." and posted a link to a new track, "Rattling the Keys to the Kingdom", on YouTube shortly afterward. "Rattling the Keys to the Kingdom" was certified Gold by ARIA in 2018.
Drinking from the Sun became their third number-one album in Australia and also charted on the New Zealand Albums Chart top 40. In mid-April 2012, the music video for "Speaking in Tongues", the album's second single, was published online. Directed by Toby Grimes, the video features Chali 2na and graffiti murals from Brisbane, Australia, artist Sofles.
On 10 May 2012, Hilltop Hoods issued a new EP, The Good Life in the Sun, to celebrate the launch of the 'Speaking in Tongues Tour', which includes tracks from Drinking from the Sun remixed by Suffa. The post contained a link to their website where the EP can be downloaded for free. In July 2012, the video for the third single, "Shredding the Balloon", was published on the band's YouTube channel. Directed by Selina Miles of Unity Sound and Visual, the video had received nearly 1.5 million views as of 1 October 2014. The single was released on 20 July 2012.
In August 2012, Triple J uploaded video footage of the group's tribute to Beastie Boys' member, Adam "MCA" Yauch, who died in May 2012. The group selected "So What'cha Want", from Beastie Boys' album, Check Your Head.
In late September, the music video for "Rattling the Keys to the Kingdom" was published online. It featured numerous Australian hip-hop artists, including Drapht, Urthboy, Def Wish Cast, Dazastah, Layla, Maya Jupiter and Hunter. The band explained in the production notes for the video:
Not only did we want to do something unifying, we also wanted to use the platform we have to promote artists that we think deserve more exposure. Of course, not everyone involved in the filmclip needs exposure, as many of the artists involved have huge followings in their own right. But having these artists involved in the filmclip just further serves to unify and consolidate the scene ... We need to point out that this is by no means a representation of every relevant artist involved in the culture past or present. It's more a cross-section of who we have contact with, who was available and so on.
In November 2012, Hilltop Hoods performed a live show on UStream and announced that the title of the group's next album would be Walking Under Stars—this was then confirmed on the official Hilltop Hoods Twitter and Facebook pages, following their Best Urban Album win at the 2012 ARIA Awards ceremony. The band's Facebook post read:
So it’s now one year to the day since we dropped 'I Love It' and started the 'Drinking from the Sun' journey. Thanks to everyone that’s supported us over the last 12 months, it’s been amazing. We hope you join us late next year for 'Walking Under Stars'. Thankyou, Suffa, Pressure & Debris
The announcement corresponds with a sample on Drinking from the Sun that refers to a band writing with the clear intention of formulating enough material for two albums: "They were recording enough for two albums; that was premeditated." The sample appears on the track, "The Thirst Pt. 3 (Interlude)".
In April 2013, the Hilltop Hoods stated that the development of Walking Under Stars was "well underway", with the trio calling the album Drinking from the Sun "part two"—the latter received a double platinum sales certification in the same month. Additionally, American clothing company Zoo York announced a partnership with the Hilltop Hoods in April 2013, in preparation for the brand's 20th-anniversary celebrations in 2014. Lambert explained: "We've always been fans of Zoo York, they understand hip hop culture, and that's why we can’t wait to work with them."
On 21 June 2014—after the band successfully received the 20,000 likes they requested for a Facebook post—the first preview of Walking Under Stars, titled "The Art of the Handshake", was uploaded to the band's SoundCloud profile—the song is the fourth on the album's track-list. Lambert revealed on 6 August that the song was inspired by the Notes to Self song "All of the Above", which reminded him of "the ridiculous handshakes" of his youth. As part of the songwriting process, Lambert spent a day researching the status of the handshake in countries such as Sweden and India.
The album's first official single, "Won't Let You Down"—featuring Irish singer Maverick Sabre—was released on 27 June 2014. Writing for the Faster Louder website, Matt Shea revealed in early August that the first single was met with a mixed reaction from existing fans of the band: "While many loved it, plenty of Hoods fans at the very least declared it a radio friendly single that had little to do with hip-hop. Others outright disliked it." Lambert explained in media interviews during the week prior to the album's release that the song was recorded at the Red Bull Studios in both London, UK and New York City, US, while the lyrical content is about the partners of the band members and the difficulties of being in a relationship with touring musicians. The single's musical content features Italian singer Zucchero Fornaciari singing a rendition of Ph.D's hit "I Won't Let You Down".
During the band's performance at the 2014 Splendour in the Grass festival, held from 25 to 27 July in Byron Bay, Australia, Lambert exclaimed to the audience prior to the song "Speaking in Tongues", from the Drinking from the Sun album:
The Hilltop Hoods do not give a fuck what race you are! The Hilltop Hoods do not give a fuck what religion you are! The Hilltop Hoods do not give a fuck what sex you are! The Hilltop Hoods do not give a fuck what sexuality you are! We are one people under the music!
Lambert explained that his announcement, a reaffirmation of the sentiment in "Speaking in Tongues", is "very important" to the band.
The band announced the release date for Walking Under Stars as 8 August 2014 in mid-July and, while the album is a Golden Era Records recording, Universal Music Australia acquired the exclusive licensing rights for the domestic market—Universal will also use the license to distribute the album in Canada, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Benelux, while Golden Era continues its partnership with Fontana for the US release. Walking Under Stars was conceived before Drinking From the Sun was written and Lambert referred to the former as "a companion piece" in an August 2014 interview. Lambert also explained that "I'm a Ghost" is four-years-old, while a segment of "Brainbox" originally appeared on the 2012 Golden Era mixtape.
Similar to the band's previous album releases, numerous collaborators appear on Walking Under Stars. Lambert explained on 5 August that "we [Hilltop Hoods] try to do it in the same room" when guest artists record and, for the seventh studio album, the band worked with Sabre, New Zealand soul singer Aaradhna, Brother Ali, Dan Sultan, Drapht, Canadian voice-over artist Dave Pettitt and One Above, the Adelaide producer who also worked on Drinking from the Sun. Lambert explained to TheMusic.com.au website that Sultan is a "gifted" artist who the band loves "as a person as well", and "it was really good to work with [Brother] Ali, who’s an artist that we admire so much."
Walking Under Stars debuted in the number-one position of the ARIA album charts during the week beginning 11 August 2014, providing the band with their fourth chart-topping album since The Hard Road in April 2006. As of 16 August 2014, the Hilltop Hoods have garnered a total of six weeks at the top of the ARIA charts from four number-one albums, three of which are Golden Era Records releases. During the promotion for a national Australian tour in late August 2014, the band revealed that a secret release will "manifest itself" in 2015 and will be the culmination of a multi-album creative project that began with Drinking From The Sun.
"Won't Let You Down" was performed live on the Australian AFL Footy Show television program on 7 August 2014, during an episode that was filmed in Adelaide. The music video for "Won't Let You Down" was published on the Hilltop Hoods YouTube channel on 19 August 2014. Directed by Richard Coburn of the Kojo production company, the video features a narrative in which manufactured pigs heads are used.
The music video for the "Cosby Sweater" single was released on the Hilltop Hoods YouTube channel while the group was engaged in the third stage of their 2014 world tour in North America. Published on 15 September, the video was again directed by Coburn and also features Golden Era artists Briggs, K21 and Trials. The single became the group's first top 5 ARIA single on 15 November 2014, during the fourth, Australian stage of the world tour, on the same date as the group's Melbourne performance at the Rod Laver Arena. "Cosby Sweater" was also performed at the 28th ARIA Awards ceremony on 26 November 2014, where the band also won the Best Urban Album award.
On 30 April 2016, Hilltop Hoods performed their final concert of the 'Drinking from the Sun, Walking Under the Stars' at Perth Arena.I
2018–present: The Great Expanse
On 13 July 2018, Hilltop Hoods released single "Clark Griswold" with Adrian Eagle, an ode to the character from the National Lampoon's Vacation movies.
On 23 November 2018, Hilltop Hoods released the single "Leave Me Lonely" and announced their forthcoming 2019 album The Great Expanse. The album, which features platinum single "Leave Me Lonely," gold selling ARIA Award-winning single "Clark Griswold" ft. Adrian Eagle, and new single "Exit Sign" ft. Illy and Ecca Vandal, was released on 22 February 2019 and debuted at No. 1 on the ARIA Albums Charts. The chart debut made it the group's sixth number one, setting a new ARIA record for most No. 1 Albums by an Australian band or group.
Touring
Hilltop Hoods have toured both in Australia and overseas, including playing at music festivals: T in the Park, Oxegen, the Big Day Out, Adelaide 500, Southbound, The Great Escape, Splendour in the Grass, Bassinthegrass, Groovin' The Moo, Falls Festival, Pyramid Rock Festival, Rollercoaster, Come Together Festival and Make Poverty History.
On 8 December 2012, the Hilltop Hoods were one of two headlines acts (the other was American band, Blondie) for the 2012 "Global Edition" of the popular Australian music, film, comedy and arts festival, Homebake.
A North American "Drinking From The Sun" tour was announced in late February 2013 and the band revealed that it would perform in American cities such as Seattle (the tour's debut location), New York and San Francisco, and the Canadian cities, Vancouver, Montreal, Calgary and Toronto; the tour was scheduled to end in Los Angeles on 9 May 2013. However, on 23 February 2013, the hip hop group announced the indefinite postponement of the entire tour due to a "serious family matter". The Hilltop Hoods were also one of the bands on the "Concerts" roster for the V8 Clipsal 500 Adelaide car racing event, held between 28 February 2013 and 3 March 2013—other Australian hip hop artists, such as Drapht and Vents, also performed at the event.
The group performed at the 2014 occurrence of the Australian festival Splendour in the Grass, performing alongside other musicians, such as Illy, Outkast, and Lily Allen. The band announced an August–September 2014 North American tour in June 2014—including dates in Vancouver and Toronto, Canada, and San Francisco, US—with Minnesota, US, artist Sims, from Doomtree.
In late August 2014, the "Cosby Sweater Australian Tour" was announced in support of the Walking Under Stars album release. The domestic tour run from October to December 2014, and the support acts were Thundamentals and K21.
Their latest national tour was in 2016. This was the "Drinking from the sun and Walking Under Stars Australian Sympthony Orchestra tour" This was the tour that followed the release of the new album which was the 2 most recent albums remastered using the orchestra.
In February 2019, the group supported Eminem's concert tour around Australia and New Zealand, performing to audiences in venues such as ANZ Stadium in Sydney and the MCG in Melbourne.
Awards and accolades
Hilltop Hoods received nominations for the 'Best Hip Hop Act' in 2001 and 2002 at the 3D World Dance Music Awards, they won the Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA) Award for 'Best Up-coming Group' as well as receiving number-one positions in independent charts all around Australia. The 2052 release The Calling achieved platinum certification from ARIA. Two tracks, "The Nosebleed Section" and "Dumb Enough", were listed in the Triple J Hottest 100, 2003, at ninth and 44th, respectively. Their lead single from The Hard Road, "Clown Prince" was released in February 2006, and became their first top 40 hit on the ARIA Singles Chart. In 2006 the group won the J Award.
On Australia Day, 2007, the Hoods claimed five spots in Triple J's Hottest 100 with "The Hard Road" reaching third place. "Clown Prince", "What a Great Night", "Stopping All Stations", and "Recapturing the Vibe" placed 23rd, 41st, 56th, and 77th respectively. The Hilltop Hoods received the most entries in the Hottest 100 that year, and were only one track off equalling the record, set by Wolfmother the previous year. In 2009 "The Nosebleed Section" was voted number 17 in the Triple J Hottest 100 of all time, the highest placed Australian song.
For the APRA Music Awards of 2010, the Hilltop Hoods won the 'Urban Work of the Year' award for "Still Standing", which was written by Francis, Lambert, Smith and Henry Lawes. The band received three nominations at the 2013 APRA Awards: 'Most Played Australian Work' for "I Love It", and two nominations in the 'Urban Work of the Year' category for "I Love It" and "Speaking in Tongues". They won Urban Work of the Year for "I Love It" (featuring Sia).
At the APRA Music Awards of 2020, Hilltop Hoods won Songwriter of the Year and Most Performed Urban Work of the Year for "Leave Me Lonely". As of 2020, The group has won six APRA Awards from 15 nominations.
In December 2020, the Hilltop Hoods were listed at number 27 in Rolling Stone Australias "50 Greatest Australian Artists of All Time" issue.
AIR Awards
The Australian Independent Record Awards (commonly known informally as AIR Awards) is an annual awards night to recognise, promote and celebrate the success of Australia's Independent Music sector.
|-
| rowspan="3" | 2006
|The Hard Road
| Best Performing Independent Album
|
|-
|"Clown Prince"
| Best Performing Independent Single
|
|-
|themselves
| Independent Artist of the Year
|
|-
| rowspan="3" | 2007
| rowspan="2" |The Hard Road Restrung
| Best Independent Album
|
|-
| Best Independent Dance/Electronic Album
|
|-
|themselves
| Independent Artist of the Year
|
|-
ARIA Awards
In 2006 Hilltop Hoods were nominated for five ARIA Awards – the first ever for an Australian hip hop group – winning in two categories: 'Best Urban Release' and 'Best Independent Release'. The following year they won 'Best Urban Release' at the ARIA Awards for The Hard Road: Restrung. The album was also nominated for 'Best Independent Release' and 'Best Cover Art' by John Engelhardt. The DVD City of Light was nominated as 'Best Music DVD' at the 2008 ARIA awards. At the 2009 ARIA Awards they won 'Best Urban Album' for a third time – for State of the Art and DJ Debris won an award for 'Engineer of the Year' for his work on that album. At the ARIA Music Awards of 2012, Hilltop Hoods won its fourth award in the 'Best Urban Album' category for Drinking from the Sun; as of November 2012, the group has won six awards from twenty nominations.
At the 2012 ARIA Awards, established Aboriginal Australian band, Yothu Yindu, was inducted into the Hall of Fame. A photograph of Suffa holding the award in the presence of the band was posted on the Hilltop Hoods' Instagram profile, accompanied by the following comment: "A memory I'll take to the grave. Meeting Yothu Yindi and having them let me hold their Hall of Fame ARIA. What a beautiful induction."
The band was nominated in three ARIA categories in 2014: Best Group, Best Urban Album, and Engineer of the Year. In an October 2014 radio interview, Smith said that the band does not expect to win an award, but wishes the best for the winners; however, the Best Urban Album award was given to the band on 26 November 2014, providing the band with their seventh ARIA award. As from November 2020 they have won ten awards from thirty-six nominations.
!
|-
| rowspan="5" | 2006 || rowspan="3" | The Hard Road || Best Independent Release || ||rowspan="5"|
|-
| Best Urban Album ||
|-
| Breakthrough Artist – Album ||
|-
| "Clown Prince" || Breakthrough Artist – Single ||
|-
| The Calling Live || Best Music DVD ||
|-
| rowspan="3" | 2007 || rowspan="2" | The Hard Road: Restrung || Best Independent Release || ||rowspan="3"|
|-
| Best Urban Album ||
|-
| The Hard Road: Restrung – John Engelhardt || Best Cover Art ||
|-
| 2008 || The City of Light || Best Music DVD || ||
|-
| rowspan="6" | 2009 || rowspan="3" | State of the Art || Highest Selling Album || || rowspan="6"|
|-
| Best Urban Album ||
|-
| Best Group ||
|-
| "Chase That Feeling" || Single of the Year ||
|-
| State of the Art – Suffa || Producer of the Year ||
|-
| State of the Art – DJ Debris || Engineer of the Year ||
|-
| rowspan="5" | 2012 || rowspan="2" | Drinking from the Sun || Best Group || || rowspan="5"|
|-
| Best Urban Album ||
|-
| "I Love It" (featuring Sia) || Song of the Year ||
|-
| "I Love It" (featuring Sia) – Animal Logic || Best Video ||
|-
| Drinking From The Sun || Best Australian Live Act ||
|-
| rowspan="3" | 2014 || rowspan="3" | Walking Under Stars || Engineer of the Year || || rowspan="3"|
|-
| Best Urban Album ||
|-
| Best Group ||
|-
| 2015 || Cosby Sweater Australian Tour || Best Australian Live Act || ||
|-
| rowspan="3" | 2016 || rowspan="2" | "1955" || Song of the Year || ||rowspan="3"|
|-
| Best Video ||
|-
| The Restrung Tour || Best Australian Live Act ||
|-
| 2018 || "Clark Griswold" (featuring Adrian Eagle) || Best Urban Release || ||
|-
| rowspan="7" | 2019 || rowspan="3" | The Great Expanse || Album of the Year || ||rowspan="7"|
|-
| Best Group ||
|-
| Best Hip Hop Release ||
|-
| "Leave Me Lonely" || Song of the Year ||
|-
| "Exit Sign" (featuring Illy and Ecca Vandal) || Best Video ||
|-
| The Great Expanse World Tour || Best Australian Live Act ||
|-
| Plutonic Lab for Hilltop Hoods' The Great Expanse || Engineer of the Year ||
|-
| 2020 || "Exit Sign" (featuring Illy and Ecca Vandal) || Song of the Year || ||
|-
Fowler's Live Music Awards
The Fowler's Live Music Awards took place from 2012 to 2014 to "recognise success and achievement over the past 12 months [and] celebrate the great diversity of original live music" in South Australia. Since 2015 they're known as the South Australian Music Awards.
|-
| 2012
| Hilltop Hoods
| Best Hip Hop Artist
|
|-
J Awards
The J Awards are an annual series of Australian music awards that were established by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's youth-focused radio station Triple J. They commenced in 2005.
|-
| J Awards of 2014
| Walking Under Stars| Australian Album of the Year
|
|-
| J Awards of 2019
| A Great Expanse| Australian Album of the Year
|
|-
National Live Music Awards
The National Live Music Awards (NLMAs) are a broad recognition of Australia's diverse live industry, celebrating the success of the Australian live scene. The awards commenced in 2016.
|-
| National Live Music Awards of 2019
| Hilltop Hoods
| Live Hip Hop Act of the Year
|
|-
Other projects
Hilltop Hoods Initiative
In 2005 the annual "Hilltop Hoods Initiative" was established in association with Arts SA, made possible by a donation from the Hilltop Hoods. Valued at A$10,000 (originally $3000), the Hilltop Hoods initiative helped young and emerging South Australian hip-hop artists to manufacture and distribute a CD. The initiative also included two mentorship sessions with Hilltop Hoods' former manager, PJ Murton. It acknowledges the important role South Australian government assistance played in the development of the careers of the Hilltop Hoods. In 2009, the initiative became a national grant available to entry for any emerging Australian hip-hop artist who have not issued a professional album.
In a Hilltop Hoods newsletter, released on 4 December 2012, the group communicated the following announcement:
In 2013 The Hilltop Hoods and APRA are teaming up again to give a career changing $10K to the most impressive emerging Hip Hop/Soul act in Australia. Aimed at helping fund the manufacturing and marketing of an album release, the grant is open to any act who hasn't yet released anything professionally. Applications will open in early 2013 along with details on how to enter.
Recipients are:
General Knowledge, a three-piece group (2006)
Subsketch, a solo artist (2007)
Jimblah, a solo artist (2008)
K21, a solo artist (2009)
1/6, a solo artist (2010)
Koolta, a solo artist (2011)
Run for Your Life, a musical collective (2012)
Chelsea Jane (2013), Gold Coast, Queensland artist
I AM D (2014), Brisbane, Queensland solo artist
Sarah Connor, a solo artist (2015)
Astro Travellers, a seven-piece group (2016)
MC Sinks, a solo artist from Melbourne, Victoria. (2017).
Hilltop Hoods Remix Shoe
The Hilltop Hoods and DC Shoes collaborated on the production of a limited-edition shoe called "The Hilltop Hoods Remix Shoe"—it was released in stores on 1 February 2008. They are the first Australian music group to design and release their own signature-model shoe. Illustration and Design by John Engelhardt injected its unique style
Golden Era Records
Following its departure from the Obese record label, the group launched its own label in 2009, entitled Golden Era Records. The label's title is described by the band on the label website:
To some people the golden era of Hip Hop was '94. Ask someone a little older and they’ll tell you Hip Hop’s renaissance was back in '88. Ask one of our revered pioneers and they’ll tell you that the golden era came and went three decades ago, before most of today’s Hip Hop heads were born. Whatever the case these so-called golden eras weren’t only defined by the music or the fashion – they were characterised by something less tangible – an atmosphere, a movement.
This label wasn’t established to release throw-back records; instead we hope to make music that throws you back to the way you felt during the golden era of Hip Hop.
Whatever year that was for you.
The label is based in Stirling, South Australia, and, as of December 2012, its roster consists of the Hilltop Hoods, Briggs, Funkoars, Vents, Adfu, K21, and most recently, Shadow
In January 2012, Fontana, an independent marketing, sales and distribution company under the Universal Music Group umbrella, signed an exclusive agreement with Golden Era Records for the American release of Drinking From The Sun, as well as back catalogue titles.
Charity
The CanTeen youth cancer charity announced that the 2-CD fundraising album Australian Hip Hop Supports CanTeen had raised over AU$122,000 as of 15 October 2014. Released in late 2013, the album features contributions from Hilltop Hoods, as well as numerous other Australian hip-hop artists. The initiative was originally conceived of by Robert Hunter, an MC who rapped under the name "Hunter" (SBX), who died from cancer prior to the release of the album.
Through the Dark interactive film
On 11 November 2016 Hilltop Hoods released an interactive film called Through the Dark, which featured their song of the same name. The interactive film project was a collaboration with Google Play Music and was directed by Mike Daly.
Members
Current members
Suffa (Matthew David Lambert) – vocals, engineering, mixing, producing (1991–present)
Pressure (Daniel Howe Smith) – vocals (1991–present)
DJ Debris (Barry John M Francis) – producing, engineering, turntablism (1999–present)
Former members
DJ Next (Ben John Hare) – audio engineering, DJing, turntablism, scratching (1991–1999)
MC Summit aka DJ Sum-1 – vocals (ca. 1996)
DiscographyA Matter of Time (1999)Left Foot, Right Foot (2001)The Calling (2003)The Hard Road (2006)State of the Art (2009)Drinking from the Sun (2012)Walking Under Stars (2014)The Great Expanse'' (2019)
See also
Adelaide Arts and Entertainment
Adelaide Hills
List of Australian hip hop musicians
Music of Australia
Notes
References
External links
Australian hip hop groups
1991 establishments in Australia
APRA Award winners
ARIA Award winners
Golden Era Records artists
Musical groups established in 1991
Musical groups from Adelaide
Obese Records artists
| true |
[
"Drew's Entertainment, also known as TUTM Entertainment, Inc., located in Greenbrook, New Jersey, is a record label company that produces sound-alike and cover versions of songs. Their music compilations have sold over 40 million copies since 1994.\n\nThe Hit Crew albums consist of cover songs; often the songs are \"tributes\" to artists, programmed around a theme to be used at a party, and theoretically allowing the host to play one album without having to create their own mix CD or act as a DJ.\n\nDrew's Entertainment has had several placements in feature films, television ads, video games, and YouTube videos.\n\nCompany history\nThey began in 1994 as Turn Up The Music, Inc. and formerly had two labels — Drew's Famous Party Music and DJ's Choice — which were consolidated under the name Drew's Famous. Song performances are usually credited to The Hit Crew, a name used by the company for their revolving group of session musicians.\n\nAwards\nSeveral releases have garnered awards.\n\nDrew’s Famous: Party Music\nRIAA Certified Gold\nRIAA Certified Platinum\n\nDrew’s Famous: Halloween Party Music\nRIAA Certified Gold\n\nDJ’s Choice: Kid Fun – Games, Songs & Sing-A-Longs\nRIAA Certified Gold\n\nDrew’s Famous: Ultimate Halloween Party Favorites\nSung by The Hit Crew, reached number 62 on Billboard 200 November 13, 2010.\n\nDrew’s Famous: Ultimate Halloween Party Favorites\nSung by The Hit Crew, reached number 163 on The Billboard 200 October 30, 2010.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n DrewsEnt — official site\n Drews Entertainment Catalog Search\n \n\nAmerican record labels\nCompanies based in Middlesex County, New Jersey\nEdison, New Jersey\nSound-alike musical groups",
"\"And Then We Dance\" is the debut single by season four winners of Australia's Got Talent, Justice Crew. It was written and produced by Darhyl Camper, Nicholas \"RAS\" Furlong and Jordan \"Infinity\" Suecof. The song was released digitally on 27 August 2010. \"And Then We Dance\" peaked at number 26 on the ARIA Singles Chart and was certified platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA). An accompanying music video was directed by Marc Furmie, and features Justice Crew performing several types of dance routines in an underground parking lot.\n\nBackground and release\nOn 12 August 2010, it was announced that Justice Crew had signed a recording contract with Sony Music Australia. Emmanuel Rodriguez, a member of the group said: \"Sony asked if any of us could sing and we showed them what we could do. A week later, we were in the recording studio.\" \"And Then We Dance\" was written and produced by Darhyl Camper, Nicholas \"RAS\" Furlong and Jordan Seucof. A preview of the song was released on YouTube on 16 August, and the single cover was revealed on 20 August. \"And Then We Dance\" was sent to Australian contemporary hit radio on 23 August, and was released digitally on 27 August. The Compact Disc single was also released the same date.\n\nChart performance\nOn 13 September 2010, \"And Then We Dance\" debuted at number 46 on the ARIA Singles Chart, and peaked at number 26 on 11 October. The song was certified platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA), for selling 70,000 copies.\n\nMusic video and live performances\nThe music video for the song was directed by Marc Furmie and was filmed in a parking lot near the Acer Arena in Sydney. The video premiered online on 27 August 2010. Throughout the video, it shows Justice Crew in an underground parking lot performing several types of dance routines, including b-boying and krumping, as well as backflips. During most scenes in the video, they are seen dressed in the colours of maroon, white and navy blue.\n\nIn August 2010, Justice Crew performed \"And Then We Dance\" on Sunrise. They also held an instore performance of the song at the Sanity music store in Westfield Hurstville on 7 September . On 27 September, Justice Crew performed the song on The X Factor (Australia), and at the 2010 NRL Grand Final on 3 October. Justice Crew held more instore performances of \"And Then We Dance\" at the Richmond Records store in Windsor, New South Wales on 16 October, and at Westfield Liverpool on 28 October 2010.\n\nTrack listing\nDigital download\n \"And Then We Dance\" – 3:00\n\nPersonnel\nTom Coyne – mastering engineer\nJustice Crew – vocals\nDamien Lewis – mastering engineer\nDarhyl Camper – production, writing\nNicholas \"RAS\" Furlong – production, writing\nPhil Tan – mixing engineer\nJordan\"Infinity\"Suecof – production, writing\nSource:\n\nCharts and certification\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nCertification\n\nReferences\n\n2010 songs\n2010 debut singles\nJustice Crew songs\nElectropop songs\nSony Music Australia singles\nSongs written by Infinity (producer)\nSongs written by Darhyl Camper\nSongs written by Nicholas Furlong (musician)"
] |
[
"Hilltop Hoods",
"1987-2001: Formation and early years",
"How was the group formed?",
"In 1991 they joined up with DJ Next (Ben John Hare) through a mutual friend and formed an Australian hip hop group.",
"What was their first recording?",
"Hilltop Hoods recorded a demo, Highlanders, which was released on cassette tape only.",
"Did Highlanders get written about in yhe music press?",
"I don't know.",
"What was the followup to Highlanders?",
"Hilltop Hoods founded the Certified Wise Crew - a hip hop collaborative - with local groups Terra Firma, Cross Bred Mongrels and After Hours.",
"Did the Certified Wise Crew have any notable live performances together?",
"Certified Wise Crew has since expanded to include MCs Trauma, Blockade, Kolaps, Flea, with Vents and Funkoars joining in later years."
] |
C_e52eb25f24074bb2947bf6fb1e5b05d7_1
|
What other recordings did they release in their early years?
| 6 |
Other than Highlanders, what other recordings did Hilltop Hoods release in their early years?
|
Hilltop Hoods
|
Two of Hilltop Hoods' founders first met in 1987 when MC Suffa (aka Matthew David Lambert) and MC Pressure (Daniel Howe Smith) attended Blackwood High School in Eden Hills - a suburb of Adelaide. In 1991 they joined up with DJ Next (Ben John Hare) through a mutual friend and formed an Australian hip hop group. Their name was supplied by fellow local MC Flak (from Cross Bred Mongrels) - the suburb of Blackwood is known by locals as the Hilltop. The band's influences include American hip hop artists: Notorious B.I.G., KRS-One, Gang Starr, Wu-Tang Clan and Public Enemy. At live shows Next was the group's DJ, for recording he contributed audio engineering and all the scratching/turntablism on their early works. He regularly competed in the local DMC World DJ Championships (DMC) tournaments, winning the South Australian DMC championships multiple times. Hilltop Hoods recorded a demo, Highlanders, which was released on cassette tape only. As well as Pressure and Suffa on vocals, the group included MC Summit aka DJ Sum-1, but he did not appear on later Hilltop Hoods work. The group's first official release, in 1997, was a vinyl-only, seven-track extended play, Back Once Again. Production was handled by DJ Debris (Barry John M Francis), turntablism and audio engineering by Next, vocals by Pressure and Suffa. The third track, "Shades of Grey", features Debris with a verse, and was co-written by Francis, Hare, Lambert and Smith. Fifth track, "Mankind Must Suffa" also features a guest verse from Quromystix (aka Quro, Andrew Michael Bradley) - a member of Finger Lickin' Good and later the Fuglemen. "Mankind Must Suffa" is credited to Lambert, Smith, Francis and Bradley. Back Once Again is out of print and unavailable for retail purchase. The group's debut studio album, A Matter of Time, was released in 1999 on CD only. As with Back Once Again, it is now unavailable for retail purchase. All scratching/turntablism is performed by Next, a track, "Let Me Show You", has no vocals - solely showcasing his turntable skills. American MC Bukue One (Tion Torrence) appears for a guest verse on "Deaf Can Hear". The track is credited to Lambert, Smith, Francis, Hare and Torrence. The album was released independently but with financial assistance from Arts SA - the band were inspired, in 2005, to set up their own Hilltop Hoods Initiative, to help local artists. After the album appeared, Next left the group and moved to Melbourne. In 2004 he moved to London. In 1999 Debris, who was also a member of the Cross Bred Mongrels, replaced Next and became the Hilltop Hoods' full-time DJ. Hilltop Hoods founded the Certified Wise Crew - a hip hop collaborative - with local groups Terra Firma, Cross Bred Mongrels and After Hours. Certified Wise Crew has since expanded to include MCs Trauma, Blockade, Kolaps, Flea, with Vents and Funkoars joining in later years. Hilltop Hoods received two nominations for the Hip Hop Act of the Year Award at the Australian Dance Music Awards and again at the 3D World Music Awards in 2001 and 2002. In 2001 the group's second album, Left Foot, Right Foot, was released with Lambert, Francis and M. Veraquth producing. CANNOTANSWER
|
In 2001 the group's second album, Left Foot, Right Foot, was released with Lambert, Francis and M. Veraquth producing.
|
Hilltop Hoods are an Australian hip hop group that formed in 1991 in Blackwood, Adelaide, South Australia. They are regarded as pioneers of the "larrikin-like" style of Australian hip hop. The group was founded by Suffa (Matthew David Lambert) and Pressure (Daniel Howe Smith), who were joined by DJ Debris (Barry John M. Francis) after fellow founder, DJ Next (Ben John Hare), left in 1999. The group released its first extended play, Back Once Again, in 1997 and have subsequently released eight studio albums, two "restrung" albums and three DVDs.
Six of their eight albums have peaked at number one on the Australian Record Industry Association (ARIA) Albums Charts, recently setting the record for most No. 1 Albums by an Australian band or group: The Hard Road (2006), State of the Art (2009), Drinking from the Sun (2012), Walking Under Stars (2014), Drinking from the Sun, Walking Under Stars Restrung (2016) and The Great Expanse (2019). Three tracks have reached the top 10 on the ARIA Singles Chart—"Chase That Feeling" (2009), "I Love It", featuring Sia (2011) and "Higher", featuring James Chatburn (2015) — while a further two tracks — "Cosby Sweater" (2014) and "1955" (2016) — reached the top 5. "1955", featuring Montaigne & Tom Thum, peaked at number 2 in the Australian charts.
Hilltop Hoods have toured both in Australia and overseas, including playing at music festivals: T in the Park, Oxegen, the Big Day Out, Clipsal 500, Southbound, The Great Escape, Splendour in the Grass, Bassinthegrass, Groovin' The Moo, Falls Festival, Pyramid Rock Festival, Rollercoaster, Come Together Festival and Make Poverty History.
The band are one of the most recurrent artists in the history of the Triple J Hottest 100, with 21 songs voted into the annual countdowns since their first appearance in 2003. At the ARIA Music Awards of 2006 they won "Best Independent Release" and "Best Urban Album" for The Hard Road. In 2007, they won "Best Urban Album" for their remix album, The Hard Road: Restrung (2007). They won the same category in 2009 for State of the Art and in 2012 for Drinking from the Sun. In 2009, Debris also won "Engineer of the Year" for his work on State of the Art. The band received their seventh ARIA award in 2014 when Walking Under Stars won in the Best Urban Album category at the 28th ARIA Awards.
History
1987–2001: Formation and early years
Two of Hilltop Hoods' founders first met in 1987 when MC Suffa (aka Matthew David Lambert) and Pressure (Daniel Howe Smith) attended Blackwood High School in Eden Hills – a suburb of Adelaide. In 1991 they joined up with DJ Next (Ben John Hare) through a mutual friend and formed an Australian hip hop group. Their name was supplied by fellow local MC Flak (from Cross Bred Mongrels) – the suburb of Blackwood is known by locals as the Hilltop. The band's influences include American hip hop artists: Notorious B.I.G., KRS-One, Gang Starr, Wu-Tang Clan and Public Enemy.
At live shows DJ Next was the group's DJ, for recording he contributed audio engineering and all the scratching/turntablism on their early works. He regularly competed in the local DMC World DJ Championships (DMC) tournaments, winning the South Australian DMC championships multiple times. Hilltop Hoods recorded a demo, Highlanders, which was released on cassette tape only. As well as Pressure and Suffa on vocals, the group included MC Summit aka DJ Sum-1, but he did not appear on later Hilltop Hoods work.
The group's first official release, in 1997, was a vinyl-only, seven-track extended play, Back Once Again. Production was handled by DJ Debris (Barry John M Francis), turntablism and audio engineering by DJ Next, vocals by Pressure and Suffa. The third track, "Shades of Grey", features Debris with a verse, and was co-written by Francis, Hare, Lambert and Smith. Fifth track, "Mankind Must Suffa" also features a guest verse from Quromystix (aka Quro, Andrew Michael Bradley) – a member of Finger Lickin' Good and later the Fuglemen. "Mankind Must Suffa" is credited to Lambert, Smith, Francis and Bradley. Back Once Again is out of print and unavailable for retail purchase.
The group's debut studio album, A Matter of Time, was released in 1999 on CD only. As with Back Once Again, it is now unavailable for retail purchase. All scratching/turntablism is performed by DJ Next, a track, "Let Me Show You", has no vocals – solely showcasing his turntable skills. American MC Bukue One (Tion Torrence) appears for a guest verse on "Deaf Can Hear". The track is credited to Lambert, Smith, Francis, Hare and Torrence. The album was released independently but with financial assistance from Arts SA – the band were inspired, in 2005, to set up their own Hilltop Hoods Initiative, to help local artists. After the album appeared, DJ Next left the group and moved to Melbourne. In 2004 he moved to London. In 1999 Debris, who was also a member of the Cross Bred Mongrels, replaced Next and became the Hilltop Hoods' full-time DJ.
Hilltop Hoods founded the Certified Wise Crew – a hip-hop collaborative – with local groups Terra Firma, Cross Bred Mongrels and After Hours. Certified Wise Crew has since expanded to include MCs Trauma, Blockade, Kolaps, Flea, with Vents and Funkoars joining in later years. Hilltop Hoods received two nominations for the Hip Hop Act of the Year Award at the Australian Dance Music Awards and again at the 3D World Music Awards in 2001 and 2002. In 2001 the group's second album, Left Foot, Right Foot, was released with Lambert, Francis and M. Veraquth producing.
2003–2007: The Calling and The Hard Road
On 22 September 2003, Hilltop Hoods released their third album, The Calling, which became a commercial breakthrough. In an interview after the release of their fourth album, Suffa revealed that The Calling was recorded on his mother's computer and the simplicity of their 'studio' is the reason why some of the music on the album is in monaural ('mono') sound.
The Calling entered the ARIA Albums Chart in March 2004 and reached No. 53 before exiting the top 100 in September of the same year. By December 2006 it was certified platinum for shipment of 70,000 units, becoming the first Australian hip hop album to achieve platinum status. In March 2012, it re-entered the chart and peaked at No. 50 – eight-and-a-half years after its first release. It featured two singles, "The Nosebleed Section" and "Dumb Enough", which were listed in the Triple J Hottest 100, 2003. "The Nosebleed Section" was ranked No. 17 in the Triple J Hottest 100 of All Time in 2009. Hilltop Hoods' chart and commercial success was a turning point in the Australian Hip Hop scene because it demonstrated widespread support for the genre that reached beyond an underground fan base.
On 1 April 2006, the group followed with their fourth album, The Hard Road, which peaked at number one. It was the first Australian hip hop album to do so. It was certified gold within a week of being released. Its lead single, "Clown Prince", reached the top 30 on the related ARIA Singles Chart. It featured guest verses from New York rapper, Omni, and British MCs, Mystro and Braintax. The Hilltop Hoods received the inaugural Australian Independent Record (AIR) Award for Independent Artist of the Year and Best Performing Independent Album for The Hard Road in 2006. The track, "The Blue Blooded", is a collaboration with Australian MCs: Funkoars, Hau from Koolism, Mortar, Vents, Drapht, Muph & Plutonic, Pegz and Robby Balboa. On 27 April of the same year, Hilltop Hoods performed at the Bass in the Grass music festival in Darwin alongside fellow hip hop group, The Herd. That same day they issued a second single, the title track from the album. Its video includes fellow members from the Certified Wise Crew – Cross Bred Mongrels, Terrafirma and Funkoars.
Following the success of The Hard Road Tour in early 2006, the Hilltop Hoods began their second national tour for the year, The Stopping All Stations Tour, which visited more regional areas of Australia as well as the capital cities. They were supported by Koolism and Mystro. Late that year, Hilltop Hoods released their third single from the album, "What a Great Night". The video shows the group at a club with camera shots panning up and down to reveal a new location. It used special effects and is one of the most expensive video clips for an Australian hip hop group, mirroring the group's rise in success and popularity. Also late in the year the band won the J Award for best album of the year from Triple J. They performed the Homebake Festival and Falls Festival before the end of the year. The Hard Road received the AIR Award for Best Independent Hip Hop/Urban Release in 2007.
2007–2009: The Hard Road Restrung and State of the Art
On 12 May 2007, Hilltop Hoods released their next album The Hard Road: Restrung which is a remix of their previous studio album, The Hard Road, featuring the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra and Okwerdz. It peaked at No. 8 on the ARIA Albums Chart. Like its predecessor The Hard Road, it took out "Best Urban Release" at the ARIA Awards of 2007, with the group going back-to-back in the category. The lead single from the album "Recapturing the Vibe Restrung", its video clip was on high rotation on rage and jtv. That year the group performed at the Southbound Festival (WA), The Great Escape at Newington Armory over Easter, and embarked on a UK tour with a Sydney-based string quartet. They finished the year by headlining the Pyramid Rock Festival on Victoria's Phillip Island over New Year's Eve 2007. In 2008 they performed at the Big Day Out festivals, at Glastonbury Festival and Islington Academy in London. In December their DVD, The City of Light, was released and was nominated as Best Music DVD at the 2008 ARIA Awards.
Hilltop Hoods left their longtime home of Obese Records to start their own label, Golden Era Records, to release their future material. In November 2008 Pressure announced on Triple J's breakfast program that the next studio album, State of the Art, would be recorded with session musicians: "We realised with this one after doing Restrung and having an orchestra that we were a bit less limited. So we're going to have some session musos come in on this one and stuff like that". The album was released on 12 June, with the lead single, "Chase That Feeling", issued as a digital download on 8 May, and featured a return guest appearance by a quartet from the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. The album debuted at number one on the albums chart while "Chase That Feeling" peaked at No. 8 on the related singles chart. By 2010 State of the Art was certified 2× platinum for shipment of 140,000 units.
In early 2009 the Hilltop Hoods performed at the Groovin the Moo festival in Townsville, Maitland and Bendigo. They also performed at Triple J's One Night Stand in Sale, Victoria on 30 May, and at Fat as Butter festival in Newcastle on 25 October where they played several of the tracks from the album. To promote its release the band started a national tour starting on 18 July and performed at most major cities including state capitals. The second national tour that year followed on 11 November with support provided by Vents.
2010–2017: Drinking from the Sun and Walking Under Stars
On 28 July 2010, Hilltop Hoods completed work on a zombie movie, Parade of the Dead, that the group wrote, filmed, and starred in. Using the title from a State of the Art track, it was released on 22 October with the eponymous single. Filmed mostly in Adelaide, the former Adelaide Gaol was used as a "key location".
In late November 2011, the band premiered the single, "I Love It", on the Triple J breakfast show. Featuring Sia, the song peaked at No. 6 on the ARIA chart and was the lead single from their sixth album, Drinking from the Sun, which was released on 9 March 2012. During December 2011, they supported Eminem and Lil Wayne during the Australian leg of Eminem's world tour. The song has since been certified 4x Platinum by ARIA, denoting sales of more than 280,000 units.
Three music videos for "I Love It" were published online in December 2011 by DJ Debris. Three versions were commissioned by the band, involving three different directors: Nash Edgerton of Blue Tongue Films; the Animal Logic animation company; and independent Melbourne, Australia, film-maker Carl Allison.
In January 2012, the group "leaked" a song from the sixth album following the emergence of interest on their Facebook page: "Let's have some fun. If we get 5000 likes on this post we're going to leak a track off Drinking from the Sun"—they received more than 7,500 likes within 10 minutes. Surprised with the magnitude of the response, the band subsequently posted: "Wow. Give me a minute." and posted a link to a new track, "Rattling the Keys to the Kingdom", on YouTube shortly afterward. "Rattling the Keys to the Kingdom" was certified Gold by ARIA in 2018.
Drinking from the Sun became their third number-one album in Australia and also charted on the New Zealand Albums Chart top 40. In mid-April 2012, the music video for "Speaking in Tongues", the album's second single, was published online. Directed by Toby Grimes, the video features Chali 2na and graffiti murals from Brisbane, Australia, artist Sofles.
On 10 May 2012, Hilltop Hoods issued a new EP, The Good Life in the Sun, to celebrate the launch of the 'Speaking in Tongues Tour', which includes tracks from Drinking from the Sun remixed by Suffa. The post contained a link to their website where the EP can be downloaded for free. In July 2012, the video for the third single, "Shredding the Balloon", was published on the band's YouTube channel. Directed by Selina Miles of Unity Sound and Visual, the video had received nearly 1.5 million views as of 1 October 2014. The single was released on 20 July 2012.
In August 2012, Triple J uploaded video footage of the group's tribute to Beastie Boys' member, Adam "MCA" Yauch, who died in May 2012. The group selected "So What'cha Want", from Beastie Boys' album, Check Your Head.
In late September, the music video for "Rattling the Keys to the Kingdom" was published online. It featured numerous Australian hip-hop artists, including Drapht, Urthboy, Def Wish Cast, Dazastah, Layla, Maya Jupiter and Hunter. The band explained in the production notes for the video:
Not only did we want to do something unifying, we also wanted to use the platform we have to promote artists that we think deserve more exposure. Of course, not everyone involved in the filmclip needs exposure, as many of the artists involved have huge followings in their own right. But having these artists involved in the filmclip just further serves to unify and consolidate the scene ... We need to point out that this is by no means a representation of every relevant artist involved in the culture past or present. It's more a cross-section of who we have contact with, who was available and so on.
In November 2012, Hilltop Hoods performed a live show on UStream and announced that the title of the group's next album would be Walking Under Stars—this was then confirmed on the official Hilltop Hoods Twitter and Facebook pages, following their Best Urban Album win at the 2012 ARIA Awards ceremony. The band's Facebook post read:
So it’s now one year to the day since we dropped 'I Love It' and started the 'Drinking from the Sun' journey. Thanks to everyone that’s supported us over the last 12 months, it’s been amazing. We hope you join us late next year for 'Walking Under Stars'. Thankyou, Suffa, Pressure & Debris
The announcement corresponds with a sample on Drinking from the Sun that refers to a band writing with the clear intention of formulating enough material for two albums: "They were recording enough for two albums; that was premeditated." The sample appears on the track, "The Thirst Pt. 3 (Interlude)".
In April 2013, the Hilltop Hoods stated that the development of Walking Under Stars was "well underway", with the trio calling the album Drinking from the Sun "part two"—the latter received a double platinum sales certification in the same month. Additionally, American clothing company Zoo York announced a partnership with the Hilltop Hoods in April 2013, in preparation for the brand's 20th-anniversary celebrations in 2014. Lambert explained: "We've always been fans of Zoo York, they understand hip hop culture, and that's why we can’t wait to work with them."
On 21 June 2014—after the band successfully received the 20,000 likes they requested for a Facebook post—the first preview of Walking Under Stars, titled "The Art of the Handshake", was uploaded to the band's SoundCloud profile—the song is the fourth on the album's track-list. Lambert revealed on 6 August that the song was inspired by the Notes to Self song "All of the Above", which reminded him of "the ridiculous handshakes" of his youth. As part of the songwriting process, Lambert spent a day researching the status of the handshake in countries such as Sweden and India.
The album's first official single, "Won't Let You Down"—featuring Irish singer Maverick Sabre—was released on 27 June 2014. Writing for the Faster Louder website, Matt Shea revealed in early August that the first single was met with a mixed reaction from existing fans of the band: "While many loved it, plenty of Hoods fans at the very least declared it a radio friendly single that had little to do with hip-hop. Others outright disliked it." Lambert explained in media interviews during the week prior to the album's release that the song was recorded at the Red Bull Studios in both London, UK and New York City, US, while the lyrical content is about the partners of the band members and the difficulties of being in a relationship with touring musicians. The single's musical content features Italian singer Zucchero Fornaciari singing a rendition of Ph.D's hit "I Won't Let You Down".
During the band's performance at the 2014 Splendour in the Grass festival, held from 25 to 27 July in Byron Bay, Australia, Lambert exclaimed to the audience prior to the song "Speaking in Tongues", from the Drinking from the Sun album:
The Hilltop Hoods do not give a fuck what race you are! The Hilltop Hoods do not give a fuck what religion you are! The Hilltop Hoods do not give a fuck what sex you are! The Hilltop Hoods do not give a fuck what sexuality you are! We are one people under the music!
Lambert explained that his announcement, a reaffirmation of the sentiment in "Speaking in Tongues", is "very important" to the band.
The band announced the release date for Walking Under Stars as 8 August 2014 in mid-July and, while the album is a Golden Era Records recording, Universal Music Australia acquired the exclusive licensing rights for the domestic market—Universal will also use the license to distribute the album in Canada, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Benelux, while Golden Era continues its partnership with Fontana for the US release. Walking Under Stars was conceived before Drinking From the Sun was written and Lambert referred to the former as "a companion piece" in an August 2014 interview. Lambert also explained that "I'm a Ghost" is four-years-old, while a segment of "Brainbox" originally appeared on the 2012 Golden Era mixtape.
Similar to the band's previous album releases, numerous collaborators appear on Walking Under Stars. Lambert explained on 5 August that "we [Hilltop Hoods] try to do it in the same room" when guest artists record and, for the seventh studio album, the band worked with Sabre, New Zealand soul singer Aaradhna, Brother Ali, Dan Sultan, Drapht, Canadian voice-over artist Dave Pettitt and One Above, the Adelaide producer who also worked on Drinking from the Sun. Lambert explained to TheMusic.com.au website that Sultan is a "gifted" artist who the band loves "as a person as well", and "it was really good to work with [Brother] Ali, who’s an artist that we admire so much."
Walking Under Stars debuted in the number-one position of the ARIA album charts during the week beginning 11 August 2014, providing the band with their fourth chart-topping album since The Hard Road in April 2006. As of 16 August 2014, the Hilltop Hoods have garnered a total of six weeks at the top of the ARIA charts from four number-one albums, three of which are Golden Era Records releases. During the promotion for a national Australian tour in late August 2014, the band revealed that a secret release will "manifest itself" in 2015 and will be the culmination of a multi-album creative project that began with Drinking From The Sun.
"Won't Let You Down" was performed live on the Australian AFL Footy Show television program on 7 August 2014, during an episode that was filmed in Adelaide. The music video for "Won't Let You Down" was published on the Hilltop Hoods YouTube channel on 19 August 2014. Directed by Richard Coburn of the Kojo production company, the video features a narrative in which manufactured pigs heads are used.
The music video for the "Cosby Sweater" single was released on the Hilltop Hoods YouTube channel while the group was engaged in the third stage of their 2014 world tour in North America. Published on 15 September, the video was again directed by Coburn and also features Golden Era artists Briggs, K21 and Trials. The single became the group's first top 5 ARIA single on 15 November 2014, during the fourth, Australian stage of the world tour, on the same date as the group's Melbourne performance at the Rod Laver Arena. "Cosby Sweater" was also performed at the 28th ARIA Awards ceremony on 26 November 2014, where the band also won the Best Urban Album award.
On 30 April 2016, Hilltop Hoods performed their final concert of the 'Drinking from the Sun, Walking Under the Stars' at Perth Arena.I
2018–present: The Great Expanse
On 13 July 2018, Hilltop Hoods released single "Clark Griswold" with Adrian Eagle, an ode to the character from the National Lampoon's Vacation movies.
On 23 November 2018, Hilltop Hoods released the single "Leave Me Lonely" and announced their forthcoming 2019 album The Great Expanse. The album, which features platinum single "Leave Me Lonely," gold selling ARIA Award-winning single "Clark Griswold" ft. Adrian Eagle, and new single "Exit Sign" ft. Illy and Ecca Vandal, was released on 22 February 2019 and debuted at No. 1 on the ARIA Albums Charts. The chart debut made it the group's sixth number one, setting a new ARIA record for most No. 1 Albums by an Australian band or group.
Touring
Hilltop Hoods have toured both in Australia and overseas, including playing at music festivals: T in the Park, Oxegen, the Big Day Out, Adelaide 500, Southbound, The Great Escape, Splendour in the Grass, Bassinthegrass, Groovin' The Moo, Falls Festival, Pyramid Rock Festival, Rollercoaster, Come Together Festival and Make Poverty History.
On 8 December 2012, the Hilltop Hoods were one of two headlines acts (the other was American band, Blondie) for the 2012 "Global Edition" of the popular Australian music, film, comedy and arts festival, Homebake.
A North American "Drinking From The Sun" tour was announced in late February 2013 and the band revealed that it would perform in American cities such as Seattle (the tour's debut location), New York and San Francisco, and the Canadian cities, Vancouver, Montreal, Calgary and Toronto; the tour was scheduled to end in Los Angeles on 9 May 2013. However, on 23 February 2013, the hip hop group announced the indefinite postponement of the entire tour due to a "serious family matter". The Hilltop Hoods were also one of the bands on the "Concerts" roster for the V8 Clipsal 500 Adelaide car racing event, held between 28 February 2013 and 3 March 2013—other Australian hip hop artists, such as Drapht and Vents, also performed at the event.
The group performed at the 2014 occurrence of the Australian festival Splendour in the Grass, performing alongside other musicians, such as Illy, Outkast, and Lily Allen. The band announced an August–September 2014 North American tour in June 2014—including dates in Vancouver and Toronto, Canada, and San Francisco, US—with Minnesota, US, artist Sims, from Doomtree.
In late August 2014, the "Cosby Sweater Australian Tour" was announced in support of the Walking Under Stars album release. The domestic tour run from October to December 2014, and the support acts were Thundamentals and K21.
Their latest national tour was in 2016. This was the "Drinking from the sun and Walking Under Stars Australian Sympthony Orchestra tour" This was the tour that followed the release of the new album which was the 2 most recent albums remastered using the orchestra.
In February 2019, the group supported Eminem's concert tour around Australia and New Zealand, performing to audiences in venues such as ANZ Stadium in Sydney and the MCG in Melbourne.
Awards and accolades
Hilltop Hoods received nominations for the 'Best Hip Hop Act' in 2001 and 2002 at the 3D World Dance Music Awards, they won the Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA) Award for 'Best Up-coming Group' as well as receiving number-one positions in independent charts all around Australia. The 2052 release The Calling achieved platinum certification from ARIA. Two tracks, "The Nosebleed Section" and "Dumb Enough", were listed in the Triple J Hottest 100, 2003, at ninth and 44th, respectively. Their lead single from The Hard Road, "Clown Prince" was released in February 2006, and became their first top 40 hit on the ARIA Singles Chart. In 2006 the group won the J Award.
On Australia Day, 2007, the Hoods claimed five spots in Triple J's Hottest 100 with "The Hard Road" reaching third place. "Clown Prince", "What a Great Night", "Stopping All Stations", and "Recapturing the Vibe" placed 23rd, 41st, 56th, and 77th respectively. The Hilltop Hoods received the most entries in the Hottest 100 that year, and were only one track off equalling the record, set by Wolfmother the previous year. In 2009 "The Nosebleed Section" was voted number 17 in the Triple J Hottest 100 of all time, the highest placed Australian song.
For the APRA Music Awards of 2010, the Hilltop Hoods won the 'Urban Work of the Year' award for "Still Standing", which was written by Francis, Lambert, Smith and Henry Lawes. The band received three nominations at the 2013 APRA Awards: 'Most Played Australian Work' for "I Love It", and two nominations in the 'Urban Work of the Year' category for "I Love It" and "Speaking in Tongues". They won Urban Work of the Year for "I Love It" (featuring Sia).
At the APRA Music Awards of 2020, Hilltop Hoods won Songwriter of the Year and Most Performed Urban Work of the Year for "Leave Me Lonely". As of 2020, The group has won six APRA Awards from 15 nominations.
In December 2020, the Hilltop Hoods were listed at number 27 in Rolling Stone Australias "50 Greatest Australian Artists of All Time" issue.
AIR Awards
The Australian Independent Record Awards (commonly known informally as AIR Awards) is an annual awards night to recognise, promote and celebrate the success of Australia's Independent Music sector.
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| rowspan="3" | 2006
|The Hard Road
| Best Performing Independent Album
|
|-
|"Clown Prince"
| Best Performing Independent Single
|
|-
|themselves
| Independent Artist of the Year
|
|-
| rowspan="3" | 2007
| rowspan="2" |The Hard Road Restrung
| Best Independent Album
|
|-
| Best Independent Dance/Electronic Album
|
|-
|themselves
| Independent Artist of the Year
|
|-
ARIA Awards
In 2006 Hilltop Hoods were nominated for five ARIA Awards – the first ever for an Australian hip hop group – winning in two categories: 'Best Urban Release' and 'Best Independent Release'. The following year they won 'Best Urban Release' at the ARIA Awards for The Hard Road: Restrung. The album was also nominated for 'Best Independent Release' and 'Best Cover Art' by John Engelhardt. The DVD City of Light was nominated as 'Best Music DVD' at the 2008 ARIA awards. At the 2009 ARIA Awards they won 'Best Urban Album' for a third time – for State of the Art and DJ Debris won an award for 'Engineer of the Year' for his work on that album. At the ARIA Music Awards of 2012, Hilltop Hoods won its fourth award in the 'Best Urban Album' category for Drinking from the Sun; as of November 2012, the group has won six awards from twenty nominations.
At the 2012 ARIA Awards, established Aboriginal Australian band, Yothu Yindu, was inducted into the Hall of Fame. A photograph of Suffa holding the award in the presence of the band was posted on the Hilltop Hoods' Instagram profile, accompanied by the following comment: "A memory I'll take to the grave. Meeting Yothu Yindi and having them let me hold their Hall of Fame ARIA. What a beautiful induction."
The band was nominated in three ARIA categories in 2014: Best Group, Best Urban Album, and Engineer of the Year. In an October 2014 radio interview, Smith said that the band does not expect to win an award, but wishes the best for the winners; however, the Best Urban Album award was given to the band on 26 November 2014, providing the band with their seventh ARIA award. As from November 2020 they have won ten awards from thirty-six nominations.
!
|-
| rowspan="5" | 2006 || rowspan="3" | The Hard Road || Best Independent Release || ||rowspan="5"|
|-
| Best Urban Album ||
|-
| Breakthrough Artist – Album ||
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| "Clown Prince" || Breakthrough Artist – Single ||
|-
| The Calling Live || Best Music DVD ||
|-
| rowspan="3" | 2007 || rowspan="2" | The Hard Road: Restrung || Best Independent Release || ||rowspan="3"|
|-
| Best Urban Album ||
|-
| The Hard Road: Restrung – John Engelhardt || Best Cover Art ||
|-
| 2008 || The City of Light || Best Music DVD || ||
|-
| rowspan="6" | 2009 || rowspan="3" | State of the Art || Highest Selling Album || || rowspan="6"|
|-
| Best Urban Album ||
|-
| Best Group ||
|-
| "Chase That Feeling" || Single of the Year ||
|-
| State of the Art – Suffa || Producer of the Year ||
|-
| State of the Art – DJ Debris || Engineer of the Year ||
|-
| rowspan="5" | 2012 || rowspan="2" | Drinking from the Sun || Best Group || || rowspan="5"|
|-
| Best Urban Album ||
|-
| "I Love It" (featuring Sia) || Song of the Year ||
|-
| "I Love It" (featuring Sia) – Animal Logic || Best Video ||
|-
| Drinking From The Sun || Best Australian Live Act ||
|-
| rowspan="3" | 2014 || rowspan="3" | Walking Under Stars || Engineer of the Year || || rowspan="3"|
|-
| Best Urban Album ||
|-
| Best Group ||
|-
| 2015 || Cosby Sweater Australian Tour || Best Australian Live Act || ||
|-
| rowspan="3" | 2016 || rowspan="2" | "1955" || Song of the Year || ||rowspan="3"|
|-
| Best Video ||
|-
| The Restrung Tour || Best Australian Live Act ||
|-
| 2018 || "Clark Griswold" (featuring Adrian Eagle) || Best Urban Release || ||
|-
| rowspan="7" | 2019 || rowspan="3" | The Great Expanse || Album of the Year || ||rowspan="7"|
|-
| Best Group ||
|-
| Best Hip Hop Release ||
|-
| "Leave Me Lonely" || Song of the Year ||
|-
| "Exit Sign" (featuring Illy and Ecca Vandal) || Best Video ||
|-
| The Great Expanse World Tour || Best Australian Live Act ||
|-
| Plutonic Lab for Hilltop Hoods' The Great Expanse || Engineer of the Year ||
|-
| 2020 || "Exit Sign" (featuring Illy and Ecca Vandal) || Song of the Year || ||
|-
Fowler's Live Music Awards
The Fowler's Live Music Awards took place from 2012 to 2014 to "recognise success and achievement over the past 12 months [and] celebrate the great diversity of original live music" in South Australia. Since 2015 they're known as the South Australian Music Awards.
|-
| 2012
| Hilltop Hoods
| Best Hip Hop Artist
|
|-
J Awards
The J Awards are an annual series of Australian music awards that were established by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's youth-focused radio station Triple J. They commenced in 2005.
|-
| J Awards of 2014
| Walking Under Stars| Australian Album of the Year
|
|-
| J Awards of 2019
| A Great Expanse| Australian Album of the Year
|
|-
National Live Music Awards
The National Live Music Awards (NLMAs) are a broad recognition of Australia's diverse live industry, celebrating the success of the Australian live scene. The awards commenced in 2016.
|-
| National Live Music Awards of 2019
| Hilltop Hoods
| Live Hip Hop Act of the Year
|
|-
Other projects
Hilltop Hoods Initiative
In 2005 the annual "Hilltop Hoods Initiative" was established in association with Arts SA, made possible by a donation from the Hilltop Hoods. Valued at A$10,000 (originally $3000), the Hilltop Hoods initiative helped young and emerging South Australian hip-hop artists to manufacture and distribute a CD. The initiative also included two mentorship sessions with Hilltop Hoods' former manager, PJ Murton. It acknowledges the important role South Australian government assistance played in the development of the careers of the Hilltop Hoods. In 2009, the initiative became a national grant available to entry for any emerging Australian hip-hop artist who have not issued a professional album.
In a Hilltop Hoods newsletter, released on 4 December 2012, the group communicated the following announcement:
In 2013 The Hilltop Hoods and APRA are teaming up again to give a career changing $10K to the most impressive emerging Hip Hop/Soul act in Australia. Aimed at helping fund the manufacturing and marketing of an album release, the grant is open to any act who hasn't yet released anything professionally. Applications will open in early 2013 along with details on how to enter.
Recipients are:
General Knowledge, a three-piece group (2006)
Subsketch, a solo artist (2007)
Jimblah, a solo artist (2008)
K21, a solo artist (2009)
1/6, a solo artist (2010)
Koolta, a solo artist (2011)
Run for Your Life, a musical collective (2012)
Chelsea Jane (2013), Gold Coast, Queensland artist
I AM D (2014), Brisbane, Queensland solo artist
Sarah Connor, a solo artist (2015)
Astro Travellers, a seven-piece group (2016)
MC Sinks, a solo artist from Melbourne, Victoria. (2017).
Hilltop Hoods Remix Shoe
The Hilltop Hoods and DC Shoes collaborated on the production of a limited-edition shoe called "The Hilltop Hoods Remix Shoe"—it was released in stores on 1 February 2008. They are the first Australian music group to design and release their own signature-model shoe. Illustration and Design by John Engelhardt injected its unique style
Golden Era Records
Following its departure from the Obese record label, the group launched its own label in 2009, entitled Golden Era Records. The label's title is described by the band on the label website:
To some people the golden era of Hip Hop was '94. Ask someone a little older and they’ll tell you Hip Hop’s renaissance was back in '88. Ask one of our revered pioneers and they’ll tell you that the golden era came and went three decades ago, before most of today’s Hip Hop heads were born. Whatever the case these so-called golden eras weren’t only defined by the music or the fashion – they were characterised by something less tangible – an atmosphere, a movement.
This label wasn’t established to release throw-back records; instead we hope to make music that throws you back to the way you felt during the golden era of Hip Hop.
Whatever year that was for you.
The label is based in Stirling, South Australia, and, as of December 2012, its roster consists of the Hilltop Hoods, Briggs, Funkoars, Vents, Adfu, K21, and most recently, Shadow
In January 2012, Fontana, an independent marketing, sales and distribution company under the Universal Music Group umbrella, signed an exclusive agreement with Golden Era Records for the American release of Drinking From The Sun, as well as back catalogue titles.
Charity
The CanTeen youth cancer charity announced that the 2-CD fundraising album Australian Hip Hop Supports CanTeen had raised over AU$122,000 as of 15 October 2014. Released in late 2013, the album features contributions from Hilltop Hoods, as well as numerous other Australian hip-hop artists. The initiative was originally conceived of by Robert Hunter, an MC who rapped under the name "Hunter" (SBX), who died from cancer prior to the release of the album.
Through the Dark interactive film
On 11 November 2016 Hilltop Hoods released an interactive film called Through the Dark, which featured their song of the same name. The interactive film project was a collaboration with Google Play Music and was directed by Mike Daly.
Members
Current members
Suffa (Matthew David Lambert) – vocals, engineering, mixing, producing (1991–present)
Pressure (Daniel Howe Smith) – vocals (1991–present)
DJ Debris (Barry John M Francis) – producing, engineering, turntablism (1999–present)
Former members
DJ Next (Ben John Hare) – audio engineering, DJing, turntablism, scratching (1991–1999)
MC Summit aka DJ Sum-1 – vocals (ca. 1996)
DiscographyA Matter of Time (1999)Left Foot, Right Foot (2001)The Calling (2003)The Hard Road (2006)State of the Art (2009)Drinking from the Sun (2012)Walking Under Stars (2014)The Great Expanse'' (2019)
See also
Adelaide Arts and Entertainment
Adelaide Hills
List of Australian hip hop musicians
Music of Australia
Notes
References
External links
Australian hip hop groups
1991 establishments in Australia
APRA Award winners
ARIA Award winners
Golden Era Records artists
Musical groups established in 1991
Musical groups from Adelaide
Obese Records artists
| true |
[
"Tesco Organisation is a German record label, mail order company and distributor, specialising in industrial, noise, neofolk and ambient music. Tesco has also organised music festivals in the past such as \"Heavy Electronics\", \"Tesco Disco\" and \"Festival Karlsruhe\"\n\nHistory\n\nFormation\nTesco Organisation started as a mail order company in 1987 releasing music from the Industrial music genre. The organisation had noticed there was a gap between the music they liked and what was being released by other record labels. In 1989 the label released their first Genocide Organ album titled \"Leichenlinie\". Shortly after this release Tesco expanded and created their sub-label, Functional primarily for the re-release of unknown cassette recordings. The labels early releases were packaged in special covers such as oversized card folders and sleeves. This idea was influenced by LP covers of the band Zoviet France. Early releases were recorded by the organisations members and their friends. The music Tesco wanted to release were in the style of earlier Industrial bands like Throbbing Gristle and Lustmord.\n\nTesco Organisation Principles\nThe organisation does not involve itself in any PR, but instead lets its artists speak on their behalf. The artists who release recordings on the organisation's record label all have something in common with Tesco. The organisation's members stay neutral and support their recording artist's views. Tesco has no visible ideology, only that they show a fascination for other people who are outspoken and direct; no matter what politics they follow. They express an enjoyment of the aesthetics of decay and the decline of the Western world. They state that when living in a country where you are not allowed to own any nationalism you have a lot to criticize.\n\nTesco Artists\n\nFootnotes\n\nExternal links\n \n\nGerman record labels\nRecord labels established in 1987\nNoise music record labels\nIndustrial record labels\nAmbient music record labels\nElectronic music festivals in Germany",
"Lovey's String Band were a Trinidadian musical group. They are known primarily for having been the earliest known calypso group to have recorded. They originally formed sometime in the 1890s and continued performing until the early 1920s.\n\nRecordings\nThe band did a recording session in New York City in 1912, five years before the first jazz recordings, and these instrumental recordings document a style of \"hot\" music in fashion in the Caribbean around that time. The recording was selected for preservation in 2002 by the National Recording Preservation Board of the Library of Congress.\n\nTheir first recording was the song \"Mango Vert\" for Columbia Records and a week later they switched stables to record with Victor Records. Other songs in their catalogue include \"Trinidad Paseo\", \"Petrol and Sara\", \"Mari-Juana\", and \"Manuelito\".\n\nReferences\n\nTrinidad and Tobago musical groups\nUnited States National Recording Registry recordings"
] |
[
"Hilltop Hoods",
"1987-2001: Formation and early years",
"How was the group formed?",
"In 1991 they joined up with DJ Next (Ben John Hare) through a mutual friend and formed an Australian hip hop group.",
"What was their first recording?",
"Hilltop Hoods recorded a demo, Highlanders, which was released on cassette tape only.",
"Did Highlanders get written about in yhe music press?",
"I don't know.",
"What was the followup to Highlanders?",
"Hilltop Hoods founded the Certified Wise Crew - a hip hop collaborative - with local groups Terra Firma, Cross Bred Mongrels and After Hours.",
"Did the Certified Wise Crew have any notable live performances together?",
"Certified Wise Crew has since expanded to include MCs Trauma, Blockade, Kolaps, Flea, with Vents and Funkoars joining in later years.",
"What other recordings did they release in their early years?",
"In 2001 the group's second album, Left Foot, Right Foot, was released with Lambert, Francis and M. Veraquth producing."
] |
C_e52eb25f24074bb2947bf6fb1e5b05d7_1
|
Were there any hit singles from Left Foot, Right Foot?
| 7 |
Were there any hit singles from Hilltop Hoods's album Left Foot, Right Foot?
|
Hilltop Hoods
|
Two of Hilltop Hoods' founders first met in 1987 when MC Suffa (aka Matthew David Lambert) and MC Pressure (Daniel Howe Smith) attended Blackwood High School in Eden Hills - a suburb of Adelaide. In 1991 they joined up with DJ Next (Ben John Hare) through a mutual friend and formed an Australian hip hop group. Their name was supplied by fellow local MC Flak (from Cross Bred Mongrels) - the suburb of Blackwood is known by locals as the Hilltop. The band's influences include American hip hop artists: Notorious B.I.G., KRS-One, Gang Starr, Wu-Tang Clan and Public Enemy. At live shows Next was the group's DJ, for recording he contributed audio engineering and all the scratching/turntablism on their early works. He regularly competed in the local DMC World DJ Championships (DMC) tournaments, winning the South Australian DMC championships multiple times. Hilltop Hoods recorded a demo, Highlanders, which was released on cassette tape only. As well as Pressure and Suffa on vocals, the group included MC Summit aka DJ Sum-1, but he did not appear on later Hilltop Hoods work. The group's first official release, in 1997, was a vinyl-only, seven-track extended play, Back Once Again. Production was handled by DJ Debris (Barry John M Francis), turntablism and audio engineering by Next, vocals by Pressure and Suffa. The third track, "Shades of Grey", features Debris with a verse, and was co-written by Francis, Hare, Lambert and Smith. Fifth track, "Mankind Must Suffa" also features a guest verse from Quromystix (aka Quro, Andrew Michael Bradley) - a member of Finger Lickin' Good and later the Fuglemen. "Mankind Must Suffa" is credited to Lambert, Smith, Francis and Bradley. Back Once Again is out of print and unavailable for retail purchase. The group's debut studio album, A Matter of Time, was released in 1999 on CD only. As with Back Once Again, it is now unavailable for retail purchase. All scratching/turntablism is performed by Next, a track, "Let Me Show You", has no vocals - solely showcasing his turntable skills. American MC Bukue One (Tion Torrence) appears for a guest verse on "Deaf Can Hear". The track is credited to Lambert, Smith, Francis, Hare and Torrence. The album was released independently but with financial assistance from Arts SA - the band were inspired, in 2005, to set up their own Hilltop Hoods Initiative, to help local artists. After the album appeared, Next left the group and moved to Melbourne. In 2004 he moved to London. In 1999 Debris, who was also a member of the Cross Bred Mongrels, replaced Next and became the Hilltop Hoods' full-time DJ. Hilltop Hoods founded the Certified Wise Crew - a hip hop collaborative - with local groups Terra Firma, Cross Bred Mongrels and After Hours. Certified Wise Crew has since expanded to include MCs Trauma, Blockade, Kolaps, Flea, with Vents and Funkoars joining in later years. Hilltop Hoods received two nominations for the Hip Hop Act of the Year Award at the Australian Dance Music Awards and again at the 3D World Music Awards in 2001 and 2002. In 2001 the group's second album, Left Foot, Right Foot, was released with Lambert, Francis and M. Veraquth producing. CANNOTANSWER
|
CANNOTANSWER
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Hilltop Hoods are an Australian hip hop group that formed in 1991 in Blackwood, Adelaide, South Australia. They are regarded as pioneers of the "larrikin-like" style of Australian hip hop. The group was founded by Suffa (Matthew David Lambert) and Pressure (Daniel Howe Smith), who were joined by DJ Debris (Barry John M. Francis) after fellow founder, DJ Next (Ben John Hare), left in 1999. The group released its first extended play, Back Once Again, in 1997 and have subsequently released eight studio albums, two "restrung" albums and three DVDs.
Six of their eight albums have peaked at number one on the Australian Record Industry Association (ARIA) Albums Charts, recently setting the record for most No. 1 Albums by an Australian band or group: The Hard Road (2006), State of the Art (2009), Drinking from the Sun (2012), Walking Under Stars (2014), Drinking from the Sun, Walking Under Stars Restrung (2016) and The Great Expanse (2019). Three tracks have reached the top 10 on the ARIA Singles Chart—"Chase That Feeling" (2009), "I Love It", featuring Sia (2011) and "Higher", featuring James Chatburn (2015) — while a further two tracks — "Cosby Sweater" (2014) and "1955" (2016) — reached the top 5. "1955", featuring Montaigne & Tom Thum, peaked at number 2 in the Australian charts.
Hilltop Hoods have toured both in Australia and overseas, including playing at music festivals: T in the Park, Oxegen, the Big Day Out, Clipsal 500, Southbound, The Great Escape, Splendour in the Grass, Bassinthegrass, Groovin' The Moo, Falls Festival, Pyramid Rock Festival, Rollercoaster, Come Together Festival and Make Poverty History.
The band are one of the most recurrent artists in the history of the Triple J Hottest 100, with 21 songs voted into the annual countdowns since their first appearance in 2003. At the ARIA Music Awards of 2006 they won "Best Independent Release" and "Best Urban Album" for The Hard Road. In 2007, they won "Best Urban Album" for their remix album, The Hard Road: Restrung (2007). They won the same category in 2009 for State of the Art and in 2012 for Drinking from the Sun. In 2009, Debris also won "Engineer of the Year" for his work on State of the Art. The band received their seventh ARIA award in 2014 when Walking Under Stars won in the Best Urban Album category at the 28th ARIA Awards.
History
1987–2001: Formation and early years
Two of Hilltop Hoods' founders first met in 1987 when MC Suffa (aka Matthew David Lambert) and Pressure (Daniel Howe Smith) attended Blackwood High School in Eden Hills – a suburb of Adelaide. In 1991 they joined up with DJ Next (Ben John Hare) through a mutual friend and formed an Australian hip hop group. Their name was supplied by fellow local MC Flak (from Cross Bred Mongrels) – the suburb of Blackwood is known by locals as the Hilltop. The band's influences include American hip hop artists: Notorious B.I.G., KRS-One, Gang Starr, Wu-Tang Clan and Public Enemy.
At live shows DJ Next was the group's DJ, for recording he contributed audio engineering and all the scratching/turntablism on their early works. He regularly competed in the local DMC World DJ Championships (DMC) tournaments, winning the South Australian DMC championships multiple times. Hilltop Hoods recorded a demo, Highlanders, which was released on cassette tape only. As well as Pressure and Suffa on vocals, the group included MC Summit aka DJ Sum-1, but he did not appear on later Hilltop Hoods work.
The group's first official release, in 1997, was a vinyl-only, seven-track extended play, Back Once Again. Production was handled by DJ Debris (Barry John M Francis), turntablism and audio engineering by DJ Next, vocals by Pressure and Suffa. The third track, "Shades of Grey", features Debris with a verse, and was co-written by Francis, Hare, Lambert and Smith. Fifth track, "Mankind Must Suffa" also features a guest verse from Quromystix (aka Quro, Andrew Michael Bradley) – a member of Finger Lickin' Good and later the Fuglemen. "Mankind Must Suffa" is credited to Lambert, Smith, Francis and Bradley. Back Once Again is out of print and unavailable for retail purchase.
The group's debut studio album, A Matter of Time, was released in 1999 on CD only. As with Back Once Again, it is now unavailable for retail purchase. All scratching/turntablism is performed by DJ Next, a track, "Let Me Show You", has no vocals – solely showcasing his turntable skills. American MC Bukue One (Tion Torrence) appears for a guest verse on "Deaf Can Hear". The track is credited to Lambert, Smith, Francis, Hare and Torrence. The album was released independently but with financial assistance from Arts SA – the band were inspired, in 2005, to set up their own Hilltop Hoods Initiative, to help local artists. After the album appeared, DJ Next left the group and moved to Melbourne. In 2004 he moved to London. In 1999 Debris, who was also a member of the Cross Bred Mongrels, replaced Next and became the Hilltop Hoods' full-time DJ.
Hilltop Hoods founded the Certified Wise Crew – a hip-hop collaborative – with local groups Terra Firma, Cross Bred Mongrels and After Hours. Certified Wise Crew has since expanded to include MCs Trauma, Blockade, Kolaps, Flea, with Vents and Funkoars joining in later years. Hilltop Hoods received two nominations for the Hip Hop Act of the Year Award at the Australian Dance Music Awards and again at the 3D World Music Awards in 2001 and 2002. In 2001 the group's second album, Left Foot, Right Foot, was released with Lambert, Francis and M. Veraquth producing.
2003–2007: The Calling and The Hard Road
On 22 September 2003, Hilltop Hoods released their third album, The Calling, which became a commercial breakthrough. In an interview after the release of their fourth album, Suffa revealed that The Calling was recorded on his mother's computer and the simplicity of their 'studio' is the reason why some of the music on the album is in monaural ('mono') sound.
The Calling entered the ARIA Albums Chart in March 2004 and reached No. 53 before exiting the top 100 in September of the same year. By December 2006 it was certified platinum for shipment of 70,000 units, becoming the first Australian hip hop album to achieve platinum status. In March 2012, it re-entered the chart and peaked at No. 50 – eight-and-a-half years after its first release. It featured two singles, "The Nosebleed Section" and "Dumb Enough", which were listed in the Triple J Hottest 100, 2003. "The Nosebleed Section" was ranked No. 17 in the Triple J Hottest 100 of All Time in 2009. Hilltop Hoods' chart and commercial success was a turning point in the Australian Hip Hop scene because it demonstrated widespread support for the genre that reached beyond an underground fan base.
On 1 April 2006, the group followed with their fourth album, The Hard Road, which peaked at number one. It was the first Australian hip hop album to do so. It was certified gold within a week of being released. Its lead single, "Clown Prince", reached the top 30 on the related ARIA Singles Chart. It featured guest verses from New York rapper, Omni, and British MCs, Mystro and Braintax. The Hilltop Hoods received the inaugural Australian Independent Record (AIR) Award for Independent Artist of the Year and Best Performing Independent Album for The Hard Road in 2006. The track, "The Blue Blooded", is a collaboration with Australian MCs: Funkoars, Hau from Koolism, Mortar, Vents, Drapht, Muph & Plutonic, Pegz and Robby Balboa. On 27 April of the same year, Hilltop Hoods performed at the Bass in the Grass music festival in Darwin alongside fellow hip hop group, The Herd. That same day they issued a second single, the title track from the album. Its video includes fellow members from the Certified Wise Crew – Cross Bred Mongrels, Terrafirma and Funkoars.
Following the success of The Hard Road Tour in early 2006, the Hilltop Hoods began their second national tour for the year, The Stopping All Stations Tour, which visited more regional areas of Australia as well as the capital cities. They were supported by Koolism and Mystro. Late that year, Hilltop Hoods released their third single from the album, "What a Great Night". The video shows the group at a club with camera shots panning up and down to reveal a new location. It used special effects and is one of the most expensive video clips for an Australian hip hop group, mirroring the group's rise in success and popularity. Also late in the year the band won the J Award for best album of the year from Triple J. They performed the Homebake Festival and Falls Festival before the end of the year. The Hard Road received the AIR Award for Best Independent Hip Hop/Urban Release in 2007.
2007–2009: The Hard Road Restrung and State of the Art
On 12 May 2007, Hilltop Hoods released their next album The Hard Road: Restrung which is a remix of their previous studio album, The Hard Road, featuring the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra and Okwerdz. It peaked at No. 8 on the ARIA Albums Chart. Like its predecessor The Hard Road, it took out "Best Urban Release" at the ARIA Awards of 2007, with the group going back-to-back in the category. The lead single from the album "Recapturing the Vibe Restrung", its video clip was on high rotation on rage and jtv. That year the group performed at the Southbound Festival (WA), The Great Escape at Newington Armory over Easter, and embarked on a UK tour with a Sydney-based string quartet. They finished the year by headlining the Pyramid Rock Festival on Victoria's Phillip Island over New Year's Eve 2007. In 2008 they performed at the Big Day Out festivals, at Glastonbury Festival and Islington Academy in London. In December their DVD, The City of Light, was released and was nominated as Best Music DVD at the 2008 ARIA Awards.
Hilltop Hoods left their longtime home of Obese Records to start their own label, Golden Era Records, to release their future material. In November 2008 Pressure announced on Triple J's breakfast program that the next studio album, State of the Art, would be recorded with session musicians: "We realised with this one after doing Restrung and having an orchestra that we were a bit less limited. So we're going to have some session musos come in on this one and stuff like that". The album was released on 12 June, with the lead single, "Chase That Feeling", issued as a digital download on 8 May, and featured a return guest appearance by a quartet from the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. The album debuted at number one on the albums chart while "Chase That Feeling" peaked at No. 8 on the related singles chart. By 2010 State of the Art was certified 2× platinum for shipment of 140,000 units.
In early 2009 the Hilltop Hoods performed at the Groovin the Moo festival in Townsville, Maitland and Bendigo. They also performed at Triple J's One Night Stand in Sale, Victoria on 30 May, and at Fat as Butter festival in Newcastle on 25 October where they played several of the tracks from the album. To promote its release the band started a national tour starting on 18 July and performed at most major cities including state capitals. The second national tour that year followed on 11 November with support provided by Vents.
2010–2017: Drinking from the Sun and Walking Under Stars
On 28 July 2010, Hilltop Hoods completed work on a zombie movie, Parade of the Dead, that the group wrote, filmed, and starred in. Using the title from a State of the Art track, it was released on 22 October with the eponymous single. Filmed mostly in Adelaide, the former Adelaide Gaol was used as a "key location".
In late November 2011, the band premiered the single, "I Love It", on the Triple J breakfast show. Featuring Sia, the song peaked at No. 6 on the ARIA chart and was the lead single from their sixth album, Drinking from the Sun, which was released on 9 March 2012. During December 2011, they supported Eminem and Lil Wayne during the Australian leg of Eminem's world tour. The song has since been certified 4x Platinum by ARIA, denoting sales of more than 280,000 units.
Three music videos for "I Love It" were published online in December 2011 by DJ Debris. Three versions were commissioned by the band, involving three different directors: Nash Edgerton of Blue Tongue Films; the Animal Logic animation company; and independent Melbourne, Australia, film-maker Carl Allison.
In January 2012, the group "leaked" a song from the sixth album following the emergence of interest on their Facebook page: "Let's have some fun. If we get 5000 likes on this post we're going to leak a track off Drinking from the Sun"—they received more than 7,500 likes within 10 minutes. Surprised with the magnitude of the response, the band subsequently posted: "Wow. Give me a minute." and posted a link to a new track, "Rattling the Keys to the Kingdom", on YouTube shortly afterward. "Rattling the Keys to the Kingdom" was certified Gold by ARIA in 2018.
Drinking from the Sun became their third number-one album in Australia and also charted on the New Zealand Albums Chart top 40. In mid-April 2012, the music video for "Speaking in Tongues", the album's second single, was published online. Directed by Toby Grimes, the video features Chali 2na and graffiti murals from Brisbane, Australia, artist Sofles.
On 10 May 2012, Hilltop Hoods issued a new EP, The Good Life in the Sun, to celebrate the launch of the 'Speaking in Tongues Tour', which includes tracks from Drinking from the Sun remixed by Suffa. The post contained a link to their website where the EP can be downloaded for free. In July 2012, the video for the third single, "Shredding the Balloon", was published on the band's YouTube channel. Directed by Selina Miles of Unity Sound and Visual, the video had received nearly 1.5 million views as of 1 October 2014. The single was released on 20 July 2012.
In August 2012, Triple J uploaded video footage of the group's tribute to Beastie Boys' member, Adam "MCA" Yauch, who died in May 2012. The group selected "So What'cha Want", from Beastie Boys' album, Check Your Head.
In late September, the music video for "Rattling the Keys to the Kingdom" was published online. It featured numerous Australian hip-hop artists, including Drapht, Urthboy, Def Wish Cast, Dazastah, Layla, Maya Jupiter and Hunter. The band explained in the production notes for the video:
Not only did we want to do something unifying, we also wanted to use the platform we have to promote artists that we think deserve more exposure. Of course, not everyone involved in the filmclip needs exposure, as many of the artists involved have huge followings in their own right. But having these artists involved in the filmclip just further serves to unify and consolidate the scene ... We need to point out that this is by no means a representation of every relevant artist involved in the culture past or present. It's more a cross-section of who we have contact with, who was available and so on.
In November 2012, Hilltop Hoods performed a live show on UStream and announced that the title of the group's next album would be Walking Under Stars—this was then confirmed on the official Hilltop Hoods Twitter and Facebook pages, following their Best Urban Album win at the 2012 ARIA Awards ceremony. The band's Facebook post read:
So it’s now one year to the day since we dropped 'I Love It' and started the 'Drinking from the Sun' journey. Thanks to everyone that’s supported us over the last 12 months, it’s been amazing. We hope you join us late next year for 'Walking Under Stars'. Thankyou, Suffa, Pressure & Debris
The announcement corresponds with a sample on Drinking from the Sun that refers to a band writing with the clear intention of formulating enough material for two albums: "They were recording enough for two albums; that was premeditated." The sample appears on the track, "The Thirst Pt. 3 (Interlude)".
In April 2013, the Hilltop Hoods stated that the development of Walking Under Stars was "well underway", with the trio calling the album Drinking from the Sun "part two"—the latter received a double platinum sales certification in the same month. Additionally, American clothing company Zoo York announced a partnership with the Hilltop Hoods in April 2013, in preparation for the brand's 20th-anniversary celebrations in 2014. Lambert explained: "We've always been fans of Zoo York, they understand hip hop culture, and that's why we can’t wait to work with them."
On 21 June 2014—after the band successfully received the 20,000 likes they requested for a Facebook post—the first preview of Walking Under Stars, titled "The Art of the Handshake", was uploaded to the band's SoundCloud profile—the song is the fourth on the album's track-list. Lambert revealed on 6 August that the song was inspired by the Notes to Self song "All of the Above", which reminded him of "the ridiculous handshakes" of his youth. As part of the songwriting process, Lambert spent a day researching the status of the handshake in countries such as Sweden and India.
The album's first official single, "Won't Let You Down"—featuring Irish singer Maverick Sabre—was released on 27 June 2014. Writing for the Faster Louder website, Matt Shea revealed in early August that the first single was met with a mixed reaction from existing fans of the band: "While many loved it, plenty of Hoods fans at the very least declared it a radio friendly single that had little to do with hip-hop. Others outright disliked it." Lambert explained in media interviews during the week prior to the album's release that the song was recorded at the Red Bull Studios in both London, UK and New York City, US, while the lyrical content is about the partners of the band members and the difficulties of being in a relationship with touring musicians. The single's musical content features Italian singer Zucchero Fornaciari singing a rendition of Ph.D's hit "I Won't Let You Down".
During the band's performance at the 2014 Splendour in the Grass festival, held from 25 to 27 July in Byron Bay, Australia, Lambert exclaimed to the audience prior to the song "Speaking in Tongues", from the Drinking from the Sun album:
The Hilltop Hoods do not give a fuck what race you are! The Hilltop Hoods do not give a fuck what religion you are! The Hilltop Hoods do not give a fuck what sex you are! The Hilltop Hoods do not give a fuck what sexuality you are! We are one people under the music!
Lambert explained that his announcement, a reaffirmation of the sentiment in "Speaking in Tongues", is "very important" to the band.
The band announced the release date for Walking Under Stars as 8 August 2014 in mid-July and, while the album is a Golden Era Records recording, Universal Music Australia acquired the exclusive licensing rights for the domestic market—Universal will also use the license to distribute the album in Canada, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Benelux, while Golden Era continues its partnership with Fontana for the US release. Walking Under Stars was conceived before Drinking From the Sun was written and Lambert referred to the former as "a companion piece" in an August 2014 interview. Lambert also explained that "I'm a Ghost" is four-years-old, while a segment of "Brainbox" originally appeared on the 2012 Golden Era mixtape.
Similar to the band's previous album releases, numerous collaborators appear on Walking Under Stars. Lambert explained on 5 August that "we [Hilltop Hoods] try to do it in the same room" when guest artists record and, for the seventh studio album, the band worked with Sabre, New Zealand soul singer Aaradhna, Brother Ali, Dan Sultan, Drapht, Canadian voice-over artist Dave Pettitt and One Above, the Adelaide producer who also worked on Drinking from the Sun. Lambert explained to TheMusic.com.au website that Sultan is a "gifted" artist who the band loves "as a person as well", and "it was really good to work with [Brother] Ali, who’s an artist that we admire so much."
Walking Under Stars debuted in the number-one position of the ARIA album charts during the week beginning 11 August 2014, providing the band with their fourth chart-topping album since The Hard Road in April 2006. As of 16 August 2014, the Hilltop Hoods have garnered a total of six weeks at the top of the ARIA charts from four number-one albums, three of which are Golden Era Records releases. During the promotion for a national Australian tour in late August 2014, the band revealed that a secret release will "manifest itself" in 2015 and will be the culmination of a multi-album creative project that began with Drinking From The Sun.
"Won't Let You Down" was performed live on the Australian AFL Footy Show television program on 7 August 2014, during an episode that was filmed in Adelaide. The music video for "Won't Let You Down" was published on the Hilltop Hoods YouTube channel on 19 August 2014. Directed by Richard Coburn of the Kojo production company, the video features a narrative in which manufactured pigs heads are used.
The music video for the "Cosby Sweater" single was released on the Hilltop Hoods YouTube channel while the group was engaged in the third stage of their 2014 world tour in North America. Published on 15 September, the video was again directed by Coburn and also features Golden Era artists Briggs, K21 and Trials. The single became the group's first top 5 ARIA single on 15 November 2014, during the fourth, Australian stage of the world tour, on the same date as the group's Melbourne performance at the Rod Laver Arena. "Cosby Sweater" was also performed at the 28th ARIA Awards ceremony on 26 November 2014, where the band also won the Best Urban Album award.
On 30 April 2016, Hilltop Hoods performed their final concert of the 'Drinking from the Sun, Walking Under the Stars' at Perth Arena.I
2018–present: The Great Expanse
On 13 July 2018, Hilltop Hoods released single "Clark Griswold" with Adrian Eagle, an ode to the character from the National Lampoon's Vacation movies.
On 23 November 2018, Hilltop Hoods released the single "Leave Me Lonely" and announced their forthcoming 2019 album The Great Expanse. The album, which features platinum single "Leave Me Lonely," gold selling ARIA Award-winning single "Clark Griswold" ft. Adrian Eagle, and new single "Exit Sign" ft. Illy and Ecca Vandal, was released on 22 February 2019 and debuted at No. 1 on the ARIA Albums Charts. The chart debut made it the group's sixth number one, setting a new ARIA record for most No. 1 Albums by an Australian band or group.
Touring
Hilltop Hoods have toured both in Australia and overseas, including playing at music festivals: T in the Park, Oxegen, the Big Day Out, Adelaide 500, Southbound, The Great Escape, Splendour in the Grass, Bassinthegrass, Groovin' The Moo, Falls Festival, Pyramid Rock Festival, Rollercoaster, Come Together Festival and Make Poverty History.
On 8 December 2012, the Hilltop Hoods were one of two headlines acts (the other was American band, Blondie) for the 2012 "Global Edition" of the popular Australian music, film, comedy and arts festival, Homebake.
A North American "Drinking From The Sun" tour was announced in late February 2013 and the band revealed that it would perform in American cities such as Seattle (the tour's debut location), New York and San Francisco, and the Canadian cities, Vancouver, Montreal, Calgary and Toronto; the tour was scheduled to end in Los Angeles on 9 May 2013. However, on 23 February 2013, the hip hop group announced the indefinite postponement of the entire tour due to a "serious family matter". The Hilltop Hoods were also one of the bands on the "Concerts" roster for the V8 Clipsal 500 Adelaide car racing event, held between 28 February 2013 and 3 March 2013—other Australian hip hop artists, such as Drapht and Vents, also performed at the event.
The group performed at the 2014 occurrence of the Australian festival Splendour in the Grass, performing alongside other musicians, such as Illy, Outkast, and Lily Allen. The band announced an August–September 2014 North American tour in June 2014—including dates in Vancouver and Toronto, Canada, and San Francisco, US—with Minnesota, US, artist Sims, from Doomtree.
In late August 2014, the "Cosby Sweater Australian Tour" was announced in support of the Walking Under Stars album release. The domestic tour run from October to December 2014, and the support acts were Thundamentals and K21.
Their latest national tour was in 2016. This was the "Drinking from the sun and Walking Under Stars Australian Sympthony Orchestra tour" This was the tour that followed the release of the new album which was the 2 most recent albums remastered using the orchestra.
In February 2019, the group supported Eminem's concert tour around Australia and New Zealand, performing to audiences in venues such as ANZ Stadium in Sydney and the MCG in Melbourne.
Awards and accolades
Hilltop Hoods received nominations for the 'Best Hip Hop Act' in 2001 and 2002 at the 3D World Dance Music Awards, they won the Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA) Award for 'Best Up-coming Group' as well as receiving number-one positions in independent charts all around Australia. The 2052 release The Calling achieved platinum certification from ARIA. Two tracks, "The Nosebleed Section" and "Dumb Enough", were listed in the Triple J Hottest 100, 2003, at ninth and 44th, respectively. Their lead single from The Hard Road, "Clown Prince" was released in February 2006, and became their first top 40 hit on the ARIA Singles Chart. In 2006 the group won the J Award.
On Australia Day, 2007, the Hoods claimed five spots in Triple J's Hottest 100 with "The Hard Road" reaching third place. "Clown Prince", "What a Great Night", "Stopping All Stations", and "Recapturing the Vibe" placed 23rd, 41st, 56th, and 77th respectively. The Hilltop Hoods received the most entries in the Hottest 100 that year, and were only one track off equalling the record, set by Wolfmother the previous year. In 2009 "The Nosebleed Section" was voted number 17 in the Triple J Hottest 100 of all time, the highest placed Australian song.
For the APRA Music Awards of 2010, the Hilltop Hoods won the 'Urban Work of the Year' award for "Still Standing", which was written by Francis, Lambert, Smith and Henry Lawes. The band received three nominations at the 2013 APRA Awards: 'Most Played Australian Work' for "I Love It", and two nominations in the 'Urban Work of the Year' category for "I Love It" and "Speaking in Tongues". They won Urban Work of the Year for "I Love It" (featuring Sia).
At the APRA Music Awards of 2020, Hilltop Hoods won Songwriter of the Year and Most Performed Urban Work of the Year for "Leave Me Lonely". As of 2020, The group has won six APRA Awards from 15 nominations.
In December 2020, the Hilltop Hoods were listed at number 27 in Rolling Stone Australias "50 Greatest Australian Artists of All Time" issue.
AIR Awards
The Australian Independent Record Awards (commonly known informally as AIR Awards) is an annual awards night to recognise, promote and celebrate the success of Australia's Independent Music sector.
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| rowspan="3" | 2006
|The Hard Road
| Best Performing Independent Album
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|"Clown Prince"
| Best Performing Independent Single
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|themselves
| Independent Artist of the Year
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| rowspan="3" | 2007
| rowspan="2" |The Hard Road Restrung
| Best Independent Album
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| Best Independent Dance/Electronic Album
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|themselves
| Independent Artist of the Year
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ARIA Awards
In 2006 Hilltop Hoods were nominated for five ARIA Awards – the first ever for an Australian hip hop group – winning in two categories: 'Best Urban Release' and 'Best Independent Release'. The following year they won 'Best Urban Release' at the ARIA Awards for The Hard Road: Restrung. The album was also nominated for 'Best Independent Release' and 'Best Cover Art' by John Engelhardt. The DVD City of Light was nominated as 'Best Music DVD' at the 2008 ARIA awards. At the 2009 ARIA Awards they won 'Best Urban Album' for a third time – for State of the Art and DJ Debris won an award for 'Engineer of the Year' for his work on that album. At the ARIA Music Awards of 2012, Hilltop Hoods won its fourth award in the 'Best Urban Album' category for Drinking from the Sun; as of November 2012, the group has won six awards from twenty nominations.
At the 2012 ARIA Awards, established Aboriginal Australian band, Yothu Yindu, was inducted into the Hall of Fame. A photograph of Suffa holding the award in the presence of the band was posted on the Hilltop Hoods' Instagram profile, accompanied by the following comment: "A memory I'll take to the grave. Meeting Yothu Yindi and having them let me hold their Hall of Fame ARIA. What a beautiful induction."
The band was nominated in three ARIA categories in 2014: Best Group, Best Urban Album, and Engineer of the Year. In an October 2014 radio interview, Smith said that the band does not expect to win an award, but wishes the best for the winners; however, the Best Urban Album award was given to the band on 26 November 2014, providing the band with their seventh ARIA award. As from November 2020 they have won ten awards from thirty-six nominations.
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| rowspan="5" | 2006 || rowspan="3" | The Hard Road || Best Independent Release || ||rowspan="5"|
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| Best Urban Album ||
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| Breakthrough Artist – Album ||
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| "Clown Prince" || Breakthrough Artist – Single ||
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| The Calling Live || Best Music DVD ||
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| rowspan="3" | 2007 || rowspan="2" | The Hard Road: Restrung || Best Independent Release || ||rowspan="3"|
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| Best Urban Album ||
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| The Hard Road: Restrung – John Engelhardt || Best Cover Art ||
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| 2008 || The City of Light || Best Music DVD || ||
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| rowspan="6" | 2009 || rowspan="3" | State of the Art || Highest Selling Album || || rowspan="6"|
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| Best Urban Album ||
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| Best Group ||
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| "Chase That Feeling" || Single of the Year ||
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| State of the Art – Suffa || Producer of the Year ||
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| State of the Art – DJ Debris || Engineer of the Year ||
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| rowspan="5" | 2012 || rowspan="2" | Drinking from the Sun || Best Group || || rowspan="5"|
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| Best Urban Album ||
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| "I Love It" (featuring Sia) || Song of the Year ||
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| "I Love It" (featuring Sia) – Animal Logic || Best Video ||
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| Drinking From The Sun || Best Australian Live Act ||
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| rowspan="3" | 2014 || rowspan="3" | Walking Under Stars || Engineer of the Year || || rowspan="3"|
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| Best Urban Album ||
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| Best Group ||
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| 2015 || Cosby Sweater Australian Tour || Best Australian Live Act || ||
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| rowspan="3" | 2016 || rowspan="2" | "1955" || Song of the Year || ||rowspan="3"|
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| Best Video ||
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| The Restrung Tour || Best Australian Live Act ||
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| 2018 || "Clark Griswold" (featuring Adrian Eagle) || Best Urban Release || ||
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| rowspan="7" | 2019 || rowspan="3" | The Great Expanse || Album of the Year || ||rowspan="7"|
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| Best Group ||
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| Best Hip Hop Release ||
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| "Leave Me Lonely" || Song of the Year ||
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| "Exit Sign" (featuring Illy and Ecca Vandal) || Best Video ||
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| The Great Expanse World Tour || Best Australian Live Act ||
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| Plutonic Lab for Hilltop Hoods' The Great Expanse || Engineer of the Year ||
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| 2020 || "Exit Sign" (featuring Illy and Ecca Vandal) || Song of the Year || ||
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Fowler's Live Music Awards
The Fowler's Live Music Awards took place from 2012 to 2014 to "recognise success and achievement over the past 12 months [and] celebrate the great diversity of original live music" in South Australia. Since 2015 they're known as the South Australian Music Awards.
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| 2012
| Hilltop Hoods
| Best Hip Hop Artist
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J Awards
The J Awards are an annual series of Australian music awards that were established by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's youth-focused radio station Triple J. They commenced in 2005.
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| J Awards of 2014
| Walking Under Stars| Australian Album of the Year
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| J Awards of 2019
| A Great Expanse| Australian Album of the Year
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National Live Music Awards
The National Live Music Awards (NLMAs) are a broad recognition of Australia's diverse live industry, celebrating the success of the Australian live scene. The awards commenced in 2016.
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| National Live Music Awards of 2019
| Hilltop Hoods
| Live Hip Hop Act of the Year
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Other projects
Hilltop Hoods Initiative
In 2005 the annual "Hilltop Hoods Initiative" was established in association with Arts SA, made possible by a donation from the Hilltop Hoods. Valued at A$10,000 (originally $3000), the Hilltop Hoods initiative helped young and emerging South Australian hip-hop artists to manufacture and distribute a CD. The initiative also included two mentorship sessions with Hilltop Hoods' former manager, PJ Murton. It acknowledges the important role South Australian government assistance played in the development of the careers of the Hilltop Hoods. In 2009, the initiative became a national grant available to entry for any emerging Australian hip-hop artist who have not issued a professional album.
In a Hilltop Hoods newsletter, released on 4 December 2012, the group communicated the following announcement:
In 2013 The Hilltop Hoods and APRA are teaming up again to give a career changing $10K to the most impressive emerging Hip Hop/Soul act in Australia. Aimed at helping fund the manufacturing and marketing of an album release, the grant is open to any act who hasn't yet released anything professionally. Applications will open in early 2013 along with details on how to enter.
Recipients are:
General Knowledge, a three-piece group (2006)
Subsketch, a solo artist (2007)
Jimblah, a solo artist (2008)
K21, a solo artist (2009)
1/6, a solo artist (2010)
Koolta, a solo artist (2011)
Run for Your Life, a musical collective (2012)
Chelsea Jane (2013), Gold Coast, Queensland artist
I AM D (2014), Brisbane, Queensland solo artist
Sarah Connor, a solo artist (2015)
Astro Travellers, a seven-piece group (2016)
MC Sinks, a solo artist from Melbourne, Victoria. (2017).
Hilltop Hoods Remix Shoe
The Hilltop Hoods and DC Shoes collaborated on the production of a limited-edition shoe called "The Hilltop Hoods Remix Shoe"—it was released in stores on 1 February 2008. They are the first Australian music group to design and release their own signature-model shoe. Illustration and Design by John Engelhardt injected its unique style
Golden Era Records
Following its departure from the Obese record label, the group launched its own label in 2009, entitled Golden Era Records. The label's title is described by the band on the label website:
To some people the golden era of Hip Hop was '94. Ask someone a little older and they’ll tell you Hip Hop’s renaissance was back in '88. Ask one of our revered pioneers and they’ll tell you that the golden era came and went three decades ago, before most of today’s Hip Hop heads were born. Whatever the case these so-called golden eras weren’t only defined by the music or the fashion – they were characterised by something less tangible – an atmosphere, a movement.
This label wasn’t established to release throw-back records; instead we hope to make music that throws you back to the way you felt during the golden era of Hip Hop.
Whatever year that was for you.
The label is based in Stirling, South Australia, and, as of December 2012, its roster consists of the Hilltop Hoods, Briggs, Funkoars, Vents, Adfu, K21, and most recently, Shadow
In January 2012, Fontana, an independent marketing, sales and distribution company under the Universal Music Group umbrella, signed an exclusive agreement with Golden Era Records for the American release of Drinking From The Sun, as well as back catalogue titles.
Charity
The CanTeen youth cancer charity announced that the 2-CD fundraising album Australian Hip Hop Supports CanTeen had raised over AU$122,000 as of 15 October 2014. Released in late 2013, the album features contributions from Hilltop Hoods, as well as numerous other Australian hip-hop artists. The initiative was originally conceived of by Robert Hunter, an MC who rapped under the name "Hunter" (SBX), who died from cancer prior to the release of the album.
Through the Dark interactive film
On 11 November 2016 Hilltop Hoods released an interactive film called Through the Dark, which featured their song of the same name. The interactive film project was a collaboration with Google Play Music and was directed by Mike Daly.
Members
Current members
Suffa (Matthew David Lambert) – vocals, engineering, mixing, producing (1991–present)
Pressure (Daniel Howe Smith) – vocals (1991–present)
DJ Debris (Barry John M Francis) – producing, engineering, turntablism (1999–present)
Former members
DJ Next (Ben John Hare) – audio engineering, DJing, turntablism, scratching (1991–1999)
MC Summit aka DJ Sum-1 – vocals (ca. 1996)
DiscographyA Matter of Time (1999)Left Foot, Right Foot (2001)The Calling (2003)The Hard Road (2006)State of the Art (2009)Drinking from the Sun (2012)Walking Under Stars (2014)The Great Expanse'' (2019)
See also
Adelaide Arts and Entertainment
Adelaide Hills
List of Australian hip hop musicians
Music of Australia
Notes
References
External links
Australian hip hop groups
1991 establishments in Australia
APRA Award winners
ARIA Award winners
Golden Era Records artists
Musical groups established in 1991
Musical groups from Adelaide
Obese Records artists
| false |
[
"Jazz box or jazz square is a dance move seen in numerous dances of various styles, including line dance, novelty dances, jazz dance, disco, and hip hop. The name comes from its basic footwork: its four steps form a square pattern.\n\nBasic footwork\nJazz square:\n Step forward on right\n Step across with the left\n Step to the side with the right\n Step to the side with the left \n\nBox step:\n Step left foot across the right foot\n Step right foot back behind the left foot\n Step left foot sideways parallel to the right foot\n Step right foot forward in front of the left foot\n Repeat all\n\nIn particular choreographies, the pattern may start from any step of the sequence and may also be mirrored, i.e., started from the right foot.\n\nVariants of styling are endless, including various arm and body movements, Suzie Q action on steps 1, 2, skips and hops at some or all steps, etc.\n\nSee also\nBox step, a similar footprint pattern, but without cross-steps\n\nSocial dance steps",
"Drops are breakdancing techniques that allow b-boys to transition down to the floor and begin performing downrock. Drops may be designed to look flashy, painful, or both. A wide variety of other movements can serve the same purpose, and others such as the kip-up can work in reverse, moving the breaker up from the floor.\n\nCommon drops\nSome of the most common drops are listed below.\n\nKnee Drop \nThis drop makes the breaker seem to kick himself and fall painfully down onto his knee. From a standing position, the left leg lifts backwards. The left foot kicks quickly forward so that it slams into the back of the right knee in a \"figure-four\" position. As the right leg collapses, the breaker falls forward (not to either side!). Ideally unseen by observers, the left foot actually sticks out just to the right of the collapsing knee, and the toes should be pulled up hard. Instead of landing on the knee, the breaker lands on the toes of the left foot.\n\nSweep Drop \nThe breaker drops as one leg sweeps out around in a wide arc. As all the weight shifts to the left leg, the right leg kicks backwards. The left leg bends so that the body sinks toward the floor, and meanwhile, the right leg swings around toward the front of the body. The right (sweeping) leg remains straight throughout. By the time the right leg has swung around to point directly ahead, the left knee should be fully bent and the hands are ready to hit the floor and bear the body's weight. The swinging momentum continues into a 6-step or any other move.\n\nCoin Drop\nA Coin Drop is a transition made from Toprock directly into a Backspin, or more commonly into Windmills. It requires that the dancer shifts his/her weight from the left leg to the right leg, leans onto his/her right hand and then moves the weight onto his/her left hand/forearm - shoulder while his/her feet leave the ground. The momentum generated from performing a Coin Drop sends the dancer into a spin onto his/her back. \n\nBreakdance moves"
] |
[
"Hilltop Hoods",
"1987-2001: Formation and early years",
"How was the group formed?",
"In 1991 they joined up with DJ Next (Ben John Hare) through a mutual friend and formed an Australian hip hop group.",
"What was their first recording?",
"Hilltop Hoods recorded a demo, Highlanders, which was released on cassette tape only.",
"Did Highlanders get written about in yhe music press?",
"I don't know.",
"What was the followup to Highlanders?",
"Hilltop Hoods founded the Certified Wise Crew - a hip hop collaborative - with local groups Terra Firma, Cross Bred Mongrels and After Hours.",
"Did the Certified Wise Crew have any notable live performances together?",
"Certified Wise Crew has since expanded to include MCs Trauma, Blockade, Kolaps, Flea, with Vents and Funkoars joining in later years.",
"What other recordings did they release in their early years?",
"In 2001 the group's second album, Left Foot, Right Foot, was released with Lambert, Francis and M. Veraquth producing.",
"Were there any hit singles from Left Foot, Right Foot?",
"I don't know."
] |
C_e52eb25f24074bb2947bf6fb1e5b05d7_1
|
What year was Highlanders released?
| 8 |
What year was Hilltop Hoods's album Highlanders released?
|
Hilltop Hoods
|
Two of Hilltop Hoods' founders first met in 1987 when MC Suffa (aka Matthew David Lambert) and MC Pressure (Daniel Howe Smith) attended Blackwood High School in Eden Hills - a suburb of Adelaide. In 1991 they joined up with DJ Next (Ben John Hare) through a mutual friend and formed an Australian hip hop group. Their name was supplied by fellow local MC Flak (from Cross Bred Mongrels) - the suburb of Blackwood is known by locals as the Hilltop. The band's influences include American hip hop artists: Notorious B.I.G., KRS-One, Gang Starr, Wu-Tang Clan and Public Enemy. At live shows Next was the group's DJ, for recording he contributed audio engineering and all the scratching/turntablism on their early works. He regularly competed in the local DMC World DJ Championships (DMC) tournaments, winning the South Australian DMC championships multiple times. Hilltop Hoods recorded a demo, Highlanders, which was released on cassette tape only. As well as Pressure and Suffa on vocals, the group included MC Summit aka DJ Sum-1, but he did not appear on later Hilltop Hoods work. The group's first official release, in 1997, was a vinyl-only, seven-track extended play, Back Once Again. Production was handled by DJ Debris (Barry John M Francis), turntablism and audio engineering by Next, vocals by Pressure and Suffa. The third track, "Shades of Grey", features Debris with a verse, and was co-written by Francis, Hare, Lambert and Smith. Fifth track, "Mankind Must Suffa" also features a guest verse from Quromystix (aka Quro, Andrew Michael Bradley) - a member of Finger Lickin' Good and later the Fuglemen. "Mankind Must Suffa" is credited to Lambert, Smith, Francis and Bradley. Back Once Again is out of print and unavailable for retail purchase. The group's debut studio album, A Matter of Time, was released in 1999 on CD only. As with Back Once Again, it is now unavailable for retail purchase. All scratching/turntablism is performed by Next, a track, "Let Me Show You", has no vocals - solely showcasing his turntable skills. American MC Bukue One (Tion Torrence) appears for a guest verse on "Deaf Can Hear". The track is credited to Lambert, Smith, Francis, Hare and Torrence. The album was released independently but with financial assistance from Arts SA - the band were inspired, in 2005, to set up their own Hilltop Hoods Initiative, to help local artists. After the album appeared, Next left the group and moved to Melbourne. In 2004 he moved to London. In 1999 Debris, who was also a member of the Cross Bred Mongrels, replaced Next and became the Hilltop Hoods' full-time DJ. Hilltop Hoods founded the Certified Wise Crew - a hip hop collaborative - with local groups Terra Firma, Cross Bred Mongrels and After Hours. Certified Wise Crew has since expanded to include MCs Trauma, Blockade, Kolaps, Flea, with Vents and Funkoars joining in later years. Hilltop Hoods received two nominations for the Hip Hop Act of the Year Award at the Australian Dance Music Awards and again at the 3D World Music Awards in 2001 and 2002. In 2001 the group's second album, Left Foot, Right Foot, was released with Lambert, Francis and M. Veraquth producing. CANNOTANSWER
|
CANNOTANSWER
|
Hilltop Hoods are an Australian hip hop group that formed in 1991 in Blackwood, Adelaide, South Australia. They are regarded as pioneers of the "larrikin-like" style of Australian hip hop. The group was founded by Suffa (Matthew David Lambert) and Pressure (Daniel Howe Smith), who were joined by DJ Debris (Barry John M. Francis) after fellow founder, DJ Next (Ben John Hare), left in 1999. The group released its first extended play, Back Once Again, in 1997 and have subsequently released eight studio albums, two "restrung" albums and three DVDs.
Six of their eight albums have peaked at number one on the Australian Record Industry Association (ARIA) Albums Charts, recently setting the record for most No. 1 Albums by an Australian band or group: The Hard Road (2006), State of the Art (2009), Drinking from the Sun (2012), Walking Under Stars (2014), Drinking from the Sun, Walking Under Stars Restrung (2016) and The Great Expanse (2019). Three tracks have reached the top 10 on the ARIA Singles Chart—"Chase That Feeling" (2009), "I Love It", featuring Sia (2011) and "Higher", featuring James Chatburn (2015) — while a further two tracks — "Cosby Sweater" (2014) and "1955" (2016) — reached the top 5. "1955", featuring Montaigne & Tom Thum, peaked at number 2 in the Australian charts.
Hilltop Hoods have toured both in Australia and overseas, including playing at music festivals: T in the Park, Oxegen, the Big Day Out, Clipsal 500, Southbound, The Great Escape, Splendour in the Grass, Bassinthegrass, Groovin' The Moo, Falls Festival, Pyramid Rock Festival, Rollercoaster, Come Together Festival and Make Poverty History.
The band are one of the most recurrent artists in the history of the Triple J Hottest 100, with 21 songs voted into the annual countdowns since their first appearance in 2003. At the ARIA Music Awards of 2006 they won "Best Independent Release" and "Best Urban Album" for The Hard Road. In 2007, they won "Best Urban Album" for their remix album, The Hard Road: Restrung (2007). They won the same category in 2009 for State of the Art and in 2012 for Drinking from the Sun. In 2009, Debris also won "Engineer of the Year" for his work on State of the Art. The band received their seventh ARIA award in 2014 when Walking Under Stars won in the Best Urban Album category at the 28th ARIA Awards.
History
1987–2001: Formation and early years
Two of Hilltop Hoods' founders first met in 1987 when MC Suffa (aka Matthew David Lambert) and Pressure (Daniel Howe Smith) attended Blackwood High School in Eden Hills – a suburb of Adelaide. In 1991 they joined up with DJ Next (Ben John Hare) through a mutual friend and formed an Australian hip hop group. Their name was supplied by fellow local MC Flak (from Cross Bred Mongrels) – the suburb of Blackwood is known by locals as the Hilltop. The band's influences include American hip hop artists: Notorious B.I.G., KRS-One, Gang Starr, Wu-Tang Clan and Public Enemy.
At live shows DJ Next was the group's DJ, for recording he contributed audio engineering and all the scratching/turntablism on their early works. He regularly competed in the local DMC World DJ Championships (DMC) tournaments, winning the South Australian DMC championships multiple times. Hilltop Hoods recorded a demo, Highlanders, which was released on cassette tape only. As well as Pressure and Suffa on vocals, the group included MC Summit aka DJ Sum-1, but he did not appear on later Hilltop Hoods work.
The group's first official release, in 1997, was a vinyl-only, seven-track extended play, Back Once Again. Production was handled by DJ Debris (Barry John M Francis), turntablism and audio engineering by DJ Next, vocals by Pressure and Suffa. The third track, "Shades of Grey", features Debris with a verse, and was co-written by Francis, Hare, Lambert and Smith. Fifth track, "Mankind Must Suffa" also features a guest verse from Quromystix (aka Quro, Andrew Michael Bradley) – a member of Finger Lickin' Good and later the Fuglemen. "Mankind Must Suffa" is credited to Lambert, Smith, Francis and Bradley. Back Once Again is out of print and unavailable for retail purchase.
The group's debut studio album, A Matter of Time, was released in 1999 on CD only. As with Back Once Again, it is now unavailable for retail purchase. All scratching/turntablism is performed by DJ Next, a track, "Let Me Show You", has no vocals – solely showcasing his turntable skills. American MC Bukue One (Tion Torrence) appears for a guest verse on "Deaf Can Hear". The track is credited to Lambert, Smith, Francis, Hare and Torrence. The album was released independently but with financial assistance from Arts SA – the band were inspired, in 2005, to set up their own Hilltop Hoods Initiative, to help local artists. After the album appeared, DJ Next left the group and moved to Melbourne. In 2004 he moved to London. In 1999 Debris, who was also a member of the Cross Bred Mongrels, replaced Next and became the Hilltop Hoods' full-time DJ.
Hilltop Hoods founded the Certified Wise Crew – a hip-hop collaborative – with local groups Terra Firma, Cross Bred Mongrels and After Hours. Certified Wise Crew has since expanded to include MCs Trauma, Blockade, Kolaps, Flea, with Vents and Funkoars joining in later years. Hilltop Hoods received two nominations for the Hip Hop Act of the Year Award at the Australian Dance Music Awards and again at the 3D World Music Awards in 2001 and 2002. In 2001 the group's second album, Left Foot, Right Foot, was released with Lambert, Francis and M. Veraquth producing.
2003–2007: The Calling and The Hard Road
On 22 September 2003, Hilltop Hoods released their third album, The Calling, which became a commercial breakthrough. In an interview after the release of their fourth album, Suffa revealed that The Calling was recorded on his mother's computer and the simplicity of their 'studio' is the reason why some of the music on the album is in monaural ('mono') sound.
The Calling entered the ARIA Albums Chart in March 2004 and reached No. 53 before exiting the top 100 in September of the same year. By December 2006 it was certified platinum for shipment of 70,000 units, becoming the first Australian hip hop album to achieve platinum status. In March 2012, it re-entered the chart and peaked at No. 50 – eight-and-a-half years after its first release. It featured two singles, "The Nosebleed Section" and "Dumb Enough", which were listed in the Triple J Hottest 100, 2003. "The Nosebleed Section" was ranked No. 17 in the Triple J Hottest 100 of All Time in 2009. Hilltop Hoods' chart and commercial success was a turning point in the Australian Hip Hop scene because it demonstrated widespread support for the genre that reached beyond an underground fan base.
On 1 April 2006, the group followed with their fourth album, The Hard Road, which peaked at number one. It was the first Australian hip hop album to do so. It was certified gold within a week of being released. Its lead single, "Clown Prince", reached the top 30 on the related ARIA Singles Chart. It featured guest verses from New York rapper, Omni, and British MCs, Mystro and Braintax. The Hilltop Hoods received the inaugural Australian Independent Record (AIR) Award for Independent Artist of the Year and Best Performing Independent Album for The Hard Road in 2006. The track, "The Blue Blooded", is a collaboration with Australian MCs: Funkoars, Hau from Koolism, Mortar, Vents, Drapht, Muph & Plutonic, Pegz and Robby Balboa. On 27 April of the same year, Hilltop Hoods performed at the Bass in the Grass music festival in Darwin alongside fellow hip hop group, The Herd. That same day they issued a second single, the title track from the album. Its video includes fellow members from the Certified Wise Crew – Cross Bred Mongrels, Terrafirma and Funkoars.
Following the success of The Hard Road Tour in early 2006, the Hilltop Hoods began their second national tour for the year, The Stopping All Stations Tour, which visited more regional areas of Australia as well as the capital cities. They were supported by Koolism and Mystro. Late that year, Hilltop Hoods released their third single from the album, "What a Great Night". The video shows the group at a club with camera shots panning up and down to reveal a new location. It used special effects and is one of the most expensive video clips for an Australian hip hop group, mirroring the group's rise in success and popularity. Also late in the year the band won the J Award for best album of the year from Triple J. They performed the Homebake Festival and Falls Festival before the end of the year. The Hard Road received the AIR Award for Best Independent Hip Hop/Urban Release in 2007.
2007–2009: The Hard Road Restrung and State of the Art
On 12 May 2007, Hilltop Hoods released their next album The Hard Road: Restrung which is a remix of their previous studio album, The Hard Road, featuring the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra and Okwerdz. It peaked at No. 8 on the ARIA Albums Chart. Like its predecessor The Hard Road, it took out "Best Urban Release" at the ARIA Awards of 2007, with the group going back-to-back in the category. The lead single from the album "Recapturing the Vibe Restrung", its video clip was on high rotation on rage and jtv. That year the group performed at the Southbound Festival (WA), The Great Escape at Newington Armory over Easter, and embarked on a UK tour with a Sydney-based string quartet. They finished the year by headlining the Pyramid Rock Festival on Victoria's Phillip Island over New Year's Eve 2007. In 2008 they performed at the Big Day Out festivals, at Glastonbury Festival and Islington Academy in London. In December their DVD, The City of Light, was released and was nominated as Best Music DVD at the 2008 ARIA Awards.
Hilltop Hoods left their longtime home of Obese Records to start their own label, Golden Era Records, to release their future material. In November 2008 Pressure announced on Triple J's breakfast program that the next studio album, State of the Art, would be recorded with session musicians: "We realised with this one after doing Restrung and having an orchestra that we were a bit less limited. So we're going to have some session musos come in on this one and stuff like that". The album was released on 12 June, with the lead single, "Chase That Feeling", issued as a digital download on 8 May, and featured a return guest appearance by a quartet from the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. The album debuted at number one on the albums chart while "Chase That Feeling" peaked at No. 8 on the related singles chart. By 2010 State of the Art was certified 2× platinum for shipment of 140,000 units.
In early 2009 the Hilltop Hoods performed at the Groovin the Moo festival in Townsville, Maitland and Bendigo. They also performed at Triple J's One Night Stand in Sale, Victoria on 30 May, and at Fat as Butter festival in Newcastle on 25 October where they played several of the tracks from the album. To promote its release the band started a national tour starting on 18 July and performed at most major cities including state capitals. The second national tour that year followed on 11 November with support provided by Vents.
2010–2017: Drinking from the Sun and Walking Under Stars
On 28 July 2010, Hilltop Hoods completed work on a zombie movie, Parade of the Dead, that the group wrote, filmed, and starred in. Using the title from a State of the Art track, it was released on 22 October with the eponymous single. Filmed mostly in Adelaide, the former Adelaide Gaol was used as a "key location".
In late November 2011, the band premiered the single, "I Love It", on the Triple J breakfast show. Featuring Sia, the song peaked at No. 6 on the ARIA chart and was the lead single from their sixth album, Drinking from the Sun, which was released on 9 March 2012. During December 2011, they supported Eminem and Lil Wayne during the Australian leg of Eminem's world tour. The song has since been certified 4x Platinum by ARIA, denoting sales of more than 280,000 units.
Three music videos for "I Love It" were published online in December 2011 by DJ Debris. Three versions were commissioned by the band, involving three different directors: Nash Edgerton of Blue Tongue Films; the Animal Logic animation company; and independent Melbourne, Australia, film-maker Carl Allison.
In January 2012, the group "leaked" a song from the sixth album following the emergence of interest on their Facebook page: "Let's have some fun. If we get 5000 likes on this post we're going to leak a track off Drinking from the Sun"—they received more than 7,500 likes within 10 minutes. Surprised with the magnitude of the response, the band subsequently posted: "Wow. Give me a minute." and posted a link to a new track, "Rattling the Keys to the Kingdom", on YouTube shortly afterward. "Rattling the Keys to the Kingdom" was certified Gold by ARIA in 2018.
Drinking from the Sun became their third number-one album in Australia and also charted on the New Zealand Albums Chart top 40. In mid-April 2012, the music video for "Speaking in Tongues", the album's second single, was published online. Directed by Toby Grimes, the video features Chali 2na and graffiti murals from Brisbane, Australia, artist Sofles.
On 10 May 2012, Hilltop Hoods issued a new EP, The Good Life in the Sun, to celebrate the launch of the 'Speaking in Tongues Tour', which includes tracks from Drinking from the Sun remixed by Suffa. The post contained a link to their website where the EP can be downloaded for free. In July 2012, the video for the third single, "Shredding the Balloon", was published on the band's YouTube channel. Directed by Selina Miles of Unity Sound and Visual, the video had received nearly 1.5 million views as of 1 October 2014. The single was released on 20 July 2012.
In August 2012, Triple J uploaded video footage of the group's tribute to Beastie Boys' member, Adam "MCA" Yauch, who died in May 2012. The group selected "So What'cha Want", from Beastie Boys' album, Check Your Head.
In late September, the music video for "Rattling the Keys to the Kingdom" was published online. It featured numerous Australian hip-hop artists, including Drapht, Urthboy, Def Wish Cast, Dazastah, Layla, Maya Jupiter and Hunter. The band explained in the production notes for the video:
Not only did we want to do something unifying, we also wanted to use the platform we have to promote artists that we think deserve more exposure. Of course, not everyone involved in the filmclip needs exposure, as many of the artists involved have huge followings in their own right. But having these artists involved in the filmclip just further serves to unify and consolidate the scene ... We need to point out that this is by no means a representation of every relevant artist involved in the culture past or present. It's more a cross-section of who we have contact with, who was available and so on.
In November 2012, Hilltop Hoods performed a live show on UStream and announced that the title of the group's next album would be Walking Under Stars—this was then confirmed on the official Hilltop Hoods Twitter and Facebook pages, following their Best Urban Album win at the 2012 ARIA Awards ceremony. The band's Facebook post read:
So it’s now one year to the day since we dropped 'I Love It' and started the 'Drinking from the Sun' journey. Thanks to everyone that’s supported us over the last 12 months, it’s been amazing. We hope you join us late next year for 'Walking Under Stars'. Thankyou, Suffa, Pressure & Debris
The announcement corresponds with a sample on Drinking from the Sun that refers to a band writing with the clear intention of formulating enough material for two albums: "They were recording enough for two albums; that was premeditated." The sample appears on the track, "The Thirst Pt. 3 (Interlude)".
In April 2013, the Hilltop Hoods stated that the development of Walking Under Stars was "well underway", with the trio calling the album Drinking from the Sun "part two"—the latter received a double platinum sales certification in the same month. Additionally, American clothing company Zoo York announced a partnership with the Hilltop Hoods in April 2013, in preparation for the brand's 20th-anniversary celebrations in 2014. Lambert explained: "We've always been fans of Zoo York, they understand hip hop culture, and that's why we can’t wait to work with them."
On 21 June 2014—after the band successfully received the 20,000 likes they requested for a Facebook post—the first preview of Walking Under Stars, titled "The Art of the Handshake", was uploaded to the band's SoundCloud profile—the song is the fourth on the album's track-list. Lambert revealed on 6 August that the song was inspired by the Notes to Self song "All of the Above", which reminded him of "the ridiculous handshakes" of his youth. As part of the songwriting process, Lambert spent a day researching the status of the handshake in countries such as Sweden and India.
The album's first official single, "Won't Let You Down"—featuring Irish singer Maverick Sabre—was released on 27 June 2014. Writing for the Faster Louder website, Matt Shea revealed in early August that the first single was met with a mixed reaction from existing fans of the band: "While many loved it, plenty of Hoods fans at the very least declared it a radio friendly single that had little to do with hip-hop. Others outright disliked it." Lambert explained in media interviews during the week prior to the album's release that the song was recorded at the Red Bull Studios in both London, UK and New York City, US, while the lyrical content is about the partners of the band members and the difficulties of being in a relationship with touring musicians. The single's musical content features Italian singer Zucchero Fornaciari singing a rendition of Ph.D's hit "I Won't Let You Down".
During the band's performance at the 2014 Splendour in the Grass festival, held from 25 to 27 July in Byron Bay, Australia, Lambert exclaimed to the audience prior to the song "Speaking in Tongues", from the Drinking from the Sun album:
The Hilltop Hoods do not give a fuck what race you are! The Hilltop Hoods do not give a fuck what religion you are! The Hilltop Hoods do not give a fuck what sex you are! The Hilltop Hoods do not give a fuck what sexuality you are! We are one people under the music!
Lambert explained that his announcement, a reaffirmation of the sentiment in "Speaking in Tongues", is "very important" to the band.
The band announced the release date for Walking Under Stars as 8 August 2014 in mid-July and, while the album is a Golden Era Records recording, Universal Music Australia acquired the exclusive licensing rights for the domestic market—Universal will also use the license to distribute the album in Canada, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Benelux, while Golden Era continues its partnership with Fontana for the US release. Walking Under Stars was conceived before Drinking From the Sun was written and Lambert referred to the former as "a companion piece" in an August 2014 interview. Lambert also explained that "I'm a Ghost" is four-years-old, while a segment of "Brainbox" originally appeared on the 2012 Golden Era mixtape.
Similar to the band's previous album releases, numerous collaborators appear on Walking Under Stars. Lambert explained on 5 August that "we [Hilltop Hoods] try to do it in the same room" when guest artists record and, for the seventh studio album, the band worked with Sabre, New Zealand soul singer Aaradhna, Brother Ali, Dan Sultan, Drapht, Canadian voice-over artist Dave Pettitt and One Above, the Adelaide producer who also worked on Drinking from the Sun. Lambert explained to TheMusic.com.au website that Sultan is a "gifted" artist who the band loves "as a person as well", and "it was really good to work with [Brother] Ali, who’s an artist that we admire so much."
Walking Under Stars debuted in the number-one position of the ARIA album charts during the week beginning 11 August 2014, providing the band with their fourth chart-topping album since The Hard Road in April 2006. As of 16 August 2014, the Hilltop Hoods have garnered a total of six weeks at the top of the ARIA charts from four number-one albums, three of which are Golden Era Records releases. During the promotion for a national Australian tour in late August 2014, the band revealed that a secret release will "manifest itself" in 2015 and will be the culmination of a multi-album creative project that began with Drinking From The Sun.
"Won't Let You Down" was performed live on the Australian AFL Footy Show television program on 7 August 2014, during an episode that was filmed in Adelaide. The music video for "Won't Let You Down" was published on the Hilltop Hoods YouTube channel on 19 August 2014. Directed by Richard Coburn of the Kojo production company, the video features a narrative in which manufactured pigs heads are used.
The music video for the "Cosby Sweater" single was released on the Hilltop Hoods YouTube channel while the group was engaged in the third stage of their 2014 world tour in North America. Published on 15 September, the video was again directed by Coburn and also features Golden Era artists Briggs, K21 and Trials. The single became the group's first top 5 ARIA single on 15 November 2014, during the fourth, Australian stage of the world tour, on the same date as the group's Melbourne performance at the Rod Laver Arena. "Cosby Sweater" was also performed at the 28th ARIA Awards ceremony on 26 November 2014, where the band also won the Best Urban Album award.
On 30 April 2016, Hilltop Hoods performed their final concert of the 'Drinking from the Sun, Walking Under the Stars' at Perth Arena.I
2018–present: The Great Expanse
On 13 July 2018, Hilltop Hoods released single "Clark Griswold" with Adrian Eagle, an ode to the character from the National Lampoon's Vacation movies.
On 23 November 2018, Hilltop Hoods released the single "Leave Me Lonely" and announced their forthcoming 2019 album The Great Expanse. The album, which features platinum single "Leave Me Lonely," gold selling ARIA Award-winning single "Clark Griswold" ft. Adrian Eagle, and new single "Exit Sign" ft. Illy and Ecca Vandal, was released on 22 February 2019 and debuted at No. 1 on the ARIA Albums Charts. The chart debut made it the group's sixth number one, setting a new ARIA record for most No. 1 Albums by an Australian band or group.
Touring
Hilltop Hoods have toured both in Australia and overseas, including playing at music festivals: T in the Park, Oxegen, the Big Day Out, Adelaide 500, Southbound, The Great Escape, Splendour in the Grass, Bassinthegrass, Groovin' The Moo, Falls Festival, Pyramid Rock Festival, Rollercoaster, Come Together Festival and Make Poverty History.
On 8 December 2012, the Hilltop Hoods were one of two headlines acts (the other was American band, Blondie) for the 2012 "Global Edition" of the popular Australian music, film, comedy and arts festival, Homebake.
A North American "Drinking From The Sun" tour was announced in late February 2013 and the band revealed that it would perform in American cities such as Seattle (the tour's debut location), New York and San Francisco, and the Canadian cities, Vancouver, Montreal, Calgary and Toronto; the tour was scheduled to end in Los Angeles on 9 May 2013. However, on 23 February 2013, the hip hop group announced the indefinite postponement of the entire tour due to a "serious family matter". The Hilltop Hoods were also one of the bands on the "Concerts" roster for the V8 Clipsal 500 Adelaide car racing event, held between 28 February 2013 and 3 March 2013—other Australian hip hop artists, such as Drapht and Vents, also performed at the event.
The group performed at the 2014 occurrence of the Australian festival Splendour in the Grass, performing alongside other musicians, such as Illy, Outkast, and Lily Allen. The band announced an August–September 2014 North American tour in June 2014—including dates in Vancouver and Toronto, Canada, and San Francisco, US—with Minnesota, US, artist Sims, from Doomtree.
In late August 2014, the "Cosby Sweater Australian Tour" was announced in support of the Walking Under Stars album release. The domestic tour run from October to December 2014, and the support acts were Thundamentals and K21.
Their latest national tour was in 2016. This was the "Drinking from the sun and Walking Under Stars Australian Sympthony Orchestra tour" This was the tour that followed the release of the new album which was the 2 most recent albums remastered using the orchestra.
In February 2019, the group supported Eminem's concert tour around Australia and New Zealand, performing to audiences in venues such as ANZ Stadium in Sydney and the MCG in Melbourne.
Awards and accolades
Hilltop Hoods received nominations for the 'Best Hip Hop Act' in 2001 and 2002 at the 3D World Dance Music Awards, they won the Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA) Award for 'Best Up-coming Group' as well as receiving number-one positions in independent charts all around Australia. The 2052 release The Calling achieved platinum certification from ARIA. Two tracks, "The Nosebleed Section" and "Dumb Enough", were listed in the Triple J Hottest 100, 2003, at ninth and 44th, respectively. Their lead single from The Hard Road, "Clown Prince" was released in February 2006, and became their first top 40 hit on the ARIA Singles Chart. In 2006 the group won the J Award.
On Australia Day, 2007, the Hoods claimed five spots in Triple J's Hottest 100 with "The Hard Road" reaching third place. "Clown Prince", "What a Great Night", "Stopping All Stations", and "Recapturing the Vibe" placed 23rd, 41st, 56th, and 77th respectively. The Hilltop Hoods received the most entries in the Hottest 100 that year, and were only one track off equalling the record, set by Wolfmother the previous year. In 2009 "The Nosebleed Section" was voted number 17 in the Triple J Hottest 100 of all time, the highest placed Australian song.
For the APRA Music Awards of 2010, the Hilltop Hoods won the 'Urban Work of the Year' award for "Still Standing", which was written by Francis, Lambert, Smith and Henry Lawes. The band received three nominations at the 2013 APRA Awards: 'Most Played Australian Work' for "I Love It", and two nominations in the 'Urban Work of the Year' category for "I Love It" and "Speaking in Tongues". They won Urban Work of the Year for "I Love It" (featuring Sia).
At the APRA Music Awards of 2020, Hilltop Hoods won Songwriter of the Year and Most Performed Urban Work of the Year for "Leave Me Lonely". As of 2020, The group has won six APRA Awards from 15 nominations.
In December 2020, the Hilltop Hoods were listed at number 27 in Rolling Stone Australias "50 Greatest Australian Artists of All Time" issue.
AIR Awards
The Australian Independent Record Awards (commonly known informally as AIR Awards) is an annual awards night to recognise, promote and celebrate the success of Australia's Independent Music sector.
|-
| rowspan="3" | 2006
|The Hard Road
| Best Performing Independent Album
|
|-
|"Clown Prince"
| Best Performing Independent Single
|
|-
|themselves
| Independent Artist of the Year
|
|-
| rowspan="3" | 2007
| rowspan="2" |The Hard Road Restrung
| Best Independent Album
|
|-
| Best Independent Dance/Electronic Album
|
|-
|themselves
| Independent Artist of the Year
|
|-
ARIA Awards
In 2006 Hilltop Hoods were nominated for five ARIA Awards – the first ever for an Australian hip hop group – winning in two categories: 'Best Urban Release' and 'Best Independent Release'. The following year they won 'Best Urban Release' at the ARIA Awards for The Hard Road: Restrung. The album was also nominated for 'Best Independent Release' and 'Best Cover Art' by John Engelhardt. The DVD City of Light was nominated as 'Best Music DVD' at the 2008 ARIA awards. At the 2009 ARIA Awards they won 'Best Urban Album' for a third time – for State of the Art and DJ Debris won an award for 'Engineer of the Year' for his work on that album. At the ARIA Music Awards of 2012, Hilltop Hoods won its fourth award in the 'Best Urban Album' category for Drinking from the Sun; as of November 2012, the group has won six awards from twenty nominations.
At the 2012 ARIA Awards, established Aboriginal Australian band, Yothu Yindu, was inducted into the Hall of Fame. A photograph of Suffa holding the award in the presence of the band was posted on the Hilltop Hoods' Instagram profile, accompanied by the following comment: "A memory I'll take to the grave. Meeting Yothu Yindi and having them let me hold their Hall of Fame ARIA. What a beautiful induction."
The band was nominated in three ARIA categories in 2014: Best Group, Best Urban Album, and Engineer of the Year. In an October 2014 radio interview, Smith said that the band does not expect to win an award, but wishes the best for the winners; however, the Best Urban Album award was given to the band on 26 November 2014, providing the band with their seventh ARIA award. As from November 2020 they have won ten awards from thirty-six nominations.
!
|-
| rowspan="5" | 2006 || rowspan="3" | The Hard Road || Best Independent Release || ||rowspan="5"|
|-
| Best Urban Album ||
|-
| Breakthrough Artist – Album ||
|-
| "Clown Prince" || Breakthrough Artist – Single ||
|-
| The Calling Live || Best Music DVD ||
|-
| rowspan="3" | 2007 || rowspan="2" | The Hard Road: Restrung || Best Independent Release || ||rowspan="3"|
|-
| Best Urban Album ||
|-
| The Hard Road: Restrung – John Engelhardt || Best Cover Art ||
|-
| 2008 || The City of Light || Best Music DVD || ||
|-
| rowspan="6" | 2009 || rowspan="3" | State of the Art || Highest Selling Album || || rowspan="6"|
|-
| Best Urban Album ||
|-
| Best Group ||
|-
| "Chase That Feeling" || Single of the Year ||
|-
| State of the Art – Suffa || Producer of the Year ||
|-
| State of the Art – DJ Debris || Engineer of the Year ||
|-
| rowspan="5" | 2012 || rowspan="2" | Drinking from the Sun || Best Group || || rowspan="5"|
|-
| Best Urban Album ||
|-
| "I Love It" (featuring Sia) || Song of the Year ||
|-
| "I Love It" (featuring Sia) – Animal Logic || Best Video ||
|-
| Drinking From The Sun || Best Australian Live Act ||
|-
| rowspan="3" | 2014 || rowspan="3" | Walking Under Stars || Engineer of the Year || || rowspan="3"|
|-
| Best Urban Album ||
|-
| Best Group ||
|-
| 2015 || Cosby Sweater Australian Tour || Best Australian Live Act || ||
|-
| rowspan="3" | 2016 || rowspan="2" | "1955" || Song of the Year || ||rowspan="3"|
|-
| Best Video ||
|-
| The Restrung Tour || Best Australian Live Act ||
|-
| 2018 || "Clark Griswold" (featuring Adrian Eagle) || Best Urban Release || ||
|-
| rowspan="7" | 2019 || rowspan="3" | The Great Expanse || Album of the Year || ||rowspan="7"|
|-
| Best Group ||
|-
| Best Hip Hop Release ||
|-
| "Leave Me Lonely" || Song of the Year ||
|-
| "Exit Sign" (featuring Illy and Ecca Vandal) || Best Video ||
|-
| The Great Expanse World Tour || Best Australian Live Act ||
|-
| Plutonic Lab for Hilltop Hoods' The Great Expanse || Engineer of the Year ||
|-
| 2020 || "Exit Sign" (featuring Illy and Ecca Vandal) || Song of the Year || ||
|-
Fowler's Live Music Awards
The Fowler's Live Music Awards took place from 2012 to 2014 to "recognise success and achievement over the past 12 months [and] celebrate the great diversity of original live music" in South Australia. Since 2015 they're known as the South Australian Music Awards.
|-
| 2012
| Hilltop Hoods
| Best Hip Hop Artist
|
|-
J Awards
The J Awards are an annual series of Australian music awards that were established by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's youth-focused radio station Triple J. They commenced in 2005.
|-
| J Awards of 2014
| Walking Under Stars| Australian Album of the Year
|
|-
| J Awards of 2019
| A Great Expanse| Australian Album of the Year
|
|-
National Live Music Awards
The National Live Music Awards (NLMAs) are a broad recognition of Australia's diverse live industry, celebrating the success of the Australian live scene. The awards commenced in 2016.
|-
| National Live Music Awards of 2019
| Hilltop Hoods
| Live Hip Hop Act of the Year
|
|-
Other projects
Hilltop Hoods Initiative
In 2005 the annual "Hilltop Hoods Initiative" was established in association with Arts SA, made possible by a donation from the Hilltop Hoods. Valued at A$10,000 (originally $3000), the Hilltop Hoods initiative helped young and emerging South Australian hip-hop artists to manufacture and distribute a CD. The initiative also included two mentorship sessions with Hilltop Hoods' former manager, PJ Murton. It acknowledges the important role South Australian government assistance played in the development of the careers of the Hilltop Hoods. In 2009, the initiative became a national grant available to entry for any emerging Australian hip-hop artist who have not issued a professional album.
In a Hilltop Hoods newsletter, released on 4 December 2012, the group communicated the following announcement:
In 2013 The Hilltop Hoods and APRA are teaming up again to give a career changing $10K to the most impressive emerging Hip Hop/Soul act in Australia. Aimed at helping fund the manufacturing and marketing of an album release, the grant is open to any act who hasn't yet released anything professionally. Applications will open in early 2013 along with details on how to enter.
Recipients are:
General Knowledge, a three-piece group (2006)
Subsketch, a solo artist (2007)
Jimblah, a solo artist (2008)
K21, a solo artist (2009)
1/6, a solo artist (2010)
Koolta, a solo artist (2011)
Run for Your Life, a musical collective (2012)
Chelsea Jane (2013), Gold Coast, Queensland artist
I AM D (2014), Brisbane, Queensland solo artist
Sarah Connor, a solo artist (2015)
Astro Travellers, a seven-piece group (2016)
MC Sinks, a solo artist from Melbourne, Victoria. (2017).
Hilltop Hoods Remix Shoe
The Hilltop Hoods and DC Shoes collaborated on the production of a limited-edition shoe called "The Hilltop Hoods Remix Shoe"—it was released in stores on 1 February 2008. They are the first Australian music group to design and release their own signature-model shoe. Illustration and Design by John Engelhardt injected its unique style
Golden Era Records
Following its departure from the Obese record label, the group launched its own label in 2009, entitled Golden Era Records. The label's title is described by the band on the label website:
To some people the golden era of Hip Hop was '94. Ask someone a little older and they’ll tell you Hip Hop’s renaissance was back in '88. Ask one of our revered pioneers and they’ll tell you that the golden era came and went three decades ago, before most of today’s Hip Hop heads were born. Whatever the case these so-called golden eras weren’t only defined by the music or the fashion – they were characterised by something less tangible – an atmosphere, a movement.
This label wasn’t established to release throw-back records; instead we hope to make music that throws you back to the way you felt during the golden era of Hip Hop.
Whatever year that was for you.
The label is based in Stirling, South Australia, and, as of December 2012, its roster consists of the Hilltop Hoods, Briggs, Funkoars, Vents, Adfu, K21, and most recently, Shadow
In January 2012, Fontana, an independent marketing, sales and distribution company under the Universal Music Group umbrella, signed an exclusive agreement with Golden Era Records for the American release of Drinking From The Sun, as well as back catalogue titles.
Charity
The CanTeen youth cancer charity announced that the 2-CD fundraising album Australian Hip Hop Supports CanTeen had raised over AU$122,000 as of 15 October 2014. Released in late 2013, the album features contributions from Hilltop Hoods, as well as numerous other Australian hip-hop artists. The initiative was originally conceived of by Robert Hunter, an MC who rapped under the name "Hunter" (SBX), who died from cancer prior to the release of the album.
Through the Dark interactive film
On 11 November 2016 Hilltop Hoods released an interactive film called Through the Dark, which featured their song of the same name. The interactive film project was a collaboration with Google Play Music and was directed by Mike Daly.
Members
Current members
Suffa (Matthew David Lambert) – vocals, engineering, mixing, producing (1991–present)
Pressure (Daniel Howe Smith) – vocals (1991–present)
DJ Debris (Barry John M Francis) – producing, engineering, turntablism (1999–present)
Former members
DJ Next (Ben John Hare) – audio engineering, DJing, turntablism, scratching (1991–1999)
MC Summit aka DJ Sum-1 – vocals (ca. 1996)
DiscographyA Matter of Time (1999)Left Foot, Right Foot (2001)The Calling (2003)The Hard Road (2006)State of the Art (2009)Drinking from the Sun (2012)Walking Under Stars (2014)The Great Expanse'' (2019)
See also
Adelaide Arts and Entertainment
Adelaide Hills
List of Australian hip hop musicians
Music of Australia
Notes
References
External links
Australian hip hop groups
1991 establishments in Australia
APRA Award winners
ARIA Award winners
Golden Era Records artists
Musical groups established in 1991
Musical groups from Adelaide
Obese Records artists
| false |
[
"The 1958 UC Riverside Highlanders football team represented UC Riverside during the 1958 NCAA College Division football season. The Highlanders competed as an independent in 1958.\n\nUC Riverside was led by third-year head coach Carl Selin. They played home games at UCR Athletic Field in Riverside, California. The Highlanders finished the season with a record of two wins, three losses and two ties (2–3–2). Overall, the team was outscored by its opponents 92–112 for the season. This was the last season for the Highlanders with Coach Selin at the helm. He finished his three years at UC Riverside with a record of 4–13–3, a .275 winning percentage.\n\nSchedule\n\nTeam players in the NFL\nNo UC Riverside players were selected in the 1959 NFL Draft.\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n\nUC Riverside\nUC Riverside Highlanders football seasons\nUC Riverside Highlanders football",
"The 1955 UC Riverside Highlanders football team represented UC Riverside during the 1955 college football season. The Highlanders competed as an independent in 1955, which was their first season of intercollegiate football.\n\nUC Riverside was led by head coach Rod Franz, in his first and only year at the helm. They played home games at Wheelock Field in Riverside, California. The Highlanders finished the season with a record of one win, three losses and one tie (1–3–1). Overall, the team was outscored by its opponents 68–127 for the season.\n\nSchedule\n\nTeam players in the NFL\nNo UC Riverside players were selected in the 1956 NFL Draft.\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n\nUC Riverside\nUC Riverside Highlanders football seasons\nUC Riverside Highlanders football"
] |
[
"Columbus Delano",
"Resignation and corruption (1875)"
] |
C_845baa23458b4b09a935e687b86d4060_1
|
when did he resign?
| 1 |
when did Columbus Delano resign?
|
Columbus Delano
|
In 1875, Delano's reputation for personal honesty came under increasing scrutiny as revelations of corruption in the Grant administration continued to be the subject of investigations and media revelations. Westerners unhappy with Delano's rulings on land grants and other issues accused Delano's son John, an employee of the Interior Department, of corruption, bribery, and fraud. Governor Edward M. McCook of the Colorado Territory, claimed that John Delano had accepted a $1,200 bribe from a Colorado banker, Jerome B. Chaffee, to secure land patents from the Department of Interior. The New-York Tribune reported that John Delano was profiteering through Interior's Office of the Surveyor General by accepting partnerships in Wyoming surveying contracts without having been trained in surveying or map making, and without providing any meaningful contribution to the fulfillment of the contracts; the obvious implication was John Delano had taken extortion money from illicit contract agreements. In March 1875, the former chief clerk of the Surveyor's Office, L. C. Stevens, wrote to Benjamin Bristow, Grant's Secretary of the Treasury, stating that Surveyor General Silas Reed had made several corrupt contracts which financially benefited John Delano. Stevens also said both Reed and John Delano had blackmailed five deputy surveyors for $5,000. More damaging was Stevens' charge that Columbus Delano knew and approved of what Reed had done for John Delano. Both Bristow and Secretary of State Hamilton Fish demanded that Grant fire Delano. Grant declined, telling Fish, "If Delano were now to resign, it would be retreating under fire and be accepted as an admission of the charges." The controversy did not abate; by mid-August it became clear that Delano could not remain in office; Delano offered his resignation and Grant accepted, but Grant did not make it public. Grant finally announced his acceptance of Delano's resignation on October 19, 1875, after Bristow threatened to resign if Delano was not replaced. Grant replaced Delano with Zachariah Chandler, who quickly initiated civil service and other reforms in the Department of the Interior. Delano's administration was investigated by Congress, Chandler, and a special presidential commission; his personal conduct was exonerated, but his reputation as an honest, capable administrator was damaged, and Delano never again ran for office or served in an appointed one. In April 1876, The Committee on the Expeditures in the Interior Department confirmed that Reed had set up an illicit slush fund for John Delano's financial benefit, and that Delano thanked Reed while also telling him "to be careful to do nothing that would have the semblance of wrong." CANNOTANSWER
|
1875,
|
Columbus Delano (June 4, 1809 – October 23, 1896) was a lawyer, rancher, banker, statesman and a member of the prominent Delano family. Forced to live on his own at an early age, Delano struggled to become a self-made man. Delano was elected U.S. Congressman from Ohio, serving two full terms and one partial one. Prior to the American Civil War, Delano was a National Republican and then a Whig; as a Whig, he was identified with the faction of the party that opposed the spread of slavery into the Western territories, and he became a Republican when the party was founded as the major anti-slavery party after the demise of the Whigs in the 1850s. During Reconstruction Delano advocated federal protection of African-Americans' civil rights, and argued that the former Confederate states should be administered by the federal government, but was not part of the United States until they met the requirements for readmission to the Union.
Delano served as President Ulysses S. Grant's Secretary of the Interior during a time of rapid Westward expansionism, and contended with conflicts between Native tribes and White American settlers. He was instrumental in the establishment of America's first national park, having supervised the first federally funded scientific expedition into Yellowstone in 1871, and becoming America's first national park overseer in 1872. In 1874, Delano requested that Congress protect Yellowstone through the creation of a federally funded administrative agency, the first Secretary of the Interior to request such preservation of a nationally important site.
Believing that tribal communalism and a nomadic lifestyle led to war and impoverishment, Delano argued the best Indian policy was to allot Native tribes small reservations in the Indian Territory. In Delano's view, the reservation system humanely protected Native tribes from the encroachment of western settlers, aiding in Indian assimilation into white culture, language, attire, culture, and religion. The goal was for Indian people to be independent from federal funding. To compel the Native tribes of the west to move to reservations, Delano supported the slaughter to the near extinction of the vast buffalo herds outside of Yellowstone, which were essential to the maintenance of the Plains Indians' way of life.
Concerning government reform, Delano defied Grant's 1872 executive order to implement the first Civil Service Commission's recommendations. With the exception of Yellowstone, the spoils system and corruption permeated throughout the Interior Department during his tenure, and Grant requested Delano's resignation in 1875; he left office with damage to his reputation for personal honesty. Although Interior scandals, at times, continued to fester in various succeeding administrations, corruption during Delano's tenure under Grant was excessive. Delano remained a spoils man at a time when reformer demands for a federal merit system were gaining support. Delano returned to Ohio to practice law, tend to his business interests, and raise livestock; he did not return to politics and died in 1896.
Although Delano was considered a 19th Century American "major mover and shaker", his legacy has a dark side, clouded by spoils man politics, harsh treatment of Indians, and endorsement of slaughtering buffalo. Historians are critical of Delano's tenure at the Interior Department, arguing that he could have done more to stop corruption, protect bison, prevent dispossession of Native American land, and the destruction of the culture of the Plains Indians. Yellowstone is considered Delano's greatest achievement and he was considered to be an effective first administrator. The park aided in the recovery of free-roaming buffalo. By August 2019, 4,829 bison were counted in Yellowstone. While in office, Delano was outspoken for his strong support of black American rights and denouncement of the Ku Klux Klan.
Early life, education, and political career
Columbus Delano was born in Shoreham, Vermont on June 5, 1809, the son of James Delano and Lucinda Bateman. The Delano family was of French ancestry; its first representative in America, Philip Delano, voyaged from Holland in 1621 on the Fortune, the sister ship of the Mayflower. In 1815, at the age of six, Delano's father died, and his family was put under the care of his uncle Luther Bateman. In 1817 the family moved to Mount Vernon in Knox County, Ohio, where Delano resided for the rest of his life. Delano was raised primarily by Luther Bateman, who died in 1817. After an elementary education Delano labored in a woolen mill in Lexington, Ohio, and at other jobs, struggling on his own, to become largely self-sufficient while still a teenager.
After beginning self-directed legal studies, Delano formally trained with Mount Vernon attorney Hosmer Curtis from 1830 to 1831, and he attained admission to the bar in 1831. Delano became active in politics as a National Republican, and later as a Whig, and in 1834 he won election as Prosecuting Attorney for Knox County. He won reelection in 1836 and served two terms, 1835 to 1839.
Marriage and family
On July 14, 1834, Delano married Elizabeth Leavenworth of Mount Vernon, the daughter of M. Martin Leavenworth and Clara Sherman Leavenworth. Their children included daughter Elizabeth (1838–1904), who was the wife of Reverend John G. Ames of Washington, DC, and son John Sherman Delano (1841–1896), a businessman who also worked with his father at the Department of the Interior.
Delano and Ulysses S. Grant were distant cousins; they had great-great grandparents in common.
United States Representative (1845–1847)
In 1844, Delano was elected to the United States House of Representatives after appearing on the ballot as a replacement for Samuel White Jr., who had died after winning the Whig nomination. He went on to defeat Democrat Caleb J. McNulty by only 12 votes, 9,297 to 9,285. Delano served in the 29th Congress, (March 4, 1845—March 3, 1847), and was a member of the Committee on Invalid Pensions. He also gave a speech denouncing the Mexican–American War which earned him national recognition as an opponent of the conflict. Delano did not run for reelection in 1846, instead campaigning for the 1848 Whig nomination for Governor of Ohio. He lost to Seabury Ford by two votes at the January 1848 party convention; Ford went on to defeat Democrat John B. Weller in a close general election, and served one term. Delano subsequently became involved in several business ventures; in 1850 he set up a successful Wall Street banking partnership, Delano, Dunlevy, & Company, which specialized in railroad bonds; it included a branch office in Cincinnati and operated for five years. In addition, Delano became a successful sheep rancher, and served as president of the National Association of Wool Growers and the Ohio Wool Growers Association. He was also active in other businesses; he was president of the Springfield, Mount Vernon & Pittsburgh Railroad, and an original incorporator of the First National Bank of Mount Vernon, of which he later became president.
Republican Party and Civil War
With the demise of the Whigs, Columbus Delano joined the new Republican Party. Delano was a delegate to the Chicago Convention in 1860, and he seconded the nomination of Abraham Lincoln's for president. Delano actively campaigned for Lincoln, who won the presidency. The following year Delano served as Commissary-General of Ohio, on the staff of Governor William Dennison Jr., and aided in raising and equipping troops for the Union Army at the start of the American Civil War. In 1862 Delano was a candidate for the United States Senate seat held by Benjamin Wade. With Republicans in control of the Ohio General Assembly, winning their nomination was tantamount to election by the full legislature. Delano was nearly successful, losing the nomination to Wade by only two votes. In 1863, Delano served in the Ohio House of Representatives and played a notable role in shepherding the passage of legislation in support of the Union war effort. Delano served as Chairman of the Judicial Committee and settled the matter of the right of soldiers to vote. Delano served as Chairman of the Ohio delegation that attended the Baltimore Convention. Lincoln was successfully nominated for a second term of office.
Reconstruction Era
Return to Congress
Delano was again elected to the U.S. House in 1864, and he served in the 39th Congress (March 4, 1865—March 3, 1867). During this term, Delano was chairman of the House Committee on Claims. Delano appeared to lose his bid for reelection in 1866, but successfully contested the election of George W. Morgan. After unseating Morgan, Delano served for the remainder of the 40th Congress, June 3, 1868—March 3, 1869. After the Civil War Delano supported Radical Reconstruction, believing that the South was in chaos and that federal involvement in the Southern states, including the army, was necessary to keep the peace. He did not run for reelection in 1868.
Reconstruction speech (1867)
In September 1867, Delano made a speech on Reconstruction in Eaton, Ohio, in which he said that President Andrew Johnson did not have the constitutional authority to establish civil government in the former Confederate states. Delano argued that Congress, not the president, "was required to establish civil governments in all the states." In Delano's view, Johnson and Southern Democrats, who had previously supported the Confederacy, were conspiring to overthrow Congress by undermining its authority to make laws concerning Southern Reconstruction. As proof, Delano cited Johnson's September 1866 Swing Around the Circle speech, in which Johnson said the national legislature was a "pretended Congress". In addition, Delano believed Johnson was conspiring to remove Ulysses S. Grant as head of the army because of Grant's support for Congressional Reconstruction. As a result, Delano advocated impeaching Johnson and removing him from office, and argued that Grant should be protected by Congress from any attempt by Johnson to remove him. Unknown to Delano, on August 11, 1867, Grant had agreed to accept Johnson's offer to serve as interim Secretary of War, while simultaneously remaining general of the army. Under the provisions of the Tenure of Office Act, the appointment would be temporary until the U.S. Senate returned to session in January 1868, and either ratified or prohibited Stanton's removal. Johnson and Grant agreed to Grant's temporary appointment despite explicitly admitting that they disagreed on Reconstruction policy.
Commissioner of Internal Revenue
Delano remained active in politics and supported Grant for president in 1868. When Grant became president in March 1869, he appointed Delano Commissioner of Internal Revenue; Delano served from March 11, 1869, to October 31, 1870. As commissioner, Delano tried with mixed success to collect federal revenue on alcohol and tobacco products manufactured in Indian Territory; these items could be produced for sale tax-free within the territory, but manufacturers routinely sold them in adjacent states without paying the taxes. He also proved unwilling or unable to cope with the frauds of the Whiskey Ring; despite having received warnings of corruption including bribery of federal officials and failure to pay taxes, Delano took little or no action. The department did attempt to prevent the illegal manufacture and sale of whiskey in other areas; on January 31, 1870, an Internal Revenue raid in Georgia captured 18 illicit whiskey stills and their operators. The Whiskey Ring finally stopped in 1875 during Grant's second term by Secretary of the Treasury Benjamin Bristow. The ring leader, John McDonald was an acquaintance of President Grant and had requested from him a political appointment as superintending inspector of internal revenue in St. Louis. Grant then directed Delano to make the appointment. McDonald was convicted of fraud and theft and served 17 months in prison. In all, the investigation of the Whiskey Ring resulted in 110 convictions. Grant's private secretary, Orville E. Babcock was implicated, but acquitted at trial after Grant provided written testimony on his behalf. Additionally, Delano was cleared of involvement in another scandal in which Babcock was implicated, the Gold Ring, which was triggered when two New York financiers attempted to corner the gold market on September 24, 1869. Daniel Butterfield, the Assistant Treasurer of the United States, and Grant's brother in law Abel Corbin were also implicated; Butterfield was forced to resign in October. Delano's reputation for personal honesty was not in question, which was an asset when Grant needed to nominate a new Secretary of the Interior in 1870.
Secretary of the Interior
United States Attorney General Ebenezer R. Hoar and Secretary of the Interior Jacob D. Cox resigned in 1870 because of Grant's decision to overrule them on the issue of the McGarrahan Claims; speculator William McGarrahan claimed title to a tract of mining land in California, as did the New Idria Mining Company. Grant wanted no executive branch action taken, considering both claims to be fraudulent; Cox and Hoar disagreed and decided in favor of New Idria, which prompted Grant to request their resignations.
Grant appointed Delano to succeed Cox at the Interior Department; he served from November 1, 1870, until resigning on October 19, 1875. During Delano's tenure, the Interior Department was the largest bureaucracy in the federal government, including numerous patronage positions. Running the department required knowledge of dissimilar duties, and the ability to master complex details. During Delano's time as secretary, he faced several critical issues and his department was rapidly expanding; despite the challenges he served longer in the job than any other 19th-century incumbent. Delano aligned himself with Grant's private secretary Orville Babcock and Secretary of Navy George M. Robeson. Delano rejected the civil service reforms of his predecessor Cox and reverted the Interior to the spoils system.
Bison slaughter (1870s)
During the Civil War, Union generals practiced a "scorched earth" campaign against Confederate infrastructure that destroyed its vital food supplies, which aided in bringing about the Union's victory. During the late 1860s and early 1870s U.S. Army officers William T. Sherman, Richard Dodge, and Secretary of the Interior Delano adopted a similar strategy against Native Americans in the west, whose primary food supply was free-roaming bison. Dodge said in 1867, "Every buffalo dead is an Indian gone." Delano said in an 1872 annual report, "The rapid disappearance of the game [bison] from the former hunting-grounds must operate largely in favor of our efforts to confine the Indians to smaller areas, and compel them to abandon their nomadic customs."
Much of the destruction of bison was done by private, for-profit buffalo hunters; this policy allowed the slaughter of millions of bison on the American plains, forcing Indians to move to and remain on their reservations. The few free-roaming bison left in Yellowstone were protected from poaching by a federal law passed in 1872; during Delano's tenure, mounting criticism by the public forced Congress to pass legislation that would stop the bison slaughter on the plains. Grant vetoed the legislation in 1874, accepting that the bison slaughter was accomplishing the goal of pacifying the Indians. From 1872 to 1874 the Indians killed approximately 1,215,000 bison as part of providing for their food, shelter, and other basic needs; American hunters slaughtered an estimated 4,374,000 bison, reducing the population to the point that it could not reproduce normally and continue to sustain the Indians.
Apache massacre and peace (1871-1872)
On April 30, 1871, white Tucson townspeople organized a militia which massacred an Apache Indian settlement at Camp Grant. Approximately 144 Apaches were killed, mostly women and children. Twenty-eight children were kidnapped by the Tucson townspeople and held as ransom for the Apache warriors, who were not present at the time of the massacre. The people of Tucson drew national attention by the scale of their activity, resulting in Eastern philanthropists and President Grant denouncing their actions. Arizona citizens, however, believed the killings were justified and claimed that Apache warriors had killed mail runners and settlers near Tucson. President Grant sent Major General George Crook to keep the peace in Arizona; many Apaches had joined the U.S. military for protection.
On November 10, 1871, Delano advocated Grant that Apaches be given new reservation land in Arizona and New Mexico, following the recommendation of Indian Peace Commissioner Vincent Colyer to find them a location where they could be protected from attacks by white settlers. Delano advocated that all Apaches be put on reservations including young men and warriors, who were forming raiding parties, rather than just their old men and women. Grant sent Major General Oliver Otis Howard to Arizona to help resolve the issue; Howard organized a peace conference with Apache leader Eskiminzin in May 1872 at Camp Grant. Howard also negotiated the release of six of the captive Apache children. In December 1872, the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation, a permanent settlement, was established at the junction of the San Carlos and Gila Rivers, the location having been agreed upon by Howard and Eskiminzin. In October 1872, Howard also made a separate peace treaty with the Apache leader Cochise, who settled on the Chiricahua reservation.
Akerman feud (1871)
In June 1871 Grant's Attorney General Amos T. Akerman denied land and bond grants to the Union Pacific Railroad, a company connected to the Crédit Mobilier scandal. Ackerman's anti-railroad rulings were protested by railroad financiers Collis P. Huntington and Jay Gould. Akerman was also instrumental in prosecuting the Ku Klux Klan in the South and protecting African American civil rights. Railroad interests and African-American civil rights had been priorities for the Republican Party; on behalf of Huntington and Gould, Delano twice asked Akerman to change rulings that had gone against the Union Pacific, and both times Akerman refused. Delano then complained to Grant and suggested that Akerman should be removed. Grant agreed, and named former Oregon Senator George H. Williams as Akerman's replacement; Williams was seen as more favorable to railroad interests. On the issue of curtailing the Klan prosecutions, according to historian William S. McFeely, "[w]ith Akerman's departure on January 10, 1872, went any hope that the Republican party would develop as a national party of true racial equality."
Yellowstone (1871-1872)
In 1871, Delano organized America's first federally funded scientific expedition into Yellowstone, which was headed by U.S. Geologist Ferdinand V. Hayden. Delano gave specific instructions for Hayden to make a geographical map of the area and to make astronomical and barometric observations. Delano stated that Hayden's expedition was directed to "...secure as much information as possible, both scientific and practical...give your attention to the geological, mineralogical, zoological, botanical, and agricultural resources of the country." Delano also ordered Hayden to gather information on Native American tribes who lived in the area. Hayden's expedition was outfitted by an extensive scientific team that included two botanists, a meteorologist, a zoologist, an ornithologist, a mineralogist, a topographer, an artist, a photographer, a physician, hunters, mule teams and ambulances, and a support staff.
On March 1, 1872 Ulysses S. Grant signed the Organic Act, incorporating Hayden's findings and discoveries and creating Yellowstone, the world's first national park. The law provided that the Secretary of the Interior exercise "exclusive control" over Yellowstone; As Delano was the incumbent, this made him the first overseer of the first national park in the world. The poaching of fish and wildlife, including bison, was forbidden, and Delano was authorized to preserve the "natural curiosities and wonders" found inside the park. Delano was now in charge of millions of acres of land, however, he was not provided any funding to care for it. Instead, he was given the power to grant 10-year leases in order to raise money to pay for maintaining the park. As soon as the park was created, Delano was inundated by requests for hotel concessions, and he also had to determine the control and use of existing facilities in the park's northern section.
Delano appointed N. P. Langford the first Supervisor of Yellowstone in 1872; Langford banned private toll roads and submitted a plan to build and maintain a park road system free to the public, but Congress refused to fund it. Congress also refused to give Langford a stipend, so he had to supplement his livelihood by working as a banker. In 1874 Lanford requested that Delano petition Congress for appropriations to protect the park from poachers, unlicensed privateers, and trespassers. Delano agreed and demanded Congress appropriate $100,000 to set up a federal park agency to administer and protect the park for the public, and also asked for an increase in the terms of the concession leases from 10 to 20 years. The proposal was turned down; it was not until April 1877, during the Rutherford B. Hayes administration, that Congress appropriated one-tenth of Delano's request, $10,000, without any federal protection agency for the park.
Defied Civil Service Executive order (1871-1874)
In March 1871, Grant signed into law Congressional legislation that established the United States Civil Service Commission, designed to create reform rules and to regulate and reduce corruption in the federal workforce. Implementation of the rules was left to the discretion of the President. Grant appointed New York reformer William Curtis to chair the commission. The Commission reported that appointments and promotions would be controlled by examiners, and each federal Department would create a board of examiners, while political assessments would be abolished. Grant ordered the implementation of the rules to be effective on January 1, 1872. Grant dissolved the commission in 1874 after Congress refused to make the Commission rules permanent, and refused to provide permanent funding for the commission. Congressional interest in civil service reform would remain dormant until 1883.
Under Article 12 of Grant's executive order, Land Office and Pension agent applicants in the Department of Interior were to be approved by a board of examiners. Delano, however, betrayed Grant and defied the order. Grant made no response. The Interior Department's varied and diverse responsibilities increased at a rapid rate and became a source of numerous administrative problems. For the department head, controlling the bureaus and shaping policy was a daunting task; Delano argued that the complexities of the department made implementing civil service reform impractical. Under Delano's tenure, corruption permeated the whole department, including bogus agents in the Bureau of Indian Affairs and thieving clerks in the Patent Office. Delano ultimately resigned because of evidence that surveying contracts had been awarded to companies in which his son John, the chief clerk of the department, and Orvil (or Orville) Grant, the president's brother, had ownership interests; this was more or less permissible by the standards of the day, but to reform-minded individuals, including the editors of the New-York Tribune and other newspapers, it represented a conflict of interest and breach of the public trust.
Supported Ku Klux Klan prosecutions (1872)
To bolster the Reconstruction Acts and the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth constitutional amendments, Grant signed in 1870 Congressional legislation that created the Justice Department. To fight the outrages in the South by the Ku Klux Klan, Grant signed several laws known as the Enforcement Acts in 1870 and 1871. In May 1871, Grant ordered federal troops to help U.S. Marshals in arresting Klansmen. Grant's second Attorney General Amos T. Akerman, a former Confederate soldier, knew of the outrages of the Klan and was zealous in prosecuting white Southerners who terrorized their black neighbors. That October, on Akerman's recommendation, Grant suspended habeas corpus in part of South Carolina and sent federal troops there to enforce the law. After prosecutions by Akerman and his replacement, George Henry Williams, the Klan's power collapsed; by 1872, elections in the South saw African Americans voting in record numbers.
In a campaign speech supporting President Grant's reelection bid in Raleigh, North Carolina, on July 24, 1872, Delano spoke out in favor of prosecutions of the Ku Klux Klan. Delano argued that the Congressional Reconstruction Acts had been passed to "rescue order and government out of the chaos and confusion" that came from the Civil War. This included the enfranchisement of African Americans, most of them former slaves, who had been set "forever free" as a result of the war. Delano stated that if freedom meant anything it was that African Americans "should stand equal before the law and have a voice in legislation." According to Delano, southerners who rejected Republican Reconstruction opted for a subversive war against African Americans and white Republicans, including the formation of the Ku Klux Klan. Delano said the Ku Klux Klan had in fourteen North Carolina counties killed 18 people and cruelly whipped 315 Republicans who had done nothing wrong. Delano said that evidence presented in prosecuting Klan members in the federal courts proved the "barbarity and treason" of the Ku Klux Klan. Grant ended up winning North Carolina and many other Southern states.
Defined Indian policy (1873)
In 1873, Delano formally defined the methods to be used in attaining the goals of Grant's policy toward the Native Americans. Grant's ultimate goal was to convert the Indians to Christianity and assimilate them into the white culture in order to prepare them for full U.S. Citizenship; these fundamental principles continued to influence Indian Peace policy for the rest of the 19th Century. According to Delano, relocating the Indians to reservations was of primary importance, since this would supposedly protect them from the violence of white settlers as whites moved onto lands previously held by Native Americans. In addition, Christian organizations and missionaries operating on these reservations could "civilize" the Native Americans, in line with the widespread belief (including Delano's) that allowing the Indians to continue to practice their own culture would lead to their destruction. In Delano's view, his actions would accomplish Grant's goal by facilitating Indian assimilation into white culture.
Black Hills take over (1875)
Under the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie, the Oglala Sioux had been given a huge reservation including the Black Hills in what is now South Dakota. The Black Hills were the site of Sioux sacred religious rituals and spiritual ceremonies. Following the Panic of 1873 the country was desperate for new wealth. In 1874 rumors spread of gold being discovered in the Black Hills by George Custer's recent expedition. Grant sent the expedition, hoping to find gold in order to support his species currency policy; Delano opposed the move, believing travel through and eventual occupation of hunting grounds violated the Treaty of Fort Laramie and could lead to an Indian war. Delano told Grant that a "general war with the Sioux would be deplorable. It would undo the good already accomplished by our efforts for peaceable relations." Whites immediately flocked to the area in search of gold; in 1875, Congress appropriated $25,000 for the purchase of the Black Hills, hoping that a cash payment would assuage the Sioux and prevent war.
In mid-May 1875, Red Cloud, Chief of the Oglala Lakota (Sioux), and other Indian tribal leaders were brought to Washington D.C. to negotiate the sale of the Black Hills. The Sioux believed the amount offered by Congress was too low; recognizing that they would eventually lose the Black Hills, Red Cloud decided to negotiate and told Delano they would sign away the Black Hills if $25,000 in cash was first drawn from the Treasury Department, to ensure that the Sioux would be paid. Delano had no intention of giving Red Cloud cash, but rather a receipt for $25,000 from the Treasury and additional presents purchased at a later date and distributed to members of the tribe. Red Cloud insisted that he wanted the $25,000 in cash at the signing, which would be taken home and divided among the members of the tribe.
Delano warned Grant that a war would likely break out if negotiations were not successful. When negotiations broke down, Grant was brought into the process to bargain directly with Red Cloud. Grant told Red Cloud that the Black Hills had no buffalo, so it would benefit the Indians to accept payment because they would at least receive something of value in consideration for signing away valueless hunting rights. He also informed Red Cloud that whites were going to take over the Black Hills anyway, so it would be best not to leave empty-handed. Concerned that they would not be paid if they signed an agreement first, Red Cloud asked Grant to withdraw the money from the Treasury, and hold it until after the signing. Grant refused and walked out, telling Red Cloud he had to sign over the Black Hills before any payment was made. On June 4, Delano offered Red Cloud an additional $25,000 in appropriations, but Red Cloud refused.
With Red Cloud's refusal, Delano reluctantly let the Indians take the unsigned agreement back to their tribal agencies for further discussion among the members of the tribe, with final terms and signatures to be negotiated later by an appointed commission. The failure of the Washington, D.C. negotiations to produce an agreement was lampooned in the June 19 edition of Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper. Upon their return to Sioux country, Red Cloud and other Lakota leaders finally signed away their hunting rights to the Black Hills under Article 11 of the Treaty of Fort Laramie in exchange for the original $25,000 Congressional appropriation. Another group of Sioux chiefs, including Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, challenged Red Cloud's authority and started the armed resistance about which Delano had warned Grant. This challenge to Red Cloud's authority combined with Lakota unhappiness over white encroachment into the Black Hills resulted in the Great Sioux War, which started in February 1876.
Resignation and corruption (1875)
In 1875, Delano's reputation for personal honesty came under increasing scrutiny as revelations of corruption in the Grant administration continued to be the subject of investigations and media revelations. Although Delano himself was not known to be personally corrupt, his tenure was shadowed by controversy, while fraud prevailed in his Interior Department. There were accusations of an "Indian Ring" and corrupt agents who exploited Native American people. Westerners unhappy with Delano's rulings on land grants and other issues accused Delano's son John, an employee of the Interior Department, of corruption, bribery, and fraud in the Wyoming Territory.
Surveyor General Ring
The New-York Tribune reported that John Delano was profiteering through Interior's Office of the Surveyor-General by accepting partnerships in Wyoming surveying contracts without having been trained in surveying or map-making, and without providing any meaningful contribution to the fulfillment of the contracts; the obvious implication was John Delano had taken extortion money from illicit contract agreements. In March 1875, the former chief clerk of the Surveyor's Office, L. C. Stevens, wrote to Benjamin Bristow, Grant's Secretary of the Treasury, stating that Surveyor General Silas Reed had made several corrupt contracts which financially benefited John Delano. Stevens also said both Reed and John Delano had blackmailed five deputy surveyors for $5,000. According to Stevens, Reed and Delano had coerced the deputy surveyors to pay John Delano before he would release the Interior Department warrants for land the deputy surveyors had sold to prospective settlers. Governor Edward M. McCook of the Colorado Territory, claimed that John Delano had accepted a $1,200 bribe from a Colorado banker, Jerome B. Chaffee, to secure land patents from the Department of Interior. More damaging was Stevens' charge that Columbus Delano knew and approved of what Reed had done for John Delano.
In addition to Delano's son, Grant's brother Orvil was paid for surveying services in the Wyoming Territory, although Orvil did no work. The chief clerk of the Cheyenne branch of the federal Surveying Office testified before Congress concerning Orvil. When asked whether Orvil did any work in the Wyoming Territory, the chief clerk said, "No, sir, I do not think he was ever in the territory."
Indian Ring
In July 1875, Delano was rumored to know that Orvil Grant, the president's brother, had received Indian trading posts, that were a corrupt source of lucrative kickbacks, from the sutler, at the expense of the Indians and soldiers. The higher the sale price on goods, that the Indians and soldiers would pay, the higher the profits. Even the sale of rifles to hostile Indian tribes was allowed, to make more money. The profits were split and sent to the other sutler partners.
Delano was rumored to have threatened Grant at Long Branch that he would expose Orvil to the public when Delano's resignation was enforced. He told Grant that he would quietly leave office after Congressional Indian fraud investigations were complete. In February 1876, the New York Herald reported that Orvil made money in the Sioux country by "starving the squaws and children." Orvil testified before Congress that Grant had influenced the War Department to get him traderships. Orvil received rights to operate four trading posts, then set up "partners" who kicked back half their profits to Orvil. Though Orvil claimed Grant had not known of the kickbacks, he expressed no remorse for his corruption, and his testimony left Grant embarrassed.
The kingpin of this Indian Ring was not Delano, but Secretary of War William W. Belknap, who was given legal authority by Congress in 1870 to appoint sutlers to traderships at Army posts near Indian reservations, which were controlled by Interior. Belknap, who had awarded Orvil Grant the four traderships, took advantage of the law to personally profit by arranging an illicit partnership at Fort Sill between his wife Carrie, Caleb P. Marsh, and sutler John S. Evans. After Carrie's death, Belknap married her sister Amanda, who continued the illicit tradership arrangement. Belknap's household received as much as $20,000 in illegal profits (nearly $500,000 in 2021), which Belknap needed in order to finance the lavish Washington D.C. entertainment lifestyle expected of cabinet members and other prominent political figures.
Aware that the U.S. House was investigating him, on March 2, 1876 Belknap visited Grant and immediately resigned. The House continued its inquiry and found him guilty of five articles of impeachment. Grant's attorney general placed Belknap under house arrest during his U.S. Senate trial. Though most senators believed the evidence of Belknap's corruption, enough believed they lacked the jurisdiction to punish Belknap because he was no longer in office to acquit him. Despite escaping conviction, Belknap's reputation was so marred that he never returned to political office.
Resignation
Both Bristow and Secretary of State Hamilton Fish demanded that Grant fire Delano. Grant declined, telling Fish, "If Delano were now to resign, it would be retreating under fire and be accepted as an admission of the charges." The controversy did not abate; by mid-August, it became clear that Delano could not remain in office; Delano offered his resignation and Grant accepted, but Grant did not make it public. Grant finally announced his acceptance of Delano's resignation on October 19, 1875, after Bristow threatened to resign if Delano was not replaced. Grant replaced Delano with Zachariah Chandler, who quickly initiated civil service and other reforms in the Department of the Interior. Delano's administration was investigated by Congress, Chandler, and a special presidential commission; his personal conduct was exonerated, but his reputation as an honest, capable administrator was damaged, and Delano never again ran for office or served in an appointed one. In April 1876, The Committee on the Expenditures in the Interior Department confirmed that Reed had set up an illicit slush fund for John Delano's financial benefit, and that Delano thanked Reed while also telling him "to be careful to do nothing that would have the semblance of wrong."
Delano's defense
On September 26, 1875, Delano submitted to Grant a letter defending his tenure at the Department of the Interior; in essence, he argued that the size and complexity of his department made it difficult to manage effectively. Delano stated that he had resigned because he intended to return to his business and domestic concerns in Ohio. He indicated that his duties as Secretary of the Interior were "laborious, difficult, and delicate" because he was required to supervise five disparate bureaus or offices: Land; Indian; Pensions; Patent; and Education, in addition to "a mass of miscellaneous business unknown to any except those connected to the public service."
Delano also reminded Grant that the Land Office dealt with complex railroad land grants, as well as issues resolving land titles in California, Arizona and New Mexico, because those areas had previously been under Spain's and then Mexico's jurisdiction. In addition, the Indian Bureau dealt with many "intricate, delicate, and vexatious questions" growing out of previous Indian treaties. Delano further informed Grant that when he had to decide issues between competing claimants, those he ruled against often gave false and misleading statements rather than accept their loss, which was to Delano's detriment. Delano concluded by claiming a successful tenure, informing Grant that the Interior Department "has never been in a more prosperous or better condition than it now is."
Chandler reforms
Delano's successor, Zachariah Chandler, did not complain about his departmental duties, and immediately investigated allegations of corruption. Chandler found things differently than Delano's explanations to Grant and decided the department needed major reforming. During his first month in office, he fired all the clerks in one room of the Patent Office; he noted that every desk was vacant, and concluded that the employees were either involved in corruption or lacked the integrity to reform the department. Almost twenty employees were found to be entirely fictitious; they had been created by a profiteering ring to defraud the government by falsely receiving pay for work that was not performed. Chandler also fired unqualified clerks who profiteered by hiring out their work to lower-paid replacements and pocketing the salary difference.
In addition, Chandler simplified Patent Office rules, making patents easier to obtain and reducing the cost for applicants. In December 1875, Chandler banned persons known as "Indian Attorneys", whose claims to represent Native Americans in Washington were questionable. He found the Bureau of Indian Affairs to be the most corrupt, and he replaced its commissioner and chief clerk. In addition to Indian Affairs, Chandler also investigated the Pension Bureau. This review resulted in the identification and removal of numerous fraudulent pensions, which saved the federal government hundreds of thousands of dollars. Chandler also revoked as many as 800 fraudulent land grants that had been approved during Delano's tenure.
Later life and career
On his resignation from Grant's cabinet, Delano returned to Mount Vernon where for the next twenty years he served as president of the First National Bank of Mount Vernon. He was a longtime trustee of Kenyon College, which awarded him the honorary degree of LL.D.; among his charitable and civic donations was his endowment of Kenyon's Delano Hall; this building was in use until it was destroyed by a fire in 1906. His Lakeholm mansion, built in 1871 at the outskirts of Mount Vernon, is now part of Mount Vernon Nazarene University.
On April 3, 1880, John W. Wright, a judge from Indiana, was convicted at trial of having assaulted Delano on a Washington, D.C. street corner on October 12, 1877. Wright, who had been an Indian Agent in the Interior Department while Delano was secretary, had been convicted of fraud and blamed Delano. On the day of the assault he was in the company of Walter H. Smith, formerly solicitor of the Department of the Interior; Wright was accused of provoking a fight by questioning Delano's honesty as Secretary of the Interior and then striking Delano with his walking stick. Wright claimed that Delano had been verbally harassing him and that he then felt compelled to defend himself. Delano did not sustain serious injuries; Wright's defense was weakened by witness testimony that after the assault, he claimed credit for it, and stated that he would have continued if passers-by had not intervened. Wright was sentenced to 30 days in jail and fined $1,000. On April 8, 1880, President Rutherford B. Hayes pardoned Wright, with his release from custody conditional upon the payment of the fine.
On December 3, 1889, Delano was elected president of the National Wool Growers Association, a lobbying group organized to advocate for tariff protection of the national wool industry. The association had been formed in 1865, and became more active in the 1880s as a response to the decline in domestic wool production; wool growers faced increasing overseas competition and had gone from 50 million sheep producing wool in 1883 to 40 million in 1888.
Death
Delano died on October 23, 1896; he was interred at Mount Vernon's Mound View Cemetery, Lot 42, Section 16, Grave 4. Delano's death was sudden and unexpected, and took place at his "Lake Howe" home near Mount Vernon, at 11:00 AM. There was no connection between his wife Mrs. Delano's near-fatal accident and his own death.
Historical legacy
Delano's career prior to becoming Secretary of the Interior was not known for any scandals, nor has he been implicated in the Crédit Mobilier scandal. Historians, however, are critical of Delano's overall tenure as Secretary of the Interior especially for his loose anti-reform administrative style and for allowing corruption to permeate the department, unlike Grant's first appointee, Jacob D. Cox, who had been an enthusiastic advocate of civil service reform. Delano sided with the railroad interests over reform and allied with Grant's private secretary Orville Babcock and Secretary of Navy George M. Robeson, associated with corruption. Delano was at odds with Grant's reformers, including Secretary of State Hamilton Fish, Secretary of Treasury Benjamin Bristow, and Attorney General Amos T. Akerman. The corruption in the Bureau of Indian Affairs under Delano eventually led to the end of political appointees, the appointment of career civil servants, and the bureaucratization of the agency. Delano defended his reputation by saying that the Interior Department was difficult to manage due to its expanding size and its many offices with disparate functions.
Indian advancement
In March 1869, President Grant appointed Ely S. Parker, a Seneca Indian, to Commissioner of Indian Affairs serving under both Secretary of Interior Cox and Secretary of Interior Delano. Although there was resistance to his appointment, the Senate confirmed Parker could legally hold office, and he was confirmed by the Senate. During Parker's tenor, lasting until August 1871, Indian wars decreased significantly from 101 in 1869 to 58 in 1870.
145 years, 5 months, 16 days later after Delano left office in 1875, Delano's position as Secretary of Interior was finally filled in by a Native American in 2021. On December 17, 2020, President elect Joe Biden announced that he would nominate Deb Haaland to serve as Secretary of the Interior. She was confirmed by the United States Senate on March 15, 2021, by a vote of 51–40. Following her swearing-in on March 16, she became the first Native American to serve as a Cabinet secretary and the second to serve in the Cabinet, after Republican former vice president and Kaw Nation citizen Charles Curtis.
Native American land seized (1871-1875)
Between 1871 and 1875, the term years Delano was Secretary of the Interior, 73,157,155 acres (114,308 square miles) of Indian land was seized by the United States. By comparison, this is about the size of the state of Arizona (113,642 square miles).
Reservation system
Although the Indian reservation system Delano strongly advocated, protecting Indians
from white sutlers, looked good on paper, it denied the way of life Indians had sustained themselves for thousands of years. With their food supply of buffalo disseminated by white hunters, Indians were forced to live under white culture, yet survive on poor reservation lands and limited supplies. Native Americans today still suffer from the aftershocks of a brutal Interior reservation policy under Delano and his 19th Century successors. Indian culture was devastated, while in practice the reservation policy was monstrous by modern standards.
Bison slaughter and Indian suppression
Delano has also received criticism for allowing millions of bison to be slaughtered, with the exception of Yellowstone, in order to compel the Indians to move to and remain on their reservations, a policy approved by President Grant and the U.S. Army. The demise of the bison herds during Delano's tenure led to the destruction of the Plains Indian culture, including their economy, cosmology, and religion. Without the bison, the Plains Indians could not resist late 19th Century expansionism, including the development of the railroads in the American West. This policy led to more restrictive measures against Native Americans in the 1880s and 1890s, including the banning of medicine making, polygamy, bride payments, and the Sun Dance.
Yellowstone and bison recovery
Delano was the first Secretary of the Interior to be in charge of Yellowstone, America's and the world's first national park. The charges of misconduct and lax management made during Delano's tenure at Interior did not include the new park, the management of which was seen as a success. Among its features, it outlawed poaching wildlife and served as a haven for small numbers of free-roaming bison, left after the slaughter of the great herds that, with the exception of Yellowstone, Delano had fully supported. On August 25, 1916, Congress created the National Park Service to federally protect and administer Yellowstone and other national parks; Delano had proposed the creation of the agency in 1874. Yellowstone today generates around 4 million visitors per year.
By 1902, poachers had illegally killed and reduced Yellowstone bison herd size to about two dozen animals. The U.S. Army, who administered Yellowstone, prior to the creation of the National Park Service, took over and protected the last remaining bison from further poaching. Bison from private herds were incorporated into Yellowstone, forming a northern herd. For decades, however, as Yellowstone bisons increased in number, herds were reduced, believing the animals had caused overgrazing. The practice of reducing the Yellowstone bison population ceased in 1968. However, by the 2000s, the reduction of Yellowstone bison herds resumed, "due to increasing numbers and litigation about migration into Montana." As of August 2019, Yellowstone had 4,829 bison from two herds, 3,667 northern bison, and 1,162 central bison.
Corruption aftermath and Pendleton Act
In the aftermath of Delano's departure and retirement from the Interior in 1875 and Chandler reforms, the large Department still experienced scandals but were much less pervasive than during Delano's tenor. During the Rutherford B. Hayes administration, on May 31, 1880, a Senate committee reported on the Interior Department and Secretary of the Interior Carl Schurz, a reformer, over his removal and jailing of the Ponca Indians. On December 18, 1880, a commission appointed Hayes, began an investigation of the Department's treatment of the Ponca. On January 25, 1881, the commission reported to President Hayes the treatment of the Ponca was "needlessly disastrous and cruel".
In January 1883, President Arthur signed into law the landmark legislation, known as the Pendleton Act, that made civil service reform permanent, with the goal to reduce corruption and hire persons based on a merit system, rather than patronage. Patterned off Grant's Civil Service Commission (1871) and rules, the Act put 11 percent of the federal workforce under civil service law, and reestablished the Civil Service Commission, to regulate political assessments and payoffs. Good men were appointed by Arthur to run the commission, and surprisingly, Arthur was friendly to reformers. The passage of the act was motivated by the assassination of President James A. Garfield by a disgruntled office seeker.
Scandals continued to periodically surface. In 1884, William W. Dudley, Commissioner of the Pensions Office, was engaged in political activity, promising expedited approval to petitioners who voted for James G. Blaine and John A. Logan, the Republicans President and Vice President candidates. President Chester A. Arthur, a Republican, did nothing to stop the practice. In 1888, Secretary of Interior William F. Vilas, appointed by President Grover Cleveland (1885-1889), a Democrat, was investigated by Congress. Vilas was a stockholder of the Superior Lumber Company and was suspected of profiteering. In 1889, the Senate investigation report concluded that Vilas did not personally profiteer.
During the Benjamin Harrison Republican administration (1889-1893), an Interior probe investigation found evidence Harrison's appointed Pension Bureau Commissioner James R. Tanner took "lavish and illegal handouts". Tanner resigned and Harrison appointed Green B. Raum Pension Bureau Commissioner. Raum was accused of taking kickback loans to expedite pension cases. A Democratic House investigation said Raum had "prostituted his office" and should be removed, but Harrison declined.
Personal reputation
In 1898, historian Joseph Patterson Smith said Delano had attained, "a long and distinguished career, as an eminent lawyer, an able businessman and one intimately identified with the governmental affairs of the state and nation." In 2001, historian Jean Edward Smith, taking a harsher view, said Delano betrayed his public trust while Secretary of the Interior by allowing corruption to pervade throughout his department, "at the expense of those who most needed government assistance: the Native American." Benjamin Bristow, Grant's appointed Secretary of Treasury, said Secretary Delano was "a very mean dog," and deserved "the execration of every honest man."
Honors
Delano, California
Delano, California, located in Kern County, originally a terminal railroad town, was founded on July 14, 1869. The unnamed town was officially named in honor of Columbus Delano, at the time Delano was Secretary of the Interior, during the Grant administration. The name of Delano was officially given by the Southern Pacific Railroad. Delano's first post office opened in 1874. The town of Delano was incorporated as a city in 1915.
Mountains
Certain mountains in Utah (Delano Peak) and Montana (Mount Delano) are named after Delano. Delano Peak, in Utah, has an elevation of 12,174 ft (3,711 m). Mount Delano, in Montana, has an elevation of 10,138 ft (3090 m).
Notable Department of Interior events
1856-1873 Interior's Pacific Wagon Road Office improved the historic western emigrant routes.
1869 The Bureau of Education is placed under Interior (later transferred to the Department of Health, Education and Welfare).
1869-1870 Cook–Folsom–Peterson Expedition Yellowstone
1870 Washburn–Langford–Doane Expedition Yellowstone
1871 Hayden Geological Survey of 1871 Yellowstone Sponsored by the federal government. Delano instructed the survey.
1872 Congress establishes Yellowstone as the first National Park.
1873 Congress transferred territorial oversight from the Secretary of State to the Secretary of the Interior.
Notes
References
Sources
Books
Internet
New York Times
Newspapers
Speeches
External links
Columbus Delano at Find A Grave
The Department of Everything Else: Highlights of Interior History (1989)
Delano Peak, Utah Access Date: December 1, 2021
Mount Delano, Montana Access Date: December 1, 2021
1809 births
1896 deaths
Delano family
United States Secretaries of the Interior
Commissioners of Internal Revenue
Members of the United States House of Representatives from Ohio
Members of the Ohio House of Representatives
Ohio lawyers
People from Mount Vernon, Ohio
People from Shoreham, Vermont
Ohio Whigs
Ohio Republicans
Members of the Kenyon College Board of Trustees
Grant administration cabinet members
Whig Party members of the United States House of Representatives
Republican Party members of the United States House of Representatives
19th-century American politicians
Republican Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Ohio
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[
"A by-election was held for the Awarua electorate on 5 August 1897, for the seat vacated by Joseph Ward, which he had held since . Despite having had to resign due to bankruptcy, he exploited a legal loophole and was re-elected to the 13th New Zealand Parliament.\n\nBackground and election\nJoseph Ward first won election to the electorate in the 1897 election. He held many portfolios in the Seddon Ministry, including that of Treasurer (i.e. Minister of Finance), when Justice Williams declared him \"hopelessly insolvent\" in 1896. He was forced to resign his portfolios in Cabinet on 16 June. In 1897, he had to file for bankruptcy, and was adjudicated bankrupt on 8 July 1897. He was then legally obliged to resign his seat in Parliament, which he did on 14 July.\n\nA loophole, however, meant that there was nothing to stop him simply contesting it again. He did so, and was re-elected with an increased majority. His opponent, both in the previous general election in and in the by-election was Cuthbert Cowan, who had previously represented the () and (–1890) electorates.\n\nParliament passed a special Act on 13 October, the Awarua Seat Enquiry Act 1897, which required the Court of Appeal to urgently decide whether he could be re-elected to Parliament, and the court decided in his favour. The court judgement was published as AJHR H32 of 1897.\n\nWard actually gained considerable popularity as a result of his financial troubles; Ward was widely seen as a great benefactor of the Southland region, and public perceptions were that he was being persecuted by his enemies over an honest mistake. Gradually, Ward rebuilt his businesses, and paid off his debtors. Richard Seddon, still Prime Minister, quickly reappointed Ward to Cabinet.\n\n1896 general election result\n\n1897 by-election result\nThe following table gives the by-election results:\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n\nAwarua 1897\n1897 elections in New Zealand\nPolitics of Southland, New Zealand",
"Dennis J. Bennett (October 28, 1917 – November 1, 1991) was an American Episcopal priest, who, starting in 1960, testified that he had received the Baptism of the Holy Spirit.\n\nBorn in England but raised in California, Bennett was a seminal figure in the Charismatic Movement within the Christian church. After proclaiming on April 3, 1960 from the pulpit that he had been baptized in the Holy Spirit, he was asked to resign at St. Mark's Episcopal Church, a 2600-member congregation in Van Nuys, California. Bennett was featured in articles in both Newsweek and Time magazines and rather than subjecting his church to a media frenzy, he did resign his pastorate. He continued his ministry at St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Seattle, Washington until 1981 when he left the parish to found and lead the Christian Renewal Association with his wife Rita. He was also instrumental in the 1973 founding of Episcopal Renewal Ministries (now named Acts 29 ministry).\n\nBibliography\n\nWorks \n Nine O'Clock in the Morning \n The Holy Spirit and You: a study-guide to the spirit-filled life (1971) \n Trinity of Man \n Moving right along in the Spirit\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n Official Biography\n Dennis Bennett Papers at the Regent University Special Collections\n\n1917 births\n1991 deaths\n20th-century American Episcopalians\nAmerican Charismatics"
] |
[
"Columbus Delano",
"Resignation and corruption (1875)",
"when did he resign?",
"1875,"
] |
C_845baa23458b4b09a935e687b86d4060_1
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wha did he resign from?
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what did Columbus Delano resign from in 1875?
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Columbus Delano
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In 1875, Delano's reputation for personal honesty came under increasing scrutiny as revelations of corruption in the Grant administration continued to be the subject of investigations and media revelations. Westerners unhappy with Delano's rulings on land grants and other issues accused Delano's son John, an employee of the Interior Department, of corruption, bribery, and fraud. Governor Edward M. McCook of the Colorado Territory, claimed that John Delano had accepted a $1,200 bribe from a Colorado banker, Jerome B. Chaffee, to secure land patents from the Department of Interior. The New-York Tribune reported that John Delano was profiteering through Interior's Office of the Surveyor General by accepting partnerships in Wyoming surveying contracts without having been trained in surveying or map making, and without providing any meaningful contribution to the fulfillment of the contracts; the obvious implication was John Delano had taken extortion money from illicit contract agreements. In March 1875, the former chief clerk of the Surveyor's Office, L. C. Stevens, wrote to Benjamin Bristow, Grant's Secretary of the Treasury, stating that Surveyor General Silas Reed had made several corrupt contracts which financially benefited John Delano. Stevens also said both Reed and John Delano had blackmailed five deputy surveyors for $5,000. More damaging was Stevens' charge that Columbus Delano knew and approved of what Reed had done for John Delano. Both Bristow and Secretary of State Hamilton Fish demanded that Grant fire Delano. Grant declined, telling Fish, "If Delano were now to resign, it would be retreating under fire and be accepted as an admission of the charges." The controversy did not abate; by mid-August it became clear that Delano could not remain in office; Delano offered his resignation and Grant accepted, but Grant did not make it public. Grant finally announced his acceptance of Delano's resignation on October 19, 1875, after Bristow threatened to resign if Delano was not replaced. Grant replaced Delano with Zachariah Chandler, who quickly initiated civil service and other reforms in the Department of the Interior. Delano's administration was investigated by Congress, Chandler, and a special presidential commission; his personal conduct was exonerated, but his reputation as an honest, capable administrator was damaged, and Delano never again ran for office or served in an appointed one. In April 1876, The Committee on the Expeditures in the Interior Department confirmed that Reed had set up an illicit slush fund for John Delano's financial benefit, and that Delano thanked Reed while also telling him "to be careful to do nothing that would have the semblance of wrong." CANNOTANSWER
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office;
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Columbus Delano (June 4, 1809 – October 23, 1896) was a lawyer, rancher, banker, statesman and a member of the prominent Delano family. Forced to live on his own at an early age, Delano struggled to become a self-made man. Delano was elected U.S. Congressman from Ohio, serving two full terms and one partial one. Prior to the American Civil War, Delano was a National Republican and then a Whig; as a Whig, he was identified with the faction of the party that opposed the spread of slavery into the Western territories, and he became a Republican when the party was founded as the major anti-slavery party after the demise of the Whigs in the 1850s. During Reconstruction Delano advocated federal protection of African-Americans' civil rights, and argued that the former Confederate states should be administered by the federal government, but was not part of the United States until they met the requirements for readmission to the Union.
Delano served as President Ulysses S. Grant's Secretary of the Interior during a time of rapid Westward expansionism, and contended with conflicts between Native tribes and White American settlers. He was instrumental in the establishment of America's first national park, having supervised the first federally funded scientific expedition into Yellowstone in 1871, and becoming America's first national park overseer in 1872. In 1874, Delano requested that Congress protect Yellowstone through the creation of a federally funded administrative agency, the first Secretary of the Interior to request such preservation of a nationally important site.
Believing that tribal communalism and a nomadic lifestyle led to war and impoverishment, Delano argued the best Indian policy was to allot Native tribes small reservations in the Indian Territory. In Delano's view, the reservation system humanely protected Native tribes from the encroachment of western settlers, aiding in Indian assimilation into white culture, language, attire, culture, and religion. The goal was for Indian people to be independent from federal funding. To compel the Native tribes of the west to move to reservations, Delano supported the slaughter to the near extinction of the vast buffalo herds outside of Yellowstone, which were essential to the maintenance of the Plains Indians' way of life.
Concerning government reform, Delano defied Grant's 1872 executive order to implement the first Civil Service Commission's recommendations. With the exception of Yellowstone, the spoils system and corruption permeated throughout the Interior Department during his tenure, and Grant requested Delano's resignation in 1875; he left office with damage to his reputation for personal honesty. Although Interior scandals, at times, continued to fester in various succeeding administrations, corruption during Delano's tenure under Grant was excessive. Delano remained a spoils man at a time when reformer demands for a federal merit system were gaining support. Delano returned to Ohio to practice law, tend to his business interests, and raise livestock; he did not return to politics and died in 1896.
Although Delano was considered a 19th Century American "major mover and shaker", his legacy has a dark side, clouded by spoils man politics, harsh treatment of Indians, and endorsement of slaughtering buffalo. Historians are critical of Delano's tenure at the Interior Department, arguing that he could have done more to stop corruption, protect bison, prevent dispossession of Native American land, and the destruction of the culture of the Plains Indians. Yellowstone is considered Delano's greatest achievement and he was considered to be an effective first administrator. The park aided in the recovery of free-roaming buffalo. By August 2019, 4,829 bison were counted in Yellowstone. While in office, Delano was outspoken for his strong support of black American rights and denouncement of the Ku Klux Klan.
Early life, education, and political career
Columbus Delano was born in Shoreham, Vermont on June 5, 1809, the son of James Delano and Lucinda Bateman. The Delano family was of French ancestry; its first representative in America, Philip Delano, voyaged from Holland in 1621 on the Fortune, the sister ship of the Mayflower. In 1815, at the age of six, Delano's father died, and his family was put under the care of his uncle Luther Bateman. In 1817 the family moved to Mount Vernon in Knox County, Ohio, where Delano resided for the rest of his life. Delano was raised primarily by Luther Bateman, who died in 1817. After an elementary education Delano labored in a woolen mill in Lexington, Ohio, and at other jobs, struggling on his own, to become largely self-sufficient while still a teenager.
After beginning self-directed legal studies, Delano formally trained with Mount Vernon attorney Hosmer Curtis from 1830 to 1831, and he attained admission to the bar in 1831. Delano became active in politics as a National Republican, and later as a Whig, and in 1834 he won election as Prosecuting Attorney for Knox County. He won reelection in 1836 and served two terms, 1835 to 1839.
Marriage and family
On July 14, 1834, Delano married Elizabeth Leavenworth of Mount Vernon, the daughter of M. Martin Leavenworth and Clara Sherman Leavenworth. Their children included daughter Elizabeth (1838–1904), who was the wife of Reverend John G. Ames of Washington, DC, and son John Sherman Delano (1841–1896), a businessman who also worked with his father at the Department of the Interior.
Delano and Ulysses S. Grant were distant cousins; they had great-great grandparents in common.
United States Representative (1845–1847)
In 1844, Delano was elected to the United States House of Representatives after appearing on the ballot as a replacement for Samuel White Jr., who had died after winning the Whig nomination. He went on to defeat Democrat Caleb J. McNulty by only 12 votes, 9,297 to 9,285. Delano served in the 29th Congress, (March 4, 1845—March 3, 1847), and was a member of the Committee on Invalid Pensions. He also gave a speech denouncing the Mexican–American War which earned him national recognition as an opponent of the conflict. Delano did not run for reelection in 1846, instead campaigning for the 1848 Whig nomination for Governor of Ohio. He lost to Seabury Ford by two votes at the January 1848 party convention; Ford went on to defeat Democrat John B. Weller in a close general election, and served one term. Delano subsequently became involved in several business ventures; in 1850 he set up a successful Wall Street banking partnership, Delano, Dunlevy, & Company, which specialized in railroad bonds; it included a branch office in Cincinnati and operated for five years. In addition, Delano became a successful sheep rancher, and served as president of the National Association of Wool Growers and the Ohio Wool Growers Association. He was also active in other businesses; he was president of the Springfield, Mount Vernon & Pittsburgh Railroad, and an original incorporator of the First National Bank of Mount Vernon, of which he later became president.
Republican Party and Civil War
With the demise of the Whigs, Columbus Delano joined the new Republican Party. Delano was a delegate to the Chicago Convention in 1860, and he seconded the nomination of Abraham Lincoln's for president. Delano actively campaigned for Lincoln, who won the presidency. The following year Delano served as Commissary-General of Ohio, on the staff of Governor William Dennison Jr., and aided in raising and equipping troops for the Union Army at the start of the American Civil War. In 1862 Delano was a candidate for the United States Senate seat held by Benjamin Wade. With Republicans in control of the Ohio General Assembly, winning their nomination was tantamount to election by the full legislature. Delano was nearly successful, losing the nomination to Wade by only two votes. In 1863, Delano served in the Ohio House of Representatives and played a notable role in shepherding the passage of legislation in support of the Union war effort. Delano served as Chairman of the Judicial Committee and settled the matter of the right of soldiers to vote. Delano served as Chairman of the Ohio delegation that attended the Baltimore Convention. Lincoln was successfully nominated for a second term of office.
Reconstruction Era
Return to Congress
Delano was again elected to the U.S. House in 1864, and he served in the 39th Congress (March 4, 1865—March 3, 1867). During this term, Delano was chairman of the House Committee on Claims. Delano appeared to lose his bid for reelection in 1866, but successfully contested the election of George W. Morgan. After unseating Morgan, Delano served for the remainder of the 40th Congress, June 3, 1868—March 3, 1869. After the Civil War Delano supported Radical Reconstruction, believing that the South was in chaos and that federal involvement in the Southern states, including the army, was necessary to keep the peace. He did not run for reelection in 1868.
Reconstruction speech (1867)
In September 1867, Delano made a speech on Reconstruction in Eaton, Ohio, in which he said that President Andrew Johnson did not have the constitutional authority to establish civil government in the former Confederate states. Delano argued that Congress, not the president, "was required to establish civil governments in all the states." In Delano's view, Johnson and Southern Democrats, who had previously supported the Confederacy, were conspiring to overthrow Congress by undermining its authority to make laws concerning Southern Reconstruction. As proof, Delano cited Johnson's September 1866 Swing Around the Circle speech, in which Johnson said the national legislature was a "pretended Congress". In addition, Delano believed Johnson was conspiring to remove Ulysses S. Grant as head of the army because of Grant's support for Congressional Reconstruction. As a result, Delano advocated impeaching Johnson and removing him from office, and argued that Grant should be protected by Congress from any attempt by Johnson to remove him. Unknown to Delano, on August 11, 1867, Grant had agreed to accept Johnson's offer to serve as interim Secretary of War, while simultaneously remaining general of the army. Under the provisions of the Tenure of Office Act, the appointment would be temporary until the U.S. Senate returned to session in January 1868, and either ratified or prohibited Stanton's removal. Johnson and Grant agreed to Grant's temporary appointment despite explicitly admitting that they disagreed on Reconstruction policy.
Commissioner of Internal Revenue
Delano remained active in politics and supported Grant for president in 1868. When Grant became president in March 1869, he appointed Delano Commissioner of Internal Revenue; Delano served from March 11, 1869, to October 31, 1870. As commissioner, Delano tried with mixed success to collect federal revenue on alcohol and tobacco products manufactured in Indian Territory; these items could be produced for sale tax-free within the territory, but manufacturers routinely sold them in adjacent states without paying the taxes. He also proved unwilling or unable to cope with the frauds of the Whiskey Ring; despite having received warnings of corruption including bribery of federal officials and failure to pay taxes, Delano took little or no action. The department did attempt to prevent the illegal manufacture and sale of whiskey in other areas; on January 31, 1870, an Internal Revenue raid in Georgia captured 18 illicit whiskey stills and their operators. The Whiskey Ring finally stopped in 1875 during Grant's second term by Secretary of the Treasury Benjamin Bristow. The ring leader, John McDonald was an acquaintance of President Grant and had requested from him a political appointment as superintending inspector of internal revenue in St. Louis. Grant then directed Delano to make the appointment. McDonald was convicted of fraud and theft and served 17 months in prison. In all, the investigation of the Whiskey Ring resulted in 110 convictions. Grant's private secretary, Orville E. Babcock was implicated, but acquitted at trial after Grant provided written testimony on his behalf. Additionally, Delano was cleared of involvement in another scandal in which Babcock was implicated, the Gold Ring, which was triggered when two New York financiers attempted to corner the gold market on September 24, 1869. Daniel Butterfield, the Assistant Treasurer of the United States, and Grant's brother in law Abel Corbin were also implicated; Butterfield was forced to resign in October. Delano's reputation for personal honesty was not in question, which was an asset when Grant needed to nominate a new Secretary of the Interior in 1870.
Secretary of the Interior
United States Attorney General Ebenezer R. Hoar and Secretary of the Interior Jacob D. Cox resigned in 1870 because of Grant's decision to overrule them on the issue of the McGarrahan Claims; speculator William McGarrahan claimed title to a tract of mining land in California, as did the New Idria Mining Company. Grant wanted no executive branch action taken, considering both claims to be fraudulent; Cox and Hoar disagreed and decided in favor of New Idria, which prompted Grant to request their resignations.
Grant appointed Delano to succeed Cox at the Interior Department; he served from November 1, 1870, until resigning on October 19, 1875. During Delano's tenure, the Interior Department was the largest bureaucracy in the federal government, including numerous patronage positions. Running the department required knowledge of dissimilar duties, and the ability to master complex details. During Delano's time as secretary, he faced several critical issues and his department was rapidly expanding; despite the challenges he served longer in the job than any other 19th-century incumbent. Delano aligned himself with Grant's private secretary Orville Babcock and Secretary of Navy George M. Robeson. Delano rejected the civil service reforms of his predecessor Cox and reverted the Interior to the spoils system.
Bison slaughter (1870s)
During the Civil War, Union generals practiced a "scorched earth" campaign against Confederate infrastructure that destroyed its vital food supplies, which aided in bringing about the Union's victory. During the late 1860s and early 1870s U.S. Army officers William T. Sherman, Richard Dodge, and Secretary of the Interior Delano adopted a similar strategy against Native Americans in the west, whose primary food supply was free-roaming bison. Dodge said in 1867, "Every buffalo dead is an Indian gone." Delano said in an 1872 annual report, "The rapid disappearance of the game [bison] from the former hunting-grounds must operate largely in favor of our efforts to confine the Indians to smaller areas, and compel them to abandon their nomadic customs."
Much of the destruction of bison was done by private, for-profit buffalo hunters; this policy allowed the slaughter of millions of bison on the American plains, forcing Indians to move to and remain on their reservations. The few free-roaming bison left in Yellowstone were protected from poaching by a federal law passed in 1872; during Delano's tenure, mounting criticism by the public forced Congress to pass legislation that would stop the bison slaughter on the plains. Grant vetoed the legislation in 1874, accepting that the bison slaughter was accomplishing the goal of pacifying the Indians. From 1872 to 1874 the Indians killed approximately 1,215,000 bison as part of providing for their food, shelter, and other basic needs; American hunters slaughtered an estimated 4,374,000 bison, reducing the population to the point that it could not reproduce normally and continue to sustain the Indians.
Apache massacre and peace (1871-1872)
On April 30, 1871, white Tucson townspeople organized a militia which massacred an Apache Indian settlement at Camp Grant. Approximately 144 Apaches were killed, mostly women and children. Twenty-eight children were kidnapped by the Tucson townspeople and held as ransom for the Apache warriors, who were not present at the time of the massacre. The people of Tucson drew national attention by the scale of their activity, resulting in Eastern philanthropists and President Grant denouncing their actions. Arizona citizens, however, believed the killings were justified and claimed that Apache warriors had killed mail runners and settlers near Tucson. President Grant sent Major General George Crook to keep the peace in Arizona; many Apaches had joined the U.S. military for protection.
On November 10, 1871, Delano advocated Grant that Apaches be given new reservation land in Arizona and New Mexico, following the recommendation of Indian Peace Commissioner Vincent Colyer to find them a location where they could be protected from attacks by white settlers. Delano advocated that all Apaches be put on reservations including young men and warriors, who were forming raiding parties, rather than just their old men and women. Grant sent Major General Oliver Otis Howard to Arizona to help resolve the issue; Howard organized a peace conference with Apache leader Eskiminzin in May 1872 at Camp Grant. Howard also negotiated the release of six of the captive Apache children. In December 1872, the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation, a permanent settlement, was established at the junction of the San Carlos and Gila Rivers, the location having been agreed upon by Howard and Eskiminzin. In October 1872, Howard also made a separate peace treaty with the Apache leader Cochise, who settled on the Chiricahua reservation.
Akerman feud (1871)
In June 1871 Grant's Attorney General Amos T. Akerman denied land and bond grants to the Union Pacific Railroad, a company connected to the Crédit Mobilier scandal. Ackerman's anti-railroad rulings were protested by railroad financiers Collis P. Huntington and Jay Gould. Akerman was also instrumental in prosecuting the Ku Klux Klan in the South and protecting African American civil rights. Railroad interests and African-American civil rights had been priorities for the Republican Party; on behalf of Huntington and Gould, Delano twice asked Akerman to change rulings that had gone against the Union Pacific, and both times Akerman refused. Delano then complained to Grant and suggested that Akerman should be removed. Grant agreed, and named former Oregon Senator George H. Williams as Akerman's replacement; Williams was seen as more favorable to railroad interests. On the issue of curtailing the Klan prosecutions, according to historian William S. McFeely, "[w]ith Akerman's departure on January 10, 1872, went any hope that the Republican party would develop as a national party of true racial equality."
Yellowstone (1871-1872)
In 1871, Delano organized America's first federally funded scientific expedition into Yellowstone, which was headed by U.S. Geologist Ferdinand V. Hayden. Delano gave specific instructions for Hayden to make a geographical map of the area and to make astronomical and barometric observations. Delano stated that Hayden's expedition was directed to "...secure as much information as possible, both scientific and practical...give your attention to the geological, mineralogical, zoological, botanical, and agricultural resources of the country." Delano also ordered Hayden to gather information on Native American tribes who lived in the area. Hayden's expedition was outfitted by an extensive scientific team that included two botanists, a meteorologist, a zoologist, an ornithologist, a mineralogist, a topographer, an artist, a photographer, a physician, hunters, mule teams and ambulances, and a support staff.
On March 1, 1872 Ulysses S. Grant signed the Organic Act, incorporating Hayden's findings and discoveries and creating Yellowstone, the world's first national park. The law provided that the Secretary of the Interior exercise "exclusive control" over Yellowstone; As Delano was the incumbent, this made him the first overseer of the first national park in the world. The poaching of fish and wildlife, including bison, was forbidden, and Delano was authorized to preserve the "natural curiosities and wonders" found inside the park. Delano was now in charge of millions of acres of land, however, he was not provided any funding to care for it. Instead, he was given the power to grant 10-year leases in order to raise money to pay for maintaining the park. As soon as the park was created, Delano was inundated by requests for hotel concessions, and he also had to determine the control and use of existing facilities in the park's northern section.
Delano appointed N. P. Langford the first Supervisor of Yellowstone in 1872; Langford banned private toll roads and submitted a plan to build and maintain a park road system free to the public, but Congress refused to fund it. Congress also refused to give Langford a stipend, so he had to supplement his livelihood by working as a banker. In 1874 Lanford requested that Delano petition Congress for appropriations to protect the park from poachers, unlicensed privateers, and trespassers. Delano agreed and demanded Congress appropriate $100,000 to set up a federal park agency to administer and protect the park for the public, and also asked for an increase in the terms of the concession leases from 10 to 20 years. The proposal was turned down; it was not until April 1877, during the Rutherford B. Hayes administration, that Congress appropriated one-tenth of Delano's request, $10,000, without any federal protection agency for the park.
Defied Civil Service Executive order (1871-1874)
In March 1871, Grant signed into law Congressional legislation that established the United States Civil Service Commission, designed to create reform rules and to regulate and reduce corruption in the federal workforce. Implementation of the rules was left to the discretion of the President. Grant appointed New York reformer William Curtis to chair the commission. The Commission reported that appointments and promotions would be controlled by examiners, and each federal Department would create a board of examiners, while political assessments would be abolished. Grant ordered the implementation of the rules to be effective on January 1, 1872. Grant dissolved the commission in 1874 after Congress refused to make the Commission rules permanent, and refused to provide permanent funding for the commission. Congressional interest in civil service reform would remain dormant until 1883.
Under Article 12 of Grant's executive order, Land Office and Pension agent applicants in the Department of Interior were to be approved by a board of examiners. Delano, however, betrayed Grant and defied the order. Grant made no response. The Interior Department's varied and diverse responsibilities increased at a rapid rate and became a source of numerous administrative problems. For the department head, controlling the bureaus and shaping policy was a daunting task; Delano argued that the complexities of the department made implementing civil service reform impractical. Under Delano's tenure, corruption permeated the whole department, including bogus agents in the Bureau of Indian Affairs and thieving clerks in the Patent Office. Delano ultimately resigned because of evidence that surveying contracts had been awarded to companies in which his son John, the chief clerk of the department, and Orvil (or Orville) Grant, the president's brother, had ownership interests; this was more or less permissible by the standards of the day, but to reform-minded individuals, including the editors of the New-York Tribune and other newspapers, it represented a conflict of interest and breach of the public trust.
Supported Ku Klux Klan prosecutions (1872)
To bolster the Reconstruction Acts and the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth constitutional amendments, Grant signed in 1870 Congressional legislation that created the Justice Department. To fight the outrages in the South by the Ku Klux Klan, Grant signed several laws known as the Enforcement Acts in 1870 and 1871. In May 1871, Grant ordered federal troops to help U.S. Marshals in arresting Klansmen. Grant's second Attorney General Amos T. Akerman, a former Confederate soldier, knew of the outrages of the Klan and was zealous in prosecuting white Southerners who terrorized their black neighbors. That October, on Akerman's recommendation, Grant suspended habeas corpus in part of South Carolina and sent federal troops there to enforce the law. After prosecutions by Akerman and his replacement, George Henry Williams, the Klan's power collapsed; by 1872, elections in the South saw African Americans voting in record numbers.
In a campaign speech supporting President Grant's reelection bid in Raleigh, North Carolina, on July 24, 1872, Delano spoke out in favor of prosecutions of the Ku Klux Klan. Delano argued that the Congressional Reconstruction Acts had been passed to "rescue order and government out of the chaos and confusion" that came from the Civil War. This included the enfranchisement of African Americans, most of them former slaves, who had been set "forever free" as a result of the war. Delano stated that if freedom meant anything it was that African Americans "should stand equal before the law and have a voice in legislation." According to Delano, southerners who rejected Republican Reconstruction opted for a subversive war against African Americans and white Republicans, including the formation of the Ku Klux Klan. Delano said the Ku Klux Klan had in fourteen North Carolina counties killed 18 people and cruelly whipped 315 Republicans who had done nothing wrong. Delano said that evidence presented in prosecuting Klan members in the federal courts proved the "barbarity and treason" of the Ku Klux Klan. Grant ended up winning North Carolina and many other Southern states.
Defined Indian policy (1873)
In 1873, Delano formally defined the methods to be used in attaining the goals of Grant's policy toward the Native Americans. Grant's ultimate goal was to convert the Indians to Christianity and assimilate them into the white culture in order to prepare them for full U.S. Citizenship; these fundamental principles continued to influence Indian Peace policy for the rest of the 19th Century. According to Delano, relocating the Indians to reservations was of primary importance, since this would supposedly protect them from the violence of white settlers as whites moved onto lands previously held by Native Americans. In addition, Christian organizations and missionaries operating on these reservations could "civilize" the Native Americans, in line with the widespread belief (including Delano's) that allowing the Indians to continue to practice their own culture would lead to their destruction. In Delano's view, his actions would accomplish Grant's goal by facilitating Indian assimilation into white culture.
Black Hills take over (1875)
Under the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie, the Oglala Sioux had been given a huge reservation including the Black Hills in what is now South Dakota. The Black Hills were the site of Sioux sacred religious rituals and spiritual ceremonies. Following the Panic of 1873 the country was desperate for new wealth. In 1874 rumors spread of gold being discovered in the Black Hills by George Custer's recent expedition. Grant sent the expedition, hoping to find gold in order to support his species currency policy; Delano opposed the move, believing travel through and eventual occupation of hunting grounds violated the Treaty of Fort Laramie and could lead to an Indian war. Delano told Grant that a "general war with the Sioux would be deplorable. It would undo the good already accomplished by our efforts for peaceable relations." Whites immediately flocked to the area in search of gold; in 1875, Congress appropriated $25,000 for the purchase of the Black Hills, hoping that a cash payment would assuage the Sioux and prevent war.
In mid-May 1875, Red Cloud, Chief of the Oglala Lakota (Sioux), and other Indian tribal leaders were brought to Washington D.C. to negotiate the sale of the Black Hills. The Sioux believed the amount offered by Congress was too low; recognizing that they would eventually lose the Black Hills, Red Cloud decided to negotiate and told Delano they would sign away the Black Hills if $25,000 in cash was first drawn from the Treasury Department, to ensure that the Sioux would be paid. Delano had no intention of giving Red Cloud cash, but rather a receipt for $25,000 from the Treasury and additional presents purchased at a later date and distributed to members of the tribe. Red Cloud insisted that he wanted the $25,000 in cash at the signing, which would be taken home and divided among the members of the tribe.
Delano warned Grant that a war would likely break out if negotiations were not successful. When negotiations broke down, Grant was brought into the process to bargain directly with Red Cloud. Grant told Red Cloud that the Black Hills had no buffalo, so it would benefit the Indians to accept payment because they would at least receive something of value in consideration for signing away valueless hunting rights. He also informed Red Cloud that whites were going to take over the Black Hills anyway, so it would be best not to leave empty-handed. Concerned that they would not be paid if they signed an agreement first, Red Cloud asked Grant to withdraw the money from the Treasury, and hold it until after the signing. Grant refused and walked out, telling Red Cloud he had to sign over the Black Hills before any payment was made. On June 4, Delano offered Red Cloud an additional $25,000 in appropriations, but Red Cloud refused.
With Red Cloud's refusal, Delano reluctantly let the Indians take the unsigned agreement back to their tribal agencies for further discussion among the members of the tribe, with final terms and signatures to be negotiated later by an appointed commission. The failure of the Washington, D.C. negotiations to produce an agreement was lampooned in the June 19 edition of Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper. Upon their return to Sioux country, Red Cloud and other Lakota leaders finally signed away their hunting rights to the Black Hills under Article 11 of the Treaty of Fort Laramie in exchange for the original $25,000 Congressional appropriation. Another group of Sioux chiefs, including Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, challenged Red Cloud's authority and started the armed resistance about which Delano had warned Grant. This challenge to Red Cloud's authority combined with Lakota unhappiness over white encroachment into the Black Hills resulted in the Great Sioux War, which started in February 1876.
Resignation and corruption (1875)
In 1875, Delano's reputation for personal honesty came under increasing scrutiny as revelations of corruption in the Grant administration continued to be the subject of investigations and media revelations. Although Delano himself was not known to be personally corrupt, his tenure was shadowed by controversy, while fraud prevailed in his Interior Department. There were accusations of an "Indian Ring" and corrupt agents who exploited Native American people. Westerners unhappy with Delano's rulings on land grants and other issues accused Delano's son John, an employee of the Interior Department, of corruption, bribery, and fraud in the Wyoming Territory.
Surveyor General Ring
The New-York Tribune reported that John Delano was profiteering through Interior's Office of the Surveyor-General by accepting partnerships in Wyoming surveying contracts without having been trained in surveying or map-making, and without providing any meaningful contribution to the fulfillment of the contracts; the obvious implication was John Delano had taken extortion money from illicit contract agreements. In March 1875, the former chief clerk of the Surveyor's Office, L. C. Stevens, wrote to Benjamin Bristow, Grant's Secretary of the Treasury, stating that Surveyor General Silas Reed had made several corrupt contracts which financially benefited John Delano. Stevens also said both Reed and John Delano had blackmailed five deputy surveyors for $5,000. According to Stevens, Reed and Delano had coerced the deputy surveyors to pay John Delano before he would release the Interior Department warrants for land the deputy surveyors had sold to prospective settlers. Governor Edward M. McCook of the Colorado Territory, claimed that John Delano had accepted a $1,200 bribe from a Colorado banker, Jerome B. Chaffee, to secure land patents from the Department of Interior. More damaging was Stevens' charge that Columbus Delano knew and approved of what Reed had done for John Delano.
In addition to Delano's son, Grant's brother Orvil was paid for surveying services in the Wyoming Territory, although Orvil did no work. The chief clerk of the Cheyenne branch of the federal Surveying Office testified before Congress concerning Orvil. When asked whether Orvil did any work in the Wyoming Territory, the chief clerk said, "No, sir, I do not think he was ever in the territory."
Indian Ring
In July 1875, Delano was rumored to know that Orvil Grant, the president's brother, had received Indian trading posts, that were a corrupt source of lucrative kickbacks, from the sutler, at the expense of the Indians and soldiers. The higher the sale price on goods, that the Indians and soldiers would pay, the higher the profits. Even the sale of rifles to hostile Indian tribes was allowed, to make more money. The profits were split and sent to the other sutler partners.
Delano was rumored to have threatened Grant at Long Branch that he would expose Orvil to the public when Delano's resignation was enforced. He told Grant that he would quietly leave office after Congressional Indian fraud investigations were complete. In February 1876, the New York Herald reported that Orvil made money in the Sioux country by "starving the squaws and children." Orvil testified before Congress that Grant had influenced the War Department to get him traderships. Orvil received rights to operate four trading posts, then set up "partners" who kicked back half their profits to Orvil. Though Orvil claimed Grant had not known of the kickbacks, he expressed no remorse for his corruption, and his testimony left Grant embarrassed.
The kingpin of this Indian Ring was not Delano, but Secretary of War William W. Belknap, who was given legal authority by Congress in 1870 to appoint sutlers to traderships at Army posts near Indian reservations, which were controlled by Interior. Belknap, who had awarded Orvil Grant the four traderships, took advantage of the law to personally profit by arranging an illicit partnership at Fort Sill between his wife Carrie, Caleb P. Marsh, and sutler John S. Evans. After Carrie's death, Belknap married her sister Amanda, who continued the illicit tradership arrangement. Belknap's household received as much as $20,000 in illegal profits (nearly $500,000 in 2021), which Belknap needed in order to finance the lavish Washington D.C. entertainment lifestyle expected of cabinet members and other prominent political figures.
Aware that the U.S. House was investigating him, on March 2, 1876 Belknap visited Grant and immediately resigned. The House continued its inquiry and found him guilty of five articles of impeachment. Grant's attorney general placed Belknap under house arrest during his U.S. Senate trial. Though most senators believed the evidence of Belknap's corruption, enough believed they lacked the jurisdiction to punish Belknap because he was no longer in office to acquit him. Despite escaping conviction, Belknap's reputation was so marred that he never returned to political office.
Resignation
Both Bristow and Secretary of State Hamilton Fish demanded that Grant fire Delano. Grant declined, telling Fish, "If Delano were now to resign, it would be retreating under fire and be accepted as an admission of the charges." The controversy did not abate; by mid-August, it became clear that Delano could not remain in office; Delano offered his resignation and Grant accepted, but Grant did not make it public. Grant finally announced his acceptance of Delano's resignation on October 19, 1875, after Bristow threatened to resign if Delano was not replaced. Grant replaced Delano with Zachariah Chandler, who quickly initiated civil service and other reforms in the Department of the Interior. Delano's administration was investigated by Congress, Chandler, and a special presidential commission; his personal conduct was exonerated, but his reputation as an honest, capable administrator was damaged, and Delano never again ran for office or served in an appointed one. In April 1876, The Committee on the Expenditures in the Interior Department confirmed that Reed had set up an illicit slush fund for John Delano's financial benefit, and that Delano thanked Reed while also telling him "to be careful to do nothing that would have the semblance of wrong."
Delano's defense
On September 26, 1875, Delano submitted to Grant a letter defending his tenure at the Department of the Interior; in essence, he argued that the size and complexity of his department made it difficult to manage effectively. Delano stated that he had resigned because he intended to return to his business and domestic concerns in Ohio. He indicated that his duties as Secretary of the Interior were "laborious, difficult, and delicate" because he was required to supervise five disparate bureaus or offices: Land; Indian; Pensions; Patent; and Education, in addition to "a mass of miscellaneous business unknown to any except those connected to the public service."
Delano also reminded Grant that the Land Office dealt with complex railroad land grants, as well as issues resolving land titles in California, Arizona and New Mexico, because those areas had previously been under Spain's and then Mexico's jurisdiction. In addition, the Indian Bureau dealt with many "intricate, delicate, and vexatious questions" growing out of previous Indian treaties. Delano further informed Grant that when he had to decide issues between competing claimants, those he ruled against often gave false and misleading statements rather than accept their loss, which was to Delano's detriment. Delano concluded by claiming a successful tenure, informing Grant that the Interior Department "has never been in a more prosperous or better condition than it now is."
Chandler reforms
Delano's successor, Zachariah Chandler, did not complain about his departmental duties, and immediately investigated allegations of corruption. Chandler found things differently than Delano's explanations to Grant and decided the department needed major reforming. During his first month in office, he fired all the clerks in one room of the Patent Office; he noted that every desk was vacant, and concluded that the employees were either involved in corruption or lacked the integrity to reform the department. Almost twenty employees were found to be entirely fictitious; they had been created by a profiteering ring to defraud the government by falsely receiving pay for work that was not performed. Chandler also fired unqualified clerks who profiteered by hiring out their work to lower-paid replacements and pocketing the salary difference.
In addition, Chandler simplified Patent Office rules, making patents easier to obtain and reducing the cost for applicants. In December 1875, Chandler banned persons known as "Indian Attorneys", whose claims to represent Native Americans in Washington were questionable. He found the Bureau of Indian Affairs to be the most corrupt, and he replaced its commissioner and chief clerk. In addition to Indian Affairs, Chandler also investigated the Pension Bureau. This review resulted in the identification and removal of numerous fraudulent pensions, which saved the federal government hundreds of thousands of dollars. Chandler also revoked as many as 800 fraudulent land grants that had been approved during Delano's tenure.
Later life and career
On his resignation from Grant's cabinet, Delano returned to Mount Vernon where for the next twenty years he served as president of the First National Bank of Mount Vernon. He was a longtime trustee of Kenyon College, which awarded him the honorary degree of LL.D.; among his charitable and civic donations was his endowment of Kenyon's Delano Hall; this building was in use until it was destroyed by a fire in 1906. His Lakeholm mansion, built in 1871 at the outskirts of Mount Vernon, is now part of Mount Vernon Nazarene University.
On April 3, 1880, John W. Wright, a judge from Indiana, was convicted at trial of having assaulted Delano on a Washington, D.C. street corner on October 12, 1877. Wright, who had been an Indian Agent in the Interior Department while Delano was secretary, had been convicted of fraud and blamed Delano. On the day of the assault he was in the company of Walter H. Smith, formerly solicitor of the Department of the Interior; Wright was accused of provoking a fight by questioning Delano's honesty as Secretary of the Interior and then striking Delano with his walking stick. Wright claimed that Delano had been verbally harassing him and that he then felt compelled to defend himself. Delano did not sustain serious injuries; Wright's defense was weakened by witness testimony that after the assault, he claimed credit for it, and stated that he would have continued if passers-by had not intervened. Wright was sentenced to 30 days in jail and fined $1,000. On April 8, 1880, President Rutherford B. Hayes pardoned Wright, with his release from custody conditional upon the payment of the fine.
On December 3, 1889, Delano was elected president of the National Wool Growers Association, a lobbying group organized to advocate for tariff protection of the national wool industry. The association had been formed in 1865, and became more active in the 1880s as a response to the decline in domestic wool production; wool growers faced increasing overseas competition and had gone from 50 million sheep producing wool in 1883 to 40 million in 1888.
Death
Delano died on October 23, 1896; he was interred at Mount Vernon's Mound View Cemetery, Lot 42, Section 16, Grave 4. Delano's death was sudden and unexpected, and took place at his "Lake Howe" home near Mount Vernon, at 11:00 AM. There was no connection between his wife Mrs. Delano's near-fatal accident and his own death.
Historical legacy
Delano's career prior to becoming Secretary of the Interior was not known for any scandals, nor has he been implicated in the Crédit Mobilier scandal. Historians, however, are critical of Delano's overall tenure as Secretary of the Interior especially for his loose anti-reform administrative style and for allowing corruption to permeate the department, unlike Grant's first appointee, Jacob D. Cox, who had been an enthusiastic advocate of civil service reform. Delano sided with the railroad interests over reform and allied with Grant's private secretary Orville Babcock and Secretary of Navy George M. Robeson, associated with corruption. Delano was at odds with Grant's reformers, including Secretary of State Hamilton Fish, Secretary of Treasury Benjamin Bristow, and Attorney General Amos T. Akerman. The corruption in the Bureau of Indian Affairs under Delano eventually led to the end of political appointees, the appointment of career civil servants, and the bureaucratization of the agency. Delano defended his reputation by saying that the Interior Department was difficult to manage due to its expanding size and its many offices with disparate functions.
Indian advancement
In March 1869, President Grant appointed Ely S. Parker, a Seneca Indian, to Commissioner of Indian Affairs serving under both Secretary of Interior Cox and Secretary of Interior Delano. Although there was resistance to his appointment, the Senate confirmed Parker could legally hold office, and he was confirmed by the Senate. During Parker's tenor, lasting until August 1871, Indian wars decreased significantly from 101 in 1869 to 58 in 1870.
145 years, 5 months, 16 days later after Delano left office in 1875, Delano's position as Secretary of Interior was finally filled in by a Native American in 2021. On December 17, 2020, President elect Joe Biden announced that he would nominate Deb Haaland to serve as Secretary of the Interior. She was confirmed by the United States Senate on March 15, 2021, by a vote of 51–40. Following her swearing-in on March 16, she became the first Native American to serve as a Cabinet secretary and the second to serve in the Cabinet, after Republican former vice president and Kaw Nation citizen Charles Curtis.
Native American land seized (1871-1875)
Between 1871 and 1875, the term years Delano was Secretary of the Interior, 73,157,155 acres (114,308 square miles) of Indian land was seized by the United States. By comparison, this is about the size of the state of Arizona (113,642 square miles).
Reservation system
Although the Indian reservation system Delano strongly advocated, protecting Indians
from white sutlers, looked good on paper, it denied the way of life Indians had sustained themselves for thousands of years. With their food supply of buffalo disseminated by white hunters, Indians were forced to live under white culture, yet survive on poor reservation lands and limited supplies. Native Americans today still suffer from the aftershocks of a brutal Interior reservation policy under Delano and his 19th Century successors. Indian culture was devastated, while in practice the reservation policy was monstrous by modern standards.
Bison slaughter and Indian suppression
Delano has also received criticism for allowing millions of bison to be slaughtered, with the exception of Yellowstone, in order to compel the Indians to move to and remain on their reservations, a policy approved by President Grant and the U.S. Army. The demise of the bison herds during Delano's tenure led to the destruction of the Plains Indian culture, including their economy, cosmology, and religion. Without the bison, the Plains Indians could not resist late 19th Century expansionism, including the development of the railroads in the American West. This policy led to more restrictive measures against Native Americans in the 1880s and 1890s, including the banning of medicine making, polygamy, bride payments, and the Sun Dance.
Yellowstone and bison recovery
Delano was the first Secretary of the Interior to be in charge of Yellowstone, America's and the world's first national park. The charges of misconduct and lax management made during Delano's tenure at Interior did not include the new park, the management of which was seen as a success. Among its features, it outlawed poaching wildlife and served as a haven for small numbers of free-roaming bison, left after the slaughter of the great herds that, with the exception of Yellowstone, Delano had fully supported. On August 25, 1916, Congress created the National Park Service to federally protect and administer Yellowstone and other national parks; Delano had proposed the creation of the agency in 1874. Yellowstone today generates around 4 million visitors per year.
By 1902, poachers had illegally killed and reduced Yellowstone bison herd size to about two dozen animals. The U.S. Army, who administered Yellowstone, prior to the creation of the National Park Service, took over and protected the last remaining bison from further poaching. Bison from private herds were incorporated into Yellowstone, forming a northern herd. For decades, however, as Yellowstone bisons increased in number, herds were reduced, believing the animals had caused overgrazing. The practice of reducing the Yellowstone bison population ceased in 1968. However, by the 2000s, the reduction of Yellowstone bison herds resumed, "due to increasing numbers and litigation about migration into Montana." As of August 2019, Yellowstone had 4,829 bison from two herds, 3,667 northern bison, and 1,162 central bison.
Corruption aftermath and Pendleton Act
In the aftermath of Delano's departure and retirement from the Interior in 1875 and Chandler reforms, the large Department still experienced scandals but were much less pervasive than during Delano's tenor. During the Rutherford B. Hayes administration, on May 31, 1880, a Senate committee reported on the Interior Department and Secretary of the Interior Carl Schurz, a reformer, over his removal and jailing of the Ponca Indians. On December 18, 1880, a commission appointed Hayes, began an investigation of the Department's treatment of the Ponca. On January 25, 1881, the commission reported to President Hayes the treatment of the Ponca was "needlessly disastrous and cruel".
In January 1883, President Arthur signed into law the landmark legislation, known as the Pendleton Act, that made civil service reform permanent, with the goal to reduce corruption and hire persons based on a merit system, rather than patronage. Patterned off Grant's Civil Service Commission (1871) and rules, the Act put 11 percent of the federal workforce under civil service law, and reestablished the Civil Service Commission, to regulate political assessments and payoffs. Good men were appointed by Arthur to run the commission, and surprisingly, Arthur was friendly to reformers. The passage of the act was motivated by the assassination of President James A. Garfield by a disgruntled office seeker.
Scandals continued to periodically surface. In 1884, William W. Dudley, Commissioner of the Pensions Office, was engaged in political activity, promising expedited approval to petitioners who voted for James G. Blaine and John A. Logan, the Republicans President and Vice President candidates. President Chester A. Arthur, a Republican, did nothing to stop the practice. In 1888, Secretary of Interior William F. Vilas, appointed by President Grover Cleveland (1885-1889), a Democrat, was investigated by Congress. Vilas was a stockholder of the Superior Lumber Company and was suspected of profiteering. In 1889, the Senate investigation report concluded that Vilas did not personally profiteer.
During the Benjamin Harrison Republican administration (1889-1893), an Interior probe investigation found evidence Harrison's appointed Pension Bureau Commissioner James R. Tanner took "lavish and illegal handouts". Tanner resigned and Harrison appointed Green B. Raum Pension Bureau Commissioner. Raum was accused of taking kickback loans to expedite pension cases. A Democratic House investigation said Raum had "prostituted his office" and should be removed, but Harrison declined.
Personal reputation
In 1898, historian Joseph Patterson Smith said Delano had attained, "a long and distinguished career, as an eminent lawyer, an able businessman and one intimately identified with the governmental affairs of the state and nation." In 2001, historian Jean Edward Smith, taking a harsher view, said Delano betrayed his public trust while Secretary of the Interior by allowing corruption to pervade throughout his department, "at the expense of those who most needed government assistance: the Native American." Benjamin Bristow, Grant's appointed Secretary of Treasury, said Secretary Delano was "a very mean dog," and deserved "the execration of every honest man."
Honors
Delano, California
Delano, California, located in Kern County, originally a terminal railroad town, was founded on July 14, 1869. The unnamed town was officially named in honor of Columbus Delano, at the time Delano was Secretary of the Interior, during the Grant administration. The name of Delano was officially given by the Southern Pacific Railroad. Delano's first post office opened in 1874. The town of Delano was incorporated as a city in 1915.
Mountains
Certain mountains in Utah (Delano Peak) and Montana (Mount Delano) are named after Delano. Delano Peak, in Utah, has an elevation of 12,174 ft (3,711 m). Mount Delano, in Montana, has an elevation of 10,138 ft (3090 m).
Notable Department of Interior events
1856-1873 Interior's Pacific Wagon Road Office improved the historic western emigrant routes.
1869 The Bureau of Education is placed under Interior (later transferred to the Department of Health, Education and Welfare).
1869-1870 Cook–Folsom–Peterson Expedition Yellowstone
1870 Washburn–Langford–Doane Expedition Yellowstone
1871 Hayden Geological Survey of 1871 Yellowstone Sponsored by the federal government. Delano instructed the survey.
1872 Congress establishes Yellowstone as the first National Park.
1873 Congress transferred territorial oversight from the Secretary of State to the Secretary of the Interior.
Notes
References
Sources
Books
Internet
New York Times
Newspapers
Speeches
External links
Columbus Delano at Find A Grave
The Department of Everything Else: Highlights of Interior History (1989)
Delano Peak, Utah Access Date: December 1, 2021
Mount Delano, Montana Access Date: December 1, 2021
1809 births
1896 deaths
Delano family
United States Secretaries of the Interior
Commissioners of Internal Revenue
Members of the United States House of Representatives from Ohio
Members of the Ohio House of Representatives
Ohio lawyers
People from Mount Vernon, Ohio
People from Shoreham, Vermont
Ohio Whigs
Ohio Republicans
Members of the Kenyon College Board of Trustees
Grant administration cabinet members
Whig Party members of the United States House of Representatives
Republican Party members of the United States House of Representatives
19th-century American politicians
Republican Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Ohio
| true |
[
"Thomas Joseph Daley (born February 20, 1943) is a former National Hockey League and World Hockey Association goaltender for the Pittsburgh Penguins, Buffalo Sabres, Detroit Red Wings, and Winnipeg Jets.\n\nCareer \nDaley was the Sabres' first choice in the 1970 Intra-League Draft. He was also one of the last NHL goalies to play without a mask, although he did wear a mask for Winnipeg in the WHA.\n\nDaley's longest stint in major league hockey was with Winnipeg from 1972–79. He won three league championships with the Jets (1975-76, 1977-78 and 1978–79) and was the WHA's second leading goalie during the 1975–76 season. In 1981–82, he was the coach of the junior hockey Penticton Knights. Currently he operates a successful trading card store in Winnipeg, named Joe Daley's Sports and Framing.\n\nAwards and achievements \nSJHL Second All-Star Team (1962)\nEHL Rookie of the Year (1964)\nAvco Cup (WHA) Championship (1976, 1978, & 1979)\nWHA First All-Star Team (1976)\nIzvetia Cup Best Goaltender (1976)\nWHA Second All-Star Team (1977)\n\"Honoured Member\" of the Manitoba Hockey Hall of Fame\nInducted as an inaugural member into the World Hockey Association Hall of Fame (2010)\nInducted into the Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame 2018\nAll Time Leader in WHA wins by a goaltender\n\nCareer statistics\n\nRegular season\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n\n Buffalo Sabres profile\n\n1943 births\nLiving people\nBaltimore Clippers players\nBuffalo Sabres players\nCincinnati Wings players\nDetroit Red Wings players\nSan Francisco Seals (ice hockey) players\nSportspeople from Winnipeg\nJohnstown Jets players\nMemphis Wings players\nPittsburgh Hornets players\nPittsburgh Penguins players\nWinnipeg Jets (WHA) players\nIce hockey people from Manitoba\nCanadian ice hockey goaltenders",
"Peter Morris (born June 29, 1955) is a Canadian former professional ice hockey player who played in the World Hockey Association (WHA). Drafted in the sixth round of the 1975 NHL Amateur Draft by the Pittsburgh Penguins, Morris opted to play in the WHA after being selected by the Edmonton Oilers in the second round of the 1975 WHA Amateur Draft. He played parts of two WHA seasons for the Oilers. His father, Frank Morris, played in the Canadian Football League.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n1955 births\nLiving people\nCanadian ice hockey left wingers\nEdmonton Oilers (WHA) draft picks\nEdmonton Oilers (WHA) players\nSportspeople from Edmonton\nPittsburgh Penguins draft picks\nSpringfield Indians players\nVictoria Cougars (WHL) players\nIce hockey people from Alberta\nWestern International Hockey League players"
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C_845baa23458b4b09a935e687b86d4060_1
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why did he resign?
| 3 |
why did Columbus Delano resign from office in 1875?
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Columbus Delano
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In 1875, Delano's reputation for personal honesty came under increasing scrutiny as revelations of corruption in the Grant administration continued to be the subject of investigations and media revelations. Westerners unhappy with Delano's rulings on land grants and other issues accused Delano's son John, an employee of the Interior Department, of corruption, bribery, and fraud. Governor Edward M. McCook of the Colorado Territory, claimed that John Delano had accepted a $1,200 bribe from a Colorado banker, Jerome B. Chaffee, to secure land patents from the Department of Interior. The New-York Tribune reported that John Delano was profiteering through Interior's Office of the Surveyor General by accepting partnerships in Wyoming surveying contracts without having been trained in surveying or map making, and without providing any meaningful contribution to the fulfillment of the contracts; the obvious implication was John Delano had taken extortion money from illicit contract agreements. In March 1875, the former chief clerk of the Surveyor's Office, L. C. Stevens, wrote to Benjamin Bristow, Grant's Secretary of the Treasury, stating that Surveyor General Silas Reed had made several corrupt contracts which financially benefited John Delano. Stevens also said both Reed and John Delano had blackmailed five deputy surveyors for $5,000. More damaging was Stevens' charge that Columbus Delano knew and approved of what Reed had done for John Delano. Both Bristow and Secretary of State Hamilton Fish demanded that Grant fire Delano. Grant declined, telling Fish, "If Delano were now to resign, it would be retreating under fire and be accepted as an admission of the charges." The controversy did not abate; by mid-August it became clear that Delano could not remain in office; Delano offered his resignation and Grant accepted, but Grant did not make it public. Grant finally announced his acceptance of Delano's resignation on October 19, 1875, after Bristow threatened to resign if Delano was not replaced. Grant replaced Delano with Zachariah Chandler, who quickly initiated civil service and other reforms in the Department of the Interior. Delano's administration was investigated by Congress, Chandler, and a special presidential commission; his personal conduct was exonerated, but his reputation as an honest, capable administrator was damaged, and Delano never again ran for office or served in an appointed one. In April 1876, The Committee on the Expeditures in the Interior Department confirmed that Reed had set up an illicit slush fund for John Delano's financial benefit, and that Delano thanked Reed while also telling him "to be careful to do nothing that would have the semblance of wrong." CANNOTANSWER
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Bristow threatened to resign if Delano was not replaced.
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Columbus Delano (June 4, 1809 – October 23, 1896) was a lawyer, rancher, banker, statesman and a member of the prominent Delano family. Forced to live on his own at an early age, Delano struggled to become a self-made man. Delano was elected U.S. Congressman from Ohio, serving two full terms and one partial one. Prior to the American Civil War, Delano was a National Republican and then a Whig; as a Whig, he was identified with the faction of the party that opposed the spread of slavery into the Western territories, and he became a Republican when the party was founded as the major anti-slavery party after the demise of the Whigs in the 1850s. During Reconstruction Delano advocated federal protection of African-Americans' civil rights, and argued that the former Confederate states should be administered by the federal government, but was not part of the United States until they met the requirements for readmission to the Union.
Delano served as President Ulysses S. Grant's Secretary of the Interior during a time of rapid Westward expansionism, and contended with conflicts between Native tribes and White American settlers. He was instrumental in the establishment of America's first national park, having supervised the first federally funded scientific expedition into Yellowstone in 1871, and becoming America's first national park overseer in 1872. In 1874, Delano requested that Congress protect Yellowstone through the creation of a federally funded administrative agency, the first Secretary of the Interior to request such preservation of a nationally important site.
Believing that tribal communalism and a nomadic lifestyle led to war and impoverishment, Delano argued the best Indian policy was to allot Native tribes small reservations in the Indian Territory. In Delano's view, the reservation system humanely protected Native tribes from the encroachment of western settlers, aiding in Indian assimilation into white culture, language, attire, culture, and religion. The goal was for Indian people to be independent from federal funding. To compel the Native tribes of the west to move to reservations, Delano supported the slaughter to the near extinction of the vast buffalo herds outside of Yellowstone, which were essential to the maintenance of the Plains Indians' way of life.
Concerning government reform, Delano defied Grant's 1872 executive order to implement the first Civil Service Commission's recommendations. With the exception of Yellowstone, the spoils system and corruption permeated throughout the Interior Department during his tenure, and Grant requested Delano's resignation in 1875; he left office with damage to his reputation for personal honesty. Although Interior scandals, at times, continued to fester in various succeeding administrations, corruption during Delano's tenure under Grant was excessive. Delano remained a spoils man at a time when reformer demands for a federal merit system were gaining support. Delano returned to Ohio to practice law, tend to his business interests, and raise livestock; he did not return to politics and died in 1896.
Although Delano was considered a 19th Century American "major mover and shaker", his legacy has a dark side, clouded by spoils man politics, harsh treatment of Indians, and endorsement of slaughtering buffalo. Historians are critical of Delano's tenure at the Interior Department, arguing that he could have done more to stop corruption, protect bison, prevent dispossession of Native American land, and the destruction of the culture of the Plains Indians. Yellowstone is considered Delano's greatest achievement and he was considered to be an effective first administrator. The park aided in the recovery of free-roaming buffalo. By August 2019, 4,829 bison were counted in Yellowstone. While in office, Delano was outspoken for his strong support of black American rights and denouncement of the Ku Klux Klan.
Early life, education, and political career
Columbus Delano was born in Shoreham, Vermont on June 5, 1809, the son of James Delano and Lucinda Bateman. The Delano family was of French ancestry; its first representative in America, Philip Delano, voyaged from Holland in 1621 on the Fortune, the sister ship of the Mayflower. In 1815, at the age of six, Delano's father died, and his family was put under the care of his uncle Luther Bateman. In 1817 the family moved to Mount Vernon in Knox County, Ohio, where Delano resided for the rest of his life. Delano was raised primarily by Luther Bateman, who died in 1817. After an elementary education Delano labored in a woolen mill in Lexington, Ohio, and at other jobs, struggling on his own, to become largely self-sufficient while still a teenager.
After beginning self-directed legal studies, Delano formally trained with Mount Vernon attorney Hosmer Curtis from 1830 to 1831, and he attained admission to the bar in 1831. Delano became active in politics as a National Republican, and later as a Whig, and in 1834 he won election as Prosecuting Attorney for Knox County. He won reelection in 1836 and served two terms, 1835 to 1839.
Marriage and family
On July 14, 1834, Delano married Elizabeth Leavenworth of Mount Vernon, the daughter of M. Martin Leavenworth and Clara Sherman Leavenworth. Their children included daughter Elizabeth (1838–1904), who was the wife of Reverend John G. Ames of Washington, DC, and son John Sherman Delano (1841–1896), a businessman who also worked with his father at the Department of the Interior.
Delano and Ulysses S. Grant were distant cousins; they had great-great grandparents in common.
United States Representative (1845–1847)
In 1844, Delano was elected to the United States House of Representatives after appearing on the ballot as a replacement for Samuel White Jr., who had died after winning the Whig nomination. He went on to defeat Democrat Caleb J. McNulty by only 12 votes, 9,297 to 9,285. Delano served in the 29th Congress, (March 4, 1845—March 3, 1847), and was a member of the Committee on Invalid Pensions. He also gave a speech denouncing the Mexican–American War which earned him national recognition as an opponent of the conflict. Delano did not run for reelection in 1846, instead campaigning for the 1848 Whig nomination for Governor of Ohio. He lost to Seabury Ford by two votes at the January 1848 party convention; Ford went on to defeat Democrat John B. Weller in a close general election, and served one term. Delano subsequently became involved in several business ventures; in 1850 he set up a successful Wall Street banking partnership, Delano, Dunlevy, & Company, which specialized in railroad bonds; it included a branch office in Cincinnati and operated for five years. In addition, Delano became a successful sheep rancher, and served as president of the National Association of Wool Growers and the Ohio Wool Growers Association. He was also active in other businesses; he was president of the Springfield, Mount Vernon & Pittsburgh Railroad, and an original incorporator of the First National Bank of Mount Vernon, of which he later became president.
Republican Party and Civil War
With the demise of the Whigs, Columbus Delano joined the new Republican Party. Delano was a delegate to the Chicago Convention in 1860, and he seconded the nomination of Abraham Lincoln's for president. Delano actively campaigned for Lincoln, who won the presidency. The following year Delano served as Commissary-General of Ohio, on the staff of Governor William Dennison Jr., and aided in raising and equipping troops for the Union Army at the start of the American Civil War. In 1862 Delano was a candidate for the United States Senate seat held by Benjamin Wade. With Republicans in control of the Ohio General Assembly, winning their nomination was tantamount to election by the full legislature. Delano was nearly successful, losing the nomination to Wade by only two votes. In 1863, Delano served in the Ohio House of Representatives and played a notable role in shepherding the passage of legislation in support of the Union war effort. Delano served as Chairman of the Judicial Committee and settled the matter of the right of soldiers to vote. Delano served as Chairman of the Ohio delegation that attended the Baltimore Convention. Lincoln was successfully nominated for a second term of office.
Reconstruction Era
Return to Congress
Delano was again elected to the U.S. House in 1864, and he served in the 39th Congress (March 4, 1865—March 3, 1867). During this term, Delano was chairman of the House Committee on Claims. Delano appeared to lose his bid for reelection in 1866, but successfully contested the election of George W. Morgan. After unseating Morgan, Delano served for the remainder of the 40th Congress, June 3, 1868—March 3, 1869. After the Civil War Delano supported Radical Reconstruction, believing that the South was in chaos and that federal involvement in the Southern states, including the army, was necessary to keep the peace. He did not run for reelection in 1868.
Reconstruction speech (1867)
In September 1867, Delano made a speech on Reconstruction in Eaton, Ohio, in which he said that President Andrew Johnson did not have the constitutional authority to establish civil government in the former Confederate states. Delano argued that Congress, not the president, "was required to establish civil governments in all the states." In Delano's view, Johnson and Southern Democrats, who had previously supported the Confederacy, were conspiring to overthrow Congress by undermining its authority to make laws concerning Southern Reconstruction. As proof, Delano cited Johnson's September 1866 Swing Around the Circle speech, in which Johnson said the national legislature was a "pretended Congress". In addition, Delano believed Johnson was conspiring to remove Ulysses S. Grant as head of the army because of Grant's support for Congressional Reconstruction. As a result, Delano advocated impeaching Johnson and removing him from office, and argued that Grant should be protected by Congress from any attempt by Johnson to remove him. Unknown to Delano, on August 11, 1867, Grant had agreed to accept Johnson's offer to serve as interim Secretary of War, while simultaneously remaining general of the army. Under the provisions of the Tenure of Office Act, the appointment would be temporary until the U.S. Senate returned to session in January 1868, and either ratified or prohibited Stanton's removal. Johnson and Grant agreed to Grant's temporary appointment despite explicitly admitting that they disagreed on Reconstruction policy.
Commissioner of Internal Revenue
Delano remained active in politics and supported Grant for president in 1868. When Grant became president in March 1869, he appointed Delano Commissioner of Internal Revenue; Delano served from March 11, 1869, to October 31, 1870. As commissioner, Delano tried with mixed success to collect federal revenue on alcohol and tobacco products manufactured in Indian Territory; these items could be produced for sale tax-free within the territory, but manufacturers routinely sold them in adjacent states without paying the taxes. He also proved unwilling or unable to cope with the frauds of the Whiskey Ring; despite having received warnings of corruption including bribery of federal officials and failure to pay taxes, Delano took little or no action. The department did attempt to prevent the illegal manufacture and sale of whiskey in other areas; on January 31, 1870, an Internal Revenue raid in Georgia captured 18 illicit whiskey stills and their operators. The Whiskey Ring finally stopped in 1875 during Grant's second term by Secretary of the Treasury Benjamin Bristow. The ring leader, John McDonald was an acquaintance of President Grant and had requested from him a political appointment as superintending inspector of internal revenue in St. Louis. Grant then directed Delano to make the appointment. McDonald was convicted of fraud and theft and served 17 months in prison. In all, the investigation of the Whiskey Ring resulted in 110 convictions. Grant's private secretary, Orville E. Babcock was implicated, but acquitted at trial after Grant provided written testimony on his behalf. Additionally, Delano was cleared of involvement in another scandal in which Babcock was implicated, the Gold Ring, which was triggered when two New York financiers attempted to corner the gold market on September 24, 1869. Daniel Butterfield, the Assistant Treasurer of the United States, and Grant's brother in law Abel Corbin were also implicated; Butterfield was forced to resign in October. Delano's reputation for personal honesty was not in question, which was an asset when Grant needed to nominate a new Secretary of the Interior in 1870.
Secretary of the Interior
United States Attorney General Ebenezer R. Hoar and Secretary of the Interior Jacob D. Cox resigned in 1870 because of Grant's decision to overrule them on the issue of the McGarrahan Claims; speculator William McGarrahan claimed title to a tract of mining land in California, as did the New Idria Mining Company. Grant wanted no executive branch action taken, considering both claims to be fraudulent; Cox and Hoar disagreed and decided in favor of New Idria, which prompted Grant to request their resignations.
Grant appointed Delano to succeed Cox at the Interior Department; he served from November 1, 1870, until resigning on October 19, 1875. During Delano's tenure, the Interior Department was the largest bureaucracy in the federal government, including numerous patronage positions. Running the department required knowledge of dissimilar duties, and the ability to master complex details. During Delano's time as secretary, he faced several critical issues and his department was rapidly expanding; despite the challenges he served longer in the job than any other 19th-century incumbent. Delano aligned himself with Grant's private secretary Orville Babcock and Secretary of Navy George M. Robeson. Delano rejected the civil service reforms of his predecessor Cox and reverted the Interior to the spoils system.
Bison slaughter (1870s)
During the Civil War, Union generals practiced a "scorched earth" campaign against Confederate infrastructure that destroyed its vital food supplies, which aided in bringing about the Union's victory. During the late 1860s and early 1870s U.S. Army officers William T. Sherman, Richard Dodge, and Secretary of the Interior Delano adopted a similar strategy against Native Americans in the west, whose primary food supply was free-roaming bison. Dodge said in 1867, "Every buffalo dead is an Indian gone." Delano said in an 1872 annual report, "The rapid disappearance of the game [bison] from the former hunting-grounds must operate largely in favor of our efforts to confine the Indians to smaller areas, and compel them to abandon their nomadic customs."
Much of the destruction of bison was done by private, for-profit buffalo hunters; this policy allowed the slaughter of millions of bison on the American plains, forcing Indians to move to and remain on their reservations. The few free-roaming bison left in Yellowstone were protected from poaching by a federal law passed in 1872; during Delano's tenure, mounting criticism by the public forced Congress to pass legislation that would stop the bison slaughter on the plains. Grant vetoed the legislation in 1874, accepting that the bison slaughter was accomplishing the goal of pacifying the Indians. From 1872 to 1874 the Indians killed approximately 1,215,000 bison as part of providing for their food, shelter, and other basic needs; American hunters slaughtered an estimated 4,374,000 bison, reducing the population to the point that it could not reproduce normally and continue to sustain the Indians.
Apache massacre and peace (1871-1872)
On April 30, 1871, white Tucson townspeople organized a militia which massacred an Apache Indian settlement at Camp Grant. Approximately 144 Apaches were killed, mostly women and children. Twenty-eight children were kidnapped by the Tucson townspeople and held as ransom for the Apache warriors, who were not present at the time of the massacre. The people of Tucson drew national attention by the scale of their activity, resulting in Eastern philanthropists and President Grant denouncing their actions. Arizona citizens, however, believed the killings were justified and claimed that Apache warriors had killed mail runners and settlers near Tucson. President Grant sent Major General George Crook to keep the peace in Arizona; many Apaches had joined the U.S. military for protection.
On November 10, 1871, Delano advocated Grant that Apaches be given new reservation land in Arizona and New Mexico, following the recommendation of Indian Peace Commissioner Vincent Colyer to find them a location where they could be protected from attacks by white settlers. Delano advocated that all Apaches be put on reservations including young men and warriors, who were forming raiding parties, rather than just their old men and women. Grant sent Major General Oliver Otis Howard to Arizona to help resolve the issue; Howard organized a peace conference with Apache leader Eskiminzin in May 1872 at Camp Grant. Howard also negotiated the release of six of the captive Apache children. In December 1872, the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation, a permanent settlement, was established at the junction of the San Carlos and Gila Rivers, the location having been agreed upon by Howard and Eskiminzin. In October 1872, Howard also made a separate peace treaty with the Apache leader Cochise, who settled on the Chiricahua reservation.
Akerman feud (1871)
In June 1871 Grant's Attorney General Amos T. Akerman denied land and bond grants to the Union Pacific Railroad, a company connected to the Crédit Mobilier scandal. Ackerman's anti-railroad rulings were protested by railroad financiers Collis P. Huntington and Jay Gould. Akerman was also instrumental in prosecuting the Ku Klux Klan in the South and protecting African American civil rights. Railroad interests and African-American civil rights had been priorities for the Republican Party; on behalf of Huntington and Gould, Delano twice asked Akerman to change rulings that had gone against the Union Pacific, and both times Akerman refused. Delano then complained to Grant and suggested that Akerman should be removed. Grant agreed, and named former Oregon Senator George H. Williams as Akerman's replacement; Williams was seen as more favorable to railroad interests. On the issue of curtailing the Klan prosecutions, according to historian William S. McFeely, "[w]ith Akerman's departure on January 10, 1872, went any hope that the Republican party would develop as a national party of true racial equality."
Yellowstone (1871-1872)
In 1871, Delano organized America's first federally funded scientific expedition into Yellowstone, which was headed by U.S. Geologist Ferdinand V. Hayden. Delano gave specific instructions for Hayden to make a geographical map of the area and to make astronomical and barometric observations. Delano stated that Hayden's expedition was directed to "...secure as much information as possible, both scientific and practical...give your attention to the geological, mineralogical, zoological, botanical, and agricultural resources of the country." Delano also ordered Hayden to gather information on Native American tribes who lived in the area. Hayden's expedition was outfitted by an extensive scientific team that included two botanists, a meteorologist, a zoologist, an ornithologist, a mineralogist, a topographer, an artist, a photographer, a physician, hunters, mule teams and ambulances, and a support staff.
On March 1, 1872 Ulysses S. Grant signed the Organic Act, incorporating Hayden's findings and discoveries and creating Yellowstone, the world's first national park. The law provided that the Secretary of the Interior exercise "exclusive control" over Yellowstone; As Delano was the incumbent, this made him the first overseer of the first national park in the world. The poaching of fish and wildlife, including bison, was forbidden, and Delano was authorized to preserve the "natural curiosities and wonders" found inside the park. Delano was now in charge of millions of acres of land, however, he was not provided any funding to care for it. Instead, he was given the power to grant 10-year leases in order to raise money to pay for maintaining the park. As soon as the park was created, Delano was inundated by requests for hotel concessions, and he also had to determine the control and use of existing facilities in the park's northern section.
Delano appointed N. P. Langford the first Supervisor of Yellowstone in 1872; Langford banned private toll roads and submitted a plan to build and maintain a park road system free to the public, but Congress refused to fund it. Congress also refused to give Langford a stipend, so he had to supplement his livelihood by working as a banker. In 1874 Lanford requested that Delano petition Congress for appropriations to protect the park from poachers, unlicensed privateers, and trespassers. Delano agreed and demanded Congress appropriate $100,000 to set up a federal park agency to administer and protect the park for the public, and also asked for an increase in the terms of the concession leases from 10 to 20 years. The proposal was turned down; it was not until April 1877, during the Rutherford B. Hayes administration, that Congress appropriated one-tenth of Delano's request, $10,000, without any federal protection agency for the park.
Defied Civil Service Executive order (1871-1874)
In March 1871, Grant signed into law Congressional legislation that established the United States Civil Service Commission, designed to create reform rules and to regulate and reduce corruption in the federal workforce. Implementation of the rules was left to the discretion of the President. Grant appointed New York reformer William Curtis to chair the commission. The Commission reported that appointments and promotions would be controlled by examiners, and each federal Department would create a board of examiners, while political assessments would be abolished. Grant ordered the implementation of the rules to be effective on January 1, 1872. Grant dissolved the commission in 1874 after Congress refused to make the Commission rules permanent, and refused to provide permanent funding for the commission. Congressional interest in civil service reform would remain dormant until 1883.
Under Article 12 of Grant's executive order, Land Office and Pension agent applicants in the Department of Interior were to be approved by a board of examiners. Delano, however, betrayed Grant and defied the order. Grant made no response. The Interior Department's varied and diverse responsibilities increased at a rapid rate and became a source of numerous administrative problems. For the department head, controlling the bureaus and shaping policy was a daunting task; Delano argued that the complexities of the department made implementing civil service reform impractical. Under Delano's tenure, corruption permeated the whole department, including bogus agents in the Bureau of Indian Affairs and thieving clerks in the Patent Office. Delano ultimately resigned because of evidence that surveying contracts had been awarded to companies in which his son John, the chief clerk of the department, and Orvil (or Orville) Grant, the president's brother, had ownership interests; this was more or less permissible by the standards of the day, but to reform-minded individuals, including the editors of the New-York Tribune and other newspapers, it represented a conflict of interest and breach of the public trust.
Supported Ku Klux Klan prosecutions (1872)
To bolster the Reconstruction Acts and the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth constitutional amendments, Grant signed in 1870 Congressional legislation that created the Justice Department. To fight the outrages in the South by the Ku Klux Klan, Grant signed several laws known as the Enforcement Acts in 1870 and 1871. In May 1871, Grant ordered federal troops to help U.S. Marshals in arresting Klansmen. Grant's second Attorney General Amos T. Akerman, a former Confederate soldier, knew of the outrages of the Klan and was zealous in prosecuting white Southerners who terrorized their black neighbors. That October, on Akerman's recommendation, Grant suspended habeas corpus in part of South Carolina and sent federal troops there to enforce the law. After prosecutions by Akerman and his replacement, George Henry Williams, the Klan's power collapsed; by 1872, elections in the South saw African Americans voting in record numbers.
In a campaign speech supporting President Grant's reelection bid in Raleigh, North Carolina, on July 24, 1872, Delano spoke out in favor of prosecutions of the Ku Klux Klan. Delano argued that the Congressional Reconstruction Acts had been passed to "rescue order and government out of the chaos and confusion" that came from the Civil War. This included the enfranchisement of African Americans, most of them former slaves, who had been set "forever free" as a result of the war. Delano stated that if freedom meant anything it was that African Americans "should stand equal before the law and have a voice in legislation." According to Delano, southerners who rejected Republican Reconstruction opted for a subversive war against African Americans and white Republicans, including the formation of the Ku Klux Klan. Delano said the Ku Klux Klan had in fourteen North Carolina counties killed 18 people and cruelly whipped 315 Republicans who had done nothing wrong. Delano said that evidence presented in prosecuting Klan members in the federal courts proved the "barbarity and treason" of the Ku Klux Klan. Grant ended up winning North Carolina and many other Southern states.
Defined Indian policy (1873)
In 1873, Delano formally defined the methods to be used in attaining the goals of Grant's policy toward the Native Americans. Grant's ultimate goal was to convert the Indians to Christianity and assimilate them into the white culture in order to prepare them for full U.S. Citizenship; these fundamental principles continued to influence Indian Peace policy for the rest of the 19th Century. According to Delano, relocating the Indians to reservations was of primary importance, since this would supposedly protect them from the violence of white settlers as whites moved onto lands previously held by Native Americans. In addition, Christian organizations and missionaries operating on these reservations could "civilize" the Native Americans, in line with the widespread belief (including Delano's) that allowing the Indians to continue to practice their own culture would lead to their destruction. In Delano's view, his actions would accomplish Grant's goal by facilitating Indian assimilation into white culture.
Black Hills take over (1875)
Under the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie, the Oglala Sioux had been given a huge reservation including the Black Hills in what is now South Dakota. The Black Hills were the site of Sioux sacred religious rituals and spiritual ceremonies. Following the Panic of 1873 the country was desperate for new wealth. In 1874 rumors spread of gold being discovered in the Black Hills by George Custer's recent expedition. Grant sent the expedition, hoping to find gold in order to support his species currency policy; Delano opposed the move, believing travel through and eventual occupation of hunting grounds violated the Treaty of Fort Laramie and could lead to an Indian war. Delano told Grant that a "general war with the Sioux would be deplorable. It would undo the good already accomplished by our efforts for peaceable relations." Whites immediately flocked to the area in search of gold; in 1875, Congress appropriated $25,000 for the purchase of the Black Hills, hoping that a cash payment would assuage the Sioux and prevent war.
In mid-May 1875, Red Cloud, Chief of the Oglala Lakota (Sioux), and other Indian tribal leaders were brought to Washington D.C. to negotiate the sale of the Black Hills. The Sioux believed the amount offered by Congress was too low; recognizing that they would eventually lose the Black Hills, Red Cloud decided to negotiate and told Delano they would sign away the Black Hills if $25,000 in cash was first drawn from the Treasury Department, to ensure that the Sioux would be paid. Delano had no intention of giving Red Cloud cash, but rather a receipt for $25,000 from the Treasury and additional presents purchased at a later date and distributed to members of the tribe. Red Cloud insisted that he wanted the $25,000 in cash at the signing, which would be taken home and divided among the members of the tribe.
Delano warned Grant that a war would likely break out if negotiations were not successful. When negotiations broke down, Grant was brought into the process to bargain directly with Red Cloud. Grant told Red Cloud that the Black Hills had no buffalo, so it would benefit the Indians to accept payment because they would at least receive something of value in consideration for signing away valueless hunting rights. He also informed Red Cloud that whites were going to take over the Black Hills anyway, so it would be best not to leave empty-handed. Concerned that they would not be paid if they signed an agreement first, Red Cloud asked Grant to withdraw the money from the Treasury, and hold it until after the signing. Grant refused and walked out, telling Red Cloud he had to sign over the Black Hills before any payment was made. On June 4, Delano offered Red Cloud an additional $25,000 in appropriations, but Red Cloud refused.
With Red Cloud's refusal, Delano reluctantly let the Indians take the unsigned agreement back to their tribal agencies for further discussion among the members of the tribe, with final terms and signatures to be negotiated later by an appointed commission. The failure of the Washington, D.C. negotiations to produce an agreement was lampooned in the June 19 edition of Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper. Upon their return to Sioux country, Red Cloud and other Lakota leaders finally signed away their hunting rights to the Black Hills under Article 11 of the Treaty of Fort Laramie in exchange for the original $25,000 Congressional appropriation. Another group of Sioux chiefs, including Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, challenged Red Cloud's authority and started the armed resistance about which Delano had warned Grant. This challenge to Red Cloud's authority combined with Lakota unhappiness over white encroachment into the Black Hills resulted in the Great Sioux War, which started in February 1876.
Resignation and corruption (1875)
In 1875, Delano's reputation for personal honesty came under increasing scrutiny as revelations of corruption in the Grant administration continued to be the subject of investigations and media revelations. Although Delano himself was not known to be personally corrupt, his tenure was shadowed by controversy, while fraud prevailed in his Interior Department. There were accusations of an "Indian Ring" and corrupt agents who exploited Native American people. Westerners unhappy with Delano's rulings on land grants and other issues accused Delano's son John, an employee of the Interior Department, of corruption, bribery, and fraud in the Wyoming Territory.
Surveyor General Ring
The New-York Tribune reported that John Delano was profiteering through Interior's Office of the Surveyor-General by accepting partnerships in Wyoming surveying contracts without having been trained in surveying or map-making, and without providing any meaningful contribution to the fulfillment of the contracts; the obvious implication was John Delano had taken extortion money from illicit contract agreements. In March 1875, the former chief clerk of the Surveyor's Office, L. C. Stevens, wrote to Benjamin Bristow, Grant's Secretary of the Treasury, stating that Surveyor General Silas Reed had made several corrupt contracts which financially benefited John Delano. Stevens also said both Reed and John Delano had blackmailed five deputy surveyors for $5,000. According to Stevens, Reed and Delano had coerced the deputy surveyors to pay John Delano before he would release the Interior Department warrants for land the deputy surveyors had sold to prospective settlers. Governor Edward M. McCook of the Colorado Territory, claimed that John Delano had accepted a $1,200 bribe from a Colorado banker, Jerome B. Chaffee, to secure land patents from the Department of Interior. More damaging was Stevens' charge that Columbus Delano knew and approved of what Reed had done for John Delano.
In addition to Delano's son, Grant's brother Orvil was paid for surveying services in the Wyoming Territory, although Orvil did no work. The chief clerk of the Cheyenne branch of the federal Surveying Office testified before Congress concerning Orvil. When asked whether Orvil did any work in the Wyoming Territory, the chief clerk said, "No, sir, I do not think he was ever in the territory."
Indian Ring
In July 1875, Delano was rumored to know that Orvil Grant, the president's brother, had received Indian trading posts, that were a corrupt source of lucrative kickbacks, from the sutler, at the expense of the Indians and soldiers. The higher the sale price on goods, that the Indians and soldiers would pay, the higher the profits. Even the sale of rifles to hostile Indian tribes was allowed, to make more money. The profits were split and sent to the other sutler partners.
Delano was rumored to have threatened Grant at Long Branch that he would expose Orvil to the public when Delano's resignation was enforced. He told Grant that he would quietly leave office after Congressional Indian fraud investigations were complete. In February 1876, the New York Herald reported that Orvil made money in the Sioux country by "starving the squaws and children." Orvil testified before Congress that Grant had influenced the War Department to get him traderships. Orvil received rights to operate four trading posts, then set up "partners" who kicked back half their profits to Orvil. Though Orvil claimed Grant had not known of the kickbacks, he expressed no remorse for his corruption, and his testimony left Grant embarrassed.
The kingpin of this Indian Ring was not Delano, but Secretary of War William W. Belknap, who was given legal authority by Congress in 1870 to appoint sutlers to traderships at Army posts near Indian reservations, which were controlled by Interior. Belknap, who had awarded Orvil Grant the four traderships, took advantage of the law to personally profit by arranging an illicit partnership at Fort Sill between his wife Carrie, Caleb P. Marsh, and sutler John S. Evans. After Carrie's death, Belknap married her sister Amanda, who continued the illicit tradership arrangement. Belknap's household received as much as $20,000 in illegal profits (nearly $500,000 in 2021), which Belknap needed in order to finance the lavish Washington D.C. entertainment lifestyle expected of cabinet members and other prominent political figures.
Aware that the U.S. House was investigating him, on March 2, 1876 Belknap visited Grant and immediately resigned. The House continued its inquiry and found him guilty of five articles of impeachment. Grant's attorney general placed Belknap under house arrest during his U.S. Senate trial. Though most senators believed the evidence of Belknap's corruption, enough believed they lacked the jurisdiction to punish Belknap because he was no longer in office to acquit him. Despite escaping conviction, Belknap's reputation was so marred that he never returned to political office.
Resignation
Both Bristow and Secretary of State Hamilton Fish demanded that Grant fire Delano. Grant declined, telling Fish, "If Delano were now to resign, it would be retreating under fire and be accepted as an admission of the charges." The controversy did not abate; by mid-August, it became clear that Delano could not remain in office; Delano offered his resignation and Grant accepted, but Grant did not make it public. Grant finally announced his acceptance of Delano's resignation on October 19, 1875, after Bristow threatened to resign if Delano was not replaced. Grant replaced Delano with Zachariah Chandler, who quickly initiated civil service and other reforms in the Department of the Interior. Delano's administration was investigated by Congress, Chandler, and a special presidential commission; his personal conduct was exonerated, but his reputation as an honest, capable administrator was damaged, and Delano never again ran for office or served in an appointed one. In April 1876, The Committee on the Expenditures in the Interior Department confirmed that Reed had set up an illicit slush fund for John Delano's financial benefit, and that Delano thanked Reed while also telling him "to be careful to do nothing that would have the semblance of wrong."
Delano's defense
On September 26, 1875, Delano submitted to Grant a letter defending his tenure at the Department of the Interior; in essence, he argued that the size and complexity of his department made it difficult to manage effectively. Delano stated that he had resigned because he intended to return to his business and domestic concerns in Ohio. He indicated that his duties as Secretary of the Interior were "laborious, difficult, and delicate" because he was required to supervise five disparate bureaus or offices: Land; Indian; Pensions; Patent; and Education, in addition to "a mass of miscellaneous business unknown to any except those connected to the public service."
Delano also reminded Grant that the Land Office dealt with complex railroad land grants, as well as issues resolving land titles in California, Arizona and New Mexico, because those areas had previously been under Spain's and then Mexico's jurisdiction. In addition, the Indian Bureau dealt with many "intricate, delicate, and vexatious questions" growing out of previous Indian treaties. Delano further informed Grant that when he had to decide issues between competing claimants, those he ruled against often gave false and misleading statements rather than accept their loss, which was to Delano's detriment. Delano concluded by claiming a successful tenure, informing Grant that the Interior Department "has never been in a more prosperous or better condition than it now is."
Chandler reforms
Delano's successor, Zachariah Chandler, did not complain about his departmental duties, and immediately investigated allegations of corruption. Chandler found things differently than Delano's explanations to Grant and decided the department needed major reforming. During his first month in office, he fired all the clerks in one room of the Patent Office; he noted that every desk was vacant, and concluded that the employees were either involved in corruption or lacked the integrity to reform the department. Almost twenty employees were found to be entirely fictitious; they had been created by a profiteering ring to defraud the government by falsely receiving pay for work that was not performed. Chandler also fired unqualified clerks who profiteered by hiring out their work to lower-paid replacements and pocketing the salary difference.
In addition, Chandler simplified Patent Office rules, making patents easier to obtain and reducing the cost for applicants. In December 1875, Chandler banned persons known as "Indian Attorneys", whose claims to represent Native Americans in Washington were questionable. He found the Bureau of Indian Affairs to be the most corrupt, and he replaced its commissioner and chief clerk. In addition to Indian Affairs, Chandler also investigated the Pension Bureau. This review resulted in the identification and removal of numerous fraudulent pensions, which saved the federal government hundreds of thousands of dollars. Chandler also revoked as many as 800 fraudulent land grants that had been approved during Delano's tenure.
Later life and career
On his resignation from Grant's cabinet, Delano returned to Mount Vernon where for the next twenty years he served as president of the First National Bank of Mount Vernon. He was a longtime trustee of Kenyon College, which awarded him the honorary degree of LL.D.; among his charitable and civic donations was his endowment of Kenyon's Delano Hall; this building was in use until it was destroyed by a fire in 1906. His Lakeholm mansion, built in 1871 at the outskirts of Mount Vernon, is now part of Mount Vernon Nazarene University.
On April 3, 1880, John W. Wright, a judge from Indiana, was convicted at trial of having assaulted Delano on a Washington, D.C. street corner on October 12, 1877. Wright, who had been an Indian Agent in the Interior Department while Delano was secretary, had been convicted of fraud and blamed Delano. On the day of the assault he was in the company of Walter H. Smith, formerly solicitor of the Department of the Interior; Wright was accused of provoking a fight by questioning Delano's honesty as Secretary of the Interior and then striking Delano with his walking stick. Wright claimed that Delano had been verbally harassing him and that he then felt compelled to defend himself. Delano did not sustain serious injuries; Wright's defense was weakened by witness testimony that after the assault, he claimed credit for it, and stated that he would have continued if passers-by had not intervened. Wright was sentenced to 30 days in jail and fined $1,000. On April 8, 1880, President Rutherford B. Hayes pardoned Wright, with his release from custody conditional upon the payment of the fine.
On December 3, 1889, Delano was elected president of the National Wool Growers Association, a lobbying group organized to advocate for tariff protection of the national wool industry. The association had been formed in 1865, and became more active in the 1880s as a response to the decline in domestic wool production; wool growers faced increasing overseas competition and had gone from 50 million sheep producing wool in 1883 to 40 million in 1888.
Death
Delano died on October 23, 1896; he was interred at Mount Vernon's Mound View Cemetery, Lot 42, Section 16, Grave 4. Delano's death was sudden and unexpected, and took place at his "Lake Howe" home near Mount Vernon, at 11:00 AM. There was no connection between his wife Mrs. Delano's near-fatal accident and his own death.
Historical legacy
Delano's career prior to becoming Secretary of the Interior was not known for any scandals, nor has he been implicated in the Crédit Mobilier scandal. Historians, however, are critical of Delano's overall tenure as Secretary of the Interior especially for his loose anti-reform administrative style and for allowing corruption to permeate the department, unlike Grant's first appointee, Jacob D. Cox, who had been an enthusiastic advocate of civil service reform. Delano sided with the railroad interests over reform and allied with Grant's private secretary Orville Babcock and Secretary of Navy George M. Robeson, associated with corruption. Delano was at odds with Grant's reformers, including Secretary of State Hamilton Fish, Secretary of Treasury Benjamin Bristow, and Attorney General Amos T. Akerman. The corruption in the Bureau of Indian Affairs under Delano eventually led to the end of political appointees, the appointment of career civil servants, and the bureaucratization of the agency. Delano defended his reputation by saying that the Interior Department was difficult to manage due to its expanding size and its many offices with disparate functions.
Indian advancement
In March 1869, President Grant appointed Ely S. Parker, a Seneca Indian, to Commissioner of Indian Affairs serving under both Secretary of Interior Cox and Secretary of Interior Delano. Although there was resistance to his appointment, the Senate confirmed Parker could legally hold office, and he was confirmed by the Senate. During Parker's tenor, lasting until August 1871, Indian wars decreased significantly from 101 in 1869 to 58 in 1870.
145 years, 5 months, 16 days later after Delano left office in 1875, Delano's position as Secretary of Interior was finally filled in by a Native American in 2021. On December 17, 2020, President elect Joe Biden announced that he would nominate Deb Haaland to serve as Secretary of the Interior. She was confirmed by the United States Senate on March 15, 2021, by a vote of 51–40. Following her swearing-in on March 16, she became the first Native American to serve as a Cabinet secretary and the second to serve in the Cabinet, after Republican former vice president and Kaw Nation citizen Charles Curtis.
Native American land seized (1871-1875)
Between 1871 and 1875, the term years Delano was Secretary of the Interior, 73,157,155 acres (114,308 square miles) of Indian land was seized by the United States. By comparison, this is about the size of the state of Arizona (113,642 square miles).
Reservation system
Although the Indian reservation system Delano strongly advocated, protecting Indians
from white sutlers, looked good on paper, it denied the way of life Indians had sustained themselves for thousands of years. With their food supply of buffalo disseminated by white hunters, Indians were forced to live under white culture, yet survive on poor reservation lands and limited supplies. Native Americans today still suffer from the aftershocks of a brutal Interior reservation policy under Delano and his 19th Century successors. Indian culture was devastated, while in practice the reservation policy was monstrous by modern standards.
Bison slaughter and Indian suppression
Delano has also received criticism for allowing millions of bison to be slaughtered, with the exception of Yellowstone, in order to compel the Indians to move to and remain on their reservations, a policy approved by President Grant and the U.S. Army. The demise of the bison herds during Delano's tenure led to the destruction of the Plains Indian culture, including their economy, cosmology, and religion. Without the bison, the Plains Indians could not resist late 19th Century expansionism, including the development of the railroads in the American West. This policy led to more restrictive measures against Native Americans in the 1880s and 1890s, including the banning of medicine making, polygamy, bride payments, and the Sun Dance.
Yellowstone and bison recovery
Delano was the first Secretary of the Interior to be in charge of Yellowstone, America's and the world's first national park. The charges of misconduct and lax management made during Delano's tenure at Interior did not include the new park, the management of which was seen as a success. Among its features, it outlawed poaching wildlife and served as a haven for small numbers of free-roaming bison, left after the slaughter of the great herds that, with the exception of Yellowstone, Delano had fully supported. On August 25, 1916, Congress created the National Park Service to federally protect and administer Yellowstone and other national parks; Delano had proposed the creation of the agency in 1874. Yellowstone today generates around 4 million visitors per year.
By 1902, poachers had illegally killed and reduced Yellowstone bison herd size to about two dozen animals. The U.S. Army, who administered Yellowstone, prior to the creation of the National Park Service, took over and protected the last remaining bison from further poaching. Bison from private herds were incorporated into Yellowstone, forming a northern herd. For decades, however, as Yellowstone bisons increased in number, herds were reduced, believing the animals had caused overgrazing. The practice of reducing the Yellowstone bison population ceased in 1968. However, by the 2000s, the reduction of Yellowstone bison herds resumed, "due to increasing numbers and litigation about migration into Montana." As of August 2019, Yellowstone had 4,829 bison from two herds, 3,667 northern bison, and 1,162 central bison.
Corruption aftermath and Pendleton Act
In the aftermath of Delano's departure and retirement from the Interior in 1875 and Chandler reforms, the large Department still experienced scandals but were much less pervasive than during Delano's tenor. During the Rutherford B. Hayes administration, on May 31, 1880, a Senate committee reported on the Interior Department and Secretary of the Interior Carl Schurz, a reformer, over his removal and jailing of the Ponca Indians. On December 18, 1880, a commission appointed Hayes, began an investigation of the Department's treatment of the Ponca. On January 25, 1881, the commission reported to President Hayes the treatment of the Ponca was "needlessly disastrous and cruel".
In January 1883, President Arthur signed into law the landmark legislation, known as the Pendleton Act, that made civil service reform permanent, with the goal to reduce corruption and hire persons based on a merit system, rather than patronage. Patterned off Grant's Civil Service Commission (1871) and rules, the Act put 11 percent of the federal workforce under civil service law, and reestablished the Civil Service Commission, to regulate political assessments and payoffs. Good men were appointed by Arthur to run the commission, and surprisingly, Arthur was friendly to reformers. The passage of the act was motivated by the assassination of President James A. Garfield by a disgruntled office seeker.
Scandals continued to periodically surface. In 1884, William W. Dudley, Commissioner of the Pensions Office, was engaged in political activity, promising expedited approval to petitioners who voted for James G. Blaine and John A. Logan, the Republicans President and Vice President candidates. President Chester A. Arthur, a Republican, did nothing to stop the practice. In 1888, Secretary of Interior William F. Vilas, appointed by President Grover Cleveland (1885-1889), a Democrat, was investigated by Congress. Vilas was a stockholder of the Superior Lumber Company and was suspected of profiteering. In 1889, the Senate investigation report concluded that Vilas did not personally profiteer.
During the Benjamin Harrison Republican administration (1889-1893), an Interior probe investigation found evidence Harrison's appointed Pension Bureau Commissioner James R. Tanner took "lavish and illegal handouts". Tanner resigned and Harrison appointed Green B. Raum Pension Bureau Commissioner. Raum was accused of taking kickback loans to expedite pension cases. A Democratic House investigation said Raum had "prostituted his office" and should be removed, but Harrison declined.
Personal reputation
In 1898, historian Joseph Patterson Smith said Delano had attained, "a long and distinguished career, as an eminent lawyer, an able businessman and one intimately identified with the governmental affairs of the state and nation." In 2001, historian Jean Edward Smith, taking a harsher view, said Delano betrayed his public trust while Secretary of the Interior by allowing corruption to pervade throughout his department, "at the expense of those who most needed government assistance: the Native American." Benjamin Bristow, Grant's appointed Secretary of Treasury, said Secretary Delano was "a very mean dog," and deserved "the execration of every honest man."
Honors
Delano, California
Delano, California, located in Kern County, originally a terminal railroad town, was founded on July 14, 1869. The unnamed town was officially named in honor of Columbus Delano, at the time Delano was Secretary of the Interior, during the Grant administration. The name of Delano was officially given by the Southern Pacific Railroad. Delano's first post office opened in 1874. The town of Delano was incorporated as a city in 1915.
Mountains
Certain mountains in Utah (Delano Peak) and Montana (Mount Delano) are named after Delano. Delano Peak, in Utah, has an elevation of 12,174 ft (3,711 m). Mount Delano, in Montana, has an elevation of 10,138 ft (3090 m).
Notable Department of Interior events
1856-1873 Interior's Pacific Wagon Road Office improved the historic western emigrant routes.
1869 The Bureau of Education is placed under Interior (later transferred to the Department of Health, Education and Welfare).
1869-1870 Cook–Folsom–Peterson Expedition Yellowstone
1870 Washburn–Langford–Doane Expedition Yellowstone
1871 Hayden Geological Survey of 1871 Yellowstone Sponsored by the federal government. Delano instructed the survey.
1872 Congress establishes Yellowstone as the first National Park.
1873 Congress transferred territorial oversight from the Secretary of State to the Secretary of the Interior.
Notes
References
Sources
Books
Internet
New York Times
Newspapers
Speeches
External links
Columbus Delano at Find A Grave
The Department of Everything Else: Highlights of Interior History (1989)
Delano Peak, Utah Access Date: December 1, 2021
Mount Delano, Montana Access Date: December 1, 2021
1809 births
1896 deaths
Delano family
United States Secretaries of the Interior
Commissioners of Internal Revenue
Members of the United States House of Representatives from Ohio
Members of the Ohio House of Representatives
Ohio lawyers
People from Mount Vernon, Ohio
People from Shoreham, Vermont
Ohio Whigs
Ohio Republicans
Members of the Kenyon College Board of Trustees
Grant administration cabinet members
Whig Party members of the United States House of Representatives
Republican Party members of the United States House of Representatives
19th-century American politicians
Republican Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Ohio
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[
"\"Llangollen Market\" is a song from early 19th century Wales. It is known to have been performed at an eisteddfod at Llangollen in 1858.\n\nThe text of the song survives in a manuscript held by the National Museum of Wales, which came into the possession of singer Mary Davies, a co-founder of the Welsh Folk-Song Society.\n\nThe song tells the tale of a young man from the Llangollen area going off to war and leaving behind his broken-hearted girlfriend. Originally written in English, the song has been translated into Welsh and recorded by several artists such as Siân James, Siobhan Owen, Calennig and Siwsann George.\n\nLyrics\nIt’s far beyond the mountains that look so distant here,\nTo fight his country’s battles, last Mayday went my dear;\nAh, well shall I remember with bitter sighs the day,\nWhy, Owen, did you leave me? At home why did I stay?\n\nAh, cruel was my father that did my flight restrain,\nAnd I was cruel-hearted that did at home remain,\nWith you, my love, contented, I’d journey far away;\nWhy, Owen, did you leave me? At home why did I stay?\n\nWhile thinking of my Owen, my eyes with tears do fill,\nAnd then my mother chides me because my wheel stands still,\nBut how can I think of spinning when my Owen’s far away;\nWhy, Owen, did you leave me? At home why did I stay?\n\nTo market at Llangollen each morning do I go,\nBut how to strike a bargain no longer do I know;\nMy father chides at evening, my mother all the day;\nWhy, Owen, did you leave me, at home why did I stay?\n\nOh, would it please kind heaven to shield my love from harm,\nTo clasp him to my bosom would every care disarm,\nBut alas, I fear, 'tis distant - that happy, happy day;\nWhy, Owen, did you leave me, at home why did stay?\n\nReferences\n\nWelsh folk songs",
"A leadership election was held in the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan on 28 September 2009 after the incumbent party leader and outgoing Prime Minister of Japan Tarō Asō announced that he would resign after losing badly in the general election held on 30 August 2009. Asō announced on 8 September he would resign on 16 September 2009, which he did as planned.\n\nCandidates\nEndorsement by at least twenty LDP lawmakers is necessary to become a candidate in the election. Since there are 387 LDP Diet members and 141 prefectural LDP representatives (three for each of the 47 prefectural chapters), there is a total of 528 votes.\n\nFormer finance minister Sadakazu Tanigaki announced on 13 September 2009 he would stand in the election. Tanigaki had also been a candidate in the 2006 leadership election, where he came in third place behind Shinzō Abe and Tarō Asō. Yasutoshi Nishimura and Tarō Kōno (son of former LDP leader Yōhei Kōno) are the other two announced candidates.\n\nFarm minister Shigeru Ishiba was also considered a possible candidate, but he did not stand.\n\nCampaign\nA public debate was held on 19 September 2009. Tanigaki was elected with 300 of 498 ballots.\n\nResults\n\n 1 invalid vote\n\nReferences\n\n2009 elections in Japan\nPolitical party leadership elections in Japan\nLiberal Democratic Party (Japan)\nIndirect elections\nLiberal Democratic Party (Japan) leadership election"
] |
[
"Columbus Delano",
"Resignation and corruption (1875)",
"when did he resign?",
"1875,",
"wha did he resign from?",
"office;",
"why did he resign?",
"Bristow threatened to resign if Delano was not replaced."
] |
C_845baa23458b4b09a935e687b86d4060_1
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was he replaced?
| 4 |
was Columbus Delano replaced when Bristow threatened to resign?
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Columbus Delano
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In 1875, Delano's reputation for personal honesty came under increasing scrutiny as revelations of corruption in the Grant administration continued to be the subject of investigations and media revelations. Westerners unhappy with Delano's rulings on land grants and other issues accused Delano's son John, an employee of the Interior Department, of corruption, bribery, and fraud. Governor Edward M. McCook of the Colorado Territory, claimed that John Delano had accepted a $1,200 bribe from a Colorado banker, Jerome B. Chaffee, to secure land patents from the Department of Interior. The New-York Tribune reported that John Delano was profiteering through Interior's Office of the Surveyor General by accepting partnerships in Wyoming surveying contracts without having been trained in surveying or map making, and without providing any meaningful contribution to the fulfillment of the contracts; the obvious implication was John Delano had taken extortion money from illicit contract agreements. In March 1875, the former chief clerk of the Surveyor's Office, L. C. Stevens, wrote to Benjamin Bristow, Grant's Secretary of the Treasury, stating that Surveyor General Silas Reed had made several corrupt contracts which financially benefited John Delano. Stevens also said both Reed and John Delano had blackmailed five deputy surveyors for $5,000. More damaging was Stevens' charge that Columbus Delano knew and approved of what Reed had done for John Delano. Both Bristow and Secretary of State Hamilton Fish demanded that Grant fire Delano. Grant declined, telling Fish, "If Delano were now to resign, it would be retreating under fire and be accepted as an admission of the charges." The controversy did not abate; by mid-August it became clear that Delano could not remain in office; Delano offered his resignation and Grant accepted, but Grant did not make it public. Grant finally announced his acceptance of Delano's resignation on October 19, 1875, after Bristow threatened to resign if Delano was not replaced. Grant replaced Delano with Zachariah Chandler, who quickly initiated civil service and other reforms in the Department of the Interior. Delano's administration was investigated by Congress, Chandler, and a special presidential commission; his personal conduct was exonerated, but his reputation as an honest, capable administrator was damaged, and Delano never again ran for office or served in an appointed one. In April 1876, The Committee on the Expeditures in the Interior Department confirmed that Reed had set up an illicit slush fund for John Delano's financial benefit, and that Delano thanked Reed while also telling him "to be careful to do nothing that would have the semblance of wrong." CANNOTANSWER
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Grant replaced Delano with Zachariah Chandler,
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Columbus Delano (June 4, 1809 – October 23, 1896) was a lawyer, rancher, banker, statesman and a member of the prominent Delano family. Forced to live on his own at an early age, Delano struggled to become a self-made man. Delano was elected U.S. Congressman from Ohio, serving two full terms and one partial one. Prior to the American Civil War, Delano was a National Republican and then a Whig; as a Whig, he was identified with the faction of the party that opposed the spread of slavery into the Western territories, and he became a Republican when the party was founded as the major anti-slavery party after the demise of the Whigs in the 1850s. During Reconstruction Delano advocated federal protection of African-Americans' civil rights, and argued that the former Confederate states should be administered by the federal government, but was not part of the United States until they met the requirements for readmission to the Union.
Delano served as President Ulysses S. Grant's Secretary of the Interior during a time of rapid Westward expansionism, and contended with conflicts between Native tribes and White American settlers. He was instrumental in the establishment of America's first national park, having supervised the first federally funded scientific expedition into Yellowstone in 1871, and becoming America's first national park overseer in 1872. In 1874, Delano requested that Congress protect Yellowstone through the creation of a federally funded administrative agency, the first Secretary of the Interior to request such preservation of a nationally important site.
Believing that tribal communalism and a nomadic lifestyle led to war and impoverishment, Delano argued the best Indian policy was to allot Native tribes small reservations in the Indian Territory. In Delano's view, the reservation system humanely protected Native tribes from the encroachment of western settlers, aiding in Indian assimilation into white culture, language, attire, culture, and religion. The goal was for Indian people to be independent from federal funding. To compel the Native tribes of the west to move to reservations, Delano supported the slaughter to the near extinction of the vast buffalo herds outside of Yellowstone, which were essential to the maintenance of the Plains Indians' way of life.
Concerning government reform, Delano defied Grant's 1872 executive order to implement the first Civil Service Commission's recommendations. With the exception of Yellowstone, the spoils system and corruption permeated throughout the Interior Department during his tenure, and Grant requested Delano's resignation in 1875; he left office with damage to his reputation for personal honesty. Although Interior scandals, at times, continued to fester in various succeeding administrations, corruption during Delano's tenure under Grant was excessive. Delano remained a spoils man at a time when reformer demands for a federal merit system were gaining support. Delano returned to Ohio to practice law, tend to his business interests, and raise livestock; he did not return to politics and died in 1896.
Although Delano was considered a 19th Century American "major mover and shaker", his legacy has a dark side, clouded by spoils man politics, harsh treatment of Indians, and endorsement of slaughtering buffalo. Historians are critical of Delano's tenure at the Interior Department, arguing that he could have done more to stop corruption, protect bison, prevent dispossession of Native American land, and the destruction of the culture of the Plains Indians. Yellowstone is considered Delano's greatest achievement and he was considered to be an effective first administrator. The park aided in the recovery of free-roaming buffalo. By August 2019, 4,829 bison were counted in Yellowstone. While in office, Delano was outspoken for his strong support of black American rights and denouncement of the Ku Klux Klan.
Early life, education, and political career
Columbus Delano was born in Shoreham, Vermont on June 5, 1809, the son of James Delano and Lucinda Bateman. The Delano family was of French ancestry; its first representative in America, Philip Delano, voyaged from Holland in 1621 on the Fortune, the sister ship of the Mayflower. In 1815, at the age of six, Delano's father died, and his family was put under the care of his uncle Luther Bateman. In 1817 the family moved to Mount Vernon in Knox County, Ohio, where Delano resided for the rest of his life. Delano was raised primarily by Luther Bateman, who died in 1817. After an elementary education Delano labored in a woolen mill in Lexington, Ohio, and at other jobs, struggling on his own, to become largely self-sufficient while still a teenager.
After beginning self-directed legal studies, Delano formally trained with Mount Vernon attorney Hosmer Curtis from 1830 to 1831, and he attained admission to the bar in 1831. Delano became active in politics as a National Republican, and later as a Whig, and in 1834 he won election as Prosecuting Attorney for Knox County. He won reelection in 1836 and served two terms, 1835 to 1839.
Marriage and family
On July 14, 1834, Delano married Elizabeth Leavenworth of Mount Vernon, the daughter of M. Martin Leavenworth and Clara Sherman Leavenworth. Their children included daughter Elizabeth (1838–1904), who was the wife of Reverend John G. Ames of Washington, DC, and son John Sherman Delano (1841–1896), a businessman who also worked with his father at the Department of the Interior.
Delano and Ulysses S. Grant were distant cousins; they had great-great grandparents in common.
United States Representative (1845–1847)
In 1844, Delano was elected to the United States House of Representatives after appearing on the ballot as a replacement for Samuel White Jr., who had died after winning the Whig nomination. He went on to defeat Democrat Caleb J. McNulty by only 12 votes, 9,297 to 9,285. Delano served in the 29th Congress, (March 4, 1845—March 3, 1847), and was a member of the Committee on Invalid Pensions. He also gave a speech denouncing the Mexican–American War which earned him national recognition as an opponent of the conflict. Delano did not run for reelection in 1846, instead campaigning for the 1848 Whig nomination for Governor of Ohio. He lost to Seabury Ford by two votes at the January 1848 party convention; Ford went on to defeat Democrat John B. Weller in a close general election, and served one term. Delano subsequently became involved in several business ventures; in 1850 he set up a successful Wall Street banking partnership, Delano, Dunlevy, & Company, which specialized in railroad bonds; it included a branch office in Cincinnati and operated for five years. In addition, Delano became a successful sheep rancher, and served as president of the National Association of Wool Growers and the Ohio Wool Growers Association. He was also active in other businesses; he was president of the Springfield, Mount Vernon & Pittsburgh Railroad, and an original incorporator of the First National Bank of Mount Vernon, of which he later became president.
Republican Party and Civil War
With the demise of the Whigs, Columbus Delano joined the new Republican Party. Delano was a delegate to the Chicago Convention in 1860, and he seconded the nomination of Abraham Lincoln's for president. Delano actively campaigned for Lincoln, who won the presidency. The following year Delano served as Commissary-General of Ohio, on the staff of Governor William Dennison Jr., and aided in raising and equipping troops for the Union Army at the start of the American Civil War. In 1862 Delano was a candidate for the United States Senate seat held by Benjamin Wade. With Republicans in control of the Ohio General Assembly, winning their nomination was tantamount to election by the full legislature. Delano was nearly successful, losing the nomination to Wade by only two votes. In 1863, Delano served in the Ohio House of Representatives and played a notable role in shepherding the passage of legislation in support of the Union war effort. Delano served as Chairman of the Judicial Committee and settled the matter of the right of soldiers to vote. Delano served as Chairman of the Ohio delegation that attended the Baltimore Convention. Lincoln was successfully nominated for a second term of office.
Reconstruction Era
Return to Congress
Delano was again elected to the U.S. House in 1864, and he served in the 39th Congress (March 4, 1865—March 3, 1867). During this term, Delano was chairman of the House Committee on Claims. Delano appeared to lose his bid for reelection in 1866, but successfully contested the election of George W. Morgan. After unseating Morgan, Delano served for the remainder of the 40th Congress, June 3, 1868—March 3, 1869. After the Civil War Delano supported Radical Reconstruction, believing that the South was in chaos and that federal involvement in the Southern states, including the army, was necessary to keep the peace. He did not run for reelection in 1868.
Reconstruction speech (1867)
In September 1867, Delano made a speech on Reconstruction in Eaton, Ohio, in which he said that President Andrew Johnson did not have the constitutional authority to establish civil government in the former Confederate states. Delano argued that Congress, not the president, "was required to establish civil governments in all the states." In Delano's view, Johnson and Southern Democrats, who had previously supported the Confederacy, were conspiring to overthrow Congress by undermining its authority to make laws concerning Southern Reconstruction. As proof, Delano cited Johnson's September 1866 Swing Around the Circle speech, in which Johnson said the national legislature was a "pretended Congress". In addition, Delano believed Johnson was conspiring to remove Ulysses S. Grant as head of the army because of Grant's support for Congressional Reconstruction. As a result, Delano advocated impeaching Johnson and removing him from office, and argued that Grant should be protected by Congress from any attempt by Johnson to remove him. Unknown to Delano, on August 11, 1867, Grant had agreed to accept Johnson's offer to serve as interim Secretary of War, while simultaneously remaining general of the army. Under the provisions of the Tenure of Office Act, the appointment would be temporary until the U.S. Senate returned to session in January 1868, and either ratified or prohibited Stanton's removal. Johnson and Grant agreed to Grant's temporary appointment despite explicitly admitting that they disagreed on Reconstruction policy.
Commissioner of Internal Revenue
Delano remained active in politics and supported Grant for president in 1868. When Grant became president in March 1869, he appointed Delano Commissioner of Internal Revenue; Delano served from March 11, 1869, to October 31, 1870. As commissioner, Delano tried with mixed success to collect federal revenue on alcohol and tobacco products manufactured in Indian Territory; these items could be produced for sale tax-free within the territory, but manufacturers routinely sold them in adjacent states without paying the taxes. He also proved unwilling or unable to cope with the frauds of the Whiskey Ring; despite having received warnings of corruption including bribery of federal officials and failure to pay taxes, Delano took little or no action. The department did attempt to prevent the illegal manufacture and sale of whiskey in other areas; on January 31, 1870, an Internal Revenue raid in Georgia captured 18 illicit whiskey stills and their operators. The Whiskey Ring finally stopped in 1875 during Grant's second term by Secretary of the Treasury Benjamin Bristow. The ring leader, John McDonald was an acquaintance of President Grant and had requested from him a political appointment as superintending inspector of internal revenue in St. Louis. Grant then directed Delano to make the appointment. McDonald was convicted of fraud and theft and served 17 months in prison. In all, the investigation of the Whiskey Ring resulted in 110 convictions. Grant's private secretary, Orville E. Babcock was implicated, but acquitted at trial after Grant provided written testimony on his behalf. Additionally, Delano was cleared of involvement in another scandal in which Babcock was implicated, the Gold Ring, which was triggered when two New York financiers attempted to corner the gold market on September 24, 1869. Daniel Butterfield, the Assistant Treasurer of the United States, and Grant's brother in law Abel Corbin were also implicated; Butterfield was forced to resign in October. Delano's reputation for personal honesty was not in question, which was an asset when Grant needed to nominate a new Secretary of the Interior in 1870.
Secretary of the Interior
United States Attorney General Ebenezer R. Hoar and Secretary of the Interior Jacob D. Cox resigned in 1870 because of Grant's decision to overrule them on the issue of the McGarrahan Claims; speculator William McGarrahan claimed title to a tract of mining land in California, as did the New Idria Mining Company. Grant wanted no executive branch action taken, considering both claims to be fraudulent; Cox and Hoar disagreed and decided in favor of New Idria, which prompted Grant to request their resignations.
Grant appointed Delano to succeed Cox at the Interior Department; he served from November 1, 1870, until resigning on October 19, 1875. During Delano's tenure, the Interior Department was the largest bureaucracy in the federal government, including numerous patronage positions. Running the department required knowledge of dissimilar duties, and the ability to master complex details. During Delano's time as secretary, he faced several critical issues and his department was rapidly expanding; despite the challenges he served longer in the job than any other 19th-century incumbent. Delano aligned himself with Grant's private secretary Orville Babcock and Secretary of Navy George M. Robeson. Delano rejected the civil service reforms of his predecessor Cox and reverted the Interior to the spoils system.
Bison slaughter (1870s)
During the Civil War, Union generals practiced a "scorched earth" campaign against Confederate infrastructure that destroyed its vital food supplies, which aided in bringing about the Union's victory. During the late 1860s and early 1870s U.S. Army officers William T. Sherman, Richard Dodge, and Secretary of the Interior Delano adopted a similar strategy against Native Americans in the west, whose primary food supply was free-roaming bison. Dodge said in 1867, "Every buffalo dead is an Indian gone." Delano said in an 1872 annual report, "The rapid disappearance of the game [bison] from the former hunting-grounds must operate largely in favor of our efforts to confine the Indians to smaller areas, and compel them to abandon their nomadic customs."
Much of the destruction of bison was done by private, for-profit buffalo hunters; this policy allowed the slaughter of millions of bison on the American plains, forcing Indians to move to and remain on their reservations. The few free-roaming bison left in Yellowstone were protected from poaching by a federal law passed in 1872; during Delano's tenure, mounting criticism by the public forced Congress to pass legislation that would stop the bison slaughter on the plains. Grant vetoed the legislation in 1874, accepting that the bison slaughter was accomplishing the goal of pacifying the Indians. From 1872 to 1874 the Indians killed approximately 1,215,000 bison as part of providing for their food, shelter, and other basic needs; American hunters slaughtered an estimated 4,374,000 bison, reducing the population to the point that it could not reproduce normally and continue to sustain the Indians.
Apache massacre and peace (1871-1872)
On April 30, 1871, white Tucson townspeople organized a militia which massacred an Apache Indian settlement at Camp Grant. Approximately 144 Apaches were killed, mostly women and children. Twenty-eight children were kidnapped by the Tucson townspeople and held as ransom for the Apache warriors, who were not present at the time of the massacre. The people of Tucson drew national attention by the scale of their activity, resulting in Eastern philanthropists and President Grant denouncing their actions. Arizona citizens, however, believed the killings were justified and claimed that Apache warriors had killed mail runners and settlers near Tucson. President Grant sent Major General George Crook to keep the peace in Arizona; many Apaches had joined the U.S. military for protection.
On November 10, 1871, Delano advocated Grant that Apaches be given new reservation land in Arizona and New Mexico, following the recommendation of Indian Peace Commissioner Vincent Colyer to find them a location where they could be protected from attacks by white settlers. Delano advocated that all Apaches be put on reservations including young men and warriors, who were forming raiding parties, rather than just their old men and women. Grant sent Major General Oliver Otis Howard to Arizona to help resolve the issue; Howard organized a peace conference with Apache leader Eskiminzin in May 1872 at Camp Grant. Howard also negotiated the release of six of the captive Apache children. In December 1872, the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation, a permanent settlement, was established at the junction of the San Carlos and Gila Rivers, the location having been agreed upon by Howard and Eskiminzin. In October 1872, Howard also made a separate peace treaty with the Apache leader Cochise, who settled on the Chiricahua reservation.
Akerman feud (1871)
In June 1871 Grant's Attorney General Amos T. Akerman denied land and bond grants to the Union Pacific Railroad, a company connected to the Crédit Mobilier scandal. Ackerman's anti-railroad rulings were protested by railroad financiers Collis P. Huntington and Jay Gould. Akerman was also instrumental in prosecuting the Ku Klux Klan in the South and protecting African American civil rights. Railroad interests and African-American civil rights had been priorities for the Republican Party; on behalf of Huntington and Gould, Delano twice asked Akerman to change rulings that had gone against the Union Pacific, and both times Akerman refused. Delano then complained to Grant and suggested that Akerman should be removed. Grant agreed, and named former Oregon Senator George H. Williams as Akerman's replacement; Williams was seen as more favorable to railroad interests. On the issue of curtailing the Klan prosecutions, according to historian William S. McFeely, "[w]ith Akerman's departure on January 10, 1872, went any hope that the Republican party would develop as a national party of true racial equality."
Yellowstone (1871-1872)
In 1871, Delano organized America's first federally funded scientific expedition into Yellowstone, which was headed by U.S. Geologist Ferdinand V. Hayden. Delano gave specific instructions for Hayden to make a geographical map of the area and to make astronomical and barometric observations. Delano stated that Hayden's expedition was directed to "...secure as much information as possible, both scientific and practical...give your attention to the geological, mineralogical, zoological, botanical, and agricultural resources of the country." Delano also ordered Hayden to gather information on Native American tribes who lived in the area. Hayden's expedition was outfitted by an extensive scientific team that included two botanists, a meteorologist, a zoologist, an ornithologist, a mineralogist, a topographer, an artist, a photographer, a physician, hunters, mule teams and ambulances, and a support staff.
On March 1, 1872 Ulysses S. Grant signed the Organic Act, incorporating Hayden's findings and discoveries and creating Yellowstone, the world's first national park. The law provided that the Secretary of the Interior exercise "exclusive control" over Yellowstone; As Delano was the incumbent, this made him the first overseer of the first national park in the world. The poaching of fish and wildlife, including bison, was forbidden, and Delano was authorized to preserve the "natural curiosities and wonders" found inside the park. Delano was now in charge of millions of acres of land, however, he was not provided any funding to care for it. Instead, he was given the power to grant 10-year leases in order to raise money to pay for maintaining the park. As soon as the park was created, Delano was inundated by requests for hotel concessions, and he also had to determine the control and use of existing facilities in the park's northern section.
Delano appointed N. P. Langford the first Supervisor of Yellowstone in 1872; Langford banned private toll roads and submitted a plan to build and maintain a park road system free to the public, but Congress refused to fund it. Congress also refused to give Langford a stipend, so he had to supplement his livelihood by working as a banker. In 1874 Lanford requested that Delano petition Congress for appropriations to protect the park from poachers, unlicensed privateers, and trespassers. Delano agreed and demanded Congress appropriate $100,000 to set up a federal park agency to administer and protect the park for the public, and also asked for an increase in the terms of the concession leases from 10 to 20 years. The proposal was turned down; it was not until April 1877, during the Rutherford B. Hayes administration, that Congress appropriated one-tenth of Delano's request, $10,000, without any federal protection agency for the park.
Defied Civil Service Executive order (1871-1874)
In March 1871, Grant signed into law Congressional legislation that established the United States Civil Service Commission, designed to create reform rules and to regulate and reduce corruption in the federal workforce. Implementation of the rules was left to the discretion of the President. Grant appointed New York reformer William Curtis to chair the commission. The Commission reported that appointments and promotions would be controlled by examiners, and each federal Department would create a board of examiners, while political assessments would be abolished. Grant ordered the implementation of the rules to be effective on January 1, 1872. Grant dissolved the commission in 1874 after Congress refused to make the Commission rules permanent, and refused to provide permanent funding for the commission. Congressional interest in civil service reform would remain dormant until 1883.
Under Article 12 of Grant's executive order, Land Office and Pension agent applicants in the Department of Interior were to be approved by a board of examiners. Delano, however, betrayed Grant and defied the order. Grant made no response. The Interior Department's varied and diverse responsibilities increased at a rapid rate and became a source of numerous administrative problems. For the department head, controlling the bureaus and shaping policy was a daunting task; Delano argued that the complexities of the department made implementing civil service reform impractical. Under Delano's tenure, corruption permeated the whole department, including bogus agents in the Bureau of Indian Affairs and thieving clerks in the Patent Office. Delano ultimately resigned because of evidence that surveying contracts had been awarded to companies in which his son John, the chief clerk of the department, and Orvil (or Orville) Grant, the president's brother, had ownership interests; this was more or less permissible by the standards of the day, but to reform-minded individuals, including the editors of the New-York Tribune and other newspapers, it represented a conflict of interest and breach of the public trust.
Supported Ku Klux Klan prosecutions (1872)
To bolster the Reconstruction Acts and the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth constitutional amendments, Grant signed in 1870 Congressional legislation that created the Justice Department. To fight the outrages in the South by the Ku Klux Klan, Grant signed several laws known as the Enforcement Acts in 1870 and 1871. In May 1871, Grant ordered federal troops to help U.S. Marshals in arresting Klansmen. Grant's second Attorney General Amos T. Akerman, a former Confederate soldier, knew of the outrages of the Klan and was zealous in prosecuting white Southerners who terrorized their black neighbors. That October, on Akerman's recommendation, Grant suspended habeas corpus in part of South Carolina and sent federal troops there to enforce the law. After prosecutions by Akerman and his replacement, George Henry Williams, the Klan's power collapsed; by 1872, elections in the South saw African Americans voting in record numbers.
In a campaign speech supporting President Grant's reelection bid in Raleigh, North Carolina, on July 24, 1872, Delano spoke out in favor of prosecutions of the Ku Klux Klan. Delano argued that the Congressional Reconstruction Acts had been passed to "rescue order and government out of the chaos and confusion" that came from the Civil War. This included the enfranchisement of African Americans, most of them former slaves, who had been set "forever free" as a result of the war. Delano stated that if freedom meant anything it was that African Americans "should stand equal before the law and have a voice in legislation." According to Delano, southerners who rejected Republican Reconstruction opted for a subversive war against African Americans and white Republicans, including the formation of the Ku Klux Klan. Delano said the Ku Klux Klan had in fourteen North Carolina counties killed 18 people and cruelly whipped 315 Republicans who had done nothing wrong. Delano said that evidence presented in prosecuting Klan members in the federal courts proved the "barbarity and treason" of the Ku Klux Klan. Grant ended up winning North Carolina and many other Southern states.
Defined Indian policy (1873)
In 1873, Delano formally defined the methods to be used in attaining the goals of Grant's policy toward the Native Americans. Grant's ultimate goal was to convert the Indians to Christianity and assimilate them into the white culture in order to prepare them for full U.S. Citizenship; these fundamental principles continued to influence Indian Peace policy for the rest of the 19th Century. According to Delano, relocating the Indians to reservations was of primary importance, since this would supposedly protect them from the violence of white settlers as whites moved onto lands previously held by Native Americans. In addition, Christian organizations and missionaries operating on these reservations could "civilize" the Native Americans, in line with the widespread belief (including Delano's) that allowing the Indians to continue to practice their own culture would lead to their destruction. In Delano's view, his actions would accomplish Grant's goal by facilitating Indian assimilation into white culture.
Black Hills take over (1875)
Under the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie, the Oglala Sioux had been given a huge reservation including the Black Hills in what is now South Dakota. The Black Hills were the site of Sioux sacred religious rituals and spiritual ceremonies. Following the Panic of 1873 the country was desperate for new wealth. In 1874 rumors spread of gold being discovered in the Black Hills by George Custer's recent expedition. Grant sent the expedition, hoping to find gold in order to support his species currency policy; Delano opposed the move, believing travel through and eventual occupation of hunting grounds violated the Treaty of Fort Laramie and could lead to an Indian war. Delano told Grant that a "general war with the Sioux would be deplorable. It would undo the good already accomplished by our efforts for peaceable relations." Whites immediately flocked to the area in search of gold; in 1875, Congress appropriated $25,000 for the purchase of the Black Hills, hoping that a cash payment would assuage the Sioux and prevent war.
In mid-May 1875, Red Cloud, Chief of the Oglala Lakota (Sioux), and other Indian tribal leaders were brought to Washington D.C. to negotiate the sale of the Black Hills. The Sioux believed the amount offered by Congress was too low; recognizing that they would eventually lose the Black Hills, Red Cloud decided to negotiate and told Delano they would sign away the Black Hills if $25,000 in cash was first drawn from the Treasury Department, to ensure that the Sioux would be paid. Delano had no intention of giving Red Cloud cash, but rather a receipt for $25,000 from the Treasury and additional presents purchased at a later date and distributed to members of the tribe. Red Cloud insisted that he wanted the $25,000 in cash at the signing, which would be taken home and divided among the members of the tribe.
Delano warned Grant that a war would likely break out if negotiations were not successful. When negotiations broke down, Grant was brought into the process to bargain directly with Red Cloud. Grant told Red Cloud that the Black Hills had no buffalo, so it would benefit the Indians to accept payment because they would at least receive something of value in consideration for signing away valueless hunting rights. He also informed Red Cloud that whites were going to take over the Black Hills anyway, so it would be best not to leave empty-handed. Concerned that they would not be paid if they signed an agreement first, Red Cloud asked Grant to withdraw the money from the Treasury, and hold it until after the signing. Grant refused and walked out, telling Red Cloud he had to sign over the Black Hills before any payment was made. On June 4, Delano offered Red Cloud an additional $25,000 in appropriations, but Red Cloud refused.
With Red Cloud's refusal, Delano reluctantly let the Indians take the unsigned agreement back to their tribal agencies for further discussion among the members of the tribe, with final terms and signatures to be negotiated later by an appointed commission. The failure of the Washington, D.C. negotiations to produce an agreement was lampooned in the June 19 edition of Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper. Upon their return to Sioux country, Red Cloud and other Lakota leaders finally signed away their hunting rights to the Black Hills under Article 11 of the Treaty of Fort Laramie in exchange for the original $25,000 Congressional appropriation. Another group of Sioux chiefs, including Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, challenged Red Cloud's authority and started the armed resistance about which Delano had warned Grant. This challenge to Red Cloud's authority combined with Lakota unhappiness over white encroachment into the Black Hills resulted in the Great Sioux War, which started in February 1876.
Resignation and corruption (1875)
In 1875, Delano's reputation for personal honesty came under increasing scrutiny as revelations of corruption in the Grant administration continued to be the subject of investigations and media revelations. Although Delano himself was not known to be personally corrupt, his tenure was shadowed by controversy, while fraud prevailed in his Interior Department. There were accusations of an "Indian Ring" and corrupt agents who exploited Native American people. Westerners unhappy with Delano's rulings on land grants and other issues accused Delano's son John, an employee of the Interior Department, of corruption, bribery, and fraud in the Wyoming Territory.
Surveyor General Ring
The New-York Tribune reported that John Delano was profiteering through Interior's Office of the Surveyor-General by accepting partnerships in Wyoming surveying contracts without having been trained in surveying or map-making, and without providing any meaningful contribution to the fulfillment of the contracts; the obvious implication was John Delano had taken extortion money from illicit contract agreements. In March 1875, the former chief clerk of the Surveyor's Office, L. C. Stevens, wrote to Benjamin Bristow, Grant's Secretary of the Treasury, stating that Surveyor General Silas Reed had made several corrupt contracts which financially benefited John Delano. Stevens also said both Reed and John Delano had blackmailed five deputy surveyors for $5,000. According to Stevens, Reed and Delano had coerced the deputy surveyors to pay John Delano before he would release the Interior Department warrants for land the deputy surveyors had sold to prospective settlers. Governor Edward M. McCook of the Colorado Territory, claimed that John Delano had accepted a $1,200 bribe from a Colorado banker, Jerome B. Chaffee, to secure land patents from the Department of Interior. More damaging was Stevens' charge that Columbus Delano knew and approved of what Reed had done for John Delano.
In addition to Delano's son, Grant's brother Orvil was paid for surveying services in the Wyoming Territory, although Orvil did no work. The chief clerk of the Cheyenne branch of the federal Surveying Office testified before Congress concerning Orvil. When asked whether Orvil did any work in the Wyoming Territory, the chief clerk said, "No, sir, I do not think he was ever in the territory."
Indian Ring
In July 1875, Delano was rumored to know that Orvil Grant, the president's brother, had received Indian trading posts, that were a corrupt source of lucrative kickbacks, from the sutler, at the expense of the Indians and soldiers. The higher the sale price on goods, that the Indians and soldiers would pay, the higher the profits. Even the sale of rifles to hostile Indian tribes was allowed, to make more money. The profits were split and sent to the other sutler partners.
Delano was rumored to have threatened Grant at Long Branch that he would expose Orvil to the public when Delano's resignation was enforced. He told Grant that he would quietly leave office after Congressional Indian fraud investigations were complete. In February 1876, the New York Herald reported that Orvil made money in the Sioux country by "starving the squaws and children." Orvil testified before Congress that Grant had influenced the War Department to get him traderships. Orvil received rights to operate four trading posts, then set up "partners" who kicked back half their profits to Orvil. Though Orvil claimed Grant had not known of the kickbacks, he expressed no remorse for his corruption, and his testimony left Grant embarrassed.
The kingpin of this Indian Ring was not Delano, but Secretary of War William W. Belknap, who was given legal authority by Congress in 1870 to appoint sutlers to traderships at Army posts near Indian reservations, which were controlled by Interior. Belknap, who had awarded Orvil Grant the four traderships, took advantage of the law to personally profit by arranging an illicit partnership at Fort Sill between his wife Carrie, Caleb P. Marsh, and sutler John S. Evans. After Carrie's death, Belknap married her sister Amanda, who continued the illicit tradership arrangement. Belknap's household received as much as $20,000 in illegal profits (nearly $500,000 in 2021), which Belknap needed in order to finance the lavish Washington D.C. entertainment lifestyle expected of cabinet members and other prominent political figures.
Aware that the U.S. House was investigating him, on March 2, 1876 Belknap visited Grant and immediately resigned. The House continued its inquiry and found him guilty of five articles of impeachment. Grant's attorney general placed Belknap under house arrest during his U.S. Senate trial. Though most senators believed the evidence of Belknap's corruption, enough believed they lacked the jurisdiction to punish Belknap because he was no longer in office to acquit him. Despite escaping conviction, Belknap's reputation was so marred that he never returned to political office.
Resignation
Both Bristow and Secretary of State Hamilton Fish demanded that Grant fire Delano. Grant declined, telling Fish, "If Delano were now to resign, it would be retreating under fire and be accepted as an admission of the charges." The controversy did not abate; by mid-August, it became clear that Delano could not remain in office; Delano offered his resignation and Grant accepted, but Grant did not make it public. Grant finally announced his acceptance of Delano's resignation on October 19, 1875, after Bristow threatened to resign if Delano was not replaced. Grant replaced Delano with Zachariah Chandler, who quickly initiated civil service and other reforms in the Department of the Interior. Delano's administration was investigated by Congress, Chandler, and a special presidential commission; his personal conduct was exonerated, but his reputation as an honest, capable administrator was damaged, and Delano never again ran for office or served in an appointed one. In April 1876, The Committee on the Expenditures in the Interior Department confirmed that Reed had set up an illicit slush fund for John Delano's financial benefit, and that Delano thanked Reed while also telling him "to be careful to do nothing that would have the semblance of wrong."
Delano's defense
On September 26, 1875, Delano submitted to Grant a letter defending his tenure at the Department of the Interior; in essence, he argued that the size and complexity of his department made it difficult to manage effectively. Delano stated that he had resigned because he intended to return to his business and domestic concerns in Ohio. He indicated that his duties as Secretary of the Interior were "laborious, difficult, and delicate" because he was required to supervise five disparate bureaus or offices: Land; Indian; Pensions; Patent; and Education, in addition to "a mass of miscellaneous business unknown to any except those connected to the public service."
Delano also reminded Grant that the Land Office dealt with complex railroad land grants, as well as issues resolving land titles in California, Arizona and New Mexico, because those areas had previously been under Spain's and then Mexico's jurisdiction. In addition, the Indian Bureau dealt with many "intricate, delicate, and vexatious questions" growing out of previous Indian treaties. Delano further informed Grant that when he had to decide issues between competing claimants, those he ruled against often gave false and misleading statements rather than accept their loss, which was to Delano's detriment. Delano concluded by claiming a successful tenure, informing Grant that the Interior Department "has never been in a more prosperous or better condition than it now is."
Chandler reforms
Delano's successor, Zachariah Chandler, did not complain about his departmental duties, and immediately investigated allegations of corruption. Chandler found things differently than Delano's explanations to Grant and decided the department needed major reforming. During his first month in office, he fired all the clerks in one room of the Patent Office; he noted that every desk was vacant, and concluded that the employees were either involved in corruption or lacked the integrity to reform the department. Almost twenty employees were found to be entirely fictitious; they had been created by a profiteering ring to defraud the government by falsely receiving pay for work that was not performed. Chandler also fired unqualified clerks who profiteered by hiring out their work to lower-paid replacements and pocketing the salary difference.
In addition, Chandler simplified Patent Office rules, making patents easier to obtain and reducing the cost for applicants. In December 1875, Chandler banned persons known as "Indian Attorneys", whose claims to represent Native Americans in Washington were questionable. He found the Bureau of Indian Affairs to be the most corrupt, and he replaced its commissioner and chief clerk. In addition to Indian Affairs, Chandler also investigated the Pension Bureau. This review resulted in the identification and removal of numerous fraudulent pensions, which saved the federal government hundreds of thousands of dollars. Chandler also revoked as many as 800 fraudulent land grants that had been approved during Delano's tenure.
Later life and career
On his resignation from Grant's cabinet, Delano returned to Mount Vernon where for the next twenty years he served as president of the First National Bank of Mount Vernon. He was a longtime trustee of Kenyon College, which awarded him the honorary degree of LL.D.; among his charitable and civic donations was his endowment of Kenyon's Delano Hall; this building was in use until it was destroyed by a fire in 1906. His Lakeholm mansion, built in 1871 at the outskirts of Mount Vernon, is now part of Mount Vernon Nazarene University.
On April 3, 1880, John W. Wright, a judge from Indiana, was convicted at trial of having assaulted Delano on a Washington, D.C. street corner on October 12, 1877. Wright, who had been an Indian Agent in the Interior Department while Delano was secretary, had been convicted of fraud and blamed Delano. On the day of the assault he was in the company of Walter H. Smith, formerly solicitor of the Department of the Interior; Wright was accused of provoking a fight by questioning Delano's honesty as Secretary of the Interior and then striking Delano with his walking stick. Wright claimed that Delano had been verbally harassing him and that he then felt compelled to defend himself. Delano did not sustain serious injuries; Wright's defense was weakened by witness testimony that after the assault, he claimed credit for it, and stated that he would have continued if passers-by had not intervened. Wright was sentenced to 30 days in jail and fined $1,000. On April 8, 1880, President Rutherford B. Hayes pardoned Wright, with his release from custody conditional upon the payment of the fine.
On December 3, 1889, Delano was elected president of the National Wool Growers Association, a lobbying group organized to advocate for tariff protection of the national wool industry. The association had been formed in 1865, and became more active in the 1880s as a response to the decline in domestic wool production; wool growers faced increasing overseas competition and had gone from 50 million sheep producing wool in 1883 to 40 million in 1888.
Death
Delano died on October 23, 1896; he was interred at Mount Vernon's Mound View Cemetery, Lot 42, Section 16, Grave 4. Delano's death was sudden and unexpected, and took place at his "Lake Howe" home near Mount Vernon, at 11:00 AM. There was no connection between his wife Mrs. Delano's near-fatal accident and his own death.
Historical legacy
Delano's career prior to becoming Secretary of the Interior was not known for any scandals, nor has he been implicated in the Crédit Mobilier scandal. Historians, however, are critical of Delano's overall tenure as Secretary of the Interior especially for his loose anti-reform administrative style and for allowing corruption to permeate the department, unlike Grant's first appointee, Jacob D. Cox, who had been an enthusiastic advocate of civil service reform. Delano sided with the railroad interests over reform and allied with Grant's private secretary Orville Babcock and Secretary of Navy George M. Robeson, associated with corruption. Delano was at odds with Grant's reformers, including Secretary of State Hamilton Fish, Secretary of Treasury Benjamin Bristow, and Attorney General Amos T. Akerman. The corruption in the Bureau of Indian Affairs under Delano eventually led to the end of political appointees, the appointment of career civil servants, and the bureaucratization of the agency. Delano defended his reputation by saying that the Interior Department was difficult to manage due to its expanding size and its many offices with disparate functions.
Indian advancement
In March 1869, President Grant appointed Ely S. Parker, a Seneca Indian, to Commissioner of Indian Affairs serving under both Secretary of Interior Cox and Secretary of Interior Delano. Although there was resistance to his appointment, the Senate confirmed Parker could legally hold office, and he was confirmed by the Senate. During Parker's tenor, lasting until August 1871, Indian wars decreased significantly from 101 in 1869 to 58 in 1870.
145 years, 5 months, 16 days later after Delano left office in 1875, Delano's position as Secretary of Interior was finally filled in by a Native American in 2021. On December 17, 2020, President elect Joe Biden announced that he would nominate Deb Haaland to serve as Secretary of the Interior. She was confirmed by the United States Senate on March 15, 2021, by a vote of 51–40. Following her swearing-in on March 16, she became the first Native American to serve as a Cabinet secretary and the second to serve in the Cabinet, after Republican former vice president and Kaw Nation citizen Charles Curtis.
Native American land seized (1871-1875)
Between 1871 and 1875, the term years Delano was Secretary of the Interior, 73,157,155 acres (114,308 square miles) of Indian land was seized by the United States. By comparison, this is about the size of the state of Arizona (113,642 square miles).
Reservation system
Although the Indian reservation system Delano strongly advocated, protecting Indians
from white sutlers, looked good on paper, it denied the way of life Indians had sustained themselves for thousands of years. With their food supply of buffalo disseminated by white hunters, Indians were forced to live under white culture, yet survive on poor reservation lands and limited supplies. Native Americans today still suffer from the aftershocks of a brutal Interior reservation policy under Delano and his 19th Century successors. Indian culture was devastated, while in practice the reservation policy was monstrous by modern standards.
Bison slaughter and Indian suppression
Delano has also received criticism for allowing millions of bison to be slaughtered, with the exception of Yellowstone, in order to compel the Indians to move to and remain on their reservations, a policy approved by President Grant and the U.S. Army. The demise of the bison herds during Delano's tenure led to the destruction of the Plains Indian culture, including their economy, cosmology, and religion. Without the bison, the Plains Indians could not resist late 19th Century expansionism, including the development of the railroads in the American West. This policy led to more restrictive measures against Native Americans in the 1880s and 1890s, including the banning of medicine making, polygamy, bride payments, and the Sun Dance.
Yellowstone and bison recovery
Delano was the first Secretary of the Interior to be in charge of Yellowstone, America's and the world's first national park. The charges of misconduct and lax management made during Delano's tenure at Interior did not include the new park, the management of which was seen as a success. Among its features, it outlawed poaching wildlife and served as a haven for small numbers of free-roaming bison, left after the slaughter of the great herds that, with the exception of Yellowstone, Delano had fully supported. On August 25, 1916, Congress created the National Park Service to federally protect and administer Yellowstone and other national parks; Delano had proposed the creation of the agency in 1874. Yellowstone today generates around 4 million visitors per year.
By 1902, poachers had illegally killed and reduced Yellowstone bison herd size to about two dozen animals. The U.S. Army, who administered Yellowstone, prior to the creation of the National Park Service, took over and protected the last remaining bison from further poaching. Bison from private herds were incorporated into Yellowstone, forming a northern herd. For decades, however, as Yellowstone bisons increased in number, herds were reduced, believing the animals had caused overgrazing. The practice of reducing the Yellowstone bison population ceased in 1968. However, by the 2000s, the reduction of Yellowstone bison herds resumed, "due to increasing numbers and litigation about migration into Montana." As of August 2019, Yellowstone had 4,829 bison from two herds, 3,667 northern bison, and 1,162 central bison.
Corruption aftermath and Pendleton Act
In the aftermath of Delano's departure and retirement from the Interior in 1875 and Chandler reforms, the large Department still experienced scandals but were much less pervasive than during Delano's tenor. During the Rutherford B. Hayes administration, on May 31, 1880, a Senate committee reported on the Interior Department and Secretary of the Interior Carl Schurz, a reformer, over his removal and jailing of the Ponca Indians. On December 18, 1880, a commission appointed Hayes, began an investigation of the Department's treatment of the Ponca. On January 25, 1881, the commission reported to President Hayes the treatment of the Ponca was "needlessly disastrous and cruel".
In January 1883, President Arthur signed into law the landmark legislation, known as the Pendleton Act, that made civil service reform permanent, with the goal to reduce corruption and hire persons based on a merit system, rather than patronage. Patterned off Grant's Civil Service Commission (1871) and rules, the Act put 11 percent of the federal workforce under civil service law, and reestablished the Civil Service Commission, to regulate political assessments and payoffs. Good men were appointed by Arthur to run the commission, and surprisingly, Arthur was friendly to reformers. The passage of the act was motivated by the assassination of President James A. Garfield by a disgruntled office seeker.
Scandals continued to periodically surface. In 1884, William W. Dudley, Commissioner of the Pensions Office, was engaged in political activity, promising expedited approval to petitioners who voted for James G. Blaine and John A. Logan, the Republicans President and Vice President candidates. President Chester A. Arthur, a Republican, did nothing to stop the practice. In 1888, Secretary of Interior William F. Vilas, appointed by President Grover Cleveland (1885-1889), a Democrat, was investigated by Congress. Vilas was a stockholder of the Superior Lumber Company and was suspected of profiteering. In 1889, the Senate investigation report concluded that Vilas did not personally profiteer.
During the Benjamin Harrison Republican administration (1889-1893), an Interior probe investigation found evidence Harrison's appointed Pension Bureau Commissioner James R. Tanner took "lavish and illegal handouts". Tanner resigned and Harrison appointed Green B. Raum Pension Bureau Commissioner. Raum was accused of taking kickback loans to expedite pension cases. A Democratic House investigation said Raum had "prostituted his office" and should be removed, but Harrison declined.
Personal reputation
In 1898, historian Joseph Patterson Smith said Delano had attained, "a long and distinguished career, as an eminent lawyer, an able businessman and one intimately identified with the governmental affairs of the state and nation." In 2001, historian Jean Edward Smith, taking a harsher view, said Delano betrayed his public trust while Secretary of the Interior by allowing corruption to pervade throughout his department, "at the expense of those who most needed government assistance: the Native American." Benjamin Bristow, Grant's appointed Secretary of Treasury, said Secretary Delano was "a very mean dog," and deserved "the execration of every honest man."
Honors
Delano, California
Delano, California, located in Kern County, originally a terminal railroad town, was founded on July 14, 1869. The unnamed town was officially named in honor of Columbus Delano, at the time Delano was Secretary of the Interior, during the Grant administration. The name of Delano was officially given by the Southern Pacific Railroad. Delano's first post office opened in 1874. The town of Delano was incorporated as a city in 1915.
Mountains
Certain mountains in Utah (Delano Peak) and Montana (Mount Delano) are named after Delano. Delano Peak, in Utah, has an elevation of 12,174 ft (3,711 m). Mount Delano, in Montana, has an elevation of 10,138 ft (3090 m).
Notable Department of Interior events
1856-1873 Interior's Pacific Wagon Road Office improved the historic western emigrant routes.
1869 The Bureau of Education is placed under Interior (later transferred to the Department of Health, Education and Welfare).
1869-1870 Cook–Folsom–Peterson Expedition Yellowstone
1870 Washburn–Langford–Doane Expedition Yellowstone
1871 Hayden Geological Survey of 1871 Yellowstone Sponsored by the federal government. Delano instructed the survey.
1872 Congress establishes Yellowstone as the first National Park.
1873 Congress transferred territorial oversight from the Secretary of State to the Secretary of the Interior.
Notes
References
Sources
Books
Internet
New York Times
Newspapers
Speeches
External links
Columbus Delano at Find A Grave
The Department of Everything Else: Highlights of Interior History (1989)
Delano Peak, Utah Access Date: December 1, 2021
Mount Delano, Montana Access Date: December 1, 2021
1809 births
1896 deaths
Delano family
United States Secretaries of the Interior
Commissioners of Internal Revenue
Members of the United States House of Representatives from Ohio
Members of the Ohio House of Representatives
Ohio lawyers
People from Mount Vernon, Ohio
People from Shoreham, Vermont
Ohio Whigs
Ohio Republicans
Members of the Kenyon College Board of Trustees
Grant administration cabinet members
Whig Party members of the United States House of Representatives
Republican Party members of the United States House of Representatives
19th-century American politicians
Republican Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Ohio
| true |
[
"This is a list of the 20 members of the European Parliament for Sweden in the 2014 to 2019 session.\n\nList\n\nMidterm replacements \nIsabella Lövin resigned on 3 October 2014 when she was appointed Minister for International Development Cooperation in the Swedish Government. She was replaced by Linnéa Engström.\nMarit Paulsen resigned on 29 September 2015 due health problems. She was replaced by Jasenko Selimovic.\nPeter Eriksson resigned on 25 May 2016 when he was appointed Minister for Housing and Digitalization in the Swedish Government. He was replaced by Jakop Dalunde.\nJens Nilsson died on 13 March 2018. He was replaced by Aleksander Gabelic.\nLars Adaktusson resigned on 23 September 2018 when he was elected Member of the Riksdag in the 2018 general election. He was replaced by Anders Sellström.\n\nReferences\n\nSweden\nList\n2014",
"The 2017 All Stars match was the seventh annual representative exhibition All Stars match of Australian rugby. The match was played between the Indigenous All Stars and the World All Stars and for the first time, the match was played outside of Queensland. Mal Meninga took over as coach of the World All Stars from Wayne Bennett.\n\nThe Indigenous All Stars were selected through public vote from 7 November to 2 December 2016. Both sides were announced on 14 December.\n\nTeams\n\n1 - Will Chambers was originally selected to play but withdrew for the birth of his first child. Jack Bird was moved from the bench to Centre and Chambers was replaced by Bevan French.\n2 - Sam Thaiday was originally selected to play but withdrew due to injury. Kyle Turner was moved from the bench to Lock and Thaiday was replaced by Tyrone Roberts.\n3 - Adam Elliott was originally selected to play but withdrew due to injury. He was replaced by Chris Smith.\n4 - Konrad Hurrell was originally selected to play but withdrew due to injury. He was replaced by Gerard Beale.\n5 - Adam Reynolds was originally selected to play but withdrew due to injury. Moses Mbye was moved from the bench to Halfback and Reynolds was replaced by Damien Cook.\n6 - Nate Myles was originally selected to play but withdrew due to injury. Reagan Campbell-Gillard was moved from the bench to Prop and Myles was replaced by Paul Vaughan.\n7 - Jake Trbojevic was originally selected to play but withdrew due to injury. Tepai Moeroa was moved from the bench to Lock and Trbojevic was replaced by Mitchell Aubusson.\n8 - Joseph Leilua was originally selected to play but withdrew due to injury. He was replaced by Jarrod Croker.\n9 - Jarryd Hayne was originally selected to play but withdrew due to injury. David Mead was moved from Wing to Fullback and Hayne was replaced by Akuila Uate.\n10 - Sosaia Feki was originally selected to play but withdrew due to injury. He was replaced by Chris McQueen.\n\nResult\n\nWomen's All Stars match\n\nFor the sixth time, a Women's match was held as part of the fixture.\n\nWomen's Teams\n\nReferences\n\nAll Stars Match\nRugby league in Newcastle, New South Wales\nNRL All Stars match"
] |
[
"Columbus Delano",
"Resignation and corruption (1875)",
"when did he resign?",
"1875,",
"wha did he resign from?",
"office;",
"why did he resign?",
"Bristow threatened to resign if Delano was not replaced.",
"was he replaced?",
"Grant replaced Delano with Zachariah Chandler,"
] |
C_845baa23458b4b09a935e687b86d4060_1
|
what was the corruption?
| 5 |
what was the corruption for Columbus Delano?
|
Columbus Delano
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In 1875, Delano's reputation for personal honesty came under increasing scrutiny as revelations of corruption in the Grant administration continued to be the subject of investigations and media revelations. Westerners unhappy with Delano's rulings on land grants and other issues accused Delano's son John, an employee of the Interior Department, of corruption, bribery, and fraud. Governor Edward M. McCook of the Colorado Territory, claimed that John Delano had accepted a $1,200 bribe from a Colorado banker, Jerome B. Chaffee, to secure land patents from the Department of Interior. The New-York Tribune reported that John Delano was profiteering through Interior's Office of the Surveyor General by accepting partnerships in Wyoming surveying contracts without having been trained in surveying or map making, and without providing any meaningful contribution to the fulfillment of the contracts; the obvious implication was John Delano had taken extortion money from illicit contract agreements. In March 1875, the former chief clerk of the Surveyor's Office, L. C. Stevens, wrote to Benjamin Bristow, Grant's Secretary of the Treasury, stating that Surveyor General Silas Reed had made several corrupt contracts which financially benefited John Delano. Stevens also said both Reed and John Delano had blackmailed five deputy surveyors for $5,000. More damaging was Stevens' charge that Columbus Delano knew and approved of what Reed had done for John Delano. Both Bristow and Secretary of State Hamilton Fish demanded that Grant fire Delano. Grant declined, telling Fish, "If Delano were now to resign, it would be retreating under fire and be accepted as an admission of the charges." The controversy did not abate; by mid-August it became clear that Delano could not remain in office; Delano offered his resignation and Grant accepted, but Grant did not make it public. Grant finally announced his acceptance of Delano's resignation on October 19, 1875, after Bristow threatened to resign if Delano was not replaced. Grant replaced Delano with Zachariah Chandler, who quickly initiated civil service and other reforms in the Department of the Interior. Delano's administration was investigated by Congress, Chandler, and a special presidential commission; his personal conduct was exonerated, but his reputation as an honest, capable administrator was damaged, and Delano never again ran for office or served in an appointed one. In April 1876, The Committee on the Expeditures in the Interior Department confirmed that Reed had set up an illicit slush fund for John Delano's financial benefit, and that Delano thanked Reed while also telling him "to be careful to do nothing that would have the semblance of wrong." CANNOTANSWER
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his personal conduct was exonerated, but his reputation as an honest, capable administrator was damaged, and Delano never again ran for office
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Columbus Delano (June 4, 1809 – October 23, 1896) was a lawyer, rancher, banker, statesman and a member of the prominent Delano family. Forced to live on his own at an early age, Delano struggled to become a self-made man. Delano was elected U.S. Congressman from Ohio, serving two full terms and one partial one. Prior to the American Civil War, Delano was a National Republican and then a Whig; as a Whig, he was identified with the faction of the party that opposed the spread of slavery into the Western territories, and he became a Republican when the party was founded as the major anti-slavery party after the demise of the Whigs in the 1850s. During Reconstruction Delano advocated federal protection of African-Americans' civil rights, and argued that the former Confederate states should be administered by the federal government, but was not part of the United States until they met the requirements for readmission to the Union.
Delano served as President Ulysses S. Grant's Secretary of the Interior during a time of rapid Westward expansionism, and contended with conflicts between Native tribes and White American settlers. He was instrumental in the establishment of America's first national park, having supervised the first federally funded scientific expedition into Yellowstone in 1871, and becoming America's first national park overseer in 1872. In 1874, Delano requested that Congress protect Yellowstone through the creation of a federally funded administrative agency, the first Secretary of the Interior to request such preservation of a nationally important site.
Believing that tribal communalism and a nomadic lifestyle led to war and impoverishment, Delano argued the best Indian policy was to allot Native tribes small reservations in the Indian Territory. In Delano's view, the reservation system humanely protected Native tribes from the encroachment of western settlers, aiding in Indian assimilation into white culture, language, attire, culture, and religion. The goal was for Indian people to be independent from federal funding. To compel the Native tribes of the west to move to reservations, Delano supported the slaughter to the near extinction of the vast buffalo herds outside of Yellowstone, which were essential to the maintenance of the Plains Indians' way of life.
Concerning government reform, Delano defied Grant's 1872 executive order to implement the first Civil Service Commission's recommendations. With the exception of Yellowstone, the spoils system and corruption permeated throughout the Interior Department during his tenure, and Grant requested Delano's resignation in 1875; he left office with damage to his reputation for personal honesty. Although Interior scandals, at times, continued to fester in various succeeding administrations, corruption during Delano's tenure under Grant was excessive. Delano remained a spoils man at a time when reformer demands for a federal merit system were gaining support. Delano returned to Ohio to practice law, tend to his business interests, and raise livestock; he did not return to politics and died in 1896.
Although Delano was considered a 19th Century American "major mover and shaker", his legacy has a dark side, clouded by spoils man politics, harsh treatment of Indians, and endorsement of slaughtering buffalo. Historians are critical of Delano's tenure at the Interior Department, arguing that he could have done more to stop corruption, protect bison, prevent dispossession of Native American land, and the destruction of the culture of the Plains Indians. Yellowstone is considered Delano's greatest achievement and he was considered to be an effective first administrator. The park aided in the recovery of free-roaming buffalo. By August 2019, 4,829 bison were counted in Yellowstone. While in office, Delano was outspoken for his strong support of black American rights and denouncement of the Ku Klux Klan.
Early life, education, and political career
Columbus Delano was born in Shoreham, Vermont on June 5, 1809, the son of James Delano and Lucinda Bateman. The Delano family was of French ancestry; its first representative in America, Philip Delano, voyaged from Holland in 1621 on the Fortune, the sister ship of the Mayflower. In 1815, at the age of six, Delano's father died, and his family was put under the care of his uncle Luther Bateman. In 1817 the family moved to Mount Vernon in Knox County, Ohio, where Delano resided for the rest of his life. Delano was raised primarily by Luther Bateman, who died in 1817. After an elementary education Delano labored in a woolen mill in Lexington, Ohio, and at other jobs, struggling on his own, to become largely self-sufficient while still a teenager.
After beginning self-directed legal studies, Delano formally trained with Mount Vernon attorney Hosmer Curtis from 1830 to 1831, and he attained admission to the bar in 1831. Delano became active in politics as a National Republican, and later as a Whig, and in 1834 he won election as Prosecuting Attorney for Knox County. He won reelection in 1836 and served two terms, 1835 to 1839.
Marriage and family
On July 14, 1834, Delano married Elizabeth Leavenworth of Mount Vernon, the daughter of M. Martin Leavenworth and Clara Sherman Leavenworth. Their children included daughter Elizabeth (1838–1904), who was the wife of Reverend John G. Ames of Washington, DC, and son John Sherman Delano (1841–1896), a businessman who also worked with his father at the Department of the Interior.
Delano and Ulysses S. Grant were distant cousins; they had great-great grandparents in common.
United States Representative (1845–1847)
In 1844, Delano was elected to the United States House of Representatives after appearing on the ballot as a replacement for Samuel White Jr., who had died after winning the Whig nomination. He went on to defeat Democrat Caleb J. McNulty by only 12 votes, 9,297 to 9,285. Delano served in the 29th Congress, (March 4, 1845—March 3, 1847), and was a member of the Committee on Invalid Pensions. He also gave a speech denouncing the Mexican–American War which earned him national recognition as an opponent of the conflict. Delano did not run for reelection in 1846, instead campaigning for the 1848 Whig nomination for Governor of Ohio. He lost to Seabury Ford by two votes at the January 1848 party convention; Ford went on to defeat Democrat John B. Weller in a close general election, and served one term. Delano subsequently became involved in several business ventures; in 1850 he set up a successful Wall Street banking partnership, Delano, Dunlevy, & Company, which specialized in railroad bonds; it included a branch office in Cincinnati and operated for five years. In addition, Delano became a successful sheep rancher, and served as president of the National Association of Wool Growers and the Ohio Wool Growers Association. He was also active in other businesses; he was president of the Springfield, Mount Vernon & Pittsburgh Railroad, and an original incorporator of the First National Bank of Mount Vernon, of which he later became president.
Republican Party and Civil War
With the demise of the Whigs, Columbus Delano joined the new Republican Party. Delano was a delegate to the Chicago Convention in 1860, and he seconded the nomination of Abraham Lincoln's for president. Delano actively campaigned for Lincoln, who won the presidency. The following year Delano served as Commissary-General of Ohio, on the staff of Governor William Dennison Jr., and aided in raising and equipping troops for the Union Army at the start of the American Civil War. In 1862 Delano was a candidate for the United States Senate seat held by Benjamin Wade. With Republicans in control of the Ohio General Assembly, winning their nomination was tantamount to election by the full legislature. Delano was nearly successful, losing the nomination to Wade by only two votes. In 1863, Delano served in the Ohio House of Representatives and played a notable role in shepherding the passage of legislation in support of the Union war effort. Delano served as Chairman of the Judicial Committee and settled the matter of the right of soldiers to vote. Delano served as Chairman of the Ohio delegation that attended the Baltimore Convention. Lincoln was successfully nominated for a second term of office.
Reconstruction Era
Return to Congress
Delano was again elected to the U.S. House in 1864, and he served in the 39th Congress (March 4, 1865—March 3, 1867). During this term, Delano was chairman of the House Committee on Claims. Delano appeared to lose his bid for reelection in 1866, but successfully contested the election of George W. Morgan. After unseating Morgan, Delano served for the remainder of the 40th Congress, June 3, 1868—March 3, 1869. After the Civil War Delano supported Radical Reconstruction, believing that the South was in chaos and that federal involvement in the Southern states, including the army, was necessary to keep the peace. He did not run for reelection in 1868.
Reconstruction speech (1867)
In September 1867, Delano made a speech on Reconstruction in Eaton, Ohio, in which he said that President Andrew Johnson did not have the constitutional authority to establish civil government in the former Confederate states. Delano argued that Congress, not the president, "was required to establish civil governments in all the states." In Delano's view, Johnson and Southern Democrats, who had previously supported the Confederacy, were conspiring to overthrow Congress by undermining its authority to make laws concerning Southern Reconstruction. As proof, Delano cited Johnson's September 1866 Swing Around the Circle speech, in which Johnson said the national legislature was a "pretended Congress". In addition, Delano believed Johnson was conspiring to remove Ulysses S. Grant as head of the army because of Grant's support for Congressional Reconstruction. As a result, Delano advocated impeaching Johnson and removing him from office, and argued that Grant should be protected by Congress from any attempt by Johnson to remove him. Unknown to Delano, on August 11, 1867, Grant had agreed to accept Johnson's offer to serve as interim Secretary of War, while simultaneously remaining general of the army. Under the provisions of the Tenure of Office Act, the appointment would be temporary until the U.S. Senate returned to session in January 1868, and either ratified or prohibited Stanton's removal. Johnson and Grant agreed to Grant's temporary appointment despite explicitly admitting that they disagreed on Reconstruction policy.
Commissioner of Internal Revenue
Delano remained active in politics and supported Grant for president in 1868. When Grant became president in March 1869, he appointed Delano Commissioner of Internal Revenue; Delano served from March 11, 1869, to October 31, 1870. As commissioner, Delano tried with mixed success to collect federal revenue on alcohol and tobacco products manufactured in Indian Territory; these items could be produced for sale tax-free within the territory, but manufacturers routinely sold them in adjacent states without paying the taxes. He also proved unwilling or unable to cope with the frauds of the Whiskey Ring; despite having received warnings of corruption including bribery of federal officials and failure to pay taxes, Delano took little or no action. The department did attempt to prevent the illegal manufacture and sale of whiskey in other areas; on January 31, 1870, an Internal Revenue raid in Georgia captured 18 illicit whiskey stills and their operators. The Whiskey Ring finally stopped in 1875 during Grant's second term by Secretary of the Treasury Benjamin Bristow. The ring leader, John McDonald was an acquaintance of President Grant and had requested from him a political appointment as superintending inspector of internal revenue in St. Louis. Grant then directed Delano to make the appointment. McDonald was convicted of fraud and theft and served 17 months in prison. In all, the investigation of the Whiskey Ring resulted in 110 convictions. Grant's private secretary, Orville E. Babcock was implicated, but acquitted at trial after Grant provided written testimony on his behalf. Additionally, Delano was cleared of involvement in another scandal in which Babcock was implicated, the Gold Ring, which was triggered when two New York financiers attempted to corner the gold market on September 24, 1869. Daniel Butterfield, the Assistant Treasurer of the United States, and Grant's brother in law Abel Corbin were also implicated; Butterfield was forced to resign in October. Delano's reputation for personal honesty was not in question, which was an asset when Grant needed to nominate a new Secretary of the Interior in 1870.
Secretary of the Interior
United States Attorney General Ebenezer R. Hoar and Secretary of the Interior Jacob D. Cox resigned in 1870 because of Grant's decision to overrule them on the issue of the McGarrahan Claims; speculator William McGarrahan claimed title to a tract of mining land in California, as did the New Idria Mining Company. Grant wanted no executive branch action taken, considering both claims to be fraudulent; Cox and Hoar disagreed and decided in favor of New Idria, which prompted Grant to request their resignations.
Grant appointed Delano to succeed Cox at the Interior Department; he served from November 1, 1870, until resigning on October 19, 1875. During Delano's tenure, the Interior Department was the largest bureaucracy in the federal government, including numerous patronage positions. Running the department required knowledge of dissimilar duties, and the ability to master complex details. During Delano's time as secretary, he faced several critical issues and his department was rapidly expanding; despite the challenges he served longer in the job than any other 19th-century incumbent. Delano aligned himself with Grant's private secretary Orville Babcock and Secretary of Navy George M. Robeson. Delano rejected the civil service reforms of his predecessor Cox and reverted the Interior to the spoils system.
Bison slaughter (1870s)
During the Civil War, Union generals practiced a "scorched earth" campaign against Confederate infrastructure that destroyed its vital food supplies, which aided in bringing about the Union's victory. During the late 1860s and early 1870s U.S. Army officers William T. Sherman, Richard Dodge, and Secretary of the Interior Delano adopted a similar strategy against Native Americans in the west, whose primary food supply was free-roaming bison. Dodge said in 1867, "Every buffalo dead is an Indian gone." Delano said in an 1872 annual report, "The rapid disappearance of the game [bison] from the former hunting-grounds must operate largely in favor of our efforts to confine the Indians to smaller areas, and compel them to abandon their nomadic customs."
Much of the destruction of bison was done by private, for-profit buffalo hunters; this policy allowed the slaughter of millions of bison on the American plains, forcing Indians to move to and remain on their reservations. The few free-roaming bison left in Yellowstone were protected from poaching by a federal law passed in 1872; during Delano's tenure, mounting criticism by the public forced Congress to pass legislation that would stop the bison slaughter on the plains. Grant vetoed the legislation in 1874, accepting that the bison slaughter was accomplishing the goal of pacifying the Indians. From 1872 to 1874 the Indians killed approximately 1,215,000 bison as part of providing for their food, shelter, and other basic needs; American hunters slaughtered an estimated 4,374,000 bison, reducing the population to the point that it could not reproduce normally and continue to sustain the Indians.
Apache massacre and peace (1871-1872)
On April 30, 1871, white Tucson townspeople organized a militia which massacred an Apache Indian settlement at Camp Grant. Approximately 144 Apaches were killed, mostly women and children. Twenty-eight children were kidnapped by the Tucson townspeople and held as ransom for the Apache warriors, who were not present at the time of the massacre. The people of Tucson drew national attention by the scale of their activity, resulting in Eastern philanthropists and President Grant denouncing their actions. Arizona citizens, however, believed the killings were justified and claimed that Apache warriors had killed mail runners and settlers near Tucson. President Grant sent Major General George Crook to keep the peace in Arizona; many Apaches had joined the U.S. military for protection.
On November 10, 1871, Delano advocated Grant that Apaches be given new reservation land in Arizona and New Mexico, following the recommendation of Indian Peace Commissioner Vincent Colyer to find them a location where they could be protected from attacks by white settlers. Delano advocated that all Apaches be put on reservations including young men and warriors, who were forming raiding parties, rather than just their old men and women. Grant sent Major General Oliver Otis Howard to Arizona to help resolve the issue; Howard organized a peace conference with Apache leader Eskiminzin in May 1872 at Camp Grant. Howard also negotiated the release of six of the captive Apache children. In December 1872, the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation, a permanent settlement, was established at the junction of the San Carlos and Gila Rivers, the location having been agreed upon by Howard and Eskiminzin. In October 1872, Howard also made a separate peace treaty with the Apache leader Cochise, who settled on the Chiricahua reservation.
Akerman feud (1871)
In June 1871 Grant's Attorney General Amos T. Akerman denied land and bond grants to the Union Pacific Railroad, a company connected to the Crédit Mobilier scandal. Ackerman's anti-railroad rulings were protested by railroad financiers Collis P. Huntington and Jay Gould. Akerman was also instrumental in prosecuting the Ku Klux Klan in the South and protecting African American civil rights. Railroad interests and African-American civil rights had been priorities for the Republican Party; on behalf of Huntington and Gould, Delano twice asked Akerman to change rulings that had gone against the Union Pacific, and both times Akerman refused. Delano then complained to Grant and suggested that Akerman should be removed. Grant agreed, and named former Oregon Senator George H. Williams as Akerman's replacement; Williams was seen as more favorable to railroad interests. On the issue of curtailing the Klan prosecutions, according to historian William S. McFeely, "[w]ith Akerman's departure on January 10, 1872, went any hope that the Republican party would develop as a national party of true racial equality."
Yellowstone (1871-1872)
In 1871, Delano organized America's first federally funded scientific expedition into Yellowstone, which was headed by U.S. Geologist Ferdinand V. Hayden. Delano gave specific instructions for Hayden to make a geographical map of the area and to make astronomical and barometric observations. Delano stated that Hayden's expedition was directed to "...secure as much information as possible, both scientific and practical...give your attention to the geological, mineralogical, zoological, botanical, and agricultural resources of the country." Delano also ordered Hayden to gather information on Native American tribes who lived in the area. Hayden's expedition was outfitted by an extensive scientific team that included two botanists, a meteorologist, a zoologist, an ornithologist, a mineralogist, a topographer, an artist, a photographer, a physician, hunters, mule teams and ambulances, and a support staff.
On March 1, 1872 Ulysses S. Grant signed the Organic Act, incorporating Hayden's findings and discoveries and creating Yellowstone, the world's first national park. The law provided that the Secretary of the Interior exercise "exclusive control" over Yellowstone; As Delano was the incumbent, this made him the first overseer of the first national park in the world. The poaching of fish and wildlife, including bison, was forbidden, and Delano was authorized to preserve the "natural curiosities and wonders" found inside the park. Delano was now in charge of millions of acres of land, however, he was not provided any funding to care for it. Instead, he was given the power to grant 10-year leases in order to raise money to pay for maintaining the park. As soon as the park was created, Delano was inundated by requests for hotel concessions, and he also had to determine the control and use of existing facilities in the park's northern section.
Delano appointed N. P. Langford the first Supervisor of Yellowstone in 1872; Langford banned private toll roads and submitted a plan to build and maintain a park road system free to the public, but Congress refused to fund it. Congress also refused to give Langford a stipend, so he had to supplement his livelihood by working as a banker. In 1874 Lanford requested that Delano petition Congress for appropriations to protect the park from poachers, unlicensed privateers, and trespassers. Delano agreed and demanded Congress appropriate $100,000 to set up a federal park agency to administer and protect the park for the public, and also asked for an increase in the terms of the concession leases from 10 to 20 years. The proposal was turned down; it was not until April 1877, during the Rutherford B. Hayes administration, that Congress appropriated one-tenth of Delano's request, $10,000, without any federal protection agency for the park.
Defied Civil Service Executive order (1871-1874)
In March 1871, Grant signed into law Congressional legislation that established the United States Civil Service Commission, designed to create reform rules and to regulate and reduce corruption in the federal workforce. Implementation of the rules was left to the discretion of the President. Grant appointed New York reformer William Curtis to chair the commission. The Commission reported that appointments and promotions would be controlled by examiners, and each federal Department would create a board of examiners, while political assessments would be abolished. Grant ordered the implementation of the rules to be effective on January 1, 1872. Grant dissolved the commission in 1874 after Congress refused to make the Commission rules permanent, and refused to provide permanent funding for the commission. Congressional interest in civil service reform would remain dormant until 1883.
Under Article 12 of Grant's executive order, Land Office and Pension agent applicants in the Department of Interior were to be approved by a board of examiners. Delano, however, betrayed Grant and defied the order. Grant made no response. The Interior Department's varied and diverse responsibilities increased at a rapid rate and became a source of numerous administrative problems. For the department head, controlling the bureaus and shaping policy was a daunting task; Delano argued that the complexities of the department made implementing civil service reform impractical. Under Delano's tenure, corruption permeated the whole department, including bogus agents in the Bureau of Indian Affairs and thieving clerks in the Patent Office. Delano ultimately resigned because of evidence that surveying contracts had been awarded to companies in which his son John, the chief clerk of the department, and Orvil (or Orville) Grant, the president's brother, had ownership interests; this was more or less permissible by the standards of the day, but to reform-minded individuals, including the editors of the New-York Tribune and other newspapers, it represented a conflict of interest and breach of the public trust.
Supported Ku Klux Klan prosecutions (1872)
To bolster the Reconstruction Acts and the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth constitutional amendments, Grant signed in 1870 Congressional legislation that created the Justice Department. To fight the outrages in the South by the Ku Klux Klan, Grant signed several laws known as the Enforcement Acts in 1870 and 1871. In May 1871, Grant ordered federal troops to help U.S. Marshals in arresting Klansmen. Grant's second Attorney General Amos T. Akerman, a former Confederate soldier, knew of the outrages of the Klan and was zealous in prosecuting white Southerners who terrorized their black neighbors. That October, on Akerman's recommendation, Grant suspended habeas corpus in part of South Carolina and sent federal troops there to enforce the law. After prosecutions by Akerman and his replacement, George Henry Williams, the Klan's power collapsed; by 1872, elections in the South saw African Americans voting in record numbers.
In a campaign speech supporting President Grant's reelection bid in Raleigh, North Carolina, on July 24, 1872, Delano spoke out in favor of prosecutions of the Ku Klux Klan. Delano argued that the Congressional Reconstruction Acts had been passed to "rescue order and government out of the chaos and confusion" that came from the Civil War. This included the enfranchisement of African Americans, most of them former slaves, who had been set "forever free" as a result of the war. Delano stated that if freedom meant anything it was that African Americans "should stand equal before the law and have a voice in legislation." According to Delano, southerners who rejected Republican Reconstruction opted for a subversive war against African Americans and white Republicans, including the formation of the Ku Klux Klan. Delano said the Ku Klux Klan had in fourteen North Carolina counties killed 18 people and cruelly whipped 315 Republicans who had done nothing wrong. Delano said that evidence presented in prosecuting Klan members in the federal courts proved the "barbarity and treason" of the Ku Klux Klan. Grant ended up winning North Carolina and many other Southern states.
Defined Indian policy (1873)
In 1873, Delano formally defined the methods to be used in attaining the goals of Grant's policy toward the Native Americans. Grant's ultimate goal was to convert the Indians to Christianity and assimilate them into the white culture in order to prepare them for full U.S. Citizenship; these fundamental principles continued to influence Indian Peace policy for the rest of the 19th Century. According to Delano, relocating the Indians to reservations was of primary importance, since this would supposedly protect them from the violence of white settlers as whites moved onto lands previously held by Native Americans. In addition, Christian organizations and missionaries operating on these reservations could "civilize" the Native Americans, in line with the widespread belief (including Delano's) that allowing the Indians to continue to practice their own culture would lead to their destruction. In Delano's view, his actions would accomplish Grant's goal by facilitating Indian assimilation into white culture.
Black Hills take over (1875)
Under the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie, the Oglala Sioux had been given a huge reservation including the Black Hills in what is now South Dakota. The Black Hills were the site of Sioux sacred religious rituals and spiritual ceremonies. Following the Panic of 1873 the country was desperate for new wealth. In 1874 rumors spread of gold being discovered in the Black Hills by George Custer's recent expedition. Grant sent the expedition, hoping to find gold in order to support his species currency policy; Delano opposed the move, believing travel through and eventual occupation of hunting grounds violated the Treaty of Fort Laramie and could lead to an Indian war. Delano told Grant that a "general war with the Sioux would be deplorable. It would undo the good already accomplished by our efforts for peaceable relations." Whites immediately flocked to the area in search of gold; in 1875, Congress appropriated $25,000 for the purchase of the Black Hills, hoping that a cash payment would assuage the Sioux and prevent war.
In mid-May 1875, Red Cloud, Chief of the Oglala Lakota (Sioux), and other Indian tribal leaders were brought to Washington D.C. to negotiate the sale of the Black Hills. The Sioux believed the amount offered by Congress was too low; recognizing that they would eventually lose the Black Hills, Red Cloud decided to negotiate and told Delano they would sign away the Black Hills if $25,000 in cash was first drawn from the Treasury Department, to ensure that the Sioux would be paid. Delano had no intention of giving Red Cloud cash, but rather a receipt for $25,000 from the Treasury and additional presents purchased at a later date and distributed to members of the tribe. Red Cloud insisted that he wanted the $25,000 in cash at the signing, which would be taken home and divided among the members of the tribe.
Delano warned Grant that a war would likely break out if negotiations were not successful. When negotiations broke down, Grant was brought into the process to bargain directly with Red Cloud. Grant told Red Cloud that the Black Hills had no buffalo, so it would benefit the Indians to accept payment because they would at least receive something of value in consideration for signing away valueless hunting rights. He also informed Red Cloud that whites were going to take over the Black Hills anyway, so it would be best not to leave empty-handed. Concerned that they would not be paid if they signed an agreement first, Red Cloud asked Grant to withdraw the money from the Treasury, and hold it until after the signing. Grant refused and walked out, telling Red Cloud he had to sign over the Black Hills before any payment was made. On June 4, Delano offered Red Cloud an additional $25,000 in appropriations, but Red Cloud refused.
With Red Cloud's refusal, Delano reluctantly let the Indians take the unsigned agreement back to their tribal agencies for further discussion among the members of the tribe, with final terms and signatures to be negotiated later by an appointed commission. The failure of the Washington, D.C. negotiations to produce an agreement was lampooned in the June 19 edition of Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper. Upon their return to Sioux country, Red Cloud and other Lakota leaders finally signed away their hunting rights to the Black Hills under Article 11 of the Treaty of Fort Laramie in exchange for the original $25,000 Congressional appropriation. Another group of Sioux chiefs, including Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, challenged Red Cloud's authority and started the armed resistance about which Delano had warned Grant. This challenge to Red Cloud's authority combined with Lakota unhappiness over white encroachment into the Black Hills resulted in the Great Sioux War, which started in February 1876.
Resignation and corruption (1875)
In 1875, Delano's reputation for personal honesty came under increasing scrutiny as revelations of corruption in the Grant administration continued to be the subject of investigations and media revelations. Although Delano himself was not known to be personally corrupt, his tenure was shadowed by controversy, while fraud prevailed in his Interior Department. There were accusations of an "Indian Ring" and corrupt agents who exploited Native American people. Westerners unhappy with Delano's rulings on land grants and other issues accused Delano's son John, an employee of the Interior Department, of corruption, bribery, and fraud in the Wyoming Territory.
Surveyor General Ring
The New-York Tribune reported that John Delano was profiteering through Interior's Office of the Surveyor-General by accepting partnerships in Wyoming surveying contracts without having been trained in surveying or map-making, and without providing any meaningful contribution to the fulfillment of the contracts; the obvious implication was John Delano had taken extortion money from illicit contract agreements. In March 1875, the former chief clerk of the Surveyor's Office, L. C. Stevens, wrote to Benjamin Bristow, Grant's Secretary of the Treasury, stating that Surveyor General Silas Reed had made several corrupt contracts which financially benefited John Delano. Stevens also said both Reed and John Delano had blackmailed five deputy surveyors for $5,000. According to Stevens, Reed and Delano had coerced the deputy surveyors to pay John Delano before he would release the Interior Department warrants for land the deputy surveyors had sold to prospective settlers. Governor Edward M. McCook of the Colorado Territory, claimed that John Delano had accepted a $1,200 bribe from a Colorado banker, Jerome B. Chaffee, to secure land patents from the Department of Interior. More damaging was Stevens' charge that Columbus Delano knew and approved of what Reed had done for John Delano.
In addition to Delano's son, Grant's brother Orvil was paid for surveying services in the Wyoming Territory, although Orvil did no work. The chief clerk of the Cheyenne branch of the federal Surveying Office testified before Congress concerning Orvil. When asked whether Orvil did any work in the Wyoming Territory, the chief clerk said, "No, sir, I do not think he was ever in the territory."
Indian Ring
In July 1875, Delano was rumored to know that Orvil Grant, the president's brother, had received Indian trading posts, that were a corrupt source of lucrative kickbacks, from the sutler, at the expense of the Indians and soldiers. The higher the sale price on goods, that the Indians and soldiers would pay, the higher the profits. Even the sale of rifles to hostile Indian tribes was allowed, to make more money. The profits were split and sent to the other sutler partners.
Delano was rumored to have threatened Grant at Long Branch that he would expose Orvil to the public when Delano's resignation was enforced. He told Grant that he would quietly leave office after Congressional Indian fraud investigations were complete. In February 1876, the New York Herald reported that Orvil made money in the Sioux country by "starving the squaws and children." Orvil testified before Congress that Grant had influenced the War Department to get him traderships. Orvil received rights to operate four trading posts, then set up "partners" who kicked back half their profits to Orvil. Though Orvil claimed Grant had not known of the kickbacks, he expressed no remorse for his corruption, and his testimony left Grant embarrassed.
The kingpin of this Indian Ring was not Delano, but Secretary of War William W. Belknap, who was given legal authority by Congress in 1870 to appoint sutlers to traderships at Army posts near Indian reservations, which were controlled by Interior. Belknap, who had awarded Orvil Grant the four traderships, took advantage of the law to personally profit by arranging an illicit partnership at Fort Sill between his wife Carrie, Caleb P. Marsh, and sutler John S. Evans. After Carrie's death, Belknap married her sister Amanda, who continued the illicit tradership arrangement. Belknap's household received as much as $20,000 in illegal profits (nearly $500,000 in 2021), which Belknap needed in order to finance the lavish Washington D.C. entertainment lifestyle expected of cabinet members and other prominent political figures.
Aware that the U.S. House was investigating him, on March 2, 1876 Belknap visited Grant and immediately resigned. The House continued its inquiry and found him guilty of five articles of impeachment. Grant's attorney general placed Belknap under house arrest during his U.S. Senate trial. Though most senators believed the evidence of Belknap's corruption, enough believed they lacked the jurisdiction to punish Belknap because he was no longer in office to acquit him. Despite escaping conviction, Belknap's reputation was so marred that he never returned to political office.
Resignation
Both Bristow and Secretary of State Hamilton Fish demanded that Grant fire Delano. Grant declined, telling Fish, "If Delano were now to resign, it would be retreating under fire and be accepted as an admission of the charges." The controversy did not abate; by mid-August, it became clear that Delano could not remain in office; Delano offered his resignation and Grant accepted, but Grant did not make it public. Grant finally announced his acceptance of Delano's resignation on October 19, 1875, after Bristow threatened to resign if Delano was not replaced. Grant replaced Delano with Zachariah Chandler, who quickly initiated civil service and other reforms in the Department of the Interior. Delano's administration was investigated by Congress, Chandler, and a special presidential commission; his personal conduct was exonerated, but his reputation as an honest, capable administrator was damaged, and Delano never again ran for office or served in an appointed one. In April 1876, The Committee on the Expenditures in the Interior Department confirmed that Reed had set up an illicit slush fund for John Delano's financial benefit, and that Delano thanked Reed while also telling him "to be careful to do nothing that would have the semblance of wrong."
Delano's defense
On September 26, 1875, Delano submitted to Grant a letter defending his tenure at the Department of the Interior; in essence, he argued that the size and complexity of his department made it difficult to manage effectively. Delano stated that he had resigned because he intended to return to his business and domestic concerns in Ohio. He indicated that his duties as Secretary of the Interior were "laborious, difficult, and delicate" because he was required to supervise five disparate bureaus or offices: Land; Indian; Pensions; Patent; and Education, in addition to "a mass of miscellaneous business unknown to any except those connected to the public service."
Delano also reminded Grant that the Land Office dealt with complex railroad land grants, as well as issues resolving land titles in California, Arizona and New Mexico, because those areas had previously been under Spain's and then Mexico's jurisdiction. In addition, the Indian Bureau dealt with many "intricate, delicate, and vexatious questions" growing out of previous Indian treaties. Delano further informed Grant that when he had to decide issues between competing claimants, those he ruled against often gave false and misleading statements rather than accept their loss, which was to Delano's detriment. Delano concluded by claiming a successful tenure, informing Grant that the Interior Department "has never been in a more prosperous or better condition than it now is."
Chandler reforms
Delano's successor, Zachariah Chandler, did not complain about his departmental duties, and immediately investigated allegations of corruption. Chandler found things differently than Delano's explanations to Grant and decided the department needed major reforming. During his first month in office, he fired all the clerks in one room of the Patent Office; he noted that every desk was vacant, and concluded that the employees were either involved in corruption or lacked the integrity to reform the department. Almost twenty employees were found to be entirely fictitious; they had been created by a profiteering ring to defraud the government by falsely receiving pay for work that was not performed. Chandler also fired unqualified clerks who profiteered by hiring out their work to lower-paid replacements and pocketing the salary difference.
In addition, Chandler simplified Patent Office rules, making patents easier to obtain and reducing the cost for applicants. In December 1875, Chandler banned persons known as "Indian Attorneys", whose claims to represent Native Americans in Washington were questionable. He found the Bureau of Indian Affairs to be the most corrupt, and he replaced its commissioner and chief clerk. In addition to Indian Affairs, Chandler also investigated the Pension Bureau. This review resulted in the identification and removal of numerous fraudulent pensions, which saved the federal government hundreds of thousands of dollars. Chandler also revoked as many as 800 fraudulent land grants that had been approved during Delano's tenure.
Later life and career
On his resignation from Grant's cabinet, Delano returned to Mount Vernon where for the next twenty years he served as president of the First National Bank of Mount Vernon. He was a longtime trustee of Kenyon College, which awarded him the honorary degree of LL.D.; among his charitable and civic donations was his endowment of Kenyon's Delano Hall; this building was in use until it was destroyed by a fire in 1906. His Lakeholm mansion, built in 1871 at the outskirts of Mount Vernon, is now part of Mount Vernon Nazarene University.
On April 3, 1880, John W. Wright, a judge from Indiana, was convicted at trial of having assaulted Delano on a Washington, D.C. street corner on October 12, 1877. Wright, who had been an Indian Agent in the Interior Department while Delano was secretary, had been convicted of fraud and blamed Delano. On the day of the assault he was in the company of Walter H. Smith, formerly solicitor of the Department of the Interior; Wright was accused of provoking a fight by questioning Delano's honesty as Secretary of the Interior and then striking Delano with his walking stick. Wright claimed that Delano had been verbally harassing him and that he then felt compelled to defend himself. Delano did not sustain serious injuries; Wright's defense was weakened by witness testimony that after the assault, he claimed credit for it, and stated that he would have continued if passers-by had not intervened. Wright was sentenced to 30 days in jail and fined $1,000. On April 8, 1880, President Rutherford B. Hayes pardoned Wright, with his release from custody conditional upon the payment of the fine.
On December 3, 1889, Delano was elected president of the National Wool Growers Association, a lobbying group organized to advocate for tariff protection of the national wool industry. The association had been formed in 1865, and became more active in the 1880s as a response to the decline in domestic wool production; wool growers faced increasing overseas competition and had gone from 50 million sheep producing wool in 1883 to 40 million in 1888.
Death
Delano died on October 23, 1896; he was interred at Mount Vernon's Mound View Cemetery, Lot 42, Section 16, Grave 4. Delano's death was sudden and unexpected, and took place at his "Lake Howe" home near Mount Vernon, at 11:00 AM. There was no connection between his wife Mrs. Delano's near-fatal accident and his own death.
Historical legacy
Delano's career prior to becoming Secretary of the Interior was not known for any scandals, nor has he been implicated in the Crédit Mobilier scandal. Historians, however, are critical of Delano's overall tenure as Secretary of the Interior especially for his loose anti-reform administrative style and for allowing corruption to permeate the department, unlike Grant's first appointee, Jacob D. Cox, who had been an enthusiastic advocate of civil service reform. Delano sided with the railroad interests over reform and allied with Grant's private secretary Orville Babcock and Secretary of Navy George M. Robeson, associated with corruption. Delano was at odds with Grant's reformers, including Secretary of State Hamilton Fish, Secretary of Treasury Benjamin Bristow, and Attorney General Amos T. Akerman. The corruption in the Bureau of Indian Affairs under Delano eventually led to the end of political appointees, the appointment of career civil servants, and the bureaucratization of the agency. Delano defended his reputation by saying that the Interior Department was difficult to manage due to its expanding size and its many offices with disparate functions.
Indian advancement
In March 1869, President Grant appointed Ely S. Parker, a Seneca Indian, to Commissioner of Indian Affairs serving under both Secretary of Interior Cox and Secretary of Interior Delano. Although there was resistance to his appointment, the Senate confirmed Parker could legally hold office, and he was confirmed by the Senate. During Parker's tenor, lasting until August 1871, Indian wars decreased significantly from 101 in 1869 to 58 in 1870.
145 years, 5 months, 16 days later after Delano left office in 1875, Delano's position as Secretary of Interior was finally filled in by a Native American in 2021. On December 17, 2020, President elect Joe Biden announced that he would nominate Deb Haaland to serve as Secretary of the Interior. She was confirmed by the United States Senate on March 15, 2021, by a vote of 51–40. Following her swearing-in on March 16, she became the first Native American to serve as a Cabinet secretary and the second to serve in the Cabinet, after Republican former vice president and Kaw Nation citizen Charles Curtis.
Native American land seized (1871-1875)
Between 1871 and 1875, the term years Delano was Secretary of the Interior, 73,157,155 acres (114,308 square miles) of Indian land was seized by the United States. By comparison, this is about the size of the state of Arizona (113,642 square miles).
Reservation system
Although the Indian reservation system Delano strongly advocated, protecting Indians
from white sutlers, looked good on paper, it denied the way of life Indians had sustained themselves for thousands of years. With their food supply of buffalo disseminated by white hunters, Indians were forced to live under white culture, yet survive on poor reservation lands and limited supplies. Native Americans today still suffer from the aftershocks of a brutal Interior reservation policy under Delano and his 19th Century successors. Indian culture was devastated, while in practice the reservation policy was monstrous by modern standards.
Bison slaughter and Indian suppression
Delano has also received criticism for allowing millions of bison to be slaughtered, with the exception of Yellowstone, in order to compel the Indians to move to and remain on their reservations, a policy approved by President Grant and the U.S. Army. The demise of the bison herds during Delano's tenure led to the destruction of the Plains Indian culture, including their economy, cosmology, and religion. Without the bison, the Plains Indians could not resist late 19th Century expansionism, including the development of the railroads in the American West. This policy led to more restrictive measures against Native Americans in the 1880s and 1890s, including the banning of medicine making, polygamy, bride payments, and the Sun Dance.
Yellowstone and bison recovery
Delano was the first Secretary of the Interior to be in charge of Yellowstone, America's and the world's first national park. The charges of misconduct and lax management made during Delano's tenure at Interior did not include the new park, the management of which was seen as a success. Among its features, it outlawed poaching wildlife and served as a haven for small numbers of free-roaming bison, left after the slaughter of the great herds that, with the exception of Yellowstone, Delano had fully supported. On August 25, 1916, Congress created the National Park Service to federally protect and administer Yellowstone and other national parks; Delano had proposed the creation of the agency in 1874. Yellowstone today generates around 4 million visitors per year.
By 1902, poachers had illegally killed and reduced Yellowstone bison herd size to about two dozen animals. The U.S. Army, who administered Yellowstone, prior to the creation of the National Park Service, took over and protected the last remaining bison from further poaching. Bison from private herds were incorporated into Yellowstone, forming a northern herd. For decades, however, as Yellowstone bisons increased in number, herds were reduced, believing the animals had caused overgrazing. The practice of reducing the Yellowstone bison population ceased in 1968. However, by the 2000s, the reduction of Yellowstone bison herds resumed, "due to increasing numbers and litigation about migration into Montana." As of August 2019, Yellowstone had 4,829 bison from two herds, 3,667 northern bison, and 1,162 central bison.
Corruption aftermath and Pendleton Act
In the aftermath of Delano's departure and retirement from the Interior in 1875 and Chandler reforms, the large Department still experienced scandals but were much less pervasive than during Delano's tenor. During the Rutherford B. Hayes administration, on May 31, 1880, a Senate committee reported on the Interior Department and Secretary of the Interior Carl Schurz, a reformer, over his removal and jailing of the Ponca Indians. On December 18, 1880, a commission appointed Hayes, began an investigation of the Department's treatment of the Ponca. On January 25, 1881, the commission reported to President Hayes the treatment of the Ponca was "needlessly disastrous and cruel".
In January 1883, President Arthur signed into law the landmark legislation, known as the Pendleton Act, that made civil service reform permanent, with the goal to reduce corruption and hire persons based on a merit system, rather than patronage. Patterned off Grant's Civil Service Commission (1871) and rules, the Act put 11 percent of the federal workforce under civil service law, and reestablished the Civil Service Commission, to regulate political assessments and payoffs. Good men were appointed by Arthur to run the commission, and surprisingly, Arthur was friendly to reformers. The passage of the act was motivated by the assassination of President James A. Garfield by a disgruntled office seeker.
Scandals continued to periodically surface. In 1884, William W. Dudley, Commissioner of the Pensions Office, was engaged in political activity, promising expedited approval to petitioners who voted for James G. Blaine and John A. Logan, the Republicans President and Vice President candidates. President Chester A. Arthur, a Republican, did nothing to stop the practice. In 1888, Secretary of Interior William F. Vilas, appointed by President Grover Cleveland (1885-1889), a Democrat, was investigated by Congress. Vilas was a stockholder of the Superior Lumber Company and was suspected of profiteering. In 1889, the Senate investigation report concluded that Vilas did not personally profiteer.
During the Benjamin Harrison Republican administration (1889-1893), an Interior probe investigation found evidence Harrison's appointed Pension Bureau Commissioner James R. Tanner took "lavish and illegal handouts". Tanner resigned and Harrison appointed Green B. Raum Pension Bureau Commissioner. Raum was accused of taking kickback loans to expedite pension cases. A Democratic House investigation said Raum had "prostituted his office" and should be removed, but Harrison declined.
Personal reputation
In 1898, historian Joseph Patterson Smith said Delano had attained, "a long and distinguished career, as an eminent lawyer, an able businessman and one intimately identified with the governmental affairs of the state and nation." In 2001, historian Jean Edward Smith, taking a harsher view, said Delano betrayed his public trust while Secretary of the Interior by allowing corruption to pervade throughout his department, "at the expense of those who most needed government assistance: the Native American." Benjamin Bristow, Grant's appointed Secretary of Treasury, said Secretary Delano was "a very mean dog," and deserved "the execration of every honest man."
Honors
Delano, California
Delano, California, located in Kern County, originally a terminal railroad town, was founded on July 14, 1869. The unnamed town was officially named in honor of Columbus Delano, at the time Delano was Secretary of the Interior, during the Grant administration. The name of Delano was officially given by the Southern Pacific Railroad. Delano's first post office opened in 1874. The town of Delano was incorporated as a city in 1915.
Mountains
Certain mountains in Utah (Delano Peak) and Montana (Mount Delano) are named after Delano. Delano Peak, in Utah, has an elevation of 12,174 ft (3,711 m). Mount Delano, in Montana, has an elevation of 10,138 ft (3090 m).
Notable Department of Interior events
1856-1873 Interior's Pacific Wagon Road Office improved the historic western emigrant routes.
1869 The Bureau of Education is placed under Interior (later transferred to the Department of Health, Education and Welfare).
1869-1870 Cook–Folsom–Peterson Expedition Yellowstone
1870 Washburn–Langford–Doane Expedition Yellowstone
1871 Hayden Geological Survey of 1871 Yellowstone Sponsored by the federal government. Delano instructed the survey.
1872 Congress establishes Yellowstone as the first National Park.
1873 Congress transferred territorial oversight from the Secretary of State to the Secretary of the Interior.
Notes
References
Sources
Books
Internet
New York Times
Newspapers
Speeches
External links
Columbus Delano at Find A Grave
The Department of Everything Else: Highlights of Interior History (1989)
Delano Peak, Utah Access Date: December 1, 2021
Mount Delano, Montana Access Date: December 1, 2021
1809 births
1896 deaths
Delano family
United States Secretaries of the Interior
Commissioners of Internal Revenue
Members of the United States House of Representatives from Ohio
Members of the Ohio House of Representatives
Ohio lawyers
People from Mount Vernon, Ohio
People from Shoreham, Vermont
Ohio Whigs
Ohio Republicans
Members of the Kenyon College Board of Trustees
Grant administration cabinet members
Whig Party members of the United States House of Representatives
Republican Party members of the United States House of Representatives
19th-century American politicians
Republican Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Ohio
| true |
[
"The Daewoo dissolution and corruption scandal was a 1999-2006 scandal in South Korea involving the bankruptcy of Daewoo, then-country's second largest company, and a subsequent corruption investigation, involving arrests, escapes and eventual conviction of dozens of company's top executives. The resulting scandal has been described as one of the biggest scandals in South Korea.\n\nBackground\nDaewoo was a major South Korean conglomerate. Prior to the Asian financial crisis, Daewoo was the second largest conglomerate in Korea. By 1999, Daewoo went bankrupt, with debts of about US$50-80 billion.\n\nCorruption scandal\nSoon after the demise, South Korean prosecutors filed charges against over 40 top executives, in what BBC described as the Daewoo corruption scandal. This was related to the discovery that company's auditors concealed the amount of debt, and that bribes of about 470 billion won were involved (close to US$400 million). Loss from bribery and corruption has been estimated to over US$1 billion.\n\nDaewoo Chairman Kim Woo-choong fled to Vietnam, and former Daewoo factory workers put up \"Wanted\" posters with his picture. Kim returned to Korea in June 2005 and was promptly arrested. He was charged with masterminding accounting fraud of 41 trillion won (US$43.4 billion), illegally borrowing 9.8 trillion won (US$10.3 billion), and smuggling US$3.2 billion out of the country. On 30 May 2006, Kim was sentenced to 10 years in prison after being convicted of fraud and embezzlement. On the last day of the trial, Kim tearfully addressed the court, \"I cannot dodge my responsibility of wrongly buttoning up the final button of fate.\" On 30 December 2007, Kim was granted amnesty by President Roh Moo-hyun.\n\nSee also\nDaewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering (involved in a 2016 corruption scandal)\n\nReferences\n\nDaewoo\nScandals in South Korea\nCorruption in South Korea\n1999 in South Korea\n1999 scandals",
"The Kenya Anti-Corruption Authority (KACA) of Kenya was established in 1997 after the amendment of the Prevention of Corruption Act (Cap 65, LOK) in early 1997. The first director was John Harun Mwau who was appointed in December 1997. In April 2003, it was replaced by the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission (KACC) which was subsequently replaced by the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC).\n\nSee also\n Corruption in Kenya\n Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission\n Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n - Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission\n\nPolitics of Kenya\nGovernment agencies of Kenya\n2012 in Kenya\nLegal history of Kenya\nKenya articles by importance\nCorruption in Kenya\nAnti-corruption agencies"
] |
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"when did he resign?",
"1875,",
"wha did he resign from?",
"office;",
"why did he resign?",
"Bristow threatened to resign if Delano was not replaced.",
"was he replaced?",
"Grant replaced Delano with Zachariah Chandler,",
"what was the corruption?",
"his personal conduct was exonerated, but his reputation as an honest, capable administrator was damaged, and Delano never again ran for office"
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C_845baa23458b4b09a935e687b86d4060_1
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what was he accused of?
| 6 |
what was Columbus Delano accused of?
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Columbus Delano
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In 1875, Delano's reputation for personal honesty came under increasing scrutiny as revelations of corruption in the Grant administration continued to be the subject of investigations and media revelations. Westerners unhappy with Delano's rulings on land grants and other issues accused Delano's son John, an employee of the Interior Department, of corruption, bribery, and fraud. Governor Edward M. McCook of the Colorado Territory, claimed that John Delano had accepted a $1,200 bribe from a Colorado banker, Jerome B. Chaffee, to secure land patents from the Department of Interior. The New-York Tribune reported that John Delano was profiteering through Interior's Office of the Surveyor General by accepting partnerships in Wyoming surveying contracts without having been trained in surveying or map making, and without providing any meaningful contribution to the fulfillment of the contracts; the obvious implication was John Delano had taken extortion money from illicit contract agreements. In March 1875, the former chief clerk of the Surveyor's Office, L. C. Stevens, wrote to Benjamin Bristow, Grant's Secretary of the Treasury, stating that Surveyor General Silas Reed had made several corrupt contracts which financially benefited John Delano. Stevens also said both Reed and John Delano had blackmailed five deputy surveyors for $5,000. More damaging was Stevens' charge that Columbus Delano knew and approved of what Reed had done for John Delano. Both Bristow and Secretary of State Hamilton Fish demanded that Grant fire Delano. Grant declined, telling Fish, "If Delano were now to resign, it would be retreating under fire and be accepted as an admission of the charges." The controversy did not abate; by mid-August it became clear that Delano could not remain in office; Delano offered his resignation and Grant accepted, but Grant did not make it public. Grant finally announced his acceptance of Delano's resignation on October 19, 1875, after Bristow threatened to resign if Delano was not replaced. Grant replaced Delano with Zachariah Chandler, who quickly initiated civil service and other reforms in the Department of the Interior. Delano's administration was investigated by Congress, Chandler, and a special presidential commission; his personal conduct was exonerated, but his reputation as an honest, capable administrator was damaged, and Delano never again ran for office or served in an appointed one. In April 1876, The Committee on the Expeditures in the Interior Department confirmed that Reed had set up an illicit slush fund for John Delano's financial benefit, and that Delano thanked Reed while also telling him "to be careful to do nothing that would have the semblance of wrong." CANNOTANSWER
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extortion
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Columbus Delano (June 4, 1809 – October 23, 1896) was a lawyer, rancher, banker, statesman and a member of the prominent Delano family. Forced to live on his own at an early age, Delano struggled to become a self-made man. Delano was elected U.S. Congressman from Ohio, serving two full terms and one partial one. Prior to the American Civil War, Delano was a National Republican and then a Whig; as a Whig, he was identified with the faction of the party that opposed the spread of slavery into the Western territories, and he became a Republican when the party was founded as the major anti-slavery party after the demise of the Whigs in the 1850s. During Reconstruction Delano advocated federal protection of African-Americans' civil rights, and argued that the former Confederate states should be administered by the federal government, but was not part of the United States until they met the requirements for readmission to the Union.
Delano served as President Ulysses S. Grant's Secretary of the Interior during a time of rapid Westward expansionism, and contended with conflicts between Native tribes and White American settlers. He was instrumental in the establishment of America's first national park, having supervised the first federally funded scientific expedition into Yellowstone in 1871, and becoming America's first national park overseer in 1872. In 1874, Delano requested that Congress protect Yellowstone through the creation of a federally funded administrative agency, the first Secretary of the Interior to request such preservation of a nationally important site.
Believing that tribal communalism and a nomadic lifestyle led to war and impoverishment, Delano argued the best Indian policy was to allot Native tribes small reservations in the Indian Territory. In Delano's view, the reservation system humanely protected Native tribes from the encroachment of western settlers, aiding in Indian assimilation into white culture, language, attire, culture, and religion. The goal was for Indian people to be independent from federal funding. To compel the Native tribes of the west to move to reservations, Delano supported the slaughter to the near extinction of the vast buffalo herds outside of Yellowstone, which were essential to the maintenance of the Plains Indians' way of life.
Concerning government reform, Delano defied Grant's 1872 executive order to implement the first Civil Service Commission's recommendations. With the exception of Yellowstone, the spoils system and corruption permeated throughout the Interior Department during his tenure, and Grant requested Delano's resignation in 1875; he left office with damage to his reputation for personal honesty. Although Interior scandals, at times, continued to fester in various succeeding administrations, corruption during Delano's tenure under Grant was excessive. Delano remained a spoils man at a time when reformer demands for a federal merit system were gaining support. Delano returned to Ohio to practice law, tend to his business interests, and raise livestock; he did not return to politics and died in 1896.
Although Delano was considered a 19th Century American "major mover and shaker", his legacy has a dark side, clouded by spoils man politics, harsh treatment of Indians, and endorsement of slaughtering buffalo. Historians are critical of Delano's tenure at the Interior Department, arguing that he could have done more to stop corruption, protect bison, prevent dispossession of Native American land, and the destruction of the culture of the Plains Indians. Yellowstone is considered Delano's greatest achievement and he was considered to be an effective first administrator. The park aided in the recovery of free-roaming buffalo. By August 2019, 4,829 bison were counted in Yellowstone. While in office, Delano was outspoken for his strong support of black American rights and denouncement of the Ku Klux Klan.
Early life, education, and political career
Columbus Delano was born in Shoreham, Vermont on June 5, 1809, the son of James Delano and Lucinda Bateman. The Delano family was of French ancestry; its first representative in America, Philip Delano, voyaged from Holland in 1621 on the Fortune, the sister ship of the Mayflower. In 1815, at the age of six, Delano's father died, and his family was put under the care of his uncle Luther Bateman. In 1817 the family moved to Mount Vernon in Knox County, Ohio, where Delano resided for the rest of his life. Delano was raised primarily by Luther Bateman, who died in 1817. After an elementary education Delano labored in a woolen mill in Lexington, Ohio, and at other jobs, struggling on his own, to become largely self-sufficient while still a teenager.
After beginning self-directed legal studies, Delano formally trained with Mount Vernon attorney Hosmer Curtis from 1830 to 1831, and he attained admission to the bar in 1831. Delano became active in politics as a National Republican, and later as a Whig, and in 1834 he won election as Prosecuting Attorney for Knox County. He won reelection in 1836 and served two terms, 1835 to 1839.
Marriage and family
On July 14, 1834, Delano married Elizabeth Leavenworth of Mount Vernon, the daughter of M. Martin Leavenworth and Clara Sherman Leavenworth. Their children included daughter Elizabeth (1838–1904), who was the wife of Reverend John G. Ames of Washington, DC, and son John Sherman Delano (1841–1896), a businessman who also worked with his father at the Department of the Interior.
Delano and Ulysses S. Grant were distant cousins; they had great-great grandparents in common.
United States Representative (1845–1847)
In 1844, Delano was elected to the United States House of Representatives after appearing on the ballot as a replacement for Samuel White Jr., who had died after winning the Whig nomination. He went on to defeat Democrat Caleb J. McNulty by only 12 votes, 9,297 to 9,285. Delano served in the 29th Congress, (March 4, 1845—March 3, 1847), and was a member of the Committee on Invalid Pensions. He also gave a speech denouncing the Mexican–American War which earned him national recognition as an opponent of the conflict. Delano did not run for reelection in 1846, instead campaigning for the 1848 Whig nomination for Governor of Ohio. He lost to Seabury Ford by two votes at the January 1848 party convention; Ford went on to defeat Democrat John B. Weller in a close general election, and served one term. Delano subsequently became involved in several business ventures; in 1850 he set up a successful Wall Street banking partnership, Delano, Dunlevy, & Company, which specialized in railroad bonds; it included a branch office in Cincinnati and operated for five years. In addition, Delano became a successful sheep rancher, and served as president of the National Association of Wool Growers and the Ohio Wool Growers Association. He was also active in other businesses; he was president of the Springfield, Mount Vernon & Pittsburgh Railroad, and an original incorporator of the First National Bank of Mount Vernon, of which he later became president.
Republican Party and Civil War
With the demise of the Whigs, Columbus Delano joined the new Republican Party. Delano was a delegate to the Chicago Convention in 1860, and he seconded the nomination of Abraham Lincoln's for president. Delano actively campaigned for Lincoln, who won the presidency. The following year Delano served as Commissary-General of Ohio, on the staff of Governor William Dennison Jr., and aided in raising and equipping troops for the Union Army at the start of the American Civil War. In 1862 Delano was a candidate for the United States Senate seat held by Benjamin Wade. With Republicans in control of the Ohio General Assembly, winning their nomination was tantamount to election by the full legislature. Delano was nearly successful, losing the nomination to Wade by only two votes. In 1863, Delano served in the Ohio House of Representatives and played a notable role in shepherding the passage of legislation in support of the Union war effort. Delano served as Chairman of the Judicial Committee and settled the matter of the right of soldiers to vote. Delano served as Chairman of the Ohio delegation that attended the Baltimore Convention. Lincoln was successfully nominated for a second term of office.
Reconstruction Era
Return to Congress
Delano was again elected to the U.S. House in 1864, and he served in the 39th Congress (March 4, 1865—March 3, 1867). During this term, Delano was chairman of the House Committee on Claims. Delano appeared to lose his bid for reelection in 1866, but successfully contested the election of George W. Morgan. After unseating Morgan, Delano served for the remainder of the 40th Congress, June 3, 1868—March 3, 1869. After the Civil War Delano supported Radical Reconstruction, believing that the South was in chaos and that federal involvement in the Southern states, including the army, was necessary to keep the peace. He did not run for reelection in 1868.
Reconstruction speech (1867)
In September 1867, Delano made a speech on Reconstruction in Eaton, Ohio, in which he said that President Andrew Johnson did not have the constitutional authority to establish civil government in the former Confederate states. Delano argued that Congress, not the president, "was required to establish civil governments in all the states." In Delano's view, Johnson and Southern Democrats, who had previously supported the Confederacy, were conspiring to overthrow Congress by undermining its authority to make laws concerning Southern Reconstruction. As proof, Delano cited Johnson's September 1866 Swing Around the Circle speech, in which Johnson said the national legislature was a "pretended Congress". In addition, Delano believed Johnson was conspiring to remove Ulysses S. Grant as head of the army because of Grant's support for Congressional Reconstruction. As a result, Delano advocated impeaching Johnson and removing him from office, and argued that Grant should be protected by Congress from any attempt by Johnson to remove him. Unknown to Delano, on August 11, 1867, Grant had agreed to accept Johnson's offer to serve as interim Secretary of War, while simultaneously remaining general of the army. Under the provisions of the Tenure of Office Act, the appointment would be temporary until the U.S. Senate returned to session in January 1868, and either ratified or prohibited Stanton's removal. Johnson and Grant agreed to Grant's temporary appointment despite explicitly admitting that they disagreed on Reconstruction policy.
Commissioner of Internal Revenue
Delano remained active in politics and supported Grant for president in 1868. When Grant became president in March 1869, he appointed Delano Commissioner of Internal Revenue; Delano served from March 11, 1869, to October 31, 1870. As commissioner, Delano tried with mixed success to collect federal revenue on alcohol and tobacco products manufactured in Indian Territory; these items could be produced for sale tax-free within the territory, but manufacturers routinely sold them in adjacent states without paying the taxes. He also proved unwilling or unable to cope with the frauds of the Whiskey Ring; despite having received warnings of corruption including bribery of federal officials and failure to pay taxes, Delano took little or no action. The department did attempt to prevent the illegal manufacture and sale of whiskey in other areas; on January 31, 1870, an Internal Revenue raid in Georgia captured 18 illicit whiskey stills and their operators. The Whiskey Ring finally stopped in 1875 during Grant's second term by Secretary of the Treasury Benjamin Bristow. The ring leader, John McDonald was an acquaintance of President Grant and had requested from him a political appointment as superintending inspector of internal revenue in St. Louis. Grant then directed Delano to make the appointment. McDonald was convicted of fraud and theft and served 17 months in prison. In all, the investigation of the Whiskey Ring resulted in 110 convictions. Grant's private secretary, Orville E. Babcock was implicated, but acquitted at trial after Grant provided written testimony on his behalf. Additionally, Delano was cleared of involvement in another scandal in which Babcock was implicated, the Gold Ring, which was triggered when two New York financiers attempted to corner the gold market on September 24, 1869. Daniel Butterfield, the Assistant Treasurer of the United States, and Grant's brother in law Abel Corbin were also implicated; Butterfield was forced to resign in October. Delano's reputation for personal honesty was not in question, which was an asset when Grant needed to nominate a new Secretary of the Interior in 1870.
Secretary of the Interior
United States Attorney General Ebenezer R. Hoar and Secretary of the Interior Jacob D. Cox resigned in 1870 because of Grant's decision to overrule them on the issue of the McGarrahan Claims; speculator William McGarrahan claimed title to a tract of mining land in California, as did the New Idria Mining Company. Grant wanted no executive branch action taken, considering both claims to be fraudulent; Cox and Hoar disagreed and decided in favor of New Idria, which prompted Grant to request their resignations.
Grant appointed Delano to succeed Cox at the Interior Department; he served from November 1, 1870, until resigning on October 19, 1875. During Delano's tenure, the Interior Department was the largest bureaucracy in the federal government, including numerous patronage positions. Running the department required knowledge of dissimilar duties, and the ability to master complex details. During Delano's time as secretary, he faced several critical issues and his department was rapidly expanding; despite the challenges he served longer in the job than any other 19th-century incumbent. Delano aligned himself with Grant's private secretary Orville Babcock and Secretary of Navy George M. Robeson. Delano rejected the civil service reforms of his predecessor Cox and reverted the Interior to the spoils system.
Bison slaughter (1870s)
During the Civil War, Union generals practiced a "scorched earth" campaign against Confederate infrastructure that destroyed its vital food supplies, which aided in bringing about the Union's victory. During the late 1860s and early 1870s U.S. Army officers William T. Sherman, Richard Dodge, and Secretary of the Interior Delano adopted a similar strategy against Native Americans in the west, whose primary food supply was free-roaming bison. Dodge said in 1867, "Every buffalo dead is an Indian gone." Delano said in an 1872 annual report, "The rapid disappearance of the game [bison] from the former hunting-grounds must operate largely in favor of our efforts to confine the Indians to smaller areas, and compel them to abandon their nomadic customs."
Much of the destruction of bison was done by private, for-profit buffalo hunters; this policy allowed the slaughter of millions of bison on the American plains, forcing Indians to move to and remain on their reservations. The few free-roaming bison left in Yellowstone were protected from poaching by a federal law passed in 1872; during Delano's tenure, mounting criticism by the public forced Congress to pass legislation that would stop the bison slaughter on the plains. Grant vetoed the legislation in 1874, accepting that the bison slaughter was accomplishing the goal of pacifying the Indians. From 1872 to 1874 the Indians killed approximately 1,215,000 bison as part of providing for their food, shelter, and other basic needs; American hunters slaughtered an estimated 4,374,000 bison, reducing the population to the point that it could not reproduce normally and continue to sustain the Indians.
Apache massacre and peace (1871-1872)
On April 30, 1871, white Tucson townspeople organized a militia which massacred an Apache Indian settlement at Camp Grant. Approximately 144 Apaches were killed, mostly women and children. Twenty-eight children were kidnapped by the Tucson townspeople and held as ransom for the Apache warriors, who were not present at the time of the massacre. The people of Tucson drew national attention by the scale of their activity, resulting in Eastern philanthropists and President Grant denouncing their actions. Arizona citizens, however, believed the killings were justified and claimed that Apache warriors had killed mail runners and settlers near Tucson. President Grant sent Major General George Crook to keep the peace in Arizona; many Apaches had joined the U.S. military for protection.
On November 10, 1871, Delano advocated Grant that Apaches be given new reservation land in Arizona and New Mexico, following the recommendation of Indian Peace Commissioner Vincent Colyer to find them a location where they could be protected from attacks by white settlers. Delano advocated that all Apaches be put on reservations including young men and warriors, who were forming raiding parties, rather than just their old men and women. Grant sent Major General Oliver Otis Howard to Arizona to help resolve the issue; Howard organized a peace conference with Apache leader Eskiminzin in May 1872 at Camp Grant. Howard also negotiated the release of six of the captive Apache children. In December 1872, the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation, a permanent settlement, was established at the junction of the San Carlos and Gila Rivers, the location having been agreed upon by Howard and Eskiminzin. In October 1872, Howard also made a separate peace treaty with the Apache leader Cochise, who settled on the Chiricahua reservation.
Akerman feud (1871)
In June 1871 Grant's Attorney General Amos T. Akerman denied land and bond grants to the Union Pacific Railroad, a company connected to the Crédit Mobilier scandal. Ackerman's anti-railroad rulings were protested by railroad financiers Collis P. Huntington and Jay Gould. Akerman was also instrumental in prosecuting the Ku Klux Klan in the South and protecting African American civil rights. Railroad interests and African-American civil rights had been priorities for the Republican Party; on behalf of Huntington and Gould, Delano twice asked Akerman to change rulings that had gone against the Union Pacific, and both times Akerman refused. Delano then complained to Grant and suggested that Akerman should be removed. Grant agreed, and named former Oregon Senator George H. Williams as Akerman's replacement; Williams was seen as more favorable to railroad interests. On the issue of curtailing the Klan prosecutions, according to historian William S. McFeely, "[w]ith Akerman's departure on January 10, 1872, went any hope that the Republican party would develop as a national party of true racial equality."
Yellowstone (1871-1872)
In 1871, Delano organized America's first federally funded scientific expedition into Yellowstone, which was headed by U.S. Geologist Ferdinand V. Hayden. Delano gave specific instructions for Hayden to make a geographical map of the area and to make astronomical and barometric observations. Delano stated that Hayden's expedition was directed to "...secure as much information as possible, both scientific and practical...give your attention to the geological, mineralogical, zoological, botanical, and agricultural resources of the country." Delano also ordered Hayden to gather information on Native American tribes who lived in the area. Hayden's expedition was outfitted by an extensive scientific team that included two botanists, a meteorologist, a zoologist, an ornithologist, a mineralogist, a topographer, an artist, a photographer, a physician, hunters, mule teams and ambulances, and a support staff.
On March 1, 1872 Ulysses S. Grant signed the Organic Act, incorporating Hayden's findings and discoveries and creating Yellowstone, the world's first national park. The law provided that the Secretary of the Interior exercise "exclusive control" over Yellowstone; As Delano was the incumbent, this made him the first overseer of the first national park in the world. The poaching of fish and wildlife, including bison, was forbidden, and Delano was authorized to preserve the "natural curiosities and wonders" found inside the park. Delano was now in charge of millions of acres of land, however, he was not provided any funding to care for it. Instead, he was given the power to grant 10-year leases in order to raise money to pay for maintaining the park. As soon as the park was created, Delano was inundated by requests for hotel concessions, and he also had to determine the control and use of existing facilities in the park's northern section.
Delano appointed N. P. Langford the first Supervisor of Yellowstone in 1872; Langford banned private toll roads and submitted a plan to build and maintain a park road system free to the public, but Congress refused to fund it. Congress also refused to give Langford a stipend, so he had to supplement his livelihood by working as a banker. In 1874 Lanford requested that Delano petition Congress for appropriations to protect the park from poachers, unlicensed privateers, and trespassers. Delano agreed and demanded Congress appropriate $100,000 to set up a federal park agency to administer and protect the park for the public, and also asked for an increase in the terms of the concession leases from 10 to 20 years. The proposal was turned down; it was not until April 1877, during the Rutherford B. Hayes administration, that Congress appropriated one-tenth of Delano's request, $10,000, without any federal protection agency for the park.
Defied Civil Service Executive order (1871-1874)
In March 1871, Grant signed into law Congressional legislation that established the United States Civil Service Commission, designed to create reform rules and to regulate and reduce corruption in the federal workforce. Implementation of the rules was left to the discretion of the President. Grant appointed New York reformer William Curtis to chair the commission. The Commission reported that appointments and promotions would be controlled by examiners, and each federal Department would create a board of examiners, while political assessments would be abolished. Grant ordered the implementation of the rules to be effective on January 1, 1872. Grant dissolved the commission in 1874 after Congress refused to make the Commission rules permanent, and refused to provide permanent funding for the commission. Congressional interest in civil service reform would remain dormant until 1883.
Under Article 12 of Grant's executive order, Land Office and Pension agent applicants in the Department of Interior were to be approved by a board of examiners. Delano, however, betrayed Grant and defied the order. Grant made no response. The Interior Department's varied and diverse responsibilities increased at a rapid rate and became a source of numerous administrative problems. For the department head, controlling the bureaus and shaping policy was a daunting task; Delano argued that the complexities of the department made implementing civil service reform impractical. Under Delano's tenure, corruption permeated the whole department, including bogus agents in the Bureau of Indian Affairs and thieving clerks in the Patent Office. Delano ultimately resigned because of evidence that surveying contracts had been awarded to companies in which his son John, the chief clerk of the department, and Orvil (or Orville) Grant, the president's brother, had ownership interests; this was more or less permissible by the standards of the day, but to reform-minded individuals, including the editors of the New-York Tribune and other newspapers, it represented a conflict of interest and breach of the public trust.
Supported Ku Klux Klan prosecutions (1872)
To bolster the Reconstruction Acts and the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth constitutional amendments, Grant signed in 1870 Congressional legislation that created the Justice Department. To fight the outrages in the South by the Ku Klux Klan, Grant signed several laws known as the Enforcement Acts in 1870 and 1871. In May 1871, Grant ordered federal troops to help U.S. Marshals in arresting Klansmen. Grant's second Attorney General Amos T. Akerman, a former Confederate soldier, knew of the outrages of the Klan and was zealous in prosecuting white Southerners who terrorized their black neighbors. That October, on Akerman's recommendation, Grant suspended habeas corpus in part of South Carolina and sent federal troops there to enforce the law. After prosecutions by Akerman and his replacement, George Henry Williams, the Klan's power collapsed; by 1872, elections in the South saw African Americans voting in record numbers.
In a campaign speech supporting President Grant's reelection bid in Raleigh, North Carolina, on July 24, 1872, Delano spoke out in favor of prosecutions of the Ku Klux Klan. Delano argued that the Congressional Reconstruction Acts had been passed to "rescue order and government out of the chaos and confusion" that came from the Civil War. This included the enfranchisement of African Americans, most of them former slaves, who had been set "forever free" as a result of the war. Delano stated that if freedom meant anything it was that African Americans "should stand equal before the law and have a voice in legislation." According to Delano, southerners who rejected Republican Reconstruction opted for a subversive war against African Americans and white Republicans, including the formation of the Ku Klux Klan. Delano said the Ku Klux Klan had in fourteen North Carolina counties killed 18 people and cruelly whipped 315 Republicans who had done nothing wrong. Delano said that evidence presented in prosecuting Klan members in the federal courts proved the "barbarity and treason" of the Ku Klux Klan. Grant ended up winning North Carolina and many other Southern states.
Defined Indian policy (1873)
In 1873, Delano formally defined the methods to be used in attaining the goals of Grant's policy toward the Native Americans. Grant's ultimate goal was to convert the Indians to Christianity and assimilate them into the white culture in order to prepare them for full U.S. Citizenship; these fundamental principles continued to influence Indian Peace policy for the rest of the 19th Century. According to Delano, relocating the Indians to reservations was of primary importance, since this would supposedly protect them from the violence of white settlers as whites moved onto lands previously held by Native Americans. In addition, Christian organizations and missionaries operating on these reservations could "civilize" the Native Americans, in line with the widespread belief (including Delano's) that allowing the Indians to continue to practice their own culture would lead to their destruction. In Delano's view, his actions would accomplish Grant's goal by facilitating Indian assimilation into white culture.
Black Hills take over (1875)
Under the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie, the Oglala Sioux had been given a huge reservation including the Black Hills in what is now South Dakota. The Black Hills were the site of Sioux sacred religious rituals and spiritual ceremonies. Following the Panic of 1873 the country was desperate for new wealth. In 1874 rumors spread of gold being discovered in the Black Hills by George Custer's recent expedition. Grant sent the expedition, hoping to find gold in order to support his species currency policy; Delano opposed the move, believing travel through and eventual occupation of hunting grounds violated the Treaty of Fort Laramie and could lead to an Indian war. Delano told Grant that a "general war with the Sioux would be deplorable. It would undo the good already accomplished by our efforts for peaceable relations." Whites immediately flocked to the area in search of gold; in 1875, Congress appropriated $25,000 for the purchase of the Black Hills, hoping that a cash payment would assuage the Sioux and prevent war.
In mid-May 1875, Red Cloud, Chief of the Oglala Lakota (Sioux), and other Indian tribal leaders were brought to Washington D.C. to negotiate the sale of the Black Hills. The Sioux believed the amount offered by Congress was too low; recognizing that they would eventually lose the Black Hills, Red Cloud decided to negotiate and told Delano they would sign away the Black Hills if $25,000 in cash was first drawn from the Treasury Department, to ensure that the Sioux would be paid. Delano had no intention of giving Red Cloud cash, but rather a receipt for $25,000 from the Treasury and additional presents purchased at a later date and distributed to members of the tribe. Red Cloud insisted that he wanted the $25,000 in cash at the signing, which would be taken home and divided among the members of the tribe.
Delano warned Grant that a war would likely break out if negotiations were not successful. When negotiations broke down, Grant was brought into the process to bargain directly with Red Cloud. Grant told Red Cloud that the Black Hills had no buffalo, so it would benefit the Indians to accept payment because they would at least receive something of value in consideration for signing away valueless hunting rights. He also informed Red Cloud that whites were going to take over the Black Hills anyway, so it would be best not to leave empty-handed. Concerned that they would not be paid if they signed an agreement first, Red Cloud asked Grant to withdraw the money from the Treasury, and hold it until after the signing. Grant refused and walked out, telling Red Cloud he had to sign over the Black Hills before any payment was made. On June 4, Delano offered Red Cloud an additional $25,000 in appropriations, but Red Cloud refused.
With Red Cloud's refusal, Delano reluctantly let the Indians take the unsigned agreement back to their tribal agencies for further discussion among the members of the tribe, with final terms and signatures to be negotiated later by an appointed commission. The failure of the Washington, D.C. negotiations to produce an agreement was lampooned in the June 19 edition of Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper. Upon their return to Sioux country, Red Cloud and other Lakota leaders finally signed away their hunting rights to the Black Hills under Article 11 of the Treaty of Fort Laramie in exchange for the original $25,000 Congressional appropriation. Another group of Sioux chiefs, including Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, challenged Red Cloud's authority and started the armed resistance about which Delano had warned Grant. This challenge to Red Cloud's authority combined with Lakota unhappiness over white encroachment into the Black Hills resulted in the Great Sioux War, which started in February 1876.
Resignation and corruption (1875)
In 1875, Delano's reputation for personal honesty came under increasing scrutiny as revelations of corruption in the Grant administration continued to be the subject of investigations and media revelations. Although Delano himself was not known to be personally corrupt, his tenure was shadowed by controversy, while fraud prevailed in his Interior Department. There were accusations of an "Indian Ring" and corrupt agents who exploited Native American people. Westerners unhappy with Delano's rulings on land grants and other issues accused Delano's son John, an employee of the Interior Department, of corruption, bribery, and fraud in the Wyoming Territory.
Surveyor General Ring
The New-York Tribune reported that John Delano was profiteering through Interior's Office of the Surveyor-General by accepting partnerships in Wyoming surveying contracts without having been trained in surveying or map-making, and without providing any meaningful contribution to the fulfillment of the contracts; the obvious implication was John Delano had taken extortion money from illicit contract agreements. In March 1875, the former chief clerk of the Surveyor's Office, L. C. Stevens, wrote to Benjamin Bristow, Grant's Secretary of the Treasury, stating that Surveyor General Silas Reed had made several corrupt contracts which financially benefited John Delano. Stevens also said both Reed and John Delano had blackmailed five deputy surveyors for $5,000. According to Stevens, Reed and Delano had coerced the deputy surveyors to pay John Delano before he would release the Interior Department warrants for land the deputy surveyors had sold to prospective settlers. Governor Edward M. McCook of the Colorado Territory, claimed that John Delano had accepted a $1,200 bribe from a Colorado banker, Jerome B. Chaffee, to secure land patents from the Department of Interior. More damaging was Stevens' charge that Columbus Delano knew and approved of what Reed had done for John Delano.
In addition to Delano's son, Grant's brother Orvil was paid for surveying services in the Wyoming Territory, although Orvil did no work. The chief clerk of the Cheyenne branch of the federal Surveying Office testified before Congress concerning Orvil. When asked whether Orvil did any work in the Wyoming Territory, the chief clerk said, "No, sir, I do not think he was ever in the territory."
Indian Ring
In July 1875, Delano was rumored to know that Orvil Grant, the president's brother, had received Indian trading posts, that were a corrupt source of lucrative kickbacks, from the sutler, at the expense of the Indians and soldiers. The higher the sale price on goods, that the Indians and soldiers would pay, the higher the profits. Even the sale of rifles to hostile Indian tribes was allowed, to make more money. The profits were split and sent to the other sutler partners.
Delano was rumored to have threatened Grant at Long Branch that he would expose Orvil to the public when Delano's resignation was enforced. He told Grant that he would quietly leave office after Congressional Indian fraud investigations were complete. In February 1876, the New York Herald reported that Orvil made money in the Sioux country by "starving the squaws and children." Orvil testified before Congress that Grant had influenced the War Department to get him traderships. Orvil received rights to operate four trading posts, then set up "partners" who kicked back half their profits to Orvil. Though Orvil claimed Grant had not known of the kickbacks, he expressed no remorse for his corruption, and his testimony left Grant embarrassed.
The kingpin of this Indian Ring was not Delano, but Secretary of War William W. Belknap, who was given legal authority by Congress in 1870 to appoint sutlers to traderships at Army posts near Indian reservations, which were controlled by Interior. Belknap, who had awarded Orvil Grant the four traderships, took advantage of the law to personally profit by arranging an illicit partnership at Fort Sill between his wife Carrie, Caleb P. Marsh, and sutler John S. Evans. After Carrie's death, Belknap married her sister Amanda, who continued the illicit tradership arrangement. Belknap's household received as much as $20,000 in illegal profits (nearly $500,000 in 2021), which Belknap needed in order to finance the lavish Washington D.C. entertainment lifestyle expected of cabinet members and other prominent political figures.
Aware that the U.S. House was investigating him, on March 2, 1876 Belknap visited Grant and immediately resigned. The House continued its inquiry and found him guilty of five articles of impeachment. Grant's attorney general placed Belknap under house arrest during his U.S. Senate trial. Though most senators believed the evidence of Belknap's corruption, enough believed they lacked the jurisdiction to punish Belknap because he was no longer in office to acquit him. Despite escaping conviction, Belknap's reputation was so marred that he never returned to political office.
Resignation
Both Bristow and Secretary of State Hamilton Fish demanded that Grant fire Delano. Grant declined, telling Fish, "If Delano were now to resign, it would be retreating under fire and be accepted as an admission of the charges." The controversy did not abate; by mid-August, it became clear that Delano could not remain in office; Delano offered his resignation and Grant accepted, but Grant did not make it public. Grant finally announced his acceptance of Delano's resignation on October 19, 1875, after Bristow threatened to resign if Delano was not replaced. Grant replaced Delano with Zachariah Chandler, who quickly initiated civil service and other reforms in the Department of the Interior. Delano's administration was investigated by Congress, Chandler, and a special presidential commission; his personal conduct was exonerated, but his reputation as an honest, capable administrator was damaged, and Delano never again ran for office or served in an appointed one. In April 1876, The Committee on the Expenditures in the Interior Department confirmed that Reed had set up an illicit slush fund for John Delano's financial benefit, and that Delano thanked Reed while also telling him "to be careful to do nothing that would have the semblance of wrong."
Delano's defense
On September 26, 1875, Delano submitted to Grant a letter defending his tenure at the Department of the Interior; in essence, he argued that the size and complexity of his department made it difficult to manage effectively. Delano stated that he had resigned because he intended to return to his business and domestic concerns in Ohio. He indicated that his duties as Secretary of the Interior were "laborious, difficult, and delicate" because he was required to supervise five disparate bureaus or offices: Land; Indian; Pensions; Patent; and Education, in addition to "a mass of miscellaneous business unknown to any except those connected to the public service."
Delano also reminded Grant that the Land Office dealt with complex railroad land grants, as well as issues resolving land titles in California, Arizona and New Mexico, because those areas had previously been under Spain's and then Mexico's jurisdiction. In addition, the Indian Bureau dealt with many "intricate, delicate, and vexatious questions" growing out of previous Indian treaties. Delano further informed Grant that when he had to decide issues between competing claimants, those he ruled against often gave false and misleading statements rather than accept their loss, which was to Delano's detriment. Delano concluded by claiming a successful tenure, informing Grant that the Interior Department "has never been in a more prosperous or better condition than it now is."
Chandler reforms
Delano's successor, Zachariah Chandler, did not complain about his departmental duties, and immediately investigated allegations of corruption. Chandler found things differently than Delano's explanations to Grant and decided the department needed major reforming. During his first month in office, he fired all the clerks in one room of the Patent Office; he noted that every desk was vacant, and concluded that the employees were either involved in corruption or lacked the integrity to reform the department. Almost twenty employees were found to be entirely fictitious; they had been created by a profiteering ring to defraud the government by falsely receiving pay for work that was not performed. Chandler also fired unqualified clerks who profiteered by hiring out their work to lower-paid replacements and pocketing the salary difference.
In addition, Chandler simplified Patent Office rules, making patents easier to obtain and reducing the cost for applicants. In December 1875, Chandler banned persons known as "Indian Attorneys", whose claims to represent Native Americans in Washington were questionable. He found the Bureau of Indian Affairs to be the most corrupt, and he replaced its commissioner and chief clerk. In addition to Indian Affairs, Chandler also investigated the Pension Bureau. This review resulted in the identification and removal of numerous fraudulent pensions, which saved the federal government hundreds of thousands of dollars. Chandler also revoked as many as 800 fraudulent land grants that had been approved during Delano's tenure.
Later life and career
On his resignation from Grant's cabinet, Delano returned to Mount Vernon where for the next twenty years he served as president of the First National Bank of Mount Vernon. He was a longtime trustee of Kenyon College, which awarded him the honorary degree of LL.D.; among his charitable and civic donations was his endowment of Kenyon's Delano Hall; this building was in use until it was destroyed by a fire in 1906. His Lakeholm mansion, built in 1871 at the outskirts of Mount Vernon, is now part of Mount Vernon Nazarene University.
On April 3, 1880, John W. Wright, a judge from Indiana, was convicted at trial of having assaulted Delano on a Washington, D.C. street corner on October 12, 1877. Wright, who had been an Indian Agent in the Interior Department while Delano was secretary, had been convicted of fraud and blamed Delano. On the day of the assault he was in the company of Walter H. Smith, formerly solicitor of the Department of the Interior; Wright was accused of provoking a fight by questioning Delano's honesty as Secretary of the Interior and then striking Delano with his walking stick. Wright claimed that Delano had been verbally harassing him and that he then felt compelled to defend himself. Delano did not sustain serious injuries; Wright's defense was weakened by witness testimony that after the assault, he claimed credit for it, and stated that he would have continued if passers-by had not intervened. Wright was sentenced to 30 days in jail and fined $1,000. On April 8, 1880, President Rutherford B. Hayes pardoned Wright, with his release from custody conditional upon the payment of the fine.
On December 3, 1889, Delano was elected president of the National Wool Growers Association, a lobbying group organized to advocate for tariff protection of the national wool industry. The association had been formed in 1865, and became more active in the 1880s as a response to the decline in domestic wool production; wool growers faced increasing overseas competition and had gone from 50 million sheep producing wool in 1883 to 40 million in 1888.
Death
Delano died on October 23, 1896; he was interred at Mount Vernon's Mound View Cemetery, Lot 42, Section 16, Grave 4. Delano's death was sudden and unexpected, and took place at his "Lake Howe" home near Mount Vernon, at 11:00 AM. There was no connection between his wife Mrs. Delano's near-fatal accident and his own death.
Historical legacy
Delano's career prior to becoming Secretary of the Interior was not known for any scandals, nor has he been implicated in the Crédit Mobilier scandal. Historians, however, are critical of Delano's overall tenure as Secretary of the Interior especially for his loose anti-reform administrative style and for allowing corruption to permeate the department, unlike Grant's first appointee, Jacob D. Cox, who had been an enthusiastic advocate of civil service reform. Delano sided with the railroad interests over reform and allied with Grant's private secretary Orville Babcock and Secretary of Navy George M. Robeson, associated with corruption. Delano was at odds with Grant's reformers, including Secretary of State Hamilton Fish, Secretary of Treasury Benjamin Bristow, and Attorney General Amos T. Akerman. The corruption in the Bureau of Indian Affairs under Delano eventually led to the end of political appointees, the appointment of career civil servants, and the bureaucratization of the agency. Delano defended his reputation by saying that the Interior Department was difficult to manage due to its expanding size and its many offices with disparate functions.
Indian advancement
In March 1869, President Grant appointed Ely S. Parker, a Seneca Indian, to Commissioner of Indian Affairs serving under both Secretary of Interior Cox and Secretary of Interior Delano. Although there was resistance to his appointment, the Senate confirmed Parker could legally hold office, and he was confirmed by the Senate. During Parker's tenor, lasting until August 1871, Indian wars decreased significantly from 101 in 1869 to 58 in 1870.
145 years, 5 months, 16 days later after Delano left office in 1875, Delano's position as Secretary of Interior was finally filled in by a Native American in 2021. On December 17, 2020, President elect Joe Biden announced that he would nominate Deb Haaland to serve as Secretary of the Interior. She was confirmed by the United States Senate on March 15, 2021, by a vote of 51–40. Following her swearing-in on March 16, she became the first Native American to serve as a Cabinet secretary and the second to serve in the Cabinet, after Republican former vice president and Kaw Nation citizen Charles Curtis.
Native American land seized (1871-1875)
Between 1871 and 1875, the term years Delano was Secretary of the Interior, 73,157,155 acres (114,308 square miles) of Indian land was seized by the United States. By comparison, this is about the size of the state of Arizona (113,642 square miles).
Reservation system
Although the Indian reservation system Delano strongly advocated, protecting Indians
from white sutlers, looked good on paper, it denied the way of life Indians had sustained themselves for thousands of years. With their food supply of buffalo disseminated by white hunters, Indians were forced to live under white culture, yet survive on poor reservation lands and limited supplies. Native Americans today still suffer from the aftershocks of a brutal Interior reservation policy under Delano and his 19th Century successors. Indian culture was devastated, while in practice the reservation policy was monstrous by modern standards.
Bison slaughter and Indian suppression
Delano has also received criticism for allowing millions of bison to be slaughtered, with the exception of Yellowstone, in order to compel the Indians to move to and remain on their reservations, a policy approved by President Grant and the U.S. Army. The demise of the bison herds during Delano's tenure led to the destruction of the Plains Indian culture, including their economy, cosmology, and religion. Without the bison, the Plains Indians could not resist late 19th Century expansionism, including the development of the railroads in the American West. This policy led to more restrictive measures against Native Americans in the 1880s and 1890s, including the banning of medicine making, polygamy, bride payments, and the Sun Dance.
Yellowstone and bison recovery
Delano was the first Secretary of the Interior to be in charge of Yellowstone, America's and the world's first national park. The charges of misconduct and lax management made during Delano's tenure at Interior did not include the new park, the management of which was seen as a success. Among its features, it outlawed poaching wildlife and served as a haven for small numbers of free-roaming bison, left after the slaughter of the great herds that, with the exception of Yellowstone, Delano had fully supported. On August 25, 1916, Congress created the National Park Service to federally protect and administer Yellowstone and other national parks; Delano had proposed the creation of the agency in 1874. Yellowstone today generates around 4 million visitors per year.
By 1902, poachers had illegally killed and reduced Yellowstone bison herd size to about two dozen animals. The U.S. Army, who administered Yellowstone, prior to the creation of the National Park Service, took over and protected the last remaining bison from further poaching. Bison from private herds were incorporated into Yellowstone, forming a northern herd. For decades, however, as Yellowstone bisons increased in number, herds were reduced, believing the animals had caused overgrazing. The practice of reducing the Yellowstone bison population ceased in 1968. However, by the 2000s, the reduction of Yellowstone bison herds resumed, "due to increasing numbers and litigation about migration into Montana." As of August 2019, Yellowstone had 4,829 bison from two herds, 3,667 northern bison, and 1,162 central bison.
Corruption aftermath and Pendleton Act
In the aftermath of Delano's departure and retirement from the Interior in 1875 and Chandler reforms, the large Department still experienced scandals but were much less pervasive than during Delano's tenor. During the Rutherford B. Hayes administration, on May 31, 1880, a Senate committee reported on the Interior Department and Secretary of the Interior Carl Schurz, a reformer, over his removal and jailing of the Ponca Indians. On December 18, 1880, a commission appointed Hayes, began an investigation of the Department's treatment of the Ponca. On January 25, 1881, the commission reported to President Hayes the treatment of the Ponca was "needlessly disastrous and cruel".
In January 1883, President Arthur signed into law the landmark legislation, known as the Pendleton Act, that made civil service reform permanent, with the goal to reduce corruption and hire persons based on a merit system, rather than patronage. Patterned off Grant's Civil Service Commission (1871) and rules, the Act put 11 percent of the federal workforce under civil service law, and reestablished the Civil Service Commission, to regulate political assessments and payoffs. Good men were appointed by Arthur to run the commission, and surprisingly, Arthur was friendly to reformers. The passage of the act was motivated by the assassination of President James A. Garfield by a disgruntled office seeker.
Scandals continued to periodically surface. In 1884, William W. Dudley, Commissioner of the Pensions Office, was engaged in political activity, promising expedited approval to petitioners who voted for James G. Blaine and John A. Logan, the Republicans President and Vice President candidates. President Chester A. Arthur, a Republican, did nothing to stop the practice. In 1888, Secretary of Interior William F. Vilas, appointed by President Grover Cleveland (1885-1889), a Democrat, was investigated by Congress. Vilas was a stockholder of the Superior Lumber Company and was suspected of profiteering. In 1889, the Senate investigation report concluded that Vilas did not personally profiteer.
During the Benjamin Harrison Republican administration (1889-1893), an Interior probe investigation found evidence Harrison's appointed Pension Bureau Commissioner James R. Tanner took "lavish and illegal handouts". Tanner resigned and Harrison appointed Green B. Raum Pension Bureau Commissioner. Raum was accused of taking kickback loans to expedite pension cases. A Democratic House investigation said Raum had "prostituted his office" and should be removed, but Harrison declined.
Personal reputation
In 1898, historian Joseph Patterson Smith said Delano had attained, "a long and distinguished career, as an eminent lawyer, an able businessman and one intimately identified with the governmental affairs of the state and nation." In 2001, historian Jean Edward Smith, taking a harsher view, said Delano betrayed his public trust while Secretary of the Interior by allowing corruption to pervade throughout his department, "at the expense of those who most needed government assistance: the Native American." Benjamin Bristow, Grant's appointed Secretary of Treasury, said Secretary Delano was "a very mean dog," and deserved "the execration of every honest man."
Honors
Delano, California
Delano, California, located in Kern County, originally a terminal railroad town, was founded on July 14, 1869. The unnamed town was officially named in honor of Columbus Delano, at the time Delano was Secretary of the Interior, during the Grant administration. The name of Delano was officially given by the Southern Pacific Railroad. Delano's first post office opened in 1874. The town of Delano was incorporated as a city in 1915.
Mountains
Certain mountains in Utah (Delano Peak) and Montana (Mount Delano) are named after Delano. Delano Peak, in Utah, has an elevation of 12,174 ft (3,711 m). Mount Delano, in Montana, has an elevation of 10,138 ft (3090 m).
Notable Department of Interior events
1856-1873 Interior's Pacific Wagon Road Office improved the historic western emigrant routes.
1869 The Bureau of Education is placed under Interior (later transferred to the Department of Health, Education and Welfare).
1869-1870 Cook–Folsom–Peterson Expedition Yellowstone
1870 Washburn–Langford–Doane Expedition Yellowstone
1871 Hayden Geological Survey of 1871 Yellowstone Sponsored by the federal government. Delano instructed the survey.
1872 Congress establishes Yellowstone as the first National Park.
1873 Congress transferred territorial oversight from the Secretary of State to the Secretary of the Interior.
Notes
References
Sources
Books
Internet
New York Times
Newspapers
Speeches
External links
Columbus Delano at Find A Grave
The Department of Everything Else: Highlights of Interior History (1989)
Delano Peak, Utah Access Date: December 1, 2021
Mount Delano, Montana Access Date: December 1, 2021
1809 births
1896 deaths
Delano family
United States Secretaries of the Interior
Commissioners of Internal Revenue
Members of the United States House of Representatives from Ohio
Members of the Ohio House of Representatives
Ohio lawyers
People from Mount Vernon, Ohio
People from Shoreham, Vermont
Ohio Whigs
Ohio Republicans
Members of the Kenyon College Board of Trustees
Grant administration cabinet members
Whig Party members of the United States House of Representatives
Republican Party members of the United States House of Representatives
19th-century American politicians
Republican Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Ohio
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[
"In S v Mvelase (2004), Mvelase was charged with three counts of rape, committed against the same complainant, and was convicted and referred to a High Court for sentencing.\n\nBefore the Court confirmed the conviction and proceeded to sentencing of the accused, it was contended on his behalf that the proceedings in the court a quo had not been in accordance with justice, because the magistrate made no further enquiries when the accused's legal representative had closed his case without him testifying, although it had been indicated to the complainant that he would testify.\n\nThe court noted that “it would be a sad day indeed” if a presiding officer were to be required to assume the incompetence of legal representatives and was thus required to treat the accused as if he were unrepresented.\n\nThe court held that a judicial officer should be entitled to assume that a legal representative had informed the accused fully of her or his rights and that the decision not to testify was that of the accused himself.\n\nThe mere fact that in cross-examining witnesses the legal representative may have alluded to what the accused would testify did not lead, where the accused then failed to testify, to the inevitable inference that the defense case had been closed against the accused's wishes or that she or he did not know of her or his rights to testify.\n\nNotes \nS v Mvelase 2004 (2) SACR 531 (W)\n\nSouth African case law\n2004 in case law\n2004 in South African law",
"In Rex v Bourke, an important case in South African criminal law, the Transvaal Provincial Division (TPD) held that, under Roman-Dutch law, drunkenness is, as a general rule, no defence to a crime, although it may be a reason for mitigation of punishment. If the drunkenness is not voluntary—that is, if not caused by an act of the accused—and results in rendering the accused unconscious of what he was doing, he would not be responsible in law for an act done while in such a state. If constant drunkenness has induced a state of mental disease rendering the accused unconscious of his act at the time, he is not responsible and can be declared insane. Where a special intention is necessary to constitute a particular offence, drunkenness might reduce the crime from a more serious to a less serious one.\n\nFacts \nThe accused was charged before Mason J, and a jury at the Pretoria Criminal Sessions, with the crime of rape upon a European girl, of the age of ten years. It appeared from the evidence that the accused, at the time when he committed the crime, was under the influence of liquor.\n\nThe presiding judge, in directing the jury, asked them to answer the following questions: Did the accused commit\n\n the crime of rape;\n an attempt to commit rape; or\n indecent assault?\n\nThe judge directed the jury that, if they answered one of the questions in the affirmative, they were also to answer the following question: Was the accused unconscious of what he was doing at the time he did it?\n\nThe jury brought in the following verdict: \"We find the accused guilty of indecent assault but are strongly of opinion that at the time he was not responsible for his actions.\" The presiding judge thereupon asked the jury whether they meant that the accused was unconscious of what he was doing on account of being drunk at the time; the answer was \"yes.\"\n\nThe matter then went to the Transvaal Provincial Division. The question reserved for that court was whether, upon this verdict, the accused should be acquitted or convicted or declared a criminal lunatic, under Proclamation 36 of 1902.\n\nArgument \nC. Barry, for the accused (at the request of the court), contended that the accused could not be declared a criminal lunatic, as in that case there must be a special finding of the jury as to his sanity or insanity. Drunkenness could mitigate the punishment. Barry then cited some authority on the question of whether drunkenness was a defence. A verdict of guilty but insane had been held to be equivalent to a verdict of not guilty. The same test which applied to lunacy, Barry argued, should logically, according to the English decisions, also apply to drunkenness.\n\nCW de Villiers Attorney-General for the Crown, argued that the jury was not entitled to go into the question of the responsibility of the accused; they must determine only the facts. According to Roman Dutch Law, drunkenness is no defence to a crime; it can only mitigate the punishment. If a person commits a crime when he is dead drunk, in a state of smoor dronkenschap, then not the ordinary punishment, but an extraordinary punishment, can be imposed. The English rule was originally the same as South Africa's.\n\nBarry replied.\n\nJudgment \nThe Transvaal Provincial Division held, on a point of law reserved, that the finding of the jury amounted to a verdict of guilty:\n\nIf we admit the proposition that absolute drunkenness must be regarded as equivalent to insanity, we are logically driven to the conclusion that absolute drunkenness excuses a person from crime. Is it true that absolute drunkenness is equivalent to insanity? I submit not. The essential difference between a drunken person and one who is insane is that the former as a rule voluntarily induces his condition, whilst the latter is, as a rule, the victim of disease. It is therefore not unreasonable to consider that the person who voluntarily becomes drunk is responsible for all such acts as flow from his having taken an excess of liquor. It may conflict with our doctrine that a man who does an act when unconscious does so without mens rea, but, according to our law, logic has here to give way to expediency, because, in practice, to allow drunkenness to be pleaded as an excuse would lead to a state of affairs repulsive to the community. It would follow that the regular drunkard would be more immune from punishment than the sober man. This was in the mind of Damhouder when he said that drunkenness does not excuse because otherwise men would plead their own wrongdoing in excuse for their crimes.\n\nThat was Wessels J. The other two judges agreed. \"I think,\" wrote Gregorowski J, \"when [a] man commits a crime under the influence of liquor, he has to take the consequences, even if there were every reason to think that if he were sober he would have restrained himself.\"\n\nSee also \n Crime\n Law of South Africa\n South African criminal law\n\nReferences \n R v Bourke 1916 TPD 303.\n\nNotes \n\nTransvaal Provincial Division cases\n1916 in South African law\n1916 in case law\nSouth African criminal case law"
] |
[
"Columbus Delano",
"Resignation and corruption (1875)",
"when did he resign?",
"1875,",
"wha did he resign from?",
"office;",
"why did he resign?",
"Bristow threatened to resign if Delano was not replaced.",
"was he replaced?",
"Grant replaced Delano with Zachariah Chandler,",
"what was the corruption?",
"his personal conduct was exonerated, but his reputation as an honest, capable administrator was damaged, and Delano never again ran for office",
"what was he accused of?",
"extortion"
] |
C_845baa23458b4b09a935e687b86d4060_1
|
who accused him?
| 7 |
who accused Columbus Delano of extortion?
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Columbus Delano
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In 1875, Delano's reputation for personal honesty came under increasing scrutiny as revelations of corruption in the Grant administration continued to be the subject of investigations and media revelations. Westerners unhappy with Delano's rulings on land grants and other issues accused Delano's son John, an employee of the Interior Department, of corruption, bribery, and fraud. Governor Edward M. McCook of the Colorado Territory, claimed that John Delano had accepted a $1,200 bribe from a Colorado banker, Jerome B. Chaffee, to secure land patents from the Department of Interior. The New-York Tribune reported that John Delano was profiteering through Interior's Office of the Surveyor General by accepting partnerships in Wyoming surveying contracts without having been trained in surveying or map making, and without providing any meaningful contribution to the fulfillment of the contracts; the obvious implication was John Delano had taken extortion money from illicit contract agreements. In March 1875, the former chief clerk of the Surveyor's Office, L. C. Stevens, wrote to Benjamin Bristow, Grant's Secretary of the Treasury, stating that Surveyor General Silas Reed had made several corrupt contracts which financially benefited John Delano. Stevens also said both Reed and John Delano had blackmailed five deputy surveyors for $5,000. More damaging was Stevens' charge that Columbus Delano knew and approved of what Reed had done for John Delano. Both Bristow and Secretary of State Hamilton Fish demanded that Grant fire Delano. Grant declined, telling Fish, "If Delano were now to resign, it would be retreating under fire and be accepted as an admission of the charges." The controversy did not abate; by mid-August it became clear that Delano could not remain in office; Delano offered his resignation and Grant accepted, but Grant did not make it public. Grant finally announced his acceptance of Delano's resignation on October 19, 1875, after Bristow threatened to resign if Delano was not replaced. Grant replaced Delano with Zachariah Chandler, who quickly initiated civil service and other reforms in the Department of the Interior. Delano's administration was investigated by Congress, Chandler, and a special presidential commission; his personal conduct was exonerated, but his reputation as an honest, capable administrator was damaged, and Delano never again ran for office or served in an appointed one. In April 1876, The Committee on the Expeditures in the Interior Department confirmed that Reed had set up an illicit slush fund for John Delano's financial benefit, and that Delano thanked Reed while also telling him "to be careful to do nothing that would have the semblance of wrong." CANNOTANSWER
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Secretary of the Treasury,
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Columbus Delano (June 4, 1809 – October 23, 1896) was a lawyer, rancher, banker, statesman and a member of the prominent Delano family. Forced to live on his own at an early age, Delano struggled to become a self-made man. Delano was elected U.S. Congressman from Ohio, serving two full terms and one partial one. Prior to the American Civil War, Delano was a National Republican and then a Whig; as a Whig, he was identified with the faction of the party that opposed the spread of slavery into the Western territories, and he became a Republican when the party was founded as the major anti-slavery party after the demise of the Whigs in the 1850s. During Reconstruction Delano advocated federal protection of African-Americans' civil rights, and argued that the former Confederate states should be administered by the federal government, but was not part of the United States until they met the requirements for readmission to the Union.
Delano served as President Ulysses S. Grant's Secretary of the Interior during a time of rapid Westward expansionism, and contended with conflicts between Native tribes and White American settlers. He was instrumental in the establishment of America's first national park, having supervised the first federally funded scientific expedition into Yellowstone in 1871, and becoming America's first national park overseer in 1872. In 1874, Delano requested that Congress protect Yellowstone through the creation of a federally funded administrative agency, the first Secretary of the Interior to request such preservation of a nationally important site.
Believing that tribal communalism and a nomadic lifestyle led to war and impoverishment, Delano argued the best Indian policy was to allot Native tribes small reservations in the Indian Territory. In Delano's view, the reservation system humanely protected Native tribes from the encroachment of western settlers, aiding in Indian assimilation into white culture, language, attire, culture, and religion. The goal was for Indian people to be independent from federal funding. To compel the Native tribes of the west to move to reservations, Delano supported the slaughter to the near extinction of the vast buffalo herds outside of Yellowstone, which were essential to the maintenance of the Plains Indians' way of life.
Concerning government reform, Delano defied Grant's 1872 executive order to implement the first Civil Service Commission's recommendations. With the exception of Yellowstone, the spoils system and corruption permeated throughout the Interior Department during his tenure, and Grant requested Delano's resignation in 1875; he left office with damage to his reputation for personal honesty. Although Interior scandals, at times, continued to fester in various succeeding administrations, corruption during Delano's tenure under Grant was excessive. Delano remained a spoils man at a time when reformer demands for a federal merit system were gaining support. Delano returned to Ohio to practice law, tend to his business interests, and raise livestock; he did not return to politics and died in 1896.
Although Delano was considered a 19th Century American "major mover and shaker", his legacy has a dark side, clouded by spoils man politics, harsh treatment of Indians, and endorsement of slaughtering buffalo. Historians are critical of Delano's tenure at the Interior Department, arguing that he could have done more to stop corruption, protect bison, prevent dispossession of Native American land, and the destruction of the culture of the Plains Indians. Yellowstone is considered Delano's greatest achievement and he was considered to be an effective first administrator. The park aided in the recovery of free-roaming buffalo. By August 2019, 4,829 bison were counted in Yellowstone. While in office, Delano was outspoken for his strong support of black American rights and denouncement of the Ku Klux Klan.
Early life, education, and political career
Columbus Delano was born in Shoreham, Vermont on June 5, 1809, the son of James Delano and Lucinda Bateman. The Delano family was of French ancestry; its first representative in America, Philip Delano, voyaged from Holland in 1621 on the Fortune, the sister ship of the Mayflower. In 1815, at the age of six, Delano's father died, and his family was put under the care of his uncle Luther Bateman. In 1817 the family moved to Mount Vernon in Knox County, Ohio, where Delano resided for the rest of his life. Delano was raised primarily by Luther Bateman, who died in 1817. After an elementary education Delano labored in a woolen mill in Lexington, Ohio, and at other jobs, struggling on his own, to become largely self-sufficient while still a teenager.
After beginning self-directed legal studies, Delano formally trained with Mount Vernon attorney Hosmer Curtis from 1830 to 1831, and he attained admission to the bar in 1831. Delano became active in politics as a National Republican, and later as a Whig, and in 1834 he won election as Prosecuting Attorney for Knox County. He won reelection in 1836 and served two terms, 1835 to 1839.
Marriage and family
On July 14, 1834, Delano married Elizabeth Leavenworth of Mount Vernon, the daughter of M. Martin Leavenworth and Clara Sherman Leavenworth. Their children included daughter Elizabeth (1838–1904), who was the wife of Reverend John G. Ames of Washington, DC, and son John Sherman Delano (1841–1896), a businessman who also worked with his father at the Department of the Interior.
Delano and Ulysses S. Grant were distant cousins; they had great-great grandparents in common.
United States Representative (1845–1847)
In 1844, Delano was elected to the United States House of Representatives after appearing on the ballot as a replacement for Samuel White Jr., who had died after winning the Whig nomination. He went on to defeat Democrat Caleb J. McNulty by only 12 votes, 9,297 to 9,285. Delano served in the 29th Congress, (March 4, 1845—March 3, 1847), and was a member of the Committee on Invalid Pensions. He also gave a speech denouncing the Mexican–American War which earned him national recognition as an opponent of the conflict. Delano did not run for reelection in 1846, instead campaigning for the 1848 Whig nomination for Governor of Ohio. He lost to Seabury Ford by two votes at the January 1848 party convention; Ford went on to defeat Democrat John B. Weller in a close general election, and served one term. Delano subsequently became involved in several business ventures; in 1850 he set up a successful Wall Street banking partnership, Delano, Dunlevy, & Company, which specialized in railroad bonds; it included a branch office in Cincinnati and operated for five years. In addition, Delano became a successful sheep rancher, and served as president of the National Association of Wool Growers and the Ohio Wool Growers Association. He was also active in other businesses; he was president of the Springfield, Mount Vernon & Pittsburgh Railroad, and an original incorporator of the First National Bank of Mount Vernon, of which he later became president.
Republican Party and Civil War
With the demise of the Whigs, Columbus Delano joined the new Republican Party. Delano was a delegate to the Chicago Convention in 1860, and he seconded the nomination of Abraham Lincoln's for president. Delano actively campaigned for Lincoln, who won the presidency. The following year Delano served as Commissary-General of Ohio, on the staff of Governor William Dennison Jr., and aided in raising and equipping troops for the Union Army at the start of the American Civil War. In 1862 Delano was a candidate for the United States Senate seat held by Benjamin Wade. With Republicans in control of the Ohio General Assembly, winning their nomination was tantamount to election by the full legislature. Delano was nearly successful, losing the nomination to Wade by only two votes. In 1863, Delano served in the Ohio House of Representatives and played a notable role in shepherding the passage of legislation in support of the Union war effort. Delano served as Chairman of the Judicial Committee and settled the matter of the right of soldiers to vote. Delano served as Chairman of the Ohio delegation that attended the Baltimore Convention. Lincoln was successfully nominated for a second term of office.
Reconstruction Era
Return to Congress
Delano was again elected to the U.S. House in 1864, and he served in the 39th Congress (March 4, 1865—March 3, 1867). During this term, Delano was chairman of the House Committee on Claims. Delano appeared to lose his bid for reelection in 1866, but successfully contested the election of George W. Morgan. After unseating Morgan, Delano served for the remainder of the 40th Congress, June 3, 1868—March 3, 1869. After the Civil War Delano supported Radical Reconstruction, believing that the South was in chaos and that federal involvement in the Southern states, including the army, was necessary to keep the peace. He did not run for reelection in 1868.
Reconstruction speech (1867)
In September 1867, Delano made a speech on Reconstruction in Eaton, Ohio, in which he said that President Andrew Johnson did not have the constitutional authority to establish civil government in the former Confederate states. Delano argued that Congress, not the president, "was required to establish civil governments in all the states." In Delano's view, Johnson and Southern Democrats, who had previously supported the Confederacy, were conspiring to overthrow Congress by undermining its authority to make laws concerning Southern Reconstruction. As proof, Delano cited Johnson's September 1866 Swing Around the Circle speech, in which Johnson said the national legislature was a "pretended Congress". In addition, Delano believed Johnson was conspiring to remove Ulysses S. Grant as head of the army because of Grant's support for Congressional Reconstruction. As a result, Delano advocated impeaching Johnson and removing him from office, and argued that Grant should be protected by Congress from any attempt by Johnson to remove him. Unknown to Delano, on August 11, 1867, Grant had agreed to accept Johnson's offer to serve as interim Secretary of War, while simultaneously remaining general of the army. Under the provisions of the Tenure of Office Act, the appointment would be temporary until the U.S. Senate returned to session in January 1868, and either ratified or prohibited Stanton's removal. Johnson and Grant agreed to Grant's temporary appointment despite explicitly admitting that they disagreed on Reconstruction policy.
Commissioner of Internal Revenue
Delano remained active in politics and supported Grant for president in 1868. When Grant became president in March 1869, he appointed Delano Commissioner of Internal Revenue; Delano served from March 11, 1869, to October 31, 1870. As commissioner, Delano tried with mixed success to collect federal revenue on alcohol and tobacco products manufactured in Indian Territory; these items could be produced for sale tax-free within the territory, but manufacturers routinely sold them in adjacent states without paying the taxes. He also proved unwilling or unable to cope with the frauds of the Whiskey Ring; despite having received warnings of corruption including bribery of federal officials and failure to pay taxes, Delano took little or no action. The department did attempt to prevent the illegal manufacture and sale of whiskey in other areas; on January 31, 1870, an Internal Revenue raid in Georgia captured 18 illicit whiskey stills and their operators. The Whiskey Ring finally stopped in 1875 during Grant's second term by Secretary of the Treasury Benjamin Bristow. The ring leader, John McDonald was an acquaintance of President Grant and had requested from him a political appointment as superintending inspector of internal revenue in St. Louis. Grant then directed Delano to make the appointment. McDonald was convicted of fraud and theft and served 17 months in prison. In all, the investigation of the Whiskey Ring resulted in 110 convictions. Grant's private secretary, Orville E. Babcock was implicated, but acquitted at trial after Grant provided written testimony on his behalf. Additionally, Delano was cleared of involvement in another scandal in which Babcock was implicated, the Gold Ring, which was triggered when two New York financiers attempted to corner the gold market on September 24, 1869. Daniel Butterfield, the Assistant Treasurer of the United States, and Grant's brother in law Abel Corbin were also implicated; Butterfield was forced to resign in October. Delano's reputation for personal honesty was not in question, which was an asset when Grant needed to nominate a new Secretary of the Interior in 1870.
Secretary of the Interior
United States Attorney General Ebenezer R. Hoar and Secretary of the Interior Jacob D. Cox resigned in 1870 because of Grant's decision to overrule them on the issue of the McGarrahan Claims; speculator William McGarrahan claimed title to a tract of mining land in California, as did the New Idria Mining Company. Grant wanted no executive branch action taken, considering both claims to be fraudulent; Cox and Hoar disagreed and decided in favor of New Idria, which prompted Grant to request their resignations.
Grant appointed Delano to succeed Cox at the Interior Department; he served from November 1, 1870, until resigning on October 19, 1875. During Delano's tenure, the Interior Department was the largest bureaucracy in the federal government, including numerous patronage positions. Running the department required knowledge of dissimilar duties, and the ability to master complex details. During Delano's time as secretary, he faced several critical issues and his department was rapidly expanding; despite the challenges he served longer in the job than any other 19th-century incumbent. Delano aligned himself with Grant's private secretary Orville Babcock and Secretary of Navy George M. Robeson. Delano rejected the civil service reforms of his predecessor Cox and reverted the Interior to the spoils system.
Bison slaughter (1870s)
During the Civil War, Union generals practiced a "scorched earth" campaign against Confederate infrastructure that destroyed its vital food supplies, which aided in bringing about the Union's victory. During the late 1860s and early 1870s U.S. Army officers William T. Sherman, Richard Dodge, and Secretary of the Interior Delano adopted a similar strategy against Native Americans in the west, whose primary food supply was free-roaming bison. Dodge said in 1867, "Every buffalo dead is an Indian gone." Delano said in an 1872 annual report, "The rapid disappearance of the game [bison] from the former hunting-grounds must operate largely in favor of our efforts to confine the Indians to smaller areas, and compel them to abandon their nomadic customs."
Much of the destruction of bison was done by private, for-profit buffalo hunters; this policy allowed the slaughter of millions of bison on the American plains, forcing Indians to move to and remain on their reservations. The few free-roaming bison left in Yellowstone were protected from poaching by a federal law passed in 1872; during Delano's tenure, mounting criticism by the public forced Congress to pass legislation that would stop the bison slaughter on the plains. Grant vetoed the legislation in 1874, accepting that the bison slaughter was accomplishing the goal of pacifying the Indians. From 1872 to 1874 the Indians killed approximately 1,215,000 bison as part of providing for their food, shelter, and other basic needs; American hunters slaughtered an estimated 4,374,000 bison, reducing the population to the point that it could not reproduce normally and continue to sustain the Indians.
Apache massacre and peace (1871-1872)
On April 30, 1871, white Tucson townspeople organized a militia which massacred an Apache Indian settlement at Camp Grant. Approximately 144 Apaches were killed, mostly women and children. Twenty-eight children were kidnapped by the Tucson townspeople and held as ransom for the Apache warriors, who were not present at the time of the massacre. The people of Tucson drew national attention by the scale of their activity, resulting in Eastern philanthropists and President Grant denouncing their actions. Arizona citizens, however, believed the killings were justified and claimed that Apache warriors had killed mail runners and settlers near Tucson. President Grant sent Major General George Crook to keep the peace in Arizona; many Apaches had joined the U.S. military for protection.
On November 10, 1871, Delano advocated Grant that Apaches be given new reservation land in Arizona and New Mexico, following the recommendation of Indian Peace Commissioner Vincent Colyer to find them a location where they could be protected from attacks by white settlers. Delano advocated that all Apaches be put on reservations including young men and warriors, who were forming raiding parties, rather than just their old men and women. Grant sent Major General Oliver Otis Howard to Arizona to help resolve the issue; Howard organized a peace conference with Apache leader Eskiminzin in May 1872 at Camp Grant. Howard also negotiated the release of six of the captive Apache children. In December 1872, the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation, a permanent settlement, was established at the junction of the San Carlos and Gila Rivers, the location having been agreed upon by Howard and Eskiminzin. In October 1872, Howard also made a separate peace treaty with the Apache leader Cochise, who settled on the Chiricahua reservation.
Akerman feud (1871)
In June 1871 Grant's Attorney General Amos T. Akerman denied land and bond grants to the Union Pacific Railroad, a company connected to the Crédit Mobilier scandal. Ackerman's anti-railroad rulings were protested by railroad financiers Collis P. Huntington and Jay Gould. Akerman was also instrumental in prosecuting the Ku Klux Klan in the South and protecting African American civil rights. Railroad interests and African-American civil rights had been priorities for the Republican Party; on behalf of Huntington and Gould, Delano twice asked Akerman to change rulings that had gone against the Union Pacific, and both times Akerman refused. Delano then complained to Grant and suggested that Akerman should be removed. Grant agreed, and named former Oregon Senator George H. Williams as Akerman's replacement; Williams was seen as more favorable to railroad interests. On the issue of curtailing the Klan prosecutions, according to historian William S. McFeely, "[w]ith Akerman's departure on January 10, 1872, went any hope that the Republican party would develop as a national party of true racial equality."
Yellowstone (1871-1872)
In 1871, Delano organized America's first federally funded scientific expedition into Yellowstone, which was headed by U.S. Geologist Ferdinand V. Hayden. Delano gave specific instructions for Hayden to make a geographical map of the area and to make astronomical and barometric observations. Delano stated that Hayden's expedition was directed to "...secure as much information as possible, both scientific and practical...give your attention to the geological, mineralogical, zoological, botanical, and agricultural resources of the country." Delano also ordered Hayden to gather information on Native American tribes who lived in the area. Hayden's expedition was outfitted by an extensive scientific team that included two botanists, a meteorologist, a zoologist, an ornithologist, a mineralogist, a topographer, an artist, a photographer, a physician, hunters, mule teams and ambulances, and a support staff.
On March 1, 1872 Ulysses S. Grant signed the Organic Act, incorporating Hayden's findings and discoveries and creating Yellowstone, the world's first national park. The law provided that the Secretary of the Interior exercise "exclusive control" over Yellowstone; As Delano was the incumbent, this made him the first overseer of the first national park in the world. The poaching of fish and wildlife, including bison, was forbidden, and Delano was authorized to preserve the "natural curiosities and wonders" found inside the park. Delano was now in charge of millions of acres of land, however, he was not provided any funding to care for it. Instead, he was given the power to grant 10-year leases in order to raise money to pay for maintaining the park. As soon as the park was created, Delano was inundated by requests for hotel concessions, and he also had to determine the control and use of existing facilities in the park's northern section.
Delano appointed N. P. Langford the first Supervisor of Yellowstone in 1872; Langford banned private toll roads and submitted a plan to build and maintain a park road system free to the public, but Congress refused to fund it. Congress also refused to give Langford a stipend, so he had to supplement his livelihood by working as a banker. In 1874 Lanford requested that Delano petition Congress for appropriations to protect the park from poachers, unlicensed privateers, and trespassers. Delano agreed and demanded Congress appropriate $100,000 to set up a federal park agency to administer and protect the park for the public, and also asked for an increase in the terms of the concession leases from 10 to 20 years. The proposal was turned down; it was not until April 1877, during the Rutherford B. Hayes administration, that Congress appropriated one-tenth of Delano's request, $10,000, without any federal protection agency for the park.
Defied Civil Service Executive order (1871-1874)
In March 1871, Grant signed into law Congressional legislation that established the United States Civil Service Commission, designed to create reform rules and to regulate and reduce corruption in the federal workforce. Implementation of the rules was left to the discretion of the President. Grant appointed New York reformer William Curtis to chair the commission. The Commission reported that appointments and promotions would be controlled by examiners, and each federal Department would create a board of examiners, while political assessments would be abolished. Grant ordered the implementation of the rules to be effective on January 1, 1872. Grant dissolved the commission in 1874 after Congress refused to make the Commission rules permanent, and refused to provide permanent funding for the commission. Congressional interest in civil service reform would remain dormant until 1883.
Under Article 12 of Grant's executive order, Land Office and Pension agent applicants in the Department of Interior were to be approved by a board of examiners. Delano, however, betrayed Grant and defied the order. Grant made no response. The Interior Department's varied and diverse responsibilities increased at a rapid rate and became a source of numerous administrative problems. For the department head, controlling the bureaus and shaping policy was a daunting task; Delano argued that the complexities of the department made implementing civil service reform impractical. Under Delano's tenure, corruption permeated the whole department, including bogus agents in the Bureau of Indian Affairs and thieving clerks in the Patent Office. Delano ultimately resigned because of evidence that surveying contracts had been awarded to companies in which his son John, the chief clerk of the department, and Orvil (or Orville) Grant, the president's brother, had ownership interests; this was more or less permissible by the standards of the day, but to reform-minded individuals, including the editors of the New-York Tribune and other newspapers, it represented a conflict of interest and breach of the public trust.
Supported Ku Klux Klan prosecutions (1872)
To bolster the Reconstruction Acts and the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth constitutional amendments, Grant signed in 1870 Congressional legislation that created the Justice Department. To fight the outrages in the South by the Ku Klux Klan, Grant signed several laws known as the Enforcement Acts in 1870 and 1871. In May 1871, Grant ordered federal troops to help U.S. Marshals in arresting Klansmen. Grant's second Attorney General Amos T. Akerman, a former Confederate soldier, knew of the outrages of the Klan and was zealous in prosecuting white Southerners who terrorized their black neighbors. That October, on Akerman's recommendation, Grant suspended habeas corpus in part of South Carolina and sent federal troops there to enforce the law. After prosecutions by Akerman and his replacement, George Henry Williams, the Klan's power collapsed; by 1872, elections in the South saw African Americans voting in record numbers.
In a campaign speech supporting President Grant's reelection bid in Raleigh, North Carolina, on July 24, 1872, Delano spoke out in favor of prosecutions of the Ku Klux Klan. Delano argued that the Congressional Reconstruction Acts had been passed to "rescue order and government out of the chaos and confusion" that came from the Civil War. This included the enfranchisement of African Americans, most of them former slaves, who had been set "forever free" as a result of the war. Delano stated that if freedom meant anything it was that African Americans "should stand equal before the law and have a voice in legislation." According to Delano, southerners who rejected Republican Reconstruction opted for a subversive war against African Americans and white Republicans, including the formation of the Ku Klux Klan. Delano said the Ku Klux Klan had in fourteen North Carolina counties killed 18 people and cruelly whipped 315 Republicans who had done nothing wrong. Delano said that evidence presented in prosecuting Klan members in the federal courts proved the "barbarity and treason" of the Ku Klux Klan. Grant ended up winning North Carolina and many other Southern states.
Defined Indian policy (1873)
In 1873, Delano formally defined the methods to be used in attaining the goals of Grant's policy toward the Native Americans. Grant's ultimate goal was to convert the Indians to Christianity and assimilate them into the white culture in order to prepare them for full U.S. Citizenship; these fundamental principles continued to influence Indian Peace policy for the rest of the 19th Century. According to Delano, relocating the Indians to reservations was of primary importance, since this would supposedly protect them from the violence of white settlers as whites moved onto lands previously held by Native Americans. In addition, Christian organizations and missionaries operating on these reservations could "civilize" the Native Americans, in line with the widespread belief (including Delano's) that allowing the Indians to continue to practice their own culture would lead to their destruction. In Delano's view, his actions would accomplish Grant's goal by facilitating Indian assimilation into white culture.
Black Hills take over (1875)
Under the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie, the Oglala Sioux had been given a huge reservation including the Black Hills in what is now South Dakota. The Black Hills were the site of Sioux sacred religious rituals and spiritual ceremonies. Following the Panic of 1873 the country was desperate for new wealth. In 1874 rumors spread of gold being discovered in the Black Hills by George Custer's recent expedition. Grant sent the expedition, hoping to find gold in order to support his species currency policy; Delano opposed the move, believing travel through and eventual occupation of hunting grounds violated the Treaty of Fort Laramie and could lead to an Indian war. Delano told Grant that a "general war with the Sioux would be deplorable. It would undo the good already accomplished by our efforts for peaceable relations." Whites immediately flocked to the area in search of gold; in 1875, Congress appropriated $25,000 for the purchase of the Black Hills, hoping that a cash payment would assuage the Sioux and prevent war.
In mid-May 1875, Red Cloud, Chief of the Oglala Lakota (Sioux), and other Indian tribal leaders were brought to Washington D.C. to negotiate the sale of the Black Hills. The Sioux believed the amount offered by Congress was too low; recognizing that they would eventually lose the Black Hills, Red Cloud decided to negotiate and told Delano they would sign away the Black Hills if $25,000 in cash was first drawn from the Treasury Department, to ensure that the Sioux would be paid. Delano had no intention of giving Red Cloud cash, but rather a receipt for $25,000 from the Treasury and additional presents purchased at a later date and distributed to members of the tribe. Red Cloud insisted that he wanted the $25,000 in cash at the signing, which would be taken home and divided among the members of the tribe.
Delano warned Grant that a war would likely break out if negotiations were not successful. When negotiations broke down, Grant was brought into the process to bargain directly with Red Cloud. Grant told Red Cloud that the Black Hills had no buffalo, so it would benefit the Indians to accept payment because they would at least receive something of value in consideration for signing away valueless hunting rights. He also informed Red Cloud that whites were going to take over the Black Hills anyway, so it would be best not to leave empty-handed. Concerned that they would not be paid if they signed an agreement first, Red Cloud asked Grant to withdraw the money from the Treasury, and hold it until after the signing. Grant refused and walked out, telling Red Cloud he had to sign over the Black Hills before any payment was made. On June 4, Delano offered Red Cloud an additional $25,000 in appropriations, but Red Cloud refused.
With Red Cloud's refusal, Delano reluctantly let the Indians take the unsigned agreement back to their tribal agencies for further discussion among the members of the tribe, with final terms and signatures to be negotiated later by an appointed commission. The failure of the Washington, D.C. negotiations to produce an agreement was lampooned in the June 19 edition of Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper. Upon their return to Sioux country, Red Cloud and other Lakota leaders finally signed away their hunting rights to the Black Hills under Article 11 of the Treaty of Fort Laramie in exchange for the original $25,000 Congressional appropriation. Another group of Sioux chiefs, including Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, challenged Red Cloud's authority and started the armed resistance about which Delano had warned Grant. This challenge to Red Cloud's authority combined with Lakota unhappiness over white encroachment into the Black Hills resulted in the Great Sioux War, which started in February 1876.
Resignation and corruption (1875)
In 1875, Delano's reputation for personal honesty came under increasing scrutiny as revelations of corruption in the Grant administration continued to be the subject of investigations and media revelations. Although Delano himself was not known to be personally corrupt, his tenure was shadowed by controversy, while fraud prevailed in his Interior Department. There were accusations of an "Indian Ring" and corrupt agents who exploited Native American people. Westerners unhappy with Delano's rulings on land grants and other issues accused Delano's son John, an employee of the Interior Department, of corruption, bribery, and fraud in the Wyoming Territory.
Surveyor General Ring
The New-York Tribune reported that John Delano was profiteering through Interior's Office of the Surveyor-General by accepting partnerships in Wyoming surveying contracts without having been trained in surveying or map-making, and without providing any meaningful contribution to the fulfillment of the contracts; the obvious implication was John Delano had taken extortion money from illicit contract agreements. In March 1875, the former chief clerk of the Surveyor's Office, L. C. Stevens, wrote to Benjamin Bristow, Grant's Secretary of the Treasury, stating that Surveyor General Silas Reed had made several corrupt contracts which financially benefited John Delano. Stevens also said both Reed and John Delano had blackmailed five deputy surveyors for $5,000. According to Stevens, Reed and Delano had coerced the deputy surveyors to pay John Delano before he would release the Interior Department warrants for land the deputy surveyors had sold to prospective settlers. Governor Edward M. McCook of the Colorado Territory, claimed that John Delano had accepted a $1,200 bribe from a Colorado banker, Jerome B. Chaffee, to secure land patents from the Department of Interior. More damaging was Stevens' charge that Columbus Delano knew and approved of what Reed had done for John Delano.
In addition to Delano's son, Grant's brother Orvil was paid for surveying services in the Wyoming Territory, although Orvil did no work. The chief clerk of the Cheyenne branch of the federal Surveying Office testified before Congress concerning Orvil. When asked whether Orvil did any work in the Wyoming Territory, the chief clerk said, "No, sir, I do not think he was ever in the territory."
Indian Ring
In July 1875, Delano was rumored to know that Orvil Grant, the president's brother, had received Indian trading posts, that were a corrupt source of lucrative kickbacks, from the sutler, at the expense of the Indians and soldiers. The higher the sale price on goods, that the Indians and soldiers would pay, the higher the profits. Even the sale of rifles to hostile Indian tribes was allowed, to make more money. The profits were split and sent to the other sutler partners.
Delano was rumored to have threatened Grant at Long Branch that he would expose Orvil to the public when Delano's resignation was enforced. He told Grant that he would quietly leave office after Congressional Indian fraud investigations were complete. In February 1876, the New York Herald reported that Orvil made money in the Sioux country by "starving the squaws and children." Orvil testified before Congress that Grant had influenced the War Department to get him traderships. Orvil received rights to operate four trading posts, then set up "partners" who kicked back half their profits to Orvil. Though Orvil claimed Grant had not known of the kickbacks, he expressed no remorse for his corruption, and his testimony left Grant embarrassed.
The kingpin of this Indian Ring was not Delano, but Secretary of War William W. Belknap, who was given legal authority by Congress in 1870 to appoint sutlers to traderships at Army posts near Indian reservations, which were controlled by Interior. Belknap, who had awarded Orvil Grant the four traderships, took advantage of the law to personally profit by arranging an illicit partnership at Fort Sill between his wife Carrie, Caleb P. Marsh, and sutler John S. Evans. After Carrie's death, Belknap married her sister Amanda, who continued the illicit tradership arrangement. Belknap's household received as much as $20,000 in illegal profits (nearly $500,000 in 2021), which Belknap needed in order to finance the lavish Washington D.C. entertainment lifestyle expected of cabinet members and other prominent political figures.
Aware that the U.S. House was investigating him, on March 2, 1876 Belknap visited Grant and immediately resigned. The House continued its inquiry and found him guilty of five articles of impeachment. Grant's attorney general placed Belknap under house arrest during his U.S. Senate trial. Though most senators believed the evidence of Belknap's corruption, enough believed they lacked the jurisdiction to punish Belknap because he was no longer in office to acquit him. Despite escaping conviction, Belknap's reputation was so marred that he never returned to political office.
Resignation
Both Bristow and Secretary of State Hamilton Fish demanded that Grant fire Delano. Grant declined, telling Fish, "If Delano were now to resign, it would be retreating under fire and be accepted as an admission of the charges." The controversy did not abate; by mid-August, it became clear that Delano could not remain in office; Delano offered his resignation and Grant accepted, but Grant did not make it public. Grant finally announced his acceptance of Delano's resignation on October 19, 1875, after Bristow threatened to resign if Delano was not replaced. Grant replaced Delano with Zachariah Chandler, who quickly initiated civil service and other reforms in the Department of the Interior. Delano's administration was investigated by Congress, Chandler, and a special presidential commission; his personal conduct was exonerated, but his reputation as an honest, capable administrator was damaged, and Delano never again ran for office or served in an appointed one. In April 1876, The Committee on the Expenditures in the Interior Department confirmed that Reed had set up an illicit slush fund for John Delano's financial benefit, and that Delano thanked Reed while also telling him "to be careful to do nothing that would have the semblance of wrong."
Delano's defense
On September 26, 1875, Delano submitted to Grant a letter defending his tenure at the Department of the Interior; in essence, he argued that the size and complexity of his department made it difficult to manage effectively. Delano stated that he had resigned because he intended to return to his business and domestic concerns in Ohio. He indicated that his duties as Secretary of the Interior were "laborious, difficult, and delicate" because he was required to supervise five disparate bureaus or offices: Land; Indian; Pensions; Patent; and Education, in addition to "a mass of miscellaneous business unknown to any except those connected to the public service."
Delano also reminded Grant that the Land Office dealt with complex railroad land grants, as well as issues resolving land titles in California, Arizona and New Mexico, because those areas had previously been under Spain's and then Mexico's jurisdiction. In addition, the Indian Bureau dealt with many "intricate, delicate, and vexatious questions" growing out of previous Indian treaties. Delano further informed Grant that when he had to decide issues between competing claimants, those he ruled against often gave false and misleading statements rather than accept their loss, which was to Delano's detriment. Delano concluded by claiming a successful tenure, informing Grant that the Interior Department "has never been in a more prosperous or better condition than it now is."
Chandler reforms
Delano's successor, Zachariah Chandler, did not complain about his departmental duties, and immediately investigated allegations of corruption. Chandler found things differently than Delano's explanations to Grant and decided the department needed major reforming. During his first month in office, he fired all the clerks in one room of the Patent Office; he noted that every desk was vacant, and concluded that the employees were either involved in corruption or lacked the integrity to reform the department. Almost twenty employees were found to be entirely fictitious; they had been created by a profiteering ring to defraud the government by falsely receiving pay for work that was not performed. Chandler also fired unqualified clerks who profiteered by hiring out their work to lower-paid replacements and pocketing the salary difference.
In addition, Chandler simplified Patent Office rules, making patents easier to obtain and reducing the cost for applicants. In December 1875, Chandler banned persons known as "Indian Attorneys", whose claims to represent Native Americans in Washington were questionable. He found the Bureau of Indian Affairs to be the most corrupt, and he replaced its commissioner and chief clerk. In addition to Indian Affairs, Chandler also investigated the Pension Bureau. This review resulted in the identification and removal of numerous fraudulent pensions, which saved the federal government hundreds of thousands of dollars. Chandler also revoked as many as 800 fraudulent land grants that had been approved during Delano's tenure.
Later life and career
On his resignation from Grant's cabinet, Delano returned to Mount Vernon where for the next twenty years he served as president of the First National Bank of Mount Vernon. He was a longtime trustee of Kenyon College, which awarded him the honorary degree of LL.D.; among his charitable and civic donations was his endowment of Kenyon's Delano Hall; this building was in use until it was destroyed by a fire in 1906. His Lakeholm mansion, built in 1871 at the outskirts of Mount Vernon, is now part of Mount Vernon Nazarene University.
On April 3, 1880, John W. Wright, a judge from Indiana, was convicted at trial of having assaulted Delano on a Washington, D.C. street corner on October 12, 1877. Wright, who had been an Indian Agent in the Interior Department while Delano was secretary, had been convicted of fraud and blamed Delano. On the day of the assault he was in the company of Walter H. Smith, formerly solicitor of the Department of the Interior; Wright was accused of provoking a fight by questioning Delano's honesty as Secretary of the Interior and then striking Delano with his walking stick. Wright claimed that Delano had been verbally harassing him and that he then felt compelled to defend himself. Delano did not sustain serious injuries; Wright's defense was weakened by witness testimony that after the assault, he claimed credit for it, and stated that he would have continued if passers-by had not intervened. Wright was sentenced to 30 days in jail and fined $1,000. On April 8, 1880, President Rutherford B. Hayes pardoned Wright, with his release from custody conditional upon the payment of the fine.
On December 3, 1889, Delano was elected president of the National Wool Growers Association, a lobbying group organized to advocate for tariff protection of the national wool industry. The association had been formed in 1865, and became more active in the 1880s as a response to the decline in domestic wool production; wool growers faced increasing overseas competition and had gone from 50 million sheep producing wool in 1883 to 40 million in 1888.
Death
Delano died on October 23, 1896; he was interred at Mount Vernon's Mound View Cemetery, Lot 42, Section 16, Grave 4. Delano's death was sudden and unexpected, and took place at his "Lake Howe" home near Mount Vernon, at 11:00 AM. There was no connection between his wife Mrs. Delano's near-fatal accident and his own death.
Historical legacy
Delano's career prior to becoming Secretary of the Interior was not known for any scandals, nor has he been implicated in the Crédit Mobilier scandal. Historians, however, are critical of Delano's overall tenure as Secretary of the Interior especially for his loose anti-reform administrative style and for allowing corruption to permeate the department, unlike Grant's first appointee, Jacob D. Cox, who had been an enthusiastic advocate of civil service reform. Delano sided with the railroad interests over reform and allied with Grant's private secretary Orville Babcock and Secretary of Navy George M. Robeson, associated with corruption. Delano was at odds with Grant's reformers, including Secretary of State Hamilton Fish, Secretary of Treasury Benjamin Bristow, and Attorney General Amos T. Akerman. The corruption in the Bureau of Indian Affairs under Delano eventually led to the end of political appointees, the appointment of career civil servants, and the bureaucratization of the agency. Delano defended his reputation by saying that the Interior Department was difficult to manage due to its expanding size and its many offices with disparate functions.
Indian advancement
In March 1869, President Grant appointed Ely S. Parker, a Seneca Indian, to Commissioner of Indian Affairs serving under both Secretary of Interior Cox and Secretary of Interior Delano. Although there was resistance to his appointment, the Senate confirmed Parker could legally hold office, and he was confirmed by the Senate. During Parker's tenor, lasting until August 1871, Indian wars decreased significantly from 101 in 1869 to 58 in 1870.
145 years, 5 months, 16 days later after Delano left office in 1875, Delano's position as Secretary of Interior was finally filled in by a Native American in 2021. On December 17, 2020, President elect Joe Biden announced that he would nominate Deb Haaland to serve as Secretary of the Interior. She was confirmed by the United States Senate on March 15, 2021, by a vote of 51–40. Following her swearing-in on March 16, she became the first Native American to serve as a Cabinet secretary and the second to serve in the Cabinet, after Republican former vice president and Kaw Nation citizen Charles Curtis.
Native American land seized (1871-1875)
Between 1871 and 1875, the term years Delano was Secretary of the Interior, 73,157,155 acres (114,308 square miles) of Indian land was seized by the United States. By comparison, this is about the size of the state of Arizona (113,642 square miles).
Reservation system
Although the Indian reservation system Delano strongly advocated, protecting Indians
from white sutlers, looked good on paper, it denied the way of life Indians had sustained themselves for thousands of years. With their food supply of buffalo disseminated by white hunters, Indians were forced to live under white culture, yet survive on poor reservation lands and limited supplies. Native Americans today still suffer from the aftershocks of a brutal Interior reservation policy under Delano and his 19th Century successors. Indian culture was devastated, while in practice the reservation policy was monstrous by modern standards.
Bison slaughter and Indian suppression
Delano has also received criticism for allowing millions of bison to be slaughtered, with the exception of Yellowstone, in order to compel the Indians to move to and remain on their reservations, a policy approved by President Grant and the U.S. Army. The demise of the bison herds during Delano's tenure led to the destruction of the Plains Indian culture, including their economy, cosmology, and religion. Without the bison, the Plains Indians could not resist late 19th Century expansionism, including the development of the railroads in the American West. This policy led to more restrictive measures against Native Americans in the 1880s and 1890s, including the banning of medicine making, polygamy, bride payments, and the Sun Dance.
Yellowstone and bison recovery
Delano was the first Secretary of the Interior to be in charge of Yellowstone, America's and the world's first national park. The charges of misconduct and lax management made during Delano's tenure at Interior did not include the new park, the management of which was seen as a success. Among its features, it outlawed poaching wildlife and served as a haven for small numbers of free-roaming bison, left after the slaughter of the great herds that, with the exception of Yellowstone, Delano had fully supported. On August 25, 1916, Congress created the National Park Service to federally protect and administer Yellowstone and other national parks; Delano had proposed the creation of the agency in 1874. Yellowstone today generates around 4 million visitors per year.
By 1902, poachers had illegally killed and reduced Yellowstone bison herd size to about two dozen animals. The U.S. Army, who administered Yellowstone, prior to the creation of the National Park Service, took over and protected the last remaining bison from further poaching. Bison from private herds were incorporated into Yellowstone, forming a northern herd. For decades, however, as Yellowstone bisons increased in number, herds were reduced, believing the animals had caused overgrazing. The practice of reducing the Yellowstone bison population ceased in 1968. However, by the 2000s, the reduction of Yellowstone bison herds resumed, "due to increasing numbers and litigation about migration into Montana." As of August 2019, Yellowstone had 4,829 bison from two herds, 3,667 northern bison, and 1,162 central bison.
Corruption aftermath and Pendleton Act
In the aftermath of Delano's departure and retirement from the Interior in 1875 and Chandler reforms, the large Department still experienced scandals but were much less pervasive than during Delano's tenor. During the Rutherford B. Hayes administration, on May 31, 1880, a Senate committee reported on the Interior Department and Secretary of the Interior Carl Schurz, a reformer, over his removal and jailing of the Ponca Indians. On December 18, 1880, a commission appointed Hayes, began an investigation of the Department's treatment of the Ponca. On January 25, 1881, the commission reported to President Hayes the treatment of the Ponca was "needlessly disastrous and cruel".
In January 1883, President Arthur signed into law the landmark legislation, known as the Pendleton Act, that made civil service reform permanent, with the goal to reduce corruption and hire persons based on a merit system, rather than patronage. Patterned off Grant's Civil Service Commission (1871) and rules, the Act put 11 percent of the federal workforce under civil service law, and reestablished the Civil Service Commission, to regulate political assessments and payoffs. Good men were appointed by Arthur to run the commission, and surprisingly, Arthur was friendly to reformers. The passage of the act was motivated by the assassination of President James A. Garfield by a disgruntled office seeker.
Scandals continued to periodically surface. In 1884, William W. Dudley, Commissioner of the Pensions Office, was engaged in political activity, promising expedited approval to petitioners who voted for James G. Blaine and John A. Logan, the Republicans President and Vice President candidates. President Chester A. Arthur, a Republican, did nothing to stop the practice. In 1888, Secretary of Interior William F. Vilas, appointed by President Grover Cleveland (1885-1889), a Democrat, was investigated by Congress. Vilas was a stockholder of the Superior Lumber Company and was suspected of profiteering. In 1889, the Senate investigation report concluded that Vilas did not personally profiteer.
During the Benjamin Harrison Republican administration (1889-1893), an Interior probe investigation found evidence Harrison's appointed Pension Bureau Commissioner James R. Tanner took "lavish and illegal handouts". Tanner resigned and Harrison appointed Green B. Raum Pension Bureau Commissioner. Raum was accused of taking kickback loans to expedite pension cases. A Democratic House investigation said Raum had "prostituted his office" and should be removed, but Harrison declined.
Personal reputation
In 1898, historian Joseph Patterson Smith said Delano had attained, "a long and distinguished career, as an eminent lawyer, an able businessman and one intimately identified with the governmental affairs of the state and nation." In 2001, historian Jean Edward Smith, taking a harsher view, said Delano betrayed his public trust while Secretary of the Interior by allowing corruption to pervade throughout his department, "at the expense of those who most needed government assistance: the Native American." Benjamin Bristow, Grant's appointed Secretary of Treasury, said Secretary Delano was "a very mean dog," and deserved "the execration of every honest man."
Honors
Delano, California
Delano, California, located in Kern County, originally a terminal railroad town, was founded on July 14, 1869. The unnamed town was officially named in honor of Columbus Delano, at the time Delano was Secretary of the Interior, during the Grant administration. The name of Delano was officially given by the Southern Pacific Railroad. Delano's first post office opened in 1874. The town of Delano was incorporated as a city in 1915.
Mountains
Certain mountains in Utah (Delano Peak) and Montana (Mount Delano) are named after Delano. Delano Peak, in Utah, has an elevation of 12,174 ft (3,711 m). Mount Delano, in Montana, has an elevation of 10,138 ft (3090 m).
Notable Department of Interior events
1856-1873 Interior's Pacific Wagon Road Office improved the historic western emigrant routes.
1869 The Bureau of Education is placed under Interior (later transferred to the Department of Health, Education and Welfare).
1869-1870 Cook–Folsom–Peterson Expedition Yellowstone
1870 Washburn–Langford–Doane Expedition Yellowstone
1871 Hayden Geological Survey of 1871 Yellowstone Sponsored by the federal government. Delano instructed the survey.
1872 Congress establishes Yellowstone as the first National Park.
1873 Congress transferred territorial oversight from the Secretary of State to the Secretary of the Interior.
Notes
References
Sources
Books
Internet
New York Times
Newspapers
Speeches
External links
Columbus Delano at Find A Grave
The Department of Everything Else: Highlights of Interior History (1989)
Delano Peak, Utah Access Date: December 1, 2021
Mount Delano, Montana Access Date: December 1, 2021
1809 births
1896 deaths
Delano family
United States Secretaries of the Interior
Commissioners of Internal Revenue
Members of the United States House of Representatives from Ohio
Members of the Ohio House of Representatives
Ohio lawyers
People from Mount Vernon, Ohio
People from Shoreham, Vermont
Ohio Whigs
Ohio Republicans
Members of the Kenyon College Board of Trustees
Grant administration cabinet members
Whig Party members of the United States House of Representatives
Republican Party members of the United States House of Representatives
19th-century American politicians
Republican Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Ohio
| true |
[
"S v Hendrix, an important case in South African criminal procedure, dealt with s119 of the Criminal Procedure Act, 1977. The court held that this section and the rest of Chapter 19 do not, where the accused pleads not guilty, envisage a trial, nor that anything more shall be held than a preliminary enquiry in order to clarify the matters in respect of which the State and the accused are at issue.\n\nIt is necessary for a \"charge\" to be put to the accused in order for him to know what the State case against him is eventually going to be. It is necessary for him to \"plead\" to that charge to indicate what his answer to that charge is.\n\nIf his plea is one of guilty, then there is provision for the proceedings to continue to finality.\n\nIf his plea is one of not guilty then the proceedings thereafter are not trial proceedings.\n\nAccordingly, the rule that an accused person is entitled to a verdict once he has pleaded has no application as the provision of s106(4) of the CPA relates only to the situation where an accused person pleads to a charge in a court which is trying him on that charge.\n\nReferences\nS v Hendrix and Others 1979 (3) SA 816 (D)\n\nSouth African criminal case law",
"John Bradstreet (22 July 1652 – 11 January 1697) was an accused \"witch\" during the Salem Witch Trials.\n\nSalem Witch Trials \nBradstreet encountered some of the \"afflicted girls\" in the street, after which a dog barked at him and ran away. The girls accused him of witchcraft, and Bradstreet immediately fled to New York. He returned to Massachusetts after the hysteria died down. The dog was hanged as a witch.\n\nFamily \nBradstreet was the son of Governor Simon Bradstreet and his wife Anne Dudley Bradstreet. Anne's father was Thomas Dudley, another governor of Massachusetts Bay. John's brother, Dudley, was Justice of the Peace in Andover and another accused \"witch\".\n\nHe married Sarah Perkins and had the following known children:\n Simon, married Elizabeth Capen.\n Mercy, married John Hazen.\n Samuel, married first Sarah Clarke, second Elizabeth Champman.\nBradstreet is an ancestor of actor J. K. Simmons.\n\nReferences \n\n1652 births\n1697 deaths\nPeople accused of witchcraft\nPeople of the Salem witch trials"
] |
[
"Columbus Delano",
"Resignation and corruption (1875)",
"when did he resign?",
"1875,",
"wha did he resign from?",
"office;",
"why did he resign?",
"Bristow threatened to resign if Delano was not replaced.",
"was he replaced?",
"Grant replaced Delano with Zachariah Chandler,",
"what was the corruption?",
"his personal conduct was exonerated, but his reputation as an honest, capable administrator was damaged, and Delano never again ran for office",
"what was he accused of?",
"extortion",
"who accused him?",
"Secretary of the Treasury,"
] |
C_845baa23458b4b09a935e687b86d4060_1
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Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?
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Besides Columbus Delano being accused of extortion, are there any other interesting aspects about this article?
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Columbus Delano
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In 1875, Delano's reputation for personal honesty came under increasing scrutiny as revelations of corruption in the Grant administration continued to be the subject of investigations and media revelations. Westerners unhappy with Delano's rulings on land grants and other issues accused Delano's son John, an employee of the Interior Department, of corruption, bribery, and fraud. Governor Edward M. McCook of the Colorado Territory, claimed that John Delano had accepted a $1,200 bribe from a Colorado banker, Jerome B. Chaffee, to secure land patents from the Department of Interior. The New-York Tribune reported that John Delano was profiteering through Interior's Office of the Surveyor General by accepting partnerships in Wyoming surveying contracts without having been trained in surveying or map making, and without providing any meaningful contribution to the fulfillment of the contracts; the obvious implication was John Delano had taken extortion money from illicit contract agreements. In March 1875, the former chief clerk of the Surveyor's Office, L. C. Stevens, wrote to Benjamin Bristow, Grant's Secretary of the Treasury, stating that Surveyor General Silas Reed had made several corrupt contracts which financially benefited John Delano. Stevens also said both Reed and John Delano had blackmailed five deputy surveyors for $5,000. More damaging was Stevens' charge that Columbus Delano knew and approved of what Reed had done for John Delano. Both Bristow and Secretary of State Hamilton Fish demanded that Grant fire Delano. Grant declined, telling Fish, "If Delano were now to resign, it would be retreating under fire and be accepted as an admission of the charges." The controversy did not abate; by mid-August it became clear that Delano could not remain in office; Delano offered his resignation and Grant accepted, but Grant did not make it public. Grant finally announced his acceptance of Delano's resignation on October 19, 1875, after Bristow threatened to resign if Delano was not replaced. Grant replaced Delano with Zachariah Chandler, who quickly initiated civil service and other reforms in the Department of the Interior. Delano's administration was investigated by Congress, Chandler, and a special presidential commission; his personal conduct was exonerated, but his reputation as an honest, capable administrator was damaged, and Delano never again ran for office or served in an appointed one. In April 1876, The Committee on the Expeditures in the Interior Department confirmed that Reed had set up an illicit slush fund for John Delano's financial benefit, and that Delano thanked Reed while also telling him "to be careful to do nothing that would have the semblance of wrong." CANNOTANSWER
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Reed and John Delano had blackmailed five deputy surveyors for $5,000.
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Columbus Delano (June 4, 1809 – October 23, 1896) was a lawyer, rancher, banker, statesman and a member of the prominent Delano family. Forced to live on his own at an early age, Delano struggled to become a self-made man. Delano was elected U.S. Congressman from Ohio, serving two full terms and one partial one. Prior to the American Civil War, Delano was a National Republican and then a Whig; as a Whig, he was identified with the faction of the party that opposed the spread of slavery into the Western territories, and he became a Republican when the party was founded as the major anti-slavery party after the demise of the Whigs in the 1850s. During Reconstruction Delano advocated federal protection of African-Americans' civil rights, and argued that the former Confederate states should be administered by the federal government, but was not part of the United States until they met the requirements for readmission to the Union.
Delano served as President Ulysses S. Grant's Secretary of the Interior during a time of rapid Westward expansionism, and contended with conflicts between Native tribes and White American settlers. He was instrumental in the establishment of America's first national park, having supervised the first federally funded scientific expedition into Yellowstone in 1871, and becoming America's first national park overseer in 1872. In 1874, Delano requested that Congress protect Yellowstone through the creation of a federally funded administrative agency, the first Secretary of the Interior to request such preservation of a nationally important site.
Believing that tribal communalism and a nomadic lifestyle led to war and impoverishment, Delano argued the best Indian policy was to allot Native tribes small reservations in the Indian Territory. In Delano's view, the reservation system humanely protected Native tribes from the encroachment of western settlers, aiding in Indian assimilation into white culture, language, attire, culture, and religion. The goal was for Indian people to be independent from federal funding. To compel the Native tribes of the west to move to reservations, Delano supported the slaughter to the near extinction of the vast buffalo herds outside of Yellowstone, which were essential to the maintenance of the Plains Indians' way of life.
Concerning government reform, Delano defied Grant's 1872 executive order to implement the first Civil Service Commission's recommendations. With the exception of Yellowstone, the spoils system and corruption permeated throughout the Interior Department during his tenure, and Grant requested Delano's resignation in 1875; he left office with damage to his reputation for personal honesty. Although Interior scandals, at times, continued to fester in various succeeding administrations, corruption during Delano's tenure under Grant was excessive. Delano remained a spoils man at a time when reformer demands for a federal merit system were gaining support. Delano returned to Ohio to practice law, tend to his business interests, and raise livestock; he did not return to politics and died in 1896.
Although Delano was considered a 19th Century American "major mover and shaker", his legacy has a dark side, clouded by spoils man politics, harsh treatment of Indians, and endorsement of slaughtering buffalo. Historians are critical of Delano's tenure at the Interior Department, arguing that he could have done more to stop corruption, protect bison, prevent dispossession of Native American land, and the destruction of the culture of the Plains Indians. Yellowstone is considered Delano's greatest achievement and he was considered to be an effective first administrator. The park aided in the recovery of free-roaming buffalo. By August 2019, 4,829 bison were counted in Yellowstone. While in office, Delano was outspoken for his strong support of black American rights and denouncement of the Ku Klux Klan.
Early life, education, and political career
Columbus Delano was born in Shoreham, Vermont on June 5, 1809, the son of James Delano and Lucinda Bateman. The Delano family was of French ancestry; its first representative in America, Philip Delano, voyaged from Holland in 1621 on the Fortune, the sister ship of the Mayflower. In 1815, at the age of six, Delano's father died, and his family was put under the care of his uncle Luther Bateman. In 1817 the family moved to Mount Vernon in Knox County, Ohio, where Delano resided for the rest of his life. Delano was raised primarily by Luther Bateman, who died in 1817. After an elementary education Delano labored in a woolen mill in Lexington, Ohio, and at other jobs, struggling on his own, to become largely self-sufficient while still a teenager.
After beginning self-directed legal studies, Delano formally trained with Mount Vernon attorney Hosmer Curtis from 1830 to 1831, and he attained admission to the bar in 1831. Delano became active in politics as a National Republican, and later as a Whig, and in 1834 he won election as Prosecuting Attorney for Knox County. He won reelection in 1836 and served two terms, 1835 to 1839.
Marriage and family
On July 14, 1834, Delano married Elizabeth Leavenworth of Mount Vernon, the daughter of M. Martin Leavenworth and Clara Sherman Leavenworth. Their children included daughter Elizabeth (1838–1904), who was the wife of Reverend John G. Ames of Washington, DC, and son John Sherman Delano (1841–1896), a businessman who also worked with his father at the Department of the Interior.
Delano and Ulysses S. Grant were distant cousins; they had great-great grandparents in common.
United States Representative (1845–1847)
In 1844, Delano was elected to the United States House of Representatives after appearing on the ballot as a replacement for Samuel White Jr., who had died after winning the Whig nomination. He went on to defeat Democrat Caleb J. McNulty by only 12 votes, 9,297 to 9,285. Delano served in the 29th Congress, (March 4, 1845—March 3, 1847), and was a member of the Committee on Invalid Pensions. He also gave a speech denouncing the Mexican–American War which earned him national recognition as an opponent of the conflict. Delano did not run for reelection in 1846, instead campaigning for the 1848 Whig nomination for Governor of Ohio. He lost to Seabury Ford by two votes at the January 1848 party convention; Ford went on to defeat Democrat John B. Weller in a close general election, and served one term. Delano subsequently became involved in several business ventures; in 1850 he set up a successful Wall Street banking partnership, Delano, Dunlevy, & Company, which specialized in railroad bonds; it included a branch office in Cincinnati and operated for five years. In addition, Delano became a successful sheep rancher, and served as president of the National Association of Wool Growers and the Ohio Wool Growers Association. He was also active in other businesses; he was president of the Springfield, Mount Vernon & Pittsburgh Railroad, and an original incorporator of the First National Bank of Mount Vernon, of which he later became president.
Republican Party and Civil War
With the demise of the Whigs, Columbus Delano joined the new Republican Party. Delano was a delegate to the Chicago Convention in 1860, and he seconded the nomination of Abraham Lincoln's for president. Delano actively campaigned for Lincoln, who won the presidency. The following year Delano served as Commissary-General of Ohio, on the staff of Governor William Dennison Jr., and aided in raising and equipping troops for the Union Army at the start of the American Civil War. In 1862 Delano was a candidate for the United States Senate seat held by Benjamin Wade. With Republicans in control of the Ohio General Assembly, winning their nomination was tantamount to election by the full legislature. Delano was nearly successful, losing the nomination to Wade by only two votes. In 1863, Delano served in the Ohio House of Representatives and played a notable role in shepherding the passage of legislation in support of the Union war effort. Delano served as Chairman of the Judicial Committee and settled the matter of the right of soldiers to vote. Delano served as Chairman of the Ohio delegation that attended the Baltimore Convention. Lincoln was successfully nominated for a second term of office.
Reconstruction Era
Return to Congress
Delano was again elected to the U.S. House in 1864, and he served in the 39th Congress (March 4, 1865—March 3, 1867). During this term, Delano was chairman of the House Committee on Claims. Delano appeared to lose his bid for reelection in 1866, but successfully contested the election of George W. Morgan. After unseating Morgan, Delano served for the remainder of the 40th Congress, June 3, 1868—March 3, 1869. After the Civil War Delano supported Radical Reconstruction, believing that the South was in chaos and that federal involvement in the Southern states, including the army, was necessary to keep the peace. He did not run for reelection in 1868.
Reconstruction speech (1867)
In September 1867, Delano made a speech on Reconstruction in Eaton, Ohio, in which he said that President Andrew Johnson did not have the constitutional authority to establish civil government in the former Confederate states. Delano argued that Congress, not the president, "was required to establish civil governments in all the states." In Delano's view, Johnson and Southern Democrats, who had previously supported the Confederacy, were conspiring to overthrow Congress by undermining its authority to make laws concerning Southern Reconstruction. As proof, Delano cited Johnson's September 1866 Swing Around the Circle speech, in which Johnson said the national legislature was a "pretended Congress". In addition, Delano believed Johnson was conspiring to remove Ulysses S. Grant as head of the army because of Grant's support for Congressional Reconstruction. As a result, Delano advocated impeaching Johnson and removing him from office, and argued that Grant should be protected by Congress from any attempt by Johnson to remove him. Unknown to Delano, on August 11, 1867, Grant had agreed to accept Johnson's offer to serve as interim Secretary of War, while simultaneously remaining general of the army. Under the provisions of the Tenure of Office Act, the appointment would be temporary until the U.S. Senate returned to session in January 1868, and either ratified or prohibited Stanton's removal. Johnson and Grant agreed to Grant's temporary appointment despite explicitly admitting that they disagreed on Reconstruction policy.
Commissioner of Internal Revenue
Delano remained active in politics and supported Grant for president in 1868. When Grant became president in March 1869, he appointed Delano Commissioner of Internal Revenue; Delano served from March 11, 1869, to October 31, 1870. As commissioner, Delano tried with mixed success to collect federal revenue on alcohol and tobacco products manufactured in Indian Territory; these items could be produced for sale tax-free within the territory, but manufacturers routinely sold them in adjacent states without paying the taxes. He also proved unwilling or unable to cope with the frauds of the Whiskey Ring; despite having received warnings of corruption including bribery of federal officials and failure to pay taxes, Delano took little or no action. The department did attempt to prevent the illegal manufacture and sale of whiskey in other areas; on January 31, 1870, an Internal Revenue raid in Georgia captured 18 illicit whiskey stills and their operators. The Whiskey Ring finally stopped in 1875 during Grant's second term by Secretary of the Treasury Benjamin Bristow. The ring leader, John McDonald was an acquaintance of President Grant and had requested from him a political appointment as superintending inspector of internal revenue in St. Louis. Grant then directed Delano to make the appointment. McDonald was convicted of fraud and theft and served 17 months in prison. In all, the investigation of the Whiskey Ring resulted in 110 convictions. Grant's private secretary, Orville E. Babcock was implicated, but acquitted at trial after Grant provided written testimony on his behalf. Additionally, Delano was cleared of involvement in another scandal in which Babcock was implicated, the Gold Ring, which was triggered when two New York financiers attempted to corner the gold market on September 24, 1869. Daniel Butterfield, the Assistant Treasurer of the United States, and Grant's brother in law Abel Corbin were also implicated; Butterfield was forced to resign in October. Delano's reputation for personal honesty was not in question, which was an asset when Grant needed to nominate a new Secretary of the Interior in 1870.
Secretary of the Interior
United States Attorney General Ebenezer R. Hoar and Secretary of the Interior Jacob D. Cox resigned in 1870 because of Grant's decision to overrule them on the issue of the McGarrahan Claims; speculator William McGarrahan claimed title to a tract of mining land in California, as did the New Idria Mining Company. Grant wanted no executive branch action taken, considering both claims to be fraudulent; Cox and Hoar disagreed and decided in favor of New Idria, which prompted Grant to request their resignations.
Grant appointed Delano to succeed Cox at the Interior Department; he served from November 1, 1870, until resigning on October 19, 1875. During Delano's tenure, the Interior Department was the largest bureaucracy in the federal government, including numerous patronage positions. Running the department required knowledge of dissimilar duties, and the ability to master complex details. During Delano's time as secretary, he faced several critical issues and his department was rapidly expanding; despite the challenges he served longer in the job than any other 19th-century incumbent. Delano aligned himself with Grant's private secretary Orville Babcock and Secretary of Navy George M. Robeson. Delano rejected the civil service reforms of his predecessor Cox and reverted the Interior to the spoils system.
Bison slaughter (1870s)
During the Civil War, Union generals practiced a "scorched earth" campaign against Confederate infrastructure that destroyed its vital food supplies, which aided in bringing about the Union's victory. During the late 1860s and early 1870s U.S. Army officers William T. Sherman, Richard Dodge, and Secretary of the Interior Delano adopted a similar strategy against Native Americans in the west, whose primary food supply was free-roaming bison. Dodge said in 1867, "Every buffalo dead is an Indian gone." Delano said in an 1872 annual report, "The rapid disappearance of the game [bison] from the former hunting-grounds must operate largely in favor of our efforts to confine the Indians to smaller areas, and compel them to abandon their nomadic customs."
Much of the destruction of bison was done by private, for-profit buffalo hunters; this policy allowed the slaughter of millions of bison on the American plains, forcing Indians to move to and remain on their reservations. The few free-roaming bison left in Yellowstone were protected from poaching by a federal law passed in 1872; during Delano's tenure, mounting criticism by the public forced Congress to pass legislation that would stop the bison slaughter on the plains. Grant vetoed the legislation in 1874, accepting that the bison slaughter was accomplishing the goal of pacifying the Indians. From 1872 to 1874 the Indians killed approximately 1,215,000 bison as part of providing for their food, shelter, and other basic needs; American hunters slaughtered an estimated 4,374,000 bison, reducing the population to the point that it could not reproduce normally and continue to sustain the Indians.
Apache massacre and peace (1871-1872)
On April 30, 1871, white Tucson townspeople organized a militia which massacred an Apache Indian settlement at Camp Grant. Approximately 144 Apaches were killed, mostly women and children. Twenty-eight children were kidnapped by the Tucson townspeople and held as ransom for the Apache warriors, who were not present at the time of the massacre. The people of Tucson drew national attention by the scale of their activity, resulting in Eastern philanthropists and President Grant denouncing their actions. Arizona citizens, however, believed the killings were justified and claimed that Apache warriors had killed mail runners and settlers near Tucson. President Grant sent Major General George Crook to keep the peace in Arizona; many Apaches had joined the U.S. military for protection.
On November 10, 1871, Delano advocated Grant that Apaches be given new reservation land in Arizona and New Mexico, following the recommendation of Indian Peace Commissioner Vincent Colyer to find them a location where they could be protected from attacks by white settlers. Delano advocated that all Apaches be put on reservations including young men and warriors, who were forming raiding parties, rather than just their old men and women. Grant sent Major General Oliver Otis Howard to Arizona to help resolve the issue; Howard organized a peace conference with Apache leader Eskiminzin in May 1872 at Camp Grant. Howard also negotiated the release of six of the captive Apache children. In December 1872, the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation, a permanent settlement, was established at the junction of the San Carlos and Gila Rivers, the location having been agreed upon by Howard and Eskiminzin. In October 1872, Howard also made a separate peace treaty with the Apache leader Cochise, who settled on the Chiricahua reservation.
Akerman feud (1871)
In June 1871 Grant's Attorney General Amos T. Akerman denied land and bond grants to the Union Pacific Railroad, a company connected to the Crédit Mobilier scandal. Ackerman's anti-railroad rulings were protested by railroad financiers Collis P. Huntington and Jay Gould. Akerman was also instrumental in prosecuting the Ku Klux Klan in the South and protecting African American civil rights. Railroad interests and African-American civil rights had been priorities for the Republican Party; on behalf of Huntington and Gould, Delano twice asked Akerman to change rulings that had gone against the Union Pacific, and both times Akerman refused. Delano then complained to Grant and suggested that Akerman should be removed. Grant agreed, and named former Oregon Senator George H. Williams as Akerman's replacement; Williams was seen as more favorable to railroad interests. On the issue of curtailing the Klan prosecutions, according to historian William S. McFeely, "[w]ith Akerman's departure on January 10, 1872, went any hope that the Republican party would develop as a national party of true racial equality."
Yellowstone (1871-1872)
In 1871, Delano organized America's first federally funded scientific expedition into Yellowstone, which was headed by U.S. Geologist Ferdinand V. Hayden. Delano gave specific instructions for Hayden to make a geographical map of the area and to make astronomical and barometric observations. Delano stated that Hayden's expedition was directed to "...secure as much information as possible, both scientific and practical...give your attention to the geological, mineralogical, zoological, botanical, and agricultural resources of the country." Delano also ordered Hayden to gather information on Native American tribes who lived in the area. Hayden's expedition was outfitted by an extensive scientific team that included two botanists, a meteorologist, a zoologist, an ornithologist, a mineralogist, a topographer, an artist, a photographer, a physician, hunters, mule teams and ambulances, and a support staff.
On March 1, 1872 Ulysses S. Grant signed the Organic Act, incorporating Hayden's findings and discoveries and creating Yellowstone, the world's first national park. The law provided that the Secretary of the Interior exercise "exclusive control" over Yellowstone; As Delano was the incumbent, this made him the first overseer of the first national park in the world. The poaching of fish and wildlife, including bison, was forbidden, and Delano was authorized to preserve the "natural curiosities and wonders" found inside the park. Delano was now in charge of millions of acres of land, however, he was not provided any funding to care for it. Instead, he was given the power to grant 10-year leases in order to raise money to pay for maintaining the park. As soon as the park was created, Delano was inundated by requests for hotel concessions, and he also had to determine the control and use of existing facilities in the park's northern section.
Delano appointed N. P. Langford the first Supervisor of Yellowstone in 1872; Langford banned private toll roads and submitted a plan to build and maintain a park road system free to the public, but Congress refused to fund it. Congress also refused to give Langford a stipend, so he had to supplement his livelihood by working as a banker. In 1874 Lanford requested that Delano petition Congress for appropriations to protect the park from poachers, unlicensed privateers, and trespassers. Delano agreed and demanded Congress appropriate $100,000 to set up a federal park agency to administer and protect the park for the public, and also asked for an increase in the terms of the concession leases from 10 to 20 years. The proposal was turned down; it was not until April 1877, during the Rutherford B. Hayes administration, that Congress appropriated one-tenth of Delano's request, $10,000, without any federal protection agency for the park.
Defied Civil Service Executive order (1871-1874)
In March 1871, Grant signed into law Congressional legislation that established the United States Civil Service Commission, designed to create reform rules and to regulate and reduce corruption in the federal workforce. Implementation of the rules was left to the discretion of the President. Grant appointed New York reformer William Curtis to chair the commission. The Commission reported that appointments and promotions would be controlled by examiners, and each federal Department would create a board of examiners, while political assessments would be abolished. Grant ordered the implementation of the rules to be effective on January 1, 1872. Grant dissolved the commission in 1874 after Congress refused to make the Commission rules permanent, and refused to provide permanent funding for the commission. Congressional interest in civil service reform would remain dormant until 1883.
Under Article 12 of Grant's executive order, Land Office and Pension agent applicants in the Department of Interior were to be approved by a board of examiners. Delano, however, betrayed Grant and defied the order. Grant made no response. The Interior Department's varied and diverse responsibilities increased at a rapid rate and became a source of numerous administrative problems. For the department head, controlling the bureaus and shaping policy was a daunting task; Delano argued that the complexities of the department made implementing civil service reform impractical. Under Delano's tenure, corruption permeated the whole department, including bogus agents in the Bureau of Indian Affairs and thieving clerks in the Patent Office. Delano ultimately resigned because of evidence that surveying contracts had been awarded to companies in which his son John, the chief clerk of the department, and Orvil (or Orville) Grant, the president's brother, had ownership interests; this was more or less permissible by the standards of the day, but to reform-minded individuals, including the editors of the New-York Tribune and other newspapers, it represented a conflict of interest and breach of the public trust.
Supported Ku Klux Klan prosecutions (1872)
To bolster the Reconstruction Acts and the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth constitutional amendments, Grant signed in 1870 Congressional legislation that created the Justice Department. To fight the outrages in the South by the Ku Klux Klan, Grant signed several laws known as the Enforcement Acts in 1870 and 1871. In May 1871, Grant ordered federal troops to help U.S. Marshals in arresting Klansmen. Grant's second Attorney General Amos T. Akerman, a former Confederate soldier, knew of the outrages of the Klan and was zealous in prosecuting white Southerners who terrorized their black neighbors. That October, on Akerman's recommendation, Grant suspended habeas corpus in part of South Carolina and sent federal troops there to enforce the law. After prosecutions by Akerman and his replacement, George Henry Williams, the Klan's power collapsed; by 1872, elections in the South saw African Americans voting in record numbers.
In a campaign speech supporting President Grant's reelection bid in Raleigh, North Carolina, on July 24, 1872, Delano spoke out in favor of prosecutions of the Ku Klux Klan. Delano argued that the Congressional Reconstruction Acts had been passed to "rescue order and government out of the chaos and confusion" that came from the Civil War. This included the enfranchisement of African Americans, most of them former slaves, who had been set "forever free" as a result of the war. Delano stated that if freedom meant anything it was that African Americans "should stand equal before the law and have a voice in legislation." According to Delano, southerners who rejected Republican Reconstruction opted for a subversive war against African Americans and white Republicans, including the formation of the Ku Klux Klan. Delano said the Ku Klux Klan had in fourteen North Carolina counties killed 18 people and cruelly whipped 315 Republicans who had done nothing wrong. Delano said that evidence presented in prosecuting Klan members in the federal courts proved the "barbarity and treason" of the Ku Klux Klan. Grant ended up winning North Carolina and many other Southern states.
Defined Indian policy (1873)
In 1873, Delano formally defined the methods to be used in attaining the goals of Grant's policy toward the Native Americans. Grant's ultimate goal was to convert the Indians to Christianity and assimilate them into the white culture in order to prepare them for full U.S. Citizenship; these fundamental principles continued to influence Indian Peace policy for the rest of the 19th Century. According to Delano, relocating the Indians to reservations was of primary importance, since this would supposedly protect them from the violence of white settlers as whites moved onto lands previously held by Native Americans. In addition, Christian organizations and missionaries operating on these reservations could "civilize" the Native Americans, in line with the widespread belief (including Delano's) that allowing the Indians to continue to practice their own culture would lead to their destruction. In Delano's view, his actions would accomplish Grant's goal by facilitating Indian assimilation into white culture.
Black Hills take over (1875)
Under the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie, the Oglala Sioux had been given a huge reservation including the Black Hills in what is now South Dakota. The Black Hills were the site of Sioux sacred religious rituals and spiritual ceremonies. Following the Panic of 1873 the country was desperate for new wealth. In 1874 rumors spread of gold being discovered in the Black Hills by George Custer's recent expedition. Grant sent the expedition, hoping to find gold in order to support his species currency policy; Delano opposed the move, believing travel through and eventual occupation of hunting grounds violated the Treaty of Fort Laramie and could lead to an Indian war. Delano told Grant that a "general war with the Sioux would be deplorable. It would undo the good already accomplished by our efforts for peaceable relations." Whites immediately flocked to the area in search of gold; in 1875, Congress appropriated $25,000 for the purchase of the Black Hills, hoping that a cash payment would assuage the Sioux and prevent war.
In mid-May 1875, Red Cloud, Chief of the Oglala Lakota (Sioux), and other Indian tribal leaders were brought to Washington D.C. to negotiate the sale of the Black Hills. The Sioux believed the amount offered by Congress was too low; recognizing that they would eventually lose the Black Hills, Red Cloud decided to negotiate and told Delano they would sign away the Black Hills if $25,000 in cash was first drawn from the Treasury Department, to ensure that the Sioux would be paid. Delano had no intention of giving Red Cloud cash, but rather a receipt for $25,000 from the Treasury and additional presents purchased at a later date and distributed to members of the tribe. Red Cloud insisted that he wanted the $25,000 in cash at the signing, which would be taken home and divided among the members of the tribe.
Delano warned Grant that a war would likely break out if negotiations were not successful. When negotiations broke down, Grant was brought into the process to bargain directly with Red Cloud. Grant told Red Cloud that the Black Hills had no buffalo, so it would benefit the Indians to accept payment because they would at least receive something of value in consideration for signing away valueless hunting rights. He also informed Red Cloud that whites were going to take over the Black Hills anyway, so it would be best not to leave empty-handed. Concerned that they would not be paid if they signed an agreement first, Red Cloud asked Grant to withdraw the money from the Treasury, and hold it until after the signing. Grant refused and walked out, telling Red Cloud he had to sign over the Black Hills before any payment was made. On June 4, Delano offered Red Cloud an additional $25,000 in appropriations, but Red Cloud refused.
With Red Cloud's refusal, Delano reluctantly let the Indians take the unsigned agreement back to their tribal agencies for further discussion among the members of the tribe, with final terms and signatures to be negotiated later by an appointed commission. The failure of the Washington, D.C. negotiations to produce an agreement was lampooned in the June 19 edition of Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper. Upon their return to Sioux country, Red Cloud and other Lakota leaders finally signed away their hunting rights to the Black Hills under Article 11 of the Treaty of Fort Laramie in exchange for the original $25,000 Congressional appropriation. Another group of Sioux chiefs, including Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, challenged Red Cloud's authority and started the armed resistance about which Delano had warned Grant. This challenge to Red Cloud's authority combined with Lakota unhappiness over white encroachment into the Black Hills resulted in the Great Sioux War, which started in February 1876.
Resignation and corruption (1875)
In 1875, Delano's reputation for personal honesty came under increasing scrutiny as revelations of corruption in the Grant administration continued to be the subject of investigations and media revelations. Although Delano himself was not known to be personally corrupt, his tenure was shadowed by controversy, while fraud prevailed in his Interior Department. There were accusations of an "Indian Ring" and corrupt agents who exploited Native American people. Westerners unhappy with Delano's rulings on land grants and other issues accused Delano's son John, an employee of the Interior Department, of corruption, bribery, and fraud in the Wyoming Territory.
Surveyor General Ring
The New-York Tribune reported that John Delano was profiteering through Interior's Office of the Surveyor-General by accepting partnerships in Wyoming surveying contracts without having been trained in surveying or map-making, and without providing any meaningful contribution to the fulfillment of the contracts; the obvious implication was John Delano had taken extortion money from illicit contract agreements. In March 1875, the former chief clerk of the Surveyor's Office, L. C. Stevens, wrote to Benjamin Bristow, Grant's Secretary of the Treasury, stating that Surveyor General Silas Reed had made several corrupt contracts which financially benefited John Delano. Stevens also said both Reed and John Delano had blackmailed five deputy surveyors for $5,000. According to Stevens, Reed and Delano had coerced the deputy surveyors to pay John Delano before he would release the Interior Department warrants for land the deputy surveyors had sold to prospective settlers. Governor Edward M. McCook of the Colorado Territory, claimed that John Delano had accepted a $1,200 bribe from a Colorado banker, Jerome B. Chaffee, to secure land patents from the Department of Interior. More damaging was Stevens' charge that Columbus Delano knew and approved of what Reed had done for John Delano.
In addition to Delano's son, Grant's brother Orvil was paid for surveying services in the Wyoming Territory, although Orvil did no work. The chief clerk of the Cheyenne branch of the federal Surveying Office testified before Congress concerning Orvil. When asked whether Orvil did any work in the Wyoming Territory, the chief clerk said, "No, sir, I do not think he was ever in the territory."
Indian Ring
In July 1875, Delano was rumored to know that Orvil Grant, the president's brother, had received Indian trading posts, that were a corrupt source of lucrative kickbacks, from the sutler, at the expense of the Indians and soldiers. The higher the sale price on goods, that the Indians and soldiers would pay, the higher the profits. Even the sale of rifles to hostile Indian tribes was allowed, to make more money. The profits were split and sent to the other sutler partners.
Delano was rumored to have threatened Grant at Long Branch that he would expose Orvil to the public when Delano's resignation was enforced. He told Grant that he would quietly leave office after Congressional Indian fraud investigations were complete. In February 1876, the New York Herald reported that Orvil made money in the Sioux country by "starving the squaws and children." Orvil testified before Congress that Grant had influenced the War Department to get him traderships. Orvil received rights to operate four trading posts, then set up "partners" who kicked back half their profits to Orvil. Though Orvil claimed Grant had not known of the kickbacks, he expressed no remorse for his corruption, and his testimony left Grant embarrassed.
The kingpin of this Indian Ring was not Delano, but Secretary of War William W. Belknap, who was given legal authority by Congress in 1870 to appoint sutlers to traderships at Army posts near Indian reservations, which were controlled by Interior. Belknap, who had awarded Orvil Grant the four traderships, took advantage of the law to personally profit by arranging an illicit partnership at Fort Sill between his wife Carrie, Caleb P. Marsh, and sutler John S. Evans. After Carrie's death, Belknap married her sister Amanda, who continued the illicit tradership arrangement. Belknap's household received as much as $20,000 in illegal profits (nearly $500,000 in 2021), which Belknap needed in order to finance the lavish Washington D.C. entertainment lifestyle expected of cabinet members and other prominent political figures.
Aware that the U.S. House was investigating him, on March 2, 1876 Belknap visited Grant and immediately resigned. The House continued its inquiry and found him guilty of five articles of impeachment. Grant's attorney general placed Belknap under house arrest during his U.S. Senate trial. Though most senators believed the evidence of Belknap's corruption, enough believed they lacked the jurisdiction to punish Belknap because he was no longer in office to acquit him. Despite escaping conviction, Belknap's reputation was so marred that he never returned to political office.
Resignation
Both Bristow and Secretary of State Hamilton Fish demanded that Grant fire Delano. Grant declined, telling Fish, "If Delano were now to resign, it would be retreating under fire and be accepted as an admission of the charges." The controversy did not abate; by mid-August, it became clear that Delano could not remain in office; Delano offered his resignation and Grant accepted, but Grant did not make it public. Grant finally announced his acceptance of Delano's resignation on October 19, 1875, after Bristow threatened to resign if Delano was not replaced. Grant replaced Delano with Zachariah Chandler, who quickly initiated civil service and other reforms in the Department of the Interior. Delano's administration was investigated by Congress, Chandler, and a special presidential commission; his personal conduct was exonerated, but his reputation as an honest, capable administrator was damaged, and Delano never again ran for office or served in an appointed one. In April 1876, The Committee on the Expenditures in the Interior Department confirmed that Reed had set up an illicit slush fund for John Delano's financial benefit, and that Delano thanked Reed while also telling him "to be careful to do nothing that would have the semblance of wrong."
Delano's defense
On September 26, 1875, Delano submitted to Grant a letter defending his tenure at the Department of the Interior; in essence, he argued that the size and complexity of his department made it difficult to manage effectively. Delano stated that he had resigned because he intended to return to his business and domestic concerns in Ohio. He indicated that his duties as Secretary of the Interior were "laborious, difficult, and delicate" because he was required to supervise five disparate bureaus or offices: Land; Indian; Pensions; Patent; and Education, in addition to "a mass of miscellaneous business unknown to any except those connected to the public service."
Delano also reminded Grant that the Land Office dealt with complex railroad land grants, as well as issues resolving land titles in California, Arizona and New Mexico, because those areas had previously been under Spain's and then Mexico's jurisdiction. In addition, the Indian Bureau dealt with many "intricate, delicate, and vexatious questions" growing out of previous Indian treaties. Delano further informed Grant that when he had to decide issues between competing claimants, those he ruled against often gave false and misleading statements rather than accept their loss, which was to Delano's detriment. Delano concluded by claiming a successful tenure, informing Grant that the Interior Department "has never been in a more prosperous or better condition than it now is."
Chandler reforms
Delano's successor, Zachariah Chandler, did not complain about his departmental duties, and immediately investigated allegations of corruption. Chandler found things differently than Delano's explanations to Grant and decided the department needed major reforming. During his first month in office, he fired all the clerks in one room of the Patent Office; he noted that every desk was vacant, and concluded that the employees were either involved in corruption or lacked the integrity to reform the department. Almost twenty employees were found to be entirely fictitious; they had been created by a profiteering ring to defraud the government by falsely receiving pay for work that was not performed. Chandler also fired unqualified clerks who profiteered by hiring out their work to lower-paid replacements and pocketing the salary difference.
In addition, Chandler simplified Patent Office rules, making patents easier to obtain and reducing the cost for applicants. In December 1875, Chandler banned persons known as "Indian Attorneys", whose claims to represent Native Americans in Washington were questionable. He found the Bureau of Indian Affairs to be the most corrupt, and he replaced its commissioner and chief clerk. In addition to Indian Affairs, Chandler also investigated the Pension Bureau. This review resulted in the identification and removal of numerous fraudulent pensions, which saved the federal government hundreds of thousands of dollars. Chandler also revoked as many as 800 fraudulent land grants that had been approved during Delano's tenure.
Later life and career
On his resignation from Grant's cabinet, Delano returned to Mount Vernon where for the next twenty years he served as president of the First National Bank of Mount Vernon. He was a longtime trustee of Kenyon College, which awarded him the honorary degree of LL.D.; among his charitable and civic donations was his endowment of Kenyon's Delano Hall; this building was in use until it was destroyed by a fire in 1906. His Lakeholm mansion, built in 1871 at the outskirts of Mount Vernon, is now part of Mount Vernon Nazarene University.
On April 3, 1880, John W. Wright, a judge from Indiana, was convicted at trial of having assaulted Delano on a Washington, D.C. street corner on October 12, 1877. Wright, who had been an Indian Agent in the Interior Department while Delano was secretary, had been convicted of fraud and blamed Delano. On the day of the assault he was in the company of Walter H. Smith, formerly solicitor of the Department of the Interior; Wright was accused of provoking a fight by questioning Delano's honesty as Secretary of the Interior and then striking Delano with his walking stick. Wright claimed that Delano had been verbally harassing him and that he then felt compelled to defend himself. Delano did not sustain serious injuries; Wright's defense was weakened by witness testimony that after the assault, he claimed credit for it, and stated that he would have continued if passers-by had not intervened. Wright was sentenced to 30 days in jail and fined $1,000. On April 8, 1880, President Rutherford B. Hayes pardoned Wright, with his release from custody conditional upon the payment of the fine.
On December 3, 1889, Delano was elected president of the National Wool Growers Association, a lobbying group organized to advocate for tariff protection of the national wool industry. The association had been formed in 1865, and became more active in the 1880s as a response to the decline in domestic wool production; wool growers faced increasing overseas competition and had gone from 50 million sheep producing wool in 1883 to 40 million in 1888.
Death
Delano died on October 23, 1896; he was interred at Mount Vernon's Mound View Cemetery, Lot 42, Section 16, Grave 4. Delano's death was sudden and unexpected, and took place at his "Lake Howe" home near Mount Vernon, at 11:00 AM. There was no connection between his wife Mrs. Delano's near-fatal accident and his own death.
Historical legacy
Delano's career prior to becoming Secretary of the Interior was not known for any scandals, nor has he been implicated in the Crédit Mobilier scandal. Historians, however, are critical of Delano's overall tenure as Secretary of the Interior especially for his loose anti-reform administrative style and for allowing corruption to permeate the department, unlike Grant's first appointee, Jacob D. Cox, who had been an enthusiastic advocate of civil service reform. Delano sided with the railroad interests over reform and allied with Grant's private secretary Orville Babcock and Secretary of Navy George M. Robeson, associated with corruption. Delano was at odds with Grant's reformers, including Secretary of State Hamilton Fish, Secretary of Treasury Benjamin Bristow, and Attorney General Amos T. Akerman. The corruption in the Bureau of Indian Affairs under Delano eventually led to the end of political appointees, the appointment of career civil servants, and the bureaucratization of the agency. Delano defended his reputation by saying that the Interior Department was difficult to manage due to its expanding size and its many offices with disparate functions.
Indian advancement
In March 1869, President Grant appointed Ely S. Parker, a Seneca Indian, to Commissioner of Indian Affairs serving under both Secretary of Interior Cox and Secretary of Interior Delano. Although there was resistance to his appointment, the Senate confirmed Parker could legally hold office, and he was confirmed by the Senate. During Parker's tenor, lasting until August 1871, Indian wars decreased significantly from 101 in 1869 to 58 in 1870.
145 years, 5 months, 16 days later after Delano left office in 1875, Delano's position as Secretary of Interior was finally filled in by a Native American in 2021. On December 17, 2020, President elect Joe Biden announced that he would nominate Deb Haaland to serve as Secretary of the Interior. She was confirmed by the United States Senate on March 15, 2021, by a vote of 51–40. Following her swearing-in on March 16, she became the first Native American to serve as a Cabinet secretary and the second to serve in the Cabinet, after Republican former vice president and Kaw Nation citizen Charles Curtis.
Native American land seized (1871-1875)
Between 1871 and 1875, the term years Delano was Secretary of the Interior, 73,157,155 acres (114,308 square miles) of Indian land was seized by the United States. By comparison, this is about the size of the state of Arizona (113,642 square miles).
Reservation system
Although the Indian reservation system Delano strongly advocated, protecting Indians
from white sutlers, looked good on paper, it denied the way of life Indians had sustained themselves for thousands of years. With their food supply of buffalo disseminated by white hunters, Indians were forced to live under white culture, yet survive on poor reservation lands and limited supplies. Native Americans today still suffer from the aftershocks of a brutal Interior reservation policy under Delano and his 19th Century successors. Indian culture was devastated, while in practice the reservation policy was monstrous by modern standards.
Bison slaughter and Indian suppression
Delano has also received criticism for allowing millions of bison to be slaughtered, with the exception of Yellowstone, in order to compel the Indians to move to and remain on their reservations, a policy approved by President Grant and the U.S. Army. The demise of the bison herds during Delano's tenure led to the destruction of the Plains Indian culture, including their economy, cosmology, and religion. Without the bison, the Plains Indians could not resist late 19th Century expansionism, including the development of the railroads in the American West. This policy led to more restrictive measures against Native Americans in the 1880s and 1890s, including the banning of medicine making, polygamy, bride payments, and the Sun Dance.
Yellowstone and bison recovery
Delano was the first Secretary of the Interior to be in charge of Yellowstone, America's and the world's first national park. The charges of misconduct and lax management made during Delano's tenure at Interior did not include the new park, the management of which was seen as a success. Among its features, it outlawed poaching wildlife and served as a haven for small numbers of free-roaming bison, left after the slaughter of the great herds that, with the exception of Yellowstone, Delano had fully supported. On August 25, 1916, Congress created the National Park Service to federally protect and administer Yellowstone and other national parks; Delano had proposed the creation of the agency in 1874. Yellowstone today generates around 4 million visitors per year.
By 1902, poachers had illegally killed and reduced Yellowstone bison herd size to about two dozen animals. The U.S. Army, who administered Yellowstone, prior to the creation of the National Park Service, took over and protected the last remaining bison from further poaching. Bison from private herds were incorporated into Yellowstone, forming a northern herd. For decades, however, as Yellowstone bisons increased in number, herds were reduced, believing the animals had caused overgrazing. The practice of reducing the Yellowstone bison population ceased in 1968. However, by the 2000s, the reduction of Yellowstone bison herds resumed, "due to increasing numbers and litigation about migration into Montana." As of August 2019, Yellowstone had 4,829 bison from two herds, 3,667 northern bison, and 1,162 central bison.
Corruption aftermath and Pendleton Act
In the aftermath of Delano's departure and retirement from the Interior in 1875 and Chandler reforms, the large Department still experienced scandals but were much less pervasive than during Delano's tenor. During the Rutherford B. Hayes administration, on May 31, 1880, a Senate committee reported on the Interior Department and Secretary of the Interior Carl Schurz, a reformer, over his removal and jailing of the Ponca Indians. On December 18, 1880, a commission appointed Hayes, began an investigation of the Department's treatment of the Ponca. On January 25, 1881, the commission reported to President Hayes the treatment of the Ponca was "needlessly disastrous and cruel".
In January 1883, President Arthur signed into law the landmark legislation, known as the Pendleton Act, that made civil service reform permanent, with the goal to reduce corruption and hire persons based on a merit system, rather than patronage. Patterned off Grant's Civil Service Commission (1871) and rules, the Act put 11 percent of the federal workforce under civil service law, and reestablished the Civil Service Commission, to regulate political assessments and payoffs. Good men were appointed by Arthur to run the commission, and surprisingly, Arthur was friendly to reformers. The passage of the act was motivated by the assassination of President James A. Garfield by a disgruntled office seeker.
Scandals continued to periodically surface. In 1884, William W. Dudley, Commissioner of the Pensions Office, was engaged in political activity, promising expedited approval to petitioners who voted for James G. Blaine and John A. Logan, the Republicans President and Vice President candidates. President Chester A. Arthur, a Republican, did nothing to stop the practice. In 1888, Secretary of Interior William F. Vilas, appointed by President Grover Cleveland (1885-1889), a Democrat, was investigated by Congress. Vilas was a stockholder of the Superior Lumber Company and was suspected of profiteering. In 1889, the Senate investigation report concluded that Vilas did not personally profiteer.
During the Benjamin Harrison Republican administration (1889-1893), an Interior probe investigation found evidence Harrison's appointed Pension Bureau Commissioner James R. Tanner took "lavish and illegal handouts". Tanner resigned and Harrison appointed Green B. Raum Pension Bureau Commissioner. Raum was accused of taking kickback loans to expedite pension cases. A Democratic House investigation said Raum had "prostituted his office" and should be removed, but Harrison declined.
Personal reputation
In 1898, historian Joseph Patterson Smith said Delano had attained, "a long and distinguished career, as an eminent lawyer, an able businessman and one intimately identified with the governmental affairs of the state and nation." In 2001, historian Jean Edward Smith, taking a harsher view, said Delano betrayed his public trust while Secretary of the Interior by allowing corruption to pervade throughout his department, "at the expense of those who most needed government assistance: the Native American." Benjamin Bristow, Grant's appointed Secretary of Treasury, said Secretary Delano was "a very mean dog," and deserved "the execration of every honest man."
Honors
Delano, California
Delano, California, located in Kern County, originally a terminal railroad town, was founded on July 14, 1869. The unnamed town was officially named in honor of Columbus Delano, at the time Delano was Secretary of the Interior, during the Grant administration. The name of Delano was officially given by the Southern Pacific Railroad. Delano's first post office opened in 1874. The town of Delano was incorporated as a city in 1915.
Mountains
Certain mountains in Utah (Delano Peak) and Montana (Mount Delano) are named after Delano. Delano Peak, in Utah, has an elevation of 12,174 ft (3,711 m). Mount Delano, in Montana, has an elevation of 10,138 ft (3090 m).
Notable Department of Interior events
1856-1873 Interior's Pacific Wagon Road Office improved the historic western emigrant routes.
1869 The Bureau of Education is placed under Interior (later transferred to the Department of Health, Education and Welfare).
1869-1870 Cook–Folsom–Peterson Expedition Yellowstone
1870 Washburn–Langford–Doane Expedition Yellowstone
1871 Hayden Geological Survey of 1871 Yellowstone Sponsored by the federal government. Delano instructed the survey.
1872 Congress establishes Yellowstone as the first National Park.
1873 Congress transferred territorial oversight from the Secretary of State to the Secretary of the Interior.
Notes
References
Sources
Books
Internet
New York Times
Newspapers
Speeches
External links
Columbus Delano at Find A Grave
The Department of Everything Else: Highlights of Interior History (1989)
Delano Peak, Utah Access Date: December 1, 2021
Mount Delano, Montana Access Date: December 1, 2021
1809 births
1896 deaths
Delano family
United States Secretaries of the Interior
Commissioners of Internal Revenue
Members of the United States House of Representatives from Ohio
Members of the Ohio House of Representatives
Ohio lawyers
People from Mount Vernon, Ohio
People from Shoreham, Vermont
Ohio Whigs
Ohio Republicans
Members of the Kenyon College Board of Trustees
Grant administration cabinet members
Whig Party members of the United States House of Representatives
Republican Party members of the United States House of Representatives
19th-century American politicians
Republican Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Ohio
| 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"
] |
[
"Columbus Delano",
"Resignation and corruption (1875)",
"when did he resign?",
"1875,",
"wha did he resign from?",
"office;",
"why did he resign?",
"Bristow threatened to resign if Delano was not replaced.",
"was he replaced?",
"Grant replaced Delano with Zachariah Chandler,",
"what was the corruption?",
"his personal conduct was exonerated, but his reputation as an honest, capable administrator was damaged, and Delano never again ran for office",
"what was he accused of?",
"extortion",
"who accused him?",
"Secretary of the Treasury,",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"Reed and John Delano had blackmailed five deputy surveyors for $5,000."
] |
C_845baa23458b4b09a935e687b86d4060_1
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did they get caught?
| 9 |
did Reed and John Delano get caught for blackmailing five deputy surveyors for $5,000?
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Columbus Delano
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In 1875, Delano's reputation for personal honesty came under increasing scrutiny as revelations of corruption in the Grant administration continued to be the subject of investigations and media revelations. Westerners unhappy with Delano's rulings on land grants and other issues accused Delano's son John, an employee of the Interior Department, of corruption, bribery, and fraud. Governor Edward M. McCook of the Colorado Territory, claimed that John Delano had accepted a $1,200 bribe from a Colorado banker, Jerome B. Chaffee, to secure land patents from the Department of Interior. The New-York Tribune reported that John Delano was profiteering through Interior's Office of the Surveyor General by accepting partnerships in Wyoming surveying contracts without having been trained in surveying or map making, and without providing any meaningful contribution to the fulfillment of the contracts; the obvious implication was John Delano had taken extortion money from illicit contract agreements. In March 1875, the former chief clerk of the Surveyor's Office, L. C. Stevens, wrote to Benjamin Bristow, Grant's Secretary of the Treasury, stating that Surveyor General Silas Reed had made several corrupt contracts which financially benefited John Delano. Stevens also said both Reed and John Delano had blackmailed five deputy surveyors for $5,000. More damaging was Stevens' charge that Columbus Delano knew and approved of what Reed had done for John Delano. Both Bristow and Secretary of State Hamilton Fish demanded that Grant fire Delano. Grant declined, telling Fish, "If Delano were now to resign, it would be retreating under fire and be accepted as an admission of the charges." The controversy did not abate; by mid-August it became clear that Delano could not remain in office; Delano offered his resignation and Grant accepted, but Grant did not make it public. Grant finally announced his acceptance of Delano's resignation on October 19, 1875, after Bristow threatened to resign if Delano was not replaced. Grant replaced Delano with Zachariah Chandler, who quickly initiated civil service and other reforms in the Department of the Interior. Delano's administration was investigated by Congress, Chandler, and a special presidential commission; his personal conduct was exonerated, but his reputation as an honest, capable administrator was damaged, and Delano never again ran for office or served in an appointed one. In April 1876, The Committee on the Expeditures in the Interior Department confirmed that Reed had set up an illicit slush fund for John Delano's financial benefit, and that Delano thanked Reed while also telling him "to be careful to do nothing that would have the semblance of wrong." CANNOTANSWER
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Columbus Delano (June 4, 1809 – October 23, 1896) was a lawyer, rancher, banker, statesman and a member of the prominent Delano family. Forced to live on his own at an early age, Delano struggled to become a self-made man. Delano was elected U.S. Congressman from Ohio, serving two full terms and one partial one. Prior to the American Civil War, Delano was a National Republican and then a Whig; as a Whig, he was identified with the faction of the party that opposed the spread of slavery into the Western territories, and he became a Republican when the party was founded as the major anti-slavery party after the demise of the Whigs in the 1850s. During Reconstruction Delano advocated federal protection of African-Americans' civil rights, and argued that the former Confederate states should be administered by the federal government, but was not part of the United States until they met the requirements for readmission to the Union.
Delano served as President Ulysses S. Grant's Secretary of the Interior during a time of rapid Westward expansionism, and contended with conflicts between Native tribes and White American settlers. He was instrumental in the establishment of America's first national park, having supervised the first federally funded scientific expedition into Yellowstone in 1871, and becoming America's first national park overseer in 1872. In 1874, Delano requested that Congress protect Yellowstone through the creation of a federally funded administrative agency, the first Secretary of the Interior to request such preservation of a nationally important site.
Believing that tribal communalism and a nomadic lifestyle led to war and impoverishment, Delano argued the best Indian policy was to allot Native tribes small reservations in the Indian Territory. In Delano's view, the reservation system humanely protected Native tribes from the encroachment of western settlers, aiding in Indian assimilation into white culture, language, attire, culture, and religion. The goal was for Indian people to be independent from federal funding. To compel the Native tribes of the west to move to reservations, Delano supported the slaughter to the near extinction of the vast buffalo herds outside of Yellowstone, which were essential to the maintenance of the Plains Indians' way of life.
Concerning government reform, Delano defied Grant's 1872 executive order to implement the first Civil Service Commission's recommendations. With the exception of Yellowstone, the spoils system and corruption permeated throughout the Interior Department during his tenure, and Grant requested Delano's resignation in 1875; he left office with damage to his reputation for personal honesty. Although Interior scandals, at times, continued to fester in various succeeding administrations, corruption during Delano's tenure under Grant was excessive. Delano remained a spoils man at a time when reformer demands for a federal merit system were gaining support. Delano returned to Ohio to practice law, tend to his business interests, and raise livestock; he did not return to politics and died in 1896.
Although Delano was considered a 19th Century American "major mover and shaker", his legacy has a dark side, clouded by spoils man politics, harsh treatment of Indians, and endorsement of slaughtering buffalo. Historians are critical of Delano's tenure at the Interior Department, arguing that he could have done more to stop corruption, protect bison, prevent dispossession of Native American land, and the destruction of the culture of the Plains Indians. Yellowstone is considered Delano's greatest achievement and he was considered to be an effective first administrator. The park aided in the recovery of free-roaming buffalo. By August 2019, 4,829 bison were counted in Yellowstone. While in office, Delano was outspoken for his strong support of black American rights and denouncement of the Ku Klux Klan.
Early life, education, and political career
Columbus Delano was born in Shoreham, Vermont on June 5, 1809, the son of James Delano and Lucinda Bateman. The Delano family was of French ancestry; its first representative in America, Philip Delano, voyaged from Holland in 1621 on the Fortune, the sister ship of the Mayflower. In 1815, at the age of six, Delano's father died, and his family was put under the care of his uncle Luther Bateman. In 1817 the family moved to Mount Vernon in Knox County, Ohio, where Delano resided for the rest of his life. Delano was raised primarily by Luther Bateman, who died in 1817. After an elementary education Delano labored in a woolen mill in Lexington, Ohio, and at other jobs, struggling on his own, to become largely self-sufficient while still a teenager.
After beginning self-directed legal studies, Delano formally trained with Mount Vernon attorney Hosmer Curtis from 1830 to 1831, and he attained admission to the bar in 1831. Delano became active in politics as a National Republican, and later as a Whig, and in 1834 he won election as Prosecuting Attorney for Knox County. He won reelection in 1836 and served two terms, 1835 to 1839.
Marriage and family
On July 14, 1834, Delano married Elizabeth Leavenworth of Mount Vernon, the daughter of M. Martin Leavenworth and Clara Sherman Leavenworth. Their children included daughter Elizabeth (1838–1904), who was the wife of Reverend John G. Ames of Washington, DC, and son John Sherman Delano (1841–1896), a businessman who also worked with his father at the Department of the Interior.
Delano and Ulysses S. Grant were distant cousins; they had great-great grandparents in common.
United States Representative (1845–1847)
In 1844, Delano was elected to the United States House of Representatives after appearing on the ballot as a replacement for Samuel White Jr., who had died after winning the Whig nomination. He went on to defeat Democrat Caleb J. McNulty by only 12 votes, 9,297 to 9,285. Delano served in the 29th Congress, (March 4, 1845—March 3, 1847), and was a member of the Committee on Invalid Pensions. He also gave a speech denouncing the Mexican–American War which earned him national recognition as an opponent of the conflict. Delano did not run for reelection in 1846, instead campaigning for the 1848 Whig nomination for Governor of Ohio. He lost to Seabury Ford by two votes at the January 1848 party convention; Ford went on to defeat Democrat John B. Weller in a close general election, and served one term. Delano subsequently became involved in several business ventures; in 1850 he set up a successful Wall Street banking partnership, Delano, Dunlevy, & Company, which specialized in railroad bonds; it included a branch office in Cincinnati and operated for five years. In addition, Delano became a successful sheep rancher, and served as president of the National Association of Wool Growers and the Ohio Wool Growers Association. He was also active in other businesses; he was president of the Springfield, Mount Vernon & Pittsburgh Railroad, and an original incorporator of the First National Bank of Mount Vernon, of which he later became president.
Republican Party and Civil War
With the demise of the Whigs, Columbus Delano joined the new Republican Party. Delano was a delegate to the Chicago Convention in 1860, and he seconded the nomination of Abraham Lincoln's for president. Delano actively campaigned for Lincoln, who won the presidency. The following year Delano served as Commissary-General of Ohio, on the staff of Governor William Dennison Jr., and aided in raising and equipping troops for the Union Army at the start of the American Civil War. In 1862 Delano was a candidate for the United States Senate seat held by Benjamin Wade. With Republicans in control of the Ohio General Assembly, winning their nomination was tantamount to election by the full legislature. Delano was nearly successful, losing the nomination to Wade by only two votes. In 1863, Delano served in the Ohio House of Representatives and played a notable role in shepherding the passage of legislation in support of the Union war effort. Delano served as Chairman of the Judicial Committee and settled the matter of the right of soldiers to vote. Delano served as Chairman of the Ohio delegation that attended the Baltimore Convention. Lincoln was successfully nominated for a second term of office.
Reconstruction Era
Return to Congress
Delano was again elected to the U.S. House in 1864, and he served in the 39th Congress (March 4, 1865—March 3, 1867). During this term, Delano was chairman of the House Committee on Claims. Delano appeared to lose his bid for reelection in 1866, but successfully contested the election of George W. Morgan. After unseating Morgan, Delano served for the remainder of the 40th Congress, June 3, 1868—March 3, 1869. After the Civil War Delano supported Radical Reconstruction, believing that the South was in chaos and that federal involvement in the Southern states, including the army, was necessary to keep the peace. He did not run for reelection in 1868.
Reconstruction speech (1867)
In September 1867, Delano made a speech on Reconstruction in Eaton, Ohio, in which he said that President Andrew Johnson did not have the constitutional authority to establish civil government in the former Confederate states. Delano argued that Congress, not the president, "was required to establish civil governments in all the states." In Delano's view, Johnson and Southern Democrats, who had previously supported the Confederacy, were conspiring to overthrow Congress by undermining its authority to make laws concerning Southern Reconstruction. As proof, Delano cited Johnson's September 1866 Swing Around the Circle speech, in which Johnson said the national legislature was a "pretended Congress". In addition, Delano believed Johnson was conspiring to remove Ulysses S. Grant as head of the army because of Grant's support for Congressional Reconstruction. As a result, Delano advocated impeaching Johnson and removing him from office, and argued that Grant should be protected by Congress from any attempt by Johnson to remove him. Unknown to Delano, on August 11, 1867, Grant had agreed to accept Johnson's offer to serve as interim Secretary of War, while simultaneously remaining general of the army. Under the provisions of the Tenure of Office Act, the appointment would be temporary until the U.S. Senate returned to session in January 1868, and either ratified or prohibited Stanton's removal. Johnson and Grant agreed to Grant's temporary appointment despite explicitly admitting that they disagreed on Reconstruction policy.
Commissioner of Internal Revenue
Delano remained active in politics and supported Grant for president in 1868. When Grant became president in March 1869, he appointed Delano Commissioner of Internal Revenue; Delano served from March 11, 1869, to October 31, 1870. As commissioner, Delano tried with mixed success to collect federal revenue on alcohol and tobacco products manufactured in Indian Territory; these items could be produced for sale tax-free within the territory, but manufacturers routinely sold them in adjacent states without paying the taxes. He also proved unwilling or unable to cope with the frauds of the Whiskey Ring; despite having received warnings of corruption including bribery of federal officials and failure to pay taxes, Delano took little or no action. The department did attempt to prevent the illegal manufacture and sale of whiskey in other areas; on January 31, 1870, an Internal Revenue raid in Georgia captured 18 illicit whiskey stills and their operators. The Whiskey Ring finally stopped in 1875 during Grant's second term by Secretary of the Treasury Benjamin Bristow. The ring leader, John McDonald was an acquaintance of President Grant and had requested from him a political appointment as superintending inspector of internal revenue in St. Louis. Grant then directed Delano to make the appointment. McDonald was convicted of fraud and theft and served 17 months in prison. In all, the investigation of the Whiskey Ring resulted in 110 convictions. Grant's private secretary, Orville E. Babcock was implicated, but acquitted at trial after Grant provided written testimony on his behalf. Additionally, Delano was cleared of involvement in another scandal in which Babcock was implicated, the Gold Ring, which was triggered when two New York financiers attempted to corner the gold market on September 24, 1869. Daniel Butterfield, the Assistant Treasurer of the United States, and Grant's brother in law Abel Corbin were also implicated; Butterfield was forced to resign in October. Delano's reputation for personal honesty was not in question, which was an asset when Grant needed to nominate a new Secretary of the Interior in 1870.
Secretary of the Interior
United States Attorney General Ebenezer R. Hoar and Secretary of the Interior Jacob D. Cox resigned in 1870 because of Grant's decision to overrule them on the issue of the McGarrahan Claims; speculator William McGarrahan claimed title to a tract of mining land in California, as did the New Idria Mining Company. Grant wanted no executive branch action taken, considering both claims to be fraudulent; Cox and Hoar disagreed and decided in favor of New Idria, which prompted Grant to request their resignations.
Grant appointed Delano to succeed Cox at the Interior Department; he served from November 1, 1870, until resigning on October 19, 1875. During Delano's tenure, the Interior Department was the largest bureaucracy in the federal government, including numerous patronage positions. Running the department required knowledge of dissimilar duties, and the ability to master complex details. During Delano's time as secretary, he faced several critical issues and his department was rapidly expanding; despite the challenges he served longer in the job than any other 19th-century incumbent. Delano aligned himself with Grant's private secretary Orville Babcock and Secretary of Navy George M. Robeson. Delano rejected the civil service reforms of his predecessor Cox and reverted the Interior to the spoils system.
Bison slaughter (1870s)
During the Civil War, Union generals practiced a "scorched earth" campaign against Confederate infrastructure that destroyed its vital food supplies, which aided in bringing about the Union's victory. During the late 1860s and early 1870s U.S. Army officers William T. Sherman, Richard Dodge, and Secretary of the Interior Delano adopted a similar strategy against Native Americans in the west, whose primary food supply was free-roaming bison. Dodge said in 1867, "Every buffalo dead is an Indian gone." Delano said in an 1872 annual report, "The rapid disappearance of the game [bison] from the former hunting-grounds must operate largely in favor of our efforts to confine the Indians to smaller areas, and compel them to abandon their nomadic customs."
Much of the destruction of bison was done by private, for-profit buffalo hunters; this policy allowed the slaughter of millions of bison on the American plains, forcing Indians to move to and remain on their reservations. The few free-roaming bison left in Yellowstone were protected from poaching by a federal law passed in 1872; during Delano's tenure, mounting criticism by the public forced Congress to pass legislation that would stop the bison slaughter on the plains. Grant vetoed the legislation in 1874, accepting that the bison slaughter was accomplishing the goal of pacifying the Indians. From 1872 to 1874 the Indians killed approximately 1,215,000 bison as part of providing for their food, shelter, and other basic needs; American hunters slaughtered an estimated 4,374,000 bison, reducing the population to the point that it could not reproduce normally and continue to sustain the Indians.
Apache massacre and peace (1871-1872)
On April 30, 1871, white Tucson townspeople organized a militia which massacred an Apache Indian settlement at Camp Grant. Approximately 144 Apaches were killed, mostly women and children. Twenty-eight children were kidnapped by the Tucson townspeople and held as ransom for the Apache warriors, who were not present at the time of the massacre. The people of Tucson drew national attention by the scale of their activity, resulting in Eastern philanthropists and President Grant denouncing their actions. Arizona citizens, however, believed the killings were justified and claimed that Apache warriors had killed mail runners and settlers near Tucson. President Grant sent Major General George Crook to keep the peace in Arizona; many Apaches had joined the U.S. military for protection.
On November 10, 1871, Delano advocated Grant that Apaches be given new reservation land in Arizona and New Mexico, following the recommendation of Indian Peace Commissioner Vincent Colyer to find them a location where they could be protected from attacks by white settlers. Delano advocated that all Apaches be put on reservations including young men and warriors, who were forming raiding parties, rather than just their old men and women. Grant sent Major General Oliver Otis Howard to Arizona to help resolve the issue; Howard organized a peace conference with Apache leader Eskiminzin in May 1872 at Camp Grant. Howard also negotiated the release of six of the captive Apache children. In December 1872, the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation, a permanent settlement, was established at the junction of the San Carlos and Gila Rivers, the location having been agreed upon by Howard and Eskiminzin. In October 1872, Howard also made a separate peace treaty with the Apache leader Cochise, who settled on the Chiricahua reservation.
Akerman feud (1871)
In June 1871 Grant's Attorney General Amos T. Akerman denied land and bond grants to the Union Pacific Railroad, a company connected to the Crédit Mobilier scandal. Ackerman's anti-railroad rulings were protested by railroad financiers Collis P. Huntington and Jay Gould. Akerman was also instrumental in prosecuting the Ku Klux Klan in the South and protecting African American civil rights. Railroad interests and African-American civil rights had been priorities for the Republican Party; on behalf of Huntington and Gould, Delano twice asked Akerman to change rulings that had gone against the Union Pacific, and both times Akerman refused. Delano then complained to Grant and suggested that Akerman should be removed. Grant agreed, and named former Oregon Senator George H. Williams as Akerman's replacement; Williams was seen as more favorable to railroad interests. On the issue of curtailing the Klan prosecutions, according to historian William S. McFeely, "[w]ith Akerman's departure on January 10, 1872, went any hope that the Republican party would develop as a national party of true racial equality."
Yellowstone (1871-1872)
In 1871, Delano organized America's first federally funded scientific expedition into Yellowstone, which was headed by U.S. Geologist Ferdinand V. Hayden. Delano gave specific instructions for Hayden to make a geographical map of the area and to make astronomical and barometric observations. Delano stated that Hayden's expedition was directed to "...secure as much information as possible, both scientific and practical...give your attention to the geological, mineralogical, zoological, botanical, and agricultural resources of the country." Delano also ordered Hayden to gather information on Native American tribes who lived in the area. Hayden's expedition was outfitted by an extensive scientific team that included two botanists, a meteorologist, a zoologist, an ornithologist, a mineralogist, a topographer, an artist, a photographer, a physician, hunters, mule teams and ambulances, and a support staff.
On March 1, 1872 Ulysses S. Grant signed the Organic Act, incorporating Hayden's findings and discoveries and creating Yellowstone, the world's first national park. The law provided that the Secretary of the Interior exercise "exclusive control" over Yellowstone; As Delano was the incumbent, this made him the first overseer of the first national park in the world. The poaching of fish and wildlife, including bison, was forbidden, and Delano was authorized to preserve the "natural curiosities and wonders" found inside the park. Delano was now in charge of millions of acres of land, however, he was not provided any funding to care for it. Instead, he was given the power to grant 10-year leases in order to raise money to pay for maintaining the park. As soon as the park was created, Delano was inundated by requests for hotel concessions, and he also had to determine the control and use of existing facilities in the park's northern section.
Delano appointed N. P. Langford the first Supervisor of Yellowstone in 1872; Langford banned private toll roads and submitted a plan to build and maintain a park road system free to the public, but Congress refused to fund it. Congress also refused to give Langford a stipend, so he had to supplement his livelihood by working as a banker. In 1874 Lanford requested that Delano petition Congress for appropriations to protect the park from poachers, unlicensed privateers, and trespassers. Delano agreed and demanded Congress appropriate $100,000 to set up a federal park agency to administer and protect the park for the public, and also asked for an increase in the terms of the concession leases from 10 to 20 years. The proposal was turned down; it was not until April 1877, during the Rutherford B. Hayes administration, that Congress appropriated one-tenth of Delano's request, $10,000, without any federal protection agency for the park.
Defied Civil Service Executive order (1871-1874)
In March 1871, Grant signed into law Congressional legislation that established the United States Civil Service Commission, designed to create reform rules and to regulate and reduce corruption in the federal workforce. Implementation of the rules was left to the discretion of the President. Grant appointed New York reformer William Curtis to chair the commission. The Commission reported that appointments and promotions would be controlled by examiners, and each federal Department would create a board of examiners, while political assessments would be abolished. Grant ordered the implementation of the rules to be effective on January 1, 1872. Grant dissolved the commission in 1874 after Congress refused to make the Commission rules permanent, and refused to provide permanent funding for the commission. Congressional interest in civil service reform would remain dormant until 1883.
Under Article 12 of Grant's executive order, Land Office and Pension agent applicants in the Department of Interior were to be approved by a board of examiners. Delano, however, betrayed Grant and defied the order. Grant made no response. The Interior Department's varied and diverse responsibilities increased at a rapid rate and became a source of numerous administrative problems. For the department head, controlling the bureaus and shaping policy was a daunting task; Delano argued that the complexities of the department made implementing civil service reform impractical. Under Delano's tenure, corruption permeated the whole department, including bogus agents in the Bureau of Indian Affairs and thieving clerks in the Patent Office. Delano ultimately resigned because of evidence that surveying contracts had been awarded to companies in which his son John, the chief clerk of the department, and Orvil (or Orville) Grant, the president's brother, had ownership interests; this was more or less permissible by the standards of the day, but to reform-minded individuals, including the editors of the New-York Tribune and other newspapers, it represented a conflict of interest and breach of the public trust.
Supported Ku Klux Klan prosecutions (1872)
To bolster the Reconstruction Acts and the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth constitutional amendments, Grant signed in 1870 Congressional legislation that created the Justice Department. To fight the outrages in the South by the Ku Klux Klan, Grant signed several laws known as the Enforcement Acts in 1870 and 1871. In May 1871, Grant ordered federal troops to help U.S. Marshals in arresting Klansmen. Grant's second Attorney General Amos T. Akerman, a former Confederate soldier, knew of the outrages of the Klan and was zealous in prosecuting white Southerners who terrorized their black neighbors. That October, on Akerman's recommendation, Grant suspended habeas corpus in part of South Carolina and sent federal troops there to enforce the law. After prosecutions by Akerman and his replacement, George Henry Williams, the Klan's power collapsed; by 1872, elections in the South saw African Americans voting in record numbers.
In a campaign speech supporting President Grant's reelection bid in Raleigh, North Carolina, on July 24, 1872, Delano spoke out in favor of prosecutions of the Ku Klux Klan. Delano argued that the Congressional Reconstruction Acts had been passed to "rescue order and government out of the chaos and confusion" that came from the Civil War. This included the enfranchisement of African Americans, most of them former slaves, who had been set "forever free" as a result of the war. Delano stated that if freedom meant anything it was that African Americans "should stand equal before the law and have a voice in legislation." According to Delano, southerners who rejected Republican Reconstruction opted for a subversive war against African Americans and white Republicans, including the formation of the Ku Klux Klan. Delano said the Ku Klux Klan had in fourteen North Carolina counties killed 18 people and cruelly whipped 315 Republicans who had done nothing wrong. Delano said that evidence presented in prosecuting Klan members in the federal courts proved the "barbarity and treason" of the Ku Klux Klan. Grant ended up winning North Carolina and many other Southern states.
Defined Indian policy (1873)
In 1873, Delano formally defined the methods to be used in attaining the goals of Grant's policy toward the Native Americans. Grant's ultimate goal was to convert the Indians to Christianity and assimilate them into the white culture in order to prepare them for full U.S. Citizenship; these fundamental principles continued to influence Indian Peace policy for the rest of the 19th Century. According to Delano, relocating the Indians to reservations was of primary importance, since this would supposedly protect them from the violence of white settlers as whites moved onto lands previously held by Native Americans. In addition, Christian organizations and missionaries operating on these reservations could "civilize" the Native Americans, in line with the widespread belief (including Delano's) that allowing the Indians to continue to practice their own culture would lead to their destruction. In Delano's view, his actions would accomplish Grant's goal by facilitating Indian assimilation into white culture.
Black Hills take over (1875)
Under the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie, the Oglala Sioux had been given a huge reservation including the Black Hills in what is now South Dakota. The Black Hills were the site of Sioux sacred religious rituals and spiritual ceremonies. Following the Panic of 1873 the country was desperate for new wealth. In 1874 rumors spread of gold being discovered in the Black Hills by George Custer's recent expedition. Grant sent the expedition, hoping to find gold in order to support his species currency policy; Delano opposed the move, believing travel through and eventual occupation of hunting grounds violated the Treaty of Fort Laramie and could lead to an Indian war. Delano told Grant that a "general war with the Sioux would be deplorable. It would undo the good already accomplished by our efforts for peaceable relations." Whites immediately flocked to the area in search of gold; in 1875, Congress appropriated $25,000 for the purchase of the Black Hills, hoping that a cash payment would assuage the Sioux and prevent war.
In mid-May 1875, Red Cloud, Chief of the Oglala Lakota (Sioux), and other Indian tribal leaders were brought to Washington D.C. to negotiate the sale of the Black Hills. The Sioux believed the amount offered by Congress was too low; recognizing that they would eventually lose the Black Hills, Red Cloud decided to negotiate and told Delano they would sign away the Black Hills if $25,000 in cash was first drawn from the Treasury Department, to ensure that the Sioux would be paid. Delano had no intention of giving Red Cloud cash, but rather a receipt for $25,000 from the Treasury and additional presents purchased at a later date and distributed to members of the tribe. Red Cloud insisted that he wanted the $25,000 in cash at the signing, which would be taken home and divided among the members of the tribe.
Delano warned Grant that a war would likely break out if negotiations were not successful. When negotiations broke down, Grant was brought into the process to bargain directly with Red Cloud. Grant told Red Cloud that the Black Hills had no buffalo, so it would benefit the Indians to accept payment because they would at least receive something of value in consideration for signing away valueless hunting rights. He also informed Red Cloud that whites were going to take over the Black Hills anyway, so it would be best not to leave empty-handed. Concerned that they would not be paid if they signed an agreement first, Red Cloud asked Grant to withdraw the money from the Treasury, and hold it until after the signing. Grant refused and walked out, telling Red Cloud he had to sign over the Black Hills before any payment was made. On June 4, Delano offered Red Cloud an additional $25,000 in appropriations, but Red Cloud refused.
With Red Cloud's refusal, Delano reluctantly let the Indians take the unsigned agreement back to their tribal agencies for further discussion among the members of the tribe, with final terms and signatures to be negotiated later by an appointed commission. The failure of the Washington, D.C. negotiations to produce an agreement was lampooned in the June 19 edition of Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper. Upon their return to Sioux country, Red Cloud and other Lakota leaders finally signed away their hunting rights to the Black Hills under Article 11 of the Treaty of Fort Laramie in exchange for the original $25,000 Congressional appropriation. Another group of Sioux chiefs, including Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, challenged Red Cloud's authority and started the armed resistance about which Delano had warned Grant. This challenge to Red Cloud's authority combined with Lakota unhappiness over white encroachment into the Black Hills resulted in the Great Sioux War, which started in February 1876.
Resignation and corruption (1875)
In 1875, Delano's reputation for personal honesty came under increasing scrutiny as revelations of corruption in the Grant administration continued to be the subject of investigations and media revelations. Although Delano himself was not known to be personally corrupt, his tenure was shadowed by controversy, while fraud prevailed in his Interior Department. There were accusations of an "Indian Ring" and corrupt agents who exploited Native American people. Westerners unhappy with Delano's rulings on land grants and other issues accused Delano's son John, an employee of the Interior Department, of corruption, bribery, and fraud in the Wyoming Territory.
Surveyor General Ring
The New-York Tribune reported that John Delano was profiteering through Interior's Office of the Surveyor-General by accepting partnerships in Wyoming surveying contracts without having been trained in surveying or map-making, and without providing any meaningful contribution to the fulfillment of the contracts; the obvious implication was John Delano had taken extortion money from illicit contract agreements. In March 1875, the former chief clerk of the Surveyor's Office, L. C. Stevens, wrote to Benjamin Bristow, Grant's Secretary of the Treasury, stating that Surveyor General Silas Reed had made several corrupt contracts which financially benefited John Delano. Stevens also said both Reed and John Delano had blackmailed five deputy surveyors for $5,000. According to Stevens, Reed and Delano had coerced the deputy surveyors to pay John Delano before he would release the Interior Department warrants for land the deputy surveyors had sold to prospective settlers. Governor Edward M. McCook of the Colorado Territory, claimed that John Delano had accepted a $1,200 bribe from a Colorado banker, Jerome B. Chaffee, to secure land patents from the Department of Interior. More damaging was Stevens' charge that Columbus Delano knew and approved of what Reed had done for John Delano.
In addition to Delano's son, Grant's brother Orvil was paid for surveying services in the Wyoming Territory, although Orvil did no work. The chief clerk of the Cheyenne branch of the federal Surveying Office testified before Congress concerning Orvil. When asked whether Orvil did any work in the Wyoming Territory, the chief clerk said, "No, sir, I do not think he was ever in the territory."
Indian Ring
In July 1875, Delano was rumored to know that Orvil Grant, the president's brother, had received Indian trading posts, that were a corrupt source of lucrative kickbacks, from the sutler, at the expense of the Indians and soldiers. The higher the sale price on goods, that the Indians and soldiers would pay, the higher the profits. Even the sale of rifles to hostile Indian tribes was allowed, to make more money. The profits were split and sent to the other sutler partners.
Delano was rumored to have threatened Grant at Long Branch that he would expose Orvil to the public when Delano's resignation was enforced. He told Grant that he would quietly leave office after Congressional Indian fraud investigations were complete. In February 1876, the New York Herald reported that Orvil made money in the Sioux country by "starving the squaws and children." Orvil testified before Congress that Grant had influenced the War Department to get him traderships. Orvil received rights to operate four trading posts, then set up "partners" who kicked back half their profits to Orvil. Though Orvil claimed Grant had not known of the kickbacks, he expressed no remorse for his corruption, and his testimony left Grant embarrassed.
The kingpin of this Indian Ring was not Delano, but Secretary of War William W. Belknap, who was given legal authority by Congress in 1870 to appoint sutlers to traderships at Army posts near Indian reservations, which were controlled by Interior. Belknap, who had awarded Orvil Grant the four traderships, took advantage of the law to personally profit by arranging an illicit partnership at Fort Sill between his wife Carrie, Caleb P. Marsh, and sutler John S. Evans. After Carrie's death, Belknap married her sister Amanda, who continued the illicit tradership arrangement. Belknap's household received as much as $20,000 in illegal profits (nearly $500,000 in 2021), which Belknap needed in order to finance the lavish Washington D.C. entertainment lifestyle expected of cabinet members and other prominent political figures.
Aware that the U.S. House was investigating him, on March 2, 1876 Belknap visited Grant and immediately resigned. The House continued its inquiry and found him guilty of five articles of impeachment. Grant's attorney general placed Belknap under house arrest during his U.S. Senate trial. Though most senators believed the evidence of Belknap's corruption, enough believed they lacked the jurisdiction to punish Belknap because he was no longer in office to acquit him. Despite escaping conviction, Belknap's reputation was so marred that he never returned to political office.
Resignation
Both Bristow and Secretary of State Hamilton Fish demanded that Grant fire Delano. Grant declined, telling Fish, "If Delano were now to resign, it would be retreating under fire and be accepted as an admission of the charges." The controversy did not abate; by mid-August, it became clear that Delano could not remain in office; Delano offered his resignation and Grant accepted, but Grant did not make it public. Grant finally announced his acceptance of Delano's resignation on October 19, 1875, after Bristow threatened to resign if Delano was not replaced. Grant replaced Delano with Zachariah Chandler, who quickly initiated civil service and other reforms in the Department of the Interior. Delano's administration was investigated by Congress, Chandler, and a special presidential commission; his personal conduct was exonerated, but his reputation as an honest, capable administrator was damaged, and Delano never again ran for office or served in an appointed one. In April 1876, The Committee on the Expenditures in the Interior Department confirmed that Reed had set up an illicit slush fund for John Delano's financial benefit, and that Delano thanked Reed while also telling him "to be careful to do nothing that would have the semblance of wrong."
Delano's defense
On September 26, 1875, Delano submitted to Grant a letter defending his tenure at the Department of the Interior; in essence, he argued that the size and complexity of his department made it difficult to manage effectively. Delano stated that he had resigned because he intended to return to his business and domestic concerns in Ohio. He indicated that his duties as Secretary of the Interior were "laborious, difficult, and delicate" because he was required to supervise five disparate bureaus or offices: Land; Indian; Pensions; Patent; and Education, in addition to "a mass of miscellaneous business unknown to any except those connected to the public service."
Delano also reminded Grant that the Land Office dealt with complex railroad land grants, as well as issues resolving land titles in California, Arizona and New Mexico, because those areas had previously been under Spain's and then Mexico's jurisdiction. In addition, the Indian Bureau dealt with many "intricate, delicate, and vexatious questions" growing out of previous Indian treaties. Delano further informed Grant that when he had to decide issues between competing claimants, those he ruled against often gave false and misleading statements rather than accept their loss, which was to Delano's detriment. Delano concluded by claiming a successful tenure, informing Grant that the Interior Department "has never been in a more prosperous or better condition than it now is."
Chandler reforms
Delano's successor, Zachariah Chandler, did not complain about his departmental duties, and immediately investigated allegations of corruption. Chandler found things differently than Delano's explanations to Grant and decided the department needed major reforming. During his first month in office, he fired all the clerks in one room of the Patent Office; he noted that every desk was vacant, and concluded that the employees were either involved in corruption or lacked the integrity to reform the department. Almost twenty employees were found to be entirely fictitious; they had been created by a profiteering ring to defraud the government by falsely receiving pay for work that was not performed. Chandler also fired unqualified clerks who profiteered by hiring out their work to lower-paid replacements and pocketing the salary difference.
In addition, Chandler simplified Patent Office rules, making patents easier to obtain and reducing the cost for applicants. In December 1875, Chandler banned persons known as "Indian Attorneys", whose claims to represent Native Americans in Washington were questionable. He found the Bureau of Indian Affairs to be the most corrupt, and he replaced its commissioner and chief clerk. In addition to Indian Affairs, Chandler also investigated the Pension Bureau. This review resulted in the identification and removal of numerous fraudulent pensions, which saved the federal government hundreds of thousands of dollars. Chandler also revoked as many as 800 fraudulent land grants that had been approved during Delano's tenure.
Later life and career
On his resignation from Grant's cabinet, Delano returned to Mount Vernon where for the next twenty years he served as president of the First National Bank of Mount Vernon. He was a longtime trustee of Kenyon College, which awarded him the honorary degree of LL.D.; among his charitable and civic donations was his endowment of Kenyon's Delano Hall; this building was in use until it was destroyed by a fire in 1906. His Lakeholm mansion, built in 1871 at the outskirts of Mount Vernon, is now part of Mount Vernon Nazarene University.
On April 3, 1880, John W. Wright, a judge from Indiana, was convicted at trial of having assaulted Delano on a Washington, D.C. street corner on October 12, 1877. Wright, who had been an Indian Agent in the Interior Department while Delano was secretary, had been convicted of fraud and blamed Delano. On the day of the assault he was in the company of Walter H. Smith, formerly solicitor of the Department of the Interior; Wright was accused of provoking a fight by questioning Delano's honesty as Secretary of the Interior and then striking Delano with his walking stick. Wright claimed that Delano had been verbally harassing him and that he then felt compelled to defend himself. Delano did not sustain serious injuries; Wright's defense was weakened by witness testimony that after the assault, he claimed credit for it, and stated that he would have continued if passers-by had not intervened. Wright was sentenced to 30 days in jail and fined $1,000. On April 8, 1880, President Rutherford B. Hayes pardoned Wright, with his release from custody conditional upon the payment of the fine.
On December 3, 1889, Delano was elected president of the National Wool Growers Association, a lobbying group organized to advocate for tariff protection of the national wool industry. The association had been formed in 1865, and became more active in the 1880s as a response to the decline in domestic wool production; wool growers faced increasing overseas competition and had gone from 50 million sheep producing wool in 1883 to 40 million in 1888.
Death
Delano died on October 23, 1896; he was interred at Mount Vernon's Mound View Cemetery, Lot 42, Section 16, Grave 4. Delano's death was sudden and unexpected, and took place at his "Lake Howe" home near Mount Vernon, at 11:00 AM. There was no connection between his wife Mrs. Delano's near-fatal accident and his own death.
Historical legacy
Delano's career prior to becoming Secretary of the Interior was not known for any scandals, nor has he been implicated in the Crédit Mobilier scandal. Historians, however, are critical of Delano's overall tenure as Secretary of the Interior especially for his loose anti-reform administrative style and for allowing corruption to permeate the department, unlike Grant's first appointee, Jacob D. Cox, who had been an enthusiastic advocate of civil service reform. Delano sided with the railroad interests over reform and allied with Grant's private secretary Orville Babcock and Secretary of Navy George M. Robeson, associated with corruption. Delano was at odds with Grant's reformers, including Secretary of State Hamilton Fish, Secretary of Treasury Benjamin Bristow, and Attorney General Amos T. Akerman. The corruption in the Bureau of Indian Affairs under Delano eventually led to the end of political appointees, the appointment of career civil servants, and the bureaucratization of the agency. Delano defended his reputation by saying that the Interior Department was difficult to manage due to its expanding size and its many offices with disparate functions.
Indian advancement
In March 1869, President Grant appointed Ely S. Parker, a Seneca Indian, to Commissioner of Indian Affairs serving under both Secretary of Interior Cox and Secretary of Interior Delano. Although there was resistance to his appointment, the Senate confirmed Parker could legally hold office, and he was confirmed by the Senate. During Parker's tenor, lasting until August 1871, Indian wars decreased significantly from 101 in 1869 to 58 in 1870.
145 years, 5 months, 16 days later after Delano left office in 1875, Delano's position as Secretary of Interior was finally filled in by a Native American in 2021. On December 17, 2020, President elect Joe Biden announced that he would nominate Deb Haaland to serve as Secretary of the Interior. She was confirmed by the United States Senate on March 15, 2021, by a vote of 51–40. Following her swearing-in on March 16, she became the first Native American to serve as a Cabinet secretary and the second to serve in the Cabinet, after Republican former vice president and Kaw Nation citizen Charles Curtis.
Native American land seized (1871-1875)
Between 1871 and 1875, the term years Delano was Secretary of the Interior, 73,157,155 acres (114,308 square miles) of Indian land was seized by the United States. By comparison, this is about the size of the state of Arizona (113,642 square miles).
Reservation system
Although the Indian reservation system Delano strongly advocated, protecting Indians
from white sutlers, looked good on paper, it denied the way of life Indians had sustained themselves for thousands of years. With their food supply of buffalo disseminated by white hunters, Indians were forced to live under white culture, yet survive on poor reservation lands and limited supplies. Native Americans today still suffer from the aftershocks of a brutal Interior reservation policy under Delano and his 19th Century successors. Indian culture was devastated, while in practice the reservation policy was monstrous by modern standards.
Bison slaughter and Indian suppression
Delano has also received criticism for allowing millions of bison to be slaughtered, with the exception of Yellowstone, in order to compel the Indians to move to and remain on their reservations, a policy approved by President Grant and the U.S. Army. The demise of the bison herds during Delano's tenure led to the destruction of the Plains Indian culture, including their economy, cosmology, and religion. Without the bison, the Plains Indians could not resist late 19th Century expansionism, including the development of the railroads in the American West. This policy led to more restrictive measures against Native Americans in the 1880s and 1890s, including the banning of medicine making, polygamy, bride payments, and the Sun Dance.
Yellowstone and bison recovery
Delano was the first Secretary of the Interior to be in charge of Yellowstone, America's and the world's first national park. The charges of misconduct and lax management made during Delano's tenure at Interior did not include the new park, the management of which was seen as a success. Among its features, it outlawed poaching wildlife and served as a haven for small numbers of free-roaming bison, left after the slaughter of the great herds that, with the exception of Yellowstone, Delano had fully supported. On August 25, 1916, Congress created the National Park Service to federally protect and administer Yellowstone and other national parks; Delano had proposed the creation of the agency in 1874. Yellowstone today generates around 4 million visitors per year.
By 1902, poachers had illegally killed and reduced Yellowstone bison herd size to about two dozen animals. The U.S. Army, who administered Yellowstone, prior to the creation of the National Park Service, took over and protected the last remaining bison from further poaching. Bison from private herds were incorporated into Yellowstone, forming a northern herd. For decades, however, as Yellowstone bisons increased in number, herds were reduced, believing the animals had caused overgrazing. The practice of reducing the Yellowstone bison population ceased in 1968. However, by the 2000s, the reduction of Yellowstone bison herds resumed, "due to increasing numbers and litigation about migration into Montana." As of August 2019, Yellowstone had 4,829 bison from two herds, 3,667 northern bison, and 1,162 central bison.
Corruption aftermath and Pendleton Act
In the aftermath of Delano's departure and retirement from the Interior in 1875 and Chandler reforms, the large Department still experienced scandals but were much less pervasive than during Delano's tenor. During the Rutherford B. Hayes administration, on May 31, 1880, a Senate committee reported on the Interior Department and Secretary of the Interior Carl Schurz, a reformer, over his removal and jailing of the Ponca Indians. On December 18, 1880, a commission appointed Hayes, began an investigation of the Department's treatment of the Ponca. On January 25, 1881, the commission reported to President Hayes the treatment of the Ponca was "needlessly disastrous and cruel".
In January 1883, President Arthur signed into law the landmark legislation, known as the Pendleton Act, that made civil service reform permanent, with the goal to reduce corruption and hire persons based on a merit system, rather than patronage. Patterned off Grant's Civil Service Commission (1871) and rules, the Act put 11 percent of the federal workforce under civil service law, and reestablished the Civil Service Commission, to regulate political assessments and payoffs. Good men were appointed by Arthur to run the commission, and surprisingly, Arthur was friendly to reformers. The passage of the act was motivated by the assassination of President James A. Garfield by a disgruntled office seeker.
Scandals continued to periodically surface. In 1884, William W. Dudley, Commissioner of the Pensions Office, was engaged in political activity, promising expedited approval to petitioners who voted for James G. Blaine and John A. Logan, the Republicans President and Vice President candidates. President Chester A. Arthur, a Republican, did nothing to stop the practice. In 1888, Secretary of Interior William F. Vilas, appointed by President Grover Cleveland (1885-1889), a Democrat, was investigated by Congress. Vilas was a stockholder of the Superior Lumber Company and was suspected of profiteering. In 1889, the Senate investigation report concluded that Vilas did not personally profiteer.
During the Benjamin Harrison Republican administration (1889-1893), an Interior probe investigation found evidence Harrison's appointed Pension Bureau Commissioner James R. Tanner took "lavish and illegal handouts". Tanner resigned and Harrison appointed Green B. Raum Pension Bureau Commissioner. Raum was accused of taking kickback loans to expedite pension cases. A Democratic House investigation said Raum had "prostituted his office" and should be removed, but Harrison declined.
Personal reputation
In 1898, historian Joseph Patterson Smith said Delano had attained, "a long and distinguished career, as an eminent lawyer, an able businessman and one intimately identified with the governmental affairs of the state and nation." In 2001, historian Jean Edward Smith, taking a harsher view, said Delano betrayed his public trust while Secretary of the Interior by allowing corruption to pervade throughout his department, "at the expense of those who most needed government assistance: the Native American." Benjamin Bristow, Grant's appointed Secretary of Treasury, said Secretary Delano was "a very mean dog," and deserved "the execration of every honest man."
Honors
Delano, California
Delano, California, located in Kern County, originally a terminal railroad town, was founded on July 14, 1869. The unnamed town was officially named in honor of Columbus Delano, at the time Delano was Secretary of the Interior, during the Grant administration. The name of Delano was officially given by the Southern Pacific Railroad. Delano's first post office opened in 1874. The town of Delano was incorporated as a city in 1915.
Mountains
Certain mountains in Utah (Delano Peak) and Montana (Mount Delano) are named after Delano. Delano Peak, in Utah, has an elevation of 12,174 ft (3,711 m). Mount Delano, in Montana, has an elevation of 10,138 ft (3090 m).
Notable Department of Interior events
1856-1873 Interior's Pacific Wagon Road Office improved the historic western emigrant routes.
1869 The Bureau of Education is placed under Interior (later transferred to the Department of Health, Education and Welfare).
1869-1870 Cook–Folsom–Peterson Expedition Yellowstone
1870 Washburn–Langford–Doane Expedition Yellowstone
1871 Hayden Geological Survey of 1871 Yellowstone Sponsored by the federal government. Delano instructed the survey.
1872 Congress establishes Yellowstone as the first National Park.
1873 Congress transferred territorial oversight from the Secretary of State to the Secretary of the Interior.
Notes
References
Sources
Books
Internet
New York Times
Newspapers
Speeches
External links
Columbus Delano at Find A Grave
The Department of Everything Else: Highlights of Interior History (1989)
Delano Peak, Utah Access Date: December 1, 2021
Mount Delano, Montana Access Date: December 1, 2021
1809 births
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[
"Caught Inside may refer to:\n\n Caught Inside (band), a four-member punk band originally from Miami, Florida\n Caught Inside (film), a 2010 Australian thriller directed by Adam Blaiklock\n Caught inside, When a surfer is paddling out and cannot get past the breaking surf to the safer part of the ocean",
"Esben and the Witch (Danish language: Esben og Troldheksen) is a Danish fairy tale first collected by Jens Kamp. Andrew Lang included it in The Pink Fairy Book. A version of the tale also appears in A Book of Witches and A Choice of Magic, by Ruth Manning-Sanders. It is Aarne-Thompson type 327B (a small boy defeats an ogre). In it, a boy named Esben outwits an evil witch to get the magical treasures for the sake of his brothers.\n\nSynopsis\nA farmer had twelve sons, and the youngest, Esben, was little while his brothers were big and strong. One day the brothers persuaded their father to let them seek their fortunes; he gave them each horses and money. Esben decided he would go too. His father refused to aid him. He took a stick and whittled it, so it was whiter than his brothers' horses, and rode off on it.\n\nThe eleven brothers came to a house where a woman told them they could not only stay for the night, they could each have one of her daughters. They were pleased. Esben came up behind them and sneaked about. In the night, he had his brothers change caps with the girls. At midnight, the woman, who was a witch, came with a knife and cut the throats of eleven of her sleeping daughters, because of their night caps. Esben woke his brothers, and they all fled. The brothers left Esben behind on their horses.\n\nThe brothers took service with the king as stableboys. When Esben arrived, no one gave him a place, but he managed to get his food with one thing or another. His brothers did not stand to attention for Sir Red, whom everyone else at the castle hated but the king liked. Sir Red decided to revenge himself by saying they had said they could get the king a dove with a silver feather and a golden one. The king demanded it of them. Esben told them to get him some peas, then he recited a charm to his stick, and it flew him back to the witch's. He had noticed she had such a dove; he spread the peas and caught it. The witch saw him too late to catch him, but they exchanged taunts.\n\nAngry, Sir Red claimed that they had said that they could get him the magical boar with silver and golden bristles. Esben made them give him a bag of malt, and using it, caught just the boar that belonged to the witch. The king was pleased with that, although his brothers did not even thank Esben. Sir Red claimed they had said they could get a lamp that could shine over seven kingdoms. This task, he had to sneak inside the house and hide. The witch called to her daughter to make her porridge and add no salt, so Esben poured salt into it. There was no water in the house, so the daughter asked her mother for the lamp to fetch more. Esben then pushed her into the well and she drowned, and he ran off with the lamp.\n\nAfter the king received it, Sir Red made a new claim, about a coverlet (bed cover) that sounded when touched. The boy tried to steal it, but it sounded and the witch caught him. But her last and youngest daughter took a liking to him, and together they twice tricked her mother into having him live in captivity. Eventually, when the witch had to go to a meeting of witches, Esben pushed the final girl in the oven and stole the coverlet. After all of her offspring have been destroyed, the returning witch was so furious she burst into small pieces of flint.\n\nHis brothers were already in prison to be executed, but the king freed them. Esben also told him about Sir Red, and the king hanged him and rewarded all the brothers with gold and silver, and they returned home, telling their father how Esben had saved them.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\"Esben and the Witch\" translated from Danish (The Pink Fairy Book, by Andrew Lang, 1889) \nThe version from A Book of Witches\n\nDanish fairy tales\nFiction about shapeshifting\nWitchcraft in fairy tales"
] |
[
"Janis Joplin",
"Kozmic Blues Band"
] |
C_e67a6494e12f48e39fceae5d4a32ef7a_0
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Was Janis Joplin part of the Kozmic Blues Band?
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Was Janis Joplin part of the Kozmic Blues Band?
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Janis Joplin
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After splitting from Big Brother and the Holding Company, Joplin formed a new backup group, the Kozmic Blues Band, composed of session musicians like keyboardist Stephen Ryder and saxophonist Cornelius "Snooky" Flowers, as well as former Big Brother and the Holding Company guitarist Sam Andrew and future Full Tilt Boogie Band bassist Brad Campbell. The band was influenced by the Stax-Volt rhythm and blues (R&B) and soul bands of the 1960s, as exemplified by Otis Redding and the Bar-Kays. The Stax-Volt R&B sound was typified by the use of horns and had a funky, pop-oriented sound in contrast to many of the psychedelic/hard rock bands of the period. By early 1969, Joplin was allegedly shooting at least $200 worth of heroin per day (equivalent to $1300 in 2016 dollars) although efforts were made to keep her clean during the recording of I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama!. Gabriel Mekler, who produced Kozmic Blues, told publicist-turned-biographer Myra Friedman after Joplin's death that the singer had lived in his house during the June 1969 recording sessions at his insistence so he could keep her away from drugs and her drug-using friends. Joplin's appearances with the Kozmic Blues Band in Europe were released in cinemas, in multiple documentaries. Janis, which was reviewed by the Washington Post on March 21, 1975, shows Joplin arriving in Frankfurt by plane and waiting inside a bus next to the Frankfurt venue, while an American fan who is visiting Germany expresses enthusiasm to the camera (no security was used in Frankfurt, so by the end of the concert, the stage was so packed with people the band members could not see each other). Janis also includes interviews with Joplin in Stockholm and from her visit to London, for her gig at Royal Albert Hall. On one episode of The Dick Cavett Show, they performed "Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)" as well as "To Love Somebody". As Dick Cavett interviewed Joplin, she admitted that she had a terrible time touring in Europe, claiming that audiences there are very uptight and don't "get down". CANNOTANSWER
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Joplin formed a new backup group, the Kozmic Blues Band,
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Janis Joplin (January 19, 1943 – October 4, 1970) was an American singer-songwriter who sang rock, soul, and blues music. One of the most successful and widely known rock stars of her era, she was noted for her powerful mezzo-soprano vocals and "electric" stage presence.
In 1967, Joplin rose to fame following an appearance at Monterey Pop Festival, where she was the lead singer of the then little-known San Francisco psychedelic rock band Big Brother and the Holding Company. After releasing two albums with the band, she left Big Brother to continue as a solo artist with her own backing groups, first the Kozmic Blues Band and then the Full Tilt Boogie Band. She appeared at the Woodstock festival and on the Festival Express train tour. Five singles by Joplin reached the Billboard Hot 100, including a cover of the Kris Kristofferson song "Me and Bobby McGee", which reached number one in March 1971. Her most popular songs include her cover versions of "Piece of My Heart", "Cry Baby", "Down on Me", "Ball and Chain", and "Summertime"; and her original song "Mercedes Benz", her final recording.
Joplin died of a heroin overdose in 1970, at the age of 27, after releasing three albums (two with Big Brother and the Holding Company and one solo album). A second solo album, Pearl, was released in January 1971, just over three months after her death. It reached number one on the Billboard charts. She was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995. Rolling Stone ranked Joplin number 46 on its 2004 list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time and number 28 on its 2008 list of 100 Greatest Singers of All Time. She remains one of the top-selling musicians in the United States, with Recording Industry Association of America certifications of 18.5 million albums sold.
Early life
Janis Joplin was born in Port Arthur, Texas, on , to Dorothy Bonita East (1913–1998), a registrar at a business college, and her husband, Seth Ward Joplin (1910–1987), an engineer at Texaco. She had two younger siblings, Michael and Laura. The family attended First Christian Church of Port Arthur, a church belonging to the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) denomination.
Her parents felt that Janis needed more attention than their other children. As a teenager, Joplin befriended a group of outcasts, one of whom had albums by blues artists Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, and Lead Belly, which Joplin later credited with influencing her decision to become a singer. She began singing blues and folk music with friends at Thomas Jefferson High School. In high school, she was a classmate of Pro Football Hall of Fame coach Jimmy Johnson.
Joplin stated that she was ostracized and bullied in high school. As a teen, she became overweight and suffered from acne, leaving her with deep scars that required dermabrasion. Other kids at high school would routinely taunt her and call her names like "pig," "freak," "nigger lover," or "creep." She stated, "I was a misfit. I read, I painted, I thought. I didn't hate niggers."
Joplin graduated from high school in 1960 and attended Lamar State College of Technology in Beaumont, Texas, during the summer and later the University of Texas at Austin (UT), though she did not complete her college studies. The campus newspaper, The Daily Texan, ran a profile of her in the issue dated July 27, 1962, headlined "She Dares to Be Different." The article began, "She goes barefooted when she feels like it, wears Levi's to class because they're more comfortable, and carries her autoharp with her everywhere she goes so that in case she gets the urge to break into song, it will be handy. Her name is Janis Joplin." While at UT she performed with a folk trio called the Waller Creek Boys and frequently socialized with the staff of the campus humor magazine The Texas Ranger. According to Freak Brothers cartoonist Gilbert Shelton, who befriended her, she used to sell The Texas Ranger, which contained some of Shelton's early comic books, on the campus.
Career
1962–1965: Early recordings
Joplin cultivated a rebellious manner and styled herself partly after her female blues heroines and partly after the Beat poets. Her first song, "What Good Can Drinkin' Do", was recorded on tape in December 1962 at the home of a fellow University of Texas student.
She left Texas in January 1963 ("Just to get away," she said, "because my head was in a much different place"), hitchhiking with her friend Chet Helms to North Beach, San Francisco. Still in San Francisco in 1964, Joplin and future Jefferson Airplane guitarist Jorma Kaukonen recorded a number of blues standards, which incidentally featured Kaukonen's wife Margareta using a typewriter in the background. This session included seven tracks: "Typewriter Talk", "Trouble in Mind", "Kansas City Blues", "Hesitation Blues", "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out", "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy", and "Long Black Train Blues", and was released long after Joplin's death as the bootleg album The Typewriter Tape.
In 1963, Joplin was arrested in San Francisco for shoplifting. During the two years that followed, her drug use increased and she acquired a reputation as a "speed freak" and occasional heroin user. She also used other psychoactive drugs and was a heavy drinker throughout her career; her favorite alcoholic beverage was Southern Comfort.
In May 1965, Joplin's friends in San Francisco, noticing the detrimental effects on her from regularly injecting methamphetamine (she was described as "skeletal" and "emaciated"), persuaded her to return to Port Arthur. During that month, her friends threw her a bus-fare party so she could return to her parents in Texas. Five years later, Joplin told Rolling Stone magazine writer David Dalton the following about her first stint in San Francisco: "I didn't have many friends and I didn't like the ones I had."
Back in Port Arthur in the spring of 1965, after Joplin's parents noticed her weight of , she changed her lifestyle. She avoided drugs and alcohol, adopted a beehive hairdo, and enrolled as an anthropology major at Lamar University in nearby Beaumont, Texas. Her sister Laura said in a 2016 interview that social work was her major during her year at Lamar. During her time at Lamar University, she commuted to Austin to sing solo, accompanying herself on acoustic guitar. One of her performances was at a benefit by local musicians for Texas bluesman Mance Lipscomb, who was suffering with ill health.
Joplin became engaged to Peter de Blanc in the fall of 1965. She had begun a relationship with him toward the end of her first stint in San Francisco. Now living in New York where he worked with IBM computers, he visited her to ask her father for her hand in marriage. Joplin and her mother began planning the wedding. De Blanc, who traveled frequently, ended the engagement soon afterward.
In 1965 and 1966, Joplin commuted from her family's Port Arthur home to Beaumont, Texas, where she had regular sessions with a psychiatric social worker named Bernard Giarritano at a counseling agency that was funded by the United Fund, which after her death changed its name to the United Way. Interviewed by biographer Myra Friedman after his client's death, Giarritano said Joplin had been baffled by how she could pursue a professional career as a singer without relapsing into drugs, and her drug-related memories from immediately prior to returning to Port Arthur continued to frighten her. Joplin sometimes brought an acoustic guitar with her to her sessions with Giarritano, and people in other offices within the building could hear her singing.
Giarritano tried to reassure her that she did not have to use narcotics in order to succeed in the music business. She also said that if she were to avoid singing professionally, she would have to become a keypunch operator (as she had done a few years earlier) or a secretary, and then a wife and mother, and she would have to become very similar to all the other women in Port Arthur.
Approximately a year before Joplin joined Big Brother and the Holding Company, she recorded seven studio tracks with her acoustic guitar. Among the songs she recorded were her original composition of the song "Turtle Blues" and an alternate version of "Cod'ine" by Buffy Sainte-Marie. These tracks were later issued as a new album in 1995, titled This is Janis Joplin 1965 by James Gurley.
1966–1969: Various bands
In 1966, Joplin's bluesy vocal style attracted the attention of the San Francisco-based psychedelic rock band Big Brother and the Holding Company, which had gained some renown among the nascent hippie community in Haight-Ashbury. She was recruited to join the group by Chet Helms, a promoter who was managing Big Brother and with whom she had hitchhiked from Texas to San Francisco a few years earlier. Helms sent his friend Travis Rivers to find her in Austin, Texas, where she had been performing with her acoustic guitar, and to accompany her to San Francisco.
Aware of her previous nightmare with drug addiction in San Francisco, Rivers insisted that she inform her parents face-to-face of her plans, and he drove her from Austin to Port Arthur (he waited in his car while she talked with her startled parents) before they began their long drive to San Francisco. Joplin joined Big Brother on June 4, 1966. Her first public performance with them was at the Avalon Ballroom in San Francisco.
In June, Joplin was photographed at an outdoor concert in San Francisco that celebrated the summer solstice. The image, which was later published in two books by David Dalton, shows her before she relapsed into drugs. Due to persistent persuading by keyboardist and close friend Stephen Ryder, Joplin avoided drugs for several weeks. She made Travis Rivers, with whom she shared an apartment upon their arrival in San Francisco, promise that using needles would not be allowed there. When bandmate Dave Getz accompanied her from a rehearsal to her home, Rivers was not there, but "two or three" (according to Getz' recollection 25 years later) guests whom Rivers had invited were in the process of injecting drugs. "One of them was about to tie off," recalled Getz. "Janis went nuts! I had never seen anybody explode like that. She was screaming and crying and Travis walked in. She screamed at him: 'We had a pact! You promised me! There wouldn't be any of that in front of me!' I was over my head and I tried to calm her down. I said, 'They're just doing mescaline,' because that's what I thought it was. She said, 'You don't understand! I can't see that! I just can't stand to see that!'"
A San Francisco concert from that summer (1966) was recorded and released on the 1984 album Cheaper Thrills. In July, all five bandmates and guitarist James Gurley's wife Nancy moved to a house in Lagunitas, California, where they lived communally. The band often partied with the Grateful Dead, the members of whom lived less than two miles away. She had a short relationship and longer friendship with founding member Ron "Pigpen" McKernan.
The band went to Chicago for a four-week engagement in August 1966, then found itself stranded after the promoter ran out of money when its concerts did not attract the expected audience levels, and he was unable to pay them. In the circumstances the band signed with Bob Shad's record label Mainstream Records; recordings for the label took place in Chicago in September, but these were not satisfactory, and the band returned to San Francisco, continuing to perform live, including at the Love Pageant Rally. The band recorded two tracks, "Blindman" and "All Is Loneliness", in Los Angeles, and these were released by Mainstream as a single that did not sell well. After playing at a happening in Stanford in early December 1966, the band traveled back to Los Angeles to record ten tracks between December 12 and 14, 1966, produced by Bob Shad, which appeared on the band's debut album in August 1967.
In late 1966, Big Brother switched managers from Chet Helms to Julius Karpen.
One of Joplin's earliest major performances in 1967 was at the Mantra-Rock Dance, a musical event held on January 29 at the Avalon Ballroom by the San Francisco Hare Krishna temple. Janis Joplin and Big Brother performed there along with the Hare Krishna founder Bhaktivedanta Swami, Allen Ginsberg, Moby Grape, and the Grateful Dead, donating proceeds to the Krishna temple. In early 1967, Joplin met Country Joe McDonald of the group Country Joe and the Fish. The pair lived together as a couple for a few months. Joplin and Big Brother began playing clubs in San Francisco, at the Fillmore West, Winterland, and the Avalon Ballroom. They also played at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, as well as in Seattle, Washington; Vancouver, British Columbia; the Psychedelic Supermarket in Boston, Massachusetts; and the Golden Bear Club in Huntington Beach, California.
The band's debut studio album, Big Brother & the Holding Company, was released by Mainstream Records in August 1967, shortly after the group's breakthrough appearance in June at the Monterey Pop Festival. Two tracks, "Coo Coo" and "The Last Time," were released separately as singles, while the tracks from the previous single, "Blindman" and "All Is Loneliness", were added to the remaining eight tracks. When Columbia Records took over the band's contract and re-released the album, they included "Coo Coo" and "The Last Time", and put "featuring Janis Joplin" on the cover. The debut album spawned four minor hits with the singles "Down on Me", a traditional song arranged by Joplin, "Bye Bye Baby", "Call On Me" and "Coo Coo", on all of which Joplin sang lead vocals.
Two songs from the second of Big Brother's two sets at Monterey, which they played on Sunday, were filmed (their first set, which was on Saturday, was not filmed, though it was audio-recorded). Some sources, including a Joplin biography by Ellis Amburn, claim that she was dressed in thrift store hippie clothes or second-hand Victorian clothes during the band's Saturday set, but still photographs do not appear to have survived. Digitized color film of two songs in the Sunday set, "Combination of the Two" and a version of Big Mama Thornton's "Ball and Chain," appear in the DVD and Blu-ray boxed set of D. A. Pennebaker's documentary Monterey Pop released by The Criterion Collection. She is seen wearing an expensive gold tunic dress with matching pants. They were created for her by San Francisco clothing designer Colin Rose.
Documentary filmmaker Pennebaker inserted two cutaway shots of Cass Elliot of the Mamas & the Papas seated in the audience during Joplin's performance of "Ball and Chain", one in the middle of the song as her eyes, covered by sunglasses, are fixed on Joplin, and also a shot during the applause as she silently mouths "Oh, wow!" and looks at the person seated next to her. Elliot and the audience are seen in sunlight, but Sunday's Big Brother performance was filmed in the evening. An explanation came from Big Brother's road manager John Byrne Cooke, who remembers that Pennebaker discreetly filmed the audience (including Elliot) during Big Brother's Saturday performance when he was not allowed to point a camera at the band.
The prohibition of Pennebaker from filming on Saturday afternoon came from Big Brother's manager Julius Karpen. The band had a bitter argument with Karpen and overruled him as they prepared for their second set that the festival organizers had added on the spur of the moment. Backstage at the festival, the band became acquainted with New York-based talent manager Albert Grossman but did not sign with him until several months later, firing Karpen at that time.
Only "Ball and Chain" was included in the Monterey Pop film that was released to theaters throughout the United States in 1969 and shown on television in the 1970s. Those who did not attend the Monterey Pop Festival saw the band's performance of "Combination of the Two" for the first time in 2002 when The Criterion Collection released the boxed set.
For the remainder of 1967, even after Big Brother signed with Albert Grossman, the band performed mainly in California. On February 16, 1968, the group began its first East Coast tour in Philadelphia, and the following day gave their first performance in New York City at the Anderson Theater. On April 7, 1968—three days after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and the last day of their East Coast tour—Joplin and Big Brother performed with Jimi Hendrix, Buddy Guy, Joni Mitchell, Richie Havens, Paul Butterfield, and Elvin Bishop at the Wake for Martin Luther King Jr. concert in New York.
Live at Winterland '68, recorded at the Winterland Ballroom on April 12 and 13, 1968, features Joplin and Big Brother and the Holding Company at the height of their mutual career working through a selection of tracks from their albums. A recording became available to the public for the first time in 1998 when Columbia/Sony Music Entertainment released the compact disc. One month after the Winterland concert, Owsley Stanley recorded them at the Carousel Ballroom, released in 2012 as Live at the Carousel Ballroom 1968.
On July 31, 1968, Joplin made her first nationwide television appearance when the band performed on This Morning, an ABC daytime 90-minute variety show that was hosted by Dick Cavett. Shortly thereafter, network employees wiped the videotape, though the audio survives. (In 1969 and 1970, Joplin made three appearances on Cavett's prime-time program. Video was preserved and excerpts have been included in most documentaries about Joplin. Audio of her 1968 appearance has not been used since then.)
Sometime in 1968, the band's billing was changed to "Janis Joplin and Big Brother and the Holding Company," and the media coverage given to Joplin generated resentment within the band. The other members of Big Brother thought that Joplin was on a "star trip", while others were telling Joplin that Big Brother was a terrible band and that she ought to dump them. Time magazine called Joplin "probably the most powerful singer to emerge from the white rock movement", and Richard Goldstein wrote for the May 1968 issue of Vogue magazine that Joplin was "the most staggering leading woman in rock...she slinks like tar, scowls like war...clutching the knees of a final stanza, begging it not to leave.... Janis Joplin can sing the chic off any listener."
For her first major studio recording, Joplin played a major role in the arrangement and production of the songs that would comprise Big Brother and the Holding Company's second album, Cheap Thrills. Producer John Simon tried recording the band in concert, to capture their energy in a live album, but several attempts showed the band was prone to mistakes. Their imprecision was not helped by moving the sessions to a recording studio. Joplin sang take after take of the same song, with her performances consistently good, and she grew frustrated with the band's sloppiness. Simon was replaced by Elliot Mazer who fixed the songs by overdubbing certain parts. The album featured a cover design by counterculture cartoonist Robert Crumb.
Although Cheap Thrills sounded as if it consisted of concert recordings, like on "Combination of the Two" and "I Need a Man to Love", only "Ball and Chain" was actually recorded in front of a paying audience; the rest of the tracks were studio recordings. The album had a raw quality, including the sound of a drinking glass breaking and the broken shards being swept away during the song "Turtle Blues". Cheap Thrills produced very popular hits with "Piece of My Heart" and "Summertime". Together with the premiere of the documentary film Monterey Pop at New York's Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts on December 26, 1968, the album launched Joplin as a star. Cheap Thrills reached number one on the Billboard 200 album chart eight weeks after its release, and was number one for eight (nonconsecutive) weeks. The album was certified gold at release and sold over a million copies in the first month of its release. The lead single from the album, "Piece of My Heart", reached number 12 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the fall of 1968.
The band made another East Coast tour during July–August 1968, performing at the Columbia Records convention in Puerto Rico and the Newport Folk Festival. After returning to San Francisco for two hometown shows at the Palace of Fine Arts Festival on August 31 and September 1, Joplin announced that she would be leaving Big Brother. On September 14, 1968, culminating a three-night engagement together at Fillmore West, fans thronged to a concert that Bill Graham publicized as the last official concert of Janis Joplin with Big Brother and the Holding Company. The opening acts on this night were Chicago (then still called Chicago Transit Authority) and Santana.
Despite Graham's announcement that the Fillmore West gig was Big Brother's last concert with Joplin, the band—with Joplin still as lead vocalist—toured the U.S. that fall. Reflecting Joplin's crossover appeal, two October 1968 performances at a roller rink in Alexandria, Virginia, were reviewed by John Segraves of the conservative Washington Evening Star at a time when the Washington metropolitan area's hard rock scene was in its infancy. An opera buff at the time, he wrote:
Later that month (October 1968), Big Brother performed at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and played at the Syracuse War Memorial as part of Syracuse University's Fall Homecoming on October 11, with Janis joining openers the Butterfield Blues Band for their closing song. Aside from two 1970 reunions, Joplin's last performance with Big Brother was at a Chet Helms benefit in San Francisco on December 1, 1968.
1969–1970: Solo career
After splitting from Big Brother and the Holding Company, Joplin formed a new backup group, the Kozmic Blues Band, composed of session musicians like keyboardist Stephen Ryder and saxophonist Cornelius "Snooky" Flowers, as well as former Big Brother and the Holding Company guitarist Sam Andrew and future Full Tilt Boogie Band bassist Brad Campbell. The band was influenced by the Stax-Volt rhythm and blues (R&B) and soul bands of the 1960s, as exemplified by Otis Redding and the Bar-Kays. The Stax-Volt R&B sound was typified by the use of horns and had a funky, pop-oriented sound in contrast to many of the psychedelic/hard rock bands of the period.
By early 1969, Joplin was allegedly shooting at least $200 worth of heroin per day (equivalent to $1300 in 2016 dollars) although efforts were made to keep her clean during the recording of I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama! Gabriel Mekler, who produced the album, told publicist-turned-biographer Myra Friedman after Joplin's death that she had lived in his Los Angeles house during the June 1969 recording sessions at his insistence so he could keep her away from drugs and her drug-using friends.
Joplin's appearances with the Kozmic Blues Band in Europe were released in theaters, in multiple documentaries. Janis, which was reviewed by the Washington Post on March 21, 1975, shows Joplin arriving in Frankfurt by plane and waiting inside a bus next to the Frankfurt venue, while an American female fan who is visiting Germany expresses enthusiasm to the camera (no security was used in Frankfurt, so by the end of the concert, the stage was so packed with people the band members could not see each other). Janis also includes interviews with Joplin in Stockholm and from her visit to London, for her gig at Royal Albert Hall. The London interview was dubbed with a voiceover in the German language for broadcast on German television. John Byrne Cooke, road manager for Joplin and the Kozmic Blues Band, wrote a book published in 2014 in which he discussed her knowledge of the risks of her ongoing use of narcotics, particularly when she was outside the United States.
On the episode of The Dick Cavett Show that was telecast in the United States on the night of July 18, 1969, Joplin and her band performed "Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)" as well as "To Love Somebody". As Dick Cavett interviewed Joplin, she admitted that she had a terrible time touring in Europe, claiming that audiences there are very uptight and don't "get down".
Released in September 1969, the Kozmic Blues album was certified gold later that year but did not match the success of Cheap Thrills. Reviews of the new group were mixed. However, the album's recording quality and engineering, as well as the musicianship (including three performances by former Bob Dylan/Paul Butterfield/Electric Flag guitarist Mike Bloomfield), were considered superior to her previous releases, and some music critics argued that the band was working in a much more constructive way to support Joplin's sensational vocal talents.
Joplin wanted a horn section similar to that featured by the Chicago Transit Authority; her voice had the dynamic qualities and range not to be overpowered by the brighter horn sound.
Some music critics, however, including Ralph J. Gleason of the San Francisco Chronicle, were negative. Gleason wrote that the new band was a "drag" and Joplin should "scrap" her new band and "go right back to being a member of Big Brother ... (if they'll have her)."
Other reviewers, such as reporter Carl Bernstein of the Washington Post, devoted entire articles to celebrating the singer's magic. Bernstein's review said that Joplin "has finally assembled a group of first-rate musicians with whom she is totally at ease and whose abilities complement the incredible range of her voice."
Columbia Records released "Kozmic Blues" as a single, which peaked at number 41 on the Billboard Hot 100, and a live rendition of "Raise Your Hand" was released in Germany and became a top ten hit there. Containing other hits like "Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)", "To Love Somebody", and "Little Girl Blue", I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama! reached number five on the Billboard 200 soon after its release.
Joplin appeared at Woodstock starting at approximately 2:00 a.m., on Sunday, August 17, 1969. Joplin informed her band that they would be performing at the concert as if it were just another gig. On Saturday afternoon, when she and the band were flown by helicopter with the pregnant Joan Baez and Baez's mother from a nearby motel to the festival site and Joplin saw the enormous crowd, she instantly became extremely nervous and giddy. Upon landing and getting off the helicopter, Joplin was approached by reporters asking her questions. She referred them to her friend and sometime lover Peggy Caserta as she was too excited to speak. Initially, Joplin was eager to get on the stage and perform but was repeatedly delayed as bands were contractually obliged to perform ahead of Joplin. Faced with a ten-hour wait after arriving at the backstage area, Joplin spent some of that time shooting heroin and drinking alcohol with Caserta in a tent. The director's cut of the Woodstock movie shows Joplin and Jefferson Airplane singer Grace Slick standing together near amplifiers watching the band Canned Heat's performance, which started at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, and Caserta does not appear within camera range. When Joplin finally reached the stage at approximately 2:00 a.m. Sunday, she was "three sheets to the wind", according to biographer Alice Echols. During her performance, Joplin's voice became slightly hoarse and wheezy, and she struggled to dance.
Joplin pulled through, however, and engaged frequently with the crowd, asking them if they had everything they needed and if they were staying stoned. The audience cheered for an encore, to which Joplin replied and sang "Ball and Chain". Pete Townshend, who performed with the Who later in the same morning after Joplin finished, witnessed her performance and said the following in his 2012 memoir: "She had been amazing at Monterey, but tonight she wasn't at her best, due, probably, to the long delay, and probably, too, to the amount of booze and heroin she'd consumed while she waited. But even Janis on an off-night was incredible."
Janis remained at Woodstock for the remainder of the festival. Starting at approximately 3:00 a.m. on Monday, August 18, Joplin was among many Woodstock performers who stood in a circle behind Crosby, Stills & Nash during their performance, which was the first time anyone at Woodstock ever had heard the group perform. This information was published by David Crosby in 1988. Later in the morning of August 18, Joplin and Joan Baez sat in Joe Cocker's van and witnessed Hendrix's close-of-show performance, according to Baez's memoir And a Voice to Sing With (1989).
Still photographs in color show Joplin backstage with Grace Slick the day after Joplin's performance, wherein Joplin appears to be very happy. She was ultimately unhappy with her performance, however, and blamed Caserta. Her singing was not included (by her own insistence) in the 1970 documentary film or the soundtrack for Woodstock: Music from the Original Soundtrack and More, although the 25th anniversary director's cut of Woodstock includes her performance of "Work Me, Lord". The documentary film of the festival that was released in theaters during 1970 includes, on the left side of a split screen, 37 seconds of footage of Joplin and Caserta walking toward Joplin's dressing room tent.
In addition to Woodstock, Joplin also had problems at Madison Square Garden, in 1969. Biographer Myra Friedman said she had witnessed a duet Joplin sang with Tina Turner during the Rolling Stones concert at the Garden on Thanksgiving Day. Friedman said Joplin was "so drunk, so stoned, so out of control, that she could have been an institutionalized psychotic rent by mania." During another Garden concert where she had solo billing on December 19, some observers believed Joplin tried to incite the audience to riot. For part of this concert she was joined onstage by Johnny Winter and Paul Butterfield.
Joplin told rock journalist David Dalton that Garden audiences watched and listened to "every note [she sang] with 'Is she gonna make it?' in their eyes." In her interview with Dalton she added that she felt most comfortable performing at small, cheap venues in San Francisco that were associated with the counterculture.
At the time of the June 1970 interview with Dalton, she had already performed in the Bay Area for what turned out to be the last time. Sam Andrew, the lead guitarist who had left Big Brother with Joplin in December 1968 to form her back-up band, quit in late summer 1969 and returned to Big Brother. At the end of the year, the Kozmic Blues Band broke up. Their final gig with Joplin was the one at Madison Square Garden with Winter and Butterfield.
In February 1970, Joplin traveled to Brazil, where she stopped her drug and alcohol use. She was accompanied on vacation there by her friend Linda Gravenites (wife of songwriter Nick Gravenites), who had designed Janis's stage costumes from 1967 to 1969.
In Brazil, Joplin was romanced by a fellow American tourist named David (George) Niehaus, who was traveling around the world. A Joplin biography written by her sister Laura said, "David was an upper-middle-class Cincinnati kid who had studied communications at Notre Dame. ... [and] had joined the Peace Corps after college and worked in a small village in Turkey. ... He tried law school, but when he met Janis he was taking time off."
Niehaus and Joplin were photographed by the press at Rio Carnival in Rio de Janeiro. Gravenites also took color photographs of the two during their Brazilian vacation. According to Joplin biographer Ellis Amburn, in Gravenites' snapshots they "look like a carefree, happy, healthy young couple having a tremendously good time."
Rolling Stone magazine interviewed Joplin during an international phone call, quoting her: "I'm going into the jungle with a big bear of a beatnik named David Niehaus. I finally remembered I don't have to be on stage twelve months a year. I've decided to go and dig some other jungles for a couple of weeks." Amburn added in 1992, "Janis was trying to kick heroin in Brazil, and one of the nicest things about David was that he wasn't into drugs."
When Joplin returned to the U.S., she began using heroin again. Her relationship with Niehaus soon ended because he witnessed her shooting drugs at her new home in Larkspur, California. The relationship was also complicated by her ongoing romantic relationship with Peggy Caserta, who also was an intravenous addict, and Joplin's refusal to take some time off and travel the world with him.
Around this time, she formed her new band, known for a short time as Main Squeeze, then renamed the Full Tilt Boogie Band. The band comprised mostly young Canadian musicians previously associated with Ronnie Hawkins and featured an organ, but no horn section. Joplin took a more active role in putting together the Full Tilt Boogie band than she had with her prior group. She was quoted as saying, "It's my band. Finally it's my band!" In May 1970, after performing under the name Main Squeeze at a Hell's Angels event, the renamed Full Tilt Boogie Band began a nationwide tour. Joplin became very happy with her new group, which eventually received mostly positive feedback from both her fans and the critics.
Prior to beginning a summer tour with Full Tilt Boogie, she performed in a reunion with Big Brother at the Fillmore West, in San Francisco, on April 4, 1970. Recordings from this concert were included in an in-concert album released posthumously in 1972. She again appeared with Big Brother on April 12 at Winterland, where she and Big Brother were reported to be in excellent form. She performed with the band, billed as Main Squeeze, at a party for the Hells Angels at a venue in San Rafael, California on May 21, 1970, according to a web site maintained by Big Brother guitarist Sam Andrew. Andrew's web site quotes him as saying, "This will be the first time that Janis' old band and her new band will be at the same venue, so everyone is a little on edge."
According to Joplin's biographer Ellis Amburn, Big Brother with its lead singer Nick Gravenites was the opening act at the party that was attended by 2,300 people. The Hells Angels, who had known Joplin since 1966, paid her a fee of 240 dollars to perform. Gravenites and Sam Andrew (who had resumed playing guitar with Big Brother) differed in their opinions of her performance and how substance abuse affected it. Gravenites described her singing as "stupendous," according to Amburn. Amburn quoted Andrew twenty years later: "She was visibly deteriorating and she looked bloated. She was like a parody of what she was at her best. I put it down to her drinking too much and I felt a tinge of fear for her well-being. Her singing was real flabby, no edge at all."
Shortly thereafter, Joplin began wearing multi-colored feather boas in her hair. (She had not worn them at the May 21 Hell's Angels party / concert in San Rafael). By the time she began touring with Full Tilt Boogie, Joplin told people she was drug-free, but her drinking increased.
From June 28 to July 4, 1970, during the Festival Express tour, Joplin and Full Tilt Boogie performed alongside Buddy Guy, the Band, the Flying Burrito Brothers, Ten Years After, the Grateful Dead, Delaney & Bonnie, Eric Andersen, and Ian & Sylvia. They played concerts in Toronto, Winnipeg, and Calgary. Joplin jammed with the other performers on the train, and her performances on this tour are considered to be among her greatest.
Joplin headlined the festival on all three nights. At the last stop in Calgary, she took to the stage with Jerry Garcia while her band was tuning up. Film footage shows her telling the audience how great the tour was and shows her and Garcia presenting the organizers with a case of tequila. She then burst into a two-hour set, starting with "Tell Mama". Throughout this performance, Joplin engaged in several banters about her love life. In one, she reminisced about living in a San Francisco apartment and competing with a female neighbor in flirting with men on the street. She finished the Calgary concert with long versions of "Get It While You Can" and "Ball and Chain".
Footage of her performance of "Tell Mama" in Calgary became an MTV video in the early 1980s, and the audio from the same film footage was included on the Farewell Song (1982) album. The audio of other Festival Express performances was included on Joplin's In Concert (1972) album. Video of the performances was also included on the Festival Express DVD.
These performances of entire songs during the Festival Express concerts in Toronto and Calgary can be purchased, although other songs remain in vaults and have yet to be released.
In the "Tell Mama" video shown on MTV in the 1980s, Joplin wore a psychedelically colored, loose-fitting costume and feathers in her hair. This was her standard stage costume in the spring and summer of 1970. She chose the new costumes after her friend and designer, Linda Gravenites (whom Joplin had praised in Vogues profile of her in its May 1968 edition), cut ties with Joplin shortly after their return from Brazil, due largely to Joplin's continued use of heroin.
Among Joplin's last public appearances were two broadcasts of The Dick Cavett Show. In her June 25, 1970 appearance, she announced that she would attend her ten-year high school class reunion. When asked if she had been popular in school, she admitted that when in high school, her schoolmates "laughed me out of class, out of town and out of the state" (during the year she had spent at the University of Texas at Austin, Joplin had been voted "Ugliest Man on Campus" by frat boys). In the subsequent Cavett Show broadcast, on August 3, 1970, and featuring Gloria Swanson, Joplin discussed her upcoming performance at the Festival for Peace to be held at Shea Stadium in Queens, New York, three days later.
On July 11, 1970, Full Tilt Boogie and Big Brother and the Holding Company both performed at the same concert in the San Diego Sports Arena, which was decades later renamed the Valley View Casino Center. Joplin sang with Full Tilt Boogie and appeared briefly onstage with Big Brother without singing, according to a July 13 review of the concert in the San Diego Union.
On August 7, 1970, a tombstone—jointly paid for by Joplin and Juanita Green, who as a child had done housework for Bessie Smith—was erected at Smith's previously unmarked grave. The following day, the Associated Press circulated this news, and the August 9 edition of The New York Times carried it. The lead paragraph of the AP story said Joplin and Green had "shared the cost of a stone for the 'Empress of the Blues,'" but, according to publicist/biographer Myra Friedman, the two women never met. Joplin had been at home in Larkspur, California when she had received a long-distance phone call with an explanation of the need to finance a gravestone for Bessie Smith, whom Joplin had frequently cited as a musical influence. Joplin immediately wrote a check and mailed it to the name and address provided by the phone caller.
On August 8, 1970, as the Associated Press circulated the news about Smith's new gravestone, Joplin performed at the Capitol Theatre (Port Chester, New York). It was there that she first performed "Mercedes Benz", a song (partially inspired by a Michael McClure poem) that she had composed with fellow musician and friend Bob Neuwirth a very short time earlier. According to Myra Friedman's account, Joplin performed two shows at the Capitol Theatre, the first of which was attended by actors Geraldine Page and her husband Rip Torn. Between the shows, at a "gin mill" [Friedman's words] very close to this concert venue, Joplin and Neuwirth penned the lyrics to the song and she performed it at the second show, according to Friedman. Neuwirth was quoted by The Wall Street Journal in 2015: "Around 7 p.m., after the Capitol sound check, we had a couple of hours to kill before [acts that opened for Joplin] Seatrain and Runt finished their sets. So the four of us [Joplin, Neuwirth, Geraldine Page, Rip Torn] walked to a bar about three minutes away called Vahsen’s [at 30 Broad Street in Port Chester]." While in Vahsen's, "Janis came up with words for the first verse. I was in charge of writing them down on bar napkins with a ballpoint pen. She came up with the second verse, too, about a color TV. I suggested words here and there, and came up with the third verse—about asking the Lord to buy us a night on the town and another round."
Joplin's last public performance with the Full Tilt Boogie Band took place on August 12, 1970, at the Harvard Stadium in Boston. The Harvard Crimson gave the performance a positive, front-page review, despite the fact that Full Tilt Boogie had performed with makeshift amplifiers after their regular sound equipment was stolen in Boston.
Joplin attended her high school reunion on August 14, accompanied by Neuwirth, road manager John Cooke, and sister Laura, but it was reportedly an unhappy experience for her. Joplin held a press conference in Port Arthur during her reunion visit. When asked by a reporter if she ever entertained at Thomas Jefferson High School when she was a student there, Joplin replied, "Only when I walked down the aisles." Joplin denigrated Port Arthur and the classmates who had humiliated her a decade earlier.
During late August, September, and early October 1970, Joplin and her band rehearsed and recorded a new album in Los Angeles with producer Paul A. Rothchild, best known for his lengthy relationship with The Doors. Although Joplin died before all the tracks were fully completed, there was enough usable material to compile an LP.
The posthumous Pearl (1971) became the biggest-selling album of her career and featured her biggest hit single, a cover of Kris Kristofferson and Fred Foster's "Me and Bobby McGee" (Kristofferson had previously been Joplin's lover in the spring of 1970). The opening track, "Move Over", was written by Joplin, reflecting the way that she felt men treated women in relationships. Also included was the social commentary of "Mercedes Benz", presented in an a cappella arrangement; the track on the album features the first and only take that Joplin recorded. A cover of Nick Gravenites's "Buried Alive in the Blues", to which Joplin had been scheduled to add her vocals on the day she was found dead, was included as an instrumental.
Joplin checked into the Landmark Motor Hotel in Hollywood on August 24, 1970, near Sunset Sound Recorders, where she began rehearsing and recording her album. During the sessions, Joplin continued a relationship with Seth Morgan, a 21-year-old UC Berkeley student, cocaine dealer, and future novelist who had visited her new home in Larkspur in July and August. She and Morgan were engaged to be married in early September, although he visited Sunset Sound Recorders for just eight of Joplin's many rehearsals and sessions.
Morgan later told biographer Myra Friedman that, as a non-musician, he had felt excluded whenever he had visited Sunset Sound Recorders. Instead, he stayed at Joplin's Larkspur home while she stayed alone at the Landmark, although several times she visited Larkspur to be with him and to check the progress of renovations she was having done on the house. She told her construction crew to design a carport to be shaped like a flying saucer, according to biographer Ellis Amburn, the concrete foundation for which was poured the day before she died.
Peggy Caserta claimed in her book, Going Down With Janis (1973), that she and Joplin had decided mutually in April 1970 to stay away from each other to avoid enabling each other's drug use. Caserta, a former Delta Air Lines stewardess and owner of one of the first clothing boutiques in the Haight Ashbury, said in the book that by September 1970, she was smuggling cannabis throughout California and had checked into the Landmark Motor Hotel because it attracted drug users.
For approximately the first two weeks of Joplin's stay at the Landmark, she did not know Caserta was in Los Angeles. Joplin learned of Caserta's presence at the Landmark from a heroin dealer who made deliveries there. Joplin begged Caserta for heroin, and when Caserta refused to provide it, Joplin reportedly admonished her by saying, "Don't think if you can get it, I can't get it." Joplin's publicist Myra Friedman was unaware during Joplin's lifetime that this had happened. Later, while Friedman was working on her book Buried Alive, she determined that the time frame of the Joplin-Caserta encounter was one week before Jimi Hendrix's death.
Within a few days, Joplin became a regular customer of the same heroin dealer who had been supplying Caserta.
Joplin's manager Albert Grossman and his assistant/publicist Friedman had staged an intervention with Joplin the previous winter while Joplin was in New York. In September 1970, Grossman and Friedman, who worked out of a New York office, knew Joplin was staying at a Los Angeles hotel, but were unaware it was a haven for drug users and dealers.
Grossman and Friedman knew during Joplin's lifetime that her friend Caserta, whom Friedman met during the New York sessions for Cheap Thrills and on later occasions, used heroin. During the many long-distance telephone conversations that Joplin and Friedman had in September 1970 and on October 1, Joplin never mentioned Caserta, and Friedman assumed Caserta had been out of Joplin's life for a while. Friedman, who had more time than Grossman to monitor the situation, never visited California. She thought Joplin sounded on the phone like she was less depressed than she had been over the summer.
When Joplin was not at Sunset Sound Recorders, she liked to drive her Porsche over the speed limit "on the winding part of Sunset Blvd.", according to a statement made by her attorney Robert Gordon in 1995 at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony. Friedman wrote that the only Full Tilt Boogie member who rode as her passenger, Ken Pearson, often hesitated to join her, though he did on the night she died. He was not interested in using hard drugs.
On September 26, 1970, Joplin recorded vocals for "Half Moon" and "Cry Baby". The session ended with Joplin, organist Ken Pearson, and drummer Clark Pierson making a special one-minute recording as a birthday gift to John Lennon. Joplin was among several singers who had been contacted by Yoko Ono with a request for a taped greeting for Lennon's 30th birthday, on October 9. Joplin, Pearson, and Pierson chose the Dale Evans composition "Happy Trails" as part of the greeting. Lennon told Dick Cavett on-camera the following year that Joplin's recorded birthday wishes arrived at his home after her death.
On October 1, 1970, Joplin completed her last recording, "Mercedes Benz", which was recorded in a single take. On Saturday, October 3, Joplin visited Sunset Sound Recorders to listen to the instrumental track for Nick Gravenites's song "Buried Alive in the Blues", which the band had recorded earlier that day. She and Paul Rothchild agreed she would record the vocal the following day.
At some point on Saturday, she learned by telephone, to her dismay, that Seth Morgan had met other women at a Marin County, California, restaurant, invited them to her home, and was shooting pool with them using her pool table. People at Sunset Sound Recorders overheard Joplin expressing anger about the state of her relationship with Morgan, as well as joy about the progress of the sessions.
Joplin and Ken Pearson later left the studio together and she drove him in her Porsche to the West Hollywood landmark called Barney's Beanery. Friedman wrote, "At the bar, she drank vodka and orange juice, only two." Bennett Glotzer, a business partner of Joplin's manager Albert Grossman, was present at Barney's Beanery, according to what he told John Byrne Cooke immediately after he (Glotzer) learned of her death. Evidently, Joplin had a friendly conversation with a young man whom she did not know, and he expressed admiration for her music. After midnight, she drove Ken Pearson and the male fan to the Landmark where she and Pearson were staying in separate rooms. During the car ride, the fan asked Joplin questions "about her singing style," according to Friedman, and "she mostly ignored him" so she could converse with Pearson. As Joplin and Pearson prepared to part in the lobby of the Landmark, she expressed a fear, possibly in jest, that he and the other Full Tilt Boogie musicians might decide to stop making music with her. Pearson was the second-to-last person to see her alive. The last was the Landmark's night shift desk clerk. He had met her several times but did not know her.
Personal life
Joplin's significant relationships with men included ones with Peter de Blanc, Country Joe McDonald (who wrote the song "Janis" at Joplin's request), David (George) Niehaus, Kris Kristofferson, and Seth Morgan (from July 1970 until her death, at which time they were allegedly engaged).
She also had relationships with women. During her first stint in San Francisco in 1963, Joplin met and briefly lived with Jae Whitaker, a black woman whom she had met while playing pool at the bar Gino & Carlo in North Beach. Whitaker broke off their relationship because of Joplin's hard drug use and sexual relationships with other people. Whitaker was first identified by name in connection with the singer in 1999, when Alice Echols' biography Scars of Sweet Paradise was published.
Joplin also had an on-again-off-again romantic relationship with Peggy Caserta. They first met in November 1966 when Big Brother performed at a San Francisco venue called The Matrix. Caserta was one of 15 people in the audience, and at the time, she ran a successful clothing boutique in the Haight Ashbury. Approximately a month after Caserta attended the concert, Joplin visited her boutique and said she could not afford to buy a pair of jeans that was for sale, instead asking to put down the first 50 cents on the $5 item. Caserta was amazed that such a talented singer could not afford a $5 item, and gave her a pair for free. Their friendship was platonic for more than a year. Before it moved to the next level, Caserta was in love with Big Brother guitarist Sam Andrew, and sometime during the first half of 1968 traveled from San Francisco to New York to flirt with him. He did not want a serious relationship, and Joplin sympathized with Caserta's disappointment.
The Woodstock concert film includes 37 seconds of Joplin and Caserta walking together before they reached the tent where Joplin waited for her turn to perform. By the time the festival took place in August 1969, both were intravenous heroin addicts.
According to Caserta's book Going Down With Janis, which Caserta has since disowned, Joplin introduced her to her boyfriend Seth Morgan in Joplin's room at the Landmark Motor Hotel on September 29, 1970. Caserta "had seen him around" San Francisco but had not met him before. At some point, an agreement was made for a threesome to take place the following Friday, although Caserta later said that she immediately abandoned the idea once she understood that it was Morgan who would be with Joplin. Morgan made alternate plans, believing that Caserta would be with Joplin that evening. Each one, however, was unaware that the other had bowed out. The day after Joplin introduced Caserta to Morgan, Caserta saw Joplin briefly, again in Joplin's room, when Caserta accommodated her new Los Angeles friend Debbie Nuciforo, age 19, an aspiring hard rock drummer who wanted to meet Joplin. Nuciforo was stoned on heroin at the time, and the three women's encounter was brief and unpleasant. Caserta suspected that the reason for Joplin's foul mood was that Morgan had abandoned her earlier that day after having spent less than 24 hours with her. Caserta did not see nor communicate by phone with Joplin again, although she later claimed she had made several attempts to reach her by phone at the Landmark Motor Hotel and at Sunset Sound Recorders. Caserta and Morgan lost touch with each other; each had independently made alternate plans for Friday night, October 2. Joplin mentioned her disappointment (over both of her friends' bailing out of their ménage à trois) to her drug dealer on Saturday, while he was selling her the dose of heroin that killed her, as Caserta later learned from the drug dealer.
Biographer Myra Friedman commented in her original version of Buried Alive (1973):
Given the near-infinite potentials of infancy, it is really impossible to make generalizations about what lies behind sexual practices. This, however, is probable: to become clearly homosexual, to make the choice that one honestly prefers relations with one's own sex, no matter the origins of such preference, requires a certain integration, a stability of psychic development, a tidiness of personality organization. The ridicule and the humiliation that took place at that most delicate period in [Joplin's] early teens, her own inability to surmount the obstacles to regular growth, devastated her a great deal more than most people comprehended. Janis was not heir to an ego so cohesive as to permit her an identity one way or the other. She was, as [the psychiatric social worker she saw regularly in Beaumont, Texas in 1965 and 1966] Mr. [Bernard] Giarritano put it [in an interview with Friedman], "diffused" -- spewing, splattering, splaying all over, without a center to hold. That had as much to do with her original use of drugs [before she first met Giarritano] as did the critical component of guilt and its multiplicity of sources above and beyond the contribution made by her relationships with women. Were she so simple as the lesbians wished her to be or so free as her associates imagined!
Kim France reported in her May 2, 1999 The New York Times article, "Nothin' Left to Lose" : "Once she became famous, Joplin cursed like a truck driver, did not believe in wearing undergarments, was rarely seen without her bottle of Southern Comfort and delighted in playing the role of sexual predator."
On July 11, 1970, Joplin made a revealing statement about her sexuality to her friend Richard Hundgen, the Grateful Dead's San Francisco-based road manager whom she had known since 1966. When Joplin and Hundgen were offstage during a San Diego gig for both Full Tilt Boogie and Big Brother and the Holding Company, she said the following that he later repeated to Myra Friedman:
I hear a rumor that somebody in San Francisco is spreading stories that I'm a dyke. You go back there and find out who it is and tell them that Janis says she's gotten it on with a couple of thousand cats in her life and a few hundred chicks and see what they can do with that!
Death
On Sunday evening, October 4, 1970, Joplin was found dead on the floor of her room at the Landmark Motor Hotel by her road manager and close friend John Byrne Cooke.
Alcohol was present in the room. Newspapers reported that no other drugs or paraphernalia were present. According to a 1983 book authored by Joseph DiMona and Los Angeles County coroner Thomas Noguchi, evidence of narcotics was removed from the scene by a friend of Joplin and later put back after the person realized that an autopsy was going to reveal that narcotics were in her system. The book adds that prior to Joplin's death, Noguchi had investigated other fatal drug overdoses in Los Angeles where friends believed they were doing favors for decedents by removing evidence of narcotics, then they "thought things over" and returned to put back the evidence. Noguchi performed an autopsy on Joplin and determined the cause of death to be a heroin overdose, possibly compounded by alcohol.
John Byrne Cooke believed Joplin had been given heroin that was much more potent than what she and other L.A. heroin users had received on previous occasions, as was indicated by overdoses of several of her dealer's other customers during the same weekend. Her death was ruled accidental.
Both Peggy Caserta, Joplin's close friend, and Seth Morgan, Joplin's fiancé, had failed to meet Joplin the Friday immediately prior to her death, October 2; Joplin had been expecting both of them to keep her company that night. According to Caserta, Joplin was saddened that neither of her friends visited her at the Landmark as they had promised. During the 24 hours Joplin lived after this disappointment, Caserta did not phone her to explain why she had failed to show up. Caserta admitted to waiting until late Saturday night to dial the Landmark switchboard, only to learn that Joplin had instructed the desk clerk not to accept any incoming phone calls for her after midnight. Morgan did speak to Joplin via telephone within the 24 hours prior to her death, but little is known about that call. She used a phone at Sunset Sound Recorders where her colleagues (“there were perhaps twenty to twenty-five people present,” wrote biographer Myra Friedman) noticed that whatever Morgan said to her made her very angry.
Peggy Caserta has insisted that Joplin's death was not an accidental overdose, but rather a result of a head gash suffered after the "hourglass heel" of her slingback sandal caught in the shag carpet, causing her to lose her balance. Caserta does concede, however, that drugs and/or alcohol may have played a role in hastening her death that night.
Joplin was cremated at Pierce Brothers Westwood Village Memorial Park and Mortuary in Los Angeles, and her ashes were scattered from a plane into the Pacific Ocean.
Legacy
Joplin's death in October 1970 at age 27 stunned her fans and shocked the music world, especially when coupled with the death just 16 days earlier of another rock icon, Jimi Hendrix, also at age 27. (This would later cause some people to attribute significance to the death of musicians at the age of 27, as celebrated in the "27 Club.") Music historian Tom Moon wrote that Joplin had "a devastatingly original voice," music columnist Jon Pareles of The New York Times wrote that Joplin as an artist was "overpowering and deeply vulnerable" and author Megan Terry said that Joplin was the female version of Elvis Presley in her ability to captivate an audience.
A book about Joplin by her publicist Myra Friedman titled Buried Alive: The Biography of Janis Joplin (1973) was excerpted in many newspapers. At the same time, Peggy Caserta's memoir, Going Down With Janis (1973), attracted much attention; its provocative title is a reference to Caserta's claim that she had engaged in oral sex with Joplin while they were high on heroin in September 1970. The description provided by Dan Knapp, Caserta’s co-author whom she denounced decades later, repelled many people in 1973 when few books or filmed interviews of Joplin or her loved ones were accessible to the public. Joplin's bandmate Sam Andrew described Caserta as "halfway between a groupie and a friend" in an interview with writer Ellis Amburn. Soon after the 1973 publication of Going Down With Janis, Joplin's friends learned that graphic descriptions of sexual acts and intravenous drug use were not the only portions of the book that would haunt them.
According to Kim Chappell, a close friend of Caserta and Joplin, Caserta's book angered the Los Angeles heroin dealer whom she had described in detail in her book, including the make and model of his car. According to Amburn, in 1973 a "carful of dope dealers" visited a Los Angeles lesbian bar that Caserta had been frequenting. Chappell, who was in the alley behind the bar, stated: "I was stabbed because, when Peggy's book came out, her dealer, the same one who'd given Janis her last fix, didn't like it that he was referred to and was out to get Peggy. He couldn't find her, so he went for her lover. When they realized who I was, they felt that my death would also hit Peggy, and so they stabbed me." Despite being "stabbed three times in the chest, puncturing both lungs," Chappell eventually recovered.
In 2018, Caserta denounced Going Down With Janis as the pornographic fantasy of Dan Knapp, her co-author, and largely unreliable. During that year, the public had its first access to her own story via a memoir she co-wrote with Maggie Falcon titled I Ran Into Some Trouble. It describes a long, friendly relationship with Joplin that only occasionally featured sexuality.
According to Joplin’s biographers, Caserta was among many friends of Joplin who did not become clean and sober until a very long time after Joplin's death, while others died from overdoses. Although the wife of Big Brother guitarist James Gurley, who was Joplin's close friend, died from a heroin overdose in 1969, devastating Joplin, Gurley himself did not become clean and sober until 1984. Caserta survived "a near-fatal OD in December 1995," wrote Alice Echols. On January 13, 2000, Caserta appeared during a segment about Joplin on 20/20.
Joplin's body art, with a wristlet and a small heart on her left breast by the San Francisco tattoo artist Lyle Tuttle, marked an early moment in the popular culture's acceptance of tattoos as art. Another trademark was her flamboyant hair styles, which often included colored streaks and accessories such as scarves, beads and feathers. When in New York City, Joplin frequented the Limbo boutique on St. Mark's Place, and she wore some of the vintage and unique garments that she purchased there on stage.
The Mamas & the Papas' song "Pearl" (1971), from their People Like Us album, was a tribute. Leonard Cohen's song "Chelsea Hotel#2" (1974) is about Joplin. Lyricist Robert Hunter has commented that Jerry Garcia's "Birdsong" from his first solo album, Garcia (1972), is about Joplin and the end of her suffering through death. Mimi Farina's composition "In the Quiet Morning", most famously covered by Joan Baez on her Come from the Shadows (1972) album, was a tribute to Joplin. Another song by Baez, "Children of the Eighties," mentioned Joplin. A Serge Gainsbourg-penned French language song by English singer Jane Birkin, "Ex fan des sixties" (1978), references Joplin along with other disappeared "idols" such as Jimi Hendrix, Brian Jones and Marc Bolan. When Joplin was alive, Country Joe McDonald released a song called "Janis" on his band's album I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die (1967).
The film The Rose (1979) is loosely based on Joplin's life. Originally planned to be titled Pearl—Joplin's nickname and the title of her last album—the film was fictionalized after her family declined to allow the producers the rights to her story. Bette Midler earned a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in the film.
In 1988, on what would have been Joplin's 45th birthday, the Janis Joplin Memorial, with an original gold, multi-image sculpture of Joplin by Douglas Clark, was dedicated during a ceremony in Port Arthur, Texas.
In 1992, the first major biography of Joplin in two decades, Love, Janis, authored by her younger sister Laura Joplin, was published. In an interview, Laura stated that Joplin enjoyed being on the Dick Cavett Show, that Joplin had difficulties with some, but not all, people at Thomas Jefferson High School and that Joplin enthusiastically talked about Woodstock with her parents and siblings during a visit to their Texas home a few weeks after she had performed at the festival.
In 1995, Joplin was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In 2005, she received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. In November 2009, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum honored her as part of its annual American Music Masters Series; among the artifacts at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum exhibition are Joplin's scarf and necklaces, her psychedelically painted 1965 Porsche 356 Cabriolet and a sheet of LSD blotting paper designed by Robert Crumb, designer of the Cheap Thrills cover. Also in 2009, Joplin was the honoree at the Rock Hall's American Music Master concert and lecture series.
In the late 1990s, the musical play Love, Janis was created and directed by Randal Myler, with input from Janis' younger sister Laura and Big Brother guitarist Sam Andrew, with an aim to take it to Off-Broadway. Opening in the summer of 2001 and scheduled for only a few weeks of performances, the show won acclaim, played to packed houses and was held over several times.
In 2013, Washington's Arena Stage featured a production of A Night with Janis Joplin, starring Mary Bridget Davies. In it, Joplin performs a concert for the audience while telling stories of her past inspirations, including those of Odetta and Aretha Franklin. The show went on tour in 2016.
On November 4, 2013, Joplin was awarded with the 2,510th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contributions to the music industry. Her star is located at 6752 Hollywood Boulevard, in front of Musicians Institute.
On August 8, 2014, the U.S. Postal Service revealed a commemorative stamp honoring Joplin as part of its Music Icons stamp series during a first-day-of-issue ceremony at the Outside Lands Music Festival at Golden Gate Park.
Among the memorabilia Joplin left behind is a Gibson Hummingbird guitar.
In 2015, the biographical documentary film Janis: Little Girl Blue, directed by Amy J. Berg and narrated by Cat Power, was released. It was a New York Times Critics' Pick.
Influence
Joplin had a profound influence on many singers.
Pink said about Joplin: "She was so inspiring by singing blues music when it wasn't culturally acceptable for white women, and she wore her heart on her sleeve. She was so witty and charming and intelligent, but she also battled an ugly-duckling syndrome. I would love to play her in a movie." In a tribute performance on her Try This Tour, Pink called Joplin "a woman who inspired me when everyone else ... didn't!"
Discography
Janis Joplin recorded four albums in her four-year career. The first two albums were recorded with and credited to Big Brother and the Holding Company; the later two were recorded with different backing bands and released as solo albums. Posthumous releases have included previously unreleased studio and live material.
Studio albums
As lead singer of Big Brother and the Holding Company
As solo artist
Live albums
Compilation albums
Singles
As lead of Big Brother and the Holding Company
As solo artist
Filmography
Monterey Pop (1968)
Petulia (1968)
Janis Joplin Live in Frankfurt (1969)
Janis (1974)
Janis: The Way She Was (1974)
Comin' Home (1988)
Woodstock – The Lost Performances (1991)
Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace & Music (Director's Cut) (1994)
Festival Express (2003)
Nine Hundred Nights (2004)
The Dick Cavett Show: Rock Icons (2005) Shout Factory
Rockin' at the Red Dog: The Dawn of Psychedelic Rock (2005)
This is Tom Jones (2007) 1969 appearance on TV show
Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace & Music (Director's Cut) 40th Anniversary Edition (2009)
Janis Joplin with Big Brother: Ball and Chain (DVD) Charly (2009)
Janis: Little Girl Blue (2015)
Notes
References
Further reading
– an encounter with Janis Joplin at the wheel.
External links
Janis Joplin at the Grammy Awards
Janis Joplin on the Music-Map
1943 births
1970 deaths
20th-century American singers
20th-century American women singers
American blues singers
American child singers
American mezzo-sopranos
American women rock singers
American women singer-songwriters
American rhythm and blues singer-songwriters
American rock songwriters
American soul musicians
Accidental deaths in California
Big Brother and the Holding Company members
Bisexual musicians
Bisexual women
Blues rock musicians
Columbia Records artists
Deaths by heroin overdose in California
Drug-related deaths in California
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners
LGBT people from Texas
LGBT singers from the United States
LGBT songwriters
Lamar University alumni
People from Beaumont, Texas
People from Port Arthur, Texas
Singer-songwriters from Texas
University of Texas at Austin alumni
20th-century LGBT people
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[
"\"Kozmic Blues\" is a song from American singer-songwriter Janis Joplin's I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama! album, her first after departing Big Brother and the Holding Company. It was a part of Joplin's set at the Woodstock Festival in 1969.\n\nBackground\nAlthough the concert as a whole is not regarded as Joplin at her best, that specific performance became very popular and was released on The Essential Janis Joplin.\n\nChart performance\n\nReferences \n\nJanis Joplin songs",
"Rare Pearls is a 1999 collection of rare Janis Joplin Studio recordings with Big Brother and the Holding Company and live performances with The Kozmic Blues Band. It was released only as part of the box set Box of Pearls (1999), which contained reissues of all of Joplin's albums with added bonus tracks, and this compilation.\n\nTrack listing\n\nReferences\n\n1999 compilation albums\nJanis Joplin albums"
] |
[
"Janis Joplin",
"Kozmic Blues Band",
"Was Janis Joplin part of the Kozmic Blues Band?",
"Joplin formed a new backup group, the Kozmic Blues Band,"
] |
C_e67a6494e12f48e39fceae5d4a32ef7a_0
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Did she tour with the Kozmic Blues Band?
| 2 |
Did Janis Joplin tour with the Kozmic Blues Band?
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Janis Joplin
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After splitting from Big Brother and the Holding Company, Joplin formed a new backup group, the Kozmic Blues Band, composed of session musicians like keyboardist Stephen Ryder and saxophonist Cornelius "Snooky" Flowers, as well as former Big Brother and the Holding Company guitarist Sam Andrew and future Full Tilt Boogie Band bassist Brad Campbell. The band was influenced by the Stax-Volt rhythm and blues (R&B) and soul bands of the 1960s, as exemplified by Otis Redding and the Bar-Kays. The Stax-Volt R&B sound was typified by the use of horns and had a funky, pop-oriented sound in contrast to many of the psychedelic/hard rock bands of the period. By early 1969, Joplin was allegedly shooting at least $200 worth of heroin per day (equivalent to $1300 in 2016 dollars) although efforts were made to keep her clean during the recording of I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama!. Gabriel Mekler, who produced Kozmic Blues, told publicist-turned-biographer Myra Friedman after Joplin's death that the singer had lived in his house during the June 1969 recording sessions at his insistence so he could keep her away from drugs and her drug-using friends. Joplin's appearances with the Kozmic Blues Band in Europe were released in cinemas, in multiple documentaries. Janis, which was reviewed by the Washington Post on March 21, 1975, shows Joplin arriving in Frankfurt by plane and waiting inside a bus next to the Frankfurt venue, while an American fan who is visiting Germany expresses enthusiasm to the camera (no security was used in Frankfurt, so by the end of the concert, the stage was so packed with people the band members could not see each other). Janis also includes interviews with Joplin in Stockholm and from her visit to London, for her gig at Royal Albert Hall. On one episode of The Dick Cavett Show, they performed "Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)" as well as "To Love Somebody". As Dick Cavett interviewed Joplin, she admitted that she had a terrible time touring in Europe, claiming that audiences there are very uptight and don't "get down". CANNOTANSWER
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CANNOTANSWER
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Janis Joplin (January 19, 1943 – October 4, 1970) was an American singer-songwriter who sang rock, soul, and blues music. One of the most successful and widely known rock stars of her era, she was noted for her powerful mezzo-soprano vocals and "electric" stage presence.
In 1967, Joplin rose to fame following an appearance at Monterey Pop Festival, where she was the lead singer of the then little-known San Francisco psychedelic rock band Big Brother and the Holding Company. After releasing two albums with the band, she left Big Brother to continue as a solo artist with her own backing groups, first the Kozmic Blues Band and then the Full Tilt Boogie Band. She appeared at the Woodstock festival and on the Festival Express train tour. Five singles by Joplin reached the Billboard Hot 100, including a cover of the Kris Kristofferson song "Me and Bobby McGee", which reached number one in March 1971. Her most popular songs include her cover versions of "Piece of My Heart", "Cry Baby", "Down on Me", "Ball and Chain", and "Summertime"; and her original song "Mercedes Benz", her final recording.
Joplin died of a heroin overdose in 1970, at the age of 27, after releasing three albums (two with Big Brother and the Holding Company and one solo album). A second solo album, Pearl, was released in January 1971, just over three months after her death. It reached number one on the Billboard charts. She was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995. Rolling Stone ranked Joplin number 46 on its 2004 list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time and number 28 on its 2008 list of 100 Greatest Singers of All Time. She remains one of the top-selling musicians in the United States, with Recording Industry Association of America certifications of 18.5 million albums sold.
Early life
Janis Joplin was born in Port Arthur, Texas, on , to Dorothy Bonita East (1913–1998), a registrar at a business college, and her husband, Seth Ward Joplin (1910–1987), an engineer at Texaco. She had two younger siblings, Michael and Laura. The family attended First Christian Church of Port Arthur, a church belonging to the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) denomination.
Her parents felt that Janis needed more attention than their other children. As a teenager, Joplin befriended a group of outcasts, one of whom had albums by blues artists Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, and Lead Belly, which Joplin later credited with influencing her decision to become a singer. She began singing blues and folk music with friends at Thomas Jefferson High School. In high school, she was a classmate of Pro Football Hall of Fame coach Jimmy Johnson.
Joplin stated that she was ostracized and bullied in high school. As a teen, she became overweight and suffered from acne, leaving her with deep scars that required dermabrasion. Other kids at high school would routinely taunt her and call her names like "pig," "freak," "nigger lover," or "creep." She stated, "I was a misfit. I read, I painted, I thought. I didn't hate niggers."
Joplin graduated from high school in 1960 and attended Lamar State College of Technology in Beaumont, Texas, during the summer and later the University of Texas at Austin (UT), though she did not complete her college studies. The campus newspaper, The Daily Texan, ran a profile of her in the issue dated July 27, 1962, headlined "She Dares to Be Different." The article began, "She goes barefooted when she feels like it, wears Levi's to class because they're more comfortable, and carries her autoharp with her everywhere she goes so that in case she gets the urge to break into song, it will be handy. Her name is Janis Joplin." While at UT she performed with a folk trio called the Waller Creek Boys and frequently socialized with the staff of the campus humor magazine The Texas Ranger. According to Freak Brothers cartoonist Gilbert Shelton, who befriended her, she used to sell The Texas Ranger, which contained some of Shelton's early comic books, on the campus.
Career
1962–1965: Early recordings
Joplin cultivated a rebellious manner and styled herself partly after her female blues heroines and partly after the Beat poets. Her first song, "What Good Can Drinkin' Do", was recorded on tape in December 1962 at the home of a fellow University of Texas student.
She left Texas in January 1963 ("Just to get away," she said, "because my head was in a much different place"), hitchhiking with her friend Chet Helms to North Beach, San Francisco. Still in San Francisco in 1964, Joplin and future Jefferson Airplane guitarist Jorma Kaukonen recorded a number of blues standards, which incidentally featured Kaukonen's wife Margareta using a typewriter in the background. This session included seven tracks: "Typewriter Talk", "Trouble in Mind", "Kansas City Blues", "Hesitation Blues", "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out", "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy", and "Long Black Train Blues", and was released long after Joplin's death as the bootleg album The Typewriter Tape.
In 1963, Joplin was arrested in San Francisco for shoplifting. During the two years that followed, her drug use increased and she acquired a reputation as a "speed freak" and occasional heroin user. She also used other psychoactive drugs and was a heavy drinker throughout her career; her favorite alcoholic beverage was Southern Comfort.
In May 1965, Joplin's friends in San Francisco, noticing the detrimental effects on her from regularly injecting methamphetamine (she was described as "skeletal" and "emaciated"), persuaded her to return to Port Arthur. During that month, her friends threw her a bus-fare party so she could return to her parents in Texas. Five years later, Joplin told Rolling Stone magazine writer David Dalton the following about her first stint in San Francisco: "I didn't have many friends and I didn't like the ones I had."
Back in Port Arthur in the spring of 1965, after Joplin's parents noticed her weight of , she changed her lifestyle. She avoided drugs and alcohol, adopted a beehive hairdo, and enrolled as an anthropology major at Lamar University in nearby Beaumont, Texas. Her sister Laura said in a 2016 interview that social work was her major during her year at Lamar. During her time at Lamar University, she commuted to Austin to sing solo, accompanying herself on acoustic guitar. One of her performances was at a benefit by local musicians for Texas bluesman Mance Lipscomb, who was suffering with ill health.
Joplin became engaged to Peter de Blanc in the fall of 1965. She had begun a relationship with him toward the end of her first stint in San Francisco. Now living in New York where he worked with IBM computers, he visited her to ask her father for her hand in marriage. Joplin and her mother began planning the wedding. De Blanc, who traveled frequently, ended the engagement soon afterward.
In 1965 and 1966, Joplin commuted from her family's Port Arthur home to Beaumont, Texas, where she had regular sessions with a psychiatric social worker named Bernard Giarritano at a counseling agency that was funded by the United Fund, which after her death changed its name to the United Way. Interviewed by biographer Myra Friedman after his client's death, Giarritano said Joplin had been baffled by how she could pursue a professional career as a singer without relapsing into drugs, and her drug-related memories from immediately prior to returning to Port Arthur continued to frighten her. Joplin sometimes brought an acoustic guitar with her to her sessions with Giarritano, and people in other offices within the building could hear her singing.
Giarritano tried to reassure her that she did not have to use narcotics in order to succeed in the music business. She also said that if she were to avoid singing professionally, she would have to become a keypunch operator (as she had done a few years earlier) or a secretary, and then a wife and mother, and she would have to become very similar to all the other women in Port Arthur.
Approximately a year before Joplin joined Big Brother and the Holding Company, she recorded seven studio tracks with her acoustic guitar. Among the songs she recorded were her original composition of the song "Turtle Blues" and an alternate version of "Cod'ine" by Buffy Sainte-Marie. These tracks were later issued as a new album in 1995, titled This is Janis Joplin 1965 by James Gurley.
1966–1969: Various bands
In 1966, Joplin's bluesy vocal style attracted the attention of the San Francisco-based psychedelic rock band Big Brother and the Holding Company, which had gained some renown among the nascent hippie community in Haight-Ashbury. She was recruited to join the group by Chet Helms, a promoter who was managing Big Brother and with whom she had hitchhiked from Texas to San Francisco a few years earlier. Helms sent his friend Travis Rivers to find her in Austin, Texas, where she had been performing with her acoustic guitar, and to accompany her to San Francisco.
Aware of her previous nightmare with drug addiction in San Francisco, Rivers insisted that she inform her parents face-to-face of her plans, and he drove her from Austin to Port Arthur (he waited in his car while she talked with her startled parents) before they began their long drive to San Francisco. Joplin joined Big Brother on June 4, 1966. Her first public performance with them was at the Avalon Ballroom in San Francisco.
In June, Joplin was photographed at an outdoor concert in San Francisco that celebrated the summer solstice. The image, which was later published in two books by David Dalton, shows her before she relapsed into drugs. Due to persistent persuading by keyboardist and close friend Stephen Ryder, Joplin avoided drugs for several weeks. She made Travis Rivers, with whom she shared an apartment upon their arrival in San Francisco, promise that using needles would not be allowed there. When bandmate Dave Getz accompanied her from a rehearsal to her home, Rivers was not there, but "two or three" (according to Getz' recollection 25 years later) guests whom Rivers had invited were in the process of injecting drugs. "One of them was about to tie off," recalled Getz. "Janis went nuts! I had never seen anybody explode like that. She was screaming and crying and Travis walked in. She screamed at him: 'We had a pact! You promised me! There wouldn't be any of that in front of me!' I was over my head and I tried to calm her down. I said, 'They're just doing mescaline,' because that's what I thought it was. She said, 'You don't understand! I can't see that! I just can't stand to see that!'"
A San Francisco concert from that summer (1966) was recorded and released on the 1984 album Cheaper Thrills. In July, all five bandmates and guitarist James Gurley's wife Nancy moved to a house in Lagunitas, California, where they lived communally. The band often partied with the Grateful Dead, the members of whom lived less than two miles away. She had a short relationship and longer friendship with founding member Ron "Pigpen" McKernan.
The band went to Chicago for a four-week engagement in August 1966, then found itself stranded after the promoter ran out of money when its concerts did not attract the expected audience levels, and he was unable to pay them. In the circumstances the band signed with Bob Shad's record label Mainstream Records; recordings for the label took place in Chicago in September, but these were not satisfactory, and the band returned to San Francisco, continuing to perform live, including at the Love Pageant Rally. The band recorded two tracks, "Blindman" and "All Is Loneliness", in Los Angeles, and these were released by Mainstream as a single that did not sell well. After playing at a happening in Stanford in early December 1966, the band traveled back to Los Angeles to record ten tracks between December 12 and 14, 1966, produced by Bob Shad, which appeared on the band's debut album in August 1967.
In late 1966, Big Brother switched managers from Chet Helms to Julius Karpen.
One of Joplin's earliest major performances in 1967 was at the Mantra-Rock Dance, a musical event held on January 29 at the Avalon Ballroom by the San Francisco Hare Krishna temple. Janis Joplin and Big Brother performed there along with the Hare Krishna founder Bhaktivedanta Swami, Allen Ginsberg, Moby Grape, and the Grateful Dead, donating proceeds to the Krishna temple. In early 1967, Joplin met Country Joe McDonald of the group Country Joe and the Fish. The pair lived together as a couple for a few months. Joplin and Big Brother began playing clubs in San Francisco, at the Fillmore West, Winterland, and the Avalon Ballroom. They also played at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, as well as in Seattle, Washington; Vancouver, British Columbia; the Psychedelic Supermarket in Boston, Massachusetts; and the Golden Bear Club in Huntington Beach, California.
The band's debut studio album, Big Brother & the Holding Company, was released by Mainstream Records in August 1967, shortly after the group's breakthrough appearance in June at the Monterey Pop Festival. Two tracks, "Coo Coo" and "The Last Time," were released separately as singles, while the tracks from the previous single, "Blindman" and "All Is Loneliness", were added to the remaining eight tracks. When Columbia Records took over the band's contract and re-released the album, they included "Coo Coo" and "The Last Time", and put "featuring Janis Joplin" on the cover. The debut album spawned four minor hits with the singles "Down on Me", a traditional song arranged by Joplin, "Bye Bye Baby", "Call On Me" and "Coo Coo", on all of which Joplin sang lead vocals.
Two songs from the second of Big Brother's two sets at Monterey, which they played on Sunday, were filmed (their first set, which was on Saturday, was not filmed, though it was audio-recorded). Some sources, including a Joplin biography by Ellis Amburn, claim that she was dressed in thrift store hippie clothes or second-hand Victorian clothes during the band's Saturday set, but still photographs do not appear to have survived. Digitized color film of two songs in the Sunday set, "Combination of the Two" and a version of Big Mama Thornton's "Ball and Chain," appear in the DVD and Blu-ray boxed set of D. A. Pennebaker's documentary Monterey Pop released by The Criterion Collection. She is seen wearing an expensive gold tunic dress with matching pants. They were created for her by San Francisco clothing designer Colin Rose.
Documentary filmmaker Pennebaker inserted two cutaway shots of Cass Elliot of the Mamas & the Papas seated in the audience during Joplin's performance of "Ball and Chain", one in the middle of the song as her eyes, covered by sunglasses, are fixed on Joplin, and also a shot during the applause as she silently mouths "Oh, wow!" and looks at the person seated next to her. Elliot and the audience are seen in sunlight, but Sunday's Big Brother performance was filmed in the evening. An explanation came from Big Brother's road manager John Byrne Cooke, who remembers that Pennebaker discreetly filmed the audience (including Elliot) during Big Brother's Saturday performance when he was not allowed to point a camera at the band.
The prohibition of Pennebaker from filming on Saturday afternoon came from Big Brother's manager Julius Karpen. The band had a bitter argument with Karpen and overruled him as they prepared for their second set that the festival organizers had added on the spur of the moment. Backstage at the festival, the band became acquainted with New York-based talent manager Albert Grossman but did not sign with him until several months later, firing Karpen at that time.
Only "Ball and Chain" was included in the Monterey Pop film that was released to theaters throughout the United States in 1969 and shown on television in the 1970s. Those who did not attend the Monterey Pop Festival saw the band's performance of "Combination of the Two" for the first time in 2002 when The Criterion Collection released the boxed set.
For the remainder of 1967, even after Big Brother signed with Albert Grossman, the band performed mainly in California. On February 16, 1968, the group began its first East Coast tour in Philadelphia, and the following day gave their first performance in New York City at the Anderson Theater. On April 7, 1968—three days after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and the last day of their East Coast tour—Joplin and Big Brother performed with Jimi Hendrix, Buddy Guy, Joni Mitchell, Richie Havens, Paul Butterfield, and Elvin Bishop at the Wake for Martin Luther King Jr. concert in New York.
Live at Winterland '68, recorded at the Winterland Ballroom on April 12 and 13, 1968, features Joplin and Big Brother and the Holding Company at the height of their mutual career working through a selection of tracks from their albums. A recording became available to the public for the first time in 1998 when Columbia/Sony Music Entertainment released the compact disc. One month after the Winterland concert, Owsley Stanley recorded them at the Carousel Ballroom, released in 2012 as Live at the Carousel Ballroom 1968.
On July 31, 1968, Joplin made her first nationwide television appearance when the band performed on This Morning, an ABC daytime 90-minute variety show that was hosted by Dick Cavett. Shortly thereafter, network employees wiped the videotape, though the audio survives. (In 1969 and 1970, Joplin made three appearances on Cavett's prime-time program. Video was preserved and excerpts have been included in most documentaries about Joplin. Audio of her 1968 appearance has not been used since then.)
Sometime in 1968, the band's billing was changed to "Janis Joplin and Big Brother and the Holding Company," and the media coverage given to Joplin generated resentment within the band. The other members of Big Brother thought that Joplin was on a "star trip", while others were telling Joplin that Big Brother was a terrible band and that she ought to dump them. Time magazine called Joplin "probably the most powerful singer to emerge from the white rock movement", and Richard Goldstein wrote for the May 1968 issue of Vogue magazine that Joplin was "the most staggering leading woman in rock...she slinks like tar, scowls like war...clutching the knees of a final stanza, begging it not to leave.... Janis Joplin can sing the chic off any listener."
For her first major studio recording, Joplin played a major role in the arrangement and production of the songs that would comprise Big Brother and the Holding Company's second album, Cheap Thrills. Producer John Simon tried recording the band in concert, to capture their energy in a live album, but several attempts showed the band was prone to mistakes. Their imprecision was not helped by moving the sessions to a recording studio. Joplin sang take after take of the same song, with her performances consistently good, and she grew frustrated with the band's sloppiness. Simon was replaced by Elliot Mazer who fixed the songs by overdubbing certain parts. The album featured a cover design by counterculture cartoonist Robert Crumb.
Although Cheap Thrills sounded as if it consisted of concert recordings, like on "Combination of the Two" and "I Need a Man to Love", only "Ball and Chain" was actually recorded in front of a paying audience; the rest of the tracks were studio recordings. The album had a raw quality, including the sound of a drinking glass breaking and the broken shards being swept away during the song "Turtle Blues". Cheap Thrills produced very popular hits with "Piece of My Heart" and "Summertime". Together with the premiere of the documentary film Monterey Pop at New York's Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts on December 26, 1968, the album launched Joplin as a star. Cheap Thrills reached number one on the Billboard 200 album chart eight weeks after its release, and was number one for eight (nonconsecutive) weeks. The album was certified gold at release and sold over a million copies in the first month of its release. The lead single from the album, "Piece of My Heart", reached number 12 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the fall of 1968.
The band made another East Coast tour during July–August 1968, performing at the Columbia Records convention in Puerto Rico and the Newport Folk Festival. After returning to San Francisco for two hometown shows at the Palace of Fine Arts Festival on August 31 and September 1, Joplin announced that she would be leaving Big Brother. On September 14, 1968, culminating a three-night engagement together at Fillmore West, fans thronged to a concert that Bill Graham publicized as the last official concert of Janis Joplin with Big Brother and the Holding Company. The opening acts on this night were Chicago (then still called Chicago Transit Authority) and Santana.
Despite Graham's announcement that the Fillmore West gig was Big Brother's last concert with Joplin, the band—with Joplin still as lead vocalist—toured the U.S. that fall. Reflecting Joplin's crossover appeal, two October 1968 performances at a roller rink in Alexandria, Virginia, were reviewed by John Segraves of the conservative Washington Evening Star at a time when the Washington metropolitan area's hard rock scene was in its infancy. An opera buff at the time, he wrote:
Later that month (October 1968), Big Brother performed at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and played at the Syracuse War Memorial as part of Syracuse University's Fall Homecoming on October 11, with Janis joining openers the Butterfield Blues Band for their closing song. Aside from two 1970 reunions, Joplin's last performance with Big Brother was at a Chet Helms benefit in San Francisco on December 1, 1968.
1969–1970: Solo career
After splitting from Big Brother and the Holding Company, Joplin formed a new backup group, the Kozmic Blues Band, composed of session musicians like keyboardist Stephen Ryder and saxophonist Cornelius "Snooky" Flowers, as well as former Big Brother and the Holding Company guitarist Sam Andrew and future Full Tilt Boogie Band bassist Brad Campbell. The band was influenced by the Stax-Volt rhythm and blues (R&B) and soul bands of the 1960s, as exemplified by Otis Redding and the Bar-Kays. The Stax-Volt R&B sound was typified by the use of horns and had a funky, pop-oriented sound in contrast to many of the psychedelic/hard rock bands of the period.
By early 1969, Joplin was allegedly shooting at least $200 worth of heroin per day (equivalent to $1300 in 2016 dollars) although efforts were made to keep her clean during the recording of I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama! Gabriel Mekler, who produced the album, told publicist-turned-biographer Myra Friedman after Joplin's death that she had lived in his Los Angeles house during the June 1969 recording sessions at his insistence so he could keep her away from drugs and her drug-using friends.
Joplin's appearances with the Kozmic Blues Band in Europe were released in theaters, in multiple documentaries. Janis, which was reviewed by the Washington Post on March 21, 1975, shows Joplin arriving in Frankfurt by plane and waiting inside a bus next to the Frankfurt venue, while an American female fan who is visiting Germany expresses enthusiasm to the camera (no security was used in Frankfurt, so by the end of the concert, the stage was so packed with people the band members could not see each other). Janis also includes interviews with Joplin in Stockholm and from her visit to London, for her gig at Royal Albert Hall. The London interview was dubbed with a voiceover in the German language for broadcast on German television. John Byrne Cooke, road manager for Joplin and the Kozmic Blues Band, wrote a book published in 2014 in which he discussed her knowledge of the risks of her ongoing use of narcotics, particularly when she was outside the United States.
On the episode of The Dick Cavett Show that was telecast in the United States on the night of July 18, 1969, Joplin and her band performed "Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)" as well as "To Love Somebody". As Dick Cavett interviewed Joplin, she admitted that she had a terrible time touring in Europe, claiming that audiences there are very uptight and don't "get down".
Released in September 1969, the Kozmic Blues album was certified gold later that year but did not match the success of Cheap Thrills. Reviews of the new group were mixed. However, the album's recording quality and engineering, as well as the musicianship (including three performances by former Bob Dylan/Paul Butterfield/Electric Flag guitarist Mike Bloomfield), were considered superior to her previous releases, and some music critics argued that the band was working in a much more constructive way to support Joplin's sensational vocal talents.
Joplin wanted a horn section similar to that featured by the Chicago Transit Authority; her voice had the dynamic qualities and range not to be overpowered by the brighter horn sound.
Some music critics, however, including Ralph J. Gleason of the San Francisco Chronicle, were negative. Gleason wrote that the new band was a "drag" and Joplin should "scrap" her new band and "go right back to being a member of Big Brother ... (if they'll have her)."
Other reviewers, such as reporter Carl Bernstein of the Washington Post, devoted entire articles to celebrating the singer's magic. Bernstein's review said that Joplin "has finally assembled a group of first-rate musicians with whom she is totally at ease and whose abilities complement the incredible range of her voice."
Columbia Records released "Kozmic Blues" as a single, which peaked at number 41 on the Billboard Hot 100, and a live rendition of "Raise Your Hand" was released in Germany and became a top ten hit there. Containing other hits like "Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)", "To Love Somebody", and "Little Girl Blue", I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama! reached number five on the Billboard 200 soon after its release.
Joplin appeared at Woodstock starting at approximately 2:00 a.m., on Sunday, August 17, 1969. Joplin informed her band that they would be performing at the concert as if it were just another gig. On Saturday afternoon, when she and the band were flown by helicopter with the pregnant Joan Baez and Baez's mother from a nearby motel to the festival site and Joplin saw the enormous crowd, she instantly became extremely nervous and giddy. Upon landing and getting off the helicopter, Joplin was approached by reporters asking her questions. She referred them to her friend and sometime lover Peggy Caserta as she was too excited to speak. Initially, Joplin was eager to get on the stage and perform but was repeatedly delayed as bands were contractually obliged to perform ahead of Joplin. Faced with a ten-hour wait after arriving at the backstage area, Joplin spent some of that time shooting heroin and drinking alcohol with Caserta in a tent. The director's cut of the Woodstock movie shows Joplin and Jefferson Airplane singer Grace Slick standing together near amplifiers watching the band Canned Heat's performance, which started at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, and Caserta does not appear within camera range. When Joplin finally reached the stage at approximately 2:00 a.m. Sunday, she was "three sheets to the wind", according to biographer Alice Echols. During her performance, Joplin's voice became slightly hoarse and wheezy, and she struggled to dance.
Joplin pulled through, however, and engaged frequently with the crowd, asking them if they had everything they needed and if they were staying stoned. The audience cheered for an encore, to which Joplin replied and sang "Ball and Chain". Pete Townshend, who performed with the Who later in the same morning after Joplin finished, witnessed her performance and said the following in his 2012 memoir: "She had been amazing at Monterey, but tonight she wasn't at her best, due, probably, to the long delay, and probably, too, to the amount of booze and heroin she'd consumed while she waited. But even Janis on an off-night was incredible."
Janis remained at Woodstock for the remainder of the festival. Starting at approximately 3:00 a.m. on Monday, August 18, Joplin was among many Woodstock performers who stood in a circle behind Crosby, Stills & Nash during their performance, which was the first time anyone at Woodstock ever had heard the group perform. This information was published by David Crosby in 1988. Later in the morning of August 18, Joplin and Joan Baez sat in Joe Cocker's van and witnessed Hendrix's close-of-show performance, according to Baez's memoir And a Voice to Sing With (1989).
Still photographs in color show Joplin backstage with Grace Slick the day after Joplin's performance, wherein Joplin appears to be very happy. She was ultimately unhappy with her performance, however, and blamed Caserta. Her singing was not included (by her own insistence) in the 1970 documentary film or the soundtrack for Woodstock: Music from the Original Soundtrack and More, although the 25th anniversary director's cut of Woodstock includes her performance of "Work Me, Lord". The documentary film of the festival that was released in theaters during 1970 includes, on the left side of a split screen, 37 seconds of footage of Joplin and Caserta walking toward Joplin's dressing room tent.
In addition to Woodstock, Joplin also had problems at Madison Square Garden, in 1969. Biographer Myra Friedman said she had witnessed a duet Joplin sang with Tina Turner during the Rolling Stones concert at the Garden on Thanksgiving Day. Friedman said Joplin was "so drunk, so stoned, so out of control, that she could have been an institutionalized psychotic rent by mania." During another Garden concert where she had solo billing on December 19, some observers believed Joplin tried to incite the audience to riot. For part of this concert she was joined onstage by Johnny Winter and Paul Butterfield.
Joplin told rock journalist David Dalton that Garden audiences watched and listened to "every note [she sang] with 'Is she gonna make it?' in their eyes." In her interview with Dalton she added that she felt most comfortable performing at small, cheap venues in San Francisco that were associated with the counterculture.
At the time of the June 1970 interview with Dalton, she had already performed in the Bay Area for what turned out to be the last time. Sam Andrew, the lead guitarist who had left Big Brother with Joplin in December 1968 to form her back-up band, quit in late summer 1969 and returned to Big Brother. At the end of the year, the Kozmic Blues Band broke up. Their final gig with Joplin was the one at Madison Square Garden with Winter and Butterfield.
In February 1970, Joplin traveled to Brazil, where she stopped her drug and alcohol use. She was accompanied on vacation there by her friend Linda Gravenites (wife of songwriter Nick Gravenites), who had designed Janis's stage costumes from 1967 to 1969.
In Brazil, Joplin was romanced by a fellow American tourist named David (George) Niehaus, who was traveling around the world. A Joplin biography written by her sister Laura said, "David was an upper-middle-class Cincinnati kid who had studied communications at Notre Dame. ... [and] had joined the Peace Corps after college and worked in a small village in Turkey. ... He tried law school, but when he met Janis he was taking time off."
Niehaus and Joplin were photographed by the press at Rio Carnival in Rio de Janeiro. Gravenites also took color photographs of the two during their Brazilian vacation. According to Joplin biographer Ellis Amburn, in Gravenites' snapshots they "look like a carefree, happy, healthy young couple having a tremendously good time."
Rolling Stone magazine interviewed Joplin during an international phone call, quoting her: "I'm going into the jungle with a big bear of a beatnik named David Niehaus. I finally remembered I don't have to be on stage twelve months a year. I've decided to go and dig some other jungles for a couple of weeks." Amburn added in 1992, "Janis was trying to kick heroin in Brazil, and one of the nicest things about David was that he wasn't into drugs."
When Joplin returned to the U.S., she began using heroin again. Her relationship with Niehaus soon ended because he witnessed her shooting drugs at her new home in Larkspur, California. The relationship was also complicated by her ongoing romantic relationship with Peggy Caserta, who also was an intravenous addict, and Joplin's refusal to take some time off and travel the world with him.
Around this time, she formed her new band, known for a short time as Main Squeeze, then renamed the Full Tilt Boogie Band. The band comprised mostly young Canadian musicians previously associated with Ronnie Hawkins and featured an organ, but no horn section. Joplin took a more active role in putting together the Full Tilt Boogie band than she had with her prior group. She was quoted as saying, "It's my band. Finally it's my band!" In May 1970, after performing under the name Main Squeeze at a Hell's Angels event, the renamed Full Tilt Boogie Band began a nationwide tour. Joplin became very happy with her new group, which eventually received mostly positive feedback from both her fans and the critics.
Prior to beginning a summer tour with Full Tilt Boogie, she performed in a reunion with Big Brother at the Fillmore West, in San Francisco, on April 4, 1970. Recordings from this concert were included in an in-concert album released posthumously in 1972. She again appeared with Big Brother on April 12 at Winterland, where she and Big Brother were reported to be in excellent form. She performed with the band, billed as Main Squeeze, at a party for the Hells Angels at a venue in San Rafael, California on May 21, 1970, according to a web site maintained by Big Brother guitarist Sam Andrew. Andrew's web site quotes him as saying, "This will be the first time that Janis' old band and her new band will be at the same venue, so everyone is a little on edge."
According to Joplin's biographer Ellis Amburn, Big Brother with its lead singer Nick Gravenites was the opening act at the party that was attended by 2,300 people. The Hells Angels, who had known Joplin since 1966, paid her a fee of 240 dollars to perform. Gravenites and Sam Andrew (who had resumed playing guitar with Big Brother) differed in their opinions of her performance and how substance abuse affected it. Gravenites described her singing as "stupendous," according to Amburn. Amburn quoted Andrew twenty years later: "She was visibly deteriorating and she looked bloated. She was like a parody of what she was at her best. I put it down to her drinking too much and I felt a tinge of fear for her well-being. Her singing was real flabby, no edge at all."
Shortly thereafter, Joplin began wearing multi-colored feather boas in her hair. (She had not worn them at the May 21 Hell's Angels party / concert in San Rafael). By the time she began touring with Full Tilt Boogie, Joplin told people she was drug-free, but her drinking increased.
From June 28 to July 4, 1970, during the Festival Express tour, Joplin and Full Tilt Boogie performed alongside Buddy Guy, the Band, the Flying Burrito Brothers, Ten Years After, the Grateful Dead, Delaney & Bonnie, Eric Andersen, and Ian & Sylvia. They played concerts in Toronto, Winnipeg, and Calgary. Joplin jammed with the other performers on the train, and her performances on this tour are considered to be among her greatest.
Joplin headlined the festival on all three nights. At the last stop in Calgary, she took to the stage with Jerry Garcia while her band was tuning up. Film footage shows her telling the audience how great the tour was and shows her and Garcia presenting the organizers with a case of tequila. She then burst into a two-hour set, starting with "Tell Mama". Throughout this performance, Joplin engaged in several banters about her love life. In one, she reminisced about living in a San Francisco apartment and competing with a female neighbor in flirting with men on the street. She finished the Calgary concert with long versions of "Get It While You Can" and "Ball and Chain".
Footage of her performance of "Tell Mama" in Calgary became an MTV video in the early 1980s, and the audio from the same film footage was included on the Farewell Song (1982) album. The audio of other Festival Express performances was included on Joplin's In Concert (1972) album. Video of the performances was also included on the Festival Express DVD.
These performances of entire songs during the Festival Express concerts in Toronto and Calgary can be purchased, although other songs remain in vaults and have yet to be released.
In the "Tell Mama" video shown on MTV in the 1980s, Joplin wore a psychedelically colored, loose-fitting costume and feathers in her hair. This was her standard stage costume in the spring and summer of 1970. She chose the new costumes after her friend and designer, Linda Gravenites (whom Joplin had praised in Vogues profile of her in its May 1968 edition), cut ties with Joplin shortly after their return from Brazil, due largely to Joplin's continued use of heroin.
Among Joplin's last public appearances were two broadcasts of The Dick Cavett Show. In her June 25, 1970 appearance, she announced that she would attend her ten-year high school class reunion. When asked if she had been popular in school, she admitted that when in high school, her schoolmates "laughed me out of class, out of town and out of the state" (during the year she had spent at the University of Texas at Austin, Joplin had been voted "Ugliest Man on Campus" by frat boys). In the subsequent Cavett Show broadcast, on August 3, 1970, and featuring Gloria Swanson, Joplin discussed her upcoming performance at the Festival for Peace to be held at Shea Stadium in Queens, New York, three days later.
On July 11, 1970, Full Tilt Boogie and Big Brother and the Holding Company both performed at the same concert in the San Diego Sports Arena, which was decades later renamed the Valley View Casino Center. Joplin sang with Full Tilt Boogie and appeared briefly onstage with Big Brother without singing, according to a July 13 review of the concert in the San Diego Union.
On August 7, 1970, a tombstone—jointly paid for by Joplin and Juanita Green, who as a child had done housework for Bessie Smith—was erected at Smith's previously unmarked grave. The following day, the Associated Press circulated this news, and the August 9 edition of The New York Times carried it. The lead paragraph of the AP story said Joplin and Green had "shared the cost of a stone for the 'Empress of the Blues,'" but, according to publicist/biographer Myra Friedman, the two women never met. Joplin had been at home in Larkspur, California when she had received a long-distance phone call with an explanation of the need to finance a gravestone for Bessie Smith, whom Joplin had frequently cited as a musical influence. Joplin immediately wrote a check and mailed it to the name and address provided by the phone caller.
On August 8, 1970, as the Associated Press circulated the news about Smith's new gravestone, Joplin performed at the Capitol Theatre (Port Chester, New York). It was there that she first performed "Mercedes Benz", a song (partially inspired by a Michael McClure poem) that she had composed with fellow musician and friend Bob Neuwirth a very short time earlier. According to Myra Friedman's account, Joplin performed two shows at the Capitol Theatre, the first of which was attended by actors Geraldine Page and her husband Rip Torn. Between the shows, at a "gin mill" [Friedman's words] very close to this concert venue, Joplin and Neuwirth penned the lyrics to the song and she performed it at the second show, according to Friedman. Neuwirth was quoted by The Wall Street Journal in 2015: "Around 7 p.m., after the Capitol sound check, we had a couple of hours to kill before [acts that opened for Joplin] Seatrain and Runt finished their sets. So the four of us [Joplin, Neuwirth, Geraldine Page, Rip Torn] walked to a bar about three minutes away called Vahsen’s [at 30 Broad Street in Port Chester]." While in Vahsen's, "Janis came up with words for the first verse. I was in charge of writing them down on bar napkins with a ballpoint pen. She came up with the second verse, too, about a color TV. I suggested words here and there, and came up with the third verse—about asking the Lord to buy us a night on the town and another round."
Joplin's last public performance with the Full Tilt Boogie Band took place on August 12, 1970, at the Harvard Stadium in Boston. The Harvard Crimson gave the performance a positive, front-page review, despite the fact that Full Tilt Boogie had performed with makeshift amplifiers after their regular sound equipment was stolen in Boston.
Joplin attended her high school reunion on August 14, accompanied by Neuwirth, road manager John Cooke, and sister Laura, but it was reportedly an unhappy experience for her. Joplin held a press conference in Port Arthur during her reunion visit. When asked by a reporter if she ever entertained at Thomas Jefferson High School when she was a student there, Joplin replied, "Only when I walked down the aisles." Joplin denigrated Port Arthur and the classmates who had humiliated her a decade earlier.
During late August, September, and early October 1970, Joplin and her band rehearsed and recorded a new album in Los Angeles with producer Paul A. Rothchild, best known for his lengthy relationship with The Doors. Although Joplin died before all the tracks were fully completed, there was enough usable material to compile an LP.
The posthumous Pearl (1971) became the biggest-selling album of her career and featured her biggest hit single, a cover of Kris Kristofferson and Fred Foster's "Me and Bobby McGee" (Kristofferson had previously been Joplin's lover in the spring of 1970). The opening track, "Move Over", was written by Joplin, reflecting the way that she felt men treated women in relationships. Also included was the social commentary of "Mercedes Benz", presented in an a cappella arrangement; the track on the album features the first and only take that Joplin recorded. A cover of Nick Gravenites's "Buried Alive in the Blues", to which Joplin had been scheduled to add her vocals on the day she was found dead, was included as an instrumental.
Joplin checked into the Landmark Motor Hotel in Hollywood on August 24, 1970, near Sunset Sound Recorders, where she began rehearsing and recording her album. During the sessions, Joplin continued a relationship with Seth Morgan, a 21-year-old UC Berkeley student, cocaine dealer, and future novelist who had visited her new home in Larkspur in July and August. She and Morgan were engaged to be married in early September, although he visited Sunset Sound Recorders for just eight of Joplin's many rehearsals and sessions.
Morgan later told biographer Myra Friedman that, as a non-musician, he had felt excluded whenever he had visited Sunset Sound Recorders. Instead, he stayed at Joplin's Larkspur home while she stayed alone at the Landmark, although several times she visited Larkspur to be with him and to check the progress of renovations she was having done on the house. She told her construction crew to design a carport to be shaped like a flying saucer, according to biographer Ellis Amburn, the concrete foundation for which was poured the day before she died.
Peggy Caserta claimed in her book, Going Down With Janis (1973), that she and Joplin had decided mutually in April 1970 to stay away from each other to avoid enabling each other's drug use. Caserta, a former Delta Air Lines stewardess and owner of one of the first clothing boutiques in the Haight Ashbury, said in the book that by September 1970, she was smuggling cannabis throughout California and had checked into the Landmark Motor Hotel because it attracted drug users.
For approximately the first two weeks of Joplin's stay at the Landmark, she did not know Caserta was in Los Angeles. Joplin learned of Caserta's presence at the Landmark from a heroin dealer who made deliveries there. Joplin begged Caserta for heroin, and when Caserta refused to provide it, Joplin reportedly admonished her by saying, "Don't think if you can get it, I can't get it." Joplin's publicist Myra Friedman was unaware during Joplin's lifetime that this had happened. Later, while Friedman was working on her book Buried Alive, she determined that the time frame of the Joplin-Caserta encounter was one week before Jimi Hendrix's death.
Within a few days, Joplin became a regular customer of the same heroin dealer who had been supplying Caserta.
Joplin's manager Albert Grossman and his assistant/publicist Friedman had staged an intervention with Joplin the previous winter while Joplin was in New York. In September 1970, Grossman and Friedman, who worked out of a New York office, knew Joplin was staying at a Los Angeles hotel, but were unaware it was a haven for drug users and dealers.
Grossman and Friedman knew during Joplin's lifetime that her friend Caserta, whom Friedman met during the New York sessions for Cheap Thrills and on later occasions, used heroin. During the many long-distance telephone conversations that Joplin and Friedman had in September 1970 and on October 1, Joplin never mentioned Caserta, and Friedman assumed Caserta had been out of Joplin's life for a while. Friedman, who had more time than Grossman to monitor the situation, never visited California. She thought Joplin sounded on the phone like she was less depressed than she had been over the summer.
When Joplin was not at Sunset Sound Recorders, she liked to drive her Porsche over the speed limit "on the winding part of Sunset Blvd.", according to a statement made by her attorney Robert Gordon in 1995 at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony. Friedman wrote that the only Full Tilt Boogie member who rode as her passenger, Ken Pearson, often hesitated to join her, though he did on the night she died. He was not interested in using hard drugs.
On September 26, 1970, Joplin recorded vocals for "Half Moon" and "Cry Baby". The session ended with Joplin, organist Ken Pearson, and drummer Clark Pierson making a special one-minute recording as a birthday gift to John Lennon. Joplin was among several singers who had been contacted by Yoko Ono with a request for a taped greeting for Lennon's 30th birthday, on October 9. Joplin, Pearson, and Pierson chose the Dale Evans composition "Happy Trails" as part of the greeting. Lennon told Dick Cavett on-camera the following year that Joplin's recorded birthday wishes arrived at his home after her death.
On October 1, 1970, Joplin completed her last recording, "Mercedes Benz", which was recorded in a single take. On Saturday, October 3, Joplin visited Sunset Sound Recorders to listen to the instrumental track for Nick Gravenites's song "Buried Alive in the Blues", which the band had recorded earlier that day. She and Paul Rothchild agreed she would record the vocal the following day.
At some point on Saturday, she learned by telephone, to her dismay, that Seth Morgan had met other women at a Marin County, California, restaurant, invited them to her home, and was shooting pool with them using her pool table. People at Sunset Sound Recorders overheard Joplin expressing anger about the state of her relationship with Morgan, as well as joy about the progress of the sessions.
Joplin and Ken Pearson later left the studio together and she drove him in her Porsche to the West Hollywood landmark called Barney's Beanery. Friedman wrote, "At the bar, she drank vodka and orange juice, only two." Bennett Glotzer, a business partner of Joplin's manager Albert Grossman, was present at Barney's Beanery, according to what he told John Byrne Cooke immediately after he (Glotzer) learned of her death. Evidently, Joplin had a friendly conversation with a young man whom she did not know, and he expressed admiration for her music. After midnight, she drove Ken Pearson and the male fan to the Landmark where she and Pearson were staying in separate rooms. During the car ride, the fan asked Joplin questions "about her singing style," according to Friedman, and "she mostly ignored him" so she could converse with Pearson. As Joplin and Pearson prepared to part in the lobby of the Landmark, she expressed a fear, possibly in jest, that he and the other Full Tilt Boogie musicians might decide to stop making music with her. Pearson was the second-to-last person to see her alive. The last was the Landmark's night shift desk clerk. He had met her several times but did not know her.
Personal life
Joplin's significant relationships with men included ones with Peter de Blanc, Country Joe McDonald (who wrote the song "Janis" at Joplin's request), David (George) Niehaus, Kris Kristofferson, and Seth Morgan (from July 1970 until her death, at which time they were allegedly engaged).
She also had relationships with women. During her first stint in San Francisco in 1963, Joplin met and briefly lived with Jae Whitaker, a black woman whom she had met while playing pool at the bar Gino & Carlo in North Beach. Whitaker broke off their relationship because of Joplin's hard drug use and sexual relationships with other people. Whitaker was first identified by name in connection with the singer in 1999, when Alice Echols' biography Scars of Sweet Paradise was published.
Joplin also had an on-again-off-again romantic relationship with Peggy Caserta. They first met in November 1966 when Big Brother performed at a San Francisco venue called The Matrix. Caserta was one of 15 people in the audience, and at the time, she ran a successful clothing boutique in the Haight Ashbury. Approximately a month after Caserta attended the concert, Joplin visited her boutique and said she could not afford to buy a pair of jeans that was for sale, instead asking to put down the first 50 cents on the $5 item. Caserta was amazed that such a talented singer could not afford a $5 item, and gave her a pair for free. Their friendship was platonic for more than a year. Before it moved to the next level, Caserta was in love with Big Brother guitarist Sam Andrew, and sometime during the first half of 1968 traveled from San Francisco to New York to flirt with him. He did not want a serious relationship, and Joplin sympathized with Caserta's disappointment.
The Woodstock concert film includes 37 seconds of Joplin and Caserta walking together before they reached the tent where Joplin waited for her turn to perform. By the time the festival took place in August 1969, both were intravenous heroin addicts.
According to Caserta's book Going Down With Janis, which Caserta has since disowned, Joplin introduced her to her boyfriend Seth Morgan in Joplin's room at the Landmark Motor Hotel on September 29, 1970. Caserta "had seen him around" San Francisco but had not met him before. At some point, an agreement was made for a threesome to take place the following Friday, although Caserta later said that she immediately abandoned the idea once she understood that it was Morgan who would be with Joplin. Morgan made alternate plans, believing that Caserta would be with Joplin that evening. Each one, however, was unaware that the other had bowed out. The day after Joplin introduced Caserta to Morgan, Caserta saw Joplin briefly, again in Joplin's room, when Caserta accommodated her new Los Angeles friend Debbie Nuciforo, age 19, an aspiring hard rock drummer who wanted to meet Joplin. Nuciforo was stoned on heroin at the time, and the three women's encounter was brief and unpleasant. Caserta suspected that the reason for Joplin's foul mood was that Morgan had abandoned her earlier that day after having spent less than 24 hours with her. Caserta did not see nor communicate by phone with Joplin again, although she later claimed she had made several attempts to reach her by phone at the Landmark Motor Hotel and at Sunset Sound Recorders. Caserta and Morgan lost touch with each other; each had independently made alternate plans for Friday night, October 2. Joplin mentioned her disappointment (over both of her friends' bailing out of their ménage à trois) to her drug dealer on Saturday, while he was selling her the dose of heroin that killed her, as Caserta later learned from the drug dealer.
Biographer Myra Friedman commented in her original version of Buried Alive (1973):
Given the near-infinite potentials of infancy, it is really impossible to make generalizations about what lies behind sexual practices. This, however, is probable: to become clearly homosexual, to make the choice that one honestly prefers relations with one's own sex, no matter the origins of such preference, requires a certain integration, a stability of psychic development, a tidiness of personality organization. The ridicule and the humiliation that took place at that most delicate period in [Joplin's] early teens, her own inability to surmount the obstacles to regular growth, devastated her a great deal more than most people comprehended. Janis was not heir to an ego so cohesive as to permit her an identity one way or the other. She was, as [the psychiatric social worker she saw regularly in Beaumont, Texas in 1965 and 1966] Mr. [Bernard] Giarritano put it [in an interview with Friedman], "diffused" -- spewing, splattering, splaying all over, without a center to hold. That had as much to do with her original use of drugs [before she first met Giarritano] as did the critical component of guilt and its multiplicity of sources above and beyond the contribution made by her relationships with women. Were she so simple as the lesbians wished her to be or so free as her associates imagined!
Kim France reported in her May 2, 1999 The New York Times article, "Nothin' Left to Lose" : "Once she became famous, Joplin cursed like a truck driver, did not believe in wearing undergarments, was rarely seen without her bottle of Southern Comfort and delighted in playing the role of sexual predator."
On July 11, 1970, Joplin made a revealing statement about her sexuality to her friend Richard Hundgen, the Grateful Dead's San Francisco-based road manager whom she had known since 1966. When Joplin and Hundgen were offstage during a San Diego gig for both Full Tilt Boogie and Big Brother and the Holding Company, she said the following that he later repeated to Myra Friedman:
I hear a rumor that somebody in San Francisco is spreading stories that I'm a dyke. You go back there and find out who it is and tell them that Janis says she's gotten it on with a couple of thousand cats in her life and a few hundred chicks and see what they can do with that!
Death
On Sunday evening, October 4, 1970, Joplin was found dead on the floor of her room at the Landmark Motor Hotel by her road manager and close friend John Byrne Cooke.
Alcohol was present in the room. Newspapers reported that no other drugs or paraphernalia were present. According to a 1983 book authored by Joseph DiMona and Los Angeles County coroner Thomas Noguchi, evidence of narcotics was removed from the scene by a friend of Joplin and later put back after the person realized that an autopsy was going to reveal that narcotics were in her system. The book adds that prior to Joplin's death, Noguchi had investigated other fatal drug overdoses in Los Angeles where friends believed they were doing favors for decedents by removing evidence of narcotics, then they "thought things over" and returned to put back the evidence. Noguchi performed an autopsy on Joplin and determined the cause of death to be a heroin overdose, possibly compounded by alcohol.
John Byrne Cooke believed Joplin had been given heroin that was much more potent than what she and other L.A. heroin users had received on previous occasions, as was indicated by overdoses of several of her dealer's other customers during the same weekend. Her death was ruled accidental.
Both Peggy Caserta, Joplin's close friend, and Seth Morgan, Joplin's fiancé, had failed to meet Joplin the Friday immediately prior to her death, October 2; Joplin had been expecting both of them to keep her company that night. According to Caserta, Joplin was saddened that neither of her friends visited her at the Landmark as they had promised. During the 24 hours Joplin lived after this disappointment, Caserta did not phone her to explain why she had failed to show up. Caserta admitted to waiting until late Saturday night to dial the Landmark switchboard, only to learn that Joplin had instructed the desk clerk not to accept any incoming phone calls for her after midnight. Morgan did speak to Joplin via telephone within the 24 hours prior to her death, but little is known about that call. She used a phone at Sunset Sound Recorders where her colleagues (“there were perhaps twenty to twenty-five people present,” wrote biographer Myra Friedman) noticed that whatever Morgan said to her made her very angry.
Peggy Caserta has insisted that Joplin's death was not an accidental overdose, but rather a result of a head gash suffered after the "hourglass heel" of her slingback sandal caught in the shag carpet, causing her to lose her balance. Caserta does concede, however, that drugs and/or alcohol may have played a role in hastening her death that night.
Joplin was cremated at Pierce Brothers Westwood Village Memorial Park and Mortuary in Los Angeles, and her ashes were scattered from a plane into the Pacific Ocean.
Legacy
Joplin's death in October 1970 at age 27 stunned her fans and shocked the music world, especially when coupled with the death just 16 days earlier of another rock icon, Jimi Hendrix, also at age 27. (This would later cause some people to attribute significance to the death of musicians at the age of 27, as celebrated in the "27 Club.") Music historian Tom Moon wrote that Joplin had "a devastatingly original voice," music columnist Jon Pareles of The New York Times wrote that Joplin as an artist was "overpowering and deeply vulnerable" and author Megan Terry said that Joplin was the female version of Elvis Presley in her ability to captivate an audience.
A book about Joplin by her publicist Myra Friedman titled Buried Alive: The Biography of Janis Joplin (1973) was excerpted in many newspapers. At the same time, Peggy Caserta's memoir, Going Down With Janis (1973), attracted much attention; its provocative title is a reference to Caserta's claim that she had engaged in oral sex with Joplin while they were high on heroin in September 1970. The description provided by Dan Knapp, Caserta’s co-author whom she denounced decades later, repelled many people in 1973 when few books or filmed interviews of Joplin or her loved ones were accessible to the public. Joplin's bandmate Sam Andrew described Caserta as "halfway between a groupie and a friend" in an interview with writer Ellis Amburn. Soon after the 1973 publication of Going Down With Janis, Joplin's friends learned that graphic descriptions of sexual acts and intravenous drug use were not the only portions of the book that would haunt them.
According to Kim Chappell, a close friend of Caserta and Joplin, Caserta's book angered the Los Angeles heroin dealer whom she had described in detail in her book, including the make and model of his car. According to Amburn, in 1973 a "carful of dope dealers" visited a Los Angeles lesbian bar that Caserta had been frequenting. Chappell, who was in the alley behind the bar, stated: "I was stabbed because, when Peggy's book came out, her dealer, the same one who'd given Janis her last fix, didn't like it that he was referred to and was out to get Peggy. He couldn't find her, so he went for her lover. When they realized who I was, they felt that my death would also hit Peggy, and so they stabbed me." Despite being "stabbed three times in the chest, puncturing both lungs," Chappell eventually recovered.
In 2018, Caserta denounced Going Down With Janis as the pornographic fantasy of Dan Knapp, her co-author, and largely unreliable. During that year, the public had its first access to her own story via a memoir she co-wrote with Maggie Falcon titled I Ran Into Some Trouble. It describes a long, friendly relationship with Joplin that only occasionally featured sexuality.
According to Joplin’s biographers, Caserta was among many friends of Joplin who did not become clean and sober until a very long time after Joplin's death, while others died from overdoses. Although the wife of Big Brother guitarist James Gurley, who was Joplin's close friend, died from a heroin overdose in 1969, devastating Joplin, Gurley himself did not become clean and sober until 1984. Caserta survived "a near-fatal OD in December 1995," wrote Alice Echols. On January 13, 2000, Caserta appeared during a segment about Joplin on 20/20.
Joplin's body art, with a wristlet and a small heart on her left breast by the San Francisco tattoo artist Lyle Tuttle, marked an early moment in the popular culture's acceptance of tattoos as art. Another trademark was her flamboyant hair styles, which often included colored streaks and accessories such as scarves, beads and feathers. When in New York City, Joplin frequented the Limbo boutique on St. Mark's Place, and she wore some of the vintage and unique garments that she purchased there on stage.
The Mamas & the Papas' song "Pearl" (1971), from their People Like Us album, was a tribute. Leonard Cohen's song "Chelsea Hotel#2" (1974) is about Joplin. Lyricist Robert Hunter has commented that Jerry Garcia's "Birdsong" from his first solo album, Garcia (1972), is about Joplin and the end of her suffering through death. Mimi Farina's composition "In the Quiet Morning", most famously covered by Joan Baez on her Come from the Shadows (1972) album, was a tribute to Joplin. Another song by Baez, "Children of the Eighties," mentioned Joplin. A Serge Gainsbourg-penned French language song by English singer Jane Birkin, "Ex fan des sixties" (1978), references Joplin along with other disappeared "idols" such as Jimi Hendrix, Brian Jones and Marc Bolan. When Joplin was alive, Country Joe McDonald released a song called "Janis" on his band's album I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die (1967).
The film The Rose (1979) is loosely based on Joplin's life. Originally planned to be titled Pearl—Joplin's nickname and the title of her last album—the film was fictionalized after her family declined to allow the producers the rights to her story. Bette Midler earned a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in the film.
In 1988, on what would have been Joplin's 45th birthday, the Janis Joplin Memorial, with an original gold, multi-image sculpture of Joplin by Douglas Clark, was dedicated during a ceremony in Port Arthur, Texas.
In 1992, the first major biography of Joplin in two decades, Love, Janis, authored by her younger sister Laura Joplin, was published. In an interview, Laura stated that Joplin enjoyed being on the Dick Cavett Show, that Joplin had difficulties with some, but not all, people at Thomas Jefferson High School and that Joplin enthusiastically talked about Woodstock with her parents and siblings during a visit to their Texas home a few weeks after she had performed at the festival.
In 1995, Joplin was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In 2005, she received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. In November 2009, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum honored her as part of its annual American Music Masters Series; among the artifacts at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum exhibition are Joplin's scarf and necklaces, her psychedelically painted 1965 Porsche 356 Cabriolet and a sheet of LSD blotting paper designed by Robert Crumb, designer of the Cheap Thrills cover. Also in 2009, Joplin was the honoree at the Rock Hall's American Music Master concert and lecture series.
In the late 1990s, the musical play Love, Janis was created and directed by Randal Myler, with input from Janis' younger sister Laura and Big Brother guitarist Sam Andrew, with an aim to take it to Off-Broadway. Opening in the summer of 2001 and scheduled for only a few weeks of performances, the show won acclaim, played to packed houses and was held over several times.
In 2013, Washington's Arena Stage featured a production of A Night with Janis Joplin, starring Mary Bridget Davies. In it, Joplin performs a concert for the audience while telling stories of her past inspirations, including those of Odetta and Aretha Franklin. The show went on tour in 2016.
On November 4, 2013, Joplin was awarded with the 2,510th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contributions to the music industry. Her star is located at 6752 Hollywood Boulevard, in front of Musicians Institute.
On August 8, 2014, the U.S. Postal Service revealed a commemorative stamp honoring Joplin as part of its Music Icons stamp series during a first-day-of-issue ceremony at the Outside Lands Music Festival at Golden Gate Park.
Among the memorabilia Joplin left behind is a Gibson Hummingbird guitar.
In 2015, the biographical documentary film Janis: Little Girl Blue, directed by Amy J. Berg and narrated by Cat Power, was released. It was a New York Times Critics' Pick.
Influence
Joplin had a profound influence on many singers.
Pink said about Joplin: "She was so inspiring by singing blues music when it wasn't culturally acceptable for white women, and she wore her heart on her sleeve. She was so witty and charming and intelligent, but she also battled an ugly-duckling syndrome. I would love to play her in a movie." In a tribute performance on her Try This Tour, Pink called Joplin "a woman who inspired me when everyone else ... didn't!"
Discography
Janis Joplin recorded four albums in her four-year career. The first two albums were recorded with and credited to Big Brother and the Holding Company; the later two were recorded with different backing bands and released as solo albums. Posthumous releases have included previously unreleased studio and live material.
Studio albums
As lead singer of Big Brother and the Holding Company
As solo artist
Live albums
Compilation albums
Singles
As lead of Big Brother and the Holding Company
As solo artist
Filmography
Monterey Pop (1968)
Petulia (1968)
Janis Joplin Live in Frankfurt (1969)
Janis (1974)
Janis: The Way She Was (1974)
Comin' Home (1988)
Woodstock – The Lost Performances (1991)
Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace & Music (Director's Cut) (1994)
Festival Express (2003)
Nine Hundred Nights (2004)
The Dick Cavett Show: Rock Icons (2005) Shout Factory
Rockin' at the Red Dog: The Dawn of Psychedelic Rock (2005)
This is Tom Jones (2007) 1969 appearance on TV show
Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace & Music (Director's Cut) 40th Anniversary Edition (2009)
Janis Joplin with Big Brother: Ball and Chain (DVD) Charly (2009)
Janis: Little Girl Blue (2015)
Notes
References
Further reading
– an encounter with Janis Joplin at the wheel.
External links
Janis Joplin at the Grammy Awards
Janis Joplin on the Music-Map
1943 births
1970 deaths
20th-century American singers
20th-century American women singers
American blues singers
American child singers
American mezzo-sopranos
American women rock singers
American women singer-songwriters
American rhythm and blues singer-songwriters
American rock songwriters
American soul musicians
Accidental deaths in California
Big Brother and the Holding Company members
Bisexual musicians
Bisexual women
Blues rock musicians
Columbia Records artists
Deaths by heroin overdose in California
Drug-related deaths in California
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners
LGBT people from Texas
LGBT singers from the United States
LGBT songwriters
Lamar University alumni
People from Beaumont, Texas
People from Port Arthur, Texas
Singer-songwriters from Texas
University of Texas at Austin alumni
20th-century LGBT people
| false |
[
"Janis is a collection of performances by Janis Joplin, issued in 1975 as a compilation album containing film soundtrack and live recordings. Disc one is subtitled \"From the soundtrack of the motion picture Janis (with substituted performances of 'Piece of my Heart' and 'Cry Baby')\". In addition to concert recordings from Toronto and Frankfurt, there are several short TV-interviews. Disc two contains recordings from Austin, Texas (1963 and 1964), plus four recordings from San Francisco (1965). The album booklet contains a photo documentary, with 22 pictures from Janis Joplin's life and career.\n\nTrack listing\n\nDisc one: Janis\n \"Mercedes Benz\" (Janis Joplin, Michael McClure) (With The Full Tilt Boogie Band; from the album Pearl)\n \"Ball and Chain\" (W. M. Thornton) (With The Kozmic Blues Band; Frankfurt, Germany Concert 1969)\n Rap on \"Try\" (Toronto, Canada Concert 1970)\n \"Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)\" (Jerry Ragovoy, C. Taylor) (With Full Tilt Boogie; Toronto, Canada Concert 1970)\n \"Summertime\" (DuBose Heyward, George Gershwin) (With The Kozmic Blues Band; Frankfurt, Germany Concert 1969)\n Albert Hall Interview (1969)\n \"Cry Baby\" (Jerry Ragovoy, Bert Berns) (With The Full Tilt Boogie Band; from the album Pearl)\n \"Move Over\" (J. Joplin) (With The Full Tilt Boogie Band)\n Dick Cavett T.V. Interview (1970)\n \"Piece of My Heart\" (Jerry Ragovoy, Bert Berns) (With Big Brother and the Holding Company; from the album Cheap Thrills)\n Port Arthur High School Reunion\n \"Maybe\" (R. Barrett) (With The Kozmic Blues Band; Frankfurt, Germany Concert 1969)\n \"Me and Bobby McGee\" (Fred Foster, Kris Kristofferson) (With The Full Tilt Boogie Band; from the album Pearl)\n\nDisc two: Early Performances\n \"Trouble in Mind\" (Richard M. Jones) (Austin, Texas 1963 or 1964)\n \"What Good Can Drinkin' Do\" (Janis Joplin) (Austin, Texas 1963 or 1964)\n \"Silver Threads and Golden Needles\" (J. Rhodes, D. Reynolds) (Austin, Texas 1963 or 1964)\n \"Mississippi River\" (Austin, Texas 1963 or 1964)\n \"Stealin'\" (L. Stock, A. Lewis) (Austin, Texas 1963 or 1964)\n \"No Reason For Livin'\" (Janis Joplin) (Austin, Texas 1963 or 1964)\n \"Black Mountain Blues\" (R. Cole) (Recorded 1965 San Francisco with Dick Oxtot Jazz Band)\n \"Walk Right In\" (Gus Cannon, H. Woods) (Recorded 1965 San Francisco with Dick Oxtot Jazz Band)\n \"River Jordan\" (Recorded 1965 San Francisco with Dick Oxtot Jazz Band)\n \"Mary Jane\" (Janis Joplin) (Recorded 1965 San Francisco with Dick Oxtot Jazz Band)\n \"Kansas City Blues\" (C. Parker) (Austin, Texas 1963 or 1964)\n \"Daddy, Daddy, Daddy\" (Janis Joplin) (Austin, Texas 1963 or 1964)\n \"See See Rider\" (Ma Rainey) (Austin, Texas 1963 or 1964)\n \"San Francisco Bay Blues\" (Jesse Fuller) (Austin, Texas 1963 or 1964)\n \"Winin' Boy\" (Jelly Roll Morton) (Austin, Texas 1963 or 1964)\n \"Careless Love\" (Huddie Ledbetter, Alan Lomax) (Austin, Texas 1963 or 1964)\n \"I'll Drown In My Own Tears\" (Henry Glover) (Austin, Texas 1963 or 1964)\n\nCharts\n\nCertifications\n\nReferences\n\nJanis Joplin compilation albums\nAlbums produced by Paul A. Rothchild\nCompilation albums published posthumously\n1975 compilation albums\nColumbia Records compilation albums",
"Full Tilt Boogie Band was a Canadian rock band originally headed by guitarist John Till and then by Janis Joplin until her death in 1970. The band was composed of Till, pianist Richard Bell, bassist Brad Campbell, drummer Clark Pierson, and organist Ken Pearson.\n\nIn its original late 1960s incarnation, the Full Tillt Boogie Band (the two \"Ls\" being a play on the spelling of Till's last name), Till fronted the group as a side project from his usual gigs as a New York City studio musician. Like Till, the other members of Full Tillt were Canadians, mostly hailing from Stratford and Woodstock, Ontario, Canada.\nRichard Bell was recruited by Michael Friedman back stage at a Ronnie Hawkins gig at the Filmore East in 1969. Friedman was Albert Grossman's assistant at the time. He went backstage after the gig and approached Bell. Ronnie Hawkins got wind of it and almost got into a fight with Friedman.\n\nWhen Joplin's management convinced her to discard Big Brother and the Holding Company as her backing band, her record label put together a new group of musicians for her. This group, dubbed the Kozmic Blues Band, consisted of Till and several other Full Tillt Boogie Band members – all studio musicians whom her label was familiar with and felt were reliable – plus a horn section. Joplin was not happy touring with some of the group members, however, feeling them to be too \"square\", and the disappointing reviews of their 1969 album I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama! led her to scrap everyone in the group except Till.\n\nTill soon convinced Joplin to hire his Full Tillt Boogie band in its entirety, and he agreed to drop one of the \"L's\" from its name, thus creating Joplin's Full Tilt Boogie backing band. Joplin took a more active role in putting together the Full Tilt Boogie Band than she had with the Kozmic Blues Band, and she believed that hiring the remainder of Till's band would provide her with the powerhouse boogie outfit she needed to back her. Joplin was quoted as saying, \"Full Tilt Boogie Band is my band. Finally, it's my band!\"\n\nFull Tilt played their first session with Joplin on April 4, 1970, at the Fillmore West studios in San Francisco and began touring in May 1970. From June 28 to July 4, 1970, Joplin and Full Tilt joined the all-star Festival Express tour through Canada, performing alongside the Grateful Dead, Delaney and Bonnie, Rick Danko and The Band, Eric Andersen, and Ian & Sylvia. They played concerts in Toronto, Winnipeg, and Calgary.\n\nThe Full Tilt Boogie Band's last public performance took place on August 12, 1970, at Harvard Stadium in Boston, Massachusetts. A positive review appeared on the front page of The Harvard Crimson newspaper despite the fact that the band performed with makeshift sound amplifiers after their regular equipment was stolen in Boston.\n\nDuring September 1970, Full Tilt and Joplin began recording a new album in Los Angeles with producer Paul A. Rothchild, who had produced recordings for The Doors. Although Joplin died before all the tracks were fully completed, there was still enough usable material to compile an LP, which became Pearl.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nFull Tilt Boogie Band on Myspace\n\nMusical groups with year of establishment missing\n\nMusical groups disestablished in 1970\nCanadian psychedelic rock music groups\nMusical groups from Ontario\n1970 disestablishments in Ontario\nJanis Joplin\nMusical backing groups"
] |
[
"Janis Joplin",
"Kozmic Blues Band",
"Was Janis Joplin part of the Kozmic Blues Band?",
"Joplin formed a new backup group, the Kozmic Blues Band,",
"Did she tour with the Kozmic Blues Band?",
"I don't know."
] |
C_e67a6494e12f48e39fceae5d4a32ef7a_0
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Were there any well known artists that were part of the Kozmic Blues Band?
| 3 |
Were there any well known artists that were part of the Kozmic Blues Band?
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Janis Joplin
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After splitting from Big Brother and the Holding Company, Joplin formed a new backup group, the Kozmic Blues Band, composed of session musicians like keyboardist Stephen Ryder and saxophonist Cornelius "Snooky" Flowers, as well as former Big Brother and the Holding Company guitarist Sam Andrew and future Full Tilt Boogie Band bassist Brad Campbell. The band was influenced by the Stax-Volt rhythm and blues (R&B) and soul bands of the 1960s, as exemplified by Otis Redding and the Bar-Kays. The Stax-Volt R&B sound was typified by the use of horns and had a funky, pop-oriented sound in contrast to many of the psychedelic/hard rock bands of the period. By early 1969, Joplin was allegedly shooting at least $200 worth of heroin per day (equivalent to $1300 in 2016 dollars) although efforts were made to keep her clean during the recording of I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama!. Gabriel Mekler, who produced Kozmic Blues, told publicist-turned-biographer Myra Friedman after Joplin's death that the singer had lived in his house during the June 1969 recording sessions at his insistence so he could keep her away from drugs and her drug-using friends. Joplin's appearances with the Kozmic Blues Band in Europe were released in cinemas, in multiple documentaries. Janis, which was reviewed by the Washington Post on March 21, 1975, shows Joplin arriving in Frankfurt by plane and waiting inside a bus next to the Frankfurt venue, while an American fan who is visiting Germany expresses enthusiasm to the camera (no security was used in Frankfurt, so by the end of the concert, the stage was so packed with people the band members could not see each other). Janis also includes interviews with Joplin in Stockholm and from her visit to London, for her gig at Royal Albert Hall. On one episode of The Dick Cavett Show, they performed "Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)" as well as "To Love Somebody". As Dick Cavett interviewed Joplin, she admitted that she had a terrible time touring in Europe, claiming that audiences there are very uptight and don't "get down". CANNOTANSWER
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composed of session musicians like keyboardist Stephen Ryder and saxophonist Cornelius "Snooky" Flowers,
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Janis Joplin (January 19, 1943 – October 4, 1970) was an American singer-songwriter who sang rock, soul, and blues music. One of the most successful and widely known rock stars of her era, she was noted for her powerful mezzo-soprano vocals and "electric" stage presence.
In 1967, Joplin rose to fame following an appearance at Monterey Pop Festival, where she was the lead singer of the then little-known San Francisco psychedelic rock band Big Brother and the Holding Company. After releasing two albums with the band, she left Big Brother to continue as a solo artist with her own backing groups, first the Kozmic Blues Band and then the Full Tilt Boogie Band. She appeared at the Woodstock festival and on the Festival Express train tour. Five singles by Joplin reached the Billboard Hot 100, including a cover of the Kris Kristofferson song "Me and Bobby McGee", which reached number one in March 1971. Her most popular songs include her cover versions of "Piece of My Heart", "Cry Baby", "Down on Me", "Ball and Chain", and "Summertime"; and her original song "Mercedes Benz", her final recording.
Joplin died of a heroin overdose in 1970, at the age of 27, after releasing three albums (two with Big Brother and the Holding Company and one solo album). A second solo album, Pearl, was released in January 1971, just over three months after her death. It reached number one on the Billboard charts. She was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995. Rolling Stone ranked Joplin number 46 on its 2004 list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time and number 28 on its 2008 list of 100 Greatest Singers of All Time. She remains one of the top-selling musicians in the United States, with Recording Industry Association of America certifications of 18.5 million albums sold.
Early life
Janis Joplin was born in Port Arthur, Texas, on , to Dorothy Bonita East (1913–1998), a registrar at a business college, and her husband, Seth Ward Joplin (1910–1987), an engineer at Texaco. She had two younger siblings, Michael and Laura. The family attended First Christian Church of Port Arthur, a church belonging to the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) denomination.
Her parents felt that Janis needed more attention than their other children. As a teenager, Joplin befriended a group of outcasts, one of whom had albums by blues artists Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, and Lead Belly, which Joplin later credited with influencing her decision to become a singer. She began singing blues and folk music with friends at Thomas Jefferson High School. In high school, she was a classmate of Pro Football Hall of Fame coach Jimmy Johnson.
Joplin stated that she was ostracized and bullied in high school. As a teen, she became overweight and suffered from acne, leaving her with deep scars that required dermabrasion. Other kids at high school would routinely taunt her and call her names like "pig," "freak," "nigger lover," or "creep." She stated, "I was a misfit. I read, I painted, I thought. I didn't hate niggers."
Joplin graduated from high school in 1960 and attended Lamar State College of Technology in Beaumont, Texas, during the summer and later the University of Texas at Austin (UT), though she did not complete her college studies. The campus newspaper, The Daily Texan, ran a profile of her in the issue dated July 27, 1962, headlined "She Dares to Be Different." The article began, "She goes barefooted when she feels like it, wears Levi's to class because they're more comfortable, and carries her autoharp with her everywhere she goes so that in case she gets the urge to break into song, it will be handy. Her name is Janis Joplin." While at UT she performed with a folk trio called the Waller Creek Boys and frequently socialized with the staff of the campus humor magazine The Texas Ranger. According to Freak Brothers cartoonist Gilbert Shelton, who befriended her, she used to sell The Texas Ranger, which contained some of Shelton's early comic books, on the campus.
Career
1962–1965: Early recordings
Joplin cultivated a rebellious manner and styled herself partly after her female blues heroines and partly after the Beat poets. Her first song, "What Good Can Drinkin' Do", was recorded on tape in December 1962 at the home of a fellow University of Texas student.
She left Texas in January 1963 ("Just to get away," she said, "because my head was in a much different place"), hitchhiking with her friend Chet Helms to North Beach, San Francisco. Still in San Francisco in 1964, Joplin and future Jefferson Airplane guitarist Jorma Kaukonen recorded a number of blues standards, which incidentally featured Kaukonen's wife Margareta using a typewriter in the background. This session included seven tracks: "Typewriter Talk", "Trouble in Mind", "Kansas City Blues", "Hesitation Blues", "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out", "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy", and "Long Black Train Blues", and was released long after Joplin's death as the bootleg album The Typewriter Tape.
In 1963, Joplin was arrested in San Francisco for shoplifting. During the two years that followed, her drug use increased and she acquired a reputation as a "speed freak" and occasional heroin user. She also used other psychoactive drugs and was a heavy drinker throughout her career; her favorite alcoholic beverage was Southern Comfort.
In May 1965, Joplin's friends in San Francisco, noticing the detrimental effects on her from regularly injecting methamphetamine (she was described as "skeletal" and "emaciated"), persuaded her to return to Port Arthur. During that month, her friends threw her a bus-fare party so she could return to her parents in Texas. Five years later, Joplin told Rolling Stone magazine writer David Dalton the following about her first stint in San Francisco: "I didn't have many friends and I didn't like the ones I had."
Back in Port Arthur in the spring of 1965, after Joplin's parents noticed her weight of , she changed her lifestyle. She avoided drugs and alcohol, adopted a beehive hairdo, and enrolled as an anthropology major at Lamar University in nearby Beaumont, Texas. Her sister Laura said in a 2016 interview that social work was her major during her year at Lamar. During her time at Lamar University, she commuted to Austin to sing solo, accompanying herself on acoustic guitar. One of her performances was at a benefit by local musicians for Texas bluesman Mance Lipscomb, who was suffering with ill health.
Joplin became engaged to Peter de Blanc in the fall of 1965. She had begun a relationship with him toward the end of her first stint in San Francisco. Now living in New York where he worked with IBM computers, he visited her to ask her father for her hand in marriage. Joplin and her mother began planning the wedding. De Blanc, who traveled frequently, ended the engagement soon afterward.
In 1965 and 1966, Joplin commuted from her family's Port Arthur home to Beaumont, Texas, where she had regular sessions with a psychiatric social worker named Bernard Giarritano at a counseling agency that was funded by the United Fund, which after her death changed its name to the United Way. Interviewed by biographer Myra Friedman after his client's death, Giarritano said Joplin had been baffled by how she could pursue a professional career as a singer without relapsing into drugs, and her drug-related memories from immediately prior to returning to Port Arthur continued to frighten her. Joplin sometimes brought an acoustic guitar with her to her sessions with Giarritano, and people in other offices within the building could hear her singing.
Giarritano tried to reassure her that she did not have to use narcotics in order to succeed in the music business. She also said that if she were to avoid singing professionally, she would have to become a keypunch operator (as she had done a few years earlier) or a secretary, and then a wife and mother, and she would have to become very similar to all the other women in Port Arthur.
Approximately a year before Joplin joined Big Brother and the Holding Company, she recorded seven studio tracks with her acoustic guitar. Among the songs she recorded were her original composition of the song "Turtle Blues" and an alternate version of "Cod'ine" by Buffy Sainte-Marie. These tracks were later issued as a new album in 1995, titled This is Janis Joplin 1965 by James Gurley.
1966–1969: Various bands
In 1966, Joplin's bluesy vocal style attracted the attention of the San Francisco-based psychedelic rock band Big Brother and the Holding Company, which had gained some renown among the nascent hippie community in Haight-Ashbury. She was recruited to join the group by Chet Helms, a promoter who was managing Big Brother and with whom she had hitchhiked from Texas to San Francisco a few years earlier. Helms sent his friend Travis Rivers to find her in Austin, Texas, where she had been performing with her acoustic guitar, and to accompany her to San Francisco.
Aware of her previous nightmare with drug addiction in San Francisco, Rivers insisted that she inform her parents face-to-face of her plans, and he drove her from Austin to Port Arthur (he waited in his car while she talked with her startled parents) before they began their long drive to San Francisco. Joplin joined Big Brother on June 4, 1966. Her first public performance with them was at the Avalon Ballroom in San Francisco.
In June, Joplin was photographed at an outdoor concert in San Francisco that celebrated the summer solstice. The image, which was later published in two books by David Dalton, shows her before she relapsed into drugs. Due to persistent persuading by keyboardist and close friend Stephen Ryder, Joplin avoided drugs for several weeks. She made Travis Rivers, with whom she shared an apartment upon their arrival in San Francisco, promise that using needles would not be allowed there. When bandmate Dave Getz accompanied her from a rehearsal to her home, Rivers was not there, but "two or three" (according to Getz' recollection 25 years later) guests whom Rivers had invited were in the process of injecting drugs. "One of them was about to tie off," recalled Getz. "Janis went nuts! I had never seen anybody explode like that. She was screaming and crying and Travis walked in. She screamed at him: 'We had a pact! You promised me! There wouldn't be any of that in front of me!' I was over my head and I tried to calm her down. I said, 'They're just doing mescaline,' because that's what I thought it was. She said, 'You don't understand! I can't see that! I just can't stand to see that!'"
A San Francisco concert from that summer (1966) was recorded and released on the 1984 album Cheaper Thrills. In July, all five bandmates and guitarist James Gurley's wife Nancy moved to a house in Lagunitas, California, where they lived communally. The band often partied with the Grateful Dead, the members of whom lived less than two miles away. She had a short relationship and longer friendship with founding member Ron "Pigpen" McKernan.
The band went to Chicago for a four-week engagement in August 1966, then found itself stranded after the promoter ran out of money when its concerts did not attract the expected audience levels, and he was unable to pay them. In the circumstances the band signed with Bob Shad's record label Mainstream Records; recordings for the label took place in Chicago in September, but these were not satisfactory, and the band returned to San Francisco, continuing to perform live, including at the Love Pageant Rally. The band recorded two tracks, "Blindman" and "All Is Loneliness", in Los Angeles, and these were released by Mainstream as a single that did not sell well. After playing at a happening in Stanford in early December 1966, the band traveled back to Los Angeles to record ten tracks between December 12 and 14, 1966, produced by Bob Shad, which appeared on the band's debut album in August 1967.
In late 1966, Big Brother switched managers from Chet Helms to Julius Karpen.
One of Joplin's earliest major performances in 1967 was at the Mantra-Rock Dance, a musical event held on January 29 at the Avalon Ballroom by the San Francisco Hare Krishna temple. Janis Joplin and Big Brother performed there along with the Hare Krishna founder Bhaktivedanta Swami, Allen Ginsberg, Moby Grape, and the Grateful Dead, donating proceeds to the Krishna temple. In early 1967, Joplin met Country Joe McDonald of the group Country Joe and the Fish. The pair lived together as a couple for a few months. Joplin and Big Brother began playing clubs in San Francisco, at the Fillmore West, Winterland, and the Avalon Ballroom. They also played at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, as well as in Seattle, Washington; Vancouver, British Columbia; the Psychedelic Supermarket in Boston, Massachusetts; and the Golden Bear Club in Huntington Beach, California.
The band's debut studio album, Big Brother & the Holding Company, was released by Mainstream Records in August 1967, shortly after the group's breakthrough appearance in June at the Monterey Pop Festival. Two tracks, "Coo Coo" and "The Last Time," were released separately as singles, while the tracks from the previous single, "Blindman" and "All Is Loneliness", were added to the remaining eight tracks. When Columbia Records took over the band's contract and re-released the album, they included "Coo Coo" and "The Last Time", and put "featuring Janis Joplin" on the cover. The debut album spawned four minor hits with the singles "Down on Me", a traditional song arranged by Joplin, "Bye Bye Baby", "Call On Me" and "Coo Coo", on all of which Joplin sang lead vocals.
Two songs from the second of Big Brother's two sets at Monterey, which they played on Sunday, were filmed (their first set, which was on Saturday, was not filmed, though it was audio-recorded). Some sources, including a Joplin biography by Ellis Amburn, claim that she was dressed in thrift store hippie clothes or second-hand Victorian clothes during the band's Saturday set, but still photographs do not appear to have survived. Digitized color film of two songs in the Sunday set, "Combination of the Two" and a version of Big Mama Thornton's "Ball and Chain," appear in the DVD and Blu-ray boxed set of D. A. Pennebaker's documentary Monterey Pop released by The Criterion Collection. She is seen wearing an expensive gold tunic dress with matching pants. They were created for her by San Francisco clothing designer Colin Rose.
Documentary filmmaker Pennebaker inserted two cutaway shots of Cass Elliot of the Mamas & the Papas seated in the audience during Joplin's performance of "Ball and Chain", one in the middle of the song as her eyes, covered by sunglasses, are fixed on Joplin, and also a shot during the applause as she silently mouths "Oh, wow!" and looks at the person seated next to her. Elliot and the audience are seen in sunlight, but Sunday's Big Brother performance was filmed in the evening. An explanation came from Big Brother's road manager John Byrne Cooke, who remembers that Pennebaker discreetly filmed the audience (including Elliot) during Big Brother's Saturday performance when he was not allowed to point a camera at the band.
The prohibition of Pennebaker from filming on Saturday afternoon came from Big Brother's manager Julius Karpen. The band had a bitter argument with Karpen and overruled him as they prepared for their second set that the festival organizers had added on the spur of the moment. Backstage at the festival, the band became acquainted with New York-based talent manager Albert Grossman but did not sign with him until several months later, firing Karpen at that time.
Only "Ball and Chain" was included in the Monterey Pop film that was released to theaters throughout the United States in 1969 and shown on television in the 1970s. Those who did not attend the Monterey Pop Festival saw the band's performance of "Combination of the Two" for the first time in 2002 when The Criterion Collection released the boxed set.
For the remainder of 1967, even after Big Brother signed with Albert Grossman, the band performed mainly in California. On February 16, 1968, the group began its first East Coast tour in Philadelphia, and the following day gave their first performance in New York City at the Anderson Theater. On April 7, 1968—three days after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and the last day of their East Coast tour—Joplin and Big Brother performed with Jimi Hendrix, Buddy Guy, Joni Mitchell, Richie Havens, Paul Butterfield, and Elvin Bishop at the Wake for Martin Luther King Jr. concert in New York.
Live at Winterland '68, recorded at the Winterland Ballroom on April 12 and 13, 1968, features Joplin and Big Brother and the Holding Company at the height of their mutual career working through a selection of tracks from their albums. A recording became available to the public for the first time in 1998 when Columbia/Sony Music Entertainment released the compact disc. One month after the Winterland concert, Owsley Stanley recorded them at the Carousel Ballroom, released in 2012 as Live at the Carousel Ballroom 1968.
On July 31, 1968, Joplin made her first nationwide television appearance when the band performed on This Morning, an ABC daytime 90-minute variety show that was hosted by Dick Cavett. Shortly thereafter, network employees wiped the videotape, though the audio survives. (In 1969 and 1970, Joplin made three appearances on Cavett's prime-time program. Video was preserved and excerpts have been included in most documentaries about Joplin. Audio of her 1968 appearance has not been used since then.)
Sometime in 1968, the band's billing was changed to "Janis Joplin and Big Brother and the Holding Company," and the media coverage given to Joplin generated resentment within the band. The other members of Big Brother thought that Joplin was on a "star trip", while others were telling Joplin that Big Brother was a terrible band and that she ought to dump them. Time magazine called Joplin "probably the most powerful singer to emerge from the white rock movement", and Richard Goldstein wrote for the May 1968 issue of Vogue magazine that Joplin was "the most staggering leading woman in rock...she slinks like tar, scowls like war...clutching the knees of a final stanza, begging it not to leave.... Janis Joplin can sing the chic off any listener."
For her first major studio recording, Joplin played a major role in the arrangement and production of the songs that would comprise Big Brother and the Holding Company's second album, Cheap Thrills. Producer John Simon tried recording the band in concert, to capture their energy in a live album, but several attempts showed the band was prone to mistakes. Their imprecision was not helped by moving the sessions to a recording studio. Joplin sang take after take of the same song, with her performances consistently good, and she grew frustrated with the band's sloppiness. Simon was replaced by Elliot Mazer who fixed the songs by overdubbing certain parts. The album featured a cover design by counterculture cartoonist Robert Crumb.
Although Cheap Thrills sounded as if it consisted of concert recordings, like on "Combination of the Two" and "I Need a Man to Love", only "Ball and Chain" was actually recorded in front of a paying audience; the rest of the tracks were studio recordings. The album had a raw quality, including the sound of a drinking glass breaking and the broken shards being swept away during the song "Turtle Blues". Cheap Thrills produced very popular hits with "Piece of My Heart" and "Summertime". Together with the premiere of the documentary film Monterey Pop at New York's Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts on December 26, 1968, the album launched Joplin as a star. Cheap Thrills reached number one on the Billboard 200 album chart eight weeks after its release, and was number one for eight (nonconsecutive) weeks. The album was certified gold at release and sold over a million copies in the first month of its release. The lead single from the album, "Piece of My Heart", reached number 12 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the fall of 1968.
The band made another East Coast tour during July–August 1968, performing at the Columbia Records convention in Puerto Rico and the Newport Folk Festival. After returning to San Francisco for two hometown shows at the Palace of Fine Arts Festival on August 31 and September 1, Joplin announced that she would be leaving Big Brother. On September 14, 1968, culminating a three-night engagement together at Fillmore West, fans thronged to a concert that Bill Graham publicized as the last official concert of Janis Joplin with Big Brother and the Holding Company. The opening acts on this night were Chicago (then still called Chicago Transit Authority) and Santana.
Despite Graham's announcement that the Fillmore West gig was Big Brother's last concert with Joplin, the band—with Joplin still as lead vocalist—toured the U.S. that fall. Reflecting Joplin's crossover appeal, two October 1968 performances at a roller rink in Alexandria, Virginia, were reviewed by John Segraves of the conservative Washington Evening Star at a time when the Washington metropolitan area's hard rock scene was in its infancy. An opera buff at the time, he wrote:
Later that month (October 1968), Big Brother performed at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and played at the Syracuse War Memorial as part of Syracuse University's Fall Homecoming on October 11, with Janis joining openers the Butterfield Blues Band for their closing song. Aside from two 1970 reunions, Joplin's last performance with Big Brother was at a Chet Helms benefit in San Francisco on December 1, 1968.
1969–1970: Solo career
After splitting from Big Brother and the Holding Company, Joplin formed a new backup group, the Kozmic Blues Band, composed of session musicians like keyboardist Stephen Ryder and saxophonist Cornelius "Snooky" Flowers, as well as former Big Brother and the Holding Company guitarist Sam Andrew and future Full Tilt Boogie Band bassist Brad Campbell. The band was influenced by the Stax-Volt rhythm and blues (R&B) and soul bands of the 1960s, as exemplified by Otis Redding and the Bar-Kays. The Stax-Volt R&B sound was typified by the use of horns and had a funky, pop-oriented sound in contrast to many of the psychedelic/hard rock bands of the period.
By early 1969, Joplin was allegedly shooting at least $200 worth of heroin per day (equivalent to $1300 in 2016 dollars) although efforts were made to keep her clean during the recording of I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama! Gabriel Mekler, who produced the album, told publicist-turned-biographer Myra Friedman after Joplin's death that she had lived in his Los Angeles house during the June 1969 recording sessions at his insistence so he could keep her away from drugs and her drug-using friends.
Joplin's appearances with the Kozmic Blues Band in Europe were released in theaters, in multiple documentaries. Janis, which was reviewed by the Washington Post on March 21, 1975, shows Joplin arriving in Frankfurt by plane and waiting inside a bus next to the Frankfurt venue, while an American female fan who is visiting Germany expresses enthusiasm to the camera (no security was used in Frankfurt, so by the end of the concert, the stage was so packed with people the band members could not see each other). Janis also includes interviews with Joplin in Stockholm and from her visit to London, for her gig at Royal Albert Hall. The London interview was dubbed with a voiceover in the German language for broadcast on German television. John Byrne Cooke, road manager for Joplin and the Kozmic Blues Band, wrote a book published in 2014 in which he discussed her knowledge of the risks of her ongoing use of narcotics, particularly when she was outside the United States.
On the episode of The Dick Cavett Show that was telecast in the United States on the night of July 18, 1969, Joplin and her band performed "Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)" as well as "To Love Somebody". As Dick Cavett interviewed Joplin, she admitted that she had a terrible time touring in Europe, claiming that audiences there are very uptight and don't "get down".
Released in September 1969, the Kozmic Blues album was certified gold later that year but did not match the success of Cheap Thrills. Reviews of the new group were mixed. However, the album's recording quality and engineering, as well as the musicianship (including three performances by former Bob Dylan/Paul Butterfield/Electric Flag guitarist Mike Bloomfield), were considered superior to her previous releases, and some music critics argued that the band was working in a much more constructive way to support Joplin's sensational vocal talents.
Joplin wanted a horn section similar to that featured by the Chicago Transit Authority; her voice had the dynamic qualities and range not to be overpowered by the brighter horn sound.
Some music critics, however, including Ralph J. Gleason of the San Francisco Chronicle, were negative. Gleason wrote that the new band was a "drag" and Joplin should "scrap" her new band and "go right back to being a member of Big Brother ... (if they'll have her)."
Other reviewers, such as reporter Carl Bernstein of the Washington Post, devoted entire articles to celebrating the singer's magic. Bernstein's review said that Joplin "has finally assembled a group of first-rate musicians with whom she is totally at ease and whose abilities complement the incredible range of her voice."
Columbia Records released "Kozmic Blues" as a single, which peaked at number 41 on the Billboard Hot 100, and a live rendition of "Raise Your Hand" was released in Germany and became a top ten hit there. Containing other hits like "Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)", "To Love Somebody", and "Little Girl Blue", I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama! reached number five on the Billboard 200 soon after its release.
Joplin appeared at Woodstock starting at approximately 2:00 a.m., on Sunday, August 17, 1969. Joplin informed her band that they would be performing at the concert as if it were just another gig. On Saturday afternoon, when she and the band were flown by helicopter with the pregnant Joan Baez and Baez's mother from a nearby motel to the festival site and Joplin saw the enormous crowd, she instantly became extremely nervous and giddy. Upon landing and getting off the helicopter, Joplin was approached by reporters asking her questions. She referred them to her friend and sometime lover Peggy Caserta as she was too excited to speak. Initially, Joplin was eager to get on the stage and perform but was repeatedly delayed as bands were contractually obliged to perform ahead of Joplin. Faced with a ten-hour wait after arriving at the backstage area, Joplin spent some of that time shooting heroin and drinking alcohol with Caserta in a tent. The director's cut of the Woodstock movie shows Joplin and Jefferson Airplane singer Grace Slick standing together near amplifiers watching the band Canned Heat's performance, which started at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, and Caserta does not appear within camera range. When Joplin finally reached the stage at approximately 2:00 a.m. Sunday, she was "three sheets to the wind", according to biographer Alice Echols. During her performance, Joplin's voice became slightly hoarse and wheezy, and she struggled to dance.
Joplin pulled through, however, and engaged frequently with the crowd, asking them if they had everything they needed and if they were staying stoned. The audience cheered for an encore, to which Joplin replied and sang "Ball and Chain". Pete Townshend, who performed with the Who later in the same morning after Joplin finished, witnessed her performance and said the following in his 2012 memoir: "She had been amazing at Monterey, but tonight she wasn't at her best, due, probably, to the long delay, and probably, too, to the amount of booze and heroin she'd consumed while she waited. But even Janis on an off-night was incredible."
Janis remained at Woodstock for the remainder of the festival. Starting at approximately 3:00 a.m. on Monday, August 18, Joplin was among many Woodstock performers who stood in a circle behind Crosby, Stills & Nash during their performance, which was the first time anyone at Woodstock ever had heard the group perform. This information was published by David Crosby in 1988. Later in the morning of August 18, Joplin and Joan Baez sat in Joe Cocker's van and witnessed Hendrix's close-of-show performance, according to Baez's memoir And a Voice to Sing With (1989).
Still photographs in color show Joplin backstage with Grace Slick the day after Joplin's performance, wherein Joplin appears to be very happy. She was ultimately unhappy with her performance, however, and blamed Caserta. Her singing was not included (by her own insistence) in the 1970 documentary film or the soundtrack for Woodstock: Music from the Original Soundtrack and More, although the 25th anniversary director's cut of Woodstock includes her performance of "Work Me, Lord". The documentary film of the festival that was released in theaters during 1970 includes, on the left side of a split screen, 37 seconds of footage of Joplin and Caserta walking toward Joplin's dressing room tent.
In addition to Woodstock, Joplin also had problems at Madison Square Garden, in 1969. Biographer Myra Friedman said she had witnessed a duet Joplin sang with Tina Turner during the Rolling Stones concert at the Garden on Thanksgiving Day. Friedman said Joplin was "so drunk, so stoned, so out of control, that she could have been an institutionalized psychotic rent by mania." During another Garden concert where she had solo billing on December 19, some observers believed Joplin tried to incite the audience to riot. For part of this concert she was joined onstage by Johnny Winter and Paul Butterfield.
Joplin told rock journalist David Dalton that Garden audiences watched and listened to "every note [she sang] with 'Is she gonna make it?' in their eyes." In her interview with Dalton she added that she felt most comfortable performing at small, cheap venues in San Francisco that were associated with the counterculture.
At the time of the June 1970 interview with Dalton, she had already performed in the Bay Area for what turned out to be the last time. Sam Andrew, the lead guitarist who had left Big Brother with Joplin in December 1968 to form her back-up band, quit in late summer 1969 and returned to Big Brother. At the end of the year, the Kozmic Blues Band broke up. Their final gig with Joplin was the one at Madison Square Garden with Winter and Butterfield.
In February 1970, Joplin traveled to Brazil, where she stopped her drug and alcohol use. She was accompanied on vacation there by her friend Linda Gravenites (wife of songwriter Nick Gravenites), who had designed Janis's stage costumes from 1967 to 1969.
In Brazil, Joplin was romanced by a fellow American tourist named David (George) Niehaus, who was traveling around the world. A Joplin biography written by her sister Laura said, "David was an upper-middle-class Cincinnati kid who had studied communications at Notre Dame. ... [and] had joined the Peace Corps after college and worked in a small village in Turkey. ... He tried law school, but when he met Janis he was taking time off."
Niehaus and Joplin were photographed by the press at Rio Carnival in Rio de Janeiro. Gravenites also took color photographs of the two during their Brazilian vacation. According to Joplin biographer Ellis Amburn, in Gravenites' snapshots they "look like a carefree, happy, healthy young couple having a tremendously good time."
Rolling Stone magazine interviewed Joplin during an international phone call, quoting her: "I'm going into the jungle with a big bear of a beatnik named David Niehaus. I finally remembered I don't have to be on stage twelve months a year. I've decided to go and dig some other jungles for a couple of weeks." Amburn added in 1992, "Janis was trying to kick heroin in Brazil, and one of the nicest things about David was that he wasn't into drugs."
When Joplin returned to the U.S., she began using heroin again. Her relationship with Niehaus soon ended because he witnessed her shooting drugs at her new home in Larkspur, California. The relationship was also complicated by her ongoing romantic relationship with Peggy Caserta, who also was an intravenous addict, and Joplin's refusal to take some time off and travel the world with him.
Around this time, she formed her new band, known for a short time as Main Squeeze, then renamed the Full Tilt Boogie Band. The band comprised mostly young Canadian musicians previously associated with Ronnie Hawkins and featured an organ, but no horn section. Joplin took a more active role in putting together the Full Tilt Boogie band than she had with her prior group. She was quoted as saying, "It's my band. Finally it's my band!" In May 1970, after performing under the name Main Squeeze at a Hell's Angels event, the renamed Full Tilt Boogie Band began a nationwide tour. Joplin became very happy with her new group, which eventually received mostly positive feedback from both her fans and the critics.
Prior to beginning a summer tour with Full Tilt Boogie, she performed in a reunion with Big Brother at the Fillmore West, in San Francisco, on April 4, 1970. Recordings from this concert were included in an in-concert album released posthumously in 1972. She again appeared with Big Brother on April 12 at Winterland, where she and Big Brother were reported to be in excellent form. She performed with the band, billed as Main Squeeze, at a party for the Hells Angels at a venue in San Rafael, California on May 21, 1970, according to a web site maintained by Big Brother guitarist Sam Andrew. Andrew's web site quotes him as saying, "This will be the first time that Janis' old band and her new band will be at the same venue, so everyone is a little on edge."
According to Joplin's biographer Ellis Amburn, Big Brother with its lead singer Nick Gravenites was the opening act at the party that was attended by 2,300 people. The Hells Angels, who had known Joplin since 1966, paid her a fee of 240 dollars to perform. Gravenites and Sam Andrew (who had resumed playing guitar with Big Brother) differed in their opinions of her performance and how substance abuse affected it. Gravenites described her singing as "stupendous," according to Amburn. Amburn quoted Andrew twenty years later: "She was visibly deteriorating and she looked bloated. She was like a parody of what she was at her best. I put it down to her drinking too much and I felt a tinge of fear for her well-being. Her singing was real flabby, no edge at all."
Shortly thereafter, Joplin began wearing multi-colored feather boas in her hair. (She had not worn them at the May 21 Hell's Angels party / concert in San Rafael). By the time she began touring with Full Tilt Boogie, Joplin told people she was drug-free, but her drinking increased.
From June 28 to July 4, 1970, during the Festival Express tour, Joplin and Full Tilt Boogie performed alongside Buddy Guy, the Band, the Flying Burrito Brothers, Ten Years After, the Grateful Dead, Delaney & Bonnie, Eric Andersen, and Ian & Sylvia. They played concerts in Toronto, Winnipeg, and Calgary. Joplin jammed with the other performers on the train, and her performances on this tour are considered to be among her greatest.
Joplin headlined the festival on all three nights. At the last stop in Calgary, she took to the stage with Jerry Garcia while her band was tuning up. Film footage shows her telling the audience how great the tour was and shows her and Garcia presenting the organizers with a case of tequila. She then burst into a two-hour set, starting with "Tell Mama". Throughout this performance, Joplin engaged in several banters about her love life. In one, she reminisced about living in a San Francisco apartment and competing with a female neighbor in flirting with men on the street. She finished the Calgary concert with long versions of "Get It While You Can" and "Ball and Chain".
Footage of her performance of "Tell Mama" in Calgary became an MTV video in the early 1980s, and the audio from the same film footage was included on the Farewell Song (1982) album. The audio of other Festival Express performances was included on Joplin's In Concert (1972) album. Video of the performances was also included on the Festival Express DVD.
These performances of entire songs during the Festival Express concerts in Toronto and Calgary can be purchased, although other songs remain in vaults and have yet to be released.
In the "Tell Mama" video shown on MTV in the 1980s, Joplin wore a psychedelically colored, loose-fitting costume and feathers in her hair. This was her standard stage costume in the spring and summer of 1970. She chose the new costumes after her friend and designer, Linda Gravenites (whom Joplin had praised in Vogues profile of her in its May 1968 edition), cut ties with Joplin shortly after their return from Brazil, due largely to Joplin's continued use of heroin.
Among Joplin's last public appearances were two broadcasts of The Dick Cavett Show. In her June 25, 1970 appearance, she announced that she would attend her ten-year high school class reunion. When asked if she had been popular in school, she admitted that when in high school, her schoolmates "laughed me out of class, out of town and out of the state" (during the year she had spent at the University of Texas at Austin, Joplin had been voted "Ugliest Man on Campus" by frat boys). In the subsequent Cavett Show broadcast, on August 3, 1970, and featuring Gloria Swanson, Joplin discussed her upcoming performance at the Festival for Peace to be held at Shea Stadium in Queens, New York, three days later.
On July 11, 1970, Full Tilt Boogie and Big Brother and the Holding Company both performed at the same concert in the San Diego Sports Arena, which was decades later renamed the Valley View Casino Center. Joplin sang with Full Tilt Boogie and appeared briefly onstage with Big Brother without singing, according to a July 13 review of the concert in the San Diego Union.
On August 7, 1970, a tombstone—jointly paid for by Joplin and Juanita Green, who as a child had done housework for Bessie Smith—was erected at Smith's previously unmarked grave. The following day, the Associated Press circulated this news, and the August 9 edition of The New York Times carried it. The lead paragraph of the AP story said Joplin and Green had "shared the cost of a stone for the 'Empress of the Blues,'" but, according to publicist/biographer Myra Friedman, the two women never met. Joplin had been at home in Larkspur, California when she had received a long-distance phone call with an explanation of the need to finance a gravestone for Bessie Smith, whom Joplin had frequently cited as a musical influence. Joplin immediately wrote a check and mailed it to the name and address provided by the phone caller.
On August 8, 1970, as the Associated Press circulated the news about Smith's new gravestone, Joplin performed at the Capitol Theatre (Port Chester, New York). It was there that she first performed "Mercedes Benz", a song (partially inspired by a Michael McClure poem) that she had composed with fellow musician and friend Bob Neuwirth a very short time earlier. According to Myra Friedman's account, Joplin performed two shows at the Capitol Theatre, the first of which was attended by actors Geraldine Page and her husband Rip Torn. Between the shows, at a "gin mill" [Friedman's words] very close to this concert venue, Joplin and Neuwirth penned the lyrics to the song and she performed it at the second show, according to Friedman. Neuwirth was quoted by The Wall Street Journal in 2015: "Around 7 p.m., after the Capitol sound check, we had a couple of hours to kill before [acts that opened for Joplin] Seatrain and Runt finished their sets. So the four of us [Joplin, Neuwirth, Geraldine Page, Rip Torn] walked to a bar about three minutes away called Vahsen’s [at 30 Broad Street in Port Chester]." While in Vahsen's, "Janis came up with words for the first verse. I was in charge of writing them down on bar napkins with a ballpoint pen. She came up with the second verse, too, about a color TV. I suggested words here and there, and came up with the third verse—about asking the Lord to buy us a night on the town and another round."
Joplin's last public performance with the Full Tilt Boogie Band took place on August 12, 1970, at the Harvard Stadium in Boston. The Harvard Crimson gave the performance a positive, front-page review, despite the fact that Full Tilt Boogie had performed with makeshift amplifiers after their regular sound equipment was stolen in Boston.
Joplin attended her high school reunion on August 14, accompanied by Neuwirth, road manager John Cooke, and sister Laura, but it was reportedly an unhappy experience for her. Joplin held a press conference in Port Arthur during her reunion visit. When asked by a reporter if she ever entertained at Thomas Jefferson High School when she was a student there, Joplin replied, "Only when I walked down the aisles." Joplin denigrated Port Arthur and the classmates who had humiliated her a decade earlier.
During late August, September, and early October 1970, Joplin and her band rehearsed and recorded a new album in Los Angeles with producer Paul A. Rothchild, best known for his lengthy relationship with The Doors. Although Joplin died before all the tracks were fully completed, there was enough usable material to compile an LP.
The posthumous Pearl (1971) became the biggest-selling album of her career and featured her biggest hit single, a cover of Kris Kristofferson and Fred Foster's "Me and Bobby McGee" (Kristofferson had previously been Joplin's lover in the spring of 1970). The opening track, "Move Over", was written by Joplin, reflecting the way that she felt men treated women in relationships. Also included was the social commentary of "Mercedes Benz", presented in an a cappella arrangement; the track on the album features the first and only take that Joplin recorded. A cover of Nick Gravenites's "Buried Alive in the Blues", to which Joplin had been scheduled to add her vocals on the day she was found dead, was included as an instrumental.
Joplin checked into the Landmark Motor Hotel in Hollywood on August 24, 1970, near Sunset Sound Recorders, where she began rehearsing and recording her album. During the sessions, Joplin continued a relationship with Seth Morgan, a 21-year-old UC Berkeley student, cocaine dealer, and future novelist who had visited her new home in Larkspur in July and August. She and Morgan were engaged to be married in early September, although he visited Sunset Sound Recorders for just eight of Joplin's many rehearsals and sessions.
Morgan later told biographer Myra Friedman that, as a non-musician, he had felt excluded whenever he had visited Sunset Sound Recorders. Instead, he stayed at Joplin's Larkspur home while she stayed alone at the Landmark, although several times she visited Larkspur to be with him and to check the progress of renovations she was having done on the house. She told her construction crew to design a carport to be shaped like a flying saucer, according to biographer Ellis Amburn, the concrete foundation for which was poured the day before she died.
Peggy Caserta claimed in her book, Going Down With Janis (1973), that she and Joplin had decided mutually in April 1970 to stay away from each other to avoid enabling each other's drug use. Caserta, a former Delta Air Lines stewardess and owner of one of the first clothing boutiques in the Haight Ashbury, said in the book that by September 1970, she was smuggling cannabis throughout California and had checked into the Landmark Motor Hotel because it attracted drug users.
For approximately the first two weeks of Joplin's stay at the Landmark, she did not know Caserta was in Los Angeles. Joplin learned of Caserta's presence at the Landmark from a heroin dealer who made deliveries there. Joplin begged Caserta for heroin, and when Caserta refused to provide it, Joplin reportedly admonished her by saying, "Don't think if you can get it, I can't get it." Joplin's publicist Myra Friedman was unaware during Joplin's lifetime that this had happened. Later, while Friedman was working on her book Buried Alive, she determined that the time frame of the Joplin-Caserta encounter was one week before Jimi Hendrix's death.
Within a few days, Joplin became a regular customer of the same heroin dealer who had been supplying Caserta.
Joplin's manager Albert Grossman and his assistant/publicist Friedman had staged an intervention with Joplin the previous winter while Joplin was in New York. In September 1970, Grossman and Friedman, who worked out of a New York office, knew Joplin was staying at a Los Angeles hotel, but were unaware it was a haven for drug users and dealers.
Grossman and Friedman knew during Joplin's lifetime that her friend Caserta, whom Friedman met during the New York sessions for Cheap Thrills and on later occasions, used heroin. During the many long-distance telephone conversations that Joplin and Friedman had in September 1970 and on October 1, Joplin never mentioned Caserta, and Friedman assumed Caserta had been out of Joplin's life for a while. Friedman, who had more time than Grossman to monitor the situation, never visited California. She thought Joplin sounded on the phone like she was less depressed than she had been over the summer.
When Joplin was not at Sunset Sound Recorders, she liked to drive her Porsche over the speed limit "on the winding part of Sunset Blvd.", according to a statement made by her attorney Robert Gordon in 1995 at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony. Friedman wrote that the only Full Tilt Boogie member who rode as her passenger, Ken Pearson, often hesitated to join her, though he did on the night she died. He was not interested in using hard drugs.
On September 26, 1970, Joplin recorded vocals for "Half Moon" and "Cry Baby". The session ended with Joplin, organist Ken Pearson, and drummer Clark Pierson making a special one-minute recording as a birthday gift to John Lennon. Joplin was among several singers who had been contacted by Yoko Ono with a request for a taped greeting for Lennon's 30th birthday, on October 9. Joplin, Pearson, and Pierson chose the Dale Evans composition "Happy Trails" as part of the greeting. Lennon told Dick Cavett on-camera the following year that Joplin's recorded birthday wishes arrived at his home after her death.
On October 1, 1970, Joplin completed her last recording, "Mercedes Benz", which was recorded in a single take. On Saturday, October 3, Joplin visited Sunset Sound Recorders to listen to the instrumental track for Nick Gravenites's song "Buried Alive in the Blues", which the band had recorded earlier that day. She and Paul Rothchild agreed she would record the vocal the following day.
At some point on Saturday, she learned by telephone, to her dismay, that Seth Morgan had met other women at a Marin County, California, restaurant, invited them to her home, and was shooting pool with them using her pool table. People at Sunset Sound Recorders overheard Joplin expressing anger about the state of her relationship with Morgan, as well as joy about the progress of the sessions.
Joplin and Ken Pearson later left the studio together and she drove him in her Porsche to the West Hollywood landmark called Barney's Beanery. Friedman wrote, "At the bar, she drank vodka and orange juice, only two." Bennett Glotzer, a business partner of Joplin's manager Albert Grossman, was present at Barney's Beanery, according to what he told John Byrne Cooke immediately after he (Glotzer) learned of her death. Evidently, Joplin had a friendly conversation with a young man whom she did not know, and he expressed admiration for her music. After midnight, she drove Ken Pearson and the male fan to the Landmark where she and Pearson were staying in separate rooms. During the car ride, the fan asked Joplin questions "about her singing style," according to Friedman, and "she mostly ignored him" so she could converse with Pearson. As Joplin and Pearson prepared to part in the lobby of the Landmark, she expressed a fear, possibly in jest, that he and the other Full Tilt Boogie musicians might decide to stop making music with her. Pearson was the second-to-last person to see her alive. The last was the Landmark's night shift desk clerk. He had met her several times but did not know her.
Personal life
Joplin's significant relationships with men included ones with Peter de Blanc, Country Joe McDonald (who wrote the song "Janis" at Joplin's request), David (George) Niehaus, Kris Kristofferson, and Seth Morgan (from July 1970 until her death, at which time they were allegedly engaged).
She also had relationships with women. During her first stint in San Francisco in 1963, Joplin met and briefly lived with Jae Whitaker, a black woman whom she had met while playing pool at the bar Gino & Carlo in North Beach. Whitaker broke off their relationship because of Joplin's hard drug use and sexual relationships with other people. Whitaker was first identified by name in connection with the singer in 1999, when Alice Echols' biography Scars of Sweet Paradise was published.
Joplin also had an on-again-off-again romantic relationship with Peggy Caserta. They first met in November 1966 when Big Brother performed at a San Francisco venue called The Matrix. Caserta was one of 15 people in the audience, and at the time, she ran a successful clothing boutique in the Haight Ashbury. Approximately a month after Caserta attended the concert, Joplin visited her boutique and said she could not afford to buy a pair of jeans that was for sale, instead asking to put down the first 50 cents on the $5 item. Caserta was amazed that such a talented singer could not afford a $5 item, and gave her a pair for free. Their friendship was platonic for more than a year. Before it moved to the next level, Caserta was in love with Big Brother guitarist Sam Andrew, and sometime during the first half of 1968 traveled from San Francisco to New York to flirt with him. He did not want a serious relationship, and Joplin sympathized with Caserta's disappointment.
The Woodstock concert film includes 37 seconds of Joplin and Caserta walking together before they reached the tent where Joplin waited for her turn to perform. By the time the festival took place in August 1969, both were intravenous heroin addicts.
According to Caserta's book Going Down With Janis, which Caserta has since disowned, Joplin introduced her to her boyfriend Seth Morgan in Joplin's room at the Landmark Motor Hotel on September 29, 1970. Caserta "had seen him around" San Francisco but had not met him before. At some point, an agreement was made for a threesome to take place the following Friday, although Caserta later said that she immediately abandoned the idea once she understood that it was Morgan who would be with Joplin. Morgan made alternate plans, believing that Caserta would be with Joplin that evening. Each one, however, was unaware that the other had bowed out. The day after Joplin introduced Caserta to Morgan, Caserta saw Joplin briefly, again in Joplin's room, when Caserta accommodated her new Los Angeles friend Debbie Nuciforo, age 19, an aspiring hard rock drummer who wanted to meet Joplin. Nuciforo was stoned on heroin at the time, and the three women's encounter was brief and unpleasant. Caserta suspected that the reason for Joplin's foul mood was that Morgan had abandoned her earlier that day after having spent less than 24 hours with her. Caserta did not see nor communicate by phone with Joplin again, although she later claimed she had made several attempts to reach her by phone at the Landmark Motor Hotel and at Sunset Sound Recorders. Caserta and Morgan lost touch with each other; each had independently made alternate plans for Friday night, October 2. Joplin mentioned her disappointment (over both of her friends' bailing out of their ménage à trois) to her drug dealer on Saturday, while he was selling her the dose of heroin that killed her, as Caserta later learned from the drug dealer.
Biographer Myra Friedman commented in her original version of Buried Alive (1973):
Given the near-infinite potentials of infancy, it is really impossible to make generalizations about what lies behind sexual practices. This, however, is probable: to become clearly homosexual, to make the choice that one honestly prefers relations with one's own sex, no matter the origins of such preference, requires a certain integration, a stability of psychic development, a tidiness of personality organization. The ridicule and the humiliation that took place at that most delicate period in [Joplin's] early teens, her own inability to surmount the obstacles to regular growth, devastated her a great deal more than most people comprehended. Janis was not heir to an ego so cohesive as to permit her an identity one way or the other. She was, as [the psychiatric social worker she saw regularly in Beaumont, Texas in 1965 and 1966] Mr. [Bernard] Giarritano put it [in an interview with Friedman], "diffused" -- spewing, splattering, splaying all over, without a center to hold. That had as much to do with her original use of drugs [before she first met Giarritano] as did the critical component of guilt and its multiplicity of sources above and beyond the contribution made by her relationships with women. Were she so simple as the lesbians wished her to be or so free as her associates imagined!
Kim France reported in her May 2, 1999 The New York Times article, "Nothin' Left to Lose" : "Once she became famous, Joplin cursed like a truck driver, did not believe in wearing undergarments, was rarely seen without her bottle of Southern Comfort and delighted in playing the role of sexual predator."
On July 11, 1970, Joplin made a revealing statement about her sexuality to her friend Richard Hundgen, the Grateful Dead's San Francisco-based road manager whom she had known since 1966. When Joplin and Hundgen were offstage during a San Diego gig for both Full Tilt Boogie and Big Brother and the Holding Company, she said the following that he later repeated to Myra Friedman:
I hear a rumor that somebody in San Francisco is spreading stories that I'm a dyke. You go back there and find out who it is and tell them that Janis says she's gotten it on with a couple of thousand cats in her life and a few hundred chicks and see what they can do with that!
Death
On Sunday evening, October 4, 1970, Joplin was found dead on the floor of her room at the Landmark Motor Hotel by her road manager and close friend John Byrne Cooke.
Alcohol was present in the room. Newspapers reported that no other drugs or paraphernalia were present. According to a 1983 book authored by Joseph DiMona and Los Angeles County coroner Thomas Noguchi, evidence of narcotics was removed from the scene by a friend of Joplin and later put back after the person realized that an autopsy was going to reveal that narcotics were in her system. The book adds that prior to Joplin's death, Noguchi had investigated other fatal drug overdoses in Los Angeles where friends believed they were doing favors for decedents by removing evidence of narcotics, then they "thought things over" and returned to put back the evidence. Noguchi performed an autopsy on Joplin and determined the cause of death to be a heroin overdose, possibly compounded by alcohol.
John Byrne Cooke believed Joplin had been given heroin that was much more potent than what she and other L.A. heroin users had received on previous occasions, as was indicated by overdoses of several of her dealer's other customers during the same weekend. Her death was ruled accidental.
Both Peggy Caserta, Joplin's close friend, and Seth Morgan, Joplin's fiancé, had failed to meet Joplin the Friday immediately prior to her death, October 2; Joplin had been expecting both of them to keep her company that night. According to Caserta, Joplin was saddened that neither of her friends visited her at the Landmark as they had promised. During the 24 hours Joplin lived after this disappointment, Caserta did not phone her to explain why she had failed to show up. Caserta admitted to waiting until late Saturday night to dial the Landmark switchboard, only to learn that Joplin had instructed the desk clerk not to accept any incoming phone calls for her after midnight. Morgan did speak to Joplin via telephone within the 24 hours prior to her death, but little is known about that call. She used a phone at Sunset Sound Recorders where her colleagues (“there were perhaps twenty to twenty-five people present,” wrote biographer Myra Friedman) noticed that whatever Morgan said to her made her very angry.
Peggy Caserta has insisted that Joplin's death was not an accidental overdose, but rather a result of a head gash suffered after the "hourglass heel" of her slingback sandal caught in the shag carpet, causing her to lose her balance. Caserta does concede, however, that drugs and/or alcohol may have played a role in hastening her death that night.
Joplin was cremated at Pierce Brothers Westwood Village Memorial Park and Mortuary in Los Angeles, and her ashes were scattered from a plane into the Pacific Ocean.
Legacy
Joplin's death in October 1970 at age 27 stunned her fans and shocked the music world, especially when coupled with the death just 16 days earlier of another rock icon, Jimi Hendrix, also at age 27. (This would later cause some people to attribute significance to the death of musicians at the age of 27, as celebrated in the "27 Club.") Music historian Tom Moon wrote that Joplin had "a devastatingly original voice," music columnist Jon Pareles of The New York Times wrote that Joplin as an artist was "overpowering and deeply vulnerable" and author Megan Terry said that Joplin was the female version of Elvis Presley in her ability to captivate an audience.
A book about Joplin by her publicist Myra Friedman titled Buried Alive: The Biography of Janis Joplin (1973) was excerpted in many newspapers. At the same time, Peggy Caserta's memoir, Going Down With Janis (1973), attracted much attention; its provocative title is a reference to Caserta's claim that she had engaged in oral sex with Joplin while they were high on heroin in September 1970. The description provided by Dan Knapp, Caserta’s co-author whom she denounced decades later, repelled many people in 1973 when few books or filmed interviews of Joplin or her loved ones were accessible to the public. Joplin's bandmate Sam Andrew described Caserta as "halfway between a groupie and a friend" in an interview with writer Ellis Amburn. Soon after the 1973 publication of Going Down With Janis, Joplin's friends learned that graphic descriptions of sexual acts and intravenous drug use were not the only portions of the book that would haunt them.
According to Kim Chappell, a close friend of Caserta and Joplin, Caserta's book angered the Los Angeles heroin dealer whom she had described in detail in her book, including the make and model of his car. According to Amburn, in 1973 a "carful of dope dealers" visited a Los Angeles lesbian bar that Caserta had been frequenting. Chappell, who was in the alley behind the bar, stated: "I was stabbed because, when Peggy's book came out, her dealer, the same one who'd given Janis her last fix, didn't like it that he was referred to and was out to get Peggy. He couldn't find her, so he went for her lover. When they realized who I was, they felt that my death would also hit Peggy, and so they stabbed me." Despite being "stabbed three times in the chest, puncturing both lungs," Chappell eventually recovered.
In 2018, Caserta denounced Going Down With Janis as the pornographic fantasy of Dan Knapp, her co-author, and largely unreliable. During that year, the public had its first access to her own story via a memoir she co-wrote with Maggie Falcon titled I Ran Into Some Trouble. It describes a long, friendly relationship with Joplin that only occasionally featured sexuality.
According to Joplin’s biographers, Caserta was among many friends of Joplin who did not become clean and sober until a very long time after Joplin's death, while others died from overdoses. Although the wife of Big Brother guitarist James Gurley, who was Joplin's close friend, died from a heroin overdose in 1969, devastating Joplin, Gurley himself did not become clean and sober until 1984. Caserta survived "a near-fatal OD in December 1995," wrote Alice Echols. On January 13, 2000, Caserta appeared during a segment about Joplin on 20/20.
Joplin's body art, with a wristlet and a small heart on her left breast by the San Francisco tattoo artist Lyle Tuttle, marked an early moment in the popular culture's acceptance of tattoos as art. Another trademark was her flamboyant hair styles, which often included colored streaks and accessories such as scarves, beads and feathers. When in New York City, Joplin frequented the Limbo boutique on St. Mark's Place, and she wore some of the vintage and unique garments that she purchased there on stage.
The Mamas & the Papas' song "Pearl" (1971), from their People Like Us album, was a tribute. Leonard Cohen's song "Chelsea Hotel#2" (1974) is about Joplin. Lyricist Robert Hunter has commented that Jerry Garcia's "Birdsong" from his first solo album, Garcia (1972), is about Joplin and the end of her suffering through death. Mimi Farina's composition "In the Quiet Morning", most famously covered by Joan Baez on her Come from the Shadows (1972) album, was a tribute to Joplin. Another song by Baez, "Children of the Eighties," mentioned Joplin. A Serge Gainsbourg-penned French language song by English singer Jane Birkin, "Ex fan des sixties" (1978), references Joplin along with other disappeared "idols" such as Jimi Hendrix, Brian Jones and Marc Bolan. When Joplin was alive, Country Joe McDonald released a song called "Janis" on his band's album I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die (1967).
The film The Rose (1979) is loosely based on Joplin's life. Originally planned to be titled Pearl—Joplin's nickname and the title of her last album—the film was fictionalized after her family declined to allow the producers the rights to her story. Bette Midler earned a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in the film.
In 1988, on what would have been Joplin's 45th birthday, the Janis Joplin Memorial, with an original gold, multi-image sculpture of Joplin by Douglas Clark, was dedicated during a ceremony in Port Arthur, Texas.
In 1992, the first major biography of Joplin in two decades, Love, Janis, authored by her younger sister Laura Joplin, was published. In an interview, Laura stated that Joplin enjoyed being on the Dick Cavett Show, that Joplin had difficulties with some, but not all, people at Thomas Jefferson High School and that Joplin enthusiastically talked about Woodstock with her parents and siblings during a visit to their Texas home a few weeks after she had performed at the festival.
In 1995, Joplin was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In 2005, she received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. In November 2009, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum honored her as part of its annual American Music Masters Series; among the artifacts at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum exhibition are Joplin's scarf and necklaces, her psychedelically painted 1965 Porsche 356 Cabriolet and a sheet of LSD blotting paper designed by Robert Crumb, designer of the Cheap Thrills cover. Also in 2009, Joplin was the honoree at the Rock Hall's American Music Master concert and lecture series.
In the late 1990s, the musical play Love, Janis was created and directed by Randal Myler, with input from Janis' younger sister Laura and Big Brother guitarist Sam Andrew, with an aim to take it to Off-Broadway. Opening in the summer of 2001 and scheduled for only a few weeks of performances, the show won acclaim, played to packed houses and was held over several times.
In 2013, Washington's Arena Stage featured a production of A Night with Janis Joplin, starring Mary Bridget Davies. In it, Joplin performs a concert for the audience while telling stories of her past inspirations, including those of Odetta and Aretha Franklin. The show went on tour in 2016.
On November 4, 2013, Joplin was awarded with the 2,510th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contributions to the music industry. Her star is located at 6752 Hollywood Boulevard, in front of Musicians Institute.
On August 8, 2014, the U.S. Postal Service revealed a commemorative stamp honoring Joplin as part of its Music Icons stamp series during a first-day-of-issue ceremony at the Outside Lands Music Festival at Golden Gate Park.
Among the memorabilia Joplin left behind is a Gibson Hummingbird guitar.
In 2015, the biographical documentary film Janis: Little Girl Blue, directed by Amy J. Berg and narrated by Cat Power, was released. It was a New York Times Critics' Pick.
Influence
Joplin had a profound influence on many singers.
Pink said about Joplin: "She was so inspiring by singing blues music when it wasn't culturally acceptable for white women, and she wore her heart on her sleeve. She was so witty and charming and intelligent, but she also battled an ugly-duckling syndrome. I would love to play her in a movie." In a tribute performance on her Try This Tour, Pink called Joplin "a woman who inspired me when everyone else ... didn't!"
Discography
Janis Joplin recorded four albums in her four-year career. The first two albums were recorded with and credited to Big Brother and the Holding Company; the later two were recorded with different backing bands and released as solo albums. Posthumous releases have included previously unreleased studio and live material.
Studio albums
As lead singer of Big Brother and the Holding Company
As solo artist
Live albums
Compilation albums
Singles
As lead of Big Brother and the Holding Company
As solo artist
Filmography
Monterey Pop (1968)
Petulia (1968)
Janis Joplin Live in Frankfurt (1969)
Janis (1974)
Janis: The Way She Was (1974)
Comin' Home (1988)
Woodstock – The Lost Performances (1991)
Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace & Music (Director's Cut) (1994)
Festival Express (2003)
Nine Hundred Nights (2004)
The Dick Cavett Show: Rock Icons (2005) Shout Factory
Rockin' at the Red Dog: The Dawn of Psychedelic Rock (2005)
This is Tom Jones (2007) 1969 appearance on TV show
Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace & Music (Director's Cut) 40th Anniversary Edition (2009)
Janis Joplin with Big Brother: Ball and Chain (DVD) Charly (2009)
Janis: Little Girl Blue (2015)
Notes
References
Further reading
– an encounter with Janis Joplin at the wheel.
External links
Janis Joplin at the Grammy Awards
Janis Joplin on the Music-Map
1943 births
1970 deaths
20th-century American singers
20th-century American women singers
American blues singers
American child singers
American mezzo-sopranos
American women rock singers
American women singer-songwriters
American rhythm and blues singer-songwriters
American rock songwriters
American soul musicians
Accidental deaths in California
Big Brother and the Holding Company members
Bisexual musicians
Bisexual women
Blues rock musicians
Columbia Records artists
Deaths by heroin overdose in California
Drug-related deaths in California
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners
LGBT people from Texas
LGBT singers from the United States
LGBT songwriters
Lamar University alumni
People from Beaumont, Texas
People from Port Arthur, Texas
Singer-songwriters from Texas
University of Texas at Austin alumni
20th-century LGBT people
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"I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama! is the debut solo studio album by American singer-songwriter Janis Joplin, released on September 11, 1969. It was the first album which Joplin recorded after leaving her former band, Big Brother and the Holding Company, and the only solo album released during her lifetime.\n\nRecord history\nRecording began on June 16, 1969 in New York City and ceased on June 26. For the album, Joplin recruited guitarist Sam Andrew of the Holding Company to take part in development, along with the Kozmic Blues Band. Joplin installed a brass and horn section into the tracks, a feature her previous band would not allow. It was a total contrast to Joplin's previous psychedelic rock as the compositions chosen were more soul and blues driven. All but two tracks were cover versions that producer Gabriel Mekler and Joplin chose. The other two tracks, \"One Good Man\" and \"Kozmic Blues\", were written by Joplin herself. Overall, the album was a more polished work, but with the lack of prominent accompanists like the Holding Company, the album was not as successful as Cheap Thrills.\n\nRelease\nThe LP was released on September 11, 1969 and reached gold record status within two months of its release. It was issued by Columbia under #KCS 9913. The first pressing was titled only on the spine and disc labels. Later, the title of the album was added as a sticker designed by Robert Crumb and stuck to the shrink wrap. The album was re-released by Columbia as WKPC 9913 and again as PC 9913 both on vinyl. The re-issued album did not have the same title sticker, instead the re-issues had the title printed on the cover and the Sony's \"Nice Price\" sticker on the shrink wrap. Some of the newer PC 9913 have a bar code. A 180 Gram Limited Edition classic LP high-definition Virgin Heavy Vinyl pressing was also released in 2010. Technically, this album was reissued on vinyl a total of six times. Many collectors are mistaken in thinking the issue that included the R. Crumb sticker was the original issue; it was not. The hard-to-find original sealed issue is KCS 9913, which had no R. Crumb sticker, and the title was only on the spine of the cover. Columbia Records released as a single Kozmic Blues b/w Little Girl Blue 4-45023. The single peaked at #41 on the US Billboard charts.\n\nI Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama! also contains the hits \"Try (Just A Little Bit Harder)\", \"Kozmic Blues\" and \"To Love Somebody\". The 1999 CD reissue of the album includes the outtake cover of Bob Dylan's \"Dear Landlord\", with new lyrics and arrangements provided by Joplin, and versions of \"Summertime\" and \"Piece of My Heart\" recorded live at Woodstock as bonus tracks.\n\nReception\nJohn Burks of Rolling Stone wrote in a November 1, 1969 interview praising Joplin's vocal performance. However, he notes that her vocals are hindered by her backup band's instrumental role in the album. Overall, Burks was satisfied with Joplin's change in musical direction, but recommends \"reaching the point where you are able to shut out the band\".\n\nAccording to Richie Unterberger, the album was poorly reviewed on its initial release, due in part to its shift towards soul/R&B and away from the hard rock/psychedelic sound that brought her to fame with Big Brother and the Holding Company. Over the decades, Unterberger notes that opinions of the album have warmed somewhat and that taken on its own merits the album has its strengths, but he nonetheless describes it as a \"flawed\" effort due in part to the backing musicians sounding \"a little stiff\".\n\nTrack listing\n\nPersonnel\nJanis Joplin - lead vocals, guitar\nSam Andrew - guitar, vocals\nMichael Monarch - guitar (uncredited)\nMike Bloomfield - guitar on \"Maybe\", \"One Good Man\", \"To Love Somebody\" and \"Work Me, Lord\"\nBrad Campbell - bass guitar, brass instrumentation\nRichard Kermode - electronic organ, keyboards\nGabriel Mekler - electronic organ, keyboards\nGoldy McJohn - electronic organ, keyboards (uncredited)\nMaury Baker - drums\nLonnie Castille - drums\nJerry Edmonton - drums (uncredited)\nTerry Clements - tenor saxophone\nCornelius \"Snooky\" Flowers - baritone saxophone, backing vocals\nLuis Gasca - trumpet\nTechnical\nAlex Kazanegras, Jerry Hochman, Sy Mitchell - engineer\nRobert Crumb - artwork, cover lettering\nBruce Steinberg - cover photograph\n\nSales and certifications\n\nReferences\n\nJanis Joplin albums\n1969 debut albums\nAlbums produced by Gabriel Mekler\nColumbia Records albums",
"Rare Pearls is a 1999 collection of rare Janis Joplin Studio recordings with Big Brother and the Holding Company and live performances with The Kozmic Blues Band. It was released only as part of the box set Box of Pearls (1999), which contained reissues of all of Joplin's albums with added bonus tracks, and this compilation.\n\nTrack listing\n\nReferences\n\n1999 compilation albums\nJanis Joplin albums"
] |
[
"Janis Joplin",
"Kozmic Blues Band",
"Was Janis Joplin part of the Kozmic Blues Band?",
"Joplin formed a new backup group, the Kozmic Blues Band,",
"Did she tour with the Kozmic Blues Band?",
"I don't know.",
"Were there any well known artists that were part of the Kozmic Blues Band?",
"composed of session musicians like keyboardist Stephen Ryder and saxophonist Cornelius \"Snooky\" Flowers,"
] |
C_e67a6494e12f48e39fceae5d4a32ef7a_0
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Did the Komic Blues Band release any albums?
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Did the Komic Blues Band release any albums?
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Janis Joplin
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After splitting from Big Brother and the Holding Company, Joplin formed a new backup group, the Kozmic Blues Band, composed of session musicians like keyboardist Stephen Ryder and saxophonist Cornelius "Snooky" Flowers, as well as former Big Brother and the Holding Company guitarist Sam Andrew and future Full Tilt Boogie Band bassist Brad Campbell. The band was influenced by the Stax-Volt rhythm and blues (R&B) and soul bands of the 1960s, as exemplified by Otis Redding and the Bar-Kays. The Stax-Volt R&B sound was typified by the use of horns and had a funky, pop-oriented sound in contrast to many of the psychedelic/hard rock bands of the period. By early 1969, Joplin was allegedly shooting at least $200 worth of heroin per day (equivalent to $1300 in 2016 dollars) although efforts were made to keep her clean during the recording of I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama!. Gabriel Mekler, who produced Kozmic Blues, told publicist-turned-biographer Myra Friedman after Joplin's death that the singer had lived in his house during the June 1969 recording sessions at his insistence so he could keep her away from drugs and her drug-using friends. Joplin's appearances with the Kozmic Blues Band in Europe were released in cinemas, in multiple documentaries. Janis, which was reviewed by the Washington Post on March 21, 1975, shows Joplin arriving in Frankfurt by plane and waiting inside a bus next to the Frankfurt venue, while an American fan who is visiting Germany expresses enthusiasm to the camera (no security was used in Frankfurt, so by the end of the concert, the stage was so packed with people the band members could not see each other). Janis also includes interviews with Joplin in Stockholm and from her visit to London, for her gig at Royal Albert Hall. On one episode of The Dick Cavett Show, they performed "Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)" as well as "To Love Somebody". As Dick Cavett interviewed Joplin, she admitted that she had a terrible time touring in Europe, claiming that audiences there are very uptight and don't "get down". CANNOTANSWER
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I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama!.
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Janis Joplin (January 19, 1943 – October 4, 1970) was an American singer-songwriter who sang rock, soul, and blues music. One of the most successful and widely known rock stars of her era, she was noted for her powerful mezzo-soprano vocals and "electric" stage presence.
In 1967, Joplin rose to fame following an appearance at Monterey Pop Festival, where she was the lead singer of the then little-known San Francisco psychedelic rock band Big Brother and the Holding Company. After releasing two albums with the band, she left Big Brother to continue as a solo artist with her own backing groups, first the Kozmic Blues Band and then the Full Tilt Boogie Band. She appeared at the Woodstock festival and on the Festival Express train tour. Five singles by Joplin reached the Billboard Hot 100, including a cover of the Kris Kristofferson song "Me and Bobby McGee", which reached number one in March 1971. Her most popular songs include her cover versions of "Piece of My Heart", "Cry Baby", "Down on Me", "Ball and Chain", and "Summertime"; and her original song "Mercedes Benz", her final recording.
Joplin died of a heroin overdose in 1970, at the age of 27, after releasing three albums (two with Big Brother and the Holding Company and one solo album). A second solo album, Pearl, was released in January 1971, just over three months after her death. It reached number one on the Billboard charts. She was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995. Rolling Stone ranked Joplin number 46 on its 2004 list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time and number 28 on its 2008 list of 100 Greatest Singers of All Time. She remains one of the top-selling musicians in the United States, with Recording Industry Association of America certifications of 18.5 million albums sold.
Early life
Janis Joplin was born in Port Arthur, Texas, on , to Dorothy Bonita East (1913–1998), a registrar at a business college, and her husband, Seth Ward Joplin (1910–1987), an engineer at Texaco. She had two younger siblings, Michael and Laura. The family attended First Christian Church of Port Arthur, a church belonging to the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) denomination.
Her parents felt that Janis needed more attention than their other children. As a teenager, Joplin befriended a group of outcasts, one of whom had albums by blues artists Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, and Lead Belly, which Joplin later credited with influencing her decision to become a singer. She began singing blues and folk music with friends at Thomas Jefferson High School. In high school, she was a classmate of Pro Football Hall of Fame coach Jimmy Johnson.
Joplin stated that she was ostracized and bullied in high school. As a teen, she became overweight and suffered from acne, leaving her with deep scars that required dermabrasion. Other kids at high school would routinely taunt her and call her names like "pig," "freak," "nigger lover," or "creep." She stated, "I was a misfit. I read, I painted, I thought. I didn't hate niggers."
Joplin graduated from high school in 1960 and attended Lamar State College of Technology in Beaumont, Texas, during the summer and later the University of Texas at Austin (UT), though she did not complete her college studies. The campus newspaper, The Daily Texan, ran a profile of her in the issue dated July 27, 1962, headlined "She Dares to Be Different." The article began, "She goes barefooted when she feels like it, wears Levi's to class because they're more comfortable, and carries her autoharp with her everywhere she goes so that in case she gets the urge to break into song, it will be handy. Her name is Janis Joplin." While at UT she performed with a folk trio called the Waller Creek Boys and frequently socialized with the staff of the campus humor magazine The Texas Ranger. According to Freak Brothers cartoonist Gilbert Shelton, who befriended her, she used to sell The Texas Ranger, which contained some of Shelton's early comic books, on the campus.
Career
1962–1965: Early recordings
Joplin cultivated a rebellious manner and styled herself partly after her female blues heroines and partly after the Beat poets. Her first song, "What Good Can Drinkin' Do", was recorded on tape in December 1962 at the home of a fellow University of Texas student.
She left Texas in January 1963 ("Just to get away," she said, "because my head was in a much different place"), hitchhiking with her friend Chet Helms to North Beach, San Francisco. Still in San Francisco in 1964, Joplin and future Jefferson Airplane guitarist Jorma Kaukonen recorded a number of blues standards, which incidentally featured Kaukonen's wife Margareta using a typewriter in the background. This session included seven tracks: "Typewriter Talk", "Trouble in Mind", "Kansas City Blues", "Hesitation Blues", "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out", "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy", and "Long Black Train Blues", and was released long after Joplin's death as the bootleg album The Typewriter Tape.
In 1963, Joplin was arrested in San Francisco for shoplifting. During the two years that followed, her drug use increased and she acquired a reputation as a "speed freak" and occasional heroin user. She also used other psychoactive drugs and was a heavy drinker throughout her career; her favorite alcoholic beverage was Southern Comfort.
In May 1965, Joplin's friends in San Francisco, noticing the detrimental effects on her from regularly injecting methamphetamine (she was described as "skeletal" and "emaciated"), persuaded her to return to Port Arthur. During that month, her friends threw her a bus-fare party so she could return to her parents in Texas. Five years later, Joplin told Rolling Stone magazine writer David Dalton the following about her first stint in San Francisco: "I didn't have many friends and I didn't like the ones I had."
Back in Port Arthur in the spring of 1965, after Joplin's parents noticed her weight of , she changed her lifestyle. She avoided drugs and alcohol, adopted a beehive hairdo, and enrolled as an anthropology major at Lamar University in nearby Beaumont, Texas. Her sister Laura said in a 2016 interview that social work was her major during her year at Lamar. During her time at Lamar University, she commuted to Austin to sing solo, accompanying herself on acoustic guitar. One of her performances was at a benefit by local musicians for Texas bluesman Mance Lipscomb, who was suffering with ill health.
Joplin became engaged to Peter de Blanc in the fall of 1965. She had begun a relationship with him toward the end of her first stint in San Francisco. Now living in New York where he worked with IBM computers, he visited her to ask her father for her hand in marriage. Joplin and her mother began planning the wedding. De Blanc, who traveled frequently, ended the engagement soon afterward.
In 1965 and 1966, Joplin commuted from her family's Port Arthur home to Beaumont, Texas, where she had regular sessions with a psychiatric social worker named Bernard Giarritano at a counseling agency that was funded by the United Fund, which after her death changed its name to the United Way. Interviewed by biographer Myra Friedman after his client's death, Giarritano said Joplin had been baffled by how she could pursue a professional career as a singer without relapsing into drugs, and her drug-related memories from immediately prior to returning to Port Arthur continued to frighten her. Joplin sometimes brought an acoustic guitar with her to her sessions with Giarritano, and people in other offices within the building could hear her singing.
Giarritano tried to reassure her that she did not have to use narcotics in order to succeed in the music business. She also said that if she were to avoid singing professionally, she would have to become a keypunch operator (as she had done a few years earlier) or a secretary, and then a wife and mother, and she would have to become very similar to all the other women in Port Arthur.
Approximately a year before Joplin joined Big Brother and the Holding Company, she recorded seven studio tracks with her acoustic guitar. Among the songs she recorded were her original composition of the song "Turtle Blues" and an alternate version of "Cod'ine" by Buffy Sainte-Marie. These tracks were later issued as a new album in 1995, titled This is Janis Joplin 1965 by James Gurley.
1966–1969: Various bands
In 1966, Joplin's bluesy vocal style attracted the attention of the San Francisco-based psychedelic rock band Big Brother and the Holding Company, which had gained some renown among the nascent hippie community in Haight-Ashbury. She was recruited to join the group by Chet Helms, a promoter who was managing Big Brother and with whom she had hitchhiked from Texas to San Francisco a few years earlier. Helms sent his friend Travis Rivers to find her in Austin, Texas, where she had been performing with her acoustic guitar, and to accompany her to San Francisco.
Aware of her previous nightmare with drug addiction in San Francisco, Rivers insisted that she inform her parents face-to-face of her plans, and he drove her from Austin to Port Arthur (he waited in his car while she talked with her startled parents) before they began their long drive to San Francisco. Joplin joined Big Brother on June 4, 1966. Her first public performance with them was at the Avalon Ballroom in San Francisco.
In June, Joplin was photographed at an outdoor concert in San Francisco that celebrated the summer solstice. The image, which was later published in two books by David Dalton, shows her before she relapsed into drugs. Due to persistent persuading by keyboardist and close friend Stephen Ryder, Joplin avoided drugs for several weeks. She made Travis Rivers, with whom she shared an apartment upon their arrival in San Francisco, promise that using needles would not be allowed there. When bandmate Dave Getz accompanied her from a rehearsal to her home, Rivers was not there, but "two or three" (according to Getz' recollection 25 years later) guests whom Rivers had invited were in the process of injecting drugs. "One of them was about to tie off," recalled Getz. "Janis went nuts! I had never seen anybody explode like that. She was screaming and crying and Travis walked in. She screamed at him: 'We had a pact! You promised me! There wouldn't be any of that in front of me!' I was over my head and I tried to calm her down. I said, 'They're just doing mescaline,' because that's what I thought it was. She said, 'You don't understand! I can't see that! I just can't stand to see that!'"
A San Francisco concert from that summer (1966) was recorded and released on the 1984 album Cheaper Thrills. In July, all five bandmates and guitarist James Gurley's wife Nancy moved to a house in Lagunitas, California, where they lived communally. The band often partied with the Grateful Dead, the members of whom lived less than two miles away. She had a short relationship and longer friendship with founding member Ron "Pigpen" McKernan.
The band went to Chicago for a four-week engagement in August 1966, then found itself stranded after the promoter ran out of money when its concerts did not attract the expected audience levels, and he was unable to pay them. In the circumstances the band signed with Bob Shad's record label Mainstream Records; recordings for the label took place in Chicago in September, but these were not satisfactory, and the band returned to San Francisco, continuing to perform live, including at the Love Pageant Rally. The band recorded two tracks, "Blindman" and "All Is Loneliness", in Los Angeles, and these were released by Mainstream as a single that did not sell well. After playing at a happening in Stanford in early December 1966, the band traveled back to Los Angeles to record ten tracks between December 12 and 14, 1966, produced by Bob Shad, which appeared on the band's debut album in August 1967.
In late 1966, Big Brother switched managers from Chet Helms to Julius Karpen.
One of Joplin's earliest major performances in 1967 was at the Mantra-Rock Dance, a musical event held on January 29 at the Avalon Ballroom by the San Francisco Hare Krishna temple. Janis Joplin and Big Brother performed there along with the Hare Krishna founder Bhaktivedanta Swami, Allen Ginsberg, Moby Grape, and the Grateful Dead, donating proceeds to the Krishna temple. In early 1967, Joplin met Country Joe McDonald of the group Country Joe and the Fish. The pair lived together as a couple for a few months. Joplin and Big Brother began playing clubs in San Francisco, at the Fillmore West, Winterland, and the Avalon Ballroom. They also played at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, as well as in Seattle, Washington; Vancouver, British Columbia; the Psychedelic Supermarket in Boston, Massachusetts; and the Golden Bear Club in Huntington Beach, California.
The band's debut studio album, Big Brother & the Holding Company, was released by Mainstream Records in August 1967, shortly after the group's breakthrough appearance in June at the Monterey Pop Festival. Two tracks, "Coo Coo" and "The Last Time," were released separately as singles, while the tracks from the previous single, "Blindman" and "All Is Loneliness", were added to the remaining eight tracks. When Columbia Records took over the band's contract and re-released the album, they included "Coo Coo" and "The Last Time", and put "featuring Janis Joplin" on the cover. The debut album spawned four minor hits with the singles "Down on Me", a traditional song arranged by Joplin, "Bye Bye Baby", "Call On Me" and "Coo Coo", on all of which Joplin sang lead vocals.
Two songs from the second of Big Brother's two sets at Monterey, which they played on Sunday, were filmed (their first set, which was on Saturday, was not filmed, though it was audio-recorded). Some sources, including a Joplin biography by Ellis Amburn, claim that she was dressed in thrift store hippie clothes or second-hand Victorian clothes during the band's Saturday set, but still photographs do not appear to have survived. Digitized color film of two songs in the Sunday set, "Combination of the Two" and a version of Big Mama Thornton's "Ball and Chain," appear in the DVD and Blu-ray boxed set of D. A. Pennebaker's documentary Monterey Pop released by The Criterion Collection. She is seen wearing an expensive gold tunic dress with matching pants. They were created for her by San Francisco clothing designer Colin Rose.
Documentary filmmaker Pennebaker inserted two cutaway shots of Cass Elliot of the Mamas & the Papas seated in the audience during Joplin's performance of "Ball and Chain", one in the middle of the song as her eyes, covered by sunglasses, are fixed on Joplin, and also a shot during the applause as she silently mouths "Oh, wow!" and looks at the person seated next to her. Elliot and the audience are seen in sunlight, but Sunday's Big Brother performance was filmed in the evening. An explanation came from Big Brother's road manager John Byrne Cooke, who remembers that Pennebaker discreetly filmed the audience (including Elliot) during Big Brother's Saturday performance when he was not allowed to point a camera at the band.
The prohibition of Pennebaker from filming on Saturday afternoon came from Big Brother's manager Julius Karpen. The band had a bitter argument with Karpen and overruled him as they prepared for their second set that the festival organizers had added on the spur of the moment. Backstage at the festival, the band became acquainted with New York-based talent manager Albert Grossman but did not sign with him until several months later, firing Karpen at that time.
Only "Ball and Chain" was included in the Monterey Pop film that was released to theaters throughout the United States in 1969 and shown on television in the 1970s. Those who did not attend the Monterey Pop Festival saw the band's performance of "Combination of the Two" for the first time in 2002 when The Criterion Collection released the boxed set.
For the remainder of 1967, even after Big Brother signed with Albert Grossman, the band performed mainly in California. On February 16, 1968, the group began its first East Coast tour in Philadelphia, and the following day gave their first performance in New York City at the Anderson Theater. On April 7, 1968—three days after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and the last day of their East Coast tour—Joplin and Big Brother performed with Jimi Hendrix, Buddy Guy, Joni Mitchell, Richie Havens, Paul Butterfield, and Elvin Bishop at the Wake for Martin Luther King Jr. concert in New York.
Live at Winterland '68, recorded at the Winterland Ballroom on April 12 and 13, 1968, features Joplin and Big Brother and the Holding Company at the height of their mutual career working through a selection of tracks from their albums. A recording became available to the public for the first time in 1998 when Columbia/Sony Music Entertainment released the compact disc. One month after the Winterland concert, Owsley Stanley recorded them at the Carousel Ballroom, released in 2012 as Live at the Carousel Ballroom 1968.
On July 31, 1968, Joplin made her first nationwide television appearance when the band performed on This Morning, an ABC daytime 90-minute variety show that was hosted by Dick Cavett. Shortly thereafter, network employees wiped the videotape, though the audio survives. (In 1969 and 1970, Joplin made three appearances on Cavett's prime-time program. Video was preserved and excerpts have been included in most documentaries about Joplin. Audio of her 1968 appearance has not been used since then.)
Sometime in 1968, the band's billing was changed to "Janis Joplin and Big Brother and the Holding Company," and the media coverage given to Joplin generated resentment within the band. The other members of Big Brother thought that Joplin was on a "star trip", while others were telling Joplin that Big Brother was a terrible band and that she ought to dump them. Time magazine called Joplin "probably the most powerful singer to emerge from the white rock movement", and Richard Goldstein wrote for the May 1968 issue of Vogue magazine that Joplin was "the most staggering leading woman in rock...she slinks like tar, scowls like war...clutching the knees of a final stanza, begging it not to leave.... Janis Joplin can sing the chic off any listener."
For her first major studio recording, Joplin played a major role in the arrangement and production of the songs that would comprise Big Brother and the Holding Company's second album, Cheap Thrills. Producer John Simon tried recording the band in concert, to capture their energy in a live album, but several attempts showed the band was prone to mistakes. Their imprecision was not helped by moving the sessions to a recording studio. Joplin sang take after take of the same song, with her performances consistently good, and she grew frustrated with the band's sloppiness. Simon was replaced by Elliot Mazer who fixed the songs by overdubbing certain parts. The album featured a cover design by counterculture cartoonist Robert Crumb.
Although Cheap Thrills sounded as if it consisted of concert recordings, like on "Combination of the Two" and "I Need a Man to Love", only "Ball and Chain" was actually recorded in front of a paying audience; the rest of the tracks were studio recordings. The album had a raw quality, including the sound of a drinking glass breaking and the broken shards being swept away during the song "Turtle Blues". Cheap Thrills produced very popular hits with "Piece of My Heart" and "Summertime". Together with the premiere of the documentary film Monterey Pop at New York's Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts on December 26, 1968, the album launched Joplin as a star. Cheap Thrills reached number one on the Billboard 200 album chart eight weeks after its release, and was number one for eight (nonconsecutive) weeks. The album was certified gold at release and sold over a million copies in the first month of its release. The lead single from the album, "Piece of My Heart", reached number 12 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the fall of 1968.
The band made another East Coast tour during July–August 1968, performing at the Columbia Records convention in Puerto Rico and the Newport Folk Festival. After returning to San Francisco for two hometown shows at the Palace of Fine Arts Festival on August 31 and September 1, Joplin announced that she would be leaving Big Brother. On September 14, 1968, culminating a three-night engagement together at Fillmore West, fans thronged to a concert that Bill Graham publicized as the last official concert of Janis Joplin with Big Brother and the Holding Company. The opening acts on this night were Chicago (then still called Chicago Transit Authority) and Santana.
Despite Graham's announcement that the Fillmore West gig was Big Brother's last concert with Joplin, the band—with Joplin still as lead vocalist—toured the U.S. that fall. Reflecting Joplin's crossover appeal, two October 1968 performances at a roller rink in Alexandria, Virginia, were reviewed by John Segraves of the conservative Washington Evening Star at a time when the Washington metropolitan area's hard rock scene was in its infancy. An opera buff at the time, he wrote:
Later that month (October 1968), Big Brother performed at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and played at the Syracuse War Memorial as part of Syracuse University's Fall Homecoming on October 11, with Janis joining openers the Butterfield Blues Band for their closing song. Aside from two 1970 reunions, Joplin's last performance with Big Brother was at a Chet Helms benefit in San Francisco on December 1, 1968.
1969–1970: Solo career
After splitting from Big Brother and the Holding Company, Joplin formed a new backup group, the Kozmic Blues Band, composed of session musicians like keyboardist Stephen Ryder and saxophonist Cornelius "Snooky" Flowers, as well as former Big Brother and the Holding Company guitarist Sam Andrew and future Full Tilt Boogie Band bassist Brad Campbell. The band was influenced by the Stax-Volt rhythm and blues (R&B) and soul bands of the 1960s, as exemplified by Otis Redding and the Bar-Kays. The Stax-Volt R&B sound was typified by the use of horns and had a funky, pop-oriented sound in contrast to many of the psychedelic/hard rock bands of the period.
By early 1969, Joplin was allegedly shooting at least $200 worth of heroin per day (equivalent to $1300 in 2016 dollars) although efforts were made to keep her clean during the recording of I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama! Gabriel Mekler, who produced the album, told publicist-turned-biographer Myra Friedman after Joplin's death that she had lived in his Los Angeles house during the June 1969 recording sessions at his insistence so he could keep her away from drugs and her drug-using friends.
Joplin's appearances with the Kozmic Blues Band in Europe were released in theaters, in multiple documentaries. Janis, which was reviewed by the Washington Post on March 21, 1975, shows Joplin arriving in Frankfurt by plane and waiting inside a bus next to the Frankfurt venue, while an American female fan who is visiting Germany expresses enthusiasm to the camera (no security was used in Frankfurt, so by the end of the concert, the stage was so packed with people the band members could not see each other). Janis also includes interviews with Joplin in Stockholm and from her visit to London, for her gig at Royal Albert Hall. The London interview was dubbed with a voiceover in the German language for broadcast on German television. John Byrne Cooke, road manager for Joplin and the Kozmic Blues Band, wrote a book published in 2014 in which he discussed her knowledge of the risks of her ongoing use of narcotics, particularly when she was outside the United States.
On the episode of The Dick Cavett Show that was telecast in the United States on the night of July 18, 1969, Joplin and her band performed "Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)" as well as "To Love Somebody". As Dick Cavett interviewed Joplin, she admitted that she had a terrible time touring in Europe, claiming that audiences there are very uptight and don't "get down".
Released in September 1969, the Kozmic Blues album was certified gold later that year but did not match the success of Cheap Thrills. Reviews of the new group were mixed. However, the album's recording quality and engineering, as well as the musicianship (including three performances by former Bob Dylan/Paul Butterfield/Electric Flag guitarist Mike Bloomfield), were considered superior to her previous releases, and some music critics argued that the band was working in a much more constructive way to support Joplin's sensational vocal talents.
Joplin wanted a horn section similar to that featured by the Chicago Transit Authority; her voice had the dynamic qualities and range not to be overpowered by the brighter horn sound.
Some music critics, however, including Ralph J. Gleason of the San Francisco Chronicle, were negative. Gleason wrote that the new band was a "drag" and Joplin should "scrap" her new band and "go right back to being a member of Big Brother ... (if they'll have her)."
Other reviewers, such as reporter Carl Bernstein of the Washington Post, devoted entire articles to celebrating the singer's magic. Bernstein's review said that Joplin "has finally assembled a group of first-rate musicians with whom she is totally at ease and whose abilities complement the incredible range of her voice."
Columbia Records released "Kozmic Blues" as a single, which peaked at number 41 on the Billboard Hot 100, and a live rendition of "Raise Your Hand" was released in Germany and became a top ten hit there. Containing other hits like "Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)", "To Love Somebody", and "Little Girl Blue", I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama! reached number five on the Billboard 200 soon after its release.
Joplin appeared at Woodstock starting at approximately 2:00 a.m., on Sunday, August 17, 1969. Joplin informed her band that they would be performing at the concert as if it were just another gig. On Saturday afternoon, when she and the band were flown by helicopter with the pregnant Joan Baez and Baez's mother from a nearby motel to the festival site and Joplin saw the enormous crowd, she instantly became extremely nervous and giddy. Upon landing and getting off the helicopter, Joplin was approached by reporters asking her questions. She referred them to her friend and sometime lover Peggy Caserta as she was too excited to speak. Initially, Joplin was eager to get on the stage and perform but was repeatedly delayed as bands were contractually obliged to perform ahead of Joplin. Faced with a ten-hour wait after arriving at the backstage area, Joplin spent some of that time shooting heroin and drinking alcohol with Caserta in a tent. The director's cut of the Woodstock movie shows Joplin and Jefferson Airplane singer Grace Slick standing together near amplifiers watching the band Canned Heat's performance, which started at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, and Caserta does not appear within camera range. When Joplin finally reached the stage at approximately 2:00 a.m. Sunday, she was "three sheets to the wind", according to biographer Alice Echols. During her performance, Joplin's voice became slightly hoarse and wheezy, and she struggled to dance.
Joplin pulled through, however, and engaged frequently with the crowd, asking them if they had everything they needed and if they were staying stoned. The audience cheered for an encore, to which Joplin replied and sang "Ball and Chain". Pete Townshend, who performed with the Who later in the same morning after Joplin finished, witnessed her performance and said the following in his 2012 memoir: "She had been amazing at Monterey, but tonight she wasn't at her best, due, probably, to the long delay, and probably, too, to the amount of booze and heroin she'd consumed while she waited. But even Janis on an off-night was incredible."
Janis remained at Woodstock for the remainder of the festival. Starting at approximately 3:00 a.m. on Monday, August 18, Joplin was among many Woodstock performers who stood in a circle behind Crosby, Stills & Nash during their performance, which was the first time anyone at Woodstock ever had heard the group perform. This information was published by David Crosby in 1988. Later in the morning of August 18, Joplin and Joan Baez sat in Joe Cocker's van and witnessed Hendrix's close-of-show performance, according to Baez's memoir And a Voice to Sing With (1989).
Still photographs in color show Joplin backstage with Grace Slick the day after Joplin's performance, wherein Joplin appears to be very happy. She was ultimately unhappy with her performance, however, and blamed Caserta. Her singing was not included (by her own insistence) in the 1970 documentary film or the soundtrack for Woodstock: Music from the Original Soundtrack and More, although the 25th anniversary director's cut of Woodstock includes her performance of "Work Me, Lord". The documentary film of the festival that was released in theaters during 1970 includes, on the left side of a split screen, 37 seconds of footage of Joplin and Caserta walking toward Joplin's dressing room tent.
In addition to Woodstock, Joplin also had problems at Madison Square Garden, in 1969. Biographer Myra Friedman said she had witnessed a duet Joplin sang with Tina Turner during the Rolling Stones concert at the Garden on Thanksgiving Day. Friedman said Joplin was "so drunk, so stoned, so out of control, that she could have been an institutionalized psychotic rent by mania." During another Garden concert where she had solo billing on December 19, some observers believed Joplin tried to incite the audience to riot. For part of this concert she was joined onstage by Johnny Winter and Paul Butterfield.
Joplin told rock journalist David Dalton that Garden audiences watched and listened to "every note [she sang] with 'Is she gonna make it?' in their eyes." In her interview with Dalton she added that she felt most comfortable performing at small, cheap venues in San Francisco that were associated with the counterculture.
At the time of the June 1970 interview with Dalton, she had already performed in the Bay Area for what turned out to be the last time. Sam Andrew, the lead guitarist who had left Big Brother with Joplin in December 1968 to form her back-up band, quit in late summer 1969 and returned to Big Brother. At the end of the year, the Kozmic Blues Band broke up. Their final gig with Joplin was the one at Madison Square Garden with Winter and Butterfield.
In February 1970, Joplin traveled to Brazil, where she stopped her drug and alcohol use. She was accompanied on vacation there by her friend Linda Gravenites (wife of songwriter Nick Gravenites), who had designed Janis's stage costumes from 1967 to 1969.
In Brazil, Joplin was romanced by a fellow American tourist named David (George) Niehaus, who was traveling around the world. A Joplin biography written by her sister Laura said, "David was an upper-middle-class Cincinnati kid who had studied communications at Notre Dame. ... [and] had joined the Peace Corps after college and worked in a small village in Turkey. ... He tried law school, but when he met Janis he was taking time off."
Niehaus and Joplin were photographed by the press at Rio Carnival in Rio de Janeiro. Gravenites also took color photographs of the two during their Brazilian vacation. According to Joplin biographer Ellis Amburn, in Gravenites' snapshots they "look like a carefree, happy, healthy young couple having a tremendously good time."
Rolling Stone magazine interviewed Joplin during an international phone call, quoting her: "I'm going into the jungle with a big bear of a beatnik named David Niehaus. I finally remembered I don't have to be on stage twelve months a year. I've decided to go and dig some other jungles for a couple of weeks." Amburn added in 1992, "Janis was trying to kick heroin in Brazil, and one of the nicest things about David was that he wasn't into drugs."
When Joplin returned to the U.S., she began using heroin again. Her relationship with Niehaus soon ended because he witnessed her shooting drugs at her new home in Larkspur, California. The relationship was also complicated by her ongoing romantic relationship with Peggy Caserta, who also was an intravenous addict, and Joplin's refusal to take some time off and travel the world with him.
Around this time, she formed her new band, known for a short time as Main Squeeze, then renamed the Full Tilt Boogie Band. The band comprised mostly young Canadian musicians previously associated with Ronnie Hawkins and featured an organ, but no horn section. Joplin took a more active role in putting together the Full Tilt Boogie band than she had with her prior group. She was quoted as saying, "It's my band. Finally it's my band!" In May 1970, after performing under the name Main Squeeze at a Hell's Angels event, the renamed Full Tilt Boogie Band began a nationwide tour. Joplin became very happy with her new group, which eventually received mostly positive feedback from both her fans and the critics.
Prior to beginning a summer tour with Full Tilt Boogie, she performed in a reunion with Big Brother at the Fillmore West, in San Francisco, on April 4, 1970. Recordings from this concert were included in an in-concert album released posthumously in 1972. She again appeared with Big Brother on April 12 at Winterland, where she and Big Brother were reported to be in excellent form. She performed with the band, billed as Main Squeeze, at a party for the Hells Angels at a venue in San Rafael, California on May 21, 1970, according to a web site maintained by Big Brother guitarist Sam Andrew. Andrew's web site quotes him as saying, "This will be the first time that Janis' old band and her new band will be at the same venue, so everyone is a little on edge."
According to Joplin's biographer Ellis Amburn, Big Brother with its lead singer Nick Gravenites was the opening act at the party that was attended by 2,300 people. The Hells Angels, who had known Joplin since 1966, paid her a fee of 240 dollars to perform. Gravenites and Sam Andrew (who had resumed playing guitar with Big Brother) differed in their opinions of her performance and how substance abuse affected it. Gravenites described her singing as "stupendous," according to Amburn. Amburn quoted Andrew twenty years later: "She was visibly deteriorating and she looked bloated. She was like a parody of what she was at her best. I put it down to her drinking too much and I felt a tinge of fear for her well-being. Her singing was real flabby, no edge at all."
Shortly thereafter, Joplin began wearing multi-colored feather boas in her hair. (She had not worn them at the May 21 Hell's Angels party / concert in San Rafael). By the time she began touring with Full Tilt Boogie, Joplin told people she was drug-free, but her drinking increased.
From June 28 to July 4, 1970, during the Festival Express tour, Joplin and Full Tilt Boogie performed alongside Buddy Guy, the Band, the Flying Burrito Brothers, Ten Years After, the Grateful Dead, Delaney & Bonnie, Eric Andersen, and Ian & Sylvia. They played concerts in Toronto, Winnipeg, and Calgary. Joplin jammed with the other performers on the train, and her performances on this tour are considered to be among her greatest.
Joplin headlined the festival on all three nights. At the last stop in Calgary, she took to the stage with Jerry Garcia while her band was tuning up. Film footage shows her telling the audience how great the tour was and shows her and Garcia presenting the organizers with a case of tequila. She then burst into a two-hour set, starting with "Tell Mama". Throughout this performance, Joplin engaged in several banters about her love life. In one, she reminisced about living in a San Francisco apartment and competing with a female neighbor in flirting with men on the street. She finished the Calgary concert with long versions of "Get It While You Can" and "Ball and Chain".
Footage of her performance of "Tell Mama" in Calgary became an MTV video in the early 1980s, and the audio from the same film footage was included on the Farewell Song (1982) album. The audio of other Festival Express performances was included on Joplin's In Concert (1972) album. Video of the performances was also included on the Festival Express DVD.
These performances of entire songs during the Festival Express concerts in Toronto and Calgary can be purchased, although other songs remain in vaults and have yet to be released.
In the "Tell Mama" video shown on MTV in the 1980s, Joplin wore a psychedelically colored, loose-fitting costume and feathers in her hair. This was her standard stage costume in the spring and summer of 1970. She chose the new costumes after her friend and designer, Linda Gravenites (whom Joplin had praised in Vogues profile of her in its May 1968 edition), cut ties with Joplin shortly after their return from Brazil, due largely to Joplin's continued use of heroin.
Among Joplin's last public appearances were two broadcasts of The Dick Cavett Show. In her June 25, 1970 appearance, she announced that she would attend her ten-year high school class reunion. When asked if she had been popular in school, she admitted that when in high school, her schoolmates "laughed me out of class, out of town and out of the state" (during the year she had spent at the University of Texas at Austin, Joplin had been voted "Ugliest Man on Campus" by frat boys). In the subsequent Cavett Show broadcast, on August 3, 1970, and featuring Gloria Swanson, Joplin discussed her upcoming performance at the Festival for Peace to be held at Shea Stadium in Queens, New York, three days later.
On July 11, 1970, Full Tilt Boogie and Big Brother and the Holding Company both performed at the same concert in the San Diego Sports Arena, which was decades later renamed the Valley View Casino Center. Joplin sang with Full Tilt Boogie and appeared briefly onstage with Big Brother without singing, according to a July 13 review of the concert in the San Diego Union.
On August 7, 1970, a tombstone—jointly paid for by Joplin and Juanita Green, who as a child had done housework for Bessie Smith—was erected at Smith's previously unmarked grave. The following day, the Associated Press circulated this news, and the August 9 edition of The New York Times carried it. The lead paragraph of the AP story said Joplin and Green had "shared the cost of a stone for the 'Empress of the Blues,'" but, according to publicist/biographer Myra Friedman, the two women never met. Joplin had been at home in Larkspur, California when she had received a long-distance phone call with an explanation of the need to finance a gravestone for Bessie Smith, whom Joplin had frequently cited as a musical influence. Joplin immediately wrote a check and mailed it to the name and address provided by the phone caller.
On August 8, 1970, as the Associated Press circulated the news about Smith's new gravestone, Joplin performed at the Capitol Theatre (Port Chester, New York). It was there that she first performed "Mercedes Benz", a song (partially inspired by a Michael McClure poem) that she had composed with fellow musician and friend Bob Neuwirth a very short time earlier. According to Myra Friedman's account, Joplin performed two shows at the Capitol Theatre, the first of which was attended by actors Geraldine Page and her husband Rip Torn. Between the shows, at a "gin mill" [Friedman's words] very close to this concert venue, Joplin and Neuwirth penned the lyrics to the song and she performed it at the second show, according to Friedman. Neuwirth was quoted by The Wall Street Journal in 2015: "Around 7 p.m., after the Capitol sound check, we had a couple of hours to kill before [acts that opened for Joplin] Seatrain and Runt finished their sets. So the four of us [Joplin, Neuwirth, Geraldine Page, Rip Torn] walked to a bar about three minutes away called Vahsen’s [at 30 Broad Street in Port Chester]." While in Vahsen's, "Janis came up with words for the first verse. I was in charge of writing them down on bar napkins with a ballpoint pen. She came up with the second verse, too, about a color TV. I suggested words here and there, and came up with the third verse—about asking the Lord to buy us a night on the town and another round."
Joplin's last public performance with the Full Tilt Boogie Band took place on August 12, 1970, at the Harvard Stadium in Boston. The Harvard Crimson gave the performance a positive, front-page review, despite the fact that Full Tilt Boogie had performed with makeshift amplifiers after their regular sound equipment was stolen in Boston.
Joplin attended her high school reunion on August 14, accompanied by Neuwirth, road manager John Cooke, and sister Laura, but it was reportedly an unhappy experience for her. Joplin held a press conference in Port Arthur during her reunion visit. When asked by a reporter if she ever entertained at Thomas Jefferson High School when she was a student there, Joplin replied, "Only when I walked down the aisles." Joplin denigrated Port Arthur and the classmates who had humiliated her a decade earlier.
During late August, September, and early October 1970, Joplin and her band rehearsed and recorded a new album in Los Angeles with producer Paul A. Rothchild, best known for his lengthy relationship with The Doors. Although Joplin died before all the tracks were fully completed, there was enough usable material to compile an LP.
The posthumous Pearl (1971) became the biggest-selling album of her career and featured her biggest hit single, a cover of Kris Kristofferson and Fred Foster's "Me and Bobby McGee" (Kristofferson had previously been Joplin's lover in the spring of 1970). The opening track, "Move Over", was written by Joplin, reflecting the way that she felt men treated women in relationships. Also included was the social commentary of "Mercedes Benz", presented in an a cappella arrangement; the track on the album features the first and only take that Joplin recorded. A cover of Nick Gravenites's "Buried Alive in the Blues", to which Joplin had been scheduled to add her vocals on the day she was found dead, was included as an instrumental.
Joplin checked into the Landmark Motor Hotel in Hollywood on August 24, 1970, near Sunset Sound Recorders, where she began rehearsing and recording her album. During the sessions, Joplin continued a relationship with Seth Morgan, a 21-year-old UC Berkeley student, cocaine dealer, and future novelist who had visited her new home in Larkspur in July and August. She and Morgan were engaged to be married in early September, although he visited Sunset Sound Recorders for just eight of Joplin's many rehearsals and sessions.
Morgan later told biographer Myra Friedman that, as a non-musician, he had felt excluded whenever he had visited Sunset Sound Recorders. Instead, he stayed at Joplin's Larkspur home while she stayed alone at the Landmark, although several times she visited Larkspur to be with him and to check the progress of renovations she was having done on the house. She told her construction crew to design a carport to be shaped like a flying saucer, according to biographer Ellis Amburn, the concrete foundation for which was poured the day before she died.
Peggy Caserta claimed in her book, Going Down With Janis (1973), that she and Joplin had decided mutually in April 1970 to stay away from each other to avoid enabling each other's drug use. Caserta, a former Delta Air Lines stewardess and owner of one of the first clothing boutiques in the Haight Ashbury, said in the book that by September 1970, she was smuggling cannabis throughout California and had checked into the Landmark Motor Hotel because it attracted drug users.
For approximately the first two weeks of Joplin's stay at the Landmark, she did not know Caserta was in Los Angeles. Joplin learned of Caserta's presence at the Landmark from a heroin dealer who made deliveries there. Joplin begged Caserta for heroin, and when Caserta refused to provide it, Joplin reportedly admonished her by saying, "Don't think if you can get it, I can't get it." Joplin's publicist Myra Friedman was unaware during Joplin's lifetime that this had happened. Later, while Friedman was working on her book Buried Alive, she determined that the time frame of the Joplin-Caserta encounter was one week before Jimi Hendrix's death.
Within a few days, Joplin became a regular customer of the same heroin dealer who had been supplying Caserta.
Joplin's manager Albert Grossman and his assistant/publicist Friedman had staged an intervention with Joplin the previous winter while Joplin was in New York. In September 1970, Grossman and Friedman, who worked out of a New York office, knew Joplin was staying at a Los Angeles hotel, but were unaware it was a haven for drug users and dealers.
Grossman and Friedman knew during Joplin's lifetime that her friend Caserta, whom Friedman met during the New York sessions for Cheap Thrills and on later occasions, used heroin. During the many long-distance telephone conversations that Joplin and Friedman had in September 1970 and on October 1, Joplin never mentioned Caserta, and Friedman assumed Caserta had been out of Joplin's life for a while. Friedman, who had more time than Grossman to monitor the situation, never visited California. She thought Joplin sounded on the phone like she was less depressed than she had been over the summer.
When Joplin was not at Sunset Sound Recorders, she liked to drive her Porsche over the speed limit "on the winding part of Sunset Blvd.", according to a statement made by her attorney Robert Gordon in 1995 at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony. Friedman wrote that the only Full Tilt Boogie member who rode as her passenger, Ken Pearson, often hesitated to join her, though he did on the night she died. He was not interested in using hard drugs.
On September 26, 1970, Joplin recorded vocals for "Half Moon" and "Cry Baby". The session ended with Joplin, organist Ken Pearson, and drummer Clark Pierson making a special one-minute recording as a birthday gift to John Lennon. Joplin was among several singers who had been contacted by Yoko Ono with a request for a taped greeting for Lennon's 30th birthday, on October 9. Joplin, Pearson, and Pierson chose the Dale Evans composition "Happy Trails" as part of the greeting. Lennon told Dick Cavett on-camera the following year that Joplin's recorded birthday wishes arrived at his home after her death.
On October 1, 1970, Joplin completed her last recording, "Mercedes Benz", which was recorded in a single take. On Saturday, October 3, Joplin visited Sunset Sound Recorders to listen to the instrumental track for Nick Gravenites's song "Buried Alive in the Blues", which the band had recorded earlier that day. She and Paul Rothchild agreed she would record the vocal the following day.
At some point on Saturday, she learned by telephone, to her dismay, that Seth Morgan had met other women at a Marin County, California, restaurant, invited them to her home, and was shooting pool with them using her pool table. People at Sunset Sound Recorders overheard Joplin expressing anger about the state of her relationship with Morgan, as well as joy about the progress of the sessions.
Joplin and Ken Pearson later left the studio together and she drove him in her Porsche to the West Hollywood landmark called Barney's Beanery. Friedman wrote, "At the bar, she drank vodka and orange juice, only two." Bennett Glotzer, a business partner of Joplin's manager Albert Grossman, was present at Barney's Beanery, according to what he told John Byrne Cooke immediately after he (Glotzer) learned of her death. Evidently, Joplin had a friendly conversation with a young man whom she did not know, and he expressed admiration for her music. After midnight, she drove Ken Pearson and the male fan to the Landmark where she and Pearson were staying in separate rooms. During the car ride, the fan asked Joplin questions "about her singing style," according to Friedman, and "she mostly ignored him" so she could converse with Pearson. As Joplin and Pearson prepared to part in the lobby of the Landmark, she expressed a fear, possibly in jest, that he and the other Full Tilt Boogie musicians might decide to stop making music with her. Pearson was the second-to-last person to see her alive. The last was the Landmark's night shift desk clerk. He had met her several times but did not know her.
Personal life
Joplin's significant relationships with men included ones with Peter de Blanc, Country Joe McDonald (who wrote the song "Janis" at Joplin's request), David (George) Niehaus, Kris Kristofferson, and Seth Morgan (from July 1970 until her death, at which time they were allegedly engaged).
She also had relationships with women. During her first stint in San Francisco in 1963, Joplin met and briefly lived with Jae Whitaker, a black woman whom she had met while playing pool at the bar Gino & Carlo in North Beach. Whitaker broke off their relationship because of Joplin's hard drug use and sexual relationships with other people. Whitaker was first identified by name in connection with the singer in 1999, when Alice Echols' biography Scars of Sweet Paradise was published.
Joplin also had an on-again-off-again romantic relationship with Peggy Caserta. They first met in November 1966 when Big Brother performed at a San Francisco venue called The Matrix. Caserta was one of 15 people in the audience, and at the time, she ran a successful clothing boutique in the Haight Ashbury. Approximately a month after Caserta attended the concert, Joplin visited her boutique and said she could not afford to buy a pair of jeans that was for sale, instead asking to put down the first 50 cents on the $5 item. Caserta was amazed that such a talented singer could not afford a $5 item, and gave her a pair for free. Their friendship was platonic for more than a year. Before it moved to the next level, Caserta was in love with Big Brother guitarist Sam Andrew, and sometime during the first half of 1968 traveled from San Francisco to New York to flirt with him. He did not want a serious relationship, and Joplin sympathized with Caserta's disappointment.
The Woodstock concert film includes 37 seconds of Joplin and Caserta walking together before they reached the tent where Joplin waited for her turn to perform. By the time the festival took place in August 1969, both were intravenous heroin addicts.
According to Caserta's book Going Down With Janis, which Caserta has since disowned, Joplin introduced her to her boyfriend Seth Morgan in Joplin's room at the Landmark Motor Hotel on September 29, 1970. Caserta "had seen him around" San Francisco but had not met him before. At some point, an agreement was made for a threesome to take place the following Friday, although Caserta later said that she immediately abandoned the idea once she understood that it was Morgan who would be with Joplin. Morgan made alternate plans, believing that Caserta would be with Joplin that evening. Each one, however, was unaware that the other had bowed out. The day after Joplin introduced Caserta to Morgan, Caserta saw Joplin briefly, again in Joplin's room, when Caserta accommodated her new Los Angeles friend Debbie Nuciforo, age 19, an aspiring hard rock drummer who wanted to meet Joplin. Nuciforo was stoned on heroin at the time, and the three women's encounter was brief and unpleasant. Caserta suspected that the reason for Joplin's foul mood was that Morgan had abandoned her earlier that day after having spent less than 24 hours with her. Caserta did not see nor communicate by phone with Joplin again, although she later claimed she had made several attempts to reach her by phone at the Landmark Motor Hotel and at Sunset Sound Recorders. Caserta and Morgan lost touch with each other; each had independently made alternate plans for Friday night, October 2. Joplin mentioned her disappointment (over both of her friends' bailing out of their ménage à trois) to her drug dealer on Saturday, while he was selling her the dose of heroin that killed her, as Caserta later learned from the drug dealer.
Biographer Myra Friedman commented in her original version of Buried Alive (1973):
Given the near-infinite potentials of infancy, it is really impossible to make generalizations about what lies behind sexual practices. This, however, is probable: to become clearly homosexual, to make the choice that one honestly prefers relations with one's own sex, no matter the origins of such preference, requires a certain integration, a stability of psychic development, a tidiness of personality organization. The ridicule and the humiliation that took place at that most delicate period in [Joplin's] early teens, her own inability to surmount the obstacles to regular growth, devastated her a great deal more than most people comprehended. Janis was not heir to an ego so cohesive as to permit her an identity one way or the other. She was, as [the psychiatric social worker she saw regularly in Beaumont, Texas in 1965 and 1966] Mr. [Bernard] Giarritano put it [in an interview with Friedman], "diffused" -- spewing, splattering, splaying all over, without a center to hold. That had as much to do with her original use of drugs [before she first met Giarritano] as did the critical component of guilt and its multiplicity of sources above and beyond the contribution made by her relationships with women. Were she so simple as the lesbians wished her to be or so free as her associates imagined!
Kim France reported in her May 2, 1999 The New York Times article, "Nothin' Left to Lose" : "Once she became famous, Joplin cursed like a truck driver, did not believe in wearing undergarments, was rarely seen without her bottle of Southern Comfort and delighted in playing the role of sexual predator."
On July 11, 1970, Joplin made a revealing statement about her sexuality to her friend Richard Hundgen, the Grateful Dead's San Francisco-based road manager whom she had known since 1966. When Joplin and Hundgen were offstage during a San Diego gig for both Full Tilt Boogie and Big Brother and the Holding Company, she said the following that he later repeated to Myra Friedman:
I hear a rumor that somebody in San Francisco is spreading stories that I'm a dyke. You go back there and find out who it is and tell them that Janis says she's gotten it on with a couple of thousand cats in her life and a few hundred chicks and see what they can do with that!
Death
On Sunday evening, October 4, 1970, Joplin was found dead on the floor of her room at the Landmark Motor Hotel by her road manager and close friend John Byrne Cooke.
Alcohol was present in the room. Newspapers reported that no other drugs or paraphernalia were present. According to a 1983 book authored by Joseph DiMona and Los Angeles County coroner Thomas Noguchi, evidence of narcotics was removed from the scene by a friend of Joplin and later put back after the person realized that an autopsy was going to reveal that narcotics were in her system. The book adds that prior to Joplin's death, Noguchi had investigated other fatal drug overdoses in Los Angeles where friends believed they were doing favors for decedents by removing evidence of narcotics, then they "thought things over" and returned to put back the evidence. Noguchi performed an autopsy on Joplin and determined the cause of death to be a heroin overdose, possibly compounded by alcohol.
John Byrne Cooke believed Joplin had been given heroin that was much more potent than what she and other L.A. heroin users had received on previous occasions, as was indicated by overdoses of several of her dealer's other customers during the same weekend. Her death was ruled accidental.
Both Peggy Caserta, Joplin's close friend, and Seth Morgan, Joplin's fiancé, had failed to meet Joplin the Friday immediately prior to her death, October 2; Joplin had been expecting both of them to keep her company that night. According to Caserta, Joplin was saddened that neither of her friends visited her at the Landmark as they had promised. During the 24 hours Joplin lived after this disappointment, Caserta did not phone her to explain why she had failed to show up. Caserta admitted to waiting until late Saturday night to dial the Landmark switchboard, only to learn that Joplin had instructed the desk clerk not to accept any incoming phone calls for her after midnight. Morgan did speak to Joplin via telephone within the 24 hours prior to her death, but little is known about that call. She used a phone at Sunset Sound Recorders where her colleagues (“there were perhaps twenty to twenty-five people present,” wrote biographer Myra Friedman) noticed that whatever Morgan said to her made her very angry.
Peggy Caserta has insisted that Joplin's death was not an accidental overdose, but rather a result of a head gash suffered after the "hourglass heel" of her slingback sandal caught in the shag carpet, causing her to lose her balance. Caserta does concede, however, that drugs and/or alcohol may have played a role in hastening her death that night.
Joplin was cremated at Pierce Brothers Westwood Village Memorial Park and Mortuary in Los Angeles, and her ashes were scattered from a plane into the Pacific Ocean.
Legacy
Joplin's death in October 1970 at age 27 stunned her fans and shocked the music world, especially when coupled with the death just 16 days earlier of another rock icon, Jimi Hendrix, also at age 27. (This would later cause some people to attribute significance to the death of musicians at the age of 27, as celebrated in the "27 Club.") Music historian Tom Moon wrote that Joplin had "a devastatingly original voice," music columnist Jon Pareles of The New York Times wrote that Joplin as an artist was "overpowering and deeply vulnerable" and author Megan Terry said that Joplin was the female version of Elvis Presley in her ability to captivate an audience.
A book about Joplin by her publicist Myra Friedman titled Buried Alive: The Biography of Janis Joplin (1973) was excerpted in many newspapers. At the same time, Peggy Caserta's memoir, Going Down With Janis (1973), attracted much attention; its provocative title is a reference to Caserta's claim that she had engaged in oral sex with Joplin while they were high on heroin in September 1970. The description provided by Dan Knapp, Caserta’s co-author whom she denounced decades later, repelled many people in 1973 when few books or filmed interviews of Joplin or her loved ones were accessible to the public. Joplin's bandmate Sam Andrew described Caserta as "halfway between a groupie and a friend" in an interview with writer Ellis Amburn. Soon after the 1973 publication of Going Down With Janis, Joplin's friends learned that graphic descriptions of sexual acts and intravenous drug use were not the only portions of the book that would haunt them.
According to Kim Chappell, a close friend of Caserta and Joplin, Caserta's book angered the Los Angeles heroin dealer whom she had described in detail in her book, including the make and model of his car. According to Amburn, in 1973 a "carful of dope dealers" visited a Los Angeles lesbian bar that Caserta had been frequenting. Chappell, who was in the alley behind the bar, stated: "I was stabbed because, when Peggy's book came out, her dealer, the same one who'd given Janis her last fix, didn't like it that he was referred to and was out to get Peggy. He couldn't find her, so he went for her lover. When they realized who I was, they felt that my death would also hit Peggy, and so they stabbed me." Despite being "stabbed three times in the chest, puncturing both lungs," Chappell eventually recovered.
In 2018, Caserta denounced Going Down With Janis as the pornographic fantasy of Dan Knapp, her co-author, and largely unreliable. During that year, the public had its first access to her own story via a memoir she co-wrote with Maggie Falcon titled I Ran Into Some Trouble. It describes a long, friendly relationship with Joplin that only occasionally featured sexuality.
According to Joplin’s biographers, Caserta was among many friends of Joplin who did not become clean and sober until a very long time after Joplin's death, while others died from overdoses. Although the wife of Big Brother guitarist James Gurley, who was Joplin's close friend, died from a heroin overdose in 1969, devastating Joplin, Gurley himself did not become clean and sober until 1984. Caserta survived "a near-fatal OD in December 1995," wrote Alice Echols. On January 13, 2000, Caserta appeared during a segment about Joplin on 20/20.
Joplin's body art, with a wristlet and a small heart on her left breast by the San Francisco tattoo artist Lyle Tuttle, marked an early moment in the popular culture's acceptance of tattoos as art. Another trademark was her flamboyant hair styles, which often included colored streaks and accessories such as scarves, beads and feathers. When in New York City, Joplin frequented the Limbo boutique on St. Mark's Place, and she wore some of the vintage and unique garments that she purchased there on stage.
The Mamas & the Papas' song "Pearl" (1971), from their People Like Us album, was a tribute. Leonard Cohen's song "Chelsea Hotel#2" (1974) is about Joplin. Lyricist Robert Hunter has commented that Jerry Garcia's "Birdsong" from his first solo album, Garcia (1972), is about Joplin and the end of her suffering through death. Mimi Farina's composition "In the Quiet Morning", most famously covered by Joan Baez on her Come from the Shadows (1972) album, was a tribute to Joplin. Another song by Baez, "Children of the Eighties," mentioned Joplin. A Serge Gainsbourg-penned French language song by English singer Jane Birkin, "Ex fan des sixties" (1978), references Joplin along with other disappeared "idols" such as Jimi Hendrix, Brian Jones and Marc Bolan. When Joplin was alive, Country Joe McDonald released a song called "Janis" on his band's album I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die (1967).
The film The Rose (1979) is loosely based on Joplin's life. Originally planned to be titled Pearl—Joplin's nickname and the title of her last album—the film was fictionalized after her family declined to allow the producers the rights to her story. Bette Midler earned a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in the film.
In 1988, on what would have been Joplin's 45th birthday, the Janis Joplin Memorial, with an original gold, multi-image sculpture of Joplin by Douglas Clark, was dedicated during a ceremony in Port Arthur, Texas.
In 1992, the first major biography of Joplin in two decades, Love, Janis, authored by her younger sister Laura Joplin, was published. In an interview, Laura stated that Joplin enjoyed being on the Dick Cavett Show, that Joplin had difficulties with some, but not all, people at Thomas Jefferson High School and that Joplin enthusiastically talked about Woodstock with her parents and siblings during a visit to their Texas home a few weeks after she had performed at the festival.
In 1995, Joplin was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In 2005, she received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. In November 2009, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum honored her as part of its annual American Music Masters Series; among the artifacts at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum exhibition are Joplin's scarf and necklaces, her psychedelically painted 1965 Porsche 356 Cabriolet and a sheet of LSD blotting paper designed by Robert Crumb, designer of the Cheap Thrills cover. Also in 2009, Joplin was the honoree at the Rock Hall's American Music Master concert and lecture series.
In the late 1990s, the musical play Love, Janis was created and directed by Randal Myler, with input from Janis' younger sister Laura and Big Brother guitarist Sam Andrew, with an aim to take it to Off-Broadway. Opening in the summer of 2001 and scheduled for only a few weeks of performances, the show won acclaim, played to packed houses and was held over several times.
In 2013, Washington's Arena Stage featured a production of A Night with Janis Joplin, starring Mary Bridget Davies. In it, Joplin performs a concert for the audience while telling stories of her past inspirations, including those of Odetta and Aretha Franklin. The show went on tour in 2016.
On November 4, 2013, Joplin was awarded with the 2,510th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contributions to the music industry. Her star is located at 6752 Hollywood Boulevard, in front of Musicians Institute.
On August 8, 2014, the U.S. Postal Service revealed a commemorative stamp honoring Joplin as part of its Music Icons stamp series during a first-day-of-issue ceremony at the Outside Lands Music Festival at Golden Gate Park.
Among the memorabilia Joplin left behind is a Gibson Hummingbird guitar.
In 2015, the biographical documentary film Janis: Little Girl Blue, directed by Amy J. Berg and narrated by Cat Power, was released. It was a New York Times Critics' Pick.
Influence
Joplin had a profound influence on many singers.
Pink said about Joplin: "She was so inspiring by singing blues music when it wasn't culturally acceptable for white women, and she wore her heart on her sleeve. She was so witty and charming and intelligent, but she also battled an ugly-duckling syndrome. I would love to play her in a movie." In a tribute performance on her Try This Tour, Pink called Joplin "a woman who inspired me when everyone else ... didn't!"
Discography
Janis Joplin recorded four albums in her four-year career. The first two albums were recorded with and credited to Big Brother and the Holding Company; the later two were recorded with different backing bands and released as solo albums. Posthumous releases have included previously unreleased studio and live material.
Studio albums
As lead singer of Big Brother and the Holding Company
As solo artist
Live albums
Compilation albums
Singles
As lead of Big Brother and the Holding Company
As solo artist
Filmography
Monterey Pop (1968)
Petulia (1968)
Janis Joplin Live in Frankfurt (1969)
Janis (1974)
Janis: The Way She Was (1974)
Comin' Home (1988)
Woodstock – The Lost Performances (1991)
Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace & Music (Director's Cut) (1994)
Festival Express (2003)
Nine Hundred Nights (2004)
The Dick Cavett Show: Rock Icons (2005) Shout Factory
Rockin' at the Red Dog: The Dawn of Psychedelic Rock (2005)
This is Tom Jones (2007) 1969 appearance on TV show
Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace & Music (Director's Cut) 40th Anniversary Edition (2009)
Janis Joplin with Big Brother: Ball and Chain (DVD) Charly (2009)
Janis: Little Girl Blue (2015)
Notes
References
Further reading
– an encounter with Janis Joplin at the wheel.
External links
Janis Joplin at the Grammy Awards
Janis Joplin on the Music-Map
1943 births
1970 deaths
20th-century American singers
20th-century American women singers
American blues singers
American child singers
American mezzo-sopranos
American women rock singers
American women singer-songwriters
American rhythm and blues singer-songwriters
American rock songwriters
American soul musicians
Accidental deaths in California
Big Brother and the Holding Company members
Bisexual musicians
Bisexual women
Blues rock musicians
Columbia Records artists
Deaths by heroin overdose in California
Drug-related deaths in California
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners
LGBT people from Texas
LGBT singers from the United States
LGBT songwriters
Lamar University alumni
People from Beaumont, Texas
People from Port Arthur, Texas
Singer-songwriters from Texas
University of Texas at Austin alumni
20th-century LGBT people
| false |
[
"...Where the Groupies Killed the Blues is the second album by progressive rock band Lucifer's Friend, released in 1972. Piano is prominent on most songs, and organ is used only on a few songs such as \"Where the Groupies Killed the Blues\", whereas on the debut album, Lucifer's Friend (1970), organ and guitars had been the driving force.\n\nIn the U.S., the band's U.S. label (Billingsgate Records) did not release this album although Billingsgate did issue the follow-up album, I'm Just a Rock & Roll Singer (1973). The U.S. release of Groupies was delayed three years until the band's new label Passport Records released it.\n\nOriginal LP Track listing\n\nSide one\n \"Burning Ships\" (Hesslein, Horns, Lawton) – 4:34\n \"Prince of Darkness\" (Hesslein) – 5:37\n \"Hobo\" (Hesslein, Lawton) – 3:42\n \"Mother\" (Hecht) – 7:25\n\nSide two\n \"Where the Groupies Killed the Blues\" (Hesslein) – 5:04\n \"Rose on the Vine\" (Hesslein) – 8:19\n \"Summerdream\" (Hecht, Hesslein) – 8:56\n\nLater LP Reissues and CD Track Listing\n\nSide one\n \"Hobo\" (Hesslein, Lawton) – 3:42\n \"Rose on the Vine\" (Hesslein) – 8:19\n \"Mother\" (Hecht) – 7:25\n\nSide two\n \"Where the Groupies Killed the Blues\" (Hesslein) – 5:04\n \"Prince of Darkness\" (Hesslein) – 5:37\n \"Summerdream\" (Hecht, Hesslein) – 8:56\n \"Burning Ships\" (Hesslein, Horns, Lawton) – 4:34\n\nPersonnel\n John Lawton – lead vocals\n Peter Hesslein – lead guitars, vocals, percussion\n Peter Hecht – keyboards\n Dieter Horns – bass\n Joachim Rietenbach – drums\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\n1972 albums\nLucifer's Friend albums\nAlbums produced by Conny Plank\nVertigo Records albums\nPassport Records albums",
"The Marcus King Band is a southern rock/blues band from South Carolina formed in 2013.\n\nThe band is led by guitarist Marcus King. Raised in Greenville, South Carolina, United States, King was brought up on the blues, playing shows as a pre-teen sideman with his father, the fellow bluesman Marvin King. The band includes drummer Jack Ryan, bassist Stephen Campbell, and trumpet/trombone player Justin Johnson. Touring musicians consist of saxophonist Chris Spies, and keyboard player, Dane Farnsworth of Robert Randolph and the Family Band.\n\nThe Marcus King Band released their debut album, Soul Insight on October 30, 2015 on Warren Haynes' Evil Teen Records. Soul Insight reached No. 8 on the Billboard Blues Albums Chart.\n\nThe band's second full-length LP and first album for Fantasy Records, The Marcus King Band, was released on October 7, 2016. The album was produced by Haynes and recorded at Carriage House Studios in Stamford, Connecticut. The Marcus King Band reached No. 2 on the Billboard Blues Albums Chart.\n\nOn August 22, 2018, it was announced the band would release their third full-length LP, Carolina Confessions, on October 5, 2018, via Fantasy Records. The album was recorded at RCA Studio A in Nashville, and produced and mixed by Dave Cobb. While not entering the Billboard 200, it was the band's first entry on the magazine's US Top Current Albums chart, peaking at No. 55, and was another No. 2 hit on the Blues chart for them. The album also reached No. 2 on the Heatseekers Albums chart.\n\nDiscography\n\nAlbums\nSoul Insight (2015) No. 8 Blues Albums Chart\nThe Marcus King Band (2016) No. 2 Blues Albums Chart\nCarolina Confessions (2018) No. 2 Blues Albums Chart\n\nEPs\nDue North EP (2017) No. 2 Blues Album Chart\n\nSingles\n\"Homesick\" (2018) No. 26 Adult Alternative Songs\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n \n Marcus sits down with Ira Haberman of The Sound Podcast for a feature interview\n\nAmerican blues rock musical groups\nFantasy Records artists\nAmerican southern rock musical groups\nRock music groups from South Carolina"
] |
[
"Janis Joplin",
"Kozmic Blues Band",
"Was Janis Joplin part of the Kozmic Blues Band?",
"Joplin formed a new backup group, the Kozmic Blues Band,",
"Did she tour with the Kozmic Blues Band?",
"I don't know.",
"Were there any well known artists that were part of the Kozmic Blues Band?",
"composed of session musicians like keyboardist Stephen Ryder and saxophonist Cornelius \"Snooky\" Flowers,",
"Did the Komic Blues Band release any albums?",
"I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama!."
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C_e67a6494e12f48e39fceae5d4a32ef7a_0
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Did the Kozmic Blues Band ever appear on TV?
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Did the Kozmic Blues Band ever appear on TV?
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Janis Joplin
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After splitting from Big Brother and the Holding Company, Joplin formed a new backup group, the Kozmic Blues Band, composed of session musicians like keyboardist Stephen Ryder and saxophonist Cornelius "Snooky" Flowers, as well as former Big Brother and the Holding Company guitarist Sam Andrew and future Full Tilt Boogie Band bassist Brad Campbell. The band was influenced by the Stax-Volt rhythm and blues (R&B) and soul bands of the 1960s, as exemplified by Otis Redding and the Bar-Kays. The Stax-Volt R&B sound was typified by the use of horns and had a funky, pop-oriented sound in contrast to many of the psychedelic/hard rock bands of the period. By early 1969, Joplin was allegedly shooting at least $200 worth of heroin per day (equivalent to $1300 in 2016 dollars) although efforts were made to keep her clean during the recording of I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama!. Gabriel Mekler, who produced Kozmic Blues, told publicist-turned-biographer Myra Friedman after Joplin's death that the singer had lived in his house during the June 1969 recording sessions at his insistence so he could keep her away from drugs and her drug-using friends. Joplin's appearances with the Kozmic Blues Band in Europe were released in cinemas, in multiple documentaries. Janis, which was reviewed by the Washington Post on March 21, 1975, shows Joplin arriving in Frankfurt by plane and waiting inside a bus next to the Frankfurt venue, while an American fan who is visiting Germany expresses enthusiasm to the camera (no security was used in Frankfurt, so by the end of the concert, the stage was so packed with people the band members could not see each other). Janis also includes interviews with Joplin in Stockholm and from her visit to London, for her gig at Royal Albert Hall. On one episode of The Dick Cavett Show, they performed "Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)" as well as "To Love Somebody". As Dick Cavett interviewed Joplin, she admitted that she had a terrible time touring in Europe, claiming that audiences there are very uptight and don't "get down". CANNOTANSWER
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On one episode of The Dick Cavett Show, they performed "Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)" as well as "To Love Somebody".
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Janis Joplin (January 19, 1943 – October 4, 1970) was an American singer-songwriter who sang rock, soul, and blues music. One of the most successful and widely known rock stars of her era, she was noted for her powerful mezzo-soprano vocals and "electric" stage presence.
In 1967, Joplin rose to fame following an appearance at Monterey Pop Festival, where she was the lead singer of the then little-known San Francisco psychedelic rock band Big Brother and the Holding Company. After releasing two albums with the band, she left Big Brother to continue as a solo artist with her own backing groups, first the Kozmic Blues Band and then the Full Tilt Boogie Band. She appeared at the Woodstock festival and on the Festival Express train tour. Five singles by Joplin reached the Billboard Hot 100, including a cover of the Kris Kristofferson song "Me and Bobby McGee", which reached number one in March 1971. Her most popular songs include her cover versions of "Piece of My Heart", "Cry Baby", "Down on Me", "Ball and Chain", and "Summertime"; and her original song "Mercedes Benz", her final recording.
Joplin died of a heroin overdose in 1970, at the age of 27, after releasing three albums (two with Big Brother and the Holding Company and one solo album). A second solo album, Pearl, was released in January 1971, just over three months after her death. It reached number one on the Billboard charts. She was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995. Rolling Stone ranked Joplin number 46 on its 2004 list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time and number 28 on its 2008 list of 100 Greatest Singers of All Time. She remains one of the top-selling musicians in the United States, with Recording Industry Association of America certifications of 18.5 million albums sold.
Early life
Janis Joplin was born in Port Arthur, Texas, on , to Dorothy Bonita East (1913–1998), a registrar at a business college, and her husband, Seth Ward Joplin (1910–1987), an engineer at Texaco. She had two younger siblings, Michael and Laura. The family attended First Christian Church of Port Arthur, a church belonging to the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) denomination.
Her parents felt that Janis needed more attention than their other children. As a teenager, Joplin befriended a group of outcasts, one of whom had albums by blues artists Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, and Lead Belly, which Joplin later credited with influencing her decision to become a singer. She began singing blues and folk music with friends at Thomas Jefferson High School. In high school, she was a classmate of Pro Football Hall of Fame coach Jimmy Johnson.
Joplin stated that she was ostracized and bullied in high school. As a teen, she became overweight and suffered from acne, leaving her with deep scars that required dermabrasion. Other kids at high school would routinely taunt her and call her names like "pig," "freak," "nigger lover," or "creep." She stated, "I was a misfit. I read, I painted, I thought. I didn't hate niggers."
Joplin graduated from high school in 1960 and attended Lamar State College of Technology in Beaumont, Texas, during the summer and later the University of Texas at Austin (UT), though she did not complete her college studies. The campus newspaper, The Daily Texan, ran a profile of her in the issue dated July 27, 1962, headlined "She Dares to Be Different." The article began, "She goes barefooted when she feels like it, wears Levi's to class because they're more comfortable, and carries her autoharp with her everywhere she goes so that in case she gets the urge to break into song, it will be handy. Her name is Janis Joplin." While at UT she performed with a folk trio called the Waller Creek Boys and frequently socialized with the staff of the campus humor magazine The Texas Ranger. According to Freak Brothers cartoonist Gilbert Shelton, who befriended her, she used to sell The Texas Ranger, which contained some of Shelton's early comic books, on the campus.
Career
1962–1965: Early recordings
Joplin cultivated a rebellious manner and styled herself partly after her female blues heroines and partly after the Beat poets. Her first song, "What Good Can Drinkin' Do", was recorded on tape in December 1962 at the home of a fellow University of Texas student.
She left Texas in January 1963 ("Just to get away," she said, "because my head was in a much different place"), hitchhiking with her friend Chet Helms to North Beach, San Francisco. Still in San Francisco in 1964, Joplin and future Jefferson Airplane guitarist Jorma Kaukonen recorded a number of blues standards, which incidentally featured Kaukonen's wife Margareta using a typewriter in the background. This session included seven tracks: "Typewriter Talk", "Trouble in Mind", "Kansas City Blues", "Hesitation Blues", "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out", "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy", and "Long Black Train Blues", and was released long after Joplin's death as the bootleg album The Typewriter Tape.
In 1963, Joplin was arrested in San Francisco for shoplifting. During the two years that followed, her drug use increased and she acquired a reputation as a "speed freak" and occasional heroin user. She also used other psychoactive drugs and was a heavy drinker throughout her career; her favorite alcoholic beverage was Southern Comfort.
In May 1965, Joplin's friends in San Francisco, noticing the detrimental effects on her from regularly injecting methamphetamine (she was described as "skeletal" and "emaciated"), persuaded her to return to Port Arthur. During that month, her friends threw her a bus-fare party so she could return to her parents in Texas. Five years later, Joplin told Rolling Stone magazine writer David Dalton the following about her first stint in San Francisco: "I didn't have many friends and I didn't like the ones I had."
Back in Port Arthur in the spring of 1965, after Joplin's parents noticed her weight of , she changed her lifestyle. She avoided drugs and alcohol, adopted a beehive hairdo, and enrolled as an anthropology major at Lamar University in nearby Beaumont, Texas. Her sister Laura said in a 2016 interview that social work was her major during her year at Lamar. During her time at Lamar University, she commuted to Austin to sing solo, accompanying herself on acoustic guitar. One of her performances was at a benefit by local musicians for Texas bluesman Mance Lipscomb, who was suffering with ill health.
Joplin became engaged to Peter de Blanc in the fall of 1965. She had begun a relationship with him toward the end of her first stint in San Francisco. Now living in New York where he worked with IBM computers, he visited her to ask her father for her hand in marriage. Joplin and her mother began planning the wedding. De Blanc, who traveled frequently, ended the engagement soon afterward.
In 1965 and 1966, Joplin commuted from her family's Port Arthur home to Beaumont, Texas, where she had regular sessions with a psychiatric social worker named Bernard Giarritano at a counseling agency that was funded by the United Fund, which after her death changed its name to the United Way. Interviewed by biographer Myra Friedman after his client's death, Giarritano said Joplin had been baffled by how she could pursue a professional career as a singer without relapsing into drugs, and her drug-related memories from immediately prior to returning to Port Arthur continued to frighten her. Joplin sometimes brought an acoustic guitar with her to her sessions with Giarritano, and people in other offices within the building could hear her singing.
Giarritano tried to reassure her that she did not have to use narcotics in order to succeed in the music business. She also said that if she were to avoid singing professionally, she would have to become a keypunch operator (as she had done a few years earlier) or a secretary, and then a wife and mother, and she would have to become very similar to all the other women in Port Arthur.
Approximately a year before Joplin joined Big Brother and the Holding Company, she recorded seven studio tracks with her acoustic guitar. Among the songs she recorded were her original composition of the song "Turtle Blues" and an alternate version of "Cod'ine" by Buffy Sainte-Marie. These tracks were later issued as a new album in 1995, titled This is Janis Joplin 1965 by James Gurley.
1966–1969: Various bands
In 1966, Joplin's bluesy vocal style attracted the attention of the San Francisco-based psychedelic rock band Big Brother and the Holding Company, which had gained some renown among the nascent hippie community in Haight-Ashbury. She was recruited to join the group by Chet Helms, a promoter who was managing Big Brother and with whom she had hitchhiked from Texas to San Francisco a few years earlier. Helms sent his friend Travis Rivers to find her in Austin, Texas, where she had been performing with her acoustic guitar, and to accompany her to San Francisco.
Aware of her previous nightmare with drug addiction in San Francisco, Rivers insisted that she inform her parents face-to-face of her plans, and he drove her from Austin to Port Arthur (he waited in his car while she talked with her startled parents) before they began their long drive to San Francisco. Joplin joined Big Brother on June 4, 1966. Her first public performance with them was at the Avalon Ballroom in San Francisco.
In June, Joplin was photographed at an outdoor concert in San Francisco that celebrated the summer solstice. The image, which was later published in two books by David Dalton, shows her before she relapsed into drugs. Due to persistent persuading by keyboardist and close friend Stephen Ryder, Joplin avoided drugs for several weeks. She made Travis Rivers, with whom she shared an apartment upon their arrival in San Francisco, promise that using needles would not be allowed there. When bandmate Dave Getz accompanied her from a rehearsal to her home, Rivers was not there, but "two or three" (according to Getz' recollection 25 years later) guests whom Rivers had invited were in the process of injecting drugs. "One of them was about to tie off," recalled Getz. "Janis went nuts! I had never seen anybody explode like that. She was screaming and crying and Travis walked in. She screamed at him: 'We had a pact! You promised me! There wouldn't be any of that in front of me!' I was over my head and I tried to calm her down. I said, 'They're just doing mescaline,' because that's what I thought it was. She said, 'You don't understand! I can't see that! I just can't stand to see that!'"
A San Francisco concert from that summer (1966) was recorded and released on the 1984 album Cheaper Thrills. In July, all five bandmates and guitarist James Gurley's wife Nancy moved to a house in Lagunitas, California, where they lived communally. The band often partied with the Grateful Dead, the members of whom lived less than two miles away. She had a short relationship and longer friendship with founding member Ron "Pigpen" McKernan.
The band went to Chicago for a four-week engagement in August 1966, then found itself stranded after the promoter ran out of money when its concerts did not attract the expected audience levels, and he was unable to pay them. In the circumstances the band signed with Bob Shad's record label Mainstream Records; recordings for the label took place in Chicago in September, but these were not satisfactory, and the band returned to San Francisco, continuing to perform live, including at the Love Pageant Rally. The band recorded two tracks, "Blindman" and "All Is Loneliness", in Los Angeles, and these were released by Mainstream as a single that did not sell well. After playing at a happening in Stanford in early December 1966, the band traveled back to Los Angeles to record ten tracks between December 12 and 14, 1966, produced by Bob Shad, which appeared on the band's debut album in August 1967.
In late 1966, Big Brother switched managers from Chet Helms to Julius Karpen.
One of Joplin's earliest major performances in 1967 was at the Mantra-Rock Dance, a musical event held on January 29 at the Avalon Ballroom by the San Francisco Hare Krishna temple. Janis Joplin and Big Brother performed there along with the Hare Krishna founder Bhaktivedanta Swami, Allen Ginsberg, Moby Grape, and the Grateful Dead, donating proceeds to the Krishna temple. In early 1967, Joplin met Country Joe McDonald of the group Country Joe and the Fish. The pair lived together as a couple for a few months. Joplin and Big Brother began playing clubs in San Francisco, at the Fillmore West, Winterland, and the Avalon Ballroom. They also played at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, as well as in Seattle, Washington; Vancouver, British Columbia; the Psychedelic Supermarket in Boston, Massachusetts; and the Golden Bear Club in Huntington Beach, California.
The band's debut studio album, Big Brother & the Holding Company, was released by Mainstream Records in August 1967, shortly after the group's breakthrough appearance in June at the Monterey Pop Festival. Two tracks, "Coo Coo" and "The Last Time," were released separately as singles, while the tracks from the previous single, "Blindman" and "All Is Loneliness", were added to the remaining eight tracks. When Columbia Records took over the band's contract and re-released the album, they included "Coo Coo" and "The Last Time", and put "featuring Janis Joplin" on the cover. The debut album spawned four minor hits with the singles "Down on Me", a traditional song arranged by Joplin, "Bye Bye Baby", "Call On Me" and "Coo Coo", on all of which Joplin sang lead vocals.
Two songs from the second of Big Brother's two sets at Monterey, which they played on Sunday, were filmed (their first set, which was on Saturday, was not filmed, though it was audio-recorded). Some sources, including a Joplin biography by Ellis Amburn, claim that she was dressed in thrift store hippie clothes or second-hand Victorian clothes during the band's Saturday set, but still photographs do not appear to have survived. Digitized color film of two songs in the Sunday set, "Combination of the Two" and a version of Big Mama Thornton's "Ball and Chain," appear in the DVD and Blu-ray boxed set of D. A. Pennebaker's documentary Monterey Pop released by The Criterion Collection. She is seen wearing an expensive gold tunic dress with matching pants. They were created for her by San Francisco clothing designer Colin Rose.
Documentary filmmaker Pennebaker inserted two cutaway shots of Cass Elliot of the Mamas & the Papas seated in the audience during Joplin's performance of "Ball and Chain", one in the middle of the song as her eyes, covered by sunglasses, are fixed on Joplin, and also a shot during the applause as she silently mouths "Oh, wow!" and looks at the person seated next to her. Elliot and the audience are seen in sunlight, but Sunday's Big Brother performance was filmed in the evening. An explanation came from Big Brother's road manager John Byrne Cooke, who remembers that Pennebaker discreetly filmed the audience (including Elliot) during Big Brother's Saturday performance when he was not allowed to point a camera at the band.
The prohibition of Pennebaker from filming on Saturday afternoon came from Big Brother's manager Julius Karpen. The band had a bitter argument with Karpen and overruled him as they prepared for their second set that the festival organizers had added on the spur of the moment. Backstage at the festival, the band became acquainted with New York-based talent manager Albert Grossman but did not sign with him until several months later, firing Karpen at that time.
Only "Ball and Chain" was included in the Monterey Pop film that was released to theaters throughout the United States in 1969 and shown on television in the 1970s. Those who did not attend the Monterey Pop Festival saw the band's performance of "Combination of the Two" for the first time in 2002 when The Criterion Collection released the boxed set.
For the remainder of 1967, even after Big Brother signed with Albert Grossman, the band performed mainly in California. On February 16, 1968, the group began its first East Coast tour in Philadelphia, and the following day gave their first performance in New York City at the Anderson Theater. On April 7, 1968—three days after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and the last day of their East Coast tour—Joplin and Big Brother performed with Jimi Hendrix, Buddy Guy, Joni Mitchell, Richie Havens, Paul Butterfield, and Elvin Bishop at the Wake for Martin Luther King Jr. concert in New York.
Live at Winterland '68, recorded at the Winterland Ballroom on April 12 and 13, 1968, features Joplin and Big Brother and the Holding Company at the height of their mutual career working through a selection of tracks from their albums. A recording became available to the public for the first time in 1998 when Columbia/Sony Music Entertainment released the compact disc. One month after the Winterland concert, Owsley Stanley recorded them at the Carousel Ballroom, released in 2012 as Live at the Carousel Ballroom 1968.
On July 31, 1968, Joplin made her first nationwide television appearance when the band performed on This Morning, an ABC daytime 90-minute variety show that was hosted by Dick Cavett. Shortly thereafter, network employees wiped the videotape, though the audio survives. (In 1969 and 1970, Joplin made three appearances on Cavett's prime-time program. Video was preserved and excerpts have been included in most documentaries about Joplin. Audio of her 1968 appearance has not been used since then.)
Sometime in 1968, the band's billing was changed to "Janis Joplin and Big Brother and the Holding Company," and the media coverage given to Joplin generated resentment within the band. The other members of Big Brother thought that Joplin was on a "star trip", while others were telling Joplin that Big Brother was a terrible band and that she ought to dump them. Time magazine called Joplin "probably the most powerful singer to emerge from the white rock movement", and Richard Goldstein wrote for the May 1968 issue of Vogue magazine that Joplin was "the most staggering leading woman in rock...she slinks like tar, scowls like war...clutching the knees of a final stanza, begging it not to leave.... Janis Joplin can sing the chic off any listener."
For her first major studio recording, Joplin played a major role in the arrangement and production of the songs that would comprise Big Brother and the Holding Company's second album, Cheap Thrills. Producer John Simon tried recording the band in concert, to capture their energy in a live album, but several attempts showed the band was prone to mistakes. Their imprecision was not helped by moving the sessions to a recording studio. Joplin sang take after take of the same song, with her performances consistently good, and she grew frustrated with the band's sloppiness. Simon was replaced by Elliot Mazer who fixed the songs by overdubbing certain parts. The album featured a cover design by counterculture cartoonist Robert Crumb.
Although Cheap Thrills sounded as if it consisted of concert recordings, like on "Combination of the Two" and "I Need a Man to Love", only "Ball and Chain" was actually recorded in front of a paying audience; the rest of the tracks were studio recordings. The album had a raw quality, including the sound of a drinking glass breaking and the broken shards being swept away during the song "Turtle Blues". Cheap Thrills produced very popular hits with "Piece of My Heart" and "Summertime". Together with the premiere of the documentary film Monterey Pop at New York's Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts on December 26, 1968, the album launched Joplin as a star. Cheap Thrills reached number one on the Billboard 200 album chart eight weeks after its release, and was number one for eight (nonconsecutive) weeks. The album was certified gold at release and sold over a million copies in the first month of its release. The lead single from the album, "Piece of My Heart", reached number 12 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the fall of 1968.
The band made another East Coast tour during July–August 1968, performing at the Columbia Records convention in Puerto Rico and the Newport Folk Festival. After returning to San Francisco for two hometown shows at the Palace of Fine Arts Festival on August 31 and September 1, Joplin announced that she would be leaving Big Brother. On September 14, 1968, culminating a three-night engagement together at Fillmore West, fans thronged to a concert that Bill Graham publicized as the last official concert of Janis Joplin with Big Brother and the Holding Company. The opening acts on this night were Chicago (then still called Chicago Transit Authority) and Santana.
Despite Graham's announcement that the Fillmore West gig was Big Brother's last concert with Joplin, the band—with Joplin still as lead vocalist—toured the U.S. that fall. Reflecting Joplin's crossover appeal, two October 1968 performances at a roller rink in Alexandria, Virginia, were reviewed by John Segraves of the conservative Washington Evening Star at a time when the Washington metropolitan area's hard rock scene was in its infancy. An opera buff at the time, he wrote:
Later that month (October 1968), Big Brother performed at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and played at the Syracuse War Memorial as part of Syracuse University's Fall Homecoming on October 11, with Janis joining openers the Butterfield Blues Band for their closing song. Aside from two 1970 reunions, Joplin's last performance with Big Brother was at a Chet Helms benefit in San Francisco on December 1, 1968.
1969–1970: Solo career
After splitting from Big Brother and the Holding Company, Joplin formed a new backup group, the Kozmic Blues Band, composed of session musicians like keyboardist Stephen Ryder and saxophonist Cornelius "Snooky" Flowers, as well as former Big Brother and the Holding Company guitarist Sam Andrew and future Full Tilt Boogie Band bassist Brad Campbell. The band was influenced by the Stax-Volt rhythm and blues (R&B) and soul bands of the 1960s, as exemplified by Otis Redding and the Bar-Kays. The Stax-Volt R&B sound was typified by the use of horns and had a funky, pop-oriented sound in contrast to many of the psychedelic/hard rock bands of the period.
By early 1969, Joplin was allegedly shooting at least $200 worth of heroin per day (equivalent to $1300 in 2016 dollars) although efforts were made to keep her clean during the recording of I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama! Gabriel Mekler, who produced the album, told publicist-turned-biographer Myra Friedman after Joplin's death that she had lived in his Los Angeles house during the June 1969 recording sessions at his insistence so he could keep her away from drugs and her drug-using friends.
Joplin's appearances with the Kozmic Blues Band in Europe were released in theaters, in multiple documentaries. Janis, which was reviewed by the Washington Post on March 21, 1975, shows Joplin arriving in Frankfurt by plane and waiting inside a bus next to the Frankfurt venue, while an American female fan who is visiting Germany expresses enthusiasm to the camera (no security was used in Frankfurt, so by the end of the concert, the stage was so packed with people the band members could not see each other). Janis also includes interviews with Joplin in Stockholm and from her visit to London, for her gig at Royal Albert Hall. The London interview was dubbed with a voiceover in the German language for broadcast on German television. John Byrne Cooke, road manager for Joplin and the Kozmic Blues Band, wrote a book published in 2014 in which he discussed her knowledge of the risks of her ongoing use of narcotics, particularly when she was outside the United States.
On the episode of The Dick Cavett Show that was telecast in the United States on the night of July 18, 1969, Joplin and her band performed "Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)" as well as "To Love Somebody". As Dick Cavett interviewed Joplin, she admitted that she had a terrible time touring in Europe, claiming that audiences there are very uptight and don't "get down".
Released in September 1969, the Kozmic Blues album was certified gold later that year but did not match the success of Cheap Thrills. Reviews of the new group were mixed. However, the album's recording quality and engineering, as well as the musicianship (including three performances by former Bob Dylan/Paul Butterfield/Electric Flag guitarist Mike Bloomfield), were considered superior to her previous releases, and some music critics argued that the band was working in a much more constructive way to support Joplin's sensational vocal talents.
Joplin wanted a horn section similar to that featured by the Chicago Transit Authority; her voice had the dynamic qualities and range not to be overpowered by the brighter horn sound.
Some music critics, however, including Ralph J. Gleason of the San Francisco Chronicle, were negative. Gleason wrote that the new band was a "drag" and Joplin should "scrap" her new band and "go right back to being a member of Big Brother ... (if they'll have her)."
Other reviewers, such as reporter Carl Bernstein of the Washington Post, devoted entire articles to celebrating the singer's magic. Bernstein's review said that Joplin "has finally assembled a group of first-rate musicians with whom she is totally at ease and whose abilities complement the incredible range of her voice."
Columbia Records released "Kozmic Blues" as a single, which peaked at number 41 on the Billboard Hot 100, and a live rendition of "Raise Your Hand" was released in Germany and became a top ten hit there. Containing other hits like "Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)", "To Love Somebody", and "Little Girl Blue", I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama! reached number five on the Billboard 200 soon after its release.
Joplin appeared at Woodstock starting at approximately 2:00 a.m., on Sunday, August 17, 1969. Joplin informed her band that they would be performing at the concert as if it were just another gig. On Saturday afternoon, when she and the band were flown by helicopter with the pregnant Joan Baez and Baez's mother from a nearby motel to the festival site and Joplin saw the enormous crowd, she instantly became extremely nervous and giddy. Upon landing and getting off the helicopter, Joplin was approached by reporters asking her questions. She referred them to her friend and sometime lover Peggy Caserta as she was too excited to speak. Initially, Joplin was eager to get on the stage and perform but was repeatedly delayed as bands were contractually obliged to perform ahead of Joplin. Faced with a ten-hour wait after arriving at the backstage area, Joplin spent some of that time shooting heroin and drinking alcohol with Caserta in a tent. The director's cut of the Woodstock movie shows Joplin and Jefferson Airplane singer Grace Slick standing together near amplifiers watching the band Canned Heat's performance, which started at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, and Caserta does not appear within camera range. When Joplin finally reached the stage at approximately 2:00 a.m. Sunday, she was "three sheets to the wind", according to biographer Alice Echols. During her performance, Joplin's voice became slightly hoarse and wheezy, and she struggled to dance.
Joplin pulled through, however, and engaged frequently with the crowd, asking them if they had everything they needed and if they were staying stoned. The audience cheered for an encore, to which Joplin replied and sang "Ball and Chain". Pete Townshend, who performed with the Who later in the same morning after Joplin finished, witnessed her performance and said the following in his 2012 memoir: "She had been amazing at Monterey, but tonight she wasn't at her best, due, probably, to the long delay, and probably, too, to the amount of booze and heroin she'd consumed while she waited. But even Janis on an off-night was incredible."
Janis remained at Woodstock for the remainder of the festival. Starting at approximately 3:00 a.m. on Monday, August 18, Joplin was among many Woodstock performers who stood in a circle behind Crosby, Stills & Nash during their performance, which was the first time anyone at Woodstock ever had heard the group perform. This information was published by David Crosby in 1988. Later in the morning of August 18, Joplin and Joan Baez sat in Joe Cocker's van and witnessed Hendrix's close-of-show performance, according to Baez's memoir And a Voice to Sing With (1989).
Still photographs in color show Joplin backstage with Grace Slick the day after Joplin's performance, wherein Joplin appears to be very happy. She was ultimately unhappy with her performance, however, and blamed Caserta. Her singing was not included (by her own insistence) in the 1970 documentary film or the soundtrack for Woodstock: Music from the Original Soundtrack and More, although the 25th anniversary director's cut of Woodstock includes her performance of "Work Me, Lord". The documentary film of the festival that was released in theaters during 1970 includes, on the left side of a split screen, 37 seconds of footage of Joplin and Caserta walking toward Joplin's dressing room tent.
In addition to Woodstock, Joplin also had problems at Madison Square Garden, in 1969. Biographer Myra Friedman said she had witnessed a duet Joplin sang with Tina Turner during the Rolling Stones concert at the Garden on Thanksgiving Day. Friedman said Joplin was "so drunk, so stoned, so out of control, that she could have been an institutionalized psychotic rent by mania." During another Garden concert where she had solo billing on December 19, some observers believed Joplin tried to incite the audience to riot. For part of this concert she was joined onstage by Johnny Winter and Paul Butterfield.
Joplin told rock journalist David Dalton that Garden audiences watched and listened to "every note [she sang] with 'Is she gonna make it?' in their eyes." In her interview with Dalton she added that she felt most comfortable performing at small, cheap venues in San Francisco that were associated with the counterculture.
At the time of the June 1970 interview with Dalton, she had already performed in the Bay Area for what turned out to be the last time. Sam Andrew, the lead guitarist who had left Big Brother with Joplin in December 1968 to form her back-up band, quit in late summer 1969 and returned to Big Brother. At the end of the year, the Kozmic Blues Band broke up. Their final gig with Joplin was the one at Madison Square Garden with Winter and Butterfield.
In February 1970, Joplin traveled to Brazil, where she stopped her drug and alcohol use. She was accompanied on vacation there by her friend Linda Gravenites (wife of songwriter Nick Gravenites), who had designed Janis's stage costumes from 1967 to 1969.
In Brazil, Joplin was romanced by a fellow American tourist named David (George) Niehaus, who was traveling around the world. A Joplin biography written by her sister Laura said, "David was an upper-middle-class Cincinnati kid who had studied communications at Notre Dame. ... [and] had joined the Peace Corps after college and worked in a small village in Turkey. ... He tried law school, but when he met Janis he was taking time off."
Niehaus and Joplin were photographed by the press at Rio Carnival in Rio de Janeiro. Gravenites also took color photographs of the two during their Brazilian vacation. According to Joplin biographer Ellis Amburn, in Gravenites' snapshots they "look like a carefree, happy, healthy young couple having a tremendously good time."
Rolling Stone magazine interviewed Joplin during an international phone call, quoting her: "I'm going into the jungle with a big bear of a beatnik named David Niehaus. I finally remembered I don't have to be on stage twelve months a year. I've decided to go and dig some other jungles for a couple of weeks." Amburn added in 1992, "Janis was trying to kick heroin in Brazil, and one of the nicest things about David was that he wasn't into drugs."
When Joplin returned to the U.S., she began using heroin again. Her relationship with Niehaus soon ended because he witnessed her shooting drugs at her new home in Larkspur, California. The relationship was also complicated by her ongoing romantic relationship with Peggy Caserta, who also was an intravenous addict, and Joplin's refusal to take some time off and travel the world with him.
Around this time, she formed her new band, known for a short time as Main Squeeze, then renamed the Full Tilt Boogie Band. The band comprised mostly young Canadian musicians previously associated with Ronnie Hawkins and featured an organ, but no horn section. Joplin took a more active role in putting together the Full Tilt Boogie band than she had with her prior group. She was quoted as saying, "It's my band. Finally it's my band!" In May 1970, after performing under the name Main Squeeze at a Hell's Angels event, the renamed Full Tilt Boogie Band began a nationwide tour. Joplin became very happy with her new group, which eventually received mostly positive feedback from both her fans and the critics.
Prior to beginning a summer tour with Full Tilt Boogie, she performed in a reunion with Big Brother at the Fillmore West, in San Francisco, on April 4, 1970. Recordings from this concert were included in an in-concert album released posthumously in 1972. She again appeared with Big Brother on April 12 at Winterland, where she and Big Brother were reported to be in excellent form. She performed with the band, billed as Main Squeeze, at a party for the Hells Angels at a venue in San Rafael, California on May 21, 1970, according to a web site maintained by Big Brother guitarist Sam Andrew. Andrew's web site quotes him as saying, "This will be the first time that Janis' old band and her new band will be at the same venue, so everyone is a little on edge."
According to Joplin's biographer Ellis Amburn, Big Brother with its lead singer Nick Gravenites was the opening act at the party that was attended by 2,300 people. The Hells Angels, who had known Joplin since 1966, paid her a fee of 240 dollars to perform. Gravenites and Sam Andrew (who had resumed playing guitar with Big Brother) differed in their opinions of her performance and how substance abuse affected it. Gravenites described her singing as "stupendous," according to Amburn. Amburn quoted Andrew twenty years later: "She was visibly deteriorating and she looked bloated. She was like a parody of what she was at her best. I put it down to her drinking too much and I felt a tinge of fear for her well-being. Her singing was real flabby, no edge at all."
Shortly thereafter, Joplin began wearing multi-colored feather boas in her hair. (She had not worn them at the May 21 Hell's Angels party / concert in San Rafael). By the time she began touring with Full Tilt Boogie, Joplin told people she was drug-free, but her drinking increased.
From June 28 to July 4, 1970, during the Festival Express tour, Joplin and Full Tilt Boogie performed alongside Buddy Guy, the Band, the Flying Burrito Brothers, Ten Years After, the Grateful Dead, Delaney & Bonnie, Eric Andersen, and Ian & Sylvia. They played concerts in Toronto, Winnipeg, and Calgary. Joplin jammed with the other performers on the train, and her performances on this tour are considered to be among her greatest.
Joplin headlined the festival on all three nights. At the last stop in Calgary, she took to the stage with Jerry Garcia while her band was tuning up. Film footage shows her telling the audience how great the tour was and shows her and Garcia presenting the organizers with a case of tequila. She then burst into a two-hour set, starting with "Tell Mama". Throughout this performance, Joplin engaged in several banters about her love life. In one, she reminisced about living in a San Francisco apartment and competing with a female neighbor in flirting with men on the street. She finished the Calgary concert with long versions of "Get It While You Can" and "Ball and Chain".
Footage of her performance of "Tell Mama" in Calgary became an MTV video in the early 1980s, and the audio from the same film footage was included on the Farewell Song (1982) album. The audio of other Festival Express performances was included on Joplin's In Concert (1972) album. Video of the performances was also included on the Festival Express DVD.
These performances of entire songs during the Festival Express concerts in Toronto and Calgary can be purchased, although other songs remain in vaults and have yet to be released.
In the "Tell Mama" video shown on MTV in the 1980s, Joplin wore a psychedelically colored, loose-fitting costume and feathers in her hair. This was her standard stage costume in the spring and summer of 1970. She chose the new costumes after her friend and designer, Linda Gravenites (whom Joplin had praised in Vogues profile of her in its May 1968 edition), cut ties with Joplin shortly after their return from Brazil, due largely to Joplin's continued use of heroin.
Among Joplin's last public appearances were two broadcasts of The Dick Cavett Show. In her June 25, 1970 appearance, she announced that she would attend her ten-year high school class reunion. When asked if she had been popular in school, she admitted that when in high school, her schoolmates "laughed me out of class, out of town and out of the state" (during the year she had spent at the University of Texas at Austin, Joplin had been voted "Ugliest Man on Campus" by frat boys). In the subsequent Cavett Show broadcast, on August 3, 1970, and featuring Gloria Swanson, Joplin discussed her upcoming performance at the Festival for Peace to be held at Shea Stadium in Queens, New York, three days later.
On July 11, 1970, Full Tilt Boogie and Big Brother and the Holding Company both performed at the same concert in the San Diego Sports Arena, which was decades later renamed the Valley View Casino Center. Joplin sang with Full Tilt Boogie and appeared briefly onstage with Big Brother without singing, according to a July 13 review of the concert in the San Diego Union.
On August 7, 1970, a tombstone—jointly paid for by Joplin and Juanita Green, who as a child had done housework for Bessie Smith—was erected at Smith's previously unmarked grave. The following day, the Associated Press circulated this news, and the August 9 edition of The New York Times carried it. The lead paragraph of the AP story said Joplin and Green had "shared the cost of a stone for the 'Empress of the Blues,'" but, according to publicist/biographer Myra Friedman, the two women never met. Joplin had been at home in Larkspur, California when she had received a long-distance phone call with an explanation of the need to finance a gravestone for Bessie Smith, whom Joplin had frequently cited as a musical influence. Joplin immediately wrote a check and mailed it to the name and address provided by the phone caller.
On August 8, 1970, as the Associated Press circulated the news about Smith's new gravestone, Joplin performed at the Capitol Theatre (Port Chester, New York). It was there that she first performed "Mercedes Benz", a song (partially inspired by a Michael McClure poem) that she had composed with fellow musician and friend Bob Neuwirth a very short time earlier. According to Myra Friedman's account, Joplin performed two shows at the Capitol Theatre, the first of which was attended by actors Geraldine Page and her husband Rip Torn. Between the shows, at a "gin mill" [Friedman's words] very close to this concert venue, Joplin and Neuwirth penned the lyrics to the song and she performed it at the second show, according to Friedman. Neuwirth was quoted by The Wall Street Journal in 2015: "Around 7 p.m., after the Capitol sound check, we had a couple of hours to kill before [acts that opened for Joplin] Seatrain and Runt finished their sets. So the four of us [Joplin, Neuwirth, Geraldine Page, Rip Torn] walked to a bar about three minutes away called Vahsen’s [at 30 Broad Street in Port Chester]." While in Vahsen's, "Janis came up with words for the first verse. I was in charge of writing them down on bar napkins with a ballpoint pen. She came up with the second verse, too, about a color TV. I suggested words here and there, and came up with the third verse—about asking the Lord to buy us a night on the town and another round."
Joplin's last public performance with the Full Tilt Boogie Band took place on August 12, 1970, at the Harvard Stadium in Boston. The Harvard Crimson gave the performance a positive, front-page review, despite the fact that Full Tilt Boogie had performed with makeshift amplifiers after their regular sound equipment was stolen in Boston.
Joplin attended her high school reunion on August 14, accompanied by Neuwirth, road manager John Cooke, and sister Laura, but it was reportedly an unhappy experience for her. Joplin held a press conference in Port Arthur during her reunion visit. When asked by a reporter if she ever entertained at Thomas Jefferson High School when she was a student there, Joplin replied, "Only when I walked down the aisles." Joplin denigrated Port Arthur and the classmates who had humiliated her a decade earlier.
During late August, September, and early October 1970, Joplin and her band rehearsed and recorded a new album in Los Angeles with producer Paul A. Rothchild, best known for his lengthy relationship with The Doors. Although Joplin died before all the tracks were fully completed, there was enough usable material to compile an LP.
The posthumous Pearl (1971) became the biggest-selling album of her career and featured her biggest hit single, a cover of Kris Kristofferson and Fred Foster's "Me and Bobby McGee" (Kristofferson had previously been Joplin's lover in the spring of 1970). The opening track, "Move Over", was written by Joplin, reflecting the way that she felt men treated women in relationships. Also included was the social commentary of "Mercedes Benz", presented in an a cappella arrangement; the track on the album features the first and only take that Joplin recorded. A cover of Nick Gravenites's "Buried Alive in the Blues", to which Joplin had been scheduled to add her vocals on the day she was found dead, was included as an instrumental.
Joplin checked into the Landmark Motor Hotel in Hollywood on August 24, 1970, near Sunset Sound Recorders, where she began rehearsing and recording her album. During the sessions, Joplin continued a relationship with Seth Morgan, a 21-year-old UC Berkeley student, cocaine dealer, and future novelist who had visited her new home in Larkspur in July and August. She and Morgan were engaged to be married in early September, although he visited Sunset Sound Recorders for just eight of Joplin's many rehearsals and sessions.
Morgan later told biographer Myra Friedman that, as a non-musician, he had felt excluded whenever he had visited Sunset Sound Recorders. Instead, he stayed at Joplin's Larkspur home while she stayed alone at the Landmark, although several times she visited Larkspur to be with him and to check the progress of renovations she was having done on the house. She told her construction crew to design a carport to be shaped like a flying saucer, according to biographer Ellis Amburn, the concrete foundation for which was poured the day before she died.
Peggy Caserta claimed in her book, Going Down With Janis (1973), that she and Joplin had decided mutually in April 1970 to stay away from each other to avoid enabling each other's drug use. Caserta, a former Delta Air Lines stewardess and owner of one of the first clothing boutiques in the Haight Ashbury, said in the book that by September 1970, she was smuggling cannabis throughout California and had checked into the Landmark Motor Hotel because it attracted drug users.
For approximately the first two weeks of Joplin's stay at the Landmark, she did not know Caserta was in Los Angeles. Joplin learned of Caserta's presence at the Landmark from a heroin dealer who made deliveries there. Joplin begged Caserta for heroin, and when Caserta refused to provide it, Joplin reportedly admonished her by saying, "Don't think if you can get it, I can't get it." Joplin's publicist Myra Friedman was unaware during Joplin's lifetime that this had happened. Later, while Friedman was working on her book Buried Alive, she determined that the time frame of the Joplin-Caserta encounter was one week before Jimi Hendrix's death.
Within a few days, Joplin became a regular customer of the same heroin dealer who had been supplying Caserta.
Joplin's manager Albert Grossman and his assistant/publicist Friedman had staged an intervention with Joplin the previous winter while Joplin was in New York. In September 1970, Grossman and Friedman, who worked out of a New York office, knew Joplin was staying at a Los Angeles hotel, but were unaware it was a haven for drug users and dealers.
Grossman and Friedman knew during Joplin's lifetime that her friend Caserta, whom Friedman met during the New York sessions for Cheap Thrills and on later occasions, used heroin. During the many long-distance telephone conversations that Joplin and Friedman had in September 1970 and on October 1, Joplin never mentioned Caserta, and Friedman assumed Caserta had been out of Joplin's life for a while. Friedman, who had more time than Grossman to monitor the situation, never visited California. She thought Joplin sounded on the phone like she was less depressed than she had been over the summer.
When Joplin was not at Sunset Sound Recorders, she liked to drive her Porsche over the speed limit "on the winding part of Sunset Blvd.", according to a statement made by her attorney Robert Gordon in 1995 at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony. Friedman wrote that the only Full Tilt Boogie member who rode as her passenger, Ken Pearson, often hesitated to join her, though he did on the night she died. He was not interested in using hard drugs.
On September 26, 1970, Joplin recorded vocals for "Half Moon" and "Cry Baby". The session ended with Joplin, organist Ken Pearson, and drummer Clark Pierson making a special one-minute recording as a birthday gift to John Lennon. Joplin was among several singers who had been contacted by Yoko Ono with a request for a taped greeting for Lennon's 30th birthday, on October 9. Joplin, Pearson, and Pierson chose the Dale Evans composition "Happy Trails" as part of the greeting. Lennon told Dick Cavett on-camera the following year that Joplin's recorded birthday wishes arrived at his home after her death.
On October 1, 1970, Joplin completed her last recording, "Mercedes Benz", which was recorded in a single take. On Saturday, October 3, Joplin visited Sunset Sound Recorders to listen to the instrumental track for Nick Gravenites's song "Buried Alive in the Blues", which the band had recorded earlier that day. She and Paul Rothchild agreed she would record the vocal the following day.
At some point on Saturday, she learned by telephone, to her dismay, that Seth Morgan had met other women at a Marin County, California, restaurant, invited them to her home, and was shooting pool with them using her pool table. People at Sunset Sound Recorders overheard Joplin expressing anger about the state of her relationship with Morgan, as well as joy about the progress of the sessions.
Joplin and Ken Pearson later left the studio together and she drove him in her Porsche to the West Hollywood landmark called Barney's Beanery. Friedman wrote, "At the bar, she drank vodka and orange juice, only two." Bennett Glotzer, a business partner of Joplin's manager Albert Grossman, was present at Barney's Beanery, according to what he told John Byrne Cooke immediately after he (Glotzer) learned of her death. Evidently, Joplin had a friendly conversation with a young man whom she did not know, and he expressed admiration for her music. After midnight, she drove Ken Pearson and the male fan to the Landmark where she and Pearson were staying in separate rooms. During the car ride, the fan asked Joplin questions "about her singing style," according to Friedman, and "she mostly ignored him" so she could converse with Pearson. As Joplin and Pearson prepared to part in the lobby of the Landmark, she expressed a fear, possibly in jest, that he and the other Full Tilt Boogie musicians might decide to stop making music with her. Pearson was the second-to-last person to see her alive. The last was the Landmark's night shift desk clerk. He had met her several times but did not know her.
Personal life
Joplin's significant relationships with men included ones with Peter de Blanc, Country Joe McDonald (who wrote the song "Janis" at Joplin's request), David (George) Niehaus, Kris Kristofferson, and Seth Morgan (from July 1970 until her death, at which time they were allegedly engaged).
She also had relationships with women. During her first stint in San Francisco in 1963, Joplin met and briefly lived with Jae Whitaker, a black woman whom she had met while playing pool at the bar Gino & Carlo in North Beach. Whitaker broke off their relationship because of Joplin's hard drug use and sexual relationships with other people. Whitaker was first identified by name in connection with the singer in 1999, when Alice Echols' biography Scars of Sweet Paradise was published.
Joplin also had an on-again-off-again romantic relationship with Peggy Caserta. They first met in November 1966 when Big Brother performed at a San Francisco venue called The Matrix. Caserta was one of 15 people in the audience, and at the time, she ran a successful clothing boutique in the Haight Ashbury. Approximately a month after Caserta attended the concert, Joplin visited her boutique and said she could not afford to buy a pair of jeans that was for sale, instead asking to put down the first 50 cents on the $5 item. Caserta was amazed that such a talented singer could not afford a $5 item, and gave her a pair for free. Their friendship was platonic for more than a year. Before it moved to the next level, Caserta was in love with Big Brother guitarist Sam Andrew, and sometime during the first half of 1968 traveled from San Francisco to New York to flirt with him. He did not want a serious relationship, and Joplin sympathized with Caserta's disappointment.
The Woodstock concert film includes 37 seconds of Joplin and Caserta walking together before they reached the tent where Joplin waited for her turn to perform. By the time the festival took place in August 1969, both were intravenous heroin addicts.
According to Caserta's book Going Down With Janis, which Caserta has since disowned, Joplin introduced her to her boyfriend Seth Morgan in Joplin's room at the Landmark Motor Hotel on September 29, 1970. Caserta "had seen him around" San Francisco but had not met him before. At some point, an agreement was made for a threesome to take place the following Friday, although Caserta later said that she immediately abandoned the idea once she understood that it was Morgan who would be with Joplin. Morgan made alternate plans, believing that Caserta would be with Joplin that evening. Each one, however, was unaware that the other had bowed out. The day after Joplin introduced Caserta to Morgan, Caserta saw Joplin briefly, again in Joplin's room, when Caserta accommodated her new Los Angeles friend Debbie Nuciforo, age 19, an aspiring hard rock drummer who wanted to meet Joplin. Nuciforo was stoned on heroin at the time, and the three women's encounter was brief and unpleasant. Caserta suspected that the reason for Joplin's foul mood was that Morgan had abandoned her earlier that day after having spent less than 24 hours with her. Caserta did not see nor communicate by phone with Joplin again, although she later claimed she had made several attempts to reach her by phone at the Landmark Motor Hotel and at Sunset Sound Recorders. Caserta and Morgan lost touch with each other; each had independently made alternate plans for Friday night, October 2. Joplin mentioned her disappointment (over both of her friends' bailing out of their ménage à trois) to her drug dealer on Saturday, while he was selling her the dose of heroin that killed her, as Caserta later learned from the drug dealer.
Biographer Myra Friedman commented in her original version of Buried Alive (1973):
Given the near-infinite potentials of infancy, it is really impossible to make generalizations about what lies behind sexual practices. This, however, is probable: to become clearly homosexual, to make the choice that one honestly prefers relations with one's own sex, no matter the origins of such preference, requires a certain integration, a stability of psychic development, a tidiness of personality organization. The ridicule and the humiliation that took place at that most delicate period in [Joplin's] early teens, her own inability to surmount the obstacles to regular growth, devastated her a great deal more than most people comprehended. Janis was not heir to an ego so cohesive as to permit her an identity one way or the other. She was, as [the psychiatric social worker she saw regularly in Beaumont, Texas in 1965 and 1966] Mr. [Bernard] Giarritano put it [in an interview with Friedman], "diffused" -- spewing, splattering, splaying all over, without a center to hold. That had as much to do with her original use of drugs [before she first met Giarritano] as did the critical component of guilt and its multiplicity of sources above and beyond the contribution made by her relationships with women. Were she so simple as the lesbians wished her to be or so free as her associates imagined!
Kim France reported in her May 2, 1999 The New York Times article, "Nothin' Left to Lose" : "Once she became famous, Joplin cursed like a truck driver, did not believe in wearing undergarments, was rarely seen without her bottle of Southern Comfort and delighted in playing the role of sexual predator."
On July 11, 1970, Joplin made a revealing statement about her sexuality to her friend Richard Hundgen, the Grateful Dead's San Francisco-based road manager whom she had known since 1966. When Joplin and Hundgen were offstage during a San Diego gig for both Full Tilt Boogie and Big Brother and the Holding Company, she said the following that he later repeated to Myra Friedman:
I hear a rumor that somebody in San Francisco is spreading stories that I'm a dyke. You go back there and find out who it is and tell them that Janis says she's gotten it on with a couple of thousand cats in her life and a few hundred chicks and see what they can do with that!
Death
On Sunday evening, October 4, 1970, Joplin was found dead on the floor of her room at the Landmark Motor Hotel by her road manager and close friend John Byrne Cooke.
Alcohol was present in the room. Newspapers reported that no other drugs or paraphernalia were present. According to a 1983 book authored by Joseph DiMona and Los Angeles County coroner Thomas Noguchi, evidence of narcotics was removed from the scene by a friend of Joplin and later put back after the person realized that an autopsy was going to reveal that narcotics were in her system. The book adds that prior to Joplin's death, Noguchi had investigated other fatal drug overdoses in Los Angeles where friends believed they were doing favors for decedents by removing evidence of narcotics, then they "thought things over" and returned to put back the evidence. Noguchi performed an autopsy on Joplin and determined the cause of death to be a heroin overdose, possibly compounded by alcohol.
John Byrne Cooke believed Joplin had been given heroin that was much more potent than what she and other L.A. heroin users had received on previous occasions, as was indicated by overdoses of several of her dealer's other customers during the same weekend. Her death was ruled accidental.
Both Peggy Caserta, Joplin's close friend, and Seth Morgan, Joplin's fiancé, had failed to meet Joplin the Friday immediately prior to her death, October 2; Joplin had been expecting both of them to keep her company that night. According to Caserta, Joplin was saddened that neither of her friends visited her at the Landmark as they had promised. During the 24 hours Joplin lived after this disappointment, Caserta did not phone her to explain why she had failed to show up. Caserta admitted to waiting until late Saturday night to dial the Landmark switchboard, only to learn that Joplin had instructed the desk clerk not to accept any incoming phone calls for her after midnight. Morgan did speak to Joplin via telephone within the 24 hours prior to her death, but little is known about that call. She used a phone at Sunset Sound Recorders where her colleagues (“there were perhaps twenty to twenty-five people present,” wrote biographer Myra Friedman) noticed that whatever Morgan said to her made her very angry.
Peggy Caserta has insisted that Joplin's death was not an accidental overdose, but rather a result of a head gash suffered after the "hourglass heel" of her slingback sandal caught in the shag carpet, causing her to lose her balance. Caserta does concede, however, that drugs and/or alcohol may have played a role in hastening her death that night.
Joplin was cremated at Pierce Brothers Westwood Village Memorial Park and Mortuary in Los Angeles, and her ashes were scattered from a plane into the Pacific Ocean.
Legacy
Joplin's death in October 1970 at age 27 stunned her fans and shocked the music world, especially when coupled with the death just 16 days earlier of another rock icon, Jimi Hendrix, also at age 27. (This would later cause some people to attribute significance to the death of musicians at the age of 27, as celebrated in the "27 Club.") Music historian Tom Moon wrote that Joplin had "a devastatingly original voice," music columnist Jon Pareles of The New York Times wrote that Joplin as an artist was "overpowering and deeply vulnerable" and author Megan Terry said that Joplin was the female version of Elvis Presley in her ability to captivate an audience.
A book about Joplin by her publicist Myra Friedman titled Buried Alive: The Biography of Janis Joplin (1973) was excerpted in many newspapers. At the same time, Peggy Caserta's memoir, Going Down With Janis (1973), attracted much attention; its provocative title is a reference to Caserta's claim that she had engaged in oral sex with Joplin while they were high on heroin in September 1970. The description provided by Dan Knapp, Caserta’s co-author whom she denounced decades later, repelled many people in 1973 when few books or filmed interviews of Joplin or her loved ones were accessible to the public. Joplin's bandmate Sam Andrew described Caserta as "halfway between a groupie and a friend" in an interview with writer Ellis Amburn. Soon after the 1973 publication of Going Down With Janis, Joplin's friends learned that graphic descriptions of sexual acts and intravenous drug use were not the only portions of the book that would haunt them.
According to Kim Chappell, a close friend of Caserta and Joplin, Caserta's book angered the Los Angeles heroin dealer whom she had described in detail in her book, including the make and model of his car. According to Amburn, in 1973 a "carful of dope dealers" visited a Los Angeles lesbian bar that Caserta had been frequenting. Chappell, who was in the alley behind the bar, stated: "I was stabbed because, when Peggy's book came out, her dealer, the same one who'd given Janis her last fix, didn't like it that he was referred to and was out to get Peggy. He couldn't find her, so he went for her lover. When they realized who I was, they felt that my death would also hit Peggy, and so they stabbed me." Despite being "stabbed three times in the chest, puncturing both lungs," Chappell eventually recovered.
In 2018, Caserta denounced Going Down With Janis as the pornographic fantasy of Dan Knapp, her co-author, and largely unreliable. During that year, the public had its first access to her own story via a memoir she co-wrote with Maggie Falcon titled I Ran Into Some Trouble. It describes a long, friendly relationship with Joplin that only occasionally featured sexuality.
According to Joplin’s biographers, Caserta was among many friends of Joplin who did not become clean and sober until a very long time after Joplin's death, while others died from overdoses. Although the wife of Big Brother guitarist James Gurley, who was Joplin's close friend, died from a heroin overdose in 1969, devastating Joplin, Gurley himself did not become clean and sober until 1984. Caserta survived "a near-fatal OD in December 1995," wrote Alice Echols. On January 13, 2000, Caserta appeared during a segment about Joplin on 20/20.
Joplin's body art, with a wristlet and a small heart on her left breast by the San Francisco tattoo artist Lyle Tuttle, marked an early moment in the popular culture's acceptance of tattoos as art. Another trademark was her flamboyant hair styles, which often included colored streaks and accessories such as scarves, beads and feathers. When in New York City, Joplin frequented the Limbo boutique on St. Mark's Place, and she wore some of the vintage and unique garments that she purchased there on stage.
The Mamas & the Papas' song "Pearl" (1971), from their People Like Us album, was a tribute. Leonard Cohen's song "Chelsea Hotel#2" (1974) is about Joplin. Lyricist Robert Hunter has commented that Jerry Garcia's "Birdsong" from his first solo album, Garcia (1972), is about Joplin and the end of her suffering through death. Mimi Farina's composition "In the Quiet Morning", most famously covered by Joan Baez on her Come from the Shadows (1972) album, was a tribute to Joplin. Another song by Baez, "Children of the Eighties," mentioned Joplin. A Serge Gainsbourg-penned French language song by English singer Jane Birkin, "Ex fan des sixties" (1978), references Joplin along with other disappeared "idols" such as Jimi Hendrix, Brian Jones and Marc Bolan. When Joplin was alive, Country Joe McDonald released a song called "Janis" on his band's album I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die (1967).
The film The Rose (1979) is loosely based on Joplin's life. Originally planned to be titled Pearl—Joplin's nickname and the title of her last album—the film was fictionalized after her family declined to allow the producers the rights to her story. Bette Midler earned a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in the film.
In 1988, on what would have been Joplin's 45th birthday, the Janis Joplin Memorial, with an original gold, multi-image sculpture of Joplin by Douglas Clark, was dedicated during a ceremony in Port Arthur, Texas.
In 1992, the first major biography of Joplin in two decades, Love, Janis, authored by her younger sister Laura Joplin, was published. In an interview, Laura stated that Joplin enjoyed being on the Dick Cavett Show, that Joplin had difficulties with some, but not all, people at Thomas Jefferson High School and that Joplin enthusiastically talked about Woodstock with her parents and siblings during a visit to their Texas home a few weeks after she had performed at the festival.
In 1995, Joplin was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In 2005, she received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. In November 2009, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum honored her as part of its annual American Music Masters Series; among the artifacts at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum exhibition are Joplin's scarf and necklaces, her psychedelically painted 1965 Porsche 356 Cabriolet and a sheet of LSD blotting paper designed by Robert Crumb, designer of the Cheap Thrills cover. Also in 2009, Joplin was the honoree at the Rock Hall's American Music Master concert and lecture series.
In the late 1990s, the musical play Love, Janis was created and directed by Randal Myler, with input from Janis' younger sister Laura and Big Brother guitarist Sam Andrew, with an aim to take it to Off-Broadway. Opening in the summer of 2001 and scheduled for only a few weeks of performances, the show won acclaim, played to packed houses and was held over several times.
In 2013, Washington's Arena Stage featured a production of A Night with Janis Joplin, starring Mary Bridget Davies. In it, Joplin performs a concert for the audience while telling stories of her past inspirations, including those of Odetta and Aretha Franklin. The show went on tour in 2016.
On November 4, 2013, Joplin was awarded with the 2,510th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contributions to the music industry. Her star is located at 6752 Hollywood Boulevard, in front of Musicians Institute.
On August 8, 2014, the U.S. Postal Service revealed a commemorative stamp honoring Joplin as part of its Music Icons stamp series during a first-day-of-issue ceremony at the Outside Lands Music Festival at Golden Gate Park.
Among the memorabilia Joplin left behind is a Gibson Hummingbird guitar.
In 2015, the biographical documentary film Janis: Little Girl Blue, directed by Amy J. Berg and narrated by Cat Power, was released. It was a New York Times Critics' Pick.
Influence
Joplin had a profound influence on many singers.
Pink said about Joplin: "She was so inspiring by singing blues music when it wasn't culturally acceptable for white women, and she wore her heart on her sleeve. She was so witty and charming and intelligent, but she also battled an ugly-duckling syndrome. I would love to play her in a movie." In a tribute performance on her Try This Tour, Pink called Joplin "a woman who inspired me when everyone else ... didn't!"
Discography
Janis Joplin recorded four albums in her four-year career. The first two albums were recorded with and credited to Big Brother and the Holding Company; the later two were recorded with different backing bands and released as solo albums. Posthumous releases have included previously unreleased studio and live material.
Studio albums
As lead singer of Big Brother and the Holding Company
As solo artist
Live albums
Compilation albums
Singles
As lead of Big Brother and the Holding Company
As solo artist
Filmography
Monterey Pop (1968)
Petulia (1968)
Janis Joplin Live in Frankfurt (1969)
Janis (1974)
Janis: The Way She Was (1974)
Comin' Home (1988)
Woodstock – The Lost Performances (1991)
Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace & Music (Director's Cut) (1994)
Festival Express (2003)
Nine Hundred Nights (2004)
The Dick Cavett Show: Rock Icons (2005) Shout Factory
Rockin' at the Red Dog: The Dawn of Psychedelic Rock (2005)
This is Tom Jones (2007) 1969 appearance on TV show
Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace & Music (Director's Cut) 40th Anniversary Edition (2009)
Janis Joplin with Big Brother: Ball and Chain (DVD) Charly (2009)
Janis: Little Girl Blue (2015)
Notes
References
Further reading
– an encounter with Janis Joplin at the wheel.
External links
Janis Joplin at the Grammy Awards
Janis Joplin on the Music-Map
1943 births
1970 deaths
20th-century American singers
20th-century American women singers
American blues singers
American child singers
American mezzo-sopranos
American women rock singers
American women singer-songwriters
American rhythm and blues singer-songwriters
American rock songwriters
American soul musicians
Accidental deaths in California
Big Brother and the Holding Company members
Bisexual musicians
Bisexual women
Blues rock musicians
Columbia Records artists
Deaths by heroin overdose in California
Drug-related deaths in California
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners
LGBT people from Texas
LGBT singers from the United States
LGBT songwriters
Lamar University alumni
People from Beaumont, Texas
People from Port Arthur, Texas
Singer-songwriters from Texas
University of Texas at Austin alumni
20th-century LGBT people
| false |
[
"I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama! is the debut solo studio album by American singer-songwriter Janis Joplin, released on September 11, 1969. It was the first album which Joplin recorded after leaving her former band, Big Brother and the Holding Company, and the only solo album released during her lifetime.\n\nRecord history\nRecording began on June 16, 1969 in New York City and ceased on June 26. For the album, Joplin recruited guitarist Sam Andrew of the Holding Company to take part in development, along with the Kozmic Blues Band. Joplin installed a brass and horn section into the tracks, a feature her previous band would not allow. It was a total contrast to Joplin's previous psychedelic rock as the compositions chosen were more soul and blues driven. All but two tracks were cover versions that producer Gabriel Mekler and Joplin chose. The other two tracks, \"One Good Man\" and \"Kozmic Blues\", were written by Joplin herself. Overall, the album was a more polished work, but with the lack of prominent accompanists like the Holding Company, the album was not as successful as Cheap Thrills.\n\nRelease\nThe LP was released on September 11, 1969 and reached gold record status within two months of its release. It was issued by Columbia under #KCS 9913. The first pressing was titled only on the spine and disc labels. Later, the title of the album was added as a sticker designed by Robert Crumb and stuck to the shrink wrap. The album was re-released by Columbia as WKPC 9913 and again as PC 9913 both on vinyl. The re-issued album did not have the same title sticker, instead the re-issues had the title printed on the cover and the Sony's \"Nice Price\" sticker on the shrink wrap. Some of the newer PC 9913 have a bar code. A 180 Gram Limited Edition classic LP high-definition Virgin Heavy Vinyl pressing was also released in 2010. Technically, this album was reissued on vinyl a total of six times. Many collectors are mistaken in thinking the issue that included the R. Crumb sticker was the original issue; it was not. The hard-to-find original sealed issue is KCS 9913, which had no R. Crumb sticker, and the title was only on the spine of the cover. Columbia Records released as a single Kozmic Blues b/w Little Girl Blue 4-45023. The single peaked at #41 on the US Billboard charts.\n\nI Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama! also contains the hits \"Try (Just A Little Bit Harder)\", \"Kozmic Blues\" and \"To Love Somebody\". The 1999 CD reissue of the album includes the outtake cover of Bob Dylan's \"Dear Landlord\", with new lyrics and arrangements provided by Joplin, and versions of \"Summertime\" and \"Piece of My Heart\" recorded live at Woodstock as bonus tracks.\n\nReception\nJohn Burks of Rolling Stone wrote in a November 1, 1969 interview praising Joplin's vocal performance. However, he notes that her vocals are hindered by her backup band's instrumental role in the album. Overall, Burks was satisfied with Joplin's change in musical direction, but recommends \"reaching the point where you are able to shut out the band\".\n\nAccording to Richie Unterberger, the album was poorly reviewed on its initial release, due in part to its shift towards soul/R&B and away from the hard rock/psychedelic sound that brought her to fame with Big Brother and the Holding Company. Over the decades, Unterberger notes that opinions of the album have warmed somewhat and that taken on its own merits the album has its strengths, but he nonetheless describes it as a \"flawed\" effort due in part to the backing musicians sounding \"a little stiff\".\n\nTrack listing\n\nPersonnel\nJanis Joplin - lead vocals, guitar\nSam Andrew - guitar, vocals\nMichael Monarch - guitar (uncredited)\nMike Bloomfield - guitar on \"Maybe\", \"One Good Man\", \"To Love Somebody\" and \"Work Me, Lord\"\nBrad Campbell - bass guitar, brass instrumentation\nRichard Kermode - electronic organ, keyboards\nGabriel Mekler - electronic organ, keyboards\nGoldy McJohn - electronic organ, keyboards (uncredited)\nMaury Baker - drums\nLonnie Castille - drums\nJerry Edmonton - drums (uncredited)\nTerry Clements - tenor saxophone\nCornelius \"Snooky\" Flowers - baritone saxophone, backing vocals\nLuis Gasca - trumpet\nTechnical\nAlex Kazanegras, Jerry Hochman, Sy Mitchell - engineer\nRobert Crumb - artwork, cover lettering\nBruce Steinberg - cover photograph\n\nSales and certifications\n\nReferences\n\nJanis Joplin albums\n1969 debut albums\nAlbums produced by Gabriel Mekler\nColumbia Records albums",
"Janis is a compilation album by Janis Joplin, released in 1993. The album features a broad overview of her career from her very first recording in December 1962, to the last songs she recorded during the sessions for Pearl just a few days before her death in October 1970.\n\nCritical reception \n\nJanis was voted the seventh best reissue of 1993 in The Village Voices annual Pazz & Jop critics poll; Robert Christgau—the poll's supervisor—called it \"a smart, audiowise set that not only gets Joplin's achievement right but helps us understand it\".\n\nTrack listing\n\nDisc one\n \"What Good Can Drinkin' Do\" – 2:45 (recorded in 1962, previously unreleased; a different version was released on Janis [1975 album])\n \"Trouble in Mind\" – 3:03 (recorded in 1965, previously unreleased; a different version was released on Janis [1975 album])\n \"Hesitation Blues\" – 4:05 (recorded in 1965, previously unreleased)\n \"Easy Rider\" – 2:24 (Big Brother & the Holding Company, 1967)\n \"Coo Coo\" – 2:05 (Big Brother & the Holding Company, 1967)\n \"Down on Me\" – 2:06 (Big Brother & the Holding Company, 1967)\n \"The Last Time\" – 2:17 (Big Brother & the Holding Company, 1967)\n \"All Is Loneliness\" – 2:19 (Big Brother & the Holding Company, 1967)\n \"Call on Me\" – 3:37 (live, recorded in 1967, previously unreleased, original version released on Big Brother & the Holding Company)\n \"Women Is Losers\" – 5:08 (live, recorded in 1967, previously unreleased, original version released on Big Brother & the Holding Company)\n \"Intruder\" – 2:32 (Big Brother & the Holding Company, 1967)\n \"Light Is Faster than Sound\" – 2:32 (Big Brother & the Holding Company, 1967)\n \"Bye, Bye Baby\" – 2:39 (Big Brother & the Holding Company, 1967)\n \"Farewell Song\" – 4:24 (previously unreleased, from the Cheap Thrills sessions)\n \"Flower in the Sun\" – 3:13 (In Concert, 1972)\n \"Misery'n\" – 4:09 (previously unissued alternate take, from the Cheap Thrills sessions)\n \"Road Block\" – 6:12 (live, previously unreleased, from the Monterey Pop Festival, 1967)\n \"Ball and Chain\" – 8:07 (live, previously unreleased, from the Monterey Pop Festival, 1967)\n\nDisc two\n \"Combination of the Two\" – 5:52 (Cheap Thrills, 1968)\n \"I Need a Man to Love\" – 4:53 (Cheap Thrills, 1968)\n \"Piece of My Heart\" – 4:28 (Cheap Thrills, 1968)\n \"Turtle Blues\" – 4:30 (Cheap Thrills, 1968)\n \"Oh, Sweet Mary\" – 4:16 (Cheap Thrills, 1968)\n \"Catch Me Daddy\" – 4:56 (previously unreleased, from the Cheap Thrills sessions)\n \"Summertime\" – 4:07 (previously unreleased alternate take, from the Cheap Thrills sessions)\n \"Kozmic Blues\" – 4:24 (I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama!, 1969)\n \"Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)\" – 3:58 (I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama!, 1969)\n \"One Good Man\" – 4:11 (I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama!, 1969)\n \"Dear Landlord\" – 2:33 (previously unreleased, from the I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama! sessions)\n \"To Love Somebody\" – 5:19 (I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama!, 1969)\n \"As Good as You've Been to This World\" – 5:27 (I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama!, 1969)\n \"Little Girl Blue\" – 3:51 (I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama!, 1969)\n \"Work Me, Lord\" – 6:38 (I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama!, 1969)\n \"Raise Your Hand\" – 2:17 (live, from The Ed Sullivan Show, 1969)\n \"Maybe\" – 4:07 (live, from The Ed Sullivan Show, 1969)\n\nDisc three\n \"Me and Bobby McGee\" – 4:49 (alternate version)\n \"One Night Stand\" – 3:10 (alternate take)\n \"Tell Mama\" – 5:48 (live, from Farewell Song, 1982)\n \"Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)\" – 8:16 (live, from In Concert, 1972)\n \"Cry Baby\" – 4:59 (previously unreleased, from the Pearl sessions)\n \"Move Over\" – 3:42 (Pearl, 1970)\n \"A Woman Left Lonely\" – 3:29 (Pearl, 1970)\n \"Half Moon\" – 3:53 (Pearl, 1970)\n \"Happy Birthday, John (Happy Trails)\" – 1:10 (previously unreleased, recorded for John Lennon)\n \"My Baby\" – 3:45 (Pearl, 1970)\n \"Mercedes Benz\" – 2:14 (Pearl, 1970, includes a previously-unissued longer spoken intro)\n \"Trust Me\" – 3:17 (Pearl, 1970)\n \"Get It While You Can\" – 3:25 (Pearl, 1970)\n \"Me and Bobby McGee\" – 4:29 (Pearl, 1970)\n\nCertifications\n\nReferences\n\n1993 compilation albums\nJanis Joplin compilation albums\nColumbia Records compilation albums"
] |
[
"Janis Joplin",
"Kozmic Blues Band",
"Was Janis Joplin part of the Kozmic Blues Band?",
"Joplin formed a new backup group, the Kozmic Blues Band,",
"Did she tour with the Kozmic Blues Band?",
"I don't know.",
"Were there any well known artists that were part of the Kozmic Blues Band?",
"composed of session musicians like keyboardist Stephen Ryder and saxophonist Cornelius \"Snooky\" Flowers,",
"Did the Komic Blues Band release any albums?",
"I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama!.",
"Did the Kozmic Blues Band ever appear on TV?",
"On one episode of The Dick Cavett Show, they performed \"Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)\" as well as \"To Love Somebody\"."
] |
C_e67a6494e12f48e39fceae5d4a32ef7a_0
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Did the band and Janis Joplin ever travel?
| 6 |
Did the Kozmic Blues Band and Janis Joplin ever travel?
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Janis Joplin
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After splitting from Big Brother and the Holding Company, Joplin formed a new backup group, the Kozmic Blues Band, composed of session musicians like keyboardist Stephen Ryder and saxophonist Cornelius "Snooky" Flowers, as well as former Big Brother and the Holding Company guitarist Sam Andrew and future Full Tilt Boogie Band bassist Brad Campbell. The band was influenced by the Stax-Volt rhythm and blues (R&B) and soul bands of the 1960s, as exemplified by Otis Redding and the Bar-Kays. The Stax-Volt R&B sound was typified by the use of horns and had a funky, pop-oriented sound in contrast to many of the psychedelic/hard rock bands of the period. By early 1969, Joplin was allegedly shooting at least $200 worth of heroin per day (equivalent to $1300 in 2016 dollars) although efforts were made to keep her clean during the recording of I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama!. Gabriel Mekler, who produced Kozmic Blues, told publicist-turned-biographer Myra Friedman after Joplin's death that the singer had lived in his house during the June 1969 recording sessions at his insistence so he could keep her away from drugs and her drug-using friends. Joplin's appearances with the Kozmic Blues Band in Europe were released in cinemas, in multiple documentaries. Janis, which was reviewed by the Washington Post on March 21, 1975, shows Joplin arriving in Frankfurt by plane and waiting inside a bus next to the Frankfurt venue, while an American fan who is visiting Germany expresses enthusiasm to the camera (no security was used in Frankfurt, so by the end of the concert, the stage was so packed with people the band members could not see each other). Janis also includes interviews with Joplin in Stockholm and from her visit to London, for her gig at Royal Albert Hall. On one episode of The Dick Cavett Show, they performed "Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)" as well as "To Love Somebody". As Dick Cavett interviewed Joplin, she admitted that she had a terrible time touring in Europe, claiming that audiences there are very uptight and don't "get down". CANNOTANSWER
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Joplin's appearances with the Kozmic Blues Band in Europe
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Janis Joplin (January 19, 1943 – October 4, 1970) was an American singer-songwriter who sang rock, soul, and blues music. One of the most successful and widely known rock stars of her era, she was noted for her powerful mezzo-soprano vocals and "electric" stage presence.
In 1967, Joplin rose to fame following an appearance at Monterey Pop Festival, where she was the lead singer of the then little-known San Francisco psychedelic rock band Big Brother and the Holding Company. After releasing two albums with the band, she left Big Brother to continue as a solo artist with her own backing groups, first the Kozmic Blues Band and then the Full Tilt Boogie Band. She appeared at the Woodstock festival and on the Festival Express train tour. Five singles by Joplin reached the Billboard Hot 100, including a cover of the Kris Kristofferson song "Me and Bobby McGee", which reached number one in March 1971. Her most popular songs include her cover versions of "Piece of My Heart", "Cry Baby", "Down on Me", "Ball and Chain", and "Summertime"; and her original song "Mercedes Benz", her final recording.
Joplin died of a heroin overdose in 1970, at the age of 27, after releasing three albums (two with Big Brother and the Holding Company and one solo album). A second solo album, Pearl, was released in January 1971, just over three months after her death. It reached number one on the Billboard charts. She was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995. Rolling Stone ranked Joplin number 46 on its 2004 list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time and number 28 on its 2008 list of 100 Greatest Singers of All Time. She remains one of the top-selling musicians in the United States, with Recording Industry Association of America certifications of 18.5 million albums sold.
Early life
Janis Joplin was born in Port Arthur, Texas, on , to Dorothy Bonita East (1913–1998), a registrar at a business college, and her husband, Seth Ward Joplin (1910–1987), an engineer at Texaco. She had two younger siblings, Michael and Laura. The family attended First Christian Church of Port Arthur, a church belonging to the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) denomination.
Her parents felt that Janis needed more attention than their other children. As a teenager, Joplin befriended a group of outcasts, one of whom had albums by blues artists Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, and Lead Belly, which Joplin later credited with influencing her decision to become a singer. She began singing blues and folk music with friends at Thomas Jefferson High School. In high school, she was a classmate of Pro Football Hall of Fame coach Jimmy Johnson.
Joplin stated that she was ostracized and bullied in high school. As a teen, she became overweight and suffered from acne, leaving her with deep scars that required dermabrasion. Other kids at high school would routinely taunt her and call her names like "pig," "freak," "nigger lover," or "creep." She stated, "I was a misfit. I read, I painted, I thought. I didn't hate niggers."
Joplin graduated from high school in 1960 and attended Lamar State College of Technology in Beaumont, Texas, during the summer and later the University of Texas at Austin (UT), though she did not complete her college studies. The campus newspaper, The Daily Texan, ran a profile of her in the issue dated July 27, 1962, headlined "She Dares to Be Different." The article began, "She goes barefooted when she feels like it, wears Levi's to class because they're more comfortable, and carries her autoharp with her everywhere she goes so that in case she gets the urge to break into song, it will be handy. Her name is Janis Joplin." While at UT she performed with a folk trio called the Waller Creek Boys and frequently socialized with the staff of the campus humor magazine The Texas Ranger. According to Freak Brothers cartoonist Gilbert Shelton, who befriended her, she used to sell The Texas Ranger, which contained some of Shelton's early comic books, on the campus.
Career
1962–1965: Early recordings
Joplin cultivated a rebellious manner and styled herself partly after her female blues heroines and partly after the Beat poets. Her first song, "What Good Can Drinkin' Do", was recorded on tape in December 1962 at the home of a fellow University of Texas student.
She left Texas in January 1963 ("Just to get away," she said, "because my head was in a much different place"), hitchhiking with her friend Chet Helms to North Beach, San Francisco. Still in San Francisco in 1964, Joplin and future Jefferson Airplane guitarist Jorma Kaukonen recorded a number of blues standards, which incidentally featured Kaukonen's wife Margareta using a typewriter in the background. This session included seven tracks: "Typewriter Talk", "Trouble in Mind", "Kansas City Blues", "Hesitation Blues", "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out", "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy", and "Long Black Train Blues", and was released long after Joplin's death as the bootleg album The Typewriter Tape.
In 1963, Joplin was arrested in San Francisco for shoplifting. During the two years that followed, her drug use increased and she acquired a reputation as a "speed freak" and occasional heroin user. She also used other psychoactive drugs and was a heavy drinker throughout her career; her favorite alcoholic beverage was Southern Comfort.
In May 1965, Joplin's friends in San Francisco, noticing the detrimental effects on her from regularly injecting methamphetamine (she was described as "skeletal" and "emaciated"), persuaded her to return to Port Arthur. During that month, her friends threw her a bus-fare party so she could return to her parents in Texas. Five years later, Joplin told Rolling Stone magazine writer David Dalton the following about her first stint in San Francisco: "I didn't have many friends and I didn't like the ones I had."
Back in Port Arthur in the spring of 1965, after Joplin's parents noticed her weight of , she changed her lifestyle. She avoided drugs and alcohol, adopted a beehive hairdo, and enrolled as an anthropology major at Lamar University in nearby Beaumont, Texas. Her sister Laura said in a 2016 interview that social work was her major during her year at Lamar. During her time at Lamar University, she commuted to Austin to sing solo, accompanying herself on acoustic guitar. One of her performances was at a benefit by local musicians for Texas bluesman Mance Lipscomb, who was suffering with ill health.
Joplin became engaged to Peter de Blanc in the fall of 1965. She had begun a relationship with him toward the end of her first stint in San Francisco. Now living in New York where he worked with IBM computers, he visited her to ask her father for her hand in marriage. Joplin and her mother began planning the wedding. De Blanc, who traveled frequently, ended the engagement soon afterward.
In 1965 and 1966, Joplin commuted from her family's Port Arthur home to Beaumont, Texas, where she had regular sessions with a psychiatric social worker named Bernard Giarritano at a counseling agency that was funded by the United Fund, which after her death changed its name to the United Way. Interviewed by biographer Myra Friedman after his client's death, Giarritano said Joplin had been baffled by how she could pursue a professional career as a singer without relapsing into drugs, and her drug-related memories from immediately prior to returning to Port Arthur continued to frighten her. Joplin sometimes brought an acoustic guitar with her to her sessions with Giarritano, and people in other offices within the building could hear her singing.
Giarritano tried to reassure her that she did not have to use narcotics in order to succeed in the music business. She also said that if she were to avoid singing professionally, she would have to become a keypunch operator (as she had done a few years earlier) or a secretary, and then a wife and mother, and she would have to become very similar to all the other women in Port Arthur.
Approximately a year before Joplin joined Big Brother and the Holding Company, she recorded seven studio tracks with her acoustic guitar. Among the songs she recorded were her original composition of the song "Turtle Blues" and an alternate version of "Cod'ine" by Buffy Sainte-Marie. These tracks were later issued as a new album in 1995, titled This is Janis Joplin 1965 by James Gurley.
1966–1969: Various bands
In 1966, Joplin's bluesy vocal style attracted the attention of the San Francisco-based psychedelic rock band Big Brother and the Holding Company, which had gained some renown among the nascent hippie community in Haight-Ashbury. She was recruited to join the group by Chet Helms, a promoter who was managing Big Brother and with whom she had hitchhiked from Texas to San Francisco a few years earlier. Helms sent his friend Travis Rivers to find her in Austin, Texas, where she had been performing with her acoustic guitar, and to accompany her to San Francisco.
Aware of her previous nightmare with drug addiction in San Francisco, Rivers insisted that she inform her parents face-to-face of her plans, and he drove her from Austin to Port Arthur (he waited in his car while she talked with her startled parents) before they began their long drive to San Francisco. Joplin joined Big Brother on June 4, 1966. Her first public performance with them was at the Avalon Ballroom in San Francisco.
In June, Joplin was photographed at an outdoor concert in San Francisco that celebrated the summer solstice. The image, which was later published in two books by David Dalton, shows her before she relapsed into drugs. Due to persistent persuading by keyboardist and close friend Stephen Ryder, Joplin avoided drugs for several weeks. She made Travis Rivers, with whom she shared an apartment upon their arrival in San Francisco, promise that using needles would not be allowed there. When bandmate Dave Getz accompanied her from a rehearsal to her home, Rivers was not there, but "two or three" (according to Getz' recollection 25 years later) guests whom Rivers had invited were in the process of injecting drugs. "One of them was about to tie off," recalled Getz. "Janis went nuts! I had never seen anybody explode like that. She was screaming and crying and Travis walked in. She screamed at him: 'We had a pact! You promised me! There wouldn't be any of that in front of me!' I was over my head and I tried to calm her down. I said, 'They're just doing mescaline,' because that's what I thought it was. She said, 'You don't understand! I can't see that! I just can't stand to see that!'"
A San Francisco concert from that summer (1966) was recorded and released on the 1984 album Cheaper Thrills. In July, all five bandmates and guitarist James Gurley's wife Nancy moved to a house in Lagunitas, California, where they lived communally. The band often partied with the Grateful Dead, the members of whom lived less than two miles away. She had a short relationship and longer friendship with founding member Ron "Pigpen" McKernan.
The band went to Chicago for a four-week engagement in August 1966, then found itself stranded after the promoter ran out of money when its concerts did not attract the expected audience levels, and he was unable to pay them. In the circumstances the band signed with Bob Shad's record label Mainstream Records; recordings for the label took place in Chicago in September, but these were not satisfactory, and the band returned to San Francisco, continuing to perform live, including at the Love Pageant Rally. The band recorded two tracks, "Blindman" and "All Is Loneliness", in Los Angeles, and these were released by Mainstream as a single that did not sell well. After playing at a happening in Stanford in early December 1966, the band traveled back to Los Angeles to record ten tracks between December 12 and 14, 1966, produced by Bob Shad, which appeared on the band's debut album in August 1967.
In late 1966, Big Brother switched managers from Chet Helms to Julius Karpen.
One of Joplin's earliest major performances in 1967 was at the Mantra-Rock Dance, a musical event held on January 29 at the Avalon Ballroom by the San Francisco Hare Krishna temple. Janis Joplin and Big Brother performed there along with the Hare Krishna founder Bhaktivedanta Swami, Allen Ginsberg, Moby Grape, and the Grateful Dead, donating proceeds to the Krishna temple. In early 1967, Joplin met Country Joe McDonald of the group Country Joe and the Fish. The pair lived together as a couple for a few months. Joplin and Big Brother began playing clubs in San Francisco, at the Fillmore West, Winterland, and the Avalon Ballroom. They also played at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, as well as in Seattle, Washington; Vancouver, British Columbia; the Psychedelic Supermarket in Boston, Massachusetts; and the Golden Bear Club in Huntington Beach, California.
The band's debut studio album, Big Brother & the Holding Company, was released by Mainstream Records in August 1967, shortly after the group's breakthrough appearance in June at the Monterey Pop Festival. Two tracks, "Coo Coo" and "The Last Time," were released separately as singles, while the tracks from the previous single, "Blindman" and "All Is Loneliness", were added to the remaining eight tracks. When Columbia Records took over the band's contract and re-released the album, they included "Coo Coo" and "The Last Time", and put "featuring Janis Joplin" on the cover. The debut album spawned four minor hits with the singles "Down on Me", a traditional song arranged by Joplin, "Bye Bye Baby", "Call On Me" and "Coo Coo", on all of which Joplin sang lead vocals.
Two songs from the second of Big Brother's two sets at Monterey, which they played on Sunday, were filmed (their first set, which was on Saturday, was not filmed, though it was audio-recorded). Some sources, including a Joplin biography by Ellis Amburn, claim that she was dressed in thrift store hippie clothes or second-hand Victorian clothes during the band's Saturday set, but still photographs do not appear to have survived. Digitized color film of two songs in the Sunday set, "Combination of the Two" and a version of Big Mama Thornton's "Ball and Chain," appear in the DVD and Blu-ray boxed set of D. A. Pennebaker's documentary Monterey Pop released by The Criterion Collection. She is seen wearing an expensive gold tunic dress with matching pants. They were created for her by San Francisco clothing designer Colin Rose.
Documentary filmmaker Pennebaker inserted two cutaway shots of Cass Elliot of the Mamas & the Papas seated in the audience during Joplin's performance of "Ball and Chain", one in the middle of the song as her eyes, covered by sunglasses, are fixed on Joplin, and also a shot during the applause as she silently mouths "Oh, wow!" and looks at the person seated next to her. Elliot and the audience are seen in sunlight, but Sunday's Big Brother performance was filmed in the evening. An explanation came from Big Brother's road manager John Byrne Cooke, who remembers that Pennebaker discreetly filmed the audience (including Elliot) during Big Brother's Saturday performance when he was not allowed to point a camera at the band.
The prohibition of Pennebaker from filming on Saturday afternoon came from Big Brother's manager Julius Karpen. The band had a bitter argument with Karpen and overruled him as they prepared for their second set that the festival organizers had added on the spur of the moment. Backstage at the festival, the band became acquainted with New York-based talent manager Albert Grossman but did not sign with him until several months later, firing Karpen at that time.
Only "Ball and Chain" was included in the Monterey Pop film that was released to theaters throughout the United States in 1969 and shown on television in the 1970s. Those who did not attend the Monterey Pop Festival saw the band's performance of "Combination of the Two" for the first time in 2002 when The Criterion Collection released the boxed set.
For the remainder of 1967, even after Big Brother signed with Albert Grossman, the band performed mainly in California. On February 16, 1968, the group began its first East Coast tour in Philadelphia, and the following day gave their first performance in New York City at the Anderson Theater. On April 7, 1968—three days after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and the last day of their East Coast tour—Joplin and Big Brother performed with Jimi Hendrix, Buddy Guy, Joni Mitchell, Richie Havens, Paul Butterfield, and Elvin Bishop at the Wake for Martin Luther King Jr. concert in New York.
Live at Winterland '68, recorded at the Winterland Ballroom on April 12 and 13, 1968, features Joplin and Big Brother and the Holding Company at the height of their mutual career working through a selection of tracks from their albums. A recording became available to the public for the first time in 1998 when Columbia/Sony Music Entertainment released the compact disc. One month after the Winterland concert, Owsley Stanley recorded them at the Carousel Ballroom, released in 2012 as Live at the Carousel Ballroom 1968.
On July 31, 1968, Joplin made her first nationwide television appearance when the band performed on This Morning, an ABC daytime 90-minute variety show that was hosted by Dick Cavett. Shortly thereafter, network employees wiped the videotape, though the audio survives. (In 1969 and 1970, Joplin made three appearances on Cavett's prime-time program. Video was preserved and excerpts have been included in most documentaries about Joplin. Audio of her 1968 appearance has not been used since then.)
Sometime in 1968, the band's billing was changed to "Janis Joplin and Big Brother and the Holding Company," and the media coverage given to Joplin generated resentment within the band. The other members of Big Brother thought that Joplin was on a "star trip", while others were telling Joplin that Big Brother was a terrible band and that she ought to dump them. Time magazine called Joplin "probably the most powerful singer to emerge from the white rock movement", and Richard Goldstein wrote for the May 1968 issue of Vogue magazine that Joplin was "the most staggering leading woman in rock...she slinks like tar, scowls like war...clutching the knees of a final stanza, begging it not to leave.... Janis Joplin can sing the chic off any listener."
For her first major studio recording, Joplin played a major role in the arrangement and production of the songs that would comprise Big Brother and the Holding Company's second album, Cheap Thrills. Producer John Simon tried recording the band in concert, to capture their energy in a live album, but several attempts showed the band was prone to mistakes. Their imprecision was not helped by moving the sessions to a recording studio. Joplin sang take after take of the same song, with her performances consistently good, and she grew frustrated with the band's sloppiness. Simon was replaced by Elliot Mazer who fixed the songs by overdubbing certain parts. The album featured a cover design by counterculture cartoonist Robert Crumb.
Although Cheap Thrills sounded as if it consisted of concert recordings, like on "Combination of the Two" and "I Need a Man to Love", only "Ball and Chain" was actually recorded in front of a paying audience; the rest of the tracks were studio recordings. The album had a raw quality, including the sound of a drinking glass breaking and the broken shards being swept away during the song "Turtle Blues". Cheap Thrills produced very popular hits with "Piece of My Heart" and "Summertime". Together with the premiere of the documentary film Monterey Pop at New York's Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts on December 26, 1968, the album launched Joplin as a star. Cheap Thrills reached number one on the Billboard 200 album chart eight weeks after its release, and was number one for eight (nonconsecutive) weeks. The album was certified gold at release and sold over a million copies in the first month of its release. The lead single from the album, "Piece of My Heart", reached number 12 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the fall of 1968.
The band made another East Coast tour during July–August 1968, performing at the Columbia Records convention in Puerto Rico and the Newport Folk Festival. After returning to San Francisco for two hometown shows at the Palace of Fine Arts Festival on August 31 and September 1, Joplin announced that she would be leaving Big Brother. On September 14, 1968, culminating a three-night engagement together at Fillmore West, fans thronged to a concert that Bill Graham publicized as the last official concert of Janis Joplin with Big Brother and the Holding Company. The opening acts on this night were Chicago (then still called Chicago Transit Authority) and Santana.
Despite Graham's announcement that the Fillmore West gig was Big Brother's last concert with Joplin, the band—with Joplin still as lead vocalist—toured the U.S. that fall. Reflecting Joplin's crossover appeal, two October 1968 performances at a roller rink in Alexandria, Virginia, were reviewed by John Segraves of the conservative Washington Evening Star at a time when the Washington metropolitan area's hard rock scene was in its infancy. An opera buff at the time, he wrote:
Later that month (October 1968), Big Brother performed at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and played at the Syracuse War Memorial as part of Syracuse University's Fall Homecoming on October 11, with Janis joining openers the Butterfield Blues Band for their closing song. Aside from two 1970 reunions, Joplin's last performance with Big Brother was at a Chet Helms benefit in San Francisco on December 1, 1968.
1969–1970: Solo career
After splitting from Big Brother and the Holding Company, Joplin formed a new backup group, the Kozmic Blues Band, composed of session musicians like keyboardist Stephen Ryder and saxophonist Cornelius "Snooky" Flowers, as well as former Big Brother and the Holding Company guitarist Sam Andrew and future Full Tilt Boogie Band bassist Brad Campbell. The band was influenced by the Stax-Volt rhythm and blues (R&B) and soul bands of the 1960s, as exemplified by Otis Redding and the Bar-Kays. The Stax-Volt R&B sound was typified by the use of horns and had a funky, pop-oriented sound in contrast to many of the psychedelic/hard rock bands of the period.
By early 1969, Joplin was allegedly shooting at least $200 worth of heroin per day (equivalent to $1300 in 2016 dollars) although efforts were made to keep her clean during the recording of I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama! Gabriel Mekler, who produced the album, told publicist-turned-biographer Myra Friedman after Joplin's death that she had lived in his Los Angeles house during the June 1969 recording sessions at his insistence so he could keep her away from drugs and her drug-using friends.
Joplin's appearances with the Kozmic Blues Band in Europe were released in theaters, in multiple documentaries. Janis, which was reviewed by the Washington Post on March 21, 1975, shows Joplin arriving in Frankfurt by plane and waiting inside a bus next to the Frankfurt venue, while an American female fan who is visiting Germany expresses enthusiasm to the camera (no security was used in Frankfurt, so by the end of the concert, the stage was so packed with people the band members could not see each other). Janis also includes interviews with Joplin in Stockholm and from her visit to London, for her gig at Royal Albert Hall. The London interview was dubbed with a voiceover in the German language for broadcast on German television. John Byrne Cooke, road manager for Joplin and the Kozmic Blues Band, wrote a book published in 2014 in which he discussed her knowledge of the risks of her ongoing use of narcotics, particularly when she was outside the United States.
On the episode of The Dick Cavett Show that was telecast in the United States on the night of July 18, 1969, Joplin and her band performed "Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)" as well as "To Love Somebody". As Dick Cavett interviewed Joplin, she admitted that she had a terrible time touring in Europe, claiming that audiences there are very uptight and don't "get down".
Released in September 1969, the Kozmic Blues album was certified gold later that year but did not match the success of Cheap Thrills. Reviews of the new group were mixed. However, the album's recording quality and engineering, as well as the musicianship (including three performances by former Bob Dylan/Paul Butterfield/Electric Flag guitarist Mike Bloomfield), were considered superior to her previous releases, and some music critics argued that the band was working in a much more constructive way to support Joplin's sensational vocal talents.
Joplin wanted a horn section similar to that featured by the Chicago Transit Authority; her voice had the dynamic qualities and range not to be overpowered by the brighter horn sound.
Some music critics, however, including Ralph J. Gleason of the San Francisco Chronicle, were negative. Gleason wrote that the new band was a "drag" and Joplin should "scrap" her new band and "go right back to being a member of Big Brother ... (if they'll have her)."
Other reviewers, such as reporter Carl Bernstein of the Washington Post, devoted entire articles to celebrating the singer's magic. Bernstein's review said that Joplin "has finally assembled a group of first-rate musicians with whom she is totally at ease and whose abilities complement the incredible range of her voice."
Columbia Records released "Kozmic Blues" as a single, which peaked at number 41 on the Billboard Hot 100, and a live rendition of "Raise Your Hand" was released in Germany and became a top ten hit there. Containing other hits like "Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)", "To Love Somebody", and "Little Girl Blue", I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama! reached number five on the Billboard 200 soon after its release.
Joplin appeared at Woodstock starting at approximately 2:00 a.m., on Sunday, August 17, 1969. Joplin informed her band that they would be performing at the concert as if it were just another gig. On Saturday afternoon, when she and the band were flown by helicopter with the pregnant Joan Baez and Baez's mother from a nearby motel to the festival site and Joplin saw the enormous crowd, she instantly became extremely nervous and giddy. Upon landing and getting off the helicopter, Joplin was approached by reporters asking her questions. She referred them to her friend and sometime lover Peggy Caserta as she was too excited to speak. Initially, Joplin was eager to get on the stage and perform but was repeatedly delayed as bands were contractually obliged to perform ahead of Joplin. Faced with a ten-hour wait after arriving at the backstage area, Joplin spent some of that time shooting heroin and drinking alcohol with Caserta in a tent. The director's cut of the Woodstock movie shows Joplin and Jefferson Airplane singer Grace Slick standing together near amplifiers watching the band Canned Heat's performance, which started at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, and Caserta does not appear within camera range. When Joplin finally reached the stage at approximately 2:00 a.m. Sunday, she was "three sheets to the wind", according to biographer Alice Echols. During her performance, Joplin's voice became slightly hoarse and wheezy, and she struggled to dance.
Joplin pulled through, however, and engaged frequently with the crowd, asking them if they had everything they needed and if they were staying stoned. The audience cheered for an encore, to which Joplin replied and sang "Ball and Chain". Pete Townshend, who performed with the Who later in the same morning after Joplin finished, witnessed her performance and said the following in his 2012 memoir: "She had been amazing at Monterey, but tonight she wasn't at her best, due, probably, to the long delay, and probably, too, to the amount of booze and heroin she'd consumed while she waited. But even Janis on an off-night was incredible."
Janis remained at Woodstock for the remainder of the festival. Starting at approximately 3:00 a.m. on Monday, August 18, Joplin was among many Woodstock performers who stood in a circle behind Crosby, Stills & Nash during their performance, which was the first time anyone at Woodstock ever had heard the group perform. This information was published by David Crosby in 1988. Later in the morning of August 18, Joplin and Joan Baez sat in Joe Cocker's van and witnessed Hendrix's close-of-show performance, according to Baez's memoir And a Voice to Sing With (1989).
Still photographs in color show Joplin backstage with Grace Slick the day after Joplin's performance, wherein Joplin appears to be very happy. She was ultimately unhappy with her performance, however, and blamed Caserta. Her singing was not included (by her own insistence) in the 1970 documentary film or the soundtrack for Woodstock: Music from the Original Soundtrack and More, although the 25th anniversary director's cut of Woodstock includes her performance of "Work Me, Lord". The documentary film of the festival that was released in theaters during 1970 includes, on the left side of a split screen, 37 seconds of footage of Joplin and Caserta walking toward Joplin's dressing room tent.
In addition to Woodstock, Joplin also had problems at Madison Square Garden, in 1969. Biographer Myra Friedman said she had witnessed a duet Joplin sang with Tina Turner during the Rolling Stones concert at the Garden on Thanksgiving Day. Friedman said Joplin was "so drunk, so stoned, so out of control, that she could have been an institutionalized psychotic rent by mania." During another Garden concert where she had solo billing on December 19, some observers believed Joplin tried to incite the audience to riot. For part of this concert she was joined onstage by Johnny Winter and Paul Butterfield.
Joplin told rock journalist David Dalton that Garden audiences watched and listened to "every note [she sang] with 'Is she gonna make it?' in their eyes." In her interview with Dalton she added that she felt most comfortable performing at small, cheap venues in San Francisco that were associated with the counterculture.
At the time of the June 1970 interview with Dalton, she had already performed in the Bay Area for what turned out to be the last time. Sam Andrew, the lead guitarist who had left Big Brother with Joplin in December 1968 to form her back-up band, quit in late summer 1969 and returned to Big Brother. At the end of the year, the Kozmic Blues Band broke up. Their final gig with Joplin was the one at Madison Square Garden with Winter and Butterfield.
In February 1970, Joplin traveled to Brazil, where she stopped her drug and alcohol use. She was accompanied on vacation there by her friend Linda Gravenites (wife of songwriter Nick Gravenites), who had designed Janis's stage costumes from 1967 to 1969.
In Brazil, Joplin was romanced by a fellow American tourist named David (George) Niehaus, who was traveling around the world. A Joplin biography written by her sister Laura said, "David was an upper-middle-class Cincinnati kid who had studied communications at Notre Dame. ... [and] had joined the Peace Corps after college and worked in a small village in Turkey. ... He tried law school, but when he met Janis he was taking time off."
Niehaus and Joplin were photographed by the press at Rio Carnival in Rio de Janeiro. Gravenites also took color photographs of the two during their Brazilian vacation. According to Joplin biographer Ellis Amburn, in Gravenites' snapshots they "look like a carefree, happy, healthy young couple having a tremendously good time."
Rolling Stone magazine interviewed Joplin during an international phone call, quoting her: "I'm going into the jungle with a big bear of a beatnik named David Niehaus. I finally remembered I don't have to be on stage twelve months a year. I've decided to go and dig some other jungles for a couple of weeks." Amburn added in 1992, "Janis was trying to kick heroin in Brazil, and one of the nicest things about David was that he wasn't into drugs."
When Joplin returned to the U.S., she began using heroin again. Her relationship with Niehaus soon ended because he witnessed her shooting drugs at her new home in Larkspur, California. The relationship was also complicated by her ongoing romantic relationship with Peggy Caserta, who also was an intravenous addict, and Joplin's refusal to take some time off and travel the world with him.
Around this time, she formed her new band, known for a short time as Main Squeeze, then renamed the Full Tilt Boogie Band. The band comprised mostly young Canadian musicians previously associated with Ronnie Hawkins and featured an organ, but no horn section. Joplin took a more active role in putting together the Full Tilt Boogie band than she had with her prior group. She was quoted as saying, "It's my band. Finally it's my band!" In May 1970, after performing under the name Main Squeeze at a Hell's Angels event, the renamed Full Tilt Boogie Band began a nationwide tour. Joplin became very happy with her new group, which eventually received mostly positive feedback from both her fans and the critics.
Prior to beginning a summer tour with Full Tilt Boogie, she performed in a reunion with Big Brother at the Fillmore West, in San Francisco, on April 4, 1970. Recordings from this concert were included in an in-concert album released posthumously in 1972. She again appeared with Big Brother on April 12 at Winterland, where she and Big Brother were reported to be in excellent form. She performed with the band, billed as Main Squeeze, at a party for the Hells Angels at a venue in San Rafael, California on May 21, 1970, according to a web site maintained by Big Brother guitarist Sam Andrew. Andrew's web site quotes him as saying, "This will be the first time that Janis' old band and her new band will be at the same venue, so everyone is a little on edge."
According to Joplin's biographer Ellis Amburn, Big Brother with its lead singer Nick Gravenites was the opening act at the party that was attended by 2,300 people. The Hells Angels, who had known Joplin since 1966, paid her a fee of 240 dollars to perform. Gravenites and Sam Andrew (who had resumed playing guitar with Big Brother) differed in their opinions of her performance and how substance abuse affected it. Gravenites described her singing as "stupendous," according to Amburn. Amburn quoted Andrew twenty years later: "She was visibly deteriorating and she looked bloated. She was like a parody of what she was at her best. I put it down to her drinking too much and I felt a tinge of fear for her well-being. Her singing was real flabby, no edge at all."
Shortly thereafter, Joplin began wearing multi-colored feather boas in her hair. (She had not worn them at the May 21 Hell's Angels party / concert in San Rafael). By the time she began touring with Full Tilt Boogie, Joplin told people she was drug-free, but her drinking increased.
From June 28 to July 4, 1970, during the Festival Express tour, Joplin and Full Tilt Boogie performed alongside Buddy Guy, the Band, the Flying Burrito Brothers, Ten Years After, the Grateful Dead, Delaney & Bonnie, Eric Andersen, and Ian & Sylvia. They played concerts in Toronto, Winnipeg, and Calgary. Joplin jammed with the other performers on the train, and her performances on this tour are considered to be among her greatest.
Joplin headlined the festival on all three nights. At the last stop in Calgary, she took to the stage with Jerry Garcia while her band was tuning up. Film footage shows her telling the audience how great the tour was and shows her and Garcia presenting the organizers with a case of tequila. She then burst into a two-hour set, starting with "Tell Mama". Throughout this performance, Joplin engaged in several banters about her love life. In one, she reminisced about living in a San Francisco apartment and competing with a female neighbor in flirting with men on the street. She finished the Calgary concert with long versions of "Get It While You Can" and "Ball and Chain".
Footage of her performance of "Tell Mama" in Calgary became an MTV video in the early 1980s, and the audio from the same film footage was included on the Farewell Song (1982) album. The audio of other Festival Express performances was included on Joplin's In Concert (1972) album. Video of the performances was also included on the Festival Express DVD.
These performances of entire songs during the Festival Express concerts in Toronto and Calgary can be purchased, although other songs remain in vaults and have yet to be released.
In the "Tell Mama" video shown on MTV in the 1980s, Joplin wore a psychedelically colored, loose-fitting costume and feathers in her hair. This was her standard stage costume in the spring and summer of 1970. She chose the new costumes after her friend and designer, Linda Gravenites (whom Joplin had praised in Vogues profile of her in its May 1968 edition), cut ties with Joplin shortly after their return from Brazil, due largely to Joplin's continued use of heroin.
Among Joplin's last public appearances were two broadcasts of The Dick Cavett Show. In her June 25, 1970 appearance, she announced that she would attend her ten-year high school class reunion. When asked if she had been popular in school, she admitted that when in high school, her schoolmates "laughed me out of class, out of town and out of the state" (during the year she had spent at the University of Texas at Austin, Joplin had been voted "Ugliest Man on Campus" by frat boys). In the subsequent Cavett Show broadcast, on August 3, 1970, and featuring Gloria Swanson, Joplin discussed her upcoming performance at the Festival for Peace to be held at Shea Stadium in Queens, New York, three days later.
On July 11, 1970, Full Tilt Boogie and Big Brother and the Holding Company both performed at the same concert in the San Diego Sports Arena, which was decades later renamed the Valley View Casino Center. Joplin sang with Full Tilt Boogie and appeared briefly onstage with Big Brother without singing, according to a July 13 review of the concert in the San Diego Union.
On August 7, 1970, a tombstone—jointly paid for by Joplin and Juanita Green, who as a child had done housework for Bessie Smith—was erected at Smith's previously unmarked grave. The following day, the Associated Press circulated this news, and the August 9 edition of The New York Times carried it. The lead paragraph of the AP story said Joplin and Green had "shared the cost of a stone for the 'Empress of the Blues,'" but, according to publicist/biographer Myra Friedman, the two women never met. Joplin had been at home in Larkspur, California when she had received a long-distance phone call with an explanation of the need to finance a gravestone for Bessie Smith, whom Joplin had frequently cited as a musical influence. Joplin immediately wrote a check and mailed it to the name and address provided by the phone caller.
On August 8, 1970, as the Associated Press circulated the news about Smith's new gravestone, Joplin performed at the Capitol Theatre (Port Chester, New York). It was there that she first performed "Mercedes Benz", a song (partially inspired by a Michael McClure poem) that she had composed with fellow musician and friend Bob Neuwirth a very short time earlier. According to Myra Friedman's account, Joplin performed two shows at the Capitol Theatre, the first of which was attended by actors Geraldine Page and her husband Rip Torn. Between the shows, at a "gin mill" [Friedman's words] very close to this concert venue, Joplin and Neuwirth penned the lyrics to the song and she performed it at the second show, according to Friedman. Neuwirth was quoted by The Wall Street Journal in 2015: "Around 7 p.m., after the Capitol sound check, we had a couple of hours to kill before [acts that opened for Joplin] Seatrain and Runt finished their sets. So the four of us [Joplin, Neuwirth, Geraldine Page, Rip Torn] walked to a bar about three minutes away called Vahsen’s [at 30 Broad Street in Port Chester]." While in Vahsen's, "Janis came up with words for the first verse. I was in charge of writing them down on bar napkins with a ballpoint pen. She came up with the second verse, too, about a color TV. I suggested words here and there, and came up with the third verse—about asking the Lord to buy us a night on the town and another round."
Joplin's last public performance with the Full Tilt Boogie Band took place on August 12, 1970, at the Harvard Stadium in Boston. The Harvard Crimson gave the performance a positive, front-page review, despite the fact that Full Tilt Boogie had performed with makeshift amplifiers after their regular sound equipment was stolen in Boston.
Joplin attended her high school reunion on August 14, accompanied by Neuwirth, road manager John Cooke, and sister Laura, but it was reportedly an unhappy experience for her. Joplin held a press conference in Port Arthur during her reunion visit. When asked by a reporter if she ever entertained at Thomas Jefferson High School when she was a student there, Joplin replied, "Only when I walked down the aisles." Joplin denigrated Port Arthur and the classmates who had humiliated her a decade earlier.
During late August, September, and early October 1970, Joplin and her band rehearsed and recorded a new album in Los Angeles with producer Paul A. Rothchild, best known for his lengthy relationship with The Doors. Although Joplin died before all the tracks were fully completed, there was enough usable material to compile an LP.
The posthumous Pearl (1971) became the biggest-selling album of her career and featured her biggest hit single, a cover of Kris Kristofferson and Fred Foster's "Me and Bobby McGee" (Kristofferson had previously been Joplin's lover in the spring of 1970). The opening track, "Move Over", was written by Joplin, reflecting the way that she felt men treated women in relationships. Also included was the social commentary of "Mercedes Benz", presented in an a cappella arrangement; the track on the album features the first and only take that Joplin recorded. A cover of Nick Gravenites's "Buried Alive in the Blues", to which Joplin had been scheduled to add her vocals on the day she was found dead, was included as an instrumental.
Joplin checked into the Landmark Motor Hotel in Hollywood on August 24, 1970, near Sunset Sound Recorders, where she began rehearsing and recording her album. During the sessions, Joplin continued a relationship with Seth Morgan, a 21-year-old UC Berkeley student, cocaine dealer, and future novelist who had visited her new home in Larkspur in July and August. She and Morgan were engaged to be married in early September, although he visited Sunset Sound Recorders for just eight of Joplin's many rehearsals and sessions.
Morgan later told biographer Myra Friedman that, as a non-musician, he had felt excluded whenever he had visited Sunset Sound Recorders. Instead, he stayed at Joplin's Larkspur home while she stayed alone at the Landmark, although several times she visited Larkspur to be with him and to check the progress of renovations she was having done on the house. She told her construction crew to design a carport to be shaped like a flying saucer, according to biographer Ellis Amburn, the concrete foundation for which was poured the day before she died.
Peggy Caserta claimed in her book, Going Down With Janis (1973), that she and Joplin had decided mutually in April 1970 to stay away from each other to avoid enabling each other's drug use. Caserta, a former Delta Air Lines stewardess and owner of one of the first clothing boutiques in the Haight Ashbury, said in the book that by September 1970, she was smuggling cannabis throughout California and had checked into the Landmark Motor Hotel because it attracted drug users.
For approximately the first two weeks of Joplin's stay at the Landmark, she did not know Caserta was in Los Angeles. Joplin learned of Caserta's presence at the Landmark from a heroin dealer who made deliveries there. Joplin begged Caserta for heroin, and when Caserta refused to provide it, Joplin reportedly admonished her by saying, "Don't think if you can get it, I can't get it." Joplin's publicist Myra Friedman was unaware during Joplin's lifetime that this had happened. Later, while Friedman was working on her book Buried Alive, she determined that the time frame of the Joplin-Caserta encounter was one week before Jimi Hendrix's death.
Within a few days, Joplin became a regular customer of the same heroin dealer who had been supplying Caserta.
Joplin's manager Albert Grossman and his assistant/publicist Friedman had staged an intervention with Joplin the previous winter while Joplin was in New York. In September 1970, Grossman and Friedman, who worked out of a New York office, knew Joplin was staying at a Los Angeles hotel, but were unaware it was a haven for drug users and dealers.
Grossman and Friedman knew during Joplin's lifetime that her friend Caserta, whom Friedman met during the New York sessions for Cheap Thrills and on later occasions, used heroin. During the many long-distance telephone conversations that Joplin and Friedman had in September 1970 and on October 1, Joplin never mentioned Caserta, and Friedman assumed Caserta had been out of Joplin's life for a while. Friedman, who had more time than Grossman to monitor the situation, never visited California. She thought Joplin sounded on the phone like she was less depressed than she had been over the summer.
When Joplin was not at Sunset Sound Recorders, she liked to drive her Porsche over the speed limit "on the winding part of Sunset Blvd.", according to a statement made by her attorney Robert Gordon in 1995 at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony. Friedman wrote that the only Full Tilt Boogie member who rode as her passenger, Ken Pearson, often hesitated to join her, though he did on the night she died. He was not interested in using hard drugs.
On September 26, 1970, Joplin recorded vocals for "Half Moon" and "Cry Baby". The session ended with Joplin, organist Ken Pearson, and drummer Clark Pierson making a special one-minute recording as a birthday gift to John Lennon. Joplin was among several singers who had been contacted by Yoko Ono with a request for a taped greeting for Lennon's 30th birthday, on October 9. Joplin, Pearson, and Pierson chose the Dale Evans composition "Happy Trails" as part of the greeting. Lennon told Dick Cavett on-camera the following year that Joplin's recorded birthday wishes arrived at his home after her death.
On October 1, 1970, Joplin completed her last recording, "Mercedes Benz", which was recorded in a single take. On Saturday, October 3, Joplin visited Sunset Sound Recorders to listen to the instrumental track for Nick Gravenites's song "Buried Alive in the Blues", which the band had recorded earlier that day. She and Paul Rothchild agreed she would record the vocal the following day.
At some point on Saturday, she learned by telephone, to her dismay, that Seth Morgan had met other women at a Marin County, California, restaurant, invited them to her home, and was shooting pool with them using her pool table. People at Sunset Sound Recorders overheard Joplin expressing anger about the state of her relationship with Morgan, as well as joy about the progress of the sessions.
Joplin and Ken Pearson later left the studio together and she drove him in her Porsche to the West Hollywood landmark called Barney's Beanery. Friedman wrote, "At the bar, she drank vodka and orange juice, only two." Bennett Glotzer, a business partner of Joplin's manager Albert Grossman, was present at Barney's Beanery, according to what he told John Byrne Cooke immediately after he (Glotzer) learned of her death. Evidently, Joplin had a friendly conversation with a young man whom she did not know, and he expressed admiration for her music. After midnight, she drove Ken Pearson and the male fan to the Landmark where she and Pearson were staying in separate rooms. During the car ride, the fan asked Joplin questions "about her singing style," according to Friedman, and "she mostly ignored him" so she could converse with Pearson. As Joplin and Pearson prepared to part in the lobby of the Landmark, she expressed a fear, possibly in jest, that he and the other Full Tilt Boogie musicians might decide to stop making music with her. Pearson was the second-to-last person to see her alive. The last was the Landmark's night shift desk clerk. He had met her several times but did not know her.
Personal life
Joplin's significant relationships with men included ones with Peter de Blanc, Country Joe McDonald (who wrote the song "Janis" at Joplin's request), David (George) Niehaus, Kris Kristofferson, and Seth Morgan (from July 1970 until her death, at which time they were allegedly engaged).
She also had relationships with women. During her first stint in San Francisco in 1963, Joplin met and briefly lived with Jae Whitaker, a black woman whom she had met while playing pool at the bar Gino & Carlo in North Beach. Whitaker broke off their relationship because of Joplin's hard drug use and sexual relationships with other people. Whitaker was first identified by name in connection with the singer in 1999, when Alice Echols' biography Scars of Sweet Paradise was published.
Joplin also had an on-again-off-again romantic relationship with Peggy Caserta. They first met in November 1966 when Big Brother performed at a San Francisco venue called The Matrix. Caserta was one of 15 people in the audience, and at the time, she ran a successful clothing boutique in the Haight Ashbury. Approximately a month after Caserta attended the concert, Joplin visited her boutique and said she could not afford to buy a pair of jeans that was for sale, instead asking to put down the first 50 cents on the $5 item. Caserta was amazed that such a talented singer could not afford a $5 item, and gave her a pair for free. Their friendship was platonic for more than a year. Before it moved to the next level, Caserta was in love with Big Brother guitarist Sam Andrew, and sometime during the first half of 1968 traveled from San Francisco to New York to flirt with him. He did not want a serious relationship, and Joplin sympathized with Caserta's disappointment.
The Woodstock concert film includes 37 seconds of Joplin and Caserta walking together before they reached the tent where Joplin waited for her turn to perform. By the time the festival took place in August 1969, both were intravenous heroin addicts.
According to Caserta's book Going Down With Janis, which Caserta has since disowned, Joplin introduced her to her boyfriend Seth Morgan in Joplin's room at the Landmark Motor Hotel on September 29, 1970. Caserta "had seen him around" San Francisco but had not met him before. At some point, an agreement was made for a threesome to take place the following Friday, although Caserta later said that she immediately abandoned the idea once she understood that it was Morgan who would be with Joplin. Morgan made alternate plans, believing that Caserta would be with Joplin that evening. Each one, however, was unaware that the other had bowed out. The day after Joplin introduced Caserta to Morgan, Caserta saw Joplin briefly, again in Joplin's room, when Caserta accommodated her new Los Angeles friend Debbie Nuciforo, age 19, an aspiring hard rock drummer who wanted to meet Joplin. Nuciforo was stoned on heroin at the time, and the three women's encounter was brief and unpleasant. Caserta suspected that the reason for Joplin's foul mood was that Morgan had abandoned her earlier that day after having spent less than 24 hours with her. Caserta did not see nor communicate by phone with Joplin again, although she later claimed she had made several attempts to reach her by phone at the Landmark Motor Hotel and at Sunset Sound Recorders. Caserta and Morgan lost touch with each other; each had independently made alternate plans for Friday night, October 2. Joplin mentioned her disappointment (over both of her friends' bailing out of their ménage à trois) to her drug dealer on Saturday, while he was selling her the dose of heroin that killed her, as Caserta later learned from the drug dealer.
Biographer Myra Friedman commented in her original version of Buried Alive (1973):
Given the near-infinite potentials of infancy, it is really impossible to make generalizations about what lies behind sexual practices. This, however, is probable: to become clearly homosexual, to make the choice that one honestly prefers relations with one's own sex, no matter the origins of such preference, requires a certain integration, a stability of psychic development, a tidiness of personality organization. The ridicule and the humiliation that took place at that most delicate period in [Joplin's] early teens, her own inability to surmount the obstacles to regular growth, devastated her a great deal more than most people comprehended. Janis was not heir to an ego so cohesive as to permit her an identity one way or the other. She was, as [the psychiatric social worker she saw regularly in Beaumont, Texas in 1965 and 1966] Mr. [Bernard] Giarritano put it [in an interview with Friedman], "diffused" -- spewing, splattering, splaying all over, without a center to hold. That had as much to do with her original use of drugs [before she first met Giarritano] as did the critical component of guilt and its multiplicity of sources above and beyond the contribution made by her relationships with women. Were she so simple as the lesbians wished her to be or so free as her associates imagined!
Kim France reported in her May 2, 1999 The New York Times article, "Nothin' Left to Lose" : "Once she became famous, Joplin cursed like a truck driver, did not believe in wearing undergarments, was rarely seen without her bottle of Southern Comfort and delighted in playing the role of sexual predator."
On July 11, 1970, Joplin made a revealing statement about her sexuality to her friend Richard Hundgen, the Grateful Dead's San Francisco-based road manager whom she had known since 1966. When Joplin and Hundgen were offstage during a San Diego gig for both Full Tilt Boogie and Big Brother and the Holding Company, she said the following that he later repeated to Myra Friedman:
I hear a rumor that somebody in San Francisco is spreading stories that I'm a dyke. You go back there and find out who it is and tell them that Janis says she's gotten it on with a couple of thousand cats in her life and a few hundred chicks and see what they can do with that!
Death
On Sunday evening, October 4, 1970, Joplin was found dead on the floor of her room at the Landmark Motor Hotel by her road manager and close friend John Byrne Cooke.
Alcohol was present in the room. Newspapers reported that no other drugs or paraphernalia were present. According to a 1983 book authored by Joseph DiMona and Los Angeles County coroner Thomas Noguchi, evidence of narcotics was removed from the scene by a friend of Joplin and later put back after the person realized that an autopsy was going to reveal that narcotics were in her system. The book adds that prior to Joplin's death, Noguchi had investigated other fatal drug overdoses in Los Angeles where friends believed they were doing favors for decedents by removing evidence of narcotics, then they "thought things over" and returned to put back the evidence. Noguchi performed an autopsy on Joplin and determined the cause of death to be a heroin overdose, possibly compounded by alcohol.
John Byrne Cooke believed Joplin had been given heroin that was much more potent than what she and other L.A. heroin users had received on previous occasions, as was indicated by overdoses of several of her dealer's other customers during the same weekend. Her death was ruled accidental.
Both Peggy Caserta, Joplin's close friend, and Seth Morgan, Joplin's fiancé, had failed to meet Joplin the Friday immediately prior to her death, October 2; Joplin had been expecting both of them to keep her company that night. According to Caserta, Joplin was saddened that neither of her friends visited her at the Landmark as they had promised. During the 24 hours Joplin lived after this disappointment, Caserta did not phone her to explain why she had failed to show up. Caserta admitted to waiting until late Saturday night to dial the Landmark switchboard, only to learn that Joplin had instructed the desk clerk not to accept any incoming phone calls for her after midnight. Morgan did speak to Joplin via telephone within the 24 hours prior to her death, but little is known about that call. She used a phone at Sunset Sound Recorders where her colleagues (“there were perhaps twenty to twenty-five people present,” wrote biographer Myra Friedman) noticed that whatever Morgan said to her made her very angry.
Peggy Caserta has insisted that Joplin's death was not an accidental overdose, but rather a result of a head gash suffered after the "hourglass heel" of her slingback sandal caught in the shag carpet, causing her to lose her balance. Caserta does concede, however, that drugs and/or alcohol may have played a role in hastening her death that night.
Joplin was cremated at Pierce Brothers Westwood Village Memorial Park and Mortuary in Los Angeles, and her ashes were scattered from a plane into the Pacific Ocean.
Legacy
Joplin's death in October 1970 at age 27 stunned her fans and shocked the music world, especially when coupled with the death just 16 days earlier of another rock icon, Jimi Hendrix, also at age 27. (This would later cause some people to attribute significance to the death of musicians at the age of 27, as celebrated in the "27 Club.") Music historian Tom Moon wrote that Joplin had "a devastatingly original voice," music columnist Jon Pareles of The New York Times wrote that Joplin as an artist was "overpowering and deeply vulnerable" and author Megan Terry said that Joplin was the female version of Elvis Presley in her ability to captivate an audience.
A book about Joplin by her publicist Myra Friedman titled Buried Alive: The Biography of Janis Joplin (1973) was excerpted in many newspapers. At the same time, Peggy Caserta's memoir, Going Down With Janis (1973), attracted much attention; its provocative title is a reference to Caserta's claim that she had engaged in oral sex with Joplin while they were high on heroin in September 1970. The description provided by Dan Knapp, Caserta’s co-author whom she denounced decades later, repelled many people in 1973 when few books or filmed interviews of Joplin or her loved ones were accessible to the public. Joplin's bandmate Sam Andrew described Caserta as "halfway between a groupie and a friend" in an interview with writer Ellis Amburn. Soon after the 1973 publication of Going Down With Janis, Joplin's friends learned that graphic descriptions of sexual acts and intravenous drug use were not the only portions of the book that would haunt them.
According to Kim Chappell, a close friend of Caserta and Joplin, Caserta's book angered the Los Angeles heroin dealer whom she had described in detail in her book, including the make and model of his car. According to Amburn, in 1973 a "carful of dope dealers" visited a Los Angeles lesbian bar that Caserta had been frequenting. Chappell, who was in the alley behind the bar, stated: "I was stabbed because, when Peggy's book came out, her dealer, the same one who'd given Janis her last fix, didn't like it that he was referred to and was out to get Peggy. He couldn't find her, so he went for her lover. When they realized who I was, they felt that my death would also hit Peggy, and so they stabbed me." Despite being "stabbed three times in the chest, puncturing both lungs," Chappell eventually recovered.
In 2018, Caserta denounced Going Down With Janis as the pornographic fantasy of Dan Knapp, her co-author, and largely unreliable. During that year, the public had its first access to her own story via a memoir she co-wrote with Maggie Falcon titled I Ran Into Some Trouble. It describes a long, friendly relationship with Joplin that only occasionally featured sexuality.
According to Joplin’s biographers, Caserta was among many friends of Joplin who did not become clean and sober until a very long time after Joplin's death, while others died from overdoses. Although the wife of Big Brother guitarist James Gurley, who was Joplin's close friend, died from a heroin overdose in 1969, devastating Joplin, Gurley himself did not become clean and sober until 1984. Caserta survived "a near-fatal OD in December 1995," wrote Alice Echols. On January 13, 2000, Caserta appeared during a segment about Joplin on 20/20.
Joplin's body art, with a wristlet and a small heart on her left breast by the San Francisco tattoo artist Lyle Tuttle, marked an early moment in the popular culture's acceptance of tattoos as art. Another trademark was her flamboyant hair styles, which often included colored streaks and accessories such as scarves, beads and feathers. When in New York City, Joplin frequented the Limbo boutique on St. Mark's Place, and she wore some of the vintage and unique garments that she purchased there on stage.
The Mamas & the Papas' song "Pearl" (1971), from their People Like Us album, was a tribute. Leonard Cohen's song "Chelsea Hotel#2" (1974) is about Joplin. Lyricist Robert Hunter has commented that Jerry Garcia's "Birdsong" from his first solo album, Garcia (1972), is about Joplin and the end of her suffering through death. Mimi Farina's composition "In the Quiet Morning", most famously covered by Joan Baez on her Come from the Shadows (1972) album, was a tribute to Joplin. Another song by Baez, "Children of the Eighties," mentioned Joplin. A Serge Gainsbourg-penned French language song by English singer Jane Birkin, "Ex fan des sixties" (1978), references Joplin along with other disappeared "idols" such as Jimi Hendrix, Brian Jones and Marc Bolan. When Joplin was alive, Country Joe McDonald released a song called "Janis" on his band's album I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die (1967).
The film The Rose (1979) is loosely based on Joplin's life. Originally planned to be titled Pearl—Joplin's nickname and the title of her last album—the film was fictionalized after her family declined to allow the producers the rights to her story. Bette Midler earned a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in the film.
In 1988, on what would have been Joplin's 45th birthday, the Janis Joplin Memorial, with an original gold, multi-image sculpture of Joplin by Douglas Clark, was dedicated during a ceremony in Port Arthur, Texas.
In 1992, the first major biography of Joplin in two decades, Love, Janis, authored by her younger sister Laura Joplin, was published. In an interview, Laura stated that Joplin enjoyed being on the Dick Cavett Show, that Joplin had difficulties with some, but not all, people at Thomas Jefferson High School and that Joplin enthusiastically talked about Woodstock with her parents and siblings during a visit to their Texas home a few weeks after she had performed at the festival.
In 1995, Joplin was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In 2005, she received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. In November 2009, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum honored her as part of its annual American Music Masters Series; among the artifacts at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum exhibition are Joplin's scarf and necklaces, her psychedelically painted 1965 Porsche 356 Cabriolet and a sheet of LSD blotting paper designed by Robert Crumb, designer of the Cheap Thrills cover. Also in 2009, Joplin was the honoree at the Rock Hall's American Music Master concert and lecture series.
In the late 1990s, the musical play Love, Janis was created and directed by Randal Myler, with input from Janis' younger sister Laura and Big Brother guitarist Sam Andrew, with an aim to take it to Off-Broadway. Opening in the summer of 2001 and scheduled for only a few weeks of performances, the show won acclaim, played to packed houses and was held over several times.
In 2013, Washington's Arena Stage featured a production of A Night with Janis Joplin, starring Mary Bridget Davies. In it, Joplin performs a concert for the audience while telling stories of her past inspirations, including those of Odetta and Aretha Franklin. The show went on tour in 2016.
On November 4, 2013, Joplin was awarded with the 2,510th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contributions to the music industry. Her star is located at 6752 Hollywood Boulevard, in front of Musicians Institute.
On August 8, 2014, the U.S. Postal Service revealed a commemorative stamp honoring Joplin as part of its Music Icons stamp series during a first-day-of-issue ceremony at the Outside Lands Music Festival at Golden Gate Park.
Among the memorabilia Joplin left behind is a Gibson Hummingbird guitar.
In 2015, the biographical documentary film Janis: Little Girl Blue, directed by Amy J. Berg and narrated by Cat Power, was released. It was a New York Times Critics' Pick.
Influence
Joplin had a profound influence on many singers.
Pink said about Joplin: "She was so inspiring by singing blues music when it wasn't culturally acceptable for white women, and she wore her heart on her sleeve. She was so witty and charming and intelligent, but she also battled an ugly-duckling syndrome. I would love to play her in a movie." In a tribute performance on her Try This Tour, Pink called Joplin "a woman who inspired me when everyone else ... didn't!"
Discography
Janis Joplin recorded four albums in her four-year career. The first two albums were recorded with and credited to Big Brother and the Holding Company; the later two were recorded with different backing bands and released as solo albums. Posthumous releases have included previously unreleased studio and live material.
Studio albums
As lead singer of Big Brother and the Holding Company
As solo artist
Live albums
Compilation albums
Singles
As lead of Big Brother and the Holding Company
As solo artist
Filmography
Monterey Pop (1968)
Petulia (1968)
Janis Joplin Live in Frankfurt (1969)
Janis (1974)
Janis: The Way She Was (1974)
Comin' Home (1988)
Woodstock – The Lost Performances (1991)
Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace & Music (Director's Cut) (1994)
Festival Express (2003)
Nine Hundred Nights (2004)
The Dick Cavett Show: Rock Icons (2005) Shout Factory
Rockin' at the Red Dog: The Dawn of Psychedelic Rock (2005)
This is Tom Jones (2007) 1969 appearance on TV show
Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace & Music (Director's Cut) 40th Anniversary Edition (2009)
Janis Joplin with Big Brother: Ball and Chain (DVD) Charly (2009)
Janis: Little Girl Blue (2015)
Notes
References
Further reading
– an encounter with Janis Joplin at the wheel.
External links
Janis Joplin at the Grammy Awards
Janis Joplin on the Music-Map
1943 births
1970 deaths
20th-century American singers
20th-century American women singers
American blues singers
American child singers
American mezzo-sopranos
American women rock singers
American women singer-songwriters
American rhythm and blues singer-songwriters
American rock songwriters
American soul musicians
Accidental deaths in California
Big Brother and the Holding Company members
Bisexual musicians
Bisexual women
Blues rock musicians
Columbia Records artists
Deaths by heroin overdose in California
Drug-related deaths in California
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners
LGBT people from Texas
LGBT singers from the United States
LGBT songwriters
Lamar University alumni
People from Beaumont, Texas
People from Port Arthur, Texas
Singer-songwriters from Texas
University of Texas at Austin alumni
20th-century LGBT people
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[
"Janis is a collection of performances by Janis Joplin, issued in 1975 as a compilation album containing film soundtrack and live recordings. Disc one is subtitled \"From the soundtrack of the motion picture Janis (with substituted performances of 'Piece of my Heart' and 'Cry Baby')\". In addition to concert recordings from Toronto and Frankfurt, there are several short TV-interviews. Disc two contains recordings from Austin, Texas (1963 and 1964), plus four recordings from San Francisco (1965). The album booklet contains a photo documentary, with 22 pictures from Janis Joplin's life and career.\n\nTrack listing\n\nDisc one: Janis\n \"Mercedes Benz\" (Janis Joplin, Michael McClure) (With The Full Tilt Boogie Band; from the album Pearl)\n \"Ball and Chain\" (W. M. Thornton) (With The Kozmic Blues Band; Frankfurt, Germany Concert 1969)\n Rap on \"Try\" (Toronto, Canada Concert 1970)\n \"Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)\" (Jerry Ragovoy, C. Taylor) (With Full Tilt Boogie; Toronto, Canada Concert 1970)\n \"Summertime\" (DuBose Heyward, George Gershwin) (With The Kozmic Blues Band; Frankfurt, Germany Concert 1969)\n Albert Hall Interview (1969)\n \"Cry Baby\" (Jerry Ragovoy, Bert Berns) (With The Full Tilt Boogie Band; from the album Pearl)\n \"Move Over\" (J. Joplin) (With The Full Tilt Boogie Band)\n Dick Cavett T.V. Interview (1970)\n \"Piece of My Heart\" (Jerry Ragovoy, Bert Berns) (With Big Brother and the Holding Company; from the album Cheap Thrills)\n Port Arthur High School Reunion\n \"Maybe\" (R. Barrett) (With The Kozmic Blues Band; Frankfurt, Germany Concert 1969)\n \"Me and Bobby McGee\" (Fred Foster, Kris Kristofferson) (With The Full Tilt Boogie Band; from the album Pearl)\n\nDisc two: Early Performances\n \"Trouble in Mind\" (Richard M. Jones) (Austin, Texas 1963 or 1964)\n \"What Good Can Drinkin' Do\" (Janis Joplin) (Austin, Texas 1963 or 1964)\n \"Silver Threads and Golden Needles\" (J. Rhodes, D. Reynolds) (Austin, Texas 1963 or 1964)\n \"Mississippi River\" (Austin, Texas 1963 or 1964)\n \"Stealin'\" (L. Stock, A. Lewis) (Austin, Texas 1963 or 1964)\n \"No Reason For Livin'\" (Janis Joplin) (Austin, Texas 1963 or 1964)\n \"Black Mountain Blues\" (R. Cole) (Recorded 1965 San Francisco with Dick Oxtot Jazz Band)\n \"Walk Right In\" (Gus Cannon, H. Woods) (Recorded 1965 San Francisco with Dick Oxtot Jazz Band)\n \"River Jordan\" (Recorded 1965 San Francisco with Dick Oxtot Jazz Band)\n \"Mary Jane\" (Janis Joplin) (Recorded 1965 San Francisco with Dick Oxtot Jazz Band)\n \"Kansas City Blues\" (C. Parker) (Austin, Texas 1963 or 1964)\n \"Daddy, Daddy, Daddy\" (Janis Joplin) (Austin, Texas 1963 or 1964)\n \"See See Rider\" (Ma Rainey) (Austin, Texas 1963 or 1964)\n \"San Francisco Bay Blues\" (Jesse Fuller) (Austin, Texas 1963 or 1964)\n \"Winin' Boy\" (Jelly Roll Morton) (Austin, Texas 1963 or 1964)\n \"Careless Love\" (Huddie Ledbetter, Alan Lomax) (Austin, Texas 1963 or 1964)\n \"I'll Drown In My Own Tears\" (Henry Glover) (Austin, Texas 1963 or 1964)\n\nCharts\n\nCertifications\n\nReferences\n\nJanis Joplin compilation albums\nAlbums produced by Paul A. Rothchild\nCompilation albums published posthumously\n1975 compilation albums\nColumbia Records compilation albums",
"This Is Janis Joplin 1965 is an album by Janis Joplin released by James Gurley in 1995.\n\nRecord history\nRecorded originally in 1965, the seven tracks that appear here are all previously unreleased, including Joplin's original version of her song \"Turtle Blues\" and an alternate version of \"Cod'ine\" by Buffy Sainte-Marie. Originally just Joplin and her guitar, a full band has been added to these tracks. The original takes of these songs have been released on the 9 disc compilation Blow All My Blues Away , with the exception of \"Cod'ine\", which is also the enhanced version featured on this collection.\n\nTrack listing\n\"Apple of My Eye\"\n\"Zip Train [219 Train]\"\n\"Cod'ine\" (Buffy Sainte-Marie, Janis Joplin)\n\"Down and Out\"\n\"Turtle Blues\" (Janis Joplin)\n\"I Ain't Got a Worry\"\n\"Brownsville\"\n\n1995 compilation albums\nJanis Joplin compilation albums\nCompilation albums published posthumously"
] |
[
"Janis Joplin",
"Kozmic Blues Band",
"Was Janis Joplin part of the Kozmic Blues Band?",
"Joplin formed a new backup group, the Kozmic Blues Band,",
"Did she tour with the Kozmic Blues Band?",
"I don't know.",
"Were there any well known artists that were part of the Kozmic Blues Band?",
"composed of session musicians like keyboardist Stephen Ryder and saxophonist Cornelius \"Snooky\" Flowers,",
"Did the Komic Blues Band release any albums?",
"I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama!.",
"Did the Kozmic Blues Band ever appear on TV?",
"On one episode of The Dick Cavett Show, they performed \"Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)\" as well as \"To Love Somebody\".",
"Did the band and Janis Joplin ever travel?",
"Joplin's appearances with the Kozmic Blues Band in Europe"
] |
C_e67a6494e12f48e39fceae5d4a32ef7a_0
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Did they have fans in Europe?
| 7 |
Did the Kozmic Blues Band have fans in Europe?
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Janis Joplin
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After splitting from Big Brother and the Holding Company, Joplin formed a new backup group, the Kozmic Blues Band, composed of session musicians like keyboardist Stephen Ryder and saxophonist Cornelius "Snooky" Flowers, as well as former Big Brother and the Holding Company guitarist Sam Andrew and future Full Tilt Boogie Band bassist Brad Campbell. The band was influenced by the Stax-Volt rhythm and blues (R&B) and soul bands of the 1960s, as exemplified by Otis Redding and the Bar-Kays. The Stax-Volt R&B sound was typified by the use of horns and had a funky, pop-oriented sound in contrast to many of the psychedelic/hard rock bands of the period. By early 1969, Joplin was allegedly shooting at least $200 worth of heroin per day (equivalent to $1300 in 2016 dollars) although efforts were made to keep her clean during the recording of I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama!. Gabriel Mekler, who produced Kozmic Blues, told publicist-turned-biographer Myra Friedman after Joplin's death that the singer had lived in his house during the June 1969 recording sessions at his insistence so he could keep her away from drugs and her drug-using friends. Joplin's appearances with the Kozmic Blues Band in Europe were released in cinemas, in multiple documentaries. Janis, which was reviewed by the Washington Post on March 21, 1975, shows Joplin arriving in Frankfurt by plane and waiting inside a bus next to the Frankfurt venue, while an American fan who is visiting Germany expresses enthusiasm to the camera (no security was used in Frankfurt, so by the end of the concert, the stage was so packed with people the band members could not see each other). Janis also includes interviews with Joplin in Stockholm and from her visit to London, for her gig at Royal Albert Hall. On one episode of The Dick Cavett Show, they performed "Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)" as well as "To Love Somebody". As Dick Cavett interviewed Joplin, she admitted that she had a terrible time touring in Europe, claiming that audiences there are very uptight and don't "get down". CANNOTANSWER
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the stage was so packed with people the band members could not see each other).
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Janis Joplin (January 19, 1943 – October 4, 1970) was an American singer-songwriter who sang rock, soul, and blues music. One of the most successful and widely known rock stars of her era, she was noted for her powerful mezzo-soprano vocals and "electric" stage presence.
In 1967, Joplin rose to fame following an appearance at Monterey Pop Festival, where she was the lead singer of the then little-known San Francisco psychedelic rock band Big Brother and the Holding Company. After releasing two albums with the band, she left Big Brother to continue as a solo artist with her own backing groups, first the Kozmic Blues Band and then the Full Tilt Boogie Band. She appeared at the Woodstock festival and on the Festival Express train tour. Five singles by Joplin reached the Billboard Hot 100, including a cover of the Kris Kristofferson song "Me and Bobby McGee", which reached number one in March 1971. Her most popular songs include her cover versions of "Piece of My Heart", "Cry Baby", "Down on Me", "Ball and Chain", and "Summertime"; and her original song "Mercedes Benz", her final recording.
Joplin died of a heroin overdose in 1970, at the age of 27, after releasing three albums (two with Big Brother and the Holding Company and one solo album). A second solo album, Pearl, was released in January 1971, just over three months after her death. It reached number one on the Billboard charts. She was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995. Rolling Stone ranked Joplin number 46 on its 2004 list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time and number 28 on its 2008 list of 100 Greatest Singers of All Time. She remains one of the top-selling musicians in the United States, with Recording Industry Association of America certifications of 18.5 million albums sold.
Early life
Janis Joplin was born in Port Arthur, Texas, on , to Dorothy Bonita East (1913–1998), a registrar at a business college, and her husband, Seth Ward Joplin (1910–1987), an engineer at Texaco. She had two younger siblings, Michael and Laura. The family attended First Christian Church of Port Arthur, a church belonging to the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) denomination.
Her parents felt that Janis needed more attention than their other children. As a teenager, Joplin befriended a group of outcasts, one of whom had albums by blues artists Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, and Lead Belly, which Joplin later credited with influencing her decision to become a singer. She began singing blues and folk music with friends at Thomas Jefferson High School. In high school, she was a classmate of Pro Football Hall of Fame coach Jimmy Johnson.
Joplin stated that she was ostracized and bullied in high school. As a teen, she became overweight and suffered from acne, leaving her with deep scars that required dermabrasion. Other kids at high school would routinely taunt her and call her names like "pig," "freak," "nigger lover," or "creep." She stated, "I was a misfit. I read, I painted, I thought. I didn't hate niggers."
Joplin graduated from high school in 1960 and attended Lamar State College of Technology in Beaumont, Texas, during the summer and later the University of Texas at Austin (UT), though she did not complete her college studies. The campus newspaper, The Daily Texan, ran a profile of her in the issue dated July 27, 1962, headlined "She Dares to Be Different." The article began, "She goes barefooted when she feels like it, wears Levi's to class because they're more comfortable, and carries her autoharp with her everywhere she goes so that in case she gets the urge to break into song, it will be handy. Her name is Janis Joplin." While at UT she performed with a folk trio called the Waller Creek Boys and frequently socialized with the staff of the campus humor magazine The Texas Ranger. According to Freak Brothers cartoonist Gilbert Shelton, who befriended her, she used to sell The Texas Ranger, which contained some of Shelton's early comic books, on the campus.
Career
1962–1965: Early recordings
Joplin cultivated a rebellious manner and styled herself partly after her female blues heroines and partly after the Beat poets. Her first song, "What Good Can Drinkin' Do", was recorded on tape in December 1962 at the home of a fellow University of Texas student.
She left Texas in January 1963 ("Just to get away," she said, "because my head was in a much different place"), hitchhiking with her friend Chet Helms to North Beach, San Francisco. Still in San Francisco in 1964, Joplin and future Jefferson Airplane guitarist Jorma Kaukonen recorded a number of blues standards, which incidentally featured Kaukonen's wife Margareta using a typewriter in the background. This session included seven tracks: "Typewriter Talk", "Trouble in Mind", "Kansas City Blues", "Hesitation Blues", "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out", "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy", and "Long Black Train Blues", and was released long after Joplin's death as the bootleg album The Typewriter Tape.
In 1963, Joplin was arrested in San Francisco for shoplifting. During the two years that followed, her drug use increased and she acquired a reputation as a "speed freak" and occasional heroin user. She also used other psychoactive drugs and was a heavy drinker throughout her career; her favorite alcoholic beverage was Southern Comfort.
In May 1965, Joplin's friends in San Francisco, noticing the detrimental effects on her from regularly injecting methamphetamine (she was described as "skeletal" and "emaciated"), persuaded her to return to Port Arthur. During that month, her friends threw her a bus-fare party so she could return to her parents in Texas. Five years later, Joplin told Rolling Stone magazine writer David Dalton the following about her first stint in San Francisco: "I didn't have many friends and I didn't like the ones I had."
Back in Port Arthur in the spring of 1965, after Joplin's parents noticed her weight of , she changed her lifestyle. She avoided drugs and alcohol, adopted a beehive hairdo, and enrolled as an anthropology major at Lamar University in nearby Beaumont, Texas. Her sister Laura said in a 2016 interview that social work was her major during her year at Lamar. During her time at Lamar University, she commuted to Austin to sing solo, accompanying herself on acoustic guitar. One of her performances was at a benefit by local musicians for Texas bluesman Mance Lipscomb, who was suffering with ill health.
Joplin became engaged to Peter de Blanc in the fall of 1965. She had begun a relationship with him toward the end of her first stint in San Francisco. Now living in New York where he worked with IBM computers, he visited her to ask her father for her hand in marriage. Joplin and her mother began planning the wedding. De Blanc, who traveled frequently, ended the engagement soon afterward.
In 1965 and 1966, Joplin commuted from her family's Port Arthur home to Beaumont, Texas, where she had regular sessions with a psychiatric social worker named Bernard Giarritano at a counseling agency that was funded by the United Fund, which after her death changed its name to the United Way. Interviewed by biographer Myra Friedman after his client's death, Giarritano said Joplin had been baffled by how she could pursue a professional career as a singer without relapsing into drugs, and her drug-related memories from immediately prior to returning to Port Arthur continued to frighten her. Joplin sometimes brought an acoustic guitar with her to her sessions with Giarritano, and people in other offices within the building could hear her singing.
Giarritano tried to reassure her that she did not have to use narcotics in order to succeed in the music business. She also said that if she were to avoid singing professionally, she would have to become a keypunch operator (as she had done a few years earlier) or a secretary, and then a wife and mother, and she would have to become very similar to all the other women in Port Arthur.
Approximately a year before Joplin joined Big Brother and the Holding Company, she recorded seven studio tracks with her acoustic guitar. Among the songs she recorded were her original composition of the song "Turtle Blues" and an alternate version of "Cod'ine" by Buffy Sainte-Marie. These tracks were later issued as a new album in 1995, titled This is Janis Joplin 1965 by James Gurley.
1966–1969: Various bands
In 1966, Joplin's bluesy vocal style attracted the attention of the San Francisco-based psychedelic rock band Big Brother and the Holding Company, which had gained some renown among the nascent hippie community in Haight-Ashbury. She was recruited to join the group by Chet Helms, a promoter who was managing Big Brother and with whom she had hitchhiked from Texas to San Francisco a few years earlier. Helms sent his friend Travis Rivers to find her in Austin, Texas, where she had been performing with her acoustic guitar, and to accompany her to San Francisco.
Aware of her previous nightmare with drug addiction in San Francisco, Rivers insisted that she inform her parents face-to-face of her plans, and he drove her from Austin to Port Arthur (he waited in his car while she talked with her startled parents) before they began their long drive to San Francisco. Joplin joined Big Brother on June 4, 1966. Her first public performance with them was at the Avalon Ballroom in San Francisco.
In June, Joplin was photographed at an outdoor concert in San Francisco that celebrated the summer solstice. The image, which was later published in two books by David Dalton, shows her before she relapsed into drugs. Due to persistent persuading by keyboardist and close friend Stephen Ryder, Joplin avoided drugs for several weeks. She made Travis Rivers, with whom she shared an apartment upon their arrival in San Francisco, promise that using needles would not be allowed there. When bandmate Dave Getz accompanied her from a rehearsal to her home, Rivers was not there, but "two or three" (according to Getz' recollection 25 years later) guests whom Rivers had invited were in the process of injecting drugs. "One of them was about to tie off," recalled Getz. "Janis went nuts! I had never seen anybody explode like that. She was screaming and crying and Travis walked in. She screamed at him: 'We had a pact! You promised me! There wouldn't be any of that in front of me!' I was over my head and I tried to calm her down. I said, 'They're just doing mescaline,' because that's what I thought it was. She said, 'You don't understand! I can't see that! I just can't stand to see that!'"
A San Francisco concert from that summer (1966) was recorded and released on the 1984 album Cheaper Thrills. In July, all five bandmates and guitarist James Gurley's wife Nancy moved to a house in Lagunitas, California, where they lived communally. The band often partied with the Grateful Dead, the members of whom lived less than two miles away. She had a short relationship and longer friendship with founding member Ron "Pigpen" McKernan.
The band went to Chicago for a four-week engagement in August 1966, then found itself stranded after the promoter ran out of money when its concerts did not attract the expected audience levels, and he was unable to pay them. In the circumstances the band signed with Bob Shad's record label Mainstream Records; recordings for the label took place in Chicago in September, but these were not satisfactory, and the band returned to San Francisco, continuing to perform live, including at the Love Pageant Rally. The band recorded two tracks, "Blindman" and "All Is Loneliness", in Los Angeles, and these were released by Mainstream as a single that did not sell well. After playing at a happening in Stanford in early December 1966, the band traveled back to Los Angeles to record ten tracks between December 12 and 14, 1966, produced by Bob Shad, which appeared on the band's debut album in August 1967.
In late 1966, Big Brother switched managers from Chet Helms to Julius Karpen.
One of Joplin's earliest major performances in 1967 was at the Mantra-Rock Dance, a musical event held on January 29 at the Avalon Ballroom by the San Francisco Hare Krishna temple. Janis Joplin and Big Brother performed there along with the Hare Krishna founder Bhaktivedanta Swami, Allen Ginsberg, Moby Grape, and the Grateful Dead, donating proceeds to the Krishna temple. In early 1967, Joplin met Country Joe McDonald of the group Country Joe and the Fish. The pair lived together as a couple for a few months. Joplin and Big Brother began playing clubs in San Francisco, at the Fillmore West, Winterland, and the Avalon Ballroom. They also played at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, as well as in Seattle, Washington; Vancouver, British Columbia; the Psychedelic Supermarket in Boston, Massachusetts; and the Golden Bear Club in Huntington Beach, California.
The band's debut studio album, Big Brother & the Holding Company, was released by Mainstream Records in August 1967, shortly after the group's breakthrough appearance in June at the Monterey Pop Festival. Two tracks, "Coo Coo" and "The Last Time," were released separately as singles, while the tracks from the previous single, "Blindman" and "All Is Loneliness", were added to the remaining eight tracks. When Columbia Records took over the band's contract and re-released the album, they included "Coo Coo" and "The Last Time", and put "featuring Janis Joplin" on the cover. The debut album spawned four minor hits with the singles "Down on Me", a traditional song arranged by Joplin, "Bye Bye Baby", "Call On Me" and "Coo Coo", on all of which Joplin sang lead vocals.
Two songs from the second of Big Brother's two sets at Monterey, which they played on Sunday, were filmed (their first set, which was on Saturday, was not filmed, though it was audio-recorded). Some sources, including a Joplin biography by Ellis Amburn, claim that she was dressed in thrift store hippie clothes or second-hand Victorian clothes during the band's Saturday set, but still photographs do not appear to have survived. Digitized color film of two songs in the Sunday set, "Combination of the Two" and a version of Big Mama Thornton's "Ball and Chain," appear in the DVD and Blu-ray boxed set of D. A. Pennebaker's documentary Monterey Pop released by The Criterion Collection. She is seen wearing an expensive gold tunic dress with matching pants. They were created for her by San Francisco clothing designer Colin Rose.
Documentary filmmaker Pennebaker inserted two cutaway shots of Cass Elliot of the Mamas & the Papas seated in the audience during Joplin's performance of "Ball and Chain", one in the middle of the song as her eyes, covered by sunglasses, are fixed on Joplin, and also a shot during the applause as she silently mouths "Oh, wow!" and looks at the person seated next to her. Elliot and the audience are seen in sunlight, but Sunday's Big Brother performance was filmed in the evening. An explanation came from Big Brother's road manager John Byrne Cooke, who remembers that Pennebaker discreetly filmed the audience (including Elliot) during Big Brother's Saturday performance when he was not allowed to point a camera at the band.
The prohibition of Pennebaker from filming on Saturday afternoon came from Big Brother's manager Julius Karpen. The band had a bitter argument with Karpen and overruled him as they prepared for their second set that the festival organizers had added on the spur of the moment. Backstage at the festival, the band became acquainted with New York-based talent manager Albert Grossman but did not sign with him until several months later, firing Karpen at that time.
Only "Ball and Chain" was included in the Monterey Pop film that was released to theaters throughout the United States in 1969 and shown on television in the 1970s. Those who did not attend the Monterey Pop Festival saw the band's performance of "Combination of the Two" for the first time in 2002 when The Criterion Collection released the boxed set.
For the remainder of 1967, even after Big Brother signed with Albert Grossman, the band performed mainly in California. On February 16, 1968, the group began its first East Coast tour in Philadelphia, and the following day gave their first performance in New York City at the Anderson Theater. On April 7, 1968—three days after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and the last day of their East Coast tour—Joplin and Big Brother performed with Jimi Hendrix, Buddy Guy, Joni Mitchell, Richie Havens, Paul Butterfield, and Elvin Bishop at the Wake for Martin Luther King Jr. concert in New York.
Live at Winterland '68, recorded at the Winterland Ballroom on April 12 and 13, 1968, features Joplin and Big Brother and the Holding Company at the height of their mutual career working through a selection of tracks from their albums. A recording became available to the public for the first time in 1998 when Columbia/Sony Music Entertainment released the compact disc. One month after the Winterland concert, Owsley Stanley recorded them at the Carousel Ballroom, released in 2012 as Live at the Carousel Ballroom 1968.
On July 31, 1968, Joplin made her first nationwide television appearance when the band performed on This Morning, an ABC daytime 90-minute variety show that was hosted by Dick Cavett. Shortly thereafter, network employees wiped the videotape, though the audio survives. (In 1969 and 1970, Joplin made three appearances on Cavett's prime-time program. Video was preserved and excerpts have been included in most documentaries about Joplin. Audio of her 1968 appearance has not been used since then.)
Sometime in 1968, the band's billing was changed to "Janis Joplin and Big Brother and the Holding Company," and the media coverage given to Joplin generated resentment within the band. The other members of Big Brother thought that Joplin was on a "star trip", while others were telling Joplin that Big Brother was a terrible band and that she ought to dump them. Time magazine called Joplin "probably the most powerful singer to emerge from the white rock movement", and Richard Goldstein wrote for the May 1968 issue of Vogue magazine that Joplin was "the most staggering leading woman in rock...she slinks like tar, scowls like war...clutching the knees of a final stanza, begging it not to leave.... Janis Joplin can sing the chic off any listener."
For her first major studio recording, Joplin played a major role in the arrangement and production of the songs that would comprise Big Brother and the Holding Company's second album, Cheap Thrills. Producer John Simon tried recording the band in concert, to capture their energy in a live album, but several attempts showed the band was prone to mistakes. Their imprecision was not helped by moving the sessions to a recording studio. Joplin sang take after take of the same song, with her performances consistently good, and she grew frustrated with the band's sloppiness. Simon was replaced by Elliot Mazer who fixed the songs by overdubbing certain parts. The album featured a cover design by counterculture cartoonist Robert Crumb.
Although Cheap Thrills sounded as if it consisted of concert recordings, like on "Combination of the Two" and "I Need a Man to Love", only "Ball and Chain" was actually recorded in front of a paying audience; the rest of the tracks were studio recordings. The album had a raw quality, including the sound of a drinking glass breaking and the broken shards being swept away during the song "Turtle Blues". Cheap Thrills produced very popular hits with "Piece of My Heart" and "Summertime". Together with the premiere of the documentary film Monterey Pop at New York's Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts on December 26, 1968, the album launched Joplin as a star. Cheap Thrills reached number one on the Billboard 200 album chart eight weeks after its release, and was number one for eight (nonconsecutive) weeks. The album was certified gold at release and sold over a million copies in the first month of its release. The lead single from the album, "Piece of My Heart", reached number 12 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the fall of 1968.
The band made another East Coast tour during July–August 1968, performing at the Columbia Records convention in Puerto Rico and the Newport Folk Festival. After returning to San Francisco for two hometown shows at the Palace of Fine Arts Festival on August 31 and September 1, Joplin announced that she would be leaving Big Brother. On September 14, 1968, culminating a three-night engagement together at Fillmore West, fans thronged to a concert that Bill Graham publicized as the last official concert of Janis Joplin with Big Brother and the Holding Company. The opening acts on this night were Chicago (then still called Chicago Transit Authority) and Santana.
Despite Graham's announcement that the Fillmore West gig was Big Brother's last concert with Joplin, the band—with Joplin still as lead vocalist—toured the U.S. that fall. Reflecting Joplin's crossover appeal, two October 1968 performances at a roller rink in Alexandria, Virginia, were reviewed by John Segraves of the conservative Washington Evening Star at a time when the Washington metropolitan area's hard rock scene was in its infancy. An opera buff at the time, he wrote:
Later that month (October 1968), Big Brother performed at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and played at the Syracuse War Memorial as part of Syracuse University's Fall Homecoming on October 11, with Janis joining openers the Butterfield Blues Band for their closing song. Aside from two 1970 reunions, Joplin's last performance with Big Brother was at a Chet Helms benefit in San Francisco on December 1, 1968.
1969–1970: Solo career
After splitting from Big Brother and the Holding Company, Joplin formed a new backup group, the Kozmic Blues Band, composed of session musicians like keyboardist Stephen Ryder and saxophonist Cornelius "Snooky" Flowers, as well as former Big Brother and the Holding Company guitarist Sam Andrew and future Full Tilt Boogie Band bassist Brad Campbell. The band was influenced by the Stax-Volt rhythm and blues (R&B) and soul bands of the 1960s, as exemplified by Otis Redding and the Bar-Kays. The Stax-Volt R&B sound was typified by the use of horns and had a funky, pop-oriented sound in contrast to many of the psychedelic/hard rock bands of the period.
By early 1969, Joplin was allegedly shooting at least $200 worth of heroin per day (equivalent to $1300 in 2016 dollars) although efforts were made to keep her clean during the recording of I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama! Gabriel Mekler, who produced the album, told publicist-turned-biographer Myra Friedman after Joplin's death that she had lived in his Los Angeles house during the June 1969 recording sessions at his insistence so he could keep her away from drugs and her drug-using friends.
Joplin's appearances with the Kozmic Blues Band in Europe were released in theaters, in multiple documentaries. Janis, which was reviewed by the Washington Post on March 21, 1975, shows Joplin arriving in Frankfurt by plane and waiting inside a bus next to the Frankfurt venue, while an American female fan who is visiting Germany expresses enthusiasm to the camera (no security was used in Frankfurt, so by the end of the concert, the stage was so packed with people the band members could not see each other). Janis also includes interviews with Joplin in Stockholm and from her visit to London, for her gig at Royal Albert Hall. The London interview was dubbed with a voiceover in the German language for broadcast on German television. John Byrne Cooke, road manager for Joplin and the Kozmic Blues Band, wrote a book published in 2014 in which he discussed her knowledge of the risks of her ongoing use of narcotics, particularly when she was outside the United States.
On the episode of The Dick Cavett Show that was telecast in the United States on the night of July 18, 1969, Joplin and her band performed "Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)" as well as "To Love Somebody". As Dick Cavett interviewed Joplin, she admitted that she had a terrible time touring in Europe, claiming that audiences there are very uptight and don't "get down".
Released in September 1969, the Kozmic Blues album was certified gold later that year but did not match the success of Cheap Thrills. Reviews of the new group were mixed. However, the album's recording quality and engineering, as well as the musicianship (including three performances by former Bob Dylan/Paul Butterfield/Electric Flag guitarist Mike Bloomfield), were considered superior to her previous releases, and some music critics argued that the band was working in a much more constructive way to support Joplin's sensational vocal talents.
Joplin wanted a horn section similar to that featured by the Chicago Transit Authority; her voice had the dynamic qualities and range not to be overpowered by the brighter horn sound.
Some music critics, however, including Ralph J. Gleason of the San Francisco Chronicle, were negative. Gleason wrote that the new band was a "drag" and Joplin should "scrap" her new band and "go right back to being a member of Big Brother ... (if they'll have her)."
Other reviewers, such as reporter Carl Bernstein of the Washington Post, devoted entire articles to celebrating the singer's magic. Bernstein's review said that Joplin "has finally assembled a group of first-rate musicians with whom she is totally at ease and whose abilities complement the incredible range of her voice."
Columbia Records released "Kozmic Blues" as a single, which peaked at number 41 on the Billboard Hot 100, and a live rendition of "Raise Your Hand" was released in Germany and became a top ten hit there. Containing other hits like "Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)", "To Love Somebody", and "Little Girl Blue", I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama! reached number five on the Billboard 200 soon after its release.
Joplin appeared at Woodstock starting at approximately 2:00 a.m., on Sunday, August 17, 1969. Joplin informed her band that they would be performing at the concert as if it were just another gig. On Saturday afternoon, when she and the band were flown by helicopter with the pregnant Joan Baez and Baez's mother from a nearby motel to the festival site and Joplin saw the enormous crowd, she instantly became extremely nervous and giddy. Upon landing and getting off the helicopter, Joplin was approached by reporters asking her questions. She referred them to her friend and sometime lover Peggy Caserta as she was too excited to speak. Initially, Joplin was eager to get on the stage and perform but was repeatedly delayed as bands were contractually obliged to perform ahead of Joplin. Faced with a ten-hour wait after arriving at the backstage area, Joplin spent some of that time shooting heroin and drinking alcohol with Caserta in a tent. The director's cut of the Woodstock movie shows Joplin and Jefferson Airplane singer Grace Slick standing together near amplifiers watching the band Canned Heat's performance, which started at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, and Caserta does not appear within camera range. When Joplin finally reached the stage at approximately 2:00 a.m. Sunday, she was "three sheets to the wind", according to biographer Alice Echols. During her performance, Joplin's voice became slightly hoarse and wheezy, and she struggled to dance.
Joplin pulled through, however, and engaged frequently with the crowd, asking them if they had everything they needed and if they were staying stoned. The audience cheered for an encore, to which Joplin replied and sang "Ball and Chain". Pete Townshend, who performed with the Who later in the same morning after Joplin finished, witnessed her performance and said the following in his 2012 memoir: "She had been amazing at Monterey, but tonight she wasn't at her best, due, probably, to the long delay, and probably, too, to the amount of booze and heroin she'd consumed while she waited. But even Janis on an off-night was incredible."
Janis remained at Woodstock for the remainder of the festival. Starting at approximately 3:00 a.m. on Monday, August 18, Joplin was among many Woodstock performers who stood in a circle behind Crosby, Stills & Nash during their performance, which was the first time anyone at Woodstock ever had heard the group perform. This information was published by David Crosby in 1988. Later in the morning of August 18, Joplin and Joan Baez sat in Joe Cocker's van and witnessed Hendrix's close-of-show performance, according to Baez's memoir And a Voice to Sing With (1989).
Still photographs in color show Joplin backstage with Grace Slick the day after Joplin's performance, wherein Joplin appears to be very happy. She was ultimately unhappy with her performance, however, and blamed Caserta. Her singing was not included (by her own insistence) in the 1970 documentary film or the soundtrack for Woodstock: Music from the Original Soundtrack and More, although the 25th anniversary director's cut of Woodstock includes her performance of "Work Me, Lord". The documentary film of the festival that was released in theaters during 1970 includes, on the left side of a split screen, 37 seconds of footage of Joplin and Caserta walking toward Joplin's dressing room tent.
In addition to Woodstock, Joplin also had problems at Madison Square Garden, in 1969. Biographer Myra Friedman said she had witnessed a duet Joplin sang with Tina Turner during the Rolling Stones concert at the Garden on Thanksgiving Day. Friedman said Joplin was "so drunk, so stoned, so out of control, that she could have been an institutionalized psychotic rent by mania." During another Garden concert where she had solo billing on December 19, some observers believed Joplin tried to incite the audience to riot. For part of this concert she was joined onstage by Johnny Winter and Paul Butterfield.
Joplin told rock journalist David Dalton that Garden audiences watched and listened to "every note [she sang] with 'Is she gonna make it?' in their eyes." In her interview with Dalton she added that she felt most comfortable performing at small, cheap venues in San Francisco that were associated with the counterculture.
At the time of the June 1970 interview with Dalton, she had already performed in the Bay Area for what turned out to be the last time. Sam Andrew, the lead guitarist who had left Big Brother with Joplin in December 1968 to form her back-up band, quit in late summer 1969 and returned to Big Brother. At the end of the year, the Kozmic Blues Band broke up. Their final gig with Joplin was the one at Madison Square Garden with Winter and Butterfield.
In February 1970, Joplin traveled to Brazil, where she stopped her drug and alcohol use. She was accompanied on vacation there by her friend Linda Gravenites (wife of songwriter Nick Gravenites), who had designed Janis's stage costumes from 1967 to 1969.
In Brazil, Joplin was romanced by a fellow American tourist named David (George) Niehaus, who was traveling around the world. A Joplin biography written by her sister Laura said, "David was an upper-middle-class Cincinnati kid who had studied communications at Notre Dame. ... [and] had joined the Peace Corps after college and worked in a small village in Turkey. ... He tried law school, but when he met Janis he was taking time off."
Niehaus and Joplin were photographed by the press at Rio Carnival in Rio de Janeiro. Gravenites also took color photographs of the two during their Brazilian vacation. According to Joplin biographer Ellis Amburn, in Gravenites' snapshots they "look like a carefree, happy, healthy young couple having a tremendously good time."
Rolling Stone magazine interviewed Joplin during an international phone call, quoting her: "I'm going into the jungle with a big bear of a beatnik named David Niehaus. I finally remembered I don't have to be on stage twelve months a year. I've decided to go and dig some other jungles for a couple of weeks." Amburn added in 1992, "Janis was trying to kick heroin in Brazil, and one of the nicest things about David was that he wasn't into drugs."
When Joplin returned to the U.S., she began using heroin again. Her relationship with Niehaus soon ended because he witnessed her shooting drugs at her new home in Larkspur, California. The relationship was also complicated by her ongoing romantic relationship with Peggy Caserta, who also was an intravenous addict, and Joplin's refusal to take some time off and travel the world with him.
Around this time, she formed her new band, known for a short time as Main Squeeze, then renamed the Full Tilt Boogie Band. The band comprised mostly young Canadian musicians previously associated with Ronnie Hawkins and featured an organ, but no horn section. Joplin took a more active role in putting together the Full Tilt Boogie band than she had with her prior group. She was quoted as saying, "It's my band. Finally it's my band!" In May 1970, after performing under the name Main Squeeze at a Hell's Angels event, the renamed Full Tilt Boogie Band began a nationwide tour. Joplin became very happy with her new group, which eventually received mostly positive feedback from both her fans and the critics.
Prior to beginning a summer tour with Full Tilt Boogie, she performed in a reunion with Big Brother at the Fillmore West, in San Francisco, on April 4, 1970. Recordings from this concert were included in an in-concert album released posthumously in 1972. She again appeared with Big Brother on April 12 at Winterland, where she and Big Brother were reported to be in excellent form. She performed with the band, billed as Main Squeeze, at a party for the Hells Angels at a venue in San Rafael, California on May 21, 1970, according to a web site maintained by Big Brother guitarist Sam Andrew. Andrew's web site quotes him as saying, "This will be the first time that Janis' old band and her new band will be at the same venue, so everyone is a little on edge."
According to Joplin's biographer Ellis Amburn, Big Brother with its lead singer Nick Gravenites was the opening act at the party that was attended by 2,300 people. The Hells Angels, who had known Joplin since 1966, paid her a fee of 240 dollars to perform. Gravenites and Sam Andrew (who had resumed playing guitar with Big Brother) differed in their opinions of her performance and how substance abuse affected it. Gravenites described her singing as "stupendous," according to Amburn. Amburn quoted Andrew twenty years later: "She was visibly deteriorating and she looked bloated. She was like a parody of what she was at her best. I put it down to her drinking too much and I felt a tinge of fear for her well-being. Her singing was real flabby, no edge at all."
Shortly thereafter, Joplin began wearing multi-colored feather boas in her hair. (She had not worn them at the May 21 Hell's Angels party / concert in San Rafael). By the time she began touring with Full Tilt Boogie, Joplin told people she was drug-free, but her drinking increased.
From June 28 to July 4, 1970, during the Festival Express tour, Joplin and Full Tilt Boogie performed alongside Buddy Guy, the Band, the Flying Burrito Brothers, Ten Years After, the Grateful Dead, Delaney & Bonnie, Eric Andersen, and Ian & Sylvia. They played concerts in Toronto, Winnipeg, and Calgary. Joplin jammed with the other performers on the train, and her performances on this tour are considered to be among her greatest.
Joplin headlined the festival on all three nights. At the last stop in Calgary, she took to the stage with Jerry Garcia while her band was tuning up. Film footage shows her telling the audience how great the tour was and shows her and Garcia presenting the organizers with a case of tequila. She then burst into a two-hour set, starting with "Tell Mama". Throughout this performance, Joplin engaged in several banters about her love life. In one, she reminisced about living in a San Francisco apartment and competing with a female neighbor in flirting with men on the street. She finished the Calgary concert with long versions of "Get It While You Can" and "Ball and Chain".
Footage of her performance of "Tell Mama" in Calgary became an MTV video in the early 1980s, and the audio from the same film footage was included on the Farewell Song (1982) album. The audio of other Festival Express performances was included on Joplin's In Concert (1972) album. Video of the performances was also included on the Festival Express DVD.
These performances of entire songs during the Festival Express concerts in Toronto and Calgary can be purchased, although other songs remain in vaults and have yet to be released.
In the "Tell Mama" video shown on MTV in the 1980s, Joplin wore a psychedelically colored, loose-fitting costume and feathers in her hair. This was her standard stage costume in the spring and summer of 1970. She chose the new costumes after her friend and designer, Linda Gravenites (whom Joplin had praised in Vogues profile of her in its May 1968 edition), cut ties with Joplin shortly after their return from Brazil, due largely to Joplin's continued use of heroin.
Among Joplin's last public appearances were two broadcasts of The Dick Cavett Show. In her June 25, 1970 appearance, she announced that she would attend her ten-year high school class reunion. When asked if she had been popular in school, she admitted that when in high school, her schoolmates "laughed me out of class, out of town and out of the state" (during the year she had spent at the University of Texas at Austin, Joplin had been voted "Ugliest Man on Campus" by frat boys). In the subsequent Cavett Show broadcast, on August 3, 1970, and featuring Gloria Swanson, Joplin discussed her upcoming performance at the Festival for Peace to be held at Shea Stadium in Queens, New York, three days later.
On July 11, 1970, Full Tilt Boogie and Big Brother and the Holding Company both performed at the same concert in the San Diego Sports Arena, which was decades later renamed the Valley View Casino Center. Joplin sang with Full Tilt Boogie and appeared briefly onstage with Big Brother without singing, according to a July 13 review of the concert in the San Diego Union.
On August 7, 1970, a tombstone—jointly paid for by Joplin and Juanita Green, who as a child had done housework for Bessie Smith—was erected at Smith's previously unmarked grave. The following day, the Associated Press circulated this news, and the August 9 edition of The New York Times carried it. The lead paragraph of the AP story said Joplin and Green had "shared the cost of a stone for the 'Empress of the Blues,'" but, according to publicist/biographer Myra Friedman, the two women never met. Joplin had been at home in Larkspur, California when she had received a long-distance phone call with an explanation of the need to finance a gravestone for Bessie Smith, whom Joplin had frequently cited as a musical influence. Joplin immediately wrote a check and mailed it to the name and address provided by the phone caller.
On August 8, 1970, as the Associated Press circulated the news about Smith's new gravestone, Joplin performed at the Capitol Theatre (Port Chester, New York). It was there that she first performed "Mercedes Benz", a song (partially inspired by a Michael McClure poem) that she had composed with fellow musician and friend Bob Neuwirth a very short time earlier. According to Myra Friedman's account, Joplin performed two shows at the Capitol Theatre, the first of which was attended by actors Geraldine Page and her husband Rip Torn. Between the shows, at a "gin mill" [Friedman's words] very close to this concert venue, Joplin and Neuwirth penned the lyrics to the song and she performed it at the second show, according to Friedman. Neuwirth was quoted by The Wall Street Journal in 2015: "Around 7 p.m., after the Capitol sound check, we had a couple of hours to kill before [acts that opened for Joplin] Seatrain and Runt finished their sets. So the four of us [Joplin, Neuwirth, Geraldine Page, Rip Torn] walked to a bar about three minutes away called Vahsen’s [at 30 Broad Street in Port Chester]." While in Vahsen's, "Janis came up with words for the first verse. I was in charge of writing them down on bar napkins with a ballpoint pen. She came up with the second verse, too, about a color TV. I suggested words here and there, and came up with the third verse—about asking the Lord to buy us a night on the town and another round."
Joplin's last public performance with the Full Tilt Boogie Band took place on August 12, 1970, at the Harvard Stadium in Boston. The Harvard Crimson gave the performance a positive, front-page review, despite the fact that Full Tilt Boogie had performed with makeshift amplifiers after their regular sound equipment was stolen in Boston.
Joplin attended her high school reunion on August 14, accompanied by Neuwirth, road manager John Cooke, and sister Laura, but it was reportedly an unhappy experience for her. Joplin held a press conference in Port Arthur during her reunion visit. When asked by a reporter if she ever entertained at Thomas Jefferson High School when she was a student there, Joplin replied, "Only when I walked down the aisles." Joplin denigrated Port Arthur and the classmates who had humiliated her a decade earlier.
During late August, September, and early October 1970, Joplin and her band rehearsed and recorded a new album in Los Angeles with producer Paul A. Rothchild, best known for his lengthy relationship with The Doors. Although Joplin died before all the tracks were fully completed, there was enough usable material to compile an LP.
The posthumous Pearl (1971) became the biggest-selling album of her career and featured her biggest hit single, a cover of Kris Kristofferson and Fred Foster's "Me and Bobby McGee" (Kristofferson had previously been Joplin's lover in the spring of 1970). The opening track, "Move Over", was written by Joplin, reflecting the way that she felt men treated women in relationships. Also included was the social commentary of "Mercedes Benz", presented in an a cappella arrangement; the track on the album features the first and only take that Joplin recorded. A cover of Nick Gravenites's "Buried Alive in the Blues", to which Joplin had been scheduled to add her vocals on the day she was found dead, was included as an instrumental.
Joplin checked into the Landmark Motor Hotel in Hollywood on August 24, 1970, near Sunset Sound Recorders, where she began rehearsing and recording her album. During the sessions, Joplin continued a relationship with Seth Morgan, a 21-year-old UC Berkeley student, cocaine dealer, and future novelist who had visited her new home in Larkspur in July and August. She and Morgan were engaged to be married in early September, although he visited Sunset Sound Recorders for just eight of Joplin's many rehearsals and sessions.
Morgan later told biographer Myra Friedman that, as a non-musician, he had felt excluded whenever he had visited Sunset Sound Recorders. Instead, he stayed at Joplin's Larkspur home while she stayed alone at the Landmark, although several times she visited Larkspur to be with him and to check the progress of renovations she was having done on the house. She told her construction crew to design a carport to be shaped like a flying saucer, according to biographer Ellis Amburn, the concrete foundation for which was poured the day before she died.
Peggy Caserta claimed in her book, Going Down With Janis (1973), that she and Joplin had decided mutually in April 1970 to stay away from each other to avoid enabling each other's drug use. Caserta, a former Delta Air Lines stewardess and owner of one of the first clothing boutiques in the Haight Ashbury, said in the book that by September 1970, she was smuggling cannabis throughout California and had checked into the Landmark Motor Hotel because it attracted drug users.
For approximately the first two weeks of Joplin's stay at the Landmark, she did not know Caserta was in Los Angeles. Joplin learned of Caserta's presence at the Landmark from a heroin dealer who made deliveries there. Joplin begged Caserta for heroin, and when Caserta refused to provide it, Joplin reportedly admonished her by saying, "Don't think if you can get it, I can't get it." Joplin's publicist Myra Friedman was unaware during Joplin's lifetime that this had happened. Later, while Friedman was working on her book Buried Alive, she determined that the time frame of the Joplin-Caserta encounter was one week before Jimi Hendrix's death.
Within a few days, Joplin became a regular customer of the same heroin dealer who had been supplying Caserta.
Joplin's manager Albert Grossman and his assistant/publicist Friedman had staged an intervention with Joplin the previous winter while Joplin was in New York. In September 1970, Grossman and Friedman, who worked out of a New York office, knew Joplin was staying at a Los Angeles hotel, but were unaware it was a haven for drug users and dealers.
Grossman and Friedman knew during Joplin's lifetime that her friend Caserta, whom Friedman met during the New York sessions for Cheap Thrills and on later occasions, used heroin. During the many long-distance telephone conversations that Joplin and Friedman had in September 1970 and on October 1, Joplin never mentioned Caserta, and Friedman assumed Caserta had been out of Joplin's life for a while. Friedman, who had more time than Grossman to monitor the situation, never visited California. She thought Joplin sounded on the phone like she was less depressed than she had been over the summer.
When Joplin was not at Sunset Sound Recorders, she liked to drive her Porsche over the speed limit "on the winding part of Sunset Blvd.", according to a statement made by her attorney Robert Gordon in 1995 at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony. Friedman wrote that the only Full Tilt Boogie member who rode as her passenger, Ken Pearson, often hesitated to join her, though he did on the night she died. He was not interested in using hard drugs.
On September 26, 1970, Joplin recorded vocals for "Half Moon" and "Cry Baby". The session ended with Joplin, organist Ken Pearson, and drummer Clark Pierson making a special one-minute recording as a birthday gift to John Lennon. Joplin was among several singers who had been contacted by Yoko Ono with a request for a taped greeting for Lennon's 30th birthday, on October 9. Joplin, Pearson, and Pierson chose the Dale Evans composition "Happy Trails" as part of the greeting. Lennon told Dick Cavett on-camera the following year that Joplin's recorded birthday wishes arrived at his home after her death.
On October 1, 1970, Joplin completed her last recording, "Mercedes Benz", which was recorded in a single take. On Saturday, October 3, Joplin visited Sunset Sound Recorders to listen to the instrumental track for Nick Gravenites's song "Buried Alive in the Blues", which the band had recorded earlier that day. She and Paul Rothchild agreed she would record the vocal the following day.
At some point on Saturday, she learned by telephone, to her dismay, that Seth Morgan had met other women at a Marin County, California, restaurant, invited them to her home, and was shooting pool with them using her pool table. People at Sunset Sound Recorders overheard Joplin expressing anger about the state of her relationship with Morgan, as well as joy about the progress of the sessions.
Joplin and Ken Pearson later left the studio together and she drove him in her Porsche to the West Hollywood landmark called Barney's Beanery. Friedman wrote, "At the bar, she drank vodka and orange juice, only two." Bennett Glotzer, a business partner of Joplin's manager Albert Grossman, was present at Barney's Beanery, according to what he told John Byrne Cooke immediately after he (Glotzer) learned of her death. Evidently, Joplin had a friendly conversation with a young man whom she did not know, and he expressed admiration for her music. After midnight, she drove Ken Pearson and the male fan to the Landmark where she and Pearson were staying in separate rooms. During the car ride, the fan asked Joplin questions "about her singing style," according to Friedman, and "she mostly ignored him" so she could converse with Pearson. As Joplin and Pearson prepared to part in the lobby of the Landmark, she expressed a fear, possibly in jest, that he and the other Full Tilt Boogie musicians might decide to stop making music with her. Pearson was the second-to-last person to see her alive. The last was the Landmark's night shift desk clerk. He had met her several times but did not know her.
Personal life
Joplin's significant relationships with men included ones with Peter de Blanc, Country Joe McDonald (who wrote the song "Janis" at Joplin's request), David (George) Niehaus, Kris Kristofferson, and Seth Morgan (from July 1970 until her death, at which time they were allegedly engaged).
She also had relationships with women. During her first stint in San Francisco in 1963, Joplin met and briefly lived with Jae Whitaker, a black woman whom she had met while playing pool at the bar Gino & Carlo in North Beach. Whitaker broke off their relationship because of Joplin's hard drug use and sexual relationships with other people. Whitaker was first identified by name in connection with the singer in 1999, when Alice Echols' biography Scars of Sweet Paradise was published.
Joplin also had an on-again-off-again romantic relationship with Peggy Caserta. They first met in November 1966 when Big Brother performed at a San Francisco venue called The Matrix. Caserta was one of 15 people in the audience, and at the time, she ran a successful clothing boutique in the Haight Ashbury. Approximately a month after Caserta attended the concert, Joplin visited her boutique and said she could not afford to buy a pair of jeans that was for sale, instead asking to put down the first 50 cents on the $5 item. Caserta was amazed that such a talented singer could not afford a $5 item, and gave her a pair for free. Their friendship was platonic for more than a year. Before it moved to the next level, Caserta was in love with Big Brother guitarist Sam Andrew, and sometime during the first half of 1968 traveled from San Francisco to New York to flirt with him. He did not want a serious relationship, and Joplin sympathized with Caserta's disappointment.
The Woodstock concert film includes 37 seconds of Joplin and Caserta walking together before they reached the tent where Joplin waited for her turn to perform. By the time the festival took place in August 1969, both were intravenous heroin addicts.
According to Caserta's book Going Down With Janis, which Caserta has since disowned, Joplin introduced her to her boyfriend Seth Morgan in Joplin's room at the Landmark Motor Hotel on September 29, 1970. Caserta "had seen him around" San Francisco but had not met him before. At some point, an agreement was made for a threesome to take place the following Friday, although Caserta later said that she immediately abandoned the idea once she understood that it was Morgan who would be with Joplin. Morgan made alternate plans, believing that Caserta would be with Joplin that evening. Each one, however, was unaware that the other had bowed out. The day after Joplin introduced Caserta to Morgan, Caserta saw Joplin briefly, again in Joplin's room, when Caserta accommodated her new Los Angeles friend Debbie Nuciforo, age 19, an aspiring hard rock drummer who wanted to meet Joplin. Nuciforo was stoned on heroin at the time, and the three women's encounter was brief and unpleasant. Caserta suspected that the reason for Joplin's foul mood was that Morgan had abandoned her earlier that day after having spent less than 24 hours with her. Caserta did not see nor communicate by phone with Joplin again, although she later claimed she had made several attempts to reach her by phone at the Landmark Motor Hotel and at Sunset Sound Recorders. Caserta and Morgan lost touch with each other; each had independently made alternate plans for Friday night, October 2. Joplin mentioned her disappointment (over both of her friends' bailing out of their ménage à trois) to her drug dealer on Saturday, while he was selling her the dose of heroin that killed her, as Caserta later learned from the drug dealer.
Biographer Myra Friedman commented in her original version of Buried Alive (1973):
Given the near-infinite potentials of infancy, it is really impossible to make generalizations about what lies behind sexual practices. This, however, is probable: to become clearly homosexual, to make the choice that one honestly prefers relations with one's own sex, no matter the origins of such preference, requires a certain integration, a stability of psychic development, a tidiness of personality organization. The ridicule and the humiliation that took place at that most delicate period in [Joplin's] early teens, her own inability to surmount the obstacles to regular growth, devastated her a great deal more than most people comprehended. Janis was not heir to an ego so cohesive as to permit her an identity one way or the other. She was, as [the psychiatric social worker she saw regularly in Beaumont, Texas in 1965 and 1966] Mr. [Bernard] Giarritano put it [in an interview with Friedman], "diffused" -- spewing, splattering, splaying all over, without a center to hold. That had as much to do with her original use of drugs [before she first met Giarritano] as did the critical component of guilt and its multiplicity of sources above and beyond the contribution made by her relationships with women. Were she so simple as the lesbians wished her to be or so free as her associates imagined!
Kim France reported in her May 2, 1999 The New York Times article, "Nothin' Left to Lose" : "Once she became famous, Joplin cursed like a truck driver, did not believe in wearing undergarments, was rarely seen without her bottle of Southern Comfort and delighted in playing the role of sexual predator."
On July 11, 1970, Joplin made a revealing statement about her sexuality to her friend Richard Hundgen, the Grateful Dead's San Francisco-based road manager whom she had known since 1966. When Joplin and Hundgen were offstage during a San Diego gig for both Full Tilt Boogie and Big Brother and the Holding Company, she said the following that he later repeated to Myra Friedman:
I hear a rumor that somebody in San Francisco is spreading stories that I'm a dyke. You go back there and find out who it is and tell them that Janis says she's gotten it on with a couple of thousand cats in her life and a few hundred chicks and see what they can do with that!
Death
On Sunday evening, October 4, 1970, Joplin was found dead on the floor of her room at the Landmark Motor Hotel by her road manager and close friend John Byrne Cooke.
Alcohol was present in the room. Newspapers reported that no other drugs or paraphernalia were present. According to a 1983 book authored by Joseph DiMona and Los Angeles County coroner Thomas Noguchi, evidence of narcotics was removed from the scene by a friend of Joplin and later put back after the person realized that an autopsy was going to reveal that narcotics were in her system. The book adds that prior to Joplin's death, Noguchi had investigated other fatal drug overdoses in Los Angeles where friends believed they were doing favors for decedents by removing evidence of narcotics, then they "thought things over" and returned to put back the evidence. Noguchi performed an autopsy on Joplin and determined the cause of death to be a heroin overdose, possibly compounded by alcohol.
John Byrne Cooke believed Joplin had been given heroin that was much more potent than what she and other L.A. heroin users had received on previous occasions, as was indicated by overdoses of several of her dealer's other customers during the same weekend. Her death was ruled accidental.
Both Peggy Caserta, Joplin's close friend, and Seth Morgan, Joplin's fiancé, had failed to meet Joplin the Friday immediately prior to her death, October 2; Joplin had been expecting both of them to keep her company that night. According to Caserta, Joplin was saddened that neither of her friends visited her at the Landmark as they had promised. During the 24 hours Joplin lived after this disappointment, Caserta did not phone her to explain why she had failed to show up. Caserta admitted to waiting until late Saturday night to dial the Landmark switchboard, only to learn that Joplin had instructed the desk clerk not to accept any incoming phone calls for her after midnight. Morgan did speak to Joplin via telephone within the 24 hours prior to her death, but little is known about that call. She used a phone at Sunset Sound Recorders where her colleagues (“there were perhaps twenty to twenty-five people present,” wrote biographer Myra Friedman) noticed that whatever Morgan said to her made her very angry.
Peggy Caserta has insisted that Joplin's death was not an accidental overdose, but rather a result of a head gash suffered after the "hourglass heel" of her slingback sandal caught in the shag carpet, causing her to lose her balance. Caserta does concede, however, that drugs and/or alcohol may have played a role in hastening her death that night.
Joplin was cremated at Pierce Brothers Westwood Village Memorial Park and Mortuary in Los Angeles, and her ashes were scattered from a plane into the Pacific Ocean.
Legacy
Joplin's death in October 1970 at age 27 stunned her fans and shocked the music world, especially when coupled with the death just 16 days earlier of another rock icon, Jimi Hendrix, also at age 27. (This would later cause some people to attribute significance to the death of musicians at the age of 27, as celebrated in the "27 Club.") Music historian Tom Moon wrote that Joplin had "a devastatingly original voice," music columnist Jon Pareles of The New York Times wrote that Joplin as an artist was "overpowering and deeply vulnerable" and author Megan Terry said that Joplin was the female version of Elvis Presley in her ability to captivate an audience.
A book about Joplin by her publicist Myra Friedman titled Buried Alive: The Biography of Janis Joplin (1973) was excerpted in many newspapers. At the same time, Peggy Caserta's memoir, Going Down With Janis (1973), attracted much attention; its provocative title is a reference to Caserta's claim that she had engaged in oral sex with Joplin while they were high on heroin in September 1970. The description provided by Dan Knapp, Caserta’s co-author whom she denounced decades later, repelled many people in 1973 when few books or filmed interviews of Joplin or her loved ones were accessible to the public. Joplin's bandmate Sam Andrew described Caserta as "halfway between a groupie and a friend" in an interview with writer Ellis Amburn. Soon after the 1973 publication of Going Down With Janis, Joplin's friends learned that graphic descriptions of sexual acts and intravenous drug use were not the only portions of the book that would haunt them.
According to Kim Chappell, a close friend of Caserta and Joplin, Caserta's book angered the Los Angeles heroin dealer whom she had described in detail in her book, including the make and model of his car. According to Amburn, in 1973 a "carful of dope dealers" visited a Los Angeles lesbian bar that Caserta had been frequenting. Chappell, who was in the alley behind the bar, stated: "I was stabbed because, when Peggy's book came out, her dealer, the same one who'd given Janis her last fix, didn't like it that he was referred to and was out to get Peggy. He couldn't find her, so he went for her lover. When they realized who I was, they felt that my death would also hit Peggy, and so they stabbed me." Despite being "stabbed three times in the chest, puncturing both lungs," Chappell eventually recovered.
In 2018, Caserta denounced Going Down With Janis as the pornographic fantasy of Dan Knapp, her co-author, and largely unreliable. During that year, the public had its first access to her own story via a memoir she co-wrote with Maggie Falcon titled I Ran Into Some Trouble. It describes a long, friendly relationship with Joplin that only occasionally featured sexuality.
According to Joplin’s biographers, Caserta was among many friends of Joplin who did not become clean and sober until a very long time after Joplin's death, while others died from overdoses. Although the wife of Big Brother guitarist James Gurley, who was Joplin's close friend, died from a heroin overdose in 1969, devastating Joplin, Gurley himself did not become clean and sober until 1984. Caserta survived "a near-fatal OD in December 1995," wrote Alice Echols. On January 13, 2000, Caserta appeared during a segment about Joplin on 20/20.
Joplin's body art, with a wristlet and a small heart on her left breast by the San Francisco tattoo artist Lyle Tuttle, marked an early moment in the popular culture's acceptance of tattoos as art. Another trademark was her flamboyant hair styles, which often included colored streaks and accessories such as scarves, beads and feathers. When in New York City, Joplin frequented the Limbo boutique on St. Mark's Place, and she wore some of the vintage and unique garments that she purchased there on stage.
The Mamas & the Papas' song "Pearl" (1971), from their People Like Us album, was a tribute. Leonard Cohen's song "Chelsea Hotel#2" (1974) is about Joplin. Lyricist Robert Hunter has commented that Jerry Garcia's "Birdsong" from his first solo album, Garcia (1972), is about Joplin and the end of her suffering through death. Mimi Farina's composition "In the Quiet Morning", most famously covered by Joan Baez on her Come from the Shadows (1972) album, was a tribute to Joplin. Another song by Baez, "Children of the Eighties," mentioned Joplin. A Serge Gainsbourg-penned French language song by English singer Jane Birkin, "Ex fan des sixties" (1978), references Joplin along with other disappeared "idols" such as Jimi Hendrix, Brian Jones and Marc Bolan. When Joplin was alive, Country Joe McDonald released a song called "Janis" on his band's album I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die (1967).
The film The Rose (1979) is loosely based on Joplin's life. Originally planned to be titled Pearl—Joplin's nickname and the title of her last album—the film was fictionalized after her family declined to allow the producers the rights to her story. Bette Midler earned a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in the film.
In 1988, on what would have been Joplin's 45th birthday, the Janis Joplin Memorial, with an original gold, multi-image sculpture of Joplin by Douglas Clark, was dedicated during a ceremony in Port Arthur, Texas.
In 1992, the first major biography of Joplin in two decades, Love, Janis, authored by her younger sister Laura Joplin, was published. In an interview, Laura stated that Joplin enjoyed being on the Dick Cavett Show, that Joplin had difficulties with some, but not all, people at Thomas Jefferson High School and that Joplin enthusiastically talked about Woodstock with her parents and siblings during a visit to their Texas home a few weeks after she had performed at the festival.
In 1995, Joplin was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In 2005, she received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. In November 2009, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum honored her as part of its annual American Music Masters Series; among the artifacts at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum exhibition are Joplin's scarf and necklaces, her psychedelically painted 1965 Porsche 356 Cabriolet and a sheet of LSD blotting paper designed by Robert Crumb, designer of the Cheap Thrills cover. Also in 2009, Joplin was the honoree at the Rock Hall's American Music Master concert and lecture series.
In the late 1990s, the musical play Love, Janis was created and directed by Randal Myler, with input from Janis' younger sister Laura and Big Brother guitarist Sam Andrew, with an aim to take it to Off-Broadway. Opening in the summer of 2001 and scheduled for only a few weeks of performances, the show won acclaim, played to packed houses and was held over several times.
In 2013, Washington's Arena Stage featured a production of A Night with Janis Joplin, starring Mary Bridget Davies. In it, Joplin performs a concert for the audience while telling stories of her past inspirations, including those of Odetta and Aretha Franklin. The show went on tour in 2016.
On November 4, 2013, Joplin was awarded with the 2,510th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contributions to the music industry. Her star is located at 6752 Hollywood Boulevard, in front of Musicians Institute.
On August 8, 2014, the U.S. Postal Service revealed a commemorative stamp honoring Joplin as part of its Music Icons stamp series during a first-day-of-issue ceremony at the Outside Lands Music Festival at Golden Gate Park.
Among the memorabilia Joplin left behind is a Gibson Hummingbird guitar.
In 2015, the biographical documentary film Janis: Little Girl Blue, directed by Amy J. Berg and narrated by Cat Power, was released. It was a New York Times Critics' Pick.
Influence
Joplin had a profound influence on many singers.
Pink said about Joplin: "She was so inspiring by singing blues music when it wasn't culturally acceptable for white women, and she wore her heart on her sleeve. She was so witty and charming and intelligent, but she also battled an ugly-duckling syndrome. I would love to play her in a movie." In a tribute performance on her Try This Tour, Pink called Joplin "a woman who inspired me when everyone else ... didn't!"
Discography
Janis Joplin recorded four albums in her four-year career. The first two albums were recorded with and credited to Big Brother and the Holding Company; the later two were recorded with different backing bands and released as solo albums. Posthumous releases have included previously unreleased studio and live material.
Studio albums
As lead singer of Big Brother and the Holding Company
As solo artist
Live albums
Compilation albums
Singles
As lead of Big Brother and the Holding Company
As solo artist
Filmography
Monterey Pop (1968)
Petulia (1968)
Janis Joplin Live in Frankfurt (1969)
Janis (1974)
Janis: The Way She Was (1974)
Comin' Home (1988)
Woodstock – The Lost Performances (1991)
Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace & Music (Director's Cut) (1994)
Festival Express (2003)
Nine Hundred Nights (2004)
The Dick Cavett Show: Rock Icons (2005) Shout Factory
Rockin' at the Red Dog: The Dawn of Psychedelic Rock (2005)
This is Tom Jones (2007) 1969 appearance on TV show
Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace & Music (Director's Cut) 40th Anniversary Edition (2009)
Janis Joplin with Big Brother: Ball and Chain (DVD) Charly (2009)
Janis: Little Girl Blue (2015)
Notes
References
Further reading
– an encounter with Janis Joplin at the wheel.
External links
Janis Joplin at the Grammy Awards
Janis Joplin on the Music-Map
1943 births
1970 deaths
20th-century American singers
20th-century American women singers
American blues singers
American child singers
American mezzo-sopranos
American women rock singers
American women singer-songwriters
American rhythm and blues singer-songwriters
American rock songwriters
American soul musicians
Accidental deaths in California
Big Brother and the Holding Company members
Bisexual musicians
Bisexual women
Blues rock musicians
Columbia Records artists
Deaths by heroin overdose in California
Drug-related deaths in California
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners
LGBT people from Texas
LGBT singers from the United States
LGBT songwriters
Lamar University alumni
People from Beaumont, Texas
People from Port Arthur, Texas
Singer-songwriters from Texas
University of Texas at Austin alumni
20th-century LGBT people
| true |
[
"The Poznań or Grecque is a form of sporting celebration that involves supporters standing with their backs to the pitch, linking shoulders side-by-side and jumping on the spot in unison. It is mostly associated with supporters of football clubs Lech Poznań in Poland, Manchester City in England, Celtic in Scotland, Deportivo Alavés in Spain, and the Western Sydney Wanderers in Australia, although it has been performed by fans of many football clubs throughout the world. Its first use is thought to have been as a protest against club management while still supporting the team.\n\nUsage \nThe Poznań Celebration involves the fans turning their backs to the pitch, joining arms and jumping up and down in unison. In Poland, and among many fans across Europe, it is not called \"the Poznań\" but is known as a \"Grecque\", and it is performed by fans of many teams.\n\nDespite initially failing to impress Manchester City fans when it was done during the teams' meeting in the UEFA Europa League group stage on 21 October 2010, it was subsequently adopted by City supporters during a game early the following month. The activity was coined 'The Poznań' by Manchester City fans, in homage to the club that inspired them to celebrate in this way. Apart from odd occasions, it died out as a regular celebration within a couple of seasons. The Poznań was briefly adopted by other English football supporters, notably those of Leicester City after their clash with Manchester City in the third round of the FA Cup in January 2011, and is referred to by English football fans as \"doing the Poznań\".\n\nIt has also been used to mock Manchester City fans, such as when newly promoted side Cardiff City beat them 3-2 in August 2013. More examples include when Arsenal supporters did the Poznań celebration after Mikel Arteta scored the winning goal for Arsenal in April 2012 and when Arsenal beat Manchester City in the Premier League. Manchester City supporters did it during a Manchester derby game in the 2010–11 FA Cup semi-final as well as Bayern Munich fans during a Champions League group match against them in October 2013. Arsenal supporters also did the Poznań during the 3-0 win in the 2014 FA Community Shield against Man City, and again in January 2015, when Arsenal beat them 0-2, as did Crystal Palace fans at the 2016 FA Cup Final against Manchester United.\n\nInitially, the supporters group of Australian club Western Sydney Wanderers, The Red and Black Bloc, performed it in the 80th minute of matches to represent the first football match played in Western Sydney in 1880. Subsequently, this has grown into an all stadium celebration. In return, their local rival, Sydney FC and their hard-core supporters \"The Cove\" have performed it in retribution when they are in a winning position as the 90th minute nears during their local derby.\n\nAlternatives \nFans of the Scottish club Celtic have a similar celebration known as \"The Huddle\", whilst also facing away from the pitch; the words sung by the fans are \"Let's All Do The Huddle\". The \"Huddle\" performed by Celtic fans is closely linked to the on-field huddle conducted by the Celtic team prior to kick-off which was introduced by Tony Mowbray during his playing career at the club in the mid 1990s. Over the years, Celtic fans have carried out various versions of the huddle, although the first example of it being performed by large numbers of the club's supporters at a game was during a 3-0 win over Rangers at Celtic Park in February 2011.\n\nSupporters of Deportivo Alavés, a La Liga team, have been known to celebrate most of their team's goals with a variation of \"The Poznań\" since at least 2014, in which they stand with their backs to the pitch, linking shoulders side-by-side and jumping on the spot while they sing the tune to the Pippi Longstocking TV series.\n\nFC Copenhagen Ultras have the past several years celebrated wins using a variant of the Poznań where the fans turn their backs to the pitch and jump from side to side while the players on the pitch do the same.\n\nSee also \nThe Bouncy\nMexican wave\n\"Jump Around\", a 1992 song by American hip hop group House of Pain used as the backdrop for similar fan actions\n\nReferences \n\nAssociation football culture\nLech Poznań\nManchester City F.C.\nWestern Sydney Wanderers FC\nArticles containing video clips",
"Bałtyk Gdynia is a Polish football club from Gdynia. The club is named after the Baltic Sea.\n\nHistory \nThe club was established in 1930 by football enthusiasts from the developing city. Bałtyk is the oldest football club from Gdynia, which still plays with its original name.\n\nBałtyk played 7 seasons in the Polish first league and 19 in Polish second league. They also appeared once in the Intertoto Cup, in 1983. In 1977, Baltyk's U-19 team won bronze in the Polish Championship, and in 1982, Baltyk won silver in the U-19 championship of Poland.\n\nIn 2019 and 2020 the club fell victim to a career fraudster causing the club to sign player contracts promising money that did not exist. The perpetrator was never caught however the club managed to negotiate a recovery plan and by 2021 the club was solvent again.\n\nFans \nThe fans are known as \"Kadłuby\" (The Hulls). Once one of the strongest fan groups in the 80's, as the team started to fall down the leagues only a handful of loyal supporters now remain in Gdynia and several smaller towns in the region.\n\nIn the past the fast used to have short-lived friendly relations with fans of Lech Poznań, Pogoń Lębork and Ferencváros at various points in their history. Currently they have good relations with fans of Kotwica Kołobrzeg and Cartusia Kartuzy.\n\nThe two Tricity derby rivals Lechia Gdańsk and Arka Gdynia are considered the most fierce. The games against Arka, also known as the Gdynia derby have a long history and the fans often contend for dominance in the city. The controversy surrounding the two club's stadium use is also a serious cause of tension between the two.\n\nDue to Bałtyk languishing in the lower leagues for several years, the club has developed rivalries with other clubs, mainly Gryf Słupsk.\n\nBałtyk in Europe\n\nCurrent squad\n\nFormer players\n\n Lawrence Papaleo\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n Official website\n Unofficial website\n\nAssociation football clubs established in 1930\n1930 establishments in Poland\nSport in Gdynia\nFootball clubs in Pomeranian Voivodeship"
] |
[
"Janis Joplin",
"Kozmic Blues Band",
"Was Janis Joplin part of the Kozmic Blues Band?",
"Joplin formed a new backup group, the Kozmic Blues Band,",
"Did she tour with the Kozmic Blues Band?",
"I don't know.",
"Were there any well known artists that were part of the Kozmic Blues Band?",
"composed of session musicians like keyboardist Stephen Ryder and saxophonist Cornelius \"Snooky\" Flowers,",
"Did the Komic Blues Band release any albums?",
"I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama!.",
"Did the Kozmic Blues Band ever appear on TV?",
"On one episode of The Dick Cavett Show, they performed \"Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)\" as well as \"To Love Somebody\".",
"Did the band and Janis Joplin ever travel?",
"Joplin's appearances with the Kozmic Blues Band in Europe",
"Did they have fans in Europe?",
"the stage was so packed with people the band members could not see each other)."
] |
C_e67a6494e12f48e39fceae5d4a32ef7a_0
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How long did the band last?
| 8 |
How long did the Kozmic Blues Band last?
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Janis Joplin
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After splitting from Big Brother and the Holding Company, Joplin formed a new backup group, the Kozmic Blues Band, composed of session musicians like keyboardist Stephen Ryder and saxophonist Cornelius "Snooky" Flowers, as well as former Big Brother and the Holding Company guitarist Sam Andrew and future Full Tilt Boogie Band bassist Brad Campbell. The band was influenced by the Stax-Volt rhythm and blues (R&B) and soul bands of the 1960s, as exemplified by Otis Redding and the Bar-Kays. The Stax-Volt R&B sound was typified by the use of horns and had a funky, pop-oriented sound in contrast to many of the psychedelic/hard rock bands of the period. By early 1969, Joplin was allegedly shooting at least $200 worth of heroin per day (equivalent to $1300 in 2016 dollars) although efforts were made to keep her clean during the recording of I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama!. Gabriel Mekler, who produced Kozmic Blues, told publicist-turned-biographer Myra Friedman after Joplin's death that the singer had lived in his house during the June 1969 recording sessions at his insistence so he could keep her away from drugs and her drug-using friends. Joplin's appearances with the Kozmic Blues Band in Europe were released in cinemas, in multiple documentaries. Janis, which was reviewed by the Washington Post on March 21, 1975, shows Joplin arriving in Frankfurt by plane and waiting inside a bus next to the Frankfurt venue, while an American fan who is visiting Germany expresses enthusiasm to the camera (no security was used in Frankfurt, so by the end of the concert, the stage was so packed with people the band members could not see each other). Janis also includes interviews with Joplin in Stockholm and from her visit to London, for her gig at Royal Albert Hall. On one episode of The Dick Cavett Show, they performed "Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)" as well as "To Love Somebody". As Dick Cavett interviewed Joplin, she admitted that she had a terrible time touring in Europe, claiming that audiences there are very uptight and don't "get down". CANNOTANSWER
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CANNOTANSWER
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Janis Joplin (January 19, 1943 – October 4, 1970) was an American singer-songwriter who sang rock, soul, and blues music. One of the most successful and widely known rock stars of her era, she was noted for her powerful mezzo-soprano vocals and "electric" stage presence.
In 1967, Joplin rose to fame following an appearance at Monterey Pop Festival, where she was the lead singer of the then little-known San Francisco psychedelic rock band Big Brother and the Holding Company. After releasing two albums with the band, she left Big Brother to continue as a solo artist with her own backing groups, first the Kozmic Blues Band and then the Full Tilt Boogie Band. She appeared at the Woodstock festival and on the Festival Express train tour. Five singles by Joplin reached the Billboard Hot 100, including a cover of the Kris Kristofferson song "Me and Bobby McGee", which reached number one in March 1971. Her most popular songs include her cover versions of "Piece of My Heart", "Cry Baby", "Down on Me", "Ball and Chain", and "Summertime"; and her original song "Mercedes Benz", her final recording.
Joplin died of a heroin overdose in 1970, at the age of 27, after releasing three albums (two with Big Brother and the Holding Company and one solo album). A second solo album, Pearl, was released in January 1971, just over three months after her death. It reached number one on the Billboard charts. She was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995. Rolling Stone ranked Joplin number 46 on its 2004 list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time and number 28 on its 2008 list of 100 Greatest Singers of All Time. She remains one of the top-selling musicians in the United States, with Recording Industry Association of America certifications of 18.5 million albums sold.
Early life
Janis Joplin was born in Port Arthur, Texas, on , to Dorothy Bonita East (1913–1998), a registrar at a business college, and her husband, Seth Ward Joplin (1910–1987), an engineer at Texaco. She had two younger siblings, Michael and Laura. The family attended First Christian Church of Port Arthur, a church belonging to the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) denomination.
Her parents felt that Janis needed more attention than their other children. As a teenager, Joplin befriended a group of outcasts, one of whom had albums by blues artists Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, and Lead Belly, which Joplin later credited with influencing her decision to become a singer. She began singing blues and folk music with friends at Thomas Jefferson High School. In high school, she was a classmate of Pro Football Hall of Fame coach Jimmy Johnson.
Joplin stated that she was ostracized and bullied in high school. As a teen, she became overweight and suffered from acne, leaving her with deep scars that required dermabrasion. Other kids at high school would routinely taunt her and call her names like "pig," "freak," "nigger lover," or "creep." She stated, "I was a misfit. I read, I painted, I thought. I didn't hate niggers."
Joplin graduated from high school in 1960 and attended Lamar State College of Technology in Beaumont, Texas, during the summer and later the University of Texas at Austin (UT), though she did not complete her college studies. The campus newspaper, The Daily Texan, ran a profile of her in the issue dated July 27, 1962, headlined "She Dares to Be Different." The article began, "She goes barefooted when she feels like it, wears Levi's to class because they're more comfortable, and carries her autoharp with her everywhere she goes so that in case she gets the urge to break into song, it will be handy. Her name is Janis Joplin." While at UT she performed with a folk trio called the Waller Creek Boys and frequently socialized with the staff of the campus humor magazine The Texas Ranger. According to Freak Brothers cartoonist Gilbert Shelton, who befriended her, she used to sell The Texas Ranger, which contained some of Shelton's early comic books, on the campus.
Career
1962–1965: Early recordings
Joplin cultivated a rebellious manner and styled herself partly after her female blues heroines and partly after the Beat poets. Her first song, "What Good Can Drinkin' Do", was recorded on tape in December 1962 at the home of a fellow University of Texas student.
She left Texas in January 1963 ("Just to get away," she said, "because my head was in a much different place"), hitchhiking with her friend Chet Helms to North Beach, San Francisco. Still in San Francisco in 1964, Joplin and future Jefferson Airplane guitarist Jorma Kaukonen recorded a number of blues standards, which incidentally featured Kaukonen's wife Margareta using a typewriter in the background. This session included seven tracks: "Typewriter Talk", "Trouble in Mind", "Kansas City Blues", "Hesitation Blues", "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out", "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy", and "Long Black Train Blues", and was released long after Joplin's death as the bootleg album The Typewriter Tape.
In 1963, Joplin was arrested in San Francisco for shoplifting. During the two years that followed, her drug use increased and she acquired a reputation as a "speed freak" and occasional heroin user. She also used other psychoactive drugs and was a heavy drinker throughout her career; her favorite alcoholic beverage was Southern Comfort.
In May 1965, Joplin's friends in San Francisco, noticing the detrimental effects on her from regularly injecting methamphetamine (she was described as "skeletal" and "emaciated"), persuaded her to return to Port Arthur. During that month, her friends threw her a bus-fare party so she could return to her parents in Texas. Five years later, Joplin told Rolling Stone magazine writer David Dalton the following about her first stint in San Francisco: "I didn't have many friends and I didn't like the ones I had."
Back in Port Arthur in the spring of 1965, after Joplin's parents noticed her weight of , she changed her lifestyle. She avoided drugs and alcohol, adopted a beehive hairdo, and enrolled as an anthropology major at Lamar University in nearby Beaumont, Texas. Her sister Laura said in a 2016 interview that social work was her major during her year at Lamar. During her time at Lamar University, she commuted to Austin to sing solo, accompanying herself on acoustic guitar. One of her performances was at a benefit by local musicians for Texas bluesman Mance Lipscomb, who was suffering with ill health.
Joplin became engaged to Peter de Blanc in the fall of 1965. She had begun a relationship with him toward the end of her first stint in San Francisco. Now living in New York where he worked with IBM computers, he visited her to ask her father for her hand in marriage. Joplin and her mother began planning the wedding. De Blanc, who traveled frequently, ended the engagement soon afterward.
In 1965 and 1966, Joplin commuted from her family's Port Arthur home to Beaumont, Texas, where she had regular sessions with a psychiatric social worker named Bernard Giarritano at a counseling agency that was funded by the United Fund, which after her death changed its name to the United Way. Interviewed by biographer Myra Friedman after his client's death, Giarritano said Joplin had been baffled by how she could pursue a professional career as a singer without relapsing into drugs, and her drug-related memories from immediately prior to returning to Port Arthur continued to frighten her. Joplin sometimes brought an acoustic guitar with her to her sessions with Giarritano, and people in other offices within the building could hear her singing.
Giarritano tried to reassure her that she did not have to use narcotics in order to succeed in the music business. She also said that if she were to avoid singing professionally, she would have to become a keypunch operator (as she had done a few years earlier) or a secretary, and then a wife and mother, and she would have to become very similar to all the other women in Port Arthur.
Approximately a year before Joplin joined Big Brother and the Holding Company, she recorded seven studio tracks with her acoustic guitar. Among the songs she recorded were her original composition of the song "Turtle Blues" and an alternate version of "Cod'ine" by Buffy Sainte-Marie. These tracks were later issued as a new album in 1995, titled This is Janis Joplin 1965 by James Gurley.
1966–1969: Various bands
In 1966, Joplin's bluesy vocal style attracted the attention of the San Francisco-based psychedelic rock band Big Brother and the Holding Company, which had gained some renown among the nascent hippie community in Haight-Ashbury. She was recruited to join the group by Chet Helms, a promoter who was managing Big Brother and with whom she had hitchhiked from Texas to San Francisco a few years earlier. Helms sent his friend Travis Rivers to find her in Austin, Texas, where she had been performing with her acoustic guitar, and to accompany her to San Francisco.
Aware of her previous nightmare with drug addiction in San Francisco, Rivers insisted that she inform her parents face-to-face of her plans, and he drove her from Austin to Port Arthur (he waited in his car while she talked with her startled parents) before they began their long drive to San Francisco. Joplin joined Big Brother on June 4, 1966. Her first public performance with them was at the Avalon Ballroom in San Francisco.
In June, Joplin was photographed at an outdoor concert in San Francisco that celebrated the summer solstice. The image, which was later published in two books by David Dalton, shows her before she relapsed into drugs. Due to persistent persuading by keyboardist and close friend Stephen Ryder, Joplin avoided drugs for several weeks. She made Travis Rivers, with whom she shared an apartment upon their arrival in San Francisco, promise that using needles would not be allowed there. When bandmate Dave Getz accompanied her from a rehearsal to her home, Rivers was not there, but "two or three" (according to Getz' recollection 25 years later) guests whom Rivers had invited were in the process of injecting drugs. "One of them was about to tie off," recalled Getz. "Janis went nuts! I had never seen anybody explode like that. She was screaming and crying and Travis walked in. She screamed at him: 'We had a pact! You promised me! There wouldn't be any of that in front of me!' I was over my head and I tried to calm her down. I said, 'They're just doing mescaline,' because that's what I thought it was. She said, 'You don't understand! I can't see that! I just can't stand to see that!'"
A San Francisco concert from that summer (1966) was recorded and released on the 1984 album Cheaper Thrills. In July, all five bandmates and guitarist James Gurley's wife Nancy moved to a house in Lagunitas, California, where they lived communally. The band often partied with the Grateful Dead, the members of whom lived less than two miles away. She had a short relationship and longer friendship with founding member Ron "Pigpen" McKernan.
The band went to Chicago for a four-week engagement in August 1966, then found itself stranded after the promoter ran out of money when its concerts did not attract the expected audience levels, and he was unable to pay them. In the circumstances the band signed with Bob Shad's record label Mainstream Records; recordings for the label took place in Chicago in September, but these were not satisfactory, and the band returned to San Francisco, continuing to perform live, including at the Love Pageant Rally. The band recorded two tracks, "Blindman" and "All Is Loneliness", in Los Angeles, and these were released by Mainstream as a single that did not sell well. After playing at a happening in Stanford in early December 1966, the band traveled back to Los Angeles to record ten tracks between December 12 and 14, 1966, produced by Bob Shad, which appeared on the band's debut album in August 1967.
In late 1966, Big Brother switched managers from Chet Helms to Julius Karpen.
One of Joplin's earliest major performances in 1967 was at the Mantra-Rock Dance, a musical event held on January 29 at the Avalon Ballroom by the San Francisco Hare Krishna temple. Janis Joplin and Big Brother performed there along with the Hare Krishna founder Bhaktivedanta Swami, Allen Ginsberg, Moby Grape, and the Grateful Dead, donating proceeds to the Krishna temple. In early 1967, Joplin met Country Joe McDonald of the group Country Joe and the Fish. The pair lived together as a couple for a few months. Joplin and Big Brother began playing clubs in San Francisco, at the Fillmore West, Winterland, and the Avalon Ballroom. They also played at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, as well as in Seattle, Washington; Vancouver, British Columbia; the Psychedelic Supermarket in Boston, Massachusetts; and the Golden Bear Club in Huntington Beach, California.
The band's debut studio album, Big Brother & the Holding Company, was released by Mainstream Records in August 1967, shortly after the group's breakthrough appearance in June at the Monterey Pop Festival. Two tracks, "Coo Coo" and "The Last Time," were released separately as singles, while the tracks from the previous single, "Blindman" and "All Is Loneliness", were added to the remaining eight tracks. When Columbia Records took over the band's contract and re-released the album, they included "Coo Coo" and "The Last Time", and put "featuring Janis Joplin" on the cover. The debut album spawned four minor hits with the singles "Down on Me", a traditional song arranged by Joplin, "Bye Bye Baby", "Call On Me" and "Coo Coo", on all of which Joplin sang lead vocals.
Two songs from the second of Big Brother's two sets at Monterey, which they played on Sunday, were filmed (their first set, which was on Saturday, was not filmed, though it was audio-recorded). Some sources, including a Joplin biography by Ellis Amburn, claim that she was dressed in thrift store hippie clothes or second-hand Victorian clothes during the band's Saturday set, but still photographs do not appear to have survived. Digitized color film of two songs in the Sunday set, "Combination of the Two" and a version of Big Mama Thornton's "Ball and Chain," appear in the DVD and Blu-ray boxed set of D. A. Pennebaker's documentary Monterey Pop released by The Criterion Collection. She is seen wearing an expensive gold tunic dress with matching pants. They were created for her by San Francisco clothing designer Colin Rose.
Documentary filmmaker Pennebaker inserted two cutaway shots of Cass Elliot of the Mamas & the Papas seated in the audience during Joplin's performance of "Ball and Chain", one in the middle of the song as her eyes, covered by sunglasses, are fixed on Joplin, and also a shot during the applause as she silently mouths "Oh, wow!" and looks at the person seated next to her. Elliot and the audience are seen in sunlight, but Sunday's Big Brother performance was filmed in the evening. An explanation came from Big Brother's road manager John Byrne Cooke, who remembers that Pennebaker discreetly filmed the audience (including Elliot) during Big Brother's Saturday performance when he was not allowed to point a camera at the band.
The prohibition of Pennebaker from filming on Saturday afternoon came from Big Brother's manager Julius Karpen. The band had a bitter argument with Karpen and overruled him as they prepared for their second set that the festival organizers had added on the spur of the moment. Backstage at the festival, the band became acquainted with New York-based talent manager Albert Grossman but did not sign with him until several months later, firing Karpen at that time.
Only "Ball and Chain" was included in the Monterey Pop film that was released to theaters throughout the United States in 1969 and shown on television in the 1970s. Those who did not attend the Monterey Pop Festival saw the band's performance of "Combination of the Two" for the first time in 2002 when The Criterion Collection released the boxed set.
For the remainder of 1967, even after Big Brother signed with Albert Grossman, the band performed mainly in California. On February 16, 1968, the group began its first East Coast tour in Philadelphia, and the following day gave their first performance in New York City at the Anderson Theater. On April 7, 1968—three days after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and the last day of their East Coast tour—Joplin and Big Brother performed with Jimi Hendrix, Buddy Guy, Joni Mitchell, Richie Havens, Paul Butterfield, and Elvin Bishop at the Wake for Martin Luther King Jr. concert in New York.
Live at Winterland '68, recorded at the Winterland Ballroom on April 12 and 13, 1968, features Joplin and Big Brother and the Holding Company at the height of their mutual career working through a selection of tracks from their albums. A recording became available to the public for the first time in 1998 when Columbia/Sony Music Entertainment released the compact disc. One month after the Winterland concert, Owsley Stanley recorded them at the Carousel Ballroom, released in 2012 as Live at the Carousel Ballroom 1968.
On July 31, 1968, Joplin made her first nationwide television appearance when the band performed on This Morning, an ABC daytime 90-minute variety show that was hosted by Dick Cavett. Shortly thereafter, network employees wiped the videotape, though the audio survives. (In 1969 and 1970, Joplin made three appearances on Cavett's prime-time program. Video was preserved and excerpts have been included in most documentaries about Joplin. Audio of her 1968 appearance has not been used since then.)
Sometime in 1968, the band's billing was changed to "Janis Joplin and Big Brother and the Holding Company," and the media coverage given to Joplin generated resentment within the band. The other members of Big Brother thought that Joplin was on a "star trip", while others were telling Joplin that Big Brother was a terrible band and that she ought to dump them. Time magazine called Joplin "probably the most powerful singer to emerge from the white rock movement", and Richard Goldstein wrote for the May 1968 issue of Vogue magazine that Joplin was "the most staggering leading woman in rock...she slinks like tar, scowls like war...clutching the knees of a final stanza, begging it not to leave.... Janis Joplin can sing the chic off any listener."
For her first major studio recording, Joplin played a major role in the arrangement and production of the songs that would comprise Big Brother and the Holding Company's second album, Cheap Thrills. Producer John Simon tried recording the band in concert, to capture their energy in a live album, but several attempts showed the band was prone to mistakes. Their imprecision was not helped by moving the sessions to a recording studio. Joplin sang take after take of the same song, with her performances consistently good, and she grew frustrated with the band's sloppiness. Simon was replaced by Elliot Mazer who fixed the songs by overdubbing certain parts. The album featured a cover design by counterculture cartoonist Robert Crumb.
Although Cheap Thrills sounded as if it consisted of concert recordings, like on "Combination of the Two" and "I Need a Man to Love", only "Ball and Chain" was actually recorded in front of a paying audience; the rest of the tracks were studio recordings. The album had a raw quality, including the sound of a drinking glass breaking and the broken shards being swept away during the song "Turtle Blues". Cheap Thrills produced very popular hits with "Piece of My Heart" and "Summertime". Together with the premiere of the documentary film Monterey Pop at New York's Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts on December 26, 1968, the album launched Joplin as a star. Cheap Thrills reached number one on the Billboard 200 album chart eight weeks after its release, and was number one for eight (nonconsecutive) weeks. The album was certified gold at release and sold over a million copies in the first month of its release. The lead single from the album, "Piece of My Heart", reached number 12 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the fall of 1968.
The band made another East Coast tour during July–August 1968, performing at the Columbia Records convention in Puerto Rico and the Newport Folk Festival. After returning to San Francisco for two hometown shows at the Palace of Fine Arts Festival on August 31 and September 1, Joplin announced that she would be leaving Big Brother. On September 14, 1968, culminating a three-night engagement together at Fillmore West, fans thronged to a concert that Bill Graham publicized as the last official concert of Janis Joplin with Big Brother and the Holding Company. The opening acts on this night were Chicago (then still called Chicago Transit Authority) and Santana.
Despite Graham's announcement that the Fillmore West gig was Big Brother's last concert with Joplin, the band—with Joplin still as lead vocalist—toured the U.S. that fall. Reflecting Joplin's crossover appeal, two October 1968 performances at a roller rink in Alexandria, Virginia, were reviewed by John Segraves of the conservative Washington Evening Star at a time when the Washington metropolitan area's hard rock scene was in its infancy. An opera buff at the time, he wrote:
Later that month (October 1968), Big Brother performed at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and played at the Syracuse War Memorial as part of Syracuse University's Fall Homecoming on October 11, with Janis joining openers the Butterfield Blues Band for their closing song. Aside from two 1970 reunions, Joplin's last performance with Big Brother was at a Chet Helms benefit in San Francisco on December 1, 1968.
1969–1970: Solo career
After splitting from Big Brother and the Holding Company, Joplin formed a new backup group, the Kozmic Blues Band, composed of session musicians like keyboardist Stephen Ryder and saxophonist Cornelius "Snooky" Flowers, as well as former Big Brother and the Holding Company guitarist Sam Andrew and future Full Tilt Boogie Band bassist Brad Campbell. The band was influenced by the Stax-Volt rhythm and blues (R&B) and soul bands of the 1960s, as exemplified by Otis Redding and the Bar-Kays. The Stax-Volt R&B sound was typified by the use of horns and had a funky, pop-oriented sound in contrast to many of the psychedelic/hard rock bands of the period.
By early 1969, Joplin was allegedly shooting at least $200 worth of heroin per day (equivalent to $1300 in 2016 dollars) although efforts were made to keep her clean during the recording of I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama! Gabriel Mekler, who produced the album, told publicist-turned-biographer Myra Friedman after Joplin's death that she had lived in his Los Angeles house during the June 1969 recording sessions at his insistence so he could keep her away from drugs and her drug-using friends.
Joplin's appearances with the Kozmic Blues Band in Europe were released in theaters, in multiple documentaries. Janis, which was reviewed by the Washington Post on March 21, 1975, shows Joplin arriving in Frankfurt by plane and waiting inside a bus next to the Frankfurt venue, while an American female fan who is visiting Germany expresses enthusiasm to the camera (no security was used in Frankfurt, so by the end of the concert, the stage was so packed with people the band members could not see each other). Janis also includes interviews with Joplin in Stockholm and from her visit to London, for her gig at Royal Albert Hall. The London interview was dubbed with a voiceover in the German language for broadcast on German television. John Byrne Cooke, road manager for Joplin and the Kozmic Blues Band, wrote a book published in 2014 in which he discussed her knowledge of the risks of her ongoing use of narcotics, particularly when she was outside the United States.
On the episode of The Dick Cavett Show that was telecast in the United States on the night of July 18, 1969, Joplin and her band performed "Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)" as well as "To Love Somebody". As Dick Cavett interviewed Joplin, she admitted that she had a terrible time touring in Europe, claiming that audiences there are very uptight and don't "get down".
Released in September 1969, the Kozmic Blues album was certified gold later that year but did not match the success of Cheap Thrills. Reviews of the new group were mixed. However, the album's recording quality and engineering, as well as the musicianship (including three performances by former Bob Dylan/Paul Butterfield/Electric Flag guitarist Mike Bloomfield), were considered superior to her previous releases, and some music critics argued that the band was working in a much more constructive way to support Joplin's sensational vocal talents.
Joplin wanted a horn section similar to that featured by the Chicago Transit Authority; her voice had the dynamic qualities and range not to be overpowered by the brighter horn sound.
Some music critics, however, including Ralph J. Gleason of the San Francisco Chronicle, were negative. Gleason wrote that the new band was a "drag" and Joplin should "scrap" her new band and "go right back to being a member of Big Brother ... (if they'll have her)."
Other reviewers, such as reporter Carl Bernstein of the Washington Post, devoted entire articles to celebrating the singer's magic. Bernstein's review said that Joplin "has finally assembled a group of first-rate musicians with whom she is totally at ease and whose abilities complement the incredible range of her voice."
Columbia Records released "Kozmic Blues" as a single, which peaked at number 41 on the Billboard Hot 100, and a live rendition of "Raise Your Hand" was released in Germany and became a top ten hit there. Containing other hits like "Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)", "To Love Somebody", and "Little Girl Blue", I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama! reached number five on the Billboard 200 soon after its release.
Joplin appeared at Woodstock starting at approximately 2:00 a.m., on Sunday, August 17, 1969. Joplin informed her band that they would be performing at the concert as if it were just another gig. On Saturday afternoon, when she and the band were flown by helicopter with the pregnant Joan Baez and Baez's mother from a nearby motel to the festival site and Joplin saw the enormous crowd, she instantly became extremely nervous and giddy. Upon landing and getting off the helicopter, Joplin was approached by reporters asking her questions. She referred them to her friend and sometime lover Peggy Caserta as she was too excited to speak. Initially, Joplin was eager to get on the stage and perform but was repeatedly delayed as bands were contractually obliged to perform ahead of Joplin. Faced with a ten-hour wait after arriving at the backstage area, Joplin spent some of that time shooting heroin and drinking alcohol with Caserta in a tent. The director's cut of the Woodstock movie shows Joplin and Jefferson Airplane singer Grace Slick standing together near amplifiers watching the band Canned Heat's performance, which started at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, and Caserta does not appear within camera range. When Joplin finally reached the stage at approximately 2:00 a.m. Sunday, she was "three sheets to the wind", according to biographer Alice Echols. During her performance, Joplin's voice became slightly hoarse and wheezy, and she struggled to dance.
Joplin pulled through, however, and engaged frequently with the crowd, asking them if they had everything they needed and if they were staying stoned. The audience cheered for an encore, to which Joplin replied and sang "Ball and Chain". Pete Townshend, who performed with the Who later in the same morning after Joplin finished, witnessed her performance and said the following in his 2012 memoir: "She had been amazing at Monterey, but tonight she wasn't at her best, due, probably, to the long delay, and probably, too, to the amount of booze and heroin she'd consumed while she waited. But even Janis on an off-night was incredible."
Janis remained at Woodstock for the remainder of the festival. Starting at approximately 3:00 a.m. on Monday, August 18, Joplin was among many Woodstock performers who stood in a circle behind Crosby, Stills & Nash during their performance, which was the first time anyone at Woodstock ever had heard the group perform. This information was published by David Crosby in 1988. Later in the morning of August 18, Joplin and Joan Baez sat in Joe Cocker's van and witnessed Hendrix's close-of-show performance, according to Baez's memoir And a Voice to Sing With (1989).
Still photographs in color show Joplin backstage with Grace Slick the day after Joplin's performance, wherein Joplin appears to be very happy. She was ultimately unhappy with her performance, however, and blamed Caserta. Her singing was not included (by her own insistence) in the 1970 documentary film or the soundtrack for Woodstock: Music from the Original Soundtrack and More, although the 25th anniversary director's cut of Woodstock includes her performance of "Work Me, Lord". The documentary film of the festival that was released in theaters during 1970 includes, on the left side of a split screen, 37 seconds of footage of Joplin and Caserta walking toward Joplin's dressing room tent.
In addition to Woodstock, Joplin also had problems at Madison Square Garden, in 1969. Biographer Myra Friedman said she had witnessed a duet Joplin sang with Tina Turner during the Rolling Stones concert at the Garden on Thanksgiving Day. Friedman said Joplin was "so drunk, so stoned, so out of control, that she could have been an institutionalized psychotic rent by mania." During another Garden concert where she had solo billing on December 19, some observers believed Joplin tried to incite the audience to riot. For part of this concert she was joined onstage by Johnny Winter and Paul Butterfield.
Joplin told rock journalist David Dalton that Garden audiences watched and listened to "every note [she sang] with 'Is she gonna make it?' in their eyes." In her interview with Dalton she added that she felt most comfortable performing at small, cheap venues in San Francisco that were associated with the counterculture.
At the time of the June 1970 interview with Dalton, she had already performed in the Bay Area for what turned out to be the last time. Sam Andrew, the lead guitarist who had left Big Brother with Joplin in December 1968 to form her back-up band, quit in late summer 1969 and returned to Big Brother. At the end of the year, the Kozmic Blues Band broke up. Their final gig with Joplin was the one at Madison Square Garden with Winter and Butterfield.
In February 1970, Joplin traveled to Brazil, where she stopped her drug and alcohol use. She was accompanied on vacation there by her friend Linda Gravenites (wife of songwriter Nick Gravenites), who had designed Janis's stage costumes from 1967 to 1969.
In Brazil, Joplin was romanced by a fellow American tourist named David (George) Niehaus, who was traveling around the world. A Joplin biography written by her sister Laura said, "David was an upper-middle-class Cincinnati kid who had studied communications at Notre Dame. ... [and] had joined the Peace Corps after college and worked in a small village in Turkey. ... He tried law school, but when he met Janis he was taking time off."
Niehaus and Joplin were photographed by the press at Rio Carnival in Rio de Janeiro. Gravenites also took color photographs of the two during their Brazilian vacation. According to Joplin biographer Ellis Amburn, in Gravenites' snapshots they "look like a carefree, happy, healthy young couple having a tremendously good time."
Rolling Stone magazine interviewed Joplin during an international phone call, quoting her: "I'm going into the jungle with a big bear of a beatnik named David Niehaus. I finally remembered I don't have to be on stage twelve months a year. I've decided to go and dig some other jungles for a couple of weeks." Amburn added in 1992, "Janis was trying to kick heroin in Brazil, and one of the nicest things about David was that he wasn't into drugs."
When Joplin returned to the U.S., she began using heroin again. Her relationship with Niehaus soon ended because he witnessed her shooting drugs at her new home in Larkspur, California. The relationship was also complicated by her ongoing romantic relationship with Peggy Caserta, who also was an intravenous addict, and Joplin's refusal to take some time off and travel the world with him.
Around this time, she formed her new band, known for a short time as Main Squeeze, then renamed the Full Tilt Boogie Band. The band comprised mostly young Canadian musicians previously associated with Ronnie Hawkins and featured an organ, but no horn section. Joplin took a more active role in putting together the Full Tilt Boogie band than she had with her prior group. She was quoted as saying, "It's my band. Finally it's my band!" In May 1970, after performing under the name Main Squeeze at a Hell's Angels event, the renamed Full Tilt Boogie Band began a nationwide tour. Joplin became very happy with her new group, which eventually received mostly positive feedback from both her fans and the critics.
Prior to beginning a summer tour with Full Tilt Boogie, she performed in a reunion with Big Brother at the Fillmore West, in San Francisco, on April 4, 1970. Recordings from this concert were included in an in-concert album released posthumously in 1972. She again appeared with Big Brother on April 12 at Winterland, where she and Big Brother were reported to be in excellent form. She performed with the band, billed as Main Squeeze, at a party for the Hells Angels at a venue in San Rafael, California on May 21, 1970, according to a web site maintained by Big Brother guitarist Sam Andrew. Andrew's web site quotes him as saying, "This will be the first time that Janis' old band and her new band will be at the same venue, so everyone is a little on edge."
According to Joplin's biographer Ellis Amburn, Big Brother with its lead singer Nick Gravenites was the opening act at the party that was attended by 2,300 people. The Hells Angels, who had known Joplin since 1966, paid her a fee of 240 dollars to perform. Gravenites and Sam Andrew (who had resumed playing guitar with Big Brother) differed in their opinions of her performance and how substance abuse affected it. Gravenites described her singing as "stupendous," according to Amburn. Amburn quoted Andrew twenty years later: "She was visibly deteriorating and she looked bloated. She was like a parody of what she was at her best. I put it down to her drinking too much and I felt a tinge of fear for her well-being. Her singing was real flabby, no edge at all."
Shortly thereafter, Joplin began wearing multi-colored feather boas in her hair. (She had not worn them at the May 21 Hell's Angels party / concert in San Rafael). By the time she began touring with Full Tilt Boogie, Joplin told people she was drug-free, but her drinking increased.
From June 28 to July 4, 1970, during the Festival Express tour, Joplin and Full Tilt Boogie performed alongside Buddy Guy, the Band, the Flying Burrito Brothers, Ten Years After, the Grateful Dead, Delaney & Bonnie, Eric Andersen, and Ian & Sylvia. They played concerts in Toronto, Winnipeg, and Calgary. Joplin jammed with the other performers on the train, and her performances on this tour are considered to be among her greatest.
Joplin headlined the festival on all three nights. At the last stop in Calgary, she took to the stage with Jerry Garcia while her band was tuning up. Film footage shows her telling the audience how great the tour was and shows her and Garcia presenting the organizers with a case of tequila. She then burst into a two-hour set, starting with "Tell Mama". Throughout this performance, Joplin engaged in several banters about her love life. In one, she reminisced about living in a San Francisco apartment and competing with a female neighbor in flirting with men on the street. She finished the Calgary concert with long versions of "Get It While You Can" and "Ball and Chain".
Footage of her performance of "Tell Mama" in Calgary became an MTV video in the early 1980s, and the audio from the same film footage was included on the Farewell Song (1982) album. The audio of other Festival Express performances was included on Joplin's In Concert (1972) album. Video of the performances was also included on the Festival Express DVD.
These performances of entire songs during the Festival Express concerts in Toronto and Calgary can be purchased, although other songs remain in vaults and have yet to be released.
In the "Tell Mama" video shown on MTV in the 1980s, Joplin wore a psychedelically colored, loose-fitting costume and feathers in her hair. This was her standard stage costume in the spring and summer of 1970. She chose the new costumes after her friend and designer, Linda Gravenites (whom Joplin had praised in Vogues profile of her in its May 1968 edition), cut ties with Joplin shortly after their return from Brazil, due largely to Joplin's continued use of heroin.
Among Joplin's last public appearances were two broadcasts of The Dick Cavett Show. In her June 25, 1970 appearance, she announced that she would attend her ten-year high school class reunion. When asked if she had been popular in school, she admitted that when in high school, her schoolmates "laughed me out of class, out of town and out of the state" (during the year she had spent at the University of Texas at Austin, Joplin had been voted "Ugliest Man on Campus" by frat boys). In the subsequent Cavett Show broadcast, on August 3, 1970, and featuring Gloria Swanson, Joplin discussed her upcoming performance at the Festival for Peace to be held at Shea Stadium in Queens, New York, three days later.
On July 11, 1970, Full Tilt Boogie and Big Brother and the Holding Company both performed at the same concert in the San Diego Sports Arena, which was decades later renamed the Valley View Casino Center. Joplin sang with Full Tilt Boogie and appeared briefly onstage with Big Brother without singing, according to a July 13 review of the concert in the San Diego Union.
On August 7, 1970, a tombstone—jointly paid for by Joplin and Juanita Green, who as a child had done housework for Bessie Smith—was erected at Smith's previously unmarked grave. The following day, the Associated Press circulated this news, and the August 9 edition of The New York Times carried it. The lead paragraph of the AP story said Joplin and Green had "shared the cost of a stone for the 'Empress of the Blues,'" but, according to publicist/biographer Myra Friedman, the two women never met. Joplin had been at home in Larkspur, California when she had received a long-distance phone call with an explanation of the need to finance a gravestone for Bessie Smith, whom Joplin had frequently cited as a musical influence. Joplin immediately wrote a check and mailed it to the name and address provided by the phone caller.
On August 8, 1970, as the Associated Press circulated the news about Smith's new gravestone, Joplin performed at the Capitol Theatre (Port Chester, New York). It was there that she first performed "Mercedes Benz", a song (partially inspired by a Michael McClure poem) that she had composed with fellow musician and friend Bob Neuwirth a very short time earlier. According to Myra Friedman's account, Joplin performed two shows at the Capitol Theatre, the first of which was attended by actors Geraldine Page and her husband Rip Torn. Between the shows, at a "gin mill" [Friedman's words] very close to this concert venue, Joplin and Neuwirth penned the lyrics to the song and she performed it at the second show, according to Friedman. Neuwirth was quoted by The Wall Street Journal in 2015: "Around 7 p.m., after the Capitol sound check, we had a couple of hours to kill before [acts that opened for Joplin] Seatrain and Runt finished their sets. So the four of us [Joplin, Neuwirth, Geraldine Page, Rip Torn] walked to a bar about three minutes away called Vahsen’s [at 30 Broad Street in Port Chester]." While in Vahsen's, "Janis came up with words for the first verse. I was in charge of writing them down on bar napkins with a ballpoint pen. She came up with the second verse, too, about a color TV. I suggested words here and there, and came up with the third verse—about asking the Lord to buy us a night on the town and another round."
Joplin's last public performance with the Full Tilt Boogie Band took place on August 12, 1970, at the Harvard Stadium in Boston. The Harvard Crimson gave the performance a positive, front-page review, despite the fact that Full Tilt Boogie had performed with makeshift amplifiers after their regular sound equipment was stolen in Boston.
Joplin attended her high school reunion on August 14, accompanied by Neuwirth, road manager John Cooke, and sister Laura, but it was reportedly an unhappy experience for her. Joplin held a press conference in Port Arthur during her reunion visit. When asked by a reporter if she ever entertained at Thomas Jefferson High School when she was a student there, Joplin replied, "Only when I walked down the aisles." Joplin denigrated Port Arthur and the classmates who had humiliated her a decade earlier.
During late August, September, and early October 1970, Joplin and her band rehearsed and recorded a new album in Los Angeles with producer Paul A. Rothchild, best known for his lengthy relationship with The Doors. Although Joplin died before all the tracks were fully completed, there was enough usable material to compile an LP.
The posthumous Pearl (1971) became the biggest-selling album of her career and featured her biggest hit single, a cover of Kris Kristofferson and Fred Foster's "Me and Bobby McGee" (Kristofferson had previously been Joplin's lover in the spring of 1970). The opening track, "Move Over", was written by Joplin, reflecting the way that she felt men treated women in relationships. Also included was the social commentary of "Mercedes Benz", presented in an a cappella arrangement; the track on the album features the first and only take that Joplin recorded. A cover of Nick Gravenites's "Buried Alive in the Blues", to which Joplin had been scheduled to add her vocals on the day she was found dead, was included as an instrumental.
Joplin checked into the Landmark Motor Hotel in Hollywood on August 24, 1970, near Sunset Sound Recorders, where she began rehearsing and recording her album. During the sessions, Joplin continued a relationship with Seth Morgan, a 21-year-old UC Berkeley student, cocaine dealer, and future novelist who had visited her new home in Larkspur in July and August. She and Morgan were engaged to be married in early September, although he visited Sunset Sound Recorders for just eight of Joplin's many rehearsals and sessions.
Morgan later told biographer Myra Friedman that, as a non-musician, he had felt excluded whenever he had visited Sunset Sound Recorders. Instead, he stayed at Joplin's Larkspur home while she stayed alone at the Landmark, although several times she visited Larkspur to be with him and to check the progress of renovations she was having done on the house. She told her construction crew to design a carport to be shaped like a flying saucer, according to biographer Ellis Amburn, the concrete foundation for which was poured the day before she died.
Peggy Caserta claimed in her book, Going Down With Janis (1973), that she and Joplin had decided mutually in April 1970 to stay away from each other to avoid enabling each other's drug use. Caserta, a former Delta Air Lines stewardess and owner of one of the first clothing boutiques in the Haight Ashbury, said in the book that by September 1970, she was smuggling cannabis throughout California and had checked into the Landmark Motor Hotel because it attracted drug users.
For approximately the first two weeks of Joplin's stay at the Landmark, she did not know Caserta was in Los Angeles. Joplin learned of Caserta's presence at the Landmark from a heroin dealer who made deliveries there. Joplin begged Caserta for heroin, and when Caserta refused to provide it, Joplin reportedly admonished her by saying, "Don't think if you can get it, I can't get it." Joplin's publicist Myra Friedman was unaware during Joplin's lifetime that this had happened. Later, while Friedman was working on her book Buried Alive, she determined that the time frame of the Joplin-Caserta encounter was one week before Jimi Hendrix's death.
Within a few days, Joplin became a regular customer of the same heroin dealer who had been supplying Caserta.
Joplin's manager Albert Grossman and his assistant/publicist Friedman had staged an intervention with Joplin the previous winter while Joplin was in New York. In September 1970, Grossman and Friedman, who worked out of a New York office, knew Joplin was staying at a Los Angeles hotel, but were unaware it was a haven for drug users and dealers.
Grossman and Friedman knew during Joplin's lifetime that her friend Caserta, whom Friedman met during the New York sessions for Cheap Thrills and on later occasions, used heroin. During the many long-distance telephone conversations that Joplin and Friedman had in September 1970 and on October 1, Joplin never mentioned Caserta, and Friedman assumed Caserta had been out of Joplin's life for a while. Friedman, who had more time than Grossman to monitor the situation, never visited California. She thought Joplin sounded on the phone like she was less depressed than she had been over the summer.
When Joplin was not at Sunset Sound Recorders, she liked to drive her Porsche over the speed limit "on the winding part of Sunset Blvd.", according to a statement made by her attorney Robert Gordon in 1995 at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony. Friedman wrote that the only Full Tilt Boogie member who rode as her passenger, Ken Pearson, often hesitated to join her, though he did on the night she died. He was not interested in using hard drugs.
On September 26, 1970, Joplin recorded vocals for "Half Moon" and "Cry Baby". The session ended with Joplin, organist Ken Pearson, and drummer Clark Pierson making a special one-minute recording as a birthday gift to John Lennon. Joplin was among several singers who had been contacted by Yoko Ono with a request for a taped greeting for Lennon's 30th birthday, on October 9. Joplin, Pearson, and Pierson chose the Dale Evans composition "Happy Trails" as part of the greeting. Lennon told Dick Cavett on-camera the following year that Joplin's recorded birthday wishes arrived at his home after her death.
On October 1, 1970, Joplin completed her last recording, "Mercedes Benz", which was recorded in a single take. On Saturday, October 3, Joplin visited Sunset Sound Recorders to listen to the instrumental track for Nick Gravenites's song "Buried Alive in the Blues", which the band had recorded earlier that day. She and Paul Rothchild agreed she would record the vocal the following day.
At some point on Saturday, she learned by telephone, to her dismay, that Seth Morgan had met other women at a Marin County, California, restaurant, invited them to her home, and was shooting pool with them using her pool table. People at Sunset Sound Recorders overheard Joplin expressing anger about the state of her relationship with Morgan, as well as joy about the progress of the sessions.
Joplin and Ken Pearson later left the studio together and she drove him in her Porsche to the West Hollywood landmark called Barney's Beanery. Friedman wrote, "At the bar, she drank vodka and orange juice, only two." Bennett Glotzer, a business partner of Joplin's manager Albert Grossman, was present at Barney's Beanery, according to what he told John Byrne Cooke immediately after he (Glotzer) learned of her death. Evidently, Joplin had a friendly conversation with a young man whom she did not know, and he expressed admiration for her music. After midnight, she drove Ken Pearson and the male fan to the Landmark where she and Pearson were staying in separate rooms. During the car ride, the fan asked Joplin questions "about her singing style," according to Friedman, and "she mostly ignored him" so she could converse with Pearson. As Joplin and Pearson prepared to part in the lobby of the Landmark, she expressed a fear, possibly in jest, that he and the other Full Tilt Boogie musicians might decide to stop making music with her. Pearson was the second-to-last person to see her alive. The last was the Landmark's night shift desk clerk. He had met her several times but did not know her.
Personal life
Joplin's significant relationships with men included ones with Peter de Blanc, Country Joe McDonald (who wrote the song "Janis" at Joplin's request), David (George) Niehaus, Kris Kristofferson, and Seth Morgan (from July 1970 until her death, at which time they were allegedly engaged).
She also had relationships with women. During her first stint in San Francisco in 1963, Joplin met and briefly lived with Jae Whitaker, a black woman whom she had met while playing pool at the bar Gino & Carlo in North Beach. Whitaker broke off their relationship because of Joplin's hard drug use and sexual relationships with other people. Whitaker was first identified by name in connection with the singer in 1999, when Alice Echols' biography Scars of Sweet Paradise was published.
Joplin also had an on-again-off-again romantic relationship with Peggy Caserta. They first met in November 1966 when Big Brother performed at a San Francisco venue called The Matrix. Caserta was one of 15 people in the audience, and at the time, she ran a successful clothing boutique in the Haight Ashbury. Approximately a month after Caserta attended the concert, Joplin visited her boutique and said she could not afford to buy a pair of jeans that was for sale, instead asking to put down the first 50 cents on the $5 item. Caserta was amazed that such a talented singer could not afford a $5 item, and gave her a pair for free. Their friendship was platonic for more than a year. Before it moved to the next level, Caserta was in love with Big Brother guitarist Sam Andrew, and sometime during the first half of 1968 traveled from San Francisco to New York to flirt with him. He did not want a serious relationship, and Joplin sympathized with Caserta's disappointment.
The Woodstock concert film includes 37 seconds of Joplin and Caserta walking together before they reached the tent where Joplin waited for her turn to perform. By the time the festival took place in August 1969, both were intravenous heroin addicts.
According to Caserta's book Going Down With Janis, which Caserta has since disowned, Joplin introduced her to her boyfriend Seth Morgan in Joplin's room at the Landmark Motor Hotel on September 29, 1970. Caserta "had seen him around" San Francisco but had not met him before. At some point, an agreement was made for a threesome to take place the following Friday, although Caserta later said that she immediately abandoned the idea once she understood that it was Morgan who would be with Joplin. Morgan made alternate plans, believing that Caserta would be with Joplin that evening. Each one, however, was unaware that the other had bowed out. The day after Joplin introduced Caserta to Morgan, Caserta saw Joplin briefly, again in Joplin's room, when Caserta accommodated her new Los Angeles friend Debbie Nuciforo, age 19, an aspiring hard rock drummer who wanted to meet Joplin. Nuciforo was stoned on heroin at the time, and the three women's encounter was brief and unpleasant. Caserta suspected that the reason for Joplin's foul mood was that Morgan had abandoned her earlier that day after having spent less than 24 hours with her. Caserta did not see nor communicate by phone with Joplin again, although she later claimed she had made several attempts to reach her by phone at the Landmark Motor Hotel and at Sunset Sound Recorders. Caserta and Morgan lost touch with each other; each had independently made alternate plans for Friday night, October 2. Joplin mentioned her disappointment (over both of her friends' bailing out of their ménage à trois) to her drug dealer on Saturday, while he was selling her the dose of heroin that killed her, as Caserta later learned from the drug dealer.
Biographer Myra Friedman commented in her original version of Buried Alive (1973):
Given the near-infinite potentials of infancy, it is really impossible to make generalizations about what lies behind sexual practices. This, however, is probable: to become clearly homosexual, to make the choice that one honestly prefers relations with one's own sex, no matter the origins of such preference, requires a certain integration, a stability of psychic development, a tidiness of personality organization. The ridicule and the humiliation that took place at that most delicate period in [Joplin's] early teens, her own inability to surmount the obstacles to regular growth, devastated her a great deal more than most people comprehended. Janis was not heir to an ego so cohesive as to permit her an identity one way or the other. She was, as [the psychiatric social worker she saw regularly in Beaumont, Texas in 1965 and 1966] Mr. [Bernard] Giarritano put it [in an interview with Friedman], "diffused" -- spewing, splattering, splaying all over, without a center to hold. That had as much to do with her original use of drugs [before she first met Giarritano] as did the critical component of guilt and its multiplicity of sources above and beyond the contribution made by her relationships with women. Were she so simple as the lesbians wished her to be or so free as her associates imagined!
Kim France reported in her May 2, 1999 The New York Times article, "Nothin' Left to Lose" : "Once she became famous, Joplin cursed like a truck driver, did not believe in wearing undergarments, was rarely seen without her bottle of Southern Comfort and delighted in playing the role of sexual predator."
On July 11, 1970, Joplin made a revealing statement about her sexuality to her friend Richard Hundgen, the Grateful Dead's San Francisco-based road manager whom she had known since 1966. When Joplin and Hundgen were offstage during a San Diego gig for both Full Tilt Boogie and Big Brother and the Holding Company, she said the following that he later repeated to Myra Friedman:
I hear a rumor that somebody in San Francisco is spreading stories that I'm a dyke. You go back there and find out who it is and tell them that Janis says she's gotten it on with a couple of thousand cats in her life and a few hundred chicks and see what they can do with that!
Death
On Sunday evening, October 4, 1970, Joplin was found dead on the floor of her room at the Landmark Motor Hotel by her road manager and close friend John Byrne Cooke.
Alcohol was present in the room. Newspapers reported that no other drugs or paraphernalia were present. According to a 1983 book authored by Joseph DiMona and Los Angeles County coroner Thomas Noguchi, evidence of narcotics was removed from the scene by a friend of Joplin and later put back after the person realized that an autopsy was going to reveal that narcotics were in her system. The book adds that prior to Joplin's death, Noguchi had investigated other fatal drug overdoses in Los Angeles where friends believed they were doing favors for decedents by removing evidence of narcotics, then they "thought things over" and returned to put back the evidence. Noguchi performed an autopsy on Joplin and determined the cause of death to be a heroin overdose, possibly compounded by alcohol.
John Byrne Cooke believed Joplin had been given heroin that was much more potent than what she and other L.A. heroin users had received on previous occasions, as was indicated by overdoses of several of her dealer's other customers during the same weekend. Her death was ruled accidental.
Both Peggy Caserta, Joplin's close friend, and Seth Morgan, Joplin's fiancé, had failed to meet Joplin the Friday immediately prior to her death, October 2; Joplin had been expecting both of them to keep her company that night. According to Caserta, Joplin was saddened that neither of her friends visited her at the Landmark as they had promised. During the 24 hours Joplin lived after this disappointment, Caserta did not phone her to explain why she had failed to show up. Caserta admitted to waiting until late Saturday night to dial the Landmark switchboard, only to learn that Joplin had instructed the desk clerk not to accept any incoming phone calls for her after midnight. Morgan did speak to Joplin via telephone within the 24 hours prior to her death, but little is known about that call. She used a phone at Sunset Sound Recorders where her colleagues (“there were perhaps twenty to twenty-five people present,” wrote biographer Myra Friedman) noticed that whatever Morgan said to her made her very angry.
Peggy Caserta has insisted that Joplin's death was not an accidental overdose, but rather a result of a head gash suffered after the "hourglass heel" of her slingback sandal caught in the shag carpet, causing her to lose her balance. Caserta does concede, however, that drugs and/or alcohol may have played a role in hastening her death that night.
Joplin was cremated at Pierce Brothers Westwood Village Memorial Park and Mortuary in Los Angeles, and her ashes were scattered from a plane into the Pacific Ocean.
Legacy
Joplin's death in October 1970 at age 27 stunned her fans and shocked the music world, especially when coupled with the death just 16 days earlier of another rock icon, Jimi Hendrix, also at age 27. (This would later cause some people to attribute significance to the death of musicians at the age of 27, as celebrated in the "27 Club.") Music historian Tom Moon wrote that Joplin had "a devastatingly original voice," music columnist Jon Pareles of The New York Times wrote that Joplin as an artist was "overpowering and deeply vulnerable" and author Megan Terry said that Joplin was the female version of Elvis Presley in her ability to captivate an audience.
A book about Joplin by her publicist Myra Friedman titled Buried Alive: The Biography of Janis Joplin (1973) was excerpted in many newspapers. At the same time, Peggy Caserta's memoir, Going Down With Janis (1973), attracted much attention; its provocative title is a reference to Caserta's claim that she had engaged in oral sex with Joplin while they were high on heroin in September 1970. The description provided by Dan Knapp, Caserta’s co-author whom she denounced decades later, repelled many people in 1973 when few books or filmed interviews of Joplin or her loved ones were accessible to the public. Joplin's bandmate Sam Andrew described Caserta as "halfway between a groupie and a friend" in an interview with writer Ellis Amburn. Soon after the 1973 publication of Going Down With Janis, Joplin's friends learned that graphic descriptions of sexual acts and intravenous drug use were not the only portions of the book that would haunt them.
According to Kim Chappell, a close friend of Caserta and Joplin, Caserta's book angered the Los Angeles heroin dealer whom she had described in detail in her book, including the make and model of his car. According to Amburn, in 1973 a "carful of dope dealers" visited a Los Angeles lesbian bar that Caserta had been frequenting. Chappell, who was in the alley behind the bar, stated: "I was stabbed because, when Peggy's book came out, her dealer, the same one who'd given Janis her last fix, didn't like it that he was referred to and was out to get Peggy. He couldn't find her, so he went for her lover. When they realized who I was, they felt that my death would also hit Peggy, and so they stabbed me." Despite being "stabbed three times in the chest, puncturing both lungs," Chappell eventually recovered.
In 2018, Caserta denounced Going Down With Janis as the pornographic fantasy of Dan Knapp, her co-author, and largely unreliable. During that year, the public had its first access to her own story via a memoir she co-wrote with Maggie Falcon titled I Ran Into Some Trouble. It describes a long, friendly relationship with Joplin that only occasionally featured sexuality.
According to Joplin’s biographers, Caserta was among many friends of Joplin who did not become clean and sober until a very long time after Joplin's death, while others died from overdoses. Although the wife of Big Brother guitarist James Gurley, who was Joplin's close friend, died from a heroin overdose in 1969, devastating Joplin, Gurley himself did not become clean and sober until 1984. Caserta survived "a near-fatal OD in December 1995," wrote Alice Echols. On January 13, 2000, Caserta appeared during a segment about Joplin on 20/20.
Joplin's body art, with a wristlet and a small heart on her left breast by the San Francisco tattoo artist Lyle Tuttle, marked an early moment in the popular culture's acceptance of tattoos as art. Another trademark was her flamboyant hair styles, which often included colored streaks and accessories such as scarves, beads and feathers. When in New York City, Joplin frequented the Limbo boutique on St. Mark's Place, and she wore some of the vintage and unique garments that she purchased there on stage.
The Mamas & the Papas' song "Pearl" (1971), from their People Like Us album, was a tribute. Leonard Cohen's song "Chelsea Hotel#2" (1974) is about Joplin. Lyricist Robert Hunter has commented that Jerry Garcia's "Birdsong" from his first solo album, Garcia (1972), is about Joplin and the end of her suffering through death. Mimi Farina's composition "In the Quiet Morning", most famously covered by Joan Baez on her Come from the Shadows (1972) album, was a tribute to Joplin. Another song by Baez, "Children of the Eighties," mentioned Joplin. A Serge Gainsbourg-penned French language song by English singer Jane Birkin, "Ex fan des sixties" (1978), references Joplin along with other disappeared "idols" such as Jimi Hendrix, Brian Jones and Marc Bolan. When Joplin was alive, Country Joe McDonald released a song called "Janis" on his band's album I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die (1967).
The film The Rose (1979) is loosely based on Joplin's life. Originally planned to be titled Pearl—Joplin's nickname and the title of her last album—the film was fictionalized after her family declined to allow the producers the rights to her story. Bette Midler earned a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in the film.
In 1988, on what would have been Joplin's 45th birthday, the Janis Joplin Memorial, with an original gold, multi-image sculpture of Joplin by Douglas Clark, was dedicated during a ceremony in Port Arthur, Texas.
In 1992, the first major biography of Joplin in two decades, Love, Janis, authored by her younger sister Laura Joplin, was published. In an interview, Laura stated that Joplin enjoyed being on the Dick Cavett Show, that Joplin had difficulties with some, but not all, people at Thomas Jefferson High School and that Joplin enthusiastically talked about Woodstock with her parents and siblings during a visit to their Texas home a few weeks after she had performed at the festival.
In 1995, Joplin was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In 2005, she received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. In November 2009, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum honored her as part of its annual American Music Masters Series; among the artifacts at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum exhibition are Joplin's scarf and necklaces, her psychedelically painted 1965 Porsche 356 Cabriolet and a sheet of LSD blotting paper designed by Robert Crumb, designer of the Cheap Thrills cover. Also in 2009, Joplin was the honoree at the Rock Hall's American Music Master concert and lecture series.
In the late 1990s, the musical play Love, Janis was created and directed by Randal Myler, with input from Janis' younger sister Laura and Big Brother guitarist Sam Andrew, with an aim to take it to Off-Broadway. Opening in the summer of 2001 and scheduled for only a few weeks of performances, the show won acclaim, played to packed houses and was held over several times.
In 2013, Washington's Arena Stage featured a production of A Night with Janis Joplin, starring Mary Bridget Davies. In it, Joplin performs a concert for the audience while telling stories of her past inspirations, including those of Odetta and Aretha Franklin. The show went on tour in 2016.
On November 4, 2013, Joplin was awarded with the 2,510th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contributions to the music industry. Her star is located at 6752 Hollywood Boulevard, in front of Musicians Institute.
On August 8, 2014, the U.S. Postal Service revealed a commemorative stamp honoring Joplin as part of its Music Icons stamp series during a first-day-of-issue ceremony at the Outside Lands Music Festival at Golden Gate Park.
Among the memorabilia Joplin left behind is a Gibson Hummingbird guitar.
In 2015, the biographical documentary film Janis: Little Girl Blue, directed by Amy J. Berg and narrated by Cat Power, was released. It was a New York Times Critics' Pick.
Influence
Joplin had a profound influence on many singers.
Pink said about Joplin: "She was so inspiring by singing blues music when it wasn't culturally acceptable for white women, and she wore her heart on her sleeve. She was so witty and charming and intelligent, but she also battled an ugly-duckling syndrome. I would love to play her in a movie." In a tribute performance on her Try This Tour, Pink called Joplin "a woman who inspired me when everyone else ... didn't!"
Discography
Janis Joplin recorded four albums in her four-year career. The first two albums were recorded with and credited to Big Brother and the Holding Company; the later two were recorded with different backing bands and released as solo albums. Posthumous releases have included previously unreleased studio and live material.
Studio albums
As lead singer of Big Brother and the Holding Company
As solo artist
Live albums
Compilation albums
Singles
As lead of Big Brother and the Holding Company
As solo artist
Filmography
Monterey Pop (1968)
Petulia (1968)
Janis Joplin Live in Frankfurt (1969)
Janis (1974)
Janis: The Way She Was (1974)
Comin' Home (1988)
Woodstock – The Lost Performances (1991)
Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace & Music (Director's Cut) (1994)
Festival Express (2003)
Nine Hundred Nights (2004)
The Dick Cavett Show: Rock Icons (2005) Shout Factory
Rockin' at the Red Dog: The Dawn of Psychedelic Rock (2005)
This is Tom Jones (2007) 1969 appearance on TV show
Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace & Music (Director's Cut) 40th Anniversary Edition (2009)
Janis Joplin with Big Brother: Ball and Chain (DVD) Charly (2009)
Janis: Little Girl Blue (2015)
Notes
References
Further reading
– an encounter with Janis Joplin at the wheel.
External links
Janis Joplin at the Grammy Awards
Janis Joplin on the Music-Map
1943 births
1970 deaths
20th-century American singers
20th-century American women singers
American blues singers
American child singers
American mezzo-sopranos
American women rock singers
American women singer-songwriters
American rhythm and blues singer-songwriters
American rock songwriters
American soul musicians
Accidental deaths in California
Big Brother and the Holding Company members
Bisexual musicians
Bisexual women
Blues rock musicians
Columbia Records artists
Deaths by heroin overdose in California
Drug-related deaths in California
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners
LGBT people from Texas
LGBT singers from the United States
LGBT songwriters
Lamar University alumni
People from Beaumont, Texas
People from Port Arthur, Texas
Singer-songwriters from Texas
University of Texas at Austin alumni
20th-century LGBT people
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"\"How Long's a Tear Take to Dry?\" is a single by British pop rock group the Beautiful South from their sixth album, Quench (1998). It was written by Paul Heaton and Dave Rotheray. The lyrics, which take the form of a conversation between two reconciling lovers, are noted for a reference to the TARDIS from Doctor Who. According to the book Last Orders at the Liars Bar: the Official Story of the Beautiful South, \"How Long's a Tear Take To Dry?\" was originally to be called \"She Bangs the Buns\" due to its chord structure reminiscent of Manchester's the Stone Roses. The song reached number 12 on the UK Singles Chart, becoming the band's twelfth and final top-twenty hit.\n\nSingle release\n\"How Long's a Tear Take to Dry?\" reached number 12 in the UK Singles Chart in March 1999. Although not released on vinyl, it was given a dual-CD release in the UK. B-sides included a remix of \"How Long's a Tear Take to Dry?\" as well as acoustic versions of three other songs: \"Perfect 10\", \"Big Coin\", and \"Rotterdam\". On 18 March 1999, the band performed \"How Long's a Tear Take to Dry?\" live on the BBC music programme Top of the Pops.\n\nMusic video\nThe music video, available on The Beautiful South's compilation DVD Munch, is a humorous account of The Beautiful South on a world tour in order to pay for drinks at the local bar. The band is portrayed by cartoon versions of themselves, in a style reminiscent of 1960s-era Hanna-Barbera cartoons, and Scooby-Doo in particular. In the commentary track on the Munch DVD, Paul Heaton explains that the video was actually produced by Hanna-Barbera.\n\nTrack listings\n\nUK CD1\n \"How Long's a Tear Take to Dry?\"\n \"How Long's a Tear Take to Dry?\" (remix)\n \"Perfect 10\" (acoustic)\n\nUK CD2\n \"How Long's a Tear Take to Dry?\"\n \"Big Coin\" (acoustic)\n \"Rotterdam\" (acoustic)\n\nUK cassette single\n \"How Long's a Tear Take to Dry?\"\n \"How Long's a Tear Take to Dry?\" (remix)\n\nEuropean CD single\n \"How Long's a Tear Take to Dry?\" (radio edit)\n \"How Long's a Tear Take to Dry?\" (remix)\n \"Perfect 10\" (acoustic)\n \"Rotterdam\" (acoustic)\n\nGerman CD single\n \"How Long's a Tear Take to Dry?\"\n \"Dumb\"\n \"I Sold My Heart to the Junkman\"\n \"Suck Harder\"\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\n Pattenden, Mike - Last Orders at the Liars Bar: the Official Story of the Beautiful South ()\n\n1999 singles\n1998 songs\nThe Beautiful South songs\nGo! Discs singles\nHanna-Barbera\nMercury Records singles\nSongs written by David Rotheray\nSongs written by Paul Heaton",
"\"How Did it Ever Come to This?\" was the last single released by the British band Easyworld. It did not appear on their second and final album Kill the Last Romantic, because it had not yet been written. The band's record label Jive decided the band should record a new track as it was felt none of the tracks on the album were suitable for release. The single charted at #50 in September 2004, missing the top 40 after \"Til the Day\" charted at #27 in February. Easyworld announced their split the following week, though this had been decided in July, after lead singer David Ford informed all concerned that he wished to pursue a solo career. The eventual announcement of the band's split came by accident, after Mark Lamarr revealed the news live on Radio 2. The CD single contains a cover of Candi Staton's \"Young Hearts Run Free\" and \"You Can't Tear Polaroids\" which was written and sung by bassist Jo Taylor.\n\nKill the Last Romantic was due to be re-released containing the single, with a heavy promotional campaign behind it. However, Jive was bought out by BMG, which in turn was bought out by Sony, and the ensuing disruption meant that this plan was shelved. After the band's split the three members negotiated a release from their contracts.\n\nTrack listing\n How Did It Ever Come To This?\n Young Hearts Run Free\n You Can't Tear Polaroids\n\n2004 singles\nEasyworld songs"
] |
[
"Y. A. Tittle",
"Profile and playing style"
] |
C_2a9dd5d8916b4fe2b0b722cf98a7c9ca_0
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what was the profile?
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What was the profile of Y. A. Tittle?
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Y. A. Tittle
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Tittle threw the ball from a sidearm, almost underhand position, something novel at those times, though it was common practice in earlier decades. It was this seemingly underhand style that drew the curiosity and admiration of many fans. In tandem with his baldness--for which he was frequently referred to as the "Bald Eagle"--he made for a very striking personality. Despite his throwing motion, he had a very strong and accurate arm with a quick release. It was because of his quick release and ability to read defenses that he became one of the best screen passers in the NFL. He was a perfectionist and highly competitive, and he expected the same of his teammates. He possessed rare leadership and game-planning skills, and played with great enthusiasm even in his later years. "Tittle has the attitude of a high school kid, with the brain of a computer," said Giants teammate Frank Gifford. Baltimore Colts halfback Lenny Moore, when asked in 1963 to compare Tittle and Colts quarterback Johnny Unitas, said: I played with Tittle in the Pro Bowl two years ago, and I discovered he's quite a guy ... He and John, however, are entirely different types ... Tittle is a sort of 'con man' with his players ... he comes into a huddle and 'suggests' that maybe this or that will work on account of something he saw happen on a previous play ... The way he puts it, you're convinced it's a good idea and maybe it will work. John, now, he's a take-charge guy ... He tells you what the other guy's going to do, what he's going to do, and what he wants you to do. Tittle's most productive years came when he was well beyond his athletic prime. On his ability to improve with age, he credited a feel for the game that came from his years of experience in the league. "If you could learn it by studying movies, a good smart college quarterback could learn all you've got to learn in three weeks and then come in and be as good as the old heads," he told Sports Illustrated in 1963. "But they can't." CANNOTANSWER
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Tittle threw the ball from a sidearm, almost underhand position, something novel at those times,
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Yelberton Abraham Tittle Jr. (October 24, 1926 – October 8, 2017) was a professional American football quarterback. He played in the National Football League (NFL) for the San Francisco 49ers, New York Giants, and Baltimore Colts, after spending two seasons with the Colts in the All-America Football Conference (AAFC). Known for his competitiveness, leadership, and striking profile, Tittle was the centerpiece of several prolific offenses throughout his 17-year professional career from 1948 to 1964.
Tittle played college football for Louisiana State University, where he was a two-time All-Southeastern Conference (SEC) quarterback for the LSU Tigers football team. As a junior, he was named the most valuable player (MVP) of the infamous 1947 Cotton Bowl Classic—also known as the "Ice Bowl"—a scoreless tie between the Tigers and Arkansas Razorbacks in a snowstorm. After college, he was drafted in the 1947 NFL Draft by the Detroit Lions, but he instead chose to play in the AAFC for the Colts.
With the Colts, Tittle was named the AAFC Rookie of the Year in 1948 after leading the team to the AAFC playoffs. After consecutive one-win seasons, the Colts franchise folded, which allowed Tittle to be drafted in the 1951 NFL Draft by the 49ers. Through ten seasons in San Francisco, he was invited to four Pro Bowls, led the league in touchdown passes in 1955, and was named the NFL Player of the Year by the United Press in 1957. A groundbreaker, Tittle was part of the 49ers' famed Million Dollar Backfield, was the first professional football player featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated, and is credited with having coined "alley-oop" as a sports term.
Considered washed-up, the 34-year-old Tittle was traded to the Giants following the 1960 season. Over the next four seasons, he won several individual awards, twice set the league single-season record for touchdown passesincluding a 1962 game with a combined 7 touchdown passes and 500-yards passing with a near perfect (151.4 out of 158.33) passer rating, and led the Giants to three straight NFL championship games. Although he was never able to deliver a championship to the team, Tittle's time in New York is regarded among the glory years of the franchise.
In his final season, Tittle was photographed bloodied and kneeling down in the end zone after a tackle by a defender left him helmetless. The photograph is considered one of the most iconic images in North American sports history. He retired as the NFL's all-time leader in passing yards, passing touchdowns, attempts, completions, and games played. Tittle was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1971, and his jersey number 14 is retired by the Giants.
Early years and college career
Born and raised in Marshall, Texas, to Alma Tittle (née Allen) and Yelberton Abraham Tittle Sr., Tittle aspired to be a quarterback from a young age. He spent hours in his backyard throwing a football through a tire swing, emulating his fellow Texan and boyhood idol, Sammy Baugh. Tittle played high school football at Marshall High School. In his senior year the team posted an undefeated record and reached the state finals.
After a recruiting battle between Louisiana State University and the University of Texas, Tittle chose to attend LSU in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and play for the LSU Tigers. He was part of a successful 1944 recruiting class under head coach Bernie Moore that included halfbacks Jim Cason, Dan Sandifer, and Ray Coates. Freshmen were eligible to play on the varsity during World War II, so Tittle saw playing time immediately. He later said the finest moment of his four years at LSU was beating Tulane as a freshman, a game in which he set a school record with 238 passing yards. It was one of two games the Tigers won that season.
Moore started Tittle at tailback in the single-wing formation his first year, but moved him to quarterback in the T formation during his sophomore season. As a junior in 1946, Tittle's three touchdown passes in a 41–27 rout of rival Tulane helped ensure LSU a spot in the Cotton Bowl Classic. Known notoriously as the "Ice Bowl", the 1947 Cotton Bowl pitted LSU against the Arkansas Razorbacks in sub-freezing temperatures on an ice-covered field in Dallas, Texas. LSU moved the ball much better than the Razorbacks, but neither team was able to score, and the game ended in a scoreless tie. Tittle and Arkansas end Alton Baldwin shared the game's MVP award. Following the season, United Press International (UPI) placed Tittle on its All-Southeastern Conference (SEC) first-team.
UPI again named Tittle its first-team All-SEC quarterback in 1947. In Tittle's day of iron man football, he played on both offense and defense. While on defense during a 20–18 loss to SEC champion Ole Miss in his senior season, Tittle's belt buckle was torn off as he intercepted a pass from Charlie Conerly and broke a tackle. He ran down the sideline with one arm cradling the ball and the other holding up his pants. At the Ole Miss 20-yard line, as he attempted to stiff-arm a defender,(#87 Jack Odom), Tittle's pants fell and he tripped and fell onto his face. The fall kept him from scoring the game-winning touchdown.
In total, during his college career Tittle set school passing records with 162 completions out of 330 attempts for 2,525 yards and 23 touchdowns. He scored seven touchdowns himself as a runner. His passing totals remained unbroken until Bert Jones surpassed them in the 1970s.
Professional career
Baltimore Colts
Tittle was the sixth overall selection of the 1948 NFL Draft, taken by the Detroit Lions. However, Tittle instead began his professional career with the Baltimore Colts of the All-America Football Conference in 1948. That season, already being described as a "passing ace", he was unanimously recognized as the AAFC Rookie of the Year by UPI after passing for 2,739 yards and leading the Colts to the brink of an Eastern Division championship. After a 1–11 win–loss record in 1949, the Colts joined the National Football League in 1950. The team again posted a single win against eleven losses, and the franchise folded after the season due to financial difficulties. Players on the roster at the time of the fold were eligible to be drafted in the next NFL draft.
San Francisco 49ers
Tittle was then drafted by the San Francisco 49ers in the 1951 NFL Draft after the Colts folded. While many players at the time were unable to play immediately due to military duties, Tittle had received a class IV-F exemption due to physical ailments, so he was able to join the 49ers roster that season. In 1951 and 1952, he shared time at quarterback with Frankie Albert. In 1953, his first full season as the 49ers' starter, he passed for 2,121 yards and 20 touchdowns and was invited to his first Pro Bowl. San Francisco finished with a 9–3 regular season record, which was good enough for second in the Western Conference, and led the league in points scored.
In 1954, the 49ers compiled their Million Dollar Backfield, which was composed of four future Hall of Famers: Tittle; fullbacks John Henry Johnson and Joe Perry; and halfback Hugh McElhenny. "It made quarterbacking so easy because I just get in the huddle and call anything and you have three Hall of Fame running backs ready to carry the ball," Tittle reminisced in 2006. The team had aspirations for a championship run, but injuries, including McElhenny's separated shoulder in the sixth game of the season, ended those hopes and the 49ers finished third in the Western Division. Tittle starred in his second straight Pro Bowl appearance as he threw two touchdown passes, including one to 49ers teammate Billy Wilson, who was named the game's MVP.
Tittle became the first professional football player featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated when he appeared on its 15th issue dated November 22, 1954, donning his 49ers uniform and helmet featuring an acrylic face mask distinct to the time period. The cover photo also shows a metal bracket on the side of Tittle's helmet which served to protect his face by preventing the helmet from caving in. The 1954 cover was the first of four Sports Illustrated covers he graced during his career.
Tittle led the NFL in touchdown passes for the first time in 1955, with 17, while also leading the league with 28 interceptions thrown. When the 49ers hired Frankie Albert as head coach in 1956, Tittle was pleased with the choice at first, figuring Albert would be a good mentor. However, the team lost four of its first five games, and Albert replaced Tittle with rookie Earl Morrall. After a loss to the Los Angeles Rams brought San Francisco's record to 1–6, Tittle regained the starting role and the team finished undefeated with one tie through the season's final five games.
In 1957, Tittle and receiver R. C. Owens devised a pass play in which Tittle tossed the ball high into the air and the Owens leapt to retrieve it, typically resulting in a long gain or a touchdown. Tittle dubbed the play the "alley-oop"—the first usage of the term in sports—and it was highly successful when utilized. The 49ers finished the regular season with an 8–4 record and hosted the Detroit Lions in the Western Conference playoff. Against the Lions, Tittle passed for 248 yards and tossed three touchdown passes—one each to Owens, McElhenny, and Wilson—but Detroit overcame a 20-point third quarter deficit to win 31–27. For the season, Tittle had a league-leading 63.1 completion percentage, threw for 2,157 yards and 13 touchdowns, and rushed for six more scores. He was deemed "pro player of the year" by a United Press poll of members of the National Football Writers Association. Additionally, he was named to his first All-Pro team and invited to his third Pro Bowl.
After a poor 1958 preseason by Tittle, Albert started John Brodie at quarterback for the 1958 season, a decision that proved unpopular with the fan base. Tittle came in to relieve Brodie in a week six game against the Lions, with ten minutes left in the game and the 49ers down 21–17. His appearance "drew a roar of approval from the crowd of 59,213," after which he drove the team downfield and threw a 32-yard touchdown pass to McElhenny for the winning score. A right knee ligament injury against the Colts in week nine ended Tittle's season, and San Francisco finished with a 7–5 record, followed by Albert's resignation as coach. Tittle and Brodie continued to share time at quarterback over the next two seasons. In his fourth and final Pro Bowl game with the 49ers in 1959, Tittle completed 13 of 17 passes for 178 yards and a touchdown.
Under new head coach Red Hickey in 1960, the 49ers adopted the shotgun formation. The first implementation of the shotgun was in week nine against the Colts, with Brodie at quarterback while Tittle nursed a groin injury. The 49ers scored a season-high thirty points, and with Brodie in the shotgun won three of their last four games to salvage a winning season at 7–5. Though conflicted, Tittle decided to get into shape and prepare for the next season. He stated in his 2009 autobiography that at times he thought, "The hell with it. Quit this damned game. You have been at it too long anyway." But then another voice within him would say, "Come back for another year and show them you're still a good QB. Don't let them shotgun you out of football!" However, after the first preseason game of 1961, Hickey informed Tittle he had been traded to the New York Giants.
New York Giants
In mid-August 1961, the 49ers traded the 34-year-old Tittle to the New York Giants for second-year guard Lou Cordileone. Cordileone, the 12th overall pick in the 1960 NFL Draft, was quoted as reacting "Me, even up for Y. A. Tittle? You're kidding," and later remarked that the Giants traded him for "a 42-year-old quarterback." Tittle's view of Cordileone was much the same, stating his dismay that the 49ers did not get a "name ballplayer" in return. He was also displeased with being traded to the East Coast, and said he would rather have been traded to the Los Angeles Rams.
Already considered washed up, Tittle was intended by the Giants to share quarterback duties with 40-year-old Charlie Conerly, who had been with the team since 1948. The players at first remained loyal to Conerly, and treated Tittle with the cold shoulder. Tittle missed the season opener due to a back injury sustained before the season. His first game with New York came in week two, against the Steelers, in which he and Conerly each threw a touchdown pass in the Giants' 17–14 win. He became the team's primary starter for the remainder of the season and led the revitalized Giants to first place in the Eastern Conference. The Newspaper Enterprise Association (NEA) awarded Tittle its Jim Thorpe Trophy as the NFL's players' choice of MVP. In the 1961 NFL Championship Game, the Giants were soundly defeated by Vince Lombardi's Green Bay Packers, as they were shut-out 37-0. Tittle completed six of 20 passes in the game and threw four interceptions.
In January 1962, Tittle stated his intention to retire following the 1962 season. After an off-season quarterback competition with Ralph Guglielmi, Tittle played and started in a career-high 14 games. He tied an NFL record by throwing seven touchdown passes in a game on October 28, 1962, in a 49–34 win over the Washington Redskins. Against the Dallas Cowboys in the regular season finale, Tittle threw six touchdown passes to set the single-season record with 33, which had been set the previous year by Sonny Jurgensen's 32. He earned player of the year honors from the Washington D.C. Touchdown Club, UPI, and The Sporting News, and finished just behind Green Bay's Jim Taylor in voting for the AP NFL Most Valuable Player Award. The Giants again finished first in the Eastern Conference and faced the Packers in the 1962 NFL Championship Game. In frigid, windy conditions at Yankee Stadium and facing a constant pass rush from the Packers' front seven, Tittle completed only 18 of his 41 attempts in the game. The Packers won, 16–7, with New York's lone score coming on a blocked punt recovered in the end zone by Jim Collier.
Tittle returned to the Giants in 1963 and, at age 37, supplanted his single-season passing touchdowns record by throwing 36. He broke the record in the final game with three touchdowns against the Steelers, three days after being named NFL MVP by the AP. The Giants led the league in scoring by a wide margin, and for the third time in as many years clinched the Eastern Conference title. The Western champions were George Halas' Chicago Bears. The teams met in the 1963 NFL Championship Game at Wrigley Field. In the second quarter, Tittle injured his knee on a tackle by Larry Morris, and required a novocaine shot at halftime to continue playing. After holding a 10–7 halftime lead, The Giants were shutout in the second half, during which Tittle threw four interceptions. Playing through the knee injury, he completed 11 of 29 passes in the game for 147 yards, a touchdown, and five interceptions as the Bears won 14–10.
The following year in 1964, Tittle's final season, the Giants went 2–10–2 (), the worst record in the 14-team league. In the second game of the year, against Pittsburgh, he was blindsided by defensive end John Baker. The tackle left Tittle with crushed cartilage in his ribs, a cracked sternum, and a concussion. However, he played in every game the rest of the season, but was relegated to a backup role later in the year. After throwing only ten touchdowns with 22 interceptions, he retired after the season at age 39, saying rookie quarterback Gary Wood not only "took my job away, but started to ask permission to date my daughter." Over 17 seasons as a professional, Tittle completed 2,427 out of 4,395 passes for 33,070 yards and 242 touchdowns, with 248 interceptions. He also rushed for 39 touchdowns.
Career statistics
Profile and playing style
Tittle threw the ball from a sidearm, almost underhand position, something novel at those times, though it was common practice in earlier decades. It was this seemingly underhand style that drew the curiosity and admiration of many fans. This, in tandem with his baldness—for which he was frequently referred to as the "Bald Eagle"—made him a very striking personality. Despite his throwing motion, he had a very strong and accurate arm with a quick release. His ability to read defenses made him one of the best screen passers in the NFL. He was a perfectionist and highly competitive, and he expected the same of his teammates. He possessed rare leadership and game-planning skills, and played with great enthusiasm even in his later years. "Tittle has the attitude of a high school kid, with the brain of a computer," said Giants teammate Frank Gifford. Baltimore Colts halfback Lenny Moore, when asked in 1963 to compare Tittle and Colts quarterback Johnny Unitas, said:
I played with Tittle in the Pro Bowl two years ago, and I discovered he's quite a guy ... He and John, however, are entirely different types ... Tittle is a sort of 'con man' with his players ... he comes into a huddle and 'suggests' that maybe this or that will work on account of something he saw happen on a previous play ... The way he puts it, you're convinced it's a good idea and maybe it will work. John, now, he's a take-charge guy ... you what the other guy's going to do, what he's going to do, and what he wants you to do.
Tittle's most productive years came when he was well beyond his athletic prime. He credited his ability to improve with age to a feel for the game borne from years of league experience. "If you could learn it by studying movies, a good, smart college quarterback could learn all you've got to learn in three weeks and then come in and be as good as the old heads," he told Sports Illustrated in 1963. "But they can't."
Legacy
At the time of his retirement, Tittle held the following NFL records:
Tittle was the fourth player to throw seven touchdown passes in a game, when he did so in 1962 against the Redskins. He followed Sid Luckman (1943), Adrian Burk (1954), and George Blanda (1961). The feat has since been equaled by four more players: Joe Kapp (1969), Peyton Manning (2013), Nick Foles (2013), and Drew Brees (2015). Tittle, Manning and Foles did it without an interception. His 36 touchdown passes in 1963 set a record which stood for over two decades until it was surpassed by Dan Marino in 1984; as of 2016 it remains a Giants franchise record.
Despite record statistics and three straight championship game appearances, Tittle was never able to deliver a title to his team. His record as a starter in postseason games was 0–4. He threw four touchdown passes against 14 interceptions and had a passer rating of 33.8 in his postseason career, far below his regular season passer rating of 74.3. Seth Wickersham, writing for ESPN The Magazine in 2014, noted the dichotomy in the 1960s between two of New York's major sports franchises: "... Gifford, Huff and Tittle, a team of Hall of Famers known for losing championships as their peers on the Yankees—with whom they shared a stadium, a city, and many rounds of drinks—became renowned for winning them." The Giants struggled after Tittle's retirement, posting only two winning seasons from 1964 to 1980.
He made seven Pro Bowls, four first-team All-Pro teams, and four times was named the NFL's Most Valuable Player or Player of the Year: in 1957 and 1962 by the UPI; in 1961 by the NEA; and in 1963 by the AP and NEA. In a sports column in 1963, George Strickler for the Chicago Tribune remarked Tittle had "broken records that at one time appeared unassailable and he has been the hero of more second half rallies than Napoleon and the Harlem Globetrotters." He was featured on four Sports Illustrated covers: three during his playing career and one shortly after retirement. His first was with the 49ers in 1954. With the Giants, he graced covers in November 1961, and he was on the season preview issue for 1964; a two-page fold-out photo from the 1963 title game. Tittle was on a fourth cover in August 1965.
The trade of Tittle for Lou Cordileone is seen as one of the worst trades in 49ers history; it is considered one of the best trades in Giants franchise history. Cordileone played just one season in San Francisco.
Famous photo
A photo of a dazed Tittle in the end zone taken by Morris Berman of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on September 20, 1964, is regarded among the most iconic images in the history of American sports and journalism. Tittle, in his 17th and final season, was photographed helmet-less, bloodied and kneeling immediately after having been knocked to the ground by John Baker of the Pittsburgh Steelers and throwing an interception that was returned for a touchdown at the old Pitt Stadium. He suffered a concussion and cracked sternum on the play, but went on to play the rest of the season.
Post-Gazette editors declined to publish the photo, looking for "action shots" instead, but Berman entered the image into contests where it took on a life of its own, winning a National Headliner Award. It is regarded as having changed the way that photographers look at sports, having shown the power of capturing a moment of reaction. It became one of three photos to hang in the lobby of the National Press Photographers Association headquarters, alongside Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima and the Hindenburg disaster. A copy has hung in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
A similar photo by Dozier Mobley of the Associated Press, which shows Tittle looking forward rather than down, was published in the October 2, 1964, issue of Life magazine. After at first having failed to see the appeal of the image, Tittle eventually grew to embrace it, putting the Mobley version on the back cover of his 2009 autobiography. "That was the end of the road," he told the Los Angeles Times in 2008. "It was the end of my dream. It was over." Pittsburgh player John Baker, who hit Tittle right before the picture was taken, ran for sheriff in his native Wake County, North Carolina in 1978, and used the photo as a campaign tool. He was elected and went on to serve for 24 years. Tittle also held a fundraiser to assist Baker in his bid for a fourth term in 1989.
Honors
In recognition of his high school and college careers, respectively, Tittle was inducted to the Texas Sports Hall of Fame in 1987 and the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame in 1972.
Tittle was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame with its 1971 class, which included contemporaries Jim Brown, Norm Van Brocklin, the late Vince Lombardi, and former Giants teammate Andy Robustelli. By virtue of his membership in the pro hall of fame, he was automatically inducted as a charter member of the San Francisco 49ers Hall of Fame in 2009.
The Giants had originally retired the number 14 jersey in honor of Ward Cuff, but Tittle requested and was granted the jersey number by Giants owner Wellington Mara when he joined the team. It was retired again immediately following his retirement, and is now retired in honor of both players. In 2010, Tittle became a charter member of the New York Giants Ring of Honor.
Personal life
After his retirement, he rejoined the 49ers staff and served as an assistant coach before being hired by the Giants in 1970 as a quarterback mentor. During his NFL career, Tittle worked as an insurance salesman in the off-season. After retiring, he founded his own company, Y. A. Tittle Insurance & Financial Services. Tittle appeared on the October 9, 1961 episode of To Tell the Truth as one of three challengers. Tittle claimed to be hair stylist-weekend pro wrestler Richard Smith. Tittle received one vote from the four Celebrity Panelists (Johnny Carson).
Until his death, Tittle resided in Atherton, California. His wife Minnette died in 2012. They had three sons: Michael, Patrick and John, and a daughter, Dianne Tittle de Laet. Their daughter is a harpist and poet, and in 1995 she published a biography of her father titled Giants & Heroes: A Daughter's Memories of Y. A. Tittle.
In his later life, Tittle suffered from severe dementia, which adversely affected his memory and limited his conversation to a handful of topics. Tittle died on October 8, 2017, at a hospital in Stanford, California, of natural causes.
List of 500-yard passing games in the National Football League
Notes
References
Further reading
External links
1926 births
2017 deaths
American football quarterbacks
Baltimore Colts (1947–1950) players
Deaths from dementia
Eastern Conference Pro Bowl players
LSU Tigers football players
National Football League Most Valuable Player Award winners
National Football League players with retired numbers
Neurological disease deaths in California
New York Giants players
People from Atherton, California
People from Marshall, Texas
Players of American football from Texas
Pro Football Hall of Fame inductees
San Francisco 49ers players
Western Conference Pro Bowl players
| true |
[
"A school profile was a document which was required to be produced by most maintained schools in England, under the provisions of the Education Act 2005.\n\nThe profile replaced the requirement for school governors to produce an Annual Report to Parents. The profile was, in part, pre-populated with data provided by the Department for Children, Schools and Families and its agencies, including the Office for Standards in Education. This data included standard information such as number of pupils and school type, and a summary of school performance in National Curriculum assessments.\n\nIn addition, schools and their governors were required to compile sections of the profile in answer to the questions as follows:\n\nWhat have been our successes this year?\nWhat are we trying to improve?\nHow have our results changed over time?\nHow are we making sure that every child receives teaching to meet their individual needs?\nHow do we make sure our pupils are healthy, safe and well-supported?\nWhat have we done in response to our Ofsted report?\nHow are we working with parents and the community?\n\nSchool Profiles were required to be produced by all maintained schools in England, except for maintained nursery schools. Other school types were not required to produce a profile, although could elect to do so. The profile should have been produced at least once in each academic year.\n\nThe Education Act 2011, one of the early parliamentary acts of the coalition government, abolished the School Profile, and was put into effect on 1 February 2012.\n\nFreedom of Information response\nIn 2010, the Department for Education announced in a Freedom of Information request that less than quarter of schools had actually published their School Profile in the previous academic year.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nGovernment SchoolsFinder website\nTeachernet Guidance on School Profiles\n\nProfile, school\nEducation in England",
"\"What's It All About\" is the second single from Run-D.M.C.'s fifth studio album, Back from Hell. It was released on September 14, 1990, through Profile Records and was produced by the three members of the group. The song would prove to be the most successful single from the critically panned album, peaking at number 24 on the Billboard Hot R&B Singles chart and number four on the Hot Rap Singles chart.\n\n\"What It's All About\" uses a sample from the Stone Roses' \"Fool's Gold\" as a basis for the track.\n\nTrack listing\n\nA-side\n\"What's It All About\" – 4:48\n\"Sucker D.J.'s\" – 0:50\n\"The Ave.\" – 4:00\n\"The Ave.\" (radio version) – 3:55\n\nB-side\n\"What's It All About\" (instrumental) – 5:46\n\"The Ave.\" (instrumental) – 4:44\n\n1990 singles\n1990 songs\nRun-DMC songs\nSongs written by Darryl McDaniels\nSongs written by Joseph Simmons\nSongs written by Jam Master Jay\nProfile Records singles"
] |
[
"Y. A. Tittle",
"Profile and playing style",
"what was the profile?",
"Tittle threw the ball from a sidearm, almost underhand position, something novel at those times,"
] |
C_2a9dd5d8916b4fe2b0b722cf98a7c9ca_0
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was he the only person to do this?
| 2 |
Was Y. A. Tittle the only person to throw the ball from a sidearm?
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Y. A. Tittle
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Tittle threw the ball from a sidearm, almost underhand position, something novel at those times, though it was common practice in earlier decades. It was this seemingly underhand style that drew the curiosity and admiration of many fans. In tandem with his baldness--for which he was frequently referred to as the "Bald Eagle"--he made for a very striking personality. Despite his throwing motion, he had a very strong and accurate arm with a quick release. It was because of his quick release and ability to read defenses that he became one of the best screen passers in the NFL. He was a perfectionist and highly competitive, and he expected the same of his teammates. He possessed rare leadership and game-planning skills, and played with great enthusiasm even in his later years. "Tittle has the attitude of a high school kid, with the brain of a computer," said Giants teammate Frank Gifford. Baltimore Colts halfback Lenny Moore, when asked in 1963 to compare Tittle and Colts quarterback Johnny Unitas, said: I played with Tittle in the Pro Bowl two years ago, and I discovered he's quite a guy ... He and John, however, are entirely different types ... Tittle is a sort of 'con man' with his players ... he comes into a huddle and 'suggests' that maybe this or that will work on account of something he saw happen on a previous play ... The way he puts it, you're convinced it's a good idea and maybe it will work. John, now, he's a take-charge guy ... He tells you what the other guy's going to do, what he's going to do, and what he wants you to do. Tittle's most productive years came when he was well beyond his athletic prime. On his ability to improve with age, he credited a feel for the game that came from his years of experience in the league. "If you could learn it by studying movies, a good smart college quarterback could learn all you've got to learn in three weeks and then come in and be as good as the old heads," he told Sports Illustrated in 1963. "But they can't." CANNOTANSWER
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it was common practice in earlier decades.
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Yelberton Abraham Tittle Jr. (October 24, 1926 – October 8, 2017) was a professional American football quarterback. He played in the National Football League (NFL) for the San Francisco 49ers, New York Giants, and Baltimore Colts, after spending two seasons with the Colts in the All-America Football Conference (AAFC). Known for his competitiveness, leadership, and striking profile, Tittle was the centerpiece of several prolific offenses throughout his 17-year professional career from 1948 to 1964.
Tittle played college football for Louisiana State University, where he was a two-time All-Southeastern Conference (SEC) quarterback for the LSU Tigers football team. As a junior, he was named the most valuable player (MVP) of the infamous 1947 Cotton Bowl Classic—also known as the "Ice Bowl"—a scoreless tie between the Tigers and Arkansas Razorbacks in a snowstorm. After college, he was drafted in the 1947 NFL Draft by the Detroit Lions, but he instead chose to play in the AAFC for the Colts.
With the Colts, Tittle was named the AAFC Rookie of the Year in 1948 after leading the team to the AAFC playoffs. After consecutive one-win seasons, the Colts franchise folded, which allowed Tittle to be drafted in the 1951 NFL Draft by the 49ers. Through ten seasons in San Francisco, he was invited to four Pro Bowls, led the league in touchdown passes in 1955, and was named the NFL Player of the Year by the United Press in 1957. A groundbreaker, Tittle was part of the 49ers' famed Million Dollar Backfield, was the first professional football player featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated, and is credited with having coined "alley-oop" as a sports term.
Considered washed-up, the 34-year-old Tittle was traded to the Giants following the 1960 season. Over the next four seasons, he won several individual awards, twice set the league single-season record for touchdown passesincluding a 1962 game with a combined 7 touchdown passes and 500-yards passing with a near perfect (151.4 out of 158.33) passer rating, and led the Giants to three straight NFL championship games. Although he was never able to deliver a championship to the team, Tittle's time in New York is regarded among the glory years of the franchise.
In his final season, Tittle was photographed bloodied and kneeling down in the end zone after a tackle by a defender left him helmetless. The photograph is considered one of the most iconic images in North American sports history. He retired as the NFL's all-time leader in passing yards, passing touchdowns, attempts, completions, and games played. Tittle was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1971, and his jersey number 14 is retired by the Giants.
Early years and college career
Born and raised in Marshall, Texas, to Alma Tittle (née Allen) and Yelberton Abraham Tittle Sr., Tittle aspired to be a quarterback from a young age. He spent hours in his backyard throwing a football through a tire swing, emulating his fellow Texan and boyhood idol, Sammy Baugh. Tittle played high school football at Marshall High School. In his senior year the team posted an undefeated record and reached the state finals.
After a recruiting battle between Louisiana State University and the University of Texas, Tittle chose to attend LSU in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and play for the LSU Tigers. He was part of a successful 1944 recruiting class under head coach Bernie Moore that included halfbacks Jim Cason, Dan Sandifer, and Ray Coates. Freshmen were eligible to play on the varsity during World War II, so Tittle saw playing time immediately. He later said the finest moment of his four years at LSU was beating Tulane as a freshman, a game in which he set a school record with 238 passing yards. It was one of two games the Tigers won that season.
Moore started Tittle at tailback in the single-wing formation his first year, but moved him to quarterback in the T formation during his sophomore season. As a junior in 1946, Tittle's three touchdown passes in a 41–27 rout of rival Tulane helped ensure LSU a spot in the Cotton Bowl Classic. Known notoriously as the "Ice Bowl", the 1947 Cotton Bowl pitted LSU against the Arkansas Razorbacks in sub-freezing temperatures on an ice-covered field in Dallas, Texas. LSU moved the ball much better than the Razorbacks, but neither team was able to score, and the game ended in a scoreless tie. Tittle and Arkansas end Alton Baldwin shared the game's MVP award. Following the season, United Press International (UPI) placed Tittle on its All-Southeastern Conference (SEC) first-team.
UPI again named Tittle its first-team All-SEC quarterback in 1947. In Tittle's day of iron man football, he played on both offense and defense. While on defense during a 20–18 loss to SEC champion Ole Miss in his senior season, Tittle's belt buckle was torn off as he intercepted a pass from Charlie Conerly and broke a tackle. He ran down the sideline with one arm cradling the ball and the other holding up his pants. At the Ole Miss 20-yard line, as he attempted to stiff-arm a defender,(#87 Jack Odom), Tittle's pants fell and he tripped and fell onto his face. The fall kept him from scoring the game-winning touchdown.
In total, during his college career Tittle set school passing records with 162 completions out of 330 attempts for 2,525 yards and 23 touchdowns. He scored seven touchdowns himself as a runner. His passing totals remained unbroken until Bert Jones surpassed them in the 1970s.
Professional career
Baltimore Colts
Tittle was the sixth overall selection of the 1948 NFL Draft, taken by the Detroit Lions. However, Tittle instead began his professional career with the Baltimore Colts of the All-America Football Conference in 1948. That season, already being described as a "passing ace", he was unanimously recognized as the AAFC Rookie of the Year by UPI after passing for 2,739 yards and leading the Colts to the brink of an Eastern Division championship. After a 1–11 win–loss record in 1949, the Colts joined the National Football League in 1950. The team again posted a single win against eleven losses, and the franchise folded after the season due to financial difficulties. Players on the roster at the time of the fold were eligible to be drafted in the next NFL draft.
San Francisco 49ers
Tittle was then drafted by the San Francisco 49ers in the 1951 NFL Draft after the Colts folded. While many players at the time were unable to play immediately due to military duties, Tittle had received a class IV-F exemption due to physical ailments, so he was able to join the 49ers roster that season. In 1951 and 1952, he shared time at quarterback with Frankie Albert. In 1953, his first full season as the 49ers' starter, he passed for 2,121 yards and 20 touchdowns and was invited to his first Pro Bowl. San Francisco finished with a 9–3 regular season record, which was good enough for second in the Western Conference, and led the league in points scored.
In 1954, the 49ers compiled their Million Dollar Backfield, which was composed of four future Hall of Famers: Tittle; fullbacks John Henry Johnson and Joe Perry; and halfback Hugh McElhenny. "It made quarterbacking so easy because I just get in the huddle and call anything and you have three Hall of Fame running backs ready to carry the ball," Tittle reminisced in 2006. The team had aspirations for a championship run, but injuries, including McElhenny's separated shoulder in the sixth game of the season, ended those hopes and the 49ers finished third in the Western Division. Tittle starred in his second straight Pro Bowl appearance as he threw two touchdown passes, including one to 49ers teammate Billy Wilson, who was named the game's MVP.
Tittle became the first professional football player featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated when he appeared on its 15th issue dated November 22, 1954, donning his 49ers uniform and helmet featuring an acrylic face mask distinct to the time period. The cover photo also shows a metal bracket on the side of Tittle's helmet which served to protect his face by preventing the helmet from caving in. The 1954 cover was the first of four Sports Illustrated covers he graced during his career.
Tittle led the NFL in touchdown passes for the first time in 1955, with 17, while also leading the league with 28 interceptions thrown. When the 49ers hired Frankie Albert as head coach in 1956, Tittle was pleased with the choice at first, figuring Albert would be a good mentor. However, the team lost four of its first five games, and Albert replaced Tittle with rookie Earl Morrall. After a loss to the Los Angeles Rams brought San Francisco's record to 1–6, Tittle regained the starting role and the team finished undefeated with one tie through the season's final five games.
In 1957, Tittle and receiver R. C. Owens devised a pass play in which Tittle tossed the ball high into the air and the Owens leapt to retrieve it, typically resulting in a long gain or a touchdown. Tittle dubbed the play the "alley-oop"—the first usage of the term in sports—and it was highly successful when utilized. The 49ers finished the regular season with an 8–4 record and hosted the Detroit Lions in the Western Conference playoff. Against the Lions, Tittle passed for 248 yards and tossed three touchdown passes—one each to Owens, McElhenny, and Wilson—but Detroit overcame a 20-point third quarter deficit to win 31–27. For the season, Tittle had a league-leading 63.1 completion percentage, threw for 2,157 yards and 13 touchdowns, and rushed for six more scores. He was deemed "pro player of the year" by a United Press poll of members of the National Football Writers Association. Additionally, he was named to his first All-Pro team and invited to his third Pro Bowl.
After a poor 1958 preseason by Tittle, Albert started John Brodie at quarterback for the 1958 season, a decision that proved unpopular with the fan base. Tittle came in to relieve Brodie in a week six game against the Lions, with ten minutes left in the game and the 49ers down 21–17. His appearance "drew a roar of approval from the crowd of 59,213," after which he drove the team downfield and threw a 32-yard touchdown pass to McElhenny for the winning score. A right knee ligament injury against the Colts in week nine ended Tittle's season, and San Francisco finished with a 7–5 record, followed by Albert's resignation as coach. Tittle and Brodie continued to share time at quarterback over the next two seasons. In his fourth and final Pro Bowl game with the 49ers in 1959, Tittle completed 13 of 17 passes for 178 yards and a touchdown.
Under new head coach Red Hickey in 1960, the 49ers adopted the shotgun formation. The first implementation of the shotgun was in week nine against the Colts, with Brodie at quarterback while Tittle nursed a groin injury. The 49ers scored a season-high thirty points, and with Brodie in the shotgun won three of their last four games to salvage a winning season at 7–5. Though conflicted, Tittle decided to get into shape and prepare for the next season. He stated in his 2009 autobiography that at times he thought, "The hell with it. Quit this damned game. You have been at it too long anyway." But then another voice within him would say, "Come back for another year and show them you're still a good QB. Don't let them shotgun you out of football!" However, after the first preseason game of 1961, Hickey informed Tittle he had been traded to the New York Giants.
New York Giants
In mid-August 1961, the 49ers traded the 34-year-old Tittle to the New York Giants for second-year guard Lou Cordileone. Cordileone, the 12th overall pick in the 1960 NFL Draft, was quoted as reacting "Me, even up for Y. A. Tittle? You're kidding," and later remarked that the Giants traded him for "a 42-year-old quarterback." Tittle's view of Cordileone was much the same, stating his dismay that the 49ers did not get a "name ballplayer" in return. He was also displeased with being traded to the East Coast, and said he would rather have been traded to the Los Angeles Rams.
Already considered washed up, Tittle was intended by the Giants to share quarterback duties with 40-year-old Charlie Conerly, who had been with the team since 1948. The players at first remained loyal to Conerly, and treated Tittle with the cold shoulder. Tittle missed the season opener due to a back injury sustained before the season. His first game with New York came in week two, against the Steelers, in which he and Conerly each threw a touchdown pass in the Giants' 17–14 win. He became the team's primary starter for the remainder of the season and led the revitalized Giants to first place in the Eastern Conference. The Newspaper Enterprise Association (NEA) awarded Tittle its Jim Thorpe Trophy as the NFL's players' choice of MVP. In the 1961 NFL Championship Game, the Giants were soundly defeated by Vince Lombardi's Green Bay Packers, as they were shut-out 37-0. Tittle completed six of 20 passes in the game and threw four interceptions.
In January 1962, Tittle stated his intention to retire following the 1962 season. After an off-season quarterback competition with Ralph Guglielmi, Tittle played and started in a career-high 14 games. He tied an NFL record by throwing seven touchdown passes in a game on October 28, 1962, in a 49–34 win over the Washington Redskins. Against the Dallas Cowboys in the regular season finale, Tittle threw six touchdown passes to set the single-season record with 33, which had been set the previous year by Sonny Jurgensen's 32. He earned player of the year honors from the Washington D.C. Touchdown Club, UPI, and The Sporting News, and finished just behind Green Bay's Jim Taylor in voting for the AP NFL Most Valuable Player Award. The Giants again finished first in the Eastern Conference and faced the Packers in the 1962 NFL Championship Game. In frigid, windy conditions at Yankee Stadium and facing a constant pass rush from the Packers' front seven, Tittle completed only 18 of his 41 attempts in the game. The Packers won, 16–7, with New York's lone score coming on a blocked punt recovered in the end zone by Jim Collier.
Tittle returned to the Giants in 1963 and, at age 37, supplanted his single-season passing touchdowns record by throwing 36. He broke the record in the final game with three touchdowns against the Steelers, three days after being named NFL MVP by the AP. The Giants led the league in scoring by a wide margin, and for the third time in as many years clinched the Eastern Conference title. The Western champions were George Halas' Chicago Bears. The teams met in the 1963 NFL Championship Game at Wrigley Field. In the second quarter, Tittle injured his knee on a tackle by Larry Morris, and required a novocaine shot at halftime to continue playing. After holding a 10–7 halftime lead, The Giants were shutout in the second half, during which Tittle threw four interceptions. Playing through the knee injury, he completed 11 of 29 passes in the game for 147 yards, a touchdown, and five interceptions as the Bears won 14–10.
The following year in 1964, Tittle's final season, the Giants went 2–10–2 (), the worst record in the 14-team league. In the second game of the year, against Pittsburgh, he was blindsided by defensive end John Baker. The tackle left Tittle with crushed cartilage in his ribs, a cracked sternum, and a concussion. However, he played in every game the rest of the season, but was relegated to a backup role later in the year. After throwing only ten touchdowns with 22 interceptions, he retired after the season at age 39, saying rookie quarterback Gary Wood not only "took my job away, but started to ask permission to date my daughter." Over 17 seasons as a professional, Tittle completed 2,427 out of 4,395 passes for 33,070 yards and 242 touchdowns, with 248 interceptions. He also rushed for 39 touchdowns.
Career statistics
Profile and playing style
Tittle threw the ball from a sidearm, almost underhand position, something novel at those times, though it was common practice in earlier decades. It was this seemingly underhand style that drew the curiosity and admiration of many fans. This, in tandem with his baldness—for which he was frequently referred to as the "Bald Eagle"—made him a very striking personality. Despite his throwing motion, he had a very strong and accurate arm with a quick release. His ability to read defenses made him one of the best screen passers in the NFL. He was a perfectionist and highly competitive, and he expected the same of his teammates. He possessed rare leadership and game-planning skills, and played with great enthusiasm even in his later years. "Tittle has the attitude of a high school kid, with the brain of a computer," said Giants teammate Frank Gifford. Baltimore Colts halfback Lenny Moore, when asked in 1963 to compare Tittle and Colts quarterback Johnny Unitas, said:
I played with Tittle in the Pro Bowl two years ago, and I discovered he's quite a guy ... He and John, however, are entirely different types ... Tittle is a sort of 'con man' with his players ... he comes into a huddle and 'suggests' that maybe this or that will work on account of something he saw happen on a previous play ... The way he puts it, you're convinced it's a good idea and maybe it will work. John, now, he's a take-charge guy ... you what the other guy's going to do, what he's going to do, and what he wants you to do.
Tittle's most productive years came when he was well beyond his athletic prime. He credited his ability to improve with age to a feel for the game borne from years of league experience. "If you could learn it by studying movies, a good, smart college quarterback could learn all you've got to learn in three weeks and then come in and be as good as the old heads," he told Sports Illustrated in 1963. "But they can't."
Legacy
At the time of his retirement, Tittle held the following NFL records:
Tittle was the fourth player to throw seven touchdown passes in a game, when he did so in 1962 against the Redskins. He followed Sid Luckman (1943), Adrian Burk (1954), and George Blanda (1961). The feat has since been equaled by four more players: Joe Kapp (1969), Peyton Manning (2013), Nick Foles (2013), and Drew Brees (2015). Tittle, Manning and Foles did it without an interception. His 36 touchdown passes in 1963 set a record which stood for over two decades until it was surpassed by Dan Marino in 1984; as of 2016 it remains a Giants franchise record.
Despite record statistics and three straight championship game appearances, Tittle was never able to deliver a title to his team. His record as a starter in postseason games was 0–4. He threw four touchdown passes against 14 interceptions and had a passer rating of 33.8 in his postseason career, far below his regular season passer rating of 74.3. Seth Wickersham, writing for ESPN The Magazine in 2014, noted the dichotomy in the 1960s between two of New York's major sports franchises: "... Gifford, Huff and Tittle, a team of Hall of Famers known for losing championships as their peers on the Yankees—with whom they shared a stadium, a city, and many rounds of drinks—became renowned for winning them." The Giants struggled after Tittle's retirement, posting only two winning seasons from 1964 to 1980.
He made seven Pro Bowls, four first-team All-Pro teams, and four times was named the NFL's Most Valuable Player or Player of the Year: in 1957 and 1962 by the UPI; in 1961 by the NEA; and in 1963 by the AP and NEA. In a sports column in 1963, George Strickler for the Chicago Tribune remarked Tittle had "broken records that at one time appeared unassailable and he has been the hero of more second half rallies than Napoleon and the Harlem Globetrotters." He was featured on four Sports Illustrated covers: three during his playing career and one shortly after retirement. His first was with the 49ers in 1954. With the Giants, he graced covers in November 1961, and he was on the season preview issue for 1964; a two-page fold-out photo from the 1963 title game. Tittle was on a fourth cover in August 1965.
The trade of Tittle for Lou Cordileone is seen as one of the worst trades in 49ers history; it is considered one of the best trades in Giants franchise history. Cordileone played just one season in San Francisco.
Famous photo
A photo of a dazed Tittle in the end zone taken by Morris Berman of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on September 20, 1964, is regarded among the most iconic images in the history of American sports and journalism. Tittle, in his 17th and final season, was photographed helmet-less, bloodied and kneeling immediately after having been knocked to the ground by John Baker of the Pittsburgh Steelers and throwing an interception that was returned for a touchdown at the old Pitt Stadium. He suffered a concussion and cracked sternum on the play, but went on to play the rest of the season.
Post-Gazette editors declined to publish the photo, looking for "action shots" instead, but Berman entered the image into contests where it took on a life of its own, winning a National Headliner Award. It is regarded as having changed the way that photographers look at sports, having shown the power of capturing a moment of reaction. It became one of three photos to hang in the lobby of the National Press Photographers Association headquarters, alongside Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima and the Hindenburg disaster. A copy has hung in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
A similar photo by Dozier Mobley of the Associated Press, which shows Tittle looking forward rather than down, was published in the October 2, 1964, issue of Life magazine. After at first having failed to see the appeal of the image, Tittle eventually grew to embrace it, putting the Mobley version on the back cover of his 2009 autobiography. "That was the end of the road," he told the Los Angeles Times in 2008. "It was the end of my dream. It was over." Pittsburgh player John Baker, who hit Tittle right before the picture was taken, ran for sheriff in his native Wake County, North Carolina in 1978, and used the photo as a campaign tool. He was elected and went on to serve for 24 years. Tittle also held a fundraiser to assist Baker in his bid for a fourth term in 1989.
Honors
In recognition of his high school and college careers, respectively, Tittle was inducted to the Texas Sports Hall of Fame in 1987 and the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame in 1972.
Tittle was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame with its 1971 class, which included contemporaries Jim Brown, Norm Van Brocklin, the late Vince Lombardi, and former Giants teammate Andy Robustelli. By virtue of his membership in the pro hall of fame, he was automatically inducted as a charter member of the San Francisco 49ers Hall of Fame in 2009.
The Giants had originally retired the number 14 jersey in honor of Ward Cuff, but Tittle requested and was granted the jersey number by Giants owner Wellington Mara when he joined the team. It was retired again immediately following his retirement, and is now retired in honor of both players. In 2010, Tittle became a charter member of the New York Giants Ring of Honor.
Personal life
After his retirement, he rejoined the 49ers staff and served as an assistant coach before being hired by the Giants in 1970 as a quarterback mentor. During his NFL career, Tittle worked as an insurance salesman in the off-season. After retiring, he founded his own company, Y. A. Tittle Insurance & Financial Services. Tittle appeared on the October 9, 1961 episode of To Tell the Truth as one of three challengers. Tittle claimed to be hair stylist-weekend pro wrestler Richard Smith. Tittle received one vote from the four Celebrity Panelists (Johnny Carson).
Until his death, Tittle resided in Atherton, California. His wife Minnette died in 2012. They had three sons: Michael, Patrick and John, and a daughter, Dianne Tittle de Laet. Their daughter is a harpist and poet, and in 1995 she published a biography of her father titled Giants & Heroes: A Daughter's Memories of Y. A. Tittle.
In his later life, Tittle suffered from severe dementia, which adversely affected his memory and limited his conversation to a handful of topics. Tittle died on October 8, 2017, at a hospital in Stanford, California, of natural causes.
List of 500-yard passing games in the National Football League
Notes
References
Further reading
External links
1926 births
2017 deaths
American football quarterbacks
Baltimore Colts (1947–1950) players
Deaths from dementia
Eastern Conference Pro Bowl players
LSU Tigers football players
National Football League Most Valuable Player Award winners
National Football League players with retired numbers
Neurological disease deaths in California
New York Giants players
People from Atherton, California
People from Marshall, Texas
Players of American football from Texas
Pro Football Hall of Fame inductees
San Francisco 49ers players
Western Conference Pro Bowl players
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[
"Charles Person (born 1942) is an African-American civil rights activist who participated in the 1961 Freedom Rides. He was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia. Following his 1960 graduation from David Tobias Howard High School, he attended Morehouse College. Person was the youngest Freedom Rider on the original Congress of Racial Equality Freedom Ride. His memoir Buses Are a Comin': Memoir of a Freedom Rider, was published by St. Martin's Press in 2021.\n\nLife Before the Freedom Rides\nPerson was born in Atlanta on September 27, 1942. His father was an orderly at Emory University Hospital. He was a gifted math and physics student, with aspirations to become a scientist. In high school, he was a member of his local NAACP Youth Council. In the Fall of 1960, he enrolled as a freshman at Morehouse College. As a Freshman at Morehouse, he became active in the civil rights movement, joining a student organization called the Atlanta Committee on Appeal for Human Rights. Person received his first jail sentence, a sixteen-day trip, after a sit-in in 1961. In an interview, Person had this to say about the sit-ins: \"Once I got involved, it was infectious, anything that had to do with protests, I was there. My life revolved around it, I did my homework and my assignment around sitting-in. You’d be surprised how good study habits you can develop, because you were just sitting at a lunch counter with no place to go, they weren’t going to feed us, so you just sat there and did your studies.\" They were attacked with items such as condiments and cigarette butts, and threatened with items like meat cleavers. The students in these sit-ins practiced non-violent tactics, which helped make the threats and attacks less interesting for the whites trying to intimidate them. He gained the attention of CORE recruiters that were looking for an Atlanta freedom rider. As a minor, he needed a parent signature to participate. His mother refused to sign, but he was able to convince his father.\n\nThe Freedom Rides\nPerson was a member of the original 13 freedom riders departing from Washington, D.C. aboard a Trailways bus on May 4, 1961. His first encounter with the law came in Charlotte, North Carolina. At the Charlotte bus station, Person thought his shoes were dirty, so he decided to get a shoe shine. He decided to stay in the whites only shoe-shine station until either his shoes were shined or he was arrested. A policeman arrived shortly, and Person decided he would leave the chair to avoid arrest.\n\nThe most troubling encounter for Person occurred in Alabama. As the Trailways bus was leaving Atlanta it was boarded by a group of white Klansmen. As the bus departed, the Klansmen began making threats, such as \"You niggers will be taken care of when you get in Alabama.\" After arriving in Anniston, Alabama hours after the Greyhound bus burning of another Freedom Ride bus, the Klansmen became violent. After the black riders refused to move to the back, one Klansman rushed Person, punching him in the face. Another Klansman struck Herman Harris, who was sitting next to Person. The Klansmen dragged a severely beaten Person and Harris to the back of the bus. The bus driver, who had left the bus some time during the fight, returned with a police officer. The officer did nothing to help the riders. The bus then continued on to Birmingham, Alabama.\n\nIn Birmingham, Person and fellow freedom rider James Peck were designated to test the segregationist policies at the station. Peck recalls \"When we arrived in… Birmingham, we saw along the sidewalk about twenty men with pipes, we saw no cop in sight. And now I'll tell you what, how I remember the date. The next day, Bull Connor, the notorious police chief was asked why there were no police on hand. He said, he replied, it was Mother's Day and they were all visiting their mothers. Well, we got out of the bus and Charles Person, the black student from Atlanta and I, had been designated to try to enter the lunch counter. So of course we didn't there. This mob seized us and uh… well part of it seized me and the other seized Person, and I was unconscious, I'd say, within a minute.\" Person was attacked by a man with a lead pipe when Person and Peck attempted to use a whites only lunch counter. Person was able to escape and find his way to Fred Shuttlesworth's parsonage. He did not fight back. Person \"chose nonviolence as a way of life.\"\n\nReferences\n\nNotes\n\nSources\n\n1943 births\nLiving people\nAmerican civil rights activists\nFreedom Riders",
"The Man Who Walked Through Time (1968) is Colin Fletcher's chronicle of the first person to walk a continuous route through Grand Canyon National Park. The book is credited with \"introducing an increasingly nature-hungry public to the spiritual and physical rewards of backpacking\".\n\nWhen Fletcher conducted the trip in 1963, the park did not encompass the entire length of the canyon; it was later expanded so it did. Fletcher thus only walked about half of the physical canyon, though he was correct in saying he was the first to walk the section of the canyon designated as a national park. Kenton Grua, a professional river guide, was the first person in recorded history to walk the entire length of the Grand Canyon, in 1977. He was inspired by Fletcher's book but set out to \"do it right\" by walking the canyon from end to end, not just the section inside the park.\n\nReferences \n\nAmerican travel books\nWorks about the Grand Canyon\nHiking books"
] |
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Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?
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Are there any other interesting aspects about Y. A. Tittle aside from him throwing from a sidearm?
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Y. A. Tittle
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Tittle threw the ball from a sidearm, almost underhand position, something novel at those times, though it was common practice in earlier decades. It was this seemingly underhand style that drew the curiosity and admiration of many fans. In tandem with his baldness--for which he was frequently referred to as the "Bald Eagle"--he made for a very striking personality. Despite his throwing motion, he had a very strong and accurate arm with a quick release. It was because of his quick release and ability to read defenses that he became one of the best screen passers in the NFL. He was a perfectionist and highly competitive, and he expected the same of his teammates. He possessed rare leadership and game-planning skills, and played with great enthusiasm even in his later years. "Tittle has the attitude of a high school kid, with the brain of a computer," said Giants teammate Frank Gifford. Baltimore Colts halfback Lenny Moore, when asked in 1963 to compare Tittle and Colts quarterback Johnny Unitas, said: I played with Tittle in the Pro Bowl two years ago, and I discovered he's quite a guy ... He and John, however, are entirely different types ... Tittle is a sort of 'con man' with his players ... he comes into a huddle and 'suggests' that maybe this or that will work on account of something he saw happen on a previous play ... The way he puts it, you're convinced it's a good idea and maybe it will work. John, now, he's a take-charge guy ... He tells you what the other guy's going to do, what he's going to do, and what he wants you to do. Tittle's most productive years came when he was well beyond his athletic prime. On his ability to improve with age, he credited a feel for the game that came from his years of experience in the league. "If you could learn it by studying movies, a good smart college quarterback could learn all you've got to learn in three weeks and then come in and be as good as the old heads," he told Sports Illustrated in 1963. "But they can't." CANNOTANSWER
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he made for a very striking personality.
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Yelberton Abraham Tittle Jr. (October 24, 1926 – October 8, 2017) was a professional American football quarterback. He played in the National Football League (NFL) for the San Francisco 49ers, New York Giants, and Baltimore Colts, after spending two seasons with the Colts in the All-America Football Conference (AAFC). Known for his competitiveness, leadership, and striking profile, Tittle was the centerpiece of several prolific offenses throughout his 17-year professional career from 1948 to 1964.
Tittle played college football for Louisiana State University, where he was a two-time All-Southeastern Conference (SEC) quarterback for the LSU Tigers football team. As a junior, he was named the most valuable player (MVP) of the infamous 1947 Cotton Bowl Classic—also known as the "Ice Bowl"—a scoreless tie between the Tigers and Arkansas Razorbacks in a snowstorm. After college, he was drafted in the 1947 NFL Draft by the Detroit Lions, but he instead chose to play in the AAFC for the Colts.
With the Colts, Tittle was named the AAFC Rookie of the Year in 1948 after leading the team to the AAFC playoffs. After consecutive one-win seasons, the Colts franchise folded, which allowed Tittle to be drafted in the 1951 NFL Draft by the 49ers. Through ten seasons in San Francisco, he was invited to four Pro Bowls, led the league in touchdown passes in 1955, and was named the NFL Player of the Year by the United Press in 1957. A groundbreaker, Tittle was part of the 49ers' famed Million Dollar Backfield, was the first professional football player featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated, and is credited with having coined "alley-oop" as a sports term.
Considered washed-up, the 34-year-old Tittle was traded to the Giants following the 1960 season. Over the next four seasons, he won several individual awards, twice set the league single-season record for touchdown passesincluding a 1962 game with a combined 7 touchdown passes and 500-yards passing with a near perfect (151.4 out of 158.33) passer rating, and led the Giants to three straight NFL championship games. Although he was never able to deliver a championship to the team, Tittle's time in New York is regarded among the glory years of the franchise.
In his final season, Tittle was photographed bloodied and kneeling down in the end zone after a tackle by a defender left him helmetless. The photograph is considered one of the most iconic images in North American sports history. He retired as the NFL's all-time leader in passing yards, passing touchdowns, attempts, completions, and games played. Tittle was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1971, and his jersey number 14 is retired by the Giants.
Early years and college career
Born and raised in Marshall, Texas, to Alma Tittle (née Allen) and Yelberton Abraham Tittle Sr., Tittle aspired to be a quarterback from a young age. He spent hours in his backyard throwing a football through a tire swing, emulating his fellow Texan and boyhood idol, Sammy Baugh. Tittle played high school football at Marshall High School. In his senior year the team posted an undefeated record and reached the state finals.
After a recruiting battle between Louisiana State University and the University of Texas, Tittle chose to attend LSU in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and play for the LSU Tigers. He was part of a successful 1944 recruiting class under head coach Bernie Moore that included halfbacks Jim Cason, Dan Sandifer, and Ray Coates. Freshmen were eligible to play on the varsity during World War II, so Tittle saw playing time immediately. He later said the finest moment of his four years at LSU was beating Tulane as a freshman, a game in which he set a school record with 238 passing yards. It was one of two games the Tigers won that season.
Moore started Tittle at tailback in the single-wing formation his first year, but moved him to quarterback in the T formation during his sophomore season. As a junior in 1946, Tittle's three touchdown passes in a 41–27 rout of rival Tulane helped ensure LSU a spot in the Cotton Bowl Classic. Known notoriously as the "Ice Bowl", the 1947 Cotton Bowl pitted LSU against the Arkansas Razorbacks in sub-freezing temperatures on an ice-covered field in Dallas, Texas. LSU moved the ball much better than the Razorbacks, but neither team was able to score, and the game ended in a scoreless tie. Tittle and Arkansas end Alton Baldwin shared the game's MVP award. Following the season, United Press International (UPI) placed Tittle on its All-Southeastern Conference (SEC) first-team.
UPI again named Tittle its first-team All-SEC quarterback in 1947. In Tittle's day of iron man football, he played on both offense and defense. While on defense during a 20–18 loss to SEC champion Ole Miss in his senior season, Tittle's belt buckle was torn off as he intercepted a pass from Charlie Conerly and broke a tackle. He ran down the sideline with one arm cradling the ball and the other holding up his pants. At the Ole Miss 20-yard line, as he attempted to stiff-arm a defender,(#87 Jack Odom), Tittle's pants fell and he tripped and fell onto his face. The fall kept him from scoring the game-winning touchdown.
In total, during his college career Tittle set school passing records with 162 completions out of 330 attempts for 2,525 yards and 23 touchdowns. He scored seven touchdowns himself as a runner. His passing totals remained unbroken until Bert Jones surpassed them in the 1970s.
Professional career
Baltimore Colts
Tittle was the sixth overall selection of the 1948 NFL Draft, taken by the Detroit Lions. However, Tittle instead began his professional career with the Baltimore Colts of the All-America Football Conference in 1948. That season, already being described as a "passing ace", he was unanimously recognized as the AAFC Rookie of the Year by UPI after passing for 2,739 yards and leading the Colts to the brink of an Eastern Division championship. After a 1–11 win–loss record in 1949, the Colts joined the National Football League in 1950. The team again posted a single win against eleven losses, and the franchise folded after the season due to financial difficulties. Players on the roster at the time of the fold were eligible to be drafted in the next NFL draft.
San Francisco 49ers
Tittle was then drafted by the San Francisco 49ers in the 1951 NFL Draft after the Colts folded. While many players at the time were unable to play immediately due to military duties, Tittle had received a class IV-F exemption due to physical ailments, so he was able to join the 49ers roster that season. In 1951 and 1952, he shared time at quarterback with Frankie Albert. In 1953, his first full season as the 49ers' starter, he passed for 2,121 yards and 20 touchdowns and was invited to his first Pro Bowl. San Francisco finished with a 9–3 regular season record, which was good enough for second in the Western Conference, and led the league in points scored.
In 1954, the 49ers compiled their Million Dollar Backfield, which was composed of four future Hall of Famers: Tittle; fullbacks John Henry Johnson and Joe Perry; and halfback Hugh McElhenny. "It made quarterbacking so easy because I just get in the huddle and call anything and you have three Hall of Fame running backs ready to carry the ball," Tittle reminisced in 2006. The team had aspirations for a championship run, but injuries, including McElhenny's separated shoulder in the sixth game of the season, ended those hopes and the 49ers finished third in the Western Division. Tittle starred in his second straight Pro Bowl appearance as he threw two touchdown passes, including one to 49ers teammate Billy Wilson, who was named the game's MVP.
Tittle became the first professional football player featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated when he appeared on its 15th issue dated November 22, 1954, donning his 49ers uniform and helmet featuring an acrylic face mask distinct to the time period. The cover photo also shows a metal bracket on the side of Tittle's helmet which served to protect his face by preventing the helmet from caving in. The 1954 cover was the first of four Sports Illustrated covers he graced during his career.
Tittle led the NFL in touchdown passes for the first time in 1955, with 17, while also leading the league with 28 interceptions thrown. When the 49ers hired Frankie Albert as head coach in 1956, Tittle was pleased with the choice at first, figuring Albert would be a good mentor. However, the team lost four of its first five games, and Albert replaced Tittle with rookie Earl Morrall. After a loss to the Los Angeles Rams brought San Francisco's record to 1–6, Tittle regained the starting role and the team finished undefeated with one tie through the season's final five games.
In 1957, Tittle and receiver R. C. Owens devised a pass play in which Tittle tossed the ball high into the air and the Owens leapt to retrieve it, typically resulting in a long gain or a touchdown. Tittle dubbed the play the "alley-oop"—the first usage of the term in sports—and it was highly successful when utilized. The 49ers finished the regular season with an 8–4 record and hosted the Detroit Lions in the Western Conference playoff. Against the Lions, Tittle passed for 248 yards and tossed three touchdown passes—one each to Owens, McElhenny, and Wilson—but Detroit overcame a 20-point third quarter deficit to win 31–27. For the season, Tittle had a league-leading 63.1 completion percentage, threw for 2,157 yards and 13 touchdowns, and rushed for six more scores. He was deemed "pro player of the year" by a United Press poll of members of the National Football Writers Association. Additionally, he was named to his first All-Pro team and invited to his third Pro Bowl.
After a poor 1958 preseason by Tittle, Albert started John Brodie at quarterback for the 1958 season, a decision that proved unpopular with the fan base. Tittle came in to relieve Brodie in a week six game against the Lions, with ten minutes left in the game and the 49ers down 21–17. His appearance "drew a roar of approval from the crowd of 59,213," after which he drove the team downfield and threw a 32-yard touchdown pass to McElhenny for the winning score. A right knee ligament injury against the Colts in week nine ended Tittle's season, and San Francisco finished with a 7–5 record, followed by Albert's resignation as coach. Tittle and Brodie continued to share time at quarterback over the next two seasons. In his fourth and final Pro Bowl game with the 49ers in 1959, Tittle completed 13 of 17 passes for 178 yards and a touchdown.
Under new head coach Red Hickey in 1960, the 49ers adopted the shotgun formation. The first implementation of the shotgun was in week nine against the Colts, with Brodie at quarterback while Tittle nursed a groin injury. The 49ers scored a season-high thirty points, and with Brodie in the shotgun won three of their last four games to salvage a winning season at 7–5. Though conflicted, Tittle decided to get into shape and prepare for the next season. He stated in his 2009 autobiography that at times he thought, "The hell with it. Quit this damned game. You have been at it too long anyway." But then another voice within him would say, "Come back for another year and show them you're still a good QB. Don't let them shotgun you out of football!" However, after the first preseason game of 1961, Hickey informed Tittle he had been traded to the New York Giants.
New York Giants
In mid-August 1961, the 49ers traded the 34-year-old Tittle to the New York Giants for second-year guard Lou Cordileone. Cordileone, the 12th overall pick in the 1960 NFL Draft, was quoted as reacting "Me, even up for Y. A. Tittle? You're kidding," and later remarked that the Giants traded him for "a 42-year-old quarterback." Tittle's view of Cordileone was much the same, stating his dismay that the 49ers did not get a "name ballplayer" in return. He was also displeased with being traded to the East Coast, and said he would rather have been traded to the Los Angeles Rams.
Already considered washed up, Tittle was intended by the Giants to share quarterback duties with 40-year-old Charlie Conerly, who had been with the team since 1948. The players at first remained loyal to Conerly, and treated Tittle with the cold shoulder. Tittle missed the season opener due to a back injury sustained before the season. His first game with New York came in week two, against the Steelers, in which he and Conerly each threw a touchdown pass in the Giants' 17–14 win. He became the team's primary starter for the remainder of the season and led the revitalized Giants to first place in the Eastern Conference. The Newspaper Enterprise Association (NEA) awarded Tittle its Jim Thorpe Trophy as the NFL's players' choice of MVP. In the 1961 NFL Championship Game, the Giants were soundly defeated by Vince Lombardi's Green Bay Packers, as they were shut-out 37-0. Tittle completed six of 20 passes in the game and threw four interceptions.
In January 1962, Tittle stated his intention to retire following the 1962 season. After an off-season quarterback competition with Ralph Guglielmi, Tittle played and started in a career-high 14 games. He tied an NFL record by throwing seven touchdown passes in a game on October 28, 1962, in a 49–34 win over the Washington Redskins. Against the Dallas Cowboys in the regular season finale, Tittle threw six touchdown passes to set the single-season record with 33, which had been set the previous year by Sonny Jurgensen's 32. He earned player of the year honors from the Washington D.C. Touchdown Club, UPI, and The Sporting News, and finished just behind Green Bay's Jim Taylor in voting for the AP NFL Most Valuable Player Award. The Giants again finished first in the Eastern Conference and faced the Packers in the 1962 NFL Championship Game. In frigid, windy conditions at Yankee Stadium and facing a constant pass rush from the Packers' front seven, Tittle completed only 18 of his 41 attempts in the game. The Packers won, 16–7, with New York's lone score coming on a blocked punt recovered in the end zone by Jim Collier.
Tittle returned to the Giants in 1963 and, at age 37, supplanted his single-season passing touchdowns record by throwing 36. He broke the record in the final game with three touchdowns against the Steelers, three days after being named NFL MVP by the AP. The Giants led the league in scoring by a wide margin, and for the third time in as many years clinched the Eastern Conference title. The Western champions were George Halas' Chicago Bears. The teams met in the 1963 NFL Championship Game at Wrigley Field. In the second quarter, Tittle injured his knee on a tackle by Larry Morris, and required a novocaine shot at halftime to continue playing. After holding a 10–7 halftime lead, The Giants were shutout in the second half, during which Tittle threw four interceptions. Playing through the knee injury, he completed 11 of 29 passes in the game for 147 yards, a touchdown, and five interceptions as the Bears won 14–10.
The following year in 1964, Tittle's final season, the Giants went 2–10–2 (), the worst record in the 14-team league. In the second game of the year, against Pittsburgh, he was blindsided by defensive end John Baker. The tackle left Tittle with crushed cartilage in his ribs, a cracked sternum, and a concussion. However, he played in every game the rest of the season, but was relegated to a backup role later in the year. After throwing only ten touchdowns with 22 interceptions, he retired after the season at age 39, saying rookie quarterback Gary Wood not only "took my job away, but started to ask permission to date my daughter." Over 17 seasons as a professional, Tittle completed 2,427 out of 4,395 passes for 33,070 yards and 242 touchdowns, with 248 interceptions. He also rushed for 39 touchdowns.
Career statistics
Profile and playing style
Tittle threw the ball from a sidearm, almost underhand position, something novel at those times, though it was common practice in earlier decades. It was this seemingly underhand style that drew the curiosity and admiration of many fans. This, in tandem with his baldness—for which he was frequently referred to as the "Bald Eagle"—made him a very striking personality. Despite his throwing motion, he had a very strong and accurate arm with a quick release. His ability to read defenses made him one of the best screen passers in the NFL. He was a perfectionist and highly competitive, and he expected the same of his teammates. He possessed rare leadership and game-planning skills, and played with great enthusiasm even in his later years. "Tittle has the attitude of a high school kid, with the brain of a computer," said Giants teammate Frank Gifford. Baltimore Colts halfback Lenny Moore, when asked in 1963 to compare Tittle and Colts quarterback Johnny Unitas, said:
I played with Tittle in the Pro Bowl two years ago, and I discovered he's quite a guy ... He and John, however, are entirely different types ... Tittle is a sort of 'con man' with his players ... he comes into a huddle and 'suggests' that maybe this or that will work on account of something he saw happen on a previous play ... The way he puts it, you're convinced it's a good idea and maybe it will work. John, now, he's a take-charge guy ... you what the other guy's going to do, what he's going to do, and what he wants you to do.
Tittle's most productive years came when he was well beyond his athletic prime. He credited his ability to improve with age to a feel for the game borne from years of league experience. "If you could learn it by studying movies, a good, smart college quarterback could learn all you've got to learn in three weeks and then come in and be as good as the old heads," he told Sports Illustrated in 1963. "But they can't."
Legacy
At the time of his retirement, Tittle held the following NFL records:
Tittle was the fourth player to throw seven touchdown passes in a game, when he did so in 1962 against the Redskins. He followed Sid Luckman (1943), Adrian Burk (1954), and George Blanda (1961). The feat has since been equaled by four more players: Joe Kapp (1969), Peyton Manning (2013), Nick Foles (2013), and Drew Brees (2015). Tittle, Manning and Foles did it without an interception. His 36 touchdown passes in 1963 set a record which stood for over two decades until it was surpassed by Dan Marino in 1984; as of 2016 it remains a Giants franchise record.
Despite record statistics and three straight championship game appearances, Tittle was never able to deliver a title to his team. His record as a starter in postseason games was 0–4. He threw four touchdown passes against 14 interceptions and had a passer rating of 33.8 in his postseason career, far below his regular season passer rating of 74.3. Seth Wickersham, writing for ESPN The Magazine in 2014, noted the dichotomy in the 1960s between two of New York's major sports franchises: "... Gifford, Huff and Tittle, a team of Hall of Famers known for losing championships as their peers on the Yankees—with whom they shared a stadium, a city, and many rounds of drinks—became renowned for winning them." The Giants struggled after Tittle's retirement, posting only two winning seasons from 1964 to 1980.
He made seven Pro Bowls, four first-team All-Pro teams, and four times was named the NFL's Most Valuable Player or Player of the Year: in 1957 and 1962 by the UPI; in 1961 by the NEA; and in 1963 by the AP and NEA. In a sports column in 1963, George Strickler for the Chicago Tribune remarked Tittle had "broken records that at one time appeared unassailable and he has been the hero of more second half rallies than Napoleon and the Harlem Globetrotters." He was featured on four Sports Illustrated covers: three during his playing career and one shortly after retirement. His first was with the 49ers in 1954. With the Giants, he graced covers in November 1961, and he was on the season preview issue for 1964; a two-page fold-out photo from the 1963 title game. Tittle was on a fourth cover in August 1965.
The trade of Tittle for Lou Cordileone is seen as one of the worst trades in 49ers history; it is considered one of the best trades in Giants franchise history. Cordileone played just one season in San Francisco.
Famous photo
A photo of a dazed Tittle in the end zone taken by Morris Berman of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on September 20, 1964, is regarded among the most iconic images in the history of American sports and journalism. Tittle, in his 17th and final season, was photographed helmet-less, bloodied and kneeling immediately after having been knocked to the ground by John Baker of the Pittsburgh Steelers and throwing an interception that was returned for a touchdown at the old Pitt Stadium. He suffered a concussion and cracked sternum on the play, but went on to play the rest of the season.
Post-Gazette editors declined to publish the photo, looking for "action shots" instead, but Berman entered the image into contests where it took on a life of its own, winning a National Headliner Award. It is regarded as having changed the way that photographers look at sports, having shown the power of capturing a moment of reaction. It became one of three photos to hang in the lobby of the National Press Photographers Association headquarters, alongside Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima and the Hindenburg disaster. A copy has hung in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
A similar photo by Dozier Mobley of the Associated Press, which shows Tittle looking forward rather than down, was published in the October 2, 1964, issue of Life magazine. After at first having failed to see the appeal of the image, Tittle eventually grew to embrace it, putting the Mobley version on the back cover of his 2009 autobiography. "That was the end of the road," he told the Los Angeles Times in 2008. "It was the end of my dream. It was over." Pittsburgh player John Baker, who hit Tittle right before the picture was taken, ran for sheriff in his native Wake County, North Carolina in 1978, and used the photo as a campaign tool. He was elected and went on to serve for 24 years. Tittle also held a fundraiser to assist Baker in his bid for a fourth term in 1989.
Honors
In recognition of his high school and college careers, respectively, Tittle was inducted to the Texas Sports Hall of Fame in 1987 and the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame in 1972.
Tittle was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame with its 1971 class, which included contemporaries Jim Brown, Norm Van Brocklin, the late Vince Lombardi, and former Giants teammate Andy Robustelli. By virtue of his membership in the pro hall of fame, he was automatically inducted as a charter member of the San Francisco 49ers Hall of Fame in 2009.
The Giants had originally retired the number 14 jersey in honor of Ward Cuff, but Tittle requested and was granted the jersey number by Giants owner Wellington Mara when he joined the team. It was retired again immediately following his retirement, and is now retired in honor of both players. In 2010, Tittle became a charter member of the New York Giants Ring of Honor.
Personal life
After his retirement, he rejoined the 49ers staff and served as an assistant coach before being hired by the Giants in 1970 as a quarterback mentor. During his NFL career, Tittle worked as an insurance salesman in the off-season. After retiring, he founded his own company, Y. A. Tittle Insurance & Financial Services. Tittle appeared on the October 9, 1961 episode of To Tell the Truth as one of three challengers. Tittle claimed to be hair stylist-weekend pro wrestler Richard Smith. Tittle received one vote from the four Celebrity Panelists (Johnny Carson).
Until his death, Tittle resided in Atherton, California. His wife Minnette died in 2012. They had three sons: Michael, Patrick and John, and a daughter, Dianne Tittle de Laet. Their daughter is a harpist and poet, and in 1995 she published a biography of her father titled Giants & Heroes: A Daughter's Memories of Y. A. Tittle.
In his later life, Tittle suffered from severe dementia, which adversely affected his memory and limited his conversation to a handful of topics. Tittle died on October 8, 2017, at a hospital in Stanford, California, of natural causes.
List of 500-yard passing games in the National Football League
Notes
References
Further reading
External links
1926 births
2017 deaths
American football quarterbacks
Baltimore Colts (1947–1950) players
Deaths from dementia
Eastern Conference Pro Bowl players
LSU Tigers football players
National Football League Most Valuable Player Award winners
National Football League players with retired numbers
Neurological disease deaths in California
New York Giants players
People from Atherton, California
People from Marshall, Texas
Players of American football from Texas
Pro Football Hall of Fame inductees
San Francisco 49ers players
Western Conference Pro Bowl players
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"Přírodní park Třebíčsko (before Oblast klidu Třebíčsko) is a natural park near Třebíč in the Czech Republic. There are many interesting plants. The park was founded in 1983.\n\nKobylinec and Ptáčovský kopeček\n\nKobylinec is a natural monument situated ca 0,5 km from the village of Trnava.\nThe area of this monument is 0,44 ha. Pulsatilla grandis can be found here and in the Ptáčovský kopeček park near Ptáčov near Třebíč. Both monuments are very popular for tourists.\n\nPonds\n\nIn the natural park there are some interesting ponds such as Velký Bor, Malý Bor, Buršík near Přeckov and a brook Březinka. Dams on the brook are examples of European beaver activity.\n\nSyenitové skály near Pocoucov\n\nSyenitové skály (rocks of syenit) near Pocoucov is one of famed locations. There are interesting granite boulders. The area of the reservation is 0,77 ha.\n\nExternal links\nParts of this article or all article was translated from Czech. The original article is :cs:Přírodní park Třebíčsko.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nNature near the village Trnava which is there\n\nTřebíč\nParks in the Czech Republic\nTourist attractions in the Vysočina Region",
"Damn Interesting is an independent website founded by Alan Bellows in 2005. The website presents true stories from science, history, and psychology, primarily as long-form articles, often illustrated with original artwork. Works are written by various authors, and published at irregular intervals. The website openly rejects advertising, relying on reader and listener donations to cover operating costs.\n\nAs of October 2012, each article is also published as a podcast under the same name. In November 2019, a second podcast was launched under the title Damn Interesting Week, featuring unscripted commentary on an assortment of news articles featured on the website's \"Curated Links\" section that week. In mid-2020, a third podcast called Damn Interesting Curio Cabinet began highlighting the website's periodic short-form articles in the same radioplay format as the original podcast.\n\nIn July 2009, Damn Interesting published the print book Alien Hand Syndrome through Workman Publishing. It contains some favorites from the site and some exclusive content.\n\nAwards and recognition \nIn August 2007, PC Magazine named Damn Interesting one of the \"Top 100 Undiscovered Web Sites\".\nThe article \"The Zero-Armed Bandit\" by Alan Bellows won a 2015 Sidney Award from David Brooks in The New York Times.\nThe article \"Ghoulish Acts and Dastardly Deeds\" by Alan Bellows was cited as \"nonfiction journalism from 2017 that will stand the test of time\" by Conor Friedersdorf in The Atlantic.\nThe article \"Dupes and Duplicity\" by Jennifer Lee Noonan won a 2020 Sidney Award from David Brooks in the New York Times.\n\nAccusing The Dollop of plagiarism \n\nOn July 9, 2015, Bellows posted an open letter accusing The Dollop, a comedy podcast about history, of plagiarism due to their repeated use of verbatim text from Damn Interesting articles without permission or attribution. Dave Anthony, the writer of The Dollop, responded on reddit, admitting to using Damn Interesting content, but claiming that the use was protected by fair use, and that \"historical facts are not copyrightable.\" In an article about the controversy on Plagiarism Today, Jonathan Bailey concluded, \"Any way one looks at it, The Dollop failed its ethical obligations to all of the people, not just those writing for Damn Interesting, who put in the time, energy and expertise into writing the original content upon which their show is based.\"\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n Official website\n\n2005 podcast debuts"
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Was Y. A. Tittle married?
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Y. A. Tittle
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Tittle threw the ball from a sidearm, almost underhand position, something novel at those times, though it was common practice in earlier decades. It was this seemingly underhand style that drew the curiosity and admiration of many fans. In tandem with his baldness--for which he was frequently referred to as the "Bald Eagle"--he made for a very striking personality. Despite his throwing motion, he had a very strong and accurate arm with a quick release. It was because of his quick release and ability to read defenses that he became one of the best screen passers in the NFL. He was a perfectionist and highly competitive, and he expected the same of his teammates. He possessed rare leadership and game-planning skills, and played with great enthusiasm even in his later years. "Tittle has the attitude of a high school kid, with the brain of a computer," said Giants teammate Frank Gifford. Baltimore Colts halfback Lenny Moore, when asked in 1963 to compare Tittle and Colts quarterback Johnny Unitas, said: I played with Tittle in the Pro Bowl two years ago, and I discovered he's quite a guy ... He and John, however, are entirely different types ... Tittle is a sort of 'con man' with his players ... he comes into a huddle and 'suggests' that maybe this or that will work on account of something he saw happen on a previous play ... The way he puts it, you're convinced it's a good idea and maybe it will work. John, now, he's a take-charge guy ... He tells you what the other guy's going to do, what he's going to do, and what he wants you to do. Tittle's most productive years came when he was well beyond his athletic prime. On his ability to improve with age, he credited a feel for the game that came from his years of experience in the league. "If you could learn it by studying movies, a good smart college quarterback could learn all you've got to learn in three weeks and then come in and be as good as the old heads," he told Sports Illustrated in 1963. "But they can't." CANNOTANSWER
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CANNOTANSWER
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Yelberton Abraham Tittle Jr. (October 24, 1926 – October 8, 2017) was a professional American football quarterback. He played in the National Football League (NFL) for the San Francisco 49ers, New York Giants, and Baltimore Colts, after spending two seasons with the Colts in the All-America Football Conference (AAFC). Known for his competitiveness, leadership, and striking profile, Tittle was the centerpiece of several prolific offenses throughout his 17-year professional career from 1948 to 1964.
Tittle played college football for Louisiana State University, where he was a two-time All-Southeastern Conference (SEC) quarterback for the LSU Tigers football team. As a junior, he was named the most valuable player (MVP) of the infamous 1947 Cotton Bowl Classic—also known as the "Ice Bowl"—a scoreless tie between the Tigers and Arkansas Razorbacks in a snowstorm. After college, he was drafted in the 1947 NFL Draft by the Detroit Lions, but he instead chose to play in the AAFC for the Colts.
With the Colts, Tittle was named the AAFC Rookie of the Year in 1948 after leading the team to the AAFC playoffs. After consecutive one-win seasons, the Colts franchise folded, which allowed Tittle to be drafted in the 1951 NFL Draft by the 49ers. Through ten seasons in San Francisco, he was invited to four Pro Bowls, led the league in touchdown passes in 1955, and was named the NFL Player of the Year by the United Press in 1957. A groundbreaker, Tittle was part of the 49ers' famed Million Dollar Backfield, was the first professional football player featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated, and is credited with having coined "alley-oop" as a sports term.
Considered washed-up, the 34-year-old Tittle was traded to the Giants following the 1960 season. Over the next four seasons, he won several individual awards, twice set the league single-season record for touchdown passesincluding a 1962 game with a combined 7 touchdown passes and 500-yards passing with a near perfect (151.4 out of 158.33) passer rating, and led the Giants to three straight NFL championship games. Although he was never able to deliver a championship to the team, Tittle's time in New York is regarded among the glory years of the franchise.
In his final season, Tittle was photographed bloodied and kneeling down in the end zone after a tackle by a defender left him helmetless. The photograph is considered one of the most iconic images in North American sports history. He retired as the NFL's all-time leader in passing yards, passing touchdowns, attempts, completions, and games played. Tittle was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1971, and his jersey number 14 is retired by the Giants.
Early years and college career
Born and raised in Marshall, Texas, to Alma Tittle (née Allen) and Yelberton Abraham Tittle Sr., Tittle aspired to be a quarterback from a young age. He spent hours in his backyard throwing a football through a tire swing, emulating his fellow Texan and boyhood idol, Sammy Baugh. Tittle played high school football at Marshall High School. In his senior year the team posted an undefeated record and reached the state finals.
After a recruiting battle between Louisiana State University and the University of Texas, Tittle chose to attend LSU in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and play for the LSU Tigers. He was part of a successful 1944 recruiting class under head coach Bernie Moore that included halfbacks Jim Cason, Dan Sandifer, and Ray Coates. Freshmen were eligible to play on the varsity during World War II, so Tittle saw playing time immediately. He later said the finest moment of his four years at LSU was beating Tulane as a freshman, a game in which he set a school record with 238 passing yards. It was one of two games the Tigers won that season.
Moore started Tittle at tailback in the single-wing formation his first year, but moved him to quarterback in the T formation during his sophomore season. As a junior in 1946, Tittle's three touchdown passes in a 41–27 rout of rival Tulane helped ensure LSU a spot in the Cotton Bowl Classic. Known notoriously as the "Ice Bowl", the 1947 Cotton Bowl pitted LSU against the Arkansas Razorbacks in sub-freezing temperatures on an ice-covered field in Dallas, Texas. LSU moved the ball much better than the Razorbacks, but neither team was able to score, and the game ended in a scoreless tie. Tittle and Arkansas end Alton Baldwin shared the game's MVP award. Following the season, United Press International (UPI) placed Tittle on its All-Southeastern Conference (SEC) first-team.
UPI again named Tittle its first-team All-SEC quarterback in 1947. In Tittle's day of iron man football, he played on both offense and defense. While on defense during a 20–18 loss to SEC champion Ole Miss in his senior season, Tittle's belt buckle was torn off as he intercepted a pass from Charlie Conerly and broke a tackle. He ran down the sideline with one arm cradling the ball and the other holding up his pants. At the Ole Miss 20-yard line, as he attempted to stiff-arm a defender,(#87 Jack Odom), Tittle's pants fell and he tripped and fell onto his face. The fall kept him from scoring the game-winning touchdown.
In total, during his college career Tittle set school passing records with 162 completions out of 330 attempts for 2,525 yards and 23 touchdowns. He scored seven touchdowns himself as a runner. His passing totals remained unbroken until Bert Jones surpassed them in the 1970s.
Professional career
Baltimore Colts
Tittle was the sixth overall selection of the 1948 NFL Draft, taken by the Detroit Lions. However, Tittle instead began his professional career with the Baltimore Colts of the All-America Football Conference in 1948. That season, already being described as a "passing ace", he was unanimously recognized as the AAFC Rookie of the Year by UPI after passing for 2,739 yards and leading the Colts to the brink of an Eastern Division championship. After a 1–11 win–loss record in 1949, the Colts joined the National Football League in 1950. The team again posted a single win against eleven losses, and the franchise folded after the season due to financial difficulties. Players on the roster at the time of the fold were eligible to be drafted in the next NFL draft.
San Francisco 49ers
Tittle was then drafted by the San Francisco 49ers in the 1951 NFL Draft after the Colts folded. While many players at the time were unable to play immediately due to military duties, Tittle had received a class IV-F exemption due to physical ailments, so he was able to join the 49ers roster that season. In 1951 and 1952, he shared time at quarterback with Frankie Albert. In 1953, his first full season as the 49ers' starter, he passed for 2,121 yards and 20 touchdowns and was invited to his first Pro Bowl. San Francisco finished with a 9–3 regular season record, which was good enough for second in the Western Conference, and led the league in points scored.
In 1954, the 49ers compiled their Million Dollar Backfield, which was composed of four future Hall of Famers: Tittle; fullbacks John Henry Johnson and Joe Perry; and halfback Hugh McElhenny. "It made quarterbacking so easy because I just get in the huddle and call anything and you have three Hall of Fame running backs ready to carry the ball," Tittle reminisced in 2006. The team had aspirations for a championship run, but injuries, including McElhenny's separated shoulder in the sixth game of the season, ended those hopes and the 49ers finished third in the Western Division. Tittle starred in his second straight Pro Bowl appearance as he threw two touchdown passes, including one to 49ers teammate Billy Wilson, who was named the game's MVP.
Tittle became the first professional football player featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated when he appeared on its 15th issue dated November 22, 1954, donning his 49ers uniform and helmet featuring an acrylic face mask distinct to the time period. The cover photo also shows a metal bracket on the side of Tittle's helmet which served to protect his face by preventing the helmet from caving in. The 1954 cover was the first of four Sports Illustrated covers he graced during his career.
Tittle led the NFL in touchdown passes for the first time in 1955, with 17, while also leading the league with 28 interceptions thrown. When the 49ers hired Frankie Albert as head coach in 1956, Tittle was pleased with the choice at first, figuring Albert would be a good mentor. However, the team lost four of its first five games, and Albert replaced Tittle with rookie Earl Morrall. After a loss to the Los Angeles Rams brought San Francisco's record to 1–6, Tittle regained the starting role and the team finished undefeated with one tie through the season's final five games.
In 1957, Tittle and receiver R. C. Owens devised a pass play in which Tittle tossed the ball high into the air and the Owens leapt to retrieve it, typically resulting in a long gain or a touchdown. Tittle dubbed the play the "alley-oop"—the first usage of the term in sports—and it was highly successful when utilized. The 49ers finished the regular season with an 8–4 record and hosted the Detroit Lions in the Western Conference playoff. Against the Lions, Tittle passed for 248 yards and tossed three touchdown passes—one each to Owens, McElhenny, and Wilson—but Detroit overcame a 20-point third quarter deficit to win 31–27. For the season, Tittle had a league-leading 63.1 completion percentage, threw for 2,157 yards and 13 touchdowns, and rushed for six more scores. He was deemed "pro player of the year" by a United Press poll of members of the National Football Writers Association. Additionally, he was named to his first All-Pro team and invited to his third Pro Bowl.
After a poor 1958 preseason by Tittle, Albert started John Brodie at quarterback for the 1958 season, a decision that proved unpopular with the fan base. Tittle came in to relieve Brodie in a week six game against the Lions, with ten minutes left in the game and the 49ers down 21–17. His appearance "drew a roar of approval from the crowd of 59,213," after which he drove the team downfield and threw a 32-yard touchdown pass to McElhenny for the winning score. A right knee ligament injury against the Colts in week nine ended Tittle's season, and San Francisco finished with a 7–5 record, followed by Albert's resignation as coach. Tittle and Brodie continued to share time at quarterback over the next two seasons. In his fourth and final Pro Bowl game with the 49ers in 1959, Tittle completed 13 of 17 passes for 178 yards and a touchdown.
Under new head coach Red Hickey in 1960, the 49ers adopted the shotgun formation. The first implementation of the shotgun was in week nine against the Colts, with Brodie at quarterback while Tittle nursed a groin injury. The 49ers scored a season-high thirty points, and with Brodie in the shotgun won three of their last four games to salvage a winning season at 7–5. Though conflicted, Tittle decided to get into shape and prepare for the next season. He stated in his 2009 autobiography that at times he thought, "The hell with it. Quit this damned game. You have been at it too long anyway." But then another voice within him would say, "Come back for another year and show them you're still a good QB. Don't let them shotgun you out of football!" However, after the first preseason game of 1961, Hickey informed Tittle he had been traded to the New York Giants.
New York Giants
In mid-August 1961, the 49ers traded the 34-year-old Tittle to the New York Giants for second-year guard Lou Cordileone. Cordileone, the 12th overall pick in the 1960 NFL Draft, was quoted as reacting "Me, even up for Y. A. Tittle? You're kidding," and later remarked that the Giants traded him for "a 42-year-old quarterback." Tittle's view of Cordileone was much the same, stating his dismay that the 49ers did not get a "name ballplayer" in return. He was also displeased with being traded to the East Coast, and said he would rather have been traded to the Los Angeles Rams.
Already considered washed up, Tittle was intended by the Giants to share quarterback duties with 40-year-old Charlie Conerly, who had been with the team since 1948. The players at first remained loyal to Conerly, and treated Tittle with the cold shoulder. Tittle missed the season opener due to a back injury sustained before the season. His first game with New York came in week two, against the Steelers, in which he and Conerly each threw a touchdown pass in the Giants' 17–14 win. He became the team's primary starter for the remainder of the season and led the revitalized Giants to first place in the Eastern Conference. The Newspaper Enterprise Association (NEA) awarded Tittle its Jim Thorpe Trophy as the NFL's players' choice of MVP. In the 1961 NFL Championship Game, the Giants were soundly defeated by Vince Lombardi's Green Bay Packers, as they were shut-out 37-0. Tittle completed six of 20 passes in the game and threw four interceptions.
In January 1962, Tittle stated his intention to retire following the 1962 season. After an off-season quarterback competition with Ralph Guglielmi, Tittle played and started in a career-high 14 games. He tied an NFL record by throwing seven touchdown passes in a game on October 28, 1962, in a 49–34 win over the Washington Redskins. Against the Dallas Cowboys in the regular season finale, Tittle threw six touchdown passes to set the single-season record with 33, which had been set the previous year by Sonny Jurgensen's 32. He earned player of the year honors from the Washington D.C. Touchdown Club, UPI, and The Sporting News, and finished just behind Green Bay's Jim Taylor in voting for the AP NFL Most Valuable Player Award. The Giants again finished first in the Eastern Conference and faced the Packers in the 1962 NFL Championship Game. In frigid, windy conditions at Yankee Stadium and facing a constant pass rush from the Packers' front seven, Tittle completed only 18 of his 41 attempts in the game. The Packers won, 16–7, with New York's lone score coming on a blocked punt recovered in the end zone by Jim Collier.
Tittle returned to the Giants in 1963 and, at age 37, supplanted his single-season passing touchdowns record by throwing 36. He broke the record in the final game with three touchdowns against the Steelers, three days after being named NFL MVP by the AP. The Giants led the league in scoring by a wide margin, and for the third time in as many years clinched the Eastern Conference title. The Western champions were George Halas' Chicago Bears. The teams met in the 1963 NFL Championship Game at Wrigley Field. In the second quarter, Tittle injured his knee on a tackle by Larry Morris, and required a novocaine shot at halftime to continue playing. After holding a 10–7 halftime lead, The Giants were shutout in the second half, during which Tittle threw four interceptions. Playing through the knee injury, he completed 11 of 29 passes in the game for 147 yards, a touchdown, and five interceptions as the Bears won 14–10.
The following year in 1964, Tittle's final season, the Giants went 2–10–2 (), the worst record in the 14-team league. In the second game of the year, against Pittsburgh, he was blindsided by defensive end John Baker. The tackle left Tittle with crushed cartilage in his ribs, a cracked sternum, and a concussion. However, he played in every game the rest of the season, but was relegated to a backup role later in the year. After throwing only ten touchdowns with 22 interceptions, he retired after the season at age 39, saying rookie quarterback Gary Wood not only "took my job away, but started to ask permission to date my daughter." Over 17 seasons as a professional, Tittle completed 2,427 out of 4,395 passes for 33,070 yards and 242 touchdowns, with 248 interceptions. He also rushed for 39 touchdowns.
Career statistics
Profile and playing style
Tittle threw the ball from a sidearm, almost underhand position, something novel at those times, though it was common practice in earlier decades. It was this seemingly underhand style that drew the curiosity and admiration of many fans. This, in tandem with his baldness—for which he was frequently referred to as the "Bald Eagle"—made him a very striking personality. Despite his throwing motion, he had a very strong and accurate arm with a quick release. His ability to read defenses made him one of the best screen passers in the NFL. He was a perfectionist and highly competitive, and he expected the same of his teammates. He possessed rare leadership and game-planning skills, and played with great enthusiasm even in his later years. "Tittle has the attitude of a high school kid, with the brain of a computer," said Giants teammate Frank Gifford. Baltimore Colts halfback Lenny Moore, when asked in 1963 to compare Tittle and Colts quarterback Johnny Unitas, said:
I played with Tittle in the Pro Bowl two years ago, and I discovered he's quite a guy ... He and John, however, are entirely different types ... Tittle is a sort of 'con man' with his players ... he comes into a huddle and 'suggests' that maybe this or that will work on account of something he saw happen on a previous play ... The way he puts it, you're convinced it's a good idea and maybe it will work. John, now, he's a take-charge guy ... you what the other guy's going to do, what he's going to do, and what he wants you to do.
Tittle's most productive years came when he was well beyond his athletic prime. He credited his ability to improve with age to a feel for the game borne from years of league experience. "If you could learn it by studying movies, a good, smart college quarterback could learn all you've got to learn in three weeks and then come in and be as good as the old heads," he told Sports Illustrated in 1963. "But they can't."
Legacy
At the time of his retirement, Tittle held the following NFL records:
Tittle was the fourth player to throw seven touchdown passes in a game, when he did so in 1962 against the Redskins. He followed Sid Luckman (1943), Adrian Burk (1954), and George Blanda (1961). The feat has since been equaled by four more players: Joe Kapp (1969), Peyton Manning (2013), Nick Foles (2013), and Drew Brees (2015). Tittle, Manning and Foles did it without an interception. His 36 touchdown passes in 1963 set a record which stood for over two decades until it was surpassed by Dan Marino in 1984; as of 2016 it remains a Giants franchise record.
Despite record statistics and three straight championship game appearances, Tittle was never able to deliver a title to his team. His record as a starter in postseason games was 0–4. He threw four touchdown passes against 14 interceptions and had a passer rating of 33.8 in his postseason career, far below his regular season passer rating of 74.3. Seth Wickersham, writing for ESPN The Magazine in 2014, noted the dichotomy in the 1960s between two of New York's major sports franchises: "... Gifford, Huff and Tittle, a team of Hall of Famers known for losing championships as their peers on the Yankees—with whom they shared a stadium, a city, and many rounds of drinks—became renowned for winning them." The Giants struggled after Tittle's retirement, posting only two winning seasons from 1964 to 1980.
He made seven Pro Bowls, four first-team All-Pro teams, and four times was named the NFL's Most Valuable Player or Player of the Year: in 1957 and 1962 by the UPI; in 1961 by the NEA; and in 1963 by the AP and NEA. In a sports column in 1963, George Strickler for the Chicago Tribune remarked Tittle had "broken records that at one time appeared unassailable and he has been the hero of more second half rallies than Napoleon and the Harlem Globetrotters." He was featured on four Sports Illustrated covers: three during his playing career and one shortly after retirement. His first was with the 49ers in 1954. With the Giants, he graced covers in November 1961, and he was on the season preview issue for 1964; a two-page fold-out photo from the 1963 title game. Tittle was on a fourth cover in August 1965.
The trade of Tittle for Lou Cordileone is seen as one of the worst trades in 49ers history; it is considered one of the best trades in Giants franchise history. Cordileone played just one season in San Francisco.
Famous photo
A photo of a dazed Tittle in the end zone taken by Morris Berman of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on September 20, 1964, is regarded among the most iconic images in the history of American sports and journalism. Tittle, in his 17th and final season, was photographed helmet-less, bloodied and kneeling immediately after having been knocked to the ground by John Baker of the Pittsburgh Steelers and throwing an interception that was returned for a touchdown at the old Pitt Stadium. He suffered a concussion and cracked sternum on the play, but went on to play the rest of the season.
Post-Gazette editors declined to publish the photo, looking for "action shots" instead, but Berman entered the image into contests where it took on a life of its own, winning a National Headliner Award. It is regarded as having changed the way that photographers look at sports, having shown the power of capturing a moment of reaction. It became one of three photos to hang in the lobby of the National Press Photographers Association headquarters, alongside Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima and the Hindenburg disaster. A copy has hung in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
A similar photo by Dozier Mobley of the Associated Press, which shows Tittle looking forward rather than down, was published in the October 2, 1964, issue of Life magazine. After at first having failed to see the appeal of the image, Tittle eventually grew to embrace it, putting the Mobley version on the back cover of his 2009 autobiography. "That was the end of the road," he told the Los Angeles Times in 2008. "It was the end of my dream. It was over." Pittsburgh player John Baker, who hit Tittle right before the picture was taken, ran for sheriff in his native Wake County, North Carolina in 1978, and used the photo as a campaign tool. He was elected and went on to serve for 24 years. Tittle also held a fundraiser to assist Baker in his bid for a fourth term in 1989.
Honors
In recognition of his high school and college careers, respectively, Tittle was inducted to the Texas Sports Hall of Fame in 1987 and the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame in 1972.
Tittle was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame with its 1971 class, which included contemporaries Jim Brown, Norm Van Brocklin, the late Vince Lombardi, and former Giants teammate Andy Robustelli. By virtue of his membership in the pro hall of fame, he was automatically inducted as a charter member of the San Francisco 49ers Hall of Fame in 2009.
The Giants had originally retired the number 14 jersey in honor of Ward Cuff, but Tittle requested and was granted the jersey number by Giants owner Wellington Mara when he joined the team. It was retired again immediately following his retirement, and is now retired in honor of both players. In 2010, Tittle became a charter member of the New York Giants Ring of Honor.
Personal life
After his retirement, he rejoined the 49ers staff and served as an assistant coach before being hired by the Giants in 1970 as a quarterback mentor. During his NFL career, Tittle worked as an insurance salesman in the off-season. After retiring, he founded his own company, Y. A. Tittle Insurance & Financial Services. Tittle appeared on the October 9, 1961 episode of To Tell the Truth as one of three challengers. Tittle claimed to be hair stylist-weekend pro wrestler Richard Smith. Tittle received one vote from the four Celebrity Panelists (Johnny Carson).
Until his death, Tittle resided in Atherton, California. His wife Minnette died in 2012. They had three sons: Michael, Patrick and John, and a daughter, Dianne Tittle de Laet. Their daughter is a harpist and poet, and in 1995 she published a biography of her father titled Giants & Heroes: A Daughter's Memories of Y. A. Tittle.
In his later life, Tittle suffered from severe dementia, which adversely affected his memory and limited his conversation to a handful of topics. Tittle died on October 8, 2017, at a hospital in Stanford, California, of natural causes.
List of 500-yard passing games in the National Football League
Notes
References
Further reading
External links
1926 births
2017 deaths
American football quarterbacks
Baltimore Colts (1947–1950) players
Deaths from dementia
Eastern Conference Pro Bowl players
LSU Tigers football players
National Football League Most Valuable Player Award winners
National Football League players with retired numbers
Neurological disease deaths in California
New York Giants players
People from Atherton, California
People from Marshall, Texas
Players of American football from Texas
Pro Football Hall of Fame inductees
San Francisco 49ers players
Western Conference Pro Bowl players
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"This article contains a list of child bridegrooms or child husbands wherein notable or historically significant examples have been singled out.\n\nList\n\nAntiquity \n Tutankhamun was married before the age of nine years to his half-sister Ankhesenamun (aged about 16).\n\n8th century \n The future Emperor Shōmu (aged about 16) was married to in Asukabe-hime (aged 16) .\n\n10th century \n The future Otto II, Holy Roman Emperor (aged 16/17), was married to Theophanu (aged about 17) in 972.\n\n The future Louis V of France (aged about 15) was married to the twice-widowed Adelaide-Blanche of Anjou (aged 40) in 982.\n\n The future Emperor Ichijō (aged 10) was married to Fujiwara no Teishi (about 12/13) in October 990.\n\n11th century \n Fujiwara no Shōshi (aged about 12) was married to the future Emperor Ichijō (aged 19/20) in 1000.\n\n The future Emperor Go-Ichijō (aged 10) married his aunt Fujiwara no Ishi (aged 19) in 1018.\n\n The future Emperor Horikawa (aged 14) was married to his paternal aunt Princess Tokushi (aged about 33) in 1093.\n\n12th century \n Pons, Count of Tripoli (aged 13/14), was married to Cecile of France (aged 14/15) in 1112.\n\n William Adelin (aged 15), son and heir of Henry I of England, was married to Matilda of Anjou (aged about 13) in 1119.\n\n Louis VII of France (aged 17) married Eleanor of Aquitaine (aged about 15) in 1137; their marriage was annulled in 1152.\n\n Eustace IV, Count of Boulogne (aged about 12/13), was married to Constance of France (aged about 15/16) in 1140.\n\n Philip I, Count of Flanders (aged 15/16), was married to Elisabeth of Vermandois (aged 16) in 1159.\n\n The future Emperor Nijō (aged 15) was married to his paternal aunt Princess Yoshiko (aged 17) in March 1159.\n\n Alfonso VIII of Castile (aged 14/15) married Eleanor of England in 1170, when she was about 9-years-old.\n\n Henry the Young King (aged 17) was married to Margaret of France (aged 13/14) in 1172. They had been betrothed since 1160, when Henry was 5 and Margaret was about 2.\n\n Canute VI of Denmark (aged about 13/14) was married to Gertrude of Bavaria (aged 22 or 25) in 1177. They had been engaged since 1171, since he was about 7/8 and she was about 16 or 19.\n\n Henry I, Duke of Brabant (aged about 14), was married to Matilda of Boulogne (aged 9) in 1179.\n\n Alexios II Komnenos was 10 when he is reported to have married Agnes of France (aged 9) in 1180.\n\n Philip II of France (aged 14) married Isabella of Hainault (aged 10) in 1180.\n\n Humphrey IV of Toron (aged about 17) married Isabella of Jerusalem (aged 10/11) in 1183. They had been betrothed when Humphrey was about 14/15 and Isabella was 8-years-old.\n\n Conrad II, Duke of Swabia (aged 13/14), married Berengaria of Castile in 1187, when she was about 8-years-old. The marriage was never consummated due to Berengaria's young age.\n\n William IV, Count of Ponthieu (aged 15/16), was married to Alys of France, Countess of Vexin (aged 34), in 1195.\n\n13th century \n Henry VI, Count Palatine of the Rhine (aged about 16), was married to Matilda of Brabant (aged about 12) in 1212.\n\n Henry I of Castile married his cousin Mafalda of Portugal (aged about 20) in 1215, when he was either 10- or 11-years-old. The marriage was never consummated due to Henry's young age; and the marriage was annulled by the Pope in 1216 on the grounds of consanguinity. Later that year, Henry was betrothed to his second cousin Sancha, heiress of León, but he died in 1217 at the age of 13.\n\n Baldwin II of Constantinople (aged about 17) was married to Marie of Brienne (aged about 10) in 1234.\n\n Alexander III of Scotland (aged 10) was married to Margaret of England (aged 11) in December 1251.\n\n Edward I of England (aged 15) was married to Eleanor of Castile (aged 13) in 1254.\n\n The future Philip III of France (aged 17) was married to Isabella of Aragon (aged 13/14) in May 1262. They had been betrothed since May 1258, when he was 13 and she was 9/10.\n\n John I, Duke of Brabant (17/18), was married to Margaret of France (aged 15/16) in 1270.\n\n The future Ladislaus IV of Hungary (aged 7/8) was married to Elizabeth of Sicily (aged 8/9) in 1270.\n\n Philip of Sicily (aged about 15/16) was married to Isabella of Villehardouin (aged either 8 or 11) in May 1271.\n\n The future Philip IV of France (aged 16) was married to Joan I of Navarre (aged 11) in August 1285.\n\n Wenceslaus II of Bohemia (aged 13) was married to Judith of Habsburg (aged 13) in January 1285.\n\n John II, Duke of Brabant (aged 14), was married to Margaret of England (aged 15) in 1290. John and Margaret had been betrothed since they were 2 and 3, respectively.\n\n Henry, Count of Luxembourg (aged about 13/14), was married to Margaret of Brabant (aged 15) in July 1292.\n\n John I, Count of Holland (aged 12/13), was married to Elizabeth of Rhuddlan (aged 14) in 1297.\n\n14th century \n Roger Mortimer, 1st Earl of March (aged 14), was married to Joan de Geneville (aged 15) in 1301.\n\n The future Gaston I, Count of Foix (aged 13/14), was married to Joan of Artois (aged 11/12) in 1301.\n\n The future Louis X of France (aged 15) was married to Margaret of Burgundy (aged about 15) in 1305.\n\n Philip V of France (aged about 13/14) was married to Joan of Burgundy (aged 14/15) in 1307.\n\n The future Charles IV of France (aged 13) was married to Blanche of Burgundy (aged about 11/12) in January 1308.\n\n John of Luxembourg (aged 14) was married to Elizabeth of Bohemia (aged 18) in September 1310.\n\n John III, Duke of Brabant (aged 10/11), was married to Marie of Évreux (aged 7/8) in 1311.\n\n Edmund Mortimer (aged about 13/14, possibly younger) was married to Elizabeth de Badlesmere (aged 3) in 1316.\n\n Thomas Beauchamp (aged about 6) was married to Katherine Mortimer (aged about 5) in 1319.\n\n Louis I, Count of Flanders (aged about 15/16), was married to Margaret of France (aged 9/10) in 1320.\n\n Guigues VIII of Viennois (aged 13/14) was married to Isabella of France (aged 10/11) in 1323.\n\n Alfonso XI of Castile (aged 13/14) was married to Constanza Manuel of Villena (aged at most 10) in 1325. He had the marriage annulled two years later, and in 1328, at the age of 16/17, married his double first cousin Maria of Portugal (aged 14/15).\n \n Edward III of England (aged 15) was married to Philippa of Hainault (between the ages of 12 and 17) in 1327.\n\n The future David II of Scotland (aged 4) was married to Joan of the Tower (aged 7) in 1328.\n\n Laurence Hastings, 1st Earl of Pembroke (aged about 9/10), was married to Agnes Mortimer (aged about 11/12) in 1328 or 1329. Laurence was a ward of Agnes's father, Roger Mortimer, 1st Earl of March.\n\n Charles IV, King of Bohemia (aged about 12/13; later Holy Roman Emperor), was married to Blanche of Valois (aged about 12/13) in 1329.\n\n Reginald II, Duke of Guelders (aged about 16), was married to Sophia Berthout in 1311. After Sophia's death in 1329, he married Eleanor of Woodstock (aged 13) in 1332, when he was about 37-years-old.\n\n John, Duke of Normandy (aged 13), was married to Bonne of Luxembourg (aged 17) in July 1332.\n\n Andrew of Hungary (aged 6) was married to the future Joanna I of Naples (aged about 6/7) in 1333.\n\n William IV, Count of Holland (aged 10/11), was married to Joanna of Brabant (aged 11/12) in 1334.\n\n Marie de Namur (aged about 13/14) was married to Henry II, Graf of Vianden, in 1335/36. Henry was murdered in 1337; about three years later, in 1340, Marie (now about 17/18) was married to Theobald of Bar, Seigneur de Pierrepont (aged about 25/26), her second cousin, once removed.\n\n Philip of Burgundy (aged about 14/15) was married to Joan I, Countess of Auvergne (aged about 11/12), circa 1338.\n\n William Montagu (aged 12) was married to Joan of Kent (aged 13) in either late 1340 or early 1341. In 1348, it was revealed that Joan had secretly married Thomas Holland, 1st Earl of Kent, in 1340; and, as a result, Montagu's marriage to Joan was annulled.\n\n Gaston III, Count of Foix (aged 16/17), was married to Agnes of Navarre (aged 13/14) in 1348.\n\n Charles V of France (aged 12) was married Joanna of Bourbon (aged 12) to in April 1350.\n\n Thomas de Vere, 8th Earl of Oxford (aged about 15), was married to Maud de Ufford (born 1345/46) sometime before 10 June 1350, when Maud was about 5-years-old.\n\n Lionel of Antwerp, 1st Duke of Clarence (aged 13/14), was married to Elizabeth de Burgh, 4th Countess of Ulster (aged 20), in 1352.\n\n Philip I, Duke of Burgundy (aged 10/11), was married to the future Margaret III, Countess of Flanders (aged 6/7), in 1357.\n\n Richard Fitzalan (aged 12/13) was married to Elizabeth de Bohun (aged about 9) in 1359.\n\n John Hastings, 2nd Earl of Pembroke (aged 11), was married to Margaret of England (aged 12), daughter of Henry III of England, in 1359.\n\n Gian Galeazzo Visconti (aged 8) was married to Isabella of Valois (aged 11/12) in October 1360, about a week before Gian's 9th birthday.\n\n Albert III, Duke of Austria (aged 16/17), was married to Elisabeth of Bohemia (aged 7/8) in 1366.\n\n Edmund Mortimer, 3rd Earl of March (aged 15/16), was married to Philippa of Clarence (aged 12/13) in 1368.\n\n The future Charles III of Navarre (aged 13/14) was married to Eleanor of Castile (aged about 12) in May 1375.\n\n John V, Lord of Arkel (aged 14), was married to Joanna of Jülich in October 1376.\n\n John Hastings, 3rd Earl of Pembroke (aged 8), was married to Elizabeth of Lancaster (aged 17) in 1380. The marriage remained unconsummated due to John's age, and was annulled after Elizabeth became pregnant by John Holland, 1st Duke of Exeter, whom she later married.\n\n Henry Bolingbroke (aged 13; later King Henry IV of England) was married to Mary de Bohun (aged about 10/11) in 1380.\n\n Richard II of England (aged 15) was married to Anne of Bohemia (aged 15) in January 1382.\n\n John, Count of Nevers (aged 14) was married to Margaret of Bavaria (aged 21/22) in April 1385.\n\n The future John V, Duke of Brittany (aged 6/7), was married to Joan of France (aged 4/5) in 1396.\n\n John of Perche (aged 10/11) was married to Marie of Brittany (aged 5) in July 1396.\n\n15th century \n Louis, Duke of Guyenne (aged 7), married Margaret of Nevers (aged 10) in August 1404.\nCharles, Duke of Orléans (aged 11), married his cousin Isabella of Valois (aged 16) in June 1406.\n\n Philip the Good (aged 12) was married to Michelle of Valois (aged 14) in June 1409.\n\n John, Duke of Touraine (aged 16), was married to Jacqueline of Hainaut (aged 14) in 1415.\n\n John IV, Duke of Brabant (aged 14), was married to Jacqueline of Hainaut (aged 16) in March 1418, following her first husband's death the year before.\n\n John II, Duke of Alençon (aged 15), married Joan of Valois (aged 15), daughter of Charles, Duke of Orléans, in 1424.\n\n Louis, Dauphin of France (aged 12), was married to Margaret Stewart (aged 11), daughter of James I of Scotland, in June 1436. The wedding took place a little over a week before Louis's thirteenth birthday.\n\n Henry IV of Castile (aged 14/15) was married to his cousin Blanche of Navarre (aged 15/16) in 1440.\n\n Afonso V of Portugal (aged 15) was married to Isabel of Coimbra (aged 15) in May 1447.\n\n John de la Pole (age 7) was married to Margaret Beaufort, (age 7; approximately) in 1450 by the arrangement John's father. The marriage was annulled in 1453.\n\n Ferdinand II of Aragon (aged 17) was married to his second cousin Infanta Isabella of Castile (aged 18; later Isabella I of Castile) in 1469. They became the parents of Catherine of Aragon.\n\n John, Prince of Portugal (aged 14) was married to his first cousin Eleanor of Viseu (aged 11) in January 1470.\n\n Louis, Duke of Orléans (aged 14) was married to his cousin Joan of France, Duchess of Berry (age 12), in 1476.\n\n Richard of Shrewsbury, 1st Duke of York (age 4), was married to Anne de Mowbray, 8th Countess of Norfolk (age 6), in 1477. She died at age 10 and he, as one of the Princes in the Tower, is believed to have been murdered at age 10.\n\n Afonso, Prince of Portugal (aged about 15), was married by proxy to Isabella of Aragon (aged 19) in the spring of 1490.\n\n16th century \n Arthur, Prince of Wales (aged 15), was married to Catherine of Aragon (aged 15) in 1501. He died a few months later and she eventually married his younger brother, Henry VIII of England.\n\n Charles, Count of Montpensier (aged 15), was married to Suzanne, Duchess of Bourbon (aged 14), in 1505.\n\n Henry VIII of England (aged 17), married Catherine of Aragon (aged 23) in June 1509, a couple of weeks before his 18th birthday.\n\n Claude, Duke of Guise (aged 16), was married to Antoinette de Bourbon (aged 18) in 1513.\n\n Henry, Duke of Orléans (aged 14), was married to Catherine de' Medici (aged 14) in 1533.\n\n Henry Grey, Marquess of Dorset (aged 15/16), was married to Lady Frances Brandon (aged 15/16) in 1533.\n\n Henry Clifford (aged 17/18) was married to Lady Eleanor Brandon (aged 15/16) in 1535.\n\n Ottavio Farnese, Duke of Parma (aged 14), grandson of Pope Paul III, was married to Margaret of Parma (aged 15), illegitimate daughter of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, in November 1538.\n\n Philip, Prince of Asturias (aged 16; later Philip II of Spain), was married to Maria Manuela, Princess of Portugal (aged 16), in 1543.\n\n João Manuel, Prince of Portugal (aged 14), was married to his double first cousin Joanna of Austria (aged 16) in 1552.\n\n Lord Guildford Dudley (aged about 17/18) was married to Lady Jane Grey (aged about 16/17) in 1553.\n\n Henry, Lord Herbert, was at most 15-years-old, was married to Lady Katherine Grey (aged 12), younger sister of Lady Jane Grey, in 1553. The marriage was annulled in 1554.\n\n Francis, Dauphin of France (aged 13/14), was married to Mary, Queen of Scots (aged 15/16), in 1558. The pair had been betrothed since Mary was five and Francis was three.\n\n Charles III, Duke of Lorraine (aged 15), was married to Claude of France (aged 11), daughter of Henry II of France, in 1559.\n\n17th century \n Alfonso, Hereditary Prince of Modena (aged 16/17), was married to Isabella of Savoy (aged 16) in 1608.\n\n César, Duke of Vendôme (aged 14), was married to Françoise de Lorraine (aged 15/16) in July 1608.\n\n Frederick V, Elector Palatine (aged 16), married Elizabeth Stuart (aged 16), eldest daughter of James VI and I and Anne of Denmark, in 1613.\n\n Louis XIII of France (aged 14) was married to his second cousin Anne of Austria (aged 14) in November 1615.\n\n The future Ferdinand Maria, Elector of Bavaria (aged 14), was married to Princess Henriette Adelaide of Savoy (aged 14) in December 1650.\n\n The future William II, Prince of Orange (aged 15), married Mary, Princess Royal (aged 9), in 1641. The marriage was reported to not have been consummated for a number of years due to the bride's age.\n\n Walter Scott of Highchester (aged 14) was married to Mary Scott, 3rd Countess of Buccleuch (aged 11), in 1659.\n\n James Crofts, 1st Duke of Monmouth (aged 14), illegitimate son of Charles II of England and his mistress Lucy Walter, was married to Anne Scott, 1st Duchess of Buccleuch (aged 12), in April 1663.\n\n Sir Edward Lee (aged 14) was married to Lady Charlotte FitzRoy (aged 13) in 1677. They had been betrothed since 1674, before Charlotte's tenth birthday.\n\n Ivan V of Russia (aged 17) was married to Praskovia Saltykova (aged 18/19) in either late 1683 or early 1684.\n\n Louis, Prince of Condé (aged 16), was married to his distant cousin Louise Françoise de Bourbon (aged 11) in 1685.\n\n Philippe, Duke of Chartres (aged 17), married his first cousin Françoise Marie de Bourbon (aged 14), legitimated daughter of Louis XIV, in February 1692.\n\n Louis, Duke of Burgundy (aged 15), was married to Marie Adélaïde of Savoy (aged 12) in December 1697.\n\n18th century \n Philip V of Spain (aged 17) was married to Maria Luisa Gabriela of Savoy (aged 12) in September 1701, five days before Maria Luisa's 13th birthday.\n\n Louis Armand II, Prince of Conti (aged 17), was married to Louise Élisabeth de Bourbon (aged 19) in July 1713.\n\n Jules, Prince of Soubise (aged 17), was married to Anne Julie de Melun (aged 15/16) in September 1714.\n\n Louis, Prince of Asturias (aged 14), was married by proxy to Louise Élisabeth d'Orléans (aged 11) in November 1721.\n\n Louis XV of France (aged 15) was married to Marie Leszczyńska (aged 22) in 1725.\n\n José, Prince of Brazil (aged 14), was married to Infanta Mariana Victoria of Spain (aged 10) in January 1729.\n\n Louis François, Prince of Conti (aged 14), was married to Louise Diane d'Orléans (aged 15) in January 1732.\n\n Gaston, Count of Marsan (aged 17), was married to Marie Louise de Rohan (aged 16) in June 1736.\n\n Ercole Rinaldo d'Este (aged 13/14) was married to Maria Teresa Cybo-Malaspina, Duchess of Massa (aged 15/16) in 1741.\n\n Louis, Dauphin of France (aged 15), was married to Infanta Maria Teresa Rafaela of Spain (aged 18) in 1744. After Maria Teresa's death in early 1746, Louis was required to remarry quickly in order to secure the succession to the French crown. Thus, he married again in February 1747, at the age of 17, to Duchess Maria Josepha of Saxony (aged 15).\n\n Peter of Holstein-Gottorp (later Peter III of Russia) was 17-years-old when he married his 16-year-old second cousin Princess Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst (later known as Catherine the Great) in 1745.\n\n Louis Joseph, Prince of Condé (aged 16), was married to Charlotte de Rohan (aged 15) in 1753.\n\n Christian VII of Denmark (aged 17) was married to Princess Caroline Matilda of Great Britain (aged 15) in 1766.\n\n Ferdinand IV & III of Naples and Sicily (aged 17) was married by proxy to Maria Carolina of Austria (aged 15) in April 1768.\n\n Louis Henri, Duke of Enghien (aged 14), was married to Bathilde d'Orléans (aged 19) in 1770.\n\n Louis-Auguste, Dauphin of France (aged 15), was married to Archduchess Maria Antonia of Austria (aged 14; later known as Marie Antoinette) in April 1770.\n\n Louis Stanislas, Count of Provence (aged 15; the future King Louis XVIII of France), was married to Marie Joséphine of Savoy (aged 17) in 1771.\n\n Charles Philippe, Duke of Artois (aged 16; later Charles X of France), was married to Princess Maria Theresa of Savoy (aged 17) in 1773.\n\n The future Alexander I of Russia (aged 15) married Princess Louise of Baden (aged 14) in 1793.\n\n19th century\n Ferdinand, Prince of Asturias (aged 17; later Ferdinand VII of Spain), was married to his first cousin Princess Maria Antonia of Naples and Sicily (aged 17) in October 1802, about a week before his 18th birthday.\n\n Tokugawa Iemochi (aged 15) was married to Chikako, Princess Kazu (aged 15), daughter of Emperor Ninkō, in February 1862.\n\nCeremonial marriages\n\nSanele Masilela, a nine year old South African boy married 62-year-old Helen Shabangu.\nJose Griggs, at the age of seven, married nine-year-old Jayla Cooper\n\nSee also\nList of child brides\nTeen marriage\n\nReferences\n\nLists of men\nHusbands",
"Lachlan Og MacLean, 1st Laird of Torloisk was the second son of Sir Lachlan Mor Maclean and the first Laird of Torloisk.\n\nBiography\nHe was the second son of Sir Lachlan Mor Maclean, and he received from his father a charter of the lands of Lehire-Torloisk, forfeited by the son of Ailean nan Sop, which was afterward confirmed by royal grant. He was present at the Battle of Gruinnart, and was severely wounded. He was a witness to a charter given by his father to Martin MacGillivray of Pennyghael, and subscribed himself in the Irish characters, Mise Lachin Mhac Gilleoin. He was an important man in his day, and was so influential that he was compelled to make his appearance before the privy council.\n\nHe was first married to Marian, daughter of Sir Duncan Campbell of Achnabreck and had:\nHector MacLean, 2nd Laird of Torloisk\nHe was a second time married to Margaret, daughter of Captain Stewart of Dumbarton, but had no children. \nHe was a third time married to Marian, daughter of Donald MacDonald of Clanranald, and had:\nHector Maclean\nLachlan Og Maclean, who died unmarried but had a son Donald Maclean\nLachlan Catanach Maclean was killed at Inverkeithing\nEwen Maclean\nJohn Diuriach Maclean married the daughter of John Maclean, Laird of Ardgour and had Allan and several daughters\nOther children include: \nAllan Maclean who died unmarried at Harris\nNeil Maclean who married a daughter of Lochbuie, by whom he had a daughter\nLachlan, who died a lieutenant-colonel in the British service\nJannet Maclean, married Hector, first MacLean of Kinlochaline \nMary Maclean, married John Garbh, eldest son of John Dubh of Morvern \nCatherine Maclean, married John, brother to MacNeil of Barra\nJulian Maclean, married Allan MacLean, brother of Lochbuie\nIsabella Maclean, married Martin MacGillivray of Pennyghael\n\nLachlan Og lived to an advanced age, and was succeeded by his eldest son, Hector MacLean, 2nd Laird of Torloisk.\n\nReferences\n\nYear of birth missing\nYear of death missing\nLachlan Og MacLean, 1st Laird of Torloisk\nLachlan"
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"Y. A. Tittle",
"Profile and playing style",
"what was the profile?",
"Tittle threw the ball from a sidearm, almost underhand position, something novel at those times,",
"was he the only person to do this?",
"it was common practice in earlier decades.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"he made for a very striking personality.",
"was he married?",
"I don't know."
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C_2a9dd5d8916b4fe2b0b722cf98a7c9ca_0
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what was his biggest accomplishment?
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What was Y. A. Tittle biggest accomplishment?
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Y. A. Tittle
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Tittle threw the ball from a sidearm, almost underhand position, something novel at those times, though it was common practice in earlier decades. It was this seemingly underhand style that drew the curiosity and admiration of many fans. In tandem with his baldness--for which he was frequently referred to as the "Bald Eagle"--he made for a very striking personality. Despite his throwing motion, he had a very strong and accurate arm with a quick release. It was because of his quick release and ability to read defenses that he became one of the best screen passers in the NFL. He was a perfectionist and highly competitive, and he expected the same of his teammates. He possessed rare leadership and game-planning skills, and played with great enthusiasm even in his later years. "Tittle has the attitude of a high school kid, with the brain of a computer," said Giants teammate Frank Gifford. Baltimore Colts halfback Lenny Moore, when asked in 1963 to compare Tittle and Colts quarterback Johnny Unitas, said: I played with Tittle in the Pro Bowl two years ago, and I discovered he's quite a guy ... He and John, however, are entirely different types ... Tittle is a sort of 'con man' with his players ... he comes into a huddle and 'suggests' that maybe this or that will work on account of something he saw happen on a previous play ... The way he puts it, you're convinced it's a good idea and maybe it will work. John, now, he's a take-charge guy ... He tells you what the other guy's going to do, what he's going to do, and what he wants you to do. Tittle's most productive years came when he was well beyond his athletic prime. On his ability to improve with age, he credited a feel for the game that came from his years of experience in the league. "If you could learn it by studying movies, a good smart college quarterback could learn all you've got to learn in three weeks and then come in and be as good as the old heads," he told Sports Illustrated in 1963. "But they can't." CANNOTANSWER
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It was because of his quick release and ability to read defenses that he became one of the best screen passers in the NFL.
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Yelberton Abraham Tittle Jr. (October 24, 1926 – October 8, 2017) was a professional American football quarterback. He played in the National Football League (NFL) for the San Francisco 49ers, New York Giants, and Baltimore Colts, after spending two seasons with the Colts in the All-America Football Conference (AAFC). Known for his competitiveness, leadership, and striking profile, Tittle was the centerpiece of several prolific offenses throughout his 17-year professional career from 1948 to 1964.
Tittle played college football for Louisiana State University, where he was a two-time All-Southeastern Conference (SEC) quarterback for the LSU Tigers football team. As a junior, he was named the most valuable player (MVP) of the infamous 1947 Cotton Bowl Classic—also known as the "Ice Bowl"—a scoreless tie between the Tigers and Arkansas Razorbacks in a snowstorm. After college, he was drafted in the 1947 NFL Draft by the Detroit Lions, but he instead chose to play in the AAFC for the Colts.
With the Colts, Tittle was named the AAFC Rookie of the Year in 1948 after leading the team to the AAFC playoffs. After consecutive one-win seasons, the Colts franchise folded, which allowed Tittle to be drafted in the 1951 NFL Draft by the 49ers. Through ten seasons in San Francisco, he was invited to four Pro Bowls, led the league in touchdown passes in 1955, and was named the NFL Player of the Year by the United Press in 1957. A groundbreaker, Tittle was part of the 49ers' famed Million Dollar Backfield, was the first professional football player featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated, and is credited with having coined "alley-oop" as a sports term.
Considered washed-up, the 34-year-old Tittle was traded to the Giants following the 1960 season. Over the next four seasons, he won several individual awards, twice set the league single-season record for touchdown passesincluding a 1962 game with a combined 7 touchdown passes and 500-yards passing with a near perfect (151.4 out of 158.33) passer rating, and led the Giants to three straight NFL championship games. Although he was never able to deliver a championship to the team, Tittle's time in New York is regarded among the glory years of the franchise.
In his final season, Tittle was photographed bloodied and kneeling down in the end zone after a tackle by a defender left him helmetless. The photograph is considered one of the most iconic images in North American sports history. He retired as the NFL's all-time leader in passing yards, passing touchdowns, attempts, completions, and games played. Tittle was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1971, and his jersey number 14 is retired by the Giants.
Early years and college career
Born and raised in Marshall, Texas, to Alma Tittle (née Allen) and Yelberton Abraham Tittle Sr., Tittle aspired to be a quarterback from a young age. He spent hours in his backyard throwing a football through a tire swing, emulating his fellow Texan and boyhood idol, Sammy Baugh. Tittle played high school football at Marshall High School. In his senior year the team posted an undefeated record and reached the state finals.
After a recruiting battle between Louisiana State University and the University of Texas, Tittle chose to attend LSU in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and play for the LSU Tigers. He was part of a successful 1944 recruiting class under head coach Bernie Moore that included halfbacks Jim Cason, Dan Sandifer, and Ray Coates. Freshmen were eligible to play on the varsity during World War II, so Tittle saw playing time immediately. He later said the finest moment of his four years at LSU was beating Tulane as a freshman, a game in which he set a school record with 238 passing yards. It was one of two games the Tigers won that season.
Moore started Tittle at tailback in the single-wing formation his first year, but moved him to quarterback in the T formation during his sophomore season. As a junior in 1946, Tittle's three touchdown passes in a 41–27 rout of rival Tulane helped ensure LSU a spot in the Cotton Bowl Classic. Known notoriously as the "Ice Bowl", the 1947 Cotton Bowl pitted LSU against the Arkansas Razorbacks in sub-freezing temperatures on an ice-covered field in Dallas, Texas. LSU moved the ball much better than the Razorbacks, but neither team was able to score, and the game ended in a scoreless tie. Tittle and Arkansas end Alton Baldwin shared the game's MVP award. Following the season, United Press International (UPI) placed Tittle on its All-Southeastern Conference (SEC) first-team.
UPI again named Tittle its first-team All-SEC quarterback in 1947. In Tittle's day of iron man football, he played on both offense and defense. While on defense during a 20–18 loss to SEC champion Ole Miss in his senior season, Tittle's belt buckle was torn off as he intercepted a pass from Charlie Conerly and broke a tackle. He ran down the sideline with one arm cradling the ball and the other holding up his pants. At the Ole Miss 20-yard line, as he attempted to stiff-arm a defender,(#87 Jack Odom), Tittle's pants fell and he tripped and fell onto his face. The fall kept him from scoring the game-winning touchdown.
In total, during his college career Tittle set school passing records with 162 completions out of 330 attempts for 2,525 yards and 23 touchdowns. He scored seven touchdowns himself as a runner. His passing totals remained unbroken until Bert Jones surpassed them in the 1970s.
Professional career
Baltimore Colts
Tittle was the sixth overall selection of the 1948 NFL Draft, taken by the Detroit Lions. However, Tittle instead began his professional career with the Baltimore Colts of the All-America Football Conference in 1948. That season, already being described as a "passing ace", he was unanimously recognized as the AAFC Rookie of the Year by UPI after passing for 2,739 yards and leading the Colts to the brink of an Eastern Division championship. After a 1–11 win–loss record in 1949, the Colts joined the National Football League in 1950. The team again posted a single win against eleven losses, and the franchise folded after the season due to financial difficulties. Players on the roster at the time of the fold were eligible to be drafted in the next NFL draft.
San Francisco 49ers
Tittle was then drafted by the San Francisco 49ers in the 1951 NFL Draft after the Colts folded. While many players at the time were unable to play immediately due to military duties, Tittle had received a class IV-F exemption due to physical ailments, so he was able to join the 49ers roster that season. In 1951 and 1952, he shared time at quarterback with Frankie Albert. In 1953, his first full season as the 49ers' starter, he passed for 2,121 yards and 20 touchdowns and was invited to his first Pro Bowl. San Francisco finished with a 9–3 regular season record, which was good enough for second in the Western Conference, and led the league in points scored.
In 1954, the 49ers compiled their Million Dollar Backfield, which was composed of four future Hall of Famers: Tittle; fullbacks John Henry Johnson and Joe Perry; and halfback Hugh McElhenny. "It made quarterbacking so easy because I just get in the huddle and call anything and you have three Hall of Fame running backs ready to carry the ball," Tittle reminisced in 2006. The team had aspirations for a championship run, but injuries, including McElhenny's separated shoulder in the sixth game of the season, ended those hopes and the 49ers finished third in the Western Division. Tittle starred in his second straight Pro Bowl appearance as he threw two touchdown passes, including one to 49ers teammate Billy Wilson, who was named the game's MVP.
Tittle became the first professional football player featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated when he appeared on its 15th issue dated November 22, 1954, donning his 49ers uniform and helmet featuring an acrylic face mask distinct to the time period. The cover photo also shows a metal bracket on the side of Tittle's helmet which served to protect his face by preventing the helmet from caving in. The 1954 cover was the first of four Sports Illustrated covers he graced during his career.
Tittle led the NFL in touchdown passes for the first time in 1955, with 17, while also leading the league with 28 interceptions thrown. When the 49ers hired Frankie Albert as head coach in 1956, Tittle was pleased with the choice at first, figuring Albert would be a good mentor. However, the team lost four of its first five games, and Albert replaced Tittle with rookie Earl Morrall. After a loss to the Los Angeles Rams brought San Francisco's record to 1–6, Tittle regained the starting role and the team finished undefeated with one tie through the season's final five games.
In 1957, Tittle and receiver R. C. Owens devised a pass play in which Tittle tossed the ball high into the air and the Owens leapt to retrieve it, typically resulting in a long gain or a touchdown. Tittle dubbed the play the "alley-oop"—the first usage of the term in sports—and it was highly successful when utilized. The 49ers finished the regular season with an 8–4 record and hosted the Detroit Lions in the Western Conference playoff. Against the Lions, Tittle passed for 248 yards and tossed three touchdown passes—one each to Owens, McElhenny, and Wilson—but Detroit overcame a 20-point third quarter deficit to win 31–27. For the season, Tittle had a league-leading 63.1 completion percentage, threw for 2,157 yards and 13 touchdowns, and rushed for six more scores. He was deemed "pro player of the year" by a United Press poll of members of the National Football Writers Association. Additionally, he was named to his first All-Pro team and invited to his third Pro Bowl.
After a poor 1958 preseason by Tittle, Albert started John Brodie at quarterback for the 1958 season, a decision that proved unpopular with the fan base. Tittle came in to relieve Brodie in a week six game against the Lions, with ten minutes left in the game and the 49ers down 21–17. His appearance "drew a roar of approval from the crowd of 59,213," after which he drove the team downfield and threw a 32-yard touchdown pass to McElhenny for the winning score. A right knee ligament injury against the Colts in week nine ended Tittle's season, and San Francisco finished with a 7–5 record, followed by Albert's resignation as coach. Tittle and Brodie continued to share time at quarterback over the next two seasons. In his fourth and final Pro Bowl game with the 49ers in 1959, Tittle completed 13 of 17 passes for 178 yards and a touchdown.
Under new head coach Red Hickey in 1960, the 49ers adopted the shotgun formation. The first implementation of the shotgun was in week nine against the Colts, with Brodie at quarterback while Tittle nursed a groin injury. The 49ers scored a season-high thirty points, and with Brodie in the shotgun won three of their last four games to salvage a winning season at 7–5. Though conflicted, Tittle decided to get into shape and prepare for the next season. He stated in his 2009 autobiography that at times he thought, "The hell with it. Quit this damned game. You have been at it too long anyway." But then another voice within him would say, "Come back for another year and show them you're still a good QB. Don't let them shotgun you out of football!" However, after the first preseason game of 1961, Hickey informed Tittle he had been traded to the New York Giants.
New York Giants
In mid-August 1961, the 49ers traded the 34-year-old Tittle to the New York Giants for second-year guard Lou Cordileone. Cordileone, the 12th overall pick in the 1960 NFL Draft, was quoted as reacting "Me, even up for Y. A. Tittle? You're kidding," and later remarked that the Giants traded him for "a 42-year-old quarterback." Tittle's view of Cordileone was much the same, stating his dismay that the 49ers did not get a "name ballplayer" in return. He was also displeased with being traded to the East Coast, and said he would rather have been traded to the Los Angeles Rams.
Already considered washed up, Tittle was intended by the Giants to share quarterback duties with 40-year-old Charlie Conerly, who had been with the team since 1948. The players at first remained loyal to Conerly, and treated Tittle with the cold shoulder. Tittle missed the season opener due to a back injury sustained before the season. His first game with New York came in week two, against the Steelers, in which he and Conerly each threw a touchdown pass in the Giants' 17–14 win. He became the team's primary starter for the remainder of the season and led the revitalized Giants to first place in the Eastern Conference. The Newspaper Enterprise Association (NEA) awarded Tittle its Jim Thorpe Trophy as the NFL's players' choice of MVP. In the 1961 NFL Championship Game, the Giants were soundly defeated by Vince Lombardi's Green Bay Packers, as they were shut-out 37-0. Tittle completed six of 20 passes in the game and threw four interceptions.
In January 1962, Tittle stated his intention to retire following the 1962 season. After an off-season quarterback competition with Ralph Guglielmi, Tittle played and started in a career-high 14 games. He tied an NFL record by throwing seven touchdown passes in a game on October 28, 1962, in a 49–34 win over the Washington Redskins. Against the Dallas Cowboys in the regular season finale, Tittle threw six touchdown passes to set the single-season record with 33, which had been set the previous year by Sonny Jurgensen's 32. He earned player of the year honors from the Washington D.C. Touchdown Club, UPI, and The Sporting News, and finished just behind Green Bay's Jim Taylor in voting for the AP NFL Most Valuable Player Award. The Giants again finished first in the Eastern Conference and faced the Packers in the 1962 NFL Championship Game. In frigid, windy conditions at Yankee Stadium and facing a constant pass rush from the Packers' front seven, Tittle completed only 18 of his 41 attempts in the game. The Packers won, 16–7, with New York's lone score coming on a blocked punt recovered in the end zone by Jim Collier.
Tittle returned to the Giants in 1963 and, at age 37, supplanted his single-season passing touchdowns record by throwing 36. He broke the record in the final game with three touchdowns against the Steelers, three days after being named NFL MVP by the AP. The Giants led the league in scoring by a wide margin, and for the third time in as many years clinched the Eastern Conference title. The Western champions were George Halas' Chicago Bears. The teams met in the 1963 NFL Championship Game at Wrigley Field. In the second quarter, Tittle injured his knee on a tackle by Larry Morris, and required a novocaine shot at halftime to continue playing. After holding a 10–7 halftime lead, The Giants were shutout in the second half, during which Tittle threw four interceptions. Playing through the knee injury, he completed 11 of 29 passes in the game for 147 yards, a touchdown, and five interceptions as the Bears won 14–10.
The following year in 1964, Tittle's final season, the Giants went 2–10–2 (), the worst record in the 14-team league. In the second game of the year, against Pittsburgh, he was blindsided by defensive end John Baker. The tackle left Tittle with crushed cartilage in his ribs, a cracked sternum, and a concussion. However, he played in every game the rest of the season, but was relegated to a backup role later in the year. After throwing only ten touchdowns with 22 interceptions, he retired after the season at age 39, saying rookie quarterback Gary Wood not only "took my job away, but started to ask permission to date my daughter." Over 17 seasons as a professional, Tittle completed 2,427 out of 4,395 passes for 33,070 yards and 242 touchdowns, with 248 interceptions. He also rushed for 39 touchdowns.
Career statistics
Profile and playing style
Tittle threw the ball from a sidearm, almost underhand position, something novel at those times, though it was common practice in earlier decades. It was this seemingly underhand style that drew the curiosity and admiration of many fans. This, in tandem with his baldness—for which he was frequently referred to as the "Bald Eagle"—made him a very striking personality. Despite his throwing motion, he had a very strong and accurate arm with a quick release. His ability to read defenses made him one of the best screen passers in the NFL. He was a perfectionist and highly competitive, and he expected the same of his teammates. He possessed rare leadership and game-planning skills, and played with great enthusiasm even in his later years. "Tittle has the attitude of a high school kid, with the brain of a computer," said Giants teammate Frank Gifford. Baltimore Colts halfback Lenny Moore, when asked in 1963 to compare Tittle and Colts quarterback Johnny Unitas, said:
I played with Tittle in the Pro Bowl two years ago, and I discovered he's quite a guy ... He and John, however, are entirely different types ... Tittle is a sort of 'con man' with his players ... he comes into a huddle and 'suggests' that maybe this or that will work on account of something he saw happen on a previous play ... The way he puts it, you're convinced it's a good idea and maybe it will work. John, now, he's a take-charge guy ... you what the other guy's going to do, what he's going to do, and what he wants you to do.
Tittle's most productive years came when he was well beyond his athletic prime. He credited his ability to improve with age to a feel for the game borne from years of league experience. "If you could learn it by studying movies, a good, smart college quarterback could learn all you've got to learn in three weeks and then come in and be as good as the old heads," he told Sports Illustrated in 1963. "But they can't."
Legacy
At the time of his retirement, Tittle held the following NFL records:
Tittle was the fourth player to throw seven touchdown passes in a game, when he did so in 1962 against the Redskins. He followed Sid Luckman (1943), Adrian Burk (1954), and George Blanda (1961). The feat has since been equaled by four more players: Joe Kapp (1969), Peyton Manning (2013), Nick Foles (2013), and Drew Brees (2015). Tittle, Manning and Foles did it without an interception. His 36 touchdown passes in 1963 set a record which stood for over two decades until it was surpassed by Dan Marino in 1984; as of 2016 it remains a Giants franchise record.
Despite record statistics and three straight championship game appearances, Tittle was never able to deliver a title to his team. His record as a starter in postseason games was 0–4. He threw four touchdown passes against 14 interceptions and had a passer rating of 33.8 in his postseason career, far below his regular season passer rating of 74.3. Seth Wickersham, writing for ESPN The Magazine in 2014, noted the dichotomy in the 1960s between two of New York's major sports franchises: "... Gifford, Huff and Tittle, a team of Hall of Famers known for losing championships as their peers on the Yankees—with whom they shared a stadium, a city, and many rounds of drinks—became renowned for winning them." The Giants struggled after Tittle's retirement, posting only two winning seasons from 1964 to 1980.
He made seven Pro Bowls, four first-team All-Pro teams, and four times was named the NFL's Most Valuable Player or Player of the Year: in 1957 and 1962 by the UPI; in 1961 by the NEA; and in 1963 by the AP and NEA. In a sports column in 1963, George Strickler for the Chicago Tribune remarked Tittle had "broken records that at one time appeared unassailable and he has been the hero of more second half rallies than Napoleon and the Harlem Globetrotters." He was featured on four Sports Illustrated covers: three during his playing career and one shortly after retirement. His first was with the 49ers in 1954. With the Giants, he graced covers in November 1961, and he was on the season preview issue for 1964; a two-page fold-out photo from the 1963 title game. Tittle was on a fourth cover in August 1965.
The trade of Tittle for Lou Cordileone is seen as one of the worst trades in 49ers history; it is considered one of the best trades in Giants franchise history. Cordileone played just one season in San Francisco.
Famous photo
A photo of a dazed Tittle in the end zone taken by Morris Berman of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on September 20, 1964, is regarded among the most iconic images in the history of American sports and journalism. Tittle, in his 17th and final season, was photographed helmet-less, bloodied and kneeling immediately after having been knocked to the ground by John Baker of the Pittsburgh Steelers and throwing an interception that was returned for a touchdown at the old Pitt Stadium. He suffered a concussion and cracked sternum on the play, but went on to play the rest of the season.
Post-Gazette editors declined to publish the photo, looking for "action shots" instead, but Berman entered the image into contests where it took on a life of its own, winning a National Headliner Award. It is regarded as having changed the way that photographers look at sports, having shown the power of capturing a moment of reaction. It became one of three photos to hang in the lobby of the National Press Photographers Association headquarters, alongside Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima and the Hindenburg disaster. A copy has hung in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
A similar photo by Dozier Mobley of the Associated Press, which shows Tittle looking forward rather than down, was published in the October 2, 1964, issue of Life magazine. After at first having failed to see the appeal of the image, Tittle eventually grew to embrace it, putting the Mobley version on the back cover of his 2009 autobiography. "That was the end of the road," he told the Los Angeles Times in 2008. "It was the end of my dream. It was over." Pittsburgh player John Baker, who hit Tittle right before the picture was taken, ran for sheriff in his native Wake County, North Carolina in 1978, and used the photo as a campaign tool. He was elected and went on to serve for 24 years. Tittle also held a fundraiser to assist Baker in his bid for a fourth term in 1989.
Honors
In recognition of his high school and college careers, respectively, Tittle was inducted to the Texas Sports Hall of Fame in 1987 and the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame in 1972.
Tittle was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame with its 1971 class, which included contemporaries Jim Brown, Norm Van Brocklin, the late Vince Lombardi, and former Giants teammate Andy Robustelli. By virtue of his membership in the pro hall of fame, he was automatically inducted as a charter member of the San Francisco 49ers Hall of Fame in 2009.
The Giants had originally retired the number 14 jersey in honor of Ward Cuff, but Tittle requested and was granted the jersey number by Giants owner Wellington Mara when he joined the team. It was retired again immediately following his retirement, and is now retired in honor of both players. In 2010, Tittle became a charter member of the New York Giants Ring of Honor.
Personal life
After his retirement, he rejoined the 49ers staff and served as an assistant coach before being hired by the Giants in 1970 as a quarterback mentor. During his NFL career, Tittle worked as an insurance salesman in the off-season. After retiring, he founded his own company, Y. A. Tittle Insurance & Financial Services. Tittle appeared on the October 9, 1961 episode of To Tell the Truth as one of three challengers. Tittle claimed to be hair stylist-weekend pro wrestler Richard Smith. Tittle received one vote from the four Celebrity Panelists (Johnny Carson).
Until his death, Tittle resided in Atherton, California. His wife Minnette died in 2012. They had three sons: Michael, Patrick and John, and a daughter, Dianne Tittle de Laet. Their daughter is a harpist and poet, and in 1995 she published a biography of her father titled Giants & Heroes: A Daughter's Memories of Y. A. Tittle.
In his later life, Tittle suffered from severe dementia, which adversely affected his memory and limited his conversation to a handful of topics. Tittle died on October 8, 2017, at a hospital in Stanford, California, of natural causes.
List of 500-yard passing games in the National Football League
Notes
References
Further reading
External links
1926 births
2017 deaths
American football quarterbacks
Baltimore Colts (1947–1950) players
Deaths from dementia
Eastern Conference Pro Bowl players
LSU Tigers football players
National Football League Most Valuable Player Award winners
National Football League players with retired numbers
Neurological disease deaths in California
New York Giants players
People from Atherton, California
People from Marshall, Texas
Players of American football from Texas
Pro Football Hall of Fame inductees
San Francisco 49ers players
Western Conference Pro Bowl players
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[
"was a professional Go player.\n\nHe is well known in the Western go world for his book Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go.\n\nBiography \nKageyama was born in Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan. In 1948, he won the biggest amateur Go tournament in Japan, the All-Amateur Honinbo. The year after that, he passed the pro exam. \n\nFor two years straight, Kageyama was runner up for the Prime Minister Cup. First, against Otake Hideo, then Hoshino Toshi. His style was a very calm one with deep calculations, similar to what Ishida Yoshio would use later on. The greatest accomplishment of his life, in his own opinion, was beating Rin Kaiho in the Prime Minister Cup semi-finals. At the time, Rin was the Meijin, the top player in Japan. Kageyama gave a commentary on this game in his book \"Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go\", where he wrote\n\nPromotion record\n\nRunners-up\n\nAwards\nTakamatsu-no-miya Prize once (1967)\n\nBibliography \nLessons in the Fundamentals of Go \nKage's Secret Chronicles of Handicap Go\n\nReferences\n\n1926 births\n1990 deaths\nJapanese Go players\nGo writers",
"is a Japanese professional Go player.\n\nBiography\nAkiyama became a professional in 1992 at the age of 14. He was taught by Yasuro Kikuchi. In 1999, he was promoted to 7 dan. His biggest accomplishment came in 2002 when he was runner-up for the NEC Shun-Ei title to Shinji Takao. He currently resides in Tokyo, Japan.\n\nPromotion record\n\nPast runners-up\n\nReferences\n\n1977 births\nLiving people\nJapanese Go players\nAsian Games medalists in go\nGo players at the 2010 Asian Games\nAsian Games bronze medalists for Japan\nMedalists at the 2010 Asian Games"
] |
[
"Andrew the Apostle",
"Scotland"
] |
C_d0bf7a4fa2a545d8865d583bd9afa924_0
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What does he have to do with Scotland?
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What does Andrew the Apostle have to do with Scotland?
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Andrew the Apostle
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Several legends state that the relics of Andrew were brought by divine guidance from Constantinople to the place where the modern Scottish town of St Andrews stands today (Gaelic, Cill Rimhinn). The oldest surviving manuscripts are two: one is among the manuscripts collected by Jean-Baptiste Colbert and willed to Louis XIV of France, now in the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, the other is the Harleian Mss in the British Library, London. They state that the relics of Andrew were brought by one Regulus to the Pictish king Oengus mac Fergusa (729-761). The only historical Regulus (Riagail or Rule) whose name is preserved in the tower of St Rule was an Irish monk expelled from Ireland with Saint Columba; his dates, however, are c 573 - 600. There are good reasons for supposing that the relics were originally in the collection of Acca, bishop of Hexham, who took them into Pictish country when he was driven from Hexham (c. 732), and founded a see, not, according to tradition, in Galloway, but on the site of St Andrews. According to legend, in 832 AD, Oengus II led an army of Picts and Scots into battle against the Angles, led by AEthelstan, near modern-day Athelstaneford, East Lothian. The legend states that he was heavily outnumbered and hence whilst engaged in prayer on the eve of battle, Oengus vowed that if granted victory he would appoint Saint Andrew as the Patron Saint of Scotland. On the morning of battle white clouds forming an X shape in the sky were said to have appeared. Oengus and his combined force, emboldened by this apparent divine intervention, took to the field and despite being inferior in numbers were victorious. Having interpreted the cloud phenomenon as representing the crux decussata upon which Saint Andrew was crucified, Oengus honoured his pre-battle pledge and duly appointed Saint Andrew as the Patron Saint of Scotland. The white saltire set against a celestial blue background is said to have been adopted as the design of the flag of Scotland on the basis of this legend. However, there is evidence that Andrew was venerated in Scotland before this. Andrew's connection with Scotland may have been reinforced following the Synod of Whitby, when the Celtic Church felt that Columba had been "outranked" by Peter and that Peter's brother would make a higher ranking patron. The 1320 Declaration of Arbroath cites Scotland's conversion to Christianity by Andrew, "the first to be an Apostle". Numerous parish churches in the Church of Scotland and congregations of other Christian churches in Scotland are named after Andrew. The national church of the Scottish people in Rome, Sant'Andrea degli Scozzesi is dedicated to Saint Andrew. A local superstition uses the cross of Saint Andrew as a hex sign on the fireplaces in northern England and Scotland to prevent witches from flying down the chimney and entering the house to do mischief. By placing the Saint Andrew's cross on one of the fireplace posts or lintels, witches are prevented from entering through this opening. In this case, it is similar to the use of a witch ball, although the cross will actively prevent witches from entering, and the witch ball will passively delay or entice the witch, and perhaps entrap it. CANNOTANSWER
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Several legends state that the relics of Andrew were brought by divine guidance from Constantinople to the place where the modern Scottish town of St Andrews stands today
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Andrew the Apostle ( Andreas; Aramaic: ܐܢܕܪܐܘܣ), also called Saint Andrew, was an apostle of Jesus according to the New Testament. He is the brother of Saint Peter. He is referred to in the Orthodox tradition as the First-Called (, Prōtoklētos).
According to Orthodox tradition, the apostolic successor to Saint Andrew is the Patriarch of Constantinople.
Life
The name "Andrew" (Greek: manly, brave, from ἀνδρεία, Andreia, "manhood, valour"), like other Greek names, appears to have been common among the Jews and other Hellenized people of Judea. No Hebrew or Aramaic name is recorded for him.
Andrew the Apostle was born between 5 and 10 AD in Bethsaida, in Galilee. The New Testament states that Andrew was the brother of Simon Peter, and likewise a son of Jonah. "The first striking characteristic of Andrew is his name: it is not Hebrew, as might have been expected, but Greek, indicative of a certain cultural openness in his family that cannot be ignored. We are in Galilee, where the Greek language and culture are quite present."
Both he and his brother Peter were fishermen by trade, hence the tradition that Jesus called them to be his disciples by saying that he will make them "fishers of men" (Greek: , halieis anthrōpōn). At the beginning of Jesus' public life, they were said to have occupied the same house at Capernaum.
In the Gospel of Matthew and in the Gospel of Mark Simon Peter and Andrew were both called together to become disciples of Jesus and "fishers of men". These narratives record that Jesus was walking along the shore of the Sea of Galilee, observed Simon and Andrew fishing, and called them to discipleship.
In the parallel incident in the Gospel of Luke Andrew is not named, nor is reference made to Simon having a brother. In this narrative, Jesus initially used a boat, solely described as being Simon's, as a platform for preaching to the multitudes on the shore and then as a means to achieving a huge trawl of fish on a night which had hitherto proved fruitless. The narrative indicates that Simon was not the only fisherman in the boat (they signalled to their partners in the other boat … but it is not until the next chapter that Andrew is named as Simon's brother. However, it is generally understood that Andrew was fishing with Simon on the night in question. Matthew Poole, in his Annotations on the Holy Bible, stressed that 'Luke denies not that Andrew was there'.
In contrast, the Gospel of John states that Andrew was a disciple of John the Baptist, whose testimony first led him, and another unnamed disciple of John the Baptist, to follow Jesus. Andrew at once recognized Jesus as the Messiah, and hastened to introduce him to his brother. The Byzantine Church honours him with the name Protokletos, which means "the first called". Thenceforth, the two brothers were disciples of Christ. On a subsequent occasion, prior to the final call to the apostolate, they were called to a closer companionship, and then they left all things to follow Jesus.
Subsequently, in the gospels, Andrew is referred to as being present on some important occasions as one of the disciples more closely attached to Jesus. Andrew told Jesus about the boy with the loaves and fishes, and when Philip wanted to tell Jesus about certain Greeks seeking Him, he told Andrew first. Andrew was present at the Last Supper. Andrew was one of the four disciples who came to Jesus on the Mount of Olives to ask about the signs of Jesus' return at the "end of the age".
Eusebius in his Church History 3.1 quoted Origen as saying that Andrew preached in Scythia. The Chronicle of Nestor adds that he preached along the Black Sea and the Dnieper river as far as Kiev, and from there he travelled to Novgorod. Hence, he became a patron saint of Ukraine, Romania and Russia. According to Hippolytus of Rome, Andrew preached in Thrace, and his presence in Byzantium is mentioned in the apocryphal Acts of Andrew. According to tradition, he founded the see of Byzantium (later Constantinople) in AD 38, installing Stachys as bishop.
This diocese became the seat of the Patriarchate of Constantinople under Anatolius, in 451.
Andrew, along with Saint Stachys, is recognized as the patron saint of the Patriarchate. Basil of Seleucia also knew of Apostle Andrew's missions in Thrace, Scythia and Achaea.
Andrew is said to have been martyred by crucifixion at the city of Patras (Patræ) in Achaea, in AD 60. Early texts, such as the Acts of Andrew known to Gregory of Tours, describe Andrew as bound, not nailed, to a Latin cross of the kind on which Jesus is said to have been crucified; yet a tradition developed that Andrew had been crucified on a cross of the form called crux decussata (X-shaped cross, or "saltire"), now commonly known as a "Saint Andrew's Cross" — supposedly at his own request, as he deemed himself unworthy to be crucified on the same type of cross as Jesus had been. The iconography of the martyrdom of Andrew — showing him bound to an X-shaped cross — does not appear to have been standardized until the later Middle Ages.
The Acts of Andrew
The apocryphal Acts of Andrew, mentioned by Eusebius, Epiphanius and others, is among a disparate group of Acts of the Apostles that were traditionally attributed to Leucius Charinus. "These Acts (...) belong to the third century: ca. A.D. 260," in the opinion of M. R. James, who edited them in 1924. The Acts, as well as a Gospel of St Andrew, appear among rejected books in the Decretum Gelasianum connected with the name of Pope Gelasius I. The Acts of Andrew was edited and published by Constantin von Tischendorf in the Acta Apostolorum apocrypha (Leipzig, 1821), putting it for the first time into the hands of a critical professional readership. Another version of the Andrew legend is found in the Passio Andreae, published by Max Bonnet (Supplementum II Codicis apocryphi, Paris, 1895).
Relics
Relics alleged to be those of the Apostle Andrew are kept at the Basilica of Saint Andrew in Patras, Greece; in Amalfi Cathedral (the Duomo di Sant'Andrea), Amalfi and in Sarzana Cathedral in Sarzana, Italy; St Mary's Roman Catholic Cathedral, Edinburgh, Scotland; and the Church of St Andrew and St Albert, Warsaw, Poland. There are also numerous smaller reliquaries throughout the world.
Andrew's remains were preserved at Patras. According to one legend, Saint Regulus (Rule), a monk at Patras, was advised in a dream to hide some of the bones. Shortly thereafter, most of the relics were transferred from Patras to Constantinople by order of the Roman emperor Constantius II around 357 and deposited in the Church of the Holy Apostles.
Regulus was said to have had a second dream in which an angel advised him to take the hidden relics "to the ends of the earth" for protection. Wherever he was shipwrecked, he was to build a shrine for them. St. Rule set sail, taking with him a kneecap, an upper arm bone, three fingers and a tooth. He sailed west, towards the edge of the known world, and was shipwrecked on the coast of Fife, Scotland. However, the relics were probably brought to Britain in 597 as part of the Augustine Mission, and then in 732 to Fife, by Bishop Acca of Hexham, a well-known collector of religious relics.
The skull of Saint Andrew, which had been taken to Constantinople, was returned to Patras by Emperor Basil I, who ruled from 867 to 886.
In 1208, following the sack of Constantinople, those relics of Saint Andrew and Saint Peter which remained in the imperial city were taken to Amalfi, Italy, by Cardinal Peter of Capua, a native of Amalfi. A cathedral (Duomo), was built, dedicated to Saint Andrew (as is the town itself), to house a tomb in its crypt where it is maintained that most of the relics of the apostle, including an occipital bone, remain.
Thomas Palaeologus was the youngest surviving son of Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaiologos. Thomas ruled the province of Morea, the medieval name for the Peloponnese. In 1461, when the Ottomans crossed the Strait of Corinth, Palaeologus fled Patras for exile in Italy, bringing with him what was purported to be the skull of Saint Andrew. He gave the head to Pope Pius II, who had it enshrined in one of the four central piers of St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican and then in Pienza, Italy.
In September 1964, Pope Paul VI, as a gesture of goodwill toward the Greek Orthodox Church, ordered that all of the relics of Saint Andrew that were in Vatican City be sent back to Patras. Cardinal Augustin Bea along with many other cardinals presented the skull to Bishop Constantine of Patras on 24 September 1964. The cross of Saint Andrew was taken from Greece during the Crusades by the Duke of Burgundy. It was kept in the church of St. Victor in Marseilles until it returned to Patras on 19 January 1980. The cross of the apostle was presented to the Bishop of Patras Nicodemus by a Catholic delegation led by Cardinal Roger Etchegaray. All the relics, which consist of the small finger, the skull (part of the top of the cranium of Saint Andrew), and the cross on which he was martyred, have been kept in the Church of St. Andrew at Patras in a special shrine and are revered in a special ceremony every 30 November, his feast day.
In 2006, the Catholic Church, again through Cardinal Etchegaray, gave the Greek Orthodox Church another relic of Saint Andrew.
Traditions and legends
Georgia
The church tradition of Georgia regards Saint Andrew as the first preacher of Christianity in the territory of Georgia and as the founder of the Georgian church. This tradition was apparently derived from the Byzantine sources, particularly Nicetas of Paphlagonia (died c. 890) who asserts that "Andrew preached to the Iberians, Sauromatians, Taurians, and Scythians and to every region and city, on the Black Sea, both north and south." The version was adopted by the 10th–11th-century Georgian ecclesiastics and, refurbished with more details, was inserted in the Georgian Chronicles. The story of Saint Andrew's mission in the Georgian lands endowed the Georgian church with apostolic origin and served as a defence argument to George the Hagiorite against the encroachments from the Antiochian church authorities on autocephaly of the Georgian church. Another Georgian monk, Ephraim the Minor, produced a thesis, reconciling Saint Andrew's story with an earlier evidence of the 4th-century conversion of Georgians by Saint Nino and explaining the necessity of the "second Christening" by Nino. The thesis was made canonical by the Georgian church council in 1103. The Georgian Orthodox Church marks two feast days in honour of Saint Andrew, on 12 May and 13 December. The former date, dedicated to Saint Andrew's arrival in Georgia, is a public holiday in Georgia.
Cyprus
Cypriot tradition holds that a ship which was transporting Saint Andrew went off course and ran aground. Upon coming ashore, Andrew struck the rocks with his staff at which point a spring of healing waters gushed forth. Using it, the sight of the ship's captain, who had been blind in one eye, was restored. Thereafter, the site became a place of pilgrimage and a fortified monastery stood there in the 12th century, from which Isaac Comnenus negotiated his surrender to Richard the Lionheart. In the 15th century, a small chapel was built close to the shore. The main monastery of the current church dates to the 18th century.
Other pilgrimages are more recent. The story is told that in 1895, the son of a Maria Georgiou was kidnapped. Seventeen years later, Saint Andrew appeared to her in a dream, telling her to pray for her son's return at the monastery. Living in Anatolia, she embarked on the crossing to Cyprus on a very crowded boat. As she was telling her story during the journey, one of the passengers, a young Dervish priest, became more and more interested. Asking if her son had any distinguishing marks, he stripped off his clothes to reveal the same marks and mother and son were thus reunited.
Apostolos Andreas Monastery () is a monastery dedicated to Saint Andrew situated just south of Cape Apostolos Andreas, which is the north-easternmost point of the island of Cyprus, in Rizokarpaso in the Karpass Peninsula. The monastery is an important site to the Cypriot Orthodox Church. It was once known as 'the Lourdes of Cyprus', served not by an organized community of monks but by a changing group of volunteer priests and laymen. Both Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities consider the monastery a holy place. As such, it is visited by many people for votive prayers.
Malta
The first reference regards the small chapel at Luqa dedicated to Andrew dates to 1497. This chapel contained three altars, one of them dedicated to Andrew. The painting showing Mary with Saints Andrew and Paul was painted by the Maltese artist Filippo Dingli. At one time, many fishermen lived in the village of Luqa, and this may be the main reason for choosing Andrew as patron saint. The statue of Andrew was sculpted in wood by Giuseppe Scolaro in 1779. This statue underwent several restoration works including that of 1913 performed by the Maltese artist Abraham Gatt. The Martyrdom of Saint Andrew on the main altar of the church was painted by Mattia Preti in 1687.
Romania
The official stance of the Romanian Orthodox Church is that Andrew preached the Gospel in the province of Dobruja (Scythia Minor) to the Daco-Romans, whom he is said to have converted to Christianity. Such a tradition was however not widely acknowledged until the 20th century.
According to Hippolyte of Antioch, (died c. 250 C.E.) in his On Apostles, Origen in the third book of his Commentaries on the Genesis (254 C.E.), Eusebius of Caesarea in his Church History (340 C.E.), and other sources, such as Usaard's Martyrdom written between 845 and 865, and Jacobus de Voragine's Golden Legend (c. 1260), Saint Andrew preached in Scythia, a possible reference to Scythia Minor, whose territory was integrated into Romania in the late 19th century.
According to some modern Romanian scholars, the idea of early Christianisation is unsustainable. They take the idea to be a part of an ideology of protochronism which purports that the Orthodox Church has been a companion and defender of the Romanian people for its entire history, which was then used for propaganda purposes during the communist era, although this is disputed.
East Slavs
Tradition regarding the early Christian history of Ukraine holds that the apostle Andrew preached on the southern borders of modern-day Ukraine, along the Black Sea. Legend has it that he travelled up the Dnieper River and reached the future location of Kyiv, where he erected a cross on the site where the Saint Andrew's Church of Kyiv currently stands, and where he prophesied the foundation of a great Christian city. Because of this connection to Kyiv, Saint Andrew is considered to be the patron saint of the two East Slavic nations descended from the Kievan Rus: Ukraine and Russia, the latter country using the Saint Andrew's Cross on its naval ensign. The third East Slavic nation, Belarus, however, reveres Euphrosyne of Polotsk, a local saint, as its patron instead.
Scotland
Several legends state that the relics of Andrew were brought by divine guidance from Constantinople to the place where the modern Scottish town of St Andrews stands today (Gaelic, Cill Rìmhinn). The oldest surviving manuscripts are two: one is among the manuscripts collected by Jean-Baptiste Colbert and willed to Louis XIV of France, now in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris; the other is the Harleian Mss in the British Library, London. They state that the relics of Andrew were brought by one Regulus to the Pictish king Óengus mac Fergusa (729–761). The only historical Regulus (Riagail or Rule) whose name is preserved in the tower of St Rule was an Irish monk expelled from Ireland with Saint Columba; his dates, however, are c. 573 – 600. There are good reasons for supposing that the relics were originally in the collection of Acca, bishop of Hexham, who took them into Pictish country when he was driven from Hexham (c. 732), and founded a see, not, according to tradition, in Galloway, but on the site of St Andrews.
According to legendary accounts given in 16th-century historiography, Óengus II in AD 832 led an army of Picts and Scots into battle against the Angles, led by Æthelstan, near modern-day Athelstaneford, East Lothian. The legend states that he was heavily outnumbered and hence whilst engaged in prayer on the eve of battle, Óengus vowed that if granted victory he would appoint Saint Andrew as the Patron Saint of Scotland. On the morning of battle white clouds forming an X shape in the sky were said to have appeared. Óengus and his combined force, emboldened by this apparent divine intervention, took to the field and despite being inferior in numbers were victorious. Having interpreted the cloud phenomenon as representing the crux decussata upon which Saint Andrew was crucified, Óengus honoured his pre-battle pledge and duly appointed Saint Andrew as the Patron Saint of Scotland. The white saltire set against a celestial blue background is said to have been adopted as the design of the flag of Scotland on the basis of this legend. However, there is evidence that Andrew was venerated in Scotland before this.
Andrew's connection with Scotland may have been reinforced following the Synod of Whitby, when the Celtic Church felt that Columba had been "outranked" by Peter and that Peter's brother would make a higher-ranking patron. The 1320 Declaration of Arbroath cites Scotland's conversion to Christianity by Andrew, "the first to be an Apostle". Numerous parish churches in the Church of Scotland and congregations of other Christian churches in Scotland are named after Andrew. The national church of the Scottish people in Rome, Sant'Andrea degli Scozzesi is dedicated to Saint Andrew.
A local superstition uses the cross of Saint Andrew as a hex sign on the fireplaces in northern England and Scotland to prevent witches from flying down the chimney and entering the house to do mischief. By placing the Saint Andrew's cross on one of the fireplace posts or lintels, witches are prevented from entering through this opening. In this case, it is similar to the use of a witch ball, although the cross will actively prevent witches from entering, whereas the witch ball will passively delay or entice the witch, and perhaps entrap it.
Spain
A form of St. Andrew's cross called the Cross of Bourgogne was used as the flag of the Duchy of Burgundy, and after the Duchy was acquired by Spain, by the Spanish Crown, and later as a Spanish naval flag and finally as an army battle flag up until 1843. Today, it is still a part of various Spanish military insignia and forms part of the Coat of Arms of the king of Spain as it did with General Franco.
In Spain, Saint Andrew is the patron of several locations: San Andrés (Santa Cruz de Tenerife), San Andrés y Sauces (La Palma), Navalmoral de la Mata (Cáceres), Éibar (Guipúzcoa), Baeza (Jaén), Pobladura de Pelayo García and Pobladura de Yuso (León), Berlangas de Roa (Burgos), Ligüerzana (Palencia), Castillo de Bayuela (Toledo), Almoradí (Alicante), Estella (Navarra), Sant Andreu de Palomar, (Barcelona), Pujalt (Catalonia), Adamuz (Córdoba) and in Cameros (La Rioja).
Legacy
Andrew is the patron saint of several countries and cities including: Barbados, Romania, Russia, Scotland, Ukraine, Sarzana, Pienza and Amalfi in Italy, Esgueira in Portugal, Luqa in Malta, Parañaque in the Philippines and Patras in Greece. He was also the patron saint of Prussia and of the Order of the Golden Fleece. He is considered the founder and the first bishop of the Church of Byzantium and is consequently the patron saint of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. The Apostle Andrew is also the patron of the Russian Navy.
The flag of Scotland (and consequently the Union Flag and those of some of the former colonies of the British Empire) feature Saint Andrew's saltire cross. The saltire is also the flag of Tenerife, the former flag of Galicia and the Russian Navy Ensign. The Confederate flag also features a saltire commonly referred to as a St Andrew's cross, although its designer, William Porcher Miles, said he changed it from an upright cross to a saltire so that it would not be a religious symbol but merely a heraldic device. The Alabama flag also shows that device.
The feast of Andrew is observed on 30 November in both the Eastern and Western churches, and is the national day of Scotland. In the traditional liturgical books of the Catholic Church, the feast of Saint Andrew is the first feast day in the Proper of Saints.
Andrew the Apostle is remembered in the Church of England with a Festival on 30 November.
In Islam
The Qur’anic account of the disciples of Jesus does not include their names, numbers, or any detailed accounts of their lives. Muslim exegesis, however, more or less agrees with the New Testament list and says that the disciples included Andrew.
In the Gospel of Mary
According to the Gospel of Mary, a non-canonical text containing ideas paralleling those found in Gnosticism, Andrew along with the apostle Peter did not truly understand the teachings of Jesus. Rather, in its narrative, a woman named Mary (presumably Mary Magdelene) is superior to them with her knowledge.
See also
Order of Saint Andrew
Patron saints of places
Saltire – the X-shaped cross in heraldry and vexillology
Santo André — an industrial town in Brazil
St. Andrew's College, an all-boys independent school in Ontario, Canada, named after St. Andrew. On the driveway to the main building, there is a Saint Andrew statue
St. Andrew's Cross (disambiguation)
Saint Andrew's Day
Russian Navy
Universidad de San Andrés — Argentina, named after the saint
University of St Andrews — named after the Royal Burgh of St Andrews, which was named after the saint
St. Andrew's College
Cross of Saint Peter
Saint Andrew the Apostle, patron saint archive
St. Andrew's School Parañaque
References
Notes
Citations
Sources
Attwater, Donald and Catherine Rachel John. The Penguin Dictionary of Saints. 3rd edition. New York: Penguin Books, 1993.
External links
Andreas: The Legend of St. Andrew translated by Robert Kilburn Root, 1899, from Project Gutenberg
National Shrine to Saint Andrew in Edinburgh Scotland
Grimm's Saga No. 150 about Saint Andrew
"Saint Andrew" at the Christian Iconography website
"The Life of St. Andrew" from Caxton's translation of the Golden Legend
1st-century births
1st-century deaths
1st-century Romans
1st-century Christian martyrs
1st-century Byzantine bishops
Ancient Jewish fishers
Bishops of Byzantium
Burials at the Church of the Holy Apostles
Christian missionaries in Greece
Christian missionaries in Turkey
Christian saints from the New Testament
History of Christianity in Ukraine
People executed by crucifixion
People from Bethsaida
1st-century Jews
Saints from the Holy Land
Anglican saints
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"ProjectScotland is a Scottish volunteering organisation allowing 16- to 30-year-olds to volunteer with a local charity or non-profit organisation. All placements are approximately 20–30 hours per week and last for a minimum of 3 months.\n\nTo date, ProjectScotland has placed more than 5,000 young people, who have in turn completed over 3 million hours' worth of volunteering throughout Scotland.\n\nThe volunteering opportunities help young people unlock their potential and take part in meaningful youth social action, but also have a multiplier effect by benefiting hundreds of charities across Scotland, local communities and Scotland's Third Sector.\n\nProjectScotland provide all of their volunteers with critical developmental support including help with travel expenses; a local mentor to help them set and achieve goals, before, during and after placement; and access to ProjectScotland's employability workshop programme which held throughout the year across Scotland. \n\nProject Scotland's main aims at both a local and national level are to:\n support all young people throughout Scotland to get on in life regardless of age, stage or qualifications;\n significantly increase the employability chances of young people through growing their skills and experience;\n help young people give back to their communities, encouraging a culture of volunteering for Scotland's youth;\n promote the benefits of investing in the young people of Scotland long term,\n support and increase the capacity of local charity organisations and Scotland's Third Sector.\nProjectScotland was inspired by the AmeriCorps organisation and in 2005 it was founded by Julia Ogilvy. Current CEO is Paul Reddish.\n\nVolunteers\nProjectScotland provides 16- to 30-year-olds, living in Scotland, an opportunity to volunteer with a charity.\n\nIn return for their time, volunteers get experience of work, skills and an opportunity to contribute to their community.\n\nYoung people across Scotland choose to volunteer with the support from ProjectScotland for a number of reasons, including:\n build experience and skills while growing their confidence;\n make a difference to others and discover what sort of job they want;\n meet people, have fun and be part of their community,\n help a charity do more while they learn what they are good at.\n\nMentors\nEach volunteer is offered a mentor to help them get the most from their volunteering. The Mentor is not their line manager or another person they have to impress, instead mentors are someone who is completely on their side to support, encourage, listen and guide them.\n\nMentors will help them reflect on the young persons volunteering experience, enabling them to turn up the volume on their skills and resources, which in turn will help them work out what they want to do in the future. The support mentors can offer is invaluable, from providing CV advice, interview preparation, to goal setting, and confidence building.\n\nPartners\nProjectScotland is partnered with nearly 550 charities in Scotland, at a national and local level. These include Marie Curie, Glasgow Wood Recycling, Health in Mind, Four Square Scotland and Oxfam.\n\nExternal links\n ProjectScotland Website\n ProjectScotland Working Group Report Scottish Government Report\n Volunteer Slot Can Help Spark Career The Glasgow Evening Times\n 18 to 30 Year Olds Volunteer Caledonian Mercury\n A Lost Generation The Herald\n Stalled Generation Report National Centre for Social Research\n Changing Lives Through Volunteering Scottish Government News Release\n Beyond Volunteering – The Life-Long Impact of Our Work ProjectScotland Report\n\nNon-profit organisations based in Scotland",
"\"What's that got to do with the...?\" is an expression denoting an irrelevance or non sequitur in the current discussion.\n \nA common form, what does that have to do with the price of tea in China?, is a retort to an irrelevant suggestion. This facetious usage implies that the topic under discussion might as well be the price of tea in China for all the relevance the speaker's suggestion bears on it.\n\nPossible origins \n\nThis expression may have stemmed from economists, who describe everything economic as affecting everything else, trying to find an expression which denotes the farthest logical connection from their current economic focus, in a sort of butterfly effect. In this way, the price of tea in China was used to denote the farthest possibility. It can also be used to denote an irrelevant topic.\n\nAnother explanation of the phrase's origin is that in the 19th century the price for tea in England was the highest when the first ship with the newly harvested tea from the tightly controlled Chinese markets came in. So for the ship owners it was important to be as fast as possible back to England with the load, otherwise the cost of the passage might not be recovered from the sale of the tea. Thus there were real races (the tea clipper races) where the sail ships managed to travel the whole distance from China to England in about 80 to 90 days.\n\nThe difference in prices from the first load to the later ones was so high that the original price which was paid for the tea in China was quite unimportant. So the \"price of tea in China\" was something that really didn't matter for the ship owners. They had to have the tea in England as fast as possible.\n\nRelated expressions \nA related expression in Hebrew can be found in a commentary on the Biblical commandment of the septennial Shmitah or sabbatical year. Leviticus 25:1 specifically states that God spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai; while this was a common location for God to speak to Moses, the text's explicit reference to it is very rare. Accordingly, Rashi's commentary begins with the question \"What does Shmita have to do with Mount Sinai?\" (?מה עניין שמיטה אצל הר סיני) The question in rabbinic culture took on a general meaning equivalent to that of the \"price of tea in China\" expression.\n\nThere is also a similar phrase in Polish which says: \"What does a piernik have to do with a windmill?\" (\"Co ma piernik do wiatraka?\"). The exact origin of the expression is uncertain.\n\nReferences \n\nEnglish phrases"
] |
[
"Andrew the Apostle",
"Scotland",
"What does he have to do with Scotland?",
"Several legends state that the relics of Andrew were brought by divine guidance from Constantinople to the place where the modern Scottish town of St Andrews stands today"
] |
C_d0bf7a4fa2a545d8865d583bd9afa924_0
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What year did this take place?
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What year were the relics of Andrew the Apostle supposedly brough to the town of St Andrews?
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Andrew the Apostle
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Several legends state that the relics of Andrew were brought by divine guidance from Constantinople to the place where the modern Scottish town of St Andrews stands today (Gaelic, Cill Rimhinn). The oldest surviving manuscripts are two: one is among the manuscripts collected by Jean-Baptiste Colbert and willed to Louis XIV of France, now in the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, the other is the Harleian Mss in the British Library, London. They state that the relics of Andrew were brought by one Regulus to the Pictish king Oengus mac Fergusa (729-761). The only historical Regulus (Riagail or Rule) whose name is preserved in the tower of St Rule was an Irish monk expelled from Ireland with Saint Columba; his dates, however, are c 573 - 600. There are good reasons for supposing that the relics were originally in the collection of Acca, bishop of Hexham, who took them into Pictish country when he was driven from Hexham (c. 732), and founded a see, not, according to tradition, in Galloway, but on the site of St Andrews. According to legend, in 832 AD, Oengus II led an army of Picts and Scots into battle against the Angles, led by AEthelstan, near modern-day Athelstaneford, East Lothian. The legend states that he was heavily outnumbered and hence whilst engaged in prayer on the eve of battle, Oengus vowed that if granted victory he would appoint Saint Andrew as the Patron Saint of Scotland. On the morning of battle white clouds forming an X shape in the sky were said to have appeared. Oengus and his combined force, emboldened by this apparent divine intervention, took to the field and despite being inferior in numbers were victorious. Having interpreted the cloud phenomenon as representing the crux decussata upon which Saint Andrew was crucified, Oengus honoured his pre-battle pledge and duly appointed Saint Andrew as the Patron Saint of Scotland. The white saltire set against a celestial blue background is said to have been adopted as the design of the flag of Scotland on the basis of this legend. However, there is evidence that Andrew was venerated in Scotland before this. Andrew's connection with Scotland may have been reinforced following the Synod of Whitby, when the Celtic Church felt that Columba had been "outranked" by Peter and that Peter's brother would make a higher ranking patron. The 1320 Declaration of Arbroath cites Scotland's conversion to Christianity by Andrew, "the first to be an Apostle". Numerous parish churches in the Church of Scotland and congregations of other Christian churches in Scotland are named after Andrew. The national church of the Scottish people in Rome, Sant'Andrea degli Scozzesi is dedicated to Saint Andrew. A local superstition uses the cross of Saint Andrew as a hex sign on the fireplaces in northern England and Scotland to prevent witches from flying down the chimney and entering the house to do mischief. By placing the Saint Andrew's cross on one of the fireplace posts or lintels, witches are prevented from entering through this opening. In this case, it is similar to the use of a witch ball, although the cross will actively prevent witches from entering, and the witch ball will passively delay or entice the witch, and perhaps entrap it. CANNOTANSWER
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CANNOTANSWER
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Andrew the Apostle ( Andreas; Aramaic: ܐܢܕܪܐܘܣ), also called Saint Andrew, was an apostle of Jesus according to the New Testament. He is the brother of Saint Peter. He is referred to in the Orthodox tradition as the First-Called (, Prōtoklētos).
According to Orthodox tradition, the apostolic successor to Saint Andrew is the Patriarch of Constantinople.
Life
The name "Andrew" (Greek: manly, brave, from ἀνδρεία, Andreia, "manhood, valour"), like other Greek names, appears to have been common among the Jews and other Hellenized people of Judea. No Hebrew or Aramaic name is recorded for him.
Andrew the Apostle was born between 5 and 10 AD in Bethsaida, in Galilee. The New Testament states that Andrew was the brother of Simon Peter, and likewise a son of Jonah. "The first striking characteristic of Andrew is his name: it is not Hebrew, as might have been expected, but Greek, indicative of a certain cultural openness in his family that cannot be ignored. We are in Galilee, where the Greek language and culture are quite present."
Both he and his brother Peter were fishermen by trade, hence the tradition that Jesus called them to be his disciples by saying that he will make them "fishers of men" (Greek: , halieis anthrōpōn). At the beginning of Jesus' public life, they were said to have occupied the same house at Capernaum.
In the Gospel of Matthew and in the Gospel of Mark Simon Peter and Andrew were both called together to become disciples of Jesus and "fishers of men". These narratives record that Jesus was walking along the shore of the Sea of Galilee, observed Simon and Andrew fishing, and called them to discipleship.
In the parallel incident in the Gospel of Luke Andrew is not named, nor is reference made to Simon having a brother. In this narrative, Jesus initially used a boat, solely described as being Simon's, as a platform for preaching to the multitudes on the shore and then as a means to achieving a huge trawl of fish on a night which had hitherto proved fruitless. The narrative indicates that Simon was not the only fisherman in the boat (they signalled to their partners in the other boat … but it is not until the next chapter that Andrew is named as Simon's brother. However, it is generally understood that Andrew was fishing with Simon on the night in question. Matthew Poole, in his Annotations on the Holy Bible, stressed that 'Luke denies not that Andrew was there'.
In contrast, the Gospel of John states that Andrew was a disciple of John the Baptist, whose testimony first led him, and another unnamed disciple of John the Baptist, to follow Jesus. Andrew at once recognized Jesus as the Messiah, and hastened to introduce him to his brother. The Byzantine Church honours him with the name Protokletos, which means "the first called". Thenceforth, the two brothers were disciples of Christ. On a subsequent occasion, prior to the final call to the apostolate, they were called to a closer companionship, and then they left all things to follow Jesus.
Subsequently, in the gospels, Andrew is referred to as being present on some important occasions as one of the disciples more closely attached to Jesus. Andrew told Jesus about the boy with the loaves and fishes, and when Philip wanted to tell Jesus about certain Greeks seeking Him, he told Andrew first. Andrew was present at the Last Supper. Andrew was one of the four disciples who came to Jesus on the Mount of Olives to ask about the signs of Jesus' return at the "end of the age".
Eusebius in his Church History 3.1 quoted Origen as saying that Andrew preached in Scythia. The Chronicle of Nestor adds that he preached along the Black Sea and the Dnieper river as far as Kiev, and from there he travelled to Novgorod. Hence, he became a patron saint of Ukraine, Romania and Russia. According to Hippolytus of Rome, Andrew preached in Thrace, and his presence in Byzantium is mentioned in the apocryphal Acts of Andrew. According to tradition, he founded the see of Byzantium (later Constantinople) in AD 38, installing Stachys as bishop.
This diocese became the seat of the Patriarchate of Constantinople under Anatolius, in 451.
Andrew, along with Saint Stachys, is recognized as the patron saint of the Patriarchate. Basil of Seleucia also knew of Apostle Andrew's missions in Thrace, Scythia and Achaea.
Andrew is said to have been martyred by crucifixion at the city of Patras (Patræ) in Achaea, in AD 60. Early texts, such as the Acts of Andrew known to Gregory of Tours, describe Andrew as bound, not nailed, to a Latin cross of the kind on which Jesus is said to have been crucified; yet a tradition developed that Andrew had been crucified on a cross of the form called crux decussata (X-shaped cross, or "saltire"), now commonly known as a "Saint Andrew's Cross" — supposedly at his own request, as he deemed himself unworthy to be crucified on the same type of cross as Jesus had been. The iconography of the martyrdom of Andrew — showing him bound to an X-shaped cross — does not appear to have been standardized until the later Middle Ages.
The Acts of Andrew
The apocryphal Acts of Andrew, mentioned by Eusebius, Epiphanius and others, is among a disparate group of Acts of the Apostles that were traditionally attributed to Leucius Charinus. "These Acts (...) belong to the third century: ca. A.D. 260," in the opinion of M. R. James, who edited them in 1924. The Acts, as well as a Gospel of St Andrew, appear among rejected books in the Decretum Gelasianum connected with the name of Pope Gelasius I. The Acts of Andrew was edited and published by Constantin von Tischendorf in the Acta Apostolorum apocrypha (Leipzig, 1821), putting it for the first time into the hands of a critical professional readership. Another version of the Andrew legend is found in the Passio Andreae, published by Max Bonnet (Supplementum II Codicis apocryphi, Paris, 1895).
Relics
Relics alleged to be those of the Apostle Andrew are kept at the Basilica of Saint Andrew in Patras, Greece; in Amalfi Cathedral (the Duomo di Sant'Andrea), Amalfi and in Sarzana Cathedral in Sarzana, Italy; St Mary's Roman Catholic Cathedral, Edinburgh, Scotland; and the Church of St Andrew and St Albert, Warsaw, Poland. There are also numerous smaller reliquaries throughout the world.
Andrew's remains were preserved at Patras. According to one legend, Saint Regulus (Rule), a monk at Patras, was advised in a dream to hide some of the bones. Shortly thereafter, most of the relics were transferred from Patras to Constantinople by order of the Roman emperor Constantius II around 357 and deposited in the Church of the Holy Apostles.
Regulus was said to have had a second dream in which an angel advised him to take the hidden relics "to the ends of the earth" for protection. Wherever he was shipwrecked, he was to build a shrine for them. St. Rule set sail, taking with him a kneecap, an upper arm bone, three fingers and a tooth. He sailed west, towards the edge of the known world, and was shipwrecked on the coast of Fife, Scotland. However, the relics were probably brought to Britain in 597 as part of the Augustine Mission, and then in 732 to Fife, by Bishop Acca of Hexham, a well-known collector of religious relics.
The skull of Saint Andrew, which had been taken to Constantinople, was returned to Patras by Emperor Basil I, who ruled from 867 to 886.
In 1208, following the sack of Constantinople, those relics of Saint Andrew and Saint Peter which remained in the imperial city were taken to Amalfi, Italy, by Cardinal Peter of Capua, a native of Amalfi. A cathedral (Duomo), was built, dedicated to Saint Andrew (as is the town itself), to house a tomb in its crypt where it is maintained that most of the relics of the apostle, including an occipital bone, remain.
Thomas Palaeologus was the youngest surviving son of Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaiologos. Thomas ruled the province of Morea, the medieval name for the Peloponnese. In 1461, when the Ottomans crossed the Strait of Corinth, Palaeologus fled Patras for exile in Italy, bringing with him what was purported to be the skull of Saint Andrew. He gave the head to Pope Pius II, who had it enshrined in one of the four central piers of St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican and then in Pienza, Italy.
In September 1964, Pope Paul VI, as a gesture of goodwill toward the Greek Orthodox Church, ordered that all of the relics of Saint Andrew that were in Vatican City be sent back to Patras. Cardinal Augustin Bea along with many other cardinals presented the skull to Bishop Constantine of Patras on 24 September 1964. The cross of Saint Andrew was taken from Greece during the Crusades by the Duke of Burgundy. It was kept in the church of St. Victor in Marseilles until it returned to Patras on 19 January 1980. The cross of the apostle was presented to the Bishop of Patras Nicodemus by a Catholic delegation led by Cardinal Roger Etchegaray. All the relics, which consist of the small finger, the skull (part of the top of the cranium of Saint Andrew), and the cross on which he was martyred, have been kept in the Church of St. Andrew at Patras in a special shrine and are revered in a special ceremony every 30 November, his feast day.
In 2006, the Catholic Church, again through Cardinal Etchegaray, gave the Greek Orthodox Church another relic of Saint Andrew.
Traditions and legends
Georgia
The church tradition of Georgia regards Saint Andrew as the first preacher of Christianity in the territory of Georgia and as the founder of the Georgian church. This tradition was apparently derived from the Byzantine sources, particularly Nicetas of Paphlagonia (died c. 890) who asserts that "Andrew preached to the Iberians, Sauromatians, Taurians, and Scythians and to every region and city, on the Black Sea, both north and south." The version was adopted by the 10th–11th-century Georgian ecclesiastics and, refurbished with more details, was inserted in the Georgian Chronicles. The story of Saint Andrew's mission in the Georgian lands endowed the Georgian church with apostolic origin and served as a defence argument to George the Hagiorite against the encroachments from the Antiochian church authorities on autocephaly of the Georgian church. Another Georgian monk, Ephraim the Minor, produced a thesis, reconciling Saint Andrew's story with an earlier evidence of the 4th-century conversion of Georgians by Saint Nino and explaining the necessity of the "second Christening" by Nino. The thesis was made canonical by the Georgian church council in 1103. The Georgian Orthodox Church marks two feast days in honour of Saint Andrew, on 12 May and 13 December. The former date, dedicated to Saint Andrew's arrival in Georgia, is a public holiday in Georgia.
Cyprus
Cypriot tradition holds that a ship which was transporting Saint Andrew went off course and ran aground. Upon coming ashore, Andrew struck the rocks with his staff at which point a spring of healing waters gushed forth. Using it, the sight of the ship's captain, who had been blind in one eye, was restored. Thereafter, the site became a place of pilgrimage and a fortified monastery stood there in the 12th century, from which Isaac Comnenus negotiated his surrender to Richard the Lionheart. In the 15th century, a small chapel was built close to the shore. The main monastery of the current church dates to the 18th century.
Other pilgrimages are more recent. The story is told that in 1895, the son of a Maria Georgiou was kidnapped. Seventeen years later, Saint Andrew appeared to her in a dream, telling her to pray for her son's return at the monastery. Living in Anatolia, she embarked on the crossing to Cyprus on a very crowded boat. As she was telling her story during the journey, one of the passengers, a young Dervish priest, became more and more interested. Asking if her son had any distinguishing marks, he stripped off his clothes to reveal the same marks and mother and son were thus reunited.
Apostolos Andreas Monastery () is a monastery dedicated to Saint Andrew situated just south of Cape Apostolos Andreas, which is the north-easternmost point of the island of Cyprus, in Rizokarpaso in the Karpass Peninsula. The monastery is an important site to the Cypriot Orthodox Church. It was once known as 'the Lourdes of Cyprus', served not by an organized community of monks but by a changing group of volunteer priests and laymen. Both Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities consider the monastery a holy place. As such, it is visited by many people for votive prayers.
Malta
The first reference regards the small chapel at Luqa dedicated to Andrew dates to 1497. This chapel contained three altars, one of them dedicated to Andrew. The painting showing Mary with Saints Andrew and Paul was painted by the Maltese artist Filippo Dingli. At one time, many fishermen lived in the village of Luqa, and this may be the main reason for choosing Andrew as patron saint. The statue of Andrew was sculpted in wood by Giuseppe Scolaro in 1779. This statue underwent several restoration works including that of 1913 performed by the Maltese artist Abraham Gatt. The Martyrdom of Saint Andrew on the main altar of the church was painted by Mattia Preti in 1687.
Romania
The official stance of the Romanian Orthodox Church is that Andrew preached the Gospel in the province of Dobruja (Scythia Minor) to the Daco-Romans, whom he is said to have converted to Christianity. Such a tradition was however not widely acknowledged until the 20th century.
According to Hippolyte of Antioch, (died c. 250 C.E.) in his On Apostles, Origen in the third book of his Commentaries on the Genesis (254 C.E.), Eusebius of Caesarea in his Church History (340 C.E.), and other sources, such as Usaard's Martyrdom written between 845 and 865, and Jacobus de Voragine's Golden Legend (c. 1260), Saint Andrew preached in Scythia, a possible reference to Scythia Minor, whose territory was integrated into Romania in the late 19th century.
According to some modern Romanian scholars, the idea of early Christianisation is unsustainable. They take the idea to be a part of an ideology of protochronism which purports that the Orthodox Church has been a companion and defender of the Romanian people for its entire history, which was then used for propaganda purposes during the communist era, although this is disputed.
East Slavs
Tradition regarding the early Christian history of Ukraine holds that the apostle Andrew preached on the southern borders of modern-day Ukraine, along the Black Sea. Legend has it that he travelled up the Dnieper River and reached the future location of Kyiv, where he erected a cross on the site where the Saint Andrew's Church of Kyiv currently stands, and where he prophesied the foundation of a great Christian city. Because of this connection to Kyiv, Saint Andrew is considered to be the patron saint of the two East Slavic nations descended from the Kievan Rus: Ukraine and Russia, the latter country using the Saint Andrew's Cross on its naval ensign. The third East Slavic nation, Belarus, however, reveres Euphrosyne of Polotsk, a local saint, as its patron instead.
Scotland
Several legends state that the relics of Andrew were brought by divine guidance from Constantinople to the place where the modern Scottish town of St Andrews stands today (Gaelic, Cill Rìmhinn). The oldest surviving manuscripts are two: one is among the manuscripts collected by Jean-Baptiste Colbert and willed to Louis XIV of France, now in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris; the other is the Harleian Mss in the British Library, London. They state that the relics of Andrew were brought by one Regulus to the Pictish king Óengus mac Fergusa (729–761). The only historical Regulus (Riagail or Rule) whose name is preserved in the tower of St Rule was an Irish monk expelled from Ireland with Saint Columba; his dates, however, are c. 573 – 600. There are good reasons for supposing that the relics were originally in the collection of Acca, bishop of Hexham, who took them into Pictish country when he was driven from Hexham (c. 732), and founded a see, not, according to tradition, in Galloway, but on the site of St Andrews.
According to legendary accounts given in 16th-century historiography, Óengus II in AD 832 led an army of Picts and Scots into battle against the Angles, led by Æthelstan, near modern-day Athelstaneford, East Lothian. The legend states that he was heavily outnumbered and hence whilst engaged in prayer on the eve of battle, Óengus vowed that if granted victory he would appoint Saint Andrew as the Patron Saint of Scotland. On the morning of battle white clouds forming an X shape in the sky were said to have appeared. Óengus and his combined force, emboldened by this apparent divine intervention, took to the field and despite being inferior in numbers were victorious. Having interpreted the cloud phenomenon as representing the crux decussata upon which Saint Andrew was crucified, Óengus honoured his pre-battle pledge and duly appointed Saint Andrew as the Patron Saint of Scotland. The white saltire set against a celestial blue background is said to have been adopted as the design of the flag of Scotland on the basis of this legend. However, there is evidence that Andrew was venerated in Scotland before this.
Andrew's connection with Scotland may have been reinforced following the Synod of Whitby, when the Celtic Church felt that Columba had been "outranked" by Peter and that Peter's brother would make a higher-ranking patron. The 1320 Declaration of Arbroath cites Scotland's conversion to Christianity by Andrew, "the first to be an Apostle". Numerous parish churches in the Church of Scotland and congregations of other Christian churches in Scotland are named after Andrew. The national church of the Scottish people in Rome, Sant'Andrea degli Scozzesi is dedicated to Saint Andrew.
A local superstition uses the cross of Saint Andrew as a hex sign on the fireplaces in northern England and Scotland to prevent witches from flying down the chimney and entering the house to do mischief. By placing the Saint Andrew's cross on one of the fireplace posts or lintels, witches are prevented from entering through this opening. In this case, it is similar to the use of a witch ball, although the cross will actively prevent witches from entering, whereas the witch ball will passively delay or entice the witch, and perhaps entrap it.
Spain
A form of St. Andrew's cross called the Cross of Bourgogne was used as the flag of the Duchy of Burgundy, and after the Duchy was acquired by Spain, by the Spanish Crown, and later as a Spanish naval flag and finally as an army battle flag up until 1843. Today, it is still a part of various Spanish military insignia and forms part of the Coat of Arms of the king of Spain as it did with General Franco.
In Spain, Saint Andrew is the patron of several locations: San Andrés (Santa Cruz de Tenerife), San Andrés y Sauces (La Palma), Navalmoral de la Mata (Cáceres), Éibar (Guipúzcoa), Baeza (Jaén), Pobladura de Pelayo García and Pobladura de Yuso (León), Berlangas de Roa (Burgos), Ligüerzana (Palencia), Castillo de Bayuela (Toledo), Almoradí (Alicante), Estella (Navarra), Sant Andreu de Palomar, (Barcelona), Pujalt (Catalonia), Adamuz (Córdoba) and in Cameros (La Rioja).
Legacy
Andrew is the patron saint of several countries and cities including: Barbados, Romania, Russia, Scotland, Ukraine, Sarzana, Pienza and Amalfi in Italy, Esgueira in Portugal, Luqa in Malta, Parañaque in the Philippines and Patras in Greece. He was also the patron saint of Prussia and of the Order of the Golden Fleece. He is considered the founder and the first bishop of the Church of Byzantium and is consequently the patron saint of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. The Apostle Andrew is also the patron of the Russian Navy.
The flag of Scotland (and consequently the Union Flag and those of some of the former colonies of the British Empire) feature Saint Andrew's saltire cross. The saltire is also the flag of Tenerife, the former flag of Galicia and the Russian Navy Ensign. The Confederate flag also features a saltire commonly referred to as a St Andrew's cross, although its designer, William Porcher Miles, said he changed it from an upright cross to a saltire so that it would not be a religious symbol but merely a heraldic device. The Alabama flag also shows that device.
The feast of Andrew is observed on 30 November in both the Eastern and Western churches, and is the national day of Scotland. In the traditional liturgical books of the Catholic Church, the feast of Saint Andrew is the first feast day in the Proper of Saints.
Andrew the Apostle is remembered in the Church of England with a Festival on 30 November.
In Islam
The Qur’anic account of the disciples of Jesus does not include their names, numbers, or any detailed accounts of their lives. Muslim exegesis, however, more or less agrees with the New Testament list and says that the disciples included Andrew.
In the Gospel of Mary
According to the Gospel of Mary, a non-canonical text containing ideas paralleling those found in Gnosticism, Andrew along with the apostle Peter did not truly understand the teachings of Jesus. Rather, in its narrative, a woman named Mary (presumably Mary Magdelene) is superior to them with her knowledge.
See also
Order of Saint Andrew
Patron saints of places
Saltire – the X-shaped cross in heraldry and vexillology
Santo André — an industrial town in Brazil
St. Andrew's College, an all-boys independent school in Ontario, Canada, named after St. Andrew. On the driveway to the main building, there is a Saint Andrew statue
St. Andrew's Cross (disambiguation)
Saint Andrew's Day
Russian Navy
Universidad de San Andrés — Argentina, named after the saint
University of St Andrews — named after the Royal Burgh of St Andrews, which was named after the saint
St. Andrew's College
Cross of Saint Peter
Saint Andrew the Apostle, patron saint archive
St. Andrew's School Parañaque
References
Notes
Citations
Sources
Attwater, Donald and Catherine Rachel John. The Penguin Dictionary of Saints. 3rd edition. New York: Penguin Books, 1993.
External links
Andreas: The Legend of St. Andrew translated by Robert Kilburn Root, 1899, from Project Gutenberg
National Shrine to Saint Andrew in Edinburgh Scotland
Grimm's Saga No. 150 about Saint Andrew
"Saint Andrew" at the Christian Iconography website
"The Life of St. Andrew" from Caxton's translation of the Golden Legend
1st-century births
1st-century deaths
1st-century Romans
1st-century Christian martyrs
1st-century Byzantine bishops
Ancient Jewish fishers
Bishops of Byzantium
Burials at the Church of the Holy Apostles
Christian missionaries in Greece
Christian missionaries in Turkey
Christian saints from the New Testament
History of Christianity in Ukraine
People executed by crucifixion
People from Bethsaida
1st-century Jews
Saints from the Holy Land
Anglican saints
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[
"¿Qué hubiera pasado si...? (in English, What would have happened if...?) is a counterfactual history Argentine book written by Rosendo Fraga. The book speculates on how would the History of Argentina have developed if certain key events did not take place or had happened in a different way.\n\nDescription\nAmong other things, the book speculates what would have happened if the viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata wasn't created, if the British invasions of the Río de la Plata did not fail, if José de San Martín had obeyed the Supreme Directors and returned with the Army of the Andes to fight Artigas instead of taking the independentist war to Peru, if the Conquest of the Desert did not take place, if the different coup d'états that took place in Argentina did not happen or were defeated, and if Argentina had obtained the sovereignty of the Malvinas. Each chapter starts with a basic premise but speculates as well on related possibilities that could have influenced changes: for example, the one on San Martin questions as well what would have happened if the government of Chile fell, if a Spanish task force arrived to take Buenos Aires, and what stance could have the caudillos taken in those hypothetic scenarios.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Interview with Rosendo Fraga about the book \n\nArgentine books\nAlternate history anthologies",
"The Gulf War Did Not Take Place () is a collection of three short essays by Jean Baudrillard published in the French newspaper Libération and British paper The Guardian between January and March 1991.\n Part 1, \"The Gulf War will not take place\" (La guerre du Golfe n'aura pas lieu) was published in Libération on January 4, 1991.\n Part 2, \"The Gulf War is not really taking place\" (La guerre du Golfe a-t-elle vraiment lieu?) was published in Libération on February 6, 1991, and\n Part 3, \"The Gulf War did not take place\" (La Guerre du Golfe n'a pas eu lieu) was published in Libération on March 29, 1991.\n\nContrary to the title, the author believes that the events and violence of the Gulf War actually took place, whereas the issue is one of interpretation: were the events that took place comparable to how they were presented, and could these events be called a war? The title is a reference to the play The Trojan War Will Not Take Place by Jean Giraudoux (in which characters attempt to prevent what the audience knows is inevitable).\n\nThe essays in Libération and The Guardian were published before, during and after the Gulf War and they were titled accordingly: during the American military and rhetorical buildup as \"The Gulf War Will Not Take Place\"; during military action as \"The Gulf War Is Not Taking Place\", and after action was over, \"The Gulf War Did Not Take Place\". A book of elongated versions of the truncated original articles in French was published in May 1991. The English translation was published in early 1995 translated by Paul Patton.\n\nSummary \nBaudrillard argued the Gulf War was not really a war, but rather an atrocity which masqueraded as a war. Using overwhelming airpower, the American military for the most part did not directly engage in combat with the Iraqi army, and suffered few casualties. Almost nothing was made known about Iraqi deaths. Thus, the fighting \"did not really take place\" from the point of view of the West. Moreover, all that spectators got to know about the war was in the form of propaganda imagery. The closely watched media presentations made it impossible to distinguish between the experience of what truly happened in the conflict, and its stylized, selective misrepresentation through simulacra.\n\nReferences\n\nFurther reading\n Baudrillard, Jean (1991) La Guerre du Golfe n'a pas eu lieu, Paris: Galilée.\n Baudrillard, Jean (1995) The Gulf War Did Not Take Place, Bloomington: Indiana University Press\n\n1995 non-fiction books\nBooks by Jean Baudrillard\nEssays about hyperreality\nFrench non-fiction books\nGulf War books"
] |
[
"Andrew the Apostle",
"Scotland",
"What does he have to do with Scotland?",
"Several legends state that the relics of Andrew were brought by divine guidance from Constantinople to the place where the modern Scottish town of St Andrews stands today",
"What year did this take place?",
"I don't know."
] |
C_d0bf7a4fa2a545d8865d583bd9afa924_0
|
Are there any memorials dedicated to him in Scotland?
| 3 |
Are there any memorials dedicated to Andrew the Apostle in Scotland?
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Andrew the Apostle
|
Several legends state that the relics of Andrew were brought by divine guidance from Constantinople to the place where the modern Scottish town of St Andrews stands today (Gaelic, Cill Rimhinn). The oldest surviving manuscripts are two: one is among the manuscripts collected by Jean-Baptiste Colbert and willed to Louis XIV of France, now in the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, the other is the Harleian Mss in the British Library, London. They state that the relics of Andrew were brought by one Regulus to the Pictish king Oengus mac Fergusa (729-761). The only historical Regulus (Riagail or Rule) whose name is preserved in the tower of St Rule was an Irish monk expelled from Ireland with Saint Columba; his dates, however, are c 573 - 600. There are good reasons for supposing that the relics were originally in the collection of Acca, bishop of Hexham, who took them into Pictish country when he was driven from Hexham (c. 732), and founded a see, not, according to tradition, in Galloway, but on the site of St Andrews. According to legend, in 832 AD, Oengus II led an army of Picts and Scots into battle against the Angles, led by AEthelstan, near modern-day Athelstaneford, East Lothian. The legend states that he was heavily outnumbered and hence whilst engaged in prayer on the eve of battle, Oengus vowed that if granted victory he would appoint Saint Andrew as the Patron Saint of Scotland. On the morning of battle white clouds forming an X shape in the sky were said to have appeared. Oengus and his combined force, emboldened by this apparent divine intervention, took to the field and despite being inferior in numbers were victorious. Having interpreted the cloud phenomenon as representing the crux decussata upon which Saint Andrew was crucified, Oengus honoured his pre-battle pledge and duly appointed Saint Andrew as the Patron Saint of Scotland. The white saltire set against a celestial blue background is said to have been adopted as the design of the flag of Scotland on the basis of this legend. However, there is evidence that Andrew was venerated in Scotland before this. Andrew's connection with Scotland may have been reinforced following the Synod of Whitby, when the Celtic Church felt that Columba had been "outranked" by Peter and that Peter's brother would make a higher ranking patron. The 1320 Declaration of Arbroath cites Scotland's conversion to Christianity by Andrew, "the first to be an Apostle". Numerous parish churches in the Church of Scotland and congregations of other Christian churches in Scotland are named after Andrew. The national church of the Scottish people in Rome, Sant'Andrea degli Scozzesi is dedicated to Saint Andrew. A local superstition uses the cross of Saint Andrew as a hex sign on the fireplaces in northern England and Scotland to prevent witches from flying down the chimney and entering the house to do mischief. By placing the Saint Andrew's cross on one of the fireplace posts or lintels, witches are prevented from entering through this opening. In this case, it is similar to the use of a witch ball, although the cross will actively prevent witches from entering, and the witch ball will passively delay or entice the witch, and perhaps entrap it. CANNOTANSWER
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one is among the manuscripts collected by Jean-Baptiste Colbert and willed to Louis XIV of France, now in the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris,
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Andrew the Apostle ( Andreas; Aramaic: ܐܢܕܪܐܘܣ), also called Saint Andrew, was an apostle of Jesus according to the New Testament. He is the brother of Saint Peter. He is referred to in the Orthodox tradition as the First-Called (, Prōtoklētos).
According to Orthodox tradition, the apostolic successor to Saint Andrew is the Patriarch of Constantinople.
Life
The name "Andrew" (Greek: manly, brave, from ἀνδρεία, Andreia, "manhood, valour"), like other Greek names, appears to have been common among the Jews and other Hellenized people of Judea. No Hebrew or Aramaic name is recorded for him.
Andrew the Apostle was born between 5 and 10 AD in Bethsaida, in Galilee. The New Testament states that Andrew was the brother of Simon Peter, and likewise a son of Jonah. "The first striking characteristic of Andrew is his name: it is not Hebrew, as might have been expected, but Greek, indicative of a certain cultural openness in his family that cannot be ignored. We are in Galilee, where the Greek language and culture are quite present."
Both he and his brother Peter were fishermen by trade, hence the tradition that Jesus called them to be his disciples by saying that he will make them "fishers of men" (Greek: , halieis anthrōpōn). At the beginning of Jesus' public life, they were said to have occupied the same house at Capernaum.
In the Gospel of Matthew and in the Gospel of Mark Simon Peter and Andrew were both called together to become disciples of Jesus and "fishers of men". These narratives record that Jesus was walking along the shore of the Sea of Galilee, observed Simon and Andrew fishing, and called them to discipleship.
In the parallel incident in the Gospel of Luke Andrew is not named, nor is reference made to Simon having a brother. In this narrative, Jesus initially used a boat, solely described as being Simon's, as a platform for preaching to the multitudes on the shore and then as a means to achieving a huge trawl of fish on a night which had hitherto proved fruitless. The narrative indicates that Simon was not the only fisherman in the boat (they signalled to their partners in the other boat … but it is not until the next chapter that Andrew is named as Simon's brother. However, it is generally understood that Andrew was fishing with Simon on the night in question. Matthew Poole, in his Annotations on the Holy Bible, stressed that 'Luke denies not that Andrew was there'.
In contrast, the Gospel of John states that Andrew was a disciple of John the Baptist, whose testimony first led him, and another unnamed disciple of John the Baptist, to follow Jesus. Andrew at once recognized Jesus as the Messiah, and hastened to introduce him to his brother. The Byzantine Church honours him with the name Protokletos, which means "the first called". Thenceforth, the two brothers were disciples of Christ. On a subsequent occasion, prior to the final call to the apostolate, they were called to a closer companionship, and then they left all things to follow Jesus.
Subsequently, in the gospels, Andrew is referred to as being present on some important occasions as one of the disciples more closely attached to Jesus. Andrew told Jesus about the boy with the loaves and fishes, and when Philip wanted to tell Jesus about certain Greeks seeking Him, he told Andrew first. Andrew was present at the Last Supper. Andrew was one of the four disciples who came to Jesus on the Mount of Olives to ask about the signs of Jesus' return at the "end of the age".
Eusebius in his Church History 3.1 quoted Origen as saying that Andrew preached in Scythia. The Chronicle of Nestor adds that he preached along the Black Sea and the Dnieper river as far as Kiev, and from there he travelled to Novgorod. Hence, he became a patron saint of Ukraine, Romania and Russia. According to Hippolytus of Rome, Andrew preached in Thrace, and his presence in Byzantium is mentioned in the apocryphal Acts of Andrew. According to tradition, he founded the see of Byzantium (later Constantinople) in AD 38, installing Stachys as bishop.
This diocese became the seat of the Patriarchate of Constantinople under Anatolius, in 451.
Andrew, along with Saint Stachys, is recognized as the patron saint of the Patriarchate. Basil of Seleucia also knew of Apostle Andrew's missions in Thrace, Scythia and Achaea.
Andrew is said to have been martyred by crucifixion at the city of Patras (Patræ) in Achaea, in AD 60. Early texts, such as the Acts of Andrew known to Gregory of Tours, describe Andrew as bound, not nailed, to a Latin cross of the kind on which Jesus is said to have been crucified; yet a tradition developed that Andrew had been crucified on a cross of the form called crux decussata (X-shaped cross, or "saltire"), now commonly known as a "Saint Andrew's Cross" — supposedly at his own request, as he deemed himself unworthy to be crucified on the same type of cross as Jesus had been. The iconography of the martyrdom of Andrew — showing him bound to an X-shaped cross — does not appear to have been standardized until the later Middle Ages.
The Acts of Andrew
The apocryphal Acts of Andrew, mentioned by Eusebius, Epiphanius and others, is among a disparate group of Acts of the Apostles that were traditionally attributed to Leucius Charinus. "These Acts (...) belong to the third century: ca. A.D. 260," in the opinion of M. R. James, who edited them in 1924. The Acts, as well as a Gospel of St Andrew, appear among rejected books in the Decretum Gelasianum connected with the name of Pope Gelasius I. The Acts of Andrew was edited and published by Constantin von Tischendorf in the Acta Apostolorum apocrypha (Leipzig, 1821), putting it for the first time into the hands of a critical professional readership. Another version of the Andrew legend is found in the Passio Andreae, published by Max Bonnet (Supplementum II Codicis apocryphi, Paris, 1895).
Relics
Relics alleged to be those of the Apostle Andrew are kept at the Basilica of Saint Andrew in Patras, Greece; in Amalfi Cathedral (the Duomo di Sant'Andrea), Amalfi and in Sarzana Cathedral in Sarzana, Italy; St Mary's Roman Catholic Cathedral, Edinburgh, Scotland; and the Church of St Andrew and St Albert, Warsaw, Poland. There are also numerous smaller reliquaries throughout the world.
Andrew's remains were preserved at Patras. According to one legend, Saint Regulus (Rule), a monk at Patras, was advised in a dream to hide some of the bones. Shortly thereafter, most of the relics were transferred from Patras to Constantinople by order of the Roman emperor Constantius II around 357 and deposited in the Church of the Holy Apostles.
Regulus was said to have had a second dream in which an angel advised him to take the hidden relics "to the ends of the earth" for protection. Wherever he was shipwrecked, he was to build a shrine for them. St. Rule set sail, taking with him a kneecap, an upper arm bone, three fingers and a tooth. He sailed west, towards the edge of the known world, and was shipwrecked on the coast of Fife, Scotland. However, the relics were probably brought to Britain in 597 as part of the Augustine Mission, and then in 732 to Fife, by Bishop Acca of Hexham, a well-known collector of religious relics.
The skull of Saint Andrew, which had been taken to Constantinople, was returned to Patras by Emperor Basil I, who ruled from 867 to 886.
In 1208, following the sack of Constantinople, those relics of Saint Andrew and Saint Peter which remained in the imperial city were taken to Amalfi, Italy, by Cardinal Peter of Capua, a native of Amalfi. A cathedral (Duomo), was built, dedicated to Saint Andrew (as is the town itself), to house a tomb in its crypt where it is maintained that most of the relics of the apostle, including an occipital bone, remain.
Thomas Palaeologus was the youngest surviving son of Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaiologos. Thomas ruled the province of Morea, the medieval name for the Peloponnese. In 1461, when the Ottomans crossed the Strait of Corinth, Palaeologus fled Patras for exile in Italy, bringing with him what was purported to be the skull of Saint Andrew. He gave the head to Pope Pius II, who had it enshrined in one of the four central piers of St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican and then in Pienza, Italy.
In September 1964, Pope Paul VI, as a gesture of goodwill toward the Greek Orthodox Church, ordered that all of the relics of Saint Andrew that were in Vatican City be sent back to Patras. Cardinal Augustin Bea along with many other cardinals presented the skull to Bishop Constantine of Patras on 24 September 1964. The cross of Saint Andrew was taken from Greece during the Crusades by the Duke of Burgundy. It was kept in the church of St. Victor in Marseilles until it returned to Patras on 19 January 1980. The cross of the apostle was presented to the Bishop of Patras Nicodemus by a Catholic delegation led by Cardinal Roger Etchegaray. All the relics, which consist of the small finger, the skull (part of the top of the cranium of Saint Andrew), and the cross on which he was martyred, have been kept in the Church of St. Andrew at Patras in a special shrine and are revered in a special ceremony every 30 November, his feast day.
In 2006, the Catholic Church, again through Cardinal Etchegaray, gave the Greek Orthodox Church another relic of Saint Andrew.
Traditions and legends
Georgia
The church tradition of Georgia regards Saint Andrew as the first preacher of Christianity in the territory of Georgia and as the founder of the Georgian church. This tradition was apparently derived from the Byzantine sources, particularly Nicetas of Paphlagonia (died c. 890) who asserts that "Andrew preached to the Iberians, Sauromatians, Taurians, and Scythians and to every region and city, on the Black Sea, both north and south." The version was adopted by the 10th–11th-century Georgian ecclesiastics and, refurbished with more details, was inserted in the Georgian Chronicles. The story of Saint Andrew's mission in the Georgian lands endowed the Georgian church with apostolic origin and served as a defence argument to George the Hagiorite against the encroachments from the Antiochian church authorities on autocephaly of the Georgian church. Another Georgian monk, Ephraim the Minor, produced a thesis, reconciling Saint Andrew's story with an earlier evidence of the 4th-century conversion of Georgians by Saint Nino and explaining the necessity of the "second Christening" by Nino. The thesis was made canonical by the Georgian church council in 1103. The Georgian Orthodox Church marks two feast days in honour of Saint Andrew, on 12 May and 13 December. The former date, dedicated to Saint Andrew's arrival in Georgia, is a public holiday in Georgia.
Cyprus
Cypriot tradition holds that a ship which was transporting Saint Andrew went off course and ran aground. Upon coming ashore, Andrew struck the rocks with his staff at which point a spring of healing waters gushed forth. Using it, the sight of the ship's captain, who had been blind in one eye, was restored. Thereafter, the site became a place of pilgrimage and a fortified monastery stood there in the 12th century, from which Isaac Comnenus negotiated his surrender to Richard the Lionheart. In the 15th century, a small chapel was built close to the shore. The main monastery of the current church dates to the 18th century.
Other pilgrimages are more recent. The story is told that in 1895, the son of a Maria Georgiou was kidnapped. Seventeen years later, Saint Andrew appeared to her in a dream, telling her to pray for her son's return at the monastery. Living in Anatolia, she embarked on the crossing to Cyprus on a very crowded boat. As she was telling her story during the journey, one of the passengers, a young Dervish priest, became more and more interested. Asking if her son had any distinguishing marks, he stripped off his clothes to reveal the same marks and mother and son were thus reunited.
Apostolos Andreas Monastery () is a monastery dedicated to Saint Andrew situated just south of Cape Apostolos Andreas, which is the north-easternmost point of the island of Cyprus, in Rizokarpaso in the Karpass Peninsula. The monastery is an important site to the Cypriot Orthodox Church. It was once known as 'the Lourdes of Cyprus', served not by an organized community of monks but by a changing group of volunteer priests and laymen. Both Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities consider the monastery a holy place. As such, it is visited by many people for votive prayers.
Malta
The first reference regards the small chapel at Luqa dedicated to Andrew dates to 1497. This chapel contained three altars, one of them dedicated to Andrew. The painting showing Mary with Saints Andrew and Paul was painted by the Maltese artist Filippo Dingli. At one time, many fishermen lived in the village of Luqa, and this may be the main reason for choosing Andrew as patron saint. The statue of Andrew was sculpted in wood by Giuseppe Scolaro in 1779. This statue underwent several restoration works including that of 1913 performed by the Maltese artist Abraham Gatt. The Martyrdom of Saint Andrew on the main altar of the church was painted by Mattia Preti in 1687.
Romania
The official stance of the Romanian Orthodox Church is that Andrew preached the Gospel in the province of Dobruja (Scythia Minor) to the Daco-Romans, whom he is said to have converted to Christianity. Such a tradition was however not widely acknowledged until the 20th century.
According to Hippolyte of Antioch, (died c. 250 C.E.) in his On Apostles, Origen in the third book of his Commentaries on the Genesis (254 C.E.), Eusebius of Caesarea in his Church History (340 C.E.), and other sources, such as Usaard's Martyrdom written between 845 and 865, and Jacobus de Voragine's Golden Legend (c. 1260), Saint Andrew preached in Scythia, a possible reference to Scythia Minor, whose territory was integrated into Romania in the late 19th century.
According to some modern Romanian scholars, the idea of early Christianisation is unsustainable. They take the idea to be a part of an ideology of protochronism which purports that the Orthodox Church has been a companion and defender of the Romanian people for its entire history, which was then used for propaganda purposes during the communist era, although this is disputed.
East Slavs
Tradition regarding the early Christian history of Ukraine holds that the apostle Andrew preached on the southern borders of modern-day Ukraine, along the Black Sea. Legend has it that he travelled up the Dnieper River and reached the future location of Kyiv, where he erected a cross on the site where the Saint Andrew's Church of Kyiv currently stands, and where he prophesied the foundation of a great Christian city. Because of this connection to Kyiv, Saint Andrew is considered to be the patron saint of the two East Slavic nations descended from the Kievan Rus: Ukraine and Russia, the latter country using the Saint Andrew's Cross on its naval ensign. The third East Slavic nation, Belarus, however, reveres Euphrosyne of Polotsk, a local saint, as its patron instead.
Scotland
Several legends state that the relics of Andrew were brought by divine guidance from Constantinople to the place where the modern Scottish town of St Andrews stands today (Gaelic, Cill Rìmhinn). The oldest surviving manuscripts are two: one is among the manuscripts collected by Jean-Baptiste Colbert and willed to Louis XIV of France, now in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris; the other is the Harleian Mss in the British Library, London. They state that the relics of Andrew were brought by one Regulus to the Pictish king Óengus mac Fergusa (729–761). The only historical Regulus (Riagail or Rule) whose name is preserved in the tower of St Rule was an Irish monk expelled from Ireland with Saint Columba; his dates, however, are c. 573 – 600. There are good reasons for supposing that the relics were originally in the collection of Acca, bishop of Hexham, who took them into Pictish country when he was driven from Hexham (c. 732), and founded a see, not, according to tradition, in Galloway, but on the site of St Andrews.
According to legendary accounts given in 16th-century historiography, Óengus II in AD 832 led an army of Picts and Scots into battle against the Angles, led by Æthelstan, near modern-day Athelstaneford, East Lothian. The legend states that he was heavily outnumbered and hence whilst engaged in prayer on the eve of battle, Óengus vowed that if granted victory he would appoint Saint Andrew as the Patron Saint of Scotland. On the morning of battle white clouds forming an X shape in the sky were said to have appeared. Óengus and his combined force, emboldened by this apparent divine intervention, took to the field and despite being inferior in numbers were victorious. Having interpreted the cloud phenomenon as representing the crux decussata upon which Saint Andrew was crucified, Óengus honoured his pre-battle pledge and duly appointed Saint Andrew as the Patron Saint of Scotland. The white saltire set against a celestial blue background is said to have been adopted as the design of the flag of Scotland on the basis of this legend. However, there is evidence that Andrew was venerated in Scotland before this.
Andrew's connection with Scotland may have been reinforced following the Synod of Whitby, when the Celtic Church felt that Columba had been "outranked" by Peter and that Peter's brother would make a higher-ranking patron. The 1320 Declaration of Arbroath cites Scotland's conversion to Christianity by Andrew, "the first to be an Apostle". Numerous parish churches in the Church of Scotland and congregations of other Christian churches in Scotland are named after Andrew. The national church of the Scottish people in Rome, Sant'Andrea degli Scozzesi is dedicated to Saint Andrew.
A local superstition uses the cross of Saint Andrew as a hex sign on the fireplaces in northern England and Scotland to prevent witches from flying down the chimney and entering the house to do mischief. By placing the Saint Andrew's cross on one of the fireplace posts or lintels, witches are prevented from entering through this opening. In this case, it is similar to the use of a witch ball, although the cross will actively prevent witches from entering, whereas the witch ball will passively delay or entice the witch, and perhaps entrap it.
Spain
A form of St. Andrew's cross called the Cross of Bourgogne was used as the flag of the Duchy of Burgundy, and after the Duchy was acquired by Spain, by the Spanish Crown, and later as a Spanish naval flag and finally as an army battle flag up until 1843. Today, it is still a part of various Spanish military insignia and forms part of the Coat of Arms of the king of Spain as it did with General Franco.
In Spain, Saint Andrew is the patron of several locations: San Andrés (Santa Cruz de Tenerife), San Andrés y Sauces (La Palma), Navalmoral de la Mata (Cáceres), Éibar (Guipúzcoa), Baeza (Jaén), Pobladura de Pelayo García and Pobladura de Yuso (León), Berlangas de Roa (Burgos), Ligüerzana (Palencia), Castillo de Bayuela (Toledo), Almoradí (Alicante), Estella (Navarra), Sant Andreu de Palomar, (Barcelona), Pujalt (Catalonia), Adamuz (Córdoba) and in Cameros (La Rioja).
Legacy
Andrew is the patron saint of several countries and cities including: Barbados, Romania, Russia, Scotland, Ukraine, Sarzana, Pienza and Amalfi in Italy, Esgueira in Portugal, Luqa in Malta, Parañaque in the Philippines and Patras in Greece. He was also the patron saint of Prussia and of the Order of the Golden Fleece. He is considered the founder and the first bishop of the Church of Byzantium and is consequently the patron saint of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. The Apostle Andrew is also the patron of the Russian Navy.
The flag of Scotland (and consequently the Union Flag and those of some of the former colonies of the British Empire) feature Saint Andrew's saltire cross. The saltire is also the flag of Tenerife, the former flag of Galicia and the Russian Navy Ensign. The Confederate flag also features a saltire commonly referred to as a St Andrew's cross, although its designer, William Porcher Miles, said he changed it from an upright cross to a saltire so that it would not be a religious symbol but merely a heraldic device. The Alabama flag also shows that device.
The feast of Andrew is observed on 30 November in both the Eastern and Western churches, and is the national day of Scotland. In the traditional liturgical books of the Catholic Church, the feast of Saint Andrew is the first feast day in the Proper of Saints.
Andrew the Apostle is remembered in the Church of England with a Festival on 30 November.
In Islam
The Qur’anic account of the disciples of Jesus does not include their names, numbers, or any detailed accounts of their lives. Muslim exegesis, however, more or less agrees with the New Testament list and says that the disciples included Andrew.
In the Gospel of Mary
According to the Gospel of Mary, a non-canonical text containing ideas paralleling those found in Gnosticism, Andrew along with the apostle Peter did not truly understand the teachings of Jesus. Rather, in its narrative, a woman named Mary (presumably Mary Magdelene) is superior to them with her knowledge.
See also
Order of Saint Andrew
Patron saints of places
Saltire – the X-shaped cross in heraldry and vexillology
Santo André — an industrial town in Brazil
St. Andrew's College, an all-boys independent school in Ontario, Canada, named after St. Andrew. On the driveway to the main building, there is a Saint Andrew statue
St. Andrew's Cross (disambiguation)
Saint Andrew's Day
Russian Navy
Universidad de San Andrés — Argentina, named after the saint
University of St Andrews — named after the Royal Burgh of St Andrews, which was named after the saint
St. Andrew's College
Cross of Saint Peter
Saint Andrew the Apostle, patron saint archive
St. Andrew's School Parañaque
References
Notes
Citations
Sources
Attwater, Donald and Catherine Rachel John. The Penguin Dictionary of Saints. 3rd edition. New York: Penguin Books, 1993.
External links
Andreas: The Legend of St. Andrew translated by Robert Kilburn Root, 1899, from Project Gutenberg
National Shrine to Saint Andrew in Edinburgh Scotland
Grimm's Saga No. 150 about Saint Andrew
"Saint Andrew" at the Christian Iconography website
"The Life of St. Andrew" from Caxton's translation of the Golden Legend
1st-century births
1st-century deaths
1st-century Romans
1st-century Christian martyrs
1st-century Byzantine bishops
Ancient Jewish fishers
Bishops of Byzantium
Burials at the Church of the Holy Apostles
Christian missionaries in Greece
Christian missionaries in Turkey
Christian saints from the New Testament
History of Christianity in Ukraine
People executed by crucifixion
People from Bethsaida
1st-century Jews
Saints from the Holy Land
Anglican saints
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[
"Erected around 1920, the Luss War Memorial is located on Pier Road in Luss, Argyll and Bute, Scotland. It is dedicated to the citizens of the village who lost their lives while in military service during World War I and World War II. It is a Category C listed structure.\n\nThe memorial is set inside a whinstone wall recess with steps up to a cross with Pictish sword in relief, set on octagonal base.\n\nGallery\n\nReferences \n\nCategory C listed buildings in Argyll and Bute\nCenotaphs in the United Kingdom\nBritish military memorials and cemeteries\n1920 sculptures\nStone sculptures in the United Kingdom\nOutdoor sculptures in Scotland\nMonuments and memorials in Scotland\nBuildings and structures in Luss\nWorld War I memorials in Scotland\nWorld War II memorials in Scotland\n1920 establishments in Scotland",
"Scottish war memorials are found in all communities in Scotland. They are found on most main streets and most churches in Scotland. Many commemorate the sacrifice of the First World War but there are many others to wars before and since 1914–1918.\n\nHistory of Scottish war memorials\nThe history of Scotland has often been bloody and there is a martial tradition which is strong in Scotland. Scots have fought in many battles and served in armed forces in many parts of the world. This service has been part of Scots armies; as mercenaries, and in the British Armed Forces. The service of the martial Scots are commemorated with war memorials across Scotland and around the world.\n\nScottish war memorials commemorate the sacrifices made as early as 1263 up to the recent war in Iraq and the conflict in Afghanistan\n\nThe earliest memorials record the battles fought against Viking and English invaders. Later ones recall Scottish civil wars. Sometimes these civil wars are related to religious intolerance, sometimes over the succession of royalty.\n\nMost of these early memorials have the same thing in common. They were not erected until the 19th century, sometimes hundreds of years after the actual battle had taken place. Another thing they have in common is that they do not list individual names.\n\nBy the late 19th century after several small Colonial wars the infantry and cavalry regiments of Scotland had started to erect memorials in churches and garrison towns in Scotland. These memorials would now include lists of names. Sometimes just Officers, but sometimes non-commissioned officers and enlisted men\n\nThe first recorded civic war memorial in Scotland where local men who died overseas in war and were named on a stone is in the local churchyard at Balmaclellan, Dumfries and Galloway and was erected after the Crimean War. It was not until fifty years later after the Second Boer War that other civic war memorials were erected in Scotland.\n\nBy 1914 a precedent had been set for local communities for erecting war memorials when they had lost their sons in war time. By the time the First World War had finished in 1918 nearly every community in Scotland decided to erect a memorial to their own war dead.\n\nAt the same time a proposal for a national war memorial led to the creation of the magnificent shrine at Edinburgh Castle. The Scottish National War Memorial. This memorial continues to commemorate Scots who have died in wars since 1914 and currently commemorates 206,779 men and women who have died serving in UK and Commonwealth Forces.\n\nAt the same time as the civic and national memorials were being erected factories, banks, golf clubs, boys clubs, schools, universities churches, railways, police, post offices and even a prison erected war memorials to those men and women who had gone to war.\n\nBecause of the size of military formations during the First World War there were not only regimental memorials erected but Scottish Brigade and Scottish Divisional memorials too.\n\nAfter the Second World War many communities had the sad task of adding names to their existing war memorial. Aberlady, East Lothian used the same memorial they had erected for the Boer War and used again for the First World War to list their Second World War Dead. Other communities chose to erect new memorials for the Second World War Dead rather than change the First World War Memorial.\n\nEven today communities are still erecting war memorials to men and women who died in the First and Second World Wars.\n\nRecent unveilings of Scottish war memorials include.\n The civic war memorials at Waterloo, Lanarkshire and Cowie, Stirling.\n The Air Forces Memorial at Grangemouth\n The Black Watch memorial at Balhousie Castle, Perth\n \"Buckhaven’s Secret\", Fife\n 'Bamse' Memorial to the Norwegian Navy dog at Montrose\n WW1 Nurses' Memorial at Central Library, Edinburgh, unveiled on 11 November 2015\n\nTypes of Scottish war memorials\nThere is no typical Scottish war memorial. Five of the most common types are\nCeltic cross, obelisk, cairn, mercat cross, and statue but they can also take the form of plaques or tablets of bronze, brass, marble, granite or wood; memorial gardens; fountains; rolls of honour; Crosses of Sacrifice;clock towers; lychgates; parks; halls; hospitals; bandstands; stained glass windows; altars; baptismal fonts; sporting cups and medals.\n\nScottish artists and architects including Sir Robert Lorimer, Alexander Carrick, Charles Pilkington Jackson, Thomas John Clapperton and William Birnie Rhind and others created some memorable monuments across the county.\n\nAfter the First World War there was a difference of opinion in some communities as to whether a memorial to a community's sacrifice should be a practical memorial which would benefit the living or a stone memorial to the dead. This led to some memorials being District Nurses, hospital beds, holiday cottages for war widows and orphans. Reorganisations of health care since the formation of the National Health Service has meant that the care of these memorials was taken out of local control and many of these memorials no longer exist. With the disappearance of the memorial the sacrifice is forgotten.\n\nCare of memorials\n\nOnce the memorials were erected and unveiled the committee who raised them then passed them into the care of another organisation. In the case of the civic memorials they were passed on to the local Municipal Corporation or County Council who still maintain them to this day (as Unitary Authorities) through the local community council. Often the local branch of the Royal British Legion Scotland or other local volunteers help with the maintenance and upkeep of the civic memorials. The Royal British Legion Scotland also run an annual campaign called the \"Best Kept War Memorial\".\n\nNon-civic memorials are often in the care of churches, or clubs or private companies. When these organisations leave a building, refurbish it or close then the future of the war memorials in their care is not always assured.\n\nSince the 1960s church mergers and closures have sometimes meant that memorials integral to the buildings have been lost when the building has been demolished. Sometimes a new memorial is created to replace the old one such as at St George's Church in Edinburgh. Sometimes photographs of the memorials are all that is left. Greenside Church in Edinburgh have photographs of the memorial windows of St James's which were demolished along with the building in 1975.\nThe roll of honour from St Mungo's Church is in private hands after it was left for salvage when the Lockhart Memorial Church in Edinburgh dissolved in 1984.\nOther private memorials are at risk too. A roll of honour in Livingston was recovered from a rubbish skip after the Social Club it was in was refurbished in 2008 and the memorial was thrown away.\n\nInterest in Scottish war memorials\nThere are three organisations with a national interest in Scottish war memorials.\nUK National Inventory of War Memorials is based in the Imperial War Museum in London and is recording basic information of all the UK's war memorials. Also known as the UKNIWM\nWar Memorials Trust has been set up to help local organisations with information on maintenance, conservation, listing and cleaning of war memorials. In Scotland it works with Historic Scotland in running a small grants scheme for conservation and repair of war memorials including restoring the legibility of inscriptions. (note that routine maintenance is specifically excluded)\nThe Scottish War Memorials Project has been set up to record Scotland's war memorials (see below)\n\nThe Scottish War Memorials Project\nRunning since December 2006 as a voluntary project to photograph and record all of Scotland's war memorials and make them online for free. The Scottish War Memorials Project has over 4,900 war memorials recorded to date including nearly all the c.1,400 civic memorials in the cities, towns and villages across Scotland.\n\nUsing photograph hosting websites the project is internet forum based. It has no running costs and is entirely voluntary.\n\nExamples of Scottish war memorials\nBased on the UKNIWM's approximate total of 100,000 war memorials in the whole of the UK then an assumption of a total of Scottish war memorials of up to 10,000 is not an unreasonable estimate. It would be impossible to list them all here so the following lists are based on examples already listed on Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons.\n\nPre-First World War\nBattle of Drumclog Memorial\nBattle of Culloden Memorial\nBalmaclellan Crimean War Memorial\n\nFirst World War\nThere are over 1,000 civic war memorials remembering the First World War in Scotland. There are hundreds more non-civic memorials so this list provides only a small example of the war memorials in Scotland\n\nAlloa War Memorial\nBeith War Memorial\nBlairgowrie War Memorial\nCameronians (Scottish Rifles) Memorial\nCrimond War Memorial\nCity of Dundee War Memorial\nKilmarnock War Memorial\nKilwinning War Memorial\nParish of Kildonan War Memorial\nIsle of Lewis War Memorial\nMaxwelltown War Memorial\nOban War Memorial\nScots American War Memorial\nStewarton war Memorial\nWar memorial near Brabsterdoran\nScottish National War Memorial, Edinburgh Castle. 148,270 names listed for 1914–1918\n\nSpanish Civil War\nEdinburgh Spanish Civil War Memorial\n\nSecond World War\n Scottish National War Memorial, Edinburgh Castle. 57,726 names listed for 1939–1945\n Royal Scots Fusilier World War II Memorial\n Commando Memorial, Spean Bridge\n 5th Bn Seaforth Highlanders War Memorial\n XII Submarine Flotilla War Memorial\n\nPost-Second World War to present\n Scottish National War Memorial, Edinburgh Castle. 783 names listed for wars since 1945\n\nScottish war memorials outside Scotland\nWar memorials to Scots and Scottish regiments can also be found outside Scotland\n\n 51st (Highland) Division Monument (Beaumont-Hamel)\n The Liverpool Scottish memorial stone\n\nCommonwealth War Graves Commission Memorials Commemorating Scots\nApart from the memorials listed above which are for Scots and Scottish regiments the following memorials are examples of Commonwealth War Graves Commission memorials which list Scots war dead on their panels.\n\n Menin Gate – commemorating the defenders that died in the Ypres Salient, whose graves are unknown, in Ypres, Belgium.\n Malta Memorial – dedicated to Commonwealth aircrew who fought, and lost their lives in the Mediterranean during the Second World War. Located in Valletta.\n Tower Hill Memorial – commemorating Merchant Seamen. Located in London\n Chatham Naval Memorial – One of the three main Royal Navy memorials erected after the First World War.\n La Ferté-sous-Jouarre memorial – Located in France\n\nSee also\n\n Armed Forces Memorial\n Canadian war memorials\n Military of Scotland\n Scottish National War Memorial\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n Scottish War Memorials Project – Online record of Scottish war memorials\n United Kingdom Inventory of War Memorials – Online record of UK war memorials\n The War Memorials Trust\n The Scottish National War Memorial – Online database of Post-1914 Scottish war dead\n Scottish War Graves Project – Online record of Scottish war graves\n\n \nWar monuments and memorials"
] |
[
"Andrew the Apostle",
"Scotland",
"What does he have to do with Scotland?",
"Several legends state that the relics of Andrew were brought by divine guidance from Constantinople to the place where the modern Scottish town of St Andrews stands today",
"What year did this take place?",
"I don't know.",
"Are there any memorials dedicated to him in Scotland?",
"one is among the manuscripts collected by Jean-Baptiste Colbert and willed to Louis XIV of France, now in the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris,"
] |
C_d0bf7a4fa2a545d8865d583bd9afa924_0
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Are there any churches dedicated to him?
| 4 |
Are there any churches dedicated to Andrew the Apostle?
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Andrew the Apostle
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Several legends state that the relics of Andrew were brought by divine guidance from Constantinople to the place where the modern Scottish town of St Andrews stands today (Gaelic, Cill Rimhinn). The oldest surviving manuscripts are two: one is among the manuscripts collected by Jean-Baptiste Colbert and willed to Louis XIV of France, now in the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, the other is the Harleian Mss in the British Library, London. They state that the relics of Andrew were brought by one Regulus to the Pictish king Oengus mac Fergusa (729-761). The only historical Regulus (Riagail or Rule) whose name is preserved in the tower of St Rule was an Irish monk expelled from Ireland with Saint Columba; his dates, however, are c 573 - 600. There are good reasons for supposing that the relics were originally in the collection of Acca, bishop of Hexham, who took them into Pictish country when he was driven from Hexham (c. 732), and founded a see, not, according to tradition, in Galloway, but on the site of St Andrews. According to legend, in 832 AD, Oengus II led an army of Picts and Scots into battle against the Angles, led by AEthelstan, near modern-day Athelstaneford, East Lothian. The legend states that he was heavily outnumbered and hence whilst engaged in prayer on the eve of battle, Oengus vowed that if granted victory he would appoint Saint Andrew as the Patron Saint of Scotland. On the morning of battle white clouds forming an X shape in the sky were said to have appeared. Oengus and his combined force, emboldened by this apparent divine intervention, took to the field and despite being inferior in numbers were victorious. Having interpreted the cloud phenomenon as representing the crux decussata upon which Saint Andrew was crucified, Oengus honoured his pre-battle pledge and duly appointed Saint Andrew as the Patron Saint of Scotland. The white saltire set against a celestial blue background is said to have been adopted as the design of the flag of Scotland on the basis of this legend. However, there is evidence that Andrew was venerated in Scotland before this. Andrew's connection with Scotland may have been reinforced following the Synod of Whitby, when the Celtic Church felt that Columba had been "outranked" by Peter and that Peter's brother would make a higher ranking patron. The 1320 Declaration of Arbroath cites Scotland's conversion to Christianity by Andrew, "the first to be an Apostle". Numerous parish churches in the Church of Scotland and congregations of other Christian churches in Scotland are named after Andrew. The national church of the Scottish people in Rome, Sant'Andrea degli Scozzesi is dedicated to Saint Andrew. A local superstition uses the cross of Saint Andrew as a hex sign on the fireplaces in northern England and Scotland to prevent witches from flying down the chimney and entering the house to do mischief. By placing the Saint Andrew's cross on one of the fireplace posts or lintels, witches are prevented from entering through this opening. In this case, it is similar to the use of a witch ball, although the cross will actively prevent witches from entering, and the witch ball will passively delay or entice the witch, and perhaps entrap it. CANNOTANSWER
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CANNOTANSWER
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Andrew the Apostle ( Andreas; Aramaic: ܐܢܕܪܐܘܣ), also called Saint Andrew, was an apostle of Jesus according to the New Testament. He is the brother of Saint Peter. He is referred to in the Orthodox tradition as the First-Called (, Prōtoklētos).
According to Orthodox tradition, the apostolic successor to Saint Andrew is the Patriarch of Constantinople.
Life
The name "Andrew" (Greek: manly, brave, from ἀνδρεία, Andreia, "manhood, valour"), like other Greek names, appears to have been common among the Jews and other Hellenized people of Judea. No Hebrew or Aramaic name is recorded for him.
Andrew the Apostle was born between 5 and 10 AD in Bethsaida, in Galilee. The New Testament states that Andrew was the brother of Simon Peter, and likewise a son of Jonah. "The first striking characteristic of Andrew is his name: it is not Hebrew, as might have been expected, but Greek, indicative of a certain cultural openness in his family that cannot be ignored. We are in Galilee, where the Greek language and culture are quite present."
Both he and his brother Peter were fishermen by trade, hence the tradition that Jesus called them to be his disciples by saying that he will make them "fishers of men" (Greek: , halieis anthrōpōn). At the beginning of Jesus' public life, they were said to have occupied the same house at Capernaum.
In the Gospel of Matthew and in the Gospel of Mark Simon Peter and Andrew were both called together to become disciples of Jesus and "fishers of men". These narratives record that Jesus was walking along the shore of the Sea of Galilee, observed Simon and Andrew fishing, and called them to discipleship.
In the parallel incident in the Gospel of Luke Andrew is not named, nor is reference made to Simon having a brother. In this narrative, Jesus initially used a boat, solely described as being Simon's, as a platform for preaching to the multitudes on the shore and then as a means to achieving a huge trawl of fish on a night which had hitherto proved fruitless. The narrative indicates that Simon was not the only fisherman in the boat (they signalled to their partners in the other boat … but it is not until the next chapter that Andrew is named as Simon's brother. However, it is generally understood that Andrew was fishing with Simon on the night in question. Matthew Poole, in his Annotations on the Holy Bible, stressed that 'Luke denies not that Andrew was there'.
In contrast, the Gospel of John states that Andrew was a disciple of John the Baptist, whose testimony first led him, and another unnamed disciple of John the Baptist, to follow Jesus. Andrew at once recognized Jesus as the Messiah, and hastened to introduce him to his brother. The Byzantine Church honours him with the name Protokletos, which means "the first called". Thenceforth, the two brothers were disciples of Christ. On a subsequent occasion, prior to the final call to the apostolate, they were called to a closer companionship, and then they left all things to follow Jesus.
Subsequently, in the gospels, Andrew is referred to as being present on some important occasions as one of the disciples more closely attached to Jesus. Andrew told Jesus about the boy with the loaves and fishes, and when Philip wanted to tell Jesus about certain Greeks seeking Him, he told Andrew first. Andrew was present at the Last Supper. Andrew was one of the four disciples who came to Jesus on the Mount of Olives to ask about the signs of Jesus' return at the "end of the age".
Eusebius in his Church History 3.1 quoted Origen as saying that Andrew preached in Scythia. The Chronicle of Nestor adds that he preached along the Black Sea and the Dnieper river as far as Kiev, and from there he travelled to Novgorod. Hence, he became a patron saint of Ukraine, Romania and Russia. According to Hippolytus of Rome, Andrew preached in Thrace, and his presence in Byzantium is mentioned in the apocryphal Acts of Andrew. According to tradition, he founded the see of Byzantium (later Constantinople) in AD 38, installing Stachys as bishop.
This diocese became the seat of the Patriarchate of Constantinople under Anatolius, in 451.
Andrew, along with Saint Stachys, is recognized as the patron saint of the Patriarchate. Basil of Seleucia also knew of Apostle Andrew's missions in Thrace, Scythia and Achaea.
Andrew is said to have been martyred by crucifixion at the city of Patras (Patræ) in Achaea, in AD 60. Early texts, such as the Acts of Andrew known to Gregory of Tours, describe Andrew as bound, not nailed, to a Latin cross of the kind on which Jesus is said to have been crucified; yet a tradition developed that Andrew had been crucified on a cross of the form called crux decussata (X-shaped cross, or "saltire"), now commonly known as a "Saint Andrew's Cross" — supposedly at his own request, as he deemed himself unworthy to be crucified on the same type of cross as Jesus had been. The iconography of the martyrdom of Andrew — showing him bound to an X-shaped cross — does not appear to have been standardized until the later Middle Ages.
The Acts of Andrew
The apocryphal Acts of Andrew, mentioned by Eusebius, Epiphanius and others, is among a disparate group of Acts of the Apostles that were traditionally attributed to Leucius Charinus. "These Acts (...) belong to the third century: ca. A.D. 260," in the opinion of M. R. James, who edited them in 1924. The Acts, as well as a Gospel of St Andrew, appear among rejected books in the Decretum Gelasianum connected with the name of Pope Gelasius I. The Acts of Andrew was edited and published by Constantin von Tischendorf in the Acta Apostolorum apocrypha (Leipzig, 1821), putting it for the first time into the hands of a critical professional readership. Another version of the Andrew legend is found in the Passio Andreae, published by Max Bonnet (Supplementum II Codicis apocryphi, Paris, 1895).
Relics
Relics alleged to be those of the Apostle Andrew are kept at the Basilica of Saint Andrew in Patras, Greece; in Amalfi Cathedral (the Duomo di Sant'Andrea), Amalfi and in Sarzana Cathedral in Sarzana, Italy; St Mary's Roman Catholic Cathedral, Edinburgh, Scotland; and the Church of St Andrew and St Albert, Warsaw, Poland. There are also numerous smaller reliquaries throughout the world.
Andrew's remains were preserved at Patras. According to one legend, Saint Regulus (Rule), a monk at Patras, was advised in a dream to hide some of the bones. Shortly thereafter, most of the relics were transferred from Patras to Constantinople by order of the Roman emperor Constantius II around 357 and deposited in the Church of the Holy Apostles.
Regulus was said to have had a second dream in which an angel advised him to take the hidden relics "to the ends of the earth" for protection. Wherever he was shipwrecked, he was to build a shrine for them. St. Rule set sail, taking with him a kneecap, an upper arm bone, three fingers and a tooth. He sailed west, towards the edge of the known world, and was shipwrecked on the coast of Fife, Scotland. However, the relics were probably brought to Britain in 597 as part of the Augustine Mission, and then in 732 to Fife, by Bishop Acca of Hexham, a well-known collector of religious relics.
The skull of Saint Andrew, which had been taken to Constantinople, was returned to Patras by Emperor Basil I, who ruled from 867 to 886.
In 1208, following the sack of Constantinople, those relics of Saint Andrew and Saint Peter which remained in the imperial city were taken to Amalfi, Italy, by Cardinal Peter of Capua, a native of Amalfi. A cathedral (Duomo), was built, dedicated to Saint Andrew (as is the town itself), to house a tomb in its crypt where it is maintained that most of the relics of the apostle, including an occipital bone, remain.
Thomas Palaeologus was the youngest surviving son of Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaiologos. Thomas ruled the province of Morea, the medieval name for the Peloponnese. In 1461, when the Ottomans crossed the Strait of Corinth, Palaeologus fled Patras for exile in Italy, bringing with him what was purported to be the skull of Saint Andrew. He gave the head to Pope Pius II, who had it enshrined in one of the four central piers of St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican and then in Pienza, Italy.
In September 1964, Pope Paul VI, as a gesture of goodwill toward the Greek Orthodox Church, ordered that all of the relics of Saint Andrew that were in Vatican City be sent back to Patras. Cardinal Augustin Bea along with many other cardinals presented the skull to Bishop Constantine of Patras on 24 September 1964. The cross of Saint Andrew was taken from Greece during the Crusades by the Duke of Burgundy. It was kept in the church of St. Victor in Marseilles until it returned to Patras on 19 January 1980. The cross of the apostle was presented to the Bishop of Patras Nicodemus by a Catholic delegation led by Cardinal Roger Etchegaray. All the relics, which consist of the small finger, the skull (part of the top of the cranium of Saint Andrew), and the cross on which he was martyred, have been kept in the Church of St. Andrew at Patras in a special shrine and are revered in a special ceremony every 30 November, his feast day.
In 2006, the Catholic Church, again through Cardinal Etchegaray, gave the Greek Orthodox Church another relic of Saint Andrew.
Traditions and legends
Georgia
The church tradition of Georgia regards Saint Andrew as the first preacher of Christianity in the territory of Georgia and as the founder of the Georgian church. This tradition was apparently derived from the Byzantine sources, particularly Nicetas of Paphlagonia (died c. 890) who asserts that "Andrew preached to the Iberians, Sauromatians, Taurians, and Scythians and to every region and city, on the Black Sea, both north and south." The version was adopted by the 10th–11th-century Georgian ecclesiastics and, refurbished with more details, was inserted in the Georgian Chronicles. The story of Saint Andrew's mission in the Georgian lands endowed the Georgian church with apostolic origin and served as a defence argument to George the Hagiorite against the encroachments from the Antiochian church authorities on autocephaly of the Georgian church. Another Georgian monk, Ephraim the Minor, produced a thesis, reconciling Saint Andrew's story with an earlier evidence of the 4th-century conversion of Georgians by Saint Nino and explaining the necessity of the "second Christening" by Nino. The thesis was made canonical by the Georgian church council in 1103. The Georgian Orthodox Church marks two feast days in honour of Saint Andrew, on 12 May and 13 December. The former date, dedicated to Saint Andrew's arrival in Georgia, is a public holiday in Georgia.
Cyprus
Cypriot tradition holds that a ship which was transporting Saint Andrew went off course and ran aground. Upon coming ashore, Andrew struck the rocks with his staff at which point a spring of healing waters gushed forth. Using it, the sight of the ship's captain, who had been blind in one eye, was restored. Thereafter, the site became a place of pilgrimage and a fortified monastery stood there in the 12th century, from which Isaac Comnenus negotiated his surrender to Richard the Lionheart. In the 15th century, a small chapel was built close to the shore. The main monastery of the current church dates to the 18th century.
Other pilgrimages are more recent. The story is told that in 1895, the son of a Maria Georgiou was kidnapped. Seventeen years later, Saint Andrew appeared to her in a dream, telling her to pray for her son's return at the monastery. Living in Anatolia, she embarked on the crossing to Cyprus on a very crowded boat. As she was telling her story during the journey, one of the passengers, a young Dervish priest, became more and more interested. Asking if her son had any distinguishing marks, he stripped off his clothes to reveal the same marks and mother and son were thus reunited.
Apostolos Andreas Monastery () is a monastery dedicated to Saint Andrew situated just south of Cape Apostolos Andreas, which is the north-easternmost point of the island of Cyprus, in Rizokarpaso in the Karpass Peninsula. The monastery is an important site to the Cypriot Orthodox Church. It was once known as 'the Lourdes of Cyprus', served not by an organized community of monks but by a changing group of volunteer priests and laymen. Both Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities consider the monastery a holy place. As such, it is visited by many people for votive prayers.
Malta
The first reference regards the small chapel at Luqa dedicated to Andrew dates to 1497. This chapel contained three altars, one of them dedicated to Andrew. The painting showing Mary with Saints Andrew and Paul was painted by the Maltese artist Filippo Dingli. At one time, many fishermen lived in the village of Luqa, and this may be the main reason for choosing Andrew as patron saint. The statue of Andrew was sculpted in wood by Giuseppe Scolaro in 1779. This statue underwent several restoration works including that of 1913 performed by the Maltese artist Abraham Gatt. The Martyrdom of Saint Andrew on the main altar of the church was painted by Mattia Preti in 1687.
Romania
The official stance of the Romanian Orthodox Church is that Andrew preached the Gospel in the province of Dobruja (Scythia Minor) to the Daco-Romans, whom he is said to have converted to Christianity. Such a tradition was however not widely acknowledged until the 20th century.
According to Hippolyte of Antioch, (died c. 250 C.E.) in his On Apostles, Origen in the third book of his Commentaries on the Genesis (254 C.E.), Eusebius of Caesarea in his Church History (340 C.E.), and other sources, such as Usaard's Martyrdom written between 845 and 865, and Jacobus de Voragine's Golden Legend (c. 1260), Saint Andrew preached in Scythia, a possible reference to Scythia Minor, whose territory was integrated into Romania in the late 19th century.
According to some modern Romanian scholars, the idea of early Christianisation is unsustainable. They take the idea to be a part of an ideology of protochronism which purports that the Orthodox Church has been a companion and defender of the Romanian people for its entire history, which was then used for propaganda purposes during the communist era, although this is disputed.
East Slavs
Tradition regarding the early Christian history of Ukraine holds that the apostle Andrew preached on the southern borders of modern-day Ukraine, along the Black Sea. Legend has it that he travelled up the Dnieper River and reached the future location of Kyiv, where he erected a cross on the site where the Saint Andrew's Church of Kyiv currently stands, and where he prophesied the foundation of a great Christian city. Because of this connection to Kyiv, Saint Andrew is considered to be the patron saint of the two East Slavic nations descended from the Kievan Rus: Ukraine and Russia, the latter country using the Saint Andrew's Cross on its naval ensign. The third East Slavic nation, Belarus, however, reveres Euphrosyne of Polotsk, a local saint, as its patron instead.
Scotland
Several legends state that the relics of Andrew were brought by divine guidance from Constantinople to the place where the modern Scottish town of St Andrews stands today (Gaelic, Cill Rìmhinn). The oldest surviving manuscripts are two: one is among the manuscripts collected by Jean-Baptiste Colbert and willed to Louis XIV of France, now in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris; the other is the Harleian Mss in the British Library, London. They state that the relics of Andrew were brought by one Regulus to the Pictish king Óengus mac Fergusa (729–761). The only historical Regulus (Riagail or Rule) whose name is preserved in the tower of St Rule was an Irish monk expelled from Ireland with Saint Columba; his dates, however, are c. 573 – 600. There are good reasons for supposing that the relics were originally in the collection of Acca, bishop of Hexham, who took them into Pictish country when he was driven from Hexham (c. 732), and founded a see, not, according to tradition, in Galloway, but on the site of St Andrews.
According to legendary accounts given in 16th-century historiography, Óengus II in AD 832 led an army of Picts and Scots into battle against the Angles, led by Æthelstan, near modern-day Athelstaneford, East Lothian. The legend states that he was heavily outnumbered and hence whilst engaged in prayer on the eve of battle, Óengus vowed that if granted victory he would appoint Saint Andrew as the Patron Saint of Scotland. On the morning of battle white clouds forming an X shape in the sky were said to have appeared. Óengus and his combined force, emboldened by this apparent divine intervention, took to the field and despite being inferior in numbers were victorious. Having interpreted the cloud phenomenon as representing the crux decussata upon which Saint Andrew was crucified, Óengus honoured his pre-battle pledge and duly appointed Saint Andrew as the Patron Saint of Scotland. The white saltire set against a celestial blue background is said to have been adopted as the design of the flag of Scotland on the basis of this legend. However, there is evidence that Andrew was venerated in Scotland before this.
Andrew's connection with Scotland may have been reinforced following the Synod of Whitby, when the Celtic Church felt that Columba had been "outranked" by Peter and that Peter's brother would make a higher-ranking patron. The 1320 Declaration of Arbroath cites Scotland's conversion to Christianity by Andrew, "the first to be an Apostle". Numerous parish churches in the Church of Scotland and congregations of other Christian churches in Scotland are named after Andrew. The national church of the Scottish people in Rome, Sant'Andrea degli Scozzesi is dedicated to Saint Andrew.
A local superstition uses the cross of Saint Andrew as a hex sign on the fireplaces in northern England and Scotland to prevent witches from flying down the chimney and entering the house to do mischief. By placing the Saint Andrew's cross on one of the fireplace posts or lintels, witches are prevented from entering through this opening. In this case, it is similar to the use of a witch ball, although the cross will actively prevent witches from entering, whereas the witch ball will passively delay or entice the witch, and perhaps entrap it.
Spain
A form of St. Andrew's cross called the Cross of Bourgogne was used as the flag of the Duchy of Burgundy, and after the Duchy was acquired by Spain, by the Spanish Crown, and later as a Spanish naval flag and finally as an army battle flag up until 1843. Today, it is still a part of various Spanish military insignia and forms part of the Coat of Arms of the king of Spain as it did with General Franco.
In Spain, Saint Andrew is the patron of several locations: San Andrés (Santa Cruz de Tenerife), San Andrés y Sauces (La Palma), Navalmoral de la Mata (Cáceres), Éibar (Guipúzcoa), Baeza (Jaén), Pobladura de Pelayo García and Pobladura de Yuso (León), Berlangas de Roa (Burgos), Ligüerzana (Palencia), Castillo de Bayuela (Toledo), Almoradí (Alicante), Estella (Navarra), Sant Andreu de Palomar, (Barcelona), Pujalt (Catalonia), Adamuz (Córdoba) and in Cameros (La Rioja).
Legacy
Andrew is the patron saint of several countries and cities including: Barbados, Romania, Russia, Scotland, Ukraine, Sarzana, Pienza and Amalfi in Italy, Esgueira in Portugal, Luqa in Malta, Parañaque in the Philippines and Patras in Greece. He was also the patron saint of Prussia and of the Order of the Golden Fleece. He is considered the founder and the first bishop of the Church of Byzantium and is consequently the patron saint of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. The Apostle Andrew is also the patron of the Russian Navy.
The flag of Scotland (and consequently the Union Flag and those of some of the former colonies of the British Empire) feature Saint Andrew's saltire cross. The saltire is also the flag of Tenerife, the former flag of Galicia and the Russian Navy Ensign. The Confederate flag also features a saltire commonly referred to as a St Andrew's cross, although its designer, William Porcher Miles, said he changed it from an upright cross to a saltire so that it would not be a religious symbol but merely a heraldic device. The Alabama flag also shows that device.
The feast of Andrew is observed on 30 November in both the Eastern and Western churches, and is the national day of Scotland. In the traditional liturgical books of the Catholic Church, the feast of Saint Andrew is the first feast day in the Proper of Saints.
Andrew the Apostle is remembered in the Church of England with a Festival on 30 November.
In Islam
The Qur’anic account of the disciples of Jesus does not include their names, numbers, or any detailed accounts of their lives. Muslim exegesis, however, more or less agrees with the New Testament list and says that the disciples included Andrew.
In the Gospel of Mary
According to the Gospel of Mary, a non-canonical text containing ideas paralleling those found in Gnosticism, Andrew along with the apostle Peter did not truly understand the teachings of Jesus. Rather, in its narrative, a woman named Mary (presumably Mary Magdelene) is superior to them with her knowledge.
See also
Order of Saint Andrew
Patron saints of places
Saltire – the X-shaped cross in heraldry and vexillology
Santo André — an industrial town in Brazil
St. Andrew's College, an all-boys independent school in Ontario, Canada, named after St. Andrew. On the driveway to the main building, there is a Saint Andrew statue
St. Andrew's Cross (disambiguation)
Saint Andrew's Day
Russian Navy
Universidad de San Andrés — Argentina, named after the saint
University of St Andrews — named after the Royal Burgh of St Andrews, which was named after the saint
St. Andrew's College
Cross of Saint Peter
Saint Andrew the Apostle, patron saint archive
St. Andrew's School Parañaque
References
Notes
Citations
Sources
Attwater, Donald and Catherine Rachel John. The Penguin Dictionary of Saints. 3rd edition. New York: Penguin Books, 1993.
External links
Andreas: The Legend of St. Andrew translated by Robert Kilburn Root, 1899, from Project Gutenberg
National Shrine to Saint Andrew in Edinburgh Scotland
Grimm's Saga No. 150 about Saint Andrew
"Saint Andrew" at the Christian Iconography website
"The Life of St. Andrew" from Caxton's translation of the Golden Legend
1st-century births
1st-century deaths
1st-century Romans
1st-century Christian martyrs
1st-century Byzantine bishops
Ancient Jewish fishers
Bishops of Byzantium
Burials at the Church of the Holy Apostles
Christian missionaries in Greece
Christian missionaries in Turkey
Christian saints from the New Testament
History of Christianity in Ukraine
People executed by crucifixion
People from Bethsaida
1st-century Jews
Saints from the Holy Land
Anglican saints
| false |
[
"The vast majority of the 16,500 churches in the Church of England are dedicated to one or more people. Most are dedicated to a single 'patron saint', such as Saint Peter or The Virgin Mary, or one of the persons of God, such as Holy Trinity, Christ Church, or The Good Shepherd. Others commemorate Christian events such as the Assumption of Mary or Ascension of Jesus.\n\nHistory\n\nAll churches are dedicated to God, but certainly by the fourth century it was common practice to dedicate a Christian place of worship to one or more patron saints. An early example of this was in 386 when Saint Ambrose dedicated Milan Cathedral to Gervasius and Protasius whose graves he found nearby. Once the Church was established in England it became practice to dedicate a new church's patron saint during the act of consecration by the diocesan bishop, and in fact mass could not be held in a building until the consecration act had taken place. There is much evidence of the dedication of churches prior to 800, with most being dedicated to Saint Peter or to Saint Mary.\n\nDuring consecration the building would usually be named in honour of a \"holy martyr\", but sometimes instead a \"confessor\", \"matron\", or \"virgin\", but nonetheless many churches remained undedicated up until the thirteenth century. In 1229 the Bishop of Worcester William of Blois mandated that all churches in his diocese display the date of dedication and name of patron saint alongside the altar, and many medieval churches would also have a painted image of their patron nearby. Churches would also celebrate the feast day of their patron or patrons in what is now known as the 'patronal festival', with local parishioners taking a holiday or naming children after their patron.\n\nThe Protestant Reformation of the 16th century swept away centuries of church tradition; the whitewashing of sacred images led to a backlash against saints associated with the church. Whilst not prohibiting them, the Book of Common Prayer contained no text for a dedication service, and with new church builds becoming fewer the practice became less well known. By the 18th century many churches had even forgotten their dedication entirely, so that when the first books were published listing church dedications in the early 18th century (e.g. Browne Willis) many of them had been lost; in a modern analysis of his results on the churches of Devon, around a third of the churches were listed as having unknown dedication, and a further 30% listed dedications that were incorrect, or at the very least differed from their medieval dedication. Worse still, having appeared in print, many took the dedications to be authoritative and some were thus subsequently adopted by the parish as the authentic dedication.\n\nIt was the Victorian era, the first great English church-building era for centuries, that finally revived the interest in patron saints. By this stage many had rediscovered their original dedication, whereas others changed the dedication to a new patron saint for any number of reasons. Others gave their dedication a more prosaic twist, giving rise to the many churches now known as \"St Michael and All Angels\", \"All Hallows\", or \"The Blessed Virgin Mary\". By the 20th century, the dedication's continued usage was once again assured, with common usage referring to \"St Peter's\" as opposed to \"Newton Parish Church\". In many cases these are names that have been used at that site for well over a thousand years, and in others they are simply 18th century mistakes or creations of the Victorian age.\n\nSelection of Patron Saint\n\nThere was no single set of rules that governed the choice of patron saint for a church, chapel or religious foundation, but analysis of existing and historical dedications shows a number of patterns that demonstrate how patrons were often chosen. The most popular saints in terms of numbers of dedications demonstrate the influence of Rome on the history of English Christianity, as well as being major characters in Biblical studies, with the most popular being St Mary, St Peter, St Michael, St Andrew, and St Paul.\n\nOne of the clearest reasons for the choice of many dedications was that the church was founded on or near the site of a saint's activity. A large number of these give rise to the dedications of the churches of Cornwall, but others where a settlement built up around a saint's oratory or residence include Saint Culbone at Culbone in Devon, Saint Beza at St Bees in Cumberland, and Saint Everildis at Everingham in Yorkshire. To these we can add churches founded in existing towns where a saint worked, such as Saint Cuthman at Steyning, Sussex, or Saint Congar at Badgeworth, Somerset, or those where the saint's remains were buried, such as Saint Urith at Chittlehampton, Devon, or Saint Ethelbert at Marden, Herefordshire. Other dedications commemorate a site's founder, for example Saint Etheldreda at Ely Cathedral or Saint Cuthberga at Wimborne Minster, and the collection of relics of foreign saints seems to have inspired the dedications to Saint Firmin at North Crawley, Buckinghamshire, and Saint Sebastian at Great Gonerby, Lincolnshire. One particularly interesting pair of dedications are the churches of Saint Olave at either end of London Bridge, whose destruction he initiated to prevent the advance of invading armies.\n\nOther saints became known across particular geographical areas, and their church dedications reflect that. Saint Kentigern, who reputedly originated in Cumberland has ten churches dedicated to him – nine in Cumberland and one in neighbouring Northumberland. Similarly the many churches dedicated to Saint Chad are clustered across Mercia in the former diocese of Lichfield which he was instrumental in founding.\n\nThe patronage of particular professions by saints has also influenced choices. For example, most English coastal towns have a church dedicated to Saint Nicholas, patron saint of sailors and fisherman, and churches dedicated to Saint Giles, patron saint of beggars and cripples, are often found near the medieval gates of fortified towns. In a similar fashion, the choice of Saint Catherine was favoured by many institutions as she is also the patron saint of educators and philosophers.\n\nA number of churches seem to have selected their patron according to the feast day on which the church was dedicated. Though these are often hard to discern, they include several churches dedicated to the Ascension or the Assumption.\n\nMost common dedications\n\nThe table lists the most common dedications in the Church of England. Note that churches with more than one patron saint are counted towards the totals of both.\n\nAmong another Biblical saints the following have dedications: St Philip (92), St Jude (37), St Gabriel (29), St James the Less (24), Holy Spirit (22), St Simon (19), Holy Innocents (18) and St Matthias (16).\n\nA number of churches are dedicated to Jesus by other names: as well as the 392 Christ Churches listed above, there are 80 St Saviours, 69 Emmanuels, 62 Good Shepherds, 18 Christ the Kings, and 12 Saviours.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nChurch of England saint dedications - searchable database of English dedications\n\nChurch of England",
"Drožanje () is a settlement just north of Sevnica in east-central Slovenia. The area is part of the historical region of Styria. The Municipality of Sevnica is now included in the Lower Sava Statistical Region.\n\nChurches\nThere are two churches in the settlement. One is a pilgrimage church dedicated to Saint Roch dating to the early 17th century. The second is dedicated to Saint Martin and has a Romanesque nave that was extended in 1737. Both belong to the Parish of Sevnica.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nDrožanje at Geopedia\n\nPopulated places in the Municipality of Sevnica"
] |
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