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[
"Red Grange",
"Legacy",
"What was Grange's legacy like?",
"In 2008, Grange was also ranked #1 on ESPN's Top 25 Players In College Football History list.",
"What happened as a result?",
"In honor of his achievements at the University of Illinois, the school erected a 12-ft statue of Grange",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"In 1931, Grange visited Abington Senior High School in Abington, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia."
] |
C_7160a956e0804d38893e7c10d1f224e9_0
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What did he do while there?
| 4 |
What did Red Grange do while at Abington Senior High School?
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Red Grange
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To commemorate college football's 100th anniversary in 1969, the Football Writers Association of America chose an all-time All-America team. Grange was the only unanimous choice. Then in 1999, he was ranked number 80 on The Sporting News list of the 100 Greatest Football Players. In 2008, Grange was also ranked #1 on ESPN's Top 25 Players In College Football History list. In honor of his achievements at the University of Illinois, the school erected a 12-ft statue of Grange at the start of the 2009 football season. In 2011, Grange was announced as number one on the "Big Ten Icons" series presented by the Big Ten Network. In 1931, Grange visited Abington Senior High School in Abington, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia. Shortly thereafter, the school adopted his nickname for the mascot in his honor, the Galloping Ghost. Also, Wheaton Warrenville South High School's football field is named in his honor and the team is referred to as the Wheaton Warrenville South Red Grange Tigers. Annually, the Wheaton Warrenville South Boys Track and Field team hosts the Red Grange Invitational in honor of Grange's achievements in track and field. On January 15, 1978, at Super Bowl XII, Grange became the first person other than the game referee to toss the coin at a Super Bowl. Every December, a junior college bowl game is held in his honor known as the Red Grange bowl, in his home state of Illinois. In 2017, Mesabi Range College was defeated by the College of Dupage in the 2nd edition of this bowl. CANNOTANSWER
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Shortly thereafter, the school adopted his nickname for the mascot in his honor, the Galloping Ghost.
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Harold Edward "Red" Grange (June 13, 1903 – January 28, 1991), nicknamed "The Galloping Ghost" and "The Wheaton Iceman", was an American football halfback for the University of Illinois, the Chicago Bears, and the short-lived New York Yankees. His signing with the Bears helped legitimize the National Football League (NFL).
In college, Grange was a three-time consensus All-American and led his team to a national championship in 1923. He was the only consensus All-American running back in 1924 who was not a member of the Four Horsemen of Notre Dame. The same year, Grange became the first recipient of the Chicago Tribune Silver Football award as the Big Ten Conference's most valuable player. In 2008, Grange was named the best college football player of all time by ESPN, and in 2011, he was named the Greatest Big Ten Icon by the Big Ten Network.
Shortly after his final college game in 1925, Grange joined the Bears and the NFL, embarking on a barnstorming tour to raise the league's attention across the country. When his rookie contract expired, he and agent C. C. Pyle formed the American Football League in 1926, with Grange playing for the Yankees. The league lasted just one year before shutting down and the Yankees were assimilated into the NFL. Grange suffered a serious knee injury in 1927 that prevented him from playing the following season, and he returned to the Bears in 1929. He remained with the team until he ended his playing career in 1934, from which he became a backfield coach for the Bears for three seasons.
He is a charter member of both the College and Pro Football Halls of Fame.
Early life
Red Grange was born on June 13, 1903, in Forksville, Pennsylvania, a village of about 200 people among lumber camps. His father Lyle was the foreman of three lumber camps. His mother died when he was just five years old. For a number of years, the Grange family lived with relatives until they could finally afford a home of their own in Wheaton, Illinois. In Wheaton, Lyle became the chief of police.
In four years at Wheaton High School, Grange earned 16 varsity letters in football, baseball, basketball, and track; he scored 75 touchdowns and 532 points for the football team. As a high school junior, Grange scored 36 touchdowns and led Wheaton High School to an undefeated season. In his senior year, his team won every game but one in which they lost 39–0 to Scott High School in Toledo, Ohio. Knocked out in this game, Grange remained unconscious for two days, having difficulty speaking when he awoke. Grange was also an all-state track and field runner. In 1920, he was a state champion in the high jump and placed third and fourth in the 100-yard dash and the 220-yard dash, respectively. In 1921, he won the state title in both the long jump and the 100-yard dash, and in 1922, he placed third in the 100-yard dash and won the 220-yard dash. In a 1974 interview with American Heritage Grange stated that he ran the 100-yard dash in 9.8 seconds [at the time this was just one-fifth of a second off the world (and American) records].
To help the family earn money, he took a part-time job as an ice toter for $37.50 per week, a job which helped him to build his core strength and from which he got the nicknames "Ice Man" and "the Wheaton Ice Man."
University of Illinois
After graduation, Grange enrolled at the University of Illinois, where he joined the Zeta Psi fraternity. At first he had planned to compete only in basketball and track, but changed his mind once he arrived and joined coach Bob Zuppke's Fighting Illini football team. Grange was the roommate of college basketball player and future college basketball coach John Mauer. Grange also modeled for local men's clothing store Jos. Kuhn and Co. as a floor model, common for Illini athletes at the time, and was an amateur boxer.
Grange played for the team from 1923 to 1925. In his first collegiate football game, he scored three touchdowns against Nebraska. In seven games as a sophomore, he ran for 723 yards and scored 12 touchdowns, and led Illinois to an undefeated season and the Helms Athletic Foundation national championship. His younger brother Garland also played football for the school.
He drew national attention for his performance in the October 18, 1924, game against Michigan, in the grand opening game of the new Memorial Stadium, built as a memorial to Illini students and alumni who had served in World War I. The Michigan Wolverines entered the game as favorites, having won a national title the previous year. Grange returned the opening kickoff for a 95-yard touchdown and scored three more touchdowns on runs of 67, 56, and 44 yards in the first 12 minutes, the last three in less than seven minutes. On his next carry, he ran 56 yards for yet another touchdown. In the second half, Grange scored a fifth touchdown on an 11-yard run and also threw a touchdown pass. On defense, he intercepted two passes. Michigan coach Fielding Yost said, "All Grange can do is run," to which Zuppke, referring to a famed opera star of the age, responded, "And all Galli-Curci can do is sing."
The game inspired Grantland Rice to write this poetic description:
A streak of fire, a breath of flame
Eluding all who reach and clutch;
A gray ghost thrown into the game
That rival hands may never touch;
A rubber bounding, blasting soul
Whose destination is the goal — Red Grange of Illinois!
Chicago sportswriter Warren Brown nicknamed Grange "The Galloping Ghost". When asked in a 1974 interview, "Was it Grantland Rice who dubbed you the Galloping Ghost?" Grange replied, "No, it was Warren Brown, who was a great writer with the Chicago American in those days."
1925 season
Before the 1925 season, Grange was approached by Champaign movie theater owner C. C. Pyle, who asked, "How would you like to make one hundred thousand dollars, maybe even a million?" After Grange agreed, he was told to stay in contact but remain silent on their meeting. The following day, Pyle contacted Chicago Bears owners George Halas and Edward Sternaman to outline a professional contract for Grange, organizing a barnstorming tour that spanned 19 games and 67 days, including games in Florida. As part of their agreement, the Bears received 50 percent of the ticket gate, while Pyle and Grange got the other half.
Considering Grange's popularity, rumors began surrounding his future after completing his senior year, including professional football and acting. A petition was also created to convince him to run for the Republican Party's at-large nomination for the 70th United States Congress; although he was only 22 years old at the time, supporters argued he would be within six months of the minimum age of 25 when the Congress opened in December 1927. Despite the speculation, Grange and those connected with him tried to dodge any inquiries that might affect his college athlete eligibility; when approached about a career in pro football, he denied it. He also turned down a potential college coaching career owing to low pay.
Featuring a roster of mostly sophomores and backups, the Illini opened the season 1–3, including losing 14–0 in the season opener to Nebraska for their first loss at Memorial Stadium. This was followed by a 16–13 win over Butler and two straight losses to Iowa and Michigan; although Grange was contained against Nebraska and Michigan, he scored two touchdowns against Butler and on the opening kickoff against Iowa. During the Michigan game, Zuppke moved Grange to quarterback, but was a "marked man" in the defeat.
In the Illini's next game against the University of Pennsylvania, they faced a Quaker team considered one of the best in the eastern United States. In front of 60,000 fans, Grange recorded a career-high 237 yards through deep mud and scored three touchdowns; Penn struggled to keep up, prompting some Illinois lineman to call "Illinois rules the East!" prior to each play. On one play, Grange debuted the flea flicker, a trick play designed by Zuppke in which fullback Earl Britton received the snap from a fake field goal formation, which he threw to right end Chuck Kassel, who lateraled back to Grange and ran for the score. As Illinois won 24–2, Laurence Stallings, a famed war correspondent for the New York World, said, "This story's too big for me. I can't write it."
Columnist Damon Runyon wrote in his game recap, "This man Red Grange of Illinois is three or four men, and a horse rolled into one for football purposes. He is Jack Dempsey, Babe Ruth, Al Jolson, Paavo Nurmi and Man o'War. Put them all together. They spell Grange." When the team returned the next Monday, a contingent of 20,000 that included students and the mayors of Urbana and Champaign greeted them; when Grange tried to dodge the crowd, he was spotted and carried to his fraternity house. After the game, his number 77 was retired by the University of Illinois.
Against the Chicago Maroons, Grange recorded –8 total rushing yards and 64 all-purpose yards in abysmal conditions. The following week against Wabash, he only appeared in the fourth quarter to call signals and did not record stats, as the backups played much of the game.
Grange's final college game came against Ohio State in Columbus. Before the game, the Champaign News-Gazette conducted an interview with Grange and confronted him about signing a professional contract, which he firmly denied before leaving. In Columbus, Grange restricted himself to his hotel room to avoid the media, including having a teammate impersonate him for a pre-game parade. NFL President Joseph Carr, who had owned the local NFL team Columbus Panhandles, considered attending the game before he was hospitalized with appendicitis. In front of 85,000 fans, Grange recorded 113 rushing yards on 21 carries and 42 passing yards on nine throws as Illinois won 14–9.
In his 20-game college career, Grange ran for 3,362 yards, caught 14 passes for 253 yards, and completed 40 of 82 passes for 575 yards. Of his 31 touchdowns, 16 were from at least 20 yards, with nine from more than 50 yards. He scored at least one touchdown in every game he played but the Nebraska game. He earned All-America recognition three consecutive years and appeared on the cover of Time on October 5, 1925.
Statistics
In 2002, the NCAA published "NCAA Football's Finest," researched and compiled by the NCAA Statistics Service. For Grange they published the following statistics:
Professional career
After the 1925 Ohio State game, Grange formally announced his intention to sign with the Bears, but other NFL teams also expressed interest in signing him. The Rochester Jeffersons made a last-ditch effort to sign him at a salary of $5,000 per game, but were unable to do so, a key factor in the team's demise. The New York Giants also reportedly offered $40,000 to him, a claim denied by team executive Harry March while owner Tim Mara noted the NFL did not allow college players to sign with teams and also had limits on how much money a team could offer. Still, Mara visited Chicago the same day that Grange signed with the Bears and secured a game against them in December.
Grange's decision was vilified by those in college football; at the time, professional football was viewed as a commercialized, weaker brand of its college counterpart. Head coaches Amos Alonzo Stagg and Yost of the Universities of Chicago and Michigan were noted opponents, as were Illinois athletic director George Huff and Zuppke. Yost once commented, "I'd be glad to see Grange do anything else except play professional football." During their return to their hotel from the Ohio State game, Zuppke repeatedly ordered their taxi driver to take various routes to prolong the ride and allow him to convince Grange to reconsider his decision. In response, Grange questioned why he should not be allowed to be paid for playing football if Zuppke was receiving pay as a coach. The two would not meet again until an Illini team banquet weeks later; during his speech, Zuppke openly criticized Grange, prompting an incensed Grange to leave. In January 1926, Herbert Reed of The Outlook wrote an article titled "De-Granging Football" that used Grange's surname as a verb: to "grange" a game means to exploit it.
On November 22, he formally hired Pyle as his agent and signed with the Bears. The contract earned him a salary and share of gate receipts that amounted to $100,000, during an era when typical league salaries were less than $100/game. Prior to joining his new teammates, he attended the Bears' game against the Green Bay Packers at Cubs Park, a game they won 21–0. Former Yale player Tim Callahan also announced he had secured Grange for a December Florida league he had organized.
Grange is the last player to play both college football and in the NFL in the same season. In 1926, the NFL passed the "Red Grange Rule" to forbid further players from doing the same, along with requiring NFL hopefuls' graduating classes to have left college, though both clauses would be tested in various instances. In 1930, the Bears signed Notre Dame fullback Joe Savoldi although he had withdrawn from school and been kicked off the team, a violation of the Grange Rule's graduating class prerequisite. The Bears argued that since Savoldi had been expelled, he was technically no longer a member of his Class of 1931; the team would be fined $1,000 for each game Savoldi played in. The NFL also maintained the rule prohibiting players from appearing in college and NFL games in the same season when TCU running back Kenneth Davis attempted to join the league after being suspended one game into his senior year in 1986.
The barnstorming tour
December tour
Grange made his NFL debut on November 26, Thanksgiving Day, against the Chicago Cardinals. With only three days of practice in the Bears' T formation (he had played in the single wing offense in college), he recorded 92 rushing yards and an interception in the scoreless tie. A crowd of 40,000 attended the game. In the next game against the Columbus Tigers, he threw a touchdown pass and recorded 171 yards as the Bears won 14–7. Shortly after, Britton signed with the Bears, reuniting him with Grange.
In December, the Bears' schedule grew with eight games between December 2 and 13, including three against local all-star teams. The first game, against the Donnelly All-Stars at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis, saw Grange score four touchdowns in a 39–6 blowout. On December 5, he scored two touchdowns including the game-winner against the Frankford Yellow Jackets. The next day, between 65,000 and 73,000 people showed up at the Polo Grounds to watch Grange, helping save the Giants' franchise from financial debt. Grange scored a touchdown on a 35-yard interception return in the Bears' 19–7 victory. Offensively, he ran for 53 yards on 11 carries, caught a 23-yard pass, and completed two of three passes for 32 yards. Before their next game against a Washington, D.C. all-star team, Pyle and Grange elected to remain in New York to promote themselves, receiving various endorsements.
In Washington, the Bears visited President Calvin Coolidge; when he was introduced to the team and shook hands with Grange, Coolidge responded, "Glad to meet you. I always did like animal acts." Although the Bears defeated Washington 19–0, Grange recorded only 16 rushing yards, no receiving and return yards, failed to complete a pass attempt (including one interception), and missed a field goal.
Despite the victories, the grueling schedule led to a rise in injuries. Grange had been hit in the left arm during the Giants game, causing it to swell by the team's next game against the Providence Steam Roller. The pain from the injury was too great for Grange, who could not bring himself to return a punt and allowed it to sail over his head; he was eventually pulled in the 9–6 loss. The match was widely criticized by fans and media, with a United News Service article commenting the "Grange bubble appears dangerously near the bursting point. Beneath the withering, pitiless spotlight of publicity, the red-headed youngster's fame may melt away like some of his own ice, leaving only a little dank, malodorous saw-dust." College football figures also proclaimed the game as evidence of professional football's inferiority; referee E. J. O'Brien described it as a "dismal failure." However, others like Princeton and Yale players Herbert Treat and Carl Flanders defended the sport and the Bears as their schedule was too overwhelming, and the latter added it had "a bright future."
"I was booed for the first time in my football career in the Boston game," Grange wrote in his autobiography. "It made me aware of something I had never thought of before—that the public's attitude toward a professional football player is quite different from the manner in which they view a college gridder. A pro's performance is evaluated much more critically and he is less likely to be forgiven when a mistake is made. A pro must deliver, or else."
Following the game, Grange hired E. B. Cooley as his personal doctor. Cooley was the father of Grange's friend and personal adviser Marion "Doc" Cooley, who was serving the position alongside their university classmate Dinty Moore. At Grange's father's request, his close friend Lyman "Beans" DeWolf also joined the team as a confidant.
The Bears' next game against a Pittsburgh all-star group saw the team in poor condition; before kickoff, former All-American Bo McMillin visited the team in the locker room and advised Grange to not play upon seeing his arm. At the start, only ten players were on the field, forcing Halas to choose between two injured linemen to serve as the required 11th man; center George Trafton was selected as he was able to at least stand and walk. Trainer Andy Lotshaw, who had never played football before, was also called to play tackle. Twelve minutes into the game, Grange attempted to block for halfback Johnny Mohardt, but suffered a torn ligament and a broken blood vessel in his arm, the latter of which resulted in artery hemorrhaging. The Bears ultimately lost 24–0.
With Grange hurt, Chicago canceled a game against an all-star team in Cleveland, prompting the organizer to sue for breach of contract. Although Grange expressed confidence in playing the next game against the Detroit Panthers, he was forced to miss it after a blood clot developed in his arm; the Bears lost 21–0. The final game of the December tour against the Giants ended in a 9–0 defeat. "No other team before or since has ever attempted such a grueling schedule as the 1925 Bears and I'm sure never will," Grange wrote in his autobiography.
In ten games, the Bears went 5–4–1.
January tour
On December 21, the Bears traveled to Florida to play in Callahan's Florida league. To avoid further injuries like in the first tour, the team elected to have week-long breaks between stretches in which they played games on consecutive days. In their first game four days later against a Coral Gables team, Grange scored the lone touchdown and recorded 89 rushing yards in the 7–0 win.
In the days leading to the next game against the Tampa Cardinals on January 1, 1926, rumors surfaced of Grange participating in a boxing match, but he did not accept. The evening before the game, Grange, driving a car accompanied by golfers Jim Barnes and Johnny Farrell and Olympic swimmer Helen Wainwright, was arrested for speeding at (the speed limit was ). The four were released after Grange gave the police officer $25. In the Bears' 17–3 victory over the Cardinals, he scored on a 70-yard touchdown run.
Before departing Tampa, Grange and Pyle invested $17,000 apiece in real estate to capitalize on the Florida land boom of the 1920s, but hurricanes led to the period's end. The day after the Cardinals game, the Bears played a Jacksonville team featuring former Stanford All-American Ernie Nevers. Although Nevers excelled in the game, Grange threw a 30-yard touchdown pass in the 19–6 win.
Following a one-week rest period, the Bears took on a Southern-based all-star team in New Orleans. Grange had 136 rushing yards and a touchdown, along with a 51-yard punt return that was nullified by a holding penalty, as the Bears shut out New Orleans 14–0. Afterwards, the team went to Los Angeles to play the Los Angeles Wildcats, led by Washington Huskies football star George "Wildcat" Wilson, an admirer of Grange who agreed to participate as the game offered the chance to play against him. Wilson would also lead future opponents on the tour in San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle. With approximately 65,000 in attendance at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, the Bears defeated the Tigers 17–7 as Grange scored a touchdown. The Bears followed by winning 14–0 against a team in San Diego, a game in which Grange considered himself "listless throughout" until he recorded a two-yard touchdown in the fourth quarter. Against the San Francisco Tigers in Kezar Stadium, he was limited to 41 rushing yards and threw an interception in the 14–9 loss.
In Portland, Grange and Britton combined for five touchdowns, including three by the latter. Grange threw a 15-yard touchdown pass to Laurie Walquist and ran 45 yards for a second, but exited the 60–3 win before halftime after getting hurt in a pile-up.
On January 31, a day after the Portland game, the Bears played the Seattle All-Stars. Grange scored two touchdowns (36-yard run and 31-yard pass) and recorded 99 rushing yards in the 34–0 victory, while Wilson and teammate Rollie Corbett suffered injuries; the latter broke his leg, leading to Grange, Pyle, and Wilson establishing a fund to support him. The three donated $50 each.
The Bears went 8–1 in the late December and January tour. Immediately following the Seattle game, Pyle issued Grange's final rookie check of $50,000. In his rookie season, Grange made approximately $125,000. "Charlie had kept his word. Now I thought I could go on to make it a million," Grange wrote in his autobiography.
Impact on professional football
Grange's barnstorming tours are generally considered to have saved the NFL and professional football, though detractors have criticized this narrative considering his injuries and unimpressive performances.
In a February 1926 article, the Chicago Tribune Don Maxwell wrote that although Grange was typically outperformed by his teammates while attendance for the Florida games was poor and organizers lost money, his star status drew interest, especially on the West Coast, and the money he made was more than he "could have made in any other business in the same period." On the other hand, in 1991, Vito Stellino of The Baltimore Sun compared Grange's decision to join the NFL to Herschel Walker electing to sign with the newly formed United States Football League in the 1980s; although Walker was a popular name, the USFL ultimately collapsed. Stellino instead suggested television helped grow the NFL, while Grange's legend was "too embedded into the American sports psyche to disprove now. Anyway, it's a better story than the reality."
According to football historian John M. Carroll, critics believed the tours created the notion that professional football was a circus led by certain superstars, which posed a risk to such players should they decide to play while injured. Others feared games could be fixed to favor the star players, with Brooklyn Dodgers owner/player Shipwreck Kelly alleging he had reached an agreement with Halas and the Bears to let Grange make a long run in a 1934 postseason exhibition game. However, Carroll also added Grange helped expedite the NFL's growth:
In 1985, Grange emphasized the tours' importance to the NFL but noted that the league offered little support to the players from the era: "I complained a few times, because we had guys in hospitals, guys who had had amputations because of football injuries. Guys who had problems. I thought the game could have done something for them, but it never did. As far as I know, pro football hasn't done anything for anybody except lately, and that's mostly for itself. I never made a real stink about it, but I was sad for the oldtimers."
New York Yankees and the American Football League
After the January tour, Pyle approached George Halas and Dutch Sternaman about buying an interest in the Bears, but was turned down. In response, he and Grange attempted to form their own team, the New York Yankees, and gain entry into the NFL. Although they acquired a five-year lease to play at Yankee Stadium, Mara intervened as he felt the Yankees infringed on his Giants' territorial rights.
To challenge the NFL, Grange and Pyle formed the nine-team American Football League. Wilson, who had been approached by Pyle about becoming his client, joined the league as a member of the Wildcats, while Grange's Bears teammates Mohardt and Joey Sternaman played for the Chicago Bulls. In 1926, the Yankees went 9–5 to finish second in the standings.
After the season, the team embarked on a ten-game barnstorming tour to Texas and California alongside Wilson's Wildcats. In late December, in what Grange wrote was "about the only memorable part of the tour", he and his teammates were arrested in Dallas for disturbing the peace and reportedly being intoxicated, the latter of which the group denied; Grange explained the incident transpired when the team visited a hotel at 4 AM after being recommended the spot as a nightlife location by a local policeman. After the players were ordered by the hotel manager to leave the lobby for the noise they were creating, the police confronted them, including throwing teammate Pooley Hubert in an argument. They were eventually arrested and jailed, but were released after paying $10 as they had to play a game in Beaumont that day.
The AFL shut down after one season and the Yankees were added to the NFL. On October 17, 1927, the Yankees were shut out 12–0 by the Bears in Chicago. With a minute remaining in the game, Grange suffered a severe knee injury when he was hit by center George Trafton while trying to catch a pass from Eddie Tryon. As he landed, Grange's cleat caught in the field, causing him to twist his knee when Trafton fell on him. Revealed to be a torn tendon, he underwent a diathermy to treat it after water started to form. The injury ultimately affected Grange's speed and running ability, though he remained serviceable for the rest of his career. "After it happened, I was just another halfback," Grange commented.
Four weeks after the Bears game, Grange returned against the Cardinals at quarterback to honor his contract. Although his injury worsened, the Yankees won 20–6 and he ultimately finished the season. After the year, he and the Yankees participated in another barnstorming tour against West Coast teams led by Wilson and Benny Friedman. Grange explained his decision to keep playing in his autobiography: "At the young age of twenty-four, I refused to believe that I couldn't bounce back to my old form. I was positive I could play myself back into shape. But those additional games only served to further aggravate my condition and, when the tour was ended, it became apparent I had done irreparable damage to the knee. For the first time since I was hurt, nearly four months before, I began worrying over the possibility that I might be through as a football player."
Later career
The contract between Pyle and Grange expired in January 1928, but Grange decided not to renew due to his injury and withdrew his stake in the Yankees. Without Grange, the Yankees went 4–8–1 before shutting down for financial reasons. Grange missed the entire 1928 season before returning to the Bears for 1929.
The two highlights of Grange's later NFL years came in consecutive championship games. In the unofficial 1932 championship, Grange caught the game-winning touchdown pass from Bronko Nagurski. It was argued the pass was illegal. In the 1933 championship, Grange made a touchdown-saving tackle that saved the game and the title for the Bears.
He was a very modest person, who insisted that even the ordinary plumber or electrician knows more about his craft than he does. He said he could not explain how he did what he did on the field of play, and that he just followed his instincts.
Upon ending his playing career in 1934, Grange became the backfield coach for the Bears. Although Halas had offered him the team's head coaching position, he declined as he "never had any ambition to be a head coach in either the professional or college ranks." He remained in the position until 1937.
Acting career
Pyle realized that as the greatest football star of his era, Grange could attract moviegoers, as well as sports fans. In 1926, he made his cinematic debut in the silent film One Minute to Play; Grange described the production process as "the worst drudgery I'd ever experienced". Due to California's summer heat and the story taking place in the Midwest during autumn, the studio struggled to find extras willing to dress in warmer clothing. As such, Pyle promoted the movie's climactic final game between the school of Grange's character Red Wade and that of the antagonist George Wilson, who had played against Grange on the barnstorming tour, as a genuine exhibition game with fans dressed in fall attire being granted free admission. The movie and Grange's performance received positive reviews, with one Chicago Tribune movie critic writing, "If you've never seen Red Grange play football, now's your chance, for he plays it like every thing in this picture.". Although The Minneapolis Star Agnes Taafee criticized various scenes for their lack of realism, she praised Grange's performance. Film Booking Offices of America head Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. also asked Grange to consider retiring from football to enter acting full-time, but he declined.
The following year, he appeared in A Racing Romeo (1927). An auto racing-themed film, Grange had requested to perform his own racing stunts but Cliff Bergere was hired to take his place. The movie ultimately flopped at the box office, which Grange speculated was due to weaker promotion than with One Minute to Play. While sitting out the 1928 season to heal his knee injury, he and father Lyle joined Chicago film distributor Frank Zambreno on a nationwide vaudeville tour titled C'Mon Red.
Grange also starred in a 12-part serial series The Galloping Ghost in 1931. He performed his own stunts for the serial, including vehicular chases and fight scenes, in what he wrote was "The most strenuous work I have ever done in my life.". With the rise of sound film, Grange struggled to adapt to having speaking roles.
In his autobiography, Grange wrote of his acting career: "I've always felt it represents one of the most memorable and worth-while chapters in my life. When I first reported for work in the film capital back in 1926, I was a shy, bashful, small-town boy despite the national prominence I had achieved for my football playing. Facing cameras, live audiences in the theaters, and mixing with all the stimulating people connected with show business did something for me. It gave me confidence and poise and made me feel a little bit more like a man of the world."
Filmography
Later life
Grange departed professional football in 1937 and earned a living in a variety of jobs including motivational speaker and sports announcer. In the 1950s, he announced Bears games for CBS television and college football (including the Sugar Bowl) for NBC. Grange married his wife Margaret, nicknamed Muggs, in 1941, and they were together until his death in 1991. She was a flight attendant, and they met on a plane. The couple had no children.
During the 1940s, he was an insurance broker in Chicago. In December 1944, he was voted president of the United States Football League, a newly formed "gridiron world series" with plans to begin the following year. However, he left his position in June 1945 and the league subsequently folded without playing a game after the NFL expanded into its targeted markets. Grange also led the National Girls Baseball League as its president from 1947 to his resignation in 1949.
In 1950 he was elected as a Republican to the Board of Trustees of University of Illinois, on which he served from 1951 until 1955.
His autobiography, The Red Grange Story, was first published in 1953. The book was written "as told to" Ira Morton, a syndicated newspaper columnist from Chicago. Grange developed Parkinson's disease in his last year of life and died on January 28, 1991, in Lake Wales, Florida.
Legacy
To commemorate college football's 100th anniversary in 1969, the Football Writers Association of America chose an all-time All-America team. Grange was the only unanimous choice. 30 years later in 1999, he was ranked number 80 on The Sporting News list of the 100 Greatest Football Players. In 2008, Grange was also ranked #1 on ESPN's Top 25 Players In College Football History list.
In honor of his achievements at the University of Illinois, the school erected a 12-ft statue of Grange at the start of the 2009 football season. In 2011, Grange was announced as number one on the "Big Ten Icons" series presented by the Big Ten Network.
In 1931, Grange visited Abington Senior High School in Abington, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia. Shortly thereafter, the school adopted his nickname for the mascot in his honor, the Galloping Ghost. Also, Wheaton Warrenville South High School's football field is named in his honor and the team is referred to as the Wheaton Warrenville South Red Grange Tigers. Annually, the Wheaton Warrenville South Boys Track and Field team hosts the Red Grange Invitational in honor of Grange's achievements in track and field.
On January 15, 1978, at Super Bowl XII, Grange became the first person other than the game referee to toss the coin at a Super Bowl.
Every December, a junior college bowl game is held in his honor known as the Red Grange Bowl, in his home state of Illinois.
In popular culture
George Waite, the male love interest in the 1926 film version of Ella Cinders, is a parody of Grange, sharing the real-life running back's alma mater and side job as an iceman.
In 1935 Grange became the first football player to appear on a box of Wheaties.
In the 1949 play Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, the lead character, Willy Loman, says that his football-playing son (Biff) will be the next Red Grange.
In the 1959 thriller Compulsion, Grange is mentioned as running 97 yards for a touchdown. The movie is set in 1924, the year he did score one at 95 yards.
In the song "With Her Head Tucked Underneath Her Arm" as released in 1960 by The Kingston Trio on their album Sold Out, guards in the Tower of London mistake Anne Boleyn, haunting the castle with her head tucked underneath her arm after being beheaded, for Red Grange carrying a football.
In the 1970 show Hogan's Heroes, season 5, episode 25 ("Crittendon's Commandos"), Sergeant Carter attempts to describe Field Marshall Rommel as "The Galloping Ghost" to which Sergeant Kinchloe replies, "That was Red Grange."
In the 1975 M*A*S*H, season 3, episode "Big Mac", Major Frank Burns is chided for burning The Life of Red Grange.
In the 1983 film The Right Stuff, Chuck Yeager (played by Sam Shepard) says he'll "look like the Gallopin' Ghost" in the leather helmet which Jack Ridley gives him to wear on his test flight or the Bell X-1.
Al Bundy is mistaken for Grange several times in the 1988 Married... with Children episode "Poke High".
In the 2007 American Dad! episode "The Magnificent Steven", while trying to teach Steve and his friends to be tough by playing football, Stan finds the boys hiding from the sunlight under a tree and exclaims "What, in the name of Red Grange, is going on?!"
The 2008 movie Leatherheads, starring George Clooney, John Krasinski, and Renée Zellweger, was loosely based on Grange.
See also
List of unanimous college football All-Americans
List of people on the cover of Time Magazine: 1920s
Notes
References
Further reading
External links
1903 births
1991 deaths
American football halfbacks
Chicago Bears announcers
Chicago Bears coaches
Chicago Bears players
College football announcers
Illinois Fighting Illini football players
National Football League announcers
New York Yankees (NFL) players
All-American college football players
College Football Hall of Fame inductees
Pro Football Hall of Fame inductees
People from Sullivan County, Pennsylvania
Sportspeople from Wheaton, Illinois
Players of American football from Pennsylvania
Deaths from pneumonia in Florida
National Girls Baseball League players
Illinois Republicans
National Football League players with retired numbers
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[
"\"What Did I Do to You?\" is a song recorded by British singer Lisa Stansfield for her 1989 album, Affection. It was written by Stansfield, Ian Devaney and Andy Morris, and produced by Devaney and Morris. The song was released as the fourth European single on 30 April 1990. It included three previously unreleased songs written by Stansfield, Devaney and Morris: \"My Apple Heart,\" \"Lay Me Down\" and \"Something's Happenin'.\" \"What Did I Do to You?\" was remixed by Mark Saunders and by the Grammy Award-winning American house music DJ and producer, David Morales. The single became a top forty hit in the European countries reaching number eighteen in Finland, number twenty in Ireland and number twenty-five in the United Kingdom. \"What Did I Do to You?\" was also released in Japan.\n\nIn 2014, the remixes of \"What Did I Do to You?\" were included on the deluxe 2CD + DVD re-release of Affection and on People Hold On ... The Remix Anthology. They were also featured on The Collection 1989–2003 box set (2014), including previously unreleased Red Zone Mix by David Morales.\n\nCritical reception\nThe song received positive reviews from music critics. Matthew Hocter from Albumism viewed it as a \"upbeat offering\". David Giles from Music Week said it is \"beautifully performed\" by Stansfield. A reviewer from Reading Eagle wrote that \"What Did I Do to You?\" \"would be right at home on the \"Saturday Night Fever\" soundtrack.\"\n\nMusic video\nA music video was produced to promote the single, directed by Philip Richardson, who had previously directed the videos for \"All Around the World\" and \"Live Together\". It features Stansfield with her kiss curls, dressed in a white outfit and performing with her band on a stage in front of a jumping audience. The video was later published on Stansfield's official YouTube channel in November 2009. It has amassed more than 1,6 million views as of October 2021.\n\nTrack listings\n\n European/UK 7\" single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Mark Saunders Remix Edit) – 4:20\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:59\n\n European/UK/Japanese CD single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Mark Saunders Remix Edit) – 4:20\n\"My Apple Heart\" – 5:19\n\"Lay Me Down\" – 4:17\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:59\n\n UK 10\" single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Mark Saunders Remix) – 5:52\n\"My Apple Heart\" – 5:19\n\"Lay Me Down\" – 4:17\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:59\n\n European/UK 12\" single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Morales Mix) – 7:59\n\"My Apple Heart\" – 4:22\n\"Lay Me Down\" – 3:19\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:15\n\n UK 12\" promotional single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Morales Mix) – 7:59\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Anti Poll Tax Dub) – 6:31\n\n Other remixes\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Red Zone Mix) – 7:45\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\nLisa Stansfield songs\n1990 singles\nSongs written by Lisa Stansfield\n1989 songs\nArista Records singles\nSongs written by Ian Devaney\nSongs written by Andy Morris (musician)",
"In Our Image: America's Empire in the Philippines is a 1989 book by American journalist Stanley Karnow, published by Random House. The book details the Philippine–American War (1899–1902) and the subsequent American occupation of the islands. Karnow described the book as \"the story of America's only major colonial experience. How did we perform? What did we do there? What have we left there?\" Karnow made six trips to the Philippines for research while writing the book, and also drew heavily on archives.\n\nThe book was awarded the 1990 Pulitzer Prize for History.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nBooknotes interview with Karnow on In Our Image, May 28, 1989.\n\n1989 non-fiction books\n20th-century history books\nEnglish-language books\nPulitzer Prize for History-winning works\nHistory books about the United States\nHistory of the Philippines (1898–1946)\nRandom House books"
] |
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"What was Grange's legacy like?",
"In 2008, Grange was also ranked #1 on ESPN's Top 25 Players In College Football History list.",
"What happened as a result?",
"In honor of his achievements at the University of Illinois, the school erected a 12-ft statue of Grange",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"In 1931, Grange visited Abington Senior High School in Abington, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia.",
"What did he do while there?",
"Shortly thereafter, the school adopted his nickname for the mascot in his honor, the Galloping Ghost."
] |
C_7160a956e0804d38893e7c10d1f224e9_0
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Did he win any other awards?
| 5 |
Did Red Grange win any other awards in addition to #1 Player in College Football History?
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Red Grange
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To commemorate college football's 100th anniversary in 1969, the Football Writers Association of America chose an all-time All-America team. Grange was the only unanimous choice. Then in 1999, he was ranked number 80 on The Sporting News list of the 100 Greatest Football Players. In 2008, Grange was also ranked #1 on ESPN's Top 25 Players In College Football History list. In honor of his achievements at the University of Illinois, the school erected a 12-ft statue of Grange at the start of the 2009 football season. In 2011, Grange was announced as number one on the "Big Ten Icons" series presented by the Big Ten Network. In 1931, Grange visited Abington Senior High School in Abington, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia. Shortly thereafter, the school adopted his nickname for the mascot in his honor, the Galloping Ghost. Also, Wheaton Warrenville South High School's football field is named in his honor and the team is referred to as the Wheaton Warrenville South Red Grange Tigers. Annually, the Wheaton Warrenville South Boys Track and Field team hosts the Red Grange Invitational in honor of Grange's achievements in track and field. On January 15, 1978, at Super Bowl XII, Grange became the first person other than the game referee to toss the coin at a Super Bowl. Every December, a junior college bowl game is held in his honor known as the Red Grange bowl, in his home state of Illinois. In 2017, Mesabi Range College was defeated by the College of Dupage in the 2nd edition of this bowl. CANNOTANSWER
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he was ranked number 80 on The Sporting News list of the 100 Greatest Football Players.
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Harold Edward "Red" Grange (June 13, 1903 – January 28, 1991), nicknamed "The Galloping Ghost" and "The Wheaton Iceman", was an American football halfback for the University of Illinois, the Chicago Bears, and the short-lived New York Yankees. His signing with the Bears helped legitimize the National Football League (NFL).
In college, Grange was a three-time consensus All-American and led his team to a national championship in 1923. He was the only consensus All-American running back in 1924 who was not a member of the Four Horsemen of Notre Dame. The same year, Grange became the first recipient of the Chicago Tribune Silver Football award as the Big Ten Conference's most valuable player. In 2008, Grange was named the best college football player of all time by ESPN, and in 2011, he was named the Greatest Big Ten Icon by the Big Ten Network.
Shortly after his final college game in 1925, Grange joined the Bears and the NFL, embarking on a barnstorming tour to raise the league's attention across the country. When his rookie contract expired, he and agent C. C. Pyle formed the American Football League in 1926, with Grange playing for the Yankees. The league lasted just one year before shutting down and the Yankees were assimilated into the NFL. Grange suffered a serious knee injury in 1927 that prevented him from playing the following season, and he returned to the Bears in 1929. He remained with the team until he ended his playing career in 1934, from which he became a backfield coach for the Bears for three seasons.
He is a charter member of both the College and Pro Football Halls of Fame.
Early life
Red Grange was born on June 13, 1903, in Forksville, Pennsylvania, a village of about 200 people among lumber camps. His father Lyle was the foreman of three lumber camps. His mother died when he was just five years old. For a number of years, the Grange family lived with relatives until they could finally afford a home of their own in Wheaton, Illinois. In Wheaton, Lyle became the chief of police.
In four years at Wheaton High School, Grange earned 16 varsity letters in football, baseball, basketball, and track; he scored 75 touchdowns and 532 points for the football team. As a high school junior, Grange scored 36 touchdowns and led Wheaton High School to an undefeated season. In his senior year, his team won every game but one in which they lost 39–0 to Scott High School in Toledo, Ohio. Knocked out in this game, Grange remained unconscious for two days, having difficulty speaking when he awoke. Grange was also an all-state track and field runner. In 1920, he was a state champion in the high jump and placed third and fourth in the 100-yard dash and the 220-yard dash, respectively. In 1921, he won the state title in both the long jump and the 100-yard dash, and in 1922, he placed third in the 100-yard dash and won the 220-yard dash. In a 1974 interview with American Heritage Grange stated that he ran the 100-yard dash in 9.8 seconds [at the time this was just one-fifth of a second off the world (and American) records].
To help the family earn money, he took a part-time job as an ice toter for $37.50 per week, a job which helped him to build his core strength and from which he got the nicknames "Ice Man" and "the Wheaton Ice Man."
University of Illinois
After graduation, Grange enrolled at the University of Illinois, where he joined the Zeta Psi fraternity. At first he had planned to compete only in basketball and track, but changed his mind once he arrived and joined coach Bob Zuppke's Fighting Illini football team. Grange was the roommate of college basketball player and future college basketball coach John Mauer. Grange also modeled for local men's clothing store Jos. Kuhn and Co. as a floor model, common for Illini athletes at the time, and was an amateur boxer.
Grange played for the team from 1923 to 1925. In his first collegiate football game, he scored three touchdowns against Nebraska. In seven games as a sophomore, he ran for 723 yards and scored 12 touchdowns, and led Illinois to an undefeated season and the Helms Athletic Foundation national championship. His younger brother Garland also played football for the school.
He drew national attention for his performance in the October 18, 1924, game against Michigan, in the grand opening game of the new Memorial Stadium, built as a memorial to Illini students and alumni who had served in World War I. The Michigan Wolverines entered the game as favorites, having won a national title the previous year. Grange returned the opening kickoff for a 95-yard touchdown and scored three more touchdowns on runs of 67, 56, and 44 yards in the first 12 minutes, the last three in less than seven minutes. On his next carry, he ran 56 yards for yet another touchdown. In the second half, Grange scored a fifth touchdown on an 11-yard run and also threw a touchdown pass. On defense, he intercepted two passes. Michigan coach Fielding Yost said, "All Grange can do is run," to which Zuppke, referring to a famed opera star of the age, responded, "And all Galli-Curci can do is sing."
The game inspired Grantland Rice to write this poetic description:
A streak of fire, a breath of flame
Eluding all who reach and clutch;
A gray ghost thrown into the game
That rival hands may never touch;
A rubber bounding, blasting soul
Whose destination is the goal — Red Grange of Illinois!
Chicago sportswriter Warren Brown nicknamed Grange "The Galloping Ghost". When asked in a 1974 interview, "Was it Grantland Rice who dubbed you the Galloping Ghost?" Grange replied, "No, it was Warren Brown, who was a great writer with the Chicago American in those days."
1925 season
Before the 1925 season, Grange was approached by Champaign movie theater owner C. C. Pyle, who asked, "How would you like to make one hundred thousand dollars, maybe even a million?" After Grange agreed, he was told to stay in contact but remain silent on their meeting. The following day, Pyle contacted Chicago Bears owners George Halas and Edward Sternaman to outline a professional contract for Grange, organizing a barnstorming tour that spanned 19 games and 67 days, including games in Florida. As part of their agreement, the Bears received 50 percent of the ticket gate, while Pyle and Grange got the other half.
Considering Grange's popularity, rumors began surrounding his future after completing his senior year, including professional football and acting. A petition was also created to convince him to run for the Republican Party's at-large nomination for the 70th United States Congress; although he was only 22 years old at the time, supporters argued he would be within six months of the minimum age of 25 when the Congress opened in December 1927. Despite the speculation, Grange and those connected with him tried to dodge any inquiries that might affect his college athlete eligibility; when approached about a career in pro football, he denied it. He also turned down a potential college coaching career owing to low pay.
Featuring a roster of mostly sophomores and backups, the Illini opened the season 1–3, including losing 14–0 in the season opener to Nebraska for their first loss at Memorial Stadium. This was followed by a 16–13 win over Butler and two straight losses to Iowa and Michigan; although Grange was contained against Nebraska and Michigan, he scored two touchdowns against Butler and on the opening kickoff against Iowa. During the Michigan game, Zuppke moved Grange to quarterback, but was a "marked man" in the defeat.
In the Illini's next game against the University of Pennsylvania, they faced a Quaker team considered one of the best in the eastern United States. In front of 60,000 fans, Grange recorded a career-high 237 yards through deep mud and scored three touchdowns; Penn struggled to keep up, prompting some Illinois lineman to call "Illinois rules the East!" prior to each play. On one play, Grange debuted the flea flicker, a trick play designed by Zuppke in which fullback Earl Britton received the snap from a fake field goal formation, which he threw to right end Chuck Kassel, who lateraled back to Grange and ran for the score. As Illinois won 24–2, Laurence Stallings, a famed war correspondent for the New York World, said, "This story's too big for me. I can't write it."
Columnist Damon Runyon wrote in his game recap, "This man Red Grange of Illinois is three or four men, and a horse rolled into one for football purposes. He is Jack Dempsey, Babe Ruth, Al Jolson, Paavo Nurmi and Man o'War. Put them all together. They spell Grange." When the team returned the next Monday, a contingent of 20,000 that included students and the mayors of Urbana and Champaign greeted them; when Grange tried to dodge the crowd, he was spotted and carried to his fraternity house. After the game, his number 77 was retired by the University of Illinois.
Against the Chicago Maroons, Grange recorded –8 total rushing yards and 64 all-purpose yards in abysmal conditions. The following week against Wabash, he only appeared in the fourth quarter to call signals and did not record stats, as the backups played much of the game.
Grange's final college game came against Ohio State in Columbus. Before the game, the Champaign News-Gazette conducted an interview with Grange and confronted him about signing a professional contract, which he firmly denied before leaving. In Columbus, Grange restricted himself to his hotel room to avoid the media, including having a teammate impersonate him for a pre-game parade. NFL President Joseph Carr, who had owned the local NFL team Columbus Panhandles, considered attending the game before he was hospitalized with appendicitis. In front of 85,000 fans, Grange recorded 113 rushing yards on 21 carries and 42 passing yards on nine throws as Illinois won 14–9.
In his 20-game college career, Grange ran for 3,362 yards, caught 14 passes for 253 yards, and completed 40 of 82 passes for 575 yards. Of his 31 touchdowns, 16 were from at least 20 yards, with nine from more than 50 yards. He scored at least one touchdown in every game he played but the Nebraska game. He earned All-America recognition three consecutive years and appeared on the cover of Time on October 5, 1925.
Statistics
In 2002, the NCAA published "NCAA Football's Finest," researched and compiled by the NCAA Statistics Service. For Grange they published the following statistics:
Professional career
After the 1925 Ohio State game, Grange formally announced his intention to sign with the Bears, but other NFL teams also expressed interest in signing him. The Rochester Jeffersons made a last-ditch effort to sign him at a salary of $5,000 per game, but were unable to do so, a key factor in the team's demise. The New York Giants also reportedly offered $40,000 to him, a claim denied by team executive Harry March while owner Tim Mara noted the NFL did not allow college players to sign with teams and also had limits on how much money a team could offer. Still, Mara visited Chicago the same day that Grange signed with the Bears and secured a game against them in December.
Grange's decision was vilified by those in college football; at the time, professional football was viewed as a commercialized, weaker brand of its college counterpart. Head coaches Amos Alonzo Stagg and Yost of the Universities of Chicago and Michigan were noted opponents, as were Illinois athletic director George Huff and Zuppke. Yost once commented, "I'd be glad to see Grange do anything else except play professional football." During their return to their hotel from the Ohio State game, Zuppke repeatedly ordered their taxi driver to take various routes to prolong the ride and allow him to convince Grange to reconsider his decision. In response, Grange questioned why he should not be allowed to be paid for playing football if Zuppke was receiving pay as a coach. The two would not meet again until an Illini team banquet weeks later; during his speech, Zuppke openly criticized Grange, prompting an incensed Grange to leave. In January 1926, Herbert Reed of The Outlook wrote an article titled "De-Granging Football" that used Grange's surname as a verb: to "grange" a game means to exploit it.
On November 22, he formally hired Pyle as his agent and signed with the Bears. The contract earned him a salary and share of gate receipts that amounted to $100,000, during an era when typical league salaries were less than $100/game. Prior to joining his new teammates, he attended the Bears' game against the Green Bay Packers at Cubs Park, a game they won 21–0. Former Yale player Tim Callahan also announced he had secured Grange for a December Florida league he had organized.
Grange is the last player to play both college football and in the NFL in the same season. In 1926, the NFL passed the "Red Grange Rule" to forbid further players from doing the same, along with requiring NFL hopefuls' graduating classes to have left college, though both clauses would be tested in various instances. In 1930, the Bears signed Notre Dame fullback Joe Savoldi although he had withdrawn from school and been kicked off the team, a violation of the Grange Rule's graduating class prerequisite. The Bears argued that since Savoldi had been expelled, he was technically no longer a member of his Class of 1931; the team would be fined $1,000 for each game Savoldi played in. The NFL also maintained the rule prohibiting players from appearing in college and NFL games in the same season when TCU running back Kenneth Davis attempted to join the league after being suspended one game into his senior year in 1986.
The barnstorming tour
December tour
Grange made his NFL debut on November 26, Thanksgiving Day, against the Chicago Cardinals. With only three days of practice in the Bears' T formation (he had played in the single wing offense in college), he recorded 92 rushing yards and an interception in the scoreless tie. A crowd of 40,000 attended the game. In the next game against the Columbus Tigers, he threw a touchdown pass and recorded 171 yards as the Bears won 14–7. Shortly after, Britton signed with the Bears, reuniting him with Grange.
In December, the Bears' schedule grew with eight games between December 2 and 13, including three against local all-star teams. The first game, against the Donnelly All-Stars at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis, saw Grange score four touchdowns in a 39–6 blowout. On December 5, he scored two touchdowns including the game-winner against the Frankford Yellow Jackets. The next day, between 65,000 and 73,000 people showed up at the Polo Grounds to watch Grange, helping save the Giants' franchise from financial debt. Grange scored a touchdown on a 35-yard interception return in the Bears' 19–7 victory. Offensively, he ran for 53 yards on 11 carries, caught a 23-yard pass, and completed two of three passes for 32 yards. Before their next game against a Washington, D.C. all-star team, Pyle and Grange elected to remain in New York to promote themselves, receiving various endorsements.
In Washington, the Bears visited President Calvin Coolidge; when he was introduced to the team and shook hands with Grange, Coolidge responded, "Glad to meet you. I always did like animal acts." Although the Bears defeated Washington 19–0, Grange recorded only 16 rushing yards, no receiving and return yards, failed to complete a pass attempt (including one interception), and missed a field goal.
Despite the victories, the grueling schedule led to a rise in injuries. Grange had been hit in the left arm during the Giants game, causing it to swell by the team's next game against the Providence Steam Roller. The pain from the injury was too great for Grange, who could not bring himself to return a punt and allowed it to sail over his head; he was eventually pulled in the 9–6 loss. The match was widely criticized by fans and media, with a United News Service article commenting the "Grange bubble appears dangerously near the bursting point. Beneath the withering, pitiless spotlight of publicity, the red-headed youngster's fame may melt away like some of his own ice, leaving only a little dank, malodorous saw-dust." College football figures also proclaimed the game as evidence of professional football's inferiority; referee E. J. O'Brien described it as a "dismal failure." However, others like Princeton and Yale players Herbert Treat and Carl Flanders defended the sport and the Bears as their schedule was too overwhelming, and the latter added it had "a bright future."
"I was booed for the first time in my football career in the Boston game," Grange wrote in his autobiography. "It made me aware of something I had never thought of before—that the public's attitude toward a professional football player is quite different from the manner in which they view a college gridder. A pro's performance is evaluated much more critically and he is less likely to be forgiven when a mistake is made. A pro must deliver, or else."
Following the game, Grange hired E. B. Cooley as his personal doctor. Cooley was the father of Grange's friend and personal adviser Marion "Doc" Cooley, who was serving the position alongside their university classmate Dinty Moore. At Grange's father's request, his close friend Lyman "Beans" DeWolf also joined the team as a confidant.
The Bears' next game against a Pittsburgh all-star group saw the team in poor condition; before kickoff, former All-American Bo McMillin visited the team in the locker room and advised Grange to not play upon seeing his arm. At the start, only ten players were on the field, forcing Halas to choose between two injured linemen to serve as the required 11th man; center George Trafton was selected as he was able to at least stand and walk. Trainer Andy Lotshaw, who had never played football before, was also called to play tackle. Twelve minutes into the game, Grange attempted to block for halfback Johnny Mohardt, but suffered a torn ligament and a broken blood vessel in his arm, the latter of which resulted in artery hemorrhaging. The Bears ultimately lost 24–0.
With Grange hurt, Chicago canceled a game against an all-star team in Cleveland, prompting the organizer to sue for breach of contract. Although Grange expressed confidence in playing the next game against the Detroit Panthers, he was forced to miss it after a blood clot developed in his arm; the Bears lost 21–0. The final game of the December tour against the Giants ended in a 9–0 defeat. "No other team before or since has ever attempted such a grueling schedule as the 1925 Bears and I'm sure never will," Grange wrote in his autobiography.
In ten games, the Bears went 5–4–1.
January tour
On December 21, the Bears traveled to Florida to play in Callahan's Florida league. To avoid further injuries like in the first tour, the team elected to have week-long breaks between stretches in which they played games on consecutive days. In their first game four days later against a Coral Gables team, Grange scored the lone touchdown and recorded 89 rushing yards in the 7–0 win.
In the days leading to the next game against the Tampa Cardinals on January 1, 1926, rumors surfaced of Grange participating in a boxing match, but he did not accept. The evening before the game, Grange, driving a car accompanied by golfers Jim Barnes and Johnny Farrell and Olympic swimmer Helen Wainwright, was arrested for speeding at (the speed limit was ). The four were released after Grange gave the police officer $25. In the Bears' 17–3 victory over the Cardinals, he scored on a 70-yard touchdown run.
Before departing Tampa, Grange and Pyle invested $17,000 apiece in real estate to capitalize on the Florida land boom of the 1920s, but hurricanes led to the period's end. The day after the Cardinals game, the Bears played a Jacksonville team featuring former Stanford All-American Ernie Nevers. Although Nevers excelled in the game, Grange threw a 30-yard touchdown pass in the 19–6 win.
Following a one-week rest period, the Bears took on a Southern-based all-star team in New Orleans. Grange had 136 rushing yards and a touchdown, along with a 51-yard punt return that was nullified by a holding penalty, as the Bears shut out New Orleans 14–0. Afterwards, the team went to Los Angeles to play the Los Angeles Wildcats, led by Washington Huskies football star George "Wildcat" Wilson, an admirer of Grange who agreed to participate as the game offered the chance to play against him. Wilson would also lead future opponents on the tour in San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle. With approximately 65,000 in attendance at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, the Bears defeated the Tigers 17–7 as Grange scored a touchdown. The Bears followed by winning 14–0 against a team in San Diego, a game in which Grange considered himself "listless throughout" until he recorded a two-yard touchdown in the fourth quarter. Against the San Francisco Tigers in Kezar Stadium, he was limited to 41 rushing yards and threw an interception in the 14–9 loss.
In Portland, Grange and Britton combined for five touchdowns, including three by the latter. Grange threw a 15-yard touchdown pass to Laurie Walquist and ran 45 yards for a second, but exited the 60–3 win before halftime after getting hurt in a pile-up.
On January 31, a day after the Portland game, the Bears played the Seattle All-Stars. Grange scored two touchdowns (36-yard run and 31-yard pass) and recorded 99 rushing yards in the 34–0 victory, while Wilson and teammate Rollie Corbett suffered injuries; the latter broke his leg, leading to Grange, Pyle, and Wilson establishing a fund to support him. The three donated $50 each.
The Bears went 8–1 in the late December and January tour. Immediately following the Seattle game, Pyle issued Grange's final rookie check of $50,000. In his rookie season, Grange made approximately $125,000. "Charlie had kept his word. Now I thought I could go on to make it a million," Grange wrote in his autobiography.
Impact on professional football
Grange's barnstorming tours are generally considered to have saved the NFL and professional football, though detractors have criticized this narrative considering his injuries and unimpressive performances.
In a February 1926 article, the Chicago Tribune Don Maxwell wrote that although Grange was typically outperformed by his teammates while attendance for the Florida games was poor and organizers lost money, his star status drew interest, especially on the West Coast, and the money he made was more than he "could have made in any other business in the same period." On the other hand, in 1991, Vito Stellino of The Baltimore Sun compared Grange's decision to join the NFL to Herschel Walker electing to sign with the newly formed United States Football League in the 1980s; although Walker was a popular name, the USFL ultimately collapsed. Stellino instead suggested television helped grow the NFL, while Grange's legend was "too embedded into the American sports psyche to disprove now. Anyway, it's a better story than the reality."
According to football historian John M. Carroll, critics believed the tours created the notion that professional football was a circus led by certain superstars, which posed a risk to such players should they decide to play while injured. Others feared games could be fixed to favor the star players, with Brooklyn Dodgers owner/player Shipwreck Kelly alleging he had reached an agreement with Halas and the Bears to let Grange make a long run in a 1934 postseason exhibition game. However, Carroll also added Grange helped expedite the NFL's growth:
In 1985, Grange emphasized the tours' importance to the NFL but noted that the league offered little support to the players from the era: "I complained a few times, because we had guys in hospitals, guys who had had amputations because of football injuries. Guys who had problems. I thought the game could have done something for them, but it never did. As far as I know, pro football hasn't done anything for anybody except lately, and that's mostly for itself. I never made a real stink about it, but I was sad for the oldtimers."
New York Yankees and the American Football League
After the January tour, Pyle approached George Halas and Dutch Sternaman about buying an interest in the Bears, but was turned down. In response, he and Grange attempted to form their own team, the New York Yankees, and gain entry into the NFL. Although they acquired a five-year lease to play at Yankee Stadium, Mara intervened as he felt the Yankees infringed on his Giants' territorial rights.
To challenge the NFL, Grange and Pyle formed the nine-team American Football League. Wilson, who had been approached by Pyle about becoming his client, joined the league as a member of the Wildcats, while Grange's Bears teammates Mohardt and Joey Sternaman played for the Chicago Bulls. In 1926, the Yankees went 9–5 to finish second in the standings.
After the season, the team embarked on a ten-game barnstorming tour to Texas and California alongside Wilson's Wildcats. In late December, in what Grange wrote was "about the only memorable part of the tour", he and his teammates were arrested in Dallas for disturbing the peace and reportedly being intoxicated, the latter of which the group denied; Grange explained the incident transpired when the team visited a hotel at 4 AM after being recommended the spot as a nightlife location by a local policeman. After the players were ordered by the hotel manager to leave the lobby for the noise they were creating, the police confronted them, including throwing teammate Pooley Hubert in an argument. They were eventually arrested and jailed, but were released after paying $10 as they had to play a game in Beaumont that day.
The AFL shut down after one season and the Yankees were added to the NFL. On October 17, 1927, the Yankees were shut out 12–0 by the Bears in Chicago. With a minute remaining in the game, Grange suffered a severe knee injury when he was hit by center George Trafton while trying to catch a pass from Eddie Tryon. As he landed, Grange's cleat caught in the field, causing him to twist his knee when Trafton fell on him. Revealed to be a torn tendon, he underwent a diathermy to treat it after water started to form. The injury ultimately affected Grange's speed and running ability, though he remained serviceable for the rest of his career. "After it happened, I was just another halfback," Grange commented.
Four weeks after the Bears game, Grange returned against the Cardinals at quarterback to honor his contract. Although his injury worsened, the Yankees won 20–6 and he ultimately finished the season. After the year, he and the Yankees participated in another barnstorming tour against West Coast teams led by Wilson and Benny Friedman. Grange explained his decision to keep playing in his autobiography: "At the young age of twenty-four, I refused to believe that I couldn't bounce back to my old form. I was positive I could play myself back into shape. But those additional games only served to further aggravate my condition and, when the tour was ended, it became apparent I had done irreparable damage to the knee. For the first time since I was hurt, nearly four months before, I began worrying over the possibility that I might be through as a football player."
Later career
The contract between Pyle and Grange expired in January 1928, but Grange decided not to renew due to his injury and withdrew his stake in the Yankees. Without Grange, the Yankees went 4–8–1 before shutting down for financial reasons. Grange missed the entire 1928 season before returning to the Bears for 1929.
The two highlights of Grange's later NFL years came in consecutive championship games. In the unofficial 1932 championship, Grange caught the game-winning touchdown pass from Bronko Nagurski. It was argued the pass was illegal. In the 1933 championship, Grange made a touchdown-saving tackle that saved the game and the title for the Bears.
He was a very modest person, who insisted that even the ordinary plumber or electrician knows more about his craft than he does. He said he could not explain how he did what he did on the field of play, and that he just followed his instincts.
Upon ending his playing career in 1934, Grange became the backfield coach for the Bears. Although Halas had offered him the team's head coaching position, he declined as he "never had any ambition to be a head coach in either the professional or college ranks." He remained in the position until 1937.
Acting career
Pyle realized that as the greatest football star of his era, Grange could attract moviegoers, as well as sports fans. In 1926, he made his cinematic debut in the silent film One Minute to Play; Grange described the production process as "the worst drudgery I'd ever experienced". Due to California's summer heat and the story taking place in the Midwest during autumn, the studio struggled to find extras willing to dress in warmer clothing. As such, Pyle promoted the movie's climactic final game between the school of Grange's character Red Wade and that of the antagonist George Wilson, who had played against Grange on the barnstorming tour, as a genuine exhibition game with fans dressed in fall attire being granted free admission. The movie and Grange's performance received positive reviews, with one Chicago Tribune movie critic writing, "If you've never seen Red Grange play football, now's your chance, for he plays it like every thing in this picture.". Although The Minneapolis Star Agnes Taafee criticized various scenes for their lack of realism, she praised Grange's performance. Film Booking Offices of America head Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. also asked Grange to consider retiring from football to enter acting full-time, but he declined.
The following year, he appeared in A Racing Romeo (1927). An auto racing-themed film, Grange had requested to perform his own racing stunts but Cliff Bergere was hired to take his place. The movie ultimately flopped at the box office, which Grange speculated was due to weaker promotion than with One Minute to Play. While sitting out the 1928 season to heal his knee injury, he and father Lyle joined Chicago film distributor Frank Zambreno on a nationwide vaudeville tour titled C'Mon Red.
Grange also starred in a 12-part serial series The Galloping Ghost in 1931. He performed his own stunts for the serial, including vehicular chases and fight scenes, in what he wrote was "The most strenuous work I have ever done in my life.". With the rise of sound film, Grange struggled to adapt to having speaking roles.
In his autobiography, Grange wrote of his acting career: "I've always felt it represents one of the most memorable and worth-while chapters in my life. When I first reported for work in the film capital back in 1926, I was a shy, bashful, small-town boy despite the national prominence I had achieved for my football playing. Facing cameras, live audiences in the theaters, and mixing with all the stimulating people connected with show business did something for me. It gave me confidence and poise and made me feel a little bit more like a man of the world."
Filmography
Later life
Grange departed professional football in 1937 and earned a living in a variety of jobs including motivational speaker and sports announcer. In the 1950s, he announced Bears games for CBS television and college football (including the Sugar Bowl) for NBC. Grange married his wife Margaret, nicknamed Muggs, in 1941, and they were together until his death in 1991. She was a flight attendant, and they met on a plane. The couple had no children.
During the 1940s, he was an insurance broker in Chicago. In December 1944, he was voted president of the United States Football League, a newly formed "gridiron world series" with plans to begin the following year. However, he left his position in June 1945 and the league subsequently folded without playing a game after the NFL expanded into its targeted markets. Grange also led the National Girls Baseball League as its president from 1947 to his resignation in 1949.
In 1950 he was elected as a Republican to the Board of Trustees of University of Illinois, on which he served from 1951 until 1955.
His autobiography, The Red Grange Story, was first published in 1953. The book was written "as told to" Ira Morton, a syndicated newspaper columnist from Chicago. Grange developed Parkinson's disease in his last year of life and died on January 28, 1991, in Lake Wales, Florida.
Legacy
To commemorate college football's 100th anniversary in 1969, the Football Writers Association of America chose an all-time All-America team. Grange was the only unanimous choice. 30 years later in 1999, he was ranked number 80 on The Sporting News list of the 100 Greatest Football Players. In 2008, Grange was also ranked #1 on ESPN's Top 25 Players In College Football History list.
In honor of his achievements at the University of Illinois, the school erected a 12-ft statue of Grange at the start of the 2009 football season. In 2011, Grange was announced as number one on the "Big Ten Icons" series presented by the Big Ten Network.
In 1931, Grange visited Abington Senior High School in Abington, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia. Shortly thereafter, the school adopted his nickname for the mascot in his honor, the Galloping Ghost. Also, Wheaton Warrenville South High School's football field is named in his honor and the team is referred to as the Wheaton Warrenville South Red Grange Tigers. Annually, the Wheaton Warrenville South Boys Track and Field team hosts the Red Grange Invitational in honor of Grange's achievements in track and field.
On January 15, 1978, at Super Bowl XII, Grange became the first person other than the game referee to toss the coin at a Super Bowl.
Every December, a junior college bowl game is held in his honor known as the Red Grange Bowl, in his home state of Illinois.
In popular culture
George Waite, the male love interest in the 1926 film version of Ella Cinders, is a parody of Grange, sharing the real-life running back's alma mater and side job as an iceman.
In 1935 Grange became the first football player to appear on a box of Wheaties.
In the 1949 play Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, the lead character, Willy Loman, says that his football-playing son (Biff) will be the next Red Grange.
In the 1959 thriller Compulsion, Grange is mentioned as running 97 yards for a touchdown. The movie is set in 1924, the year he did score one at 95 yards.
In the song "With Her Head Tucked Underneath Her Arm" as released in 1960 by The Kingston Trio on their album Sold Out, guards in the Tower of London mistake Anne Boleyn, haunting the castle with her head tucked underneath her arm after being beheaded, for Red Grange carrying a football.
In the 1970 show Hogan's Heroes, season 5, episode 25 ("Crittendon's Commandos"), Sergeant Carter attempts to describe Field Marshall Rommel as "The Galloping Ghost" to which Sergeant Kinchloe replies, "That was Red Grange."
In the 1975 M*A*S*H, season 3, episode "Big Mac", Major Frank Burns is chided for burning The Life of Red Grange.
In the 1983 film The Right Stuff, Chuck Yeager (played by Sam Shepard) says he'll "look like the Gallopin' Ghost" in the leather helmet which Jack Ridley gives him to wear on his test flight or the Bell X-1.
Al Bundy is mistaken for Grange several times in the 1988 Married... with Children episode "Poke High".
In the 2007 American Dad! episode "The Magnificent Steven", while trying to teach Steve and his friends to be tough by playing football, Stan finds the boys hiding from the sunlight under a tree and exclaims "What, in the name of Red Grange, is going on?!"
The 2008 movie Leatherheads, starring George Clooney, John Krasinski, and Renée Zellweger, was loosely based on Grange.
See also
List of unanimous college football All-Americans
List of people on the cover of Time Magazine: 1920s
Notes
References
Further reading
External links
1903 births
1991 deaths
American football halfbacks
Chicago Bears announcers
Chicago Bears coaches
Chicago Bears players
College football announcers
Illinois Fighting Illini football players
National Football League announcers
New York Yankees (NFL) players
All-American college football players
College Football Hall of Fame inductees
Pro Football Hall of Fame inductees
People from Sullivan County, Pennsylvania
Sportspeople from Wheaton, Illinois
Players of American football from Pennsylvania
Deaths from pneumonia in Florida
National Girls Baseball League players
Illinois Republicans
National Football League players with retired numbers
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"The 9th annual Genie Awards were held March 22, 1988, and honoured Canadian films released in 1987. The ceremony was held at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre and was co-hosted by Megan Follows and Gordon Pinsent.\n\nThe awards were dominated by Night Zoo (Un zoo la nuit), which won a still unmatched thirteen awards. The film garnered 14 nominations overall; the film's only nomination that failed to translate into a win was Gilles Maheu's nod for Best Actor, as he lost to the film's other Best Actor nominee, Roger Lebel. The female acting awards were won by Sheila McCarthy and Paule Baillargeon for the film I've Heard the Mermaids Singing, the only other narrative feature film to win any Genie awards that year; only the Documentary and Short Film awards, in which neither Night Zoo nor I've Heard the Mermaids Singing were even eligible for consideration, were won by any other film.\n\nWinners and nominees\n\nReferences\n\n09\nGenie\nGenie\nGenie",
"Le Cousin is a 1997 French film directed by Alain Corneau.\n\nPlot \nThe film deals with the relationship of the police and an informant in the drug scene.\n\nAwards and nominations\nLe Cousin was nominated for 5 César Awards but did not win in any category.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n1997 films\n1997 crime films\nFilms about drugs\nFilms directed by Alain Corneau\nFrench crime films\nFrench films\nFrench-language films"
] |
[
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"Legacy",
"What was Grange's legacy like?",
"In 2008, Grange was also ranked #1 on ESPN's Top 25 Players In College Football History list.",
"What happened as a result?",
"In honor of his achievements at the University of Illinois, the school erected a 12-ft statue of Grange",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"In 1931, Grange visited Abington Senior High School in Abington, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia.",
"What did he do while there?",
"Shortly thereafter, the school adopted his nickname for the mascot in his honor, the Galloping Ghost.",
"Did he win any other awards?",
"he was ranked number 80 on The Sporting News list of the 100 Greatest Football Players."
] |
C_7160a956e0804d38893e7c10d1f224e9_0
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What happened after he got this rating?
| 6 |
What happened after Red Grange got ranked 80 on the Greatest Football Players list?
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Red Grange
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To commemorate college football's 100th anniversary in 1969, the Football Writers Association of America chose an all-time All-America team. Grange was the only unanimous choice. Then in 1999, he was ranked number 80 on The Sporting News list of the 100 Greatest Football Players. In 2008, Grange was also ranked #1 on ESPN's Top 25 Players In College Football History list. In honor of his achievements at the University of Illinois, the school erected a 12-ft statue of Grange at the start of the 2009 football season. In 2011, Grange was announced as number one on the "Big Ten Icons" series presented by the Big Ten Network. In 1931, Grange visited Abington Senior High School in Abington, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia. Shortly thereafter, the school adopted his nickname for the mascot in his honor, the Galloping Ghost. Also, Wheaton Warrenville South High School's football field is named in his honor and the team is referred to as the Wheaton Warrenville South Red Grange Tigers. Annually, the Wheaton Warrenville South Boys Track and Field team hosts the Red Grange Invitational in honor of Grange's achievements in track and field. On January 15, 1978, at Super Bowl XII, Grange became the first person other than the game referee to toss the coin at a Super Bowl. Every December, a junior college bowl game is held in his honor known as the Red Grange bowl, in his home state of Illinois. In 2017, Mesabi Range College was defeated by the College of Dupage in the 2nd edition of this bowl. CANNOTANSWER
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Every December, a junior college bowl game is held in his honor known as the Red Grange bowl, in his home state of Illinois.
|
Harold Edward "Red" Grange (June 13, 1903 – January 28, 1991), nicknamed "The Galloping Ghost" and "The Wheaton Iceman", was an American football halfback for the University of Illinois, the Chicago Bears, and the short-lived New York Yankees. His signing with the Bears helped legitimize the National Football League (NFL).
In college, Grange was a three-time consensus All-American and led his team to a national championship in 1923. He was the only consensus All-American running back in 1924 who was not a member of the Four Horsemen of Notre Dame. The same year, Grange became the first recipient of the Chicago Tribune Silver Football award as the Big Ten Conference's most valuable player. In 2008, Grange was named the best college football player of all time by ESPN, and in 2011, he was named the Greatest Big Ten Icon by the Big Ten Network.
Shortly after his final college game in 1925, Grange joined the Bears and the NFL, embarking on a barnstorming tour to raise the league's attention across the country. When his rookie contract expired, he and agent C. C. Pyle formed the American Football League in 1926, with Grange playing for the Yankees. The league lasted just one year before shutting down and the Yankees were assimilated into the NFL. Grange suffered a serious knee injury in 1927 that prevented him from playing the following season, and he returned to the Bears in 1929. He remained with the team until he ended his playing career in 1934, from which he became a backfield coach for the Bears for three seasons.
He is a charter member of both the College and Pro Football Halls of Fame.
Early life
Red Grange was born on June 13, 1903, in Forksville, Pennsylvania, a village of about 200 people among lumber camps. His father Lyle was the foreman of three lumber camps. His mother died when he was just five years old. For a number of years, the Grange family lived with relatives until they could finally afford a home of their own in Wheaton, Illinois. In Wheaton, Lyle became the chief of police.
In four years at Wheaton High School, Grange earned 16 varsity letters in football, baseball, basketball, and track; he scored 75 touchdowns and 532 points for the football team. As a high school junior, Grange scored 36 touchdowns and led Wheaton High School to an undefeated season. In his senior year, his team won every game but one in which they lost 39–0 to Scott High School in Toledo, Ohio. Knocked out in this game, Grange remained unconscious for two days, having difficulty speaking when he awoke. Grange was also an all-state track and field runner. In 1920, he was a state champion in the high jump and placed third and fourth in the 100-yard dash and the 220-yard dash, respectively. In 1921, he won the state title in both the long jump and the 100-yard dash, and in 1922, he placed third in the 100-yard dash and won the 220-yard dash. In a 1974 interview with American Heritage Grange stated that he ran the 100-yard dash in 9.8 seconds [at the time this was just one-fifth of a second off the world (and American) records].
To help the family earn money, he took a part-time job as an ice toter for $37.50 per week, a job which helped him to build his core strength and from which he got the nicknames "Ice Man" and "the Wheaton Ice Man."
University of Illinois
After graduation, Grange enrolled at the University of Illinois, where he joined the Zeta Psi fraternity. At first he had planned to compete only in basketball and track, but changed his mind once he arrived and joined coach Bob Zuppke's Fighting Illini football team. Grange was the roommate of college basketball player and future college basketball coach John Mauer. Grange also modeled for local men's clothing store Jos. Kuhn and Co. as a floor model, common for Illini athletes at the time, and was an amateur boxer.
Grange played for the team from 1923 to 1925. In his first collegiate football game, he scored three touchdowns against Nebraska. In seven games as a sophomore, he ran for 723 yards and scored 12 touchdowns, and led Illinois to an undefeated season and the Helms Athletic Foundation national championship. His younger brother Garland also played football for the school.
He drew national attention for his performance in the October 18, 1924, game against Michigan, in the grand opening game of the new Memorial Stadium, built as a memorial to Illini students and alumni who had served in World War I. The Michigan Wolverines entered the game as favorites, having won a national title the previous year. Grange returned the opening kickoff for a 95-yard touchdown and scored three more touchdowns on runs of 67, 56, and 44 yards in the first 12 minutes, the last three in less than seven minutes. On his next carry, he ran 56 yards for yet another touchdown. In the second half, Grange scored a fifth touchdown on an 11-yard run and also threw a touchdown pass. On defense, he intercepted two passes. Michigan coach Fielding Yost said, "All Grange can do is run," to which Zuppke, referring to a famed opera star of the age, responded, "And all Galli-Curci can do is sing."
The game inspired Grantland Rice to write this poetic description:
A streak of fire, a breath of flame
Eluding all who reach and clutch;
A gray ghost thrown into the game
That rival hands may never touch;
A rubber bounding, blasting soul
Whose destination is the goal — Red Grange of Illinois!
Chicago sportswriter Warren Brown nicknamed Grange "The Galloping Ghost". When asked in a 1974 interview, "Was it Grantland Rice who dubbed you the Galloping Ghost?" Grange replied, "No, it was Warren Brown, who was a great writer with the Chicago American in those days."
1925 season
Before the 1925 season, Grange was approached by Champaign movie theater owner C. C. Pyle, who asked, "How would you like to make one hundred thousand dollars, maybe even a million?" After Grange agreed, he was told to stay in contact but remain silent on their meeting. The following day, Pyle contacted Chicago Bears owners George Halas and Edward Sternaman to outline a professional contract for Grange, organizing a barnstorming tour that spanned 19 games and 67 days, including games in Florida. As part of their agreement, the Bears received 50 percent of the ticket gate, while Pyle and Grange got the other half.
Considering Grange's popularity, rumors began surrounding his future after completing his senior year, including professional football and acting. A petition was also created to convince him to run for the Republican Party's at-large nomination for the 70th United States Congress; although he was only 22 years old at the time, supporters argued he would be within six months of the minimum age of 25 when the Congress opened in December 1927. Despite the speculation, Grange and those connected with him tried to dodge any inquiries that might affect his college athlete eligibility; when approached about a career in pro football, he denied it. He also turned down a potential college coaching career owing to low pay.
Featuring a roster of mostly sophomores and backups, the Illini opened the season 1–3, including losing 14–0 in the season opener to Nebraska for their first loss at Memorial Stadium. This was followed by a 16–13 win over Butler and two straight losses to Iowa and Michigan; although Grange was contained against Nebraska and Michigan, he scored two touchdowns against Butler and on the opening kickoff against Iowa. During the Michigan game, Zuppke moved Grange to quarterback, but was a "marked man" in the defeat.
In the Illini's next game against the University of Pennsylvania, they faced a Quaker team considered one of the best in the eastern United States. In front of 60,000 fans, Grange recorded a career-high 237 yards through deep mud and scored three touchdowns; Penn struggled to keep up, prompting some Illinois lineman to call "Illinois rules the East!" prior to each play. On one play, Grange debuted the flea flicker, a trick play designed by Zuppke in which fullback Earl Britton received the snap from a fake field goal formation, which he threw to right end Chuck Kassel, who lateraled back to Grange and ran for the score. As Illinois won 24–2, Laurence Stallings, a famed war correspondent for the New York World, said, "This story's too big for me. I can't write it."
Columnist Damon Runyon wrote in his game recap, "This man Red Grange of Illinois is three or four men, and a horse rolled into one for football purposes. He is Jack Dempsey, Babe Ruth, Al Jolson, Paavo Nurmi and Man o'War. Put them all together. They spell Grange." When the team returned the next Monday, a contingent of 20,000 that included students and the mayors of Urbana and Champaign greeted them; when Grange tried to dodge the crowd, he was spotted and carried to his fraternity house. After the game, his number 77 was retired by the University of Illinois.
Against the Chicago Maroons, Grange recorded –8 total rushing yards and 64 all-purpose yards in abysmal conditions. The following week against Wabash, he only appeared in the fourth quarter to call signals and did not record stats, as the backups played much of the game.
Grange's final college game came against Ohio State in Columbus. Before the game, the Champaign News-Gazette conducted an interview with Grange and confronted him about signing a professional contract, which he firmly denied before leaving. In Columbus, Grange restricted himself to his hotel room to avoid the media, including having a teammate impersonate him for a pre-game parade. NFL President Joseph Carr, who had owned the local NFL team Columbus Panhandles, considered attending the game before he was hospitalized with appendicitis. In front of 85,000 fans, Grange recorded 113 rushing yards on 21 carries and 42 passing yards on nine throws as Illinois won 14–9.
In his 20-game college career, Grange ran for 3,362 yards, caught 14 passes for 253 yards, and completed 40 of 82 passes for 575 yards. Of his 31 touchdowns, 16 were from at least 20 yards, with nine from more than 50 yards. He scored at least one touchdown in every game he played but the Nebraska game. He earned All-America recognition three consecutive years and appeared on the cover of Time on October 5, 1925.
Statistics
In 2002, the NCAA published "NCAA Football's Finest," researched and compiled by the NCAA Statistics Service. For Grange they published the following statistics:
Professional career
After the 1925 Ohio State game, Grange formally announced his intention to sign with the Bears, but other NFL teams also expressed interest in signing him. The Rochester Jeffersons made a last-ditch effort to sign him at a salary of $5,000 per game, but were unable to do so, a key factor in the team's demise. The New York Giants also reportedly offered $40,000 to him, a claim denied by team executive Harry March while owner Tim Mara noted the NFL did not allow college players to sign with teams and also had limits on how much money a team could offer. Still, Mara visited Chicago the same day that Grange signed with the Bears and secured a game against them in December.
Grange's decision was vilified by those in college football; at the time, professional football was viewed as a commercialized, weaker brand of its college counterpart. Head coaches Amos Alonzo Stagg and Yost of the Universities of Chicago and Michigan were noted opponents, as were Illinois athletic director George Huff and Zuppke. Yost once commented, "I'd be glad to see Grange do anything else except play professional football." During their return to their hotel from the Ohio State game, Zuppke repeatedly ordered their taxi driver to take various routes to prolong the ride and allow him to convince Grange to reconsider his decision. In response, Grange questioned why he should not be allowed to be paid for playing football if Zuppke was receiving pay as a coach. The two would not meet again until an Illini team banquet weeks later; during his speech, Zuppke openly criticized Grange, prompting an incensed Grange to leave. In January 1926, Herbert Reed of The Outlook wrote an article titled "De-Granging Football" that used Grange's surname as a verb: to "grange" a game means to exploit it.
On November 22, he formally hired Pyle as his agent and signed with the Bears. The contract earned him a salary and share of gate receipts that amounted to $100,000, during an era when typical league salaries were less than $100/game. Prior to joining his new teammates, he attended the Bears' game against the Green Bay Packers at Cubs Park, a game they won 21–0. Former Yale player Tim Callahan also announced he had secured Grange for a December Florida league he had organized.
Grange is the last player to play both college football and in the NFL in the same season. In 1926, the NFL passed the "Red Grange Rule" to forbid further players from doing the same, along with requiring NFL hopefuls' graduating classes to have left college, though both clauses would be tested in various instances. In 1930, the Bears signed Notre Dame fullback Joe Savoldi although he had withdrawn from school and been kicked off the team, a violation of the Grange Rule's graduating class prerequisite. The Bears argued that since Savoldi had been expelled, he was technically no longer a member of his Class of 1931; the team would be fined $1,000 for each game Savoldi played in. The NFL also maintained the rule prohibiting players from appearing in college and NFL games in the same season when TCU running back Kenneth Davis attempted to join the league after being suspended one game into his senior year in 1986.
The barnstorming tour
December tour
Grange made his NFL debut on November 26, Thanksgiving Day, against the Chicago Cardinals. With only three days of practice in the Bears' T formation (he had played in the single wing offense in college), he recorded 92 rushing yards and an interception in the scoreless tie. A crowd of 40,000 attended the game. In the next game against the Columbus Tigers, he threw a touchdown pass and recorded 171 yards as the Bears won 14–7. Shortly after, Britton signed with the Bears, reuniting him with Grange.
In December, the Bears' schedule grew with eight games between December 2 and 13, including three against local all-star teams. The first game, against the Donnelly All-Stars at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis, saw Grange score four touchdowns in a 39–6 blowout. On December 5, he scored two touchdowns including the game-winner against the Frankford Yellow Jackets. The next day, between 65,000 and 73,000 people showed up at the Polo Grounds to watch Grange, helping save the Giants' franchise from financial debt. Grange scored a touchdown on a 35-yard interception return in the Bears' 19–7 victory. Offensively, he ran for 53 yards on 11 carries, caught a 23-yard pass, and completed two of three passes for 32 yards. Before their next game against a Washington, D.C. all-star team, Pyle and Grange elected to remain in New York to promote themselves, receiving various endorsements.
In Washington, the Bears visited President Calvin Coolidge; when he was introduced to the team and shook hands with Grange, Coolidge responded, "Glad to meet you. I always did like animal acts." Although the Bears defeated Washington 19–0, Grange recorded only 16 rushing yards, no receiving and return yards, failed to complete a pass attempt (including one interception), and missed a field goal.
Despite the victories, the grueling schedule led to a rise in injuries. Grange had been hit in the left arm during the Giants game, causing it to swell by the team's next game against the Providence Steam Roller. The pain from the injury was too great for Grange, who could not bring himself to return a punt and allowed it to sail over his head; he was eventually pulled in the 9–6 loss. The match was widely criticized by fans and media, with a United News Service article commenting the "Grange bubble appears dangerously near the bursting point. Beneath the withering, pitiless spotlight of publicity, the red-headed youngster's fame may melt away like some of his own ice, leaving only a little dank, malodorous saw-dust." College football figures also proclaimed the game as evidence of professional football's inferiority; referee E. J. O'Brien described it as a "dismal failure." However, others like Princeton and Yale players Herbert Treat and Carl Flanders defended the sport and the Bears as their schedule was too overwhelming, and the latter added it had "a bright future."
"I was booed for the first time in my football career in the Boston game," Grange wrote in his autobiography. "It made me aware of something I had never thought of before—that the public's attitude toward a professional football player is quite different from the manner in which they view a college gridder. A pro's performance is evaluated much more critically and he is less likely to be forgiven when a mistake is made. A pro must deliver, or else."
Following the game, Grange hired E. B. Cooley as his personal doctor. Cooley was the father of Grange's friend and personal adviser Marion "Doc" Cooley, who was serving the position alongside their university classmate Dinty Moore. At Grange's father's request, his close friend Lyman "Beans" DeWolf also joined the team as a confidant.
The Bears' next game against a Pittsburgh all-star group saw the team in poor condition; before kickoff, former All-American Bo McMillin visited the team in the locker room and advised Grange to not play upon seeing his arm. At the start, only ten players were on the field, forcing Halas to choose between two injured linemen to serve as the required 11th man; center George Trafton was selected as he was able to at least stand and walk. Trainer Andy Lotshaw, who had never played football before, was also called to play tackle. Twelve minutes into the game, Grange attempted to block for halfback Johnny Mohardt, but suffered a torn ligament and a broken blood vessel in his arm, the latter of which resulted in artery hemorrhaging. The Bears ultimately lost 24–0.
With Grange hurt, Chicago canceled a game against an all-star team in Cleveland, prompting the organizer to sue for breach of contract. Although Grange expressed confidence in playing the next game against the Detroit Panthers, he was forced to miss it after a blood clot developed in his arm; the Bears lost 21–0. The final game of the December tour against the Giants ended in a 9–0 defeat. "No other team before or since has ever attempted such a grueling schedule as the 1925 Bears and I'm sure never will," Grange wrote in his autobiography.
In ten games, the Bears went 5–4–1.
January tour
On December 21, the Bears traveled to Florida to play in Callahan's Florida league. To avoid further injuries like in the first tour, the team elected to have week-long breaks between stretches in which they played games on consecutive days. In their first game four days later against a Coral Gables team, Grange scored the lone touchdown and recorded 89 rushing yards in the 7–0 win.
In the days leading to the next game against the Tampa Cardinals on January 1, 1926, rumors surfaced of Grange participating in a boxing match, but he did not accept. The evening before the game, Grange, driving a car accompanied by golfers Jim Barnes and Johnny Farrell and Olympic swimmer Helen Wainwright, was arrested for speeding at (the speed limit was ). The four were released after Grange gave the police officer $25. In the Bears' 17–3 victory over the Cardinals, he scored on a 70-yard touchdown run.
Before departing Tampa, Grange and Pyle invested $17,000 apiece in real estate to capitalize on the Florida land boom of the 1920s, but hurricanes led to the period's end. The day after the Cardinals game, the Bears played a Jacksonville team featuring former Stanford All-American Ernie Nevers. Although Nevers excelled in the game, Grange threw a 30-yard touchdown pass in the 19–6 win.
Following a one-week rest period, the Bears took on a Southern-based all-star team in New Orleans. Grange had 136 rushing yards and a touchdown, along with a 51-yard punt return that was nullified by a holding penalty, as the Bears shut out New Orleans 14–0. Afterwards, the team went to Los Angeles to play the Los Angeles Wildcats, led by Washington Huskies football star George "Wildcat" Wilson, an admirer of Grange who agreed to participate as the game offered the chance to play against him. Wilson would also lead future opponents on the tour in San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle. With approximately 65,000 in attendance at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, the Bears defeated the Tigers 17–7 as Grange scored a touchdown. The Bears followed by winning 14–0 against a team in San Diego, a game in which Grange considered himself "listless throughout" until he recorded a two-yard touchdown in the fourth quarter. Against the San Francisco Tigers in Kezar Stadium, he was limited to 41 rushing yards and threw an interception in the 14–9 loss.
In Portland, Grange and Britton combined for five touchdowns, including three by the latter. Grange threw a 15-yard touchdown pass to Laurie Walquist and ran 45 yards for a second, but exited the 60–3 win before halftime after getting hurt in a pile-up.
On January 31, a day after the Portland game, the Bears played the Seattle All-Stars. Grange scored two touchdowns (36-yard run and 31-yard pass) and recorded 99 rushing yards in the 34–0 victory, while Wilson and teammate Rollie Corbett suffered injuries; the latter broke his leg, leading to Grange, Pyle, and Wilson establishing a fund to support him. The three donated $50 each.
The Bears went 8–1 in the late December and January tour. Immediately following the Seattle game, Pyle issued Grange's final rookie check of $50,000. In his rookie season, Grange made approximately $125,000. "Charlie had kept his word. Now I thought I could go on to make it a million," Grange wrote in his autobiography.
Impact on professional football
Grange's barnstorming tours are generally considered to have saved the NFL and professional football, though detractors have criticized this narrative considering his injuries and unimpressive performances.
In a February 1926 article, the Chicago Tribune Don Maxwell wrote that although Grange was typically outperformed by his teammates while attendance for the Florida games was poor and organizers lost money, his star status drew interest, especially on the West Coast, and the money he made was more than he "could have made in any other business in the same period." On the other hand, in 1991, Vito Stellino of The Baltimore Sun compared Grange's decision to join the NFL to Herschel Walker electing to sign with the newly formed United States Football League in the 1980s; although Walker was a popular name, the USFL ultimately collapsed. Stellino instead suggested television helped grow the NFL, while Grange's legend was "too embedded into the American sports psyche to disprove now. Anyway, it's a better story than the reality."
According to football historian John M. Carroll, critics believed the tours created the notion that professional football was a circus led by certain superstars, which posed a risk to such players should they decide to play while injured. Others feared games could be fixed to favor the star players, with Brooklyn Dodgers owner/player Shipwreck Kelly alleging he had reached an agreement with Halas and the Bears to let Grange make a long run in a 1934 postseason exhibition game. However, Carroll also added Grange helped expedite the NFL's growth:
In 1985, Grange emphasized the tours' importance to the NFL but noted that the league offered little support to the players from the era: "I complained a few times, because we had guys in hospitals, guys who had had amputations because of football injuries. Guys who had problems. I thought the game could have done something for them, but it never did. As far as I know, pro football hasn't done anything for anybody except lately, and that's mostly for itself. I never made a real stink about it, but I was sad for the oldtimers."
New York Yankees and the American Football League
After the January tour, Pyle approached George Halas and Dutch Sternaman about buying an interest in the Bears, but was turned down. In response, he and Grange attempted to form their own team, the New York Yankees, and gain entry into the NFL. Although they acquired a five-year lease to play at Yankee Stadium, Mara intervened as he felt the Yankees infringed on his Giants' territorial rights.
To challenge the NFL, Grange and Pyle formed the nine-team American Football League. Wilson, who had been approached by Pyle about becoming his client, joined the league as a member of the Wildcats, while Grange's Bears teammates Mohardt and Joey Sternaman played for the Chicago Bulls. In 1926, the Yankees went 9–5 to finish second in the standings.
After the season, the team embarked on a ten-game barnstorming tour to Texas and California alongside Wilson's Wildcats. In late December, in what Grange wrote was "about the only memorable part of the tour", he and his teammates were arrested in Dallas for disturbing the peace and reportedly being intoxicated, the latter of which the group denied; Grange explained the incident transpired when the team visited a hotel at 4 AM after being recommended the spot as a nightlife location by a local policeman. After the players were ordered by the hotel manager to leave the lobby for the noise they were creating, the police confronted them, including throwing teammate Pooley Hubert in an argument. They were eventually arrested and jailed, but were released after paying $10 as they had to play a game in Beaumont that day.
The AFL shut down after one season and the Yankees were added to the NFL. On October 17, 1927, the Yankees were shut out 12–0 by the Bears in Chicago. With a minute remaining in the game, Grange suffered a severe knee injury when he was hit by center George Trafton while trying to catch a pass from Eddie Tryon. As he landed, Grange's cleat caught in the field, causing him to twist his knee when Trafton fell on him. Revealed to be a torn tendon, he underwent a diathermy to treat it after water started to form. The injury ultimately affected Grange's speed and running ability, though he remained serviceable for the rest of his career. "After it happened, I was just another halfback," Grange commented.
Four weeks after the Bears game, Grange returned against the Cardinals at quarterback to honor his contract. Although his injury worsened, the Yankees won 20–6 and he ultimately finished the season. After the year, he and the Yankees participated in another barnstorming tour against West Coast teams led by Wilson and Benny Friedman. Grange explained his decision to keep playing in his autobiography: "At the young age of twenty-four, I refused to believe that I couldn't bounce back to my old form. I was positive I could play myself back into shape. But those additional games only served to further aggravate my condition and, when the tour was ended, it became apparent I had done irreparable damage to the knee. For the first time since I was hurt, nearly four months before, I began worrying over the possibility that I might be through as a football player."
Later career
The contract between Pyle and Grange expired in January 1928, but Grange decided not to renew due to his injury and withdrew his stake in the Yankees. Without Grange, the Yankees went 4–8–1 before shutting down for financial reasons. Grange missed the entire 1928 season before returning to the Bears for 1929.
The two highlights of Grange's later NFL years came in consecutive championship games. In the unofficial 1932 championship, Grange caught the game-winning touchdown pass from Bronko Nagurski. It was argued the pass was illegal. In the 1933 championship, Grange made a touchdown-saving tackle that saved the game and the title for the Bears.
He was a very modest person, who insisted that even the ordinary plumber or electrician knows more about his craft than he does. He said he could not explain how he did what he did on the field of play, and that he just followed his instincts.
Upon ending his playing career in 1934, Grange became the backfield coach for the Bears. Although Halas had offered him the team's head coaching position, he declined as he "never had any ambition to be a head coach in either the professional or college ranks." He remained in the position until 1937.
Acting career
Pyle realized that as the greatest football star of his era, Grange could attract moviegoers, as well as sports fans. In 1926, he made his cinematic debut in the silent film One Minute to Play; Grange described the production process as "the worst drudgery I'd ever experienced". Due to California's summer heat and the story taking place in the Midwest during autumn, the studio struggled to find extras willing to dress in warmer clothing. As such, Pyle promoted the movie's climactic final game between the school of Grange's character Red Wade and that of the antagonist George Wilson, who had played against Grange on the barnstorming tour, as a genuine exhibition game with fans dressed in fall attire being granted free admission. The movie and Grange's performance received positive reviews, with one Chicago Tribune movie critic writing, "If you've never seen Red Grange play football, now's your chance, for he plays it like every thing in this picture.". Although The Minneapolis Star Agnes Taafee criticized various scenes for their lack of realism, she praised Grange's performance. Film Booking Offices of America head Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. also asked Grange to consider retiring from football to enter acting full-time, but he declined.
The following year, he appeared in A Racing Romeo (1927). An auto racing-themed film, Grange had requested to perform his own racing stunts but Cliff Bergere was hired to take his place. The movie ultimately flopped at the box office, which Grange speculated was due to weaker promotion than with One Minute to Play. While sitting out the 1928 season to heal his knee injury, he and father Lyle joined Chicago film distributor Frank Zambreno on a nationwide vaudeville tour titled C'Mon Red.
Grange also starred in a 12-part serial series The Galloping Ghost in 1931. He performed his own stunts for the serial, including vehicular chases and fight scenes, in what he wrote was "The most strenuous work I have ever done in my life.". With the rise of sound film, Grange struggled to adapt to having speaking roles.
In his autobiography, Grange wrote of his acting career: "I've always felt it represents one of the most memorable and worth-while chapters in my life. When I first reported for work in the film capital back in 1926, I was a shy, bashful, small-town boy despite the national prominence I had achieved for my football playing. Facing cameras, live audiences in the theaters, and mixing with all the stimulating people connected with show business did something for me. It gave me confidence and poise and made me feel a little bit more like a man of the world."
Filmography
Later life
Grange departed professional football in 1937 and earned a living in a variety of jobs including motivational speaker and sports announcer. In the 1950s, he announced Bears games for CBS television and college football (including the Sugar Bowl) for NBC. Grange married his wife Margaret, nicknamed Muggs, in 1941, and they were together until his death in 1991. She was a flight attendant, and they met on a plane. The couple had no children.
During the 1940s, he was an insurance broker in Chicago. In December 1944, he was voted president of the United States Football League, a newly formed "gridiron world series" with plans to begin the following year. However, he left his position in June 1945 and the league subsequently folded without playing a game after the NFL expanded into its targeted markets. Grange also led the National Girls Baseball League as its president from 1947 to his resignation in 1949.
In 1950 he was elected as a Republican to the Board of Trustees of University of Illinois, on which he served from 1951 until 1955.
His autobiography, The Red Grange Story, was first published in 1953. The book was written "as told to" Ira Morton, a syndicated newspaper columnist from Chicago. Grange developed Parkinson's disease in his last year of life and died on January 28, 1991, in Lake Wales, Florida.
Legacy
To commemorate college football's 100th anniversary in 1969, the Football Writers Association of America chose an all-time All-America team. Grange was the only unanimous choice. 30 years later in 1999, he was ranked number 80 on The Sporting News list of the 100 Greatest Football Players. In 2008, Grange was also ranked #1 on ESPN's Top 25 Players In College Football History list.
In honor of his achievements at the University of Illinois, the school erected a 12-ft statue of Grange at the start of the 2009 football season. In 2011, Grange was announced as number one on the "Big Ten Icons" series presented by the Big Ten Network.
In 1931, Grange visited Abington Senior High School in Abington, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia. Shortly thereafter, the school adopted his nickname for the mascot in his honor, the Galloping Ghost. Also, Wheaton Warrenville South High School's football field is named in his honor and the team is referred to as the Wheaton Warrenville South Red Grange Tigers. Annually, the Wheaton Warrenville South Boys Track and Field team hosts the Red Grange Invitational in honor of Grange's achievements in track and field.
On January 15, 1978, at Super Bowl XII, Grange became the first person other than the game referee to toss the coin at a Super Bowl.
Every December, a junior college bowl game is held in his honor known as the Red Grange Bowl, in his home state of Illinois.
In popular culture
George Waite, the male love interest in the 1926 film version of Ella Cinders, is a parody of Grange, sharing the real-life running back's alma mater and side job as an iceman.
In 1935 Grange became the first football player to appear on a box of Wheaties.
In the 1949 play Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, the lead character, Willy Loman, says that his football-playing son (Biff) will be the next Red Grange.
In the 1959 thriller Compulsion, Grange is mentioned as running 97 yards for a touchdown. The movie is set in 1924, the year he did score one at 95 yards.
In the song "With Her Head Tucked Underneath Her Arm" as released in 1960 by The Kingston Trio on their album Sold Out, guards in the Tower of London mistake Anne Boleyn, haunting the castle with her head tucked underneath her arm after being beheaded, for Red Grange carrying a football.
In the 1970 show Hogan's Heroes, season 5, episode 25 ("Crittendon's Commandos"), Sergeant Carter attempts to describe Field Marshall Rommel as "The Galloping Ghost" to which Sergeant Kinchloe replies, "That was Red Grange."
In the 1975 M*A*S*H, season 3, episode "Big Mac", Major Frank Burns is chided for burning The Life of Red Grange.
In the 1983 film The Right Stuff, Chuck Yeager (played by Sam Shepard) says he'll "look like the Gallopin' Ghost" in the leather helmet which Jack Ridley gives him to wear on his test flight or the Bell X-1.
Al Bundy is mistaken for Grange several times in the 1988 Married... with Children episode "Poke High".
In the 2007 American Dad! episode "The Magnificent Steven", while trying to teach Steve and his friends to be tough by playing football, Stan finds the boys hiding from the sunlight under a tree and exclaims "What, in the name of Red Grange, is going on?!"
The 2008 movie Leatherheads, starring George Clooney, John Krasinski, and Renée Zellweger, was loosely based on Grange.
See also
List of unanimous college football All-Americans
List of people on the cover of Time Magazine: 1920s
Notes
References
Further reading
External links
1903 births
1991 deaths
American football halfbacks
Chicago Bears announcers
Chicago Bears coaches
Chicago Bears players
College football announcers
Illinois Fighting Illini football players
National Football League announcers
New York Yankees (NFL) players
All-American college football players
College Football Hall of Fame inductees
Pro Football Hall of Fame inductees
People from Sullivan County, Pennsylvania
Sportspeople from Wheaton, Illinois
Players of American football from Pennsylvania
Deaths from pneumonia in Florida
National Girls Baseball League players
Illinois Republicans
National Football League players with retired numbers
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[
"In a Blue Mood is a studio album by Kay Starr. It was released in 1955 by Capitol Records (catalog no. T-580).\n\nUpon its release, Billboard magazine wrote that the 12 songs selected for the album show Starr \"at her bluesy best\" with songs allowing her to display \"atmosphere and mood\". AllMusic gave the album a rating of two stars.\n\nTrack listing\nSide A\n \"After You're Gone\"\n \"A Woman Likes to Be Told\"\n \"Maybe You'll Be There\"\n \"I'm Waiting for Ships That Never Come In\"\n \"What Will I Tell My Heart\"\n Evenin'\"\n\nSide B\n \"He's Funny That Way\"\n \"I Got the Spring Fever Blues\"\n \"Don't Tell Him What Happened to Me\"\n \"I Got It Bad, and That Aint' Good\"\n \"Everybody's Somebody's Fool\"\n \"It Will Have to Do Until the Real Thing Comes Along\"\n\nReferences\n\n1955 albums\nKay Starr albums\nCapitol Records albums",
"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"
] |
[
"Red Grange",
"Legacy",
"What was Grange's legacy like?",
"In 2008, Grange was also ranked #1 on ESPN's Top 25 Players In College Football History list.",
"What happened as a result?",
"In honor of his achievements at the University of Illinois, the school erected a 12-ft statue of Grange",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"In 1931, Grange visited Abington Senior High School in Abington, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia.",
"What did he do while there?",
"Shortly thereafter, the school adopted his nickname for the mascot in his honor, the Galloping Ghost.",
"Did he win any other awards?",
"he was ranked number 80 on The Sporting News list of the 100 Greatest Football Players.",
"What happened after he got this rating?",
"Every December, a junior college bowl game is held in his honor known as the Red Grange bowl, in his home state of Illinois."
] |
C_7160a956e0804d38893e7c10d1f224e9_0
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What else do people do in his honor?
| 7 |
What else do people do in Red Grange's honor besides the Red Grange Bowl?
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Red Grange
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To commemorate college football's 100th anniversary in 1969, the Football Writers Association of America chose an all-time All-America team. Grange was the only unanimous choice. Then in 1999, he was ranked number 80 on The Sporting News list of the 100 Greatest Football Players. In 2008, Grange was also ranked #1 on ESPN's Top 25 Players In College Football History list. In honor of his achievements at the University of Illinois, the school erected a 12-ft statue of Grange at the start of the 2009 football season. In 2011, Grange was announced as number one on the "Big Ten Icons" series presented by the Big Ten Network. In 1931, Grange visited Abington Senior High School in Abington, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia. Shortly thereafter, the school adopted his nickname for the mascot in his honor, the Galloping Ghost. Also, Wheaton Warrenville South High School's football field is named in his honor and the team is referred to as the Wheaton Warrenville South Red Grange Tigers. Annually, the Wheaton Warrenville South Boys Track and Field team hosts the Red Grange Invitational in honor of Grange's achievements in track and field. On January 15, 1978, at Super Bowl XII, Grange became the first person other than the game referee to toss the coin at a Super Bowl. Every December, a junior college bowl game is held in his honor known as the Red Grange bowl, in his home state of Illinois. In 2017, Mesabi Range College was defeated by the College of Dupage in the 2nd edition of this bowl. CANNOTANSWER
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Annually, the Wheaton Warrenville South Boys Track and Field team hosts the Red Grange Invitational in honor of Grange's achievements in track and field.
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Harold Edward "Red" Grange (June 13, 1903 – January 28, 1991), nicknamed "The Galloping Ghost" and "The Wheaton Iceman", was an American football halfback for the University of Illinois, the Chicago Bears, and the short-lived New York Yankees. His signing with the Bears helped legitimize the National Football League (NFL).
In college, Grange was a three-time consensus All-American and led his team to a national championship in 1923. He was the only consensus All-American running back in 1924 who was not a member of the Four Horsemen of Notre Dame. The same year, Grange became the first recipient of the Chicago Tribune Silver Football award as the Big Ten Conference's most valuable player. In 2008, Grange was named the best college football player of all time by ESPN, and in 2011, he was named the Greatest Big Ten Icon by the Big Ten Network.
Shortly after his final college game in 1925, Grange joined the Bears and the NFL, embarking on a barnstorming tour to raise the league's attention across the country. When his rookie contract expired, he and agent C. C. Pyle formed the American Football League in 1926, with Grange playing for the Yankees. The league lasted just one year before shutting down and the Yankees were assimilated into the NFL. Grange suffered a serious knee injury in 1927 that prevented him from playing the following season, and he returned to the Bears in 1929. He remained with the team until he ended his playing career in 1934, from which he became a backfield coach for the Bears for three seasons.
He is a charter member of both the College and Pro Football Halls of Fame.
Early life
Red Grange was born on June 13, 1903, in Forksville, Pennsylvania, a village of about 200 people among lumber camps. His father Lyle was the foreman of three lumber camps. His mother died when he was just five years old. For a number of years, the Grange family lived with relatives until they could finally afford a home of their own in Wheaton, Illinois. In Wheaton, Lyle became the chief of police.
In four years at Wheaton High School, Grange earned 16 varsity letters in football, baseball, basketball, and track; he scored 75 touchdowns and 532 points for the football team. As a high school junior, Grange scored 36 touchdowns and led Wheaton High School to an undefeated season. In his senior year, his team won every game but one in which they lost 39–0 to Scott High School in Toledo, Ohio. Knocked out in this game, Grange remained unconscious for two days, having difficulty speaking when he awoke. Grange was also an all-state track and field runner. In 1920, he was a state champion in the high jump and placed third and fourth in the 100-yard dash and the 220-yard dash, respectively. In 1921, he won the state title in both the long jump and the 100-yard dash, and in 1922, he placed third in the 100-yard dash and won the 220-yard dash. In a 1974 interview with American Heritage Grange stated that he ran the 100-yard dash in 9.8 seconds [at the time this was just one-fifth of a second off the world (and American) records].
To help the family earn money, he took a part-time job as an ice toter for $37.50 per week, a job which helped him to build his core strength and from which he got the nicknames "Ice Man" and "the Wheaton Ice Man."
University of Illinois
After graduation, Grange enrolled at the University of Illinois, where he joined the Zeta Psi fraternity. At first he had planned to compete only in basketball and track, but changed his mind once he arrived and joined coach Bob Zuppke's Fighting Illini football team. Grange was the roommate of college basketball player and future college basketball coach John Mauer. Grange also modeled for local men's clothing store Jos. Kuhn and Co. as a floor model, common for Illini athletes at the time, and was an amateur boxer.
Grange played for the team from 1923 to 1925. In his first collegiate football game, he scored three touchdowns against Nebraska. In seven games as a sophomore, he ran for 723 yards and scored 12 touchdowns, and led Illinois to an undefeated season and the Helms Athletic Foundation national championship. His younger brother Garland also played football for the school.
He drew national attention for his performance in the October 18, 1924, game against Michigan, in the grand opening game of the new Memorial Stadium, built as a memorial to Illini students and alumni who had served in World War I. The Michigan Wolverines entered the game as favorites, having won a national title the previous year. Grange returned the opening kickoff for a 95-yard touchdown and scored three more touchdowns on runs of 67, 56, and 44 yards in the first 12 minutes, the last three in less than seven minutes. On his next carry, he ran 56 yards for yet another touchdown. In the second half, Grange scored a fifth touchdown on an 11-yard run and also threw a touchdown pass. On defense, he intercepted two passes. Michigan coach Fielding Yost said, "All Grange can do is run," to which Zuppke, referring to a famed opera star of the age, responded, "And all Galli-Curci can do is sing."
The game inspired Grantland Rice to write this poetic description:
A streak of fire, a breath of flame
Eluding all who reach and clutch;
A gray ghost thrown into the game
That rival hands may never touch;
A rubber bounding, blasting soul
Whose destination is the goal — Red Grange of Illinois!
Chicago sportswriter Warren Brown nicknamed Grange "The Galloping Ghost". When asked in a 1974 interview, "Was it Grantland Rice who dubbed you the Galloping Ghost?" Grange replied, "No, it was Warren Brown, who was a great writer with the Chicago American in those days."
1925 season
Before the 1925 season, Grange was approached by Champaign movie theater owner C. C. Pyle, who asked, "How would you like to make one hundred thousand dollars, maybe even a million?" After Grange agreed, he was told to stay in contact but remain silent on their meeting. The following day, Pyle contacted Chicago Bears owners George Halas and Edward Sternaman to outline a professional contract for Grange, organizing a barnstorming tour that spanned 19 games and 67 days, including games in Florida. As part of their agreement, the Bears received 50 percent of the ticket gate, while Pyle and Grange got the other half.
Considering Grange's popularity, rumors began surrounding his future after completing his senior year, including professional football and acting. A petition was also created to convince him to run for the Republican Party's at-large nomination for the 70th United States Congress; although he was only 22 years old at the time, supporters argued he would be within six months of the minimum age of 25 when the Congress opened in December 1927. Despite the speculation, Grange and those connected with him tried to dodge any inquiries that might affect his college athlete eligibility; when approached about a career in pro football, he denied it. He also turned down a potential college coaching career owing to low pay.
Featuring a roster of mostly sophomores and backups, the Illini opened the season 1–3, including losing 14–0 in the season opener to Nebraska for their first loss at Memorial Stadium. This was followed by a 16–13 win over Butler and two straight losses to Iowa and Michigan; although Grange was contained against Nebraska and Michigan, he scored two touchdowns against Butler and on the opening kickoff against Iowa. During the Michigan game, Zuppke moved Grange to quarterback, but was a "marked man" in the defeat.
In the Illini's next game against the University of Pennsylvania, they faced a Quaker team considered one of the best in the eastern United States. In front of 60,000 fans, Grange recorded a career-high 237 yards through deep mud and scored three touchdowns; Penn struggled to keep up, prompting some Illinois lineman to call "Illinois rules the East!" prior to each play. On one play, Grange debuted the flea flicker, a trick play designed by Zuppke in which fullback Earl Britton received the snap from a fake field goal formation, which he threw to right end Chuck Kassel, who lateraled back to Grange and ran for the score. As Illinois won 24–2, Laurence Stallings, a famed war correspondent for the New York World, said, "This story's too big for me. I can't write it."
Columnist Damon Runyon wrote in his game recap, "This man Red Grange of Illinois is three or four men, and a horse rolled into one for football purposes. He is Jack Dempsey, Babe Ruth, Al Jolson, Paavo Nurmi and Man o'War. Put them all together. They spell Grange." When the team returned the next Monday, a contingent of 20,000 that included students and the mayors of Urbana and Champaign greeted them; when Grange tried to dodge the crowd, he was spotted and carried to his fraternity house. After the game, his number 77 was retired by the University of Illinois.
Against the Chicago Maroons, Grange recorded –8 total rushing yards and 64 all-purpose yards in abysmal conditions. The following week against Wabash, he only appeared in the fourth quarter to call signals and did not record stats, as the backups played much of the game.
Grange's final college game came against Ohio State in Columbus. Before the game, the Champaign News-Gazette conducted an interview with Grange and confronted him about signing a professional contract, which he firmly denied before leaving. In Columbus, Grange restricted himself to his hotel room to avoid the media, including having a teammate impersonate him for a pre-game parade. NFL President Joseph Carr, who had owned the local NFL team Columbus Panhandles, considered attending the game before he was hospitalized with appendicitis. In front of 85,000 fans, Grange recorded 113 rushing yards on 21 carries and 42 passing yards on nine throws as Illinois won 14–9.
In his 20-game college career, Grange ran for 3,362 yards, caught 14 passes for 253 yards, and completed 40 of 82 passes for 575 yards. Of his 31 touchdowns, 16 were from at least 20 yards, with nine from more than 50 yards. He scored at least one touchdown in every game he played but the Nebraska game. He earned All-America recognition three consecutive years and appeared on the cover of Time on October 5, 1925.
Statistics
In 2002, the NCAA published "NCAA Football's Finest," researched and compiled by the NCAA Statistics Service. For Grange they published the following statistics:
Professional career
After the 1925 Ohio State game, Grange formally announced his intention to sign with the Bears, but other NFL teams also expressed interest in signing him. The Rochester Jeffersons made a last-ditch effort to sign him at a salary of $5,000 per game, but were unable to do so, a key factor in the team's demise. The New York Giants also reportedly offered $40,000 to him, a claim denied by team executive Harry March while owner Tim Mara noted the NFL did not allow college players to sign with teams and also had limits on how much money a team could offer. Still, Mara visited Chicago the same day that Grange signed with the Bears and secured a game against them in December.
Grange's decision was vilified by those in college football; at the time, professional football was viewed as a commercialized, weaker brand of its college counterpart. Head coaches Amos Alonzo Stagg and Yost of the Universities of Chicago and Michigan were noted opponents, as were Illinois athletic director George Huff and Zuppke. Yost once commented, "I'd be glad to see Grange do anything else except play professional football." During their return to their hotel from the Ohio State game, Zuppke repeatedly ordered their taxi driver to take various routes to prolong the ride and allow him to convince Grange to reconsider his decision. In response, Grange questioned why he should not be allowed to be paid for playing football if Zuppke was receiving pay as a coach. The two would not meet again until an Illini team banquet weeks later; during his speech, Zuppke openly criticized Grange, prompting an incensed Grange to leave. In January 1926, Herbert Reed of The Outlook wrote an article titled "De-Granging Football" that used Grange's surname as a verb: to "grange" a game means to exploit it.
On November 22, he formally hired Pyle as his agent and signed with the Bears. The contract earned him a salary and share of gate receipts that amounted to $100,000, during an era when typical league salaries were less than $100/game. Prior to joining his new teammates, he attended the Bears' game against the Green Bay Packers at Cubs Park, a game they won 21–0. Former Yale player Tim Callahan also announced he had secured Grange for a December Florida league he had organized.
Grange is the last player to play both college football and in the NFL in the same season. In 1926, the NFL passed the "Red Grange Rule" to forbid further players from doing the same, along with requiring NFL hopefuls' graduating classes to have left college, though both clauses would be tested in various instances. In 1930, the Bears signed Notre Dame fullback Joe Savoldi although he had withdrawn from school and been kicked off the team, a violation of the Grange Rule's graduating class prerequisite. The Bears argued that since Savoldi had been expelled, he was technically no longer a member of his Class of 1931; the team would be fined $1,000 for each game Savoldi played in. The NFL also maintained the rule prohibiting players from appearing in college and NFL games in the same season when TCU running back Kenneth Davis attempted to join the league after being suspended one game into his senior year in 1986.
The barnstorming tour
December tour
Grange made his NFL debut on November 26, Thanksgiving Day, against the Chicago Cardinals. With only three days of practice in the Bears' T formation (he had played in the single wing offense in college), he recorded 92 rushing yards and an interception in the scoreless tie. A crowd of 40,000 attended the game. In the next game against the Columbus Tigers, he threw a touchdown pass and recorded 171 yards as the Bears won 14–7. Shortly after, Britton signed with the Bears, reuniting him with Grange.
In December, the Bears' schedule grew with eight games between December 2 and 13, including three against local all-star teams. The first game, against the Donnelly All-Stars at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis, saw Grange score four touchdowns in a 39–6 blowout. On December 5, he scored two touchdowns including the game-winner against the Frankford Yellow Jackets. The next day, between 65,000 and 73,000 people showed up at the Polo Grounds to watch Grange, helping save the Giants' franchise from financial debt. Grange scored a touchdown on a 35-yard interception return in the Bears' 19–7 victory. Offensively, he ran for 53 yards on 11 carries, caught a 23-yard pass, and completed two of three passes for 32 yards. Before their next game against a Washington, D.C. all-star team, Pyle and Grange elected to remain in New York to promote themselves, receiving various endorsements.
In Washington, the Bears visited President Calvin Coolidge; when he was introduced to the team and shook hands with Grange, Coolidge responded, "Glad to meet you. I always did like animal acts." Although the Bears defeated Washington 19–0, Grange recorded only 16 rushing yards, no receiving and return yards, failed to complete a pass attempt (including one interception), and missed a field goal.
Despite the victories, the grueling schedule led to a rise in injuries. Grange had been hit in the left arm during the Giants game, causing it to swell by the team's next game against the Providence Steam Roller. The pain from the injury was too great for Grange, who could not bring himself to return a punt and allowed it to sail over his head; he was eventually pulled in the 9–6 loss. The match was widely criticized by fans and media, with a United News Service article commenting the "Grange bubble appears dangerously near the bursting point. Beneath the withering, pitiless spotlight of publicity, the red-headed youngster's fame may melt away like some of his own ice, leaving only a little dank, malodorous saw-dust." College football figures also proclaimed the game as evidence of professional football's inferiority; referee E. J. O'Brien described it as a "dismal failure." However, others like Princeton and Yale players Herbert Treat and Carl Flanders defended the sport and the Bears as their schedule was too overwhelming, and the latter added it had "a bright future."
"I was booed for the first time in my football career in the Boston game," Grange wrote in his autobiography. "It made me aware of something I had never thought of before—that the public's attitude toward a professional football player is quite different from the manner in which they view a college gridder. A pro's performance is evaluated much more critically and he is less likely to be forgiven when a mistake is made. A pro must deliver, or else."
Following the game, Grange hired E. B. Cooley as his personal doctor. Cooley was the father of Grange's friend and personal adviser Marion "Doc" Cooley, who was serving the position alongside their university classmate Dinty Moore. At Grange's father's request, his close friend Lyman "Beans" DeWolf also joined the team as a confidant.
The Bears' next game against a Pittsburgh all-star group saw the team in poor condition; before kickoff, former All-American Bo McMillin visited the team in the locker room and advised Grange to not play upon seeing his arm. At the start, only ten players were on the field, forcing Halas to choose between two injured linemen to serve as the required 11th man; center George Trafton was selected as he was able to at least stand and walk. Trainer Andy Lotshaw, who had never played football before, was also called to play tackle. Twelve minutes into the game, Grange attempted to block for halfback Johnny Mohardt, but suffered a torn ligament and a broken blood vessel in his arm, the latter of which resulted in artery hemorrhaging. The Bears ultimately lost 24–0.
With Grange hurt, Chicago canceled a game against an all-star team in Cleveland, prompting the organizer to sue for breach of contract. Although Grange expressed confidence in playing the next game against the Detroit Panthers, he was forced to miss it after a blood clot developed in his arm; the Bears lost 21–0. The final game of the December tour against the Giants ended in a 9–0 defeat. "No other team before or since has ever attempted such a grueling schedule as the 1925 Bears and I'm sure never will," Grange wrote in his autobiography.
In ten games, the Bears went 5–4–1.
January tour
On December 21, the Bears traveled to Florida to play in Callahan's Florida league. To avoid further injuries like in the first tour, the team elected to have week-long breaks between stretches in which they played games on consecutive days. In their first game four days later against a Coral Gables team, Grange scored the lone touchdown and recorded 89 rushing yards in the 7–0 win.
In the days leading to the next game against the Tampa Cardinals on January 1, 1926, rumors surfaced of Grange participating in a boxing match, but he did not accept. The evening before the game, Grange, driving a car accompanied by golfers Jim Barnes and Johnny Farrell and Olympic swimmer Helen Wainwright, was arrested for speeding at (the speed limit was ). The four were released after Grange gave the police officer $25. In the Bears' 17–3 victory over the Cardinals, he scored on a 70-yard touchdown run.
Before departing Tampa, Grange and Pyle invested $17,000 apiece in real estate to capitalize on the Florida land boom of the 1920s, but hurricanes led to the period's end. The day after the Cardinals game, the Bears played a Jacksonville team featuring former Stanford All-American Ernie Nevers. Although Nevers excelled in the game, Grange threw a 30-yard touchdown pass in the 19–6 win.
Following a one-week rest period, the Bears took on a Southern-based all-star team in New Orleans. Grange had 136 rushing yards and a touchdown, along with a 51-yard punt return that was nullified by a holding penalty, as the Bears shut out New Orleans 14–0. Afterwards, the team went to Los Angeles to play the Los Angeles Wildcats, led by Washington Huskies football star George "Wildcat" Wilson, an admirer of Grange who agreed to participate as the game offered the chance to play against him. Wilson would also lead future opponents on the tour in San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle. With approximately 65,000 in attendance at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, the Bears defeated the Tigers 17–7 as Grange scored a touchdown. The Bears followed by winning 14–0 against a team in San Diego, a game in which Grange considered himself "listless throughout" until he recorded a two-yard touchdown in the fourth quarter. Against the San Francisco Tigers in Kezar Stadium, he was limited to 41 rushing yards and threw an interception in the 14–9 loss.
In Portland, Grange and Britton combined for five touchdowns, including three by the latter. Grange threw a 15-yard touchdown pass to Laurie Walquist and ran 45 yards for a second, but exited the 60–3 win before halftime after getting hurt in a pile-up.
On January 31, a day after the Portland game, the Bears played the Seattle All-Stars. Grange scored two touchdowns (36-yard run and 31-yard pass) and recorded 99 rushing yards in the 34–0 victory, while Wilson and teammate Rollie Corbett suffered injuries; the latter broke his leg, leading to Grange, Pyle, and Wilson establishing a fund to support him. The three donated $50 each.
The Bears went 8–1 in the late December and January tour. Immediately following the Seattle game, Pyle issued Grange's final rookie check of $50,000. In his rookie season, Grange made approximately $125,000. "Charlie had kept his word. Now I thought I could go on to make it a million," Grange wrote in his autobiography.
Impact on professional football
Grange's barnstorming tours are generally considered to have saved the NFL and professional football, though detractors have criticized this narrative considering his injuries and unimpressive performances.
In a February 1926 article, the Chicago Tribune Don Maxwell wrote that although Grange was typically outperformed by his teammates while attendance for the Florida games was poor and organizers lost money, his star status drew interest, especially on the West Coast, and the money he made was more than he "could have made in any other business in the same period." On the other hand, in 1991, Vito Stellino of The Baltimore Sun compared Grange's decision to join the NFL to Herschel Walker electing to sign with the newly formed United States Football League in the 1980s; although Walker was a popular name, the USFL ultimately collapsed. Stellino instead suggested television helped grow the NFL, while Grange's legend was "too embedded into the American sports psyche to disprove now. Anyway, it's a better story than the reality."
According to football historian John M. Carroll, critics believed the tours created the notion that professional football was a circus led by certain superstars, which posed a risk to such players should they decide to play while injured. Others feared games could be fixed to favor the star players, with Brooklyn Dodgers owner/player Shipwreck Kelly alleging he had reached an agreement with Halas and the Bears to let Grange make a long run in a 1934 postseason exhibition game. However, Carroll also added Grange helped expedite the NFL's growth:
In 1985, Grange emphasized the tours' importance to the NFL but noted that the league offered little support to the players from the era: "I complained a few times, because we had guys in hospitals, guys who had had amputations because of football injuries. Guys who had problems. I thought the game could have done something for them, but it never did. As far as I know, pro football hasn't done anything for anybody except lately, and that's mostly for itself. I never made a real stink about it, but I was sad for the oldtimers."
New York Yankees and the American Football League
After the January tour, Pyle approached George Halas and Dutch Sternaman about buying an interest in the Bears, but was turned down. In response, he and Grange attempted to form their own team, the New York Yankees, and gain entry into the NFL. Although they acquired a five-year lease to play at Yankee Stadium, Mara intervened as he felt the Yankees infringed on his Giants' territorial rights.
To challenge the NFL, Grange and Pyle formed the nine-team American Football League. Wilson, who had been approached by Pyle about becoming his client, joined the league as a member of the Wildcats, while Grange's Bears teammates Mohardt and Joey Sternaman played for the Chicago Bulls. In 1926, the Yankees went 9–5 to finish second in the standings.
After the season, the team embarked on a ten-game barnstorming tour to Texas and California alongside Wilson's Wildcats. In late December, in what Grange wrote was "about the only memorable part of the tour", he and his teammates were arrested in Dallas for disturbing the peace and reportedly being intoxicated, the latter of which the group denied; Grange explained the incident transpired when the team visited a hotel at 4 AM after being recommended the spot as a nightlife location by a local policeman. After the players were ordered by the hotel manager to leave the lobby for the noise they were creating, the police confronted them, including throwing teammate Pooley Hubert in an argument. They were eventually arrested and jailed, but were released after paying $10 as they had to play a game in Beaumont that day.
The AFL shut down after one season and the Yankees were added to the NFL. On October 17, 1927, the Yankees were shut out 12–0 by the Bears in Chicago. With a minute remaining in the game, Grange suffered a severe knee injury when he was hit by center George Trafton while trying to catch a pass from Eddie Tryon. As he landed, Grange's cleat caught in the field, causing him to twist his knee when Trafton fell on him. Revealed to be a torn tendon, he underwent a diathermy to treat it after water started to form. The injury ultimately affected Grange's speed and running ability, though he remained serviceable for the rest of his career. "After it happened, I was just another halfback," Grange commented.
Four weeks after the Bears game, Grange returned against the Cardinals at quarterback to honor his contract. Although his injury worsened, the Yankees won 20–6 and he ultimately finished the season. After the year, he and the Yankees participated in another barnstorming tour against West Coast teams led by Wilson and Benny Friedman. Grange explained his decision to keep playing in his autobiography: "At the young age of twenty-four, I refused to believe that I couldn't bounce back to my old form. I was positive I could play myself back into shape. But those additional games only served to further aggravate my condition and, when the tour was ended, it became apparent I had done irreparable damage to the knee. For the first time since I was hurt, nearly four months before, I began worrying over the possibility that I might be through as a football player."
Later career
The contract between Pyle and Grange expired in January 1928, but Grange decided not to renew due to his injury and withdrew his stake in the Yankees. Without Grange, the Yankees went 4–8–1 before shutting down for financial reasons. Grange missed the entire 1928 season before returning to the Bears for 1929.
The two highlights of Grange's later NFL years came in consecutive championship games. In the unofficial 1932 championship, Grange caught the game-winning touchdown pass from Bronko Nagurski. It was argued the pass was illegal. In the 1933 championship, Grange made a touchdown-saving tackle that saved the game and the title for the Bears.
He was a very modest person, who insisted that even the ordinary plumber or electrician knows more about his craft than he does. He said he could not explain how he did what he did on the field of play, and that he just followed his instincts.
Upon ending his playing career in 1934, Grange became the backfield coach for the Bears. Although Halas had offered him the team's head coaching position, he declined as he "never had any ambition to be a head coach in either the professional or college ranks." He remained in the position until 1937.
Acting career
Pyle realized that as the greatest football star of his era, Grange could attract moviegoers, as well as sports fans. In 1926, he made his cinematic debut in the silent film One Minute to Play; Grange described the production process as "the worst drudgery I'd ever experienced". Due to California's summer heat and the story taking place in the Midwest during autumn, the studio struggled to find extras willing to dress in warmer clothing. As such, Pyle promoted the movie's climactic final game between the school of Grange's character Red Wade and that of the antagonist George Wilson, who had played against Grange on the barnstorming tour, as a genuine exhibition game with fans dressed in fall attire being granted free admission. The movie and Grange's performance received positive reviews, with one Chicago Tribune movie critic writing, "If you've never seen Red Grange play football, now's your chance, for he plays it like every thing in this picture.". Although The Minneapolis Star Agnes Taafee criticized various scenes for their lack of realism, she praised Grange's performance. Film Booking Offices of America head Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. also asked Grange to consider retiring from football to enter acting full-time, but he declined.
The following year, he appeared in A Racing Romeo (1927). An auto racing-themed film, Grange had requested to perform his own racing stunts but Cliff Bergere was hired to take his place. The movie ultimately flopped at the box office, which Grange speculated was due to weaker promotion than with One Minute to Play. While sitting out the 1928 season to heal his knee injury, he and father Lyle joined Chicago film distributor Frank Zambreno on a nationwide vaudeville tour titled C'Mon Red.
Grange also starred in a 12-part serial series The Galloping Ghost in 1931. He performed his own stunts for the serial, including vehicular chases and fight scenes, in what he wrote was "The most strenuous work I have ever done in my life.". With the rise of sound film, Grange struggled to adapt to having speaking roles.
In his autobiography, Grange wrote of his acting career: "I've always felt it represents one of the most memorable and worth-while chapters in my life. When I first reported for work in the film capital back in 1926, I was a shy, bashful, small-town boy despite the national prominence I had achieved for my football playing. Facing cameras, live audiences in the theaters, and mixing with all the stimulating people connected with show business did something for me. It gave me confidence and poise and made me feel a little bit more like a man of the world."
Filmography
Later life
Grange departed professional football in 1937 and earned a living in a variety of jobs including motivational speaker and sports announcer. In the 1950s, he announced Bears games for CBS television and college football (including the Sugar Bowl) for NBC. Grange married his wife Margaret, nicknamed Muggs, in 1941, and they were together until his death in 1991. She was a flight attendant, and they met on a plane. The couple had no children.
During the 1940s, he was an insurance broker in Chicago. In December 1944, he was voted president of the United States Football League, a newly formed "gridiron world series" with plans to begin the following year. However, he left his position in June 1945 and the league subsequently folded without playing a game after the NFL expanded into its targeted markets. Grange also led the National Girls Baseball League as its president from 1947 to his resignation in 1949.
In 1950 he was elected as a Republican to the Board of Trustees of University of Illinois, on which he served from 1951 until 1955.
His autobiography, The Red Grange Story, was first published in 1953. The book was written "as told to" Ira Morton, a syndicated newspaper columnist from Chicago. Grange developed Parkinson's disease in his last year of life and died on January 28, 1991, in Lake Wales, Florida.
Legacy
To commemorate college football's 100th anniversary in 1969, the Football Writers Association of America chose an all-time All-America team. Grange was the only unanimous choice. 30 years later in 1999, he was ranked number 80 on The Sporting News list of the 100 Greatest Football Players. In 2008, Grange was also ranked #1 on ESPN's Top 25 Players In College Football History list.
In honor of his achievements at the University of Illinois, the school erected a 12-ft statue of Grange at the start of the 2009 football season. In 2011, Grange was announced as number one on the "Big Ten Icons" series presented by the Big Ten Network.
In 1931, Grange visited Abington Senior High School in Abington, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia. Shortly thereafter, the school adopted his nickname for the mascot in his honor, the Galloping Ghost. Also, Wheaton Warrenville South High School's football field is named in his honor and the team is referred to as the Wheaton Warrenville South Red Grange Tigers. Annually, the Wheaton Warrenville South Boys Track and Field team hosts the Red Grange Invitational in honor of Grange's achievements in track and field.
On January 15, 1978, at Super Bowl XII, Grange became the first person other than the game referee to toss the coin at a Super Bowl.
Every December, a junior college bowl game is held in his honor known as the Red Grange Bowl, in his home state of Illinois.
In popular culture
George Waite, the male love interest in the 1926 film version of Ella Cinders, is a parody of Grange, sharing the real-life running back's alma mater and side job as an iceman.
In 1935 Grange became the first football player to appear on a box of Wheaties.
In the 1949 play Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, the lead character, Willy Loman, says that his football-playing son (Biff) will be the next Red Grange.
In the 1959 thriller Compulsion, Grange is mentioned as running 97 yards for a touchdown. The movie is set in 1924, the year he did score one at 95 yards.
In the song "With Her Head Tucked Underneath Her Arm" as released in 1960 by The Kingston Trio on their album Sold Out, guards in the Tower of London mistake Anne Boleyn, haunting the castle with her head tucked underneath her arm after being beheaded, for Red Grange carrying a football.
In the 1970 show Hogan's Heroes, season 5, episode 25 ("Crittendon's Commandos"), Sergeant Carter attempts to describe Field Marshall Rommel as "The Galloping Ghost" to which Sergeant Kinchloe replies, "That was Red Grange."
In the 1975 M*A*S*H, season 3, episode "Big Mac", Major Frank Burns is chided for burning The Life of Red Grange.
In the 1983 film The Right Stuff, Chuck Yeager (played by Sam Shepard) says he'll "look like the Gallopin' Ghost" in the leather helmet which Jack Ridley gives him to wear on his test flight or the Bell X-1.
Al Bundy is mistaken for Grange several times in the 1988 Married... with Children episode "Poke High".
In the 2007 American Dad! episode "The Magnificent Steven", while trying to teach Steve and his friends to be tough by playing football, Stan finds the boys hiding from the sunlight under a tree and exclaims "What, in the name of Red Grange, is going on?!"
The 2008 movie Leatherheads, starring George Clooney, John Krasinski, and Renée Zellweger, was loosely based on Grange.
See also
List of unanimous college football All-Americans
List of people on the cover of Time Magazine: 1920s
Notes
References
Further reading
External links
1903 births
1991 deaths
American football halfbacks
Chicago Bears announcers
Chicago Bears coaches
Chicago Bears players
College football announcers
Illinois Fighting Illini football players
National Football League announcers
New York Yankees (NFL) players
All-American college football players
College Football Hall of Fame inductees
Pro Football Hall of Fame inductees
People from Sullivan County, Pennsylvania
Sportspeople from Wheaton, Illinois
Players of American football from Pennsylvania
Deaths from pneumonia in Florida
National Girls Baseball League players
Illinois Republicans
National Football League players with retired numbers
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"What Else Do You Do? (A Compilation of Quiet Music) is a various artists compilation album, released in 1990 by Shimmy Disc.\n\nTrack listing\n\nPersonnel \nAdapted from the What Else Do You Do? (A Compilation of Quiet Music) liner notes.\n Kramer – production, engineering\n\nRelease history\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n \n\n1990 compilation albums\nAlbums produced by Kramer (musician)\nShimmy Disc compilation albums",
"Gerald Frank Else (July 1, 1908 – 6 September 1982) was a distinguished American classicist. He was professor of Greek and Latin at University of Michigan and University of Iowa. Else is substantially credited with the refinement of Aristotelian scholarship in aesthetics in the 20th century to expand the reading of catharsis alone to include the aesthetic triad of mimesis, hamartia, and catharsis as all essentially linked to each other.\n\nBiography\nElse studied classics and philosophy at Harvard University and finished his PhD there in 1934. He taught at Harvard University until he joined the U.S. Marine Corps as a Captain in 1943. After completing his service, in 1945 he became chair of the University of Iowa Classics Department. He spent 1956 to 1957 at The American Academy in Rome and in September of 1957 went to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where he remained for the rest of his career. He was chair of that department from 1957 to 1968. During that time he founded the Center for Coordination of Ancient and Modern Studies, seeking to unite the humanities and to show how the study of the ancient world is relevant to modern literature and modern concerns.\n\nAccomplishments\nElse's magnum opus is titled, Aristotle's Poetics: The Argument. It is a meticulous, comprehensive reading of Aristotle's treatise that was published in 1957. Widely regarded in its time as a central work of literary theory, Else's other important contribution is The Origin and Early Form of Greek Tragedy, which was published in 1965. In this work he argued against the view of tragedy as having arisen from religious ritual. Else wrote several other works on Greek literature and philosophy.\n\nUp to Else's time, Aristotle's concept of catharsis was almost exclusively associated with the reading of Jakob Bernays who defined it as the \"therapeutic purgation of pity and fear.\" In a convincing manner, Else refined this definition to understanding literary catharsis as, \"that moment of insight which arises out of the audience's climactic intellectual, emotional, and spiritual enlightenment, which for Aristotle is both the essential pleasure and essential goal of mimetic art.\" For Else, catharsis is an Aristotelian concept which must be read alongside the literary concepts of mimesis and hamartia as well. These latter two concepts are usually paraphrased as \"literary representation\" and \"intellectual error\" in Else's appraisal of Aristotle's literary aesthetic theory.\n\nElse was a member of the National Council for the Humanities, appointed by President Lyndon Johnson, and was President of the American Philological Association in 1964. Else retired in 1977 and died in 1982. A Festschrift in his honor (Ancient and Modern: Essays in Honor of Gerald F. Else, ed. J. D'Arms and J. W. Eadie) was published in 1977. A volume of collected essays written by Else was edited by Peter Burian, an editor at the University of North Carolina Press, in 1987 fourteen of Else's essays titled Plato and Aristotle on Poetry. The volume is notable for the inclusion of the biography on Else by Burian included in the prefatory section of the book., pp xi-xvi. Gerald Else is commemorated at Michigan by an annual lecture in the humanities.\n\nBooks\n Aristotle's Poetics: the argument. 1957\n Origin and early form of Greek tragedy. 1965\n Ancient and modern : essays in honor of Gerald F. Else. edited by John H. D'Arms, John W. Eadie. 1977\n Plato and Aristotle on poetry. Edited with introduction and notes by Peter Burian. 1986\n Aristotle Poetics. translated with an introd. and notes by Gerald F. Else.\n\nExternal links\n \n \n Picture of Gerald Else\n\nReferences\n\n1908 births\n1982 deaths\nWriters from Lincoln, Nebraska\nHarvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni\nUniversity of Iowa faculty\nUniversity of Michigan faculty\nPeople from Redfield, South Dakota"
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"Scissor Sisters",
"Magic Hour and indefinite hiatus (2012)"
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C_b4597fb9710540b48f84f91d078247d0_0
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When was Magic Hour released?
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When was Magic Hour by the Scissor Sisters released?
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Scissor Sisters
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On October 31, 2011, Shears tweeted that the band's fourth album was in its final stages. A song from the new album titled "Shady Love" debuted on Annie Mac's BBC Radio 1 show on January 2, 2012. "Shady Love" features guest vocals from Azealia Banks while Jake Shears performs under his pseudonym Krystal Pepsy. On March 13, 2012, Scissor Sisters announced the title of the album, Magic Hour, and revealed that the record would release worldwide on May 28, 2012. The band also announced the release date of a new single, "Only the Horses". Originally scheduled to come out on May 20, the release "Only the Horses" was pushed up to May 13. The video premiered on Thursday April 18, 2012. On May 7, the band released the track "Let's Have a Kiki" exclusively via Spotify in some countries. Upon release, Magic Hour peaked at #4 on the UK Albums Chart and #35 on the US Billboard 200. The album reached #1 on Billboard's Dance/Electronic Albums chart. The band embarked on a world tour in support of Magic Hour, starting with summer shows in North America. On July 9, 2012, they performed the American TV premiere of "Let's Have a Kiki" on Bravo-TV's Watch What Happens Live. They toured Europe in September and October 2012. On October 23, 2012, whilst performing at the Camden Roundhouse, Scissor Sisters announced an indefinite hiatus. A year later, Ana Matronic insisted that the band, whilst still on break, had not permanently split. On June 9, 2017, the band released their first single in five years, "Swerlk", a collaboration with MNDR. Proceeds for the single were donated to the Contigo Fund, a non profit organization for LGBTQ individuals. CANNOTANSWER
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May 28, 2012.
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Scissor Sisters are an American pop rock band formed in 2001. Forged in the "gay nightlife scene of New York", the band took its name from the female same-sex sexual activity tribadism. Its members include Jake Shears and Ana Matronic as vocalists, Babydaddy as multi-instrumentalist, Del Marquis as lead guitar/bassist, and Randy Real (who replaced Paddy Boom) as drummer. Scissor Sisters incorporates diverse and eclectic styles in their music, but tends to sway towards pop rock, glam rock, nu-disco, and electroclash.
The band came to prominence following the release of their Grammy-nominated and chart-topping disco version of "Comfortably Numb" and subsequent debut album Scissor Sisters (2004). The album was a success, particularly in the UK where it reached number one, was the best-selling album of 2004, was later certified platinum by the BPI, and earned them three BRIT Awards in 2005. All five of its singles reached positions within the top 20 of the UK Singles Chart while "Filthy/Gorgeous" scored the band their first number one on Billboard Hot Dance Club Songs, despite the album's meager success in their native US.
The album continued its success in countries around Europe, in Australia and in Canada before the release of the band's second studio album Ta-Dah (2006), their second consecutive UK number one album which produced their first UK number one single "I Don't Feel Like Dancin'". Their third studio album Night Work (2010) displayed a shift towards a more club-oriented sound, charting at number two on the UK Albums Chart, number one on Billboard Top Independent Albums chart and in the top 10 of several international territories. The band released their fourth studio album Magic Hour in May 2012.
Scissor Sisters has performed around the world and have become recognized for their controversial and transgressive live performances. They also collaborated with a number of other well-known pop musicians, including Elton John and Kylie Minogue; these particular collaborations have been received positively by both critics and other notable figures. In 2004, Bono, lead vocalist of rock band U2, described Scissor Sisters as "the best pop group in the world". They also collaborated with Global Cool in 2007 on one of their green lifestyle campaigns.
History
Early career (2000–2003)
Originally named Dead Lesbian and then the Fibrillating Scissor Sisters, the final two words of the latter being derived from the lesbian sexual act tribadism, the band was founded in 2000 after friends Jason "Jake Shears" Sellards and Scott "Babydaddy" Hoffman (who had met in 1999 in Lexington) both moved to New York City, enjoying its open and gay-friendly ethos. They began producing music together, with Babydaddy composing music and Shears writing lyrics. The duo released a couple of singles to little success and began appearing at underground clubs on New York's Lower East Side. On a trip to Disneyland, the pair met Ana "Matronic" Lynch at a screening of Michael Jackson's Captain EO. During a subsequent teacup ride, they discovered that they had a lot in common. Shears later remarked, "I really thought she was a freak but when I started singing "Another Part of Me" she showed me the best moonwalk I've ever seen."
Ana Matronic ran a weekly cabaret event known as Knock Off at a club called the Slipper Room in New York, where she liked to hire eccentric and alternative acts; one reporter described it as a place that "served up a racy, multigender revue of kitsch," and that a performer dressed as a giant vulva "enfolded me with her labia while singing "Lick Me in My Wet Spot" to the tune of "Hit Me With Your Best Shot"." Matronic invited the pair to appear at Knock Off, which they did on September 21, 2001. Shears dressed as his character "Jason the Amazing Back-Alley Late Term Abortion" whilst Matronic, dressed as a reject from Andy Warhol's Factory, joined the pair on stage and sang. Shears and Babydaddy felt she was very effective and asked her to join the band on a permanent basis, to which she agreed.
The trio then began appearing at other clubs, dropping the word "Fibrillating" from their name. They primarily played electroclash, which was popular at the time in the underground club scene of New York with bands like Peaches and Chicks on Speed. They were soon joined by Derek "Del Marquis" Gruen on lead guitar, who had known Shears from when they both worked at the IC Guys club where Shears had been a stripper. They were joined by a fifth member, Patrick "Paddy Boom" Seacor, on drums who (being heterosexual) felt the need to explain to his mother that "it's not a gay band... there [are] gay members, but it doesn't matter. It's about the music and about performance."
In 2002, the band signed with a small New York record company called A Touch of Class for a two-single deal. Their first single "Electrobix" dealt with gay men's obsessions with working out but proved to be less popular than its B-side, a cover version of Pink Floyd's progressive rock classic "Comfortably Numb". Matronic commented, "It's one of those songs that people were either gonna love or hate, and that's really, really powerful, because it basically means you're evoking a reaction in everyone. The first time I heard it, I thought that if it doesn't make us famous, it'll make us infamous because somebody will shoot us!" Their version of "Comfortably Numb" became a hit in many dance clubs and, after sending Pink Floyd themselves a copy, the Scissor Sisters received positive remarks from the song's original writers Roger Waters and David Gilmour. The song proved to be particularly popular in the UK, where various record labels soon took an interest in the band. In 2003, they decided they would tour Europe where they believed audiences would be more receptive to them and their music than their native US.
Debut album and breakthrough success (2003–2004)
"Comfortably Numb" came to the attention of British label Polydor, who signed the group to a contract. Their first single for the label "Laura" (with two different music videos) had a limited release in 2003 and reaching number 54 in the UK Singles Chart, receiving little attention with the exceptions of British music paper New Musical Express, Channel 4's entertainment programme V Graham Norton, and the same channel's music programme Popworld for which they were interviewed. The track also received much radio play in Australia. Their track "It Can't Come Quickly Enough" was also included on the soundtrack of the film Party Monster (2003), playing over its ending credits.
Their first hit was in 2004 with the official release of "Comfortably Numb". Reaching number 10 in the UK, this success was followed by "Take Your Mama" which went to number 17, a re-release of "Laura" (with two different music videos) which went to number 12, the ballad "Mary" which went to number 14, and the hedonist anthem "Filthy/Gorgeous" which peaked at number 5 in the UK. All the singles came from their debut album Scissor Sisters, which reached number one in the UK Albums Chart and became the best selling album of 2004, beating Keane's Hopes and Fears by 582 copies. As of 2016, it is the 20th biggest-selling album of the 21st century, and the 39th biggest-selling of all time in the UK.
Several media outlets noted that Scissor Sisters "stick out like a sore thumb" on the list of artists who have sold over 2 million copies of an album in the UK in the 21st century; the others being James Blunt, Robbie Williams, Keane, Dido, Coldplay and Norah Jones—artists considered "mainstream" compared to the Scissor Sisters' brash and controversial image. The band had been particularly keen on producing an album that fitted together well rather than simply producing a string of singles. According to Babydaddy, their purpose was "to create a perfect pop rock album that would pick you up at the beginning, take you on a journey in the middle, and set you right back down again in the same place at the end."
About six months after its British release, Scissor Sisters was released in the US. To publicize it the band appeared on the popular morning television show Live with Regis and Kelly, an event that Shears later recalled: "Kelly Ripa loved us, after the first time we played, she gave me a hug and whispered in my ear, 'I just want you to know that this is my favorite music performance we've ever had.' It was amazing." Nonetheless, neither the band nor the album proved to be a big commercial success in the US: major chain store Wal-Mart refused to stock it, claiming on its website that it contained "a snarling, swaggering attack on conservatism" in the form of the song "Tits on the Radio".
The band refused to produce a "clean" version of the album, and Babydaddy remarked that, "We did have to slap a parental warning sticker on the disc, which is completely absurd. I think a kid listening to Eminem is getting a much more negative message than what we've been putting forward. We've only got one 'shit' and a few 'tits!'" Band members have shown their dissatisfaction with the decision on a number of occasions. However, they continued their success in Europe by performing at the Brixton Academy in London for Halloween 2004, where they asked the audience to dress up as the characters from The Rocky Horror Show; the band themselves did so too.
Ta-Dah (2005–2007)
Recording of the second album, Ta-Dah, commenced in mid-May 2005 at the Discoball; sneak previews of new songs were played at live performances, including "Everybody Wants the Same Thing", performed at the Live 8 concert, "Paul McCartney", "I Can't Decide", "Hybrid Man", "Forever Right Now" and "Hair Baby" (a title that refers to the phenomenon of tumors containing partially formed fetuses). Among the assumed pseudonyms used to play a series of secret shows to test this new material were "Bridget Jones' Diarrhea", "Portion Control" and "Megapussi". Scissor Sisters were also one of the headlining acts at the British V Festival in 2005, where they collaborated on stage with Scottish rock group Franz Ferdinand to perform a cover version of David Bowie's "Suffragette City".
The band fulfilled one of its dreams: Elton John collaborated with them on "I Don't Feel Like Dancin'" (as pianist and co-writer). The song reached No. 1 in the United Kingdom on September 10, 2006, and remained in the top spot for four consecutive weeks. "I Don't Feel Like Dancin'" also peaked at No. 1 on the Australian ARIA Singles Chart and the Euro Hot 100. "I Don't Feel Like Dancin'" became the group's biggest hit to date.
Elton John also contributed to the song "Intermission" on Ta-Dah and played piano on a demo of the song Bad Shit (that can be found on the Lights CDsingle).
In 2006, they acted as an opening act for Depeche Mode's Touring the Angel Tour for a concert in Mountain View, California. Their first gig in the UK for promotion of the second album took place at the KOKO Club, Camden, London, on Aug. 31, 2006, and was filmed for MTV. 2006 performances at the Bowery Ballroom and Siren Music Festival in New York and the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival allowed the band to showcase an array of songs from the new album. A free concert was given in Trafalgar Square to 10,000 ballot winners on September 16, 2006, to promote the Red charity. The band also headlined the 2006 Bestival festival on the Isle of Wight. Additionally, they were invited to BBC's Maida Vale studios to perform different songs on every show broadcast on BBC Radio 1. The event, dubbed "Scissor Sisters Day", culminated in them actually standing in for presenter Pete Tong and hosting his three-hour slot themselves. The show took an unexpected turn when a woman in labour telephoned the show to share her experience with the band and they played "Push It" by Salt-n-Pepa for her. Several performances, interviews, and a humorous jingle that was written in an hour, were filmed and edited into a special seven-day, looped broadcast on BBCi.
The album was released on September 18, 2006 in the United Kingdom, and on September 26, 2006 in the United States. According to Shears, the album is a combination of 1960s psychedelia, glam rock and disco. It reached No. 1 in the UK Albums Chart in its first week of release, officially taking the top spot on September 24, 2006, marking a first for the Scissor Sisters, consisting of a single and album at the top of the UK charts simultaneously. The album Ta-Dah leaked onto the Internet on September 10, 2006, five days before its release in the United Kingdom.
The Scissor Sisters ended their first UK tour at Wembley Arena, London, from November 24 to 26, 2006, supported by new artist Lily Allen, who performed during the three days there. The band has also been in the Latin America Top 40 Airplay. "I Don't Feel Like Dancin'" is still charting and is so far their biggest hit to date in Latin America, reaching No. 23, charting mostly in South America, particularly Peru. "Land of a Thousand Words" was released as the second single from the album, peaking at No. 19 in the UK. "She's My Man" was the third single released in February 2007, peaking at No. 29. "Kiss You Off" was the fourth and final single released in May 2007 but failed to dent the Top 40, their first single since their debut Laura to do so. The "Kiss You Off" video centered around Ana Matronic in a futuristic beauty salon. The group was the main event during the New Year's Eve celebrations for 2007 in Berlin. On February 8 and 9, 2007, the group appeared on the American daytime soap opera Passions. They performed "I Don't Feel Like Dancin'" and "Land of a Thousand Words" from the album Ta-Dah.
Night Work and other projects (2008–2011)
After touring the world in 2007, the band had a short hiatus in order to work on their next studio album. Premiering new material of this album at secret gigs in New York City's Mercury Lounge in October 2008, they assumed the names Queef Latina and Debbie's Hairy. New songs included on the set list were "Television", "Who's Your Money", "Other Girls", "Major for You", "None of My Business", "Singularity", "Do the Strand", "Who's There", "Not the Loving Kind", "Taking Shape" (with Babydaddy on lead vocals), and "Uroboros". Shears stated on the band's website there was a possibility that none of these songs would appear on the album, as the band was less than satisfied with most of them. This was confirmed to be the case when the track list was revealed. Drummer Paddy Boom was absent at these gigs and it was later announced that he had amicably parted from the band. The band had come into contact with drummer Randy "Real" Schrager, who was known from his work on the downtown New York scene, playing with bands such as Jessica Vale and The Act. He was initially brought on as a fill-in during Paddy Boom's leave of absence. Eventually, Randy was made part of the full-time line-up.
Scissor Sisters spent much of 2008 and early 2009 in the recording studio. However, after working on new material for approximately 18 months, the band decided to shelve their third album. Shears explained: "In my heart I knew it wasn't right. I didn't really know what it was trying to say. It left me a little bit cold." Reportedly, an entire record had been worked on but that the group had "shelved it about a year ago." Shears admits, "If it wasn't something we could fully get behind and believe in, I think the band was going to be over."
In June 2009, the band returned to the studio and began to work on new tracks that made it onto Night Work, their replacement third album. Produced in collaboration with Stuart Price, Night Work was released on June 28, 2010. The album was described as "supersexual and sleazy" with its first single, "Fire with Fire" as "a really epic song that makes you feel really good". With the album, the band have toured worldwide on The Night Work Tour. As an opening act, they joined Lady Gaga for select dates on her third leg of The Monster Ball Tour in early 2011.
Shears and Scissor Sisters collaborator John "JJ" Garden provided the lyrics and score for a world-premiere musical adaptation of Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City, a much-loved series of novels (and later a television miniseries) about life in San Francisco in the 1970s. The musical was first developed at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center's National Music Theater Conference in 2009, where Shears and Garden collaborated with a creative team that included playwright Jeff Whitty and director Jason Moore, of the Tony-Award-winning musical Avenue Q. The show had a subsequent run in San Francisco on May 18, 2011 at the American Conservatory Theater.
Magic Hour and indefinite hiatus (2012)
On October 31, 2011, Shears tweeted that the band's fourth album was in its final stages. A song from the new album titled "Shady Love" debuted on Annie Mac's BBC Radio 1 show on January 2, 2012. "Shady Love" features guest vocals from Azealia Banks while Jake Shears performs under his pseudonym Krystal Pepsy.
On March 13, 2012, Scissor Sisters announced the title of the album, Magic Hour, and revealed that the record would be released worldwide on May 28, 2012. The band also announced the release date of a new single, "Only the Horses". Originally scheduled to come out on May 20, the release of "Only the Horses" was brought forward to May 13. The video premiered on Thursday April 18, 2012. On May 7, the band released the track "Let's Have a Kiki" exclusively via Spotify in some countries.
Upon release, Magic Hour peaked at #4 on the UK Albums Chart and #35 on the US Billboard 200. The album reached #1 on Billboard's Dance/Electronic Albums chart. The band embarked on a world tour in support of Magic Hour, starting with summer shows in North America. On July 9, 2012, they performed the American TV premiere of "Let's Have a Kiki" on Bravo-TV's Watch What Happens Live. They toured Europe in September and October 2012.
On October 23, 2012, while performing at the Camden Roundhouse, Scissor Sisters announced an indefinite hiatus. A year later, Ana Matronic insisted that the band, while still on break, had not permanently split.
The band collaborated on a charity record with MNDR and released "Swerlk" on June 9, 2017, their first release in five years. Proceeds for the single were donated to the Contigo Fund, a nonprofit organization for LGBTQ individuals.
In June 2019, Shears stated the impetus for the band's hiatus was the success of "Let's Have a Kiki" and wanting to end things on a high note.
Artistry
Musical style
Scissor Sisters' music can be generally described as a mixture of glam rock, disco and alternative music. They appear to have been heavily influenced by Elton John (who co-wrote and played piano on "I Don't Feel Like Dancin'") despite Shears commenting that he was not familiar with his work prior to the release of their record. Shears has since stated that he has become a big fan. The band also has been compared to ABBA, the Bee Gees, Blondie, KC and the Sunshine Band, Duran Duran who were "the reason we got into music," Matronic stated, Supertramp, Siouxsie and the Banshees who Matronic "wouldn't be here without," David Bowie, 1970s-era Kiss, Queen, Chic, Richard O'Brien and various other dance, disco, rock, and funk acts. Shears also stated that The Beatles have been an influence for him and that he is a huge fan of Paul McCartney and Wings, hence their track entitled "Paul McCartney". However, the band admits that their music is hard to categorise.
The lyrics of their songs, largely written by Shears and Babydaddy, are known for their mixture of wit and tragedy. The songs on their debut album dealt with a number of subjects and issues in a variety of styles, from drug abuse within the gay community ("Return to Oz"), to Shears' deep platonic love for his best friend Mary ("Mary"). Mary died of a brain aneurysm in April 2006, news that devastated members of the band.
Many of Scissor Sisters' songs deal with themes in the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, relating to the fact that three of the band members, including the two founders, are gay. "Filthy/Gorgeous" is about transgender prostitutes while "Take Your Mama" deals with coming out of the closet to family members. Despite this, Shears stated, "I don't believe sexuality really matters when it comes to music." In an interview featured on the We Are Scissor Sisters... And So Are You DVD, Shears states, "The fact that some of us are gay affects our music the same amount as it does that some of the members of Blondie are straight."
Performance style
The visuals for Scissor Sisters' self-titled first album and its singles featured artwork by an English illustrator named Spookytim, who has a studio in Brighton called Studiospooky. The artwork was created by a wide variety of techniques and mixed traditional paper-based processes with digital and photographic elements in order to reflect the multi-referential nature of the band's music.
Scissor Sisters are known for their extravagant live performances. In some of their early shows, Shears was known to remove all of his clothes onstage, harking back to his former profession as a go-go stripper; in others, he threw inflated condoms into the audience.
Legacy
Impact and influence
Several fan societies have sprung up in the official forums including the Jake Groupies, Ana Matronic Appreciation Society, and the Scissor Sisters Party Bus; the latter two having spilled over to their own sites. The band have a close relationship with their fan community and have held small private gigs for select forum members, at which new tracks are previewed and fans have the opportunity to meet the band. In the fan community, those fans who hold a special affinity for Ana are known as "nuns."
In late 2004, Shears and Babydaddy co-wrote and produced the Kylie Minogue hit "I Believe in You", which featured on her Ultimate Kylie (2004) compilation. They also wrote the unreleased "(Everything) I Know", which leaked online in November 2004 and "Ooh (The Blues)", of which Minogue's version remains unreleased. Scissor Sisters went on to co-write a new song for Minogue entitled "White Diamond", which was showcased in her Showgirl Homecoming Tour that kicked off in Australia in November 2006. A stirring ballad version of "White Diamond" was featured as an exclusive pre-order bonus track from Minogue's album X (2007) as well as being the theme song of her tour documentary White Diamond (2007).
Awards, nominations and press
Scissor Sisters have garnered 10 accolades from 28 nominations in various awards ceremonies. Their single "Comfortably Numb" received a Grammy nomination for Best Dance Recording in 2005 but lost to Britney Spears' "Toxic". The band have had greater success in the UK where, at the 2005 BRIT Awards, the group won all 3 of their nominations, including International Group, International Breakthrough, and International Album, making the group the first to win the hat-trick in the BRITs' International categories. They supplemented their win by opening the show with "Take Your Mama" on a set made by The Jim Henson Company and returned in 2007, opening the ceremony with "I Don't Feel Like Dancin'" which later won the Ivor Novello Award for Most Performed Work. Other international honors include the German Bambi Award for Shooting Star.
The band have also been recognized by the LGBT community. Three of their four studio albums have been recognized by the GLAAD Media Awards, consecutively winning the band the award for Outstanding Music Artist (in 2005, 2007 and 2011) while Out magazine also ranked their first two albums on their list of the 100 Greatest, Gayest Albums in 2008: Scissor Sisters (2004) was number 26 while Ta-Dah (2006) was 81. In 2004, gay members Shears, Babydaddy, and Marquis, were honored in Out magazine's List of the 100 Most Intriguing Gay People of the Year. Recognized for humanitarianism, the band were also invited to perform at Live 8 with a set that included previously unheard song "Everybody Wants the Same Thing".
In popular culture
Several songs by Scissor Sisters have featured in various television shows including "The Skins" in season five of Queer as Folk and "Take Your Mama" in the episode "Six Months Ago" of Heroes. Their song "Filthy/Gorgeous" serves as the theme music to the US version of the sitcom Kath & Kim, while the song "I Can't Decide" was used in the Doctor Who episode, "Last of the Time Lords", where The Master sings along to it in a mocking fashion towards the enslaved human race. Subsequently, the song debuted at number 64 on the UK Singles Chart. "I Don't Feel Like Dancin'" is featured at a costume party in the film How to Lose Friends and Alienate People (2008) and is one of the "slug songs" in the special features menu that is sung in Flushed Away (2006), as well as being featured during the beginning of the first episode of Private Practice. In addition, "Isn't It Strange," a track created during the band's recording session for "Night Work", featured in Shrek Forever After (2010).
Their music has also been used in video games with "I Don't Feel Like Dancin'" featuring on the Wii video game "Dance Dance Revolution: Hottest Party" and on the game Singstar on PlayStation 3. In 2005, "Filthy/Gorgeous" was licensed by Activision and appears in Neversoft's Tony Hawk's American Wasteland while "Take Your Mama" and "Fire with Fire" appear on EA Sports' FIFA 2005 and FIFA 11 respectively.
The popular trend of mashups has included Scissor Sisters in its vein with DJ Earworm's 2005 hit "No One Takes Your Freedom" combining "Take Your Mama" with The Beatles' "For No One", George Michael's "Freedom '90" and Aretha Franklin's "Think". In early 2008, online record label WHA!?, in association with a Scissor Sisters fan site, released a free-to-download bootleg album entitled Da-Tah which featured mashups of Scissor Sister songs with songs by artists such as Beck, Peter Gabriel, Lauryn Hill, and Nine Inch Nails. In November 2012, the song "Let's Have a Kiki" was used on Glees fourth season episode "Thanksgiving" in a mashup with "Turkey Lurkey Time" from the musical Promises, Promises.
"Filthy/Gorgeous" is used in trailers for the film Filth (2013). Also, Jake Shears was invited to sing a duet on pop diva Cher's 2013 album Closer to the Truth. The name of the track is "Take It Like a Man".
Members
Current members
Jake Shears (born Jason Sellards): vocals, piano, guitar (2001–present)
Babydaddy (born Scott Hoffman): bass guitar, keyboards, backing vocals, rhythm guitar (2001–present)
Ana Matronic (born Ana Lynch): vocals, 'Mistress of Ceremonies', percussion, keyboards (2001–present)
Del Marquis (born Derek Gruen): lead guitar, bass guitar (2001–present)
Randy Real (born Randy Schrager): drums, electronic drums, percussion (2008–present)
Former members
Paddy Boom (born Patrick Seacor): drums, electronic drums, percussion (2001–2008)
Live shows and performances have included John "JJ" Garden—son of Graeme Garden of The Goodies—on keyboards and rhythm and bass guitars.
Discography
Scissor Sisters (2004)
Ta-Dah (2006)
Night Work (2010)
Magic Hour (2012)
Filmography
We Are Scissor Sisters... And So Are You (2004)
Hurrah! A Year of Ta-Dah (2007)
Tours
Untitled European Tour (2003)
Crevice Canyon Tour (2004)
The Ta-Dah Tour (2007)
The Night Work Tour (2010/2011)
Let's Have A Kiki Tour (2012)
As supporting act
Astronaut Tour in support of Duran Duran (2004)
Vertigo Tour in support of U2 (2005)
Touring the Angel in support of Depeche Mode (2006)
The Monster Ball Tour in support of Lady Gaga (2011)
See also
List of artists who reached number one on the U.S. dance chart
List of number-one dance hits (United States)
References
External links
2001 establishments in New York City
American dance music groups
American pop rock music groups
Brit Award winners
Ivor Novello Award winners
LGBT culture in New York City
LGBT-themed musical groups
Musical groups established in 2001
Musical groups from New York City
Musical quartets
Nu-disco musicians
Rock music groups from New York (state)
Polydor Records artists
Casablanca Records artists
Universal Motown Records artists
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[
"\"Magic Hour\" is the eleventh single by the Liverpool britpop band Cast, fronted by ex La's bassist John Power. It was released in 1999. The song was the titletrack as well as the second and final single released from the namesake album. It peaked at number 28 on the UK singles chart spending only one week in the top 40.\n\nFormats and track listings\nCD single (1)\n \"Magic Hour\"\n \"Gypsy Song\"\n \"I Never Wanna Lose You\"\n\nCD single (2)\n \"Magic Hour\"\n \"Beat Mama\" (Fire Island Classic Boy's Own mix)\n \"What You Gonna Do?\"\n\nTape single\n \"Magic Hour\"\n \"Allbright\"\n\nPersonnel\nCast\n John Power – vocals, guitar\n Peter Wilkinson – backing vocals, bass\n Liam \"Skin\" Tyson – guitar\n Keith O'Neill – drums\n\nProduction\n Gil Norton – producer, mixing\n Danton Supple – engineer, mixing\n\nAdditional musicians\n David Arnold – strings\n\nChart performance\n\nReferences\n\n1999 singles\nCast (band) songs\nSongs written by John Power (musician)\nPolydor Records singles\n1999 songs\nSong recordings produced by Gil Norton",
"\"Magic\" is a song by the British singer Sean Smith. Sean released his second solo single 'Magic' on the 26th May 2017. The track reached number 29 on the UK iTunes dance singles chart, and amassed over 140,000 streams on Spotify. \n\nOn the 22nd May 2017 Sean appeared on the ITV show Loose Women to promote 'Magic' and unveil his new look.\n\nRecording\nThe track was recorded at The Old Blacksmiths Studios in Portsmouth with the vocals engineered by Ben Whyntie.\n\nCritical response\nThe Daily Mirror led with the headline \"Same Difference's Sean Smith is unrecognisable as he unveils new look and solo career\".\n\nJonathan Currinn, writing on his website Critic Jonni, commented \"It's completely sexy from start to finish, with both Sean Smith and Chantelle Foreman showing off their bodily assets, although he is wearing much more clothing than she is\".\n\nChart performance\nThe single reached number 29 on the UK iTunes dance singles chart.\n\nMusic video\nThe video was a filmed in a one-day shoot in London. The video director was Loraa White. Sean's co-star was model Chantelle Foreman.\n\nRelease and reception\nThe video was released on the 26th May 2017 receiving positive reviews. An official lyric video for the Andy Sikorski remix was released on the 31st May 2017\n\nRemixes\nAndy Sikorski remixed the track providing a radio and club edit.\n\nLive appearances\nSean did a one-hour radio interview with Steven Clark, on Vale Radio, which was broadcast on 21 May 2017.\n\nOn 22 May 2017, Smith appeared on the ITV show Loose Women to promote 'Magic' and unveil his new look.\n\nOn 3 June 2017, Smith performed a live set at Oxford Pride which included the Andy Sikorski Remix of Magic.\n\nFormats and track listings\n\nUK CD single\n \"Magic (Radio Mix)\" – 3:39\n \"Magic (Andy Sikorski Edit)\" – 3:25\n \"Magic (Andy Sikorski Club Mix)\" – 5:07\n\nDigital single\n \"Magic (Radio Mix)\" – 3:39\n \"Magic (Andy Sikorski Edit)\" – 3:25\n \"Magic (Andy Sikorski Club Mix)\" – 5:07\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n2017 songs\n2017 singles"
] |
[
"Scissor Sisters",
"Magic Hour and indefinite hiatus (2012)",
"When was Magic Hour released?",
"May 28, 2012."
] |
C_b4597fb9710540b48f84f91d078247d0_0
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What songs were on the album?
| 2 |
What songs were on the album Magic Hour by the Scissor Sisters?
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Scissor Sisters
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On October 31, 2011, Shears tweeted that the band's fourth album was in its final stages. A song from the new album titled "Shady Love" debuted on Annie Mac's BBC Radio 1 show on January 2, 2012. "Shady Love" features guest vocals from Azealia Banks while Jake Shears performs under his pseudonym Krystal Pepsy. On March 13, 2012, Scissor Sisters announced the title of the album, Magic Hour, and revealed that the record would release worldwide on May 28, 2012. The band also announced the release date of a new single, "Only the Horses". Originally scheduled to come out on May 20, the release "Only the Horses" was pushed up to May 13. The video premiered on Thursday April 18, 2012. On May 7, the band released the track "Let's Have a Kiki" exclusively via Spotify in some countries. Upon release, Magic Hour peaked at #4 on the UK Albums Chart and #35 on the US Billboard 200. The album reached #1 on Billboard's Dance/Electronic Albums chart. The band embarked on a world tour in support of Magic Hour, starting with summer shows in North America. On July 9, 2012, they performed the American TV premiere of "Let's Have a Kiki" on Bravo-TV's Watch What Happens Live. They toured Europe in September and October 2012. On October 23, 2012, whilst performing at the Camden Roundhouse, Scissor Sisters announced an indefinite hiatus. A year later, Ana Matronic insisted that the band, whilst still on break, had not permanently split. On June 9, 2017, the band released their first single in five years, "Swerlk", a collaboration with MNDR. Proceeds for the single were donated to the Contigo Fund, a non profit organization for LGBTQ individuals. CANNOTANSWER
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"Only the Horses"
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Scissor Sisters are an American pop rock band formed in 2001. Forged in the "gay nightlife scene of New York", the band took its name from the female same-sex sexual activity tribadism. Its members include Jake Shears and Ana Matronic as vocalists, Babydaddy as multi-instrumentalist, Del Marquis as lead guitar/bassist, and Randy Real (who replaced Paddy Boom) as drummer. Scissor Sisters incorporates diverse and eclectic styles in their music, but tends to sway towards pop rock, glam rock, nu-disco, and electroclash.
The band came to prominence following the release of their Grammy-nominated and chart-topping disco version of "Comfortably Numb" and subsequent debut album Scissor Sisters (2004). The album was a success, particularly in the UK where it reached number one, was the best-selling album of 2004, was later certified platinum by the BPI, and earned them three BRIT Awards in 2005. All five of its singles reached positions within the top 20 of the UK Singles Chart while "Filthy/Gorgeous" scored the band their first number one on Billboard Hot Dance Club Songs, despite the album's meager success in their native US.
The album continued its success in countries around Europe, in Australia and in Canada before the release of the band's second studio album Ta-Dah (2006), their second consecutive UK number one album which produced their first UK number one single "I Don't Feel Like Dancin'". Their third studio album Night Work (2010) displayed a shift towards a more club-oriented sound, charting at number two on the UK Albums Chart, number one on Billboard Top Independent Albums chart and in the top 10 of several international territories. The band released their fourth studio album Magic Hour in May 2012.
Scissor Sisters has performed around the world and have become recognized for their controversial and transgressive live performances. They also collaborated with a number of other well-known pop musicians, including Elton John and Kylie Minogue; these particular collaborations have been received positively by both critics and other notable figures. In 2004, Bono, lead vocalist of rock band U2, described Scissor Sisters as "the best pop group in the world". They also collaborated with Global Cool in 2007 on one of their green lifestyle campaigns.
History
Early career (2000–2003)
Originally named Dead Lesbian and then the Fibrillating Scissor Sisters, the final two words of the latter being derived from the lesbian sexual act tribadism, the band was founded in 2000 after friends Jason "Jake Shears" Sellards and Scott "Babydaddy" Hoffman (who had met in 1999 in Lexington) both moved to New York City, enjoying its open and gay-friendly ethos. They began producing music together, with Babydaddy composing music and Shears writing lyrics. The duo released a couple of singles to little success and began appearing at underground clubs on New York's Lower East Side. On a trip to Disneyland, the pair met Ana "Matronic" Lynch at a screening of Michael Jackson's Captain EO. During a subsequent teacup ride, they discovered that they had a lot in common. Shears later remarked, "I really thought she was a freak but when I started singing "Another Part of Me" she showed me the best moonwalk I've ever seen."
Ana Matronic ran a weekly cabaret event known as Knock Off at a club called the Slipper Room in New York, where she liked to hire eccentric and alternative acts; one reporter described it as a place that "served up a racy, multigender revue of kitsch," and that a performer dressed as a giant vulva "enfolded me with her labia while singing "Lick Me in My Wet Spot" to the tune of "Hit Me With Your Best Shot"." Matronic invited the pair to appear at Knock Off, which they did on September 21, 2001. Shears dressed as his character "Jason the Amazing Back-Alley Late Term Abortion" whilst Matronic, dressed as a reject from Andy Warhol's Factory, joined the pair on stage and sang. Shears and Babydaddy felt she was very effective and asked her to join the band on a permanent basis, to which she agreed.
The trio then began appearing at other clubs, dropping the word "Fibrillating" from their name. They primarily played electroclash, which was popular at the time in the underground club scene of New York with bands like Peaches and Chicks on Speed. They were soon joined by Derek "Del Marquis" Gruen on lead guitar, who had known Shears from when they both worked at the IC Guys club where Shears had been a stripper. They were joined by a fifth member, Patrick "Paddy Boom" Seacor, on drums who (being heterosexual) felt the need to explain to his mother that "it's not a gay band... there [are] gay members, but it doesn't matter. It's about the music and about performance."
In 2002, the band signed with a small New York record company called A Touch of Class for a two-single deal. Their first single "Electrobix" dealt with gay men's obsessions with working out but proved to be less popular than its B-side, a cover version of Pink Floyd's progressive rock classic "Comfortably Numb". Matronic commented, "It's one of those songs that people were either gonna love or hate, and that's really, really powerful, because it basically means you're evoking a reaction in everyone. The first time I heard it, I thought that if it doesn't make us famous, it'll make us infamous because somebody will shoot us!" Their version of "Comfortably Numb" became a hit in many dance clubs and, after sending Pink Floyd themselves a copy, the Scissor Sisters received positive remarks from the song's original writers Roger Waters and David Gilmour. The song proved to be particularly popular in the UK, where various record labels soon took an interest in the band. In 2003, they decided they would tour Europe where they believed audiences would be more receptive to them and their music than their native US.
Debut album and breakthrough success (2003–2004)
"Comfortably Numb" came to the attention of British label Polydor, who signed the group to a contract. Their first single for the label "Laura" (with two different music videos) had a limited release in 2003 and reaching number 54 in the UK Singles Chart, receiving little attention with the exceptions of British music paper New Musical Express, Channel 4's entertainment programme V Graham Norton, and the same channel's music programme Popworld for which they were interviewed. The track also received much radio play in Australia. Their track "It Can't Come Quickly Enough" was also included on the soundtrack of the film Party Monster (2003), playing over its ending credits.
Their first hit was in 2004 with the official release of "Comfortably Numb". Reaching number 10 in the UK, this success was followed by "Take Your Mama" which went to number 17, a re-release of "Laura" (with two different music videos) which went to number 12, the ballad "Mary" which went to number 14, and the hedonist anthem "Filthy/Gorgeous" which peaked at number 5 in the UK. All the singles came from their debut album Scissor Sisters, which reached number one in the UK Albums Chart and became the best selling album of 2004, beating Keane's Hopes and Fears by 582 copies. As of 2016, it is the 20th biggest-selling album of the 21st century, and the 39th biggest-selling of all time in the UK.
Several media outlets noted that Scissor Sisters "stick out like a sore thumb" on the list of artists who have sold over 2 million copies of an album in the UK in the 21st century; the others being James Blunt, Robbie Williams, Keane, Dido, Coldplay and Norah Jones—artists considered "mainstream" compared to the Scissor Sisters' brash and controversial image. The band had been particularly keen on producing an album that fitted together well rather than simply producing a string of singles. According to Babydaddy, their purpose was "to create a perfect pop rock album that would pick you up at the beginning, take you on a journey in the middle, and set you right back down again in the same place at the end."
About six months after its British release, Scissor Sisters was released in the US. To publicize it the band appeared on the popular morning television show Live with Regis and Kelly, an event that Shears later recalled: "Kelly Ripa loved us, after the first time we played, she gave me a hug and whispered in my ear, 'I just want you to know that this is my favorite music performance we've ever had.' It was amazing." Nonetheless, neither the band nor the album proved to be a big commercial success in the US: major chain store Wal-Mart refused to stock it, claiming on its website that it contained "a snarling, swaggering attack on conservatism" in the form of the song "Tits on the Radio".
The band refused to produce a "clean" version of the album, and Babydaddy remarked that, "We did have to slap a parental warning sticker on the disc, which is completely absurd. I think a kid listening to Eminem is getting a much more negative message than what we've been putting forward. We've only got one 'shit' and a few 'tits!'" Band members have shown their dissatisfaction with the decision on a number of occasions. However, they continued their success in Europe by performing at the Brixton Academy in London for Halloween 2004, where they asked the audience to dress up as the characters from The Rocky Horror Show; the band themselves did so too.
Ta-Dah (2005–2007)
Recording of the second album, Ta-Dah, commenced in mid-May 2005 at the Discoball; sneak previews of new songs were played at live performances, including "Everybody Wants the Same Thing", performed at the Live 8 concert, "Paul McCartney", "I Can't Decide", "Hybrid Man", "Forever Right Now" and "Hair Baby" (a title that refers to the phenomenon of tumors containing partially formed fetuses). Among the assumed pseudonyms used to play a series of secret shows to test this new material were "Bridget Jones' Diarrhea", "Portion Control" and "Megapussi". Scissor Sisters were also one of the headlining acts at the British V Festival in 2005, where they collaborated on stage with Scottish rock group Franz Ferdinand to perform a cover version of David Bowie's "Suffragette City".
The band fulfilled one of its dreams: Elton John collaborated with them on "I Don't Feel Like Dancin'" (as pianist and co-writer). The song reached No. 1 in the United Kingdom on September 10, 2006, and remained in the top spot for four consecutive weeks. "I Don't Feel Like Dancin'" also peaked at No. 1 on the Australian ARIA Singles Chart and the Euro Hot 100. "I Don't Feel Like Dancin'" became the group's biggest hit to date.
Elton John also contributed to the song "Intermission" on Ta-Dah and played piano on a demo of the song Bad Shit (that can be found on the Lights CDsingle).
In 2006, they acted as an opening act for Depeche Mode's Touring the Angel Tour for a concert in Mountain View, California. Their first gig in the UK for promotion of the second album took place at the KOKO Club, Camden, London, on Aug. 31, 2006, and was filmed for MTV. 2006 performances at the Bowery Ballroom and Siren Music Festival in New York and the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival allowed the band to showcase an array of songs from the new album. A free concert was given in Trafalgar Square to 10,000 ballot winners on September 16, 2006, to promote the Red charity. The band also headlined the 2006 Bestival festival on the Isle of Wight. Additionally, they were invited to BBC's Maida Vale studios to perform different songs on every show broadcast on BBC Radio 1. The event, dubbed "Scissor Sisters Day", culminated in them actually standing in for presenter Pete Tong and hosting his three-hour slot themselves. The show took an unexpected turn when a woman in labour telephoned the show to share her experience with the band and they played "Push It" by Salt-n-Pepa for her. Several performances, interviews, and a humorous jingle that was written in an hour, were filmed and edited into a special seven-day, looped broadcast on BBCi.
The album was released on September 18, 2006 in the United Kingdom, and on September 26, 2006 in the United States. According to Shears, the album is a combination of 1960s psychedelia, glam rock and disco. It reached No. 1 in the UK Albums Chart in its first week of release, officially taking the top spot on September 24, 2006, marking a first for the Scissor Sisters, consisting of a single and album at the top of the UK charts simultaneously. The album Ta-Dah leaked onto the Internet on September 10, 2006, five days before its release in the United Kingdom.
The Scissor Sisters ended their first UK tour at Wembley Arena, London, from November 24 to 26, 2006, supported by new artist Lily Allen, who performed during the three days there. The band has also been in the Latin America Top 40 Airplay. "I Don't Feel Like Dancin'" is still charting and is so far their biggest hit to date in Latin America, reaching No. 23, charting mostly in South America, particularly Peru. "Land of a Thousand Words" was released as the second single from the album, peaking at No. 19 in the UK. "She's My Man" was the third single released in February 2007, peaking at No. 29. "Kiss You Off" was the fourth and final single released in May 2007 but failed to dent the Top 40, their first single since their debut Laura to do so. The "Kiss You Off" video centered around Ana Matronic in a futuristic beauty salon. The group was the main event during the New Year's Eve celebrations for 2007 in Berlin. On February 8 and 9, 2007, the group appeared on the American daytime soap opera Passions. They performed "I Don't Feel Like Dancin'" and "Land of a Thousand Words" from the album Ta-Dah.
Night Work and other projects (2008–2011)
After touring the world in 2007, the band had a short hiatus in order to work on their next studio album. Premiering new material of this album at secret gigs in New York City's Mercury Lounge in October 2008, they assumed the names Queef Latina and Debbie's Hairy. New songs included on the set list were "Television", "Who's Your Money", "Other Girls", "Major for You", "None of My Business", "Singularity", "Do the Strand", "Who's There", "Not the Loving Kind", "Taking Shape" (with Babydaddy on lead vocals), and "Uroboros". Shears stated on the band's website there was a possibility that none of these songs would appear on the album, as the band was less than satisfied with most of them. This was confirmed to be the case when the track list was revealed. Drummer Paddy Boom was absent at these gigs and it was later announced that he had amicably parted from the band. The band had come into contact with drummer Randy "Real" Schrager, who was known from his work on the downtown New York scene, playing with bands such as Jessica Vale and The Act. He was initially brought on as a fill-in during Paddy Boom's leave of absence. Eventually, Randy was made part of the full-time line-up.
Scissor Sisters spent much of 2008 and early 2009 in the recording studio. However, after working on new material for approximately 18 months, the band decided to shelve their third album. Shears explained: "In my heart I knew it wasn't right. I didn't really know what it was trying to say. It left me a little bit cold." Reportedly, an entire record had been worked on but that the group had "shelved it about a year ago." Shears admits, "If it wasn't something we could fully get behind and believe in, I think the band was going to be over."
In June 2009, the band returned to the studio and began to work on new tracks that made it onto Night Work, their replacement third album. Produced in collaboration with Stuart Price, Night Work was released on June 28, 2010. The album was described as "supersexual and sleazy" with its first single, "Fire with Fire" as "a really epic song that makes you feel really good". With the album, the band have toured worldwide on The Night Work Tour. As an opening act, they joined Lady Gaga for select dates on her third leg of The Monster Ball Tour in early 2011.
Shears and Scissor Sisters collaborator John "JJ" Garden provided the lyrics and score for a world-premiere musical adaptation of Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City, a much-loved series of novels (and later a television miniseries) about life in San Francisco in the 1970s. The musical was first developed at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center's National Music Theater Conference in 2009, where Shears and Garden collaborated with a creative team that included playwright Jeff Whitty and director Jason Moore, of the Tony-Award-winning musical Avenue Q. The show had a subsequent run in San Francisco on May 18, 2011 at the American Conservatory Theater.
Magic Hour and indefinite hiatus (2012)
On October 31, 2011, Shears tweeted that the band's fourth album was in its final stages. A song from the new album titled "Shady Love" debuted on Annie Mac's BBC Radio 1 show on January 2, 2012. "Shady Love" features guest vocals from Azealia Banks while Jake Shears performs under his pseudonym Krystal Pepsy.
On March 13, 2012, Scissor Sisters announced the title of the album, Magic Hour, and revealed that the record would be released worldwide on May 28, 2012. The band also announced the release date of a new single, "Only the Horses". Originally scheduled to come out on May 20, the release of "Only the Horses" was brought forward to May 13. The video premiered on Thursday April 18, 2012. On May 7, the band released the track "Let's Have a Kiki" exclusively via Spotify in some countries.
Upon release, Magic Hour peaked at #4 on the UK Albums Chart and #35 on the US Billboard 200. The album reached #1 on Billboard's Dance/Electronic Albums chart. The band embarked on a world tour in support of Magic Hour, starting with summer shows in North America. On July 9, 2012, they performed the American TV premiere of "Let's Have a Kiki" on Bravo-TV's Watch What Happens Live. They toured Europe in September and October 2012.
On October 23, 2012, while performing at the Camden Roundhouse, Scissor Sisters announced an indefinite hiatus. A year later, Ana Matronic insisted that the band, while still on break, had not permanently split.
The band collaborated on a charity record with MNDR and released "Swerlk" on June 9, 2017, their first release in five years. Proceeds for the single were donated to the Contigo Fund, a nonprofit organization for LGBTQ individuals.
In June 2019, Shears stated the impetus for the band's hiatus was the success of "Let's Have a Kiki" and wanting to end things on a high note.
Artistry
Musical style
Scissor Sisters' music can be generally described as a mixture of glam rock, disco and alternative music. They appear to have been heavily influenced by Elton John (who co-wrote and played piano on "I Don't Feel Like Dancin'") despite Shears commenting that he was not familiar with his work prior to the release of their record. Shears has since stated that he has become a big fan. The band also has been compared to ABBA, the Bee Gees, Blondie, KC and the Sunshine Band, Duran Duran who were "the reason we got into music," Matronic stated, Supertramp, Siouxsie and the Banshees who Matronic "wouldn't be here without," David Bowie, 1970s-era Kiss, Queen, Chic, Richard O'Brien and various other dance, disco, rock, and funk acts. Shears also stated that The Beatles have been an influence for him and that he is a huge fan of Paul McCartney and Wings, hence their track entitled "Paul McCartney". However, the band admits that their music is hard to categorise.
The lyrics of their songs, largely written by Shears and Babydaddy, are known for their mixture of wit and tragedy. The songs on their debut album dealt with a number of subjects and issues in a variety of styles, from drug abuse within the gay community ("Return to Oz"), to Shears' deep platonic love for his best friend Mary ("Mary"). Mary died of a brain aneurysm in April 2006, news that devastated members of the band.
Many of Scissor Sisters' songs deal with themes in the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, relating to the fact that three of the band members, including the two founders, are gay. "Filthy/Gorgeous" is about transgender prostitutes while "Take Your Mama" deals with coming out of the closet to family members. Despite this, Shears stated, "I don't believe sexuality really matters when it comes to music." In an interview featured on the We Are Scissor Sisters... And So Are You DVD, Shears states, "The fact that some of us are gay affects our music the same amount as it does that some of the members of Blondie are straight."
Performance style
The visuals for Scissor Sisters' self-titled first album and its singles featured artwork by an English illustrator named Spookytim, who has a studio in Brighton called Studiospooky. The artwork was created by a wide variety of techniques and mixed traditional paper-based processes with digital and photographic elements in order to reflect the multi-referential nature of the band's music.
Scissor Sisters are known for their extravagant live performances. In some of their early shows, Shears was known to remove all of his clothes onstage, harking back to his former profession as a go-go stripper; in others, he threw inflated condoms into the audience.
Legacy
Impact and influence
Several fan societies have sprung up in the official forums including the Jake Groupies, Ana Matronic Appreciation Society, and the Scissor Sisters Party Bus; the latter two having spilled over to their own sites. The band have a close relationship with their fan community and have held small private gigs for select forum members, at which new tracks are previewed and fans have the opportunity to meet the band. In the fan community, those fans who hold a special affinity for Ana are known as "nuns."
In late 2004, Shears and Babydaddy co-wrote and produced the Kylie Minogue hit "I Believe in You", which featured on her Ultimate Kylie (2004) compilation. They also wrote the unreleased "(Everything) I Know", which leaked online in November 2004 and "Ooh (The Blues)", of which Minogue's version remains unreleased. Scissor Sisters went on to co-write a new song for Minogue entitled "White Diamond", which was showcased in her Showgirl Homecoming Tour that kicked off in Australia in November 2006. A stirring ballad version of "White Diamond" was featured as an exclusive pre-order bonus track from Minogue's album X (2007) as well as being the theme song of her tour documentary White Diamond (2007).
Awards, nominations and press
Scissor Sisters have garnered 10 accolades from 28 nominations in various awards ceremonies. Their single "Comfortably Numb" received a Grammy nomination for Best Dance Recording in 2005 but lost to Britney Spears' "Toxic". The band have had greater success in the UK where, at the 2005 BRIT Awards, the group won all 3 of their nominations, including International Group, International Breakthrough, and International Album, making the group the first to win the hat-trick in the BRITs' International categories. They supplemented their win by opening the show with "Take Your Mama" on a set made by The Jim Henson Company and returned in 2007, opening the ceremony with "I Don't Feel Like Dancin'" which later won the Ivor Novello Award for Most Performed Work. Other international honors include the German Bambi Award for Shooting Star.
The band have also been recognized by the LGBT community. Three of their four studio albums have been recognized by the GLAAD Media Awards, consecutively winning the band the award for Outstanding Music Artist (in 2005, 2007 and 2011) while Out magazine also ranked their first two albums on their list of the 100 Greatest, Gayest Albums in 2008: Scissor Sisters (2004) was number 26 while Ta-Dah (2006) was 81. In 2004, gay members Shears, Babydaddy, and Marquis, were honored in Out magazine's List of the 100 Most Intriguing Gay People of the Year. Recognized for humanitarianism, the band were also invited to perform at Live 8 with a set that included previously unheard song "Everybody Wants the Same Thing".
In popular culture
Several songs by Scissor Sisters have featured in various television shows including "The Skins" in season five of Queer as Folk and "Take Your Mama" in the episode "Six Months Ago" of Heroes. Their song "Filthy/Gorgeous" serves as the theme music to the US version of the sitcom Kath & Kim, while the song "I Can't Decide" was used in the Doctor Who episode, "Last of the Time Lords", where The Master sings along to it in a mocking fashion towards the enslaved human race. Subsequently, the song debuted at number 64 on the UK Singles Chart. "I Don't Feel Like Dancin'" is featured at a costume party in the film How to Lose Friends and Alienate People (2008) and is one of the "slug songs" in the special features menu that is sung in Flushed Away (2006), as well as being featured during the beginning of the first episode of Private Practice. In addition, "Isn't It Strange," a track created during the band's recording session for "Night Work", featured in Shrek Forever After (2010).
Their music has also been used in video games with "I Don't Feel Like Dancin'" featuring on the Wii video game "Dance Dance Revolution: Hottest Party" and on the game Singstar on PlayStation 3. In 2005, "Filthy/Gorgeous" was licensed by Activision and appears in Neversoft's Tony Hawk's American Wasteland while "Take Your Mama" and "Fire with Fire" appear on EA Sports' FIFA 2005 and FIFA 11 respectively.
The popular trend of mashups has included Scissor Sisters in its vein with DJ Earworm's 2005 hit "No One Takes Your Freedom" combining "Take Your Mama" with The Beatles' "For No One", George Michael's "Freedom '90" and Aretha Franklin's "Think". In early 2008, online record label WHA!?, in association with a Scissor Sisters fan site, released a free-to-download bootleg album entitled Da-Tah which featured mashups of Scissor Sister songs with songs by artists such as Beck, Peter Gabriel, Lauryn Hill, and Nine Inch Nails. In November 2012, the song "Let's Have a Kiki" was used on Glees fourth season episode "Thanksgiving" in a mashup with "Turkey Lurkey Time" from the musical Promises, Promises.
"Filthy/Gorgeous" is used in trailers for the film Filth (2013). Also, Jake Shears was invited to sing a duet on pop diva Cher's 2013 album Closer to the Truth. The name of the track is "Take It Like a Man".
Members
Current members
Jake Shears (born Jason Sellards): vocals, piano, guitar (2001–present)
Babydaddy (born Scott Hoffman): bass guitar, keyboards, backing vocals, rhythm guitar (2001–present)
Ana Matronic (born Ana Lynch): vocals, 'Mistress of Ceremonies', percussion, keyboards (2001–present)
Del Marquis (born Derek Gruen): lead guitar, bass guitar (2001–present)
Randy Real (born Randy Schrager): drums, electronic drums, percussion (2008–present)
Former members
Paddy Boom (born Patrick Seacor): drums, electronic drums, percussion (2001–2008)
Live shows and performances have included John "JJ" Garden—son of Graeme Garden of The Goodies—on keyboards and rhythm and bass guitars.
Discography
Scissor Sisters (2004)
Ta-Dah (2006)
Night Work (2010)
Magic Hour (2012)
Filmography
We Are Scissor Sisters... And So Are You (2004)
Hurrah! A Year of Ta-Dah (2007)
Tours
Untitled European Tour (2003)
Crevice Canyon Tour (2004)
The Ta-Dah Tour (2007)
The Night Work Tour (2010/2011)
Let's Have A Kiki Tour (2012)
As supporting act
Astronaut Tour in support of Duran Duran (2004)
Vertigo Tour in support of U2 (2005)
Touring the Angel in support of Depeche Mode (2006)
The Monster Ball Tour in support of Lady Gaga (2011)
See also
List of artists who reached number one on the U.S. dance chart
List of number-one dance hits (United States)
References
External links
2001 establishments in New York City
American dance music groups
American pop rock music groups
Brit Award winners
Ivor Novello Award winners
LGBT culture in New York City
LGBT-themed musical groups
Musical groups established in 2001
Musical groups from New York City
Musical quartets
Nu-disco musicians
Rock music groups from New York (state)
Polydor Records artists
Casablanca Records artists
Universal Motown Records artists
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"Followers is an album by the American contemporary Christian music (CCM) band Tenth Avenue North. It was released by Provident Label Group, a division of Sony Music Entertainment, under its Reunion Records label, on October 14, 2016. The album reached No. 5 on the Billboard Christian Albums chart, and No. 151 on the Billboard 200. Three singles from the album were released: \"What You Want\" in 2016, and \"I Have This Hope\" and \"Control (Somehow You Want Me)\" in 2017, all of which appeared on the Billboard Hot Christian Songs chart.\n\nRelease and performance \n\nFollowers was released on October 14, 2016, by Provident Label Group LLC, a division of Sony Music Entertainment. It first charted on both the US Billboard Christian Albums and Billboard 200 on the week of November 5, 2016, peaking that week on both charts at No. 5 and No. 151, respectively.\n\nThree singles were released from the album. The first, \"What You Want\", was released five months in advance of the album on May 13, 2016, and charted on the Billboard Hot Christian Songs list, peaking at No. 17 on September 3, 2016. The other two were released in 2017 after the album, and reached the top 10 on Hot Christian Songs: \"I Have This Hope\" peaked at No. 5 on June 10, 2017, and \"Control (Somehow You Want Me)\" peaked at No. 7 on January 13, 2018.\n\nReception \n\nCCM Magazine gave the album 4 out of 5 stars, and cited its \"killer vocal work on honest, relatable lyrics paired with ... strong songwriting.\"\n\nChristian review website JesusFreakHideout rated the album 3.5 out of 5 stars. The review said the album was \"pretty much what you would expect from a CCM release\" and wrote that \"What You Want\" was \"the most energetic song on the album\". It singled out the opening track as \"excellent\" and the closing track as \"powerful\", and characterized the remaining songs as \"eight solid but otherwise ordinary tracks.\"\n\nTrack listing\n\"Afraid\" (3:48)\n\"What You Want\" (3:37)\n\"Overflow\" (3:40)\n\"I Have This Hope\" (3:24)\n\"One Thing\" (3:28)\n\"Sparrow (Under Heaven's Eyes)\" (3:59)\n\"No One Can Steal Our Joy\" (3:40)\n\"Control (Somehow You Want Me)\" (4:08)\n\"Fighting for You\" (3:22)\n\"I Confess\" (5:15)\n\nChart performance\n\nReferences\n\n2016 albums\nTenth Avenue North albums",
"\"Lies\" is a song written by Beau Charles and Buddy Randell, performed by The Knickerbockers; the single was produced by Jerry Fuller. It reached #20 on the U.S. pop chart in 1965. It was featured on their 1966 album Lies and is famous for often being mistaken for a Beatles track due to its similarities to their style and harmonies.\n\nBackground\nHere is what original Knickerbockers member Beau Charles said about the song's behind-the-scenes story:\n\n\"We desperately tried to write something that sounded like the British Invasion'. We wrote 'Lies' in less than one half hour. We demo-ed it in New York.\" After a Jerry Fuller inspired re-arrangement, the track was recorded at Sunset Sound in West Hollywood with Bruce Botnick as the Engineer. Things were not quite right, so the multi-track master was taken to Leon Russell's house in Hollywood Hills. Jerry Fuller knew Leon and \"Leon had this great little studio - just a four track\". The band recorded the vocals there and overdubbed a new guitar part that was recorded from a beat up old Fender guitar amp that gave the guitar sound a meaty, edgy feel\".\n\nOther versions\nThe Ventures on their 1965 album Where the Action Is.\nNancy Sinatra on her 1966 album Boots.\nThe T-Bones on their 1966 album No Matter What Shape (Your Stomach's In).\nGary Lewis & the Playboys on their 1967 album Gary Lewis & the Playboys.\nLulu on her 1966 album From Lulu...with Love.\nStyx on their 1974 album Man of Miracles.\nTarney/Spencer Band on their 1979 album Run for Your Life.\nLinda Ronstadt on her 1982 album Get Closer.\nThe Delmonas on their 1985 album Dangerous Charms.\nThe Undead on their 1986 album Never Say Die!\nThe Landlords on their 1987 EP Our Favorite Songs!\nThe Basement Wall on their 1993 compilation album There Goes the Neighborhood! Volume 2 Featuring The Basement Wall.\nThe Fireballs on their 2006 compilation album Firebeat! The Great Lost Vocal Album.\nThe Brymers on their 2007 compilation album Sacrifice.\nThe Black Belles as the B-side to their 2010 single \"What Can I Do?\"\n\nSee also\n List of 1960s one-hit wonders in the United States\n\nReferences\n\n1965 songs\n1965 singles\nThe Ventures songs\nNancy Sinatra songs\nGary Lewis & the Playboys songs\nLulu (singer) songs\nStyx (band) songs\nLinda Ronstadt songs\nThe Fireballs songs\nSong recordings produced by Jerry Fuller"
] |
[
"Scissor Sisters",
"Magic Hour and indefinite hiatus (2012)",
"When was Magic Hour released?",
"May 28, 2012.",
"What songs were on the album?",
"\"Only the Horses\""
] |
C_b4597fb9710540b48f84f91d078247d0_0
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What other songs were there?
| 3 |
Aside from the song "Only The Horses," what were some other songs on the album Magic Hour by the Scissor Sisters?
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Scissor Sisters
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On October 31, 2011, Shears tweeted that the band's fourth album was in its final stages. A song from the new album titled "Shady Love" debuted on Annie Mac's BBC Radio 1 show on January 2, 2012. "Shady Love" features guest vocals from Azealia Banks while Jake Shears performs under his pseudonym Krystal Pepsy. On March 13, 2012, Scissor Sisters announced the title of the album, Magic Hour, and revealed that the record would release worldwide on May 28, 2012. The band also announced the release date of a new single, "Only the Horses". Originally scheduled to come out on May 20, the release "Only the Horses" was pushed up to May 13. The video premiered on Thursday April 18, 2012. On May 7, the band released the track "Let's Have a Kiki" exclusively via Spotify in some countries. Upon release, Magic Hour peaked at #4 on the UK Albums Chart and #35 on the US Billboard 200. The album reached #1 on Billboard's Dance/Electronic Albums chart. The band embarked on a world tour in support of Magic Hour, starting with summer shows in North America. On July 9, 2012, they performed the American TV premiere of "Let's Have a Kiki" on Bravo-TV's Watch What Happens Live. They toured Europe in September and October 2012. On October 23, 2012, whilst performing at the Camden Roundhouse, Scissor Sisters announced an indefinite hiatus. A year later, Ana Matronic insisted that the band, whilst still on break, had not permanently split. On June 9, 2017, the band released their first single in five years, "Swerlk", a collaboration with MNDR. Proceeds for the single were donated to the Contigo Fund, a non profit organization for LGBTQ individuals. CANNOTANSWER
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Let's Have a Kiki"
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Scissor Sisters are an American pop rock band formed in 2001. Forged in the "gay nightlife scene of New York", the band took its name from the female same-sex sexual activity tribadism. Its members include Jake Shears and Ana Matronic as vocalists, Babydaddy as multi-instrumentalist, Del Marquis as lead guitar/bassist, and Randy Real (who replaced Paddy Boom) as drummer. Scissor Sisters incorporates diverse and eclectic styles in their music, but tends to sway towards pop rock, glam rock, nu-disco, and electroclash.
The band came to prominence following the release of their Grammy-nominated and chart-topping disco version of "Comfortably Numb" and subsequent debut album Scissor Sisters (2004). The album was a success, particularly in the UK where it reached number one, was the best-selling album of 2004, was later certified platinum by the BPI, and earned them three BRIT Awards in 2005. All five of its singles reached positions within the top 20 of the UK Singles Chart while "Filthy/Gorgeous" scored the band their first number one on Billboard Hot Dance Club Songs, despite the album's meager success in their native US.
The album continued its success in countries around Europe, in Australia and in Canada before the release of the band's second studio album Ta-Dah (2006), their second consecutive UK number one album which produced their first UK number one single "I Don't Feel Like Dancin'". Their third studio album Night Work (2010) displayed a shift towards a more club-oriented sound, charting at number two on the UK Albums Chart, number one on Billboard Top Independent Albums chart and in the top 10 of several international territories. The band released their fourth studio album Magic Hour in May 2012.
Scissor Sisters has performed around the world and have become recognized for their controversial and transgressive live performances. They also collaborated with a number of other well-known pop musicians, including Elton John and Kylie Minogue; these particular collaborations have been received positively by both critics and other notable figures. In 2004, Bono, lead vocalist of rock band U2, described Scissor Sisters as "the best pop group in the world". They also collaborated with Global Cool in 2007 on one of their green lifestyle campaigns.
History
Early career (2000–2003)
Originally named Dead Lesbian and then the Fibrillating Scissor Sisters, the final two words of the latter being derived from the lesbian sexual act tribadism, the band was founded in 2000 after friends Jason "Jake Shears" Sellards and Scott "Babydaddy" Hoffman (who had met in 1999 in Lexington) both moved to New York City, enjoying its open and gay-friendly ethos. They began producing music together, with Babydaddy composing music and Shears writing lyrics. The duo released a couple of singles to little success and began appearing at underground clubs on New York's Lower East Side. On a trip to Disneyland, the pair met Ana "Matronic" Lynch at a screening of Michael Jackson's Captain EO. During a subsequent teacup ride, they discovered that they had a lot in common. Shears later remarked, "I really thought she was a freak but when I started singing "Another Part of Me" she showed me the best moonwalk I've ever seen."
Ana Matronic ran a weekly cabaret event known as Knock Off at a club called the Slipper Room in New York, where she liked to hire eccentric and alternative acts; one reporter described it as a place that "served up a racy, multigender revue of kitsch," and that a performer dressed as a giant vulva "enfolded me with her labia while singing "Lick Me in My Wet Spot" to the tune of "Hit Me With Your Best Shot"." Matronic invited the pair to appear at Knock Off, which they did on September 21, 2001. Shears dressed as his character "Jason the Amazing Back-Alley Late Term Abortion" whilst Matronic, dressed as a reject from Andy Warhol's Factory, joined the pair on stage and sang. Shears and Babydaddy felt she was very effective and asked her to join the band on a permanent basis, to which she agreed.
The trio then began appearing at other clubs, dropping the word "Fibrillating" from their name. They primarily played electroclash, which was popular at the time in the underground club scene of New York with bands like Peaches and Chicks on Speed. They were soon joined by Derek "Del Marquis" Gruen on lead guitar, who had known Shears from when they both worked at the IC Guys club where Shears had been a stripper. They were joined by a fifth member, Patrick "Paddy Boom" Seacor, on drums who (being heterosexual) felt the need to explain to his mother that "it's not a gay band... there [are] gay members, but it doesn't matter. It's about the music and about performance."
In 2002, the band signed with a small New York record company called A Touch of Class for a two-single deal. Their first single "Electrobix" dealt with gay men's obsessions with working out but proved to be less popular than its B-side, a cover version of Pink Floyd's progressive rock classic "Comfortably Numb". Matronic commented, "It's one of those songs that people were either gonna love or hate, and that's really, really powerful, because it basically means you're evoking a reaction in everyone. The first time I heard it, I thought that if it doesn't make us famous, it'll make us infamous because somebody will shoot us!" Their version of "Comfortably Numb" became a hit in many dance clubs and, after sending Pink Floyd themselves a copy, the Scissor Sisters received positive remarks from the song's original writers Roger Waters and David Gilmour. The song proved to be particularly popular in the UK, where various record labels soon took an interest in the band. In 2003, they decided they would tour Europe where they believed audiences would be more receptive to them and their music than their native US.
Debut album and breakthrough success (2003–2004)
"Comfortably Numb" came to the attention of British label Polydor, who signed the group to a contract. Their first single for the label "Laura" (with two different music videos) had a limited release in 2003 and reaching number 54 in the UK Singles Chart, receiving little attention with the exceptions of British music paper New Musical Express, Channel 4's entertainment programme V Graham Norton, and the same channel's music programme Popworld for which they were interviewed. The track also received much radio play in Australia. Their track "It Can't Come Quickly Enough" was also included on the soundtrack of the film Party Monster (2003), playing over its ending credits.
Their first hit was in 2004 with the official release of "Comfortably Numb". Reaching number 10 in the UK, this success was followed by "Take Your Mama" which went to number 17, a re-release of "Laura" (with two different music videos) which went to number 12, the ballad "Mary" which went to number 14, and the hedonist anthem "Filthy/Gorgeous" which peaked at number 5 in the UK. All the singles came from their debut album Scissor Sisters, which reached number one in the UK Albums Chart and became the best selling album of 2004, beating Keane's Hopes and Fears by 582 copies. As of 2016, it is the 20th biggest-selling album of the 21st century, and the 39th biggest-selling of all time in the UK.
Several media outlets noted that Scissor Sisters "stick out like a sore thumb" on the list of artists who have sold over 2 million copies of an album in the UK in the 21st century; the others being James Blunt, Robbie Williams, Keane, Dido, Coldplay and Norah Jones—artists considered "mainstream" compared to the Scissor Sisters' brash and controversial image. The band had been particularly keen on producing an album that fitted together well rather than simply producing a string of singles. According to Babydaddy, their purpose was "to create a perfect pop rock album that would pick you up at the beginning, take you on a journey in the middle, and set you right back down again in the same place at the end."
About six months after its British release, Scissor Sisters was released in the US. To publicize it the band appeared on the popular morning television show Live with Regis and Kelly, an event that Shears later recalled: "Kelly Ripa loved us, after the first time we played, she gave me a hug and whispered in my ear, 'I just want you to know that this is my favorite music performance we've ever had.' It was amazing." Nonetheless, neither the band nor the album proved to be a big commercial success in the US: major chain store Wal-Mart refused to stock it, claiming on its website that it contained "a snarling, swaggering attack on conservatism" in the form of the song "Tits on the Radio".
The band refused to produce a "clean" version of the album, and Babydaddy remarked that, "We did have to slap a parental warning sticker on the disc, which is completely absurd. I think a kid listening to Eminem is getting a much more negative message than what we've been putting forward. We've only got one 'shit' and a few 'tits!'" Band members have shown their dissatisfaction with the decision on a number of occasions. However, they continued their success in Europe by performing at the Brixton Academy in London for Halloween 2004, where they asked the audience to dress up as the characters from The Rocky Horror Show; the band themselves did so too.
Ta-Dah (2005–2007)
Recording of the second album, Ta-Dah, commenced in mid-May 2005 at the Discoball; sneak previews of new songs were played at live performances, including "Everybody Wants the Same Thing", performed at the Live 8 concert, "Paul McCartney", "I Can't Decide", "Hybrid Man", "Forever Right Now" and "Hair Baby" (a title that refers to the phenomenon of tumors containing partially formed fetuses). Among the assumed pseudonyms used to play a series of secret shows to test this new material were "Bridget Jones' Diarrhea", "Portion Control" and "Megapussi". Scissor Sisters were also one of the headlining acts at the British V Festival in 2005, where they collaborated on stage with Scottish rock group Franz Ferdinand to perform a cover version of David Bowie's "Suffragette City".
The band fulfilled one of its dreams: Elton John collaborated with them on "I Don't Feel Like Dancin'" (as pianist and co-writer). The song reached No. 1 in the United Kingdom on September 10, 2006, and remained in the top spot for four consecutive weeks. "I Don't Feel Like Dancin'" also peaked at No. 1 on the Australian ARIA Singles Chart and the Euro Hot 100. "I Don't Feel Like Dancin'" became the group's biggest hit to date.
Elton John also contributed to the song "Intermission" on Ta-Dah and played piano on a demo of the song Bad Shit (that can be found on the Lights CDsingle).
In 2006, they acted as an opening act for Depeche Mode's Touring the Angel Tour for a concert in Mountain View, California. Their first gig in the UK for promotion of the second album took place at the KOKO Club, Camden, London, on Aug. 31, 2006, and was filmed for MTV. 2006 performances at the Bowery Ballroom and Siren Music Festival in New York and the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival allowed the band to showcase an array of songs from the new album. A free concert was given in Trafalgar Square to 10,000 ballot winners on September 16, 2006, to promote the Red charity. The band also headlined the 2006 Bestival festival on the Isle of Wight. Additionally, they were invited to BBC's Maida Vale studios to perform different songs on every show broadcast on BBC Radio 1. The event, dubbed "Scissor Sisters Day", culminated in them actually standing in for presenter Pete Tong and hosting his three-hour slot themselves. The show took an unexpected turn when a woman in labour telephoned the show to share her experience with the band and they played "Push It" by Salt-n-Pepa for her. Several performances, interviews, and a humorous jingle that was written in an hour, were filmed and edited into a special seven-day, looped broadcast on BBCi.
The album was released on September 18, 2006 in the United Kingdom, and on September 26, 2006 in the United States. According to Shears, the album is a combination of 1960s psychedelia, glam rock and disco. It reached No. 1 in the UK Albums Chart in its first week of release, officially taking the top spot on September 24, 2006, marking a first for the Scissor Sisters, consisting of a single and album at the top of the UK charts simultaneously. The album Ta-Dah leaked onto the Internet on September 10, 2006, five days before its release in the United Kingdom.
The Scissor Sisters ended their first UK tour at Wembley Arena, London, from November 24 to 26, 2006, supported by new artist Lily Allen, who performed during the three days there. The band has also been in the Latin America Top 40 Airplay. "I Don't Feel Like Dancin'" is still charting and is so far their biggest hit to date in Latin America, reaching No. 23, charting mostly in South America, particularly Peru. "Land of a Thousand Words" was released as the second single from the album, peaking at No. 19 in the UK. "She's My Man" was the third single released in February 2007, peaking at No. 29. "Kiss You Off" was the fourth and final single released in May 2007 but failed to dent the Top 40, their first single since their debut Laura to do so. The "Kiss You Off" video centered around Ana Matronic in a futuristic beauty salon. The group was the main event during the New Year's Eve celebrations for 2007 in Berlin. On February 8 and 9, 2007, the group appeared on the American daytime soap opera Passions. They performed "I Don't Feel Like Dancin'" and "Land of a Thousand Words" from the album Ta-Dah.
Night Work and other projects (2008–2011)
After touring the world in 2007, the band had a short hiatus in order to work on their next studio album. Premiering new material of this album at secret gigs in New York City's Mercury Lounge in October 2008, they assumed the names Queef Latina and Debbie's Hairy. New songs included on the set list were "Television", "Who's Your Money", "Other Girls", "Major for You", "None of My Business", "Singularity", "Do the Strand", "Who's There", "Not the Loving Kind", "Taking Shape" (with Babydaddy on lead vocals), and "Uroboros". Shears stated on the band's website there was a possibility that none of these songs would appear on the album, as the band was less than satisfied with most of them. This was confirmed to be the case when the track list was revealed. Drummer Paddy Boom was absent at these gigs and it was later announced that he had amicably parted from the band. The band had come into contact with drummer Randy "Real" Schrager, who was known from his work on the downtown New York scene, playing with bands such as Jessica Vale and The Act. He was initially brought on as a fill-in during Paddy Boom's leave of absence. Eventually, Randy was made part of the full-time line-up.
Scissor Sisters spent much of 2008 and early 2009 in the recording studio. However, after working on new material for approximately 18 months, the band decided to shelve their third album. Shears explained: "In my heart I knew it wasn't right. I didn't really know what it was trying to say. It left me a little bit cold." Reportedly, an entire record had been worked on but that the group had "shelved it about a year ago." Shears admits, "If it wasn't something we could fully get behind and believe in, I think the band was going to be over."
In June 2009, the band returned to the studio and began to work on new tracks that made it onto Night Work, their replacement third album. Produced in collaboration with Stuart Price, Night Work was released on June 28, 2010. The album was described as "supersexual and sleazy" with its first single, "Fire with Fire" as "a really epic song that makes you feel really good". With the album, the band have toured worldwide on The Night Work Tour. As an opening act, they joined Lady Gaga for select dates on her third leg of The Monster Ball Tour in early 2011.
Shears and Scissor Sisters collaborator John "JJ" Garden provided the lyrics and score for a world-premiere musical adaptation of Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City, a much-loved series of novels (and later a television miniseries) about life in San Francisco in the 1970s. The musical was first developed at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center's National Music Theater Conference in 2009, where Shears and Garden collaborated with a creative team that included playwright Jeff Whitty and director Jason Moore, of the Tony-Award-winning musical Avenue Q. The show had a subsequent run in San Francisco on May 18, 2011 at the American Conservatory Theater.
Magic Hour and indefinite hiatus (2012)
On October 31, 2011, Shears tweeted that the band's fourth album was in its final stages. A song from the new album titled "Shady Love" debuted on Annie Mac's BBC Radio 1 show on January 2, 2012. "Shady Love" features guest vocals from Azealia Banks while Jake Shears performs under his pseudonym Krystal Pepsy.
On March 13, 2012, Scissor Sisters announced the title of the album, Magic Hour, and revealed that the record would be released worldwide on May 28, 2012. The band also announced the release date of a new single, "Only the Horses". Originally scheduled to come out on May 20, the release of "Only the Horses" was brought forward to May 13. The video premiered on Thursday April 18, 2012. On May 7, the band released the track "Let's Have a Kiki" exclusively via Spotify in some countries.
Upon release, Magic Hour peaked at #4 on the UK Albums Chart and #35 on the US Billboard 200. The album reached #1 on Billboard's Dance/Electronic Albums chart. The band embarked on a world tour in support of Magic Hour, starting with summer shows in North America. On July 9, 2012, they performed the American TV premiere of "Let's Have a Kiki" on Bravo-TV's Watch What Happens Live. They toured Europe in September and October 2012.
On October 23, 2012, while performing at the Camden Roundhouse, Scissor Sisters announced an indefinite hiatus. A year later, Ana Matronic insisted that the band, while still on break, had not permanently split.
The band collaborated on a charity record with MNDR and released "Swerlk" on June 9, 2017, their first release in five years. Proceeds for the single were donated to the Contigo Fund, a nonprofit organization for LGBTQ individuals.
In June 2019, Shears stated the impetus for the band's hiatus was the success of "Let's Have a Kiki" and wanting to end things on a high note.
Artistry
Musical style
Scissor Sisters' music can be generally described as a mixture of glam rock, disco and alternative music. They appear to have been heavily influenced by Elton John (who co-wrote and played piano on "I Don't Feel Like Dancin'") despite Shears commenting that he was not familiar with his work prior to the release of their record. Shears has since stated that he has become a big fan. The band also has been compared to ABBA, the Bee Gees, Blondie, KC and the Sunshine Band, Duran Duran who were "the reason we got into music," Matronic stated, Supertramp, Siouxsie and the Banshees who Matronic "wouldn't be here without," David Bowie, 1970s-era Kiss, Queen, Chic, Richard O'Brien and various other dance, disco, rock, and funk acts. Shears also stated that The Beatles have been an influence for him and that he is a huge fan of Paul McCartney and Wings, hence their track entitled "Paul McCartney". However, the band admits that their music is hard to categorise.
The lyrics of their songs, largely written by Shears and Babydaddy, are known for their mixture of wit and tragedy. The songs on their debut album dealt with a number of subjects and issues in a variety of styles, from drug abuse within the gay community ("Return to Oz"), to Shears' deep platonic love for his best friend Mary ("Mary"). Mary died of a brain aneurysm in April 2006, news that devastated members of the band.
Many of Scissor Sisters' songs deal with themes in the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, relating to the fact that three of the band members, including the two founders, are gay. "Filthy/Gorgeous" is about transgender prostitutes while "Take Your Mama" deals with coming out of the closet to family members. Despite this, Shears stated, "I don't believe sexuality really matters when it comes to music." In an interview featured on the We Are Scissor Sisters... And So Are You DVD, Shears states, "The fact that some of us are gay affects our music the same amount as it does that some of the members of Blondie are straight."
Performance style
The visuals for Scissor Sisters' self-titled first album and its singles featured artwork by an English illustrator named Spookytim, who has a studio in Brighton called Studiospooky. The artwork was created by a wide variety of techniques and mixed traditional paper-based processes with digital and photographic elements in order to reflect the multi-referential nature of the band's music.
Scissor Sisters are known for their extravagant live performances. In some of their early shows, Shears was known to remove all of his clothes onstage, harking back to his former profession as a go-go stripper; in others, he threw inflated condoms into the audience.
Legacy
Impact and influence
Several fan societies have sprung up in the official forums including the Jake Groupies, Ana Matronic Appreciation Society, and the Scissor Sisters Party Bus; the latter two having spilled over to their own sites. The band have a close relationship with their fan community and have held small private gigs for select forum members, at which new tracks are previewed and fans have the opportunity to meet the band. In the fan community, those fans who hold a special affinity for Ana are known as "nuns."
In late 2004, Shears and Babydaddy co-wrote and produced the Kylie Minogue hit "I Believe in You", which featured on her Ultimate Kylie (2004) compilation. They also wrote the unreleased "(Everything) I Know", which leaked online in November 2004 and "Ooh (The Blues)", of which Minogue's version remains unreleased. Scissor Sisters went on to co-write a new song for Minogue entitled "White Diamond", which was showcased in her Showgirl Homecoming Tour that kicked off in Australia in November 2006. A stirring ballad version of "White Diamond" was featured as an exclusive pre-order bonus track from Minogue's album X (2007) as well as being the theme song of her tour documentary White Diamond (2007).
Awards, nominations and press
Scissor Sisters have garnered 10 accolades from 28 nominations in various awards ceremonies. Their single "Comfortably Numb" received a Grammy nomination for Best Dance Recording in 2005 but lost to Britney Spears' "Toxic". The band have had greater success in the UK where, at the 2005 BRIT Awards, the group won all 3 of their nominations, including International Group, International Breakthrough, and International Album, making the group the first to win the hat-trick in the BRITs' International categories. They supplemented their win by opening the show with "Take Your Mama" on a set made by The Jim Henson Company and returned in 2007, opening the ceremony with "I Don't Feel Like Dancin'" which later won the Ivor Novello Award for Most Performed Work. Other international honors include the German Bambi Award for Shooting Star.
The band have also been recognized by the LGBT community. Three of their four studio albums have been recognized by the GLAAD Media Awards, consecutively winning the band the award for Outstanding Music Artist (in 2005, 2007 and 2011) while Out magazine also ranked their first two albums on their list of the 100 Greatest, Gayest Albums in 2008: Scissor Sisters (2004) was number 26 while Ta-Dah (2006) was 81. In 2004, gay members Shears, Babydaddy, and Marquis, were honored in Out magazine's List of the 100 Most Intriguing Gay People of the Year. Recognized for humanitarianism, the band were also invited to perform at Live 8 with a set that included previously unheard song "Everybody Wants the Same Thing".
In popular culture
Several songs by Scissor Sisters have featured in various television shows including "The Skins" in season five of Queer as Folk and "Take Your Mama" in the episode "Six Months Ago" of Heroes. Their song "Filthy/Gorgeous" serves as the theme music to the US version of the sitcom Kath & Kim, while the song "I Can't Decide" was used in the Doctor Who episode, "Last of the Time Lords", where The Master sings along to it in a mocking fashion towards the enslaved human race. Subsequently, the song debuted at number 64 on the UK Singles Chart. "I Don't Feel Like Dancin'" is featured at a costume party in the film How to Lose Friends and Alienate People (2008) and is one of the "slug songs" in the special features menu that is sung in Flushed Away (2006), as well as being featured during the beginning of the first episode of Private Practice. In addition, "Isn't It Strange," a track created during the band's recording session for "Night Work", featured in Shrek Forever After (2010).
Their music has also been used in video games with "I Don't Feel Like Dancin'" featuring on the Wii video game "Dance Dance Revolution: Hottest Party" and on the game Singstar on PlayStation 3. In 2005, "Filthy/Gorgeous" was licensed by Activision and appears in Neversoft's Tony Hawk's American Wasteland while "Take Your Mama" and "Fire with Fire" appear on EA Sports' FIFA 2005 and FIFA 11 respectively.
The popular trend of mashups has included Scissor Sisters in its vein with DJ Earworm's 2005 hit "No One Takes Your Freedom" combining "Take Your Mama" with The Beatles' "For No One", George Michael's "Freedom '90" and Aretha Franklin's "Think". In early 2008, online record label WHA!?, in association with a Scissor Sisters fan site, released a free-to-download bootleg album entitled Da-Tah which featured mashups of Scissor Sister songs with songs by artists such as Beck, Peter Gabriel, Lauryn Hill, and Nine Inch Nails. In November 2012, the song "Let's Have a Kiki" was used on Glees fourth season episode "Thanksgiving" in a mashup with "Turkey Lurkey Time" from the musical Promises, Promises.
"Filthy/Gorgeous" is used in trailers for the film Filth (2013). Also, Jake Shears was invited to sing a duet on pop diva Cher's 2013 album Closer to the Truth. The name of the track is "Take It Like a Man".
Members
Current members
Jake Shears (born Jason Sellards): vocals, piano, guitar (2001–present)
Babydaddy (born Scott Hoffman): bass guitar, keyboards, backing vocals, rhythm guitar (2001–present)
Ana Matronic (born Ana Lynch): vocals, 'Mistress of Ceremonies', percussion, keyboards (2001–present)
Del Marquis (born Derek Gruen): lead guitar, bass guitar (2001–present)
Randy Real (born Randy Schrager): drums, electronic drums, percussion (2008–present)
Former members
Paddy Boom (born Patrick Seacor): drums, electronic drums, percussion (2001–2008)
Live shows and performances have included John "JJ" Garden—son of Graeme Garden of The Goodies—on keyboards and rhythm and bass guitars.
Discography
Scissor Sisters (2004)
Ta-Dah (2006)
Night Work (2010)
Magic Hour (2012)
Filmography
We Are Scissor Sisters... And So Are You (2004)
Hurrah! A Year of Ta-Dah (2007)
Tours
Untitled European Tour (2003)
Crevice Canyon Tour (2004)
The Ta-Dah Tour (2007)
The Night Work Tour (2010/2011)
Let's Have A Kiki Tour (2012)
As supporting act
Astronaut Tour in support of Duran Duran (2004)
Vertigo Tour in support of U2 (2005)
Touring the Angel in support of Depeche Mode (2006)
The Monster Ball Tour in support of Lady Gaga (2011)
See also
List of artists who reached number one on the U.S. dance chart
List of number-one dance hits (United States)
References
External links
2001 establishments in New York City
American dance music groups
American pop rock music groups
Brit Award winners
Ivor Novello Award winners
LGBT culture in New York City
LGBT-themed musical groups
Musical groups established in 2001
Musical groups from New York City
Musical quartets
Nu-disco musicians
Rock music groups from New York (state)
Polydor Records artists
Casablanca Records artists
Universal Motown Records artists
| true |
[
"\"What's My Name?\" is a song by American hip hop recording artist DMX, released as the first single released from his third album ...And Then There Was X (1999). The single peaked at #67 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the U.S. \"What's My Name?\" was produced by Self and co-produced by Irv Gotti. It went Gold on May 21, 2021 with all of his other Rap Songs.\n\nMusic video\nThe video for \"What's My Name?\" (directed by Little X) is somewhat similar to Lenny Kravitz's \"Are You Gonna Go My Way\". The music video features guest appearances from Jay-Z, Ja Rule, Ruff Ryders, Irv Gotti and Murder Inc.\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nCertifications\n\nReferences\n\n2000 singles\nDMX (rapper) songs\nMusic videos directed by Director X\nDef Jam Recordings singles\nRuff Ryders Entertainment singles\nHardcore hip hop songs\nGangsta rap songs\n1999 songs\nSongs written by DMX (rapper)",
"\"What Else Is There?\" is the third single from the Norwegian duo Röyksopp's second album The Understanding. It features the vocals of Karin Dreijer from the Swedish electronica duo The Knife. The album was released in the UK with the help of Astralwerks.\n\nThe single was used in an O2 television advertisement in the Czech Republic and in Slovakia during 2008. It was also used in the 2006 film Cashback and the 2007 film, Meet Bill. Trentemøller's remix of \"What Else is There?\" was featured in an episode of the HBO show Entourage.\n\nThe song was covered by extreme metal band Enslaved as a bonus track for their album E.\n\nThe song was listed as the 375th best song of the 2000s by Pitchfork Media.\n\nOfficial versions\n\"What Else Is There?\" (Album Version) – 5:17\n\"What Else Is There?\" (Radio Edit) – 3:38\n\"What Else Is There?\" (Jacques Lu Cont Radio Mix) – 3:46\n\"What Else Is There?\" (The Emperor Machine Vocal Version) – 8:03\n\"What Else Is There?\" (The Emperor Machine Dub Version) – 7:51\n\"What Else Is There?\" (Thin White Duke Mix) – 8:25\n\"What Else Is There?\" (Thin White Duke Edit) – 4:50\n\"What Else Is There?\" (Thin White Duke Remix) (Radio Edit) – 3:06\n\"What Else Is There?\" (Trentemøller Remix) – 7:42\n\"What Else Is There?\" (Vitalic Remix) – 5:14\n\nResponse\nThe single was officially released on 5 December 2005 in the UK. The single had a limited release on 21 November 2005 to promote the upcoming album. On the UK Singles Chart, it peaked at number 32, while on the UK Dance Chart, it reached number one.\n\nMusic video\nThe music video was directed by Martin de Thurah. It features Norwegian model Marianne Schröder who is shown lip-syncing Dreijer's voice. Schröder is depicted as a floating woman traveling across stormy landscapes and within empty houses. Dreijer makes a cameo appearance as a woman wearing an Elizabethan ruff while dining alone at a festive table.\n\nMovie spots\n\nThe song is also featured in the movie Meet Bill as characters played by Jessica Alba and Aaron Eckhart smoke marijuana while listening to it. It is also part of the end credits music of the film Cashback.\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\n2005 singles\nRöyksopp songs\nAstralwerks singles\nSongs written by Svein Berge\nSongs written by Torbjørn Brundtland\n2004 songs\nSongs written by Roger Greenaway\nSongs written by Olof Dreijer\nSongs written by Karin Dreijer"
] |
[
"Scissor Sisters",
"Magic Hour and indefinite hiatus (2012)",
"When was Magic Hour released?",
"May 28, 2012.",
"What songs were on the album?",
"\"Only the Horses\"",
"What other songs were there?",
"Let's Have a Kiki\""
] |
C_b4597fb9710540b48f84f91d078247d0_0
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Was anything responsible for their hiatus?
| 4 |
Was there anything in particular responsible for the hiatus of the Scissor Sisters?
|
Scissor Sisters
|
On October 31, 2011, Shears tweeted that the band's fourth album was in its final stages. A song from the new album titled "Shady Love" debuted on Annie Mac's BBC Radio 1 show on January 2, 2012. "Shady Love" features guest vocals from Azealia Banks while Jake Shears performs under his pseudonym Krystal Pepsy. On March 13, 2012, Scissor Sisters announced the title of the album, Magic Hour, and revealed that the record would release worldwide on May 28, 2012. The band also announced the release date of a new single, "Only the Horses". Originally scheduled to come out on May 20, the release "Only the Horses" was pushed up to May 13. The video premiered on Thursday April 18, 2012. On May 7, the band released the track "Let's Have a Kiki" exclusively via Spotify in some countries. Upon release, Magic Hour peaked at #4 on the UK Albums Chart and #35 on the US Billboard 200. The album reached #1 on Billboard's Dance/Electronic Albums chart. The band embarked on a world tour in support of Magic Hour, starting with summer shows in North America. On July 9, 2012, they performed the American TV premiere of "Let's Have a Kiki" on Bravo-TV's Watch What Happens Live. They toured Europe in September and October 2012. On October 23, 2012, whilst performing at the Camden Roundhouse, Scissor Sisters announced an indefinite hiatus. A year later, Ana Matronic insisted that the band, whilst still on break, had not permanently split. On June 9, 2017, the band released their first single in five years, "Swerlk", a collaboration with MNDR. Proceeds for the single were donated to the Contigo Fund, a non profit organization for LGBTQ individuals. CANNOTANSWER
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A year later, Ana Matronic insisted that the band, whilst still on break, had not permanently split.
|
Scissor Sisters are an American pop rock band formed in 2001. Forged in the "gay nightlife scene of New York", the band took its name from the female same-sex sexual activity tribadism. Its members include Jake Shears and Ana Matronic as vocalists, Babydaddy as multi-instrumentalist, Del Marquis as lead guitar/bassist, and Randy Real (who replaced Paddy Boom) as drummer. Scissor Sisters incorporates diverse and eclectic styles in their music, but tends to sway towards pop rock, glam rock, nu-disco, and electroclash.
The band came to prominence following the release of their Grammy-nominated and chart-topping disco version of "Comfortably Numb" and subsequent debut album Scissor Sisters (2004). The album was a success, particularly in the UK where it reached number one, was the best-selling album of 2004, was later certified platinum by the BPI, and earned them three BRIT Awards in 2005. All five of its singles reached positions within the top 20 of the UK Singles Chart while "Filthy/Gorgeous" scored the band their first number one on Billboard Hot Dance Club Songs, despite the album's meager success in their native US.
The album continued its success in countries around Europe, in Australia and in Canada before the release of the band's second studio album Ta-Dah (2006), their second consecutive UK number one album which produced their first UK number one single "I Don't Feel Like Dancin'". Their third studio album Night Work (2010) displayed a shift towards a more club-oriented sound, charting at number two on the UK Albums Chart, number one on Billboard Top Independent Albums chart and in the top 10 of several international territories. The band released their fourth studio album Magic Hour in May 2012.
Scissor Sisters has performed around the world and have become recognized for their controversial and transgressive live performances. They also collaborated with a number of other well-known pop musicians, including Elton John and Kylie Minogue; these particular collaborations have been received positively by both critics and other notable figures. In 2004, Bono, lead vocalist of rock band U2, described Scissor Sisters as "the best pop group in the world". They also collaborated with Global Cool in 2007 on one of their green lifestyle campaigns.
History
Early career (2000–2003)
Originally named Dead Lesbian and then the Fibrillating Scissor Sisters, the final two words of the latter being derived from the lesbian sexual act tribadism, the band was founded in 2000 after friends Jason "Jake Shears" Sellards and Scott "Babydaddy" Hoffman (who had met in 1999 in Lexington) both moved to New York City, enjoying its open and gay-friendly ethos. They began producing music together, with Babydaddy composing music and Shears writing lyrics. The duo released a couple of singles to little success and began appearing at underground clubs on New York's Lower East Side. On a trip to Disneyland, the pair met Ana "Matronic" Lynch at a screening of Michael Jackson's Captain EO. During a subsequent teacup ride, they discovered that they had a lot in common. Shears later remarked, "I really thought she was a freak but when I started singing "Another Part of Me" she showed me the best moonwalk I've ever seen."
Ana Matronic ran a weekly cabaret event known as Knock Off at a club called the Slipper Room in New York, where she liked to hire eccentric and alternative acts; one reporter described it as a place that "served up a racy, multigender revue of kitsch," and that a performer dressed as a giant vulva "enfolded me with her labia while singing "Lick Me in My Wet Spot" to the tune of "Hit Me With Your Best Shot"." Matronic invited the pair to appear at Knock Off, which they did on September 21, 2001. Shears dressed as his character "Jason the Amazing Back-Alley Late Term Abortion" whilst Matronic, dressed as a reject from Andy Warhol's Factory, joined the pair on stage and sang. Shears and Babydaddy felt she was very effective and asked her to join the band on a permanent basis, to which she agreed.
The trio then began appearing at other clubs, dropping the word "Fibrillating" from their name. They primarily played electroclash, which was popular at the time in the underground club scene of New York with bands like Peaches and Chicks on Speed. They were soon joined by Derek "Del Marquis" Gruen on lead guitar, who had known Shears from when they both worked at the IC Guys club where Shears had been a stripper. They were joined by a fifth member, Patrick "Paddy Boom" Seacor, on drums who (being heterosexual) felt the need to explain to his mother that "it's not a gay band... there [are] gay members, but it doesn't matter. It's about the music and about performance."
In 2002, the band signed with a small New York record company called A Touch of Class for a two-single deal. Their first single "Electrobix" dealt with gay men's obsessions with working out but proved to be less popular than its B-side, a cover version of Pink Floyd's progressive rock classic "Comfortably Numb". Matronic commented, "It's one of those songs that people were either gonna love or hate, and that's really, really powerful, because it basically means you're evoking a reaction in everyone. The first time I heard it, I thought that if it doesn't make us famous, it'll make us infamous because somebody will shoot us!" Their version of "Comfortably Numb" became a hit in many dance clubs and, after sending Pink Floyd themselves a copy, the Scissor Sisters received positive remarks from the song's original writers Roger Waters and David Gilmour. The song proved to be particularly popular in the UK, where various record labels soon took an interest in the band. In 2003, they decided they would tour Europe where they believed audiences would be more receptive to them and their music than their native US.
Debut album and breakthrough success (2003–2004)
"Comfortably Numb" came to the attention of British label Polydor, who signed the group to a contract. Their first single for the label "Laura" (with two different music videos) had a limited release in 2003 and reaching number 54 in the UK Singles Chart, receiving little attention with the exceptions of British music paper New Musical Express, Channel 4's entertainment programme V Graham Norton, and the same channel's music programme Popworld for which they were interviewed. The track also received much radio play in Australia. Their track "It Can't Come Quickly Enough" was also included on the soundtrack of the film Party Monster (2003), playing over its ending credits.
Their first hit was in 2004 with the official release of "Comfortably Numb". Reaching number 10 in the UK, this success was followed by "Take Your Mama" which went to number 17, a re-release of "Laura" (with two different music videos) which went to number 12, the ballad "Mary" which went to number 14, and the hedonist anthem "Filthy/Gorgeous" which peaked at number 5 in the UK. All the singles came from their debut album Scissor Sisters, which reached number one in the UK Albums Chart and became the best selling album of 2004, beating Keane's Hopes and Fears by 582 copies. As of 2016, it is the 20th biggest-selling album of the 21st century, and the 39th biggest-selling of all time in the UK.
Several media outlets noted that Scissor Sisters "stick out like a sore thumb" on the list of artists who have sold over 2 million copies of an album in the UK in the 21st century; the others being James Blunt, Robbie Williams, Keane, Dido, Coldplay and Norah Jones—artists considered "mainstream" compared to the Scissor Sisters' brash and controversial image. The band had been particularly keen on producing an album that fitted together well rather than simply producing a string of singles. According to Babydaddy, their purpose was "to create a perfect pop rock album that would pick you up at the beginning, take you on a journey in the middle, and set you right back down again in the same place at the end."
About six months after its British release, Scissor Sisters was released in the US. To publicize it the band appeared on the popular morning television show Live with Regis and Kelly, an event that Shears later recalled: "Kelly Ripa loved us, after the first time we played, she gave me a hug and whispered in my ear, 'I just want you to know that this is my favorite music performance we've ever had.' It was amazing." Nonetheless, neither the band nor the album proved to be a big commercial success in the US: major chain store Wal-Mart refused to stock it, claiming on its website that it contained "a snarling, swaggering attack on conservatism" in the form of the song "Tits on the Radio".
The band refused to produce a "clean" version of the album, and Babydaddy remarked that, "We did have to slap a parental warning sticker on the disc, which is completely absurd. I think a kid listening to Eminem is getting a much more negative message than what we've been putting forward. We've only got one 'shit' and a few 'tits!'" Band members have shown their dissatisfaction with the decision on a number of occasions. However, they continued their success in Europe by performing at the Brixton Academy in London for Halloween 2004, where they asked the audience to dress up as the characters from The Rocky Horror Show; the band themselves did so too.
Ta-Dah (2005–2007)
Recording of the second album, Ta-Dah, commenced in mid-May 2005 at the Discoball; sneak previews of new songs were played at live performances, including "Everybody Wants the Same Thing", performed at the Live 8 concert, "Paul McCartney", "I Can't Decide", "Hybrid Man", "Forever Right Now" and "Hair Baby" (a title that refers to the phenomenon of tumors containing partially formed fetuses). Among the assumed pseudonyms used to play a series of secret shows to test this new material were "Bridget Jones' Diarrhea", "Portion Control" and "Megapussi". Scissor Sisters were also one of the headlining acts at the British V Festival in 2005, where they collaborated on stage with Scottish rock group Franz Ferdinand to perform a cover version of David Bowie's "Suffragette City".
The band fulfilled one of its dreams: Elton John collaborated with them on "I Don't Feel Like Dancin'" (as pianist and co-writer). The song reached No. 1 in the United Kingdom on September 10, 2006, and remained in the top spot for four consecutive weeks. "I Don't Feel Like Dancin'" also peaked at No. 1 on the Australian ARIA Singles Chart and the Euro Hot 100. "I Don't Feel Like Dancin'" became the group's biggest hit to date.
Elton John also contributed to the song "Intermission" on Ta-Dah and played piano on a demo of the song Bad Shit (that can be found on the Lights CDsingle).
In 2006, they acted as an opening act for Depeche Mode's Touring the Angel Tour for a concert in Mountain View, California. Their first gig in the UK for promotion of the second album took place at the KOKO Club, Camden, London, on Aug. 31, 2006, and was filmed for MTV. 2006 performances at the Bowery Ballroom and Siren Music Festival in New York and the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival allowed the band to showcase an array of songs from the new album. A free concert was given in Trafalgar Square to 10,000 ballot winners on September 16, 2006, to promote the Red charity. The band also headlined the 2006 Bestival festival on the Isle of Wight. Additionally, they were invited to BBC's Maida Vale studios to perform different songs on every show broadcast on BBC Radio 1. The event, dubbed "Scissor Sisters Day", culminated in them actually standing in for presenter Pete Tong and hosting his three-hour slot themselves. The show took an unexpected turn when a woman in labour telephoned the show to share her experience with the band and they played "Push It" by Salt-n-Pepa for her. Several performances, interviews, and a humorous jingle that was written in an hour, were filmed and edited into a special seven-day, looped broadcast on BBCi.
The album was released on September 18, 2006 in the United Kingdom, and on September 26, 2006 in the United States. According to Shears, the album is a combination of 1960s psychedelia, glam rock and disco. It reached No. 1 in the UK Albums Chart in its first week of release, officially taking the top spot on September 24, 2006, marking a first for the Scissor Sisters, consisting of a single and album at the top of the UK charts simultaneously. The album Ta-Dah leaked onto the Internet on September 10, 2006, five days before its release in the United Kingdom.
The Scissor Sisters ended their first UK tour at Wembley Arena, London, from November 24 to 26, 2006, supported by new artist Lily Allen, who performed during the three days there. The band has also been in the Latin America Top 40 Airplay. "I Don't Feel Like Dancin'" is still charting and is so far their biggest hit to date in Latin America, reaching No. 23, charting mostly in South America, particularly Peru. "Land of a Thousand Words" was released as the second single from the album, peaking at No. 19 in the UK. "She's My Man" was the third single released in February 2007, peaking at No. 29. "Kiss You Off" was the fourth and final single released in May 2007 but failed to dent the Top 40, their first single since their debut Laura to do so. The "Kiss You Off" video centered around Ana Matronic in a futuristic beauty salon. The group was the main event during the New Year's Eve celebrations for 2007 in Berlin. On February 8 and 9, 2007, the group appeared on the American daytime soap opera Passions. They performed "I Don't Feel Like Dancin'" and "Land of a Thousand Words" from the album Ta-Dah.
Night Work and other projects (2008–2011)
After touring the world in 2007, the band had a short hiatus in order to work on their next studio album. Premiering new material of this album at secret gigs in New York City's Mercury Lounge in October 2008, they assumed the names Queef Latina and Debbie's Hairy. New songs included on the set list were "Television", "Who's Your Money", "Other Girls", "Major for You", "None of My Business", "Singularity", "Do the Strand", "Who's There", "Not the Loving Kind", "Taking Shape" (with Babydaddy on lead vocals), and "Uroboros". Shears stated on the band's website there was a possibility that none of these songs would appear on the album, as the band was less than satisfied with most of them. This was confirmed to be the case when the track list was revealed. Drummer Paddy Boom was absent at these gigs and it was later announced that he had amicably parted from the band. The band had come into contact with drummer Randy "Real" Schrager, who was known from his work on the downtown New York scene, playing with bands such as Jessica Vale and The Act. He was initially brought on as a fill-in during Paddy Boom's leave of absence. Eventually, Randy was made part of the full-time line-up.
Scissor Sisters spent much of 2008 and early 2009 in the recording studio. However, after working on new material for approximately 18 months, the band decided to shelve their third album. Shears explained: "In my heart I knew it wasn't right. I didn't really know what it was trying to say. It left me a little bit cold." Reportedly, an entire record had been worked on but that the group had "shelved it about a year ago." Shears admits, "If it wasn't something we could fully get behind and believe in, I think the band was going to be over."
In June 2009, the band returned to the studio and began to work on new tracks that made it onto Night Work, their replacement third album. Produced in collaboration with Stuart Price, Night Work was released on June 28, 2010. The album was described as "supersexual and sleazy" with its first single, "Fire with Fire" as "a really epic song that makes you feel really good". With the album, the band have toured worldwide on The Night Work Tour. As an opening act, they joined Lady Gaga for select dates on her third leg of The Monster Ball Tour in early 2011.
Shears and Scissor Sisters collaborator John "JJ" Garden provided the lyrics and score for a world-premiere musical adaptation of Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City, a much-loved series of novels (and later a television miniseries) about life in San Francisco in the 1970s. The musical was first developed at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center's National Music Theater Conference in 2009, where Shears and Garden collaborated with a creative team that included playwright Jeff Whitty and director Jason Moore, of the Tony-Award-winning musical Avenue Q. The show had a subsequent run in San Francisco on May 18, 2011 at the American Conservatory Theater.
Magic Hour and indefinite hiatus (2012)
On October 31, 2011, Shears tweeted that the band's fourth album was in its final stages. A song from the new album titled "Shady Love" debuted on Annie Mac's BBC Radio 1 show on January 2, 2012. "Shady Love" features guest vocals from Azealia Banks while Jake Shears performs under his pseudonym Krystal Pepsy.
On March 13, 2012, Scissor Sisters announced the title of the album, Magic Hour, and revealed that the record would be released worldwide on May 28, 2012. The band also announced the release date of a new single, "Only the Horses". Originally scheduled to come out on May 20, the release of "Only the Horses" was brought forward to May 13. The video premiered on Thursday April 18, 2012. On May 7, the band released the track "Let's Have a Kiki" exclusively via Spotify in some countries.
Upon release, Magic Hour peaked at #4 on the UK Albums Chart and #35 on the US Billboard 200. The album reached #1 on Billboard's Dance/Electronic Albums chart. The band embarked on a world tour in support of Magic Hour, starting with summer shows in North America. On July 9, 2012, they performed the American TV premiere of "Let's Have a Kiki" on Bravo-TV's Watch What Happens Live. They toured Europe in September and October 2012.
On October 23, 2012, while performing at the Camden Roundhouse, Scissor Sisters announced an indefinite hiatus. A year later, Ana Matronic insisted that the band, while still on break, had not permanently split.
The band collaborated on a charity record with MNDR and released "Swerlk" on June 9, 2017, their first release in five years. Proceeds for the single were donated to the Contigo Fund, a nonprofit organization for LGBTQ individuals.
In June 2019, Shears stated the impetus for the band's hiatus was the success of "Let's Have a Kiki" and wanting to end things on a high note.
Artistry
Musical style
Scissor Sisters' music can be generally described as a mixture of glam rock, disco and alternative music. They appear to have been heavily influenced by Elton John (who co-wrote and played piano on "I Don't Feel Like Dancin'") despite Shears commenting that he was not familiar with his work prior to the release of their record. Shears has since stated that he has become a big fan. The band also has been compared to ABBA, the Bee Gees, Blondie, KC and the Sunshine Band, Duran Duran who were "the reason we got into music," Matronic stated, Supertramp, Siouxsie and the Banshees who Matronic "wouldn't be here without," David Bowie, 1970s-era Kiss, Queen, Chic, Richard O'Brien and various other dance, disco, rock, and funk acts. Shears also stated that The Beatles have been an influence for him and that he is a huge fan of Paul McCartney and Wings, hence their track entitled "Paul McCartney". However, the band admits that their music is hard to categorise.
The lyrics of their songs, largely written by Shears and Babydaddy, are known for their mixture of wit and tragedy. The songs on their debut album dealt with a number of subjects and issues in a variety of styles, from drug abuse within the gay community ("Return to Oz"), to Shears' deep platonic love for his best friend Mary ("Mary"). Mary died of a brain aneurysm in April 2006, news that devastated members of the band.
Many of Scissor Sisters' songs deal with themes in the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, relating to the fact that three of the band members, including the two founders, are gay. "Filthy/Gorgeous" is about transgender prostitutes while "Take Your Mama" deals with coming out of the closet to family members. Despite this, Shears stated, "I don't believe sexuality really matters when it comes to music." In an interview featured on the We Are Scissor Sisters... And So Are You DVD, Shears states, "The fact that some of us are gay affects our music the same amount as it does that some of the members of Blondie are straight."
Performance style
The visuals for Scissor Sisters' self-titled first album and its singles featured artwork by an English illustrator named Spookytim, who has a studio in Brighton called Studiospooky. The artwork was created by a wide variety of techniques and mixed traditional paper-based processes with digital and photographic elements in order to reflect the multi-referential nature of the band's music.
Scissor Sisters are known for their extravagant live performances. In some of their early shows, Shears was known to remove all of his clothes onstage, harking back to his former profession as a go-go stripper; in others, he threw inflated condoms into the audience.
Legacy
Impact and influence
Several fan societies have sprung up in the official forums including the Jake Groupies, Ana Matronic Appreciation Society, and the Scissor Sisters Party Bus; the latter two having spilled over to their own sites. The band have a close relationship with their fan community and have held small private gigs for select forum members, at which new tracks are previewed and fans have the opportunity to meet the band. In the fan community, those fans who hold a special affinity for Ana are known as "nuns."
In late 2004, Shears and Babydaddy co-wrote and produced the Kylie Minogue hit "I Believe in You", which featured on her Ultimate Kylie (2004) compilation. They also wrote the unreleased "(Everything) I Know", which leaked online in November 2004 and "Ooh (The Blues)", of which Minogue's version remains unreleased. Scissor Sisters went on to co-write a new song for Minogue entitled "White Diamond", which was showcased in her Showgirl Homecoming Tour that kicked off in Australia in November 2006. A stirring ballad version of "White Diamond" was featured as an exclusive pre-order bonus track from Minogue's album X (2007) as well as being the theme song of her tour documentary White Diamond (2007).
Awards, nominations and press
Scissor Sisters have garnered 10 accolades from 28 nominations in various awards ceremonies. Their single "Comfortably Numb" received a Grammy nomination for Best Dance Recording in 2005 but lost to Britney Spears' "Toxic". The band have had greater success in the UK where, at the 2005 BRIT Awards, the group won all 3 of their nominations, including International Group, International Breakthrough, and International Album, making the group the first to win the hat-trick in the BRITs' International categories. They supplemented their win by opening the show with "Take Your Mama" on a set made by The Jim Henson Company and returned in 2007, opening the ceremony with "I Don't Feel Like Dancin'" which later won the Ivor Novello Award for Most Performed Work. Other international honors include the German Bambi Award for Shooting Star.
The band have also been recognized by the LGBT community. Three of their four studio albums have been recognized by the GLAAD Media Awards, consecutively winning the band the award for Outstanding Music Artist (in 2005, 2007 and 2011) while Out magazine also ranked their first two albums on their list of the 100 Greatest, Gayest Albums in 2008: Scissor Sisters (2004) was number 26 while Ta-Dah (2006) was 81. In 2004, gay members Shears, Babydaddy, and Marquis, were honored in Out magazine's List of the 100 Most Intriguing Gay People of the Year. Recognized for humanitarianism, the band were also invited to perform at Live 8 with a set that included previously unheard song "Everybody Wants the Same Thing".
In popular culture
Several songs by Scissor Sisters have featured in various television shows including "The Skins" in season five of Queer as Folk and "Take Your Mama" in the episode "Six Months Ago" of Heroes. Their song "Filthy/Gorgeous" serves as the theme music to the US version of the sitcom Kath & Kim, while the song "I Can't Decide" was used in the Doctor Who episode, "Last of the Time Lords", where The Master sings along to it in a mocking fashion towards the enslaved human race. Subsequently, the song debuted at number 64 on the UK Singles Chart. "I Don't Feel Like Dancin'" is featured at a costume party in the film How to Lose Friends and Alienate People (2008) and is one of the "slug songs" in the special features menu that is sung in Flushed Away (2006), as well as being featured during the beginning of the first episode of Private Practice. In addition, "Isn't It Strange," a track created during the band's recording session for "Night Work", featured in Shrek Forever After (2010).
Their music has also been used in video games with "I Don't Feel Like Dancin'" featuring on the Wii video game "Dance Dance Revolution: Hottest Party" and on the game Singstar on PlayStation 3. In 2005, "Filthy/Gorgeous" was licensed by Activision and appears in Neversoft's Tony Hawk's American Wasteland while "Take Your Mama" and "Fire with Fire" appear on EA Sports' FIFA 2005 and FIFA 11 respectively.
The popular trend of mashups has included Scissor Sisters in its vein with DJ Earworm's 2005 hit "No One Takes Your Freedom" combining "Take Your Mama" with The Beatles' "For No One", George Michael's "Freedom '90" and Aretha Franklin's "Think". In early 2008, online record label WHA!?, in association with a Scissor Sisters fan site, released a free-to-download bootleg album entitled Da-Tah which featured mashups of Scissor Sister songs with songs by artists such as Beck, Peter Gabriel, Lauryn Hill, and Nine Inch Nails. In November 2012, the song "Let's Have a Kiki" was used on Glees fourth season episode "Thanksgiving" in a mashup with "Turkey Lurkey Time" from the musical Promises, Promises.
"Filthy/Gorgeous" is used in trailers for the film Filth (2013). Also, Jake Shears was invited to sing a duet on pop diva Cher's 2013 album Closer to the Truth. The name of the track is "Take It Like a Man".
Members
Current members
Jake Shears (born Jason Sellards): vocals, piano, guitar (2001–present)
Babydaddy (born Scott Hoffman): bass guitar, keyboards, backing vocals, rhythm guitar (2001–present)
Ana Matronic (born Ana Lynch): vocals, 'Mistress of Ceremonies', percussion, keyboards (2001–present)
Del Marquis (born Derek Gruen): lead guitar, bass guitar (2001–present)
Randy Real (born Randy Schrager): drums, electronic drums, percussion (2008–present)
Former members
Paddy Boom (born Patrick Seacor): drums, electronic drums, percussion (2001–2008)
Live shows and performances have included John "JJ" Garden—son of Graeme Garden of The Goodies—on keyboards and rhythm and bass guitars.
Discography
Scissor Sisters (2004)
Ta-Dah (2006)
Night Work (2010)
Magic Hour (2012)
Filmography
We Are Scissor Sisters... And So Are You (2004)
Hurrah! A Year of Ta-Dah (2007)
Tours
Untitled European Tour (2003)
Crevice Canyon Tour (2004)
The Ta-Dah Tour (2007)
The Night Work Tour (2010/2011)
Let's Have A Kiki Tour (2012)
As supporting act
Astronaut Tour in support of Duran Duran (2004)
Vertigo Tour in support of U2 (2005)
Touring the Angel in support of Depeche Mode (2006)
The Monster Ball Tour in support of Lady Gaga (2011)
See also
List of artists who reached number one on the U.S. dance chart
List of number-one dance hits (United States)
References
External links
2001 establishments in New York City
American dance music groups
American pop rock music groups
Brit Award winners
Ivor Novello Award winners
LGBT culture in New York City
LGBT-themed musical groups
Musical groups established in 2001
Musical groups from New York City
Musical quartets
Nu-disco musicians
Rock music groups from New York (state)
Polydor Records artists
Casablanca Records artists
Universal Motown Records artists
| false |
[
"The Serie B is a Mexican association football league. Eight teams compete in one group. Since the 2021–22 season, it is two short tournaments. The top four teams in the standings at end of each torneo will play in the Liguilla for a spot to play for promotion to Liga Premier – Serie A, and the stadium must meet the requirements to promote as well. In the 2020–21 season, Serie B was on hiatus due to COVID-19, but Serie B was reactivated for the 2021–22 season.\n\nTeams for 2021–22 season\nBelow are listed the member clubs of the Serie B for the 2021-22 season. 1 club returned from hiatus last season. Cuautla was excluded from the competition for not paying the debts to the league and the football federation, so it does not take part in the Clausura 2022 tournament.\n\nTeams \n{{Location map+ |Mexico |width=650|float=right |caption=Location of teams in the 2021–22 Serie B|places=\n\nStandings\n\nTeams on hiatus \nProvisional list of teams on hiatus for the 2021–22 season, teams may announce their return to the league before the start of the regular season.\n\nOffseason Changes\n Since 2021–22 season, the season will once again be divided into two tournaments: Apertura and Clausura.\n Calor returned from hiatus for 2021–22 season, after last season was on hiatus due to COVID-19.\n Aguacateros CDU returns to Serie B after an invite to participate in Serie A for the 2020-21 season when Serie B was suspended. Also, Ciervos and Cuautla returns to Serie B.\n On July 30, 2021, Alebrijes de Oaxaca, Ángeles Morelos, Guerreros de Xico, Huracanes Izcalli and Lobos Huerta joined the league as expansion teams.\n On August 8, 2021, Aragón F.C. announced that it will not participate in the season for administrative reasons, the team had been announced as a new participant on July 30, 2021.\n On September 10, 2021, Ángeles SUD F.C. Morelos was put on hiatus.\n On February 15, 2022 C.D. Cuautla was excluded from the competition for not paying the debts to the league and the football federation, so it does not take part in the Clausura 2022 tournament.\n\nReferences\n\n</noinclude>\n\n \n3",
"Hitechjet were an English rock band from Uxbridge, London, formed in 2001. Hitechjet released one mini album \"If you take anything...\" and one full-length album \"600 miles from...\" through In At The Deep End Records. Hitechjet has been on hiatus since 2006 except for two shows in July 2012.\n\nFormation\nHitechjet formed in Autumn 2001 by Paul Bevan (bass), Adam Gardner (guitar), Aydogan Mehmet (guitar) and Micky Wyle (drums). They were joined at the beginning of 2002 by Brian Ayers(vocals) and became Hitechjet after a line from the Nena song 99 Red Balloons.\n\nHitechjet recorded their first demo with John Hannon (Hundred Reasons, Kids Near Water) engineering and producing. The demo contained the songs 'The Score', 'If my best is not enough' and 'All this time'. The demo received positive reviews from fanzines and sparked interest from several record labels interested in releasing their material.\n\nNottingham based label In At the Deep End Records were due to attend their band The Killerest Expression's show in Leeds when Hitechjet were added to the bill. Although this was only their second show, based on their performance that night offered Hitechjet a recording contract.\n\nIf you take anything\nIn June 2003 Hitechjet released, 'If you take anything...', a 7 track mini-album which received critical acclaim in many magazines and fanzines including Kerrang (4K), Big Cheese (4/5) and Drowned in Sound (9/10). This led to shows with Lagwagon, Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly, Kasabian, Instruction, Red Animal War, Million Dead amongst others.\n\n600 miles from...\nThe album was recorded, engineered and produced by longtime producer John Hannon. The album was presented to In At the Deep End Records in October 2004.\n\nA 14-date first UK headline tour was booked for February 2005 to coincide with the release of the album. Artwork issues delayed the release of the album, and this led to Hitechjet leaving for their tour with their friends Driving on the Right without an album to promote. This was their most successful tour to date with several shows selling out.\n\nDue to a busy release schedule, In At the Deep End Records finally released \"600 miles from...\" in October 2005. Although Hitechjet were known for their \"genre hopping\" style, '600 miles from...' explored new areas for Hitechjet with elements of post rock, electronica and post punk and contained heavy use of samples.\n\nThe album was greeted with strong reviews receiving 8/10 in Rock Sound, 5/5 Big Cheese, 5/5 Zero Magazine, 4.5/5 Punktastic.com.\n\nAfter playing 'Making Movies' regularly on his show, Radio One DJ Mike Davies, invited Hitechjet to record a session for the Lock Up show at the end of 2005. They played live '(I should have left you at the) Roadside', 'Perfect Video (full band version)', 'This Lift goes down' and 'As though nothing happened'.\n\nIn April 2006, after touring with The Once Over Twice, Hitechjet announced an \"indefinite hiatus\".\n\nIn July 2012, Hitechjet reformed for two shows in London. One with Milloy for their final London show, and the other for a friend's private party.\n\nLine-up\n Adam Gardner - guitars\n Aydogan Mehmet (aka \"Mem\") - guitar, vocals\n Brian Ayers - lead vocals\n Michael Wyle (aka \"Micky\") - drums, vocals\n Paul Bevan (aka \"Bev\") - bass, vocals\n\nDiscography\n\nAlbums\n 600 miles from... (2005)\n\nMini album\n If you take anything... (2003)\n\nCompilations\n Punk Academy Volume 1 - (2003, features \"The Score- (original demo)\")\n\nPost Hitechjet\nMicky Wyle performed for a reformed Senseless Things (filling in for Morgan Nicholls, who was unavailable) for a secret (billed as Mark Keds) four-song performance at Islington Academy, London on 4 March 2007 – over twelve years after the band last performed – as part of a gig to celebrate the life of former Mega City Four frontman Darren \"Wiz\" Brown, who died in December 2006.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Myspace page\n 'All this time'(live) YouTube\n\nBritish post-hardcore musical groups\nEnglish alternative rock groups"
] |
[
"Scissor Sisters",
"Magic Hour and indefinite hiatus (2012)",
"When was Magic Hour released?",
"May 28, 2012.",
"What songs were on the album?",
"\"Only the Horses\"",
"What other songs were there?",
"Let's Have a Kiki\"",
"Was anything responsible for their hiatus?",
"A year later, Ana Matronic insisted that the band, whilst still on break, had not permanently split."
] |
C_b4597fb9710540b48f84f91d078247d0_0
|
Was there anything interesting about Magic Hour?
| 5 |
Was there anything interesting about the Scissor Sisters "Magic Hour?" release?
|
Scissor Sisters
|
On October 31, 2011, Shears tweeted that the band's fourth album was in its final stages. A song from the new album titled "Shady Love" debuted on Annie Mac's BBC Radio 1 show on January 2, 2012. "Shady Love" features guest vocals from Azealia Banks while Jake Shears performs under his pseudonym Krystal Pepsy. On March 13, 2012, Scissor Sisters announced the title of the album, Magic Hour, and revealed that the record would release worldwide on May 28, 2012. The band also announced the release date of a new single, "Only the Horses". Originally scheduled to come out on May 20, the release "Only the Horses" was pushed up to May 13. The video premiered on Thursday April 18, 2012. On May 7, the band released the track "Let's Have a Kiki" exclusively via Spotify in some countries. Upon release, Magic Hour peaked at #4 on the UK Albums Chart and #35 on the US Billboard 200. The album reached #1 on Billboard's Dance/Electronic Albums chart. The band embarked on a world tour in support of Magic Hour, starting with summer shows in North America. On July 9, 2012, they performed the American TV premiere of "Let's Have a Kiki" on Bravo-TV's Watch What Happens Live. They toured Europe in September and October 2012. On October 23, 2012, whilst performing at the Camden Roundhouse, Scissor Sisters announced an indefinite hiatus. A year later, Ana Matronic insisted that the band, whilst still on break, had not permanently split. On June 9, 2017, the band released their first single in five years, "Swerlk", a collaboration with MNDR. Proceeds for the single were donated to the Contigo Fund, a non profit organization for LGBTQ individuals. CANNOTANSWER
|
The album reached #1 on Billboard's Dance/Electronic Albums chart.
|
Scissor Sisters are an American pop rock band formed in 2001. Forged in the "gay nightlife scene of New York", the band took its name from the female same-sex sexual activity tribadism. Its members include Jake Shears and Ana Matronic as vocalists, Babydaddy as multi-instrumentalist, Del Marquis as lead guitar/bassist, and Randy Real (who replaced Paddy Boom) as drummer. Scissor Sisters incorporates diverse and eclectic styles in their music, but tends to sway towards pop rock, glam rock, nu-disco, and electroclash.
The band came to prominence following the release of their Grammy-nominated and chart-topping disco version of "Comfortably Numb" and subsequent debut album Scissor Sisters (2004). The album was a success, particularly in the UK where it reached number one, was the best-selling album of 2004, was later certified platinum by the BPI, and earned them three BRIT Awards in 2005. All five of its singles reached positions within the top 20 of the UK Singles Chart while "Filthy/Gorgeous" scored the band their first number one on Billboard Hot Dance Club Songs, despite the album's meager success in their native US.
The album continued its success in countries around Europe, in Australia and in Canada before the release of the band's second studio album Ta-Dah (2006), their second consecutive UK number one album which produced their first UK number one single "I Don't Feel Like Dancin'". Their third studio album Night Work (2010) displayed a shift towards a more club-oriented sound, charting at number two on the UK Albums Chart, number one on Billboard Top Independent Albums chart and in the top 10 of several international territories. The band released their fourth studio album Magic Hour in May 2012.
Scissor Sisters has performed around the world and have become recognized for their controversial and transgressive live performances. They also collaborated with a number of other well-known pop musicians, including Elton John and Kylie Minogue; these particular collaborations have been received positively by both critics and other notable figures. In 2004, Bono, lead vocalist of rock band U2, described Scissor Sisters as "the best pop group in the world". They also collaborated with Global Cool in 2007 on one of their green lifestyle campaigns.
History
Early career (2000–2003)
Originally named Dead Lesbian and then the Fibrillating Scissor Sisters, the final two words of the latter being derived from the lesbian sexual act tribadism, the band was founded in 2000 after friends Jason "Jake Shears" Sellards and Scott "Babydaddy" Hoffman (who had met in 1999 in Lexington) both moved to New York City, enjoying its open and gay-friendly ethos. They began producing music together, with Babydaddy composing music and Shears writing lyrics. The duo released a couple of singles to little success and began appearing at underground clubs on New York's Lower East Side. On a trip to Disneyland, the pair met Ana "Matronic" Lynch at a screening of Michael Jackson's Captain EO. During a subsequent teacup ride, they discovered that they had a lot in common. Shears later remarked, "I really thought she was a freak but when I started singing "Another Part of Me" she showed me the best moonwalk I've ever seen."
Ana Matronic ran a weekly cabaret event known as Knock Off at a club called the Slipper Room in New York, where she liked to hire eccentric and alternative acts; one reporter described it as a place that "served up a racy, multigender revue of kitsch," and that a performer dressed as a giant vulva "enfolded me with her labia while singing "Lick Me in My Wet Spot" to the tune of "Hit Me With Your Best Shot"." Matronic invited the pair to appear at Knock Off, which they did on September 21, 2001. Shears dressed as his character "Jason the Amazing Back-Alley Late Term Abortion" whilst Matronic, dressed as a reject from Andy Warhol's Factory, joined the pair on stage and sang. Shears and Babydaddy felt she was very effective and asked her to join the band on a permanent basis, to which she agreed.
The trio then began appearing at other clubs, dropping the word "Fibrillating" from their name. They primarily played electroclash, which was popular at the time in the underground club scene of New York with bands like Peaches and Chicks on Speed. They were soon joined by Derek "Del Marquis" Gruen on lead guitar, who had known Shears from when they both worked at the IC Guys club where Shears had been a stripper. They were joined by a fifth member, Patrick "Paddy Boom" Seacor, on drums who (being heterosexual) felt the need to explain to his mother that "it's not a gay band... there [are] gay members, but it doesn't matter. It's about the music and about performance."
In 2002, the band signed with a small New York record company called A Touch of Class for a two-single deal. Their first single "Electrobix" dealt with gay men's obsessions with working out but proved to be less popular than its B-side, a cover version of Pink Floyd's progressive rock classic "Comfortably Numb". Matronic commented, "It's one of those songs that people were either gonna love or hate, and that's really, really powerful, because it basically means you're evoking a reaction in everyone. The first time I heard it, I thought that if it doesn't make us famous, it'll make us infamous because somebody will shoot us!" Their version of "Comfortably Numb" became a hit in many dance clubs and, after sending Pink Floyd themselves a copy, the Scissor Sisters received positive remarks from the song's original writers Roger Waters and David Gilmour. The song proved to be particularly popular in the UK, where various record labels soon took an interest in the band. In 2003, they decided they would tour Europe where they believed audiences would be more receptive to them and their music than their native US.
Debut album and breakthrough success (2003–2004)
"Comfortably Numb" came to the attention of British label Polydor, who signed the group to a contract. Their first single for the label "Laura" (with two different music videos) had a limited release in 2003 and reaching number 54 in the UK Singles Chart, receiving little attention with the exceptions of British music paper New Musical Express, Channel 4's entertainment programme V Graham Norton, and the same channel's music programme Popworld for which they were interviewed. The track also received much radio play in Australia. Their track "It Can't Come Quickly Enough" was also included on the soundtrack of the film Party Monster (2003), playing over its ending credits.
Their first hit was in 2004 with the official release of "Comfortably Numb". Reaching number 10 in the UK, this success was followed by "Take Your Mama" which went to number 17, a re-release of "Laura" (with two different music videos) which went to number 12, the ballad "Mary" which went to number 14, and the hedonist anthem "Filthy/Gorgeous" which peaked at number 5 in the UK. All the singles came from their debut album Scissor Sisters, which reached number one in the UK Albums Chart and became the best selling album of 2004, beating Keane's Hopes and Fears by 582 copies. As of 2016, it is the 20th biggest-selling album of the 21st century, and the 39th biggest-selling of all time in the UK.
Several media outlets noted that Scissor Sisters "stick out like a sore thumb" on the list of artists who have sold over 2 million copies of an album in the UK in the 21st century; the others being James Blunt, Robbie Williams, Keane, Dido, Coldplay and Norah Jones—artists considered "mainstream" compared to the Scissor Sisters' brash and controversial image. The band had been particularly keen on producing an album that fitted together well rather than simply producing a string of singles. According to Babydaddy, their purpose was "to create a perfect pop rock album that would pick you up at the beginning, take you on a journey in the middle, and set you right back down again in the same place at the end."
About six months after its British release, Scissor Sisters was released in the US. To publicize it the band appeared on the popular morning television show Live with Regis and Kelly, an event that Shears later recalled: "Kelly Ripa loved us, after the first time we played, she gave me a hug and whispered in my ear, 'I just want you to know that this is my favorite music performance we've ever had.' It was amazing." Nonetheless, neither the band nor the album proved to be a big commercial success in the US: major chain store Wal-Mart refused to stock it, claiming on its website that it contained "a snarling, swaggering attack on conservatism" in the form of the song "Tits on the Radio".
The band refused to produce a "clean" version of the album, and Babydaddy remarked that, "We did have to slap a parental warning sticker on the disc, which is completely absurd. I think a kid listening to Eminem is getting a much more negative message than what we've been putting forward. We've only got one 'shit' and a few 'tits!'" Band members have shown their dissatisfaction with the decision on a number of occasions. However, they continued their success in Europe by performing at the Brixton Academy in London for Halloween 2004, where they asked the audience to dress up as the characters from The Rocky Horror Show; the band themselves did so too.
Ta-Dah (2005–2007)
Recording of the second album, Ta-Dah, commenced in mid-May 2005 at the Discoball; sneak previews of new songs were played at live performances, including "Everybody Wants the Same Thing", performed at the Live 8 concert, "Paul McCartney", "I Can't Decide", "Hybrid Man", "Forever Right Now" and "Hair Baby" (a title that refers to the phenomenon of tumors containing partially formed fetuses). Among the assumed pseudonyms used to play a series of secret shows to test this new material were "Bridget Jones' Diarrhea", "Portion Control" and "Megapussi". Scissor Sisters were also one of the headlining acts at the British V Festival in 2005, where they collaborated on stage with Scottish rock group Franz Ferdinand to perform a cover version of David Bowie's "Suffragette City".
The band fulfilled one of its dreams: Elton John collaborated with them on "I Don't Feel Like Dancin'" (as pianist and co-writer). The song reached No. 1 in the United Kingdom on September 10, 2006, and remained in the top spot for four consecutive weeks. "I Don't Feel Like Dancin'" also peaked at No. 1 on the Australian ARIA Singles Chart and the Euro Hot 100. "I Don't Feel Like Dancin'" became the group's biggest hit to date.
Elton John also contributed to the song "Intermission" on Ta-Dah and played piano on a demo of the song Bad Shit (that can be found on the Lights CDsingle).
In 2006, they acted as an opening act for Depeche Mode's Touring the Angel Tour for a concert in Mountain View, California. Their first gig in the UK for promotion of the second album took place at the KOKO Club, Camden, London, on Aug. 31, 2006, and was filmed for MTV. 2006 performances at the Bowery Ballroom and Siren Music Festival in New York and the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival allowed the band to showcase an array of songs from the new album. A free concert was given in Trafalgar Square to 10,000 ballot winners on September 16, 2006, to promote the Red charity. The band also headlined the 2006 Bestival festival on the Isle of Wight. Additionally, they were invited to BBC's Maida Vale studios to perform different songs on every show broadcast on BBC Radio 1. The event, dubbed "Scissor Sisters Day", culminated in them actually standing in for presenter Pete Tong and hosting his three-hour slot themselves. The show took an unexpected turn when a woman in labour telephoned the show to share her experience with the band and they played "Push It" by Salt-n-Pepa for her. Several performances, interviews, and a humorous jingle that was written in an hour, were filmed and edited into a special seven-day, looped broadcast on BBCi.
The album was released on September 18, 2006 in the United Kingdom, and on September 26, 2006 in the United States. According to Shears, the album is a combination of 1960s psychedelia, glam rock and disco. It reached No. 1 in the UK Albums Chart in its first week of release, officially taking the top spot on September 24, 2006, marking a first for the Scissor Sisters, consisting of a single and album at the top of the UK charts simultaneously. The album Ta-Dah leaked onto the Internet on September 10, 2006, five days before its release in the United Kingdom.
The Scissor Sisters ended their first UK tour at Wembley Arena, London, from November 24 to 26, 2006, supported by new artist Lily Allen, who performed during the three days there. The band has also been in the Latin America Top 40 Airplay. "I Don't Feel Like Dancin'" is still charting and is so far their biggest hit to date in Latin America, reaching No. 23, charting mostly in South America, particularly Peru. "Land of a Thousand Words" was released as the second single from the album, peaking at No. 19 in the UK. "She's My Man" was the third single released in February 2007, peaking at No. 29. "Kiss You Off" was the fourth and final single released in May 2007 but failed to dent the Top 40, their first single since their debut Laura to do so. The "Kiss You Off" video centered around Ana Matronic in a futuristic beauty salon. The group was the main event during the New Year's Eve celebrations for 2007 in Berlin. On February 8 and 9, 2007, the group appeared on the American daytime soap opera Passions. They performed "I Don't Feel Like Dancin'" and "Land of a Thousand Words" from the album Ta-Dah.
Night Work and other projects (2008–2011)
After touring the world in 2007, the band had a short hiatus in order to work on their next studio album. Premiering new material of this album at secret gigs in New York City's Mercury Lounge in October 2008, they assumed the names Queef Latina and Debbie's Hairy. New songs included on the set list were "Television", "Who's Your Money", "Other Girls", "Major for You", "None of My Business", "Singularity", "Do the Strand", "Who's There", "Not the Loving Kind", "Taking Shape" (with Babydaddy on lead vocals), and "Uroboros". Shears stated on the band's website there was a possibility that none of these songs would appear on the album, as the band was less than satisfied with most of them. This was confirmed to be the case when the track list was revealed. Drummer Paddy Boom was absent at these gigs and it was later announced that he had amicably parted from the band. The band had come into contact with drummer Randy "Real" Schrager, who was known from his work on the downtown New York scene, playing with bands such as Jessica Vale and The Act. He was initially brought on as a fill-in during Paddy Boom's leave of absence. Eventually, Randy was made part of the full-time line-up.
Scissor Sisters spent much of 2008 and early 2009 in the recording studio. However, after working on new material for approximately 18 months, the band decided to shelve their third album. Shears explained: "In my heart I knew it wasn't right. I didn't really know what it was trying to say. It left me a little bit cold." Reportedly, an entire record had been worked on but that the group had "shelved it about a year ago." Shears admits, "If it wasn't something we could fully get behind and believe in, I think the band was going to be over."
In June 2009, the band returned to the studio and began to work on new tracks that made it onto Night Work, their replacement third album. Produced in collaboration with Stuart Price, Night Work was released on June 28, 2010. The album was described as "supersexual and sleazy" with its first single, "Fire with Fire" as "a really epic song that makes you feel really good". With the album, the band have toured worldwide on The Night Work Tour. As an opening act, they joined Lady Gaga for select dates on her third leg of The Monster Ball Tour in early 2011.
Shears and Scissor Sisters collaborator John "JJ" Garden provided the lyrics and score for a world-premiere musical adaptation of Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City, a much-loved series of novels (and later a television miniseries) about life in San Francisco in the 1970s. The musical was first developed at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center's National Music Theater Conference in 2009, where Shears and Garden collaborated with a creative team that included playwright Jeff Whitty and director Jason Moore, of the Tony-Award-winning musical Avenue Q. The show had a subsequent run in San Francisco on May 18, 2011 at the American Conservatory Theater.
Magic Hour and indefinite hiatus (2012)
On October 31, 2011, Shears tweeted that the band's fourth album was in its final stages. A song from the new album titled "Shady Love" debuted on Annie Mac's BBC Radio 1 show on January 2, 2012. "Shady Love" features guest vocals from Azealia Banks while Jake Shears performs under his pseudonym Krystal Pepsy.
On March 13, 2012, Scissor Sisters announced the title of the album, Magic Hour, and revealed that the record would be released worldwide on May 28, 2012. The band also announced the release date of a new single, "Only the Horses". Originally scheduled to come out on May 20, the release of "Only the Horses" was brought forward to May 13. The video premiered on Thursday April 18, 2012. On May 7, the band released the track "Let's Have a Kiki" exclusively via Spotify in some countries.
Upon release, Magic Hour peaked at #4 on the UK Albums Chart and #35 on the US Billboard 200. The album reached #1 on Billboard's Dance/Electronic Albums chart. The band embarked on a world tour in support of Magic Hour, starting with summer shows in North America. On July 9, 2012, they performed the American TV premiere of "Let's Have a Kiki" on Bravo-TV's Watch What Happens Live. They toured Europe in September and October 2012.
On October 23, 2012, while performing at the Camden Roundhouse, Scissor Sisters announced an indefinite hiatus. A year later, Ana Matronic insisted that the band, while still on break, had not permanently split.
The band collaborated on a charity record with MNDR and released "Swerlk" on June 9, 2017, their first release in five years. Proceeds for the single were donated to the Contigo Fund, a nonprofit organization for LGBTQ individuals.
In June 2019, Shears stated the impetus for the band's hiatus was the success of "Let's Have a Kiki" and wanting to end things on a high note.
Artistry
Musical style
Scissor Sisters' music can be generally described as a mixture of glam rock, disco and alternative music. They appear to have been heavily influenced by Elton John (who co-wrote and played piano on "I Don't Feel Like Dancin'") despite Shears commenting that he was not familiar with his work prior to the release of their record. Shears has since stated that he has become a big fan. The band also has been compared to ABBA, the Bee Gees, Blondie, KC and the Sunshine Band, Duran Duran who were "the reason we got into music," Matronic stated, Supertramp, Siouxsie and the Banshees who Matronic "wouldn't be here without," David Bowie, 1970s-era Kiss, Queen, Chic, Richard O'Brien and various other dance, disco, rock, and funk acts. Shears also stated that The Beatles have been an influence for him and that he is a huge fan of Paul McCartney and Wings, hence their track entitled "Paul McCartney". However, the band admits that their music is hard to categorise.
The lyrics of their songs, largely written by Shears and Babydaddy, are known for their mixture of wit and tragedy. The songs on their debut album dealt with a number of subjects and issues in a variety of styles, from drug abuse within the gay community ("Return to Oz"), to Shears' deep platonic love for his best friend Mary ("Mary"). Mary died of a brain aneurysm in April 2006, news that devastated members of the band.
Many of Scissor Sisters' songs deal with themes in the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, relating to the fact that three of the band members, including the two founders, are gay. "Filthy/Gorgeous" is about transgender prostitutes while "Take Your Mama" deals with coming out of the closet to family members. Despite this, Shears stated, "I don't believe sexuality really matters when it comes to music." In an interview featured on the We Are Scissor Sisters... And So Are You DVD, Shears states, "The fact that some of us are gay affects our music the same amount as it does that some of the members of Blondie are straight."
Performance style
The visuals for Scissor Sisters' self-titled first album and its singles featured artwork by an English illustrator named Spookytim, who has a studio in Brighton called Studiospooky. The artwork was created by a wide variety of techniques and mixed traditional paper-based processes with digital and photographic elements in order to reflect the multi-referential nature of the band's music.
Scissor Sisters are known for their extravagant live performances. In some of their early shows, Shears was known to remove all of his clothes onstage, harking back to his former profession as a go-go stripper; in others, he threw inflated condoms into the audience.
Legacy
Impact and influence
Several fan societies have sprung up in the official forums including the Jake Groupies, Ana Matronic Appreciation Society, and the Scissor Sisters Party Bus; the latter two having spilled over to their own sites. The band have a close relationship with their fan community and have held small private gigs for select forum members, at which new tracks are previewed and fans have the opportunity to meet the band. In the fan community, those fans who hold a special affinity for Ana are known as "nuns."
In late 2004, Shears and Babydaddy co-wrote and produced the Kylie Minogue hit "I Believe in You", which featured on her Ultimate Kylie (2004) compilation. They also wrote the unreleased "(Everything) I Know", which leaked online in November 2004 and "Ooh (The Blues)", of which Minogue's version remains unreleased. Scissor Sisters went on to co-write a new song for Minogue entitled "White Diamond", which was showcased in her Showgirl Homecoming Tour that kicked off in Australia in November 2006. A stirring ballad version of "White Diamond" was featured as an exclusive pre-order bonus track from Minogue's album X (2007) as well as being the theme song of her tour documentary White Diamond (2007).
Awards, nominations and press
Scissor Sisters have garnered 10 accolades from 28 nominations in various awards ceremonies. Their single "Comfortably Numb" received a Grammy nomination for Best Dance Recording in 2005 but lost to Britney Spears' "Toxic". The band have had greater success in the UK where, at the 2005 BRIT Awards, the group won all 3 of their nominations, including International Group, International Breakthrough, and International Album, making the group the first to win the hat-trick in the BRITs' International categories. They supplemented their win by opening the show with "Take Your Mama" on a set made by The Jim Henson Company and returned in 2007, opening the ceremony with "I Don't Feel Like Dancin'" which later won the Ivor Novello Award for Most Performed Work. Other international honors include the German Bambi Award for Shooting Star.
The band have also been recognized by the LGBT community. Three of their four studio albums have been recognized by the GLAAD Media Awards, consecutively winning the band the award for Outstanding Music Artist (in 2005, 2007 and 2011) while Out magazine also ranked their first two albums on their list of the 100 Greatest, Gayest Albums in 2008: Scissor Sisters (2004) was number 26 while Ta-Dah (2006) was 81. In 2004, gay members Shears, Babydaddy, and Marquis, were honored in Out magazine's List of the 100 Most Intriguing Gay People of the Year. Recognized for humanitarianism, the band were also invited to perform at Live 8 with a set that included previously unheard song "Everybody Wants the Same Thing".
In popular culture
Several songs by Scissor Sisters have featured in various television shows including "The Skins" in season five of Queer as Folk and "Take Your Mama" in the episode "Six Months Ago" of Heroes. Their song "Filthy/Gorgeous" serves as the theme music to the US version of the sitcom Kath & Kim, while the song "I Can't Decide" was used in the Doctor Who episode, "Last of the Time Lords", where The Master sings along to it in a mocking fashion towards the enslaved human race. Subsequently, the song debuted at number 64 on the UK Singles Chart. "I Don't Feel Like Dancin'" is featured at a costume party in the film How to Lose Friends and Alienate People (2008) and is one of the "slug songs" in the special features menu that is sung in Flushed Away (2006), as well as being featured during the beginning of the first episode of Private Practice. In addition, "Isn't It Strange," a track created during the band's recording session for "Night Work", featured in Shrek Forever After (2010).
Their music has also been used in video games with "I Don't Feel Like Dancin'" featuring on the Wii video game "Dance Dance Revolution: Hottest Party" and on the game Singstar on PlayStation 3. In 2005, "Filthy/Gorgeous" was licensed by Activision and appears in Neversoft's Tony Hawk's American Wasteland while "Take Your Mama" and "Fire with Fire" appear on EA Sports' FIFA 2005 and FIFA 11 respectively.
The popular trend of mashups has included Scissor Sisters in its vein with DJ Earworm's 2005 hit "No One Takes Your Freedom" combining "Take Your Mama" with The Beatles' "For No One", George Michael's "Freedom '90" and Aretha Franklin's "Think". In early 2008, online record label WHA!?, in association with a Scissor Sisters fan site, released a free-to-download bootleg album entitled Da-Tah which featured mashups of Scissor Sister songs with songs by artists such as Beck, Peter Gabriel, Lauryn Hill, and Nine Inch Nails. In November 2012, the song "Let's Have a Kiki" was used on Glees fourth season episode "Thanksgiving" in a mashup with "Turkey Lurkey Time" from the musical Promises, Promises.
"Filthy/Gorgeous" is used in trailers for the film Filth (2013). Also, Jake Shears was invited to sing a duet on pop diva Cher's 2013 album Closer to the Truth. The name of the track is "Take It Like a Man".
Members
Current members
Jake Shears (born Jason Sellards): vocals, piano, guitar (2001–present)
Babydaddy (born Scott Hoffman): bass guitar, keyboards, backing vocals, rhythm guitar (2001–present)
Ana Matronic (born Ana Lynch): vocals, 'Mistress of Ceremonies', percussion, keyboards (2001–present)
Del Marquis (born Derek Gruen): lead guitar, bass guitar (2001–present)
Randy Real (born Randy Schrager): drums, electronic drums, percussion (2008–present)
Former members
Paddy Boom (born Patrick Seacor): drums, electronic drums, percussion (2001–2008)
Live shows and performances have included John "JJ" Garden—son of Graeme Garden of The Goodies—on keyboards and rhythm and bass guitars.
Discography
Scissor Sisters (2004)
Ta-Dah (2006)
Night Work (2010)
Magic Hour (2012)
Filmography
We Are Scissor Sisters... And So Are You (2004)
Hurrah! A Year of Ta-Dah (2007)
Tours
Untitled European Tour (2003)
Crevice Canyon Tour (2004)
The Ta-Dah Tour (2007)
The Night Work Tour (2010/2011)
Let's Have A Kiki Tour (2012)
As supporting act
Astronaut Tour in support of Duran Duran (2004)
Vertigo Tour in support of U2 (2005)
Touring the Angel in support of Depeche Mode (2006)
The Monster Ball Tour in support of Lady Gaga (2011)
See also
List of artists who reached number one on the U.S. dance chart
List of number-one dance hits (United States)
References
External links
2001 establishments in New York City
American dance music groups
American pop rock music groups
Brit Award winners
Ivor Novello Award winners
LGBT culture in New York City
LGBT-themed musical groups
Musical groups established in 2001
Musical groups from New York City
Musical quartets
Nu-disco musicians
Rock music groups from New York (state)
Polydor Records artists
Casablanca Records artists
Universal Motown Records artists
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[
"Greatest Hits Radio West Yorkshire (previously Magic 828 and Radio Aire 2) is a local radio station serving West Yorkshire on 96.3 FM, DAB, Online and App.\n\nHistory\n\nMagic 828 \nMagic 828 was launched by Roger Kirk at 8:28 am on 17 July 1990. The station was formed due to Radio Aire splitting its AM and FM frequencies, with Radio Aire rebranding as Aire FM. The station broadcast on 828 kHz AM and the first song played was \"Magical Mystery Tour\" by The Beatles.\n\nThe 'Magic 828' name was created by Bob Preedy who was a presenter on Radio Aire at the time.\n\nIts first jingle package was produced by Century 21 and the voice-overs were voiced by John Myers.\n\nThe programmes between 6 am and 1 am were broadcast live from Studio 2 in Radio Aire's Burley Road studio complex in Leeds. The original weekday line-up was Roger Kirk (6am-9.30am), Ray Stroud (9.30am-1pm), The Magic Mix (1pm-2pm), Peter Tait (2pm-6pm), Nothing But The 60's (6pm-7pm), Mike Vitti (7pm-10pm), Alex Hall (10pm-1am) and The Superstation (1am-6am). A few months after Magic 828's launch, The Superstation closed, Andy Siddell took over evenings and Mike Vitti presented the new overnight programme, Nightflight. The Nightflight programme was simulcast on Aire FM & Magic 828 and broadcast between 1 am & 6 am from Studio 1 (the studio used for Aire FM). Local news during the early 1990s was also simulcast on both stations, although Aire FM only took the first two minutes of the four-minute bulletin.\n\nAfter Emap bought Radio Aire and Magic 828 in 1995, they began to roll the Magic brand out across the other AM stations in they owned, creating Magic 1161 (Hull), Magic 990, 1305 & 1548 (Sheffield), Magic 1152 (Newcastle), Magic 1170 (Teesside), Magic 999 (Preston), Magic 1548 (Liverpool) and Magic 1152 (Manchester).\n\nIn December 2001, EMAP decided that it was more economical for the Magic network to share off-peak programmes and in line with the other Magic AM stations began networking between 10 am-2 pm, and 7 pm-6 am. During these hours it was simply known as Magic, although there were local commercial breaks and local news on the hour.\n\nIn January 2003 after a sharp decline in listening, the station ceased networking with the London station Magic 105.4. At this point, a regional northern network was created with programmes broadcast from Magic 1152 in Newcastle. During networked hours, local adverts were aired, as well as local news on the hour.\n\nIn July 2006, more networking was introduced across the Northern Magic AM network with only the 4-hour breakfast show between 06:00 and 10:00 presented from the local studios. However, the decision was taken in April 2013 to network this show across the other Yorkshire-based Magic stations. Other programming was networked from Newcastle, Manchester and London.\n\nRadio Aire 2 \nFollowing the rebrand of the Magic AM stations in northern England at the start of 2015, the station became known as Radio Aire 2 and then Greatest Hits Radio from January 2019.\n\nGreatest Hits Radio \nGreatest Hits Radio West Yorkshire was formed on 7 January 2019.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \nMagic 828 Archive The History of Magic 828\n\nBauer Radio\nRadio stations in Yorkshire\nRadio stations established in 1990",
"Meneguar was an indie rock band whose members had previously played under different arrangements and names, but which reached its current form in 2004 in Brooklyn, New York. The group released the albums I Was Born at Night and Strangers in Our House on the Troubleman Unlimited label. Hybrid Magazine positively reviewed Strangers in Our House, saying that, \"Like a fucked up conglomeration of Modest Mouse and Q and Not U with a little The Flaming Lips thrown in for artistic sense, the band walks an interesting line that ebbs and flows across the album, moving with an energy that is addictively daunting and dauntingly addictive at the same time.\"\n\nMembers\nJeremy Earl\nJarvis Taveniere\nChristian Deroeck\nJustin Wertz\n\nDiscography\nI Was Born at Night LP. 2005. Narshaada Records.\nI Was Born at Night LP/CD. 2005. Magic Bullet Records\n\"Bury a Flower\" b/w \"Freshman Thoughts\". 7 inch. 2006. Troubleman Unlimited.\nI Was Born at Night. CD/LP. 2006. Troubleman Unlimited.\nI Was Born at Night + 7 inch. Cassette on FuckItTapes.\nStrangers in Our House. CD/LP. 2007. Troubleman Unlimited. Euro vinyl on Release the Bats.\nTone Banks Vol. 1 – \"Some Downs\". Cassette. FuckItTapes, 2007.\nThe In Hour CD/LP/CS. Woodsist, 2008.\n\nI Was Born at Night\n\nI Was Born at Night is the first album by Meneguar. Although originally released on Magic Bullet, the album was remixed, remastered, and re-released on Troubleman Unlimited on June 6, 2006.\n\nTrack listing\n\"House of Cats\" – 3:46\n\"Kids Get Cut\" – 2:07\n\"A Few Minutes an Hour\" – 4:33\n\"The Temp\" – 3:31\n\"Isn't Christmas\" – 3:50\n\"Hands Off\" – 3:17\n\"Wounded Knee\" – 3:09\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nOfficial MySpace\nMeneguar interview\n\nMusical groups established in 2004\nMusical groups from Brooklyn\nIndie rock musical groups from New York (state)"
] |
[
"Tim Kaine",
"Legal career and Richmond City Council"
] |
C_6e5a0e696db14512b25f50b8092751a7_1
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Where did Kaine attend law school?
| 1 |
Where did Tim Kaine attend law school?
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Tim Kaine
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After graduating from law school, Kaine was a law clerk for Judge R. Lanier Anderson III of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, in Macon, Georgia. Kaine then joined the Richmond law firm of Little, Parsley & Cluverius, P.C. In 1987, Kaine became a director with the law firm of Mezzullo & McCandlish, P.C. Kaine practiced law in Richmond for 17 years, specializing in fair housing law and representing clients discriminated against on the basis of race or disability. He was a board member of the Virginia chapter of Housing Opportunities Made Equal, which he represented in a landmark redlining discrimination lawsuit against Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. arising from the company's practices in Richmond. Kaine won a $100.5 million verdict in the case; the judgment was overturned on appeal, and Kaine and his colleagues negotiated a $17.5 million settlement. Kaine did regular pro bono work. In 1988, Kaine started teaching legal ethics as an adjunct professor at the University of Richmond School of Law. Kaine taught at the University of Richmond for six years, and his students included future Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring. He was a founding member of the Virginia Coalition to End Homelessness. Kaine had a largely apolitical childhood, but became interested in politics in part due to the influence of his wife's family and his experience attending Richmond city council meetings. In May 1994, Kaine was elected to the city council of the independent city of Richmond, from the City's 2nd District. He defeated incumbent city councilman Benjamin P. A. Warthen by 97 votes. Kaine spent four terms on the council, the latter two as mayor. CANNOTANSWER
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CANNOTANSWER
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Timothy Michael Kaine (; born February 26, 1958) is an American lawyer and politician serving as the junior United States senator from Virginia since 2013. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 38th lieutenant governor of Virginia from 2002 to 2006 and 70th governor of Virginia from 2006 to 2010. Kaine was the Democratic nominee for vice president of the United States in the 2016 election as Hillary Clinton's running mate.
Born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, Kaine grew up in Overland Park, Kansas, graduated from the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri, and earned a Juris Doctor degree from Harvard Law School before entering private practice and becoming a lecturer at the University of Richmond School of Law. He was first elected to public office in 1994, when he won a seat on the Richmond City Council. He was elected mayor of Richmond in 1998 and held that position until being elected lieutenant governor of Virginia in 2001. Kaine was elected governor of Virginia in 2005 and held that office from 2006 to 2010. He chaired the Democratic National Committee from 2009 to 2011.
On July 22, 2016, Hillary Clinton introduced Kaine as her vice-presidential running mate. The 2016 Democratic National Convention nominated him on July 27. Despite winning a plurality of the national popular vote, the ClintonKaine ticket lost the Electoral College, and thus the election, to the Republican ticket of Donald Trump and Mike Pence on November 8, 2016. Kaine was reelected to a second Senate term in 2018, defeating Republican Corey Stewart.
Early life and education
Kaine was born at Saint Joseph's Hospital in St. Paul, Minnesota. He is the eldest of three sons born to Mary Kathleen (née Burns), a home economics teacher, and Albert Alexander Kaine, Jr., a welder and the owner of a small iron-working shop. He was raised Catholic. One of Kaine's great-grandparents was Scottish and the other seven were Irish. Kaine's family moved to Overland Park, Kansas, when Kaine was two years old, and he grew up in the Kansas City area. In 1976, he graduated from Rockhurst High School, a Jesuit all-boys preparatory school in Kansas City, Missouri. At Rockhurst, Kaine joined the debate team and was elected student body president.
Kaine received his Bachelor of Arts in economics from the University of Missouri in 1979, completing his degree in three years and graduating Omicron Delta Kappa and summa cum laude. He was a Coro Foundation fellow in Kansas City in 1978. He entered Harvard Law School in 1979, interrupting his law studies after his first year to work in Honduras for nine months from 1980 to 1981, helping Jesuit missionaries who ran a Catholic school in El Progreso. While running a vocational center that taught carpentry and welding, he also helped increase the school's enrollment by recruiting local villagers. Kaine is fluent in Spanish as a result of his time in Honduras.
After returning from Honduras, Kaine met his future wife, first-year Harvard Law student Anne Holton. He graduated from Harvard Law School with a J.D. degree in 1983. Kaine and Holton moved to Holton's hometown of Richmond, Virginia, after graduation, and Kaine was admitted to the Virginia bar in 1984.
Legal career and Richmond City Council
After graduating from law school, Kaine was a law clerk for Judge R. Lanier Anderson III of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, in Macon, Georgia. He then joined the Richmond law firm of Little, Parsley & Cluverius, P.C. In 1987, Kaine became a director of the law firm of Mezzullo & McCandlish, P.C. He practiced law in Richmond for 17 years, specializing in fair housing law and representing clients discriminated against on the basis of race or disability. He was a board member of the Virginia chapter of Housing Opportunities Made Equal, which he represented in a landmark redlining discrimination lawsuit against Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. arising from the company's practices in Richmond. Kaine won a $100.5 million verdict in the case; the judgment was overturned on appeal, and Kaine and his colleagues negotiated a $17.5 million settlement.
Kaine did regular pro bono work. In 1988, he started teaching legal ethics as an adjunct professor at the University of Richmond School of Law. Kaine taught at the University of Richmond for six years; his students included future Virginia attorney general Mark Herring. He was a founding member of the Virginia Coalition to End Homelessness.
Kaine had a largely apolitical childhood, but became interested in politics in part due to the influence of his wife's family and his experience attending Richmond city council meetings. In 1994, he was elected the 2nd district member of the city council of the independent city of Richmond, defeating incumbent city councilor Benjamin P.A. Warthen by less than 100 votes. He took his seat on July 1 and retained the position until September 10, 2001, when he resigned and William J. Pantele was appointed to succeed him. He defeated the incumbent city councilman Benjamin P.A. Warthen by 97 votes. Kaine spent four terms on the city council, the latter two as mayor of Richmond.
Mayor of Richmond (1998–2001)
On July 1, 1998, Kaine was elected mayor of Richmond, succeeding Larry Chavis. He was chosen by an 8 to 1 vote on the majority-black Richmond City Council, becoming the city's first white mayor in more than ten years, which was viewed as a surprise. Rudy McCollum, an African American city councilor also interested in the mayoralty, decided to back Kaine after a private meeting between the two, clearing the way for Kaine to win the election. Previous mayors had treated the role as primarily ceremonial, with the city manager effectively operating the city; Kaine treated it as a full-time job, taking a more hands-on role.
As mayor, Kaine used a sale-leaseback arrangement to obtain funds to renovate the historic Maggie L. Walker High School and reopen it in 2000 as a magnet governor's school, the Maggie L. Walker Governor's School for Government and International Studies, which "now serves the top students in Central Virginia". Three elementary schools and one middle school were also built in Richmond under Kaine. Along with Commonwealth's attorney David Hicks, U.S. attorney James Comey, and police chief Jerry Oliver, Kaine was a supporter of Project Exile, an initiative that shifted gun crimes to federal court, where defendants faced harsher sentences. Though controversial, the effort was effective and achieved widespread support; the city's homicide rate fell by 55% during Kaine's mayoralty. Kaine touted Project Exile during his 2001 campaign for lieutenant governor.
On several occasions, Kaine voted against tax increases, and supported a tax abatement program for renovated buildings, which was credited for a housing renovation boom in the city. Forbes magazine named Richmond one of "the 10 best cities in America to do business" during Kaine's term.
According to John Moeser, a professor emeritus of urban studies and planning at Virginia Commonwealth University and later a visiting fellow at the University of Richmond's Center for Civic Engagement, Mayor Kaine "was energetic, charismatic and, most important, spoke openly about his commitment to racial reconciliation in Richmond." The New York Times wrote that Kaine "was by all accounts instrumental in bridging the city's racial divide." In the early part of his term, Kaine issued an apology for the city's role in slavery; the apology was generally well received as "a genuine, heartfelt expression". In the latter part of his term, a contentious debate took place over the inclusion of a portrait of Confederate general Robert E. Lee in a set of historic murals to be placed on city floodwalls. Many African Americans were outraged that Lee would appear on city walls, while Southern heritage groups demanded that the picture remain. Kaine proposed a compromise in which Lee would appear as part of a series of murals that also included figures like Abraham Lincoln and Powhatan Beaty. His stance drew criticism from the NAACP; Kaine argued that placing Lee on the floodwall made sense in context, and that "Much of our history is not pleasant; you can't whitewash it." Kaine's proposal passed the council on a 6–3 vote.
During his mayoralty, Kaine drew criticism for spending $6,000 in public funds on buses to the Million Mom March, an anti-gun-violence rally in Washington, D.C.; after a backlash, he raised the money privately and reimbursed the city.
Lieutenant governor of Virginia (2002–2006)
Kaine ran for lieutenant governor of Virginia in 2001. He joined the race after state senator Emily Couric dropped out due to pancreatic cancer and endorsed Kaine as her replacement. In the Democratic primary election, Kaine ran against state delegate Alan A. Diamonstein of Newport News, and state delegate Jerrauld C. Jones of Norfolk. Kaine won the nomination, with 39.7% of the vote to Diamonstein's 31.4% and Jones's 28.9%.
In the general election, Kaine won with 925,974 votes (50.35%), edging out his Republican opponent, state delegate Jay Katzen, who received 883,886 (48.06%). Libertarian Gary Reams received 28,783 votes (1.57%).
Kaine was inaugurated on January 12, 2002, and was sworn in by his wife Anne Holton, a state judge.
2005 gubernatorial election
In 2005, Kaine ran for governor of Virginia against Republican candidate Jerry W. Kilgore, a former state attorney general. Kaine was considered an underdog for most of the race, trailing in polls for most of the campaign. Two September polls showed Kaine trailing Kilgore—by four percentage points in a Washington Post poll and by one point in a Mason-Dixon/Roanoke Times poll. The final polls of the race before the election showed Kaine slightly edging ahead of Kilgore.
Kaine ultimately prevailed, winning 1,025,942 votes (51.7%) to Kilgore's 912,327 (46.0%). A third candidate, independent state Senator H. Russell Potts Jr., ran as an "independent Republican" and received 43,953 votes (2.2%).
Kaine emphasized fiscal responsibility and a centrist message. He expressed support for controlling sprawl and tackling longstanding traffic issues, an issue that resonated in the northern Virginia exurbs. He benefited from his association with the popular outgoing Democratic governor, Mark Warner, who had performed well in traditionally Republican areas of the state. On the campaign trail, Kaine referred to the "Warner-Kaine administration" in speeches and received Warner's strong backing. Kilgore later attributed his defeat to Warner's high popularity and President George W. Bush's sharply declining popularity; Bush held a rally with Kilgore on the campaign's final day.
The campaign turned sharply negative in its final weeks, with Kilgore running television attack ads that falsely claimed that Kaine believed that "Hitler doesn't qualify for the death penalty." The ads also attacked Kaine for his service ten years earlier as a court-appointed attorney for a death-row inmate. The editorial boards of the Washington Post and a number of Virginia newspapers denounced the ads as a "smear" and "dishonest." Kaine responded with an ad "in which he told voters that he opposes capital punishment but would take an oath and enforce the death penalty. In later polls, voters said they believed Kaine's response and were angered by Kilgore's negative ads."
In the election, Kaine won by large margins in the Democratic strongholds such as Richmond and northern Virginia's inner suburbs (such as Alexandria and Arlington), as well as in the Democratic-trending Fairfax County. Kaine also won Republican-leaning areas in Northern Virginia's outer suburbs, including Prince William County and Loudoun County, where George W. Bush had beat John Kerry in the previous year's presidential election, and performed "surprisingly well in Republican strongholds like Virginia Beach and Chesapeake." Kaine also defeated Kilgore in the burgeoning Richmond suburbs. Kilgore led in southwest Virginia and in the Shenandoah Valley.
Governor of Virginia (2006–2010)
Kaine was sworn in as governor at the colonial Capitol at Williamsburg, on January 14, 2006, the first governor since Thomas Jefferson to be inaugurated there.
Kaine was chairman of the Southern Governors' Association from 2008 to 2009.
Democratic response to State of the Union address
On January 31, 2006, Kaine gave the Democratic response to President George W. Bush's 2006 State of the Union address. In it, he criticized the Bush administration's No Child Left Behind Act for "wreaking havoc on local school districts"; criticized congressional Republicans for cutting student loan programs; and condemned as "reckless" Bush's spending increases and tax cuts. Kaine praised bipartisan initiatives in Virginia "to make record investments in education" and to improve veterans' access to veterans' benefits. He criticized the Bush administration's conduct of the Iraq War and treatment of U.S. soldiers, saying that "the American people were given inaccurate information about reasons for invading Iraq"; "our troops in Iraq were not given the best body armor or the best intelligence"; and "the administration wants to further reduce military and veterans' benefits."
Energy, the environment, and conservation
As governor, Kaine protected of Virginia land from development, fulfilling a promise he made in 2005. His conservation efforts focused on conservation easements (voluntary easements that preserve the private ownership of a piece of land while also permanently protecting it from development); a substantial Virginia land preservation tax credit encouraged easements. From 2004 to 2009, the Virginia Outdoors Foundation (a quasi-governmental entity set up in 1966 to preserve open land in the state) protected more land than it had in the previous 40 years, a fact Kaine touted as his term drew to a close.
As governor, Kaine established the Climate Change Commission, a bipartisan panel to study climate change issues. The panel was shuttered under Kaine's Republican successor, Governor Robert F. McDonnell, but revived (as the Governor's Climate Change and Resiliency Update Commission) under McDonnell's successor, Democratic Governor Terry McAuliffe.
In 2008, Kaine supported a coal-fired power plant project in Wise County, clashing with environmentalists who opposed the project.
In 2009, Kaine expressed support for tighter restrictions on mountaintop removal coal mining imposed by the Obama administration.
Healthcare and public health
In October 2006, Kaine signed an executive order banning smoking in all government buildings and state-owned cars as of January 1, 2007. He signed legislation banning smoking in restaurants and bars, with some exceptions, in March 2009, making Virginia the first Southern state to do so.
In 2007, the Republican-controlled Virginia General Assembly passed legislation, with "overwhelming bipartisan support", to require girls to receive the HPV vaccine (which immunizes recipients against a virus that causes cervical cancer) before entering high school. Kaine expressed "some qualms" about the legislation and pushed for a strong opt-out provision, ultimately signing a bill that included a provision allowing parents to opt out of the requirement without citing a reason.
In 2007, Kaine secured increases in state funding for nursing in the Virginia General Assembly and announced a 10% salary increase for nursing faculty above the normal salary increase for state employees, plus additional funds for scholarships for nursing master's programs. The initiatives were aimed at addressing a shortage of practicing nurses.
Virginia Tech shooting
After the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting, in which Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 people, Kaine appointed an eight-member Virginia Tech Review Panel, chaired by retired Virginia State Police superintendent W. Gerald Massengill, to probe the event. The commission members included specialists in psychology, law, forensics and higher education as well as former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge. The commission first met in May 2007, and issued its findings and recommendations in August 2007. Among other recommendations, the panel proposed many mental health reforms. Based on the panel's recommendations, Kaine proposed $42 million of investment in mental health programs and reforms, included "boosting access to outpatient and emergency mental health services, increasing the number of case managers and improving monitoring of community-based providers." In April 2007, Kaine signed an executive order instructing state agencies to step up efforts to block gun sales to people involuntarily committed to inpatient and outpatient mental health treatment centers. Kaine, who had been in Japan on a trade mission at the time of the shootings, received widespread praise for his quick return to the state and his handling of the issue.
Budget and economy
Among Kaine's greatest challenges as governor came during the 2008–09 economic crisis; the Washington Post wrote that "perhaps his greatest success was keeping the state running despite [the crisis]." Amid the Great Recession, unemployment in Virginia remained lower than the national average. During Kaine's tenure as governor, the unemployment rate in Virginia rose from 3.2% to 7.4%, a smaller increase than the national rate, which rose from 4.7% to 9.9% during the same period.
As governor, Kaine approved about $3.31 billion in general fund spending cuts, and after his term in office, the Virginia General Assembly adopted about $1.33 billion in additional budget cuts that Kaine had recommended, for a total of $4.64 billion in cuts. The Washington Post wrote, "Unable to raise taxes and required by law to balance the budget, he was forced to make unpopular cuts that led to such things as shuttered highway rest stops and higher public university tuition." Virginia was one of three states to earn the highest grade in terms of management in a report by the nonpartisan Pew Center on the States. Virginia took first place each year from 2006 to 2009 in Forbes magazine's "Best States For Business" rankings.
Infrastructure and transportation
In July 2007, during the debate on the Silver Line of the Washington Metro through Tysons Corner, Kaine supported an elevated track solution rather than a tunnel, citing costs and potential delays that would put federal funding at risk.
In 2006, Kaine pressed the general assembly to support a legislative package to ease severe traffic congestion by spending about $1 billion annually for highway construction, repairs to aging roads, mass transit, and other transportation projects. The money would be raised through increases in taxes and fees that would have raised an estimated $4 billion in revenue over four years. The Democratic-controlled Senate supported the plan, but the Republican-controlled House was unwilling to approve the taxes necessary to carry out the project, and the effort failed even after a special session of the legislature was called over the stalemate.
In 2007, Republicans in the General Assembly passed their own transportation-funding bill. Rather than a statewide tax increase to finance the transportation improvements, as Kaine and most legislative Democrats favored, the Republican bill called for transportation funding "to come from borrowing $2.5 billion and paying the debt costs out of the general fund"; authorized local tax increase in Northern Virginia; increased fees and taxes on rental cars, commercial real estate, and hotels; and increased traffic infraction fines and driver's licenses fees.
Kaine and most legislative Democrats opposed the Republican legislation, calling it inadequate to address traffic congestion and arguing that the withdrawal of funds from the general fund would affect core services such as health care, law enforcement, and education. Kaine ultimately signed a bill with amendments reflecting "concerns by local government officials and a bipartisan group of lawmakers who were concerned that the plan took too much money from the state's general fund."
Education
Under Kaine, participation in Virginia in early childhood education increased by 40.2% due to his expansion of the Virginia Preschool Initiative, which makes pre-kindergarten more accessible to four-year-olds from households close to the poverty line. Kaine sought increases to the budget for preschool programs every year during his term as governor. Virginia was rated as the best state to raise a child in a 2007 report by Education Week and the Pew Center on the States.
Cabinet and appointments
Kaine made the following appointments to his Virginia Governor's Cabinet:
Chief of Staff: William Leighty (2006–2007), Wayne Turnage (2007–2010)
Secretary of Administration: Viola Baskerville (2006–2010)
Virginia Secretary of Agriculture and Forestry: Robert Bloxom (2006–2010)
Secretary of Commerce and Trade: Patrick Gottschalk (2006–2010)
Secretary of the Commonwealth: Katherine Hanley (2006–2010)
Secretary of Education: Thomas R. Morris (2006–2010)
Secretary of Finance:Jody Wagner (2006–2008), Ric Brown (2008–2010)
Secretary of Health and Human Resources: Marilyn Tavenner (2006–2010)
Secretary of Natural Resources: Preston Bryant (2006–2010)
Secretary of Public Safety: John W. Marshall (2006–2010)
Secretary of Technology: Aneesh Chopra (2006–2009), Leonard Pomata (2009–2010)
Secretary of Transportation: Pierce Homer (2006–2010)
Counselor to the Governor: Lawrence Roberts (2006–2009)
Counselor to the Governor: Mark Rubin (2009–2010)
Assistant for Commonwealth Preparedness: Robert P. Crouch (2006–2010)
Senior Advisor for Workforce: Daniel G. LeBlanc (2006–2010)
As governor, Kaine made a number of appointments to the Virginia state courts. He made two appointments to the Supreme Court of Virginia, naming Chesapeake circuit judge S. Bernard Goodwyn to the Court in 2007 and Virginia Court of Appeals Judge LeRoy F. Millette Jr. in 2008.
On September 27, 2007, just weeks after appointing Esam Omeish to the 20-member Virginia Commission on Immigration, Kaine learned that Omeish had made videos accusing Israel of genocide and calling for President Bush's impeachment. He immediately requested and received Omeish's resignation and said that background checks would be more thorough in the future.
2008 vice presidential speculation
Kaine announced his support for Barack Obama's presidential bid in February 2007. It was maintained that Kaine's endorsement was the first from a statewide elected official outside of Illinois. Because Kaine was a relatively popular governor of a Southern state, there was media speculation that he was a potential nominee for vice president. Obama had supported Kaine in his campaign for governor, saying, "Tim Kaine has a message of fiscal responsibility and generosity of spirit. That kind of message can sell anywhere." On July 28, 2008, Politico reported that Kaine was "very, very high" on Obama's shortlist for vice president, a list that also included Senator Hillary Clinton of New York, Governor Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas, Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana, and Senator Joe Biden of Delaware. Obama ultimately selected Biden. It was later reported that Obama told Kaine, in breaking the news to him, "You are the pick of my heart, but Joe [Biden] is the pick of my head". Obama later wrote that he had ultimately narrowed down the choice for his running mate to Kaine and Biden. He said, "At the time, I was much closer to Tim", but Obama and his advisers David Axelrod and David Plouffe wondered whether voters would accept a ticket of "two relatively young, inexperienced, and liberal civil rights attorneys" and Obama felt the contrast between him and Biden was a strength, and that Biden's age and experience would reassure voters concerned that Obama was too young to be president.
Democratic National Committee chair (2009–2011)
In January 2009, Kaine became chair of the Democratic National Committee. He had turned down the position the first time it was offered to him, expressing misgivings about accepting a partisan position, but took the job at Obama's request. He took on the position as chair part-time as he continued his term as governor of Virginia. Kaine's main goals as DNC chair "were protecting the party's seats in Congress during the 2010 midterms and integrating the president's campaign apparatus, Organizing for America, and its technological acumen into the party machinery." In the 2010 midterms, the DNC under Kaine's leadership outraised the Republican National Committee (RNC) by $30 million, but Democrats lost control of the House and lost seats in the Senate amidst a Tea Party backlash. Kaine was not generally blamed for the losses.
Kaine kept a low profile in the position in comparison to his counterpart, RNC chairman Michael Steele. He focused more on fundraising and maintaining party unity than on attacking political opponents.
In February 2011, after Kaine spoke to union leaders in Madison, Organizing for America got involved in Wisconsin's budget battle and opposed Republican-sponsored anti-union legislation. It made phone calls, sent emails, and distributed messages via Facebook and Twitter to build crowds for rallies.
After completing his term as governor in January 2010, Kaine taught part-time at the University of Richmond, teaching a course in spring 2010 at the Jepson School of Leadership Studies and another in fall 2010 at the University of Richmond School of Law. He explained that he had chosen to teach at a private university rather than a public university "because it would not have been right for a sitting governor to be seeking employment at an institution when he writes the budget and appoints the board of the institution."
United States Senate
2012 election
After Senator Jim Webb's decision not to seek reelection, Kaine announced on April 5, 2011, that he would run for Webb's seat. He was initially reluctant to return to public office, but Webb, Senator Mark Warner, and other Virginia Democrats saw Kaine as the strongest potential Democratic candidate and convinced him to run. Kaine named Lawrence Roberts as his campaign chairman. Mike Henry was chosen as his campaign manager. Kaine filmed announcement videos in English and Spanish and was unopposed for the Democratic nomination. He defeated former senator and governor George Allen in the general election.
Tenure
Kaine was sworn in on January 3, 2013, reuniting him with Mark Warner, the senior senator. Kaine was lieutenant governor when Warner was governor of Virginia.
On June 11, 2013, Kaine delivered a speech on the Senate floor in support of the bipartisan "Gang of Eight" immigration bill. The speech was entirely in Spanish, marking the first time a senator had ever made a speech on the Senate floor in a language other than English.
As a member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, Kaine pushed for a new Congressional authorization of military force for the American operations against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Kaine supported the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran, though he also helped Republican senator Bob Corker hold a vote on a resolution of disapproval of the deal. Kaine has taken several trips throughout the Middle East, meeting with the leaders of states such as Turkey and Israel.
While in the Senate, Kaine has continued to teach part-time at the University of Richmond, receiving a salary of $16,000 per year.
Kaine has voted with his party more than 90% of the time. According to the Washington Post, Kaine has "crafted a largely progressive record as a senator." He reportedly has good relations with both Democratic and Republican senators.
During the 2016 vice-presidential campaign, Kaine frequently criticized Donald Trump, saying that Trump "as commander-in-chief scares me to death" and had a "bizarre fascination with strongmen and authoritarian leaders". In 2017, after Trump took office, Kaine continued to criticize his "authoritarian tendencies", citing his attacks on media, judges, and peaceful protesters. At an event at George Mason University, Kaine said that with Trump in office, Americans "are in a 'living experiment' to see whether or not the Constitution still works to check executive power."
In February 2017, Kaine met with Pope Francis at a general audience at the Vatican. Kaine also met with the Jesuit Refugee Service to discuss refugees and met with Vatican officials to discuss Latin American issues. The same month, Kaine delivered an address, "The Truman Doctrine at 70", at London's Chatham House.
Committee assignments and caucuses
In the 113th Congress (2013–15), Kaine was on the Committee on Armed Services, the Committee on the Budget, and the Committee on Foreign Relations. In the 114th Congress, Kaine was on those three committees and the Special Committee on Aging. In July 2013, Kaine was named chair of the United States Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Near East, South Asia, Central Asia and Counterterrorism.
Within the Senate Armed Services Committee, Kaine is a member of the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities, the Subcommittee on Readiness and Management Support (of which he is the ranking member), and the Subcommittee on Seapower.
Within the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, Kaine is a member of the Subcommittee on State Department and USAID Management, International Operations, and Bilateral International Development (of which he is the ranking member), the Subcommittee on Europe and Regional Security Cooperation, the Subcommittee on Near East, South Asia, Central Asia, and Counterterrorism, and the Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere, Transnational Crime, Civilian Security, Democracy, Human Rights and Global Women's Issues.
In January 2014, Kaine and Senator Rob Portman established the bipartisan Senate Career and Technical Education Caucus (CTE Caucus), which focuses on vocational education and technical education. Kaine and Portman co-chair the caucus. In 2014, Kaine and Portman introduced the CTE Excellence and Equity Act to the Senate; the legislation would provide $500 million in federal funding, distributed by competitive grants, to high schools to further CTE programs. The legislation, introduced as an amendment to the omnibus Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act of 2006, would promote apprenticeships and similar initiatives. Kaine and Portman introduced similar legislation, the Educating Tomorrow's Workforce Act, in 2017.
2016 vice-presidential campaign
Kaine endorsed Hillary Clinton for president in 2016 and campaigned actively for her in seven states during the primaries. He had been the subject of considerable speculation as a possible running mate for Clinton, with several news reports indicating that he was at or near the top of Clinton's list of people under consideration alongside figures such as Elizabeth Warren and Julian Castro.
The New York Times reported that Clinton's husband, former president Bill Clinton, supported Kaine as his wife's vice-presidential selection, noting his domestic and national security résumé. On July 22, 2016, she announced Kaine would be her running mate in the election. Clinton introduced Kaine as her choice in a joint appearance at a rally at Florida International University in Miami the next day. The 2016 Democratic National Convention nominated him for vice president on July 27, 2016.
Kaine was the first Virginian since Woodrow Wilson to be on a major-party ticket, and was the first Virginian to run for vice president on a major-party ticket since John Tyler in 1840; he was also the first senator or former senator from Virginia to be on a major-party ticket since Tyler.
In accordance with longstanding political custom in the U.S., upon being nominated for vice president Kaine publicly released his full tax returns for the previous ten years. He also publicly released medical records; his physician, Brian P. Monahan, the Attending Physician of the United States Congress, wrote that Kaine was "in overall excellent health." In September Kaine published a campaign book co-authored with Clinton, Stronger Together.
In Kaine's preparations for the vice presidential debate in October 2016, lawyer Robert Barnett played the role of Republican vice-presidential nominee Mike Pence. (During Pence's own debate preparations, Wisconsin governor Scott Walker played the role of Kaine.) Pence was criticized after the debate for not defending Trump's comments, while Kaine was criticized for being too aggressive and interrupting. According to ABC News, Kaine interrupted 70 times during the debate, while Pence interrupted 40 times.
Despite winning a plurality of the national popular vote, the Clinton-Kaine ticket lost the Electoral College, and thus the election, to the Trump-Pence ticket on November 8, 2016. This is the only election Kaine has ever lost. Clinton-Kaine did win Virginia, the only Southern state to vote for the Democratic ticket, a victory attributed in part to Kaine.
2018 election
After the 2016 election, Kaine said he would run for reelection to the Senate in 2018. He expressed his desire to emulate John Warner, who represented Virginia in the Senate for 30 years. He added that he would not run for president or vice president in the future.
In his 2018 Senate campaign against Republican nominee and Trump ally Corey Stewart, Kaine had the endorsement of The Richmond Times-Dispatch, marking the first time in decades the paper had endorsed a Democrat.
After taking an early lead in his race against Stewart, Kaine worked to support other Democrats who, in seven districts, were challenging incumbent Republicans for House seats. Kaine defeated Stewart by more than 15 points.
Personality and leadership style
About 145,000 emails from Kaine and his staff during his term as governor are publicly accessible at the Library of Virginia. Politico conducted an analysis of the correspondence and wrote that the messages show Kaine to be a "media-savvy" and detail-oriented "micro-manager" who is also a policy "wonk".
According to The New York Times, Kaine "is widely described by people in his political orbit as a likable if less than charismatic figure...guided by moral convictions that flow from his deep Christian faith." On Meet the Press, Kaine called himself "boring."
Political positions
In terms of political ideology, FiveThirtyEight gives Kaine an average score of −37 (−100 is the most liberal, and 100 is the most conservative). FiveThirtyEight characterizes him as a "mainstream Democrat" and notes that his ideology score is very similar to that of Joe Biden. Three conservative groups—the American Conservative Union, the Club for Growth, and Heritage Action—gave Kaine 0% ratings in the few years before 2016, while the liberal group Americans for Democratic Action gave Kaine a 90% rating in 2014. The New York Times wrote that "in hyperpartisan Washington, he is often seen as a centrist" while also describing him as an "old-fashioned liberal...driven by Jesuit ideals."
Abortion, birth control, and sex education
Kaine, a Roman Catholic, personally opposes abortion, but is "largely inclined to keep the law out of women's reproductive decisions." He has said, "I'm a strong supporter of Roe v. Wade and women being able to make these decisions. In government, we have enough things to worry about. We don't need to make people's reproductive decisions for them." Kaine supports some legal restrictions on abortion, such as requiring parental consent for minors (with a judicial bypass procedure) and banning late-term abortions in cases where the woman's life is not at risk.
In 2009, Kaine signed a bill to create a "Choose Life" license plate, among the more than 200 Virginia specialty plates already offered, the proceeds of which would partly go to Heartbeat International, a Christian organization that operates anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers. Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice America expressed disappointment in Kaine's decision. Kaine considered such license plate messages a matter of free speech and added that the move was "in keeping with the commonwealth's longtime practice of approving specialty plates with all manner of political and social messages."
Kaine previously criticized the Obama administration for "not providing a 'broad enough religious employer exemption'" in the contraceptive mandate of the Affordable Care Act, but praised a 2012 amendment to the regulations that required insurers to provide birth control to employees when an employer was an objecting religious organization.
In 2005, when running for governor, Kaine said he favored reducing abortions by "Enforcing the current Virginia restrictions on abortion and passing an enforceable ban on partial birth abortion that protects the life and health of the mother"; "Fighting teen pregnancy through abstinence-focused education"; "Ensuring women's access to health care (including legal contraception) and economic opportunity"; and "Promoting adoption as an alternative for women facing unwanted pregnancies."
In 2007, as governor, Kaine cut off state funding for abstinence-only sex education programs, citing studies that showed such programs were ineffective, while comprehensive sex education programs were more effective. Kaine believes that both abstinence and contraceptives must be taught, and that education should be evidence-based.
As a senator, Kaine has received perfect scores from Planned Parenthood and the abortion-rights advocacy group NARAL. He has received a score of zero from the anti-abortion National Right to Life Committee.
Campaign finance
Kaine "strongly disagrees" with Citizens United v. FEC (2010). In 2015, Kaine joined a group of Senate Democrats in a letter to Securities and Exchange Commission Chairwoman Mary Jo White that said the ruling "reversed long-standing precedent and has moved our country in a different and disturbing direction when it comes to corporate influence in politics." They urged the SEC to require publicly traded companies to disclose political spending to their shareholders to "increase transparency in the U.S. political process".
Capital punishment
Kaine personally opposes capital punishment, but presided over 11 executions while governor. He said, "I really struggled with [capital punishment] as governor. I have a moral position against the death penalty. But I took an oath of office to uphold it. Following an oath of office is also a moral obligation." During his time in office he commuted one death sentence in June 2008, that of Percy Levar Walton, to life imprisonment without parole on grounds of mental incompetence, writing that "one cannot reasonably conclude that Walton is fully aware of the punishment he is about to suffer and why he is to suffer it" and thus that executing him would be unconstitutional. Kaine vetoed a number of bills to expand the death sentence to more crimes, saying: "I do not believe that further expansion of the death penalty is necessary to protect human life or provide for public safety needs." Some of the vetoes were overridden.
On July 31, 2019, after Attorney General William Barr announced that the United States federal government would resume the use of the death penalty for the first time in over 20 years, Kaine co-sponsored a bill banning the death penalty.
Environment, energy, and climate change
Kaine acknowledges the scientific consensus on climate change, and in a 2014 Senate speech criticized climate change deniers, as well as those who "may not deny the climate science, but ... deny that the U.S. can or should be a leader in taking any steps" to address the issue.
Kaine has expressed concern about sea level rise (a major consequence of climate change), and in particular its effect on coastal Virginia. In 2014, he partnered with two Virginia Republicans—U.S. Representatives Rob Wittman and Scott Rigell—to hold a conference on sea-level rise and "local adaptation efforts to protect military installations in the Hampton Roads area."
Kaine endorses making coal energy production cleaner, saying that it is imperative "to convert coal to electricity with less pollution than we do today." He has criticized those who "frame the debate as a conflict between an economy and the environment", saying that "protecting the environment is good for the economy." Kaine co-sponsored the Advanced Clean Coal Technology Investment in Our Nation (ACCTION) Act, legislation to increase investment in clean coal technologies. He voted against legislation to approve the Keystone XL pipeline. Kaine supports the use of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) to harvest natural gas from shale formations. He believes this will reduce carbon pollution. Kaine voted against an amendment introduced by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand that would have repealed a provision in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 that exempts fracking from the underground injection control provisions of the Safe Drinking Water Act. As a result, regulation of fracking remains in the hands of state agencies; the EPA cannot regulate it or require a federal permit. Kaine supports exporting liquefied natural gas (LNG) to other countries.
Like his fellow senator from Virginia, Mark Warner, Kaine applauded the U.S. Forest Service's plan to close most, but not all, of the George Washington National Forest to fracking and other horizontal drilling activities.
In 2013, Kaine supported oil and gas exploration off the coast of Virginia, saying, "I have long believed that the moratorium on offshore drilling, based on a cost-benefit calculation performed decades ago, should be reexamined." In April 2015, Kaine reiterated his opposition to the moratorium on offshore drilling. In March 2016, Kaine signaled that his position was softening, saying he was "particularly struck by the material objections of the Department of Defense to the incompatibility of drilling with naval operations off Virginia's coast... I have participated in this debate for over a decade as a governor and member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. The DOD has been relatively quiet during this public debate and has never shared their objections with me before." By August 2016, Kaine stated his support for a ban on offshore drilling, bringing his position in line with Hillary Clinton's and the Obama administration's.
Kaine supports the development of solar energy and offshore wind turbines. Based on his votes on environmental issues in the Senate, the League of Conservation Voters has given Kaine a 95% score for 2018, and a 94% lifetime score. (At the time of his vice-presidential campaign, Kaine had an 88% score for 2015, and a 91% lifetime score.)
In March 2019, Kaine was one of 11 senators to sponsor the Climate Security Act of 2019, legislation forming a new group within the State Department that would be responsible for developing strategies to integrate climate science and data into operations of national security as well as restoring the post of special envoy for the Arctic, which Trump had dismantled in 2017. The proposed envoy would advise the president and the administration on the potential effects of climate on national security and be responsible for facilitating all interagency communication between federal science and security agencies.
In April 2019, Kaine was one of 12 senators to sign a bipartisan letter to top senators on the Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development advocating that the Energy Department be granted maximum funding for carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS), arguing that American job growth could be stimulated by investment in viable options to capture carbon emissions released into the atmosphere and expressing disagreement with the Trump's 2020 budget request to combine the two federal programs that include carbon capture research.
Financial regulation
Kaine strongly supports financial regulation and the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. In July 2016, he signed a bipartisan letter that "urged the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to 'carefully tailor its rulemaking' [under Dodd-Frank] regarding community banks and credit unions so as not to 'unduly burden' these institutions with regulations aimed at commercial banks." The letter prompted criticism from progressives who viewed it as anti-regulation. Democracy for America executive director Charles Chamberlain called the letter "a lobbyist-driven effort to help banks dodge consumer protection standards and regulations designed to prevent banks from destroying our economy." Kaine responded, "it's important you don't treat every financial institution the same. It wasn't credit unions that tanked the economy, it wasn't local community banks that tanked the economy, generally wasn't regional banks that did things that tanked the economy." He also signed a letter urging that a requirement that regional banks report liquidity levels on a daily basis be loosened.
Foreign and defense policy
In the Senate, Kaine has supported the normalization of U.S.–Cuban relations and the international nuclear agreement with Iran.
Kaine expressed support for Israel's right to defend itself during the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict. In September 2016, in advance of a UN Security Council resolution 2334 condemning Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, he signed an AIPAC-sponsored letter urging Obama to veto "one-sided" resolutions against Israel.
In 2015, Kaine expressed support for the Saudi-led coalition's airstrikes in Yemen against Houthi forces fighting the government of President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, but in 2018, he was one of seven senators to sign a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo saying that they found it "difficult to reconcile known facts with at least two" of the Trump administration's certifications that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were attempting to protect Yemeni civilians and were in compliance with U.S. laws on arms sales, citing an inconsistency with a memo from Pompeo to Congress expressly stating that on some occasions the Saudi and Emirates governments had failed to adopt measures to reduce civilian casualties. Kaine also condemned the Trump administration for its "eagerness to give the Saudis anything they want" after the administration approved the transfer of nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia after the murder of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi.
In July 2017, Kaine voted for the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act that placed sanctions on Iran, Russia, and North Korea.
In 2019, Kaine was one of 34 Senate Democrats to sign a letter to Trump urging him to reconsider cuts to U.S. foreign aid to the Northern Triangle countries of Central America in the Fiscal Year 2018 national security appropriations bill. The letter said that Trump had "consistently expressed a flawed understanding of U.S. foreign assistance", viewing it as a gift or charity to foreign governments rather than a tool to promote American interests and collective security. The senators wrote that U.S. foreign assistance to Central American countries, by improving stability and alleviating poverty in the region, reduced Central American migration flows to the U.S.
In 2019, Kaine co-sponsored the South China Sea and East China Sea Sanctions Act, a bipartisan bill reintroduced by Marco Rubio and Ben Cardin that was intended to disrupt China's consolidation or expansion of its claims of jurisdiction over both the sea and airspace in disputed zones in the South China Sea.
Grand strategy and democracy promotion
After the 2016 presidential campaign, Kaine wrote an extensive essay in Foreign Affairs outlining his underlying foreign policy philosophy. According to Kaine, American foreign policy has suffered a lack of direction since the 1990s because the end of the Cold War rendered irrelevant America's previous grand strategy, which he identifies as the Truman Doctrine. This lack of grand strategy makes American actions seem random, complicating the policy-making process and hindering American leaders' efforts to convince the public that American foreign policy is worthwhile. To remedy this, Kaine proposed a new grand strategy based mainly on democracy promotion. His grand strategy is informed by a tri-polar balance of international power, with one pole being democratic states including the U.S. and its allies, the second autocratic powers led by Russia and China, and the third nonstate actors (multinational corporations, NGOs, gangs, etc.).
First, Kaine believes that the United States should work to support democracy in already democratic countries, as democracy globally has been declining for many years. To maintain democracy in democratic countries, Kaine proposes the creation of an intergovernmental organization consisting of all the world's democracies in which states can cooperate on solutions to problems such as corruption and voter inclusion. He compares this hypothetical group to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, in which advanced industrialized countries collaborate on economic policy. Kaine believes that this new organization will help democracies remain democratic, as well as promote democracy in other countries by giving them viable democratic examples to emulate. In this way, Kaine says that the U.S. should no longer see itself as the indispensable nation, but rather the "exemplary democracy".
Second, Kaine proposes that democracies should coordinate to best interact with authoritarian states. Depending on the circumstances, democracies should either "confront", "compete", or "cooperate" with autocracies. For example, Kaine observes that the U.S. competes with its authoritarian adversaries by strengthening military and commercial alliances, and confronts them by decrying their human rights records.
Finally, Kaine believes that democracies and autocracies should cooperate when they have the same interests, such as combating climate change.
In July 2017, Kaine expanded on the grand strategy proposed in this essay in an interview at the Brookings Institution with international relations scholar Robert Kagan.
Afghanistan
Kaine's website states, "The main mission in Afghanistan—destroying Al Qaeda—is nearly complete and we should bring our troops home as quickly as we can, consistent with the need to make sure that Afghanistan poses no danger in the broader region."
Latin America
Kaine believes that American foreign policy has neglected relations with Latin America and argues for an increased focus on the Americas, saying, "We have seldom paid enough attention to the Americas, in particular, and when we have—whether through the Monroe Doctrine or by battling communist movements during the Cold War—we have focused more on blocking outsiders from building influence in the Western Hemisphere than we have on the nations already there."
War powers
Kaine is known for "expertise on the constitutional powers of the presidency" and has said that "war powers questions" are a "personal obsession" of his. He has stressed that under the Constitution, "Congress has the power to declare war—and only Congress." Kaine called the 2018 U.S. missile strikes Trump ordered against the Syrian government illegal because they were undertaken without congressional approval.
Kaine and Senator John McCain introduced the War Powers Consultation Act of 2014, which would replace the War Powers Act of 1973, bringing Congress back into decisions on the deployment of U.S. military forces. The bill would establish a Congressional Consultation Committee, with which the president would be required to consult regularly regarding significant foreign policy matters before ordering the deployment of the armed forces into a significant armed conflict and at least every two months for the duration of any significant armed conflict. Kaine argued for the bill by citing his "frustration" over the sloppiness of "process and communication over decisions of war", noting that "presidents tend to overreach and Congress sometimes willingly ducks tough votes and decisions. We all have to do better."
In February 2018, Kaine was one of 18 senators to sign a letter to Trump arguing that striking North Korea with "a preventative or preemptive U.S. military strike would lack either a constitutional basis or legal authority" without congressional approval.
In January 2020, Kaine introduced a new war powers resolution that would prohibit the U.S. from entering hostilities against Iran within 30 days unless it was responding to an imminent threat. The next month, the measure passed the Senate 55–45, securing the votes of eight Republicans along with the Democrats. Trump vetoed the measure, and the Senate failed to override the veto.
Syria, Iraq, and ISIL
In 2014, Kaine argued that the U.S. military intervention against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) undertaken by Obama was unconstitutional without a new congressional authorization for the use of military force against ISIL. In November 2014, at the Halifax International Security Forum, Kaine and McCain emphasized the necessity of such a congressional authorization, saying: "You just can't have a war without Congress. You can't ask people to risk their lives, risk getting killed, seeing other folks getting killed or injured if Congress isn't willing to do the job to put their thumbprint on this and say, this is a national mission and worth it." After the April 2017 Shayrat missile strike in Syria, ordered by Trump, Kaine said, "There is no legal justification for this. He should not have done this without coming to Congress." On Meet the Press, Kaine said, "I'm a strong supporter that the U.S. should take action to protect humanitarian causes, like the ban on chemical weapons. Where I differ from this administration, and I took the same position with respect to President Obama, we are a nation that's not supposed to take military action, start war, without a plan that's presented to and approved by Congress."
On December 11, 2014, after a five-month campaign by Kaine, the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved by 10–8 (along party lines) a measure authorizing military force against ISIL but barring the use of ground troops. In October 2015, Kaine criticized Obama's approach to the Syrian Civil War, saying that the establishment of humanitarian no-fly zones would have alleviated the humanitarian crisis in Syria.
In April 2018, Kaine criticized Trump for authorizing the launch of a precision military strike on Syria without consulting Congress, calling the strike an "illegal military act".
On February 26, 2021, Kaine demanded answers from President Biden after he ordered airstrikes on Syria against Iran-backed militias without giving "legal justification" to members of Congress beforehand.
Firearms
Kaine is a firearms owner. He has supported expanded background checks for weapons purchases as well as "restrictions on the sale of combat-style weapons and high-capacity magazines." As governor, Kaine oversaw the closing of loopholes in Virginia law that allowed some who had failed background checks to purchase guns. In the Senate, he has supported legislation that would require background checks for weapons sold via gun shows and via the internet. He also supports legislation to bar weapons sales to suspected terrorists on the No Fly List.
In November 2017, Kaine was a cosponsor of the Military Domestic Violence Reporting Enhancement Act, a bill that would form a charge of domestic violence under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) and stipulate that convictions be reported to federal databases with the authority to keep abusers from purchasing firearms within three days in an attempt to close a loophole in the UCMJ through which convicted abusers retained the ability to purchase firearms.
In March 2018, Kaine was one of ten senators to sign a letter to Chairman of the United States Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Lamar Alexander and ranking Democrat Patty Murray requesting they schedule a hearing on the causes and remedies of mass shootings in the wake of the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting.
In June 2019, Kaine was one of four senators to cosponsor the Help Empower Americans to Respond (HEAR) Act, legislation that would ban suppressors being imported, sold, made, sent elsewhere or possessed and grant a silencer buyback program as well as include certain exceptions for current and former law enforcement personnel and others. The bill was intended to respond to the Virginia Beach shooting, in which the perpetrator used a .45-caliber handgun with multiple extended magazines and a suppressor.
Kaine has a 100% rating from the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and an "F" rating from the NRA.
Health care
Kaine supports the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2009 (Obamacare), saying in 2012, "I was a supporter and remain a supporter of the Affordable Care Act. I felt like it was a statement that we were going to put some things in the rearview mirror." In 2013, he said that he agreed that changes to the ACA should be debated, but criticized Republicans for "wrapping them up with the threat" of a federal government shutdown.
In 2018, Kaine and Senator Michael Bennet proposed the creation of "Medicare X"—a public health insurance option modeled after Medicare that would be available on ACA health insurance marketplaces along with private options. The proposal is a more incrementalist alternative to Bernie Sanders's push for "Medicare for All" (single-payer health care).
In December 2018, Kaine was one of 42 senators to sign a letter to Trump administration officials Alex Azar, Seema Verma, and Steve Mnuchin arguing that the administration was improperly using Section 1332 of the ACA to authorize states to "increase health care costs for millions of consumers while weakening protections for individuals with pre-existing conditions." The senators requested the administration withdraw the policy and "re-engage with stakeholders, states, and Congress."
In January 2019, Kaine was one of six Democratic senators to introduce the American Miners Act of 2019, a bill that would amend the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 to swap funds in excess of the amounts needed to meet existing obligations under the Abandoned Mine Land fund to the 1974 Pension Plan as part of an effort to prevent its insolvency as a result of coal company bankruptcies and the 2008 financial crisis. It also increased the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund tax and ensured that miners affected by the 2018 coal company bankruptcies would not lose their health care.
In December 2016, Kaine was one of 17 senators to sign a letter to Trump asking him to fulfill a campaign pledge to bring down the cost of prescription drugs. In February 2017, he and 30 other senators signed a letter to Kaléo Pharmaceuticals in response to the opioid-overdose-reversing device Evzio rising in price from $690 in 2014 to $4,500 and requested the company provide the detailed price structure for Evzio, the number of devices Kaléo Pharmaceuticals set aside for donation, and the totality of federal reimbursements Evzio received in the previous year. In February 2019, Kaine was one of 11 senators to sign a letter to insulin manufacturers Eli Lilly and Company, Novo Nordisk, and Sanofi about increased insulin prices and charging that the price increases caused patients to lack "access to the life-saving medications they need."
In August 2019, Kaine was one of 19 Democratic senators to sign a letter to Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar requesting data from the Trump administration on the consequences for healthcare if Texas prevailed in its lawsuit seeking to gut the Affordable Care Act. The senators wrote, "Upending the current health care system will create an enormous hole in the pocketbooks of the people we serve as well as wreck state budgets; therefore, we ask for data to help states and Congress better understand the potential consequences of the position the Administration is taking in court."
In September 2019, amid discussions to prevent a government shutdown, Kaine was one of six Democratic senators to sign a letter to congressional leadership advocating legislation that would permanently fund health care and pension benefits for retired coal miners as "families in Virginia, West Virginia, Wyoming, Alabama, Colorado, North Dakota and New Mexico" would start to receive notifications of health care termination by the end of the following month.
Immigration
Kaine supports the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Deferred Action for Parental Accountability (DAPA) programs, which allow up to five million undocumented immigrants to gain deferral of deportation and authorization to legally work in the United States. Alongside Senator Mark Warner and many other members of Congress, he signed on to an amicus brief in support of the program in the Supreme Court case United States v. Texas.
Kaine also supports comprehensive immigration reform, which would allow persons illegally present in the U.S. to earn legal status by paying a fine and taxes.
In July 2019, following reports that the Trump administration intended to end protections of spouses, parents and children of active-duty service members from deportation, Kaine was one of 22 senators to sign a letter led by Tammy Duckworth arguing that the program allowed service members the ability "to fight for the United States overseas and not worry that their spouse, children, or parents will be deported while they are away" and that the its termination would cause personal hardship for service members in combat.
In July 2019, Kaine and 15 other Senate Democrats introduced the Protecting Sensitive Locations Act, a bill to mandate that ICE agents get approval from a supervisor before undertaking an immigration raid or other enforcement actions at "sensitive locations" (schools, hospitals, places of worship, and courthouses) except in special circumstances. The bill would also require agents to receive annual training and require ICE to submit an annual report on enforcement actions in those locations.
LGBT rights
In 2006, Kaine campaigned against an amendment to the Virginia State Constitution to ban same-sex marriage, and in March 2013, he announced his support of same-sex marriage.
In the Senate, Kaine co-sponsored the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which would bar employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
In 2005, Kaine said, "No couples in Virginia can adopt other than a married couple. That's the right policy." In 2011, he shifted his position. In 2012, he said, "there should be a license that would entitle a committed couple to the same rights as a married couple."
During the 2016 presidential campaign, Kaine noted that his position on same-sex marriage was "at odds with the current doctrine of the church that I still attend." He predicted that the Roman Catholic Church would someday adopt his view. In response, two bishops heading the doctrine and marriage committees of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said that the church's position "cannot change" and reaffirmed their opposition to same-sex marriage.
In October 2018, Kaine was one of 20 senators to sign a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urging him to reverse the State Department's policy of denying visas to same-sex partners of LGBTQ diplomats who had unions that were not recognized by their home countries, writing that the Trump administration's refusal to allow LGBTQ diplomats to bring their partners to the U.S. was tantamount to upholding the "discriminatory policies of many countries around the world." In June 2019, Kaine was one of 18 senators to sign a letter to Pompeo requesting an explanation of the State Department's decision not to issue an official statement that year commemorating Pride Month or issue the annual cable outlining activities for embassies commemorating Pride Month. The signatories to the letter also asked why the LGBTI special envoy position had remained vacant. The authors said that the State Department's moves had sent "signals to the international community that the United States is abandoning the advancement of LGBTI rights as a foreign policy priority."
Taxes
Kaine supports allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire for those with incomes above $500,000.
In 2012, Kaine supported raising the cap on income subject for the FICA (Social Security) payroll tax "so that it covers a similar percentage of income as it did in the 1980s under President Reagan, which would greatly extend the solvency of the (Social Security) program."
In the Senate, Kaine has supported the Marketplace Fairness Act, which would allow states to require online retailers to collect sales taxes in the same manner as traditional brick-and-mortar retailers.
Trade
Kaine supported granting Obama Trade Promotion Authority (TPA or "fast track") to allow him to negotiate free trade agreements. He said the goal should be to "negotiate deals that protect workers' rights, environmental standards and intellectual property, while knocking down tariffs and other barriers that some countries erect to keep American products out."
In July 2016, Kaine said the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement was "an improvement of the status quo" and an "upgrade of labor standards... environmental standards... intellectual property protections", but maintained that he had not yet decided how to vote on final approval of the agreement, citing "significant concerns" over TPP's dispute resolution mechanism. Later that July, Kaine said that he could not support the TPP in its current form.
Kaine has been a proponent of NAFTA.
Transportation, growth, and housing
Kaine supports some smart growth-style policies (which he calls "a balanced approach to growth") to control sprawl and improve transportation. He favors a transportation policy that includes public transit, bicycles, and pedestrians. As governor, Kaine pushed through a $100 million open-space acquisition initiative. Under Kaine, Amtrak service in Virginia was expanded. He also participated in a White House round-table discussion on high-speed rail in 2009.
In April 2019, Kaine was one of 41 senators to sign a bipartisan letter in support of U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Section 4 Capacity Building program, a program authorizing HUD to partner with nonprofit community development groups to provide support to community development corporations. The letter said that the longstanding program had successfully promoted economic and community development, opposed the proposed elimination of the plan in Trump's budget proposal for Fiscal Year 2020, and urged the Senate to support continued funding for Section 4 in Fiscal Year 2020.
Workers' rights and gender equality
Kaine is "generally pro-union" and has received a 96% lifetime Senate voting rating from the AFL-CIO, which praised his selection as Clinton's running mate. But Kaine supports Virginia's longstanding "right-to-work" law, which "frees union nonmembers from any legal obligation to pay fees to a union that bargains collectively on their behalf".
Kaine supports the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which expands the cases in which worker can sue against gender pay discrimination. After Clinton selected him as her running mate in 2016, Kaine was praised by the National Organization for Women.
Kaine favors an increase in the minimum wage.
Electoral history
2001 lieutenant gubernatorial election
2005 gubernatorial election
2012 U.S. Senate election
2016 vice presidential election
2018 U.S. Senate election
Personal life
In November 1984, Kaine married Anne Bright Holton, the daughter of A. Linwood Holton Jr., a Republican who served as the 61st governor of Virginia from 1970 to 1974. The couple met while they were both students at Harvard Law School. Holton has been a judge for the Virginia Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court in Richmond. After serving as first lady of Virginia during her husband's term, she was appointed by Governor Terry McAuliffe in January 2014 to be Virginia's secretary of education, and held that position until July 2016, when she stepped down after her husband was named as the Democratic vice-presidential nominee. The couple has three children, one of whom is a United States Marine. As of 2016, Kaine and his wife had been congregants of the St. Elizabeth Catholic Church in Richmond, a mostly black congregation, for 30 years.
Kaine plays the harmonica and often travels with several.
Kaine is fluent in Spanish as a result of his nine months in Honduras. During the 2016 campaign, he became the first member of a presidential ticket to deliver a speech in Spanish.
On May 28, 2020, Kaine announced that he and his wife had tested positive for COVID-19 antibodies.
Awards and honors
Kaine has received the Humanitarian Award from the Virginia Center for Inclusive Communities, then the Virginia Region of the National Conference for Community and Justice (2000), the Virginia Council of Churches' Faith in Action Award (2009), the University of Richmond School of Law's William Green Award for Professional Excellence (2012), the Award for Public Service in the Americas from the Inter-American Dialogue (2014), the Appalachian Trail Conservancy's Congressional Award (2015), and the Center for the National Interest's Distinguished Service Award (2016). He was made a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Isabella the Catholic in 2017.
Notes
References
Further reading
Governor
Kaine's Governor website (Archived)
Kaine's Lieutenant governor website (Archived)
2005 campaign contributions at the Virginia Public Access Project
Moving Virginia Forward Archived Web Site, 2007 part of Virginia's Political Landscape, 2007 Web Archive Collection at Virginia Memory
Moving Virginia Forward Archived Web Site, 2009 part of Virginia's Political Landscape, 2009 Web Archive Collection at Virginia Memory
Tim Kaine for Governor Archived Web Site, 2005–2006 part of Virginia's Political Landscape, Fall 2005 Web Archive Collection at Virginia Memory
Governor Tim Kaine Administration Web Site Archive, 2006–2010
Kaine Email Project at the Library of Virginia
External links
U.S. Senate website
Campaign website
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Governors of Virginia
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Lawyers from Kansas City, Missouri
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Living people
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"Timothy Michael Kaine (; born February 26, 1958) is an American lawyer and politician serving as the junior United States senator from Virginia since 2013. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 38th lieutenant governor of Virginia from 2002 to 2006 and 70th governor of Virginia from 2006 to 2010. Kaine was the Democratic nominee for vice president of the United States in the 2016 election as Hillary Clinton's running mate.\n\nBorn in Saint Paul, Minnesota, Kaine grew up in Overland Park, Kansas, graduated from the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri, and earned a Juris Doctor degree from Harvard Law School before entering private practice and becoming a lecturer at the University of Richmond School of Law. He was first elected to public office in 1994, when he won a seat on the Richmond City Council. He was elected mayor of Richmond in 1998 and held that position until being elected lieutenant governor of Virginia in 2001. Kaine was elected governor of Virginia in 2005 and held that office from 2006 to 2010. He chaired the Democratic National Committee from 2009 to 2011.\n\nOn July 22, 2016, Hillary Clinton introduced Kaine as her vice-presidential running mate. The 2016 Democratic National Convention nominated him on July 27. Despite winning a plurality of the national popular vote, the ClintonKaine ticket lost the Electoral College, and thus the election, to the Republican ticket of Donald Trump and Mike Pence on November 8, 2016. Kaine was reelected to a second Senate term in 2018, defeating Republican Corey Stewart.\n\nEarly life and education\n\nKaine was born at Saint Joseph's Hospital in St. Paul, Minnesota. He is the eldest of three sons born to Mary Kathleen (née Burns), a home economics teacher, and Albert Alexander Kaine, Jr., a welder and the owner of a small iron-working shop. He was raised Catholic. One of Kaine's great-grandparents was Scottish and the other seven were Irish. Kaine's family moved to Overland Park, Kansas, when Kaine was two years old, and he grew up in the Kansas City area. In 1976, he graduated from Rockhurst High School, a Jesuit all-boys preparatory school in Kansas City, Missouri. At Rockhurst, Kaine joined the debate team and was elected student body president.\n\nKaine received his Bachelor of Arts in economics from the University of Missouri in 1979, completing his degree in three years and graduating Omicron Delta Kappa and summa cum laude. He was a Coro Foundation fellow in Kansas City in 1978. He entered Harvard Law School in 1979, interrupting his law studies after his first year to work in Honduras for nine months from 1980 to 1981, helping Jesuit missionaries who ran a Catholic school in El Progreso. While running a vocational center that taught carpentry and welding, he also helped increase the school's enrollment by recruiting local villagers. Kaine is fluent in Spanish as a result of his time in Honduras.\n\nAfter returning from Honduras, Kaine met his future wife, first-year Harvard Law student Anne Holton. He graduated from Harvard Law School with a J.D. degree in 1983. Kaine and Holton moved to Holton's hometown of Richmond, Virginia, after graduation, and Kaine was admitted to the Virginia bar in 1984.\n\nLegal career and Richmond City Council\nAfter graduating from law school, Kaine was a law clerk for Judge R. Lanier Anderson III of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, in Macon, Georgia. He then joined the Richmond law firm of Little, Parsley & Cluverius, P.C. In 1987, Kaine became a director of the law firm of Mezzullo & McCandlish, P.C. He practiced law in Richmond for 17 years, specializing in fair housing law and representing clients discriminated against on the basis of race or disability. He was a board member of the Virginia chapter of Housing Opportunities Made Equal, which he represented in a landmark redlining discrimination lawsuit against Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. arising from the company's practices in Richmond. Kaine won a $100.5 million verdict in the case; the judgment was overturned on appeal, and Kaine and his colleagues negotiated a $17.5 million settlement.\n\nKaine did regular pro bono work. In 1988, he started teaching legal ethics as an adjunct professor at the University of Richmond School of Law. Kaine taught at the University of Richmond for six years; his students included future Virginia attorney general Mark Herring. He was a founding member of the Virginia Coalition to End Homelessness.\n\nKaine had a largely apolitical childhood, but became interested in politics in part due to the influence of his wife's family and his experience attending Richmond city council meetings. In 1994, he was elected the 2nd district member of the city council of the independent city of Richmond, defeating incumbent city councilor Benjamin P.A. Warthen by less than 100 votes. He took his seat on July 1 and retained the position until September 10, 2001, when he resigned and William J. Pantele was appointed to succeed him. He defeated the incumbent city councilman Benjamin P.A. Warthen by 97 votes. Kaine spent four terms on the city council, the latter two as mayor of Richmond.\n\nMayor of Richmond (1998–2001)\nOn July 1, 1998, Kaine was elected mayor of Richmond, succeeding Larry Chavis. He was chosen by an 8 to 1 vote on the majority-black Richmond City Council, becoming the city's first white mayor in more than ten years, which was viewed as a surprise. Rudy McCollum, an African American city councilor also interested in the mayoralty, decided to back Kaine after a private meeting between the two, clearing the way for Kaine to win the election. Previous mayors had treated the role as primarily ceremonial, with the city manager effectively operating the city; Kaine treated it as a full-time job, taking a more hands-on role.\n\nAs mayor, Kaine used a sale-leaseback arrangement to obtain funds to renovate the historic Maggie L. Walker High School and reopen it in 2000 as a magnet governor's school, the Maggie L. Walker Governor's School for Government and International Studies, which \"now serves the top students in Central Virginia\". Three elementary schools and one middle school were also built in Richmond under Kaine. Along with Commonwealth's attorney David Hicks, U.S. attorney James Comey, and police chief Jerry Oliver, Kaine was a supporter of Project Exile, an initiative that shifted gun crimes to federal court, where defendants faced harsher sentences. Though controversial, the effort was effective and achieved widespread support; the city's homicide rate fell by 55% during Kaine's mayoralty. Kaine touted Project Exile during his 2001 campaign for lieutenant governor.\n\nOn several occasions, Kaine voted against tax increases, and supported a tax abatement program for renovated buildings, which was credited for a housing renovation boom in the city. Forbes magazine named Richmond one of \"the 10 best cities in America to do business\" during Kaine's term.\n\nAccording to John Moeser, a professor emeritus of urban studies and planning at Virginia Commonwealth University and later a visiting fellow at the University of Richmond's Center for Civic Engagement, Mayor Kaine \"was energetic, charismatic and, most important, spoke openly about his commitment to racial reconciliation in Richmond.\" The New York Times wrote that Kaine \"was by all accounts instrumental in bridging the city's racial divide.\" In the early part of his term, Kaine issued an apology for the city's role in slavery; the apology was generally well received as \"a genuine, heartfelt expression\". In the latter part of his term, a contentious debate took place over the inclusion of a portrait of Confederate general Robert E. Lee in a set of historic murals to be placed on city floodwalls. Many African Americans were outraged that Lee would appear on city walls, while Southern heritage groups demanded that the picture remain. Kaine proposed a compromise in which Lee would appear as part of a series of murals that also included figures like Abraham Lincoln and Powhatan Beaty. His stance drew criticism from the NAACP; Kaine argued that placing Lee on the floodwall made sense in context, and that \"Much of our history is not pleasant; you can't whitewash it.\" Kaine's proposal passed the council on a 6–3 vote.\n\nDuring his mayoralty, Kaine drew criticism for spending $6,000 in public funds on buses to the Million Mom March, an anti-gun-violence rally in Washington, D.C.; after a backlash, he raised the money privately and reimbursed the city.\n\nLieutenant governor of Virginia (2002–2006)\n\nKaine ran for lieutenant governor of Virginia in 2001. He joined the race after state senator Emily Couric dropped out due to pancreatic cancer and endorsed Kaine as her replacement. In the Democratic primary election, Kaine ran against state delegate Alan A. Diamonstein of Newport News, and state delegate Jerrauld C. Jones of Norfolk. Kaine won the nomination, with 39.7% of the vote to Diamonstein's 31.4% and Jones's 28.9%.\n\nIn the general election, Kaine won with 925,974 votes (50.35%), edging out his Republican opponent, state delegate Jay Katzen, who received 883,886 (48.06%). Libertarian Gary Reams received 28,783 votes (1.57%).\n\nKaine was inaugurated on January 12, 2002, and was sworn in by his wife Anne Holton, a state judge.\n\n2005 gubernatorial election\n\nIn 2005, Kaine ran for governor of Virginia against Republican candidate Jerry W. Kilgore, a former state attorney general. Kaine was considered an underdog for most of the race, trailing in polls for most of the campaign. Two September polls showed Kaine trailing Kilgore—by four percentage points in a Washington Post poll and by one point in a Mason-Dixon/Roanoke Times poll. The final polls of the race before the election showed Kaine slightly edging ahead of Kilgore.\n\nKaine ultimately prevailed, winning 1,025,942 votes (51.7%) to Kilgore's 912,327 (46.0%). A third candidate, independent state Senator H. Russell Potts Jr., ran as an \"independent Republican\" and received 43,953 votes (2.2%).\n\nKaine emphasized fiscal responsibility and a centrist message. He expressed support for controlling sprawl and tackling longstanding traffic issues, an issue that resonated in the northern Virginia exurbs. He benefited from his association with the popular outgoing Democratic governor, Mark Warner, who had performed well in traditionally Republican areas of the state. On the campaign trail, Kaine referred to the \"Warner-Kaine administration\" in speeches and received Warner's strong backing. Kilgore later attributed his defeat to Warner's high popularity and President George W. Bush's sharply declining popularity; Bush held a rally with Kilgore on the campaign's final day.\n\nThe campaign turned sharply negative in its final weeks, with Kilgore running television attack ads that falsely claimed that Kaine believed that \"Hitler doesn't qualify for the death penalty.\" The ads also attacked Kaine for his service ten years earlier as a court-appointed attorney for a death-row inmate. The editorial boards of the Washington Post and a number of Virginia newspapers denounced the ads as a \"smear\" and \"dishonest.\" Kaine responded with an ad \"in which he told voters that he opposes capital punishment but would take an oath and enforce the death penalty. In later polls, voters said they believed Kaine's response and were angered by Kilgore's negative ads.\"\n\nIn the election, Kaine won by large margins in the Democratic strongholds such as Richmond and northern Virginia's inner suburbs (such as Alexandria and Arlington), as well as in the Democratic-trending Fairfax County. Kaine also won Republican-leaning areas in Northern Virginia's outer suburbs, including Prince William County and Loudoun County, where George W. Bush had beat John Kerry in the previous year's presidential election, and performed \"surprisingly well in Republican strongholds like Virginia Beach and Chesapeake.\" Kaine also defeated Kilgore in the burgeoning Richmond suburbs. Kilgore led in southwest Virginia and in the Shenandoah Valley.\n\nGovernor of Virginia (2006–2010)\nKaine was sworn in as governor at the colonial Capitol at Williamsburg, on January 14, 2006, the first governor since Thomas Jefferson to be inaugurated there.\n\nKaine was chairman of the Southern Governors' Association from 2008 to 2009.\n\nDemocratic response to State of the Union address\nOn January 31, 2006, Kaine gave the Democratic response to President George W. Bush's 2006 State of the Union address. In it, he criticized the Bush administration's No Child Left Behind Act for \"wreaking havoc on local school districts\"; criticized congressional Republicans for cutting student loan programs; and condemned as \"reckless\" Bush's spending increases and tax cuts. Kaine praised bipartisan initiatives in Virginia \"to make record investments in education\" and to improve veterans' access to veterans' benefits. He criticized the Bush administration's conduct of the Iraq War and treatment of U.S. soldiers, saying that \"the American people were given inaccurate information about reasons for invading Iraq\"; \"our troops in Iraq were not given the best body armor or the best intelligence\"; and \"the administration wants to further reduce military and veterans' benefits.\"\n\nEnergy, the environment, and conservation\nAs governor, Kaine protected of Virginia land from development, fulfilling a promise he made in 2005. His conservation efforts focused on conservation easements (voluntary easements that preserve the private ownership of a piece of land while also permanently protecting it from development); a substantial Virginia land preservation tax credit encouraged easements. From 2004 to 2009, the Virginia Outdoors Foundation (a quasi-governmental entity set up in 1966 to preserve open land in the state) protected more land than it had in the previous 40 years, a fact Kaine touted as his term drew to a close.\n\nAs governor, Kaine established the Climate Change Commission, a bipartisan panel to study climate change issues. The panel was shuttered under Kaine's Republican successor, Governor Robert F. McDonnell, but revived (as the Governor's Climate Change and Resiliency Update Commission) under McDonnell's successor, Democratic Governor Terry McAuliffe.\n\nIn 2008, Kaine supported a coal-fired power plant project in Wise County, clashing with environmentalists who opposed the project.\n\nIn 2009, Kaine expressed support for tighter restrictions on mountaintop removal coal mining imposed by the Obama administration.\n\nHealthcare and public health\nIn October 2006, Kaine signed an executive order banning smoking in all government buildings and state-owned cars as of January 1, 2007. He signed legislation banning smoking in restaurants and bars, with some exceptions, in March 2009, making Virginia the first Southern state to do so.\n\nIn 2007, the Republican-controlled Virginia General Assembly passed legislation, with \"overwhelming bipartisan support\", to require girls to receive the HPV vaccine (which immunizes recipients against a virus that causes cervical cancer) before entering high school. Kaine expressed \"some qualms\" about the legislation and pushed for a strong opt-out provision, ultimately signing a bill that included a provision allowing parents to opt out of the requirement without citing a reason.\n\nIn 2007, Kaine secured increases in state funding for nursing in the Virginia General Assembly and announced a 10% salary increase for nursing faculty above the normal salary increase for state employees, plus additional funds for scholarships for nursing master's programs. The initiatives were aimed at addressing a shortage of practicing nurses.\n\nVirginia Tech shooting\nAfter the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting, in which Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 people, Kaine appointed an eight-member Virginia Tech Review Panel, chaired by retired Virginia State Police superintendent W. Gerald Massengill, to probe the event. The commission members included specialists in psychology, law, forensics and higher education as well as former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge. The commission first met in May 2007, and issued its findings and recommendations in August 2007. Among other recommendations, the panel proposed many mental health reforms. Based on the panel's recommendations, Kaine proposed $42 million of investment in mental health programs and reforms, included \"boosting access to outpatient and emergency mental health services, increasing the number of case managers and improving monitoring of community-based providers.\" In April 2007, Kaine signed an executive order instructing state agencies to step up efforts to block gun sales to people involuntarily committed to inpatient and outpatient mental health treatment centers. Kaine, who had been in Japan on a trade mission at the time of the shootings, received widespread praise for his quick return to the state and his handling of the issue.\n\nBudget and economy\nAmong Kaine's greatest challenges as governor came during the 2008–09 economic crisis; the Washington Post wrote that \"perhaps his greatest success was keeping the state running despite [the crisis].\" Amid the Great Recession, unemployment in Virginia remained lower than the national average. During Kaine's tenure as governor, the unemployment rate in Virginia rose from 3.2% to 7.4%, a smaller increase than the national rate, which rose from 4.7% to 9.9% during the same period.\n\nAs governor, Kaine approved about $3.31 billion in general fund spending cuts, and after his term in office, the Virginia General Assembly adopted about $1.33 billion in additional budget cuts that Kaine had recommended, for a total of $4.64 billion in cuts. The Washington Post wrote, \"Unable to raise taxes and required by law to balance the budget, he was forced to make unpopular cuts that led to such things as shuttered highway rest stops and higher public university tuition.\" Virginia was one of three states to earn the highest grade in terms of management in a report by the nonpartisan Pew Center on the States. Virginia took first place each year from 2006 to 2009 in Forbes magazine's \"Best States For Business\" rankings.\n\nInfrastructure and transportation\n\nIn July 2007, during the debate on the Silver Line of the Washington Metro through Tysons Corner, Kaine supported an elevated track solution rather than a tunnel, citing costs and potential delays that would put federal funding at risk.\n\nIn 2006, Kaine pressed the general assembly to support a legislative package to ease severe traffic congestion by spending about $1 billion annually for highway construction, repairs to aging roads, mass transit, and other transportation projects. The money would be raised through increases in taxes and fees that would have raised an estimated $4 billion in revenue over four years. The Democratic-controlled Senate supported the plan, but the Republican-controlled House was unwilling to approve the taxes necessary to carry out the project, and the effort failed even after a special session of the legislature was called over the stalemate.\n\nIn 2007, Republicans in the General Assembly passed their own transportation-funding bill. Rather than a statewide tax increase to finance the transportation improvements, as Kaine and most legislative Democrats favored, the Republican bill called for transportation funding \"to come from borrowing $2.5 billion and paying the debt costs out of the general fund\"; authorized local tax increase in Northern Virginia; increased fees and taxes on rental cars, commercial real estate, and hotels; and increased traffic infraction fines and driver's licenses fees.\n\nKaine and most legislative Democrats opposed the Republican legislation, calling it inadequate to address traffic congestion and arguing that the withdrawal of funds from the general fund would affect core services such as health care, law enforcement, and education. Kaine ultimately signed a bill with amendments reflecting \"concerns by local government officials and a bipartisan group of lawmakers who were concerned that the plan took too much money from the state's general fund.\"\n\nEducation\nUnder Kaine, participation in Virginia in early childhood education increased by 40.2% due to his expansion of the Virginia Preschool Initiative, which makes pre-kindergarten more accessible to four-year-olds from households close to the poverty line. Kaine sought increases to the budget for preschool programs every year during his term as governor. Virginia was rated as the best state to raise a child in a 2007 report by Education Week and the Pew Center on the States.\n\nCabinet and appointments\nKaine made the following appointments to his Virginia Governor's Cabinet:\n\n Chief of Staff: William Leighty (2006–2007), Wayne Turnage (2007–2010)\n Secretary of Administration: Viola Baskerville (2006–2010)\n Virginia Secretary of Agriculture and Forestry: Robert Bloxom (2006–2010)\n Secretary of Commerce and Trade: Patrick Gottschalk (2006–2010)\n Secretary of the Commonwealth: Katherine Hanley (2006–2010)\n Secretary of Education: Thomas R. Morris (2006–2010)\n Secretary of Finance:Jody Wagner (2006–2008), Ric Brown (2008–2010)\n Secretary of Health and Human Resources: Marilyn Tavenner (2006–2010)\n Secretary of Natural Resources: Preston Bryant (2006–2010)\n Secretary of Public Safety: John W. Marshall (2006–2010)\n Secretary of Technology: Aneesh Chopra (2006–2009), Leonard Pomata (2009–2010)\n Secretary of Transportation: Pierce Homer (2006–2010)\n Counselor to the Governor: Lawrence Roberts (2006–2009)\n Counselor to the Governor: Mark Rubin (2009–2010)\n Assistant for Commonwealth Preparedness: Robert P. Crouch (2006–2010)\n Senior Advisor for Workforce: Daniel G. LeBlanc (2006–2010)\n\nAs governor, Kaine made a number of appointments to the Virginia state courts. He made two appointments to the Supreme Court of Virginia, naming Chesapeake circuit judge S. Bernard Goodwyn to the Court in 2007 and Virginia Court of Appeals Judge LeRoy F. Millette Jr. in 2008.\n\nOn September 27, 2007, just weeks after appointing Esam Omeish to the 20-member Virginia Commission on Immigration, Kaine learned that Omeish had made videos accusing Israel of genocide and calling for President Bush's impeachment. He immediately requested and received Omeish's resignation and said that background checks would be more thorough in the future.\n\n2008 vice presidential speculation\n\nKaine announced his support for Barack Obama's presidential bid in February 2007. It was maintained that Kaine's endorsement was the first from a statewide elected official outside of Illinois. Because Kaine was a relatively popular governor of a Southern state, there was media speculation that he was a potential nominee for vice president. Obama had supported Kaine in his campaign for governor, saying, \"Tim Kaine has a message of fiscal responsibility and generosity of spirit. That kind of message can sell anywhere.\" On July 28, 2008, Politico reported that Kaine was \"very, very high\" on Obama's shortlist for vice president, a list that also included Senator Hillary Clinton of New York, Governor Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas, Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana, and Senator Joe Biden of Delaware. Obama ultimately selected Biden. It was later reported that Obama told Kaine, in breaking the news to him, \"You are the pick of my heart, but Joe [Biden] is the pick of my head\". Obama later wrote that he had ultimately narrowed down the choice for his running mate to Kaine and Biden. He said, \"At the time, I was much closer to Tim\", but Obama and his advisers David Axelrod and David Plouffe wondered whether voters would accept a ticket of \"two relatively young, inexperienced, and liberal civil rights attorneys\" and Obama felt the contrast between him and Biden was a strength, and that Biden's age and experience would reassure voters concerned that Obama was too young to be president.\n\nDemocratic National Committee chair (2009–2011)\nIn January 2009, Kaine became chair of the Democratic National Committee. He had turned down the position the first time it was offered to him, expressing misgivings about accepting a partisan position, but took the job at Obama's request. He took on the position as chair part-time as he continued his term as governor of Virginia. Kaine's main goals as DNC chair \"were protecting the party's seats in Congress during the 2010 midterms and integrating the president's campaign apparatus, Organizing for America, and its technological acumen into the party machinery.\" In the 2010 midterms, the DNC under Kaine's leadership outraised the Republican National Committee (RNC) by $30 million, but Democrats lost control of the House and lost seats in the Senate amidst a Tea Party backlash. Kaine was not generally blamed for the losses.\n\nKaine kept a low profile in the position in comparison to his counterpart, RNC chairman Michael Steele. He focused more on fundraising and maintaining party unity than on attacking political opponents.\n\nIn February 2011, after Kaine spoke to union leaders in Madison, Organizing for America got involved in Wisconsin's budget battle and opposed Republican-sponsored anti-union legislation. It made phone calls, sent emails, and distributed messages via Facebook and Twitter to build crowds for rallies.\n\nAfter completing his term as governor in January 2010, Kaine taught part-time at the University of Richmond, teaching a course in spring 2010 at the Jepson School of Leadership Studies and another in fall 2010 at the University of Richmond School of Law. He explained that he had chosen to teach at a private university rather than a public university \"because it would not have been right for a sitting governor to be seeking employment at an institution when he writes the budget and appoints the board of the institution.\"\n\nUnited States Senate\n\n2012 election\n\nAfter Senator Jim Webb's decision not to seek reelection, Kaine announced on April 5, 2011, that he would run for Webb's seat. He was initially reluctant to return to public office, but Webb, Senator Mark Warner, and other Virginia Democrats saw Kaine as the strongest potential Democratic candidate and convinced him to run. Kaine named Lawrence Roberts as his campaign chairman. Mike Henry was chosen as his campaign manager. Kaine filmed announcement videos in English and Spanish and was unopposed for the Democratic nomination. He defeated former senator and governor George Allen in the general election.\n\nTenure\nKaine was sworn in on January 3, 2013, reuniting him with Mark Warner, the senior senator. Kaine was lieutenant governor when Warner was governor of Virginia.\n\nOn June 11, 2013, Kaine delivered a speech on the Senate floor in support of the bipartisan \"Gang of Eight\" immigration bill. The speech was entirely in Spanish, marking the first time a senator had ever made a speech on the Senate floor in a language other than English.\n\nAs a member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, Kaine pushed for a new Congressional authorization of military force for the American operations against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Kaine supported the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran, though he also helped Republican senator Bob Corker hold a vote on a resolution of disapproval of the deal. Kaine has taken several trips throughout the Middle East, meeting with the leaders of states such as Turkey and Israel.\n\nWhile in the Senate, Kaine has continued to teach part-time at the University of Richmond, receiving a salary of $16,000 per year.\n\nKaine has voted with his party more than 90% of the time. According to the Washington Post, Kaine has \"crafted a largely progressive record as a senator.\" He reportedly has good relations with both Democratic and Republican senators.\n\nDuring the 2016 vice-presidential campaign, Kaine frequently criticized Donald Trump, saying that Trump \"as commander-in-chief scares me to death\" and had a \"bizarre fascination with strongmen and authoritarian leaders\". In 2017, after Trump took office, Kaine continued to criticize his \"authoritarian tendencies\", citing his attacks on media, judges, and peaceful protesters. At an event at George Mason University, Kaine said that with Trump in office, Americans \"are in a 'living experiment' to see whether or not the Constitution still works to check executive power.\"\n\nIn February 2017, Kaine met with Pope Francis at a general audience at the Vatican. Kaine also met with the Jesuit Refugee Service to discuss refugees and met with Vatican officials to discuss Latin American issues. The same month, Kaine delivered an address, \"The Truman Doctrine at 70\", at London's Chatham House.\n\nCommittee assignments and caucuses\nIn the 113th Congress (2013–15), Kaine was on the Committee on Armed Services, the Committee on the Budget, and the Committee on Foreign Relations. In the 114th Congress, Kaine was on those three committees and the Special Committee on Aging. In July 2013, Kaine was named chair of the United States Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Near East, South Asia, Central Asia and Counterterrorism.\n\nWithin the Senate Armed Services Committee, Kaine is a member of the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities, the Subcommittee on Readiness and Management Support (of which he is the ranking member), and the Subcommittee on Seapower.\n\nWithin the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, Kaine is a member of the Subcommittee on State Department and USAID Management, International Operations, and Bilateral International Development (of which he is the ranking member), the Subcommittee on Europe and Regional Security Cooperation, the Subcommittee on Near East, South Asia, Central Asia, and Counterterrorism, and the Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere, Transnational Crime, Civilian Security, Democracy, Human Rights and Global Women's Issues.\n\nIn January 2014, Kaine and Senator Rob Portman established the bipartisan Senate Career and Technical Education Caucus (CTE Caucus), which focuses on vocational education and technical education. Kaine and Portman co-chair the caucus. In 2014, Kaine and Portman introduced the CTE Excellence and Equity Act to the Senate; the legislation would provide $500 million in federal funding, distributed by competitive grants, to high schools to further CTE programs. The legislation, introduced as an amendment to the omnibus Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act of 2006, would promote apprenticeships and similar initiatives. Kaine and Portman introduced similar legislation, the Educating Tomorrow's Workforce Act, in 2017.\n\n2016 vice-presidential campaign \n\nKaine endorsed Hillary Clinton for president in 2016 and campaigned actively for her in seven states during the primaries. He had been the subject of considerable speculation as a possible running mate for Clinton, with several news reports indicating that he was at or near the top of Clinton's list of people under consideration alongside figures such as Elizabeth Warren and Julian Castro.\n\nThe New York Times reported that Clinton's husband, former president Bill Clinton, supported Kaine as his wife's vice-presidential selection, noting his domestic and national security résumé. On July 22, 2016, she announced Kaine would be her running mate in the election. Clinton introduced Kaine as her choice in a joint appearance at a rally at Florida International University in Miami the next day. The 2016 Democratic National Convention nominated him for vice president on July 27, 2016.\n\nKaine was the first Virginian since Woodrow Wilson to be on a major-party ticket, and was the first Virginian to run for vice president on a major-party ticket since John Tyler in 1840; he was also the first senator or former senator from Virginia to be on a major-party ticket since Tyler.\n\nIn accordance with longstanding political custom in the U.S., upon being nominated for vice president Kaine publicly released his full tax returns for the previous ten years. He also publicly released medical records; his physician, Brian P. Monahan, the Attending Physician of the United States Congress, wrote that Kaine was \"in overall excellent health.\" In September Kaine published a campaign book co-authored with Clinton, Stronger Together.\n\nIn Kaine's preparations for the vice presidential debate in October 2016, lawyer Robert Barnett played the role of Republican vice-presidential nominee Mike Pence. (During Pence's own debate preparations, Wisconsin governor Scott Walker played the role of Kaine.) Pence was criticized after the debate for not defending Trump's comments, while Kaine was criticized for being too aggressive and interrupting. According to ABC News, Kaine interrupted 70 times during the debate, while Pence interrupted 40 times.\n\nDespite winning a plurality of the national popular vote, the Clinton-Kaine ticket lost the Electoral College, and thus the election, to the Trump-Pence ticket on November 8, 2016. This is the only election Kaine has ever lost. Clinton-Kaine did win Virginia, the only Southern state to vote for the Democratic ticket, a victory attributed in part to Kaine.\n\n2018 election\n\nAfter the 2016 election, Kaine said he would run for reelection to the Senate in 2018. He expressed his desire to emulate John Warner, who represented Virginia in the Senate for 30 years. He added that he would not run for president or vice president in the future.\n\nIn his 2018 Senate campaign against Republican nominee and Trump ally Corey Stewart, Kaine had the endorsement of The Richmond Times-Dispatch, marking the first time in decades the paper had endorsed a Democrat.\n\nAfter taking an early lead in his race against Stewart, Kaine worked to support other Democrats who, in seven districts, were challenging incumbent Republicans for House seats. Kaine defeated Stewart by more than 15 points.\n\nPersonality and leadership style\nAbout 145,000 emails from Kaine and his staff during his term as governor are publicly accessible at the Library of Virginia. Politico conducted an analysis of the correspondence and wrote that the messages show Kaine to be a \"media-savvy\" and detail-oriented \"micro-manager\" who is also a policy \"wonk\".\n\nAccording to The New York Times, Kaine \"is widely described by people in his political orbit as a likable if less than charismatic figure...guided by moral convictions that flow from his deep Christian faith.\" On Meet the Press, Kaine called himself \"boring.\"\n\nPolitical positions\nIn terms of political ideology, FiveThirtyEight gives Kaine an average score of −37 (−100 is the most liberal, and 100 is the most conservative). FiveThirtyEight characterizes him as a \"mainstream Democrat\" and notes that his ideology score is very similar to that of Joe Biden. Three conservative groups—the American Conservative Union, the Club for Growth, and Heritage Action—gave Kaine 0% ratings in the few years before 2016, while the liberal group Americans for Democratic Action gave Kaine a 90% rating in 2014. The New York Times wrote that \"in hyperpartisan Washington, he is often seen as a centrist\" while also describing him as an \"old-fashioned liberal...driven by Jesuit ideals.\"\n\nAbortion, birth control, and sex education\nKaine, a Roman Catholic, personally opposes abortion, but is \"largely inclined to keep the law out of women's reproductive decisions.\" He has said, \"I'm a strong supporter of Roe v. Wade and women being able to make these decisions. In government, we have enough things to worry about. We don't need to make people's reproductive decisions for them.\" Kaine supports some legal restrictions on abortion, such as requiring parental consent for minors (with a judicial bypass procedure) and banning late-term abortions in cases where the woman's life is not at risk.\n\nIn 2009, Kaine signed a bill to create a \"Choose Life\" license plate, among the more than 200 Virginia specialty plates already offered, the proceeds of which would partly go to Heartbeat International, a Christian organization that operates anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers. Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice America expressed disappointment in Kaine's decision. Kaine considered such license plate messages a matter of free speech and added that the move was \"in keeping with the commonwealth's longtime practice of approving specialty plates with all manner of political and social messages.\"\n\nKaine previously criticized the Obama administration for \"not providing a 'broad enough religious employer exemption'\" in the contraceptive mandate of the Affordable Care Act, but praised a 2012 amendment to the regulations that required insurers to provide birth control to employees when an employer was an objecting religious organization.\n\nIn 2005, when running for governor, Kaine said he favored reducing abortions by \"Enforcing the current Virginia restrictions on abortion and passing an enforceable ban on partial birth abortion that protects the life and health of the mother\"; \"Fighting teen pregnancy through abstinence-focused education\"; \"Ensuring women's access to health care (including legal contraception) and economic opportunity\"; and \"Promoting adoption as an alternative for women facing unwanted pregnancies.\"\n\nIn 2007, as governor, Kaine cut off state funding for abstinence-only sex education programs, citing studies that showed such programs were ineffective, while comprehensive sex education programs were more effective. Kaine believes that both abstinence and contraceptives must be taught, and that education should be evidence-based.\n\nAs a senator, Kaine has received perfect scores from Planned Parenthood and the abortion-rights advocacy group NARAL. He has received a score of zero from the anti-abortion National Right to Life Committee.\n\nCampaign finance \nKaine \"strongly disagrees\" with Citizens United v. FEC (2010). In 2015, Kaine joined a group of Senate Democrats in a letter to Securities and Exchange Commission Chairwoman Mary Jo White that said the ruling \"reversed long-standing precedent and has moved our country in a different and disturbing direction when it comes to corporate influence in politics.\" They urged the SEC to require publicly traded companies to disclose political spending to their shareholders to \"increase transparency in the U.S. political process\".\n\nCapital punishment\nKaine personally opposes capital punishment, but presided over 11 executions while governor. He said, \"I really struggled with [capital punishment] as governor. I have a moral position against the death penalty. But I took an oath of office to uphold it. Following an oath of office is also a moral obligation.\" During his time in office he commuted one death sentence in June 2008, that of Percy Levar Walton, to life imprisonment without parole on grounds of mental incompetence, writing that \"one cannot reasonably conclude that Walton is fully aware of the punishment he is about to suffer and why he is to suffer it\" and thus that executing him would be unconstitutional. Kaine vetoed a number of bills to expand the death sentence to more crimes, saying: \"I do not believe that further expansion of the death penalty is necessary to protect human life or provide for public safety needs.\" Some of the vetoes were overridden.\n\nOn July 31, 2019, after Attorney General William Barr announced that the United States federal government would resume the use of the death penalty for the first time in over 20 years, Kaine co-sponsored a bill banning the death penalty.\n\nEnvironment, energy, and climate change \nKaine acknowledges the scientific consensus on climate change, and in a 2014 Senate speech criticized climate change deniers, as well as those who \"may not deny the climate science, but ... deny that the U.S. can or should be a leader in taking any steps\" to address the issue.\n\nKaine has expressed concern about sea level rise (a major consequence of climate change), and in particular its effect on coastal Virginia. In 2014, he partnered with two Virginia Republicans—U.S. Representatives Rob Wittman and Scott Rigell—to hold a conference on sea-level rise and \"local adaptation efforts to protect military installations in the Hampton Roads area.\"\n\nKaine endorses making coal energy production cleaner, saying that it is imperative \"to convert coal to electricity with less pollution than we do today.\" He has criticized those who \"frame the debate as a conflict between an economy and the environment\", saying that \"protecting the environment is good for the economy.\" Kaine co-sponsored the Advanced Clean Coal Technology Investment in Our Nation (ACCTION) Act, legislation to increase investment in clean coal technologies. He voted against legislation to approve the Keystone XL pipeline. Kaine supports the use of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) to harvest natural gas from shale formations. He believes this will reduce carbon pollution. Kaine voted against an amendment introduced by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand that would have repealed a provision in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 that exempts fracking from the underground injection control provisions of the Safe Drinking Water Act. As a result, regulation of fracking remains in the hands of state agencies; the EPA cannot regulate it or require a federal permit. Kaine supports exporting liquefied natural gas (LNG) to other countries.\n\nLike his fellow senator from Virginia, Mark Warner, Kaine applauded the U.S. Forest Service's plan to close most, but not all, of the George Washington National Forest to fracking and other horizontal drilling activities.\n\nIn 2013, Kaine supported oil and gas exploration off the coast of Virginia, saying, \"I have long believed that the moratorium on offshore drilling, based on a cost-benefit calculation performed decades ago, should be reexamined.\" In April 2015, Kaine reiterated his opposition to the moratorium on offshore drilling. In March 2016, Kaine signaled that his position was softening, saying he was \"particularly struck by the material objections of the Department of Defense to the incompatibility of drilling with naval operations off Virginia's coast... I have participated in this debate for over a decade as a governor and member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. The DOD has been relatively quiet during this public debate and has never shared their objections with me before.\" By August 2016, Kaine stated his support for a ban on offshore drilling, bringing his position in line with Hillary Clinton's and the Obama administration's.\n\nKaine supports the development of solar energy and offshore wind turbines. Based on his votes on environmental issues in the Senate, the League of Conservation Voters has given Kaine a 95% score for 2018, and a 94% lifetime score. (At the time of his vice-presidential campaign, Kaine had an 88% score for 2015, and a 91% lifetime score.)\n\nIn March 2019, Kaine was one of 11 senators to sponsor the Climate Security Act of 2019, legislation forming a new group within the State Department that would be responsible for developing strategies to integrate climate science and data into operations of national security as well as restoring the post of special envoy for the Arctic, which Trump had dismantled in 2017. The proposed envoy would advise the president and the administration on the potential effects of climate on national security and be responsible for facilitating all interagency communication between federal science and security agencies.\n\nIn April 2019, Kaine was one of 12 senators to sign a bipartisan letter to top senators on the Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development advocating that the Energy Department be granted maximum funding for carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS), arguing that American job growth could be stimulated by investment in viable options to capture carbon emissions released into the atmosphere and expressing disagreement with the Trump's 2020 budget request to combine the two federal programs that include carbon capture research.\n\nFinancial regulation \nKaine strongly supports financial regulation and the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. In July 2016, he signed a bipartisan letter that \"urged the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to 'carefully tailor its rulemaking' [under Dodd-Frank] regarding community banks and credit unions so as not to 'unduly burden' these institutions with regulations aimed at commercial banks.\" The letter prompted criticism from progressives who viewed it as anti-regulation. Democracy for America executive director Charles Chamberlain called the letter \"a lobbyist-driven effort to help banks dodge consumer protection standards and regulations designed to prevent banks from destroying our economy.\" Kaine responded, \"it's important you don't treat every financial institution the same. It wasn't credit unions that tanked the economy, it wasn't local community banks that tanked the economy, generally wasn't regional banks that did things that tanked the economy.\" He also signed a letter urging that a requirement that regional banks report liquidity levels on a daily basis be loosened.\n\nForeign and defense policy \nIn the Senate, Kaine has supported the normalization of U.S.–Cuban relations and the international nuclear agreement with Iran.\n\nKaine expressed support for Israel's right to defend itself during the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict. In September 2016, in advance of a UN Security Council resolution 2334 condemning Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, he signed an AIPAC-sponsored letter urging Obama to veto \"one-sided\" resolutions against Israel.\n\nIn 2015, Kaine expressed support for the Saudi-led coalition's airstrikes in Yemen against Houthi forces fighting the government of President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, but in 2018, he was one of seven senators to sign a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo saying that they found it \"difficult to reconcile known facts with at least two\" of the Trump administration's certifications that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were attempting to protect Yemeni civilians and were in compliance with U.S. laws on arms sales, citing an inconsistency with a memo from Pompeo to Congress expressly stating that on some occasions the Saudi and Emirates governments had failed to adopt measures to reduce civilian casualties. Kaine also condemned the Trump administration for its \"eagerness to give the Saudis anything they want\" after the administration approved the transfer of nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia after the murder of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi.\n\nIn July 2017, Kaine voted for the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act that placed sanctions on Iran, Russia, and North Korea.\n\nIn 2019, Kaine was one of 34 Senate Democrats to sign a letter to Trump urging him to reconsider cuts to U.S. foreign aid to the Northern Triangle countries of Central America in the Fiscal Year 2018 national security appropriations bill. The letter said that Trump had \"consistently expressed a flawed understanding of U.S. foreign assistance\", viewing it as a gift or charity to foreign governments rather than a tool to promote American interests and collective security. The senators wrote that U.S. foreign assistance to Central American countries, by improving stability and alleviating poverty in the region, reduced Central American migration flows to the U.S.\n\nIn 2019, Kaine co-sponsored the South China Sea and East China Sea Sanctions Act, a bipartisan bill reintroduced by Marco Rubio and Ben Cardin that was intended to disrupt China's consolidation or expansion of its claims of jurisdiction over both the sea and airspace in disputed zones in the South China Sea.\n\nGrand strategy and democracy promotion \nAfter the 2016 presidential campaign, Kaine wrote an extensive essay in Foreign Affairs outlining his underlying foreign policy philosophy. According to Kaine, American foreign policy has suffered a lack of direction since the 1990s because the end of the Cold War rendered irrelevant America's previous grand strategy, which he identifies as the Truman Doctrine. This lack of grand strategy makes American actions seem random, complicating the policy-making process and hindering American leaders' efforts to convince the public that American foreign policy is worthwhile. To remedy this, Kaine proposed a new grand strategy based mainly on democracy promotion. His grand strategy is informed by a tri-polar balance of international power, with one pole being democratic states including the U.S. and its allies, the second autocratic powers led by Russia and China, and the third nonstate actors (multinational corporations, NGOs, gangs, etc.).\n\nFirst, Kaine believes that the United States should work to support democracy in already democratic countries, as democracy globally has been declining for many years. To maintain democracy in democratic countries, Kaine proposes the creation of an intergovernmental organization consisting of all the world's democracies in which states can cooperate on solutions to problems such as corruption and voter inclusion. He compares this hypothetical group to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, in which advanced industrialized countries collaborate on economic policy. Kaine believes that this new organization will help democracies remain democratic, as well as promote democracy in other countries by giving them viable democratic examples to emulate. In this way, Kaine says that the U.S. should no longer see itself as the indispensable nation, but rather the \"exemplary democracy\".\n\nSecond, Kaine proposes that democracies should coordinate to best interact with authoritarian states. Depending on the circumstances, democracies should either \"confront\", \"compete\", or \"cooperate\" with autocracies. For example, Kaine observes that the U.S. competes with its authoritarian adversaries by strengthening military and commercial alliances, and confronts them by decrying their human rights records.\n\nFinally, Kaine believes that democracies and autocracies should cooperate when they have the same interests, such as combating climate change.\n\nIn July 2017, Kaine expanded on the grand strategy proposed in this essay in an interview at the Brookings Institution with international relations scholar Robert Kagan.\n\nAfghanistan\nKaine's website states, \"The main mission in Afghanistan—destroying Al Qaeda—is nearly complete and we should bring our troops home as quickly as we can, consistent with the need to make sure that Afghanistan poses no danger in the broader region.\"\n\nLatin America \nKaine believes that American foreign policy has neglected relations with Latin America and argues for an increased focus on the Americas, saying, \"We have seldom paid enough attention to the Americas, in particular, and when we have—whether through the Monroe Doctrine or by battling communist movements during the Cold War—we have focused more on blocking outsiders from building influence in the Western Hemisphere than we have on the nations already there.\"\n\nWar powers \nKaine is known for \"expertise on the constitutional powers of the presidency\" and has said that \"war powers questions\" are a \"personal obsession\" of his. He has stressed that under the Constitution, \"Congress has the power to declare war—and only Congress.\" Kaine called the 2018 U.S. missile strikes Trump ordered against the Syrian government illegal because they were undertaken without congressional approval.\n\nKaine and Senator John McCain introduced the War Powers Consultation Act of 2014, which would replace the War Powers Act of 1973, bringing Congress back into decisions on the deployment of U.S. military forces. The bill would establish a Congressional Consultation Committee, with which the president would be required to consult regularly regarding significant foreign policy matters before ordering the deployment of the armed forces into a significant armed conflict and at least every two months for the duration of any significant armed conflict. Kaine argued for the bill by citing his \"frustration\" over the sloppiness of \"process and communication over decisions of war\", noting that \"presidents tend to overreach and Congress sometimes willingly ducks tough votes and decisions. We all have to do better.\"\n\nIn February 2018, Kaine was one of 18 senators to sign a letter to Trump arguing that striking North Korea with \"a preventative or preemptive U.S. military strike would lack either a constitutional basis or legal authority\" without congressional approval.\n\nIn January 2020, Kaine introduced a new war powers resolution that would prohibit the U.S. from entering hostilities against Iran within 30 days unless it was responding to an imminent threat. The next month, the measure passed the Senate 55–45, securing the votes of eight Republicans along with the Democrats. Trump vetoed the measure, and the Senate failed to override the veto.\n\nSyria, Iraq, and ISIL \nIn 2014, Kaine argued that the U.S. military intervention against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) undertaken by Obama was unconstitutional without a new congressional authorization for the use of military force against ISIL. In November 2014, at the Halifax International Security Forum, Kaine and McCain emphasized the necessity of such a congressional authorization, saying: \"You just can't have a war without Congress. You can't ask people to risk their lives, risk getting killed, seeing other folks getting killed or injured if Congress isn't willing to do the job to put their thumbprint on this and say, this is a national mission and worth it.\" After the April 2017 Shayrat missile strike in Syria, ordered by Trump, Kaine said, \"There is no legal justification for this. He should not have done this without coming to Congress.\" On Meet the Press, Kaine said, \"I'm a strong supporter that the U.S. should take action to protect humanitarian causes, like the ban on chemical weapons. Where I differ from this administration, and I took the same position with respect to President Obama, we are a nation that's not supposed to take military action, start war, without a plan that's presented to and approved by Congress.\"\n\nOn December 11, 2014, after a five-month campaign by Kaine, the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved by 10–8 (along party lines) a measure authorizing military force against ISIL but barring the use of ground troops. In October 2015, Kaine criticized Obama's approach to the Syrian Civil War, saying that the establishment of humanitarian no-fly zones would have alleviated the humanitarian crisis in Syria.\n\nIn April 2018, Kaine criticized Trump for authorizing the launch of a precision military strike on Syria without consulting Congress, calling the strike an \"illegal military act\".\n\nOn February 26, 2021, Kaine demanded answers from President Biden after he ordered airstrikes on Syria against Iran-backed militias without giving \"legal justification\" to members of Congress beforehand.\n\nFirearms\nKaine is a firearms owner. He has supported expanded background checks for weapons purchases as well as \"restrictions on the sale of combat-style weapons and high-capacity magazines.\" As governor, Kaine oversaw the closing of loopholes in Virginia law that allowed some who had failed background checks to purchase guns. In the Senate, he has supported legislation that would require background checks for weapons sold via gun shows and via the internet. He also supports legislation to bar weapons sales to suspected terrorists on the No Fly List.\n\nIn November 2017, Kaine was a cosponsor of the Military Domestic Violence Reporting Enhancement Act, a bill that would form a charge of domestic violence under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) and stipulate that convictions be reported to federal databases with the authority to keep abusers from purchasing firearms within three days in an attempt to close a loophole in the UCMJ through which convicted abusers retained the ability to purchase firearms.\n\nIn March 2018, Kaine was one of ten senators to sign a letter to Chairman of the United States Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Lamar Alexander and ranking Democrat Patty Murray requesting they schedule a hearing on the causes and remedies of mass shootings in the wake of the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting.\n\nIn June 2019, Kaine was one of four senators to cosponsor the Help Empower Americans to Respond (HEAR) Act, legislation that would ban suppressors being imported, sold, made, sent elsewhere or possessed and grant a silencer buyback program as well as include certain exceptions for current and former law enforcement personnel and others. The bill was intended to respond to the Virginia Beach shooting, in which the perpetrator used a .45-caliber handgun with multiple extended magazines and a suppressor.\n\nKaine has a 100% rating from the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and an \"F\" rating from the NRA.\n\nHealth care\nKaine supports the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2009 (Obamacare), saying in 2012, \"I was a supporter and remain a supporter of the Affordable Care Act. I felt like it was a statement that we were going to put some things in the rearview mirror.\" In 2013, he said that he agreed that changes to the ACA should be debated, but criticized Republicans for \"wrapping them up with the threat\" of a federal government shutdown.\n\nIn 2018, Kaine and Senator Michael Bennet proposed the creation of \"Medicare X\"—a public health insurance option modeled after Medicare that would be available on ACA health insurance marketplaces along with private options. The proposal is a more incrementalist alternative to Bernie Sanders's push for \"Medicare for All\" (single-payer health care).\n\nIn December 2018, Kaine was one of 42 senators to sign a letter to Trump administration officials Alex Azar, Seema Verma, and Steve Mnuchin arguing that the administration was improperly using Section 1332 of the ACA to authorize states to \"increase health care costs for millions of consumers while weakening protections for individuals with pre-existing conditions.\" The senators requested the administration withdraw the policy and \"re-engage with stakeholders, states, and Congress.\"\n\nIn January 2019, Kaine was one of six Democratic senators to introduce the American Miners Act of 2019, a bill that would amend the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 to swap funds in excess of the amounts needed to meet existing obligations under the Abandoned Mine Land fund to the 1974 Pension Plan as part of an effort to prevent its insolvency as a result of coal company bankruptcies and the 2008 financial crisis. It also increased the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund tax and ensured that miners affected by the 2018 coal company bankruptcies would not lose their health care.\n\nIn December 2016, Kaine was one of 17 senators to sign a letter to Trump asking him to fulfill a campaign pledge to bring down the cost of prescription drugs. In February 2017, he and 30 other senators signed a letter to Kaléo Pharmaceuticals in response to the opioid-overdose-reversing device Evzio rising in price from $690 in 2014 to $4,500 and requested the company provide the detailed price structure for Evzio, the number of devices Kaléo Pharmaceuticals set aside for donation, and the totality of federal reimbursements Evzio received in the previous year. In February 2019, Kaine was one of 11 senators to sign a letter to insulin manufacturers Eli Lilly and Company, Novo Nordisk, and Sanofi about increased insulin prices and charging that the price increases caused patients to lack \"access to the life-saving medications they need.\"\n\nIn August 2019, Kaine was one of 19 Democratic senators to sign a letter to Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar requesting data from the Trump administration on the consequences for healthcare if Texas prevailed in its lawsuit seeking to gut the Affordable Care Act. The senators wrote, \"Upending the current health care system will create an enormous hole in the pocketbooks of the people we serve as well as wreck state budgets; therefore, we ask for data to help states and Congress better understand the potential consequences of the position the Administration is taking in court.\"\n\nIn September 2019, amid discussions to prevent a government shutdown, Kaine was one of six Democratic senators to sign a letter to congressional leadership advocating legislation that would permanently fund health care and pension benefits for retired coal miners as \"families in Virginia, West Virginia, Wyoming, Alabama, Colorado, North Dakota and New Mexico\" would start to receive notifications of health care termination by the end of the following month.\n\nImmigration\nKaine supports the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Deferred Action for Parental Accountability (DAPA) programs, which allow up to five million undocumented immigrants to gain deferral of deportation and authorization to legally work in the United States. Alongside Senator Mark Warner and many other members of Congress, he signed on to an amicus brief in support of the program in the Supreme Court case United States v. Texas.\n\nKaine also supports comprehensive immigration reform, which would allow persons illegally present in the U.S. to earn legal status by paying a fine and taxes.\n\nIn July 2019, following reports that the Trump administration intended to end protections of spouses, parents and children of active-duty service members from deportation, Kaine was one of 22 senators to sign a letter led by Tammy Duckworth arguing that the program allowed service members the ability \"to fight for the United States overseas and not worry that their spouse, children, or parents will be deported while they are away\" and that the its termination would cause personal hardship for service members in combat.\n\nIn July 2019, Kaine and 15 other Senate Democrats introduced the Protecting Sensitive Locations Act, a bill to mandate that ICE agents get approval from a supervisor before undertaking an immigration raid or other enforcement actions at \"sensitive locations\" (schools, hospitals, places of worship, and courthouses) except in special circumstances. The bill would also require agents to receive annual training and require ICE to submit an annual report on enforcement actions in those locations.\n\nLGBT rights\nIn 2006, Kaine campaigned against an amendment to the Virginia State Constitution to ban same-sex marriage, and in March 2013, he announced his support of same-sex marriage.\n\nIn the Senate, Kaine co-sponsored the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which would bar employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.\n\nIn 2005, Kaine said, \"No couples in Virginia can adopt other than a married couple. That's the right policy.\" In 2011, he shifted his position. In 2012, he said, \"there should be a license that would entitle a committed couple to the same rights as a married couple.\"\n\nDuring the 2016 presidential campaign, Kaine noted that his position on same-sex marriage was \"at odds with the current doctrine of the church that I still attend.\" He predicted that the Roman Catholic Church would someday adopt his view. In response, two bishops heading the doctrine and marriage committees of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said that the church's position \"cannot change\" and reaffirmed their opposition to same-sex marriage.\n\nIn October 2018, Kaine was one of 20 senators to sign a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urging him to reverse the State Department's policy of denying visas to same-sex partners of LGBTQ diplomats who had unions that were not recognized by their home countries, writing that the Trump administration's refusal to allow LGBTQ diplomats to bring their partners to the U.S. was tantamount to upholding the \"discriminatory policies of many countries around the world.\" In June 2019, Kaine was one of 18 senators to sign a letter to Pompeo requesting an explanation of the State Department's decision not to issue an official statement that year commemorating Pride Month or issue the annual cable outlining activities for embassies commemorating Pride Month. The signatories to the letter also asked why the LGBTI special envoy position had remained vacant. The authors said that the State Department's moves had sent \"signals to the international community that the United States is abandoning the advancement of LGBTI rights as a foreign policy priority.\"\n\nTaxes\nKaine supports allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire for those with incomes above $500,000.\n\nIn 2012, Kaine supported raising the cap on income subject for the FICA (Social Security) payroll tax \"so that it covers a similar percentage of income as it did in the 1980s under President Reagan, which would greatly extend the solvency of the (Social Security) program.\"\n\nIn the Senate, Kaine has supported the Marketplace Fairness Act, which would allow states to require online retailers to collect sales taxes in the same manner as traditional brick-and-mortar retailers.\n\nTrade\nKaine supported granting Obama Trade Promotion Authority (TPA or \"fast track\") to allow him to negotiate free trade agreements. He said the goal should be to \"negotiate deals that protect workers' rights, environmental standards and intellectual property, while knocking down tariffs and other barriers that some countries erect to keep American products out.\"\n\nIn July 2016, Kaine said the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement was \"an improvement of the status quo\" and an \"upgrade of labor standards... environmental standards... intellectual property protections\", but maintained that he had not yet decided how to vote on final approval of the agreement, citing \"significant concerns\" over TPP's dispute resolution mechanism. Later that July, Kaine said that he could not support the TPP in its current form.\n\nKaine has been a proponent of NAFTA.\n\nTransportation, growth, and housing\nKaine supports some smart growth-style policies (which he calls \"a balanced approach to growth\") to control sprawl and improve transportation. He favors a transportation policy that includes public transit, bicycles, and pedestrians. As governor, Kaine pushed through a $100 million open-space acquisition initiative. Under Kaine, Amtrak service in Virginia was expanded. He also participated in a White House round-table discussion on high-speed rail in 2009.\n\nIn April 2019, Kaine was one of 41 senators to sign a bipartisan letter in support of U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Section 4 Capacity Building program, a program authorizing HUD to partner with nonprofit community development groups to provide support to community development corporations. The letter said that the longstanding program had successfully promoted economic and community development, opposed the proposed elimination of the plan in Trump's budget proposal for Fiscal Year 2020, and urged the Senate to support continued funding for Section 4 in Fiscal Year 2020.\n\nWorkers' rights and gender equality\nKaine is \"generally pro-union\" and has received a 96% lifetime Senate voting rating from the AFL-CIO, which praised his selection as Clinton's running mate. But Kaine supports Virginia's longstanding \"right-to-work\" law, which \"frees union nonmembers from any legal obligation to pay fees to a union that bargains collectively on their behalf\".\n\nKaine supports the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which expands the cases in which worker can sue against gender pay discrimination. After Clinton selected him as her running mate in 2016, Kaine was praised by the National Organization for Women.\n\nKaine favors an increase in the minimum wage.\n\nElectoral history\n2001 lieutenant gubernatorial election\n\n2005 gubernatorial election\n\n2012 U.S. Senate election\n\n2016 vice presidential election\n\n2018 U.S. Senate election\n\nPersonal life\n\nIn November 1984, Kaine married Anne Bright Holton, the daughter of A. Linwood Holton Jr., a Republican who served as the 61st governor of Virginia from 1970 to 1974. The couple met while they were both students at Harvard Law School. Holton has been a judge for the Virginia Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court in Richmond. After serving as first lady of Virginia during her husband's term, she was appointed by Governor Terry McAuliffe in January 2014 to be Virginia's secretary of education, and held that position until July 2016, when she stepped down after her husband was named as the Democratic vice-presidential nominee. The couple has three children, one of whom is a United States Marine. As of 2016, Kaine and his wife had been congregants of the St. Elizabeth Catholic Church in Richmond, a mostly black congregation, for 30 years.\n\nKaine plays the harmonica and often travels with several.\n\nKaine is fluent in Spanish as a result of his nine months in Honduras. During the 2016 campaign, he became the first member of a presidential ticket to deliver a speech in Spanish.\n\nOn May 28, 2020, Kaine announced that he and his wife had tested positive for COVID-19 antibodies.\n\nAwards and honors\nKaine has received the Humanitarian Award from the Virginia Center for Inclusive Communities, then the Virginia Region of the National Conference for Community and Justice (2000), the Virginia Council of Churches' Faith in Action Award (2009), the University of Richmond School of Law's William Green Award for Professional Excellence (2012), the Award for Public Service in the Americas from the Inter-American Dialogue (2014), the Appalachian Trail Conservancy's Congressional Award (2015), and the Center for the National Interest's Distinguished Service Award (2016). He was made a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Isabella the Catholic in 2017.\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n\nFurther reading\nGovernor\nKaine's Governor website (Archived)\nKaine's Lieutenant governor website (Archived)\n2005 campaign contributions at the Virginia Public Access Project\nMoving Virginia Forward Archived Web Site, 2007 part of Virginia's Political Landscape, 2007 Web Archive Collection at Virginia Memory\nMoving Virginia Forward Archived Web Site, 2009 part of Virginia's Political Landscape, 2009 Web Archive Collection at Virginia Memory\nTim Kaine for Governor Archived Web Site, 2005–2006 part of Virginia's Political Landscape, Fall 2005 Web Archive Collection at Virginia Memory\nGovernor Tim Kaine Administration Web Site Archive, 2006–2010\nKaine Email Project at the Library of Virginia\n\nExternal links\n\nU.S. Senate website\nCampaign website\n\n|-\n\n|-\n\n|-\n\n|-\n\n|-\n\n|-\n\n|-\n\n|-\n\n|-\n\n|-\n\n|-\n\n \n1958 births\n20th-century American lawyers\n20th-century American politicians\n20th-century Roman Catholics\n21st-century American lawyers\n21st-century American politicians\n21st-century Roman Catholics\nAmerican civil rights lawyers\nAmerican legal scholars\nAmerican people of Irish descent\nAmerican people of Scottish descent\nAmerican Roman Catholic missionaries\nCatholics from Missouri\nCatholics from Minnesota\nCatholics from Virginia\nDemocratic National Committee chairs\nDemocratic Party state governors of the United States\nDemocratic Party United States senators from Virginia\nDemocratic Party (United States) vice presidential nominees\nGovernors of Virginia\nHarvard Law School alumni\nHillary Clinton 2016 presidential campaign\nLawyers from Kansas City, Missouri\nLieutenant Governors of Virginia\nLiving people\nMark Warner\nMayors of Richmond, Virginia\nPoliticians from Kansas City, Missouri\nPoliticians from Saint Paul, Minnesota\nKnights Grand Cross of the Order of Isabella the Catholic\nRichmond, Virginia City Council members\nRoman Catholic missionaries in Honduras\nUnited States senators from Virginia\n2016 United States vice-presidential candidates\nUniversity of Missouri alumni\nUniversity of Richmond faculty\nVirginia Democrats\nVirginia lawyers",
"Anne Bright Holton (born February 1, 1958) is an American lawyer and judge who served as the Secretary of Education for the Commonwealth of Virginia from 2014 to 2016. She is married to United States Senator and former Virginia Governor Tim Kaine, the vice presidential running mate of Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election.\n\nHolton served as First Lady of Virginia from 2006 to 2010. She served as interim president of George Mason University from 2019 to 2020.\n\nEarly life\nBorn in Roanoke, Virginia, Holton is the daughter of Virginia Harrison \"Jinks\" (Rogers) and Linwood Holton, a lawyer and Republican Party politician. Her paternal grandfather was an executive at a small coal-hauling railroad. As a child, Holton started a club dedicated to service and good deeds. In 1969, her father was elected as governor of Virginia, serving from 1970 to 1974.\n\nWhen her father became governor, he first enrolled Holton in a prestigious grade school. In response to a federal court decision desegregating Richmond Public Schools, she and her siblings attended predominantly black schools, including Mosby Middle School, near the Virginia Executive Mansion. Holton attended Open High School, and graduated from Langley High School in 1976.\n\nOne of Holton's brothers is Woody Holton, a professor of history at the University of South Carolina.\n\nEducation, marriage and children\n\nHolton graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University with a degree from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs in 1980. At Princeton, Holton was a member of Colonial Club.\n\nHolton then attended Harvard Law School, where she met her future husband, Tim Kaine. The future couple met as students in a legal assistance program focusing on prisoners' civil rights. While a law student, Holton also served on the Mental Health Legal Advisors Committee. Both Holton and Kaine earned their law degrees from Harvard in 1983.\n\nThey married in November 1984 at a Roman Catholic church in Richmond. Holton decided to keep her maiden name, a decision Kaine supported. They moved to the North Side neighborhood of Richmond, where they have lived ever since. The couple has three children: Nat (b. 1990), Woody (b. 1992), and Annella (b. 1995).\n\nCareer\n\nLaw clerk and legal aid attorney\nFollowing graduation from law school, Holton served as a law clerk for Judge Robert R. Merhige Jr. of the Richmond-based United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. From 1985 to 1998, she worked as an attorney for the Central Virginia Legal Aid Society, where she helped create an award-winning volunteer lawyers' program in Richmond.\n\nJudge\nIn the mid-1990s, Holton occasionally served as a substitute judge for the Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court for the City of Richmond. When the court expanded to a fifth permanent judgeship, Holton applied for the post and was appointed. Holton was sworn in as a judge on June 30, 1998, one day before Kaine was sworn in as mayor. Holton served as chief judge of the court.\n\nHolton administered the oath of office at her husband's inauguration as Lieutenant Governor of Virginia in 2002. Holton was not allowed to participate in her husband's campaign for governor in 2005 because of her position as a judge. Holton resigned from the bench following her husband's election as governor in 2005.\n\nEducation Secretary of Virginia\nAfter Kaine's term as governor ended, Holton served as director of the Great Expectations program, an initiative that helped foster children attend schools in the Virginia Community College System. In 2014, Virginia governor-elect Terry McAuliffe appointed Holton to be the state's Education Secretary.\n\nAs Education Secretary, Holton wrote in 2015 that high-stakes testing in Virginia resulted in \"teaching to the test\" and made it difficult to attract good teachers to low-income schools. Holton supported increases in teacher pay and changes to the state's high school curriculum. She said she supported increased professional development for teachers. She also indicated her support for McAuliffe's 2016 legislative proposals to change high school graduation requirements and focus on early college courses and industry credentials. Holton resigned as Education Secretary on July 25, 2016, in order to focus on her husband's campaign for vice president. \n\nIn February 2017, Governor McAuliffe appointed Holton to the Virginia State Board of Education.\nAs a member of the Board of Education, Holton stated that she was in favor of charter schools along with other forms of education innovation, positing that strong charter school proposals help provide children with a pathway to life success. Holton also stated that Virginia's tradition of charter schools requiring approval by local school boards, as enshrined in the Constitution of Virginia, has served Virginia well, encouraging charter school proposals to make their case to local school boards.\n\nVisiting professor at George Mason University\nIn May 2017, George Mason University announced that Holton would join the faculty as a visiting professor at the School of Public Policy and Management and at the College of Education and Human Development, and as a visiting Fellow at the Center for Education Policy and Evaluation.\n\nInterim President of George Mason University \nIn June 2019, George Mason University announced that Holton would serve as the interim President of George Mason University beginning August 1, 2019. She remained in that role until Gregory Washington took office on July 1, 2020.\n\nFirst Lady of Virginia\nFollowing Thomas Jefferson's daughter, Martha Jefferson Randolph, Holton was the second daughter of a Virginia Governor to become First Lady of Virginia. Holton was the only person to live in the Virginia Governor's Mansion as a child and as an adult.\n\nAs First Lady, she launched the \"For Keeps: Families for all Virginia Teens\" initiative in January 2007. The initiative focused on finding stable families willing to take in Virginia children in foster care, especially older or difficult-to-place children. In doing so she said was motivated by an urge to fix some of the problems she had witnessed in the foster care system during her stint as a judge in the juvenile court.\n\nDuring the 2008 presidential election, her husband was an early endorser of Barack Obama and Holton headed the state's Women for Obama group.\n\nRole during the 2016 presidential campaign\n\nIn 2016, Democratic Party presidential nominee Hillary Clinton selected Holton's husband Tim Kaine to serve as her running-mate. Following her husband's selection as Clinton's running mate, Holton began traveling the country campaigning for the 2016 Democratic ticket. Immediately after the 2016 Democratic National Convention, Holton joined Clinton and Kaine on a bus trip through Pennsylvania and Ohio. She continued campaigning, sometimes appearing with her husband and sometimes alone, in several states. Holton discussed policy surrounding childcare and initiatives for small businesses when campaigning.\n\nDuring the campaign, there was speculation that if her husband were to become vice-president, Holton might fill the vacancy that would be left in Kaine's senate seat. Holton denied having any interest in the position, saying, in reference to the Vice President's role as President of the Senate, \"I will never let (my) husband be my boss\".\n\nCivic involvements and personal life\nHolton sits on numerous boards, including Voices of Virginia's Children, the Richmond Public Schools Education Foundation, and the advisory board of Youth-Nex, the University of Virginia Center to Promote Effective Youth Development at the Curry School of Education. She has also been active in school PTAs. Holton has received the Metropolitan Richmond Women's Bar Association's Women of Achievement Award (1995), the YWCA of Richmond's Outstanding Woman of the Year in Law award (2006), and the Annie E. Casey Foundation's Life Award of Distinction.\n\nHolton and Kaine are congregants of the St. Elizabeth Catholic Church in Richmond, a mostly African American congregation.\n\nHolton is a longtime clog dancer, taking up the hobby in high school.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n1958 births\nAmerican women judges\nFirst Ladies and Gentlemen of Virginia\nPresidents of George Mason University\nHarvard Law School alumni\nLiving people\nPoliticians from Richmond, Virginia\nPoliticians from Roanoke, Virginia\nSpouses of United States mayors\nState cabinet secretaries of Virginia\nPrinceton School of Public and International Affairs alumni\nVirginia state court judges\nVirginia Democrats\n21st-century American politicians\n21st-century American women politicians\nLawyers from Richmond, Virginia\nTim Kaine"
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"Tim Kaine",
"Legal career and Richmond City Council",
"Where did Kaine attend law school?",
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What year was he elected to city council?
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What year was Tim Kaine elected to city council?
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Tim Kaine
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After graduating from law school, Kaine was a law clerk for Judge R. Lanier Anderson III of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, in Macon, Georgia. Kaine then joined the Richmond law firm of Little, Parsley & Cluverius, P.C. In 1987, Kaine became a director with the law firm of Mezzullo & McCandlish, P.C. Kaine practiced law in Richmond for 17 years, specializing in fair housing law and representing clients discriminated against on the basis of race or disability. He was a board member of the Virginia chapter of Housing Opportunities Made Equal, which he represented in a landmark redlining discrimination lawsuit against Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. arising from the company's practices in Richmond. Kaine won a $100.5 million verdict in the case; the judgment was overturned on appeal, and Kaine and his colleagues negotiated a $17.5 million settlement. Kaine did regular pro bono work. In 1988, Kaine started teaching legal ethics as an adjunct professor at the University of Richmond School of Law. Kaine taught at the University of Richmond for six years, and his students included future Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring. He was a founding member of the Virginia Coalition to End Homelessness. Kaine had a largely apolitical childhood, but became interested in politics in part due to the influence of his wife's family and his experience attending Richmond city council meetings. In May 1994, Kaine was elected to the city council of the independent city of Richmond, from the City's 2nd District. He defeated incumbent city councilman Benjamin P. A. Warthen by 97 votes. Kaine spent four terms on the council, the latter two as mayor. CANNOTANSWER
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In May 1994,
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Timothy Michael Kaine (; born February 26, 1958) is an American lawyer and politician serving as the junior United States senator from Virginia since 2013. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 38th lieutenant governor of Virginia from 2002 to 2006 and 70th governor of Virginia from 2006 to 2010. Kaine was the Democratic nominee for vice president of the United States in the 2016 election as Hillary Clinton's running mate.
Born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, Kaine grew up in Overland Park, Kansas, graduated from the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri, and earned a Juris Doctor degree from Harvard Law School before entering private practice and becoming a lecturer at the University of Richmond School of Law. He was first elected to public office in 1994, when he won a seat on the Richmond City Council. He was elected mayor of Richmond in 1998 and held that position until being elected lieutenant governor of Virginia in 2001. Kaine was elected governor of Virginia in 2005 and held that office from 2006 to 2010. He chaired the Democratic National Committee from 2009 to 2011.
On July 22, 2016, Hillary Clinton introduced Kaine as her vice-presidential running mate. The 2016 Democratic National Convention nominated him on July 27. Despite winning a plurality of the national popular vote, the ClintonKaine ticket lost the Electoral College, and thus the election, to the Republican ticket of Donald Trump and Mike Pence on November 8, 2016. Kaine was reelected to a second Senate term in 2018, defeating Republican Corey Stewart.
Early life and education
Kaine was born at Saint Joseph's Hospital in St. Paul, Minnesota. He is the eldest of three sons born to Mary Kathleen (née Burns), a home economics teacher, and Albert Alexander Kaine, Jr., a welder and the owner of a small iron-working shop. He was raised Catholic. One of Kaine's great-grandparents was Scottish and the other seven were Irish. Kaine's family moved to Overland Park, Kansas, when Kaine was two years old, and he grew up in the Kansas City area. In 1976, he graduated from Rockhurst High School, a Jesuit all-boys preparatory school in Kansas City, Missouri. At Rockhurst, Kaine joined the debate team and was elected student body president.
Kaine received his Bachelor of Arts in economics from the University of Missouri in 1979, completing his degree in three years and graduating Omicron Delta Kappa and summa cum laude. He was a Coro Foundation fellow in Kansas City in 1978. He entered Harvard Law School in 1979, interrupting his law studies after his first year to work in Honduras for nine months from 1980 to 1981, helping Jesuit missionaries who ran a Catholic school in El Progreso. While running a vocational center that taught carpentry and welding, he also helped increase the school's enrollment by recruiting local villagers. Kaine is fluent in Spanish as a result of his time in Honduras.
After returning from Honduras, Kaine met his future wife, first-year Harvard Law student Anne Holton. He graduated from Harvard Law School with a J.D. degree in 1983. Kaine and Holton moved to Holton's hometown of Richmond, Virginia, after graduation, and Kaine was admitted to the Virginia bar in 1984.
Legal career and Richmond City Council
After graduating from law school, Kaine was a law clerk for Judge R. Lanier Anderson III of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, in Macon, Georgia. He then joined the Richmond law firm of Little, Parsley & Cluverius, P.C. In 1987, Kaine became a director of the law firm of Mezzullo & McCandlish, P.C. He practiced law in Richmond for 17 years, specializing in fair housing law and representing clients discriminated against on the basis of race or disability. He was a board member of the Virginia chapter of Housing Opportunities Made Equal, which he represented in a landmark redlining discrimination lawsuit against Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. arising from the company's practices in Richmond. Kaine won a $100.5 million verdict in the case; the judgment was overturned on appeal, and Kaine and his colleagues negotiated a $17.5 million settlement.
Kaine did regular pro bono work. In 1988, he started teaching legal ethics as an adjunct professor at the University of Richmond School of Law. Kaine taught at the University of Richmond for six years; his students included future Virginia attorney general Mark Herring. He was a founding member of the Virginia Coalition to End Homelessness.
Kaine had a largely apolitical childhood, but became interested in politics in part due to the influence of his wife's family and his experience attending Richmond city council meetings. In 1994, he was elected the 2nd district member of the city council of the independent city of Richmond, defeating incumbent city councilor Benjamin P.A. Warthen by less than 100 votes. He took his seat on July 1 and retained the position until September 10, 2001, when he resigned and William J. Pantele was appointed to succeed him. He defeated the incumbent city councilman Benjamin P.A. Warthen by 97 votes. Kaine spent four terms on the city council, the latter two as mayor of Richmond.
Mayor of Richmond (1998–2001)
On July 1, 1998, Kaine was elected mayor of Richmond, succeeding Larry Chavis. He was chosen by an 8 to 1 vote on the majority-black Richmond City Council, becoming the city's first white mayor in more than ten years, which was viewed as a surprise. Rudy McCollum, an African American city councilor also interested in the mayoralty, decided to back Kaine after a private meeting between the two, clearing the way for Kaine to win the election. Previous mayors had treated the role as primarily ceremonial, with the city manager effectively operating the city; Kaine treated it as a full-time job, taking a more hands-on role.
As mayor, Kaine used a sale-leaseback arrangement to obtain funds to renovate the historic Maggie L. Walker High School and reopen it in 2000 as a magnet governor's school, the Maggie L. Walker Governor's School for Government and International Studies, which "now serves the top students in Central Virginia". Three elementary schools and one middle school were also built in Richmond under Kaine. Along with Commonwealth's attorney David Hicks, U.S. attorney James Comey, and police chief Jerry Oliver, Kaine was a supporter of Project Exile, an initiative that shifted gun crimes to federal court, where defendants faced harsher sentences. Though controversial, the effort was effective and achieved widespread support; the city's homicide rate fell by 55% during Kaine's mayoralty. Kaine touted Project Exile during his 2001 campaign for lieutenant governor.
On several occasions, Kaine voted against tax increases, and supported a tax abatement program for renovated buildings, which was credited for a housing renovation boom in the city. Forbes magazine named Richmond one of "the 10 best cities in America to do business" during Kaine's term.
According to John Moeser, a professor emeritus of urban studies and planning at Virginia Commonwealth University and later a visiting fellow at the University of Richmond's Center for Civic Engagement, Mayor Kaine "was energetic, charismatic and, most important, spoke openly about his commitment to racial reconciliation in Richmond." The New York Times wrote that Kaine "was by all accounts instrumental in bridging the city's racial divide." In the early part of his term, Kaine issued an apology for the city's role in slavery; the apology was generally well received as "a genuine, heartfelt expression". In the latter part of his term, a contentious debate took place over the inclusion of a portrait of Confederate general Robert E. Lee in a set of historic murals to be placed on city floodwalls. Many African Americans were outraged that Lee would appear on city walls, while Southern heritage groups demanded that the picture remain. Kaine proposed a compromise in which Lee would appear as part of a series of murals that also included figures like Abraham Lincoln and Powhatan Beaty. His stance drew criticism from the NAACP; Kaine argued that placing Lee on the floodwall made sense in context, and that "Much of our history is not pleasant; you can't whitewash it." Kaine's proposal passed the council on a 6–3 vote.
During his mayoralty, Kaine drew criticism for spending $6,000 in public funds on buses to the Million Mom March, an anti-gun-violence rally in Washington, D.C.; after a backlash, he raised the money privately and reimbursed the city.
Lieutenant governor of Virginia (2002–2006)
Kaine ran for lieutenant governor of Virginia in 2001. He joined the race after state senator Emily Couric dropped out due to pancreatic cancer and endorsed Kaine as her replacement. In the Democratic primary election, Kaine ran against state delegate Alan A. Diamonstein of Newport News, and state delegate Jerrauld C. Jones of Norfolk. Kaine won the nomination, with 39.7% of the vote to Diamonstein's 31.4% and Jones's 28.9%.
In the general election, Kaine won with 925,974 votes (50.35%), edging out his Republican opponent, state delegate Jay Katzen, who received 883,886 (48.06%). Libertarian Gary Reams received 28,783 votes (1.57%).
Kaine was inaugurated on January 12, 2002, and was sworn in by his wife Anne Holton, a state judge.
2005 gubernatorial election
In 2005, Kaine ran for governor of Virginia against Republican candidate Jerry W. Kilgore, a former state attorney general. Kaine was considered an underdog for most of the race, trailing in polls for most of the campaign. Two September polls showed Kaine trailing Kilgore—by four percentage points in a Washington Post poll and by one point in a Mason-Dixon/Roanoke Times poll. The final polls of the race before the election showed Kaine slightly edging ahead of Kilgore.
Kaine ultimately prevailed, winning 1,025,942 votes (51.7%) to Kilgore's 912,327 (46.0%). A third candidate, independent state Senator H. Russell Potts Jr., ran as an "independent Republican" and received 43,953 votes (2.2%).
Kaine emphasized fiscal responsibility and a centrist message. He expressed support for controlling sprawl and tackling longstanding traffic issues, an issue that resonated in the northern Virginia exurbs. He benefited from his association with the popular outgoing Democratic governor, Mark Warner, who had performed well in traditionally Republican areas of the state. On the campaign trail, Kaine referred to the "Warner-Kaine administration" in speeches and received Warner's strong backing. Kilgore later attributed his defeat to Warner's high popularity and President George W. Bush's sharply declining popularity; Bush held a rally with Kilgore on the campaign's final day.
The campaign turned sharply negative in its final weeks, with Kilgore running television attack ads that falsely claimed that Kaine believed that "Hitler doesn't qualify for the death penalty." The ads also attacked Kaine for his service ten years earlier as a court-appointed attorney for a death-row inmate. The editorial boards of the Washington Post and a number of Virginia newspapers denounced the ads as a "smear" and "dishonest." Kaine responded with an ad "in which he told voters that he opposes capital punishment but would take an oath and enforce the death penalty. In later polls, voters said they believed Kaine's response and were angered by Kilgore's negative ads."
In the election, Kaine won by large margins in the Democratic strongholds such as Richmond and northern Virginia's inner suburbs (such as Alexandria and Arlington), as well as in the Democratic-trending Fairfax County. Kaine also won Republican-leaning areas in Northern Virginia's outer suburbs, including Prince William County and Loudoun County, where George W. Bush had beat John Kerry in the previous year's presidential election, and performed "surprisingly well in Republican strongholds like Virginia Beach and Chesapeake." Kaine also defeated Kilgore in the burgeoning Richmond suburbs. Kilgore led in southwest Virginia and in the Shenandoah Valley.
Governor of Virginia (2006–2010)
Kaine was sworn in as governor at the colonial Capitol at Williamsburg, on January 14, 2006, the first governor since Thomas Jefferson to be inaugurated there.
Kaine was chairman of the Southern Governors' Association from 2008 to 2009.
Democratic response to State of the Union address
On January 31, 2006, Kaine gave the Democratic response to President George W. Bush's 2006 State of the Union address. In it, he criticized the Bush administration's No Child Left Behind Act for "wreaking havoc on local school districts"; criticized congressional Republicans for cutting student loan programs; and condemned as "reckless" Bush's spending increases and tax cuts. Kaine praised bipartisan initiatives in Virginia "to make record investments in education" and to improve veterans' access to veterans' benefits. He criticized the Bush administration's conduct of the Iraq War and treatment of U.S. soldiers, saying that "the American people were given inaccurate information about reasons for invading Iraq"; "our troops in Iraq were not given the best body armor or the best intelligence"; and "the administration wants to further reduce military and veterans' benefits."
Energy, the environment, and conservation
As governor, Kaine protected of Virginia land from development, fulfilling a promise he made in 2005. His conservation efforts focused on conservation easements (voluntary easements that preserve the private ownership of a piece of land while also permanently protecting it from development); a substantial Virginia land preservation tax credit encouraged easements. From 2004 to 2009, the Virginia Outdoors Foundation (a quasi-governmental entity set up in 1966 to preserve open land in the state) protected more land than it had in the previous 40 years, a fact Kaine touted as his term drew to a close.
As governor, Kaine established the Climate Change Commission, a bipartisan panel to study climate change issues. The panel was shuttered under Kaine's Republican successor, Governor Robert F. McDonnell, but revived (as the Governor's Climate Change and Resiliency Update Commission) under McDonnell's successor, Democratic Governor Terry McAuliffe.
In 2008, Kaine supported a coal-fired power plant project in Wise County, clashing with environmentalists who opposed the project.
In 2009, Kaine expressed support for tighter restrictions on mountaintop removal coal mining imposed by the Obama administration.
Healthcare and public health
In October 2006, Kaine signed an executive order banning smoking in all government buildings and state-owned cars as of January 1, 2007. He signed legislation banning smoking in restaurants and bars, with some exceptions, in March 2009, making Virginia the first Southern state to do so.
In 2007, the Republican-controlled Virginia General Assembly passed legislation, with "overwhelming bipartisan support", to require girls to receive the HPV vaccine (which immunizes recipients against a virus that causes cervical cancer) before entering high school. Kaine expressed "some qualms" about the legislation and pushed for a strong opt-out provision, ultimately signing a bill that included a provision allowing parents to opt out of the requirement without citing a reason.
In 2007, Kaine secured increases in state funding for nursing in the Virginia General Assembly and announced a 10% salary increase for nursing faculty above the normal salary increase for state employees, plus additional funds for scholarships for nursing master's programs. The initiatives were aimed at addressing a shortage of practicing nurses.
Virginia Tech shooting
After the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting, in which Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 people, Kaine appointed an eight-member Virginia Tech Review Panel, chaired by retired Virginia State Police superintendent W. Gerald Massengill, to probe the event. The commission members included specialists in psychology, law, forensics and higher education as well as former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge. The commission first met in May 2007, and issued its findings and recommendations in August 2007. Among other recommendations, the panel proposed many mental health reforms. Based on the panel's recommendations, Kaine proposed $42 million of investment in mental health programs and reforms, included "boosting access to outpatient and emergency mental health services, increasing the number of case managers and improving monitoring of community-based providers." In April 2007, Kaine signed an executive order instructing state agencies to step up efforts to block gun sales to people involuntarily committed to inpatient and outpatient mental health treatment centers. Kaine, who had been in Japan on a trade mission at the time of the shootings, received widespread praise for his quick return to the state and his handling of the issue.
Budget and economy
Among Kaine's greatest challenges as governor came during the 2008–09 economic crisis; the Washington Post wrote that "perhaps his greatest success was keeping the state running despite [the crisis]." Amid the Great Recession, unemployment in Virginia remained lower than the national average. During Kaine's tenure as governor, the unemployment rate in Virginia rose from 3.2% to 7.4%, a smaller increase than the national rate, which rose from 4.7% to 9.9% during the same period.
As governor, Kaine approved about $3.31 billion in general fund spending cuts, and after his term in office, the Virginia General Assembly adopted about $1.33 billion in additional budget cuts that Kaine had recommended, for a total of $4.64 billion in cuts. The Washington Post wrote, "Unable to raise taxes and required by law to balance the budget, he was forced to make unpopular cuts that led to such things as shuttered highway rest stops and higher public university tuition." Virginia was one of three states to earn the highest grade in terms of management in a report by the nonpartisan Pew Center on the States. Virginia took first place each year from 2006 to 2009 in Forbes magazine's "Best States For Business" rankings.
Infrastructure and transportation
In July 2007, during the debate on the Silver Line of the Washington Metro through Tysons Corner, Kaine supported an elevated track solution rather than a tunnel, citing costs and potential delays that would put federal funding at risk.
In 2006, Kaine pressed the general assembly to support a legislative package to ease severe traffic congestion by spending about $1 billion annually for highway construction, repairs to aging roads, mass transit, and other transportation projects. The money would be raised through increases in taxes and fees that would have raised an estimated $4 billion in revenue over four years. The Democratic-controlled Senate supported the plan, but the Republican-controlled House was unwilling to approve the taxes necessary to carry out the project, and the effort failed even after a special session of the legislature was called over the stalemate.
In 2007, Republicans in the General Assembly passed their own transportation-funding bill. Rather than a statewide tax increase to finance the transportation improvements, as Kaine and most legislative Democrats favored, the Republican bill called for transportation funding "to come from borrowing $2.5 billion and paying the debt costs out of the general fund"; authorized local tax increase in Northern Virginia; increased fees and taxes on rental cars, commercial real estate, and hotels; and increased traffic infraction fines and driver's licenses fees.
Kaine and most legislative Democrats opposed the Republican legislation, calling it inadequate to address traffic congestion and arguing that the withdrawal of funds from the general fund would affect core services such as health care, law enforcement, and education. Kaine ultimately signed a bill with amendments reflecting "concerns by local government officials and a bipartisan group of lawmakers who were concerned that the plan took too much money from the state's general fund."
Education
Under Kaine, participation in Virginia in early childhood education increased by 40.2% due to his expansion of the Virginia Preschool Initiative, which makes pre-kindergarten more accessible to four-year-olds from households close to the poverty line. Kaine sought increases to the budget for preschool programs every year during his term as governor. Virginia was rated as the best state to raise a child in a 2007 report by Education Week and the Pew Center on the States.
Cabinet and appointments
Kaine made the following appointments to his Virginia Governor's Cabinet:
Chief of Staff: William Leighty (2006–2007), Wayne Turnage (2007–2010)
Secretary of Administration: Viola Baskerville (2006–2010)
Virginia Secretary of Agriculture and Forestry: Robert Bloxom (2006–2010)
Secretary of Commerce and Trade: Patrick Gottschalk (2006–2010)
Secretary of the Commonwealth: Katherine Hanley (2006–2010)
Secretary of Education: Thomas R. Morris (2006–2010)
Secretary of Finance:Jody Wagner (2006–2008), Ric Brown (2008–2010)
Secretary of Health and Human Resources: Marilyn Tavenner (2006–2010)
Secretary of Natural Resources: Preston Bryant (2006–2010)
Secretary of Public Safety: John W. Marshall (2006–2010)
Secretary of Technology: Aneesh Chopra (2006–2009), Leonard Pomata (2009–2010)
Secretary of Transportation: Pierce Homer (2006–2010)
Counselor to the Governor: Lawrence Roberts (2006–2009)
Counselor to the Governor: Mark Rubin (2009–2010)
Assistant for Commonwealth Preparedness: Robert P. Crouch (2006–2010)
Senior Advisor for Workforce: Daniel G. LeBlanc (2006–2010)
As governor, Kaine made a number of appointments to the Virginia state courts. He made two appointments to the Supreme Court of Virginia, naming Chesapeake circuit judge S. Bernard Goodwyn to the Court in 2007 and Virginia Court of Appeals Judge LeRoy F. Millette Jr. in 2008.
On September 27, 2007, just weeks after appointing Esam Omeish to the 20-member Virginia Commission on Immigration, Kaine learned that Omeish had made videos accusing Israel of genocide and calling for President Bush's impeachment. He immediately requested and received Omeish's resignation and said that background checks would be more thorough in the future.
2008 vice presidential speculation
Kaine announced his support for Barack Obama's presidential bid in February 2007. It was maintained that Kaine's endorsement was the first from a statewide elected official outside of Illinois. Because Kaine was a relatively popular governor of a Southern state, there was media speculation that he was a potential nominee for vice president. Obama had supported Kaine in his campaign for governor, saying, "Tim Kaine has a message of fiscal responsibility and generosity of spirit. That kind of message can sell anywhere." On July 28, 2008, Politico reported that Kaine was "very, very high" on Obama's shortlist for vice president, a list that also included Senator Hillary Clinton of New York, Governor Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas, Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana, and Senator Joe Biden of Delaware. Obama ultimately selected Biden. It was later reported that Obama told Kaine, in breaking the news to him, "You are the pick of my heart, but Joe [Biden] is the pick of my head". Obama later wrote that he had ultimately narrowed down the choice for his running mate to Kaine and Biden. He said, "At the time, I was much closer to Tim", but Obama and his advisers David Axelrod and David Plouffe wondered whether voters would accept a ticket of "two relatively young, inexperienced, and liberal civil rights attorneys" and Obama felt the contrast between him and Biden was a strength, and that Biden's age and experience would reassure voters concerned that Obama was too young to be president.
Democratic National Committee chair (2009–2011)
In January 2009, Kaine became chair of the Democratic National Committee. He had turned down the position the first time it was offered to him, expressing misgivings about accepting a partisan position, but took the job at Obama's request. He took on the position as chair part-time as he continued his term as governor of Virginia. Kaine's main goals as DNC chair "were protecting the party's seats in Congress during the 2010 midterms and integrating the president's campaign apparatus, Organizing for America, and its technological acumen into the party machinery." In the 2010 midterms, the DNC under Kaine's leadership outraised the Republican National Committee (RNC) by $30 million, but Democrats lost control of the House and lost seats in the Senate amidst a Tea Party backlash. Kaine was not generally blamed for the losses.
Kaine kept a low profile in the position in comparison to his counterpart, RNC chairman Michael Steele. He focused more on fundraising and maintaining party unity than on attacking political opponents.
In February 2011, after Kaine spoke to union leaders in Madison, Organizing for America got involved in Wisconsin's budget battle and opposed Republican-sponsored anti-union legislation. It made phone calls, sent emails, and distributed messages via Facebook and Twitter to build crowds for rallies.
After completing his term as governor in January 2010, Kaine taught part-time at the University of Richmond, teaching a course in spring 2010 at the Jepson School of Leadership Studies and another in fall 2010 at the University of Richmond School of Law. He explained that he had chosen to teach at a private university rather than a public university "because it would not have been right for a sitting governor to be seeking employment at an institution when he writes the budget and appoints the board of the institution."
United States Senate
2012 election
After Senator Jim Webb's decision not to seek reelection, Kaine announced on April 5, 2011, that he would run for Webb's seat. He was initially reluctant to return to public office, but Webb, Senator Mark Warner, and other Virginia Democrats saw Kaine as the strongest potential Democratic candidate and convinced him to run. Kaine named Lawrence Roberts as his campaign chairman. Mike Henry was chosen as his campaign manager. Kaine filmed announcement videos in English and Spanish and was unopposed for the Democratic nomination. He defeated former senator and governor George Allen in the general election.
Tenure
Kaine was sworn in on January 3, 2013, reuniting him with Mark Warner, the senior senator. Kaine was lieutenant governor when Warner was governor of Virginia.
On June 11, 2013, Kaine delivered a speech on the Senate floor in support of the bipartisan "Gang of Eight" immigration bill. The speech was entirely in Spanish, marking the first time a senator had ever made a speech on the Senate floor in a language other than English.
As a member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, Kaine pushed for a new Congressional authorization of military force for the American operations against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Kaine supported the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran, though he also helped Republican senator Bob Corker hold a vote on a resolution of disapproval of the deal. Kaine has taken several trips throughout the Middle East, meeting with the leaders of states such as Turkey and Israel.
While in the Senate, Kaine has continued to teach part-time at the University of Richmond, receiving a salary of $16,000 per year.
Kaine has voted with his party more than 90% of the time. According to the Washington Post, Kaine has "crafted a largely progressive record as a senator." He reportedly has good relations with both Democratic and Republican senators.
During the 2016 vice-presidential campaign, Kaine frequently criticized Donald Trump, saying that Trump "as commander-in-chief scares me to death" and had a "bizarre fascination with strongmen and authoritarian leaders". In 2017, after Trump took office, Kaine continued to criticize his "authoritarian tendencies", citing his attacks on media, judges, and peaceful protesters. At an event at George Mason University, Kaine said that with Trump in office, Americans "are in a 'living experiment' to see whether or not the Constitution still works to check executive power."
In February 2017, Kaine met with Pope Francis at a general audience at the Vatican. Kaine also met with the Jesuit Refugee Service to discuss refugees and met with Vatican officials to discuss Latin American issues. The same month, Kaine delivered an address, "The Truman Doctrine at 70", at London's Chatham House.
Committee assignments and caucuses
In the 113th Congress (2013–15), Kaine was on the Committee on Armed Services, the Committee on the Budget, and the Committee on Foreign Relations. In the 114th Congress, Kaine was on those three committees and the Special Committee on Aging. In July 2013, Kaine was named chair of the United States Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Near East, South Asia, Central Asia and Counterterrorism.
Within the Senate Armed Services Committee, Kaine is a member of the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities, the Subcommittee on Readiness and Management Support (of which he is the ranking member), and the Subcommittee on Seapower.
Within the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, Kaine is a member of the Subcommittee on State Department and USAID Management, International Operations, and Bilateral International Development (of which he is the ranking member), the Subcommittee on Europe and Regional Security Cooperation, the Subcommittee on Near East, South Asia, Central Asia, and Counterterrorism, and the Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere, Transnational Crime, Civilian Security, Democracy, Human Rights and Global Women's Issues.
In January 2014, Kaine and Senator Rob Portman established the bipartisan Senate Career and Technical Education Caucus (CTE Caucus), which focuses on vocational education and technical education. Kaine and Portman co-chair the caucus. In 2014, Kaine and Portman introduced the CTE Excellence and Equity Act to the Senate; the legislation would provide $500 million in federal funding, distributed by competitive grants, to high schools to further CTE programs. The legislation, introduced as an amendment to the omnibus Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act of 2006, would promote apprenticeships and similar initiatives. Kaine and Portman introduced similar legislation, the Educating Tomorrow's Workforce Act, in 2017.
2016 vice-presidential campaign
Kaine endorsed Hillary Clinton for president in 2016 and campaigned actively for her in seven states during the primaries. He had been the subject of considerable speculation as a possible running mate for Clinton, with several news reports indicating that he was at or near the top of Clinton's list of people under consideration alongside figures such as Elizabeth Warren and Julian Castro.
The New York Times reported that Clinton's husband, former president Bill Clinton, supported Kaine as his wife's vice-presidential selection, noting his domestic and national security résumé. On July 22, 2016, she announced Kaine would be her running mate in the election. Clinton introduced Kaine as her choice in a joint appearance at a rally at Florida International University in Miami the next day. The 2016 Democratic National Convention nominated him for vice president on July 27, 2016.
Kaine was the first Virginian since Woodrow Wilson to be on a major-party ticket, and was the first Virginian to run for vice president on a major-party ticket since John Tyler in 1840; he was also the first senator or former senator from Virginia to be on a major-party ticket since Tyler.
In accordance with longstanding political custom in the U.S., upon being nominated for vice president Kaine publicly released his full tax returns for the previous ten years. He also publicly released medical records; his physician, Brian P. Monahan, the Attending Physician of the United States Congress, wrote that Kaine was "in overall excellent health." In September Kaine published a campaign book co-authored with Clinton, Stronger Together.
In Kaine's preparations for the vice presidential debate in October 2016, lawyer Robert Barnett played the role of Republican vice-presidential nominee Mike Pence. (During Pence's own debate preparations, Wisconsin governor Scott Walker played the role of Kaine.) Pence was criticized after the debate for not defending Trump's comments, while Kaine was criticized for being too aggressive and interrupting. According to ABC News, Kaine interrupted 70 times during the debate, while Pence interrupted 40 times.
Despite winning a plurality of the national popular vote, the Clinton-Kaine ticket lost the Electoral College, and thus the election, to the Trump-Pence ticket on November 8, 2016. This is the only election Kaine has ever lost. Clinton-Kaine did win Virginia, the only Southern state to vote for the Democratic ticket, a victory attributed in part to Kaine.
2018 election
After the 2016 election, Kaine said he would run for reelection to the Senate in 2018. He expressed his desire to emulate John Warner, who represented Virginia in the Senate for 30 years. He added that he would not run for president or vice president in the future.
In his 2018 Senate campaign against Republican nominee and Trump ally Corey Stewart, Kaine had the endorsement of The Richmond Times-Dispatch, marking the first time in decades the paper had endorsed a Democrat.
After taking an early lead in his race against Stewart, Kaine worked to support other Democrats who, in seven districts, were challenging incumbent Republicans for House seats. Kaine defeated Stewart by more than 15 points.
Personality and leadership style
About 145,000 emails from Kaine and his staff during his term as governor are publicly accessible at the Library of Virginia. Politico conducted an analysis of the correspondence and wrote that the messages show Kaine to be a "media-savvy" and detail-oriented "micro-manager" who is also a policy "wonk".
According to The New York Times, Kaine "is widely described by people in his political orbit as a likable if less than charismatic figure...guided by moral convictions that flow from his deep Christian faith." On Meet the Press, Kaine called himself "boring."
Political positions
In terms of political ideology, FiveThirtyEight gives Kaine an average score of −37 (−100 is the most liberal, and 100 is the most conservative). FiveThirtyEight characterizes him as a "mainstream Democrat" and notes that his ideology score is very similar to that of Joe Biden. Three conservative groups—the American Conservative Union, the Club for Growth, and Heritage Action—gave Kaine 0% ratings in the few years before 2016, while the liberal group Americans for Democratic Action gave Kaine a 90% rating in 2014. The New York Times wrote that "in hyperpartisan Washington, he is often seen as a centrist" while also describing him as an "old-fashioned liberal...driven by Jesuit ideals."
Abortion, birth control, and sex education
Kaine, a Roman Catholic, personally opposes abortion, but is "largely inclined to keep the law out of women's reproductive decisions." He has said, "I'm a strong supporter of Roe v. Wade and women being able to make these decisions. In government, we have enough things to worry about. We don't need to make people's reproductive decisions for them." Kaine supports some legal restrictions on abortion, such as requiring parental consent for minors (with a judicial bypass procedure) and banning late-term abortions in cases where the woman's life is not at risk.
In 2009, Kaine signed a bill to create a "Choose Life" license plate, among the more than 200 Virginia specialty plates already offered, the proceeds of which would partly go to Heartbeat International, a Christian organization that operates anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers. Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice America expressed disappointment in Kaine's decision. Kaine considered such license plate messages a matter of free speech and added that the move was "in keeping with the commonwealth's longtime practice of approving specialty plates with all manner of political and social messages."
Kaine previously criticized the Obama administration for "not providing a 'broad enough religious employer exemption'" in the contraceptive mandate of the Affordable Care Act, but praised a 2012 amendment to the regulations that required insurers to provide birth control to employees when an employer was an objecting religious organization.
In 2005, when running for governor, Kaine said he favored reducing abortions by "Enforcing the current Virginia restrictions on abortion and passing an enforceable ban on partial birth abortion that protects the life and health of the mother"; "Fighting teen pregnancy through abstinence-focused education"; "Ensuring women's access to health care (including legal contraception) and economic opportunity"; and "Promoting adoption as an alternative for women facing unwanted pregnancies."
In 2007, as governor, Kaine cut off state funding for abstinence-only sex education programs, citing studies that showed such programs were ineffective, while comprehensive sex education programs were more effective. Kaine believes that both abstinence and contraceptives must be taught, and that education should be evidence-based.
As a senator, Kaine has received perfect scores from Planned Parenthood and the abortion-rights advocacy group NARAL. He has received a score of zero from the anti-abortion National Right to Life Committee.
Campaign finance
Kaine "strongly disagrees" with Citizens United v. FEC (2010). In 2015, Kaine joined a group of Senate Democrats in a letter to Securities and Exchange Commission Chairwoman Mary Jo White that said the ruling "reversed long-standing precedent and has moved our country in a different and disturbing direction when it comes to corporate influence in politics." They urged the SEC to require publicly traded companies to disclose political spending to their shareholders to "increase transparency in the U.S. political process".
Capital punishment
Kaine personally opposes capital punishment, but presided over 11 executions while governor. He said, "I really struggled with [capital punishment] as governor. I have a moral position against the death penalty. But I took an oath of office to uphold it. Following an oath of office is also a moral obligation." During his time in office he commuted one death sentence in June 2008, that of Percy Levar Walton, to life imprisonment without parole on grounds of mental incompetence, writing that "one cannot reasonably conclude that Walton is fully aware of the punishment he is about to suffer and why he is to suffer it" and thus that executing him would be unconstitutional. Kaine vetoed a number of bills to expand the death sentence to more crimes, saying: "I do not believe that further expansion of the death penalty is necessary to protect human life or provide for public safety needs." Some of the vetoes were overridden.
On July 31, 2019, after Attorney General William Barr announced that the United States federal government would resume the use of the death penalty for the first time in over 20 years, Kaine co-sponsored a bill banning the death penalty.
Environment, energy, and climate change
Kaine acknowledges the scientific consensus on climate change, and in a 2014 Senate speech criticized climate change deniers, as well as those who "may not deny the climate science, but ... deny that the U.S. can or should be a leader in taking any steps" to address the issue.
Kaine has expressed concern about sea level rise (a major consequence of climate change), and in particular its effect on coastal Virginia. In 2014, he partnered with two Virginia Republicans—U.S. Representatives Rob Wittman and Scott Rigell—to hold a conference on sea-level rise and "local adaptation efforts to protect military installations in the Hampton Roads area."
Kaine endorses making coal energy production cleaner, saying that it is imperative "to convert coal to electricity with less pollution than we do today." He has criticized those who "frame the debate as a conflict between an economy and the environment", saying that "protecting the environment is good for the economy." Kaine co-sponsored the Advanced Clean Coal Technology Investment in Our Nation (ACCTION) Act, legislation to increase investment in clean coal technologies. He voted against legislation to approve the Keystone XL pipeline. Kaine supports the use of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) to harvest natural gas from shale formations. He believes this will reduce carbon pollution. Kaine voted against an amendment introduced by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand that would have repealed a provision in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 that exempts fracking from the underground injection control provisions of the Safe Drinking Water Act. As a result, regulation of fracking remains in the hands of state agencies; the EPA cannot regulate it or require a federal permit. Kaine supports exporting liquefied natural gas (LNG) to other countries.
Like his fellow senator from Virginia, Mark Warner, Kaine applauded the U.S. Forest Service's plan to close most, but not all, of the George Washington National Forest to fracking and other horizontal drilling activities.
In 2013, Kaine supported oil and gas exploration off the coast of Virginia, saying, "I have long believed that the moratorium on offshore drilling, based on a cost-benefit calculation performed decades ago, should be reexamined." In April 2015, Kaine reiterated his opposition to the moratorium on offshore drilling. In March 2016, Kaine signaled that his position was softening, saying he was "particularly struck by the material objections of the Department of Defense to the incompatibility of drilling with naval operations off Virginia's coast... I have participated in this debate for over a decade as a governor and member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. The DOD has been relatively quiet during this public debate and has never shared their objections with me before." By August 2016, Kaine stated his support for a ban on offshore drilling, bringing his position in line with Hillary Clinton's and the Obama administration's.
Kaine supports the development of solar energy and offshore wind turbines. Based on his votes on environmental issues in the Senate, the League of Conservation Voters has given Kaine a 95% score for 2018, and a 94% lifetime score. (At the time of his vice-presidential campaign, Kaine had an 88% score for 2015, and a 91% lifetime score.)
In March 2019, Kaine was one of 11 senators to sponsor the Climate Security Act of 2019, legislation forming a new group within the State Department that would be responsible for developing strategies to integrate climate science and data into operations of national security as well as restoring the post of special envoy for the Arctic, which Trump had dismantled in 2017. The proposed envoy would advise the president and the administration on the potential effects of climate on national security and be responsible for facilitating all interagency communication between federal science and security agencies.
In April 2019, Kaine was one of 12 senators to sign a bipartisan letter to top senators on the Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development advocating that the Energy Department be granted maximum funding for carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS), arguing that American job growth could be stimulated by investment in viable options to capture carbon emissions released into the atmosphere and expressing disagreement with the Trump's 2020 budget request to combine the two federal programs that include carbon capture research.
Financial regulation
Kaine strongly supports financial regulation and the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. In July 2016, he signed a bipartisan letter that "urged the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to 'carefully tailor its rulemaking' [under Dodd-Frank] regarding community banks and credit unions so as not to 'unduly burden' these institutions with regulations aimed at commercial banks." The letter prompted criticism from progressives who viewed it as anti-regulation. Democracy for America executive director Charles Chamberlain called the letter "a lobbyist-driven effort to help banks dodge consumer protection standards and regulations designed to prevent banks from destroying our economy." Kaine responded, "it's important you don't treat every financial institution the same. It wasn't credit unions that tanked the economy, it wasn't local community banks that tanked the economy, generally wasn't regional banks that did things that tanked the economy." He also signed a letter urging that a requirement that regional banks report liquidity levels on a daily basis be loosened.
Foreign and defense policy
In the Senate, Kaine has supported the normalization of U.S.–Cuban relations and the international nuclear agreement with Iran.
Kaine expressed support for Israel's right to defend itself during the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict. In September 2016, in advance of a UN Security Council resolution 2334 condemning Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, he signed an AIPAC-sponsored letter urging Obama to veto "one-sided" resolutions against Israel.
In 2015, Kaine expressed support for the Saudi-led coalition's airstrikes in Yemen against Houthi forces fighting the government of President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, but in 2018, he was one of seven senators to sign a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo saying that they found it "difficult to reconcile known facts with at least two" of the Trump administration's certifications that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were attempting to protect Yemeni civilians and were in compliance with U.S. laws on arms sales, citing an inconsistency with a memo from Pompeo to Congress expressly stating that on some occasions the Saudi and Emirates governments had failed to adopt measures to reduce civilian casualties. Kaine also condemned the Trump administration for its "eagerness to give the Saudis anything they want" after the administration approved the transfer of nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia after the murder of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi.
In July 2017, Kaine voted for the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act that placed sanctions on Iran, Russia, and North Korea.
In 2019, Kaine was one of 34 Senate Democrats to sign a letter to Trump urging him to reconsider cuts to U.S. foreign aid to the Northern Triangle countries of Central America in the Fiscal Year 2018 national security appropriations bill. The letter said that Trump had "consistently expressed a flawed understanding of U.S. foreign assistance", viewing it as a gift or charity to foreign governments rather than a tool to promote American interests and collective security. The senators wrote that U.S. foreign assistance to Central American countries, by improving stability and alleviating poverty in the region, reduced Central American migration flows to the U.S.
In 2019, Kaine co-sponsored the South China Sea and East China Sea Sanctions Act, a bipartisan bill reintroduced by Marco Rubio and Ben Cardin that was intended to disrupt China's consolidation or expansion of its claims of jurisdiction over both the sea and airspace in disputed zones in the South China Sea.
Grand strategy and democracy promotion
After the 2016 presidential campaign, Kaine wrote an extensive essay in Foreign Affairs outlining his underlying foreign policy philosophy. According to Kaine, American foreign policy has suffered a lack of direction since the 1990s because the end of the Cold War rendered irrelevant America's previous grand strategy, which he identifies as the Truman Doctrine. This lack of grand strategy makes American actions seem random, complicating the policy-making process and hindering American leaders' efforts to convince the public that American foreign policy is worthwhile. To remedy this, Kaine proposed a new grand strategy based mainly on democracy promotion. His grand strategy is informed by a tri-polar balance of international power, with one pole being democratic states including the U.S. and its allies, the second autocratic powers led by Russia and China, and the third nonstate actors (multinational corporations, NGOs, gangs, etc.).
First, Kaine believes that the United States should work to support democracy in already democratic countries, as democracy globally has been declining for many years. To maintain democracy in democratic countries, Kaine proposes the creation of an intergovernmental organization consisting of all the world's democracies in which states can cooperate on solutions to problems such as corruption and voter inclusion. He compares this hypothetical group to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, in which advanced industrialized countries collaborate on economic policy. Kaine believes that this new organization will help democracies remain democratic, as well as promote democracy in other countries by giving them viable democratic examples to emulate. In this way, Kaine says that the U.S. should no longer see itself as the indispensable nation, but rather the "exemplary democracy".
Second, Kaine proposes that democracies should coordinate to best interact with authoritarian states. Depending on the circumstances, democracies should either "confront", "compete", or "cooperate" with autocracies. For example, Kaine observes that the U.S. competes with its authoritarian adversaries by strengthening military and commercial alliances, and confronts them by decrying their human rights records.
Finally, Kaine believes that democracies and autocracies should cooperate when they have the same interests, such as combating climate change.
In July 2017, Kaine expanded on the grand strategy proposed in this essay in an interview at the Brookings Institution with international relations scholar Robert Kagan.
Afghanistan
Kaine's website states, "The main mission in Afghanistan—destroying Al Qaeda—is nearly complete and we should bring our troops home as quickly as we can, consistent with the need to make sure that Afghanistan poses no danger in the broader region."
Latin America
Kaine believes that American foreign policy has neglected relations with Latin America and argues for an increased focus on the Americas, saying, "We have seldom paid enough attention to the Americas, in particular, and when we have—whether through the Monroe Doctrine or by battling communist movements during the Cold War—we have focused more on blocking outsiders from building influence in the Western Hemisphere than we have on the nations already there."
War powers
Kaine is known for "expertise on the constitutional powers of the presidency" and has said that "war powers questions" are a "personal obsession" of his. He has stressed that under the Constitution, "Congress has the power to declare war—and only Congress." Kaine called the 2018 U.S. missile strikes Trump ordered against the Syrian government illegal because they were undertaken without congressional approval.
Kaine and Senator John McCain introduced the War Powers Consultation Act of 2014, which would replace the War Powers Act of 1973, bringing Congress back into decisions on the deployment of U.S. military forces. The bill would establish a Congressional Consultation Committee, with which the president would be required to consult regularly regarding significant foreign policy matters before ordering the deployment of the armed forces into a significant armed conflict and at least every two months for the duration of any significant armed conflict. Kaine argued for the bill by citing his "frustration" over the sloppiness of "process and communication over decisions of war", noting that "presidents tend to overreach and Congress sometimes willingly ducks tough votes and decisions. We all have to do better."
In February 2018, Kaine was one of 18 senators to sign a letter to Trump arguing that striking North Korea with "a preventative or preemptive U.S. military strike would lack either a constitutional basis or legal authority" without congressional approval.
In January 2020, Kaine introduced a new war powers resolution that would prohibit the U.S. from entering hostilities against Iran within 30 days unless it was responding to an imminent threat. The next month, the measure passed the Senate 55–45, securing the votes of eight Republicans along with the Democrats. Trump vetoed the measure, and the Senate failed to override the veto.
Syria, Iraq, and ISIL
In 2014, Kaine argued that the U.S. military intervention against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) undertaken by Obama was unconstitutional without a new congressional authorization for the use of military force against ISIL. In November 2014, at the Halifax International Security Forum, Kaine and McCain emphasized the necessity of such a congressional authorization, saying: "You just can't have a war without Congress. You can't ask people to risk their lives, risk getting killed, seeing other folks getting killed or injured if Congress isn't willing to do the job to put their thumbprint on this and say, this is a national mission and worth it." After the April 2017 Shayrat missile strike in Syria, ordered by Trump, Kaine said, "There is no legal justification for this. He should not have done this without coming to Congress." On Meet the Press, Kaine said, "I'm a strong supporter that the U.S. should take action to protect humanitarian causes, like the ban on chemical weapons. Where I differ from this administration, and I took the same position with respect to President Obama, we are a nation that's not supposed to take military action, start war, without a plan that's presented to and approved by Congress."
On December 11, 2014, after a five-month campaign by Kaine, the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved by 10–8 (along party lines) a measure authorizing military force against ISIL but barring the use of ground troops. In October 2015, Kaine criticized Obama's approach to the Syrian Civil War, saying that the establishment of humanitarian no-fly zones would have alleviated the humanitarian crisis in Syria.
In April 2018, Kaine criticized Trump for authorizing the launch of a precision military strike on Syria without consulting Congress, calling the strike an "illegal military act".
On February 26, 2021, Kaine demanded answers from President Biden after he ordered airstrikes on Syria against Iran-backed militias without giving "legal justification" to members of Congress beforehand.
Firearms
Kaine is a firearms owner. He has supported expanded background checks for weapons purchases as well as "restrictions on the sale of combat-style weapons and high-capacity magazines." As governor, Kaine oversaw the closing of loopholes in Virginia law that allowed some who had failed background checks to purchase guns. In the Senate, he has supported legislation that would require background checks for weapons sold via gun shows and via the internet. He also supports legislation to bar weapons sales to suspected terrorists on the No Fly List.
In November 2017, Kaine was a cosponsor of the Military Domestic Violence Reporting Enhancement Act, a bill that would form a charge of domestic violence under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) and stipulate that convictions be reported to federal databases with the authority to keep abusers from purchasing firearms within three days in an attempt to close a loophole in the UCMJ through which convicted abusers retained the ability to purchase firearms.
In March 2018, Kaine was one of ten senators to sign a letter to Chairman of the United States Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Lamar Alexander and ranking Democrat Patty Murray requesting they schedule a hearing on the causes and remedies of mass shootings in the wake of the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting.
In June 2019, Kaine was one of four senators to cosponsor the Help Empower Americans to Respond (HEAR) Act, legislation that would ban suppressors being imported, sold, made, sent elsewhere or possessed and grant a silencer buyback program as well as include certain exceptions for current and former law enforcement personnel and others. The bill was intended to respond to the Virginia Beach shooting, in which the perpetrator used a .45-caliber handgun with multiple extended magazines and a suppressor.
Kaine has a 100% rating from the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and an "F" rating from the NRA.
Health care
Kaine supports the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2009 (Obamacare), saying in 2012, "I was a supporter and remain a supporter of the Affordable Care Act. I felt like it was a statement that we were going to put some things in the rearview mirror." In 2013, he said that he agreed that changes to the ACA should be debated, but criticized Republicans for "wrapping them up with the threat" of a federal government shutdown.
In 2018, Kaine and Senator Michael Bennet proposed the creation of "Medicare X"—a public health insurance option modeled after Medicare that would be available on ACA health insurance marketplaces along with private options. The proposal is a more incrementalist alternative to Bernie Sanders's push for "Medicare for All" (single-payer health care).
In December 2018, Kaine was one of 42 senators to sign a letter to Trump administration officials Alex Azar, Seema Verma, and Steve Mnuchin arguing that the administration was improperly using Section 1332 of the ACA to authorize states to "increase health care costs for millions of consumers while weakening protections for individuals with pre-existing conditions." The senators requested the administration withdraw the policy and "re-engage with stakeholders, states, and Congress."
In January 2019, Kaine was one of six Democratic senators to introduce the American Miners Act of 2019, a bill that would amend the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 to swap funds in excess of the amounts needed to meet existing obligations under the Abandoned Mine Land fund to the 1974 Pension Plan as part of an effort to prevent its insolvency as a result of coal company bankruptcies and the 2008 financial crisis. It also increased the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund tax and ensured that miners affected by the 2018 coal company bankruptcies would not lose their health care.
In December 2016, Kaine was one of 17 senators to sign a letter to Trump asking him to fulfill a campaign pledge to bring down the cost of prescription drugs. In February 2017, he and 30 other senators signed a letter to Kaléo Pharmaceuticals in response to the opioid-overdose-reversing device Evzio rising in price from $690 in 2014 to $4,500 and requested the company provide the detailed price structure for Evzio, the number of devices Kaléo Pharmaceuticals set aside for donation, and the totality of federal reimbursements Evzio received in the previous year. In February 2019, Kaine was one of 11 senators to sign a letter to insulin manufacturers Eli Lilly and Company, Novo Nordisk, and Sanofi about increased insulin prices and charging that the price increases caused patients to lack "access to the life-saving medications they need."
In August 2019, Kaine was one of 19 Democratic senators to sign a letter to Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar requesting data from the Trump administration on the consequences for healthcare if Texas prevailed in its lawsuit seeking to gut the Affordable Care Act. The senators wrote, "Upending the current health care system will create an enormous hole in the pocketbooks of the people we serve as well as wreck state budgets; therefore, we ask for data to help states and Congress better understand the potential consequences of the position the Administration is taking in court."
In September 2019, amid discussions to prevent a government shutdown, Kaine was one of six Democratic senators to sign a letter to congressional leadership advocating legislation that would permanently fund health care and pension benefits for retired coal miners as "families in Virginia, West Virginia, Wyoming, Alabama, Colorado, North Dakota and New Mexico" would start to receive notifications of health care termination by the end of the following month.
Immigration
Kaine supports the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Deferred Action for Parental Accountability (DAPA) programs, which allow up to five million undocumented immigrants to gain deferral of deportation and authorization to legally work in the United States. Alongside Senator Mark Warner and many other members of Congress, he signed on to an amicus brief in support of the program in the Supreme Court case United States v. Texas.
Kaine also supports comprehensive immigration reform, which would allow persons illegally present in the U.S. to earn legal status by paying a fine and taxes.
In July 2019, following reports that the Trump administration intended to end protections of spouses, parents and children of active-duty service members from deportation, Kaine was one of 22 senators to sign a letter led by Tammy Duckworth arguing that the program allowed service members the ability "to fight for the United States overseas and not worry that their spouse, children, or parents will be deported while they are away" and that the its termination would cause personal hardship for service members in combat.
In July 2019, Kaine and 15 other Senate Democrats introduced the Protecting Sensitive Locations Act, a bill to mandate that ICE agents get approval from a supervisor before undertaking an immigration raid or other enforcement actions at "sensitive locations" (schools, hospitals, places of worship, and courthouses) except in special circumstances. The bill would also require agents to receive annual training and require ICE to submit an annual report on enforcement actions in those locations.
LGBT rights
In 2006, Kaine campaigned against an amendment to the Virginia State Constitution to ban same-sex marriage, and in March 2013, he announced his support of same-sex marriage.
In the Senate, Kaine co-sponsored the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which would bar employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
In 2005, Kaine said, "No couples in Virginia can adopt other than a married couple. That's the right policy." In 2011, he shifted his position. In 2012, he said, "there should be a license that would entitle a committed couple to the same rights as a married couple."
During the 2016 presidential campaign, Kaine noted that his position on same-sex marriage was "at odds with the current doctrine of the church that I still attend." He predicted that the Roman Catholic Church would someday adopt his view. In response, two bishops heading the doctrine and marriage committees of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said that the church's position "cannot change" and reaffirmed their opposition to same-sex marriage.
In October 2018, Kaine was one of 20 senators to sign a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urging him to reverse the State Department's policy of denying visas to same-sex partners of LGBTQ diplomats who had unions that were not recognized by their home countries, writing that the Trump administration's refusal to allow LGBTQ diplomats to bring their partners to the U.S. was tantamount to upholding the "discriminatory policies of many countries around the world." In June 2019, Kaine was one of 18 senators to sign a letter to Pompeo requesting an explanation of the State Department's decision not to issue an official statement that year commemorating Pride Month or issue the annual cable outlining activities for embassies commemorating Pride Month. The signatories to the letter also asked why the LGBTI special envoy position had remained vacant. The authors said that the State Department's moves had sent "signals to the international community that the United States is abandoning the advancement of LGBTI rights as a foreign policy priority."
Taxes
Kaine supports allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire for those with incomes above $500,000.
In 2012, Kaine supported raising the cap on income subject for the FICA (Social Security) payroll tax "so that it covers a similar percentage of income as it did in the 1980s under President Reagan, which would greatly extend the solvency of the (Social Security) program."
In the Senate, Kaine has supported the Marketplace Fairness Act, which would allow states to require online retailers to collect sales taxes in the same manner as traditional brick-and-mortar retailers.
Trade
Kaine supported granting Obama Trade Promotion Authority (TPA or "fast track") to allow him to negotiate free trade agreements. He said the goal should be to "negotiate deals that protect workers' rights, environmental standards and intellectual property, while knocking down tariffs and other barriers that some countries erect to keep American products out."
In July 2016, Kaine said the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement was "an improvement of the status quo" and an "upgrade of labor standards... environmental standards... intellectual property protections", but maintained that he had not yet decided how to vote on final approval of the agreement, citing "significant concerns" over TPP's dispute resolution mechanism. Later that July, Kaine said that he could not support the TPP in its current form.
Kaine has been a proponent of NAFTA.
Transportation, growth, and housing
Kaine supports some smart growth-style policies (which he calls "a balanced approach to growth") to control sprawl and improve transportation. He favors a transportation policy that includes public transit, bicycles, and pedestrians. As governor, Kaine pushed through a $100 million open-space acquisition initiative. Under Kaine, Amtrak service in Virginia was expanded. He also participated in a White House round-table discussion on high-speed rail in 2009.
In April 2019, Kaine was one of 41 senators to sign a bipartisan letter in support of U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Section 4 Capacity Building program, a program authorizing HUD to partner with nonprofit community development groups to provide support to community development corporations. The letter said that the longstanding program had successfully promoted economic and community development, opposed the proposed elimination of the plan in Trump's budget proposal for Fiscal Year 2020, and urged the Senate to support continued funding for Section 4 in Fiscal Year 2020.
Workers' rights and gender equality
Kaine is "generally pro-union" and has received a 96% lifetime Senate voting rating from the AFL-CIO, which praised his selection as Clinton's running mate. But Kaine supports Virginia's longstanding "right-to-work" law, which "frees union nonmembers from any legal obligation to pay fees to a union that bargains collectively on their behalf".
Kaine supports the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which expands the cases in which worker can sue against gender pay discrimination. After Clinton selected him as her running mate in 2016, Kaine was praised by the National Organization for Women.
Kaine favors an increase in the minimum wage.
Electoral history
2001 lieutenant gubernatorial election
2005 gubernatorial election
2012 U.S. Senate election
2016 vice presidential election
2018 U.S. Senate election
Personal life
In November 1984, Kaine married Anne Bright Holton, the daughter of A. Linwood Holton Jr., a Republican who served as the 61st governor of Virginia from 1970 to 1974. The couple met while they were both students at Harvard Law School. Holton has been a judge for the Virginia Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court in Richmond. After serving as first lady of Virginia during her husband's term, she was appointed by Governor Terry McAuliffe in January 2014 to be Virginia's secretary of education, and held that position until July 2016, when she stepped down after her husband was named as the Democratic vice-presidential nominee. The couple has three children, one of whom is a United States Marine. As of 2016, Kaine and his wife had been congregants of the St. Elizabeth Catholic Church in Richmond, a mostly black congregation, for 30 years.
Kaine plays the harmonica and often travels with several.
Kaine is fluent in Spanish as a result of his nine months in Honduras. During the 2016 campaign, he became the first member of a presidential ticket to deliver a speech in Spanish.
On May 28, 2020, Kaine announced that he and his wife had tested positive for COVID-19 antibodies.
Awards and honors
Kaine has received the Humanitarian Award from the Virginia Center for Inclusive Communities, then the Virginia Region of the National Conference for Community and Justice (2000), the Virginia Council of Churches' Faith in Action Award (2009), the University of Richmond School of Law's William Green Award for Professional Excellence (2012), the Award for Public Service in the Americas from the Inter-American Dialogue (2014), the Appalachian Trail Conservancy's Congressional Award (2015), and the Center for the National Interest's Distinguished Service Award (2016). He was made a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Isabella the Catholic in 2017.
Notes
References
Further reading
Governor
Kaine's Governor website (Archived)
Kaine's Lieutenant governor website (Archived)
2005 campaign contributions at the Virginia Public Access Project
Moving Virginia Forward Archived Web Site, 2007 part of Virginia's Political Landscape, 2007 Web Archive Collection at Virginia Memory
Moving Virginia Forward Archived Web Site, 2009 part of Virginia's Political Landscape, 2009 Web Archive Collection at Virginia Memory
Tim Kaine for Governor Archived Web Site, 2005–2006 part of Virginia's Political Landscape, Fall 2005 Web Archive Collection at Virginia Memory
Governor Tim Kaine Administration Web Site Archive, 2006–2010
Kaine Email Project at the Library of Virginia
External links
U.S. Senate website
Campaign website
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20th-century American lawyers
20th-century American politicians
20th-century Roman Catholics
21st-century American lawyers
21st-century American politicians
21st-century Roman Catholics
American civil rights lawyers
American legal scholars
American people of Irish descent
American people of Scottish descent
American Roman Catholic missionaries
Catholics from Missouri
Catholics from Minnesota
Catholics from Virginia
Democratic National Committee chairs
Democratic Party state governors of the United States
Democratic Party United States senators from Virginia
Democratic Party (United States) vice presidential nominees
Governors of Virginia
Harvard Law School alumni
Hillary Clinton 2016 presidential campaign
Lawyers from Kansas City, Missouri
Lieutenant Governors of Virginia
Living people
Mark Warner
Mayors of Richmond, Virginia
Politicians from Kansas City, Missouri
Politicians from Saint Paul, Minnesota
Knights Grand Cross of the Order of Isabella the Catholic
Richmond, Virginia City Council members
Roman Catholic missionaries in Honduras
United States senators from Virginia
2016 United States vice-presidential candidates
University of Missouri alumni
University of Richmond faculty
Virginia Democrats
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[
"The 2007 Houston elections took place on May 12, June 16, and November 6, 2007. All City Council posts, the City Controller, and the Mayor all had elections. All positions were non-partisan.\n\nMayor\nSee 2007 Houston mayoral election\n\nCity Controller\n\nThe 2007 Houston City Controller election was a non disputed election with Incumbent Annise Parker being re-elected to a third term with virtually 100% of the vote.\n\nCity Council At-large 1\n\nIn the 2007 Houston City Council At-large 1 election, Peter Hoyt Brown was re-elected to a second term with 100% of the vote.\n\nCity Council At-large 2\n\nIn the 2007 Houston City Council At-large 2 election, Sue Lovell was re-elected to a second term against opponent Michael Griffin (Not the former administrator of NASA).\n\nCity Council At-large 3\n\n2007 was a rough year for At-large 3, First in May many candidates dove into a crowded special election, the top two, Melissa Noriega and Roy Morales, then ran in the run-off in June. Noriega won but later faced Morales again in November and was again successful.\n\nCity Council At-large 4\n\nIn the 2007 Houston City Council At-large 4 election, Ronald Green, was re-elected to a third term. He was given 100% of the vote from the voters.\n\nCity Council At-large 5\n\nIn the 2007 Houston City Council At-large 5 election, Jolanda Jones was elected to an at-large position, after a run-off.\n\nCity Council District A\n\nIn the 2007 Houston City Council District A election, Toni Lawrence was re-elected to a third term with 100% of the vote.\n\nCity Council District B\n\nIn the 2007 Houston City Council District B election, Jarvis Johnson was re-elected to a second term.\n\nCity Council District C\n\nIn the 2007 Houston City Council District C election, Anne Clutterbuck was re-elected to a second term.\n\nCity Council District D\n\nIn the 2007 Houston City Council District D election, Wanda Adams was elected after a run-off.\n\nCity Council District E\n\nIn the Houston City Council District E election, Mike Sullivan was elected after a run-off.\n\nCity Council District F\n\nIn the 2007 Houston City Council District F election, M. J. Khan was elected to a third term with 100% of the vote.\n\nCity Council District G\n\nIn the 2007 Houston City Council District G election, Pam Holm was elected to a third term with 100% of the vote.\n\nCity Council District H\n\nIn the 2007 Houston City Council District H election, Adrian Garcia was elected to a third term with 100% of the vote. He resigned one year into his term to become the Harris County Sheriff.\n\nCity Council District I\n\nIn the 2007 Houston City Council District I election, James Rodriguez was elected as a new council member.\n\nmayoral election\nHouston\nNon-partisan elections",
"Stuart Alan Crosby ONZM (born 1956) is a New Zealand politician who served as Mayor of the city of Tauranga, New Zealand from 2004 to 2016.\n\nEarly life \nCrosby's family moved from Gisborne to Papamoa in 1966, where they started the Papamoa Beach Resort Holiday Park. After finishing high school, Crosby took up an apprenticeship with the Tauranga Electric Power Board, which later became Trustpower. He travelled and worked overseas from 1978 to 1981; after returning to Tauranga he owned Papamoa Electrical Services and Accolade Homes.\n\nPolitical career \nCrosby stood for and was elected to the Papamoa Community Council, which was part of the Tauranga Borough Council, in 1986. Crosby was 30 at the time, which was considered young for a councillor. The 1989 local government reforms saw a merger of local authorities, resulting in the establishment of the Tauranga District Council (renamed Tauranga City Council in 2003). Crosby was elected to Tauranga District Council in 1989 and was re-elected every three years thereafter.\n\nCrosby was deputy mayor to Noel Pope from 1998 to 2001. After Pope's retirement, Crosby sought the mayoralty but was defeated at the 2001 local elections by Jan Beange. In 2004, Crosby defeated Beange and began what would become a twelve-year period as mayor.\n\nCrosby did not recontest the mayoralty in 2016. Instead, he successfully sought election to the Bay of Plenty Regional Council, representing the Tauranga constituency. In 2019, he was elected unopposed.\n\nIn August 2020, Crosby was elected as the president of Local Government New Zealand, the national association of councils in New Zealand, succeeding former Dunedin mayor Dave Cull. Crosby had previously served as Cull's vice-president.\n\nReferences\n\nLiving people\nTauranga City Councillors\nDeputy mayors of places in New Zealand\nMayors of Tauranga\nOfficers of the New Zealand Order of Merit\n1956 births"
] |
[
"Tim Kaine",
"Legal career and Richmond City Council",
"Where did Kaine attend law school?",
"I don't know.",
"What year was he elected to city council?",
"In May 1994,"
] |
C_6e5a0e696db14512b25f50b8092751a7_1
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was he known for achieving anything special while on the council?
| 3 |
was Tim Kaine known for achieving anything special while on the city council?
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Tim Kaine
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After graduating from law school, Kaine was a law clerk for Judge R. Lanier Anderson III of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, in Macon, Georgia. Kaine then joined the Richmond law firm of Little, Parsley & Cluverius, P.C. In 1987, Kaine became a director with the law firm of Mezzullo & McCandlish, P.C. Kaine practiced law in Richmond for 17 years, specializing in fair housing law and representing clients discriminated against on the basis of race or disability. He was a board member of the Virginia chapter of Housing Opportunities Made Equal, which he represented in a landmark redlining discrimination lawsuit against Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. arising from the company's practices in Richmond. Kaine won a $100.5 million verdict in the case; the judgment was overturned on appeal, and Kaine and his colleagues negotiated a $17.5 million settlement. Kaine did regular pro bono work. In 1988, Kaine started teaching legal ethics as an adjunct professor at the University of Richmond School of Law. Kaine taught at the University of Richmond for six years, and his students included future Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring. He was a founding member of the Virginia Coalition to End Homelessness. Kaine had a largely apolitical childhood, but became interested in politics in part due to the influence of his wife's family and his experience attending Richmond city council meetings. In May 1994, Kaine was elected to the city council of the independent city of Richmond, from the City's 2nd District. He defeated incumbent city councilman Benjamin P. A. Warthen by 97 votes. Kaine spent four terms on the council, the latter two as mayor. CANNOTANSWER
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Kaine spent four terms on the council, the latter two as mayor.
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Timothy Michael Kaine (; born February 26, 1958) is an American lawyer and politician serving as the junior United States senator from Virginia since 2013. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 38th lieutenant governor of Virginia from 2002 to 2006 and 70th governor of Virginia from 2006 to 2010. Kaine was the Democratic nominee for vice president of the United States in the 2016 election as Hillary Clinton's running mate.
Born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, Kaine grew up in Overland Park, Kansas, graduated from the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri, and earned a Juris Doctor degree from Harvard Law School before entering private practice and becoming a lecturer at the University of Richmond School of Law. He was first elected to public office in 1994, when he won a seat on the Richmond City Council. He was elected mayor of Richmond in 1998 and held that position until being elected lieutenant governor of Virginia in 2001. Kaine was elected governor of Virginia in 2005 and held that office from 2006 to 2010. He chaired the Democratic National Committee from 2009 to 2011.
On July 22, 2016, Hillary Clinton introduced Kaine as her vice-presidential running mate. The 2016 Democratic National Convention nominated him on July 27. Despite winning a plurality of the national popular vote, the ClintonKaine ticket lost the Electoral College, and thus the election, to the Republican ticket of Donald Trump and Mike Pence on November 8, 2016. Kaine was reelected to a second Senate term in 2018, defeating Republican Corey Stewart.
Early life and education
Kaine was born at Saint Joseph's Hospital in St. Paul, Minnesota. He is the eldest of three sons born to Mary Kathleen (née Burns), a home economics teacher, and Albert Alexander Kaine, Jr., a welder and the owner of a small iron-working shop. He was raised Catholic. One of Kaine's great-grandparents was Scottish and the other seven were Irish. Kaine's family moved to Overland Park, Kansas, when Kaine was two years old, and he grew up in the Kansas City area. In 1976, he graduated from Rockhurst High School, a Jesuit all-boys preparatory school in Kansas City, Missouri. At Rockhurst, Kaine joined the debate team and was elected student body president.
Kaine received his Bachelor of Arts in economics from the University of Missouri in 1979, completing his degree in three years and graduating Omicron Delta Kappa and summa cum laude. He was a Coro Foundation fellow in Kansas City in 1978. He entered Harvard Law School in 1979, interrupting his law studies after his first year to work in Honduras for nine months from 1980 to 1981, helping Jesuit missionaries who ran a Catholic school in El Progreso. While running a vocational center that taught carpentry and welding, he also helped increase the school's enrollment by recruiting local villagers. Kaine is fluent in Spanish as a result of his time in Honduras.
After returning from Honduras, Kaine met his future wife, first-year Harvard Law student Anne Holton. He graduated from Harvard Law School with a J.D. degree in 1983. Kaine and Holton moved to Holton's hometown of Richmond, Virginia, after graduation, and Kaine was admitted to the Virginia bar in 1984.
Legal career and Richmond City Council
After graduating from law school, Kaine was a law clerk for Judge R. Lanier Anderson III of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, in Macon, Georgia. He then joined the Richmond law firm of Little, Parsley & Cluverius, P.C. In 1987, Kaine became a director of the law firm of Mezzullo & McCandlish, P.C. He practiced law in Richmond for 17 years, specializing in fair housing law and representing clients discriminated against on the basis of race or disability. He was a board member of the Virginia chapter of Housing Opportunities Made Equal, which he represented in a landmark redlining discrimination lawsuit against Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. arising from the company's practices in Richmond. Kaine won a $100.5 million verdict in the case; the judgment was overturned on appeal, and Kaine and his colleagues negotiated a $17.5 million settlement.
Kaine did regular pro bono work. In 1988, he started teaching legal ethics as an adjunct professor at the University of Richmond School of Law. Kaine taught at the University of Richmond for six years; his students included future Virginia attorney general Mark Herring. He was a founding member of the Virginia Coalition to End Homelessness.
Kaine had a largely apolitical childhood, but became interested in politics in part due to the influence of his wife's family and his experience attending Richmond city council meetings. In 1994, he was elected the 2nd district member of the city council of the independent city of Richmond, defeating incumbent city councilor Benjamin P.A. Warthen by less than 100 votes. He took his seat on July 1 and retained the position until September 10, 2001, when he resigned and William J. Pantele was appointed to succeed him. He defeated the incumbent city councilman Benjamin P.A. Warthen by 97 votes. Kaine spent four terms on the city council, the latter two as mayor of Richmond.
Mayor of Richmond (1998–2001)
On July 1, 1998, Kaine was elected mayor of Richmond, succeeding Larry Chavis. He was chosen by an 8 to 1 vote on the majority-black Richmond City Council, becoming the city's first white mayor in more than ten years, which was viewed as a surprise. Rudy McCollum, an African American city councilor also interested in the mayoralty, decided to back Kaine after a private meeting between the two, clearing the way for Kaine to win the election. Previous mayors had treated the role as primarily ceremonial, with the city manager effectively operating the city; Kaine treated it as a full-time job, taking a more hands-on role.
As mayor, Kaine used a sale-leaseback arrangement to obtain funds to renovate the historic Maggie L. Walker High School and reopen it in 2000 as a magnet governor's school, the Maggie L. Walker Governor's School for Government and International Studies, which "now serves the top students in Central Virginia". Three elementary schools and one middle school were also built in Richmond under Kaine. Along with Commonwealth's attorney David Hicks, U.S. attorney James Comey, and police chief Jerry Oliver, Kaine was a supporter of Project Exile, an initiative that shifted gun crimes to federal court, where defendants faced harsher sentences. Though controversial, the effort was effective and achieved widespread support; the city's homicide rate fell by 55% during Kaine's mayoralty. Kaine touted Project Exile during his 2001 campaign for lieutenant governor.
On several occasions, Kaine voted against tax increases, and supported a tax abatement program for renovated buildings, which was credited for a housing renovation boom in the city. Forbes magazine named Richmond one of "the 10 best cities in America to do business" during Kaine's term.
According to John Moeser, a professor emeritus of urban studies and planning at Virginia Commonwealth University and later a visiting fellow at the University of Richmond's Center for Civic Engagement, Mayor Kaine "was energetic, charismatic and, most important, spoke openly about his commitment to racial reconciliation in Richmond." The New York Times wrote that Kaine "was by all accounts instrumental in bridging the city's racial divide." In the early part of his term, Kaine issued an apology for the city's role in slavery; the apology was generally well received as "a genuine, heartfelt expression". In the latter part of his term, a contentious debate took place over the inclusion of a portrait of Confederate general Robert E. Lee in a set of historic murals to be placed on city floodwalls. Many African Americans were outraged that Lee would appear on city walls, while Southern heritage groups demanded that the picture remain. Kaine proposed a compromise in which Lee would appear as part of a series of murals that also included figures like Abraham Lincoln and Powhatan Beaty. His stance drew criticism from the NAACP; Kaine argued that placing Lee on the floodwall made sense in context, and that "Much of our history is not pleasant; you can't whitewash it." Kaine's proposal passed the council on a 6–3 vote.
During his mayoralty, Kaine drew criticism for spending $6,000 in public funds on buses to the Million Mom March, an anti-gun-violence rally in Washington, D.C.; after a backlash, he raised the money privately and reimbursed the city.
Lieutenant governor of Virginia (2002–2006)
Kaine ran for lieutenant governor of Virginia in 2001. He joined the race after state senator Emily Couric dropped out due to pancreatic cancer and endorsed Kaine as her replacement. In the Democratic primary election, Kaine ran against state delegate Alan A. Diamonstein of Newport News, and state delegate Jerrauld C. Jones of Norfolk. Kaine won the nomination, with 39.7% of the vote to Diamonstein's 31.4% and Jones's 28.9%.
In the general election, Kaine won with 925,974 votes (50.35%), edging out his Republican opponent, state delegate Jay Katzen, who received 883,886 (48.06%). Libertarian Gary Reams received 28,783 votes (1.57%).
Kaine was inaugurated on January 12, 2002, and was sworn in by his wife Anne Holton, a state judge.
2005 gubernatorial election
In 2005, Kaine ran for governor of Virginia against Republican candidate Jerry W. Kilgore, a former state attorney general. Kaine was considered an underdog for most of the race, trailing in polls for most of the campaign. Two September polls showed Kaine trailing Kilgore—by four percentage points in a Washington Post poll and by one point in a Mason-Dixon/Roanoke Times poll. The final polls of the race before the election showed Kaine slightly edging ahead of Kilgore.
Kaine ultimately prevailed, winning 1,025,942 votes (51.7%) to Kilgore's 912,327 (46.0%). A third candidate, independent state Senator H. Russell Potts Jr., ran as an "independent Republican" and received 43,953 votes (2.2%).
Kaine emphasized fiscal responsibility and a centrist message. He expressed support for controlling sprawl and tackling longstanding traffic issues, an issue that resonated in the northern Virginia exurbs. He benefited from his association with the popular outgoing Democratic governor, Mark Warner, who had performed well in traditionally Republican areas of the state. On the campaign trail, Kaine referred to the "Warner-Kaine administration" in speeches and received Warner's strong backing. Kilgore later attributed his defeat to Warner's high popularity and President George W. Bush's sharply declining popularity; Bush held a rally with Kilgore on the campaign's final day.
The campaign turned sharply negative in its final weeks, with Kilgore running television attack ads that falsely claimed that Kaine believed that "Hitler doesn't qualify for the death penalty." The ads also attacked Kaine for his service ten years earlier as a court-appointed attorney for a death-row inmate. The editorial boards of the Washington Post and a number of Virginia newspapers denounced the ads as a "smear" and "dishonest." Kaine responded with an ad "in which he told voters that he opposes capital punishment but would take an oath and enforce the death penalty. In later polls, voters said they believed Kaine's response and were angered by Kilgore's negative ads."
In the election, Kaine won by large margins in the Democratic strongholds such as Richmond and northern Virginia's inner suburbs (such as Alexandria and Arlington), as well as in the Democratic-trending Fairfax County. Kaine also won Republican-leaning areas in Northern Virginia's outer suburbs, including Prince William County and Loudoun County, where George W. Bush had beat John Kerry in the previous year's presidential election, and performed "surprisingly well in Republican strongholds like Virginia Beach and Chesapeake." Kaine also defeated Kilgore in the burgeoning Richmond suburbs. Kilgore led in southwest Virginia and in the Shenandoah Valley.
Governor of Virginia (2006–2010)
Kaine was sworn in as governor at the colonial Capitol at Williamsburg, on January 14, 2006, the first governor since Thomas Jefferson to be inaugurated there.
Kaine was chairman of the Southern Governors' Association from 2008 to 2009.
Democratic response to State of the Union address
On January 31, 2006, Kaine gave the Democratic response to President George W. Bush's 2006 State of the Union address. In it, he criticized the Bush administration's No Child Left Behind Act for "wreaking havoc on local school districts"; criticized congressional Republicans for cutting student loan programs; and condemned as "reckless" Bush's spending increases and tax cuts. Kaine praised bipartisan initiatives in Virginia "to make record investments in education" and to improve veterans' access to veterans' benefits. He criticized the Bush administration's conduct of the Iraq War and treatment of U.S. soldiers, saying that "the American people were given inaccurate information about reasons for invading Iraq"; "our troops in Iraq were not given the best body armor or the best intelligence"; and "the administration wants to further reduce military and veterans' benefits."
Energy, the environment, and conservation
As governor, Kaine protected of Virginia land from development, fulfilling a promise he made in 2005. His conservation efforts focused on conservation easements (voluntary easements that preserve the private ownership of a piece of land while also permanently protecting it from development); a substantial Virginia land preservation tax credit encouraged easements. From 2004 to 2009, the Virginia Outdoors Foundation (a quasi-governmental entity set up in 1966 to preserve open land in the state) protected more land than it had in the previous 40 years, a fact Kaine touted as his term drew to a close.
As governor, Kaine established the Climate Change Commission, a bipartisan panel to study climate change issues. The panel was shuttered under Kaine's Republican successor, Governor Robert F. McDonnell, but revived (as the Governor's Climate Change and Resiliency Update Commission) under McDonnell's successor, Democratic Governor Terry McAuliffe.
In 2008, Kaine supported a coal-fired power plant project in Wise County, clashing with environmentalists who opposed the project.
In 2009, Kaine expressed support for tighter restrictions on mountaintop removal coal mining imposed by the Obama administration.
Healthcare and public health
In October 2006, Kaine signed an executive order banning smoking in all government buildings and state-owned cars as of January 1, 2007. He signed legislation banning smoking in restaurants and bars, with some exceptions, in March 2009, making Virginia the first Southern state to do so.
In 2007, the Republican-controlled Virginia General Assembly passed legislation, with "overwhelming bipartisan support", to require girls to receive the HPV vaccine (which immunizes recipients against a virus that causes cervical cancer) before entering high school. Kaine expressed "some qualms" about the legislation and pushed for a strong opt-out provision, ultimately signing a bill that included a provision allowing parents to opt out of the requirement without citing a reason.
In 2007, Kaine secured increases in state funding for nursing in the Virginia General Assembly and announced a 10% salary increase for nursing faculty above the normal salary increase for state employees, plus additional funds for scholarships for nursing master's programs. The initiatives were aimed at addressing a shortage of practicing nurses.
Virginia Tech shooting
After the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting, in which Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 people, Kaine appointed an eight-member Virginia Tech Review Panel, chaired by retired Virginia State Police superintendent W. Gerald Massengill, to probe the event. The commission members included specialists in psychology, law, forensics and higher education as well as former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge. The commission first met in May 2007, and issued its findings and recommendations in August 2007. Among other recommendations, the panel proposed many mental health reforms. Based on the panel's recommendations, Kaine proposed $42 million of investment in mental health programs and reforms, included "boosting access to outpatient and emergency mental health services, increasing the number of case managers and improving monitoring of community-based providers." In April 2007, Kaine signed an executive order instructing state agencies to step up efforts to block gun sales to people involuntarily committed to inpatient and outpatient mental health treatment centers. Kaine, who had been in Japan on a trade mission at the time of the shootings, received widespread praise for his quick return to the state and his handling of the issue.
Budget and economy
Among Kaine's greatest challenges as governor came during the 2008–09 economic crisis; the Washington Post wrote that "perhaps his greatest success was keeping the state running despite [the crisis]." Amid the Great Recession, unemployment in Virginia remained lower than the national average. During Kaine's tenure as governor, the unemployment rate in Virginia rose from 3.2% to 7.4%, a smaller increase than the national rate, which rose from 4.7% to 9.9% during the same period.
As governor, Kaine approved about $3.31 billion in general fund spending cuts, and after his term in office, the Virginia General Assembly adopted about $1.33 billion in additional budget cuts that Kaine had recommended, for a total of $4.64 billion in cuts. The Washington Post wrote, "Unable to raise taxes and required by law to balance the budget, he was forced to make unpopular cuts that led to such things as shuttered highway rest stops and higher public university tuition." Virginia was one of three states to earn the highest grade in terms of management in a report by the nonpartisan Pew Center on the States. Virginia took first place each year from 2006 to 2009 in Forbes magazine's "Best States For Business" rankings.
Infrastructure and transportation
In July 2007, during the debate on the Silver Line of the Washington Metro through Tysons Corner, Kaine supported an elevated track solution rather than a tunnel, citing costs and potential delays that would put federal funding at risk.
In 2006, Kaine pressed the general assembly to support a legislative package to ease severe traffic congestion by spending about $1 billion annually for highway construction, repairs to aging roads, mass transit, and other transportation projects. The money would be raised through increases in taxes and fees that would have raised an estimated $4 billion in revenue over four years. The Democratic-controlled Senate supported the plan, but the Republican-controlled House was unwilling to approve the taxes necessary to carry out the project, and the effort failed even after a special session of the legislature was called over the stalemate.
In 2007, Republicans in the General Assembly passed their own transportation-funding bill. Rather than a statewide tax increase to finance the transportation improvements, as Kaine and most legislative Democrats favored, the Republican bill called for transportation funding "to come from borrowing $2.5 billion and paying the debt costs out of the general fund"; authorized local tax increase in Northern Virginia; increased fees and taxes on rental cars, commercial real estate, and hotels; and increased traffic infraction fines and driver's licenses fees.
Kaine and most legislative Democrats opposed the Republican legislation, calling it inadequate to address traffic congestion and arguing that the withdrawal of funds from the general fund would affect core services such as health care, law enforcement, and education. Kaine ultimately signed a bill with amendments reflecting "concerns by local government officials and a bipartisan group of lawmakers who were concerned that the plan took too much money from the state's general fund."
Education
Under Kaine, participation in Virginia in early childhood education increased by 40.2% due to his expansion of the Virginia Preschool Initiative, which makes pre-kindergarten more accessible to four-year-olds from households close to the poverty line. Kaine sought increases to the budget for preschool programs every year during his term as governor. Virginia was rated as the best state to raise a child in a 2007 report by Education Week and the Pew Center on the States.
Cabinet and appointments
Kaine made the following appointments to his Virginia Governor's Cabinet:
Chief of Staff: William Leighty (2006–2007), Wayne Turnage (2007–2010)
Secretary of Administration: Viola Baskerville (2006–2010)
Virginia Secretary of Agriculture and Forestry: Robert Bloxom (2006–2010)
Secretary of Commerce and Trade: Patrick Gottschalk (2006–2010)
Secretary of the Commonwealth: Katherine Hanley (2006–2010)
Secretary of Education: Thomas R. Morris (2006–2010)
Secretary of Finance:Jody Wagner (2006–2008), Ric Brown (2008–2010)
Secretary of Health and Human Resources: Marilyn Tavenner (2006–2010)
Secretary of Natural Resources: Preston Bryant (2006–2010)
Secretary of Public Safety: John W. Marshall (2006–2010)
Secretary of Technology: Aneesh Chopra (2006–2009), Leonard Pomata (2009–2010)
Secretary of Transportation: Pierce Homer (2006–2010)
Counselor to the Governor: Lawrence Roberts (2006–2009)
Counselor to the Governor: Mark Rubin (2009–2010)
Assistant for Commonwealth Preparedness: Robert P. Crouch (2006–2010)
Senior Advisor for Workforce: Daniel G. LeBlanc (2006–2010)
As governor, Kaine made a number of appointments to the Virginia state courts. He made two appointments to the Supreme Court of Virginia, naming Chesapeake circuit judge S. Bernard Goodwyn to the Court in 2007 and Virginia Court of Appeals Judge LeRoy F. Millette Jr. in 2008.
On September 27, 2007, just weeks after appointing Esam Omeish to the 20-member Virginia Commission on Immigration, Kaine learned that Omeish had made videos accusing Israel of genocide and calling for President Bush's impeachment. He immediately requested and received Omeish's resignation and said that background checks would be more thorough in the future.
2008 vice presidential speculation
Kaine announced his support for Barack Obama's presidential bid in February 2007. It was maintained that Kaine's endorsement was the first from a statewide elected official outside of Illinois. Because Kaine was a relatively popular governor of a Southern state, there was media speculation that he was a potential nominee for vice president. Obama had supported Kaine in his campaign for governor, saying, "Tim Kaine has a message of fiscal responsibility and generosity of spirit. That kind of message can sell anywhere." On July 28, 2008, Politico reported that Kaine was "very, very high" on Obama's shortlist for vice president, a list that also included Senator Hillary Clinton of New York, Governor Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas, Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana, and Senator Joe Biden of Delaware. Obama ultimately selected Biden. It was later reported that Obama told Kaine, in breaking the news to him, "You are the pick of my heart, but Joe [Biden] is the pick of my head". Obama later wrote that he had ultimately narrowed down the choice for his running mate to Kaine and Biden. He said, "At the time, I was much closer to Tim", but Obama and his advisers David Axelrod and David Plouffe wondered whether voters would accept a ticket of "two relatively young, inexperienced, and liberal civil rights attorneys" and Obama felt the contrast between him and Biden was a strength, and that Biden's age and experience would reassure voters concerned that Obama was too young to be president.
Democratic National Committee chair (2009–2011)
In January 2009, Kaine became chair of the Democratic National Committee. He had turned down the position the first time it was offered to him, expressing misgivings about accepting a partisan position, but took the job at Obama's request. He took on the position as chair part-time as he continued his term as governor of Virginia. Kaine's main goals as DNC chair "were protecting the party's seats in Congress during the 2010 midterms and integrating the president's campaign apparatus, Organizing for America, and its technological acumen into the party machinery." In the 2010 midterms, the DNC under Kaine's leadership outraised the Republican National Committee (RNC) by $30 million, but Democrats lost control of the House and lost seats in the Senate amidst a Tea Party backlash. Kaine was not generally blamed for the losses.
Kaine kept a low profile in the position in comparison to his counterpart, RNC chairman Michael Steele. He focused more on fundraising and maintaining party unity than on attacking political opponents.
In February 2011, after Kaine spoke to union leaders in Madison, Organizing for America got involved in Wisconsin's budget battle and opposed Republican-sponsored anti-union legislation. It made phone calls, sent emails, and distributed messages via Facebook and Twitter to build crowds for rallies.
After completing his term as governor in January 2010, Kaine taught part-time at the University of Richmond, teaching a course in spring 2010 at the Jepson School of Leadership Studies and another in fall 2010 at the University of Richmond School of Law. He explained that he had chosen to teach at a private university rather than a public university "because it would not have been right for a sitting governor to be seeking employment at an institution when he writes the budget and appoints the board of the institution."
United States Senate
2012 election
After Senator Jim Webb's decision not to seek reelection, Kaine announced on April 5, 2011, that he would run for Webb's seat. He was initially reluctant to return to public office, but Webb, Senator Mark Warner, and other Virginia Democrats saw Kaine as the strongest potential Democratic candidate and convinced him to run. Kaine named Lawrence Roberts as his campaign chairman. Mike Henry was chosen as his campaign manager. Kaine filmed announcement videos in English and Spanish and was unopposed for the Democratic nomination. He defeated former senator and governor George Allen in the general election.
Tenure
Kaine was sworn in on January 3, 2013, reuniting him with Mark Warner, the senior senator. Kaine was lieutenant governor when Warner was governor of Virginia.
On June 11, 2013, Kaine delivered a speech on the Senate floor in support of the bipartisan "Gang of Eight" immigration bill. The speech was entirely in Spanish, marking the first time a senator had ever made a speech on the Senate floor in a language other than English.
As a member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, Kaine pushed for a new Congressional authorization of military force for the American operations against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Kaine supported the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran, though he also helped Republican senator Bob Corker hold a vote on a resolution of disapproval of the deal. Kaine has taken several trips throughout the Middle East, meeting with the leaders of states such as Turkey and Israel.
While in the Senate, Kaine has continued to teach part-time at the University of Richmond, receiving a salary of $16,000 per year.
Kaine has voted with his party more than 90% of the time. According to the Washington Post, Kaine has "crafted a largely progressive record as a senator." He reportedly has good relations with both Democratic and Republican senators.
During the 2016 vice-presidential campaign, Kaine frequently criticized Donald Trump, saying that Trump "as commander-in-chief scares me to death" and had a "bizarre fascination with strongmen and authoritarian leaders". In 2017, after Trump took office, Kaine continued to criticize his "authoritarian tendencies", citing his attacks on media, judges, and peaceful protesters. At an event at George Mason University, Kaine said that with Trump in office, Americans "are in a 'living experiment' to see whether or not the Constitution still works to check executive power."
In February 2017, Kaine met with Pope Francis at a general audience at the Vatican. Kaine also met with the Jesuit Refugee Service to discuss refugees and met with Vatican officials to discuss Latin American issues. The same month, Kaine delivered an address, "The Truman Doctrine at 70", at London's Chatham House.
Committee assignments and caucuses
In the 113th Congress (2013–15), Kaine was on the Committee on Armed Services, the Committee on the Budget, and the Committee on Foreign Relations. In the 114th Congress, Kaine was on those three committees and the Special Committee on Aging. In July 2013, Kaine was named chair of the United States Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Near East, South Asia, Central Asia and Counterterrorism.
Within the Senate Armed Services Committee, Kaine is a member of the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities, the Subcommittee on Readiness and Management Support (of which he is the ranking member), and the Subcommittee on Seapower.
Within the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, Kaine is a member of the Subcommittee on State Department and USAID Management, International Operations, and Bilateral International Development (of which he is the ranking member), the Subcommittee on Europe and Regional Security Cooperation, the Subcommittee on Near East, South Asia, Central Asia, and Counterterrorism, and the Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere, Transnational Crime, Civilian Security, Democracy, Human Rights and Global Women's Issues.
In January 2014, Kaine and Senator Rob Portman established the bipartisan Senate Career and Technical Education Caucus (CTE Caucus), which focuses on vocational education and technical education. Kaine and Portman co-chair the caucus. In 2014, Kaine and Portman introduced the CTE Excellence and Equity Act to the Senate; the legislation would provide $500 million in federal funding, distributed by competitive grants, to high schools to further CTE programs. The legislation, introduced as an amendment to the omnibus Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act of 2006, would promote apprenticeships and similar initiatives. Kaine and Portman introduced similar legislation, the Educating Tomorrow's Workforce Act, in 2017.
2016 vice-presidential campaign
Kaine endorsed Hillary Clinton for president in 2016 and campaigned actively for her in seven states during the primaries. He had been the subject of considerable speculation as a possible running mate for Clinton, with several news reports indicating that he was at or near the top of Clinton's list of people under consideration alongside figures such as Elizabeth Warren and Julian Castro.
The New York Times reported that Clinton's husband, former president Bill Clinton, supported Kaine as his wife's vice-presidential selection, noting his domestic and national security résumé. On July 22, 2016, she announced Kaine would be her running mate in the election. Clinton introduced Kaine as her choice in a joint appearance at a rally at Florida International University in Miami the next day. The 2016 Democratic National Convention nominated him for vice president on July 27, 2016.
Kaine was the first Virginian since Woodrow Wilson to be on a major-party ticket, and was the first Virginian to run for vice president on a major-party ticket since John Tyler in 1840; he was also the first senator or former senator from Virginia to be on a major-party ticket since Tyler.
In accordance with longstanding political custom in the U.S., upon being nominated for vice president Kaine publicly released his full tax returns for the previous ten years. He also publicly released medical records; his physician, Brian P. Monahan, the Attending Physician of the United States Congress, wrote that Kaine was "in overall excellent health." In September Kaine published a campaign book co-authored with Clinton, Stronger Together.
In Kaine's preparations for the vice presidential debate in October 2016, lawyer Robert Barnett played the role of Republican vice-presidential nominee Mike Pence. (During Pence's own debate preparations, Wisconsin governor Scott Walker played the role of Kaine.) Pence was criticized after the debate for not defending Trump's comments, while Kaine was criticized for being too aggressive and interrupting. According to ABC News, Kaine interrupted 70 times during the debate, while Pence interrupted 40 times.
Despite winning a plurality of the national popular vote, the Clinton-Kaine ticket lost the Electoral College, and thus the election, to the Trump-Pence ticket on November 8, 2016. This is the only election Kaine has ever lost. Clinton-Kaine did win Virginia, the only Southern state to vote for the Democratic ticket, a victory attributed in part to Kaine.
2018 election
After the 2016 election, Kaine said he would run for reelection to the Senate in 2018. He expressed his desire to emulate John Warner, who represented Virginia in the Senate for 30 years. He added that he would not run for president or vice president in the future.
In his 2018 Senate campaign against Republican nominee and Trump ally Corey Stewart, Kaine had the endorsement of The Richmond Times-Dispatch, marking the first time in decades the paper had endorsed a Democrat.
After taking an early lead in his race against Stewart, Kaine worked to support other Democrats who, in seven districts, were challenging incumbent Republicans for House seats. Kaine defeated Stewart by more than 15 points.
Personality and leadership style
About 145,000 emails from Kaine and his staff during his term as governor are publicly accessible at the Library of Virginia. Politico conducted an analysis of the correspondence and wrote that the messages show Kaine to be a "media-savvy" and detail-oriented "micro-manager" who is also a policy "wonk".
According to The New York Times, Kaine "is widely described by people in his political orbit as a likable if less than charismatic figure...guided by moral convictions that flow from his deep Christian faith." On Meet the Press, Kaine called himself "boring."
Political positions
In terms of political ideology, FiveThirtyEight gives Kaine an average score of −37 (−100 is the most liberal, and 100 is the most conservative). FiveThirtyEight characterizes him as a "mainstream Democrat" and notes that his ideology score is very similar to that of Joe Biden. Three conservative groups—the American Conservative Union, the Club for Growth, and Heritage Action—gave Kaine 0% ratings in the few years before 2016, while the liberal group Americans for Democratic Action gave Kaine a 90% rating in 2014. The New York Times wrote that "in hyperpartisan Washington, he is often seen as a centrist" while also describing him as an "old-fashioned liberal...driven by Jesuit ideals."
Abortion, birth control, and sex education
Kaine, a Roman Catholic, personally opposes abortion, but is "largely inclined to keep the law out of women's reproductive decisions." He has said, "I'm a strong supporter of Roe v. Wade and women being able to make these decisions. In government, we have enough things to worry about. We don't need to make people's reproductive decisions for them." Kaine supports some legal restrictions on abortion, such as requiring parental consent for minors (with a judicial bypass procedure) and banning late-term abortions in cases where the woman's life is not at risk.
In 2009, Kaine signed a bill to create a "Choose Life" license plate, among the more than 200 Virginia specialty plates already offered, the proceeds of which would partly go to Heartbeat International, a Christian organization that operates anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers. Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice America expressed disappointment in Kaine's decision. Kaine considered such license plate messages a matter of free speech and added that the move was "in keeping with the commonwealth's longtime practice of approving specialty plates with all manner of political and social messages."
Kaine previously criticized the Obama administration for "not providing a 'broad enough religious employer exemption'" in the contraceptive mandate of the Affordable Care Act, but praised a 2012 amendment to the regulations that required insurers to provide birth control to employees when an employer was an objecting religious organization.
In 2005, when running for governor, Kaine said he favored reducing abortions by "Enforcing the current Virginia restrictions on abortion and passing an enforceable ban on partial birth abortion that protects the life and health of the mother"; "Fighting teen pregnancy through abstinence-focused education"; "Ensuring women's access to health care (including legal contraception) and economic opportunity"; and "Promoting adoption as an alternative for women facing unwanted pregnancies."
In 2007, as governor, Kaine cut off state funding for abstinence-only sex education programs, citing studies that showed such programs were ineffective, while comprehensive sex education programs were more effective. Kaine believes that both abstinence and contraceptives must be taught, and that education should be evidence-based.
As a senator, Kaine has received perfect scores from Planned Parenthood and the abortion-rights advocacy group NARAL. He has received a score of zero from the anti-abortion National Right to Life Committee.
Campaign finance
Kaine "strongly disagrees" with Citizens United v. FEC (2010). In 2015, Kaine joined a group of Senate Democrats in a letter to Securities and Exchange Commission Chairwoman Mary Jo White that said the ruling "reversed long-standing precedent and has moved our country in a different and disturbing direction when it comes to corporate influence in politics." They urged the SEC to require publicly traded companies to disclose political spending to their shareholders to "increase transparency in the U.S. political process".
Capital punishment
Kaine personally opposes capital punishment, but presided over 11 executions while governor. He said, "I really struggled with [capital punishment] as governor. I have a moral position against the death penalty. But I took an oath of office to uphold it. Following an oath of office is also a moral obligation." During his time in office he commuted one death sentence in June 2008, that of Percy Levar Walton, to life imprisonment without parole on grounds of mental incompetence, writing that "one cannot reasonably conclude that Walton is fully aware of the punishment he is about to suffer and why he is to suffer it" and thus that executing him would be unconstitutional. Kaine vetoed a number of bills to expand the death sentence to more crimes, saying: "I do not believe that further expansion of the death penalty is necessary to protect human life or provide for public safety needs." Some of the vetoes were overridden.
On July 31, 2019, after Attorney General William Barr announced that the United States federal government would resume the use of the death penalty for the first time in over 20 years, Kaine co-sponsored a bill banning the death penalty.
Environment, energy, and climate change
Kaine acknowledges the scientific consensus on climate change, and in a 2014 Senate speech criticized climate change deniers, as well as those who "may not deny the climate science, but ... deny that the U.S. can or should be a leader in taking any steps" to address the issue.
Kaine has expressed concern about sea level rise (a major consequence of climate change), and in particular its effect on coastal Virginia. In 2014, he partnered with two Virginia Republicans—U.S. Representatives Rob Wittman and Scott Rigell—to hold a conference on sea-level rise and "local adaptation efforts to protect military installations in the Hampton Roads area."
Kaine endorses making coal energy production cleaner, saying that it is imperative "to convert coal to electricity with less pollution than we do today." He has criticized those who "frame the debate as a conflict between an economy and the environment", saying that "protecting the environment is good for the economy." Kaine co-sponsored the Advanced Clean Coal Technology Investment in Our Nation (ACCTION) Act, legislation to increase investment in clean coal technologies. He voted against legislation to approve the Keystone XL pipeline. Kaine supports the use of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) to harvest natural gas from shale formations. He believes this will reduce carbon pollution. Kaine voted against an amendment introduced by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand that would have repealed a provision in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 that exempts fracking from the underground injection control provisions of the Safe Drinking Water Act. As a result, regulation of fracking remains in the hands of state agencies; the EPA cannot regulate it or require a federal permit. Kaine supports exporting liquefied natural gas (LNG) to other countries.
Like his fellow senator from Virginia, Mark Warner, Kaine applauded the U.S. Forest Service's plan to close most, but not all, of the George Washington National Forest to fracking and other horizontal drilling activities.
In 2013, Kaine supported oil and gas exploration off the coast of Virginia, saying, "I have long believed that the moratorium on offshore drilling, based on a cost-benefit calculation performed decades ago, should be reexamined." In April 2015, Kaine reiterated his opposition to the moratorium on offshore drilling. In March 2016, Kaine signaled that his position was softening, saying he was "particularly struck by the material objections of the Department of Defense to the incompatibility of drilling with naval operations off Virginia's coast... I have participated in this debate for over a decade as a governor and member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. The DOD has been relatively quiet during this public debate and has never shared their objections with me before." By August 2016, Kaine stated his support for a ban on offshore drilling, bringing his position in line with Hillary Clinton's and the Obama administration's.
Kaine supports the development of solar energy and offshore wind turbines. Based on his votes on environmental issues in the Senate, the League of Conservation Voters has given Kaine a 95% score for 2018, and a 94% lifetime score. (At the time of his vice-presidential campaign, Kaine had an 88% score for 2015, and a 91% lifetime score.)
In March 2019, Kaine was one of 11 senators to sponsor the Climate Security Act of 2019, legislation forming a new group within the State Department that would be responsible for developing strategies to integrate climate science and data into operations of national security as well as restoring the post of special envoy for the Arctic, which Trump had dismantled in 2017. The proposed envoy would advise the president and the administration on the potential effects of climate on national security and be responsible for facilitating all interagency communication between federal science and security agencies.
In April 2019, Kaine was one of 12 senators to sign a bipartisan letter to top senators on the Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development advocating that the Energy Department be granted maximum funding for carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS), arguing that American job growth could be stimulated by investment in viable options to capture carbon emissions released into the atmosphere and expressing disagreement with the Trump's 2020 budget request to combine the two federal programs that include carbon capture research.
Financial regulation
Kaine strongly supports financial regulation and the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. In July 2016, he signed a bipartisan letter that "urged the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to 'carefully tailor its rulemaking' [under Dodd-Frank] regarding community banks and credit unions so as not to 'unduly burden' these institutions with regulations aimed at commercial banks." The letter prompted criticism from progressives who viewed it as anti-regulation. Democracy for America executive director Charles Chamberlain called the letter "a lobbyist-driven effort to help banks dodge consumer protection standards and regulations designed to prevent banks from destroying our economy." Kaine responded, "it's important you don't treat every financial institution the same. It wasn't credit unions that tanked the economy, it wasn't local community banks that tanked the economy, generally wasn't regional banks that did things that tanked the economy." He also signed a letter urging that a requirement that regional banks report liquidity levels on a daily basis be loosened.
Foreign and defense policy
In the Senate, Kaine has supported the normalization of U.S.–Cuban relations and the international nuclear agreement with Iran.
Kaine expressed support for Israel's right to defend itself during the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict. In September 2016, in advance of a UN Security Council resolution 2334 condemning Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, he signed an AIPAC-sponsored letter urging Obama to veto "one-sided" resolutions against Israel.
In 2015, Kaine expressed support for the Saudi-led coalition's airstrikes in Yemen against Houthi forces fighting the government of President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, but in 2018, he was one of seven senators to sign a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo saying that they found it "difficult to reconcile known facts with at least two" of the Trump administration's certifications that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were attempting to protect Yemeni civilians and were in compliance with U.S. laws on arms sales, citing an inconsistency with a memo from Pompeo to Congress expressly stating that on some occasions the Saudi and Emirates governments had failed to adopt measures to reduce civilian casualties. Kaine also condemned the Trump administration for its "eagerness to give the Saudis anything they want" after the administration approved the transfer of nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia after the murder of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi.
In July 2017, Kaine voted for the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act that placed sanctions on Iran, Russia, and North Korea.
In 2019, Kaine was one of 34 Senate Democrats to sign a letter to Trump urging him to reconsider cuts to U.S. foreign aid to the Northern Triangle countries of Central America in the Fiscal Year 2018 national security appropriations bill. The letter said that Trump had "consistently expressed a flawed understanding of U.S. foreign assistance", viewing it as a gift or charity to foreign governments rather than a tool to promote American interests and collective security. The senators wrote that U.S. foreign assistance to Central American countries, by improving stability and alleviating poverty in the region, reduced Central American migration flows to the U.S.
In 2019, Kaine co-sponsored the South China Sea and East China Sea Sanctions Act, a bipartisan bill reintroduced by Marco Rubio and Ben Cardin that was intended to disrupt China's consolidation or expansion of its claims of jurisdiction over both the sea and airspace in disputed zones in the South China Sea.
Grand strategy and democracy promotion
After the 2016 presidential campaign, Kaine wrote an extensive essay in Foreign Affairs outlining his underlying foreign policy philosophy. According to Kaine, American foreign policy has suffered a lack of direction since the 1990s because the end of the Cold War rendered irrelevant America's previous grand strategy, which he identifies as the Truman Doctrine. This lack of grand strategy makes American actions seem random, complicating the policy-making process and hindering American leaders' efforts to convince the public that American foreign policy is worthwhile. To remedy this, Kaine proposed a new grand strategy based mainly on democracy promotion. His grand strategy is informed by a tri-polar balance of international power, with one pole being democratic states including the U.S. and its allies, the second autocratic powers led by Russia and China, and the third nonstate actors (multinational corporations, NGOs, gangs, etc.).
First, Kaine believes that the United States should work to support democracy in already democratic countries, as democracy globally has been declining for many years. To maintain democracy in democratic countries, Kaine proposes the creation of an intergovernmental organization consisting of all the world's democracies in which states can cooperate on solutions to problems such as corruption and voter inclusion. He compares this hypothetical group to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, in which advanced industrialized countries collaborate on economic policy. Kaine believes that this new organization will help democracies remain democratic, as well as promote democracy in other countries by giving them viable democratic examples to emulate. In this way, Kaine says that the U.S. should no longer see itself as the indispensable nation, but rather the "exemplary democracy".
Second, Kaine proposes that democracies should coordinate to best interact with authoritarian states. Depending on the circumstances, democracies should either "confront", "compete", or "cooperate" with autocracies. For example, Kaine observes that the U.S. competes with its authoritarian adversaries by strengthening military and commercial alliances, and confronts them by decrying their human rights records.
Finally, Kaine believes that democracies and autocracies should cooperate when they have the same interests, such as combating climate change.
In July 2017, Kaine expanded on the grand strategy proposed in this essay in an interview at the Brookings Institution with international relations scholar Robert Kagan.
Afghanistan
Kaine's website states, "The main mission in Afghanistan—destroying Al Qaeda—is nearly complete and we should bring our troops home as quickly as we can, consistent with the need to make sure that Afghanistan poses no danger in the broader region."
Latin America
Kaine believes that American foreign policy has neglected relations with Latin America and argues for an increased focus on the Americas, saying, "We have seldom paid enough attention to the Americas, in particular, and when we have—whether through the Monroe Doctrine or by battling communist movements during the Cold War—we have focused more on blocking outsiders from building influence in the Western Hemisphere than we have on the nations already there."
War powers
Kaine is known for "expertise on the constitutional powers of the presidency" and has said that "war powers questions" are a "personal obsession" of his. He has stressed that under the Constitution, "Congress has the power to declare war—and only Congress." Kaine called the 2018 U.S. missile strikes Trump ordered against the Syrian government illegal because they were undertaken without congressional approval.
Kaine and Senator John McCain introduced the War Powers Consultation Act of 2014, which would replace the War Powers Act of 1973, bringing Congress back into decisions on the deployment of U.S. military forces. The bill would establish a Congressional Consultation Committee, with which the president would be required to consult regularly regarding significant foreign policy matters before ordering the deployment of the armed forces into a significant armed conflict and at least every two months for the duration of any significant armed conflict. Kaine argued for the bill by citing his "frustration" over the sloppiness of "process and communication over decisions of war", noting that "presidents tend to overreach and Congress sometimes willingly ducks tough votes and decisions. We all have to do better."
In February 2018, Kaine was one of 18 senators to sign a letter to Trump arguing that striking North Korea with "a preventative or preemptive U.S. military strike would lack either a constitutional basis or legal authority" without congressional approval.
In January 2020, Kaine introduced a new war powers resolution that would prohibit the U.S. from entering hostilities against Iran within 30 days unless it was responding to an imminent threat. The next month, the measure passed the Senate 55–45, securing the votes of eight Republicans along with the Democrats. Trump vetoed the measure, and the Senate failed to override the veto.
Syria, Iraq, and ISIL
In 2014, Kaine argued that the U.S. military intervention against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) undertaken by Obama was unconstitutional without a new congressional authorization for the use of military force against ISIL. In November 2014, at the Halifax International Security Forum, Kaine and McCain emphasized the necessity of such a congressional authorization, saying: "You just can't have a war without Congress. You can't ask people to risk their lives, risk getting killed, seeing other folks getting killed or injured if Congress isn't willing to do the job to put their thumbprint on this and say, this is a national mission and worth it." After the April 2017 Shayrat missile strike in Syria, ordered by Trump, Kaine said, "There is no legal justification for this. He should not have done this without coming to Congress." On Meet the Press, Kaine said, "I'm a strong supporter that the U.S. should take action to protect humanitarian causes, like the ban on chemical weapons. Where I differ from this administration, and I took the same position with respect to President Obama, we are a nation that's not supposed to take military action, start war, without a plan that's presented to and approved by Congress."
On December 11, 2014, after a five-month campaign by Kaine, the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved by 10–8 (along party lines) a measure authorizing military force against ISIL but barring the use of ground troops. In October 2015, Kaine criticized Obama's approach to the Syrian Civil War, saying that the establishment of humanitarian no-fly zones would have alleviated the humanitarian crisis in Syria.
In April 2018, Kaine criticized Trump for authorizing the launch of a precision military strike on Syria without consulting Congress, calling the strike an "illegal military act".
On February 26, 2021, Kaine demanded answers from President Biden after he ordered airstrikes on Syria against Iran-backed militias without giving "legal justification" to members of Congress beforehand.
Firearms
Kaine is a firearms owner. He has supported expanded background checks for weapons purchases as well as "restrictions on the sale of combat-style weapons and high-capacity magazines." As governor, Kaine oversaw the closing of loopholes in Virginia law that allowed some who had failed background checks to purchase guns. In the Senate, he has supported legislation that would require background checks for weapons sold via gun shows and via the internet. He also supports legislation to bar weapons sales to suspected terrorists on the No Fly List.
In November 2017, Kaine was a cosponsor of the Military Domestic Violence Reporting Enhancement Act, a bill that would form a charge of domestic violence under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) and stipulate that convictions be reported to federal databases with the authority to keep abusers from purchasing firearms within three days in an attempt to close a loophole in the UCMJ through which convicted abusers retained the ability to purchase firearms.
In March 2018, Kaine was one of ten senators to sign a letter to Chairman of the United States Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Lamar Alexander and ranking Democrat Patty Murray requesting they schedule a hearing on the causes and remedies of mass shootings in the wake of the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting.
In June 2019, Kaine was one of four senators to cosponsor the Help Empower Americans to Respond (HEAR) Act, legislation that would ban suppressors being imported, sold, made, sent elsewhere or possessed and grant a silencer buyback program as well as include certain exceptions for current and former law enforcement personnel and others. The bill was intended to respond to the Virginia Beach shooting, in which the perpetrator used a .45-caliber handgun with multiple extended magazines and a suppressor.
Kaine has a 100% rating from the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and an "F" rating from the NRA.
Health care
Kaine supports the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2009 (Obamacare), saying in 2012, "I was a supporter and remain a supporter of the Affordable Care Act. I felt like it was a statement that we were going to put some things in the rearview mirror." In 2013, he said that he agreed that changes to the ACA should be debated, but criticized Republicans for "wrapping them up with the threat" of a federal government shutdown.
In 2018, Kaine and Senator Michael Bennet proposed the creation of "Medicare X"—a public health insurance option modeled after Medicare that would be available on ACA health insurance marketplaces along with private options. The proposal is a more incrementalist alternative to Bernie Sanders's push for "Medicare for All" (single-payer health care).
In December 2018, Kaine was one of 42 senators to sign a letter to Trump administration officials Alex Azar, Seema Verma, and Steve Mnuchin arguing that the administration was improperly using Section 1332 of the ACA to authorize states to "increase health care costs for millions of consumers while weakening protections for individuals with pre-existing conditions." The senators requested the administration withdraw the policy and "re-engage with stakeholders, states, and Congress."
In January 2019, Kaine was one of six Democratic senators to introduce the American Miners Act of 2019, a bill that would amend the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 to swap funds in excess of the amounts needed to meet existing obligations under the Abandoned Mine Land fund to the 1974 Pension Plan as part of an effort to prevent its insolvency as a result of coal company bankruptcies and the 2008 financial crisis. It also increased the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund tax and ensured that miners affected by the 2018 coal company bankruptcies would not lose their health care.
In December 2016, Kaine was one of 17 senators to sign a letter to Trump asking him to fulfill a campaign pledge to bring down the cost of prescription drugs. In February 2017, he and 30 other senators signed a letter to Kaléo Pharmaceuticals in response to the opioid-overdose-reversing device Evzio rising in price from $690 in 2014 to $4,500 and requested the company provide the detailed price structure for Evzio, the number of devices Kaléo Pharmaceuticals set aside for donation, and the totality of federal reimbursements Evzio received in the previous year. In February 2019, Kaine was one of 11 senators to sign a letter to insulin manufacturers Eli Lilly and Company, Novo Nordisk, and Sanofi about increased insulin prices and charging that the price increases caused patients to lack "access to the life-saving medications they need."
In August 2019, Kaine was one of 19 Democratic senators to sign a letter to Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar requesting data from the Trump administration on the consequences for healthcare if Texas prevailed in its lawsuit seeking to gut the Affordable Care Act. The senators wrote, "Upending the current health care system will create an enormous hole in the pocketbooks of the people we serve as well as wreck state budgets; therefore, we ask for data to help states and Congress better understand the potential consequences of the position the Administration is taking in court."
In September 2019, amid discussions to prevent a government shutdown, Kaine was one of six Democratic senators to sign a letter to congressional leadership advocating legislation that would permanently fund health care and pension benefits for retired coal miners as "families in Virginia, West Virginia, Wyoming, Alabama, Colorado, North Dakota and New Mexico" would start to receive notifications of health care termination by the end of the following month.
Immigration
Kaine supports the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Deferred Action for Parental Accountability (DAPA) programs, which allow up to five million undocumented immigrants to gain deferral of deportation and authorization to legally work in the United States. Alongside Senator Mark Warner and many other members of Congress, he signed on to an amicus brief in support of the program in the Supreme Court case United States v. Texas.
Kaine also supports comprehensive immigration reform, which would allow persons illegally present in the U.S. to earn legal status by paying a fine and taxes.
In July 2019, following reports that the Trump administration intended to end protections of spouses, parents and children of active-duty service members from deportation, Kaine was one of 22 senators to sign a letter led by Tammy Duckworth arguing that the program allowed service members the ability "to fight for the United States overseas and not worry that their spouse, children, or parents will be deported while they are away" and that the its termination would cause personal hardship for service members in combat.
In July 2019, Kaine and 15 other Senate Democrats introduced the Protecting Sensitive Locations Act, a bill to mandate that ICE agents get approval from a supervisor before undertaking an immigration raid or other enforcement actions at "sensitive locations" (schools, hospitals, places of worship, and courthouses) except in special circumstances. The bill would also require agents to receive annual training and require ICE to submit an annual report on enforcement actions in those locations.
LGBT rights
In 2006, Kaine campaigned against an amendment to the Virginia State Constitution to ban same-sex marriage, and in March 2013, he announced his support of same-sex marriage.
In the Senate, Kaine co-sponsored the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which would bar employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
In 2005, Kaine said, "No couples in Virginia can adopt other than a married couple. That's the right policy." In 2011, he shifted his position. In 2012, he said, "there should be a license that would entitle a committed couple to the same rights as a married couple."
During the 2016 presidential campaign, Kaine noted that his position on same-sex marriage was "at odds with the current doctrine of the church that I still attend." He predicted that the Roman Catholic Church would someday adopt his view. In response, two bishops heading the doctrine and marriage committees of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said that the church's position "cannot change" and reaffirmed their opposition to same-sex marriage.
In October 2018, Kaine was one of 20 senators to sign a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urging him to reverse the State Department's policy of denying visas to same-sex partners of LGBTQ diplomats who had unions that were not recognized by their home countries, writing that the Trump administration's refusal to allow LGBTQ diplomats to bring their partners to the U.S. was tantamount to upholding the "discriminatory policies of many countries around the world." In June 2019, Kaine was one of 18 senators to sign a letter to Pompeo requesting an explanation of the State Department's decision not to issue an official statement that year commemorating Pride Month or issue the annual cable outlining activities for embassies commemorating Pride Month. The signatories to the letter also asked why the LGBTI special envoy position had remained vacant. The authors said that the State Department's moves had sent "signals to the international community that the United States is abandoning the advancement of LGBTI rights as a foreign policy priority."
Taxes
Kaine supports allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire for those with incomes above $500,000.
In 2012, Kaine supported raising the cap on income subject for the FICA (Social Security) payroll tax "so that it covers a similar percentage of income as it did in the 1980s under President Reagan, which would greatly extend the solvency of the (Social Security) program."
In the Senate, Kaine has supported the Marketplace Fairness Act, which would allow states to require online retailers to collect sales taxes in the same manner as traditional brick-and-mortar retailers.
Trade
Kaine supported granting Obama Trade Promotion Authority (TPA or "fast track") to allow him to negotiate free trade agreements. He said the goal should be to "negotiate deals that protect workers' rights, environmental standards and intellectual property, while knocking down tariffs and other barriers that some countries erect to keep American products out."
In July 2016, Kaine said the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement was "an improvement of the status quo" and an "upgrade of labor standards... environmental standards... intellectual property protections", but maintained that he had not yet decided how to vote on final approval of the agreement, citing "significant concerns" over TPP's dispute resolution mechanism. Later that July, Kaine said that he could not support the TPP in its current form.
Kaine has been a proponent of NAFTA.
Transportation, growth, and housing
Kaine supports some smart growth-style policies (which he calls "a balanced approach to growth") to control sprawl and improve transportation. He favors a transportation policy that includes public transit, bicycles, and pedestrians. As governor, Kaine pushed through a $100 million open-space acquisition initiative. Under Kaine, Amtrak service in Virginia was expanded. He also participated in a White House round-table discussion on high-speed rail in 2009.
In April 2019, Kaine was one of 41 senators to sign a bipartisan letter in support of U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Section 4 Capacity Building program, a program authorizing HUD to partner with nonprofit community development groups to provide support to community development corporations. The letter said that the longstanding program had successfully promoted economic and community development, opposed the proposed elimination of the plan in Trump's budget proposal for Fiscal Year 2020, and urged the Senate to support continued funding for Section 4 in Fiscal Year 2020.
Workers' rights and gender equality
Kaine is "generally pro-union" and has received a 96% lifetime Senate voting rating from the AFL-CIO, which praised his selection as Clinton's running mate. But Kaine supports Virginia's longstanding "right-to-work" law, which "frees union nonmembers from any legal obligation to pay fees to a union that bargains collectively on their behalf".
Kaine supports the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which expands the cases in which worker can sue against gender pay discrimination. After Clinton selected him as her running mate in 2016, Kaine was praised by the National Organization for Women.
Kaine favors an increase in the minimum wage.
Electoral history
2001 lieutenant gubernatorial election
2005 gubernatorial election
2012 U.S. Senate election
2016 vice presidential election
2018 U.S. Senate election
Personal life
In November 1984, Kaine married Anne Bright Holton, the daughter of A. Linwood Holton Jr., a Republican who served as the 61st governor of Virginia from 1970 to 1974. The couple met while they were both students at Harvard Law School. Holton has been a judge for the Virginia Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court in Richmond. After serving as first lady of Virginia during her husband's term, she was appointed by Governor Terry McAuliffe in January 2014 to be Virginia's secretary of education, and held that position until July 2016, when she stepped down after her husband was named as the Democratic vice-presidential nominee. The couple has three children, one of whom is a United States Marine. As of 2016, Kaine and his wife had been congregants of the St. Elizabeth Catholic Church in Richmond, a mostly black congregation, for 30 years.
Kaine plays the harmonica and often travels with several.
Kaine is fluent in Spanish as a result of his nine months in Honduras. During the 2016 campaign, he became the first member of a presidential ticket to deliver a speech in Spanish.
On May 28, 2020, Kaine announced that he and his wife had tested positive for COVID-19 antibodies.
Awards and honors
Kaine has received the Humanitarian Award from the Virginia Center for Inclusive Communities, then the Virginia Region of the National Conference for Community and Justice (2000), the Virginia Council of Churches' Faith in Action Award (2009), the University of Richmond School of Law's William Green Award for Professional Excellence (2012), the Award for Public Service in the Americas from the Inter-American Dialogue (2014), the Appalachian Trail Conservancy's Congressional Award (2015), and the Center for the National Interest's Distinguished Service Award (2016). He was made a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Isabella the Catholic in 2017.
Notes
References
Further reading
Governor
Kaine's Governor website (Archived)
Kaine's Lieutenant governor website (Archived)
2005 campaign contributions at the Virginia Public Access Project
Moving Virginia Forward Archived Web Site, 2007 part of Virginia's Political Landscape, 2007 Web Archive Collection at Virginia Memory
Moving Virginia Forward Archived Web Site, 2009 part of Virginia's Political Landscape, 2009 Web Archive Collection at Virginia Memory
Tim Kaine for Governor Archived Web Site, 2005–2006 part of Virginia's Political Landscape, Fall 2005 Web Archive Collection at Virginia Memory
Governor Tim Kaine Administration Web Site Archive, 2006–2010
Kaine Email Project at the Library of Virginia
External links
U.S. Senate website
Campaign website
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20th-century American lawyers
20th-century American politicians
20th-century Roman Catholics
21st-century American lawyers
21st-century American politicians
21st-century Roman Catholics
American civil rights lawyers
American legal scholars
American people of Irish descent
American people of Scottish descent
American Roman Catholic missionaries
Catholics from Missouri
Catholics from Minnesota
Catholics from Virginia
Democratic National Committee chairs
Democratic Party state governors of the United States
Democratic Party United States senators from Virginia
Democratic Party (United States) vice presidential nominees
Governors of Virginia
Harvard Law School alumni
Hillary Clinton 2016 presidential campaign
Lawyers from Kansas City, Missouri
Lieutenant Governors of Virginia
Living people
Mark Warner
Mayors of Richmond, Virginia
Politicians from Kansas City, Missouri
Politicians from Saint Paul, Minnesota
Knights Grand Cross of the Order of Isabella the Catholic
Richmond, Virginia City Council members
Roman Catholic missionaries in Honduras
United States senators from Virginia
2016 United States vice-presidential candidates
University of Missouri alumni
University of Richmond faculty
Virginia Democrats
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[
"Charles Randall ‘Randy’ Leonard (born 1952) is a politician in the U.S. state of Oregon. He was a member of the Oregon Legislative Assembly from 1993 to 2002 and served as a city commissioner in Portland (a member of the Portland City Council) from 2002 through 2012.\n\nCareer\nPrior to serving in Portland city government, Leonard served in the Oregon Legislative Assembly and was a lieutenant with the Portland Fire Bureau.\n\nIn 1985, Leonard was elected President of the Portland Firefighters Association. He was elected as the Portland Firefighters President four times, serving in that position until 1998.\n\nIn 1993, he was appointed to the Oregon State Senate to serve Multnomah County in District 9 by the Multnomah County Board of Commissioners. In 1994 he was elected to the Senate for a four-year term. In 1998, because of term limits, Leonard became the first person in Oregon history to run for the Oregon House of Representatives while serving as a sitting State Senator. A Democrat, he served in the Senate and Oregon House of Representatives from 1993 through the 2002 special sessions of the legislature.\n\nLeonard was elected to the Portland City Council in 2002, in a special election held to fill a vacancy caused by the resignation of then-commissioner Charlie Hales. He was sworn in as a Portland city commissioner in front of the Smith Memorial Center in the South Park Blocks on November 26, 2002, by city auditor Gary Blackmer. He was re-elected in 2004 and 2008.\n\nWhile serving on the Portland City Council, Leonard was the appointed by the Mayor to be the administrative head of a number of different city bureaus, including the Portland Fire Bureau. Leonard was the Commissioner-in-charge of the Fire Bureau during his final four years on the city council.\n\nIn 2011, Leonard announced that he would not run for re-election in 2012, and his final term on the city council ended on December 31, 2012.\n\nPersonal life\nLeonard married his wife, Katie, in 2010.\n\nOn May 8, 2011, Leonard's daughter, 31-year-old Kara Marie Leonard, died. She had struggled for several years with addiction, achieving brief episodes of sobriety with her father's help; he spoke publicly of her addiction in the 2007 documentary Finding Normal.\n\nSee also\n Portland Loo\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nLeonard's webpage at the Portland city website\n\n1952 births\nLiving people\nOregon Democrats\nOregon state senators\nPortland City Council members (Oregon)",
"Special elections to the San Diego City Council are called by the San Diego City Council when a vacancy arises on the Council with more than one year remaining in the term. Most special elections are conducted in two rounds. The first is an open primary and the candidate with the most votes must have a majority of the votes plus one to win the seat. If no candidate wins a majority a second round is held with the two top candidates regardless of party.\n\nList of special elections\nThe dates listed only include the open primary round if no second round was held.\n\nList of recall elections \nWhen applicable, the candidate who succeeded the recalled council member is listed. If the recall election was not successful the winner is listed as \"none\".\n\nResults\n\n2001 District 8 special election\n\n2001 District 6 special election\n\n2004–2005 District 4 special election\nCharles L. Lewis died in office while under federal indictment on charges of bribery and corruption as a result of the FBI investigation known as Operation G-Sting. Tony Young, previously Lewis' chief of staff, ran in the special election to replace him. Young advanced to the runoff after receiving the second most votes in the special primary election on November 16, 2004. He went on to win election by receiving the majority of votes in the special runoff election on January 4, 2005.\n\n2005–2006 District 2 special election\nMichael Zucchet resigned from office in July 2005 when he was convicted of corruption as a result of the FBI investigation known as Operation G-Sting, though he was later cleared of all charges. Kevin Faulconer, who had been the runner-up in the 2002 election against Zucchet, ran again in the crowded special election. He received the most votes in the primary election on November 8, 2005, and was elected with a majority of the votes in the runoff on January 10, 2006.\n\n2005–2006 District 8 special election\nRalph Inzunza resigned from office in July 2005 when he was convicted of corruption as a result of the FBI investigation known as Operation G-Sting. Ben Hueso ran in the special election to replace Inzunza. He advanced to the special runoff election after receiving the plurality of the votes in the special primary on November 8, 2005. Hueso was elected to office with a majority of the votes in the runoff on January 10, 2006.\n\n2013 District 4 special election\nOn November 17, 2012, Council President Tony Young announced that he would resign from the City Council early to become CEO of the San Diego-Imperial Counties chapter of the American Red Cross, triggering a special election. Nine candidates qualified for the special primary election, scheduled for March 26, 2013. Myrtle Cole, who had been endorsed by the local Democratic Party and the San Diego-Imperial Counties Labor Council, received the most votes in the primary. She advanced to the May 21, 2013 general election to face runner-up Dwayne Crenshaw, Executive Director of San Diego LGBT Pride. Cole was elected to the City Council with a majority of the votes in the runoff.\n\nReferences \n\nSan Diego City Council elections\nSan Diego-related lists"
] |
[
"Tim Kaine",
"Legal career and Richmond City Council",
"Where did Kaine attend law school?",
"I don't know.",
"What year was he elected to city council?",
"In May 1994,",
"was he known for achieving anything special while on the council?",
"Kaine spent four terms on the council, the latter two as mayor."
] |
C_6e5a0e696db14512b25f50b8092751a7_1
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Did he represent a specific political party?
| 4 |
Did Tim Kaine represent a specific political party?
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Tim Kaine
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After graduating from law school, Kaine was a law clerk for Judge R. Lanier Anderson III of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, in Macon, Georgia. Kaine then joined the Richmond law firm of Little, Parsley & Cluverius, P.C. In 1987, Kaine became a director with the law firm of Mezzullo & McCandlish, P.C. Kaine practiced law in Richmond for 17 years, specializing in fair housing law and representing clients discriminated against on the basis of race or disability. He was a board member of the Virginia chapter of Housing Opportunities Made Equal, which he represented in a landmark redlining discrimination lawsuit against Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. arising from the company's practices in Richmond. Kaine won a $100.5 million verdict in the case; the judgment was overturned on appeal, and Kaine and his colleagues negotiated a $17.5 million settlement. Kaine did regular pro bono work. In 1988, Kaine started teaching legal ethics as an adjunct professor at the University of Richmond School of Law. Kaine taught at the University of Richmond for six years, and his students included future Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring. He was a founding member of the Virginia Coalition to End Homelessness. Kaine had a largely apolitical childhood, but became interested in politics in part due to the influence of his wife's family and his experience attending Richmond city council meetings. In May 1994, Kaine was elected to the city council of the independent city of Richmond, from the City's 2nd District. He defeated incumbent city councilman Benjamin P. A. Warthen by 97 votes. Kaine spent four terms on the council, the latter two as mayor. CANNOTANSWER
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specializing in fair housing law and representing clients discriminated against on the basis of race or disability.
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Timothy Michael Kaine (; born February 26, 1958) is an American lawyer and politician serving as the junior United States senator from Virginia since 2013. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 38th lieutenant governor of Virginia from 2002 to 2006 and 70th governor of Virginia from 2006 to 2010. Kaine was the Democratic nominee for vice president of the United States in the 2016 election as Hillary Clinton's running mate.
Born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, Kaine grew up in Overland Park, Kansas, graduated from the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri, and earned a Juris Doctor degree from Harvard Law School before entering private practice and becoming a lecturer at the University of Richmond School of Law. He was first elected to public office in 1994, when he won a seat on the Richmond City Council. He was elected mayor of Richmond in 1998 and held that position until being elected lieutenant governor of Virginia in 2001. Kaine was elected governor of Virginia in 2005 and held that office from 2006 to 2010. He chaired the Democratic National Committee from 2009 to 2011.
On July 22, 2016, Hillary Clinton introduced Kaine as her vice-presidential running mate. The 2016 Democratic National Convention nominated him on July 27. Despite winning a plurality of the national popular vote, the ClintonKaine ticket lost the Electoral College, and thus the election, to the Republican ticket of Donald Trump and Mike Pence on November 8, 2016. Kaine was reelected to a second Senate term in 2018, defeating Republican Corey Stewart.
Early life and education
Kaine was born at Saint Joseph's Hospital in St. Paul, Minnesota. He is the eldest of three sons born to Mary Kathleen (née Burns), a home economics teacher, and Albert Alexander Kaine, Jr., a welder and the owner of a small iron-working shop. He was raised Catholic. One of Kaine's great-grandparents was Scottish and the other seven were Irish. Kaine's family moved to Overland Park, Kansas, when Kaine was two years old, and he grew up in the Kansas City area. In 1976, he graduated from Rockhurst High School, a Jesuit all-boys preparatory school in Kansas City, Missouri. At Rockhurst, Kaine joined the debate team and was elected student body president.
Kaine received his Bachelor of Arts in economics from the University of Missouri in 1979, completing his degree in three years and graduating Omicron Delta Kappa and summa cum laude. He was a Coro Foundation fellow in Kansas City in 1978. He entered Harvard Law School in 1979, interrupting his law studies after his first year to work in Honduras for nine months from 1980 to 1981, helping Jesuit missionaries who ran a Catholic school in El Progreso. While running a vocational center that taught carpentry and welding, he also helped increase the school's enrollment by recruiting local villagers. Kaine is fluent in Spanish as a result of his time in Honduras.
After returning from Honduras, Kaine met his future wife, first-year Harvard Law student Anne Holton. He graduated from Harvard Law School with a J.D. degree in 1983. Kaine and Holton moved to Holton's hometown of Richmond, Virginia, after graduation, and Kaine was admitted to the Virginia bar in 1984.
Legal career and Richmond City Council
After graduating from law school, Kaine was a law clerk for Judge R. Lanier Anderson III of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, in Macon, Georgia. He then joined the Richmond law firm of Little, Parsley & Cluverius, P.C. In 1987, Kaine became a director of the law firm of Mezzullo & McCandlish, P.C. He practiced law in Richmond for 17 years, specializing in fair housing law and representing clients discriminated against on the basis of race or disability. He was a board member of the Virginia chapter of Housing Opportunities Made Equal, which he represented in a landmark redlining discrimination lawsuit against Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. arising from the company's practices in Richmond. Kaine won a $100.5 million verdict in the case; the judgment was overturned on appeal, and Kaine and his colleagues negotiated a $17.5 million settlement.
Kaine did regular pro bono work. In 1988, he started teaching legal ethics as an adjunct professor at the University of Richmond School of Law. Kaine taught at the University of Richmond for six years; his students included future Virginia attorney general Mark Herring. He was a founding member of the Virginia Coalition to End Homelessness.
Kaine had a largely apolitical childhood, but became interested in politics in part due to the influence of his wife's family and his experience attending Richmond city council meetings. In 1994, he was elected the 2nd district member of the city council of the independent city of Richmond, defeating incumbent city councilor Benjamin P.A. Warthen by less than 100 votes. He took his seat on July 1 and retained the position until September 10, 2001, when he resigned and William J. Pantele was appointed to succeed him. He defeated the incumbent city councilman Benjamin P.A. Warthen by 97 votes. Kaine spent four terms on the city council, the latter two as mayor of Richmond.
Mayor of Richmond (1998–2001)
On July 1, 1998, Kaine was elected mayor of Richmond, succeeding Larry Chavis. He was chosen by an 8 to 1 vote on the majority-black Richmond City Council, becoming the city's first white mayor in more than ten years, which was viewed as a surprise. Rudy McCollum, an African American city councilor also interested in the mayoralty, decided to back Kaine after a private meeting between the two, clearing the way for Kaine to win the election. Previous mayors had treated the role as primarily ceremonial, with the city manager effectively operating the city; Kaine treated it as a full-time job, taking a more hands-on role.
As mayor, Kaine used a sale-leaseback arrangement to obtain funds to renovate the historic Maggie L. Walker High School and reopen it in 2000 as a magnet governor's school, the Maggie L. Walker Governor's School for Government and International Studies, which "now serves the top students in Central Virginia". Three elementary schools and one middle school were also built in Richmond under Kaine. Along with Commonwealth's attorney David Hicks, U.S. attorney James Comey, and police chief Jerry Oliver, Kaine was a supporter of Project Exile, an initiative that shifted gun crimes to federal court, where defendants faced harsher sentences. Though controversial, the effort was effective and achieved widespread support; the city's homicide rate fell by 55% during Kaine's mayoralty. Kaine touted Project Exile during his 2001 campaign for lieutenant governor.
On several occasions, Kaine voted against tax increases, and supported a tax abatement program for renovated buildings, which was credited for a housing renovation boom in the city. Forbes magazine named Richmond one of "the 10 best cities in America to do business" during Kaine's term.
According to John Moeser, a professor emeritus of urban studies and planning at Virginia Commonwealth University and later a visiting fellow at the University of Richmond's Center for Civic Engagement, Mayor Kaine "was energetic, charismatic and, most important, spoke openly about his commitment to racial reconciliation in Richmond." The New York Times wrote that Kaine "was by all accounts instrumental in bridging the city's racial divide." In the early part of his term, Kaine issued an apology for the city's role in slavery; the apology was generally well received as "a genuine, heartfelt expression". In the latter part of his term, a contentious debate took place over the inclusion of a portrait of Confederate general Robert E. Lee in a set of historic murals to be placed on city floodwalls. Many African Americans were outraged that Lee would appear on city walls, while Southern heritage groups demanded that the picture remain. Kaine proposed a compromise in which Lee would appear as part of a series of murals that also included figures like Abraham Lincoln and Powhatan Beaty. His stance drew criticism from the NAACP; Kaine argued that placing Lee on the floodwall made sense in context, and that "Much of our history is not pleasant; you can't whitewash it." Kaine's proposal passed the council on a 6–3 vote.
During his mayoralty, Kaine drew criticism for spending $6,000 in public funds on buses to the Million Mom March, an anti-gun-violence rally in Washington, D.C.; after a backlash, he raised the money privately and reimbursed the city.
Lieutenant governor of Virginia (2002–2006)
Kaine ran for lieutenant governor of Virginia in 2001. He joined the race after state senator Emily Couric dropped out due to pancreatic cancer and endorsed Kaine as her replacement. In the Democratic primary election, Kaine ran against state delegate Alan A. Diamonstein of Newport News, and state delegate Jerrauld C. Jones of Norfolk. Kaine won the nomination, with 39.7% of the vote to Diamonstein's 31.4% and Jones's 28.9%.
In the general election, Kaine won with 925,974 votes (50.35%), edging out his Republican opponent, state delegate Jay Katzen, who received 883,886 (48.06%). Libertarian Gary Reams received 28,783 votes (1.57%).
Kaine was inaugurated on January 12, 2002, and was sworn in by his wife Anne Holton, a state judge.
2005 gubernatorial election
In 2005, Kaine ran for governor of Virginia against Republican candidate Jerry W. Kilgore, a former state attorney general. Kaine was considered an underdog for most of the race, trailing in polls for most of the campaign. Two September polls showed Kaine trailing Kilgore—by four percentage points in a Washington Post poll and by one point in a Mason-Dixon/Roanoke Times poll. The final polls of the race before the election showed Kaine slightly edging ahead of Kilgore.
Kaine ultimately prevailed, winning 1,025,942 votes (51.7%) to Kilgore's 912,327 (46.0%). A third candidate, independent state Senator H. Russell Potts Jr., ran as an "independent Republican" and received 43,953 votes (2.2%).
Kaine emphasized fiscal responsibility and a centrist message. He expressed support for controlling sprawl and tackling longstanding traffic issues, an issue that resonated in the northern Virginia exurbs. He benefited from his association with the popular outgoing Democratic governor, Mark Warner, who had performed well in traditionally Republican areas of the state. On the campaign trail, Kaine referred to the "Warner-Kaine administration" in speeches and received Warner's strong backing. Kilgore later attributed his defeat to Warner's high popularity and President George W. Bush's sharply declining popularity; Bush held a rally with Kilgore on the campaign's final day.
The campaign turned sharply negative in its final weeks, with Kilgore running television attack ads that falsely claimed that Kaine believed that "Hitler doesn't qualify for the death penalty." The ads also attacked Kaine for his service ten years earlier as a court-appointed attorney for a death-row inmate. The editorial boards of the Washington Post and a number of Virginia newspapers denounced the ads as a "smear" and "dishonest." Kaine responded with an ad "in which he told voters that he opposes capital punishment but would take an oath and enforce the death penalty. In later polls, voters said they believed Kaine's response and were angered by Kilgore's negative ads."
In the election, Kaine won by large margins in the Democratic strongholds such as Richmond and northern Virginia's inner suburbs (such as Alexandria and Arlington), as well as in the Democratic-trending Fairfax County. Kaine also won Republican-leaning areas in Northern Virginia's outer suburbs, including Prince William County and Loudoun County, where George W. Bush had beat John Kerry in the previous year's presidential election, and performed "surprisingly well in Republican strongholds like Virginia Beach and Chesapeake." Kaine also defeated Kilgore in the burgeoning Richmond suburbs. Kilgore led in southwest Virginia and in the Shenandoah Valley.
Governor of Virginia (2006–2010)
Kaine was sworn in as governor at the colonial Capitol at Williamsburg, on January 14, 2006, the first governor since Thomas Jefferson to be inaugurated there.
Kaine was chairman of the Southern Governors' Association from 2008 to 2009.
Democratic response to State of the Union address
On January 31, 2006, Kaine gave the Democratic response to President George W. Bush's 2006 State of the Union address. In it, he criticized the Bush administration's No Child Left Behind Act for "wreaking havoc on local school districts"; criticized congressional Republicans for cutting student loan programs; and condemned as "reckless" Bush's spending increases and tax cuts. Kaine praised bipartisan initiatives in Virginia "to make record investments in education" and to improve veterans' access to veterans' benefits. He criticized the Bush administration's conduct of the Iraq War and treatment of U.S. soldiers, saying that "the American people were given inaccurate information about reasons for invading Iraq"; "our troops in Iraq were not given the best body armor or the best intelligence"; and "the administration wants to further reduce military and veterans' benefits."
Energy, the environment, and conservation
As governor, Kaine protected of Virginia land from development, fulfilling a promise he made in 2005. His conservation efforts focused on conservation easements (voluntary easements that preserve the private ownership of a piece of land while also permanently protecting it from development); a substantial Virginia land preservation tax credit encouraged easements. From 2004 to 2009, the Virginia Outdoors Foundation (a quasi-governmental entity set up in 1966 to preserve open land in the state) protected more land than it had in the previous 40 years, a fact Kaine touted as his term drew to a close.
As governor, Kaine established the Climate Change Commission, a bipartisan panel to study climate change issues. The panel was shuttered under Kaine's Republican successor, Governor Robert F. McDonnell, but revived (as the Governor's Climate Change and Resiliency Update Commission) under McDonnell's successor, Democratic Governor Terry McAuliffe.
In 2008, Kaine supported a coal-fired power plant project in Wise County, clashing with environmentalists who opposed the project.
In 2009, Kaine expressed support for tighter restrictions on mountaintop removal coal mining imposed by the Obama administration.
Healthcare and public health
In October 2006, Kaine signed an executive order banning smoking in all government buildings and state-owned cars as of January 1, 2007. He signed legislation banning smoking in restaurants and bars, with some exceptions, in March 2009, making Virginia the first Southern state to do so.
In 2007, the Republican-controlled Virginia General Assembly passed legislation, with "overwhelming bipartisan support", to require girls to receive the HPV vaccine (which immunizes recipients against a virus that causes cervical cancer) before entering high school. Kaine expressed "some qualms" about the legislation and pushed for a strong opt-out provision, ultimately signing a bill that included a provision allowing parents to opt out of the requirement without citing a reason.
In 2007, Kaine secured increases in state funding for nursing in the Virginia General Assembly and announced a 10% salary increase for nursing faculty above the normal salary increase for state employees, plus additional funds for scholarships for nursing master's programs. The initiatives were aimed at addressing a shortage of practicing nurses.
Virginia Tech shooting
After the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting, in which Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 people, Kaine appointed an eight-member Virginia Tech Review Panel, chaired by retired Virginia State Police superintendent W. Gerald Massengill, to probe the event. The commission members included specialists in psychology, law, forensics and higher education as well as former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge. The commission first met in May 2007, and issued its findings and recommendations in August 2007. Among other recommendations, the panel proposed many mental health reforms. Based on the panel's recommendations, Kaine proposed $42 million of investment in mental health programs and reforms, included "boosting access to outpatient and emergency mental health services, increasing the number of case managers and improving monitoring of community-based providers." In April 2007, Kaine signed an executive order instructing state agencies to step up efforts to block gun sales to people involuntarily committed to inpatient and outpatient mental health treatment centers. Kaine, who had been in Japan on a trade mission at the time of the shootings, received widespread praise for his quick return to the state and his handling of the issue.
Budget and economy
Among Kaine's greatest challenges as governor came during the 2008–09 economic crisis; the Washington Post wrote that "perhaps his greatest success was keeping the state running despite [the crisis]." Amid the Great Recession, unemployment in Virginia remained lower than the national average. During Kaine's tenure as governor, the unemployment rate in Virginia rose from 3.2% to 7.4%, a smaller increase than the national rate, which rose from 4.7% to 9.9% during the same period.
As governor, Kaine approved about $3.31 billion in general fund spending cuts, and after his term in office, the Virginia General Assembly adopted about $1.33 billion in additional budget cuts that Kaine had recommended, for a total of $4.64 billion in cuts. The Washington Post wrote, "Unable to raise taxes and required by law to balance the budget, he was forced to make unpopular cuts that led to such things as shuttered highway rest stops and higher public university tuition." Virginia was one of three states to earn the highest grade in terms of management in a report by the nonpartisan Pew Center on the States. Virginia took first place each year from 2006 to 2009 in Forbes magazine's "Best States For Business" rankings.
Infrastructure and transportation
In July 2007, during the debate on the Silver Line of the Washington Metro through Tysons Corner, Kaine supported an elevated track solution rather than a tunnel, citing costs and potential delays that would put federal funding at risk.
In 2006, Kaine pressed the general assembly to support a legislative package to ease severe traffic congestion by spending about $1 billion annually for highway construction, repairs to aging roads, mass transit, and other transportation projects. The money would be raised through increases in taxes and fees that would have raised an estimated $4 billion in revenue over four years. The Democratic-controlled Senate supported the plan, but the Republican-controlled House was unwilling to approve the taxes necessary to carry out the project, and the effort failed even after a special session of the legislature was called over the stalemate.
In 2007, Republicans in the General Assembly passed their own transportation-funding bill. Rather than a statewide tax increase to finance the transportation improvements, as Kaine and most legislative Democrats favored, the Republican bill called for transportation funding "to come from borrowing $2.5 billion and paying the debt costs out of the general fund"; authorized local tax increase in Northern Virginia; increased fees and taxes on rental cars, commercial real estate, and hotels; and increased traffic infraction fines and driver's licenses fees.
Kaine and most legislative Democrats opposed the Republican legislation, calling it inadequate to address traffic congestion and arguing that the withdrawal of funds from the general fund would affect core services such as health care, law enforcement, and education. Kaine ultimately signed a bill with amendments reflecting "concerns by local government officials and a bipartisan group of lawmakers who were concerned that the plan took too much money from the state's general fund."
Education
Under Kaine, participation in Virginia in early childhood education increased by 40.2% due to his expansion of the Virginia Preschool Initiative, which makes pre-kindergarten more accessible to four-year-olds from households close to the poverty line. Kaine sought increases to the budget for preschool programs every year during his term as governor. Virginia was rated as the best state to raise a child in a 2007 report by Education Week and the Pew Center on the States.
Cabinet and appointments
Kaine made the following appointments to his Virginia Governor's Cabinet:
Chief of Staff: William Leighty (2006–2007), Wayne Turnage (2007–2010)
Secretary of Administration: Viola Baskerville (2006–2010)
Virginia Secretary of Agriculture and Forestry: Robert Bloxom (2006–2010)
Secretary of Commerce and Trade: Patrick Gottschalk (2006–2010)
Secretary of the Commonwealth: Katherine Hanley (2006–2010)
Secretary of Education: Thomas R. Morris (2006–2010)
Secretary of Finance:Jody Wagner (2006–2008), Ric Brown (2008–2010)
Secretary of Health and Human Resources: Marilyn Tavenner (2006–2010)
Secretary of Natural Resources: Preston Bryant (2006–2010)
Secretary of Public Safety: John W. Marshall (2006–2010)
Secretary of Technology: Aneesh Chopra (2006–2009), Leonard Pomata (2009–2010)
Secretary of Transportation: Pierce Homer (2006–2010)
Counselor to the Governor: Lawrence Roberts (2006–2009)
Counselor to the Governor: Mark Rubin (2009–2010)
Assistant for Commonwealth Preparedness: Robert P. Crouch (2006–2010)
Senior Advisor for Workforce: Daniel G. LeBlanc (2006–2010)
As governor, Kaine made a number of appointments to the Virginia state courts. He made two appointments to the Supreme Court of Virginia, naming Chesapeake circuit judge S. Bernard Goodwyn to the Court in 2007 and Virginia Court of Appeals Judge LeRoy F. Millette Jr. in 2008.
On September 27, 2007, just weeks after appointing Esam Omeish to the 20-member Virginia Commission on Immigration, Kaine learned that Omeish had made videos accusing Israel of genocide and calling for President Bush's impeachment. He immediately requested and received Omeish's resignation and said that background checks would be more thorough in the future.
2008 vice presidential speculation
Kaine announced his support for Barack Obama's presidential bid in February 2007. It was maintained that Kaine's endorsement was the first from a statewide elected official outside of Illinois. Because Kaine was a relatively popular governor of a Southern state, there was media speculation that he was a potential nominee for vice president. Obama had supported Kaine in his campaign for governor, saying, "Tim Kaine has a message of fiscal responsibility and generosity of spirit. That kind of message can sell anywhere." On July 28, 2008, Politico reported that Kaine was "very, very high" on Obama's shortlist for vice president, a list that also included Senator Hillary Clinton of New York, Governor Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas, Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana, and Senator Joe Biden of Delaware. Obama ultimately selected Biden. It was later reported that Obama told Kaine, in breaking the news to him, "You are the pick of my heart, but Joe [Biden] is the pick of my head". Obama later wrote that he had ultimately narrowed down the choice for his running mate to Kaine and Biden. He said, "At the time, I was much closer to Tim", but Obama and his advisers David Axelrod and David Plouffe wondered whether voters would accept a ticket of "two relatively young, inexperienced, and liberal civil rights attorneys" and Obama felt the contrast between him and Biden was a strength, and that Biden's age and experience would reassure voters concerned that Obama was too young to be president.
Democratic National Committee chair (2009–2011)
In January 2009, Kaine became chair of the Democratic National Committee. He had turned down the position the first time it was offered to him, expressing misgivings about accepting a partisan position, but took the job at Obama's request. He took on the position as chair part-time as he continued his term as governor of Virginia. Kaine's main goals as DNC chair "were protecting the party's seats in Congress during the 2010 midterms and integrating the president's campaign apparatus, Organizing for America, and its technological acumen into the party machinery." In the 2010 midterms, the DNC under Kaine's leadership outraised the Republican National Committee (RNC) by $30 million, but Democrats lost control of the House and lost seats in the Senate amidst a Tea Party backlash. Kaine was not generally blamed for the losses.
Kaine kept a low profile in the position in comparison to his counterpart, RNC chairman Michael Steele. He focused more on fundraising and maintaining party unity than on attacking political opponents.
In February 2011, after Kaine spoke to union leaders in Madison, Organizing for America got involved in Wisconsin's budget battle and opposed Republican-sponsored anti-union legislation. It made phone calls, sent emails, and distributed messages via Facebook and Twitter to build crowds for rallies.
After completing his term as governor in January 2010, Kaine taught part-time at the University of Richmond, teaching a course in spring 2010 at the Jepson School of Leadership Studies and another in fall 2010 at the University of Richmond School of Law. He explained that he had chosen to teach at a private university rather than a public university "because it would not have been right for a sitting governor to be seeking employment at an institution when he writes the budget and appoints the board of the institution."
United States Senate
2012 election
After Senator Jim Webb's decision not to seek reelection, Kaine announced on April 5, 2011, that he would run for Webb's seat. He was initially reluctant to return to public office, but Webb, Senator Mark Warner, and other Virginia Democrats saw Kaine as the strongest potential Democratic candidate and convinced him to run. Kaine named Lawrence Roberts as his campaign chairman. Mike Henry was chosen as his campaign manager. Kaine filmed announcement videos in English and Spanish and was unopposed for the Democratic nomination. He defeated former senator and governor George Allen in the general election.
Tenure
Kaine was sworn in on January 3, 2013, reuniting him with Mark Warner, the senior senator. Kaine was lieutenant governor when Warner was governor of Virginia.
On June 11, 2013, Kaine delivered a speech on the Senate floor in support of the bipartisan "Gang of Eight" immigration bill. The speech was entirely in Spanish, marking the first time a senator had ever made a speech on the Senate floor in a language other than English.
As a member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, Kaine pushed for a new Congressional authorization of military force for the American operations against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Kaine supported the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran, though he also helped Republican senator Bob Corker hold a vote on a resolution of disapproval of the deal. Kaine has taken several trips throughout the Middle East, meeting with the leaders of states such as Turkey and Israel.
While in the Senate, Kaine has continued to teach part-time at the University of Richmond, receiving a salary of $16,000 per year.
Kaine has voted with his party more than 90% of the time. According to the Washington Post, Kaine has "crafted a largely progressive record as a senator." He reportedly has good relations with both Democratic and Republican senators.
During the 2016 vice-presidential campaign, Kaine frequently criticized Donald Trump, saying that Trump "as commander-in-chief scares me to death" and had a "bizarre fascination with strongmen and authoritarian leaders". In 2017, after Trump took office, Kaine continued to criticize his "authoritarian tendencies", citing his attacks on media, judges, and peaceful protesters. At an event at George Mason University, Kaine said that with Trump in office, Americans "are in a 'living experiment' to see whether or not the Constitution still works to check executive power."
In February 2017, Kaine met with Pope Francis at a general audience at the Vatican. Kaine also met with the Jesuit Refugee Service to discuss refugees and met with Vatican officials to discuss Latin American issues. The same month, Kaine delivered an address, "The Truman Doctrine at 70", at London's Chatham House.
Committee assignments and caucuses
In the 113th Congress (2013–15), Kaine was on the Committee on Armed Services, the Committee on the Budget, and the Committee on Foreign Relations. In the 114th Congress, Kaine was on those three committees and the Special Committee on Aging. In July 2013, Kaine was named chair of the United States Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Near East, South Asia, Central Asia and Counterterrorism.
Within the Senate Armed Services Committee, Kaine is a member of the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities, the Subcommittee on Readiness and Management Support (of which he is the ranking member), and the Subcommittee on Seapower.
Within the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, Kaine is a member of the Subcommittee on State Department and USAID Management, International Operations, and Bilateral International Development (of which he is the ranking member), the Subcommittee on Europe and Regional Security Cooperation, the Subcommittee on Near East, South Asia, Central Asia, and Counterterrorism, and the Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere, Transnational Crime, Civilian Security, Democracy, Human Rights and Global Women's Issues.
In January 2014, Kaine and Senator Rob Portman established the bipartisan Senate Career and Technical Education Caucus (CTE Caucus), which focuses on vocational education and technical education. Kaine and Portman co-chair the caucus. In 2014, Kaine and Portman introduced the CTE Excellence and Equity Act to the Senate; the legislation would provide $500 million in federal funding, distributed by competitive grants, to high schools to further CTE programs. The legislation, introduced as an amendment to the omnibus Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act of 2006, would promote apprenticeships and similar initiatives. Kaine and Portman introduced similar legislation, the Educating Tomorrow's Workforce Act, in 2017.
2016 vice-presidential campaign
Kaine endorsed Hillary Clinton for president in 2016 and campaigned actively for her in seven states during the primaries. He had been the subject of considerable speculation as a possible running mate for Clinton, with several news reports indicating that he was at or near the top of Clinton's list of people under consideration alongside figures such as Elizabeth Warren and Julian Castro.
The New York Times reported that Clinton's husband, former president Bill Clinton, supported Kaine as his wife's vice-presidential selection, noting his domestic and national security résumé. On July 22, 2016, she announced Kaine would be her running mate in the election. Clinton introduced Kaine as her choice in a joint appearance at a rally at Florida International University in Miami the next day. The 2016 Democratic National Convention nominated him for vice president on July 27, 2016.
Kaine was the first Virginian since Woodrow Wilson to be on a major-party ticket, and was the first Virginian to run for vice president on a major-party ticket since John Tyler in 1840; he was also the first senator or former senator from Virginia to be on a major-party ticket since Tyler.
In accordance with longstanding political custom in the U.S., upon being nominated for vice president Kaine publicly released his full tax returns for the previous ten years. He also publicly released medical records; his physician, Brian P. Monahan, the Attending Physician of the United States Congress, wrote that Kaine was "in overall excellent health." In September Kaine published a campaign book co-authored with Clinton, Stronger Together.
In Kaine's preparations for the vice presidential debate in October 2016, lawyer Robert Barnett played the role of Republican vice-presidential nominee Mike Pence. (During Pence's own debate preparations, Wisconsin governor Scott Walker played the role of Kaine.) Pence was criticized after the debate for not defending Trump's comments, while Kaine was criticized for being too aggressive and interrupting. According to ABC News, Kaine interrupted 70 times during the debate, while Pence interrupted 40 times.
Despite winning a plurality of the national popular vote, the Clinton-Kaine ticket lost the Electoral College, and thus the election, to the Trump-Pence ticket on November 8, 2016. This is the only election Kaine has ever lost. Clinton-Kaine did win Virginia, the only Southern state to vote for the Democratic ticket, a victory attributed in part to Kaine.
2018 election
After the 2016 election, Kaine said he would run for reelection to the Senate in 2018. He expressed his desire to emulate John Warner, who represented Virginia in the Senate for 30 years. He added that he would not run for president or vice president in the future.
In his 2018 Senate campaign against Republican nominee and Trump ally Corey Stewart, Kaine had the endorsement of The Richmond Times-Dispatch, marking the first time in decades the paper had endorsed a Democrat.
After taking an early lead in his race against Stewart, Kaine worked to support other Democrats who, in seven districts, were challenging incumbent Republicans for House seats. Kaine defeated Stewart by more than 15 points.
Personality and leadership style
About 145,000 emails from Kaine and his staff during his term as governor are publicly accessible at the Library of Virginia. Politico conducted an analysis of the correspondence and wrote that the messages show Kaine to be a "media-savvy" and detail-oriented "micro-manager" who is also a policy "wonk".
According to The New York Times, Kaine "is widely described by people in his political orbit as a likable if less than charismatic figure...guided by moral convictions that flow from his deep Christian faith." On Meet the Press, Kaine called himself "boring."
Political positions
In terms of political ideology, FiveThirtyEight gives Kaine an average score of −37 (−100 is the most liberal, and 100 is the most conservative). FiveThirtyEight characterizes him as a "mainstream Democrat" and notes that his ideology score is very similar to that of Joe Biden. Three conservative groups—the American Conservative Union, the Club for Growth, and Heritage Action—gave Kaine 0% ratings in the few years before 2016, while the liberal group Americans for Democratic Action gave Kaine a 90% rating in 2014. The New York Times wrote that "in hyperpartisan Washington, he is often seen as a centrist" while also describing him as an "old-fashioned liberal...driven by Jesuit ideals."
Abortion, birth control, and sex education
Kaine, a Roman Catholic, personally opposes abortion, but is "largely inclined to keep the law out of women's reproductive decisions." He has said, "I'm a strong supporter of Roe v. Wade and women being able to make these decisions. In government, we have enough things to worry about. We don't need to make people's reproductive decisions for them." Kaine supports some legal restrictions on abortion, such as requiring parental consent for minors (with a judicial bypass procedure) and banning late-term abortions in cases where the woman's life is not at risk.
In 2009, Kaine signed a bill to create a "Choose Life" license plate, among the more than 200 Virginia specialty plates already offered, the proceeds of which would partly go to Heartbeat International, a Christian organization that operates anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers. Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice America expressed disappointment in Kaine's decision. Kaine considered such license plate messages a matter of free speech and added that the move was "in keeping with the commonwealth's longtime practice of approving specialty plates with all manner of political and social messages."
Kaine previously criticized the Obama administration for "not providing a 'broad enough religious employer exemption'" in the contraceptive mandate of the Affordable Care Act, but praised a 2012 amendment to the regulations that required insurers to provide birth control to employees when an employer was an objecting religious organization.
In 2005, when running for governor, Kaine said he favored reducing abortions by "Enforcing the current Virginia restrictions on abortion and passing an enforceable ban on partial birth abortion that protects the life and health of the mother"; "Fighting teen pregnancy through abstinence-focused education"; "Ensuring women's access to health care (including legal contraception) and economic opportunity"; and "Promoting adoption as an alternative for women facing unwanted pregnancies."
In 2007, as governor, Kaine cut off state funding for abstinence-only sex education programs, citing studies that showed such programs were ineffective, while comprehensive sex education programs were more effective. Kaine believes that both abstinence and contraceptives must be taught, and that education should be evidence-based.
As a senator, Kaine has received perfect scores from Planned Parenthood and the abortion-rights advocacy group NARAL. He has received a score of zero from the anti-abortion National Right to Life Committee.
Campaign finance
Kaine "strongly disagrees" with Citizens United v. FEC (2010). In 2015, Kaine joined a group of Senate Democrats in a letter to Securities and Exchange Commission Chairwoman Mary Jo White that said the ruling "reversed long-standing precedent and has moved our country in a different and disturbing direction when it comes to corporate influence in politics." They urged the SEC to require publicly traded companies to disclose political spending to their shareholders to "increase transparency in the U.S. political process".
Capital punishment
Kaine personally opposes capital punishment, but presided over 11 executions while governor. He said, "I really struggled with [capital punishment] as governor. I have a moral position against the death penalty. But I took an oath of office to uphold it. Following an oath of office is also a moral obligation." During his time in office he commuted one death sentence in June 2008, that of Percy Levar Walton, to life imprisonment without parole on grounds of mental incompetence, writing that "one cannot reasonably conclude that Walton is fully aware of the punishment he is about to suffer and why he is to suffer it" and thus that executing him would be unconstitutional. Kaine vetoed a number of bills to expand the death sentence to more crimes, saying: "I do not believe that further expansion of the death penalty is necessary to protect human life or provide for public safety needs." Some of the vetoes were overridden.
On July 31, 2019, after Attorney General William Barr announced that the United States federal government would resume the use of the death penalty for the first time in over 20 years, Kaine co-sponsored a bill banning the death penalty.
Environment, energy, and climate change
Kaine acknowledges the scientific consensus on climate change, and in a 2014 Senate speech criticized climate change deniers, as well as those who "may not deny the climate science, but ... deny that the U.S. can or should be a leader in taking any steps" to address the issue.
Kaine has expressed concern about sea level rise (a major consequence of climate change), and in particular its effect on coastal Virginia. In 2014, he partnered with two Virginia Republicans—U.S. Representatives Rob Wittman and Scott Rigell—to hold a conference on sea-level rise and "local adaptation efforts to protect military installations in the Hampton Roads area."
Kaine endorses making coal energy production cleaner, saying that it is imperative "to convert coal to electricity with less pollution than we do today." He has criticized those who "frame the debate as a conflict between an economy and the environment", saying that "protecting the environment is good for the economy." Kaine co-sponsored the Advanced Clean Coal Technology Investment in Our Nation (ACCTION) Act, legislation to increase investment in clean coal technologies. He voted against legislation to approve the Keystone XL pipeline. Kaine supports the use of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) to harvest natural gas from shale formations. He believes this will reduce carbon pollution. Kaine voted against an amendment introduced by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand that would have repealed a provision in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 that exempts fracking from the underground injection control provisions of the Safe Drinking Water Act. As a result, regulation of fracking remains in the hands of state agencies; the EPA cannot regulate it or require a federal permit. Kaine supports exporting liquefied natural gas (LNG) to other countries.
Like his fellow senator from Virginia, Mark Warner, Kaine applauded the U.S. Forest Service's plan to close most, but not all, of the George Washington National Forest to fracking and other horizontal drilling activities.
In 2013, Kaine supported oil and gas exploration off the coast of Virginia, saying, "I have long believed that the moratorium on offshore drilling, based on a cost-benefit calculation performed decades ago, should be reexamined." In April 2015, Kaine reiterated his opposition to the moratorium on offshore drilling. In March 2016, Kaine signaled that his position was softening, saying he was "particularly struck by the material objections of the Department of Defense to the incompatibility of drilling with naval operations off Virginia's coast... I have participated in this debate for over a decade as a governor and member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. The DOD has been relatively quiet during this public debate and has never shared their objections with me before." By August 2016, Kaine stated his support for a ban on offshore drilling, bringing his position in line with Hillary Clinton's and the Obama administration's.
Kaine supports the development of solar energy and offshore wind turbines. Based on his votes on environmental issues in the Senate, the League of Conservation Voters has given Kaine a 95% score for 2018, and a 94% lifetime score. (At the time of his vice-presidential campaign, Kaine had an 88% score for 2015, and a 91% lifetime score.)
In March 2019, Kaine was one of 11 senators to sponsor the Climate Security Act of 2019, legislation forming a new group within the State Department that would be responsible for developing strategies to integrate climate science and data into operations of national security as well as restoring the post of special envoy for the Arctic, which Trump had dismantled in 2017. The proposed envoy would advise the president and the administration on the potential effects of climate on national security and be responsible for facilitating all interagency communication between federal science and security agencies.
In April 2019, Kaine was one of 12 senators to sign a bipartisan letter to top senators on the Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development advocating that the Energy Department be granted maximum funding for carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS), arguing that American job growth could be stimulated by investment in viable options to capture carbon emissions released into the atmosphere and expressing disagreement with the Trump's 2020 budget request to combine the two federal programs that include carbon capture research.
Financial regulation
Kaine strongly supports financial regulation and the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. In July 2016, he signed a bipartisan letter that "urged the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to 'carefully tailor its rulemaking' [under Dodd-Frank] regarding community banks and credit unions so as not to 'unduly burden' these institutions with regulations aimed at commercial banks." The letter prompted criticism from progressives who viewed it as anti-regulation. Democracy for America executive director Charles Chamberlain called the letter "a lobbyist-driven effort to help banks dodge consumer protection standards and regulations designed to prevent banks from destroying our economy." Kaine responded, "it's important you don't treat every financial institution the same. It wasn't credit unions that tanked the economy, it wasn't local community banks that tanked the economy, generally wasn't regional banks that did things that tanked the economy." He also signed a letter urging that a requirement that regional banks report liquidity levels on a daily basis be loosened.
Foreign and defense policy
In the Senate, Kaine has supported the normalization of U.S.–Cuban relations and the international nuclear agreement with Iran.
Kaine expressed support for Israel's right to defend itself during the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict. In September 2016, in advance of a UN Security Council resolution 2334 condemning Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, he signed an AIPAC-sponsored letter urging Obama to veto "one-sided" resolutions against Israel.
In 2015, Kaine expressed support for the Saudi-led coalition's airstrikes in Yemen against Houthi forces fighting the government of President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, but in 2018, he was one of seven senators to sign a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo saying that they found it "difficult to reconcile known facts with at least two" of the Trump administration's certifications that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were attempting to protect Yemeni civilians and were in compliance with U.S. laws on arms sales, citing an inconsistency with a memo from Pompeo to Congress expressly stating that on some occasions the Saudi and Emirates governments had failed to adopt measures to reduce civilian casualties. Kaine also condemned the Trump administration for its "eagerness to give the Saudis anything they want" after the administration approved the transfer of nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia after the murder of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi.
In July 2017, Kaine voted for the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act that placed sanctions on Iran, Russia, and North Korea.
In 2019, Kaine was one of 34 Senate Democrats to sign a letter to Trump urging him to reconsider cuts to U.S. foreign aid to the Northern Triangle countries of Central America in the Fiscal Year 2018 national security appropriations bill. The letter said that Trump had "consistently expressed a flawed understanding of U.S. foreign assistance", viewing it as a gift or charity to foreign governments rather than a tool to promote American interests and collective security. The senators wrote that U.S. foreign assistance to Central American countries, by improving stability and alleviating poverty in the region, reduced Central American migration flows to the U.S.
In 2019, Kaine co-sponsored the South China Sea and East China Sea Sanctions Act, a bipartisan bill reintroduced by Marco Rubio and Ben Cardin that was intended to disrupt China's consolidation or expansion of its claims of jurisdiction over both the sea and airspace in disputed zones in the South China Sea.
Grand strategy and democracy promotion
After the 2016 presidential campaign, Kaine wrote an extensive essay in Foreign Affairs outlining his underlying foreign policy philosophy. According to Kaine, American foreign policy has suffered a lack of direction since the 1990s because the end of the Cold War rendered irrelevant America's previous grand strategy, which he identifies as the Truman Doctrine. This lack of grand strategy makes American actions seem random, complicating the policy-making process and hindering American leaders' efforts to convince the public that American foreign policy is worthwhile. To remedy this, Kaine proposed a new grand strategy based mainly on democracy promotion. His grand strategy is informed by a tri-polar balance of international power, with one pole being democratic states including the U.S. and its allies, the second autocratic powers led by Russia and China, and the third nonstate actors (multinational corporations, NGOs, gangs, etc.).
First, Kaine believes that the United States should work to support democracy in already democratic countries, as democracy globally has been declining for many years. To maintain democracy in democratic countries, Kaine proposes the creation of an intergovernmental organization consisting of all the world's democracies in which states can cooperate on solutions to problems such as corruption and voter inclusion. He compares this hypothetical group to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, in which advanced industrialized countries collaborate on economic policy. Kaine believes that this new organization will help democracies remain democratic, as well as promote democracy in other countries by giving them viable democratic examples to emulate. In this way, Kaine says that the U.S. should no longer see itself as the indispensable nation, but rather the "exemplary democracy".
Second, Kaine proposes that democracies should coordinate to best interact with authoritarian states. Depending on the circumstances, democracies should either "confront", "compete", or "cooperate" with autocracies. For example, Kaine observes that the U.S. competes with its authoritarian adversaries by strengthening military and commercial alliances, and confronts them by decrying their human rights records.
Finally, Kaine believes that democracies and autocracies should cooperate when they have the same interests, such as combating climate change.
In July 2017, Kaine expanded on the grand strategy proposed in this essay in an interview at the Brookings Institution with international relations scholar Robert Kagan.
Afghanistan
Kaine's website states, "The main mission in Afghanistan—destroying Al Qaeda—is nearly complete and we should bring our troops home as quickly as we can, consistent with the need to make sure that Afghanistan poses no danger in the broader region."
Latin America
Kaine believes that American foreign policy has neglected relations with Latin America and argues for an increased focus on the Americas, saying, "We have seldom paid enough attention to the Americas, in particular, and when we have—whether through the Monroe Doctrine or by battling communist movements during the Cold War—we have focused more on blocking outsiders from building influence in the Western Hemisphere than we have on the nations already there."
War powers
Kaine is known for "expertise on the constitutional powers of the presidency" and has said that "war powers questions" are a "personal obsession" of his. He has stressed that under the Constitution, "Congress has the power to declare war—and only Congress." Kaine called the 2018 U.S. missile strikes Trump ordered against the Syrian government illegal because they were undertaken without congressional approval.
Kaine and Senator John McCain introduced the War Powers Consultation Act of 2014, which would replace the War Powers Act of 1973, bringing Congress back into decisions on the deployment of U.S. military forces. The bill would establish a Congressional Consultation Committee, with which the president would be required to consult regularly regarding significant foreign policy matters before ordering the deployment of the armed forces into a significant armed conflict and at least every two months for the duration of any significant armed conflict. Kaine argued for the bill by citing his "frustration" over the sloppiness of "process and communication over decisions of war", noting that "presidents tend to overreach and Congress sometimes willingly ducks tough votes and decisions. We all have to do better."
In February 2018, Kaine was one of 18 senators to sign a letter to Trump arguing that striking North Korea with "a preventative or preemptive U.S. military strike would lack either a constitutional basis or legal authority" without congressional approval.
In January 2020, Kaine introduced a new war powers resolution that would prohibit the U.S. from entering hostilities against Iran within 30 days unless it was responding to an imminent threat. The next month, the measure passed the Senate 55–45, securing the votes of eight Republicans along with the Democrats. Trump vetoed the measure, and the Senate failed to override the veto.
Syria, Iraq, and ISIL
In 2014, Kaine argued that the U.S. military intervention against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) undertaken by Obama was unconstitutional without a new congressional authorization for the use of military force against ISIL. In November 2014, at the Halifax International Security Forum, Kaine and McCain emphasized the necessity of such a congressional authorization, saying: "You just can't have a war without Congress. You can't ask people to risk their lives, risk getting killed, seeing other folks getting killed or injured if Congress isn't willing to do the job to put their thumbprint on this and say, this is a national mission and worth it." After the April 2017 Shayrat missile strike in Syria, ordered by Trump, Kaine said, "There is no legal justification for this. He should not have done this without coming to Congress." On Meet the Press, Kaine said, "I'm a strong supporter that the U.S. should take action to protect humanitarian causes, like the ban on chemical weapons. Where I differ from this administration, and I took the same position with respect to President Obama, we are a nation that's not supposed to take military action, start war, without a plan that's presented to and approved by Congress."
On December 11, 2014, after a five-month campaign by Kaine, the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved by 10–8 (along party lines) a measure authorizing military force against ISIL but barring the use of ground troops. In October 2015, Kaine criticized Obama's approach to the Syrian Civil War, saying that the establishment of humanitarian no-fly zones would have alleviated the humanitarian crisis in Syria.
In April 2018, Kaine criticized Trump for authorizing the launch of a precision military strike on Syria without consulting Congress, calling the strike an "illegal military act".
On February 26, 2021, Kaine demanded answers from President Biden after he ordered airstrikes on Syria against Iran-backed militias without giving "legal justification" to members of Congress beforehand.
Firearms
Kaine is a firearms owner. He has supported expanded background checks for weapons purchases as well as "restrictions on the sale of combat-style weapons and high-capacity magazines." As governor, Kaine oversaw the closing of loopholes in Virginia law that allowed some who had failed background checks to purchase guns. In the Senate, he has supported legislation that would require background checks for weapons sold via gun shows and via the internet. He also supports legislation to bar weapons sales to suspected terrorists on the No Fly List.
In November 2017, Kaine was a cosponsor of the Military Domestic Violence Reporting Enhancement Act, a bill that would form a charge of domestic violence under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) and stipulate that convictions be reported to federal databases with the authority to keep abusers from purchasing firearms within three days in an attempt to close a loophole in the UCMJ through which convicted abusers retained the ability to purchase firearms.
In March 2018, Kaine was one of ten senators to sign a letter to Chairman of the United States Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Lamar Alexander and ranking Democrat Patty Murray requesting they schedule a hearing on the causes and remedies of mass shootings in the wake of the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting.
In June 2019, Kaine was one of four senators to cosponsor the Help Empower Americans to Respond (HEAR) Act, legislation that would ban suppressors being imported, sold, made, sent elsewhere or possessed and grant a silencer buyback program as well as include certain exceptions for current and former law enforcement personnel and others. The bill was intended to respond to the Virginia Beach shooting, in which the perpetrator used a .45-caliber handgun with multiple extended magazines and a suppressor.
Kaine has a 100% rating from the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and an "F" rating from the NRA.
Health care
Kaine supports the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2009 (Obamacare), saying in 2012, "I was a supporter and remain a supporter of the Affordable Care Act. I felt like it was a statement that we were going to put some things in the rearview mirror." In 2013, he said that he agreed that changes to the ACA should be debated, but criticized Republicans for "wrapping them up with the threat" of a federal government shutdown.
In 2018, Kaine and Senator Michael Bennet proposed the creation of "Medicare X"—a public health insurance option modeled after Medicare that would be available on ACA health insurance marketplaces along with private options. The proposal is a more incrementalist alternative to Bernie Sanders's push for "Medicare for All" (single-payer health care).
In December 2018, Kaine was one of 42 senators to sign a letter to Trump administration officials Alex Azar, Seema Verma, and Steve Mnuchin arguing that the administration was improperly using Section 1332 of the ACA to authorize states to "increase health care costs for millions of consumers while weakening protections for individuals with pre-existing conditions." The senators requested the administration withdraw the policy and "re-engage with stakeholders, states, and Congress."
In January 2019, Kaine was one of six Democratic senators to introduce the American Miners Act of 2019, a bill that would amend the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 to swap funds in excess of the amounts needed to meet existing obligations under the Abandoned Mine Land fund to the 1974 Pension Plan as part of an effort to prevent its insolvency as a result of coal company bankruptcies and the 2008 financial crisis. It also increased the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund tax and ensured that miners affected by the 2018 coal company bankruptcies would not lose their health care.
In December 2016, Kaine was one of 17 senators to sign a letter to Trump asking him to fulfill a campaign pledge to bring down the cost of prescription drugs. In February 2017, he and 30 other senators signed a letter to Kaléo Pharmaceuticals in response to the opioid-overdose-reversing device Evzio rising in price from $690 in 2014 to $4,500 and requested the company provide the detailed price structure for Evzio, the number of devices Kaléo Pharmaceuticals set aside for donation, and the totality of federal reimbursements Evzio received in the previous year. In February 2019, Kaine was one of 11 senators to sign a letter to insulin manufacturers Eli Lilly and Company, Novo Nordisk, and Sanofi about increased insulin prices and charging that the price increases caused patients to lack "access to the life-saving medications they need."
In August 2019, Kaine was one of 19 Democratic senators to sign a letter to Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar requesting data from the Trump administration on the consequences for healthcare if Texas prevailed in its lawsuit seeking to gut the Affordable Care Act. The senators wrote, "Upending the current health care system will create an enormous hole in the pocketbooks of the people we serve as well as wreck state budgets; therefore, we ask for data to help states and Congress better understand the potential consequences of the position the Administration is taking in court."
In September 2019, amid discussions to prevent a government shutdown, Kaine was one of six Democratic senators to sign a letter to congressional leadership advocating legislation that would permanently fund health care and pension benefits for retired coal miners as "families in Virginia, West Virginia, Wyoming, Alabama, Colorado, North Dakota and New Mexico" would start to receive notifications of health care termination by the end of the following month.
Immigration
Kaine supports the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Deferred Action for Parental Accountability (DAPA) programs, which allow up to five million undocumented immigrants to gain deferral of deportation and authorization to legally work in the United States. Alongside Senator Mark Warner and many other members of Congress, he signed on to an amicus brief in support of the program in the Supreme Court case United States v. Texas.
Kaine also supports comprehensive immigration reform, which would allow persons illegally present in the U.S. to earn legal status by paying a fine and taxes.
In July 2019, following reports that the Trump administration intended to end protections of spouses, parents and children of active-duty service members from deportation, Kaine was one of 22 senators to sign a letter led by Tammy Duckworth arguing that the program allowed service members the ability "to fight for the United States overseas and not worry that their spouse, children, or parents will be deported while they are away" and that the its termination would cause personal hardship for service members in combat.
In July 2019, Kaine and 15 other Senate Democrats introduced the Protecting Sensitive Locations Act, a bill to mandate that ICE agents get approval from a supervisor before undertaking an immigration raid or other enforcement actions at "sensitive locations" (schools, hospitals, places of worship, and courthouses) except in special circumstances. The bill would also require agents to receive annual training and require ICE to submit an annual report on enforcement actions in those locations.
LGBT rights
In 2006, Kaine campaigned against an amendment to the Virginia State Constitution to ban same-sex marriage, and in March 2013, he announced his support of same-sex marriage.
In the Senate, Kaine co-sponsored the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which would bar employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
In 2005, Kaine said, "No couples in Virginia can adopt other than a married couple. That's the right policy." In 2011, he shifted his position. In 2012, he said, "there should be a license that would entitle a committed couple to the same rights as a married couple."
During the 2016 presidential campaign, Kaine noted that his position on same-sex marriage was "at odds with the current doctrine of the church that I still attend." He predicted that the Roman Catholic Church would someday adopt his view. In response, two bishops heading the doctrine and marriage committees of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said that the church's position "cannot change" and reaffirmed their opposition to same-sex marriage.
In October 2018, Kaine was one of 20 senators to sign a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urging him to reverse the State Department's policy of denying visas to same-sex partners of LGBTQ diplomats who had unions that were not recognized by their home countries, writing that the Trump administration's refusal to allow LGBTQ diplomats to bring their partners to the U.S. was tantamount to upholding the "discriminatory policies of many countries around the world." In June 2019, Kaine was one of 18 senators to sign a letter to Pompeo requesting an explanation of the State Department's decision not to issue an official statement that year commemorating Pride Month or issue the annual cable outlining activities for embassies commemorating Pride Month. The signatories to the letter also asked why the LGBTI special envoy position had remained vacant. The authors said that the State Department's moves had sent "signals to the international community that the United States is abandoning the advancement of LGBTI rights as a foreign policy priority."
Taxes
Kaine supports allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire for those with incomes above $500,000.
In 2012, Kaine supported raising the cap on income subject for the FICA (Social Security) payroll tax "so that it covers a similar percentage of income as it did in the 1980s under President Reagan, which would greatly extend the solvency of the (Social Security) program."
In the Senate, Kaine has supported the Marketplace Fairness Act, which would allow states to require online retailers to collect sales taxes in the same manner as traditional brick-and-mortar retailers.
Trade
Kaine supported granting Obama Trade Promotion Authority (TPA or "fast track") to allow him to negotiate free trade agreements. He said the goal should be to "negotiate deals that protect workers' rights, environmental standards and intellectual property, while knocking down tariffs and other barriers that some countries erect to keep American products out."
In July 2016, Kaine said the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement was "an improvement of the status quo" and an "upgrade of labor standards... environmental standards... intellectual property protections", but maintained that he had not yet decided how to vote on final approval of the agreement, citing "significant concerns" over TPP's dispute resolution mechanism. Later that July, Kaine said that he could not support the TPP in its current form.
Kaine has been a proponent of NAFTA.
Transportation, growth, and housing
Kaine supports some smart growth-style policies (which he calls "a balanced approach to growth") to control sprawl and improve transportation. He favors a transportation policy that includes public transit, bicycles, and pedestrians. As governor, Kaine pushed through a $100 million open-space acquisition initiative. Under Kaine, Amtrak service in Virginia was expanded. He also participated in a White House round-table discussion on high-speed rail in 2009.
In April 2019, Kaine was one of 41 senators to sign a bipartisan letter in support of U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Section 4 Capacity Building program, a program authorizing HUD to partner with nonprofit community development groups to provide support to community development corporations. The letter said that the longstanding program had successfully promoted economic and community development, opposed the proposed elimination of the plan in Trump's budget proposal for Fiscal Year 2020, and urged the Senate to support continued funding for Section 4 in Fiscal Year 2020.
Workers' rights and gender equality
Kaine is "generally pro-union" and has received a 96% lifetime Senate voting rating from the AFL-CIO, which praised his selection as Clinton's running mate. But Kaine supports Virginia's longstanding "right-to-work" law, which "frees union nonmembers from any legal obligation to pay fees to a union that bargains collectively on their behalf".
Kaine supports the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which expands the cases in which worker can sue against gender pay discrimination. After Clinton selected him as her running mate in 2016, Kaine was praised by the National Organization for Women.
Kaine favors an increase in the minimum wage.
Electoral history
2001 lieutenant gubernatorial election
2005 gubernatorial election
2012 U.S. Senate election
2016 vice presidential election
2018 U.S. Senate election
Personal life
In November 1984, Kaine married Anne Bright Holton, the daughter of A. Linwood Holton Jr., a Republican who served as the 61st governor of Virginia from 1970 to 1974. The couple met while they were both students at Harvard Law School. Holton has been a judge for the Virginia Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court in Richmond. After serving as first lady of Virginia during her husband's term, she was appointed by Governor Terry McAuliffe in January 2014 to be Virginia's secretary of education, and held that position until July 2016, when she stepped down after her husband was named as the Democratic vice-presidential nominee. The couple has three children, one of whom is a United States Marine. As of 2016, Kaine and his wife had been congregants of the St. Elizabeth Catholic Church in Richmond, a mostly black congregation, for 30 years.
Kaine plays the harmonica and often travels with several.
Kaine is fluent in Spanish as a result of his nine months in Honduras. During the 2016 campaign, he became the first member of a presidential ticket to deliver a speech in Spanish.
On May 28, 2020, Kaine announced that he and his wife had tested positive for COVID-19 antibodies.
Awards and honors
Kaine has received the Humanitarian Award from the Virginia Center for Inclusive Communities, then the Virginia Region of the National Conference for Community and Justice (2000), the Virginia Council of Churches' Faith in Action Award (2009), the University of Richmond School of Law's William Green Award for Professional Excellence (2012), the Award for Public Service in the Americas from the Inter-American Dialogue (2014), the Appalachian Trail Conservancy's Congressional Award (2015), and the Center for the National Interest's Distinguished Service Award (2016). He was made a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Isabella the Catholic in 2017.
Notes
References
Further reading
Governor
Kaine's Governor website (Archived)
Kaine's Lieutenant governor website (Archived)
2005 campaign contributions at the Virginia Public Access Project
Moving Virginia Forward Archived Web Site, 2007 part of Virginia's Political Landscape, 2007 Web Archive Collection at Virginia Memory
Moving Virginia Forward Archived Web Site, 2009 part of Virginia's Political Landscape, 2009 Web Archive Collection at Virginia Memory
Tim Kaine for Governor Archived Web Site, 2005–2006 part of Virginia's Political Landscape, Fall 2005 Web Archive Collection at Virginia Memory
Governor Tim Kaine Administration Web Site Archive, 2006–2010
Kaine Email Project at the Library of Virginia
External links
U.S. Senate website
Campaign website
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| true |
[
"The People's Party of Korea (, ) was a moderate left-wing political party created on November 12, 1945 by Lyuh Woon-Hyung. The People's Party did not claim to exclusively represent a particular class; instead, it tried to represent the entire Korean people. As the Soviet-US Committee failed in 1946, a faction within the People's Party called forty-eighters left the party and formed the Workers Party of South Korea (남조선로동당), in a coalition with Communist Party of South Korea (조선공산당) and New People's Party (신민당). The People's Party dissolved soon thereafter, and Lyuh later formed the Socialist Labourer's Party (사회로동당).\n\nHistory\n\nBackground\n\nActivities\t\nThey propelled the \"Left-Right Coalition Movement in Korean peninsula\" (좌우합작운동)\n\nDissolution\n\nReferences\n\nDefunct political parties in Korea\nSocialist parties in Korea\nPolitical parties established in 1945",
"The Ta'ang National Party (; abbreviated TNP), also known as the Ta'arng (Palaung) National Party, is a political party in Myanmar (Burma). The party was founded on 24 May 2010 to contest the 2010 general election, but did not participate in the 2012 by-election. The party seeks to represent the Ta'ang people (also known as the Palaung people) in the parliament of Myanmar.\n\nReferences\n\nPolitical parties in Myanmar\nPolitical parties established in 2010\n2010 establishments in Myanmar"
] |
[
"Tim Kaine",
"Legal career and Richmond City Council",
"Where did Kaine attend law school?",
"I don't know.",
"What year was he elected to city council?",
"In May 1994,",
"was he known for achieving anything special while on the council?",
"Kaine spent four terms on the council, the latter two as mayor.",
"Did he represent a specific political party?",
"specializing in fair housing law and representing clients discriminated against on the basis of race or disability."
] |
C_6e5a0e696db14512b25f50b8092751a7_1
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Did he recieve any awards?
| 5 |
Did Tim Kaine recieve any awards?
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Tim Kaine
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After graduating from law school, Kaine was a law clerk for Judge R. Lanier Anderson III of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, in Macon, Georgia. Kaine then joined the Richmond law firm of Little, Parsley & Cluverius, P.C. In 1987, Kaine became a director with the law firm of Mezzullo & McCandlish, P.C. Kaine practiced law in Richmond for 17 years, specializing in fair housing law and representing clients discriminated against on the basis of race or disability. He was a board member of the Virginia chapter of Housing Opportunities Made Equal, which he represented in a landmark redlining discrimination lawsuit against Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. arising from the company's practices in Richmond. Kaine won a $100.5 million verdict in the case; the judgment was overturned on appeal, and Kaine and his colleagues negotiated a $17.5 million settlement. Kaine did regular pro bono work. In 1988, Kaine started teaching legal ethics as an adjunct professor at the University of Richmond School of Law. Kaine taught at the University of Richmond for six years, and his students included future Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring. He was a founding member of the Virginia Coalition to End Homelessness. Kaine had a largely apolitical childhood, but became interested in politics in part due to the influence of his wife's family and his experience attending Richmond city council meetings. In May 1994, Kaine was elected to the city council of the independent city of Richmond, from the City's 2nd District. He defeated incumbent city councilman Benjamin P. A. Warthen by 97 votes. Kaine spent four terms on the council, the latter two as mayor. CANNOTANSWER
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Kaine became a director with the law firm of Mezzullo & McCandlish, P.C.
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Timothy Michael Kaine (; born February 26, 1958) is an American lawyer and politician serving as the junior United States senator from Virginia since 2013. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 38th lieutenant governor of Virginia from 2002 to 2006 and 70th governor of Virginia from 2006 to 2010. Kaine was the Democratic nominee for vice president of the United States in the 2016 election as Hillary Clinton's running mate.
Born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, Kaine grew up in Overland Park, Kansas, graduated from the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri, and earned a Juris Doctor degree from Harvard Law School before entering private practice and becoming a lecturer at the University of Richmond School of Law. He was first elected to public office in 1994, when he won a seat on the Richmond City Council. He was elected mayor of Richmond in 1998 and held that position until being elected lieutenant governor of Virginia in 2001. Kaine was elected governor of Virginia in 2005 and held that office from 2006 to 2010. He chaired the Democratic National Committee from 2009 to 2011.
On July 22, 2016, Hillary Clinton introduced Kaine as her vice-presidential running mate. The 2016 Democratic National Convention nominated him on July 27. Despite winning a plurality of the national popular vote, the ClintonKaine ticket lost the Electoral College, and thus the election, to the Republican ticket of Donald Trump and Mike Pence on November 8, 2016. Kaine was reelected to a second Senate term in 2018, defeating Republican Corey Stewart.
Early life and education
Kaine was born at Saint Joseph's Hospital in St. Paul, Minnesota. He is the eldest of three sons born to Mary Kathleen (née Burns), a home economics teacher, and Albert Alexander Kaine, Jr., a welder and the owner of a small iron-working shop. He was raised Catholic. One of Kaine's great-grandparents was Scottish and the other seven were Irish. Kaine's family moved to Overland Park, Kansas, when Kaine was two years old, and he grew up in the Kansas City area. In 1976, he graduated from Rockhurst High School, a Jesuit all-boys preparatory school in Kansas City, Missouri. At Rockhurst, Kaine joined the debate team and was elected student body president.
Kaine received his Bachelor of Arts in economics from the University of Missouri in 1979, completing his degree in three years and graduating Omicron Delta Kappa and summa cum laude. He was a Coro Foundation fellow in Kansas City in 1978. He entered Harvard Law School in 1979, interrupting his law studies after his first year to work in Honduras for nine months from 1980 to 1981, helping Jesuit missionaries who ran a Catholic school in El Progreso. While running a vocational center that taught carpentry and welding, he also helped increase the school's enrollment by recruiting local villagers. Kaine is fluent in Spanish as a result of his time in Honduras.
After returning from Honduras, Kaine met his future wife, first-year Harvard Law student Anne Holton. He graduated from Harvard Law School with a J.D. degree in 1983. Kaine and Holton moved to Holton's hometown of Richmond, Virginia, after graduation, and Kaine was admitted to the Virginia bar in 1984.
Legal career and Richmond City Council
After graduating from law school, Kaine was a law clerk for Judge R. Lanier Anderson III of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, in Macon, Georgia. He then joined the Richmond law firm of Little, Parsley & Cluverius, P.C. In 1987, Kaine became a director of the law firm of Mezzullo & McCandlish, P.C. He practiced law in Richmond for 17 years, specializing in fair housing law and representing clients discriminated against on the basis of race or disability. He was a board member of the Virginia chapter of Housing Opportunities Made Equal, which he represented in a landmark redlining discrimination lawsuit against Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. arising from the company's practices in Richmond. Kaine won a $100.5 million verdict in the case; the judgment was overturned on appeal, and Kaine and his colleagues negotiated a $17.5 million settlement.
Kaine did regular pro bono work. In 1988, he started teaching legal ethics as an adjunct professor at the University of Richmond School of Law. Kaine taught at the University of Richmond for six years; his students included future Virginia attorney general Mark Herring. He was a founding member of the Virginia Coalition to End Homelessness.
Kaine had a largely apolitical childhood, but became interested in politics in part due to the influence of his wife's family and his experience attending Richmond city council meetings. In 1994, he was elected the 2nd district member of the city council of the independent city of Richmond, defeating incumbent city councilor Benjamin P.A. Warthen by less than 100 votes. He took his seat on July 1 and retained the position until September 10, 2001, when he resigned and William J. Pantele was appointed to succeed him. He defeated the incumbent city councilman Benjamin P.A. Warthen by 97 votes. Kaine spent four terms on the city council, the latter two as mayor of Richmond.
Mayor of Richmond (1998–2001)
On July 1, 1998, Kaine was elected mayor of Richmond, succeeding Larry Chavis. He was chosen by an 8 to 1 vote on the majority-black Richmond City Council, becoming the city's first white mayor in more than ten years, which was viewed as a surprise. Rudy McCollum, an African American city councilor also interested in the mayoralty, decided to back Kaine after a private meeting between the two, clearing the way for Kaine to win the election. Previous mayors had treated the role as primarily ceremonial, with the city manager effectively operating the city; Kaine treated it as a full-time job, taking a more hands-on role.
As mayor, Kaine used a sale-leaseback arrangement to obtain funds to renovate the historic Maggie L. Walker High School and reopen it in 2000 as a magnet governor's school, the Maggie L. Walker Governor's School for Government and International Studies, which "now serves the top students in Central Virginia". Three elementary schools and one middle school were also built in Richmond under Kaine. Along with Commonwealth's attorney David Hicks, U.S. attorney James Comey, and police chief Jerry Oliver, Kaine was a supporter of Project Exile, an initiative that shifted gun crimes to federal court, where defendants faced harsher sentences. Though controversial, the effort was effective and achieved widespread support; the city's homicide rate fell by 55% during Kaine's mayoralty. Kaine touted Project Exile during his 2001 campaign for lieutenant governor.
On several occasions, Kaine voted against tax increases, and supported a tax abatement program for renovated buildings, which was credited for a housing renovation boom in the city. Forbes magazine named Richmond one of "the 10 best cities in America to do business" during Kaine's term.
According to John Moeser, a professor emeritus of urban studies and planning at Virginia Commonwealth University and later a visiting fellow at the University of Richmond's Center for Civic Engagement, Mayor Kaine "was energetic, charismatic and, most important, spoke openly about his commitment to racial reconciliation in Richmond." The New York Times wrote that Kaine "was by all accounts instrumental in bridging the city's racial divide." In the early part of his term, Kaine issued an apology for the city's role in slavery; the apology was generally well received as "a genuine, heartfelt expression". In the latter part of his term, a contentious debate took place over the inclusion of a portrait of Confederate general Robert E. Lee in a set of historic murals to be placed on city floodwalls. Many African Americans were outraged that Lee would appear on city walls, while Southern heritage groups demanded that the picture remain. Kaine proposed a compromise in which Lee would appear as part of a series of murals that also included figures like Abraham Lincoln and Powhatan Beaty. His stance drew criticism from the NAACP; Kaine argued that placing Lee on the floodwall made sense in context, and that "Much of our history is not pleasant; you can't whitewash it." Kaine's proposal passed the council on a 6–3 vote.
During his mayoralty, Kaine drew criticism for spending $6,000 in public funds on buses to the Million Mom March, an anti-gun-violence rally in Washington, D.C.; after a backlash, he raised the money privately and reimbursed the city.
Lieutenant governor of Virginia (2002–2006)
Kaine ran for lieutenant governor of Virginia in 2001. He joined the race after state senator Emily Couric dropped out due to pancreatic cancer and endorsed Kaine as her replacement. In the Democratic primary election, Kaine ran against state delegate Alan A. Diamonstein of Newport News, and state delegate Jerrauld C. Jones of Norfolk. Kaine won the nomination, with 39.7% of the vote to Diamonstein's 31.4% and Jones's 28.9%.
In the general election, Kaine won with 925,974 votes (50.35%), edging out his Republican opponent, state delegate Jay Katzen, who received 883,886 (48.06%). Libertarian Gary Reams received 28,783 votes (1.57%).
Kaine was inaugurated on January 12, 2002, and was sworn in by his wife Anne Holton, a state judge.
2005 gubernatorial election
In 2005, Kaine ran for governor of Virginia against Republican candidate Jerry W. Kilgore, a former state attorney general. Kaine was considered an underdog for most of the race, trailing in polls for most of the campaign. Two September polls showed Kaine trailing Kilgore—by four percentage points in a Washington Post poll and by one point in a Mason-Dixon/Roanoke Times poll. The final polls of the race before the election showed Kaine slightly edging ahead of Kilgore.
Kaine ultimately prevailed, winning 1,025,942 votes (51.7%) to Kilgore's 912,327 (46.0%). A third candidate, independent state Senator H. Russell Potts Jr., ran as an "independent Republican" and received 43,953 votes (2.2%).
Kaine emphasized fiscal responsibility and a centrist message. He expressed support for controlling sprawl and tackling longstanding traffic issues, an issue that resonated in the northern Virginia exurbs. He benefited from his association with the popular outgoing Democratic governor, Mark Warner, who had performed well in traditionally Republican areas of the state. On the campaign trail, Kaine referred to the "Warner-Kaine administration" in speeches and received Warner's strong backing. Kilgore later attributed his defeat to Warner's high popularity and President George W. Bush's sharply declining popularity; Bush held a rally with Kilgore on the campaign's final day.
The campaign turned sharply negative in its final weeks, with Kilgore running television attack ads that falsely claimed that Kaine believed that "Hitler doesn't qualify for the death penalty." The ads also attacked Kaine for his service ten years earlier as a court-appointed attorney for a death-row inmate. The editorial boards of the Washington Post and a number of Virginia newspapers denounced the ads as a "smear" and "dishonest." Kaine responded with an ad "in which he told voters that he opposes capital punishment but would take an oath and enforce the death penalty. In later polls, voters said they believed Kaine's response and were angered by Kilgore's negative ads."
In the election, Kaine won by large margins in the Democratic strongholds such as Richmond and northern Virginia's inner suburbs (such as Alexandria and Arlington), as well as in the Democratic-trending Fairfax County. Kaine also won Republican-leaning areas in Northern Virginia's outer suburbs, including Prince William County and Loudoun County, where George W. Bush had beat John Kerry in the previous year's presidential election, and performed "surprisingly well in Republican strongholds like Virginia Beach and Chesapeake." Kaine also defeated Kilgore in the burgeoning Richmond suburbs. Kilgore led in southwest Virginia and in the Shenandoah Valley.
Governor of Virginia (2006–2010)
Kaine was sworn in as governor at the colonial Capitol at Williamsburg, on January 14, 2006, the first governor since Thomas Jefferson to be inaugurated there.
Kaine was chairman of the Southern Governors' Association from 2008 to 2009.
Democratic response to State of the Union address
On January 31, 2006, Kaine gave the Democratic response to President George W. Bush's 2006 State of the Union address. In it, he criticized the Bush administration's No Child Left Behind Act for "wreaking havoc on local school districts"; criticized congressional Republicans for cutting student loan programs; and condemned as "reckless" Bush's spending increases and tax cuts. Kaine praised bipartisan initiatives in Virginia "to make record investments in education" and to improve veterans' access to veterans' benefits. He criticized the Bush administration's conduct of the Iraq War and treatment of U.S. soldiers, saying that "the American people were given inaccurate information about reasons for invading Iraq"; "our troops in Iraq were not given the best body armor or the best intelligence"; and "the administration wants to further reduce military and veterans' benefits."
Energy, the environment, and conservation
As governor, Kaine protected of Virginia land from development, fulfilling a promise he made in 2005. His conservation efforts focused on conservation easements (voluntary easements that preserve the private ownership of a piece of land while also permanently protecting it from development); a substantial Virginia land preservation tax credit encouraged easements. From 2004 to 2009, the Virginia Outdoors Foundation (a quasi-governmental entity set up in 1966 to preserve open land in the state) protected more land than it had in the previous 40 years, a fact Kaine touted as his term drew to a close.
As governor, Kaine established the Climate Change Commission, a bipartisan panel to study climate change issues. The panel was shuttered under Kaine's Republican successor, Governor Robert F. McDonnell, but revived (as the Governor's Climate Change and Resiliency Update Commission) under McDonnell's successor, Democratic Governor Terry McAuliffe.
In 2008, Kaine supported a coal-fired power plant project in Wise County, clashing with environmentalists who opposed the project.
In 2009, Kaine expressed support for tighter restrictions on mountaintop removal coal mining imposed by the Obama administration.
Healthcare and public health
In October 2006, Kaine signed an executive order banning smoking in all government buildings and state-owned cars as of January 1, 2007. He signed legislation banning smoking in restaurants and bars, with some exceptions, in March 2009, making Virginia the first Southern state to do so.
In 2007, the Republican-controlled Virginia General Assembly passed legislation, with "overwhelming bipartisan support", to require girls to receive the HPV vaccine (which immunizes recipients against a virus that causes cervical cancer) before entering high school. Kaine expressed "some qualms" about the legislation and pushed for a strong opt-out provision, ultimately signing a bill that included a provision allowing parents to opt out of the requirement without citing a reason.
In 2007, Kaine secured increases in state funding for nursing in the Virginia General Assembly and announced a 10% salary increase for nursing faculty above the normal salary increase for state employees, plus additional funds for scholarships for nursing master's programs. The initiatives were aimed at addressing a shortage of practicing nurses.
Virginia Tech shooting
After the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting, in which Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 people, Kaine appointed an eight-member Virginia Tech Review Panel, chaired by retired Virginia State Police superintendent W. Gerald Massengill, to probe the event. The commission members included specialists in psychology, law, forensics and higher education as well as former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge. The commission first met in May 2007, and issued its findings and recommendations in August 2007. Among other recommendations, the panel proposed many mental health reforms. Based on the panel's recommendations, Kaine proposed $42 million of investment in mental health programs and reforms, included "boosting access to outpatient and emergency mental health services, increasing the number of case managers and improving monitoring of community-based providers." In April 2007, Kaine signed an executive order instructing state agencies to step up efforts to block gun sales to people involuntarily committed to inpatient and outpatient mental health treatment centers. Kaine, who had been in Japan on a trade mission at the time of the shootings, received widespread praise for his quick return to the state and his handling of the issue.
Budget and economy
Among Kaine's greatest challenges as governor came during the 2008–09 economic crisis; the Washington Post wrote that "perhaps his greatest success was keeping the state running despite [the crisis]." Amid the Great Recession, unemployment in Virginia remained lower than the national average. During Kaine's tenure as governor, the unemployment rate in Virginia rose from 3.2% to 7.4%, a smaller increase than the national rate, which rose from 4.7% to 9.9% during the same period.
As governor, Kaine approved about $3.31 billion in general fund spending cuts, and after his term in office, the Virginia General Assembly adopted about $1.33 billion in additional budget cuts that Kaine had recommended, for a total of $4.64 billion in cuts. The Washington Post wrote, "Unable to raise taxes and required by law to balance the budget, he was forced to make unpopular cuts that led to such things as shuttered highway rest stops and higher public university tuition." Virginia was one of three states to earn the highest grade in terms of management in a report by the nonpartisan Pew Center on the States. Virginia took first place each year from 2006 to 2009 in Forbes magazine's "Best States For Business" rankings.
Infrastructure and transportation
In July 2007, during the debate on the Silver Line of the Washington Metro through Tysons Corner, Kaine supported an elevated track solution rather than a tunnel, citing costs and potential delays that would put federal funding at risk.
In 2006, Kaine pressed the general assembly to support a legislative package to ease severe traffic congestion by spending about $1 billion annually for highway construction, repairs to aging roads, mass transit, and other transportation projects. The money would be raised through increases in taxes and fees that would have raised an estimated $4 billion in revenue over four years. The Democratic-controlled Senate supported the plan, but the Republican-controlled House was unwilling to approve the taxes necessary to carry out the project, and the effort failed even after a special session of the legislature was called over the stalemate.
In 2007, Republicans in the General Assembly passed their own transportation-funding bill. Rather than a statewide tax increase to finance the transportation improvements, as Kaine and most legislative Democrats favored, the Republican bill called for transportation funding "to come from borrowing $2.5 billion and paying the debt costs out of the general fund"; authorized local tax increase in Northern Virginia; increased fees and taxes on rental cars, commercial real estate, and hotels; and increased traffic infraction fines and driver's licenses fees.
Kaine and most legislative Democrats opposed the Republican legislation, calling it inadequate to address traffic congestion and arguing that the withdrawal of funds from the general fund would affect core services such as health care, law enforcement, and education. Kaine ultimately signed a bill with amendments reflecting "concerns by local government officials and a bipartisan group of lawmakers who were concerned that the plan took too much money from the state's general fund."
Education
Under Kaine, participation in Virginia in early childhood education increased by 40.2% due to his expansion of the Virginia Preschool Initiative, which makes pre-kindergarten more accessible to four-year-olds from households close to the poverty line. Kaine sought increases to the budget for preschool programs every year during his term as governor. Virginia was rated as the best state to raise a child in a 2007 report by Education Week and the Pew Center on the States.
Cabinet and appointments
Kaine made the following appointments to his Virginia Governor's Cabinet:
Chief of Staff: William Leighty (2006–2007), Wayne Turnage (2007–2010)
Secretary of Administration: Viola Baskerville (2006–2010)
Virginia Secretary of Agriculture and Forestry: Robert Bloxom (2006–2010)
Secretary of Commerce and Trade: Patrick Gottschalk (2006–2010)
Secretary of the Commonwealth: Katherine Hanley (2006–2010)
Secretary of Education: Thomas R. Morris (2006–2010)
Secretary of Finance:Jody Wagner (2006–2008), Ric Brown (2008–2010)
Secretary of Health and Human Resources: Marilyn Tavenner (2006–2010)
Secretary of Natural Resources: Preston Bryant (2006–2010)
Secretary of Public Safety: John W. Marshall (2006–2010)
Secretary of Technology: Aneesh Chopra (2006–2009), Leonard Pomata (2009–2010)
Secretary of Transportation: Pierce Homer (2006–2010)
Counselor to the Governor: Lawrence Roberts (2006–2009)
Counselor to the Governor: Mark Rubin (2009–2010)
Assistant for Commonwealth Preparedness: Robert P. Crouch (2006–2010)
Senior Advisor for Workforce: Daniel G. LeBlanc (2006–2010)
As governor, Kaine made a number of appointments to the Virginia state courts. He made two appointments to the Supreme Court of Virginia, naming Chesapeake circuit judge S. Bernard Goodwyn to the Court in 2007 and Virginia Court of Appeals Judge LeRoy F. Millette Jr. in 2008.
On September 27, 2007, just weeks after appointing Esam Omeish to the 20-member Virginia Commission on Immigration, Kaine learned that Omeish had made videos accusing Israel of genocide and calling for President Bush's impeachment. He immediately requested and received Omeish's resignation and said that background checks would be more thorough in the future.
2008 vice presidential speculation
Kaine announced his support for Barack Obama's presidential bid in February 2007. It was maintained that Kaine's endorsement was the first from a statewide elected official outside of Illinois. Because Kaine was a relatively popular governor of a Southern state, there was media speculation that he was a potential nominee for vice president. Obama had supported Kaine in his campaign for governor, saying, "Tim Kaine has a message of fiscal responsibility and generosity of spirit. That kind of message can sell anywhere." On July 28, 2008, Politico reported that Kaine was "very, very high" on Obama's shortlist for vice president, a list that also included Senator Hillary Clinton of New York, Governor Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas, Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana, and Senator Joe Biden of Delaware. Obama ultimately selected Biden. It was later reported that Obama told Kaine, in breaking the news to him, "You are the pick of my heart, but Joe [Biden] is the pick of my head". Obama later wrote that he had ultimately narrowed down the choice for his running mate to Kaine and Biden. He said, "At the time, I was much closer to Tim", but Obama and his advisers David Axelrod and David Plouffe wondered whether voters would accept a ticket of "two relatively young, inexperienced, and liberal civil rights attorneys" and Obama felt the contrast between him and Biden was a strength, and that Biden's age and experience would reassure voters concerned that Obama was too young to be president.
Democratic National Committee chair (2009–2011)
In January 2009, Kaine became chair of the Democratic National Committee. He had turned down the position the first time it was offered to him, expressing misgivings about accepting a partisan position, but took the job at Obama's request. He took on the position as chair part-time as he continued his term as governor of Virginia. Kaine's main goals as DNC chair "were protecting the party's seats in Congress during the 2010 midterms and integrating the president's campaign apparatus, Organizing for America, and its technological acumen into the party machinery." In the 2010 midterms, the DNC under Kaine's leadership outraised the Republican National Committee (RNC) by $30 million, but Democrats lost control of the House and lost seats in the Senate amidst a Tea Party backlash. Kaine was not generally blamed for the losses.
Kaine kept a low profile in the position in comparison to his counterpart, RNC chairman Michael Steele. He focused more on fundraising and maintaining party unity than on attacking political opponents.
In February 2011, after Kaine spoke to union leaders in Madison, Organizing for America got involved in Wisconsin's budget battle and opposed Republican-sponsored anti-union legislation. It made phone calls, sent emails, and distributed messages via Facebook and Twitter to build crowds for rallies.
After completing his term as governor in January 2010, Kaine taught part-time at the University of Richmond, teaching a course in spring 2010 at the Jepson School of Leadership Studies and another in fall 2010 at the University of Richmond School of Law. He explained that he had chosen to teach at a private university rather than a public university "because it would not have been right for a sitting governor to be seeking employment at an institution when he writes the budget and appoints the board of the institution."
United States Senate
2012 election
After Senator Jim Webb's decision not to seek reelection, Kaine announced on April 5, 2011, that he would run for Webb's seat. He was initially reluctant to return to public office, but Webb, Senator Mark Warner, and other Virginia Democrats saw Kaine as the strongest potential Democratic candidate and convinced him to run. Kaine named Lawrence Roberts as his campaign chairman. Mike Henry was chosen as his campaign manager. Kaine filmed announcement videos in English and Spanish and was unopposed for the Democratic nomination. He defeated former senator and governor George Allen in the general election.
Tenure
Kaine was sworn in on January 3, 2013, reuniting him with Mark Warner, the senior senator. Kaine was lieutenant governor when Warner was governor of Virginia.
On June 11, 2013, Kaine delivered a speech on the Senate floor in support of the bipartisan "Gang of Eight" immigration bill. The speech was entirely in Spanish, marking the first time a senator had ever made a speech on the Senate floor in a language other than English.
As a member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, Kaine pushed for a new Congressional authorization of military force for the American operations against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Kaine supported the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran, though he also helped Republican senator Bob Corker hold a vote on a resolution of disapproval of the deal. Kaine has taken several trips throughout the Middle East, meeting with the leaders of states such as Turkey and Israel.
While in the Senate, Kaine has continued to teach part-time at the University of Richmond, receiving a salary of $16,000 per year.
Kaine has voted with his party more than 90% of the time. According to the Washington Post, Kaine has "crafted a largely progressive record as a senator." He reportedly has good relations with both Democratic and Republican senators.
During the 2016 vice-presidential campaign, Kaine frequently criticized Donald Trump, saying that Trump "as commander-in-chief scares me to death" and had a "bizarre fascination with strongmen and authoritarian leaders". In 2017, after Trump took office, Kaine continued to criticize his "authoritarian tendencies", citing his attacks on media, judges, and peaceful protesters. At an event at George Mason University, Kaine said that with Trump in office, Americans "are in a 'living experiment' to see whether or not the Constitution still works to check executive power."
In February 2017, Kaine met with Pope Francis at a general audience at the Vatican. Kaine also met with the Jesuit Refugee Service to discuss refugees and met with Vatican officials to discuss Latin American issues. The same month, Kaine delivered an address, "The Truman Doctrine at 70", at London's Chatham House.
Committee assignments and caucuses
In the 113th Congress (2013–15), Kaine was on the Committee on Armed Services, the Committee on the Budget, and the Committee on Foreign Relations. In the 114th Congress, Kaine was on those three committees and the Special Committee on Aging. In July 2013, Kaine was named chair of the United States Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Near East, South Asia, Central Asia and Counterterrorism.
Within the Senate Armed Services Committee, Kaine is a member of the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities, the Subcommittee on Readiness and Management Support (of which he is the ranking member), and the Subcommittee on Seapower.
Within the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, Kaine is a member of the Subcommittee on State Department and USAID Management, International Operations, and Bilateral International Development (of which he is the ranking member), the Subcommittee on Europe and Regional Security Cooperation, the Subcommittee on Near East, South Asia, Central Asia, and Counterterrorism, and the Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere, Transnational Crime, Civilian Security, Democracy, Human Rights and Global Women's Issues.
In January 2014, Kaine and Senator Rob Portman established the bipartisan Senate Career and Technical Education Caucus (CTE Caucus), which focuses on vocational education and technical education. Kaine and Portman co-chair the caucus. In 2014, Kaine and Portman introduced the CTE Excellence and Equity Act to the Senate; the legislation would provide $500 million in federal funding, distributed by competitive grants, to high schools to further CTE programs. The legislation, introduced as an amendment to the omnibus Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act of 2006, would promote apprenticeships and similar initiatives. Kaine and Portman introduced similar legislation, the Educating Tomorrow's Workforce Act, in 2017.
2016 vice-presidential campaign
Kaine endorsed Hillary Clinton for president in 2016 and campaigned actively for her in seven states during the primaries. He had been the subject of considerable speculation as a possible running mate for Clinton, with several news reports indicating that he was at or near the top of Clinton's list of people under consideration alongside figures such as Elizabeth Warren and Julian Castro.
The New York Times reported that Clinton's husband, former president Bill Clinton, supported Kaine as his wife's vice-presidential selection, noting his domestic and national security résumé. On July 22, 2016, she announced Kaine would be her running mate in the election. Clinton introduced Kaine as her choice in a joint appearance at a rally at Florida International University in Miami the next day. The 2016 Democratic National Convention nominated him for vice president on July 27, 2016.
Kaine was the first Virginian since Woodrow Wilson to be on a major-party ticket, and was the first Virginian to run for vice president on a major-party ticket since John Tyler in 1840; he was also the first senator or former senator from Virginia to be on a major-party ticket since Tyler.
In accordance with longstanding political custom in the U.S., upon being nominated for vice president Kaine publicly released his full tax returns for the previous ten years. He also publicly released medical records; his physician, Brian P. Monahan, the Attending Physician of the United States Congress, wrote that Kaine was "in overall excellent health." In September Kaine published a campaign book co-authored with Clinton, Stronger Together.
In Kaine's preparations for the vice presidential debate in October 2016, lawyer Robert Barnett played the role of Republican vice-presidential nominee Mike Pence. (During Pence's own debate preparations, Wisconsin governor Scott Walker played the role of Kaine.) Pence was criticized after the debate for not defending Trump's comments, while Kaine was criticized for being too aggressive and interrupting. According to ABC News, Kaine interrupted 70 times during the debate, while Pence interrupted 40 times.
Despite winning a plurality of the national popular vote, the Clinton-Kaine ticket lost the Electoral College, and thus the election, to the Trump-Pence ticket on November 8, 2016. This is the only election Kaine has ever lost. Clinton-Kaine did win Virginia, the only Southern state to vote for the Democratic ticket, a victory attributed in part to Kaine.
2018 election
After the 2016 election, Kaine said he would run for reelection to the Senate in 2018. He expressed his desire to emulate John Warner, who represented Virginia in the Senate for 30 years. He added that he would not run for president or vice president in the future.
In his 2018 Senate campaign against Republican nominee and Trump ally Corey Stewart, Kaine had the endorsement of The Richmond Times-Dispatch, marking the first time in decades the paper had endorsed a Democrat.
After taking an early lead in his race against Stewart, Kaine worked to support other Democrats who, in seven districts, were challenging incumbent Republicans for House seats. Kaine defeated Stewart by more than 15 points.
Personality and leadership style
About 145,000 emails from Kaine and his staff during his term as governor are publicly accessible at the Library of Virginia. Politico conducted an analysis of the correspondence and wrote that the messages show Kaine to be a "media-savvy" and detail-oriented "micro-manager" who is also a policy "wonk".
According to The New York Times, Kaine "is widely described by people in his political orbit as a likable if less than charismatic figure...guided by moral convictions that flow from his deep Christian faith." On Meet the Press, Kaine called himself "boring."
Political positions
In terms of political ideology, FiveThirtyEight gives Kaine an average score of −37 (−100 is the most liberal, and 100 is the most conservative). FiveThirtyEight characterizes him as a "mainstream Democrat" and notes that his ideology score is very similar to that of Joe Biden. Three conservative groups—the American Conservative Union, the Club for Growth, and Heritage Action—gave Kaine 0% ratings in the few years before 2016, while the liberal group Americans for Democratic Action gave Kaine a 90% rating in 2014. The New York Times wrote that "in hyperpartisan Washington, he is often seen as a centrist" while also describing him as an "old-fashioned liberal...driven by Jesuit ideals."
Abortion, birth control, and sex education
Kaine, a Roman Catholic, personally opposes abortion, but is "largely inclined to keep the law out of women's reproductive decisions." He has said, "I'm a strong supporter of Roe v. Wade and women being able to make these decisions. In government, we have enough things to worry about. We don't need to make people's reproductive decisions for them." Kaine supports some legal restrictions on abortion, such as requiring parental consent for minors (with a judicial bypass procedure) and banning late-term abortions in cases where the woman's life is not at risk.
In 2009, Kaine signed a bill to create a "Choose Life" license plate, among the more than 200 Virginia specialty plates already offered, the proceeds of which would partly go to Heartbeat International, a Christian organization that operates anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers. Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice America expressed disappointment in Kaine's decision. Kaine considered such license plate messages a matter of free speech and added that the move was "in keeping with the commonwealth's longtime practice of approving specialty plates with all manner of political and social messages."
Kaine previously criticized the Obama administration for "not providing a 'broad enough religious employer exemption'" in the contraceptive mandate of the Affordable Care Act, but praised a 2012 amendment to the regulations that required insurers to provide birth control to employees when an employer was an objecting religious organization.
In 2005, when running for governor, Kaine said he favored reducing abortions by "Enforcing the current Virginia restrictions on abortion and passing an enforceable ban on partial birth abortion that protects the life and health of the mother"; "Fighting teen pregnancy through abstinence-focused education"; "Ensuring women's access to health care (including legal contraception) and economic opportunity"; and "Promoting adoption as an alternative for women facing unwanted pregnancies."
In 2007, as governor, Kaine cut off state funding for abstinence-only sex education programs, citing studies that showed such programs were ineffective, while comprehensive sex education programs were more effective. Kaine believes that both abstinence and contraceptives must be taught, and that education should be evidence-based.
As a senator, Kaine has received perfect scores from Planned Parenthood and the abortion-rights advocacy group NARAL. He has received a score of zero from the anti-abortion National Right to Life Committee.
Campaign finance
Kaine "strongly disagrees" with Citizens United v. FEC (2010). In 2015, Kaine joined a group of Senate Democrats in a letter to Securities and Exchange Commission Chairwoman Mary Jo White that said the ruling "reversed long-standing precedent and has moved our country in a different and disturbing direction when it comes to corporate influence in politics." They urged the SEC to require publicly traded companies to disclose political spending to their shareholders to "increase transparency in the U.S. political process".
Capital punishment
Kaine personally opposes capital punishment, but presided over 11 executions while governor. He said, "I really struggled with [capital punishment] as governor. I have a moral position against the death penalty. But I took an oath of office to uphold it. Following an oath of office is also a moral obligation." During his time in office he commuted one death sentence in June 2008, that of Percy Levar Walton, to life imprisonment without parole on grounds of mental incompetence, writing that "one cannot reasonably conclude that Walton is fully aware of the punishment he is about to suffer and why he is to suffer it" and thus that executing him would be unconstitutional. Kaine vetoed a number of bills to expand the death sentence to more crimes, saying: "I do not believe that further expansion of the death penalty is necessary to protect human life or provide for public safety needs." Some of the vetoes were overridden.
On July 31, 2019, after Attorney General William Barr announced that the United States federal government would resume the use of the death penalty for the first time in over 20 years, Kaine co-sponsored a bill banning the death penalty.
Environment, energy, and climate change
Kaine acknowledges the scientific consensus on climate change, and in a 2014 Senate speech criticized climate change deniers, as well as those who "may not deny the climate science, but ... deny that the U.S. can or should be a leader in taking any steps" to address the issue.
Kaine has expressed concern about sea level rise (a major consequence of climate change), and in particular its effect on coastal Virginia. In 2014, he partnered with two Virginia Republicans—U.S. Representatives Rob Wittman and Scott Rigell—to hold a conference on sea-level rise and "local adaptation efforts to protect military installations in the Hampton Roads area."
Kaine endorses making coal energy production cleaner, saying that it is imperative "to convert coal to electricity with less pollution than we do today." He has criticized those who "frame the debate as a conflict between an economy and the environment", saying that "protecting the environment is good for the economy." Kaine co-sponsored the Advanced Clean Coal Technology Investment in Our Nation (ACCTION) Act, legislation to increase investment in clean coal technologies. He voted against legislation to approve the Keystone XL pipeline. Kaine supports the use of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) to harvest natural gas from shale formations. He believes this will reduce carbon pollution. Kaine voted against an amendment introduced by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand that would have repealed a provision in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 that exempts fracking from the underground injection control provisions of the Safe Drinking Water Act. As a result, regulation of fracking remains in the hands of state agencies; the EPA cannot regulate it or require a federal permit. Kaine supports exporting liquefied natural gas (LNG) to other countries.
Like his fellow senator from Virginia, Mark Warner, Kaine applauded the U.S. Forest Service's plan to close most, but not all, of the George Washington National Forest to fracking and other horizontal drilling activities.
In 2013, Kaine supported oil and gas exploration off the coast of Virginia, saying, "I have long believed that the moratorium on offshore drilling, based on a cost-benefit calculation performed decades ago, should be reexamined." In April 2015, Kaine reiterated his opposition to the moratorium on offshore drilling. In March 2016, Kaine signaled that his position was softening, saying he was "particularly struck by the material objections of the Department of Defense to the incompatibility of drilling with naval operations off Virginia's coast... I have participated in this debate for over a decade as a governor and member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. The DOD has been relatively quiet during this public debate and has never shared their objections with me before." By August 2016, Kaine stated his support for a ban on offshore drilling, bringing his position in line with Hillary Clinton's and the Obama administration's.
Kaine supports the development of solar energy and offshore wind turbines. Based on his votes on environmental issues in the Senate, the League of Conservation Voters has given Kaine a 95% score for 2018, and a 94% lifetime score. (At the time of his vice-presidential campaign, Kaine had an 88% score for 2015, and a 91% lifetime score.)
In March 2019, Kaine was one of 11 senators to sponsor the Climate Security Act of 2019, legislation forming a new group within the State Department that would be responsible for developing strategies to integrate climate science and data into operations of national security as well as restoring the post of special envoy for the Arctic, which Trump had dismantled in 2017. The proposed envoy would advise the president and the administration on the potential effects of climate on national security and be responsible for facilitating all interagency communication between federal science and security agencies.
In April 2019, Kaine was one of 12 senators to sign a bipartisan letter to top senators on the Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development advocating that the Energy Department be granted maximum funding for carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS), arguing that American job growth could be stimulated by investment in viable options to capture carbon emissions released into the atmosphere and expressing disagreement with the Trump's 2020 budget request to combine the two federal programs that include carbon capture research.
Financial regulation
Kaine strongly supports financial regulation and the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. In July 2016, he signed a bipartisan letter that "urged the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to 'carefully tailor its rulemaking' [under Dodd-Frank] regarding community banks and credit unions so as not to 'unduly burden' these institutions with regulations aimed at commercial banks." The letter prompted criticism from progressives who viewed it as anti-regulation. Democracy for America executive director Charles Chamberlain called the letter "a lobbyist-driven effort to help banks dodge consumer protection standards and regulations designed to prevent banks from destroying our economy." Kaine responded, "it's important you don't treat every financial institution the same. It wasn't credit unions that tanked the economy, it wasn't local community banks that tanked the economy, generally wasn't regional banks that did things that tanked the economy." He also signed a letter urging that a requirement that regional banks report liquidity levels on a daily basis be loosened.
Foreign and defense policy
In the Senate, Kaine has supported the normalization of U.S.–Cuban relations and the international nuclear agreement with Iran.
Kaine expressed support for Israel's right to defend itself during the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict. In September 2016, in advance of a UN Security Council resolution 2334 condemning Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, he signed an AIPAC-sponsored letter urging Obama to veto "one-sided" resolutions against Israel.
In 2015, Kaine expressed support for the Saudi-led coalition's airstrikes in Yemen against Houthi forces fighting the government of President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, but in 2018, he was one of seven senators to sign a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo saying that they found it "difficult to reconcile known facts with at least two" of the Trump administration's certifications that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were attempting to protect Yemeni civilians and were in compliance with U.S. laws on arms sales, citing an inconsistency with a memo from Pompeo to Congress expressly stating that on some occasions the Saudi and Emirates governments had failed to adopt measures to reduce civilian casualties. Kaine also condemned the Trump administration for its "eagerness to give the Saudis anything they want" after the administration approved the transfer of nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia after the murder of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi.
In July 2017, Kaine voted for the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act that placed sanctions on Iran, Russia, and North Korea.
In 2019, Kaine was one of 34 Senate Democrats to sign a letter to Trump urging him to reconsider cuts to U.S. foreign aid to the Northern Triangle countries of Central America in the Fiscal Year 2018 national security appropriations bill. The letter said that Trump had "consistently expressed a flawed understanding of U.S. foreign assistance", viewing it as a gift or charity to foreign governments rather than a tool to promote American interests and collective security. The senators wrote that U.S. foreign assistance to Central American countries, by improving stability and alleviating poverty in the region, reduced Central American migration flows to the U.S.
In 2019, Kaine co-sponsored the South China Sea and East China Sea Sanctions Act, a bipartisan bill reintroduced by Marco Rubio and Ben Cardin that was intended to disrupt China's consolidation or expansion of its claims of jurisdiction over both the sea and airspace in disputed zones in the South China Sea.
Grand strategy and democracy promotion
After the 2016 presidential campaign, Kaine wrote an extensive essay in Foreign Affairs outlining his underlying foreign policy philosophy. According to Kaine, American foreign policy has suffered a lack of direction since the 1990s because the end of the Cold War rendered irrelevant America's previous grand strategy, which he identifies as the Truman Doctrine. This lack of grand strategy makes American actions seem random, complicating the policy-making process and hindering American leaders' efforts to convince the public that American foreign policy is worthwhile. To remedy this, Kaine proposed a new grand strategy based mainly on democracy promotion. His grand strategy is informed by a tri-polar balance of international power, with one pole being democratic states including the U.S. and its allies, the second autocratic powers led by Russia and China, and the third nonstate actors (multinational corporations, NGOs, gangs, etc.).
First, Kaine believes that the United States should work to support democracy in already democratic countries, as democracy globally has been declining for many years. To maintain democracy in democratic countries, Kaine proposes the creation of an intergovernmental organization consisting of all the world's democracies in which states can cooperate on solutions to problems such as corruption and voter inclusion. He compares this hypothetical group to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, in which advanced industrialized countries collaborate on economic policy. Kaine believes that this new organization will help democracies remain democratic, as well as promote democracy in other countries by giving them viable democratic examples to emulate. In this way, Kaine says that the U.S. should no longer see itself as the indispensable nation, but rather the "exemplary democracy".
Second, Kaine proposes that democracies should coordinate to best interact with authoritarian states. Depending on the circumstances, democracies should either "confront", "compete", or "cooperate" with autocracies. For example, Kaine observes that the U.S. competes with its authoritarian adversaries by strengthening military and commercial alliances, and confronts them by decrying their human rights records.
Finally, Kaine believes that democracies and autocracies should cooperate when they have the same interests, such as combating climate change.
In July 2017, Kaine expanded on the grand strategy proposed in this essay in an interview at the Brookings Institution with international relations scholar Robert Kagan.
Afghanistan
Kaine's website states, "The main mission in Afghanistan—destroying Al Qaeda—is nearly complete and we should bring our troops home as quickly as we can, consistent with the need to make sure that Afghanistan poses no danger in the broader region."
Latin America
Kaine believes that American foreign policy has neglected relations with Latin America and argues for an increased focus on the Americas, saying, "We have seldom paid enough attention to the Americas, in particular, and when we have—whether through the Monroe Doctrine or by battling communist movements during the Cold War—we have focused more on blocking outsiders from building influence in the Western Hemisphere than we have on the nations already there."
War powers
Kaine is known for "expertise on the constitutional powers of the presidency" and has said that "war powers questions" are a "personal obsession" of his. He has stressed that under the Constitution, "Congress has the power to declare war—and only Congress." Kaine called the 2018 U.S. missile strikes Trump ordered against the Syrian government illegal because they were undertaken without congressional approval.
Kaine and Senator John McCain introduced the War Powers Consultation Act of 2014, which would replace the War Powers Act of 1973, bringing Congress back into decisions on the deployment of U.S. military forces. The bill would establish a Congressional Consultation Committee, with which the president would be required to consult regularly regarding significant foreign policy matters before ordering the deployment of the armed forces into a significant armed conflict and at least every two months for the duration of any significant armed conflict. Kaine argued for the bill by citing his "frustration" over the sloppiness of "process and communication over decisions of war", noting that "presidents tend to overreach and Congress sometimes willingly ducks tough votes and decisions. We all have to do better."
In February 2018, Kaine was one of 18 senators to sign a letter to Trump arguing that striking North Korea with "a preventative or preemptive U.S. military strike would lack either a constitutional basis or legal authority" without congressional approval.
In January 2020, Kaine introduced a new war powers resolution that would prohibit the U.S. from entering hostilities against Iran within 30 days unless it was responding to an imminent threat. The next month, the measure passed the Senate 55–45, securing the votes of eight Republicans along with the Democrats. Trump vetoed the measure, and the Senate failed to override the veto.
Syria, Iraq, and ISIL
In 2014, Kaine argued that the U.S. military intervention against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) undertaken by Obama was unconstitutional without a new congressional authorization for the use of military force against ISIL. In November 2014, at the Halifax International Security Forum, Kaine and McCain emphasized the necessity of such a congressional authorization, saying: "You just can't have a war without Congress. You can't ask people to risk their lives, risk getting killed, seeing other folks getting killed or injured if Congress isn't willing to do the job to put their thumbprint on this and say, this is a national mission and worth it." After the April 2017 Shayrat missile strike in Syria, ordered by Trump, Kaine said, "There is no legal justification for this. He should not have done this without coming to Congress." On Meet the Press, Kaine said, "I'm a strong supporter that the U.S. should take action to protect humanitarian causes, like the ban on chemical weapons. Where I differ from this administration, and I took the same position with respect to President Obama, we are a nation that's not supposed to take military action, start war, without a plan that's presented to and approved by Congress."
On December 11, 2014, after a five-month campaign by Kaine, the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved by 10–8 (along party lines) a measure authorizing military force against ISIL but barring the use of ground troops. In October 2015, Kaine criticized Obama's approach to the Syrian Civil War, saying that the establishment of humanitarian no-fly zones would have alleviated the humanitarian crisis in Syria.
In April 2018, Kaine criticized Trump for authorizing the launch of a precision military strike on Syria without consulting Congress, calling the strike an "illegal military act".
On February 26, 2021, Kaine demanded answers from President Biden after he ordered airstrikes on Syria against Iran-backed militias without giving "legal justification" to members of Congress beforehand.
Firearms
Kaine is a firearms owner. He has supported expanded background checks for weapons purchases as well as "restrictions on the sale of combat-style weapons and high-capacity magazines." As governor, Kaine oversaw the closing of loopholes in Virginia law that allowed some who had failed background checks to purchase guns. In the Senate, he has supported legislation that would require background checks for weapons sold via gun shows and via the internet. He also supports legislation to bar weapons sales to suspected terrorists on the No Fly List.
In November 2017, Kaine was a cosponsor of the Military Domestic Violence Reporting Enhancement Act, a bill that would form a charge of domestic violence under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) and stipulate that convictions be reported to federal databases with the authority to keep abusers from purchasing firearms within three days in an attempt to close a loophole in the UCMJ through which convicted abusers retained the ability to purchase firearms.
In March 2018, Kaine was one of ten senators to sign a letter to Chairman of the United States Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Lamar Alexander and ranking Democrat Patty Murray requesting they schedule a hearing on the causes and remedies of mass shootings in the wake of the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting.
In June 2019, Kaine was one of four senators to cosponsor the Help Empower Americans to Respond (HEAR) Act, legislation that would ban suppressors being imported, sold, made, sent elsewhere or possessed and grant a silencer buyback program as well as include certain exceptions for current and former law enforcement personnel and others. The bill was intended to respond to the Virginia Beach shooting, in which the perpetrator used a .45-caliber handgun with multiple extended magazines and a suppressor.
Kaine has a 100% rating from the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and an "F" rating from the NRA.
Health care
Kaine supports the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2009 (Obamacare), saying in 2012, "I was a supporter and remain a supporter of the Affordable Care Act. I felt like it was a statement that we were going to put some things in the rearview mirror." In 2013, he said that he agreed that changes to the ACA should be debated, but criticized Republicans for "wrapping them up with the threat" of a federal government shutdown.
In 2018, Kaine and Senator Michael Bennet proposed the creation of "Medicare X"—a public health insurance option modeled after Medicare that would be available on ACA health insurance marketplaces along with private options. The proposal is a more incrementalist alternative to Bernie Sanders's push for "Medicare for All" (single-payer health care).
In December 2018, Kaine was one of 42 senators to sign a letter to Trump administration officials Alex Azar, Seema Verma, and Steve Mnuchin arguing that the administration was improperly using Section 1332 of the ACA to authorize states to "increase health care costs for millions of consumers while weakening protections for individuals with pre-existing conditions." The senators requested the administration withdraw the policy and "re-engage with stakeholders, states, and Congress."
In January 2019, Kaine was one of six Democratic senators to introduce the American Miners Act of 2019, a bill that would amend the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 to swap funds in excess of the amounts needed to meet existing obligations under the Abandoned Mine Land fund to the 1974 Pension Plan as part of an effort to prevent its insolvency as a result of coal company bankruptcies and the 2008 financial crisis. It also increased the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund tax and ensured that miners affected by the 2018 coal company bankruptcies would not lose their health care.
In December 2016, Kaine was one of 17 senators to sign a letter to Trump asking him to fulfill a campaign pledge to bring down the cost of prescription drugs. In February 2017, he and 30 other senators signed a letter to Kaléo Pharmaceuticals in response to the opioid-overdose-reversing device Evzio rising in price from $690 in 2014 to $4,500 and requested the company provide the detailed price structure for Evzio, the number of devices Kaléo Pharmaceuticals set aside for donation, and the totality of federal reimbursements Evzio received in the previous year. In February 2019, Kaine was one of 11 senators to sign a letter to insulin manufacturers Eli Lilly and Company, Novo Nordisk, and Sanofi about increased insulin prices and charging that the price increases caused patients to lack "access to the life-saving medications they need."
In August 2019, Kaine was one of 19 Democratic senators to sign a letter to Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar requesting data from the Trump administration on the consequences for healthcare if Texas prevailed in its lawsuit seeking to gut the Affordable Care Act. The senators wrote, "Upending the current health care system will create an enormous hole in the pocketbooks of the people we serve as well as wreck state budgets; therefore, we ask for data to help states and Congress better understand the potential consequences of the position the Administration is taking in court."
In September 2019, amid discussions to prevent a government shutdown, Kaine was one of six Democratic senators to sign a letter to congressional leadership advocating legislation that would permanently fund health care and pension benefits for retired coal miners as "families in Virginia, West Virginia, Wyoming, Alabama, Colorado, North Dakota and New Mexico" would start to receive notifications of health care termination by the end of the following month.
Immigration
Kaine supports the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Deferred Action for Parental Accountability (DAPA) programs, which allow up to five million undocumented immigrants to gain deferral of deportation and authorization to legally work in the United States. Alongside Senator Mark Warner and many other members of Congress, he signed on to an amicus brief in support of the program in the Supreme Court case United States v. Texas.
Kaine also supports comprehensive immigration reform, which would allow persons illegally present in the U.S. to earn legal status by paying a fine and taxes.
In July 2019, following reports that the Trump administration intended to end protections of spouses, parents and children of active-duty service members from deportation, Kaine was one of 22 senators to sign a letter led by Tammy Duckworth arguing that the program allowed service members the ability "to fight for the United States overseas and not worry that their spouse, children, or parents will be deported while they are away" and that the its termination would cause personal hardship for service members in combat.
In July 2019, Kaine and 15 other Senate Democrats introduced the Protecting Sensitive Locations Act, a bill to mandate that ICE agents get approval from a supervisor before undertaking an immigration raid or other enforcement actions at "sensitive locations" (schools, hospitals, places of worship, and courthouses) except in special circumstances. The bill would also require agents to receive annual training and require ICE to submit an annual report on enforcement actions in those locations.
LGBT rights
In 2006, Kaine campaigned against an amendment to the Virginia State Constitution to ban same-sex marriage, and in March 2013, he announced his support of same-sex marriage.
In the Senate, Kaine co-sponsored the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which would bar employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
In 2005, Kaine said, "No couples in Virginia can adopt other than a married couple. That's the right policy." In 2011, he shifted his position. In 2012, he said, "there should be a license that would entitle a committed couple to the same rights as a married couple."
During the 2016 presidential campaign, Kaine noted that his position on same-sex marriage was "at odds with the current doctrine of the church that I still attend." He predicted that the Roman Catholic Church would someday adopt his view. In response, two bishops heading the doctrine and marriage committees of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said that the church's position "cannot change" and reaffirmed their opposition to same-sex marriage.
In October 2018, Kaine was one of 20 senators to sign a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urging him to reverse the State Department's policy of denying visas to same-sex partners of LGBTQ diplomats who had unions that were not recognized by their home countries, writing that the Trump administration's refusal to allow LGBTQ diplomats to bring their partners to the U.S. was tantamount to upholding the "discriminatory policies of many countries around the world." In June 2019, Kaine was one of 18 senators to sign a letter to Pompeo requesting an explanation of the State Department's decision not to issue an official statement that year commemorating Pride Month or issue the annual cable outlining activities for embassies commemorating Pride Month. The signatories to the letter also asked why the LGBTI special envoy position had remained vacant. The authors said that the State Department's moves had sent "signals to the international community that the United States is abandoning the advancement of LGBTI rights as a foreign policy priority."
Taxes
Kaine supports allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire for those with incomes above $500,000.
In 2012, Kaine supported raising the cap on income subject for the FICA (Social Security) payroll tax "so that it covers a similar percentage of income as it did in the 1980s under President Reagan, which would greatly extend the solvency of the (Social Security) program."
In the Senate, Kaine has supported the Marketplace Fairness Act, which would allow states to require online retailers to collect sales taxes in the same manner as traditional brick-and-mortar retailers.
Trade
Kaine supported granting Obama Trade Promotion Authority (TPA or "fast track") to allow him to negotiate free trade agreements. He said the goal should be to "negotiate deals that protect workers' rights, environmental standards and intellectual property, while knocking down tariffs and other barriers that some countries erect to keep American products out."
In July 2016, Kaine said the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement was "an improvement of the status quo" and an "upgrade of labor standards... environmental standards... intellectual property protections", but maintained that he had not yet decided how to vote on final approval of the agreement, citing "significant concerns" over TPP's dispute resolution mechanism. Later that July, Kaine said that he could not support the TPP in its current form.
Kaine has been a proponent of NAFTA.
Transportation, growth, and housing
Kaine supports some smart growth-style policies (which he calls "a balanced approach to growth") to control sprawl and improve transportation. He favors a transportation policy that includes public transit, bicycles, and pedestrians. As governor, Kaine pushed through a $100 million open-space acquisition initiative. Under Kaine, Amtrak service in Virginia was expanded. He also participated in a White House round-table discussion on high-speed rail in 2009.
In April 2019, Kaine was one of 41 senators to sign a bipartisan letter in support of U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Section 4 Capacity Building program, a program authorizing HUD to partner with nonprofit community development groups to provide support to community development corporations. The letter said that the longstanding program had successfully promoted economic and community development, opposed the proposed elimination of the plan in Trump's budget proposal for Fiscal Year 2020, and urged the Senate to support continued funding for Section 4 in Fiscal Year 2020.
Workers' rights and gender equality
Kaine is "generally pro-union" and has received a 96% lifetime Senate voting rating from the AFL-CIO, which praised his selection as Clinton's running mate. But Kaine supports Virginia's longstanding "right-to-work" law, which "frees union nonmembers from any legal obligation to pay fees to a union that bargains collectively on their behalf".
Kaine supports the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which expands the cases in which worker can sue against gender pay discrimination. After Clinton selected him as her running mate in 2016, Kaine was praised by the National Organization for Women.
Kaine favors an increase in the minimum wage.
Electoral history
2001 lieutenant gubernatorial election
2005 gubernatorial election
2012 U.S. Senate election
2016 vice presidential election
2018 U.S. Senate election
Personal life
In November 1984, Kaine married Anne Bright Holton, the daughter of A. Linwood Holton Jr., a Republican who served as the 61st governor of Virginia from 1970 to 1974. The couple met while they were both students at Harvard Law School. Holton has been a judge for the Virginia Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court in Richmond. After serving as first lady of Virginia during her husband's term, she was appointed by Governor Terry McAuliffe in January 2014 to be Virginia's secretary of education, and held that position until July 2016, when she stepped down after her husband was named as the Democratic vice-presidential nominee. The couple has three children, one of whom is a United States Marine. As of 2016, Kaine and his wife had been congregants of the St. Elizabeth Catholic Church in Richmond, a mostly black congregation, for 30 years.
Kaine plays the harmonica and often travels with several.
Kaine is fluent in Spanish as a result of his nine months in Honduras. During the 2016 campaign, he became the first member of a presidential ticket to deliver a speech in Spanish.
On May 28, 2020, Kaine announced that he and his wife had tested positive for COVID-19 antibodies.
Awards and honors
Kaine has received the Humanitarian Award from the Virginia Center for Inclusive Communities, then the Virginia Region of the National Conference for Community and Justice (2000), the Virginia Council of Churches' Faith in Action Award (2009), the University of Richmond School of Law's William Green Award for Professional Excellence (2012), the Award for Public Service in the Americas from the Inter-American Dialogue (2014), the Appalachian Trail Conservancy's Congressional Award (2015), and the Center for the National Interest's Distinguished Service Award (2016). He was made a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Isabella the Catholic in 2017.
Notes
References
Further reading
Governor
Kaine's Governor website (Archived)
Kaine's Lieutenant governor website (Archived)
2005 campaign contributions at the Virginia Public Access Project
Moving Virginia Forward Archived Web Site, 2007 part of Virginia's Political Landscape, 2007 Web Archive Collection at Virginia Memory
Moving Virginia Forward Archived Web Site, 2009 part of Virginia's Political Landscape, 2009 Web Archive Collection at Virginia Memory
Tim Kaine for Governor Archived Web Site, 2005–2006 part of Virginia's Political Landscape, Fall 2005 Web Archive Collection at Virginia Memory
Governor Tim Kaine Administration Web Site Archive, 2006–2010
Kaine Email Project at the Library of Virginia
External links
U.S. Senate website
Campaign website
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1958 births
20th-century American lawyers
20th-century American politicians
20th-century Roman Catholics
21st-century American lawyers
21st-century American politicians
21st-century Roman Catholics
American civil rights lawyers
American legal scholars
American people of Irish descent
American people of Scottish descent
American Roman Catholic missionaries
Catholics from Missouri
Catholics from Minnesota
Catholics from Virginia
Democratic National Committee chairs
Democratic Party state governors of the United States
Democratic Party United States senators from Virginia
Democratic Party (United States) vice presidential nominees
Governors of Virginia
Harvard Law School alumni
Hillary Clinton 2016 presidential campaign
Lawyers from Kansas City, Missouri
Lieutenant Governors of Virginia
Living people
Mark Warner
Mayors of Richmond, Virginia
Politicians from Kansas City, Missouri
Politicians from Saint Paul, Minnesota
Knights Grand Cross of the Order of Isabella the Catholic
Richmond, Virginia City Council members
Roman Catholic missionaries in Honduras
United States senators from Virginia
2016 United States vice-presidential candidates
University of Missouri alumni
University of Richmond faculty
Virginia Democrats
Virginia lawyers
| false |
[
"This is an incomplete list of Filipino full-length films, both mainstream and independently produced, released in theaters and cinemas in 2014.\n\nTop ten grossing films\n\nNote\n\n Box Office Mojo, a reliable third party box office revenue tracker, does not track any revenues earned during any Metro Manila Film Festival editions. So the official figures by film entries during the festival are only estimates taken from any recent updates from credible and reliable sources such as a film's production outfit, or from any news agencies. Also, Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA) did not release the official gross sales of each of the films. To verify the figures, see individual sources for the references.\n\nColor key\n\nFilms\n\nJanuary–March\n\nApril–June\n\nJuly–September\nColor key\n\nNote\n\n 1st Ko si 3rd was also a QCinema International Film Festival entry film.\n\nOctober–December\nColor key\n\nAwards\n\nLocal\nThe following first list shows the Best Picture winners at the four major film awards: FAMAS Awards, Gawad Urian Awards, Luna Awards and Star Awards; and at the three major film festivals: Metro Manila Film Festival, Cinemalaya and Cinema One Originals. The second list shows films with the most awards won from the three major film awards and a breakdown of their total number of awards per award ceremony.\n\nInternational\nThe following list shows Filipino films (released in 2014) which were nominated or won awards at international industry-based awards and FIAPF-accredited competitive film festivals.\n\nSee also\n 2014 in the Philippines\n List of 2014 box office number-one films in the Philippines\n\nReferences\n\nPhilippines",
"Sameep Ranaut is an Indian actor, best known for his child roles as young Harjeet Singh in Harjeeta and Gagan in Uda Aida. He also won Best Child Artist award at 66th National Film Awards for his debut role in Harjeeta.\n\nCareer \n\nRanaut made his acting debut with the film Harjeeta (2018). He did not give any auditions for the film in fact he was discovered by Sawan Rupowali playing hockey where she recorded Ranaut's audition clip.\n\nFilmography\n\nAwards and nominations \n\n Won Best Child Artist award at 66th National Film Awards for Harjeeta (2018)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n \n\nBest Child Artist National Film Award winners\nYear of birth missing (living people)\nLiving people\nIndian male film actors\n21st-century Indian male actors\n21st-century Indian male child actors"
] |
[
"Tim Kaine",
"Legal career and Richmond City Council",
"Where did Kaine attend law school?",
"I don't know.",
"What year was he elected to city council?",
"In May 1994,",
"was he known for achieving anything special while on the council?",
"Kaine spent four terms on the council, the latter two as mayor.",
"Did he represent a specific political party?",
"specializing in fair housing law and representing clients discriminated against on the basis of race or disability.",
"Did he recieve any awards?",
"Kaine became a director with the law firm of Mezzullo & McCandlish, P.C."
] |
C_6e5a0e696db14512b25f50b8092751a7_1
|
Did he win any notable cases?
| 6 |
Did Tim Kaine win any notable cases?
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Tim Kaine
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After graduating from law school, Kaine was a law clerk for Judge R. Lanier Anderson III of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, in Macon, Georgia. Kaine then joined the Richmond law firm of Little, Parsley & Cluverius, P.C. In 1987, Kaine became a director with the law firm of Mezzullo & McCandlish, P.C. Kaine practiced law in Richmond for 17 years, specializing in fair housing law and representing clients discriminated against on the basis of race or disability. He was a board member of the Virginia chapter of Housing Opportunities Made Equal, which he represented in a landmark redlining discrimination lawsuit against Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. arising from the company's practices in Richmond. Kaine won a $100.5 million verdict in the case; the judgment was overturned on appeal, and Kaine and his colleagues negotiated a $17.5 million settlement. Kaine did regular pro bono work. In 1988, Kaine started teaching legal ethics as an adjunct professor at the University of Richmond School of Law. Kaine taught at the University of Richmond for six years, and his students included future Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring. He was a founding member of the Virginia Coalition to End Homelessness. Kaine had a largely apolitical childhood, but became interested in politics in part due to the influence of his wife's family and his experience attending Richmond city council meetings. In May 1994, Kaine was elected to the city council of the independent city of Richmond, from the City's 2nd District. He defeated incumbent city councilman Benjamin P. A. Warthen by 97 votes. Kaine spent four terms on the council, the latter two as mayor. CANNOTANSWER
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he represented in a landmark redlining discrimination lawsuit against Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co.
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Timothy Michael Kaine (; born February 26, 1958) is an American lawyer and politician serving as the junior United States senator from Virginia since 2013. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 38th lieutenant governor of Virginia from 2002 to 2006 and 70th governor of Virginia from 2006 to 2010. Kaine was the Democratic nominee for vice president of the United States in the 2016 election as Hillary Clinton's running mate.
Born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, Kaine grew up in Overland Park, Kansas, graduated from the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri, and earned a Juris Doctor degree from Harvard Law School before entering private practice and becoming a lecturer at the University of Richmond School of Law. He was first elected to public office in 1994, when he won a seat on the Richmond City Council. He was elected mayor of Richmond in 1998 and held that position until being elected lieutenant governor of Virginia in 2001. Kaine was elected governor of Virginia in 2005 and held that office from 2006 to 2010. He chaired the Democratic National Committee from 2009 to 2011.
On July 22, 2016, Hillary Clinton introduced Kaine as her vice-presidential running mate. The 2016 Democratic National Convention nominated him on July 27. Despite winning a plurality of the national popular vote, the ClintonKaine ticket lost the Electoral College, and thus the election, to the Republican ticket of Donald Trump and Mike Pence on November 8, 2016. Kaine was reelected to a second Senate term in 2018, defeating Republican Corey Stewart.
Early life and education
Kaine was born at Saint Joseph's Hospital in St. Paul, Minnesota. He is the eldest of three sons born to Mary Kathleen (née Burns), a home economics teacher, and Albert Alexander Kaine, Jr., a welder and the owner of a small iron-working shop. He was raised Catholic. One of Kaine's great-grandparents was Scottish and the other seven were Irish. Kaine's family moved to Overland Park, Kansas, when Kaine was two years old, and he grew up in the Kansas City area. In 1976, he graduated from Rockhurst High School, a Jesuit all-boys preparatory school in Kansas City, Missouri. At Rockhurst, Kaine joined the debate team and was elected student body president.
Kaine received his Bachelor of Arts in economics from the University of Missouri in 1979, completing his degree in three years and graduating Omicron Delta Kappa and summa cum laude. He was a Coro Foundation fellow in Kansas City in 1978. He entered Harvard Law School in 1979, interrupting his law studies after his first year to work in Honduras for nine months from 1980 to 1981, helping Jesuit missionaries who ran a Catholic school in El Progreso. While running a vocational center that taught carpentry and welding, he also helped increase the school's enrollment by recruiting local villagers. Kaine is fluent in Spanish as a result of his time in Honduras.
After returning from Honduras, Kaine met his future wife, first-year Harvard Law student Anne Holton. He graduated from Harvard Law School with a J.D. degree in 1983. Kaine and Holton moved to Holton's hometown of Richmond, Virginia, after graduation, and Kaine was admitted to the Virginia bar in 1984.
Legal career and Richmond City Council
After graduating from law school, Kaine was a law clerk for Judge R. Lanier Anderson III of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, in Macon, Georgia. He then joined the Richmond law firm of Little, Parsley & Cluverius, P.C. In 1987, Kaine became a director of the law firm of Mezzullo & McCandlish, P.C. He practiced law in Richmond for 17 years, specializing in fair housing law and representing clients discriminated against on the basis of race or disability. He was a board member of the Virginia chapter of Housing Opportunities Made Equal, which he represented in a landmark redlining discrimination lawsuit against Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. arising from the company's practices in Richmond. Kaine won a $100.5 million verdict in the case; the judgment was overturned on appeal, and Kaine and his colleagues negotiated a $17.5 million settlement.
Kaine did regular pro bono work. In 1988, he started teaching legal ethics as an adjunct professor at the University of Richmond School of Law. Kaine taught at the University of Richmond for six years; his students included future Virginia attorney general Mark Herring. He was a founding member of the Virginia Coalition to End Homelessness.
Kaine had a largely apolitical childhood, but became interested in politics in part due to the influence of his wife's family and his experience attending Richmond city council meetings. In 1994, he was elected the 2nd district member of the city council of the independent city of Richmond, defeating incumbent city councilor Benjamin P.A. Warthen by less than 100 votes. He took his seat on July 1 and retained the position until September 10, 2001, when he resigned and William J. Pantele was appointed to succeed him. He defeated the incumbent city councilman Benjamin P.A. Warthen by 97 votes. Kaine spent four terms on the city council, the latter two as mayor of Richmond.
Mayor of Richmond (1998–2001)
On July 1, 1998, Kaine was elected mayor of Richmond, succeeding Larry Chavis. He was chosen by an 8 to 1 vote on the majority-black Richmond City Council, becoming the city's first white mayor in more than ten years, which was viewed as a surprise. Rudy McCollum, an African American city councilor also interested in the mayoralty, decided to back Kaine after a private meeting between the two, clearing the way for Kaine to win the election. Previous mayors had treated the role as primarily ceremonial, with the city manager effectively operating the city; Kaine treated it as a full-time job, taking a more hands-on role.
As mayor, Kaine used a sale-leaseback arrangement to obtain funds to renovate the historic Maggie L. Walker High School and reopen it in 2000 as a magnet governor's school, the Maggie L. Walker Governor's School for Government and International Studies, which "now serves the top students in Central Virginia". Three elementary schools and one middle school were also built in Richmond under Kaine. Along with Commonwealth's attorney David Hicks, U.S. attorney James Comey, and police chief Jerry Oliver, Kaine was a supporter of Project Exile, an initiative that shifted gun crimes to federal court, where defendants faced harsher sentences. Though controversial, the effort was effective and achieved widespread support; the city's homicide rate fell by 55% during Kaine's mayoralty. Kaine touted Project Exile during his 2001 campaign for lieutenant governor.
On several occasions, Kaine voted against tax increases, and supported a tax abatement program for renovated buildings, which was credited for a housing renovation boom in the city. Forbes magazine named Richmond one of "the 10 best cities in America to do business" during Kaine's term.
According to John Moeser, a professor emeritus of urban studies and planning at Virginia Commonwealth University and later a visiting fellow at the University of Richmond's Center for Civic Engagement, Mayor Kaine "was energetic, charismatic and, most important, spoke openly about his commitment to racial reconciliation in Richmond." The New York Times wrote that Kaine "was by all accounts instrumental in bridging the city's racial divide." In the early part of his term, Kaine issued an apology for the city's role in slavery; the apology was generally well received as "a genuine, heartfelt expression". In the latter part of his term, a contentious debate took place over the inclusion of a portrait of Confederate general Robert E. Lee in a set of historic murals to be placed on city floodwalls. Many African Americans were outraged that Lee would appear on city walls, while Southern heritage groups demanded that the picture remain. Kaine proposed a compromise in which Lee would appear as part of a series of murals that also included figures like Abraham Lincoln and Powhatan Beaty. His stance drew criticism from the NAACP; Kaine argued that placing Lee on the floodwall made sense in context, and that "Much of our history is not pleasant; you can't whitewash it." Kaine's proposal passed the council on a 6–3 vote.
During his mayoralty, Kaine drew criticism for spending $6,000 in public funds on buses to the Million Mom March, an anti-gun-violence rally in Washington, D.C.; after a backlash, he raised the money privately and reimbursed the city.
Lieutenant governor of Virginia (2002–2006)
Kaine ran for lieutenant governor of Virginia in 2001. He joined the race after state senator Emily Couric dropped out due to pancreatic cancer and endorsed Kaine as her replacement. In the Democratic primary election, Kaine ran against state delegate Alan A. Diamonstein of Newport News, and state delegate Jerrauld C. Jones of Norfolk. Kaine won the nomination, with 39.7% of the vote to Diamonstein's 31.4% and Jones's 28.9%.
In the general election, Kaine won with 925,974 votes (50.35%), edging out his Republican opponent, state delegate Jay Katzen, who received 883,886 (48.06%). Libertarian Gary Reams received 28,783 votes (1.57%).
Kaine was inaugurated on January 12, 2002, and was sworn in by his wife Anne Holton, a state judge.
2005 gubernatorial election
In 2005, Kaine ran for governor of Virginia against Republican candidate Jerry W. Kilgore, a former state attorney general. Kaine was considered an underdog for most of the race, trailing in polls for most of the campaign. Two September polls showed Kaine trailing Kilgore—by four percentage points in a Washington Post poll and by one point in a Mason-Dixon/Roanoke Times poll. The final polls of the race before the election showed Kaine slightly edging ahead of Kilgore.
Kaine ultimately prevailed, winning 1,025,942 votes (51.7%) to Kilgore's 912,327 (46.0%). A third candidate, independent state Senator H. Russell Potts Jr., ran as an "independent Republican" and received 43,953 votes (2.2%).
Kaine emphasized fiscal responsibility and a centrist message. He expressed support for controlling sprawl and tackling longstanding traffic issues, an issue that resonated in the northern Virginia exurbs. He benefited from his association with the popular outgoing Democratic governor, Mark Warner, who had performed well in traditionally Republican areas of the state. On the campaign trail, Kaine referred to the "Warner-Kaine administration" in speeches and received Warner's strong backing. Kilgore later attributed his defeat to Warner's high popularity and President George W. Bush's sharply declining popularity; Bush held a rally with Kilgore on the campaign's final day.
The campaign turned sharply negative in its final weeks, with Kilgore running television attack ads that falsely claimed that Kaine believed that "Hitler doesn't qualify for the death penalty." The ads also attacked Kaine for his service ten years earlier as a court-appointed attorney for a death-row inmate. The editorial boards of the Washington Post and a number of Virginia newspapers denounced the ads as a "smear" and "dishonest." Kaine responded with an ad "in which he told voters that he opposes capital punishment but would take an oath and enforce the death penalty. In later polls, voters said they believed Kaine's response and were angered by Kilgore's negative ads."
In the election, Kaine won by large margins in the Democratic strongholds such as Richmond and northern Virginia's inner suburbs (such as Alexandria and Arlington), as well as in the Democratic-trending Fairfax County. Kaine also won Republican-leaning areas in Northern Virginia's outer suburbs, including Prince William County and Loudoun County, where George W. Bush had beat John Kerry in the previous year's presidential election, and performed "surprisingly well in Republican strongholds like Virginia Beach and Chesapeake." Kaine also defeated Kilgore in the burgeoning Richmond suburbs. Kilgore led in southwest Virginia and in the Shenandoah Valley.
Governor of Virginia (2006–2010)
Kaine was sworn in as governor at the colonial Capitol at Williamsburg, on January 14, 2006, the first governor since Thomas Jefferson to be inaugurated there.
Kaine was chairman of the Southern Governors' Association from 2008 to 2009.
Democratic response to State of the Union address
On January 31, 2006, Kaine gave the Democratic response to President George W. Bush's 2006 State of the Union address. In it, he criticized the Bush administration's No Child Left Behind Act for "wreaking havoc on local school districts"; criticized congressional Republicans for cutting student loan programs; and condemned as "reckless" Bush's spending increases and tax cuts. Kaine praised bipartisan initiatives in Virginia "to make record investments in education" and to improve veterans' access to veterans' benefits. He criticized the Bush administration's conduct of the Iraq War and treatment of U.S. soldiers, saying that "the American people were given inaccurate information about reasons for invading Iraq"; "our troops in Iraq were not given the best body armor or the best intelligence"; and "the administration wants to further reduce military and veterans' benefits."
Energy, the environment, and conservation
As governor, Kaine protected of Virginia land from development, fulfilling a promise he made in 2005. His conservation efforts focused on conservation easements (voluntary easements that preserve the private ownership of a piece of land while also permanently protecting it from development); a substantial Virginia land preservation tax credit encouraged easements. From 2004 to 2009, the Virginia Outdoors Foundation (a quasi-governmental entity set up in 1966 to preserve open land in the state) protected more land than it had in the previous 40 years, a fact Kaine touted as his term drew to a close.
As governor, Kaine established the Climate Change Commission, a bipartisan panel to study climate change issues. The panel was shuttered under Kaine's Republican successor, Governor Robert F. McDonnell, but revived (as the Governor's Climate Change and Resiliency Update Commission) under McDonnell's successor, Democratic Governor Terry McAuliffe.
In 2008, Kaine supported a coal-fired power plant project in Wise County, clashing with environmentalists who opposed the project.
In 2009, Kaine expressed support for tighter restrictions on mountaintop removal coal mining imposed by the Obama administration.
Healthcare and public health
In October 2006, Kaine signed an executive order banning smoking in all government buildings and state-owned cars as of January 1, 2007. He signed legislation banning smoking in restaurants and bars, with some exceptions, in March 2009, making Virginia the first Southern state to do so.
In 2007, the Republican-controlled Virginia General Assembly passed legislation, with "overwhelming bipartisan support", to require girls to receive the HPV vaccine (which immunizes recipients against a virus that causes cervical cancer) before entering high school. Kaine expressed "some qualms" about the legislation and pushed for a strong opt-out provision, ultimately signing a bill that included a provision allowing parents to opt out of the requirement without citing a reason.
In 2007, Kaine secured increases in state funding for nursing in the Virginia General Assembly and announced a 10% salary increase for nursing faculty above the normal salary increase for state employees, plus additional funds for scholarships for nursing master's programs. The initiatives were aimed at addressing a shortage of practicing nurses.
Virginia Tech shooting
After the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting, in which Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 people, Kaine appointed an eight-member Virginia Tech Review Panel, chaired by retired Virginia State Police superintendent W. Gerald Massengill, to probe the event. The commission members included specialists in psychology, law, forensics and higher education as well as former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge. The commission first met in May 2007, and issued its findings and recommendations in August 2007. Among other recommendations, the panel proposed many mental health reforms. Based on the panel's recommendations, Kaine proposed $42 million of investment in mental health programs and reforms, included "boosting access to outpatient and emergency mental health services, increasing the number of case managers and improving monitoring of community-based providers." In April 2007, Kaine signed an executive order instructing state agencies to step up efforts to block gun sales to people involuntarily committed to inpatient and outpatient mental health treatment centers. Kaine, who had been in Japan on a trade mission at the time of the shootings, received widespread praise for his quick return to the state and his handling of the issue.
Budget and economy
Among Kaine's greatest challenges as governor came during the 2008–09 economic crisis; the Washington Post wrote that "perhaps his greatest success was keeping the state running despite [the crisis]." Amid the Great Recession, unemployment in Virginia remained lower than the national average. During Kaine's tenure as governor, the unemployment rate in Virginia rose from 3.2% to 7.4%, a smaller increase than the national rate, which rose from 4.7% to 9.9% during the same period.
As governor, Kaine approved about $3.31 billion in general fund spending cuts, and after his term in office, the Virginia General Assembly adopted about $1.33 billion in additional budget cuts that Kaine had recommended, for a total of $4.64 billion in cuts. The Washington Post wrote, "Unable to raise taxes and required by law to balance the budget, he was forced to make unpopular cuts that led to such things as shuttered highway rest stops and higher public university tuition." Virginia was one of three states to earn the highest grade in terms of management in a report by the nonpartisan Pew Center on the States. Virginia took first place each year from 2006 to 2009 in Forbes magazine's "Best States For Business" rankings.
Infrastructure and transportation
In July 2007, during the debate on the Silver Line of the Washington Metro through Tysons Corner, Kaine supported an elevated track solution rather than a tunnel, citing costs and potential delays that would put federal funding at risk.
In 2006, Kaine pressed the general assembly to support a legislative package to ease severe traffic congestion by spending about $1 billion annually for highway construction, repairs to aging roads, mass transit, and other transportation projects. The money would be raised through increases in taxes and fees that would have raised an estimated $4 billion in revenue over four years. The Democratic-controlled Senate supported the plan, but the Republican-controlled House was unwilling to approve the taxes necessary to carry out the project, and the effort failed even after a special session of the legislature was called over the stalemate.
In 2007, Republicans in the General Assembly passed their own transportation-funding bill. Rather than a statewide tax increase to finance the transportation improvements, as Kaine and most legislative Democrats favored, the Republican bill called for transportation funding "to come from borrowing $2.5 billion and paying the debt costs out of the general fund"; authorized local tax increase in Northern Virginia; increased fees and taxes on rental cars, commercial real estate, and hotels; and increased traffic infraction fines and driver's licenses fees.
Kaine and most legislative Democrats opposed the Republican legislation, calling it inadequate to address traffic congestion and arguing that the withdrawal of funds from the general fund would affect core services such as health care, law enforcement, and education. Kaine ultimately signed a bill with amendments reflecting "concerns by local government officials and a bipartisan group of lawmakers who were concerned that the plan took too much money from the state's general fund."
Education
Under Kaine, participation in Virginia in early childhood education increased by 40.2% due to his expansion of the Virginia Preschool Initiative, which makes pre-kindergarten more accessible to four-year-olds from households close to the poverty line. Kaine sought increases to the budget for preschool programs every year during his term as governor. Virginia was rated as the best state to raise a child in a 2007 report by Education Week and the Pew Center on the States.
Cabinet and appointments
Kaine made the following appointments to his Virginia Governor's Cabinet:
Chief of Staff: William Leighty (2006–2007), Wayne Turnage (2007–2010)
Secretary of Administration: Viola Baskerville (2006–2010)
Virginia Secretary of Agriculture and Forestry: Robert Bloxom (2006–2010)
Secretary of Commerce and Trade: Patrick Gottschalk (2006–2010)
Secretary of the Commonwealth: Katherine Hanley (2006–2010)
Secretary of Education: Thomas R. Morris (2006–2010)
Secretary of Finance:Jody Wagner (2006–2008), Ric Brown (2008–2010)
Secretary of Health and Human Resources: Marilyn Tavenner (2006–2010)
Secretary of Natural Resources: Preston Bryant (2006–2010)
Secretary of Public Safety: John W. Marshall (2006–2010)
Secretary of Technology: Aneesh Chopra (2006–2009), Leonard Pomata (2009–2010)
Secretary of Transportation: Pierce Homer (2006–2010)
Counselor to the Governor: Lawrence Roberts (2006–2009)
Counselor to the Governor: Mark Rubin (2009–2010)
Assistant for Commonwealth Preparedness: Robert P. Crouch (2006–2010)
Senior Advisor for Workforce: Daniel G. LeBlanc (2006–2010)
As governor, Kaine made a number of appointments to the Virginia state courts. He made two appointments to the Supreme Court of Virginia, naming Chesapeake circuit judge S. Bernard Goodwyn to the Court in 2007 and Virginia Court of Appeals Judge LeRoy F. Millette Jr. in 2008.
On September 27, 2007, just weeks after appointing Esam Omeish to the 20-member Virginia Commission on Immigration, Kaine learned that Omeish had made videos accusing Israel of genocide and calling for President Bush's impeachment. He immediately requested and received Omeish's resignation and said that background checks would be more thorough in the future.
2008 vice presidential speculation
Kaine announced his support for Barack Obama's presidential bid in February 2007. It was maintained that Kaine's endorsement was the first from a statewide elected official outside of Illinois. Because Kaine was a relatively popular governor of a Southern state, there was media speculation that he was a potential nominee for vice president. Obama had supported Kaine in his campaign for governor, saying, "Tim Kaine has a message of fiscal responsibility and generosity of spirit. That kind of message can sell anywhere." On July 28, 2008, Politico reported that Kaine was "very, very high" on Obama's shortlist for vice president, a list that also included Senator Hillary Clinton of New York, Governor Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas, Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana, and Senator Joe Biden of Delaware. Obama ultimately selected Biden. It was later reported that Obama told Kaine, in breaking the news to him, "You are the pick of my heart, but Joe [Biden] is the pick of my head". Obama later wrote that he had ultimately narrowed down the choice for his running mate to Kaine and Biden. He said, "At the time, I was much closer to Tim", but Obama and his advisers David Axelrod and David Plouffe wondered whether voters would accept a ticket of "two relatively young, inexperienced, and liberal civil rights attorneys" and Obama felt the contrast between him and Biden was a strength, and that Biden's age and experience would reassure voters concerned that Obama was too young to be president.
Democratic National Committee chair (2009–2011)
In January 2009, Kaine became chair of the Democratic National Committee. He had turned down the position the first time it was offered to him, expressing misgivings about accepting a partisan position, but took the job at Obama's request. He took on the position as chair part-time as he continued his term as governor of Virginia. Kaine's main goals as DNC chair "were protecting the party's seats in Congress during the 2010 midterms and integrating the president's campaign apparatus, Organizing for America, and its technological acumen into the party machinery." In the 2010 midterms, the DNC under Kaine's leadership outraised the Republican National Committee (RNC) by $30 million, but Democrats lost control of the House and lost seats in the Senate amidst a Tea Party backlash. Kaine was not generally blamed for the losses.
Kaine kept a low profile in the position in comparison to his counterpart, RNC chairman Michael Steele. He focused more on fundraising and maintaining party unity than on attacking political opponents.
In February 2011, after Kaine spoke to union leaders in Madison, Organizing for America got involved in Wisconsin's budget battle and opposed Republican-sponsored anti-union legislation. It made phone calls, sent emails, and distributed messages via Facebook and Twitter to build crowds for rallies.
After completing his term as governor in January 2010, Kaine taught part-time at the University of Richmond, teaching a course in spring 2010 at the Jepson School of Leadership Studies and another in fall 2010 at the University of Richmond School of Law. He explained that he had chosen to teach at a private university rather than a public university "because it would not have been right for a sitting governor to be seeking employment at an institution when he writes the budget and appoints the board of the institution."
United States Senate
2012 election
After Senator Jim Webb's decision not to seek reelection, Kaine announced on April 5, 2011, that he would run for Webb's seat. He was initially reluctant to return to public office, but Webb, Senator Mark Warner, and other Virginia Democrats saw Kaine as the strongest potential Democratic candidate and convinced him to run. Kaine named Lawrence Roberts as his campaign chairman. Mike Henry was chosen as his campaign manager. Kaine filmed announcement videos in English and Spanish and was unopposed for the Democratic nomination. He defeated former senator and governor George Allen in the general election.
Tenure
Kaine was sworn in on January 3, 2013, reuniting him with Mark Warner, the senior senator. Kaine was lieutenant governor when Warner was governor of Virginia.
On June 11, 2013, Kaine delivered a speech on the Senate floor in support of the bipartisan "Gang of Eight" immigration bill. The speech was entirely in Spanish, marking the first time a senator had ever made a speech on the Senate floor in a language other than English.
As a member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, Kaine pushed for a new Congressional authorization of military force for the American operations against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Kaine supported the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran, though he also helped Republican senator Bob Corker hold a vote on a resolution of disapproval of the deal. Kaine has taken several trips throughout the Middle East, meeting with the leaders of states such as Turkey and Israel.
While in the Senate, Kaine has continued to teach part-time at the University of Richmond, receiving a salary of $16,000 per year.
Kaine has voted with his party more than 90% of the time. According to the Washington Post, Kaine has "crafted a largely progressive record as a senator." He reportedly has good relations with both Democratic and Republican senators.
During the 2016 vice-presidential campaign, Kaine frequently criticized Donald Trump, saying that Trump "as commander-in-chief scares me to death" and had a "bizarre fascination with strongmen and authoritarian leaders". In 2017, after Trump took office, Kaine continued to criticize his "authoritarian tendencies", citing his attacks on media, judges, and peaceful protesters. At an event at George Mason University, Kaine said that with Trump in office, Americans "are in a 'living experiment' to see whether or not the Constitution still works to check executive power."
In February 2017, Kaine met with Pope Francis at a general audience at the Vatican. Kaine also met with the Jesuit Refugee Service to discuss refugees and met with Vatican officials to discuss Latin American issues. The same month, Kaine delivered an address, "The Truman Doctrine at 70", at London's Chatham House.
Committee assignments and caucuses
In the 113th Congress (2013–15), Kaine was on the Committee on Armed Services, the Committee on the Budget, and the Committee on Foreign Relations. In the 114th Congress, Kaine was on those three committees and the Special Committee on Aging. In July 2013, Kaine was named chair of the United States Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Near East, South Asia, Central Asia and Counterterrorism.
Within the Senate Armed Services Committee, Kaine is a member of the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities, the Subcommittee on Readiness and Management Support (of which he is the ranking member), and the Subcommittee on Seapower.
Within the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, Kaine is a member of the Subcommittee on State Department and USAID Management, International Operations, and Bilateral International Development (of which he is the ranking member), the Subcommittee on Europe and Regional Security Cooperation, the Subcommittee on Near East, South Asia, Central Asia, and Counterterrorism, and the Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere, Transnational Crime, Civilian Security, Democracy, Human Rights and Global Women's Issues.
In January 2014, Kaine and Senator Rob Portman established the bipartisan Senate Career and Technical Education Caucus (CTE Caucus), which focuses on vocational education and technical education. Kaine and Portman co-chair the caucus. In 2014, Kaine and Portman introduced the CTE Excellence and Equity Act to the Senate; the legislation would provide $500 million in federal funding, distributed by competitive grants, to high schools to further CTE programs. The legislation, introduced as an amendment to the omnibus Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act of 2006, would promote apprenticeships and similar initiatives. Kaine and Portman introduced similar legislation, the Educating Tomorrow's Workforce Act, in 2017.
2016 vice-presidential campaign
Kaine endorsed Hillary Clinton for president in 2016 and campaigned actively for her in seven states during the primaries. He had been the subject of considerable speculation as a possible running mate for Clinton, with several news reports indicating that he was at or near the top of Clinton's list of people under consideration alongside figures such as Elizabeth Warren and Julian Castro.
The New York Times reported that Clinton's husband, former president Bill Clinton, supported Kaine as his wife's vice-presidential selection, noting his domestic and national security résumé. On July 22, 2016, she announced Kaine would be her running mate in the election. Clinton introduced Kaine as her choice in a joint appearance at a rally at Florida International University in Miami the next day. The 2016 Democratic National Convention nominated him for vice president on July 27, 2016.
Kaine was the first Virginian since Woodrow Wilson to be on a major-party ticket, and was the first Virginian to run for vice president on a major-party ticket since John Tyler in 1840; he was also the first senator or former senator from Virginia to be on a major-party ticket since Tyler.
In accordance with longstanding political custom in the U.S., upon being nominated for vice president Kaine publicly released his full tax returns for the previous ten years. He also publicly released medical records; his physician, Brian P. Monahan, the Attending Physician of the United States Congress, wrote that Kaine was "in overall excellent health." In September Kaine published a campaign book co-authored with Clinton, Stronger Together.
In Kaine's preparations for the vice presidential debate in October 2016, lawyer Robert Barnett played the role of Republican vice-presidential nominee Mike Pence. (During Pence's own debate preparations, Wisconsin governor Scott Walker played the role of Kaine.) Pence was criticized after the debate for not defending Trump's comments, while Kaine was criticized for being too aggressive and interrupting. According to ABC News, Kaine interrupted 70 times during the debate, while Pence interrupted 40 times.
Despite winning a plurality of the national popular vote, the Clinton-Kaine ticket lost the Electoral College, and thus the election, to the Trump-Pence ticket on November 8, 2016. This is the only election Kaine has ever lost. Clinton-Kaine did win Virginia, the only Southern state to vote for the Democratic ticket, a victory attributed in part to Kaine.
2018 election
After the 2016 election, Kaine said he would run for reelection to the Senate in 2018. He expressed his desire to emulate John Warner, who represented Virginia in the Senate for 30 years. He added that he would not run for president or vice president in the future.
In his 2018 Senate campaign against Republican nominee and Trump ally Corey Stewart, Kaine had the endorsement of The Richmond Times-Dispatch, marking the first time in decades the paper had endorsed a Democrat.
After taking an early lead in his race against Stewart, Kaine worked to support other Democrats who, in seven districts, were challenging incumbent Republicans for House seats. Kaine defeated Stewart by more than 15 points.
Personality and leadership style
About 145,000 emails from Kaine and his staff during his term as governor are publicly accessible at the Library of Virginia. Politico conducted an analysis of the correspondence and wrote that the messages show Kaine to be a "media-savvy" and detail-oriented "micro-manager" who is also a policy "wonk".
According to The New York Times, Kaine "is widely described by people in his political orbit as a likable if less than charismatic figure...guided by moral convictions that flow from his deep Christian faith." On Meet the Press, Kaine called himself "boring."
Political positions
In terms of political ideology, FiveThirtyEight gives Kaine an average score of −37 (−100 is the most liberal, and 100 is the most conservative). FiveThirtyEight characterizes him as a "mainstream Democrat" and notes that his ideology score is very similar to that of Joe Biden. Three conservative groups—the American Conservative Union, the Club for Growth, and Heritage Action—gave Kaine 0% ratings in the few years before 2016, while the liberal group Americans for Democratic Action gave Kaine a 90% rating in 2014. The New York Times wrote that "in hyperpartisan Washington, he is often seen as a centrist" while also describing him as an "old-fashioned liberal...driven by Jesuit ideals."
Abortion, birth control, and sex education
Kaine, a Roman Catholic, personally opposes abortion, but is "largely inclined to keep the law out of women's reproductive decisions." He has said, "I'm a strong supporter of Roe v. Wade and women being able to make these decisions. In government, we have enough things to worry about. We don't need to make people's reproductive decisions for them." Kaine supports some legal restrictions on abortion, such as requiring parental consent for minors (with a judicial bypass procedure) and banning late-term abortions in cases where the woman's life is not at risk.
In 2009, Kaine signed a bill to create a "Choose Life" license plate, among the more than 200 Virginia specialty plates already offered, the proceeds of which would partly go to Heartbeat International, a Christian organization that operates anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers. Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice America expressed disappointment in Kaine's decision. Kaine considered such license plate messages a matter of free speech and added that the move was "in keeping with the commonwealth's longtime practice of approving specialty plates with all manner of political and social messages."
Kaine previously criticized the Obama administration for "not providing a 'broad enough religious employer exemption'" in the contraceptive mandate of the Affordable Care Act, but praised a 2012 amendment to the regulations that required insurers to provide birth control to employees when an employer was an objecting religious organization.
In 2005, when running for governor, Kaine said he favored reducing abortions by "Enforcing the current Virginia restrictions on abortion and passing an enforceable ban on partial birth abortion that protects the life and health of the mother"; "Fighting teen pregnancy through abstinence-focused education"; "Ensuring women's access to health care (including legal contraception) and economic opportunity"; and "Promoting adoption as an alternative for women facing unwanted pregnancies."
In 2007, as governor, Kaine cut off state funding for abstinence-only sex education programs, citing studies that showed such programs were ineffective, while comprehensive sex education programs were more effective. Kaine believes that both abstinence and contraceptives must be taught, and that education should be evidence-based.
As a senator, Kaine has received perfect scores from Planned Parenthood and the abortion-rights advocacy group NARAL. He has received a score of zero from the anti-abortion National Right to Life Committee.
Campaign finance
Kaine "strongly disagrees" with Citizens United v. FEC (2010). In 2015, Kaine joined a group of Senate Democrats in a letter to Securities and Exchange Commission Chairwoman Mary Jo White that said the ruling "reversed long-standing precedent and has moved our country in a different and disturbing direction when it comes to corporate influence in politics." They urged the SEC to require publicly traded companies to disclose political spending to their shareholders to "increase transparency in the U.S. political process".
Capital punishment
Kaine personally opposes capital punishment, but presided over 11 executions while governor. He said, "I really struggled with [capital punishment] as governor. I have a moral position against the death penalty. But I took an oath of office to uphold it. Following an oath of office is also a moral obligation." During his time in office he commuted one death sentence in June 2008, that of Percy Levar Walton, to life imprisonment without parole on grounds of mental incompetence, writing that "one cannot reasonably conclude that Walton is fully aware of the punishment he is about to suffer and why he is to suffer it" and thus that executing him would be unconstitutional. Kaine vetoed a number of bills to expand the death sentence to more crimes, saying: "I do not believe that further expansion of the death penalty is necessary to protect human life or provide for public safety needs." Some of the vetoes were overridden.
On July 31, 2019, after Attorney General William Barr announced that the United States federal government would resume the use of the death penalty for the first time in over 20 years, Kaine co-sponsored a bill banning the death penalty.
Environment, energy, and climate change
Kaine acknowledges the scientific consensus on climate change, and in a 2014 Senate speech criticized climate change deniers, as well as those who "may not deny the climate science, but ... deny that the U.S. can or should be a leader in taking any steps" to address the issue.
Kaine has expressed concern about sea level rise (a major consequence of climate change), and in particular its effect on coastal Virginia. In 2014, he partnered with two Virginia Republicans—U.S. Representatives Rob Wittman and Scott Rigell—to hold a conference on sea-level rise and "local adaptation efforts to protect military installations in the Hampton Roads area."
Kaine endorses making coal energy production cleaner, saying that it is imperative "to convert coal to electricity with less pollution than we do today." He has criticized those who "frame the debate as a conflict between an economy and the environment", saying that "protecting the environment is good for the economy." Kaine co-sponsored the Advanced Clean Coal Technology Investment in Our Nation (ACCTION) Act, legislation to increase investment in clean coal technologies. He voted against legislation to approve the Keystone XL pipeline. Kaine supports the use of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) to harvest natural gas from shale formations. He believes this will reduce carbon pollution. Kaine voted against an amendment introduced by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand that would have repealed a provision in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 that exempts fracking from the underground injection control provisions of the Safe Drinking Water Act. As a result, regulation of fracking remains in the hands of state agencies; the EPA cannot regulate it or require a federal permit. Kaine supports exporting liquefied natural gas (LNG) to other countries.
Like his fellow senator from Virginia, Mark Warner, Kaine applauded the U.S. Forest Service's plan to close most, but not all, of the George Washington National Forest to fracking and other horizontal drilling activities.
In 2013, Kaine supported oil and gas exploration off the coast of Virginia, saying, "I have long believed that the moratorium on offshore drilling, based on a cost-benefit calculation performed decades ago, should be reexamined." In April 2015, Kaine reiterated his opposition to the moratorium on offshore drilling. In March 2016, Kaine signaled that his position was softening, saying he was "particularly struck by the material objections of the Department of Defense to the incompatibility of drilling with naval operations off Virginia's coast... I have participated in this debate for over a decade as a governor and member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. The DOD has been relatively quiet during this public debate and has never shared their objections with me before." By August 2016, Kaine stated his support for a ban on offshore drilling, bringing his position in line with Hillary Clinton's and the Obama administration's.
Kaine supports the development of solar energy and offshore wind turbines. Based on his votes on environmental issues in the Senate, the League of Conservation Voters has given Kaine a 95% score for 2018, and a 94% lifetime score. (At the time of his vice-presidential campaign, Kaine had an 88% score for 2015, and a 91% lifetime score.)
In March 2019, Kaine was one of 11 senators to sponsor the Climate Security Act of 2019, legislation forming a new group within the State Department that would be responsible for developing strategies to integrate climate science and data into operations of national security as well as restoring the post of special envoy for the Arctic, which Trump had dismantled in 2017. The proposed envoy would advise the president and the administration on the potential effects of climate on national security and be responsible for facilitating all interagency communication between federal science and security agencies.
In April 2019, Kaine was one of 12 senators to sign a bipartisan letter to top senators on the Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development advocating that the Energy Department be granted maximum funding for carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS), arguing that American job growth could be stimulated by investment in viable options to capture carbon emissions released into the atmosphere and expressing disagreement with the Trump's 2020 budget request to combine the two federal programs that include carbon capture research.
Financial regulation
Kaine strongly supports financial regulation and the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. In July 2016, he signed a bipartisan letter that "urged the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to 'carefully tailor its rulemaking' [under Dodd-Frank] regarding community banks and credit unions so as not to 'unduly burden' these institutions with regulations aimed at commercial banks." The letter prompted criticism from progressives who viewed it as anti-regulation. Democracy for America executive director Charles Chamberlain called the letter "a lobbyist-driven effort to help banks dodge consumer protection standards and regulations designed to prevent banks from destroying our economy." Kaine responded, "it's important you don't treat every financial institution the same. It wasn't credit unions that tanked the economy, it wasn't local community banks that tanked the economy, generally wasn't regional banks that did things that tanked the economy." He also signed a letter urging that a requirement that regional banks report liquidity levels on a daily basis be loosened.
Foreign and defense policy
In the Senate, Kaine has supported the normalization of U.S.–Cuban relations and the international nuclear agreement with Iran.
Kaine expressed support for Israel's right to defend itself during the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict. In September 2016, in advance of a UN Security Council resolution 2334 condemning Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, he signed an AIPAC-sponsored letter urging Obama to veto "one-sided" resolutions against Israel.
In 2015, Kaine expressed support for the Saudi-led coalition's airstrikes in Yemen against Houthi forces fighting the government of President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, but in 2018, he was one of seven senators to sign a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo saying that they found it "difficult to reconcile known facts with at least two" of the Trump administration's certifications that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were attempting to protect Yemeni civilians and were in compliance with U.S. laws on arms sales, citing an inconsistency with a memo from Pompeo to Congress expressly stating that on some occasions the Saudi and Emirates governments had failed to adopt measures to reduce civilian casualties. Kaine also condemned the Trump administration for its "eagerness to give the Saudis anything they want" after the administration approved the transfer of nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia after the murder of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi.
In July 2017, Kaine voted for the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act that placed sanctions on Iran, Russia, and North Korea.
In 2019, Kaine was one of 34 Senate Democrats to sign a letter to Trump urging him to reconsider cuts to U.S. foreign aid to the Northern Triangle countries of Central America in the Fiscal Year 2018 national security appropriations bill. The letter said that Trump had "consistently expressed a flawed understanding of U.S. foreign assistance", viewing it as a gift or charity to foreign governments rather than a tool to promote American interests and collective security. The senators wrote that U.S. foreign assistance to Central American countries, by improving stability and alleviating poverty in the region, reduced Central American migration flows to the U.S.
In 2019, Kaine co-sponsored the South China Sea and East China Sea Sanctions Act, a bipartisan bill reintroduced by Marco Rubio and Ben Cardin that was intended to disrupt China's consolidation or expansion of its claims of jurisdiction over both the sea and airspace in disputed zones in the South China Sea.
Grand strategy and democracy promotion
After the 2016 presidential campaign, Kaine wrote an extensive essay in Foreign Affairs outlining his underlying foreign policy philosophy. According to Kaine, American foreign policy has suffered a lack of direction since the 1990s because the end of the Cold War rendered irrelevant America's previous grand strategy, which he identifies as the Truman Doctrine. This lack of grand strategy makes American actions seem random, complicating the policy-making process and hindering American leaders' efforts to convince the public that American foreign policy is worthwhile. To remedy this, Kaine proposed a new grand strategy based mainly on democracy promotion. His grand strategy is informed by a tri-polar balance of international power, with one pole being democratic states including the U.S. and its allies, the second autocratic powers led by Russia and China, and the third nonstate actors (multinational corporations, NGOs, gangs, etc.).
First, Kaine believes that the United States should work to support democracy in already democratic countries, as democracy globally has been declining for many years. To maintain democracy in democratic countries, Kaine proposes the creation of an intergovernmental organization consisting of all the world's democracies in which states can cooperate on solutions to problems such as corruption and voter inclusion. He compares this hypothetical group to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, in which advanced industrialized countries collaborate on economic policy. Kaine believes that this new organization will help democracies remain democratic, as well as promote democracy in other countries by giving them viable democratic examples to emulate. In this way, Kaine says that the U.S. should no longer see itself as the indispensable nation, but rather the "exemplary democracy".
Second, Kaine proposes that democracies should coordinate to best interact with authoritarian states. Depending on the circumstances, democracies should either "confront", "compete", or "cooperate" with autocracies. For example, Kaine observes that the U.S. competes with its authoritarian adversaries by strengthening military and commercial alliances, and confronts them by decrying their human rights records.
Finally, Kaine believes that democracies and autocracies should cooperate when they have the same interests, such as combating climate change.
In July 2017, Kaine expanded on the grand strategy proposed in this essay in an interview at the Brookings Institution with international relations scholar Robert Kagan.
Afghanistan
Kaine's website states, "The main mission in Afghanistan—destroying Al Qaeda—is nearly complete and we should bring our troops home as quickly as we can, consistent with the need to make sure that Afghanistan poses no danger in the broader region."
Latin America
Kaine believes that American foreign policy has neglected relations with Latin America and argues for an increased focus on the Americas, saying, "We have seldom paid enough attention to the Americas, in particular, and when we have—whether through the Monroe Doctrine or by battling communist movements during the Cold War—we have focused more on blocking outsiders from building influence in the Western Hemisphere than we have on the nations already there."
War powers
Kaine is known for "expertise on the constitutional powers of the presidency" and has said that "war powers questions" are a "personal obsession" of his. He has stressed that under the Constitution, "Congress has the power to declare war—and only Congress." Kaine called the 2018 U.S. missile strikes Trump ordered against the Syrian government illegal because they were undertaken without congressional approval.
Kaine and Senator John McCain introduced the War Powers Consultation Act of 2014, which would replace the War Powers Act of 1973, bringing Congress back into decisions on the deployment of U.S. military forces. The bill would establish a Congressional Consultation Committee, with which the president would be required to consult regularly regarding significant foreign policy matters before ordering the deployment of the armed forces into a significant armed conflict and at least every two months for the duration of any significant armed conflict. Kaine argued for the bill by citing his "frustration" over the sloppiness of "process and communication over decisions of war", noting that "presidents tend to overreach and Congress sometimes willingly ducks tough votes and decisions. We all have to do better."
In February 2018, Kaine was one of 18 senators to sign a letter to Trump arguing that striking North Korea with "a preventative or preemptive U.S. military strike would lack either a constitutional basis or legal authority" without congressional approval.
In January 2020, Kaine introduced a new war powers resolution that would prohibit the U.S. from entering hostilities against Iran within 30 days unless it was responding to an imminent threat. The next month, the measure passed the Senate 55–45, securing the votes of eight Republicans along with the Democrats. Trump vetoed the measure, and the Senate failed to override the veto.
Syria, Iraq, and ISIL
In 2014, Kaine argued that the U.S. military intervention against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) undertaken by Obama was unconstitutional without a new congressional authorization for the use of military force against ISIL. In November 2014, at the Halifax International Security Forum, Kaine and McCain emphasized the necessity of such a congressional authorization, saying: "You just can't have a war without Congress. You can't ask people to risk their lives, risk getting killed, seeing other folks getting killed or injured if Congress isn't willing to do the job to put their thumbprint on this and say, this is a national mission and worth it." After the April 2017 Shayrat missile strike in Syria, ordered by Trump, Kaine said, "There is no legal justification for this. He should not have done this without coming to Congress." On Meet the Press, Kaine said, "I'm a strong supporter that the U.S. should take action to protect humanitarian causes, like the ban on chemical weapons. Where I differ from this administration, and I took the same position with respect to President Obama, we are a nation that's not supposed to take military action, start war, without a plan that's presented to and approved by Congress."
On December 11, 2014, after a five-month campaign by Kaine, the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved by 10–8 (along party lines) a measure authorizing military force against ISIL but barring the use of ground troops. In October 2015, Kaine criticized Obama's approach to the Syrian Civil War, saying that the establishment of humanitarian no-fly zones would have alleviated the humanitarian crisis in Syria.
In April 2018, Kaine criticized Trump for authorizing the launch of a precision military strike on Syria without consulting Congress, calling the strike an "illegal military act".
On February 26, 2021, Kaine demanded answers from President Biden after he ordered airstrikes on Syria against Iran-backed militias without giving "legal justification" to members of Congress beforehand.
Firearms
Kaine is a firearms owner. He has supported expanded background checks for weapons purchases as well as "restrictions on the sale of combat-style weapons and high-capacity magazines." As governor, Kaine oversaw the closing of loopholes in Virginia law that allowed some who had failed background checks to purchase guns. In the Senate, he has supported legislation that would require background checks for weapons sold via gun shows and via the internet. He also supports legislation to bar weapons sales to suspected terrorists on the No Fly List.
In November 2017, Kaine was a cosponsor of the Military Domestic Violence Reporting Enhancement Act, a bill that would form a charge of domestic violence under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) and stipulate that convictions be reported to federal databases with the authority to keep abusers from purchasing firearms within three days in an attempt to close a loophole in the UCMJ through which convicted abusers retained the ability to purchase firearms.
In March 2018, Kaine was one of ten senators to sign a letter to Chairman of the United States Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Lamar Alexander and ranking Democrat Patty Murray requesting they schedule a hearing on the causes and remedies of mass shootings in the wake of the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting.
In June 2019, Kaine was one of four senators to cosponsor the Help Empower Americans to Respond (HEAR) Act, legislation that would ban suppressors being imported, sold, made, sent elsewhere or possessed and grant a silencer buyback program as well as include certain exceptions for current and former law enforcement personnel and others. The bill was intended to respond to the Virginia Beach shooting, in which the perpetrator used a .45-caliber handgun with multiple extended magazines and a suppressor.
Kaine has a 100% rating from the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and an "F" rating from the NRA.
Health care
Kaine supports the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2009 (Obamacare), saying in 2012, "I was a supporter and remain a supporter of the Affordable Care Act. I felt like it was a statement that we were going to put some things in the rearview mirror." In 2013, he said that he agreed that changes to the ACA should be debated, but criticized Republicans for "wrapping them up with the threat" of a federal government shutdown.
In 2018, Kaine and Senator Michael Bennet proposed the creation of "Medicare X"—a public health insurance option modeled after Medicare that would be available on ACA health insurance marketplaces along with private options. The proposal is a more incrementalist alternative to Bernie Sanders's push for "Medicare for All" (single-payer health care).
In December 2018, Kaine was one of 42 senators to sign a letter to Trump administration officials Alex Azar, Seema Verma, and Steve Mnuchin arguing that the administration was improperly using Section 1332 of the ACA to authorize states to "increase health care costs for millions of consumers while weakening protections for individuals with pre-existing conditions." The senators requested the administration withdraw the policy and "re-engage with stakeholders, states, and Congress."
In January 2019, Kaine was one of six Democratic senators to introduce the American Miners Act of 2019, a bill that would amend the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 to swap funds in excess of the amounts needed to meet existing obligations under the Abandoned Mine Land fund to the 1974 Pension Plan as part of an effort to prevent its insolvency as a result of coal company bankruptcies and the 2008 financial crisis. It also increased the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund tax and ensured that miners affected by the 2018 coal company bankruptcies would not lose their health care.
In December 2016, Kaine was one of 17 senators to sign a letter to Trump asking him to fulfill a campaign pledge to bring down the cost of prescription drugs. In February 2017, he and 30 other senators signed a letter to Kaléo Pharmaceuticals in response to the opioid-overdose-reversing device Evzio rising in price from $690 in 2014 to $4,500 and requested the company provide the detailed price structure for Evzio, the number of devices Kaléo Pharmaceuticals set aside for donation, and the totality of federal reimbursements Evzio received in the previous year. In February 2019, Kaine was one of 11 senators to sign a letter to insulin manufacturers Eli Lilly and Company, Novo Nordisk, and Sanofi about increased insulin prices and charging that the price increases caused patients to lack "access to the life-saving medications they need."
In August 2019, Kaine was one of 19 Democratic senators to sign a letter to Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar requesting data from the Trump administration on the consequences for healthcare if Texas prevailed in its lawsuit seeking to gut the Affordable Care Act. The senators wrote, "Upending the current health care system will create an enormous hole in the pocketbooks of the people we serve as well as wreck state budgets; therefore, we ask for data to help states and Congress better understand the potential consequences of the position the Administration is taking in court."
In September 2019, amid discussions to prevent a government shutdown, Kaine was one of six Democratic senators to sign a letter to congressional leadership advocating legislation that would permanently fund health care and pension benefits for retired coal miners as "families in Virginia, West Virginia, Wyoming, Alabama, Colorado, North Dakota and New Mexico" would start to receive notifications of health care termination by the end of the following month.
Immigration
Kaine supports the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Deferred Action for Parental Accountability (DAPA) programs, which allow up to five million undocumented immigrants to gain deferral of deportation and authorization to legally work in the United States. Alongside Senator Mark Warner and many other members of Congress, he signed on to an amicus brief in support of the program in the Supreme Court case United States v. Texas.
Kaine also supports comprehensive immigration reform, which would allow persons illegally present in the U.S. to earn legal status by paying a fine and taxes.
In July 2019, following reports that the Trump administration intended to end protections of spouses, parents and children of active-duty service members from deportation, Kaine was one of 22 senators to sign a letter led by Tammy Duckworth arguing that the program allowed service members the ability "to fight for the United States overseas and not worry that their spouse, children, or parents will be deported while they are away" and that the its termination would cause personal hardship for service members in combat.
In July 2019, Kaine and 15 other Senate Democrats introduced the Protecting Sensitive Locations Act, a bill to mandate that ICE agents get approval from a supervisor before undertaking an immigration raid or other enforcement actions at "sensitive locations" (schools, hospitals, places of worship, and courthouses) except in special circumstances. The bill would also require agents to receive annual training and require ICE to submit an annual report on enforcement actions in those locations.
LGBT rights
In 2006, Kaine campaigned against an amendment to the Virginia State Constitution to ban same-sex marriage, and in March 2013, he announced his support of same-sex marriage.
In the Senate, Kaine co-sponsored the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which would bar employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
In 2005, Kaine said, "No couples in Virginia can adopt other than a married couple. That's the right policy." In 2011, he shifted his position. In 2012, he said, "there should be a license that would entitle a committed couple to the same rights as a married couple."
During the 2016 presidential campaign, Kaine noted that his position on same-sex marriage was "at odds with the current doctrine of the church that I still attend." He predicted that the Roman Catholic Church would someday adopt his view. In response, two bishops heading the doctrine and marriage committees of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said that the church's position "cannot change" and reaffirmed their opposition to same-sex marriage.
In October 2018, Kaine was one of 20 senators to sign a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urging him to reverse the State Department's policy of denying visas to same-sex partners of LGBTQ diplomats who had unions that were not recognized by their home countries, writing that the Trump administration's refusal to allow LGBTQ diplomats to bring their partners to the U.S. was tantamount to upholding the "discriminatory policies of many countries around the world." In June 2019, Kaine was one of 18 senators to sign a letter to Pompeo requesting an explanation of the State Department's decision not to issue an official statement that year commemorating Pride Month or issue the annual cable outlining activities for embassies commemorating Pride Month. The signatories to the letter also asked why the LGBTI special envoy position had remained vacant. The authors said that the State Department's moves had sent "signals to the international community that the United States is abandoning the advancement of LGBTI rights as a foreign policy priority."
Taxes
Kaine supports allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire for those with incomes above $500,000.
In 2012, Kaine supported raising the cap on income subject for the FICA (Social Security) payroll tax "so that it covers a similar percentage of income as it did in the 1980s under President Reagan, which would greatly extend the solvency of the (Social Security) program."
In the Senate, Kaine has supported the Marketplace Fairness Act, which would allow states to require online retailers to collect sales taxes in the same manner as traditional brick-and-mortar retailers.
Trade
Kaine supported granting Obama Trade Promotion Authority (TPA or "fast track") to allow him to negotiate free trade agreements. He said the goal should be to "negotiate deals that protect workers' rights, environmental standards and intellectual property, while knocking down tariffs and other barriers that some countries erect to keep American products out."
In July 2016, Kaine said the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement was "an improvement of the status quo" and an "upgrade of labor standards... environmental standards... intellectual property protections", but maintained that he had not yet decided how to vote on final approval of the agreement, citing "significant concerns" over TPP's dispute resolution mechanism. Later that July, Kaine said that he could not support the TPP in its current form.
Kaine has been a proponent of NAFTA.
Transportation, growth, and housing
Kaine supports some smart growth-style policies (which he calls "a balanced approach to growth") to control sprawl and improve transportation. He favors a transportation policy that includes public transit, bicycles, and pedestrians. As governor, Kaine pushed through a $100 million open-space acquisition initiative. Under Kaine, Amtrak service in Virginia was expanded. He also participated in a White House round-table discussion on high-speed rail in 2009.
In April 2019, Kaine was one of 41 senators to sign a bipartisan letter in support of U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Section 4 Capacity Building program, a program authorizing HUD to partner with nonprofit community development groups to provide support to community development corporations. The letter said that the longstanding program had successfully promoted economic and community development, opposed the proposed elimination of the plan in Trump's budget proposal for Fiscal Year 2020, and urged the Senate to support continued funding for Section 4 in Fiscal Year 2020.
Workers' rights and gender equality
Kaine is "generally pro-union" and has received a 96% lifetime Senate voting rating from the AFL-CIO, which praised his selection as Clinton's running mate. But Kaine supports Virginia's longstanding "right-to-work" law, which "frees union nonmembers from any legal obligation to pay fees to a union that bargains collectively on their behalf".
Kaine supports the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which expands the cases in which worker can sue against gender pay discrimination. After Clinton selected him as her running mate in 2016, Kaine was praised by the National Organization for Women.
Kaine favors an increase in the minimum wage.
Electoral history
2001 lieutenant gubernatorial election
2005 gubernatorial election
2012 U.S. Senate election
2016 vice presidential election
2018 U.S. Senate election
Personal life
In November 1984, Kaine married Anne Bright Holton, the daughter of A. Linwood Holton Jr., a Republican who served as the 61st governor of Virginia from 1970 to 1974. The couple met while they were both students at Harvard Law School. Holton has been a judge for the Virginia Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court in Richmond. After serving as first lady of Virginia during her husband's term, she was appointed by Governor Terry McAuliffe in January 2014 to be Virginia's secretary of education, and held that position until July 2016, when she stepped down after her husband was named as the Democratic vice-presidential nominee. The couple has three children, one of whom is a United States Marine. As of 2016, Kaine and his wife had been congregants of the St. Elizabeth Catholic Church in Richmond, a mostly black congregation, for 30 years.
Kaine plays the harmonica and often travels with several.
Kaine is fluent in Spanish as a result of his nine months in Honduras. During the 2016 campaign, he became the first member of a presidential ticket to deliver a speech in Spanish.
On May 28, 2020, Kaine announced that he and his wife had tested positive for COVID-19 antibodies.
Awards and honors
Kaine has received the Humanitarian Award from the Virginia Center for Inclusive Communities, then the Virginia Region of the National Conference for Community and Justice (2000), the Virginia Council of Churches' Faith in Action Award (2009), the University of Richmond School of Law's William Green Award for Professional Excellence (2012), the Award for Public Service in the Americas from the Inter-American Dialogue (2014), the Appalachian Trail Conservancy's Congressional Award (2015), and the Center for the National Interest's Distinguished Service Award (2016). He was made a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Isabella the Catholic in 2017.
Notes
References
Further reading
Governor
Kaine's Governor website (Archived)
Kaine's Lieutenant governor website (Archived)
2005 campaign contributions at the Virginia Public Access Project
Moving Virginia Forward Archived Web Site, 2007 part of Virginia's Political Landscape, 2007 Web Archive Collection at Virginia Memory
Moving Virginia Forward Archived Web Site, 2009 part of Virginia's Political Landscape, 2009 Web Archive Collection at Virginia Memory
Tim Kaine for Governor Archived Web Site, 2005–2006 part of Virginia's Political Landscape, Fall 2005 Web Archive Collection at Virginia Memory
Governor Tim Kaine Administration Web Site Archive, 2006–2010
Kaine Email Project at the Library of Virginia
External links
U.S. Senate website
Campaign website
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1958 births
20th-century American lawyers
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21st-century American lawyers
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Democratic Party United States senators from Virginia
Democratic Party (United States) vice presidential nominees
Governors of Virginia
Harvard Law School alumni
Hillary Clinton 2016 presidential campaign
Lawyers from Kansas City, Missouri
Lieutenant Governors of Virginia
Living people
Mark Warner
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Richmond, Virginia City Council members
Roman Catholic missionaries in Honduras
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[
"Talley v. California, 362 U.S. 60 (1960), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States voided a Los Angeles city ordinance which forbade the distribution of any handbills in any place under any circumstances if the handbills did not contain the name and address of the person for whom it was prepared, distributed, or sponsored.\n\nTalley is often cited for the proposition that identification requirements burden speech.\n\nThe Importance of Anonymous Speech\nTalley v. California is notable for its exposition on anonymous speech. While looking at the historical applications of anonymous speech, the court points to two uses in particular that influenced their decision. \n Fear of Retaliation - Speaking anonymously protects those that criticize oppressive practices from the oppressors.\n Focus on the Message - Listeners focus on the message rather than the messenger when speech is anonymous.\n\nDissent\nAlthough the dissent also saw the important protections of anonymous speech, it did not see any danger in this particular instance. The right to speak anonymously had to weigh against the benefit of the public knowing the author. As the dissent saw no evidence that any harm would come to Talley by revelation of his identity, the public knowledge outweighed Talley's right to anonymous speech.\n\nSee also\n List of United States Supreme Court cases\n Lists of United States Supreme Court cases by volume\n List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 362\n Anonymous Online Speakers v. United States District Court for the District of Nevada\n McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nUnited States Supreme Court cases\nUnited States Supreme Court cases of the Warren Court\nUnited States Free Speech Clause case law\nLegal history of California\n1960 in United States case law\n1960 in California\nCivil rights movement case law",
"Isidro Nozal Vega (born 18 October 1977) is a Spanish former professional road racing cyclist. Nozal was runner-up in the 2003 Vuelta a España and an instrumental domestique in Roberto Heras' 2004 Vuelta a España win.\n\nDoping\nIn 2005, Vega was suspended for two weeks after being tested with a hematocrit level above 50 before the start of Dauphine Libere. In 2006, he was initially implicated in the Operación Puerto doping case, but was cleared of any wrongdoing by Spanish officials. He later admitted his involvement, saying he did three blood transfusions with Fuentes in the season before the 2005 Dauphine Libere, but denying he doped.\nFor the 2008 and 2009 seasons Nozal rode for the Portuguese Pro Continental team of Liberty Seguros. In September 2009 Nozal and two teammates (Nuno Ribeiro and Hector Guerra) were announced to have tested positive for EPO-CERA in samples taken for the previous month's Tour of Portugal. Liberty Seguros immediately announced that it would cease sponsorship of the team and its participation in cycling. Ribeiro's win was withdrawn and the second-placed rider, Spain's David Blanco, was elevated to the overall win. Nozal, Ribeiro, and Guerra all received two-year suspensions from cycling.\n\nCareer achievements\n\nMajor results\n\n2001\n 6th Overall Vuelta Ciclista a la Rioja\n2002\n 1st Stage 3 Clasica de Alcobendas\n 1st Stage 3 Vuelta a Burgos\n 4th Overall Vuelta a Castilla y Leon\n 7th Overall Deutschland Tour\n2003\n 2nd Overall Vuelta a España\n1st Stage 6 (ITT) & 13 (ITT)\nHeld after Stages 4–19\n 4th Time trial, UCI Road World Championships\n 6th Overall Deutschland Tour\n2004\n 7th Overall Vuelta a España\n 10th Subida al Naranco\n\nGrand Tour general classification results timeline\n\nDNF = did not finish\n\nReferences\n\n1977 births\nLiving people\nSportspeople from Barakaldo\nSpanish male cyclists\nCyclists from Cantabria\nDoping cases in cycling\nSpanish sportspeople in doping cases\nSpanish Vuelta a España stage winners\nCyclists from the Basque Country (autonomous community)\nPeople from the Eastern Coast of Cantabria"
] |
[
"Tim Kaine",
"Legal career and Richmond City Council",
"Where did Kaine attend law school?",
"I don't know.",
"What year was he elected to city council?",
"In May 1994,",
"was he known for achieving anything special while on the council?",
"Kaine spent four terms on the council, the latter two as mayor.",
"Did he represent a specific political party?",
"specializing in fair housing law and representing clients discriminated against on the basis of race or disability.",
"Did he recieve any awards?",
"Kaine became a director with the law firm of Mezzullo & McCandlish, P.C.",
"Did he win any notable cases?",
"he represented in a landmark redlining discrimination lawsuit against Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co."
] |
C_6e5a0e696db14512b25f50b8092751a7_1
|
Was there anything else notable about his early career?
| 7 |
Besides representing in a landmark lawsuit against Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. Was there anything else notable about Tim Kaine's early career?
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Tim Kaine
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After graduating from law school, Kaine was a law clerk for Judge R. Lanier Anderson III of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, in Macon, Georgia. Kaine then joined the Richmond law firm of Little, Parsley & Cluverius, P.C. In 1987, Kaine became a director with the law firm of Mezzullo & McCandlish, P.C. Kaine practiced law in Richmond for 17 years, specializing in fair housing law and representing clients discriminated against on the basis of race or disability. He was a board member of the Virginia chapter of Housing Opportunities Made Equal, which he represented in a landmark redlining discrimination lawsuit against Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. arising from the company's practices in Richmond. Kaine won a $100.5 million verdict in the case; the judgment was overturned on appeal, and Kaine and his colleagues negotiated a $17.5 million settlement. Kaine did regular pro bono work. In 1988, Kaine started teaching legal ethics as an adjunct professor at the University of Richmond School of Law. Kaine taught at the University of Richmond for six years, and his students included future Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring. He was a founding member of the Virginia Coalition to End Homelessness. Kaine had a largely apolitical childhood, but became interested in politics in part due to the influence of his wife's family and his experience attending Richmond city council meetings. In May 1994, Kaine was elected to the city council of the independent city of Richmond, from the City's 2nd District. He defeated incumbent city councilman Benjamin P. A. Warthen by 97 votes. Kaine spent four terms on the council, the latter two as mayor. CANNOTANSWER
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Kaine did regular pro bono work. In 1988, Kaine started teaching
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Timothy Michael Kaine (; born February 26, 1958) is an American lawyer and politician serving as the junior United States senator from Virginia since 2013. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 38th lieutenant governor of Virginia from 2002 to 2006 and 70th governor of Virginia from 2006 to 2010. Kaine was the Democratic nominee for vice president of the United States in the 2016 election as Hillary Clinton's running mate.
Born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, Kaine grew up in Overland Park, Kansas, graduated from the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri, and earned a Juris Doctor degree from Harvard Law School before entering private practice and becoming a lecturer at the University of Richmond School of Law. He was first elected to public office in 1994, when he won a seat on the Richmond City Council. He was elected mayor of Richmond in 1998 and held that position until being elected lieutenant governor of Virginia in 2001. Kaine was elected governor of Virginia in 2005 and held that office from 2006 to 2010. He chaired the Democratic National Committee from 2009 to 2011.
On July 22, 2016, Hillary Clinton introduced Kaine as her vice-presidential running mate. The 2016 Democratic National Convention nominated him on July 27. Despite winning a plurality of the national popular vote, the ClintonKaine ticket lost the Electoral College, and thus the election, to the Republican ticket of Donald Trump and Mike Pence on November 8, 2016. Kaine was reelected to a second Senate term in 2018, defeating Republican Corey Stewart.
Early life and education
Kaine was born at Saint Joseph's Hospital in St. Paul, Minnesota. He is the eldest of three sons born to Mary Kathleen (née Burns), a home economics teacher, and Albert Alexander Kaine, Jr., a welder and the owner of a small iron-working shop. He was raised Catholic. One of Kaine's great-grandparents was Scottish and the other seven were Irish. Kaine's family moved to Overland Park, Kansas, when Kaine was two years old, and he grew up in the Kansas City area. In 1976, he graduated from Rockhurst High School, a Jesuit all-boys preparatory school in Kansas City, Missouri. At Rockhurst, Kaine joined the debate team and was elected student body president.
Kaine received his Bachelor of Arts in economics from the University of Missouri in 1979, completing his degree in three years and graduating Omicron Delta Kappa and summa cum laude. He was a Coro Foundation fellow in Kansas City in 1978. He entered Harvard Law School in 1979, interrupting his law studies after his first year to work in Honduras for nine months from 1980 to 1981, helping Jesuit missionaries who ran a Catholic school in El Progreso. While running a vocational center that taught carpentry and welding, he also helped increase the school's enrollment by recruiting local villagers. Kaine is fluent in Spanish as a result of his time in Honduras.
After returning from Honduras, Kaine met his future wife, first-year Harvard Law student Anne Holton. He graduated from Harvard Law School with a J.D. degree in 1983. Kaine and Holton moved to Holton's hometown of Richmond, Virginia, after graduation, and Kaine was admitted to the Virginia bar in 1984.
Legal career and Richmond City Council
After graduating from law school, Kaine was a law clerk for Judge R. Lanier Anderson III of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, in Macon, Georgia. He then joined the Richmond law firm of Little, Parsley & Cluverius, P.C. In 1987, Kaine became a director of the law firm of Mezzullo & McCandlish, P.C. He practiced law in Richmond for 17 years, specializing in fair housing law and representing clients discriminated against on the basis of race or disability. He was a board member of the Virginia chapter of Housing Opportunities Made Equal, which he represented in a landmark redlining discrimination lawsuit against Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. arising from the company's practices in Richmond. Kaine won a $100.5 million verdict in the case; the judgment was overturned on appeal, and Kaine and his colleagues negotiated a $17.5 million settlement.
Kaine did regular pro bono work. In 1988, he started teaching legal ethics as an adjunct professor at the University of Richmond School of Law. Kaine taught at the University of Richmond for six years; his students included future Virginia attorney general Mark Herring. He was a founding member of the Virginia Coalition to End Homelessness.
Kaine had a largely apolitical childhood, but became interested in politics in part due to the influence of his wife's family and his experience attending Richmond city council meetings. In 1994, he was elected the 2nd district member of the city council of the independent city of Richmond, defeating incumbent city councilor Benjamin P.A. Warthen by less than 100 votes. He took his seat on July 1 and retained the position until September 10, 2001, when he resigned and William J. Pantele was appointed to succeed him. He defeated the incumbent city councilman Benjamin P.A. Warthen by 97 votes. Kaine spent four terms on the city council, the latter two as mayor of Richmond.
Mayor of Richmond (1998–2001)
On July 1, 1998, Kaine was elected mayor of Richmond, succeeding Larry Chavis. He was chosen by an 8 to 1 vote on the majority-black Richmond City Council, becoming the city's first white mayor in more than ten years, which was viewed as a surprise. Rudy McCollum, an African American city councilor also interested in the mayoralty, decided to back Kaine after a private meeting between the two, clearing the way for Kaine to win the election. Previous mayors had treated the role as primarily ceremonial, with the city manager effectively operating the city; Kaine treated it as a full-time job, taking a more hands-on role.
As mayor, Kaine used a sale-leaseback arrangement to obtain funds to renovate the historic Maggie L. Walker High School and reopen it in 2000 as a magnet governor's school, the Maggie L. Walker Governor's School for Government and International Studies, which "now serves the top students in Central Virginia". Three elementary schools and one middle school were also built in Richmond under Kaine. Along with Commonwealth's attorney David Hicks, U.S. attorney James Comey, and police chief Jerry Oliver, Kaine was a supporter of Project Exile, an initiative that shifted gun crimes to federal court, where defendants faced harsher sentences. Though controversial, the effort was effective and achieved widespread support; the city's homicide rate fell by 55% during Kaine's mayoralty. Kaine touted Project Exile during his 2001 campaign for lieutenant governor.
On several occasions, Kaine voted against tax increases, and supported a tax abatement program for renovated buildings, which was credited for a housing renovation boom in the city. Forbes magazine named Richmond one of "the 10 best cities in America to do business" during Kaine's term.
According to John Moeser, a professor emeritus of urban studies and planning at Virginia Commonwealth University and later a visiting fellow at the University of Richmond's Center for Civic Engagement, Mayor Kaine "was energetic, charismatic and, most important, spoke openly about his commitment to racial reconciliation in Richmond." The New York Times wrote that Kaine "was by all accounts instrumental in bridging the city's racial divide." In the early part of his term, Kaine issued an apology for the city's role in slavery; the apology was generally well received as "a genuine, heartfelt expression". In the latter part of his term, a contentious debate took place over the inclusion of a portrait of Confederate general Robert E. Lee in a set of historic murals to be placed on city floodwalls. Many African Americans were outraged that Lee would appear on city walls, while Southern heritage groups demanded that the picture remain. Kaine proposed a compromise in which Lee would appear as part of a series of murals that also included figures like Abraham Lincoln and Powhatan Beaty. His stance drew criticism from the NAACP; Kaine argued that placing Lee on the floodwall made sense in context, and that "Much of our history is not pleasant; you can't whitewash it." Kaine's proposal passed the council on a 6–3 vote.
During his mayoralty, Kaine drew criticism for spending $6,000 in public funds on buses to the Million Mom March, an anti-gun-violence rally in Washington, D.C.; after a backlash, he raised the money privately and reimbursed the city.
Lieutenant governor of Virginia (2002–2006)
Kaine ran for lieutenant governor of Virginia in 2001. He joined the race after state senator Emily Couric dropped out due to pancreatic cancer and endorsed Kaine as her replacement. In the Democratic primary election, Kaine ran against state delegate Alan A. Diamonstein of Newport News, and state delegate Jerrauld C. Jones of Norfolk. Kaine won the nomination, with 39.7% of the vote to Diamonstein's 31.4% and Jones's 28.9%.
In the general election, Kaine won with 925,974 votes (50.35%), edging out his Republican opponent, state delegate Jay Katzen, who received 883,886 (48.06%). Libertarian Gary Reams received 28,783 votes (1.57%).
Kaine was inaugurated on January 12, 2002, and was sworn in by his wife Anne Holton, a state judge.
2005 gubernatorial election
In 2005, Kaine ran for governor of Virginia against Republican candidate Jerry W. Kilgore, a former state attorney general. Kaine was considered an underdog for most of the race, trailing in polls for most of the campaign. Two September polls showed Kaine trailing Kilgore—by four percentage points in a Washington Post poll and by one point in a Mason-Dixon/Roanoke Times poll. The final polls of the race before the election showed Kaine slightly edging ahead of Kilgore.
Kaine ultimately prevailed, winning 1,025,942 votes (51.7%) to Kilgore's 912,327 (46.0%). A third candidate, independent state Senator H. Russell Potts Jr., ran as an "independent Republican" and received 43,953 votes (2.2%).
Kaine emphasized fiscal responsibility and a centrist message. He expressed support for controlling sprawl and tackling longstanding traffic issues, an issue that resonated in the northern Virginia exurbs. He benefited from his association with the popular outgoing Democratic governor, Mark Warner, who had performed well in traditionally Republican areas of the state. On the campaign trail, Kaine referred to the "Warner-Kaine administration" in speeches and received Warner's strong backing. Kilgore later attributed his defeat to Warner's high popularity and President George W. Bush's sharply declining popularity; Bush held a rally with Kilgore on the campaign's final day.
The campaign turned sharply negative in its final weeks, with Kilgore running television attack ads that falsely claimed that Kaine believed that "Hitler doesn't qualify for the death penalty." The ads also attacked Kaine for his service ten years earlier as a court-appointed attorney for a death-row inmate. The editorial boards of the Washington Post and a number of Virginia newspapers denounced the ads as a "smear" and "dishonest." Kaine responded with an ad "in which he told voters that he opposes capital punishment but would take an oath and enforce the death penalty. In later polls, voters said they believed Kaine's response and were angered by Kilgore's negative ads."
In the election, Kaine won by large margins in the Democratic strongholds such as Richmond and northern Virginia's inner suburbs (such as Alexandria and Arlington), as well as in the Democratic-trending Fairfax County. Kaine also won Republican-leaning areas in Northern Virginia's outer suburbs, including Prince William County and Loudoun County, where George W. Bush had beat John Kerry in the previous year's presidential election, and performed "surprisingly well in Republican strongholds like Virginia Beach and Chesapeake." Kaine also defeated Kilgore in the burgeoning Richmond suburbs. Kilgore led in southwest Virginia and in the Shenandoah Valley.
Governor of Virginia (2006–2010)
Kaine was sworn in as governor at the colonial Capitol at Williamsburg, on January 14, 2006, the first governor since Thomas Jefferson to be inaugurated there.
Kaine was chairman of the Southern Governors' Association from 2008 to 2009.
Democratic response to State of the Union address
On January 31, 2006, Kaine gave the Democratic response to President George W. Bush's 2006 State of the Union address. In it, he criticized the Bush administration's No Child Left Behind Act for "wreaking havoc on local school districts"; criticized congressional Republicans for cutting student loan programs; and condemned as "reckless" Bush's spending increases and tax cuts. Kaine praised bipartisan initiatives in Virginia "to make record investments in education" and to improve veterans' access to veterans' benefits. He criticized the Bush administration's conduct of the Iraq War and treatment of U.S. soldiers, saying that "the American people were given inaccurate information about reasons for invading Iraq"; "our troops in Iraq were not given the best body armor or the best intelligence"; and "the administration wants to further reduce military and veterans' benefits."
Energy, the environment, and conservation
As governor, Kaine protected of Virginia land from development, fulfilling a promise he made in 2005. His conservation efforts focused on conservation easements (voluntary easements that preserve the private ownership of a piece of land while also permanently protecting it from development); a substantial Virginia land preservation tax credit encouraged easements. From 2004 to 2009, the Virginia Outdoors Foundation (a quasi-governmental entity set up in 1966 to preserve open land in the state) protected more land than it had in the previous 40 years, a fact Kaine touted as his term drew to a close.
As governor, Kaine established the Climate Change Commission, a bipartisan panel to study climate change issues. The panel was shuttered under Kaine's Republican successor, Governor Robert F. McDonnell, but revived (as the Governor's Climate Change and Resiliency Update Commission) under McDonnell's successor, Democratic Governor Terry McAuliffe.
In 2008, Kaine supported a coal-fired power plant project in Wise County, clashing with environmentalists who opposed the project.
In 2009, Kaine expressed support for tighter restrictions on mountaintop removal coal mining imposed by the Obama administration.
Healthcare and public health
In October 2006, Kaine signed an executive order banning smoking in all government buildings and state-owned cars as of January 1, 2007. He signed legislation banning smoking in restaurants and bars, with some exceptions, in March 2009, making Virginia the first Southern state to do so.
In 2007, the Republican-controlled Virginia General Assembly passed legislation, with "overwhelming bipartisan support", to require girls to receive the HPV vaccine (which immunizes recipients against a virus that causes cervical cancer) before entering high school. Kaine expressed "some qualms" about the legislation and pushed for a strong opt-out provision, ultimately signing a bill that included a provision allowing parents to opt out of the requirement without citing a reason.
In 2007, Kaine secured increases in state funding for nursing in the Virginia General Assembly and announced a 10% salary increase for nursing faculty above the normal salary increase for state employees, plus additional funds for scholarships for nursing master's programs. The initiatives were aimed at addressing a shortage of practicing nurses.
Virginia Tech shooting
After the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting, in which Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 people, Kaine appointed an eight-member Virginia Tech Review Panel, chaired by retired Virginia State Police superintendent W. Gerald Massengill, to probe the event. The commission members included specialists in psychology, law, forensics and higher education as well as former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge. The commission first met in May 2007, and issued its findings and recommendations in August 2007. Among other recommendations, the panel proposed many mental health reforms. Based on the panel's recommendations, Kaine proposed $42 million of investment in mental health programs and reforms, included "boosting access to outpatient and emergency mental health services, increasing the number of case managers and improving monitoring of community-based providers." In April 2007, Kaine signed an executive order instructing state agencies to step up efforts to block gun sales to people involuntarily committed to inpatient and outpatient mental health treatment centers. Kaine, who had been in Japan on a trade mission at the time of the shootings, received widespread praise for his quick return to the state and his handling of the issue.
Budget and economy
Among Kaine's greatest challenges as governor came during the 2008–09 economic crisis; the Washington Post wrote that "perhaps his greatest success was keeping the state running despite [the crisis]." Amid the Great Recession, unemployment in Virginia remained lower than the national average. During Kaine's tenure as governor, the unemployment rate in Virginia rose from 3.2% to 7.4%, a smaller increase than the national rate, which rose from 4.7% to 9.9% during the same period.
As governor, Kaine approved about $3.31 billion in general fund spending cuts, and after his term in office, the Virginia General Assembly adopted about $1.33 billion in additional budget cuts that Kaine had recommended, for a total of $4.64 billion in cuts. The Washington Post wrote, "Unable to raise taxes and required by law to balance the budget, he was forced to make unpopular cuts that led to such things as shuttered highway rest stops and higher public university tuition." Virginia was one of three states to earn the highest grade in terms of management in a report by the nonpartisan Pew Center on the States. Virginia took first place each year from 2006 to 2009 in Forbes magazine's "Best States For Business" rankings.
Infrastructure and transportation
In July 2007, during the debate on the Silver Line of the Washington Metro through Tysons Corner, Kaine supported an elevated track solution rather than a tunnel, citing costs and potential delays that would put federal funding at risk.
In 2006, Kaine pressed the general assembly to support a legislative package to ease severe traffic congestion by spending about $1 billion annually for highway construction, repairs to aging roads, mass transit, and other transportation projects. The money would be raised through increases in taxes and fees that would have raised an estimated $4 billion in revenue over four years. The Democratic-controlled Senate supported the plan, but the Republican-controlled House was unwilling to approve the taxes necessary to carry out the project, and the effort failed even after a special session of the legislature was called over the stalemate.
In 2007, Republicans in the General Assembly passed their own transportation-funding bill. Rather than a statewide tax increase to finance the transportation improvements, as Kaine and most legislative Democrats favored, the Republican bill called for transportation funding "to come from borrowing $2.5 billion and paying the debt costs out of the general fund"; authorized local tax increase in Northern Virginia; increased fees and taxes on rental cars, commercial real estate, and hotels; and increased traffic infraction fines and driver's licenses fees.
Kaine and most legislative Democrats opposed the Republican legislation, calling it inadequate to address traffic congestion and arguing that the withdrawal of funds from the general fund would affect core services such as health care, law enforcement, and education. Kaine ultimately signed a bill with amendments reflecting "concerns by local government officials and a bipartisan group of lawmakers who were concerned that the plan took too much money from the state's general fund."
Education
Under Kaine, participation in Virginia in early childhood education increased by 40.2% due to his expansion of the Virginia Preschool Initiative, which makes pre-kindergarten more accessible to four-year-olds from households close to the poverty line. Kaine sought increases to the budget for preschool programs every year during his term as governor. Virginia was rated as the best state to raise a child in a 2007 report by Education Week and the Pew Center on the States.
Cabinet and appointments
Kaine made the following appointments to his Virginia Governor's Cabinet:
Chief of Staff: William Leighty (2006–2007), Wayne Turnage (2007–2010)
Secretary of Administration: Viola Baskerville (2006–2010)
Virginia Secretary of Agriculture and Forestry: Robert Bloxom (2006–2010)
Secretary of Commerce and Trade: Patrick Gottschalk (2006–2010)
Secretary of the Commonwealth: Katherine Hanley (2006–2010)
Secretary of Education: Thomas R. Morris (2006–2010)
Secretary of Finance:Jody Wagner (2006–2008), Ric Brown (2008–2010)
Secretary of Health and Human Resources: Marilyn Tavenner (2006–2010)
Secretary of Natural Resources: Preston Bryant (2006–2010)
Secretary of Public Safety: John W. Marshall (2006–2010)
Secretary of Technology: Aneesh Chopra (2006–2009), Leonard Pomata (2009–2010)
Secretary of Transportation: Pierce Homer (2006–2010)
Counselor to the Governor: Lawrence Roberts (2006–2009)
Counselor to the Governor: Mark Rubin (2009–2010)
Assistant for Commonwealth Preparedness: Robert P. Crouch (2006–2010)
Senior Advisor for Workforce: Daniel G. LeBlanc (2006–2010)
As governor, Kaine made a number of appointments to the Virginia state courts. He made two appointments to the Supreme Court of Virginia, naming Chesapeake circuit judge S. Bernard Goodwyn to the Court in 2007 and Virginia Court of Appeals Judge LeRoy F. Millette Jr. in 2008.
On September 27, 2007, just weeks after appointing Esam Omeish to the 20-member Virginia Commission on Immigration, Kaine learned that Omeish had made videos accusing Israel of genocide and calling for President Bush's impeachment. He immediately requested and received Omeish's resignation and said that background checks would be more thorough in the future.
2008 vice presidential speculation
Kaine announced his support for Barack Obama's presidential bid in February 2007. It was maintained that Kaine's endorsement was the first from a statewide elected official outside of Illinois. Because Kaine was a relatively popular governor of a Southern state, there was media speculation that he was a potential nominee for vice president. Obama had supported Kaine in his campaign for governor, saying, "Tim Kaine has a message of fiscal responsibility and generosity of spirit. That kind of message can sell anywhere." On July 28, 2008, Politico reported that Kaine was "very, very high" on Obama's shortlist for vice president, a list that also included Senator Hillary Clinton of New York, Governor Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas, Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana, and Senator Joe Biden of Delaware. Obama ultimately selected Biden. It was later reported that Obama told Kaine, in breaking the news to him, "You are the pick of my heart, but Joe [Biden] is the pick of my head". Obama later wrote that he had ultimately narrowed down the choice for his running mate to Kaine and Biden. He said, "At the time, I was much closer to Tim", but Obama and his advisers David Axelrod and David Plouffe wondered whether voters would accept a ticket of "two relatively young, inexperienced, and liberal civil rights attorneys" and Obama felt the contrast between him and Biden was a strength, and that Biden's age and experience would reassure voters concerned that Obama was too young to be president.
Democratic National Committee chair (2009–2011)
In January 2009, Kaine became chair of the Democratic National Committee. He had turned down the position the first time it was offered to him, expressing misgivings about accepting a partisan position, but took the job at Obama's request. He took on the position as chair part-time as he continued his term as governor of Virginia. Kaine's main goals as DNC chair "were protecting the party's seats in Congress during the 2010 midterms and integrating the president's campaign apparatus, Organizing for America, and its technological acumen into the party machinery." In the 2010 midterms, the DNC under Kaine's leadership outraised the Republican National Committee (RNC) by $30 million, but Democrats lost control of the House and lost seats in the Senate amidst a Tea Party backlash. Kaine was not generally blamed for the losses.
Kaine kept a low profile in the position in comparison to his counterpart, RNC chairman Michael Steele. He focused more on fundraising and maintaining party unity than on attacking political opponents.
In February 2011, after Kaine spoke to union leaders in Madison, Organizing for America got involved in Wisconsin's budget battle and opposed Republican-sponsored anti-union legislation. It made phone calls, sent emails, and distributed messages via Facebook and Twitter to build crowds for rallies.
After completing his term as governor in January 2010, Kaine taught part-time at the University of Richmond, teaching a course in spring 2010 at the Jepson School of Leadership Studies and another in fall 2010 at the University of Richmond School of Law. He explained that he had chosen to teach at a private university rather than a public university "because it would not have been right for a sitting governor to be seeking employment at an institution when he writes the budget and appoints the board of the institution."
United States Senate
2012 election
After Senator Jim Webb's decision not to seek reelection, Kaine announced on April 5, 2011, that he would run for Webb's seat. He was initially reluctant to return to public office, but Webb, Senator Mark Warner, and other Virginia Democrats saw Kaine as the strongest potential Democratic candidate and convinced him to run. Kaine named Lawrence Roberts as his campaign chairman. Mike Henry was chosen as his campaign manager. Kaine filmed announcement videos in English and Spanish and was unopposed for the Democratic nomination. He defeated former senator and governor George Allen in the general election.
Tenure
Kaine was sworn in on January 3, 2013, reuniting him with Mark Warner, the senior senator. Kaine was lieutenant governor when Warner was governor of Virginia.
On June 11, 2013, Kaine delivered a speech on the Senate floor in support of the bipartisan "Gang of Eight" immigration bill. The speech was entirely in Spanish, marking the first time a senator had ever made a speech on the Senate floor in a language other than English.
As a member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, Kaine pushed for a new Congressional authorization of military force for the American operations against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Kaine supported the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran, though he also helped Republican senator Bob Corker hold a vote on a resolution of disapproval of the deal. Kaine has taken several trips throughout the Middle East, meeting with the leaders of states such as Turkey and Israel.
While in the Senate, Kaine has continued to teach part-time at the University of Richmond, receiving a salary of $16,000 per year.
Kaine has voted with his party more than 90% of the time. According to the Washington Post, Kaine has "crafted a largely progressive record as a senator." He reportedly has good relations with both Democratic and Republican senators.
During the 2016 vice-presidential campaign, Kaine frequently criticized Donald Trump, saying that Trump "as commander-in-chief scares me to death" and had a "bizarre fascination with strongmen and authoritarian leaders". In 2017, after Trump took office, Kaine continued to criticize his "authoritarian tendencies", citing his attacks on media, judges, and peaceful protesters. At an event at George Mason University, Kaine said that with Trump in office, Americans "are in a 'living experiment' to see whether or not the Constitution still works to check executive power."
In February 2017, Kaine met with Pope Francis at a general audience at the Vatican. Kaine also met with the Jesuit Refugee Service to discuss refugees and met with Vatican officials to discuss Latin American issues. The same month, Kaine delivered an address, "The Truman Doctrine at 70", at London's Chatham House.
Committee assignments and caucuses
In the 113th Congress (2013–15), Kaine was on the Committee on Armed Services, the Committee on the Budget, and the Committee on Foreign Relations. In the 114th Congress, Kaine was on those three committees and the Special Committee on Aging. In July 2013, Kaine was named chair of the United States Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Near East, South Asia, Central Asia and Counterterrorism.
Within the Senate Armed Services Committee, Kaine is a member of the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities, the Subcommittee on Readiness and Management Support (of which he is the ranking member), and the Subcommittee on Seapower.
Within the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, Kaine is a member of the Subcommittee on State Department and USAID Management, International Operations, and Bilateral International Development (of which he is the ranking member), the Subcommittee on Europe and Regional Security Cooperation, the Subcommittee on Near East, South Asia, Central Asia, and Counterterrorism, and the Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere, Transnational Crime, Civilian Security, Democracy, Human Rights and Global Women's Issues.
In January 2014, Kaine and Senator Rob Portman established the bipartisan Senate Career and Technical Education Caucus (CTE Caucus), which focuses on vocational education and technical education. Kaine and Portman co-chair the caucus. In 2014, Kaine and Portman introduced the CTE Excellence and Equity Act to the Senate; the legislation would provide $500 million in federal funding, distributed by competitive grants, to high schools to further CTE programs. The legislation, introduced as an amendment to the omnibus Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act of 2006, would promote apprenticeships and similar initiatives. Kaine and Portman introduced similar legislation, the Educating Tomorrow's Workforce Act, in 2017.
2016 vice-presidential campaign
Kaine endorsed Hillary Clinton for president in 2016 and campaigned actively for her in seven states during the primaries. He had been the subject of considerable speculation as a possible running mate for Clinton, with several news reports indicating that he was at or near the top of Clinton's list of people under consideration alongside figures such as Elizabeth Warren and Julian Castro.
The New York Times reported that Clinton's husband, former president Bill Clinton, supported Kaine as his wife's vice-presidential selection, noting his domestic and national security résumé. On July 22, 2016, she announced Kaine would be her running mate in the election. Clinton introduced Kaine as her choice in a joint appearance at a rally at Florida International University in Miami the next day. The 2016 Democratic National Convention nominated him for vice president on July 27, 2016.
Kaine was the first Virginian since Woodrow Wilson to be on a major-party ticket, and was the first Virginian to run for vice president on a major-party ticket since John Tyler in 1840; he was also the first senator or former senator from Virginia to be on a major-party ticket since Tyler.
In accordance with longstanding political custom in the U.S., upon being nominated for vice president Kaine publicly released his full tax returns for the previous ten years. He also publicly released medical records; his physician, Brian P. Monahan, the Attending Physician of the United States Congress, wrote that Kaine was "in overall excellent health." In September Kaine published a campaign book co-authored with Clinton, Stronger Together.
In Kaine's preparations for the vice presidential debate in October 2016, lawyer Robert Barnett played the role of Republican vice-presidential nominee Mike Pence. (During Pence's own debate preparations, Wisconsin governor Scott Walker played the role of Kaine.) Pence was criticized after the debate for not defending Trump's comments, while Kaine was criticized for being too aggressive and interrupting. According to ABC News, Kaine interrupted 70 times during the debate, while Pence interrupted 40 times.
Despite winning a plurality of the national popular vote, the Clinton-Kaine ticket lost the Electoral College, and thus the election, to the Trump-Pence ticket on November 8, 2016. This is the only election Kaine has ever lost. Clinton-Kaine did win Virginia, the only Southern state to vote for the Democratic ticket, a victory attributed in part to Kaine.
2018 election
After the 2016 election, Kaine said he would run for reelection to the Senate in 2018. He expressed his desire to emulate John Warner, who represented Virginia in the Senate for 30 years. He added that he would not run for president or vice president in the future.
In his 2018 Senate campaign against Republican nominee and Trump ally Corey Stewart, Kaine had the endorsement of The Richmond Times-Dispatch, marking the first time in decades the paper had endorsed a Democrat.
After taking an early lead in his race against Stewart, Kaine worked to support other Democrats who, in seven districts, were challenging incumbent Republicans for House seats. Kaine defeated Stewart by more than 15 points.
Personality and leadership style
About 145,000 emails from Kaine and his staff during his term as governor are publicly accessible at the Library of Virginia. Politico conducted an analysis of the correspondence and wrote that the messages show Kaine to be a "media-savvy" and detail-oriented "micro-manager" who is also a policy "wonk".
According to The New York Times, Kaine "is widely described by people in his political orbit as a likable if less than charismatic figure...guided by moral convictions that flow from his deep Christian faith." On Meet the Press, Kaine called himself "boring."
Political positions
In terms of political ideology, FiveThirtyEight gives Kaine an average score of −37 (−100 is the most liberal, and 100 is the most conservative). FiveThirtyEight characterizes him as a "mainstream Democrat" and notes that his ideology score is very similar to that of Joe Biden. Three conservative groups—the American Conservative Union, the Club for Growth, and Heritage Action—gave Kaine 0% ratings in the few years before 2016, while the liberal group Americans for Democratic Action gave Kaine a 90% rating in 2014. The New York Times wrote that "in hyperpartisan Washington, he is often seen as a centrist" while also describing him as an "old-fashioned liberal...driven by Jesuit ideals."
Abortion, birth control, and sex education
Kaine, a Roman Catholic, personally opposes abortion, but is "largely inclined to keep the law out of women's reproductive decisions." He has said, "I'm a strong supporter of Roe v. Wade and women being able to make these decisions. In government, we have enough things to worry about. We don't need to make people's reproductive decisions for them." Kaine supports some legal restrictions on abortion, such as requiring parental consent for minors (with a judicial bypass procedure) and banning late-term abortions in cases where the woman's life is not at risk.
In 2009, Kaine signed a bill to create a "Choose Life" license plate, among the more than 200 Virginia specialty plates already offered, the proceeds of which would partly go to Heartbeat International, a Christian organization that operates anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers. Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice America expressed disappointment in Kaine's decision. Kaine considered such license plate messages a matter of free speech and added that the move was "in keeping with the commonwealth's longtime practice of approving specialty plates with all manner of political and social messages."
Kaine previously criticized the Obama administration for "not providing a 'broad enough religious employer exemption'" in the contraceptive mandate of the Affordable Care Act, but praised a 2012 amendment to the regulations that required insurers to provide birth control to employees when an employer was an objecting religious organization.
In 2005, when running for governor, Kaine said he favored reducing abortions by "Enforcing the current Virginia restrictions on abortion and passing an enforceable ban on partial birth abortion that protects the life and health of the mother"; "Fighting teen pregnancy through abstinence-focused education"; "Ensuring women's access to health care (including legal contraception) and economic opportunity"; and "Promoting adoption as an alternative for women facing unwanted pregnancies."
In 2007, as governor, Kaine cut off state funding for abstinence-only sex education programs, citing studies that showed such programs were ineffective, while comprehensive sex education programs were more effective. Kaine believes that both abstinence and contraceptives must be taught, and that education should be evidence-based.
As a senator, Kaine has received perfect scores from Planned Parenthood and the abortion-rights advocacy group NARAL. He has received a score of zero from the anti-abortion National Right to Life Committee.
Campaign finance
Kaine "strongly disagrees" with Citizens United v. FEC (2010). In 2015, Kaine joined a group of Senate Democrats in a letter to Securities and Exchange Commission Chairwoman Mary Jo White that said the ruling "reversed long-standing precedent and has moved our country in a different and disturbing direction when it comes to corporate influence in politics." They urged the SEC to require publicly traded companies to disclose political spending to their shareholders to "increase transparency in the U.S. political process".
Capital punishment
Kaine personally opposes capital punishment, but presided over 11 executions while governor. He said, "I really struggled with [capital punishment] as governor. I have a moral position against the death penalty. But I took an oath of office to uphold it. Following an oath of office is also a moral obligation." During his time in office he commuted one death sentence in June 2008, that of Percy Levar Walton, to life imprisonment without parole on grounds of mental incompetence, writing that "one cannot reasonably conclude that Walton is fully aware of the punishment he is about to suffer and why he is to suffer it" and thus that executing him would be unconstitutional. Kaine vetoed a number of bills to expand the death sentence to more crimes, saying: "I do not believe that further expansion of the death penalty is necessary to protect human life or provide for public safety needs." Some of the vetoes were overridden.
On July 31, 2019, after Attorney General William Barr announced that the United States federal government would resume the use of the death penalty for the first time in over 20 years, Kaine co-sponsored a bill banning the death penalty.
Environment, energy, and climate change
Kaine acknowledges the scientific consensus on climate change, and in a 2014 Senate speech criticized climate change deniers, as well as those who "may not deny the climate science, but ... deny that the U.S. can or should be a leader in taking any steps" to address the issue.
Kaine has expressed concern about sea level rise (a major consequence of climate change), and in particular its effect on coastal Virginia. In 2014, he partnered with two Virginia Republicans—U.S. Representatives Rob Wittman and Scott Rigell—to hold a conference on sea-level rise and "local adaptation efforts to protect military installations in the Hampton Roads area."
Kaine endorses making coal energy production cleaner, saying that it is imperative "to convert coal to electricity with less pollution than we do today." He has criticized those who "frame the debate as a conflict between an economy and the environment", saying that "protecting the environment is good for the economy." Kaine co-sponsored the Advanced Clean Coal Technology Investment in Our Nation (ACCTION) Act, legislation to increase investment in clean coal technologies. He voted against legislation to approve the Keystone XL pipeline. Kaine supports the use of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) to harvest natural gas from shale formations. He believes this will reduce carbon pollution. Kaine voted against an amendment introduced by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand that would have repealed a provision in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 that exempts fracking from the underground injection control provisions of the Safe Drinking Water Act. As a result, regulation of fracking remains in the hands of state agencies; the EPA cannot regulate it or require a federal permit. Kaine supports exporting liquefied natural gas (LNG) to other countries.
Like his fellow senator from Virginia, Mark Warner, Kaine applauded the U.S. Forest Service's plan to close most, but not all, of the George Washington National Forest to fracking and other horizontal drilling activities.
In 2013, Kaine supported oil and gas exploration off the coast of Virginia, saying, "I have long believed that the moratorium on offshore drilling, based on a cost-benefit calculation performed decades ago, should be reexamined." In April 2015, Kaine reiterated his opposition to the moratorium on offshore drilling. In March 2016, Kaine signaled that his position was softening, saying he was "particularly struck by the material objections of the Department of Defense to the incompatibility of drilling with naval operations off Virginia's coast... I have participated in this debate for over a decade as a governor and member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. The DOD has been relatively quiet during this public debate and has never shared their objections with me before." By August 2016, Kaine stated his support for a ban on offshore drilling, bringing his position in line with Hillary Clinton's and the Obama administration's.
Kaine supports the development of solar energy and offshore wind turbines. Based on his votes on environmental issues in the Senate, the League of Conservation Voters has given Kaine a 95% score for 2018, and a 94% lifetime score. (At the time of his vice-presidential campaign, Kaine had an 88% score for 2015, and a 91% lifetime score.)
In March 2019, Kaine was one of 11 senators to sponsor the Climate Security Act of 2019, legislation forming a new group within the State Department that would be responsible for developing strategies to integrate climate science and data into operations of national security as well as restoring the post of special envoy for the Arctic, which Trump had dismantled in 2017. The proposed envoy would advise the president and the administration on the potential effects of climate on national security and be responsible for facilitating all interagency communication between federal science and security agencies.
In April 2019, Kaine was one of 12 senators to sign a bipartisan letter to top senators on the Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development advocating that the Energy Department be granted maximum funding for carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS), arguing that American job growth could be stimulated by investment in viable options to capture carbon emissions released into the atmosphere and expressing disagreement with the Trump's 2020 budget request to combine the two federal programs that include carbon capture research.
Financial regulation
Kaine strongly supports financial regulation and the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. In July 2016, he signed a bipartisan letter that "urged the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to 'carefully tailor its rulemaking' [under Dodd-Frank] regarding community banks and credit unions so as not to 'unduly burden' these institutions with regulations aimed at commercial banks." The letter prompted criticism from progressives who viewed it as anti-regulation. Democracy for America executive director Charles Chamberlain called the letter "a lobbyist-driven effort to help banks dodge consumer protection standards and regulations designed to prevent banks from destroying our economy." Kaine responded, "it's important you don't treat every financial institution the same. It wasn't credit unions that tanked the economy, it wasn't local community banks that tanked the economy, generally wasn't regional banks that did things that tanked the economy." He also signed a letter urging that a requirement that regional banks report liquidity levels on a daily basis be loosened.
Foreign and defense policy
In the Senate, Kaine has supported the normalization of U.S.–Cuban relations and the international nuclear agreement with Iran.
Kaine expressed support for Israel's right to defend itself during the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict. In September 2016, in advance of a UN Security Council resolution 2334 condemning Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, he signed an AIPAC-sponsored letter urging Obama to veto "one-sided" resolutions against Israel.
In 2015, Kaine expressed support for the Saudi-led coalition's airstrikes in Yemen against Houthi forces fighting the government of President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, but in 2018, he was one of seven senators to sign a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo saying that they found it "difficult to reconcile known facts with at least two" of the Trump administration's certifications that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were attempting to protect Yemeni civilians and were in compliance with U.S. laws on arms sales, citing an inconsistency with a memo from Pompeo to Congress expressly stating that on some occasions the Saudi and Emirates governments had failed to adopt measures to reduce civilian casualties. Kaine also condemned the Trump administration for its "eagerness to give the Saudis anything they want" after the administration approved the transfer of nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia after the murder of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi.
In July 2017, Kaine voted for the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act that placed sanctions on Iran, Russia, and North Korea.
In 2019, Kaine was one of 34 Senate Democrats to sign a letter to Trump urging him to reconsider cuts to U.S. foreign aid to the Northern Triangle countries of Central America in the Fiscal Year 2018 national security appropriations bill. The letter said that Trump had "consistently expressed a flawed understanding of U.S. foreign assistance", viewing it as a gift or charity to foreign governments rather than a tool to promote American interests and collective security. The senators wrote that U.S. foreign assistance to Central American countries, by improving stability and alleviating poverty in the region, reduced Central American migration flows to the U.S.
In 2019, Kaine co-sponsored the South China Sea and East China Sea Sanctions Act, a bipartisan bill reintroduced by Marco Rubio and Ben Cardin that was intended to disrupt China's consolidation or expansion of its claims of jurisdiction over both the sea and airspace in disputed zones in the South China Sea.
Grand strategy and democracy promotion
After the 2016 presidential campaign, Kaine wrote an extensive essay in Foreign Affairs outlining his underlying foreign policy philosophy. According to Kaine, American foreign policy has suffered a lack of direction since the 1990s because the end of the Cold War rendered irrelevant America's previous grand strategy, which he identifies as the Truman Doctrine. This lack of grand strategy makes American actions seem random, complicating the policy-making process and hindering American leaders' efforts to convince the public that American foreign policy is worthwhile. To remedy this, Kaine proposed a new grand strategy based mainly on democracy promotion. His grand strategy is informed by a tri-polar balance of international power, with one pole being democratic states including the U.S. and its allies, the second autocratic powers led by Russia and China, and the third nonstate actors (multinational corporations, NGOs, gangs, etc.).
First, Kaine believes that the United States should work to support democracy in already democratic countries, as democracy globally has been declining for many years. To maintain democracy in democratic countries, Kaine proposes the creation of an intergovernmental organization consisting of all the world's democracies in which states can cooperate on solutions to problems such as corruption and voter inclusion. He compares this hypothetical group to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, in which advanced industrialized countries collaborate on economic policy. Kaine believes that this new organization will help democracies remain democratic, as well as promote democracy in other countries by giving them viable democratic examples to emulate. In this way, Kaine says that the U.S. should no longer see itself as the indispensable nation, but rather the "exemplary democracy".
Second, Kaine proposes that democracies should coordinate to best interact with authoritarian states. Depending on the circumstances, democracies should either "confront", "compete", or "cooperate" with autocracies. For example, Kaine observes that the U.S. competes with its authoritarian adversaries by strengthening military and commercial alliances, and confronts them by decrying their human rights records.
Finally, Kaine believes that democracies and autocracies should cooperate when they have the same interests, such as combating climate change.
In July 2017, Kaine expanded on the grand strategy proposed in this essay in an interview at the Brookings Institution with international relations scholar Robert Kagan.
Afghanistan
Kaine's website states, "The main mission in Afghanistan—destroying Al Qaeda—is nearly complete and we should bring our troops home as quickly as we can, consistent with the need to make sure that Afghanistan poses no danger in the broader region."
Latin America
Kaine believes that American foreign policy has neglected relations with Latin America and argues for an increased focus on the Americas, saying, "We have seldom paid enough attention to the Americas, in particular, and when we have—whether through the Monroe Doctrine or by battling communist movements during the Cold War—we have focused more on blocking outsiders from building influence in the Western Hemisphere than we have on the nations already there."
War powers
Kaine is known for "expertise on the constitutional powers of the presidency" and has said that "war powers questions" are a "personal obsession" of his. He has stressed that under the Constitution, "Congress has the power to declare war—and only Congress." Kaine called the 2018 U.S. missile strikes Trump ordered against the Syrian government illegal because they were undertaken without congressional approval.
Kaine and Senator John McCain introduced the War Powers Consultation Act of 2014, which would replace the War Powers Act of 1973, bringing Congress back into decisions on the deployment of U.S. military forces. The bill would establish a Congressional Consultation Committee, with which the president would be required to consult regularly regarding significant foreign policy matters before ordering the deployment of the armed forces into a significant armed conflict and at least every two months for the duration of any significant armed conflict. Kaine argued for the bill by citing his "frustration" over the sloppiness of "process and communication over decisions of war", noting that "presidents tend to overreach and Congress sometimes willingly ducks tough votes and decisions. We all have to do better."
In February 2018, Kaine was one of 18 senators to sign a letter to Trump arguing that striking North Korea with "a preventative or preemptive U.S. military strike would lack either a constitutional basis or legal authority" without congressional approval.
In January 2020, Kaine introduced a new war powers resolution that would prohibit the U.S. from entering hostilities against Iran within 30 days unless it was responding to an imminent threat. The next month, the measure passed the Senate 55–45, securing the votes of eight Republicans along with the Democrats. Trump vetoed the measure, and the Senate failed to override the veto.
Syria, Iraq, and ISIL
In 2014, Kaine argued that the U.S. military intervention against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) undertaken by Obama was unconstitutional without a new congressional authorization for the use of military force against ISIL. In November 2014, at the Halifax International Security Forum, Kaine and McCain emphasized the necessity of such a congressional authorization, saying: "You just can't have a war without Congress. You can't ask people to risk their lives, risk getting killed, seeing other folks getting killed or injured if Congress isn't willing to do the job to put their thumbprint on this and say, this is a national mission and worth it." After the April 2017 Shayrat missile strike in Syria, ordered by Trump, Kaine said, "There is no legal justification for this. He should not have done this without coming to Congress." On Meet the Press, Kaine said, "I'm a strong supporter that the U.S. should take action to protect humanitarian causes, like the ban on chemical weapons. Where I differ from this administration, and I took the same position with respect to President Obama, we are a nation that's not supposed to take military action, start war, without a plan that's presented to and approved by Congress."
On December 11, 2014, after a five-month campaign by Kaine, the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved by 10–8 (along party lines) a measure authorizing military force against ISIL but barring the use of ground troops. In October 2015, Kaine criticized Obama's approach to the Syrian Civil War, saying that the establishment of humanitarian no-fly zones would have alleviated the humanitarian crisis in Syria.
In April 2018, Kaine criticized Trump for authorizing the launch of a precision military strike on Syria without consulting Congress, calling the strike an "illegal military act".
On February 26, 2021, Kaine demanded answers from President Biden after he ordered airstrikes on Syria against Iran-backed militias without giving "legal justification" to members of Congress beforehand.
Firearms
Kaine is a firearms owner. He has supported expanded background checks for weapons purchases as well as "restrictions on the sale of combat-style weapons and high-capacity magazines." As governor, Kaine oversaw the closing of loopholes in Virginia law that allowed some who had failed background checks to purchase guns. In the Senate, he has supported legislation that would require background checks for weapons sold via gun shows and via the internet. He also supports legislation to bar weapons sales to suspected terrorists on the No Fly List.
In November 2017, Kaine was a cosponsor of the Military Domestic Violence Reporting Enhancement Act, a bill that would form a charge of domestic violence under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) and stipulate that convictions be reported to federal databases with the authority to keep abusers from purchasing firearms within three days in an attempt to close a loophole in the UCMJ through which convicted abusers retained the ability to purchase firearms.
In March 2018, Kaine was one of ten senators to sign a letter to Chairman of the United States Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Lamar Alexander and ranking Democrat Patty Murray requesting they schedule a hearing on the causes and remedies of mass shootings in the wake of the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting.
In June 2019, Kaine was one of four senators to cosponsor the Help Empower Americans to Respond (HEAR) Act, legislation that would ban suppressors being imported, sold, made, sent elsewhere or possessed and grant a silencer buyback program as well as include certain exceptions for current and former law enforcement personnel and others. The bill was intended to respond to the Virginia Beach shooting, in which the perpetrator used a .45-caliber handgun with multiple extended magazines and a suppressor.
Kaine has a 100% rating from the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and an "F" rating from the NRA.
Health care
Kaine supports the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2009 (Obamacare), saying in 2012, "I was a supporter and remain a supporter of the Affordable Care Act. I felt like it was a statement that we were going to put some things in the rearview mirror." In 2013, he said that he agreed that changes to the ACA should be debated, but criticized Republicans for "wrapping them up with the threat" of a federal government shutdown.
In 2018, Kaine and Senator Michael Bennet proposed the creation of "Medicare X"—a public health insurance option modeled after Medicare that would be available on ACA health insurance marketplaces along with private options. The proposal is a more incrementalist alternative to Bernie Sanders's push for "Medicare for All" (single-payer health care).
In December 2018, Kaine was one of 42 senators to sign a letter to Trump administration officials Alex Azar, Seema Verma, and Steve Mnuchin arguing that the administration was improperly using Section 1332 of the ACA to authorize states to "increase health care costs for millions of consumers while weakening protections for individuals with pre-existing conditions." The senators requested the administration withdraw the policy and "re-engage with stakeholders, states, and Congress."
In January 2019, Kaine was one of six Democratic senators to introduce the American Miners Act of 2019, a bill that would amend the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 to swap funds in excess of the amounts needed to meet existing obligations under the Abandoned Mine Land fund to the 1974 Pension Plan as part of an effort to prevent its insolvency as a result of coal company bankruptcies and the 2008 financial crisis. It also increased the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund tax and ensured that miners affected by the 2018 coal company bankruptcies would not lose their health care.
In December 2016, Kaine was one of 17 senators to sign a letter to Trump asking him to fulfill a campaign pledge to bring down the cost of prescription drugs. In February 2017, he and 30 other senators signed a letter to Kaléo Pharmaceuticals in response to the opioid-overdose-reversing device Evzio rising in price from $690 in 2014 to $4,500 and requested the company provide the detailed price structure for Evzio, the number of devices Kaléo Pharmaceuticals set aside for donation, and the totality of federal reimbursements Evzio received in the previous year. In February 2019, Kaine was one of 11 senators to sign a letter to insulin manufacturers Eli Lilly and Company, Novo Nordisk, and Sanofi about increased insulin prices and charging that the price increases caused patients to lack "access to the life-saving medications they need."
In August 2019, Kaine was one of 19 Democratic senators to sign a letter to Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar requesting data from the Trump administration on the consequences for healthcare if Texas prevailed in its lawsuit seeking to gut the Affordable Care Act. The senators wrote, "Upending the current health care system will create an enormous hole in the pocketbooks of the people we serve as well as wreck state budgets; therefore, we ask for data to help states and Congress better understand the potential consequences of the position the Administration is taking in court."
In September 2019, amid discussions to prevent a government shutdown, Kaine was one of six Democratic senators to sign a letter to congressional leadership advocating legislation that would permanently fund health care and pension benefits for retired coal miners as "families in Virginia, West Virginia, Wyoming, Alabama, Colorado, North Dakota and New Mexico" would start to receive notifications of health care termination by the end of the following month.
Immigration
Kaine supports the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Deferred Action for Parental Accountability (DAPA) programs, which allow up to five million undocumented immigrants to gain deferral of deportation and authorization to legally work in the United States. Alongside Senator Mark Warner and many other members of Congress, he signed on to an amicus brief in support of the program in the Supreme Court case United States v. Texas.
Kaine also supports comprehensive immigration reform, which would allow persons illegally present in the U.S. to earn legal status by paying a fine and taxes.
In July 2019, following reports that the Trump administration intended to end protections of spouses, parents and children of active-duty service members from deportation, Kaine was one of 22 senators to sign a letter led by Tammy Duckworth arguing that the program allowed service members the ability "to fight for the United States overseas and not worry that their spouse, children, or parents will be deported while they are away" and that the its termination would cause personal hardship for service members in combat.
In July 2019, Kaine and 15 other Senate Democrats introduced the Protecting Sensitive Locations Act, a bill to mandate that ICE agents get approval from a supervisor before undertaking an immigration raid or other enforcement actions at "sensitive locations" (schools, hospitals, places of worship, and courthouses) except in special circumstances. The bill would also require agents to receive annual training and require ICE to submit an annual report on enforcement actions in those locations.
LGBT rights
In 2006, Kaine campaigned against an amendment to the Virginia State Constitution to ban same-sex marriage, and in March 2013, he announced his support of same-sex marriage.
In the Senate, Kaine co-sponsored the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which would bar employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
In 2005, Kaine said, "No couples in Virginia can adopt other than a married couple. That's the right policy." In 2011, he shifted his position. In 2012, he said, "there should be a license that would entitle a committed couple to the same rights as a married couple."
During the 2016 presidential campaign, Kaine noted that his position on same-sex marriage was "at odds with the current doctrine of the church that I still attend." He predicted that the Roman Catholic Church would someday adopt his view. In response, two bishops heading the doctrine and marriage committees of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said that the church's position "cannot change" and reaffirmed their opposition to same-sex marriage.
In October 2018, Kaine was one of 20 senators to sign a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urging him to reverse the State Department's policy of denying visas to same-sex partners of LGBTQ diplomats who had unions that were not recognized by their home countries, writing that the Trump administration's refusal to allow LGBTQ diplomats to bring their partners to the U.S. was tantamount to upholding the "discriminatory policies of many countries around the world." In June 2019, Kaine was one of 18 senators to sign a letter to Pompeo requesting an explanation of the State Department's decision not to issue an official statement that year commemorating Pride Month or issue the annual cable outlining activities for embassies commemorating Pride Month. The signatories to the letter also asked why the LGBTI special envoy position had remained vacant. The authors said that the State Department's moves had sent "signals to the international community that the United States is abandoning the advancement of LGBTI rights as a foreign policy priority."
Taxes
Kaine supports allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire for those with incomes above $500,000.
In 2012, Kaine supported raising the cap on income subject for the FICA (Social Security) payroll tax "so that it covers a similar percentage of income as it did in the 1980s under President Reagan, which would greatly extend the solvency of the (Social Security) program."
In the Senate, Kaine has supported the Marketplace Fairness Act, which would allow states to require online retailers to collect sales taxes in the same manner as traditional brick-and-mortar retailers.
Trade
Kaine supported granting Obama Trade Promotion Authority (TPA or "fast track") to allow him to negotiate free trade agreements. He said the goal should be to "negotiate deals that protect workers' rights, environmental standards and intellectual property, while knocking down tariffs and other barriers that some countries erect to keep American products out."
In July 2016, Kaine said the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement was "an improvement of the status quo" and an "upgrade of labor standards... environmental standards... intellectual property protections", but maintained that he had not yet decided how to vote on final approval of the agreement, citing "significant concerns" over TPP's dispute resolution mechanism. Later that July, Kaine said that he could not support the TPP in its current form.
Kaine has been a proponent of NAFTA.
Transportation, growth, and housing
Kaine supports some smart growth-style policies (which he calls "a balanced approach to growth") to control sprawl and improve transportation. He favors a transportation policy that includes public transit, bicycles, and pedestrians. As governor, Kaine pushed through a $100 million open-space acquisition initiative. Under Kaine, Amtrak service in Virginia was expanded. He also participated in a White House round-table discussion on high-speed rail in 2009.
In April 2019, Kaine was one of 41 senators to sign a bipartisan letter in support of U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Section 4 Capacity Building program, a program authorizing HUD to partner with nonprofit community development groups to provide support to community development corporations. The letter said that the longstanding program had successfully promoted economic and community development, opposed the proposed elimination of the plan in Trump's budget proposal for Fiscal Year 2020, and urged the Senate to support continued funding for Section 4 in Fiscal Year 2020.
Workers' rights and gender equality
Kaine is "generally pro-union" and has received a 96% lifetime Senate voting rating from the AFL-CIO, which praised his selection as Clinton's running mate. But Kaine supports Virginia's longstanding "right-to-work" law, which "frees union nonmembers from any legal obligation to pay fees to a union that bargains collectively on their behalf".
Kaine supports the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which expands the cases in which worker can sue against gender pay discrimination. After Clinton selected him as her running mate in 2016, Kaine was praised by the National Organization for Women.
Kaine favors an increase in the minimum wage.
Electoral history
2001 lieutenant gubernatorial election
2005 gubernatorial election
2012 U.S. Senate election
2016 vice presidential election
2018 U.S. Senate election
Personal life
In November 1984, Kaine married Anne Bright Holton, the daughter of A. Linwood Holton Jr., a Republican who served as the 61st governor of Virginia from 1970 to 1974. The couple met while they were both students at Harvard Law School. Holton has been a judge for the Virginia Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court in Richmond. After serving as first lady of Virginia during her husband's term, she was appointed by Governor Terry McAuliffe in January 2014 to be Virginia's secretary of education, and held that position until July 2016, when she stepped down after her husband was named as the Democratic vice-presidential nominee. The couple has three children, one of whom is a United States Marine. As of 2016, Kaine and his wife had been congregants of the St. Elizabeth Catholic Church in Richmond, a mostly black congregation, for 30 years.
Kaine plays the harmonica and often travels with several.
Kaine is fluent in Spanish as a result of his nine months in Honduras. During the 2016 campaign, he became the first member of a presidential ticket to deliver a speech in Spanish.
On May 28, 2020, Kaine announced that he and his wife had tested positive for COVID-19 antibodies.
Awards and honors
Kaine has received the Humanitarian Award from the Virginia Center for Inclusive Communities, then the Virginia Region of the National Conference for Community and Justice (2000), the Virginia Council of Churches' Faith in Action Award (2009), the University of Richmond School of Law's William Green Award for Professional Excellence (2012), the Award for Public Service in the Americas from the Inter-American Dialogue (2014), the Appalachian Trail Conservancy's Congressional Award (2015), and the Center for the National Interest's Distinguished Service Award (2016). He was made a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Isabella the Catholic in 2017.
Notes
References
Further reading
Governor
Kaine's Governor website (Archived)
Kaine's Lieutenant governor website (Archived)
2005 campaign contributions at the Virginia Public Access Project
Moving Virginia Forward Archived Web Site, 2007 part of Virginia's Political Landscape, 2007 Web Archive Collection at Virginia Memory
Moving Virginia Forward Archived Web Site, 2009 part of Virginia's Political Landscape, 2009 Web Archive Collection at Virginia Memory
Tim Kaine for Governor Archived Web Site, 2005–2006 part of Virginia's Political Landscape, Fall 2005 Web Archive Collection at Virginia Memory
Governor Tim Kaine Administration Web Site Archive, 2006–2010
Kaine Email Project at the Library of Virginia
External links
U.S. Senate website
Campaign website
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1958 births
20th-century American lawyers
20th-century American politicians
20th-century Roman Catholics
21st-century American lawyers
21st-century American politicians
21st-century Roman Catholics
American civil rights lawyers
American legal scholars
American people of Irish descent
American people of Scottish descent
American Roman Catholic missionaries
Catholics from Missouri
Catholics from Minnesota
Catholics from Virginia
Democratic National Committee chairs
Democratic Party state governors of the United States
Democratic Party United States senators from Virginia
Democratic Party (United States) vice presidential nominees
Governors of Virginia
Harvard Law School alumni
Hillary Clinton 2016 presidential campaign
Lawyers from Kansas City, Missouri
Lieutenant Governors of Virginia
Living people
Mark Warner
Mayors of Richmond, Virginia
Politicians from Kansas City, Missouri
Politicians from Saint Paul, Minnesota
Knights Grand Cross of the Order of Isabella the Catholic
Richmond, Virginia City Council members
Roman Catholic missionaries in Honduras
United States senators from Virginia
2016 United States vice-presidential candidates
University of Missouri alumni
University of Richmond faculty
Virginia Democrats
Virginia lawyers
| false |
[
"Come Out Fighting Ghengis Smith is English folk / rock singer-songwriter and guitarist Roy Harper's second album and was released in 1968. The album was re-issued in 1977 as The Early Years, re-issued once more on Compact disc in 1991, and was re-released again in December 2017 in both Remastered, 180 Gram Vinyl and CD formats.\n\nHistory\n\nColumbia Records, recognising Harper's potential, hired American producer Shel Talmy to produce the album. Talmy later claimed that 'Harper was difficult... truculent... we battled. But we got round to it'.\n\nMusically, the album was notable for the 11-minute track \"Circle\" comprising several movements, \"a soundscape of Harper's difficult youth\" that, according to Harper, was \"totally unlike anything anyone else was doing. The Beatles weren’t doing anything like that at the time. The Stones weren’t doing anything like it, either. No-one was\"\n\nCareer-wise, the album was notable for establishing a broadening in Harper's musical style away from the more traditional side of contemporary folk music then played. Harper had an interest in traditional folk but did not consider himself a Bona fide member of the folk scene. He later explained:-\n\nHarper's record company had different expectations. \"They wanted me to write commercial pop songs and when they heard the album...they didn’t have a clue. They wanted hits. And I gave them \"Circle\"\". Bert Jansch contributed sleeve notes for the album. During this period, Harper was managed by American music entrepreneur Jo Lustig; manager of The Pentangle and former agent to Julie Felix.\n\nRe-releases\nIn 1977 the album was re-issued by CBS with different cover art under the title The Early Years. In 1991 the album was re-released again by Awareness Records with new artwork and additional content. The 2017 remastered album removed those 1991 bonus tracks, reverting to the original 1968 tracklist.\n\nThe track \"You Don't Need Money\" appeared on the first bargain priced sampler album, The Rock Machine Turns You On, as \"Nobody's Got Any Money In The Summer\".\n\nTrack listing\n\nPersonnel\nRoy Harper – vocals, instruments\n Laurie Allan – additional musician\n Keith Mansfield – additional musician, orchestral arrangements\nTechnical\nLippa Pearce – design layout\nWayne Millar – photography\n Bert Jansch – liner notes\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nRoy Harper Official Site\nExcellent Roy Harper resource\nThe Stormcock Community fan site\n\n1968 albums\nRoy Harper (singer) albums\nAlbums produced by Shel Talmy\nCBS Records albums\nScience Friction albums\nAwareness Records albums",
"Gerald Frank Else (July 1, 1908 – 6 September 1982) was a distinguished American classicist. He was professor of Greek and Latin at University of Michigan and University of Iowa. Else is substantially credited with the refinement of Aristotelian scholarship in aesthetics in the 20th century to expand the reading of catharsis alone to include the aesthetic triad of mimesis, hamartia, and catharsis as all essentially linked to each other.\n\nBiography\nElse studied classics and philosophy at Harvard University and finished his PhD there in 1934. He taught at Harvard University until he joined the U.S. Marine Corps as a Captain in 1943. After completing his service, in 1945 he became chair of the University of Iowa Classics Department. He spent 1956 to 1957 at The American Academy in Rome and in September of 1957 went to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where he remained for the rest of his career. He was chair of that department from 1957 to 1968. During that time he founded the Center for Coordination of Ancient and Modern Studies, seeking to unite the humanities and to show how the study of the ancient world is relevant to modern literature and modern concerns.\n\nAccomplishments\nElse's magnum opus is titled, Aristotle's Poetics: The Argument. It is a meticulous, comprehensive reading of Aristotle's treatise that was published in 1957. Widely regarded in its time as a central work of literary theory, Else's other important contribution is The Origin and Early Form of Greek Tragedy, which was published in 1965. In this work he argued against the view of tragedy as having arisen from religious ritual. Else wrote several other works on Greek literature and philosophy.\n\nUp to Else's time, Aristotle's concept of catharsis was almost exclusively associated with the reading of Jakob Bernays who defined it as the \"therapeutic purgation of pity and fear.\" In a convincing manner, Else refined this definition to understanding literary catharsis as, \"that moment of insight which arises out of the audience's climactic intellectual, emotional, and spiritual enlightenment, which for Aristotle is both the essential pleasure and essential goal of mimetic art.\" For Else, catharsis is an Aristotelian concept which must be read alongside the literary concepts of mimesis and hamartia as well. These latter two concepts are usually paraphrased as \"literary representation\" and \"intellectual error\" in Else's appraisal of Aristotle's literary aesthetic theory.\n\nElse was a member of the National Council for the Humanities, appointed by President Lyndon Johnson, and was President of the American Philological Association in 1964. Else retired in 1977 and died in 1982. A Festschrift in his honor (Ancient and Modern: Essays in Honor of Gerald F. Else, ed. J. D'Arms and J. W. Eadie) was published in 1977. A volume of collected essays written by Else was edited by Peter Burian, an editor at the University of North Carolina Press, in 1987 fourteen of Else's essays titled Plato and Aristotle on Poetry. The volume is notable for the inclusion of the biography on Else by Burian included in the prefatory section of the book., pp xi-xvi. Gerald Else is commemorated at Michigan by an annual lecture in the humanities.\n\nBooks\n Aristotle's Poetics: the argument. 1957\n Origin and early form of Greek tragedy. 1965\n Ancient and modern : essays in honor of Gerald F. Else. edited by John H. D'Arms, John W. Eadie. 1977\n Plato and Aristotle on poetry. Edited with introduction and notes by Peter Burian. 1986\n Aristotle Poetics. translated with an introd. and notes by Gerald F. Else.\n\nExternal links\n \n \n Picture of Gerald Else\n\nReferences\n\n1908 births\n1982 deaths\nWriters from Lincoln, Nebraska\nHarvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni\nUniversity of Iowa faculty\nUniversity of Michigan faculty\nPeople from Redfield, South Dakota"
] |
[
"Tim Kaine",
"Legal career and Richmond City Council",
"Where did Kaine attend law school?",
"I don't know.",
"What year was he elected to city council?",
"In May 1994,",
"was he known for achieving anything special while on the council?",
"Kaine spent four terms on the council, the latter two as mayor.",
"Did he represent a specific political party?",
"specializing in fair housing law and representing clients discriminated against on the basis of race or disability.",
"Did he recieve any awards?",
"Kaine became a director with the law firm of Mezzullo & McCandlish, P.C.",
"Did he win any notable cases?",
"he represented in a landmark redlining discrimination lawsuit against Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co.",
"Was there anything else notable about his early career?",
"Kaine did regular pro bono work. In 1988, Kaine started teaching"
] |
C_6e5a0e696db14512b25f50b8092751a7_1
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What did he teach?
| 8 |
What did Tim Kaine teach?
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Tim Kaine
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After graduating from law school, Kaine was a law clerk for Judge R. Lanier Anderson III of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, in Macon, Georgia. Kaine then joined the Richmond law firm of Little, Parsley & Cluverius, P.C. In 1987, Kaine became a director with the law firm of Mezzullo & McCandlish, P.C. Kaine practiced law in Richmond for 17 years, specializing in fair housing law and representing clients discriminated against on the basis of race or disability. He was a board member of the Virginia chapter of Housing Opportunities Made Equal, which he represented in a landmark redlining discrimination lawsuit against Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. arising from the company's practices in Richmond. Kaine won a $100.5 million verdict in the case; the judgment was overturned on appeal, and Kaine and his colleagues negotiated a $17.5 million settlement. Kaine did regular pro bono work. In 1988, Kaine started teaching legal ethics as an adjunct professor at the University of Richmond School of Law. Kaine taught at the University of Richmond for six years, and his students included future Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring. He was a founding member of the Virginia Coalition to End Homelessness. Kaine had a largely apolitical childhood, but became interested in politics in part due to the influence of his wife's family and his experience attending Richmond city council meetings. In May 1994, Kaine was elected to the city council of the independent city of Richmond, from the City's 2nd District. He defeated incumbent city councilman Benjamin P. A. Warthen by 97 votes. Kaine spent four terms on the council, the latter two as mayor. CANNOTANSWER
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legal ethics as an adjunct professor
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Timothy Michael Kaine (; born February 26, 1958) is an American lawyer and politician serving as the junior United States senator from Virginia since 2013. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 38th lieutenant governor of Virginia from 2002 to 2006 and 70th governor of Virginia from 2006 to 2010. Kaine was the Democratic nominee for vice president of the United States in the 2016 election as Hillary Clinton's running mate.
Born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, Kaine grew up in Overland Park, Kansas, graduated from the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri, and earned a Juris Doctor degree from Harvard Law School before entering private practice and becoming a lecturer at the University of Richmond School of Law. He was first elected to public office in 1994, when he won a seat on the Richmond City Council. He was elected mayor of Richmond in 1998 and held that position until being elected lieutenant governor of Virginia in 2001. Kaine was elected governor of Virginia in 2005 and held that office from 2006 to 2010. He chaired the Democratic National Committee from 2009 to 2011.
On July 22, 2016, Hillary Clinton introduced Kaine as her vice-presidential running mate. The 2016 Democratic National Convention nominated him on July 27. Despite winning a plurality of the national popular vote, the ClintonKaine ticket lost the Electoral College, and thus the election, to the Republican ticket of Donald Trump and Mike Pence on November 8, 2016. Kaine was reelected to a second Senate term in 2018, defeating Republican Corey Stewart.
Early life and education
Kaine was born at Saint Joseph's Hospital in St. Paul, Minnesota. He is the eldest of three sons born to Mary Kathleen (née Burns), a home economics teacher, and Albert Alexander Kaine, Jr., a welder and the owner of a small iron-working shop. He was raised Catholic. One of Kaine's great-grandparents was Scottish and the other seven were Irish. Kaine's family moved to Overland Park, Kansas, when Kaine was two years old, and he grew up in the Kansas City area. In 1976, he graduated from Rockhurst High School, a Jesuit all-boys preparatory school in Kansas City, Missouri. At Rockhurst, Kaine joined the debate team and was elected student body president.
Kaine received his Bachelor of Arts in economics from the University of Missouri in 1979, completing his degree in three years and graduating Omicron Delta Kappa and summa cum laude. He was a Coro Foundation fellow in Kansas City in 1978. He entered Harvard Law School in 1979, interrupting his law studies after his first year to work in Honduras for nine months from 1980 to 1981, helping Jesuit missionaries who ran a Catholic school in El Progreso. While running a vocational center that taught carpentry and welding, he also helped increase the school's enrollment by recruiting local villagers. Kaine is fluent in Spanish as a result of his time in Honduras.
After returning from Honduras, Kaine met his future wife, first-year Harvard Law student Anne Holton. He graduated from Harvard Law School with a J.D. degree in 1983. Kaine and Holton moved to Holton's hometown of Richmond, Virginia, after graduation, and Kaine was admitted to the Virginia bar in 1984.
Legal career and Richmond City Council
After graduating from law school, Kaine was a law clerk for Judge R. Lanier Anderson III of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, in Macon, Georgia. He then joined the Richmond law firm of Little, Parsley & Cluverius, P.C. In 1987, Kaine became a director of the law firm of Mezzullo & McCandlish, P.C. He practiced law in Richmond for 17 years, specializing in fair housing law and representing clients discriminated against on the basis of race or disability. He was a board member of the Virginia chapter of Housing Opportunities Made Equal, which he represented in a landmark redlining discrimination lawsuit against Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. arising from the company's practices in Richmond. Kaine won a $100.5 million verdict in the case; the judgment was overturned on appeal, and Kaine and his colleagues negotiated a $17.5 million settlement.
Kaine did regular pro bono work. In 1988, he started teaching legal ethics as an adjunct professor at the University of Richmond School of Law. Kaine taught at the University of Richmond for six years; his students included future Virginia attorney general Mark Herring. He was a founding member of the Virginia Coalition to End Homelessness.
Kaine had a largely apolitical childhood, but became interested in politics in part due to the influence of his wife's family and his experience attending Richmond city council meetings. In 1994, he was elected the 2nd district member of the city council of the independent city of Richmond, defeating incumbent city councilor Benjamin P.A. Warthen by less than 100 votes. He took his seat on July 1 and retained the position until September 10, 2001, when he resigned and William J. Pantele was appointed to succeed him. He defeated the incumbent city councilman Benjamin P.A. Warthen by 97 votes. Kaine spent four terms on the city council, the latter two as mayor of Richmond.
Mayor of Richmond (1998–2001)
On July 1, 1998, Kaine was elected mayor of Richmond, succeeding Larry Chavis. He was chosen by an 8 to 1 vote on the majority-black Richmond City Council, becoming the city's first white mayor in more than ten years, which was viewed as a surprise. Rudy McCollum, an African American city councilor also interested in the mayoralty, decided to back Kaine after a private meeting between the two, clearing the way for Kaine to win the election. Previous mayors had treated the role as primarily ceremonial, with the city manager effectively operating the city; Kaine treated it as a full-time job, taking a more hands-on role.
As mayor, Kaine used a sale-leaseback arrangement to obtain funds to renovate the historic Maggie L. Walker High School and reopen it in 2000 as a magnet governor's school, the Maggie L. Walker Governor's School for Government and International Studies, which "now serves the top students in Central Virginia". Three elementary schools and one middle school were also built in Richmond under Kaine. Along with Commonwealth's attorney David Hicks, U.S. attorney James Comey, and police chief Jerry Oliver, Kaine was a supporter of Project Exile, an initiative that shifted gun crimes to federal court, where defendants faced harsher sentences. Though controversial, the effort was effective and achieved widespread support; the city's homicide rate fell by 55% during Kaine's mayoralty. Kaine touted Project Exile during his 2001 campaign for lieutenant governor.
On several occasions, Kaine voted against tax increases, and supported a tax abatement program for renovated buildings, which was credited for a housing renovation boom in the city. Forbes magazine named Richmond one of "the 10 best cities in America to do business" during Kaine's term.
According to John Moeser, a professor emeritus of urban studies and planning at Virginia Commonwealth University and later a visiting fellow at the University of Richmond's Center for Civic Engagement, Mayor Kaine "was energetic, charismatic and, most important, spoke openly about his commitment to racial reconciliation in Richmond." The New York Times wrote that Kaine "was by all accounts instrumental in bridging the city's racial divide." In the early part of his term, Kaine issued an apology for the city's role in slavery; the apology was generally well received as "a genuine, heartfelt expression". In the latter part of his term, a contentious debate took place over the inclusion of a portrait of Confederate general Robert E. Lee in a set of historic murals to be placed on city floodwalls. Many African Americans were outraged that Lee would appear on city walls, while Southern heritage groups demanded that the picture remain. Kaine proposed a compromise in which Lee would appear as part of a series of murals that also included figures like Abraham Lincoln and Powhatan Beaty. His stance drew criticism from the NAACP; Kaine argued that placing Lee on the floodwall made sense in context, and that "Much of our history is not pleasant; you can't whitewash it." Kaine's proposal passed the council on a 6–3 vote.
During his mayoralty, Kaine drew criticism for spending $6,000 in public funds on buses to the Million Mom March, an anti-gun-violence rally in Washington, D.C.; after a backlash, he raised the money privately and reimbursed the city.
Lieutenant governor of Virginia (2002–2006)
Kaine ran for lieutenant governor of Virginia in 2001. He joined the race after state senator Emily Couric dropped out due to pancreatic cancer and endorsed Kaine as her replacement. In the Democratic primary election, Kaine ran against state delegate Alan A. Diamonstein of Newport News, and state delegate Jerrauld C. Jones of Norfolk. Kaine won the nomination, with 39.7% of the vote to Diamonstein's 31.4% and Jones's 28.9%.
In the general election, Kaine won with 925,974 votes (50.35%), edging out his Republican opponent, state delegate Jay Katzen, who received 883,886 (48.06%). Libertarian Gary Reams received 28,783 votes (1.57%).
Kaine was inaugurated on January 12, 2002, and was sworn in by his wife Anne Holton, a state judge.
2005 gubernatorial election
In 2005, Kaine ran for governor of Virginia against Republican candidate Jerry W. Kilgore, a former state attorney general. Kaine was considered an underdog for most of the race, trailing in polls for most of the campaign. Two September polls showed Kaine trailing Kilgore—by four percentage points in a Washington Post poll and by one point in a Mason-Dixon/Roanoke Times poll. The final polls of the race before the election showed Kaine slightly edging ahead of Kilgore.
Kaine ultimately prevailed, winning 1,025,942 votes (51.7%) to Kilgore's 912,327 (46.0%). A third candidate, independent state Senator H. Russell Potts Jr., ran as an "independent Republican" and received 43,953 votes (2.2%).
Kaine emphasized fiscal responsibility and a centrist message. He expressed support for controlling sprawl and tackling longstanding traffic issues, an issue that resonated in the northern Virginia exurbs. He benefited from his association with the popular outgoing Democratic governor, Mark Warner, who had performed well in traditionally Republican areas of the state. On the campaign trail, Kaine referred to the "Warner-Kaine administration" in speeches and received Warner's strong backing. Kilgore later attributed his defeat to Warner's high popularity and President George W. Bush's sharply declining popularity; Bush held a rally with Kilgore on the campaign's final day.
The campaign turned sharply negative in its final weeks, with Kilgore running television attack ads that falsely claimed that Kaine believed that "Hitler doesn't qualify for the death penalty." The ads also attacked Kaine for his service ten years earlier as a court-appointed attorney for a death-row inmate. The editorial boards of the Washington Post and a number of Virginia newspapers denounced the ads as a "smear" and "dishonest." Kaine responded with an ad "in which he told voters that he opposes capital punishment but would take an oath and enforce the death penalty. In later polls, voters said they believed Kaine's response and were angered by Kilgore's negative ads."
In the election, Kaine won by large margins in the Democratic strongholds such as Richmond and northern Virginia's inner suburbs (such as Alexandria and Arlington), as well as in the Democratic-trending Fairfax County. Kaine also won Republican-leaning areas in Northern Virginia's outer suburbs, including Prince William County and Loudoun County, where George W. Bush had beat John Kerry in the previous year's presidential election, and performed "surprisingly well in Republican strongholds like Virginia Beach and Chesapeake." Kaine also defeated Kilgore in the burgeoning Richmond suburbs. Kilgore led in southwest Virginia and in the Shenandoah Valley.
Governor of Virginia (2006–2010)
Kaine was sworn in as governor at the colonial Capitol at Williamsburg, on January 14, 2006, the first governor since Thomas Jefferson to be inaugurated there.
Kaine was chairman of the Southern Governors' Association from 2008 to 2009.
Democratic response to State of the Union address
On January 31, 2006, Kaine gave the Democratic response to President George W. Bush's 2006 State of the Union address. In it, he criticized the Bush administration's No Child Left Behind Act for "wreaking havoc on local school districts"; criticized congressional Republicans for cutting student loan programs; and condemned as "reckless" Bush's spending increases and tax cuts. Kaine praised bipartisan initiatives in Virginia "to make record investments in education" and to improve veterans' access to veterans' benefits. He criticized the Bush administration's conduct of the Iraq War and treatment of U.S. soldiers, saying that "the American people were given inaccurate information about reasons for invading Iraq"; "our troops in Iraq were not given the best body armor or the best intelligence"; and "the administration wants to further reduce military and veterans' benefits."
Energy, the environment, and conservation
As governor, Kaine protected of Virginia land from development, fulfilling a promise he made in 2005. His conservation efforts focused on conservation easements (voluntary easements that preserve the private ownership of a piece of land while also permanently protecting it from development); a substantial Virginia land preservation tax credit encouraged easements. From 2004 to 2009, the Virginia Outdoors Foundation (a quasi-governmental entity set up in 1966 to preserve open land in the state) protected more land than it had in the previous 40 years, a fact Kaine touted as his term drew to a close.
As governor, Kaine established the Climate Change Commission, a bipartisan panel to study climate change issues. The panel was shuttered under Kaine's Republican successor, Governor Robert F. McDonnell, but revived (as the Governor's Climate Change and Resiliency Update Commission) under McDonnell's successor, Democratic Governor Terry McAuliffe.
In 2008, Kaine supported a coal-fired power plant project in Wise County, clashing with environmentalists who opposed the project.
In 2009, Kaine expressed support for tighter restrictions on mountaintop removal coal mining imposed by the Obama administration.
Healthcare and public health
In October 2006, Kaine signed an executive order banning smoking in all government buildings and state-owned cars as of January 1, 2007. He signed legislation banning smoking in restaurants and bars, with some exceptions, in March 2009, making Virginia the first Southern state to do so.
In 2007, the Republican-controlled Virginia General Assembly passed legislation, with "overwhelming bipartisan support", to require girls to receive the HPV vaccine (which immunizes recipients against a virus that causes cervical cancer) before entering high school. Kaine expressed "some qualms" about the legislation and pushed for a strong opt-out provision, ultimately signing a bill that included a provision allowing parents to opt out of the requirement without citing a reason.
In 2007, Kaine secured increases in state funding for nursing in the Virginia General Assembly and announced a 10% salary increase for nursing faculty above the normal salary increase for state employees, plus additional funds for scholarships for nursing master's programs. The initiatives were aimed at addressing a shortage of practicing nurses.
Virginia Tech shooting
After the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting, in which Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 people, Kaine appointed an eight-member Virginia Tech Review Panel, chaired by retired Virginia State Police superintendent W. Gerald Massengill, to probe the event. The commission members included specialists in psychology, law, forensics and higher education as well as former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge. The commission first met in May 2007, and issued its findings and recommendations in August 2007. Among other recommendations, the panel proposed many mental health reforms. Based on the panel's recommendations, Kaine proposed $42 million of investment in mental health programs and reforms, included "boosting access to outpatient and emergency mental health services, increasing the number of case managers and improving monitoring of community-based providers." In April 2007, Kaine signed an executive order instructing state agencies to step up efforts to block gun sales to people involuntarily committed to inpatient and outpatient mental health treatment centers. Kaine, who had been in Japan on a trade mission at the time of the shootings, received widespread praise for his quick return to the state and his handling of the issue.
Budget and economy
Among Kaine's greatest challenges as governor came during the 2008–09 economic crisis; the Washington Post wrote that "perhaps his greatest success was keeping the state running despite [the crisis]." Amid the Great Recession, unemployment in Virginia remained lower than the national average. During Kaine's tenure as governor, the unemployment rate in Virginia rose from 3.2% to 7.4%, a smaller increase than the national rate, which rose from 4.7% to 9.9% during the same period.
As governor, Kaine approved about $3.31 billion in general fund spending cuts, and after his term in office, the Virginia General Assembly adopted about $1.33 billion in additional budget cuts that Kaine had recommended, for a total of $4.64 billion in cuts. The Washington Post wrote, "Unable to raise taxes and required by law to balance the budget, he was forced to make unpopular cuts that led to such things as shuttered highway rest stops and higher public university tuition." Virginia was one of three states to earn the highest grade in terms of management in a report by the nonpartisan Pew Center on the States. Virginia took first place each year from 2006 to 2009 in Forbes magazine's "Best States For Business" rankings.
Infrastructure and transportation
In July 2007, during the debate on the Silver Line of the Washington Metro through Tysons Corner, Kaine supported an elevated track solution rather than a tunnel, citing costs and potential delays that would put federal funding at risk.
In 2006, Kaine pressed the general assembly to support a legislative package to ease severe traffic congestion by spending about $1 billion annually for highway construction, repairs to aging roads, mass transit, and other transportation projects. The money would be raised through increases in taxes and fees that would have raised an estimated $4 billion in revenue over four years. The Democratic-controlled Senate supported the plan, but the Republican-controlled House was unwilling to approve the taxes necessary to carry out the project, and the effort failed even after a special session of the legislature was called over the stalemate.
In 2007, Republicans in the General Assembly passed their own transportation-funding bill. Rather than a statewide tax increase to finance the transportation improvements, as Kaine and most legislative Democrats favored, the Republican bill called for transportation funding "to come from borrowing $2.5 billion and paying the debt costs out of the general fund"; authorized local tax increase in Northern Virginia; increased fees and taxes on rental cars, commercial real estate, and hotels; and increased traffic infraction fines and driver's licenses fees.
Kaine and most legislative Democrats opposed the Republican legislation, calling it inadequate to address traffic congestion and arguing that the withdrawal of funds from the general fund would affect core services such as health care, law enforcement, and education. Kaine ultimately signed a bill with amendments reflecting "concerns by local government officials and a bipartisan group of lawmakers who were concerned that the plan took too much money from the state's general fund."
Education
Under Kaine, participation in Virginia in early childhood education increased by 40.2% due to his expansion of the Virginia Preschool Initiative, which makes pre-kindergarten more accessible to four-year-olds from households close to the poverty line. Kaine sought increases to the budget for preschool programs every year during his term as governor. Virginia was rated as the best state to raise a child in a 2007 report by Education Week and the Pew Center on the States.
Cabinet and appointments
Kaine made the following appointments to his Virginia Governor's Cabinet:
Chief of Staff: William Leighty (2006–2007), Wayne Turnage (2007–2010)
Secretary of Administration: Viola Baskerville (2006–2010)
Virginia Secretary of Agriculture and Forestry: Robert Bloxom (2006–2010)
Secretary of Commerce and Trade: Patrick Gottschalk (2006–2010)
Secretary of the Commonwealth: Katherine Hanley (2006–2010)
Secretary of Education: Thomas R. Morris (2006–2010)
Secretary of Finance:Jody Wagner (2006–2008), Ric Brown (2008–2010)
Secretary of Health and Human Resources: Marilyn Tavenner (2006–2010)
Secretary of Natural Resources: Preston Bryant (2006–2010)
Secretary of Public Safety: John W. Marshall (2006–2010)
Secretary of Technology: Aneesh Chopra (2006–2009), Leonard Pomata (2009–2010)
Secretary of Transportation: Pierce Homer (2006–2010)
Counselor to the Governor: Lawrence Roberts (2006–2009)
Counselor to the Governor: Mark Rubin (2009–2010)
Assistant for Commonwealth Preparedness: Robert P. Crouch (2006–2010)
Senior Advisor for Workforce: Daniel G. LeBlanc (2006–2010)
As governor, Kaine made a number of appointments to the Virginia state courts. He made two appointments to the Supreme Court of Virginia, naming Chesapeake circuit judge S. Bernard Goodwyn to the Court in 2007 and Virginia Court of Appeals Judge LeRoy F. Millette Jr. in 2008.
On September 27, 2007, just weeks after appointing Esam Omeish to the 20-member Virginia Commission on Immigration, Kaine learned that Omeish had made videos accusing Israel of genocide and calling for President Bush's impeachment. He immediately requested and received Omeish's resignation and said that background checks would be more thorough in the future.
2008 vice presidential speculation
Kaine announced his support for Barack Obama's presidential bid in February 2007. It was maintained that Kaine's endorsement was the first from a statewide elected official outside of Illinois. Because Kaine was a relatively popular governor of a Southern state, there was media speculation that he was a potential nominee for vice president. Obama had supported Kaine in his campaign for governor, saying, "Tim Kaine has a message of fiscal responsibility and generosity of spirit. That kind of message can sell anywhere." On July 28, 2008, Politico reported that Kaine was "very, very high" on Obama's shortlist for vice president, a list that also included Senator Hillary Clinton of New York, Governor Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas, Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana, and Senator Joe Biden of Delaware. Obama ultimately selected Biden. It was later reported that Obama told Kaine, in breaking the news to him, "You are the pick of my heart, but Joe [Biden] is the pick of my head". Obama later wrote that he had ultimately narrowed down the choice for his running mate to Kaine and Biden. He said, "At the time, I was much closer to Tim", but Obama and his advisers David Axelrod and David Plouffe wondered whether voters would accept a ticket of "two relatively young, inexperienced, and liberal civil rights attorneys" and Obama felt the contrast between him and Biden was a strength, and that Biden's age and experience would reassure voters concerned that Obama was too young to be president.
Democratic National Committee chair (2009–2011)
In January 2009, Kaine became chair of the Democratic National Committee. He had turned down the position the first time it was offered to him, expressing misgivings about accepting a partisan position, but took the job at Obama's request. He took on the position as chair part-time as he continued his term as governor of Virginia. Kaine's main goals as DNC chair "were protecting the party's seats in Congress during the 2010 midterms and integrating the president's campaign apparatus, Organizing for America, and its technological acumen into the party machinery." In the 2010 midterms, the DNC under Kaine's leadership outraised the Republican National Committee (RNC) by $30 million, but Democrats lost control of the House and lost seats in the Senate amidst a Tea Party backlash. Kaine was not generally blamed for the losses.
Kaine kept a low profile in the position in comparison to his counterpart, RNC chairman Michael Steele. He focused more on fundraising and maintaining party unity than on attacking political opponents.
In February 2011, after Kaine spoke to union leaders in Madison, Organizing for America got involved in Wisconsin's budget battle and opposed Republican-sponsored anti-union legislation. It made phone calls, sent emails, and distributed messages via Facebook and Twitter to build crowds for rallies.
After completing his term as governor in January 2010, Kaine taught part-time at the University of Richmond, teaching a course in spring 2010 at the Jepson School of Leadership Studies and another in fall 2010 at the University of Richmond School of Law. He explained that he had chosen to teach at a private university rather than a public university "because it would not have been right for a sitting governor to be seeking employment at an institution when he writes the budget and appoints the board of the institution."
United States Senate
2012 election
After Senator Jim Webb's decision not to seek reelection, Kaine announced on April 5, 2011, that he would run for Webb's seat. He was initially reluctant to return to public office, but Webb, Senator Mark Warner, and other Virginia Democrats saw Kaine as the strongest potential Democratic candidate and convinced him to run. Kaine named Lawrence Roberts as his campaign chairman. Mike Henry was chosen as his campaign manager. Kaine filmed announcement videos in English and Spanish and was unopposed for the Democratic nomination. He defeated former senator and governor George Allen in the general election.
Tenure
Kaine was sworn in on January 3, 2013, reuniting him with Mark Warner, the senior senator. Kaine was lieutenant governor when Warner was governor of Virginia.
On June 11, 2013, Kaine delivered a speech on the Senate floor in support of the bipartisan "Gang of Eight" immigration bill. The speech was entirely in Spanish, marking the first time a senator had ever made a speech on the Senate floor in a language other than English.
As a member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, Kaine pushed for a new Congressional authorization of military force for the American operations against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Kaine supported the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran, though he also helped Republican senator Bob Corker hold a vote on a resolution of disapproval of the deal. Kaine has taken several trips throughout the Middle East, meeting with the leaders of states such as Turkey and Israel.
While in the Senate, Kaine has continued to teach part-time at the University of Richmond, receiving a salary of $16,000 per year.
Kaine has voted with his party more than 90% of the time. According to the Washington Post, Kaine has "crafted a largely progressive record as a senator." He reportedly has good relations with both Democratic and Republican senators.
During the 2016 vice-presidential campaign, Kaine frequently criticized Donald Trump, saying that Trump "as commander-in-chief scares me to death" and had a "bizarre fascination with strongmen and authoritarian leaders". In 2017, after Trump took office, Kaine continued to criticize his "authoritarian tendencies", citing his attacks on media, judges, and peaceful protesters. At an event at George Mason University, Kaine said that with Trump in office, Americans "are in a 'living experiment' to see whether or not the Constitution still works to check executive power."
In February 2017, Kaine met with Pope Francis at a general audience at the Vatican. Kaine also met with the Jesuit Refugee Service to discuss refugees and met with Vatican officials to discuss Latin American issues. The same month, Kaine delivered an address, "The Truman Doctrine at 70", at London's Chatham House.
Committee assignments and caucuses
In the 113th Congress (2013–15), Kaine was on the Committee on Armed Services, the Committee on the Budget, and the Committee on Foreign Relations. In the 114th Congress, Kaine was on those three committees and the Special Committee on Aging. In July 2013, Kaine was named chair of the United States Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Near East, South Asia, Central Asia and Counterterrorism.
Within the Senate Armed Services Committee, Kaine is a member of the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities, the Subcommittee on Readiness and Management Support (of which he is the ranking member), and the Subcommittee on Seapower.
Within the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, Kaine is a member of the Subcommittee on State Department and USAID Management, International Operations, and Bilateral International Development (of which he is the ranking member), the Subcommittee on Europe and Regional Security Cooperation, the Subcommittee on Near East, South Asia, Central Asia, and Counterterrorism, and the Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere, Transnational Crime, Civilian Security, Democracy, Human Rights and Global Women's Issues.
In January 2014, Kaine and Senator Rob Portman established the bipartisan Senate Career and Technical Education Caucus (CTE Caucus), which focuses on vocational education and technical education. Kaine and Portman co-chair the caucus. In 2014, Kaine and Portman introduced the CTE Excellence and Equity Act to the Senate; the legislation would provide $500 million in federal funding, distributed by competitive grants, to high schools to further CTE programs. The legislation, introduced as an amendment to the omnibus Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act of 2006, would promote apprenticeships and similar initiatives. Kaine and Portman introduced similar legislation, the Educating Tomorrow's Workforce Act, in 2017.
2016 vice-presidential campaign
Kaine endorsed Hillary Clinton for president in 2016 and campaigned actively for her in seven states during the primaries. He had been the subject of considerable speculation as a possible running mate for Clinton, with several news reports indicating that he was at or near the top of Clinton's list of people under consideration alongside figures such as Elizabeth Warren and Julian Castro.
The New York Times reported that Clinton's husband, former president Bill Clinton, supported Kaine as his wife's vice-presidential selection, noting his domestic and national security résumé. On July 22, 2016, she announced Kaine would be her running mate in the election. Clinton introduced Kaine as her choice in a joint appearance at a rally at Florida International University in Miami the next day. The 2016 Democratic National Convention nominated him for vice president on July 27, 2016.
Kaine was the first Virginian since Woodrow Wilson to be on a major-party ticket, and was the first Virginian to run for vice president on a major-party ticket since John Tyler in 1840; he was also the first senator or former senator from Virginia to be on a major-party ticket since Tyler.
In accordance with longstanding political custom in the U.S., upon being nominated for vice president Kaine publicly released his full tax returns for the previous ten years. He also publicly released medical records; his physician, Brian P. Monahan, the Attending Physician of the United States Congress, wrote that Kaine was "in overall excellent health." In September Kaine published a campaign book co-authored with Clinton, Stronger Together.
In Kaine's preparations for the vice presidential debate in October 2016, lawyer Robert Barnett played the role of Republican vice-presidential nominee Mike Pence. (During Pence's own debate preparations, Wisconsin governor Scott Walker played the role of Kaine.) Pence was criticized after the debate for not defending Trump's comments, while Kaine was criticized for being too aggressive and interrupting. According to ABC News, Kaine interrupted 70 times during the debate, while Pence interrupted 40 times.
Despite winning a plurality of the national popular vote, the Clinton-Kaine ticket lost the Electoral College, and thus the election, to the Trump-Pence ticket on November 8, 2016. This is the only election Kaine has ever lost. Clinton-Kaine did win Virginia, the only Southern state to vote for the Democratic ticket, a victory attributed in part to Kaine.
2018 election
After the 2016 election, Kaine said he would run for reelection to the Senate in 2018. He expressed his desire to emulate John Warner, who represented Virginia in the Senate for 30 years. He added that he would not run for president or vice president in the future.
In his 2018 Senate campaign against Republican nominee and Trump ally Corey Stewart, Kaine had the endorsement of The Richmond Times-Dispatch, marking the first time in decades the paper had endorsed a Democrat.
After taking an early lead in his race against Stewart, Kaine worked to support other Democrats who, in seven districts, were challenging incumbent Republicans for House seats. Kaine defeated Stewart by more than 15 points.
Personality and leadership style
About 145,000 emails from Kaine and his staff during his term as governor are publicly accessible at the Library of Virginia. Politico conducted an analysis of the correspondence and wrote that the messages show Kaine to be a "media-savvy" and detail-oriented "micro-manager" who is also a policy "wonk".
According to The New York Times, Kaine "is widely described by people in his political orbit as a likable if less than charismatic figure...guided by moral convictions that flow from his deep Christian faith." On Meet the Press, Kaine called himself "boring."
Political positions
In terms of political ideology, FiveThirtyEight gives Kaine an average score of −37 (−100 is the most liberal, and 100 is the most conservative). FiveThirtyEight characterizes him as a "mainstream Democrat" and notes that his ideology score is very similar to that of Joe Biden. Three conservative groups—the American Conservative Union, the Club for Growth, and Heritage Action—gave Kaine 0% ratings in the few years before 2016, while the liberal group Americans for Democratic Action gave Kaine a 90% rating in 2014. The New York Times wrote that "in hyperpartisan Washington, he is often seen as a centrist" while also describing him as an "old-fashioned liberal...driven by Jesuit ideals."
Abortion, birth control, and sex education
Kaine, a Roman Catholic, personally opposes abortion, but is "largely inclined to keep the law out of women's reproductive decisions." He has said, "I'm a strong supporter of Roe v. Wade and women being able to make these decisions. In government, we have enough things to worry about. We don't need to make people's reproductive decisions for them." Kaine supports some legal restrictions on abortion, such as requiring parental consent for minors (with a judicial bypass procedure) and banning late-term abortions in cases where the woman's life is not at risk.
In 2009, Kaine signed a bill to create a "Choose Life" license plate, among the more than 200 Virginia specialty plates already offered, the proceeds of which would partly go to Heartbeat International, a Christian organization that operates anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers. Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice America expressed disappointment in Kaine's decision. Kaine considered such license plate messages a matter of free speech and added that the move was "in keeping with the commonwealth's longtime practice of approving specialty plates with all manner of political and social messages."
Kaine previously criticized the Obama administration for "not providing a 'broad enough religious employer exemption'" in the contraceptive mandate of the Affordable Care Act, but praised a 2012 amendment to the regulations that required insurers to provide birth control to employees when an employer was an objecting religious organization.
In 2005, when running for governor, Kaine said he favored reducing abortions by "Enforcing the current Virginia restrictions on abortion and passing an enforceable ban on partial birth abortion that protects the life and health of the mother"; "Fighting teen pregnancy through abstinence-focused education"; "Ensuring women's access to health care (including legal contraception) and economic opportunity"; and "Promoting adoption as an alternative for women facing unwanted pregnancies."
In 2007, as governor, Kaine cut off state funding for abstinence-only sex education programs, citing studies that showed such programs were ineffective, while comprehensive sex education programs were more effective. Kaine believes that both abstinence and contraceptives must be taught, and that education should be evidence-based.
As a senator, Kaine has received perfect scores from Planned Parenthood and the abortion-rights advocacy group NARAL. He has received a score of zero from the anti-abortion National Right to Life Committee.
Campaign finance
Kaine "strongly disagrees" with Citizens United v. FEC (2010). In 2015, Kaine joined a group of Senate Democrats in a letter to Securities and Exchange Commission Chairwoman Mary Jo White that said the ruling "reversed long-standing precedent and has moved our country in a different and disturbing direction when it comes to corporate influence in politics." They urged the SEC to require publicly traded companies to disclose political spending to their shareholders to "increase transparency in the U.S. political process".
Capital punishment
Kaine personally opposes capital punishment, but presided over 11 executions while governor. He said, "I really struggled with [capital punishment] as governor. I have a moral position against the death penalty. But I took an oath of office to uphold it. Following an oath of office is also a moral obligation." During his time in office he commuted one death sentence in June 2008, that of Percy Levar Walton, to life imprisonment without parole on grounds of mental incompetence, writing that "one cannot reasonably conclude that Walton is fully aware of the punishment he is about to suffer and why he is to suffer it" and thus that executing him would be unconstitutional. Kaine vetoed a number of bills to expand the death sentence to more crimes, saying: "I do not believe that further expansion of the death penalty is necessary to protect human life or provide for public safety needs." Some of the vetoes were overridden.
On July 31, 2019, after Attorney General William Barr announced that the United States federal government would resume the use of the death penalty for the first time in over 20 years, Kaine co-sponsored a bill banning the death penalty.
Environment, energy, and climate change
Kaine acknowledges the scientific consensus on climate change, and in a 2014 Senate speech criticized climate change deniers, as well as those who "may not deny the climate science, but ... deny that the U.S. can or should be a leader in taking any steps" to address the issue.
Kaine has expressed concern about sea level rise (a major consequence of climate change), and in particular its effect on coastal Virginia. In 2014, he partnered with two Virginia Republicans—U.S. Representatives Rob Wittman and Scott Rigell—to hold a conference on sea-level rise and "local adaptation efforts to protect military installations in the Hampton Roads area."
Kaine endorses making coal energy production cleaner, saying that it is imperative "to convert coal to electricity with less pollution than we do today." He has criticized those who "frame the debate as a conflict between an economy and the environment", saying that "protecting the environment is good for the economy." Kaine co-sponsored the Advanced Clean Coal Technology Investment in Our Nation (ACCTION) Act, legislation to increase investment in clean coal technologies. He voted against legislation to approve the Keystone XL pipeline. Kaine supports the use of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) to harvest natural gas from shale formations. He believes this will reduce carbon pollution. Kaine voted against an amendment introduced by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand that would have repealed a provision in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 that exempts fracking from the underground injection control provisions of the Safe Drinking Water Act. As a result, regulation of fracking remains in the hands of state agencies; the EPA cannot regulate it or require a federal permit. Kaine supports exporting liquefied natural gas (LNG) to other countries.
Like his fellow senator from Virginia, Mark Warner, Kaine applauded the U.S. Forest Service's plan to close most, but not all, of the George Washington National Forest to fracking and other horizontal drilling activities.
In 2013, Kaine supported oil and gas exploration off the coast of Virginia, saying, "I have long believed that the moratorium on offshore drilling, based on a cost-benefit calculation performed decades ago, should be reexamined." In April 2015, Kaine reiterated his opposition to the moratorium on offshore drilling. In March 2016, Kaine signaled that his position was softening, saying he was "particularly struck by the material objections of the Department of Defense to the incompatibility of drilling with naval operations off Virginia's coast... I have participated in this debate for over a decade as a governor and member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. The DOD has been relatively quiet during this public debate and has never shared their objections with me before." By August 2016, Kaine stated his support for a ban on offshore drilling, bringing his position in line with Hillary Clinton's and the Obama administration's.
Kaine supports the development of solar energy and offshore wind turbines. Based on his votes on environmental issues in the Senate, the League of Conservation Voters has given Kaine a 95% score for 2018, and a 94% lifetime score. (At the time of his vice-presidential campaign, Kaine had an 88% score for 2015, and a 91% lifetime score.)
In March 2019, Kaine was one of 11 senators to sponsor the Climate Security Act of 2019, legislation forming a new group within the State Department that would be responsible for developing strategies to integrate climate science and data into operations of national security as well as restoring the post of special envoy for the Arctic, which Trump had dismantled in 2017. The proposed envoy would advise the president and the administration on the potential effects of climate on national security and be responsible for facilitating all interagency communication between federal science and security agencies.
In April 2019, Kaine was one of 12 senators to sign a bipartisan letter to top senators on the Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development advocating that the Energy Department be granted maximum funding for carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS), arguing that American job growth could be stimulated by investment in viable options to capture carbon emissions released into the atmosphere and expressing disagreement with the Trump's 2020 budget request to combine the two federal programs that include carbon capture research.
Financial regulation
Kaine strongly supports financial regulation and the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. In July 2016, he signed a bipartisan letter that "urged the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to 'carefully tailor its rulemaking' [under Dodd-Frank] regarding community banks and credit unions so as not to 'unduly burden' these institutions with regulations aimed at commercial banks." The letter prompted criticism from progressives who viewed it as anti-regulation. Democracy for America executive director Charles Chamberlain called the letter "a lobbyist-driven effort to help banks dodge consumer protection standards and regulations designed to prevent banks from destroying our economy." Kaine responded, "it's important you don't treat every financial institution the same. It wasn't credit unions that tanked the economy, it wasn't local community banks that tanked the economy, generally wasn't regional banks that did things that tanked the economy." He also signed a letter urging that a requirement that regional banks report liquidity levels on a daily basis be loosened.
Foreign and defense policy
In the Senate, Kaine has supported the normalization of U.S.–Cuban relations and the international nuclear agreement with Iran.
Kaine expressed support for Israel's right to defend itself during the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict. In September 2016, in advance of a UN Security Council resolution 2334 condemning Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, he signed an AIPAC-sponsored letter urging Obama to veto "one-sided" resolutions against Israel.
In 2015, Kaine expressed support for the Saudi-led coalition's airstrikes in Yemen against Houthi forces fighting the government of President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, but in 2018, he was one of seven senators to sign a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo saying that they found it "difficult to reconcile known facts with at least two" of the Trump administration's certifications that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were attempting to protect Yemeni civilians and were in compliance with U.S. laws on arms sales, citing an inconsistency with a memo from Pompeo to Congress expressly stating that on some occasions the Saudi and Emirates governments had failed to adopt measures to reduce civilian casualties. Kaine also condemned the Trump administration for its "eagerness to give the Saudis anything they want" after the administration approved the transfer of nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia after the murder of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi.
In July 2017, Kaine voted for the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act that placed sanctions on Iran, Russia, and North Korea.
In 2019, Kaine was one of 34 Senate Democrats to sign a letter to Trump urging him to reconsider cuts to U.S. foreign aid to the Northern Triangle countries of Central America in the Fiscal Year 2018 national security appropriations bill. The letter said that Trump had "consistently expressed a flawed understanding of U.S. foreign assistance", viewing it as a gift or charity to foreign governments rather than a tool to promote American interests and collective security. The senators wrote that U.S. foreign assistance to Central American countries, by improving stability and alleviating poverty in the region, reduced Central American migration flows to the U.S.
In 2019, Kaine co-sponsored the South China Sea and East China Sea Sanctions Act, a bipartisan bill reintroduced by Marco Rubio and Ben Cardin that was intended to disrupt China's consolidation or expansion of its claims of jurisdiction over both the sea and airspace in disputed zones in the South China Sea.
Grand strategy and democracy promotion
After the 2016 presidential campaign, Kaine wrote an extensive essay in Foreign Affairs outlining his underlying foreign policy philosophy. According to Kaine, American foreign policy has suffered a lack of direction since the 1990s because the end of the Cold War rendered irrelevant America's previous grand strategy, which he identifies as the Truman Doctrine. This lack of grand strategy makes American actions seem random, complicating the policy-making process and hindering American leaders' efforts to convince the public that American foreign policy is worthwhile. To remedy this, Kaine proposed a new grand strategy based mainly on democracy promotion. His grand strategy is informed by a tri-polar balance of international power, with one pole being democratic states including the U.S. and its allies, the second autocratic powers led by Russia and China, and the third nonstate actors (multinational corporations, NGOs, gangs, etc.).
First, Kaine believes that the United States should work to support democracy in already democratic countries, as democracy globally has been declining for many years. To maintain democracy in democratic countries, Kaine proposes the creation of an intergovernmental organization consisting of all the world's democracies in which states can cooperate on solutions to problems such as corruption and voter inclusion. He compares this hypothetical group to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, in which advanced industrialized countries collaborate on economic policy. Kaine believes that this new organization will help democracies remain democratic, as well as promote democracy in other countries by giving them viable democratic examples to emulate. In this way, Kaine says that the U.S. should no longer see itself as the indispensable nation, but rather the "exemplary democracy".
Second, Kaine proposes that democracies should coordinate to best interact with authoritarian states. Depending on the circumstances, democracies should either "confront", "compete", or "cooperate" with autocracies. For example, Kaine observes that the U.S. competes with its authoritarian adversaries by strengthening military and commercial alliances, and confronts them by decrying their human rights records.
Finally, Kaine believes that democracies and autocracies should cooperate when they have the same interests, such as combating climate change.
In July 2017, Kaine expanded on the grand strategy proposed in this essay in an interview at the Brookings Institution with international relations scholar Robert Kagan.
Afghanistan
Kaine's website states, "The main mission in Afghanistan—destroying Al Qaeda—is nearly complete and we should bring our troops home as quickly as we can, consistent with the need to make sure that Afghanistan poses no danger in the broader region."
Latin America
Kaine believes that American foreign policy has neglected relations with Latin America and argues for an increased focus on the Americas, saying, "We have seldom paid enough attention to the Americas, in particular, and when we have—whether through the Monroe Doctrine or by battling communist movements during the Cold War—we have focused more on blocking outsiders from building influence in the Western Hemisphere than we have on the nations already there."
War powers
Kaine is known for "expertise on the constitutional powers of the presidency" and has said that "war powers questions" are a "personal obsession" of his. He has stressed that under the Constitution, "Congress has the power to declare war—and only Congress." Kaine called the 2018 U.S. missile strikes Trump ordered against the Syrian government illegal because they were undertaken without congressional approval.
Kaine and Senator John McCain introduced the War Powers Consultation Act of 2014, which would replace the War Powers Act of 1973, bringing Congress back into decisions on the deployment of U.S. military forces. The bill would establish a Congressional Consultation Committee, with which the president would be required to consult regularly regarding significant foreign policy matters before ordering the deployment of the armed forces into a significant armed conflict and at least every two months for the duration of any significant armed conflict. Kaine argued for the bill by citing his "frustration" over the sloppiness of "process and communication over decisions of war", noting that "presidents tend to overreach and Congress sometimes willingly ducks tough votes and decisions. We all have to do better."
In February 2018, Kaine was one of 18 senators to sign a letter to Trump arguing that striking North Korea with "a preventative or preemptive U.S. military strike would lack either a constitutional basis or legal authority" without congressional approval.
In January 2020, Kaine introduced a new war powers resolution that would prohibit the U.S. from entering hostilities against Iran within 30 days unless it was responding to an imminent threat. The next month, the measure passed the Senate 55–45, securing the votes of eight Republicans along with the Democrats. Trump vetoed the measure, and the Senate failed to override the veto.
Syria, Iraq, and ISIL
In 2014, Kaine argued that the U.S. military intervention against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) undertaken by Obama was unconstitutional without a new congressional authorization for the use of military force against ISIL. In November 2014, at the Halifax International Security Forum, Kaine and McCain emphasized the necessity of such a congressional authorization, saying: "You just can't have a war without Congress. You can't ask people to risk their lives, risk getting killed, seeing other folks getting killed or injured if Congress isn't willing to do the job to put their thumbprint on this and say, this is a national mission and worth it." After the April 2017 Shayrat missile strike in Syria, ordered by Trump, Kaine said, "There is no legal justification for this. He should not have done this without coming to Congress." On Meet the Press, Kaine said, "I'm a strong supporter that the U.S. should take action to protect humanitarian causes, like the ban on chemical weapons. Where I differ from this administration, and I took the same position with respect to President Obama, we are a nation that's not supposed to take military action, start war, without a plan that's presented to and approved by Congress."
On December 11, 2014, after a five-month campaign by Kaine, the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved by 10–8 (along party lines) a measure authorizing military force against ISIL but barring the use of ground troops. In October 2015, Kaine criticized Obama's approach to the Syrian Civil War, saying that the establishment of humanitarian no-fly zones would have alleviated the humanitarian crisis in Syria.
In April 2018, Kaine criticized Trump for authorizing the launch of a precision military strike on Syria without consulting Congress, calling the strike an "illegal military act".
On February 26, 2021, Kaine demanded answers from President Biden after he ordered airstrikes on Syria against Iran-backed militias without giving "legal justification" to members of Congress beforehand.
Firearms
Kaine is a firearms owner. He has supported expanded background checks for weapons purchases as well as "restrictions on the sale of combat-style weapons and high-capacity magazines." As governor, Kaine oversaw the closing of loopholes in Virginia law that allowed some who had failed background checks to purchase guns. In the Senate, he has supported legislation that would require background checks for weapons sold via gun shows and via the internet. He also supports legislation to bar weapons sales to suspected terrorists on the No Fly List.
In November 2017, Kaine was a cosponsor of the Military Domestic Violence Reporting Enhancement Act, a bill that would form a charge of domestic violence under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) and stipulate that convictions be reported to federal databases with the authority to keep abusers from purchasing firearms within three days in an attempt to close a loophole in the UCMJ through which convicted abusers retained the ability to purchase firearms.
In March 2018, Kaine was one of ten senators to sign a letter to Chairman of the United States Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Lamar Alexander and ranking Democrat Patty Murray requesting they schedule a hearing on the causes and remedies of mass shootings in the wake of the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting.
In June 2019, Kaine was one of four senators to cosponsor the Help Empower Americans to Respond (HEAR) Act, legislation that would ban suppressors being imported, sold, made, sent elsewhere or possessed and grant a silencer buyback program as well as include certain exceptions for current and former law enforcement personnel and others. The bill was intended to respond to the Virginia Beach shooting, in which the perpetrator used a .45-caliber handgun with multiple extended magazines and a suppressor.
Kaine has a 100% rating from the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and an "F" rating from the NRA.
Health care
Kaine supports the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2009 (Obamacare), saying in 2012, "I was a supporter and remain a supporter of the Affordable Care Act. I felt like it was a statement that we were going to put some things in the rearview mirror." In 2013, he said that he agreed that changes to the ACA should be debated, but criticized Republicans for "wrapping them up with the threat" of a federal government shutdown.
In 2018, Kaine and Senator Michael Bennet proposed the creation of "Medicare X"—a public health insurance option modeled after Medicare that would be available on ACA health insurance marketplaces along with private options. The proposal is a more incrementalist alternative to Bernie Sanders's push for "Medicare for All" (single-payer health care).
In December 2018, Kaine was one of 42 senators to sign a letter to Trump administration officials Alex Azar, Seema Verma, and Steve Mnuchin arguing that the administration was improperly using Section 1332 of the ACA to authorize states to "increase health care costs for millions of consumers while weakening protections for individuals with pre-existing conditions." The senators requested the administration withdraw the policy and "re-engage with stakeholders, states, and Congress."
In January 2019, Kaine was one of six Democratic senators to introduce the American Miners Act of 2019, a bill that would amend the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 to swap funds in excess of the amounts needed to meet existing obligations under the Abandoned Mine Land fund to the 1974 Pension Plan as part of an effort to prevent its insolvency as a result of coal company bankruptcies and the 2008 financial crisis. It also increased the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund tax and ensured that miners affected by the 2018 coal company bankruptcies would not lose their health care.
In December 2016, Kaine was one of 17 senators to sign a letter to Trump asking him to fulfill a campaign pledge to bring down the cost of prescription drugs. In February 2017, he and 30 other senators signed a letter to Kaléo Pharmaceuticals in response to the opioid-overdose-reversing device Evzio rising in price from $690 in 2014 to $4,500 and requested the company provide the detailed price structure for Evzio, the number of devices Kaléo Pharmaceuticals set aside for donation, and the totality of federal reimbursements Evzio received in the previous year. In February 2019, Kaine was one of 11 senators to sign a letter to insulin manufacturers Eli Lilly and Company, Novo Nordisk, and Sanofi about increased insulin prices and charging that the price increases caused patients to lack "access to the life-saving medications they need."
In August 2019, Kaine was one of 19 Democratic senators to sign a letter to Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar requesting data from the Trump administration on the consequences for healthcare if Texas prevailed in its lawsuit seeking to gut the Affordable Care Act. The senators wrote, "Upending the current health care system will create an enormous hole in the pocketbooks of the people we serve as well as wreck state budgets; therefore, we ask for data to help states and Congress better understand the potential consequences of the position the Administration is taking in court."
In September 2019, amid discussions to prevent a government shutdown, Kaine was one of six Democratic senators to sign a letter to congressional leadership advocating legislation that would permanently fund health care and pension benefits for retired coal miners as "families in Virginia, West Virginia, Wyoming, Alabama, Colorado, North Dakota and New Mexico" would start to receive notifications of health care termination by the end of the following month.
Immigration
Kaine supports the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Deferred Action for Parental Accountability (DAPA) programs, which allow up to five million undocumented immigrants to gain deferral of deportation and authorization to legally work in the United States. Alongside Senator Mark Warner and many other members of Congress, he signed on to an amicus brief in support of the program in the Supreme Court case United States v. Texas.
Kaine also supports comprehensive immigration reform, which would allow persons illegally present in the U.S. to earn legal status by paying a fine and taxes.
In July 2019, following reports that the Trump administration intended to end protections of spouses, parents and children of active-duty service members from deportation, Kaine was one of 22 senators to sign a letter led by Tammy Duckworth arguing that the program allowed service members the ability "to fight for the United States overseas and not worry that their spouse, children, or parents will be deported while they are away" and that the its termination would cause personal hardship for service members in combat.
In July 2019, Kaine and 15 other Senate Democrats introduced the Protecting Sensitive Locations Act, a bill to mandate that ICE agents get approval from a supervisor before undertaking an immigration raid or other enforcement actions at "sensitive locations" (schools, hospitals, places of worship, and courthouses) except in special circumstances. The bill would also require agents to receive annual training and require ICE to submit an annual report on enforcement actions in those locations.
LGBT rights
In 2006, Kaine campaigned against an amendment to the Virginia State Constitution to ban same-sex marriage, and in March 2013, he announced his support of same-sex marriage.
In the Senate, Kaine co-sponsored the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which would bar employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
In 2005, Kaine said, "No couples in Virginia can adopt other than a married couple. That's the right policy." In 2011, he shifted his position. In 2012, he said, "there should be a license that would entitle a committed couple to the same rights as a married couple."
During the 2016 presidential campaign, Kaine noted that his position on same-sex marriage was "at odds with the current doctrine of the church that I still attend." He predicted that the Roman Catholic Church would someday adopt his view. In response, two bishops heading the doctrine and marriage committees of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said that the church's position "cannot change" and reaffirmed their opposition to same-sex marriage.
In October 2018, Kaine was one of 20 senators to sign a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urging him to reverse the State Department's policy of denying visas to same-sex partners of LGBTQ diplomats who had unions that were not recognized by their home countries, writing that the Trump administration's refusal to allow LGBTQ diplomats to bring their partners to the U.S. was tantamount to upholding the "discriminatory policies of many countries around the world." In June 2019, Kaine was one of 18 senators to sign a letter to Pompeo requesting an explanation of the State Department's decision not to issue an official statement that year commemorating Pride Month or issue the annual cable outlining activities for embassies commemorating Pride Month. The signatories to the letter also asked why the LGBTI special envoy position had remained vacant. The authors said that the State Department's moves had sent "signals to the international community that the United States is abandoning the advancement of LGBTI rights as a foreign policy priority."
Taxes
Kaine supports allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire for those with incomes above $500,000.
In 2012, Kaine supported raising the cap on income subject for the FICA (Social Security) payroll tax "so that it covers a similar percentage of income as it did in the 1980s under President Reagan, which would greatly extend the solvency of the (Social Security) program."
In the Senate, Kaine has supported the Marketplace Fairness Act, which would allow states to require online retailers to collect sales taxes in the same manner as traditional brick-and-mortar retailers.
Trade
Kaine supported granting Obama Trade Promotion Authority (TPA or "fast track") to allow him to negotiate free trade agreements. He said the goal should be to "negotiate deals that protect workers' rights, environmental standards and intellectual property, while knocking down tariffs and other barriers that some countries erect to keep American products out."
In July 2016, Kaine said the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement was "an improvement of the status quo" and an "upgrade of labor standards... environmental standards... intellectual property protections", but maintained that he had not yet decided how to vote on final approval of the agreement, citing "significant concerns" over TPP's dispute resolution mechanism. Later that July, Kaine said that he could not support the TPP in its current form.
Kaine has been a proponent of NAFTA.
Transportation, growth, and housing
Kaine supports some smart growth-style policies (which he calls "a balanced approach to growth") to control sprawl and improve transportation. He favors a transportation policy that includes public transit, bicycles, and pedestrians. As governor, Kaine pushed through a $100 million open-space acquisition initiative. Under Kaine, Amtrak service in Virginia was expanded. He also participated in a White House round-table discussion on high-speed rail in 2009.
In April 2019, Kaine was one of 41 senators to sign a bipartisan letter in support of U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Section 4 Capacity Building program, a program authorizing HUD to partner with nonprofit community development groups to provide support to community development corporations. The letter said that the longstanding program had successfully promoted economic and community development, opposed the proposed elimination of the plan in Trump's budget proposal for Fiscal Year 2020, and urged the Senate to support continued funding for Section 4 in Fiscal Year 2020.
Workers' rights and gender equality
Kaine is "generally pro-union" and has received a 96% lifetime Senate voting rating from the AFL-CIO, which praised his selection as Clinton's running mate. But Kaine supports Virginia's longstanding "right-to-work" law, which "frees union nonmembers from any legal obligation to pay fees to a union that bargains collectively on their behalf".
Kaine supports the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which expands the cases in which worker can sue against gender pay discrimination. After Clinton selected him as her running mate in 2016, Kaine was praised by the National Organization for Women.
Kaine favors an increase in the minimum wage.
Electoral history
2001 lieutenant gubernatorial election
2005 gubernatorial election
2012 U.S. Senate election
2016 vice presidential election
2018 U.S. Senate election
Personal life
In November 1984, Kaine married Anne Bright Holton, the daughter of A. Linwood Holton Jr., a Republican who served as the 61st governor of Virginia from 1970 to 1974. The couple met while they were both students at Harvard Law School. Holton has been a judge for the Virginia Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court in Richmond. After serving as first lady of Virginia during her husband's term, she was appointed by Governor Terry McAuliffe in January 2014 to be Virginia's secretary of education, and held that position until July 2016, when she stepped down after her husband was named as the Democratic vice-presidential nominee. The couple has three children, one of whom is a United States Marine. As of 2016, Kaine and his wife had been congregants of the St. Elizabeth Catholic Church in Richmond, a mostly black congregation, for 30 years.
Kaine plays the harmonica and often travels with several.
Kaine is fluent in Spanish as a result of his nine months in Honduras. During the 2016 campaign, he became the first member of a presidential ticket to deliver a speech in Spanish.
On May 28, 2020, Kaine announced that he and his wife had tested positive for COVID-19 antibodies.
Awards and honors
Kaine has received the Humanitarian Award from the Virginia Center for Inclusive Communities, then the Virginia Region of the National Conference for Community and Justice (2000), the Virginia Council of Churches' Faith in Action Award (2009), the University of Richmond School of Law's William Green Award for Professional Excellence (2012), the Award for Public Service in the Americas from the Inter-American Dialogue (2014), the Appalachian Trail Conservancy's Congressional Award (2015), and the Center for the National Interest's Distinguished Service Award (2016). He was made a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Isabella the Catholic in 2017.
Notes
References
Further reading
Governor
Kaine's Governor website (Archived)
Kaine's Lieutenant governor website (Archived)
2005 campaign contributions at the Virginia Public Access Project
Moving Virginia Forward Archived Web Site, 2007 part of Virginia's Political Landscape, 2007 Web Archive Collection at Virginia Memory
Moving Virginia Forward Archived Web Site, 2009 part of Virginia's Political Landscape, 2009 Web Archive Collection at Virginia Memory
Tim Kaine for Governor Archived Web Site, 2005–2006 part of Virginia's Political Landscape, Fall 2005 Web Archive Collection at Virginia Memory
Governor Tim Kaine Administration Web Site Archive, 2006–2010
Kaine Email Project at the Library of Virginia
External links
U.S. Senate website
Campaign website
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1958 births
20th-century American lawyers
20th-century American politicians
20th-century Roman Catholics
21st-century American lawyers
21st-century American politicians
21st-century Roman Catholics
American civil rights lawyers
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Democratic National Committee chairs
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Democratic Party United States senators from Virginia
Democratic Party (United States) vice presidential nominees
Governors of Virginia
Harvard Law School alumni
Hillary Clinton 2016 presidential campaign
Lawyers from Kansas City, Missouri
Lieutenant Governors of Virginia
Living people
Mark Warner
Mayors of Richmond, Virginia
Politicians from Kansas City, Missouri
Politicians from Saint Paul, Minnesota
Knights Grand Cross of the Order of Isabella the Catholic
Richmond, Virginia City Council members
Roman Catholic missionaries in Honduras
United States senators from Virginia
2016 United States vice-presidential candidates
University of Missouri alumni
University of Richmond faculty
Virginia Democrats
Virginia lawyers
| true |
[
"A Chance to Make History: What Works and What Doesn't in Providing an Excellent Education for All () is a book by Wendy Kopp, CEO and Founder of Teach For America, that was published by PublicAffairs in January 2011.\n\nIn A Chance to Make History, Kopp draws on examples of effective teachers, schools, and districts to demonstrate what she believes is needed to provide all children with a \"transformational\" education.\n\nA Chance to Make History is the second book by Wendy Kopp. Her first book, titled One Day, All Children: The Unlikely Triumph of Teach for America and What I Learned Along the Way, was published in 2003 by PublicAffairs.\n\nWendy Kopp\n\nWendy Kopp is the chair of the board and Founder of Teach For America, the national teaching corps. Kopp came up with the idea for the organization in her 1989 undergraduate research thesis at Princeton University. She is also the CEO and Co-Founder of Teach For All, a global network of independent nonprofit organizations that apply the same model as Teach For America in other countries.\n\nRecognition\n\nA Chance to Make History was named a Washington Post bestselling book in April 2011.\n\nFootnotes\n\nBooks about education\n2011 non-fiction books\nEnglish-language books\nPublicAffairs books",
"The teach-back method, also called the \"show-me\" method, is a communication confirmation method used by healthcare providers to confirm whether a patient (or care takers) understands what is being explained to them. If a patient understands, they are able to \"teach-back\" the information accurately. This is a communication method intended to improve health literacy.\n\nThere can be a significant gap in the perception of how much a patient needs information, or how effective a provider's communication is. This can be due to various reasons such as a patient not understanding medical terminology, not feeling comfortable asking questions or even cognitive impairment. Not only does the teach-back method help providers understand the patient's needs in understanding their care, it also allows providers to evaluate their communication skills. Case studies led by the National Quality Forum on the informed consent processes of various hospitals found that those that effectively used the teach-back method benefited in areas of quality, patient safety, risk management and cost/efficiency.\n\nThe method \nThe National Quality Forum describes the practice as follows:\nWho should use the method→ Any healthcare providers. E.g. physicians, nurses, healthcare professionals\nWhat should patients teach-back→Information about their diagnosis, treatment plan, medications, risks and benefit of treatment, etc.\nWhen to ask for teach-back→ Early in the care process\nWhy is it important→Many patients have difficulty understanding medical information.\nHow→When asked to teach-back, patients should be able to clearly describe or explain the information provided to them.\n\nDepending on the patient's successful or unsuccessful teach-back, the provider will clarify or modify the information and reassess the teach-back to confirm the patient's comprehension and understanding.\n\nKnowledge retention \nThe cycle of reassessing and teaching back to confirm comprehension has been found to improve knowledge retention and lower readmission rates in heart failure patients.\n\nBeyond healthcare literacy, the teach-back method can be utilized in academic and professional settings as well. Teachers often create feedback loops in which the instructor asks the student to share what they heard, and promote peer to peer coaching where students explain what they just learned to other students. Retention is also most positively impacted in participatory learning environments, when students participate in group discussions, practice by doing, and teaching others.\n\nReferences\n\nHealth education\nPractice of medicine"
] |
[
"Tim Kaine",
"Legal career and Richmond City Council",
"Where did Kaine attend law school?",
"I don't know.",
"What year was he elected to city council?",
"In May 1994,",
"was he known for achieving anything special while on the council?",
"Kaine spent four terms on the council, the latter two as mayor.",
"Did he represent a specific political party?",
"specializing in fair housing law and representing clients discriminated against on the basis of race or disability.",
"Did he recieve any awards?",
"Kaine became a director with the law firm of Mezzullo & McCandlish, P.C.",
"Did he win any notable cases?",
"he represented in a landmark redlining discrimination lawsuit against Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co.",
"Was there anything else notable about his early career?",
"Kaine did regular pro bono work. In 1988, Kaine started teaching",
"What did he teach?",
"legal ethics as an adjunct professor"
] |
C_6e5a0e696db14512b25f50b8092751a7_1
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Where did he teach?
| 9 |
Where did Tim Kaine teach?
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Tim Kaine
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After graduating from law school, Kaine was a law clerk for Judge R. Lanier Anderson III of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, in Macon, Georgia. Kaine then joined the Richmond law firm of Little, Parsley & Cluverius, P.C. In 1987, Kaine became a director with the law firm of Mezzullo & McCandlish, P.C. Kaine practiced law in Richmond for 17 years, specializing in fair housing law and representing clients discriminated against on the basis of race or disability. He was a board member of the Virginia chapter of Housing Opportunities Made Equal, which he represented in a landmark redlining discrimination lawsuit against Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. arising from the company's practices in Richmond. Kaine won a $100.5 million verdict in the case; the judgment was overturned on appeal, and Kaine and his colleagues negotiated a $17.5 million settlement. Kaine did regular pro bono work. In 1988, Kaine started teaching legal ethics as an adjunct professor at the University of Richmond School of Law. Kaine taught at the University of Richmond for six years, and his students included future Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring. He was a founding member of the Virginia Coalition to End Homelessness. Kaine had a largely apolitical childhood, but became interested in politics in part due to the influence of his wife's family and his experience attending Richmond city council meetings. In May 1994, Kaine was elected to the city council of the independent city of Richmond, from the City's 2nd District. He defeated incumbent city councilman Benjamin P. A. Warthen by 97 votes. Kaine spent four terms on the council, the latter two as mayor. CANNOTANSWER
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University of Richmond School of Law.
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Timothy Michael Kaine (; born February 26, 1958) is an American lawyer and politician serving as the junior United States senator from Virginia since 2013. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 38th lieutenant governor of Virginia from 2002 to 2006 and 70th governor of Virginia from 2006 to 2010. Kaine was the Democratic nominee for vice president of the United States in the 2016 election as Hillary Clinton's running mate.
Born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, Kaine grew up in Overland Park, Kansas, graduated from the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri, and earned a Juris Doctor degree from Harvard Law School before entering private practice and becoming a lecturer at the University of Richmond School of Law. He was first elected to public office in 1994, when he won a seat on the Richmond City Council. He was elected mayor of Richmond in 1998 and held that position until being elected lieutenant governor of Virginia in 2001. Kaine was elected governor of Virginia in 2005 and held that office from 2006 to 2010. He chaired the Democratic National Committee from 2009 to 2011.
On July 22, 2016, Hillary Clinton introduced Kaine as her vice-presidential running mate. The 2016 Democratic National Convention nominated him on July 27. Despite winning a plurality of the national popular vote, the ClintonKaine ticket lost the Electoral College, and thus the election, to the Republican ticket of Donald Trump and Mike Pence on November 8, 2016. Kaine was reelected to a second Senate term in 2018, defeating Republican Corey Stewart.
Early life and education
Kaine was born at Saint Joseph's Hospital in St. Paul, Minnesota. He is the eldest of three sons born to Mary Kathleen (née Burns), a home economics teacher, and Albert Alexander Kaine, Jr., a welder and the owner of a small iron-working shop. He was raised Catholic. One of Kaine's great-grandparents was Scottish and the other seven were Irish. Kaine's family moved to Overland Park, Kansas, when Kaine was two years old, and he grew up in the Kansas City area. In 1976, he graduated from Rockhurst High School, a Jesuit all-boys preparatory school in Kansas City, Missouri. At Rockhurst, Kaine joined the debate team and was elected student body president.
Kaine received his Bachelor of Arts in economics from the University of Missouri in 1979, completing his degree in three years and graduating Omicron Delta Kappa and summa cum laude. He was a Coro Foundation fellow in Kansas City in 1978. He entered Harvard Law School in 1979, interrupting his law studies after his first year to work in Honduras for nine months from 1980 to 1981, helping Jesuit missionaries who ran a Catholic school in El Progreso. While running a vocational center that taught carpentry and welding, he also helped increase the school's enrollment by recruiting local villagers. Kaine is fluent in Spanish as a result of his time in Honduras.
After returning from Honduras, Kaine met his future wife, first-year Harvard Law student Anne Holton. He graduated from Harvard Law School with a J.D. degree in 1983. Kaine and Holton moved to Holton's hometown of Richmond, Virginia, after graduation, and Kaine was admitted to the Virginia bar in 1984.
Legal career and Richmond City Council
After graduating from law school, Kaine was a law clerk for Judge R. Lanier Anderson III of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, in Macon, Georgia. He then joined the Richmond law firm of Little, Parsley & Cluverius, P.C. In 1987, Kaine became a director of the law firm of Mezzullo & McCandlish, P.C. He practiced law in Richmond for 17 years, specializing in fair housing law and representing clients discriminated against on the basis of race or disability. He was a board member of the Virginia chapter of Housing Opportunities Made Equal, which he represented in a landmark redlining discrimination lawsuit against Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. arising from the company's practices in Richmond. Kaine won a $100.5 million verdict in the case; the judgment was overturned on appeal, and Kaine and his colleagues negotiated a $17.5 million settlement.
Kaine did regular pro bono work. In 1988, he started teaching legal ethics as an adjunct professor at the University of Richmond School of Law. Kaine taught at the University of Richmond for six years; his students included future Virginia attorney general Mark Herring. He was a founding member of the Virginia Coalition to End Homelessness.
Kaine had a largely apolitical childhood, but became interested in politics in part due to the influence of his wife's family and his experience attending Richmond city council meetings. In 1994, he was elected the 2nd district member of the city council of the independent city of Richmond, defeating incumbent city councilor Benjamin P.A. Warthen by less than 100 votes. He took his seat on July 1 and retained the position until September 10, 2001, when he resigned and William J. Pantele was appointed to succeed him. He defeated the incumbent city councilman Benjamin P.A. Warthen by 97 votes. Kaine spent four terms on the city council, the latter two as mayor of Richmond.
Mayor of Richmond (1998–2001)
On July 1, 1998, Kaine was elected mayor of Richmond, succeeding Larry Chavis. He was chosen by an 8 to 1 vote on the majority-black Richmond City Council, becoming the city's first white mayor in more than ten years, which was viewed as a surprise. Rudy McCollum, an African American city councilor also interested in the mayoralty, decided to back Kaine after a private meeting between the two, clearing the way for Kaine to win the election. Previous mayors had treated the role as primarily ceremonial, with the city manager effectively operating the city; Kaine treated it as a full-time job, taking a more hands-on role.
As mayor, Kaine used a sale-leaseback arrangement to obtain funds to renovate the historic Maggie L. Walker High School and reopen it in 2000 as a magnet governor's school, the Maggie L. Walker Governor's School for Government and International Studies, which "now serves the top students in Central Virginia". Three elementary schools and one middle school were also built in Richmond under Kaine. Along with Commonwealth's attorney David Hicks, U.S. attorney James Comey, and police chief Jerry Oliver, Kaine was a supporter of Project Exile, an initiative that shifted gun crimes to federal court, where defendants faced harsher sentences. Though controversial, the effort was effective and achieved widespread support; the city's homicide rate fell by 55% during Kaine's mayoralty. Kaine touted Project Exile during his 2001 campaign for lieutenant governor.
On several occasions, Kaine voted against tax increases, and supported a tax abatement program for renovated buildings, which was credited for a housing renovation boom in the city. Forbes magazine named Richmond one of "the 10 best cities in America to do business" during Kaine's term.
According to John Moeser, a professor emeritus of urban studies and planning at Virginia Commonwealth University and later a visiting fellow at the University of Richmond's Center for Civic Engagement, Mayor Kaine "was energetic, charismatic and, most important, spoke openly about his commitment to racial reconciliation in Richmond." The New York Times wrote that Kaine "was by all accounts instrumental in bridging the city's racial divide." In the early part of his term, Kaine issued an apology for the city's role in slavery; the apology was generally well received as "a genuine, heartfelt expression". In the latter part of his term, a contentious debate took place over the inclusion of a portrait of Confederate general Robert E. Lee in a set of historic murals to be placed on city floodwalls. Many African Americans were outraged that Lee would appear on city walls, while Southern heritage groups demanded that the picture remain. Kaine proposed a compromise in which Lee would appear as part of a series of murals that also included figures like Abraham Lincoln and Powhatan Beaty. His stance drew criticism from the NAACP; Kaine argued that placing Lee on the floodwall made sense in context, and that "Much of our history is not pleasant; you can't whitewash it." Kaine's proposal passed the council on a 6–3 vote.
During his mayoralty, Kaine drew criticism for spending $6,000 in public funds on buses to the Million Mom March, an anti-gun-violence rally in Washington, D.C.; after a backlash, he raised the money privately and reimbursed the city.
Lieutenant governor of Virginia (2002–2006)
Kaine ran for lieutenant governor of Virginia in 2001. He joined the race after state senator Emily Couric dropped out due to pancreatic cancer and endorsed Kaine as her replacement. In the Democratic primary election, Kaine ran against state delegate Alan A. Diamonstein of Newport News, and state delegate Jerrauld C. Jones of Norfolk. Kaine won the nomination, with 39.7% of the vote to Diamonstein's 31.4% and Jones's 28.9%.
In the general election, Kaine won with 925,974 votes (50.35%), edging out his Republican opponent, state delegate Jay Katzen, who received 883,886 (48.06%). Libertarian Gary Reams received 28,783 votes (1.57%).
Kaine was inaugurated on January 12, 2002, and was sworn in by his wife Anne Holton, a state judge.
2005 gubernatorial election
In 2005, Kaine ran for governor of Virginia against Republican candidate Jerry W. Kilgore, a former state attorney general. Kaine was considered an underdog for most of the race, trailing in polls for most of the campaign. Two September polls showed Kaine trailing Kilgore—by four percentage points in a Washington Post poll and by one point in a Mason-Dixon/Roanoke Times poll. The final polls of the race before the election showed Kaine slightly edging ahead of Kilgore.
Kaine ultimately prevailed, winning 1,025,942 votes (51.7%) to Kilgore's 912,327 (46.0%). A third candidate, independent state Senator H. Russell Potts Jr., ran as an "independent Republican" and received 43,953 votes (2.2%).
Kaine emphasized fiscal responsibility and a centrist message. He expressed support for controlling sprawl and tackling longstanding traffic issues, an issue that resonated in the northern Virginia exurbs. He benefited from his association with the popular outgoing Democratic governor, Mark Warner, who had performed well in traditionally Republican areas of the state. On the campaign trail, Kaine referred to the "Warner-Kaine administration" in speeches and received Warner's strong backing. Kilgore later attributed his defeat to Warner's high popularity and President George W. Bush's sharply declining popularity; Bush held a rally with Kilgore on the campaign's final day.
The campaign turned sharply negative in its final weeks, with Kilgore running television attack ads that falsely claimed that Kaine believed that "Hitler doesn't qualify for the death penalty." The ads also attacked Kaine for his service ten years earlier as a court-appointed attorney for a death-row inmate. The editorial boards of the Washington Post and a number of Virginia newspapers denounced the ads as a "smear" and "dishonest." Kaine responded with an ad "in which he told voters that he opposes capital punishment but would take an oath and enforce the death penalty. In later polls, voters said they believed Kaine's response and were angered by Kilgore's negative ads."
In the election, Kaine won by large margins in the Democratic strongholds such as Richmond and northern Virginia's inner suburbs (such as Alexandria and Arlington), as well as in the Democratic-trending Fairfax County. Kaine also won Republican-leaning areas in Northern Virginia's outer suburbs, including Prince William County and Loudoun County, where George W. Bush had beat John Kerry in the previous year's presidential election, and performed "surprisingly well in Republican strongholds like Virginia Beach and Chesapeake." Kaine also defeated Kilgore in the burgeoning Richmond suburbs. Kilgore led in southwest Virginia and in the Shenandoah Valley.
Governor of Virginia (2006–2010)
Kaine was sworn in as governor at the colonial Capitol at Williamsburg, on January 14, 2006, the first governor since Thomas Jefferson to be inaugurated there.
Kaine was chairman of the Southern Governors' Association from 2008 to 2009.
Democratic response to State of the Union address
On January 31, 2006, Kaine gave the Democratic response to President George W. Bush's 2006 State of the Union address. In it, he criticized the Bush administration's No Child Left Behind Act for "wreaking havoc on local school districts"; criticized congressional Republicans for cutting student loan programs; and condemned as "reckless" Bush's spending increases and tax cuts. Kaine praised bipartisan initiatives in Virginia "to make record investments in education" and to improve veterans' access to veterans' benefits. He criticized the Bush administration's conduct of the Iraq War and treatment of U.S. soldiers, saying that "the American people were given inaccurate information about reasons for invading Iraq"; "our troops in Iraq were not given the best body armor or the best intelligence"; and "the administration wants to further reduce military and veterans' benefits."
Energy, the environment, and conservation
As governor, Kaine protected of Virginia land from development, fulfilling a promise he made in 2005. His conservation efforts focused on conservation easements (voluntary easements that preserve the private ownership of a piece of land while also permanently protecting it from development); a substantial Virginia land preservation tax credit encouraged easements. From 2004 to 2009, the Virginia Outdoors Foundation (a quasi-governmental entity set up in 1966 to preserve open land in the state) protected more land than it had in the previous 40 years, a fact Kaine touted as his term drew to a close.
As governor, Kaine established the Climate Change Commission, a bipartisan panel to study climate change issues. The panel was shuttered under Kaine's Republican successor, Governor Robert F. McDonnell, but revived (as the Governor's Climate Change and Resiliency Update Commission) under McDonnell's successor, Democratic Governor Terry McAuliffe.
In 2008, Kaine supported a coal-fired power plant project in Wise County, clashing with environmentalists who opposed the project.
In 2009, Kaine expressed support for tighter restrictions on mountaintop removal coal mining imposed by the Obama administration.
Healthcare and public health
In October 2006, Kaine signed an executive order banning smoking in all government buildings and state-owned cars as of January 1, 2007. He signed legislation banning smoking in restaurants and bars, with some exceptions, in March 2009, making Virginia the first Southern state to do so.
In 2007, the Republican-controlled Virginia General Assembly passed legislation, with "overwhelming bipartisan support", to require girls to receive the HPV vaccine (which immunizes recipients against a virus that causes cervical cancer) before entering high school. Kaine expressed "some qualms" about the legislation and pushed for a strong opt-out provision, ultimately signing a bill that included a provision allowing parents to opt out of the requirement without citing a reason.
In 2007, Kaine secured increases in state funding for nursing in the Virginia General Assembly and announced a 10% salary increase for nursing faculty above the normal salary increase for state employees, plus additional funds for scholarships for nursing master's programs. The initiatives were aimed at addressing a shortage of practicing nurses.
Virginia Tech shooting
After the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting, in which Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 people, Kaine appointed an eight-member Virginia Tech Review Panel, chaired by retired Virginia State Police superintendent W. Gerald Massengill, to probe the event. The commission members included specialists in psychology, law, forensics and higher education as well as former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge. The commission first met in May 2007, and issued its findings and recommendations in August 2007. Among other recommendations, the panel proposed many mental health reforms. Based on the panel's recommendations, Kaine proposed $42 million of investment in mental health programs and reforms, included "boosting access to outpatient and emergency mental health services, increasing the number of case managers and improving monitoring of community-based providers." In April 2007, Kaine signed an executive order instructing state agencies to step up efforts to block gun sales to people involuntarily committed to inpatient and outpatient mental health treatment centers. Kaine, who had been in Japan on a trade mission at the time of the shootings, received widespread praise for his quick return to the state and his handling of the issue.
Budget and economy
Among Kaine's greatest challenges as governor came during the 2008–09 economic crisis; the Washington Post wrote that "perhaps his greatest success was keeping the state running despite [the crisis]." Amid the Great Recession, unemployment in Virginia remained lower than the national average. During Kaine's tenure as governor, the unemployment rate in Virginia rose from 3.2% to 7.4%, a smaller increase than the national rate, which rose from 4.7% to 9.9% during the same period.
As governor, Kaine approved about $3.31 billion in general fund spending cuts, and after his term in office, the Virginia General Assembly adopted about $1.33 billion in additional budget cuts that Kaine had recommended, for a total of $4.64 billion in cuts. The Washington Post wrote, "Unable to raise taxes and required by law to balance the budget, he was forced to make unpopular cuts that led to such things as shuttered highway rest stops and higher public university tuition." Virginia was one of three states to earn the highest grade in terms of management in a report by the nonpartisan Pew Center on the States. Virginia took first place each year from 2006 to 2009 in Forbes magazine's "Best States For Business" rankings.
Infrastructure and transportation
In July 2007, during the debate on the Silver Line of the Washington Metro through Tysons Corner, Kaine supported an elevated track solution rather than a tunnel, citing costs and potential delays that would put federal funding at risk.
In 2006, Kaine pressed the general assembly to support a legislative package to ease severe traffic congestion by spending about $1 billion annually for highway construction, repairs to aging roads, mass transit, and other transportation projects. The money would be raised through increases in taxes and fees that would have raised an estimated $4 billion in revenue over four years. The Democratic-controlled Senate supported the plan, but the Republican-controlled House was unwilling to approve the taxes necessary to carry out the project, and the effort failed even after a special session of the legislature was called over the stalemate.
In 2007, Republicans in the General Assembly passed their own transportation-funding bill. Rather than a statewide tax increase to finance the transportation improvements, as Kaine and most legislative Democrats favored, the Republican bill called for transportation funding "to come from borrowing $2.5 billion and paying the debt costs out of the general fund"; authorized local tax increase in Northern Virginia; increased fees and taxes on rental cars, commercial real estate, and hotels; and increased traffic infraction fines and driver's licenses fees.
Kaine and most legislative Democrats opposed the Republican legislation, calling it inadequate to address traffic congestion and arguing that the withdrawal of funds from the general fund would affect core services such as health care, law enforcement, and education. Kaine ultimately signed a bill with amendments reflecting "concerns by local government officials and a bipartisan group of lawmakers who were concerned that the plan took too much money from the state's general fund."
Education
Under Kaine, participation in Virginia in early childhood education increased by 40.2% due to his expansion of the Virginia Preschool Initiative, which makes pre-kindergarten more accessible to four-year-olds from households close to the poverty line. Kaine sought increases to the budget for preschool programs every year during his term as governor. Virginia was rated as the best state to raise a child in a 2007 report by Education Week and the Pew Center on the States.
Cabinet and appointments
Kaine made the following appointments to his Virginia Governor's Cabinet:
Chief of Staff: William Leighty (2006–2007), Wayne Turnage (2007–2010)
Secretary of Administration: Viola Baskerville (2006–2010)
Virginia Secretary of Agriculture and Forestry: Robert Bloxom (2006–2010)
Secretary of Commerce and Trade: Patrick Gottschalk (2006–2010)
Secretary of the Commonwealth: Katherine Hanley (2006–2010)
Secretary of Education: Thomas R. Morris (2006–2010)
Secretary of Finance:Jody Wagner (2006–2008), Ric Brown (2008–2010)
Secretary of Health and Human Resources: Marilyn Tavenner (2006–2010)
Secretary of Natural Resources: Preston Bryant (2006–2010)
Secretary of Public Safety: John W. Marshall (2006–2010)
Secretary of Technology: Aneesh Chopra (2006–2009), Leonard Pomata (2009–2010)
Secretary of Transportation: Pierce Homer (2006–2010)
Counselor to the Governor: Lawrence Roberts (2006–2009)
Counselor to the Governor: Mark Rubin (2009–2010)
Assistant for Commonwealth Preparedness: Robert P. Crouch (2006–2010)
Senior Advisor for Workforce: Daniel G. LeBlanc (2006–2010)
As governor, Kaine made a number of appointments to the Virginia state courts. He made two appointments to the Supreme Court of Virginia, naming Chesapeake circuit judge S. Bernard Goodwyn to the Court in 2007 and Virginia Court of Appeals Judge LeRoy F. Millette Jr. in 2008.
On September 27, 2007, just weeks after appointing Esam Omeish to the 20-member Virginia Commission on Immigration, Kaine learned that Omeish had made videos accusing Israel of genocide and calling for President Bush's impeachment. He immediately requested and received Omeish's resignation and said that background checks would be more thorough in the future.
2008 vice presidential speculation
Kaine announced his support for Barack Obama's presidential bid in February 2007. It was maintained that Kaine's endorsement was the first from a statewide elected official outside of Illinois. Because Kaine was a relatively popular governor of a Southern state, there was media speculation that he was a potential nominee for vice president. Obama had supported Kaine in his campaign for governor, saying, "Tim Kaine has a message of fiscal responsibility and generosity of spirit. That kind of message can sell anywhere." On July 28, 2008, Politico reported that Kaine was "very, very high" on Obama's shortlist for vice president, a list that also included Senator Hillary Clinton of New York, Governor Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas, Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana, and Senator Joe Biden of Delaware. Obama ultimately selected Biden. It was later reported that Obama told Kaine, in breaking the news to him, "You are the pick of my heart, but Joe [Biden] is the pick of my head". Obama later wrote that he had ultimately narrowed down the choice for his running mate to Kaine and Biden. He said, "At the time, I was much closer to Tim", but Obama and his advisers David Axelrod and David Plouffe wondered whether voters would accept a ticket of "two relatively young, inexperienced, and liberal civil rights attorneys" and Obama felt the contrast between him and Biden was a strength, and that Biden's age and experience would reassure voters concerned that Obama was too young to be president.
Democratic National Committee chair (2009–2011)
In January 2009, Kaine became chair of the Democratic National Committee. He had turned down the position the first time it was offered to him, expressing misgivings about accepting a partisan position, but took the job at Obama's request. He took on the position as chair part-time as he continued his term as governor of Virginia. Kaine's main goals as DNC chair "were protecting the party's seats in Congress during the 2010 midterms and integrating the president's campaign apparatus, Organizing for America, and its technological acumen into the party machinery." In the 2010 midterms, the DNC under Kaine's leadership outraised the Republican National Committee (RNC) by $30 million, but Democrats lost control of the House and lost seats in the Senate amidst a Tea Party backlash. Kaine was not generally blamed for the losses.
Kaine kept a low profile in the position in comparison to his counterpart, RNC chairman Michael Steele. He focused more on fundraising and maintaining party unity than on attacking political opponents.
In February 2011, after Kaine spoke to union leaders in Madison, Organizing for America got involved in Wisconsin's budget battle and opposed Republican-sponsored anti-union legislation. It made phone calls, sent emails, and distributed messages via Facebook and Twitter to build crowds for rallies.
After completing his term as governor in January 2010, Kaine taught part-time at the University of Richmond, teaching a course in spring 2010 at the Jepson School of Leadership Studies and another in fall 2010 at the University of Richmond School of Law. He explained that he had chosen to teach at a private university rather than a public university "because it would not have been right for a sitting governor to be seeking employment at an institution when he writes the budget and appoints the board of the institution."
United States Senate
2012 election
After Senator Jim Webb's decision not to seek reelection, Kaine announced on April 5, 2011, that he would run for Webb's seat. He was initially reluctant to return to public office, but Webb, Senator Mark Warner, and other Virginia Democrats saw Kaine as the strongest potential Democratic candidate and convinced him to run. Kaine named Lawrence Roberts as his campaign chairman. Mike Henry was chosen as his campaign manager. Kaine filmed announcement videos in English and Spanish and was unopposed for the Democratic nomination. He defeated former senator and governor George Allen in the general election.
Tenure
Kaine was sworn in on January 3, 2013, reuniting him with Mark Warner, the senior senator. Kaine was lieutenant governor when Warner was governor of Virginia.
On June 11, 2013, Kaine delivered a speech on the Senate floor in support of the bipartisan "Gang of Eight" immigration bill. The speech was entirely in Spanish, marking the first time a senator had ever made a speech on the Senate floor in a language other than English.
As a member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, Kaine pushed for a new Congressional authorization of military force for the American operations against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Kaine supported the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran, though he also helped Republican senator Bob Corker hold a vote on a resolution of disapproval of the deal. Kaine has taken several trips throughout the Middle East, meeting with the leaders of states such as Turkey and Israel.
While in the Senate, Kaine has continued to teach part-time at the University of Richmond, receiving a salary of $16,000 per year.
Kaine has voted with his party more than 90% of the time. According to the Washington Post, Kaine has "crafted a largely progressive record as a senator." He reportedly has good relations with both Democratic and Republican senators.
During the 2016 vice-presidential campaign, Kaine frequently criticized Donald Trump, saying that Trump "as commander-in-chief scares me to death" and had a "bizarre fascination with strongmen and authoritarian leaders". In 2017, after Trump took office, Kaine continued to criticize his "authoritarian tendencies", citing his attacks on media, judges, and peaceful protesters. At an event at George Mason University, Kaine said that with Trump in office, Americans "are in a 'living experiment' to see whether or not the Constitution still works to check executive power."
In February 2017, Kaine met with Pope Francis at a general audience at the Vatican. Kaine also met with the Jesuit Refugee Service to discuss refugees and met with Vatican officials to discuss Latin American issues. The same month, Kaine delivered an address, "The Truman Doctrine at 70", at London's Chatham House.
Committee assignments and caucuses
In the 113th Congress (2013–15), Kaine was on the Committee on Armed Services, the Committee on the Budget, and the Committee on Foreign Relations. In the 114th Congress, Kaine was on those three committees and the Special Committee on Aging. In July 2013, Kaine was named chair of the United States Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Near East, South Asia, Central Asia and Counterterrorism.
Within the Senate Armed Services Committee, Kaine is a member of the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities, the Subcommittee on Readiness and Management Support (of which he is the ranking member), and the Subcommittee on Seapower.
Within the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, Kaine is a member of the Subcommittee on State Department and USAID Management, International Operations, and Bilateral International Development (of which he is the ranking member), the Subcommittee on Europe and Regional Security Cooperation, the Subcommittee on Near East, South Asia, Central Asia, and Counterterrorism, and the Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere, Transnational Crime, Civilian Security, Democracy, Human Rights and Global Women's Issues.
In January 2014, Kaine and Senator Rob Portman established the bipartisan Senate Career and Technical Education Caucus (CTE Caucus), which focuses on vocational education and technical education. Kaine and Portman co-chair the caucus. In 2014, Kaine and Portman introduced the CTE Excellence and Equity Act to the Senate; the legislation would provide $500 million in federal funding, distributed by competitive grants, to high schools to further CTE programs. The legislation, introduced as an amendment to the omnibus Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act of 2006, would promote apprenticeships and similar initiatives. Kaine and Portman introduced similar legislation, the Educating Tomorrow's Workforce Act, in 2017.
2016 vice-presidential campaign
Kaine endorsed Hillary Clinton for president in 2016 and campaigned actively for her in seven states during the primaries. He had been the subject of considerable speculation as a possible running mate for Clinton, with several news reports indicating that he was at or near the top of Clinton's list of people under consideration alongside figures such as Elizabeth Warren and Julian Castro.
The New York Times reported that Clinton's husband, former president Bill Clinton, supported Kaine as his wife's vice-presidential selection, noting his domestic and national security résumé. On July 22, 2016, she announced Kaine would be her running mate in the election. Clinton introduced Kaine as her choice in a joint appearance at a rally at Florida International University in Miami the next day. The 2016 Democratic National Convention nominated him for vice president on July 27, 2016.
Kaine was the first Virginian since Woodrow Wilson to be on a major-party ticket, and was the first Virginian to run for vice president on a major-party ticket since John Tyler in 1840; he was also the first senator or former senator from Virginia to be on a major-party ticket since Tyler.
In accordance with longstanding political custom in the U.S., upon being nominated for vice president Kaine publicly released his full tax returns for the previous ten years. He also publicly released medical records; his physician, Brian P. Monahan, the Attending Physician of the United States Congress, wrote that Kaine was "in overall excellent health." In September Kaine published a campaign book co-authored with Clinton, Stronger Together.
In Kaine's preparations for the vice presidential debate in October 2016, lawyer Robert Barnett played the role of Republican vice-presidential nominee Mike Pence. (During Pence's own debate preparations, Wisconsin governor Scott Walker played the role of Kaine.) Pence was criticized after the debate for not defending Trump's comments, while Kaine was criticized for being too aggressive and interrupting. According to ABC News, Kaine interrupted 70 times during the debate, while Pence interrupted 40 times.
Despite winning a plurality of the national popular vote, the Clinton-Kaine ticket lost the Electoral College, and thus the election, to the Trump-Pence ticket on November 8, 2016. This is the only election Kaine has ever lost. Clinton-Kaine did win Virginia, the only Southern state to vote for the Democratic ticket, a victory attributed in part to Kaine.
2018 election
After the 2016 election, Kaine said he would run for reelection to the Senate in 2018. He expressed his desire to emulate John Warner, who represented Virginia in the Senate for 30 years. He added that he would not run for president or vice president in the future.
In his 2018 Senate campaign against Republican nominee and Trump ally Corey Stewart, Kaine had the endorsement of The Richmond Times-Dispatch, marking the first time in decades the paper had endorsed a Democrat.
After taking an early lead in his race against Stewart, Kaine worked to support other Democrats who, in seven districts, were challenging incumbent Republicans for House seats. Kaine defeated Stewart by more than 15 points.
Personality and leadership style
About 145,000 emails from Kaine and his staff during his term as governor are publicly accessible at the Library of Virginia. Politico conducted an analysis of the correspondence and wrote that the messages show Kaine to be a "media-savvy" and detail-oriented "micro-manager" who is also a policy "wonk".
According to The New York Times, Kaine "is widely described by people in his political orbit as a likable if less than charismatic figure...guided by moral convictions that flow from his deep Christian faith." On Meet the Press, Kaine called himself "boring."
Political positions
In terms of political ideology, FiveThirtyEight gives Kaine an average score of −37 (−100 is the most liberal, and 100 is the most conservative). FiveThirtyEight characterizes him as a "mainstream Democrat" and notes that his ideology score is very similar to that of Joe Biden. Three conservative groups—the American Conservative Union, the Club for Growth, and Heritage Action—gave Kaine 0% ratings in the few years before 2016, while the liberal group Americans for Democratic Action gave Kaine a 90% rating in 2014. The New York Times wrote that "in hyperpartisan Washington, he is often seen as a centrist" while also describing him as an "old-fashioned liberal...driven by Jesuit ideals."
Abortion, birth control, and sex education
Kaine, a Roman Catholic, personally opposes abortion, but is "largely inclined to keep the law out of women's reproductive decisions." He has said, "I'm a strong supporter of Roe v. Wade and women being able to make these decisions. In government, we have enough things to worry about. We don't need to make people's reproductive decisions for them." Kaine supports some legal restrictions on abortion, such as requiring parental consent for minors (with a judicial bypass procedure) and banning late-term abortions in cases where the woman's life is not at risk.
In 2009, Kaine signed a bill to create a "Choose Life" license plate, among the more than 200 Virginia specialty plates already offered, the proceeds of which would partly go to Heartbeat International, a Christian organization that operates anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers. Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice America expressed disappointment in Kaine's decision. Kaine considered such license plate messages a matter of free speech and added that the move was "in keeping with the commonwealth's longtime practice of approving specialty plates with all manner of political and social messages."
Kaine previously criticized the Obama administration for "not providing a 'broad enough religious employer exemption'" in the contraceptive mandate of the Affordable Care Act, but praised a 2012 amendment to the regulations that required insurers to provide birth control to employees when an employer was an objecting religious organization.
In 2005, when running for governor, Kaine said he favored reducing abortions by "Enforcing the current Virginia restrictions on abortion and passing an enforceable ban on partial birth abortion that protects the life and health of the mother"; "Fighting teen pregnancy through abstinence-focused education"; "Ensuring women's access to health care (including legal contraception) and economic opportunity"; and "Promoting adoption as an alternative for women facing unwanted pregnancies."
In 2007, as governor, Kaine cut off state funding for abstinence-only sex education programs, citing studies that showed such programs were ineffective, while comprehensive sex education programs were more effective. Kaine believes that both abstinence and contraceptives must be taught, and that education should be evidence-based.
As a senator, Kaine has received perfect scores from Planned Parenthood and the abortion-rights advocacy group NARAL. He has received a score of zero from the anti-abortion National Right to Life Committee.
Campaign finance
Kaine "strongly disagrees" with Citizens United v. FEC (2010). In 2015, Kaine joined a group of Senate Democrats in a letter to Securities and Exchange Commission Chairwoman Mary Jo White that said the ruling "reversed long-standing precedent and has moved our country in a different and disturbing direction when it comes to corporate influence in politics." They urged the SEC to require publicly traded companies to disclose political spending to their shareholders to "increase transparency in the U.S. political process".
Capital punishment
Kaine personally opposes capital punishment, but presided over 11 executions while governor. He said, "I really struggled with [capital punishment] as governor. I have a moral position against the death penalty. But I took an oath of office to uphold it. Following an oath of office is also a moral obligation." During his time in office he commuted one death sentence in June 2008, that of Percy Levar Walton, to life imprisonment without parole on grounds of mental incompetence, writing that "one cannot reasonably conclude that Walton is fully aware of the punishment he is about to suffer and why he is to suffer it" and thus that executing him would be unconstitutional. Kaine vetoed a number of bills to expand the death sentence to more crimes, saying: "I do not believe that further expansion of the death penalty is necessary to protect human life or provide for public safety needs." Some of the vetoes were overridden.
On July 31, 2019, after Attorney General William Barr announced that the United States federal government would resume the use of the death penalty for the first time in over 20 years, Kaine co-sponsored a bill banning the death penalty.
Environment, energy, and climate change
Kaine acknowledges the scientific consensus on climate change, and in a 2014 Senate speech criticized climate change deniers, as well as those who "may not deny the climate science, but ... deny that the U.S. can or should be a leader in taking any steps" to address the issue.
Kaine has expressed concern about sea level rise (a major consequence of climate change), and in particular its effect on coastal Virginia. In 2014, he partnered with two Virginia Republicans—U.S. Representatives Rob Wittman and Scott Rigell—to hold a conference on sea-level rise and "local adaptation efforts to protect military installations in the Hampton Roads area."
Kaine endorses making coal energy production cleaner, saying that it is imperative "to convert coal to electricity with less pollution than we do today." He has criticized those who "frame the debate as a conflict between an economy and the environment", saying that "protecting the environment is good for the economy." Kaine co-sponsored the Advanced Clean Coal Technology Investment in Our Nation (ACCTION) Act, legislation to increase investment in clean coal technologies. He voted against legislation to approve the Keystone XL pipeline. Kaine supports the use of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) to harvest natural gas from shale formations. He believes this will reduce carbon pollution. Kaine voted against an amendment introduced by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand that would have repealed a provision in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 that exempts fracking from the underground injection control provisions of the Safe Drinking Water Act. As a result, regulation of fracking remains in the hands of state agencies; the EPA cannot regulate it or require a federal permit. Kaine supports exporting liquefied natural gas (LNG) to other countries.
Like his fellow senator from Virginia, Mark Warner, Kaine applauded the U.S. Forest Service's plan to close most, but not all, of the George Washington National Forest to fracking and other horizontal drilling activities.
In 2013, Kaine supported oil and gas exploration off the coast of Virginia, saying, "I have long believed that the moratorium on offshore drilling, based on a cost-benefit calculation performed decades ago, should be reexamined." In April 2015, Kaine reiterated his opposition to the moratorium on offshore drilling. In March 2016, Kaine signaled that his position was softening, saying he was "particularly struck by the material objections of the Department of Defense to the incompatibility of drilling with naval operations off Virginia's coast... I have participated in this debate for over a decade as a governor and member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. The DOD has been relatively quiet during this public debate and has never shared their objections with me before." By August 2016, Kaine stated his support for a ban on offshore drilling, bringing his position in line with Hillary Clinton's and the Obama administration's.
Kaine supports the development of solar energy and offshore wind turbines. Based on his votes on environmental issues in the Senate, the League of Conservation Voters has given Kaine a 95% score for 2018, and a 94% lifetime score. (At the time of his vice-presidential campaign, Kaine had an 88% score for 2015, and a 91% lifetime score.)
In March 2019, Kaine was one of 11 senators to sponsor the Climate Security Act of 2019, legislation forming a new group within the State Department that would be responsible for developing strategies to integrate climate science and data into operations of national security as well as restoring the post of special envoy for the Arctic, which Trump had dismantled in 2017. The proposed envoy would advise the president and the administration on the potential effects of climate on national security and be responsible for facilitating all interagency communication between federal science and security agencies.
In April 2019, Kaine was one of 12 senators to sign a bipartisan letter to top senators on the Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development advocating that the Energy Department be granted maximum funding for carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS), arguing that American job growth could be stimulated by investment in viable options to capture carbon emissions released into the atmosphere and expressing disagreement with the Trump's 2020 budget request to combine the two federal programs that include carbon capture research.
Financial regulation
Kaine strongly supports financial regulation and the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. In July 2016, he signed a bipartisan letter that "urged the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to 'carefully tailor its rulemaking' [under Dodd-Frank] regarding community banks and credit unions so as not to 'unduly burden' these institutions with regulations aimed at commercial banks." The letter prompted criticism from progressives who viewed it as anti-regulation. Democracy for America executive director Charles Chamberlain called the letter "a lobbyist-driven effort to help banks dodge consumer protection standards and regulations designed to prevent banks from destroying our economy." Kaine responded, "it's important you don't treat every financial institution the same. It wasn't credit unions that tanked the economy, it wasn't local community banks that tanked the economy, generally wasn't regional banks that did things that tanked the economy." He also signed a letter urging that a requirement that regional banks report liquidity levels on a daily basis be loosened.
Foreign and defense policy
In the Senate, Kaine has supported the normalization of U.S.–Cuban relations and the international nuclear agreement with Iran.
Kaine expressed support for Israel's right to defend itself during the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict. In September 2016, in advance of a UN Security Council resolution 2334 condemning Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, he signed an AIPAC-sponsored letter urging Obama to veto "one-sided" resolutions against Israel.
In 2015, Kaine expressed support for the Saudi-led coalition's airstrikes in Yemen against Houthi forces fighting the government of President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, but in 2018, he was one of seven senators to sign a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo saying that they found it "difficult to reconcile known facts with at least two" of the Trump administration's certifications that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were attempting to protect Yemeni civilians and were in compliance with U.S. laws on arms sales, citing an inconsistency with a memo from Pompeo to Congress expressly stating that on some occasions the Saudi and Emirates governments had failed to adopt measures to reduce civilian casualties. Kaine also condemned the Trump administration for its "eagerness to give the Saudis anything they want" after the administration approved the transfer of nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia after the murder of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi.
In July 2017, Kaine voted for the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act that placed sanctions on Iran, Russia, and North Korea.
In 2019, Kaine was one of 34 Senate Democrats to sign a letter to Trump urging him to reconsider cuts to U.S. foreign aid to the Northern Triangle countries of Central America in the Fiscal Year 2018 national security appropriations bill. The letter said that Trump had "consistently expressed a flawed understanding of U.S. foreign assistance", viewing it as a gift or charity to foreign governments rather than a tool to promote American interests and collective security. The senators wrote that U.S. foreign assistance to Central American countries, by improving stability and alleviating poverty in the region, reduced Central American migration flows to the U.S.
In 2019, Kaine co-sponsored the South China Sea and East China Sea Sanctions Act, a bipartisan bill reintroduced by Marco Rubio and Ben Cardin that was intended to disrupt China's consolidation or expansion of its claims of jurisdiction over both the sea and airspace in disputed zones in the South China Sea.
Grand strategy and democracy promotion
After the 2016 presidential campaign, Kaine wrote an extensive essay in Foreign Affairs outlining his underlying foreign policy philosophy. According to Kaine, American foreign policy has suffered a lack of direction since the 1990s because the end of the Cold War rendered irrelevant America's previous grand strategy, which he identifies as the Truman Doctrine. This lack of grand strategy makes American actions seem random, complicating the policy-making process and hindering American leaders' efforts to convince the public that American foreign policy is worthwhile. To remedy this, Kaine proposed a new grand strategy based mainly on democracy promotion. His grand strategy is informed by a tri-polar balance of international power, with one pole being democratic states including the U.S. and its allies, the second autocratic powers led by Russia and China, and the third nonstate actors (multinational corporations, NGOs, gangs, etc.).
First, Kaine believes that the United States should work to support democracy in already democratic countries, as democracy globally has been declining for many years. To maintain democracy in democratic countries, Kaine proposes the creation of an intergovernmental organization consisting of all the world's democracies in which states can cooperate on solutions to problems such as corruption and voter inclusion. He compares this hypothetical group to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, in which advanced industrialized countries collaborate on economic policy. Kaine believes that this new organization will help democracies remain democratic, as well as promote democracy in other countries by giving them viable democratic examples to emulate. In this way, Kaine says that the U.S. should no longer see itself as the indispensable nation, but rather the "exemplary democracy".
Second, Kaine proposes that democracies should coordinate to best interact with authoritarian states. Depending on the circumstances, democracies should either "confront", "compete", or "cooperate" with autocracies. For example, Kaine observes that the U.S. competes with its authoritarian adversaries by strengthening military and commercial alliances, and confronts them by decrying their human rights records.
Finally, Kaine believes that democracies and autocracies should cooperate when they have the same interests, such as combating climate change.
In July 2017, Kaine expanded on the grand strategy proposed in this essay in an interview at the Brookings Institution with international relations scholar Robert Kagan.
Afghanistan
Kaine's website states, "The main mission in Afghanistan—destroying Al Qaeda—is nearly complete and we should bring our troops home as quickly as we can, consistent with the need to make sure that Afghanistan poses no danger in the broader region."
Latin America
Kaine believes that American foreign policy has neglected relations with Latin America and argues for an increased focus on the Americas, saying, "We have seldom paid enough attention to the Americas, in particular, and when we have—whether through the Monroe Doctrine or by battling communist movements during the Cold War—we have focused more on blocking outsiders from building influence in the Western Hemisphere than we have on the nations already there."
War powers
Kaine is known for "expertise on the constitutional powers of the presidency" and has said that "war powers questions" are a "personal obsession" of his. He has stressed that under the Constitution, "Congress has the power to declare war—and only Congress." Kaine called the 2018 U.S. missile strikes Trump ordered against the Syrian government illegal because they were undertaken without congressional approval.
Kaine and Senator John McCain introduced the War Powers Consultation Act of 2014, which would replace the War Powers Act of 1973, bringing Congress back into decisions on the deployment of U.S. military forces. The bill would establish a Congressional Consultation Committee, with which the president would be required to consult regularly regarding significant foreign policy matters before ordering the deployment of the armed forces into a significant armed conflict and at least every two months for the duration of any significant armed conflict. Kaine argued for the bill by citing his "frustration" over the sloppiness of "process and communication over decisions of war", noting that "presidents tend to overreach and Congress sometimes willingly ducks tough votes and decisions. We all have to do better."
In February 2018, Kaine was one of 18 senators to sign a letter to Trump arguing that striking North Korea with "a preventative or preemptive U.S. military strike would lack either a constitutional basis or legal authority" without congressional approval.
In January 2020, Kaine introduced a new war powers resolution that would prohibit the U.S. from entering hostilities against Iran within 30 days unless it was responding to an imminent threat. The next month, the measure passed the Senate 55–45, securing the votes of eight Republicans along with the Democrats. Trump vetoed the measure, and the Senate failed to override the veto.
Syria, Iraq, and ISIL
In 2014, Kaine argued that the U.S. military intervention against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) undertaken by Obama was unconstitutional without a new congressional authorization for the use of military force against ISIL. In November 2014, at the Halifax International Security Forum, Kaine and McCain emphasized the necessity of such a congressional authorization, saying: "You just can't have a war without Congress. You can't ask people to risk their lives, risk getting killed, seeing other folks getting killed or injured if Congress isn't willing to do the job to put their thumbprint on this and say, this is a national mission and worth it." After the April 2017 Shayrat missile strike in Syria, ordered by Trump, Kaine said, "There is no legal justification for this. He should not have done this without coming to Congress." On Meet the Press, Kaine said, "I'm a strong supporter that the U.S. should take action to protect humanitarian causes, like the ban on chemical weapons. Where I differ from this administration, and I took the same position with respect to President Obama, we are a nation that's not supposed to take military action, start war, without a plan that's presented to and approved by Congress."
On December 11, 2014, after a five-month campaign by Kaine, the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved by 10–8 (along party lines) a measure authorizing military force against ISIL but barring the use of ground troops. In October 2015, Kaine criticized Obama's approach to the Syrian Civil War, saying that the establishment of humanitarian no-fly zones would have alleviated the humanitarian crisis in Syria.
In April 2018, Kaine criticized Trump for authorizing the launch of a precision military strike on Syria without consulting Congress, calling the strike an "illegal military act".
On February 26, 2021, Kaine demanded answers from President Biden after he ordered airstrikes on Syria against Iran-backed militias without giving "legal justification" to members of Congress beforehand.
Firearms
Kaine is a firearms owner. He has supported expanded background checks for weapons purchases as well as "restrictions on the sale of combat-style weapons and high-capacity magazines." As governor, Kaine oversaw the closing of loopholes in Virginia law that allowed some who had failed background checks to purchase guns. In the Senate, he has supported legislation that would require background checks for weapons sold via gun shows and via the internet. He also supports legislation to bar weapons sales to suspected terrorists on the No Fly List.
In November 2017, Kaine was a cosponsor of the Military Domestic Violence Reporting Enhancement Act, a bill that would form a charge of domestic violence under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) and stipulate that convictions be reported to federal databases with the authority to keep abusers from purchasing firearms within three days in an attempt to close a loophole in the UCMJ through which convicted abusers retained the ability to purchase firearms.
In March 2018, Kaine was one of ten senators to sign a letter to Chairman of the United States Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Lamar Alexander and ranking Democrat Patty Murray requesting they schedule a hearing on the causes and remedies of mass shootings in the wake of the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting.
In June 2019, Kaine was one of four senators to cosponsor the Help Empower Americans to Respond (HEAR) Act, legislation that would ban suppressors being imported, sold, made, sent elsewhere or possessed and grant a silencer buyback program as well as include certain exceptions for current and former law enforcement personnel and others. The bill was intended to respond to the Virginia Beach shooting, in which the perpetrator used a .45-caliber handgun with multiple extended magazines and a suppressor.
Kaine has a 100% rating from the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and an "F" rating from the NRA.
Health care
Kaine supports the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2009 (Obamacare), saying in 2012, "I was a supporter and remain a supporter of the Affordable Care Act. I felt like it was a statement that we were going to put some things in the rearview mirror." In 2013, he said that he agreed that changes to the ACA should be debated, but criticized Republicans for "wrapping them up with the threat" of a federal government shutdown.
In 2018, Kaine and Senator Michael Bennet proposed the creation of "Medicare X"—a public health insurance option modeled after Medicare that would be available on ACA health insurance marketplaces along with private options. The proposal is a more incrementalist alternative to Bernie Sanders's push for "Medicare for All" (single-payer health care).
In December 2018, Kaine was one of 42 senators to sign a letter to Trump administration officials Alex Azar, Seema Verma, and Steve Mnuchin arguing that the administration was improperly using Section 1332 of the ACA to authorize states to "increase health care costs for millions of consumers while weakening protections for individuals with pre-existing conditions." The senators requested the administration withdraw the policy and "re-engage with stakeholders, states, and Congress."
In January 2019, Kaine was one of six Democratic senators to introduce the American Miners Act of 2019, a bill that would amend the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 to swap funds in excess of the amounts needed to meet existing obligations under the Abandoned Mine Land fund to the 1974 Pension Plan as part of an effort to prevent its insolvency as a result of coal company bankruptcies and the 2008 financial crisis. It also increased the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund tax and ensured that miners affected by the 2018 coal company bankruptcies would not lose their health care.
In December 2016, Kaine was one of 17 senators to sign a letter to Trump asking him to fulfill a campaign pledge to bring down the cost of prescription drugs. In February 2017, he and 30 other senators signed a letter to Kaléo Pharmaceuticals in response to the opioid-overdose-reversing device Evzio rising in price from $690 in 2014 to $4,500 and requested the company provide the detailed price structure for Evzio, the number of devices Kaléo Pharmaceuticals set aside for donation, and the totality of federal reimbursements Evzio received in the previous year. In February 2019, Kaine was one of 11 senators to sign a letter to insulin manufacturers Eli Lilly and Company, Novo Nordisk, and Sanofi about increased insulin prices and charging that the price increases caused patients to lack "access to the life-saving medications they need."
In August 2019, Kaine was one of 19 Democratic senators to sign a letter to Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar requesting data from the Trump administration on the consequences for healthcare if Texas prevailed in its lawsuit seeking to gut the Affordable Care Act. The senators wrote, "Upending the current health care system will create an enormous hole in the pocketbooks of the people we serve as well as wreck state budgets; therefore, we ask for data to help states and Congress better understand the potential consequences of the position the Administration is taking in court."
In September 2019, amid discussions to prevent a government shutdown, Kaine was one of six Democratic senators to sign a letter to congressional leadership advocating legislation that would permanently fund health care and pension benefits for retired coal miners as "families in Virginia, West Virginia, Wyoming, Alabama, Colorado, North Dakota and New Mexico" would start to receive notifications of health care termination by the end of the following month.
Immigration
Kaine supports the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Deferred Action for Parental Accountability (DAPA) programs, which allow up to five million undocumented immigrants to gain deferral of deportation and authorization to legally work in the United States. Alongside Senator Mark Warner and many other members of Congress, he signed on to an amicus brief in support of the program in the Supreme Court case United States v. Texas.
Kaine also supports comprehensive immigration reform, which would allow persons illegally present in the U.S. to earn legal status by paying a fine and taxes.
In July 2019, following reports that the Trump administration intended to end protections of spouses, parents and children of active-duty service members from deportation, Kaine was one of 22 senators to sign a letter led by Tammy Duckworth arguing that the program allowed service members the ability "to fight for the United States overseas and not worry that their spouse, children, or parents will be deported while they are away" and that the its termination would cause personal hardship for service members in combat.
In July 2019, Kaine and 15 other Senate Democrats introduced the Protecting Sensitive Locations Act, a bill to mandate that ICE agents get approval from a supervisor before undertaking an immigration raid or other enforcement actions at "sensitive locations" (schools, hospitals, places of worship, and courthouses) except in special circumstances. The bill would also require agents to receive annual training and require ICE to submit an annual report on enforcement actions in those locations.
LGBT rights
In 2006, Kaine campaigned against an amendment to the Virginia State Constitution to ban same-sex marriage, and in March 2013, he announced his support of same-sex marriage.
In the Senate, Kaine co-sponsored the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which would bar employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
In 2005, Kaine said, "No couples in Virginia can adopt other than a married couple. That's the right policy." In 2011, he shifted his position. In 2012, he said, "there should be a license that would entitle a committed couple to the same rights as a married couple."
During the 2016 presidential campaign, Kaine noted that his position on same-sex marriage was "at odds with the current doctrine of the church that I still attend." He predicted that the Roman Catholic Church would someday adopt his view. In response, two bishops heading the doctrine and marriage committees of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said that the church's position "cannot change" and reaffirmed their opposition to same-sex marriage.
In October 2018, Kaine was one of 20 senators to sign a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urging him to reverse the State Department's policy of denying visas to same-sex partners of LGBTQ diplomats who had unions that were not recognized by their home countries, writing that the Trump administration's refusal to allow LGBTQ diplomats to bring their partners to the U.S. was tantamount to upholding the "discriminatory policies of many countries around the world." In June 2019, Kaine was one of 18 senators to sign a letter to Pompeo requesting an explanation of the State Department's decision not to issue an official statement that year commemorating Pride Month or issue the annual cable outlining activities for embassies commemorating Pride Month. The signatories to the letter also asked why the LGBTI special envoy position had remained vacant. The authors said that the State Department's moves had sent "signals to the international community that the United States is abandoning the advancement of LGBTI rights as a foreign policy priority."
Taxes
Kaine supports allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire for those with incomes above $500,000.
In 2012, Kaine supported raising the cap on income subject for the FICA (Social Security) payroll tax "so that it covers a similar percentage of income as it did in the 1980s under President Reagan, which would greatly extend the solvency of the (Social Security) program."
In the Senate, Kaine has supported the Marketplace Fairness Act, which would allow states to require online retailers to collect sales taxes in the same manner as traditional brick-and-mortar retailers.
Trade
Kaine supported granting Obama Trade Promotion Authority (TPA or "fast track") to allow him to negotiate free trade agreements. He said the goal should be to "negotiate deals that protect workers' rights, environmental standards and intellectual property, while knocking down tariffs and other barriers that some countries erect to keep American products out."
In July 2016, Kaine said the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement was "an improvement of the status quo" and an "upgrade of labor standards... environmental standards... intellectual property protections", but maintained that he had not yet decided how to vote on final approval of the agreement, citing "significant concerns" over TPP's dispute resolution mechanism. Later that July, Kaine said that he could not support the TPP in its current form.
Kaine has been a proponent of NAFTA.
Transportation, growth, and housing
Kaine supports some smart growth-style policies (which he calls "a balanced approach to growth") to control sprawl and improve transportation. He favors a transportation policy that includes public transit, bicycles, and pedestrians. As governor, Kaine pushed through a $100 million open-space acquisition initiative. Under Kaine, Amtrak service in Virginia was expanded. He also participated in a White House round-table discussion on high-speed rail in 2009.
In April 2019, Kaine was one of 41 senators to sign a bipartisan letter in support of U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Section 4 Capacity Building program, a program authorizing HUD to partner with nonprofit community development groups to provide support to community development corporations. The letter said that the longstanding program had successfully promoted economic and community development, opposed the proposed elimination of the plan in Trump's budget proposal for Fiscal Year 2020, and urged the Senate to support continued funding for Section 4 in Fiscal Year 2020.
Workers' rights and gender equality
Kaine is "generally pro-union" and has received a 96% lifetime Senate voting rating from the AFL-CIO, which praised his selection as Clinton's running mate. But Kaine supports Virginia's longstanding "right-to-work" law, which "frees union nonmembers from any legal obligation to pay fees to a union that bargains collectively on their behalf".
Kaine supports the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which expands the cases in which worker can sue against gender pay discrimination. After Clinton selected him as her running mate in 2016, Kaine was praised by the National Organization for Women.
Kaine favors an increase in the minimum wage.
Electoral history
2001 lieutenant gubernatorial election
2005 gubernatorial election
2012 U.S. Senate election
2016 vice presidential election
2018 U.S. Senate election
Personal life
In November 1984, Kaine married Anne Bright Holton, the daughter of A. Linwood Holton Jr., a Republican who served as the 61st governor of Virginia from 1970 to 1974. The couple met while they were both students at Harvard Law School. Holton has been a judge for the Virginia Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court in Richmond. After serving as first lady of Virginia during her husband's term, she was appointed by Governor Terry McAuliffe in January 2014 to be Virginia's secretary of education, and held that position until July 2016, when she stepped down after her husband was named as the Democratic vice-presidential nominee. The couple has three children, one of whom is a United States Marine. As of 2016, Kaine and his wife had been congregants of the St. Elizabeth Catholic Church in Richmond, a mostly black congregation, for 30 years.
Kaine plays the harmonica and often travels with several.
Kaine is fluent in Spanish as a result of his nine months in Honduras. During the 2016 campaign, he became the first member of a presidential ticket to deliver a speech in Spanish.
On May 28, 2020, Kaine announced that he and his wife had tested positive for COVID-19 antibodies.
Awards and honors
Kaine has received the Humanitarian Award from the Virginia Center for Inclusive Communities, then the Virginia Region of the National Conference for Community and Justice (2000), the Virginia Council of Churches' Faith in Action Award (2009), the University of Richmond School of Law's William Green Award for Professional Excellence (2012), the Award for Public Service in the Americas from the Inter-American Dialogue (2014), the Appalachian Trail Conservancy's Congressional Award (2015), and the Center for the National Interest's Distinguished Service Award (2016). He was made a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Isabella the Catholic in 2017.
Notes
References
Further reading
Governor
Kaine's Governor website (Archived)
Kaine's Lieutenant governor website (Archived)
2005 campaign contributions at the Virginia Public Access Project
Moving Virginia Forward Archived Web Site, 2007 part of Virginia's Political Landscape, 2007 Web Archive Collection at Virginia Memory
Moving Virginia Forward Archived Web Site, 2009 part of Virginia's Political Landscape, 2009 Web Archive Collection at Virginia Memory
Tim Kaine for Governor Archived Web Site, 2005–2006 part of Virginia's Political Landscape, Fall 2005 Web Archive Collection at Virginia Memory
Governor Tim Kaine Administration Web Site Archive, 2006–2010
Kaine Email Project at the Library of Virginia
External links
U.S. Senate website
Campaign website
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"\"I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance with You\" is a song by American indie rock band Black Kids from their debut album, Partie Traumatic (2008). It was released as the band's debut single by Almost Gold Recordings on April 7, 2008, in the United Kingdom, and on May 27, 2008, in North America. The song peaked at number 11 on the UK Singles Chart but did not chart in the United States. The demo version from the band's 2007 EP Wizard of Ahhhs placed at number 68 on Pitchfork Media's Top 100 Tracks of 2007.\n\nBackground\nAccording to lead singer Reggie Youngblood, the track was inspired by Jacksonville's dance party scene: he realized that usually, he would end up with girls who couldn't dance. The line \"You are the girl, that I've been dreaming of, ever since I was a little girl\" is based on an inside joke between Reggie and his sister Ali Youngblood where they would refer to wanting something as \"Ever since I was a little girl\".\n\nReception\nIn a review of Partie Traumatic on AllMusic, Tim Sendra called \"I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance with You\" one of the best songs on the album, writing that it \"kick[s] you in the gut with [its] energy and verve.\" Commercially, the single performed well in the United Kingdom, debuting at number 84 on April 6, 2008, and rising to its peak of number 11 the following week. It became a minor hit in the Flanders region of Belgium, reaching number 10 on the Ultratip listing.\n\nTrack listings\nAll songs were written by Black Kids except where noted.\n\n7-inch single (pink vinyl)\nA. \"I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance with You\" – 3:39\nB. \"Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover\" – 2:26\n\nUK 12-inch single (white vinyl)\nA1. \"I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance with You\" – 3:39\nB1. \"I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance with You\" (The Twelves Remix) – 3:46\nB2. \"I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance with You\" (The Twelves Remix – Dub Version) – 3:46\n\nCD single and EP\n \"I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance with You\" – 3:39\n \"You Turn Me On\" – 2:50\n \"Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover\" – 2:26\n\nUS and Canadian digital download\n \"I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance with You\" – 3:40\n \"I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance with You\" (The Twelves Remix) – 3:44\n\nUK digital download EP\n \"I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance with You\" – 3:39\n \"You Turn Me On\" – 2:50\n \"Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover\" – 2:26\n \"I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance with You\" (The Twelves Remix) – 3:46\n\nPersonnel\n Owen Holmes – bass guitar\n Kevin Snow – drums\n Dawn Watley – keyboards and vocals\n Ali Youngblood – keyboards and vocals\n Reggie Youngblood – guitar and vocals\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nRelease history\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Official Black Kids website\n\n2008 debut singles\n2008 songs\nBlack Kids songs\nSongs about dancing",
"Teach First (also Teach First Cymru) is a social enterprise registered as a charity which aims to address educational disadvantage in England and Wales. Teach First coordinates an employment-based teaching training programme whereby participants achieve Qualified Teacher Status through the participation in a two-year training programme that involves the completion of a PGDE along with wider leadership skills training and an optional master's degree.\n\nTrainees are placed at participating primary and secondary schools where they commit to stay for the duration of the 2-year training programme. Eligible schools are those where more than half of the pupils come from the poorest 30% of families according to the Income Deprivation Affecting Children Index. Following completion of the two-year programme, participants become Teach First ambassadors. This network of ambassadors aims to address educational disadvantage either in school or in other sectors.\n\nTeach First is the largest recruiter of graduates in the United Kingdom, and was ranked 2nd only to PwC in The Times annual Top 100 Graduate Employers list in 2014 and 2015.\n\nThe Teach First scheme has been met with some controversy and criticism since its inception, which has impeded its planned expansion into Scotland.\n\nIn June 2020 Teach First dropped 120 trainees due to lack of training opportunities because of COVID-19, sending out a generic email. Some prospective trainees has already given up steady jobs in order to take up placements.\n\nHistory\nIn the summer of 2001 Charles, Prince of Wales as president of Business in the Community hosted a group of business leaders and headteachers. At this event Ian Davis of McKinsey and Company agreed to produce a report on the question of why inner-London Schools were not doing as well as they could do, and what business could do to contribute to the improvement of London schools for the event organisers and London First. The report highlighted the problems with the quality of London's schools, particularly in inner London. It confirmed the link between poverty and educational outcomes and noted that the proportion of pupils on Free school meals in inner London was three times the national average. The report also highlighted how the scale of pupil mobility was inhibiting the progress of many young people. Fifteen per cent of students attending inner London schools were entering school, leaving school or changing schools during the school year. This cycle was affecting student performance at age 16.\n\nIn terms of potential solutions McKinsey & Co. reinforced the value of a school being well led by a high quality head teacher, but also highlighted the importance of the quality of classroom teaching. The number of excellent teachers was, they reported, one of the strongest predictors of improved pupil performance, especially in challenging schools. Good teachers made an impact on pupil performance because they:\n\n Increased pupil motivation\n Improved knowledge transfer\n Provided good role models\n Gave more individual support to pupils\n Monitored pupils’ achievements systematically\n\nHowever, the high vacancy and turnover rates in London were making it difficult to build a group of skilled teachers. Salary levels were also part of the problem – but only a small part of it. Poor management, inadequate resources, long hours, taxing duties, poor student behaviour and a lack of professional opportunities also contributed to the large numbers of teachers leaving the profession. Building on the experience of Teach for America (which had been formed in 1990) McKinsey & Co. proposed creating a programme to recruit and train the best and brightest graduates and place them in London's disadvantaged and underperforming schools.\n\nOne of the consultants involved in compiling the report, Brett Wigdortz, set about developing a business plan for a Teach for America style enterprise in London. In February 2002 Brett took a six-month sabbatical from McKinsey to develop a business plan for what was tentatively called Teach for London before it evolved to become Teach First.\n\nTeach First officially launched in July 2002, in Canary Wharf with a team of 11 committed employees led by Brett Wigdortz as CEO and Stephen O’Brien CBE & George Iacobescu CBE as co-chairs of the Board of Trustees. Canary Wharf Group and Citi become the first corporate supporters of Teach First.\n\nTeach First's first cohort of participants started to teach in 45 secondary schools in London. Haling Manor High School in Croydon was the first school to sign up to Teach First. It was based solely in London until September 2006 when it expanded into Greater Manchester schools.\n\nIn 2007, Teach First collaborated with Teach for America to create Teach for All, a global network of independent social enterprises that are working to expand educational opportunity in their nations.\n\nRecruitment process\nTo be eligible to apply to the Teach First Leadership Development Programme candidates need to have: \n a 2.1 degree or above.\n a degree or A-levels that satisfies Teach First's subject dependent requirements.\n Grade C (or equivalent) in GCSE Maths and English (Grade C in one Science GCSE is also required for Primary teaching eligibility)/ Grade B (or equivalent) in GCSE Maths and English to teach in Wales.\n flexibility to teach within any of the Teach First regions.\n\nThe recruitment process begins by registering interest and then submitting an online application (within 12 weeks). If the online application is successful, candidates are invited to attend a one-day assessment centre consisting of a competency-based interview, a group case study exercise and the delivery of a sample teaching lesson. There are eight competencies assessed throughout the recruitment process. If successful at the assessment centre, candidates are then made a conditional offer to join Teach First dependent on a subject knowledge assessment and classroom observation period.\n\nTeach First Programme\nParticipants teach in the same school throughout the two years. In the first year, participants work towards a PGCE whilst undertaking around 90% of a Newly Qualified Teacher (NQT) timetable, In their second year participants work as NQTs. Trainees are placed at participating primary and secondary schools where they commit to stay for the duration of the training programme. Eligible schools are those where more than half of the pupils come from the poorest 30% of families according to the Income Deprivation Affecting Children Index. Participants are paid and employed by the schools they are placed at.\n\nFollowing completion of the two-year programme, participants become Teach First ambassadors. This network of ambassadors aims to address educational disadvantage either in school or in other sectors.\n\nSummer Institute\nBefore entering the classroom, participants attend a five-week Summer Institute. Four weeks of this is spent in their region and the final week at a residential course where they learn about the organisation's mission and develop their understanding of educational theory and practice to prepare them to begin teaching in the following September. Participants spend time training in the region in which they will teach, usually with an observation period in the school they will join after the summer. They then attend a residential course together as an entire cohort.\n\nSupport\nParticipants receive support in many areas of their training:\n\nTutors\nAll participants work with one of Teach First's university partners towards a PGDE and QTS (qualified teacher status) during their first year teaching.\n\nMentors \nPartner schools allocate mentors to assist their trainee's development as a teacher.\n\nParticipant Development Leads \nTeach First Participant Development Leads are all qualified teachers with leadership experience. They support and challenge participants throughout the two years.\n\nLeadership Development\nThroughout their two years teaching, participants have access to a range of leadership development opportunities.\nThe two-year Leadership Development programme is designed to enable participants to develop the knowledge, skills and attributes for use inside and outside the classroom. This training is delivered through workshops, panel events and one to one coaching. For example, participants have access to qualified teacher-led training sessions to provide them with tools and strategies they can apply in their classrooms. They will also attend workshops and reflective seminars to help them develop a good understanding of their strengths and areas for development. In addition, they will have the opportunity to have a coach to help them overcome the challenges they face, as well as business school training to teach them the fundamental aspects of business theory and practice which they can apply to their school context.\n\nParticipants also have the opportunity to apply to undertake a one-three week mini-internship during the school holidays – known as a Summer Project. These provide an opportunity to join one of Teach First's supporting or partner organisations to complete or contribute to a short-term goal or objective.\n\nRecruits also have the opportunity to complete a master's degree, starting in their second year on the programme through various partner universities.\n\nExpansion\n\nRegional\nTeach First was initially based solely in London, as part of the London Challenge initiative, until September 2006 when it expanded into Greater Manchester schools. The programme was subsequently extended to cover a total of 11 local areas: East Midlands, London, North East, North West, South Coast, South East, South West, East of England, West Midlands and Yorkshire and the Humber.\n\nIn Wales Teach First was given a three-year contract by the Welsh Government to pilot a graduate training programme for three years from 2013 as Teach First Cymru.\n\nTeach First has not been established in Scotland, in 2013 the charity met with the General Teaching Council for Scotland (the independent body for teaching in Scotland) but was told the recruits would not be permitted to teach in Scottish schools, as the General Council will only allow those already holding teaching certificates to teach. The Educational Institute of Scotland opposed the expansion of Teach First into the country with The Herald describing Teach First as controversial. In 2017 Scottish universities offering teacher training unanimously agreed to not work with Teach First. In light of the Scottish Government putting out to tender a fast-track teacher training scheme.\n\nCohort\nSince launching in 2002, Teach First has placed increasing numbers of participants in schools each year.\n\nTraining provision\nTeach First expanded from recruiting for secondary school teaching into recruiting primary teachers in 2011.\n\nRecruitment\nTeach First is increasingly seen as attractive to young professionals and career changers with 22% of applicants in 2014 coming from these backgrounds.\nTeach First launched a new campaign in October 2015 which focuses less on the social reward aspects of teaching and more on the challenge of a teaching career, following research by the Behavioural Insights Team.\n\nSimilar schemes \nSchool Direct and School-Centred Initial Teacher Training are school based schemes where participants can earn a salary during training. The Teach First model has also been applied in other areas of public sector recruitment with Frontline for children's social work, Think Ahead for mental-health social work, Police Now a two-year graduate leadership programme of the Metropolitan Police, and Unlocked for prison officers.\n\nAlumni ('Ambassadors') \nAs of 2017, 26 ambassadors of the programme were in Head Teacher roles and 36 social enterprises had been founded by ambassadors. Seventeen of these are recognised as official 'Innovation Partners' including The Access Project, Boromi, The Brilliant Club, CPDBee, The Difference, Enabling Enterprise, First Story, Franklin Scholars, Frontline, Future Frontiers, The Grub Club, Hackney Pirates, Jamie's Farm, Maths with Parents, MeeTwo, Right to Succeed and Thinking Reading.\n\nNotable alumni of Teach First include:\n Josh MacAlister (2009 ambassador) - Founder and CEO of Frontline social work charity\n Alex Kelly (2005 ambassador) - Founder of The Access Project, Co-Founder and CEO of Unifrog\n Stephanie Peacock (2010 ambassador) - Member of Parliament (MP) for Barnsley East \n William Wragg (2014 ambassador) - Member of Parliament (MP) for Hazel Grove\n\nCriticism \n\nAs part of the Teach For All network, Teach First is subject to many of the same criticisms levelled at its main partner organisation Teach for America, and offshoots such as Teach First Norway and Teach First New Zealand. Criticisms have been raised about the cost effectiveness of Teach First, with training costs higher per participant when compared to other training routes.\n\nTeach First asks for the graduates it recruits to give two years of teaching, and so retention rates for Teach First are lower than other routes into teaching, forty percent of Teach First participants stay in teaching after 5 years compared to much higher percentages (ranging from 62 to 70%) coming through PGCE and GTP programmes. It is anticipated and accepted that many of them will go on to careers in other sectors (hence the name, Teach First), also described as \"teach first, then get a better job\". The higher turnover rate and rapidly increasing cohort size of Teach First has been alleged as allowing schools to reduce their costs by employing teaching staff at unqualified teacher pay scales, it has been alleged that Teach First has been targeted by some academy school chains because of this.\n\nTeach First has been accused of elitism, and has also been accused of being biased to middle-class applicants within the application process. Teach First participants interviewed as part of an evaluation were predominantly middle‐class, possessing social and cultural capital which had facilitated their access to the Teach First scheme. A Study by London Metropolitan University found some recruits displayed patronising middle-class attitudes, coupled with a belief that they as graduates of prestigious universities, have much to offer but nothing to learn from low-income communities.\n\nIn 2009 it was reported that Teach First participants were being placed in schools where GCSE grades were above the local and national averages, and not in the worst performing secondary schools. Education Data Surveys analysed the results of all the schools involved in Teach First and found 15 of the 79 London secondaries (19 per cent) had GCSE achievements above their local authority average, and 17 schools had results above the national average. In the North West, five Teach First schools, or 23 per cent, had exam results which were the same or better than the local authority average. In the Midlands, results at five schools, or 18 per cent, were the same or better than the local authority average and two had results at or above the national average, raising the question of why schools with GCSE results up to 80 and 70 per cent were taking part.\n\nIn response Teach First said that exam results were not the \"whole story\" of the initiative, and the number of children claiming free school meals was as important in selecting schools to be involved. Stating \"Teach First selects the schools into which it places exceptional graduates through consideration of a range of criteria that indicate the level of challenge experienced at the school, including the percentage of free schools meals, the exam results at GCSE, staff turnover and the difficulties experienced by schools in recruiting new teachers.\"\n\nTeach First's relationship with businesses and deferred entry schemes has opened it to suggestions that it operates as an elite graduate scheme for them to recruit from.\n\nTeach First has also been said to place too much emphasis on schools in London, to where it places 40% of its recruits. It has been subject to criticism that London and larger cities are able to attract the best graduates, but coastal and rural communities struggle to attract these graduates. Brett Wigdortz in response said \"We made the same mistake many implementations make – starting in the place where it's easiest to implement things, the big cities, and taking a while to get to the areas which really need it\".\n\nThe Teach First model whereby teachers enter the classroom after only a six-week summer camp can leave recruits feeling their in-class levels of support as variable. A Teach First recruit has said the experience left her feeling expendable, saying the Teach First leadership were more focussed on expansion rather than the experience of recruits in a \"survival of the fittest\" atmosphere. Teach First had a 92% retention rate of recruits in 2012, with the recruit earning a \"good\" teacher label by observers.\n\nThe so-called \"London effect\" where the capital has seen a turnaround in educational achievement since the millennium, which has seen Teach First (and other interventions such as the London Challenge and the rise of academies) being credited with the turnaround of education in London, has been analysed in an academic study as coming instead from gradual improvements in primary education in the capital.\n\nTeach First has been supported by politicians of the Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties.\n\nIn 2017 the Journalist and director of the New Schools Network Toby Young attended a social mobility summit hosted by Teach First, who asked him to write a blog for them. Teach First disagreed with the content of the work submitted by Young, and published it with a rebuttal from another author working in the field. Teach First then decided that they were in error to publish the blog, even with a rebuttal, and removed it as being against their values and vision. Stating that they did not want to act as a platform for the views contained therein. Toby Young claimed that he only found out about this decision via Twitter, and questioned why Teach First published it in the first place, stating that he felt as though he had been censored by the charity. A third party broadly agreed with Young's blog points, but found some merit in the rebuttal. Teach First apologised to Young and he accepted their apology.\n\nSee also\n Tough Young Teachers – a BBC documentary following graduates on the Teach First programme\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Teach First Official Website\n\nOrganizations established in 2002\nEducational organisations based in the United Kingdom\nUnited Kingdom educational programs\nCharities based in London\n2002 establishments in the United Kingdom"
] |
[
"Tim Kaine",
"Legal career and Richmond City Council",
"Where did Kaine attend law school?",
"I don't know.",
"What year was he elected to city council?",
"In May 1994,",
"was he known for achieving anything special while on the council?",
"Kaine spent four terms on the council, the latter two as mayor.",
"Did he represent a specific political party?",
"specializing in fair housing law and representing clients discriminated against on the basis of race or disability.",
"Did he recieve any awards?",
"Kaine became a director with the law firm of Mezzullo & McCandlish, P.C.",
"Did he win any notable cases?",
"he represented in a landmark redlining discrimination lawsuit against Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co.",
"Was there anything else notable about his early career?",
"Kaine did regular pro bono work. In 1988, Kaine started teaching",
"What did he teach?",
"legal ethics as an adjunct professor",
"Where did he teach?",
"University of Richmond School of Law."
] |
C_6e5a0e696db14512b25f50b8092751a7_1
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How long was e on staff at Richmond SOL
| 10 |
How long was Tim Kaine on staff at Richmond SOL?
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Tim Kaine
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After graduating from law school, Kaine was a law clerk for Judge R. Lanier Anderson III of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, in Macon, Georgia. Kaine then joined the Richmond law firm of Little, Parsley & Cluverius, P.C. In 1987, Kaine became a director with the law firm of Mezzullo & McCandlish, P.C. Kaine practiced law in Richmond for 17 years, specializing in fair housing law and representing clients discriminated against on the basis of race or disability. He was a board member of the Virginia chapter of Housing Opportunities Made Equal, which he represented in a landmark redlining discrimination lawsuit against Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. arising from the company's practices in Richmond. Kaine won a $100.5 million verdict in the case; the judgment was overturned on appeal, and Kaine and his colleagues negotiated a $17.5 million settlement. Kaine did regular pro bono work. In 1988, Kaine started teaching legal ethics as an adjunct professor at the University of Richmond School of Law. Kaine taught at the University of Richmond for six years, and his students included future Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring. He was a founding member of the Virginia Coalition to End Homelessness. Kaine had a largely apolitical childhood, but became interested in politics in part due to the influence of his wife's family and his experience attending Richmond city council meetings. In May 1994, Kaine was elected to the city council of the independent city of Richmond, from the City's 2nd District. He defeated incumbent city councilman Benjamin P. A. Warthen by 97 votes. Kaine spent four terms on the council, the latter two as mayor. CANNOTANSWER
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for six years,
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Timothy Michael Kaine (; born February 26, 1958) is an American lawyer and politician serving as the junior United States senator from Virginia since 2013. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 38th lieutenant governor of Virginia from 2002 to 2006 and 70th governor of Virginia from 2006 to 2010. Kaine was the Democratic nominee for vice president of the United States in the 2016 election as Hillary Clinton's running mate.
Born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, Kaine grew up in Overland Park, Kansas, graduated from the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri, and earned a Juris Doctor degree from Harvard Law School before entering private practice and becoming a lecturer at the University of Richmond School of Law. He was first elected to public office in 1994, when he won a seat on the Richmond City Council. He was elected mayor of Richmond in 1998 and held that position until being elected lieutenant governor of Virginia in 2001. Kaine was elected governor of Virginia in 2005 and held that office from 2006 to 2010. He chaired the Democratic National Committee from 2009 to 2011.
On July 22, 2016, Hillary Clinton introduced Kaine as her vice-presidential running mate. The 2016 Democratic National Convention nominated him on July 27. Despite winning a plurality of the national popular vote, the ClintonKaine ticket lost the Electoral College, and thus the election, to the Republican ticket of Donald Trump and Mike Pence on November 8, 2016. Kaine was reelected to a second Senate term in 2018, defeating Republican Corey Stewart.
Early life and education
Kaine was born at Saint Joseph's Hospital in St. Paul, Minnesota. He is the eldest of three sons born to Mary Kathleen (née Burns), a home economics teacher, and Albert Alexander Kaine, Jr., a welder and the owner of a small iron-working shop. He was raised Catholic. One of Kaine's great-grandparents was Scottish and the other seven were Irish. Kaine's family moved to Overland Park, Kansas, when Kaine was two years old, and he grew up in the Kansas City area. In 1976, he graduated from Rockhurst High School, a Jesuit all-boys preparatory school in Kansas City, Missouri. At Rockhurst, Kaine joined the debate team and was elected student body president.
Kaine received his Bachelor of Arts in economics from the University of Missouri in 1979, completing his degree in three years and graduating Omicron Delta Kappa and summa cum laude. He was a Coro Foundation fellow in Kansas City in 1978. He entered Harvard Law School in 1979, interrupting his law studies after his first year to work in Honduras for nine months from 1980 to 1981, helping Jesuit missionaries who ran a Catholic school in El Progreso. While running a vocational center that taught carpentry and welding, he also helped increase the school's enrollment by recruiting local villagers. Kaine is fluent in Spanish as a result of his time in Honduras.
After returning from Honduras, Kaine met his future wife, first-year Harvard Law student Anne Holton. He graduated from Harvard Law School with a J.D. degree in 1983. Kaine and Holton moved to Holton's hometown of Richmond, Virginia, after graduation, and Kaine was admitted to the Virginia bar in 1984.
Legal career and Richmond City Council
After graduating from law school, Kaine was a law clerk for Judge R. Lanier Anderson III of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, in Macon, Georgia. He then joined the Richmond law firm of Little, Parsley & Cluverius, P.C. In 1987, Kaine became a director of the law firm of Mezzullo & McCandlish, P.C. He practiced law in Richmond for 17 years, specializing in fair housing law and representing clients discriminated against on the basis of race or disability. He was a board member of the Virginia chapter of Housing Opportunities Made Equal, which he represented in a landmark redlining discrimination lawsuit against Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. arising from the company's practices in Richmond. Kaine won a $100.5 million verdict in the case; the judgment was overturned on appeal, and Kaine and his colleagues negotiated a $17.5 million settlement.
Kaine did regular pro bono work. In 1988, he started teaching legal ethics as an adjunct professor at the University of Richmond School of Law. Kaine taught at the University of Richmond for six years; his students included future Virginia attorney general Mark Herring. He was a founding member of the Virginia Coalition to End Homelessness.
Kaine had a largely apolitical childhood, but became interested in politics in part due to the influence of his wife's family and his experience attending Richmond city council meetings. In 1994, he was elected the 2nd district member of the city council of the independent city of Richmond, defeating incumbent city councilor Benjamin P.A. Warthen by less than 100 votes. He took his seat on July 1 and retained the position until September 10, 2001, when he resigned and William J. Pantele was appointed to succeed him. He defeated the incumbent city councilman Benjamin P.A. Warthen by 97 votes. Kaine spent four terms on the city council, the latter two as mayor of Richmond.
Mayor of Richmond (1998–2001)
On July 1, 1998, Kaine was elected mayor of Richmond, succeeding Larry Chavis. He was chosen by an 8 to 1 vote on the majority-black Richmond City Council, becoming the city's first white mayor in more than ten years, which was viewed as a surprise. Rudy McCollum, an African American city councilor also interested in the mayoralty, decided to back Kaine after a private meeting between the two, clearing the way for Kaine to win the election. Previous mayors had treated the role as primarily ceremonial, with the city manager effectively operating the city; Kaine treated it as a full-time job, taking a more hands-on role.
As mayor, Kaine used a sale-leaseback arrangement to obtain funds to renovate the historic Maggie L. Walker High School and reopen it in 2000 as a magnet governor's school, the Maggie L. Walker Governor's School for Government and International Studies, which "now serves the top students in Central Virginia". Three elementary schools and one middle school were also built in Richmond under Kaine. Along with Commonwealth's attorney David Hicks, U.S. attorney James Comey, and police chief Jerry Oliver, Kaine was a supporter of Project Exile, an initiative that shifted gun crimes to federal court, where defendants faced harsher sentences. Though controversial, the effort was effective and achieved widespread support; the city's homicide rate fell by 55% during Kaine's mayoralty. Kaine touted Project Exile during his 2001 campaign for lieutenant governor.
On several occasions, Kaine voted against tax increases, and supported a tax abatement program for renovated buildings, which was credited for a housing renovation boom in the city. Forbes magazine named Richmond one of "the 10 best cities in America to do business" during Kaine's term.
According to John Moeser, a professor emeritus of urban studies and planning at Virginia Commonwealth University and later a visiting fellow at the University of Richmond's Center for Civic Engagement, Mayor Kaine "was energetic, charismatic and, most important, spoke openly about his commitment to racial reconciliation in Richmond." The New York Times wrote that Kaine "was by all accounts instrumental in bridging the city's racial divide." In the early part of his term, Kaine issued an apology for the city's role in slavery; the apology was generally well received as "a genuine, heartfelt expression". In the latter part of his term, a contentious debate took place over the inclusion of a portrait of Confederate general Robert E. Lee in a set of historic murals to be placed on city floodwalls. Many African Americans were outraged that Lee would appear on city walls, while Southern heritage groups demanded that the picture remain. Kaine proposed a compromise in which Lee would appear as part of a series of murals that also included figures like Abraham Lincoln and Powhatan Beaty. His stance drew criticism from the NAACP; Kaine argued that placing Lee on the floodwall made sense in context, and that "Much of our history is not pleasant; you can't whitewash it." Kaine's proposal passed the council on a 6–3 vote.
During his mayoralty, Kaine drew criticism for spending $6,000 in public funds on buses to the Million Mom March, an anti-gun-violence rally in Washington, D.C.; after a backlash, he raised the money privately and reimbursed the city.
Lieutenant governor of Virginia (2002–2006)
Kaine ran for lieutenant governor of Virginia in 2001. He joined the race after state senator Emily Couric dropped out due to pancreatic cancer and endorsed Kaine as her replacement. In the Democratic primary election, Kaine ran against state delegate Alan A. Diamonstein of Newport News, and state delegate Jerrauld C. Jones of Norfolk. Kaine won the nomination, with 39.7% of the vote to Diamonstein's 31.4% and Jones's 28.9%.
In the general election, Kaine won with 925,974 votes (50.35%), edging out his Republican opponent, state delegate Jay Katzen, who received 883,886 (48.06%). Libertarian Gary Reams received 28,783 votes (1.57%).
Kaine was inaugurated on January 12, 2002, and was sworn in by his wife Anne Holton, a state judge.
2005 gubernatorial election
In 2005, Kaine ran for governor of Virginia against Republican candidate Jerry W. Kilgore, a former state attorney general. Kaine was considered an underdog for most of the race, trailing in polls for most of the campaign. Two September polls showed Kaine trailing Kilgore—by four percentage points in a Washington Post poll and by one point in a Mason-Dixon/Roanoke Times poll. The final polls of the race before the election showed Kaine slightly edging ahead of Kilgore.
Kaine ultimately prevailed, winning 1,025,942 votes (51.7%) to Kilgore's 912,327 (46.0%). A third candidate, independent state Senator H. Russell Potts Jr., ran as an "independent Republican" and received 43,953 votes (2.2%).
Kaine emphasized fiscal responsibility and a centrist message. He expressed support for controlling sprawl and tackling longstanding traffic issues, an issue that resonated in the northern Virginia exurbs. He benefited from his association with the popular outgoing Democratic governor, Mark Warner, who had performed well in traditionally Republican areas of the state. On the campaign trail, Kaine referred to the "Warner-Kaine administration" in speeches and received Warner's strong backing. Kilgore later attributed his defeat to Warner's high popularity and President George W. Bush's sharply declining popularity; Bush held a rally with Kilgore on the campaign's final day.
The campaign turned sharply negative in its final weeks, with Kilgore running television attack ads that falsely claimed that Kaine believed that "Hitler doesn't qualify for the death penalty." The ads also attacked Kaine for his service ten years earlier as a court-appointed attorney for a death-row inmate. The editorial boards of the Washington Post and a number of Virginia newspapers denounced the ads as a "smear" and "dishonest." Kaine responded with an ad "in which he told voters that he opposes capital punishment but would take an oath and enforce the death penalty. In later polls, voters said they believed Kaine's response and were angered by Kilgore's negative ads."
In the election, Kaine won by large margins in the Democratic strongholds such as Richmond and northern Virginia's inner suburbs (such as Alexandria and Arlington), as well as in the Democratic-trending Fairfax County. Kaine also won Republican-leaning areas in Northern Virginia's outer suburbs, including Prince William County and Loudoun County, where George W. Bush had beat John Kerry in the previous year's presidential election, and performed "surprisingly well in Republican strongholds like Virginia Beach and Chesapeake." Kaine also defeated Kilgore in the burgeoning Richmond suburbs. Kilgore led in southwest Virginia and in the Shenandoah Valley.
Governor of Virginia (2006–2010)
Kaine was sworn in as governor at the colonial Capitol at Williamsburg, on January 14, 2006, the first governor since Thomas Jefferson to be inaugurated there.
Kaine was chairman of the Southern Governors' Association from 2008 to 2009.
Democratic response to State of the Union address
On January 31, 2006, Kaine gave the Democratic response to President George W. Bush's 2006 State of the Union address. In it, he criticized the Bush administration's No Child Left Behind Act for "wreaking havoc on local school districts"; criticized congressional Republicans for cutting student loan programs; and condemned as "reckless" Bush's spending increases and tax cuts. Kaine praised bipartisan initiatives in Virginia "to make record investments in education" and to improve veterans' access to veterans' benefits. He criticized the Bush administration's conduct of the Iraq War and treatment of U.S. soldiers, saying that "the American people were given inaccurate information about reasons for invading Iraq"; "our troops in Iraq were not given the best body armor or the best intelligence"; and "the administration wants to further reduce military and veterans' benefits."
Energy, the environment, and conservation
As governor, Kaine protected of Virginia land from development, fulfilling a promise he made in 2005. His conservation efforts focused on conservation easements (voluntary easements that preserve the private ownership of a piece of land while also permanently protecting it from development); a substantial Virginia land preservation tax credit encouraged easements. From 2004 to 2009, the Virginia Outdoors Foundation (a quasi-governmental entity set up in 1966 to preserve open land in the state) protected more land than it had in the previous 40 years, a fact Kaine touted as his term drew to a close.
As governor, Kaine established the Climate Change Commission, a bipartisan panel to study climate change issues. The panel was shuttered under Kaine's Republican successor, Governor Robert F. McDonnell, but revived (as the Governor's Climate Change and Resiliency Update Commission) under McDonnell's successor, Democratic Governor Terry McAuliffe.
In 2008, Kaine supported a coal-fired power plant project in Wise County, clashing with environmentalists who opposed the project.
In 2009, Kaine expressed support for tighter restrictions on mountaintop removal coal mining imposed by the Obama administration.
Healthcare and public health
In October 2006, Kaine signed an executive order banning smoking in all government buildings and state-owned cars as of January 1, 2007. He signed legislation banning smoking in restaurants and bars, with some exceptions, in March 2009, making Virginia the first Southern state to do so.
In 2007, the Republican-controlled Virginia General Assembly passed legislation, with "overwhelming bipartisan support", to require girls to receive the HPV vaccine (which immunizes recipients against a virus that causes cervical cancer) before entering high school. Kaine expressed "some qualms" about the legislation and pushed for a strong opt-out provision, ultimately signing a bill that included a provision allowing parents to opt out of the requirement without citing a reason.
In 2007, Kaine secured increases in state funding for nursing in the Virginia General Assembly and announced a 10% salary increase for nursing faculty above the normal salary increase for state employees, plus additional funds for scholarships for nursing master's programs. The initiatives were aimed at addressing a shortage of practicing nurses.
Virginia Tech shooting
After the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting, in which Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 people, Kaine appointed an eight-member Virginia Tech Review Panel, chaired by retired Virginia State Police superintendent W. Gerald Massengill, to probe the event. The commission members included specialists in psychology, law, forensics and higher education as well as former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge. The commission first met in May 2007, and issued its findings and recommendations in August 2007. Among other recommendations, the panel proposed many mental health reforms. Based on the panel's recommendations, Kaine proposed $42 million of investment in mental health programs and reforms, included "boosting access to outpatient and emergency mental health services, increasing the number of case managers and improving monitoring of community-based providers." In April 2007, Kaine signed an executive order instructing state agencies to step up efforts to block gun sales to people involuntarily committed to inpatient and outpatient mental health treatment centers. Kaine, who had been in Japan on a trade mission at the time of the shootings, received widespread praise for his quick return to the state and his handling of the issue.
Budget and economy
Among Kaine's greatest challenges as governor came during the 2008–09 economic crisis; the Washington Post wrote that "perhaps his greatest success was keeping the state running despite [the crisis]." Amid the Great Recession, unemployment in Virginia remained lower than the national average. During Kaine's tenure as governor, the unemployment rate in Virginia rose from 3.2% to 7.4%, a smaller increase than the national rate, which rose from 4.7% to 9.9% during the same period.
As governor, Kaine approved about $3.31 billion in general fund spending cuts, and after his term in office, the Virginia General Assembly adopted about $1.33 billion in additional budget cuts that Kaine had recommended, for a total of $4.64 billion in cuts. The Washington Post wrote, "Unable to raise taxes and required by law to balance the budget, he was forced to make unpopular cuts that led to such things as shuttered highway rest stops and higher public university tuition." Virginia was one of three states to earn the highest grade in terms of management in a report by the nonpartisan Pew Center on the States. Virginia took first place each year from 2006 to 2009 in Forbes magazine's "Best States For Business" rankings.
Infrastructure and transportation
In July 2007, during the debate on the Silver Line of the Washington Metro through Tysons Corner, Kaine supported an elevated track solution rather than a tunnel, citing costs and potential delays that would put federal funding at risk.
In 2006, Kaine pressed the general assembly to support a legislative package to ease severe traffic congestion by spending about $1 billion annually for highway construction, repairs to aging roads, mass transit, and other transportation projects. The money would be raised through increases in taxes and fees that would have raised an estimated $4 billion in revenue over four years. The Democratic-controlled Senate supported the plan, but the Republican-controlled House was unwilling to approve the taxes necessary to carry out the project, and the effort failed even after a special session of the legislature was called over the stalemate.
In 2007, Republicans in the General Assembly passed their own transportation-funding bill. Rather than a statewide tax increase to finance the transportation improvements, as Kaine and most legislative Democrats favored, the Republican bill called for transportation funding "to come from borrowing $2.5 billion and paying the debt costs out of the general fund"; authorized local tax increase in Northern Virginia; increased fees and taxes on rental cars, commercial real estate, and hotels; and increased traffic infraction fines and driver's licenses fees.
Kaine and most legislative Democrats opposed the Republican legislation, calling it inadequate to address traffic congestion and arguing that the withdrawal of funds from the general fund would affect core services such as health care, law enforcement, and education. Kaine ultimately signed a bill with amendments reflecting "concerns by local government officials and a bipartisan group of lawmakers who were concerned that the plan took too much money from the state's general fund."
Education
Under Kaine, participation in Virginia in early childhood education increased by 40.2% due to his expansion of the Virginia Preschool Initiative, which makes pre-kindergarten more accessible to four-year-olds from households close to the poverty line. Kaine sought increases to the budget for preschool programs every year during his term as governor. Virginia was rated as the best state to raise a child in a 2007 report by Education Week and the Pew Center on the States.
Cabinet and appointments
Kaine made the following appointments to his Virginia Governor's Cabinet:
Chief of Staff: William Leighty (2006–2007), Wayne Turnage (2007–2010)
Secretary of Administration: Viola Baskerville (2006–2010)
Virginia Secretary of Agriculture and Forestry: Robert Bloxom (2006–2010)
Secretary of Commerce and Trade: Patrick Gottschalk (2006–2010)
Secretary of the Commonwealth: Katherine Hanley (2006–2010)
Secretary of Education: Thomas R. Morris (2006–2010)
Secretary of Finance:Jody Wagner (2006–2008), Ric Brown (2008–2010)
Secretary of Health and Human Resources: Marilyn Tavenner (2006–2010)
Secretary of Natural Resources: Preston Bryant (2006–2010)
Secretary of Public Safety: John W. Marshall (2006–2010)
Secretary of Technology: Aneesh Chopra (2006–2009), Leonard Pomata (2009–2010)
Secretary of Transportation: Pierce Homer (2006–2010)
Counselor to the Governor: Lawrence Roberts (2006–2009)
Counselor to the Governor: Mark Rubin (2009–2010)
Assistant for Commonwealth Preparedness: Robert P. Crouch (2006–2010)
Senior Advisor for Workforce: Daniel G. LeBlanc (2006–2010)
As governor, Kaine made a number of appointments to the Virginia state courts. He made two appointments to the Supreme Court of Virginia, naming Chesapeake circuit judge S. Bernard Goodwyn to the Court in 2007 and Virginia Court of Appeals Judge LeRoy F. Millette Jr. in 2008.
On September 27, 2007, just weeks after appointing Esam Omeish to the 20-member Virginia Commission on Immigration, Kaine learned that Omeish had made videos accusing Israel of genocide and calling for President Bush's impeachment. He immediately requested and received Omeish's resignation and said that background checks would be more thorough in the future.
2008 vice presidential speculation
Kaine announced his support for Barack Obama's presidential bid in February 2007. It was maintained that Kaine's endorsement was the first from a statewide elected official outside of Illinois. Because Kaine was a relatively popular governor of a Southern state, there was media speculation that he was a potential nominee for vice president. Obama had supported Kaine in his campaign for governor, saying, "Tim Kaine has a message of fiscal responsibility and generosity of spirit. That kind of message can sell anywhere." On July 28, 2008, Politico reported that Kaine was "very, very high" on Obama's shortlist for vice president, a list that also included Senator Hillary Clinton of New York, Governor Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas, Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana, and Senator Joe Biden of Delaware. Obama ultimately selected Biden. It was later reported that Obama told Kaine, in breaking the news to him, "You are the pick of my heart, but Joe [Biden] is the pick of my head". Obama later wrote that he had ultimately narrowed down the choice for his running mate to Kaine and Biden. He said, "At the time, I was much closer to Tim", but Obama and his advisers David Axelrod and David Plouffe wondered whether voters would accept a ticket of "two relatively young, inexperienced, and liberal civil rights attorneys" and Obama felt the contrast between him and Biden was a strength, and that Biden's age and experience would reassure voters concerned that Obama was too young to be president.
Democratic National Committee chair (2009–2011)
In January 2009, Kaine became chair of the Democratic National Committee. He had turned down the position the first time it was offered to him, expressing misgivings about accepting a partisan position, but took the job at Obama's request. He took on the position as chair part-time as he continued his term as governor of Virginia. Kaine's main goals as DNC chair "were protecting the party's seats in Congress during the 2010 midterms and integrating the president's campaign apparatus, Organizing for America, and its technological acumen into the party machinery." In the 2010 midterms, the DNC under Kaine's leadership outraised the Republican National Committee (RNC) by $30 million, but Democrats lost control of the House and lost seats in the Senate amidst a Tea Party backlash. Kaine was not generally blamed for the losses.
Kaine kept a low profile in the position in comparison to his counterpart, RNC chairman Michael Steele. He focused more on fundraising and maintaining party unity than on attacking political opponents.
In February 2011, after Kaine spoke to union leaders in Madison, Organizing for America got involved in Wisconsin's budget battle and opposed Republican-sponsored anti-union legislation. It made phone calls, sent emails, and distributed messages via Facebook and Twitter to build crowds for rallies.
After completing his term as governor in January 2010, Kaine taught part-time at the University of Richmond, teaching a course in spring 2010 at the Jepson School of Leadership Studies and another in fall 2010 at the University of Richmond School of Law. He explained that he had chosen to teach at a private university rather than a public university "because it would not have been right for a sitting governor to be seeking employment at an institution when he writes the budget and appoints the board of the institution."
United States Senate
2012 election
After Senator Jim Webb's decision not to seek reelection, Kaine announced on April 5, 2011, that he would run for Webb's seat. He was initially reluctant to return to public office, but Webb, Senator Mark Warner, and other Virginia Democrats saw Kaine as the strongest potential Democratic candidate and convinced him to run. Kaine named Lawrence Roberts as his campaign chairman. Mike Henry was chosen as his campaign manager. Kaine filmed announcement videos in English and Spanish and was unopposed for the Democratic nomination. He defeated former senator and governor George Allen in the general election.
Tenure
Kaine was sworn in on January 3, 2013, reuniting him with Mark Warner, the senior senator. Kaine was lieutenant governor when Warner was governor of Virginia.
On June 11, 2013, Kaine delivered a speech on the Senate floor in support of the bipartisan "Gang of Eight" immigration bill. The speech was entirely in Spanish, marking the first time a senator had ever made a speech on the Senate floor in a language other than English.
As a member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, Kaine pushed for a new Congressional authorization of military force for the American operations against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Kaine supported the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran, though he also helped Republican senator Bob Corker hold a vote on a resolution of disapproval of the deal. Kaine has taken several trips throughout the Middle East, meeting with the leaders of states such as Turkey and Israel.
While in the Senate, Kaine has continued to teach part-time at the University of Richmond, receiving a salary of $16,000 per year.
Kaine has voted with his party more than 90% of the time. According to the Washington Post, Kaine has "crafted a largely progressive record as a senator." He reportedly has good relations with both Democratic and Republican senators.
During the 2016 vice-presidential campaign, Kaine frequently criticized Donald Trump, saying that Trump "as commander-in-chief scares me to death" and had a "bizarre fascination with strongmen and authoritarian leaders". In 2017, after Trump took office, Kaine continued to criticize his "authoritarian tendencies", citing his attacks on media, judges, and peaceful protesters. At an event at George Mason University, Kaine said that with Trump in office, Americans "are in a 'living experiment' to see whether or not the Constitution still works to check executive power."
In February 2017, Kaine met with Pope Francis at a general audience at the Vatican. Kaine also met with the Jesuit Refugee Service to discuss refugees and met with Vatican officials to discuss Latin American issues. The same month, Kaine delivered an address, "The Truman Doctrine at 70", at London's Chatham House.
Committee assignments and caucuses
In the 113th Congress (2013–15), Kaine was on the Committee on Armed Services, the Committee on the Budget, and the Committee on Foreign Relations. In the 114th Congress, Kaine was on those three committees and the Special Committee on Aging. In July 2013, Kaine was named chair of the United States Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Near East, South Asia, Central Asia and Counterterrorism.
Within the Senate Armed Services Committee, Kaine is a member of the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities, the Subcommittee on Readiness and Management Support (of which he is the ranking member), and the Subcommittee on Seapower.
Within the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, Kaine is a member of the Subcommittee on State Department and USAID Management, International Operations, and Bilateral International Development (of which he is the ranking member), the Subcommittee on Europe and Regional Security Cooperation, the Subcommittee on Near East, South Asia, Central Asia, and Counterterrorism, and the Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere, Transnational Crime, Civilian Security, Democracy, Human Rights and Global Women's Issues.
In January 2014, Kaine and Senator Rob Portman established the bipartisan Senate Career and Technical Education Caucus (CTE Caucus), which focuses on vocational education and technical education. Kaine and Portman co-chair the caucus. In 2014, Kaine and Portman introduced the CTE Excellence and Equity Act to the Senate; the legislation would provide $500 million in federal funding, distributed by competitive grants, to high schools to further CTE programs. The legislation, introduced as an amendment to the omnibus Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act of 2006, would promote apprenticeships and similar initiatives. Kaine and Portman introduced similar legislation, the Educating Tomorrow's Workforce Act, in 2017.
2016 vice-presidential campaign
Kaine endorsed Hillary Clinton for president in 2016 and campaigned actively for her in seven states during the primaries. He had been the subject of considerable speculation as a possible running mate for Clinton, with several news reports indicating that he was at or near the top of Clinton's list of people under consideration alongside figures such as Elizabeth Warren and Julian Castro.
The New York Times reported that Clinton's husband, former president Bill Clinton, supported Kaine as his wife's vice-presidential selection, noting his domestic and national security résumé. On July 22, 2016, she announced Kaine would be her running mate in the election. Clinton introduced Kaine as her choice in a joint appearance at a rally at Florida International University in Miami the next day. The 2016 Democratic National Convention nominated him for vice president on July 27, 2016.
Kaine was the first Virginian since Woodrow Wilson to be on a major-party ticket, and was the first Virginian to run for vice president on a major-party ticket since John Tyler in 1840; he was also the first senator or former senator from Virginia to be on a major-party ticket since Tyler.
In accordance with longstanding political custom in the U.S., upon being nominated for vice president Kaine publicly released his full tax returns for the previous ten years. He also publicly released medical records; his physician, Brian P. Monahan, the Attending Physician of the United States Congress, wrote that Kaine was "in overall excellent health." In September Kaine published a campaign book co-authored with Clinton, Stronger Together.
In Kaine's preparations for the vice presidential debate in October 2016, lawyer Robert Barnett played the role of Republican vice-presidential nominee Mike Pence. (During Pence's own debate preparations, Wisconsin governor Scott Walker played the role of Kaine.) Pence was criticized after the debate for not defending Trump's comments, while Kaine was criticized for being too aggressive and interrupting. According to ABC News, Kaine interrupted 70 times during the debate, while Pence interrupted 40 times.
Despite winning a plurality of the national popular vote, the Clinton-Kaine ticket lost the Electoral College, and thus the election, to the Trump-Pence ticket on November 8, 2016. This is the only election Kaine has ever lost. Clinton-Kaine did win Virginia, the only Southern state to vote for the Democratic ticket, a victory attributed in part to Kaine.
2018 election
After the 2016 election, Kaine said he would run for reelection to the Senate in 2018. He expressed his desire to emulate John Warner, who represented Virginia in the Senate for 30 years. He added that he would not run for president or vice president in the future.
In his 2018 Senate campaign against Republican nominee and Trump ally Corey Stewart, Kaine had the endorsement of The Richmond Times-Dispatch, marking the first time in decades the paper had endorsed a Democrat.
After taking an early lead in his race against Stewart, Kaine worked to support other Democrats who, in seven districts, were challenging incumbent Republicans for House seats. Kaine defeated Stewart by more than 15 points.
Personality and leadership style
About 145,000 emails from Kaine and his staff during his term as governor are publicly accessible at the Library of Virginia. Politico conducted an analysis of the correspondence and wrote that the messages show Kaine to be a "media-savvy" and detail-oriented "micro-manager" who is also a policy "wonk".
According to The New York Times, Kaine "is widely described by people in his political orbit as a likable if less than charismatic figure...guided by moral convictions that flow from his deep Christian faith." On Meet the Press, Kaine called himself "boring."
Political positions
In terms of political ideology, FiveThirtyEight gives Kaine an average score of −37 (−100 is the most liberal, and 100 is the most conservative). FiveThirtyEight characterizes him as a "mainstream Democrat" and notes that his ideology score is very similar to that of Joe Biden. Three conservative groups—the American Conservative Union, the Club for Growth, and Heritage Action—gave Kaine 0% ratings in the few years before 2016, while the liberal group Americans for Democratic Action gave Kaine a 90% rating in 2014. The New York Times wrote that "in hyperpartisan Washington, he is often seen as a centrist" while also describing him as an "old-fashioned liberal...driven by Jesuit ideals."
Abortion, birth control, and sex education
Kaine, a Roman Catholic, personally opposes abortion, but is "largely inclined to keep the law out of women's reproductive decisions." He has said, "I'm a strong supporter of Roe v. Wade and women being able to make these decisions. In government, we have enough things to worry about. We don't need to make people's reproductive decisions for them." Kaine supports some legal restrictions on abortion, such as requiring parental consent for minors (with a judicial bypass procedure) and banning late-term abortions in cases where the woman's life is not at risk.
In 2009, Kaine signed a bill to create a "Choose Life" license plate, among the more than 200 Virginia specialty plates already offered, the proceeds of which would partly go to Heartbeat International, a Christian organization that operates anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers. Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice America expressed disappointment in Kaine's decision. Kaine considered such license plate messages a matter of free speech and added that the move was "in keeping with the commonwealth's longtime practice of approving specialty plates with all manner of political and social messages."
Kaine previously criticized the Obama administration for "not providing a 'broad enough religious employer exemption'" in the contraceptive mandate of the Affordable Care Act, but praised a 2012 amendment to the regulations that required insurers to provide birth control to employees when an employer was an objecting religious organization.
In 2005, when running for governor, Kaine said he favored reducing abortions by "Enforcing the current Virginia restrictions on abortion and passing an enforceable ban on partial birth abortion that protects the life and health of the mother"; "Fighting teen pregnancy through abstinence-focused education"; "Ensuring women's access to health care (including legal contraception) and economic opportunity"; and "Promoting adoption as an alternative for women facing unwanted pregnancies."
In 2007, as governor, Kaine cut off state funding for abstinence-only sex education programs, citing studies that showed such programs were ineffective, while comprehensive sex education programs were more effective. Kaine believes that both abstinence and contraceptives must be taught, and that education should be evidence-based.
As a senator, Kaine has received perfect scores from Planned Parenthood and the abortion-rights advocacy group NARAL. He has received a score of zero from the anti-abortion National Right to Life Committee.
Campaign finance
Kaine "strongly disagrees" with Citizens United v. FEC (2010). In 2015, Kaine joined a group of Senate Democrats in a letter to Securities and Exchange Commission Chairwoman Mary Jo White that said the ruling "reversed long-standing precedent and has moved our country in a different and disturbing direction when it comes to corporate influence in politics." They urged the SEC to require publicly traded companies to disclose political spending to their shareholders to "increase transparency in the U.S. political process".
Capital punishment
Kaine personally opposes capital punishment, but presided over 11 executions while governor. He said, "I really struggled with [capital punishment] as governor. I have a moral position against the death penalty. But I took an oath of office to uphold it. Following an oath of office is also a moral obligation." During his time in office he commuted one death sentence in June 2008, that of Percy Levar Walton, to life imprisonment without parole on grounds of mental incompetence, writing that "one cannot reasonably conclude that Walton is fully aware of the punishment he is about to suffer and why he is to suffer it" and thus that executing him would be unconstitutional. Kaine vetoed a number of bills to expand the death sentence to more crimes, saying: "I do not believe that further expansion of the death penalty is necessary to protect human life or provide for public safety needs." Some of the vetoes were overridden.
On July 31, 2019, after Attorney General William Barr announced that the United States federal government would resume the use of the death penalty for the first time in over 20 years, Kaine co-sponsored a bill banning the death penalty.
Environment, energy, and climate change
Kaine acknowledges the scientific consensus on climate change, and in a 2014 Senate speech criticized climate change deniers, as well as those who "may not deny the climate science, but ... deny that the U.S. can or should be a leader in taking any steps" to address the issue.
Kaine has expressed concern about sea level rise (a major consequence of climate change), and in particular its effect on coastal Virginia. In 2014, he partnered with two Virginia Republicans—U.S. Representatives Rob Wittman and Scott Rigell—to hold a conference on sea-level rise and "local adaptation efforts to protect military installations in the Hampton Roads area."
Kaine endorses making coal energy production cleaner, saying that it is imperative "to convert coal to electricity with less pollution than we do today." He has criticized those who "frame the debate as a conflict between an economy and the environment", saying that "protecting the environment is good for the economy." Kaine co-sponsored the Advanced Clean Coal Technology Investment in Our Nation (ACCTION) Act, legislation to increase investment in clean coal technologies. He voted against legislation to approve the Keystone XL pipeline. Kaine supports the use of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) to harvest natural gas from shale formations. He believes this will reduce carbon pollution. Kaine voted against an amendment introduced by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand that would have repealed a provision in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 that exempts fracking from the underground injection control provisions of the Safe Drinking Water Act. As a result, regulation of fracking remains in the hands of state agencies; the EPA cannot regulate it or require a federal permit. Kaine supports exporting liquefied natural gas (LNG) to other countries.
Like his fellow senator from Virginia, Mark Warner, Kaine applauded the U.S. Forest Service's plan to close most, but not all, of the George Washington National Forest to fracking and other horizontal drilling activities.
In 2013, Kaine supported oil and gas exploration off the coast of Virginia, saying, "I have long believed that the moratorium on offshore drilling, based on a cost-benefit calculation performed decades ago, should be reexamined." In April 2015, Kaine reiterated his opposition to the moratorium on offshore drilling. In March 2016, Kaine signaled that his position was softening, saying he was "particularly struck by the material objections of the Department of Defense to the incompatibility of drilling with naval operations off Virginia's coast... I have participated in this debate for over a decade as a governor and member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. The DOD has been relatively quiet during this public debate and has never shared their objections with me before." By August 2016, Kaine stated his support for a ban on offshore drilling, bringing his position in line with Hillary Clinton's and the Obama administration's.
Kaine supports the development of solar energy and offshore wind turbines. Based on his votes on environmental issues in the Senate, the League of Conservation Voters has given Kaine a 95% score for 2018, and a 94% lifetime score. (At the time of his vice-presidential campaign, Kaine had an 88% score for 2015, and a 91% lifetime score.)
In March 2019, Kaine was one of 11 senators to sponsor the Climate Security Act of 2019, legislation forming a new group within the State Department that would be responsible for developing strategies to integrate climate science and data into operations of national security as well as restoring the post of special envoy for the Arctic, which Trump had dismantled in 2017. The proposed envoy would advise the president and the administration on the potential effects of climate on national security and be responsible for facilitating all interagency communication between federal science and security agencies.
In April 2019, Kaine was one of 12 senators to sign a bipartisan letter to top senators on the Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development advocating that the Energy Department be granted maximum funding for carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS), arguing that American job growth could be stimulated by investment in viable options to capture carbon emissions released into the atmosphere and expressing disagreement with the Trump's 2020 budget request to combine the two federal programs that include carbon capture research.
Financial regulation
Kaine strongly supports financial regulation and the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. In July 2016, he signed a bipartisan letter that "urged the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to 'carefully tailor its rulemaking' [under Dodd-Frank] regarding community banks and credit unions so as not to 'unduly burden' these institutions with regulations aimed at commercial banks." The letter prompted criticism from progressives who viewed it as anti-regulation. Democracy for America executive director Charles Chamberlain called the letter "a lobbyist-driven effort to help banks dodge consumer protection standards and regulations designed to prevent banks from destroying our economy." Kaine responded, "it's important you don't treat every financial institution the same. It wasn't credit unions that tanked the economy, it wasn't local community banks that tanked the economy, generally wasn't regional banks that did things that tanked the economy." He also signed a letter urging that a requirement that regional banks report liquidity levels on a daily basis be loosened.
Foreign and defense policy
In the Senate, Kaine has supported the normalization of U.S.–Cuban relations and the international nuclear agreement with Iran.
Kaine expressed support for Israel's right to defend itself during the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict. In September 2016, in advance of a UN Security Council resolution 2334 condemning Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, he signed an AIPAC-sponsored letter urging Obama to veto "one-sided" resolutions against Israel.
In 2015, Kaine expressed support for the Saudi-led coalition's airstrikes in Yemen against Houthi forces fighting the government of President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, but in 2018, he was one of seven senators to sign a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo saying that they found it "difficult to reconcile known facts with at least two" of the Trump administration's certifications that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were attempting to protect Yemeni civilians and were in compliance with U.S. laws on arms sales, citing an inconsistency with a memo from Pompeo to Congress expressly stating that on some occasions the Saudi and Emirates governments had failed to adopt measures to reduce civilian casualties. Kaine also condemned the Trump administration for its "eagerness to give the Saudis anything they want" after the administration approved the transfer of nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia after the murder of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi.
In July 2017, Kaine voted for the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act that placed sanctions on Iran, Russia, and North Korea.
In 2019, Kaine was one of 34 Senate Democrats to sign a letter to Trump urging him to reconsider cuts to U.S. foreign aid to the Northern Triangle countries of Central America in the Fiscal Year 2018 national security appropriations bill. The letter said that Trump had "consistently expressed a flawed understanding of U.S. foreign assistance", viewing it as a gift or charity to foreign governments rather than a tool to promote American interests and collective security. The senators wrote that U.S. foreign assistance to Central American countries, by improving stability and alleviating poverty in the region, reduced Central American migration flows to the U.S.
In 2019, Kaine co-sponsored the South China Sea and East China Sea Sanctions Act, a bipartisan bill reintroduced by Marco Rubio and Ben Cardin that was intended to disrupt China's consolidation or expansion of its claims of jurisdiction over both the sea and airspace in disputed zones in the South China Sea.
Grand strategy and democracy promotion
After the 2016 presidential campaign, Kaine wrote an extensive essay in Foreign Affairs outlining his underlying foreign policy philosophy. According to Kaine, American foreign policy has suffered a lack of direction since the 1990s because the end of the Cold War rendered irrelevant America's previous grand strategy, which he identifies as the Truman Doctrine. This lack of grand strategy makes American actions seem random, complicating the policy-making process and hindering American leaders' efforts to convince the public that American foreign policy is worthwhile. To remedy this, Kaine proposed a new grand strategy based mainly on democracy promotion. His grand strategy is informed by a tri-polar balance of international power, with one pole being democratic states including the U.S. and its allies, the second autocratic powers led by Russia and China, and the third nonstate actors (multinational corporations, NGOs, gangs, etc.).
First, Kaine believes that the United States should work to support democracy in already democratic countries, as democracy globally has been declining for many years. To maintain democracy in democratic countries, Kaine proposes the creation of an intergovernmental organization consisting of all the world's democracies in which states can cooperate on solutions to problems such as corruption and voter inclusion. He compares this hypothetical group to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, in which advanced industrialized countries collaborate on economic policy. Kaine believes that this new organization will help democracies remain democratic, as well as promote democracy in other countries by giving them viable democratic examples to emulate. In this way, Kaine says that the U.S. should no longer see itself as the indispensable nation, but rather the "exemplary democracy".
Second, Kaine proposes that democracies should coordinate to best interact with authoritarian states. Depending on the circumstances, democracies should either "confront", "compete", or "cooperate" with autocracies. For example, Kaine observes that the U.S. competes with its authoritarian adversaries by strengthening military and commercial alliances, and confronts them by decrying their human rights records.
Finally, Kaine believes that democracies and autocracies should cooperate when they have the same interests, such as combating climate change.
In July 2017, Kaine expanded on the grand strategy proposed in this essay in an interview at the Brookings Institution with international relations scholar Robert Kagan.
Afghanistan
Kaine's website states, "The main mission in Afghanistan—destroying Al Qaeda—is nearly complete and we should bring our troops home as quickly as we can, consistent with the need to make sure that Afghanistan poses no danger in the broader region."
Latin America
Kaine believes that American foreign policy has neglected relations with Latin America and argues for an increased focus on the Americas, saying, "We have seldom paid enough attention to the Americas, in particular, and when we have—whether through the Monroe Doctrine or by battling communist movements during the Cold War—we have focused more on blocking outsiders from building influence in the Western Hemisphere than we have on the nations already there."
War powers
Kaine is known for "expertise on the constitutional powers of the presidency" and has said that "war powers questions" are a "personal obsession" of his. He has stressed that under the Constitution, "Congress has the power to declare war—and only Congress." Kaine called the 2018 U.S. missile strikes Trump ordered against the Syrian government illegal because they were undertaken without congressional approval.
Kaine and Senator John McCain introduced the War Powers Consultation Act of 2014, which would replace the War Powers Act of 1973, bringing Congress back into decisions on the deployment of U.S. military forces. The bill would establish a Congressional Consultation Committee, with which the president would be required to consult regularly regarding significant foreign policy matters before ordering the deployment of the armed forces into a significant armed conflict and at least every two months for the duration of any significant armed conflict. Kaine argued for the bill by citing his "frustration" over the sloppiness of "process and communication over decisions of war", noting that "presidents tend to overreach and Congress sometimes willingly ducks tough votes and decisions. We all have to do better."
In February 2018, Kaine was one of 18 senators to sign a letter to Trump arguing that striking North Korea with "a preventative or preemptive U.S. military strike would lack either a constitutional basis or legal authority" without congressional approval.
In January 2020, Kaine introduced a new war powers resolution that would prohibit the U.S. from entering hostilities against Iran within 30 days unless it was responding to an imminent threat. The next month, the measure passed the Senate 55–45, securing the votes of eight Republicans along with the Democrats. Trump vetoed the measure, and the Senate failed to override the veto.
Syria, Iraq, and ISIL
In 2014, Kaine argued that the U.S. military intervention against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) undertaken by Obama was unconstitutional without a new congressional authorization for the use of military force against ISIL. In November 2014, at the Halifax International Security Forum, Kaine and McCain emphasized the necessity of such a congressional authorization, saying: "You just can't have a war without Congress. You can't ask people to risk their lives, risk getting killed, seeing other folks getting killed or injured if Congress isn't willing to do the job to put their thumbprint on this and say, this is a national mission and worth it." After the April 2017 Shayrat missile strike in Syria, ordered by Trump, Kaine said, "There is no legal justification for this. He should not have done this without coming to Congress." On Meet the Press, Kaine said, "I'm a strong supporter that the U.S. should take action to protect humanitarian causes, like the ban on chemical weapons. Where I differ from this administration, and I took the same position with respect to President Obama, we are a nation that's not supposed to take military action, start war, without a plan that's presented to and approved by Congress."
On December 11, 2014, after a five-month campaign by Kaine, the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved by 10–8 (along party lines) a measure authorizing military force against ISIL but barring the use of ground troops. In October 2015, Kaine criticized Obama's approach to the Syrian Civil War, saying that the establishment of humanitarian no-fly zones would have alleviated the humanitarian crisis in Syria.
In April 2018, Kaine criticized Trump for authorizing the launch of a precision military strike on Syria without consulting Congress, calling the strike an "illegal military act".
On February 26, 2021, Kaine demanded answers from President Biden after he ordered airstrikes on Syria against Iran-backed militias without giving "legal justification" to members of Congress beforehand.
Firearms
Kaine is a firearms owner. He has supported expanded background checks for weapons purchases as well as "restrictions on the sale of combat-style weapons and high-capacity magazines." As governor, Kaine oversaw the closing of loopholes in Virginia law that allowed some who had failed background checks to purchase guns. In the Senate, he has supported legislation that would require background checks for weapons sold via gun shows and via the internet. He also supports legislation to bar weapons sales to suspected terrorists on the No Fly List.
In November 2017, Kaine was a cosponsor of the Military Domestic Violence Reporting Enhancement Act, a bill that would form a charge of domestic violence under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) and stipulate that convictions be reported to federal databases with the authority to keep abusers from purchasing firearms within three days in an attempt to close a loophole in the UCMJ through which convicted abusers retained the ability to purchase firearms.
In March 2018, Kaine was one of ten senators to sign a letter to Chairman of the United States Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Lamar Alexander and ranking Democrat Patty Murray requesting they schedule a hearing on the causes and remedies of mass shootings in the wake of the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting.
In June 2019, Kaine was one of four senators to cosponsor the Help Empower Americans to Respond (HEAR) Act, legislation that would ban suppressors being imported, sold, made, sent elsewhere or possessed and grant a silencer buyback program as well as include certain exceptions for current and former law enforcement personnel and others. The bill was intended to respond to the Virginia Beach shooting, in which the perpetrator used a .45-caliber handgun with multiple extended magazines and a suppressor.
Kaine has a 100% rating from the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and an "F" rating from the NRA.
Health care
Kaine supports the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2009 (Obamacare), saying in 2012, "I was a supporter and remain a supporter of the Affordable Care Act. I felt like it was a statement that we were going to put some things in the rearview mirror." In 2013, he said that he agreed that changes to the ACA should be debated, but criticized Republicans for "wrapping them up with the threat" of a federal government shutdown.
In 2018, Kaine and Senator Michael Bennet proposed the creation of "Medicare X"—a public health insurance option modeled after Medicare that would be available on ACA health insurance marketplaces along with private options. The proposal is a more incrementalist alternative to Bernie Sanders's push for "Medicare for All" (single-payer health care).
In December 2018, Kaine was one of 42 senators to sign a letter to Trump administration officials Alex Azar, Seema Verma, and Steve Mnuchin arguing that the administration was improperly using Section 1332 of the ACA to authorize states to "increase health care costs for millions of consumers while weakening protections for individuals with pre-existing conditions." The senators requested the administration withdraw the policy and "re-engage with stakeholders, states, and Congress."
In January 2019, Kaine was one of six Democratic senators to introduce the American Miners Act of 2019, a bill that would amend the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 to swap funds in excess of the amounts needed to meet existing obligations under the Abandoned Mine Land fund to the 1974 Pension Plan as part of an effort to prevent its insolvency as a result of coal company bankruptcies and the 2008 financial crisis. It also increased the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund tax and ensured that miners affected by the 2018 coal company bankruptcies would not lose their health care.
In December 2016, Kaine was one of 17 senators to sign a letter to Trump asking him to fulfill a campaign pledge to bring down the cost of prescription drugs. In February 2017, he and 30 other senators signed a letter to Kaléo Pharmaceuticals in response to the opioid-overdose-reversing device Evzio rising in price from $690 in 2014 to $4,500 and requested the company provide the detailed price structure for Evzio, the number of devices Kaléo Pharmaceuticals set aside for donation, and the totality of federal reimbursements Evzio received in the previous year. In February 2019, Kaine was one of 11 senators to sign a letter to insulin manufacturers Eli Lilly and Company, Novo Nordisk, and Sanofi about increased insulin prices and charging that the price increases caused patients to lack "access to the life-saving medications they need."
In August 2019, Kaine was one of 19 Democratic senators to sign a letter to Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar requesting data from the Trump administration on the consequences for healthcare if Texas prevailed in its lawsuit seeking to gut the Affordable Care Act. The senators wrote, "Upending the current health care system will create an enormous hole in the pocketbooks of the people we serve as well as wreck state budgets; therefore, we ask for data to help states and Congress better understand the potential consequences of the position the Administration is taking in court."
In September 2019, amid discussions to prevent a government shutdown, Kaine was one of six Democratic senators to sign a letter to congressional leadership advocating legislation that would permanently fund health care and pension benefits for retired coal miners as "families in Virginia, West Virginia, Wyoming, Alabama, Colorado, North Dakota and New Mexico" would start to receive notifications of health care termination by the end of the following month.
Immigration
Kaine supports the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Deferred Action for Parental Accountability (DAPA) programs, which allow up to five million undocumented immigrants to gain deferral of deportation and authorization to legally work in the United States. Alongside Senator Mark Warner and many other members of Congress, he signed on to an amicus brief in support of the program in the Supreme Court case United States v. Texas.
Kaine also supports comprehensive immigration reform, which would allow persons illegally present in the U.S. to earn legal status by paying a fine and taxes.
In July 2019, following reports that the Trump administration intended to end protections of spouses, parents and children of active-duty service members from deportation, Kaine was one of 22 senators to sign a letter led by Tammy Duckworth arguing that the program allowed service members the ability "to fight for the United States overseas and not worry that their spouse, children, or parents will be deported while they are away" and that the its termination would cause personal hardship for service members in combat.
In July 2019, Kaine and 15 other Senate Democrats introduced the Protecting Sensitive Locations Act, a bill to mandate that ICE agents get approval from a supervisor before undertaking an immigration raid or other enforcement actions at "sensitive locations" (schools, hospitals, places of worship, and courthouses) except in special circumstances. The bill would also require agents to receive annual training and require ICE to submit an annual report on enforcement actions in those locations.
LGBT rights
In 2006, Kaine campaigned against an amendment to the Virginia State Constitution to ban same-sex marriage, and in March 2013, he announced his support of same-sex marriage.
In the Senate, Kaine co-sponsored the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which would bar employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
In 2005, Kaine said, "No couples in Virginia can adopt other than a married couple. That's the right policy." In 2011, he shifted his position. In 2012, he said, "there should be a license that would entitle a committed couple to the same rights as a married couple."
During the 2016 presidential campaign, Kaine noted that his position on same-sex marriage was "at odds with the current doctrine of the church that I still attend." He predicted that the Roman Catholic Church would someday adopt his view. In response, two bishops heading the doctrine and marriage committees of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said that the church's position "cannot change" and reaffirmed their opposition to same-sex marriage.
In October 2018, Kaine was one of 20 senators to sign a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urging him to reverse the State Department's policy of denying visas to same-sex partners of LGBTQ diplomats who had unions that were not recognized by their home countries, writing that the Trump administration's refusal to allow LGBTQ diplomats to bring their partners to the U.S. was tantamount to upholding the "discriminatory policies of many countries around the world." In June 2019, Kaine was one of 18 senators to sign a letter to Pompeo requesting an explanation of the State Department's decision not to issue an official statement that year commemorating Pride Month or issue the annual cable outlining activities for embassies commemorating Pride Month. The signatories to the letter also asked why the LGBTI special envoy position had remained vacant. The authors said that the State Department's moves had sent "signals to the international community that the United States is abandoning the advancement of LGBTI rights as a foreign policy priority."
Taxes
Kaine supports allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire for those with incomes above $500,000.
In 2012, Kaine supported raising the cap on income subject for the FICA (Social Security) payroll tax "so that it covers a similar percentage of income as it did in the 1980s under President Reagan, which would greatly extend the solvency of the (Social Security) program."
In the Senate, Kaine has supported the Marketplace Fairness Act, which would allow states to require online retailers to collect sales taxes in the same manner as traditional brick-and-mortar retailers.
Trade
Kaine supported granting Obama Trade Promotion Authority (TPA or "fast track") to allow him to negotiate free trade agreements. He said the goal should be to "negotiate deals that protect workers' rights, environmental standards and intellectual property, while knocking down tariffs and other barriers that some countries erect to keep American products out."
In July 2016, Kaine said the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement was "an improvement of the status quo" and an "upgrade of labor standards... environmental standards... intellectual property protections", but maintained that he had not yet decided how to vote on final approval of the agreement, citing "significant concerns" over TPP's dispute resolution mechanism. Later that July, Kaine said that he could not support the TPP in its current form.
Kaine has been a proponent of NAFTA.
Transportation, growth, and housing
Kaine supports some smart growth-style policies (which he calls "a balanced approach to growth") to control sprawl and improve transportation. He favors a transportation policy that includes public transit, bicycles, and pedestrians. As governor, Kaine pushed through a $100 million open-space acquisition initiative. Under Kaine, Amtrak service in Virginia was expanded. He also participated in a White House round-table discussion on high-speed rail in 2009.
In April 2019, Kaine was one of 41 senators to sign a bipartisan letter in support of U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Section 4 Capacity Building program, a program authorizing HUD to partner with nonprofit community development groups to provide support to community development corporations. The letter said that the longstanding program had successfully promoted economic and community development, opposed the proposed elimination of the plan in Trump's budget proposal for Fiscal Year 2020, and urged the Senate to support continued funding for Section 4 in Fiscal Year 2020.
Workers' rights and gender equality
Kaine is "generally pro-union" and has received a 96% lifetime Senate voting rating from the AFL-CIO, which praised his selection as Clinton's running mate. But Kaine supports Virginia's longstanding "right-to-work" law, which "frees union nonmembers from any legal obligation to pay fees to a union that bargains collectively on their behalf".
Kaine supports the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which expands the cases in which worker can sue against gender pay discrimination. After Clinton selected him as her running mate in 2016, Kaine was praised by the National Organization for Women.
Kaine favors an increase in the minimum wage.
Electoral history
2001 lieutenant gubernatorial election
2005 gubernatorial election
2012 U.S. Senate election
2016 vice presidential election
2018 U.S. Senate election
Personal life
In November 1984, Kaine married Anne Bright Holton, the daughter of A. Linwood Holton Jr., a Republican who served as the 61st governor of Virginia from 1970 to 1974. The couple met while they were both students at Harvard Law School. Holton has been a judge for the Virginia Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court in Richmond. After serving as first lady of Virginia during her husband's term, she was appointed by Governor Terry McAuliffe in January 2014 to be Virginia's secretary of education, and held that position until July 2016, when she stepped down after her husband was named as the Democratic vice-presidential nominee. The couple has three children, one of whom is a United States Marine. As of 2016, Kaine and his wife had been congregants of the St. Elizabeth Catholic Church in Richmond, a mostly black congregation, for 30 years.
Kaine plays the harmonica and often travels with several.
Kaine is fluent in Spanish as a result of his nine months in Honduras. During the 2016 campaign, he became the first member of a presidential ticket to deliver a speech in Spanish.
On May 28, 2020, Kaine announced that he and his wife had tested positive for COVID-19 antibodies.
Awards and honors
Kaine has received the Humanitarian Award from the Virginia Center for Inclusive Communities, then the Virginia Region of the National Conference for Community and Justice (2000), the Virginia Council of Churches' Faith in Action Award (2009), the University of Richmond School of Law's William Green Award for Professional Excellence (2012), the Award for Public Service in the Americas from the Inter-American Dialogue (2014), the Appalachian Trail Conservancy's Congressional Award (2015), and the Center for the National Interest's Distinguished Service Award (2016). He was made a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Isabella the Catholic in 2017.
Notes
References
Further reading
Governor
Kaine's Governor website (Archived)
Kaine's Lieutenant governor website (Archived)
2005 campaign contributions at the Virginia Public Access Project
Moving Virginia Forward Archived Web Site, 2007 part of Virginia's Political Landscape, 2007 Web Archive Collection at Virginia Memory
Moving Virginia Forward Archived Web Site, 2009 part of Virginia's Political Landscape, 2009 Web Archive Collection at Virginia Memory
Tim Kaine for Governor Archived Web Site, 2005–2006 part of Virginia's Political Landscape, Fall 2005 Web Archive Collection at Virginia Memory
Governor Tim Kaine Administration Web Site Archive, 2006–2010
Kaine Email Project at the Library of Virginia
External links
U.S. Senate website
Campaign website
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20th-century American lawyers
20th-century American politicians
20th-century Roman Catholics
21st-century American lawyers
21st-century American politicians
21st-century Roman Catholics
American civil rights lawyers
American legal scholars
American people of Irish descent
American people of Scottish descent
American Roman Catholic missionaries
Catholics from Missouri
Catholics from Minnesota
Catholics from Virginia
Democratic National Committee chairs
Democratic Party state governors of the United States
Democratic Party United States senators from Virginia
Democratic Party (United States) vice presidential nominees
Governors of Virginia
Harvard Law School alumni
Hillary Clinton 2016 presidential campaign
Lawyers from Kansas City, Missouri
Lieutenant Governors of Virginia
Living people
Mark Warner
Mayors of Richmond, Virginia
Politicians from Kansas City, Missouri
Politicians from Saint Paul, Minnesota
Knights Grand Cross of the Order of Isabella the Catholic
Richmond, Virginia City Council members
Roman Catholic missionaries in Honduras
United States senators from Virginia
2016 United States vice-presidential candidates
University of Missouri alumni
University of Richmond faculty
Virginia Democrats
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[
"Earl Van Meter Long (July 11, 1885 – January 28, 1941) was an American college football coach. His career record was 7–17–1.\n\nEarly life and family\nLong was born on July 11, 1885, in Maroa, Illinois, to Silaws and Mary Jane Long. He married Jessie Lois Brown, of Canton, Illinois, on July 10, 1911. He attended Harvard University, where was a two-sport letter winner in football and baseball.\n\nCoaching career\n\nRichmond\nLong was the 17th head football coach at the University of Richmond and he held that position for the 1910 season. His coaching record at Richmond was 2–5–1.\n\nFairmount\nAfter leaving Richmond, Long was named the eighth head football coach at Fairmount College—now known as Wichita State University—and he held that position for two seasons, from 1912 until 1913. His coaching record at Fairmount was 6–11.\n\nHead coaching record\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\n1885 births\n1941 deaths\nBasketball coaches from Illinois\nHarvard Crimson football players\nPeople from Macon County, Illinois\nRichmond Spiders football coaches\nWichita State Shockers baseball coaches\nWichita State Shockers football coaches\nWichita State Shockers men's basketball coaches",
"William Henry Palmer (October 9, 1835 – July 14, 1926) was an officer in the Confederate States Army; serving in the Army of Northern Virginia during the American Civil War.\n\nBiography\nPalmer was born in Richmond, Virginia. Prior to the outbreak of the Civil War, he was a merchant there. When the Civil War began, Palmer joined the First Virginia Infantry Regiment as a private. At Williamsburg Palmer, by now a Major, took over command of the regiment when his colonel was wounded; however Palmer himself got shot in the arm. In October 1862, he joined the staff of Confederate General A.P. Hill. His shoulder was dislocated in the same friendly fire attack at Chancellorsville that mortally wounded Gen. Thomas \"Stonewall\" Jackson. Palmer spent the rest of the War with Hill, eventually rising to be the chief of staff for the Army of Northern Virginia's Third Corps.\n\nHistorian James Robertson, Hill's biographer, called Palmer \"polished, highly organized, and indefatigable\" as well as \"Hill's most trusted aide.\" \n\nAfter Hill's death on April 2, 1865, Palmer served as an Assistant Adjutant-General (or AAG) on Gen. James Longstreet's staff. He was paroled at Appomattox.\n\nAfter the War, Palmer returned to Richmond. He became president of an insurance company and a banker. He lived well into the 20th century. When he died in 1926 at age 90, he was buried in Richmond's Hollywood Cemetery.\n\nExternal links\n\nReferences\n\n1835 births\n1926 deaths\nMilitary personnel from Richmond, Virginia\nPeople of Virginia in the American Civil War\nConfederate States Army officers\nBurials at Hollywood Cemetery (Richmond, Virginia)"
] |
[
"Tim Kaine",
"Legal career and Richmond City Council",
"Where did Kaine attend law school?",
"I don't know.",
"What year was he elected to city council?",
"In May 1994,",
"was he known for achieving anything special while on the council?",
"Kaine spent four terms on the council, the latter two as mayor.",
"Did he represent a specific political party?",
"specializing in fair housing law and representing clients discriminated against on the basis of race or disability.",
"Did he recieve any awards?",
"Kaine became a director with the law firm of Mezzullo & McCandlish, P.C.",
"Did he win any notable cases?",
"he represented in a landmark redlining discrimination lawsuit against Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co.",
"Was there anything else notable about his early career?",
"Kaine did regular pro bono work. In 1988, Kaine started teaching",
"What did he teach?",
"legal ethics as an adjunct professor",
"Where did he teach?",
"University of Richmond School of Law.",
"How long was e on staff at Richmond SOL",
"for six years,"
] |
C_6e5a0e696db14512b25f50b8092751a7_1
|
Did anything influence him to perform the work he did?
| 11 |
Did anything influence Tim Kaine to perform the work he did?
|
Tim Kaine
|
After graduating from law school, Kaine was a law clerk for Judge R. Lanier Anderson III of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, in Macon, Georgia. Kaine then joined the Richmond law firm of Little, Parsley & Cluverius, P.C. In 1987, Kaine became a director with the law firm of Mezzullo & McCandlish, P.C. Kaine practiced law in Richmond for 17 years, specializing in fair housing law and representing clients discriminated against on the basis of race or disability. He was a board member of the Virginia chapter of Housing Opportunities Made Equal, which he represented in a landmark redlining discrimination lawsuit against Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. arising from the company's practices in Richmond. Kaine won a $100.5 million verdict in the case; the judgment was overturned on appeal, and Kaine and his colleagues negotiated a $17.5 million settlement. Kaine did regular pro bono work. In 1988, Kaine started teaching legal ethics as an adjunct professor at the University of Richmond School of Law. Kaine taught at the University of Richmond for six years, and his students included future Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring. He was a founding member of the Virginia Coalition to End Homelessness. Kaine had a largely apolitical childhood, but became interested in politics in part due to the influence of his wife's family and his experience attending Richmond city council meetings. In May 1994, Kaine was elected to the city council of the independent city of Richmond, from the City's 2nd District. He defeated incumbent city councilman Benjamin P. A. Warthen by 97 votes. Kaine spent four terms on the council, the latter two as mayor. CANNOTANSWER
|
became interested in politics in part due to the influence of his wife's family and his experience attending Richmond city council meetings.
|
Timothy Michael Kaine (; born February 26, 1958) is an American lawyer and politician serving as the junior United States senator from Virginia since 2013. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 38th lieutenant governor of Virginia from 2002 to 2006 and 70th governor of Virginia from 2006 to 2010. Kaine was the Democratic nominee for vice president of the United States in the 2016 election as Hillary Clinton's running mate.
Born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, Kaine grew up in Overland Park, Kansas, graduated from the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri, and earned a Juris Doctor degree from Harvard Law School before entering private practice and becoming a lecturer at the University of Richmond School of Law. He was first elected to public office in 1994, when he won a seat on the Richmond City Council. He was elected mayor of Richmond in 1998 and held that position until being elected lieutenant governor of Virginia in 2001. Kaine was elected governor of Virginia in 2005 and held that office from 2006 to 2010. He chaired the Democratic National Committee from 2009 to 2011.
On July 22, 2016, Hillary Clinton introduced Kaine as her vice-presidential running mate. The 2016 Democratic National Convention nominated him on July 27. Despite winning a plurality of the national popular vote, the ClintonKaine ticket lost the Electoral College, and thus the election, to the Republican ticket of Donald Trump and Mike Pence on November 8, 2016. Kaine was reelected to a second Senate term in 2018, defeating Republican Corey Stewart.
Early life and education
Kaine was born at Saint Joseph's Hospital in St. Paul, Minnesota. He is the eldest of three sons born to Mary Kathleen (née Burns), a home economics teacher, and Albert Alexander Kaine, Jr., a welder and the owner of a small iron-working shop. He was raised Catholic. One of Kaine's great-grandparents was Scottish and the other seven were Irish. Kaine's family moved to Overland Park, Kansas, when Kaine was two years old, and he grew up in the Kansas City area. In 1976, he graduated from Rockhurst High School, a Jesuit all-boys preparatory school in Kansas City, Missouri. At Rockhurst, Kaine joined the debate team and was elected student body president.
Kaine received his Bachelor of Arts in economics from the University of Missouri in 1979, completing his degree in three years and graduating Omicron Delta Kappa and summa cum laude. He was a Coro Foundation fellow in Kansas City in 1978. He entered Harvard Law School in 1979, interrupting his law studies after his first year to work in Honduras for nine months from 1980 to 1981, helping Jesuit missionaries who ran a Catholic school in El Progreso. While running a vocational center that taught carpentry and welding, he also helped increase the school's enrollment by recruiting local villagers. Kaine is fluent in Spanish as a result of his time in Honduras.
After returning from Honduras, Kaine met his future wife, first-year Harvard Law student Anne Holton. He graduated from Harvard Law School with a J.D. degree in 1983. Kaine and Holton moved to Holton's hometown of Richmond, Virginia, after graduation, and Kaine was admitted to the Virginia bar in 1984.
Legal career and Richmond City Council
After graduating from law school, Kaine was a law clerk for Judge R. Lanier Anderson III of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, in Macon, Georgia. He then joined the Richmond law firm of Little, Parsley & Cluverius, P.C. In 1987, Kaine became a director of the law firm of Mezzullo & McCandlish, P.C. He practiced law in Richmond for 17 years, specializing in fair housing law and representing clients discriminated against on the basis of race or disability. He was a board member of the Virginia chapter of Housing Opportunities Made Equal, which he represented in a landmark redlining discrimination lawsuit against Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. arising from the company's practices in Richmond. Kaine won a $100.5 million verdict in the case; the judgment was overturned on appeal, and Kaine and his colleagues negotiated a $17.5 million settlement.
Kaine did regular pro bono work. In 1988, he started teaching legal ethics as an adjunct professor at the University of Richmond School of Law. Kaine taught at the University of Richmond for six years; his students included future Virginia attorney general Mark Herring. He was a founding member of the Virginia Coalition to End Homelessness.
Kaine had a largely apolitical childhood, but became interested in politics in part due to the influence of his wife's family and his experience attending Richmond city council meetings. In 1994, he was elected the 2nd district member of the city council of the independent city of Richmond, defeating incumbent city councilor Benjamin P.A. Warthen by less than 100 votes. He took his seat on July 1 and retained the position until September 10, 2001, when he resigned and William J. Pantele was appointed to succeed him. He defeated the incumbent city councilman Benjamin P.A. Warthen by 97 votes. Kaine spent four terms on the city council, the latter two as mayor of Richmond.
Mayor of Richmond (1998–2001)
On July 1, 1998, Kaine was elected mayor of Richmond, succeeding Larry Chavis. He was chosen by an 8 to 1 vote on the majority-black Richmond City Council, becoming the city's first white mayor in more than ten years, which was viewed as a surprise. Rudy McCollum, an African American city councilor also interested in the mayoralty, decided to back Kaine after a private meeting between the two, clearing the way for Kaine to win the election. Previous mayors had treated the role as primarily ceremonial, with the city manager effectively operating the city; Kaine treated it as a full-time job, taking a more hands-on role.
As mayor, Kaine used a sale-leaseback arrangement to obtain funds to renovate the historic Maggie L. Walker High School and reopen it in 2000 as a magnet governor's school, the Maggie L. Walker Governor's School for Government and International Studies, which "now serves the top students in Central Virginia". Three elementary schools and one middle school were also built in Richmond under Kaine. Along with Commonwealth's attorney David Hicks, U.S. attorney James Comey, and police chief Jerry Oliver, Kaine was a supporter of Project Exile, an initiative that shifted gun crimes to federal court, where defendants faced harsher sentences. Though controversial, the effort was effective and achieved widespread support; the city's homicide rate fell by 55% during Kaine's mayoralty. Kaine touted Project Exile during his 2001 campaign for lieutenant governor.
On several occasions, Kaine voted against tax increases, and supported a tax abatement program for renovated buildings, which was credited for a housing renovation boom in the city. Forbes magazine named Richmond one of "the 10 best cities in America to do business" during Kaine's term.
According to John Moeser, a professor emeritus of urban studies and planning at Virginia Commonwealth University and later a visiting fellow at the University of Richmond's Center for Civic Engagement, Mayor Kaine "was energetic, charismatic and, most important, spoke openly about his commitment to racial reconciliation in Richmond." The New York Times wrote that Kaine "was by all accounts instrumental in bridging the city's racial divide." In the early part of his term, Kaine issued an apology for the city's role in slavery; the apology was generally well received as "a genuine, heartfelt expression". In the latter part of his term, a contentious debate took place over the inclusion of a portrait of Confederate general Robert E. Lee in a set of historic murals to be placed on city floodwalls. Many African Americans were outraged that Lee would appear on city walls, while Southern heritage groups demanded that the picture remain. Kaine proposed a compromise in which Lee would appear as part of a series of murals that also included figures like Abraham Lincoln and Powhatan Beaty. His stance drew criticism from the NAACP; Kaine argued that placing Lee on the floodwall made sense in context, and that "Much of our history is not pleasant; you can't whitewash it." Kaine's proposal passed the council on a 6–3 vote.
During his mayoralty, Kaine drew criticism for spending $6,000 in public funds on buses to the Million Mom March, an anti-gun-violence rally in Washington, D.C.; after a backlash, he raised the money privately and reimbursed the city.
Lieutenant governor of Virginia (2002–2006)
Kaine ran for lieutenant governor of Virginia in 2001. He joined the race after state senator Emily Couric dropped out due to pancreatic cancer and endorsed Kaine as her replacement. In the Democratic primary election, Kaine ran against state delegate Alan A. Diamonstein of Newport News, and state delegate Jerrauld C. Jones of Norfolk. Kaine won the nomination, with 39.7% of the vote to Diamonstein's 31.4% and Jones's 28.9%.
In the general election, Kaine won with 925,974 votes (50.35%), edging out his Republican opponent, state delegate Jay Katzen, who received 883,886 (48.06%). Libertarian Gary Reams received 28,783 votes (1.57%).
Kaine was inaugurated on January 12, 2002, and was sworn in by his wife Anne Holton, a state judge.
2005 gubernatorial election
In 2005, Kaine ran for governor of Virginia against Republican candidate Jerry W. Kilgore, a former state attorney general. Kaine was considered an underdog for most of the race, trailing in polls for most of the campaign. Two September polls showed Kaine trailing Kilgore—by four percentage points in a Washington Post poll and by one point in a Mason-Dixon/Roanoke Times poll. The final polls of the race before the election showed Kaine slightly edging ahead of Kilgore.
Kaine ultimately prevailed, winning 1,025,942 votes (51.7%) to Kilgore's 912,327 (46.0%). A third candidate, independent state Senator H. Russell Potts Jr., ran as an "independent Republican" and received 43,953 votes (2.2%).
Kaine emphasized fiscal responsibility and a centrist message. He expressed support for controlling sprawl and tackling longstanding traffic issues, an issue that resonated in the northern Virginia exurbs. He benefited from his association with the popular outgoing Democratic governor, Mark Warner, who had performed well in traditionally Republican areas of the state. On the campaign trail, Kaine referred to the "Warner-Kaine administration" in speeches and received Warner's strong backing. Kilgore later attributed his defeat to Warner's high popularity and President George W. Bush's sharply declining popularity; Bush held a rally with Kilgore on the campaign's final day.
The campaign turned sharply negative in its final weeks, with Kilgore running television attack ads that falsely claimed that Kaine believed that "Hitler doesn't qualify for the death penalty." The ads also attacked Kaine for his service ten years earlier as a court-appointed attorney for a death-row inmate. The editorial boards of the Washington Post and a number of Virginia newspapers denounced the ads as a "smear" and "dishonest." Kaine responded with an ad "in which he told voters that he opposes capital punishment but would take an oath and enforce the death penalty. In later polls, voters said they believed Kaine's response and were angered by Kilgore's negative ads."
In the election, Kaine won by large margins in the Democratic strongholds such as Richmond and northern Virginia's inner suburbs (such as Alexandria and Arlington), as well as in the Democratic-trending Fairfax County. Kaine also won Republican-leaning areas in Northern Virginia's outer suburbs, including Prince William County and Loudoun County, where George W. Bush had beat John Kerry in the previous year's presidential election, and performed "surprisingly well in Republican strongholds like Virginia Beach and Chesapeake." Kaine also defeated Kilgore in the burgeoning Richmond suburbs. Kilgore led in southwest Virginia and in the Shenandoah Valley.
Governor of Virginia (2006–2010)
Kaine was sworn in as governor at the colonial Capitol at Williamsburg, on January 14, 2006, the first governor since Thomas Jefferson to be inaugurated there.
Kaine was chairman of the Southern Governors' Association from 2008 to 2009.
Democratic response to State of the Union address
On January 31, 2006, Kaine gave the Democratic response to President George W. Bush's 2006 State of the Union address. In it, he criticized the Bush administration's No Child Left Behind Act for "wreaking havoc on local school districts"; criticized congressional Republicans for cutting student loan programs; and condemned as "reckless" Bush's spending increases and tax cuts. Kaine praised bipartisan initiatives in Virginia "to make record investments in education" and to improve veterans' access to veterans' benefits. He criticized the Bush administration's conduct of the Iraq War and treatment of U.S. soldiers, saying that "the American people were given inaccurate information about reasons for invading Iraq"; "our troops in Iraq were not given the best body armor or the best intelligence"; and "the administration wants to further reduce military and veterans' benefits."
Energy, the environment, and conservation
As governor, Kaine protected of Virginia land from development, fulfilling a promise he made in 2005. His conservation efforts focused on conservation easements (voluntary easements that preserve the private ownership of a piece of land while also permanently protecting it from development); a substantial Virginia land preservation tax credit encouraged easements. From 2004 to 2009, the Virginia Outdoors Foundation (a quasi-governmental entity set up in 1966 to preserve open land in the state) protected more land than it had in the previous 40 years, a fact Kaine touted as his term drew to a close.
As governor, Kaine established the Climate Change Commission, a bipartisan panel to study climate change issues. The panel was shuttered under Kaine's Republican successor, Governor Robert F. McDonnell, but revived (as the Governor's Climate Change and Resiliency Update Commission) under McDonnell's successor, Democratic Governor Terry McAuliffe.
In 2008, Kaine supported a coal-fired power plant project in Wise County, clashing with environmentalists who opposed the project.
In 2009, Kaine expressed support for tighter restrictions on mountaintop removal coal mining imposed by the Obama administration.
Healthcare and public health
In October 2006, Kaine signed an executive order banning smoking in all government buildings and state-owned cars as of January 1, 2007. He signed legislation banning smoking in restaurants and bars, with some exceptions, in March 2009, making Virginia the first Southern state to do so.
In 2007, the Republican-controlled Virginia General Assembly passed legislation, with "overwhelming bipartisan support", to require girls to receive the HPV vaccine (which immunizes recipients against a virus that causes cervical cancer) before entering high school. Kaine expressed "some qualms" about the legislation and pushed for a strong opt-out provision, ultimately signing a bill that included a provision allowing parents to opt out of the requirement without citing a reason.
In 2007, Kaine secured increases in state funding for nursing in the Virginia General Assembly and announced a 10% salary increase for nursing faculty above the normal salary increase for state employees, plus additional funds for scholarships for nursing master's programs. The initiatives were aimed at addressing a shortage of practicing nurses.
Virginia Tech shooting
After the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting, in which Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 people, Kaine appointed an eight-member Virginia Tech Review Panel, chaired by retired Virginia State Police superintendent W. Gerald Massengill, to probe the event. The commission members included specialists in psychology, law, forensics and higher education as well as former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge. The commission first met in May 2007, and issued its findings and recommendations in August 2007. Among other recommendations, the panel proposed many mental health reforms. Based on the panel's recommendations, Kaine proposed $42 million of investment in mental health programs and reforms, included "boosting access to outpatient and emergency mental health services, increasing the number of case managers and improving monitoring of community-based providers." In April 2007, Kaine signed an executive order instructing state agencies to step up efforts to block gun sales to people involuntarily committed to inpatient and outpatient mental health treatment centers. Kaine, who had been in Japan on a trade mission at the time of the shootings, received widespread praise for his quick return to the state and his handling of the issue.
Budget and economy
Among Kaine's greatest challenges as governor came during the 2008–09 economic crisis; the Washington Post wrote that "perhaps his greatest success was keeping the state running despite [the crisis]." Amid the Great Recession, unemployment in Virginia remained lower than the national average. During Kaine's tenure as governor, the unemployment rate in Virginia rose from 3.2% to 7.4%, a smaller increase than the national rate, which rose from 4.7% to 9.9% during the same period.
As governor, Kaine approved about $3.31 billion in general fund spending cuts, and after his term in office, the Virginia General Assembly adopted about $1.33 billion in additional budget cuts that Kaine had recommended, for a total of $4.64 billion in cuts. The Washington Post wrote, "Unable to raise taxes and required by law to balance the budget, he was forced to make unpopular cuts that led to such things as shuttered highway rest stops and higher public university tuition." Virginia was one of three states to earn the highest grade in terms of management in a report by the nonpartisan Pew Center on the States. Virginia took first place each year from 2006 to 2009 in Forbes magazine's "Best States For Business" rankings.
Infrastructure and transportation
In July 2007, during the debate on the Silver Line of the Washington Metro through Tysons Corner, Kaine supported an elevated track solution rather than a tunnel, citing costs and potential delays that would put federal funding at risk.
In 2006, Kaine pressed the general assembly to support a legislative package to ease severe traffic congestion by spending about $1 billion annually for highway construction, repairs to aging roads, mass transit, and other transportation projects. The money would be raised through increases in taxes and fees that would have raised an estimated $4 billion in revenue over four years. The Democratic-controlled Senate supported the plan, but the Republican-controlled House was unwilling to approve the taxes necessary to carry out the project, and the effort failed even after a special session of the legislature was called over the stalemate.
In 2007, Republicans in the General Assembly passed their own transportation-funding bill. Rather than a statewide tax increase to finance the transportation improvements, as Kaine and most legislative Democrats favored, the Republican bill called for transportation funding "to come from borrowing $2.5 billion and paying the debt costs out of the general fund"; authorized local tax increase in Northern Virginia; increased fees and taxes on rental cars, commercial real estate, and hotels; and increased traffic infraction fines and driver's licenses fees.
Kaine and most legislative Democrats opposed the Republican legislation, calling it inadequate to address traffic congestion and arguing that the withdrawal of funds from the general fund would affect core services such as health care, law enforcement, and education. Kaine ultimately signed a bill with amendments reflecting "concerns by local government officials and a bipartisan group of lawmakers who were concerned that the plan took too much money from the state's general fund."
Education
Under Kaine, participation in Virginia in early childhood education increased by 40.2% due to his expansion of the Virginia Preschool Initiative, which makes pre-kindergarten more accessible to four-year-olds from households close to the poverty line. Kaine sought increases to the budget for preschool programs every year during his term as governor. Virginia was rated as the best state to raise a child in a 2007 report by Education Week and the Pew Center on the States.
Cabinet and appointments
Kaine made the following appointments to his Virginia Governor's Cabinet:
Chief of Staff: William Leighty (2006–2007), Wayne Turnage (2007–2010)
Secretary of Administration: Viola Baskerville (2006–2010)
Virginia Secretary of Agriculture and Forestry: Robert Bloxom (2006–2010)
Secretary of Commerce and Trade: Patrick Gottschalk (2006–2010)
Secretary of the Commonwealth: Katherine Hanley (2006–2010)
Secretary of Education: Thomas R. Morris (2006–2010)
Secretary of Finance:Jody Wagner (2006–2008), Ric Brown (2008–2010)
Secretary of Health and Human Resources: Marilyn Tavenner (2006–2010)
Secretary of Natural Resources: Preston Bryant (2006–2010)
Secretary of Public Safety: John W. Marshall (2006–2010)
Secretary of Technology: Aneesh Chopra (2006–2009), Leonard Pomata (2009–2010)
Secretary of Transportation: Pierce Homer (2006–2010)
Counselor to the Governor: Lawrence Roberts (2006–2009)
Counselor to the Governor: Mark Rubin (2009–2010)
Assistant for Commonwealth Preparedness: Robert P. Crouch (2006–2010)
Senior Advisor for Workforce: Daniel G. LeBlanc (2006–2010)
As governor, Kaine made a number of appointments to the Virginia state courts. He made two appointments to the Supreme Court of Virginia, naming Chesapeake circuit judge S. Bernard Goodwyn to the Court in 2007 and Virginia Court of Appeals Judge LeRoy F. Millette Jr. in 2008.
On September 27, 2007, just weeks after appointing Esam Omeish to the 20-member Virginia Commission on Immigration, Kaine learned that Omeish had made videos accusing Israel of genocide and calling for President Bush's impeachment. He immediately requested and received Omeish's resignation and said that background checks would be more thorough in the future.
2008 vice presidential speculation
Kaine announced his support for Barack Obama's presidential bid in February 2007. It was maintained that Kaine's endorsement was the first from a statewide elected official outside of Illinois. Because Kaine was a relatively popular governor of a Southern state, there was media speculation that he was a potential nominee for vice president. Obama had supported Kaine in his campaign for governor, saying, "Tim Kaine has a message of fiscal responsibility and generosity of spirit. That kind of message can sell anywhere." On July 28, 2008, Politico reported that Kaine was "very, very high" on Obama's shortlist for vice president, a list that also included Senator Hillary Clinton of New York, Governor Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas, Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana, and Senator Joe Biden of Delaware. Obama ultimately selected Biden. It was later reported that Obama told Kaine, in breaking the news to him, "You are the pick of my heart, but Joe [Biden] is the pick of my head". Obama later wrote that he had ultimately narrowed down the choice for his running mate to Kaine and Biden. He said, "At the time, I was much closer to Tim", but Obama and his advisers David Axelrod and David Plouffe wondered whether voters would accept a ticket of "two relatively young, inexperienced, and liberal civil rights attorneys" and Obama felt the contrast between him and Biden was a strength, and that Biden's age and experience would reassure voters concerned that Obama was too young to be president.
Democratic National Committee chair (2009–2011)
In January 2009, Kaine became chair of the Democratic National Committee. He had turned down the position the first time it was offered to him, expressing misgivings about accepting a partisan position, but took the job at Obama's request. He took on the position as chair part-time as he continued his term as governor of Virginia. Kaine's main goals as DNC chair "were protecting the party's seats in Congress during the 2010 midterms and integrating the president's campaign apparatus, Organizing for America, and its technological acumen into the party machinery." In the 2010 midterms, the DNC under Kaine's leadership outraised the Republican National Committee (RNC) by $30 million, but Democrats lost control of the House and lost seats in the Senate amidst a Tea Party backlash. Kaine was not generally blamed for the losses.
Kaine kept a low profile in the position in comparison to his counterpart, RNC chairman Michael Steele. He focused more on fundraising and maintaining party unity than on attacking political opponents.
In February 2011, after Kaine spoke to union leaders in Madison, Organizing for America got involved in Wisconsin's budget battle and opposed Republican-sponsored anti-union legislation. It made phone calls, sent emails, and distributed messages via Facebook and Twitter to build crowds for rallies.
After completing his term as governor in January 2010, Kaine taught part-time at the University of Richmond, teaching a course in spring 2010 at the Jepson School of Leadership Studies and another in fall 2010 at the University of Richmond School of Law. He explained that he had chosen to teach at a private university rather than a public university "because it would not have been right for a sitting governor to be seeking employment at an institution when he writes the budget and appoints the board of the institution."
United States Senate
2012 election
After Senator Jim Webb's decision not to seek reelection, Kaine announced on April 5, 2011, that he would run for Webb's seat. He was initially reluctant to return to public office, but Webb, Senator Mark Warner, and other Virginia Democrats saw Kaine as the strongest potential Democratic candidate and convinced him to run. Kaine named Lawrence Roberts as his campaign chairman. Mike Henry was chosen as his campaign manager. Kaine filmed announcement videos in English and Spanish and was unopposed for the Democratic nomination. He defeated former senator and governor George Allen in the general election.
Tenure
Kaine was sworn in on January 3, 2013, reuniting him with Mark Warner, the senior senator. Kaine was lieutenant governor when Warner was governor of Virginia.
On June 11, 2013, Kaine delivered a speech on the Senate floor in support of the bipartisan "Gang of Eight" immigration bill. The speech was entirely in Spanish, marking the first time a senator had ever made a speech on the Senate floor in a language other than English.
As a member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, Kaine pushed for a new Congressional authorization of military force for the American operations against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Kaine supported the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran, though he also helped Republican senator Bob Corker hold a vote on a resolution of disapproval of the deal. Kaine has taken several trips throughout the Middle East, meeting with the leaders of states such as Turkey and Israel.
While in the Senate, Kaine has continued to teach part-time at the University of Richmond, receiving a salary of $16,000 per year.
Kaine has voted with his party more than 90% of the time. According to the Washington Post, Kaine has "crafted a largely progressive record as a senator." He reportedly has good relations with both Democratic and Republican senators.
During the 2016 vice-presidential campaign, Kaine frequently criticized Donald Trump, saying that Trump "as commander-in-chief scares me to death" and had a "bizarre fascination with strongmen and authoritarian leaders". In 2017, after Trump took office, Kaine continued to criticize his "authoritarian tendencies", citing his attacks on media, judges, and peaceful protesters. At an event at George Mason University, Kaine said that with Trump in office, Americans "are in a 'living experiment' to see whether or not the Constitution still works to check executive power."
In February 2017, Kaine met with Pope Francis at a general audience at the Vatican. Kaine also met with the Jesuit Refugee Service to discuss refugees and met with Vatican officials to discuss Latin American issues. The same month, Kaine delivered an address, "The Truman Doctrine at 70", at London's Chatham House.
Committee assignments and caucuses
In the 113th Congress (2013–15), Kaine was on the Committee on Armed Services, the Committee on the Budget, and the Committee on Foreign Relations. In the 114th Congress, Kaine was on those three committees and the Special Committee on Aging. In July 2013, Kaine was named chair of the United States Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Near East, South Asia, Central Asia and Counterterrorism.
Within the Senate Armed Services Committee, Kaine is a member of the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities, the Subcommittee on Readiness and Management Support (of which he is the ranking member), and the Subcommittee on Seapower.
Within the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, Kaine is a member of the Subcommittee on State Department and USAID Management, International Operations, and Bilateral International Development (of which he is the ranking member), the Subcommittee on Europe and Regional Security Cooperation, the Subcommittee on Near East, South Asia, Central Asia, and Counterterrorism, and the Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere, Transnational Crime, Civilian Security, Democracy, Human Rights and Global Women's Issues.
In January 2014, Kaine and Senator Rob Portman established the bipartisan Senate Career and Technical Education Caucus (CTE Caucus), which focuses on vocational education and technical education. Kaine and Portman co-chair the caucus. In 2014, Kaine and Portman introduced the CTE Excellence and Equity Act to the Senate; the legislation would provide $500 million in federal funding, distributed by competitive grants, to high schools to further CTE programs. The legislation, introduced as an amendment to the omnibus Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act of 2006, would promote apprenticeships and similar initiatives. Kaine and Portman introduced similar legislation, the Educating Tomorrow's Workforce Act, in 2017.
2016 vice-presidential campaign
Kaine endorsed Hillary Clinton for president in 2016 and campaigned actively for her in seven states during the primaries. He had been the subject of considerable speculation as a possible running mate for Clinton, with several news reports indicating that he was at or near the top of Clinton's list of people under consideration alongside figures such as Elizabeth Warren and Julian Castro.
The New York Times reported that Clinton's husband, former president Bill Clinton, supported Kaine as his wife's vice-presidential selection, noting his domestic and national security résumé. On July 22, 2016, she announced Kaine would be her running mate in the election. Clinton introduced Kaine as her choice in a joint appearance at a rally at Florida International University in Miami the next day. The 2016 Democratic National Convention nominated him for vice president on July 27, 2016.
Kaine was the first Virginian since Woodrow Wilson to be on a major-party ticket, and was the first Virginian to run for vice president on a major-party ticket since John Tyler in 1840; he was also the first senator or former senator from Virginia to be on a major-party ticket since Tyler.
In accordance with longstanding political custom in the U.S., upon being nominated for vice president Kaine publicly released his full tax returns for the previous ten years. He also publicly released medical records; his physician, Brian P. Monahan, the Attending Physician of the United States Congress, wrote that Kaine was "in overall excellent health." In September Kaine published a campaign book co-authored with Clinton, Stronger Together.
In Kaine's preparations for the vice presidential debate in October 2016, lawyer Robert Barnett played the role of Republican vice-presidential nominee Mike Pence. (During Pence's own debate preparations, Wisconsin governor Scott Walker played the role of Kaine.) Pence was criticized after the debate for not defending Trump's comments, while Kaine was criticized for being too aggressive and interrupting. According to ABC News, Kaine interrupted 70 times during the debate, while Pence interrupted 40 times.
Despite winning a plurality of the national popular vote, the Clinton-Kaine ticket lost the Electoral College, and thus the election, to the Trump-Pence ticket on November 8, 2016. This is the only election Kaine has ever lost. Clinton-Kaine did win Virginia, the only Southern state to vote for the Democratic ticket, a victory attributed in part to Kaine.
2018 election
After the 2016 election, Kaine said he would run for reelection to the Senate in 2018. He expressed his desire to emulate John Warner, who represented Virginia in the Senate for 30 years. He added that he would not run for president or vice president in the future.
In his 2018 Senate campaign against Republican nominee and Trump ally Corey Stewart, Kaine had the endorsement of The Richmond Times-Dispatch, marking the first time in decades the paper had endorsed a Democrat.
After taking an early lead in his race against Stewart, Kaine worked to support other Democrats who, in seven districts, were challenging incumbent Republicans for House seats. Kaine defeated Stewart by more than 15 points.
Personality and leadership style
About 145,000 emails from Kaine and his staff during his term as governor are publicly accessible at the Library of Virginia. Politico conducted an analysis of the correspondence and wrote that the messages show Kaine to be a "media-savvy" and detail-oriented "micro-manager" who is also a policy "wonk".
According to The New York Times, Kaine "is widely described by people in his political orbit as a likable if less than charismatic figure...guided by moral convictions that flow from his deep Christian faith." On Meet the Press, Kaine called himself "boring."
Political positions
In terms of political ideology, FiveThirtyEight gives Kaine an average score of −37 (−100 is the most liberal, and 100 is the most conservative). FiveThirtyEight characterizes him as a "mainstream Democrat" and notes that his ideology score is very similar to that of Joe Biden. Three conservative groups—the American Conservative Union, the Club for Growth, and Heritage Action—gave Kaine 0% ratings in the few years before 2016, while the liberal group Americans for Democratic Action gave Kaine a 90% rating in 2014. The New York Times wrote that "in hyperpartisan Washington, he is often seen as a centrist" while also describing him as an "old-fashioned liberal...driven by Jesuit ideals."
Abortion, birth control, and sex education
Kaine, a Roman Catholic, personally opposes abortion, but is "largely inclined to keep the law out of women's reproductive decisions." He has said, "I'm a strong supporter of Roe v. Wade and women being able to make these decisions. In government, we have enough things to worry about. We don't need to make people's reproductive decisions for them." Kaine supports some legal restrictions on abortion, such as requiring parental consent for minors (with a judicial bypass procedure) and banning late-term abortions in cases where the woman's life is not at risk.
In 2009, Kaine signed a bill to create a "Choose Life" license plate, among the more than 200 Virginia specialty plates already offered, the proceeds of which would partly go to Heartbeat International, a Christian organization that operates anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers. Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice America expressed disappointment in Kaine's decision. Kaine considered such license plate messages a matter of free speech and added that the move was "in keeping with the commonwealth's longtime practice of approving specialty plates with all manner of political and social messages."
Kaine previously criticized the Obama administration for "not providing a 'broad enough religious employer exemption'" in the contraceptive mandate of the Affordable Care Act, but praised a 2012 amendment to the regulations that required insurers to provide birth control to employees when an employer was an objecting religious organization.
In 2005, when running for governor, Kaine said he favored reducing abortions by "Enforcing the current Virginia restrictions on abortion and passing an enforceable ban on partial birth abortion that protects the life and health of the mother"; "Fighting teen pregnancy through abstinence-focused education"; "Ensuring women's access to health care (including legal contraception) and economic opportunity"; and "Promoting adoption as an alternative for women facing unwanted pregnancies."
In 2007, as governor, Kaine cut off state funding for abstinence-only sex education programs, citing studies that showed such programs were ineffective, while comprehensive sex education programs were more effective. Kaine believes that both abstinence and contraceptives must be taught, and that education should be evidence-based.
As a senator, Kaine has received perfect scores from Planned Parenthood and the abortion-rights advocacy group NARAL. He has received a score of zero from the anti-abortion National Right to Life Committee.
Campaign finance
Kaine "strongly disagrees" with Citizens United v. FEC (2010). In 2015, Kaine joined a group of Senate Democrats in a letter to Securities and Exchange Commission Chairwoman Mary Jo White that said the ruling "reversed long-standing precedent and has moved our country in a different and disturbing direction when it comes to corporate influence in politics." They urged the SEC to require publicly traded companies to disclose political spending to their shareholders to "increase transparency in the U.S. political process".
Capital punishment
Kaine personally opposes capital punishment, but presided over 11 executions while governor. He said, "I really struggled with [capital punishment] as governor. I have a moral position against the death penalty. But I took an oath of office to uphold it. Following an oath of office is also a moral obligation." During his time in office he commuted one death sentence in June 2008, that of Percy Levar Walton, to life imprisonment without parole on grounds of mental incompetence, writing that "one cannot reasonably conclude that Walton is fully aware of the punishment he is about to suffer and why he is to suffer it" and thus that executing him would be unconstitutional. Kaine vetoed a number of bills to expand the death sentence to more crimes, saying: "I do not believe that further expansion of the death penalty is necessary to protect human life or provide for public safety needs." Some of the vetoes were overridden.
On July 31, 2019, after Attorney General William Barr announced that the United States federal government would resume the use of the death penalty for the first time in over 20 years, Kaine co-sponsored a bill banning the death penalty.
Environment, energy, and climate change
Kaine acknowledges the scientific consensus on climate change, and in a 2014 Senate speech criticized climate change deniers, as well as those who "may not deny the climate science, but ... deny that the U.S. can or should be a leader in taking any steps" to address the issue.
Kaine has expressed concern about sea level rise (a major consequence of climate change), and in particular its effect on coastal Virginia. In 2014, he partnered with two Virginia Republicans—U.S. Representatives Rob Wittman and Scott Rigell—to hold a conference on sea-level rise and "local adaptation efforts to protect military installations in the Hampton Roads area."
Kaine endorses making coal energy production cleaner, saying that it is imperative "to convert coal to electricity with less pollution than we do today." He has criticized those who "frame the debate as a conflict between an economy and the environment", saying that "protecting the environment is good for the economy." Kaine co-sponsored the Advanced Clean Coal Technology Investment in Our Nation (ACCTION) Act, legislation to increase investment in clean coal technologies. He voted against legislation to approve the Keystone XL pipeline. Kaine supports the use of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) to harvest natural gas from shale formations. He believes this will reduce carbon pollution. Kaine voted against an amendment introduced by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand that would have repealed a provision in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 that exempts fracking from the underground injection control provisions of the Safe Drinking Water Act. As a result, regulation of fracking remains in the hands of state agencies; the EPA cannot regulate it or require a federal permit. Kaine supports exporting liquefied natural gas (LNG) to other countries.
Like his fellow senator from Virginia, Mark Warner, Kaine applauded the U.S. Forest Service's plan to close most, but not all, of the George Washington National Forest to fracking and other horizontal drilling activities.
In 2013, Kaine supported oil and gas exploration off the coast of Virginia, saying, "I have long believed that the moratorium on offshore drilling, based on a cost-benefit calculation performed decades ago, should be reexamined." In April 2015, Kaine reiterated his opposition to the moratorium on offshore drilling. In March 2016, Kaine signaled that his position was softening, saying he was "particularly struck by the material objections of the Department of Defense to the incompatibility of drilling with naval operations off Virginia's coast... I have participated in this debate for over a decade as a governor and member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. The DOD has been relatively quiet during this public debate and has never shared their objections with me before." By August 2016, Kaine stated his support for a ban on offshore drilling, bringing his position in line with Hillary Clinton's and the Obama administration's.
Kaine supports the development of solar energy and offshore wind turbines. Based on his votes on environmental issues in the Senate, the League of Conservation Voters has given Kaine a 95% score for 2018, and a 94% lifetime score. (At the time of his vice-presidential campaign, Kaine had an 88% score for 2015, and a 91% lifetime score.)
In March 2019, Kaine was one of 11 senators to sponsor the Climate Security Act of 2019, legislation forming a new group within the State Department that would be responsible for developing strategies to integrate climate science and data into operations of national security as well as restoring the post of special envoy for the Arctic, which Trump had dismantled in 2017. The proposed envoy would advise the president and the administration on the potential effects of climate on national security and be responsible for facilitating all interagency communication between federal science and security agencies.
In April 2019, Kaine was one of 12 senators to sign a bipartisan letter to top senators on the Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development advocating that the Energy Department be granted maximum funding for carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS), arguing that American job growth could be stimulated by investment in viable options to capture carbon emissions released into the atmosphere and expressing disagreement with the Trump's 2020 budget request to combine the two federal programs that include carbon capture research.
Financial regulation
Kaine strongly supports financial regulation and the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. In July 2016, he signed a bipartisan letter that "urged the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to 'carefully tailor its rulemaking' [under Dodd-Frank] regarding community banks and credit unions so as not to 'unduly burden' these institutions with regulations aimed at commercial banks." The letter prompted criticism from progressives who viewed it as anti-regulation. Democracy for America executive director Charles Chamberlain called the letter "a lobbyist-driven effort to help banks dodge consumer protection standards and regulations designed to prevent banks from destroying our economy." Kaine responded, "it's important you don't treat every financial institution the same. It wasn't credit unions that tanked the economy, it wasn't local community banks that tanked the economy, generally wasn't regional banks that did things that tanked the economy." He also signed a letter urging that a requirement that regional banks report liquidity levels on a daily basis be loosened.
Foreign and defense policy
In the Senate, Kaine has supported the normalization of U.S.–Cuban relations and the international nuclear agreement with Iran.
Kaine expressed support for Israel's right to defend itself during the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict. In September 2016, in advance of a UN Security Council resolution 2334 condemning Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, he signed an AIPAC-sponsored letter urging Obama to veto "one-sided" resolutions against Israel.
In 2015, Kaine expressed support for the Saudi-led coalition's airstrikes in Yemen against Houthi forces fighting the government of President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, but in 2018, he was one of seven senators to sign a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo saying that they found it "difficult to reconcile known facts with at least two" of the Trump administration's certifications that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were attempting to protect Yemeni civilians and were in compliance with U.S. laws on arms sales, citing an inconsistency with a memo from Pompeo to Congress expressly stating that on some occasions the Saudi and Emirates governments had failed to adopt measures to reduce civilian casualties. Kaine also condemned the Trump administration for its "eagerness to give the Saudis anything they want" after the administration approved the transfer of nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia after the murder of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi.
In July 2017, Kaine voted for the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act that placed sanctions on Iran, Russia, and North Korea.
In 2019, Kaine was one of 34 Senate Democrats to sign a letter to Trump urging him to reconsider cuts to U.S. foreign aid to the Northern Triangle countries of Central America in the Fiscal Year 2018 national security appropriations bill. The letter said that Trump had "consistently expressed a flawed understanding of U.S. foreign assistance", viewing it as a gift or charity to foreign governments rather than a tool to promote American interests and collective security. The senators wrote that U.S. foreign assistance to Central American countries, by improving stability and alleviating poverty in the region, reduced Central American migration flows to the U.S.
In 2019, Kaine co-sponsored the South China Sea and East China Sea Sanctions Act, a bipartisan bill reintroduced by Marco Rubio and Ben Cardin that was intended to disrupt China's consolidation or expansion of its claims of jurisdiction over both the sea and airspace in disputed zones in the South China Sea.
Grand strategy and democracy promotion
After the 2016 presidential campaign, Kaine wrote an extensive essay in Foreign Affairs outlining his underlying foreign policy philosophy. According to Kaine, American foreign policy has suffered a lack of direction since the 1990s because the end of the Cold War rendered irrelevant America's previous grand strategy, which he identifies as the Truman Doctrine. This lack of grand strategy makes American actions seem random, complicating the policy-making process and hindering American leaders' efforts to convince the public that American foreign policy is worthwhile. To remedy this, Kaine proposed a new grand strategy based mainly on democracy promotion. His grand strategy is informed by a tri-polar balance of international power, with one pole being democratic states including the U.S. and its allies, the second autocratic powers led by Russia and China, and the third nonstate actors (multinational corporations, NGOs, gangs, etc.).
First, Kaine believes that the United States should work to support democracy in already democratic countries, as democracy globally has been declining for many years. To maintain democracy in democratic countries, Kaine proposes the creation of an intergovernmental organization consisting of all the world's democracies in which states can cooperate on solutions to problems such as corruption and voter inclusion. He compares this hypothetical group to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, in which advanced industrialized countries collaborate on economic policy. Kaine believes that this new organization will help democracies remain democratic, as well as promote democracy in other countries by giving them viable democratic examples to emulate. In this way, Kaine says that the U.S. should no longer see itself as the indispensable nation, but rather the "exemplary democracy".
Second, Kaine proposes that democracies should coordinate to best interact with authoritarian states. Depending on the circumstances, democracies should either "confront", "compete", or "cooperate" with autocracies. For example, Kaine observes that the U.S. competes with its authoritarian adversaries by strengthening military and commercial alliances, and confronts them by decrying their human rights records.
Finally, Kaine believes that democracies and autocracies should cooperate when they have the same interests, such as combating climate change.
In July 2017, Kaine expanded on the grand strategy proposed in this essay in an interview at the Brookings Institution with international relations scholar Robert Kagan.
Afghanistan
Kaine's website states, "The main mission in Afghanistan—destroying Al Qaeda—is nearly complete and we should bring our troops home as quickly as we can, consistent with the need to make sure that Afghanistan poses no danger in the broader region."
Latin America
Kaine believes that American foreign policy has neglected relations with Latin America and argues for an increased focus on the Americas, saying, "We have seldom paid enough attention to the Americas, in particular, and when we have—whether through the Monroe Doctrine or by battling communist movements during the Cold War—we have focused more on blocking outsiders from building influence in the Western Hemisphere than we have on the nations already there."
War powers
Kaine is known for "expertise on the constitutional powers of the presidency" and has said that "war powers questions" are a "personal obsession" of his. He has stressed that under the Constitution, "Congress has the power to declare war—and only Congress." Kaine called the 2018 U.S. missile strikes Trump ordered against the Syrian government illegal because they were undertaken without congressional approval.
Kaine and Senator John McCain introduced the War Powers Consultation Act of 2014, which would replace the War Powers Act of 1973, bringing Congress back into decisions on the deployment of U.S. military forces. The bill would establish a Congressional Consultation Committee, with which the president would be required to consult regularly regarding significant foreign policy matters before ordering the deployment of the armed forces into a significant armed conflict and at least every two months for the duration of any significant armed conflict. Kaine argued for the bill by citing his "frustration" over the sloppiness of "process and communication over decisions of war", noting that "presidents tend to overreach and Congress sometimes willingly ducks tough votes and decisions. We all have to do better."
In February 2018, Kaine was one of 18 senators to sign a letter to Trump arguing that striking North Korea with "a preventative or preemptive U.S. military strike would lack either a constitutional basis or legal authority" without congressional approval.
In January 2020, Kaine introduced a new war powers resolution that would prohibit the U.S. from entering hostilities against Iran within 30 days unless it was responding to an imminent threat. The next month, the measure passed the Senate 55–45, securing the votes of eight Republicans along with the Democrats. Trump vetoed the measure, and the Senate failed to override the veto.
Syria, Iraq, and ISIL
In 2014, Kaine argued that the U.S. military intervention against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) undertaken by Obama was unconstitutional without a new congressional authorization for the use of military force against ISIL. In November 2014, at the Halifax International Security Forum, Kaine and McCain emphasized the necessity of such a congressional authorization, saying: "You just can't have a war without Congress. You can't ask people to risk their lives, risk getting killed, seeing other folks getting killed or injured if Congress isn't willing to do the job to put their thumbprint on this and say, this is a national mission and worth it." After the April 2017 Shayrat missile strike in Syria, ordered by Trump, Kaine said, "There is no legal justification for this. He should not have done this without coming to Congress." On Meet the Press, Kaine said, "I'm a strong supporter that the U.S. should take action to protect humanitarian causes, like the ban on chemical weapons. Where I differ from this administration, and I took the same position with respect to President Obama, we are a nation that's not supposed to take military action, start war, without a plan that's presented to and approved by Congress."
On December 11, 2014, after a five-month campaign by Kaine, the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved by 10–8 (along party lines) a measure authorizing military force against ISIL but barring the use of ground troops. In October 2015, Kaine criticized Obama's approach to the Syrian Civil War, saying that the establishment of humanitarian no-fly zones would have alleviated the humanitarian crisis in Syria.
In April 2018, Kaine criticized Trump for authorizing the launch of a precision military strike on Syria without consulting Congress, calling the strike an "illegal military act".
On February 26, 2021, Kaine demanded answers from President Biden after he ordered airstrikes on Syria against Iran-backed militias without giving "legal justification" to members of Congress beforehand.
Firearms
Kaine is a firearms owner. He has supported expanded background checks for weapons purchases as well as "restrictions on the sale of combat-style weapons and high-capacity magazines." As governor, Kaine oversaw the closing of loopholes in Virginia law that allowed some who had failed background checks to purchase guns. In the Senate, he has supported legislation that would require background checks for weapons sold via gun shows and via the internet. He also supports legislation to bar weapons sales to suspected terrorists on the No Fly List.
In November 2017, Kaine was a cosponsor of the Military Domestic Violence Reporting Enhancement Act, a bill that would form a charge of domestic violence under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) and stipulate that convictions be reported to federal databases with the authority to keep abusers from purchasing firearms within three days in an attempt to close a loophole in the UCMJ through which convicted abusers retained the ability to purchase firearms.
In March 2018, Kaine was one of ten senators to sign a letter to Chairman of the United States Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Lamar Alexander and ranking Democrat Patty Murray requesting they schedule a hearing on the causes and remedies of mass shootings in the wake of the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting.
In June 2019, Kaine was one of four senators to cosponsor the Help Empower Americans to Respond (HEAR) Act, legislation that would ban suppressors being imported, sold, made, sent elsewhere or possessed and grant a silencer buyback program as well as include certain exceptions for current and former law enforcement personnel and others. The bill was intended to respond to the Virginia Beach shooting, in which the perpetrator used a .45-caliber handgun with multiple extended magazines and a suppressor.
Kaine has a 100% rating from the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and an "F" rating from the NRA.
Health care
Kaine supports the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2009 (Obamacare), saying in 2012, "I was a supporter and remain a supporter of the Affordable Care Act. I felt like it was a statement that we were going to put some things in the rearview mirror." In 2013, he said that he agreed that changes to the ACA should be debated, but criticized Republicans for "wrapping them up with the threat" of a federal government shutdown.
In 2018, Kaine and Senator Michael Bennet proposed the creation of "Medicare X"—a public health insurance option modeled after Medicare that would be available on ACA health insurance marketplaces along with private options. The proposal is a more incrementalist alternative to Bernie Sanders's push for "Medicare for All" (single-payer health care).
In December 2018, Kaine was one of 42 senators to sign a letter to Trump administration officials Alex Azar, Seema Verma, and Steve Mnuchin arguing that the administration was improperly using Section 1332 of the ACA to authorize states to "increase health care costs for millions of consumers while weakening protections for individuals with pre-existing conditions." The senators requested the administration withdraw the policy and "re-engage with stakeholders, states, and Congress."
In January 2019, Kaine was one of six Democratic senators to introduce the American Miners Act of 2019, a bill that would amend the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 to swap funds in excess of the amounts needed to meet existing obligations under the Abandoned Mine Land fund to the 1974 Pension Plan as part of an effort to prevent its insolvency as a result of coal company bankruptcies and the 2008 financial crisis. It also increased the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund tax and ensured that miners affected by the 2018 coal company bankruptcies would not lose their health care.
In December 2016, Kaine was one of 17 senators to sign a letter to Trump asking him to fulfill a campaign pledge to bring down the cost of prescription drugs. In February 2017, he and 30 other senators signed a letter to Kaléo Pharmaceuticals in response to the opioid-overdose-reversing device Evzio rising in price from $690 in 2014 to $4,500 and requested the company provide the detailed price structure for Evzio, the number of devices Kaléo Pharmaceuticals set aside for donation, and the totality of federal reimbursements Evzio received in the previous year. In February 2019, Kaine was one of 11 senators to sign a letter to insulin manufacturers Eli Lilly and Company, Novo Nordisk, and Sanofi about increased insulin prices and charging that the price increases caused patients to lack "access to the life-saving medications they need."
In August 2019, Kaine was one of 19 Democratic senators to sign a letter to Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar requesting data from the Trump administration on the consequences for healthcare if Texas prevailed in its lawsuit seeking to gut the Affordable Care Act. The senators wrote, "Upending the current health care system will create an enormous hole in the pocketbooks of the people we serve as well as wreck state budgets; therefore, we ask for data to help states and Congress better understand the potential consequences of the position the Administration is taking in court."
In September 2019, amid discussions to prevent a government shutdown, Kaine was one of six Democratic senators to sign a letter to congressional leadership advocating legislation that would permanently fund health care and pension benefits for retired coal miners as "families in Virginia, West Virginia, Wyoming, Alabama, Colorado, North Dakota and New Mexico" would start to receive notifications of health care termination by the end of the following month.
Immigration
Kaine supports the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Deferred Action for Parental Accountability (DAPA) programs, which allow up to five million undocumented immigrants to gain deferral of deportation and authorization to legally work in the United States. Alongside Senator Mark Warner and many other members of Congress, he signed on to an amicus brief in support of the program in the Supreme Court case United States v. Texas.
Kaine also supports comprehensive immigration reform, which would allow persons illegally present in the U.S. to earn legal status by paying a fine and taxes.
In July 2019, following reports that the Trump administration intended to end protections of spouses, parents and children of active-duty service members from deportation, Kaine was one of 22 senators to sign a letter led by Tammy Duckworth arguing that the program allowed service members the ability "to fight for the United States overseas and not worry that their spouse, children, or parents will be deported while they are away" and that the its termination would cause personal hardship for service members in combat.
In July 2019, Kaine and 15 other Senate Democrats introduced the Protecting Sensitive Locations Act, a bill to mandate that ICE agents get approval from a supervisor before undertaking an immigration raid or other enforcement actions at "sensitive locations" (schools, hospitals, places of worship, and courthouses) except in special circumstances. The bill would also require agents to receive annual training and require ICE to submit an annual report on enforcement actions in those locations.
LGBT rights
In 2006, Kaine campaigned against an amendment to the Virginia State Constitution to ban same-sex marriage, and in March 2013, he announced his support of same-sex marriage.
In the Senate, Kaine co-sponsored the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which would bar employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
In 2005, Kaine said, "No couples in Virginia can adopt other than a married couple. That's the right policy." In 2011, he shifted his position. In 2012, he said, "there should be a license that would entitle a committed couple to the same rights as a married couple."
During the 2016 presidential campaign, Kaine noted that his position on same-sex marriage was "at odds with the current doctrine of the church that I still attend." He predicted that the Roman Catholic Church would someday adopt his view. In response, two bishops heading the doctrine and marriage committees of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said that the church's position "cannot change" and reaffirmed their opposition to same-sex marriage.
In October 2018, Kaine was one of 20 senators to sign a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urging him to reverse the State Department's policy of denying visas to same-sex partners of LGBTQ diplomats who had unions that were not recognized by their home countries, writing that the Trump administration's refusal to allow LGBTQ diplomats to bring their partners to the U.S. was tantamount to upholding the "discriminatory policies of many countries around the world." In June 2019, Kaine was one of 18 senators to sign a letter to Pompeo requesting an explanation of the State Department's decision not to issue an official statement that year commemorating Pride Month or issue the annual cable outlining activities for embassies commemorating Pride Month. The signatories to the letter also asked why the LGBTI special envoy position had remained vacant. The authors said that the State Department's moves had sent "signals to the international community that the United States is abandoning the advancement of LGBTI rights as a foreign policy priority."
Taxes
Kaine supports allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire for those with incomes above $500,000.
In 2012, Kaine supported raising the cap on income subject for the FICA (Social Security) payroll tax "so that it covers a similar percentage of income as it did in the 1980s under President Reagan, which would greatly extend the solvency of the (Social Security) program."
In the Senate, Kaine has supported the Marketplace Fairness Act, which would allow states to require online retailers to collect sales taxes in the same manner as traditional brick-and-mortar retailers.
Trade
Kaine supported granting Obama Trade Promotion Authority (TPA or "fast track") to allow him to negotiate free trade agreements. He said the goal should be to "negotiate deals that protect workers' rights, environmental standards and intellectual property, while knocking down tariffs and other barriers that some countries erect to keep American products out."
In July 2016, Kaine said the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement was "an improvement of the status quo" and an "upgrade of labor standards... environmental standards... intellectual property protections", but maintained that he had not yet decided how to vote on final approval of the agreement, citing "significant concerns" over TPP's dispute resolution mechanism. Later that July, Kaine said that he could not support the TPP in its current form.
Kaine has been a proponent of NAFTA.
Transportation, growth, and housing
Kaine supports some smart growth-style policies (which he calls "a balanced approach to growth") to control sprawl and improve transportation. He favors a transportation policy that includes public transit, bicycles, and pedestrians. As governor, Kaine pushed through a $100 million open-space acquisition initiative. Under Kaine, Amtrak service in Virginia was expanded. He also participated in a White House round-table discussion on high-speed rail in 2009.
In April 2019, Kaine was one of 41 senators to sign a bipartisan letter in support of U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Section 4 Capacity Building program, a program authorizing HUD to partner with nonprofit community development groups to provide support to community development corporations. The letter said that the longstanding program had successfully promoted economic and community development, opposed the proposed elimination of the plan in Trump's budget proposal for Fiscal Year 2020, and urged the Senate to support continued funding for Section 4 in Fiscal Year 2020.
Workers' rights and gender equality
Kaine is "generally pro-union" and has received a 96% lifetime Senate voting rating from the AFL-CIO, which praised his selection as Clinton's running mate. But Kaine supports Virginia's longstanding "right-to-work" law, which "frees union nonmembers from any legal obligation to pay fees to a union that bargains collectively on their behalf".
Kaine supports the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which expands the cases in which worker can sue against gender pay discrimination. After Clinton selected him as her running mate in 2016, Kaine was praised by the National Organization for Women.
Kaine favors an increase in the minimum wage.
Electoral history
2001 lieutenant gubernatorial election
2005 gubernatorial election
2012 U.S. Senate election
2016 vice presidential election
2018 U.S. Senate election
Personal life
In November 1984, Kaine married Anne Bright Holton, the daughter of A. Linwood Holton Jr., a Republican who served as the 61st governor of Virginia from 1970 to 1974. The couple met while they were both students at Harvard Law School. Holton has been a judge for the Virginia Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court in Richmond. After serving as first lady of Virginia during her husband's term, she was appointed by Governor Terry McAuliffe in January 2014 to be Virginia's secretary of education, and held that position until July 2016, when she stepped down after her husband was named as the Democratic vice-presidential nominee. The couple has three children, one of whom is a United States Marine. As of 2016, Kaine and his wife had been congregants of the St. Elizabeth Catholic Church in Richmond, a mostly black congregation, for 30 years.
Kaine plays the harmonica and often travels with several.
Kaine is fluent in Spanish as a result of his nine months in Honduras. During the 2016 campaign, he became the first member of a presidential ticket to deliver a speech in Spanish.
On May 28, 2020, Kaine announced that he and his wife had tested positive for COVID-19 antibodies.
Awards and honors
Kaine has received the Humanitarian Award from the Virginia Center for Inclusive Communities, then the Virginia Region of the National Conference for Community and Justice (2000), the Virginia Council of Churches' Faith in Action Award (2009), the University of Richmond School of Law's William Green Award for Professional Excellence (2012), the Award for Public Service in the Americas from the Inter-American Dialogue (2014), the Appalachian Trail Conservancy's Congressional Award (2015), and the Center for the National Interest's Distinguished Service Award (2016). He was made a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Isabella the Catholic in 2017.
Notes
References
Further reading
Governor
Kaine's Governor website (Archived)
Kaine's Lieutenant governor website (Archived)
2005 campaign contributions at the Virginia Public Access Project
Moving Virginia Forward Archived Web Site, 2007 part of Virginia's Political Landscape, 2007 Web Archive Collection at Virginia Memory
Moving Virginia Forward Archived Web Site, 2009 part of Virginia's Political Landscape, 2009 Web Archive Collection at Virginia Memory
Tim Kaine for Governor Archived Web Site, 2005–2006 part of Virginia's Political Landscape, Fall 2005 Web Archive Collection at Virginia Memory
Governor Tim Kaine Administration Web Site Archive, 2006–2010
Kaine Email Project at the Library of Virginia
External links
U.S. Senate website
Campaign website
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1958 births
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Catholics from Missouri
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Democratic National Committee chairs
Democratic Party state governors of the United States
Democratic Party United States senators from Virginia
Democratic Party (United States) vice presidential nominees
Governors of Virginia
Harvard Law School alumni
Hillary Clinton 2016 presidential campaign
Lawyers from Kansas City, Missouri
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Living people
Mark Warner
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Richmond, Virginia City Council members
Roman Catholic missionaries in Honduras
United States senators from Virginia
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[
"Kenneth Hall (1913–1946) was a British painter who co-founded The White Stag group with Basil Rakoczi.\n\nLife and work\nBorn in Farnham, Surrey and educated at Lancing College, he was designing furniture in London before he showed his work to the dealer Lucy Wertheim who offered to put him on at show at her gallery in Mayfair. Wertheim, along with Rakoczi, became the two greatest influences on his art and she recalls their meeting in her 1947 book 'Adventure in Art': \"Kenneth Hall tentatively submitted a portfolio of work to me in 1934—he has exhibited in no gallery up till then—and I was so thrilled with his paintings and especially his watercolours that I promised him an exhibition...When his exhibition took place a few months later I was able to place examples of his work in the hands of a couple of well known collectors\"\n\nFrom 1935 to 1938 Hall and Rakozci travelled Europe and acquainted themselves with the various movements of the time including Surrealism. At the outbreak of World War II the pair moved to Ireland to try to avoid the conflict that was consuming Europe. They stopped first in Galway where they did much good work before heading to Dublin, where The White Stag group began to really take off. Hall organised the group's first exhibition held in April 1940, and it was received well, with praise from the Irish Times.\n\nDespite the success of the exhibition and the growing depth and influence of the group in Dublin, as well as support from Wertheim in London, Hall was always racked by personal demons, and people found him hard to connect with. His personal relationship with Rakoczi it has been suggested was also part of the problem. According to Irish art critic Bruce Arnold, \"No one understood anything about Kenneth Hall… He was depressive, he was gay, he had this love affair with Basil, who was bisexual and very active emotionally and sexually. Kenneth Hall couldn’t take that.”\n\nIn 1945 he returned to London and had an exhibition at Redfern Gallery, before moving to Wertheim's flat in Manchester. It was there that suffering with the depression that had long plagued him, he committed suicide on 26 July 1946.\n\nSeveral of Hall's oil paintings are in UK public collections, including the National Museums Northern Ireland.\n\nReferences\n\n1913 births\n1946 deaths\n20th-century English painters\nEnglish male painters\nPeople educated at Lancing College\nGay artists\nLGBT people from England\n1946 suicides\n20th-century LGBT people",
"Vitol SA v. Norelf Ltd or The Santa Clara) [1996] A.C. 800; [1996] 3 W.L.R. 105; [1996] 3 All E.R. 193, is an English contract law case about the effect of non-performance in accepting a contracting partner's repudiatory breach of contract.\n\nFacts\nNorelf Ltd contracted to sell a cargo of propane to Vitol SA in 1991. The propane market had been very volatile. The cargo was being shipped (on the Santa Clara) from Houston, U.S. It was meant to leave before March 7. On March 8, while it was still being loaded, Vitol sent a telex to Norelf saying it did not wish the contract to continue because it was not going to arrive on time (i.e. Vitol repudiated the contract). The ship was loaded, and it sailed on March 9. The price of the cargo fell. Neither side did anything further to perform the contract. Norelf sold the cargo at a loss, and then claimed damages ($950,000) from Vitol for breach of contract.\n\nThe arbitrator held that Vitol's telex was an anticipatory breach of contract, but Norelf's failure to take further steps to perform the contract was sufficient communication to Vitol that they had accepted the repudiation. Vitol's appeal was dismissed in the High Court by Phillips J. But it succeeded in the Court of Appeal, who held that a mere failure to perform contractual obligations could not constitute acceptance of the repudiation. Norelf appealed to the House of Lords.\n\nJudgment\nLord Steyn (with whom Lord Mackay of Clashfern, L.C., Lord Griffiths, Lord Nolan and Lord Hoffmann concurred) allowed Norelf's appeal.\n\nIn some circumstances an innocent party may simply fail to perform his obligations under a repudiated contract, and that was enough to accept the repudiation. So communication (orally or written) was not always necessary. The question was whether the innocent party's conduct did convey, unequivocally, that he was treating the contract as repudiated. A failure could be unequivocal.\n\nBecause Norelf was the respondent, in a defensive position, the Court of Appeal had been wrong to say that Norelf required to seek a certificate under the Arbitration Act 1979, s.1(7) before being allowed to argue that the award was sustainable on alternative grounds.\n\nLord Steyn read the following.\n\nSee also\nEnglish contract law\n\nNotes\n\nEnglish contract case law\nEnglish termination case law\nHouse of Lords cases\n1996 in case law\n1996 in British law"
] |
[
"Stewart Copeland",
"The Police (1977-1986)"
] |
C_59773acc2ace44b3a9056161d5aa2baf_1
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When were The Police founded?
| 1 |
When were The Police founded?
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Stewart Copeland
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In late 1976, Copeland founded the Police with lead singer-bass guitarist Sting and guitarist Henry Padovani (who was soon replaced by Andy Summers), and they became one of the top bands of the 1980s. The Police's early track list was mostly made of Copeland's compositions, including the band's first single "Fall Out" (Illegal Records, 1977) and the B side "Nothing Achieving". Though Copeland's songwriting contribution was reduced to a couple of songs per album as Sting started writing more material, he continued to co-arrange all the Police's songs with his two bandmates. Amongst Copeland's most notable songs are "On Any Other Day" (where he sang lead vocals too), "Does Everyone Stare" (later to be used as the title of his documentary on the band Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out), "Contact", "Bombs Away", "Darkness" and "Miss Gradenko". Copeland also co-wrote a number of songs with Sting, including "Peanuts", "Landlord", "It's Alright for You" and "Re-Humanize Yourself". Copeland also recorded under the pseudonym Klark Kent, releasing several UK singles in 1978 with one ("Don't Care") entering the UK Singles Chart that year, along with an eponymously titled 10-inch album on green vinyl released in 1980. Recorded at Nigel Gray's Surrey Sound Studio, Copeland played all the instruments and sang the lead vocals himself. Kent's "Don't Care", which peaked at #48 UK in August 1978, actually predates the first chart single by the Police by several months ("Can't Stand Losing You", issued in October 1978) as "Don't Care" was released in early June 1978. In 1982 Copeland was involved in the production of a WOMAD benefit album called Music and Rhythm. Copeland's score for Rumble Fish secured him a Golden Globe nomination in 1983. The film, directed and produced by Francis Ford Coppola from the S. E. Hinton novel, also had a song released to radio on A&M Records "Don't Box Me In" (UK Singles Chart n. 91)--a collaboration between Copeland and singer/songwriter Stan Ridgway, leader of the band Wall of Voodoo--that received significant airplay upon release of the film that year. The Police stopped touring in 1984, and during this brief hiatus he released a solo album, The Rhythmatist. The record was the result of a pilgrimage to Africa and its people, and it features local drums and percussion, with more drums, percussion, other musical instruments and occasional lead vocals added by Copeland. The album was the official soundtrack to the movie of the same name, which was co-written by Stewart. He also starred in the film, which is "A musical odyssey through the heart of Africa in search of the roots of rock & roll." (Copeland is seen playing the drums in a cage with lions surrounding him.) The band attempted a reunion in 1986, but the project fell apart. CANNOTANSWER
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1976,
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Stewart Armstrong Copeland (born July 16, 1952) is an American musician and composer. He rose to prominence as the drummer of the British rock band The Police. He has also produced many film and video game soundtracks and written various pieces of music for ballet, opera, and orchestra. His composing work includes the films Wall Street (1987), Good Burger (1997), and We Are Your Friends (2015); the television series The Equalizer, Dead Like Me, and The Amanda Show; and the video games Alone in the Dark 4 and the Spyro series.
According to MusicRadar, Copeland's "distinctive drum sound and uniqueness of style has made him one of the most popular drummers to ever get behind a drumset". He was ranked the 10th best drummer of all time by Rolling Stone in 2016. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Police in 2003, the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame in 2005, and the Classic Drummer Hall of Fame in 2013.
Early life
Stewart Armstrong Copeland was born in Alexandria, Virginia, on July 16, 1952, the youngest of four children of Scottish archaeologist Lorraine Adie and Alabama-born CIA officer Miles Copeland Jr. According to his 1989 biography and files released by the CIA in 2008, his father was a founding member of the OSS and the CIA. The family moved to Cairo a few months after Copeland's birth. When he was five years old, the family moved to Beirut, where he attended the American Community School. He started taking drum lessons at age 12 and was playing drums for school dances within a year. He later moved to England, attending the American School in London and Millfield boarding school in Somerset from 1967 to 1969. He went to college in California, enrolling at Alliant International University and the University of California, Berkeley. His eldest brother, Miles Copeland III, founded I.R.S. Records and became the manager of the Police. He has also overseen Copeland's interests in other music projects. His other brother, the late Ian Copeland, was a pioneering booking agent who represented the Police and many others.
Career
Curved Air (1975–1976)
Returning to England, Copeland worked as road manager for the progressive rock band Curved Air's 1974 reunion tour, and then as drummer for the band during 1975 and 1976. The band kicked off with a European tour, which started poorly. Band leader Darryl Way, a notorious perfectionist, grew impatient with the struggling of his bandmates, especially novice drummer Copeland. Then, for reasons no one could pinpoint, the musicians suddenly "clicked" with each other and the band caught fire, quickly becoming a popular and acclaimed live act.
The Police (1977–1986)
In early 1977, Copeland founded the Police with lead singer-bass guitarist Sting and guitarist Henry Padovani (who was soon replaced by Andy Summers), and they became one of the top bands of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Copeland was the youngest member of the band. The Police's early track list (before their album debut) was largely Copeland compositions, including the band's first single "Fall Out" (Illegal Records, 1977) and the B-side "Nothing Achieving". Though Copeland's songwriting contribution was reduced to a couple of songs per album as Sting started writing more material, he continued to co-arrange all the Police's songs together with his two bandmates. Amongst Copeland's most notable songs are "On Any Other Day" (where he also sang lead vocals), "Does Everyone Stare" (later to be used as the title of his documentary on the band Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out), "Contact", "Bombs Away", "Darkness" and "Miss Gradenko". Copeland also co-wrote a number of songs with Sting, including "Peanuts", "Landlord", "It's Alright for You" and "Re-Humanize Yourself".
Copeland also recorded under the pseudonym Klark Kent, releasing several UK singles in 1978 with one ("Don't Care") entering the UK Singles Chart that year, along with an eponymous 10-inch album on green vinyl released in 1980. Recording at Nigel Gray's Surrey Sound Studio, Copeland played all the instruments and sang the lead vocals himself. Kent's "Don't Care", which peaked at No. 48 UK in August 1978, actually predates the first chart single by the Police by several months ("Can't Stand Losing You", issued in October 1978) as "Don't Care" was released in early June 1978.
In 1982, Copeland was involved in the production of a WOMAD benefit album called Music and Rhythm. Copeland's score for Rumble Fish secured him a Golden Globe nomination in 1983. The film, directed and produced by Francis Ford Coppola from the S. E. Hinton novel, also had a song released to radio on A&M Records "Don't Box Me In" (UK Singles Chart n. 91)—a collaboration between Copeland and singer-songwriter Stan Ridgway, leader of the band Wall of Voodoo—that received significant airplay upon release of the film that year.
The Rhythmatist record of 1985 was the result of a pilgrimage to Africa and its people, and it features local drums and percussion, with more drums, percussion, other musical instruments and occasional lead vocals added by Copeland. The album was the official soundtrack to the movie of the same name, which was co-written by Stewart. Copeland is seen in the film playing the drums in a cage with lions surrounding him.
The band attempted a reunion in 1986, but the project fell apart.
Solo projects and movie soundtracks (1987–1998)
After the Police disbanded, Copeland established a career composing soundtracks for movies (Airborne, Talk Radio, Wall Street, Riff Raff, Raining Stones, Surviving the Game, See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Highlander II: The Quickening, She's Having a Baby, The First Power, Fresh, Taking Care of Business, West Beirut, I am David, Riding the Bus with My Sister, Good Burger), television (The Equalizer, Dead Like Me, Star Wars: Droids, the pilot for Babylon 5 (1993), Nickelodeon's The Amanda Show, The Life and Times of Juniper Lee), operas (Holy Blood and Crescent Moon, commissioned by Cleveland Opera) and ballets (Prey' Ballet Oklahoma, Casque of Amontillado, Noah's Ark/Solcheeka, commissioned by the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, King Lear, commissioned by the San Francisco Ballet Company, Emilio). In 1996, Copeland provided the score for The Leopard Son, Discovery Channel's its first commercially released full-length feature film, made by wildlife filmmaker Hugo van Lawick.
Copeland also occasionally played drums for other artists. Peter Gabriel employed Copeland to perform on his song "Red Rain" from his 1986 album So because of his "hi-hat mastery". He has also performed with Mike Rutherford and Tom Waits. That year he also teamed with Adam Ant to record the title track and video for the Anthony Michael Hall movie Out of Bounds. In 1989, Copeland formed Animal Logic with jazz bassist Stanley Clarke and singer-songwriter Deborah Holland. The trio had success with their first album and world tour but the follow-up recording sold poorly, and the band did not continue.
In 1993 he composed the music for Channel 4's Horse Opera and director Bob Baldwin, and in 1999, he provided the voice of an additional American soldier in the animated musical comedy war film South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (1999).
Spyro the Dragon soundtracks (1998–2002, 2018)
He was commissioned by Insomniac Games in 1998 to make the musical score for the hit PlayStation game Spyro the Dragon. Copeland would play through the levels first to get a feel for each one before composing the soundtrack. He also stayed with the project to create the musical scores for the remaining Insomniac sequels Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage! and Spyro: Year of the Dragon. The franchise shifted over to Universal for the fourth title, Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly, which would be Copeland's last outing with the series. While the soundtracks never saw commercial release, the limited edition of the fourth game came packaged with a bonus CD, containing unused tracks. The soundtracks were very well received, and one track would later appear on the 2007 compilation album The Stewart Copeland Anthology. Copeland composed a new title theme for Spyro Reignited Trilogy.
This period also saw Copeland compose the soundtrack for Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare, his only video game soundtrack outside of the Spyro franchise to date. In 2000, he combined with Les Claypool of Primus (with whom he produced a track on the Primus album Antipop) and Trey Anastasio of Phish to create the band Oysterhead. That same year, he was approached by director Adam Collis to assemble the score for the film Sunset Strip.
Collaborations (2002–2006)
In 2002, Copeland was hired by Ray Manzarek and Robby Krieger of the Doors to play with them for a new album and tour, but after an injury sidelined Copeland, the arrangement ended in reciprocal lawsuits. In 2005, Copeland released "Orchestralli", a live recording of chamber ensemble music which he had composed during a short tour of Italy in 2002. Also in 2005, Copeland started Gizmo, a new project with avant-garde guitarist David Fiuczynski, multi-instrumentalist Vittorio Cosma, singer Raiz and bassist Max Gazzè. The band made their U.S debut on September 16, 2006, at the Modern Drummer Drum Festival. In January 2006, Copeland premiered his film about the Police called Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out at the Sundance Film Festival. In February and March, he appeared as one of the judges on the BBC television show Just the Two of Us (a role he later reprised for a second series in January 2007).
The Police reunion (2007–2008)
At the 2007 Grammy Awards, Copeland, Andy Summers and Sting performed the song "Roxanne" together again as the Police. This marked the band's first public performance since 1986 (they had previously reunited only for an improvised set at Sting's wedding party in 1992 and for their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2003). One day later, the band announced that in celebration of the Police's 30th anniversary, they would be embarking on what turned out to be a one-off reunion tour on May 28, 2007. During the tour, Copeland also released his compilation album The Stewart Copeland Anthology, which was composed of his independent work.
In 2007, the French government appointed Copeland (along with Police bandmates Summers and Sting) a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.
The group performed 151 dates across five continents, concluding with a final show in August 2008 at Madison Square Garden, New York.
Projects (2008–present)
In 2008, RIM commissioned Copeland to write a "soundtrack" for the BlackBerry Bold smart phone. He created a highly percussive theme of one minute's length from which he evolved six ringtones and a softer 'alarm tone' that are preloaded on the device.
In March 2008, he premiered his orchestral composition "Celeste" at "An Evening with Stewart Copeland", part of the Savannah Music Festival. The performance featured classical violinist Daniel Hope. His appearance at Savannah included a screening of Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out and a question and answer session. Also in 2008, he was commissioned by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra to create a percussion piece involving primarily Indonesian instruments. "Gamelan D'Drum" was first performed in Dallas on February 5, 2012, and had its European Premiere at the Royal Academy of Music in London in July 2012.
On August 21, 2009, at SummerFest 2009, Copeland unveiled the composition "Retail Therapy", which was commissioned by the Music Society. He performed three more original works: "Kaya", "Celeste", and "Gene Pool", the last accompanied by San Diego-based percussion ensemble red fish blue fish. He attended a composer's roundtable and a question and answer discussion in conjunction with the festival. Copeland wrote the score for a theatrical presentation of Ben-Hur, which premiered on September 17, 2009, at the O2 Arena in London. He provided English-language narration of the production, which is performed in Latin and Aramaic. His memoir Strange Things Happen: A Life with The Police, Polo, and Pygmies was released by Harper Collins in September 2009. The book chronicles events in his life from childhood through his work with the Police and to the present. In October 2009, he was a guest on Private Passions, the biographical music discussion program on BBC Radio 3.
On May 24, 2011, he started a YouTube channel devoted to his videos and project updates. On this channel, he uploads performances with various musicians, including Primus, Andy Summers, Jeff Lynne, Snoop Dogg, and others in his home studio, which he refers to as the Sacred Grove. On August 24, 2011, he was a featured soloist on the Late Show with David Letterman, as part of their second "Drum Solo Week".
On January 10, 2012, he appeared on an episode of the A&E reality series Storage Wars to appraise a drum set for Barry Weiss, buying a Turkish cymbal from the set for $40. In July he reunited with former Animal Logic bandmate Stanley Clarke for a European tour.
In May 2013, he and the Long Beach Opera premiered The Tale Tell Heart, an opera based on the short story by Edgar Allan Poe.
On November 26, 2013, he appeared in the first episode of The Tim Ferriss Experiment.
In 2017, he formed the supergroup Gizmodrome with Adrian Belew, Vittorio Cosma, and Mark King and released an album of the same name.
On September 5, 2021, the opera Electric Saint about the life of Nikola Tesla by Copeland with libretto by Jonathan Moore premiered at the National Theater of Weimar.
Personal life
Copeland grew up in Beirut. In 1974, he became romantically involved with Curved Air vocalist Sonja Kristina; they were married from 1982 to 1991. He adopted her son Sven from a previous relationship, and they had two sons of their own named Jordan and Scott. In 1981, he fathered a son named Patrick with Marina Guinness, the daughter of Irish author Desmond Guinness. He currently lives in Los Angeles with his second wife, Fiona Dent, with whom he has three children named Eve, Grace, and Celeste.
Copeland's hobbies include rollerskating, cycling along the beach in Santa Monica, California, filmmaking, and playing polo. He is also active on his YouTube channel, where he uploads videos of himself and other musicians during jam sessions in his studio, the Sacred Grove.
Drumming style
Copeland grew up listening to a combination of Lebanese music, rock and roll, jazz, and reggae, but he selected from these styles what he needed rather than imitating them. In the 1980s, when many musicians were looking for bigger sound from bigger drums, he added Octobans. Invented by Tama Drums in 1978, Octobans consisted of eight six-inch drums in the shape of narrow tubes. He used another innovation, a splash cymbal based on a toy that he owned and that he helped Paiste design. He relied heavily on his 13" hi-hats.
Despite being left-handed, Copeland plays a right-handed drum kit, placing the hi-hats on his left and ride cymbal and floor toms on his right. He uses a wide dynamic range and demonstrates a proficiency of jazz-style articulation in his snare drum playing, interspersing strong back-beats with soft rim comping. During his years with the Police, he became known for engaging only the hi-hat with the bass drum to keep the beat.
In an interview with Modern Drummer, Copeland has cited Mitch Mitchell of the Jimi Hendrix Experience as a prime musical influence. He states that as a child, whenever he had a song or melody pop in his head, he would walk around wondering how Mitch Mitchell would drum to that particular tune. He also named Sandy Nelson and Ginger Baker as other fundamental influences in the youth years. He has stated that due to his 'enforced listening' of Buddy Rich, he considers himself 'allergic to jazz.'
He is noted for his strong emphasis on the groove as a complement to the song, rather than as its core component. He once drove this point home at a drum clinic: Copeland announced that he would show the audience something "that very few modern drummers can do" and proceeded to play a simple rock beat for two minutes. Nonetheless, his playing often incorporates spectacular fills and subtle inflections which greatly augment the groove. Compared to most of his 1980s contemporaries, his snare sound was bright and cutting. He is also one of the few rock drummers to use traditional grip rather than matched grip. He is also noted for syncopation in his drumming.
Equipment
Copeland's equipment includes Tama drums, Paiste cymbals, Remo drum heads, and Vater signature drum sticks.
Original live kit set-up (1984)
Tama Imperialstar Mahogany Drums (9-ply) and Paiste Cymbals:
Drums – Midnight Blue
10x8" Rack Tom
12x8" Rack Tom
13x9" Rack Tom
16x16" Floor Tom
14x5" Pearl Chrome over Brass Snare
22x14" Bass Drum
Tama Octobans Low Pitch (x4)
Cowbell
Wood Blocks
Cymbals – Paiste
13" Formula 602 Medium Hi-Hats
16" 2002 Crash
8" 2002 Bell
7.5 Ufip Ictus Bell
8" 2002 Splash (x2)
11" 2002 Splash
14" (or 16") Rude Crash/Ride
16" (or 18") Rude Crash/Ride
18" 2002 Medium
24" Rude Ride/Crash
20" 2002 China
Simmons (x2) Pads (to his left)
Assorted Percussion
Stewart also used Calato Regal Tip Rock Wood Tipped Drumsticks
The Police Reunion (2007–2008) tour kit
Tama Starclassic Maple Drums and Paiste Cymbals:
Drums – Custom Police Blue Sparkle Maple Wood
10x8" Tom
12x8" Tom (To the left of his snare drum)
13x9" Tom
16x16" Floor Tom
18x16" Floor Tom
20x14" Tama Gong Drum
22x18" Bass Drum
14x5" Tama SC145 Stewart Copeland Signature Snare
Tama Custom Police Blue Sparkle Octobans (x4) (custom made for Copeland)
Cymbals – Paiste
12" Prototype Micro Hi-Hats
16" Signature Full Crash
17" Signature Fast Crash
18" Signature Fast Crash
18" Signature Full Crash
18" 2002 Flat Ride (prototype)
22" Signature Blue Bell Ride
10" Signature Splash
8" Signature Bell
8" Signature Prototype Splash
Assorted percussion
Stewart also uses his own Vater Stewart Copeland Standard Sticks.
Discography
Studio albums
Film scores
TV series
Video games
See also
List of drummers
Membranophone (list of drums)
References
External links
Copeland's official site
1952 births
Living people
A&M Records artists
American expatriates in Egypt
American expatriates in Lebanon
American expatriates in the United Kingdom
American film score composers
American male film score composers
American people of Scottish descent
American rock drummers
The Police members
Curved Air members
People educated at Millfield
Musicians from Alexandria, Virginia
Musicians from Beirut
Video game composers
United States International University alumni
Chevaliers of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
20th-century American drummers
American male drummers
Copeland family
Oysterhead members
Gizmodrome members
Strontium 90 (band) members
| false |
[
"Nottingham City Police, originally founded as the Borough of Nottingham Police, was a UK police force created under the Municipal Corporations Act 1835 in the style of Robert Peel's Metropolitan Police which initially launched in 1836. This initial force failed and was re-founded successfully in 1841. It had responsibility for law enforcement within the geographic area as defined by the boundaries of the city of Nottingham.\nUnder the Police Act 1964 the force was compulsorily amalgamated with Nottinghamshire County Police to form the Nottinghamshire Combined Constabulary, now re-named Nottinghamshire Police.\n\nFounding and early history \nThe force was founded originally in 1836 with a body of 3 police officers working days and 12 police officers working evenings. The previously existing system of night watchmen was retained for the hours of darkness. The force operated under the existing High Constable William Barnes who had held the traditional position of authority in the borough since 1833. The force failed after 5 years, with internal rivalries between the different shifts and general incompetence on the parts of the watchmen leading to its lack of efficiency.\n\nTrips by the town's authorities to neighbouring Derby to observe their new police force in action prompted the Nottingham Corporation to disband the force baring the three 'day police' officers. They re-launched a new force in 1841 with 47 officers, including 1 Inspector and 12 Constables for the day and 4 Inspectors and 30 Constables for nights. When this force hit the beat they were far more successful.\n\nThe force was further reviewed in 1851 and expanded to now 2 Inspectors, 5 Sergeants and 53 Constables. It would also now have a Superintendent “who shall have no other duties than the management of the Police Force”. Supt. William Reddish was appointed at a salary of £150 plus house and coal. William Barnes retained his position as High Constable but had no more involvement with running the force. The review also introduced a Criminal Investigation Department to the force for the first time.\n\nList of Chief Constables\n\nThe Popkess Era \nBetween 1930 - 1959 the Nottingham City Police force was run by Chief Constable Capt Athelstan Popkess. This was a golden age for the force where it achieved national fame as being a pioneer in advancing police technology and being recognised as a national example to follow in many areas.\n\nPopkess was responsible for introducing a plethora of innovations to the police, including introducing the first police forensic science laboratory in the UK located in Nottingham's Central Police Station. The force also pioneered the use of police radios through the innovative Mechanized Division, as early as 1931 - achieving two-way communications with patrolling police cars several years before any other force.\n\nDuring this era the force was famed for having very stringent height requirements significantly above other forces. Two officers PC Geoffrey Baker and PC Dennis 'Tug' Wilson were 'headhunted' specifically based on their height after being spotted by Popkess when they were Grenadier Guards acting as pallbearers at the funeral of King George VI. They stood at 6 foot 8 and 6 foot 8 1/2 respectively.\n\nAmalgamation \nOn 1 April 1968 as a result of the Police Act 1964 the force was required to amalgamate with the surrounding County police force and the forces took the name Nottinghamshire Combined Constabulary. This later changed to Nottinghamshire Constabulary and then Nottinghamshire Police.\n\nReferences \n\nPolice forces of England",
"The Directorate of Criminal Investigation and Interpol (DICI), formerly the Central Directorate of the Judicial Police and Intelligence (, DIJIN) is a Directorate of the Colombian National Police in charge of judicial and certain intelligence tasks.\n\nHistory\n\nDuties related to this directorate were first assigned in 1827 during the Greater Colombia when Police commissaries were ordered with criminal and investigations affairs. In 1891 the Colombian National Police was formally founded and judicial and intelligence related duties were assigned to a Security Division developing the following year into a new section called Inspección de Permanencia or \"Permanence Inspection\" officially giving Judicial functions to the National Police. After the Thousand Days War, in 1905 the Judicial Police Commissary is created to train summaries in charge of crime and delinquency investigations. Later in 1914 the Detectives Academy is founded.\n \nIn 1915 The National Police is divided into three groups, the Judicial Police becoming one of these and with the main function of investigating crimes. In 1934 the Central Identification Cabinet is created to support law execution and requirements by the judicial power. In 1940 the National Police was restructured into four departments, in which judicial police functions were assigned to the Identification and Investigation Department, later renamed as the Criminal Investigations Department.\n\nOnce again the National went through another restructuring due to social and political instability under the name of Security National Service produced by El Bogotazo and La Violencia. In 1953, during the military dictatorship of Gustavo Rojas Pinilla, duties were restructured once again and assigned to the Colombian Intelligence Service (Servicio de Inteligencia Colombiano and put under the command of the Police Force, also under the Ministry of War. Intelligence duties were given to the F-2, (personnel (F-1), intelligence (F-2), operations (F-3), and logistics (F-4)). In 1964 the National Police was restructured and the F-2 was renamed into the F-2 Department of the Higher Command. By 1969 the Criminalistics Lab is created under the command of the Information, Judicial Police and Criminal Statistics Division (División de Información, Policía Judicial y Estadística Criminal in Spanish) (DIPEC) and assigned to the Ministry of Defense. On January 15, 1977 the Center for Criminal Investigations is created and later restructured under the name Central Directorate of the Judicial Police and Intelligence (DIJIN). In the year 2000 the DIJIN is reassigned to be under the command of the Colombian National Police (previously under the National Defense Ministry) and becomes a Directorate.\n\nExternal links\n Policia Nacional de Colombia\n\nCentral Directorate of the Judicial Police and Intelligence"
] |
[
"Stewart Copeland",
"The Police (1977-1986)",
"When were The Police founded?",
"1976,"
] |
C_59773acc2ace44b3a9056161d5aa2baf_1
|
Where were they founded?
| 2 |
Where were The Police founded?
|
Stewart Copeland
|
In late 1976, Copeland founded the Police with lead singer-bass guitarist Sting and guitarist Henry Padovani (who was soon replaced by Andy Summers), and they became one of the top bands of the 1980s. The Police's early track list was mostly made of Copeland's compositions, including the band's first single "Fall Out" (Illegal Records, 1977) and the B side "Nothing Achieving". Though Copeland's songwriting contribution was reduced to a couple of songs per album as Sting started writing more material, he continued to co-arrange all the Police's songs with his two bandmates. Amongst Copeland's most notable songs are "On Any Other Day" (where he sang lead vocals too), "Does Everyone Stare" (later to be used as the title of his documentary on the band Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out), "Contact", "Bombs Away", "Darkness" and "Miss Gradenko". Copeland also co-wrote a number of songs with Sting, including "Peanuts", "Landlord", "It's Alright for You" and "Re-Humanize Yourself". Copeland also recorded under the pseudonym Klark Kent, releasing several UK singles in 1978 with one ("Don't Care") entering the UK Singles Chart that year, along with an eponymously titled 10-inch album on green vinyl released in 1980. Recorded at Nigel Gray's Surrey Sound Studio, Copeland played all the instruments and sang the lead vocals himself. Kent's "Don't Care", which peaked at #48 UK in August 1978, actually predates the first chart single by the Police by several months ("Can't Stand Losing You", issued in October 1978) as "Don't Care" was released in early June 1978. In 1982 Copeland was involved in the production of a WOMAD benefit album called Music and Rhythm. Copeland's score for Rumble Fish secured him a Golden Globe nomination in 1983. The film, directed and produced by Francis Ford Coppola from the S. E. Hinton novel, also had a song released to radio on A&M Records "Don't Box Me In" (UK Singles Chart n. 91)--a collaboration between Copeland and singer/songwriter Stan Ridgway, leader of the band Wall of Voodoo--that received significant airplay upon release of the film that year. The Police stopped touring in 1984, and during this brief hiatus he released a solo album, The Rhythmatist. The record was the result of a pilgrimage to Africa and its people, and it features local drums and percussion, with more drums, percussion, other musical instruments and occasional lead vocals added by Copeland. The album was the official soundtrack to the movie of the same name, which was co-written by Stewart. He also starred in the film, which is "A musical odyssey through the heart of Africa in search of the roots of rock & roll." (Copeland is seen playing the drums in a cage with lions surrounding him.) The band attempted a reunion in 1986, but the project fell apart. CANNOTANSWER
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CANNOTANSWER
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Stewart Armstrong Copeland (born July 16, 1952) is an American musician and composer. He rose to prominence as the drummer of the British rock band The Police. He has also produced many film and video game soundtracks and written various pieces of music for ballet, opera, and orchestra. His composing work includes the films Wall Street (1987), Good Burger (1997), and We Are Your Friends (2015); the television series The Equalizer, Dead Like Me, and The Amanda Show; and the video games Alone in the Dark 4 and the Spyro series.
According to MusicRadar, Copeland's "distinctive drum sound and uniqueness of style has made him one of the most popular drummers to ever get behind a drumset". He was ranked the 10th best drummer of all time by Rolling Stone in 2016. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Police in 2003, the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame in 2005, and the Classic Drummer Hall of Fame in 2013.
Early life
Stewart Armstrong Copeland was born in Alexandria, Virginia, on July 16, 1952, the youngest of four children of Scottish archaeologist Lorraine Adie and Alabama-born CIA officer Miles Copeland Jr. According to his 1989 biography and files released by the CIA in 2008, his father was a founding member of the OSS and the CIA. The family moved to Cairo a few months after Copeland's birth. When he was five years old, the family moved to Beirut, where he attended the American Community School. He started taking drum lessons at age 12 and was playing drums for school dances within a year. He later moved to England, attending the American School in London and Millfield boarding school in Somerset from 1967 to 1969. He went to college in California, enrolling at Alliant International University and the University of California, Berkeley. His eldest brother, Miles Copeland III, founded I.R.S. Records and became the manager of the Police. He has also overseen Copeland's interests in other music projects. His other brother, the late Ian Copeland, was a pioneering booking agent who represented the Police and many others.
Career
Curved Air (1975–1976)
Returning to England, Copeland worked as road manager for the progressive rock band Curved Air's 1974 reunion tour, and then as drummer for the band during 1975 and 1976. The band kicked off with a European tour, which started poorly. Band leader Darryl Way, a notorious perfectionist, grew impatient with the struggling of his bandmates, especially novice drummer Copeland. Then, for reasons no one could pinpoint, the musicians suddenly "clicked" with each other and the band caught fire, quickly becoming a popular and acclaimed live act.
The Police (1977–1986)
In early 1977, Copeland founded the Police with lead singer-bass guitarist Sting and guitarist Henry Padovani (who was soon replaced by Andy Summers), and they became one of the top bands of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Copeland was the youngest member of the band. The Police's early track list (before their album debut) was largely Copeland compositions, including the band's first single "Fall Out" (Illegal Records, 1977) and the B-side "Nothing Achieving". Though Copeland's songwriting contribution was reduced to a couple of songs per album as Sting started writing more material, he continued to co-arrange all the Police's songs together with his two bandmates. Amongst Copeland's most notable songs are "On Any Other Day" (where he also sang lead vocals), "Does Everyone Stare" (later to be used as the title of his documentary on the band Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out), "Contact", "Bombs Away", "Darkness" and "Miss Gradenko". Copeland also co-wrote a number of songs with Sting, including "Peanuts", "Landlord", "It's Alright for You" and "Re-Humanize Yourself".
Copeland also recorded under the pseudonym Klark Kent, releasing several UK singles in 1978 with one ("Don't Care") entering the UK Singles Chart that year, along with an eponymous 10-inch album on green vinyl released in 1980. Recording at Nigel Gray's Surrey Sound Studio, Copeland played all the instruments and sang the lead vocals himself. Kent's "Don't Care", which peaked at No. 48 UK in August 1978, actually predates the first chart single by the Police by several months ("Can't Stand Losing You", issued in October 1978) as "Don't Care" was released in early June 1978.
In 1982, Copeland was involved in the production of a WOMAD benefit album called Music and Rhythm. Copeland's score for Rumble Fish secured him a Golden Globe nomination in 1983. The film, directed and produced by Francis Ford Coppola from the S. E. Hinton novel, also had a song released to radio on A&M Records "Don't Box Me In" (UK Singles Chart n. 91)—a collaboration between Copeland and singer-songwriter Stan Ridgway, leader of the band Wall of Voodoo—that received significant airplay upon release of the film that year.
The Rhythmatist record of 1985 was the result of a pilgrimage to Africa and its people, and it features local drums and percussion, with more drums, percussion, other musical instruments and occasional lead vocals added by Copeland. The album was the official soundtrack to the movie of the same name, which was co-written by Stewart. Copeland is seen in the film playing the drums in a cage with lions surrounding him.
The band attempted a reunion in 1986, but the project fell apart.
Solo projects and movie soundtracks (1987–1998)
After the Police disbanded, Copeland established a career composing soundtracks for movies (Airborne, Talk Radio, Wall Street, Riff Raff, Raining Stones, Surviving the Game, See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Highlander II: The Quickening, She's Having a Baby, The First Power, Fresh, Taking Care of Business, West Beirut, I am David, Riding the Bus with My Sister, Good Burger), television (The Equalizer, Dead Like Me, Star Wars: Droids, the pilot for Babylon 5 (1993), Nickelodeon's The Amanda Show, The Life and Times of Juniper Lee), operas (Holy Blood and Crescent Moon, commissioned by Cleveland Opera) and ballets (Prey' Ballet Oklahoma, Casque of Amontillado, Noah's Ark/Solcheeka, commissioned by the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, King Lear, commissioned by the San Francisco Ballet Company, Emilio). In 1996, Copeland provided the score for The Leopard Son, Discovery Channel's its first commercially released full-length feature film, made by wildlife filmmaker Hugo van Lawick.
Copeland also occasionally played drums for other artists. Peter Gabriel employed Copeland to perform on his song "Red Rain" from his 1986 album So because of his "hi-hat mastery". He has also performed with Mike Rutherford and Tom Waits. That year he also teamed with Adam Ant to record the title track and video for the Anthony Michael Hall movie Out of Bounds. In 1989, Copeland formed Animal Logic with jazz bassist Stanley Clarke and singer-songwriter Deborah Holland. The trio had success with their first album and world tour but the follow-up recording sold poorly, and the band did not continue.
In 1993 he composed the music for Channel 4's Horse Opera and director Bob Baldwin, and in 1999, he provided the voice of an additional American soldier in the animated musical comedy war film South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (1999).
Spyro the Dragon soundtracks (1998–2002, 2018)
He was commissioned by Insomniac Games in 1998 to make the musical score for the hit PlayStation game Spyro the Dragon. Copeland would play through the levels first to get a feel for each one before composing the soundtrack. He also stayed with the project to create the musical scores for the remaining Insomniac sequels Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage! and Spyro: Year of the Dragon. The franchise shifted over to Universal for the fourth title, Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly, which would be Copeland's last outing with the series. While the soundtracks never saw commercial release, the limited edition of the fourth game came packaged with a bonus CD, containing unused tracks. The soundtracks were very well received, and one track would later appear on the 2007 compilation album The Stewart Copeland Anthology. Copeland composed a new title theme for Spyro Reignited Trilogy.
This period also saw Copeland compose the soundtrack for Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare, his only video game soundtrack outside of the Spyro franchise to date. In 2000, he combined with Les Claypool of Primus (with whom he produced a track on the Primus album Antipop) and Trey Anastasio of Phish to create the band Oysterhead. That same year, he was approached by director Adam Collis to assemble the score for the film Sunset Strip.
Collaborations (2002–2006)
In 2002, Copeland was hired by Ray Manzarek and Robby Krieger of the Doors to play with them for a new album and tour, but after an injury sidelined Copeland, the arrangement ended in reciprocal lawsuits. In 2005, Copeland released "Orchestralli", a live recording of chamber ensemble music which he had composed during a short tour of Italy in 2002. Also in 2005, Copeland started Gizmo, a new project with avant-garde guitarist David Fiuczynski, multi-instrumentalist Vittorio Cosma, singer Raiz and bassist Max Gazzè. The band made their U.S debut on September 16, 2006, at the Modern Drummer Drum Festival. In January 2006, Copeland premiered his film about the Police called Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out at the Sundance Film Festival. In February and March, he appeared as one of the judges on the BBC television show Just the Two of Us (a role he later reprised for a second series in January 2007).
The Police reunion (2007–2008)
At the 2007 Grammy Awards, Copeland, Andy Summers and Sting performed the song "Roxanne" together again as the Police. This marked the band's first public performance since 1986 (they had previously reunited only for an improvised set at Sting's wedding party in 1992 and for their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2003). One day later, the band announced that in celebration of the Police's 30th anniversary, they would be embarking on what turned out to be a one-off reunion tour on May 28, 2007. During the tour, Copeland also released his compilation album The Stewart Copeland Anthology, which was composed of his independent work.
In 2007, the French government appointed Copeland (along with Police bandmates Summers and Sting) a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.
The group performed 151 dates across five continents, concluding with a final show in August 2008 at Madison Square Garden, New York.
Projects (2008–present)
In 2008, RIM commissioned Copeland to write a "soundtrack" for the BlackBerry Bold smart phone. He created a highly percussive theme of one minute's length from which he evolved six ringtones and a softer 'alarm tone' that are preloaded on the device.
In March 2008, he premiered his orchestral composition "Celeste" at "An Evening with Stewart Copeland", part of the Savannah Music Festival. The performance featured classical violinist Daniel Hope. His appearance at Savannah included a screening of Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out and a question and answer session. Also in 2008, he was commissioned by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra to create a percussion piece involving primarily Indonesian instruments. "Gamelan D'Drum" was first performed in Dallas on February 5, 2012, and had its European Premiere at the Royal Academy of Music in London in July 2012.
On August 21, 2009, at SummerFest 2009, Copeland unveiled the composition "Retail Therapy", which was commissioned by the Music Society. He performed three more original works: "Kaya", "Celeste", and "Gene Pool", the last accompanied by San Diego-based percussion ensemble red fish blue fish. He attended a composer's roundtable and a question and answer discussion in conjunction with the festival. Copeland wrote the score for a theatrical presentation of Ben-Hur, which premiered on September 17, 2009, at the O2 Arena in London. He provided English-language narration of the production, which is performed in Latin and Aramaic. His memoir Strange Things Happen: A Life with The Police, Polo, and Pygmies was released by Harper Collins in September 2009. The book chronicles events in his life from childhood through his work with the Police and to the present. In October 2009, he was a guest on Private Passions, the biographical music discussion program on BBC Radio 3.
On May 24, 2011, he started a YouTube channel devoted to his videos and project updates. On this channel, he uploads performances with various musicians, including Primus, Andy Summers, Jeff Lynne, Snoop Dogg, and others in his home studio, which he refers to as the Sacred Grove. On August 24, 2011, he was a featured soloist on the Late Show with David Letterman, as part of their second "Drum Solo Week".
On January 10, 2012, he appeared on an episode of the A&E reality series Storage Wars to appraise a drum set for Barry Weiss, buying a Turkish cymbal from the set for $40. In July he reunited with former Animal Logic bandmate Stanley Clarke for a European tour.
In May 2013, he and the Long Beach Opera premiered The Tale Tell Heart, an opera based on the short story by Edgar Allan Poe.
On November 26, 2013, he appeared in the first episode of The Tim Ferriss Experiment.
In 2017, he formed the supergroup Gizmodrome with Adrian Belew, Vittorio Cosma, and Mark King and released an album of the same name.
On September 5, 2021, the opera Electric Saint about the life of Nikola Tesla by Copeland with libretto by Jonathan Moore premiered at the National Theater of Weimar.
Personal life
Copeland grew up in Beirut. In 1974, he became romantically involved with Curved Air vocalist Sonja Kristina; they were married from 1982 to 1991. He adopted her son Sven from a previous relationship, and they had two sons of their own named Jordan and Scott. In 1981, he fathered a son named Patrick with Marina Guinness, the daughter of Irish author Desmond Guinness. He currently lives in Los Angeles with his second wife, Fiona Dent, with whom he has three children named Eve, Grace, and Celeste.
Copeland's hobbies include rollerskating, cycling along the beach in Santa Monica, California, filmmaking, and playing polo. He is also active on his YouTube channel, where he uploads videos of himself and other musicians during jam sessions in his studio, the Sacred Grove.
Drumming style
Copeland grew up listening to a combination of Lebanese music, rock and roll, jazz, and reggae, but he selected from these styles what he needed rather than imitating them. In the 1980s, when many musicians were looking for bigger sound from bigger drums, he added Octobans. Invented by Tama Drums in 1978, Octobans consisted of eight six-inch drums in the shape of narrow tubes. He used another innovation, a splash cymbal based on a toy that he owned and that he helped Paiste design. He relied heavily on his 13" hi-hats.
Despite being left-handed, Copeland plays a right-handed drum kit, placing the hi-hats on his left and ride cymbal and floor toms on his right. He uses a wide dynamic range and demonstrates a proficiency of jazz-style articulation in his snare drum playing, interspersing strong back-beats with soft rim comping. During his years with the Police, he became known for engaging only the hi-hat with the bass drum to keep the beat.
In an interview with Modern Drummer, Copeland has cited Mitch Mitchell of the Jimi Hendrix Experience as a prime musical influence. He states that as a child, whenever he had a song or melody pop in his head, he would walk around wondering how Mitch Mitchell would drum to that particular tune. He also named Sandy Nelson and Ginger Baker as other fundamental influences in the youth years. He has stated that due to his 'enforced listening' of Buddy Rich, he considers himself 'allergic to jazz.'
He is noted for his strong emphasis on the groove as a complement to the song, rather than as its core component. He once drove this point home at a drum clinic: Copeland announced that he would show the audience something "that very few modern drummers can do" and proceeded to play a simple rock beat for two minutes. Nonetheless, his playing often incorporates spectacular fills and subtle inflections which greatly augment the groove. Compared to most of his 1980s contemporaries, his snare sound was bright and cutting. He is also one of the few rock drummers to use traditional grip rather than matched grip. He is also noted for syncopation in his drumming.
Equipment
Copeland's equipment includes Tama drums, Paiste cymbals, Remo drum heads, and Vater signature drum sticks.
Original live kit set-up (1984)
Tama Imperialstar Mahogany Drums (9-ply) and Paiste Cymbals:
Drums – Midnight Blue
10x8" Rack Tom
12x8" Rack Tom
13x9" Rack Tom
16x16" Floor Tom
14x5" Pearl Chrome over Brass Snare
22x14" Bass Drum
Tama Octobans Low Pitch (x4)
Cowbell
Wood Blocks
Cymbals – Paiste
13" Formula 602 Medium Hi-Hats
16" 2002 Crash
8" 2002 Bell
7.5 Ufip Ictus Bell
8" 2002 Splash (x2)
11" 2002 Splash
14" (or 16") Rude Crash/Ride
16" (or 18") Rude Crash/Ride
18" 2002 Medium
24" Rude Ride/Crash
20" 2002 China
Simmons (x2) Pads (to his left)
Assorted Percussion
Stewart also used Calato Regal Tip Rock Wood Tipped Drumsticks
The Police Reunion (2007–2008) tour kit
Tama Starclassic Maple Drums and Paiste Cymbals:
Drums – Custom Police Blue Sparkle Maple Wood
10x8" Tom
12x8" Tom (To the left of his snare drum)
13x9" Tom
16x16" Floor Tom
18x16" Floor Tom
20x14" Tama Gong Drum
22x18" Bass Drum
14x5" Tama SC145 Stewart Copeland Signature Snare
Tama Custom Police Blue Sparkle Octobans (x4) (custom made for Copeland)
Cymbals – Paiste
12" Prototype Micro Hi-Hats
16" Signature Full Crash
17" Signature Fast Crash
18" Signature Fast Crash
18" Signature Full Crash
18" 2002 Flat Ride (prototype)
22" Signature Blue Bell Ride
10" Signature Splash
8" Signature Bell
8" Signature Prototype Splash
Assorted percussion
Stewart also uses his own Vater Stewart Copeland Standard Sticks.
Discography
Studio albums
Film scores
TV series
Video games
See also
List of drummers
Membranophone (list of drums)
References
External links
Copeland's official site
1952 births
Living people
A&M Records artists
American expatriates in Egypt
American expatriates in Lebanon
American expatriates in the United Kingdom
American film score composers
American male film score composers
American people of Scottish descent
American rock drummers
The Police members
Curved Air members
People educated at Millfield
Musicians from Alexandria, Virginia
Musicians from Beirut
Video game composers
United States International University alumni
Chevaliers of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
20th-century American drummers
American male drummers
Copeland family
Oysterhead members
Gizmodrome members
Strontium 90 (band) members
| false |
[
"The Marachi are one of sixteen tribes of the Luhya people of Kenya. \n\nNestled between the Samia, Khayo and Wanga, the Marachi occupy a land area comparatively smaller than the other Luhya tribes in Busia District. In their native Luhya language, the people of Marachi are known as Abamarachi, their land Bumarachi or Ebumarachi and their dialect Lumarachi. Marachi land is divided into East, West, Central, and North Marachi locations. Significant town in Marachi is Butula and Bumala. Marachi land has several villages namely; Elukongo, Emauko, Siribo, Bumala \"A\", Bumala \"B\", Esikoma, Simuli, Bulwani, Matsanza, Bumakhudu, Bwaliro, Lunyiko, Siamakondi, Emakwara, Mafubu, Kalalani, Tingolo, Bumutiru, Ibanda, Buyayi, Sirandala, Masenjekho, Butunyi, Igula, Burinda, Bujumba, Kingandole, Khunyangu, Buhuyi, Bukhalalire, Busiada, Bumagunda, Namusala, Enakaywa, Madola,Khareka, Mung'ambwa, Bulemia, Emagombe, Emalomba, Lugulu, Bukuyudi Elara, Sibembe, Bukhwaku, Bumina, Echengo, Siroba, Khulunyu, Dadira, Namwitsula, Busire, Buriya, Busibula, Masebula, Isongo, Nango, Bulindo\n\nAbabere,Abafofoyo, Abamuchama, Abatula, Abamurono, Abang'ayo, Ababule, Abamulembo, Abatelia, Abapwati, Abasumia, Abarano, Abasimalwa, Abakwera, Abamutu, Abamalele, Abakolwe, Ababonwe, Abamucheka, Abaliba, Ababirang'u, Abakolwe, Abade. Abasubo\n\nAbamarachi are a conglemeration of the above-mentioned clans who were under the leadership of Ng'ono Mwami in pre-colonial days. The name Marachi is derived from Ng'ono Mwami's father who was called Marachi son of Musebe,the son of Sirikwa.So all the Marachi clans owed their allegiance to Ng'ono Mwami from whose lineage of Ababere clan they were founded. The name Marachi was given further impetus by the war-like lifestyle of the descendants of Ng'ono who ruthlessly fought off the Luo expansion of the Jok Omollo a nilotic group that sought to control the Nzoia and Sio Rivers in the area and the fishing grounds around the gulf of Erukala and Ebusijo-modern Port Victoria and Sio Port respectively. This effort to thwart the Luo influence kept the Luo on the other side of River Nzoia in Ugunja, and Rundiye areas. The Luo word \"Marach\" denotes a bad person so Abamarachi were called Marach to since they had defeated them in warfare; which was Luyanised into Marachi by affixing a vowel syllable at the end. Ng'ono Mwami had three sons namely; Mulaa, Kusimba and Odunya Mboko. Their children and grandchildren formed a formidable army that formed a ring a round the Marachi kingdom. There were ten sub-clans who settled in various villages strategically to protect the integrity of Marachi. Thus:\n\n1. Banamangi - settled in Bujumba, Bulwani, Elara, Kholera (North Wanga), Wakhungu (Samia)\n\n2. Abamache - in Busiada, Inyengwe, Malanga, Bukhuma, Eluche\n\n3. Abakholo - Settled in Bulwani, Namusala, Sibembe, Ibanda, Bukhakhala\n\n4. Abamulembwa – settled in Inungo, Khulubanga (North Wanga), Bar-Ober\n\n5. Abamakasi - settled in Enduru, Nyalwanda, Sifundulira\n\n6. Abakudwa-settled in Kingandole, Esieywe, Murende, Ebumeri\n\n7. Abekaya - settled in Ematsanza, Ikonzo, Nangina (Samia), Ebujwang'a (Samia)\n\n8. Abanamwinywi-settled in Ebulemia, Nelaa, Mung'ambwa, Yatsilalo (North Ugenya)\n\n9. Ababwango - settled in Akanyo, Sirabulwo\n\n10. Abadunyi - settled in Edadira, Ebujwang'a\n\nThe original amakunda/homesteads of Ababere are as follows:\n\n1. Elwanda (East Ugenya) founded by Ng'ono Mwami\n\n2. Inyengwe (East Ugenya) founded by Mulaa\n\n3. Inungo (East Ugenya) founded by Mulaa\n\n4. Gama (East Ugenya) founded by Kaibe\n\n5. Ralaki(East Ugenya)founded by Omina Nakudi\n\n6. Ebudimbe (East Ugenya) founded by Olaka\n\n7. Bumeri (East Ugenya) founded by Mulayi\n\n8. Yatsilalo (East Ugenya) founded by Oyiko\n\n9. Busiada founded by Osama\n\n10. Bukhalalire founded by Odembo\n\n11. Namusala founded by Obiero\n\n12. Nyaranga founded by Odoli\n\n13. Emagombe founded by Olunga\n\n14. Emalanga founded by Adieri\n\n15. Eluche founded by Maima\n\n16. Elukakha founded by Mwene nayiya\n\n17. Ebudaliko founded by Sieunda\n\n18. Emalomba founded by Adieri\n\n19. Ebuloma founded by Obakha\n\n20. Ebulwani founded by Majwanda\n\n21. Esiekodi founded by Mbeja\n\n22. Imanga founded by Mulayi\n\n23. Kingandole founded by Opata\n\n24. Enduru founded by Wakulwa\n\n25. Ebudunga founded by Wanganya\n\n26. Nyalwanda founded by Okoth\n\n27. Esieywe founded by Muduku\n\n28. Simori founded by Onganga\n\n29. Ebutunyi founded by Odunya Mboko\n\n30. Emukane founded by Mukono\n\n31. Bwaliro founded by Mulamba\n\n32. Sirabulwo founded by Mayero\n\n33. Bujumba founded by Butuba\n\n34. Bukhakhala founded by Majwanda\n\n35. Ibanda founded by Ofisi\n\n36. Esigulu founded by Sikemo\n\n37. Murende founded by Ouma\n\n38. Esibembe founded by Ngala\n\n39. Ematsanza founded by Auma Nakudi\n\n40. Mundasi founded by Namusenda\n\n41. Ebugeng'i founded by Mulaa\n\n42. Emasinde founded by Siadi\n\n43. Ebuduba Mboko founded by Omoto\n\nSome of the markets or upcoming towns and the founders are as follows;\n\n1. Bumala-founded by Shiundu belongs to Abafofoyo\n\n2. Bukhalalire founded by Opaso belongs to Ababere\n\n3. Oloo founded by Oloo Adonda belongs to Ababere\n\n4. Bulemia belongs to Ababere\n\n5. Butula belongs to Abafofoyo\n\n6. Ogalo founded by Ogalo belongs to Ababere\n\n7. Murumba belongs to Abang'ayo\n\nPre-colonial times\n\nIn pre-colonial times all the Marachi clans were united under their ruler Ng'ono mwami. This continued until the advent of Europeans who found it difficult to work with the ruling Ababere clan who were war-like and resistant to colonialism. So they opted to nominate a chief from the Abafofoyo in this case Oduya then later Laurent Ongoma. These were the rulers of Marachi before colonialism:\n\n1. Ng'ono Mwami in pre-colonial days\n\n2. Mulaa Ng'ono in pre-colonial days\n\n3. Olaka Owuor in pre-colonial days\n\n4. Amuga Olaka up to the advent of Europeans in the 1880s\n\nIt is said that Mareba the founding father of the Abafofoyo had settled in Ebulagira having fled the feud over Kingship in Buganda. He together with his cousin Muwanga fled eastwards from Buganda to settle in different regions of Western Kenya. It is said Mareba was the founding father of Abafofoyo who were the last clan to be assimilated and accommodated among the Marachi. However, as a result of their small numbers in the new settlement, they had to assimilate other groups of persons like Abaderia, Ababere, Abamalere and other Abafofoyo clans. This was made easy due to their common Bantu ancestry and the intermarriage especially between Ababere and Abafofoyo. Omoto the son of Mareba was dispatched to the periphery of what would form Ebumarachi to settle at Murende hills also known as Ebumala-meaning a place where raids are taken. To this day, Kabwodo is known for it cattle raiding escapades. Omoto settled in Ebumala and invited his cousin Shiundu to come and settle there as well. Another brother of Shiundu, Kadima was sent to Ebulemia and started the clan of Abamulembo from the Wanga clan Bamulembwa. This marked the consolidation of the Wanga and Marachi kingdom. Since the Abafofoyo were now secure from palace wars in Uganda and attacks from hostile neighbours such as Luos and Teso, they were able to multiply into a big clan that they are today.\n\nAbafofoyo are spread in what they call Amakunda-homesteads where their forefathers lived. There are basically five settlements of the Abafofoyo. The settlement of Chengo and Indangalasia where Yakobo Kuchio settled, Ebutula where Ex- Senior Chief Laurende Ongoma settled, Elugulu where Ndubi settled, Esikoma where Walobwa and Ebujumba where Rajula settled. Of these settlements, Walobwa would become the father of Oduya the king who ruled in Esikoma. Oduya, Agoro, Ndubi, and Chesa controlled Marachi Central, while Opata, Rajula and Oyula controlled Marachi West. Yakobo Kuchio, Laurende Ongoma (sons of Makokha wa Muyoti) and Ndubi controlled Marachi East. This conglomeration was a strategy employed to space the kingdom and keep away from disease attacks .\n\nResaerch by the late Mzee Reverend Canon Hanningtone Nyangoro Omotto\n\nNotable Marachi people include.\n\nLate Gerald Masibayi (former Marachi east mp)\n\nLate Philip Okwaro Ondusye (former Busia town clerk)\n\nMzee Christopher Musundi Ondusye (retired deputy MD East Africa Postal and Telecommunication)\n\nProfessor Arthur Kwena (professor of Biochemistry at moi University)\n\nSee also\n Luhya people\n Luhya languages\n\nReferences\n\nLuhya",
"IK Heim were a Swedish handball club from Gothenburg, founded in 1923. They have been Swedish champions 7 times. They won the title in 1950 (by defeating Örebro in the final), 1955, 1959, 1960 and 1962 (by winning the league). They were relegated from the top level in 1965 and did not return until 1974. In 1980, Heim reached the semifinals of the Cup Winners' Cup, where they lost to Spanish club CB Calpisa. They won two more Swedish titles in 1982 and 1983, but were relegated again in 1984. In 2005, the club merged with Mölndal HF to form IK Heim Mölndal and later Mölndal/Heim. Heim Mölndal briefly played in the top division from 2005 to 2007. In 2009, Mölndal HF was re-founded as a separate club and Heim ceased to exist.\n\nReferences \n\nSwedish handball clubs\nSports clubs in Gothenburg\n1923 establishments in Sweden\nHandball clubs established in 1923"
] |
[
"Stewart Copeland",
"The Police (1977-1986)",
"When were The Police founded?",
"1976,",
"Where were they founded?",
"I don't know."
] |
C_59773acc2ace44b3a9056161d5aa2baf_1
|
Who were the founding members?
| 3 |
Who were the founding members of The Police?
|
Stewart Copeland
|
In late 1976, Copeland founded the Police with lead singer-bass guitarist Sting and guitarist Henry Padovani (who was soon replaced by Andy Summers), and they became one of the top bands of the 1980s. The Police's early track list was mostly made of Copeland's compositions, including the band's first single "Fall Out" (Illegal Records, 1977) and the B side "Nothing Achieving". Though Copeland's songwriting contribution was reduced to a couple of songs per album as Sting started writing more material, he continued to co-arrange all the Police's songs with his two bandmates. Amongst Copeland's most notable songs are "On Any Other Day" (where he sang lead vocals too), "Does Everyone Stare" (later to be used as the title of his documentary on the band Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out), "Contact", "Bombs Away", "Darkness" and "Miss Gradenko". Copeland also co-wrote a number of songs with Sting, including "Peanuts", "Landlord", "It's Alright for You" and "Re-Humanize Yourself". Copeland also recorded under the pseudonym Klark Kent, releasing several UK singles in 1978 with one ("Don't Care") entering the UK Singles Chart that year, along with an eponymously titled 10-inch album on green vinyl released in 1980. Recorded at Nigel Gray's Surrey Sound Studio, Copeland played all the instruments and sang the lead vocals himself. Kent's "Don't Care", which peaked at #48 UK in August 1978, actually predates the first chart single by the Police by several months ("Can't Stand Losing You", issued in October 1978) as "Don't Care" was released in early June 1978. In 1982 Copeland was involved in the production of a WOMAD benefit album called Music and Rhythm. Copeland's score for Rumble Fish secured him a Golden Globe nomination in 1983. The film, directed and produced by Francis Ford Coppola from the S. E. Hinton novel, also had a song released to radio on A&M Records "Don't Box Me In" (UK Singles Chart n. 91)--a collaboration between Copeland and singer/songwriter Stan Ridgway, leader of the band Wall of Voodoo--that received significant airplay upon release of the film that year. The Police stopped touring in 1984, and during this brief hiatus he released a solo album, The Rhythmatist. The record was the result of a pilgrimage to Africa and its people, and it features local drums and percussion, with more drums, percussion, other musical instruments and occasional lead vocals added by Copeland. The album was the official soundtrack to the movie of the same name, which was co-written by Stewart. He also starred in the film, which is "A musical odyssey through the heart of Africa in search of the roots of rock & roll." (Copeland is seen playing the drums in a cage with lions surrounding him.) The band attempted a reunion in 1986, but the project fell apart. CANNOTANSWER
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lead singer-bass guitarist Sting and guitarist Henry Padovani (who was soon replaced by Andy Summers
|
Stewart Armstrong Copeland (born July 16, 1952) is an American musician and composer. He rose to prominence as the drummer of the British rock band The Police. He has also produced many film and video game soundtracks and written various pieces of music for ballet, opera, and orchestra. His composing work includes the films Wall Street (1987), Good Burger (1997), and We Are Your Friends (2015); the television series The Equalizer, Dead Like Me, and The Amanda Show; and the video games Alone in the Dark 4 and the Spyro series.
According to MusicRadar, Copeland's "distinctive drum sound and uniqueness of style has made him one of the most popular drummers to ever get behind a drumset". He was ranked the 10th best drummer of all time by Rolling Stone in 2016. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Police in 2003, the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame in 2005, and the Classic Drummer Hall of Fame in 2013.
Early life
Stewart Armstrong Copeland was born in Alexandria, Virginia, on July 16, 1952, the youngest of four children of Scottish archaeologist Lorraine Adie and Alabama-born CIA officer Miles Copeland Jr. According to his 1989 biography and files released by the CIA in 2008, his father was a founding member of the OSS and the CIA. The family moved to Cairo a few months after Copeland's birth. When he was five years old, the family moved to Beirut, where he attended the American Community School. He started taking drum lessons at age 12 and was playing drums for school dances within a year. He later moved to England, attending the American School in London and Millfield boarding school in Somerset from 1967 to 1969. He went to college in California, enrolling at Alliant International University and the University of California, Berkeley. His eldest brother, Miles Copeland III, founded I.R.S. Records and became the manager of the Police. He has also overseen Copeland's interests in other music projects. His other brother, the late Ian Copeland, was a pioneering booking agent who represented the Police and many others.
Career
Curved Air (1975–1976)
Returning to England, Copeland worked as road manager for the progressive rock band Curved Air's 1974 reunion tour, and then as drummer for the band during 1975 and 1976. The band kicked off with a European tour, which started poorly. Band leader Darryl Way, a notorious perfectionist, grew impatient with the struggling of his bandmates, especially novice drummer Copeland. Then, for reasons no one could pinpoint, the musicians suddenly "clicked" with each other and the band caught fire, quickly becoming a popular and acclaimed live act.
The Police (1977–1986)
In early 1977, Copeland founded the Police with lead singer-bass guitarist Sting and guitarist Henry Padovani (who was soon replaced by Andy Summers), and they became one of the top bands of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Copeland was the youngest member of the band. The Police's early track list (before their album debut) was largely Copeland compositions, including the band's first single "Fall Out" (Illegal Records, 1977) and the B-side "Nothing Achieving". Though Copeland's songwriting contribution was reduced to a couple of songs per album as Sting started writing more material, he continued to co-arrange all the Police's songs together with his two bandmates. Amongst Copeland's most notable songs are "On Any Other Day" (where he also sang lead vocals), "Does Everyone Stare" (later to be used as the title of his documentary on the band Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out), "Contact", "Bombs Away", "Darkness" and "Miss Gradenko". Copeland also co-wrote a number of songs with Sting, including "Peanuts", "Landlord", "It's Alright for You" and "Re-Humanize Yourself".
Copeland also recorded under the pseudonym Klark Kent, releasing several UK singles in 1978 with one ("Don't Care") entering the UK Singles Chart that year, along with an eponymous 10-inch album on green vinyl released in 1980. Recording at Nigel Gray's Surrey Sound Studio, Copeland played all the instruments and sang the lead vocals himself. Kent's "Don't Care", which peaked at No. 48 UK in August 1978, actually predates the first chart single by the Police by several months ("Can't Stand Losing You", issued in October 1978) as "Don't Care" was released in early June 1978.
In 1982, Copeland was involved in the production of a WOMAD benefit album called Music and Rhythm. Copeland's score for Rumble Fish secured him a Golden Globe nomination in 1983. The film, directed and produced by Francis Ford Coppola from the S. E. Hinton novel, also had a song released to radio on A&M Records "Don't Box Me In" (UK Singles Chart n. 91)—a collaboration between Copeland and singer-songwriter Stan Ridgway, leader of the band Wall of Voodoo—that received significant airplay upon release of the film that year.
The Rhythmatist record of 1985 was the result of a pilgrimage to Africa and its people, and it features local drums and percussion, with more drums, percussion, other musical instruments and occasional lead vocals added by Copeland. The album was the official soundtrack to the movie of the same name, which was co-written by Stewart. Copeland is seen in the film playing the drums in a cage with lions surrounding him.
The band attempted a reunion in 1986, but the project fell apart.
Solo projects and movie soundtracks (1987–1998)
After the Police disbanded, Copeland established a career composing soundtracks for movies (Airborne, Talk Radio, Wall Street, Riff Raff, Raining Stones, Surviving the Game, See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Highlander II: The Quickening, She's Having a Baby, The First Power, Fresh, Taking Care of Business, West Beirut, I am David, Riding the Bus with My Sister, Good Burger), television (The Equalizer, Dead Like Me, Star Wars: Droids, the pilot for Babylon 5 (1993), Nickelodeon's The Amanda Show, The Life and Times of Juniper Lee), operas (Holy Blood and Crescent Moon, commissioned by Cleveland Opera) and ballets (Prey' Ballet Oklahoma, Casque of Amontillado, Noah's Ark/Solcheeka, commissioned by the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, King Lear, commissioned by the San Francisco Ballet Company, Emilio). In 1996, Copeland provided the score for The Leopard Son, Discovery Channel's its first commercially released full-length feature film, made by wildlife filmmaker Hugo van Lawick.
Copeland also occasionally played drums for other artists. Peter Gabriel employed Copeland to perform on his song "Red Rain" from his 1986 album So because of his "hi-hat mastery". He has also performed with Mike Rutherford and Tom Waits. That year he also teamed with Adam Ant to record the title track and video for the Anthony Michael Hall movie Out of Bounds. In 1989, Copeland formed Animal Logic with jazz bassist Stanley Clarke and singer-songwriter Deborah Holland. The trio had success with their first album and world tour but the follow-up recording sold poorly, and the band did not continue.
In 1993 he composed the music for Channel 4's Horse Opera and director Bob Baldwin, and in 1999, he provided the voice of an additional American soldier in the animated musical comedy war film South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (1999).
Spyro the Dragon soundtracks (1998–2002, 2018)
He was commissioned by Insomniac Games in 1998 to make the musical score for the hit PlayStation game Spyro the Dragon. Copeland would play through the levels first to get a feel for each one before composing the soundtrack. He also stayed with the project to create the musical scores for the remaining Insomniac sequels Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage! and Spyro: Year of the Dragon. The franchise shifted over to Universal for the fourth title, Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly, which would be Copeland's last outing with the series. While the soundtracks never saw commercial release, the limited edition of the fourth game came packaged with a bonus CD, containing unused tracks. The soundtracks were very well received, and one track would later appear on the 2007 compilation album The Stewart Copeland Anthology. Copeland composed a new title theme for Spyro Reignited Trilogy.
This period also saw Copeland compose the soundtrack for Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare, his only video game soundtrack outside of the Spyro franchise to date. In 2000, he combined with Les Claypool of Primus (with whom he produced a track on the Primus album Antipop) and Trey Anastasio of Phish to create the band Oysterhead. That same year, he was approached by director Adam Collis to assemble the score for the film Sunset Strip.
Collaborations (2002–2006)
In 2002, Copeland was hired by Ray Manzarek and Robby Krieger of the Doors to play with them for a new album and tour, but after an injury sidelined Copeland, the arrangement ended in reciprocal lawsuits. In 2005, Copeland released "Orchestralli", a live recording of chamber ensemble music which he had composed during a short tour of Italy in 2002. Also in 2005, Copeland started Gizmo, a new project with avant-garde guitarist David Fiuczynski, multi-instrumentalist Vittorio Cosma, singer Raiz and bassist Max Gazzè. The band made their U.S debut on September 16, 2006, at the Modern Drummer Drum Festival. In January 2006, Copeland premiered his film about the Police called Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out at the Sundance Film Festival. In February and March, he appeared as one of the judges on the BBC television show Just the Two of Us (a role he later reprised for a second series in January 2007).
The Police reunion (2007–2008)
At the 2007 Grammy Awards, Copeland, Andy Summers and Sting performed the song "Roxanne" together again as the Police. This marked the band's first public performance since 1986 (they had previously reunited only for an improvised set at Sting's wedding party in 1992 and for their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2003). One day later, the band announced that in celebration of the Police's 30th anniversary, they would be embarking on what turned out to be a one-off reunion tour on May 28, 2007. During the tour, Copeland also released his compilation album The Stewart Copeland Anthology, which was composed of his independent work.
In 2007, the French government appointed Copeland (along with Police bandmates Summers and Sting) a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.
The group performed 151 dates across five continents, concluding with a final show in August 2008 at Madison Square Garden, New York.
Projects (2008–present)
In 2008, RIM commissioned Copeland to write a "soundtrack" for the BlackBerry Bold smart phone. He created a highly percussive theme of one minute's length from which he evolved six ringtones and a softer 'alarm tone' that are preloaded on the device.
In March 2008, he premiered his orchestral composition "Celeste" at "An Evening with Stewart Copeland", part of the Savannah Music Festival. The performance featured classical violinist Daniel Hope. His appearance at Savannah included a screening of Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out and a question and answer session. Also in 2008, he was commissioned by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra to create a percussion piece involving primarily Indonesian instruments. "Gamelan D'Drum" was first performed in Dallas on February 5, 2012, and had its European Premiere at the Royal Academy of Music in London in July 2012.
On August 21, 2009, at SummerFest 2009, Copeland unveiled the composition "Retail Therapy", which was commissioned by the Music Society. He performed three more original works: "Kaya", "Celeste", and "Gene Pool", the last accompanied by San Diego-based percussion ensemble red fish blue fish. He attended a composer's roundtable and a question and answer discussion in conjunction with the festival. Copeland wrote the score for a theatrical presentation of Ben-Hur, which premiered on September 17, 2009, at the O2 Arena in London. He provided English-language narration of the production, which is performed in Latin and Aramaic. His memoir Strange Things Happen: A Life with The Police, Polo, and Pygmies was released by Harper Collins in September 2009. The book chronicles events in his life from childhood through his work with the Police and to the present. In October 2009, he was a guest on Private Passions, the biographical music discussion program on BBC Radio 3.
On May 24, 2011, he started a YouTube channel devoted to his videos and project updates. On this channel, he uploads performances with various musicians, including Primus, Andy Summers, Jeff Lynne, Snoop Dogg, and others in his home studio, which he refers to as the Sacred Grove. On August 24, 2011, he was a featured soloist on the Late Show with David Letterman, as part of their second "Drum Solo Week".
On January 10, 2012, he appeared on an episode of the A&E reality series Storage Wars to appraise a drum set for Barry Weiss, buying a Turkish cymbal from the set for $40. In July he reunited with former Animal Logic bandmate Stanley Clarke for a European tour.
In May 2013, he and the Long Beach Opera premiered The Tale Tell Heart, an opera based on the short story by Edgar Allan Poe.
On November 26, 2013, he appeared in the first episode of The Tim Ferriss Experiment.
In 2017, he formed the supergroup Gizmodrome with Adrian Belew, Vittorio Cosma, and Mark King and released an album of the same name.
On September 5, 2021, the opera Electric Saint about the life of Nikola Tesla by Copeland with libretto by Jonathan Moore premiered at the National Theater of Weimar.
Personal life
Copeland grew up in Beirut. In 1974, he became romantically involved with Curved Air vocalist Sonja Kristina; they were married from 1982 to 1991. He adopted her son Sven from a previous relationship, and they had two sons of their own named Jordan and Scott. In 1981, he fathered a son named Patrick with Marina Guinness, the daughter of Irish author Desmond Guinness. He currently lives in Los Angeles with his second wife, Fiona Dent, with whom he has three children named Eve, Grace, and Celeste.
Copeland's hobbies include rollerskating, cycling along the beach in Santa Monica, California, filmmaking, and playing polo. He is also active on his YouTube channel, where he uploads videos of himself and other musicians during jam sessions in his studio, the Sacred Grove.
Drumming style
Copeland grew up listening to a combination of Lebanese music, rock and roll, jazz, and reggae, but he selected from these styles what he needed rather than imitating them. In the 1980s, when many musicians were looking for bigger sound from bigger drums, he added Octobans. Invented by Tama Drums in 1978, Octobans consisted of eight six-inch drums in the shape of narrow tubes. He used another innovation, a splash cymbal based on a toy that he owned and that he helped Paiste design. He relied heavily on his 13" hi-hats.
Despite being left-handed, Copeland plays a right-handed drum kit, placing the hi-hats on his left and ride cymbal and floor toms on his right. He uses a wide dynamic range and demonstrates a proficiency of jazz-style articulation in his snare drum playing, interspersing strong back-beats with soft rim comping. During his years with the Police, he became known for engaging only the hi-hat with the bass drum to keep the beat.
In an interview with Modern Drummer, Copeland has cited Mitch Mitchell of the Jimi Hendrix Experience as a prime musical influence. He states that as a child, whenever he had a song or melody pop in his head, he would walk around wondering how Mitch Mitchell would drum to that particular tune. He also named Sandy Nelson and Ginger Baker as other fundamental influences in the youth years. He has stated that due to his 'enforced listening' of Buddy Rich, he considers himself 'allergic to jazz.'
He is noted for his strong emphasis on the groove as a complement to the song, rather than as its core component. He once drove this point home at a drum clinic: Copeland announced that he would show the audience something "that very few modern drummers can do" and proceeded to play a simple rock beat for two minutes. Nonetheless, his playing often incorporates spectacular fills and subtle inflections which greatly augment the groove. Compared to most of his 1980s contemporaries, his snare sound was bright and cutting. He is also one of the few rock drummers to use traditional grip rather than matched grip. He is also noted for syncopation in his drumming.
Equipment
Copeland's equipment includes Tama drums, Paiste cymbals, Remo drum heads, and Vater signature drum sticks.
Original live kit set-up (1984)
Tama Imperialstar Mahogany Drums (9-ply) and Paiste Cymbals:
Drums – Midnight Blue
10x8" Rack Tom
12x8" Rack Tom
13x9" Rack Tom
16x16" Floor Tom
14x5" Pearl Chrome over Brass Snare
22x14" Bass Drum
Tama Octobans Low Pitch (x4)
Cowbell
Wood Blocks
Cymbals – Paiste
13" Formula 602 Medium Hi-Hats
16" 2002 Crash
8" 2002 Bell
7.5 Ufip Ictus Bell
8" 2002 Splash (x2)
11" 2002 Splash
14" (or 16") Rude Crash/Ride
16" (or 18") Rude Crash/Ride
18" 2002 Medium
24" Rude Ride/Crash
20" 2002 China
Simmons (x2) Pads (to his left)
Assorted Percussion
Stewart also used Calato Regal Tip Rock Wood Tipped Drumsticks
The Police Reunion (2007–2008) tour kit
Tama Starclassic Maple Drums and Paiste Cymbals:
Drums – Custom Police Blue Sparkle Maple Wood
10x8" Tom
12x8" Tom (To the left of his snare drum)
13x9" Tom
16x16" Floor Tom
18x16" Floor Tom
20x14" Tama Gong Drum
22x18" Bass Drum
14x5" Tama SC145 Stewart Copeland Signature Snare
Tama Custom Police Blue Sparkle Octobans (x4) (custom made for Copeland)
Cymbals – Paiste
12" Prototype Micro Hi-Hats
16" Signature Full Crash
17" Signature Fast Crash
18" Signature Fast Crash
18" Signature Full Crash
18" 2002 Flat Ride (prototype)
22" Signature Blue Bell Ride
10" Signature Splash
8" Signature Bell
8" Signature Prototype Splash
Assorted percussion
Stewart also uses his own Vater Stewart Copeland Standard Sticks.
Discography
Studio albums
Film scores
TV series
Video games
See also
List of drummers
Membranophone (list of drums)
References
External links
Copeland's official site
1952 births
Living people
A&M Records artists
American expatriates in Egypt
American expatriates in Lebanon
American expatriates in the United Kingdom
American film score composers
American male film score composers
American people of Scottish descent
American rock drummers
The Police members
Curved Air members
People educated at Millfield
Musicians from Alexandria, Virginia
Musicians from Beirut
Video game composers
United States International University alumni
Chevaliers of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
20th-century American drummers
American male drummers
Copeland family
Oysterhead members
Gizmodrome members
Strontium 90 (band) members
| true |
[
"This is a list of Members of Parliament (MPs) elected or assigned to the Founding Assembly of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. 40 elected members of the founding assembly were coming from the Federated Assembly as the base members. These members were elected at the 1981 parliamentary election, which was held on 28 June 1981.\n\n30 other members were assigned by the Presidency, various political parties, non-governmental organisations, trade unions, chamber of industry, chamber of commerce and the bar association. Fazıl Küçük also assigned one member by himself. The representative members were regarded as independent unless stated otherwise.\n\nFounding Assembly's duty started on 6 December 1983\n\nThe list below indicates the MPs in the parties at the time they took oath.\n\nComposition\n\nElected members \n\nElected members were the members who were already chosen as MPs for the Federated Assembly of the Turkish Federated State of Cyprus and thus served during the Interim Parliament of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. The Founding Assembly did not have seats allocated for districts. Following list only designate their district of election during 1981 parliamentary election.\n\nLefkoşa\n\nGazimağusa\n\nGirne\n\nRepresentative members \nRepresentative members were not elected to the assembly. They were assigned by political parties, individuals or institutions listed below. Assigned people were regarded as independent unless they were assigned by a political party or was already a council minister from a party at the day of assignation.\n\nTerm and changes of affiliation \nAssigned members were not elected to the assembly. They were assigned by political parties, individuals or institutions listed below. Assigned people were regarded as independent unless they were assigned by a political party or was a council minister from a party at the day he was assigned.\n\nA\n\nB\n\nC\n\nÇ\n\nD\n\nE\n\nF\n\nG\n\nH\n\nK\n\nL\n\nO\n\nÖ\n\nP\n\nR\n\nS\n\nŞ\n\nT\n\nU\n\nV\n\nReferences \n\nMembers of the Assembly of the Republic (Northern Cyprus)",
"The Society of Sciences in Lund (Vetenskapssocieteten i Lund in Swedish) is a scientific academy founded in 1920. The purpose of the foundation was \"to promote scientific humanities research\", to which younger scientists in the humanities, theology and social sciences at Lund University would gather. The founders were the Sanskrit researcher , the folklore scholar Carl Wilhelm von Sydow, and the linguist , with the assistance of the historian Lauritz Weibull. The name was taken from the Royal Society of Sciences in Uppsala\n\nThe members are divided into different categories: honorary members (maximum seven), domestic working members (maximum 100), foreign working members (maximum 35) and founding members (maximum 50). At the age of 55, the working member transfers to the seniors group.\n\nA person who has shown a special commitment to the humanities and culture, or a person whom the Society finds capable of contributing to the Society's activities and development, may be appointed as a founding member. The founding member has the same rights as the domestic working member. The various categories have been slightly expanded since the institute.\n\nHonorary members \n\n Birgitta Odén\n Hilma Borelius\n\nSee also\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n Official website\n\nScientific societies based in Sweden\nScientific organizations established in 1920\nOrganizations based in Lund"
] |
[
"Stewart Copeland",
"The Police (1977-1986)",
"When were The Police founded?",
"1976,",
"Where were they founded?",
"I don't know.",
"Who were the founding members?",
"lead singer-bass guitarist Sting and guitarist Henry Padovani (who was soon replaced by Andy Summers"
] |
C_59773acc2ace44b3a9056161d5aa2baf_1
|
How did they meet?
| 4 |
How did Sting and Henry Padovani meet?
|
Stewart Copeland
|
In late 1976, Copeland founded the Police with lead singer-bass guitarist Sting and guitarist Henry Padovani (who was soon replaced by Andy Summers), and they became one of the top bands of the 1980s. The Police's early track list was mostly made of Copeland's compositions, including the band's first single "Fall Out" (Illegal Records, 1977) and the B side "Nothing Achieving". Though Copeland's songwriting contribution was reduced to a couple of songs per album as Sting started writing more material, he continued to co-arrange all the Police's songs with his two bandmates. Amongst Copeland's most notable songs are "On Any Other Day" (where he sang lead vocals too), "Does Everyone Stare" (later to be used as the title of his documentary on the band Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out), "Contact", "Bombs Away", "Darkness" and "Miss Gradenko". Copeland also co-wrote a number of songs with Sting, including "Peanuts", "Landlord", "It's Alright for You" and "Re-Humanize Yourself". Copeland also recorded under the pseudonym Klark Kent, releasing several UK singles in 1978 with one ("Don't Care") entering the UK Singles Chart that year, along with an eponymously titled 10-inch album on green vinyl released in 1980. Recorded at Nigel Gray's Surrey Sound Studio, Copeland played all the instruments and sang the lead vocals himself. Kent's "Don't Care", which peaked at #48 UK in August 1978, actually predates the first chart single by the Police by several months ("Can't Stand Losing You", issued in October 1978) as "Don't Care" was released in early June 1978. In 1982 Copeland was involved in the production of a WOMAD benefit album called Music and Rhythm. Copeland's score for Rumble Fish secured him a Golden Globe nomination in 1983. The film, directed and produced by Francis Ford Coppola from the S. E. Hinton novel, also had a song released to radio on A&M Records "Don't Box Me In" (UK Singles Chart n. 91)--a collaboration between Copeland and singer/songwriter Stan Ridgway, leader of the band Wall of Voodoo--that received significant airplay upon release of the film that year. The Police stopped touring in 1984, and during this brief hiatus he released a solo album, The Rhythmatist. The record was the result of a pilgrimage to Africa and its people, and it features local drums and percussion, with more drums, percussion, other musical instruments and occasional lead vocals added by Copeland. The album was the official soundtrack to the movie of the same name, which was co-written by Stewart. He also starred in the film, which is "A musical odyssey through the heart of Africa in search of the roots of rock & roll." (Copeland is seen playing the drums in a cage with lions surrounding him.) The band attempted a reunion in 1986, but the project fell apart. CANNOTANSWER
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CANNOTANSWER
|
Stewart Armstrong Copeland (born July 16, 1952) is an American musician and composer. He rose to prominence as the drummer of the British rock band The Police. He has also produced many film and video game soundtracks and written various pieces of music for ballet, opera, and orchestra. His composing work includes the films Wall Street (1987), Good Burger (1997), and We Are Your Friends (2015); the television series The Equalizer, Dead Like Me, and The Amanda Show; and the video games Alone in the Dark 4 and the Spyro series.
According to MusicRadar, Copeland's "distinctive drum sound and uniqueness of style has made him one of the most popular drummers to ever get behind a drumset". He was ranked the 10th best drummer of all time by Rolling Stone in 2016. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Police in 2003, the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame in 2005, and the Classic Drummer Hall of Fame in 2013.
Early life
Stewart Armstrong Copeland was born in Alexandria, Virginia, on July 16, 1952, the youngest of four children of Scottish archaeologist Lorraine Adie and Alabama-born CIA officer Miles Copeland Jr. According to his 1989 biography and files released by the CIA in 2008, his father was a founding member of the OSS and the CIA. The family moved to Cairo a few months after Copeland's birth. When he was five years old, the family moved to Beirut, where he attended the American Community School. He started taking drum lessons at age 12 and was playing drums for school dances within a year. He later moved to England, attending the American School in London and Millfield boarding school in Somerset from 1967 to 1969. He went to college in California, enrolling at Alliant International University and the University of California, Berkeley. His eldest brother, Miles Copeland III, founded I.R.S. Records and became the manager of the Police. He has also overseen Copeland's interests in other music projects. His other brother, the late Ian Copeland, was a pioneering booking agent who represented the Police and many others.
Career
Curved Air (1975–1976)
Returning to England, Copeland worked as road manager for the progressive rock band Curved Air's 1974 reunion tour, and then as drummer for the band during 1975 and 1976. The band kicked off with a European tour, which started poorly. Band leader Darryl Way, a notorious perfectionist, grew impatient with the struggling of his bandmates, especially novice drummer Copeland. Then, for reasons no one could pinpoint, the musicians suddenly "clicked" with each other and the band caught fire, quickly becoming a popular and acclaimed live act.
The Police (1977–1986)
In early 1977, Copeland founded the Police with lead singer-bass guitarist Sting and guitarist Henry Padovani (who was soon replaced by Andy Summers), and they became one of the top bands of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Copeland was the youngest member of the band. The Police's early track list (before their album debut) was largely Copeland compositions, including the band's first single "Fall Out" (Illegal Records, 1977) and the B-side "Nothing Achieving". Though Copeland's songwriting contribution was reduced to a couple of songs per album as Sting started writing more material, he continued to co-arrange all the Police's songs together with his two bandmates. Amongst Copeland's most notable songs are "On Any Other Day" (where he also sang lead vocals), "Does Everyone Stare" (later to be used as the title of his documentary on the band Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out), "Contact", "Bombs Away", "Darkness" and "Miss Gradenko". Copeland also co-wrote a number of songs with Sting, including "Peanuts", "Landlord", "It's Alright for You" and "Re-Humanize Yourself".
Copeland also recorded under the pseudonym Klark Kent, releasing several UK singles in 1978 with one ("Don't Care") entering the UK Singles Chart that year, along with an eponymous 10-inch album on green vinyl released in 1980. Recording at Nigel Gray's Surrey Sound Studio, Copeland played all the instruments and sang the lead vocals himself. Kent's "Don't Care", which peaked at No. 48 UK in August 1978, actually predates the first chart single by the Police by several months ("Can't Stand Losing You", issued in October 1978) as "Don't Care" was released in early June 1978.
In 1982, Copeland was involved in the production of a WOMAD benefit album called Music and Rhythm. Copeland's score for Rumble Fish secured him a Golden Globe nomination in 1983. The film, directed and produced by Francis Ford Coppola from the S. E. Hinton novel, also had a song released to radio on A&M Records "Don't Box Me In" (UK Singles Chart n. 91)—a collaboration between Copeland and singer-songwriter Stan Ridgway, leader of the band Wall of Voodoo—that received significant airplay upon release of the film that year.
The Rhythmatist record of 1985 was the result of a pilgrimage to Africa and its people, and it features local drums and percussion, with more drums, percussion, other musical instruments and occasional lead vocals added by Copeland. The album was the official soundtrack to the movie of the same name, which was co-written by Stewart. Copeland is seen in the film playing the drums in a cage with lions surrounding him.
The band attempted a reunion in 1986, but the project fell apart.
Solo projects and movie soundtracks (1987–1998)
After the Police disbanded, Copeland established a career composing soundtracks for movies (Airborne, Talk Radio, Wall Street, Riff Raff, Raining Stones, Surviving the Game, See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Highlander II: The Quickening, She's Having a Baby, The First Power, Fresh, Taking Care of Business, West Beirut, I am David, Riding the Bus with My Sister, Good Burger), television (The Equalizer, Dead Like Me, Star Wars: Droids, the pilot for Babylon 5 (1993), Nickelodeon's The Amanda Show, The Life and Times of Juniper Lee), operas (Holy Blood and Crescent Moon, commissioned by Cleveland Opera) and ballets (Prey' Ballet Oklahoma, Casque of Amontillado, Noah's Ark/Solcheeka, commissioned by the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, King Lear, commissioned by the San Francisco Ballet Company, Emilio). In 1996, Copeland provided the score for The Leopard Son, Discovery Channel's its first commercially released full-length feature film, made by wildlife filmmaker Hugo van Lawick.
Copeland also occasionally played drums for other artists. Peter Gabriel employed Copeland to perform on his song "Red Rain" from his 1986 album So because of his "hi-hat mastery". He has also performed with Mike Rutherford and Tom Waits. That year he also teamed with Adam Ant to record the title track and video for the Anthony Michael Hall movie Out of Bounds. In 1989, Copeland formed Animal Logic with jazz bassist Stanley Clarke and singer-songwriter Deborah Holland. The trio had success with their first album and world tour but the follow-up recording sold poorly, and the band did not continue.
In 1993 he composed the music for Channel 4's Horse Opera and director Bob Baldwin, and in 1999, he provided the voice of an additional American soldier in the animated musical comedy war film South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (1999).
Spyro the Dragon soundtracks (1998–2002, 2018)
He was commissioned by Insomniac Games in 1998 to make the musical score for the hit PlayStation game Spyro the Dragon. Copeland would play through the levels first to get a feel for each one before composing the soundtrack. He also stayed with the project to create the musical scores for the remaining Insomniac sequels Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage! and Spyro: Year of the Dragon. The franchise shifted over to Universal for the fourth title, Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly, which would be Copeland's last outing with the series. While the soundtracks never saw commercial release, the limited edition of the fourth game came packaged with a bonus CD, containing unused tracks. The soundtracks were very well received, and one track would later appear on the 2007 compilation album The Stewart Copeland Anthology. Copeland composed a new title theme for Spyro Reignited Trilogy.
This period also saw Copeland compose the soundtrack for Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare, his only video game soundtrack outside of the Spyro franchise to date. In 2000, he combined with Les Claypool of Primus (with whom he produced a track on the Primus album Antipop) and Trey Anastasio of Phish to create the band Oysterhead. That same year, he was approached by director Adam Collis to assemble the score for the film Sunset Strip.
Collaborations (2002–2006)
In 2002, Copeland was hired by Ray Manzarek and Robby Krieger of the Doors to play with them for a new album and tour, but after an injury sidelined Copeland, the arrangement ended in reciprocal lawsuits. In 2005, Copeland released "Orchestralli", a live recording of chamber ensemble music which he had composed during a short tour of Italy in 2002. Also in 2005, Copeland started Gizmo, a new project with avant-garde guitarist David Fiuczynski, multi-instrumentalist Vittorio Cosma, singer Raiz and bassist Max Gazzè. The band made their U.S debut on September 16, 2006, at the Modern Drummer Drum Festival. In January 2006, Copeland premiered his film about the Police called Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out at the Sundance Film Festival. In February and March, he appeared as one of the judges on the BBC television show Just the Two of Us (a role he later reprised for a second series in January 2007).
The Police reunion (2007–2008)
At the 2007 Grammy Awards, Copeland, Andy Summers and Sting performed the song "Roxanne" together again as the Police. This marked the band's first public performance since 1986 (they had previously reunited only for an improvised set at Sting's wedding party in 1992 and for their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2003). One day later, the band announced that in celebration of the Police's 30th anniversary, they would be embarking on what turned out to be a one-off reunion tour on May 28, 2007. During the tour, Copeland also released his compilation album The Stewart Copeland Anthology, which was composed of his independent work.
In 2007, the French government appointed Copeland (along with Police bandmates Summers and Sting) a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.
The group performed 151 dates across five continents, concluding with a final show in August 2008 at Madison Square Garden, New York.
Projects (2008–present)
In 2008, RIM commissioned Copeland to write a "soundtrack" for the BlackBerry Bold smart phone. He created a highly percussive theme of one minute's length from which he evolved six ringtones and a softer 'alarm tone' that are preloaded on the device.
In March 2008, he premiered his orchestral composition "Celeste" at "An Evening with Stewart Copeland", part of the Savannah Music Festival. The performance featured classical violinist Daniel Hope. His appearance at Savannah included a screening of Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out and a question and answer session. Also in 2008, he was commissioned by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra to create a percussion piece involving primarily Indonesian instruments. "Gamelan D'Drum" was first performed in Dallas on February 5, 2012, and had its European Premiere at the Royal Academy of Music in London in July 2012.
On August 21, 2009, at SummerFest 2009, Copeland unveiled the composition "Retail Therapy", which was commissioned by the Music Society. He performed three more original works: "Kaya", "Celeste", and "Gene Pool", the last accompanied by San Diego-based percussion ensemble red fish blue fish. He attended a composer's roundtable and a question and answer discussion in conjunction with the festival. Copeland wrote the score for a theatrical presentation of Ben-Hur, which premiered on September 17, 2009, at the O2 Arena in London. He provided English-language narration of the production, which is performed in Latin and Aramaic. His memoir Strange Things Happen: A Life with The Police, Polo, and Pygmies was released by Harper Collins in September 2009. The book chronicles events in his life from childhood through his work with the Police and to the present. In October 2009, he was a guest on Private Passions, the biographical music discussion program on BBC Radio 3.
On May 24, 2011, he started a YouTube channel devoted to his videos and project updates. On this channel, he uploads performances with various musicians, including Primus, Andy Summers, Jeff Lynne, Snoop Dogg, and others in his home studio, which he refers to as the Sacred Grove. On August 24, 2011, he was a featured soloist on the Late Show with David Letterman, as part of their second "Drum Solo Week".
On January 10, 2012, he appeared on an episode of the A&E reality series Storage Wars to appraise a drum set for Barry Weiss, buying a Turkish cymbal from the set for $40. In July he reunited with former Animal Logic bandmate Stanley Clarke for a European tour.
In May 2013, he and the Long Beach Opera premiered The Tale Tell Heart, an opera based on the short story by Edgar Allan Poe.
On November 26, 2013, he appeared in the first episode of The Tim Ferriss Experiment.
In 2017, he formed the supergroup Gizmodrome with Adrian Belew, Vittorio Cosma, and Mark King and released an album of the same name.
On September 5, 2021, the opera Electric Saint about the life of Nikola Tesla by Copeland with libretto by Jonathan Moore premiered at the National Theater of Weimar.
Personal life
Copeland grew up in Beirut. In 1974, he became romantically involved with Curved Air vocalist Sonja Kristina; they were married from 1982 to 1991. He adopted her son Sven from a previous relationship, and they had two sons of their own named Jordan and Scott. In 1981, he fathered a son named Patrick with Marina Guinness, the daughter of Irish author Desmond Guinness. He currently lives in Los Angeles with his second wife, Fiona Dent, with whom he has three children named Eve, Grace, and Celeste.
Copeland's hobbies include rollerskating, cycling along the beach in Santa Monica, California, filmmaking, and playing polo. He is also active on his YouTube channel, where he uploads videos of himself and other musicians during jam sessions in his studio, the Sacred Grove.
Drumming style
Copeland grew up listening to a combination of Lebanese music, rock and roll, jazz, and reggae, but he selected from these styles what he needed rather than imitating them. In the 1980s, when many musicians were looking for bigger sound from bigger drums, he added Octobans. Invented by Tama Drums in 1978, Octobans consisted of eight six-inch drums in the shape of narrow tubes. He used another innovation, a splash cymbal based on a toy that he owned and that he helped Paiste design. He relied heavily on his 13" hi-hats.
Despite being left-handed, Copeland plays a right-handed drum kit, placing the hi-hats on his left and ride cymbal and floor toms on his right. He uses a wide dynamic range and demonstrates a proficiency of jazz-style articulation in his snare drum playing, interspersing strong back-beats with soft rim comping. During his years with the Police, he became known for engaging only the hi-hat with the bass drum to keep the beat.
In an interview with Modern Drummer, Copeland has cited Mitch Mitchell of the Jimi Hendrix Experience as a prime musical influence. He states that as a child, whenever he had a song or melody pop in his head, he would walk around wondering how Mitch Mitchell would drum to that particular tune. He also named Sandy Nelson and Ginger Baker as other fundamental influences in the youth years. He has stated that due to his 'enforced listening' of Buddy Rich, he considers himself 'allergic to jazz.'
He is noted for his strong emphasis on the groove as a complement to the song, rather than as its core component. He once drove this point home at a drum clinic: Copeland announced that he would show the audience something "that very few modern drummers can do" and proceeded to play a simple rock beat for two minutes. Nonetheless, his playing often incorporates spectacular fills and subtle inflections which greatly augment the groove. Compared to most of his 1980s contemporaries, his snare sound was bright and cutting. He is also one of the few rock drummers to use traditional grip rather than matched grip. He is also noted for syncopation in his drumming.
Equipment
Copeland's equipment includes Tama drums, Paiste cymbals, Remo drum heads, and Vater signature drum sticks.
Original live kit set-up (1984)
Tama Imperialstar Mahogany Drums (9-ply) and Paiste Cymbals:
Drums – Midnight Blue
10x8" Rack Tom
12x8" Rack Tom
13x9" Rack Tom
16x16" Floor Tom
14x5" Pearl Chrome over Brass Snare
22x14" Bass Drum
Tama Octobans Low Pitch (x4)
Cowbell
Wood Blocks
Cymbals – Paiste
13" Formula 602 Medium Hi-Hats
16" 2002 Crash
8" 2002 Bell
7.5 Ufip Ictus Bell
8" 2002 Splash (x2)
11" 2002 Splash
14" (or 16") Rude Crash/Ride
16" (or 18") Rude Crash/Ride
18" 2002 Medium
24" Rude Ride/Crash
20" 2002 China
Simmons (x2) Pads (to his left)
Assorted Percussion
Stewart also used Calato Regal Tip Rock Wood Tipped Drumsticks
The Police Reunion (2007–2008) tour kit
Tama Starclassic Maple Drums and Paiste Cymbals:
Drums – Custom Police Blue Sparkle Maple Wood
10x8" Tom
12x8" Tom (To the left of his snare drum)
13x9" Tom
16x16" Floor Tom
18x16" Floor Tom
20x14" Tama Gong Drum
22x18" Bass Drum
14x5" Tama SC145 Stewart Copeland Signature Snare
Tama Custom Police Blue Sparkle Octobans (x4) (custom made for Copeland)
Cymbals – Paiste
12" Prototype Micro Hi-Hats
16" Signature Full Crash
17" Signature Fast Crash
18" Signature Fast Crash
18" Signature Full Crash
18" 2002 Flat Ride (prototype)
22" Signature Blue Bell Ride
10" Signature Splash
8" Signature Bell
8" Signature Prototype Splash
Assorted percussion
Stewart also uses his own Vater Stewart Copeland Standard Sticks.
Discography
Studio albums
Film scores
TV series
Video games
See also
List of drummers
Membranophone (list of drums)
References
External links
Copeland's official site
1952 births
Living people
A&M Records artists
American expatriates in Egypt
American expatriates in Lebanon
American expatriates in the United Kingdom
American film score composers
American male film score composers
American people of Scottish descent
American rock drummers
The Police members
Curved Air members
People educated at Millfield
Musicians from Alexandria, Virginia
Musicians from Beirut
Video game composers
United States International University alumni
Chevaliers of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
20th-century American drummers
American male drummers
Copeland family
Oysterhead members
Gizmodrome members
Strontium 90 (band) members
| false |
[
"Sarah Kramer is a Canadian vegan cookbook author. She is the best-selling author of How It All Vegan, The Garden of Vegan, La Dolce Vegan! and Vegan A Go-Go!. In 2012, she released Go Vegan! w/Sarah Kramer, one of the world's first vegan cookbook iPhone/iPad apps. \nKramer has written for publications such as Herbivore Magazine, Veg News and Shared Vision. She runs a popular vegan website/blog at govegan.net. She had a small vegan boutique called Sarah's Place that opened in 2011 and closed 2 years later after a diagnosis of breast cancer. Sarah did treatment in 2013 and now works full time at the business Tattoo Zoo that she co-owns with her wife, Geri Kramer in Victoria, BC. Sarah and Geri have a podcast called Meet The Kramers in which they discuss their 25-year marriage in relation to Geri's coming out as a trans woman in 2019.\n\nBooks\n How It All Vegan (with Tanya Barnard) (1999) \n The Garden Of Vegan (with Tanya Barnard) (2003) \n La Dolce Vegan (2005) \n Vegan A Go-Go! (2008) \n How It All Vegan: 10th Anniversary Edition (2009)\n\nPodcast \n\n Meet The Kramers podcast\n\nSee also\n Vegan\n List of vegans\n\nReferences\n\nInterviews and articles\n Article in Shared Vision\n Podcast Interview on Vegan Freak Radio\n Interview with The Cookbook Store\n Interview with Abebooks.com\n\nExternal links\n Meet The Kramers podcast\n Tattoo Zoo\n Sarah's Blog\n GoVegan.net, Sarah's website\n Arsenal Pulp Press, Sarah's publisher\n\nChefs of vegan cuisine\nCanadian women chefs\nCanadian food writers\nYear of birth missing (living people)\nLiving people\nWriters from Regina, Saskatchewan\nCanadian cookbook writers\nVegan cookbook writers",
"The situation, task, action, result (STAR) format is a technique used by interviewers to gather all the relevant information about a specific capability that the job requires. \n\n Situation: The interviewer wants you to present a recent challenging situation in which you found yourself.\n Task: What were you required to achieve? The interviewer will be looking to see what you were trying to achieve from the situation. Some performance development methods use “Target” rather than “Task”. Job interview candidates who describe a “Target” they set themselves instead of an externally imposed “Task” emphasize their own intrinsic motivation to perform and to develop their performance.\n Action: What did you do? The interviewer will be looking for information on what you did, why you did it and what the alternatives were.\n Results: What was the outcome of your actions? What did you achieve through your actions? Did you meet your objectives? What did you learn from this experience? Have you used this learning since?\n\nThe STAR technique is similar to the SOARA technique.\n\nThe STAR technique is also often complemented with an additional R on the end STARR or STAR(R) with the last R resembling reflection. This R aims to gather insight and interviewee's ability to learn and iterate. Whereas the STAR reveals how and what kind of result on an objective was achieved, the STARR with the additional R helps the interviewer to understand what the interviewee learned from the experience and how they would assimilate experiences. The interviewee can define what they would do (differently, the same, or better) next time being posed with a situation.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nThe ‘STAR’ technique to answer behavioral interview questions\nThe STAR method explained\n\nJob interview"
] |
[
"Stewart Copeland",
"The Police (1977-1986)",
"When were The Police founded?",
"1976,",
"Where were they founded?",
"I don't know.",
"Who were the founding members?",
"lead singer-bass guitarist Sting and guitarist Henry Padovani (who was soon replaced by Andy Summers",
"How did they meet?",
"I don't know."
] |
C_59773acc2ace44b3a9056161d5aa2baf_1
|
Did Copeland write the music for the Police?
| 5 |
Did Copeland write the music for the Police?
|
Stewart Copeland
|
In late 1976, Copeland founded the Police with lead singer-bass guitarist Sting and guitarist Henry Padovani (who was soon replaced by Andy Summers), and they became one of the top bands of the 1980s. The Police's early track list was mostly made of Copeland's compositions, including the band's first single "Fall Out" (Illegal Records, 1977) and the B side "Nothing Achieving". Though Copeland's songwriting contribution was reduced to a couple of songs per album as Sting started writing more material, he continued to co-arrange all the Police's songs with his two bandmates. Amongst Copeland's most notable songs are "On Any Other Day" (where he sang lead vocals too), "Does Everyone Stare" (later to be used as the title of his documentary on the band Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out), "Contact", "Bombs Away", "Darkness" and "Miss Gradenko". Copeland also co-wrote a number of songs with Sting, including "Peanuts", "Landlord", "It's Alright for You" and "Re-Humanize Yourself". Copeland also recorded under the pseudonym Klark Kent, releasing several UK singles in 1978 with one ("Don't Care") entering the UK Singles Chart that year, along with an eponymously titled 10-inch album on green vinyl released in 1980. Recorded at Nigel Gray's Surrey Sound Studio, Copeland played all the instruments and sang the lead vocals himself. Kent's "Don't Care", which peaked at #48 UK in August 1978, actually predates the first chart single by the Police by several months ("Can't Stand Losing You", issued in October 1978) as "Don't Care" was released in early June 1978. In 1982 Copeland was involved in the production of a WOMAD benefit album called Music and Rhythm. Copeland's score for Rumble Fish secured him a Golden Globe nomination in 1983. The film, directed and produced by Francis Ford Coppola from the S. E. Hinton novel, also had a song released to radio on A&M Records "Don't Box Me In" (UK Singles Chart n. 91)--a collaboration between Copeland and singer/songwriter Stan Ridgway, leader of the band Wall of Voodoo--that received significant airplay upon release of the film that year. The Police stopped touring in 1984, and during this brief hiatus he released a solo album, The Rhythmatist. The record was the result of a pilgrimage to Africa and its people, and it features local drums and percussion, with more drums, percussion, other musical instruments and occasional lead vocals added by Copeland. The album was the official soundtrack to the movie of the same name, which was co-written by Stewart. He also starred in the film, which is "A musical odyssey through the heart of Africa in search of the roots of rock & roll." (Copeland is seen playing the drums in a cage with lions surrounding him.) The band attempted a reunion in 1986, but the project fell apart. CANNOTANSWER
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Andy Summers), and they became one of the top bands of the 1980s. The Police's early track list was mostly made of Copeland's compositions,
|
Stewart Armstrong Copeland (born July 16, 1952) is an American musician and composer. He rose to prominence as the drummer of the British rock band The Police. He has also produced many film and video game soundtracks and written various pieces of music for ballet, opera, and orchestra. His composing work includes the films Wall Street (1987), Good Burger (1997), and We Are Your Friends (2015); the television series The Equalizer, Dead Like Me, and The Amanda Show; and the video games Alone in the Dark 4 and the Spyro series.
According to MusicRadar, Copeland's "distinctive drum sound and uniqueness of style has made him one of the most popular drummers to ever get behind a drumset". He was ranked the 10th best drummer of all time by Rolling Stone in 2016. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Police in 2003, the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame in 2005, and the Classic Drummer Hall of Fame in 2013.
Early life
Stewart Armstrong Copeland was born in Alexandria, Virginia, on July 16, 1952, the youngest of four children of Scottish archaeologist Lorraine Adie and Alabama-born CIA officer Miles Copeland Jr. According to his 1989 biography and files released by the CIA in 2008, his father was a founding member of the OSS and the CIA. The family moved to Cairo a few months after Copeland's birth. When he was five years old, the family moved to Beirut, where he attended the American Community School. He started taking drum lessons at age 12 and was playing drums for school dances within a year. He later moved to England, attending the American School in London and Millfield boarding school in Somerset from 1967 to 1969. He went to college in California, enrolling at Alliant International University and the University of California, Berkeley. His eldest brother, Miles Copeland III, founded I.R.S. Records and became the manager of the Police. He has also overseen Copeland's interests in other music projects. His other brother, the late Ian Copeland, was a pioneering booking agent who represented the Police and many others.
Career
Curved Air (1975–1976)
Returning to England, Copeland worked as road manager for the progressive rock band Curved Air's 1974 reunion tour, and then as drummer for the band during 1975 and 1976. The band kicked off with a European tour, which started poorly. Band leader Darryl Way, a notorious perfectionist, grew impatient with the struggling of his bandmates, especially novice drummer Copeland. Then, for reasons no one could pinpoint, the musicians suddenly "clicked" with each other and the band caught fire, quickly becoming a popular and acclaimed live act.
The Police (1977–1986)
In early 1977, Copeland founded the Police with lead singer-bass guitarist Sting and guitarist Henry Padovani (who was soon replaced by Andy Summers), and they became one of the top bands of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Copeland was the youngest member of the band. The Police's early track list (before their album debut) was largely Copeland compositions, including the band's first single "Fall Out" (Illegal Records, 1977) and the B-side "Nothing Achieving". Though Copeland's songwriting contribution was reduced to a couple of songs per album as Sting started writing more material, he continued to co-arrange all the Police's songs together with his two bandmates. Amongst Copeland's most notable songs are "On Any Other Day" (where he also sang lead vocals), "Does Everyone Stare" (later to be used as the title of his documentary on the band Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out), "Contact", "Bombs Away", "Darkness" and "Miss Gradenko". Copeland also co-wrote a number of songs with Sting, including "Peanuts", "Landlord", "It's Alright for You" and "Re-Humanize Yourself".
Copeland also recorded under the pseudonym Klark Kent, releasing several UK singles in 1978 with one ("Don't Care") entering the UK Singles Chart that year, along with an eponymous 10-inch album on green vinyl released in 1980. Recording at Nigel Gray's Surrey Sound Studio, Copeland played all the instruments and sang the lead vocals himself. Kent's "Don't Care", which peaked at No. 48 UK in August 1978, actually predates the first chart single by the Police by several months ("Can't Stand Losing You", issued in October 1978) as "Don't Care" was released in early June 1978.
In 1982, Copeland was involved in the production of a WOMAD benefit album called Music and Rhythm. Copeland's score for Rumble Fish secured him a Golden Globe nomination in 1983. The film, directed and produced by Francis Ford Coppola from the S. E. Hinton novel, also had a song released to radio on A&M Records "Don't Box Me In" (UK Singles Chart n. 91)—a collaboration between Copeland and singer-songwriter Stan Ridgway, leader of the band Wall of Voodoo—that received significant airplay upon release of the film that year.
The Rhythmatist record of 1985 was the result of a pilgrimage to Africa and its people, and it features local drums and percussion, with more drums, percussion, other musical instruments and occasional lead vocals added by Copeland. The album was the official soundtrack to the movie of the same name, which was co-written by Stewart. Copeland is seen in the film playing the drums in a cage with lions surrounding him.
The band attempted a reunion in 1986, but the project fell apart.
Solo projects and movie soundtracks (1987–1998)
After the Police disbanded, Copeland established a career composing soundtracks for movies (Airborne, Talk Radio, Wall Street, Riff Raff, Raining Stones, Surviving the Game, See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Highlander II: The Quickening, She's Having a Baby, The First Power, Fresh, Taking Care of Business, West Beirut, I am David, Riding the Bus with My Sister, Good Burger), television (The Equalizer, Dead Like Me, Star Wars: Droids, the pilot for Babylon 5 (1993), Nickelodeon's The Amanda Show, The Life and Times of Juniper Lee), operas (Holy Blood and Crescent Moon, commissioned by Cleveland Opera) and ballets (Prey' Ballet Oklahoma, Casque of Amontillado, Noah's Ark/Solcheeka, commissioned by the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, King Lear, commissioned by the San Francisco Ballet Company, Emilio). In 1996, Copeland provided the score for The Leopard Son, Discovery Channel's its first commercially released full-length feature film, made by wildlife filmmaker Hugo van Lawick.
Copeland also occasionally played drums for other artists. Peter Gabriel employed Copeland to perform on his song "Red Rain" from his 1986 album So because of his "hi-hat mastery". He has also performed with Mike Rutherford and Tom Waits. That year he also teamed with Adam Ant to record the title track and video for the Anthony Michael Hall movie Out of Bounds. In 1989, Copeland formed Animal Logic with jazz bassist Stanley Clarke and singer-songwriter Deborah Holland. The trio had success with their first album and world tour but the follow-up recording sold poorly, and the band did not continue.
In 1993 he composed the music for Channel 4's Horse Opera and director Bob Baldwin, and in 1999, he provided the voice of an additional American soldier in the animated musical comedy war film South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (1999).
Spyro the Dragon soundtracks (1998–2002, 2018)
He was commissioned by Insomniac Games in 1998 to make the musical score for the hit PlayStation game Spyro the Dragon. Copeland would play through the levels first to get a feel for each one before composing the soundtrack. He also stayed with the project to create the musical scores for the remaining Insomniac sequels Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage! and Spyro: Year of the Dragon. The franchise shifted over to Universal for the fourth title, Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly, which would be Copeland's last outing with the series. While the soundtracks never saw commercial release, the limited edition of the fourth game came packaged with a bonus CD, containing unused tracks. The soundtracks were very well received, and one track would later appear on the 2007 compilation album The Stewart Copeland Anthology. Copeland composed a new title theme for Spyro Reignited Trilogy.
This period also saw Copeland compose the soundtrack for Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare, his only video game soundtrack outside of the Spyro franchise to date. In 2000, he combined with Les Claypool of Primus (with whom he produced a track on the Primus album Antipop) and Trey Anastasio of Phish to create the band Oysterhead. That same year, he was approached by director Adam Collis to assemble the score for the film Sunset Strip.
Collaborations (2002–2006)
In 2002, Copeland was hired by Ray Manzarek and Robby Krieger of the Doors to play with them for a new album and tour, but after an injury sidelined Copeland, the arrangement ended in reciprocal lawsuits. In 2005, Copeland released "Orchestralli", a live recording of chamber ensemble music which he had composed during a short tour of Italy in 2002. Also in 2005, Copeland started Gizmo, a new project with avant-garde guitarist David Fiuczynski, multi-instrumentalist Vittorio Cosma, singer Raiz and bassist Max Gazzè. The band made their U.S debut on September 16, 2006, at the Modern Drummer Drum Festival. In January 2006, Copeland premiered his film about the Police called Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out at the Sundance Film Festival. In February and March, he appeared as one of the judges on the BBC television show Just the Two of Us (a role he later reprised for a second series in January 2007).
The Police reunion (2007–2008)
At the 2007 Grammy Awards, Copeland, Andy Summers and Sting performed the song "Roxanne" together again as the Police. This marked the band's first public performance since 1986 (they had previously reunited only for an improvised set at Sting's wedding party in 1992 and for their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2003). One day later, the band announced that in celebration of the Police's 30th anniversary, they would be embarking on what turned out to be a one-off reunion tour on May 28, 2007. During the tour, Copeland also released his compilation album The Stewart Copeland Anthology, which was composed of his independent work.
In 2007, the French government appointed Copeland (along with Police bandmates Summers and Sting) a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.
The group performed 151 dates across five continents, concluding with a final show in August 2008 at Madison Square Garden, New York.
Projects (2008–present)
In 2008, RIM commissioned Copeland to write a "soundtrack" for the BlackBerry Bold smart phone. He created a highly percussive theme of one minute's length from which he evolved six ringtones and a softer 'alarm tone' that are preloaded on the device.
In March 2008, he premiered his orchestral composition "Celeste" at "An Evening with Stewart Copeland", part of the Savannah Music Festival. The performance featured classical violinist Daniel Hope. His appearance at Savannah included a screening of Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out and a question and answer session. Also in 2008, he was commissioned by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra to create a percussion piece involving primarily Indonesian instruments. "Gamelan D'Drum" was first performed in Dallas on February 5, 2012, and had its European Premiere at the Royal Academy of Music in London in July 2012.
On August 21, 2009, at SummerFest 2009, Copeland unveiled the composition "Retail Therapy", which was commissioned by the Music Society. He performed three more original works: "Kaya", "Celeste", and "Gene Pool", the last accompanied by San Diego-based percussion ensemble red fish blue fish. He attended a composer's roundtable and a question and answer discussion in conjunction with the festival. Copeland wrote the score for a theatrical presentation of Ben-Hur, which premiered on September 17, 2009, at the O2 Arena in London. He provided English-language narration of the production, which is performed in Latin and Aramaic. His memoir Strange Things Happen: A Life with The Police, Polo, and Pygmies was released by Harper Collins in September 2009. The book chronicles events in his life from childhood through his work with the Police and to the present. In October 2009, he was a guest on Private Passions, the biographical music discussion program on BBC Radio 3.
On May 24, 2011, he started a YouTube channel devoted to his videos and project updates. On this channel, he uploads performances with various musicians, including Primus, Andy Summers, Jeff Lynne, Snoop Dogg, and others in his home studio, which he refers to as the Sacred Grove. On August 24, 2011, he was a featured soloist on the Late Show with David Letterman, as part of their second "Drum Solo Week".
On January 10, 2012, he appeared on an episode of the A&E reality series Storage Wars to appraise a drum set for Barry Weiss, buying a Turkish cymbal from the set for $40. In July he reunited with former Animal Logic bandmate Stanley Clarke for a European tour.
In May 2013, he and the Long Beach Opera premiered The Tale Tell Heart, an opera based on the short story by Edgar Allan Poe.
On November 26, 2013, he appeared in the first episode of The Tim Ferriss Experiment.
In 2017, he formed the supergroup Gizmodrome with Adrian Belew, Vittorio Cosma, and Mark King and released an album of the same name.
On September 5, 2021, the opera Electric Saint about the life of Nikola Tesla by Copeland with libretto by Jonathan Moore premiered at the National Theater of Weimar.
Personal life
Copeland grew up in Beirut. In 1974, he became romantically involved with Curved Air vocalist Sonja Kristina; they were married from 1982 to 1991. He adopted her son Sven from a previous relationship, and they had two sons of their own named Jordan and Scott. In 1981, he fathered a son named Patrick with Marina Guinness, the daughter of Irish author Desmond Guinness. He currently lives in Los Angeles with his second wife, Fiona Dent, with whom he has three children named Eve, Grace, and Celeste.
Copeland's hobbies include rollerskating, cycling along the beach in Santa Monica, California, filmmaking, and playing polo. He is also active on his YouTube channel, where he uploads videos of himself and other musicians during jam sessions in his studio, the Sacred Grove.
Drumming style
Copeland grew up listening to a combination of Lebanese music, rock and roll, jazz, and reggae, but he selected from these styles what he needed rather than imitating them. In the 1980s, when many musicians were looking for bigger sound from bigger drums, he added Octobans. Invented by Tama Drums in 1978, Octobans consisted of eight six-inch drums in the shape of narrow tubes. He used another innovation, a splash cymbal based on a toy that he owned and that he helped Paiste design. He relied heavily on his 13" hi-hats.
Despite being left-handed, Copeland plays a right-handed drum kit, placing the hi-hats on his left and ride cymbal and floor toms on his right. He uses a wide dynamic range and demonstrates a proficiency of jazz-style articulation in his snare drum playing, interspersing strong back-beats with soft rim comping. During his years with the Police, he became known for engaging only the hi-hat with the bass drum to keep the beat.
In an interview with Modern Drummer, Copeland has cited Mitch Mitchell of the Jimi Hendrix Experience as a prime musical influence. He states that as a child, whenever he had a song or melody pop in his head, he would walk around wondering how Mitch Mitchell would drum to that particular tune. He also named Sandy Nelson and Ginger Baker as other fundamental influences in the youth years. He has stated that due to his 'enforced listening' of Buddy Rich, he considers himself 'allergic to jazz.'
He is noted for his strong emphasis on the groove as a complement to the song, rather than as its core component. He once drove this point home at a drum clinic: Copeland announced that he would show the audience something "that very few modern drummers can do" and proceeded to play a simple rock beat for two minutes. Nonetheless, his playing often incorporates spectacular fills and subtle inflections which greatly augment the groove. Compared to most of his 1980s contemporaries, his snare sound was bright and cutting. He is also one of the few rock drummers to use traditional grip rather than matched grip. He is also noted for syncopation in his drumming.
Equipment
Copeland's equipment includes Tama drums, Paiste cymbals, Remo drum heads, and Vater signature drum sticks.
Original live kit set-up (1984)
Tama Imperialstar Mahogany Drums (9-ply) and Paiste Cymbals:
Drums – Midnight Blue
10x8" Rack Tom
12x8" Rack Tom
13x9" Rack Tom
16x16" Floor Tom
14x5" Pearl Chrome over Brass Snare
22x14" Bass Drum
Tama Octobans Low Pitch (x4)
Cowbell
Wood Blocks
Cymbals – Paiste
13" Formula 602 Medium Hi-Hats
16" 2002 Crash
8" 2002 Bell
7.5 Ufip Ictus Bell
8" 2002 Splash (x2)
11" 2002 Splash
14" (or 16") Rude Crash/Ride
16" (or 18") Rude Crash/Ride
18" 2002 Medium
24" Rude Ride/Crash
20" 2002 China
Simmons (x2) Pads (to his left)
Assorted Percussion
Stewart also used Calato Regal Tip Rock Wood Tipped Drumsticks
The Police Reunion (2007–2008) tour kit
Tama Starclassic Maple Drums and Paiste Cymbals:
Drums – Custom Police Blue Sparkle Maple Wood
10x8" Tom
12x8" Tom (To the left of his snare drum)
13x9" Tom
16x16" Floor Tom
18x16" Floor Tom
20x14" Tama Gong Drum
22x18" Bass Drum
14x5" Tama SC145 Stewart Copeland Signature Snare
Tama Custom Police Blue Sparkle Octobans (x4) (custom made for Copeland)
Cymbals – Paiste
12" Prototype Micro Hi-Hats
16" Signature Full Crash
17" Signature Fast Crash
18" Signature Fast Crash
18" Signature Full Crash
18" 2002 Flat Ride (prototype)
22" Signature Blue Bell Ride
10" Signature Splash
8" Signature Bell
8" Signature Prototype Splash
Assorted percussion
Stewart also uses his own Vater Stewart Copeland Standard Sticks.
Discography
Studio albums
Film scores
TV series
Video games
See also
List of drummers
Membranophone (list of drums)
References
External links
Copeland's official site
1952 births
Living people
A&M Records artists
American expatriates in Egypt
American expatriates in Lebanon
American expatriates in the United Kingdom
American film score composers
American male film score composers
American people of Scottish descent
American rock drummers
The Police members
Curved Air members
People educated at Millfield
Musicians from Alexandria, Virginia
Musicians from Beirut
Video game composers
United States International University alumni
Chevaliers of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
20th-century American drummers
American male drummers
Copeland family
Oysterhead members
Gizmodrome members
Strontium 90 (band) members
| false |
[
"Ian Adie Copeland (April 25, 1949 – May 23, 2006) was an American music promoter and booking agent who helped launch the new wave movement in the United States.\n\nEarly life\nCopeland was born in Rif Dimashq near Damascus, Syria, the second of four children born to CIA officer Miles Copeland, Jr. and his wife Lorraine Copeland (née Adie), an archaeologist. His older brother Miles Copeland III founded I.R.S. Records and his younger brother Stewart Copeland is the drummer in The Police. His younger sister Lorraine (nicknamed \"Lennie\") is a writer and producer.\n\nAfter a wayward youth growing up in the Middle East, where he was part of a gang involved in petty crime, Copeland enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1967 at the height of the Vietnam War. He was assigned to the 1st Infantry Division and was promoted to the rank of sergeant at age 19. He served with distinction and was awarded the Bronze Star Medal amongst other decorations. It was during his tour of duty in Vietnam that he earned the nickname \"Leroy Coolbreeze\". Although Copeland later had misgivings about the Vietnam War, he was proud to have fought for his country.\n\nMusic industry\nCopeland began his career in the music industry with the help of his brother Miles, first as a tour manager for Wishbone Ash, and then as a booking agent in London at John Sherry Enterprises, where he discovered the Average White Band and other artists. In 1977, he moved to Macon, Georgia to work for the Paragon Agency booking tours for rock groups. Ian and Miles developed a strategy of using small venues and clubs to break the British band Squeeze in the North American market, a formula they would repeat with other bands. Around this time he also helped his brother Stewart write the lyrics of the song \"Nothing Achieving\", which became the B-side of The Police's first single \"Fall Out\". Although officially uncredited, Copeland also contributed lyrics to Stewart Copeland's single \"Too Kool to Kalypso\" and The Police's \"Dead End Job\".\n\nIn 1979, Copeland founded Frontier Booking International (FBI) in New York, a talent agency that represented many of the premier new wave acts of the 1980s, including the B-52's, The Cure, The Police, Simple Minds, The English Beat, and The Go-Go's. The agency grew to include hundreds of diverse musical performers on its roster (including the Buzzcocks, Nine Inch Nails, Concrete Blonde, The Mission (UK), Iggy Pop, General Public, Charlie Peacock, Let's Active, R.E.M., Sting, and Morrissey), as well as representing actors. The music division of FBI was merged into InterTalent Agency in 1992, and Copeland moved to Los Angeles soon thereafter.\n\nPersonal life\nCopeland married Constance \"Connie\" Walden of Macon, and they had two daughters (Chandra and Barbara) before divorcing.\n\nCopeland's other romantic partners included FBI client Marianne Faithfull and his former FBI receptionist and step-cousin Courteney Cox, with whom he had a three-year relationship in the 1980s after his divorce from Connie.\n\nAlong with his brothers, Stewart and Miles, Ian was honoree and recipient of the Humanitarian Award from the AMC Cancer Research Center in 1985. The awards program noted:\nSeventeen years ago, the first AMC Humanitarian Award went to Judy Holliday, a brilliant musical star and actress. Tonight, we are proud to continue the tradition and honor Miles, Ian, and Stewart Copeland and their famous, and oftentimes infamous, contributions to the music and entertainment industry. Early in each of their individual careers, the Copeland Brothers were considered mavericks – the new frontiersman. Miles, attending to music management; Ian, involved as a music agent; and, Stewart, a talented composer, engaged as a drummer in The Police – all were iconoclasts. While they were bucking the established institution, practices and attitudes of the music industry, they were on the cutting edge of pioneering \"new music\" into the United States. Their methods, once scorned, are now imitated. It is fitting that we pay tribute to the Copeland Brothers and their pioneering spirit.\n\nCopeland published an autobiography, Wild Thing in 1995. In 1997 he opened the Backstage Cafe bar and restaurant in Beverly Hills which he owned and operated until his death from melanoma at age 57. The funeral was held at House of Blues on Sunset Blvd in Los Angeles.\n\nReferences\n\nBibliography\n Ian Copeland, Wild Thing: The Backstage, On the Road, In the Studio, Off the Charts Memoirs of Ian Copeland, Simon & Schuster, 1995.\n\nExternal links\n Backstage Cafe\n Pictures of his 2003 birthday at the Backstage Cafe\n\n1949 births\n2006 deaths\nPeople from Beverly Hills, California\nDeaths from melanoma\nAmerican talent agents\nPeople from Damascus\nThe Police\nBurials at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery\nCopeland family\nAmerican expatriates in Syria",
"Miles Axe Copeland III (born May 2, 1944) is an American music and entertainment executive and former manager of The Police. Copeland later managed Sting's musical and acting career. In 1979, Copeland founded the I.R.S. Records label, producing R.E.M., The Bangles, Berlin, The Cramps, Dead Kennedys, The Alarm, The Go-Go's, and others.\n\nEarly life, family and education\n\nCopeland was born in London, England, to Miles Axe Copeland Jr., a US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer from Birmingham, Alabama, US; and Lorraine Adie, a Scottish archaeologist who worked in British intelligence. They had three sons: Ian, Miles, and Stewart, and a daughter, Leonora. The family lived in the Washington, DC, area and throughout the Middle East, in particular Syria, Egypt, and Lebanon. At an early age, Copeland and his brothers were fluent in Arabic.\n\nCopeland attended Birmingham-Southern College in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1962. He graduated with a degree in history and political science, as well as a semester at American University in Washington, DC. From 1966 to 1969, Copeland attended the American University of Beirut, earning a degree in economics.\n\nCareer\nWhile attending school in Beirut to earn his economics degree, Copeland promoted his first concert. After college, he moved to London, met two progressive rock musicians at a club, and helped them form Wishbone Ash.\n\nBTM and Illegal Records\nIn 1974, Copeland founded the management agency and record label BTM (British Talent Management) and signed a number of progressive rock acts such as Squeeze, Renaissance and Curved Air. In the summer of 1975, he organized a multi-band tour of European music festivals, named Startruckin' 75, which featured several BTM bands as well as Soft Machine, the Mahavishnu Orchestra and Lou Reed (replaced by Ike & Tina Turner). However, Reed's failure to appear at any of the shows and other logistical issues resulted in significant losses for Startruckin 75', and ultimately to the failure of BTM. Copeland filed for bankruptcy and BTM closed down in 1976.\n\nBTM's end coincided with the beginning of the UK's Punk/New Wave movement and led Copeland to co-found Illegal Records, Deptford Fun City Records, New Bristol Records, and to sign the Cortinas, Chelsea, and the Models to Step Forward Records in 1977. Copeland's office was the headquarters for Sniffin' Glue and Other Rock 'N' Roll Habits..., a monthly punk zine by Mark Perry.\n\nThe Police\nIn 1978, Copeland became manager of his brother Stewart's band, The Police. Copeland shepherded the group to become one of the biggest bands of the 1980s, peaking with a concert for 70,000 people at Shea Stadium and the number one single for 1983, \"Every Breath You Take\". He continued to manage Sting through seven solo albums. Copeland was not, however, included in the reunion era of The Police, leading to a 2007 interview in which Copeland lamented that money was the issue.\n\nI.R.S. Records\nThe success of The Police and the novel methods used to popularize them enabled Copeland to found I.R.S. Records through a deal with A&M Records. Copeland's I.R.S. label had hits with the Buzzcocks, R.E.M., The Cramps, Fine Young Cannibals, The Bangles and many others, including a number one album with his label's group The Go-Go's.\n\nCopeland International Arts\nCopeland owns and operates CIA (Copeland International Arts), which includes the Bellydance Superstars, Celtic Crossroads, Otros Aires, Zohar, and Beats Antique. Much of the CIA catalog initially included Middle Eastern, world music, Irish, tango, flamenco, and Polynesian styles. The label later signed mainstream artists.\n\nPersonal life\nAnother of Copeland's brothers, Ian Copeland, was a booking agent who described much of the New Wave adventures of Miles, Stewart and himself in his book Wild Thing (1995, Simon & Schuster, ). The three brothers were honored with the Humanitarian Award from AMC Cancer Research Center in 1985.\n\nSee also\n Bellydance Superstars\n Ark 21\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Official website\n Transcript of Miles Copeland III on Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher\n\nBirmingham–Southern College alumni\nAmerican record producers\nAmerican music industry executives\n1944 births\nLiving people\nThe Police\nI.R.S. Records\nCopeland family"
] |
[
"Stewart Copeland",
"The Police (1977-1986)",
"When were The Police founded?",
"1976,",
"Where were they founded?",
"I don't know.",
"Who were the founding members?",
"lead singer-bass guitarist Sting and guitarist Henry Padovani (who was soon replaced by Andy Summers",
"How did they meet?",
"I don't know.",
"Did Copeland write the music for the Police?",
"Andy Summers), and they became one of the top bands of the 1980s. The Police's early track list was mostly made of Copeland's compositions,"
] |
C_59773acc2ace44b3a9056161d5aa2baf_1
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Who else wrote music for The Police?
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Who else wrote music for The Police besides Copeland?
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Stewart Copeland
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In late 1976, Copeland founded the Police with lead singer-bass guitarist Sting and guitarist Henry Padovani (who was soon replaced by Andy Summers), and they became one of the top bands of the 1980s. The Police's early track list was mostly made of Copeland's compositions, including the band's first single "Fall Out" (Illegal Records, 1977) and the B side "Nothing Achieving". Though Copeland's songwriting contribution was reduced to a couple of songs per album as Sting started writing more material, he continued to co-arrange all the Police's songs with his two bandmates. Amongst Copeland's most notable songs are "On Any Other Day" (where he sang lead vocals too), "Does Everyone Stare" (later to be used as the title of his documentary on the band Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out), "Contact", "Bombs Away", "Darkness" and "Miss Gradenko". Copeland also co-wrote a number of songs with Sting, including "Peanuts", "Landlord", "It's Alright for You" and "Re-Humanize Yourself". Copeland also recorded under the pseudonym Klark Kent, releasing several UK singles in 1978 with one ("Don't Care") entering the UK Singles Chart that year, along with an eponymously titled 10-inch album on green vinyl released in 1980. Recorded at Nigel Gray's Surrey Sound Studio, Copeland played all the instruments and sang the lead vocals himself. Kent's "Don't Care", which peaked at #48 UK in August 1978, actually predates the first chart single by the Police by several months ("Can't Stand Losing You", issued in October 1978) as "Don't Care" was released in early June 1978. In 1982 Copeland was involved in the production of a WOMAD benefit album called Music and Rhythm. Copeland's score for Rumble Fish secured him a Golden Globe nomination in 1983. The film, directed and produced by Francis Ford Coppola from the S. E. Hinton novel, also had a song released to radio on A&M Records "Don't Box Me In" (UK Singles Chart n. 91)--a collaboration between Copeland and singer/songwriter Stan Ridgway, leader of the band Wall of Voodoo--that received significant airplay upon release of the film that year. The Police stopped touring in 1984, and during this brief hiatus he released a solo album, The Rhythmatist. The record was the result of a pilgrimage to Africa and its people, and it features local drums and percussion, with more drums, percussion, other musical instruments and occasional lead vocals added by Copeland. The album was the official soundtrack to the movie of the same name, which was co-written by Stewart. He also starred in the film, which is "A musical odyssey through the heart of Africa in search of the roots of rock & roll." (Copeland is seen playing the drums in a cage with lions surrounding him.) The band attempted a reunion in 1986, but the project fell apart. CANNOTANSWER
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Though Copeland's songwriting contribution was reduced to a couple of songs per album as Sting started writing more
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Stewart Armstrong Copeland (born July 16, 1952) is an American musician and composer. He rose to prominence as the drummer of the British rock band The Police. He has also produced many film and video game soundtracks and written various pieces of music for ballet, opera, and orchestra. His composing work includes the films Wall Street (1987), Good Burger (1997), and We Are Your Friends (2015); the television series The Equalizer, Dead Like Me, and The Amanda Show; and the video games Alone in the Dark 4 and the Spyro series.
According to MusicRadar, Copeland's "distinctive drum sound and uniqueness of style has made him one of the most popular drummers to ever get behind a drumset". He was ranked the 10th best drummer of all time by Rolling Stone in 2016. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Police in 2003, the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame in 2005, and the Classic Drummer Hall of Fame in 2013.
Early life
Stewart Armstrong Copeland was born in Alexandria, Virginia, on July 16, 1952, the youngest of four children of Scottish archaeologist Lorraine Adie and Alabama-born CIA officer Miles Copeland Jr. According to his 1989 biography and files released by the CIA in 2008, his father was a founding member of the OSS and the CIA. The family moved to Cairo a few months after Copeland's birth. When he was five years old, the family moved to Beirut, where he attended the American Community School. He started taking drum lessons at age 12 and was playing drums for school dances within a year. He later moved to England, attending the American School in London and Millfield boarding school in Somerset from 1967 to 1969. He went to college in California, enrolling at Alliant International University and the University of California, Berkeley. His eldest brother, Miles Copeland III, founded I.R.S. Records and became the manager of the Police. He has also overseen Copeland's interests in other music projects. His other brother, the late Ian Copeland, was a pioneering booking agent who represented the Police and many others.
Career
Curved Air (1975–1976)
Returning to England, Copeland worked as road manager for the progressive rock band Curved Air's 1974 reunion tour, and then as drummer for the band during 1975 and 1976. The band kicked off with a European tour, which started poorly. Band leader Darryl Way, a notorious perfectionist, grew impatient with the struggling of his bandmates, especially novice drummer Copeland. Then, for reasons no one could pinpoint, the musicians suddenly "clicked" with each other and the band caught fire, quickly becoming a popular and acclaimed live act.
The Police (1977–1986)
In early 1977, Copeland founded the Police with lead singer-bass guitarist Sting and guitarist Henry Padovani (who was soon replaced by Andy Summers), and they became one of the top bands of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Copeland was the youngest member of the band. The Police's early track list (before their album debut) was largely Copeland compositions, including the band's first single "Fall Out" (Illegal Records, 1977) and the B-side "Nothing Achieving". Though Copeland's songwriting contribution was reduced to a couple of songs per album as Sting started writing more material, he continued to co-arrange all the Police's songs together with his two bandmates. Amongst Copeland's most notable songs are "On Any Other Day" (where he also sang lead vocals), "Does Everyone Stare" (later to be used as the title of his documentary on the band Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out), "Contact", "Bombs Away", "Darkness" and "Miss Gradenko". Copeland also co-wrote a number of songs with Sting, including "Peanuts", "Landlord", "It's Alright for You" and "Re-Humanize Yourself".
Copeland also recorded under the pseudonym Klark Kent, releasing several UK singles in 1978 with one ("Don't Care") entering the UK Singles Chart that year, along with an eponymous 10-inch album on green vinyl released in 1980. Recording at Nigel Gray's Surrey Sound Studio, Copeland played all the instruments and sang the lead vocals himself. Kent's "Don't Care", which peaked at No. 48 UK in August 1978, actually predates the first chart single by the Police by several months ("Can't Stand Losing You", issued in October 1978) as "Don't Care" was released in early June 1978.
In 1982, Copeland was involved in the production of a WOMAD benefit album called Music and Rhythm. Copeland's score for Rumble Fish secured him a Golden Globe nomination in 1983. The film, directed and produced by Francis Ford Coppola from the S. E. Hinton novel, also had a song released to radio on A&M Records "Don't Box Me In" (UK Singles Chart n. 91)—a collaboration between Copeland and singer-songwriter Stan Ridgway, leader of the band Wall of Voodoo—that received significant airplay upon release of the film that year.
The Rhythmatist record of 1985 was the result of a pilgrimage to Africa and its people, and it features local drums and percussion, with more drums, percussion, other musical instruments and occasional lead vocals added by Copeland. The album was the official soundtrack to the movie of the same name, which was co-written by Stewart. Copeland is seen in the film playing the drums in a cage with lions surrounding him.
The band attempted a reunion in 1986, but the project fell apart.
Solo projects and movie soundtracks (1987–1998)
After the Police disbanded, Copeland established a career composing soundtracks for movies (Airborne, Talk Radio, Wall Street, Riff Raff, Raining Stones, Surviving the Game, See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Highlander II: The Quickening, She's Having a Baby, The First Power, Fresh, Taking Care of Business, West Beirut, I am David, Riding the Bus with My Sister, Good Burger), television (The Equalizer, Dead Like Me, Star Wars: Droids, the pilot for Babylon 5 (1993), Nickelodeon's The Amanda Show, The Life and Times of Juniper Lee), operas (Holy Blood and Crescent Moon, commissioned by Cleveland Opera) and ballets (Prey' Ballet Oklahoma, Casque of Amontillado, Noah's Ark/Solcheeka, commissioned by the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, King Lear, commissioned by the San Francisco Ballet Company, Emilio). In 1996, Copeland provided the score for The Leopard Son, Discovery Channel's its first commercially released full-length feature film, made by wildlife filmmaker Hugo van Lawick.
Copeland also occasionally played drums for other artists. Peter Gabriel employed Copeland to perform on his song "Red Rain" from his 1986 album So because of his "hi-hat mastery". He has also performed with Mike Rutherford and Tom Waits. That year he also teamed with Adam Ant to record the title track and video for the Anthony Michael Hall movie Out of Bounds. In 1989, Copeland formed Animal Logic with jazz bassist Stanley Clarke and singer-songwriter Deborah Holland. The trio had success with their first album and world tour but the follow-up recording sold poorly, and the band did not continue.
In 1993 he composed the music for Channel 4's Horse Opera and director Bob Baldwin, and in 1999, he provided the voice of an additional American soldier in the animated musical comedy war film South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (1999).
Spyro the Dragon soundtracks (1998–2002, 2018)
He was commissioned by Insomniac Games in 1998 to make the musical score for the hit PlayStation game Spyro the Dragon. Copeland would play through the levels first to get a feel for each one before composing the soundtrack. He also stayed with the project to create the musical scores for the remaining Insomniac sequels Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage! and Spyro: Year of the Dragon. The franchise shifted over to Universal for the fourth title, Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly, which would be Copeland's last outing with the series. While the soundtracks never saw commercial release, the limited edition of the fourth game came packaged with a bonus CD, containing unused tracks. The soundtracks were very well received, and one track would later appear on the 2007 compilation album The Stewart Copeland Anthology. Copeland composed a new title theme for Spyro Reignited Trilogy.
This period also saw Copeland compose the soundtrack for Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare, his only video game soundtrack outside of the Spyro franchise to date. In 2000, he combined with Les Claypool of Primus (with whom he produced a track on the Primus album Antipop) and Trey Anastasio of Phish to create the band Oysterhead. That same year, he was approached by director Adam Collis to assemble the score for the film Sunset Strip.
Collaborations (2002–2006)
In 2002, Copeland was hired by Ray Manzarek and Robby Krieger of the Doors to play with them for a new album and tour, but after an injury sidelined Copeland, the arrangement ended in reciprocal lawsuits. In 2005, Copeland released "Orchestralli", a live recording of chamber ensemble music which he had composed during a short tour of Italy in 2002. Also in 2005, Copeland started Gizmo, a new project with avant-garde guitarist David Fiuczynski, multi-instrumentalist Vittorio Cosma, singer Raiz and bassist Max Gazzè. The band made their U.S debut on September 16, 2006, at the Modern Drummer Drum Festival. In January 2006, Copeland premiered his film about the Police called Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out at the Sundance Film Festival. In February and March, he appeared as one of the judges on the BBC television show Just the Two of Us (a role he later reprised for a second series in January 2007).
The Police reunion (2007–2008)
At the 2007 Grammy Awards, Copeland, Andy Summers and Sting performed the song "Roxanne" together again as the Police. This marked the band's first public performance since 1986 (they had previously reunited only for an improvised set at Sting's wedding party in 1992 and for their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2003). One day later, the band announced that in celebration of the Police's 30th anniversary, they would be embarking on what turned out to be a one-off reunion tour on May 28, 2007. During the tour, Copeland also released his compilation album The Stewart Copeland Anthology, which was composed of his independent work.
In 2007, the French government appointed Copeland (along with Police bandmates Summers and Sting) a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.
The group performed 151 dates across five continents, concluding with a final show in August 2008 at Madison Square Garden, New York.
Projects (2008–present)
In 2008, RIM commissioned Copeland to write a "soundtrack" for the BlackBerry Bold smart phone. He created a highly percussive theme of one minute's length from which he evolved six ringtones and a softer 'alarm tone' that are preloaded on the device.
In March 2008, he premiered his orchestral composition "Celeste" at "An Evening with Stewart Copeland", part of the Savannah Music Festival. The performance featured classical violinist Daniel Hope. His appearance at Savannah included a screening of Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out and a question and answer session. Also in 2008, he was commissioned by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra to create a percussion piece involving primarily Indonesian instruments. "Gamelan D'Drum" was first performed in Dallas on February 5, 2012, and had its European Premiere at the Royal Academy of Music in London in July 2012.
On August 21, 2009, at SummerFest 2009, Copeland unveiled the composition "Retail Therapy", which was commissioned by the Music Society. He performed three more original works: "Kaya", "Celeste", and "Gene Pool", the last accompanied by San Diego-based percussion ensemble red fish blue fish. He attended a composer's roundtable and a question and answer discussion in conjunction with the festival. Copeland wrote the score for a theatrical presentation of Ben-Hur, which premiered on September 17, 2009, at the O2 Arena in London. He provided English-language narration of the production, which is performed in Latin and Aramaic. His memoir Strange Things Happen: A Life with The Police, Polo, and Pygmies was released by Harper Collins in September 2009. The book chronicles events in his life from childhood through his work with the Police and to the present. In October 2009, he was a guest on Private Passions, the biographical music discussion program on BBC Radio 3.
On May 24, 2011, he started a YouTube channel devoted to his videos and project updates. On this channel, he uploads performances with various musicians, including Primus, Andy Summers, Jeff Lynne, Snoop Dogg, and others in his home studio, which he refers to as the Sacred Grove. On August 24, 2011, he was a featured soloist on the Late Show with David Letterman, as part of their second "Drum Solo Week".
On January 10, 2012, he appeared on an episode of the A&E reality series Storage Wars to appraise a drum set for Barry Weiss, buying a Turkish cymbal from the set for $40. In July he reunited with former Animal Logic bandmate Stanley Clarke for a European tour.
In May 2013, he and the Long Beach Opera premiered The Tale Tell Heart, an opera based on the short story by Edgar Allan Poe.
On November 26, 2013, he appeared in the first episode of The Tim Ferriss Experiment.
In 2017, he formed the supergroup Gizmodrome with Adrian Belew, Vittorio Cosma, and Mark King and released an album of the same name.
On September 5, 2021, the opera Electric Saint about the life of Nikola Tesla by Copeland with libretto by Jonathan Moore premiered at the National Theater of Weimar.
Personal life
Copeland grew up in Beirut. In 1974, he became romantically involved with Curved Air vocalist Sonja Kristina; they were married from 1982 to 1991. He adopted her son Sven from a previous relationship, and they had two sons of their own named Jordan and Scott. In 1981, he fathered a son named Patrick with Marina Guinness, the daughter of Irish author Desmond Guinness. He currently lives in Los Angeles with his second wife, Fiona Dent, with whom he has three children named Eve, Grace, and Celeste.
Copeland's hobbies include rollerskating, cycling along the beach in Santa Monica, California, filmmaking, and playing polo. He is also active on his YouTube channel, where he uploads videos of himself and other musicians during jam sessions in his studio, the Sacred Grove.
Drumming style
Copeland grew up listening to a combination of Lebanese music, rock and roll, jazz, and reggae, but he selected from these styles what he needed rather than imitating them. In the 1980s, when many musicians were looking for bigger sound from bigger drums, he added Octobans. Invented by Tama Drums in 1978, Octobans consisted of eight six-inch drums in the shape of narrow tubes. He used another innovation, a splash cymbal based on a toy that he owned and that he helped Paiste design. He relied heavily on his 13" hi-hats.
Despite being left-handed, Copeland plays a right-handed drum kit, placing the hi-hats on his left and ride cymbal and floor toms on his right. He uses a wide dynamic range and demonstrates a proficiency of jazz-style articulation in his snare drum playing, interspersing strong back-beats with soft rim comping. During his years with the Police, he became known for engaging only the hi-hat with the bass drum to keep the beat.
In an interview with Modern Drummer, Copeland has cited Mitch Mitchell of the Jimi Hendrix Experience as a prime musical influence. He states that as a child, whenever he had a song or melody pop in his head, he would walk around wondering how Mitch Mitchell would drum to that particular tune. He also named Sandy Nelson and Ginger Baker as other fundamental influences in the youth years. He has stated that due to his 'enforced listening' of Buddy Rich, he considers himself 'allergic to jazz.'
He is noted for his strong emphasis on the groove as a complement to the song, rather than as its core component. He once drove this point home at a drum clinic: Copeland announced that he would show the audience something "that very few modern drummers can do" and proceeded to play a simple rock beat for two minutes. Nonetheless, his playing often incorporates spectacular fills and subtle inflections which greatly augment the groove. Compared to most of his 1980s contemporaries, his snare sound was bright and cutting. He is also one of the few rock drummers to use traditional grip rather than matched grip. He is also noted for syncopation in his drumming.
Equipment
Copeland's equipment includes Tama drums, Paiste cymbals, Remo drum heads, and Vater signature drum sticks.
Original live kit set-up (1984)
Tama Imperialstar Mahogany Drums (9-ply) and Paiste Cymbals:
Drums – Midnight Blue
10x8" Rack Tom
12x8" Rack Tom
13x9" Rack Tom
16x16" Floor Tom
14x5" Pearl Chrome over Brass Snare
22x14" Bass Drum
Tama Octobans Low Pitch (x4)
Cowbell
Wood Blocks
Cymbals – Paiste
13" Formula 602 Medium Hi-Hats
16" 2002 Crash
8" 2002 Bell
7.5 Ufip Ictus Bell
8" 2002 Splash (x2)
11" 2002 Splash
14" (or 16") Rude Crash/Ride
16" (or 18") Rude Crash/Ride
18" 2002 Medium
24" Rude Ride/Crash
20" 2002 China
Simmons (x2) Pads (to his left)
Assorted Percussion
Stewart also used Calato Regal Tip Rock Wood Tipped Drumsticks
The Police Reunion (2007–2008) tour kit
Tama Starclassic Maple Drums and Paiste Cymbals:
Drums – Custom Police Blue Sparkle Maple Wood
10x8" Tom
12x8" Tom (To the left of his snare drum)
13x9" Tom
16x16" Floor Tom
18x16" Floor Tom
20x14" Tama Gong Drum
22x18" Bass Drum
14x5" Tama SC145 Stewart Copeland Signature Snare
Tama Custom Police Blue Sparkle Octobans (x4) (custom made for Copeland)
Cymbals – Paiste
12" Prototype Micro Hi-Hats
16" Signature Full Crash
17" Signature Fast Crash
18" Signature Fast Crash
18" Signature Full Crash
18" 2002 Flat Ride (prototype)
22" Signature Blue Bell Ride
10" Signature Splash
8" Signature Bell
8" Signature Prototype Splash
Assorted percussion
Stewart also uses his own Vater Stewart Copeland Standard Sticks.
Discography
Studio albums
Film scores
TV series
Video games
See also
List of drummers
Membranophone (list of drums)
References
External links
Copeland's official site
1952 births
Living people
A&M Records artists
American expatriates in Egypt
American expatriates in Lebanon
American expatriates in the United Kingdom
American film score composers
American male film score composers
American people of Scottish descent
American rock drummers
The Police members
Curved Air members
People educated at Millfield
Musicians from Alexandria, Virginia
Musicians from Beirut
Video game composers
United States International University alumni
Chevaliers of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
20th-century American drummers
American male drummers
Copeland family
Oysterhead members
Gizmodrome members
Strontium 90 (band) members
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"Us or Else is the fourth extended play (EP) by American hip hop recording artist T.I. It was released through Tidal on September 23, 2016, by Grand Hustle Records and Roc Nation. The EP features guest appearances from Quavo, Meek Mill, RaRa, Big K.R.I.T. and Killer Mike, as well as production handled by Mars of 1500 or Nothin' and Mike & Keys, among others. The EP serves as the prequel to his long play (LP) record, titled Us or Else: Letter to the System, which was released in December 2016.\n\nBackground\nOn July 22, 2016, during an interview with Ebro in the Morning on Hot 97, T.I. announced an EP, titled Us or Else. The EP was described to \"be aimed at supporting the #BlackLivesMatter movement, and will speak explicitly about the twisted road race relations took in America to arrive at its current precarious state.\" The EP is also in response to the turmoil caused by the injustices going on in America, namely police brutality following the deaths of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling.\n\nT.I. said he was \"compelled\" to write the EP \"after the repeated deaths of unarmed black citizens at the hands of police.\" T.I. has said that he is \"late to the party\" when it comes to what he calls \"revolutionary art\": \"You know Common and Outkast and Public Enemy and KRS-One and Lupe [Fiasco] and Kendrick [Lamar] -- those are the ones. I am just the supporting cast in this particular genre. I felt like more people who stand in my position should be saying something. It seems like the people who have the broad audiences ... I guess for protection of their own success or legacy or brand, they chose not to say anything, and that it was I felt I didn't want to do.\"\n\nRelease and promotion \nOn July 5, 2016, Grand Hustle's resident disc jockey DJ MLK, released a song, titled \"40 Acres\" featuring T.I., RaRa and Rossi. On August 5, 2016, T.I. released the EP's first single, titled \"We Will Not\". The song was produced by his frequent collaborator Mars from the production team 1500 or Nothin'. On August 19, 2016, T.I. released the music video for \"We Will Not\". On August 31, 2016, T.I. released the EP's second single, titled \"Warzone\", with an accompanying music video one week later, exclusively through TIDAL. The music video for \"Warzone\", produced by Antwanette McLaughlin and directed by Laurel Richardson, \"imagines what it would look like if everyday white people were targeted by police. Taking that scenario one step further, we see reenactments of the murders of Tamir Rice (a 12-year-old killed by police, while playing with a toy gun in Cleveland), Eric Garner (who died after being placed in an apparent chokehold by NYC policemen) and Philando Castile (shot and killed by a St. Paul, Minnesota police officer during a traffic stop), with white actors in the victims's places. Footage of T.I. rapping the song's Black Lives Matter–inspired 'Hands up / Can't breathe\" chorus is interspersed throughout.\" T.I. has said the video is in response to the \"All Lives Matter\" slogan: \"We wanted to give 'the other side' -- and when I say the 'other side' I don't mean police, I don't mean white people, I mean people who think we're just overreacting, the 'All Lives Matter' people -- we wanted to give them the least amount of ammunition to oppose our message. And the way to do that, we thought, was to go with the most atrocious of all of the travesties. And don't get me wrong, there are still more that are equally atrocious, but for the purposes of our video ... those were the ones that seemed most effective.\" On September 30, 2016, the album was released via other digital distribution platforms such as Amazon and iTunes. In October 2016, T.I. performed \"We Will Not\" at the 2016 BET Hip Hop Awards, where he dressed as a member of the Black Panther Party and was surrounded by \"Black Lives Matter\" signs.\n\nCritical reception\n\nUs or Else received generally favorable reviews from music critics. Aaron McKrell of HipHopDX wrote, \"It's [the] conviction that keeps the EP from being just a collection of obligatory anthems. When Clifford Harris flirts with being self-righteous, it's his self-awareness that keeps him grounded. Us or Else is a commanding assortment of protest tunes strengthened by the passion of its composer.\" In Vice, Robert Christgau named \"40 Acres\" and \"Black Man\" the EP's highlights and wrote, \"Intelligent black man goes straight conscious while wisely ceding the EP's most intelligent rhyme to Killer Mike\".\n\nTrack listing\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\nT.I. albums\nRoc Nation albums\nGrand Hustle Records EPs\nSongs against racism and xenophobia\nAlbums produced by Lil' C (record producer)\nAlbums produced by Mars (record producer)\nConcept albums\nPolitical hip hop albums\nProtest songs\nPolitical rap songs\nWorks about police brutality\nSongs about police brutality",
"Jody Worth is an American television writer and producer. He has worked in both capacities on Deadwood and has been nominated for an Emmy Award and a Writers Guild of America Award for his work on the series. He is the son of producer and screenwriter Marvin Worth.\n\nBiography\n\n1980s\nWorth worked as a music supervisor for the film Up the Academy in 1980.\n\nHe made his television writing debut on the NBC police drama Hill Street Blues. He wrote the seventh season episode \"The Runner Falls on His Kisser\" in 1987. The series was created by Steven Bochco and Michael Kozoll. It marked Worth's first collaboration with David Milch - then an executive producer on Hill Street Blues.\n\n1990s\nHe was a music supervisor for the film Flashback in 1990.\n\nWorth became a writer for the first season of ABC police procedural NYPD Blue in 1994. The series was created by Steven Bochco and David Milch and centered on a homicide unit in New York. Worth wrote the story and co-wrote the teleplay (with producer Ted Mann) for the first season finale \"Rockin' Robin\". Worth returned to NYPD Blue as a writer for the fifth season in 1998. Worth wrote the episodes \"You're Under a Rasta\" and \"Speak for Yourself, Bruce Clayton\". He remained a writer for the sixth season in 1999. Worth wrote the teleplay for the episode \"Don't Meth with Me\" from a story by Milch and retired police detective Bill Clark.\n\nWorth was a music supervisor for the television feature Gia in 1998.\n\n2000s\nWorth became a regular writer for the seventh season of NYPD Blue in 2000. He wrote the teleplay for four episodes - \"A Hole in Juan\", \"Along Came Jones\", \"Little Abner\" and \"Goodbye Charlie\" - all from stories by David Milch and Bill Clark. Worth became a producer for the eighth season in January 2001 and wrote or co-wrote a further four episodes for the season. He co-wrote the season premiere \"Daveless in New York\" with Matt Olmstead. He also wrote the episodes \"Waking Up Is Hard to Do\", \"Russellmania\" and \"Nariz a Nariz\". Worth became a supervising producer for the ninth season in fall 2001 and wrote a further five episodes; \"Two Clarks in a Bar\", \"Puppy Love\", \"Oh, Mama!\", \"A Little Dad'll Do Ya\" and \"Dead Meat in New Deli\". Worth remained a supervising producer for the tenth season in 2002 and wrote or co-wrote a further three episodes. Worth wrote the episode \"One in the Nuts\". Olmstead and Nicholas Wootton co-wrote the teleplay for the episode \"Healthy McDowell Movement\" from a story Worth co-wrote with Clark. Worth and Clark also wrote the story for the episode \"Marine Life\". He left the crew at the end of the season having contributed as a writer to twenty episodes in total.\n\nWorth joined the crew of HBO Western drama Deadwood as a writer and producer for the first season in 2004. The series was created by Milch and focuses on the growth of a settlement in the American West. Worth wrote the episodes \"Reconnoitering the Rim\" and \"Bullock Returns to the Camp\". He became a supervising producer for the second season in 2005. He wrote the episodes \"A Lie Agreed Upon: Part II\" and \"E.B. Was Left Out\". Worth left the crew at the end of the second season. Worth and the production staff were nominated for the Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series at the 57th Primetime Emmy Awards in 2005 for their work on the second season. Worth and the writing staff were also nominated for a Writers Guild of America Award for Outstanding Drama Series at the February 2006 ceremony for their work on the second season.\n\nFilmography\n\nTelevision\nProduction staff\n\nWriter\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nAmerican television producers\nAmerican television writers\nAmerican male television writers\nLiving people\nPlace of birth missing (living people)\nYear of birth missing (living people)"
] |
[
"Stewart Copeland",
"The Police (1977-1986)",
"When were The Police founded?",
"1976,",
"Where were they founded?",
"I don't know.",
"Who were the founding members?",
"lead singer-bass guitarist Sting and guitarist Henry Padovani (who was soon replaced by Andy Summers",
"How did they meet?",
"I don't know.",
"Did Copeland write the music for the Police?",
"Andy Summers), and they became one of the top bands of the 1980s. The Police's early track list was mostly made of Copeland's compositions,",
"Who else wrote music for The Police?",
"Though Copeland's songwriting contribution was reduced to a couple of songs per album as Sting started writing more"
] |
C_59773acc2ace44b3a9056161d5aa2baf_1
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What else did Sting do for the Police?
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What else did Sting do for the Police other than writing songs?
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Stewart Copeland
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In late 1976, Copeland founded the Police with lead singer-bass guitarist Sting and guitarist Henry Padovani (who was soon replaced by Andy Summers), and they became one of the top bands of the 1980s. The Police's early track list was mostly made of Copeland's compositions, including the band's first single "Fall Out" (Illegal Records, 1977) and the B side "Nothing Achieving". Though Copeland's songwriting contribution was reduced to a couple of songs per album as Sting started writing more material, he continued to co-arrange all the Police's songs with his two bandmates. Amongst Copeland's most notable songs are "On Any Other Day" (where he sang lead vocals too), "Does Everyone Stare" (later to be used as the title of his documentary on the band Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out), "Contact", "Bombs Away", "Darkness" and "Miss Gradenko". Copeland also co-wrote a number of songs with Sting, including "Peanuts", "Landlord", "It's Alright for You" and "Re-Humanize Yourself". Copeland also recorded under the pseudonym Klark Kent, releasing several UK singles in 1978 with one ("Don't Care") entering the UK Singles Chart that year, along with an eponymously titled 10-inch album on green vinyl released in 1980. Recorded at Nigel Gray's Surrey Sound Studio, Copeland played all the instruments and sang the lead vocals himself. Kent's "Don't Care", which peaked at #48 UK in August 1978, actually predates the first chart single by the Police by several months ("Can't Stand Losing You", issued in October 1978) as "Don't Care" was released in early June 1978. In 1982 Copeland was involved in the production of a WOMAD benefit album called Music and Rhythm. Copeland's score for Rumble Fish secured him a Golden Globe nomination in 1983. The film, directed and produced by Francis Ford Coppola from the S. E. Hinton novel, also had a song released to radio on A&M Records "Don't Box Me In" (UK Singles Chart n. 91)--a collaboration between Copeland and singer/songwriter Stan Ridgway, leader of the band Wall of Voodoo--that received significant airplay upon release of the film that year. The Police stopped touring in 1984, and during this brief hiatus he released a solo album, The Rhythmatist. The record was the result of a pilgrimage to Africa and its people, and it features local drums and percussion, with more drums, percussion, other musical instruments and occasional lead vocals added by Copeland. The album was the official soundtrack to the movie of the same name, which was co-written by Stewart. He also starred in the film, which is "A musical odyssey through the heart of Africa in search of the roots of rock & roll." (Copeland is seen playing the drums in a cage with lions surrounding him.) The band attempted a reunion in 1986, but the project fell apart. CANNOTANSWER
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Copeland also co-wrote a number of songs with Sting,
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Stewart Armstrong Copeland (born July 16, 1952) is an American musician and composer. He rose to prominence as the drummer of the British rock band The Police. He has also produced many film and video game soundtracks and written various pieces of music for ballet, opera, and orchestra. His composing work includes the films Wall Street (1987), Good Burger (1997), and We Are Your Friends (2015); the television series The Equalizer, Dead Like Me, and The Amanda Show; and the video games Alone in the Dark 4 and the Spyro series.
According to MusicRadar, Copeland's "distinctive drum sound and uniqueness of style has made him one of the most popular drummers to ever get behind a drumset". He was ranked the 10th best drummer of all time by Rolling Stone in 2016. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Police in 2003, the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame in 2005, and the Classic Drummer Hall of Fame in 2013.
Early life
Stewart Armstrong Copeland was born in Alexandria, Virginia, on July 16, 1952, the youngest of four children of Scottish archaeologist Lorraine Adie and Alabama-born CIA officer Miles Copeland Jr. According to his 1989 biography and files released by the CIA in 2008, his father was a founding member of the OSS and the CIA. The family moved to Cairo a few months after Copeland's birth. When he was five years old, the family moved to Beirut, where he attended the American Community School. He started taking drum lessons at age 12 and was playing drums for school dances within a year. He later moved to England, attending the American School in London and Millfield boarding school in Somerset from 1967 to 1969. He went to college in California, enrolling at Alliant International University and the University of California, Berkeley. His eldest brother, Miles Copeland III, founded I.R.S. Records and became the manager of the Police. He has also overseen Copeland's interests in other music projects. His other brother, the late Ian Copeland, was a pioneering booking agent who represented the Police and many others.
Career
Curved Air (1975–1976)
Returning to England, Copeland worked as road manager for the progressive rock band Curved Air's 1974 reunion tour, and then as drummer for the band during 1975 and 1976. The band kicked off with a European tour, which started poorly. Band leader Darryl Way, a notorious perfectionist, grew impatient with the struggling of his bandmates, especially novice drummer Copeland. Then, for reasons no one could pinpoint, the musicians suddenly "clicked" with each other and the band caught fire, quickly becoming a popular and acclaimed live act.
The Police (1977–1986)
In early 1977, Copeland founded the Police with lead singer-bass guitarist Sting and guitarist Henry Padovani (who was soon replaced by Andy Summers), and they became one of the top bands of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Copeland was the youngest member of the band. The Police's early track list (before their album debut) was largely Copeland compositions, including the band's first single "Fall Out" (Illegal Records, 1977) and the B-side "Nothing Achieving". Though Copeland's songwriting contribution was reduced to a couple of songs per album as Sting started writing more material, he continued to co-arrange all the Police's songs together with his two bandmates. Amongst Copeland's most notable songs are "On Any Other Day" (where he also sang lead vocals), "Does Everyone Stare" (later to be used as the title of his documentary on the band Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out), "Contact", "Bombs Away", "Darkness" and "Miss Gradenko". Copeland also co-wrote a number of songs with Sting, including "Peanuts", "Landlord", "It's Alright for You" and "Re-Humanize Yourself".
Copeland also recorded under the pseudonym Klark Kent, releasing several UK singles in 1978 with one ("Don't Care") entering the UK Singles Chart that year, along with an eponymous 10-inch album on green vinyl released in 1980. Recording at Nigel Gray's Surrey Sound Studio, Copeland played all the instruments and sang the lead vocals himself. Kent's "Don't Care", which peaked at No. 48 UK in August 1978, actually predates the first chart single by the Police by several months ("Can't Stand Losing You", issued in October 1978) as "Don't Care" was released in early June 1978.
In 1982, Copeland was involved in the production of a WOMAD benefit album called Music and Rhythm. Copeland's score for Rumble Fish secured him a Golden Globe nomination in 1983. The film, directed and produced by Francis Ford Coppola from the S. E. Hinton novel, also had a song released to radio on A&M Records "Don't Box Me In" (UK Singles Chart n. 91)—a collaboration between Copeland and singer-songwriter Stan Ridgway, leader of the band Wall of Voodoo—that received significant airplay upon release of the film that year.
The Rhythmatist record of 1985 was the result of a pilgrimage to Africa and its people, and it features local drums and percussion, with more drums, percussion, other musical instruments and occasional lead vocals added by Copeland. The album was the official soundtrack to the movie of the same name, which was co-written by Stewart. Copeland is seen in the film playing the drums in a cage with lions surrounding him.
The band attempted a reunion in 1986, but the project fell apart.
Solo projects and movie soundtracks (1987–1998)
After the Police disbanded, Copeland established a career composing soundtracks for movies (Airborne, Talk Radio, Wall Street, Riff Raff, Raining Stones, Surviving the Game, See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Highlander II: The Quickening, She's Having a Baby, The First Power, Fresh, Taking Care of Business, West Beirut, I am David, Riding the Bus with My Sister, Good Burger), television (The Equalizer, Dead Like Me, Star Wars: Droids, the pilot for Babylon 5 (1993), Nickelodeon's The Amanda Show, The Life and Times of Juniper Lee), operas (Holy Blood and Crescent Moon, commissioned by Cleveland Opera) and ballets (Prey' Ballet Oklahoma, Casque of Amontillado, Noah's Ark/Solcheeka, commissioned by the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, King Lear, commissioned by the San Francisco Ballet Company, Emilio). In 1996, Copeland provided the score for The Leopard Son, Discovery Channel's its first commercially released full-length feature film, made by wildlife filmmaker Hugo van Lawick.
Copeland also occasionally played drums for other artists. Peter Gabriel employed Copeland to perform on his song "Red Rain" from his 1986 album So because of his "hi-hat mastery". He has also performed with Mike Rutherford and Tom Waits. That year he also teamed with Adam Ant to record the title track and video for the Anthony Michael Hall movie Out of Bounds. In 1989, Copeland formed Animal Logic with jazz bassist Stanley Clarke and singer-songwriter Deborah Holland. The trio had success with their first album and world tour but the follow-up recording sold poorly, and the band did not continue.
In 1993 he composed the music for Channel 4's Horse Opera and director Bob Baldwin, and in 1999, he provided the voice of an additional American soldier in the animated musical comedy war film South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (1999).
Spyro the Dragon soundtracks (1998–2002, 2018)
He was commissioned by Insomniac Games in 1998 to make the musical score for the hit PlayStation game Spyro the Dragon. Copeland would play through the levels first to get a feel for each one before composing the soundtrack. He also stayed with the project to create the musical scores for the remaining Insomniac sequels Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage! and Spyro: Year of the Dragon. The franchise shifted over to Universal for the fourth title, Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly, which would be Copeland's last outing with the series. While the soundtracks never saw commercial release, the limited edition of the fourth game came packaged with a bonus CD, containing unused tracks. The soundtracks were very well received, and one track would later appear on the 2007 compilation album The Stewart Copeland Anthology. Copeland composed a new title theme for Spyro Reignited Trilogy.
This period also saw Copeland compose the soundtrack for Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare, his only video game soundtrack outside of the Spyro franchise to date. In 2000, he combined with Les Claypool of Primus (with whom he produced a track on the Primus album Antipop) and Trey Anastasio of Phish to create the band Oysterhead. That same year, he was approached by director Adam Collis to assemble the score for the film Sunset Strip.
Collaborations (2002–2006)
In 2002, Copeland was hired by Ray Manzarek and Robby Krieger of the Doors to play with them for a new album and tour, but after an injury sidelined Copeland, the arrangement ended in reciprocal lawsuits. In 2005, Copeland released "Orchestralli", a live recording of chamber ensemble music which he had composed during a short tour of Italy in 2002. Also in 2005, Copeland started Gizmo, a new project with avant-garde guitarist David Fiuczynski, multi-instrumentalist Vittorio Cosma, singer Raiz and bassist Max Gazzè. The band made their U.S debut on September 16, 2006, at the Modern Drummer Drum Festival. In January 2006, Copeland premiered his film about the Police called Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out at the Sundance Film Festival. In February and March, he appeared as one of the judges on the BBC television show Just the Two of Us (a role he later reprised for a second series in January 2007).
The Police reunion (2007–2008)
At the 2007 Grammy Awards, Copeland, Andy Summers and Sting performed the song "Roxanne" together again as the Police. This marked the band's first public performance since 1986 (they had previously reunited only for an improvised set at Sting's wedding party in 1992 and for their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2003). One day later, the band announced that in celebration of the Police's 30th anniversary, they would be embarking on what turned out to be a one-off reunion tour on May 28, 2007. During the tour, Copeland also released his compilation album The Stewart Copeland Anthology, which was composed of his independent work.
In 2007, the French government appointed Copeland (along with Police bandmates Summers and Sting) a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.
The group performed 151 dates across five continents, concluding with a final show in August 2008 at Madison Square Garden, New York.
Projects (2008–present)
In 2008, RIM commissioned Copeland to write a "soundtrack" for the BlackBerry Bold smart phone. He created a highly percussive theme of one minute's length from which he evolved six ringtones and a softer 'alarm tone' that are preloaded on the device.
In March 2008, he premiered his orchestral composition "Celeste" at "An Evening with Stewart Copeland", part of the Savannah Music Festival. The performance featured classical violinist Daniel Hope. His appearance at Savannah included a screening of Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out and a question and answer session. Also in 2008, he was commissioned by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra to create a percussion piece involving primarily Indonesian instruments. "Gamelan D'Drum" was first performed in Dallas on February 5, 2012, and had its European Premiere at the Royal Academy of Music in London in July 2012.
On August 21, 2009, at SummerFest 2009, Copeland unveiled the composition "Retail Therapy", which was commissioned by the Music Society. He performed three more original works: "Kaya", "Celeste", and "Gene Pool", the last accompanied by San Diego-based percussion ensemble red fish blue fish. He attended a composer's roundtable and a question and answer discussion in conjunction with the festival. Copeland wrote the score for a theatrical presentation of Ben-Hur, which premiered on September 17, 2009, at the O2 Arena in London. He provided English-language narration of the production, which is performed in Latin and Aramaic. His memoir Strange Things Happen: A Life with The Police, Polo, and Pygmies was released by Harper Collins in September 2009. The book chronicles events in his life from childhood through his work with the Police and to the present. In October 2009, he was a guest on Private Passions, the biographical music discussion program on BBC Radio 3.
On May 24, 2011, he started a YouTube channel devoted to his videos and project updates. On this channel, he uploads performances with various musicians, including Primus, Andy Summers, Jeff Lynne, Snoop Dogg, and others in his home studio, which he refers to as the Sacred Grove. On August 24, 2011, he was a featured soloist on the Late Show with David Letterman, as part of their second "Drum Solo Week".
On January 10, 2012, he appeared on an episode of the A&E reality series Storage Wars to appraise a drum set for Barry Weiss, buying a Turkish cymbal from the set for $40. In July he reunited with former Animal Logic bandmate Stanley Clarke for a European tour.
In May 2013, he and the Long Beach Opera premiered The Tale Tell Heart, an opera based on the short story by Edgar Allan Poe.
On November 26, 2013, he appeared in the first episode of The Tim Ferriss Experiment.
In 2017, he formed the supergroup Gizmodrome with Adrian Belew, Vittorio Cosma, and Mark King and released an album of the same name.
On September 5, 2021, the opera Electric Saint about the life of Nikola Tesla by Copeland with libretto by Jonathan Moore premiered at the National Theater of Weimar.
Personal life
Copeland grew up in Beirut. In 1974, he became romantically involved with Curved Air vocalist Sonja Kristina; they were married from 1982 to 1991. He adopted her son Sven from a previous relationship, and they had two sons of their own named Jordan and Scott. In 1981, he fathered a son named Patrick with Marina Guinness, the daughter of Irish author Desmond Guinness. He currently lives in Los Angeles with his second wife, Fiona Dent, with whom he has three children named Eve, Grace, and Celeste.
Copeland's hobbies include rollerskating, cycling along the beach in Santa Monica, California, filmmaking, and playing polo. He is also active on his YouTube channel, where he uploads videos of himself and other musicians during jam sessions in his studio, the Sacred Grove.
Drumming style
Copeland grew up listening to a combination of Lebanese music, rock and roll, jazz, and reggae, but he selected from these styles what he needed rather than imitating them. In the 1980s, when many musicians were looking for bigger sound from bigger drums, he added Octobans. Invented by Tama Drums in 1978, Octobans consisted of eight six-inch drums in the shape of narrow tubes. He used another innovation, a splash cymbal based on a toy that he owned and that he helped Paiste design. He relied heavily on his 13" hi-hats.
Despite being left-handed, Copeland plays a right-handed drum kit, placing the hi-hats on his left and ride cymbal and floor toms on his right. He uses a wide dynamic range and demonstrates a proficiency of jazz-style articulation in his snare drum playing, interspersing strong back-beats with soft rim comping. During his years with the Police, he became known for engaging only the hi-hat with the bass drum to keep the beat.
In an interview with Modern Drummer, Copeland has cited Mitch Mitchell of the Jimi Hendrix Experience as a prime musical influence. He states that as a child, whenever he had a song or melody pop in his head, he would walk around wondering how Mitch Mitchell would drum to that particular tune. He also named Sandy Nelson and Ginger Baker as other fundamental influences in the youth years. He has stated that due to his 'enforced listening' of Buddy Rich, he considers himself 'allergic to jazz.'
He is noted for his strong emphasis on the groove as a complement to the song, rather than as its core component. He once drove this point home at a drum clinic: Copeland announced that he would show the audience something "that very few modern drummers can do" and proceeded to play a simple rock beat for two minutes. Nonetheless, his playing often incorporates spectacular fills and subtle inflections which greatly augment the groove. Compared to most of his 1980s contemporaries, his snare sound was bright and cutting. He is also one of the few rock drummers to use traditional grip rather than matched grip. He is also noted for syncopation in his drumming.
Equipment
Copeland's equipment includes Tama drums, Paiste cymbals, Remo drum heads, and Vater signature drum sticks.
Original live kit set-up (1984)
Tama Imperialstar Mahogany Drums (9-ply) and Paiste Cymbals:
Drums – Midnight Blue
10x8" Rack Tom
12x8" Rack Tom
13x9" Rack Tom
16x16" Floor Tom
14x5" Pearl Chrome over Brass Snare
22x14" Bass Drum
Tama Octobans Low Pitch (x4)
Cowbell
Wood Blocks
Cymbals – Paiste
13" Formula 602 Medium Hi-Hats
16" 2002 Crash
8" 2002 Bell
7.5 Ufip Ictus Bell
8" 2002 Splash (x2)
11" 2002 Splash
14" (or 16") Rude Crash/Ride
16" (or 18") Rude Crash/Ride
18" 2002 Medium
24" Rude Ride/Crash
20" 2002 China
Simmons (x2) Pads (to his left)
Assorted Percussion
Stewart also used Calato Regal Tip Rock Wood Tipped Drumsticks
The Police Reunion (2007–2008) tour kit
Tama Starclassic Maple Drums and Paiste Cymbals:
Drums – Custom Police Blue Sparkle Maple Wood
10x8" Tom
12x8" Tom (To the left of his snare drum)
13x9" Tom
16x16" Floor Tom
18x16" Floor Tom
20x14" Tama Gong Drum
22x18" Bass Drum
14x5" Tama SC145 Stewart Copeland Signature Snare
Tama Custom Police Blue Sparkle Octobans (x4) (custom made for Copeland)
Cymbals – Paiste
12" Prototype Micro Hi-Hats
16" Signature Full Crash
17" Signature Fast Crash
18" Signature Fast Crash
18" Signature Full Crash
18" 2002 Flat Ride (prototype)
22" Signature Blue Bell Ride
10" Signature Splash
8" Signature Bell
8" Signature Prototype Splash
Assorted percussion
Stewart also uses his own Vater Stewart Copeland Standard Sticks.
Discography
Studio albums
Film scores
TV series
Video games
See also
List of drummers
Membranophone (list of drums)
References
External links
Copeland's official site
1952 births
Living people
A&M Records artists
American expatriates in Egypt
American expatriates in Lebanon
American expatriates in the United Kingdom
American film score composers
American male film score composers
American people of Scottish descent
American rock drummers
The Police members
Curved Air members
People educated at Millfield
Musicians from Alexandria, Virginia
Musicians from Beirut
Video game composers
United States International University alumni
Chevaliers of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
20th-century American drummers
American male drummers
Copeland family
Oysterhead members
Gizmodrome members
Strontium 90 (band) members
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[
"Brimstone & Treacle is the soundtrack for the 1982 film adaptation of the play Brimstone and Treacle directed by Richard Loncraine and starring Denholm Elliott, Joan Plowright and Sting. Sting and The Police wrote most of the original material on the album. The rest of the soundtrack was made of songs by other acts signed to A&M like The Go-Go's and Squeeze and a couple of traditional songs performed by the Finchley Children's Music Group and the ad-hoc formed Brimstone Chorale.\n\nThe Police's \"I Burn for You\" was a song Sting had presented for inclusion in the band's third album Zenyatta Mondatta two years earlier but it was deemed unsuitable for the musical direction the band was taking and rejected. Stewart Copeland's roadie Jeff Seitz played drums on \"Only You\" while the voice of actress Suzanna Hamilton can be heard on The Police's \"A Kind of Loving\". Words from the original play by Dennis Potter form the lyrics of \"Narration\".\n\nSting's cover of \"Spread a Little Happiness\" was released as a single and it reached number 16 in the UK charts. The title track was also awarded the 1984 Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance, making Sting a three-time winner in this particular category, The Police being recipients of the award in 1981 and 1982—although Sting had no part in the band's \"Behind My Camel\", the 1982 award winner which he did not write and refused to play on. Sting would later go on to perform \"I Burn for You\" live during his The Dream of the Blue Turtles tour in 1985. That version is featured on his Bring on the Night live album.\n\nTrack listing\n\nPersonnel \n Brimstone Chorale – Performer\n The Go-Go's – Performer\n The Police – Performer\n Jeff Seitz – Drums on \"Only You\". \n Squeeze – Performer\n Sting – Performer\n Kenith Trodd – Producer\n\nNotes \n\nThe Police\nSting (musician) soundtracks\n1982 soundtrack albums\nA&M Records soundtracks\nGrammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance\nNew wave soundtracks",
"\"When the World Is Running Down, You Make the Best of What's Still Around\" is a song written by Sting that was first released by English rock band the Police on their 1980 album Zenyatta Mondatta. Along with another song from Zenyatta Mondatta, \"Voices Inside My Head\", the song reached No. 3 on the Billboard Dance Music/Club Play Singles chart in 1981. In 2000, a remix version credited to Different Gear versus the Police reached No. 28 on the UK Singles Chart, No. 7 on the Billboard Dance chart, and No. 94 in the Netherlands. On radio stations, the song is often played concurrently with “Driven to Tears”, with the latter being played first.\n\nLyrics and music\n\"When the World Is Running Down, You Make the Best of What's Still Around\" was one of Sting's earliest attempts at a song whose lyrics deal with concerns of the outside world rather than just his own issues. Ellie O'Day of Vancouver Free Press describes the lyrics as being mostly a \"repetitive chant\". Sting regards the song as having a post-apocalyptic vision, something it shares with an earlier Police song, \"Bring on the Night\", from the 1979 album Reggatta de Blanc. Sting has said of the two songs \"such vanity as to imagine one's self as the sole survivor of a holocaust with all one's favorite things still intact\".\n\n\"When the World Is Running Down, You Make the Best of What's Still Around\" and \"Bring on the Night\" also share their chord progression. Rolling Stone critic David Fricke notes a structural similarity between \"When the World Is Running Down, You Make the Best of What's Still Around\" and two songs from Reggatta de Blanc, \"Walking on the Moon\" and \"The Bed's Too Big without You\". Like those two Reggatta de Blanc songs, \"When the World Is Running Down, You Make the Best of What's Still Around\" repeats its three-chord progression over its nearly four-minute length. Fricke regards the chord progression as \"hypnotic\".\n\nPersonnel\nThe Police\nSting – bass guitar, lead and backing vocals, synthesizer\nAndy Summers – guitar, backing vocals\nStewart Copeland – drums, backing vocals\n\nCritical reception\nAuthor Chris Welch praises the rhythm section of Sting and Stewart Copeland on the song, particularly the way they go with the flow and groove with ease. Sounds critic Phil Sutcliffe commented on its \"expression of melancholy\", noting that it maintains a restrained, dry tone that is able to project sadness without being overly demonstrative. RAM magazine critic Greg Taylor criticises the lyrics for not doing \"anything with its potentially political message\" but praises the music, particularly Andy Summers' \"long ringing\" guitar chords. Mojo critic John Harris regards it as one of several formless jams on the album, complaining that it \"randomly fades out as if simple boredom finally won out\".\n\nPolice guitarist Andy Summers considers \"When the World Is Running Down, You Make the Best of What's Still Around\" to be one of the promising songs Sting had written in advance of the Zenyatta Mondatta sessions and which form the \"meat\" of the album, the others being \"Driven to Tears\" and the hit singles \"De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da\" and \"Don't Stand So Close to Me\". Police drummer Stewart Copeland has described the song (not necessarily entirely seriously) as \"pre Rossinus Mantuanus (via Karl Orff) with metre altered to fit the characteristic Police beat\".\n\nRemix version\nIn early 2000, a 12-inch bootleg remix version of \"When the World Is Running Down, You Make the Best of What's Still Around\" began circulating in prominent nightclubs, played by such disc jockeys as Pete Tong, David Morales and Terry Farley. At first it was unknown who was responsible for the remix, but it turned out to be Gino Scaletti and Quinn Whalley, also known as Different Gear. Pagan Records eventually got permission from the Police's label, A&M Records, to release the remix commercially. The remix version was credited to Different Gear versus the Police and reached No. 28 on the UK Singles Chart. On the US Billboard Dance chart, the remix went to No. 7. This version was included in the soundtrack for the film Red Planet (2000).\n\nCharts\n\nOriginal version\n\nDifferent Gear remix\n\nOther appearances\nBesides the remix version, \"When the World Is Running Down, You Make the Best of What's Still Around\" has been covered by a number of artists. Sting himself covered it himself on his solo live album Bring on the Night. The Bring on the Night version is a medley with the Police song \"Bring on the Night\" from the 1979 album Reggatta de Blanc and features contributions from Branford Marsalis and keyboardist Kenny Kirkland. The song was also covered by Tatsuya Nishiwaki on his 2004 album Atmosphere/Sound of Gravity.\n\nThe Police version of \"When the World Is Running Down, You Make the Best of What's Still Around\" was included in the box set Message in a Box: The Complete Recordings.\n\nReferences\n\n1980 songs\n2000 singles\nThe Police songs\nSong recordings produced by Nigel Gray\nSongs written by Sting (musician)"
] |
[
"Stewart Copeland",
"The Police (1977-1986)",
"When were The Police founded?",
"1976,",
"Where were they founded?",
"I don't know.",
"Who were the founding members?",
"lead singer-bass guitarist Sting and guitarist Henry Padovani (who was soon replaced by Andy Summers",
"How did they meet?",
"I don't know.",
"Did Copeland write the music for the Police?",
"Andy Summers), and they became one of the top bands of the 1980s. The Police's early track list was mostly made of Copeland's compositions,",
"Who else wrote music for The Police?",
"Though Copeland's songwriting contribution was reduced to a couple of songs per album as Sting started writing more",
"What else did Sting do for the Police?",
"Copeland also co-wrote a number of songs with Sting,"
] |
C_59773acc2ace44b3a9056161d5aa2baf_1
|
Which songs did they co-write?
| 8 |
Which songs did Copeland and Sting co-write?
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Stewart Copeland
|
In late 1976, Copeland founded the Police with lead singer-bass guitarist Sting and guitarist Henry Padovani (who was soon replaced by Andy Summers), and they became one of the top bands of the 1980s. The Police's early track list was mostly made of Copeland's compositions, including the band's first single "Fall Out" (Illegal Records, 1977) and the B side "Nothing Achieving". Though Copeland's songwriting contribution was reduced to a couple of songs per album as Sting started writing more material, he continued to co-arrange all the Police's songs with his two bandmates. Amongst Copeland's most notable songs are "On Any Other Day" (where he sang lead vocals too), "Does Everyone Stare" (later to be used as the title of his documentary on the band Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out), "Contact", "Bombs Away", "Darkness" and "Miss Gradenko". Copeland also co-wrote a number of songs with Sting, including "Peanuts", "Landlord", "It's Alright for You" and "Re-Humanize Yourself". Copeland also recorded under the pseudonym Klark Kent, releasing several UK singles in 1978 with one ("Don't Care") entering the UK Singles Chart that year, along with an eponymously titled 10-inch album on green vinyl released in 1980. Recorded at Nigel Gray's Surrey Sound Studio, Copeland played all the instruments and sang the lead vocals himself. Kent's "Don't Care", which peaked at #48 UK in August 1978, actually predates the first chart single by the Police by several months ("Can't Stand Losing You", issued in October 1978) as "Don't Care" was released in early June 1978. In 1982 Copeland was involved in the production of a WOMAD benefit album called Music and Rhythm. Copeland's score for Rumble Fish secured him a Golden Globe nomination in 1983. The film, directed and produced by Francis Ford Coppola from the S. E. Hinton novel, also had a song released to radio on A&M Records "Don't Box Me In" (UK Singles Chart n. 91)--a collaboration between Copeland and singer/songwriter Stan Ridgway, leader of the band Wall of Voodoo--that received significant airplay upon release of the film that year. The Police stopped touring in 1984, and during this brief hiatus he released a solo album, The Rhythmatist. The record was the result of a pilgrimage to Africa and its people, and it features local drums and percussion, with more drums, percussion, other musical instruments and occasional lead vocals added by Copeland. The album was the official soundtrack to the movie of the same name, which was co-written by Stewart. He also starred in the film, which is "A musical odyssey through the heart of Africa in search of the roots of rock & roll." (Copeland is seen playing the drums in a cage with lions surrounding him.) The band attempted a reunion in 1986, but the project fell apart. CANNOTANSWER
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"Peanuts", "Landlord", "It's Alright for You" and "Re-Humanize Yourself".
|
Stewart Armstrong Copeland (born July 16, 1952) is an American musician and composer. He rose to prominence as the drummer of the British rock band The Police. He has also produced many film and video game soundtracks and written various pieces of music for ballet, opera, and orchestra. His composing work includes the films Wall Street (1987), Good Burger (1997), and We Are Your Friends (2015); the television series The Equalizer, Dead Like Me, and The Amanda Show; and the video games Alone in the Dark 4 and the Spyro series.
According to MusicRadar, Copeland's "distinctive drum sound and uniqueness of style has made him one of the most popular drummers to ever get behind a drumset". He was ranked the 10th best drummer of all time by Rolling Stone in 2016. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Police in 2003, the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame in 2005, and the Classic Drummer Hall of Fame in 2013.
Early life
Stewart Armstrong Copeland was born in Alexandria, Virginia, on July 16, 1952, the youngest of four children of Scottish archaeologist Lorraine Adie and Alabama-born CIA officer Miles Copeland Jr. According to his 1989 biography and files released by the CIA in 2008, his father was a founding member of the OSS and the CIA. The family moved to Cairo a few months after Copeland's birth. When he was five years old, the family moved to Beirut, where he attended the American Community School. He started taking drum lessons at age 12 and was playing drums for school dances within a year. He later moved to England, attending the American School in London and Millfield boarding school in Somerset from 1967 to 1969. He went to college in California, enrolling at Alliant International University and the University of California, Berkeley. His eldest brother, Miles Copeland III, founded I.R.S. Records and became the manager of the Police. He has also overseen Copeland's interests in other music projects. His other brother, the late Ian Copeland, was a pioneering booking agent who represented the Police and many others.
Career
Curved Air (1975–1976)
Returning to England, Copeland worked as road manager for the progressive rock band Curved Air's 1974 reunion tour, and then as drummer for the band during 1975 and 1976. The band kicked off with a European tour, which started poorly. Band leader Darryl Way, a notorious perfectionist, grew impatient with the struggling of his bandmates, especially novice drummer Copeland. Then, for reasons no one could pinpoint, the musicians suddenly "clicked" with each other and the band caught fire, quickly becoming a popular and acclaimed live act.
The Police (1977–1986)
In early 1977, Copeland founded the Police with lead singer-bass guitarist Sting and guitarist Henry Padovani (who was soon replaced by Andy Summers), and they became one of the top bands of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Copeland was the youngest member of the band. The Police's early track list (before their album debut) was largely Copeland compositions, including the band's first single "Fall Out" (Illegal Records, 1977) and the B-side "Nothing Achieving". Though Copeland's songwriting contribution was reduced to a couple of songs per album as Sting started writing more material, he continued to co-arrange all the Police's songs together with his two bandmates. Amongst Copeland's most notable songs are "On Any Other Day" (where he also sang lead vocals), "Does Everyone Stare" (later to be used as the title of his documentary on the band Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out), "Contact", "Bombs Away", "Darkness" and "Miss Gradenko". Copeland also co-wrote a number of songs with Sting, including "Peanuts", "Landlord", "It's Alright for You" and "Re-Humanize Yourself".
Copeland also recorded under the pseudonym Klark Kent, releasing several UK singles in 1978 with one ("Don't Care") entering the UK Singles Chart that year, along with an eponymous 10-inch album on green vinyl released in 1980. Recording at Nigel Gray's Surrey Sound Studio, Copeland played all the instruments and sang the lead vocals himself. Kent's "Don't Care", which peaked at No. 48 UK in August 1978, actually predates the first chart single by the Police by several months ("Can't Stand Losing You", issued in October 1978) as "Don't Care" was released in early June 1978.
In 1982, Copeland was involved in the production of a WOMAD benefit album called Music and Rhythm. Copeland's score for Rumble Fish secured him a Golden Globe nomination in 1983. The film, directed and produced by Francis Ford Coppola from the S. E. Hinton novel, also had a song released to radio on A&M Records "Don't Box Me In" (UK Singles Chart n. 91)—a collaboration between Copeland and singer-songwriter Stan Ridgway, leader of the band Wall of Voodoo—that received significant airplay upon release of the film that year.
The Rhythmatist record of 1985 was the result of a pilgrimage to Africa and its people, and it features local drums and percussion, with more drums, percussion, other musical instruments and occasional lead vocals added by Copeland. The album was the official soundtrack to the movie of the same name, which was co-written by Stewart. Copeland is seen in the film playing the drums in a cage with lions surrounding him.
The band attempted a reunion in 1986, but the project fell apart.
Solo projects and movie soundtracks (1987–1998)
After the Police disbanded, Copeland established a career composing soundtracks for movies (Airborne, Talk Radio, Wall Street, Riff Raff, Raining Stones, Surviving the Game, See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Highlander II: The Quickening, She's Having a Baby, The First Power, Fresh, Taking Care of Business, West Beirut, I am David, Riding the Bus with My Sister, Good Burger), television (The Equalizer, Dead Like Me, Star Wars: Droids, the pilot for Babylon 5 (1993), Nickelodeon's The Amanda Show, The Life and Times of Juniper Lee), operas (Holy Blood and Crescent Moon, commissioned by Cleveland Opera) and ballets (Prey' Ballet Oklahoma, Casque of Amontillado, Noah's Ark/Solcheeka, commissioned by the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, King Lear, commissioned by the San Francisco Ballet Company, Emilio). In 1996, Copeland provided the score for The Leopard Son, Discovery Channel's its first commercially released full-length feature film, made by wildlife filmmaker Hugo van Lawick.
Copeland also occasionally played drums for other artists. Peter Gabriel employed Copeland to perform on his song "Red Rain" from his 1986 album So because of his "hi-hat mastery". He has also performed with Mike Rutherford and Tom Waits. That year he also teamed with Adam Ant to record the title track and video for the Anthony Michael Hall movie Out of Bounds. In 1989, Copeland formed Animal Logic with jazz bassist Stanley Clarke and singer-songwriter Deborah Holland. The trio had success with their first album and world tour but the follow-up recording sold poorly, and the band did not continue.
In 1993 he composed the music for Channel 4's Horse Opera and director Bob Baldwin, and in 1999, he provided the voice of an additional American soldier in the animated musical comedy war film South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (1999).
Spyro the Dragon soundtracks (1998–2002, 2018)
He was commissioned by Insomniac Games in 1998 to make the musical score for the hit PlayStation game Spyro the Dragon. Copeland would play through the levels first to get a feel for each one before composing the soundtrack. He also stayed with the project to create the musical scores for the remaining Insomniac sequels Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage! and Spyro: Year of the Dragon. The franchise shifted over to Universal for the fourth title, Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly, which would be Copeland's last outing with the series. While the soundtracks never saw commercial release, the limited edition of the fourth game came packaged with a bonus CD, containing unused tracks. The soundtracks were very well received, and one track would later appear on the 2007 compilation album The Stewart Copeland Anthology. Copeland composed a new title theme for Spyro Reignited Trilogy.
This period also saw Copeland compose the soundtrack for Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare, his only video game soundtrack outside of the Spyro franchise to date. In 2000, he combined with Les Claypool of Primus (with whom he produced a track on the Primus album Antipop) and Trey Anastasio of Phish to create the band Oysterhead. That same year, he was approached by director Adam Collis to assemble the score for the film Sunset Strip.
Collaborations (2002–2006)
In 2002, Copeland was hired by Ray Manzarek and Robby Krieger of the Doors to play with them for a new album and tour, but after an injury sidelined Copeland, the arrangement ended in reciprocal lawsuits. In 2005, Copeland released "Orchestralli", a live recording of chamber ensemble music which he had composed during a short tour of Italy in 2002. Also in 2005, Copeland started Gizmo, a new project with avant-garde guitarist David Fiuczynski, multi-instrumentalist Vittorio Cosma, singer Raiz and bassist Max Gazzè. The band made their U.S debut on September 16, 2006, at the Modern Drummer Drum Festival. In January 2006, Copeland premiered his film about the Police called Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out at the Sundance Film Festival. In February and March, he appeared as one of the judges on the BBC television show Just the Two of Us (a role he later reprised for a second series in January 2007).
The Police reunion (2007–2008)
At the 2007 Grammy Awards, Copeland, Andy Summers and Sting performed the song "Roxanne" together again as the Police. This marked the band's first public performance since 1986 (they had previously reunited only for an improvised set at Sting's wedding party in 1992 and for their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2003). One day later, the band announced that in celebration of the Police's 30th anniversary, they would be embarking on what turned out to be a one-off reunion tour on May 28, 2007. During the tour, Copeland also released his compilation album The Stewart Copeland Anthology, which was composed of his independent work.
In 2007, the French government appointed Copeland (along with Police bandmates Summers and Sting) a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.
The group performed 151 dates across five continents, concluding with a final show in August 2008 at Madison Square Garden, New York.
Projects (2008–present)
In 2008, RIM commissioned Copeland to write a "soundtrack" for the BlackBerry Bold smart phone. He created a highly percussive theme of one minute's length from which he evolved six ringtones and a softer 'alarm tone' that are preloaded on the device.
In March 2008, he premiered his orchestral composition "Celeste" at "An Evening with Stewart Copeland", part of the Savannah Music Festival. The performance featured classical violinist Daniel Hope. His appearance at Savannah included a screening of Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out and a question and answer session. Also in 2008, he was commissioned by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra to create a percussion piece involving primarily Indonesian instruments. "Gamelan D'Drum" was first performed in Dallas on February 5, 2012, and had its European Premiere at the Royal Academy of Music in London in July 2012.
On August 21, 2009, at SummerFest 2009, Copeland unveiled the composition "Retail Therapy", which was commissioned by the Music Society. He performed three more original works: "Kaya", "Celeste", and "Gene Pool", the last accompanied by San Diego-based percussion ensemble red fish blue fish. He attended a composer's roundtable and a question and answer discussion in conjunction with the festival. Copeland wrote the score for a theatrical presentation of Ben-Hur, which premiered on September 17, 2009, at the O2 Arena in London. He provided English-language narration of the production, which is performed in Latin and Aramaic. His memoir Strange Things Happen: A Life with The Police, Polo, and Pygmies was released by Harper Collins in September 2009. The book chronicles events in his life from childhood through his work with the Police and to the present. In October 2009, he was a guest on Private Passions, the biographical music discussion program on BBC Radio 3.
On May 24, 2011, he started a YouTube channel devoted to his videos and project updates. On this channel, he uploads performances with various musicians, including Primus, Andy Summers, Jeff Lynne, Snoop Dogg, and others in his home studio, which he refers to as the Sacred Grove. On August 24, 2011, he was a featured soloist on the Late Show with David Letterman, as part of their second "Drum Solo Week".
On January 10, 2012, he appeared on an episode of the A&E reality series Storage Wars to appraise a drum set for Barry Weiss, buying a Turkish cymbal from the set for $40. In July he reunited with former Animal Logic bandmate Stanley Clarke for a European tour.
In May 2013, he and the Long Beach Opera premiered The Tale Tell Heart, an opera based on the short story by Edgar Allan Poe.
On November 26, 2013, he appeared in the first episode of The Tim Ferriss Experiment.
In 2017, he formed the supergroup Gizmodrome with Adrian Belew, Vittorio Cosma, and Mark King and released an album of the same name.
On September 5, 2021, the opera Electric Saint about the life of Nikola Tesla by Copeland with libretto by Jonathan Moore premiered at the National Theater of Weimar.
Personal life
Copeland grew up in Beirut. In 1974, he became romantically involved with Curved Air vocalist Sonja Kristina; they were married from 1982 to 1991. He adopted her son Sven from a previous relationship, and they had two sons of their own named Jordan and Scott. In 1981, he fathered a son named Patrick with Marina Guinness, the daughter of Irish author Desmond Guinness. He currently lives in Los Angeles with his second wife, Fiona Dent, with whom he has three children named Eve, Grace, and Celeste.
Copeland's hobbies include rollerskating, cycling along the beach in Santa Monica, California, filmmaking, and playing polo. He is also active on his YouTube channel, where he uploads videos of himself and other musicians during jam sessions in his studio, the Sacred Grove.
Drumming style
Copeland grew up listening to a combination of Lebanese music, rock and roll, jazz, and reggae, but he selected from these styles what he needed rather than imitating them. In the 1980s, when many musicians were looking for bigger sound from bigger drums, he added Octobans. Invented by Tama Drums in 1978, Octobans consisted of eight six-inch drums in the shape of narrow tubes. He used another innovation, a splash cymbal based on a toy that he owned and that he helped Paiste design. He relied heavily on his 13" hi-hats.
Despite being left-handed, Copeland plays a right-handed drum kit, placing the hi-hats on his left and ride cymbal and floor toms on his right. He uses a wide dynamic range and demonstrates a proficiency of jazz-style articulation in his snare drum playing, interspersing strong back-beats with soft rim comping. During his years with the Police, he became known for engaging only the hi-hat with the bass drum to keep the beat.
In an interview with Modern Drummer, Copeland has cited Mitch Mitchell of the Jimi Hendrix Experience as a prime musical influence. He states that as a child, whenever he had a song or melody pop in his head, he would walk around wondering how Mitch Mitchell would drum to that particular tune. He also named Sandy Nelson and Ginger Baker as other fundamental influences in the youth years. He has stated that due to his 'enforced listening' of Buddy Rich, he considers himself 'allergic to jazz.'
He is noted for his strong emphasis on the groove as a complement to the song, rather than as its core component. He once drove this point home at a drum clinic: Copeland announced that he would show the audience something "that very few modern drummers can do" and proceeded to play a simple rock beat for two minutes. Nonetheless, his playing often incorporates spectacular fills and subtle inflections which greatly augment the groove. Compared to most of his 1980s contemporaries, his snare sound was bright and cutting. He is also one of the few rock drummers to use traditional grip rather than matched grip. He is also noted for syncopation in his drumming.
Equipment
Copeland's equipment includes Tama drums, Paiste cymbals, Remo drum heads, and Vater signature drum sticks.
Original live kit set-up (1984)
Tama Imperialstar Mahogany Drums (9-ply) and Paiste Cymbals:
Drums – Midnight Blue
10x8" Rack Tom
12x8" Rack Tom
13x9" Rack Tom
16x16" Floor Tom
14x5" Pearl Chrome over Brass Snare
22x14" Bass Drum
Tama Octobans Low Pitch (x4)
Cowbell
Wood Blocks
Cymbals – Paiste
13" Formula 602 Medium Hi-Hats
16" 2002 Crash
8" 2002 Bell
7.5 Ufip Ictus Bell
8" 2002 Splash (x2)
11" 2002 Splash
14" (or 16") Rude Crash/Ride
16" (or 18") Rude Crash/Ride
18" 2002 Medium
24" Rude Ride/Crash
20" 2002 China
Simmons (x2) Pads (to his left)
Assorted Percussion
Stewart also used Calato Regal Tip Rock Wood Tipped Drumsticks
The Police Reunion (2007–2008) tour kit
Tama Starclassic Maple Drums and Paiste Cymbals:
Drums – Custom Police Blue Sparkle Maple Wood
10x8" Tom
12x8" Tom (To the left of his snare drum)
13x9" Tom
16x16" Floor Tom
18x16" Floor Tom
20x14" Tama Gong Drum
22x18" Bass Drum
14x5" Tama SC145 Stewart Copeland Signature Snare
Tama Custom Police Blue Sparkle Octobans (x4) (custom made for Copeland)
Cymbals – Paiste
12" Prototype Micro Hi-Hats
16" Signature Full Crash
17" Signature Fast Crash
18" Signature Fast Crash
18" Signature Full Crash
18" 2002 Flat Ride (prototype)
22" Signature Blue Bell Ride
10" Signature Splash
8" Signature Bell
8" Signature Prototype Splash
Assorted percussion
Stewart also uses his own Vater Stewart Copeland Standard Sticks.
Discography
Studio albums
Film scores
TV series
Video games
See also
List of drummers
Membranophone (list of drums)
References
External links
Copeland's official site
1952 births
Living people
A&M Records artists
American expatriates in Egypt
American expatriates in Lebanon
American expatriates in the United Kingdom
American film score composers
American male film score composers
American people of Scottish descent
American rock drummers
The Police members
Curved Air members
People educated at Millfield
Musicians from Alexandria, Virginia
Musicians from Beirut
Video game composers
United States International University alumni
Chevaliers of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
20th-century American drummers
American male drummers
Copeland family
Oysterhead members
Gizmodrome members
Strontium 90 (band) members
| true |
[
"\"Two Teardrops\" is a song co-written and recorded by American country music artist Steve Wariner. It was released in February 1999 as the first single and title track from the album Two Teardrops. The song reached #2 on the Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart, as well as hitting #30 on the Billboard Hot 100, marking Wariner's only pop top-40 hit.\n\nBackground\nWariner told Billboard in 1999 that he did not write the song until the album was near completion. He said that co-writer Bill Anderson suggested the opening line of \"two teardrops floating down the river.\"\n\nChart performance\n\nYear-end charts\n\nReferences\n\n1999 singles\n1999 songs\nSteve Wariner songs\nSongs written by Steve Wariner\nSongs written by Bill Anderson (singer)\nCapitol Records Nashville singles",
"\"Teenage Daughters\" is a song co-written and recorded by American country music artist Martina McBride. It is her first single for Republic Nashville. It was released in March 2011 as the lead-off single from her album Eleven, which was released on October 11, 2011.\n\nHistory\nMcBride wrote the song with The Warren Brothers (Brad and Brett Warren). She told Country Weekly magazine that they decided to write the song after talking with the Warrens about her older daughter, Delaney. She said, \"I was just saying how one minute you are everything to them[…]and the next minute it's just a whole different thing.\" After saying that, she decided that they should write about having a teenage daughter. The song was released to the iTunes Store on March 29, 2011, the day that McBride's middle daughter, Emma turned 13.\n\nMcBride co-wrote \"Teenage Daughters\" and seven other songs on the album. She said that after having a top five hit with \"Anyway\", the first single release that she ever co-wrote, she decided to co-write more frequently.\n\nCritical reception\nThe song was met with mixed reviews by critics. Matt Bjorke of Roughstock rated it four stars out of five, calling it \"a song that any parent[…]can relate to\" and saying that it \"doesn’t fall into the dramatic melisma-filled type of song that was so often sent out to radio over the years.\" Blake Boldt of Engine 145 gave the song a \"thumbs down.\" His review praises the song's lyrics for being \"a witty and accurate portrayal of what it means to be a parent,\" but criticized the \"misplaced\" production and McBride's \"whiny, exaggerated\" singing.\n\nMusic video\nThe music video shows McBride as the mother of a teenage daughter in the 1950s, the 1970s, and the 1980s. McBride's husband and daughters appear in the video. It was directed by Roman White.\n\nChart performance\n\nYear-end charts\n\nReferences\n\n2011 singles\n2011 songs\nMartina McBride songs\nSongs written by Martina McBride\nSongs written by The Warren Brothers\nSong recordings produced by Byron Gallimore\nMusic videos directed by Roman White\nRepublic Records singles\nRepublic Nashville singles\nSongs about teenagers"
] |
[
"Stewart Copeland",
"The Police (1977-1986)",
"When were The Police founded?",
"1976,",
"Where were they founded?",
"I don't know.",
"Who were the founding members?",
"lead singer-bass guitarist Sting and guitarist Henry Padovani (who was soon replaced by Andy Summers",
"How did they meet?",
"I don't know.",
"Did Copeland write the music for the Police?",
"Andy Summers), and they became one of the top bands of the 1980s. The Police's early track list was mostly made of Copeland's compositions,",
"Who else wrote music for The Police?",
"Though Copeland's songwriting contribution was reduced to a couple of songs per album as Sting started writing more",
"What else did Sting do for the Police?",
"Copeland also co-wrote a number of songs with Sting,",
"Which songs did they co-write?",
"\"Peanuts\", \"Landlord\", \"It's Alright for You\" and \"Re-Humanize Yourself\"."
] |
C_59773acc2ace44b3a9056161d5aa2baf_1
|
What were some of their albums?
| 9 |
What were some of Copeland and Sting's albums?
|
Stewart Copeland
|
In late 1976, Copeland founded the Police with lead singer-bass guitarist Sting and guitarist Henry Padovani (who was soon replaced by Andy Summers), and they became one of the top bands of the 1980s. The Police's early track list was mostly made of Copeland's compositions, including the band's first single "Fall Out" (Illegal Records, 1977) and the B side "Nothing Achieving". Though Copeland's songwriting contribution was reduced to a couple of songs per album as Sting started writing more material, he continued to co-arrange all the Police's songs with his two bandmates. Amongst Copeland's most notable songs are "On Any Other Day" (where he sang lead vocals too), "Does Everyone Stare" (later to be used as the title of his documentary on the band Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out), "Contact", "Bombs Away", "Darkness" and "Miss Gradenko". Copeland also co-wrote a number of songs with Sting, including "Peanuts", "Landlord", "It's Alright for You" and "Re-Humanize Yourself". Copeland also recorded under the pseudonym Klark Kent, releasing several UK singles in 1978 with one ("Don't Care") entering the UK Singles Chart that year, along with an eponymously titled 10-inch album on green vinyl released in 1980. Recorded at Nigel Gray's Surrey Sound Studio, Copeland played all the instruments and sang the lead vocals himself. Kent's "Don't Care", which peaked at #48 UK in August 1978, actually predates the first chart single by the Police by several months ("Can't Stand Losing You", issued in October 1978) as "Don't Care" was released in early June 1978. In 1982 Copeland was involved in the production of a WOMAD benefit album called Music and Rhythm. Copeland's score for Rumble Fish secured him a Golden Globe nomination in 1983. The film, directed and produced by Francis Ford Coppola from the S. E. Hinton novel, also had a song released to radio on A&M Records "Don't Box Me In" (UK Singles Chart n. 91)--a collaboration between Copeland and singer/songwriter Stan Ridgway, leader of the band Wall of Voodoo--that received significant airplay upon release of the film that year. The Police stopped touring in 1984, and during this brief hiatus he released a solo album, The Rhythmatist. The record was the result of a pilgrimage to Africa and its people, and it features local drums and percussion, with more drums, percussion, other musical instruments and occasional lead vocals added by Copeland. The album was the official soundtrack to the movie of the same name, which was co-written by Stewart. He also starred in the film, which is "A musical odyssey through the heart of Africa in search of the roots of rock & roll." (Copeland is seen playing the drums in a cage with lions surrounding him.) The band attempted a reunion in 1986, but the project fell apart. CANNOTANSWER
|
Music and Rhythm.
|
Stewart Armstrong Copeland (born July 16, 1952) is an American musician and composer. He rose to prominence as the drummer of the British rock band The Police. He has also produced many film and video game soundtracks and written various pieces of music for ballet, opera, and orchestra. His composing work includes the films Wall Street (1987), Good Burger (1997), and We Are Your Friends (2015); the television series The Equalizer, Dead Like Me, and The Amanda Show; and the video games Alone in the Dark 4 and the Spyro series.
According to MusicRadar, Copeland's "distinctive drum sound and uniqueness of style has made him one of the most popular drummers to ever get behind a drumset". He was ranked the 10th best drummer of all time by Rolling Stone in 2016. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Police in 2003, the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame in 2005, and the Classic Drummer Hall of Fame in 2013.
Early life
Stewart Armstrong Copeland was born in Alexandria, Virginia, on July 16, 1952, the youngest of four children of Scottish archaeologist Lorraine Adie and Alabama-born CIA officer Miles Copeland Jr. According to his 1989 biography and files released by the CIA in 2008, his father was a founding member of the OSS and the CIA. The family moved to Cairo a few months after Copeland's birth. When he was five years old, the family moved to Beirut, where he attended the American Community School. He started taking drum lessons at age 12 and was playing drums for school dances within a year. He later moved to England, attending the American School in London and Millfield boarding school in Somerset from 1967 to 1969. He went to college in California, enrolling at Alliant International University and the University of California, Berkeley. His eldest brother, Miles Copeland III, founded I.R.S. Records and became the manager of the Police. He has also overseen Copeland's interests in other music projects. His other brother, the late Ian Copeland, was a pioneering booking agent who represented the Police and many others.
Career
Curved Air (1975–1976)
Returning to England, Copeland worked as road manager for the progressive rock band Curved Air's 1974 reunion tour, and then as drummer for the band during 1975 and 1976. The band kicked off with a European tour, which started poorly. Band leader Darryl Way, a notorious perfectionist, grew impatient with the struggling of his bandmates, especially novice drummer Copeland. Then, for reasons no one could pinpoint, the musicians suddenly "clicked" with each other and the band caught fire, quickly becoming a popular and acclaimed live act.
The Police (1977–1986)
In early 1977, Copeland founded the Police with lead singer-bass guitarist Sting and guitarist Henry Padovani (who was soon replaced by Andy Summers), and they became one of the top bands of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Copeland was the youngest member of the band. The Police's early track list (before their album debut) was largely Copeland compositions, including the band's first single "Fall Out" (Illegal Records, 1977) and the B-side "Nothing Achieving". Though Copeland's songwriting contribution was reduced to a couple of songs per album as Sting started writing more material, he continued to co-arrange all the Police's songs together with his two bandmates. Amongst Copeland's most notable songs are "On Any Other Day" (where he also sang lead vocals), "Does Everyone Stare" (later to be used as the title of his documentary on the band Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out), "Contact", "Bombs Away", "Darkness" and "Miss Gradenko". Copeland also co-wrote a number of songs with Sting, including "Peanuts", "Landlord", "It's Alright for You" and "Re-Humanize Yourself".
Copeland also recorded under the pseudonym Klark Kent, releasing several UK singles in 1978 with one ("Don't Care") entering the UK Singles Chart that year, along with an eponymous 10-inch album on green vinyl released in 1980. Recording at Nigel Gray's Surrey Sound Studio, Copeland played all the instruments and sang the lead vocals himself. Kent's "Don't Care", which peaked at No. 48 UK in August 1978, actually predates the first chart single by the Police by several months ("Can't Stand Losing You", issued in October 1978) as "Don't Care" was released in early June 1978.
In 1982, Copeland was involved in the production of a WOMAD benefit album called Music and Rhythm. Copeland's score for Rumble Fish secured him a Golden Globe nomination in 1983. The film, directed and produced by Francis Ford Coppola from the S. E. Hinton novel, also had a song released to radio on A&M Records "Don't Box Me In" (UK Singles Chart n. 91)—a collaboration between Copeland and singer-songwriter Stan Ridgway, leader of the band Wall of Voodoo—that received significant airplay upon release of the film that year.
The Rhythmatist record of 1985 was the result of a pilgrimage to Africa and its people, and it features local drums and percussion, with more drums, percussion, other musical instruments and occasional lead vocals added by Copeland. The album was the official soundtrack to the movie of the same name, which was co-written by Stewart. Copeland is seen in the film playing the drums in a cage with lions surrounding him.
The band attempted a reunion in 1986, but the project fell apart.
Solo projects and movie soundtracks (1987–1998)
After the Police disbanded, Copeland established a career composing soundtracks for movies (Airborne, Talk Radio, Wall Street, Riff Raff, Raining Stones, Surviving the Game, See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Highlander II: The Quickening, She's Having a Baby, The First Power, Fresh, Taking Care of Business, West Beirut, I am David, Riding the Bus with My Sister, Good Burger), television (The Equalizer, Dead Like Me, Star Wars: Droids, the pilot for Babylon 5 (1993), Nickelodeon's The Amanda Show, The Life and Times of Juniper Lee), operas (Holy Blood and Crescent Moon, commissioned by Cleveland Opera) and ballets (Prey' Ballet Oklahoma, Casque of Amontillado, Noah's Ark/Solcheeka, commissioned by the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, King Lear, commissioned by the San Francisco Ballet Company, Emilio). In 1996, Copeland provided the score for The Leopard Son, Discovery Channel's its first commercially released full-length feature film, made by wildlife filmmaker Hugo van Lawick.
Copeland also occasionally played drums for other artists. Peter Gabriel employed Copeland to perform on his song "Red Rain" from his 1986 album So because of his "hi-hat mastery". He has also performed with Mike Rutherford and Tom Waits. That year he also teamed with Adam Ant to record the title track and video for the Anthony Michael Hall movie Out of Bounds. In 1989, Copeland formed Animal Logic with jazz bassist Stanley Clarke and singer-songwriter Deborah Holland. The trio had success with their first album and world tour but the follow-up recording sold poorly, and the band did not continue.
In 1993 he composed the music for Channel 4's Horse Opera and director Bob Baldwin, and in 1999, he provided the voice of an additional American soldier in the animated musical comedy war film South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (1999).
Spyro the Dragon soundtracks (1998–2002, 2018)
He was commissioned by Insomniac Games in 1998 to make the musical score for the hit PlayStation game Spyro the Dragon. Copeland would play through the levels first to get a feel for each one before composing the soundtrack. He also stayed with the project to create the musical scores for the remaining Insomniac sequels Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage! and Spyro: Year of the Dragon. The franchise shifted over to Universal for the fourth title, Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly, which would be Copeland's last outing with the series. While the soundtracks never saw commercial release, the limited edition of the fourth game came packaged with a bonus CD, containing unused tracks. The soundtracks were very well received, and one track would later appear on the 2007 compilation album The Stewart Copeland Anthology. Copeland composed a new title theme for Spyro Reignited Trilogy.
This period also saw Copeland compose the soundtrack for Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare, his only video game soundtrack outside of the Spyro franchise to date. In 2000, he combined with Les Claypool of Primus (with whom he produced a track on the Primus album Antipop) and Trey Anastasio of Phish to create the band Oysterhead. That same year, he was approached by director Adam Collis to assemble the score for the film Sunset Strip.
Collaborations (2002–2006)
In 2002, Copeland was hired by Ray Manzarek and Robby Krieger of the Doors to play with them for a new album and tour, but after an injury sidelined Copeland, the arrangement ended in reciprocal lawsuits. In 2005, Copeland released "Orchestralli", a live recording of chamber ensemble music which he had composed during a short tour of Italy in 2002. Also in 2005, Copeland started Gizmo, a new project with avant-garde guitarist David Fiuczynski, multi-instrumentalist Vittorio Cosma, singer Raiz and bassist Max Gazzè. The band made their U.S debut on September 16, 2006, at the Modern Drummer Drum Festival. In January 2006, Copeland premiered his film about the Police called Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out at the Sundance Film Festival. In February and March, he appeared as one of the judges on the BBC television show Just the Two of Us (a role he later reprised for a second series in January 2007).
The Police reunion (2007–2008)
At the 2007 Grammy Awards, Copeland, Andy Summers and Sting performed the song "Roxanne" together again as the Police. This marked the band's first public performance since 1986 (they had previously reunited only for an improvised set at Sting's wedding party in 1992 and for their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2003). One day later, the band announced that in celebration of the Police's 30th anniversary, they would be embarking on what turned out to be a one-off reunion tour on May 28, 2007. During the tour, Copeland also released his compilation album The Stewart Copeland Anthology, which was composed of his independent work.
In 2007, the French government appointed Copeland (along with Police bandmates Summers and Sting) a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.
The group performed 151 dates across five continents, concluding with a final show in August 2008 at Madison Square Garden, New York.
Projects (2008–present)
In 2008, RIM commissioned Copeland to write a "soundtrack" for the BlackBerry Bold smart phone. He created a highly percussive theme of one minute's length from which he evolved six ringtones and a softer 'alarm tone' that are preloaded on the device.
In March 2008, he premiered his orchestral composition "Celeste" at "An Evening with Stewart Copeland", part of the Savannah Music Festival. The performance featured classical violinist Daniel Hope. His appearance at Savannah included a screening of Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out and a question and answer session. Also in 2008, he was commissioned by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra to create a percussion piece involving primarily Indonesian instruments. "Gamelan D'Drum" was first performed in Dallas on February 5, 2012, and had its European Premiere at the Royal Academy of Music in London in July 2012.
On August 21, 2009, at SummerFest 2009, Copeland unveiled the composition "Retail Therapy", which was commissioned by the Music Society. He performed three more original works: "Kaya", "Celeste", and "Gene Pool", the last accompanied by San Diego-based percussion ensemble red fish blue fish. He attended a composer's roundtable and a question and answer discussion in conjunction with the festival. Copeland wrote the score for a theatrical presentation of Ben-Hur, which premiered on September 17, 2009, at the O2 Arena in London. He provided English-language narration of the production, which is performed in Latin and Aramaic. His memoir Strange Things Happen: A Life with The Police, Polo, and Pygmies was released by Harper Collins in September 2009. The book chronicles events in his life from childhood through his work with the Police and to the present. In October 2009, he was a guest on Private Passions, the biographical music discussion program on BBC Radio 3.
On May 24, 2011, he started a YouTube channel devoted to his videos and project updates. On this channel, he uploads performances with various musicians, including Primus, Andy Summers, Jeff Lynne, Snoop Dogg, and others in his home studio, which he refers to as the Sacred Grove. On August 24, 2011, he was a featured soloist on the Late Show with David Letterman, as part of their second "Drum Solo Week".
On January 10, 2012, he appeared on an episode of the A&E reality series Storage Wars to appraise a drum set for Barry Weiss, buying a Turkish cymbal from the set for $40. In July he reunited with former Animal Logic bandmate Stanley Clarke for a European tour.
In May 2013, he and the Long Beach Opera premiered The Tale Tell Heart, an opera based on the short story by Edgar Allan Poe.
On November 26, 2013, he appeared in the first episode of The Tim Ferriss Experiment.
In 2017, he formed the supergroup Gizmodrome with Adrian Belew, Vittorio Cosma, and Mark King and released an album of the same name.
On September 5, 2021, the opera Electric Saint about the life of Nikola Tesla by Copeland with libretto by Jonathan Moore premiered at the National Theater of Weimar.
Personal life
Copeland grew up in Beirut. In 1974, he became romantically involved with Curved Air vocalist Sonja Kristina; they were married from 1982 to 1991. He adopted her son Sven from a previous relationship, and they had two sons of their own named Jordan and Scott. In 1981, he fathered a son named Patrick with Marina Guinness, the daughter of Irish author Desmond Guinness. He currently lives in Los Angeles with his second wife, Fiona Dent, with whom he has three children named Eve, Grace, and Celeste.
Copeland's hobbies include rollerskating, cycling along the beach in Santa Monica, California, filmmaking, and playing polo. He is also active on his YouTube channel, where he uploads videos of himself and other musicians during jam sessions in his studio, the Sacred Grove.
Drumming style
Copeland grew up listening to a combination of Lebanese music, rock and roll, jazz, and reggae, but he selected from these styles what he needed rather than imitating them. In the 1980s, when many musicians were looking for bigger sound from bigger drums, he added Octobans. Invented by Tama Drums in 1978, Octobans consisted of eight six-inch drums in the shape of narrow tubes. He used another innovation, a splash cymbal based on a toy that he owned and that he helped Paiste design. He relied heavily on his 13" hi-hats.
Despite being left-handed, Copeland plays a right-handed drum kit, placing the hi-hats on his left and ride cymbal and floor toms on his right. He uses a wide dynamic range and demonstrates a proficiency of jazz-style articulation in his snare drum playing, interspersing strong back-beats with soft rim comping. During his years with the Police, he became known for engaging only the hi-hat with the bass drum to keep the beat.
In an interview with Modern Drummer, Copeland has cited Mitch Mitchell of the Jimi Hendrix Experience as a prime musical influence. He states that as a child, whenever he had a song or melody pop in his head, he would walk around wondering how Mitch Mitchell would drum to that particular tune. He also named Sandy Nelson and Ginger Baker as other fundamental influences in the youth years. He has stated that due to his 'enforced listening' of Buddy Rich, he considers himself 'allergic to jazz.'
He is noted for his strong emphasis on the groove as a complement to the song, rather than as its core component. He once drove this point home at a drum clinic: Copeland announced that he would show the audience something "that very few modern drummers can do" and proceeded to play a simple rock beat for two minutes. Nonetheless, his playing often incorporates spectacular fills and subtle inflections which greatly augment the groove. Compared to most of his 1980s contemporaries, his snare sound was bright and cutting. He is also one of the few rock drummers to use traditional grip rather than matched grip. He is also noted for syncopation in his drumming.
Equipment
Copeland's equipment includes Tama drums, Paiste cymbals, Remo drum heads, and Vater signature drum sticks.
Original live kit set-up (1984)
Tama Imperialstar Mahogany Drums (9-ply) and Paiste Cymbals:
Drums – Midnight Blue
10x8" Rack Tom
12x8" Rack Tom
13x9" Rack Tom
16x16" Floor Tom
14x5" Pearl Chrome over Brass Snare
22x14" Bass Drum
Tama Octobans Low Pitch (x4)
Cowbell
Wood Blocks
Cymbals – Paiste
13" Formula 602 Medium Hi-Hats
16" 2002 Crash
8" 2002 Bell
7.5 Ufip Ictus Bell
8" 2002 Splash (x2)
11" 2002 Splash
14" (or 16") Rude Crash/Ride
16" (or 18") Rude Crash/Ride
18" 2002 Medium
24" Rude Ride/Crash
20" 2002 China
Simmons (x2) Pads (to his left)
Assorted Percussion
Stewart also used Calato Regal Tip Rock Wood Tipped Drumsticks
The Police Reunion (2007–2008) tour kit
Tama Starclassic Maple Drums and Paiste Cymbals:
Drums – Custom Police Blue Sparkle Maple Wood
10x8" Tom
12x8" Tom (To the left of his snare drum)
13x9" Tom
16x16" Floor Tom
18x16" Floor Tom
20x14" Tama Gong Drum
22x18" Bass Drum
14x5" Tama SC145 Stewart Copeland Signature Snare
Tama Custom Police Blue Sparkle Octobans (x4) (custom made for Copeland)
Cymbals – Paiste
12" Prototype Micro Hi-Hats
16" Signature Full Crash
17" Signature Fast Crash
18" Signature Fast Crash
18" Signature Full Crash
18" 2002 Flat Ride (prototype)
22" Signature Blue Bell Ride
10" Signature Splash
8" Signature Bell
8" Signature Prototype Splash
Assorted percussion
Stewart also uses his own Vater Stewart Copeland Standard Sticks.
Discography
Studio albums
Film scores
TV series
Video games
See also
List of drummers
Membranophone (list of drums)
References
External links
Copeland's official site
1952 births
Living people
A&M Records artists
American expatriates in Egypt
American expatriates in Lebanon
American expatriates in the United Kingdom
American film score composers
American male film score composers
American people of Scottish descent
American rock drummers
The Police members
Curved Air members
People educated at Millfield
Musicians from Alexandria, Virginia
Musicians from Beirut
Video game composers
United States International University alumni
Chevaliers of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
20th-century American drummers
American male drummers
Copeland family
Oysterhead members
Gizmodrome members
Strontium 90 (band) members
| true |
[
"Copies Clones & Replicants is the seventh studio album by American rock band Powerman 5000. It is their first (and only) cover album, continuing the return to their more traditional industrial metal sound following 2009's Somewhere on the Other Side of Nowhere, but still keeping some of the pop-rock feel of their 2006 album Destroy What You Enjoy. Each song is a cover of some of the band's favorite tracks, which usually fall into the new wave genre.\n\nTrack listing\n\nPersonnel\nPowerman 5000\nSpider One – vocals, production\nVelkro – guitar, production, engineer\nEvan 9 – guitar, production\nX51 – bass, production\nGFlash – drums, production\n\nAdditional\n Anthony Focx – mastering\n Bruno O'Hara – photography\n\nReferences\n\n2011 albums\nPowerman 5000 albums\nCleopatra Records albums",
"IX is the ninth studio album by the Austin, Texas alternative rock rock band ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead, released October 20, 2014, on Superball Music.\n\nComposition\nJason Reece explained in an interview that the band was going for a record consisting of many instrumental tracks. Several instrumentals were written, but ended up writing songs that \"had a more personal lyrical bent\", departing from the last album's very aggressive and political lyrics. As for the sound, it was inspired by Slave Ambient and Lost in the Dream, both records by The War on Drugs: \"This layered Krautrock kind of vibe. We were thinking of Echo And The Bunnymen, Ocean Rain. These dense and bigger sounding albums. We were kind of into some 80’s music, Psychedelic Furs. Which is funny cause we’re not really a band that’s into the new wave sound, I don’t think we’ve ever made an 80’s sounding record. That’s kind of what we were jamming out to, the early 80’s sounds. Going for more of a Peter Gabriel thing, where you don’t use any cymbals, heavy toms and stuff like that were sort of the things we were kind of touching upon.\"\n\nCritical reception\n\nReviews for IX were mostly positive upon release, with an Metacritic average of 75/100, indicating generally favorable reviews.\n\nA review in Pitchfork stated, While the band may have struggled in the past to reconcile their post-hardcore roots with their art-rock ambitions*,* more often than not, \"IX\" marks the spot.\n\nIn MXDWN, Elliot Greiner wrote, For a band that started out in post-punk and somehow wandered into the feathery territory of art-rock, \"IX\" is a mediocre answer to a career’s worth of solid material. While not terrible, it is a far shot from all right, and an even farther shot from (some of) what they’ve put out in the past.\n\nTrack listing\n\nBonus CD: Tao of the Dead Pt III EP\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\n2014 albums\n...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead albums\nSuperball Music albums\nAlbums produced by Chris \"Frenchie\" Smith\nAlbums recorded at Sonic Ranch"
] |
[
"Stewart Copeland",
"The Police (1977-1986)",
"When were The Police founded?",
"1976,",
"Where were they founded?",
"I don't know.",
"Who were the founding members?",
"lead singer-bass guitarist Sting and guitarist Henry Padovani (who was soon replaced by Andy Summers",
"How did they meet?",
"I don't know.",
"Did Copeland write the music for the Police?",
"Andy Summers), and they became one of the top bands of the 1980s. The Police's early track list was mostly made of Copeland's compositions,",
"Who else wrote music for The Police?",
"Though Copeland's songwriting contribution was reduced to a couple of songs per album as Sting started writing more",
"What else did Sting do for the Police?",
"Copeland also co-wrote a number of songs with Sting,",
"Which songs did they co-write?",
"\"Peanuts\", \"Landlord\", \"It's Alright for You\" and \"Re-Humanize Yourself\".",
"What were some of their albums?",
"Music and Rhythm."
] |
C_59773acc2ace44b3a9056161d5aa2baf_1
|
Did they win any awards?
| 10 |
Did Copeland and Sting win any awards?
|
Stewart Copeland
|
In late 1976, Copeland founded the Police with lead singer-bass guitarist Sting and guitarist Henry Padovani (who was soon replaced by Andy Summers), and they became one of the top bands of the 1980s. The Police's early track list was mostly made of Copeland's compositions, including the band's first single "Fall Out" (Illegal Records, 1977) and the B side "Nothing Achieving". Though Copeland's songwriting contribution was reduced to a couple of songs per album as Sting started writing more material, he continued to co-arrange all the Police's songs with his two bandmates. Amongst Copeland's most notable songs are "On Any Other Day" (where he sang lead vocals too), "Does Everyone Stare" (later to be used as the title of his documentary on the band Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out), "Contact", "Bombs Away", "Darkness" and "Miss Gradenko". Copeland also co-wrote a number of songs with Sting, including "Peanuts", "Landlord", "It's Alright for You" and "Re-Humanize Yourself". Copeland also recorded under the pseudonym Klark Kent, releasing several UK singles in 1978 with one ("Don't Care") entering the UK Singles Chart that year, along with an eponymously titled 10-inch album on green vinyl released in 1980. Recorded at Nigel Gray's Surrey Sound Studio, Copeland played all the instruments and sang the lead vocals himself. Kent's "Don't Care", which peaked at #48 UK in August 1978, actually predates the first chart single by the Police by several months ("Can't Stand Losing You", issued in October 1978) as "Don't Care" was released in early June 1978. In 1982 Copeland was involved in the production of a WOMAD benefit album called Music and Rhythm. Copeland's score for Rumble Fish secured him a Golden Globe nomination in 1983. The film, directed and produced by Francis Ford Coppola from the S. E. Hinton novel, also had a song released to radio on A&M Records "Don't Box Me In" (UK Singles Chart n. 91)--a collaboration between Copeland and singer/songwriter Stan Ridgway, leader of the band Wall of Voodoo--that received significant airplay upon release of the film that year. The Police stopped touring in 1984, and during this brief hiatus he released a solo album, The Rhythmatist. The record was the result of a pilgrimage to Africa and its people, and it features local drums and percussion, with more drums, percussion, other musical instruments and occasional lead vocals added by Copeland. The album was the official soundtrack to the movie of the same name, which was co-written by Stewart. He also starred in the film, which is "A musical odyssey through the heart of Africa in search of the roots of rock & roll." (Copeland is seen playing the drums in a cage with lions surrounding him.) The band attempted a reunion in 1986, but the project fell apart. CANNOTANSWER
|
Copeland's score for Rumble Fish secured him a Golden Globe nomination in 1983.
|
Stewart Armstrong Copeland (born July 16, 1952) is an American musician and composer. He rose to prominence as the drummer of the British rock band The Police. He has also produced many film and video game soundtracks and written various pieces of music for ballet, opera, and orchestra. His composing work includes the films Wall Street (1987), Good Burger (1997), and We Are Your Friends (2015); the television series The Equalizer, Dead Like Me, and The Amanda Show; and the video games Alone in the Dark 4 and the Spyro series.
According to MusicRadar, Copeland's "distinctive drum sound and uniqueness of style has made him one of the most popular drummers to ever get behind a drumset". He was ranked the 10th best drummer of all time by Rolling Stone in 2016. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Police in 2003, the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame in 2005, and the Classic Drummer Hall of Fame in 2013.
Early life
Stewart Armstrong Copeland was born in Alexandria, Virginia, on July 16, 1952, the youngest of four children of Scottish archaeologist Lorraine Adie and Alabama-born CIA officer Miles Copeland Jr. According to his 1989 biography and files released by the CIA in 2008, his father was a founding member of the OSS and the CIA. The family moved to Cairo a few months after Copeland's birth. When he was five years old, the family moved to Beirut, where he attended the American Community School. He started taking drum lessons at age 12 and was playing drums for school dances within a year. He later moved to England, attending the American School in London and Millfield boarding school in Somerset from 1967 to 1969. He went to college in California, enrolling at Alliant International University and the University of California, Berkeley. His eldest brother, Miles Copeland III, founded I.R.S. Records and became the manager of the Police. He has also overseen Copeland's interests in other music projects. His other brother, the late Ian Copeland, was a pioneering booking agent who represented the Police and many others.
Career
Curved Air (1975–1976)
Returning to England, Copeland worked as road manager for the progressive rock band Curved Air's 1974 reunion tour, and then as drummer for the band during 1975 and 1976. The band kicked off with a European tour, which started poorly. Band leader Darryl Way, a notorious perfectionist, grew impatient with the struggling of his bandmates, especially novice drummer Copeland. Then, for reasons no one could pinpoint, the musicians suddenly "clicked" with each other and the band caught fire, quickly becoming a popular and acclaimed live act.
The Police (1977–1986)
In early 1977, Copeland founded the Police with lead singer-bass guitarist Sting and guitarist Henry Padovani (who was soon replaced by Andy Summers), and they became one of the top bands of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Copeland was the youngest member of the band. The Police's early track list (before their album debut) was largely Copeland compositions, including the band's first single "Fall Out" (Illegal Records, 1977) and the B-side "Nothing Achieving". Though Copeland's songwriting contribution was reduced to a couple of songs per album as Sting started writing more material, he continued to co-arrange all the Police's songs together with his two bandmates. Amongst Copeland's most notable songs are "On Any Other Day" (where he also sang lead vocals), "Does Everyone Stare" (later to be used as the title of his documentary on the band Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out), "Contact", "Bombs Away", "Darkness" and "Miss Gradenko". Copeland also co-wrote a number of songs with Sting, including "Peanuts", "Landlord", "It's Alright for You" and "Re-Humanize Yourself".
Copeland also recorded under the pseudonym Klark Kent, releasing several UK singles in 1978 with one ("Don't Care") entering the UK Singles Chart that year, along with an eponymous 10-inch album on green vinyl released in 1980. Recording at Nigel Gray's Surrey Sound Studio, Copeland played all the instruments and sang the lead vocals himself. Kent's "Don't Care", which peaked at No. 48 UK in August 1978, actually predates the first chart single by the Police by several months ("Can't Stand Losing You", issued in October 1978) as "Don't Care" was released in early June 1978.
In 1982, Copeland was involved in the production of a WOMAD benefit album called Music and Rhythm. Copeland's score for Rumble Fish secured him a Golden Globe nomination in 1983. The film, directed and produced by Francis Ford Coppola from the S. E. Hinton novel, also had a song released to radio on A&M Records "Don't Box Me In" (UK Singles Chart n. 91)—a collaboration between Copeland and singer-songwriter Stan Ridgway, leader of the band Wall of Voodoo—that received significant airplay upon release of the film that year.
The Rhythmatist record of 1985 was the result of a pilgrimage to Africa and its people, and it features local drums and percussion, with more drums, percussion, other musical instruments and occasional lead vocals added by Copeland. The album was the official soundtrack to the movie of the same name, which was co-written by Stewart. Copeland is seen in the film playing the drums in a cage with lions surrounding him.
The band attempted a reunion in 1986, but the project fell apart.
Solo projects and movie soundtracks (1987–1998)
After the Police disbanded, Copeland established a career composing soundtracks for movies (Airborne, Talk Radio, Wall Street, Riff Raff, Raining Stones, Surviving the Game, See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Highlander II: The Quickening, She's Having a Baby, The First Power, Fresh, Taking Care of Business, West Beirut, I am David, Riding the Bus with My Sister, Good Burger), television (The Equalizer, Dead Like Me, Star Wars: Droids, the pilot for Babylon 5 (1993), Nickelodeon's The Amanda Show, The Life and Times of Juniper Lee), operas (Holy Blood and Crescent Moon, commissioned by Cleveland Opera) and ballets (Prey' Ballet Oklahoma, Casque of Amontillado, Noah's Ark/Solcheeka, commissioned by the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, King Lear, commissioned by the San Francisco Ballet Company, Emilio). In 1996, Copeland provided the score for The Leopard Son, Discovery Channel's its first commercially released full-length feature film, made by wildlife filmmaker Hugo van Lawick.
Copeland also occasionally played drums for other artists. Peter Gabriel employed Copeland to perform on his song "Red Rain" from his 1986 album So because of his "hi-hat mastery". He has also performed with Mike Rutherford and Tom Waits. That year he also teamed with Adam Ant to record the title track and video for the Anthony Michael Hall movie Out of Bounds. In 1989, Copeland formed Animal Logic with jazz bassist Stanley Clarke and singer-songwriter Deborah Holland. The trio had success with their first album and world tour but the follow-up recording sold poorly, and the band did not continue.
In 1993 he composed the music for Channel 4's Horse Opera and director Bob Baldwin, and in 1999, he provided the voice of an additional American soldier in the animated musical comedy war film South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (1999).
Spyro the Dragon soundtracks (1998–2002, 2018)
He was commissioned by Insomniac Games in 1998 to make the musical score for the hit PlayStation game Spyro the Dragon. Copeland would play through the levels first to get a feel for each one before composing the soundtrack. He also stayed with the project to create the musical scores for the remaining Insomniac sequels Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage! and Spyro: Year of the Dragon. The franchise shifted over to Universal for the fourth title, Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly, which would be Copeland's last outing with the series. While the soundtracks never saw commercial release, the limited edition of the fourth game came packaged with a bonus CD, containing unused tracks. The soundtracks were very well received, and one track would later appear on the 2007 compilation album The Stewart Copeland Anthology. Copeland composed a new title theme for Spyro Reignited Trilogy.
This period also saw Copeland compose the soundtrack for Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare, his only video game soundtrack outside of the Spyro franchise to date. In 2000, he combined with Les Claypool of Primus (with whom he produced a track on the Primus album Antipop) and Trey Anastasio of Phish to create the band Oysterhead. That same year, he was approached by director Adam Collis to assemble the score for the film Sunset Strip.
Collaborations (2002–2006)
In 2002, Copeland was hired by Ray Manzarek and Robby Krieger of the Doors to play with them for a new album and tour, but after an injury sidelined Copeland, the arrangement ended in reciprocal lawsuits. In 2005, Copeland released "Orchestralli", a live recording of chamber ensemble music which he had composed during a short tour of Italy in 2002. Also in 2005, Copeland started Gizmo, a new project with avant-garde guitarist David Fiuczynski, multi-instrumentalist Vittorio Cosma, singer Raiz and bassist Max Gazzè. The band made their U.S debut on September 16, 2006, at the Modern Drummer Drum Festival. In January 2006, Copeland premiered his film about the Police called Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out at the Sundance Film Festival. In February and March, he appeared as one of the judges on the BBC television show Just the Two of Us (a role he later reprised for a second series in January 2007).
The Police reunion (2007–2008)
At the 2007 Grammy Awards, Copeland, Andy Summers and Sting performed the song "Roxanne" together again as the Police. This marked the band's first public performance since 1986 (they had previously reunited only for an improvised set at Sting's wedding party in 1992 and for their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2003). One day later, the band announced that in celebration of the Police's 30th anniversary, they would be embarking on what turned out to be a one-off reunion tour on May 28, 2007. During the tour, Copeland also released his compilation album The Stewart Copeland Anthology, which was composed of his independent work.
In 2007, the French government appointed Copeland (along with Police bandmates Summers and Sting) a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.
The group performed 151 dates across five continents, concluding with a final show in August 2008 at Madison Square Garden, New York.
Projects (2008–present)
In 2008, RIM commissioned Copeland to write a "soundtrack" for the BlackBerry Bold smart phone. He created a highly percussive theme of one minute's length from which he evolved six ringtones and a softer 'alarm tone' that are preloaded on the device.
In March 2008, he premiered his orchestral composition "Celeste" at "An Evening with Stewart Copeland", part of the Savannah Music Festival. The performance featured classical violinist Daniel Hope. His appearance at Savannah included a screening of Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out and a question and answer session. Also in 2008, he was commissioned by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra to create a percussion piece involving primarily Indonesian instruments. "Gamelan D'Drum" was first performed in Dallas on February 5, 2012, and had its European Premiere at the Royal Academy of Music in London in July 2012.
On August 21, 2009, at SummerFest 2009, Copeland unveiled the composition "Retail Therapy", which was commissioned by the Music Society. He performed three more original works: "Kaya", "Celeste", and "Gene Pool", the last accompanied by San Diego-based percussion ensemble red fish blue fish. He attended a composer's roundtable and a question and answer discussion in conjunction with the festival. Copeland wrote the score for a theatrical presentation of Ben-Hur, which premiered on September 17, 2009, at the O2 Arena in London. He provided English-language narration of the production, which is performed in Latin and Aramaic. His memoir Strange Things Happen: A Life with The Police, Polo, and Pygmies was released by Harper Collins in September 2009. The book chronicles events in his life from childhood through his work with the Police and to the present. In October 2009, he was a guest on Private Passions, the biographical music discussion program on BBC Radio 3.
On May 24, 2011, he started a YouTube channel devoted to his videos and project updates. On this channel, he uploads performances with various musicians, including Primus, Andy Summers, Jeff Lynne, Snoop Dogg, and others in his home studio, which he refers to as the Sacred Grove. On August 24, 2011, he was a featured soloist on the Late Show with David Letterman, as part of their second "Drum Solo Week".
On January 10, 2012, he appeared on an episode of the A&E reality series Storage Wars to appraise a drum set for Barry Weiss, buying a Turkish cymbal from the set for $40. In July he reunited with former Animal Logic bandmate Stanley Clarke for a European tour.
In May 2013, he and the Long Beach Opera premiered The Tale Tell Heart, an opera based on the short story by Edgar Allan Poe.
On November 26, 2013, he appeared in the first episode of The Tim Ferriss Experiment.
In 2017, he formed the supergroup Gizmodrome with Adrian Belew, Vittorio Cosma, and Mark King and released an album of the same name.
On September 5, 2021, the opera Electric Saint about the life of Nikola Tesla by Copeland with libretto by Jonathan Moore premiered at the National Theater of Weimar.
Personal life
Copeland grew up in Beirut. In 1974, he became romantically involved with Curved Air vocalist Sonja Kristina; they were married from 1982 to 1991. He adopted her son Sven from a previous relationship, and they had two sons of their own named Jordan and Scott. In 1981, he fathered a son named Patrick with Marina Guinness, the daughter of Irish author Desmond Guinness. He currently lives in Los Angeles with his second wife, Fiona Dent, with whom he has three children named Eve, Grace, and Celeste.
Copeland's hobbies include rollerskating, cycling along the beach in Santa Monica, California, filmmaking, and playing polo. He is also active on his YouTube channel, where he uploads videos of himself and other musicians during jam sessions in his studio, the Sacred Grove.
Drumming style
Copeland grew up listening to a combination of Lebanese music, rock and roll, jazz, and reggae, but he selected from these styles what he needed rather than imitating them. In the 1980s, when many musicians were looking for bigger sound from bigger drums, he added Octobans. Invented by Tama Drums in 1978, Octobans consisted of eight six-inch drums in the shape of narrow tubes. He used another innovation, a splash cymbal based on a toy that he owned and that he helped Paiste design. He relied heavily on his 13" hi-hats.
Despite being left-handed, Copeland plays a right-handed drum kit, placing the hi-hats on his left and ride cymbal and floor toms on his right. He uses a wide dynamic range and demonstrates a proficiency of jazz-style articulation in his snare drum playing, interspersing strong back-beats with soft rim comping. During his years with the Police, he became known for engaging only the hi-hat with the bass drum to keep the beat.
In an interview with Modern Drummer, Copeland has cited Mitch Mitchell of the Jimi Hendrix Experience as a prime musical influence. He states that as a child, whenever he had a song or melody pop in his head, he would walk around wondering how Mitch Mitchell would drum to that particular tune. He also named Sandy Nelson and Ginger Baker as other fundamental influences in the youth years. He has stated that due to his 'enforced listening' of Buddy Rich, he considers himself 'allergic to jazz.'
He is noted for his strong emphasis on the groove as a complement to the song, rather than as its core component. He once drove this point home at a drum clinic: Copeland announced that he would show the audience something "that very few modern drummers can do" and proceeded to play a simple rock beat for two minutes. Nonetheless, his playing often incorporates spectacular fills and subtle inflections which greatly augment the groove. Compared to most of his 1980s contemporaries, his snare sound was bright and cutting. He is also one of the few rock drummers to use traditional grip rather than matched grip. He is also noted for syncopation in his drumming.
Equipment
Copeland's equipment includes Tama drums, Paiste cymbals, Remo drum heads, and Vater signature drum sticks.
Original live kit set-up (1984)
Tama Imperialstar Mahogany Drums (9-ply) and Paiste Cymbals:
Drums – Midnight Blue
10x8" Rack Tom
12x8" Rack Tom
13x9" Rack Tom
16x16" Floor Tom
14x5" Pearl Chrome over Brass Snare
22x14" Bass Drum
Tama Octobans Low Pitch (x4)
Cowbell
Wood Blocks
Cymbals – Paiste
13" Formula 602 Medium Hi-Hats
16" 2002 Crash
8" 2002 Bell
7.5 Ufip Ictus Bell
8" 2002 Splash (x2)
11" 2002 Splash
14" (or 16") Rude Crash/Ride
16" (or 18") Rude Crash/Ride
18" 2002 Medium
24" Rude Ride/Crash
20" 2002 China
Simmons (x2) Pads (to his left)
Assorted Percussion
Stewart also used Calato Regal Tip Rock Wood Tipped Drumsticks
The Police Reunion (2007–2008) tour kit
Tama Starclassic Maple Drums and Paiste Cymbals:
Drums – Custom Police Blue Sparkle Maple Wood
10x8" Tom
12x8" Tom (To the left of his snare drum)
13x9" Tom
16x16" Floor Tom
18x16" Floor Tom
20x14" Tama Gong Drum
22x18" Bass Drum
14x5" Tama SC145 Stewart Copeland Signature Snare
Tama Custom Police Blue Sparkle Octobans (x4) (custom made for Copeland)
Cymbals – Paiste
12" Prototype Micro Hi-Hats
16" Signature Full Crash
17" Signature Fast Crash
18" Signature Fast Crash
18" Signature Full Crash
18" 2002 Flat Ride (prototype)
22" Signature Blue Bell Ride
10" Signature Splash
8" Signature Bell
8" Signature Prototype Splash
Assorted percussion
Stewart also uses his own Vater Stewart Copeland Standard Sticks.
Discography
Studio albums
Film scores
TV series
Video games
See also
List of drummers
Membranophone (list of drums)
References
External links
Copeland's official site
1952 births
Living people
A&M Records artists
American expatriates in Egypt
American expatriates in Lebanon
American expatriates in the United Kingdom
American film score composers
American male film score composers
American people of Scottish descent
American rock drummers
The Police members
Curved Air members
People educated at Millfield
Musicians from Alexandria, Virginia
Musicians from Beirut
Video game composers
United States International University alumni
Chevaliers of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
20th-century American drummers
American male drummers
Copeland family
Oysterhead members
Gizmodrome members
Strontium 90 (band) members
| true |
[
"Le Cousin is a 1997 French film directed by Alain Corneau.\n\nPlot \nThe film deals with the relationship of the police and an informant in the drug scene.\n\nAwards and nominations\nLe Cousin was nominated for 5 César Awards but did not win in any category.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n1997 films\n1997 crime films\nFilms about drugs\nFilms directed by Alain Corneau\nFrench crime films\nFrench films\nFrench-language films",
"The African National Congress was a political party in Trinidad and Tobago. The party first contested national elections in 1961, when it received just 0.5% of the vote and failed to win a seat. They did not put forward any candidates for the 1966 elections, but returned for the 1971 elections, in which they received 2.4% of the vote, but again failed to win a seat as the People's National Movement won all 36. The party did not contest any further elections.\n\nReferences\n\nDefunct political parties in Trinidad and Tobago"
] |
[
"Stewart Copeland",
"The Police (1977-1986)",
"When were The Police founded?",
"1976,",
"Where were they founded?",
"I don't know.",
"Who were the founding members?",
"lead singer-bass guitarist Sting and guitarist Henry Padovani (who was soon replaced by Andy Summers",
"How did they meet?",
"I don't know.",
"Did Copeland write the music for the Police?",
"Andy Summers), and they became one of the top bands of the 1980s. The Police's early track list was mostly made of Copeland's compositions,",
"Who else wrote music for The Police?",
"Though Copeland's songwriting contribution was reduced to a couple of songs per album as Sting started writing more",
"What else did Sting do for the Police?",
"Copeland also co-wrote a number of songs with Sting,",
"Which songs did they co-write?",
"\"Peanuts\", \"Landlord\", \"It's Alright for You\" and \"Re-Humanize Yourself\".",
"What were some of their albums?",
"Music and Rhythm.",
"Did they win any awards?",
"Copeland's score for Rumble Fish secured him a Golden Globe nomination in 1983."
] |
C_59773acc2ace44b3a9056161d5aa2baf_1
|
Any other awards?
| 11 |
Other than a Golden Globe nomination in 1983, did Copeland win any other awards?
|
Stewart Copeland
|
In late 1976, Copeland founded the Police with lead singer-bass guitarist Sting and guitarist Henry Padovani (who was soon replaced by Andy Summers), and they became one of the top bands of the 1980s. The Police's early track list was mostly made of Copeland's compositions, including the band's first single "Fall Out" (Illegal Records, 1977) and the B side "Nothing Achieving". Though Copeland's songwriting contribution was reduced to a couple of songs per album as Sting started writing more material, he continued to co-arrange all the Police's songs with his two bandmates. Amongst Copeland's most notable songs are "On Any Other Day" (where he sang lead vocals too), "Does Everyone Stare" (later to be used as the title of his documentary on the band Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out), "Contact", "Bombs Away", "Darkness" and "Miss Gradenko". Copeland also co-wrote a number of songs with Sting, including "Peanuts", "Landlord", "It's Alright for You" and "Re-Humanize Yourself". Copeland also recorded under the pseudonym Klark Kent, releasing several UK singles in 1978 with one ("Don't Care") entering the UK Singles Chart that year, along with an eponymously titled 10-inch album on green vinyl released in 1980. Recorded at Nigel Gray's Surrey Sound Studio, Copeland played all the instruments and sang the lead vocals himself. Kent's "Don't Care", which peaked at #48 UK in August 1978, actually predates the first chart single by the Police by several months ("Can't Stand Losing You", issued in October 1978) as "Don't Care" was released in early June 1978. In 1982 Copeland was involved in the production of a WOMAD benefit album called Music and Rhythm. Copeland's score for Rumble Fish secured him a Golden Globe nomination in 1983. The film, directed and produced by Francis Ford Coppola from the S. E. Hinton novel, also had a song released to radio on A&M Records "Don't Box Me In" (UK Singles Chart n. 91)--a collaboration between Copeland and singer/songwriter Stan Ridgway, leader of the band Wall of Voodoo--that received significant airplay upon release of the film that year. The Police stopped touring in 1984, and during this brief hiatus he released a solo album, The Rhythmatist. The record was the result of a pilgrimage to Africa and its people, and it features local drums and percussion, with more drums, percussion, other musical instruments and occasional lead vocals added by Copeland. The album was the official soundtrack to the movie of the same name, which was co-written by Stewart. He also starred in the film, which is "A musical odyssey through the heart of Africa in search of the roots of rock & roll." (Copeland is seen playing the drums in a cage with lions surrounding him.) The band attempted a reunion in 1986, but the project fell apart. CANNOTANSWER
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CANNOTANSWER
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Stewart Armstrong Copeland (born July 16, 1952) is an American musician and composer. He rose to prominence as the drummer of the British rock band The Police. He has also produced many film and video game soundtracks and written various pieces of music for ballet, opera, and orchestra. His composing work includes the films Wall Street (1987), Good Burger (1997), and We Are Your Friends (2015); the television series The Equalizer, Dead Like Me, and The Amanda Show; and the video games Alone in the Dark 4 and the Spyro series.
According to MusicRadar, Copeland's "distinctive drum sound and uniqueness of style has made him one of the most popular drummers to ever get behind a drumset". He was ranked the 10th best drummer of all time by Rolling Stone in 2016. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Police in 2003, the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame in 2005, and the Classic Drummer Hall of Fame in 2013.
Early life
Stewart Armstrong Copeland was born in Alexandria, Virginia, on July 16, 1952, the youngest of four children of Scottish archaeologist Lorraine Adie and Alabama-born CIA officer Miles Copeland Jr. According to his 1989 biography and files released by the CIA in 2008, his father was a founding member of the OSS and the CIA. The family moved to Cairo a few months after Copeland's birth. When he was five years old, the family moved to Beirut, where he attended the American Community School. He started taking drum lessons at age 12 and was playing drums for school dances within a year. He later moved to England, attending the American School in London and Millfield boarding school in Somerset from 1967 to 1969. He went to college in California, enrolling at Alliant International University and the University of California, Berkeley. His eldest brother, Miles Copeland III, founded I.R.S. Records and became the manager of the Police. He has also overseen Copeland's interests in other music projects. His other brother, the late Ian Copeland, was a pioneering booking agent who represented the Police and many others.
Career
Curved Air (1975–1976)
Returning to England, Copeland worked as road manager for the progressive rock band Curved Air's 1974 reunion tour, and then as drummer for the band during 1975 and 1976. The band kicked off with a European tour, which started poorly. Band leader Darryl Way, a notorious perfectionist, grew impatient with the struggling of his bandmates, especially novice drummer Copeland. Then, for reasons no one could pinpoint, the musicians suddenly "clicked" with each other and the band caught fire, quickly becoming a popular and acclaimed live act.
The Police (1977–1986)
In early 1977, Copeland founded the Police with lead singer-bass guitarist Sting and guitarist Henry Padovani (who was soon replaced by Andy Summers), and they became one of the top bands of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Copeland was the youngest member of the band. The Police's early track list (before their album debut) was largely Copeland compositions, including the band's first single "Fall Out" (Illegal Records, 1977) and the B-side "Nothing Achieving". Though Copeland's songwriting contribution was reduced to a couple of songs per album as Sting started writing more material, he continued to co-arrange all the Police's songs together with his two bandmates. Amongst Copeland's most notable songs are "On Any Other Day" (where he also sang lead vocals), "Does Everyone Stare" (later to be used as the title of his documentary on the band Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out), "Contact", "Bombs Away", "Darkness" and "Miss Gradenko". Copeland also co-wrote a number of songs with Sting, including "Peanuts", "Landlord", "It's Alright for You" and "Re-Humanize Yourself".
Copeland also recorded under the pseudonym Klark Kent, releasing several UK singles in 1978 with one ("Don't Care") entering the UK Singles Chart that year, along with an eponymous 10-inch album on green vinyl released in 1980. Recording at Nigel Gray's Surrey Sound Studio, Copeland played all the instruments and sang the lead vocals himself. Kent's "Don't Care", which peaked at No. 48 UK in August 1978, actually predates the first chart single by the Police by several months ("Can't Stand Losing You", issued in October 1978) as "Don't Care" was released in early June 1978.
In 1982, Copeland was involved in the production of a WOMAD benefit album called Music and Rhythm. Copeland's score for Rumble Fish secured him a Golden Globe nomination in 1983. The film, directed and produced by Francis Ford Coppola from the S. E. Hinton novel, also had a song released to radio on A&M Records "Don't Box Me In" (UK Singles Chart n. 91)—a collaboration between Copeland and singer-songwriter Stan Ridgway, leader of the band Wall of Voodoo—that received significant airplay upon release of the film that year.
The Rhythmatist record of 1985 was the result of a pilgrimage to Africa and its people, and it features local drums and percussion, with more drums, percussion, other musical instruments and occasional lead vocals added by Copeland. The album was the official soundtrack to the movie of the same name, which was co-written by Stewart. Copeland is seen in the film playing the drums in a cage with lions surrounding him.
The band attempted a reunion in 1986, but the project fell apart.
Solo projects and movie soundtracks (1987–1998)
After the Police disbanded, Copeland established a career composing soundtracks for movies (Airborne, Talk Radio, Wall Street, Riff Raff, Raining Stones, Surviving the Game, See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Highlander II: The Quickening, She's Having a Baby, The First Power, Fresh, Taking Care of Business, West Beirut, I am David, Riding the Bus with My Sister, Good Burger), television (The Equalizer, Dead Like Me, Star Wars: Droids, the pilot for Babylon 5 (1993), Nickelodeon's The Amanda Show, The Life and Times of Juniper Lee), operas (Holy Blood and Crescent Moon, commissioned by Cleveland Opera) and ballets (Prey' Ballet Oklahoma, Casque of Amontillado, Noah's Ark/Solcheeka, commissioned by the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, King Lear, commissioned by the San Francisco Ballet Company, Emilio). In 1996, Copeland provided the score for The Leopard Son, Discovery Channel's its first commercially released full-length feature film, made by wildlife filmmaker Hugo van Lawick.
Copeland also occasionally played drums for other artists. Peter Gabriel employed Copeland to perform on his song "Red Rain" from his 1986 album So because of his "hi-hat mastery". He has also performed with Mike Rutherford and Tom Waits. That year he also teamed with Adam Ant to record the title track and video for the Anthony Michael Hall movie Out of Bounds. In 1989, Copeland formed Animal Logic with jazz bassist Stanley Clarke and singer-songwriter Deborah Holland. The trio had success with their first album and world tour but the follow-up recording sold poorly, and the band did not continue.
In 1993 he composed the music for Channel 4's Horse Opera and director Bob Baldwin, and in 1999, he provided the voice of an additional American soldier in the animated musical comedy war film South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (1999).
Spyro the Dragon soundtracks (1998–2002, 2018)
He was commissioned by Insomniac Games in 1998 to make the musical score for the hit PlayStation game Spyro the Dragon. Copeland would play through the levels first to get a feel for each one before composing the soundtrack. He also stayed with the project to create the musical scores for the remaining Insomniac sequels Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage! and Spyro: Year of the Dragon. The franchise shifted over to Universal for the fourth title, Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly, which would be Copeland's last outing with the series. While the soundtracks never saw commercial release, the limited edition of the fourth game came packaged with a bonus CD, containing unused tracks. The soundtracks were very well received, and one track would later appear on the 2007 compilation album The Stewart Copeland Anthology. Copeland composed a new title theme for Spyro Reignited Trilogy.
This period also saw Copeland compose the soundtrack for Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare, his only video game soundtrack outside of the Spyro franchise to date. In 2000, he combined with Les Claypool of Primus (with whom he produced a track on the Primus album Antipop) and Trey Anastasio of Phish to create the band Oysterhead. That same year, he was approached by director Adam Collis to assemble the score for the film Sunset Strip.
Collaborations (2002–2006)
In 2002, Copeland was hired by Ray Manzarek and Robby Krieger of the Doors to play with them for a new album and tour, but after an injury sidelined Copeland, the arrangement ended in reciprocal lawsuits. In 2005, Copeland released "Orchestralli", a live recording of chamber ensemble music which he had composed during a short tour of Italy in 2002. Also in 2005, Copeland started Gizmo, a new project with avant-garde guitarist David Fiuczynski, multi-instrumentalist Vittorio Cosma, singer Raiz and bassist Max Gazzè. The band made their U.S debut on September 16, 2006, at the Modern Drummer Drum Festival. In January 2006, Copeland premiered his film about the Police called Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out at the Sundance Film Festival. In February and March, he appeared as one of the judges on the BBC television show Just the Two of Us (a role he later reprised for a second series in January 2007).
The Police reunion (2007–2008)
At the 2007 Grammy Awards, Copeland, Andy Summers and Sting performed the song "Roxanne" together again as the Police. This marked the band's first public performance since 1986 (they had previously reunited only for an improvised set at Sting's wedding party in 1992 and for their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2003). One day later, the band announced that in celebration of the Police's 30th anniversary, they would be embarking on what turned out to be a one-off reunion tour on May 28, 2007. During the tour, Copeland also released his compilation album The Stewart Copeland Anthology, which was composed of his independent work.
In 2007, the French government appointed Copeland (along with Police bandmates Summers and Sting) a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.
The group performed 151 dates across five continents, concluding with a final show in August 2008 at Madison Square Garden, New York.
Projects (2008–present)
In 2008, RIM commissioned Copeland to write a "soundtrack" for the BlackBerry Bold smart phone. He created a highly percussive theme of one minute's length from which he evolved six ringtones and a softer 'alarm tone' that are preloaded on the device.
In March 2008, he premiered his orchestral composition "Celeste" at "An Evening with Stewart Copeland", part of the Savannah Music Festival. The performance featured classical violinist Daniel Hope. His appearance at Savannah included a screening of Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out and a question and answer session. Also in 2008, he was commissioned by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra to create a percussion piece involving primarily Indonesian instruments. "Gamelan D'Drum" was first performed in Dallas on February 5, 2012, and had its European Premiere at the Royal Academy of Music in London in July 2012.
On August 21, 2009, at SummerFest 2009, Copeland unveiled the composition "Retail Therapy", which was commissioned by the Music Society. He performed three more original works: "Kaya", "Celeste", and "Gene Pool", the last accompanied by San Diego-based percussion ensemble red fish blue fish. He attended a composer's roundtable and a question and answer discussion in conjunction with the festival. Copeland wrote the score for a theatrical presentation of Ben-Hur, which premiered on September 17, 2009, at the O2 Arena in London. He provided English-language narration of the production, which is performed in Latin and Aramaic. His memoir Strange Things Happen: A Life with The Police, Polo, and Pygmies was released by Harper Collins in September 2009. The book chronicles events in his life from childhood through his work with the Police and to the present. In October 2009, he was a guest on Private Passions, the biographical music discussion program on BBC Radio 3.
On May 24, 2011, he started a YouTube channel devoted to his videos and project updates. On this channel, he uploads performances with various musicians, including Primus, Andy Summers, Jeff Lynne, Snoop Dogg, and others in his home studio, which he refers to as the Sacred Grove. On August 24, 2011, he was a featured soloist on the Late Show with David Letterman, as part of their second "Drum Solo Week".
On January 10, 2012, he appeared on an episode of the A&E reality series Storage Wars to appraise a drum set for Barry Weiss, buying a Turkish cymbal from the set for $40. In July he reunited with former Animal Logic bandmate Stanley Clarke for a European tour.
In May 2013, he and the Long Beach Opera premiered The Tale Tell Heart, an opera based on the short story by Edgar Allan Poe.
On November 26, 2013, he appeared in the first episode of The Tim Ferriss Experiment.
In 2017, he formed the supergroup Gizmodrome with Adrian Belew, Vittorio Cosma, and Mark King and released an album of the same name.
On September 5, 2021, the opera Electric Saint about the life of Nikola Tesla by Copeland with libretto by Jonathan Moore premiered at the National Theater of Weimar.
Personal life
Copeland grew up in Beirut. In 1974, he became romantically involved with Curved Air vocalist Sonja Kristina; they were married from 1982 to 1991. He adopted her son Sven from a previous relationship, and they had two sons of their own named Jordan and Scott. In 1981, he fathered a son named Patrick with Marina Guinness, the daughter of Irish author Desmond Guinness. He currently lives in Los Angeles with his second wife, Fiona Dent, with whom he has three children named Eve, Grace, and Celeste.
Copeland's hobbies include rollerskating, cycling along the beach in Santa Monica, California, filmmaking, and playing polo. He is also active on his YouTube channel, where he uploads videos of himself and other musicians during jam sessions in his studio, the Sacred Grove.
Drumming style
Copeland grew up listening to a combination of Lebanese music, rock and roll, jazz, and reggae, but he selected from these styles what he needed rather than imitating them. In the 1980s, when many musicians were looking for bigger sound from bigger drums, he added Octobans. Invented by Tama Drums in 1978, Octobans consisted of eight six-inch drums in the shape of narrow tubes. He used another innovation, a splash cymbal based on a toy that he owned and that he helped Paiste design. He relied heavily on his 13" hi-hats.
Despite being left-handed, Copeland plays a right-handed drum kit, placing the hi-hats on his left and ride cymbal and floor toms on his right. He uses a wide dynamic range and demonstrates a proficiency of jazz-style articulation in his snare drum playing, interspersing strong back-beats with soft rim comping. During his years with the Police, he became known for engaging only the hi-hat with the bass drum to keep the beat.
In an interview with Modern Drummer, Copeland has cited Mitch Mitchell of the Jimi Hendrix Experience as a prime musical influence. He states that as a child, whenever he had a song or melody pop in his head, he would walk around wondering how Mitch Mitchell would drum to that particular tune. He also named Sandy Nelson and Ginger Baker as other fundamental influences in the youth years. He has stated that due to his 'enforced listening' of Buddy Rich, he considers himself 'allergic to jazz.'
He is noted for his strong emphasis on the groove as a complement to the song, rather than as its core component. He once drove this point home at a drum clinic: Copeland announced that he would show the audience something "that very few modern drummers can do" and proceeded to play a simple rock beat for two minutes. Nonetheless, his playing often incorporates spectacular fills and subtle inflections which greatly augment the groove. Compared to most of his 1980s contemporaries, his snare sound was bright and cutting. He is also one of the few rock drummers to use traditional grip rather than matched grip. He is also noted for syncopation in his drumming.
Equipment
Copeland's equipment includes Tama drums, Paiste cymbals, Remo drum heads, and Vater signature drum sticks.
Original live kit set-up (1984)
Tama Imperialstar Mahogany Drums (9-ply) and Paiste Cymbals:
Drums – Midnight Blue
10x8" Rack Tom
12x8" Rack Tom
13x9" Rack Tom
16x16" Floor Tom
14x5" Pearl Chrome over Brass Snare
22x14" Bass Drum
Tama Octobans Low Pitch (x4)
Cowbell
Wood Blocks
Cymbals – Paiste
13" Formula 602 Medium Hi-Hats
16" 2002 Crash
8" 2002 Bell
7.5 Ufip Ictus Bell
8" 2002 Splash (x2)
11" 2002 Splash
14" (or 16") Rude Crash/Ride
16" (or 18") Rude Crash/Ride
18" 2002 Medium
24" Rude Ride/Crash
20" 2002 China
Simmons (x2) Pads (to his left)
Assorted Percussion
Stewart also used Calato Regal Tip Rock Wood Tipped Drumsticks
The Police Reunion (2007–2008) tour kit
Tama Starclassic Maple Drums and Paiste Cymbals:
Drums – Custom Police Blue Sparkle Maple Wood
10x8" Tom
12x8" Tom (To the left of his snare drum)
13x9" Tom
16x16" Floor Tom
18x16" Floor Tom
20x14" Tama Gong Drum
22x18" Bass Drum
14x5" Tama SC145 Stewart Copeland Signature Snare
Tama Custom Police Blue Sparkle Octobans (x4) (custom made for Copeland)
Cymbals – Paiste
12" Prototype Micro Hi-Hats
16" Signature Full Crash
17" Signature Fast Crash
18" Signature Fast Crash
18" Signature Full Crash
18" 2002 Flat Ride (prototype)
22" Signature Blue Bell Ride
10" Signature Splash
8" Signature Bell
8" Signature Prototype Splash
Assorted percussion
Stewart also uses his own Vater Stewart Copeland Standard Sticks.
Discography
Studio albums
Film scores
TV series
Video games
See also
List of drummers
Membranophone (list of drums)
References
External links
Copeland's official site
1952 births
Living people
A&M Records artists
American expatriates in Egypt
American expatriates in Lebanon
American expatriates in the United Kingdom
American film score composers
American male film score composers
American people of Scottish descent
American rock drummers
The Police members
Curved Air members
People educated at Millfield
Musicians from Alexandria, Virginia
Musicians from Beirut
Video game composers
United States International University alumni
Chevaliers of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
20th-century American drummers
American male drummers
Copeland family
Oysterhead members
Gizmodrome members
Strontium 90 (band) members
| false |
[
"Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize is an annual literary prize for any book-length translation into English from any other living European language. The first prize was awarded in 1999. The prize is funded by and named in honour of Lord Weidenfeld and by New College, The Queen's College and St Anne's College, Oxford.\n\nWinners\nSource:\n\nNotes\n\nExternal links\nOxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize\n\nTranslation awards\nAwards established in 1999\n1999 establishments in the United Kingdom\nEnglish literary awards\nAwards and prizes of the University of Oxford",
"The 9th annual Genie Awards were held March 22, 1988, and honoured Canadian films released in 1987. The ceremony was held at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre and was co-hosted by Megan Follows and Gordon Pinsent.\n\nThe awards were dominated by Night Zoo (Un zoo la nuit), which won a still unmatched thirteen awards. The film garnered 14 nominations overall; the film's only nomination that failed to translate into a win was Gilles Maheu's nod for Best Actor, as he lost to the film's other Best Actor nominee, Roger Lebel. The female acting awards were won by Sheila McCarthy and Paule Baillargeon for the film I've Heard the Mermaids Singing, the only other narrative feature film to win any Genie awards that year; only the Documentary and Short Film awards, in which neither Night Zoo nor I've Heard the Mermaids Singing were even eligible for consideration, were won by any other film.\n\nWinners and nominees\n\nReferences\n\n09\nGenie\nGenie\nGenie"
] |
[
"Reba McEntire",
"2014-2016: Nash Icon, Love Somebody, Christmas and Gospel albums, America's Got Talent"
] |
C_250e1915dae4444eacc416035a1b7b5b_1
|
What was her goal
| 1 |
What was Reba McEntire's goal?
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Reba McEntire
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On October 21, 2014, it was announced that McEntire would be the inaugural signing for Big Machine's new imprint Nash Icon Music. She also disclosed that she was working on a new album, with 11 new songs. Her first single for the new label, "Going Out Like That", was announced December 16, 2014 and was released on January 6, 2015. It served as the lead-off single to Love Somebody, McEntire's twenty-seventh studio album, released on April 14, 2015. Love Somebody debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Top Country Albums--her twelfth number-one album on the chart--and No. 3 on Billboard 200, selling 62,469 copies in the U.S. The album has sold 171,600 copies in the U.S. as of October 5, 2015. In 2016, McEntire was selected as one of thirty artists to perform on "Forever Country", a mash-up track of Take Me Home, Country Roads, On the Road Again and I Will Always Love You which celebrates 50 years of the CMA Awards. McEntire released her third Christmas album My Kind of Christmas on September 2, 2016. The album was exclusively sold at Cracker Barrel and online. She also announced she would soon be selling her own line of clothing, home decor, jewelry and other things under the "Rockin' R by Reba" line also at Cracker Barrel. McEntire was a guest judge on the July 13, 2016 episode of America's Got Talent. She used her golden buzzer, which she could only use once and allowed an act to go straight to the live shows, on contortionist Sofie Dossi. CANNOTANSWER
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Big Machine's new imprint Nash Icon Music.
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Reba Nell McEntire, also known mononymously as Reba, (born March 28, 1955) is an American country music singer, actress and businesswoman. She is often referred to as "the Queen of Country," having sold more than 75 million records worldwide. Since the 1970s, McEntire has placed over 100 singles on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, 25 of which reached the number one spot. She is also credited as an actress, having appeared in both films and television. She starred in the television series Reba, which aired for six seasons. She also owns several businesses, including a clothing line.
One of four children, McEntire was born and raised in the state of Oklahoma. In childhood and adolescence, her interests included barrel racing and sports. She also had a natural singing ability, which was encouraged by her mother. With her mother's help, she and her siblings formed the Singing McEntires, which played at local events and recorded for a small label. McEntire later enrolled at Southeastern Oklahoma State University and studied to become a public school teacher. She also continued to occasionally perform and was heard singing at a rodeo event by country performer Red Steagall. Drawn to her singing voice, Steagall helped McEntire secure a country music recording contract with PolyGram/Mercury Records in 1975.
Over the next several years, PolyGram/Mercury released a series of McEntire's albums and singles, which amounted to little success. In the early 1980s, McEntire's music gained more momentum through several top ten country songs, including "(You Lift Me) Up to Heaven", "I'm Not That Lonely Yet" and her first number one "Can't Even Get the Blues". Yet McEntire became increasingly unhappy with her career trajectory and signed with MCA Records in 1984. Her second MCA album titled My Kind of Country (1984) became her breakout release, spawning two number one Billboard country singles and pointed towards a more traditional musical style. Through the 1980s, McEntire released seven more studio albums and had ten more number one country hits. Her number one singles included "One Promise Too Late", "The Last One to Know" and the Grammy Award-winning "Whoever's in New England".
In 1991, McEntire lost eight of her band members in a plane crash in San Diego, California. The experience led to McEntire's critically acclaimed album For My Broken Heart, which is her highest-selling disc to date. She followed it with several commercially successful albums during the 1990s, including Read My Mind (1994), What If It's You (1996) and If You See Him (1998). These albums featured the number one country singles "The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter", "How Was I to Know" and a duet with Brooks and Dunn called "If You See Him/If You See Her". McEntire also began acting on film and television, beginning with 1990's Tremors. In 2001, she played the role of Annie Oakley in the Broadway musical Annie Get Your Gun. The same year, the WB channel launched the TV series Reba, which starred McEntire in the lead role. The show became successful and ran until 2007.
In 2004, McEntire returned to her country recording career with the top five Billboard album Room to Breathe. She followed the release with 2007's Reba: Duets, 2009's Keep On Loving You and 2011's All the Women I Am. Her 2000's albums spawned the number one singles "Somebody", "Consider Me Gone" and "Turn on the Radio". In 2012, McEntire briefly returned to television with the series Malibu Country and in 2018 portrayed the role of Colonel Sanders in television commercials for KFC. She has continued releasing new music, including Love Somebody (2015), Sing It Now (2017) and Revived Remixed Revisited (2021).
Early life
McEntire was born in McAlester, Oklahoma in 1955 but was raised on a ranch in Chockie, Oklahoma. She was the third of four children born to Clark and Jacqueline McEntire. Her grandfather, John Wesley McEntire, was a world-champion steer roper in 1934, while her father held the same title three times (1957, 1958 and 1961). Jacqueline McEntire had aspirations of becoming a country singer, but instead became a public school teacher, librarian and secretary While her mother was tender and loving, her father had trouble showing affection. "When we were growing up I used to regret that Daddy never told us that he loved us," she recalled in her autobiography. The McEntire family owned a cattle ranch in Chockie. Each family member contributed to running the cattle operation. The McEntire children helped with ranch chores before and after school. This included castrating bulls and giving them worm medicine.
The McEntire siblings also developed an interest in singing, which was encouraged by their mother. On car trips to their father's rodeo dates, Jacqueline McEntire taught her children to sing in harmony with one another. Young Reba then started performing school, beginning in first grade when she sang "Away in a Manger" at an elementary school Christmas pageant. In fifth grade, she joined the 4-H club and won first place in the Junior Act Division for singing "My Sweet Little Alice Blue Gown". She also played basketball and ran track. For several summers, she attended a basketball camp. She also learned piano and guitar. She also developed an interest in the rodeo and trained to become a barrel racer.
By high school the McEntire siblings had been frequently performing. Together, they formed a trio which they called The Singing McEntires. In 1971, the trio released a single about their famous grandfather called "The Ballad of John McEntire". It was pressed as a single by a local label and was issued in small numbers regionally. The trio eventually included a backing band which performed at local functions. The group was later named The Kiowa High School Cowboy Band. They also had paying gigs at bars at dance halls in nearby Oklahoma City. "We were a bunch of kids barely in puberty who didn't get to bed until almost daylight after some of our shows," McEntire remembered. The band parted ways once Reba's brother graduated high school. In 1973, McEntire graduated from Kiowa High School.
Once finishing high school, McEntire enrolled in college at Southeastern Oklahoma State University. She majored in elementary education with a minor in music. She completed student teaching and later graduated with a Bachelor's degree. She also continued to help out on her family's ranch during her college years. In 1974, McEntire's father encouraged her to take a job opportunity singing "The Star-Spangled Banner" at the National Finals Rodeo in Oklahoma City. She contacted family friend and rodeo announcer Clem McSpadden, who helped her get hired for the gig. Following one of her performances, McEntire was heard by country artist Red Steagall who was impressed by her singing. Reba, her siblings and her mother later joined him at a hotel party the same week. At the hotel, Reba performed an a cappella version of Dolly Parton's "Joshua". Jacqueline McEntire asked Steagall if he was able to help get all her children a recording contract. After going back to Nashville, Steagall contacted her in early 1975 and said, "I can't take all three. But I could take Reba. She's got something a little different."
In March 1975 and accompanied by her mother, McEntire embarked on a trip to Nashville, Tennessee to record a demonstration tape that Steagall hoped to pass along to record labels. At the start of the trip, she was unsure about pursuing a professional country music career. McEntire recalled in her autobiography continually making excuses for her mother to stop the car instead of traveling to Nashville. After noticing her daughter's fear, Jacqueline McEntire told her, "Now Reba, let me tell you something. If you don't want to go to Nashville, we don't have to do this. But I'm living all my dreams through you." The conversation changed her mind and they continued on to Nashville.
After recording a demo, McEntire's tape was heard by Glenn Keener of PolyGram/Mercury Records, who was interested in signing her to a Nashville contract. Keener brought McEntire's tape and another female's tape to PolyGram's Chicago headquarters. The label informed Kenner that he could only sign one female performer. "He looked at the two tapes in his hand and handed ’em mine," McEntire told Entertainment Weekly.
Music career
1976–1983: Career launch at Mercury
In November 1975, McEntire signed a country music recording contract with PolyGram/Mercury Records. She made her first recordings for the label in January 1976. She was produced by Glenn Keener and was backed by a Countrypolitan arrangement that included a string section. McEntire's debut single was released in 1976 titled "I Don't Want to Be a One Night Stand". The track failed to become a major hit, only peaking at number 88 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart that May. It was followed by the low-charting Billboard country singles "(There's Nothing Like the Love) Between a Woman and Man" and "Glad I Waited Just for You". Mercury issued her self-titled debut album in 1977. In his album review, Greg Adams of AllMusic compared it to the country crossover style of Barbara Mandrell and Tammy Wynette. McEntire also began touring and performing more frequently. Without a band of her own, she often relied on house bands to accompany her. In some instances, the backing bands did not know country music and McEntire would have to fill her time onstage with jokes.
McEntire's career gained more momentum by 1978. That year she collaborated on two singles with country artist Jacky Ward. The duo's double-sided release of "I'd Really Love to See You Tonight"/"Three Sheets in the Wind" became her first top 20 hit on the country chart. When Glenn Keener left the PolyGram/Mercury roster, McEntire inherited producer Jerry Kennedy. Kennedy produced her second studio album titled Out of a Dream (1979). The album's cover of Patsy Cline's "Sweet Dreams" became her first top 20 hit as a solo artist. Four additional top 40 country singles were spawned from the album as well. By 1980, McEntire had formed her own band which included sister Susie and brother Pake McEntire. She also hired a new manager. McEntire and her band toured to dates in a three-car caravan, which included a horse trailer for transporting instruments. She later upgraded to a bus nicknamed "Silver Eagle", which routinely broke down. Also in 1980, "(You Lift Me) Up to Heaven" became her first top ten hit on the country songs chart. It was included on her third studio album, Feel the Fire, which was released in October.
By this point, McEntire's label pushed her record music in a soft country pop style that she often disagreed with. Future material (which included her next album) was recorded in this format. Her fourth album, Heart to Heart was issued in 1981 and became her first disc to chart the Billboard Country Albums list. It received only a 2.5 star review from AllMusic's William Ruhlmann, who described McEntire as being "a promising, but not yet accomplished country artist." Yet its lead single, "Today All Over Again", became her highest charting country single yet, reaching number five. In 1983, McEntire's bus had broken down when she was informed that her latest single "Can't Even Get the Blues" reached the number one spot on the Billboard country chart. It was followed by her second number one song "You're the First Time I Thought About Leaving". The track also became her second to reach the top ten of Canada's RPM country songs chart. Both singles appeared on her 1983 album Unlimited. The following year, the single "Why Do We Want (What We Know We Can't Have)" reached the top ten. With increased success in the country music industry, she was able to arrange an early release from PolyGram/Mercury in 1983. "Let met put it this way, I've sorta taken my career into control myself," she explained of the decision.
1984–1990: Breakthrough
McEntire signed with MCA Records in 1984 and released her seventh studio album Just a Little Love. Harold Shedd was originally intended to produce the disc, however, McEntire rejected his desire for a country pop arrangement. Instead, Norro Wilson produced the project. Despite spawning a top ten hit, McEntire was still dissatisfied with the record's production and the lack of control over material. Instead, she turned to MCA president Jimmy Bowen who suggested that she find her own songs to record. Accompanied by Don "Dirt" Lanier, McEntire spent several days listening to various songs from publishing companies. Eventually she found a song written by Harlan Howard titled "Somebody Should Leave" and a song by Jon Moffat titled "How Blue". Released as singles, they reached the number one spot on the country songs chart and later appeared on 1984's My Kind of Country. The collection also included several covers of classic country songs by Ray Price, Charley Pride and Connie Smith. AllMusic's William Ruhlmann gave the disc 4.5 stars. Billboard magazine described McEntire on the album as being "the finest woman country singer since Kitty Wells." The album became her breakthrough recording, leading McEntire to winning 1984's Female Vocalist of the Year accolade from the Country Music Association. Along with music by George Strait and Randy Travis, the album also brought forth a stylistic change in country towards traditional arrangements and sounds.
Her next MCA album was 1985's Have I Got a Deal for You. The project followed the same traditional country format of its predecessor. It was produced by Jimmy Bowen, along with co-production credits from McEntire herself. The album 's title track reached the Billboard country top ten along with "Only in My Mind", a song composed by McEntire herself. In February 1986, her ninth studio album was released named Whoever's in New England. On the record, McEntire and co-producer Jimmy Bowen mixed a traditional country style with a modern, contemporary sound. Author Kurt Wolff described the title track's production, as being "bigger and sentimentalism more obvious, even manipulative". Issued as the lead single, the title track peaked at number one on the Bilboard country chart and won McEntire the Grammy Award for Best Female Country Vocal Performance. The album itself became her first to top the Billboard Country Albums survey. and later certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America for sales of one million copies.
By this point McEntire had reached the height of her commercial stardom. Following this, McEntire made changes to her stage show. She began implementing choreography and experimented with stage lighting. Also in 1986, McEntire's twelfth studio album appeared titled What Am I Gonna Do About You. AllMusic found that it lacked the features that had made Whoever's in New England unique. The title track was the lead single from the release. It became her next number one song on the Billboard country chart and her first number one on the RPM Canadian country chart. Its second single "One Promise Too Late" also topped the country chart. Her thirteenth studio project, The Last One to Know, was released in 1987 and reached number three on the Billboard country albums chart. Reviewer Tom Roland noted that McEntire chose material that reflected her recent divorce from first husband Charlie Battles. Both the title track and "Love Will Find Its Way to You" topped the Billboard country songs chart. In late 1987, McEntire released her first Christmas collection called Merry Christmas to You. Also in 1987, she played Carnegie Hall in New York City for the first time.
In the late 1980s, McEntire took more control of her career. She fired her manager and formed her own entertainment company that helped further promote her material. Other new changes included her 1988 pop-inspired release Reba. Her fifteenth studio disc included covers of the former pop hits "Respect" and "A Sunday Kind of Love". It produced the number one Billboard country singles "New Fool at an Old Game" and "I Know How He Feels". It was followed by 1989's Sweet Sixteen, which was noted to be a more of a "return[s] to the neo-traditionalist fold", according to reviewer William Ruhlmann. The album featured the country hits "'Til Love Comes Again", "Little Girl", "Walk On" and a cover of "Cathy's Clown". Her first live project titled Reba Live was also released in 1989.
Rumor Has It (1990) was another pop-oriented album release featuring a mix of ballads and uptempo numbers. It was the first disc in McEntire's career to reach the top 40 of the Billboard 200 albums chart. The disc would became McEntire's highest-selling albums, certifying three-times platinum from the RIAA. Four hit country singles came from the release, including "You Lie" and her cover of "Fancy". The latter single eventually become one of McEntire's signature songs.
1991: Plane crash and For My Broken Heart
In the late 1980s, McEntire's touring schedule became increasingly busy. To avoid long bus trips, she and her band began traveling by private planes to concerts. McEntire and her touring band started the 1991 leg of their tour with dates in Alaska, Saginaw, Michigan, Fort Wayne, Indiana and a private gig for IBM in San Diego, California. Two planes were scheduled to leave San Diego which would carry McEntire's band. McEntire, her husband and her stylist would take a different aircraft the next day. In the middle of the night on March 16, 1991, McEntire was awoken to a phone call from Roger Woolsey, who flew the second plane. McEntire's husband took the call and discovered that one of the planes had crashed. Following the successful takeoff of both planes, one plane's wing hit the side of Otay Mountain in San Diego, killing everyone on board.
In total, eight members of her band were killed: Chris Austin, Kirk Cappello, Joey Cigainero, Paula Kaye Evans, Jim Hammon, Terry Jackson, Anthony Saputo, and Michael Thomas. In addition pilot Donald Holmes and co-pilot Chris Hollinger were also killed. The first plane was a Hawker Siddeley DH-125-1A/522 charter jet that took off at 1:40 AM from the Brown Field Municipal Airport, located near the border of Mexico. After reaching an altitude of above sea level, the aircraft crashed on the side of Otay Mountain, located east of the airport. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) determined the probable cause of the accident was related to "improper pilot planning".
Meanwhile, the second plane carrying the rest of her band made it successfully to an airport in Nashville. McEntire, her husband and hair stylist returned on their own plane following the accident. "By the time that long, terrible weekend was over, we were emotionally and physically exhausted," McEntire stated in her autobiography. The news was reported nearly immediately to McEntire and her husband, who were sleeping at a nearby hotel. A spokeswoman for McEntire made a statement to The Los Angeles Times on behalf of her: "She was very close to all of them. Some of them had been with her for years. Reba is totally devastated by this. It's like losing part of your family. Right now she just wants to get back to Nashville." Two days after the crash, McEntire conducted an interview with People magazine and scheduled a memorial service for the families of the victims. Nine days following the accident, McEntire performed at the 63rd Academy Awards ceremony, singing the Best Original Song nominee "I'm Checkin' Out" from the film Postcards from the Edge. In addition, Vince Gill and Dolly Parton offered their help in reorganizing her touring band.
McEntire dedicated her sixteenth album, For My Broken Heart, to the deceased members of her road band. Released in October 1991, it contained songs of sorrow and lost love about "all measure of suffering", according to Alanna Nash of Entertainment Weekly. Nash reported that McEntire "still hits her stride with the more traditional songs of emotional turmoil, above all combining a spectacular vocal performance with a terrific song on 'Buying Her Roses', a wife's head-spinning discovery of her husband's other woman." The disc peaked at number three on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart. It also became her highest-charting release on the Billboard 200 yet, peaking at number 13. It later sold over four million copies in the United States, becoming her best-selling album to date. Its title track and "Is There Life Out There" both became number one Billboard country singles. In addition, "The Greatest Man I Never Knew" and McEntire's cover of "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia" both became major country hits.
1992–2002: Continued country success
In December 1992, McEntire's seventeenth album It's Your Call was released. A sign of her increased mainstream success, the album was her first to reach the top ten of the Billboard 200. It spawned the country hits "Take It Back", the title track and a number one duet with Vince Gill called "The Heart Won't Lie". Critic Brian Mansfield compared the disc to For My Broken Heart, concluding that "only casual or partial listeners will be moved as much." Christopher John Farley of Time wrote that the album ranged from being "relaxing" to "cathartic", and "these vocals from one of the best country singers linger in the mind". For her next release, McEntire collaborated with up-and-coming artist Linda Davis on the single "Does He Love You". MCA Records encouraged McEntire to record the track with more established acts like Wynonna Judd or Trisha Yearwood, but ultimately finalized the track with Davis. It became her eighteenth number one hit on the Country Songs chart and her sixteenth number one hit on the Canadian country chart. It was later included on her 1993 compilation Greatest Hits Volume Two. Later that year, Davis and McEntire performed the duet at the CMA Awards. For her performance, McEntire wore a red dress with a plunging neckline that created controversy among the Nashville community.
Her eighteenth studio release was 1994's Read My Mind. The disc reached number two on both the Billboard 200 and the Top Country Albums chart. The disc later reached sales of three million copies in the United States and certified three times platinum from the RIAA. Five major hits came from the release, including "The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter", "Till You Love Me" and a song about a woman contracting AIDS called "She Thinks His Name Was John". The latter recording only reached a top 20 charting position due to its controversial lyrics. McEntire's nineteenth studio album, Starting Over (1995) was collection of her favorite songs originally recorded by others. The album was made to commemorate McEntire's twenty years in the music industry. The album received a less favorable response from critics than that of her previous releases. While project spawned three charting singles, only McEntire's cover of "Ring on Her Finger, Time on Her Hands" became a top ten country song. Starting Over was certified platinum by the RIAA within the first two months of its release.
McEntire's next album release What If It's You was issued by MCA in November 1996. The record was a return to a contemporary country sound. It debuted at number 15 on the Billboard 200 and eventually topped the Billboard country albums list. It received a more favorable response from radio programmers than that of her 1995 album and received greater promotion. Critic Thom Owens noted that the project "[didn't] offer any new tricks from Reba McEntire, but it is nevertheless an excellent reminder of her deep talents as a vocalist." Its first single, "The Fear of Being Alone" became a top five hit, while "How Was I to Know" reached the number one spot on the Billboard country songs survey.
McEntire began touring with country duo Brooks & Dunn during the mid 1990s. Their touring collaborating led to the recording of a duet titled "If You See Him/If You See Her" in 1998. The track topped both the Billboard country songs chart and the Canadian RPM country chart. Their initial collaborations would lead to several more professional endeavors over the years, including a joint Las Vegas residency. The duet was included on McEntire's If You See Him album and Brooks & Dunn's If You See Her album, both of which were released in June 1998. Thom Owens found that both album titles were named nearly the same as "a way to draw attention for both parties, since they were no longer new guns—they were veterans in danger of losing ground to younger musicians". If You See Him produced three more top ten country hits including "Forever Love" and "One Honest Heart".
In 1999, McEntire released two albums. In September she issued her second Christmas album, The Secret of Giving: A Christmas Collection. In November, her twenty-second studio album, So Good Together was released. Entertainment Weekly commented that most of the album's material was "an odd set—mostly ballads, including an English/Portuguese duet with Jose e Durval on Boz Scaggs' 'We're All Alone'". It featured the top five country songs "What Do You Say" and "I'll Be". McEntire focused on an acting career in the early 2000s and took a temporary musical hiatus. One exception was 2001's "I'm a Survivor". The single became a top five country hit and the theme song to McEntire's 2001 television series.
2003–2015: Country music comeback, record label switch and continued music success
McEntire returned to her recording career in August 2003 with the release of the MCA single "I'm Gonna Take That Mountain". The song was included on her first studio album in four years titled Room to Breathe (November 2003). "The reason I named the album Room to Breathe is because I needed a little room to breathe," McEntire told Billboard. The 12-track disc was produced by Buddy Cannon and Norro Wilson. It also featured a guest appearance from Vince Gill. Room to Breathe debuted at number four on the Billboard country chart and later certified platinum in the United States. It spawned McEntire's first number one song in six years titled "Somebody". Also featured was the top ten single "He Gets That from Me". In 2004, she embarked on her first tour in several years also titled "Room to Breathe", which included 36 cities in the United States. In 2005, MCA released the double-disc compilation titled Reba #1's while she was in between albums.
In September 2007, McEntire's next studio disc was releaded titled Reba: Duets. The album was a collection of duets with various music artists, including Kenny Chesney, LeAnn Rimes, Trisha Yearwood, Carole King, and Justin Timberlake. Reba: Duets topped the Billboard country chart and theBillboard 200, becoming her first album in her career to top reach the top of both lists. Reba: Duets was later certified platinum by the RIAA. The album was given high critical praise from magazines such as PopMatters, which compared McEntire to artists like Janis Joplin and Tina Turner. AllMusic's Thom Jurek gave it 3.5 stars, commenting that "it's full of good to great songs delivered in mostly interesting ways." The first single was a duet version of Kelly Clarkson's "Because of You", which reached number two on the American country chart and topped the Canadian country songs chart.
In 2008, McEntire announced that she would be departing her label of 25 years and signing with the Valory Music Group, an imprint of Big Machine Records. The switch to Valory reunited McEntire with the label's president, Scott Borchetta, whom she had worked with previously. Her first Valory single was 2009's "Strange". The song debuted at number 39 Billboard country songs chart, giving McEntire the highest single debut of her career and peaked at number eleven. Her twenty-sixth studio album, Keep On Loving You was released in August 2009 and also topped both the Billboard Country and 200 charts. In 2009, "Consider Me Gone" (spawned as the record's second single) became her 24th number-one on the Billboard chart in December. At age 54, McEntire became one of the oldest women to have a number one single on the country songs chart.
McEntire's twenty-ninth studio album All the Women I Am was released in November 2010. Steve Morse of The Boston Globe called the project "one of her best efforts", while Thom Jurek at AllMusic only gave it a 2.5 star rating, calling it "awkward" and lacking a "center". "Turn On the Radio" was issued as the lead single prior to the album, eventually becoming her twenty firth number one on the Billboard country survey. Three additional charting singles were spawned from All the Women I Am that peaked outside the top 20. Her All the Women I Am Tour tour followed shortly after late featuring country acts the Band Perry, Steel Magnolia, and Edens Edge. In 2014, McEntire moved to Big Machine's new imprint for veteran artists titled Nash Icon Music. Her first Nash Icon single was 2015's "Going Out Like That", which reached the top 25 of the Billboard country songs chart. It was included on her 2015 Nash Icon album Love Somebody. The album topped the country albums chart and charted the top five of the Billboard 200. In 2016, McEntire released a third Christmas-themed studio album called My Kind of Christmas. The album was exclusively sold at Cracker Barrel and online. She also announced she would soon be selling her own line of clothing, home decor, jewelry and other things under the "Rockin' R by Reba" line also at Cracker Barrel.
2017–present: New beginnings in her 60s
After her split from ex-husband Narvel Blackstock, McEntire took control of her career as her own manager. She recruited Justin McIntosh of Starstruck Entertainment, Leslie Matthews serving as Brand Manager, and Carolyn Snell who has been with McEntire for nine years. They formed Reba's Business Inc. (RBI). She moved out of the building she and Blackstock had worked in, and moved her company to Green Hills, Nashville.
On December 15, 2016, McEntire announced that she was releasing her first gospel album titled Sing It Now: Songs of Faith & Hope. It was released by Nash Icon/Rockin' R Records on February 3, 2017, and consists of two discs. Disc one contains traditional hymns while disc two contains original tracks. "Softly and Tenderly", featuring Kelly Clarkson and Trisha Yearwood, was the first track off the album released. Another track on the album, "In the Garden/Wonderful Peace", features the Isaacs. Jay DeMarcus of the Rascal Flatts produced the album. The first single off the album is "Back to God". In January 2018, McEntire won the Grammy Award for Best Roots Gospel Album, her first nomination since 2007, and her first Grammy Award win in more than twenty years, since 1994. She also headlined the C2C: Country to Country festival in the UK alongside Brad Paisley and Zac Brown Band in March. Because of its limited release in 2016, on October 13, 2017 My Kind of Christmas was re-released - this time including songs with Vince Gill, Amy Grant, Darius Rucker and Lauren Daigle - on her website and through iTunes. In July 2018, it was announced that McEntire would be one of four honorees for the 41st annual Kennedy Center Honors, along with Cher, Philip Glass, and Wayne Shorter. The ceremony was held December 2, 2018, and broadcast on CBS December 26, 2018.
McEntire released her twenty-ninth studio album Stronger Than the Truth on April 5, 2019. McEntire also returned to host the 54th Academy of Country Music Awards on April 8, 2019.
On June 25, 2019, The New York Times Magazine listed McEntire among hundreds of artists whose material was destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.
On February 20, 2020, during a surprise appearance at the Country Radio Seminar, McEntire announced she had signed a new record deal with MCA Nashville, returning to the label after leaving in November 2008. McEntire hosted the 54th Annual Country Music Association Awards alongside Darius Rucker in November 2020. McEntire previously hosted in 2019 with Carrie Underwood and Dolly Parton, 1992 with Vince Gill, 1991 by herself (the second solo female host) and 1990 with Randy Travis.
Acting career
1989–99: Entry into film and television acting
In 1990, she obtained her first film role playing Heather Gummer in the horror comedy Tremors, along with Kevin Bacon. The film told the story of a small group of people living in Nevada who were fighting subterranean worm-like creatures. After the film's release, McEntire developed a strong interest in acting and made it her second career. The film earned McEntire a nomination for Best Supporting Actress at the 1991 Saturn Awards. The following year, she starred along with Kenny Rogers and Burt Reynolds in the made-for-television movies The Gambler Returns: The Luck of the Draw and The Man From Left Field. In 1994, McEntire worked with director Rob Reiner in the film North, playing Ma Tex. The film obtained negative reviews, receiving only two and a half stars from Allmovie.
In 1994, McEntire starred in Is There Life Out There? a television movie based on her song of the same name. The following year, she appeared in Buffalo Girls, which was based upon the life of western cowgirl Calamity Jane (played by Anjelica Huston). Playing Jane's friend Annie Oakley, Buffalo Girls was nominated for an Emmy award. In 1996, McEntire was cast by director James Cameron as Molly Brown in his film Titanic. However, when it became apparent production for the film would extend well beyond its original length, McEntire had to turn down the part, as she had already scheduled prior concert engagements. The role was recast with Kathy Bates. In 1998, she starred as Lizzie Brooks in Forever Love, which was based upon McEntire's hit single of the same name.
2000–07: Broadway and television series
In early 2001, McEntire expanded into theater, starring in the Broadway revival of Annie Get Your Gun. Playing Annie Oakley (whom she had previously portrayed in Buffalo Girls), her performance was critically acclaimed by several newspapers, including The New York Times, which commented, "Without qualification the best performance by an actress in a musical comedy this season." McEntire personally called the musical "some of the hardest work I've ever done in my life".
In 2005, McEntire starred as Nellie Forbush in the Carnegie Hall concert production of the Broadway musical South Pacific with Alec Baldwin as Luther Billis and Brian Stokes Mitchell as Emile de Becque, directed by Walter Bobbie and with an adapted script by David Ives. The concert was broadcast as part of the Great Performances series in 2006.
In October 2001, McEntire premiered her half-hour television sitcom Reba on the WB network. The show was based around divorced mother Reba Hart, who learns how to handle life situations after her husband divorces her in order to marry his dental hygienist––with whom he had been cheating and gotten pregnant––and then their teenage daughter becomes pregnant as well. Reba garnered critical acclaim and success, becoming the network's highest-rated television show for adults ranging from the ages of 18 to 49. The show ran for six seasons and earned McEntire a nomination for a Golden Globe award. It was canceled on February 18, 2007; the series finale had 8.7 million viewers.
2011–20: Brief television return and current projects
In September 2011, McEntire confirmed on her website that ABC had ordered a pilot for her second television series Malibu Country. McEntire played a divorced mother of two who moves to Malibu, California to restart her music career. The pilot was filmed in April 2012 and began production on its first season in August. It was announced that the pilot for Malibu Country would premiere November 2, 2012. The show was broadcast Friday nights at 8:30/7:30c on ABC. On May 11, 2012, McEntire tweeted that the show had been picked up. She also was the host in the 2011 NASCAR Award Show in Las Vegas.
Despite reports that Malibu Country was the most-watched freshman comedy in its debut season (8.7 million), the show was canceled on May 10, 2013, after eighteen episodes.
In January 2017, it was announced that McEntire would star and produce a Southern drama series for ABC titled Red Blooded. It was reported in May that ABC ultimately turned down the show, so it moved to being shopped around to other networks. In January 2018, Reba was chosen to portray KFC's first female Colonel Sanders. The commercials ran through the end of April 2018.
In 2020, McEntire launched a podcast titled Living & Learning hosted by herself and her former Reba co-star Melissa Peterman.
She made a cameo appearance in the 2021 comedy film Barb and Star go to Vista Del Mar as a water spirit named Trish after Annie Mumolo and Kristen Wiig, who wrote, produced, and starred in the film, wrote her an "impassioned letter" asking her to join the film. Director Josh Greenbaum said in an interview, "There's some casting that just clicks. Reba is not only 100% authentic, we knew she would be game."
Musical styles and legacy
McEntire's sound has been influenced by the country music of Bob Wills, Merle Haggard, Dolly Parton, Barbara Mandrell, and Patsy Cline. In college, McEntire attended local dances at the Oklahoma–Texas border so she could dance to Wills's music, commenting that, "it didn't get any better than dancing to Bob Wills music". She also explained Merle Haggard's influence on her career, stating "I had every album he ever put out", and would sing "every song he did", along with her brother, Pake and sister, Susie. In addition, her first major hit, "Sweet Dreams" was a remake of Patsy Cline's version of the song, according to McEntire herself.
McEntire's music has been described to not only be built upon traditional country music, but also expand into the genres of country pop, mainstream pop, soul, and R&B. At times, her music has been criticized for moving away from traditional country music. Many music critics have called her music to be "melodramatic", "formulaic", and "bombastic", particularly after her 1988 album Reba. Studio releases such as Sweet Sixteen, Rumor Has It, It's Your Call, and Starting Over have been described by these terms.
McEntire possesses a contralto vocal range and performs "vocal gymnastics" with her voice, a musical technique in which a singer twirls a note around, using their vibrato. McEntire has credited Dolly Parton for influencing this trait, stating that she always listened to Parton's records and find her style of vocal gymnastics "so pretty".
McEntire has often been regarded as one of country music's most influential female vocalists and most beloved entertainers. She is highly credited for remaining one of country's most popular female artists for nearly four decades, maintaining her success by continually incorporating contemporary musical sounds without changing her traditional vocal style. For numerous artists, she has been credited as an inspiration to their careers in music. The Net Music Countdown second-handedly reported, "That influence has manifested itself in many ways. As a role model, she's shown others how to handle fame with grace and good humor while never backing down from her values or goals. Just as importantly, she's shown others to refuse to accept limitations on what she can do or how much she can achieve." McEntire also explained to the online website, "Whatever I'm doing, I feel like I'm representing country music". "It's always been my main career, and it's where my loyalties lie. I feel like I'm waving the flag of country music wherever I go, and I couldn't be prouder to do it."
Personal life
McEntire is a Christian, and she has stated that her faith in God has helped her immensely throughout her life.
Two of her siblings have also had careers in the music industry. Her brother Pake dabbled in the country music industry in the late 1980s but returned to Oklahoma after a brief stint. He owns and operates a 1,000-acre ranch near Coalgate, Oklahoma, and continues to rodeo. Her sister Susie McEntire-Eaton (Martha Susan "Susie" McEntire-Eaton, formerly Luchsinger) is a successful Christian music singer who travels the country with her husband, speaking and performing. She also has an older sister, Alice Foran, a retired social worker who resides in Lane, Oklahoma. Her niece Calamity McEntire is an assistant basketball coach at the University of Dayton.
Relationships and children
In 1976, McEntire married steer wrestling champion and rancher Charlie Battles who was 10 years her senior and had two sons from his previous marriage. The couple shared a ranch in Oklahoma. In 1987, McEntire divorced Battles and moved to Nashville, Tennessee, to further pursue her career.
In 1989, McEntire married her manager and former steel guitar player Narvel Blackstock. The couple wed at Lake Tahoe on a boat in a private ceremony. Together, the pair took over all aspects of McEntire's career, forming Starstruck Entertainment, which was originally designed to help manage her career. From her marriage to Blackstock, McEntire gained three stepchildren, Chassidy, Shawna, and Brandon. She gave birth to a son, Shelby Steven McEntire Blackstock, in February 1990. On August 3, 2015, it was announced in a joint statement on McEntire's website that she and Blackstock had been separated for a few months after twenty-six years of marriage. McEntire announced in December 2015 that their divorce had been finalized on October 28, 2015. Despite the divorce, McEntire remains very close to her three stepchildren and the Blackstock family; she considers her stepchildren's children to be her grandchildren. McEntire's stepson Brandon Blackstock married singer Kelly Clarkson, with whom he has a daughter and a son. Speaking about their impending marriage in 2013, McEntire stated she was "Thrilled to death, to have my buddy as my daughter-in-law. I mean, who could ask for more?"
In 2017, McEntire began a relationship with photographer Anthony "Skeeter" Lasuzzo. The couple met through McEntire's association with Kix Brooks. In describing her feelings about Lasuzzo, she stated, "We're totally in love — absolutely," she says. "I wouldn’t put up with somebody for two years if I wasn’t in love with 'em!" McEntire and Lasuzzo separated in the fall of 2019.
In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, McEntire began dating film and TV actor Rex Linn.
Philanthropy
In 1992, she opened Reba's Ranch House in Denison, TX. Similar to a Ronald McDonald House, the house incorporates holistic care by providing a calm setting for rest, warm meals for nourishment and sensitive staff for spiritual connections to guests who have loved ones being treated at the nearby Texoma Medical Center.
Over the course of her career, she has been and continues to be an active supporter of various charitable organizations including Habitat for Humanity, The Salvation Army, the American Red Cross, Feeding America and Celebrity Fight Night. She has been honored with the Minnie Pearl Award, the ACM Home Depot Humanitarian Award and the Andrea Bocelli Foundation Humanitarian Award for her efforts. In 2018, she was honored with the Horatio Alger Award for Education, Charity Work. Named after the "rags to riches" writer, the award recognizes perseverance and giving back.
Accolades
McEntire has the second-most wins for the Academy of Country Music's Top Female Vocalist Awards with seven. McEntire holds the record American Music Awards for Favorite Country Female Artist (twelve). She also holds the distinction of being the first to win the Country Music Association's Female Vocalist of the Year Award four times consecutively. Martina McBride won Female Vocalist four times, although not consecutively. In 2013, Miranda Lambert tied McEntire to win Female Vocalist four years in a row and in 2016 Carrie Underwood joined this elite club by winning her fourth Female Vocalist award. McEntire is also a rare musical artist to achieve solo number-ones across four decades (1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s). She holds the record for most CMA Award nominations for a female artist, with 50. McEntire also holds the record with the most ACM Awards nominations for a female artist with 47, respectively. She is also the recipient of three Grammy Awards, winning in 1987, 1994 and 2018. In December 2018, McEntire received the Kennedy Center Honor. In December 2021 she was one of the five nominees for Person of the Year on Spotted Ratings, along with Mariska Hargitay, Olivia Rodrigo, Susan Lynn Rosner Rovner, and Rebecca Wisocky, but ultimately lost the award to Rovner due to the latter's extensive work restoring NBC to relevancy.
When Reba McEntire made her Grand Ole Opry debut on September 17, 1977, she almost did not make it in the door after a guard at the Opry gate missed her name on the night's list of performers. Her parents and older sister, Alice, drove 1,400 miles round trip from their Oklahoma home to see what turned out to be Reba's three-minute performance that night. Her act was cut from two songs to just one—"Invitation to the Blues"—because of a surprise appearance by Dolly Parton. McEntire was inducted into the Grand Ole Opry on January 17, 1986. "The Grand Ole Opry is a home," she says. "It's a family. It's like a family reunion, when you come back and get to see everybody."
In 2011, the Country Music Association announced that McEntire would be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. McEntire was unable to attend the announcement after her father had slipped into a coma following a stroke. McEntire attended the official induction ceremony alongside the other 2011 inductees Jean Shepard and Bobby Braddock. She was inducted by Dolly Parton.
Discography
Studio albums
Reba McEntire (1977)
Out of a Dream (1979)
Feel the Fire (1980)
Heart to Heart (1981)
Unlimited (1982)
Behind the Scene (1983)
Just a Little Love (1984)
My Kind of Country (1984)
Have I Got a Deal for You (1985)
Whoever's in New England (1986)
Reba Nell McEntire (1986)
What Am I Gonna Do About You (1986)
The Last One to Know (1987)
Merry Christmas to You (1987)
Reba (1988)
Sweet Sixteen (1989)
Rumor Has It (1990)
For My Broken Heart (1991)
It's Your Call (1992)
Read My Mind (1994)
Starting Over (1995)
What If It's You (1996)
If You See Him (1998)
So Good Together (1999)
The Secret of Giving: A Christmas Collection (1999)
Room to Breathe (2003)
Reba: Duets (2007)
Keep On Loving You (2009)
All the Women I Am (2010)
Love Somebody (2015)
My Kind of Christmas (2016)
Sing It Now: Songs of Faith & Hope (2017)
Stronger Than the Truth (2019)
Revived Remixed Revisited (2021)
Tours
Headlining tours
The Reba McEntire Show
The Last One to Know Tour
North American Tour '88
World Tour '89
'90 Tour
Rumor Has It Tour
Reba in Concert
It's Your Call Tour
Read My Mind Tour
Starting Over Tour
20th Anniversary Tour
Singer's Diary
Room to Breathe Tour
All the Women I Am Tour
Canadian Tour
Reba: Live in Concert
Co-headlining tours
Brooks & Dunn and Reba: The Tour
Girls Night Out
2 Hats and a Redhead
2 Worlds 2 Voices Tour
Reba and George Strait on Tour
Residency shows
Key to the Heart
Together in Vegas
Opening act
Today Tour
Filmography
See also
List of best-selling music artists in the United States
References
Footnotes
Books
Bibliography
External links
Reba McEntire Profile on Country Music Television
1955 births
20th-century American actresses
21st-century American actresses
20th-century American singers
21st-century American singers
Actresses from Oklahoma
American contraltos
American country singer-songwriters
American women country singers
American film actresses
American television actresses
American voice actresses
American Christians
Big Machine Records artists
Country Music Hall of Fame inductees
Grammy Award winners
Grand Ole Opry members
Kennedy Center honorees
Living people
MCA Records artists
Mercury Records artists
Singer-songwriters from Oklahoma
People from McAlester, Oklahoma
People from Atoka County, Oklahoma
Southeastern Oklahoma State University alumni
Members of the Country Music Association
Country musicians from Oklahoma
20th-century American women singers
21st-century American women singers
Theatre World Award winners
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[
"Chelsea Roffey (born 1 August 1981) is a journalist and a goal umpire in the Australian Football League (AFL).\n\nRoffey was born in South Australia. In 1999, she would begin her goal umpiring career in Brisbane, Queensland, eventually making her AFL goal umpiring debut in 2004. Roffey became the first woman to officiate an AFL Grand Final when she was selected as goal umpire for the 2012 Grand Final.\n\nReferences\n\nLiving people\nAustralian Football League umpires\nAustralian journalists\nSportswomen from Queensland\n1981 births",
"What Was Done, Vol. 1: A Decade Revisited is an acoustic album by rock band the Classic Crime released on October 28, 2014 via BadChristian Music. Like their previous effort, Phoenix (2012), the album was funded through the website Kickstarter. Kickstarter backers were able to digitally download the album one week prior to its release date.\n\nA Kickstarter project entitled \"Help The Classic Crime Make 'What Was Done: Volume One'\" was created on October 15, 2013, with a funding goal of $15,000. The goal was met within the first two days of the project being posted. Crowdfunding process successfully finished on November 13, 2013, with $50,457 pledged.\n\nTrack listing\n\nPersonnel \n\n Matt MacDonald – vocals, guitars\n Robbie Negrin – guitar, group vocals\n Alan Clark – bass, group vocals\n Paul \"Skip\" Erickson – drums, group vocals\n\nReferences\n\n2014 albums\nThe Classic Crime albums"
] |
[
"Reba McEntire",
"2014-2016: Nash Icon, Love Somebody, Christmas and Gospel albums, America's Got Talent",
"What was her goal",
"Big Machine's new imprint Nash Icon Music."
] |
C_250e1915dae4444eacc416035a1b7b5b_1
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What did this mean
| 2 |
What did Big Machine's new imprint Nash Icon Music mean?
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Reba McEntire
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On October 21, 2014, it was announced that McEntire would be the inaugural signing for Big Machine's new imprint Nash Icon Music. She also disclosed that she was working on a new album, with 11 new songs. Her first single for the new label, "Going Out Like That", was announced December 16, 2014 and was released on January 6, 2015. It served as the lead-off single to Love Somebody, McEntire's twenty-seventh studio album, released on April 14, 2015. Love Somebody debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Top Country Albums--her twelfth number-one album on the chart--and No. 3 on Billboard 200, selling 62,469 copies in the U.S. The album has sold 171,600 copies in the U.S. as of October 5, 2015. In 2016, McEntire was selected as one of thirty artists to perform on "Forever Country", a mash-up track of Take Me Home, Country Roads, On the Road Again and I Will Always Love You which celebrates 50 years of the CMA Awards. McEntire released her third Christmas album My Kind of Christmas on September 2, 2016. The album was exclusively sold at Cracker Barrel and online. She also announced she would soon be selling her own line of clothing, home decor, jewelry and other things under the "Rockin' R by Reba" line also at Cracker Barrel. McEntire was a guest judge on the July 13, 2016 episode of America's Got Talent. She used her golden buzzer, which she could only use once and allowed an act to go straight to the live shows, on contortionist Sofie Dossi. CANNOTANSWER
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she was working on a new album, with 11 new songs.
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Reba Nell McEntire, also known mononymously as Reba, (born March 28, 1955) is an American country music singer, actress and businesswoman. She is often referred to as "the Queen of Country," having sold more than 75 million records worldwide. Since the 1970s, McEntire has placed over 100 singles on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, 25 of which reached the number one spot. She is also credited as an actress, having appeared in both films and television. She starred in the television series Reba, which aired for six seasons. She also owns several businesses, including a clothing line.
One of four children, McEntire was born and raised in the state of Oklahoma. In childhood and adolescence, her interests included barrel racing and sports. She also had a natural singing ability, which was encouraged by her mother. With her mother's help, she and her siblings formed the Singing McEntires, which played at local events and recorded for a small label. McEntire later enrolled at Southeastern Oklahoma State University and studied to become a public school teacher. She also continued to occasionally perform and was heard singing at a rodeo event by country performer Red Steagall. Drawn to her singing voice, Steagall helped McEntire secure a country music recording contract with PolyGram/Mercury Records in 1975.
Over the next several years, PolyGram/Mercury released a series of McEntire's albums and singles, which amounted to little success. In the early 1980s, McEntire's music gained more momentum through several top ten country songs, including "(You Lift Me) Up to Heaven", "I'm Not That Lonely Yet" and her first number one "Can't Even Get the Blues". Yet McEntire became increasingly unhappy with her career trajectory and signed with MCA Records in 1984. Her second MCA album titled My Kind of Country (1984) became her breakout release, spawning two number one Billboard country singles and pointed towards a more traditional musical style. Through the 1980s, McEntire released seven more studio albums and had ten more number one country hits. Her number one singles included "One Promise Too Late", "The Last One to Know" and the Grammy Award-winning "Whoever's in New England".
In 1991, McEntire lost eight of her band members in a plane crash in San Diego, California. The experience led to McEntire's critically acclaimed album For My Broken Heart, which is her highest-selling disc to date. She followed it with several commercially successful albums during the 1990s, including Read My Mind (1994), What If It's You (1996) and If You See Him (1998). These albums featured the number one country singles "The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter", "How Was I to Know" and a duet with Brooks and Dunn called "If You See Him/If You See Her". McEntire also began acting on film and television, beginning with 1990's Tremors. In 2001, she played the role of Annie Oakley in the Broadway musical Annie Get Your Gun. The same year, the WB channel launched the TV series Reba, which starred McEntire in the lead role. The show became successful and ran until 2007.
In 2004, McEntire returned to her country recording career with the top five Billboard album Room to Breathe. She followed the release with 2007's Reba: Duets, 2009's Keep On Loving You and 2011's All the Women I Am. Her 2000's albums spawned the number one singles "Somebody", "Consider Me Gone" and "Turn on the Radio". In 2012, McEntire briefly returned to television with the series Malibu Country and in 2018 portrayed the role of Colonel Sanders in television commercials for KFC. She has continued releasing new music, including Love Somebody (2015), Sing It Now (2017) and Revived Remixed Revisited (2021).
Early life
McEntire was born in McAlester, Oklahoma in 1955 but was raised on a ranch in Chockie, Oklahoma. She was the third of four children born to Clark and Jacqueline McEntire. Her grandfather, John Wesley McEntire, was a world-champion steer roper in 1934, while her father held the same title three times (1957, 1958 and 1961). Jacqueline McEntire had aspirations of becoming a country singer, but instead became a public school teacher, librarian and secretary While her mother was tender and loving, her father had trouble showing affection. "When we were growing up I used to regret that Daddy never told us that he loved us," she recalled in her autobiography. The McEntire family owned a cattle ranch in Chockie. Each family member contributed to running the cattle operation. The McEntire children helped with ranch chores before and after school. This included castrating bulls and giving them worm medicine.
The McEntire siblings also developed an interest in singing, which was encouraged by their mother. On car trips to their father's rodeo dates, Jacqueline McEntire taught her children to sing in harmony with one another. Young Reba then started performing school, beginning in first grade when she sang "Away in a Manger" at an elementary school Christmas pageant. In fifth grade, she joined the 4-H club and won first place in the Junior Act Division for singing "My Sweet Little Alice Blue Gown". She also played basketball and ran track. For several summers, she attended a basketball camp. She also learned piano and guitar. She also developed an interest in the rodeo and trained to become a barrel racer.
By high school the McEntire siblings had been frequently performing. Together, they formed a trio which they called The Singing McEntires. In 1971, the trio released a single about their famous grandfather called "The Ballad of John McEntire". It was pressed as a single by a local label and was issued in small numbers regionally. The trio eventually included a backing band which performed at local functions. The group was later named The Kiowa High School Cowboy Band. They also had paying gigs at bars at dance halls in nearby Oklahoma City. "We were a bunch of kids barely in puberty who didn't get to bed until almost daylight after some of our shows," McEntire remembered. The band parted ways once Reba's brother graduated high school. In 1973, McEntire graduated from Kiowa High School.
Once finishing high school, McEntire enrolled in college at Southeastern Oklahoma State University. She majored in elementary education with a minor in music. She completed student teaching and later graduated with a Bachelor's degree. She also continued to help out on her family's ranch during her college years. In 1974, McEntire's father encouraged her to take a job opportunity singing "The Star-Spangled Banner" at the National Finals Rodeo in Oklahoma City. She contacted family friend and rodeo announcer Clem McSpadden, who helped her get hired for the gig. Following one of her performances, McEntire was heard by country artist Red Steagall who was impressed by her singing. Reba, her siblings and her mother later joined him at a hotel party the same week. At the hotel, Reba performed an a cappella version of Dolly Parton's "Joshua". Jacqueline McEntire asked Steagall if he was able to help get all her children a recording contract. After going back to Nashville, Steagall contacted her in early 1975 and said, "I can't take all three. But I could take Reba. She's got something a little different."
In March 1975 and accompanied by her mother, McEntire embarked on a trip to Nashville, Tennessee to record a demonstration tape that Steagall hoped to pass along to record labels. At the start of the trip, she was unsure about pursuing a professional country music career. McEntire recalled in her autobiography continually making excuses for her mother to stop the car instead of traveling to Nashville. After noticing her daughter's fear, Jacqueline McEntire told her, "Now Reba, let me tell you something. If you don't want to go to Nashville, we don't have to do this. But I'm living all my dreams through you." The conversation changed her mind and they continued on to Nashville.
After recording a demo, McEntire's tape was heard by Glenn Keener of PolyGram/Mercury Records, who was interested in signing her to a Nashville contract. Keener brought McEntire's tape and another female's tape to PolyGram's Chicago headquarters. The label informed Kenner that he could only sign one female performer. "He looked at the two tapes in his hand and handed ’em mine," McEntire told Entertainment Weekly.
Music career
1976–1983: Career launch at Mercury
In November 1975, McEntire signed a country music recording contract with PolyGram/Mercury Records. She made her first recordings for the label in January 1976. She was produced by Glenn Keener and was backed by a Countrypolitan arrangement that included a string section. McEntire's debut single was released in 1976 titled "I Don't Want to Be a One Night Stand". The track failed to become a major hit, only peaking at number 88 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart that May. It was followed by the low-charting Billboard country singles "(There's Nothing Like the Love) Between a Woman and Man" and "Glad I Waited Just for You". Mercury issued her self-titled debut album in 1977. In his album review, Greg Adams of AllMusic compared it to the country crossover style of Barbara Mandrell and Tammy Wynette. McEntire also began touring and performing more frequently. Without a band of her own, she often relied on house bands to accompany her. In some instances, the backing bands did not know country music and McEntire would have to fill her time onstage with jokes.
McEntire's career gained more momentum by 1978. That year she collaborated on two singles with country artist Jacky Ward. The duo's double-sided release of "I'd Really Love to See You Tonight"/"Three Sheets in the Wind" became her first top 20 hit on the country chart. When Glenn Keener left the PolyGram/Mercury roster, McEntire inherited producer Jerry Kennedy. Kennedy produced her second studio album titled Out of a Dream (1979). The album's cover of Patsy Cline's "Sweet Dreams" became her first top 20 hit as a solo artist. Four additional top 40 country singles were spawned from the album as well. By 1980, McEntire had formed her own band which included sister Susie and brother Pake McEntire. She also hired a new manager. McEntire and her band toured to dates in a three-car caravan, which included a horse trailer for transporting instruments. She later upgraded to a bus nicknamed "Silver Eagle", which routinely broke down. Also in 1980, "(You Lift Me) Up to Heaven" became her first top ten hit on the country songs chart. It was included on her third studio album, Feel the Fire, which was released in October.
By this point, McEntire's label pushed her record music in a soft country pop style that she often disagreed with. Future material (which included her next album) was recorded in this format. Her fourth album, Heart to Heart was issued in 1981 and became her first disc to chart the Billboard Country Albums list. It received only a 2.5 star review from AllMusic's William Ruhlmann, who described McEntire as being "a promising, but not yet accomplished country artist." Yet its lead single, "Today All Over Again", became her highest charting country single yet, reaching number five. In 1983, McEntire's bus had broken down when she was informed that her latest single "Can't Even Get the Blues" reached the number one spot on the Billboard country chart. It was followed by her second number one song "You're the First Time I Thought About Leaving". The track also became her second to reach the top ten of Canada's RPM country songs chart. Both singles appeared on her 1983 album Unlimited. The following year, the single "Why Do We Want (What We Know We Can't Have)" reached the top ten. With increased success in the country music industry, she was able to arrange an early release from PolyGram/Mercury in 1983. "Let met put it this way, I've sorta taken my career into control myself," she explained of the decision.
1984–1990: Breakthrough
McEntire signed with MCA Records in 1984 and released her seventh studio album Just a Little Love. Harold Shedd was originally intended to produce the disc, however, McEntire rejected his desire for a country pop arrangement. Instead, Norro Wilson produced the project. Despite spawning a top ten hit, McEntire was still dissatisfied with the record's production and the lack of control over material. Instead, she turned to MCA president Jimmy Bowen who suggested that she find her own songs to record. Accompanied by Don "Dirt" Lanier, McEntire spent several days listening to various songs from publishing companies. Eventually she found a song written by Harlan Howard titled "Somebody Should Leave" and a song by Jon Moffat titled "How Blue". Released as singles, they reached the number one spot on the country songs chart and later appeared on 1984's My Kind of Country. The collection also included several covers of classic country songs by Ray Price, Charley Pride and Connie Smith. AllMusic's William Ruhlmann gave the disc 4.5 stars. Billboard magazine described McEntire on the album as being "the finest woman country singer since Kitty Wells." The album became her breakthrough recording, leading McEntire to winning 1984's Female Vocalist of the Year accolade from the Country Music Association. Along with music by George Strait and Randy Travis, the album also brought forth a stylistic change in country towards traditional arrangements and sounds.
Her next MCA album was 1985's Have I Got a Deal for You. The project followed the same traditional country format of its predecessor. It was produced by Jimmy Bowen, along with co-production credits from McEntire herself. The album 's title track reached the Billboard country top ten along with "Only in My Mind", a song composed by McEntire herself. In February 1986, her ninth studio album was released named Whoever's in New England. On the record, McEntire and co-producer Jimmy Bowen mixed a traditional country style with a modern, contemporary sound. Author Kurt Wolff described the title track's production, as being "bigger and sentimentalism more obvious, even manipulative". Issued as the lead single, the title track peaked at number one on the Bilboard country chart and won McEntire the Grammy Award for Best Female Country Vocal Performance. The album itself became her first to top the Billboard Country Albums survey. and later certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America for sales of one million copies.
By this point McEntire had reached the height of her commercial stardom. Following this, McEntire made changes to her stage show. She began implementing choreography and experimented with stage lighting. Also in 1986, McEntire's twelfth studio album appeared titled What Am I Gonna Do About You. AllMusic found that it lacked the features that had made Whoever's in New England unique. The title track was the lead single from the release. It became her next number one song on the Billboard country chart and her first number one on the RPM Canadian country chart. Its second single "One Promise Too Late" also topped the country chart. Her thirteenth studio project, The Last One to Know, was released in 1987 and reached number three on the Billboard country albums chart. Reviewer Tom Roland noted that McEntire chose material that reflected her recent divorce from first husband Charlie Battles. Both the title track and "Love Will Find Its Way to You" topped the Billboard country songs chart. In late 1987, McEntire released her first Christmas collection called Merry Christmas to You. Also in 1987, she played Carnegie Hall in New York City for the first time.
In the late 1980s, McEntire took more control of her career. She fired her manager and formed her own entertainment company that helped further promote her material. Other new changes included her 1988 pop-inspired release Reba. Her fifteenth studio disc included covers of the former pop hits "Respect" and "A Sunday Kind of Love". It produced the number one Billboard country singles "New Fool at an Old Game" and "I Know How He Feels". It was followed by 1989's Sweet Sixteen, which was noted to be a more of a "return[s] to the neo-traditionalist fold", according to reviewer William Ruhlmann. The album featured the country hits "'Til Love Comes Again", "Little Girl", "Walk On" and a cover of "Cathy's Clown". Her first live project titled Reba Live was also released in 1989.
Rumor Has It (1990) was another pop-oriented album release featuring a mix of ballads and uptempo numbers. It was the first disc in McEntire's career to reach the top 40 of the Billboard 200 albums chart. The disc would became McEntire's highest-selling albums, certifying three-times platinum from the RIAA. Four hit country singles came from the release, including "You Lie" and her cover of "Fancy". The latter single eventually become one of McEntire's signature songs.
1991: Plane crash and For My Broken Heart
In the late 1980s, McEntire's touring schedule became increasingly busy. To avoid long bus trips, she and her band began traveling by private planes to concerts. McEntire and her touring band started the 1991 leg of their tour with dates in Alaska, Saginaw, Michigan, Fort Wayne, Indiana and a private gig for IBM in San Diego, California. Two planes were scheduled to leave San Diego which would carry McEntire's band. McEntire, her husband and her stylist would take a different aircraft the next day. In the middle of the night on March 16, 1991, McEntire was awoken to a phone call from Roger Woolsey, who flew the second plane. McEntire's husband took the call and discovered that one of the planes had crashed. Following the successful takeoff of both planes, one plane's wing hit the side of Otay Mountain in San Diego, killing everyone on board.
In total, eight members of her band were killed: Chris Austin, Kirk Cappello, Joey Cigainero, Paula Kaye Evans, Jim Hammon, Terry Jackson, Anthony Saputo, and Michael Thomas. In addition pilot Donald Holmes and co-pilot Chris Hollinger were also killed. The first plane was a Hawker Siddeley DH-125-1A/522 charter jet that took off at 1:40 AM from the Brown Field Municipal Airport, located near the border of Mexico. After reaching an altitude of above sea level, the aircraft crashed on the side of Otay Mountain, located east of the airport. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) determined the probable cause of the accident was related to "improper pilot planning".
Meanwhile, the second plane carrying the rest of her band made it successfully to an airport in Nashville. McEntire, her husband and hair stylist returned on their own plane following the accident. "By the time that long, terrible weekend was over, we were emotionally and physically exhausted," McEntire stated in her autobiography. The news was reported nearly immediately to McEntire and her husband, who were sleeping at a nearby hotel. A spokeswoman for McEntire made a statement to The Los Angeles Times on behalf of her: "She was very close to all of them. Some of them had been with her for years. Reba is totally devastated by this. It's like losing part of your family. Right now she just wants to get back to Nashville." Two days after the crash, McEntire conducted an interview with People magazine and scheduled a memorial service for the families of the victims. Nine days following the accident, McEntire performed at the 63rd Academy Awards ceremony, singing the Best Original Song nominee "I'm Checkin' Out" from the film Postcards from the Edge. In addition, Vince Gill and Dolly Parton offered their help in reorganizing her touring band.
McEntire dedicated her sixteenth album, For My Broken Heart, to the deceased members of her road band. Released in October 1991, it contained songs of sorrow and lost love about "all measure of suffering", according to Alanna Nash of Entertainment Weekly. Nash reported that McEntire "still hits her stride with the more traditional songs of emotional turmoil, above all combining a spectacular vocal performance with a terrific song on 'Buying Her Roses', a wife's head-spinning discovery of her husband's other woman." The disc peaked at number three on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart. It also became her highest-charting release on the Billboard 200 yet, peaking at number 13. It later sold over four million copies in the United States, becoming her best-selling album to date. Its title track and "Is There Life Out There" both became number one Billboard country singles. In addition, "The Greatest Man I Never Knew" and McEntire's cover of "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia" both became major country hits.
1992–2002: Continued country success
In December 1992, McEntire's seventeenth album It's Your Call was released. A sign of her increased mainstream success, the album was her first to reach the top ten of the Billboard 200. It spawned the country hits "Take It Back", the title track and a number one duet with Vince Gill called "The Heart Won't Lie". Critic Brian Mansfield compared the disc to For My Broken Heart, concluding that "only casual or partial listeners will be moved as much." Christopher John Farley of Time wrote that the album ranged from being "relaxing" to "cathartic", and "these vocals from one of the best country singers linger in the mind". For her next release, McEntire collaborated with up-and-coming artist Linda Davis on the single "Does He Love You". MCA Records encouraged McEntire to record the track with more established acts like Wynonna Judd or Trisha Yearwood, but ultimately finalized the track with Davis. It became her eighteenth number one hit on the Country Songs chart and her sixteenth number one hit on the Canadian country chart. It was later included on her 1993 compilation Greatest Hits Volume Two. Later that year, Davis and McEntire performed the duet at the CMA Awards. For her performance, McEntire wore a red dress with a plunging neckline that created controversy among the Nashville community.
Her eighteenth studio release was 1994's Read My Mind. The disc reached number two on both the Billboard 200 and the Top Country Albums chart. The disc later reached sales of three million copies in the United States and certified three times platinum from the RIAA. Five major hits came from the release, including "The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter", "Till You Love Me" and a song about a woman contracting AIDS called "She Thinks His Name Was John". The latter recording only reached a top 20 charting position due to its controversial lyrics. McEntire's nineteenth studio album, Starting Over (1995) was collection of her favorite songs originally recorded by others. The album was made to commemorate McEntire's twenty years in the music industry. The album received a less favorable response from critics than that of her previous releases. While project spawned three charting singles, only McEntire's cover of "Ring on Her Finger, Time on Her Hands" became a top ten country song. Starting Over was certified platinum by the RIAA within the first two months of its release.
McEntire's next album release What If It's You was issued by MCA in November 1996. The record was a return to a contemporary country sound. It debuted at number 15 on the Billboard 200 and eventually topped the Billboard country albums list. It received a more favorable response from radio programmers than that of her 1995 album and received greater promotion. Critic Thom Owens noted that the project "[didn't] offer any new tricks from Reba McEntire, but it is nevertheless an excellent reminder of her deep talents as a vocalist." Its first single, "The Fear of Being Alone" became a top five hit, while "How Was I to Know" reached the number one spot on the Billboard country songs survey.
McEntire began touring with country duo Brooks & Dunn during the mid 1990s. Their touring collaborating led to the recording of a duet titled "If You See Him/If You See Her" in 1998. The track topped both the Billboard country songs chart and the Canadian RPM country chart. Their initial collaborations would lead to several more professional endeavors over the years, including a joint Las Vegas residency. The duet was included on McEntire's If You See Him album and Brooks & Dunn's If You See Her album, both of which were released in June 1998. Thom Owens found that both album titles were named nearly the same as "a way to draw attention for both parties, since they were no longer new guns—they were veterans in danger of losing ground to younger musicians". If You See Him produced three more top ten country hits including "Forever Love" and "One Honest Heart".
In 1999, McEntire released two albums. In September she issued her second Christmas album, The Secret of Giving: A Christmas Collection. In November, her twenty-second studio album, So Good Together was released. Entertainment Weekly commented that most of the album's material was "an odd set—mostly ballads, including an English/Portuguese duet with Jose e Durval on Boz Scaggs' 'We're All Alone'". It featured the top five country songs "What Do You Say" and "I'll Be". McEntire focused on an acting career in the early 2000s and took a temporary musical hiatus. One exception was 2001's "I'm a Survivor". The single became a top five country hit and the theme song to McEntire's 2001 television series.
2003–2015: Country music comeback, record label switch and continued music success
McEntire returned to her recording career in August 2003 with the release of the MCA single "I'm Gonna Take That Mountain". The song was included on her first studio album in four years titled Room to Breathe (November 2003). "The reason I named the album Room to Breathe is because I needed a little room to breathe," McEntire told Billboard. The 12-track disc was produced by Buddy Cannon and Norro Wilson. It also featured a guest appearance from Vince Gill. Room to Breathe debuted at number four on the Billboard country chart and later certified platinum in the United States. It spawned McEntire's first number one song in six years titled "Somebody". Also featured was the top ten single "He Gets That from Me". In 2004, she embarked on her first tour in several years also titled "Room to Breathe", which included 36 cities in the United States. In 2005, MCA released the double-disc compilation titled Reba #1's while she was in between albums.
In September 2007, McEntire's next studio disc was releaded titled Reba: Duets. The album was a collection of duets with various music artists, including Kenny Chesney, LeAnn Rimes, Trisha Yearwood, Carole King, and Justin Timberlake. Reba: Duets topped the Billboard country chart and theBillboard 200, becoming her first album in her career to top reach the top of both lists. Reba: Duets was later certified platinum by the RIAA. The album was given high critical praise from magazines such as PopMatters, which compared McEntire to artists like Janis Joplin and Tina Turner. AllMusic's Thom Jurek gave it 3.5 stars, commenting that "it's full of good to great songs delivered in mostly interesting ways." The first single was a duet version of Kelly Clarkson's "Because of You", which reached number two on the American country chart and topped the Canadian country songs chart.
In 2008, McEntire announced that she would be departing her label of 25 years and signing with the Valory Music Group, an imprint of Big Machine Records. The switch to Valory reunited McEntire with the label's president, Scott Borchetta, whom she had worked with previously. Her first Valory single was 2009's "Strange". The song debuted at number 39 Billboard country songs chart, giving McEntire the highest single debut of her career and peaked at number eleven. Her twenty-sixth studio album, Keep On Loving You was released in August 2009 and also topped both the Billboard Country and 200 charts. In 2009, "Consider Me Gone" (spawned as the record's second single) became her 24th number-one on the Billboard chart in December. At age 54, McEntire became one of the oldest women to have a number one single on the country songs chart.
McEntire's twenty-ninth studio album All the Women I Am was released in November 2010. Steve Morse of The Boston Globe called the project "one of her best efforts", while Thom Jurek at AllMusic only gave it a 2.5 star rating, calling it "awkward" and lacking a "center". "Turn On the Radio" was issued as the lead single prior to the album, eventually becoming her twenty firth number one on the Billboard country survey. Three additional charting singles were spawned from All the Women I Am that peaked outside the top 20. Her All the Women I Am Tour tour followed shortly after late featuring country acts the Band Perry, Steel Magnolia, and Edens Edge. In 2014, McEntire moved to Big Machine's new imprint for veteran artists titled Nash Icon Music. Her first Nash Icon single was 2015's "Going Out Like That", which reached the top 25 of the Billboard country songs chart. It was included on her 2015 Nash Icon album Love Somebody. The album topped the country albums chart and charted the top five of the Billboard 200. In 2016, McEntire released a third Christmas-themed studio album called My Kind of Christmas. The album was exclusively sold at Cracker Barrel and online. She also announced she would soon be selling her own line of clothing, home decor, jewelry and other things under the "Rockin' R by Reba" line also at Cracker Barrel.
2017–present: New beginnings in her 60s
After her split from ex-husband Narvel Blackstock, McEntire took control of her career as her own manager. She recruited Justin McIntosh of Starstruck Entertainment, Leslie Matthews serving as Brand Manager, and Carolyn Snell who has been with McEntire for nine years. They formed Reba's Business Inc. (RBI). She moved out of the building she and Blackstock had worked in, and moved her company to Green Hills, Nashville.
On December 15, 2016, McEntire announced that she was releasing her first gospel album titled Sing It Now: Songs of Faith & Hope. It was released by Nash Icon/Rockin' R Records on February 3, 2017, and consists of two discs. Disc one contains traditional hymns while disc two contains original tracks. "Softly and Tenderly", featuring Kelly Clarkson and Trisha Yearwood, was the first track off the album released. Another track on the album, "In the Garden/Wonderful Peace", features the Isaacs. Jay DeMarcus of the Rascal Flatts produced the album. The first single off the album is "Back to God". In January 2018, McEntire won the Grammy Award for Best Roots Gospel Album, her first nomination since 2007, and her first Grammy Award win in more than twenty years, since 1994. She also headlined the C2C: Country to Country festival in the UK alongside Brad Paisley and Zac Brown Band in March. Because of its limited release in 2016, on October 13, 2017 My Kind of Christmas was re-released - this time including songs with Vince Gill, Amy Grant, Darius Rucker and Lauren Daigle - on her website and through iTunes. In July 2018, it was announced that McEntire would be one of four honorees for the 41st annual Kennedy Center Honors, along with Cher, Philip Glass, and Wayne Shorter. The ceremony was held December 2, 2018, and broadcast on CBS December 26, 2018.
McEntire released her twenty-ninth studio album Stronger Than the Truth on April 5, 2019. McEntire also returned to host the 54th Academy of Country Music Awards on April 8, 2019.
On June 25, 2019, The New York Times Magazine listed McEntire among hundreds of artists whose material was destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.
On February 20, 2020, during a surprise appearance at the Country Radio Seminar, McEntire announced she had signed a new record deal with MCA Nashville, returning to the label after leaving in November 2008. McEntire hosted the 54th Annual Country Music Association Awards alongside Darius Rucker in November 2020. McEntire previously hosted in 2019 with Carrie Underwood and Dolly Parton, 1992 with Vince Gill, 1991 by herself (the second solo female host) and 1990 with Randy Travis.
Acting career
1989–99: Entry into film and television acting
In 1990, she obtained her first film role playing Heather Gummer in the horror comedy Tremors, along with Kevin Bacon. The film told the story of a small group of people living in Nevada who were fighting subterranean worm-like creatures. After the film's release, McEntire developed a strong interest in acting and made it her second career. The film earned McEntire a nomination for Best Supporting Actress at the 1991 Saturn Awards. The following year, she starred along with Kenny Rogers and Burt Reynolds in the made-for-television movies The Gambler Returns: The Luck of the Draw and The Man From Left Field. In 1994, McEntire worked with director Rob Reiner in the film North, playing Ma Tex. The film obtained negative reviews, receiving only two and a half stars from Allmovie.
In 1994, McEntire starred in Is There Life Out There? a television movie based on her song of the same name. The following year, she appeared in Buffalo Girls, which was based upon the life of western cowgirl Calamity Jane (played by Anjelica Huston). Playing Jane's friend Annie Oakley, Buffalo Girls was nominated for an Emmy award. In 1996, McEntire was cast by director James Cameron as Molly Brown in his film Titanic. However, when it became apparent production for the film would extend well beyond its original length, McEntire had to turn down the part, as she had already scheduled prior concert engagements. The role was recast with Kathy Bates. In 1998, she starred as Lizzie Brooks in Forever Love, which was based upon McEntire's hit single of the same name.
2000–07: Broadway and television series
In early 2001, McEntire expanded into theater, starring in the Broadway revival of Annie Get Your Gun. Playing Annie Oakley (whom she had previously portrayed in Buffalo Girls), her performance was critically acclaimed by several newspapers, including The New York Times, which commented, "Without qualification the best performance by an actress in a musical comedy this season." McEntire personally called the musical "some of the hardest work I've ever done in my life".
In 2005, McEntire starred as Nellie Forbush in the Carnegie Hall concert production of the Broadway musical South Pacific with Alec Baldwin as Luther Billis and Brian Stokes Mitchell as Emile de Becque, directed by Walter Bobbie and with an adapted script by David Ives. The concert was broadcast as part of the Great Performances series in 2006.
In October 2001, McEntire premiered her half-hour television sitcom Reba on the WB network. The show was based around divorced mother Reba Hart, who learns how to handle life situations after her husband divorces her in order to marry his dental hygienist––with whom he had been cheating and gotten pregnant––and then their teenage daughter becomes pregnant as well. Reba garnered critical acclaim and success, becoming the network's highest-rated television show for adults ranging from the ages of 18 to 49. The show ran for six seasons and earned McEntire a nomination for a Golden Globe award. It was canceled on February 18, 2007; the series finale had 8.7 million viewers.
2011–20: Brief television return and current projects
In September 2011, McEntire confirmed on her website that ABC had ordered a pilot for her second television series Malibu Country. McEntire played a divorced mother of two who moves to Malibu, California to restart her music career. The pilot was filmed in April 2012 and began production on its first season in August. It was announced that the pilot for Malibu Country would premiere November 2, 2012. The show was broadcast Friday nights at 8:30/7:30c on ABC. On May 11, 2012, McEntire tweeted that the show had been picked up. She also was the host in the 2011 NASCAR Award Show in Las Vegas.
Despite reports that Malibu Country was the most-watched freshman comedy in its debut season (8.7 million), the show was canceled on May 10, 2013, after eighteen episodes.
In January 2017, it was announced that McEntire would star and produce a Southern drama series for ABC titled Red Blooded. It was reported in May that ABC ultimately turned down the show, so it moved to being shopped around to other networks. In January 2018, Reba was chosen to portray KFC's first female Colonel Sanders. The commercials ran through the end of April 2018.
In 2020, McEntire launched a podcast titled Living & Learning hosted by herself and her former Reba co-star Melissa Peterman.
She made a cameo appearance in the 2021 comedy film Barb and Star go to Vista Del Mar as a water spirit named Trish after Annie Mumolo and Kristen Wiig, who wrote, produced, and starred in the film, wrote her an "impassioned letter" asking her to join the film. Director Josh Greenbaum said in an interview, "There's some casting that just clicks. Reba is not only 100% authentic, we knew she would be game."
Musical styles and legacy
McEntire's sound has been influenced by the country music of Bob Wills, Merle Haggard, Dolly Parton, Barbara Mandrell, and Patsy Cline. In college, McEntire attended local dances at the Oklahoma–Texas border so she could dance to Wills's music, commenting that, "it didn't get any better than dancing to Bob Wills music". She also explained Merle Haggard's influence on her career, stating "I had every album he ever put out", and would sing "every song he did", along with her brother, Pake and sister, Susie. In addition, her first major hit, "Sweet Dreams" was a remake of Patsy Cline's version of the song, according to McEntire herself.
McEntire's music has been described to not only be built upon traditional country music, but also expand into the genres of country pop, mainstream pop, soul, and R&B. At times, her music has been criticized for moving away from traditional country music. Many music critics have called her music to be "melodramatic", "formulaic", and "bombastic", particularly after her 1988 album Reba. Studio releases such as Sweet Sixteen, Rumor Has It, It's Your Call, and Starting Over have been described by these terms.
McEntire possesses a contralto vocal range and performs "vocal gymnastics" with her voice, a musical technique in which a singer twirls a note around, using their vibrato. McEntire has credited Dolly Parton for influencing this trait, stating that she always listened to Parton's records and find her style of vocal gymnastics "so pretty".
McEntire has often been regarded as one of country music's most influential female vocalists and most beloved entertainers. She is highly credited for remaining one of country's most popular female artists for nearly four decades, maintaining her success by continually incorporating contemporary musical sounds without changing her traditional vocal style. For numerous artists, she has been credited as an inspiration to their careers in music. The Net Music Countdown second-handedly reported, "That influence has manifested itself in many ways. As a role model, she's shown others how to handle fame with grace and good humor while never backing down from her values or goals. Just as importantly, she's shown others to refuse to accept limitations on what she can do or how much she can achieve." McEntire also explained to the online website, "Whatever I'm doing, I feel like I'm representing country music". "It's always been my main career, and it's where my loyalties lie. I feel like I'm waving the flag of country music wherever I go, and I couldn't be prouder to do it."
Personal life
McEntire is a Christian, and she has stated that her faith in God has helped her immensely throughout her life.
Two of her siblings have also had careers in the music industry. Her brother Pake dabbled in the country music industry in the late 1980s but returned to Oklahoma after a brief stint. He owns and operates a 1,000-acre ranch near Coalgate, Oklahoma, and continues to rodeo. Her sister Susie McEntire-Eaton (Martha Susan "Susie" McEntire-Eaton, formerly Luchsinger) is a successful Christian music singer who travels the country with her husband, speaking and performing. She also has an older sister, Alice Foran, a retired social worker who resides in Lane, Oklahoma. Her niece Calamity McEntire is an assistant basketball coach at the University of Dayton.
Relationships and children
In 1976, McEntire married steer wrestling champion and rancher Charlie Battles who was 10 years her senior and had two sons from his previous marriage. The couple shared a ranch in Oklahoma. In 1987, McEntire divorced Battles and moved to Nashville, Tennessee, to further pursue her career.
In 1989, McEntire married her manager and former steel guitar player Narvel Blackstock. The couple wed at Lake Tahoe on a boat in a private ceremony. Together, the pair took over all aspects of McEntire's career, forming Starstruck Entertainment, which was originally designed to help manage her career. From her marriage to Blackstock, McEntire gained three stepchildren, Chassidy, Shawna, and Brandon. She gave birth to a son, Shelby Steven McEntire Blackstock, in February 1990. On August 3, 2015, it was announced in a joint statement on McEntire's website that she and Blackstock had been separated for a few months after twenty-six years of marriage. McEntire announced in December 2015 that their divorce had been finalized on October 28, 2015. Despite the divorce, McEntire remains very close to her three stepchildren and the Blackstock family; she considers her stepchildren's children to be her grandchildren. McEntire's stepson Brandon Blackstock married singer Kelly Clarkson, with whom he has a daughter and a son. Speaking about their impending marriage in 2013, McEntire stated she was "Thrilled to death, to have my buddy as my daughter-in-law. I mean, who could ask for more?"
In 2017, McEntire began a relationship with photographer Anthony "Skeeter" Lasuzzo. The couple met through McEntire's association with Kix Brooks. In describing her feelings about Lasuzzo, she stated, "We're totally in love — absolutely," she says. "I wouldn’t put up with somebody for two years if I wasn’t in love with 'em!" McEntire and Lasuzzo separated in the fall of 2019.
In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, McEntire began dating film and TV actor Rex Linn.
Philanthropy
In 1992, she opened Reba's Ranch House in Denison, TX. Similar to a Ronald McDonald House, the house incorporates holistic care by providing a calm setting for rest, warm meals for nourishment and sensitive staff for spiritual connections to guests who have loved ones being treated at the nearby Texoma Medical Center.
Over the course of her career, she has been and continues to be an active supporter of various charitable organizations including Habitat for Humanity, The Salvation Army, the American Red Cross, Feeding America and Celebrity Fight Night. She has been honored with the Minnie Pearl Award, the ACM Home Depot Humanitarian Award and the Andrea Bocelli Foundation Humanitarian Award for her efforts. In 2018, she was honored with the Horatio Alger Award for Education, Charity Work. Named after the "rags to riches" writer, the award recognizes perseverance and giving back.
Accolades
McEntire has the second-most wins for the Academy of Country Music's Top Female Vocalist Awards with seven. McEntire holds the record American Music Awards for Favorite Country Female Artist (twelve). She also holds the distinction of being the first to win the Country Music Association's Female Vocalist of the Year Award four times consecutively. Martina McBride won Female Vocalist four times, although not consecutively. In 2013, Miranda Lambert tied McEntire to win Female Vocalist four years in a row and in 2016 Carrie Underwood joined this elite club by winning her fourth Female Vocalist award. McEntire is also a rare musical artist to achieve solo number-ones across four decades (1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s). She holds the record for most CMA Award nominations for a female artist, with 50. McEntire also holds the record with the most ACM Awards nominations for a female artist with 47, respectively. She is also the recipient of three Grammy Awards, winning in 1987, 1994 and 2018. In December 2018, McEntire received the Kennedy Center Honor. In December 2021 she was one of the five nominees for Person of the Year on Spotted Ratings, along with Mariska Hargitay, Olivia Rodrigo, Susan Lynn Rosner Rovner, and Rebecca Wisocky, but ultimately lost the award to Rovner due to the latter's extensive work restoring NBC to relevancy.
When Reba McEntire made her Grand Ole Opry debut on September 17, 1977, she almost did not make it in the door after a guard at the Opry gate missed her name on the night's list of performers. Her parents and older sister, Alice, drove 1,400 miles round trip from their Oklahoma home to see what turned out to be Reba's three-minute performance that night. Her act was cut from two songs to just one—"Invitation to the Blues"—because of a surprise appearance by Dolly Parton. McEntire was inducted into the Grand Ole Opry on January 17, 1986. "The Grand Ole Opry is a home," she says. "It's a family. It's like a family reunion, when you come back and get to see everybody."
In 2011, the Country Music Association announced that McEntire would be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. McEntire was unable to attend the announcement after her father had slipped into a coma following a stroke. McEntire attended the official induction ceremony alongside the other 2011 inductees Jean Shepard and Bobby Braddock. She was inducted by Dolly Parton.
Discography
Studio albums
Reba McEntire (1977)
Out of a Dream (1979)
Feel the Fire (1980)
Heart to Heart (1981)
Unlimited (1982)
Behind the Scene (1983)
Just a Little Love (1984)
My Kind of Country (1984)
Have I Got a Deal for You (1985)
Whoever's in New England (1986)
Reba Nell McEntire (1986)
What Am I Gonna Do About You (1986)
The Last One to Know (1987)
Merry Christmas to You (1987)
Reba (1988)
Sweet Sixteen (1989)
Rumor Has It (1990)
For My Broken Heart (1991)
It's Your Call (1992)
Read My Mind (1994)
Starting Over (1995)
What If It's You (1996)
If You See Him (1998)
So Good Together (1999)
The Secret of Giving: A Christmas Collection (1999)
Room to Breathe (2003)
Reba: Duets (2007)
Keep On Loving You (2009)
All the Women I Am (2010)
Love Somebody (2015)
My Kind of Christmas (2016)
Sing It Now: Songs of Faith & Hope (2017)
Stronger Than the Truth (2019)
Revived Remixed Revisited (2021)
Tours
Headlining tours
The Reba McEntire Show
The Last One to Know Tour
North American Tour '88
World Tour '89
'90 Tour
Rumor Has It Tour
Reba in Concert
It's Your Call Tour
Read My Mind Tour
Starting Over Tour
20th Anniversary Tour
Singer's Diary
Room to Breathe Tour
All the Women I Am Tour
Canadian Tour
Reba: Live in Concert
Co-headlining tours
Brooks & Dunn and Reba: The Tour
Girls Night Out
2 Hats and a Redhead
2 Worlds 2 Voices Tour
Reba and George Strait on Tour
Residency shows
Key to the Heart
Together in Vegas
Opening act
Today Tour
Filmography
See also
List of best-selling music artists in the United States
References
Footnotes
Books
Bibliography
External links
Reba McEntire Profile on Country Music Television
1955 births
20th-century American actresses
21st-century American actresses
20th-century American singers
21st-century American singers
Actresses from Oklahoma
American contraltos
American country singer-songwriters
American women country singers
American film actresses
American television actresses
American voice actresses
American Christians
Big Machine Records artists
Country Music Hall of Fame inductees
Grammy Award winners
Grand Ole Opry members
Kennedy Center honorees
Living people
MCA Records artists
Mercury Records artists
Singer-songwriters from Oklahoma
People from McAlester, Oklahoma
People from Atoka County, Oklahoma
Southeastern Oklahoma State University alumni
Members of the Country Music Association
Country musicians from Oklahoma
20th-century American women singers
21st-century American women singers
Theatre World Award winners
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"Mean What You Say may refer to:\n\n Mean What You Say (Philly Joe Jones album)\n Mean What You Say (Thad Jones/Pepper Adams Quintet album)\n Mean What You Say (Witness album)\n Mean What You Say (Sent by Ravens album)",
"\"What I Mean\" is a song by French house duo Modjo. It was released in September 2001 as the third single from the studio album, Modjo. There are two versions, the original mix and another more dance-oriented.\n\nTrack listing\nCD single – Europe (2001)\n \"What I Mean\" (Original album mix)\n \"What I Mean\" (Aloud mix)\n\nChart performance\n\nReferences\n\n2001 singles\nModjo songs\n2001 songs"
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"Big Machine's new imprint Nash Icon Music.",
"What did this mean",
"she was working on a new album, with 11 new songs."
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What was the album Reba McEntire was working on with 11 songs?
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Reba McEntire
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On October 21, 2014, it was announced that McEntire would be the inaugural signing for Big Machine's new imprint Nash Icon Music. She also disclosed that she was working on a new album, with 11 new songs. Her first single for the new label, "Going Out Like That", was announced December 16, 2014 and was released on January 6, 2015. It served as the lead-off single to Love Somebody, McEntire's twenty-seventh studio album, released on April 14, 2015. Love Somebody debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Top Country Albums--her twelfth number-one album on the chart--and No. 3 on Billboard 200, selling 62,469 copies in the U.S. The album has sold 171,600 copies in the U.S. as of October 5, 2015. In 2016, McEntire was selected as one of thirty artists to perform on "Forever Country", a mash-up track of Take Me Home, Country Roads, On the Road Again and I Will Always Love You which celebrates 50 years of the CMA Awards. McEntire released her third Christmas album My Kind of Christmas on September 2, 2016. The album was exclusively sold at Cracker Barrel and online. She also announced she would soon be selling her own line of clothing, home decor, jewelry and other things under the "Rockin' R by Reba" line also at Cracker Barrel. McEntire was a guest judge on the July 13, 2016 episode of America's Got Talent. She used her golden buzzer, which she could only use once and allowed an act to go straight to the live shows, on contortionist Sofie Dossi. CANNOTANSWER
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Her first single for the new label,
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Reba Nell McEntire, also known mononymously as Reba, (born March 28, 1955) is an American country music singer, actress and businesswoman. She is often referred to as "the Queen of Country," having sold more than 75 million records worldwide. Since the 1970s, McEntire has placed over 100 singles on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, 25 of which reached the number one spot. She is also credited as an actress, having appeared in both films and television. She starred in the television series Reba, which aired for six seasons. She also owns several businesses, including a clothing line.
One of four children, McEntire was born and raised in the state of Oklahoma. In childhood and adolescence, her interests included barrel racing and sports. She also had a natural singing ability, which was encouraged by her mother. With her mother's help, she and her siblings formed the Singing McEntires, which played at local events and recorded for a small label. McEntire later enrolled at Southeastern Oklahoma State University and studied to become a public school teacher. She also continued to occasionally perform and was heard singing at a rodeo event by country performer Red Steagall. Drawn to her singing voice, Steagall helped McEntire secure a country music recording contract with PolyGram/Mercury Records in 1975.
Over the next several years, PolyGram/Mercury released a series of McEntire's albums and singles, which amounted to little success. In the early 1980s, McEntire's music gained more momentum through several top ten country songs, including "(You Lift Me) Up to Heaven", "I'm Not That Lonely Yet" and her first number one "Can't Even Get the Blues". Yet McEntire became increasingly unhappy with her career trajectory and signed with MCA Records in 1984. Her second MCA album titled My Kind of Country (1984) became her breakout release, spawning two number one Billboard country singles and pointed towards a more traditional musical style. Through the 1980s, McEntire released seven more studio albums and had ten more number one country hits. Her number one singles included "One Promise Too Late", "The Last One to Know" and the Grammy Award-winning "Whoever's in New England".
In 1991, McEntire lost eight of her band members in a plane crash in San Diego, California. The experience led to McEntire's critically acclaimed album For My Broken Heart, which is her highest-selling disc to date. She followed it with several commercially successful albums during the 1990s, including Read My Mind (1994), What If It's You (1996) and If You See Him (1998). These albums featured the number one country singles "The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter", "How Was I to Know" and a duet with Brooks and Dunn called "If You See Him/If You See Her". McEntire also began acting on film and television, beginning with 1990's Tremors. In 2001, she played the role of Annie Oakley in the Broadway musical Annie Get Your Gun. The same year, the WB channel launched the TV series Reba, which starred McEntire in the lead role. The show became successful and ran until 2007.
In 2004, McEntire returned to her country recording career with the top five Billboard album Room to Breathe. She followed the release with 2007's Reba: Duets, 2009's Keep On Loving You and 2011's All the Women I Am. Her 2000's albums spawned the number one singles "Somebody", "Consider Me Gone" and "Turn on the Radio". In 2012, McEntire briefly returned to television with the series Malibu Country and in 2018 portrayed the role of Colonel Sanders in television commercials for KFC. She has continued releasing new music, including Love Somebody (2015), Sing It Now (2017) and Revived Remixed Revisited (2021).
Early life
McEntire was born in McAlester, Oklahoma in 1955 but was raised on a ranch in Chockie, Oklahoma. She was the third of four children born to Clark and Jacqueline McEntire. Her grandfather, John Wesley McEntire, was a world-champion steer roper in 1934, while her father held the same title three times (1957, 1958 and 1961). Jacqueline McEntire had aspirations of becoming a country singer, but instead became a public school teacher, librarian and secretary While her mother was tender and loving, her father had trouble showing affection. "When we were growing up I used to regret that Daddy never told us that he loved us," she recalled in her autobiography. The McEntire family owned a cattle ranch in Chockie. Each family member contributed to running the cattle operation. The McEntire children helped with ranch chores before and after school. This included castrating bulls and giving them worm medicine.
The McEntire siblings also developed an interest in singing, which was encouraged by their mother. On car trips to their father's rodeo dates, Jacqueline McEntire taught her children to sing in harmony with one another. Young Reba then started performing school, beginning in first grade when she sang "Away in a Manger" at an elementary school Christmas pageant. In fifth grade, she joined the 4-H club and won first place in the Junior Act Division for singing "My Sweet Little Alice Blue Gown". She also played basketball and ran track. For several summers, she attended a basketball camp. She also learned piano and guitar. She also developed an interest in the rodeo and trained to become a barrel racer.
By high school the McEntire siblings had been frequently performing. Together, they formed a trio which they called The Singing McEntires. In 1971, the trio released a single about their famous grandfather called "The Ballad of John McEntire". It was pressed as a single by a local label and was issued in small numbers regionally. The trio eventually included a backing band which performed at local functions. The group was later named The Kiowa High School Cowboy Band. They also had paying gigs at bars at dance halls in nearby Oklahoma City. "We were a bunch of kids barely in puberty who didn't get to bed until almost daylight after some of our shows," McEntire remembered. The band parted ways once Reba's brother graduated high school. In 1973, McEntire graduated from Kiowa High School.
Once finishing high school, McEntire enrolled in college at Southeastern Oklahoma State University. She majored in elementary education with a minor in music. She completed student teaching and later graduated with a Bachelor's degree. She also continued to help out on her family's ranch during her college years. In 1974, McEntire's father encouraged her to take a job opportunity singing "The Star-Spangled Banner" at the National Finals Rodeo in Oklahoma City. She contacted family friend and rodeo announcer Clem McSpadden, who helped her get hired for the gig. Following one of her performances, McEntire was heard by country artist Red Steagall who was impressed by her singing. Reba, her siblings and her mother later joined him at a hotel party the same week. At the hotel, Reba performed an a cappella version of Dolly Parton's "Joshua". Jacqueline McEntire asked Steagall if he was able to help get all her children a recording contract. After going back to Nashville, Steagall contacted her in early 1975 and said, "I can't take all three. But I could take Reba. She's got something a little different."
In March 1975 and accompanied by her mother, McEntire embarked on a trip to Nashville, Tennessee to record a demonstration tape that Steagall hoped to pass along to record labels. At the start of the trip, she was unsure about pursuing a professional country music career. McEntire recalled in her autobiography continually making excuses for her mother to stop the car instead of traveling to Nashville. After noticing her daughter's fear, Jacqueline McEntire told her, "Now Reba, let me tell you something. If you don't want to go to Nashville, we don't have to do this. But I'm living all my dreams through you." The conversation changed her mind and they continued on to Nashville.
After recording a demo, McEntire's tape was heard by Glenn Keener of PolyGram/Mercury Records, who was interested in signing her to a Nashville contract. Keener brought McEntire's tape and another female's tape to PolyGram's Chicago headquarters. The label informed Kenner that he could only sign one female performer. "He looked at the two tapes in his hand and handed ’em mine," McEntire told Entertainment Weekly.
Music career
1976–1983: Career launch at Mercury
In November 1975, McEntire signed a country music recording contract with PolyGram/Mercury Records. She made her first recordings for the label in January 1976. She was produced by Glenn Keener and was backed by a Countrypolitan arrangement that included a string section. McEntire's debut single was released in 1976 titled "I Don't Want to Be a One Night Stand". The track failed to become a major hit, only peaking at number 88 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart that May. It was followed by the low-charting Billboard country singles "(There's Nothing Like the Love) Between a Woman and Man" and "Glad I Waited Just for You". Mercury issued her self-titled debut album in 1977. In his album review, Greg Adams of AllMusic compared it to the country crossover style of Barbara Mandrell and Tammy Wynette. McEntire also began touring and performing more frequently. Without a band of her own, she often relied on house bands to accompany her. In some instances, the backing bands did not know country music and McEntire would have to fill her time onstage with jokes.
McEntire's career gained more momentum by 1978. That year she collaborated on two singles with country artist Jacky Ward. The duo's double-sided release of "I'd Really Love to See You Tonight"/"Three Sheets in the Wind" became her first top 20 hit on the country chart. When Glenn Keener left the PolyGram/Mercury roster, McEntire inherited producer Jerry Kennedy. Kennedy produced her second studio album titled Out of a Dream (1979). The album's cover of Patsy Cline's "Sweet Dreams" became her first top 20 hit as a solo artist. Four additional top 40 country singles were spawned from the album as well. By 1980, McEntire had formed her own band which included sister Susie and brother Pake McEntire. She also hired a new manager. McEntire and her band toured to dates in a three-car caravan, which included a horse trailer for transporting instruments. She later upgraded to a bus nicknamed "Silver Eagle", which routinely broke down. Also in 1980, "(You Lift Me) Up to Heaven" became her first top ten hit on the country songs chart. It was included on her third studio album, Feel the Fire, which was released in October.
By this point, McEntire's label pushed her record music in a soft country pop style that she often disagreed with. Future material (which included her next album) was recorded in this format. Her fourth album, Heart to Heart was issued in 1981 and became her first disc to chart the Billboard Country Albums list. It received only a 2.5 star review from AllMusic's William Ruhlmann, who described McEntire as being "a promising, but not yet accomplished country artist." Yet its lead single, "Today All Over Again", became her highest charting country single yet, reaching number five. In 1983, McEntire's bus had broken down when she was informed that her latest single "Can't Even Get the Blues" reached the number one spot on the Billboard country chart. It was followed by her second number one song "You're the First Time I Thought About Leaving". The track also became her second to reach the top ten of Canada's RPM country songs chart. Both singles appeared on her 1983 album Unlimited. The following year, the single "Why Do We Want (What We Know We Can't Have)" reached the top ten. With increased success in the country music industry, she was able to arrange an early release from PolyGram/Mercury in 1983. "Let met put it this way, I've sorta taken my career into control myself," she explained of the decision.
1984–1990: Breakthrough
McEntire signed with MCA Records in 1984 and released her seventh studio album Just a Little Love. Harold Shedd was originally intended to produce the disc, however, McEntire rejected his desire for a country pop arrangement. Instead, Norro Wilson produced the project. Despite spawning a top ten hit, McEntire was still dissatisfied with the record's production and the lack of control over material. Instead, she turned to MCA president Jimmy Bowen who suggested that she find her own songs to record. Accompanied by Don "Dirt" Lanier, McEntire spent several days listening to various songs from publishing companies. Eventually she found a song written by Harlan Howard titled "Somebody Should Leave" and a song by Jon Moffat titled "How Blue". Released as singles, they reached the number one spot on the country songs chart and later appeared on 1984's My Kind of Country. The collection also included several covers of classic country songs by Ray Price, Charley Pride and Connie Smith. AllMusic's William Ruhlmann gave the disc 4.5 stars. Billboard magazine described McEntire on the album as being "the finest woman country singer since Kitty Wells." The album became her breakthrough recording, leading McEntire to winning 1984's Female Vocalist of the Year accolade from the Country Music Association. Along with music by George Strait and Randy Travis, the album also brought forth a stylistic change in country towards traditional arrangements and sounds.
Her next MCA album was 1985's Have I Got a Deal for You. The project followed the same traditional country format of its predecessor. It was produced by Jimmy Bowen, along with co-production credits from McEntire herself. The album 's title track reached the Billboard country top ten along with "Only in My Mind", a song composed by McEntire herself. In February 1986, her ninth studio album was released named Whoever's in New England. On the record, McEntire and co-producer Jimmy Bowen mixed a traditional country style with a modern, contemporary sound. Author Kurt Wolff described the title track's production, as being "bigger and sentimentalism more obvious, even manipulative". Issued as the lead single, the title track peaked at number one on the Bilboard country chart and won McEntire the Grammy Award for Best Female Country Vocal Performance. The album itself became her first to top the Billboard Country Albums survey. and later certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America for sales of one million copies.
By this point McEntire had reached the height of her commercial stardom. Following this, McEntire made changes to her stage show. She began implementing choreography and experimented with stage lighting. Also in 1986, McEntire's twelfth studio album appeared titled What Am I Gonna Do About You. AllMusic found that it lacked the features that had made Whoever's in New England unique. The title track was the lead single from the release. It became her next number one song on the Billboard country chart and her first number one on the RPM Canadian country chart. Its second single "One Promise Too Late" also topped the country chart. Her thirteenth studio project, The Last One to Know, was released in 1987 and reached number three on the Billboard country albums chart. Reviewer Tom Roland noted that McEntire chose material that reflected her recent divorce from first husband Charlie Battles. Both the title track and "Love Will Find Its Way to You" topped the Billboard country songs chart. In late 1987, McEntire released her first Christmas collection called Merry Christmas to You. Also in 1987, she played Carnegie Hall in New York City for the first time.
In the late 1980s, McEntire took more control of her career. She fired her manager and formed her own entertainment company that helped further promote her material. Other new changes included her 1988 pop-inspired release Reba. Her fifteenth studio disc included covers of the former pop hits "Respect" and "A Sunday Kind of Love". It produced the number one Billboard country singles "New Fool at an Old Game" and "I Know How He Feels". It was followed by 1989's Sweet Sixteen, which was noted to be a more of a "return[s] to the neo-traditionalist fold", according to reviewer William Ruhlmann. The album featured the country hits "'Til Love Comes Again", "Little Girl", "Walk On" and a cover of "Cathy's Clown". Her first live project titled Reba Live was also released in 1989.
Rumor Has It (1990) was another pop-oriented album release featuring a mix of ballads and uptempo numbers. It was the first disc in McEntire's career to reach the top 40 of the Billboard 200 albums chart. The disc would became McEntire's highest-selling albums, certifying three-times platinum from the RIAA. Four hit country singles came from the release, including "You Lie" and her cover of "Fancy". The latter single eventually become one of McEntire's signature songs.
1991: Plane crash and For My Broken Heart
In the late 1980s, McEntire's touring schedule became increasingly busy. To avoid long bus trips, she and her band began traveling by private planes to concerts. McEntire and her touring band started the 1991 leg of their tour with dates in Alaska, Saginaw, Michigan, Fort Wayne, Indiana and a private gig for IBM in San Diego, California. Two planes were scheduled to leave San Diego which would carry McEntire's band. McEntire, her husband and her stylist would take a different aircraft the next day. In the middle of the night on March 16, 1991, McEntire was awoken to a phone call from Roger Woolsey, who flew the second plane. McEntire's husband took the call and discovered that one of the planes had crashed. Following the successful takeoff of both planes, one plane's wing hit the side of Otay Mountain in San Diego, killing everyone on board.
In total, eight members of her band were killed: Chris Austin, Kirk Cappello, Joey Cigainero, Paula Kaye Evans, Jim Hammon, Terry Jackson, Anthony Saputo, and Michael Thomas. In addition pilot Donald Holmes and co-pilot Chris Hollinger were also killed. The first plane was a Hawker Siddeley DH-125-1A/522 charter jet that took off at 1:40 AM from the Brown Field Municipal Airport, located near the border of Mexico. After reaching an altitude of above sea level, the aircraft crashed on the side of Otay Mountain, located east of the airport. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) determined the probable cause of the accident was related to "improper pilot planning".
Meanwhile, the second plane carrying the rest of her band made it successfully to an airport in Nashville. McEntire, her husband and hair stylist returned on their own plane following the accident. "By the time that long, terrible weekend was over, we were emotionally and physically exhausted," McEntire stated in her autobiography. The news was reported nearly immediately to McEntire and her husband, who were sleeping at a nearby hotel. A spokeswoman for McEntire made a statement to The Los Angeles Times on behalf of her: "She was very close to all of them. Some of them had been with her for years. Reba is totally devastated by this. It's like losing part of your family. Right now she just wants to get back to Nashville." Two days after the crash, McEntire conducted an interview with People magazine and scheduled a memorial service for the families of the victims. Nine days following the accident, McEntire performed at the 63rd Academy Awards ceremony, singing the Best Original Song nominee "I'm Checkin' Out" from the film Postcards from the Edge. In addition, Vince Gill and Dolly Parton offered their help in reorganizing her touring band.
McEntire dedicated her sixteenth album, For My Broken Heart, to the deceased members of her road band. Released in October 1991, it contained songs of sorrow and lost love about "all measure of suffering", according to Alanna Nash of Entertainment Weekly. Nash reported that McEntire "still hits her stride with the more traditional songs of emotional turmoil, above all combining a spectacular vocal performance with a terrific song on 'Buying Her Roses', a wife's head-spinning discovery of her husband's other woman." The disc peaked at number three on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart. It also became her highest-charting release on the Billboard 200 yet, peaking at number 13. It later sold over four million copies in the United States, becoming her best-selling album to date. Its title track and "Is There Life Out There" both became number one Billboard country singles. In addition, "The Greatest Man I Never Knew" and McEntire's cover of "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia" both became major country hits.
1992–2002: Continued country success
In December 1992, McEntire's seventeenth album It's Your Call was released. A sign of her increased mainstream success, the album was her first to reach the top ten of the Billboard 200. It spawned the country hits "Take It Back", the title track and a number one duet with Vince Gill called "The Heart Won't Lie". Critic Brian Mansfield compared the disc to For My Broken Heart, concluding that "only casual or partial listeners will be moved as much." Christopher John Farley of Time wrote that the album ranged from being "relaxing" to "cathartic", and "these vocals from one of the best country singers linger in the mind". For her next release, McEntire collaborated with up-and-coming artist Linda Davis on the single "Does He Love You". MCA Records encouraged McEntire to record the track with more established acts like Wynonna Judd or Trisha Yearwood, but ultimately finalized the track with Davis. It became her eighteenth number one hit on the Country Songs chart and her sixteenth number one hit on the Canadian country chart. It was later included on her 1993 compilation Greatest Hits Volume Two. Later that year, Davis and McEntire performed the duet at the CMA Awards. For her performance, McEntire wore a red dress with a plunging neckline that created controversy among the Nashville community.
Her eighteenth studio release was 1994's Read My Mind. The disc reached number two on both the Billboard 200 and the Top Country Albums chart. The disc later reached sales of three million copies in the United States and certified three times platinum from the RIAA. Five major hits came from the release, including "The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter", "Till You Love Me" and a song about a woman contracting AIDS called "She Thinks His Name Was John". The latter recording only reached a top 20 charting position due to its controversial lyrics. McEntire's nineteenth studio album, Starting Over (1995) was collection of her favorite songs originally recorded by others. The album was made to commemorate McEntire's twenty years in the music industry. The album received a less favorable response from critics than that of her previous releases. While project spawned three charting singles, only McEntire's cover of "Ring on Her Finger, Time on Her Hands" became a top ten country song. Starting Over was certified platinum by the RIAA within the first two months of its release.
McEntire's next album release What If It's You was issued by MCA in November 1996. The record was a return to a contemporary country sound. It debuted at number 15 on the Billboard 200 and eventually topped the Billboard country albums list. It received a more favorable response from radio programmers than that of her 1995 album and received greater promotion. Critic Thom Owens noted that the project "[didn't] offer any new tricks from Reba McEntire, but it is nevertheless an excellent reminder of her deep talents as a vocalist." Its first single, "The Fear of Being Alone" became a top five hit, while "How Was I to Know" reached the number one spot on the Billboard country songs survey.
McEntire began touring with country duo Brooks & Dunn during the mid 1990s. Their touring collaborating led to the recording of a duet titled "If You See Him/If You See Her" in 1998. The track topped both the Billboard country songs chart and the Canadian RPM country chart. Their initial collaborations would lead to several more professional endeavors over the years, including a joint Las Vegas residency. The duet was included on McEntire's If You See Him album and Brooks & Dunn's If You See Her album, both of which were released in June 1998. Thom Owens found that both album titles were named nearly the same as "a way to draw attention for both parties, since they were no longer new guns—they were veterans in danger of losing ground to younger musicians". If You See Him produced three more top ten country hits including "Forever Love" and "One Honest Heart".
In 1999, McEntire released two albums. In September she issued her second Christmas album, The Secret of Giving: A Christmas Collection. In November, her twenty-second studio album, So Good Together was released. Entertainment Weekly commented that most of the album's material was "an odd set—mostly ballads, including an English/Portuguese duet with Jose e Durval on Boz Scaggs' 'We're All Alone'". It featured the top five country songs "What Do You Say" and "I'll Be". McEntire focused on an acting career in the early 2000s and took a temporary musical hiatus. One exception was 2001's "I'm a Survivor". The single became a top five country hit and the theme song to McEntire's 2001 television series.
2003–2015: Country music comeback, record label switch and continued music success
McEntire returned to her recording career in August 2003 with the release of the MCA single "I'm Gonna Take That Mountain". The song was included on her first studio album in four years titled Room to Breathe (November 2003). "The reason I named the album Room to Breathe is because I needed a little room to breathe," McEntire told Billboard. The 12-track disc was produced by Buddy Cannon and Norro Wilson. It also featured a guest appearance from Vince Gill. Room to Breathe debuted at number four on the Billboard country chart and later certified platinum in the United States. It spawned McEntire's first number one song in six years titled "Somebody". Also featured was the top ten single "He Gets That from Me". In 2004, she embarked on her first tour in several years also titled "Room to Breathe", which included 36 cities in the United States. In 2005, MCA released the double-disc compilation titled Reba #1's while she was in between albums.
In September 2007, McEntire's next studio disc was releaded titled Reba: Duets. The album was a collection of duets with various music artists, including Kenny Chesney, LeAnn Rimes, Trisha Yearwood, Carole King, and Justin Timberlake. Reba: Duets topped the Billboard country chart and theBillboard 200, becoming her first album in her career to top reach the top of both lists. Reba: Duets was later certified platinum by the RIAA. The album was given high critical praise from magazines such as PopMatters, which compared McEntire to artists like Janis Joplin and Tina Turner. AllMusic's Thom Jurek gave it 3.5 stars, commenting that "it's full of good to great songs delivered in mostly interesting ways." The first single was a duet version of Kelly Clarkson's "Because of You", which reached number two on the American country chart and topped the Canadian country songs chart.
In 2008, McEntire announced that she would be departing her label of 25 years and signing with the Valory Music Group, an imprint of Big Machine Records. The switch to Valory reunited McEntire with the label's president, Scott Borchetta, whom she had worked with previously. Her first Valory single was 2009's "Strange". The song debuted at number 39 Billboard country songs chart, giving McEntire the highest single debut of her career and peaked at number eleven. Her twenty-sixth studio album, Keep On Loving You was released in August 2009 and also topped both the Billboard Country and 200 charts. In 2009, "Consider Me Gone" (spawned as the record's second single) became her 24th number-one on the Billboard chart in December. At age 54, McEntire became one of the oldest women to have a number one single on the country songs chart.
McEntire's twenty-ninth studio album All the Women I Am was released in November 2010. Steve Morse of The Boston Globe called the project "one of her best efforts", while Thom Jurek at AllMusic only gave it a 2.5 star rating, calling it "awkward" and lacking a "center". "Turn On the Radio" was issued as the lead single prior to the album, eventually becoming her twenty firth number one on the Billboard country survey. Three additional charting singles were spawned from All the Women I Am that peaked outside the top 20. Her All the Women I Am Tour tour followed shortly after late featuring country acts the Band Perry, Steel Magnolia, and Edens Edge. In 2014, McEntire moved to Big Machine's new imprint for veteran artists titled Nash Icon Music. Her first Nash Icon single was 2015's "Going Out Like That", which reached the top 25 of the Billboard country songs chart. It was included on her 2015 Nash Icon album Love Somebody. The album topped the country albums chart and charted the top five of the Billboard 200. In 2016, McEntire released a third Christmas-themed studio album called My Kind of Christmas. The album was exclusively sold at Cracker Barrel and online. She also announced she would soon be selling her own line of clothing, home decor, jewelry and other things under the "Rockin' R by Reba" line also at Cracker Barrel.
2017–present: New beginnings in her 60s
After her split from ex-husband Narvel Blackstock, McEntire took control of her career as her own manager. She recruited Justin McIntosh of Starstruck Entertainment, Leslie Matthews serving as Brand Manager, and Carolyn Snell who has been with McEntire for nine years. They formed Reba's Business Inc. (RBI). She moved out of the building she and Blackstock had worked in, and moved her company to Green Hills, Nashville.
On December 15, 2016, McEntire announced that she was releasing her first gospel album titled Sing It Now: Songs of Faith & Hope. It was released by Nash Icon/Rockin' R Records on February 3, 2017, and consists of two discs. Disc one contains traditional hymns while disc two contains original tracks. "Softly and Tenderly", featuring Kelly Clarkson and Trisha Yearwood, was the first track off the album released. Another track on the album, "In the Garden/Wonderful Peace", features the Isaacs. Jay DeMarcus of the Rascal Flatts produced the album. The first single off the album is "Back to God". In January 2018, McEntire won the Grammy Award for Best Roots Gospel Album, her first nomination since 2007, and her first Grammy Award win in more than twenty years, since 1994. She also headlined the C2C: Country to Country festival in the UK alongside Brad Paisley and Zac Brown Band in March. Because of its limited release in 2016, on October 13, 2017 My Kind of Christmas was re-released - this time including songs with Vince Gill, Amy Grant, Darius Rucker and Lauren Daigle - on her website and through iTunes. In July 2018, it was announced that McEntire would be one of four honorees for the 41st annual Kennedy Center Honors, along with Cher, Philip Glass, and Wayne Shorter. The ceremony was held December 2, 2018, and broadcast on CBS December 26, 2018.
McEntire released her twenty-ninth studio album Stronger Than the Truth on April 5, 2019. McEntire also returned to host the 54th Academy of Country Music Awards on April 8, 2019.
On June 25, 2019, The New York Times Magazine listed McEntire among hundreds of artists whose material was destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.
On February 20, 2020, during a surprise appearance at the Country Radio Seminar, McEntire announced she had signed a new record deal with MCA Nashville, returning to the label after leaving in November 2008. McEntire hosted the 54th Annual Country Music Association Awards alongside Darius Rucker in November 2020. McEntire previously hosted in 2019 with Carrie Underwood and Dolly Parton, 1992 with Vince Gill, 1991 by herself (the second solo female host) and 1990 with Randy Travis.
Acting career
1989–99: Entry into film and television acting
In 1990, she obtained her first film role playing Heather Gummer in the horror comedy Tremors, along with Kevin Bacon. The film told the story of a small group of people living in Nevada who were fighting subterranean worm-like creatures. After the film's release, McEntire developed a strong interest in acting and made it her second career. The film earned McEntire a nomination for Best Supporting Actress at the 1991 Saturn Awards. The following year, she starred along with Kenny Rogers and Burt Reynolds in the made-for-television movies The Gambler Returns: The Luck of the Draw and The Man From Left Field. In 1994, McEntire worked with director Rob Reiner in the film North, playing Ma Tex. The film obtained negative reviews, receiving only two and a half stars from Allmovie.
In 1994, McEntire starred in Is There Life Out There? a television movie based on her song of the same name. The following year, she appeared in Buffalo Girls, which was based upon the life of western cowgirl Calamity Jane (played by Anjelica Huston). Playing Jane's friend Annie Oakley, Buffalo Girls was nominated for an Emmy award. In 1996, McEntire was cast by director James Cameron as Molly Brown in his film Titanic. However, when it became apparent production for the film would extend well beyond its original length, McEntire had to turn down the part, as she had already scheduled prior concert engagements. The role was recast with Kathy Bates. In 1998, she starred as Lizzie Brooks in Forever Love, which was based upon McEntire's hit single of the same name.
2000–07: Broadway and television series
In early 2001, McEntire expanded into theater, starring in the Broadway revival of Annie Get Your Gun. Playing Annie Oakley (whom she had previously portrayed in Buffalo Girls), her performance was critically acclaimed by several newspapers, including The New York Times, which commented, "Without qualification the best performance by an actress in a musical comedy this season." McEntire personally called the musical "some of the hardest work I've ever done in my life".
In 2005, McEntire starred as Nellie Forbush in the Carnegie Hall concert production of the Broadway musical South Pacific with Alec Baldwin as Luther Billis and Brian Stokes Mitchell as Emile de Becque, directed by Walter Bobbie and with an adapted script by David Ives. The concert was broadcast as part of the Great Performances series in 2006.
In October 2001, McEntire premiered her half-hour television sitcom Reba on the WB network. The show was based around divorced mother Reba Hart, who learns how to handle life situations after her husband divorces her in order to marry his dental hygienist––with whom he had been cheating and gotten pregnant––and then their teenage daughter becomes pregnant as well. Reba garnered critical acclaim and success, becoming the network's highest-rated television show for adults ranging from the ages of 18 to 49. The show ran for six seasons and earned McEntire a nomination for a Golden Globe award. It was canceled on February 18, 2007; the series finale had 8.7 million viewers.
2011–20: Brief television return and current projects
In September 2011, McEntire confirmed on her website that ABC had ordered a pilot for her second television series Malibu Country. McEntire played a divorced mother of two who moves to Malibu, California to restart her music career. The pilot was filmed in April 2012 and began production on its first season in August. It was announced that the pilot for Malibu Country would premiere November 2, 2012. The show was broadcast Friday nights at 8:30/7:30c on ABC. On May 11, 2012, McEntire tweeted that the show had been picked up. She also was the host in the 2011 NASCAR Award Show in Las Vegas.
Despite reports that Malibu Country was the most-watched freshman comedy in its debut season (8.7 million), the show was canceled on May 10, 2013, after eighteen episodes.
In January 2017, it was announced that McEntire would star and produce a Southern drama series for ABC titled Red Blooded. It was reported in May that ABC ultimately turned down the show, so it moved to being shopped around to other networks. In January 2018, Reba was chosen to portray KFC's first female Colonel Sanders. The commercials ran through the end of April 2018.
In 2020, McEntire launched a podcast titled Living & Learning hosted by herself and her former Reba co-star Melissa Peterman.
She made a cameo appearance in the 2021 comedy film Barb and Star go to Vista Del Mar as a water spirit named Trish after Annie Mumolo and Kristen Wiig, who wrote, produced, and starred in the film, wrote her an "impassioned letter" asking her to join the film. Director Josh Greenbaum said in an interview, "There's some casting that just clicks. Reba is not only 100% authentic, we knew she would be game."
Musical styles and legacy
McEntire's sound has been influenced by the country music of Bob Wills, Merle Haggard, Dolly Parton, Barbara Mandrell, and Patsy Cline. In college, McEntire attended local dances at the Oklahoma–Texas border so she could dance to Wills's music, commenting that, "it didn't get any better than dancing to Bob Wills music". She also explained Merle Haggard's influence on her career, stating "I had every album he ever put out", and would sing "every song he did", along with her brother, Pake and sister, Susie. In addition, her first major hit, "Sweet Dreams" was a remake of Patsy Cline's version of the song, according to McEntire herself.
McEntire's music has been described to not only be built upon traditional country music, but also expand into the genres of country pop, mainstream pop, soul, and R&B. At times, her music has been criticized for moving away from traditional country music. Many music critics have called her music to be "melodramatic", "formulaic", and "bombastic", particularly after her 1988 album Reba. Studio releases such as Sweet Sixteen, Rumor Has It, It's Your Call, and Starting Over have been described by these terms.
McEntire possesses a contralto vocal range and performs "vocal gymnastics" with her voice, a musical technique in which a singer twirls a note around, using their vibrato. McEntire has credited Dolly Parton for influencing this trait, stating that she always listened to Parton's records and find her style of vocal gymnastics "so pretty".
McEntire has often been regarded as one of country music's most influential female vocalists and most beloved entertainers. She is highly credited for remaining one of country's most popular female artists for nearly four decades, maintaining her success by continually incorporating contemporary musical sounds without changing her traditional vocal style. For numerous artists, she has been credited as an inspiration to their careers in music. The Net Music Countdown second-handedly reported, "That influence has manifested itself in many ways. As a role model, she's shown others how to handle fame with grace and good humor while never backing down from her values or goals. Just as importantly, she's shown others to refuse to accept limitations on what she can do or how much she can achieve." McEntire also explained to the online website, "Whatever I'm doing, I feel like I'm representing country music". "It's always been my main career, and it's where my loyalties lie. I feel like I'm waving the flag of country music wherever I go, and I couldn't be prouder to do it."
Personal life
McEntire is a Christian, and she has stated that her faith in God has helped her immensely throughout her life.
Two of her siblings have also had careers in the music industry. Her brother Pake dabbled in the country music industry in the late 1980s but returned to Oklahoma after a brief stint. He owns and operates a 1,000-acre ranch near Coalgate, Oklahoma, and continues to rodeo. Her sister Susie McEntire-Eaton (Martha Susan "Susie" McEntire-Eaton, formerly Luchsinger) is a successful Christian music singer who travels the country with her husband, speaking and performing. She also has an older sister, Alice Foran, a retired social worker who resides in Lane, Oklahoma. Her niece Calamity McEntire is an assistant basketball coach at the University of Dayton.
Relationships and children
In 1976, McEntire married steer wrestling champion and rancher Charlie Battles who was 10 years her senior and had two sons from his previous marriage. The couple shared a ranch in Oklahoma. In 1987, McEntire divorced Battles and moved to Nashville, Tennessee, to further pursue her career.
In 1989, McEntire married her manager and former steel guitar player Narvel Blackstock. The couple wed at Lake Tahoe on a boat in a private ceremony. Together, the pair took over all aspects of McEntire's career, forming Starstruck Entertainment, which was originally designed to help manage her career. From her marriage to Blackstock, McEntire gained three stepchildren, Chassidy, Shawna, and Brandon. She gave birth to a son, Shelby Steven McEntire Blackstock, in February 1990. On August 3, 2015, it was announced in a joint statement on McEntire's website that she and Blackstock had been separated for a few months after twenty-six years of marriage. McEntire announced in December 2015 that their divorce had been finalized on October 28, 2015. Despite the divorce, McEntire remains very close to her three stepchildren and the Blackstock family; she considers her stepchildren's children to be her grandchildren. McEntire's stepson Brandon Blackstock married singer Kelly Clarkson, with whom he has a daughter and a son. Speaking about their impending marriage in 2013, McEntire stated she was "Thrilled to death, to have my buddy as my daughter-in-law. I mean, who could ask for more?"
In 2017, McEntire began a relationship with photographer Anthony "Skeeter" Lasuzzo. The couple met through McEntire's association with Kix Brooks. In describing her feelings about Lasuzzo, she stated, "We're totally in love — absolutely," she says. "I wouldn’t put up with somebody for two years if I wasn’t in love with 'em!" McEntire and Lasuzzo separated in the fall of 2019.
In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, McEntire began dating film and TV actor Rex Linn.
Philanthropy
In 1992, she opened Reba's Ranch House in Denison, TX. Similar to a Ronald McDonald House, the house incorporates holistic care by providing a calm setting for rest, warm meals for nourishment and sensitive staff for spiritual connections to guests who have loved ones being treated at the nearby Texoma Medical Center.
Over the course of her career, she has been and continues to be an active supporter of various charitable organizations including Habitat for Humanity, The Salvation Army, the American Red Cross, Feeding America and Celebrity Fight Night. She has been honored with the Minnie Pearl Award, the ACM Home Depot Humanitarian Award and the Andrea Bocelli Foundation Humanitarian Award for her efforts. In 2018, she was honored with the Horatio Alger Award for Education, Charity Work. Named after the "rags to riches" writer, the award recognizes perseverance and giving back.
Accolades
McEntire has the second-most wins for the Academy of Country Music's Top Female Vocalist Awards with seven. McEntire holds the record American Music Awards for Favorite Country Female Artist (twelve). She also holds the distinction of being the first to win the Country Music Association's Female Vocalist of the Year Award four times consecutively. Martina McBride won Female Vocalist four times, although not consecutively. In 2013, Miranda Lambert tied McEntire to win Female Vocalist four years in a row and in 2016 Carrie Underwood joined this elite club by winning her fourth Female Vocalist award. McEntire is also a rare musical artist to achieve solo number-ones across four decades (1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s). She holds the record for most CMA Award nominations for a female artist, with 50. McEntire also holds the record with the most ACM Awards nominations for a female artist with 47, respectively. She is also the recipient of three Grammy Awards, winning in 1987, 1994 and 2018. In December 2018, McEntire received the Kennedy Center Honor. In December 2021 she was one of the five nominees for Person of the Year on Spotted Ratings, along with Mariska Hargitay, Olivia Rodrigo, Susan Lynn Rosner Rovner, and Rebecca Wisocky, but ultimately lost the award to Rovner due to the latter's extensive work restoring NBC to relevancy.
When Reba McEntire made her Grand Ole Opry debut on September 17, 1977, she almost did not make it in the door after a guard at the Opry gate missed her name on the night's list of performers. Her parents and older sister, Alice, drove 1,400 miles round trip from their Oklahoma home to see what turned out to be Reba's three-minute performance that night. Her act was cut from two songs to just one—"Invitation to the Blues"—because of a surprise appearance by Dolly Parton. McEntire was inducted into the Grand Ole Opry on January 17, 1986. "The Grand Ole Opry is a home," she says. "It's a family. It's like a family reunion, when you come back and get to see everybody."
In 2011, the Country Music Association announced that McEntire would be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. McEntire was unable to attend the announcement after her father had slipped into a coma following a stroke. McEntire attended the official induction ceremony alongside the other 2011 inductees Jean Shepard and Bobby Braddock. She was inducted by Dolly Parton.
Discography
Studio albums
Reba McEntire (1977)
Out of a Dream (1979)
Feel the Fire (1980)
Heart to Heart (1981)
Unlimited (1982)
Behind the Scene (1983)
Just a Little Love (1984)
My Kind of Country (1984)
Have I Got a Deal for You (1985)
Whoever's in New England (1986)
Reba Nell McEntire (1986)
What Am I Gonna Do About You (1986)
The Last One to Know (1987)
Merry Christmas to You (1987)
Reba (1988)
Sweet Sixteen (1989)
Rumor Has It (1990)
For My Broken Heart (1991)
It's Your Call (1992)
Read My Mind (1994)
Starting Over (1995)
What If It's You (1996)
If You See Him (1998)
So Good Together (1999)
The Secret of Giving: A Christmas Collection (1999)
Room to Breathe (2003)
Reba: Duets (2007)
Keep On Loving You (2009)
All the Women I Am (2010)
Love Somebody (2015)
My Kind of Christmas (2016)
Sing It Now: Songs of Faith & Hope (2017)
Stronger Than the Truth (2019)
Revived Remixed Revisited (2021)
Tours
Headlining tours
The Reba McEntire Show
The Last One to Know Tour
North American Tour '88
World Tour '89
'90 Tour
Rumor Has It Tour
Reba in Concert
It's Your Call Tour
Read My Mind Tour
Starting Over Tour
20th Anniversary Tour
Singer's Diary
Room to Breathe Tour
All the Women I Am Tour
Canadian Tour
Reba: Live in Concert
Co-headlining tours
Brooks & Dunn and Reba: The Tour
Girls Night Out
2 Hats and a Redhead
2 Worlds 2 Voices Tour
Reba and George Strait on Tour
Residency shows
Key to the Heart
Together in Vegas
Opening act
Today Tour
Filmography
See also
List of best-selling music artists in the United States
References
Footnotes
Books
Bibliography
External links
Reba McEntire Profile on Country Music Television
1955 births
20th-century American actresses
21st-century American actresses
20th-century American singers
21st-century American singers
Actresses from Oklahoma
American contraltos
American country singer-songwriters
American women country singers
American film actresses
American television actresses
American voice actresses
American Christians
Big Machine Records artists
Country Music Hall of Fame inductees
Grammy Award winners
Grand Ole Opry members
Kennedy Center honorees
Living people
MCA Records artists
Mercury Records artists
Singer-songwriters from Oklahoma
People from McAlester, Oklahoma
People from Atoka County, Oklahoma
Southeastern Oklahoma State University alumni
Members of the Country Music Association
Country musicians from Oklahoma
20th-century American women singers
21st-century American women singers
Theatre World Award winners
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[
"Of What Was is the first full-length album by in medias res, an indie rock band from Vancouver, British Columbia. Produced by fellow Vancouver indie act Jonathan Anderson, it was originally self-released on July 8, 2003 and sold out of its initial 1,000 copies within a year and a half. Of What Was was then picked up by Anniedale Records and re-released on May 24, 2005. The album was preceded by two EPs, Demos and Intimacy.\n\nTrack listing\n \"Idée Fixe\" - 2:57\n \"Radio Friendly\" - 2:41a\n \"Shakeher\" - 3:46\n \"A Cause For Concern\" - 5:41\n \"You Know You Don't Know\" - 5:47\n \"Best Kept Secret\" - 4:20\n \"Assembly Lines\" - 5:35\n \"Annadonia\" - 5:24\n \"Tail End of a Car Crash\" - 0:55\n \"Of What Was\" — 7:31\n \"Silence Calls\" - 6:24\n \"Silence Calls\" - 22:13b\n\na Originally titled \"Wise Investors\" in the self-released version.\nb Added in the Anniedale Records re-release.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nOf What Was on Anniedale Records\nOf What Was on CD Baby\n\n2005 debut albums",
"The What A Summer Stakes is an American Thoroughbred horse race held annually in January at Laurel Park Racecourse in Laurel, Maryland. The race is open to fillies and mares four years old and up and is run at six furlongs on the dirt.\n\nAn ungraded stakes race, it offers a purse of $100,000. The race was restricted to Maryland-breds between 1978 and 1992. It was run for fillies and mares from age three and up from 1978 through 1985 and was run under handicap conditions during that same time. The race was restricted to two-year-olds from 1985 to 1992.\n\nThe race was named in honor of What A Summer, a gray mare by What Luck. She was an Eclipse Award winner and was named American Champion Sprint Horse in 1977. She was bred in Maryland by Milton Polinger. What A Summer was a foal in 1973 and won 18 of 31 starts in her career. She won the de facto second leg of the filly Triple Crown, the Black-Eyed Susan Stakes, won the Fall Highweight Handicap twice (carrying 134 pounds each time), the Silver Spoon Handicap twice, the Maskette Handicap and four other stakes. In addition to her 18 wins, she placed nine times with earnings of $479,161. That record of 27 first or second finishes in 31 starts at 87% is among the best in history.\n\nWhat A Summer was trained by Bud Delp while racing for Polinger. She was bought by Diana Firestone following Polinger's death in 1976. Mrs. Firestone turned the mare over to trainer LeRoy Jolley. She was named Maryland-bred horse of the year in 1977 and twice was named champion older mare. What A Summer was retired in 1878 and as a broodmare produced several graded stakes winners.\n\nA venue of 1994 race was Gulfstream Park.\n\nRecords \n\nSpeed record: \n 6 furlongs – 1:09.20 – Xtra Heat (2003) \n 7 furlongs – 1:23.60 – Sea Siren (1983)\n\nMost wins by an horse:\n 2 – Silmaril (2006 & 2007)\n 2 – Sweet on Smokey (2016 & 2017)\n\nMost wins by an owner:\n 3 – Stephen E. Quick (1982, 2007 & 2008)\n\nMost wins by a jockey:\n 2 – five different jockeys share this record with 2 wins each\n\nMost wins by a trainer:\n 3 – Christopher W. Grove (2007, 2008 & 2010)\n\nWinners of the What A Summer Stakes since 1978\n\nSee also \n\n What A Summer Stakes top three finishers\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Laurel Park website\n\n1978 establishments in Maryland\nLaurel Park Racecourse\nHorse races in Maryland\nRecurring sporting events established in 1978"
] |
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"2014-2016: Nash Icon, Love Somebody, Christmas and Gospel albums, America's Got Talent",
"What was her goal",
"Big Machine's new imprint Nash Icon Music.",
"What did this mean",
"she was working on a new album, with 11 new songs.",
"What was",
"Her first single for the new label,"
] |
C_250e1915dae4444eacc416035a1b7b5b_1
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When was this realesed
| 4 |
When was Reba McEntire's first single released?
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Reba McEntire
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On October 21, 2014, it was announced that McEntire would be the inaugural signing for Big Machine's new imprint Nash Icon Music. She also disclosed that she was working on a new album, with 11 new songs. Her first single for the new label, "Going Out Like That", was announced December 16, 2014 and was released on January 6, 2015. It served as the lead-off single to Love Somebody, McEntire's twenty-seventh studio album, released on April 14, 2015. Love Somebody debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Top Country Albums--her twelfth number-one album on the chart--and No. 3 on Billboard 200, selling 62,469 copies in the U.S. The album has sold 171,600 copies in the U.S. as of October 5, 2015. In 2016, McEntire was selected as one of thirty artists to perform on "Forever Country", a mash-up track of Take Me Home, Country Roads, On the Road Again and I Will Always Love You which celebrates 50 years of the CMA Awards. McEntire released her third Christmas album My Kind of Christmas on September 2, 2016. The album was exclusively sold at Cracker Barrel and online. She also announced she would soon be selling her own line of clothing, home decor, jewelry and other things under the "Rockin' R by Reba" line also at Cracker Barrel. McEntire was a guest judge on the July 13, 2016 episode of America's Got Talent. She used her golden buzzer, which she could only use once and allowed an act to go straight to the live shows, on contortionist Sofie Dossi. CANNOTANSWER
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January 6, 2015.
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Reba Nell McEntire, also known mononymously as Reba, (born March 28, 1955) is an American country music singer, actress and businesswoman. She is often referred to as "the Queen of Country," having sold more than 75 million records worldwide. Since the 1970s, McEntire has placed over 100 singles on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, 25 of which reached the number one spot. She is also credited as an actress, having appeared in both films and television. She starred in the television series Reba, which aired for six seasons. She also owns several businesses, including a clothing line.
One of four children, McEntire was born and raised in the state of Oklahoma. In childhood and adolescence, her interests included barrel racing and sports. She also had a natural singing ability, which was encouraged by her mother. With her mother's help, she and her siblings formed the Singing McEntires, which played at local events and recorded for a small label. McEntire later enrolled at Southeastern Oklahoma State University and studied to become a public school teacher. She also continued to occasionally perform and was heard singing at a rodeo event by country performer Red Steagall. Drawn to her singing voice, Steagall helped McEntire secure a country music recording contract with PolyGram/Mercury Records in 1975.
Over the next several years, PolyGram/Mercury released a series of McEntire's albums and singles, which amounted to little success. In the early 1980s, McEntire's music gained more momentum through several top ten country songs, including "(You Lift Me) Up to Heaven", "I'm Not That Lonely Yet" and her first number one "Can't Even Get the Blues". Yet McEntire became increasingly unhappy with her career trajectory and signed with MCA Records in 1984. Her second MCA album titled My Kind of Country (1984) became her breakout release, spawning two number one Billboard country singles and pointed towards a more traditional musical style. Through the 1980s, McEntire released seven more studio albums and had ten more number one country hits. Her number one singles included "One Promise Too Late", "The Last One to Know" and the Grammy Award-winning "Whoever's in New England".
In 1991, McEntire lost eight of her band members in a plane crash in San Diego, California. The experience led to McEntire's critically acclaimed album For My Broken Heart, which is her highest-selling disc to date. She followed it with several commercially successful albums during the 1990s, including Read My Mind (1994), What If It's You (1996) and If You See Him (1998). These albums featured the number one country singles "The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter", "How Was I to Know" and a duet with Brooks and Dunn called "If You See Him/If You See Her". McEntire also began acting on film and television, beginning with 1990's Tremors. In 2001, she played the role of Annie Oakley in the Broadway musical Annie Get Your Gun. The same year, the WB channel launched the TV series Reba, which starred McEntire in the lead role. The show became successful and ran until 2007.
In 2004, McEntire returned to her country recording career with the top five Billboard album Room to Breathe. She followed the release with 2007's Reba: Duets, 2009's Keep On Loving You and 2011's All the Women I Am. Her 2000's albums spawned the number one singles "Somebody", "Consider Me Gone" and "Turn on the Radio". In 2012, McEntire briefly returned to television with the series Malibu Country and in 2018 portrayed the role of Colonel Sanders in television commercials for KFC. She has continued releasing new music, including Love Somebody (2015), Sing It Now (2017) and Revived Remixed Revisited (2021).
Early life
McEntire was born in McAlester, Oklahoma in 1955 but was raised on a ranch in Chockie, Oklahoma. She was the third of four children born to Clark and Jacqueline McEntire. Her grandfather, John Wesley McEntire, was a world-champion steer roper in 1934, while her father held the same title three times (1957, 1958 and 1961). Jacqueline McEntire had aspirations of becoming a country singer, but instead became a public school teacher, librarian and secretary While her mother was tender and loving, her father had trouble showing affection. "When we were growing up I used to regret that Daddy never told us that he loved us," she recalled in her autobiography. The McEntire family owned a cattle ranch in Chockie. Each family member contributed to running the cattle operation. The McEntire children helped with ranch chores before and after school. This included castrating bulls and giving them worm medicine.
The McEntire siblings also developed an interest in singing, which was encouraged by their mother. On car trips to their father's rodeo dates, Jacqueline McEntire taught her children to sing in harmony with one another. Young Reba then started performing school, beginning in first grade when she sang "Away in a Manger" at an elementary school Christmas pageant. In fifth grade, she joined the 4-H club and won first place in the Junior Act Division for singing "My Sweet Little Alice Blue Gown". She also played basketball and ran track. For several summers, she attended a basketball camp. She also learned piano and guitar. She also developed an interest in the rodeo and trained to become a barrel racer.
By high school the McEntire siblings had been frequently performing. Together, they formed a trio which they called The Singing McEntires. In 1971, the trio released a single about their famous grandfather called "The Ballad of John McEntire". It was pressed as a single by a local label and was issued in small numbers regionally. The trio eventually included a backing band which performed at local functions. The group was later named The Kiowa High School Cowboy Band. They also had paying gigs at bars at dance halls in nearby Oklahoma City. "We were a bunch of kids barely in puberty who didn't get to bed until almost daylight after some of our shows," McEntire remembered. The band parted ways once Reba's brother graduated high school. In 1973, McEntire graduated from Kiowa High School.
Once finishing high school, McEntire enrolled in college at Southeastern Oklahoma State University. She majored in elementary education with a minor in music. She completed student teaching and later graduated with a Bachelor's degree. She also continued to help out on her family's ranch during her college years. In 1974, McEntire's father encouraged her to take a job opportunity singing "The Star-Spangled Banner" at the National Finals Rodeo in Oklahoma City. She contacted family friend and rodeo announcer Clem McSpadden, who helped her get hired for the gig. Following one of her performances, McEntire was heard by country artist Red Steagall who was impressed by her singing. Reba, her siblings and her mother later joined him at a hotel party the same week. At the hotel, Reba performed an a cappella version of Dolly Parton's "Joshua". Jacqueline McEntire asked Steagall if he was able to help get all her children a recording contract. After going back to Nashville, Steagall contacted her in early 1975 and said, "I can't take all three. But I could take Reba. She's got something a little different."
In March 1975 and accompanied by her mother, McEntire embarked on a trip to Nashville, Tennessee to record a demonstration tape that Steagall hoped to pass along to record labels. At the start of the trip, she was unsure about pursuing a professional country music career. McEntire recalled in her autobiography continually making excuses for her mother to stop the car instead of traveling to Nashville. After noticing her daughter's fear, Jacqueline McEntire told her, "Now Reba, let me tell you something. If you don't want to go to Nashville, we don't have to do this. But I'm living all my dreams through you." The conversation changed her mind and they continued on to Nashville.
After recording a demo, McEntire's tape was heard by Glenn Keener of PolyGram/Mercury Records, who was interested in signing her to a Nashville contract. Keener brought McEntire's tape and another female's tape to PolyGram's Chicago headquarters. The label informed Kenner that he could only sign one female performer. "He looked at the two tapes in his hand and handed ’em mine," McEntire told Entertainment Weekly.
Music career
1976–1983: Career launch at Mercury
In November 1975, McEntire signed a country music recording contract with PolyGram/Mercury Records. She made her first recordings for the label in January 1976. She was produced by Glenn Keener and was backed by a Countrypolitan arrangement that included a string section. McEntire's debut single was released in 1976 titled "I Don't Want to Be a One Night Stand". The track failed to become a major hit, only peaking at number 88 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart that May. It was followed by the low-charting Billboard country singles "(There's Nothing Like the Love) Between a Woman and Man" and "Glad I Waited Just for You". Mercury issued her self-titled debut album in 1977. In his album review, Greg Adams of AllMusic compared it to the country crossover style of Barbara Mandrell and Tammy Wynette. McEntire also began touring and performing more frequently. Without a band of her own, she often relied on house bands to accompany her. In some instances, the backing bands did not know country music and McEntire would have to fill her time onstage with jokes.
McEntire's career gained more momentum by 1978. That year she collaborated on two singles with country artist Jacky Ward. The duo's double-sided release of "I'd Really Love to See You Tonight"/"Three Sheets in the Wind" became her first top 20 hit on the country chart. When Glenn Keener left the PolyGram/Mercury roster, McEntire inherited producer Jerry Kennedy. Kennedy produced her second studio album titled Out of a Dream (1979). The album's cover of Patsy Cline's "Sweet Dreams" became her first top 20 hit as a solo artist. Four additional top 40 country singles were spawned from the album as well. By 1980, McEntire had formed her own band which included sister Susie and brother Pake McEntire. She also hired a new manager. McEntire and her band toured to dates in a three-car caravan, which included a horse trailer for transporting instruments. She later upgraded to a bus nicknamed "Silver Eagle", which routinely broke down. Also in 1980, "(You Lift Me) Up to Heaven" became her first top ten hit on the country songs chart. It was included on her third studio album, Feel the Fire, which was released in October.
By this point, McEntire's label pushed her record music in a soft country pop style that she often disagreed with. Future material (which included her next album) was recorded in this format. Her fourth album, Heart to Heart was issued in 1981 and became her first disc to chart the Billboard Country Albums list. It received only a 2.5 star review from AllMusic's William Ruhlmann, who described McEntire as being "a promising, but not yet accomplished country artist." Yet its lead single, "Today All Over Again", became her highest charting country single yet, reaching number five. In 1983, McEntire's bus had broken down when she was informed that her latest single "Can't Even Get the Blues" reached the number one spot on the Billboard country chart. It was followed by her second number one song "You're the First Time I Thought About Leaving". The track also became her second to reach the top ten of Canada's RPM country songs chart. Both singles appeared on her 1983 album Unlimited. The following year, the single "Why Do We Want (What We Know We Can't Have)" reached the top ten. With increased success in the country music industry, she was able to arrange an early release from PolyGram/Mercury in 1983. "Let met put it this way, I've sorta taken my career into control myself," she explained of the decision.
1984–1990: Breakthrough
McEntire signed with MCA Records in 1984 and released her seventh studio album Just a Little Love. Harold Shedd was originally intended to produce the disc, however, McEntire rejected his desire for a country pop arrangement. Instead, Norro Wilson produced the project. Despite spawning a top ten hit, McEntire was still dissatisfied with the record's production and the lack of control over material. Instead, she turned to MCA president Jimmy Bowen who suggested that she find her own songs to record. Accompanied by Don "Dirt" Lanier, McEntire spent several days listening to various songs from publishing companies. Eventually she found a song written by Harlan Howard titled "Somebody Should Leave" and a song by Jon Moffat titled "How Blue". Released as singles, they reached the number one spot on the country songs chart and later appeared on 1984's My Kind of Country. The collection also included several covers of classic country songs by Ray Price, Charley Pride and Connie Smith. AllMusic's William Ruhlmann gave the disc 4.5 stars. Billboard magazine described McEntire on the album as being "the finest woman country singer since Kitty Wells." The album became her breakthrough recording, leading McEntire to winning 1984's Female Vocalist of the Year accolade from the Country Music Association. Along with music by George Strait and Randy Travis, the album also brought forth a stylistic change in country towards traditional arrangements and sounds.
Her next MCA album was 1985's Have I Got a Deal for You. The project followed the same traditional country format of its predecessor. It was produced by Jimmy Bowen, along with co-production credits from McEntire herself. The album 's title track reached the Billboard country top ten along with "Only in My Mind", a song composed by McEntire herself. In February 1986, her ninth studio album was released named Whoever's in New England. On the record, McEntire and co-producer Jimmy Bowen mixed a traditional country style with a modern, contemporary sound. Author Kurt Wolff described the title track's production, as being "bigger and sentimentalism more obvious, even manipulative". Issued as the lead single, the title track peaked at number one on the Bilboard country chart and won McEntire the Grammy Award for Best Female Country Vocal Performance. The album itself became her first to top the Billboard Country Albums survey. and later certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America for sales of one million copies.
By this point McEntire had reached the height of her commercial stardom. Following this, McEntire made changes to her stage show. She began implementing choreography and experimented with stage lighting. Also in 1986, McEntire's twelfth studio album appeared titled What Am I Gonna Do About You. AllMusic found that it lacked the features that had made Whoever's in New England unique. The title track was the lead single from the release. It became her next number one song on the Billboard country chart and her first number one on the RPM Canadian country chart. Its second single "One Promise Too Late" also topped the country chart. Her thirteenth studio project, The Last One to Know, was released in 1987 and reached number three on the Billboard country albums chart. Reviewer Tom Roland noted that McEntire chose material that reflected her recent divorce from first husband Charlie Battles. Both the title track and "Love Will Find Its Way to You" topped the Billboard country songs chart. In late 1987, McEntire released her first Christmas collection called Merry Christmas to You. Also in 1987, she played Carnegie Hall in New York City for the first time.
In the late 1980s, McEntire took more control of her career. She fired her manager and formed her own entertainment company that helped further promote her material. Other new changes included her 1988 pop-inspired release Reba. Her fifteenth studio disc included covers of the former pop hits "Respect" and "A Sunday Kind of Love". It produced the number one Billboard country singles "New Fool at an Old Game" and "I Know How He Feels". It was followed by 1989's Sweet Sixteen, which was noted to be a more of a "return[s] to the neo-traditionalist fold", according to reviewer William Ruhlmann. The album featured the country hits "'Til Love Comes Again", "Little Girl", "Walk On" and a cover of "Cathy's Clown". Her first live project titled Reba Live was also released in 1989.
Rumor Has It (1990) was another pop-oriented album release featuring a mix of ballads and uptempo numbers. It was the first disc in McEntire's career to reach the top 40 of the Billboard 200 albums chart. The disc would became McEntire's highest-selling albums, certifying three-times platinum from the RIAA. Four hit country singles came from the release, including "You Lie" and her cover of "Fancy". The latter single eventually become one of McEntire's signature songs.
1991: Plane crash and For My Broken Heart
In the late 1980s, McEntire's touring schedule became increasingly busy. To avoid long bus trips, she and her band began traveling by private planes to concerts. McEntire and her touring band started the 1991 leg of their tour with dates in Alaska, Saginaw, Michigan, Fort Wayne, Indiana and a private gig for IBM in San Diego, California. Two planes were scheduled to leave San Diego which would carry McEntire's band. McEntire, her husband and her stylist would take a different aircraft the next day. In the middle of the night on March 16, 1991, McEntire was awoken to a phone call from Roger Woolsey, who flew the second plane. McEntire's husband took the call and discovered that one of the planes had crashed. Following the successful takeoff of both planes, one plane's wing hit the side of Otay Mountain in San Diego, killing everyone on board.
In total, eight members of her band were killed: Chris Austin, Kirk Cappello, Joey Cigainero, Paula Kaye Evans, Jim Hammon, Terry Jackson, Anthony Saputo, and Michael Thomas. In addition pilot Donald Holmes and co-pilot Chris Hollinger were also killed. The first plane was a Hawker Siddeley DH-125-1A/522 charter jet that took off at 1:40 AM from the Brown Field Municipal Airport, located near the border of Mexico. After reaching an altitude of above sea level, the aircraft crashed on the side of Otay Mountain, located east of the airport. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) determined the probable cause of the accident was related to "improper pilot planning".
Meanwhile, the second plane carrying the rest of her band made it successfully to an airport in Nashville. McEntire, her husband and hair stylist returned on their own plane following the accident. "By the time that long, terrible weekend was over, we were emotionally and physically exhausted," McEntire stated in her autobiography. The news was reported nearly immediately to McEntire and her husband, who were sleeping at a nearby hotel. A spokeswoman for McEntire made a statement to The Los Angeles Times on behalf of her: "She was very close to all of them. Some of them had been with her for years. Reba is totally devastated by this. It's like losing part of your family. Right now she just wants to get back to Nashville." Two days after the crash, McEntire conducted an interview with People magazine and scheduled a memorial service for the families of the victims. Nine days following the accident, McEntire performed at the 63rd Academy Awards ceremony, singing the Best Original Song nominee "I'm Checkin' Out" from the film Postcards from the Edge. In addition, Vince Gill and Dolly Parton offered their help in reorganizing her touring band.
McEntire dedicated her sixteenth album, For My Broken Heart, to the deceased members of her road band. Released in October 1991, it contained songs of sorrow and lost love about "all measure of suffering", according to Alanna Nash of Entertainment Weekly. Nash reported that McEntire "still hits her stride with the more traditional songs of emotional turmoil, above all combining a spectacular vocal performance with a terrific song on 'Buying Her Roses', a wife's head-spinning discovery of her husband's other woman." The disc peaked at number three on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart. It also became her highest-charting release on the Billboard 200 yet, peaking at number 13. It later sold over four million copies in the United States, becoming her best-selling album to date. Its title track and "Is There Life Out There" both became number one Billboard country singles. In addition, "The Greatest Man I Never Knew" and McEntire's cover of "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia" both became major country hits.
1992–2002: Continued country success
In December 1992, McEntire's seventeenth album It's Your Call was released. A sign of her increased mainstream success, the album was her first to reach the top ten of the Billboard 200. It spawned the country hits "Take It Back", the title track and a number one duet with Vince Gill called "The Heart Won't Lie". Critic Brian Mansfield compared the disc to For My Broken Heart, concluding that "only casual or partial listeners will be moved as much." Christopher John Farley of Time wrote that the album ranged from being "relaxing" to "cathartic", and "these vocals from one of the best country singers linger in the mind". For her next release, McEntire collaborated with up-and-coming artist Linda Davis on the single "Does He Love You". MCA Records encouraged McEntire to record the track with more established acts like Wynonna Judd or Trisha Yearwood, but ultimately finalized the track with Davis. It became her eighteenth number one hit on the Country Songs chart and her sixteenth number one hit on the Canadian country chart. It was later included on her 1993 compilation Greatest Hits Volume Two. Later that year, Davis and McEntire performed the duet at the CMA Awards. For her performance, McEntire wore a red dress with a plunging neckline that created controversy among the Nashville community.
Her eighteenth studio release was 1994's Read My Mind. The disc reached number two on both the Billboard 200 and the Top Country Albums chart. The disc later reached sales of three million copies in the United States and certified three times platinum from the RIAA. Five major hits came from the release, including "The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter", "Till You Love Me" and a song about a woman contracting AIDS called "She Thinks His Name Was John". The latter recording only reached a top 20 charting position due to its controversial lyrics. McEntire's nineteenth studio album, Starting Over (1995) was collection of her favorite songs originally recorded by others. The album was made to commemorate McEntire's twenty years in the music industry. The album received a less favorable response from critics than that of her previous releases. While project spawned three charting singles, only McEntire's cover of "Ring on Her Finger, Time on Her Hands" became a top ten country song. Starting Over was certified platinum by the RIAA within the first two months of its release.
McEntire's next album release What If It's You was issued by MCA in November 1996. The record was a return to a contemporary country sound. It debuted at number 15 on the Billboard 200 and eventually topped the Billboard country albums list. It received a more favorable response from radio programmers than that of her 1995 album and received greater promotion. Critic Thom Owens noted that the project "[didn't] offer any new tricks from Reba McEntire, but it is nevertheless an excellent reminder of her deep talents as a vocalist." Its first single, "The Fear of Being Alone" became a top five hit, while "How Was I to Know" reached the number one spot on the Billboard country songs survey.
McEntire began touring with country duo Brooks & Dunn during the mid 1990s. Their touring collaborating led to the recording of a duet titled "If You See Him/If You See Her" in 1998. The track topped both the Billboard country songs chart and the Canadian RPM country chart. Their initial collaborations would lead to several more professional endeavors over the years, including a joint Las Vegas residency. The duet was included on McEntire's If You See Him album and Brooks & Dunn's If You See Her album, both of which were released in June 1998. Thom Owens found that both album titles were named nearly the same as "a way to draw attention for both parties, since they were no longer new guns—they were veterans in danger of losing ground to younger musicians". If You See Him produced three more top ten country hits including "Forever Love" and "One Honest Heart".
In 1999, McEntire released two albums. In September she issued her second Christmas album, The Secret of Giving: A Christmas Collection. In November, her twenty-second studio album, So Good Together was released. Entertainment Weekly commented that most of the album's material was "an odd set—mostly ballads, including an English/Portuguese duet with Jose e Durval on Boz Scaggs' 'We're All Alone'". It featured the top five country songs "What Do You Say" and "I'll Be". McEntire focused on an acting career in the early 2000s and took a temporary musical hiatus. One exception was 2001's "I'm a Survivor". The single became a top five country hit and the theme song to McEntire's 2001 television series.
2003–2015: Country music comeback, record label switch and continued music success
McEntire returned to her recording career in August 2003 with the release of the MCA single "I'm Gonna Take That Mountain". The song was included on her first studio album in four years titled Room to Breathe (November 2003). "The reason I named the album Room to Breathe is because I needed a little room to breathe," McEntire told Billboard. The 12-track disc was produced by Buddy Cannon and Norro Wilson. It also featured a guest appearance from Vince Gill. Room to Breathe debuted at number four on the Billboard country chart and later certified platinum in the United States. It spawned McEntire's first number one song in six years titled "Somebody". Also featured was the top ten single "He Gets That from Me". In 2004, she embarked on her first tour in several years also titled "Room to Breathe", which included 36 cities in the United States. In 2005, MCA released the double-disc compilation titled Reba #1's while she was in between albums.
In September 2007, McEntire's next studio disc was releaded titled Reba: Duets. The album was a collection of duets with various music artists, including Kenny Chesney, LeAnn Rimes, Trisha Yearwood, Carole King, and Justin Timberlake. Reba: Duets topped the Billboard country chart and theBillboard 200, becoming her first album in her career to top reach the top of both lists. Reba: Duets was later certified platinum by the RIAA. The album was given high critical praise from magazines such as PopMatters, which compared McEntire to artists like Janis Joplin and Tina Turner. AllMusic's Thom Jurek gave it 3.5 stars, commenting that "it's full of good to great songs delivered in mostly interesting ways." The first single was a duet version of Kelly Clarkson's "Because of You", which reached number two on the American country chart and topped the Canadian country songs chart.
In 2008, McEntire announced that she would be departing her label of 25 years and signing with the Valory Music Group, an imprint of Big Machine Records. The switch to Valory reunited McEntire with the label's president, Scott Borchetta, whom she had worked with previously. Her first Valory single was 2009's "Strange". The song debuted at number 39 Billboard country songs chart, giving McEntire the highest single debut of her career and peaked at number eleven. Her twenty-sixth studio album, Keep On Loving You was released in August 2009 and also topped both the Billboard Country and 200 charts. In 2009, "Consider Me Gone" (spawned as the record's second single) became her 24th number-one on the Billboard chart in December. At age 54, McEntire became one of the oldest women to have a number one single on the country songs chart.
McEntire's twenty-ninth studio album All the Women I Am was released in November 2010. Steve Morse of The Boston Globe called the project "one of her best efforts", while Thom Jurek at AllMusic only gave it a 2.5 star rating, calling it "awkward" and lacking a "center". "Turn On the Radio" was issued as the lead single prior to the album, eventually becoming her twenty firth number one on the Billboard country survey. Three additional charting singles were spawned from All the Women I Am that peaked outside the top 20. Her All the Women I Am Tour tour followed shortly after late featuring country acts the Band Perry, Steel Magnolia, and Edens Edge. In 2014, McEntire moved to Big Machine's new imprint for veteran artists titled Nash Icon Music. Her first Nash Icon single was 2015's "Going Out Like That", which reached the top 25 of the Billboard country songs chart. It was included on her 2015 Nash Icon album Love Somebody. The album topped the country albums chart and charted the top five of the Billboard 200. In 2016, McEntire released a third Christmas-themed studio album called My Kind of Christmas. The album was exclusively sold at Cracker Barrel and online. She also announced she would soon be selling her own line of clothing, home decor, jewelry and other things under the "Rockin' R by Reba" line also at Cracker Barrel.
2017–present: New beginnings in her 60s
After her split from ex-husband Narvel Blackstock, McEntire took control of her career as her own manager. She recruited Justin McIntosh of Starstruck Entertainment, Leslie Matthews serving as Brand Manager, and Carolyn Snell who has been with McEntire for nine years. They formed Reba's Business Inc. (RBI). She moved out of the building she and Blackstock had worked in, and moved her company to Green Hills, Nashville.
On December 15, 2016, McEntire announced that she was releasing her first gospel album titled Sing It Now: Songs of Faith & Hope. It was released by Nash Icon/Rockin' R Records on February 3, 2017, and consists of two discs. Disc one contains traditional hymns while disc two contains original tracks. "Softly and Tenderly", featuring Kelly Clarkson and Trisha Yearwood, was the first track off the album released. Another track on the album, "In the Garden/Wonderful Peace", features the Isaacs. Jay DeMarcus of the Rascal Flatts produced the album. The first single off the album is "Back to God". In January 2018, McEntire won the Grammy Award for Best Roots Gospel Album, her first nomination since 2007, and her first Grammy Award win in more than twenty years, since 1994. She also headlined the C2C: Country to Country festival in the UK alongside Brad Paisley and Zac Brown Band in March. Because of its limited release in 2016, on October 13, 2017 My Kind of Christmas was re-released - this time including songs with Vince Gill, Amy Grant, Darius Rucker and Lauren Daigle - on her website and through iTunes. In July 2018, it was announced that McEntire would be one of four honorees for the 41st annual Kennedy Center Honors, along with Cher, Philip Glass, and Wayne Shorter. The ceremony was held December 2, 2018, and broadcast on CBS December 26, 2018.
McEntire released her twenty-ninth studio album Stronger Than the Truth on April 5, 2019. McEntire also returned to host the 54th Academy of Country Music Awards on April 8, 2019.
On June 25, 2019, The New York Times Magazine listed McEntire among hundreds of artists whose material was destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.
On February 20, 2020, during a surprise appearance at the Country Radio Seminar, McEntire announced she had signed a new record deal with MCA Nashville, returning to the label after leaving in November 2008. McEntire hosted the 54th Annual Country Music Association Awards alongside Darius Rucker in November 2020. McEntire previously hosted in 2019 with Carrie Underwood and Dolly Parton, 1992 with Vince Gill, 1991 by herself (the second solo female host) and 1990 with Randy Travis.
Acting career
1989–99: Entry into film and television acting
In 1990, she obtained her first film role playing Heather Gummer in the horror comedy Tremors, along with Kevin Bacon. The film told the story of a small group of people living in Nevada who were fighting subterranean worm-like creatures. After the film's release, McEntire developed a strong interest in acting and made it her second career. The film earned McEntire a nomination for Best Supporting Actress at the 1991 Saturn Awards. The following year, she starred along with Kenny Rogers and Burt Reynolds in the made-for-television movies The Gambler Returns: The Luck of the Draw and The Man From Left Field. In 1994, McEntire worked with director Rob Reiner in the film North, playing Ma Tex. The film obtained negative reviews, receiving only two and a half stars from Allmovie.
In 1994, McEntire starred in Is There Life Out There? a television movie based on her song of the same name. The following year, she appeared in Buffalo Girls, which was based upon the life of western cowgirl Calamity Jane (played by Anjelica Huston). Playing Jane's friend Annie Oakley, Buffalo Girls was nominated for an Emmy award. In 1996, McEntire was cast by director James Cameron as Molly Brown in his film Titanic. However, when it became apparent production for the film would extend well beyond its original length, McEntire had to turn down the part, as she had already scheduled prior concert engagements. The role was recast with Kathy Bates. In 1998, she starred as Lizzie Brooks in Forever Love, which was based upon McEntire's hit single of the same name.
2000–07: Broadway and television series
In early 2001, McEntire expanded into theater, starring in the Broadway revival of Annie Get Your Gun. Playing Annie Oakley (whom she had previously portrayed in Buffalo Girls), her performance was critically acclaimed by several newspapers, including The New York Times, which commented, "Without qualification the best performance by an actress in a musical comedy this season." McEntire personally called the musical "some of the hardest work I've ever done in my life".
In 2005, McEntire starred as Nellie Forbush in the Carnegie Hall concert production of the Broadway musical South Pacific with Alec Baldwin as Luther Billis and Brian Stokes Mitchell as Emile de Becque, directed by Walter Bobbie and with an adapted script by David Ives. The concert was broadcast as part of the Great Performances series in 2006.
In October 2001, McEntire premiered her half-hour television sitcom Reba on the WB network. The show was based around divorced mother Reba Hart, who learns how to handle life situations after her husband divorces her in order to marry his dental hygienist––with whom he had been cheating and gotten pregnant––and then their teenage daughter becomes pregnant as well. Reba garnered critical acclaim and success, becoming the network's highest-rated television show for adults ranging from the ages of 18 to 49. The show ran for six seasons and earned McEntire a nomination for a Golden Globe award. It was canceled on February 18, 2007; the series finale had 8.7 million viewers.
2011–20: Brief television return and current projects
In September 2011, McEntire confirmed on her website that ABC had ordered a pilot for her second television series Malibu Country. McEntire played a divorced mother of two who moves to Malibu, California to restart her music career. The pilot was filmed in April 2012 and began production on its first season in August. It was announced that the pilot for Malibu Country would premiere November 2, 2012. The show was broadcast Friday nights at 8:30/7:30c on ABC. On May 11, 2012, McEntire tweeted that the show had been picked up. She also was the host in the 2011 NASCAR Award Show in Las Vegas.
Despite reports that Malibu Country was the most-watched freshman comedy in its debut season (8.7 million), the show was canceled on May 10, 2013, after eighteen episodes.
In January 2017, it was announced that McEntire would star and produce a Southern drama series for ABC titled Red Blooded. It was reported in May that ABC ultimately turned down the show, so it moved to being shopped around to other networks. In January 2018, Reba was chosen to portray KFC's first female Colonel Sanders. The commercials ran through the end of April 2018.
In 2020, McEntire launched a podcast titled Living & Learning hosted by herself and her former Reba co-star Melissa Peterman.
She made a cameo appearance in the 2021 comedy film Barb and Star go to Vista Del Mar as a water spirit named Trish after Annie Mumolo and Kristen Wiig, who wrote, produced, and starred in the film, wrote her an "impassioned letter" asking her to join the film. Director Josh Greenbaum said in an interview, "There's some casting that just clicks. Reba is not only 100% authentic, we knew she would be game."
Musical styles and legacy
McEntire's sound has been influenced by the country music of Bob Wills, Merle Haggard, Dolly Parton, Barbara Mandrell, and Patsy Cline. In college, McEntire attended local dances at the Oklahoma–Texas border so she could dance to Wills's music, commenting that, "it didn't get any better than dancing to Bob Wills music". She also explained Merle Haggard's influence on her career, stating "I had every album he ever put out", and would sing "every song he did", along with her brother, Pake and sister, Susie. In addition, her first major hit, "Sweet Dreams" was a remake of Patsy Cline's version of the song, according to McEntire herself.
McEntire's music has been described to not only be built upon traditional country music, but also expand into the genres of country pop, mainstream pop, soul, and R&B. At times, her music has been criticized for moving away from traditional country music. Many music critics have called her music to be "melodramatic", "formulaic", and "bombastic", particularly after her 1988 album Reba. Studio releases such as Sweet Sixteen, Rumor Has It, It's Your Call, and Starting Over have been described by these terms.
McEntire possesses a contralto vocal range and performs "vocal gymnastics" with her voice, a musical technique in which a singer twirls a note around, using their vibrato. McEntire has credited Dolly Parton for influencing this trait, stating that she always listened to Parton's records and find her style of vocal gymnastics "so pretty".
McEntire has often been regarded as one of country music's most influential female vocalists and most beloved entertainers. She is highly credited for remaining one of country's most popular female artists for nearly four decades, maintaining her success by continually incorporating contemporary musical sounds without changing her traditional vocal style. For numerous artists, she has been credited as an inspiration to their careers in music. The Net Music Countdown second-handedly reported, "That influence has manifested itself in many ways. As a role model, she's shown others how to handle fame with grace and good humor while never backing down from her values or goals. Just as importantly, she's shown others to refuse to accept limitations on what she can do or how much she can achieve." McEntire also explained to the online website, "Whatever I'm doing, I feel like I'm representing country music". "It's always been my main career, and it's where my loyalties lie. I feel like I'm waving the flag of country music wherever I go, and I couldn't be prouder to do it."
Personal life
McEntire is a Christian, and she has stated that her faith in God has helped her immensely throughout her life.
Two of her siblings have also had careers in the music industry. Her brother Pake dabbled in the country music industry in the late 1980s but returned to Oklahoma after a brief stint. He owns and operates a 1,000-acre ranch near Coalgate, Oklahoma, and continues to rodeo. Her sister Susie McEntire-Eaton (Martha Susan "Susie" McEntire-Eaton, formerly Luchsinger) is a successful Christian music singer who travels the country with her husband, speaking and performing. She also has an older sister, Alice Foran, a retired social worker who resides in Lane, Oklahoma. Her niece Calamity McEntire is an assistant basketball coach at the University of Dayton.
Relationships and children
In 1976, McEntire married steer wrestling champion and rancher Charlie Battles who was 10 years her senior and had two sons from his previous marriage. The couple shared a ranch in Oklahoma. In 1987, McEntire divorced Battles and moved to Nashville, Tennessee, to further pursue her career.
In 1989, McEntire married her manager and former steel guitar player Narvel Blackstock. The couple wed at Lake Tahoe on a boat in a private ceremony. Together, the pair took over all aspects of McEntire's career, forming Starstruck Entertainment, which was originally designed to help manage her career. From her marriage to Blackstock, McEntire gained three stepchildren, Chassidy, Shawna, and Brandon. She gave birth to a son, Shelby Steven McEntire Blackstock, in February 1990. On August 3, 2015, it was announced in a joint statement on McEntire's website that she and Blackstock had been separated for a few months after twenty-six years of marriage. McEntire announced in December 2015 that their divorce had been finalized on October 28, 2015. Despite the divorce, McEntire remains very close to her three stepchildren and the Blackstock family; she considers her stepchildren's children to be her grandchildren. McEntire's stepson Brandon Blackstock married singer Kelly Clarkson, with whom he has a daughter and a son. Speaking about their impending marriage in 2013, McEntire stated she was "Thrilled to death, to have my buddy as my daughter-in-law. I mean, who could ask for more?"
In 2017, McEntire began a relationship with photographer Anthony "Skeeter" Lasuzzo. The couple met through McEntire's association with Kix Brooks. In describing her feelings about Lasuzzo, she stated, "We're totally in love — absolutely," she says. "I wouldn’t put up with somebody for two years if I wasn’t in love with 'em!" McEntire and Lasuzzo separated in the fall of 2019.
In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, McEntire began dating film and TV actor Rex Linn.
Philanthropy
In 1992, she opened Reba's Ranch House in Denison, TX. Similar to a Ronald McDonald House, the house incorporates holistic care by providing a calm setting for rest, warm meals for nourishment and sensitive staff for spiritual connections to guests who have loved ones being treated at the nearby Texoma Medical Center.
Over the course of her career, she has been and continues to be an active supporter of various charitable organizations including Habitat for Humanity, The Salvation Army, the American Red Cross, Feeding America and Celebrity Fight Night. She has been honored with the Minnie Pearl Award, the ACM Home Depot Humanitarian Award and the Andrea Bocelli Foundation Humanitarian Award for her efforts. In 2018, she was honored with the Horatio Alger Award for Education, Charity Work. Named after the "rags to riches" writer, the award recognizes perseverance and giving back.
Accolades
McEntire has the second-most wins for the Academy of Country Music's Top Female Vocalist Awards with seven. McEntire holds the record American Music Awards for Favorite Country Female Artist (twelve). She also holds the distinction of being the first to win the Country Music Association's Female Vocalist of the Year Award four times consecutively. Martina McBride won Female Vocalist four times, although not consecutively. In 2013, Miranda Lambert tied McEntire to win Female Vocalist four years in a row and in 2016 Carrie Underwood joined this elite club by winning her fourth Female Vocalist award. McEntire is also a rare musical artist to achieve solo number-ones across four decades (1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s). She holds the record for most CMA Award nominations for a female artist, with 50. McEntire also holds the record with the most ACM Awards nominations for a female artist with 47, respectively. She is also the recipient of three Grammy Awards, winning in 1987, 1994 and 2018. In December 2018, McEntire received the Kennedy Center Honor. In December 2021 she was one of the five nominees for Person of the Year on Spotted Ratings, along with Mariska Hargitay, Olivia Rodrigo, Susan Lynn Rosner Rovner, and Rebecca Wisocky, but ultimately lost the award to Rovner due to the latter's extensive work restoring NBC to relevancy.
When Reba McEntire made her Grand Ole Opry debut on September 17, 1977, she almost did not make it in the door after a guard at the Opry gate missed her name on the night's list of performers. Her parents and older sister, Alice, drove 1,400 miles round trip from their Oklahoma home to see what turned out to be Reba's three-minute performance that night. Her act was cut from two songs to just one—"Invitation to the Blues"—because of a surprise appearance by Dolly Parton. McEntire was inducted into the Grand Ole Opry on January 17, 1986. "The Grand Ole Opry is a home," she says. "It's a family. It's like a family reunion, when you come back and get to see everybody."
In 2011, the Country Music Association announced that McEntire would be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. McEntire was unable to attend the announcement after her father had slipped into a coma following a stroke. McEntire attended the official induction ceremony alongside the other 2011 inductees Jean Shepard and Bobby Braddock. She was inducted by Dolly Parton.
Discography
Studio albums
Reba McEntire (1977)
Out of a Dream (1979)
Feel the Fire (1980)
Heart to Heart (1981)
Unlimited (1982)
Behind the Scene (1983)
Just a Little Love (1984)
My Kind of Country (1984)
Have I Got a Deal for You (1985)
Whoever's in New England (1986)
Reba Nell McEntire (1986)
What Am I Gonna Do About You (1986)
The Last One to Know (1987)
Merry Christmas to You (1987)
Reba (1988)
Sweet Sixteen (1989)
Rumor Has It (1990)
For My Broken Heart (1991)
It's Your Call (1992)
Read My Mind (1994)
Starting Over (1995)
What If It's You (1996)
If You See Him (1998)
So Good Together (1999)
The Secret of Giving: A Christmas Collection (1999)
Room to Breathe (2003)
Reba: Duets (2007)
Keep On Loving You (2009)
All the Women I Am (2010)
Love Somebody (2015)
My Kind of Christmas (2016)
Sing It Now: Songs of Faith & Hope (2017)
Stronger Than the Truth (2019)
Revived Remixed Revisited (2021)
Tours
Headlining tours
The Reba McEntire Show
The Last One to Know Tour
North American Tour '88
World Tour '89
'90 Tour
Rumor Has It Tour
Reba in Concert
It's Your Call Tour
Read My Mind Tour
Starting Over Tour
20th Anniversary Tour
Singer's Diary
Room to Breathe Tour
All the Women I Am Tour
Canadian Tour
Reba: Live in Concert
Co-headlining tours
Brooks & Dunn and Reba: The Tour
Girls Night Out
2 Hats and a Redhead
2 Worlds 2 Voices Tour
Reba and George Strait on Tour
Residency shows
Key to the Heart
Together in Vegas
Opening act
Today Tour
Filmography
See also
List of best-selling music artists in the United States
References
Footnotes
Books
Bibliography
External links
Reba McEntire Profile on Country Music Television
1955 births
20th-century American actresses
21st-century American actresses
20th-century American singers
21st-century American singers
Actresses from Oklahoma
American contraltos
American country singer-songwriters
American women country singers
American film actresses
American television actresses
American voice actresses
American Christians
Big Machine Records artists
Country Music Hall of Fame inductees
Grammy Award winners
Grand Ole Opry members
Kennedy Center honorees
Living people
MCA Records artists
Mercury Records artists
Singer-songwriters from Oklahoma
People from McAlester, Oklahoma
People from Atoka County, Oklahoma
Southeastern Oklahoma State University alumni
Members of the Country Music Association
Country musicians from Oklahoma
20th-century American women singers
21st-century American women singers
Theatre World Award winners
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"Damien Lauretta (born 18 March 1992, in Cannes) is a French singer, record producer, songwriter and actor.\n\nLife and career\nHe participated in several music programs, such as the Bataille des chorales (TF1), and Le Grand show des enfants (TF1). But his first real appearance on television was when he participated at The X Factor (M6) in 2011. He joined the group “2nd Nature” before being eliminated in 6th prime.\n\nIn 2014, he return on the screen, play one of the main role in «Dreams : 1 Rêve 2 Vies», series recorded in Saint Martin and broadcast on NRJ 12.\n\nFrom 2014 to 2015, he played Clément and Alex in the third season of the famous Disney Channel Original Latin American series Violetta. He is the first French to work with Disney Channel International. He lived for one year in Buenos Aires, Argentina.\n\nIn 2016 his first music is “Fall in Love” with 1 000 000 views on YouTube. The video clip was filmed in Bogota (Colombia).\n\nThe same year, for the tribute album of Daniel Balavoine ; Balavoine(s), he made a cover of \"\" a song extract of the French musical Starmania\n\nHis 2017’ single \"Dreamin\" has been #1 of charts in Canada. (Québec) \n\nIn 2019 he released a single \"Calle Verdi\".\n\nThen, Damien Lauretta released 1 new singles: “La Mer” (March 13, 2020).\n\nHe realesed his first album solo on January 14, 2022 titled \"French Riviera\"\n\nFilmography\n\nDiscography\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nhttps://youtube.com/user/DamienLauretta\n\n1992 births\nLiving people\n21st-century French male actors\n21st-century French singers\nThe X Factor contestants\nFrench male television actors\n21st-century French male singers",
"OSIM International Ltd () is a Singaporean company. OSIM is a combination of the surname of its founder, Sim, and 'O' that stands for the globe. It was originally established in Singapore in November 1980 by Ron Sim as an electrical and household appliance company under the name of R Sim Trading. With a small start-up capital, the company was mainly involved with the marketing of household products such as knives, knife sharpeners and mobile clothes drying rods. In 1989, the company registered the name Health Check and Care, and saw a shift in focus to healthy lifestyle products. The period following this saw tremendous growth for the company, and it developed outlets including Malaysia and Indonesia.\n\nIn 1993, the company officially launched the OSIM brand name and its distribution network expanded to 60 point-of-sale outlets in Asia. Also in the same year, the company opened its first concept shop in Shanghai, in the People’s Republic of China.\n\nOn 25 January 2002, OSIM opened its global business headquarters in Singapore at 65 Ubi Avenue 1. The Business Headquarters Status (BHQ) was awarded to OSIM by The Economic Development Board.\n\nIn October 2005, OSIM made a strategic acquisition of US Nationwide specialty retailer Brookstone.\n\nProducts\n\nMassage Chairs & Sofas\nuDream\nuInfinity\nuLove\nuDivine\nuRegal\nuNano\nuDiva\nuDesire\nuPilot\nuYogga\nuMagic\nuThrone - realesed in 2021, uThrone is the world's first gaming chair with full massage features \nuSofa\n\nAmbassadors\nAndy Lau\nJJ Lin\nLin Chi-ling\nFan Bingbing\nLee Min-ho\nSammi Cheng\n\nAwards \n\n Good Design Award 2018 \n Red Dot Design Award Winner 2021 \n Best Managed Companies Awards 2021 \n CES Innovation Award 2022\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nOfficial website\n\nRetail companies of Singapore\nCompanies of Singapore\nCompanies established in 1980\n1980 establishments in Singapore\nSingaporean companies established in 1980\nSingaporean brands\nCompanies formerly listed on the Singapore Exchange\nHealth care companies of Singapore\nMultinational companies headquartered in Singapore"
] |
[
"Reba McEntire",
"2014-2016: Nash Icon, Love Somebody, Christmas and Gospel albums, America's Got Talent",
"What was her goal",
"Big Machine's new imprint Nash Icon Music.",
"What did this mean",
"she was working on a new album, with 11 new songs.",
"What was",
"Her first single for the new label,",
"When was this realesed",
"January 6, 2015."
] |
C_250e1915dae4444eacc416035a1b7b5b_1
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What did it do
| 5 |
What did Reba McEntire's first single release do?
|
Reba McEntire
|
On October 21, 2014, it was announced that McEntire would be the inaugural signing for Big Machine's new imprint Nash Icon Music. She also disclosed that she was working on a new album, with 11 new songs. Her first single for the new label, "Going Out Like That", was announced December 16, 2014 and was released on January 6, 2015. It served as the lead-off single to Love Somebody, McEntire's twenty-seventh studio album, released on April 14, 2015. Love Somebody debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Top Country Albums--her twelfth number-one album on the chart--and No. 3 on Billboard 200, selling 62,469 copies in the U.S. The album has sold 171,600 copies in the U.S. as of October 5, 2015. In 2016, McEntire was selected as one of thirty artists to perform on "Forever Country", a mash-up track of Take Me Home, Country Roads, On the Road Again and I Will Always Love You which celebrates 50 years of the CMA Awards. McEntire released her third Christmas album My Kind of Christmas on September 2, 2016. The album was exclusively sold at Cracker Barrel and online. She also announced she would soon be selling her own line of clothing, home decor, jewelry and other things under the "Rockin' R by Reba" line also at Cracker Barrel. McEntire was a guest judge on the July 13, 2016 episode of America's Got Talent. She used her golden buzzer, which she could only use once and allowed an act to go straight to the live shows, on contortionist Sofie Dossi. CANNOTANSWER
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It served as the lead-off single to
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Reba Nell McEntire, also known mononymously as Reba, (born March 28, 1955) is an American country music singer, actress and businesswoman. She is often referred to as "the Queen of Country," having sold more than 75 million records worldwide. Since the 1970s, McEntire has placed over 100 singles on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, 25 of which reached the number one spot. She is also credited as an actress, having appeared in both films and television. She starred in the television series Reba, which aired for six seasons. She also owns several businesses, including a clothing line.
One of four children, McEntire was born and raised in the state of Oklahoma. In childhood and adolescence, her interests included barrel racing and sports. She also had a natural singing ability, which was encouraged by her mother. With her mother's help, she and her siblings formed the Singing McEntires, which played at local events and recorded for a small label. McEntire later enrolled at Southeastern Oklahoma State University and studied to become a public school teacher. She also continued to occasionally perform and was heard singing at a rodeo event by country performer Red Steagall. Drawn to her singing voice, Steagall helped McEntire secure a country music recording contract with PolyGram/Mercury Records in 1975.
Over the next several years, PolyGram/Mercury released a series of McEntire's albums and singles, which amounted to little success. In the early 1980s, McEntire's music gained more momentum through several top ten country songs, including "(You Lift Me) Up to Heaven", "I'm Not That Lonely Yet" and her first number one "Can't Even Get the Blues". Yet McEntire became increasingly unhappy with her career trajectory and signed with MCA Records in 1984. Her second MCA album titled My Kind of Country (1984) became her breakout release, spawning two number one Billboard country singles and pointed towards a more traditional musical style. Through the 1980s, McEntire released seven more studio albums and had ten more number one country hits. Her number one singles included "One Promise Too Late", "The Last One to Know" and the Grammy Award-winning "Whoever's in New England".
In 1991, McEntire lost eight of her band members in a plane crash in San Diego, California. The experience led to McEntire's critically acclaimed album For My Broken Heart, which is her highest-selling disc to date. She followed it with several commercially successful albums during the 1990s, including Read My Mind (1994), What If It's You (1996) and If You See Him (1998). These albums featured the number one country singles "The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter", "How Was I to Know" and a duet with Brooks and Dunn called "If You See Him/If You See Her". McEntire also began acting on film and television, beginning with 1990's Tremors. In 2001, she played the role of Annie Oakley in the Broadway musical Annie Get Your Gun. The same year, the WB channel launched the TV series Reba, which starred McEntire in the lead role. The show became successful and ran until 2007.
In 2004, McEntire returned to her country recording career with the top five Billboard album Room to Breathe. She followed the release with 2007's Reba: Duets, 2009's Keep On Loving You and 2011's All the Women I Am. Her 2000's albums spawned the number one singles "Somebody", "Consider Me Gone" and "Turn on the Radio". In 2012, McEntire briefly returned to television with the series Malibu Country and in 2018 portrayed the role of Colonel Sanders in television commercials for KFC. She has continued releasing new music, including Love Somebody (2015), Sing It Now (2017) and Revived Remixed Revisited (2021).
Early life
McEntire was born in McAlester, Oklahoma in 1955 but was raised on a ranch in Chockie, Oklahoma. She was the third of four children born to Clark and Jacqueline McEntire. Her grandfather, John Wesley McEntire, was a world-champion steer roper in 1934, while her father held the same title three times (1957, 1958 and 1961). Jacqueline McEntire had aspirations of becoming a country singer, but instead became a public school teacher, librarian and secretary While her mother was tender and loving, her father had trouble showing affection. "When we were growing up I used to regret that Daddy never told us that he loved us," she recalled in her autobiography. The McEntire family owned a cattle ranch in Chockie. Each family member contributed to running the cattle operation. The McEntire children helped with ranch chores before and after school. This included castrating bulls and giving them worm medicine.
The McEntire siblings also developed an interest in singing, which was encouraged by their mother. On car trips to their father's rodeo dates, Jacqueline McEntire taught her children to sing in harmony with one another. Young Reba then started performing school, beginning in first grade when she sang "Away in a Manger" at an elementary school Christmas pageant. In fifth grade, she joined the 4-H club and won first place in the Junior Act Division for singing "My Sweet Little Alice Blue Gown". She also played basketball and ran track. For several summers, she attended a basketball camp. She also learned piano and guitar. She also developed an interest in the rodeo and trained to become a barrel racer.
By high school the McEntire siblings had been frequently performing. Together, they formed a trio which they called The Singing McEntires. In 1971, the trio released a single about their famous grandfather called "The Ballad of John McEntire". It was pressed as a single by a local label and was issued in small numbers regionally. The trio eventually included a backing band which performed at local functions. The group was later named The Kiowa High School Cowboy Band. They also had paying gigs at bars at dance halls in nearby Oklahoma City. "We were a bunch of kids barely in puberty who didn't get to bed until almost daylight after some of our shows," McEntire remembered. The band parted ways once Reba's brother graduated high school. In 1973, McEntire graduated from Kiowa High School.
Once finishing high school, McEntire enrolled in college at Southeastern Oklahoma State University. She majored in elementary education with a minor in music. She completed student teaching and later graduated with a Bachelor's degree. She also continued to help out on her family's ranch during her college years. In 1974, McEntire's father encouraged her to take a job opportunity singing "The Star-Spangled Banner" at the National Finals Rodeo in Oklahoma City. She contacted family friend and rodeo announcer Clem McSpadden, who helped her get hired for the gig. Following one of her performances, McEntire was heard by country artist Red Steagall who was impressed by her singing. Reba, her siblings and her mother later joined him at a hotel party the same week. At the hotel, Reba performed an a cappella version of Dolly Parton's "Joshua". Jacqueline McEntire asked Steagall if he was able to help get all her children a recording contract. After going back to Nashville, Steagall contacted her in early 1975 and said, "I can't take all three. But I could take Reba. She's got something a little different."
In March 1975 and accompanied by her mother, McEntire embarked on a trip to Nashville, Tennessee to record a demonstration tape that Steagall hoped to pass along to record labels. At the start of the trip, she was unsure about pursuing a professional country music career. McEntire recalled in her autobiography continually making excuses for her mother to stop the car instead of traveling to Nashville. After noticing her daughter's fear, Jacqueline McEntire told her, "Now Reba, let me tell you something. If you don't want to go to Nashville, we don't have to do this. But I'm living all my dreams through you." The conversation changed her mind and they continued on to Nashville.
After recording a demo, McEntire's tape was heard by Glenn Keener of PolyGram/Mercury Records, who was interested in signing her to a Nashville contract. Keener brought McEntire's tape and another female's tape to PolyGram's Chicago headquarters. The label informed Kenner that he could only sign one female performer. "He looked at the two tapes in his hand and handed ’em mine," McEntire told Entertainment Weekly.
Music career
1976–1983: Career launch at Mercury
In November 1975, McEntire signed a country music recording contract with PolyGram/Mercury Records. She made her first recordings for the label in January 1976. She was produced by Glenn Keener and was backed by a Countrypolitan arrangement that included a string section. McEntire's debut single was released in 1976 titled "I Don't Want to Be a One Night Stand". The track failed to become a major hit, only peaking at number 88 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart that May. It was followed by the low-charting Billboard country singles "(There's Nothing Like the Love) Between a Woman and Man" and "Glad I Waited Just for You". Mercury issued her self-titled debut album in 1977. In his album review, Greg Adams of AllMusic compared it to the country crossover style of Barbara Mandrell and Tammy Wynette. McEntire also began touring and performing more frequently. Without a band of her own, she often relied on house bands to accompany her. In some instances, the backing bands did not know country music and McEntire would have to fill her time onstage with jokes.
McEntire's career gained more momentum by 1978. That year she collaborated on two singles with country artist Jacky Ward. The duo's double-sided release of "I'd Really Love to See You Tonight"/"Three Sheets in the Wind" became her first top 20 hit on the country chart. When Glenn Keener left the PolyGram/Mercury roster, McEntire inherited producer Jerry Kennedy. Kennedy produced her second studio album titled Out of a Dream (1979). The album's cover of Patsy Cline's "Sweet Dreams" became her first top 20 hit as a solo artist. Four additional top 40 country singles were spawned from the album as well. By 1980, McEntire had formed her own band which included sister Susie and brother Pake McEntire. She also hired a new manager. McEntire and her band toured to dates in a three-car caravan, which included a horse trailer for transporting instruments. She later upgraded to a bus nicknamed "Silver Eagle", which routinely broke down. Also in 1980, "(You Lift Me) Up to Heaven" became her first top ten hit on the country songs chart. It was included on her third studio album, Feel the Fire, which was released in October.
By this point, McEntire's label pushed her record music in a soft country pop style that she often disagreed with. Future material (which included her next album) was recorded in this format. Her fourth album, Heart to Heart was issued in 1981 and became her first disc to chart the Billboard Country Albums list. It received only a 2.5 star review from AllMusic's William Ruhlmann, who described McEntire as being "a promising, but not yet accomplished country artist." Yet its lead single, "Today All Over Again", became her highest charting country single yet, reaching number five. In 1983, McEntire's bus had broken down when she was informed that her latest single "Can't Even Get the Blues" reached the number one spot on the Billboard country chart. It was followed by her second number one song "You're the First Time I Thought About Leaving". The track also became her second to reach the top ten of Canada's RPM country songs chart. Both singles appeared on her 1983 album Unlimited. The following year, the single "Why Do We Want (What We Know We Can't Have)" reached the top ten. With increased success in the country music industry, she was able to arrange an early release from PolyGram/Mercury in 1983. "Let met put it this way, I've sorta taken my career into control myself," she explained of the decision.
1984–1990: Breakthrough
McEntire signed with MCA Records in 1984 and released her seventh studio album Just a Little Love. Harold Shedd was originally intended to produce the disc, however, McEntire rejected his desire for a country pop arrangement. Instead, Norro Wilson produced the project. Despite spawning a top ten hit, McEntire was still dissatisfied with the record's production and the lack of control over material. Instead, she turned to MCA president Jimmy Bowen who suggested that she find her own songs to record. Accompanied by Don "Dirt" Lanier, McEntire spent several days listening to various songs from publishing companies. Eventually she found a song written by Harlan Howard titled "Somebody Should Leave" and a song by Jon Moffat titled "How Blue". Released as singles, they reached the number one spot on the country songs chart and later appeared on 1984's My Kind of Country. The collection also included several covers of classic country songs by Ray Price, Charley Pride and Connie Smith. AllMusic's William Ruhlmann gave the disc 4.5 stars. Billboard magazine described McEntire on the album as being "the finest woman country singer since Kitty Wells." The album became her breakthrough recording, leading McEntire to winning 1984's Female Vocalist of the Year accolade from the Country Music Association. Along with music by George Strait and Randy Travis, the album also brought forth a stylistic change in country towards traditional arrangements and sounds.
Her next MCA album was 1985's Have I Got a Deal for You. The project followed the same traditional country format of its predecessor. It was produced by Jimmy Bowen, along with co-production credits from McEntire herself. The album 's title track reached the Billboard country top ten along with "Only in My Mind", a song composed by McEntire herself. In February 1986, her ninth studio album was released named Whoever's in New England. On the record, McEntire and co-producer Jimmy Bowen mixed a traditional country style with a modern, contemporary sound. Author Kurt Wolff described the title track's production, as being "bigger and sentimentalism more obvious, even manipulative". Issued as the lead single, the title track peaked at number one on the Bilboard country chart and won McEntire the Grammy Award for Best Female Country Vocal Performance. The album itself became her first to top the Billboard Country Albums survey. and later certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America for sales of one million copies.
By this point McEntire had reached the height of her commercial stardom. Following this, McEntire made changes to her stage show. She began implementing choreography and experimented with stage lighting. Also in 1986, McEntire's twelfth studio album appeared titled What Am I Gonna Do About You. AllMusic found that it lacked the features that had made Whoever's in New England unique. The title track was the lead single from the release. It became her next number one song on the Billboard country chart and her first number one on the RPM Canadian country chart. Its second single "One Promise Too Late" also topped the country chart. Her thirteenth studio project, The Last One to Know, was released in 1987 and reached number three on the Billboard country albums chart. Reviewer Tom Roland noted that McEntire chose material that reflected her recent divorce from first husband Charlie Battles. Both the title track and "Love Will Find Its Way to You" topped the Billboard country songs chart. In late 1987, McEntire released her first Christmas collection called Merry Christmas to You. Also in 1987, she played Carnegie Hall in New York City for the first time.
In the late 1980s, McEntire took more control of her career. She fired her manager and formed her own entertainment company that helped further promote her material. Other new changes included her 1988 pop-inspired release Reba. Her fifteenth studio disc included covers of the former pop hits "Respect" and "A Sunday Kind of Love". It produced the number one Billboard country singles "New Fool at an Old Game" and "I Know How He Feels". It was followed by 1989's Sweet Sixteen, which was noted to be a more of a "return[s] to the neo-traditionalist fold", according to reviewer William Ruhlmann. The album featured the country hits "'Til Love Comes Again", "Little Girl", "Walk On" and a cover of "Cathy's Clown". Her first live project titled Reba Live was also released in 1989.
Rumor Has It (1990) was another pop-oriented album release featuring a mix of ballads and uptempo numbers. It was the first disc in McEntire's career to reach the top 40 of the Billboard 200 albums chart. The disc would became McEntire's highest-selling albums, certifying three-times platinum from the RIAA. Four hit country singles came from the release, including "You Lie" and her cover of "Fancy". The latter single eventually become one of McEntire's signature songs.
1991: Plane crash and For My Broken Heart
In the late 1980s, McEntire's touring schedule became increasingly busy. To avoid long bus trips, she and her band began traveling by private planes to concerts. McEntire and her touring band started the 1991 leg of their tour with dates in Alaska, Saginaw, Michigan, Fort Wayne, Indiana and a private gig for IBM in San Diego, California. Two planes were scheduled to leave San Diego which would carry McEntire's band. McEntire, her husband and her stylist would take a different aircraft the next day. In the middle of the night on March 16, 1991, McEntire was awoken to a phone call from Roger Woolsey, who flew the second plane. McEntire's husband took the call and discovered that one of the planes had crashed. Following the successful takeoff of both planes, one plane's wing hit the side of Otay Mountain in San Diego, killing everyone on board.
In total, eight members of her band were killed: Chris Austin, Kirk Cappello, Joey Cigainero, Paula Kaye Evans, Jim Hammon, Terry Jackson, Anthony Saputo, and Michael Thomas. In addition pilot Donald Holmes and co-pilot Chris Hollinger were also killed. The first plane was a Hawker Siddeley DH-125-1A/522 charter jet that took off at 1:40 AM from the Brown Field Municipal Airport, located near the border of Mexico. After reaching an altitude of above sea level, the aircraft crashed on the side of Otay Mountain, located east of the airport. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) determined the probable cause of the accident was related to "improper pilot planning".
Meanwhile, the second plane carrying the rest of her band made it successfully to an airport in Nashville. McEntire, her husband and hair stylist returned on their own plane following the accident. "By the time that long, terrible weekend was over, we were emotionally and physically exhausted," McEntire stated in her autobiography. The news was reported nearly immediately to McEntire and her husband, who were sleeping at a nearby hotel. A spokeswoman for McEntire made a statement to The Los Angeles Times on behalf of her: "She was very close to all of them. Some of them had been with her for years. Reba is totally devastated by this. It's like losing part of your family. Right now she just wants to get back to Nashville." Two days after the crash, McEntire conducted an interview with People magazine and scheduled a memorial service for the families of the victims. Nine days following the accident, McEntire performed at the 63rd Academy Awards ceremony, singing the Best Original Song nominee "I'm Checkin' Out" from the film Postcards from the Edge. In addition, Vince Gill and Dolly Parton offered their help in reorganizing her touring band.
McEntire dedicated her sixteenth album, For My Broken Heart, to the deceased members of her road band. Released in October 1991, it contained songs of sorrow and lost love about "all measure of suffering", according to Alanna Nash of Entertainment Weekly. Nash reported that McEntire "still hits her stride with the more traditional songs of emotional turmoil, above all combining a spectacular vocal performance with a terrific song on 'Buying Her Roses', a wife's head-spinning discovery of her husband's other woman." The disc peaked at number three on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart. It also became her highest-charting release on the Billboard 200 yet, peaking at number 13. It later sold over four million copies in the United States, becoming her best-selling album to date. Its title track and "Is There Life Out There" both became number one Billboard country singles. In addition, "The Greatest Man I Never Knew" and McEntire's cover of "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia" both became major country hits.
1992–2002: Continued country success
In December 1992, McEntire's seventeenth album It's Your Call was released. A sign of her increased mainstream success, the album was her first to reach the top ten of the Billboard 200. It spawned the country hits "Take It Back", the title track and a number one duet with Vince Gill called "The Heart Won't Lie". Critic Brian Mansfield compared the disc to For My Broken Heart, concluding that "only casual or partial listeners will be moved as much." Christopher John Farley of Time wrote that the album ranged from being "relaxing" to "cathartic", and "these vocals from one of the best country singers linger in the mind". For her next release, McEntire collaborated with up-and-coming artist Linda Davis on the single "Does He Love You". MCA Records encouraged McEntire to record the track with more established acts like Wynonna Judd or Trisha Yearwood, but ultimately finalized the track with Davis. It became her eighteenth number one hit on the Country Songs chart and her sixteenth number one hit on the Canadian country chart. It was later included on her 1993 compilation Greatest Hits Volume Two. Later that year, Davis and McEntire performed the duet at the CMA Awards. For her performance, McEntire wore a red dress with a plunging neckline that created controversy among the Nashville community.
Her eighteenth studio release was 1994's Read My Mind. The disc reached number two on both the Billboard 200 and the Top Country Albums chart. The disc later reached sales of three million copies in the United States and certified three times platinum from the RIAA. Five major hits came from the release, including "The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter", "Till You Love Me" and a song about a woman contracting AIDS called "She Thinks His Name Was John". The latter recording only reached a top 20 charting position due to its controversial lyrics. McEntire's nineteenth studio album, Starting Over (1995) was collection of her favorite songs originally recorded by others. The album was made to commemorate McEntire's twenty years in the music industry. The album received a less favorable response from critics than that of her previous releases. While project spawned three charting singles, only McEntire's cover of "Ring on Her Finger, Time on Her Hands" became a top ten country song. Starting Over was certified platinum by the RIAA within the first two months of its release.
McEntire's next album release What If It's You was issued by MCA in November 1996. The record was a return to a contemporary country sound. It debuted at number 15 on the Billboard 200 and eventually topped the Billboard country albums list. It received a more favorable response from radio programmers than that of her 1995 album and received greater promotion. Critic Thom Owens noted that the project "[didn't] offer any new tricks from Reba McEntire, but it is nevertheless an excellent reminder of her deep talents as a vocalist." Its first single, "The Fear of Being Alone" became a top five hit, while "How Was I to Know" reached the number one spot on the Billboard country songs survey.
McEntire began touring with country duo Brooks & Dunn during the mid 1990s. Their touring collaborating led to the recording of a duet titled "If You See Him/If You See Her" in 1998. The track topped both the Billboard country songs chart and the Canadian RPM country chart. Their initial collaborations would lead to several more professional endeavors over the years, including a joint Las Vegas residency. The duet was included on McEntire's If You See Him album and Brooks & Dunn's If You See Her album, both of which were released in June 1998. Thom Owens found that both album titles were named nearly the same as "a way to draw attention for both parties, since they were no longer new guns—they were veterans in danger of losing ground to younger musicians". If You See Him produced three more top ten country hits including "Forever Love" and "One Honest Heart".
In 1999, McEntire released two albums. In September she issued her second Christmas album, The Secret of Giving: A Christmas Collection. In November, her twenty-second studio album, So Good Together was released. Entertainment Weekly commented that most of the album's material was "an odd set—mostly ballads, including an English/Portuguese duet with Jose e Durval on Boz Scaggs' 'We're All Alone'". It featured the top five country songs "What Do You Say" and "I'll Be". McEntire focused on an acting career in the early 2000s and took a temporary musical hiatus. One exception was 2001's "I'm a Survivor". The single became a top five country hit and the theme song to McEntire's 2001 television series.
2003–2015: Country music comeback, record label switch and continued music success
McEntire returned to her recording career in August 2003 with the release of the MCA single "I'm Gonna Take That Mountain". The song was included on her first studio album in four years titled Room to Breathe (November 2003). "The reason I named the album Room to Breathe is because I needed a little room to breathe," McEntire told Billboard. The 12-track disc was produced by Buddy Cannon and Norro Wilson. It also featured a guest appearance from Vince Gill. Room to Breathe debuted at number four on the Billboard country chart and later certified platinum in the United States. It spawned McEntire's first number one song in six years titled "Somebody". Also featured was the top ten single "He Gets That from Me". In 2004, she embarked on her first tour in several years also titled "Room to Breathe", which included 36 cities in the United States. In 2005, MCA released the double-disc compilation titled Reba #1's while she was in between albums.
In September 2007, McEntire's next studio disc was releaded titled Reba: Duets. The album was a collection of duets with various music artists, including Kenny Chesney, LeAnn Rimes, Trisha Yearwood, Carole King, and Justin Timberlake. Reba: Duets topped the Billboard country chart and theBillboard 200, becoming her first album in her career to top reach the top of both lists. Reba: Duets was later certified platinum by the RIAA. The album was given high critical praise from magazines such as PopMatters, which compared McEntire to artists like Janis Joplin and Tina Turner. AllMusic's Thom Jurek gave it 3.5 stars, commenting that "it's full of good to great songs delivered in mostly interesting ways." The first single was a duet version of Kelly Clarkson's "Because of You", which reached number two on the American country chart and topped the Canadian country songs chart.
In 2008, McEntire announced that she would be departing her label of 25 years and signing with the Valory Music Group, an imprint of Big Machine Records. The switch to Valory reunited McEntire with the label's president, Scott Borchetta, whom she had worked with previously. Her first Valory single was 2009's "Strange". The song debuted at number 39 Billboard country songs chart, giving McEntire the highest single debut of her career and peaked at number eleven. Her twenty-sixth studio album, Keep On Loving You was released in August 2009 and also topped both the Billboard Country and 200 charts. In 2009, "Consider Me Gone" (spawned as the record's second single) became her 24th number-one on the Billboard chart in December. At age 54, McEntire became one of the oldest women to have a number one single on the country songs chart.
McEntire's twenty-ninth studio album All the Women I Am was released in November 2010. Steve Morse of The Boston Globe called the project "one of her best efforts", while Thom Jurek at AllMusic only gave it a 2.5 star rating, calling it "awkward" and lacking a "center". "Turn On the Radio" was issued as the lead single prior to the album, eventually becoming her twenty firth number one on the Billboard country survey. Three additional charting singles were spawned from All the Women I Am that peaked outside the top 20. Her All the Women I Am Tour tour followed shortly after late featuring country acts the Band Perry, Steel Magnolia, and Edens Edge. In 2014, McEntire moved to Big Machine's new imprint for veteran artists titled Nash Icon Music. Her first Nash Icon single was 2015's "Going Out Like That", which reached the top 25 of the Billboard country songs chart. It was included on her 2015 Nash Icon album Love Somebody. The album topped the country albums chart and charted the top five of the Billboard 200. In 2016, McEntire released a third Christmas-themed studio album called My Kind of Christmas. The album was exclusively sold at Cracker Barrel and online. She also announced she would soon be selling her own line of clothing, home decor, jewelry and other things under the "Rockin' R by Reba" line also at Cracker Barrel.
2017–present: New beginnings in her 60s
After her split from ex-husband Narvel Blackstock, McEntire took control of her career as her own manager. She recruited Justin McIntosh of Starstruck Entertainment, Leslie Matthews serving as Brand Manager, and Carolyn Snell who has been with McEntire for nine years. They formed Reba's Business Inc. (RBI). She moved out of the building she and Blackstock had worked in, and moved her company to Green Hills, Nashville.
On December 15, 2016, McEntire announced that she was releasing her first gospel album titled Sing It Now: Songs of Faith & Hope. It was released by Nash Icon/Rockin' R Records on February 3, 2017, and consists of two discs. Disc one contains traditional hymns while disc two contains original tracks. "Softly and Tenderly", featuring Kelly Clarkson and Trisha Yearwood, was the first track off the album released. Another track on the album, "In the Garden/Wonderful Peace", features the Isaacs. Jay DeMarcus of the Rascal Flatts produced the album. The first single off the album is "Back to God". In January 2018, McEntire won the Grammy Award for Best Roots Gospel Album, her first nomination since 2007, and her first Grammy Award win in more than twenty years, since 1994. She also headlined the C2C: Country to Country festival in the UK alongside Brad Paisley and Zac Brown Band in March. Because of its limited release in 2016, on October 13, 2017 My Kind of Christmas was re-released - this time including songs with Vince Gill, Amy Grant, Darius Rucker and Lauren Daigle - on her website and through iTunes. In July 2018, it was announced that McEntire would be one of four honorees for the 41st annual Kennedy Center Honors, along with Cher, Philip Glass, and Wayne Shorter. The ceremony was held December 2, 2018, and broadcast on CBS December 26, 2018.
McEntire released her twenty-ninth studio album Stronger Than the Truth on April 5, 2019. McEntire also returned to host the 54th Academy of Country Music Awards on April 8, 2019.
On June 25, 2019, The New York Times Magazine listed McEntire among hundreds of artists whose material was destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.
On February 20, 2020, during a surprise appearance at the Country Radio Seminar, McEntire announced she had signed a new record deal with MCA Nashville, returning to the label after leaving in November 2008. McEntire hosted the 54th Annual Country Music Association Awards alongside Darius Rucker in November 2020. McEntire previously hosted in 2019 with Carrie Underwood and Dolly Parton, 1992 with Vince Gill, 1991 by herself (the second solo female host) and 1990 with Randy Travis.
Acting career
1989–99: Entry into film and television acting
In 1990, she obtained her first film role playing Heather Gummer in the horror comedy Tremors, along with Kevin Bacon. The film told the story of a small group of people living in Nevada who were fighting subterranean worm-like creatures. After the film's release, McEntire developed a strong interest in acting and made it her second career. The film earned McEntire a nomination for Best Supporting Actress at the 1991 Saturn Awards. The following year, she starred along with Kenny Rogers and Burt Reynolds in the made-for-television movies The Gambler Returns: The Luck of the Draw and The Man From Left Field. In 1994, McEntire worked with director Rob Reiner in the film North, playing Ma Tex. The film obtained negative reviews, receiving only two and a half stars from Allmovie.
In 1994, McEntire starred in Is There Life Out There? a television movie based on her song of the same name. The following year, she appeared in Buffalo Girls, which was based upon the life of western cowgirl Calamity Jane (played by Anjelica Huston). Playing Jane's friend Annie Oakley, Buffalo Girls was nominated for an Emmy award. In 1996, McEntire was cast by director James Cameron as Molly Brown in his film Titanic. However, when it became apparent production for the film would extend well beyond its original length, McEntire had to turn down the part, as she had already scheduled prior concert engagements. The role was recast with Kathy Bates. In 1998, she starred as Lizzie Brooks in Forever Love, which was based upon McEntire's hit single of the same name.
2000–07: Broadway and television series
In early 2001, McEntire expanded into theater, starring in the Broadway revival of Annie Get Your Gun. Playing Annie Oakley (whom she had previously portrayed in Buffalo Girls), her performance was critically acclaimed by several newspapers, including The New York Times, which commented, "Without qualification the best performance by an actress in a musical comedy this season." McEntire personally called the musical "some of the hardest work I've ever done in my life".
In 2005, McEntire starred as Nellie Forbush in the Carnegie Hall concert production of the Broadway musical South Pacific with Alec Baldwin as Luther Billis and Brian Stokes Mitchell as Emile de Becque, directed by Walter Bobbie and with an adapted script by David Ives. The concert was broadcast as part of the Great Performances series in 2006.
In October 2001, McEntire premiered her half-hour television sitcom Reba on the WB network. The show was based around divorced mother Reba Hart, who learns how to handle life situations after her husband divorces her in order to marry his dental hygienist––with whom he had been cheating and gotten pregnant––and then their teenage daughter becomes pregnant as well. Reba garnered critical acclaim and success, becoming the network's highest-rated television show for adults ranging from the ages of 18 to 49. The show ran for six seasons and earned McEntire a nomination for a Golden Globe award. It was canceled on February 18, 2007; the series finale had 8.7 million viewers.
2011–20: Brief television return and current projects
In September 2011, McEntire confirmed on her website that ABC had ordered a pilot for her second television series Malibu Country. McEntire played a divorced mother of two who moves to Malibu, California to restart her music career. The pilot was filmed in April 2012 and began production on its first season in August. It was announced that the pilot for Malibu Country would premiere November 2, 2012. The show was broadcast Friday nights at 8:30/7:30c on ABC. On May 11, 2012, McEntire tweeted that the show had been picked up. She also was the host in the 2011 NASCAR Award Show in Las Vegas.
Despite reports that Malibu Country was the most-watched freshman comedy in its debut season (8.7 million), the show was canceled on May 10, 2013, after eighteen episodes.
In January 2017, it was announced that McEntire would star and produce a Southern drama series for ABC titled Red Blooded. It was reported in May that ABC ultimately turned down the show, so it moved to being shopped around to other networks. In January 2018, Reba was chosen to portray KFC's first female Colonel Sanders. The commercials ran through the end of April 2018.
In 2020, McEntire launched a podcast titled Living & Learning hosted by herself and her former Reba co-star Melissa Peterman.
She made a cameo appearance in the 2021 comedy film Barb and Star go to Vista Del Mar as a water spirit named Trish after Annie Mumolo and Kristen Wiig, who wrote, produced, and starred in the film, wrote her an "impassioned letter" asking her to join the film. Director Josh Greenbaum said in an interview, "There's some casting that just clicks. Reba is not only 100% authentic, we knew she would be game."
Musical styles and legacy
McEntire's sound has been influenced by the country music of Bob Wills, Merle Haggard, Dolly Parton, Barbara Mandrell, and Patsy Cline. In college, McEntire attended local dances at the Oklahoma–Texas border so she could dance to Wills's music, commenting that, "it didn't get any better than dancing to Bob Wills music". She also explained Merle Haggard's influence on her career, stating "I had every album he ever put out", and would sing "every song he did", along with her brother, Pake and sister, Susie. In addition, her first major hit, "Sweet Dreams" was a remake of Patsy Cline's version of the song, according to McEntire herself.
McEntire's music has been described to not only be built upon traditional country music, but also expand into the genres of country pop, mainstream pop, soul, and R&B. At times, her music has been criticized for moving away from traditional country music. Many music critics have called her music to be "melodramatic", "formulaic", and "bombastic", particularly after her 1988 album Reba. Studio releases such as Sweet Sixteen, Rumor Has It, It's Your Call, and Starting Over have been described by these terms.
McEntire possesses a contralto vocal range and performs "vocal gymnastics" with her voice, a musical technique in which a singer twirls a note around, using their vibrato. McEntire has credited Dolly Parton for influencing this trait, stating that she always listened to Parton's records and find her style of vocal gymnastics "so pretty".
McEntire has often been regarded as one of country music's most influential female vocalists and most beloved entertainers. She is highly credited for remaining one of country's most popular female artists for nearly four decades, maintaining her success by continually incorporating contemporary musical sounds without changing her traditional vocal style. For numerous artists, she has been credited as an inspiration to their careers in music. The Net Music Countdown second-handedly reported, "That influence has manifested itself in many ways. As a role model, she's shown others how to handle fame with grace and good humor while never backing down from her values or goals. Just as importantly, she's shown others to refuse to accept limitations on what she can do or how much she can achieve." McEntire also explained to the online website, "Whatever I'm doing, I feel like I'm representing country music". "It's always been my main career, and it's where my loyalties lie. I feel like I'm waving the flag of country music wherever I go, and I couldn't be prouder to do it."
Personal life
McEntire is a Christian, and she has stated that her faith in God has helped her immensely throughout her life.
Two of her siblings have also had careers in the music industry. Her brother Pake dabbled in the country music industry in the late 1980s but returned to Oklahoma after a brief stint. He owns and operates a 1,000-acre ranch near Coalgate, Oklahoma, and continues to rodeo. Her sister Susie McEntire-Eaton (Martha Susan "Susie" McEntire-Eaton, formerly Luchsinger) is a successful Christian music singer who travels the country with her husband, speaking and performing. She also has an older sister, Alice Foran, a retired social worker who resides in Lane, Oklahoma. Her niece Calamity McEntire is an assistant basketball coach at the University of Dayton.
Relationships and children
In 1976, McEntire married steer wrestling champion and rancher Charlie Battles who was 10 years her senior and had two sons from his previous marriage. The couple shared a ranch in Oklahoma. In 1987, McEntire divorced Battles and moved to Nashville, Tennessee, to further pursue her career.
In 1989, McEntire married her manager and former steel guitar player Narvel Blackstock. The couple wed at Lake Tahoe on a boat in a private ceremony. Together, the pair took over all aspects of McEntire's career, forming Starstruck Entertainment, which was originally designed to help manage her career. From her marriage to Blackstock, McEntire gained three stepchildren, Chassidy, Shawna, and Brandon. She gave birth to a son, Shelby Steven McEntire Blackstock, in February 1990. On August 3, 2015, it was announced in a joint statement on McEntire's website that she and Blackstock had been separated for a few months after twenty-six years of marriage. McEntire announced in December 2015 that their divorce had been finalized on October 28, 2015. Despite the divorce, McEntire remains very close to her three stepchildren and the Blackstock family; she considers her stepchildren's children to be her grandchildren. McEntire's stepson Brandon Blackstock married singer Kelly Clarkson, with whom he has a daughter and a son. Speaking about their impending marriage in 2013, McEntire stated she was "Thrilled to death, to have my buddy as my daughter-in-law. I mean, who could ask for more?"
In 2017, McEntire began a relationship with photographer Anthony "Skeeter" Lasuzzo. The couple met through McEntire's association with Kix Brooks. In describing her feelings about Lasuzzo, she stated, "We're totally in love — absolutely," she says. "I wouldn’t put up with somebody for two years if I wasn’t in love with 'em!" McEntire and Lasuzzo separated in the fall of 2019.
In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, McEntire began dating film and TV actor Rex Linn.
Philanthropy
In 1992, she opened Reba's Ranch House in Denison, TX. Similar to a Ronald McDonald House, the house incorporates holistic care by providing a calm setting for rest, warm meals for nourishment and sensitive staff for spiritual connections to guests who have loved ones being treated at the nearby Texoma Medical Center.
Over the course of her career, she has been and continues to be an active supporter of various charitable organizations including Habitat for Humanity, The Salvation Army, the American Red Cross, Feeding America and Celebrity Fight Night. She has been honored with the Minnie Pearl Award, the ACM Home Depot Humanitarian Award and the Andrea Bocelli Foundation Humanitarian Award for her efforts. In 2018, she was honored with the Horatio Alger Award for Education, Charity Work. Named after the "rags to riches" writer, the award recognizes perseverance and giving back.
Accolades
McEntire has the second-most wins for the Academy of Country Music's Top Female Vocalist Awards with seven. McEntire holds the record American Music Awards for Favorite Country Female Artist (twelve). She also holds the distinction of being the first to win the Country Music Association's Female Vocalist of the Year Award four times consecutively. Martina McBride won Female Vocalist four times, although not consecutively. In 2013, Miranda Lambert tied McEntire to win Female Vocalist four years in a row and in 2016 Carrie Underwood joined this elite club by winning her fourth Female Vocalist award. McEntire is also a rare musical artist to achieve solo number-ones across four decades (1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s). She holds the record for most CMA Award nominations for a female artist, with 50. McEntire also holds the record with the most ACM Awards nominations for a female artist with 47, respectively. She is also the recipient of three Grammy Awards, winning in 1987, 1994 and 2018. In December 2018, McEntire received the Kennedy Center Honor. In December 2021 she was one of the five nominees for Person of the Year on Spotted Ratings, along with Mariska Hargitay, Olivia Rodrigo, Susan Lynn Rosner Rovner, and Rebecca Wisocky, but ultimately lost the award to Rovner due to the latter's extensive work restoring NBC to relevancy.
When Reba McEntire made her Grand Ole Opry debut on September 17, 1977, she almost did not make it in the door after a guard at the Opry gate missed her name on the night's list of performers. Her parents and older sister, Alice, drove 1,400 miles round trip from their Oklahoma home to see what turned out to be Reba's three-minute performance that night. Her act was cut from two songs to just one—"Invitation to the Blues"—because of a surprise appearance by Dolly Parton. McEntire was inducted into the Grand Ole Opry on January 17, 1986. "The Grand Ole Opry is a home," she says. "It's a family. It's like a family reunion, when you come back and get to see everybody."
In 2011, the Country Music Association announced that McEntire would be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. McEntire was unable to attend the announcement after her father had slipped into a coma following a stroke. McEntire attended the official induction ceremony alongside the other 2011 inductees Jean Shepard and Bobby Braddock. She was inducted by Dolly Parton.
Discography
Studio albums
Reba McEntire (1977)
Out of a Dream (1979)
Feel the Fire (1980)
Heart to Heart (1981)
Unlimited (1982)
Behind the Scene (1983)
Just a Little Love (1984)
My Kind of Country (1984)
Have I Got a Deal for You (1985)
Whoever's in New England (1986)
Reba Nell McEntire (1986)
What Am I Gonna Do About You (1986)
The Last One to Know (1987)
Merry Christmas to You (1987)
Reba (1988)
Sweet Sixteen (1989)
Rumor Has It (1990)
For My Broken Heart (1991)
It's Your Call (1992)
Read My Mind (1994)
Starting Over (1995)
What If It's You (1996)
If You See Him (1998)
So Good Together (1999)
The Secret of Giving: A Christmas Collection (1999)
Room to Breathe (2003)
Reba: Duets (2007)
Keep On Loving You (2009)
All the Women I Am (2010)
Love Somebody (2015)
My Kind of Christmas (2016)
Sing It Now: Songs of Faith & Hope (2017)
Stronger Than the Truth (2019)
Revived Remixed Revisited (2021)
Tours
Headlining tours
The Reba McEntire Show
The Last One to Know Tour
North American Tour '88
World Tour '89
'90 Tour
Rumor Has It Tour
Reba in Concert
It's Your Call Tour
Read My Mind Tour
Starting Over Tour
20th Anniversary Tour
Singer's Diary
Room to Breathe Tour
All the Women I Am Tour
Canadian Tour
Reba: Live in Concert
Co-headlining tours
Brooks & Dunn and Reba: The Tour
Girls Night Out
2 Hats and a Redhead
2 Worlds 2 Voices Tour
Reba and George Strait on Tour
Residency shows
Key to the Heart
Together in Vegas
Opening act
Today Tour
Filmography
See also
List of best-selling music artists in the United States
References
Footnotes
Books
Bibliography
External links
Reba McEntire Profile on Country Music Television
1955 births
20th-century American actresses
21st-century American actresses
20th-century American singers
21st-century American singers
Actresses from Oklahoma
American contraltos
American country singer-songwriters
American women country singers
American film actresses
American television actresses
American voice actresses
American Christians
Big Machine Records artists
Country Music Hall of Fame inductees
Grammy Award winners
Grand Ole Opry members
Kennedy Center honorees
Living people
MCA Records artists
Mercury Records artists
Singer-songwriters from Oklahoma
People from McAlester, Oklahoma
People from Atoka County, Oklahoma
Southeastern Oklahoma State University alumni
Members of the Country Music Association
Country musicians from Oklahoma
20th-century American women singers
21st-century American women singers
Theatre World Award winners
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"\"What Did I Do to You?\" is a song recorded by British singer Lisa Stansfield for her 1989 album, Affection. It was written by Stansfield, Ian Devaney and Andy Morris, and produced by Devaney and Morris. The song was released as the fourth European single on 30 April 1990. It included three previously unreleased songs written by Stansfield, Devaney and Morris: \"My Apple Heart,\" \"Lay Me Down\" and \"Something's Happenin'.\" \"What Did I Do to You?\" was remixed by Mark Saunders and by the Grammy Award-winning American house music DJ and producer, David Morales. The single became a top forty hit in the European countries reaching number eighteen in Finland, number twenty in Ireland and number twenty-five in the United Kingdom. \"What Did I Do to You?\" was also released in Japan.\n\nIn 2014, the remixes of \"What Did I Do to You?\" were included on the deluxe 2CD + DVD re-release of Affection and on People Hold On ... The Remix Anthology. They were also featured on The Collection 1989–2003 box set (2014), including previously unreleased Red Zone Mix by David Morales.\n\nCritical reception\nThe song received positive reviews from music critics. Matthew Hocter from Albumism viewed it as a \"upbeat offering\". David Giles from Music Week said it is \"beautifully performed\" by Stansfield. A reviewer from Reading Eagle wrote that \"What Did I Do to You?\" \"would be right at home on the \"Saturday Night Fever\" soundtrack.\"\n\nMusic video\nA music video was produced to promote the single, directed by Philip Richardson, who had previously directed the videos for \"All Around the World\" and \"Live Together\". It features Stansfield with her kiss curls, dressed in a white outfit and performing with her band on a stage in front of a jumping audience. The video was later published on Stansfield's official YouTube channel in November 2009. It has amassed more than 1,6 million views as of October 2021.\n\nTrack listings\n\n European/UK 7\" single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Mark Saunders Remix Edit) – 4:20\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:59\n\n European/UK/Japanese CD single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Mark Saunders Remix Edit) – 4:20\n\"My Apple Heart\" – 5:19\n\"Lay Me Down\" – 4:17\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:59\n\n UK 10\" single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Mark Saunders Remix) – 5:52\n\"My Apple Heart\" – 5:19\n\"Lay Me Down\" – 4:17\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:59\n\n European/UK 12\" single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Morales Mix) – 7:59\n\"My Apple Heart\" – 4:22\n\"Lay Me Down\" – 3:19\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:15\n\n UK 12\" promotional single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Morales Mix) – 7:59\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Anti Poll Tax Dub) – 6:31\n\n Other remixes\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Red Zone Mix) – 7:45\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\nLisa Stansfield songs\n1990 singles\nSongs written by Lisa Stansfield\n1989 songs\nArista Records singles\nSongs written by Ian Devaney\nSongs written by Andy Morris (musician)",
"\"What Would Steve Do?\" is the second single released by Mumm-Ra on Columbia Records, which was released on February 19, 2007. It is a re-recorded version of the self-release they did in April 2006. It reached #40 in the UK Singles Chart, making it their highest charting single.\n\nTrack listings\nAll songs written by Mumm-Ra.\n\nCD\n\"What Would Steve Do?\"\n\"Cute As\"\n\"Without You\"\n\n7\"\n\"What Would Steve Do?\"\n\"What Would Steve Do? (Floorboard Mix)\"\n\nGatefold 7\"\n\"What Would Steve Do?\"\n\"Cute As\"\n\nReferences\n\n2007 singles\nMumm-Ra (band) songs\n2006 songs\nColumbia Records singles"
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"she was working on a new album, with 11 new songs.",
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"Her first single for the new label,",
"When was this realesed",
"January 6, 2015.",
"What did it do",
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What is the album called
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What is Reba McEntire's first single's album called?
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Reba McEntire
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On October 21, 2014, it was announced that McEntire would be the inaugural signing for Big Machine's new imprint Nash Icon Music. She also disclosed that she was working on a new album, with 11 new songs. Her first single for the new label, "Going Out Like That", was announced December 16, 2014 and was released on January 6, 2015. It served as the lead-off single to Love Somebody, McEntire's twenty-seventh studio album, released on April 14, 2015. Love Somebody debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Top Country Albums--her twelfth number-one album on the chart--and No. 3 on Billboard 200, selling 62,469 copies in the U.S. The album has sold 171,600 copies in the U.S. as of October 5, 2015. In 2016, McEntire was selected as one of thirty artists to perform on "Forever Country", a mash-up track of Take Me Home, Country Roads, On the Road Again and I Will Always Love You which celebrates 50 years of the CMA Awards. McEntire released her third Christmas album My Kind of Christmas on September 2, 2016. The album was exclusively sold at Cracker Barrel and online. She also announced she would soon be selling her own line of clothing, home decor, jewelry and other things under the "Rockin' R by Reba" line also at Cracker Barrel. McEntire was a guest judge on the July 13, 2016 episode of America's Got Talent. She used her golden buzzer, which she could only use once and allowed an act to go straight to the live shows, on contortionist Sofie Dossi. CANNOTANSWER
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Love Somebody,
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Reba Nell McEntire, also known mononymously as Reba, (born March 28, 1955) is an American country music singer, actress and businesswoman. She is often referred to as "the Queen of Country," having sold more than 75 million records worldwide. Since the 1970s, McEntire has placed over 100 singles on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, 25 of which reached the number one spot. She is also credited as an actress, having appeared in both films and television. She starred in the television series Reba, which aired for six seasons. She also owns several businesses, including a clothing line.
One of four children, McEntire was born and raised in the state of Oklahoma. In childhood and adolescence, her interests included barrel racing and sports. She also had a natural singing ability, which was encouraged by her mother. With her mother's help, she and her siblings formed the Singing McEntires, which played at local events and recorded for a small label. McEntire later enrolled at Southeastern Oklahoma State University and studied to become a public school teacher. She also continued to occasionally perform and was heard singing at a rodeo event by country performer Red Steagall. Drawn to her singing voice, Steagall helped McEntire secure a country music recording contract with PolyGram/Mercury Records in 1975.
Over the next several years, PolyGram/Mercury released a series of McEntire's albums and singles, which amounted to little success. In the early 1980s, McEntire's music gained more momentum through several top ten country songs, including "(You Lift Me) Up to Heaven", "I'm Not That Lonely Yet" and her first number one "Can't Even Get the Blues". Yet McEntire became increasingly unhappy with her career trajectory and signed with MCA Records in 1984. Her second MCA album titled My Kind of Country (1984) became her breakout release, spawning two number one Billboard country singles and pointed towards a more traditional musical style. Through the 1980s, McEntire released seven more studio albums and had ten more number one country hits. Her number one singles included "One Promise Too Late", "The Last One to Know" and the Grammy Award-winning "Whoever's in New England".
In 1991, McEntire lost eight of her band members in a plane crash in San Diego, California. The experience led to McEntire's critically acclaimed album For My Broken Heart, which is her highest-selling disc to date. She followed it with several commercially successful albums during the 1990s, including Read My Mind (1994), What If It's You (1996) and If You See Him (1998). These albums featured the number one country singles "The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter", "How Was I to Know" and a duet with Brooks and Dunn called "If You See Him/If You See Her". McEntire also began acting on film and television, beginning with 1990's Tremors. In 2001, she played the role of Annie Oakley in the Broadway musical Annie Get Your Gun. The same year, the WB channel launched the TV series Reba, which starred McEntire in the lead role. The show became successful and ran until 2007.
In 2004, McEntire returned to her country recording career with the top five Billboard album Room to Breathe. She followed the release with 2007's Reba: Duets, 2009's Keep On Loving You and 2011's All the Women I Am. Her 2000's albums spawned the number one singles "Somebody", "Consider Me Gone" and "Turn on the Radio". In 2012, McEntire briefly returned to television with the series Malibu Country and in 2018 portrayed the role of Colonel Sanders in television commercials for KFC. She has continued releasing new music, including Love Somebody (2015), Sing It Now (2017) and Revived Remixed Revisited (2021).
Early life
McEntire was born in McAlester, Oklahoma in 1955 but was raised on a ranch in Chockie, Oklahoma. She was the third of four children born to Clark and Jacqueline McEntire. Her grandfather, John Wesley McEntire, was a world-champion steer roper in 1934, while her father held the same title three times (1957, 1958 and 1961). Jacqueline McEntire had aspirations of becoming a country singer, but instead became a public school teacher, librarian and secretary While her mother was tender and loving, her father had trouble showing affection. "When we were growing up I used to regret that Daddy never told us that he loved us," she recalled in her autobiography. The McEntire family owned a cattle ranch in Chockie. Each family member contributed to running the cattle operation. The McEntire children helped with ranch chores before and after school. This included castrating bulls and giving them worm medicine.
The McEntire siblings also developed an interest in singing, which was encouraged by their mother. On car trips to their father's rodeo dates, Jacqueline McEntire taught her children to sing in harmony with one another. Young Reba then started performing school, beginning in first grade when she sang "Away in a Manger" at an elementary school Christmas pageant. In fifth grade, she joined the 4-H club and won first place in the Junior Act Division for singing "My Sweet Little Alice Blue Gown". She also played basketball and ran track. For several summers, she attended a basketball camp. She also learned piano and guitar. She also developed an interest in the rodeo and trained to become a barrel racer.
By high school the McEntire siblings had been frequently performing. Together, they formed a trio which they called The Singing McEntires. In 1971, the trio released a single about their famous grandfather called "The Ballad of John McEntire". It was pressed as a single by a local label and was issued in small numbers regionally. The trio eventually included a backing band which performed at local functions. The group was later named The Kiowa High School Cowboy Band. They also had paying gigs at bars at dance halls in nearby Oklahoma City. "We were a bunch of kids barely in puberty who didn't get to bed until almost daylight after some of our shows," McEntire remembered. The band parted ways once Reba's brother graduated high school. In 1973, McEntire graduated from Kiowa High School.
Once finishing high school, McEntire enrolled in college at Southeastern Oklahoma State University. She majored in elementary education with a minor in music. She completed student teaching and later graduated with a Bachelor's degree. She also continued to help out on her family's ranch during her college years. In 1974, McEntire's father encouraged her to take a job opportunity singing "The Star-Spangled Banner" at the National Finals Rodeo in Oklahoma City. She contacted family friend and rodeo announcer Clem McSpadden, who helped her get hired for the gig. Following one of her performances, McEntire was heard by country artist Red Steagall who was impressed by her singing. Reba, her siblings and her mother later joined him at a hotel party the same week. At the hotel, Reba performed an a cappella version of Dolly Parton's "Joshua". Jacqueline McEntire asked Steagall if he was able to help get all her children a recording contract. After going back to Nashville, Steagall contacted her in early 1975 and said, "I can't take all three. But I could take Reba. She's got something a little different."
In March 1975 and accompanied by her mother, McEntire embarked on a trip to Nashville, Tennessee to record a demonstration tape that Steagall hoped to pass along to record labels. At the start of the trip, she was unsure about pursuing a professional country music career. McEntire recalled in her autobiography continually making excuses for her mother to stop the car instead of traveling to Nashville. After noticing her daughter's fear, Jacqueline McEntire told her, "Now Reba, let me tell you something. If you don't want to go to Nashville, we don't have to do this. But I'm living all my dreams through you." The conversation changed her mind and they continued on to Nashville.
After recording a demo, McEntire's tape was heard by Glenn Keener of PolyGram/Mercury Records, who was interested in signing her to a Nashville contract. Keener brought McEntire's tape and another female's tape to PolyGram's Chicago headquarters. The label informed Kenner that he could only sign one female performer. "He looked at the two tapes in his hand and handed ’em mine," McEntire told Entertainment Weekly.
Music career
1976–1983: Career launch at Mercury
In November 1975, McEntire signed a country music recording contract with PolyGram/Mercury Records. She made her first recordings for the label in January 1976. She was produced by Glenn Keener and was backed by a Countrypolitan arrangement that included a string section. McEntire's debut single was released in 1976 titled "I Don't Want to Be a One Night Stand". The track failed to become a major hit, only peaking at number 88 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart that May. It was followed by the low-charting Billboard country singles "(There's Nothing Like the Love) Between a Woman and Man" and "Glad I Waited Just for You". Mercury issued her self-titled debut album in 1977. In his album review, Greg Adams of AllMusic compared it to the country crossover style of Barbara Mandrell and Tammy Wynette. McEntire also began touring and performing more frequently. Without a band of her own, she often relied on house bands to accompany her. In some instances, the backing bands did not know country music and McEntire would have to fill her time onstage with jokes.
McEntire's career gained more momentum by 1978. That year she collaborated on two singles with country artist Jacky Ward. The duo's double-sided release of "I'd Really Love to See You Tonight"/"Three Sheets in the Wind" became her first top 20 hit on the country chart. When Glenn Keener left the PolyGram/Mercury roster, McEntire inherited producer Jerry Kennedy. Kennedy produced her second studio album titled Out of a Dream (1979). The album's cover of Patsy Cline's "Sweet Dreams" became her first top 20 hit as a solo artist. Four additional top 40 country singles were spawned from the album as well. By 1980, McEntire had formed her own band which included sister Susie and brother Pake McEntire. She also hired a new manager. McEntire and her band toured to dates in a three-car caravan, which included a horse trailer for transporting instruments. She later upgraded to a bus nicknamed "Silver Eagle", which routinely broke down. Also in 1980, "(You Lift Me) Up to Heaven" became her first top ten hit on the country songs chart. It was included on her third studio album, Feel the Fire, which was released in October.
By this point, McEntire's label pushed her record music in a soft country pop style that she often disagreed with. Future material (which included her next album) was recorded in this format. Her fourth album, Heart to Heart was issued in 1981 and became her first disc to chart the Billboard Country Albums list. It received only a 2.5 star review from AllMusic's William Ruhlmann, who described McEntire as being "a promising, but not yet accomplished country artist." Yet its lead single, "Today All Over Again", became her highest charting country single yet, reaching number five. In 1983, McEntire's bus had broken down when she was informed that her latest single "Can't Even Get the Blues" reached the number one spot on the Billboard country chart. It was followed by her second number one song "You're the First Time I Thought About Leaving". The track also became her second to reach the top ten of Canada's RPM country songs chart. Both singles appeared on her 1983 album Unlimited. The following year, the single "Why Do We Want (What We Know We Can't Have)" reached the top ten. With increased success in the country music industry, she was able to arrange an early release from PolyGram/Mercury in 1983. "Let met put it this way, I've sorta taken my career into control myself," she explained of the decision.
1984–1990: Breakthrough
McEntire signed with MCA Records in 1984 and released her seventh studio album Just a Little Love. Harold Shedd was originally intended to produce the disc, however, McEntire rejected his desire for a country pop arrangement. Instead, Norro Wilson produced the project. Despite spawning a top ten hit, McEntire was still dissatisfied with the record's production and the lack of control over material. Instead, she turned to MCA president Jimmy Bowen who suggested that she find her own songs to record. Accompanied by Don "Dirt" Lanier, McEntire spent several days listening to various songs from publishing companies. Eventually she found a song written by Harlan Howard titled "Somebody Should Leave" and a song by Jon Moffat titled "How Blue". Released as singles, they reached the number one spot on the country songs chart and later appeared on 1984's My Kind of Country. The collection also included several covers of classic country songs by Ray Price, Charley Pride and Connie Smith. AllMusic's William Ruhlmann gave the disc 4.5 stars. Billboard magazine described McEntire on the album as being "the finest woman country singer since Kitty Wells." The album became her breakthrough recording, leading McEntire to winning 1984's Female Vocalist of the Year accolade from the Country Music Association. Along with music by George Strait and Randy Travis, the album also brought forth a stylistic change in country towards traditional arrangements and sounds.
Her next MCA album was 1985's Have I Got a Deal for You. The project followed the same traditional country format of its predecessor. It was produced by Jimmy Bowen, along with co-production credits from McEntire herself. The album 's title track reached the Billboard country top ten along with "Only in My Mind", a song composed by McEntire herself. In February 1986, her ninth studio album was released named Whoever's in New England. On the record, McEntire and co-producer Jimmy Bowen mixed a traditional country style with a modern, contemporary sound. Author Kurt Wolff described the title track's production, as being "bigger and sentimentalism more obvious, even manipulative". Issued as the lead single, the title track peaked at number one on the Bilboard country chart and won McEntire the Grammy Award for Best Female Country Vocal Performance. The album itself became her first to top the Billboard Country Albums survey. and later certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America for sales of one million copies.
By this point McEntire had reached the height of her commercial stardom. Following this, McEntire made changes to her stage show. She began implementing choreography and experimented with stage lighting. Also in 1986, McEntire's twelfth studio album appeared titled What Am I Gonna Do About You. AllMusic found that it lacked the features that had made Whoever's in New England unique. The title track was the lead single from the release. It became her next number one song on the Billboard country chart and her first number one on the RPM Canadian country chart. Its second single "One Promise Too Late" also topped the country chart. Her thirteenth studio project, The Last One to Know, was released in 1987 and reached number three on the Billboard country albums chart. Reviewer Tom Roland noted that McEntire chose material that reflected her recent divorce from first husband Charlie Battles. Both the title track and "Love Will Find Its Way to You" topped the Billboard country songs chart. In late 1987, McEntire released her first Christmas collection called Merry Christmas to You. Also in 1987, she played Carnegie Hall in New York City for the first time.
In the late 1980s, McEntire took more control of her career. She fired her manager and formed her own entertainment company that helped further promote her material. Other new changes included her 1988 pop-inspired release Reba. Her fifteenth studio disc included covers of the former pop hits "Respect" and "A Sunday Kind of Love". It produced the number one Billboard country singles "New Fool at an Old Game" and "I Know How He Feels". It was followed by 1989's Sweet Sixteen, which was noted to be a more of a "return[s] to the neo-traditionalist fold", according to reviewer William Ruhlmann. The album featured the country hits "'Til Love Comes Again", "Little Girl", "Walk On" and a cover of "Cathy's Clown". Her first live project titled Reba Live was also released in 1989.
Rumor Has It (1990) was another pop-oriented album release featuring a mix of ballads and uptempo numbers. It was the first disc in McEntire's career to reach the top 40 of the Billboard 200 albums chart. The disc would became McEntire's highest-selling albums, certifying three-times platinum from the RIAA. Four hit country singles came from the release, including "You Lie" and her cover of "Fancy". The latter single eventually become one of McEntire's signature songs.
1991: Plane crash and For My Broken Heart
In the late 1980s, McEntire's touring schedule became increasingly busy. To avoid long bus trips, she and her band began traveling by private planes to concerts. McEntire and her touring band started the 1991 leg of their tour with dates in Alaska, Saginaw, Michigan, Fort Wayne, Indiana and a private gig for IBM in San Diego, California. Two planes were scheduled to leave San Diego which would carry McEntire's band. McEntire, her husband and her stylist would take a different aircraft the next day. In the middle of the night on March 16, 1991, McEntire was awoken to a phone call from Roger Woolsey, who flew the second plane. McEntire's husband took the call and discovered that one of the planes had crashed. Following the successful takeoff of both planes, one plane's wing hit the side of Otay Mountain in San Diego, killing everyone on board.
In total, eight members of her band were killed: Chris Austin, Kirk Cappello, Joey Cigainero, Paula Kaye Evans, Jim Hammon, Terry Jackson, Anthony Saputo, and Michael Thomas. In addition pilot Donald Holmes and co-pilot Chris Hollinger were also killed. The first plane was a Hawker Siddeley DH-125-1A/522 charter jet that took off at 1:40 AM from the Brown Field Municipal Airport, located near the border of Mexico. After reaching an altitude of above sea level, the aircraft crashed on the side of Otay Mountain, located east of the airport. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) determined the probable cause of the accident was related to "improper pilot planning".
Meanwhile, the second plane carrying the rest of her band made it successfully to an airport in Nashville. McEntire, her husband and hair stylist returned on their own plane following the accident. "By the time that long, terrible weekend was over, we were emotionally and physically exhausted," McEntire stated in her autobiography. The news was reported nearly immediately to McEntire and her husband, who were sleeping at a nearby hotel. A spokeswoman for McEntire made a statement to The Los Angeles Times on behalf of her: "She was very close to all of them. Some of them had been with her for years. Reba is totally devastated by this. It's like losing part of your family. Right now she just wants to get back to Nashville." Two days after the crash, McEntire conducted an interview with People magazine and scheduled a memorial service for the families of the victims. Nine days following the accident, McEntire performed at the 63rd Academy Awards ceremony, singing the Best Original Song nominee "I'm Checkin' Out" from the film Postcards from the Edge. In addition, Vince Gill and Dolly Parton offered their help in reorganizing her touring band.
McEntire dedicated her sixteenth album, For My Broken Heart, to the deceased members of her road band. Released in October 1991, it contained songs of sorrow and lost love about "all measure of suffering", according to Alanna Nash of Entertainment Weekly. Nash reported that McEntire "still hits her stride with the more traditional songs of emotional turmoil, above all combining a spectacular vocal performance with a terrific song on 'Buying Her Roses', a wife's head-spinning discovery of her husband's other woman." The disc peaked at number three on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart. It also became her highest-charting release on the Billboard 200 yet, peaking at number 13. It later sold over four million copies in the United States, becoming her best-selling album to date. Its title track and "Is There Life Out There" both became number one Billboard country singles. In addition, "The Greatest Man I Never Knew" and McEntire's cover of "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia" both became major country hits.
1992–2002: Continued country success
In December 1992, McEntire's seventeenth album It's Your Call was released. A sign of her increased mainstream success, the album was her first to reach the top ten of the Billboard 200. It spawned the country hits "Take It Back", the title track and a number one duet with Vince Gill called "The Heart Won't Lie". Critic Brian Mansfield compared the disc to For My Broken Heart, concluding that "only casual or partial listeners will be moved as much." Christopher John Farley of Time wrote that the album ranged from being "relaxing" to "cathartic", and "these vocals from one of the best country singers linger in the mind". For her next release, McEntire collaborated with up-and-coming artist Linda Davis on the single "Does He Love You". MCA Records encouraged McEntire to record the track with more established acts like Wynonna Judd or Trisha Yearwood, but ultimately finalized the track with Davis. It became her eighteenth number one hit on the Country Songs chart and her sixteenth number one hit on the Canadian country chart. It was later included on her 1993 compilation Greatest Hits Volume Two. Later that year, Davis and McEntire performed the duet at the CMA Awards. For her performance, McEntire wore a red dress with a plunging neckline that created controversy among the Nashville community.
Her eighteenth studio release was 1994's Read My Mind. The disc reached number two on both the Billboard 200 and the Top Country Albums chart. The disc later reached sales of three million copies in the United States and certified three times platinum from the RIAA. Five major hits came from the release, including "The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter", "Till You Love Me" and a song about a woman contracting AIDS called "She Thinks His Name Was John". The latter recording only reached a top 20 charting position due to its controversial lyrics. McEntire's nineteenth studio album, Starting Over (1995) was collection of her favorite songs originally recorded by others. The album was made to commemorate McEntire's twenty years in the music industry. The album received a less favorable response from critics than that of her previous releases. While project spawned three charting singles, only McEntire's cover of "Ring on Her Finger, Time on Her Hands" became a top ten country song. Starting Over was certified platinum by the RIAA within the first two months of its release.
McEntire's next album release What If It's You was issued by MCA in November 1996. The record was a return to a contemporary country sound. It debuted at number 15 on the Billboard 200 and eventually topped the Billboard country albums list. It received a more favorable response from radio programmers than that of her 1995 album and received greater promotion. Critic Thom Owens noted that the project "[didn't] offer any new tricks from Reba McEntire, but it is nevertheless an excellent reminder of her deep talents as a vocalist." Its first single, "The Fear of Being Alone" became a top five hit, while "How Was I to Know" reached the number one spot on the Billboard country songs survey.
McEntire began touring with country duo Brooks & Dunn during the mid 1990s. Their touring collaborating led to the recording of a duet titled "If You See Him/If You See Her" in 1998. The track topped both the Billboard country songs chart and the Canadian RPM country chart. Their initial collaborations would lead to several more professional endeavors over the years, including a joint Las Vegas residency. The duet was included on McEntire's If You See Him album and Brooks & Dunn's If You See Her album, both of which were released in June 1998. Thom Owens found that both album titles were named nearly the same as "a way to draw attention for both parties, since they were no longer new guns—they were veterans in danger of losing ground to younger musicians". If You See Him produced three more top ten country hits including "Forever Love" and "One Honest Heart".
In 1999, McEntire released two albums. In September she issued her second Christmas album, The Secret of Giving: A Christmas Collection. In November, her twenty-second studio album, So Good Together was released. Entertainment Weekly commented that most of the album's material was "an odd set—mostly ballads, including an English/Portuguese duet with Jose e Durval on Boz Scaggs' 'We're All Alone'". It featured the top five country songs "What Do You Say" and "I'll Be". McEntire focused on an acting career in the early 2000s and took a temporary musical hiatus. One exception was 2001's "I'm a Survivor". The single became a top five country hit and the theme song to McEntire's 2001 television series.
2003–2015: Country music comeback, record label switch and continued music success
McEntire returned to her recording career in August 2003 with the release of the MCA single "I'm Gonna Take That Mountain". The song was included on her first studio album in four years titled Room to Breathe (November 2003). "The reason I named the album Room to Breathe is because I needed a little room to breathe," McEntire told Billboard. The 12-track disc was produced by Buddy Cannon and Norro Wilson. It also featured a guest appearance from Vince Gill. Room to Breathe debuted at number four on the Billboard country chart and later certified platinum in the United States. It spawned McEntire's first number one song in six years titled "Somebody". Also featured was the top ten single "He Gets That from Me". In 2004, she embarked on her first tour in several years also titled "Room to Breathe", which included 36 cities in the United States. In 2005, MCA released the double-disc compilation titled Reba #1's while she was in between albums.
In September 2007, McEntire's next studio disc was releaded titled Reba: Duets. The album was a collection of duets with various music artists, including Kenny Chesney, LeAnn Rimes, Trisha Yearwood, Carole King, and Justin Timberlake. Reba: Duets topped the Billboard country chart and theBillboard 200, becoming her first album in her career to top reach the top of both lists. Reba: Duets was later certified platinum by the RIAA. The album was given high critical praise from magazines such as PopMatters, which compared McEntire to artists like Janis Joplin and Tina Turner. AllMusic's Thom Jurek gave it 3.5 stars, commenting that "it's full of good to great songs delivered in mostly interesting ways." The first single was a duet version of Kelly Clarkson's "Because of You", which reached number two on the American country chart and topped the Canadian country songs chart.
In 2008, McEntire announced that she would be departing her label of 25 years and signing with the Valory Music Group, an imprint of Big Machine Records. The switch to Valory reunited McEntire with the label's president, Scott Borchetta, whom she had worked with previously. Her first Valory single was 2009's "Strange". The song debuted at number 39 Billboard country songs chart, giving McEntire the highest single debut of her career and peaked at number eleven. Her twenty-sixth studio album, Keep On Loving You was released in August 2009 and also topped both the Billboard Country and 200 charts. In 2009, "Consider Me Gone" (spawned as the record's second single) became her 24th number-one on the Billboard chart in December. At age 54, McEntire became one of the oldest women to have a number one single on the country songs chart.
McEntire's twenty-ninth studio album All the Women I Am was released in November 2010. Steve Morse of The Boston Globe called the project "one of her best efforts", while Thom Jurek at AllMusic only gave it a 2.5 star rating, calling it "awkward" and lacking a "center". "Turn On the Radio" was issued as the lead single prior to the album, eventually becoming her twenty firth number one on the Billboard country survey. Three additional charting singles were spawned from All the Women I Am that peaked outside the top 20. Her All the Women I Am Tour tour followed shortly after late featuring country acts the Band Perry, Steel Magnolia, and Edens Edge. In 2014, McEntire moved to Big Machine's new imprint for veteran artists titled Nash Icon Music. Her first Nash Icon single was 2015's "Going Out Like That", which reached the top 25 of the Billboard country songs chart. It was included on her 2015 Nash Icon album Love Somebody. The album topped the country albums chart and charted the top five of the Billboard 200. In 2016, McEntire released a third Christmas-themed studio album called My Kind of Christmas. The album was exclusively sold at Cracker Barrel and online. She also announced she would soon be selling her own line of clothing, home decor, jewelry and other things under the "Rockin' R by Reba" line also at Cracker Barrel.
2017–present: New beginnings in her 60s
After her split from ex-husband Narvel Blackstock, McEntire took control of her career as her own manager. She recruited Justin McIntosh of Starstruck Entertainment, Leslie Matthews serving as Brand Manager, and Carolyn Snell who has been with McEntire for nine years. They formed Reba's Business Inc. (RBI). She moved out of the building she and Blackstock had worked in, and moved her company to Green Hills, Nashville.
On December 15, 2016, McEntire announced that she was releasing her first gospel album titled Sing It Now: Songs of Faith & Hope. It was released by Nash Icon/Rockin' R Records on February 3, 2017, and consists of two discs. Disc one contains traditional hymns while disc two contains original tracks. "Softly and Tenderly", featuring Kelly Clarkson and Trisha Yearwood, was the first track off the album released. Another track on the album, "In the Garden/Wonderful Peace", features the Isaacs. Jay DeMarcus of the Rascal Flatts produced the album. The first single off the album is "Back to God". In January 2018, McEntire won the Grammy Award for Best Roots Gospel Album, her first nomination since 2007, and her first Grammy Award win in more than twenty years, since 1994. She also headlined the C2C: Country to Country festival in the UK alongside Brad Paisley and Zac Brown Band in March. Because of its limited release in 2016, on October 13, 2017 My Kind of Christmas was re-released - this time including songs with Vince Gill, Amy Grant, Darius Rucker and Lauren Daigle - on her website and through iTunes. In July 2018, it was announced that McEntire would be one of four honorees for the 41st annual Kennedy Center Honors, along with Cher, Philip Glass, and Wayne Shorter. The ceremony was held December 2, 2018, and broadcast on CBS December 26, 2018.
McEntire released her twenty-ninth studio album Stronger Than the Truth on April 5, 2019. McEntire also returned to host the 54th Academy of Country Music Awards on April 8, 2019.
On June 25, 2019, The New York Times Magazine listed McEntire among hundreds of artists whose material was destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.
On February 20, 2020, during a surprise appearance at the Country Radio Seminar, McEntire announced she had signed a new record deal with MCA Nashville, returning to the label after leaving in November 2008. McEntire hosted the 54th Annual Country Music Association Awards alongside Darius Rucker in November 2020. McEntire previously hosted in 2019 with Carrie Underwood and Dolly Parton, 1992 with Vince Gill, 1991 by herself (the second solo female host) and 1990 with Randy Travis.
Acting career
1989–99: Entry into film and television acting
In 1990, she obtained her first film role playing Heather Gummer in the horror comedy Tremors, along with Kevin Bacon. The film told the story of a small group of people living in Nevada who were fighting subterranean worm-like creatures. After the film's release, McEntire developed a strong interest in acting and made it her second career. The film earned McEntire a nomination for Best Supporting Actress at the 1991 Saturn Awards. The following year, she starred along with Kenny Rogers and Burt Reynolds in the made-for-television movies The Gambler Returns: The Luck of the Draw and The Man From Left Field. In 1994, McEntire worked with director Rob Reiner in the film North, playing Ma Tex. The film obtained negative reviews, receiving only two and a half stars from Allmovie.
In 1994, McEntire starred in Is There Life Out There? a television movie based on her song of the same name. The following year, she appeared in Buffalo Girls, which was based upon the life of western cowgirl Calamity Jane (played by Anjelica Huston). Playing Jane's friend Annie Oakley, Buffalo Girls was nominated for an Emmy award. In 1996, McEntire was cast by director James Cameron as Molly Brown in his film Titanic. However, when it became apparent production for the film would extend well beyond its original length, McEntire had to turn down the part, as she had already scheduled prior concert engagements. The role was recast with Kathy Bates. In 1998, she starred as Lizzie Brooks in Forever Love, which was based upon McEntire's hit single of the same name.
2000–07: Broadway and television series
In early 2001, McEntire expanded into theater, starring in the Broadway revival of Annie Get Your Gun. Playing Annie Oakley (whom she had previously portrayed in Buffalo Girls), her performance was critically acclaimed by several newspapers, including The New York Times, which commented, "Without qualification the best performance by an actress in a musical comedy this season." McEntire personally called the musical "some of the hardest work I've ever done in my life".
In 2005, McEntire starred as Nellie Forbush in the Carnegie Hall concert production of the Broadway musical South Pacific with Alec Baldwin as Luther Billis and Brian Stokes Mitchell as Emile de Becque, directed by Walter Bobbie and with an adapted script by David Ives. The concert was broadcast as part of the Great Performances series in 2006.
In October 2001, McEntire premiered her half-hour television sitcom Reba on the WB network. The show was based around divorced mother Reba Hart, who learns how to handle life situations after her husband divorces her in order to marry his dental hygienist––with whom he had been cheating and gotten pregnant––and then their teenage daughter becomes pregnant as well. Reba garnered critical acclaim and success, becoming the network's highest-rated television show for adults ranging from the ages of 18 to 49. The show ran for six seasons and earned McEntire a nomination for a Golden Globe award. It was canceled on February 18, 2007; the series finale had 8.7 million viewers.
2011–20: Brief television return and current projects
In September 2011, McEntire confirmed on her website that ABC had ordered a pilot for her second television series Malibu Country. McEntire played a divorced mother of two who moves to Malibu, California to restart her music career. The pilot was filmed in April 2012 and began production on its first season in August. It was announced that the pilot for Malibu Country would premiere November 2, 2012. The show was broadcast Friday nights at 8:30/7:30c on ABC. On May 11, 2012, McEntire tweeted that the show had been picked up. She also was the host in the 2011 NASCAR Award Show in Las Vegas.
Despite reports that Malibu Country was the most-watched freshman comedy in its debut season (8.7 million), the show was canceled on May 10, 2013, after eighteen episodes.
In January 2017, it was announced that McEntire would star and produce a Southern drama series for ABC titled Red Blooded. It was reported in May that ABC ultimately turned down the show, so it moved to being shopped around to other networks. In January 2018, Reba was chosen to portray KFC's first female Colonel Sanders. The commercials ran through the end of April 2018.
In 2020, McEntire launched a podcast titled Living & Learning hosted by herself and her former Reba co-star Melissa Peterman.
She made a cameo appearance in the 2021 comedy film Barb and Star go to Vista Del Mar as a water spirit named Trish after Annie Mumolo and Kristen Wiig, who wrote, produced, and starred in the film, wrote her an "impassioned letter" asking her to join the film. Director Josh Greenbaum said in an interview, "There's some casting that just clicks. Reba is not only 100% authentic, we knew she would be game."
Musical styles and legacy
McEntire's sound has been influenced by the country music of Bob Wills, Merle Haggard, Dolly Parton, Barbara Mandrell, and Patsy Cline. In college, McEntire attended local dances at the Oklahoma–Texas border so she could dance to Wills's music, commenting that, "it didn't get any better than dancing to Bob Wills music". She also explained Merle Haggard's influence on her career, stating "I had every album he ever put out", and would sing "every song he did", along with her brother, Pake and sister, Susie. In addition, her first major hit, "Sweet Dreams" was a remake of Patsy Cline's version of the song, according to McEntire herself.
McEntire's music has been described to not only be built upon traditional country music, but also expand into the genres of country pop, mainstream pop, soul, and R&B. At times, her music has been criticized for moving away from traditional country music. Many music critics have called her music to be "melodramatic", "formulaic", and "bombastic", particularly after her 1988 album Reba. Studio releases such as Sweet Sixteen, Rumor Has It, It's Your Call, and Starting Over have been described by these terms.
McEntire possesses a contralto vocal range and performs "vocal gymnastics" with her voice, a musical technique in which a singer twirls a note around, using their vibrato. McEntire has credited Dolly Parton for influencing this trait, stating that she always listened to Parton's records and find her style of vocal gymnastics "so pretty".
McEntire has often been regarded as one of country music's most influential female vocalists and most beloved entertainers. She is highly credited for remaining one of country's most popular female artists for nearly four decades, maintaining her success by continually incorporating contemporary musical sounds without changing her traditional vocal style. For numerous artists, she has been credited as an inspiration to their careers in music. The Net Music Countdown second-handedly reported, "That influence has manifested itself in many ways. As a role model, she's shown others how to handle fame with grace and good humor while never backing down from her values or goals. Just as importantly, she's shown others to refuse to accept limitations on what she can do or how much she can achieve." McEntire also explained to the online website, "Whatever I'm doing, I feel like I'm representing country music". "It's always been my main career, and it's where my loyalties lie. I feel like I'm waving the flag of country music wherever I go, and I couldn't be prouder to do it."
Personal life
McEntire is a Christian, and she has stated that her faith in God has helped her immensely throughout her life.
Two of her siblings have also had careers in the music industry. Her brother Pake dabbled in the country music industry in the late 1980s but returned to Oklahoma after a brief stint. He owns and operates a 1,000-acre ranch near Coalgate, Oklahoma, and continues to rodeo. Her sister Susie McEntire-Eaton (Martha Susan "Susie" McEntire-Eaton, formerly Luchsinger) is a successful Christian music singer who travels the country with her husband, speaking and performing. She also has an older sister, Alice Foran, a retired social worker who resides in Lane, Oklahoma. Her niece Calamity McEntire is an assistant basketball coach at the University of Dayton.
Relationships and children
In 1976, McEntire married steer wrestling champion and rancher Charlie Battles who was 10 years her senior and had two sons from his previous marriage. The couple shared a ranch in Oklahoma. In 1987, McEntire divorced Battles and moved to Nashville, Tennessee, to further pursue her career.
In 1989, McEntire married her manager and former steel guitar player Narvel Blackstock. The couple wed at Lake Tahoe on a boat in a private ceremony. Together, the pair took over all aspects of McEntire's career, forming Starstruck Entertainment, which was originally designed to help manage her career. From her marriage to Blackstock, McEntire gained three stepchildren, Chassidy, Shawna, and Brandon. She gave birth to a son, Shelby Steven McEntire Blackstock, in February 1990. On August 3, 2015, it was announced in a joint statement on McEntire's website that she and Blackstock had been separated for a few months after twenty-six years of marriage. McEntire announced in December 2015 that their divorce had been finalized on October 28, 2015. Despite the divorce, McEntire remains very close to her three stepchildren and the Blackstock family; she considers her stepchildren's children to be her grandchildren. McEntire's stepson Brandon Blackstock married singer Kelly Clarkson, with whom he has a daughter and a son. Speaking about their impending marriage in 2013, McEntire stated she was "Thrilled to death, to have my buddy as my daughter-in-law. I mean, who could ask for more?"
In 2017, McEntire began a relationship with photographer Anthony "Skeeter" Lasuzzo. The couple met through McEntire's association with Kix Brooks. In describing her feelings about Lasuzzo, she stated, "We're totally in love — absolutely," she says. "I wouldn’t put up with somebody for two years if I wasn’t in love with 'em!" McEntire and Lasuzzo separated in the fall of 2019.
In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, McEntire began dating film and TV actor Rex Linn.
Philanthropy
In 1992, she opened Reba's Ranch House in Denison, TX. Similar to a Ronald McDonald House, the house incorporates holistic care by providing a calm setting for rest, warm meals for nourishment and sensitive staff for spiritual connections to guests who have loved ones being treated at the nearby Texoma Medical Center.
Over the course of her career, she has been and continues to be an active supporter of various charitable organizations including Habitat for Humanity, The Salvation Army, the American Red Cross, Feeding America and Celebrity Fight Night. She has been honored with the Minnie Pearl Award, the ACM Home Depot Humanitarian Award and the Andrea Bocelli Foundation Humanitarian Award for her efforts. In 2018, she was honored with the Horatio Alger Award for Education, Charity Work. Named after the "rags to riches" writer, the award recognizes perseverance and giving back.
Accolades
McEntire has the second-most wins for the Academy of Country Music's Top Female Vocalist Awards with seven. McEntire holds the record American Music Awards for Favorite Country Female Artist (twelve). She also holds the distinction of being the first to win the Country Music Association's Female Vocalist of the Year Award four times consecutively. Martina McBride won Female Vocalist four times, although not consecutively. In 2013, Miranda Lambert tied McEntire to win Female Vocalist four years in a row and in 2016 Carrie Underwood joined this elite club by winning her fourth Female Vocalist award. McEntire is also a rare musical artist to achieve solo number-ones across four decades (1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s). She holds the record for most CMA Award nominations for a female artist, with 50. McEntire also holds the record with the most ACM Awards nominations for a female artist with 47, respectively. She is also the recipient of three Grammy Awards, winning in 1987, 1994 and 2018. In December 2018, McEntire received the Kennedy Center Honor. In December 2021 she was one of the five nominees for Person of the Year on Spotted Ratings, along with Mariska Hargitay, Olivia Rodrigo, Susan Lynn Rosner Rovner, and Rebecca Wisocky, but ultimately lost the award to Rovner due to the latter's extensive work restoring NBC to relevancy.
When Reba McEntire made her Grand Ole Opry debut on September 17, 1977, she almost did not make it in the door after a guard at the Opry gate missed her name on the night's list of performers. Her parents and older sister, Alice, drove 1,400 miles round trip from their Oklahoma home to see what turned out to be Reba's three-minute performance that night. Her act was cut from two songs to just one—"Invitation to the Blues"—because of a surprise appearance by Dolly Parton. McEntire was inducted into the Grand Ole Opry on January 17, 1986. "The Grand Ole Opry is a home," she says. "It's a family. It's like a family reunion, when you come back and get to see everybody."
In 2011, the Country Music Association announced that McEntire would be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. McEntire was unable to attend the announcement after her father had slipped into a coma following a stroke. McEntire attended the official induction ceremony alongside the other 2011 inductees Jean Shepard and Bobby Braddock. She was inducted by Dolly Parton.
Discography
Studio albums
Reba McEntire (1977)
Out of a Dream (1979)
Feel the Fire (1980)
Heart to Heart (1981)
Unlimited (1982)
Behind the Scene (1983)
Just a Little Love (1984)
My Kind of Country (1984)
Have I Got a Deal for You (1985)
Whoever's in New England (1986)
Reba Nell McEntire (1986)
What Am I Gonna Do About You (1986)
The Last One to Know (1987)
Merry Christmas to You (1987)
Reba (1988)
Sweet Sixteen (1989)
Rumor Has It (1990)
For My Broken Heart (1991)
It's Your Call (1992)
Read My Mind (1994)
Starting Over (1995)
What If It's You (1996)
If You See Him (1998)
So Good Together (1999)
The Secret of Giving: A Christmas Collection (1999)
Room to Breathe (2003)
Reba: Duets (2007)
Keep On Loving You (2009)
All the Women I Am (2010)
Love Somebody (2015)
My Kind of Christmas (2016)
Sing It Now: Songs of Faith & Hope (2017)
Stronger Than the Truth (2019)
Revived Remixed Revisited (2021)
Tours
Headlining tours
The Reba McEntire Show
The Last One to Know Tour
North American Tour '88
World Tour '89
'90 Tour
Rumor Has It Tour
Reba in Concert
It's Your Call Tour
Read My Mind Tour
Starting Over Tour
20th Anniversary Tour
Singer's Diary
Room to Breathe Tour
All the Women I Am Tour
Canadian Tour
Reba: Live in Concert
Co-headlining tours
Brooks & Dunn and Reba: The Tour
Girls Night Out
2 Hats and a Redhead
2 Worlds 2 Voices Tour
Reba and George Strait on Tour
Residency shows
Key to the Heart
Together in Vegas
Opening act
Today Tour
Filmography
See also
List of best-selling music artists in the United States
References
Footnotes
Books
Bibliography
External links
Reba McEntire Profile on Country Music Television
1955 births
20th-century American actresses
21st-century American actresses
20th-century American singers
21st-century American singers
Actresses from Oklahoma
American contraltos
American country singer-songwriters
American women country singers
American film actresses
American television actresses
American voice actresses
American Christians
Big Machine Records artists
Country Music Hall of Fame inductees
Grammy Award winners
Grand Ole Opry members
Kennedy Center honorees
Living people
MCA Records artists
Mercury Records artists
Singer-songwriters from Oklahoma
People from McAlester, Oklahoma
People from Atoka County, Oklahoma
Southeastern Oklahoma State University alumni
Members of the Country Music Association
Country musicians from Oklahoma
20th-century American women singers
21st-century American women singers
Theatre World Award winners
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[
"\"What Is This Thing Called Love?\" is a song written by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis and recorded by American recording artist Alexander O'Neal. It is the second single from the singer's fourth solo album, All True Man (1991). The song's distinctive backing vocals were performed by Lisa Keith. Following the successful chart performances of the All True Man single \"All True Man\", \"What Is This Thing Called Love?\" was released as the album's second single.\n\nRelease\nAlexander O'Neal's 19th hit single and it reached #53 in the UK Singles Chart. In the United States, the single reached #21 on Billboard's Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks.\n\nTrack listing\n 12\" Maxi (45 73804) \n\"What Is This Thing Called Love? (Dee Classic 12\" Mix)\" - 8:20\n\"What Is This Thing Called Love? (Dee Classic Radio Mix)\" - 3:37\n\"What Is This Thing Called Love? (LP Edit)\" - 3:58\n\"What Is This Thing Called Love? (Dee Red Zone Mix)\" - 5:41\n\"What Is This Thing Called Love? (Dee Instrumental Mix)\" - 5:58\n\"What Is This Thing Called Love? (Dee Reprise)\" - 2:13\n\n 7\" Single (656731 7) / Cassette Single (656731 4)\n\"What Is This Thing Called Love?\" - 4:08\n\"Crying Overtime\" - 4:55\n\n CD Single (656731 2)\n\"What Is This Thing Called Love? (Album Version)\" - 6:04\n\"The Lovers (Extended Version)\" - 7:02\n\"If You Were Here Tonight\" - 6:08\n\n CD Single (656731 9) \n\"What Is This Thing Called Love? (Dee Classic 12\" Mix)\" - 8:20\n\"What Is This Thing Called Love? (Dee Classic Radio Mix)\" - 3:37\n\"What Is This Thing Called Love? (Dee Red Zone Mix)\" - 5:41\n\"What Is This Thing Called Love? (Dee Reprise)\" - 2:13\n\n Cassette Single (35T 73810) \n\"What Is This Thing Called Love? (Dee Classic Radio Mix)\" - 3:37\n\"What Is This Thing Called Love? (Dee Instrumental Mix)\" - 5:58\n\nPersonnel\nCredits are adapted from the album's liner notes.\n\n Alexander O'Neal - lead vocals \n Jimmy Jam - acoustic piano, keyboards, synthesizer, drum programming, rhythm & vocal arrangements\n Terry Lewis - rhythm & vocal arrangements, backing vocals\n Lee Blaskey - string arrangements\n Susie Allard - strings\n Mynra Rian - strings\n Joanna Shelton - strings\n Carolyn Daws - strings\n Mary Bahr - strings\n Lea Foli - strings\n Julia Persilz - strings\n Hyacinthe Tlucek - strings\n Maricia Peck - strings\n Jeanne Ekhold - strings\n Luara Sewell - strings\n Rudolph Lekhter - strings\n Lisa Keith - backing vocals\n\nCharts\n\nHistory\n\"What Is This Thing Called Love?\" had its bass-line sampled in the 2018 Kanye West and Lil Pump song, \"I Love It\".\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\n1991 singles\nAlexander O'Neal songs\nSongs written by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis\n1991 songs\nSong recordings produced by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis\nTabu Records singles",
"\"It Is What It Is\" is an idiomatic phrase, indicating the immutable nature of an object or circumstance and may refer to:\n It Is What It Is, a 2001 film by Billy Frolick\n It Is What It Is, a 2007 autobiography by David Coulthard\n It Is What It Is: Conversations About Iraq, a project by Jeremy Deller\n It Is What It Is, a radio show hosted by Sean Baligian\n\nMusic\n B.A.R.S. The Barry Adrian Reese Story or It Is What It Is, a 2007 album by Cassidy\n It Is What It Is (ABN album) (2008)\n It Is What It Is (Johnny Logan album) (2017)\n It Is What It Is (Thundercat album) (2020)\n It Is What It Is, a 1982 album by The Hitmen\n \"It Is What It Is\", a 1988 song by Derrick May from the compilation album Techno! The New Dance Sound of Detroit\n \"It Is What It Is (What It Is)\", a 1992 song by Adam Again from Dig\n\"It Is What It Is\", a 1995 song by The Highwaymen from the album The Road Goes On Forever\n \"It Is What It Is\", a 2010 song by Lifehouse from Smoke & Mirrors\n \"It Is What It Is\", a 2013 song by Blood Orange from Cupid Deluxe\n \"It Is What It Is\", a 2013 song by Kacey Musgraves from Same Trailer Different Park\n \"It Is What It Is\", a 2016 song by Lecrae from Church Clothes 3\n \"It Is What It Is\", a 2009 song by Vic Chesnutt from At the Cut\n\nSee also \n Fihi Ma Fihi, a Persian prose work by Rumi\n Tautophrase\n What It Is (disambiguation)"
] |
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"Reba McEntire",
"2014-2016: Nash Icon, Love Somebody, Christmas and Gospel albums, America's Got Talent",
"What was her goal",
"Big Machine's new imprint Nash Icon Music.",
"What did this mean",
"she was working on a new album, with 11 new songs.",
"What was",
"Her first single for the new label,",
"When was this realesed",
"January 6, 2015.",
"What did it do",
"It served as the lead-off single to",
"What is the album called",
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C_250e1915dae4444eacc416035a1b7b5b_1
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What album is this
| 7 |
What album is Love Somebody?
|
Reba McEntire
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On October 21, 2014, it was announced that McEntire would be the inaugural signing for Big Machine's new imprint Nash Icon Music. She also disclosed that she was working on a new album, with 11 new songs. Her first single for the new label, "Going Out Like That", was announced December 16, 2014 and was released on January 6, 2015. It served as the lead-off single to Love Somebody, McEntire's twenty-seventh studio album, released on April 14, 2015. Love Somebody debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Top Country Albums--her twelfth number-one album on the chart--and No. 3 on Billboard 200, selling 62,469 copies in the U.S. The album has sold 171,600 copies in the U.S. as of October 5, 2015. In 2016, McEntire was selected as one of thirty artists to perform on "Forever Country", a mash-up track of Take Me Home, Country Roads, On the Road Again and I Will Always Love You which celebrates 50 years of the CMA Awards. McEntire released her third Christmas album My Kind of Christmas on September 2, 2016. The album was exclusively sold at Cracker Barrel and online. She also announced she would soon be selling her own line of clothing, home decor, jewelry and other things under the "Rockin' R by Reba" line also at Cracker Barrel. McEntire was a guest judge on the July 13, 2016 episode of America's Got Talent. She used her golden buzzer, which she could only use once and allowed an act to go straight to the live shows, on contortionist Sofie Dossi. CANNOTANSWER
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McEntire's twenty-seventh studio album,
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Reba Nell McEntire, also known mononymously as Reba, (born March 28, 1955) is an American country music singer, actress and businesswoman. She is often referred to as "the Queen of Country," having sold more than 75 million records worldwide. Since the 1970s, McEntire has placed over 100 singles on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, 25 of which reached the number one spot. She is also credited as an actress, having appeared in both films and television. She starred in the television series Reba, which aired for six seasons. She also owns several businesses, including a clothing line.
One of four children, McEntire was born and raised in the state of Oklahoma. In childhood and adolescence, her interests included barrel racing and sports. She also had a natural singing ability, which was encouraged by her mother. With her mother's help, she and her siblings formed the Singing McEntires, which played at local events and recorded for a small label. McEntire later enrolled at Southeastern Oklahoma State University and studied to become a public school teacher. She also continued to occasionally perform and was heard singing at a rodeo event by country performer Red Steagall. Drawn to her singing voice, Steagall helped McEntire secure a country music recording contract with PolyGram/Mercury Records in 1975.
Over the next several years, PolyGram/Mercury released a series of McEntire's albums and singles, which amounted to little success. In the early 1980s, McEntire's music gained more momentum through several top ten country songs, including "(You Lift Me) Up to Heaven", "I'm Not That Lonely Yet" and her first number one "Can't Even Get the Blues". Yet McEntire became increasingly unhappy with her career trajectory and signed with MCA Records in 1984. Her second MCA album titled My Kind of Country (1984) became her breakout release, spawning two number one Billboard country singles and pointed towards a more traditional musical style. Through the 1980s, McEntire released seven more studio albums and had ten more number one country hits. Her number one singles included "One Promise Too Late", "The Last One to Know" and the Grammy Award-winning "Whoever's in New England".
In 1991, McEntire lost eight of her band members in a plane crash in San Diego, California. The experience led to McEntire's critically acclaimed album For My Broken Heart, which is her highest-selling disc to date. She followed it with several commercially successful albums during the 1990s, including Read My Mind (1994), What If It's You (1996) and If You See Him (1998). These albums featured the number one country singles "The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter", "How Was I to Know" and a duet with Brooks and Dunn called "If You See Him/If You See Her". McEntire also began acting on film and television, beginning with 1990's Tremors. In 2001, she played the role of Annie Oakley in the Broadway musical Annie Get Your Gun. The same year, the WB channel launched the TV series Reba, which starred McEntire in the lead role. The show became successful and ran until 2007.
In 2004, McEntire returned to her country recording career with the top five Billboard album Room to Breathe. She followed the release with 2007's Reba: Duets, 2009's Keep On Loving You and 2011's All the Women I Am. Her 2000's albums spawned the number one singles "Somebody", "Consider Me Gone" and "Turn on the Radio". In 2012, McEntire briefly returned to television with the series Malibu Country and in 2018 portrayed the role of Colonel Sanders in television commercials for KFC. She has continued releasing new music, including Love Somebody (2015), Sing It Now (2017) and Revived Remixed Revisited (2021).
Early life
McEntire was born in McAlester, Oklahoma in 1955 but was raised on a ranch in Chockie, Oklahoma. She was the third of four children born to Clark and Jacqueline McEntire. Her grandfather, John Wesley McEntire, was a world-champion steer roper in 1934, while her father held the same title three times (1957, 1958 and 1961). Jacqueline McEntire had aspirations of becoming a country singer, but instead became a public school teacher, librarian and secretary While her mother was tender and loving, her father had trouble showing affection. "When we were growing up I used to regret that Daddy never told us that he loved us," she recalled in her autobiography. The McEntire family owned a cattle ranch in Chockie. Each family member contributed to running the cattle operation. The McEntire children helped with ranch chores before and after school. This included castrating bulls and giving them worm medicine.
The McEntire siblings also developed an interest in singing, which was encouraged by their mother. On car trips to their father's rodeo dates, Jacqueline McEntire taught her children to sing in harmony with one another. Young Reba then started performing school, beginning in first grade when she sang "Away in a Manger" at an elementary school Christmas pageant. In fifth grade, she joined the 4-H club and won first place in the Junior Act Division for singing "My Sweet Little Alice Blue Gown". She also played basketball and ran track. For several summers, she attended a basketball camp. She also learned piano and guitar. She also developed an interest in the rodeo and trained to become a barrel racer.
By high school the McEntire siblings had been frequently performing. Together, they formed a trio which they called The Singing McEntires. In 1971, the trio released a single about their famous grandfather called "The Ballad of John McEntire". It was pressed as a single by a local label and was issued in small numbers regionally. The trio eventually included a backing band which performed at local functions. The group was later named The Kiowa High School Cowboy Band. They also had paying gigs at bars at dance halls in nearby Oklahoma City. "We were a bunch of kids barely in puberty who didn't get to bed until almost daylight after some of our shows," McEntire remembered. The band parted ways once Reba's brother graduated high school. In 1973, McEntire graduated from Kiowa High School.
Once finishing high school, McEntire enrolled in college at Southeastern Oklahoma State University. She majored in elementary education with a minor in music. She completed student teaching and later graduated with a Bachelor's degree. She also continued to help out on her family's ranch during her college years. In 1974, McEntire's father encouraged her to take a job opportunity singing "The Star-Spangled Banner" at the National Finals Rodeo in Oklahoma City. She contacted family friend and rodeo announcer Clem McSpadden, who helped her get hired for the gig. Following one of her performances, McEntire was heard by country artist Red Steagall who was impressed by her singing. Reba, her siblings and her mother later joined him at a hotel party the same week. At the hotel, Reba performed an a cappella version of Dolly Parton's "Joshua". Jacqueline McEntire asked Steagall if he was able to help get all her children a recording contract. After going back to Nashville, Steagall contacted her in early 1975 and said, "I can't take all three. But I could take Reba. She's got something a little different."
In March 1975 and accompanied by her mother, McEntire embarked on a trip to Nashville, Tennessee to record a demonstration tape that Steagall hoped to pass along to record labels. At the start of the trip, she was unsure about pursuing a professional country music career. McEntire recalled in her autobiography continually making excuses for her mother to stop the car instead of traveling to Nashville. After noticing her daughter's fear, Jacqueline McEntire told her, "Now Reba, let me tell you something. If you don't want to go to Nashville, we don't have to do this. But I'm living all my dreams through you." The conversation changed her mind and they continued on to Nashville.
After recording a demo, McEntire's tape was heard by Glenn Keener of PolyGram/Mercury Records, who was interested in signing her to a Nashville contract. Keener brought McEntire's tape and another female's tape to PolyGram's Chicago headquarters. The label informed Kenner that he could only sign one female performer. "He looked at the two tapes in his hand and handed ’em mine," McEntire told Entertainment Weekly.
Music career
1976–1983: Career launch at Mercury
In November 1975, McEntire signed a country music recording contract with PolyGram/Mercury Records. She made her first recordings for the label in January 1976. She was produced by Glenn Keener and was backed by a Countrypolitan arrangement that included a string section. McEntire's debut single was released in 1976 titled "I Don't Want to Be a One Night Stand". The track failed to become a major hit, only peaking at number 88 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart that May. It was followed by the low-charting Billboard country singles "(There's Nothing Like the Love) Between a Woman and Man" and "Glad I Waited Just for You". Mercury issued her self-titled debut album in 1977. In his album review, Greg Adams of AllMusic compared it to the country crossover style of Barbara Mandrell and Tammy Wynette. McEntire also began touring and performing more frequently. Without a band of her own, she often relied on house bands to accompany her. In some instances, the backing bands did not know country music and McEntire would have to fill her time onstage with jokes.
McEntire's career gained more momentum by 1978. That year she collaborated on two singles with country artist Jacky Ward. The duo's double-sided release of "I'd Really Love to See You Tonight"/"Three Sheets in the Wind" became her first top 20 hit on the country chart. When Glenn Keener left the PolyGram/Mercury roster, McEntire inherited producer Jerry Kennedy. Kennedy produced her second studio album titled Out of a Dream (1979). The album's cover of Patsy Cline's "Sweet Dreams" became her first top 20 hit as a solo artist. Four additional top 40 country singles were spawned from the album as well. By 1980, McEntire had formed her own band which included sister Susie and brother Pake McEntire. She also hired a new manager. McEntire and her band toured to dates in a three-car caravan, which included a horse trailer for transporting instruments. She later upgraded to a bus nicknamed "Silver Eagle", which routinely broke down. Also in 1980, "(You Lift Me) Up to Heaven" became her first top ten hit on the country songs chart. It was included on her third studio album, Feel the Fire, which was released in October.
By this point, McEntire's label pushed her record music in a soft country pop style that she often disagreed with. Future material (which included her next album) was recorded in this format. Her fourth album, Heart to Heart was issued in 1981 and became her first disc to chart the Billboard Country Albums list. It received only a 2.5 star review from AllMusic's William Ruhlmann, who described McEntire as being "a promising, but not yet accomplished country artist." Yet its lead single, "Today All Over Again", became her highest charting country single yet, reaching number five. In 1983, McEntire's bus had broken down when she was informed that her latest single "Can't Even Get the Blues" reached the number one spot on the Billboard country chart. It was followed by her second number one song "You're the First Time I Thought About Leaving". The track also became her second to reach the top ten of Canada's RPM country songs chart. Both singles appeared on her 1983 album Unlimited. The following year, the single "Why Do We Want (What We Know We Can't Have)" reached the top ten. With increased success in the country music industry, she was able to arrange an early release from PolyGram/Mercury in 1983. "Let met put it this way, I've sorta taken my career into control myself," she explained of the decision.
1984–1990: Breakthrough
McEntire signed with MCA Records in 1984 and released her seventh studio album Just a Little Love. Harold Shedd was originally intended to produce the disc, however, McEntire rejected his desire for a country pop arrangement. Instead, Norro Wilson produced the project. Despite spawning a top ten hit, McEntire was still dissatisfied with the record's production and the lack of control over material. Instead, she turned to MCA president Jimmy Bowen who suggested that she find her own songs to record. Accompanied by Don "Dirt" Lanier, McEntire spent several days listening to various songs from publishing companies. Eventually she found a song written by Harlan Howard titled "Somebody Should Leave" and a song by Jon Moffat titled "How Blue". Released as singles, they reached the number one spot on the country songs chart and later appeared on 1984's My Kind of Country. The collection also included several covers of classic country songs by Ray Price, Charley Pride and Connie Smith. AllMusic's William Ruhlmann gave the disc 4.5 stars. Billboard magazine described McEntire on the album as being "the finest woman country singer since Kitty Wells." The album became her breakthrough recording, leading McEntire to winning 1984's Female Vocalist of the Year accolade from the Country Music Association. Along with music by George Strait and Randy Travis, the album also brought forth a stylistic change in country towards traditional arrangements and sounds.
Her next MCA album was 1985's Have I Got a Deal for You. The project followed the same traditional country format of its predecessor. It was produced by Jimmy Bowen, along with co-production credits from McEntire herself. The album 's title track reached the Billboard country top ten along with "Only in My Mind", a song composed by McEntire herself. In February 1986, her ninth studio album was released named Whoever's in New England. On the record, McEntire and co-producer Jimmy Bowen mixed a traditional country style with a modern, contemporary sound. Author Kurt Wolff described the title track's production, as being "bigger and sentimentalism more obvious, even manipulative". Issued as the lead single, the title track peaked at number one on the Bilboard country chart and won McEntire the Grammy Award for Best Female Country Vocal Performance. The album itself became her first to top the Billboard Country Albums survey. and later certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America for sales of one million copies.
By this point McEntire had reached the height of her commercial stardom. Following this, McEntire made changes to her stage show. She began implementing choreography and experimented with stage lighting. Also in 1986, McEntire's twelfth studio album appeared titled What Am I Gonna Do About You. AllMusic found that it lacked the features that had made Whoever's in New England unique. The title track was the lead single from the release. It became her next number one song on the Billboard country chart and her first number one on the RPM Canadian country chart. Its second single "One Promise Too Late" also topped the country chart. Her thirteenth studio project, The Last One to Know, was released in 1987 and reached number three on the Billboard country albums chart. Reviewer Tom Roland noted that McEntire chose material that reflected her recent divorce from first husband Charlie Battles. Both the title track and "Love Will Find Its Way to You" topped the Billboard country songs chart. In late 1987, McEntire released her first Christmas collection called Merry Christmas to You. Also in 1987, she played Carnegie Hall in New York City for the first time.
In the late 1980s, McEntire took more control of her career. She fired her manager and formed her own entertainment company that helped further promote her material. Other new changes included her 1988 pop-inspired release Reba. Her fifteenth studio disc included covers of the former pop hits "Respect" and "A Sunday Kind of Love". It produced the number one Billboard country singles "New Fool at an Old Game" and "I Know How He Feels". It was followed by 1989's Sweet Sixteen, which was noted to be a more of a "return[s] to the neo-traditionalist fold", according to reviewer William Ruhlmann. The album featured the country hits "'Til Love Comes Again", "Little Girl", "Walk On" and a cover of "Cathy's Clown". Her first live project titled Reba Live was also released in 1989.
Rumor Has It (1990) was another pop-oriented album release featuring a mix of ballads and uptempo numbers. It was the first disc in McEntire's career to reach the top 40 of the Billboard 200 albums chart. The disc would became McEntire's highest-selling albums, certifying three-times platinum from the RIAA. Four hit country singles came from the release, including "You Lie" and her cover of "Fancy". The latter single eventually become one of McEntire's signature songs.
1991: Plane crash and For My Broken Heart
In the late 1980s, McEntire's touring schedule became increasingly busy. To avoid long bus trips, she and her band began traveling by private planes to concerts. McEntire and her touring band started the 1991 leg of their tour with dates in Alaska, Saginaw, Michigan, Fort Wayne, Indiana and a private gig for IBM in San Diego, California. Two planes were scheduled to leave San Diego which would carry McEntire's band. McEntire, her husband and her stylist would take a different aircraft the next day. In the middle of the night on March 16, 1991, McEntire was awoken to a phone call from Roger Woolsey, who flew the second plane. McEntire's husband took the call and discovered that one of the planes had crashed. Following the successful takeoff of both planes, one plane's wing hit the side of Otay Mountain in San Diego, killing everyone on board.
In total, eight members of her band were killed: Chris Austin, Kirk Cappello, Joey Cigainero, Paula Kaye Evans, Jim Hammon, Terry Jackson, Anthony Saputo, and Michael Thomas. In addition pilot Donald Holmes and co-pilot Chris Hollinger were also killed. The first plane was a Hawker Siddeley DH-125-1A/522 charter jet that took off at 1:40 AM from the Brown Field Municipal Airport, located near the border of Mexico. After reaching an altitude of above sea level, the aircraft crashed on the side of Otay Mountain, located east of the airport. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) determined the probable cause of the accident was related to "improper pilot planning".
Meanwhile, the second plane carrying the rest of her band made it successfully to an airport in Nashville. McEntire, her husband and hair stylist returned on their own plane following the accident. "By the time that long, terrible weekend was over, we were emotionally and physically exhausted," McEntire stated in her autobiography. The news was reported nearly immediately to McEntire and her husband, who were sleeping at a nearby hotel. A spokeswoman for McEntire made a statement to The Los Angeles Times on behalf of her: "She was very close to all of them. Some of them had been with her for years. Reba is totally devastated by this. It's like losing part of your family. Right now she just wants to get back to Nashville." Two days after the crash, McEntire conducted an interview with People magazine and scheduled a memorial service for the families of the victims. Nine days following the accident, McEntire performed at the 63rd Academy Awards ceremony, singing the Best Original Song nominee "I'm Checkin' Out" from the film Postcards from the Edge. In addition, Vince Gill and Dolly Parton offered their help in reorganizing her touring band.
McEntire dedicated her sixteenth album, For My Broken Heart, to the deceased members of her road band. Released in October 1991, it contained songs of sorrow and lost love about "all measure of suffering", according to Alanna Nash of Entertainment Weekly. Nash reported that McEntire "still hits her stride with the more traditional songs of emotional turmoil, above all combining a spectacular vocal performance with a terrific song on 'Buying Her Roses', a wife's head-spinning discovery of her husband's other woman." The disc peaked at number three on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart. It also became her highest-charting release on the Billboard 200 yet, peaking at number 13. It later sold over four million copies in the United States, becoming her best-selling album to date. Its title track and "Is There Life Out There" both became number one Billboard country singles. In addition, "The Greatest Man I Never Knew" and McEntire's cover of "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia" both became major country hits.
1992–2002: Continued country success
In December 1992, McEntire's seventeenth album It's Your Call was released. A sign of her increased mainstream success, the album was her first to reach the top ten of the Billboard 200. It spawned the country hits "Take It Back", the title track and a number one duet with Vince Gill called "The Heart Won't Lie". Critic Brian Mansfield compared the disc to For My Broken Heart, concluding that "only casual or partial listeners will be moved as much." Christopher John Farley of Time wrote that the album ranged from being "relaxing" to "cathartic", and "these vocals from one of the best country singers linger in the mind". For her next release, McEntire collaborated with up-and-coming artist Linda Davis on the single "Does He Love You". MCA Records encouraged McEntire to record the track with more established acts like Wynonna Judd or Trisha Yearwood, but ultimately finalized the track with Davis. It became her eighteenth number one hit on the Country Songs chart and her sixteenth number one hit on the Canadian country chart. It was later included on her 1993 compilation Greatest Hits Volume Two. Later that year, Davis and McEntire performed the duet at the CMA Awards. For her performance, McEntire wore a red dress with a plunging neckline that created controversy among the Nashville community.
Her eighteenth studio release was 1994's Read My Mind. The disc reached number two on both the Billboard 200 and the Top Country Albums chart. The disc later reached sales of three million copies in the United States and certified three times platinum from the RIAA. Five major hits came from the release, including "The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter", "Till You Love Me" and a song about a woman contracting AIDS called "She Thinks His Name Was John". The latter recording only reached a top 20 charting position due to its controversial lyrics. McEntire's nineteenth studio album, Starting Over (1995) was collection of her favorite songs originally recorded by others. The album was made to commemorate McEntire's twenty years in the music industry. The album received a less favorable response from critics than that of her previous releases. While project spawned three charting singles, only McEntire's cover of "Ring on Her Finger, Time on Her Hands" became a top ten country song. Starting Over was certified platinum by the RIAA within the first two months of its release.
McEntire's next album release What If It's You was issued by MCA in November 1996. The record was a return to a contemporary country sound. It debuted at number 15 on the Billboard 200 and eventually topped the Billboard country albums list. It received a more favorable response from radio programmers than that of her 1995 album and received greater promotion. Critic Thom Owens noted that the project "[didn't] offer any new tricks from Reba McEntire, but it is nevertheless an excellent reminder of her deep talents as a vocalist." Its first single, "The Fear of Being Alone" became a top five hit, while "How Was I to Know" reached the number one spot on the Billboard country songs survey.
McEntire began touring with country duo Brooks & Dunn during the mid 1990s. Their touring collaborating led to the recording of a duet titled "If You See Him/If You See Her" in 1998. The track topped both the Billboard country songs chart and the Canadian RPM country chart. Their initial collaborations would lead to several more professional endeavors over the years, including a joint Las Vegas residency. The duet was included on McEntire's If You See Him album and Brooks & Dunn's If You See Her album, both of which were released in June 1998. Thom Owens found that both album titles were named nearly the same as "a way to draw attention for both parties, since they were no longer new guns—they were veterans in danger of losing ground to younger musicians". If You See Him produced three more top ten country hits including "Forever Love" and "One Honest Heart".
In 1999, McEntire released two albums. In September she issued her second Christmas album, The Secret of Giving: A Christmas Collection. In November, her twenty-second studio album, So Good Together was released. Entertainment Weekly commented that most of the album's material was "an odd set—mostly ballads, including an English/Portuguese duet with Jose e Durval on Boz Scaggs' 'We're All Alone'". It featured the top five country songs "What Do You Say" and "I'll Be". McEntire focused on an acting career in the early 2000s and took a temporary musical hiatus. One exception was 2001's "I'm a Survivor". The single became a top five country hit and the theme song to McEntire's 2001 television series.
2003–2015: Country music comeback, record label switch and continued music success
McEntire returned to her recording career in August 2003 with the release of the MCA single "I'm Gonna Take That Mountain". The song was included on her first studio album in four years titled Room to Breathe (November 2003). "The reason I named the album Room to Breathe is because I needed a little room to breathe," McEntire told Billboard. The 12-track disc was produced by Buddy Cannon and Norro Wilson. It also featured a guest appearance from Vince Gill. Room to Breathe debuted at number four on the Billboard country chart and later certified platinum in the United States. It spawned McEntire's first number one song in six years titled "Somebody". Also featured was the top ten single "He Gets That from Me". In 2004, she embarked on her first tour in several years also titled "Room to Breathe", which included 36 cities in the United States. In 2005, MCA released the double-disc compilation titled Reba #1's while she was in between albums.
In September 2007, McEntire's next studio disc was releaded titled Reba: Duets. The album was a collection of duets with various music artists, including Kenny Chesney, LeAnn Rimes, Trisha Yearwood, Carole King, and Justin Timberlake. Reba: Duets topped the Billboard country chart and theBillboard 200, becoming her first album in her career to top reach the top of both lists. Reba: Duets was later certified platinum by the RIAA. The album was given high critical praise from magazines such as PopMatters, which compared McEntire to artists like Janis Joplin and Tina Turner. AllMusic's Thom Jurek gave it 3.5 stars, commenting that "it's full of good to great songs delivered in mostly interesting ways." The first single was a duet version of Kelly Clarkson's "Because of You", which reached number two on the American country chart and topped the Canadian country songs chart.
In 2008, McEntire announced that she would be departing her label of 25 years and signing with the Valory Music Group, an imprint of Big Machine Records. The switch to Valory reunited McEntire with the label's president, Scott Borchetta, whom she had worked with previously. Her first Valory single was 2009's "Strange". The song debuted at number 39 Billboard country songs chart, giving McEntire the highest single debut of her career and peaked at number eleven. Her twenty-sixth studio album, Keep On Loving You was released in August 2009 and also topped both the Billboard Country and 200 charts. In 2009, "Consider Me Gone" (spawned as the record's second single) became her 24th number-one on the Billboard chart in December. At age 54, McEntire became one of the oldest women to have a number one single on the country songs chart.
McEntire's twenty-ninth studio album All the Women I Am was released in November 2010. Steve Morse of The Boston Globe called the project "one of her best efforts", while Thom Jurek at AllMusic only gave it a 2.5 star rating, calling it "awkward" and lacking a "center". "Turn On the Radio" was issued as the lead single prior to the album, eventually becoming her twenty firth number one on the Billboard country survey. Three additional charting singles were spawned from All the Women I Am that peaked outside the top 20. Her All the Women I Am Tour tour followed shortly after late featuring country acts the Band Perry, Steel Magnolia, and Edens Edge. In 2014, McEntire moved to Big Machine's new imprint for veteran artists titled Nash Icon Music. Her first Nash Icon single was 2015's "Going Out Like That", which reached the top 25 of the Billboard country songs chart. It was included on her 2015 Nash Icon album Love Somebody. The album topped the country albums chart and charted the top five of the Billboard 200. In 2016, McEntire released a third Christmas-themed studio album called My Kind of Christmas. The album was exclusively sold at Cracker Barrel and online. She also announced she would soon be selling her own line of clothing, home decor, jewelry and other things under the "Rockin' R by Reba" line also at Cracker Barrel.
2017–present: New beginnings in her 60s
After her split from ex-husband Narvel Blackstock, McEntire took control of her career as her own manager. She recruited Justin McIntosh of Starstruck Entertainment, Leslie Matthews serving as Brand Manager, and Carolyn Snell who has been with McEntire for nine years. They formed Reba's Business Inc. (RBI). She moved out of the building she and Blackstock had worked in, and moved her company to Green Hills, Nashville.
On December 15, 2016, McEntire announced that she was releasing her first gospel album titled Sing It Now: Songs of Faith & Hope. It was released by Nash Icon/Rockin' R Records on February 3, 2017, and consists of two discs. Disc one contains traditional hymns while disc two contains original tracks. "Softly and Tenderly", featuring Kelly Clarkson and Trisha Yearwood, was the first track off the album released. Another track on the album, "In the Garden/Wonderful Peace", features the Isaacs. Jay DeMarcus of the Rascal Flatts produced the album. The first single off the album is "Back to God". In January 2018, McEntire won the Grammy Award for Best Roots Gospel Album, her first nomination since 2007, and her first Grammy Award win in more than twenty years, since 1994. She also headlined the C2C: Country to Country festival in the UK alongside Brad Paisley and Zac Brown Band in March. Because of its limited release in 2016, on October 13, 2017 My Kind of Christmas was re-released - this time including songs with Vince Gill, Amy Grant, Darius Rucker and Lauren Daigle - on her website and through iTunes. In July 2018, it was announced that McEntire would be one of four honorees for the 41st annual Kennedy Center Honors, along with Cher, Philip Glass, and Wayne Shorter. The ceremony was held December 2, 2018, and broadcast on CBS December 26, 2018.
McEntire released her twenty-ninth studio album Stronger Than the Truth on April 5, 2019. McEntire also returned to host the 54th Academy of Country Music Awards on April 8, 2019.
On June 25, 2019, The New York Times Magazine listed McEntire among hundreds of artists whose material was destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.
On February 20, 2020, during a surprise appearance at the Country Radio Seminar, McEntire announced she had signed a new record deal with MCA Nashville, returning to the label after leaving in November 2008. McEntire hosted the 54th Annual Country Music Association Awards alongside Darius Rucker in November 2020. McEntire previously hosted in 2019 with Carrie Underwood and Dolly Parton, 1992 with Vince Gill, 1991 by herself (the second solo female host) and 1990 with Randy Travis.
Acting career
1989–99: Entry into film and television acting
In 1990, she obtained her first film role playing Heather Gummer in the horror comedy Tremors, along with Kevin Bacon. The film told the story of a small group of people living in Nevada who were fighting subterranean worm-like creatures. After the film's release, McEntire developed a strong interest in acting and made it her second career. The film earned McEntire a nomination for Best Supporting Actress at the 1991 Saturn Awards. The following year, she starred along with Kenny Rogers and Burt Reynolds in the made-for-television movies The Gambler Returns: The Luck of the Draw and The Man From Left Field. In 1994, McEntire worked with director Rob Reiner in the film North, playing Ma Tex. The film obtained negative reviews, receiving only two and a half stars from Allmovie.
In 1994, McEntire starred in Is There Life Out There? a television movie based on her song of the same name. The following year, she appeared in Buffalo Girls, which was based upon the life of western cowgirl Calamity Jane (played by Anjelica Huston). Playing Jane's friend Annie Oakley, Buffalo Girls was nominated for an Emmy award. In 1996, McEntire was cast by director James Cameron as Molly Brown in his film Titanic. However, when it became apparent production for the film would extend well beyond its original length, McEntire had to turn down the part, as she had already scheduled prior concert engagements. The role was recast with Kathy Bates. In 1998, she starred as Lizzie Brooks in Forever Love, which was based upon McEntire's hit single of the same name.
2000–07: Broadway and television series
In early 2001, McEntire expanded into theater, starring in the Broadway revival of Annie Get Your Gun. Playing Annie Oakley (whom she had previously portrayed in Buffalo Girls), her performance was critically acclaimed by several newspapers, including The New York Times, which commented, "Without qualification the best performance by an actress in a musical comedy this season." McEntire personally called the musical "some of the hardest work I've ever done in my life".
In 2005, McEntire starred as Nellie Forbush in the Carnegie Hall concert production of the Broadway musical South Pacific with Alec Baldwin as Luther Billis and Brian Stokes Mitchell as Emile de Becque, directed by Walter Bobbie and with an adapted script by David Ives. The concert was broadcast as part of the Great Performances series in 2006.
In October 2001, McEntire premiered her half-hour television sitcom Reba on the WB network. The show was based around divorced mother Reba Hart, who learns how to handle life situations after her husband divorces her in order to marry his dental hygienist––with whom he had been cheating and gotten pregnant––and then their teenage daughter becomes pregnant as well. Reba garnered critical acclaim and success, becoming the network's highest-rated television show for adults ranging from the ages of 18 to 49. The show ran for six seasons and earned McEntire a nomination for a Golden Globe award. It was canceled on February 18, 2007; the series finale had 8.7 million viewers.
2011–20: Brief television return and current projects
In September 2011, McEntire confirmed on her website that ABC had ordered a pilot for her second television series Malibu Country. McEntire played a divorced mother of two who moves to Malibu, California to restart her music career. The pilot was filmed in April 2012 and began production on its first season in August. It was announced that the pilot for Malibu Country would premiere November 2, 2012. The show was broadcast Friday nights at 8:30/7:30c on ABC. On May 11, 2012, McEntire tweeted that the show had been picked up. She also was the host in the 2011 NASCAR Award Show in Las Vegas.
Despite reports that Malibu Country was the most-watched freshman comedy in its debut season (8.7 million), the show was canceled on May 10, 2013, after eighteen episodes.
In January 2017, it was announced that McEntire would star and produce a Southern drama series for ABC titled Red Blooded. It was reported in May that ABC ultimately turned down the show, so it moved to being shopped around to other networks. In January 2018, Reba was chosen to portray KFC's first female Colonel Sanders. The commercials ran through the end of April 2018.
In 2020, McEntire launched a podcast titled Living & Learning hosted by herself and her former Reba co-star Melissa Peterman.
She made a cameo appearance in the 2021 comedy film Barb and Star go to Vista Del Mar as a water spirit named Trish after Annie Mumolo and Kristen Wiig, who wrote, produced, and starred in the film, wrote her an "impassioned letter" asking her to join the film. Director Josh Greenbaum said in an interview, "There's some casting that just clicks. Reba is not only 100% authentic, we knew she would be game."
Musical styles and legacy
McEntire's sound has been influenced by the country music of Bob Wills, Merle Haggard, Dolly Parton, Barbara Mandrell, and Patsy Cline. In college, McEntire attended local dances at the Oklahoma–Texas border so she could dance to Wills's music, commenting that, "it didn't get any better than dancing to Bob Wills music". She also explained Merle Haggard's influence on her career, stating "I had every album he ever put out", and would sing "every song he did", along with her brother, Pake and sister, Susie. In addition, her first major hit, "Sweet Dreams" was a remake of Patsy Cline's version of the song, according to McEntire herself.
McEntire's music has been described to not only be built upon traditional country music, but also expand into the genres of country pop, mainstream pop, soul, and R&B. At times, her music has been criticized for moving away from traditional country music. Many music critics have called her music to be "melodramatic", "formulaic", and "bombastic", particularly after her 1988 album Reba. Studio releases such as Sweet Sixteen, Rumor Has It, It's Your Call, and Starting Over have been described by these terms.
McEntire possesses a contralto vocal range and performs "vocal gymnastics" with her voice, a musical technique in which a singer twirls a note around, using their vibrato. McEntire has credited Dolly Parton for influencing this trait, stating that she always listened to Parton's records and find her style of vocal gymnastics "so pretty".
McEntire has often been regarded as one of country music's most influential female vocalists and most beloved entertainers. She is highly credited for remaining one of country's most popular female artists for nearly four decades, maintaining her success by continually incorporating contemporary musical sounds without changing her traditional vocal style. For numerous artists, she has been credited as an inspiration to their careers in music. The Net Music Countdown second-handedly reported, "That influence has manifested itself in many ways. As a role model, she's shown others how to handle fame with grace and good humor while never backing down from her values or goals. Just as importantly, she's shown others to refuse to accept limitations on what she can do or how much she can achieve." McEntire also explained to the online website, "Whatever I'm doing, I feel like I'm representing country music". "It's always been my main career, and it's where my loyalties lie. I feel like I'm waving the flag of country music wherever I go, and I couldn't be prouder to do it."
Personal life
McEntire is a Christian, and she has stated that her faith in God has helped her immensely throughout her life.
Two of her siblings have also had careers in the music industry. Her brother Pake dabbled in the country music industry in the late 1980s but returned to Oklahoma after a brief stint. He owns and operates a 1,000-acre ranch near Coalgate, Oklahoma, and continues to rodeo. Her sister Susie McEntire-Eaton (Martha Susan "Susie" McEntire-Eaton, formerly Luchsinger) is a successful Christian music singer who travels the country with her husband, speaking and performing. She also has an older sister, Alice Foran, a retired social worker who resides in Lane, Oklahoma. Her niece Calamity McEntire is an assistant basketball coach at the University of Dayton.
Relationships and children
In 1976, McEntire married steer wrestling champion and rancher Charlie Battles who was 10 years her senior and had two sons from his previous marriage. The couple shared a ranch in Oklahoma. In 1987, McEntire divorced Battles and moved to Nashville, Tennessee, to further pursue her career.
In 1989, McEntire married her manager and former steel guitar player Narvel Blackstock. The couple wed at Lake Tahoe on a boat in a private ceremony. Together, the pair took over all aspects of McEntire's career, forming Starstruck Entertainment, which was originally designed to help manage her career. From her marriage to Blackstock, McEntire gained three stepchildren, Chassidy, Shawna, and Brandon. She gave birth to a son, Shelby Steven McEntire Blackstock, in February 1990. On August 3, 2015, it was announced in a joint statement on McEntire's website that she and Blackstock had been separated for a few months after twenty-six years of marriage. McEntire announced in December 2015 that their divorce had been finalized on October 28, 2015. Despite the divorce, McEntire remains very close to her three stepchildren and the Blackstock family; she considers her stepchildren's children to be her grandchildren. McEntire's stepson Brandon Blackstock married singer Kelly Clarkson, with whom he has a daughter and a son. Speaking about their impending marriage in 2013, McEntire stated she was "Thrilled to death, to have my buddy as my daughter-in-law. I mean, who could ask for more?"
In 2017, McEntire began a relationship with photographer Anthony "Skeeter" Lasuzzo. The couple met through McEntire's association with Kix Brooks. In describing her feelings about Lasuzzo, she stated, "We're totally in love — absolutely," she says. "I wouldn’t put up with somebody for two years if I wasn’t in love with 'em!" McEntire and Lasuzzo separated in the fall of 2019.
In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, McEntire began dating film and TV actor Rex Linn.
Philanthropy
In 1992, she opened Reba's Ranch House in Denison, TX. Similar to a Ronald McDonald House, the house incorporates holistic care by providing a calm setting for rest, warm meals for nourishment and sensitive staff for spiritual connections to guests who have loved ones being treated at the nearby Texoma Medical Center.
Over the course of her career, she has been and continues to be an active supporter of various charitable organizations including Habitat for Humanity, The Salvation Army, the American Red Cross, Feeding America and Celebrity Fight Night. She has been honored with the Minnie Pearl Award, the ACM Home Depot Humanitarian Award and the Andrea Bocelli Foundation Humanitarian Award for her efforts. In 2018, she was honored with the Horatio Alger Award for Education, Charity Work. Named after the "rags to riches" writer, the award recognizes perseverance and giving back.
Accolades
McEntire has the second-most wins for the Academy of Country Music's Top Female Vocalist Awards with seven. McEntire holds the record American Music Awards for Favorite Country Female Artist (twelve). She also holds the distinction of being the first to win the Country Music Association's Female Vocalist of the Year Award four times consecutively. Martina McBride won Female Vocalist four times, although not consecutively. In 2013, Miranda Lambert tied McEntire to win Female Vocalist four years in a row and in 2016 Carrie Underwood joined this elite club by winning her fourth Female Vocalist award. McEntire is also a rare musical artist to achieve solo number-ones across four decades (1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s). She holds the record for most CMA Award nominations for a female artist, with 50. McEntire also holds the record with the most ACM Awards nominations for a female artist with 47, respectively. She is also the recipient of three Grammy Awards, winning in 1987, 1994 and 2018. In December 2018, McEntire received the Kennedy Center Honor. In December 2021 she was one of the five nominees for Person of the Year on Spotted Ratings, along with Mariska Hargitay, Olivia Rodrigo, Susan Lynn Rosner Rovner, and Rebecca Wisocky, but ultimately lost the award to Rovner due to the latter's extensive work restoring NBC to relevancy.
When Reba McEntire made her Grand Ole Opry debut on September 17, 1977, she almost did not make it in the door after a guard at the Opry gate missed her name on the night's list of performers. Her parents and older sister, Alice, drove 1,400 miles round trip from their Oklahoma home to see what turned out to be Reba's three-minute performance that night. Her act was cut from two songs to just one—"Invitation to the Blues"—because of a surprise appearance by Dolly Parton. McEntire was inducted into the Grand Ole Opry on January 17, 1986. "The Grand Ole Opry is a home," she says. "It's a family. It's like a family reunion, when you come back and get to see everybody."
In 2011, the Country Music Association announced that McEntire would be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. McEntire was unable to attend the announcement after her father had slipped into a coma following a stroke. McEntire attended the official induction ceremony alongside the other 2011 inductees Jean Shepard and Bobby Braddock. She was inducted by Dolly Parton.
Discography
Studio albums
Reba McEntire (1977)
Out of a Dream (1979)
Feel the Fire (1980)
Heart to Heart (1981)
Unlimited (1982)
Behind the Scene (1983)
Just a Little Love (1984)
My Kind of Country (1984)
Have I Got a Deal for You (1985)
Whoever's in New England (1986)
Reba Nell McEntire (1986)
What Am I Gonna Do About You (1986)
The Last One to Know (1987)
Merry Christmas to You (1987)
Reba (1988)
Sweet Sixteen (1989)
Rumor Has It (1990)
For My Broken Heart (1991)
It's Your Call (1992)
Read My Mind (1994)
Starting Over (1995)
What If It's You (1996)
If You See Him (1998)
So Good Together (1999)
The Secret of Giving: A Christmas Collection (1999)
Room to Breathe (2003)
Reba: Duets (2007)
Keep On Loving You (2009)
All the Women I Am (2010)
Love Somebody (2015)
My Kind of Christmas (2016)
Sing It Now: Songs of Faith & Hope (2017)
Stronger Than the Truth (2019)
Revived Remixed Revisited (2021)
Tours
Headlining tours
The Reba McEntire Show
The Last One to Know Tour
North American Tour '88
World Tour '89
'90 Tour
Rumor Has It Tour
Reba in Concert
It's Your Call Tour
Read My Mind Tour
Starting Over Tour
20th Anniversary Tour
Singer's Diary
Room to Breathe Tour
All the Women I Am Tour
Canadian Tour
Reba: Live in Concert
Co-headlining tours
Brooks & Dunn and Reba: The Tour
Girls Night Out
2 Hats and a Redhead
2 Worlds 2 Voices Tour
Reba and George Strait on Tour
Residency shows
Key to the Heart
Together in Vegas
Opening act
Today Tour
Filmography
See also
List of best-selling music artists in the United States
References
Footnotes
Books
Bibliography
External links
Reba McEntire Profile on Country Music Television
1955 births
20th-century American actresses
21st-century American actresses
20th-century American singers
21st-century American singers
Actresses from Oklahoma
American contraltos
American country singer-songwriters
American women country singers
American film actresses
American television actresses
American voice actresses
American Christians
Big Machine Records artists
Country Music Hall of Fame inductees
Grammy Award winners
Grand Ole Opry members
Kennedy Center honorees
Living people
MCA Records artists
Mercury Records artists
Singer-songwriters from Oklahoma
People from McAlester, Oklahoma
People from Atoka County, Oklahoma
Southeastern Oklahoma State University alumni
Members of the Country Music Association
Country musicians from Oklahoma
20th-century American women singers
21st-century American women singers
Theatre World Award winners
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"\"This Is What It Feels Like\" is a 2013 song by Armin van Buuren featuring Trevor Guthrie.\n\nThis Is What It Feels Like may also refer to:\n\n This Is What It Feels Like (album), a 2021 studio album by Gracie Abrams\n \"This Is What It Feels Like\", a song by Banks from the 2014 studio album Goddess\n This Is What It Feels Like, a 2019 EP by Clinton Kane\n\nSee also\n This Is What the Truth Feels Like, a 2016 album by Gwen Stefani\n Feels Like (disambiguation)",
"This Is What I Do may refer to:\n\n This Is What I Do (Sonny Rollins album), a 2000 album by Sonny Rollins\n This Is What I Do (Boy George album), a 2013 album by Boy George"
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When was Love Somebody released?
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Reba McEntire
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On October 21, 2014, it was announced that McEntire would be the inaugural signing for Big Machine's new imprint Nash Icon Music. She also disclosed that she was working on a new album, with 11 new songs. Her first single for the new label, "Going Out Like That", was announced December 16, 2014 and was released on January 6, 2015. It served as the lead-off single to Love Somebody, McEntire's twenty-seventh studio album, released on April 14, 2015. Love Somebody debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Top Country Albums--her twelfth number-one album on the chart--and No. 3 on Billboard 200, selling 62,469 copies in the U.S. The album has sold 171,600 copies in the U.S. as of October 5, 2015. In 2016, McEntire was selected as one of thirty artists to perform on "Forever Country", a mash-up track of Take Me Home, Country Roads, On the Road Again and I Will Always Love You which celebrates 50 years of the CMA Awards. McEntire released her third Christmas album My Kind of Christmas on September 2, 2016. The album was exclusively sold at Cracker Barrel and online. She also announced she would soon be selling her own line of clothing, home decor, jewelry and other things under the "Rockin' R by Reba" line also at Cracker Barrel. McEntire was a guest judge on the July 13, 2016 episode of America's Got Talent. She used her golden buzzer, which she could only use once and allowed an act to go straight to the live shows, on contortionist Sofie Dossi. CANNOTANSWER
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April 14, 2015. Love Somebody debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Top Country Albums
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Reba Nell McEntire, also known mononymously as Reba, (born March 28, 1955) is an American country music singer, actress and businesswoman. She is often referred to as "the Queen of Country," having sold more than 75 million records worldwide. Since the 1970s, McEntire has placed over 100 singles on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, 25 of which reached the number one spot. She is also credited as an actress, having appeared in both films and television. She starred in the television series Reba, which aired for six seasons. She also owns several businesses, including a clothing line.
One of four children, McEntire was born and raised in the state of Oklahoma. In childhood and adolescence, her interests included barrel racing and sports. She also had a natural singing ability, which was encouraged by her mother. With her mother's help, she and her siblings formed the Singing McEntires, which played at local events and recorded for a small label. McEntire later enrolled at Southeastern Oklahoma State University and studied to become a public school teacher. She also continued to occasionally perform and was heard singing at a rodeo event by country performer Red Steagall. Drawn to her singing voice, Steagall helped McEntire secure a country music recording contract with PolyGram/Mercury Records in 1975.
Over the next several years, PolyGram/Mercury released a series of McEntire's albums and singles, which amounted to little success. In the early 1980s, McEntire's music gained more momentum through several top ten country songs, including "(You Lift Me) Up to Heaven", "I'm Not That Lonely Yet" and her first number one "Can't Even Get the Blues". Yet McEntire became increasingly unhappy with her career trajectory and signed with MCA Records in 1984. Her second MCA album titled My Kind of Country (1984) became her breakout release, spawning two number one Billboard country singles and pointed towards a more traditional musical style. Through the 1980s, McEntire released seven more studio albums and had ten more number one country hits. Her number one singles included "One Promise Too Late", "The Last One to Know" and the Grammy Award-winning "Whoever's in New England".
In 1991, McEntire lost eight of her band members in a plane crash in San Diego, California. The experience led to McEntire's critically acclaimed album For My Broken Heart, which is her highest-selling disc to date. She followed it with several commercially successful albums during the 1990s, including Read My Mind (1994), What If It's You (1996) and If You See Him (1998). These albums featured the number one country singles "The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter", "How Was I to Know" and a duet with Brooks and Dunn called "If You See Him/If You See Her". McEntire also began acting on film and television, beginning with 1990's Tremors. In 2001, she played the role of Annie Oakley in the Broadway musical Annie Get Your Gun. The same year, the WB channel launched the TV series Reba, which starred McEntire in the lead role. The show became successful and ran until 2007.
In 2004, McEntire returned to her country recording career with the top five Billboard album Room to Breathe. She followed the release with 2007's Reba: Duets, 2009's Keep On Loving You and 2011's All the Women I Am. Her 2000's albums spawned the number one singles "Somebody", "Consider Me Gone" and "Turn on the Radio". In 2012, McEntire briefly returned to television with the series Malibu Country and in 2018 portrayed the role of Colonel Sanders in television commercials for KFC. She has continued releasing new music, including Love Somebody (2015), Sing It Now (2017) and Revived Remixed Revisited (2021).
Early life
McEntire was born in McAlester, Oklahoma in 1955 but was raised on a ranch in Chockie, Oklahoma. She was the third of four children born to Clark and Jacqueline McEntire. Her grandfather, John Wesley McEntire, was a world-champion steer roper in 1934, while her father held the same title three times (1957, 1958 and 1961). Jacqueline McEntire had aspirations of becoming a country singer, but instead became a public school teacher, librarian and secretary While her mother was tender and loving, her father had trouble showing affection. "When we were growing up I used to regret that Daddy never told us that he loved us," she recalled in her autobiography. The McEntire family owned a cattle ranch in Chockie. Each family member contributed to running the cattle operation. The McEntire children helped with ranch chores before and after school. This included castrating bulls and giving them worm medicine.
The McEntire siblings also developed an interest in singing, which was encouraged by their mother. On car trips to their father's rodeo dates, Jacqueline McEntire taught her children to sing in harmony with one another. Young Reba then started performing school, beginning in first grade when she sang "Away in a Manger" at an elementary school Christmas pageant. In fifth grade, she joined the 4-H club and won first place in the Junior Act Division for singing "My Sweet Little Alice Blue Gown". She also played basketball and ran track. For several summers, she attended a basketball camp. She also learned piano and guitar. She also developed an interest in the rodeo and trained to become a barrel racer.
By high school the McEntire siblings had been frequently performing. Together, they formed a trio which they called The Singing McEntires. In 1971, the trio released a single about their famous grandfather called "The Ballad of John McEntire". It was pressed as a single by a local label and was issued in small numbers regionally. The trio eventually included a backing band which performed at local functions. The group was later named The Kiowa High School Cowboy Band. They also had paying gigs at bars at dance halls in nearby Oklahoma City. "We were a bunch of kids barely in puberty who didn't get to bed until almost daylight after some of our shows," McEntire remembered. The band parted ways once Reba's brother graduated high school. In 1973, McEntire graduated from Kiowa High School.
Once finishing high school, McEntire enrolled in college at Southeastern Oklahoma State University. She majored in elementary education with a minor in music. She completed student teaching and later graduated with a Bachelor's degree. She also continued to help out on her family's ranch during her college years. In 1974, McEntire's father encouraged her to take a job opportunity singing "The Star-Spangled Banner" at the National Finals Rodeo in Oklahoma City. She contacted family friend and rodeo announcer Clem McSpadden, who helped her get hired for the gig. Following one of her performances, McEntire was heard by country artist Red Steagall who was impressed by her singing. Reba, her siblings and her mother later joined him at a hotel party the same week. At the hotel, Reba performed an a cappella version of Dolly Parton's "Joshua". Jacqueline McEntire asked Steagall if he was able to help get all her children a recording contract. After going back to Nashville, Steagall contacted her in early 1975 and said, "I can't take all three. But I could take Reba. She's got something a little different."
In March 1975 and accompanied by her mother, McEntire embarked on a trip to Nashville, Tennessee to record a demonstration tape that Steagall hoped to pass along to record labels. At the start of the trip, she was unsure about pursuing a professional country music career. McEntire recalled in her autobiography continually making excuses for her mother to stop the car instead of traveling to Nashville. After noticing her daughter's fear, Jacqueline McEntire told her, "Now Reba, let me tell you something. If you don't want to go to Nashville, we don't have to do this. But I'm living all my dreams through you." The conversation changed her mind and they continued on to Nashville.
After recording a demo, McEntire's tape was heard by Glenn Keener of PolyGram/Mercury Records, who was interested in signing her to a Nashville contract. Keener brought McEntire's tape and another female's tape to PolyGram's Chicago headquarters. The label informed Kenner that he could only sign one female performer. "He looked at the two tapes in his hand and handed ’em mine," McEntire told Entertainment Weekly.
Music career
1976–1983: Career launch at Mercury
In November 1975, McEntire signed a country music recording contract with PolyGram/Mercury Records. She made her first recordings for the label in January 1976. She was produced by Glenn Keener and was backed by a Countrypolitan arrangement that included a string section. McEntire's debut single was released in 1976 titled "I Don't Want to Be a One Night Stand". The track failed to become a major hit, only peaking at number 88 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart that May. It was followed by the low-charting Billboard country singles "(There's Nothing Like the Love) Between a Woman and Man" and "Glad I Waited Just for You". Mercury issued her self-titled debut album in 1977. In his album review, Greg Adams of AllMusic compared it to the country crossover style of Barbara Mandrell and Tammy Wynette. McEntire also began touring and performing more frequently. Without a band of her own, she often relied on house bands to accompany her. In some instances, the backing bands did not know country music and McEntire would have to fill her time onstage with jokes.
McEntire's career gained more momentum by 1978. That year she collaborated on two singles with country artist Jacky Ward. The duo's double-sided release of "I'd Really Love to See You Tonight"/"Three Sheets in the Wind" became her first top 20 hit on the country chart. When Glenn Keener left the PolyGram/Mercury roster, McEntire inherited producer Jerry Kennedy. Kennedy produced her second studio album titled Out of a Dream (1979). The album's cover of Patsy Cline's "Sweet Dreams" became her first top 20 hit as a solo artist. Four additional top 40 country singles were spawned from the album as well. By 1980, McEntire had formed her own band which included sister Susie and brother Pake McEntire. She also hired a new manager. McEntire and her band toured to dates in a three-car caravan, which included a horse trailer for transporting instruments. She later upgraded to a bus nicknamed "Silver Eagle", which routinely broke down. Also in 1980, "(You Lift Me) Up to Heaven" became her first top ten hit on the country songs chart. It was included on her third studio album, Feel the Fire, which was released in October.
By this point, McEntire's label pushed her record music in a soft country pop style that she often disagreed with. Future material (which included her next album) was recorded in this format. Her fourth album, Heart to Heart was issued in 1981 and became her first disc to chart the Billboard Country Albums list. It received only a 2.5 star review from AllMusic's William Ruhlmann, who described McEntire as being "a promising, but not yet accomplished country artist." Yet its lead single, "Today All Over Again", became her highest charting country single yet, reaching number five. In 1983, McEntire's bus had broken down when she was informed that her latest single "Can't Even Get the Blues" reached the number one spot on the Billboard country chart. It was followed by her second number one song "You're the First Time I Thought About Leaving". The track also became her second to reach the top ten of Canada's RPM country songs chart. Both singles appeared on her 1983 album Unlimited. The following year, the single "Why Do We Want (What We Know We Can't Have)" reached the top ten. With increased success in the country music industry, she was able to arrange an early release from PolyGram/Mercury in 1983. "Let met put it this way, I've sorta taken my career into control myself," she explained of the decision.
1984–1990: Breakthrough
McEntire signed with MCA Records in 1984 and released her seventh studio album Just a Little Love. Harold Shedd was originally intended to produce the disc, however, McEntire rejected his desire for a country pop arrangement. Instead, Norro Wilson produced the project. Despite spawning a top ten hit, McEntire was still dissatisfied with the record's production and the lack of control over material. Instead, she turned to MCA president Jimmy Bowen who suggested that she find her own songs to record. Accompanied by Don "Dirt" Lanier, McEntire spent several days listening to various songs from publishing companies. Eventually she found a song written by Harlan Howard titled "Somebody Should Leave" and a song by Jon Moffat titled "How Blue". Released as singles, they reached the number one spot on the country songs chart and later appeared on 1984's My Kind of Country. The collection also included several covers of classic country songs by Ray Price, Charley Pride and Connie Smith. AllMusic's William Ruhlmann gave the disc 4.5 stars. Billboard magazine described McEntire on the album as being "the finest woman country singer since Kitty Wells." The album became her breakthrough recording, leading McEntire to winning 1984's Female Vocalist of the Year accolade from the Country Music Association. Along with music by George Strait and Randy Travis, the album also brought forth a stylistic change in country towards traditional arrangements and sounds.
Her next MCA album was 1985's Have I Got a Deal for You. The project followed the same traditional country format of its predecessor. It was produced by Jimmy Bowen, along with co-production credits from McEntire herself. The album 's title track reached the Billboard country top ten along with "Only in My Mind", a song composed by McEntire herself. In February 1986, her ninth studio album was released named Whoever's in New England. On the record, McEntire and co-producer Jimmy Bowen mixed a traditional country style with a modern, contemporary sound. Author Kurt Wolff described the title track's production, as being "bigger and sentimentalism more obvious, even manipulative". Issued as the lead single, the title track peaked at number one on the Bilboard country chart and won McEntire the Grammy Award for Best Female Country Vocal Performance. The album itself became her first to top the Billboard Country Albums survey. and later certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America for sales of one million copies.
By this point McEntire had reached the height of her commercial stardom. Following this, McEntire made changes to her stage show. She began implementing choreography and experimented with stage lighting. Also in 1986, McEntire's twelfth studio album appeared titled What Am I Gonna Do About You. AllMusic found that it lacked the features that had made Whoever's in New England unique. The title track was the lead single from the release. It became her next number one song on the Billboard country chart and her first number one on the RPM Canadian country chart. Its second single "One Promise Too Late" also topped the country chart. Her thirteenth studio project, The Last One to Know, was released in 1987 and reached number three on the Billboard country albums chart. Reviewer Tom Roland noted that McEntire chose material that reflected her recent divorce from first husband Charlie Battles. Both the title track and "Love Will Find Its Way to You" topped the Billboard country songs chart. In late 1987, McEntire released her first Christmas collection called Merry Christmas to You. Also in 1987, she played Carnegie Hall in New York City for the first time.
In the late 1980s, McEntire took more control of her career. She fired her manager and formed her own entertainment company that helped further promote her material. Other new changes included her 1988 pop-inspired release Reba. Her fifteenth studio disc included covers of the former pop hits "Respect" and "A Sunday Kind of Love". It produced the number one Billboard country singles "New Fool at an Old Game" and "I Know How He Feels". It was followed by 1989's Sweet Sixteen, which was noted to be a more of a "return[s] to the neo-traditionalist fold", according to reviewer William Ruhlmann. The album featured the country hits "'Til Love Comes Again", "Little Girl", "Walk On" and a cover of "Cathy's Clown". Her first live project titled Reba Live was also released in 1989.
Rumor Has It (1990) was another pop-oriented album release featuring a mix of ballads and uptempo numbers. It was the first disc in McEntire's career to reach the top 40 of the Billboard 200 albums chart. The disc would became McEntire's highest-selling albums, certifying three-times platinum from the RIAA. Four hit country singles came from the release, including "You Lie" and her cover of "Fancy". The latter single eventually become one of McEntire's signature songs.
1991: Plane crash and For My Broken Heart
In the late 1980s, McEntire's touring schedule became increasingly busy. To avoid long bus trips, she and her band began traveling by private planes to concerts. McEntire and her touring band started the 1991 leg of their tour with dates in Alaska, Saginaw, Michigan, Fort Wayne, Indiana and a private gig for IBM in San Diego, California. Two planes were scheduled to leave San Diego which would carry McEntire's band. McEntire, her husband and her stylist would take a different aircraft the next day. In the middle of the night on March 16, 1991, McEntire was awoken to a phone call from Roger Woolsey, who flew the second plane. McEntire's husband took the call and discovered that one of the planes had crashed. Following the successful takeoff of both planes, one plane's wing hit the side of Otay Mountain in San Diego, killing everyone on board.
In total, eight members of her band were killed: Chris Austin, Kirk Cappello, Joey Cigainero, Paula Kaye Evans, Jim Hammon, Terry Jackson, Anthony Saputo, and Michael Thomas. In addition pilot Donald Holmes and co-pilot Chris Hollinger were also killed. The first plane was a Hawker Siddeley DH-125-1A/522 charter jet that took off at 1:40 AM from the Brown Field Municipal Airport, located near the border of Mexico. After reaching an altitude of above sea level, the aircraft crashed on the side of Otay Mountain, located east of the airport. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) determined the probable cause of the accident was related to "improper pilot planning".
Meanwhile, the second plane carrying the rest of her band made it successfully to an airport in Nashville. McEntire, her husband and hair stylist returned on their own plane following the accident. "By the time that long, terrible weekend was over, we were emotionally and physically exhausted," McEntire stated in her autobiography. The news was reported nearly immediately to McEntire and her husband, who were sleeping at a nearby hotel. A spokeswoman for McEntire made a statement to The Los Angeles Times on behalf of her: "She was very close to all of them. Some of them had been with her for years. Reba is totally devastated by this. It's like losing part of your family. Right now she just wants to get back to Nashville." Two days after the crash, McEntire conducted an interview with People magazine and scheduled a memorial service for the families of the victims. Nine days following the accident, McEntire performed at the 63rd Academy Awards ceremony, singing the Best Original Song nominee "I'm Checkin' Out" from the film Postcards from the Edge. In addition, Vince Gill and Dolly Parton offered their help in reorganizing her touring band.
McEntire dedicated her sixteenth album, For My Broken Heart, to the deceased members of her road band. Released in October 1991, it contained songs of sorrow and lost love about "all measure of suffering", according to Alanna Nash of Entertainment Weekly. Nash reported that McEntire "still hits her stride with the more traditional songs of emotional turmoil, above all combining a spectacular vocal performance with a terrific song on 'Buying Her Roses', a wife's head-spinning discovery of her husband's other woman." The disc peaked at number three on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart. It also became her highest-charting release on the Billboard 200 yet, peaking at number 13. It later sold over four million copies in the United States, becoming her best-selling album to date. Its title track and "Is There Life Out There" both became number one Billboard country singles. In addition, "The Greatest Man I Never Knew" and McEntire's cover of "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia" both became major country hits.
1992–2002: Continued country success
In December 1992, McEntire's seventeenth album It's Your Call was released. A sign of her increased mainstream success, the album was her first to reach the top ten of the Billboard 200. It spawned the country hits "Take It Back", the title track and a number one duet with Vince Gill called "The Heart Won't Lie". Critic Brian Mansfield compared the disc to For My Broken Heart, concluding that "only casual or partial listeners will be moved as much." Christopher John Farley of Time wrote that the album ranged from being "relaxing" to "cathartic", and "these vocals from one of the best country singers linger in the mind". For her next release, McEntire collaborated with up-and-coming artist Linda Davis on the single "Does He Love You". MCA Records encouraged McEntire to record the track with more established acts like Wynonna Judd or Trisha Yearwood, but ultimately finalized the track with Davis. It became her eighteenth number one hit on the Country Songs chart and her sixteenth number one hit on the Canadian country chart. It was later included on her 1993 compilation Greatest Hits Volume Two. Later that year, Davis and McEntire performed the duet at the CMA Awards. For her performance, McEntire wore a red dress with a plunging neckline that created controversy among the Nashville community.
Her eighteenth studio release was 1994's Read My Mind. The disc reached number two on both the Billboard 200 and the Top Country Albums chart. The disc later reached sales of three million copies in the United States and certified three times platinum from the RIAA. Five major hits came from the release, including "The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter", "Till You Love Me" and a song about a woman contracting AIDS called "She Thinks His Name Was John". The latter recording only reached a top 20 charting position due to its controversial lyrics. McEntire's nineteenth studio album, Starting Over (1995) was collection of her favorite songs originally recorded by others. The album was made to commemorate McEntire's twenty years in the music industry. The album received a less favorable response from critics than that of her previous releases. While project spawned three charting singles, only McEntire's cover of "Ring on Her Finger, Time on Her Hands" became a top ten country song. Starting Over was certified platinum by the RIAA within the first two months of its release.
McEntire's next album release What If It's You was issued by MCA in November 1996. The record was a return to a contemporary country sound. It debuted at number 15 on the Billboard 200 and eventually topped the Billboard country albums list. It received a more favorable response from radio programmers than that of her 1995 album and received greater promotion. Critic Thom Owens noted that the project "[didn't] offer any new tricks from Reba McEntire, but it is nevertheless an excellent reminder of her deep talents as a vocalist." Its first single, "The Fear of Being Alone" became a top five hit, while "How Was I to Know" reached the number one spot on the Billboard country songs survey.
McEntire began touring with country duo Brooks & Dunn during the mid 1990s. Their touring collaborating led to the recording of a duet titled "If You See Him/If You See Her" in 1998. The track topped both the Billboard country songs chart and the Canadian RPM country chart. Their initial collaborations would lead to several more professional endeavors over the years, including a joint Las Vegas residency. The duet was included on McEntire's If You See Him album and Brooks & Dunn's If You See Her album, both of which were released in June 1998. Thom Owens found that both album titles were named nearly the same as "a way to draw attention for both parties, since they were no longer new guns—they were veterans in danger of losing ground to younger musicians". If You See Him produced three more top ten country hits including "Forever Love" and "One Honest Heart".
In 1999, McEntire released two albums. In September she issued her second Christmas album, The Secret of Giving: A Christmas Collection. In November, her twenty-second studio album, So Good Together was released. Entertainment Weekly commented that most of the album's material was "an odd set—mostly ballads, including an English/Portuguese duet with Jose e Durval on Boz Scaggs' 'We're All Alone'". It featured the top five country songs "What Do You Say" and "I'll Be". McEntire focused on an acting career in the early 2000s and took a temporary musical hiatus. One exception was 2001's "I'm a Survivor". The single became a top five country hit and the theme song to McEntire's 2001 television series.
2003–2015: Country music comeback, record label switch and continued music success
McEntire returned to her recording career in August 2003 with the release of the MCA single "I'm Gonna Take That Mountain". The song was included on her first studio album in four years titled Room to Breathe (November 2003). "The reason I named the album Room to Breathe is because I needed a little room to breathe," McEntire told Billboard. The 12-track disc was produced by Buddy Cannon and Norro Wilson. It also featured a guest appearance from Vince Gill. Room to Breathe debuted at number four on the Billboard country chart and later certified platinum in the United States. It spawned McEntire's first number one song in six years titled "Somebody". Also featured was the top ten single "He Gets That from Me". In 2004, she embarked on her first tour in several years also titled "Room to Breathe", which included 36 cities in the United States. In 2005, MCA released the double-disc compilation titled Reba #1's while she was in between albums.
In September 2007, McEntire's next studio disc was releaded titled Reba: Duets. The album was a collection of duets with various music artists, including Kenny Chesney, LeAnn Rimes, Trisha Yearwood, Carole King, and Justin Timberlake. Reba: Duets topped the Billboard country chart and theBillboard 200, becoming her first album in her career to top reach the top of both lists. Reba: Duets was later certified platinum by the RIAA. The album was given high critical praise from magazines such as PopMatters, which compared McEntire to artists like Janis Joplin and Tina Turner. AllMusic's Thom Jurek gave it 3.5 stars, commenting that "it's full of good to great songs delivered in mostly interesting ways." The first single was a duet version of Kelly Clarkson's "Because of You", which reached number two on the American country chart and topped the Canadian country songs chart.
In 2008, McEntire announced that she would be departing her label of 25 years and signing with the Valory Music Group, an imprint of Big Machine Records. The switch to Valory reunited McEntire with the label's president, Scott Borchetta, whom she had worked with previously. Her first Valory single was 2009's "Strange". The song debuted at number 39 Billboard country songs chart, giving McEntire the highest single debut of her career and peaked at number eleven. Her twenty-sixth studio album, Keep On Loving You was released in August 2009 and also topped both the Billboard Country and 200 charts. In 2009, "Consider Me Gone" (spawned as the record's second single) became her 24th number-one on the Billboard chart in December. At age 54, McEntire became one of the oldest women to have a number one single on the country songs chart.
McEntire's twenty-ninth studio album All the Women I Am was released in November 2010. Steve Morse of The Boston Globe called the project "one of her best efforts", while Thom Jurek at AllMusic only gave it a 2.5 star rating, calling it "awkward" and lacking a "center". "Turn On the Radio" was issued as the lead single prior to the album, eventually becoming her twenty firth number one on the Billboard country survey. Three additional charting singles were spawned from All the Women I Am that peaked outside the top 20. Her All the Women I Am Tour tour followed shortly after late featuring country acts the Band Perry, Steel Magnolia, and Edens Edge. In 2014, McEntire moved to Big Machine's new imprint for veteran artists titled Nash Icon Music. Her first Nash Icon single was 2015's "Going Out Like That", which reached the top 25 of the Billboard country songs chart. It was included on her 2015 Nash Icon album Love Somebody. The album topped the country albums chart and charted the top five of the Billboard 200. In 2016, McEntire released a third Christmas-themed studio album called My Kind of Christmas. The album was exclusively sold at Cracker Barrel and online. She also announced she would soon be selling her own line of clothing, home decor, jewelry and other things under the "Rockin' R by Reba" line also at Cracker Barrel.
2017–present: New beginnings in her 60s
After her split from ex-husband Narvel Blackstock, McEntire took control of her career as her own manager. She recruited Justin McIntosh of Starstruck Entertainment, Leslie Matthews serving as Brand Manager, and Carolyn Snell who has been with McEntire for nine years. They formed Reba's Business Inc. (RBI). She moved out of the building she and Blackstock had worked in, and moved her company to Green Hills, Nashville.
On December 15, 2016, McEntire announced that she was releasing her first gospel album titled Sing It Now: Songs of Faith & Hope. It was released by Nash Icon/Rockin' R Records on February 3, 2017, and consists of two discs. Disc one contains traditional hymns while disc two contains original tracks. "Softly and Tenderly", featuring Kelly Clarkson and Trisha Yearwood, was the first track off the album released. Another track on the album, "In the Garden/Wonderful Peace", features the Isaacs. Jay DeMarcus of the Rascal Flatts produced the album. The first single off the album is "Back to God". In January 2018, McEntire won the Grammy Award for Best Roots Gospel Album, her first nomination since 2007, and her first Grammy Award win in more than twenty years, since 1994. She also headlined the C2C: Country to Country festival in the UK alongside Brad Paisley and Zac Brown Band in March. Because of its limited release in 2016, on October 13, 2017 My Kind of Christmas was re-released - this time including songs with Vince Gill, Amy Grant, Darius Rucker and Lauren Daigle - on her website and through iTunes. In July 2018, it was announced that McEntire would be one of four honorees for the 41st annual Kennedy Center Honors, along with Cher, Philip Glass, and Wayne Shorter. The ceremony was held December 2, 2018, and broadcast on CBS December 26, 2018.
McEntire released her twenty-ninth studio album Stronger Than the Truth on April 5, 2019. McEntire also returned to host the 54th Academy of Country Music Awards on April 8, 2019.
On June 25, 2019, The New York Times Magazine listed McEntire among hundreds of artists whose material was destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.
On February 20, 2020, during a surprise appearance at the Country Radio Seminar, McEntire announced she had signed a new record deal with MCA Nashville, returning to the label after leaving in November 2008. McEntire hosted the 54th Annual Country Music Association Awards alongside Darius Rucker in November 2020. McEntire previously hosted in 2019 with Carrie Underwood and Dolly Parton, 1992 with Vince Gill, 1991 by herself (the second solo female host) and 1990 with Randy Travis.
Acting career
1989–99: Entry into film and television acting
In 1990, she obtained her first film role playing Heather Gummer in the horror comedy Tremors, along with Kevin Bacon. The film told the story of a small group of people living in Nevada who were fighting subterranean worm-like creatures. After the film's release, McEntire developed a strong interest in acting and made it her second career. The film earned McEntire a nomination for Best Supporting Actress at the 1991 Saturn Awards. The following year, she starred along with Kenny Rogers and Burt Reynolds in the made-for-television movies The Gambler Returns: The Luck of the Draw and The Man From Left Field. In 1994, McEntire worked with director Rob Reiner in the film North, playing Ma Tex. The film obtained negative reviews, receiving only two and a half stars from Allmovie.
In 1994, McEntire starred in Is There Life Out There? a television movie based on her song of the same name. The following year, she appeared in Buffalo Girls, which was based upon the life of western cowgirl Calamity Jane (played by Anjelica Huston). Playing Jane's friend Annie Oakley, Buffalo Girls was nominated for an Emmy award. In 1996, McEntire was cast by director James Cameron as Molly Brown in his film Titanic. However, when it became apparent production for the film would extend well beyond its original length, McEntire had to turn down the part, as she had already scheduled prior concert engagements. The role was recast with Kathy Bates. In 1998, she starred as Lizzie Brooks in Forever Love, which was based upon McEntire's hit single of the same name.
2000–07: Broadway and television series
In early 2001, McEntire expanded into theater, starring in the Broadway revival of Annie Get Your Gun. Playing Annie Oakley (whom she had previously portrayed in Buffalo Girls), her performance was critically acclaimed by several newspapers, including The New York Times, which commented, "Without qualification the best performance by an actress in a musical comedy this season." McEntire personally called the musical "some of the hardest work I've ever done in my life".
In 2005, McEntire starred as Nellie Forbush in the Carnegie Hall concert production of the Broadway musical South Pacific with Alec Baldwin as Luther Billis and Brian Stokes Mitchell as Emile de Becque, directed by Walter Bobbie and with an adapted script by David Ives. The concert was broadcast as part of the Great Performances series in 2006.
In October 2001, McEntire premiered her half-hour television sitcom Reba on the WB network. The show was based around divorced mother Reba Hart, who learns how to handle life situations after her husband divorces her in order to marry his dental hygienist––with whom he had been cheating and gotten pregnant––and then their teenage daughter becomes pregnant as well. Reba garnered critical acclaim and success, becoming the network's highest-rated television show for adults ranging from the ages of 18 to 49. The show ran for six seasons and earned McEntire a nomination for a Golden Globe award. It was canceled on February 18, 2007; the series finale had 8.7 million viewers.
2011–20: Brief television return and current projects
In September 2011, McEntire confirmed on her website that ABC had ordered a pilot for her second television series Malibu Country. McEntire played a divorced mother of two who moves to Malibu, California to restart her music career. The pilot was filmed in April 2012 and began production on its first season in August. It was announced that the pilot for Malibu Country would premiere November 2, 2012. The show was broadcast Friday nights at 8:30/7:30c on ABC. On May 11, 2012, McEntire tweeted that the show had been picked up. She also was the host in the 2011 NASCAR Award Show in Las Vegas.
Despite reports that Malibu Country was the most-watched freshman comedy in its debut season (8.7 million), the show was canceled on May 10, 2013, after eighteen episodes.
In January 2017, it was announced that McEntire would star and produce a Southern drama series for ABC titled Red Blooded. It was reported in May that ABC ultimately turned down the show, so it moved to being shopped around to other networks. In January 2018, Reba was chosen to portray KFC's first female Colonel Sanders. The commercials ran through the end of April 2018.
In 2020, McEntire launched a podcast titled Living & Learning hosted by herself and her former Reba co-star Melissa Peterman.
She made a cameo appearance in the 2021 comedy film Barb and Star go to Vista Del Mar as a water spirit named Trish after Annie Mumolo and Kristen Wiig, who wrote, produced, and starred in the film, wrote her an "impassioned letter" asking her to join the film. Director Josh Greenbaum said in an interview, "There's some casting that just clicks. Reba is not only 100% authentic, we knew she would be game."
Musical styles and legacy
McEntire's sound has been influenced by the country music of Bob Wills, Merle Haggard, Dolly Parton, Barbara Mandrell, and Patsy Cline. In college, McEntire attended local dances at the Oklahoma–Texas border so she could dance to Wills's music, commenting that, "it didn't get any better than dancing to Bob Wills music". She also explained Merle Haggard's influence on her career, stating "I had every album he ever put out", and would sing "every song he did", along with her brother, Pake and sister, Susie. In addition, her first major hit, "Sweet Dreams" was a remake of Patsy Cline's version of the song, according to McEntire herself.
McEntire's music has been described to not only be built upon traditional country music, but also expand into the genres of country pop, mainstream pop, soul, and R&B. At times, her music has been criticized for moving away from traditional country music. Many music critics have called her music to be "melodramatic", "formulaic", and "bombastic", particularly after her 1988 album Reba. Studio releases such as Sweet Sixteen, Rumor Has It, It's Your Call, and Starting Over have been described by these terms.
McEntire possesses a contralto vocal range and performs "vocal gymnastics" with her voice, a musical technique in which a singer twirls a note around, using their vibrato. McEntire has credited Dolly Parton for influencing this trait, stating that she always listened to Parton's records and find her style of vocal gymnastics "so pretty".
McEntire has often been regarded as one of country music's most influential female vocalists and most beloved entertainers. She is highly credited for remaining one of country's most popular female artists for nearly four decades, maintaining her success by continually incorporating contemporary musical sounds without changing her traditional vocal style. For numerous artists, she has been credited as an inspiration to their careers in music. The Net Music Countdown second-handedly reported, "That influence has manifested itself in many ways. As a role model, she's shown others how to handle fame with grace and good humor while never backing down from her values or goals. Just as importantly, she's shown others to refuse to accept limitations on what she can do or how much she can achieve." McEntire also explained to the online website, "Whatever I'm doing, I feel like I'm representing country music". "It's always been my main career, and it's where my loyalties lie. I feel like I'm waving the flag of country music wherever I go, and I couldn't be prouder to do it."
Personal life
McEntire is a Christian, and she has stated that her faith in God has helped her immensely throughout her life.
Two of her siblings have also had careers in the music industry. Her brother Pake dabbled in the country music industry in the late 1980s but returned to Oklahoma after a brief stint. He owns and operates a 1,000-acre ranch near Coalgate, Oklahoma, and continues to rodeo. Her sister Susie McEntire-Eaton (Martha Susan "Susie" McEntire-Eaton, formerly Luchsinger) is a successful Christian music singer who travels the country with her husband, speaking and performing. She also has an older sister, Alice Foran, a retired social worker who resides in Lane, Oklahoma. Her niece Calamity McEntire is an assistant basketball coach at the University of Dayton.
Relationships and children
In 1976, McEntire married steer wrestling champion and rancher Charlie Battles who was 10 years her senior and had two sons from his previous marriage. The couple shared a ranch in Oklahoma. In 1987, McEntire divorced Battles and moved to Nashville, Tennessee, to further pursue her career.
In 1989, McEntire married her manager and former steel guitar player Narvel Blackstock. The couple wed at Lake Tahoe on a boat in a private ceremony. Together, the pair took over all aspects of McEntire's career, forming Starstruck Entertainment, which was originally designed to help manage her career. From her marriage to Blackstock, McEntire gained three stepchildren, Chassidy, Shawna, and Brandon. She gave birth to a son, Shelby Steven McEntire Blackstock, in February 1990. On August 3, 2015, it was announced in a joint statement on McEntire's website that she and Blackstock had been separated for a few months after twenty-six years of marriage. McEntire announced in December 2015 that their divorce had been finalized on October 28, 2015. Despite the divorce, McEntire remains very close to her three stepchildren and the Blackstock family; she considers her stepchildren's children to be her grandchildren. McEntire's stepson Brandon Blackstock married singer Kelly Clarkson, with whom he has a daughter and a son. Speaking about their impending marriage in 2013, McEntire stated she was "Thrilled to death, to have my buddy as my daughter-in-law. I mean, who could ask for more?"
In 2017, McEntire began a relationship with photographer Anthony "Skeeter" Lasuzzo. The couple met through McEntire's association with Kix Brooks. In describing her feelings about Lasuzzo, she stated, "We're totally in love — absolutely," she says. "I wouldn’t put up with somebody for two years if I wasn’t in love with 'em!" McEntire and Lasuzzo separated in the fall of 2019.
In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, McEntire began dating film and TV actor Rex Linn.
Philanthropy
In 1992, she opened Reba's Ranch House in Denison, TX. Similar to a Ronald McDonald House, the house incorporates holistic care by providing a calm setting for rest, warm meals for nourishment and sensitive staff for spiritual connections to guests who have loved ones being treated at the nearby Texoma Medical Center.
Over the course of her career, she has been and continues to be an active supporter of various charitable organizations including Habitat for Humanity, The Salvation Army, the American Red Cross, Feeding America and Celebrity Fight Night. She has been honored with the Minnie Pearl Award, the ACM Home Depot Humanitarian Award and the Andrea Bocelli Foundation Humanitarian Award for her efforts. In 2018, she was honored with the Horatio Alger Award for Education, Charity Work. Named after the "rags to riches" writer, the award recognizes perseverance and giving back.
Accolades
McEntire has the second-most wins for the Academy of Country Music's Top Female Vocalist Awards with seven. McEntire holds the record American Music Awards for Favorite Country Female Artist (twelve). She also holds the distinction of being the first to win the Country Music Association's Female Vocalist of the Year Award four times consecutively. Martina McBride won Female Vocalist four times, although not consecutively. In 2013, Miranda Lambert tied McEntire to win Female Vocalist four years in a row and in 2016 Carrie Underwood joined this elite club by winning her fourth Female Vocalist award. McEntire is also a rare musical artist to achieve solo number-ones across four decades (1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s). She holds the record for most CMA Award nominations for a female artist, with 50. McEntire also holds the record with the most ACM Awards nominations for a female artist with 47, respectively. She is also the recipient of three Grammy Awards, winning in 1987, 1994 and 2018. In December 2018, McEntire received the Kennedy Center Honor. In December 2021 she was one of the five nominees for Person of the Year on Spotted Ratings, along with Mariska Hargitay, Olivia Rodrigo, Susan Lynn Rosner Rovner, and Rebecca Wisocky, but ultimately lost the award to Rovner due to the latter's extensive work restoring NBC to relevancy.
When Reba McEntire made her Grand Ole Opry debut on September 17, 1977, she almost did not make it in the door after a guard at the Opry gate missed her name on the night's list of performers. Her parents and older sister, Alice, drove 1,400 miles round trip from their Oklahoma home to see what turned out to be Reba's three-minute performance that night. Her act was cut from two songs to just one—"Invitation to the Blues"—because of a surprise appearance by Dolly Parton. McEntire was inducted into the Grand Ole Opry on January 17, 1986. "The Grand Ole Opry is a home," she says. "It's a family. It's like a family reunion, when you come back and get to see everybody."
In 2011, the Country Music Association announced that McEntire would be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. McEntire was unable to attend the announcement after her father had slipped into a coma following a stroke. McEntire attended the official induction ceremony alongside the other 2011 inductees Jean Shepard and Bobby Braddock. She was inducted by Dolly Parton.
Discography
Studio albums
Reba McEntire (1977)
Out of a Dream (1979)
Feel the Fire (1980)
Heart to Heart (1981)
Unlimited (1982)
Behind the Scene (1983)
Just a Little Love (1984)
My Kind of Country (1984)
Have I Got a Deal for You (1985)
Whoever's in New England (1986)
Reba Nell McEntire (1986)
What Am I Gonna Do About You (1986)
The Last One to Know (1987)
Merry Christmas to You (1987)
Reba (1988)
Sweet Sixteen (1989)
Rumor Has It (1990)
For My Broken Heart (1991)
It's Your Call (1992)
Read My Mind (1994)
Starting Over (1995)
What If It's You (1996)
If You See Him (1998)
So Good Together (1999)
The Secret of Giving: A Christmas Collection (1999)
Room to Breathe (2003)
Reba: Duets (2007)
Keep On Loving You (2009)
All the Women I Am (2010)
Love Somebody (2015)
My Kind of Christmas (2016)
Sing It Now: Songs of Faith & Hope (2017)
Stronger Than the Truth (2019)
Revived Remixed Revisited (2021)
Tours
Headlining tours
The Reba McEntire Show
The Last One to Know Tour
North American Tour '88
World Tour '89
'90 Tour
Rumor Has It Tour
Reba in Concert
It's Your Call Tour
Read My Mind Tour
Starting Over Tour
20th Anniversary Tour
Singer's Diary
Room to Breathe Tour
All the Women I Am Tour
Canadian Tour
Reba: Live in Concert
Co-headlining tours
Brooks & Dunn and Reba: The Tour
Girls Night Out
2 Hats and a Redhead
2 Worlds 2 Voices Tour
Reba and George Strait on Tour
Residency shows
Key to the Heart
Together in Vegas
Opening act
Today Tour
Filmography
See also
List of best-selling music artists in the United States
References
Footnotes
Books
Bibliography
External links
Reba McEntire Profile on Country Music Television
1955 births
20th-century American actresses
21st-century American actresses
20th-century American singers
21st-century American singers
Actresses from Oklahoma
American contraltos
American country singer-songwriters
American women country singers
American film actresses
American television actresses
American voice actresses
American Christians
Big Machine Records artists
Country Music Hall of Fame inductees
Grammy Award winners
Grand Ole Opry members
Kennedy Center honorees
Living people
MCA Records artists
Mercury Records artists
Singer-songwriters from Oklahoma
People from McAlester, Oklahoma
People from Atoka County, Oklahoma
Southeastern Oklahoma State University alumni
Members of the Country Music Association
Country musicians from Oklahoma
20th-century American women singers
21st-century American women singers
Theatre World Award winners
| false |
[
"When the Bough Breaks is the second solo album from Black Sabbath drummer Bill Ward. It was originally released on April 27, 1997, on Cleopatra Records.\n\nTrack listing\n\"Hate\" – 5:00\n\"Children Killing Children\" – 3:51\n\"Growth\" – 5:45\n\"When I was a Child\" – 4:54\n\"Please Help Mommy (She's a Junkie)\" – 6:40\n\"Shine\" – 5:06\n\"Step Lightly (On the Grass)\" – 5:59\n\"Love & Innocence\" – 1:00\n\"Animals\" – 6:32\n\"Nighthawks Stars & Pines\" – 6:45\n\"Try Life\" – 5:35\n\"When the Bough Breaks\" – 9:45\n\nCD Cleopatra CL9981 (US 1997)\n\nMusicians\n\nBill Ward - vocals, lyrics, musical arrangements\nKeith Lynch - guitars\nPaul Ill - bass, double bass, synthesizer, tape loops\nRonnie Ciago - drums\n\nCover art and reprint issues\n\nAs originally released, this album featured cover art that had two roses on it. After it was released, Bill Ward (as with Ward One, his first solo album) stated on his website that the released cover art was not the correct one that was intended to be released. Additionally, the liner notes for the original printing had lyrics that were so small, most people needed a magnifying glass to read them. This was eventually corrected in 2000 when the version of the album with Bill on the cover from the 70's was released. The album was later on released in a special digipak style of case, but this was later said to be released prematurely, and was withdrawn.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nWhen the Bough Breaks at Bill Ward's site\nWhen the Bough Breaks at Black Sabbath Online\n\nBill Ward (musician) albums\nBlack Sabbath\n1997 albums\nCleopatra Records albums",
"Push Rewind is the debut solo album by American pop singer Chris Wallace. It was released digitally on September 4, 2012.\n\nThe album was taken off of iTunes in late 2013 and was re-released on March 4, 2014.\n\nBackground\nAfter Chris' previous band, The White Tie Affair broke up, Chris began working on a solo album.\n\nOn August 23, 2012, Chris tweeted that his first solo album, Push Rewind, would be available on iTunes on September 4. On September 4, 2012, his debut solo album was released via ThinkSay Records.\n\nRelease and promotion\n\nSingles\n\"Remember When (Push Rewind)\" was released as the lead single off of the album on June 12, 2012. The song was available for free for the week of September 4, 2012 as iTunes' Single of the Week to help promote the album. The song has so far reached number 2 on the Billboard Bubbling Under Hot 100.\n\n\"Keep Me Crazy\" was announced as the second single from the album. It was originally released to mainstream pop radio on April 22, 2013 but it was re-released on July 30, 2013.\n\nTrack listing\n\nRelease history\n\nReferences\n\n2012 debut albums"
] |
[
"Reba McEntire",
"2014-2016: Nash Icon, Love Somebody, Christmas and Gospel albums, America's Got Talent",
"What was her goal",
"Big Machine's new imprint Nash Icon Music.",
"What did this mean",
"she was working on a new album, with 11 new songs.",
"What was",
"Her first single for the new label,",
"When was this realesed",
"January 6, 2015.",
"What did it do",
"It served as the lead-off single to",
"What is the album called",
"Love Somebody,",
"What album is this",
"McEntire's twenty-seventh studio album,",
"When was the album released",
"April 14, 2015. Love Somebody debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Top Country Albums"
] |
C_250e1915dae4444eacc416035a1b7b5b_1
|
What else
| 9 |
What else besides Love Somebody debuting at No. 1 on the Billboard?
|
Reba McEntire
|
On October 21, 2014, it was announced that McEntire would be the inaugural signing for Big Machine's new imprint Nash Icon Music. She also disclosed that she was working on a new album, with 11 new songs. Her first single for the new label, "Going Out Like That", was announced December 16, 2014 and was released on January 6, 2015. It served as the lead-off single to Love Somebody, McEntire's twenty-seventh studio album, released on April 14, 2015. Love Somebody debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Top Country Albums--her twelfth number-one album on the chart--and No. 3 on Billboard 200, selling 62,469 copies in the U.S. The album has sold 171,600 copies in the U.S. as of October 5, 2015. In 2016, McEntire was selected as one of thirty artists to perform on "Forever Country", a mash-up track of Take Me Home, Country Roads, On the Road Again and I Will Always Love You which celebrates 50 years of the CMA Awards. McEntire released her third Christmas album My Kind of Christmas on September 2, 2016. The album was exclusively sold at Cracker Barrel and online. She also announced she would soon be selling her own line of clothing, home decor, jewelry and other things under the "Rockin' R by Reba" line also at Cracker Barrel. McEntire was a guest judge on the July 13, 2016 episode of America's Got Talent. She used her golden buzzer, which she could only use once and allowed an act to go straight to the live shows, on contortionist Sofie Dossi. CANNOTANSWER
|
her twelfth number-one album on the chart--and No. 3 on Billboard 200,
|
Reba Nell McEntire, also known mononymously as Reba, (born March 28, 1955) is an American country music singer, actress and businesswoman. She is often referred to as "the Queen of Country," having sold more than 75 million records worldwide. Since the 1970s, McEntire has placed over 100 singles on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, 25 of which reached the number one spot. She is also credited as an actress, having appeared in both films and television. She starred in the television series Reba, which aired for six seasons. She also owns several businesses, including a clothing line.
One of four children, McEntire was born and raised in the state of Oklahoma. In childhood and adolescence, her interests included barrel racing and sports. She also had a natural singing ability, which was encouraged by her mother. With her mother's help, she and her siblings formed the Singing McEntires, which played at local events and recorded for a small label. McEntire later enrolled at Southeastern Oklahoma State University and studied to become a public school teacher. She also continued to occasionally perform and was heard singing at a rodeo event by country performer Red Steagall. Drawn to her singing voice, Steagall helped McEntire secure a country music recording contract with PolyGram/Mercury Records in 1975.
Over the next several years, PolyGram/Mercury released a series of McEntire's albums and singles, which amounted to little success. In the early 1980s, McEntire's music gained more momentum through several top ten country songs, including "(You Lift Me) Up to Heaven", "I'm Not That Lonely Yet" and her first number one "Can't Even Get the Blues". Yet McEntire became increasingly unhappy with her career trajectory and signed with MCA Records in 1984. Her second MCA album titled My Kind of Country (1984) became her breakout release, spawning two number one Billboard country singles and pointed towards a more traditional musical style. Through the 1980s, McEntire released seven more studio albums and had ten more number one country hits. Her number one singles included "One Promise Too Late", "The Last One to Know" and the Grammy Award-winning "Whoever's in New England".
In 1991, McEntire lost eight of her band members in a plane crash in San Diego, California. The experience led to McEntire's critically acclaimed album For My Broken Heart, which is her highest-selling disc to date. She followed it with several commercially successful albums during the 1990s, including Read My Mind (1994), What If It's You (1996) and If You See Him (1998). These albums featured the number one country singles "The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter", "How Was I to Know" and a duet with Brooks and Dunn called "If You See Him/If You See Her". McEntire also began acting on film and television, beginning with 1990's Tremors. In 2001, she played the role of Annie Oakley in the Broadway musical Annie Get Your Gun. The same year, the WB channel launched the TV series Reba, which starred McEntire in the lead role. The show became successful and ran until 2007.
In 2004, McEntire returned to her country recording career with the top five Billboard album Room to Breathe. She followed the release with 2007's Reba: Duets, 2009's Keep On Loving You and 2011's All the Women I Am. Her 2000's albums spawned the number one singles "Somebody", "Consider Me Gone" and "Turn on the Radio". In 2012, McEntire briefly returned to television with the series Malibu Country and in 2018 portrayed the role of Colonel Sanders in television commercials for KFC. She has continued releasing new music, including Love Somebody (2015), Sing It Now (2017) and Revived Remixed Revisited (2021).
Early life
McEntire was born in McAlester, Oklahoma in 1955 but was raised on a ranch in Chockie, Oklahoma. She was the third of four children born to Clark and Jacqueline McEntire. Her grandfather, John Wesley McEntire, was a world-champion steer roper in 1934, while her father held the same title three times (1957, 1958 and 1961). Jacqueline McEntire had aspirations of becoming a country singer, but instead became a public school teacher, librarian and secretary While her mother was tender and loving, her father had trouble showing affection. "When we were growing up I used to regret that Daddy never told us that he loved us," she recalled in her autobiography. The McEntire family owned a cattle ranch in Chockie. Each family member contributed to running the cattle operation. The McEntire children helped with ranch chores before and after school. This included castrating bulls and giving them worm medicine.
The McEntire siblings also developed an interest in singing, which was encouraged by their mother. On car trips to their father's rodeo dates, Jacqueline McEntire taught her children to sing in harmony with one another. Young Reba then started performing school, beginning in first grade when she sang "Away in a Manger" at an elementary school Christmas pageant. In fifth grade, she joined the 4-H club and won first place in the Junior Act Division for singing "My Sweet Little Alice Blue Gown". She also played basketball and ran track. For several summers, she attended a basketball camp. She also learned piano and guitar. She also developed an interest in the rodeo and trained to become a barrel racer.
By high school the McEntire siblings had been frequently performing. Together, they formed a trio which they called The Singing McEntires. In 1971, the trio released a single about their famous grandfather called "The Ballad of John McEntire". It was pressed as a single by a local label and was issued in small numbers regionally. The trio eventually included a backing band which performed at local functions. The group was later named The Kiowa High School Cowboy Band. They also had paying gigs at bars at dance halls in nearby Oklahoma City. "We were a bunch of kids barely in puberty who didn't get to bed until almost daylight after some of our shows," McEntire remembered. The band parted ways once Reba's brother graduated high school. In 1973, McEntire graduated from Kiowa High School.
Once finishing high school, McEntire enrolled in college at Southeastern Oklahoma State University. She majored in elementary education with a minor in music. She completed student teaching and later graduated with a Bachelor's degree. She also continued to help out on her family's ranch during her college years. In 1974, McEntire's father encouraged her to take a job opportunity singing "The Star-Spangled Banner" at the National Finals Rodeo in Oklahoma City. She contacted family friend and rodeo announcer Clem McSpadden, who helped her get hired for the gig. Following one of her performances, McEntire was heard by country artist Red Steagall who was impressed by her singing. Reba, her siblings and her mother later joined him at a hotel party the same week. At the hotel, Reba performed an a cappella version of Dolly Parton's "Joshua". Jacqueline McEntire asked Steagall if he was able to help get all her children a recording contract. After going back to Nashville, Steagall contacted her in early 1975 and said, "I can't take all three. But I could take Reba. She's got something a little different."
In March 1975 and accompanied by her mother, McEntire embarked on a trip to Nashville, Tennessee to record a demonstration tape that Steagall hoped to pass along to record labels. At the start of the trip, she was unsure about pursuing a professional country music career. McEntire recalled in her autobiography continually making excuses for her mother to stop the car instead of traveling to Nashville. After noticing her daughter's fear, Jacqueline McEntire told her, "Now Reba, let me tell you something. If you don't want to go to Nashville, we don't have to do this. But I'm living all my dreams through you." The conversation changed her mind and they continued on to Nashville.
After recording a demo, McEntire's tape was heard by Glenn Keener of PolyGram/Mercury Records, who was interested in signing her to a Nashville contract. Keener brought McEntire's tape and another female's tape to PolyGram's Chicago headquarters. The label informed Kenner that he could only sign one female performer. "He looked at the two tapes in his hand and handed ’em mine," McEntire told Entertainment Weekly.
Music career
1976–1983: Career launch at Mercury
In November 1975, McEntire signed a country music recording contract with PolyGram/Mercury Records. She made her first recordings for the label in January 1976. She was produced by Glenn Keener and was backed by a Countrypolitan arrangement that included a string section. McEntire's debut single was released in 1976 titled "I Don't Want to Be a One Night Stand". The track failed to become a major hit, only peaking at number 88 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart that May. It was followed by the low-charting Billboard country singles "(There's Nothing Like the Love) Between a Woman and Man" and "Glad I Waited Just for You". Mercury issued her self-titled debut album in 1977. In his album review, Greg Adams of AllMusic compared it to the country crossover style of Barbara Mandrell and Tammy Wynette. McEntire also began touring and performing more frequently. Without a band of her own, she often relied on house bands to accompany her. In some instances, the backing bands did not know country music and McEntire would have to fill her time onstage with jokes.
McEntire's career gained more momentum by 1978. That year she collaborated on two singles with country artist Jacky Ward. The duo's double-sided release of "I'd Really Love to See You Tonight"/"Three Sheets in the Wind" became her first top 20 hit on the country chart. When Glenn Keener left the PolyGram/Mercury roster, McEntire inherited producer Jerry Kennedy. Kennedy produced her second studio album titled Out of a Dream (1979). The album's cover of Patsy Cline's "Sweet Dreams" became her first top 20 hit as a solo artist. Four additional top 40 country singles were spawned from the album as well. By 1980, McEntire had formed her own band which included sister Susie and brother Pake McEntire. She also hired a new manager. McEntire and her band toured to dates in a three-car caravan, which included a horse trailer for transporting instruments. She later upgraded to a bus nicknamed "Silver Eagle", which routinely broke down. Also in 1980, "(You Lift Me) Up to Heaven" became her first top ten hit on the country songs chart. It was included on her third studio album, Feel the Fire, which was released in October.
By this point, McEntire's label pushed her record music in a soft country pop style that she often disagreed with. Future material (which included her next album) was recorded in this format. Her fourth album, Heart to Heart was issued in 1981 and became her first disc to chart the Billboard Country Albums list. It received only a 2.5 star review from AllMusic's William Ruhlmann, who described McEntire as being "a promising, but not yet accomplished country artist." Yet its lead single, "Today All Over Again", became her highest charting country single yet, reaching number five. In 1983, McEntire's bus had broken down when she was informed that her latest single "Can't Even Get the Blues" reached the number one spot on the Billboard country chart. It was followed by her second number one song "You're the First Time I Thought About Leaving". The track also became her second to reach the top ten of Canada's RPM country songs chart. Both singles appeared on her 1983 album Unlimited. The following year, the single "Why Do We Want (What We Know We Can't Have)" reached the top ten. With increased success in the country music industry, she was able to arrange an early release from PolyGram/Mercury in 1983. "Let met put it this way, I've sorta taken my career into control myself," she explained of the decision.
1984–1990: Breakthrough
McEntire signed with MCA Records in 1984 and released her seventh studio album Just a Little Love. Harold Shedd was originally intended to produce the disc, however, McEntire rejected his desire for a country pop arrangement. Instead, Norro Wilson produced the project. Despite spawning a top ten hit, McEntire was still dissatisfied with the record's production and the lack of control over material. Instead, she turned to MCA president Jimmy Bowen who suggested that she find her own songs to record. Accompanied by Don "Dirt" Lanier, McEntire spent several days listening to various songs from publishing companies. Eventually she found a song written by Harlan Howard titled "Somebody Should Leave" and a song by Jon Moffat titled "How Blue". Released as singles, they reached the number one spot on the country songs chart and later appeared on 1984's My Kind of Country. The collection also included several covers of classic country songs by Ray Price, Charley Pride and Connie Smith. AllMusic's William Ruhlmann gave the disc 4.5 stars. Billboard magazine described McEntire on the album as being "the finest woman country singer since Kitty Wells." The album became her breakthrough recording, leading McEntire to winning 1984's Female Vocalist of the Year accolade from the Country Music Association. Along with music by George Strait and Randy Travis, the album also brought forth a stylistic change in country towards traditional arrangements and sounds.
Her next MCA album was 1985's Have I Got a Deal for You. The project followed the same traditional country format of its predecessor. It was produced by Jimmy Bowen, along with co-production credits from McEntire herself. The album 's title track reached the Billboard country top ten along with "Only in My Mind", a song composed by McEntire herself. In February 1986, her ninth studio album was released named Whoever's in New England. On the record, McEntire and co-producer Jimmy Bowen mixed a traditional country style with a modern, contemporary sound. Author Kurt Wolff described the title track's production, as being "bigger and sentimentalism more obvious, even manipulative". Issued as the lead single, the title track peaked at number one on the Bilboard country chart and won McEntire the Grammy Award for Best Female Country Vocal Performance. The album itself became her first to top the Billboard Country Albums survey. and later certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America for sales of one million copies.
By this point McEntire had reached the height of her commercial stardom. Following this, McEntire made changes to her stage show. She began implementing choreography and experimented with stage lighting. Also in 1986, McEntire's twelfth studio album appeared titled What Am I Gonna Do About You. AllMusic found that it lacked the features that had made Whoever's in New England unique. The title track was the lead single from the release. It became her next number one song on the Billboard country chart and her first number one on the RPM Canadian country chart. Its second single "One Promise Too Late" also topped the country chart. Her thirteenth studio project, The Last One to Know, was released in 1987 and reached number three on the Billboard country albums chart. Reviewer Tom Roland noted that McEntire chose material that reflected her recent divorce from first husband Charlie Battles. Both the title track and "Love Will Find Its Way to You" topped the Billboard country songs chart. In late 1987, McEntire released her first Christmas collection called Merry Christmas to You. Also in 1987, she played Carnegie Hall in New York City for the first time.
In the late 1980s, McEntire took more control of her career. She fired her manager and formed her own entertainment company that helped further promote her material. Other new changes included her 1988 pop-inspired release Reba. Her fifteenth studio disc included covers of the former pop hits "Respect" and "A Sunday Kind of Love". It produced the number one Billboard country singles "New Fool at an Old Game" and "I Know How He Feels". It was followed by 1989's Sweet Sixteen, which was noted to be a more of a "return[s] to the neo-traditionalist fold", according to reviewer William Ruhlmann. The album featured the country hits "'Til Love Comes Again", "Little Girl", "Walk On" and a cover of "Cathy's Clown". Her first live project titled Reba Live was also released in 1989.
Rumor Has It (1990) was another pop-oriented album release featuring a mix of ballads and uptempo numbers. It was the first disc in McEntire's career to reach the top 40 of the Billboard 200 albums chart. The disc would became McEntire's highest-selling albums, certifying three-times platinum from the RIAA. Four hit country singles came from the release, including "You Lie" and her cover of "Fancy". The latter single eventually become one of McEntire's signature songs.
1991: Plane crash and For My Broken Heart
In the late 1980s, McEntire's touring schedule became increasingly busy. To avoid long bus trips, she and her band began traveling by private planes to concerts. McEntire and her touring band started the 1991 leg of their tour with dates in Alaska, Saginaw, Michigan, Fort Wayne, Indiana and a private gig for IBM in San Diego, California. Two planes were scheduled to leave San Diego which would carry McEntire's band. McEntire, her husband and her stylist would take a different aircraft the next day. In the middle of the night on March 16, 1991, McEntire was awoken to a phone call from Roger Woolsey, who flew the second plane. McEntire's husband took the call and discovered that one of the planes had crashed. Following the successful takeoff of both planes, one plane's wing hit the side of Otay Mountain in San Diego, killing everyone on board.
In total, eight members of her band were killed: Chris Austin, Kirk Cappello, Joey Cigainero, Paula Kaye Evans, Jim Hammon, Terry Jackson, Anthony Saputo, and Michael Thomas. In addition pilot Donald Holmes and co-pilot Chris Hollinger were also killed. The first plane was a Hawker Siddeley DH-125-1A/522 charter jet that took off at 1:40 AM from the Brown Field Municipal Airport, located near the border of Mexico. After reaching an altitude of above sea level, the aircraft crashed on the side of Otay Mountain, located east of the airport. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) determined the probable cause of the accident was related to "improper pilot planning".
Meanwhile, the second plane carrying the rest of her band made it successfully to an airport in Nashville. McEntire, her husband and hair stylist returned on their own plane following the accident. "By the time that long, terrible weekend was over, we were emotionally and physically exhausted," McEntire stated in her autobiography. The news was reported nearly immediately to McEntire and her husband, who were sleeping at a nearby hotel. A spokeswoman for McEntire made a statement to The Los Angeles Times on behalf of her: "She was very close to all of them. Some of them had been with her for years. Reba is totally devastated by this. It's like losing part of your family. Right now she just wants to get back to Nashville." Two days after the crash, McEntire conducted an interview with People magazine and scheduled a memorial service for the families of the victims. Nine days following the accident, McEntire performed at the 63rd Academy Awards ceremony, singing the Best Original Song nominee "I'm Checkin' Out" from the film Postcards from the Edge. In addition, Vince Gill and Dolly Parton offered their help in reorganizing her touring band.
McEntire dedicated her sixteenth album, For My Broken Heart, to the deceased members of her road band. Released in October 1991, it contained songs of sorrow and lost love about "all measure of suffering", according to Alanna Nash of Entertainment Weekly. Nash reported that McEntire "still hits her stride with the more traditional songs of emotional turmoil, above all combining a spectacular vocal performance with a terrific song on 'Buying Her Roses', a wife's head-spinning discovery of her husband's other woman." The disc peaked at number three on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart. It also became her highest-charting release on the Billboard 200 yet, peaking at number 13. It later sold over four million copies in the United States, becoming her best-selling album to date. Its title track and "Is There Life Out There" both became number one Billboard country singles. In addition, "The Greatest Man I Never Knew" and McEntire's cover of "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia" both became major country hits.
1992–2002: Continued country success
In December 1992, McEntire's seventeenth album It's Your Call was released. A sign of her increased mainstream success, the album was her first to reach the top ten of the Billboard 200. It spawned the country hits "Take It Back", the title track and a number one duet with Vince Gill called "The Heart Won't Lie". Critic Brian Mansfield compared the disc to For My Broken Heart, concluding that "only casual or partial listeners will be moved as much." Christopher John Farley of Time wrote that the album ranged from being "relaxing" to "cathartic", and "these vocals from one of the best country singers linger in the mind". For her next release, McEntire collaborated with up-and-coming artist Linda Davis on the single "Does He Love You". MCA Records encouraged McEntire to record the track with more established acts like Wynonna Judd or Trisha Yearwood, but ultimately finalized the track with Davis. It became her eighteenth number one hit on the Country Songs chart and her sixteenth number one hit on the Canadian country chart. It was later included on her 1993 compilation Greatest Hits Volume Two. Later that year, Davis and McEntire performed the duet at the CMA Awards. For her performance, McEntire wore a red dress with a plunging neckline that created controversy among the Nashville community.
Her eighteenth studio release was 1994's Read My Mind. The disc reached number two on both the Billboard 200 and the Top Country Albums chart. The disc later reached sales of three million copies in the United States and certified three times platinum from the RIAA. Five major hits came from the release, including "The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter", "Till You Love Me" and a song about a woman contracting AIDS called "She Thinks His Name Was John". The latter recording only reached a top 20 charting position due to its controversial lyrics. McEntire's nineteenth studio album, Starting Over (1995) was collection of her favorite songs originally recorded by others. The album was made to commemorate McEntire's twenty years in the music industry. The album received a less favorable response from critics than that of her previous releases. While project spawned three charting singles, only McEntire's cover of "Ring on Her Finger, Time on Her Hands" became a top ten country song. Starting Over was certified platinum by the RIAA within the first two months of its release.
McEntire's next album release What If It's You was issued by MCA in November 1996. The record was a return to a contemporary country sound. It debuted at number 15 on the Billboard 200 and eventually topped the Billboard country albums list. It received a more favorable response from radio programmers than that of her 1995 album and received greater promotion. Critic Thom Owens noted that the project "[didn't] offer any new tricks from Reba McEntire, but it is nevertheless an excellent reminder of her deep talents as a vocalist." Its first single, "The Fear of Being Alone" became a top five hit, while "How Was I to Know" reached the number one spot on the Billboard country songs survey.
McEntire began touring with country duo Brooks & Dunn during the mid 1990s. Their touring collaborating led to the recording of a duet titled "If You See Him/If You See Her" in 1998. The track topped both the Billboard country songs chart and the Canadian RPM country chart. Their initial collaborations would lead to several more professional endeavors over the years, including a joint Las Vegas residency. The duet was included on McEntire's If You See Him album and Brooks & Dunn's If You See Her album, both of which were released in June 1998. Thom Owens found that both album titles were named nearly the same as "a way to draw attention for both parties, since they were no longer new guns—they were veterans in danger of losing ground to younger musicians". If You See Him produced three more top ten country hits including "Forever Love" and "One Honest Heart".
In 1999, McEntire released two albums. In September she issued her second Christmas album, The Secret of Giving: A Christmas Collection. In November, her twenty-second studio album, So Good Together was released. Entertainment Weekly commented that most of the album's material was "an odd set—mostly ballads, including an English/Portuguese duet with Jose e Durval on Boz Scaggs' 'We're All Alone'". It featured the top five country songs "What Do You Say" and "I'll Be". McEntire focused on an acting career in the early 2000s and took a temporary musical hiatus. One exception was 2001's "I'm a Survivor". The single became a top five country hit and the theme song to McEntire's 2001 television series.
2003–2015: Country music comeback, record label switch and continued music success
McEntire returned to her recording career in August 2003 with the release of the MCA single "I'm Gonna Take That Mountain". The song was included on her first studio album in four years titled Room to Breathe (November 2003). "The reason I named the album Room to Breathe is because I needed a little room to breathe," McEntire told Billboard. The 12-track disc was produced by Buddy Cannon and Norro Wilson. It also featured a guest appearance from Vince Gill. Room to Breathe debuted at number four on the Billboard country chart and later certified platinum in the United States. It spawned McEntire's first number one song in six years titled "Somebody". Also featured was the top ten single "He Gets That from Me". In 2004, she embarked on her first tour in several years also titled "Room to Breathe", which included 36 cities in the United States. In 2005, MCA released the double-disc compilation titled Reba #1's while she was in between albums.
In September 2007, McEntire's next studio disc was releaded titled Reba: Duets. The album was a collection of duets with various music artists, including Kenny Chesney, LeAnn Rimes, Trisha Yearwood, Carole King, and Justin Timberlake. Reba: Duets topped the Billboard country chart and theBillboard 200, becoming her first album in her career to top reach the top of both lists. Reba: Duets was later certified platinum by the RIAA. The album was given high critical praise from magazines such as PopMatters, which compared McEntire to artists like Janis Joplin and Tina Turner. AllMusic's Thom Jurek gave it 3.5 stars, commenting that "it's full of good to great songs delivered in mostly interesting ways." The first single was a duet version of Kelly Clarkson's "Because of You", which reached number two on the American country chart and topped the Canadian country songs chart.
In 2008, McEntire announced that she would be departing her label of 25 years and signing with the Valory Music Group, an imprint of Big Machine Records. The switch to Valory reunited McEntire with the label's president, Scott Borchetta, whom she had worked with previously. Her first Valory single was 2009's "Strange". The song debuted at number 39 Billboard country songs chart, giving McEntire the highest single debut of her career and peaked at number eleven. Her twenty-sixth studio album, Keep On Loving You was released in August 2009 and also topped both the Billboard Country and 200 charts. In 2009, "Consider Me Gone" (spawned as the record's second single) became her 24th number-one on the Billboard chart in December. At age 54, McEntire became one of the oldest women to have a number one single on the country songs chart.
McEntire's twenty-ninth studio album All the Women I Am was released in November 2010. Steve Morse of The Boston Globe called the project "one of her best efforts", while Thom Jurek at AllMusic only gave it a 2.5 star rating, calling it "awkward" and lacking a "center". "Turn On the Radio" was issued as the lead single prior to the album, eventually becoming her twenty firth number one on the Billboard country survey. Three additional charting singles were spawned from All the Women I Am that peaked outside the top 20. Her All the Women I Am Tour tour followed shortly after late featuring country acts the Band Perry, Steel Magnolia, and Edens Edge. In 2014, McEntire moved to Big Machine's new imprint for veteran artists titled Nash Icon Music. Her first Nash Icon single was 2015's "Going Out Like That", which reached the top 25 of the Billboard country songs chart. It was included on her 2015 Nash Icon album Love Somebody. The album topped the country albums chart and charted the top five of the Billboard 200. In 2016, McEntire released a third Christmas-themed studio album called My Kind of Christmas. The album was exclusively sold at Cracker Barrel and online. She also announced she would soon be selling her own line of clothing, home decor, jewelry and other things under the "Rockin' R by Reba" line also at Cracker Barrel.
2017–present: New beginnings in her 60s
After her split from ex-husband Narvel Blackstock, McEntire took control of her career as her own manager. She recruited Justin McIntosh of Starstruck Entertainment, Leslie Matthews serving as Brand Manager, and Carolyn Snell who has been with McEntire for nine years. They formed Reba's Business Inc. (RBI). She moved out of the building she and Blackstock had worked in, and moved her company to Green Hills, Nashville.
On December 15, 2016, McEntire announced that she was releasing her first gospel album titled Sing It Now: Songs of Faith & Hope. It was released by Nash Icon/Rockin' R Records on February 3, 2017, and consists of two discs. Disc one contains traditional hymns while disc two contains original tracks. "Softly and Tenderly", featuring Kelly Clarkson and Trisha Yearwood, was the first track off the album released. Another track on the album, "In the Garden/Wonderful Peace", features the Isaacs. Jay DeMarcus of the Rascal Flatts produced the album. The first single off the album is "Back to God". In January 2018, McEntire won the Grammy Award for Best Roots Gospel Album, her first nomination since 2007, and her first Grammy Award win in more than twenty years, since 1994. She also headlined the C2C: Country to Country festival in the UK alongside Brad Paisley and Zac Brown Band in March. Because of its limited release in 2016, on October 13, 2017 My Kind of Christmas was re-released - this time including songs with Vince Gill, Amy Grant, Darius Rucker and Lauren Daigle - on her website and through iTunes. In July 2018, it was announced that McEntire would be one of four honorees for the 41st annual Kennedy Center Honors, along with Cher, Philip Glass, and Wayne Shorter. The ceremony was held December 2, 2018, and broadcast on CBS December 26, 2018.
McEntire released her twenty-ninth studio album Stronger Than the Truth on April 5, 2019. McEntire also returned to host the 54th Academy of Country Music Awards on April 8, 2019.
On June 25, 2019, The New York Times Magazine listed McEntire among hundreds of artists whose material was destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.
On February 20, 2020, during a surprise appearance at the Country Radio Seminar, McEntire announced she had signed a new record deal with MCA Nashville, returning to the label after leaving in November 2008. McEntire hosted the 54th Annual Country Music Association Awards alongside Darius Rucker in November 2020. McEntire previously hosted in 2019 with Carrie Underwood and Dolly Parton, 1992 with Vince Gill, 1991 by herself (the second solo female host) and 1990 with Randy Travis.
Acting career
1989–99: Entry into film and television acting
In 1990, she obtained her first film role playing Heather Gummer in the horror comedy Tremors, along with Kevin Bacon. The film told the story of a small group of people living in Nevada who were fighting subterranean worm-like creatures. After the film's release, McEntire developed a strong interest in acting and made it her second career. The film earned McEntire a nomination for Best Supporting Actress at the 1991 Saturn Awards. The following year, she starred along with Kenny Rogers and Burt Reynolds in the made-for-television movies The Gambler Returns: The Luck of the Draw and The Man From Left Field. In 1994, McEntire worked with director Rob Reiner in the film North, playing Ma Tex. The film obtained negative reviews, receiving only two and a half stars from Allmovie.
In 1994, McEntire starred in Is There Life Out There? a television movie based on her song of the same name. The following year, she appeared in Buffalo Girls, which was based upon the life of western cowgirl Calamity Jane (played by Anjelica Huston). Playing Jane's friend Annie Oakley, Buffalo Girls was nominated for an Emmy award. In 1996, McEntire was cast by director James Cameron as Molly Brown in his film Titanic. However, when it became apparent production for the film would extend well beyond its original length, McEntire had to turn down the part, as she had already scheduled prior concert engagements. The role was recast with Kathy Bates. In 1998, she starred as Lizzie Brooks in Forever Love, which was based upon McEntire's hit single of the same name.
2000–07: Broadway and television series
In early 2001, McEntire expanded into theater, starring in the Broadway revival of Annie Get Your Gun. Playing Annie Oakley (whom she had previously portrayed in Buffalo Girls), her performance was critically acclaimed by several newspapers, including The New York Times, which commented, "Without qualification the best performance by an actress in a musical comedy this season." McEntire personally called the musical "some of the hardest work I've ever done in my life".
In 2005, McEntire starred as Nellie Forbush in the Carnegie Hall concert production of the Broadway musical South Pacific with Alec Baldwin as Luther Billis and Brian Stokes Mitchell as Emile de Becque, directed by Walter Bobbie and with an adapted script by David Ives. The concert was broadcast as part of the Great Performances series in 2006.
In October 2001, McEntire premiered her half-hour television sitcom Reba on the WB network. The show was based around divorced mother Reba Hart, who learns how to handle life situations after her husband divorces her in order to marry his dental hygienist––with whom he had been cheating and gotten pregnant––and then their teenage daughter becomes pregnant as well. Reba garnered critical acclaim and success, becoming the network's highest-rated television show for adults ranging from the ages of 18 to 49. The show ran for six seasons and earned McEntire a nomination for a Golden Globe award. It was canceled on February 18, 2007; the series finale had 8.7 million viewers.
2011–20: Brief television return and current projects
In September 2011, McEntire confirmed on her website that ABC had ordered a pilot for her second television series Malibu Country. McEntire played a divorced mother of two who moves to Malibu, California to restart her music career. The pilot was filmed in April 2012 and began production on its first season in August. It was announced that the pilot for Malibu Country would premiere November 2, 2012. The show was broadcast Friday nights at 8:30/7:30c on ABC. On May 11, 2012, McEntire tweeted that the show had been picked up. She also was the host in the 2011 NASCAR Award Show in Las Vegas.
Despite reports that Malibu Country was the most-watched freshman comedy in its debut season (8.7 million), the show was canceled on May 10, 2013, after eighteen episodes.
In January 2017, it was announced that McEntire would star and produce a Southern drama series for ABC titled Red Blooded. It was reported in May that ABC ultimately turned down the show, so it moved to being shopped around to other networks. In January 2018, Reba was chosen to portray KFC's first female Colonel Sanders. The commercials ran through the end of April 2018.
In 2020, McEntire launched a podcast titled Living & Learning hosted by herself and her former Reba co-star Melissa Peterman.
She made a cameo appearance in the 2021 comedy film Barb and Star go to Vista Del Mar as a water spirit named Trish after Annie Mumolo and Kristen Wiig, who wrote, produced, and starred in the film, wrote her an "impassioned letter" asking her to join the film. Director Josh Greenbaum said in an interview, "There's some casting that just clicks. Reba is not only 100% authentic, we knew she would be game."
Musical styles and legacy
McEntire's sound has been influenced by the country music of Bob Wills, Merle Haggard, Dolly Parton, Barbara Mandrell, and Patsy Cline. In college, McEntire attended local dances at the Oklahoma–Texas border so she could dance to Wills's music, commenting that, "it didn't get any better than dancing to Bob Wills music". She also explained Merle Haggard's influence on her career, stating "I had every album he ever put out", and would sing "every song he did", along with her brother, Pake and sister, Susie. In addition, her first major hit, "Sweet Dreams" was a remake of Patsy Cline's version of the song, according to McEntire herself.
McEntire's music has been described to not only be built upon traditional country music, but also expand into the genres of country pop, mainstream pop, soul, and R&B. At times, her music has been criticized for moving away from traditional country music. Many music critics have called her music to be "melodramatic", "formulaic", and "bombastic", particularly after her 1988 album Reba. Studio releases such as Sweet Sixteen, Rumor Has It, It's Your Call, and Starting Over have been described by these terms.
McEntire possesses a contralto vocal range and performs "vocal gymnastics" with her voice, a musical technique in which a singer twirls a note around, using their vibrato. McEntire has credited Dolly Parton for influencing this trait, stating that she always listened to Parton's records and find her style of vocal gymnastics "so pretty".
McEntire has often been regarded as one of country music's most influential female vocalists and most beloved entertainers. She is highly credited for remaining one of country's most popular female artists for nearly four decades, maintaining her success by continually incorporating contemporary musical sounds without changing her traditional vocal style. For numerous artists, she has been credited as an inspiration to their careers in music. The Net Music Countdown second-handedly reported, "That influence has manifested itself in many ways. As a role model, she's shown others how to handle fame with grace and good humor while never backing down from her values or goals. Just as importantly, she's shown others to refuse to accept limitations on what she can do or how much she can achieve." McEntire also explained to the online website, "Whatever I'm doing, I feel like I'm representing country music". "It's always been my main career, and it's where my loyalties lie. I feel like I'm waving the flag of country music wherever I go, and I couldn't be prouder to do it."
Personal life
McEntire is a Christian, and she has stated that her faith in God has helped her immensely throughout her life.
Two of her siblings have also had careers in the music industry. Her brother Pake dabbled in the country music industry in the late 1980s but returned to Oklahoma after a brief stint. He owns and operates a 1,000-acre ranch near Coalgate, Oklahoma, and continues to rodeo. Her sister Susie McEntire-Eaton (Martha Susan "Susie" McEntire-Eaton, formerly Luchsinger) is a successful Christian music singer who travels the country with her husband, speaking and performing. She also has an older sister, Alice Foran, a retired social worker who resides in Lane, Oklahoma. Her niece Calamity McEntire is an assistant basketball coach at the University of Dayton.
Relationships and children
In 1976, McEntire married steer wrestling champion and rancher Charlie Battles who was 10 years her senior and had two sons from his previous marriage. The couple shared a ranch in Oklahoma. In 1987, McEntire divorced Battles and moved to Nashville, Tennessee, to further pursue her career.
In 1989, McEntire married her manager and former steel guitar player Narvel Blackstock. The couple wed at Lake Tahoe on a boat in a private ceremony. Together, the pair took over all aspects of McEntire's career, forming Starstruck Entertainment, which was originally designed to help manage her career. From her marriage to Blackstock, McEntire gained three stepchildren, Chassidy, Shawna, and Brandon. She gave birth to a son, Shelby Steven McEntire Blackstock, in February 1990. On August 3, 2015, it was announced in a joint statement on McEntire's website that she and Blackstock had been separated for a few months after twenty-six years of marriage. McEntire announced in December 2015 that their divorce had been finalized on October 28, 2015. Despite the divorce, McEntire remains very close to her three stepchildren and the Blackstock family; she considers her stepchildren's children to be her grandchildren. McEntire's stepson Brandon Blackstock married singer Kelly Clarkson, with whom he has a daughter and a son. Speaking about their impending marriage in 2013, McEntire stated she was "Thrilled to death, to have my buddy as my daughter-in-law. I mean, who could ask for more?"
In 2017, McEntire began a relationship with photographer Anthony "Skeeter" Lasuzzo. The couple met through McEntire's association with Kix Brooks. In describing her feelings about Lasuzzo, she stated, "We're totally in love — absolutely," she says. "I wouldn’t put up with somebody for two years if I wasn’t in love with 'em!" McEntire and Lasuzzo separated in the fall of 2019.
In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, McEntire began dating film and TV actor Rex Linn.
Philanthropy
In 1992, she opened Reba's Ranch House in Denison, TX. Similar to a Ronald McDonald House, the house incorporates holistic care by providing a calm setting for rest, warm meals for nourishment and sensitive staff for spiritual connections to guests who have loved ones being treated at the nearby Texoma Medical Center.
Over the course of her career, she has been and continues to be an active supporter of various charitable organizations including Habitat for Humanity, The Salvation Army, the American Red Cross, Feeding America and Celebrity Fight Night. She has been honored with the Minnie Pearl Award, the ACM Home Depot Humanitarian Award and the Andrea Bocelli Foundation Humanitarian Award for her efforts. In 2018, she was honored with the Horatio Alger Award for Education, Charity Work. Named after the "rags to riches" writer, the award recognizes perseverance and giving back.
Accolades
McEntire has the second-most wins for the Academy of Country Music's Top Female Vocalist Awards with seven. McEntire holds the record American Music Awards for Favorite Country Female Artist (twelve). She also holds the distinction of being the first to win the Country Music Association's Female Vocalist of the Year Award four times consecutively. Martina McBride won Female Vocalist four times, although not consecutively. In 2013, Miranda Lambert tied McEntire to win Female Vocalist four years in a row and in 2016 Carrie Underwood joined this elite club by winning her fourth Female Vocalist award. McEntire is also a rare musical artist to achieve solo number-ones across four decades (1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s). She holds the record for most CMA Award nominations for a female artist, with 50. McEntire also holds the record with the most ACM Awards nominations for a female artist with 47, respectively. She is also the recipient of three Grammy Awards, winning in 1987, 1994 and 2018. In December 2018, McEntire received the Kennedy Center Honor. In December 2021 she was one of the five nominees for Person of the Year on Spotted Ratings, along with Mariska Hargitay, Olivia Rodrigo, Susan Lynn Rosner Rovner, and Rebecca Wisocky, but ultimately lost the award to Rovner due to the latter's extensive work restoring NBC to relevancy.
When Reba McEntire made her Grand Ole Opry debut on September 17, 1977, she almost did not make it in the door after a guard at the Opry gate missed her name on the night's list of performers. Her parents and older sister, Alice, drove 1,400 miles round trip from their Oklahoma home to see what turned out to be Reba's three-minute performance that night. Her act was cut from two songs to just one—"Invitation to the Blues"—because of a surprise appearance by Dolly Parton. McEntire was inducted into the Grand Ole Opry on January 17, 1986. "The Grand Ole Opry is a home," she says. "It's a family. It's like a family reunion, when you come back and get to see everybody."
In 2011, the Country Music Association announced that McEntire would be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. McEntire was unable to attend the announcement after her father had slipped into a coma following a stroke. McEntire attended the official induction ceremony alongside the other 2011 inductees Jean Shepard and Bobby Braddock. She was inducted by Dolly Parton.
Discography
Studio albums
Reba McEntire (1977)
Out of a Dream (1979)
Feel the Fire (1980)
Heart to Heart (1981)
Unlimited (1982)
Behind the Scene (1983)
Just a Little Love (1984)
My Kind of Country (1984)
Have I Got a Deal for You (1985)
Whoever's in New England (1986)
Reba Nell McEntire (1986)
What Am I Gonna Do About You (1986)
The Last One to Know (1987)
Merry Christmas to You (1987)
Reba (1988)
Sweet Sixteen (1989)
Rumor Has It (1990)
For My Broken Heart (1991)
It's Your Call (1992)
Read My Mind (1994)
Starting Over (1995)
What If It's You (1996)
If You See Him (1998)
So Good Together (1999)
The Secret of Giving: A Christmas Collection (1999)
Room to Breathe (2003)
Reba: Duets (2007)
Keep On Loving You (2009)
All the Women I Am (2010)
Love Somebody (2015)
My Kind of Christmas (2016)
Sing It Now: Songs of Faith & Hope (2017)
Stronger Than the Truth (2019)
Revived Remixed Revisited (2021)
Tours
Headlining tours
The Reba McEntire Show
The Last One to Know Tour
North American Tour '88
World Tour '89
'90 Tour
Rumor Has It Tour
Reba in Concert
It's Your Call Tour
Read My Mind Tour
Starting Over Tour
20th Anniversary Tour
Singer's Diary
Room to Breathe Tour
All the Women I Am Tour
Canadian Tour
Reba: Live in Concert
Co-headlining tours
Brooks & Dunn and Reba: The Tour
Girls Night Out
2 Hats and a Redhead
2 Worlds 2 Voices Tour
Reba and George Strait on Tour
Residency shows
Key to the Heart
Together in Vegas
Opening act
Today Tour
Filmography
See also
List of best-selling music artists in the United States
References
Footnotes
Books
Bibliography
External links
Reba McEntire Profile on Country Music Television
1955 births
20th-century American actresses
21st-century American actresses
20th-century American singers
21st-century American singers
Actresses from Oklahoma
American contraltos
American country singer-songwriters
American women country singers
American film actresses
American television actresses
American voice actresses
American Christians
Big Machine Records artists
Country Music Hall of Fame inductees
Grammy Award winners
Grand Ole Opry members
Kennedy Center honorees
Living people
MCA Records artists
Mercury Records artists
Singer-songwriters from Oklahoma
People from McAlester, Oklahoma
People from Atoka County, Oklahoma
Southeastern Oklahoma State University alumni
Members of the Country Music Association
Country musicians from Oklahoma
20th-century American women singers
21st-century American women singers
Theatre World Award winners
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"\"What Else Is There?\" is the third single from the Norwegian duo Röyksopp's second album The Understanding. It features the vocals of Karin Dreijer from the Swedish electronica duo The Knife. The album was released in the UK with the help of Astralwerks.\n\nThe single was used in an O2 television advertisement in the Czech Republic and in Slovakia during 2008. It was also used in the 2006 film Cashback and the 2007 film, Meet Bill. Trentemøller's remix of \"What Else is There?\" was featured in an episode of the HBO show Entourage.\n\nThe song was covered by extreme metal band Enslaved as a bonus track for their album E.\n\nThe song was listed as the 375th best song of the 2000s by Pitchfork Media.\n\nOfficial versions\n\"What Else Is There?\" (Album Version) – 5:17\n\"What Else Is There?\" (Radio Edit) – 3:38\n\"What Else Is There?\" (Jacques Lu Cont Radio Mix) – 3:46\n\"What Else Is There?\" (The Emperor Machine Vocal Version) – 8:03\n\"What Else Is There?\" (The Emperor Machine Dub Version) – 7:51\n\"What Else Is There?\" (Thin White Duke Mix) – 8:25\n\"What Else Is There?\" (Thin White Duke Edit) – 4:50\n\"What Else Is There?\" (Thin White Duke Remix) (Radio Edit) – 3:06\n\"What Else Is There?\" (Trentemøller Remix) – 7:42\n\"What Else Is There?\" (Vitalic Remix) – 5:14\n\nResponse\nThe single was officially released on 5 December 2005 in the UK. The single had a limited release on 21 November 2005 to promote the upcoming album. On the UK Singles Chart, it peaked at number 32, while on the UK Dance Chart, it reached number one.\n\nMusic video\nThe music video was directed by Martin de Thurah. It features Norwegian model Marianne Schröder who is shown lip-syncing Dreijer's voice. Schröder is depicted as a floating woman traveling across stormy landscapes and within empty houses. Dreijer makes a cameo appearance as a woman wearing an Elizabethan ruff while dining alone at a festive table.\n\nMovie spots\n\nThe song is also featured in the movie Meet Bill as characters played by Jessica Alba and Aaron Eckhart smoke marijuana while listening to it. It is also part of the end credits music of the film Cashback.\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\n2005 singles\nRöyksopp songs\nAstralwerks singles\nSongs written by Svein Berge\nSongs written by Torbjørn Brundtland\n2004 songs\nSongs written by Roger Greenaway\nSongs written by Olof Dreijer\nSongs written by Karin Dreijer",
"What Else Do You Do? (A Compilation of Quiet Music) is a various artists compilation album, released in 1990 by Shimmy Disc.\n\nTrack listing\n\nPersonnel \nAdapted from the What Else Do You Do? (A Compilation of Quiet Music) liner notes.\n Kramer – production, engineering\n\nRelease history\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n \n\n1990 compilation albums\nAlbums produced by Kramer (musician)\nShimmy Disc compilation albums"
] |
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"Reba McEntire",
"2014-2016: Nash Icon, Love Somebody, Christmas and Gospel albums, America's Got Talent",
"What was her goal",
"Big Machine's new imprint Nash Icon Music.",
"What did this mean",
"she was working on a new album, with 11 new songs.",
"What was",
"Her first single for the new label,",
"When was this realesed",
"January 6, 2015.",
"What did it do",
"It served as the lead-off single to",
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"Love Somebody,",
"What album is this",
"McEntire's twenty-seventh studio album,",
"When was the album released",
"April 14, 2015. Love Somebody debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Top Country Albums",
"What else",
"her twelfth number-one album on the chart--and No. 3 on Billboard 200,"
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C_250e1915dae4444eacc416035a1b7b5b_1
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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 besides topping Billboard charts?
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Reba McEntire
|
On October 21, 2014, it was announced that McEntire would be the inaugural signing for Big Machine's new imprint Nash Icon Music. She also disclosed that she was working on a new album, with 11 new songs. Her first single for the new label, "Going Out Like That", was announced December 16, 2014 and was released on January 6, 2015. It served as the lead-off single to Love Somebody, McEntire's twenty-seventh studio album, released on April 14, 2015. Love Somebody debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Top Country Albums--her twelfth number-one album on the chart--and No. 3 on Billboard 200, selling 62,469 copies in the U.S. The album has sold 171,600 copies in the U.S. as of October 5, 2015. In 2016, McEntire was selected as one of thirty artists to perform on "Forever Country", a mash-up track of Take Me Home, Country Roads, On the Road Again and I Will Always Love You which celebrates 50 years of the CMA Awards. McEntire released her third Christmas album My Kind of Christmas on September 2, 2016. The album was exclusively sold at Cracker Barrel and online. She also announced she would soon be selling her own line of clothing, home decor, jewelry and other things under the "Rockin' R by Reba" line also at Cracker Barrel. McEntire was a guest judge on the July 13, 2016 episode of America's Got Talent. She used her golden buzzer, which she could only use once and allowed an act to go straight to the live shows, on contortionist Sofie Dossi. CANNOTANSWER
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In 2016, McEntire was selected as one of thirty artists to perform on "Forever Country
|
Reba Nell McEntire, also known mononymously as Reba, (born March 28, 1955) is an American country music singer, actress and businesswoman. She is often referred to as "the Queen of Country," having sold more than 75 million records worldwide. Since the 1970s, McEntire has placed over 100 singles on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, 25 of which reached the number one spot. She is also credited as an actress, having appeared in both films and television. She starred in the television series Reba, which aired for six seasons. She also owns several businesses, including a clothing line.
One of four children, McEntire was born and raised in the state of Oklahoma. In childhood and adolescence, her interests included barrel racing and sports. She also had a natural singing ability, which was encouraged by her mother. With her mother's help, she and her siblings formed the Singing McEntires, which played at local events and recorded for a small label. McEntire later enrolled at Southeastern Oklahoma State University and studied to become a public school teacher. She also continued to occasionally perform and was heard singing at a rodeo event by country performer Red Steagall. Drawn to her singing voice, Steagall helped McEntire secure a country music recording contract with PolyGram/Mercury Records in 1975.
Over the next several years, PolyGram/Mercury released a series of McEntire's albums and singles, which amounted to little success. In the early 1980s, McEntire's music gained more momentum through several top ten country songs, including "(You Lift Me) Up to Heaven", "I'm Not That Lonely Yet" and her first number one "Can't Even Get the Blues". Yet McEntire became increasingly unhappy with her career trajectory and signed with MCA Records in 1984. Her second MCA album titled My Kind of Country (1984) became her breakout release, spawning two number one Billboard country singles and pointed towards a more traditional musical style. Through the 1980s, McEntire released seven more studio albums and had ten more number one country hits. Her number one singles included "One Promise Too Late", "The Last One to Know" and the Grammy Award-winning "Whoever's in New England".
In 1991, McEntire lost eight of her band members in a plane crash in San Diego, California. The experience led to McEntire's critically acclaimed album For My Broken Heart, which is her highest-selling disc to date. She followed it with several commercially successful albums during the 1990s, including Read My Mind (1994), What If It's You (1996) and If You See Him (1998). These albums featured the number one country singles "The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter", "How Was I to Know" and a duet with Brooks and Dunn called "If You See Him/If You See Her". McEntire also began acting on film and television, beginning with 1990's Tremors. In 2001, she played the role of Annie Oakley in the Broadway musical Annie Get Your Gun. The same year, the WB channel launched the TV series Reba, which starred McEntire in the lead role. The show became successful and ran until 2007.
In 2004, McEntire returned to her country recording career with the top five Billboard album Room to Breathe. She followed the release with 2007's Reba: Duets, 2009's Keep On Loving You and 2011's All the Women I Am. Her 2000's albums spawned the number one singles "Somebody", "Consider Me Gone" and "Turn on the Radio". In 2012, McEntire briefly returned to television with the series Malibu Country and in 2018 portrayed the role of Colonel Sanders in television commercials for KFC. She has continued releasing new music, including Love Somebody (2015), Sing It Now (2017) and Revived Remixed Revisited (2021).
Early life
McEntire was born in McAlester, Oklahoma in 1955 but was raised on a ranch in Chockie, Oklahoma. She was the third of four children born to Clark and Jacqueline McEntire. Her grandfather, John Wesley McEntire, was a world-champion steer roper in 1934, while her father held the same title three times (1957, 1958 and 1961). Jacqueline McEntire had aspirations of becoming a country singer, but instead became a public school teacher, librarian and secretary While her mother was tender and loving, her father had trouble showing affection. "When we were growing up I used to regret that Daddy never told us that he loved us," she recalled in her autobiography. The McEntire family owned a cattle ranch in Chockie. Each family member contributed to running the cattle operation. The McEntire children helped with ranch chores before and after school. This included castrating bulls and giving them worm medicine.
The McEntire siblings also developed an interest in singing, which was encouraged by their mother. On car trips to their father's rodeo dates, Jacqueline McEntire taught her children to sing in harmony with one another. Young Reba then started performing school, beginning in first grade when she sang "Away in a Manger" at an elementary school Christmas pageant. In fifth grade, she joined the 4-H club and won first place in the Junior Act Division for singing "My Sweet Little Alice Blue Gown". She also played basketball and ran track. For several summers, she attended a basketball camp. She also learned piano and guitar. She also developed an interest in the rodeo and trained to become a barrel racer.
By high school the McEntire siblings had been frequently performing. Together, they formed a trio which they called The Singing McEntires. In 1971, the trio released a single about their famous grandfather called "The Ballad of John McEntire". It was pressed as a single by a local label and was issued in small numbers regionally. The trio eventually included a backing band which performed at local functions. The group was later named The Kiowa High School Cowboy Band. They also had paying gigs at bars at dance halls in nearby Oklahoma City. "We were a bunch of kids barely in puberty who didn't get to bed until almost daylight after some of our shows," McEntire remembered. The band parted ways once Reba's brother graduated high school. In 1973, McEntire graduated from Kiowa High School.
Once finishing high school, McEntire enrolled in college at Southeastern Oklahoma State University. She majored in elementary education with a minor in music. She completed student teaching and later graduated with a Bachelor's degree. She also continued to help out on her family's ranch during her college years. In 1974, McEntire's father encouraged her to take a job opportunity singing "The Star-Spangled Banner" at the National Finals Rodeo in Oklahoma City. She contacted family friend and rodeo announcer Clem McSpadden, who helped her get hired for the gig. Following one of her performances, McEntire was heard by country artist Red Steagall who was impressed by her singing. Reba, her siblings and her mother later joined him at a hotel party the same week. At the hotel, Reba performed an a cappella version of Dolly Parton's "Joshua". Jacqueline McEntire asked Steagall if he was able to help get all her children a recording contract. After going back to Nashville, Steagall contacted her in early 1975 and said, "I can't take all three. But I could take Reba. She's got something a little different."
In March 1975 and accompanied by her mother, McEntire embarked on a trip to Nashville, Tennessee to record a demonstration tape that Steagall hoped to pass along to record labels. At the start of the trip, she was unsure about pursuing a professional country music career. McEntire recalled in her autobiography continually making excuses for her mother to stop the car instead of traveling to Nashville. After noticing her daughter's fear, Jacqueline McEntire told her, "Now Reba, let me tell you something. If you don't want to go to Nashville, we don't have to do this. But I'm living all my dreams through you." The conversation changed her mind and they continued on to Nashville.
After recording a demo, McEntire's tape was heard by Glenn Keener of PolyGram/Mercury Records, who was interested in signing her to a Nashville contract. Keener brought McEntire's tape and another female's tape to PolyGram's Chicago headquarters. The label informed Kenner that he could only sign one female performer. "He looked at the two tapes in his hand and handed ’em mine," McEntire told Entertainment Weekly.
Music career
1976–1983: Career launch at Mercury
In November 1975, McEntire signed a country music recording contract with PolyGram/Mercury Records. She made her first recordings for the label in January 1976. She was produced by Glenn Keener and was backed by a Countrypolitan arrangement that included a string section. McEntire's debut single was released in 1976 titled "I Don't Want to Be a One Night Stand". The track failed to become a major hit, only peaking at number 88 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart that May. It was followed by the low-charting Billboard country singles "(There's Nothing Like the Love) Between a Woman and Man" and "Glad I Waited Just for You". Mercury issued her self-titled debut album in 1977. In his album review, Greg Adams of AllMusic compared it to the country crossover style of Barbara Mandrell and Tammy Wynette. McEntire also began touring and performing more frequently. Without a band of her own, she often relied on house bands to accompany her. In some instances, the backing bands did not know country music and McEntire would have to fill her time onstage with jokes.
McEntire's career gained more momentum by 1978. That year she collaborated on two singles with country artist Jacky Ward. The duo's double-sided release of "I'd Really Love to See You Tonight"/"Three Sheets in the Wind" became her first top 20 hit on the country chart. When Glenn Keener left the PolyGram/Mercury roster, McEntire inherited producer Jerry Kennedy. Kennedy produced her second studio album titled Out of a Dream (1979). The album's cover of Patsy Cline's "Sweet Dreams" became her first top 20 hit as a solo artist. Four additional top 40 country singles were spawned from the album as well. By 1980, McEntire had formed her own band which included sister Susie and brother Pake McEntire. She also hired a new manager. McEntire and her band toured to dates in a three-car caravan, which included a horse trailer for transporting instruments. She later upgraded to a bus nicknamed "Silver Eagle", which routinely broke down. Also in 1980, "(You Lift Me) Up to Heaven" became her first top ten hit on the country songs chart. It was included on her third studio album, Feel the Fire, which was released in October.
By this point, McEntire's label pushed her record music in a soft country pop style that she often disagreed with. Future material (which included her next album) was recorded in this format. Her fourth album, Heart to Heart was issued in 1981 and became her first disc to chart the Billboard Country Albums list. It received only a 2.5 star review from AllMusic's William Ruhlmann, who described McEntire as being "a promising, but not yet accomplished country artist." Yet its lead single, "Today All Over Again", became her highest charting country single yet, reaching number five. In 1983, McEntire's bus had broken down when she was informed that her latest single "Can't Even Get the Blues" reached the number one spot on the Billboard country chart. It was followed by her second number one song "You're the First Time I Thought About Leaving". The track also became her second to reach the top ten of Canada's RPM country songs chart. Both singles appeared on her 1983 album Unlimited. The following year, the single "Why Do We Want (What We Know We Can't Have)" reached the top ten. With increased success in the country music industry, she was able to arrange an early release from PolyGram/Mercury in 1983. "Let met put it this way, I've sorta taken my career into control myself," she explained of the decision.
1984–1990: Breakthrough
McEntire signed with MCA Records in 1984 and released her seventh studio album Just a Little Love. Harold Shedd was originally intended to produce the disc, however, McEntire rejected his desire for a country pop arrangement. Instead, Norro Wilson produced the project. Despite spawning a top ten hit, McEntire was still dissatisfied with the record's production and the lack of control over material. Instead, she turned to MCA president Jimmy Bowen who suggested that she find her own songs to record. Accompanied by Don "Dirt" Lanier, McEntire spent several days listening to various songs from publishing companies. Eventually she found a song written by Harlan Howard titled "Somebody Should Leave" and a song by Jon Moffat titled "How Blue". Released as singles, they reached the number one spot on the country songs chart and later appeared on 1984's My Kind of Country. The collection also included several covers of classic country songs by Ray Price, Charley Pride and Connie Smith. AllMusic's William Ruhlmann gave the disc 4.5 stars. Billboard magazine described McEntire on the album as being "the finest woman country singer since Kitty Wells." The album became her breakthrough recording, leading McEntire to winning 1984's Female Vocalist of the Year accolade from the Country Music Association. Along with music by George Strait and Randy Travis, the album also brought forth a stylistic change in country towards traditional arrangements and sounds.
Her next MCA album was 1985's Have I Got a Deal for You. The project followed the same traditional country format of its predecessor. It was produced by Jimmy Bowen, along with co-production credits from McEntire herself. The album 's title track reached the Billboard country top ten along with "Only in My Mind", a song composed by McEntire herself. In February 1986, her ninth studio album was released named Whoever's in New England. On the record, McEntire and co-producer Jimmy Bowen mixed a traditional country style with a modern, contemporary sound. Author Kurt Wolff described the title track's production, as being "bigger and sentimentalism more obvious, even manipulative". Issued as the lead single, the title track peaked at number one on the Bilboard country chart and won McEntire the Grammy Award for Best Female Country Vocal Performance. The album itself became her first to top the Billboard Country Albums survey. and later certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America for sales of one million copies.
By this point McEntire had reached the height of her commercial stardom. Following this, McEntire made changes to her stage show. She began implementing choreography and experimented with stage lighting. Also in 1986, McEntire's twelfth studio album appeared titled What Am I Gonna Do About You. AllMusic found that it lacked the features that had made Whoever's in New England unique. The title track was the lead single from the release. It became her next number one song on the Billboard country chart and her first number one on the RPM Canadian country chart. Its second single "One Promise Too Late" also topped the country chart. Her thirteenth studio project, The Last One to Know, was released in 1987 and reached number three on the Billboard country albums chart. Reviewer Tom Roland noted that McEntire chose material that reflected her recent divorce from first husband Charlie Battles. Both the title track and "Love Will Find Its Way to You" topped the Billboard country songs chart. In late 1987, McEntire released her first Christmas collection called Merry Christmas to You. Also in 1987, she played Carnegie Hall in New York City for the first time.
In the late 1980s, McEntire took more control of her career. She fired her manager and formed her own entertainment company that helped further promote her material. Other new changes included her 1988 pop-inspired release Reba. Her fifteenth studio disc included covers of the former pop hits "Respect" and "A Sunday Kind of Love". It produced the number one Billboard country singles "New Fool at an Old Game" and "I Know How He Feels". It was followed by 1989's Sweet Sixteen, which was noted to be a more of a "return[s] to the neo-traditionalist fold", according to reviewer William Ruhlmann. The album featured the country hits "'Til Love Comes Again", "Little Girl", "Walk On" and a cover of "Cathy's Clown". Her first live project titled Reba Live was also released in 1989.
Rumor Has It (1990) was another pop-oriented album release featuring a mix of ballads and uptempo numbers. It was the first disc in McEntire's career to reach the top 40 of the Billboard 200 albums chart. The disc would became McEntire's highest-selling albums, certifying three-times platinum from the RIAA. Four hit country singles came from the release, including "You Lie" and her cover of "Fancy". The latter single eventually become one of McEntire's signature songs.
1991: Plane crash and For My Broken Heart
In the late 1980s, McEntire's touring schedule became increasingly busy. To avoid long bus trips, she and her band began traveling by private planes to concerts. McEntire and her touring band started the 1991 leg of their tour with dates in Alaska, Saginaw, Michigan, Fort Wayne, Indiana and a private gig for IBM in San Diego, California. Two planes were scheduled to leave San Diego which would carry McEntire's band. McEntire, her husband and her stylist would take a different aircraft the next day. In the middle of the night on March 16, 1991, McEntire was awoken to a phone call from Roger Woolsey, who flew the second plane. McEntire's husband took the call and discovered that one of the planes had crashed. Following the successful takeoff of both planes, one plane's wing hit the side of Otay Mountain in San Diego, killing everyone on board.
In total, eight members of her band were killed: Chris Austin, Kirk Cappello, Joey Cigainero, Paula Kaye Evans, Jim Hammon, Terry Jackson, Anthony Saputo, and Michael Thomas. In addition pilot Donald Holmes and co-pilot Chris Hollinger were also killed. The first plane was a Hawker Siddeley DH-125-1A/522 charter jet that took off at 1:40 AM from the Brown Field Municipal Airport, located near the border of Mexico. After reaching an altitude of above sea level, the aircraft crashed on the side of Otay Mountain, located east of the airport. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) determined the probable cause of the accident was related to "improper pilot planning".
Meanwhile, the second plane carrying the rest of her band made it successfully to an airport in Nashville. McEntire, her husband and hair stylist returned on their own plane following the accident. "By the time that long, terrible weekend was over, we were emotionally and physically exhausted," McEntire stated in her autobiography. The news was reported nearly immediately to McEntire and her husband, who were sleeping at a nearby hotel. A spokeswoman for McEntire made a statement to The Los Angeles Times on behalf of her: "She was very close to all of them. Some of them had been with her for years. Reba is totally devastated by this. It's like losing part of your family. Right now she just wants to get back to Nashville." Two days after the crash, McEntire conducted an interview with People magazine and scheduled a memorial service for the families of the victims. Nine days following the accident, McEntire performed at the 63rd Academy Awards ceremony, singing the Best Original Song nominee "I'm Checkin' Out" from the film Postcards from the Edge. In addition, Vince Gill and Dolly Parton offered their help in reorganizing her touring band.
McEntire dedicated her sixteenth album, For My Broken Heart, to the deceased members of her road band. Released in October 1991, it contained songs of sorrow and lost love about "all measure of suffering", according to Alanna Nash of Entertainment Weekly. Nash reported that McEntire "still hits her stride with the more traditional songs of emotional turmoil, above all combining a spectacular vocal performance with a terrific song on 'Buying Her Roses', a wife's head-spinning discovery of her husband's other woman." The disc peaked at number three on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart. It also became her highest-charting release on the Billboard 200 yet, peaking at number 13. It later sold over four million copies in the United States, becoming her best-selling album to date. Its title track and "Is There Life Out There" both became number one Billboard country singles. In addition, "The Greatest Man I Never Knew" and McEntire's cover of "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia" both became major country hits.
1992–2002: Continued country success
In December 1992, McEntire's seventeenth album It's Your Call was released. A sign of her increased mainstream success, the album was her first to reach the top ten of the Billboard 200. It spawned the country hits "Take It Back", the title track and a number one duet with Vince Gill called "The Heart Won't Lie". Critic Brian Mansfield compared the disc to For My Broken Heart, concluding that "only casual or partial listeners will be moved as much." Christopher John Farley of Time wrote that the album ranged from being "relaxing" to "cathartic", and "these vocals from one of the best country singers linger in the mind". For her next release, McEntire collaborated with up-and-coming artist Linda Davis on the single "Does He Love You". MCA Records encouraged McEntire to record the track with more established acts like Wynonna Judd or Trisha Yearwood, but ultimately finalized the track with Davis. It became her eighteenth number one hit on the Country Songs chart and her sixteenth number one hit on the Canadian country chart. It was later included on her 1993 compilation Greatest Hits Volume Two. Later that year, Davis and McEntire performed the duet at the CMA Awards. For her performance, McEntire wore a red dress with a plunging neckline that created controversy among the Nashville community.
Her eighteenth studio release was 1994's Read My Mind. The disc reached number two on both the Billboard 200 and the Top Country Albums chart. The disc later reached sales of three million copies in the United States and certified three times platinum from the RIAA. Five major hits came from the release, including "The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter", "Till You Love Me" and a song about a woman contracting AIDS called "She Thinks His Name Was John". The latter recording only reached a top 20 charting position due to its controversial lyrics. McEntire's nineteenth studio album, Starting Over (1995) was collection of her favorite songs originally recorded by others. The album was made to commemorate McEntire's twenty years in the music industry. The album received a less favorable response from critics than that of her previous releases. While project spawned three charting singles, only McEntire's cover of "Ring on Her Finger, Time on Her Hands" became a top ten country song. Starting Over was certified platinum by the RIAA within the first two months of its release.
McEntire's next album release What If It's You was issued by MCA in November 1996. The record was a return to a contemporary country sound. It debuted at number 15 on the Billboard 200 and eventually topped the Billboard country albums list. It received a more favorable response from radio programmers than that of her 1995 album and received greater promotion. Critic Thom Owens noted that the project "[didn't] offer any new tricks from Reba McEntire, but it is nevertheless an excellent reminder of her deep talents as a vocalist." Its first single, "The Fear of Being Alone" became a top five hit, while "How Was I to Know" reached the number one spot on the Billboard country songs survey.
McEntire began touring with country duo Brooks & Dunn during the mid 1990s. Their touring collaborating led to the recording of a duet titled "If You See Him/If You See Her" in 1998. The track topped both the Billboard country songs chart and the Canadian RPM country chart. Their initial collaborations would lead to several more professional endeavors over the years, including a joint Las Vegas residency. The duet was included on McEntire's If You See Him album and Brooks & Dunn's If You See Her album, both of which were released in June 1998. Thom Owens found that both album titles were named nearly the same as "a way to draw attention for both parties, since they were no longer new guns—they were veterans in danger of losing ground to younger musicians". If You See Him produced three more top ten country hits including "Forever Love" and "One Honest Heart".
In 1999, McEntire released two albums. In September she issued her second Christmas album, The Secret of Giving: A Christmas Collection. In November, her twenty-second studio album, So Good Together was released. Entertainment Weekly commented that most of the album's material was "an odd set—mostly ballads, including an English/Portuguese duet with Jose e Durval on Boz Scaggs' 'We're All Alone'". It featured the top five country songs "What Do You Say" and "I'll Be". McEntire focused on an acting career in the early 2000s and took a temporary musical hiatus. One exception was 2001's "I'm a Survivor". The single became a top five country hit and the theme song to McEntire's 2001 television series.
2003–2015: Country music comeback, record label switch and continued music success
McEntire returned to her recording career in August 2003 with the release of the MCA single "I'm Gonna Take That Mountain". The song was included on her first studio album in four years titled Room to Breathe (November 2003). "The reason I named the album Room to Breathe is because I needed a little room to breathe," McEntire told Billboard. The 12-track disc was produced by Buddy Cannon and Norro Wilson. It also featured a guest appearance from Vince Gill. Room to Breathe debuted at number four on the Billboard country chart and later certified platinum in the United States. It spawned McEntire's first number one song in six years titled "Somebody". Also featured was the top ten single "He Gets That from Me". In 2004, she embarked on her first tour in several years also titled "Room to Breathe", which included 36 cities in the United States. In 2005, MCA released the double-disc compilation titled Reba #1's while she was in between albums.
In September 2007, McEntire's next studio disc was releaded titled Reba: Duets. The album was a collection of duets with various music artists, including Kenny Chesney, LeAnn Rimes, Trisha Yearwood, Carole King, and Justin Timberlake. Reba: Duets topped the Billboard country chart and theBillboard 200, becoming her first album in her career to top reach the top of both lists. Reba: Duets was later certified platinum by the RIAA. The album was given high critical praise from magazines such as PopMatters, which compared McEntire to artists like Janis Joplin and Tina Turner. AllMusic's Thom Jurek gave it 3.5 stars, commenting that "it's full of good to great songs delivered in mostly interesting ways." The first single was a duet version of Kelly Clarkson's "Because of You", which reached number two on the American country chart and topped the Canadian country songs chart.
In 2008, McEntire announced that she would be departing her label of 25 years and signing with the Valory Music Group, an imprint of Big Machine Records. The switch to Valory reunited McEntire with the label's president, Scott Borchetta, whom she had worked with previously. Her first Valory single was 2009's "Strange". The song debuted at number 39 Billboard country songs chart, giving McEntire the highest single debut of her career and peaked at number eleven. Her twenty-sixth studio album, Keep On Loving You was released in August 2009 and also topped both the Billboard Country and 200 charts. In 2009, "Consider Me Gone" (spawned as the record's second single) became her 24th number-one on the Billboard chart in December. At age 54, McEntire became one of the oldest women to have a number one single on the country songs chart.
McEntire's twenty-ninth studio album All the Women I Am was released in November 2010. Steve Morse of The Boston Globe called the project "one of her best efforts", while Thom Jurek at AllMusic only gave it a 2.5 star rating, calling it "awkward" and lacking a "center". "Turn On the Radio" was issued as the lead single prior to the album, eventually becoming her twenty firth number one on the Billboard country survey. Three additional charting singles were spawned from All the Women I Am that peaked outside the top 20. Her All the Women I Am Tour tour followed shortly after late featuring country acts the Band Perry, Steel Magnolia, and Edens Edge. In 2014, McEntire moved to Big Machine's new imprint for veteran artists titled Nash Icon Music. Her first Nash Icon single was 2015's "Going Out Like That", which reached the top 25 of the Billboard country songs chart. It was included on her 2015 Nash Icon album Love Somebody. The album topped the country albums chart and charted the top five of the Billboard 200. In 2016, McEntire released a third Christmas-themed studio album called My Kind of Christmas. The album was exclusively sold at Cracker Barrel and online. She also announced she would soon be selling her own line of clothing, home decor, jewelry and other things under the "Rockin' R by Reba" line also at Cracker Barrel.
2017–present: New beginnings in her 60s
After her split from ex-husband Narvel Blackstock, McEntire took control of her career as her own manager. She recruited Justin McIntosh of Starstruck Entertainment, Leslie Matthews serving as Brand Manager, and Carolyn Snell who has been with McEntire for nine years. They formed Reba's Business Inc. (RBI). She moved out of the building she and Blackstock had worked in, and moved her company to Green Hills, Nashville.
On December 15, 2016, McEntire announced that she was releasing her first gospel album titled Sing It Now: Songs of Faith & Hope. It was released by Nash Icon/Rockin' R Records on February 3, 2017, and consists of two discs. Disc one contains traditional hymns while disc two contains original tracks. "Softly and Tenderly", featuring Kelly Clarkson and Trisha Yearwood, was the first track off the album released. Another track on the album, "In the Garden/Wonderful Peace", features the Isaacs. Jay DeMarcus of the Rascal Flatts produced the album. The first single off the album is "Back to God". In January 2018, McEntire won the Grammy Award for Best Roots Gospel Album, her first nomination since 2007, and her first Grammy Award win in more than twenty years, since 1994. She also headlined the C2C: Country to Country festival in the UK alongside Brad Paisley and Zac Brown Band in March. Because of its limited release in 2016, on October 13, 2017 My Kind of Christmas was re-released - this time including songs with Vince Gill, Amy Grant, Darius Rucker and Lauren Daigle - on her website and through iTunes. In July 2018, it was announced that McEntire would be one of four honorees for the 41st annual Kennedy Center Honors, along with Cher, Philip Glass, and Wayne Shorter. The ceremony was held December 2, 2018, and broadcast on CBS December 26, 2018.
McEntire released her twenty-ninth studio album Stronger Than the Truth on April 5, 2019. McEntire also returned to host the 54th Academy of Country Music Awards on April 8, 2019.
On June 25, 2019, The New York Times Magazine listed McEntire among hundreds of artists whose material was destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.
On February 20, 2020, during a surprise appearance at the Country Radio Seminar, McEntire announced she had signed a new record deal with MCA Nashville, returning to the label after leaving in November 2008. McEntire hosted the 54th Annual Country Music Association Awards alongside Darius Rucker in November 2020. McEntire previously hosted in 2019 with Carrie Underwood and Dolly Parton, 1992 with Vince Gill, 1991 by herself (the second solo female host) and 1990 with Randy Travis.
Acting career
1989–99: Entry into film and television acting
In 1990, she obtained her first film role playing Heather Gummer in the horror comedy Tremors, along with Kevin Bacon. The film told the story of a small group of people living in Nevada who were fighting subterranean worm-like creatures. After the film's release, McEntire developed a strong interest in acting and made it her second career. The film earned McEntire a nomination for Best Supporting Actress at the 1991 Saturn Awards. The following year, she starred along with Kenny Rogers and Burt Reynolds in the made-for-television movies The Gambler Returns: The Luck of the Draw and The Man From Left Field. In 1994, McEntire worked with director Rob Reiner in the film North, playing Ma Tex. The film obtained negative reviews, receiving only two and a half stars from Allmovie.
In 1994, McEntire starred in Is There Life Out There? a television movie based on her song of the same name. The following year, she appeared in Buffalo Girls, which was based upon the life of western cowgirl Calamity Jane (played by Anjelica Huston). Playing Jane's friend Annie Oakley, Buffalo Girls was nominated for an Emmy award. In 1996, McEntire was cast by director James Cameron as Molly Brown in his film Titanic. However, when it became apparent production for the film would extend well beyond its original length, McEntire had to turn down the part, as she had already scheduled prior concert engagements. The role was recast with Kathy Bates. In 1998, she starred as Lizzie Brooks in Forever Love, which was based upon McEntire's hit single of the same name.
2000–07: Broadway and television series
In early 2001, McEntire expanded into theater, starring in the Broadway revival of Annie Get Your Gun. Playing Annie Oakley (whom she had previously portrayed in Buffalo Girls), her performance was critically acclaimed by several newspapers, including The New York Times, which commented, "Without qualification the best performance by an actress in a musical comedy this season." McEntire personally called the musical "some of the hardest work I've ever done in my life".
In 2005, McEntire starred as Nellie Forbush in the Carnegie Hall concert production of the Broadway musical South Pacific with Alec Baldwin as Luther Billis and Brian Stokes Mitchell as Emile de Becque, directed by Walter Bobbie and with an adapted script by David Ives. The concert was broadcast as part of the Great Performances series in 2006.
In October 2001, McEntire premiered her half-hour television sitcom Reba on the WB network. The show was based around divorced mother Reba Hart, who learns how to handle life situations after her husband divorces her in order to marry his dental hygienist––with whom he had been cheating and gotten pregnant––and then their teenage daughter becomes pregnant as well. Reba garnered critical acclaim and success, becoming the network's highest-rated television show for adults ranging from the ages of 18 to 49. The show ran for six seasons and earned McEntire a nomination for a Golden Globe award. It was canceled on February 18, 2007; the series finale had 8.7 million viewers.
2011–20: Brief television return and current projects
In September 2011, McEntire confirmed on her website that ABC had ordered a pilot for her second television series Malibu Country. McEntire played a divorced mother of two who moves to Malibu, California to restart her music career. The pilot was filmed in April 2012 and began production on its first season in August. It was announced that the pilot for Malibu Country would premiere November 2, 2012. The show was broadcast Friday nights at 8:30/7:30c on ABC. On May 11, 2012, McEntire tweeted that the show had been picked up. She also was the host in the 2011 NASCAR Award Show in Las Vegas.
Despite reports that Malibu Country was the most-watched freshman comedy in its debut season (8.7 million), the show was canceled on May 10, 2013, after eighteen episodes.
In January 2017, it was announced that McEntire would star and produce a Southern drama series for ABC titled Red Blooded. It was reported in May that ABC ultimately turned down the show, so it moved to being shopped around to other networks. In January 2018, Reba was chosen to portray KFC's first female Colonel Sanders. The commercials ran through the end of April 2018.
In 2020, McEntire launched a podcast titled Living & Learning hosted by herself and her former Reba co-star Melissa Peterman.
She made a cameo appearance in the 2021 comedy film Barb and Star go to Vista Del Mar as a water spirit named Trish after Annie Mumolo and Kristen Wiig, who wrote, produced, and starred in the film, wrote her an "impassioned letter" asking her to join the film. Director Josh Greenbaum said in an interview, "There's some casting that just clicks. Reba is not only 100% authentic, we knew she would be game."
Musical styles and legacy
McEntire's sound has been influenced by the country music of Bob Wills, Merle Haggard, Dolly Parton, Barbara Mandrell, and Patsy Cline. In college, McEntire attended local dances at the Oklahoma–Texas border so she could dance to Wills's music, commenting that, "it didn't get any better than dancing to Bob Wills music". She also explained Merle Haggard's influence on her career, stating "I had every album he ever put out", and would sing "every song he did", along with her brother, Pake and sister, Susie. In addition, her first major hit, "Sweet Dreams" was a remake of Patsy Cline's version of the song, according to McEntire herself.
McEntire's music has been described to not only be built upon traditional country music, but also expand into the genres of country pop, mainstream pop, soul, and R&B. At times, her music has been criticized for moving away from traditional country music. Many music critics have called her music to be "melodramatic", "formulaic", and "bombastic", particularly after her 1988 album Reba. Studio releases such as Sweet Sixteen, Rumor Has It, It's Your Call, and Starting Over have been described by these terms.
McEntire possesses a contralto vocal range and performs "vocal gymnastics" with her voice, a musical technique in which a singer twirls a note around, using their vibrato. McEntire has credited Dolly Parton for influencing this trait, stating that she always listened to Parton's records and find her style of vocal gymnastics "so pretty".
McEntire has often been regarded as one of country music's most influential female vocalists and most beloved entertainers. She is highly credited for remaining one of country's most popular female artists for nearly four decades, maintaining her success by continually incorporating contemporary musical sounds without changing her traditional vocal style. For numerous artists, she has been credited as an inspiration to their careers in music. The Net Music Countdown second-handedly reported, "That influence has manifested itself in many ways. As a role model, she's shown others how to handle fame with grace and good humor while never backing down from her values or goals. Just as importantly, she's shown others to refuse to accept limitations on what she can do or how much she can achieve." McEntire also explained to the online website, "Whatever I'm doing, I feel like I'm representing country music". "It's always been my main career, and it's where my loyalties lie. I feel like I'm waving the flag of country music wherever I go, and I couldn't be prouder to do it."
Personal life
McEntire is a Christian, and she has stated that her faith in God has helped her immensely throughout her life.
Two of her siblings have also had careers in the music industry. Her brother Pake dabbled in the country music industry in the late 1980s but returned to Oklahoma after a brief stint. He owns and operates a 1,000-acre ranch near Coalgate, Oklahoma, and continues to rodeo. Her sister Susie McEntire-Eaton (Martha Susan "Susie" McEntire-Eaton, formerly Luchsinger) is a successful Christian music singer who travels the country with her husband, speaking and performing. She also has an older sister, Alice Foran, a retired social worker who resides in Lane, Oklahoma. Her niece Calamity McEntire is an assistant basketball coach at the University of Dayton.
Relationships and children
In 1976, McEntire married steer wrestling champion and rancher Charlie Battles who was 10 years her senior and had two sons from his previous marriage. The couple shared a ranch in Oklahoma. In 1987, McEntire divorced Battles and moved to Nashville, Tennessee, to further pursue her career.
In 1989, McEntire married her manager and former steel guitar player Narvel Blackstock. The couple wed at Lake Tahoe on a boat in a private ceremony. Together, the pair took over all aspects of McEntire's career, forming Starstruck Entertainment, which was originally designed to help manage her career. From her marriage to Blackstock, McEntire gained three stepchildren, Chassidy, Shawna, and Brandon. She gave birth to a son, Shelby Steven McEntire Blackstock, in February 1990. On August 3, 2015, it was announced in a joint statement on McEntire's website that she and Blackstock had been separated for a few months after twenty-six years of marriage. McEntire announced in December 2015 that their divorce had been finalized on October 28, 2015. Despite the divorce, McEntire remains very close to her three stepchildren and the Blackstock family; she considers her stepchildren's children to be her grandchildren. McEntire's stepson Brandon Blackstock married singer Kelly Clarkson, with whom he has a daughter and a son. Speaking about their impending marriage in 2013, McEntire stated she was "Thrilled to death, to have my buddy as my daughter-in-law. I mean, who could ask for more?"
In 2017, McEntire began a relationship with photographer Anthony "Skeeter" Lasuzzo. The couple met through McEntire's association with Kix Brooks. In describing her feelings about Lasuzzo, she stated, "We're totally in love — absolutely," she says. "I wouldn’t put up with somebody for two years if I wasn’t in love with 'em!" McEntire and Lasuzzo separated in the fall of 2019.
In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, McEntire began dating film and TV actor Rex Linn.
Philanthropy
In 1992, she opened Reba's Ranch House in Denison, TX. Similar to a Ronald McDonald House, the house incorporates holistic care by providing a calm setting for rest, warm meals for nourishment and sensitive staff for spiritual connections to guests who have loved ones being treated at the nearby Texoma Medical Center.
Over the course of her career, she has been and continues to be an active supporter of various charitable organizations including Habitat for Humanity, The Salvation Army, the American Red Cross, Feeding America and Celebrity Fight Night. She has been honored with the Minnie Pearl Award, the ACM Home Depot Humanitarian Award and the Andrea Bocelli Foundation Humanitarian Award for her efforts. In 2018, she was honored with the Horatio Alger Award for Education, Charity Work. Named after the "rags to riches" writer, the award recognizes perseverance and giving back.
Accolades
McEntire has the second-most wins for the Academy of Country Music's Top Female Vocalist Awards with seven. McEntire holds the record American Music Awards for Favorite Country Female Artist (twelve). She also holds the distinction of being the first to win the Country Music Association's Female Vocalist of the Year Award four times consecutively. Martina McBride won Female Vocalist four times, although not consecutively. In 2013, Miranda Lambert tied McEntire to win Female Vocalist four years in a row and in 2016 Carrie Underwood joined this elite club by winning her fourth Female Vocalist award. McEntire is also a rare musical artist to achieve solo number-ones across four decades (1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s). She holds the record for most CMA Award nominations for a female artist, with 50. McEntire also holds the record with the most ACM Awards nominations for a female artist with 47, respectively. She is also the recipient of three Grammy Awards, winning in 1987, 1994 and 2018. In December 2018, McEntire received the Kennedy Center Honor. In December 2021 she was one of the five nominees for Person of the Year on Spotted Ratings, along with Mariska Hargitay, Olivia Rodrigo, Susan Lynn Rosner Rovner, and Rebecca Wisocky, but ultimately lost the award to Rovner due to the latter's extensive work restoring NBC to relevancy.
When Reba McEntire made her Grand Ole Opry debut on September 17, 1977, she almost did not make it in the door after a guard at the Opry gate missed her name on the night's list of performers. Her parents and older sister, Alice, drove 1,400 miles round trip from their Oklahoma home to see what turned out to be Reba's three-minute performance that night. Her act was cut from two songs to just one—"Invitation to the Blues"—because of a surprise appearance by Dolly Parton. McEntire was inducted into the Grand Ole Opry on January 17, 1986. "The Grand Ole Opry is a home," she says. "It's a family. It's like a family reunion, when you come back and get to see everybody."
In 2011, the Country Music Association announced that McEntire would be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. McEntire was unable to attend the announcement after her father had slipped into a coma following a stroke. McEntire attended the official induction ceremony alongside the other 2011 inductees Jean Shepard and Bobby Braddock. She was inducted by Dolly Parton.
Discography
Studio albums
Reba McEntire (1977)
Out of a Dream (1979)
Feel the Fire (1980)
Heart to Heart (1981)
Unlimited (1982)
Behind the Scene (1983)
Just a Little Love (1984)
My Kind of Country (1984)
Have I Got a Deal for You (1985)
Whoever's in New England (1986)
Reba Nell McEntire (1986)
What Am I Gonna Do About You (1986)
The Last One to Know (1987)
Merry Christmas to You (1987)
Reba (1988)
Sweet Sixteen (1989)
Rumor Has It (1990)
For My Broken Heart (1991)
It's Your Call (1992)
Read My Mind (1994)
Starting Over (1995)
What If It's You (1996)
If You See Him (1998)
So Good Together (1999)
The Secret of Giving: A Christmas Collection (1999)
Room to Breathe (2003)
Reba: Duets (2007)
Keep On Loving You (2009)
All the Women I Am (2010)
Love Somebody (2015)
My Kind of Christmas (2016)
Sing It Now: Songs of Faith & Hope (2017)
Stronger Than the Truth (2019)
Revived Remixed Revisited (2021)
Tours
Headlining tours
The Reba McEntire Show
The Last One to Know Tour
North American Tour '88
World Tour '89
'90 Tour
Rumor Has It Tour
Reba in Concert
It's Your Call Tour
Read My Mind Tour
Starting Over Tour
20th Anniversary Tour
Singer's Diary
Room to Breathe Tour
All the Women I Am Tour
Canadian Tour
Reba: Live in Concert
Co-headlining tours
Brooks & Dunn and Reba: The Tour
Girls Night Out
2 Hats and a Redhead
2 Worlds 2 Voices Tour
Reba and George Strait on Tour
Residency shows
Key to the Heart
Together in Vegas
Opening act
Today Tour
Filmography
See also
List of best-selling music artists in the United States
References
Footnotes
Books
Bibliography
External links
Reba McEntire Profile on Country Music Television
1955 births
20th-century American actresses
21st-century American actresses
20th-century American singers
21st-century American singers
Actresses from Oklahoma
American contraltos
American country singer-songwriters
American women country singers
American film actresses
American television actresses
American voice actresses
American Christians
Big Machine Records artists
Country Music Hall of Fame inductees
Grammy Award winners
Grand Ole Opry members
Kennedy Center honorees
Living people
MCA Records artists
Mercury Records artists
Singer-songwriters from Oklahoma
People from McAlester, Oklahoma
People from Atoka County, Oklahoma
Southeastern Oklahoma State University alumni
Members of the Country Music Association
Country musicians from Oklahoma
20th-century American women singers
21st-century American women singers
Theatre World Award winners
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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"
] |
[
"Hunter S. Thompson",
"Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas"
] |
C_f9d8069ce5c14c45a92486e19a607c8b_0
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What is Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas?
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What is Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas?
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Hunter S. Thompson
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The book for which Thompson gained most of his fame had its genesis during the research for Strange Rumblings in Aztlan, an expose for Rolling Stone on the 1970 killing of the Mexican-American television journalist Ruben Salazar. Salazar had been shot in the head at close range with a tear gas canister fired by officers of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department during the National Chicano Moratorium March against the Vietnam War. One of Thompson's sources for the story was Oscar Zeta Acosta, a prominent Mexican-American activist and attorney. Finding it difficult to talk in the racially tense atmosphere of Los Angeles, Thompson and Acosta decided to travel to Las Vegas, and take advantage of an assignment by Sports Illustrated to write a 250-word photograph caption on the Mint 400 motorcycle race held there. What was to be a short caption quickly grew into something else entirely. Thompson first submitted to Sports Illustrated a manuscript of 2,500 words, which was, as he later wrote, "aggressively rejected." Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner was said to have liked "the first 20 or so jangled pages enough to take it seriously on its own terms and tentatively scheduled it for publication -- which gave me the push I needed to keep working on it", Thompson later wrote. The result of the trip to Las Vegas became the 1972 book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, which first appeared in the November 1971 issues of Rolling Stone as a two-part series. It is written as a first-person account by a journalist named Raoul Duke on a trip to Las Vegas with Dr. Gonzo, his "300-pound Samoan attorney", to cover a narcotics officers' convention and the "fabulous Mint 400". During the trip, Duke and his companion (always referred to as "my attorney") become sidetracked by a search for the American Dream, with "two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers ... and also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether, and two dozen amyls." Coming to terms with the failure of the 1960s countercultural movement is a major theme of the novel, and the book was greeted with considerable critical acclaim, including being heralded by The New York Times as "by far the best book yet written on the decade of dope". "The Vegas Book", as Thompson referred to it, was a mainstream success and introduced his Gonzo journalism techniques to a wide public. CANNOTANSWER
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The result of the trip to Las Vegas became the 1972 book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,
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Hunter Stockton Thompson (July 18, 1937 – February 20, 2005) was an American journalist and author who founded the gonzo journalism movement. He rose to prominence with the publication of Hell's Angels (1967), a book for which he spent a year living and riding with the Hells Angels motorcycle gang to write a first-hand account of their lives and experiences.
In 1970, he wrote an unconventional magazine feature titled "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved" for Scanlan's Monthly, which raised his profile and established his counterculture credibility. It also set him on the path to establishing his own subgenre of New Journalism that he called "Gonzo", which was essentially an ongoing experiment in which the writer becomes a central figure and participant in the events of the narrative.
Thompson remains best known for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1971), a book first serialized in Rolling Stone in which he grapples with the implications of what he considered the failure of the 1960s counterculture movement. It was adapted for film twice: loosely in Where the Buffalo Roam starring Bill Murray as Thompson in 1980, and explicitly in 1998 by director Terry Gilliam in the eponymous film starring Johnny Depp and Benicio del Toro.
Thompson ran unsuccessfully for sheriff of Pitkin County, Colorado in 1970 on the Freak Power ticket. His campaign was chronicled in the documentary film Freak Power: The Ballot or the Bomb. He became known for his dislike of Richard Nixon, who he claimed represented "that dark, venal, and incurably violent side of the American character". He covered Nixon's 1972 reelection campaign for Rolling Stone and later collected the stories in book form as Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72.
Thompson's output declined from the mid-1970s, as he struggled with the consequences of fame, and complained that he could no longer merely report on events, as he was too easily recognized. After several high-profile stories were quashed by the upper management of Rolling Stone, he found it increasingly difficult to get his work into mainstream outlets. He did continue to write for alternative newspapers, and had a gig as a critic for the mainstream San Francisco Examiner for much of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Most of his work from 1979 to 1994 was collected in The Gonzo Papers. He continued to write for various journalism outlets in a variety of formats, including sporadic stories published in Rolling Stone and a weekly column that appeared on ESPN.com's Page 2 titled "Hey, Rube" that he started in 2000.
He was known for his lifelong use of alcohol and illegal narcotics, his love of firearms, and his iconoclastic contempt for authority. He often remarked: "I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me." Thompson died by suicide at the age of 67, following a series of health problems. In accordance with his wishes, his ashes were fired out of a cannon in a ceremony funded by his friend Johnny Depp and attended by friends including then-Senator John Kerry and Jack Nicholson. Hari Kunzru wrote, "the true voice of Thompson is revealed to be that of American moralist ... one who often makes himself ugly to expose the ugliness he sees around him."
Early life
Thompson was born into a middle-class family in Louisville, Kentucky, the first of three sons of Virginia Davison Ray (1908, Springfield, Kentucky – March 20, 1998, Louisville), who worked as head librarian at the Louisville Free Public Library and Jack Robert Thompson (September 4, 1893, Horse Cave, Kentucky – July 3, 1952, Louisville), a public insurance adjuster and World War I veteran. His parents were introduced by a friend from Jack's fraternity at the University of Kentucky in September 1934, and married on November 2, 1935. The Guardian journalist Nicholas Lezard, stated that Thompson's first name, Hunter, came from an ancestor on his mother's side, the Scottish surgeon John Hunter. A more direct attribution is that Thompson's first and middle name, Hunter Stockton, came from his maternal grandparents, Prestly Stockton Ray and Lucille Hunter.
In December 1943 when Thompson was six years old, the family settled in the affluent Cherokee Triangle neighborhood of The Highlands. On July 3, 1952, when Thompson was 14, his father died of myasthenia gravis at age 58. Hunter and his brothers were raised by their mother. Virginia worked as a librarian to support her children, and was described as a "heavy drinker" following her husband's death.
Education
Interested in sports and athletically inclined from a young age, Thompson co-founded the Hawks Athletic Club while attending I.N. Bloom Elementary School, which led to an invitation to join Louisville's Castlewood Athletic Club for adolescents that prepared them for high-school sports. Ultimately, he never joined a sports team in high school.
Thompson attended I.N. Bloom Elementary School, Highland Middle School, and Atherton High School, before transferring to Louisville Male High School in fall 1952. Also in 1952, he was accepted as a member of the Athenaeum Literary Association, a school-sponsored literary and social club that dated to 1862. Its members at the time came from Louisville's upper-class families, and included Porter Bibb, who became the first publisher of Rolling Stone at Thompson's behest. During this time, Thompson read and admired J. P. Donleavy's The Ginger Man.
As an Athenaeum member, Thompson contributed articles to and helped produce the club's yearbook The Spectator. The group ejected Thompson in 1955 for criminal activity. Charged as an accessory to robbery after being in a car with the perpetrator, Thompson was sentenced to 60 days in Kentucky's Jefferson County Jail. He served 31 days and, a week after his release, enlisted in the United States Air Force. While he was in jail, the school superintendent refused permission to take his high-school final examinations so he was unable to graduate.
Military service
Thompson completed basic training at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, and transferred to Scott Air Force Base in Belleville, Illinois, to study electronics. He applied to become an aviator, but the Air Force's aviation-cadet program rejected his application. In 1956, he transferred to Eglin Air Force Base near Fort Walton Beach, Florida. While serving at Eglin, he took evening classes at Florida State University. At Eglin, he landed his first professional writing job as sports editor of The Command Courier by falsifying his job experience. As sports editor, Thompson traveled around the United States with the Eglin Eagles football team, covering its games. In early 1957, he wrote a sports column for The Playground News, a local newspaper in Fort Walton Beach, Florida. His name did not appear on the column because Air Force regulations forbade outside employment.
In 1958, as an airman first class, his commanding officer recommended him for an early honorable discharge. "In summary, this airman, although talented, will not be guided by policy," chief of information services Colonel William S. Evans wrote to the Eglin personnel office. "Sometimes his rebel and superior attitude seems to rub off on other airmen staff members."
Early journalism career
After leaving the Air Force, Thompson worked as sports editor for a newspaper in Jersey Shore, Pennsylvania, before relocating to New York City. There he audited several courses at the Columbia University School of General Studies. During this time he worked briefly for Time as a copy boy for $51 a week. At work, he typed out parts of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms in order to learn the authors' rhythms and writing styles. In 1959 Time fired him for insubordination. Later that year, he worked as a reporter for The Middletown Daily Record in Middletown, New York. He was fired from this job after damaging an office candy machine and arguing with the owner of a local restaurant who happened to be an advertiser with the paper.
In 1960, Thompson moved to San Juan, Puerto Rico, to take a job with the sporting magazine El Sportivo, which ceased operations soon after his arrival. Thompson applied for a job with the Puerto Rican English-language daily The San Juan Star, but its managing editor, future novelist William J. Kennedy, turned him down. Nonetheless, the two became friends. After the demise of El Sportivo, Thompson worked as a stringer for the New York Herald Tribune and a few other stateside papers on Caribbean issues, with Kennedy working as his editor.
After returning to the United States, Thompson visited San Francisco and eventually lived in Big Sur, where he worked as a security guard and caretaker at Slates Hot Springs for an eight-month period in 1961, just before it became the Esalen Institute. At the time, Big Sur was a Beat outpost and home of Henry Miller and Dennis Murphy (screenwriter), both of whom Thompson admired. While there, he published his first magazine feature in Rogue about the artisan and bohemian culture of Big Sur. During this period, Thompson wrote two novels, Prince Jellyfish and The Rum Diary, and submitted many short stories to publishers – with little success. The Rum Diary, based on Thompson's experiences in Puerto Rico, was not published until .
In May 1962, Thompson traveled to South America for a year as a correspondent for the Dow Jones-owned weekly paper, the National Observer. In Brazil, he spent several months as a reporter for the Brazil Herald, the country's only English-language daily, published in Rio de Janeiro. His longtime girlfriend Sandra Dawn Conklin (or Sandy Conklin Thompson, subsequently Sondi Wright) later joined him in Rio. They married on May 19, 1963, shortly after returning to the United States, and lived briefly in Aspen, Colorado. Sandy was eight months pregnant when they relocated to Glen Ellen, California. Their son, Juan Fitzgerald Thompson, was born on March 23, 1964.
Thompson continued to write for the National Observer on an array of domestic subjects. One story told of his 1964 visit to Ketchum, Idaho, to investigate the reasons for Ernest Hemingway's suicide. While there, he stole a pair of elk antlers hanging above the front door of Hemingway's cabin. Later that year, Thompson moved to San Francisco, where he attended the 1964 GOP Convention at the Cow Palace. Thompson severed his ties with the Observer after his editor refused to print his review of Tom Wolfe's 1965 essay-collection The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby,. He later immersed himself in the drug and hippie culture taking root in the area, and soon began writing for the Berkeley underground paper Spider.
Hell's Angels
In 1965 Carey McWilliams, editor of The Nation, hired Thompson to write a story about the Hells Angels motorcycle club in California. At the time Thompson was living in a house near San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, where the Hells Angels lived across from the Grateful Dead. His article appeared on May 17, 1965, after which he received several book offers and spent the next year living and riding with the club. The relationship broke down when the bikers perceived that Thompson was exploiting them for personal gain and demanded a share of his profits. An argument at a party resulted in Thompson suffering a savage beating (or "stomping", as the Angels referred to it). Random House published the hard-cover Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs in 1966, and the fight between Thompson and the Angels was well-marketed. CBC Television even broadcast an encounter between Thompson and Hells Angel Skip Workman before a live studio audience.
A New York Times review praised the work as an "angry, knowledgeable, fascinating, and excitedly written book", that shows the Hells Angels "not so much as dropouts from society but as total misfits, or unfits—emotionally, intellectually and educationally unfit to achieve the rewards, such as they are, that the contemporary social order offers". The reviewer also praised Thompson as a "spirited, witty, observant, and original writer; his prose crackles like motorcycle exhaust".
Following the book's publication, Thompson appeared as himself on the February 20, 1967, episode of the game show To Tell The Truth, receiving all four votes by the panel members.
Late 1960s
Following the success of Hell's Angels, Thompson successfully sold articles to several national magazines, including The New York Times Magazine, Esquire, Pageant, and Harper's.
In 1967, shortly before the Summer of Love, Thompson wrote "The 'Hashbury' is the Capital of the Hippies" for The New York Times Magazine. He criticized San Francisco's hippies as devoid of both the political convictions of the New Left and the artistic core of the Beats, resulting in a culture overrun with young people who spent their time in the pursuit of drugs. "The thrust is no longer for 'change' or 'progress' or 'revolution', but merely to escape, to live on the far perimeter of a world that might have been – perhaps should have been – and strike a bargain for survival on purely personal terms," he wrote.
By late 1967, Thompson and his family moved back to Colorado and rented a house in Woody Creek, a small mountain hamlet outside Aspen. In early 1969, Thompson received a $15,000 royalty check for the paperback sales of Hell's Angels and used two-thirds of the money for a down payment on a modest home and property where he would live for the rest of his life. He named the house Owl Farm and often described it as his "fortified compound".
In early 1968, Thompson signed the "Writers and Editors War Tax Protest" pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War. According to Thompson's letters and his later writings, at this time, he planned to write a book called The Joint Chiefs about "the death of the American Dream." He used a $6,000 advance from Random House to travel the 1968 Presidential campaign trail and attend the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago for research. From his hotel room in Chicago, Thompson watched the clashes between police and protesters, which he wrote had a great effect on his political views. The book was never finished, and the theme of the death of the American dream was carried over into his later work. The contract with Random House was eventually fulfilled with the 1972 book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. He also signed a deal with Ballantine Books in 1968 to write a satirical book called The Johnson File about Lyndon B. Johnson. A few weeks after the contract was signed, however, Johnson announced that he would not seek re-election, and the deal was cancelled.
Middle years
Aspen sheriff campaign
In 1970, Thompson ran for sheriff of Pitkin County, Colorado, as part of a group of citizens running for local offices on the "Freak Power" ticket. The platform included promoting the decriminalization of drugs (for personal use only, not trafficking, as he disapproved of profiteering), tearing up the streets and turning them into grassy pedestrian malls, banning any building so tall as to obscure the view of the mountains, disarming all police forces, and renaming Aspen "Fat City" to deter investors. Thompson, having shaved his head, referred to the crew cut-wearing Republican candidate as "my long-haired opponent".
With polls showing him with a slight lead in a three-way race, Thompson appeared at Rolling Stone magazine headquarters in San Francisco with a six-pack of beer in hand, and declared to editor Jann Wenner that he was about to be elected sheriff of Aspen, Colorado, and wished to write about the "Freak Power" movement. Thus, Thompson's first article in Rolling Stone was published as "The Battle of Aspen" with the byline "By: Dr. Hunter S. Thompson (Candidate for Sheriff)". Despite the publicity, Thompson narrowly lost the election. While carrying the city of Aspen, he garnered only 44% of the county-wide vote in what had become a two-way race. The Republican candidate agreed to withdraw a few days before the election to consolidate the anti-Thompson votes, in return for the Democrats withdrawing their candidate for county commissioner. Thompson later remarked that the Rolling Stone article mobilized his opposition far more than his supporters.
A documentary film about Hunter S. Thompson's campaign for sheriff called Freak Power: The Ballot or the Bomb was released on October 23, 2020.
Birth of Gonzo
Also in 1970, Thompson wrote an article entitled "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved" for the short-lived new journalism magazine Scanlan's Monthly. For that article, editor Warren Hinckle paired Thompson with illustrator Ralph Steadman, who drew expressionist illustrations with lipstick and eyeliner. Thompson's article virtually ignored the race, focusing instead on the drunken revelry surrounding the annual event in his hometown. The first-person narrator also sets that debauchery against a political backdrop, which included the bombing of Cambodia and the deaths of four students at Kent State University, which occurred two days after the Kentucky Derby.
Thompson and Steadman collaborated regularly after that. Although it was not widely read, the article was the first to use the techniques of Gonzo journalism, a style Thompson later employed in almost every literary endeavor. The manic first-person subjectivity of the story was reportedly the result of sheer desperation; he was facing a looming deadline and started sending the magazine pages ripped out of his notebook.
The first use of the word "Gonzo" to describe Thompson's work is credited to the journalist Bill Cardoso, who first met Thompson on a bus full of journalists covering the 1968 New Hampshire primary. In 1970, Cardoso (who was then the editor of The Boston Globe Sunday Magazine) wrote to Thompson praising the "Kentucky Derby" piece as a breakthrough: "This is it, this is pure Gonzo. If this is a start, keep rolling." According to Steadman, Thompson took to the word right away and said, "Okay, that's what I do. Gonzo." Thompson's first published use of the word appears in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: "Free Enterprise. The American Dream. Horatio Alger gone mad on drugs in Las Vegas. Do it now: pure Gonzo journalism."
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
The book for which Thompson gained most of his fame had its genesis during the research for "Strange Rumblings in Aztlan", an exposé for Rolling Stone on the 1970 killing of the Mexican-American television journalist Rubén Salazar. Salazar had been shot in the head at close range with a tear-gas canister fired by officers of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department during the National Chicano Moratorium March against the Vietnam War. One of Thompson's sources for the story was Oscar Zeta Acosta, a prominent Mexican-American activist and attorney. Finding it difficult to talk in the racially tense atmosphere of Los Angeles, Thompson and Acosta decided to travel to Las Vegas, and take advantage of an assignment by Sports Illustrated to write a 250-word photograph caption on the Mint 400 motorcycle race held there.
What was to be a short caption quickly grew into something else entirely. Thompson first submitted to Sports Illustrated a manuscript of 2,500 words, which was, as he later wrote, "aggressively rejected." Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner was said to have liked "the first 20 or so jangled pages enough to take it seriously on its own terms and tentatively scheduled it for publication — which gave me the push I needed to keep working on it", Thompson later wrote. To develop the story, Thompson and Acosta returned to Las Vegas to attend a drug enforcement conference.
The two trips became the basis for "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," which appeared as a two-part Rolling Stone story in November 1971. Random House published the book version the following year. It is written as a first-person account by a journalist named Raoul Duke with Dr. Gonzo, his "300-pound Samoan attorney." During the trip, Duke and his companion (always referred to as "my attorney") become sidetracked by a search for the American Dream, with "two bags of grass, 75 pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multicolored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers ... and also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether, and two dozen amyls."
Coming to terms with the failure of the 1960s countercultural movement is a major theme of the novel, and the book was greeted with considerable critical acclaim, including being heralded by The New York Times as "by far the best book yet written on the decade of dope". "The Vegas Book", as Thompson referred to it, was a mainstream success and introduced his Gonzo journalism techniques to a wide public.
Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72
Beginning in late 1971, Thompson wrote extensively for Rolling Stone on the election campaigns of President Richard Nixon and his unsuccessful opponent, Senator George McGovern. The articles were soon combined and published as Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72. As the title suggests, Thompson spent nearly all of his time traveling the "campaign trail", focusing largely on the Democratic Party's primaries. Nixon, as the Republican incumbent, performed little campaign work, while McGovern competed with rival candidates Edmund Muskie and Hubert Humphrey. Thompson was an early supporter of McGovern and wrote unflattering coverage of the rival campaigns in the increasingly widely read Rolling Stone.
Thompson went on to become a fierce critic of Nixon, both during and after his presidency. After Nixon's death in 1994, Thompson described him in Rolling Stone as a man who "could shake your hand and stab you in the back at the same time", and said "his casket [should] have been launched into one of those open-sewage canals that empty into the ocean just south of Los Angeles. He was a swine of a man and a jabbering dupe of a president. [He] was an evil man—evil in a way that only those who believe in the physical reality of the Devil can understand it." Following Nixon's pardon by Gerald Ford in 1974, Hunter ruminated on the roughly $400,000 pension Nixon maneuvered his way into, by resigning before being formally indicted. While The Washington Post was lamenting Nixon's "lonely and depressed" state after being forced from the White House, Hunter wrote that '[i]f there were any such thing as true justice in this world, his [Nixon's] rancid carcass would be somewhere down around Easter Island right now, in the belly of a hammerhead shark.' There was however one passion shared by Thompson and Nixon: a love of football, discussed in Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72.
Fame and its consequences
Thompson's journalistic work began to seriously suffer after his trip to Africa to cover the Rumble in the Jungle—the world heavyweight boxing match between George Foreman and Muhammad Ali—in 1974. He missed the match while intoxicated at his hotel, and did not submit a story to the magazine. As Wenner put it to the film critic Roger Ebert in the 2008 documentary Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, "After Africa, he just couldn't write. He couldn't piece it together".
Plans for Thompson to cover the 1976 presidential campaign for Rolling Stone and later publish a book fell through after Wenner canceled the project without informing Thompson. Wenner then assigned Thompson to travel to Vietnam to cover what appeared to be the end of the Vietnam War. Thompson arrived in Saigon just as South Vietnam was collapsing and as other journalists were leaving the country. Wenner allegedly cancelled Thompson's life insurance, which strained Thompson's relationship with Rolling Stone. He soon fled the country and refused to file his report until the ten-year anniversary of the Fall of Saigon.
From the late 1970s on, most of Thompson's literary output appeared as a four-volume series of books entitled The Gonzo Papers. Beginning with The Great Shark Hunt in 1979 and ending with Better Than Sex in 1994, the series is largely a collection of rare newspaper and magazine pieces from the pre-gonzo period, along with almost all of his Rolling Stone pieces.
Starting around 1980, Thompson became less active by his standards. Aside from paid appearances, he largely retreated to his compound in Woody Creek, rejecting projects and assignments or failing to complete them. Despite a lack of new material, Wenner kept Thompson on the Rolling Stone masthead as chief of the "National Affairs Desk", a position he held until his death.
In 1980, Thompson divorced wife Sandra Conklin. The same year marked the release of Where the Buffalo Roam, a loose film adaptation based on Thompson's early 1970s work, starring Bill Murray as the writer. Murray eventually became one of Thompson's trusted friends. Later that year, Thompson relocated to Hawaii to research and write The Curse of Lono, a Gonzo-style account of the 1980 Honolulu Marathon. Extensively illustrated by Ralph Steadman, the piece first appeared in Running in 1981 as "The Charge of the Weird Brigade" and was later excerpted in Playboy in 1983.
In 1983, he covered the U.S. invasion of Grenada, but did not write or discuss the experiences until the publication of Kingdom of Fear in 2003. Later that year, at the behest of Terry McDonell, he wrote "A Dog Took My Place", an exposé for Rolling Stone of the scandalous Roxanne Pulitzer divorce case and what he called the "Palm Beach lifestyle". The story included dubious insinuations of bestiality, but was widely considered to be a return by Thompson to his proper form. In 1985, Thompson accepted an advance to write about "couples pornography" for Playboy. As part of his research, he spent evenings at the Mitchell Brothers O'Farrell Theatre striptease club in San Francisco. The experience evolved into an as-yet-unpublished novel tentatively entitled The Night Manager.
Thompson next accepted a role as weekly media columnist and critic for The San Francisco Examiner. The position was arranged by former editor and fellow Examiner columnist Warren Hinckle. His editor at The Examiner, David McCumber described, "One week it would be acid-soaked gibberish with a charm of its own. The next week it would be incisive political analysis of the highest order."
Many of these columns were collected in Gonzo Papers, Vol. 2: Generation of Swine: Tales of Shame and Degradation in the '80s (1988) and Gonzo Papers, Vol. 3: Songs of the Doomed: More Notes on the Death of the American Dream (1990), a collection of autobiographical reminiscences, articles, and previously unpublished material.
Later years
Throughout the early 1990s, Thompson claimed to be at work on a novel entitled Polo Is My Life. It was briefly excerpted in Rolling Stone in 1994, and Thompson himself described it in 1996 as "a sex book — you know, sex, drugs, and rock and roll. It's about the manager of a sex theater who's forced to leave and flee to the mountains. He falls in love and gets in even more trouble than he was in the sex theater in San Francisco". The novel was slated to be released by Random House in 1999, and was even assigned , but was never published.
Thompson continued to publish irregularly in Rolling Stone, ultimately contributing 17 pieces to the magazine between 1984 and 2004. "Fear and Loathing in Elko," published in 1992, was a well-received fictional rallying cry against the nomination of Clarence Thomas to a seat on the Supreme Court of the United States. "Trapped in Mr. Bill's Neighborhood" was a largely factual account of an interview with Bill Clinton at a Little Rock, Arkansas, steakhouse. Rather than traveling the campaign trail as he had done in previous presidential elections, Thompson monitored the proceedings on cable television; Better Than Sex: Confessions of a Political Junkie, his account of the 1992 presidential campaign, is composed of reactive faxes to Rolling Stone. In 1994, the magazine published "He Was a Crook", a "scathing" obituary of Richard Nixon.
In November 2004, Rolling Stone published Thompson's final magazine feature "The Fun-Hogs in the Passing Lane: Fear and Loathing, Campaign 2004", a brief account of the 2004 presidential election in which he compared the outcome of the Bush v. Gore court case to the Reichstag fire and formally endorsed Senator John Kerry, a longtime friend, for president.
Fear and Loathing redux
In 1996, Modern Library reissued Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas along with "Strange Rumblings in Aztlan," "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved," and "Jacket Copy for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas." Two years later, the film Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas generated new interest in Thompson and his work, and a paperback edition was published as a tie-in. The same year, an early novel, The Rum Diary, was published. Two volumes of collected letters, edited by Douglas Brinkley, also appeared during this time. The first volume appeared in 1997 and covers the years 1955-67. The second volume appeared in 2000 and covers 1968 to 1976.
Thompson's next, and penultimate, collection, Kingdom of Fear: Loathsome Secrets of a Star-Crossed Child in the Final Days of the American Century, was widely publicized as Thompson's first memoir. Published in 2003, it combined new material (including reminiscences of the O'Farrell Theater), selected newspaper and digital clippings, and other older works.
Thompson finished his journalism career in the same way it had begun: Writing about sports. From 2000 until his death in 2005, he wrote a weekly column for ESPN.com's Page 2 entitled "Hey, Rube." In 2004, Simon & Schuster collected some of the columns from the first few years and released them in mid-2004 as Hey Rube: Blood Sport, the Bush Doctrine, and the Downward Spiral of Dumbness.
Thompson married assistant Anita Bejmuk on April 23, 2003.
Death
At 5:42 pm on February 20, 2005, Thompson died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head at Owl Farm, his "fortified compound" in Woody Creek, Colorado. His son Juan, daughter-in-law Jennifer, and grandson were visiting for the weekend. His wife Anita, who was at the Aspen Club, was on the phone with him as he cocked the gun. According to the Aspen Daily News, Thompson asked her to come home to help him write his ESPN column, then set the receiver on the counter. Anita said she mistook the cocking of the gun for the sound of his typewriter keys and hung up as he fired. Will and Jennifer were in the next room when they heard the gunshot, but mistook the sound for a book falling and did not check on Thompson immediately. Juan Thompson found his father's body. According to the police report and Anita's cell phone records, he called the sheriff's office half an hour later, then walked outside and fired three shotgun blasts into the air to "mark the passing of his father". The police report stated that in Thompson's typewriter was a piece of paper with the date "Feb. 22 '05" and a single word, "counselor".
Years of alcohol and cocaine abuse contributed to his problem with depression. Thompson's inner circle told the press that he had been depressed and always found February a "gloomy" month, with football season over and the harsh Colorado winter weather. He was also upset over his advancing age and chronic medical problems, including a hip replacement; he would frequently mutter "This kid is getting old." Rolling Stone published what Douglas Brinkley described as a suicide note written by Thompson to his wife, titled "Football Season Is Over". It read:
Thompson's collaborator and friend Ralph Steadman wrote:
Funeral
On August 20, 2005, in a private funeral, Thompson's ashes were fired from a cannon. This was accompanied by red, white, blue, and green fireworks—all to the tune of Norman Greenbaum's "Spirit in the Sky" and Bob Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man". The cannon was placed atop a tower which had the shape of a double-thumbed fist clutching a peyote button, a symbol originally used in his 1970 campaign for sheriff of Pitkin County, Colorado. The plans for the monument were initially drawn by Thompson and Steadman, and were shown as part of an Omnibus program on the BBC titled Fear and Loathing in Gonzovision (1978). It is included as a special feature on the second disc of the 2004 Criterion Collection DVD release of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and labeled as Fear and Loathing on the Road to Hollywood.
According to his widow, Anita, the $3 million funeral was funded by actor Johnny Depp, who was a close friend of Thompson's. Depp told the Associated Press, "All I'm doing is trying to make sure his last wish comes true. I just want to send my pal out the way he wants to go out." An estimated 280 people attended, including U.S. Senators John Kerry and George McGovern; 60 Minutes correspondents Ed Bradley and Charlie Rose; actors Jack Nicholson, John Cusack, Bill Murray, Benicio del Toro, Sean Penn, and Josh Hartnett; musicians Lyle Lovett, John Oates and David Amram, and artist and long-time friend Ralph Steadman.
Legacy
Writing style
Thompson is often credited as the creator of Gonzo journalism, a style of writing that blurs distinctions between fiction and nonfiction. His work and style are considered to be a major part of the New Journalism literary movement of the 1960s and 1970s, which attempted to break free from the purely objective style of mainstream reportage of the time. Thompson almost always wrote in the first person, while extensively using his own experiences and emotions to color "the story" he was trying to follow.
Despite him having personally described his work as "Gonzo", it fell to later observers to articulate what the term actually meant. While Thompson's approach clearly involved injecting himself as a participant in the events of the narrative, it also involved adding invented, metaphoric elements, thus creating, for the uninitiated reader, a seemingly confusing amalgam of facts and fiction notable for the deliberately blurred lines between one and the other. Thompson, in a 1974 interview in Playboy addressed the issue himself, saying, "Unlike Tom Wolfe or Gay Talese, I almost never try to reconstruct a story. They're both much better reporters than I am, but then, I don't think of myself as a reporter." Tom Wolfe would later describe Thompson's style as "... part journalism and part personal memoir admixed with powers of wild invention and wilder rhetoric." Or as one description of the differences between Thompson and Wolfe's styles would elaborate, "While Tom Wolfe mastered the technique of being a fly on the wall, Thompson mastered the art of being a fly in the ointment."
The majority of Thompson's most popular and acclaimed work appeared within the pages of Rolling Stone magazine. Along with Joe Eszterhas and David Felton, Thompson was instrumental in expanding the focus of the magazine past music criticism; indeed, Thompson was the only staff writer of the epoch never to contribute a music feature to the magazine. Nevertheless, his articles were always peppered with a wide array of pop music references ranging from Howlin' Wolf to Lou Reed. Armed with early fax machines wherever he went, he became notorious for haphazardly sending sometimes illegible material to the magazine's San Francisco offices as an issue was about to go to press.
Robert Love, Thompson's editor of 23 years at Rolling Stone, wrote, "the dividing line between fact and fancy rarely blurred, and we didn't always use italics or some other typographical device to indicate the lurch into the fabulous. But if there were living, identifiable humans in a scene, we took certain steps ... Hunter was a close friend of many prominent Democrats, veterans of the ten or more presidential campaigns he covered, so when in doubt, we'd call the press secretary. 'People will believe almost any twisted kind of story about politicians or Washington,' he once said, and he was right."
Discerning the line between the fact and the fiction of Thompson's work presented a practical problem for editors and fact-checkers of his work. Love called fact-checking Thompson's work "one of the sketchiest occupations ever created in the publishing world", and "for the first-timer ... a trip through a journalistic fun house, where you didn't know what was real and what wasn't. You knew you had better learn enough about the subject at hand to know when the riff began and reality ended. Hunter was a stickler for numbers, for details like gross weight and model numbers, for lyrics and caliber, and there was no faking it."
Persona
Thompson often used a blend of fiction and fact when portraying himself in his writing, too, sometimes using the name Raoul Duke as an author surrogate whom he generally described as a callous, erratic, self-destructive journalist who constantly drank alcohol and took hallucinogenic drugs. Fantasizing about causing bodily harm to others was also a characteristic in his work used to comedic effect and an example of his brand of humor.
In the late 1960s, Thompson acquired the title of "Doctor" from the Universal Life Church.
A number of critics have commented that as he grew older, the line that distinguished Thompson from his literary self became increasingly blurred. Thompson admitted during a 1978 BBC interview that he sometimes felt pressured to live up to the fictional self that he had created, adding, "I'm never sure which one people expect me to be. Very often, they conflict — most often, as a matter of fact. ... I'm leading a normal life and right alongside me there is this myth, and it is growing and mushrooming and getting more and more warped. When I get invited to, say, speak at universities, I'm not sure if they are inviting Duke or Thompson. I'm not sure who to be."
Thompson's writing style and eccentric persona gave him a cult following in both literary and drug circles, and his cult status expanded into broader areas after being portrayed three times in major motion pictures. Hence, both his writing style and persona have been widely imitated, and his likeness has even become a popular costume choice for Halloween.
Political beliefs
Thompson was a firearms and explosives enthusiast (in his writing and in life) and owned a vast collection of handguns, rifles, shotguns, and various automatic and semiautomatic weapons, along with numerous forms of gaseous crowd-control and many homemade devices. He was a proponent of the right to bear arms and privacy rights. A member of the National Rifle Association, Thompson was also co-creator of the Fourth Amendment Foundation, an organization to assist victims in defending themselves against unwarranted search and seizure.
Part of his work with the Fourth Amendment Foundation centered around support of Lisl Auman, a Colorado woman who was sentenced for life in 1997 under felony murder charges for the death of police officer Bruce VanderJagt, despite contradictory statements and dubious evidence. Thompson organized rallies, provided legal support, and co-wrote an article in the June 2004 issue of Vanity Fair outlining the case. The Colorado Supreme Court eventually overturned Auman's sentence in March 2005, shortly after Thompson's death, and Auman is now free. Auman's supporters claim Thompson's support and publicity resulted in the successful appeal.
Thompson was also an ardent supporter of drug legalization and became known for his detailed accounts of his own drug use. He was an early supporter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws and served on the group's advisory board for over 30 years, until his death. He told an interviewer in 1997 that drugs should be legalized "[a]cross the board. It might be a little rough on some people for a while, but I think it's the only way to deal with drugs. Look at Prohibition; all it did was make a lot of criminals rich."
In a 1965 letter to his friend Paul Semonin, Thompson explained an affection for the Industrial Workers of the World, "I have in recent months come to have a certain feeling for Joe Hill and the Wobbly crowd who, if nothing else, had the right idea. But not the right mechanics. I believe the IWW was probably the last human concept in American politics." In another letter to Semonin, Thompson wrote that he agreed with Karl Marx, and compared him to Thomas Jefferson. In a letter to William Kennedy, Thompson confided that he was "coming to view the free enterprise system as the single greatest evil in the history of human savagery." In the documentary Breakfast with Hunter, Hunter S. Thompson is seen in several scenes wearing different Che Guevara T-shirts. Additionally, actor and friend Benicio del Toro has stated that Thompson kept a "big" picture of Che in his kitchen. Thompson wrote on behalf of African-American rights and the civil rights movement. He strongly criticized the dominance in American society of what he called "white power structures".
After the September 11 attacks, Thompson voiced skepticism regarding the official story on who was responsible for the attacks. He speculated to several interviewers that it may have been conducted by the U.S. government or with the government's assistance, though readily admitting he had no way to prove his theory.
In 2004, Thompson wrote: "[Richard] Nixon was a professional politician, and I despised everything he stood for—but if he were running for president this year against the evil Bush–Cheney gang, I would happily vote for him."
Scholarships
Thompson's widow established two scholarship funds at Columbia University School of General Studies for U.S. military veterans and the University of Kentucky for journalism students.
Colorado NORML created the Hunter S. Thompson Scholarship to pay all expenses for a lawyer or law student to attend the NORML Legal Committee Conference in Aspen, generally the first few days of June each year. The funding from a silent auction has paid for two winners for some years. Many winners have gone on to become important cannabis lawyers on state and national levels.
Works
Books
Thompson wrote a number of books, publishing from 1966 to the end of his life. His best-known works include Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, The Rum Diary, The Curse of Lono, and Screwjack.
Articles
As a journalist over the course of decades, Thompson published numerous articles in various periodicals. He wrote for many publications, including Rolling Stone, Esquire, The Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, The New York Times, The San Francisco Examiner, Time, Vanity Fair, The San Juan Star, and Playboy. He was also guest editor for a single edition of The Aspen Daily News. A collection of 100 of his columns from The San Francisco Examiner was published in 1988 as Gonzo Papers, Vol. 2: Generation of Swine: Tales of Shame and Degradation in the '80s. A collection of his articles for Rolling Stone was released in 2011 as Fear and Loathing at Rolling Stone: The Essential Writings of Hunter S. Thompson. The book was edited by the magazine's co-founder and publisher, Jann S. Wenner, who also provided an introduction to the collection.
Letters
Thompson wrote many letters, which were his primary means of personal communication. He made carbon copies of all his letters, usually typed, a habit begun in his teenaged years.
The Fear and Loathing Letters is a three-volume collection of selections from Thompson's correspondence, edited by historian Douglas Brinkley. The first volume, The Proud Highway, was published in 1997, and contains letters from 1955 to 1967. Fear and Loathing in America was published in 2000 and contains letters dating from 1968 to 1976. A third volume, titled The Mutineer: Rants, Ravings, and Missives from the Mountaintop 1977–2005, was edited by Douglas Brinkley and prepared by Simon & Schuster in 2005. As of March 2019, it has yet to be sold to the public. It contains a special introduction by Johnny Depp.
Illustrations
Accompanying the eccentric and colorful writing of Hunter Thompson, illustrations by British artist Ralph Steadman offer visual representations of the Gonzo style. Steadman and Thompson developed a professional relationship. The two collaborated many times over Thompson's career, although at times they were known to violently argue. Wayne Ewing's documentary on Hunter captured an encounter where Steadman tells Hunter that he believes his drawings contributed as much to the success of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas as Hunter's writing. Hunter was furious at the suggestion and their relationship was certainly at times, strained. Steadman in recent years has described Hunter as "rude" and "a bully." So while they are publicly known as great friends, the true nature of their relationship was considerably more nuanced.
Photography
Thompson was an avid amateur photographer throughout his life, and his photos have been exhibited since his death at art galleries in the United States and United Kingdom. In late 2006, AMMO Books published a limited-edition, 224-page collection of Thompson photos called Gonzo: Photographs by Hunter S. Thompson, with an introduction by Johnny Depp. Thompson's snapshots were a combination of the subjects he was covering, stylized self-portraits, and artistic still life photos. The London Observer called the photos "astonishingly good" and noted that "Thompson's pictures remind us, brilliantly in every sense, of very real people, real colours."
Feature films
The film Where the Buffalo Roam (1980) depicts heavily fictionalized attempts by Thompson to cover the Super Bowl and the 1972 U.S. presidential election. It stars Bill Murray as Thompson and Peter Boyle as Thompson's attorney Oscar Zeta Acosta, referred to in the movie as Carl Lazlo, Esq.
The 1998 film adaptation of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was directed by Monty Python veteran Terry Gilliam and starred Johnny Depp (who moved into Thompson's basement to "study" Thompson's persona before assuming his role in the film) as Raoul Duke and Benicio del Toro as Oscar Zeta Acosta. The film has achieved something of a cult following.
In the 2001 film Ali, Thompson is briefly portrayed by actor Lee Cummings.
The film adaptation of Thompson's novel The Rum Diary was released in October 2011, also starring Johnny Depp as the main character, Paul Kemp. The novel's premise was inspired by Thompson's own experiences in Puerto Rico. The film was written and directed by Bruce Robinson.
At a press junket for The Rum Diary shortly before the film's release, Depp said that he would like to adapt The Curse of Lono, "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved", and Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs for the big screen: "I'd just keep playing Hunter. There's a great comfort in it for me, because I get a great visit with my old friend who I miss dearly."
Documentaries
Fear and Loathing in Gonzovision (1978) is an extended television profile by the BBC. It can be found on disc 2 of The Criterion Collection edition of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
The Mitchell brothers, owners of the O'Farrell Theatre in San Francisco, made a documentary about Thompson in 1988 called Hunter S. Thompson: The Crazy Never Die.
Wayne Ewing created three documentaries about Thompson. The film Breakfast with Hunter (2003) was directed and edited by Ewing. It documents Thompson's work on the movie Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, his arrest for drunk driving, and his subsequent fight with the court system. When I Die (2005) is a video chronicle of making Thompson's final farewell wishes a reality, and documents the send-off itself. Free Lisl: Fear and Loathing in Denver (2006) chronicles Thompson's efforts in helping to free Lisl Auman, who was sentenced to life in prison without parole for the shooting of a police officer, a crime she did not commit. All three films are only available online.
In Come on Down: Searching for the American Dream (2004) Thompson gives director Adamm Liley insight into the nature of the American Dream over drinks at the Woody Creek Tavern.
Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride: Hunter S. Thompson on Film (2006) was directed by Tom Thurman, written by Tom Marksbury, and produced by the Starz Entertainment Group. The original documentary features interviews with Thompson's inner circle of family and friends, but the thrust of the film focuses on the manner in which his life often overlapped with numerous Hollywood celebrities who became his close friends, such as Johnny Depp, Benicio del Toro, Bill Murray, Sean Penn, John Cusack, Thompson's wife Anita, son Juan, former Senators George McGovern and Gary Hart, writers Tom Wolfe and William F. Buckley, actors Gary Busey and Harry Dean Stanton, and the illustrator Ralph Steadman among others.
Blasted!!! The Gonzo Patriots of Hunter S. Thompson (2006), produced, directed, photographed, and edited by Blue Kraning, is a documentary about the scores of fans who volunteered their privately owned artillery to fire the ashes of the late author, Hunter S. Thompson. Blasted!!! premiered at the 2006 Starz Denver International Film Festival, part of a tribute series to Hunter S. Thompson held at the Denver Press Club.
In 2008, Academy Award-winning documentarian Alex Gibney (Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, Taxi to the Dark Side) wrote and directed a documentary on Thompson, titled Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson. The film premiered on January 20, 2008, at the Sundance Film Festival. Gibney uses intimate, never-before-seen home videos, interviews with friends, enemies, lovers, and clips from films adapted from Thompson's material to document his turbulent life.
Theater
Lou Stein's adaptation of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was performed at the Battersea Theatre. Stein persuades London's Time Out magazine to put Thompson up for a fortnight, in exchange for him writing a cover story to publicize the play. Thompson does not write the story, but does rampage around London on Time Out 's expense account. The play was revived for the Vault Fringe Festival in 2014.
GONZO: A Brutal Chrysalis is a one-man show about Thompson written by Paul Addis, who also played the author. Set in the writing den of Thompson's Woody Creek home, the show portrays his life between 1968 and 1971. James Cartee began playing the role soon after Addis's arrest in 2009, and again after Addis's death in 2012.
Awards, accolades, and tributes
Thompson was named a Kentucky Colonel by the governor of Kentucky in a December 1996 tribute ceremony where he also received keys to the city of Louisville.
Author Tom Wolfe has called Thompson the greatest American comic writer of the 20th century.
Asked in an interview with Jody Denberg on KGSR Studio, in 2000, whether he would ever consider writing a book "like [his] buddy Hunter S. Thompson", the musician Warren Zevon responded: "Let's remember that Hunter S. Thompson is the finest writer of our generation; he didn't just toss off a book the other day..."
Thompson appeared on the cover of the 1,000th issue of Rolling Stone, May 18 – June 1, 2006, as a devil playing the guitar next to the two "L"'s in the word "Rolling". Johnny Depp also appeared on the cover.
The Thompson-inspired character Uncle Duke appears on a recurring basis in Doonesbury, the daily newspaper comic strip by Garry Trudeau. When the character was first introduced, Thompson protested, quoted in an interview as saying that he would set Trudeau on fire if the two ever met, although reportedly he liked the character in later years. Between March 7, 2005 (roughly two weeks after Thompson's suicide), and March 12, 2005, Doonesbury ran a tribute to Hunter, with Uncle Duke lamenting the death of the man he called his "inspiration". The first of these strips featured a panel with artwork similar to that of Ralph Steadman, and later strips featured various non sequiturs (with Duke variously transforming into a monster, melting, shrinking to the size of an empty drinking glass, or people around him turning into animals), which seemed to mirror some of the effects of hallucinogenic drugs described in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
Many have suggested that General Hunter Gathers in the Adult Swim animated series The Venture Bros. is a tribute to Thompson, as they have a similar name, mannerisms, and physical appearance.
Dale Gribble in the Fox animated series King of the Hill is a tribute to Thompson and derives his physical appearance from him.
In the Cameron Crowe film Almost Famous, based on Crowe's experiences writing for Rolling Stone while on the road with the fictional band Stillwater", the writer is on the phone with an actor portraying Jann Wenner. Wenner tells the young journalist that he "is not there to join the party, we already have one Hunter Thompson" after the young writer amassed large hotel and traveling expenses and is overheard to be sharing his room with several young women.
Eric C. Shoaf donated a caché of approximately 800 items (in librarian terms, about 35-40 linear feet of material on a shelf) pertaining to the life and career of Thompson to the University of California at Santa Cruz. Shoaf also published a descriptive bibliography, Gonzology: A Hunter Thompson Bibliography, of the works of Hunter S. Thompson with over 1,000 entries, many never before documented appearances in print, hundreds of biographical entries about Thompson's life, full descriptions of all his primary works, preface by William McKeen, Phd, and photo section with rare and exclusive items depicted.
References
External links
"Hunter S. Thompson's ESPN Page 2 Archive", Totallygonzo.org
"Shotgun Golf With Bill Murray", Thompson's final column for ESPN.com's Page 2.
A collection of articles on Thompson from The Guardian
Thompson's photography
1937 births
2005 suicides
20th-century American journalists
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American novelists
20th-century essayists
21st-century American journalists
21st-century American male writers
21st-century American novelists
9/11 conspiracy theorists
American activist journalists
American columnists
American conspiracy theorists
American essayists
American male essayists
American male journalists
American male novelists
American Marxists
American people of Scottish descent
American political writers
American tax resisters
Atherton High School alumni
Columbia University School of General Studies alumni
Drug policy reform activists
Florida State University alumni
Journalists from Colorado
Journalists from Kentucky
Louisville Male High School alumni
Military personnel from Louisville, Kentucky
Motorcycling writers
Novelists from Colorado
Novelists from Kentucky
People from Glen Ellen, California
Psychedelic drug advocates
Sportswriters from California
Suicides by firearm in Colorado
United States Air Force airmen
Writers from Louisville, Kentucky
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"Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is a 1971 novel by Hunter S. Thompson.\n\nFear and Loathing in Las Vegas may also refer to:\n\nFear and Loathing in Las Vegas (film), a 1998 film based on the novel\nFear, and Loathing in Las Vegas, a Japanese metalcore band",
"Fear and Loathing on the Road to Hollywood, also known as Fear and Loathing in Gonzovision, is a documentary film produced by BBC Omnibus in 1978 on the subject of Hunter S. Thompson, directed by Nigel Finch.\n\nThe film pairs Thompson with illustrator Ralph Steadman, as they travel to Hollywood via Death Valley and Barstow from Las Vegas. It contains interviews with Thompson and Steadman, as well as some short excerpts from some of his work.\n\nAvailability\nThe film is featured in The Criterion Collection edition of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.\n\nNotes and references\n\n Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: Criterion Collection, disc 2\n \n\n1978 films\nBritish films\nEnglish-language films\nWorks about Hunter S. Thompson\nBritish short documentary films\nDocumentary films about writers\nBBC television documentaries"
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"The result of the trip to Las Vegas became the 1972 book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,"
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Hunter S. Thompson
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The book for which Thompson gained most of his fame had its genesis during the research for Strange Rumblings in Aztlan, an expose for Rolling Stone on the 1970 killing of the Mexican-American television journalist Ruben Salazar. Salazar had been shot in the head at close range with a tear gas canister fired by officers of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department during the National Chicano Moratorium March against the Vietnam War. One of Thompson's sources for the story was Oscar Zeta Acosta, a prominent Mexican-American activist and attorney. Finding it difficult to talk in the racially tense atmosphere of Los Angeles, Thompson and Acosta decided to travel to Las Vegas, and take advantage of an assignment by Sports Illustrated to write a 250-word photograph caption on the Mint 400 motorcycle race held there. What was to be a short caption quickly grew into something else entirely. Thompson first submitted to Sports Illustrated a manuscript of 2,500 words, which was, as he later wrote, "aggressively rejected." Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner was said to have liked "the first 20 or so jangled pages enough to take it seriously on its own terms and tentatively scheduled it for publication -- which gave me the push I needed to keep working on it", Thompson later wrote. The result of the trip to Las Vegas became the 1972 book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, which first appeared in the November 1971 issues of Rolling Stone as a two-part series. It is written as a first-person account by a journalist named Raoul Duke on a trip to Las Vegas with Dr. Gonzo, his "300-pound Samoan attorney", to cover a narcotics officers' convention and the "fabulous Mint 400". During the trip, Duke and his companion (always referred to as "my attorney") become sidetracked by a search for the American Dream, with "two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers ... and also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether, and two dozen amyls." Coming to terms with the failure of the 1960s countercultural movement is a major theme of the novel, and the book was greeted with considerable critical acclaim, including being heralded by The New York Times as "by far the best book yet written on the decade of dope". "The Vegas Book", as Thompson referred to it, was a mainstream success and introduced his Gonzo journalism techniques to a wide public. CANNOTANSWER
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the book was greeted with considerable critical acclaim, including being heralded by The New York Times as "by far the best book yet
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Hunter Stockton Thompson (July 18, 1937 – February 20, 2005) was an American journalist and author who founded the gonzo journalism movement. He rose to prominence with the publication of Hell's Angels (1967), a book for which he spent a year living and riding with the Hells Angels motorcycle gang to write a first-hand account of their lives and experiences.
In 1970, he wrote an unconventional magazine feature titled "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved" for Scanlan's Monthly, which raised his profile and established his counterculture credibility. It also set him on the path to establishing his own subgenre of New Journalism that he called "Gonzo", which was essentially an ongoing experiment in which the writer becomes a central figure and participant in the events of the narrative.
Thompson remains best known for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1971), a book first serialized in Rolling Stone in which he grapples with the implications of what he considered the failure of the 1960s counterculture movement. It was adapted for film twice: loosely in Where the Buffalo Roam starring Bill Murray as Thompson in 1980, and explicitly in 1998 by director Terry Gilliam in the eponymous film starring Johnny Depp and Benicio del Toro.
Thompson ran unsuccessfully for sheriff of Pitkin County, Colorado in 1970 on the Freak Power ticket. His campaign was chronicled in the documentary film Freak Power: The Ballot or the Bomb. He became known for his dislike of Richard Nixon, who he claimed represented "that dark, venal, and incurably violent side of the American character". He covered Nixon's 1972 reelection campaign for Rolling Stone and later collected the stories in book form as Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72.
Thompson's output declined from the mid-1970s, as he struggled with the consequences of fame, and complained that he could no longer merely report on events, as he was too easily recognized. After several high-profile stories were quashed by the upper management of Rolling Stone, he found it increasingly difficult to get his work into mainstream outlets. He did continue to write for alternative newspapers, and had a gig as a critic for the mainstream San Francisco Examiner for much of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Most of his work from 1979 to 1994 was collected in The Gonzo Papers. He continued to write for various journalism outlets in a variety of formats, including sporadic stories published in Rolling Stone and a weekly column that appeared on ESPN.com's Page 2 titled "Hey, Rube" that he started in 2000.
He was known for his lifelong use of alcohol and illegal narcotics, his love of firearms, and his iconoclastic contempt for authority. He often remarked: "I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me." Thompson died by suicide at the age of 67, following a series of health problems. In accordance with his wishes, his ashes were fired out of a cannon in a ceremony funded by his friend Johnny Depp and attended by friends including then-Senator John Kerry and Jack Nicholson. Hari Kunzru wrote, "the true voice of Thompson is revealed to be that of American moralist ... one who often makes himself ugly to expose the ugliness he sees around him."
Early life
Thompson was born into a middle-class family in Louisville, Kentucky, the first of three sons of Virginia Davison Ray (1908, Springfield, Kentucky – March 20, 1998, Louisville), who worked as head librarian at the Louisville Free Public Library and Jack Robert Thompson (September 4, 1893, Horse Cave, Kentucky – July 3, 1952, Louisville), a public insurance adjuster and World War I veteran. His parents were introduced by a friend from Jack's fraternity at the University of Kentucky in September 1934, and married on November 2, 1935. The Guardian journalist Nicholas Lezard, stated that Thompson's first name, Hunter, came from an ancestor on his mother's side, the Scottish surgeon John Hunter. A more direct attribution is that Thompson's first and middle name, Hunter Stockton, came from his maternal grandparents, Prestly Stockton Ray and Lucille Hunter.
In December 1943 when Thompson was six years old, the family settled in the affluent Cherokee Triangle neighborhood of The Highlands. On July 3, 1952, when Thompson was 14, his father died of myasthenia gravis at age 58. Hunter and his brothers were raised by their mother. Virginia worked as a librarian to support her children, and was described as a "heavy drinker" following her husband's death.
Education
Interested in sports and athletically inclined from a young age, Thompson co-founded the Hawks Athletic Club while attending I.N. Bloom Elementary School, which led to an invitation to join Louisville's Castlewood Athletic Club for adolescents that prepared them for high-school sports. Ultimately, he never joined a sports team in high school.
Thompson attended I.N. Bloom Elementary School, Highland Middle School, and Atherton High School, before transferring to Louisville Male High School in fall 1952. Also in 1952, he was accepted as a member of the Athenaeum Literary Association, a school-sponsored literary and social club that dated to 1862. Its members at the time came from Louisville's upper-class families, and included Porter Bibb, who became the first publisher of Rolling Stone at Thompson's behest. During this time, Thompson read and admired J. P. Donleavy's The Ginger Man.
As an Athenaeum member, Thompson contributed articles to and helped produce the club's yearbook The Spectator. The group ejected Thompson in 1955 for criminal activity. Charged as an accessory to robbery after being in a car with the perpetrator, Thompson was sentenced to 60 days in Kentucky's Jefferson County Jail. He served 31 days and, a week after his release, enlisted in the United States Air Force. While he was in jail, the school superintendent refused permission to take his high-school final examinations so he was unable to graduate.
Military service
Thompson completed basic training at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, and transferred to Scott Air Force Base in Belleville, Illinois, to study electronics. He applied to become an aviator, but the Air Force's aviation-cadet program rejected his application. In 1956, he transferred to Eglin Air Force Base near Fort Walton Beach, Florida. While serving at Eglin, he took evening classes at Florida State University. At Eglin, he landed his first professional writing job as sports editor of The Command Courier by falsifying his job experience. As sports editor, Thompson traveled around the United States with the Eglin Eagles football team, covering its games. In early 1957, he wrote a sports column for The Playground News, a local newspaper in Fort Walton Beach, Florida. His name did not appear on the column because Air Force regulations forbade outside employment.
In 1958, as an airman first class, his commanding officer recommended him for an early honorable discharge. "In summary, this airman, although talented, will not be guided by policy," chief of information services Colonel William S. Evans wrote to the Eglin personnel office. "Sometimes his rebel and superior attitude seems to rub off on other airmen staff members."
Early journalism career
After leaving the Air Force, Thompson worked as sports editor for a newspaper in Jersey Shore, Pennsylvania, before relocating to New York City. There he audited several courses at the Columbia University School of General Studies. During this time he worked briefly for Time as a copy boy for $51 a week. At work, he typed out parts of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms in order to learn the authors' rhythms and writing styles. In 1959 Time fired him for insubordination. Later that year, he worked as a reporter for The Middletown Daily Record in Middletown, New York. He was fired from this job after damaging an office candy machine and arguing with the owner of a local restaurant who happened to be an advertiser with the paper.
In 1960, Thompson moved to San Juan, Puerto Rico, to take a job with the sporting magazine El Sportivo, which ceased operations soon after his arrival. Thompson applied for a job with the Puerto Rican English-language daily The San Juan Star, but its managing editor, future novelist William J. Kennedy, turned him down. Nonetheless, the two became friends. After the demise of El Sportivo, Thompson worked as a stringer for the New York Herald Tribune and a few other stateside papers on Caribbean issues, with Kennedy working as his editor.
After returning to the United States, Thompson visited San Francisco and eventually lived in Big Sur, where he worked as a security guard and caretaker at Slates Hot Springs for an eight-month period in 1961, just before it became the Esalen Institute. At the time, Big Sur was a Beat outpost and home of Henry Miller and Dennis Murphy (screenwriter), both of whom Thompson admired. While there, he published his first magazine feature in Rogue about the artisan and bohemian culture of Big Sur. During this period, Thompson wrote two novels, Prince Jellyfish and The Rum Diary, and submitted many short stories to publishers – with little success. The Rum Diary, based on Thompson's experiences in Puerto Rico, was not published until .
In May 1962, Thompson traveled to South America for a year as a correspondent for the Dow Jones-owned weekly paper, the National Observer. In Brazil, he spent several months as a reporter for the Brazil Herald, the country's only English-language daily, published in Rio de Janeiro. His longtime girlfriend Sandra Dawn Conklin (or Sandy Conklin Thompson, subsequently Sondi Wright) later joined him in Rio. They married on May 19, 1963, shortly after returning to the United States, and lived briefly in Aspen, Colorado. Sandy was eight months pregnant when they relocated to Glen Ellen, California. Their son, Juan Fitzgerald Thompson, was born on March 23, 1964.
Thompson continued to write for the National Observer on an array of domestic subjects. One story told of his 1964 visit to Ketchum, Idaho, to investigate the reasons for Ernest Hemingway's suicide. While there, he stole a pair of elk antlers hanging above the front door of Hemingway's cabin. Later that year, Thompson moved to San Francisco, where he attended the 1964 GOP Convention at the Cow Palace. Thompson severed his ties with the Observer after his editor refused to print his review of Tom Wolfe's 1965 essay-collection The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby,. He later immersed himself in the drug and hippie culture taking root in the area, and soon began writing for the Berkeley underground paper Spider.
Hell's Angels
In 1965 Carey McWilliams, editor of The Nation, hired Thompson to write a story about the Hells Angels motorcycle club in California. At the time Thompson was living in a house near San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, where the Hells Angels lived across from the Grateful Dead. His article appeared on May 17, 1965, after which he received several book offers and spent the next year living and riding with the club. The relationship broke down when the bikers perceived that Thompson was exploiting them for personal gain and demanded a share of his profits. An argument at a party resulted in Thompson suffering a savage beating (or "stomping", as the Angels referred to it). Random House published the hard-cover Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs in 1966, and the fight between Thompson and the Angels was well-marketed. CBC Television even broadcast an encounter between Thompson and Hells Angel Skip Workman before a live studio audience.
A New York Times review praised the work as an "angry, knowledgeable, fascinating, and excitedly written book", that shows the Hells Angels "not so much as dropouts from society but as total misfits, or unfits—emotionally, intellectually and educationally unfit to achieve the rewards, such as they are, that the contemporary social order offers". The reviewer also praised Thompson as a "spirited, witty, observant, and original writer; his prose crackles like motorcycle exhaust".
Following the book's publication, Thompson appeared as himself on the February 20, 1967, episode of the game show To Tell The Truth, receiving all four votes by the panel members.
Late 1960s
Following the success of Hell's Angels, Thompson successfully sold articles to several national magazines, including The New York Times Magazine, Esquire, Pageant, and Harper's.
In 1967, shortly before the Summer of Love, Thompson wrote "The 'Hashbury' is the Capital of the Hippies" for The New York Times Magazine. He criticized San Francisco's hippies as devoid of both the political convictions of the New Left and the artistic core of the Beats, resulting in a culture overrun with young people who spent their time in the pursuit of drugs. "The thrust is no longer for 'change' or 'progress' or 'revolution', but merely to escape, to live on the far perimeter of a world that might have been – perhaps should have been – and strike a bargain for survival on purely personal terms," he wrote.
By late 1967, Thompson and his family moved back to Colorado and rented a house in Woody Creek, a small mountain hamlet outside Aspen. In early 1969, Thompson received a $15,000 royalty check for the paperback sales of Hell's Angels and used two-thirds of the money for a down payment on a modest home and property where he would live for the rest of his life. He named the house Owl Farm and often described it as his "fortified compound".
In early 1968, Thompson signed the "Writers and Editors War Tax Protest" pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War. According to Thompson's letters and his later writings, at this time, he planned to write a book called The Joint Chiefs about "the death of the American Dream." He used a $6,000 advance from Random House to travel the 1968 Presidential campaign trail and attend the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago for research. From his hotel room in Chicago, Thompson watched the clashes between police and protesters, which he wrote had a great effect on his political views. The book was never finished, and the theme of the death of the American dream was carried over into his later work. The contract with Random House was eventually fulfilled with the 1972 book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. He also signed a deal with Ballantine Books in 1968 to write a satirical book called The Johnson File about Lyndon B. Johnson. A few weeks after the contract was signed, however, Johnson announced that he would not seek re-election, and the deal was cancelled.
Middle years
Aspen sheriff campaign
In 1970, Thompson ran for sheriff of Pitkin County, Colorado, as part of a group of citizens running for local offices on the "Freak Power" ticket. The platform included promoting the decriminalization of drugs (for personal use only, not trafficking, as he disapproved of profiteering), tearing up the streets and turning them into grassy pedestrian malls, banning any building so tall as to obscure the view of the mountains, disarming all police forces, and renaming Aspen "Fat City" to deter investors. Thompson, having shaved his head, referred to the crew cut-wearing Republican candidate as "my long-haired opponent".
With polls showing him with a slight lead in a three-way race, Thompson appeared at Rolling Stone magazine headquarters in San Francisco with a six-pack of beer in hand, and declared to editor Jann Wenner that he was about to be elected sheriff of Aspen, Colorado, and wished to write about the "Freak Power" movement. Thus, Thompson's first article in Rolling Stone was published as "The Battle of Aspen" with the byline "By: Dr. Hunter S. Thompson (Candidate for Sheriff)". Despite the publicity, Thompson narrowly lost the election. While carrying the city of Aspen, he garnered only 44% of the county-wide vote in what had become a two-way race. The Republican candidate agreed to withdraw a few days before the election to consolidate the anti-Thompson votes, in return for the Democrats withdrawing their candidate for county commissioner. Thompson later remarked that the Rolling Stone article mobilized his opposition far more than his supporters.
A documentary film about Hunter S. Thompson's campaign for sheriff called Freak Power: The Ballot or the Bomb was released on October 23, 2020.
Birth of Gonzo
Also in 1970, Thompson wrote an article entitled "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved" for the short-lived new journalism magazine Scanlan's Monthly. For that article, editor Warren Hinckle paired Thompson with illustrator Ralph Steadman, who drew expressionist illustrations with lipstick and eyeliner. Thompson's article virtually ignored the race, focusing instead on the drunken revelry surrounding the annual event in his hometown. The first-person narrator also sets that debauchery against a political backdrop, which included the bombing of Cambodia and the deaths of four students at Kent State University, which occurred two days after the Kentucky Derby.
Thompson and Steadman collaborated regularly after that. Although it was not widely read, the article was the first to use the techniques of Gonzo journalism, a style Thompson later employed in almost every literary endeavor. The manic first-person subjectivity of the story was reportedly the result of sheer desperation; he was facing a looming deadline and started sending the magazine pages ripped out of his notebook.
The first use of the word "Gonzo" to describe Thompson's work is credited to the journalist Bill Cardoso, who first met Thompson on a bus full of journalists covering the 1968 New Hampshire primary. In 1970, Cardoso (who was then the editor of The Boston Globe Sunday Magazine) wrote to Thompson praising the "Kentucky Derby" piece as a breakthrough: "This is it, this is pure Gonzo. If this is a start, keep rolling." According to Steadman, Thompson took to the word right away and said, "Okay, that's what I do. Gonzo." Thompson's first published use of the word appears in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: "Free Enterprise. The American Dream. Horatio Alger gone mad on drugs in Las Vegas. Do it now: pure Gonzo journalism."
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
The book for which Thompson gained most of his fame had its genesis during the research for "Strange Rumblings in Aztlan", an exposé for Rolling Stone on the 1970 killing of the Mexican-American television journalist Rubén Salazar. Salazar had been shot in the head at close range with a tear-gas canister fired by officers of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department during the National Chicano Moratorium March against the Vietnam War. One of Thompson's sources for the story was Oscar Zeta Acosta, a prominent Mexican-American activist and attorney. Finding it difficult to talk in the racially tense atmosphere of Los Angeles, Thompson and Acosta decided to travel to Las Vegas, and take advantage of an assignment by Sports Illustrated to write a 250-word photograph caption on the Mint 400 motorcycle race held there.
What was to be a short caption quickly grew into something else entirely. Thompson first submitted to Sports Illustrated a manuscript of 2,500 words, which was, as he later wrote, "aggressively rejected." Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner was said to have liked "the first 20 or so jangled pages enough to take it seriously on its own terms and tentatively scheduled it for publication — which gave me the push I needed to keep working on it", Thompson later wrote. To develop the story, Thompson and Acosta returned to Las Vegas to attend a drug enforcement conference.
The two trips became the basis for "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," which appeared as a two-part Rolling Stone story in November 1971. Random House published the book version the following year. It is written as a first-person account by a journalist named Raoul Duke with Dr. Gonzo, his "300-pound Samoan attorney." During the trip, Duke and his companion (always referred to as "my attorney") become sidetracked by a search for the American Dream, with "two bags of grass, 75 pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multicolored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers ... and also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether, and two dozen amyls."
Coming to terms with the failure of the 1960s countercultural movement is a major theme of the novel, and the book was greeted with considerable critical acclaim, including being heralded by The New York Times as "by far the best book yet written on the decade of dope". "The Vegas Book", as Thompson referred to it, was a mainstream success and introduced his Gonzo journalism techniques to a wide public.
Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72
Beginning in late 1971, Thompson wrote extensively for Rolling Stone on the election campaigns of President Richard Nixon and his unsuccessful opponent, Senator George McGovern. The articles were soon combined and published as Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72. As the title suggests, Thompson spent nearly all of his time traveling the "campaign trail", focusing largely on the Democratic Party's primaries. Nixon, as the Republican incumbent, performed little campaign work, while McGovern competed with rival candidates Edmund Muskie and Hubert Humphrey. Thompson was an early supporter of McGovern and wrote unflattering coverage of the rival campaigns in the increasingly widely read Rolling Stone.
Thompson went on to become a fierce critic of Nixon, both during and after his presidency. After Nixon's death in 1994, Thompson described him in Rolling Stone as a man who "could shake your hand and stab you in the back at the same time", and said "his casket [should] have been launched into one of those open-sewage canals that empty into the ocean just south of Los Angeles. He was a swine of a man and a jabbering dupe of a president. [He] was an evil man—evil in a way that only those who believe in the physical reality of the Devil can understand it." Following Nixon's pardon by Gerald Ford in 1974, Hunter ruminated on the roughly $400,000 pension Nixon maneuvered his way into, by resigning before being formally indicted. While The Washington Post was lamenting Nixon's "lonely and depressed" state after being forced from the White House, Hunter wrote that '[i]f there were any such thing as true justice in this world, his [Nixon's] rancid carcass would be somewhere down around Easter Island right now, in the belly of a hammerhead shark.' There was however one passion shared by Thompson and Nixon: a love of football, discussed in Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72.
Fame and its consequences
Thompson's journalistic work began to seriously suffer after his trip to Africa to cover the Rumble in the Jungle—the world heavyweight boxing match between George Foreman and Muhammad Ali—in 1974. He missed the match while intoxicated at his hotel, and did not submit a story to the magazine. As Wenner put it to the film critic Roger Ebert in the 2008 documentary Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, "After Africa, he just couldn't write. He couldn't piece it together".
Plans for Thompson to cover the 1976 presidential campaign for Rolling Stone and later publish a book fell through after Wenner canceled the project without informing Thompson. Wenner then assigned Thompson to travel to Vietnam to cover what appeared to be the end of the Vietnam War. Thompson arrived in Saigon just as South Vietnam was collapsing and as other journalists were leaving the country. Wenner allegedly cancelled Thompson's life insurance, which strained Thompson's relationship with Rolling Stone. He soon fled the country and refused to file his report until the ten-year anniversary of the Fall of Saigon.
From the late 1970s on, most of Thompson's literary output appeared as a four-volume series of books entitled The Gonzo Papers. Beginning with The Great Shark Hunt in 1979 and ending with Better Than Sex in 1994, the series is largely a collection of rare newspaper and magazine pieces from the pre-gonzo period, along with almost all of his Rolling Stone pieces.
Starting around 1980, Thompson became less active by his standards. Aside from paid appearances, he largely retreated to his compound in Woody Creek, rejecting projects and assignments or failing to complete them. Despite a lack of new material, Wenner kept Thompson on the Rolling Stone masthead as chief of the "National Affairs Desk", a position he held until his death.
In 1980, Thompson divorced wife Sandra Conklin. The same year marked the release of Where the Buffalo Roam, a loose film adaptation based on Thompson's early 1970s work, starring Bill Murray as the writer. Murray eventually became one of Thompson's trusted friends. Later that year, Thompson relocated to Hawaii to research and write The Curse of Lono, a Gonzo-style account of the 1980 Honolulu Marathon. Extensively illustrated by Ralph Steadman, the piece first appeared in Running in 1981 as "The Charge of the Weird Brigade" and was later excerpted in Playboy in 1983.
In 1983, he covered the U.S. invasion of Grenada, but did not write or discuss the experiences until the publication of Kingdom of Fear in 2003. Later that year, at the behest of Terry McDonell, he wrote "A Dog Took My Place", an exposé for Rolling Stone of the scandalous Roxanne Pulitzer divorce case and what he called the "Palm Beach lifestyle". The story included dubious insinuations of bestiality, but was widely considered to be a return by Thompson to his proper form. In 1985, Thompson accepted an advance to write about "couples pornography" for Playboy. As part of his research, he spent evenings at the Mitchell Brothers O'Farrell Theatre striptease club in San Francisco. The experience evolved into an as-yet-unpublished novel tentatively entitled The Night Manager.
Thompson next accepted a role as weekly media columnist and critic for The San Francisco Examiner. The position was arranged by former editor and fellow Examiner columnist Warren Hinckle. His editor at The Examiner, David McCumber described, "One week it would be acid-soaked gibberish with a charm of its own. The next week it would be incisive political analysis of the highest order."
Many of these columns were collected in Gonzo Papers, Vol. 2: Generation of Swine: Tales of Shame and Degradation in the '80s (1988) and Gonzo Papers, Vol. 3: Songs of the Doomed: More Notes on the Death of the American Dream (1990), a collection of autobiographical reminiscences, articles, and previously unpublished material.
Later years
Throughout the early 1990s, Thompson claimed to be at work on a novel entitled Polo Is My Life. It was briefly excerpted in Rolling Stone in 1994, and Thompson himself described it in 1996 as "a sex book — you know, sex, drugs, and rock and roll. It's about the manager of a sex theater who's forced to leave and flee to the mountains. He falls in love and gets in even more trouble than he was in the sex theater in San Francisco". The novel was slated to be released by Random House in 1999, and was even assigned , but was never published.
Thompson continued to publish irregularly in Rolling Stone, ultimately contributing 17 pieces to the magazine between 1984 and 2004. "Fear and Loathing in Elko," published in 1992, was a well-received fictional rallying cry against the nomination of Clarence Thomas to a seat on the Supreme Court of the United States. "Trapped in Mr. Bill's Neighborhood" was a largely factual account of an interview with Bill Clinton at a Little Rock, Arkansas, steakhouse. Rather than traveling the campaign trail as he had done in previous presidential elections, Thompson monitored the proceedings on cable television; Better Than Sex: Confessions of a Political Junkie, his account of the 1992 presidential campaign, is composed of reactive faxes to Rolling Stone. In 1994, the magazine published "He Was a Crook", a "scathing" obituary of Richard Nixon.
In November 2004, Rolling Stone published Thompson's final magazine feature "The Fun-Hogs in the Passing Lane: Fear and Loathing, Campaign 2004", a brief account of the 2004 presidential election in which he compared the outcome of the Bush v. Gore court case to the Reichstag fire and formally endorsed Senator John Kerry, a longtime friend, for president.
Fear and Loathing redux
In 1996, Modern Library reissued Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas along with "Strange Rumblings in Aztlan," "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved," and "Jacket Copy for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas." Two years later, the film Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas generated new interest in Thompson and his work, and a paperback edition was published as a tie-in. The same year, an early novel, The Rum Diary, was published. Two volumes of collected letters, edited by Douglas Brinkley, also appeared during this time. The first volume appeared in 1997 and covers the years 1955-67. The second volume appeared in 2000 and covers 1968 to 1976.
Thompson's next, and penultimate, collection, Kingdom of Fear: Loathsome Secrets of a Star-Crossed Child in the Final Days of the American Century, was widely publicized as Thompson's first memoir. Published in 2003, it combined new material (including reminiscences of the O'Farrell Theater), selected newspaper and digital clippings, and other older works.
Thompson finished his journalism career in the same way it had begun: Writing about sports. From 2000 until his death in 2005, he wrote a weekly column for ESPN.com's Page 2 entitled "Hey, Rube." In 2004, Simon & Schuster collected some of the columns from the first few years and released them in mid-2004 as Hey Rube: Blood Sport, the Bush Doctrine, and the Downward Spiral of Dumbness.
Thompson married assistant Anita Bejmuk on April 23, 2003.
Death
At 5:42 pm on February 20, 2005, Thompson died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head at Owl Farm, his "fortified compound" in Woody Creek, Colorado. His son Juan, daughter-in-law Jennifer, and grandson were visiting for the weekend. His wife Anita, who was at the Aspen Club, was on the phone with him as he cocked the gun. According to the Aspen Daily News, Thompson asked her to come home to help him write his ESPN column, then set the receiver on the counter. Anita said she mistook the cocking of the gun for the sound of his typewriter keys and hung up as he fired. Will and Jennifer were in the next room when they heard the gunshot, but mistook the sound for a book falling and did not check on Thompson immediately. Juan Thompson found his father's body. According to the police report and Anita's cell phone records, he called the sheriff's office half an hour later, then walked outside and fired three shotgun blasts into the air to "mark the passing of his father". The police report stated that in Thompson's typewriter was a piece of paper with the date "Feb. 22 '05" and a single word, "counselor".
Years of alcohol and cocaine abuse contributed to his problem with depression. Thompson's inner circle told the press that he had been depressed and always found February a "gloomy" month, with football season over and the harsh Colorado winter weather. He was also upset over his advancing age and chronic medical problems, including a hip replacement; he would frequently mutter "This kid is getting old." Rolling Stone published what Douglas Brinkley described as a suicide note written by Thompson to his wife, titled "Football Season Is Over". It read:
Thompson's collaborator and friend Ralph Steadman wrote:
Funeral
On August 20, 2005, in a private funeral, Thompson's ashes were fired from a cannon. This was accompanied by red, white, blue, and green fireworks—all to the tune of Norman Greenbaum's "Spirit in the Sky" and Bob Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man". The cannon was placed atop a tower which had the shape of a double-thumbed fist clutching a peyote button, a symbol originally used in his 1970 campaign for sheriff of Pitkin County, Colorado. The plans for the monument were initially drawn by Thompson and Steadman, and were shown as part of an Omnibus program on the BBC titled Fear and Loathing in Gonzovision (1978). It is included as a special feature on the second disc of the 2004 Criterion Collection DVD release of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and labeled as Fear and Loathing on the Road to Hollywood.
According to his widow, Anita, the $3 million funeral was funded by actor Johnny Depp, who was a close friend of Thompson's. Depp told the Associated Press, "All I'm doing is trying to make sure his last wish comes true. I just want to send my pal out the way he wants to go out." An estimated 280 people attended, including U.S. Senators John Kerry and George McGovern; 60 Minutes correspondents Ed Bradley and Charlie Rose; actors Jack Nicholson, John Cusack, Bill Murray, Benicio del Toro, Sean Penn, and Josh Hartnett; musicians Lyle Lovett, John Oates and David Amram, and artist and long-time friend Ralph Steadman.
Legacy
Writing style
Thompson is often credited as the creator of Gonzo journalism, a style of writing that blurs distinctions between fiction and nonfiction. His work and style are considered to be a major part of the New Journalism literary movement of the 1960s and 1970s, which attempted to break free from the purely objective style of mainstream reportage of the time. Thompson almost always wrote in the first person, while extensively using his own experiences and emotions to color "the story" he was trying to follow.
Despite him having personally described his work as "Gonzo", it fell to later observers to articulate what the term actually meant. While Thompson's approach clearly involved injecting himself as a participant in the events of the narrative, it also involved adding invented, metaphoric elements, thus creating, for the uninitiated reader, a seemingly confusing amalgam of facts and fiction notable for the deliberately blurred lines between one and the other. Thompson, in a 1974 interview in Playboy addressed the issue himself, saying, "Unlike Tom Wolfe or Gay Talese, I almost never try to reconstruct a story. They're both much better reporters than I am, but then, I don't think of myself as a reporter." Tom Wolfe would later describe Thompson's style as "... part journalism and part personal memoir admixed with powers of wild invention and wilder rhetoric." Or as one description of the differences between Thompson and Wolfe's styles would elaborate, "While Tom Wolfe mastered the technique of being a fly on the wall, Thompson mastered the art of being a fly in the ointment."
The majority of Thompson's most popular and acclaimed work appeared within the pages of Rolling Stone magazine. Along with Joe Eszterhas and David Felton, Thompson was instrumental in expanding the focus of the magazine past music criticism; indeed, Thompson was the only staff writer of the epoch never to contribute a music feature to the magazine. Nevertheless, his articles were always peppered with a wide array of pop music references ranging from Howlin' Wolf to Lou Reed. Armed with early fax machines wherever he went, he became notorious for haphazardly sending sometimes illegible material to the magazine's San Francisco offices as an issue was about to go to press.
Robert Love, Thompson's editor of 23 years at Rolling Stone, wrote, "the dividing line between fact and fancy rarely blurred, and we didn't always use italics or some other typographical device to indicate the lurch into the fabulous. But if there were living, identifiable humans in a scene, we took certain steps ... Hunter was a close friend of many prominent Democrats, veterans of the ten or more presidential campaigns he covered, so when in doubt, we'd call the press secretary. 'People will believe almost any twisted kind of story about politicians or Washington,' he once said, and he was right."
Discerning the line between the fact and the fiction of Thompson's work presented a practical problem for editors and fact-checkers of his work. Love called fact-checking Thompson's work "one of the sketchiest occupations ever created in the publishing world", and "for the first-timer ... a trip through a journalistic fun house, where you didn't know what was real and what wasn't. You knew you had better learn enough about the subject at hand to know when the riff began and reality ended. Hunter was a stickler for numbers, for details like gross weight and model numbers, for lyrics and caliber, and there was no faking it."
Persona
Thompson often used a blend of fiction and fact when portraying himself in his writing, too, sometimes using the name Raoul Duke as an author surrogate whom he generally described as a callous, erratic, self-destructive journalist who constantly drank alcohol and took hallucinogenic drugs. Fantasizing about causing bodily harm to others was also a characteristic in his work used to comedic effect and an example of his brand of humor.
In the late 1960s, Thompson acquired the title of "Doctor" from the Universal Life Church.
A number of critics have commented that as he grew older, the line that distinguished Thompson from his literary self became increasingly blurred. Thompson admitted during a 1978 BBC interview that he sometimes felt pressured to live up to the fictional self that he had created, adding, "I'm never sure which one people expect me to be. Very often, they conflict — most often, as a matter of fact. ... I'm leading a normal life and right alongside me there is this myth, and it is growing and mushrooming and getting more and more warped. When I get invited to, say, speak at universities, I'm not sure if they are inviting Duke or Thompson. I'm not sure who to be."
Thompson's writing style and eccentric persona gave him a cult following in both literary and drug circles, and his cult status expanded into broader areas after being portrayed three times in major motion pictures. Hence, both his writing style and persona have been widely imitated, and his likeness has even become a popular costume choice for Halloween.
Political beliefs
Thompson was a firearms and explosives enthusiast (in his writing and in life) and owned a vast collection of handguns, rifles, shotguns, and various automatic and semiautomatic weapons, along with numerous forms of gaseous crowd-control and many homemade devices. He was a proponent of the right to bear arms and privacy rights. A member of the National Rifle Association, Thompson was also co-creator of the Fourth Amendment Foundation, an organization to assist victims in defending themselves against unwarranted search and seizure.
Part of his work with the Fourth Amendment Foundation centered around support of Lisl Auman, a Colorado woman who was sentenced for life in 1997 under felony murder charges for the death of police officer Bruce VanderJagt, despite contradictory statements and dubious evidence. Thompson organized rallies, provided legal support, and co-wrote an article in the June 2004 issue of Vanity Fair outlining the case. The Colorado Supreme Court eventually overturned Auman's sentence in March 2005, shortly after Thompson's death, and Auman is now free. Auman's supporters claim Thompson's support and publicity resulted in the successful appeal.
Thompson was also an ardent supporter of drug legalization and became known for his detailed accounts of his own drug use. He was an early supporter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws and served on the group's advisory board for over 30 years, until his death. He told an interviewer in 1997 that drugs should be legalized "[a]cross the board. It might be a little rough on some people for a while, but I think it's the only way to deal with drugs. Look at Prohibition; all it did was make a lot of criminals rich."
In a 1965 letter to his friend Paul Semonin, Thompson explained an affection for the Industrial Workers of the World, "I have in recent months come to have a certain feeling for Joe Hill and the Wobbly crowd who, if nothing else, had the right idea. But not the right mechanics. I believe the IWW was probably the last human concept in American politics." In another letter to Semonin, Thompson wrote that he agreed with Karl Marx, and compared him to Thomas Jefferson. In a letter to William Kennedy, Thompson confided that he was "coming to view the free enterprise system as the single greatest evil in the history of human savagery." In the documentary Breakfast with Hunter, Hunter S. Thompson is seen in several scenes wearing different Che Guevara T-shirts. Additionally, actor and friend Benicio del Toro has stated that Thompson kept a "big" picture of Che in his kitchen. Thompson wrote on behalf of African-American rights and the civil rights movement. He strongly criticized the dominance in American society of what he called "white power structures".
After the September 11 attacks, Thompson voiced skepticism regarding the official story on who was responsible for the attacks. He speculated to several interviewers that it may have been conducted by the U.S. government or with the government's assistance, though readily admitting he had no way to prove his theory.
In 2004, Thompson wrote: "[Richard] Nixon was a professional politician, and I despised everything he stood for—but if he were running for president this year against the evil Bush–Cheney gang, I would happily vote for him."
Scholarships
Thompson's widow established two scholarship funds at Columbia University School of General Studies for U.S. military veterans and the University of Kentucky for journalism students.
Colorado NORML created the Hunter S. Thompson Scholarship to pay all expenses for a lawyer or law student to attend the NORML Legal Committee Conference in Aspen, generally the first few days of June each year. The funding from a silent auction has paid for two winners for some years. Many winners have gone on to become important cannabis lawyers on state and national levels.
Works
Books
Thompson wrote a number of books, publishing from 1966 to the end of his life. His best-known works include Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, The Rum Diary, The Curse of Lono, and Screwjack.
Articles
As a journalist over the course of decades, Thompson published numerous articles in various periodicals. He wrote for many publications, including Rolling Stone, Esquire, The Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, The New York Times, The San Francisco Examiner, Time, Vanity Fair, The San Juan Star, and Playboy. He was also guest editor for a single edition of The Aspen Daily News. A collection of 100 of his columns from The San Francisco Examiner was published in 1988 as Gonzo Papers, Vol. 2: Generation of Swine: Tales of Shame and Degradation in the '80s. A collection of his articles for Rolling Stone was released in 2011 as Fear and Loathing at Rolling Stone: The Essential Writings of Hunter S. Thompson. The book was edited by the magazine's co-founder and publisher, Jann S. Wenner, who also provided an introduction to the collection.
Letters
Thompson wrote many letters, which were his primary means of personal communication. He made carbon copies of all his letters, usually typed, a habit begun in his teenaged years.
The Fear and Loathing Letters is a three-volume collection of selections from Thompson's correspondence, edited by historian Douglas Brinkley. The first volume, The Proud Highway, was published in 1997, and contains letters from 1955 to 1967. Fear and Loathing in America was published in 2000 and contains letters dating from 1968 to 1976. A third volume, titled The Mutineer: Rants, Ravings, and Missives from the Mountaintop 1977–2005, was edited by Douglas Brinkley and prepared by Simon & Schuster in 2005. As of March 2019, it has yet to be sold to the public. It contains a special introduction by Johnny Depp.
Illustrations
Accompanying the eccentric and colorful writing of Hunter Thompson, illustrations by British artist Ralph Steadman offer visual representations of the Gonzo style. Steadman and Thompson developed a professional relationship. The two collaborated many times over Thompson's career, although at times they were known to violently argue. Wayne Ewing's documentary on Hunter captured an encounter where Steadman tells Hunter that he believes his drawings contributed as much to the success of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas as Hunter's writing. Hunter was furious at the suggestion and their relationship was certainly at times, strained. Steadman in recent years has described Hunter as "rude" and "a bully." So while they are publicly known as great friends, the true nature of their relationship was considerably more nuanced.
Photography
Thompson was an avid amateur photographer throughout his life, and his photos have been exhibited since his death at art galleries in the United States and United Kingdom. In late 2006, AMMO Books published a limited-edition, 224-page collection of Thompson photos called Gonzo: Photographs by Hunter S. Thompson, with an introduction by Johnny Depp. Thompson's snapshots were a combination of the subjects he was covering, stylized self-portraits, and artistic still life photos. The London Observer called the photos "astonishingly good" and noted that "Thompson's pictures remind us, brilliantly in every sense, of very real people, real colours."
Feature films
The film Where the Buffalo Roam (1980) depicts heavily fictionalized attempts by Thompson to cover the Super Bowl and the 1972 U.S. presidential election. It stars Bill Murray as Thompson and Peter Boyle as Thompson's attorney Oscar Zeta Acosta, referred to in the movie as Carl Lazlo, Esq.
The 1998 film adaptation of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was directed by Monty Python veteran Terry Gilliam and starred Johnny Depp (who moved into Thompson's basement to "study" Thompson's persona before assuming his role in the film) as Raoul Duke and Benicio del Toro as Oscar Zeta Acosta. The film has achieved something of a cult following.
In the 2001 film Ali, Thompson is briefly portrayed by actor Lee Cummings.
The film adaptation of Thompson's novel The Rum Diary was released in October 2011, also starring Johnny Depp as the main character, Paul Kemp. The novel's premise was inspired by Thompson's own experiences in Puerto Rico. The film was written and directed by Bruce Robinson.
At a press junket for The Rum Diary shortly before the film's release, Depp said that he would like to adapt The Curse of Lono, "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved", and Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs for the big screen: "I'd just keep playing Hunter. There's a great comfort in it for me, because I get a great visit with my old friend who I miss dearly."
Documentaries
Fear and Loathing in Gonzovision (1978) is an extended television profile by the BBC. It can be found on disc 2 of The Criterion Collection edition of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
The Mitchell brothers, owners of the O'Farrell Theatre in San Francisco, made a documentary about Thompson in 1988 called Hunter S. Thompson: The Crazy Never Die.
Wayne Ewing created three documentaries about Thompson. The film Breakfast with Hunter (2003) was directed and edited by Ewing. It documents Thompson's work on the movie Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, his arrest for drunk driving, and his subsequent fight with the court system. When I Die (2005) is a video chronicle of making Thompson's final farewell wishes a reality, and documents the send-off itself. Free Lisl: Fear and Loathing in Denver (2006) chronicles Thompson's efforts in helping to free Lisl Auman, who was sentenced to life in prison without parole for the shooting of a police officer, a crime she did not commit. All three films are only available online.
In Come on Down: Searching for the American Dream (2004) Thompson gives director Adamm Liley insight into the nature of the American Dream over drinks at the Woody Creek Tavern.
Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride: Hunter S. Thompson on Film (2006) was directed by Tom Thurman, written by Tom Marksbury, and produced by the Starz Entertainment Group. The original documentary features interviews with Thompson's inner circle of family and friends, but the thrust of the film focuses on the manner in which his life often overlapped with numerous Hollywood celebrities who became his close friends, such as Johnny Depp, Benicio del Toro, Bill Murray, Sean Penn, John Cusack, Thompson's wife Anita, son Juan, former Senators George McGovern and Gary Hart, writers Tom Wolfe and William F. Buckley, actors Gary Busey and Harry Dean Stanton, and the illustrator Ralph Steadman among others.
Blasted!!! The Gonzo Patriots of Hunter S. Thompson (2006), produced, directed, photographed, and edited by Blue Kraning, is a documentary about the scores of fans who volunteered their privately owned artillery to fire the ashes of the late author, Hunter S. Thompson. Blasted!!! premiered at the 2006 Starz Denver International Film Festival, part of a tribute series to Hunter S. Thompson held at the Denver Press Club.
In 2008, Academy Award-winning documentarian Alex Gibney (Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, Taxi to the Dark Side) wrote and directed a documentary on Thompson, titled Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson. The film premiered on January 20, 2008, at the Sundance Film Festival. Gibney uses intimate, never-before-seen home videos, interviews with friends, enemies, lovers, and clips from films adapted from Thompson's material to document his turbulent life.
Theater
Lou Stein's adaptation of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was performed at the Battersea Theatre. Stein persuades London's Time Out magazine to put Thompson up for a fortnight, in exchange for him writing a cover story to publicize the play. Thompson does not write the story, but does rampage around London on Time Out 's expense account. The play was revived for the Vault Fringe Festival in 2014.
GONZO: A Brutal Chrysalis is a one-man show about Thompson written by Paul Addis, who also played the author. Set in the writing den of Thompson's Woody Creek home, the show portrays his life between 1968 and 1971. James Cartee began playing the role soon after Addis's arrest in 2009, and again after Addis's death in 2012.
Awards, accolades, and tributes
Thompson was named a Kentucky Colonel by the governor of Kentucky in a December 1996 tribute ceremony where he also received keys to the city of Louisville.
Author Tom Wolfe has called Thompson the greatest American comic writer of the 20th century.
Asked in an interview with Jody Denberg on KGSR Studio, in 2000, whether he would ever consider writing a book "like [his] buddy Hunter S. Thompson", the musician Warren Zevon responded: "Let's remember that Hunter S. Thompson is the finest writer of our generation; he didn't just toss off a book the other day..."
Thompson appeared on the cover of the 1,000th issue of Rolling Stone, May 18 – June 1, 2006, as a devil playing the guitar next to the two "L"'s in the word "Rolling". Johnny Depp also appeared on the cover.
The Thompson-inspired character Uncle Duke appears on a recurring basis in Doonesbury, the daily newspaper comic strip by Garry Trudeau. When the character was first introduced, Thompson protested, quoted in an interview as saying that he would set Trudeau on fire if the two ever met, although reportedly he liked the character in later years. Between March 7, 2005 (roughly two weeks after Thompson's suicide), and March 12, 2005, Doonesbury ran a tribute to Hunter, with Uncle Duke lamenting the death of the man he called his "inspiration". The first of these strips featured a panel with artwork similar to that of Ralph Steadman, and later strips featured various non sequiturs (with Duke variously transforming into a monster, melting, shrinking to the size of an empty drinking glass, or people around him turning into animals), which seemed to mirror some of the effects of hallucinogenic drugs described in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
Many have suggested that General Hunter Gathers in the Adult Swim animated series The Venture Bros. is a tribute to Thompson, as they have a similar name, mannerisms, and physical appearance.
Dale Gribble in the Fox animated series King of the Hill is a tribute to Thompson and derives his physical appearance from him.
In the Cameron Crowe film Almost Famous, based on Crowe's experiences writing for Rolling Stone while on the road with the fictional band Stillwater", the writer is on the phone with an actor portraying Jann Wenner. Wenner tells the young journalist that he "is not there to join the party, we already have one Hunter Thompson" after the young writer amassed large hotel and traveling expenses and is overheard to be sharing his room with several young women.
Eric C. Shoaf donated a caché of approximately 800 items (in librarian terms, about 35-40 linear feet of material on a shelf) pertaining to the life and career of Thompson to the University of California at Santa Cruz. Shoaf also published a descriptive bibliography, Gonzology: A Hunter Thompson Bibliography, of the works of Hunter S. Thompson with over 1,000 entries, many never before documented appearances in print, hundreds of biographical entries about Thompson's life, full descriptions of all his primary works, preface by William McKeen, Phd, and photo section with rare and exclusive items depicted.
References
External links
"Hunter S. Thompson's ESPN Page 2 Archive", Totallygonzo.org
"Shotgun Golf With Bill Murray", Thompson's final column for ESPN.com's Page 2.
A collection of articles on Thompson from The Guardian
Thompson's photography
1937 births
2005 suicides
20th-century American journalists
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American novelists
20th-century essayists
21st-century American journalists
21st-century American male writers
21st-century American novelists
9/11 conspiracy theorists
American activist journalists
American columnists
American conspiracy theorists
American essayists
American male essayists
American male journalists
American male novelists
American Marxists
American people of Scottish descent
American political writers
American tax resisters
Atherton High School alumni
Columbia University School of General Studies alumni
Drug policy reform activists
Florida State University alumni
Journalists from Colorado
Journalists from Kentucky
Louisville Male High School alumni
Military personnel from Louisville, Kentucky
Motorcycling writers
Novelists from Colorado
Novelists from Kentucky
People from Glen Ellen, California
Psychedelic drug advocates
Sportswriters from California
Suicides by firearm in Colorado
United States Air Force airmen
Writers from Louisville, Kentucky
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"This One's for You is the sixth album by R&B crooner Teddy Pendergrass. It was released just after a bad car accident Pendergrass was involved in, which left him paralyzed from the waist down due to a spinal cord injury. The album did not do as well as his previous albums did on the Billboard 200, peaking at only #59, but it did do well on the R&B album chart, reaching #6. Only one single was released, \"I Can't Win for Losing\", which peaked at only #32 on the R&B charts.\n\nTrack listing\n \"I Can't Win for Losing\" 4:16 (Victor Carstarphen, Gene McFadden, John Whitehead)\n \"This One's for You\" 6:18 (Barry Manilow, Marty Panzer)\n \"Loving You Was Good\" 3:35 (LeRoy Bell, Casey James)\n \"This Gift of Life\" 4:27 (Kenny Gamble, Leon Huff)\n \"Now Tell Me That You Love Me\" 5:15 (Gamble, Huff)\n \"It's Up to You (What You Do With Your Life)\" 5:37 (Gamble, Huff)\n \"Don't Leave Me out Along the Road\" 3:34 (Richard Roebuck)\n \"Only to You\" 3:53 (Nickolas Ashford, Valerie Simpson)\n\nReferences\n\n1982 albums\nTeddy Pendergrass albums\nAlbums produced by Kenneth Gamble\nAlbums produced by Leon Huff\nAlbums produced by Thom Bell\nAlbums produced by Ashford & Simpson\nAlbums arranged by Bobby Martin\nAlbums recorded at Sigma Sound Studios\nPhiladelphia International Records albums",
"Follow Me is the second album of Dutch singer Do.\n\nIt did well in the Netherlands, debuting at #8 in the Mega Top 100 (album chart).\n\nAlbum information\nAfter her successful debut album Do she began working on her second album with her best friend and musical partner Glenn Corneille. They made a basis for the next album but Glenn Corneille died in a car disaster. However, Do needed to go on, so she started again where she left off.\n\nThe album contains 12 songs. Do co-wrote 3 songs; Love Me, Tune Into Me and When Everything is Gone. It features several different music genres, such as Pop, Jazz, Gospel and Country.\n\nTrack listing\n\nChart positions\n\nReferences\n.\n\n2006 albums\nDo (singer) albums\nSony BMG albums"
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"Hunter S. Thompson",
"Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas",
"What is Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas?",
"The result of the trip to Las Vegas became the 1972 book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,",
"Did it do well?",
"the book was greeted with considerable critical acclaim, including being heralded by The New York Times as \"by far the best book yet"
] |
C_f9d8069ce5c14c45a92486e19a607c8b_0
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Did he write it in Vegas?
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Did Hunter S. Thompson write Fear and Loathing in Vegas?
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Hunter S. Thompson
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The book for which Thompson gained most of his fame had its genesis during the research for Strange Rumblings in Aztlan, an expose for Rolling Stone on the 1970 killing of the Mexican-American television journalist Ruben Salazar. Salazar had been shot in the head at close range with a tear gas canister fired by officers of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department during the National Chicano Moratorium March against the Vietnam War. One of Thompson's sources for the story was Oscar Zeta Acosta, a prominent Mexican-American activist and attorney. Finding it difficult to talk in the racially tense atmosphere of Los Angeles, Thompson and Acosta decided to travel to Las Vegas, and take advantage of an assignment by Sports Illustrated to write a 250-word photograph caption on the Mint 400 motorcycle race held there. What was to be a short caption quickly grew into something else entirely. Thompson first submitted to Sports Illustrated a manuscript of 2,500 words, which was, as he later wrote, "aggressively rejected." Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner was said to have liked "the first 20 or so jangled pages enough to take it seriously on its own terms and tentatively scheduled it for publication -- which gave me the push I needed to keep working on it", Thompson later wrote. The result of the trip to Las Vegas became the 1972 book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, which first appeared in the November 1971 issues of Rolling Stone as a two-part series. It is written as a first-person account by a journalist named Raoul Duke on a trip to Las Vegas with Dr. Gonzo, his "300-pound Samoan attorney", to cover a narcotics officers' convention and the "fabulous Mint 400". During the trip, Duke and his companion (always referred to as "my attorney") become sidetracked by a search for the American Dream, with "two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers ... and also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether, and two dozen amyls." Coming to terms with the failure of the 1960s countercultural movement is a major theme of the novel, and the book was greeted with considerable critical acclaim, including being heralded by The New York Times as "by far the best book yet written on the decade of dope". "The Vegas Book", as Thompson referred to it, was a mainstream success and introduced his Gonzo journalism techniques to a wide public. CANNOTANSWER
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CANNOTANSWER
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Hunter Stockton Thompson (July 18, 1937 – February 20, 2005) was an American journalist and author who founded the gonzo journalism movement. He rose to prominence with the publication of Hell's Angels (1967), a book for which he spent a year living and riding with the Hells Angels motorcycle gang to write a first-hand account of their lives and experiences.
In 1970, he wrote an unconventional magazine feature titled "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved" for Scanlan's Monthly, which raised his profile and established his counterculture credibility. It also set him on the path to establishing his own subgenre of New Journalism that he called "Gonzo", which was essentially an ongoing experiment in which the writer becomes a central figure and participant in the events of the narrative.
Thompson remains best known for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1971), a book first serialized in Rolling Stone in which he grapples with the implications of what he considered the failure of the 1960s counterculture movement. It was adapted for film twice: loosely in Where the Buffalo Roam starring Bill Murray as Thompson in 1980, and explicitly in 1998 by director Terry Gilliam in the eponymous film starring Johnny Depp and Benicio del Toro.
Thompson ran unsuccessfully for sheriff of Pitkin County, Colorado in 1970 on the Freak Power ticket. His campaign was chronicled in the documentary film Freak Power: The Ballot or the Bomb. He became known for his dislike of Richard Nixon, who he claimed represented "that dark, venal, and incurably violent side of the American character". He covered Nixon's 1972 reelection campaign for Rolling Stone and later collected the stories in book form as Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72.
Thompson's output declined from the mid-1970s, as he struggled with the consequences of fame, and complained that he could no longer merely report on events, as he was too easily recognized. After several high-profile stories were quashed by the upper management of Rolling Stone, he found it increasingly difficult to get his work into mainstream outlets. He did continue to write for alternative newspapers, and had a gig as a critic for the mainstream San Francisco Examiner for much of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Most of his work from 1979 to 1994 was collected in The Gonzo Papers. He continued to write for various journalism outlets in a variety of formats, including sporadic stories published in Rolling Stone and a weekly column that appeared on ESPN.com's Page 2 titled "Hey, Rube" that he started in 2000.
He was known for his lifelong use of alcohol and illegal narcotics, his love of firearms, and his iconoclastic contempt for authority. He often remarked: "I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me." Thompson died by suicide at the age of 67, following a series of health problems. In accordance with his wishes, his ashes were fired out of a cannon in a ceremony funded by his friend Johnny Depp and attended by friends including then-Senator John Kerry and Jack Nicholson. Hari Kunzru wrote, "the true voice of Thompson is revealed to be that of American moralist ... one who often makes himself ugly to expose the ugliness he sees around him."
Early life
Thompson was born into a middle-class family in Louisville, Kentucky, the first of three sons of Virginia Davison Ray (1908, Springfield, Kentucky – March 20, 1998, Louisville), who worked as head librarian at the Louisville Free Public Library and Jack Robert Thompson (September 4, 1893, Horse Cave, Kentucky – July 3, 1952, Louisville), a public insurance adjuster and World War I veteran. His parents were introduced by a friend from Jack's fraternity at the University of Kentucky in September 1934, and married on November 2, 1935. The Guardian journalist Nicholas Lezard, stated that Thompson's first name, Hunter, came from an ancestor on his mother's side, the Scottish surgeon John Hunter. A more direct attribution is that Thompson's first and middle name, Hunter Stockton, came from his maternal grandparents, Prestly Stockton Ray and Lucille Hunter.
In December 1943 when Thompson was six years old, the family settled in the affluent Cherokee Triangle neighborhood of The Highlands. On July 3, 1952, when Thompson was 14, his father died of myasthenia gravis at age 58. Hunter and his brothers were raised by their mother. Virginia worked as a librarian to support her children, and was described as a "heavy drinker" following her husband's death.
Education
Interested in sports and athletically inclined from a young age, Thompson co-founded the Hawks Athletic Club while attending I.N. Bloom Elementary School, which led to an invitation to join Louisville's Castlewood Athletic Club for adolescents that prepared them for high-school sports. Ultimately, he never joined a sports team in high school.
Thompson attended I.N. Bloom Elementary School, Highland Middle School, and Atherton High School, before transferring to Louisville Male High School in fall 1952. Also in 1952, he was accepted as a member of the Athenaeum Literary Association, a school-sponsored literary and social club that dated to 1862. Its members at the time came from Louisville's upper-class families, and included Porter Bibb, who became the first publisher of Rolling Stone at Thompson's behest. During this time, Thompson read and admired J. P. Donleavy's The Ginger Man.
As an Athenaeum member, Thompson contributed articles to and helped produce the club's yearbook The Spectator. The group ejected Thompson in 1955 for criminal activity. Charged as an accessory to robbery after being in a car with the perpetrator, Thompson was sentenced to 60 days in Kentucky's Jefferson County Jail. He served 31 days and, a week after his release, enlisted in the United States Air Force. While he was in jail, the school superintendent refused permission to take his high-school final examinations so he was unable to graduate.
Military service
Thompson completed basic training at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, and transferred to Scott Air Force Base in Belleville, Illinois, to study electronics. He applied to become an aviator, but the Air Force's aviation-cadet program rejected his application. In 1956, he transferred to Eglin Air Force Base near Fort Walton Beach, Florida. While serving at Eglin, he took evening classes at Florida State University. At Eglin, he landed his first professional writing job as sports editor of The Command Courier by falsifying his job experience. As sports editor, Thompson traveled around the United States with the Eglin Eagles football team, covering its games. In early 1957, he wrote a sports column for The Playground News, a local newspaper in Fort Walton Beach, Florida. His name did not appear on the column because Air Force regulations forbade outside employment.
In 1958, as an airman first class, his commanding officer recommended him for an early honorable discharge. "In summary, this airman, although talented, will not be guided by policy," chief of information services Colonel William S. Evans wrote to the Eglin personnel office. "Sometimes his rebel and superior attitude seems to rub off on other airmen staff members."
Early journalism career
After leaving the Air Force, Thompson worked as sports editor for a newspaper in Jersey Shore, Pennsylvania, before relocating to New York City. There he audited several courses at the Columbia University School of General Studies. During this time he worked briefly for Time as a copy boy for $51 a week. At work, he typed out parts of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms in order to learn the authors' rhythms and writing styles. In 1959 Time fired him for insubordination. Later that year, he worked as a reporter for The Middletown Daily Record in Middletown, New York. He was fired from this job after damaging an office candy machine and arguing with the owner of a local restaurant who happened to be an advertiser with the paper.
In 1960, Thompson moved to San Juan, Puerto Rico, to take a job with the sporting magazine El Sportivo, which ceased operations soon after his arrival. Thompson applied for a job with the Puerto Rican English-language daily The San Juan Star, but its managing editor, future novelist William J. Kennedy, turned him down. Nonetheless, the two became friends. After the demise of El Sportivo, Thompson worked as a stringer for the New York Herald Tribune and a few other stateside papers on Caribbean issues, with Kennedy working as his editor.
After returning to the United States, Thompson visited San Francisco and eventually lived in Big Sur, where he worked as a security guard and caretaker at Slates Hot Springs for an eight-month period in 1961, just before it became the Esalen Institute. At the time, Big Sur was a Beat outpost and home of Henry Miller and Dennis Murphy (screenwriter), both of whom Thompson admired. While there, he published his first magazine feature in Rogue about the artisan and bohemian culture of Big Sur. During this period, Thompson wrote two novels, Prince Jellyfish and The Rum Diary, and submitted many short stories to publishers – with little success. The Rum Diary, based on Thompson's experiences in Puerto Rico, was not published until .
In May 1962, Thompson traveled to South America for a year as a correspondent for the Dow Jones-owned weekly paper, the National Observer. In Brazil, he spent several months as a reporter for the Brazil Herald, the country's only English-language daily, published in Rio de Janeiro. His longtime girlfriend Sandra Dawn Conklin (or Sandy Conklin Thompson, subsequently Sondi Wright) later joined him in Rio. They married on May 19, 1963, shortly after returning to the United States, and lived briefly in Aspen, Colorado. Sandy was eight months pregnant when they relocated to Glen Ellen, California. Their son, Juan Fitzgerald Thompson, was born on March 23, 1964.
Thompson continued to write for the National Observer on an array of domestic subjects. One story told of his 1964 visit to Ketchum, Idaho, to investigate the reasons for Ernest Hemingway's suicide. While there, he stole a pair of elk antlers hanging above the front door of Hemingway's cabin. Later that year, Thompson moved to San Francisco, where he attended the 1964 GOP Convention at the Cow Palace. Thompson severed his ties with the Observer after his editor refused to print his review of Tom Wolfe's 1965 essay-collection The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby,. He later immersed himself in the drug and hippie culture taking root in the area, and soon began writing for the Berkeley underground paper Spider.
Hell's Angels
In 1965 Carey McWilliams, editor of The Nation, hired Thompson to write a story about the Hells Angels motorcycle club in California. At the time Thompson was living in a house near San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, where the Hells Angels lived across from the Grateful Dead. His article appeared on May 17, 1965, after which he received several book offers and spent the next year living and riding with the club. The relationship broke down when the bikers perceived that Thompson was exploiting them for personal gain and demanded a share of his profits. An argument at a party resulted in Thompson suffering a savage beating (or "stomping", as the Angels referred to it). Random House published the hard-cover Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs in 1966, and the fight between Thompson and the Angels was well-marketed. CBC Television even broadcast an encounter between Thompson and Hells Angel Skip Workman before a live studio audience.
A New York Times review praised the work as an "angry, knowledgeable, fascinating, and excitedly written book", that shows the Hells Angels "not so much as dropouts from society but as total misfits, or unfits—emotionally, intellectually and educationally unfit to achieve the rewards, such as they are, that the contemporary social order offers". The reviewer also praised Thompson as a "spirited, witty, observant, and original writer; his prose crackles like motorcycle exhaust".
Following the book's publication, Thompson appeared as himself on the February 20, 1967, episode of the game show To Tell The Truth, receiving all four votes by the panel members.
Late 1960s
Following the success of Hell's Angels, Thompson successfully sold articles to several national magazines, including The New York Times Magazine, Esquire, Pageant, and Harper's.
In 1967, shortly before the Summer of Love, Thompson wrote "The 'Hashbury' is the Capital of the Hippies" for The New York Times Magazine. He criticized San Francisco's hippies as devoid of both the political convictions of the New Left and the artistic core of the Beats, resulting in a culture overrun with young people who spent their time in the pursuit of drugs. "The thrust is no longer for 'change' or 'progress' or 'revolution', but merely to escape, to live on the far perimeter of a world that might have been – perhaps should have been – and strike a bargain for survival on purely personal terms," he wrote.
By late 1967, Thompson and his family moved back to Colorado and rented a house in Woody Creek, a small mountain hamlet outside Aspen. In early 1969, Thompson received a $15,000 royalty check for the paperback sales of Hell's Angels and used two-thirds of the money for a down payment on a modest home and property where he would live for the rest of his life. He named the house Owl Farm and often described it as his "fortified compound".
In early 1968, Thompson signed the "Writers and Editors War Tax Protest" pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War. According to Thompson's letters and his later writings, at this time, he planned to write a book called The Joint Chiefs about "the death of the American Dream." He used a $6,000 advance from Random House to travel the 1968 Presidential campaign trail and attend the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago for research. From his hotel room in Chicago, Thompson watched the clashes between police and protesters, which he wrote had a great effect on his political views. The book was never finished, and the theme of the death of the American dream was carried over into his later work. The contract with Random House was eventually fulfilled with the 1972 book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. He also signed a deal with Ballantine Books in 1968 to write a satirical book called The Johnson File about Lyndon B. Johnson. A few weeks after the contract was signed, however, Johnson announced that he would not seek re-election, and the deal was cancelled.
Middle years
Aspen sheriff campaign
In 1970, Thompson ran for sheriff of Pitkin County, Colorado, as part of a group of citizens running for local offices on the "Freak Power" ticket. The platform included promoting the decriminalization of drugs (for personal use only, not trafficking, as he disapproved of profiteering), tearing up the streets and turning them into grassy pedestrian malls, banning any building so tall as to obscure the view of the mountains, disarming all police forces, and renaming Aspen "Fat City" to deter investors. Thompson, having shaved his head, referred to the crew cut-wearing Republican candidate as "my long-haired opponent".
With polls showing him with a slight lead in a three-way race, Thompson appeared at Rolling Stone magazine headquarters in San Francisco with a six-pack of beer in hand, and declared to editor Jann Wenner that he was about to be elected sheriff of Aspen, Colorado, and wished to write about the "Freak Power" movement. Thus, Thompson's first article in Rolling Stone was published as "The Battle of Aspen" with the byline "By: Dr. Hunter S. Thompson (Candidate for Sheriff)". Despite the publicity, Thompson narrowly lost the election. While carrying the city of Aspen, he garnered only 44% of the county-wide vote in what had become a two-way race. The Republican candidate agreed to withdraw a few days before the election to consolidate the anti-Thompson votes, in return for the Democrats withdrawing their candidate for county commissioner. Thompson later remarked that the Rolling Stone article mobilized his opposition far more than his supporters.
A documentary film about Hunter S. Thompson's campaign for sheriff called Freak Power: The Ballot or the Bomb was released on October 23, 2020.
Birth of Gonzo
Also in 1970, Thompson wrote an article entitled "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved" for the short-lived new journalism magazine Scanlan's Monthly. For that article, editor Warren Hinckle paired Thompson with illustrator Ralph Steadman, who drew expressionist illustrations with lipstick and eyeliner. Thompson's article virtually ignored the race, focusing instead on the drunken revelry surrounding the annual event in his hometown. The first-person narrator also sets that debauchery against a political backdrop, which included the bombing of Cambodia and the deaths of four students at Kent State University, which occurred two days after the Kentucky Derby.
Thompson and Steadman collaborated regularly after that. Although it was not widely read, the article was the first to use the techniques of Gonzo journalism, a style Thompson later employed in almost every literary endeavor. The manic first-person subjectivity of the story was reportedly the result of sheer desperation; he was facing a looming deadline and started sending the magazine pages ripped out of his notebook.
The first use of the word "Gonzo" to describe Thompson's work is credited to the journalist Bill Cardoso, who first met Thompson on a bus full of journalists covering the 1968 New Hampshire primary. In 1970, Cardoso (who was then the editor of The Boston Globe Sunday Magazine) wrote to Thompson praising the "Kentucky Derby" piece as a breakthrough: "This is it, this is pure Gonzo. If this is a start, keep rolling." According to Steadman, Thompson took to the word right away and said, "Okay, that's what I do. Gonzo." Thompson's first published use of the word appears in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: "Free Enterprise. The American Dream. Horatio Alger gone mad on drugs in Las Vegas. Do it now: pure Gonzo journalism."
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
The book for which Thompson gained most of his fame had its genesis during the research for "Strange Rumblings in Aztlan", an exposé for Rolling Stone on the 1970 killing of the Mexican-American television journalist Rubén Salazar. Salazar had been shot in the head at close range with a tear-gas canister fired by officers of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department during the National Chicano Moratorium March against the Vietnam War. One of Thompson's sources for the story was Oscar Zeta Acosta, a prominent Mexican-American activist and attorney. Finding it difficult to talk in the racially tense atmosphere of Los Angeles, Thompson and Acosta decided to travel to Las Vegas, and take advantage of an assignment by Sports Illustrated to write a 250-word photograph caption on the Mint 400 motorcycle race held there.
What was to be a short caption quickly grew into something else entirely. Thompson first submitted to Sports Illustrated a manuscript of 2,500 words, which was, as he later wrote, "aggressively rejected." Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner was said to have liked "the first 20 or so jangled pages enough to take it seriously on its own terms and tentatively scheduled it for publication — which gave me the push I needed to keep working on it", Thompson later wrote. To develop the story, Thompson and Acosta returned to Las Vegas to attend a drug enforcement conference.
The two trips became the basis for "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," which appeared as a two-part Rolling Stone story in November 1971. Random House published the book version the following year. It is written as a first-person account by a journalist named Raoul Duke with Dr. Gonzo, his "300-pound Samoan attorney." During the trip, Duke and his companion (always referred to as "my attorney") become sidetracked by a search for the American Dream, with "two bags of grass, 75 pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multicolored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers ... and also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether, and two dozen amyls."
Coming to terms with the failure of the 1960s countercultural movement is a major theme of the novel, and the book was greeted with considerable critical acclaim, including being heralded by The New York Times as "by far the best book yet written on the decade of dope". "The Vegas Book", as Thompson referred to it, was a mainstream success and introduced his Gonzo journalism techniques to a wide public.
Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72
Beginning in late 1971, Thompson wrote extensively for Rolling Stone on the election campaigns of President Richard Nixon and his unsuccessful opponent, Senator George McGovern. The articles were soon combined and published as Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72. As the title suggests, Thompson spent nearly all of his time traveling the "campaign trail", focusing largely on the Democratic Party's primaries. Nixon, as the Republican incumbent, performed little campaign work, while McGovern competed with rival candidates Edmund Muskie and Hubert Humphrey. Thompson was an early supporter of McGovern and wrote unflattering coverage of the rival campaigns in the increasingly widely read Rolling Stone.
Thompson went on to become a fierce critic of Nixon, both during and after his presidency. After Nixon's death in 1994, Thompson described him in Rolling Stone as a man who "could shake your hand and stab you in the back at the same time", and said "his casket [should] have been launched into one of those open-sewage canals that empty into the ocean just south of Los Angeles. He was a swine of a man and a jabbering dupe of a president. [He] was an evil man—evil in a way that only those who believe in the physical reality of the Devil can understand it." Following Nixon's pardon by Gerald Ford in 1974, Hunter ruminated on the roughly $400,000 pension Nixon maneuvered his way into, by resigning before being formally indicted. While The Washington Post was lamenting Nixon's "lonely and depressed" state after being forced from the White House, Hunter wrote that '[i]f there were any such thing as true justice in this world, his [Nixon's] rancid carcass would be somewhere down around Easter Island right now, in the belly of a hammerhead shark.' There was however one passion shared by Thompson and Nixon: a love of football, discussed in Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72.
Fame and its consequences
Thompson's journalistic work began to seriously suffer after his trip to Africa to cover the Rumble in the Jungle—the world heavyweight boxing match between George Foreman and Muhammad Ali—in 1974. He missed the match while intoxicated at his hotel, and did not submit a story to the magazine. As Wenner put it to the film critic Roger Ebert in the 2008 documentary Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, "After Africa, he just couldn't write. He couldn't piece it together".
Plans for Thompson to cover the 1976 presidential campaign for Rolling Stone and later publish a book fell through after Wenner canceled the project without informing Thompson. Wenner then assigned Thompson to travel to Vietnam to cover what appeared to be the end of the Vietnam War. Thompson arrived in Saigon just as South Vietnam was collapsing and as other journalists were leaving the country. Wenner allegedly cancelled Thompson's life insurance, which strained Thompson's relationship with Rolling Stone. He soon fled the country and refused to file his report until the ten-year anniversary of the Fall of Saigon.
From the late 1970s on, most of Thompson's literary output appeared as a four-volume series of books entitled The Gonzo Papers. Beginning with The Great Shark Hunt in 1979 and ending with Better Than Sex in 1994, the series is largely a collection of rare newspaper and magazine pieces from the pre-gonzo period, along with almost all of his Rolling Stone pieces.
Starting around 1980, Thompson became less active by his standards. Aside from paid appearances, he largely retreated to his compound in Woody Creek, rejecting projects and assignments or failing to complete them. Despite a lack of new material, Wenner kept Thompson on the Rolling Stone masthead as chief of the "National Affairs Desk", a position he held until his death.
In 1980, Thompson divorced wife Sandra Conklin. The same year marked the release of Where the Buffalo Roam, a loose film adaptation based on Thompson's early 1970s work, starring Bill Murray as the writer. Murray eventually became one of Thompson's trusted friends. Later that year, Thompson relocated to Hawaii to research and write The Curse of Lono, a Gonzo-style account of the 1980 Honolulu Marathon. Extensively illustrated by Ralph Steadman, the piece first appeared in Running in 1981 as "The Charge of the Weird Brigade" and was later excerpted in Playboy in 1983.
In 1983, he covered the U.S. invasion of Grenada, but did not write or discuss the experiences until the publication of Kingdom of Fear in 2003. Later that year, at the behest of Terry McDonell, he wrote "A Dog Took My Place", an exposé for Rolling Stone of the scandalous Roxanne Pulitzer divorce case and what he called the "Palm Beach lifestyle". The story included dubious insinuations of bestiality, but was widely considered to be a return by Thompson to his proper form. In 1985, Thompson accepted an advance to write about "couples pornography" for Playboy. As part of his research, he spent evenings at the Mitchell Brothers O'Farrell Theatre striptease club in San Francisco. The experience evolved into an as-yet-unpublished novel tentatively entitled The Night Manager.
Thompson next accepted a role as weekly media columnist and critic for The San Francisco Examiner. The position was arranged by former editor and fellow Examiner columnist Warren Hinckle. His editor at The Examiner, David McCumber described, "One week it would be acid-soaked gibberish with a charm of its own. The next week it would be incisive political analysis of the highest order."
Many of these columns were collected in Gonzo Papers, Vol. 2: Generation of Swine: Tales of Shame and Degradation in the '80s (1988) and Gonzo Papers, Vol. 3: Songs of the Doomed: More Notes on the Death of the American Dream (1990), a collection of autobiographical reminiscences, articles, and previously unpublished material.
Later years
Throughout the early 1990s, Thompson claimed to be at work on a novel entitled Polo Is My Life. It was briefly excerpted in Rolling Stone in 1994, and Thompson himself described it in 1996 as "a sex book — you know, sex, drugs, and rock and roll. It's about the manager of a sex theater who's forced to leave and flee to the mountains. He falls in love and gets in even more trouble than he was in the sex theater in San Francisco". The novel was slated to be released by Random House in 1999, and was even assigned , but was never published.
Thompson continued to publish irregularly in Rolling Stone, ultimately contributing 17 pieces to the magazine between 1984 and 2004. "Fear and Loathing in Elko," published in 1992, was a well-received fictional rallying cry against the nomination of Clarence Thomas to a seat on the Supreme Court of the United States. "Trapped in Mr. Bill's Neighborhood" was a largely factual account of an interview with Bill Clinton at a Little Rock, Arkansas, steakhouse. Rather than traveling the campaign trail as he had done in previous presidential elections, Thompson monitored the proceedings on cable television; Better Than Sex: Confessions of a Political Junkie, his account of the 1992 presidential campaign, is composed of reactive faxes to Rolling Stone. In 1994, the magazine published "He Was a Crook", a "scathing" obituary of Richard Nixon.
In November 2004, Rolling Stone published Thompson's final magazine feature "The Fun-Hogs in the Passing Lane: Fear and Loathing, Campaign 2004", a brief account of the 2004 presidential election in which he compared the outcome of the Bush v. Gore court case to the Reichstag fire and formally endorsed Senator John Kerry, a longtime friend, for president.
Fear and Loathing redux
In 1996, Modern Library reissued Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas along with "Strange Rumblings in Aztlan," "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved," and "Jacket Copy for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas." Two years later, the film Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas generated new interest in Thompson and his work, and a paperback edition was published as a tie-in. The same year, an early novel, The Rum Diary, was published. Two volumes of collected letters, edited by Douglas Brinkley, also appeared during this time. The first volume appeared in 1997 and covers the years 1955-67. The second volume appeared in 2000 and covers 1968 to 1976.
Thompson's next, and penultimate, collection, Kingdom of Fear: Loathsome Secrets of a Star-Crossed Child in the Final Days of the American Century, was widely publicized as Thompson's first memoir. Published in 2003, it combined new material (including reminiscences of the O'Farrell Theater), selected newspaper and digital clippings, and other older works.
Thompson finished his journalism career in the same way it had begun: Writing about sports. From 2000 until his death in 2005, he wrote a weekly column for ESPN.com's Page 2 entitled "Hey, Rube." In 2004, Simon & Schuster collected some of the columns from the first few years and released them in mid-2004 as Hey Rube: Blood Sport, the Bush Doctrine, and the Downward Spiral of Dumbness.
Thompson married assistant Anita Bejmuk on April 23, 2003.
Death
At 5:42 pm on February 20, 2005, Thompson died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head at Owl Farm, his "fortified compound" in Woody Creek, Colorado. His son Juan, daughter-in-law Jennifer, and grandson were visiting for the weekend. His wife Anita, who was at the Aspen Club, was on the phone with him as he cocked the gun. According to the Aspen Daily News, Thompson asked her to come home to help him write his ESPN column, then set the receiver on the counter. Anita said she mistook the cocking of the gun for the sound of his typewriter keys and hung up as he fired. Will and Jennifer were in the next room when they heard the gunshot, but mistook the sound for a book falling and did not check on Thompson immediately. Juan Thompson found his father's body. According to the police report and Anita's cell phone records, he called the sheriff's office half an hour later, then walked outside and fired three shotgun blasts into the air to "mark the passing of his father". The police report stated that in Thompson's typewriter was a piece of paper with the date "Feb. 22 '05" and a single word, "counselor".
Years of alcohol and cocaine abuse contributed to his problem with depression. Thompson's inner circle told the press that he had been depressed and always found February a "gloomy" month, with football season over and the harsh Colorado winter weather. He was also upset over his advancing age and chronic medical problems, including a hip replacement; he would frequently mutter "This kid is getting old." Rolling Stone published what Douglas Brinkley described as a suicide note written by Thompson to his wife, titled "Football Season Is Over". It read:
Thompson's collaborator and friend Ralph Steadman wrote:
Funeral
On August 20, 2005, in a private funeral, Thompson's ashes were fired from a cannon. This was accompanied by red, white, blue, and green fireworks—all to the tune of Norman Greenbaum's "Spirit in the Sky" and Bob Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man". The cannon was placed atop a tower which had the shape of a double-thumbed fist clutching a peyote button, a symbol originally used in his 1970 campaign for sheriff of Pitkin County, Colorado. The plans for the monument were initially drawn by Thompson and Steadman, and were shown as part of an Omnibus program on the BBC titled Fear and Loathing in Gonzovision (1978). It is included as a special feature on the second disc of the 2004 Criterion Collection DVD release of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and labeled as Fear and Loathing on the Road to Hollywood.
According to his widow, Anita, the $3 million funeral was funded by actor Johnny Depp, who was a close friend of Thompson's. Depp told the Associated Press, "All I'm doing is trying to make sure his last wish comes true. I just want to send my pal out the way he wants to go out." An estimated 280 people attended, including U.S. Senators John Kerry and George McGovern; 60 Minutes correspondents Ed Bradley and Charlie Rose; actors Jack Nicholson, John Cusack, Bill Murray, Benicio del Toro, Sean Penn, and Josh Hartnett; musicians Lyle Lovett, John Oates and David Amram, and artist and long-time friend Ralph Steadman.
Legacy
Writing style
Thompson is often credited as the creator of Gonzo journalism, a style of writing that blurs distinctions between fiction and nonfiction. His work and style are considered to be a major part of the New Journalism literary movement of the 1960s and 1970s, which attempted to break free from the purely objective style of mainstream reportage of the time. Thompson almost always wrote in the first person, while extensively using his own experiences and emotions to color "the story" he was trying to follow.
Despite him having personally described his work as "Gonzo", it fell to later observers to articulate what the term actually meant. While Thompson's approach clearly involved injecting himself as a participant in the events of the narrative, it also involved adding invented, metaphoric elements, thus creating, for the uninitiated reader, a seemingly confusing amalgam of facts and fiction notable for the deliberately blurred lines between one and the other. Thompson, in a 1974 interview in Playboy addressed the issue himself, saying, "Unlike Tom Wolfe or Gay Talese, I almost never try to reconstruct a story. They're both much better reporters than I am, but then, I don't think of myself as a reporter." Tom Wolfe would later describe Thompson's style as "... part journalism and part personal memoir admixed with powers of wild invention and wilder rhetoric." Or as one description of the differences between Thompson and Wolfe's styles would elaborate, "While Tom Wolfe mastered the technique of being a fly on the wall, Thompson mastered the art of being a fly in the ointment."
The majority of Thompson's most popular and acclaimed work appeared within the pages of Rolling Stone magazine. Along with Joe Eszterhas and David Felton, Thompson was instrumental in expanding the focus of the magazine past music criticism; indeed, Thompson was the only staff writer of the epoch never to contribute a music feature to the magazine. Nevertheless, his articles were always peppered with a wide array of pop music references ranging from Howlin' Wolf to Lou Reed. Armed with early fax machines wherever he went, he became notorious for haphazardly sending sometimes illegible material to the magazine's San Francisco offices as an issue was about to go to press.
Robert Love, Thompson's editor of 23 years at Rolling Stone, wrote, "the dividing line between fact and fancy rarely blurred, and we didn't always use italics or some other typographical device to indicate the lurch into the fabulous. But if there were living, identifiable humans in a scene, we took certain steps ... Hunter was a close friend of many prominent Democrats, veterans of the ten or more presidential campaigns he covered, so when in doubt, we'd call the press secretary. 'People will believe almost any twisted kind of story about politicians or Washington,' he once said, and he was right."
Discerning the line between the fact and the fiction of Thompson's work presented a practical problem for editors and fact-checkers of his work. Love called fact-checking Thompson's work "one of the sketchiest occupations ever created in the publishing world", and "for the first-timer ... a trip through a journalistic fun house, where you didn't know what was real and what wasn't. You knew you had better learn enough about the subject at hand to know when the riff began and reality ended. Hunter was a stickler for numbers, for details like gross weight and model numbers, for lyrics and caliber, and there was no faking it."
Persona
Thompson often used a blend of fiction and fact when portraying himself in his writing, too, sometimes using the name Raoul Duke as an author surrogate whom he generally described as a callous, erratic, self-destructive journalist who constantly drank alcohol and took hallucinogenic drugs. Fantasizing about causing bodily harm to others was also a characteristic in his work used to comedic effect and an example of his brand of humor.
In the late 1960s, Thompson acquired the title of "Doctor" from the Universal Life Church.
A number of critics have commented that as he grew older, the line that distinguished Thompson from his literary self became increasingly blurred. Thompson admitted during a 1978 BBC interview that he sometimes felt pressured to live up to the fictional self that he had created, adding, "I'm never sure which one people expect me to be. Very often, they conflict — most often, as a matter of fact. ... I'm leading a normal life and right alongside me there is this myth, and it is growing and mushrooming and getting more and more warped. When I get invited to, say, speak at universities, I'm not sure if they are inviting Duke or Thompson. I'm not sure who to be."
Thompson's writing style and eccentric persona gave him a cult following in both literary and drug circles, and his cult status expanded into broader areas after being portrayed three times in major motion pictures. Hence, both his writing style and persona have been widely imitated, and his likeness has even become a popular costume choice for Halloween.
Political beliefs
Thompson was a firearms and explosives enthusiast (in his writing and in life) and owned a vast collection of handguns, rifles, shotguns, and various automatic and semiautomatic weapons, along with numerous forms of gaseous crowd-control and many homemade devices. He was a proponent of the right to bear arms and privacy rights. A member of the National Rifle Association, Thompson was also co-creator of the Fourth Amendment Foundation, an organization to assist victims in defending themselves against unwarranted search and seizure.
Part of his work with the Fourth Amendment Foundation centered around support of Lisl Auman, a Colorado woman who was sentenced for life in 1997 under felony murder charges for the death of police officer Bruce VanderJagt, despite contradictory statements and dubious evidence. Thompson organized rallies, provided legal support, and co-wrote an article in the June 2004 issue of Vanity Fair outlining the case. The Colorado Supreme Court eventually overturned Auman's sentence in March 2005, shortly after Thompson's death, and Auman is now free. Auman's supporters claim Thompson's support and publicity resulted in the successful appeal.
Thompson was also an ardent supporter of drug legalization and became known for his detailed accounts of his own drug use. He was an early supporter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws and served on the group's advisory board for over 30 years, until his death. He told an interviewer in 1997 that drugs should be legalized "[a]cross the board. It might be a little rough on some people for a while, but I think it's the only way to deal with drugs. Look at Prohibition; all it did was make a lot of criminals rich."
In a 1965 letter to his friend Paul Semonin, Thompson explained an affection for the Industrial Workers of the World, "I have in recent months come to have a certain feeling for Joe Hill and the Wobbly crowd who, if nothing else, had the right idea. But not the right mechanics. I believe the IWW was probably the last human concept in American politics." In another letter to Semonin, Thompson wrote that he agreed with Karl Marx, and compared him to Thomas Jefferson. In a letter to William Kennedy, Thompson confided that he was "coming to view the free enterprise system as the single greatest evil in the history of human savagery." In the documentary Breakfast with Hunter, Hunter S. Thompson is seen in several scenes wearing different Che Guevara T-shirts. Additionally, actor and friend Benicio del Toro has stated that Thompson kept a "big" picture of Che in his kitchen. Thompson wrote on behalf of African-American rights and the civil rights movement. He strongly criticized the dominance in American society of what he called "white power structures".
After the September 11 attacks, Thompson voiced skepticism regarding the official story on who was responsible for the attacks. He speculated to several interviewers that it may have been conducted by the U.S. government or with the government's assistance, though readily admitting he had no way to prove his theory.
In 2004, Thompson wrote: "[Richard] Nixon was a professional politician, and I despised everything he stood for—but if he were running for president this year against the evil Bush–Cheney gang, I would happily vote for him."
Scholarships
Thompson's widow established two scholarship funds at Columbia University School of General Studies for U.S. military veterans and the University of Kentucky for journalism students.
Colorado NORML created the Hunter S. Thompson Scholarship to pay all expenses for a lawyer or law student to attend the NORML Legal Committee Conference in Aspen, generally the first few days of June each year. The funding from a silent auction has paid for two winners for some years. Many winners have gone on to become important cannabis lawyers on state and national levels.
Works
Books
Thompson wrote a number of books, publishing from 1966 to the end of his life. His best-known works include Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, The Rum Diary, The Curse of Lono, and Screwjack.
Articles
As a journalist over the course of decades, Thompson published numerous articles in various periodicals. He wrote for many publications, including Rolling Stone, Esquire, The Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, The New York Times, The San Francisco Examiner, Time, Vanity Fair, The San Juan Star, and Playboy. He was also guest editor for a single edition of The Aspen Daily News. A collection of 100 of his columns from The San Francisco Examiner was published in 1988 as Gonzo Papers, Vol. 2: Generation of Swine: Tales of Shame and Degradation in the '80s. A collection of his articles for Rolling Stone was released in 2011 as Fear and Loathing at Rolling Stone: The Essential Writings of Hunter S. Thompson. The book was edited by the magazine's co-founder and publisher, Jann S. Wenner, who also provided an introduction to the collection.
Letters
Thompson wrote many letters, which were his primary means of personal communication. He made carbon copies of all his letters, usually typed, a habit begun in his teenaged years.
The Fear and Loathing Letters is a three-volume collection of selections from Thompson's correspondence, edited by historian Douglas Brinkley. The first volume, The Proud Highway, was published in 1997, and contains letters from 1955 to 1967. Fear and Loathing in America was published in 2000 and contains letters dating from 1968 to 1976. A third volume, titled The Mutineer: Rants, Ravings, and Missives from the Mountaintop 1977–2005, was edited by Douglas Brinkley and prepared by Simon & Schuster in 2005. As of March 2019, it has yet to be sold to the public. It contains a special introduction by Johnny Depp.
Illustrations
Accompanying the eccentric and colorful writing of Hunter Thompson, illustrations by British artist Ralph Steadman offer visual representations of the Gonzo style. Steadman and Thompson developed a professional relationship. The two collaborated many times over Thompson's career, although at times they were known to violently argue. Wayne Ewing's documentary on Hunter captured an encounter where Steadman tells Hunter that he believes his drawings contributed as much to the success of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas as Hunter's writing. Hunter was furious at the suggestion and their relationship was certainly at times, strained. Steadman in recent years has described Hunter as "rude" and "a bully." So while they are publicly known as great friends, the true nature of their relationship was considerably more nuanced.
Photography
Thompson was an avid amateur photographer throughout his life, and his photos have been exhibited since his death at art galleries in the United States and United Kingdom. In late 2006, AMMO Books published a limited-edition, 224-page collection of Thompson photos called Gonzo: Photographs by Hunter S. Thompson, with an introduction by Johnny Depp. Thompson's snapshots were a combination of the subjects he was covering, stylized self-portraits, and artistic still life photos. The London Observer called the photos "astonishingly good" and noted that "Thompson's pictures remind us, brilliantly in every sense, of very real people, real colours."
Feature films
The film Where the Buffalo Roam (1980) depicts heavily fictionalized attempts by Thompson to cover the Super Bowl and the 1972 U.S. presidential election. It stars Bill Murray as Thompson and Peter Boyle as Thompson's attorney Oscar Zeta Acosta, referred to in the movie as Carl Lazlo, Esq.
The 1998 film adaptation of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was directed by Monty Python veteran Terry Gilliam and starred Johnny Depp (who moved into Thompson's basement to "study" Thompson's persona before assuming his role in the film) as Raoul Duke and Benicio del Toro as Oscar Zeta Acosta. The film has achieved something of a cult following.
In the 2001 film Ali, Thompson is briefly portrayed by actor Lee Cummings.
The film adaptation of Thompson's novel The Rum Diary was released in October 2011, also starring Johnny Depp as the main character, Paul Kemp. The novel's premise was inspired by Thompson's own experiences in Puerto Rico. The film was written and directed by Bruce Robinson.
At a press junket for The Rum Diary shortly before the film's release, Depp said that he would like to adapt The Curse of Lono, "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved", and Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs for the big screen: "I'd just keep playing Hunter. There's a great comfort in it for me, because I get a great visit with my old friend who I miss dearly."
Documentaries
Fear and Loathing in Gonzovision (1978) is an extended television profile by the BBC. It can be found on disc 2 of The Criterion Collection edition of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
The Mitchell brothers, owners of the O'Farrell Theatre in San Francisco, made a documentary about Thompson in 1988 called Hunter S. Thompson: The Crazy Never Die.
Wayne Ewing created three documentaries about Thompson. The film Breakfast with Hunter (2003) was directed and edited by Ewing. It documents Thompson's work on the movie Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, his arrest for drunk driving, and his subsequent fight with the court system. When I Die (2005) is a video chronicle of making Thompson's final farewell wishes a reality, and documents the send-off itself. Free Lisl: Fear and Loathing in Denver (2006) chronicles Thompson's efforts in helping to free Lisl Auman, who was sentenced to life in prison without parole for the shooting of a police officer, a crime she did not commit. All three films are only available online.
In Come on Down: Searching for the American Dream (2004) Thompson gives director Adamm Liley insight into the nature of the American Dream over drinks at the Woody Creek Tavern.
Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride: Hunter S. Thompson on Film (2006) was directed by Tom Thurman, written by Tom Marksbury, and produced by the Starz Entertainment Group. The original documentary features interviews with Thompson's inner circle of family and friends, but the thrust of the film focuses on the manner in which his life often overlapped with numerous Hollywood celebrities who became his close friends, such as Johnny Depp, Benicio del Toro, Bill Murray, Sean Penn, John Cusack, Thompson's wife Anita, son Juan, former Senators George McGovern and Gary Hart, writers Tom Wolfe and William F. Buckley, actors Gary Busey and Harry Dean Stanton, and the illustrator Ralph Steadman among others.
Blasted!!! The Gonzo Patriots of Hunter S. Thompson (2006), produced, directed, photographed, and edited by Blue Kraning, is a documentary about the scores of fans who volunteered their privately owned artillery to fire the ashes of the late author, Hunter S. Thompson. Blasted!!! premiered at the 2006 Starz Denver International Film Festival, part of a tribute series to Hunter S. Thompson held at the Denver Press Club.
In 2008, Academy Award-winning documentarian Alex Gibney (Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, Taxi to the Dark Side) wrote and directed a documentary on Thompson, titled Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson. The film premiered on January 20, 2008, at the Sundance Film Festival. Gibney uses intimate, never-before-seen home videos, interviews with friends, enemies, lovers, and clips from films adapted from Thompson's material to document his turbulent life.
Theater
Lou Stein's adaptation of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was performed at the Battersea Theatre. Stein persuades London's Time Out magazine to put Thompson up for a fortnight, in exchange for him writing a cover story to publicize the play. Thompson does not write the story, but does rampage around London on Time Out 's expense account. The play was revived for the Vault Fringe Festival in 2014.
GONZO: A Brutal Chrysalis is a one-man show about Thompson written by Paul Addis, who also played the author. Set in the writing den of Thompson's Woody Creek home, the show portrays his life between 1968 and 1971. James Cartee began playing the role soon after Addis's arrest in 2009, and again after Addis's death in 2012.
Awards, accolades, and tributes
Thompson was named a Kentucky Colonel by the governor of Kentucky in a December 1996 tribute ceremony where he also received keys to the city of Louisville.
Author Tom Wolfe has called Thompson the greatest American comic writer of the 20th century.
Asked in an interview with Jody Denberg on KGSR Studio, in 2000, whether he would ever consider writing a book "like [his] buddy Hunter S. Thompson", the musician Warren Zevon responded: "Let's remember that Hunter S. Thompson is the finest writer of our generation; he didn't just toss off a book the other day..."
Thompson appeared on the cover of the 1,000th issue of Rolling Stone, May 18 – June 1, 2006, as a devil playing the guitar next to the two "L"'s in the word "Rolling". Johnny Depp also appeared on the cover.
The Thompson-inspired character Uncle Duke appears on a recurring basis in Doonesbury, the daily newspaper comic strip by Garry Trudeau. When the character was first introduced, Thompson protested, quoted in an interview as saying that he would set Trudeau on fire if the two ever met, although reportedly he liked the character in later years. Between March 7, 2005 (roughly two weeks after Thompson's suicide), and March 12, 2005, Doonesbury ran a tribute to Hunter, with Uncle Duke lamenting the death of the man he called his "inspiration". The first of these strips featured a panel with artwork similar to that of Ralph Steadman, and later strips featured various non sequiturs (with Duke variously transforming into a monster, melting, shrinking to the size of an empty drinking glass, or people around him turning into animals), which seemed to mirror some of the effects of hallucinogenic drugs described in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
Many have suggested that General Hunter Gathers in the Adult Swim animated series The Venture Bros. is a tribute to Thompson, as they have a similar name, mannerisms, and physical appearance.
Dale Gribble in the Fox animated series King of the Hill is a tribute to Thompson and derives his physical appearance from him.
In the Cameron Crowe film Almost Famous, based on Crowe's experiences writing for Rolling Stone while on the road with the fictional band Stillwater", the writer is on the phone with an actor portraying Jann Wenner. Wenner tells the young journalist that he "is not there to join the party, we already have one Hunter Thompson" after the young writer amassed large hotel and traveling expenses and is overheard to be sharing his room with several young women.
Eric C. Shoaf donated a caché of approximately 800 items (in librarian terms, about 35-40 linear feet of material on a shelf) pertaining to the life and career of Thompson to the University of California at Santa Cruz. Shoaf also published a descriptive bibliography, Gonzology: A Hunter Thompson Bibliography, of the works of Hunter S. Thompson with over 1,000 entries, many never before documented appearances in print, hundreds of biographical entries about Thompson's life, full descriptions of all his primary works, preface by William McKeen, Phd, and photo section with rare and exclusive items depicted.
References
External links
"Hunter S. Thompson's ESPN Page 2 Archive", Totallygonzo.org
"Shotgun Golf With Bill Murray", Thompson's final column for ESPN.com's Page 2.
A collection of articles on Thompson from The Guardian
Thompson's photography
1937 births
2005 suicides
20th-century American journalists
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American novelists
20th-century essayists
21st-century American journalists
21st-century American male writers
21st-century American novelists
9/11 conspiracy theorists
American activist journalists
American columnists
American conspiracy theorists
American essayists
American male essayists
American male journalists
American male novelists
American Marxists
American people of Scottish descent
American political writers
American tax resisters
Atherton High School alumni
Columbia University School of General Studies alumni
Drug policy reform activists
Florida State University alumni
Journalists from Colorado
Journalists from Kentucky
Louisville Male High School alumni
Military personnel from Louisville, Kentucky
Motorcycling writers
Novelists from Colorado
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People from Glen Ellen, California
Psychedelic drug advocates
Sportswriters from California
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[
"\"Pretty Vegas\" is a song by Australian rock band INXS. It was released in September 2005 as the lead single from their 11th studio album, Switch, and the first with new lead singer J.D. Fortune, winner of the Rock Star: INXS competition.\n\nRelease\n\"Pretty Vegas\" was first released exclusively through the iTunes Store on 19 September 2005. A video for the song was released on the same day. The song debuted on the show Rock Star: INXS during the time when Fortune was vying for the lead vocalist spot in INXS. The eight contestants were challenged to write lyrics to a melody written by Andrew Farriss. They were divided into two teams of four. When Fortune did not see eye to eye with his team (which included runner-up Marty Casey), he decided to venture out on his own and write his own lyrics.\n\nChart performance\nThe song peaked at number 37 on the US Billboard Hot 100 singles chart on 22 October 2005, an achievement that made the band one of a very select few from the 1980s to have a top-40 hit with a new song in the 21st century. After the release of INXS' album Switch, the single reached number seven on the Billboard Hot Adult Top 40 Tracks chart. The single was also somewhat of a comeback song in Australia, becoming their first ARIA top 10 single in 14 years, peaking at number nine.\n\nThe song was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on 26 January 2006. The single was also certified gold by Music Canada on 8 March 2006 for sales of over 10,000 digital copies.\n\nTrack listings\nAustralian maxi-single\n \"Pretty Vegas\" (album version) – 3:27\n \"Pretty Vegas\" (live) – 4:17\n\nDigital download\n \"Pretty Vegas\" – 3:26\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nCertifications\n\nRelease history\n\nReferences\n\n2005 singles\n2005 songs\nEpic Records singles\nINXS songs\nSong recordings produced by Guy Chambers\nSongs written by Andrew Farriss\nSongs written by J.D. Fortune",
"Dustin Lee Abraham is an American actor, producer and screenwriter. He penned the 2001 cult movie How High for Method Man and Redman. As of 2009, he produced and writes for CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.\n\nBiography\nAbraham was born to a Jewish family and attended Chaparral High School in Las Vegas, NV where he was friends with Anthony Zuiker who encouraged him to enroll in Speech and Forensics (Dramatic Interpretation) coursework. He eventually won the state championship in Dramatic Interpretation which led to a scholarship at Arizona State University. Zuiker who wrote him some scripts that he used to win the national championship in Dramatic Interpretation and won a scholarship to attended California State's graduate school and also teach their Speech and Forensics team. A friend of his introduced him to Law & Order star Angie Harmon who then introduced him to Russel Simmons and his agent Stan Lathan who liked his monologues. Jenny Delaney from the William Morris Agency then started to market him to various casting directors including Francine Maisler at Paramount Pictures who signed him; his first check was for $30,000. Although he was auditioning and getting paid, he did not win any roles. His agent encouraged him to write. He called Zuiker, who at the time was operating a tram in Las Vegas, and they decided to write a script about the Jewish mob in Las Vegas (Abraham had run numbers for the Jewish mob while in high school); the final product was called The Runner. After initially failing with the William Morris Agency, they sold the script to a Showtime director for a mere $25,000; unfortunately, before the Creative Artists Agency had reviewed it. CAA had found a lucrative buyer but the director refused to sell and instead what he felt was a lackluster movie, The Runner, was produced in 1999 (although it starred John Goodman, Courteney Cox, and Ron Eldard).\n\nAbraham wrote his first script, which he calls boilerplate, for John Wells which got him some exposure. Abraham then received a call from his agent that Method Man and Redman wanted him to write How High which was released in 2001. Abraham then worked on the CSI franchise as a writer for nine years. In 2007, he ventured into production and produced his first episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Cockroaches, directed by William Friedkin.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\nAmerican television writers\nAmerican male television writers\nAmerican television producers\nJewish American screenwriters\nLiving people\nYear of birth missing (living people)\n21st-century American Jews"
] |
[
"Hunter S. Thompson",
"Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas",
"What is Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas?",
"The result of the trip to Las Vegas became the 1972 book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,",
"Did it do well?",
"the book was greeted with considerable critical acclaim, including being heralded by The New York Times as \"by far the best book yet",
"Did he write it in Vegas?",
"I don't know."
] |
C_f9d8069ce5c14c45a92486e19a607c8b_0
|
who published the book?
| 4 |
Who published the book "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas"?
|
Hunter S. Thompson
|
The book for which Thompson gained most of his fame had its genesis during the research for Strange Rumblings in Aztlan, an expose for Rolling Stone on the 1970 killing of the Mexican-American television journalist Ruben Salazar. Salazar had been shot in the head at close range with a tear gas canister fired by officers of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department during the National Chicano Moratorium March against the Vietnam War. One of Thompson's sources for the story was Oscar Zeta Acosta, a prominent Mexican-American activist and attorney. Finding it difficult to talk in the racially tense atmosphere of Los Angeles, Thompson and Acosta decided to travel to Las Vegas, and take advantage of an assignment by Sports Illustrated to write a 250-word photograph caption on the Mint 400 motorcycle race held there. What was to be a short caption quickly grew into something else entirely. Thompson first submitted to Sports Illustrated a manuscript of 2,500 words, which was, as he later wrote, "aggressively rejected." Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner was said to have liked "the first 20 or so jangled pages enough to take it seriously on its own terms and tentatively scheduled it for publication -- which gave me the push I needed to keep working on it", Thompson later wrote. The result of the trip to Las Vegas became the 1972 book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, which first appeared in the November 1971 issues of Rolling Stone as a two-part series. It is written as a first-person account by a journalist named Raoul Duke on a trip to Las Vegas with Dr. Gonzo, his "300-pound Samoan attorney", to cover a narcotics officers' convention and the "fabulous Mint 400". During the trip, Duke and his companion (always referred to as "my attorney") become sidetracked by a search for the American Dream, with "two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers ... and also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether, and two dozen amyls." Coming to terms with the failure of the 1960s countercultural movement is a major theme of the novel, and the book was greeted with considerable critical acclaim, including being heralded by The New York Times as "by far the best book yet written on the decade of dope". "The Vegas Book", as Thompson referred to it, was a mainstream success and introduced his Gonzo journalism techniques to a wide public. CANNOTANSWER
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the 1972 book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, which first appeared in the November 1971 issues of Rolling Stone as a two-part series.
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Hunter Stockton Thompson (July 18, 1937 – February 20, 2005) was an American journalist and author who founded the gonzo journalism movement. He rose to prominence with the publication of Hell's Angels (1967), a book for which he spent a year living and riding with the Hells Angels motorcycle gang to write a first-hand account of their lives and experiences.
In 1970, he wrote an unconventional magazine feature titled "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved" for Scanlan's Monthly, which raised his profile and established his counterculture credibility. It also set him on the path to establishing his own subgenre of New Journalism that he called "Gonzo", which was essentially an ongoing experiment in which the writer becomes a central figure and participant in the events of the narrative.
Thompson remains best known for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1971), a book first serialized in Rolling Stone in which he grapples with the implications of what he considered the failure of the 1960s counterculture movement. It was adapted for film twice: loosely in Where the Buffalo Roam starring Bill Murray as Thompson in 1980, and explicitly in 1998 by director Terry Gilliam in the eponymous film starring Johnny Depp and Benicio del Toro.
Thompson ran unsuccessfully for sheriff of Pitkin County, Colorado in 1970 on the Freak Power ticket. His campaign was chronicled in the documentary film Freak Power: The Ballot or the Bomb. He became known for his dislike of Richard Nixon, who he claimed represented "that dark, venal, and incurably violent side of the American character". He covered Nixon's 1972 reelection campaign for Rolling Stone and later collected the stories in book form as Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72.
Thompson's output declined from the mid-1970s, as he struggled with the consequences of fame, and complained that he could no longer merely report on events, as he was too easily recognized. After several high-profile stories were quashed by the upper management of Rolling Stone, he found it increasingly difficult to get his work into mainstream outlets. He did continue to write for alternative newspapers, and had a gig as a critic for the mainstream San Francisco Examiner for much of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Most of his work from 1979 to 1994 was collected in The Gonzo Papers. He continued to write for various journalism outlets in a variety of formats, including sporadic stories published in Rolling Stone and a weekly column that appeared on ESPN.com's Page 2 titled "Hey, Rube" that he started in 2000.
He was known for his lifelong use of alcohol and illegal narcotics, his love of firearms, and his iconoclastic contempt for authority. He often remarked: "I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me." Thompson died by suicide at the age of 67, following a series of health problems. In accordance with his wishes, his ashes were fired out of a cannon in a ceremony funded by his friend Johnny Depp and attended by friends including then-Senator John Kerry and Jack Nicholson. Hari Kunzru wrote, "the true voice of Thompson is revealed to be that of American moralist ... one who often makes himself ugly to expose the ugliness he sees around him."
Early life
Thompson was born into a middle-class family in Louisville, Kentucky, the first of three sons of Virginia Davison Ray (1908, Springfield, Kentucky – March 20, 1998, Louisville), who worked as head librarian at the Louisville Free Public Library and Jack Robert Thompson (September 4, 1893, Horse Cave, Kentucky – July 3, 1952, Louisville), a public insurance adjuster and World War I veteran. His parents were introduced by a friend from Jack's fraternity at the University of Kentucky in September 1934, and married on November 2, 1935. The Guardian journalist Nicholas Lezard, stated that Thompson's first name, Hunter, came from an ancestor on his mother's side, the Scottish surgeon John Hunter. A more direct attribution is that Thompson's first and middle name, Hunter Stockton, came from his maternal grandparents, Prestly Stockton Ray and Lucille Hunter.
In December 1943 when Thompson was six years old, the family settled in the affluent Cherokee Triangle neighborhood of The Highlands. On July 3, 1952, when Thompson was 14, his father died of myasthenia gravis at age 58. Hunter and his brothers were raised by their mother. Virginia worked as a librarian to support her children, and was described as a "heavy drinker" following her husband's death.
Education
Interested in sports and athletically inclined from a young age, Thompson co-founded the Hawks Athletic Club while attending I.N. Bloom Elementary School, which led to an invitation to join Louisville's Castlewood Athletic Club for adolescents that prepared them for high-school sports. Ultimately, he never joined a sports team in high school.
Thompson attended I.N. Bloom Elementary School, Highland Middle School, and Atherton High School, before transferring to Louisville Male High School in fall 1952. Also in 1952, he was accepted as a member of the Athenaeum Literary Association, a school-sponsored literary and social club that dated to 1862. Its members at the time came from Louisville's upper-class families, and included Porter Bibb, who became the first publisher of Rolling Stone at Thompson's behest. During this time, Thompson read and admired J. P. Donleavy's The Ginger Man.
As an Athenaeum member, Thompson contributed articles to and helped produce the club's yearbook The Spectator. The group ejected Thompson in 1955 for criminal activity. Charged as an accessory to robbery after being in a car with the perpetrator, Thompson was sentenced to 60 days in Kentucky's Jefferson County Jail. He served 31 days and, a week after his release, enlisted in the United States Air Force. While he was in jail, the school superintendent refused permission to take his high-school final examinations so he was unable to graduate.
Military service
Thompson completed basic training at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, and transferred to Scott Air Force Base in Belleville, Illinois, to study electronics. He applied to become an aviator, but the Air Force's aviation-cadet program rejected his application. In 1956, he transferred to Eglin Air Force Base near Fort Walton Beach, Florida. While serving at Eglin, he took evening classes at Florida State University. At Eglin, he landed his first professional writing job as sports editor of The Command Courier by falsifying his job experience. As sports editor, Thompson traveled around the United States with the Eglin Eagles football team, covering its games. In early 1957, he wrote a sports column for The Playground News, a local newspaper in Fort Walton Beach, Florida. His name did not appear on the column because Air Force regulations forbade outside employment.
In 1958, as an airman first class, his commanding officer recommended him for an early honorable discharge. "In summary, this airman, although talented, will not be guided by policy," chief of information services Colonel William S. Evans wrote to the Eglin personnel office. "Sometimes his rebel and superior attitude seems to rub off on other airmen staff members."
Early journalism career
After leaving the Air Force, Thompson worked as sports editor for a newspaper in Jersey Shore, Pennsylvania, before relocating to New York City. There he audited several courses at the Columbia University School of General Studies. During this time he worked briefly for Time as a copy boy for $51 a week. At work, he typed out parts of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms in order to learn the authors' rhythms and writing styles. In 1959 Time fired him for insubordination. Later that year, he worked as a reporter for The Middletown Daily Record in Middletown, New York. He was fired from this job after damaging an office candy machine and arguing with the owner of a local restaurant who happened to be an advertiser with the paper.
In 1960, Thompson moved to San Juan, Puerto Rico, to take a job with the sporting magazine El Sportivo, which ceased operations soon after his arrival. Thompson applied for a job with the Puerto Rican English-language daily The San Juan Star, but its managing editor, future novelist William J. Kennedy, turned him down. Nonetheless, the two became friends. After the demise of El Sportivo, Thompson worked as a stringer for the New York Herald Tribune and a few other stateside papers on Caribbean issues, with Kennedy working as his editor.
After returning to the United States, Thompson visited San Francisco and eventually lived in Big Sur, where he worked as a security guard and caretaker at Slates Hot Springs for an eight-month period in 1961, just before it became the Esalen Institute. At the time, Big Sur was a Beat outpost and home of Henry Miller and Dennis Murphy (screenwriter), both of whom Thompson admired. While there, he published his first magazine feature in Rogue about the artisan and bohemian culture of Big Sur. During this period, Thompson wrote two novels, Prince Jellyfish and The Rum Diary, and submitted many short stories to publishers – with little success. The Rum Diary, based on Thompson's experiences in Puerto Rico, was not published until .
In May 1962, Thompson traveled to South America for a year as a correspondent for the Dow Jones-owned weekly paper, the National Observer. In Brazil, he spent several months as a reporter for the Brazil Herald, the country's only English-language daily, published in Rio de Janeiro. His longtime girlfriend Sandra Dawn Conklin (or Sandy Conklin Thompson, subsequently Sondi Wright) later joined him in Rio. They married on May 19, 1963, shortly after returning to the United States, and lived briefly in Aspen, Colorado. Sandy was eight months pregnant when they relocated to Glen Ellen, California. Their son, Juan Fitzgerald Thompson, was born on March 23, 1964.
Thompson continued to write for the National Observer on an array of domestic subjects. One story told of his 1964 visit to Ketchum, Idaho, to investigate the reasons for Ernest Hemingway's suicide. While there, he stole a pair of elk antlers hanging above the front door of Hemingway's cabin. Later that year, Thompson moved to San Francisco, where he attended the 1964 GOP Convention at the Cow Palace. Thompson severed his ties with the Observer after his editor refused to print his review of Tom Wolfe's 1965 essay-collection The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby,. He later immersed himself in the drug and hippie culture taking root in the area, and soon began writing for the Berkeley underground paper Spider.
Hell's Angels
In 1965 Carey McWilliams, editor of The Nation, hired Thompson to write a story about the Hells Angels motorcycle club in California. At the time Thompson was living in a house near San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, where the Hells Angels lived across from the Grateful Dead. His article appeared on May 17, 1965, after which he received several book offers and spent the next year living and riding with the club. The relationship broke down when the bikers perceived that Thompson was exploiting them for personal gain and demanded a share of his profits. An argument at a party resulted in Thompson suffering a savage beating (or "stomping", as the Angels referred to it). Random House published the hard-cover Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs in 1966, and the fight between Thompson and the Angels was well-marketed. CBC Television even broadcast an encounter between Thompson and Hells Angel Skip Workman before a live studio audience.
A New York Times review praised the work as an "angry, knowledgeable, fascinating, and excitedly written book", that shows the Hells Angels "not so much as dropouts from society but as total misfits, or unfits—emotionally, intellectually and educationally unfit to achieve the rewards, such as they are, that the contemporary social order offers". The reviewer also praised Thompson as a "spirited, witty, observant, and original writer; his prose crackles like motorcycle exhaust".
Following the book's publication, Thompson appeared as himself on the February 20, 1967, episode of the game show To Tell The Truth, receiving all four votes by the panel members.
Late 1960s
Following the success of Hell's Angels, Thompson successfully sold articles to several national magazines, including The New York Times Magazine, Esquire, Pageant, and Harper's.
In 1967, shortly before the Summer of Love, Thompson wrote "The 'Hashbury' is the Capital of the Hippies" for The New York Times Magazine. He criticized San Francisco's hippies as devoid of both the political convictions of the New Left and the artistic core of the Beats, resulting in a culture overrun with young people who spent their time in the pursuit of drugs. "The thrust is no longer for 'change' or 'progress' or 'revolution', but merely to escape, to live on the far perimeter of a world that might have been – perhaps should have been – and strike a bargain for survival on purely personal terms," he wrote.
By late 1967, Thompson and his family moved back to Colorado and rented a house in Woody Creek, a small mountain hamlet outside Aspen. In early 1969, Thompson received a $15,000 royalty check for the paperback sales of Hell's Angels and used two-thirds of the money for a down payment on a modest home and property where he would live for the rest of his life. He named the house Owl Farm and often described it as his "fortified compound".
In early 1968, Thompson signed the "Writers and Editors War Tax Protest" pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War. According to Thompson's letters and his later writings, at this time, he planned to write a book called The Joint Chiefs about "the death of the American Dream." He used a $6,000 advance from Random House to travel the 1968 Presidential campaign trail and attend the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago for research. From his hotel room in Chicago, Thompson watched the clashes between police and protesters, which he wrote had a great effect on his political views. The book was never finished, and the theme of the death of the American dream was carried over into his later work. The contract with Random House was eventually fulfilled with the 1972 book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. He also signed a deal with Ballantine Books in 1968 to write a satirical book called The Johnson File about Lyndon B. Johnson. A few weeks after the contract was signed, however, Johnson announced that he would not seek re-election, and the deal was cancelled.
Middle years
Aspen sheriff campaign
In 1970, Thompson ran for sheriff of Pitkin County, Colorado, as part of a group of citizens running for local offices on the "Freak Power" ticket. The platform included promoting the decriminalization of drugs (for personal use only, not trafficking, as he disapproved of profiteering), tearing up the streets and turning them into grassy pedestrian malls, banning any building so tall as to obscure the view of the mountains, disarming all police forces, and renaming Aspen "Fat City" to deter investors. Thompson, having shaved his head, referred to the crew cut-wearing Republican candidate as "my long-haired opponent".
With polls showing him with a slight lead in a three-way race, Thompson appeared at Rolling Stone magazine headquarters in San Francisco with a six-pack of beer in hand, and declared to editor Jann Wenner that he was about to be elected sheriff of Aspen, Colorado, and wished to write about the "Freak Power" movement. Thus, Thompson's first article in Rolling Stone was published as "The Battle of Aspen" with the byline "By: Dr. Hunter S. Thompson (Candidate for Sheriff)". Despite the publicity, Thompson narrowly lost the election. While carrying the city of Aspen, he garnered only 44% of the county-wide vote in what had become a two-way race. The Republican candidate agreed to withdraw a few days before the election to consolidate the anti-Thompson votes, in return for the Democrats withdrawing their candidate for county commissioner. Thompson later remarked that the Rolling Stone article mobilized his opposition far more than his supporters.
A documentary film about Hunter S. Thompson's campaign for sheriff called Freak Power: The Ballot or the Bomb was released on October 23, 2020.
Birth of Gonzo
Also in 1970, Thompson wrote an article entitled "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved" for the short-lived new journalism magazine Scanlan's Monthly. For that article, editor Warren Hinckle paired Thompson with illustrator Ralph Steadman, who drew expressionist illustrations with lipstick and eyeliner. Thompson's article virtually ignored the race, focusing instead on the drunken revelry surrounding the annual event in his hometown. The first-person narrator also sets that debauchery against a political backdrop, which included the bombing of Cambodia and the deaths of four students at Kent State University, which occurred two days after the Kentucky Derby.
Thompson and Steadman collaborated regularly after that. Although it was not widely read, the article was the first to use the techniques of Gonzo journalism, a style Thompson later employed in almost every literary endeavor. The manic first-person subjectivity of the story was reportedly the result of sheer desperation; he was facing a looming deadline and started sending the magazine pages ripped out of his notebook.
The first use of the word "Gonzo" to describe Thompson's work is credited to the journalist Bill Cardoso, who first met Thompson on a bus full of journalists covering the 1968 New Hampshire primary. In 1970, Cardoso (who was then the editor of The Boston Globe Sunday Magazine) wrote to Thompson praising the "Kentucky Derby" piece as a breakthrough: "This is it, this is pure Gonzo. If this is a start, keep rolling." According to Steadman, Thompson took to the word right away and said, "Okay, that's what I do. Gonzo." Thompson's first published use of the word appears in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: "Free Enterprise. The American Dream. Horatio Alger gone mad on drugs in Las Vegas. Do it now: pure Gonzo journalism."
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
The book for which Thompson gained most of his fame had its genesis during the research for "Strange Rumblings in Aztlan", an exposé for Rolling Stone on the 1970 killing of the Mexican-American television journalist Rubén Salazar. Salazar had been shot in the head at close range with a tear-gas canister fired by officers of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department during the National Chicano Moratorium March against the Vietnam War. One of Thompson's sources for the story was Oscar Zeta Acosta, a prominent Mexican-American activist and attorney. Finding it difficult to talk in the racially tense atmosphere of Los Angeles, Thompson and Acosta decided to travel to Las Vegas, and take advantage of an assignment by Sports Illustrated to write a 250-word photograph caption on the Mint 400 motorcycle race held there.
What was to be a short caption quickly grew into something else entirely. Thompson first submitted to Sports Illustrated a manuscript of 2,500 words, which was, as he later wrote, "aggressively rejected." Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner was said to have liked "the first 20 or so jangled pages enough to take it seriously on its own terms and tentatively scheduled it for publication — which gave me the push I needed to keep working on it", Thompson later wrote. To develop the story, Thompson and Acosta returned to Las Vegas to attend a drug enforcement conference.
The two trips became the basis for "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," which appeared as a two-part Rolling Stone story in November 1971. Random House published the book version the following year. It is written as a first-person account by a journalist named Raoul Duke with Dr. Gonzo, his "300-pound Samoan attorney." During the trip, Duke and his companion (always referred to as "my attorney") become sidetracked by a search for the American Dream, with "two bags of grass, 75 pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multicolored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers ... and also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether, and two dozen amyls."
Coming to terms with the failure of the 1960s countercultural movement is a major theme of the novel, and the book was greeted with considerable critical acclaim, including being heralded by The New York Times as "by far the best book yet written on the decade of dope". "The Vegas Book", as Thompson referred to it, was a mainstream success and introduced his Gonzo journalism techniques to a wide public.
Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72
Beginning in late 1971, Thompson wrote extensively for Rolling Stone on the election campaigns of President Richard Nixon and his unsuccessful opponent, Senator George McGovern. The articles were soon combined and published as Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72. As the title suggests, Thompson spent nearly all of his time traveling the "campaign trail", focusing largely on the Democratic Party's primaries. Nixon, as the Republican incumbent, performed little campaign work, while McGovern competed with rival candidates Edmund Muskie and Hubert Humphrey. Thompson was an early supporter of McGovern and wrote unflattering coverage of the rival campaigns in the increasingly widely read Rolling Stone.
Thompson went on to become a fierce critic of Nixon, both during and after his presidency. After Nixon's death in 1994, Thompson described him in Rolling Stone as a man who "could shake your hand and stab you in the back at the same time", and said "his casket [should] have been launched into one of those open-sewage canals that empty into the ocean just south of Los Angeles. He was a swine of a man and a jabbering dupe of a president. [He] was an evil man—evil in a way that only those who believe in the physical reality of the Devil can understand it." Following Nixon's pardon by Gerald Ford in 1974, Hunter ruminated on the roughly $400,000 pension Nixon maneuvered his way into, by resigning before being formally indicted. While The Washington Post was lamenting Nixon's "lonely and depressed" state after being forced from the White House, Hunter wrote that '[i]f there were any such thing as true justice in this world, his [Nixon's] rancid carcass would be somewhere down around Easter Island right now, in the belly of a hammerhead shark.' There was however one passion shared by Thompson and Nixon: a love of football, discussed in Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72.
Fame and its consequences
Thompson's journalistic work began to seriously suffer after his trip to Africa to cover the Rumble in the Jungle—the world heavyweight boxing match between George Foreman and Muhammad Ali—in 1974. He missed the match while intoxicated at his hotel, and did not submit a story to the magazine. As Wenner put it to the film critic Roger Ebert in the 2008 documentary Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, "After Africa, he just couldn't write. He couldn't piece it together".
Plans for Thompson to cover the 1976 presidential campaign for Rolling Stone and later publish a book fell through after Wenner canceled the project without informing Thompson. Wenner then assigned Thompson to travel to Vietnam to cover what appeared to be the end of the Vietnam War. Thompson arrived in Saigon just as South Vietnam was collapsing and as other journalists were leaving the country. Wenner allegedly cancelled Thompson's life insurance, which strained Thompson's relationship with Rolling Stone. He soon fled the country and refused to file his report until the ten-year anniversary of the Fall of Saigon.
From the late 1970s on, most of Thompson's literary output appeared as a four-volume series of books entitled The Gonzo Papers. Beginning with The Great Shark Hunt in 1979 and ending with Better Than Sex in 1994, the series is largely a collection of rare newspaper and magazine pieces from the pre-gonzo period, along with almost all of his Rolling Stone pieces.
Starting around 1980, Thompson became less active by his standards. Aside from paid appearances, he largely retreated to his compound in Woody Creek, rejecting projects and assignments or failing to complete them. Despite a lack of new material, Wenner kept Thompson on the Rolling Stone masthead as chief of the "National Affairs Desk", a position he held until his death.
In 1980, Thompson divorced wife Sandra Conklin. The same year marked the release of Where the Buffalo Roam, a loose film adaptation based on Thompson's early 1970s work, starring Bill Murray as the writer. Murray eventually became one of Thompson's trusted friends. Later that year, Thompson relocated to Hawaii to research and write The Curse of Lono, a Gonzo-style account of the 1980 Honolulu Marathon. Extensively illustrated by Ralph Steadman, the piece first appeared in Running in 1981 as "The Charge of the Weird Brigade" and was later excerpted in Playboy in 1983.
In 1983, he covered the U.S. invasion of Grenada, but did not write or discuss the experiences until the publication of Kingdom of Fear in 2003. Later that year, at the behest of Terry McDonell, he wrote "A Dog Took My Place", an exposé for Rolling Stone of the scandalous Roxanne Pulitzer divorce case and what he called the "Palm Beach lifestyle". The story included dubious insinuations of bestiality, but was widely considered to be a return by Thompson to his proper form. In 1985, Thompson accepted an advance to write about "couples pornography" for Playboy. As part of his research, he spent evenings at the Mitchell Brothers O'Farrell Theatre striptease club in San Francisco. The experience evolved into an as-yet-unpublished novel tentatively entitled The Night Manager.
Thompson next accepted a role as weekly media columnist and critic for The San Francisco Examiner. The position was arranged by former editor and fellow Examiner columnist Warren Hinckle. His editor at The Examiner, David McCumber described, "One week it would be acid-soaked gibberish with a charm of its own. The next week it would be incisive political analysis of the highest order."
Many of these columns were collected in Gonzo Papers, Vol. 2: Generation of Swine: Tales of Shame and Degradation in the '80s (1988) and Gonzo Papers, Vol. 3: Songs of the Doomed: More Notes on the Death of the American Dream (1990), a collection of autobiographical reminiscences, articles, and previously unpublished material.
Later years
Throughout the early 1990s, Thompson claimed to be at work on a novel entitled Polo Is My Life. It was briefly excerpted in Rolling Stone in 1994, and Thompson himself described it in 1996 as "a sex book — you know, sex, drugs, and rock and roll. It's about the manager of a sex theater who's forced to leave and flee to the mountains. He falls in love and gets in even more trouble than he was in the sex theater in San Francisco". The novel was slated to be released by Random House in 1999, and was even assigned , but was never published.
Thompson continued to publish irregularly in Rolling Stone, ultimately contributing 17 pieces to the magazine between 1984 and 2004. "Fear and Loathing in Elko," published in 1992, was a well-received fictional rallying cry against the nomination of Clarence Thomas to a seat on the Supreme Court of the United States. "Trapped in Mr. Bill's Neighborhood" was a largely factual account of an interview with Bill Clinton at a Little Rock, Arkansas, steakhouse. Rather than traveling the campaign trail as he had done in previous presidential elections, Thompson monitored the proceedings on cable television; Better Than Sex: Confessions of a Political Junkie, his account of the 1992 presidential campaign, is composed of reactive faxes to Rolling Stone. In 1994, the magazine published "He Was a Crook", a "scathing" obituary of Richard Nixon.
In November 2004, Rolling Stone published Thompson's final magazine feature "The Fun-Hogs in the Passing Lane: Fear and Loathing, Campaign 2004", a brief account of the 2004 presidential election in which he compared the outcome of the Bush v. Gore court case to the Reichstag fire and formally endorsed Senator John Kerry, a longtime friend, for president.
Fear and Loathing redux
In 1996, Modern Library reissued Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas along with "Strange Rumblings in Aztlan," "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved," and "Jacket Copy for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas." Two years later, the film Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas generated new interest in Thompson and his work, and a paperback edition was published as a tie-in. The same year, an early novel, The Rum Diary, was published. Two volumes of collected letters, edited by Douglas Brinkley, also appeared during this time. The first volume appeared in 1997 and covers the years 1955-67. The second volume appeared in 2000 and covers 1968 to 1976.
Thompson's next, and penultimate, collection, Kingdom of Fear: Loathsome Secrets of a Star-Crossed Child in the Final Days of the American Century, was widely publicized as Thompson's first memoir. Published in 2003, it combined new material (including reminiscences of the O'Farrell Theater), selected newspaper and digital clippings, and other older works.
Thompson finished his journalism career in the same way it had begun: Writing about sports. From 2000 until his death in 2005, he wrote a weekly column for ESPN.com's Page 2 entitled "Hey, Rube." In 2004, Simon & Schuster collected some of the columns from the first few years and released them in mid-2004 as Hey Rube: Blood Sport, the Bush Doctrine, and the Downward Spiral of Dumbness.
Thompson married assistant Anita Bejmuk on April 23, 2003.
Death
At 5:42 pm on February 20, 2005, Thompson died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head at Owl Farm, his "fortified compound" in Woody Creek, Colorado. His son Juan, daughter-in-law Jennifer, and grandson were visiting for the weekend. His wife Anita, who was at the Aspen Club, was on the phone with him as he cocked the gun. According to the Aspen Daily News, Thompson asked her to come home to help him write his ESPN column, then set the receiver on the counter. Anita said she mistook the cocking of the gun for the sound of his typewriter keys and hung up as he fired. Will and Jennifer were in the next room when they heard the gunshot, but mistook the sound for a book falling and did not check on Thompson immediately. Juan Thompson found his father's body. According to the police report and Anita's cell phone records, he called the sheriff's office half an hour later, then walked outside and fired three shotgun blasts into the air to "mark the passing of his father". The police report stated that in Thompson's typewriter was a piece of paper with the date "Feb. 22 '05" and a single word, "counselor".
Years of alcohol and cocaine abuse contributed to his problem with depression. Thompson's inner circle told the press that he had been depressed and always found February a "gloomy" month, with football season over and the harsh Colorado winter weather. He was also upset over his advancing age and chronic medical problems, including a hip replacement; he would frequently mutter "This kid is getting old." Rolling Stone published what Douglas Brinkley described as a suicide note written by Thompson to his wife, titled "Football Season Is Over". It read:
Thompson's collaborator and friend Ralph Steadman wrote:
Funeral
On August 20, 2005, in a private funeral, Thompson's ashes were fired from a cannon. This was accompanied by red, white, blue, and green fireworks—all to the tune of Norman Greenbaum's "Spirit in the Sky" and Bob Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man". The cannon was placed atop a tower which had the shape of a double-thumbed fist clutching a peyote button, a symbol originally used in his 1970 campaign for sheriff of Pitkin County, Colorado. The plans for the monument were initially drawn by Thompson and Steadman, and were shown as part of an Omnibus program on the BBC titled Fear and Loathing in Gonzovision (1978). It is included as a special feature on the second disc of the 2004 Criterion Collection DVD release of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and labeled as Fear and Loathing on the Road to Hollywood.
According to his widow, Anita, the $3 million funeral was funded by actor Johnny Depp, who was a close friend of Thompson's. Depp told the Associated Press, "All I'm doing is trying to make sure his last wish comes true. I just want to send my pal out the way he wants to go out." An estimated 280 people attended, including U.S. Senators John Kerry and George McGovern; 60 Minutes correspondents Ed Bradley and Charlie Rose; actors Jack Nicholson, John Cusack, Bill Murray, Benicio del Toro, Sean Penn, and Josh Hartnett; musicians Lyle Lovett, John Oates and David Amram, and artist and long-time friend Ralph Steadman.
Legacy
Writing style
Thompson is often credited as the creator of Gonzo journalism, a style of writing that blurs distinctions between fiction and nonfiction. His work and style are considered to be a major part of the New Journalism literary movement of the 1960s and 1970s, which attempted to break free from the purely objective style of mainstream reportage of the time. Thompson almost always wrote in the first person, while extensively using his own experiences and emotions to color "the story" he was trying to follow.
Despite him having personally described his work as "Gonzo", it fell to later observers to articulate what the term actually meant. While Thompson's approach clearly involved injecting himself as a participant in the events of the narrative, it also involved adding invented, metaphoric elements, thus creating, for the uninitiated reader, a seemingly confusing amalgam of facts and fiction notable for the deliberately blurred lines between one and the other. Thompson, in a 1974 interview in Playboy addressed the issue himself, saying, "Unlike Tom Wolfe or Gay Talese, I almost never try to reconstruct a story. They're both much better reporters than I am, but then, I don't think of myself as a reporter." Tom Wolfe would later describe Thompson's style as "... part journalism and part personal memoir admixed with powers of wild invention and wilder rhetoric." Or as one description of the differences between Thompson and Wolfe's styles would elaborate, "While Tom Wolfe mastered the technique of being a fly on the wall, Thompson mastered the art of being a fly in the ointment."
The majority of Thompson's most popular and acclaimed work appeared within the pages of Rolling Stone magazine. Along with Joe Eszterhas and David Felton, Thompson was instrumental in expanding the focus of the magazine past music criticism; indeed, Thompson was the only staff writer of the epoch never to contribute a music feature to the magazine. Nevertheless, his articles were always peppered with a wide array of pop music references ranging from Howlin' Wolf to Lou Reed. Armed with early fax machines wherever he went, he became notorious for haphazardly sending sometimes illegible material to the magazine's San Francisco offices as an issue was about to go to press.
Robert Love, Thompson's editor of 23 years at Rolling Stone, wrote, "the dividing line between fact and fancy rarely blurred, and we didn't always use italics or some other typographical device to indicate the lurch into the fabulous. But if there were living, identifiable humans in a scene, we took certain steps ... Hunter was a close friend of many prominent Democrats, veterans of the ten or more presidential campaigns he covered, so when in doubt, we'd call the press secretary. 'People will believe almost any twisted kind of story about politicians or Washington,' he once said, and he was right."
Discerning the line between the fact and the fiction of Thompson's work presented a practical problem for editors and fact-checkers of his work. Love called fact-checking Thompson's work "one of the sketchiest occupations ever created in the publishing world", and "for the first-timer ... a trip through a journalistic fun house, where you didn't know what was real and what wasn't. You knew you had better learn enough about the subject at hand to know when the riff began and reality ended. Hunter was a stickler for numbers, for details like gross weight and model numbers, for lyrics and caliber, and there was no faking it."
Persona
Thompson often used a blend of fiction and fact when portraying himself in his writing, too, sometimes using the name Raoul Duke as an author surrogate whom he generally described as a callous, erratic, self-destructive journalist who constantly drank alcohol and took hallucinogenic drugs. Fantasizing about causing bodily harm to others was also a characteristic in his work used to comedic effect and an example of his brand of humor.
In the late 1960s, Thompson acquired the title of "Doctor" from the Universal Life Church.
A number of critics have commented that as he grew older, the line that distinguished Thompson from his literary self became increasingly blurred. Thompson admitted during a 1978 BBC interview that he sometimes felt pressured to live up to the fictional self that he had created, adding, "I'm never sure which one people expect me to be. Very often, they conflict — most often, as a matter of fact. ... I'm leading a normal life and right alongside me there is this myth, and it is growing and mushrooming and getting more and more warped. When I get invited to, say, speak at universities, I'm not sure if they are inviting Duke or Thompson. I'm not sure who to be."
Thompson's writing style and eccentric persona gave him a cult following in both literary and drug circles, and his cult status expanded into broader areas after being portrayed three times in major motion pictures. Hence, both his writing style and persona have been widely imitated, and his likeness has even become a popular costume choice for Halloween.
Political beliefs
Thompson was a firearms and explosives enthusiast (in his writing and in life) and owned a vast collection of handguns, rifles, shotguns, and various automatic and semiautomatic weapons, along with numerous forms of gaseous crowd-control and many homemade devices. He was a proponent of the right to bear arms and privacy rights. A member of the National Rifle Association, Thompson was also co-creator of the Fourth Amendment Foundation, an organization to assist victims in defending themselves against unwarranted search and seizure.
Part of his work with the Fourth Amendment Foundation centered around support of Lisl Auman, a Colorado woman who was sentenced for life in 1997 under felony murder charges for the death of police officer Bruce VanderJagt, despite contradictory statements and dubious evidence. Thompson organized rallies, provided legal support, and co-wrote an article in the June 2004 issue of Vanity Fair outlining the case. The Colorado Supreme Court eventually overturned Auman's sentence in March 2005, shortly after Thompson's death, and Auman is now free. Auman's supporters claim Thompson's support and publicity resulted in the successful appeal.
Thompson was also an ardent supporter of drug legalization and became known for his detailed accounts of his own drug use. He was an early supporter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws and served on the group's advisory board for over 30 years, until his death. He told an interviewer in 1997 that drugs should be legalized "[a]cross the board. It might be a little rough on some people for a while, but I think it's the only way to deal with drugs. Look at Prohibition; all it did was make a lot of criminals rich."
In a 1965 letter to his friend Paul Semonin, Thompson explained an affection for the Industrial Workers of the World, "I have in recent months come to have a certain feeling for Joe Hill and the Wobbly crowd who, if nothing else, had the right idea. But not the right mechanics. I believe the IWW was probably the last human concept in American politics." In another letter to Semonin, Thompson wrote that he agreed with Karl Marx, and compared him to Thomas Jefferson. In a letter to William Kennedy, Thompson confided that he was "coming to view the free enterprise system as the single greatest evil in the history of human savagery." In the documentary Breakfast with Hunter, Hunter S. Thompson is seen in several scenes wearing different Che Guevara T-shirts. Additionally, actor and friend Benicio del Toro has stated that Thompson kept a "big" picture of Che in his kitchen. Thompson wrote on behalf of African-American rights and the civil rights movement. He strongly criticized the dominance in American society of what he called "white power structures".
After the September 11 attacks, Thompson voiced skepticism regarding the official story on who was responsible for the attacks. He speculated to several interviewers that it may have been conducted by the U.S. government or with the government's assistance, though readily admitting he had no way to prove his theory.
In 2004, Thompson wrote: "[Richard] Nixon was a professional politician, and I despised everything he stood for—but if he were running for president this year against the evil Bush–Cheney gang, I would happily vote for him."
Scholarships
Thompson's widow established two scholarship funds at Columbia University School of General Studies for U.S. military veterans and the University of Kentucky for journalism students.
Colorado NORML created the Hunter S. Thompson Scholarship to pay all expenses for a lawyer or law student to attend the NORML Legal Committee Conference in Aspen, generally the first few days of June each year. The funding from a silent auction has paid for two winners for some years. Many winners have gone on to become important cannabis lawyers on state and national levels.
Works
Books
Thompson wrote a number of books, publishing from 1966 to the end of his life. His best-known works include Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, The Rum Diary, The Curse of Lono, and Screwjack.
Articles
As a journalist over the course of decades, Thompson published numerous articles in various periodicals. He wrote for many publications, including Rolling Stone, Esquire, The Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, The New York Times, The San Francisco Examiner, Time, Vanity Fair, The San Juan Star, and Playboy. He was also guest editor for a single edition of The Aspen Daily News. A collection of 100 of his columns from The San Francisco Examiner was published in 1988 as Gonzo Papers, Vol. 2: Generation of Swine: Tales of Shame and Degradation in the '80s. A collection of his articles for Rolling Stone was released in 2011 as Fear and Loathing at Rolling Stone: The Essential Writings of Hunter S. Thompson. The book was edited by the magazine's co-founder and publisher, Jann S. Wenner, who also provided an introduction to the collection.
Letters
Thompson wrote many letters, which were his primary means of personal communication. He made carbon copies of all his letters, usually typed, a habit begun in his teenaged years.
The Fear and Loathing Letters is a three-volume collection of selections from Thompson's correspondence, edited by historian Douglas Brinkley. The first volume, The Proud Highway, was published in 1997, and contains letters from 1955 to 1967. Fear and Loathing in America was published in 2000 and contains letters dating from 1968 to 1976. A third volume, titled The Mutineer: Rants, Ravings, and Missives from the Mountaintop 1977–2005, was edited by Douglas Brinkley and prepared by Simon & Schuster in 2005. As of March 2019, it has yet to be sold to the public. It contains a special introduction by Johnny Depp.
Illustrations
Accompanying the eccentric and colorful writing of Hunter Thompson, illustrations by British artist Ralph Steadman offer visual representations of the Gonzo style. Steadman and Thompson developed a professional relationship. The two collaborated many times over Thompson's career, although at times they were known to violently argue. Wayne Ewing's documentary on Hunter captured an encounter where Steadman tells Hunter that he believes his drawings contributed as much to the success of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas as Hunter's writing. Hunter was furious at the suggestion and their relationship was certainly at times, strained. Steadman in recent years has described Hunter as "rude" and "a bully." So while they are publicly known as great friends, the true nature of their relationship was considerably more nuanced.
Photography
Thompson was an avid amateur photographer throughout his life, and his photos have been exhibited since his death at art galleries in the United States and United Kingdom. In late 2006, AMMO Books published a limited-edition, 224-page collection of Thompson photos called Gonzo: Photographs by Hunter S. Thompson, with an introduction by Johnny Depp. Thompson's snapshots were a combination of the subjects he was covering, stylized self-portraits, and artistic still life photos. The London Observer called the photos "astonishingly good" and noted that "Thompson's pictures remind us, brilliantly in every sense, of very real people, real colours."
Feature films
The film Where the Buffalo Roam (1980) depicts heavily fictionalized attempts by Thompson to cover the Super Bowl and the 1972 U.S. presidential election. It stars Bill Murray as Thompson and Peter Boyle as Thompson's attorney Oscar Zeta Acosta, referred to in the movie as Carl Lazlo, Esq.
The 1998 film adaptation of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was directed by Monty Python veteran Terry Gilliam and starred Johnny Depp (who moved into Thompson's basement to "study" Thompson's persona before assuming his role in the film) as Raoul Duke and Benicio del Toro as Oscar Zeta Acosta. The film has achieved something of a cult following.
In the 2001 film Ali, Thompson is briefly portrayed by actor Lee Cummings.
The film adaptation of Thompson's novel The Rum Diary was released in October 2011, also starring Johnny Depp as the main character, Paul Kemp. The novel's premise was inspired by Thompson's own experiences in Puerto Rico. The film was written and directed by Bruce Robinson.
At a press junket for The Rum Diary shortly before the film's release, Depp said that he would like to adapt The Curse of Lono, "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved", and Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs for the big screen: "I'd just keep playing Hunter. There's a great comfort in it for me, because I get a great visit with my old friend who I miss dearly."
Documentaries
Fear and Loathing in Gonzovision (1978) is an extended television profile by the BBC. It can be found on disc 2 of The Criterion Collection edition of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
The Mitchell brothers, owners of the O'Farrell Theatre in San Francisco, made a documentary about Thompson in 1988 called Hunter S. Thompson: The Crazy Never Die.
Wayne Ewing created three documentaries about Thompson. The film Breakfast with Hunter (2003) was directed and edited by Ewing. It documents Thompson's work on the movie Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, his arrest for drunk driving, and his subsequent fight with the court system. When I Die (2005) is a video chronicle of making Thompson's final farewell wishes a reality, and documents the send-off itself. Free Lisl: Fear and Loathing in Denver (2006) chronicles Thompson's efforts in helping to free Lisl Auman, who was sentenced to life in prison without parole for the shooting of a police officer, a crime she did not commit. All three films are only available online.
In Come on Down: Searching for the American Dream (2004) Thompson gives director Adamm Liley insight into the nature of the American Dream over drinks at the Woody Creek Tavern.
Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride: Hunter S. Thompson on Film (2006) was directed by Tom Thurman, written by Tom Marksbury, and produced by the Starz Entertainment Group. The original documentary features interviews with Thompson's inner circle of family and friends, but the thrust of the film focuses on the manner in which his life often overlapped with numerous Hollywood celebrities who became his close friends, such as Johnny Depp, Benicio del Toro, Bill Murray, Sean Penn, John Cusack, Thompson's wife Anita, son Juan, former Senators George McGovern and Gary Hart, writers Tom Wolfe and William F. Buckley, actors Gary Busey and Harry Dean Stanton, and the illustrator Ralph Steadman among others.
Blasted!!! The Gonzo Patriots of Hunter S. Thompson (2006), produced, directed, photographed, and edited by Blue Kraning, is a documentary about the scores of fans who volunteered their privately owned artillery to fire the ashes of the late author, Hunter S. Thompson. Blasted!!! premiered at the 2006 Starz Denver International Film Festival, part of a tribute series to Hunter S. Thompson held at the Denver Press Club.
In 2008, Academy Award-winning documentarian Alex Gibney (Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, Taxi to the Dark Side) wrote and directed a documentary on Thompson, titled Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson. The film premiered on January 20, 2008, at the Sundance Film Festival. Gibney uses intimate, never-before-seen home videos, interviews with friends, enemies, lovers, and clips from films adapted from Thompson's material to document his turbulent life.
Theater
Lou Stein's adaptation of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was performed at the Battersea Theatre. Stein persuades London's Time Out magazine to put Thompson up for a fortnight, in exchange for him writing a cover story to publicize the play. Thompson does not write the story, but does rampage around London on Time Out 's expense account. The play was revived for the Vault Fringe Festival in 2014.
GONZO: A Brutal Chrysalis is a one-man show about Thompson written by Paul Addis, who also played the author. Set in the writing den of Thompson's Woody Creek home, the show portrays his life between 1968 and 1971. James Cartee began playing the role soon after Addis's arrest in 2009, and again after Addis's death in 2012.
Awards, accolades, and tributes
Thompson was named a Kentucky Colonel by the governor of Kentucky in a December 1996 tribute ceremony where he also received keys to the city of Louisville.
Author Tom Wolfe has called Thompson the greatest American comic writer of the 20th century.
Asked in an interview with Jody Denberg on KGSR Studio, in 2000, whether he would ever consider writing a book "like [his] buddy Hunter S. Thompson", the musician Warren Zevon responded: "Let's remember that Hunter S. Thompson is the finest writer of our generation; he didn't just toss off a book the other day..."
Thompson appeared on the cover of the 1,000th issue of Rolling Stone, May 18 – June 1, 2006, as a devil playing the guitar next to the two "L"'s in the word "Rolling". Johnny Depp also appeared on the cover.
The Thompson-inspired character Uncle Duke appears on a recurring basis in Doonesbury, the daily newspaper comic strip by Garry Trudeau. When the character was first introduced, Thompson protested, quoted in an interview as saying that he would set Trudeau on fire if the two ever met, although reportedly he liked the character in later years. Between March 7, 2005 (roughly two weeks after Thompson's suicide), and March 12, 2005, Doonesbury ran a tribute to Hunter, with Uncle Duke lamenting the death of the man he called his "inspiration". The first of these strips featured a panel with artwork similar to that of Ralph Steadman, and later strips featured various non sequiturs (with Duke variously transforming into a monster, melting, shrinking to the size of an empty drinking glass, or people around him turning into animals), which seemed to mirror some of the effects of hallucinogenic drugs described in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
Many have suggested that General Hunter Gathers in the Adult Swim animated series The Venture Bros. is a tribute to Thompson, as they have a similar name, mannerisms, and physical appearance.
Dale Gribble in the Fox animated series King of the Hill is a tribute to Thompson and derives his physical appearance from him.
In the Cameron Crowe film Almost Famous, based on Crowe's experiences writing for Rolling Stone while on the road with the fictional band Stillwater", the writer is on the phone with an actor portraying Jann Wenner. Wenner tells the young journalist that he "is not there to join the party, we already have one Hunter Thompson" after the young writer amassed large hotel and traveling expenses and is overheard to be sharing his room with several young women.
Eric C. Shoaf donated a caché of approximately 800 items (in librarian terms, about 35-40 linear feet of material on a shelf) pertaining to the life and career of Thompson to the University of California at Santa Cruz. Shoaf also published a descriptive bibliography, Gonzology: A Hunter Thompson Bibliography, of the works of Hunter S. Thompson with over 1,000 entries, many never before documented appearances in print, hundreds of biographical entries about Thompson's life, full descriptions of all his primary works, preface by William McKeen, Phd, and photo section with rare and exclusive items depicted.
References
External links
"Hunter S. Thompson's ESPN Page 2 Archive", Totallygonzo.org
"Shotgun Golf With Bill Murray", Thompson's final column for ESPN.com's Page 2.
A collection of articles on Thompson from The Guardian
Thompson's photography
1937 births
2005 suicides
20th-century American journalists
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American novelists
20th-century essayists
21st-century American journalists
21st-century American male writers
21st-century American novelists
9/11 conspiracy theorists
American activist journalists
American columnists
American conspiracy theorists
American essayists
American male essayists
American male journalists
American male novelists
American Marxists
American people of Scottish descent
American political writers
American tax resisters
Atherton High School alumni
Columbia University School of General Studies alumni
Drug policy reform activists
Florida State University alumni
Journalists from Colorado
Journalists from Kentucky
Louisville Male High School alumni
Military personnel from Louisville, Kentucky
Motorcycling writers
Novelists from Colorado
Novelists from Kentucky
People from Glen Ellen, California
Psychedelic drug advocates
Sportswriters from California
Suicides by firearm in Colorado
United States Air Force airmen
Writers from Louisville, Kentucky
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[
"The following is a list of books by Australian author Jackie French that have received awards, honours and been shortlisted, among other things, for literary prizes.\n\nRain Stones\nfirst published 1991\n\n Shortlisted - NSW Premier's Literary Awards: Children's Book Award (1991)\n Shortlisted - CBCA Children's Book of the Year Award: Younger Readers(1992)\n Shortlisted - West Australian Young Readers' Book Award: Primary Age Group (1993)\n\nWalking the Boundaries\nfirst published 1993\n\n Won - Notable Book, CBCA Children's Book of the Year Award: Younger Readers (1994)\n Shortlisted - Australian Multicultural Children's Literature Awards: Junior Section\n\nSomewhere Around the Corner\nfirst published 1994\n\n Honour - CBCA Children's Book of the Year Award: Younger Readers (1995)\n Highly Commended - Annual Australian Family Therapists' Award for Children's Literature (1994)\n\nDaughter of the Regiment\nfirst published 1998\n\n Shortlisted - CBCA Children's Book of the Year Award: Younger Readers (1999)\n\nHitler's Daughter\nfirst published 1999\n\n Won - CBCA Children's Book of the Year Award: Younger Readers (2000)\n Won - Sanderson Young Adult Audio Book of the Year Awards: Vision Australia Library (2000)\n Won - UK National Literacy Association WOW! Award\n Won - Semi-Grand Prix Award (Japan)\n Won - Notable Book, US Library Association Notable Book\n Won - Kids Own Australian Literature Award: Roll of Honour (2007)\n Won - Kids Own Australian Literature Award: Roll of Honour (2008)\n Shortlisted - Books I Love Best Yearly: Older Readers (2001)\n Shortlisted - West Australian Young Readers' Book Award (2002)\n Shortlisted - Kids Own Australian Literature Award (2002)\n Shortlisted - Canberra's Own Outstanding List (2002)\n Shortlisted - Young Australian Best Book Award (2002)\n Shortlisted - Children's Choice Book Awards: Older Readers\n Shortlisted - Young Australian Best Book Award: Fiction for Older Readers (2007)\n Shortlisted - Young Australian Best Book Award: Fiction for Older Readers (2008)\n Shortlisted - Kids Own Australian Literature Award: Favourite Book of 2008 (2008)\n Named a \"Blue Ribbon\" book by the Bulletin for the Center of Children's Books in the USA (2003)\n Admitted to the Kids' Own Australian Literature Awards' Hall of Fame\n\nThe Café on Callisto\nfirst published 2000\n\n Won - Aurealis Award for Best Children's Short Fiction (2001)\n\nLady Dance\nfirst published 2000\n\n Won - Notable Book, CBCA Children's Book of the Year Award: Younger Readers (2001)\n\nStamp, Stomp, Whomp\nfirst published 2000\n\n Won - Notable Book, CBCA Children's Book of the Year Award: Younger Readers (2001)\n\nMissing You, Love Sara\nfirst published 2000\n\n Won - Notable Book, CBCA Children's Book of the Year Award: Older Readers (2001)\n Shortlisted - West Australian Young Readers' Book Award: Older Readers (2001)\n Shortlisted - Kids Own Australian Literature Award (2002)\n Shortlisted - Young Australian Best Book Award (2002)\n\nHow to Guzzle Your Garden\nfirst published 2000\n\n Shortlisted - CBCA Children's Book of the Year Award: Eve Pownall Award for Information Books (2000)\n\nIn the Blood\nfirst published 2001\n\n Won - ACT Book of the Year (2002)\n\nRide the Wild Wind\nfirst published 2002\n\n Won - Notable Book, CBCA Children's Book of the Year Award: Younger Readers (2003)\n Shortlisted - New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards - Patricia Wrightson Prize for Children's Literature (2003)\n\nDiary of a Wombat\nfirst published 2002\n\n Won - American Library Association Notable Children's Book\n Won - Canberra's Own Outstanding List Award for Best Picture Book (2003)\n Won - Young Australian Readers' Award (2003)\n Won - Kids Own Australian Literature Award: Best Picture Book (2003)\n Won - ABA/A A Neilson Book of the Year (2003)\n Won - Benjamin Franklin Award, USA (2004)\n Won - Lemmee Award, USA (2004)\n Won - KIND Award, USA (2004)\n Won - Kids' Reading Oz Choice Award (2007)\n Won - Books I Love Best Yearly Award (2008)\n Honour - CBCA Children's Book of the Year Award: Picture Book (2003)\n Shortlisted - Young Australian Best Book Award (2003)\n Shortlisted - Australian Publisher's Association Book Design Awards for Best Designed Children's Picture Book (2003)\n Shortlisted - Galley Club Award, Picture Book category of the Children's Choice Book Awards (2003)\n Shortlisted - Books I Love Best Yearly Award (2004)\n Shortlisted - Book Sense Book of the Year Award: Children's Illustrated Book (2004)\n Shortlisted - Books I Love Best Yearly Award (2007)\n Voted Favourite Picture Book of the Year in the Cuffie Awards in the USA\n Tied with Diary of a Worm for Funniest Book in the Cuffie Awards in the USA (2003)\n Number two on the 'Best 20 picture books for 2003' in the USA (2003)\n\nFlesh and Blood\nfirst published 2003\n\n Shortlisted - Aurealis Award for best young-adult novel (2004)\n\nValley of Gold\nfirst published 2003\n\n Won - Notable Book, CBCA Children's Book of the Year Award: Younger Readers (2004)\n\nToo Many Pears!\nfirst published 2003\n\n Shortlisted - COOL Award (2004)\n Shortlisted - Kids Own Australian Literature Award (2004)\n\nTo the Moon and Back\nfirst published 2004\n\n Won - CBCA Children's Book of the Year Award: Eve Pownall Award for Information Books (2005)\n\nMy Dad the Dragon\nfirst published 2004\n\n Won - Notable Book, CBCA Children's Book of the Year Award: Younger Readers (2005)\n\nTom Appleby, Convict Boy\nfirst published 2004\n\n Won - Notable Book, CBCA Children's Book of the Year Award: Younger Readers (2005)\n\nPete the Sheep\nfirst published 2005\n\n Won - Kids Own Australian Literature Award (2005)\n\nThe Secret World of Wombats\nfirst published 2005\n\n Shortlisted - NSW Premier's Literary Awards: Patricia Wrightson Prize for Children's Literature (2006)\n\nThey Came on Viking Ships\nfirst published 2005\n\n Won - West Australian Young Readers' Book Award: Younger Readers (2007)\n Shortlisted - Essex Book Award (UK)\n Shortlisted - NSW Premier's History Awards: The Young People's History Prize (2006)\n\nJosephine Wants to Dance\nfirst published 2006\n\n Won - Australian Booksellers' Book of the Year: Younger Readers (2007)\n Won - Notable Book, CBCA Children's Book of the Year Award: Early Childhood (2007)\n Won - Notable Book, CBCA Children's Book of the Year Award: Picture Book (2007)\n\nThe Goat who Sailed the World\nfirst published 2006\n\n Won - Notable Book, CBCA Children's Book of the Year Award: Younger Readers (2007)\n Shortlisted - Young Australian Best Book Award (2008)\n\nMacbeth and Son\nfirst published 2006\n\n Won - Notable Book, CBCA Children's Book of the Year Award: Younger Readers (2007)\n Shortlisted - CBCA Children's Book of the Year Award: Younger Readers (2007)\n\nThe Shaggy Gully Times\nfirst published 2007\n\n Won - White Raven Award (2008)\n Shortlisted - CBCA Children's Book of the Year Award: Younger Readers (2008)\n\nPharaoh\nfirst published 2007\n\n Shortlisted - CBCA Children's Book of the Year Award: Older Readers (2008)\n Shortlisted - ACT Book of the Year (2008)\n\nA Rose for the Anzac Boys\nfirst published 2008\n\n Honour Book - CBCA Children's Book of the Year Award: Older Readers (2009)\n\nThe Night They Stormed Eureka\nfirst published 2009\n\n Won - NSW History Award: Young People's History Prize (2011)\n\nThe Donkey who Carried the Wounded\nfirst published 2009\n\n Won - Notable Book, CBCA Children's Book of the Year Award: Younger Readers (2010)\n\nWeevils, War & Wallabies: 1920-1945\nfirst published 2009\n\n Won - Notable Book, CBCA Children's Book of the Year Award: Eve Pownall Award for Information Books (2010)\n\nQueen Victoria's Underpants\nfirst published 2010\n\n Won - Notable Book, CBCA Children's Book of the Year Award: Picture Book (2011)\n\nOracle\nfirst published 2010\n\n Won - Notable Book, CBCA Children's Book of the Year Award: Younger Readers (2011)\n\nA Waltz for Matilda\nfirst published 2010\n\n Won - Notable Book, CBCA Children's Book of the Year Award (2011)\n\nChristmas Wombat\nfirst published 2011\n\n Shortlisted - Australian Book Industry Award: Book of the Year for Younger Children\n\nNanberry: Black Brother White\nfirst published 2011\n\n Won - Notable Book, CBCA Children's Book of the Year Award: Younger Readers (2012)\n Honour - CBCA Children's Book of the Year Award: Younger Readers (2012)\n Shortlisted - Australian Book Industry Awards (2012, awaiting judging)\n\nFlood\nfirst published 2011\n\n Won - International White Raven Award (2012)\n Won - Notable Book, CBCA Children's Book of the Year Award: Picture Book (2012)\n Honour - CBCA Children's Book of the Year Award: Picture Book (2012)\n\nThe Roo that Won the Melbourne Cup\nfirst published 2012\n\n Won - Notable Book, CBCA Children's Book of the Year Award: Younger Readers (2013)\n\nPirate Boy of Sydney Town \nfirst published 2019\n Shortlisted - Young People's History Prize, New South Wales Premier's History Awards (2020)\n\nReferences\n\nLists of awards received by writer",
"The Green Book Magazine, originally titled The Green Book Album, was a magazine published from 1909 to 1921. It was published by the Story-Press Corporation (later Consolidated Magazines) as a companion to its Red Book and Blue Book magazines. For most of its run, the magazine primarily covered theater, but converted to a women's magazine for its last few years before ceasing publication in 1921.\n\nFrom 1911, the magazine was edited by Ray Long, who also edited Red Book and Blue Book for Story-Press. Long left at the end of 1918 to become the editor of Cosmopolitan. With the August 1912 issue, he changed the name of the magazine from The Green Book Album to The Green Book Magazine.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n \n\nDefunct women's magazines published in the United States\nMagazines disestablished in 1921\nMagazines established in 1909\nMagazines published in Chicago\nMonthly magazines published in the United States\nTheatre magazines"
] |
[
"Hunter S. Thompson",
"Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas",
"What is Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas?",
"The result of the trip to Las Vegas became the 1972 book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,",
"Did it do well?",
"the book was greeted with considerable critical acclaim, including being heralded by The New York Times as \"by far the best book yet",
"Did he write it in Vegas?",
"I don't know.",
"who published the book?",
"the 1972 book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, which first appeared in the November 1971 issues of Rolling Stone as a two-part series."
] |
C_f9d8069ce5c14c45a92486e19a607c8b_0
|
Did anyone reject it?
| 5 |
Did anyone reject the book "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas"?
|
Hunter S. Thompson
|
The book for which Thompson gained most of his fame had its genesis during the research for Strange Rumblings in Aztlan, an expose for Rolling Stone on the 1970 killing of the Mexican-American television journalist Ruben Salazar. Salazar had been shot in the head at close range with a tear gas canister fired by officers of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department during the National Chicano Moratorium March against the Vietnam War. One of Thompson's sources for the story was Oscar Zeta Acosta, a prominent Mexican-American activist and attorney. Finding it difficult to talk in the racially tense atmosphere of Los Angeles, Thompson and Acosta decided to travel to Las Vegas, and take advantage of an assignment by Sports Illustrated to write a 250-word photograph caption on the Mint 400 motorcycle race held there. What was to be a short caption quickly grew into something else entirely. Thompson first submitted to Sports Illustrated a manuscript of 2,500 words, which was, as he later wrote, "aggressively rejected." Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner was said to have liked "the first 20 or so jangled pages enough to take it seriously on its own terms and tentatively scheduled it for publication -- which gave me the push I needed to keep working on it", Thompson later wrote. The result of the trip to Las Vegas became the 1972 book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, which first appeared in the November 1971 issues of Rolling Stone as a two-part series. It is written as a first-person account by a journalist named Raoul Duke on a trip to Las Vegas with Dr. Gonzo, his "300-pound Samoan attorney", to cover a narcotics officers' convention and the "fabulous Mint 400". During the trip, Duke and his companion (always referred to as "my attorney") become sidetracked by a search for the American Dream, with "two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers ... and also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether, and two dozen amyls." Coming to terms with the failure of the 1960s countercultural movement is a major theme of the novel, and the book was greeted with considerable critical acclaim, including being heralded by The New York Times as "by far the best book yet written on the decade of dope". "The Vegas Book", as Thompson referred to it, was a mainstream success and introduced his Gonzo journalism techniques to a wide public. CANNOTANSWER
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Thompson first submitted to Sports Illustrated a manuscript of 2,500 words, which was, as he later wrote, "aggressively rejected.
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Hunter Stockton Thompson (July 18, 1937 – February 20, 2005) was an American journalist and author who founded the gonzo journalism movement. He rose to prominence with the publication of Hell's Angels (1967), a book for which he spent a year living and riding with the Hells Angels motorcycle gang to write a first-hand account of their lives and experiences.
In 1970, he wrote an unconventional magazine feature titled "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved" for Scanlan's Monthly, which raised his profile and established his counterculture credibility. It also set him on the path to establishing his own subgenre of New Journalism that he called "Gonzo", which was essentially an ongoing experiment in which the writer becomes a central figure and participant in the events of the narrative.
Thompson remains best known for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1971), a book first serialized in Rolling Stone in which he grapples with the implications of what he considered the failure of the 1960s counterculture movement. It was adapted for film twice: loosely in Where the Buffalo Roam starring Bill Murray as Thompson in 1980, and explicitly in 1998 by director Terry Gilliam in the eponymous film starring Johnny Depp and Benicio del Toro.
Thompson ran unsuccessfully for sheriff of Pitkin County, Colorado in 1970 on the Freak Power ticket. His campaign was chronicled in the documentary film Freak Power: The Ballot or the Bomb. He became known for his dislike of Richard Nixon, who he claimed represented "that dark, venal, and incurably violent side of the American character". He covered Nixon's 1972 reelection campaign for Rolling Stone and later collected the stories in book form as Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72.
Thompson's output declined from the mid-1970s, as he struggled with the consequences of fame, and complained that he could no longer merely report on events, as he was too easily recognized. After several high-profile stories were quashed by the upper management of Rolling Stone, he found it increasingly difficult to get his work into mainstream outlets. He did continue to write for alternative newspapers, and had a gig as a critic for the mainstream San Francisco Examiner for much of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Most of his work from 1979 to 1994 was collected in The Gonzo Papers. He continued to write for various journalism outlets in a variety of formats, including sporadic stories published in Rolling Stone and a weekly column that appeared on ESPN.com's Page 2 titled "Hey, Rube" that he started in 2000.
He was known for his lifelong use of alcohol and illegal narcotics, his love of firearms, and his iconoclastic contempt for authority. He often remarked: "I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me." Thompson died by suicide at the age of 67, following a series of health problems. In accordance with his wishes, his ashes were fired out of a cannon in a ceremony funded by his friend Johnny Depp and attended by friends including then-Senator John Kerry and Jack Nicholson. Hari Kunzru wrote, "the true voice of Thompson is revealed to be that of American moralist ... one who often makes himself ugly to expose the ugliness he sees around him."
Early life
Thompson was born into a middle-class family in Louisville, Kentucky, the first of three sons of Virginia Davison Ray (1908, Springfield, Kentucky – March 20, 1998, Louisville), who worked as head librarian at the Louisville Free Public Library and Jack Robert Thompson (September 4, 1893, Horse Cave, Kentucky – July 3, 1952, Louisville), a public insurance adjuster and World War I veteran. His parents were introduced by a friend from Jack's fraternity at the University of Kentucky in September 1934, and married on November 2, 1935. The Guardian journalist Nicholas Lezard, stated that Thompson's first name, Hunter, came from an ancestor on his mother's side, the Scottish surgeon John Hunter. A more direct attribution is that Thompson's first and middle name, Hunter Stockton, came from his maternal grandparents, Prestly Stockton Ray and Lucille Hunter.
In December 1943 when Thompson was six years old, the family settled in the affluent Cherokee Triangle neighborhood of The Highlands. On July 3, 1952, when Thompson was 14, his father died of myasthenia gravis at age 58. Hunter and his brothers were raised by their mother. Virginia worked as a librarian to support her children, and was described as a "heavy drinker" following her husband's death.
Education
Interested in sports and athletically inclined from a young age, Thompson co-founded the Hawks Athletic Club while attending I.N. Bloom Elementary School, which led to an invitation to join Louisville's Castlewood Athletic Club for adolescents that prepared them for high-school sports. Ultimately, he never joined a sports team in high school.
Thompson attended I.N. Bloom Elementary School, Highland Middle School, and Atherton High School, before transferring to Louisville Male High School in fall 1952. Also in 1952, he was accepted as a member of the Athenaeum Literary Association, a school-sponsored literary and social club that dated to 1862. Its members at the time came from Louisville's upper-class families, and included Porter Bibb, who became the first publisher of Rolling Stone at Thompson's behest. During this time, Thompson read and admired J. P. Donleavy's The Ginger Man.
As an Athenaeum member, Thompson contributed articles to and helped produce the club's yearbook The Spectator. The group ejected Thompson in 1955 for criminal activity. Charged as an accessory to robbery after being in a car with the perpetrator, Thompson was sentenced to 60 days in Kentucky's Jefferson County Jail. He served 31 days and, a week after his release, enlisted in the United States Air Force. While he was in jail, the school superintendent refused permission to take his high-school final examinations so he was unable to graduate.
Military service
Thompson completed basic training at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, and transferred to Scott Air Force Base in Belleville, Illinois, to study electronics. He applied to become an aviator, but the Air Force's aviation-cadet program rejected his application. In 1956, he transferred to Eglin Air Force Base near Fort Walton Beach, Florida. While serving at Eglin, he took evening classes at Florida State University. At Eglin, he landed his first professional writing job as sports editor of The Command Courier by falsifying his job experience. As sports editor, Thompson traveled around the United States with the Eglin Eagles football team, covering its games. In early 1957, he wrote a sports column for The Playground News, a local newspaper in Fort Walton Beach, Florida. His name did not appear on the column because Air Force regulations forbade outside employment.
In 1958, as an airman first class, his commanding officer recommended him for an early honorable discharge. "In summary, this airman, although talented, will not be guided by policy," chief of information services Colonel William S. Evans wrote to the Eglin personnel office. "Sometimes his rebel and superior attitude seems to rub off on other airmen staff members."
Early journalism career
After leaving the Air Force, Thompson worked as sports editor for a newspaper in Jersey Shore, Pennsylvania, before relocating to New York City. There he audited several courses at the Columbia University School of General Studies. During this time he worked briefly for Time as a copy boy for $51 a week. At work, he typed out parts of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms in order to learn the authors' rhythms and writing styles. In 1959 Time fired him for insubordination. Later that year, he worked as a reporter for The Middletown Daily Record in Middletown, New York. He was fired from this job after damaging an office candy machine and arguing with the owner of a local restaurant who happened to be an advertiser with the paper.
In 1960, Thompson moved to San Juan, Puerto Rico, to take a job with the sporting magazine El Sportivo, which ceased operations soon after his arrival. Thompson applied for a job with the Puerto Rican English-language daily The San Juan Star, but its managing editor, future novelist William J. Kennedy, turned him down. Nonetheless, the two became friends. After the demise of El Sportivo, Thompson worked as a stringer for the New York Herald Tribune and a few other stateside papers on Caribbean issues, with Kennedy working as his editor.
After returning to the United States, Thompson visited San Francisco and eventually lived in Big Sur, where he worked as a security guard and caretaker at Slates Hot Springs for an eight-month period in 1961, just before it became the Esalen Institute. At the time, Big Sur was a Beat outpost and home of Henry Miller and Dennis Murphy (screenwriter), both of whom Thompson admired. While there, he published his first magazine feature in Rogue about the artisan and bohemian culture of Big Sur. During this period, Thompson wrote two novels, Prince Jellyfish and The Rum Diary, and submitted many short stories to publishers – with little success. The Rum Diary, based on Thompson's experiences in Puerto Rico, was not published until .
In May 1962, Thompson traveled to South America for a year as a correspondent for the Dow Jones-owned weekly paper, the National Observer. In Brazil, he spent several months as a reporter for the Brazil Herald, the country's only English-language daily, published in Rio de Janeiro. His longtime girlfriend Sandra Dawn Conklin (or Sandy Conklin Thompson, subsequently Sondi Wright) later joined him in Rio. They married on May 19, 1963, shortly after returning to the United States, and lived briefly in Aspen, Colorado. Sandy was eight months pregnant when they relocated to Glen Ellen, California. Their son, Juan Fitzgerald Thompson, was born on March 23, 1964.
Thompson continued to write for the National Observer on an array of domestic subjects. One story told of his 1964 visit to Ketchum, Idaho, to investigate the reasons for Ernest Hemingway's suicide. While there, he stole a pair of elk antlers hanging above the front door of Hemingway's cabin. Later that year, Thompson moved to San Francisco, where he attended the 1964 GOP Convention at the Cow Palace. Thompson severed his ties with the Observer after his editor refused to print his review of Tom Wolfe's 1965 essay-collection The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby,. He later immersed himself in the drug and hippie culture taking root in the area, and soon began writing for the Berkeley underground paper Spider.
Hell's Angels
In 1965 Carey McWilliams, editor of The Nation, hired Thompson to write a story about the Hells Angels motorcycle club in California. At the time Thompson was living in a house near San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, where the Hells Angels lived across from the Grateful Dead. His article appeared on May 17, 1965, after which he received several book offers and spent the next year living and riding with the club. The relationship broke down when the bikers perceived that Thompson was exploiting them for personal gain and demanded a share of his profits. An argument at a party resulted in Thompson suffering a savage beating (or "stomping", as the Angels referred to it). Random House published the hard-cover Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs in 1966, and the fight between Thompson and the Angels was well-marketed. CBC Television even broadcast an encounter between Thompson and Hells Angel Skip Workman before a live studio audience.
A New York Times review praised the work as an "angry, knowledgeable, fascinating, and excitedly written book", that shows the Hells Angels "not so much as dropouts from society but as total misfits, or unfits—emotionally, intellectually and educationally unfit to achieve the rewards, such as they are, that the contemporary social order offers". The reviewer also praised Thompson as a "spirited, witty, observant, and original writer; his prose crackles like motorcycle exhaust".
Following the book's publication, Thompson appeared as himself on the February 20, 1967, episode of the game show To Tell The Truth, receiving all four votes by the panel members.
Late 1960s
Following the success of Hell's Angels, Thompson successfully sold articles to several national magazines, including The New York Times Magazine, Esquire, Pageant, and Harper's.
In 1967, shortly before the Summer of Love, Thompson wrote "The 'Hashbury' is the Capital of the Hippies" for The New York Times Magazine. He criticized San Francisco's hippies as devoid of both the political convictions of the New Left and the artistic core of the Beats, resulting in a culture overrun with young people who spent their time in the pursuit of drugs. "The thrust is no longer for 'change' or 'progress' or 'revolution', but merely to escape, to live on the far perimeter of a world that might have been – perhaps should have been – and strike a bargain for survival on purely personal terms," he wrote.
By late 1967, Thompson and his family moved back to Colorado and rented a house in Woody Creek, a small mountain hamlet outside Aspen. In early 1969, Thompson received a $15,000 royalty check for the paperback sales of Hell's Angels and used two-thirds of the money for a down payment on a modest home and property where he would live for the rest of his life. He named the house Owl Farm and often described it as his "fortified compound".
In early 1968, Thompson signed the "Writers and Editors War Tax Protest" pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War. According to Thompson's letters and his later writings, at this time, he planned to write a book called The Joint Chiefs about "the death of the American Dream." He used a $6,000 advance from Random House to travel the 1968 Presidential campaign trail and attend the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago for research. From his hotel room in Chicago, Thompson watched the clashes between police and protesters, which he wrote had a great effect on his political views. The book was never finished, and the theme of the death of the American dream was carried over into his later work. The contract with Random House was eventually fulfilled with the 1972 book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. He also signed a deal with Ballantine Books in 1968 to write a satirical book called The Johnson File about Lyndon B. Johnson. A few weeks after the contract was signed, however, Johnson announced that he would not seek re-election, and the deal was cancelled.
Middle years
Aspen sheriff campaign
In 1970, Thompson ran for sheriff of Pitkin County, Colorado, as part of a group of citizens running for local offices on the "Freak Power" ticket. The platform included promoting the decriminalization of drugs (for personal use only, not trafficking, as he disapproved of profiteering), tearing up the streets and turning them into grassy pedestrian malls, banning any building so tall as to obscure the view of the mountains, disarming all police forces, and renaming Aspen "Fat City" to deter investors. Thompson, having shaved his head, referred to the crew cut-wearing Republican candidate as "my long-haired opponent".
With polls showing him with a slight lead in a three-way race, Thompson appeared at Rolling Stone magazine headquarters in San Francisco with a six-pack of beer in hand, and declared to editor Jann Wenner that he was about to be elected sheriff of Aspen, Colorado, and wished to write about the "Freak Power" movement. Thus, Thompson's first article in Rolling Stone was published as "The Battle of Aspen" with the byline "By: Dr. Hunter S. Thompson (Candidate for Sheriff)". Despite the publicity, Thompson narrowly lost the election. While carrying the city of Aspen, he garnered only 44% of the county-wide vote in what had become a two-way race. The Republican candidate agreed to withdraw a few days before the election to consolidate the anti-Thompson votes, in return for the Democrats withdrawing their candidate for county commissioner. Thompson later remarked that the Rolling Stone article mobilized his opposition far more than his supporters.
A documentary film about Hunter S. Thompson's campaign for sheriff called Freak Power: The Ballot or the Bomb was released on October 23, 2020.
Birth of Gonzo
Also in 1970, Thompson wrote an article entitled "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved" for the short-lived new journalism magazine Scanlan's Monthly. For that article, editor Warren Hinckle paired Thompson with illustrator Ralph Steadman, who drew expressionist illustrations with lipstick and eyeliner. Thompson's article virtually ignored the race, focusing instead on the drunken revelry surrounding the annual event in his hometown. The first-person narrator also sets that debauchery against a political backdrop, which included the bombing of Cambodia and the deaths of four students at Kent State University, which occurred two days after the Kentucky Derby.
Thompson and Steadman collaborated regularly after that. Although it was not widely read, the article was the first to use the techniques of Gonzo journalism, a style Thompson later employed in almost every literary endeavor. The manic first-person subjectivity of the story was reportedly the result of sheer desperation; he was facing a looming deadline and started sending the magazine pages ripped out of his notebook.
The first use of the word "Gonzo" to describe Thompson's work is credited to the journalist Bill Cardoso, who first met Thompson on a bus full of journalists covering the 1968 New Hampshire primary. In 1970, Cardoso (who was then the editor of The Boston Globe Sunday Magazine) wrote to Thompson praising the "Kentucky Derby" piece as a breakthrough: "This is it, this is pure Gonzo. If this is a start, keep rolling." According to Steadman, Thompson took to the word right away and said, "Okay, that's what I do. Gonzo." Thompson's first published use of the word appears in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: "Free Enterprise. The American Dream. Horatio Alger gone mad on drugs in Las Vegas. Do it now: pure Gonzo journalism."
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
The book for which Thompson gained most of his fame had its genesis during the research for "Strange Rumblings in Aztlan", an exposé for Rolling Stone on the 1970 killing of the Mexican-American television journalist Rubén Salazar. Salazar had been shot in the head at close range with a tear-gas canister fired by officers of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department during the National Chicano Moratorium March against the Vietnam War. One of Thompson's sources for the story was Oscar Zeta Acosta, a prominent Mexican-American activist and attorney. Finding it difficult to talk in the racially tense atmosphere of Los Angeles, Thompson and Acosta decided to travel to Las Vegas, and take advantage of an assignment by Sports Illustrated to write a 250-word photograph caption on the Mint 400 motorcycle race held there.
What was to be a short caption quickly grew into something else entirely. Thompson first submitted to Sports Illustrated a manuscript of 2,500 words, which was, as he later wrote, "aggressively rejected." Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner was said to have liked "the first 20 or so jangled pages enough to take it seriously on its own terms and tentatively scheduled it for publication — which gave me the push I needed to keep working on it", Thompson later wrote. To develop the story, Thompson and Acosta returned to Las Vegas to attend a drug enforcement conference.
The two trips became the basis for "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," which appeared as a two-part Rolling Stone story in November 1971. Random House published the book version the following year. It is written as a first-person account by a journalist named Raoul Duke with Dr. Gonzo, his "300-pound Samoan attorney." During the trip, Duke and his companion (always referred to as "my attorney") become sidetracked by a search for the American Dream, with "two bags of grass, 75 pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multicolored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers ... and also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether, and two dozen amyls."
Coming to terms with the failure of the 1960s countercultural movement is a major theme of the novel, and the book was greeted with considerable critical acclaim, including being heralded by The New York Times as "by far the best book yet written on the decade of dope". "The Vegas Book", as Thompson referred to it, was a mainstream success and introduced his Gonzo journalism techniques to a wide public.
Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72
Beginning in late 1971, Thompson wrote extensively for Rolling Stone on the election campaigns of President Richard Nixon and his unsuccessful opponent, Senator George McGovern. The articles were soon combined and published as Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72. As the title suggests, Thompson spent nearly all of his time traveling the "campaign trail", focusing largely on the Democratic Party's primaries. Nixon, as the Republican incumbent, performed little campaign work, while McGovern competed with rival candidates Edmund Muskie and Hubert Humphrey. Thompson was an early supporter of McGovern and wrote unflattering coverage of the rival campaigns in the increasingly widely read Rolling Stone.
Thompson went on to become a fierce critic of Nixon, both during and after his presidency. After Nixon's death in 1994, Thompson described him in Rolling Stone as a man who "could shake your hand and stab you in the back at the same time", and said "his casket [should] have been launched into one of those open-sewage canals that empty into the ocean just south of Los Angeles. He was a swine of a man and a jabbering dupe of a president. [He] was an evil man—evil in a way that only those who believe in the physical reality of the Devil can understand it." Following Nixon's pardon by Gerald Ford in 1974, Hunter ruminated on the roughly $400,000 pension Nixon maneuvered his way into, by resigning before being formally indicted. While The Washington Post was lamenting Nixon's "lonely and depressed" state after being forced from the White House, Hunter wrote that '[i]f there were any such thing as true justice in this world, his [Nixon's] rancid carcass would be somewhere down around Easter Island right now, in the belly of a hammerhead shark.' There was however one passion shared by Thompson and Nixon: a love of football, discussed in Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72.
Fame and its consequences
Thompson's journalistic work began to seriously suffer after his trip to Africa to cover the Rumble in the Jungle—the world heavyweight boxing match between George Foreman and Muhammad Ali—in 1974. He missed the match while intoxicated at his hotel, and did not submit a story to the magazine. As Wenner put it to the film critic Roger Ebert in the 2008 documentary Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, "After Africa, he just couldn't write. He couldn't piece it together".
Plans for Thompson to cover the 1976 presidential campaign for Rolling Stone and later publish a book fell through after Wenner canceled the project without informing Thompson. Wenner then assigned Thompson to travel to Vietnam to cover what appeared to be the end of the Vietnam War. Thompson arrived in Saigon just as South Vietnam was collapsing and as other journalists were leaving the country. Wenner allegedly cancelled Thompson's life insurance, which strained Thompson's relationship with Rolling Stone. He soon fled the country and refused to file his report until the ten-year anniversary of the Fall of Saigon.
From the late 1970s on, most of Thompson's literary output appeared as a four-volume series of books entitled The Gonzo Papers. Beginning with The Great Shark Hunt in 1979 and ending with Better Than Sex in 1994, the series is largely a collection of rare newspaper and magazine pieces from the pre-gonzo period, along with almost all of his Rolling Stone pieces.
Starting around 1980, Thompson became less active by his standards. Aside from paid appearances, he largely retreated to his compound in Woody Creek, rejecting projects and assignments or failing to complete them. Despite a lack of new material, Wenner kept Thompson on the Rolling Stone masthead as chief of the "National Affairs Desk", a position he held until his death.
In 1980, Thompson divorced wife Sandra Conklin. The same year marked the release of Where the Buffalo Roam, a loose film adaptation based on Thompson's early 1970s work, starring Bill Murray as the writer. Murray eventually became one of Thompson's trusted friends. Later that year, Thompson relocated to Hawaii to research and write The Curse of Lono, a Gonzo-style account of the 1980 Honolulu Marathon. Extensively illustrated by Ralph Steadman, the piece first appeared in Running in 1981 as "The Charge of the Weird Brigade" and was later excerpted in Playboy in 1983.
In 1983, he covered the U.S. invasion of Grenada, but did not write or discuss the experiences until the publication of Kingdom of Fear in 2003. Later that year, at the behest of Terry McDonell, he wrote "A Dog Took My Place", an exposé for Rolling Stone of the scandalous Roxanne Pulitzer divorce case and what he called the "Palm Beach lifestyle". The story included dubious insinuations of bestiality, but was widely considered to be a return by Thompson to his proper form. In 1985, Thompson accepted an advance to write about "couples pornography" for Playboy. As part of his research, he spent evenings at the Mitchell Brothers O'Farrell Theatre striptease club in San Francisco. The experience evolved into an as-yet-unpublished novel tentatively entitled The Night Manager.
Thompson next accepted a role as weekly media columnist and critic for The San Francisco Examiner. The position was arranged by former editor and fellow Examiner columnist Warren Hinckle. His editor at The Examiner, David McCumber described, "One week it would be acid-soaked gibberish with a charm of its own. The next week it would be incisive political analysis of the highest order."
Many of these columns were collected in Gonzo Papers, Vol. 2: Generation of Swine: Tales of Shame and Degradation in the '80s (1988) and Gonzo Papers, Vol. 3: Songs of the Doomed: More Notes on the Death of the American Dream (1990), a collection of autobiographical reminiscences, articles, and previously unpublished material.
Later years
Throughout the early 1990s, Thompson claimed to be at work on a novel entitled Polo Is My Life. It was briefly excerpted in Rolling Stone in 1994, and Thompson himself described it in 1996 as "a sex book — you know, sex, drugs, and rock and roll. It's about the manager of a sex theater who's forced to leave and flee to the mountains. He falls in love and gets in even more trouble than he was in the sex theater in San Francisco". The novel was slated to be released by Random House in 1999, and was even assigned , but was never published.
Thompson continued to publish irregularly in Rolling Stone, ultimately contributing 17 pieces to the magazine between 1984 and 2004. "Fear and Loathing in Elko," published in 1992, was a well-received fictional rallying cry against the nomination of Clarence Thomas to a seat on the Supreme Court of the United States. "Trapped in Mr. Bill's Neighborhood" was a largely factual account of an interview with Bill Clinton at a Little Rock, Arkansas, steakhouse. Rather than traveling the campaign trail as he had done in previous presidential elections, Thompson monitored the proceedings on cable television; Better Than Sex: Confessions of a Political Junkie, his account of the 1992 presidential campaign, is composed of reactive faxes to Rolling Stone. In 1994, the magazine published "He Was a Crook", a "scathing" obituary of Richard Nixon.
In November 2004, Rolling Stone published Thompson's final magazine feature "The Fun-Hogs in the Passing Lane: Fear and Loathing, Campaign 2004", a brief account of the 2004 presidential election in which he compared the outcome of the Bush v. Gore court case to the Reichstag fire and formally endorsed Senator John Kerry, a longtime friend, for president.
Fear and Loathing redux
In 1996, Modern Library reissued Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas along with "Strange Rumblings in Aztlan," "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved," and "Jacket Copy for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas." Two years later, the film Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas generated new interest in Thompson and his work, and a paperback edition was published as a tie-in. The same year, an early novel, The Rum Diary, was published. Two volumes of collected letters, edited by Douglas Brinkley, also appeared during this time. The first volume appeared in 1997 and covers the years 1955-67. The second volume appeared in 2000 and covers 1968 to 1976.
Thompson's next, and penultimate, collection, Kingdom of Fear: Loathsome Secrets of a Star-Crossed Child in the Final Days of the American Century, was widely publicized as Thompson's first memoir. Published in 2003, it combined new material (including reminiscences of the O'Farrell Theater), selected newspaper and digital clippings, and other older works.
Thompson finished his journalism career in the same way it had begun: Writing about sports. From 2000 until his death in 2005, he wrote a weekly column for ESPN.com's Page 2 entitled "Hey, Rube." In 2004, Simon & Schuster collected some of the columns from the first few years and released them in mid-2004 as Hey Rube: Blood Sport, the Bush Doctrine, and the Downward Spiral of Dumbness.
Thompson married assistant Anita Bejmuk on April 23, 2003.
Death
At 5:42 pm on February 20, 2005, Thompson died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head at Owl Farm, his "fortified compound" in Woody Creek, Colorado. His son Juan, daughter-in-law Jennifer, and grandson were visiting for the weekend. His wife Anita, who was at the Aspen Club, was on the phone with him as he cocked the gun. According to the Aspen Daily News, Thompson asked her to come home to help him write his ESPN column, then set the receiver on the counter. Anita said she mistook the cocking of the gun for the sound of his typewriter keys and hung up as he fired. Will and Jennifer were in the next room when they heard the gunshot, but mistook the sound for a book falling and did not check on Thompson immediately. Juan Thompson found his father's body. According to the police report and Anita's cell phone records, he called the sheriff's office half an hour later, then walked outside and fired three shotgun blasts into the air to "mark the passing of his father". The police report stated that in Thompson's typewriter was a piece of paper with the date "Feb. 22 '05" and a single word, "counselor".
Years of alcohol and cocaine abuse contributed to his problem with depression. Thompson's inner circle told the press that he had been depressed and always found February a "gloomy" month, with football season over and the harsh Colorado winter weather. He was also upset over his advancing age and chronic medical problems, including a hip replacement; he would frequently mutter "This kid is getting old." Rolling Stone published what Douglas Brinkley described as a suicide note written by Thompson to his wife, titled "Football Season Is Over". It read:
Thompson's collaborator and friend Ralph Steadman wrote:
Funeral
On August 20, 2005, in a private funeral, Thompson's ashes were fired from a cannon. This was accompanied by red, white, blue, and green fireworks—all to the tune of Norman Greenbaum's "Spirit in the Sky" and Bob Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man". The cannon was placed atop a tower which had the shape of a double-thumbed fist clutching a peyote button, a symbol originally used in his 1970 campaign for sheriff of Pitkin County, Colorado. The plans for the monument were initially drawn by Thompson and Steadman, and were shown as part of an Omnibus program on the BBC titled Fear and Loathing in Gonzovision (1978). It is included as a special feature on the second disc of the 2004 Criterion Collection DVD release of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and labeled as Fear and Loathing on the Road to Hollywood.
According to his widow, Anita, the $3 million funeral was funded by actor Johnny Depp, who was a close friend of Thompson's. Depp told the Associated Press, "All I'm doing is trying to make sure his last wish comes true. I just want to send my pal out the way he wants to go out." An estimated 280 people attended, including U.S. Senators John Kerry and George McGovern; 60 Minutes correspondents Ed Bradley and Charlie Rose; actors Jack Nicholson, John Cusack, Bill Murray, Benicio del Toro, Sean Penn, and Josh Hartnett; musicians Lyle Lovett, John Oates and David Amram, and artist and long-time friend Ralph Steadman.
Legacy
Writing style
Thompson is often credited as the creator of Gonzo journalism, a style of writing that blurs distinctions between fiction and nonfiction. His work and style are considered to be a major part of the New Journalism literary movement of the 1960s and 1970s, which attempted to break free from the purely objective style of mainstream reportage of the time. Thompson almost always wrote in the first person, while extensively using his own experiences and emotions to color "the story" he was trying to follow.
Despite him having personally described his work as "Gonzo", it fell to later observers to articulate what the term actually meant. While Thompson's approach clearly involved injecting himself as a participant in the events of the narrative, it also involved adding invented, metaphoric elements, thus creating, for the uninitiated reader, a seemingly confusing amalgam of facts and fiction notable for the deliberately blurred lines between one and the other. Thompson, in a 1974 interview in Playboy addressed the issue himself, saying, "Unlike Tom Wolfe or Gay Talese, I almost never try to reconstruct a story. They're both much better reporters than I am, but then, I don't think of myself as a reporter." Tom Wolfe would later describe Thompson's style as "... part journalism and part personal memoir admixed with powers of wild invention and wilder rhetoric." Or as one description of the differences between Thompson and Wolfe's styles would elaborate, "While Tom Wolfe mastered the technique of being a fly on the wall, Thompson mastered the art of being a fly in the ointment."
The majority of Thompson's most popular and acclaimed work appeared within the pages of Rolling Stone magazine. Along with Joe Eszterhas and David Felton, Thompson was instrumental in expanding the focus of the magazine past music criticism; indeed, Thompson was the only staff writer of the epoch never to contribute a music feature to the magazine. Nevertheless, his articles were always peppered with a wide array of pop music references ranging from Howlin' Wolf to Lou Reed. Armed with early fax machines wherever he went, he became notorious for haphazardly sending sometimes illegible material to the magazine's San Francisco offices as an issue was about to go to press.
Robert Love, Thompson's editor of 23 years at Rolling Stone, wrote, "the dividing line between fact and fancy rarely blurred, and we didn't always use italics or some other typographical device to indicate the lurch into the fabulous. But if there were living, identifiable humans in a scene, we took certain steps ... Hunter was a close friend of many prominent Democrats, veterans of the ten or more presidential campaigns he covered, so when in doubt, we'd call the press secretary. 'People will believe almost any twisted kind of story about politicians or Washington,' he once said, and he was right."
Discerning the line between the fact and the fiction of Thompson's work presented a practical problem for editors and fact-checkers of his work. Love called fact-checking Thompson's work "one of the sketchiest occupations ever created in the publishing world", and "for the first-timer ... a trip through a journalistic fun house, where you didn't know what was real and what wasn't. You knew you had better learn enough about the subject at hand to know when the riff began and reality ended. Hunter was a stickler for numbers, for details like gross weight and model numbers, for lyrics and caliber, and there was no faking it."
Persona
Thompson often used a blend of fiction and fact when portraying himself in his writing, too, sometimes using the name Raoul Duke as an author surrogate whom he generally described as a callous, erratic, self-destructive journalist who constantly drank alcohol and took hallucinogenic drugs. Fantasizing about causing bodily harm to others was also a characteristic in his work used to comedic effect and an example of his brand of humor.
In the late 1960s, Thompson acquired the title of "Doctor" from the Universal Life Church.
A number of critics have commented that as he grew older, the line that distinguished Thompson from his literary self became increasingly blurred. Thompson admitted during a 1978 BBC interview that he sometimes felt pressured to live up to the fictional self that he had created, adding, "I'm never sure which one people expect me to be. Very often, they conflict — most often, as a matter of fact. ... I'm leading a normal life and right alongside me there is this myth, and it is growing and mushrooming and getting more and more warped. When I get invited to, say, speak at universities, I'm not sure if they are inviting Duke or Thompson. I'm not sure who to be."
Thompson's writing style and eccentric persona gave him a cult following in both literary and drug circles, and his cult status expanded into broader areas after being portrayed three times in major motion pictures. Hence, both his writing style and persona have been widely imitated, and his likeness has even become a popular costume choice for Halloween.
Political beliefs
Thompson was a firearms and explosives enthusiast (in his writing and in life) and owned a vast collection of handguns, rifles, shotguns, and various automatic and semiautomatic weapons, along with numerous forms of gaseous crowd-control and many homemade devices. He was a proponent of the right to bear arms and privacy rights. A member of the National Rifle Association, Thompson was also co-creator of the Fourth Amendment Foundation, an organization to assist victims in defending themselves against unwarranted search and seizure.
Part of his work with the Fourth Amendment Foundation centered around support of Lisl Auman, a Colorado woman who was sentenced for life in 1997 under felony murder charges for the death of police officer Bruce VanderJagt, despite contradictory statements and dubious evidence. Thompson organized rallies, provided legal support, and co-wrote an article in the June 2004 issue of Vanity Fair outlining the case. The Colorado Supreme Court eventually overturned Auman's sentence in March 2005, shortly after Thompson's death, and Auman is now free. Auman's supporters claim Thompson's support and publicity resulted in the successful appeal.
Thompson was also an ardent supporter of drug legalization and became known for his detailed accounts of his own drug use. He was an early supporter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws and served on the group's advisory board for over 30 years, until his death. He told an interviewer in 1997 that drugs should be legalized "[a]cross the board. It might be a little rough on some people for a while, but I think it's the only way to deal with drugs. Look at Prohibition; all it did was make a lot of criminals rich."
In a 1965 letter to his friend Paul Semonin, Thompson explained an affection for the Industrial Workers of the World, "I have in recent months come to have a certain feeling for Joe Hill and the Wobbly crowd who, if nothing else, had the right idea. But not the right mechanics. I believe the IWW was probably the last human concept in American politics." In another letter to Semonin, Thompson wrote that he agreed with Karl Marx, and compared him to Thomas Jefferson. In a letter to William Kennedy, Thompson confided that he was "coming to view the free enterprise system as the single greatest evil in the history of human savagery." In the documentary Breakfast with Hunter, Hunter S. Thompson is seen in several scenes wearing different Che Guevara T-shirts. Additionally, actor and friend Benicio del Toro has stated that Thompson kept a "big" picture of Che in his kitchen. Thompson wrote on behalf of African-American rights and the civil rights movement. He strongly criticized the dominance in American society of what he called "white power structures".
After the September 11 attacks, Thompson voiced skepticism regarding the official story on who was responsible for the attacks. He speculated to several interviewers that it may have been conducted by the U.S. government or with the government's assistance, though readily admitting he had no way to prove his theory.
In 2004, Thompson wrote: "[Richard] Nixon was a professional politician, and I despised everything he stood for—but if he were running for president this year against the evil Bush–Cheney gang, I would happily vote for him."
Scholarships
Thompson's widow established two scholarship funds at Columbia University School of General Studies for U.S. military veterans and the University of Kentucky for journalism students.
Colorado NORML created the Hunter S. Thompson Scholarship to pay all expenses for a lawyer or law student to attend the NORML Legal Committee Conference in Aspen, generally the first few days of June each year. The funding from a silent auction has paid for two winners for some years. Many winners have gone on to become important cannabis lawyers on state and national levels.
Works
Books
Thompson wrote a number of books, publishing from 1966 to the end of his life. His best-known works include Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, The Rum Diary, The Curse of Lono, and Screwjack.
Articles
As a journalist over the course of decades, Thompson published numerous articles in various periodicals. He wrote for many publications, including Rolling Stone, Esquire, The Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, The New York Times, The San Francisco Examiner, Time, Vanity Fair, The San Juan Star, and Playboy. He was also guest editor for a single edition of The Aspen Daily News. A collection of 100 of his columns from The San Francisco Examiner was published in 1988 as Gonzo Papers, Vol. 2: Generation of Swine: Tales of Shame and Degradation in the '80s. A collection of his articles for Rolling Stone was released in 2011 as Fear and Loathing at Rolling Stone: The Essential Writings of Hunter S. Thompson. The book was edited by the magazine's co-founder and publisher, Jann S. Wenner, who also provided an introduction to the collection.
Letters
Thompson wrote many letters, which were his primary means of personal communication. He made carbon copies of all his letters, usually typed, a habit begun in his teenaged years.
The Fear and Loathing Letters is a three-volume collection of selections from Thompson's correspondence, edited by historian Douglas Brinkley. The first volume, The Proud Highway, was published in 1997, and contains letters from 1955 to 1967. Fear and Loathing in America was published in 2000 and contains letters dating from 1968 to 1976. A third volume, titled The Mutineer: Rants, Ravings, and Missives from the Mountaintop 1977–2005, was edited by Douglas Brinkley and prepared by Simon & Schuster in 2005. As of March 2019, it has yet to be sold to the public. It contains a special introduction by Johnny Depp.
Illustrations
Accompanying the eccentric and colorful writing of Hunter Thompson, illustrations by British artist Ralph Steadman offer visual representations of the Gonzo style. Steadman and Thompson developed a professional relationship. The two collaborated many times over Thompson's career, although at times they were known to violently argue. Wayne Ewing's documentary on Hunter captured an encounter where Steadman tells Hunter that he believes his drawings contributed as much to the success of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas as Hunter's writing. Hunter was furious at the suggestion and their relationship was certainly at times, strained. Steadman in recent years has described Hunter as "rude" and "a bully." So while they are publicly known as great friends, the true nature of their relationship was considerably more nuanced.
Photography
Thompson was an avid amateur photographer throughout his life, and his photos have been exhibited since his death at art galleries in the United States and United Kingdom. In late 2006, AMMO Books published a limited-edition, 224-page collection of Thompson photos called Gonzo: Photographs by Hunter S. Thompson, with an introduction by Johnny Depp. Thompson's snapshots were a combination of the subjects he was covering, stylized self-portraits, and artistic still life photos. The London Observer called the photos "astonishingly good" and noted that "Thompson's pictures remind us, brilliantly in every sense, of very real people, real colours."
Feature films
The film Where the Buffalo Roam (1980) depicts heavily fictionalized attempts by Thompson to cover the Super Bowl and the 1972 U.S. presidential election. It stars Bill Murray as Thompson and Peter Boyle as Thompson's attorney Oscar Zeta Acosta, referred to in the movie as Carl Lazlo, Esq.
The 1998 film adaptation of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was directed by Monty Python veteran Terry Gilliam and starred Johnny Depp (who moved into Thompson's basement to "study" Thompson's persona before assuming his role in the film) as Raoul Duke and Benicio del Toro as Oscar Zeta Acosta. The film has achieved something of a cult following.
In the 2001 film Ali, Thompson is briefly portrayed by actor Lee Cummings.
The film adaptation of Thompson's novel The Rum Diary was released in October 2011, also starring Johnny Depp as the main character, Paul Kemp. The novel's premise was inspired by Thompson's own experiences in Puerto Rico. The film was written and directed by Bruce Robinson.
At a press junket for The Rum Diary shortly before the film's release, Depp said that he would like to adapt The Curse of Lono, "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved", and Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs for the big screen: "I'd just keep playing Hunter. There's a great comfort in it for me, because I get a great visit with my old friend who I miss dearly."
Documentaries
Fear and Loathing in Gonzovision (1978) is an extended television profile by the BBC. It can be found on disc 2 of The Criterion Collection edition of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
The Mitchell brothers, owners of the O'Farrell Theatre in San Francisco, made a documentary about Thompson in 1988 called Hunter S. Thompson: The Crazy Never Die.
Wayne Ewing created three documentaries about Thompson. The film Breakfast with Hunter (2003) was directed and edited by Ewing. It documents Thompson's work on the movie Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, his arrest for drunk driving, and his subsequent fight with the court system. When I Die (2005) is a video chronicle of making Thompson's final farewell wishes a reality, and documents the send-off itself. Free Lisl: Fear and Loathing in Denver (2006) chronicles Thompson's efforts in helping to free Lisl Auman, who was sentenced to life in prison without parole for the shooting of a police officer, a crime she did not commit. All three films are only available online.
In Come on Down: Searching for the American Dream (2004) Thompson gives director Adamm Liley insight into the nature of the American Dream over drinks at the Woody Creek Tavern.
Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride: Hunter S. Thompson on Film (2006) was directed by Tom Thurman, written by Tom Marksbury, and produced by the Starz Entertainment Group. The original documentary features interviews with Thompson's inner circle of family and friends, but the thrust of the film focuses on the manner in which his life often overlapped with numerous Hollywood celebrities who became his close friends, such as Johnny Depp, Benicio del Toro, Bill Murray, Sean Penn, John Cusack, Thompson's wife Anita, son Juan, former Senators George McGovern and Gary Hart, writers Tom Wolfe and William F. Buckley, actors Gary Busey and Harry Dean Stanton, and the illustrator Ralph Steadman among others.
Blasted!!! The Gonzo Patriots of Hunter S. Thompson (2006), produced, directed, photographed, and edited by Blue Kraning, is a documentary about the scores of fans who volunteered their privately owned artillery to fire the ashes of the late author, Hunter S. Thompson. Blasted!!! premiered at the 2006 Starz Denver International Film Festival, part of a tribute series to Hunter S. Thompson held at the Denver Press Club.
In 2008, Academy Award-winning documentarian Alex Gibney (Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, Taxi to the Dark Side) wrote and directed a documentary on Thompson, titled Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson. The film premiered on January 20, 2008, at the Sundance Film Festival. Gibney uses intimate, never-before-seen home videos, interviews with friends, enemies, lovers, and clips from films adapted from Thompson's material to document his turbulent life.
Theater
Lou Stein's adaptation of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was performed at the Battersea Theatre. Stein persuades London's Time Out magazine to put Thompson up for a fortnight, in exchange for him writing a cover story to publicize the play. Thompson does not write the story, but does rampage around London on Time Out 's expense account. The play was revived for the Vault Fringe Festival in 2014.
GONZO: A Brutal Chrysalis is a one-man show about Thompson written by Paul Addis, who also played the author. Set in the writing den of Thompson's Woody Creek home, the show portrays his life between 1968 and 1971. James Cartee began playing the role soon after Addis's arrest in 2009, and again after Addis's death in 2012.
Awards, accolades, and tributes
Thompson was named a Kentucky Colonel by the governor of Kentucky in a December 1996 tribute ceremony where he also received keys to the city of Louisville.
Author Tom Wolfe has called Thompson the greatest American comic writer of the 20th century.
Asked in an interview with Jody Denberg on KGSR Studio, in 2000, whether he would ever consider writing a book "like [his] buddy Hunter S. Thompson", the musician Warren Zevon responded: "Let's remember that Hunter S. Thompson is the finest writer of our generation; he didn't just toss off a book the other day..."
Thompson appeared on the cover of the 1,000th issue of Rolling Stone, May 18 – June 1, 2006, as a devil playing the guitar next to the two "L"'s in the word "Rolling". Johnny Depp also appeared on the cover.
The Thompson-inspired character Uncle Duke appears on a recurring basis in Doonesbury, the daily newspaper comic strip by Garry Trudeau. When the character was first introduced, Thompson protested, quoted in an interview as saying that he would set Trudeau on fire if the two ever met, although reportedly he liked the character in later years. Between March 7, 2005 (roughly two weeks after Thompson's suicide), and March 12, 2005, Doonesbury ran a tribute to Hunter, with Uncle Duke lamenting the death of the man he called his "inspiration". The first of these strips featured a panel with artwork similar to that of Ralph Steadman, and later strips featured various non sequiturs (with Duke variously transforming into a monster, melting, shrinking to the size of an empty drinking glass, or people around him turning into animals), which seemed to mirror some of the effects of hallucinogenic drugs described in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
Many have suggested that General Hunter Gathers in the Adult Swim animated series The Venture Bros. is a tribute to Thompson, as they have a similar name, mannerisms, and physical appearance.
Dale Gribble in the Fox animated series King of the Hill is a tribute to Thompson and derives his physical appearance from him.
In the Cameron Crowe film Almost Famous, based on Crowe's experiences writing for Rolling Stone while on the road with the fictional band Stillwater", the writer is on the phone with an actor portraying Jann Wenner. Wenner tells the young journalist that he "is not there to join the party, we already have one Hunter Thompson" after the young writer amassed large hotel and traveling expenses and is overheard to be sharing his room with several young women.
Eric C. Shoaf donated a caché of approximately 800 items (in librarian terms, about 35-40 linear feet of material on a shelf) pertaining to the life and career of Thompson to the University of California at Santa Cruz. Shoaf also published a descriptive bibliography, Gonzology: A Hunter Thompson Bibliography, of the works of Hunter S. Thompson with over 1,000 entries, many never before documented appearances in print, hundreds of biographical entries about Thompson's life, full descriptions of all his primary works, preface by William McKeen, Phd, and photo section with rare and exclusive items depicted.
References
External links
"Hunter S. Thompson's ESPN Page 2 Archive", Totallygonzo.org
"Shotgun Golf With Bill Murray", Thompson's final column for ESPN.com's Page 2.
A collection of articles on Thompson from The Guardian
Thompson's photography
1937 births
2005 suicides
20th-century American journalists
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American novelists
20th-century essayists
21st-century American journalists
21st-century American male writers
21st-century American novelists
9/11 conspiracy theorists
American activist journalists
American columnists
American conspiracy theorists
American essayists
American male essayists
American male journalists
American male novelists
American Marxists
American people of Scottish descent
American political writers
American tax resisters
Atherton High School alumni
Columbia University School of General Studies alumni
Drug policy reform activists
Florida State University alumni
Journalists from Colorado
Journalists from Kentucky
Louisville Male High School alumni
Military personnel from Louisville, Kentucky
Motorcycling writers
Novelists from Colorado
Novelists from Kentucky
People from Glen Ellen, California
Psychedelic drug advocates
Sportswriters from California
Suicides by firearm in Colorado
United States Air Force airmen
Writers from Louisville, Kentucky
| true |
[
"\"Did Anyone Approach You?\" is a song by the Norwegian band A-ha. It was the third single to be taken from their 2002 album Lifelines. It was recorded at The Alabaster Room in New York City sometime between June 2001 and January 2002.\n\nTrack listing\n \"Did Anyone Approach You? (Original Album Version)\" (4:11)\n \"Did Anyone Approach You? (Turner Remix)\" (3:43)\n \"Did Anyone Approach You? (Reamped)\" (4:51)\n \"Did Anyone Approach You? (Tore Johansson Remix)\" (5:55)\n \"Afternoon High (Demo Version)\" (4:40)\n \"Did Anyone Approach You? (Video Clip)\" (4:11)\n\nVideo\nThe video was filmed by Lauren Savoy, the wife of A-ha guitarist Paul Waaktaar-Savoy. It was shot at Ullevaal Stadion on 6 June 2002, the first concert on the band's Lifelines tour.\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\n2002 singles\nA-ha songs\nSongs written by Paul Waaktaar-Savoy\nWarner Music Group singles\n2002 songs",
"Hostile prejudice is the outward expression of hate for people of a different race, religion, ideology, country, sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity. Anyone who goes against specific criteria of dress, cultural or moral beliefs, or religious or political ideologies are subject to hostile racism. This racism often leads to direct discrimination to anyone who does not fit the prejudiced person's idea of a \"normal\" person. This behavior is most prevalent when there are noticeable differences between ingroups and outgroups, with the outgroup members experiencing hostile prejudice from ingroup members.\n\nResearch\nMost research done on hostile prejudice has been done on hostile sexism. Peter Glick and Susan Fiske, along with several other colleagues, did a study on hostile and benevolent sexism across cultures. Glick and his colleagues found that hostile sexism and benevolent sexism are consistent notions that have a positive relationship to each other across nations. Women and men are viewed by hostile sexism as opposites in that women try to control men by domesticated means (e.g., marriage, demands for attention, and material possessions), forcing men to attempt to hang on to their independence and keep their masculinity. Glick and colleagues found that, if sexism in a culture is high overall, then women will tend to reject hostile sexism over benevolent sexism when it comes to men. They also found that, based on national averages on hostile sexism and benevolent sexism, predictions can be made regarding gender inequality across nations.\n\nSee also\n\nAmbivalent prejudice\nBenevolent prejudice\nConflict theories\nHate crime\nHate speech\nPrejudice\nStereotype\n\nReferences\n\nPrejudices"
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[
"Hunter S. Thompson",
"Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas",
"What is Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas?",
"The result of the trip to Las Vegas became the 1972 book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,",
"Did it do well?",
"the book was greeted with considerable critical acclaim, including being heralded by The New York Times as \"by far the best book yet",
"Did he write it in Vegas?",
"I don't know.",
"who published the book?",
"the 1972 book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, which first appeared in the November 1971 issues of Rolling Stone as a two-part series.",
"Did anyone reject it?",
"Thompson first submitted to Sports Illustrated a manuscript of 2,500 words, which was, as he later wrote, \"aggressively rejected."
] |
C_f9d8069ce5c14c45a92486e19a607c8b_0
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what is the book about?
| 6 |
What is the book "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" about?
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Hunter S. Thompson
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The book for which Thompson gained most of his fame had its genesis during the research for Strange Rumblings in Aztlan, an expose for Rolling Stone on the 1970 killing of the Mexican-American television journalist Ruben Salazar. Salazar had been shot in the head at close range with a tear gas canister fired by officers of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department during the National Chicano Moratorium March against the Vietnam War. One of Thompson's sources for the story was Oscar Zeta Acosta, a prominent Mexican-American activist and attorney. Finding it difficult to talk in the racially tense atmosphere of Los Angeles, Thompson and Acosta decided to travel to Las Vegas, and take advantage of an assignment by Sports Illustrated to write a 250-word photograph caption on the Mint 400 motorcycle race held there. What was to be a short caption quickly grew into something else entirely. Thompson first submitted to Sports Illustrated a manuscript of 2,500 words, which was, as he later wrote, "aggressively rejected." Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner was said to have liked "the first 20 or so jangled pages enough to take it seriously on its own terms and tentatively scheduled it for publication -- which gave me the push I needed to keep working on it", Thompson later wrote. The result of the trip to Las Vegas became the 1972 book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, which first appeared in the November 1971 issues of Rolling Stone as a two-part series. It is written as a first-person account by a journalist named Raoul Duke on a trip to Las Vegas with Dr. Gonzo, his "300-pound Samoan attorney", to cover a narcotics officers' convention and the "fabulous Mint 400". During the trip, Duke and his companion (always referred to as "my attorney") become sidetracked by a search for the American Dream, with "two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers ... and also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether, and two dozen amyls." Coming to terms with the failure of the 1960s countercultural movement is a major theme of the novel, and the book was greeted with considerable critical acclaim, including being heralded by The New York Times as "by far the best book yet written on the decade of dope". "The Vegas Book", as Thompson referred to it, was a mainstream success and introduced his Gonzo journalism techniques to a wide public. CANNOTANSWER
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It is written as a first-person account by a journalist named Raoul Duke on a trip to Las Vegas with Dr. Gonzo, his "300-pound Samoan attorney",
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Hunter Stockton Thompson (July 18, 1937 – February 20, 2005) was an American journalist and author who founded the gonzo journalism movement. He rose to prominence with the publication of Hell's Angels (1967), a book for which he spent a year living and riding with the Hells Angels motorcycle gang to write a first-hand account of their lives and experiences.
In 1970, he wrote an unconventional magazine feature titled "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved" for Scanlan's Monthly, which raised his profile and established his counterculture credibility. It also set him on the path to establishing his own subgenre of New Journalism that he called "Gonzo", which was essentially an ongoing experiment in which the writer becomes a central figure and participant in the events of the narrative.
Thompson remains best known for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1971), a book first serialized in Rolling Stone in which he grapples with the implications of what he considered the failure of the 1960s counterculture movement. It was adapted for film twice: loosely in Where the Buffalo Roam starring Bill Murray as Thompson in 1980, and explicitly in 1998 by director Terry Gilliam in the eponymous film starring Johnny Depp and Benicio del Toro.
Thompson ran unsuccessfully for sheriff of Pitkin County, Colorado in 1970 on the Freak Power ticket. His campaign was chronicled in the documentary film Freak Power: The Ballot or the Bomb. He became known for his dislike of Richard Nixon, who he claimed represented "that dark, venal, and incurably violent side of the American character". He covered Nixon's 1972 reelection campaign for Rolling Stone and later collected the stories in book form as Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72.
Thompson's output declined from the mid-1970s, as he struggled with the consequences of fame, and complained that he could no longer merely report on events, as he was too easily recognized. After several high-profile stories were quashed by the upper management of Rolling Stone, he found it increasingly difficult to get his work into mainstream outlets. He did continue to write for alternative newspapers, and had a gig as a critic for the mainstream San Francisco Examiner for much of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Most of his work from 1979 to 1994 was collected in The Gonzo Papers. He continued to write for various journalism outlets in a variety of formats, including sporadic stories published in Rolling Stone and a weekly column that appeared on ESPN.com's Page 2 titled "Hey, Rube" that he started in 2000.
He was known for his lifelong use of alcohol and illegal narcotics, his love of firearms, and his iconoclastic contempt for authority. He often remarked: "I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me." Thompson died by suicide at the age of 67, following a series of health problems. In accordance with his wishes, his ashes were fired out of a cannon in a ceremony funded by his friend Johnny Depp and attended by friends including then-Senator John Kerry and Jack Nicholson. Hari Kunzru wrote, "the true voice of Thompson is revealed to be that of American moralist ... one who often makes himself ugly to expose the ugliness he sees around him."
Early life
Thompson was born into a middle-class family in Louisville, Kentucky, the first of three sons of Virginia Davison Ray (1908, Springfield, Kentucky – March 20, 1998, Louisville), who worked as head librarian at the Louisville Free Public Library and Jack Robert Thompson (September 4, 1893, Horse Cave, Kentucky – July 3, 1952, Louisville), a public insurance adjuster and World War I veteran. His parents were introduced by a friend from Jack's fraternity at the University of Kentucky in September 1934, and married on November 2, 1935. The Guardian journalist Nicholas Lezard, stated that Thompson's first name, Hunter, came from an ancestor on his mother's side, the Scottish surgeon John Hunter. A more direct attribution is that Thompson's first and middle name, Hunter Stockton, came from his maternal grandparents, Prestly Stockton Ray and Lucille Hunter.
In December 1943 when Thompson was six years old, the family settled in the affluent Cherokee Triangle neighborhood of The Highlands. On July 3, 1952, when Thompson was 14, his father died of myasthenia gravis at age 58. Hunter and his brothers were raised by their mother. Virginia worked as a librarian to support her children, and was described as a "heavy drinker" following her husband's death.
Education
Interested in sports and athletically inclined from a young age, Thompson co-founded the Hawks Athletic Club while attending I.N. Bloom Elementary School, which led to an invitation to join Louisville's Castlewood Athletic Club for adolescents that prepared them for high-school sports. Ultimately, he never joined a sports team in high school.
Thompson attended I.N. Bloom Elementary School, Highland Middle School, and Atherton High School, before transferring to Louisville Male High School in fall 1952. Also in 1952, he was accepted as a member of the Athenaeum Literary Association, a school-sponsored literary and social club that dated to 1862. Its members at the time came from Louisville's upper-class families, and included Porter Bibb, who became the first publisher of Rolling Stone at Thompson's behest. During this time, Thompson read and admired J. P. Donleavy's The Ginger Man.
As an Athenaeum member, Thompson contributed articles to and helped produce the club's yearbook The Spectator. The group ejected Thompson in 1955 for criminal activity. Charged as an accessory to robbery after being in a car with the perpetrator, Thompson was sentenced to 60 days in Kentucky's Jefferson County Jail. He served 31 days and, a week after his release, enlisted in the United States Air Force. While he was in jail, the school superintendent refused permission to take his high-school final examinations so he was unable to graduate.
Military service
Thompson completed basic training at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, and transferred to Scott Air Force Base in Belleville, Illinois, to study electronics. He applied to become an aviator, but the Air Force's aviation-cadet program rejected his application. In 1956, he transferred to Eglin Air Force Base near Fort Walton Beach, Florida. While serving at Eglin, he took evening classes at Florida State University. At Eglin, he landed his first professional writing job as sports editor of The Command Courier by falsifying his job experience. As sports editor, Thompson traveled around the United States with the Eglin Eagles football team, covering its games. In early 1957, he wrote a sports column for The Playground News, a local newspaper in Fort Walton Beach, Florida. His name did not appear on the column because Air Force regulations forbade outside employment.
In 1958, as an airman first class, his commanding officer recommended him for an early honorable discharge. "In summary, this airman, although talented, will not be guided by policy," chief of information services Colonel William S. Evans wrote to the Eglin personnel office. "Sometimes his rebel and superior attitude seems to rub off on other airmen staff members."
Early journalism career
After leaving the Air Force, Thompson worked as sports editor for a newspaper in Jersey Shore, Pennsylvania, before relocating to New York City. There he audited several courses at the Columbia University School of General Studies. During this time he worked briefly for Time as a copy boy for $51 a week. At work, he typed out parts of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms in order to learn the authors' rhythms and writing styles. In 1959 Time fired him for insubordination. Later that year, he worked as a reporter for The Middletown Daily Record in Middletown, New York. He was fired from this job after damaging an office candy machine and arguing with the owner of a local restaurant who happened to be an advertiser with the paper.
In 1960, Thompson moved to San Juan, Puerto Rico, to take a job with the sporting magazine El Sportivo, which ceased operations soon after his arrival. Thompson applied for a job with the Puerto Rican English-language daily The San Juan Star, but its managing editor, future novelist William J. Kennedy, turned him down. Nonetheless, the two became friends. After the demise of El Sportivo, Thompson worked as a stringer for the New York Herald Tribune and a few other stateside papers on Caribbean issues, with Kennedy working as his editor.
After returning to the United States, Thompson visited San Francisco and eventually lived in Big Sur, where he worked as a security guard and caretaker at Slates Hot Springs for an eight-month period in 1961, just before it became the Esalen Institute. At the time, Big Sur was a Beat outpost and home of Henry Miller and Dennis Murphy (screenwriter), both of whom Thompson admired. While there, he published his first magazine feature in Rogue about the artisan and bohemian culture of Big Sur. During this period, Thompson wrote two novels, Prince Jellyfish and The Rum Diary, and submitted many short stories to publishers – with little success. The Rum Diary, based on Thompson's experiences in Puerto Rico, was not published until .
In May 1962, Thompson traveled to South America for a year as a correspondent for the Dow Jones-owned weekly paper, the National Observer. In Brazil, he spent several months as a reporter for the Brazil Herald, the country's only English-language daily, published in Rio de Janeiro. His longtime girlfriend Sandra Dawn Conklin (or Sandy Conklin Thompson, subsequently Sondi Wright) later joined him in Rio. They married on May 19, 1963, shortly after returning to the United States, and lived briefly in Aspen, Colorado. Sandy was eight months pregnant when they relocated to Glen Ellen, California. Their son, Juan Fitzgerald Thompson, was born on March 23, 1964.
Thompson continued to write for the National Observer on an array of domestic subjects. One story told of his 1964 visit to Ketchum, Idaho, to investigate the reasons for Ernest Hemingway's suicide. While there, he stole a pair of elk antlers hanging above the front door of Hemingway's cabin. Later that year, Thompson moved to San Francisco, where he attended the 1964 GOP Convention at the Cow Palace. Thompson severed his ties with the Observer after his editor refused to print his review of Tom Wolfe's 1965 essay-collection The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby,. He later immersed himself in the drug and hippie culture taking root in the area, and soon began writing for the Berkeley underground paper Spider.
Hell's Angels
In 1965 Carey McWilliams, editor of The Nation, hired Thompson to write a story about the Hells Angels motorcycle club in California. At the time Thompson was living in a house near San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, where the Hells Angels lived across from the Grateful Dead. His article appeared on May 17, 1965, after which he received several book offers and spent the next year living and riding with the club. The relationship broke down when the bikers perceived that Thompson was exploiting them for personal gain and demanded a share of his profits. An argument at a party resulted in Thompson suffering a savage beating (or "stomping", as the Angels referred to it). Random House published the hard-cover Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs in 1966, and the fight between Thompson and the Angels was well-marketed. CBC Television even broadcast an encounter between Thompson and Hells Angel Skip Workman before a live studio audience.
A New York Times review praised the work as an "angry, knowledgeable, fascinating, and excitedly written book", that shows the Hells Angels "not so much as dropouts from society but as total misfits, or unfits—emotionally, intellectually and educationally unfit to achieve the rewards, such as they are, that the contemporary social order offers". The reviewer also praised Thompson as a "spirited, witty, observant, and original writer; his prose crackles like motorcycle exhaust".
Following the book's publication, Thompson appeared as himself on the February 20, 1967, episode of the game show To Tell The Truth, receiving all four votes by the panel members.
Late 1960s
Following the success of Hell's Angels, Thompson successfully sold articles to several national magazines, including The New York Times Magazine, Esquire, Pageant, and Harper's.
In 1967, shortly before the Summer of Love, Thompson wrote "The 'Hashbury' is the Capital of the Hippies" for The New York Times Magazine. He criticized San Francisco's hippies as devoid of both the political convictions of the New Left and the artistic core of the Beats, resulting in a culture overrun with young people who spent their time in the pursuit of drugs. "The thrust is no longer for 'change' or 'progress' or 'revolution', but merely to escape, to live on the far perimeter of a world that might have been – perhaps should have been – and strike a bargain for survival on purely personal terms," he wrote.
By late 1967, Thompson and his family moved back to Colorado and rented a house in Woody Creek, a small mountain hamlet outside Aspen. In early 1969, Thompson received a $15,000 royalty check for the paperback sales of Hell's Angels and used two-thirds of the money for a down payment on a modest home and property where he would live for the rest of his life. He named the house Owl Farm and often described it as his "fortified compound".
In early 1968, Thompson signed the "Writers and Editors War Tax Protest" pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War. According to Thompson's letters and his later writings, at this time, he planned to write a book called The Joint Chiefs about "the death of the American Dream." He used a $6,000 advance from Random House to travel the 1968 Presidential campaign trail and attend the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago for research. From his hotel room in Chicago, Thompson watched the clashes between police and protesters, which he wrote had a great effect on his political views. The book was never finished, and the theme of the death of the American dream was carried over into his later work. The contract with Random House was eventually fulfilled with the 1972 book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. He also signed a deal with Ballantine Books in 1968 to write a satirical book called The Johnson File about Lyndon B. Johnson. A few weeks after the contract was signed, however, Johnson announced that he would not seek re-election, and the deal was cancelled.
Middle years
Aspen sheriff campaign
In 1970, Thompson ran for sheriff of Pitkin County, Colorado, as part of a group of citizens running for local offices on the "Freak Power" ticket. The platform included promoting the decriminalization of drugs (for personal use only, not trafficking, as he disapproved of profiteering), tearing up the streets and turning them into grassy pedestrian malls, banning any building so tall as to obscure the view of the mountains, disarming all police forces, and renaming Aspen "Fat City" to deter investors. Thompson, having shaved his head, referred to the crew cut-wearing Republican candidate as "my long-haired opponent".
With polls showing him with a slight lead in a three-way race, Thompson appeared at Rolling Stone magazine headquarters in San Francisco with a six-pack of beer in hand, and declared to editor Jann Wenner that he was about to be elected sheriff of Aspen, Colorado, and wished to write about the "Freak Power" movement. Thus, Thompson's first article in Rolling Stone was published as "The Battle of Aspen" with the byline "By: Dr. Hunter S. Thompson (Candidate for Sheriff)". Despite the publicity, Thompson narrowly lost the election. While carrying the city of Aspen, he garnered only 44% of the county-wide vote in what had become a two-way race. The Republican candidate agreed to withdraw a few days before the election to consolidate the anti-Thompson votes, in return for the Democrats withdrawing their candidate for county commissioner. Thompson later remarked that the Rolling Stone article mobilized his opposition far more than his supporters.
A documentary film about Hunter S. Thompson's campaign for sheriff called Freak Power: The Ballot or the Bomb was released on October 23, 2020.
Birth of Gonzo
Also in 1970, Thompson wrote an article entitled "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved" for the short-lived new journalism magazine Scanlan's Monthly. For that article, editor Warren Hinckle paired Thompson with illustrator Ralph Steadman, who drew expressionist illustrations with lipstick and eyeliner. Thompson's article virtually ignored the race, focusing instead on the drunken revelry surrounding the annual event in his hometown. The first-person narrator also sets that debauchery against a political backdrop, which included the bombing of Cambodia and the deaths of four students at Kent State University, which occurred two days after the Kentucky Derby.
Thompson and Steadman collaborated regularly after that. Although it was not widely read, the article was the first to use the techniques of Gonzo journalism, a style Thompson later employed in almost every literary endeavor. The manic first-person subjectivity of the story was reportedly the result of sheer desperation; he was facing a looming deadline and started sending the magazine pages ripped out of his notebook.
The first use of the word "Gonzo" to describe Thompson's work is credited to the journalist Bill Cardoso, who first met Thompson on a bus full of journalists covering the 1968 New Hampshire primary. In 1970, Cardoso (who was then the editor of The Boston Globe Sunday Magazine) wrote to Thompson praising the "Kentucky Derby" piece as a breakthrough: "This is it, this is pure Gonzo. If this is a start, keep rolling." According to Steadman, Thompson took to the word right away and said, "Okay, that's what I do. Gonzo." Thompson's first published use of the word appears in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: "Free Enterprise. The American Dream. Horatio Alger gone mad on drugs in Las Vegas. Do it now: pure Gonzo journalism."
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
The book for which Thompson gained most of his fame had its genesis during the research for "Strange Rumblings in Aztlan", an exposé for Rolling Stone on the 1970 killing of the Mexican-American television journalist Rubén Salazar. Salazar had been shot in the head at close range with a tear-gas canister fired by officers of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department during the National Chicano Moratorium March against the Vietnam War. One of Thompson's sources for the story was Oscar Zeta Acosta, a prominent Mexican-American activist and attorney. Finding it difficult to talk in the racially tense atmosphere of Los Angeles, Thompson and Acosta decided to travel to Las Vegas, and take advantage of an assignment by Sports Illustrated to write a 250-word photograph caption on the Mint 400 motorcycle race held there.
What was to be a short caption quickly grew into something else entirely. Thompson first submitted to Sports Illustrated a manuscript of 2,500 words, which was, as he later wrote, "aggressively rejected." Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner was said to have liked "the first 20 or so jangled pages enough to take it seriously on its own terms and tentatively scheduled it for publication — which gave me the push I needed to keep working on it", Thompson later wrote. To develop the story, Thompson and Acosta returned to Las Vegas to attend a drug enforcement conference.
The two trips became the basis for "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," which appeared as a two-part Rolling Stone story in November 1971. Random House published the book version the following year. It is written as a first-person account by a journalist named Raoul Duke with Dr. Gonzo, his "300-pound Samoan attorney." During the trip, Duke and his companion (always referred to as "my attorney") become sidetracked by a search for the American Dream, with "two bags of grass, 75 pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multicolored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers ... and also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether, and two dozen amyls."
Coming to terms with the failure of the 1960s countercultural movement is a major theme of the novel, and the book was greeted with considerable critical acclaim, including being heralded by The New York Times as "by far the best book yet written on the decade of dope". "The Vegas Book", as Thompson referred to it, was a mainstream success and introduced his Gonzo journalism techniques to a wide public.
Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72
Beginning in late 1971, Thompson wrote extensively for Rolling Stone on the election campaigns of President Richard Nixon and his unsuccessful opponent, Senator George McGovern. The articles were soon combined and published as Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72. As the title suggests, Thompson spent nearly all of his time traveling the "campaign trail", focusing largely on the Democratic Party's primaries. Nixon, as the Republican incumbent, performed little campaign work, while McGovern competed with rival candidates Edmund Muskie and Hubert Humphrey. Thompson was an early supporter of McGovern and wrote unflattering coverage of the rival campaigns in the increasingly widely read Rolling Stone.
Thompson went on to become a fierce critic of Nixon, both during and after his presidency. After Nixon's death in 1994, Thompson described him in Rolling Stone as a man who "could shake your hand and stab you in the back at the same time", and said "his casket [should] have been launched into one of those open-sewage canals that empty into the ocean just south of Los Angeles. He was a swine of a man and a jabbering dupe of a president. [He] was an evil man—evil in a way that only those who believe in the physical reality of the Devil can understand it." Following Nixon's pardon by Gerald Ford in 1974, Hunter ruminated on the roughly $400,000 pension Nixon maneuvered his way into, by resigning before being formally indicted. While The Washington Post was lamenting Nixon's "lonely and depressed" state after being forced from the White House, Hunter wrote that '[i]f there were any such thing as true justice in this world, his [Nixon's] rancid carcass would be somewhere down around Easter Island right now, in the belly of a hammerhead shark.' There was however one passion shared by Thompson and Nixon: a love of football, discussed in Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72.
Fame and its consequences
Thompson's journalistic work began to seriously suffer after his trip to Africa to cover the Rumble in the Jungle—the world heavyweight boxing match between George Foreman and Muhammad Ali—in 1974. He missed the match while intoxicated at his hotel, and did not submit a story to the magazine. As Wenner put it to the film critic Roger Ebert in the 2008 documentary Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, "After Africa, he just couldn't write. He couldn't piece it together".
Plans for Thompson to cover the 1976 presidential campaign for Rolling Stone and later publish a book fell through after Wenner canceled the project without informing Thompson. Wenner then assigned Thompson to travel to Vietnam to cover what appeared to be the end of the Vietnam War. Thompson arrived in Saigon just as South Vietnam was collapsing and as other journalists were leaving the country. Wenner allegedly cancelled Thompson's life insurance, which strained Thompson's relationship with Rolling Stone. He soon fled the country and refused to file his report until the ten-year anniversary of the Fall of Saigon.
From the late 1970s on, most of Thompson's literary output appeared as a four-volume series of books entitled The Gonzo Papers. Beginning with The Great Shark Hunt in 1979 and ending with Better Than Sex in 1994, the series is largely a collection of rare newspaper and magazine pieces from the pre-gonzo period, along with almost all of his Rolling Stone pieces.
Starting around 1980, Thompson became less active by his standards. Aside from paid appearances, he largely retreated to his compound in Woody Creek, rejecting projects and assignments or failing to complete them. Despite a lack of new material, Wenner kept Thompson on the Rolling Stone masthead as chief of the "National Affairs Desk", a position he held until his death.
In 1980, Thompson divorced wife Sandra Conklin. The same year marked the release of Where the Buffalo Roam, a loose film adaptation based on Thompson's early 1970s work, starring Bill Murray as the writer. Murray eventually became one of Thompson's trusted friends. Later that year, Thompson relocated to Hawaii to research and write The Curse of Lono, a Gonzo-style account of the 1980 Honolulu Marathon. Extensively illustrated by Ralph Steadman, the piece first appeared in Running in 1981 as "The Charge of the Weird Brigade" and was later excerpted in Playboy in 1983.
In 1983, he covered the U.S. invasion of Grenada, but did not write or discuss the experiences until the publication of Kingdom of Fear in 2003. Later that year, at the behest of Terry McDonell, he wrote "A Dog Took My Place", an exposé for Rolling Stone of the scandalous Roxanne Pulitzer divorce case and what he called the "Palm Beach lifestyle". The story included dubious insinuations of bestiality, but was widely considered to be a return by Thompson to his proper form. In 1985, Thompson accepted an advance to write about "couples pornography" for Playboy. As part of his research, he spent evenings at the Mitchell Brothers O'Farrell Theatre striptease club in San Francisco. The experience evolved into an as-yet-unpublished novel tentatively entitled The Night Manager.
Thompson next accepted a role as weekly media columnist and critic for The San Francisco Examiner. The position was arranged by former editor and fellow Examiner columnist Warren Hinckle. His editor at The Examiner, David McCumber described, "One week it would be acid-soaked gibberish with a charm of its own. The next week it would be incisive political analysis of the highest order."
Many of these columns were collected in Gonzo Papers, Vol. 2: Generation of Swine: Tales of Shame and Degradation in the '80s (1988) and Gonzo Papers, Vol. 3: Songs of the Doomed: More Notes on the Death of the American Dream (1990), a collection of autobiographical reminiscences, articles, and previously unpublished material.
Later years
Throughout the early 1990s, Thompson claimed to be at work on a novel entitled Polo Is My Life. It was briefly excerpted in Rolling Stone in 1994, and Thompson himself described it in 1996 as "a sex book — you know, sex, drugs, and rock and roll. It's about the manager of a sex theater who's forced to leave and flee to the mountains. He falls in love and gets in even more trouble than he was in the sex theater in San Francisco". The novel was slated to be released by Random House in 1999, and was even assigned , but was never published.
Thompson continued to publish irregularly in Rolling Stone, ultimately contributing 17 pieces to the magazine between 1984 and 2004. "Fear and Loathing in Elko," published in 1992, was a well-received fictional rallying cry against the nomination of Clarence Thomas to a seat on the Supreme Court of the United States. "Trapped in Mr. Bill's Neighborhood" was a largely factual account of an interview with Bill Clinton at a Little Rock, Arkansas, steakhouse. Rather than traveling the campaign trail as he had done in previous presidential elections, Thompson monitored the proceedings on cable television; Better Than Sex: Confessions of a Political Junkie, his account of the 1992 presidential campaign, is composed of reactive faxes to Rolling Stone. In 1994, the magazine published "He Was a Crook", a "scathing" obituary of Richard Nixon.
In November 2004, Rolling Stone published Thompson's final magazine feature "The Fun-Hogs in the Passing Lane: Fear and Loathing, Campaign 2004", a brief account of the 2004 presidential election in which he compared the outcome of the Bush v. Gore court case to the Reichstag fire and formally endorsed Senator John Kerry, a longtime friend, for president.
Fear and Loathing redux
In 1996, Modern Library reissued Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas along with "Strange Rumblings in Aztlan," "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved," and "Jacket Copy for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas." Two years later, the film Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas generated new interest in Thompson and his work, and a paperback edition was published as a tie-in. The same year, an early novel, The Rum Diary, was published. Two volumes of collected letters, edited by Douglas Brinkley, also appeared during this time. The first volume appeared in 1997 and covers the years 1955-67. The second volume appeared in 2000 and covers 1968 to 1976.
Thompson's next, and penultimate, collection, Kingdom of Fear: Loathsome Secrets of a Star-Crossed Child in the Final Days of the American Century, was widely publicized as Thompson's first memoir. Published in 2003, it combined new material (including reminiscences of the O'Farrell Theater), selected newspaper and digital clippings, and other older works.
Thompson finished his journalism career in the same way it had begun: Writing about sports. From 2000 until his death in 2005, he wrote a weekly column for ESPN.com's Page 2 entitled "Hey, Rube." In 2004, Simon & Schuster collected some of the columns from the first few years and released them in mid-2004 as Hey Rube: Blood Sport, the Bush Doctrine, and the Downward Spiral of Dumbness.
Thompson married assistant Anita Bejmuk on April 23, 2003.
Death
At 5:42 pm on February 20, 2005, Thompson died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head at Owl Farm, his "fortified compound" in Woody Creek, Colorado. His son Juan, daughter-in-law Jennifer, and grandson were visiting for the weekend. His wife Anita, who was at the Aspen Club, was on the phone with him as he cocked the gun. According to the Aspen Daily News, Thompson asked her to come home to help him write his ESPN column, then set the receiver on the counter. Anita said she mistook the cocking of the gun for the sound of his typewriter keys and hung up as he fired. Will and Jennifer were in the next room when they heard the gunshot, but mistook the sound for a book falling and did not check on Thompson immediately. Juan Thompson found his father's body. According to the police report and Anita's cell phone records, he called the sheriff's office half an hour later, then walked outside and fired three shotgun blasts into the air to "mark the passing of his father". The police report stated that in Thompson's typewriter was a piece of paper with the date "Feb. 22 '05" and a single word, "counselor".
Years of alcohol and cocaine abuse contributed to his problem with depression. Thompson's inner circle told the press that he had been depressed and always found February a "gloomy" month, with football season over and the harsh Colorado winter weather. He was also upset over his advancing age and chronic medical problems, including a hip replacement; he would frequently mutter "This kid is getting old." Rolling Stone published what Douglas Brinkley described as a suicide note written by Thompson to his wife, titled "Football Season Is Over". It read:
Thompson's collaborator and friend Ralph Steadman wrote:
Funeral
On August 20, 2005, in a private funeral, Thompson's ashes were fired from a cannon. This was accompanied by red, white, blue, and green fireworks—all to the tune of Norman Greenbaum's "Spirit in the Sky" and Bob Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man". The cannon was placed atop a tower which had the shape of a double-thumbed fist clutching a peyote button, a symbol originally used in his 1970 campaign for sheriff of Pitkin County, Colorado. The plans for the monument were initially drawn by Thompson and Steadman, and were shown as part of an Omnibus program on the BBC titled Fear and Loathing in Gonzovision (1978). It is included as a special feature on the second disc of the 2004 Criterion Collection DVD release of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and labeled as Fear and Loathing on the Road to Hollywood.
According to his widow, Anita, the $3 million funeral was funded by actor Johnny Depp, who was a close friend of Thompson's. Depp told the Associated Press, "All I'm doing is trying to make sure his last wish comes true. I just want to send my pal out the way he wants to go out." An estimated 280 people attended, including U.S. Senators John Kerry and George McGovern; 60 Minutes correspondents Ed Bradley and Charlie Rose; actors Jack Nicholson, John Cusack, Bill Murray, Benicio del Toro, Sean Penn, and Josh Hartnett; musicians Lyle Lovett, John Oates and David Amram, and artist and long-time friend Ralph Steadman.
Legacy
Writing style
Thompson is often credited as the creator of Gonzo journalism, a style of writing that blurs distinctions between fiction and nonfiction. His work and style are considered to be a major part of the New Journalism literary movement of the 1960s and 1970s, which attempted to break free from the purely objective style of mainstream reportage of the time. Thompson almost always wrote in the first person, while extensively using his own experiences and emotions to color "the story" he was trying to follow.
Despite him having personally described his work as "Gonzo", it fell to later observers to articulate what the term actually meant. While Thompson's approach clearly involved injecting himself as a participant in the events of the narrative, it also involved adding invented, metaphoric elements, thus creating, for the uninitiated reader, a seemingly confusing amalgam of facts and fiction notable for the deliberately blurred lines between one and the other. Thompson, in a 1974 interview in Playboy addressed the issue himself, saying, "Unlike Tom Wolfe or Gay Talese, I almost never try to reconstruct a story. They're both much better reporters than I am, but then, I don't think of myself as a reporter." Tom Wolfe would later describe Thompson's style as "... part journalism and part personal memoir admixed with powers of wild invention and wilder rhetoric." Or as one description of the differences between Thompson and Wolfe's styles would elaborate, "While Tom Wolfe mastered the technique of being a fly on the wall, Thompson mastered the art of being a fly in the ointment."
The majority of Thompson's most popular and acclaimed work appeared within the pages of Rolling Stone magazine. Along with Joe Eszterhas and David Felton, Thompson was instrumental in expanding the focus of the magazine past music criticism; indeed, Thompson was the only staff writer of the epoch never to contribute a music feature to the magazine. Nevertheless, his articles were always peppered with a wide array of pop music references ranging from Howlin' Wolf to Lou Reed. Armed with early fax machines wherever he went, he became notorious for haphazardly sending sometimes illegible material to the magazine's San Francisco offices as an issue was about to go to press.
Robert Love, Thompson's editor of 23 years at Rolling Stone, wrote, "the dividing line between fact and fancy rarely blurred, and we didn't always use italics or some other typographical device to indicate the lurch into the fabulous. But if there were living, identifiable humans in a scene, we took certain steps ... Hunter was a close friend of many prominent Democrats, veterans of the ten or more presidential campaigns he covered, so when in doubt, we'd call the press secretary. 'People will believe almost any twisted kind of story about politicians or Washington,' he once said, and he was right."
Discerning the line between the fact and the fiction of Thompson's work presented a practical problem for editors and fact-checkers of his work. Love called fact-checking Thompson's work "one of the sketchiest occupations ever created in the publishing world", and "for the first-timer ... a trip through a journalistic fun house, where you didn't know what was real and what wasn't. You knew you had better learn enough about the subject at hand to know when the riff began and reality ended. Hunter was a stickler for numbers, for details like gross weight and model numbers, for lyrics and caliber, and there was no faking it."
Persona
Thompson often used a blend of fiction and fact when portraying himself in his writing, too, sometimes using the name Raoul Duke as an author surrogate whom he generally described as a callous, erratic, self-destructive journalist who constantly drank alcohol and took hallucinogenic drugs. Fantasizing about causing bodily harm to others was also a characteristic in his work used to comedic effect and an example of his brand of humor.
In the late 1960s, Thompson acquired the title of "Doctor" from the Universal Life Church.
A number of critics have commented that as he grew older, the line that distinguished Thompson from his literary self became increasingly blurred. Thompson admitted during a 1978 BBC interview that he sometimes felt pressured to live up to the fictional self that he had created, adding, "I'm never sure which one people expect me to be. Very often, they conflict — most often, as a matter of fact. ... I'm leading a normal life and right alongside me there is this myth, and it is growing and mushrooming and getting more and more warped. When I get invited to, say, speak at universities, I'm not sure if they are inviting Duke or Thompson. I'm not sure who to be."
Thompson's writing style and eccentric persona gave him a cult following in both literary and drug circles, and his cult status expanded into broader areas after being portrayed three times in major motion pictures. Hence, both his writing style and persona have been widely imitated, and his likeness has even become a popular costume choice for Halloween.
Political beliefs
Thompson was a firearms and explosives enthusiast (in his writing and in life) and owned a vast collection of handguns, rifles, shotguns, and various automatic and semiautomatic weapons, along with numerous forms of gaseous crowd-control and many homemade devices. He was a proponent of the right to bear arms and privacy rights. A member of the National Rifle Association, Thompson was also co-creator of the Fourth Amendment Foundation, an organization to assist victims in defending themselves against unwarranted search and seizure.
Part of his work with the Fourth Amendment Foundation centered around support of Lisl Auman, a Colorado woman who was sentenced for life in 1997 under felony murder charges for the death of police officer Bruce VanderJagt, despite contradictory statements and dubious evidence. Thompson organized rallies, provided legal support, and co-wrote an article in the June 2004 issue of Vanity Fair outlining the case. The Colorado Supreme Court eventually overturned Auman's sentence in March 2005, shortly after Thompson's death, and Auman is now free. Auman's supporters claim Thompson's support and publicity resulted in the successful appeal.
Thompson was also an ardent supporter of drug legalization and became known for his detailed accounts of his own drug use. He was an early supporter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws and served on the group's advisory board for over 30 years, until his death. He told an interviewer in 1997 that drugs should be legalized "[a]cross the board. It might be a little rough on some people for a while, but I think it's the only way to deal with drugs. Look at Prohibition; all it did was make a lot of criminals rich."
In a 1965 letter to his friend Paul Semonin, Thompson explained an affection for the Industrial Workers of the World, "I have in recent months come to have a certain feeling for Joe Hill and the Wobbly crowd who, if nothing else, had the right idea. But not the right mechanics. I believe the IWW was probably the last human concept in American politics." In another letter to Semonin, Thompson wrote that he agreed with Karl Marx, and compared him to Thomas Jefferson. In a letter to William Kennedy, Thompson confided that he was "coming to view the free enterprise system as the single greatest evil in the history of human savagery." In the documentary Breakfast with Hunter, Hunter S. Thompson is seen in several scenes wearing different Che Guevara T-shirts. Additionally, actor and friend Benicio del Toro has stated that Thompson kept a "big" picture of Che in his kitchen. Thompson wrote on behalf of African-American rights and the civil rights movement. He strongly criticized the dominance in American society of what he called "white power structures".
After the September 11 attacks, Thompson voiced skepticism regarding the official story on who was responsible for the attacks. He speculated to several interviewers that it may have been conducted by the U.S. government or with the government's assistance, though readily admitting he had no way to prove his theory.
In 2004, Thompson wrote: "[Richard] Nixon was a professional politician, and I despised everything he stood for—but if he were running for president this year against the evil Bush–Cheney gang, I would happily vote for him."
Scholarships
Thompson's widow established two scholarship funds at Columbia University School of General Studies for U.S. military veterans and the University of Kentucky for journalism students.
Colorado NORML created the Hunter S. Thompson Scholarship to pay all expenses for a lawyer or law student to attend the NORML Legal Committee Conference in Aspen, generally the first few days of June each year. The funding from a silent auction has paid for two winners for some years. Many winners have gone on to become important cannabis lawyers on state and national levels.
Works
Books
Thompson wrote a number of books, publishing from 1966 to the end of his life. His best-known works include Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, The Rum Diary, The Curse of Lono, and Screwjack.
Articles
As a journalist over the course of decades, Thompson published numerous articles in various periodicals. He wrote for many publications, including Rolling Stone, Esquire, The Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, The New York Times, The San Francisco Examiner, Time, Vanity Fair, The San Juan Star, and Playboy. He was also guest editor for a single edition of The Aspen Daily News. A collection of 100 of his columns from The San Francisco Examiner was published in 1988 as Gonzo Papers, Vol. 2: Generation of Swine: Tales of Shame and Degradation in the '80s. A collection of his articles for Rolling Stone was released in 2011 as Fear and Loathing at Rolling Stone: The Essential Writings of Hunter S. Thompson. The book was edited by the magazine's co-founder and publisher, Jann S. Wenner, who also provided an introduction to the collection.
Letters
Thompson wrote many letters, which were his primary means of personal communication. He made carbon copies of all his letters, usually typed, a habit begun in his teenaged years.
The Fear and Loathing Letters is a three-volume collection of selections from Thompson's correspondence, edited by historian Douglas Brinkley. The first volume, The Proud Highway, was published in 1997, and contains letters from 1955 to 1967. Fear and Loathing in America was published in 2000 and contains letters dating from 1968 to 1976. A third volume, titled The Mutineer: Rants, Ravings, and Missives from the Mountaintop 1977–2005, was edited by Douglas Brinkley and prepared by Simon & Schuster in 2005. As of March 2019, it has yet to be sold to the public. It contains a special introduction by Johnny Depp.
Illustrations
Accompanying the eccentric and colorful writing of Hunter Thompson, illustrations by British artist Ralph Steadman offer visual representations of the Gonzo style. Steadman and Thompson developed a professional relationship. The two collaborated many times over Thompson's career, although at times they were known to violently argue. Wayne Ewing's documentary on Hunter captured an encounter where Steadman tells Hunter that he believes his drawings contributed as much to the success of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas as Hunter's writing. Hunter was furious at the suggestion and their relationship was certainly at times, strained. Steadman in recent years has described Hunter as "rude" and "a bully." So while they are publicly known as great friends, the true nature of their relationship was considerably more nuanced.
Photography
Thompson was an avid amateur photographer throughout his life, and his photos have been exhibited since his death at art galleries in the United States and United Kingdom. In late 2006, AMMO Books published a limited-edition, 224-page collection of Thompson photos called Gonzo: Photographs by Hunter S. Thompson, with an introduction by Johnny Depp. Thompson's snapshots were a combination of the subjects he was covering, stylized self-portraits, and artistic still life photos. The London Observer called the photos "astonishingly good" and noted that "Thompson's pictures remind us, brilliantly in every sense, of very real people, real colours."
Feature films
The film Where the Buffalo Roam (1980) depicts heavily fictionalized attempts by Thompson to cover the Super Bowl and the 1972 U.S. presidential election. It stars Bill Murray as Thompson and Peter Boyle as Thompson's attorney Oscar Zeta Acosta, referred to in the movie as Carl Lazlo, Esq.
The 1998 film adaptation of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was directed by Monty Python veteran Terry Gilliam and starred Johnny Depp (who moved into Thompson's basement to "study" Thompson's persona before assuming his role in the film) as Raoul Duke and Benicio del Toro as Oscar Zeta Acosta. The film has achieved something of a cult following.
In the 2001 film Ali, Thompson is briefly portrayed by actor Lee Cummings.
The film adaptation of Thompson's novel The Rum Diary was released in October 2011, also starring Johnny Depp as the main character, Paul Kemp. The novel's premise was inspired by Thompson's own experiences in Puerto Rico. The film was written and directed by Bruce Robinson.
At a press junket for The Rum Diary shortly before the film's release, Depp said that he would like to adapt The Curse of Lono, "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved", and Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs for the big screen: "I'd just keep playing Hunter. There's a great comfort in it for me, because I get a great visit with my old friend who I miss dearly."
Documentaries
Fear and Loathing in Gonzovision (1978) is an extended television profile by the BBC. It can be found on disc 2 of The Criterion Collection edition of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
The Mitchell brothers, owners of the O'Farrell Theatre in San Francisco, made a documentary about Thompson in 1988 called Hunter S. Thompson: The Crazy Never Die.
Wayne Ewing created three documentaries about Thompson. The film Breakfast with Hunter (2003) was directed and edited by Ewing. It documents Thompson's work on the movie Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, his arrest for drunk driving, and his subsequent fight with the court system. When I Die (2005) is a video chronicle of making Thompson's final farewell wishes a reality, and documents the send-off itself. Free Lisl: Fear and Loathing in Denver (2006) chronicles Thompson's efforts in helping to free Lisl Auman, who was sentenced to life in prison without parole for the shooting of a police officer, a crime she did not commit. All three films are only available online.
In Come on Down: Searching for the American Dream (2004) Thompson gives director Adamm Liley insight into the nature of the American Dream over drinks at the Woody Creek Tavern.
Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride: Hunter S. Thompson on Film (2006) was directed by Tom Thurman, written by Tom Marksbury, and produced by the Starz Entertainment Group. The original documentary features interviews with Thompson's inner circle of family and friends, but the thrust of the film focuses on the manner in which his life often overlapped with numerous Hollywood celebrities who became his close friends, such as Johnny Depp, Benicio del Toro, Bill Murray, Sean Penn, John Cusack, Thompson's wife Anita, son Juan, former Senators George McGovern and Gary Hart, writers Tom Wolfe and William F. Buckley, actors Gary Busey and Harry Dean Stanton, and the illustrator Ralph Steadman among others.
Blasted!!! The Gonzo Patriots of Hunter S. Thompson (2006), produced, directed, photographed, and edited by Blue Kraning, is a documentary about the scores of fans who volunteered their privately owned artillery to fire the ashes of the late author, Hunter S. Thompson. Blasted!!! premiered at the 2006 Starz Denver International Film Festival, part of a tribute series to Hunter S. Thompson held at the Denver Press Club.
In 2008, Academy Award-winning documentarian Alex Gibney (Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, Taxi to the Dark Side) wrote and directed a documentary on Thompson, titled Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson. The film premiered on January 20, 2008, at the Sundance Film Festival. Gibney uses intimate, never-before-seen home videos, interviews with friends, enemies, lovers, and clips from films adapted from Thompson's material to document his turbulent life.
Theater
Lou Stein's adaptation of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was performed at the Battersea Theatre. Stein persuades London's Time Out magazine to put Thompson up for a fortnight, in exchange for him writing a cover story to publicize the play. Thompson does not write the story, but does rampage around London on Time Out 's expense account. The play was revived for the Vault Fringe Festival in 2014.
GONZO: A Brutal Chrysalis is a one-man show about Thompson written by Paul Addis, who also played the author. Set in the writing den of Thompson's Woody Creek home, the show portrays his life between 1968 and 1971. James Cartee began playing the role soon after Addis's arrest in 2009, and again after Addis's death in 2012.
Awards, accolades, and tributes
Thompson was named a Kentucky Colonel by the governor of Kentucky in a December 1996 tribute ceremony where he also received keys to the city of Louisville.
Author Tom Wolfe has called Thompson the greatest American comic writer of the 20th century.
Asked in an interview with Jody Denberg on KGSR Studio, in 2000, whether he would ever consider writing a book "like [his] buddy Hunter S. Thompson", the musician Warren Zevon responded: "Let's remember that Hunter S. Thompson is the finest writer of our generation; he didn't just toss off a book the other day..."
Thompson appeared on the cover of the 1,000th issue of Rolling Stone, May 18 – June 1, 2006, as a devil playing the guitar next to the two "L"'s in the word "Rolling". Johnny Depp also appeared on the cover.
The Thompson-inspired character Uncle Duke appears on a recurring basis in Doonesbury, the daily newspaper comic strip by Garry Trudeau. When the character was first introduced, Thompson protested, quoted in an interview as saying that he would set Trudeau on fire if the two ever met, although reportedly he liked the character in later years. Between March 7, 2005 (roughly two weeks after Thompson's suicide), and March 12, 2005, Doonesbury ran a tribute to Hunter, with Uncle Duke lamenting the death of the man he called his "inspiration". The first of these strips featured a panel with artwork similar to that of Ralph Steadman, and later strips featured various non sequiturs (with Duke variously transforming into a monster, melting, shrinking to the size of an empty drinking glass, or people around him turning into animals), which seemed to mirror some of the effects of hallucinogenic drugs described in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
Many have suggested that General Hunter Gathers in the Adult Swim animated series The Venture Bros. is a tribute to Thompson, as they have a similar name, mannerisms, and physical appearance.
Dale Gribble in the Fox animated series King of the Hill is a tribute to Thompson and derives his physical appearance from him.
In the Cameron Crowe film Almost Famous, based on Crowe's experiences writing for Rolling Stone while on the road with the fictional band Stillwater", the writer is on the phone with an actor portraying Jann Wenner. Wenner tells the young journalist that he "is not there to join the party, we already have one Hunter Thompson" after the young writer amassed large hotel and traveling expenses and is overheard to be sharing his room with several young women.
Eric C. Shoaf donated a caché of approximately 800 items (in librarian terms, about 35-40 linear feet of material on a shelf) pertaining to the life and career of Thompson to the University of California at Santa Cruz. Shoaf also published a descriptive bibliography, Gonzology: A Hunter Thompson Bibliography, of the works of Hunter S. Thompson with over 1,000 entries, many never before documented appearances in print, hundreds of biographical entries about Thompson's life, full descriptions of all his primary works, preface by William McKeen, Phd, and photo section with rare and exclusive items depicted.
References
External links
"Hunter S. Thompson's ESPN Page 2 Archive", Totallygonzo.org
"Shotgun Golf With Bill Murray", Thompson's final column for ESPN.com's Page 2.
A collection of articles on Thompson from The Guardian
Thompson's photography
1937 births
2005 suicides
20th-century American journalists
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American novelists
20th-century essayists
21st-century American journalists
21st-century American male writers
21st-century American novelists
9/11 conspiracy theorists
American activist journalists
American columnists
American conspiracy theorists
American essayists
American male essayists
American male journalists
American male novelists
American Marxists
American people of Scottish descent
American political writers
American tax resisters
Atherton High School alumni
Columbia University School of General Studies alumni
Drug policy reform activists
Florida State University alumni
Journalists from Colorado
Journalists from Kentucky
Louisville Male High School alumni
Military personnel from Louisville, Kentucky
Motorcycling writers
Novelists from Colorado
Novelists from Kentucky
People from Glen Ellen, California
Psychedelic drug advocates
Sportswriters from California
Suicides by firearm in Colorado
United States Air Force airmen
Writers from Louisville, Kentucky
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[
"A law book is a book about law.\n\nIt is possible to make a distinction between \"law books\" on the one hand, and \"books about law\" on the other. This distinction is \"useful\". A law book is \"a work of legal doctrine\". It consists of \"law talk\", that is to say, propositions of law.\n\"The first duty of a law book is to state the law as it is, truly and accurately, and then the reason or principle for it as far as it is known\". The \"first requisite in a law-book is perfect accuracy\". A \"law book is supposed to state what the law is rather than what it is not\". \"One great desideratum in a law book is facility of reference\".\n\nA \"list of law books and related materials\" is a legal bibliography.\n\nSee also\n Legal treatise\n Law dictionary\n\nReferences\n\nFurther reading\n\n Lawrence M Friedman and Stewart Macaulay (editors). Law and the Behavioural Sciences. Second Edition. Bobbs-Merill. 1977. Pages 21 to 26.\n Twining, William. Blackstone's Tower: The English Law School. The Hamlyn Lectures Forty-Sixth Series. Published under the auspices of the Hamlyn Trust. Sweet & Maxwell. Stevens & Sons. London. 1994. . Chapters 1 and 5. Digitized copy from the University of Exeter.\n\nLaw books",
"What Liberal Media?: The Truth About Bias and the News is a book by columnist Eric Alterman that challenges the widespread conservative belief in a liberal media bias. Alterman argues that the media, as a whole, is not biased liberally, but conservatively.\n\nCritical response\nThe Los Angeles Times called the book, \"A well-documented, even-tempered and witty answer, I might say antidote, to such toxic recent bestsellers as Bernard Goldberg's 'Bias.'\"\n\nTed Widmer of the New York Times Book Review said \"'What Liberal Media' is bold, counterintuitive and cathartic\".\n\nThe New Yorker said of the book, \"A polemic is nothing without passion, and Alterman's argumentative vigor is engaging [and]... the meticulous care with which his arguments are sourced and footnoted is in commendable contrast to the efforts of some of his more fire-breathing opponents.\"\n\nSee also\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nThe book section on the author's website\n\n2003 non-fiction books\nBooks about media bias"
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[
"Hunter S. Thompson",
"Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas",
"What is Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas?",
"The result of the trip to Las Vegas became the 1972 book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,",
"Did it do well?",
"the book was greeted with considerable critical acclaim, including being heralded by The New York Times as \"by far the best book yet",
"Did he write it in Vegas?",
"I don't know.",
"who published the book?",
"the 1972 book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, which first appeared in the November 1971 issues of Rolling Stone as a two-part series.",
"Did anyone reject it?",
"Thompson first submitted to Sports Illustrated a manuscript of 2,500 words, which was, as he later wrote, \"aggressively rejected.",
"what is the book about?",
"It is written as a first-person account by a journalist named Raoul Duke on a trip to Las Vegas with Dr. Gonzo, his \"300-pound Samoan attorney\","
] |
C_f9d8069ce5c14c45a92486e19a607c8b_0
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Why do they go to Vegas?
| 7 |
Why did Raoul Duke and Dr. Gonzo go to Vegas?
|
Hunter S. Thompson
|
The book for which Thompson gained most of his fame had its genesis during the research for Strange Rumblings in Aztlan, an expose for Rolling Stone on the 1970 killing of the Mexican-American television journalist Ruben Salazar. Salazar had been shot in the head at close range with a tear gas canister fired by officers of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department during the National Chicano Moratorium March against the Vietnam War. One of Thompson's sources for the story was Oscar Zeta Acosta, a prominent Mexican-American activist and attorney. Finding it difficult to talk in the racially tense atmosphere of Los Angeles, Thompson and Acosta decided to travel to Las Vegas, and take advantage of an assignment by Sports Illustrated to write a 250-word photograph caption on the Mint 400 motorcycle race held there. What was to be a short caption quickly grew into something else entirely. Thompson first submitted to Sports Illustrated a manuscript of 2,500 words, which was, as he later wrote, "aggressively rejected." Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner was said to have liked "the first 20 or so jangled pages enough to take it seriously on its own terms and tentatively scheduled it for publication -- which gave me the push I needed to keep working on it", Thompson later wrote. The result of the trip to Las Vegas became the 1972 book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, which first appeared in the November 1971 issues of Rolling Stone as a two-part series. It is written as a first-person account by a journalist named Raoul Duke on a trip to Las Vegas with Dr. Gonzo, his "300-pound Samoan attorney", to cover a narcotics officers' convention and the "fabulous Mint 400". During the trip, Duke and his companion (always referred to as "my attorney") become sidetracked by a search for the American Dream, with "two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers ... and also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether, and two dozen amyls." Coming to terms with the failure of the 1960s countercultural movement is a major theme of the novel, and the book was greeted with considerable critical acclaim, including being heralded by The New York Times as "by far the best book yet written on the decade of dope". "The Vegas Book", as Thompson referred to it, was a mainstream success and introduced his Gonzo journalism techniques to a wide public. CANNOTANSWER
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CANNOTANSWER
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Hunter Stockton Thompson (July 18, 1937 – February 20, 2005) was an American journalist and author who founded the gonzo journalism movement. He rose to prominence with the publication of Hell's Angels (1967), a book for which he spent a year living and riding with the Hells Angels motorcycle gang to write a first-hand account of their lives and experiences.
In 1970, he wrote an unconventional magazine feature titled "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved" for Scanlan's Monthly, which raised his profile and established his counterculture credibility. It also set him on the path to establishing his own subgenre of New Journalism that he called "Gonzo", which was essentially an ongoing experiment in which the writer becomes a central figure and participant in the events of the narrative.
Thompson remains best known for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1971), a book first serialized in Rolling Stone in which he grapples with the implications of what he considered the failure of the 1960s counterculture movement. It was adapted for film twice: loosely in Where the Buffalo Roam starring Bill Murray as Thompson in 1980, and explicitly in 1998 by director Terry Gilliam in the eponymous film starring Johnny Depp and Benicio del Toro.
Thompson ran unsuccessfully for sheriff of Pitkin County, Colorado in 1970 on the Freak Power ticket. His campaign was chronicled in the documentary film Freak Power: The Ballot or the Bomb. He became known for his dislike of Richard Nixon, who he claimed represented "that dark, venal, and incurably violent side of the American character". He covered Nixon's 1972 reelection campaign for Rolling Stone and later collected the stories in book form as Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72.
Thompson's output declined from the mid-1970s, as he struggled with the consequences of fame, and complained that he could no longer merely report on events, as he was too easily recognized. After several high-profile stories were quashed by the upper management of Rolling Stone, he found it increasingly difficult to get his work into mainstream outlets. He did continue to write for alternative newspapers, and had a gig as a critic for the mainstream San Francisco Examiner for much of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Most of his work from 1979 to 1994 was collected in The Gonzo Papers. He continued to write for various journalism outlets in a variety of formats, including sporadic stories published in Rolling Stone and a weekly column that appeared on ESPN.com's Page 2 titled "Hey, Rube" that he started in 2000.
He was known for his lifelong use of alcohol and illegal narcotics, his love of firearms, and his iconoclastic contempt for authority. He often remarked: "I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me." Thompson died by suicide at the age of 67, following a series of health problems. In accordance with his wishes, his ashes were fired out of a cannon in a ceremony funded by his friend Johnny Depp and attended by friends including then-Senator John Kerry and Jack Nicholson. Hari Kunzru wrote, "the true voice of Thompson is revealed to be that of American moralist ... one who often makes himself ugly to expose the ugliness he sees around him."
Early life
Thompson was born into a middle-class family in Louisville, Kentucky, the first of three sons of Virginia Davison Ray (1908, Springfield, Kentucky – March 20, 1998, Louisville), who worked as head librarian at the Louisville Free Public Library and Jack Robert Thompson (September 4, 1893, Horse Cave, Kentucky – July 3, 1952, Louisville), a public insurance adjuster and World War I veteran. His parents were introduced by a friend from Jack's fraternity at the University of Kentucky in September 1934, and married on November 2, 1935. The Guardian journalist Nicholas Lezard, stated that Thompson's first name, Hunter, came from an ancestor on his mother's side, the Scottish surgeon John Hunter. A more direct attribution is that Thompson's first and middle name, Hunter Stockton, came from his maternal grandparents, Prestly Stockton Ray and Lucille Hunter.
In December 1943 when Thompson was six years old, the family settled in the affluent Cherokee Triangle neighborhood of The Highlands. On July 3, 1952, when Thompson was 14, his father died of myasthenia gravis at age 58. Hunter and his brothers were raised by their mother. Virginia worked as a librarian to support her children, and was described as a "heavy drinker" following her husband's death.
Education
Interested in sports and athletically inclined from a young age, Thompson co-founded the Hawks Athletic Club while attending I.N. Bloom Elementary School, which led to an invitation to join Louisville's Castlewood Athletic Club for adolescents that prepared them for high-school sports. Ultimately, he never joined a sports team in high school.
Thompson attended I.N. Bloom Elementary School, Highland Middle School, and Atherton High School, before transferring to Louisville Male High School in fall 1952. Also in 1952, he was accepted as a member of the Athenaeum Literary Association, a school-sponsored literary and social club that dated to 1862. Its members at the time came from Louisville's upper-class families, and included Porter Bibb, who became the first publisher of Rolling Stone at Thompson's behest. During this time, Thompson read and admired J. P. Donleavy's The Ginger Man.
As an Athenaeum member, Thompson contributed articles to and helped produce the club's yearbook The Spectator. The group ejected Thompson in 1955 for criminal activity. Charged as an accessory to robbery after being in a car with the perpetrator, Thompson was sentenced to 60 days in Kentucky's Jefferson County Jail. He served 31 days and, a week after his release, enlisted in the United States Air Force. While he was in jail, the school superintendent refused permission to take his high-school final examinations so he was unable to graduate.
Military service
Thompson completed basic training at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, and transferred to Scott Air Force Base in Belleville, Illinois, to study electronics. He applied to become an aviator, but the Air Force's aviation-cadet program rejected his application. In 1956, he transferred to Eglin Air Force Base near Fort Walton Beach, Florida. While serving at Eglin, he took evening classes at Florida State University. At Eglin, he landed his first professional writing job as sports editor of The Command Courier by falsifying his job experience. As sports editor, Thompson traveled around the United States with the Eglin Eagles football team, covering its games. In early 1957, he wrote a sports column for The Playground News, a local newspaper in Fort Walton Beach, Florida. His name did not appear on the column because Air Force regulations forbade outside employment.
In 1958, as an airman first class, his commanding officer recommended him for an early honorable discharge. "In summary, this airman, although talented, will not be guided by policy," chief of information services Colonel William S. Evans wrote to the Eglin personnel office. "Sometimes his rebel and superior attitude seems to rub off on other airmen staff members."
Early journalism career
After leaving the Air Force, Thompson worked as sports editor for a newspaper in Jersey Shore, Pennsylvania, before relocating to New York City. There he audited several courses at the Columbia University School of General Studies. During this time he worked briefly for Time as a copy boy for $51 a week. At work, he typed out parts of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms in order to learn the authors' rhythms and writing styles. In 1959 Time fired him for insubordination. Later that year, he worked as a reporter for The Middletown Daily Record in Middletown, New York. He was fired from this job after damaging an office candy machine and arguing with the owner of a local restaurant who happened to be an advertiser with the paper.
In 1960, Thompson moved to San Juan, Puerto Rico, to take a job with the sporting magazine El Sportivo, which ceased operations soon after his arrival. Thompson applied for a job with the Puerto Rican English-language daily The San Juan Star, but its managing editor, future novelist William J. Kennedy, turned him down. Nonetheless, the two became friends. After the demise of El Sportivo, Thompson worked as a stringer for the New York Herald Tribune and a few other stateside papers on Caribbean issues, with Kennedy working as his editor.
After returning to the United States, Thompson visited San Francisco and eventually lived in Big Sur, where he worked as a security guard and caretaker at Slates Hot Springs for an eight-month period in 1961, just before it became the Esalen Institute. At the time, Big Sur was a Beat outpost and home of Henry Miller and Dennis Murphy (screenwriter), both of whom Thompson admired. While there, he published his first magazine feature in Rogue about the artisan and bohemian culture of Big Sur. During this period, Thompson wrote two novels, Prince Jellyfish and The Rum Diary, and submitted many short stories to publishers – with little success. The Rum Diary, based on Thompson's experiences in Puerto Rico, was not published until .
In May 1962, Thompson traveled to South America for a year as a correspondent for the Dow Jones-owned weekly paper, the National Observer. In Brazil, he spent several months as a reporter for the Brazil Herald, the country's only English-language daily, published in Rio de Janeiro. His longtime girlfriend Sandra Dawn Conklin (or Sandy Conklin Thompson, subsequently Sondi Wright) later joined him in Rio. They married on May 19, 1963, shortly after returning to the United States, and lived briefly in Aspen, Colorado. Sandy was eight months pregnant when they relocated to Glen Ellen, California. Their son, Juan Fitzgerald Thompson, was born on March 23, 1964.
Thompson continued to write for the National Observer on an array of domestic subjects. One story told of his 1964 visit to Ketchum, Idaho, to investigate the reasons for Ernest Hemingway's suicide. While there, he stole a pair of elk antlers hanging above the front door of Hemingway's cabin. Later that year, Thompson moved to San Francisco, where he attended the 1964 GOP Convention at the Cow Palace. Thompson severed his ties with the Observer after his editor refused to print his review of Tom Wolfe's 1965 essay-collection The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby,. He later immersed himself in the drug and hippie culture taking root in the area, and soon began writing for the Berkeley underground paper Spider.
Hell's Angels
In 1965 Carey McWilliams, editor of The Nation, hired Thompson to write a story about the Hells Angels motorcycle club in California. At the time Thompson was living in a house near San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, where the Hells Angels lived across from the Grateful Dead. His article appeared on May 17, 1965, after which he received several book offers and spent the next year living and riding with the club. The relationship broke down when the bikers perceived that Thompson was exploiting them for personal gain and demanded a share of his profits. An argument at a party resulted in Thompson suffering a savage beating (or "stomping", as the Angels referred to it). Random House published the hard-cover Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs in 1966, and the fight between Thompson and the Angels was well-marketed. CBC Television even broadcast an encounter between Thompson and Hells Angel Skip Workman before a live studio audience.
A New York Times review praised the work as an "angry, knowledgeable, fascinating, and excitedly written book", that shows the Hells Angels "not so much as dropouts from society but as total misfits, or unfits—emotionally, intellectually and educationally unfit to achieve the rewards, such as they are, that the contemporary social order offers". The reviewer also praised Thompson as a "spirited, witty, observant, and original writer; his prose crackles like motorcycle exhaust".
Following the book's publication, Thompson appeared as himself on the February 20, 1967, episode of the game show To Tell The Truth, receiving all four votes by the panel members.
Late 1960s
Following the success of Hell's Angels, Thompson successfully sold articles to several national magazines, including The New York Times Magazine, Esquire, Pageant, and Harper's.
In 1967, shortly before the Summer of Love, Thompson wrote "The 'Hashbury' is the Capital of the Hippies" for The New York Times Magazine. He criticized San Francisco's hippies as devoid of both the political convictions of the New Left and the artistic core of the Beats, resulting in a culture overrun with young people who spent their time in the pursuit of drugs. "The thrust is no longer for 'change' or 'progress' or 'revolution', but merely to escape, to live on the far perimeter of a world that might have been – perhaps should have been – and strike a bargain for survival on purely personal terms," he wrote.
By late 1967, Thompson and his family moved back to Colorado and rented a house in Woody Creek, a small mountain hamlet outside Aspen. In early 1969, Thompson received a $15,000 royalty check for the paperback sales of Hell's Angels and used two-thirds of the money for a down payment on a modest home and property where he would live for the rest of his life. He named the house Owl Farm and often described it as his "fortified compound".
In early 1968, Thompson signed the "Writers and Editors War Tax Protest" pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War. According to Thompson's letters and his later writings, at this time, he planned to write a book called The Joint Chiefs about "the death of the American Dream." He used a $6,000 advance from Random House to travel the 1968 Presidential campaign trail and attend the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago for research. From his hotel room in Chicago, Thompson watched the clashes between police and protesters, which he wrote had a great effect on his political views. The book was never finished, and the theme of the death of the American dream was carried over into his later work. The contract with Random House was eventually fulfilled with the 1972 book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. He also signed a deal with Ballantine Books in 1968 to write a satirical book called The Johnson File about Lyndon B. Johnson. A few weeks after the contract was signed, however, Johnson announced that he would not seek re-election, and the deal was cancelled.
Middle years
Aspen sheriff campaign
In 1970, Thompson ran for sheriff of Pitkin County, Colorado, as part of a group of citizens running for local offices on the "Freak Power" ticket. The platform included promoting the decriminalization of drugs (for personal use only, not trafficking, as he disapproved of profiteering), tearing up the streets and turning them into grassy pedestrian malls, banning any building so tall as to obscure the view of the mountains, disarming all police forces, and renaming Aspen "Fat City" to deter investors. Thompson, having shaved his head, referred to the crew cut-wearing Republican candidate as "my long-haired opponent".
With polls showing him with a slight lead in a three-way race, Thompson appeared at Rolling Stone magazine headquarters in San Francisco with a six-pack of beer in hand, and declared to editor Jann Wenner that he was about to be elected sheriff of Aspen, Colorado, and wished to write about the "Freak Power" movement. Thus, Thompson's first article in Rolling Stone was published as "The Battle of Aspen" with the byline "By: Dr. Hunter S. Thompson (Candidate for Sheriff)". Despite the publicity, Thompson narrowly lost the election. While carrying the city of Aspen, he garnered only 44% of the county-wide vote in what had become a two-way race. The Republican candidate agreed to withdraw a few days before the election to consolidate the anti-Thompson votes, in return for the Democrats withdrawing their candidate for county commissioner. Thompson later remarked that the Rolling Stone article mobilized his opposition far more than his supporters.
A documentary film about Hunter S. Thompson's campaign for sheriff called Freak Power: The Ballot or the Bomb was released on October 23, 2020.
Birth of Gonzo
Also in 1970, Thompson wrote an article entitled "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved" for the short-lived new journalism magazine Scanlan's Monthly. For that article, editor Warren Hinckle paired Thompson with illustrator Ralph Steadman, who drew expressionist illustrations with lipstick and eyeliner. Thompson's article virtually ignored the race, focusing instead on the drunken revelry surrounding the annual event in his hometown. The first-person narrator also sets that debauchery against a political backdrop, which included the bombing of Cambodia and the deaths of four students at Kent State University, which occurred two days after the Kentucky Derby.
Thompson and Steadman collaborated regularly after that. Although it was not widely read, the article was the first to use the techniques of Gonzo journalism, a style Thompson later employed in almost every literary endeavor. The manic first-person subjectivity of the story was reportedly the result of sheer desperation; he was facing a looming deadline and started sending the magazine pages ripped out of his notebook.
The first use of the word "Gonzo" to describe Thompson's work is credited to the journalist Bill Cardoso, who first met Thompson on a bus full of journalists covering the 1968 New Hampshire primary. In 1970, Cardoso (who was then the editor of The Boston Globe Sunday Magazine) wrote to Thompson praising the "Kentucky Derby" piece as a breakthrough: "This is it, this is pure Gonzo. If this is a start, keep rolling." According to Steadman, Thompson took to the word right away and said, "Okay, that's what I do. Gonzo." Thompson's first published use of the word appears in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: "Free Enterprise. The American Dream. Horatio Alger gone mad on drugs in Las Vegas. Do it now: pure Gonzo journalism."
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
The book for which Thompson gained most of his fame had its genesis during the research for "Strange Rumblings in Aztlan", an exposé for Rolling Stone on the 1970 killing of the Mexican-American television journalist Rubén Salazar. Salazar had been shot in the head at close range with a tear-gas canister fired by officers of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department during the National Chicano Moratorium March against the Vietnam War. One of Thompson's sources for the story was Oscar Zeta Acosta, a prominent Mexican-American activist and attorney. Finding it difficult to talk in the racially tense atmosphere of Los Angeles, Thompson and Acosta decided to travel to Las Vegas, and take advantage of an assignment by Sports Illustrated to write a 250-word photograph caption on the Mint 400 motorcycle race held there.
What was to be a short caption quickly grew into something else entirely. Thompson first submitted to Sports Illustrated a manuscript of 2,500 words, which was, as he later wrote, "aggressively rejected." Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner was said to have liked "the first 20 or so jangled pages enough to take it seriously on its own terms and tentatively scheduled it for publication — which gave me the push I needed to keep working on it", Thompson later wrote. To develop the story, Thompson and Acosta returned to Las Vegas to attend a drug enforcement conference.
The two trips became the basis for "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," which appeared as a two-part Rolling Stone story in November 1971. Random House published the book version the following year. It is written as a first-person account by a journalist named Raoul Duke with Dr. Gonzo, his "300-pound Samoan attorney." During the trip, Duke and his companion (always referred to as "my attorney") become sidetracked by a search for the American Dream, with "two bags of grass, 75 pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multicolored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers ... and also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether, and two dozen amyls."
Coming to terms with the failure of the 1960s countercultural movement is a major theme of the novel, and the book was greeted with considerable critical acclaim, including being heralded by The New York Times as "by far the best book yet written on the decade of dope". "The Vegas Book", as Thompson referred to it, was a mainstream success and introduced his Gonzo journalism techniques to a wide public.
Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72
Beginning in late 1971, Thompson wrote extensively for Rolling Stone on the election campaigns of President Richard Nixon and his unsuccessful opponent, Senator George McGovern. The articles were soon combined and published as Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72. As the title suggests, Thompson spent nearly all of his time traveling the "campaign trail", focusing largely on the Democratic Party's primaries. Nixon, as the Republican incumbent, performed little campaign work, while McGovern competed with rival candidates Edmund Muskie and Hubert Humphrey. Thompson was an early supporter of McGovern and wrote unflattering coverage of the rival campaigns in the increasingly widely read Rolling Stone.
Thompson went on to become a fierce critic of Nixon, both during and after his presidency. After Nixon's death in 1994, Thompson described him in Rolling Stone as a man who "could shake your hand and stab you in the back at the same time", and said "his casket [should] have been launched into one of those open-sewage canals that empty into the ocean just south of Los Angeles. He was a swine of a man and a jabbering dupe of a president. [He] was an evil man—evil in a way that only those who believe in the physical reality of the Devil can understand it." Following Nixon's pardon by Gerald Ford in 1974, Hunter ruminated on the roughly $400,000 pension Nixon maneuvered his way into, by resigning before being formally indicted. While The Washington Post was lamenting Nixon's "lonely and depressed" state after being forced from the White House, Hunter wrote that '[i]f there were any such thing as true justice in this world, his [Nixon's] rancid carcass would be somewhere down around Easter Island right now, in the belly of a hammerhead shark.' There was however one passion shared by Thompson and Nixon: a love of football, discussed in Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72.
Fame and its consequences
Thompson's journalistic work began to seriously suffer after his trip to Africa to cover the Rumble in the Jungle—the world heavyweight boxing match between George Foreman and Muhammad Ali—in 1974. He missed the match while intoxicated at his hotel, and did not submit a story to the magazine. As Wenner put it to the film critic Roger Ebert in the 2008 documentary Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, "After Africa, he just couldn't write. He couldn't piece it together".
Plans for Thompson to cover the 1976 presidential campaign for Rolling Stone and later publish a book fell through after Wenner canceled the project without informing Thompson. Wenner then assigned Thompson to travel to Vietnam to cover what appeared to be the end of the Vietnam War. Thompson arrived in Saigon just as South Vietnam was collapsing and as other journalists were leaving the country. Wenner allegedly cancelled Thompson's life insurance, which strained Thompson's relationship with Rolling Stone. He soon fled the country and refused to file his report until the ten-year anniversary of the Fall of Saigon.
From the late 1970s on, most of Thompson's literary output appeared as a four-volume series of books entitled The Gonzo Papers. Beginning with The Great Shark Hunt in 1979 and ending with Better Than Sex in 1994, the series is largely a collection of rare newspaper and magazine pieces from the pre-gonzo period, along with almost all of his Rolling Stone pieces.
Starting around 1980, Thompson became less active by his standards. Aside from paid appearances, he largely retreated to his compound in Woody Creek, rejecting projects and assignments or failing to complete them. Despite a lack of new material, Wenner kept Thompson on the Rolling Stone masthead as chief of the "National Affairs Desk", a position he held until his death.
In 1980, Thompson divorced wife Sandra Conklin. The same year marked the release of Where the Buffalo Roam, a loose film adaptation based on Thompson's early 1970s work, starring Bill Murray as the writer. Murray eventually became one of Thompson's trusted friends. Later that year, Thompson relocated to Hawaii to research and write The Curse of Lono, a Gonzo-style account of the 1980 Honolulu Marathon. Extensively illustrated by Ralph Steadman, the piece first appeared in Running in 1981 as "The Charge of the Weird Brigade" and was later excerpted in Playboy in 1983.
In 1983, he covered the U.S. invasion of Grenada, but did not write or discuss the experiences until the publication of Kingdom of Fear in 2003. Later that year, at the behest of Terry McDonell, he wrote "A Dog Took My Place", an exposé for Rolling Stone of the scandalous Roxanne Pulitzer divorce case and what he called the "Palm Beach lifestyle". The story included dubious insinuations of bestiality, but was widely considered to be a return by Thompson to his proper form. In 1985, Thompson accepted an advance to write about "couples pornography" for Playboy. As part of his research, he spent evenings at the Mitchell Brothers O'Farrell Theatre striptease club in San Francisco. The experience evolved into an as-yet-unpublished novel tentatively entitled The Night Manager.
Thompson next accepted a role as weekly media columnist and critic for The San Francisco Examiner. The position was arranged by former editor and fellow Examiner columnist Warren Hinckle. His editor at The Examiner, David McCumber described, "One week it would be acid-soaked gibberish with a charm of its own. The next week it would be incisive political analysis of the highest order."
Many of these columns were collected in Gonzo Papers, Vol. 2: Generation of Swine: Tales of Shame and Degradation in the '80s (1988) and Gonzo Papers, Vol. 3: Songs of the Doomed: More Notes on the Death of the American Dream (1990), a collection of autobiographical reminiscences, articles, and previously unpublished material.
Later years
Throughout the early 1990s, Thompson claimed to be at work on a novel entitled Polo Is My Life. It was briefly excerpted in Rolling Stone in 1994, and Thompson himself described it in 1996 as "a sex book — you know, sex, drugs, and rock and roll. It's about the manager of a sex theater who's forced to leave and flee to the mountains. He falls in love and gets in even more trouble than he was in the sex theater in San Francisco". The novel was slated to be released by Random House in 1999, and was even assigned , but was never published.
Thompson continued to publish irregularly in Rolling Stone, ultimately contributing 17 pieces to the magazine between 1984 and 2004. "Fear and Loathing in Elko," published in 1992, was a well-received fictional rallying cry against the nomination of Clarence Thomas to a seat on the Supreme Court of the United States. "Trapped in Mr. Bill's Neighborhood" was a largely factual account of an interview with Bill Clinton at a Little Rock, Arkansas, steakhouse. Rather than traveling the campaign trail as he had done in previous presidential elections, Thompson monitored the proceedings on cable television; Better Than Sex: Confessions of a Political Junkie, his account of the 1992 presidential campaign, is composed of reactive faxes to Rolling Stone. In 1994, the magazine published "He Was a Crook", a "scathing" obituary of Richard Nixon.
In November 2004, Rolling Stone published Thompson's final magazine feature "The Fun-Hogs in the Passing Lane: Fear and Loathing, Campaign 2004", a brief account of the 2004 presidential election in which he compared the outcome of the Bush v. Gore court case to the Reichstag fire and formally endorsed Senator John Kerry, a longtime friend, for president.
Fear and Loathing redux
In 1996, Modern Library reissued Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas along with "Strange Rumblings in Aztlan," "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved," and "Jacket Copy for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas." Two years later, the film Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas generated new interest in Thompson and his work, and a paperback edition was published as a tie-in. The same year, an early novel, The Rum Diary, was published. Two volumes of collected letters, edited by Douglas Brinkley, also appeared during this time. The first volume appeared in 1997 and covers the years 1955-67. The second volume appeared in 2000 and covers 1968 to 1976.
Thompson's next, and penultimate, collection, Kingdom of Fear: Loathsome Secrets of a Star-Crossed Child in the Final Days of the American Century, was widely publicized as Thompson's first memoir. Published in 2003, it combined new material (including reminiscences of the O'Farrell Theater), selected newspaper and digital clippings, and other older works.
Thompson finished his journalism career in the same way it had begun: Writing about sports. From 2000 until his death in 2005, he wrote a weekly column for ESPN.com's Page 2 entitled "Hey, Rube." In 2004, Simon & Schuster collected some of the columns from the first few years and released them in mid-2004 as Hey Rube: Blood Sport, the Bush Doctrine, and the Downward Spiral of Dumbness.
Thompson married assistant Anita Bejmuk on April 23, 2003.
Death
At 5:42 pm on February 20, 2005, Thompson died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head at Owl Farm, his "fortified compound" in Woody Creek, Colorado. His son Juan, daughter-in-law Jennifer, and grandson were visiting for the weekend. His wife Anita, who was at the Aspen Club, was on the phone with him as he cocked the gun. According to the Aspen Daily News, Thompson asked her to come home to help him write his ESPN column, then set the receiver on the counter. Anita said she mistook the cocking of the gun for the sound of his typewriter keys and hung up as he fired. Will and Jennifer were in the next room when they heard the gunshot, but mistook the sound for a book falling and did not check on Thompson immediately. Juan Thompson found his father's body. According to the police report and Anita's cell phone records, he called the sheriff's office half an hour later, then walked outside and fired three shotgun blasts into the air to "mark the passing of his father". The police report stated that in Thompson's typewriter was a piece of paper with the date "Feb. 22 '05" and a single word, "counselor".
Years of alcohol and cocaine abuse contributed to his problem with depression. Thompson's inner circle told the press that he had been depressed and always found February a "gloomy" month, with football season over and the harsh Colorado winter weather. He was also upset over his advancing age and chronic medical problems, including a hip replacement; he would frequently mutter "This kid is getting old." Rolling Stone published what Douglas Brinkley described as a suicide note written by Thompson to his wife, titled "Football Season Is Over". It read:
Thompson's collaborator and friend Ralph Steadman wrote:
Funeral
On August 20, 2005, in a private funeral, Thompson's ashes were fired from a cannon. This was accompanied by red, white, blue, and green fireworks—all to the tune of Norman Greenbaum's "Spirit in the Sky" and Bob Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man". The cannon was placed atop a tower which had the shape of a double-thumbed fist clutching a peyote button, a symbol originally used in his 1970 campaign for sheriff of Pitkin County, Colorado. The plans for the monument were initially drawn by Thompson and Steadman, and were shown as part of an Omnibus program on the BBC titled Fear and Loathing in Gonzovision (1978). It is included as a special feature on the second disc of the 2004 Criterion Collection DVD release of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and labeled as Fear and Loathing on the Road to Hollywood.
According to his widow, Anita, the $3 million funeral was funded by actor Johnny Depp, who was a close friend of Thompson's. Depp told the Associated Press, "All I'm doing is trying to make sure his last wish comes true. I just want to send my pal out the way he wants to go out." An estimated 280 people attended, including U.S. Senators John Kerry and George McGovern; 60 Minutes correspondents Ed Bradley and Charlie Rose; actors Jack Nicholson, John Cusack, Bill Murray, Benicio del Toro, Sean Penn, and Josh Hartnett; musicians Lyle Lovett, John Oates and David Amram, and artist and long-time friend Ralph Steadman.
Legacy
Writing style
Thompson is often credited as the creator of Gonzo journalism, a style of writing that blurs distinctions between fiction and nonfiction. His work and style are considered to be a major part of the New Journalism literary movement of the 1960s and 1970s, which attempted to break free from the purely objective style of mainstream reportage of the time. Thompson almost always wrote in the first person, while extensively using his own experiences and emotions to color "the story" he was trying to follow.
Despite him having personally described his work as "Gonzo", it fell to later observers to articulate what the term actually meant. While Thompson's approach clearly involved injecting himself as a participant in the events of the narrative, it also involved adding invented, metaphoric elements, thus creating, for the uninitiated reader, a seemingly confusing amalgam of facts and fiction notable for the deliberately blurred lines between one and the other. Thompson, in a 1974 interview in Playboy addressed the issue himself, saying, "Unlike Tom Wolfe or Gay Talese, I almost never try to reconstruct a story. They're both much better reporters than I am, but then, I don't think of myself as a reporter." Tom Wolfe would later describe Thompson's style as "... part journalism and part personal memoir admixed with powers of wild invention and wilder rhetoric." Or as one description of the differences between Thompson and Wolfe's styles would elaborate, "While Tom Wolfe mastered the technique of being a fly on the wall, Thompson mastered the art of being a fly in the ointment."
The majority of Thompson's most popular and acclaimed work appeared within the pages of Rolling Stone magazine. Along with Joe Eszterhas and David Felton, Thompson was instrumental in expanding the focus of the magazine past music criticism; indeed, Thompson was the only staff writer of the epoch never to contribute a music feature to the magazine. Nevertheless, his articles were always peppered with a wide array of pop music references ranging from Howlin' Wolf to Lou Reed. Armed with early fax machines wherever he went, he became notorious for haphazardly sending sometimes illegible material to the magazine's San Francisco offices as an issue was about to go to press.
Robert Love, Thompson's editor of 23 years at Rolling Stone, wrote, "the dividing line between fact and fancy rarely blurred, and we didn't always use italics or some other typographical device to indicate the lurch into the fabulous. But if there were living, identifiable humans in a scene, we took certain steps ... Hunter was a close friend of many prominent Democrats, veterans of the ten or more presidential campaigns he covered, so when in doubt, we'd call the press secretary. 'People will believe almost any twisted kind of story about politicians or Washington,' he once said, and he was right."
Discerning the line between the fact and the fiction of Thompson's work presented a practical problem for editors and fact-checkers of his work. Love called fact-checking Thompson's work "one of the sketchiest occupations ever created in the publishing world", and "for the first-timer ... a trip through a journalistic fun house, where you didn't know what was real and what wasn't. You knew you had better learn enough about the subject at hand to know when the riff began and reality ended. Hunter was a stickler for numbers, for details like gross weight and model numbers, for lyrics and caliber, and there was no faking it."
Persona
Thompson often used a blend of fiction and fact when portraying himself in his writing, too, sometimes using the name Raoul Duke as an author surrogate whom he generally described as a callous, erratic, self-destructive journalist who constantly drank alcohol and took hallucinogenic drugs. Fantasizing about causing bodily harm to others was also a characteristic in his work used to comedic effect and an example of his brand of humor.
In the late 1960s, Thompson acquired the title of "Doctor" from the Universal Life Church.
A number of critics have commented that as he grew older, the line that distinguished Thompson from his literary self became increasingly blurred. Thompson admitted during a 1978 BBC interview that he sometimes felt pressured to live up to the fictional self that he had created, adding, "I'm never sure which one people expect me to be. Very often, they conflict — most often, as a matter of fact. ... I'm leading a normal life and right alongside me there is this myth, and it is growing and mushrooming and getting more and more warped. When I get invited to, say, speak at universities, I'm not sure if they are inviting Duke or Thompson. I'm not sure who to be."
Thompson's writing style and eccentric persona gave him a cult following in both literary and drug circles, and his cult status expanded into broader areas after being portrayed three times in major motion pictures. Hence, both his writing style and persona have been widely imitated, and his likeness has even become a popular costume choice for Halloween.
Political beliefs
Thompson was a firearms and explosives enthusiast (in his writing and in life) and owned a vast collection of handguns, rifles, shotguns, and various automatic and semiautomatic weapons, along with numerous forms of gaseous crowd-control and many homemade devices. He was a proponent of the right to bear arms and privacy rights. A member of the National Rifle Association, Thompson was also co-creator of the Fourth Amendment Foundation, an organization to assist victims in defending themselves against unwarranted search and seizure.
Part of his work with the Fourth Amendment Foundation centered around support of Lisl Auman, a Colorado woman who was sentenced for life in 1997 under felony murder charges for the death of police officer Bruce VanderJagt, despite contradictory statements and dubious evidence. Thompson organized rallies, provided legal support, and co-wrote an article in the June 2004 issue of Vanity Fair outlining the case. The Colorado Supreme Court eventually overturned Auman's sentence in March 2005, shortly after Thompson's death, and Auman is now free. Auman's supporters claim Thompson's support and publicity resulted in the successful appeal.
Thompson was also an ardent supporter of drug legalization and became known for his detailed accounts of his own drug use. He was an early supporter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws and served on the group's advisory board for over 30 years, until his death. He told an interviewer in 1997 that drugs should be legalized "[a]cross the board. It might be a little rough on some people for a while, but I think it's the only way to deal with drugs. Look at Prohibition; all it did was make a lot of criminals rich."
In a 1965 letter to his friend Paul Semonin, Thompson explained an affection for the Industrial Workers of the World, "I have in recent months come to have a certain feeling for Joe Hill and the Wobbly crowd who, if nothing else, had the right idea. But not the right mechanics. I believe the IWW was probably the last human concept in American politics." In another letter to Semonin, Thompson wrote that he agreed with Karl Marx, and compared him to Thomas Jefferson. In a letter to William Kennedy, Thompson confided that he was "coming to view the free enterprise system as the single greatest evil in the history of human savagery." In the documentary Breakfast with Hunter, Hunter S. Thompson is seen in several scenes wearing different Che Guevara T-shirts. Additionally, actor and friend Benicio del Toro has stated that Thompson kept a "big" picture of Che in his kitchen. Thompson wrote on behalf of African-American rights and the civil rights movement. He strongly criticized the dominance in American society of what he called "white power structures".
After the September 11 attacks, Thompson voiced skepticism regarding the official story on who was responsible for the attacks. He speculated to several interviewers that it may have been conducted by the U.S. government or with the government's assistance, though readily admitting he had no way to prove his theory.
In 2004, Thompson wrote: "[Richard] Nixon was a professional politician, and I despised everything he stood for—but if he were running for president this year against the evil Bush–Cheney gang, I would happily vote for him."
Scholarships
Thompson's widow established two scholarship funds at Columbia University School of General Studies for U.S. military veterans and the University of Kentucky for journalism students.
Colorado NORML created the Hunter S. Thompson Scholarship to pay all expenses for a lawyer or law student to attend the NORML Legal Committee Conference in Aspen, generally the first few days of June each year. The funding from a silent auction has paid for two winners for some years. Many winners have gone on to become important cannabis lawyers on state and national levels.
Works
Books
Thompson wrote a number of books, publishing from 1966 to the end of his life. His best-known works include Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, The Rum Diary, The Curse of Lono, and Screwjack.
Articles
As a journalist over the course of decades, Thompson published numerous articles in various periodicals. He wrote for many publications, including Rolling Stone, Esquire, The Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, The New York Times, The San Francisco Examiner, Time, Vanity Fair, The San Juan Star, and Playboy. He was also guest editor for a single edition of The Aspen Daily News. A collection of 100 of his columns from The San Francisco Examiner was published in 1988 as Gonzo Papers, Vol. 2: Generation of Swine: Tales of Shame and Degradation in the '80s. A collection of his articles for Rolling Stone was released in 2011 as Fear and Loathing at Rolling Stone: The Essential Writings of Hunter S. Thompson. The book was edited by the magazine's co-founder and publisher, Jann S. Wenner, who also provided an introduction to the collection.
Letters
Thompson wrote many letters, which were his primary means of personal communication. He made carbon copies of all his letters, usually typed, a habit begun in his teenaged years.
The Fear and Loathing Letters is a three-volume collection of selections from Thompson's correspondence, edited by historian Douglas Brinkley. The first volume, The Proud Highway, was published in 1997, and contains letters from 1955 to 1967. Fear and Loathing in America was published in 2000 and contains letters dating from 1968 to 1976. A third volume, titled The Mutineer: Rants, Ravings, and Missives from the Mountaintop 1977–2005, was edited by Douglas Brinkley and prepared by Simon & Schuster in 2005. As of March 2019, it has yet to be sold to the public. It contains a special introduction by Johnny Depp.
Illustrations
Accompanying the eccentric and colorful writing of Hunter Thompson, illustrations by British artist Ralph Steadman offer visual representations of the Gonzo style. Steadman and Thompson developed a professional relationship. The two collaborated many times over Thompson's career, although at times they were known to violently argue. Wayne Ewing's documentary on Hunter captured an encounter where Steadman tells Hunter that he believes his drawings contributed as much to the success of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas as Hunter's writing. Hunter was furious at the suggestion and their relationship was certainly at times, strained. Steadman in recent years has described Hunter as "rude" and "a bully." So while they are publicly known as great friends, the true nature of their relationship was considerably more nuanced.
Photography
Thompson was an avid amateur photographer throughout his life, and his photos have been exhibited since his death at art galleries in the United States and United Kingdom. In late 2006, AMMO Books published a limited-edition, 224-page collection of Thompson photos called Gonzo: Photographs by Hunter S. Thompson, with an introduction by Johnny Depp. Thompson's snapshots were a combination of the subjects he was covering, stylized self-portraits, and artistic still life photos. The London Observer called the photos "astonishingly good" and noted that "Thompson's pictures remind us, brilliantly in every sense, of very real people, real colours."
Feature films
The film Where the Buffalo Roam (1980) depicts heavily fictionalized attempts by Thompson to cover the Super Bowl and the 1972 U.S. presidential election. It stars Bill Murray as Thompson and Peter Boyle as Thompson's attorney Oscar Zeta Acosta, referred to in the movie as Carl Lazlo, Esq.
The 1998 film adaptation of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was directed by Monty Python veteran Terry Gilliam and starred Johnny Depp (who moved into Thompson's basement to "study" Thompson's persona before assuming his role in the film) as Raoul Duke and Benicio del Toro as Oscar Zeta Acosta. The film has achieved something of a cult following.
In the 2001 film Ali, Thompson is briefly portrayed by actor Lee Cummings.
The film adaptation of Thompson's novel The Rum Diary was released in October 2011, also starring Johnny Depp as the main character, Paul Kemp. The novel's premise was inspired by Thompson's own experiences in Puerto Rico. The film was written and directed by Bruce Robinson.
At a press junket for The Rum Diary shortly before the film's release, Depp said that he would like to adapt The Curse of Lono, "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved", and Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs for the big screen: "I'd just keep playing Hunter. There's a great comfort in it for me, because I get a great visit with my old friend who I miss dearly."
Documentaries
Fear and Loathing in Gonzovision (1978) is an extended television profile by the BBC. It can be found on disc 2 of The Criterion Collection edition of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
The Mitchell brothers, owners of the O'Farrell Theatre in San Francisco, made a documentary about Thompson in 1988 called Hunter S. Thompson: The Crazy Never Die.
Wayne Ewing created three documentaries about Thompson. The film Breakfast with Hunter (2003) was directed and edited by Ewing. It documents Thompson's work on the movie Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, his arrest for drunk driving, and his subsequent fight with the court system. When I Die (2005) is a video chronicle of making Thompson's final farewell wishes a reality, and documents the send-off itself. Free Lisl: Fear and Loathing in Denver (2006) chronicles Thompson's efforts in helping to free Lisl Auman, who was sentenced to life in prison without parole for the shooting of a police officer, a crime she did not commit. All three films are only available online.
In Come on Down: Searching for the American Dream (2004) Thompson gives director Adamm Liley insight into the nature of the American Dream over drinks at the Woody Creek Tavern.
Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride: Hunter S. Thompson on Film (2006) was directed by Tom Thurman, written by Tom Marksbury, and produced by the Starz Entertainment Group. The original documentary features interviews with Thompson's inner circle of family and friends, but the thrust of the film focuses on the manner in which his life often overlapped with numerous Hollywood celebrities who became his close friends, such as Johnny Depp, Benicio del Toro, Bill Murray, Sean Penn, John Cusack, Thompson's wife Anita, son Juan, former Senators George McGovern and Gary Hart, writers Tom Wolfe and William F. Buckley, actors Gary Busey and Harry Dean Stanton, and the illustrator Ralph Steadman among others.
Blasted!!! The Gonzo Patriots of Hunter S. Thompson (2006), produced, directed, photographed, and edited by Blue Kraning, is a documentary about the scores of fans who volunteered their privately owned artillery to fire the ashes of the late author, Hunter S. Thompson. Blasted!!! premiered at the 2006 Starz Denver International Film Festival, part of a tribute series to Hunter S. Thompson held at the Denver Press Club.
In 2008, Academy Award-winning documentarian Alex Gibney (Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, Taxi to the Dark Side) wrote and directed a documentary on Thompson, titled Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson. The film premiered on January 20, 2008, at the Sundance Film Festival. Gibney uses intimate, never-before-seen home videos, interviews with friends, enemies, lovers, and clips from films adapted from Thompson's material to document his turbulent life.
Theater
Lou Stein's adaptation of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was performed at the Battersea Theatre. Stein persuades London's Time Out magazine to put Thompson up for a fortnight, in exchange for him writing a cover story to publicize the play. Thompson does not write the story, but does rampage around London on Time Out 's expense account. The play was revived for the Vault Fringe Festival in 2014.
GONZO: A Brutal Chrysalis is a one-man show about Thompson written by Paul Addis, who also played the author. Set in the writing den of Thompson's Woody Creek home, the show portrays his life between 1968 and 1971. James Cartee began playing the role soon after Addis's arrest in 2009, and again after Addis's death in 2012.
Awards, accolades, and tributes
Thompson was named a Kentucky Colonel by the governor of Kentucky in a December 1996 tribute ceremony where he also received keys to the city of Louisville.
Author Tom Wolfe has called Thompson the greatest American comic writer of the 20th century.
Asked in an interview with Jody Denberg on KGSR Studio, in 2000, whether he would ever consider writing a book "like [his] buddy Hunter S. Thompson", the musician Warren Zevon responded: "Let's remember that Hunter S. Thompson is the finest writer of our generation; he didn't just toss off a book the other day..."
Thompson appeared on the cover of the 1,000th issue of Rolling Stone, May 18 – June 1, 2006, as a devil playing the guitar next to the two "L"'s in the word "Rolling". Johnny Depp also appeared on the cover.
The Thompson-inspired character Uncle Duke appears on a recurring basis in Doonesbury, the daily newspaper comic strip by Garry Trudeau. When the character was first introduced, Thompson protested, quoted in an interview as saying that he would set Trudeau on fire if the two ever met, although reportedly he liked the character in later years. Between March 7, 2005 (roughly two weeks after Thompson's suicide), and March 12, 2005, Doonesbury ran a tribute to Hunter, with Uncle Duke lamenting the death of the man he called his "inspiration". The first of these strips featured a panel with artwork similar to that of Ralph Steadman, and later strips featured various non sequiturs (with Duke variously transforming into a monster, melting, shrinking to the size of an empty drinking glass, or people around him turning into animals), which seemed to mirror some of the effects of hallucinogenic drugs described in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
Many have suggested that General Hunter Gathers in the Adult Swim animated series The Venture Bros. is a tribute to Thompson, as they have a similar name, mannerisms, and physical appearance.
Dale Gribble in the Fox animated series King of the Hill is a tribute to Thompson and derives his physical appearance from him.
In the Cameron Crowe film Almost Famous, based on Crowe's experiences writing for Rolling Stone while on the road with the fictional band Stillwater", the writer is on the phone with an actor portraying Jann Wenner. Wenner tells the young journalist that he "is not there to join the party, we already have one Hunter Thompson" after the young writer amassed large hotel and traveling expenses and is overheard to be sharing his room with several young women.
Eric C. Shoaf donated a caché of approximately 800 items (in librarian terms, about 35-40 linear feet of material on a shelf) pertaining to the life and career of Thompson to the University of California at Santa Cruz. Shoaf also published a descriptive bibliography, Gonzology: A Hunter Thompson Bibliography, of the works of Hunter S. Thompson with over 1,000 entries, many never before documented appearances in print, hundreds of biographical entries about Thompson's life, full descriptions of all his primary works, preface by William McKeen, Phd, and photo section with rare and exclusive items depicted.
References
External links
"Hunter S. Thompson's ESPN Page 2 Archive", Totallygonzo.org
"Shotgun Golf With Bill Murray", Thompson's final column for ESPN.com's Page 2.
A collection of articles on Thompson from The Guardian
Thompson's photography
1937 births
2005 suicides
20th-century American journalists
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American novelists
20th-century essayists
21st-century American journalists
21st-century American male writers
21st-century American novelists
9/11 conspiracy theorists
American activist journalists
American columnists
American conspiracy theorists
American essayists
American male essayists
American male journalists
American male novelists
American Marxists
American people of Scottish descent
American political writers
American tax resisters
Atherton High School alumni
Columbia University School of General Studies alumni
Drug policy reform activists
Florida State University alumni
Journalists from Colorado
Journalists from Kentucky
Louisville Male High School alumni
Military personnel from Louisville, Kentucky
Motorcycling writers
Novelists from Colorado
Novelists from Kentucky
People from Glen Ellen, California
Psychedelic drug advocates
Sportswriters from California
Suicides by firearm in Colorado
United States Air Force airmen
Writers from Louisville, Kentucky
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[
"Driver: Vegas is a mobile phone game developed by Gameloft and Glu Mobile that occurs after the events of Driver 3. The game is non-canon and not a part of the main series.\n\nStory \nThe storyline of Driver: Vegas happens after the ending of Driver 3, with Tanner in the emergency room. His heart has been jumpstarted, and he decides to go after Jericho, the criminal he failed to kill in Driver 3. To do this, he must travel to Las Vegas, Nevada.\n\nGameplay \nThere are some on-foot missions in Driver: Vegas, but most of the missions are driving based.\n\nReception\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n IGN review\n\n2005 video games\nDriver (video game series)\nMobile games\nVideo games about police officers\nVideo games developed in France\nVideo games set in the Las Vegas Valley",
"The Tarnished Eye is a 2004 crime novel by American writer Judith Guest, based on the Robison family murders that occurred in June 1968 in Good Hart, Michigan and the murders committed by John Norman Collins in the Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti areas of Michigan in the late 1960s. In an interview with Metro Times, Guest explained why she chose to write a fictionalized account of these two murder cases: \"I’m very interested in people’s motivations, why they do the things they do, why go to such extremes as if that’s the only solution to their problem. Those two crimes laid awake in my mind for a long time, and, about five years ago, I decided to write about them, but write a novel.\"\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nThe Tarnished Eye at Judith Guest's website.\n\n2004 American novels\nAmerican crime novels"
] |
[
"Hunter S. Thompson",
"Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas",
"What is Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas?",
"The result of the trip to Las Vegas became the 1972 book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,",
"Did it do well?",
"the book was greeted with considerable critical acclaim, including being heralded by The New York Times as \"by far the best book yet",
"Did he write it in Vegas?",
"I don't know.",
"who published the book?",
"the 1972 book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, which first appeared in the November 1971 issues of Rolling Stone as a two-part series.",
"Did anyone reject it?",
"Thompson first submitted to Sports Illustrated a manuscript of 2,500 words, which was, as he later wrote, \"aggressively rejected.",
"what is the book about?",
"It is written as a first-person account by a journalist named Raoul Duke on a trip to Las Vegas with Dr. Gonzo, his \"300-pound Samoan attorney\",",
"Why do they go to Vegas?",
"I don't know."
] |
C_f9d8069ce5c14c45a92486e19a607c8b_0
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Did it get good reviews?
| 8 |
Did "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" get good reviews?
|
Hunter S. Thompson
|
The book for which Thompson gained most of his fame had its genesis during the research for Strange Rumblings in Aztlan, an expose for Rolling Stone on the 1970 killing of the Mexican-American television journalist Ruben Salazar. Salazar had been shot in the head at close range with a tear gas canister fired by officers of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department during the National Chicano Moratorium March against the Vietnam War. One of Thompson's sources for the story was Oscar Zeta Acosta, a prominent Mexican-American activist and attorney. Finding it difficult to talk in the racially tense atmosphere of Los Angeles, Thompson and Acosta decided to travel to Las Vegas, and take advantage of an assignment by Sports Illustrated to write a 250-word photograph caption on the Mint 400 motorcycle race held there. What was to be a short caption quickly grew into something else entirely. Thompson first submitted to Sports Illustrated a manuscript of 2,500 words, which was, as he later wrote, "aggressively rejected." Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner was said to have liked "the first 20 or so jangled pages enough to take it seriously on its own terms and tentatively scheduled it for publication -- which gave me the push I needed to keep working on it", Thompson later wrote. The result of the trip to Las Vegas became the 1972 book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, which first appeared in the November 1971 issues of Rolling Stone as a two-part series. It is written as a first-person account by a journalist named Raoul Duke on a trip to Las Vegas with Dr. Gonzo, his "300-pound Samoan attorney", to cover a narcotics officers' convention and the "fabulous Mint 400". During the trip, Duke and his companion (always referred to as "my attorney") become sidetracked by a search for the American Dream, with "two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers ... and also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether, and two dozen amyls." Coming to terms with the failure of the 1960s countercultural movement is a major theme of the novel, and the book was greeted with considerable critical acclaim, including being heralded by The New York Times as "by far the best book yet written on the decade of dope". "The Vegas Book", as Thompson referred to it, was a mainstream success and introduced his Gonzo journalism techniques to a wide public. CANNOTANSWER
|
Thompson referred to it, was a mainstream success and introduced his Gonzo journalism techniques to a wide public.
|
Hunter Stockton Thompson (July 18, 1937 – February 20, 2005) was an American journalist and author who founded the gonzo journalism movement. He rose to prominence with the publication of Hell's Angels (1967), a book for which he spent a year living and riding with the Hells Angels motorcycle gang to write a first-hand account of their lives and experiences.
In 1970, he wrote an unconventional magazine feature titled "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved" for Scanlan's Monthly, which raised his profile and established his counterculture credibility. It also set him on the path to establishing his own subgenre of New Journalism that he called "Gonzo", which was essentially an ongoing experiment in which the writer becomes a central figure and participant in the events of the narrative.
Thompson remains best known for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1971), a book first serialized in Rolling Stone in which he grapples with the implications of what he considered the failure of the 1960s counterculture movement. It was adapted for film twice: loosely in Where the Buffalo Roam starring Bill Murray as Thompson in 1980, and explicitly in 1998 by director Terry Gilliam in the eponymous film starring Johnny Depp and Benicio del Toro.
Thompson ran unsuccessfully for sheriff of Pitkin County, Colorado in 1970 on the Freak Power ticket. His campaign was chronicled in the documentary film Freak Power: The Ballot or the Bomb. He became known for his dislike of Richard Nixon, who he claimed represented "that dark, venal, and incurably violent side of the American character". He covered Nixon's 1972 reelection campaign for Rolling Stone and later collected the stories in book form as Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72.
Thompson's output declined from the mid-1970s, as he struggled with the consequences of fame, and complained that he could no longer merely report on events, as he was too easily recognized. After several high-profile stories were quashed by the upper management of Rolling Stone, he found it increasingly difficult to get his work into mainstream outlets. He did continue to write for alternative newspapers, and had a gig as a critic for the mainstream San Francisco Examiner for much of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Most of his work from 1979 to 1994 was collected in The Gonzo Papers. He continued to write for various journalism outlets in a variety of formats, including sporadic stories published in Rolling Stone and a weekly column that appeared on ESPN.com's Page 2 titled "Hey, Rube" that he started in 2000.
He was known for his lifelong use of alcohol and illegal narcotics, his love of firearms, and his iconoclastic contempt for authority. He often remarked: "I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me." Thompson died by suicide at the age of 67, following a series of health problems. In accordance with his wishes, his ashes were fired out of a cannon in a ceremony funded by his friend Johnny Depp and attended by friends including then-Senator John Kerry and Jack Nicholson. Hari Kunzru wrote, "the true voice of Thompson is revealed to be that of American moralist ... one who often makes himself ugly to expose the ugliness he sees around him."
Early life
Thompson was born into a middle-class family in Louisville, Kentucky, the first of three sons of Virginia Davison Ray (1908, Springfield, Kentucky – March 20, 1998, Louisville), who worked as head librarian at the Louisville Free Public Library and Jack Robert Thompson (September 4, 1893, Horse Cave, Kentucky – July 3, 1952, Louisville), a public insurance adjuster and World War I veteran. His parents were introduced by a friend from Jack's fraternity at the University of Kentucky in September 1934, and married on November 2, 1935. The Guardian journalist Nicholas Lezard, stated that Thompson's first name, Hunter, came from an ancestor on his mother's side, the Scottish surgeon John Hunter. A more direct attribution is that Thompson's first and middle name, Hunter Stockton, came from his maternal grandparents, Prestly Stockton Ray and Lucille Hunter.
In December 1943 when Thompson was six years old, the family settled in the affluent Cherokee Triangle neighborhood of The Highlands. On July 3, 1952, when Thompson was 14, his father died of myasthenia gravis at age 58. Hunter and his brothers were raised by their mother. Virginia worked as a librarian to support her children, and was described as a "heavy drinker" following her husband's death.
Education
Interested in sports and athletically inclined from a young age, Thompson co-founded the Hawks Athletic Club while attending I.N. Bloom Elementary School, which led to an invitation to join Louisville's Castlewood Athletic Club for adolescents that prepared them for high-school sports. Ultimately, he never joined a sports team in high school.
Thompson attended I.N. Bloom Elementary School, Highland Middle School, and Atherton High School, before transferring to Louisville Male High School in fall 1952. Also in 1952, he was accepted as a member of the Athenaeum Literary Association, a school-sponsored literary and social club that dated to 1862. Its members at the time came from Louisville's upper-class families, and included Porter Bibb, who became the first publisher of Rolling Stone at Thompson's behest. During this time, Thompson read and admired J. P. Donleavy's The Ginger Man.
As an Athenaeum member, Thompson contributed articles to and helped produce the club's yearbook The Spectator. The group ejected Thompson in 1955 for criminal activity. Charged as an accessory to robbery after being in a car with the perpetrator, Thompson was sentenced to 60 days in Kentucky's Jefferson County Jail. He served 31 days and, a week after his release, enlisted in the United States Air Force. While he was in jail, the school superintendent refused permission to take his high-school final examinations so he was unable to graduate.
Military service
Thompson completed basic training at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, and transferred to Scott Air Force Base in Belleville, Illinois, to study electronics. He applied to become an aviator, but the Air Force's aviation-cadet program rejected his application. In 1956, he transferred to Eglin Air Force Base near Fort Walton Beach, Florida. While serving at Eglin, he took evening classes at Florida State University. At Eglin, he landed his first professional writing job as sports editor of The Command Courier by falsifying his job experience. As sports editor, Thompson traveled around the United States with the Eglin Eagles football team, covering its games. In early 1957, he wrote a sports column for The Playground News, a local newspaper in Fort Walton Beach, Florida. His name did not appear on the column because Air Force regulations forbade outside employment.
In 1958, as an airman first class, his commanding officer recommended him for an early honorable discharge. "In summary, this airman, although talented, will not be guided by policy," chief of information services Colonel William S. Evans wrote to the Eglin personnel office. "Sometimes his rebel and superior attitude seems to rub off on other airmen staff members."
Early journalism career
After leaving the Air Force, Thompson worked as sports editor for a newspaper in Jersey Shore, Pennsylvania, before relocating to New York City. There he audited several courses at the Columbia University School of General Studies. During this time he worked briefly for Time as a copy boy for $51 a week. At work, he typed out parts of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms in order to learn the authors' rhythms and writing styles. In 1959 Time fired him for insubordination. Later that year, he worked as a reporter for The Middletown Daily Record in Middletown, New York. He was fired from this job after damaging an office candy machine and arguing with the owner of a local restaurant who happened to be an advertiser with the paper.
In 1960, Thompson moved to San Juan, Puerto Rico, to take a job with the sporting magazine El Sportivo, which ceased operations soon after his arrival. Thompson applied for a job with the Puerto Rican English-language daily The San Juan Star, but its managing editor, future novelist William J. Kennedy, turned him down. Nonetheless, the two became friends. After the demise of El Sportivo, Thompson worked as a stringer for the New York Herald Tribune and a few other stateside papers on Caribbean issues, with Kennedy working as his editor.
After returning to the United States, Thompson visited San Francisco and eventually lived in Big Sur, where he worked as a security guard and caretaker at Slates Hot Springs for an eight-month period in 1961, just before it became the Esalen Institute. At the time, Big Sur was a Beat outpost and home of Henry Miller and Dennis Murphy (screenwriter), both of whom Thompson admired. While there, he published his first magazine feature in Rogue about the artisan and bohemian culture of Big Sur. During this period, Thompson wrote two novels, Prince Jellyfish and The Rum Diary, and submitted many short stories to publishers – with little success. The Rum Diary, based on Thompson's experiences in Puerto Rico, was not published until .
In May 1962, Thompson traveled to South America for a year as a correspondent for the Dow Jones-owned weekly paper, the National Observer. In Brazil, he spent several months as a reporter for the Brazil Herald, the country's only English-language daily, published in Rio de Janeiro. His longtime girlfriend Sandra Dawn Conklin (or Sandy Conklin Thompson, subsequently Sondi Wright) later joined him in Rio. They married on May 19, 1963, shortly after returning to the United States, and lived briefly in Aspen, Colorado. Sandy was eight months pregnant when they relocated to Glen Ellen, California. Their son, Juan Fitzgerald Thompson, was born on March 23, 1964.
Thompson continued to write for the National Observer on an array of domestic subjects. One story told of his 1964 visit to Ketchum, Idaho, to investigate the reasons for Ernest Hemingway's suicide. While there, he stole a pair of elk antlers hanging above the front door of Hemingway's cabin. Later that year, Thompson moved to San Francisco, where he attended the 1964 GOP Convention at the Cow Palace. Thompson severed his ties with the Observer after his editor refused to print his review of Tom Wolfe's 1965 essay-collection The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby,. He later immersed himself in the drug and hippie culture taking root in the area, and soon began writing for the Berkeley underground paper Spider.
Hell's Angels
In 1965 Carey McWilliams, editor of The Nation, hired Thompson to write a story about the Hells Angels motorcycle club in California. At the time Thompson was living in a house near San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, where the Hells Angels lived across from the Grateful Dead. His article appeared on May 17, 1965, after which he received several book offers and spent the next year living and riding with the club. The relationship broke down when the bikers perceived that Thompson was exploiting them for personal gain and demanded a share of his profits. An argument at a party resulted in Thompson suffering a savage beating (or "stomping", as the Angels referred to it). Random House published the hard-cover Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs in 1966, and the fight between Thompson and the Angels was well-marketed. CBC Television even broadcast an encounter between Thompson and Hells Angel Skip Workman before a live studio audience.
A New York Times review praised the work as an "angry, knowledgeable, fascinating, and excitedly written book", that shows the Hells Angels "not so much as dropouts from society but as total misfits, or unfits—emotionally, intellectually and educationally unfit to achieve the rewards, such as they are, that the contemporary social order offers". The reviewer also praised Thompson as a "spirited, witty, observant, and original writer; his prose crackles like motorcycle exhaust".
Following the book's publication, Thompson appeared as himself on the February 20, 1967, episode of the game show To Tell The Truth, receiving all four votes by the panel members.
Late 1960s
Following the success of Hell's Angels, Thompson successfully sold articles to several national magazines, including The New York Times Magazine, Esquire, Pageant, and Harper's.
In 1967, shortly before the Summer of Love, Thompson wrote "The 'Hashbury' is the Capital of the Hippies" for The New York Times Magazine. He criticized San Francisco's hippies as devoid of both the political convictions of the New Left and the artistic core of the Beats, resulting in a culture overrun with young people who spent their time in the pursuit of drugs. "The thrust is no longer for 'change' or 'progress' or 'revolution', but merely to escape, to live on the far perimeter of a world that might have been – perhaps should have been – and strike a bargain for survival on purely personal terms," he wrote.
By late 1967, Thompson and his family moved back to Colorado and rented a house in Woody Creek, a small mountain hamlet outside Aspen. In early 1969, Thompson received a $15,000 royalty check for the paperback sales of Hell's Angels and used two-thirds of the money for a down payment on a modest home and property where he would live for the rest of his life. He named the house Owl Farm and often described it as his "fortified compound".
In early 1968, Thompson signed the "Writers and Editors War Tax Protest" pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War. According to Thompson's letters and his later writings, at this time, he planned to write a book called The Joint Chiefs about "the death of the American Dream." He used a $6,000 advance from Random House to travel the 1968 Presidential campaign trail and attend the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago for research. From his hotel room in Chicago, Thompson watched the clashes between police and protesters, which he wrote had a great effect on his political views. The book was never finished, and the theme of the death of the American dream was carried over into his later work. The contract with Random House was eventually fulfilled with the 1972 book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. He also signed a deal with Ballantine Books in 1968 to write a satirical book called The Johnson File about Lyndon B. Johnson. A few weeks after the contract was signed, however, Johnson announced that he would not seek re-election, and the deal was cancelled.
Middle years
Aspen sheriff campaign
In 1970, Thompson ran for sheriff of Pitkin County, Colorado, as part of a group of citizens running for local offices on the "Freak Power" ticket. The platform included promoting the decriminalization of drugs (for personal use only, not trafficking, as he disapproved of profiteering), tearing up the streets and turning them into grassy pedestrian malls, banning any building so tall as to obscure the view of the mountains, disarming all police forces, and renaming Aspen "Fat City" to deter investors. Thompson, having shaved his head, referred to the crew cut-wearing Republican candidate as "my long-haired opponent".
With polls showing him with a slight lead in a three-way race, Thompson appeared at Rolling Stone magazine headquarters in San Francisco with a six-pack of beer in hand, and declared to editor Jann Wenner that he was about to be elected sheriff of Aspen, Colorado, and wished to write about the "Freak Power" movement. Thus, Thompson's first article in Rolling Stone was published as "The Battle of Aspen" with the byline "By: Dr. Hunter S. Thompson (Candidate for Sheriff)". Despite the publicity, Thompson narrowly lost the election. While carrying the city of Aspen, he garnered only 44% of the county-wide vote in what had become a two-way race. The Republican candidate agreed to withdraw a few days before the election to consolidate the anti-Thompson votes, in return for the Democrats withdrawing their candidate for county commissioner. Thompson later remarked that the Rolling Stone article mobilized his opposition far more than his supporters.
A documentary film about Hunter S. Thompson's campaign for sheriff called Freak Power: The Ballot or the Bomb was released on October 23, 2020.
Birth of Gonzo
Also in 1970, Thompson wrote an article entitled "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved" for the short-lived new journalism magazine Scanlan's Monthly. For that article, editor Warren Hinckle paired Thompson with illustrator Ralph Steadman, who drew expressionist illustrations with lipstick and eyeliner. Thompson's article virtually ignored the race, focusing instead on the drunken revelry surrounding the annual event in his hometown. The first-person narrator also sets that debauchery against a political backdrop, which included the bombing of Cambodia and the deaths of four students at Kent State University, which occurred two days after the Kentucky Derby.
Thompson and Steadman collaborated regularly after that. Although it was not widely read, the article was the first to use the techniques of Gonzo journalism, a style Thompson later employed in almost every literary endeavor. The manic first-person subjectivity of the story was reportedly the result of sheer desperation; he was facing a looming deadline and started sending the magazine pages ripped out of his notebook.
The first use of the word "Gonzo" to describe Thompson's work is credited to the journalist Bill Cardoso, who first met Thompson on a bus full of journalists covering the 1968 New Hampshire primary. In 1970, Cardoso (who was then the editor of The Boston Globe Sunday Magazine) wrote to Thompson praising the "Kentucky Derby" piece as a breakthrough: "This is it, this is pure Gonzo. If this is a start, keep rolling." According to Steadman, Thompson took to the word right away and said, "Okay, that's what I do. Gonzo." Thompson's first published use of the word appears in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: "Free Enterprise. The American Dream. Horatio Alger gone mad on drugs in Las Vegas. Do it now: pure Gonzo journalism."
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
The book for which Thompson gained most of his fame had its genesis during the research for "Strange Rumblings in Aztlan", an exposé for Rolling Stone on the 1970 killing of the Mexican-American television journalist Rubén Salazar. Salazar had been shot in the head at close range with a tear-gas canister fired by officers of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department during the National Chicano Moratorium March against the Vietnam War. One of Thompson's sources for the story was Oscar Zeta Acosta, a prominent Mexican-American activist and attorney. Finding it difficult to talk in the racially tense atmosphere of Los Angeles, Thompson and Acosta decided to travel to Las Vegas, and take advantage of an assignment by Sports Illustrated to write a 250-word photograph caption on the Mint 400 motorcycle race held there.
What was to be a short caption quickly grew into something else entirely. Thompson first submitted to Sports Illustrated a manuscript of 2,500 words, which was, as he later wrote, "aggressively rejected." Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner was said to have liked "the first 20 or so jangled pages enough to take it seriously on its own terms and tentatively scheduled it for publication — which gave me the push I needed to keep working on it", Thompson later wrote. To develop the story, Thompson and Acosta returned to Las Vegas to attend a drug enforcement conference.
The two trips became the basis for "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," which appeared as a two-part Rolling Stone story in November 1971. Random House published the book version the following year. It is written as a first-person account by a journalist named Raoul Duke with Dr. Gonzo, his "300-pound Samoan attorney." During the trip, Duke and his companion (always referred to as "my attorney") become sidetracked by a search for the American Dream, with "two bags of grass, 75 pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multicolored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers ... and also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether, and two dozen amyls."
Coming to terms with the failure of the 1960s countercultural movement is a major theme of the novel, and the book was greeted with considerable critical acclaim, including being heralded by The New York Times as "by far the best book yet written on the decade of dope". "The Vegas Book", as Thompson referred to it, was a mainstream success and introduced his Gonzo journalism techniques to a wide public.
Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72
Beginning in late 1971, Thompson wrote extensively for Rolling Stone on the election campaigns of President Richard Nixon and his unsuccessful opponent, Senator George McGovern. The articles were soon combined and published as Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72. As the title suggests, Thompson spent nearly all of his time traveling the "campaign trail", focusing largely on the Democratic Party's primaries. Nixon, as the Republican incumbent, performed little campaign work, while McGovern competed with rival candidates Edmund Muskie and Hubert Humphrey. Thompson was an early supporter of McGovern and wrote unflattering coverage of the rival campaigns in the increasingly widely read Rolling Stone.
Thompson went on to become a fierce critic of Nixon, both during and after his presidency. After Nixon's death in 1994, Thompson described him in Rolling Stone as a man who "could shake your hand and stab you in the back at the same time", and said "his casket [should] have been launched into one of those open-sewage canals that empty into the ocean just south of Los Angeles. He was a swine of a man and a jabbering dupe of a president. [He] was an evil man—evil in a way that only those who believe in the physical reality of the Devil can understand it." Following Nixon's pardon by Gerald Ford in 1974, Hunter ruminated on the roughly $400,000 pension Nixon maneuvered his way into, by resigning before being formally indicted. While The Washington Post was lamenting Nixon's "lonely and depressed" state after being forced from the White House, Hunter wrote that '[i]f there were any such thing as true justice in this world, his [Nixon's] rancid carcass would be somewhere down around Easter Island right now, in the belly of a hammerhead shark.' There was however one passion shared by Thompson and Nixon: a love of football, discussed in Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72.
Fame and its consequences
Thompson's journalistic work began to seriously suffer after his trip to Africa to cover the Rumble in the Jungle—the world heavyweight boxing match between George Foreman and Muhammad Ali—in 1974. He missed the match while intoxicated at his hotel, and did not submit a story to the magazine. As Wenner put it to the film critic Roger Ebert in the 2008 documentary Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, "After Africa, he just couldn't write. He couldn't piece it together".
Plans for Thompson to cover the 1976 presidential campaign for Rolling Stone and later publish a book fell through after Wenner canceled the project without informing Thompson. Wenner then assigned Thompson to travel to Vietnam to cover what appeared to be the end of the Vietnam War. Thompson arrived in Saigon just as South Vietnam was collapsing and as other journalists were leaving the country. Wenner allegedly cancelled Thompson's life insurance, which strained Thompson's relationship with Rolling Stone. He soon fled the country and refused to file his report until the ten-year anniversary of the Fall of Saigon.
From the late 1970s on, most of Thompson's literary output appeared as a four-volume series of books entitled The Gonzo Papers. Beginning with The Great Shark Hunt in 1979 and ending with Better Than Sex in 1994, the series is largely a collection of rare newspaper and magazine pieces from the pre-gonzo period, along with almost all of his Rolling Stone pieces.
Starting around 1980, Thompson became less active by his standards. Aside from paid appearances, he largely retreated to his compound in Woody Creek, rejecting projects and assignments or failing to complete them. Despite a lack of new material, Wenner kept Thompson on the Rolling Stone masthead as chief of the "National Affairs Desk", a position he held until his death.
In 1980, Thompson divorced wife Sandra Conklin. The same year marked the release of Where the Buffalo Roam, a loose film adaptation based on Thompson's early 1970s work, starring Bill Murray as the writer. Murray eventually became one of Thompson's trusted friends. Later that year, Thompson relocated to Hawaii to research and write The Curse of Lono, a Gonzo-style account of the 1980 Honolulu Marathon. Extensively illustrated by Ralph Steadman, the piece first appeared in Running in 1981 as "The Charge of the Weird Brigade" and was later excerpted in Playboy in 1983.
In 1983, he covered the U.S. invasion of Grenada, but did not write or discuss the experiences until the publication of Kingdom of Fear in 2003. Later that year, at the behest of Terry McDonell, he wrote "A Dog Took My Place", an exposé for Rolling Stone of the scandalous Roxanne Pulitzer divorce case and what he called the "Palm Beach lifestyle". The story included dubious insinuations of bestiality, but was widely considered to be a return by Thompson to his proper form. In 1985, Thompson accepted an advance to write about "couples pornography" for Playboy. As part of his research, he spent evenings at the Mitchell Brothers O'Farrell Theatre striptease club in San Francisco. The experience evolved into an as-yet-unpublished novel tentatively entitled The Night Manager.
Thompson next accepted a role as weekly media columnist and critic for The San Francisco Examiner. The position was arranged by former editor and fellow Examiner columnist Warren Hinckle. His editor at The Examiner, David McCumber described, "One week it would be acid-soaked gibberish with a charm of its own. The next week it would be incisive political analysis of the highest order."
Many of these columns were collected in Gonzo Papers, Vol. 2: Generation of Swine: Tales of Shame and Degradation in the '80s (1988) and Gonzo Papers, Vol. 3: Songs of the Doomed: More Notes on the Death of the American Dream (1990), a collection of autobiographical reminiscences, articles, and previously unpublished material.
Later years
Throughout the early 1990s, Thompson claimed to be at work on a novel entitled Polo Is My Life. It was briefly excerpted in Rolling Stone in 1994, and Thompson himself described it in 1996 as "a sex book — you know, sex, drugs, and rock and roll. It's about the manager of a sex theater who's forced to leave and flee to the mountains. He falls in love and gets in even more trouble than he was in the sex theater in San Francisco". The novel was slated to be released by Random House in 1999, and was even assigned , but was never published.
Thompson continued to publish irregularly in Rolling Stone, ultimately contributing 17 pieces to the magazine between 1984 and 2004. "Fear and Loathing in Elko," published in 1992, was a well-received fictional rallying cry against the nomination of Clarence Thomas to a seat on the Supreme Court of the United States. "Trapped in Mr. Bill's Neighborhood" was a largely factual account of an interview with Bill Clinton at a Little Rock, Arkansas, steakhouse. Rather than traveling the campaign trail as he had done in previous presidential elections, Thompson monitored the proceedings on cable television; Better Than Sex: Confessions of a Political Junkie, his account of the 1992 presidential campaign, is composed of reactive faxes to Rolling Stone. In 1994, the magazine published "He Was a Crook", a "scathing" obituary of Richard Nixon.
In November 2004, Rolling Stone published Thompson's final magazine feature "The Fun-Hogs in the Passing Lane: Fear and Loathing, Campaign 2004", a brief account of the 2004 presidential election in which he compared the outcome of the Bush v. Gore court case to the Reichstag fire and formally endorsed Senator John Kerry, a longtime friend, for president.
Fear and Loathing redux
In 1996, Modern Library reissued Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas along with "Strange Rumblings in Aztlan," "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved," and "Jacket Copy for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas." Two years later, the film Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas generated new interest in Thompson and his work, and a paperback edition was published as a tie-in. The same year, an early novel, The Rum Diary, was published. Two volumes of collected letters, edited by Douglas Brinkley, also appeared during this time. The first volume appeared in 1997 and covers the years 1955-67. The second volume appeared in 2000 and covers 1968 to 1976.
Thompson's next, and penultimate, collection, Kingdom of Fear: Loathsome Secrets of a Star-Crossed Child in the Final Days of the American Century, was widely publicized as Thompson's first memoir. Published in 2003, it combined new material (including reminiscences of the O'Farrell Theater), selected newspaper and digital clippings, and other older works.
Thompson finished his journalism career in the same way it had begun: Writing about sports. From 2000 until his death in 2005, he wrote a weekly column for ESPN.com's Page 2 entitled "Hey, Rube." In 2004, Simon & Schuster collected some of the columns from the first few years and released them in mid-2004 as Hey Rube: Blood Sport, the Bush Doctrine, and the Downward Spiral of Dumbness.
Thompson married assistant Anita Bejmuk on April 23, 2003.
Death
At 5:42 pm on February 20, 2005, Thompson died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head at Owl Farm, his "fortified compound" in Woody Creek, Colorado. His son Juan, daughter-in-law Jennifer, and grandson were visiting for the weekend. His wife Anita, who was at the Aspen Club, was on the phone with him as he cocked the gun. According to the Aspen Daily News, Thompson asked her to come home to help him write his ESPN column, then set the receiver on the counter. Anita said she mistook the cocking of the gun for the sound of his typewriter keys and hung up as he fired. Will and Jennifer were in the next room when they heard the gunshot, but mistook the sound for a book falling and did not check on Thompson immediately. Juan Thompson found his father's body. According to the police report and Anita's cell phone records, he called the sheriff's office half an hour later, then walked outside and fired three shotgun blasts into the air to "mark the passing of his father". The police report stated that in Thompson's typewriter was a piece of paper with the date "Feb. 22 '05" and a single word, "counselor".
Years of alcohol and cocaine abuse contributed to his problem with depression. Thompson's inner circle told the press that he had been depressed and always found February a "gloomy" month, with football season over and the harsh Colorado winter weather. He was also upset over his advancing age and chronic medical problems, including a hip replacement; he would frequently mutter "This kid is getting old." Rolling Stone published what Douglas Brinkley described as a suicide note written by Thompson to his wife, titled "Football Season Is Over". It read:
Thompson's collaborator and friend Ralph Steadman wrote:
Funeral
On August 20, 2005, in a private funeral, Thompson's ashes were fired from a cannon. This was accompanied by red, white, blue, and green fireworks—all to the tune of Norman Greenbaum's "Spirit in the Sky" and Bob Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man". The cannon was placed atop a tower which had the shape of a double-thumbed fist clutching a peyote button, a symbol originally used in his 1970 campaign for sheriff of Pitkin County, Colorado. The plans for the monument were initially drawn by Thompson and Steadman, and were shown as part of an Omnibus program on the BBC titled Fear and Loathing in Gonzovision (1978). It is included as a special feature on the second disc of the 2004 Criterion Collection DVD release of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and labeled as Fear and Loathing on the Road to Hollywood.
According to his widow, Anita, the $3 million funeral was funded by actor Johnny Depp, who was a close friend of Thompson's. Depp told the Associated Press, "All I'm doing is trying to make sure his last wish comes true. I just want to send my pal out the way he wants to go out." An estimated 280 people attended, including U.S. Senators John Kerry and George McGovern; 60 Minutes correspondents Ed Bradley and Charlie Rose; actors Jack Nicholson, John Cusack, Bill Murray, Benicio del Toro, Sean Penn, and Josh Hartnett; musicians Lyle Lovett, John Oates and David Amram, and artist and long-time friend Ralph Steadman.
Legacy
Writing style
Thompson is often credited as the creator of Gonzo journalism, a style of writing that blurs distinctions between fiction and nonfiction. His work and style are considered to be a major part of the New Journalism literary movement of the 1960s and 1970s, which attempted to break free from the purely objective style of mainstream reportage of the time. Thompson almost always wrote in the first person, while extensively using his own experiences and emotions to color "the story" he was trying to follow.
Despite him having personally described his work as "Gonzo", it fell to later observers to articulate what the term actually meant. While Thompson's approach clearly involved injecting himself as a participant in the events of the narrative, it also involved adding invented, metaphoric elements, thus creating, for the uninitiated reader, a seemingly confusing amalgam of facts and fiction notable for the deliberately blurred lines between one and the other. Thompson, in a 1974 interview in Playboy addressed the issue himself, saying, "Unlike Tom Wolfe or Gay Talese, I almost never try to reconstruct a story. They're both much better reporters than I am, but then, I don't think of myself as a reporter." Tom Wolfe would later describe Thompson's style as "... part journalism and part personal memoir admixed with powers of wild invention and wilder rhetoric." Or as one description of the differences between Thompson and Wolfe's styles would elaborate, "While Tom Wolfe mastered the technique of being a fly on the wall, Thompson mastered the art of being a fly in the ointment."
The majority of Thompson's most popular and acclaimed work appeared within the pages of Rolling Stone magazine. Along with Joe Eszterhas and David Felton, Thompson was instrumental in expanding the focus of the magazine past music criticism; indeed, Thompson was the only staff writer of the epoch never to contribute a music feature to the magazine. Nevertheless, his articles were always peppered with a wide array of pop music references ranging from Howlin' Wolf to Lou Reed. Armed with early fax machines wherever he went, he became notorious for haphazardly sending sometimes illegible material to the magazine's San Francisco offices as an issue was about to go to press.
Robert Love, Thompson's editor of 23 years at Rolling Stone, wrote, "the dividing line between fact and fancy rarely blurred, and we didn't always use italics or some other typographical device to indicate the lurch into the fabulous. But if there were living, identifiable humans in a scene, we took certain steps ... Hunter was a close friend of many prominent Democrats, veterans of the ten or more presidential campaigns he covered, so when in doubt, we'd call the press secretary. 'People will believe almost any twisted kind of story about politicians or Washington,' he once said, and he was right."
Discerning the line between the fact and the fiction of Thompson's work presented a practical problem for editors and fact-checkers of his work. Love called fact-checking Thompson's work "one of the sketchiest occupations ever created in the publishing world", and "for the first-timer ... a trip through a journalistic fun house, where you didn't know what was real and what wasn't. You knew you had better learn enough about the subject at hand to know when the riff began and reality ended. Hunter was a stickler for numbers, for details like gross weight and model numbers, for lyrics and caliber, and there was no faking it."
Persona
Thompson often used a blend of fiction and fact when portraying himself in his writing, too, sometimes using the name Raoul Duke as an author surrogate whom he generally described as a callous, erratic, self-destructive journalist who constantly drank alcohol and took hallucinogenic drugs. Fantasizing about causing bodily harm to others was also a characteristic in his work used to comedic effect and an example of his brand of humor.
In the late 1960s, Thompson acquired the title of "Doctor" from the Universal Life Church.
A number of critics have commented that as he grew older, the line that distinguished Thompson from his literary self became increasingly blurred. Thompson admitted during a 1978 BBC interview that he sometimes felt pressured to live up to the fictional self that he had created, adding, "I'm never sure which one people expect me to be. Very often, they conflict — most often, as a matter of fact. ... I'm leading a normal life and right alongside me there is this myth, and it is growing and mushrooming and getting more and more warped. When I get invited to, say, speak at universities, I'm not sure if they are inviting Duke or Thompson. I'm not sure who to be."
Thompson's writing style and eccentric persona gave him a cult following in both literary and drug circles, and his cult status expanded into broader areas after being portrayed three times in major motion pictures. Hence, both his writing style and persona have been widely imitated, and his likeness has even become a popular costume choice for Halloween.
Political beliefs
Thompson was a firearms and explosives enthusiast (in his writing and in life) and owned a vast collection of handguns, rifles, shotguns, and various automatic and semiautomatic weapons, along with numerous forms of gaseous crowd-control and many homemade devices. He was a proponent of the right to bear arms and privacy rights. A member of the National Rifle Association, Thompson was also co-creator of the Fourth Amendment Foundation, an organization to assist victims in defending themselves against unwarranted search and seizure.
Part of his work with the Fourth Amendment Foundation centered around support of Lisl Auman, a Colorado woman who was sentenced for life in 1997 under felony murder charges for the death of police officer Bruce VanderJagt, despite contradictory statements and dubious evidence. Thompson organized rallies, provided legal support, and co-wrote an article in the June 2004 issue of Vanity Fair outlining the case. The Colorado Supreme Court eventually overturned Auman's sentence in March 2005, shortly after Thompson's death, and Auman is now free. Auman's supporters claim Thompson's support and publicity resulted in the successful appeal.
Thompson was also an ardent supporter of drug legalization and became known for his detailed accounts of his own drug use. He was an early supporter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws and served on the group's advisory board for over 30 years, until his death. He told an interviewer in 1997 that drugs should be legalized "[a]cross the board. It might be a little rough on some people for a while, but I think it's the only way to deal with drugs. Look at Prohibition; all it did was make a lot of criminals rich."
In a 1965 letter to his friend Paul Semonin, Thompson explained an affection for the Industrial Workers of the World, "I have in recent months come to have a certain feeling for Joe Hill and the Wobbly crowd who, if nothing else, had the right idea. But not the right mechanics. I believe the IWW was probably the last human concept in American politics." In another letter to Semonin, Thompson wrote that he agreed with Karl Marx, and compared him to Thomas Jefferson. In a letter to William Kennedy, Thompson confided that he was "coming to view the free enterprise system as the single greatest evil in the history of human savagery." In the documentary Breakfast with Hunter, Hunter S. Thompson is seen in several scenes wearing different Che Guevara T-shirts. Additionally, actor and friend Benicio del Toro has stated that Thompson kept a "big" picture of Che in his kitchen. Thompson wrote on behalf of African-American rights and the civil rights movement. He strongly criticized the dominance in American society of what he called "white power structures".
After the September 11 attacks, Thompson voiced skepticism regarding the official story on who was responsible for the attacks. He speculated to several interviewers that it may have been conducted by the U.S. government or with the government's assistance, though readily admitting he had no way to prove his theory.
In 2004, Thompson wrote: "[Richard] Nixon was a professional politician, and I despised everything he stood for—but if he were running for president this year against the evil Bush–Cheney gang, I would happily vote for him."
Scholarships
Thompson's widow established two scholarship funds at Columbia University School of General Studies for U.S. military veterans and the University of Kentucky for journalism students.
Colorado NORML created the Hunter S. Thompson Scholarship to pay all expenses for a lawyer or law student to attend the NORML Legal Committee Conference in Aspen, generally the first few days of June each year. The funding from a silent auction has paid for two winners for some years. Many winners have gone on to become important cannabis lawyers on state and national levels.
Works
Books
Thompson wrote a number of books, publishing from 1966 to the end of his life. His best-known works include Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, The Rum Diary, The Curse of Lono, and Screwjack.
Articles
As a journalist over the course of decades, Thompson published numerous articles in various periodicals. He wrote for many publications, including Rolling Stone, Esquire, The Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, The New York Times, The San Francisco Examiner, Time, Vanity Fair, The San Juan Star, and Playboy. He was also guest editor for a single edition of The Aspen Daily News. A collection of 100 of his columns from The San Francisco Examiner was published in 1988 as Gonzo Papers, Vol. 2: Generation of Swine: Tales of Shame and Degradation in the '80s. A collection of his articles for Rolling Stone was released in 2011 as Fear and Loathing at Rolling Stone: The Essential Writings of Hunter S. Thompson. The book was edited by the magazine's co-founder and publisher, Jann S. Wenner, who also provided an introduction to the collection.
Letters
Thompson wrote many letters, which were his primary means of personal communication. He made carbon copies of all his letters, usually typed, a habit begun in his teenaged years.
The Fear and Loathing Letters is a three-volume collection of selections from Thompson's correspondence, edited by historian Douglas Brinkley. The first volume, The Proud Highway, was published in 1997, and contains letters from 1955 to 1967. Fear and Loathing in America was published in 2000 and contains letters dating from 1968 to 1976. A third volume, titled The Mutineer: Rants, Ravings, and Missives from the Mountaintop 1977–2005, was edited by Douglas Brinkley and prepared by Simon & Schuster in 2005. As of March 2019, it has yet to be sold to the public. It contains a special introduction by Johnny Depp.
Illustrations
Accompanying the eccentric and colorful writing of Hunter Thompson, illustrations by British artist Ralph Steadman offer visual representations of the Gonzo style. Steadman and Thompson developed a professional relationship. The two collaborated many times over Thompson's career, although at times they were known to violently argue. Wayne Ewing's documentary on Hunter captured an encounter where Steadman tells Hunter that he believes his drawings contributed as much to the success of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas as Hunter's writing. Hunter was furious at the suggestion and their relationship was certainly at times, strained. Steadman in recent years has described Hunter as "rude" and "a bully." So while they are publicly known as great friends, the true nature of their relationship was considerably more nuanced.
Photography
Thompson was an avid amateur photographer throughout his life, and his photos have been exhibited since his death at art galleries in the United States and United Kingdom. In late 2006, AMMO Books published a limited-edition, 224-page collection of Thompson photos called Gonzo: Photographs by Hunter S. Thompson, with an introduction by Johnny Depp. Thompson's snapshots were a combination of the subjects he was covering, stylized self-portraits, and artistic still life photos. The London Observer called the photos "astonishingly good" and noted that "Thompson's pictures remind us, brilliantly in every sense, of very real people, real colours."
Feature films
The film Where the Buffalo Roam (1980) depicts heavily fictionalized attempts by Thompson to cover the Super Bowl and the 1972 U.S. presidential election. It stars Bill Murray as Thompson and Peter Boyle as Thompson's attorney Oscar Zeta Acosta, referred to in the movie as Carl Lazlo, Esq.
The 1998 film adaptation of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was directed by Monty Python veteran Terry Gilliam and starred Johnny Depp (who moved into Thompson's basement to "study" Thompson's persona before assuming his role in the film) as Raoul Duke and Benicio del Toro as Oscar Zeta Acosta. The film has achieved something of a cult following.
In the 2001 film Ali, Thompson is briefly portrayed by actor Lee Cummings.
The film adaptation of Thompson's novel The Rum Diary was released in October 2011, also starring Johnny Depp as the main character, Paul Kemp. The novel's premise was inspired by Thompson's own experiences in Puerto Rico. The film was written and directed by Bruce Robinson.
At a press junket for The Rum Diary shortly before the film's release, Depp said that he would like to adapt The Curse of Lono, "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved", and Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs for the big screen: "I'd just keep playing Hunter. There's a great comfort in it for me, because I get a great visit with my old friend who I miss dearly."
Documentaries
Fear and Loathing in Gonzovision (1978) is an extended television profile by the BBC. It can be found on disc 2 of The Criterion Collection edition of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
The Mitchell brothers, owners of the O'Farrell Theatre in San Francisco, made a documentary about Thompson in 1988 called Hunter S. Thompson: The Crazy Never Die.
Wayne Ewing created three documentaries about Thompson. The film Breakfast with Hunter (2003) was directed and edited by Ewing. It documents Thompson's work on the movie Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, his arrest for drunk driving, and his subsequent fight with the court system. When I Die (2005) is a video chronicle of making Thompson's final farewell wishes a reality, and documents the send-off itself. Free Lisl: Fear and Loathing in Denver (2006) chronicles Thompson's efforts in helping to free Lisl Auman, who was sentenced to life in prison without parole for the shooting of a police officer, a crime she did not commit. All three films are only available online.
In Come on Down: Searching for the American Dream (2004) Thompson gives director Adamm Liley insight into the nature of the American Dream over drinks at the Woody Creek Tavern.
Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride: Hunter S. Thompson on Film (2006) was directed by Tom Thurman, written by Tom Marksbury, and produced by the Starz Entertainment Group. The original documentary features interviews with Thompson's inner circle of family and friends, but the thrust of the film focuses on the manner in which his life often overlapped with numerous Hollywood celebrities who became his close friends, such as Johnny Depp, Benicio del Toro, Bill Murray, Sean Penn, John Cusack, Thompson's wife Anita, son Juan, former Senators George McGovern and Gary Hart, writers Tom Wolfe and William F. Buckley, actors Gary Busey and Harry Dean Stanton, and the illustrator Ralph Steadman among others.
Blasted!!! The Gonzo Patriots of Hunter S. Thompson (2006), produced, directed, photographed, and edited by Blue Kraning, is a documentary about the scores of fans who volunteered their privately owned artillery to fire the ashes of the late author, Hunter S. Thompson. Blasted!!! premiered at the 2006 Starz Denver International Film Festival, part of a tribute series to Hunter S. Thompson held at the Denver Press Club.
In 2008, Academy Award-winning documentarian Alex Gibney (Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, Taxi to the Dark Side) wrote and directed a documentary on Thompson, titled Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson. The film premiered on January 20, 2008, at the Sundance Film Festival. Gibney uses intimate, never-before-seen home videos, interviews with friends, enemies, lovers, and clips from films adapted from Thompson's material to document his turbulent life.
Theater
Lou Stein's adaptation of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was performed at the Battersea Theatre. Stein persuades London's Time Out magazine to put Thompson up for a fortnight, in exchange for him writing a cover story to publicize the play. Thompson does not write the story, but does rampage around London on Time Out 's expense account. The play was revived for the Vault Fringe Festival in 2014.
GONZO: A Brutal Chrysalis is a one-man show about Thompson written by Paul Addis, who also played the author. Set in the writing den of Thompson's Woody Creek home, the show portrays his life between 1968 and 1971. James Cartee began playing the role soon after Addis's arrest in 2009, and again after Addis's death in 2012.
Awards, accolades, and tributes
Thompson was named a Kentucky Colonel by the governor of Kentucky in a December 1996 tribute ceremony where he also received keys to the city of Louisville.
Author Tom Wolfe has called Thompson the greatest American comic writer of the 20th century.
Asked in an interview with Jody Denberg on KGSR Studio, in 2000, whether he would ever consider writing a book "like [his] buddy Hunter S. Thompson", the musician Warren Zevon responded: "Let's remember that Hunter S. Thompson is the finest writer of our generation; he didn't just toss off a book the other day..."
Thompson appeared on the cover of the 1,000th issue of Rolling Stone, May 18 – June 1, 2006, as a devil playing the guitar next to the two "L"'s in the word "Rolling". Johnny Depp also appeared on the cover.
The Thompson-inspired character Uncle Duke appears on a recurring basis in Doonesbury, the daily newspaper comic strip by Garry Trudeau. When the character was first introduced, Thompson protested, quoted in an interview as saying that he would set Trudeau on fire if the two ever met, although reportedly he liked the character in later years. Between March 7, 2005 (roughly two weeks after Thompson's suicide), and March 12, 2005, Doonesbury ran a tribute to Hunter, with Uncle Duke lamenting the death of the man he called his "inspiration". The first of these strips featured a panel with artwork similar to that of Ralph Steadman, and later strips featured various non sequiturs (with Duke variously transforming into a monster, melting, shrinking to the size of an empty drinking glass, or people around him turning into animals), which seemed to mirror some of the effects of hallucinogenic drugs described in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
Many have suggested that General Hunter Gathers in the Adult Swim animated series The Venture Bros. is a tribute to Thompson, as they have a similar name, mannerisms, and physical appearance.
Dale Gribble in the Fox animated series King of the Hill is a tribute to Thompson and derives his physical appearance from him.
In the Cameron Crowe film Almost Famous, based on Crowe's experiences writing for Rolling Stone while on the road with the fictional band Stillwater", the writer is on the phone with an actor portraying Jann Wenner. Wenner tells the young journalist that he "is not there to join the party, we already have one Hunter Thompson" after the young writer amassed large hotel and traveling expenses and is overheard to be sharing his room with several young women.
Eric C. Shoaf donated a caché of approximately 800 items (in librarian terms, about 35-40 linear feet of material on a shelf) pertaining to the life and career of Thompson to the University of California at Santa Cruz. Shoaf also published a descriptive bibliography, Gonzology: A Hunter Thompson Bibliography, of the works of Hunter S. Thompson with over 1,000 entries, many never before documented appearances in print, hundreds of biographical entries about Thompson's life, full descriptions of all his primary works, preface by William McKeen, Phd, and photo section with rare and exclusive items depicted.
References
External links
"Hunter S. Thompson's ESPN Page 2 Archive", Totallygonzo.org
"Shotgun Golf With Bill Murray", Thompson's final column for ESPN.com's Page 2.
A collection of articles on Thompson from The Guardian
Thompson's photography
1937 births
2005 suicides
20th-century American journalists
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American novelists
20th-century essayists
21st-century American journalists
21st-century American male writers
21st-century American novelists
9/11 conspiracy theorists
American activist journalists
American columnists
American conspiracy theorists
American essayists
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American people of Scottish descent
American political writers
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Columbia University School of General Studies alumni
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Military personnel from Louisville, Kentucky
Motorcycling writers
Novelists from Colorado
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People from Glen Ellen, California
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[
"Silent Slaughter is a novel by Peter Beere published in 1985.\n\nPlot summary\nSilent Slaughter is a novel in which Beekay, a crook and coward appears in volume 3 of the 'Trauma 2020' series.\n\nReception\nDave Langford reviewed Silent Slaughter for White Dwarf #73, and stated that \"It succeeds - conjuring up a smell that's a powerful antidote to books and TV series where violence is sanitized and good guys never get hurt, much.\"\n\nReviews\nReview by Pauline Morgan (1986) in Fantasy Review, February 1986\n\nReferences\n\n1985 novels",
"How Did This Get Made? (HDTGM) is a podcast on the Earwolf network. It is hosted by Paul Scheer, June Diane Raphael and Jason Mantzoukas. Each episode, which typically has a different guest, features the deconstruction and mockery of outlandish and bad films.\n\nFormat\nThe hosts and guest make jokes about the films as well as attempt to unscramble plots. After discussing the film, Scheer reads \"second opinions\" in the form of five-star reviews posted online by Amazon.com users. The hosts also often make recommendations on if the film is worth watching. The show is released every two weeks.\n\nDuring the show's off week a \".5\" episode (also known as a \"minisode\") is uploaded. These episodes feature Scheer's \"explanation hopeline\" where he answers questions from fans who call in, the movie for the next week is announced, Scheer reads corrections and omissions from the message board regarding last week's episode, and he opens fan mail and provides his recommendations on books, movies, TV shows etc. that he is enjoying.\n\nSome full episodes are recorded in front of a live audience and include a question and answer session and original \"second opinion\" theme songs sung by fans. Not all content from the live shows is included in the final released episode - about 30 minutes of each live show is edited out.\n\nHistory\nHow Did This Get Made? began after Scheer and Raphael saw the movie Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps. Later, the pair talked to Mantzoukas about the movie and joked about the idea for starting a bad movie podcast. , Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps has never been covered on the podcast.\n\nAwards\nIn 2019, How Did This Get Made? won a Webby Award in the category of Podcasts – Television & Film.\n\nIn 2020, How Did This Get Made? won an iHeartRadio award in the category of Best TV & Film Podcast.\n\nIn 2022, How Did This Get Made? won an iHeartRadio award in the category of Best TV & Film Podcast.\n\nSpinoffs\n\nHow Did This Get Made?: Origin Stories\nBetween February and September 2017, a 17-episode spin-off series of the podcast was released. Entitled How Did This Get Made?: Origin Stories, author Blake J. Harris would interview people involved with the movies discussed on the podcast. Guests on the show included director Mel Brooks, who served as executive producer on Solarbabies, and screenwriter Dan Gordon, who wrote Surf Ninjas.\n\nUnspooled\nIn May 2018, Scheer began a new podcast with Amy Nicholson titled Unspooled that is also devoted to movies. Unlike HDTGM?, however, Unspooled looks at films deemed good enough for the updated 2007 edition of the AFI Top 100. This is often referenced in How Did This Get Made? by Mantzoukas and Raphael, who are comically annoyed at how they were not invited to host the podcast, instead being subjected to the bad films that HDTGM covers.\n\nHow Did This Get Played?\nIn June 2019, the Earwolf network launched the podcast How Did This Get Played?, hosted by Doughboys host Nick Wiger and former Saturday Night Live writer Heather Anne Campbell. The podcast is positioned as the video game equivalent of HDTGM?, where Wiger and Campbell review widely panned video games.\n\nEpisodes\n\nAdaptation\nThe program was adapted in France in 2014 under the title 2 heures de perdues (http://www.2hdp.fr/ and available on Spotify and iTunes), a podcast in which several friends meet to analyze bad films in the same style (mainly American, French, and British films). The show then ends with a reading of comments found on AlloCiné (biggest French-speaking cinema website) or Amazon.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n \n How Did This Get Made on Earwolf\n\nAudio podcasts\nEarwolf\nFilm and television podcasts\nComedy and humor podcasts\n2010 podcast debuts"
] |
[
"Hunter S. Thompson",
"Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas",
"What is Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas?",
"The result of the trip to Las Vegas became the 1972 book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,",
"Did it do well?",
"the book was greeted with considerable critical acclaim, including being heralded by The New York Times as \"by far the best book yet",
"Did he write it in Vegas?",
"I don't know.",
"who published the book?",
"the 1972 book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, which first appeared in the November 1971 issues of Rolling Stone as a two-part series.",
"Did anyone reject it?",
"Thompson first submitted to Sports Illustrated a manuscript of 2,500 words, which was, as he later wrote, \"aggressively rejected.",
"what is the book about?",
"It is written as a first-person account by a journalist named Raoul Duke on a trip to Las Vegas with Dr. Gonzo, his \"300-pound Samoan attorney\",",
"Why do they go to Vegas?",
"I don't know.",
"Did it get good reviews?",
"Thompson referred to it, was a mainstream success and introduced his Gonzo journalism techniques to a wide public."
] |
C_f9d8069ce5c14c45a92486e19a607c8b_0
|
Who gave it good reviews?
| 9 |
Who gave "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" good reviews?
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Hunter S. Thompson
|
The book for which Thompson gained most of his fame had its genesis during the research for Strange Rumblings in Aztlan, an expose for Rolling Stone on the 1970 killing of the Mexican-American television journalist Ruben Salazar. Salazar had been shot in the head at close range with a tear gas canister fired by officers of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department during the National Chicano Moratorium March against the Vietnam War. One of Thompson's sources for the story was Oscar Zeta Acosta, a prominent Mexican-American activist and attorney. Finding it difficult to talk in the racially tense atmosphere of Los Angeles, Thompson and Acosta decided to travel to Las Vegas, and take advantage of an assignment by Sports Illustrated to write a 250-word photograph caption on the Mint 400 motorcycle race held there. What was to be a short caption quickly grew into something else entirely. Thompson first submitted to Sports Illustrated a manuscript of 2,500 words, which was, as he later wrote, "aggressively rejected." Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner was said to have liked "the first 20 or so jangled pages enough to take it seriously on its own terms and tentatively scheduled it for publication -- which gave me the push I needed to keep working on it", Thompson later wrote. The result of the trip to Las Vegas became the 1972 book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, which first appeared in the November 1971 issues of Rolling Stone as a two-part series. It is written as a first-person account by a journalist named Raoul Duke on a trip to Las Vegas with Dr. Gonzo, his "300-pound Samoan attorney", to cover a narcotics officers' convention and the "fabulous Mint 400". During the trip, Duke and his companion (always referred to as "my attorney") become sidetracked by a search for the American Dream, with "two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers ... and also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether, and two dozen amyls." Coming to terms with the failure of the 1960s countercultural movement is a major theme of the novel, and the book was greeted with considerable critical acclaim, including being heralded by The New York Times as "by far the best book yet written on the decade of dope". "The Vegas Book", as Thompson referred to it, was a mainstream success and introduced his Gonzo journalism techniques to a wide public. CANNOTANSWER
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book was greeted with considerable critical acclaim, including being heralded by The New York Times
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Hunter Stockton Thompson (July 18, 1937 – February 20, 2005) was an American journalist and author who founded the gonzo journalism movement. He rose to prominence with the publication of Hell's Angels (1967), a book for which he spent a year living and riding with the Hells Angels motorcycle gang to write a first-hand account of their lives and experiences.
In 1970, he wrote an unconventional magazine feature titled "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved" for Scanlan's Monthly, which raised his profile and established his counterculture credibility. It also set him on the path to establishing his own subgenre of New Journalism that he called "Gonzo", which was essentially an ongoing experiment in which the writer becomes a central figure and participant in the events of the narrative.
Thompson remains best known for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1971), a book first serialized in Rolling Stone in which he grapples with the implications of what he considered the failure of the 1960s counterculture movement. It was adapted for film twice: loosely in Where the Buffalo Roam starring Bill Murray as Thompson in 1980, and explicitly in 1998 by director Terry Gilliam in the eponymous film starring Johnny Depp and Benicio del Toro.
Thompson ran unsuccessfully for sheriff of Pitkin County, Colorado in 1970 on the Freak Power ticket. His campaign was chronicled in the documentary film Freak Power: The Ballot or the Bomb. He became known for his dislike of Richard Nixon, who he claimed represented "that dark, venal, and incurably violent side of the American character". He covered Nixon's 1972 reelection campaign for Rolling Stone and later collected the stories in book form as Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72.
Thompson's output declined from the mid-1970s, as he struggled with the consequences of fame, and complained that he could no longer merely report on events, as he was too easily recognized. After several high-profile stories were quashed by the upper management of Rolling Stone, he found it increasingly difficult to get his work into mainstream outlets. He did continue to write for alternative newspapers, and had a gig as a critic for the mainstream San Francisco Examiner for much of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Most of his work from 1979 to 1994 was collected in The Gonzo Papers. He continued to write for various journalism outlets in a variety of formats, including sporadic stories published in Rolling Stone and a weekly column that appeared on ESPN.com's Page 2 titled "Hey, Rube" that he started in 2000.
He was known for his lifelong use of alcohol and illegal narcotics, his love of firearms, and his iconoclastic contempt for authority. He often remarked: "I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me." Thompson died by suicide at the age of 67, following a series of health problems. In accordance with his wishes, his ashes were fired out of a cannon in a ceremony funded by his friend Johnny Depp and attended by friends including then-Senator John Kerry and Jack Nicholson. Hari Kunzru wrote, "the true voice of Thompson is revealed to be that of American moralist ... one who often makes himself ugly to expose the ugliness he sees around him."
Early life
Thompson was born into a middle-class family in Louisville, Kentucky, the first of three sons of Virginia Davison Ray (1908, Springfield, Kentucky – March 20, 1998, Louisville), who worked as head librarian at the Louisville Free Public Library and Jack Robert Thompson (September 4, 1893, Horse Cave, Kentucky – July 3, 1952, Louisville), a public insurance adjuster and World War I veteran. His parents were introduced by a friend from Jack's fraternity at the University of Kentucky in September 1934, and married on November 2, 1935. The Guardian journalist Nicholas Lezard, stated that Thompson's first name, Hunter, came from an ancestor on his mother's side, the Scottish surgeon John Hunter. A more direct attribution is that Thompson's first and middle name, Hunter Stockton, came from his maternal grandparents, Prestly Stockton Ray and Lucille Hunter.
In December 1943 when Thompson was six years old, the family settled in the affluent Cherokee Triangle neighborhood of The Highlands. On July 3, 1952, when Thompson was 14, his father died of myasthenia gravis at age 58. Hunter and his brothers were raised by their mother. Virginia worked as a librarian to support her children, and was described as a "heavy drinker" following her husband's death.
Education
Interested in sports and athletically inclined from a young age, Thompson co-founded the Hawks Athletic Club while attending I.N. Bloom Elementary School, which led to an invitation to join Louisville's Castlewood Athletic Club for adolescents that prepared them for high-school sports. Ultimately, he never joined a sports team in high school.
Thompson attended I.N. Bloom Elementary School, Highland Middle School, and Atherton High School, before transferring to Louisville Male High School in fall 1952. Also in 1952, he was accepted as a member of the Athenaeum Literary Association, a school-sponsored literary and social club that dated to 1862. Its members at the time came from Louisville's upper-class families, and included Porter Bibb, who became the first publisher of Rolling Stone at Thompson's behest. During this time, Thompson read and admired J. P. Donleavy's The Ginger Man.
As an Athenaeum member, Thompson contributed articles to and helped produce the club's yearbook The Spectator. The group ejected Thompson in 1955 for criminal activity. Charged as an accessory to robbery after being in a car with the perpetrator, Thompson was sentenced to 60 days in Kentucky's Jefferson County Jail. He served 31 days and, a week after his release, enlisted in the United States Air Force. While he was in jail, the school superintendent refused permission to take his high-school final examinations so he was unable to graduate.
Military service
Thompson completed basic training at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, and transferred to Scott Air Force Base in Belleville, Illinois, to study electronics. He applied to become an aviator, but the Air Force's aviation-cadet program rejected his application. In 1956, he transferred to Eglin Air Force Base near Fort Walton Beach, Florida. While serving at Eglin, he took evening classes at Florida State University. At Eglin, he landed his first professional writing job as sports editor of The Command Courier by falsifying his job experience. As sports editor, Thompson traveled around the United States with the Eglin Eagles football team, covering its games. In early 1957, he wrote a sports column for The Playground News, a local newspaper in Fort Walton Beach, Florida. His name did not appear on the column because Air Force regulations forbade outside employment.
In 1958, as an airman first class, his commanding officer recommended him for an early honorable discharge. "In summary, this airman, although talented, will not be guided by policy," chief of information services Colonel William S. Evans wrote to the Eglin personnel office. "Sometimes his rebel and superior attitude seems to rub off on other airmen staff members."
Early journalism career
After leaving the Air Force, Thompson worked as sports editor for a newspaper in Jersey Shore, Pennsylvania, before relocating to New York City. There he audited several courses at the Columbia University School of General Studies. During this time he worked briefly for Time as a copy boy for $51 a week. At work, he typed out parts of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms in order to learn the authors' rhythms and writing styles. In 1959 Time fired him for insubordination. Later that year, he worked as a reporter for The Middletown Daily Record in Middletown, New York. He was fired from this job after damaging an office candy machine and arguing with the owner of a local restaurant who happened to be an advertiser with the paper.
In 1960, Thompson moved to San Juan, Puerto Rico, to take a job with the sporting magazine El Sportivo, which ceased operations soon after his arrival. Thompson applied for a job with the Puerto Rican English-language daily The San Juan Star, but its managing editor, future novelist William J. Kennedy, turned him down. Nonetheless, the two became friends. After the demise of El Sportivo, Thompson worked as a stringer for the New York Herald Tribune and a few other stateside papers on Caribbean issues, with Kennedy working as his editor.
After returning to the United States, Thompson visited San Francisco and eventually lived in Big Sur, where he worked as a security guard and caretaker at Slates Hot Springs for an eight-month period in 1961, just before it became the Esalen Institute. At the time, Big Sur was a Beat outpost and home of Henry Miller and Dennis Murphy (screenwriter), both of whom Thompson admired. While there, he published his first magazine feature in Rogue about the artisan and bohemian culture of Big Sur. During this period, Thompson wrote two novels, Prince Jellyfish and The Rum Diary, and submitted many short stories to publishers – with little success. The Rum Diary, based on Thompson's experiences in Puerto Rico, was not published until .
In May 1962, Thompson traveled to South America for a year as a correspondent for the Dow Jones-owned weekly paper, the National Observer. In Brazil, he spent several months as a reporter for the Brazil Herald, the country's only English-language daily, published in Rio de Janeiro. His longtime girlfriend Sandra Dawn Conklin (or Sandy Conklin Thompson, subsequently Sondi Wright) later joined him in Rio. They married on May 19, 1963, shortly after returning to the United States, and lived briefly in Aspen, Colorado. Sandy was eight months pregnant when they relocated to Glen Ellen, California. Their son, Juan Fitzgerald Thompson, was born on March 23, 1964.
Thompson continued to write for the National Observer on an array of domestic subjects. One story told of his 1964 visit to Ketchum, Idaho, to investigate the reasons for Ernest Hemingway's suicide. While there, he stole a pair of elk antlers hanging above the front door of Hemingway's cabin. Later that year, Thompson moved to San Francisco, where he attended the 1964 GOP Convention at the Cow Palace. Thompson severed his ties with the Observer after his editor refused to print his review of Tom Wolfe's 1965 essay-collection The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby,. He later immersed himself in the drug and hippie culture taking root in the area, and soon began writing for the Berkeley underground paper Spider.
Hell's Angels
In 1965 Carey McWilliams, editor of The Nation, hired Thompson to write a story about the Hells Angels motorcycle club in California. At the time Thompson was living in a house near San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, where the Hells Angels lived across from the Grateful Dead. His article appeared on May 17, 1965, after which he received several book offers and spent the next year living and riding with the club. The relationship broke down when the bikers perceived that Thompson was exploiting them for personal gain and demanded a share of his profits. An argument at a party resulted in Thompson suffering a savage beating (or "stomping", as the Angels referred to it). Random House published the hard-cover Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs in 1966, and the fight between Thompson and the Angels was well-marketed. CBC Television even broadcast an encounter between Thompson and Hells Angel Skip Workman before a live studio audience.
A New York Times review praised the work as an "angry, knowledgeable, fascinating, and excitedly written book", that shows the Hells Angels "not so much as dropouts from society but as total misfits, or unfits—emotionally, intellectually and educationally unfit to achieve the rewards, such as they are, that the contemporary social order offers". The reviewer also praised Thompson as a "spirited, witty, observant, and original writer; his prose crackles like motorcycle exhaust".
Following the book's publication, Thompson appeared as himself on the February 20, 1967, episode of the game show To Tell The Truth, receiving all four votes by the panel members.
Late 1960s
Following the success of Hell's Angels, Thompson successfully sold articles to several national magazines, including The New York Times Magazine, Esquire, Pageant, and Harper's.
In 1967, shortly before the Summer of Love, Thompson wrote "The 'Hashbury' is the Capital of the Hippies" for The New York Times Magazine. He criticized San Francisco's hippies as devoid of both the political convictions of the New Left and the artistic core of the Beats, resulting in a culture overrun with young people who spent their time in the pursuit of drugs. "The thrust is no longer for 'change' or 'progress' or 'revolution', but merely to escape, to live on the far perimeter of a world that might have been – perhaps should have been – and strike a bargain for survival on purely personal terms," he wrote.
By late 1967, Thompson and his family moved back to Colorado and rented a house in Woody Creek, a small mountain hamlet outside Aspen. In early 1969, Thompson received a $15,000 royalty check for the paperback sales of Hell's Angels and used two-thirds of the money for a down payment on a modest home and property where he would live for the rest of his life. He named the house Owl Farm and often described it as his "fortified compound".
In early 1968, Thompson signed the "Writers and Editors War Tax Protest" pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War. According to Thompson's letters and his later writings, at this time, he planned to write a book called The Joint Chiefs about "the death of the American Dream." He used a $6,000 advance from Random House to travel the 1968 Presidential campaign trail and attend the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago for research. From his hotel room in Chicago, Thompson watched the clashes between police and protesters, which he wrote had a great effect on his political views. The book was never finished, and the theme of the death of the American dream was carried over into his later work. The contract with Random House was eventually fulfilled with the 1972 book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. He also signed a deal with Ballantine Books in 1968 to write a satirical book called The Johnson File about Lyndon B. Johnson. A few weeks after the contract was signed, however, Johnson announced that he would not seek re-election, and the deal was cancelled.
Middle years
Aspen sheriff campaign
In 1970, Thompson ran for sheriff of Pitkin County, Colorado, as part of a group of citizens running for local offices on the "Freak Power" ticket. The platform included promoting the decriminalization of drugs (for personal use only, not trafficking, as he disapproved of profiteering), tearing up the streets and turning them into grassy pedestrian malls, banning any building so tall as to obscure the view of the mountains, disarming all police forces, and renaming Aspen "Fat City" to deter investors. Thompson, having shaved his head, referred to the crew cut-wearing Republican candidate as "my long-haired opponent".
With polls showing him with a slight lead in a three-way race, Thompson appeared at Rolling Stone magazine headquarters in San Francisco with a six-pack of beer in hand, and declared to editor Jann Wenner that he was about to be elected sheriff of Aspen, Colorado, and wished to write about the "Freak Power" movement. Thus, Thompson's first article in Rolling Stone was published as "The Battle of Aspen" with the byline "By: Dr. Hunter S. Thompson (Candidate for Sheriff)". Despite the publicity, Thompson narrowly lost the election. While carrying the city of Aspen, he garnered only 44% of the county-wide vote in what had become a two-way race. The Republican candidate agreed to withdraw a few days before the election to consolidate the anti-Thompson votes, in return for the Democrats withdrawing their candidate for county commissioner. Thompson later remarked that the Rolling Stone article mobilized his opposition far more than his supporters.
A documentary film about Hunter S. Thompson's campaign for sheriff called Freak Power: The Ballot or the Bomb was released on October 23, 2020.
Birth of Gonzo
Also in 1970, Thompson wrote an article entitled "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved" for the short-lived new journalism magazine Scanlan's Monthly. For that article, editor Warren Hinckle paired Thompson with illustrator Ralph Steadman, who drew expressionist illustrations with lipstick and eyeliner. Thompson's article virtually ignored the race, focusing instead on the drunken revelry surrounding the annual event in his hometown. The first-person narrator also sets that debauchery against a political backdrop, which included the bombing of Cambodia and the deaths of four students at Kent State University, which occurred two days after the Kentucky Derby.
Thompson and Steadman collaborated regularly after that. Although it was not widely read, the article was the first to use the techniques of Gonzo journalism, a style Thompson later employed in almost every literary endeavor. The manic first-person subjectivity of the story was reportedly the result of sheer desperation; he was facing a looming deadline and started sending the magazine pages ripped out of his notebook.
The first use of the word "Gonzo" to describe Thompson's work is credited to the journalist Bill Cardoso, who first met Thompson on a bus full of journalists covering the 1968 New Hampshire primary. In 1970, Cardoso (who was then the editor of The Boston Globe Sunday Magazine) wrote to Thompson praising the "Kentucky Derby" piece as a breakthrough: "This is it, this is pure Gonzo. If this is a start, keep rolling." According to Steadman, Thompson took to the word right away and said, "Okay, that's what I do. Gonzo." Thompson's first published use of the word appears in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: "Free Enterprise. The American Dream. Horatio Alger gone mad on drugs in Las Vegas. Do it now: pure Gonzo journalism."
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
The book for which Thompson gained most of his fame had its genesis during the research for "Strange Rumblings in Aztlan", an exposé for Rolling Stone on the 1970 killing of the Mexican-American television journalist Rubén Salazar. Salazar had been shot in the head at close range with a tear-gas canister fired by officers of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department during the National Chicano Moratorium March against the Vietnam War. One of Thompson's sources for the story was Oscar Zeta Acosta, a prominent Mexican-American activist and attorney. Finding it difficult to talk in the racially tense atmosphere of Los Angeles, Thompson and Acosta decided to travel to Las Vegas, and take advantage of an assignment by Sports Illustrated to write a 250-word photograph caption on the Mint 400 motorcycle race held there.
What was to be a short caption quickly grew into something else entirely. Thompson first submitted to Sports Illustrated a manuscript of 2,500 words, which was, as he later wrote, "aggressively rejected." Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner was said to have liked "the first 20 or so jangled pages enough to take it seriously on its own terms and tentatively scheduled it for publication — which gave me the push I needed to keep working on it", Thompson later wrote. To develop the story, Thompson and Acosta returned to Las Vegas to attend a drug enforcement conference.
The two trips became the basis for "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," which appeared as a two-part Rolling Stone story in November 1971. Random House published the book version the following year. It is written as a first-person account by a journalist named Raoul Duke with Dr. Gonzo, his "300-pound Samoan attorney." During the trip, Duke and his companion (always referred to as "my attorney") become sidetracked by a search for the American Dream, with "two bags of grass, 75 pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multicolored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers ... and also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether, and two dozen amyls."
Coming to terms with the failure of the 1960s countercultural movement is a major theme of the novel, and the book was greeted with considerable critical acclaim, including being heralded by The New York Times as "by far the best book yet written on the decade of dope". "The Vegas Book", as Thompson referred to it, was a mainstream success and introduced his Gonzo journalism techniques to a wide public.
Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72
Beginning in late 1971, Thompson wrote extensively for Rolling Stone on the election campaigns of President Richard Nixon and his unsuccessful opponent, Senator George McGovern. The articles were soon combined and published as Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72. As the title suggests, Thompson spent nearly all of his time traveling the "campaign trail", focusing largely on the Democratic Party's primaries. Nixon, as the Republican incumbent, performed little campaign work, while McGovern competed with rival candidates Edmund Muskie and Hubert Humphrey. Thompson was an early supporter of McGovern and wrote unflattering coverage of the rival campaigns in the increasingly widely read Rolling Stone.
Thompson went on to become a fierce critic of Nixon, both during and after his presidency. After Nixon's death in 1994, Thompson described him in Rolling Stone as a man who "could shake your hand and stab you in the back at the same time", and said "his casket [should] have been launched into one of those open-sewage canals that empty into the ocean just south of Los Angeles. He was a swine of a man and a jabbering dupe of a president. [He] was an evil man—evil in a way that only those who believe in the physical reality of the Devil can understand it." Following Nixon's pardon by Gerald Ford in 1974, Hunter ruminated on the roughly $400,000 pension Nixon maneuvered his way into, by resigning before being formally indicted. While The Washington Post was lamenting Nixon's "lonely and depressed" state after being forced from the White House, Hunter wrote that '[i]f there were any such thing as true justice in this world, his [Nixon's] rancid carcass would be somewhere down around Easter Island right now, in the belly of a hammerhead shark.' There was however one passion shared by Thompson and Nixon: a love of football, discussed in Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72.
Fame and its consequences
Thompson's journalistic work began to seriously suffer after his trip to Africa to cover the Rumble in the Jungle—the world heavyweight boxing match between George Foreman and Muhammad Ali—in 1974. He missed the match while intoxicated at his hotel, and did not submit a story to the magazine. As Wenner put it to the film critic Roger Ebert in the 2008 documentary Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, "After Africa, he just couldn't write. He couldn't piece it together".
Plans for Thompson to cover the 1976 presidential campaign for Rolling Stone and later publish a book fell through after Wenner canceled the project without informing Thompson. Wenner then assigned Thompson to travel to Vietnam to cover what appeared to be the end of the Vietnam War. Thompson arrived in Saigon just as South Vietnam was collapsing and as other journalists were leaving the country. Wenner allegedly cancelled Thompson's life insurance, which strained Thompson's relationship with Rolling Stone. He soon fled the country and refused to file his report until the ten-year anniversary of the Fall of Saigon.
From the late 1970s on, most of Thompson's literary output appeared as a four-volume series of books entitled The Gonzo Papers. Beginning with The Great Shark Hunt in 1979 and ending with Better Than Sex in 1994, the series is largely a collection of rare newspaper and magazine pieces from the pre-gonzo period, along with almost all of his Rolling Stone pieces.
Starting around 1980, Thompson became less active by his standards. Aside from paid appearances, he largely retreated to his compound in Woody Creek, rejecting projects and assignments or failing to complete them. Despite a lack of new material, Wenner kept Thompson on the Rolling Stone masthead as chief of the "National Affairs Desk", a position he held until his death.
In 1980, Thompson divorced wife Sandra Conklin. The same year marked the release of Where the Buffalo Roam, a loose film adaptation based on Thompson's early 1970s work, starring Bill Murray as the writer. Murray eventually became one of Thompson's trusted friends. Later that year, Thompson relocated to Hawaii to research and write The Curse of Lono, a Gonzo-style account of the 1980 Honolulu Marathon. Extensively illustrated by Ralph Steadman, the piece first appeared in Running in 1981 as "The Charge of the Weird Brigade" and was later excerpted in Playboy in 1983.
In 1983, he covered the U.S. invasion of Grenada, but did not write or discuss the experiences until the publication of Kingdom of Fear in 2003. Later that year, at the behest of Terry McDonell, he wrote "A Dog Took My Place", an exposé for Rolling Stone of the scandalous Roxanne Pulitzer divorce case and what he called the "Palm Beach lifestyle". The story included dubious insinuations of bestiality, but was widely considered to be a return by Thompson to his proper form. In 1985, Thompson accepted an advance to write about "couples pornography" for Playboy. As part of his research, he spent evenings at the Mitchell Brothers O'Farrell Theatre striptease club in San Francisco. The experience evolved into an as-yet-unpublished novel tentatively entitled The Night Manager.
Thompson next accepted a role as weekly media columnist and critic for The San Francisco Examiner. The position was arranged by former editor and fellow Examiner columnist Warren Hinckle. His editor at The Examiner, David McCumber described, "One week it would be acid-soaked gibberish with a charm of its own. The next week it would be incisive political analysis of the highest order."
Many of these columns were collected in Gonzo Papers, Vol. 2: Generation of Swine: Tales of Shame and Degradation in the '80s (1988) and Gonzo Papers, Vol. 3: Songs of the Doomed: More Notes on the Death of the American Dream (1990), a collection of autobiographical reminiscences, articles, and previously unpublished material.
Later years
Throughout the early 1990s, Thompson claimed to be at work on a novel entitled Polo Is My Life. It was briefly excerpted in Rolling Stone in 1994, and Thompson himself described it in 1996 as "a sex book — you know, sex, drugs, and rock and roll. It's about the manager of a sex theater who's forced to leave and flee to the mountains. He falls in love and gets in even more trouble than he was in the sex theater in San Francisco". The novel was slated to be released by Random House in 1999, and was even assigned , but was never published.
Thompson continued to publish irregularly in Rolling Stone, ultimately contributing 17 pieces to the magazine between 1984 and 2004. "Fear and Loathing in Elko," published in 1992, was a well-received fictional rallying cry against the nomination of Clarence Thomas to a seat on the Supreme Court of the United States. "Trapped in Mr. Bill's Neighborhood" was a largely factual account of an interview with Bill Clinton at a Little Rock, Arkansas, steakhouse. Rather than traveling the campaign trail as he had done in previous presidential elections, Thompson monitored the proceedings on cable television; Better Than Sex: Confessions of a Political Junkie, his account of the 1992 presidential campaign, is composed of reactive faxes to Rolling Stone. In 1994, the magazine published "He Was a Crook", a "scathing" obituary of Richard Nixon.
In November 2004, Rolling Stone published Thompson's final magazine feature "The Fun-Hogs in the Passing Lane: Fear and Loathing, Campaign 2004", a brief account of the 2004 presidential election in which he compared the outcome of the Bush v. Gore court case to the Reichstag fire and formally endorsed Senator John Kerry, a longtime friend, for president.
Fear and Loathing redux
In 1996, Modern Library reissued Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas along with "Strange Rumblings in Aztlan," "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved," and "Jacket Copy for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas." Two years later, the film Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas generated new interest in Thompson and his work, and a paperback edition was published as a tie-in. The same year, an early novel, The Rum Diary, was published. Two volumes of collected letters, edited by Douglas Brinkley, also appeared during this time. The first volume appeared in 1997 and covers the years 1955-67. The second volume appeared in 2000 and covers 1968 to 1976.
Thompson's next, and penultimate, collection, Kingdom of Fear: Loathsome Secrets of a Star-Crossed Child in the Final Days of the American Century, was widely publicized as Thompson's first memoir. Published in 2003, it combined new material (including reminiscences of the O'Farrell Theater), selected newspaper and digital clippings, and other older works.
Thompson finished his journalism career in the same way it had begun: Writing about sports. From 2000 until his death in 2005, he wrote a weekly column for ESPN.com's Page 2 entitled "Hey, Rube." In 2004, Simon & Schuster collected some of the columns from the first few years and released them in mid-2004 as Hey Rube: Blood Sport, the Bush Doctrine, and the Downward Spiral of Dumbness.
Thompson married assistant Anita Bejmuk on April 23, 2003.
Death
At 5:42 pm on February 20, 2005, Thompson died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head at Owl Farm, his "fortified compound" in Woody Creek, Colorado. His son Juan, daughter-in-law Jennifer, and grandson were visiting for the weekend. His wife Anita, who was at the Aspen Club, was on the phone with him as he cocked the gun. According to the Aspen Daily News, Thompson asked her to come home to help him write his ESPN column, then set the receiver on the counter. Anita said she mistook the cocking of the gun for the sound of his typewriter keys and hung up as he fired. Will and Jennifer were in the next room when they heard the gunshot, but mistook the sound for a book falling and did not check on Thompson immediately. Juan Thompson found his father's body. According to the police report and Anita's cell phone records, he called the sheriff's office half an hour later, then walked outside and fired three shotgun blasts into the air to "mark the passing of his father". The police report stated that in Thompson's typewriter was a piece of paper with the date "Feb. 22 '05" and a single word, "counselor".
Years of alcohol and cocaine abuse contributed to his problem with depression. Thompson's inner circle told the press that he had been depressed and always found February a "gloomy" month, with football season over and the harsh Colorado winter weather. He was also upset over his advancing age and chronic medical problems, including a hip replacement; he would frequently mutter "This kid is getting old." Rolling Stone published what Douglas Brinkley described as a suicide note written by Thompson to his wife, titled "Football Season Is Over". It read:
Thompson's collaborator and friend Ralph Steadman wrote:
Funeral
On August 20, 2005, in a private funeral, Thompson's ashes were fired from a cannon. This was accompanied by red, white, blue, and green fireworks—all to the tune of Norman Greenbaum's "Spirit in the Sky" and Bob Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man". The cannon was placed atop a tower which had the shape of a double-thumbed fist clutching a peyote button, a symbol originally used in his 1970 campaign for sheriff of Pitkin County, Colorado. The plans for the monument were initially drawn by Thompson and Steadman, and were shown as part of an Omnibus program on the BBC titled Fear and Loathing in Gonzovision (1978). It is included as a special feature on the second disc of the 2004 Criterion Collection DVD release of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and labeled as Fear and Loathing on the Road to Hollywood.
According to his widow, Anita, the $3 million funeral was funded by actor Johnny Depp, who was a close friend of Thompson's. Depp told the Associated Press, "All I'm doing is trying to make sure his last wish comes true. I just want to send my pal out the way he wants to go out." An estimated 280 people attended, including U.S. Senators John Kerry and George McGovern; 60 Minutes correspondents Ed Bradley and Charlie Rose; actors Jack Nicholson, John Cusack, Bill Murray, Benicio del Toro, Sean Penn, and Josh Hartnett; musicians Lyle Lovett, John Oates and David Amram, and artist and long-time friend Ralph Steadman.
Legacy
Writing style
Thompson is often credited as the creator of Gonzo journalism, a style of writing that blurs distinctions between fiction and nonfiction. His work and style are considered to be a major part of the New Journalism literary movement of the 1960s and 1970s, which attempted to break free from the purely objective style of mainstream reportage of the time. Thompson almost always wrote in the first person, while extensively using his own experiences and emotions to color "the story" he was trying to follow.
Despite him having personally described his work as "Gonzo", it fell to later observers to articulate what the term actually meant. While Thompson's approach clearly involved injecting himself as a participant in the events of the narrative, it also involved adding invented, metaphoric elements, thus creating, for the uninitiated reader, a seemingly confusing amalgam of facts and fiction notable for the deliberately blurred lines between one and the other. Thompson, in a 1974 interview in Playboy addressed the issue himself, saying, "Unlike Tom Wolfe or Gay Talese, I almost never try to reconstruct a story. They're both much better reporters than I am, but then, I don't think of myself as a reporter." Tom Wolfe would later describe Thompson's style as "... part journalism and part personal memoir admixed with powers of wild invention and wilder rhetoric." Or as one description of the differences between Thompson and Wolfe's styles would elaborate, "While Tom Wolfe mastered the technique of being a fly on the wall, Thompson mastered the art of being a fly in the ointment."
The majority of Thompson's most popular and acclaimed work appeared within the pages of Rolling Stone magazine. Along with Joe Eszterhas and David Felton, Thompson was instrumental in expanding the focus of the magazine past music criticism; indeed, Thompson was the only staff writer of the epoch never to contribute a music feature to the magazine. Nevertheless, his articles were always peppered with a wide array of pop music references ranging from Howlin' Wolf to Lou Reed. Armed with early fax machines wherever he went, he became notorious for haphazardly sending sometimes illegible material to the magazine's San Francisco offices as an issue was about to go to press.
Robert Love, Thompson's editor of 23 years at Rolling Stone, wrote, "the dividing line between fact and fancy rarely blurred, and we didn't always use italics or some other typographical device to indicate the lurch into the fabulous. But if there were living, identifiable humans in a scene, we took certain steps ... Hunter was a close friend of many prominent Democrats, veterans of the ten or more presidential campaigns he covered, so when in doubt, we'd call the press secretary. 'People will believe almost any twisted kind of story about politicians or Washington,' he once said, and he was right."
Discerning the line between the fact and the fiction of Thompson's work presented a practical problem for editors and fact-checkers of his work. Love called fact-checking Thompson's work "one of the sketchiest occupations ever created in the publishing world", and "for the first-timer ... a trip through a journalistic fun house, where you didn't know what was real and what wasn't. You knew you had better learn enough about the subject at hand to know when the riff began and reality ended. Hunter was a stickler for numbers, for details like gross weight and model numbers, for lyrics and caliber, and there was no faking it."
Persona
Thompson often used a blend of fiction and fact when portraying himself in his writing, too, sometimes using the name Raoul Duke as an author surrogate whom he generally described as a callous, erratic, self-destructive journalist who constantly drank alcohol and took hallucinogenic drugs. Fantasizing about causing bodily harm to others was also a characteristic in his work used to comedic effect and an example of his brand of humor.
In the late 1960s, Thompson acquired the title of "Doctor" from the Universal Life Church.
A number of critics have commented that as he grew older, the line that distinguished Thompson from his literary self became increasingly blurred. Thompson admitted during a 1978 BBC interview that he sometimes felt pressured to live up to the fictional self that he had created, adding, "I'm never sure which one people expect me to be. Very often, they conflict — most often, as a matter of fact. ... I'm leading a normal life and right alongside me there is this myth, and it is growing and mushrooming and getting more and more warped. When I get invited to, say, speak at universities, I'm not sure if they are inviting Duke or Thompson. I'm not sure who to be."
Thompson's writing style and eccentric persona gave him a cult following in both literary and drug circles, and his cult status expanded into broader areas after being portrayed three times in major motion pictures. Hence, both his writing style and persona have been widely imitated, and his likeness has even become a popular costume choice for Halloween.
Political beliefs
Thompson was a firearms and explosives enthusiast (in his writing and in life) and owned a vast collection of handguns, rifles, shotguns, and various automatic and semiautomatic weapons, along with numerous forms of gaseous crowd-control and many homemade devices. He was a proponent of the right to bear arms and privacy rights. A member of the National Rifle Association, Thompson was also co-creator of the Fourth Amendment Foundation, an organization to assist victims in defending themselves against unwarranted search and seizure.
Part of his work with the Fourth Amendment Foundation centered around support of Lisl Auman, a Colorado woman who was sentenced for life in 1997 under felony murder charges for the death of police officer Bruce VanderJagt, despite contradictory statements and dubious evidence. Thompson organized rallies, provided legal support, and co-wrote an article in the June 2004 issue of Vanity Fair outlining the case. The Colorado Supreme Court eventually overturned Auman's sentence in March 2005, shortly after Thompson's death, and Auman is now free. Auman's supporters claim Thompson's support and publicity resulted in the successful appeal.
Thompson was also an ardent supporter of drug legalization and became known for his detailed accounts of his own drug use. He was an early supporter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws and served on the group's advisory board for over 30 years, until his death. He told an interviewer in 1997 that drugs should be legalized "[a]cross the board. It might be a little rough on some people for a while, but I think it's the only way to deal with drugs. Look at Prohibition; all it did was make a lot of criminals rich."
In a 1965 letter to his friend Paul Semonin, Thompson explained an affection for the Industrial Workers of the World, "I have in recent months come to have a certain feeling for Joe Hill and the Wobbly crowd who, if nothing else, had the right idea. But not the right mechanics. I believe the IWW was probably the last human concept in American politics." In another letter to Semonin, Thompson wrote that he agreed with Karl Marx, and compared him to Thomas Jefferson. In a letter to William Kennedy, Thompson confided that he was "coming to view the free enterprise system as the single greatest evil in the history of human savagery." In the documentary Breakfast with Hunter, Hunter S. Thompson is seen in several scenes wearing different Che Guevara T-shirts. Additionally, actor and friend Benicio del Toro has stated that Thompson kept a "big" picture of Che in his kitchen. Thompson wrote on behalf of African-American rights and the civil rights movement. He strongly criticized the dominance in American society of what he called "white power structures".
After the September 11 attacks, Thompson voiced skepticism regarding the official story on who was responsible for the attacks. He speculated to several interviewers that it may have been conducted by the U.S. government or with the government's assistance, though readily admitting he had no way to prove his theory.
In 2004, Thompson wrote: "[Richard] Nixon was a professional politician, and I despised everything he stood for—but if he were running for president this year against the evil Bush–Cheney gang, I would happily vote for him."
Scholarships
Thompson's widow established two scholarship funds at Columbia University School of General Studies for U.S. military veterans and the University of Kentucky for journalism students.
Colorado NORML created the Hunter S. Thompson Scholarship to pay all expenses for a lawyer or law student to attend the NORML Legal Committee Conference in Aspen, generally the first few days of June each year. The funding from a silent auction has paid for two winners for some years. Many winners have gone on to become important cannabis lawyers on state and national levels.
Works
Books
Thompson wrote a number of books, publishing from 1966 to the end of his life. His best-known works include Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, The Rum Diary, The Curse of Lono, and Screwjack.
Articles
As a journalist over the course of decades, Thompson published numerous articles in various periodicals. He wrote for many publications, including Rolling Stone, Esquire, The Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, The New York Times, The San Francisco Examiner, Time, Vanity Fair, The San Juan Star, and Playboy. He was also guest editor for a single edition of The Aspen Daily News. A collection of 100 of his columns from The San Francisco Examiner was published in 1988 as Gonzo Papers, Vol. 2: Generation of Swine: Tales of Shame and Degradation in the '80s. A collection of his articles for Rolling Stone was released in 2011 as Fear and Loathing at Rolling Stone: The Essential Writings of Hunter S. Thompson. The book was edited by the magazine's co-founder and publisher, Jann S. Wenner, who also provided an introduction to the collection.
Letters
Thompson wrote many letters, which were his primary means of personal communication. He made carbon copies of all his letters, usually typed, a habit begun in his teenaged years.
The Fear and Loathing Letters is a three-volume collection of selections from Thompson's correspondence, edited by historian Douglas Brinkley. The first volume, The Proud Highway, was published in 1997, and contains letters from 1955 to 1967. Fear and Loathing in America was published in 2000 and contains letters dating from 1968 to 1976. A third volume, titled The Mutineer: Rants, Ravings, and Missives from the Mountaintop 1977–2005, was edited by Douglas Brinkley and prepared by Simon & Schuster in 2005. As of March 2019, it has yet to be sold to the public. It contains a special introduction by Johnny Depp.
Illustrations
Accompanying the eccentric and colorful writing of Hunter Thompson, illustrations by British artist Ralph Steadman offer visual representations of the Gonzo style. Steadman and Thompson developed a professional relationship. The two collaborated many times over Thompson's career, although at times they were known to violently argue. Wayne Ewing's documentary on Hunter captured an encounter where Steadman tells Hunter that he believes his drawings contributed as much to the success of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas as Hunter's writing. Hunter was furious at the suggestion and their relationship was certainly at times, strained. Steadman in recent years has described Hunter as "rude" and "a bully." So while they are publicly known as great friends, the true nature of their relationship was considerably more nuanced.
Photography
Thompson was an avid amateur photographer throughout his life, and his photos have been exhibited since his death at art galleries in the United States and United Kingdom. In late 2006, AMMO Books published a limited-edition, 224-page collection of Thompson photos called Gonzo: Photographs by Hunter S. Thompson, with an introduction by Johnny Depp. Thompson's snapshots were a combination of the subjects he was covering, stylized self-portraits, and artistic still life photos. The London Observer called the photos "astonishingly good" and noted that "Thompson's pictures remind us, brilliantly in every sense, of very real people, real colours."
Feature films
The film Where the Buffalo Roam (1980) depicts heavily fictionalized attempts by Thompson to cover the Super Bowl and the 1972 U.S. presidential election. It stars Bill Murray as Thompson and Peter Boyle as Thompson's attorney Oscar Zeta Acosta, referred to in the movie as Carl Lazlo, Esq.
The 1998 film adaptation of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was directed by Monty Python veteran Terry Gilliam and starred Johnny Depp (who moved into Thompson's basement to "study" Thompson's persona before assuming his role in the film) as Raoul Duke and Benicio del Toro as Oscar Zeta Acosta. The film has achieved something of a cult following.
In the 2001 film Ali, Thompson is briefly portrayed by actor Lee Cummings.
The film adaptation of Thompson's novel The Rum Diary was released in October 2011, also starring Johnny Depp as the main character, Paul Kemp. The novel's premise was inspired by Thompson's own experiences in Puerto Rico. The film was written and directed by Bruce Robinson.
At a press junket for The Rum Diary shortly before the film's release, Depp said that he would like to adapt The Curse of Lono, "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved", and Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs for the big screen: "I'd just keep playing Hunter. There's a great comfort in it for me, because I get a great visit with my old friend who I miss dearly."
Documentaries
Fear and Loathing in Gonzovision (1978) is an extended television profile by the BBC. It can be found on disc 2 of The Criterion Collection edition of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
The Mitchell brothers, owners of the O'Farrell Theatre in San Francisco, made a documentary about Thompson in 1988 called Hunter S. Thompson: The Crazy Never Die.
Wayne Ewing created three documentaries about Thompson. The film Breakfast with Hunter (2003) was directed and edited by Ewing. It documents Thompson's work on the movie Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, his arrest for drunk driving, and his subsequent fight with the court system. When I Die (2005) is a video chronicle of making Thompson's final farewell wishes a reality, and documents the send-off itself. Free Lisl: Fear and Loathing in Denver (2006) chronicles Thompson's efforts in helping to free Lisl Auman, who was sentenced to life in prison without parole for the shooting of a police officer, a crime she did not commit. All three films are only available online.
In Come on Down: Searching for the American Dream (2004) Thompson gives director Adamm Liley insight into the nature of the American Dream over drinks at the Woody Creek Tavern.
Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride: Hunter S. Thompson on Film (2006) was directed by Tom Thurman, written by Tom Marksbury, and produced by the Starz Entertainment Group. The original documentary features interviews with Thompson's inner circle of family and friends, but the thrust of the film focuses on the manner in which his life often overlapped with numerous Hollywood celebrities who became his close friends, such as Johnny Depp, Benicio del Toro, Bill Murray, Sean Penn, John Cusack, Thompson's wife Anita, son Juan, former Senators George McGovern and Gary Hart, writers Tom Wolfe and William F. Buckley, actors Gary Busey and Harry Dean Stanton, and the illustrator Ralph Steadman among others.
Blasted!!! The Gonzo Patriots of Hunter S. Thompson (2006), produced, directed, photographed, and edited by Blue Kraning, is a documentary about the scores of fans who volunteered their privately owned artillery to fire the ashes of the late author, Hunter S. Thompson. Blasted!!! premiered at the 2006 Starz Denver International Film Festival, part of a tribute series to Hunter S. Thompson held at the Denver Press Club.
In 2008, Academy Award-winning documentarian Alex Gibney (Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, Taxi to the Dark Side) wrote and directed a documentary on Thompson, titled Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson. The film premiered on January 20, 2008, at the Sundance Film Festival. Gibney uses intimate, never-before-seen home videos, interviews with friends, enemies, lovers, and clips from films adapted from Thompson's material to document his turbulent life.
Theater
Lou Stein's adaptation of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was performed at the Battersea Theatre. Stein persuades London's Time Out magazine to put Thompson up for a fortnight, in exchange for him writing a cover story to publicize the play. Thompson does not write the story, but does rampage around London on Time Out 's expense account. The play was revived for the Vault Fringe Festival in 2014.
GONZO: A Brutal Chrysalis is a one-man show about Thompson written by Paul Addis, who also played the author. Set in the writing den of Thompson's Woody Creek home, the show portrays his life between 1968 and 1971. James Cartee began playing the role soon after Addis's arrest in 2009, and again after Addis's death in 2012.
Awards, accolades, and tributes
Thompson was named a Kentucky Colonel by the governor of Kentucky in a December 1996 tribute ceremony where he also received keys to the city of Louisville.
Author Tom Wolfe has called Thompson the greatest American comic writer of the 20th century.
Asked in an interview with Jody Denberg on KGSR Studio, in 2000, whether he would ever consider writing a book "like [his] buddy Hunter S. Thompson", the musician Warren Zevon responded: "Let's remember that Hunter S. Thompson is the finest writer of our generation; he didn't just toss off a book the other day..."
Thompson appeared on the cover of the 1,000th issue of Rolling Stone, May 18 – June 1, 2006, as a devil playing the guitar next to the two "L"'s in the word "Rolling". Johnny Depp also appeared on the cover.
The Thompson-inspired character Uncle Duke appears on a recurring basis in Doonesbury, the daily newspaper comic strip by Garry Trudeau. When the character was first introduced, Thompson protested, quoted in an interview as saying that he would set Trudeau on fire if the two ever met, although reportedly he liked the character in later years. Between March 7, 2005 (roughly two weeks after Thompson's suicide), and March 12, 2005, Doonesbury ran a tribute to Hunter, with Uncle Duke lamenting the death of the man he called his "inspiration". The first of these strips featured a panel with artwork similar to that of Ralph Steadman, and later strips featured various non sequiturs (with Duke variously transforming into a monster, melting, shrinking to the size of an empty drinking glass, or people around him turning into animals), which seemed to mirror some of the effects of hallucinogenic drugs described in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
Many have suggested that General Hunter Gathers in the Adult Swim animated series The Venture Bros. is a tribute to Thompson, as they have a similar name, mannerisms, and physical appearance.
Dale Gribble in the Fox animated series King of the Hill is a tribute to Thompson and derives his physical appearance from him.
In the Cameron Crowe film Almost Famous, based on Crowe's experiences writing for Rolling Stone while on the road with the fictional band Stillwater", the writer is on the phone with an actor portraying Jann Wenner. Wenner tells the young journalist that he "is not there to join the party, we already have one Hunter Thompson" after the young writer amassed large hotel and traveling expenses and is overheard to be sharing his room with several young women.
Eric C. Shoaf donated a caché of approximately 800 items (in librarian terms, about 35-40 linear feet of material on a shelf) pertaining to the life and career of Thompson to the University of California at Santa Cruz. Shoaf also published a descriptive bibliography, Gonzology: A Hunter Thompson Bibliography, of the works of Hunter S. Thompson with over 1,000 entries, many never before documented appearances in print, hundreds of biographical entries about Thompson's life, full descriptions of all his primary works, preface by William McKeen, Phd, and photo section with rare and exclusive items depicted.
References
External links
"Hunter S. Thompson's ESPN Page 2 Archive", Totallygonzo.org
"Shotgun Golf With Bill Murray", Thompson's final column for ESPN.com's Page 2.
A collection of articles on Thompson from The Guardian
Thompson's photography
1937 births
2005 suicides
20th-century American journalists
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American novelists
20th-century essayists
21st-century American journalists
21st-century American male writers
21st-century American novelists
9/11 conspiracy theorists
American activist journalists
American columnists
American conspiracy theorists
American essayists
American male essayists
American male journalists
American male novelists
American Marxists
American people of Scottish descent
American political writers
American tax resisters
Atherton High School alumni
Columbia University School of General Studies alumni
Drug policy reform activists
Florida State University alumni
Journalists from Colorado
Journalists from Kentucky
Louisville Male High School alumni
Military personnel from Louisville, Kentucky
Motorcycling writers
Novelists from Colorado
Novelists from Kentucky
People from Glen Ellen, California
Psychedelic drug advocates
Sportswriters from California
Suicides by firearm in Colorado
United States Air Force airmen
Writers from Louisville, Kentucky
| true |
[
"The Good Fight is a studio album by American hip hop artist Oddisee. It was released via Mello Music Group on May 5, 2015. Music videos were created for \"Counter-Clockwise\" and \"Belong to the World\".\n\nCritical reception\nAt Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 80, based on 8 reviews, indicating \"generally favorable reviews\".\n\nMarcus J. Moore of Pitchfork gave the album a 7.3 out of 10 and stated that \"The Good Fight exudes a sense of artistic freedom not heard on Oddisee's previous releases.\" David Jeffries of AllMusic gave the album 4 stars out of 5, calling it \"inspired, infectious, and artistically grand.\"\n\nIn 2015, HipHopDX included it on the \"30 Best Underground Hip Hop Albums Since 2000\" list.\n\nTrack listing \nAll Tracks Produced By Oddisee\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n \n\n2015 albums\nOddisee albums\nMello Music Group albums",
"A Boy. A Girl. A Dream. is a 2018 American romantic drama film directed by Qasim Basir, who wrote the screenplay with Samantha Tanner. The film stars Omari Hardwick and Meagan Good.\n\nSynopsis\n\nSamuel Goldwyn Films writes, \"On the night of the 2016 Presidential election, Cass, an L.A. club promoter, takes a thrilling and emotional journey with Frida, a Midwestern visitor. She challenges him to revisit his broken dreams - while he pushes her to discover hers.\"\n\nCast\nOmari Hardwick\nMeagan Good\nJay Ellis\nDijon Talton\nWesley Jonathan\nAffion Crockett\n\nCritical reception\n\nThe review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes assigned the film an approval rating of , based on reviews assessed as positive or negative; the average rating among the reviews is . The similar website Metacritic surveyed and assessed 3 reviews as positive and 2 as mixed. It gave an weighted average score of 65 out of 100, which it said indicated \"generally favorable reviews\".\n\nSee also\nList of black films of the 2010s\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n A Boy. A Girl. A Dream. at Screendollars\n\n2018 films\nAmerican films\nAmerican romantic drama films\nOne-shot films\nFilms set in 2016"
] |
[
"Hunter S. Thompson",
"Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas",
"What is Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas?",
"The result of the trip to Las Vegas became the 1972 book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,",
"Did it do well?",
"the book was greeted with considerable critical acclaim, including being heralded by The New York Times as \"by far the best book yet",
"Did he write it in Vegas?",
"I don't know.",
"who published the book?",
"the 1972 book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, which first appeared in the November 1971 issues of Rolling Stone as a two-part series.",
"Did anyone reject it?",
"Thompson first submitted to Sports Illustrated a manuscript of 2,500 words, which was, as he later wrote, \"aggressively rejected.",
"what is the book about?",
"It is written as a first-person account by a journalist named Raoul Duke on a trip to Las Vegas with Dr. Gonzo, his \"300-pound Samoan attorney\",",
"Why do they go to Vegas?",
"I don't know.",
"Did it get good reviews?",
"Thompson referred to it, was a mainstream success and introduced his Gonzo journalism techniques to a wide public.",
"Who gave it good reviews?",
"book was greeted with considerable critical acclaim, including being heralded by The New York Times"
] |
C_f9d8069ce5c14c45a92486e19a607c8b_0
|
What did the New York Times say?
| 10 |
What did the New York Times say about "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas"?
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Hunter S. Thompson
|
The book for which Thompson gained most of his fame had its genesis during the research for Strange Rumblings in Aztlan, an expose for Rolling Stone on the 1970 killing of the Mexican-American television journalist Ruben Salazar. Salazar had been shot in the head at close range with a tear gas canister fired by officers of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department during the National Chicano Moratorium March against the Vietnam War. One of Thompson's sources for the story was Oscar Zeta Acosta, a prominent Mexican-American activist and attorney. Finding it difficult to talk in the racially tense atmosphere of Los Angeles, Thompson and Acosta decided to travel to Las Vegas, and take advantage of an assignment by Sports Illustrated to write a 250-word photograph caption on the Mint 400 motorcycle race held there. What was to be a short caption quickly grew into something else entirely. Thompson first submitted to Sports Illustrated a manuscript of 2,500 words, which was, as he later wrote, "aggressively rejected." Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner was said to have liked "the first 20 or so jangled pages enough to take it seriously on its own terms and tentatively scheduled it for publication -- which gave me the push I needed to keep working on it", Thompson later wrote. The result of the trip to Las Vegas became the 1972 book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, which first appeared in the November 1971 issues of Rolling Stone as a two-part series. It is written as a first-person account by a journalist named Raoul Duke on a trip to Las Vegas with Dr. Gonzo, his "300-pound Samoan attorney", to cover a narcotics officers' convention and the "fabulous Mint 400". During the trip, Duke and his companion (always referred to as "my attorney") become sidetracked by a search for the American Dream, with "two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers ... and also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether, and two dozen amyls." Coming to terms with the failure of the 1960s countercultural movement is a major theme of the novel, and the book was greeted with considerable critical acclaim, including being heralded by The New York Times as "by far the best book yet written on the decade of dope". "The Vegas Book", as Thompson referred to it, was a mainstream success and introduced his Gonzo journalism techniques to a wide public. CANNOTANSWER
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The New York Times as "by far the best book yet written on the decade of dope".
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Hunter Stockton Thompson (July 18, 1937 – February 20, 2005) was an American journalist and author who founded the gonzo journalism movement. He rose to prominence with the publication of Hell's Angels (1967), a book for which he spent a year living and riding with the Hells Angels motorcycle gang to write a first-hand account of their lives and experiences.
In 1970, he wrote an unconventional magazine feature titled "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved" for Scanlan's Monthly, which raised his profile and established his counterculture credibility. It also set him on the path to establishing his own subgenre of New Journalism that he called "Gonzo", which was essentially an ongoing experiment in which the writer becomes a central figure and participant in the events of the narrative.
Thompson remains best known for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1971), a book first serialized in Rolling Stone in which he grapples with the implications of what he considered the failure of the 1960s counterculture movement. It was adapted for film twice: loosely in Where the Buffalo Roam starring Bill Murray as Thompson in 1980, and explicitly in 1998 by director Terry Gilliam in the eponymous film starring Johnny Depp and Benicio del Toro.
Thompson ran unsuccessfully for sheriff of Pitkin County, Colorado in 1970 on the Freak Power ticket. His campaign was chronicled in the documentary film Freak Power: The Ballot or the Bomb. He became known for his dislike of Richard Nixon, who he claimed represented "that dark, venal, and incurably violent side of the American character". He covered Nixon's 1972 reelection campaign for Rolling Stone and later collected the stories in book form as Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72.
Thompson's output declined from the mid-1970s, as he struggled with the consequences of fame, and complained that he could no longer merely report on events, as he was too easily recognized. After several high-profile stories were quashed by the upper management of Rolling Stone, he found it increasingly difficult to get his work into mainstream outlets. He did continue to write for alternative newspapers, and had a gig as a critic for the mainstream San Francisco Examiner for much of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Most of his work from 1979 to 1994 was collected in The Gonzo Papers. He continued to write for various journalism outlets in a variety of formats, including sporadic stories published in Rolling Stone and a weekly column that appeared on ESPN.com's Page 2 titled "Hey, Rube" that he started in 2000.
He was known for his lifelong use of alcohol and illegal narcotics, his love of firearms, and his iconoclastic contempt for authority. He often remarked: "I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me." Thompson died by suicide at the age of 67, following a series of health problems. In accordance with his wishes, his ashes were fired out of a cannon in a ceremony funded by his friend Johnny Depp and attended by friends including then-Senator John Kerry and Jack Nicholson. Hari Kunzru wrote, "the true voice of Thompson is revealed to be that of American moralist ... one who often makes himself ugly to expose the ugliness he sees around him."
Early life
Thompson was born into a middle-class family in Louisville, Kentucky, the first of three sons of Virginia Davison Ray (1908, Springfield, Kentucky – March 20, 1998, Louisville), who worked as head librarian at the Louisville Free Public Library and Jack Robert Thompson (September 4, 1893, Horse Cave, Kentucky – July 3, 1952, Louisville), a public insurance adjuster and World War I veteran. His parents were introduced by a friend from Jack's fraternity at the University of Kentucky in September 1934, and married on November 2, 1935. The Guardian journalist Nicholas Lezard, stated that Thompson's first name, Hunter, came from an ancestor on his mother's side, the Scottish surgeon John Hunter. A more direct attribution is that Thompson's first and middle name, Hunter Stockton, came from his maternal grandparents, Prestly Stockton Ray and Lucille Hunter.
In December 1943 when Thompson was six years old, the family settled in the affluent Cherokee Triangle neighborhood of The Highlands. On July 3, 1952, when Thompson was 14, his father died of myasthenia gravis at age 58. Hunter and his brothers were raised by their mother. Virginia worked as a librarian to support her children, and was described as a "heavy drinker" following her husband's death.
Education
Interested in sports and athletically inclined from a young age, Thompson co-founded the Hawks Athletic Club while attending I.N. Bloom Elementary School, which led to an invitation to join Louisville's Castlewood Athletic Club for adolescents that prepared them for high-school sports. Ultimately, he never joined a sports team in high school.
Thompson attended I.N. Bloom Elementary School, Highland Middle School, and Atherton High School, before transferring to Louisville Male High School in fall 1952. Also in 1952, he was accepted as a member of the Athenaeum Literary Association, a school-sponsored literary and social club that dated to 1862. Its members at the time came from Louisville's upper-class families, and included Porter Bibb, who became the first publisher of Rolling Stone at Thompson's behest. During this time, Thompson read and admired J. P. Donleavy's The Ginger Man.
As an Athenaeum member, Thompson contributed articles to and helped produce the club's yearbook The Spectator. The group ejected Thompson in 1955 for criminal activity. Charged as an accessory to robbery after being in a car with the perpetrator, Thompson was sentenced to 60 days in Kentucky's Jefferson County Jail. He served 31 days and, a week after his release, enlisted in the United States Air Force. While he was in jail, the school superintendent refused permission to take his high-school final examinations so he was unable to graduate.
Military service
Thompson completed basic training at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, and transferred to Scott Air Force Base in Belleville, Illinois, to study electronics. He applied to become an aviator, but the Air Force's aviation-cadet program rejected his application. In 1956, he transferred to Eglin Air Force Base near Fort Walton Beach, Florida. While serving at Eglin, he took evening classes at Florida State University. At Eglin, he landed his first professional writing job as sports editor of The Command Courier by falsifying his job experience. As sports editor, Thompson traveled around the United States with the Eglin Eagles football team, covering its games. In early 1957, he wrote a sports column for The Playground News, a local newspaper in Fort Walton Beach, Florida. His name did not appear on the column because Air Force regulations forbade outside employment.
In 1958, as an airman first class, his commanding officer recommended him for an early honorable discharge. "In summary, this airman, although talented, will not be guided by policy," chief of information services Colonel William S. Evans wrote to the Eglin personnel office. "Sometimes his rebel and superior attitude seems to rub off on other airmen staff members."
Early journalism career
After leaving the Air Force, Thompson worked as sports editor for a newspaper in Jersey Shore, Pennsylvania, before relocating to New York City. There he audited several courses at the Columbia University School of General Studies. During this time he worked briefly for Time as a copy boy for $51 a week. At work, he typed out parts of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms in order to learn the authors' rhythms and writing styles. In 1959 Time fired him for insubordination. Later that year, he worked as a reporter for The Middletown Daily Record in Middletown, New York. He was fired from this job after damaging an office candy machine and arguing with the owner of a local restaurant who happened to be an advertiser with the paper.
In 1960, Thompson moved to San Juan, Puerto Rico, to take a job with the sporting magazine El Sportivo, which ceased operations soon after his arrival. Thompson applied for a job with the Puerto Rican English-language daily The San Juan Star, but its managing editor, future novelist William J. Kennedy, turned him down. Nonetheless, the two became friends. After the demise of El Sportivo, Thompson worked as a stringer for the New York Herald Tribune and a few other stateside papers on Caribbean issues, with Kennedy working as his editor.
After returning to the United States, Thompson visited San Francisco and eventually lived in Big Sur, where he worked as a security guard and caretaker at Slates Hot Springs for an eight-month period in 1961, just before it became the Esalen Institute. At the time, Big Sur was a Beat outpost and home of Henry Miller and Dennis Murphy (screenwriter), both of whom Thompson admired. While there, he published his first magazine feature in Rogue about the artisan and bohemian culture of Big Sur. During this period, Thompson wrote two novels, Prince Jellyfish and The Rum Diary, and submitted many short stories to publishers – with little success. The Rum Diary, based on Thompson's experiences in Puerto Rico, was not published until .
In May 1962, Thompson traveled to South America for a year as a correspondent for the Dow Jones-owned weekly paper, the National Observer. In Brazil, he spent several months as a reporter for the Brazil Herald, the country's only English-language daily, published in Rio de Janeiro. His longtime girlfriend Sandra Dawn Conklin (or Sandy Conklin Thompson, subsequently Sondi Wright) later joined him in Rio. They married on May 19, 1963, shortly after returning to the United States, and lived briefly in Aspen, Colorado. Sandy was eight months pregnant when they relocated to Glen Ellen, California. Their son, Juan Fitzgerald Thompson, was born on March 23, 1964.
Thompson continued to write for the National Observer on an array of domestic subjects. One story told of his 1964 visit to Ketchum, Idaho, to investigate the reasons for Ernest Hemingway's suicide. While there, he stole a pair of elk antlers hanging above the front door of Hemingway's cabin. Later that year, Thompson moved to San Francisco, where he attended the 1964 GOP Convention at the Cow Palace. Thompson severed his ties with the Observer after his editor refused to print his review of Tom Wolfe's 1965 essay-collection The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby,. He later immersed himself in the drug and hippie culture taking root in the area, and soon began writing for the Berkeley underground paper Spider.
Hell's Angels
In 1965 Carey McWilliams, editor of The Nation, hired Thompson to write a story about the Hells Angels motorcycle club in California. At the time Thompson was living in a house near San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, where the Hells Angels lived across from the Grateful Dead. His article appeared on May 17, 1965, after which he received several book offers and spent the next year living and riding with the club. The relationship broke down when the bikers perceived that Thompson was exploiting them for personal gain and demanded a share of his profits. An argument at a party resulted in Thompson suffering a savage beating (or "stomping", as the Angels referred to it). Random House published the hard-cover Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs in 1966, and the fight between Thompson and the Angels was well-marketed. CBC Television even broadcast an encounter between Thompson and Hells Angel Skip Workman before a live studio audience.
A New York Times review praised the work as an "angry, knowledgeable, fascinating, and excitedly written book", that shows the Hells Angels "not so much as dropouts from society but as total misfits, or unfits—emotionally, intellectually and educationally unfit to achieve the rewards, such as they are, that the contemporary social order offers". The reviewer also praised Thompson as a "spirited, witty, observant, and original writer; his prose crackles like motorcycle exhaust".
Following the book's publication, Thompson appeared as himself on the February 20, 1967, episode of the game show To Tell The Truth, receiving all four votes by the panel members.
Late 1960s
Following the success of Hell's Angels, Thompson successfully sold articles to several national magazines, including The New York Times Magazine, Esquire, Pageant, and Harper's.
In 1967, shortly before the Summer of Love, Thompson wrote "The 'Hashbury' is the Capital of the Hippies" for The New York Times Magazine. He criticized San Francisco's hippies as devoid of both the political convictions of the New Left and the artistic core of the Beats, resulting in a culture overrun with young people who spent their time in the pursuit of drugs. "The thrust is no longer for 'change' or 'progress' or 'revolution', but merely to escape, to live on the far perimeter of a world that might have been – perhaps should have been – and strike a bargain for survival on purely personal terms," he wrote.
By late 1967, Thompson and his family moved back to Colorado and rented a house in Woody Creek, a small mountain hamlet outside Aspen. In early 1969, Thompson received a $15,000 royalty check for the paperback sales of Hell's Angels and used two-thirds of the money for a down payment on a modest home and property where he would live for the rest of his life. He named the house Owl Farm and often described it as his "fortified compound".
In early 1968, Thompson signed the "Writers and Editors War Tax Protest" pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War. According to Thompson's letters and his later writings, at this time, he planned to write a book called The Joint Chiefs about "the death of the American Dream." He used a $6,000 advance from Random House to travel the 1968 Presidential campaign trail and attend the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago for research. From his hotel room in Chicago, Thompson watched the clashes between police and protesters, which he wrote had a great effect on his political views. The book was never finished, and the theme of the death of the American dream was carried over into his later work. The contract with Random House was eventually fulfilled with the 1972 book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. He also signed a deal with Ballantine Books in 1968 to write a satirical book called The Johnson File about Lyndon B. Johnson. A few weeks after the contract was signed, however, Johnson announced that he would not seek re-election, and the deal was cancelled.
Middle years
Aspen sheriff campaign
In 1970, Thompson ran for sheriff of Pitkin County, Colorado, as part of a group of citizens running for local offices on the "Freak Power" ticket. The platform included promoting the decriminalization of drugs (for personal use only, not trafficking, as he disapproved of profiteering), tearing up the streets and turning them into grassy pedestrian malls, banning any building so tall as to obscure the view of the mountains, disarming all police forces, and renaming Aspen "Fat City" to deter investors. Thompson, having shaved his head, referred to the crew cut-wearing Republican candidate as "my long-haired opponent".
With polls showing him with a slight lead in a three-way race, Thompson appeared at Rolling Stone magazine headquarters in San Francisco with a six-pack of beer in hand, and declared to editor Jann Wenner that he was about to be elected sheriff of Aspen, Colorado, and wished to write about the "Freak Power" movement. Thus, Thompson's first article in Rolling Stone was published as "The Battle of Aspen" with the byline "By: Dr. Hunter S. Thompson (Candidate for Sheriff)". Despite the publicity, Thompson narrowly lost the election. While carrying the city of Aspen, he garnered only 44% of the county-wide vote in what had become a two-way race. The Republican candidate agreed to withdraw a few days before the election to consolidate the anti-Thompson votes, in return for the Democrats withdrawing their candidate for county commissioner. Thompson later remarked that the Rolling Stone article mobilized his opposition far more than his supporters.
A documentary film about Hunter S. Thompson's campaign for sheriff called Freak Power: The Ballot or the Bomb was released on October 23, 2020.
Birth of Gonzo
Also in 1970, Thompson wrote an article entitled "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved" for the short-lived new journalism magazine Scanlan's Monthly. For that article, editor Warren Hinckle paired Thompson with illustrator Ralph Steadman, who drew expressionist illustrations with lipstick and eyeliner. Thompson's article virtually ignored the race, focusing instead on the drunken revelry surrounding the annual event in his hometown. The first-person narrator also sets that debauchery against a political backdrop, which included the bombing of Cambodia and the deaths of four students at Kent State University, which occurred two days after the Kentucky Derby.
Thompson and Steadman collaborated regularly after that. Although it was not widely read, the article was the first to use the techniques of Gonzo journalism, a style Thompson later employed in almost every literary endeavor. The manic first-person subjectivity of the story was reportedly the result of sheer desperation; he was facing a looming deadline and started sending the magazine pages ripped out of his notebook.
The first use of the word "Gonzo" to describe Thompson's work is credited to the journalist Bill Cardoso, who first met Thompson on a bus full of journalists covering the 1968 New Hampshire primary. In 1970, Cardoso (who was then the editor of The Boston Globe Sunday Magazine) wrote to Thompson praising the "Kentucky Derby" piece as a breakthrough: "This is it, this is pure Gonzo. If this is a start, keep rolling." According to Steadman, Thompson took to the word right away and said, "Okay, that's what I do. Gonzo." Thompson's first published use of the word appears in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: "Free Enterprise. The American Dream. Horatio Alger gone mad on drugs in Las Vegas. Do it now: pure Gonzo journalism."
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
The book for which Thompson gained most of his fame had its genesis during the research for "Strange Rumblings in Aztlan", an exposé for Rolling Stone on the 1970 killing of the Mexican-American television journalist Rubén Salazar. Salazar had been shot in the head at close range with a tear-gas canister fired by officers of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department during the National Chicano Moratorium March against the Vietnam War. One of Thompson's sources for the story was Oscar Zeta Acosta, a prominent Mexican-American activist and attorney. Finding it difficult to talk in the racially tense atmosphere of Los Angeles, Thompson and Acosta decided to travel to Las Vegas, and take advantage of an assignment by Sports Illustrated to write a 250-word photograph caption on the Mint 400 motorcycle race held there.
What was to be a short caption quickly grew into something else entirely. Thompson first submitted to Sports Illustrated a manuscript of 2,500 words, which was, as he later wrote, "aggressively rejected." Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner was said to have liked "the first 20 or so jangled pages enough to take it seriously on its own terms and tentatively scheduled it for publication — which gave me the push I needed to keep working on it", Thompson later wrote. To develop the story, Thompson and Acosta returned to Las Vegas to attend a drug enforcement conference.
The two trips became the basis for "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," which appeared as a two-part Rolling Stone story in November 1971. Random House published the book version the following year. It is written as a first-person account by a journalist named Raoul Duke with Dr. Gonzo, his "300-pound Samoan attorney." During the trip, Duke and his companion (always referred to as "my attorney") become sidetracked by a search for the American Dream, with "two bags of grass, 75 pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multicolored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers ... and also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether, and two dozen amyls."
Coming to terms with the failure of the 1960s countercultural movement is a major theme of the novel, and the book was greeted with considerable critical acclaim, including being heralded by The New York Times as "by far the best book yet written on the decade of dope". "The Vegas Book", as Thompson referred to it, was a mainstream success and introduced his Gonzo journalism techniques to a wide public.
Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72
Beginning in late 1971, Thompson wrote extensively for Rolling Stone on the election campaigns of President Richard Nixon and his unsuccessful opponent, Senator George McGovern. The articles were soon combined and published as Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72. As the title suggests, Thompson spent nearly all of his time traveling the "campaign trail", focusing largely on the Democratic Party's primaries. Nixon, as the Republican incumbent, performed little campaign work, while McGovern competed with rival candidates Edmund Muskie and Hubert Humphrey. Thompson was an early supporter of McGovern and wrote unflattering coverage of the rival campaigns in the increasingly widely read Rolling Stone.
Thompson went on to become a fierce critic of Nixon, both during and after his presidency. After Nixon's death in 1994, Thompson described him in Rolling Stone as a man who "could shake your hand and stab you in the back at the same time", and said "his casket [should] have been launched into one of those open-sewage canals that empty into the ocean just south of Los Angeles. He was a swine of a man and a jabbering dupe of a president. [He] was an evil man—evil in a way that only those who believe in the physical reality of the Devil can understand it." Following Nixon's pardon by Gerald Ford in 1974, Hunter ruminated on the roughly $400,000 pension Nixon maneuvered his way into, by resigning before being formally indicted. While The Washington Post was lamenting Nixon's "lonely and depressed" state after being forced from the White House, Hunter wrote that '[i]f there were any such thing as true justice in this world, his [Nixon's] rancid carcass would be somewhere down around Easter Island right now, in the belly of a hammerhead shark.' There was however one passion shared by Thompson and Nixon: a love of football, discussed in Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72.
Fame and its consequences
Thompson's journalistic work began to seriously suffer after his trip to Africa to cover the Rumble in the Jungle—the world heavyweight boxing match between George Foreman and Muhammad Ali—in 1974. He missed the match while intoxicated at his hotel, and did not submit a story to the magazine. As Wenner put it to the film critic Roger Ebert in the 2008 documentary Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, "After Africa, he just couldn't write. He couldn't piece it together".
Plans for Thompson to cover the 1976 presidential campaign for Rolling Stone and later publish a book fell through after Wenner canceled the project without informing Thompson. Wenner then assigned Thompson to travel to Vietnam to cover what appeared to be the end of the Vietnam War. Thompson arrived in Saigon just as South Vietnam was collapsing and as other journalists were leaving the country. Wenner allegedly cancelled Thompson's life insurance, which strained Thompson's relationship with Rolling Stone. He soon fled the country and refused to file his report until the ten-year anniversary of the Fall of Saigon.
From the late 1970s on, most of Thompson's literary output appeared as a four-volume series of books entitled The Gonzo Papers. Beginning with The Great Shark Hunt in 1979 and ending with Better Than Sex in 1994, the series is largely a collection of rare newspaper and magazine pieces from the pre-gonzo period, along with almost all of his Rolling Stone pieces.
Starting around 1980, Thompson became less active by his standards. Aside from paid appearances, he largely retreated to his compound in Woody Creek, rejecting projects and assignments or failing to complete them. Despite a lack of new material, Wenner kept Thompson on the Rolling Stone masthead as chief of the "National Affairs Desk", a position he held until his death.
In 1980, Thompson divorced wife Sandra Conklin. The same year marked the release of Where the Buffalo Roam, a loose film adaptation based on Thompson's early 1970s work, starring Bill Murray as the writer. Murray eventually became one of Thompson's trusted friends. Later that year, Thompson relocated to Hawaii to research and write The Curse of Lono, a Gonzo-style account of the 1980 Honolulu Marathon. Extensively illustrated by Ralph Steadman, the piece first appeared in Running in 1981 as "The Charge of the Weird Brigade" and was later excerpted in Playboy in 1983.
In 1983, he covered the U.S. invasion of Grenada, but did not write or discuss the experiences until the publication of Kingdom of Fear in 2003. Later that year, at the behest of Terry McDonell, he wrote "A Dog Took My Place", an exposé for Rolling Stone of the scandalous Roxanne Pulitzer divorce case and what he called the "Palm Beach lifestyle". The story included dubious insinuations of bestiality, but was widely considered to be a return by Thompson to his proper form. In 1985, Thompson accepted an advance to write about "couples pornography" for Playboy. As part of his research, he spent evenings at the Mitchell Brothers O'Farrell Theatre striptease club in San Francisco. The experience evolved into an as-yet-unpublished novel tentatively entitled The Night Manager.
Thompson next accepted a role as weekly media columnist and critic for The San Francisco Examiner. The position was arranged by former editor and fellow Examiner columnist Warren Hinckle. His editor at The Examiner, David McCumber described, "One week it would be acid-soaked gibberish with a charm of its own. The next week it would be incisive political analysis of the highest order."
Many of these columns were collected in Gonzo Papers, Vol. 2: Generation of Swine: Tales of Shame and Degradation in the '80s (1988) and Gonzo Papers, Vol. 3: Songs of the Doomed: More Notes on the Death of the American Dream (1990), a collection of autobiographical reminiscences, articles, and previously unpublished material.
Later years
Throughout the early 1990s, Thompson claimed to be at work on a novel entitled Polo Is My Life. It was briefly excerpted in Rolling Stone in 1994, and Thompson himself described it in 1996 as "a sex book — you know, sex, drugs, and rock and roll. It's about the manager of a sex theater who's forced to leave and flee to the mountains. He falls in love and gets in even more trouble than he was in the sex theater in San Francisco". The novel was slated to be released by Random House in 1999, and was even assigned , but was never published.
Thompson continued to publish irregularly in Rolling Stone, ultimately contributing 17 pieces to the magazine between 1984 and 2004. "Fear and Loathing in Elko," published in 1992, was a well-received fictional rallying cry against the nomination of Clarence Thomas to a seat on the Supreme Court of the United States. "Trapped in Mr. Bill's Neighborhood" was a largely factual account of an interview with Bill Clinton at a Little Rock, Arkansas, steakhouse. Rather than traveling the campaign trail as he had done in previous presidential elections, Thompson monitored the proceedings on cable television; Better Than Sex: Confessions of a Political Junkie, his account of the 1992 presidential campaign, is composed of reactive faxes to Rolling Stone. In 1994, the magazine published "He Was a Crook", a "scathing" obituary of Richard Nixon.
In November 2004, Rolling Stone published Thompson's final magazine feature "The Fun-Hogs in the Passing Lane: Fear and Loathing, Campaign 2004", a brief account of the 2004 presidential election in which he compared the outcome of the Bush v. Gore court case to the Reichstag fire and formally endorsed Senator John Kerry, a longtime friend, for president.
Fear and Loathing redux
In 1996, Modern Library reissued Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas along with "Strange Rumblings in Aztlan," "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved," and "Jacket Copy for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas." Two years later, the film Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas generated new interest in Thompson and his work, and a paperback edition was published as a tie-in. The same year, an early novel, The Rum Diary, was published. Two volumes of collected letters, edited by Douglas Brinkley, also appeared during this time. The first volume appeared in 1997 and covers the years 1955-67. The second volume appeared in 2000 and covers 1968 to 1976.
Thompson's next, and penultimate, collection, Kingdom of Fear: Loathsome Secrets of a Star-Crossed Child in the Final Days of the American Century, was widely publicized as Thompson's first memoir. Published in 2003, it combined new material (including reminiscences of the O'Farrell Theater), selected newspaper and digital clippings, and other older works.
Thompson finished his journalism career in the same way it had begun: Writing about sports. From 2000 until his death in 2005, he wrote a weekly column for ESPN.com's Page 2 entitled "Hey, Rube." In 2004, Simon & Schuster collected some of the columns from the first few years and released them in mid-2004 as Hey Rube: Blood Sport, the Bush Doctrine, and the Downward Spiral of Dumbness.
Thompson married assistant Anita Bejmuk on April 23, 2003.
Death
At 5:42 pm on February 20, 2005, Thompson died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head at Owl Farm, his "fortified compound" in Woody Creek, Colorado. His son Juan, daughter-in-law Jennifer, and grandson were visiting for the weekend. His wife Anita, who was at the Aspen Club, was on the phone with him as he cocked the gun. According to the Aspen Daily News, Thompson asked her to come home to help him write his ESPN column, then set the receiver on the counter. Anita said she mistook the cocking of the gun for the sound of his typewriter keys and hung up as he fired. Will and Jennifer were in the next room when they heard the gunshot, but mistook the sound for a book falling and did not check on Thompson immediately. Juan Thompson found his father's body. According to the police report and Anita's cell phone records, he called the sheriff's office half an hour later, then walked outside and fired three shotgun blasts into the air to "mark the passing of his father". The police report stated that in Thompson's typewriter was a piece of paper with the date "Feb. 22 '05" and a single word, "counselor".
Years of alcohol and cocaine abuse contributed to his problem with depression. Thompson's inner circle told the press that he had been depressed and always found February a "gloomy" month, with football season over and the harsh Colorado winter weather. He was also upset over his advancing age and chronic medical problems, including a hip replacement; he would frequently mutter "This kid is getting old." Rolling Stone published what Douglas Brinkley described as a suicide note written by Thompson to his wife, titled "Football Season Is Over". It read:
Thompson's collaborator and friend Ralph Steadman wrote:
Funeral
On August 20, 2005, in a private funeral, Thompson's ashes were fired from a cannon. This was accompanied by red, white, blue, and green fireworks—all to the tune of Norman Greenbaum's "Spirit in the Sky" and Bob Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man". The cannon was placed atop a tower which had the shape of a double-thumbed fist clutching a peyote button, a symbol originally used in his 1970 campaign for sheriff of Pitkin County, Colorado. The plans for the monument were initially drawn by Thompson and Steadman, and were shown as part of an Omnibus program on the BBC titled Fear and Loathing in Gonzovision (1978). It is included as a special feature on the second disc of the 2004 Criterion Collection DVD release of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and labeled as Fear and Loathing on the Road to Hollywood.
According to his widow, Anita, the $3 million funeral was funded by actor Johnny Depp, who was a close friend of Thompson's. Depp told the Associated Press, "All I'm doing is trying to make sure his last wish comes true. I just want to send my pal out the way he wants to go out." An estimated 280 people attended, including U.S. Senators John Kerry and George McGovern; 60 Minutes correspondents Ed Bradley and Charlie Rose; actors Jack Nicholson, John Cusack, Bill Murray, Benicio del Toro, Sean Penn, and Josh Hartnett; musicians Lyle Lovett, John Oates and David Amram, and artist and long-time friend Ralph Steadman.
Legacy
Writing style
Thompson is often credited as the creator of Gonzo journalism, a style of writing that blurs distinctions between fiction and nonfiction. His work and style are considered to be a major part of the New Journalism literary movement of the 1960s and 1970s, which attempted to break free from the purely objective style of mainstream reportage of the time. Thompson almost always wrote in the first person, while extensively using his own experiences and emotions to color "the story" he was trying to follow.
Despite him having personally described his work as "Gonzo", it fell to later observers to articulate what the term actually meant. While Thompson's approach clearly involved injecting himself as a participant in the events of the narrative, it also involved adding invented, metaphoric elements, thus creating, for the uninitiated reader, a seemingly confusing amalgam of facts and fiction notable for the deliberately blurred lines between one and the other. Thompson, in a 1974 interview in Playboy addressed the issue himself, saying, "Unlike Tom Wolfe or Gay Talese, I almost never try to reconstruct a story. They're both much better reporters than I am, but then, I don't think of myself as a reporter." Tom Wolfe would later describe Thompson's style as "... part journalism and part personal memoir admixed with powers of wild invention and wilder rhetoric." Or as one description of the differences between Thompson and Wolfe's styles would elaborate, "While Tom Wolfe mastered the technique of being a fly on the wall, Thompson mastered the art of being a fly in the ointment."
The majority of Thompson's most popular and acclaimed work appeared within the pages of Rolling Stone magazine. Along with Joe Eszterhas and David Felton, Thompson was instrumental in expanding the focus of the magazine past music criticism; indeed, Thompson was the only staff writer of the epoch never to contribute a music feature to the magazine. Nevertheless, his articles were always peppered with a wide array of pop music references ranging from Howlin' Wolf to Lou Reed. Armed with early fax machines wherever he went, he became notorious for haphazardly sending sometimes illegible material to the magazine's San Francisco offices as an issue was about to go to press.
Robert Love, Thompson's editor of 23 years at Rolling Stone, wrote, "the dividing line between fact and fancy rarely blurred, and we didn't always use italics or some other typographical device to indicate the lurch into the fabulous. But if there were living, identifiable humans in a scene, we took certain steps ... Hunter was a close friend of many prominent Democrats, veterans of the ten or more presidential campaigns he covered, so when in doubt, we'd call the press secretary. 'People will believe almost any twisted kind of story about politicians or Washington,' he once said, and he was right."
Discerning the line between the fact and the fiction of Thompson's work presented a practical problem for editors and fact-checkers of his work. Love called fact-checking Thompson's work "one of the sketchiest occupations ever created in the publishing world", and "for the first-timer ... a trip through a journalistic fun house, where you didn't know what was real and what wasn't. You knew you had better learn enough about the subject at hand to know when the riff began and reality ended. Hunter was a stickler for numbers, for details like gross weight and model numbers, for lyrics and caliber, and there was no faking it."
Persona
Thompson often used a blend of fiction and fact when portraying himself in his writing, too, sometimes using the name Raoul Duke as an author surrogate whom he generally described as a callous, erratic, self-destructive journalist who constantly drank alcohol and took hallucinogenic drugs. Fantasizing about causing bodily harm to others was also a characteristic in his work used to comedic effect and an example of his brand of humor.
In the late 1960s, Thompson acquired the title of "Doctor" from the Universal Life Church.
A number of critics have commented that as he grew older, the line that distinguished Thompson from his literary self became increasingly blurred. Thompson admitted during a 1978 BBC interview that he sometimes felt pressured to live up to the fictional self that he had created, adding, "I'm never sure which one people expect me to be. Very often, they conflict — most often, as a matter of fact. ... I'm leading a normal life and right alongside me there is this myth, and it is growing and mushrooming and getting more and more warped. When I get invited to, say, speak at universities, I'm not sure if they are inviting Duke or Thompson. I'm not sure who to be."
Thompson's writing style and eccentric persona gave him a cult following in both literary and drug circles, and his cult status expanded into broader areas after being portrayed three times in major motion pictures. Hence, both his writing style and persona have been widely imitated, and his likeness has even become a popular costume choice for Halloween.
Political beliefs
Thompson was a firearms and explosives enthusiast (in his writing and in life) and owned a vast collection of handguns, rifles, shotguns, and various automatic and semiautomatic weapons, along with numerous forms of gaseous crowd-control and many homemade devices. He was a proponent of the right to bear arms and privacy rights. A member of the National Rifle Association, Thompson was also co-creator of the Fourth Amendment Foundation, an organization to assist victims in defending themselves against unwarranted search and seizure.
Part of his work with the Fourth Amendment Foundation centered around support of Lisl Auman, a Colorado woman who was sentenced for life in 1997 under felony murder charges for the death of police officer Bruce VanderJagt, despite contradictory statements and dubious evidence. Thompson organized rallies, provided legal support, and co-wrote an article in the June 2004 issue of Vanity Fair outlining the case. The Colorado Supreme Court eventually overturned Auman's sentence in March 2005, shortly after Thompson's death, and Auman is now free. Auman's supporters claim Thompson's support and publicity resulted in the successful appeal.
Thompson was also an ardent supporter of drug legalization and became known for his detailed accounts of his own drug use. He was an early supporter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws and served on the group's advisory board for over 30 years, until his death. He told an interviewer in 1997 that drugs should be legalized "[a]cross the board. It might be a little rough on some people for a while, but I think it's the only way to deal with drugs. Look at Prohibition; all it did was make a lot of criminals rich."
In a 1965 letter to his friend Paul Semonin, Thompson explained an affection for the Industrial Workers of the World, "I have in recent months come to have a certain feeling for Joe Hill and the Wobbly crowd who, if nothing else, had the right idea. But not the right mechanics. I believe the IWW was probably the last human concept in American politics." In another letter to Semonin, Thompson wrote that he agreed with Karl Marx, and compared him to Thomas Jefferson. In a letter to William Kennedy, Thompson confided that he was "coming to view the free enterprise system as the single greatest evil in the history of human savagery." In the documentary Breakfast with Hunter, Hunter S. Thompson is seen in several scenes wearing different Che Guevara T-shirts. Additionally, actor and friend Benicio del Toro has stated that Thompson kept a "big" picture of Che in his kitchen. Thompson wrote on behalf of African-American rights and the civil rights movement. He strongly criticized the dominance in American society of what he called "white power structures".
After the September 11 attacks, Thompson voiced skepticism regarding the official story on who was responsible for the attacks. He speculated to several interviewers that it may have been conducted by the U.S. government or with the government's assistance, though readily admitting he had no way to prove his theory.
In 2004, Thompson wrote: "[Richard] Nixon was a professional politician, and I despised everything he stood for—but if he were running for president this year against the evil Bush–Cheney gang, I would happily vote for him."
Scholarships
Thompson's widow established two scholarship funds at Columbia University School of General Studies for U.S. military veterans and the University of Kentucky for journalism students.
Colorado NORML created the Hunter S. Thompson Scholarship to pay all expenses for a lawyer or law student to attend the NORML Legal Committee Conference in Aspen, generally the first few days of June each year. The funding from a silent auction has paid for two winners for some years. Many winners have gone on to become important cannabis lawyers on state and national levels.
Works
Books
Thompson wrote a number of books, publishing from 1966 to the end of his life. His best-known works include Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, The Rum Diary, The Curse of Lono, and Screwjack.
Articles
As a journalist over the course of decades, Thompson published numerous articles in various periodicals. He wrote for many publications, including Rolling Stone, Esquire, The Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, The New York Times, The San Francisco Examiner, Time, Vanity Fair, The San Juan Star, and Playboy. He was also guest editor for a single edition of The Aspen Daily News. A collection of 100 of his columns from The San Francisco Examiner was published in 1988 as Gonzo Papers, Vol. 2: Generation of Swine: Tales of Shame and Degradation in the '80s. A collection of his articles for Rolling Stone was released in 2011 as Fear and Loathing at Rolling Stone: The Essential Writings of Hunter S. Thompson. The book was edited by the magazine's co-founder and publisher, Jann S. Wenner, who also provided an introduction to the collection.
Letters
Thompson wrote many letters, which were his primary means of personal communication. He made carbon copies of all his letters, usually typed, a habit begun in his teenaged years.
The Fear and Loathing Letters is a three-volume collection of selections from Thompson's correspondence, edited by historian Douglas Brinkley. The first volume, The Proud Highway, was published in 1997, and contains letters from 1955 to 1967. Fear and Loathing in America was published in 2000 and contains letters dating from 1968 to 1976. A third volume, titled The Mutineer: Rants, Ravings, and Missives from the Mountaintop 1977–2005, was edited by Douglas Brinkley and prepared by Simon & Schuster in 2005. As of March 2019, it has yet to be sold to the public. It contains a special introduction by Johnny Depp.
Illustrations
Accompanying the eccentric and colorful writing of Hunter Thompson, illustrations by British artist Ralph Steadman offer visual representations of the Gonzo style. Steadman and Thompson developed a professional relationship. The two collaborated many times over Thompson's career, although at times they were known to violently argue. Wayne Ewing's documentary on Hunter captured an encounter where Steadman tells Hunter that he believes his drawings contributed as much to the success of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas as Hunter's writing. Hunter was furious at the suggestion and their relationship was certainly at times, strained. Steadman in recent years has described Hunter as "rude" and "a bully." So while they are publicly known as great friends, the true nature of their relationship was considerably more nuanced.
Photography
Thompson was an avid amateur photographer throughout his life, and his photos have been exhibited since his death at art galleries in the United States and United Kingdom. In late 2006, AMMO Books published a limited-edition, 224-page collection of Thompson photos called Gonzo: Photographs by Hunter S. Thompson, with an introduction by Johnny Depp. Thompson's snapshots were a combination of the subjects he was covering, stylized self-portraits, and artistic still life photos. The London Observer called the photos "astonishingly good" and noted that "Thompson's pictures remind us, brilliantly in every sense, of very real people, real colours."
Feature films
The film Where the Buffalo Roam (1980) depicts heavily fictionalized attempts by Thompson to cover the Super Bowl and the 1972 U.S. presidential election. It stars Bill Murray as Thompson and Peter Boyle as Thompson's attorney Oscar Zeta Acosta, referred to in the movie as Carl Lazlo, Esq.
The 1998 film adaptation of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was directed by Monty Python veteran Terry Gilliam and starred Johnny Depp (who moved into Thompson's basement to "study" Thompson's persona before assuming his role in the film) as Raoul Duke and Benicio del Toro as Oscar Zeta Acosta. The film has achieved something of a cult following.
In the 2001 film Ali, Thompson is briefly portrayed by actor Lee Cummings.
The film adaptation of Thompson's novel The Rum Diary was released in October 2011, also starring Johnny Depp as the main character, Paul Kemp. The novel's premise was inspired by Thompson's own experiences in Puerto Rico. The film was written and directed by Bruce Robinson.
At a press junket for The Rum Diary shortly before the film's release, Depp said that he would like to adapt The Curse of Lono, "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved", and Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs for the big screen: "I'd just keep playing Hunter. There's a great comfort in it for me, because I get a great visit with my old friend who I miss dearly."
Documentaries
Fear and Loathing in Gonzovision (1978) is an extended television profile by the BBC. It can be found on disc 2 of The Criterion Collection edition of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
The Mitchell brothers, owners of the O'Farrell Theatre in San Francisco, made a documentary about Thompson in 1988 called Hunter S. Thompson: The Crazy Never Die.
Wayne Ewing created three documentaries about Thompson. The film Breakfast with Hunter (2003) was directed and edited by Ewing. It documents Thompson's work on the movie Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, his arrest for drunk driving, and his subsequent fight with the court system. When I Die (2005) is a video chronicle of making Thompson's final farewell wishes a reality, and documents the send-off itself. Free Lisl: Fear and Loathing in Denver (2006) chronicles Thompson's efforts in helping to free Lisl Auman, who was sentenced to life in prison without parole for the shooting of a police officer, a crime she did not commit. All three films are only available online.
In Come on Down: Searching for the American Dream (2004) Thompson gives director Adamm Liley insight into the nature of the American Dream over drinks at the Woody Creek Tavern.
Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride: Hunter S. Thompson on Film (2006) was directed by Tom Thurman, written by Tom Marksbury, and produced by the Starz Entertainment Group. The original documentary features interviews with Thompson's inner circle of family and friends, but the thrust of the film focuses on the manner in which his life often overlapped with numerous Hollywood celebrities who became his close friends, such as Johnny Depp, Benicio del Toro, Bill Murray, Sean Penn, John Cusack, Thompson's wife Anita, son Juan, former Senators George McGovern and Gary Hart, writers Tom Wolfe and William F. Buckley, actors Gary Busey and Harry Dean Stanton, and the illustrator Ralph Steadman among others.
Blasted!!! The Gonzo Patriots of Hunter S. Thompson (2006), produced, directed, photographed, and edited by Blue Kraning, is a documentary about the scores of fans who volunteered their privately owned artillery to fire the ashes of the late author, Hunter S. Thompson. Blasted!!! premiered at the 2006 Starz Denver International Film Festival, part of a tribute series to Hunter S. Thompson held at the Denver Press Club.
In 2008, Academy Award-winning documentarian Alex Gibney (Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, Taxi to the Dark Side) wrote and directed a documentary on Thompson, titled Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson. The film premiered on January 20, 2008, at the Sundance Film Festival. Gibney uses intimate, never-before-seen home videos, interviews with friends, enemies, lovers, and clips from films adapted from Thompson's material to document his turbulent life.
Theater
Lou Stein's adaptation of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was performed at the Battersea Theatre. Stein persuades London's Time Out magazine to put Thompson up for a fortnight, in exchange for him writing a cover story to publicize the play. Thompson does not write the story, but does rampage around London on Time Out 's expense account. The play was revived for the Vault Fringe Festival in 2014.
GONZO: A Brutal Chrysalis is a one-man show about Thompson written by Paul Addis, who also played the author. Set in the writing den of Thompson's Woody Creek home, the show portrays his life between 1968 and 1971. James Cartee began playing the role soon after Addis's arrest in 2009, and again after Addis's death in 2012.
Awards, accolades, and tributes
Thompson was named a Kentucky Colonel by the governor of Kentucky in a December 1996 tribute ceremony where he also received keys to the city of Louisville.
Author Tom Wolfe has called Thompson the greatest American comic writer of the 20th century.
Asked in an interview with Jody Denberg on KGSR Studio, in 2000, whether he would ever consider writing a book "like [his] buddy Hunter S. Thompson", the musician Warren Zevon responded: "Let's remember that Hunter S. Thompson is the finest writer of our generation; he didn't just toss off a book the other day..."
Thompson appeared on the cover of the 1,000th issue of Rolling Stone, May 18 – June 1, 2006, as a devil playing the guitar next to the two "L"'s in the word "Rolling". Johnny Depp also appeared on the cover.
The Thompson-inspired character Uncle Duke appears on a recurring basis in Doonesbury, the daily newspaper comic strip by Garry Trudeau. When the character was first introduced, Thompson protested, quoted in an interview as saying that he would set Trudeau on fire if the two ever met, although reportedly he liked the character in later years. Between March 7, 2005 (roughly two weeks after Thompson's suicide), and March 12, 2005, Doonesbury ran a tribute to Hunter, with Uncle Duke lamenting the death of the man he called his "inspiration". The first of these strips featured a panel with artwork similar to that of Ralph Steadman, and later strips featured various non sequiturs (with Duke variously transforming into a monster, melting, shrinking to the size of an empty drinking glass, or people around him turning into animals), which seemed to mirror some of the effects of hallucinogenic drugs described in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
Many have suggested that General Hunter Gathers in the Adult Swim animated series The Venture Bros. is a tribute to Thompson, as they have a similar name, mannerisms, and physical appearance.
Dale Gribble in the Fox animated series King of the Hill is a tribute to Thompson and derives his physical appearance from him.
In the Cameron Crowe film Almost Famous, based on Crowe's experiences writing for Rolling Stone while on the road with the fictional band Stillwater", the writer is on the phone with an actor portraying Jann Wenner. Wenner tells the young journalist that he "is not there to join the party, we already have one Hunter Thompson" after the young writer amassed large hotel and traveling expenses and is overheard to be sharing his room with several young women.
Eric C. Shoaf donated a caché of approximately 800 items (in librarian terms, about 35-40 linear feet of material on a shelf) pertaining to the life and career of Thompson to the University of California at Santa Cruz. Shoaf also published a descriptive bibliography, Gonzology: A Hunter Thompson Bibliography, of the works of Hunter S. Thompson with over 1,000 entries, many never before documented appearances in print, hundreds of biographical entries about Thompson's life, full descriptions of all his primary works, preface by William McKeen, Phd, and photo section with rare and exclusive items depicted.
References
External links
"Hunter S. Thompson's ESPN Page 2 Archive", Totallygonzo.org
"Shotgun Golf With Bill Murray", Thompson's final column for ESPN.com's Page 2.
A collection of articles on Thompson from The Guardian
Thompson's photography
1937 births
2005 suicides
20th-century American journalists
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American novelists
20th-century essayists
21st-century American journalists
21st-century American male writers
21st-century American novelists
9/11 conspiracy theorists
American activist journalists
American columnists
American conspiracy theorists
American essayists
American male essayists
American male journalists
American male novelists
American Marxists
American people of Scottish descent
American political writers
American tax resisters
Atherton High School alumni
Columbia University School of General Studies alumni
Drug policy reform activists
Florida State University alumni
Journalists from Colorado
Journalists from Kentucky
Louisville Male High School alumni
Military personnel from Louisville, Kentucky
Motorcycling writers
Novelists from Colorado
Novelists from Kentucky
People from Glen Ellen, California
Psychedelic drug advocates
Sportswriters from California
Suicides by firearm in Colorado
United States Air Force airmen
Writers from Louisville, Kentucky
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[
"Serial imagery is the repeating of one image in many variations or forms. It is a central idea in modern and contemporary art. It can take several forms. A portrait can painted in differing hues and backgrounds with subtle changes to the subject as in Van Gogh's L'Arlésienne and Claude Monet's Rouen Cathedral. Another type is where the same subject is painted at different times of day or seasons of the year for example Claude Monet in his Poplars, Haystacks. The same subject may also be rendered in different mediums, and in different poses, thus, the practice of underpainting may be considered a form of serial imagery even if the image is lost in the completed work. It is common in photography where multiple exposures at varies angles are taken with different lenses etc. in search of the desired effect. It is also used in literature, especially poetry.\n\n\tSome say the Impressionists and their contemporaries were the first to use it, but this is not the case. It was used by Francisco Goya with his La maja desnuda and La maja vestida (1797-1800). It is seen in classical art whenever studies were made and used to produce a finished work. This was a common practice for Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and most of the other classical artists although most of their studies and sketches did not survive.\n\n\tHere is an example from literature:\n What Say You? \n (By Eric Ericson)\n \n What say you faithful tree?\n In summer's glory standing tall \n while autumn's minions sneak \n to steal your green,\n so you go necked into winter.\n \n What say you faithful tree? \n In golden robes resplendent, \n your arm's reach skyward \n showing off your finery,\n knowing this to shall pass. \n \n What say you faithful tree\n standing necked in the snow?\n I would pity you,\n as winter's icy breath bites\n your fingers and tears your flesh,\n but you don't want me to.\n \n What say you faithful tree?\n As the sun turns warm\n all clad in white blossoms\n with velvet leaves\n just beginning to show.\n What say you?\n\n(copyright by author. used with permission, This poem may be copied if authorship is included and used for educational purposes only)\n\nJohn Coplans supplied a critical approach in an exhibition at the Pasadena Art Museum in 1968.\n\nLiterature\n•\tJohn Coplans: Serial Imagery, exh. cat. Pasadena Art Museum 1968, New York Graphic Society, 1968\n•\tEric Ericson: “To Everything a Season”, What Say You? page 33 published 2010\n\nVisual arts media\nVisual arts genres",
"St. John Parish is a Roman Catholic church in Darien, Connecticut. It is part of the Diocese of Bridgeport.\n\nHistory \nThis classic, turn-of-the-century church dates from shortly after the founding of the parish in 1895. New York City Opera tenor Frank Porretta served as the church's music director for more than 40 years.\n\nIn 2007, the Reverend Michael Jude Fay, who had been associated with the church, was convicted of stealing $1.3 million and later died while in prison. The online (New York Times at NBC) article by N. R. Kleinfield, which mentioned him, and another corrupt priest, in the context of talking about yet another Diocese of Bridgeport priest who had been prosecuted for methamphetamine dealing, did not explicitly say what position he had held there when he committed the crime or whether he had been pastor.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n St. John - website\n Diocese of Bridgeport\n\nRoman Catholic churches in Connecticut\nChurches in Fairfield County, Connecticut\nReligious organizations established in 1895\nBuildings and structures in Darien, Connecticut\nRoman Catholic Diocese of Bridgeport\n1895 establishments in Connecticut"
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"Bring Me the Horizon",
"Image and legacy"
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C_50898b4862fb42f5b989ea579db6fb46_0
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What image did they project?
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What image did Bring Me the Horizon project?
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Bring Me the Horizon
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During the band's early years, they were praised for their business acumen for selling mail-order merchandise and not relying on sales at live shows. Bring Me the Horizon's image has been characterised by the dominating personality of singer and front-man Oliver Sykes, and he has often been seen as the band's "Poster boy", bearing the brunt of the band's controversial reputation. In their early years, Bring Me the Horizon's image was infamously characterised by its members fashion sense and use of skinny-fit jeans, T-shirts with death metal band logos on the front and colored hair/straightened hair. The band's image fit into what was called scene fashion. The effect of their fashion aesthetics showed people, in show promoter Iain Scott's perspective, that "you don't have to look like a diabolical metalhead to be into metal or play in a metal band". However, their fashion conscious appearance earned them a "style over substance" label. Many controversies that occurred in their early years greatly affected public perceptions of the band, particularly an incident in 2007 at Nottingham's Rock City venue, when a female fan claimed that Oliver Sykes had urinated on her. The charges were dropped due to a lack of evidence from CCTV footage in the area. There were several documented examples of violence against the band during their live shows, including Sykes being pepper sprayed on stage; and people getting on stage to assault the band. Their third album (2010's There Is a Hell...) was seen as a significant turning point in altering public perception of the band. Despite the controversy over their image, various journalists have credited the band as being one of the most forward thinking heavy bands in the UK. In 2012, just four years after the release of Suicide Season, the album was inducted into Rocksound's Hall Of Fame, credited as a significant influence on the works of Asking Alexandria, The Ghost Inside and While She Sleeps. It was credited as an influence on metalcore contemporaries Architects on Hollow Crown with their incorporation of keyboards and programming, and The Devil Wears Prada's Dead Throne for its more experimental and opinion-dividing sound. The band caused further controversy in February 2016 when Oliver Sykes trashed Coldplay's table at the 2016 NME Awards during a live performance of Bring Me the Horizon's track "Happy Song". Although some people thought the table trashing was because of a prior feud between the two bands relating to similar album artwork, Sykes later stated that the act was not an act of "dirty protest", and suggested that it was "pure coincidence" that Coldplay were sitting at the table he trampled. Coldplay frontman Chris Martin allegedly laughed off the incident, stating that "it was great, very rock and roll". CANNOTANSWER
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Bring Me the Horizon's image was infamously characterised by its members fashion sense
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Bring Me the Horizon (often abbreviated as BMTH) are a British rock band formed in Sheffield in 2004. The group consists of lead vocalist Oliver Sykes, guitarist Lee Malia, bassist Matt Kean, drummer Matt Nicholls and keyboardist Jordan Fish. They are signed to RCA Records globally and Columbia Records exclusively in the United States.
The band released their debut album Count Your Blessings in 2006. Upon release, the album's sound polarised listeners, and was met with critical disdain. The band began to break away from their controversial sound with Suicide Season (2008), which was a creative, critical and commercial turning point for the band. Bring Me the Horizon released their third album, There Is a Hell Believe Me I've Seen It. There Is a Heaven Let's Keep It a Secret., in 2010, propelling them to greater international fame, whilst incorporating influences from classical music, electronica and pop. Their major label debut, Sempiternal (2013) achieved Gold certification in Australia (35,000) and Silver in the United Kingdom (60,000). That's the Spirit (2015) debuted at number two in the UK Albums Chart and the US Billboard 200. Their sixth studio album Amo (2019) became their first UK chart topper. As well as these six studio albums, they have also released two extended plays and two live albums. They have received four Kerrang! Awards, including two for Best British Band and one for Best Live Band, and have been nominated for two Grammy Awards.
The style of their early work, including their debut album Count Your Blessings, has been described primarily as deathcore, but they started to adopt a more eclectic style of metalcore on later albums. Furthermore, That's the Spirit marked a shift in their sound to less aggressive rock music styles. Amo saw a shift into different genres, such as electronica, pop and hip hop.
History
Formation and early releases (2002–2006)
Bring Me the Horizon's founding members came from diverse musical backgrounds within metal and rock. Matt Nicholls and Oliver Sykes had a common interest in American metalcore such as Norma Jean and Skycamefalling, and used to attend local hardcore punk shows. They later met Lee Malia, who spoke with them about thrash metal and melodic death metal bands like Metallica and At the Gates; Malia had also been part of a Metallica tribute band before meeting the pair. Bring Me the Horizon officially formed in March 2004, when the members were aged 15 to 17. Curtis Ward, who also lived in the Rotherham area, joined Sykes, Malia and Nicholls on drums. Bassist Matt Kean, who was in other local bands, completed the line-up. Their name is paraphrased from a line of dialogue spoken by Captain Jack Sparrow in the 2003 film Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, where Captain Jack Sparrow says: "Now, bring me that horizon."
In the months following their formation, Bring Me the Horizon created a demo album titled Bedroom Sessions. They followed this by releasing their first EP, This Is What the Edge of Your Seat Was Made For, in September 2004 through local UK label Thirty Days of Night Records. Bring Me the Horizon were the label's first signing. It was recorded at Pristine Studios in Nottingham over the course of two weekends, with drums and bass guitar laid down over the first weekend, and guitars and vocals completed a week later.
UK label Visible Noise noticed the band after the release of their EP, and signed them for a four-album deal, in addition to re-releasing the EP in January 2005. The re-release gained the band significant attention, eventually peaking at No. 41 on the UK album charts. The band was later awarded Best British Newcomer at the 2006 Kerrang! Awards ceremony.
The band's first tour was supporting The Red Chord across the United Kingdom. As with other early tours, they were able to get this slot by tricking venue promoters. Kean and Oliver's mother Carol Sykes were the de facto managers of the band at this time, a role they continued to occupy until 2008. For The Red Chord support, Kean emailed promoters and pretended they were opening on all the dates, when they were supposed to play only at their local show. This led them to being booked for the whole tour. In another case, Sykes created an e-mail account in the name of Johnny Truant vocalist Oliver Mitchell, which he used to contact a promoter requesting Bring Me the Horizon on their tour. Alcohol consumption fuelled their live performances in their early history when the band would get so drunk they vomited on stage and damaged their equipment.
Count Your Blessings (2006–2007)
The band released their debut album Count Your Blessings in October 2006 in the United Kingdom and in August 2007 in the United States. They rented a house in the country to write songs, but easily became distracted. They then recorded the album in inner-city Birmingham, a process which was infamous for their excessive and dangerous drinking. During this period drummer Nicholls summarised it saying "we were out every night, just being regular 18-year-olds". Critics panned the album adding to the strongly polarised responses the band were already seeing from the public.
They supported Count Your Blessings by going on a lengthy headline tour of the UK in November, and immediately followed this joining Lostprophets and The Blackout on a UK tour through late November and December 2006.
In January 2007, Bring Me the Horizon were able to set their sights beyond the UK, when they replaced Bury Your Dead on Killswitch Engage's European headline tour. The slot became available after Bury Your Dead were forced to withdraw by the departure from the band of their vocalist, Mat Bruso. Bring Me the Horizon's presence on the tour was poorly received by fans of Killswitch Engage, with concert attendees regularly throwing bottles at the band before they even started playing their set.
Suicide Season and Ward's departure (2008–2009)
Bring Me the Horizon recorded their second studio album, Suicide Season, in Sweden with producer Fredrik Nordström. He was unimpressed with their first album and was initially absent from the recording sessions unless he needed to be there. Nordström later heard the new sound they were experimenting with during a recording session and became very involved in the record. It was promoted virally in the weeks before its release with the promotional tag line "September is Suicide Season." To promote Suicide Season the band embarked on their first headline tour of the United States, as well as appearing at the 2008 Warped Tour. In May 2008, Bring Me the Horizon was the main supporting band on I Killed the Prom Queen's farewell Australian tour with The Ghost Inside and The Red Shore.
Suicide Season was released on 18 September 2008 in the United States on Epitaph and on 29 September in Europe through Visible Noise. In 2009, Bring Me the Horizon attended the 2009 Kerrang! Tour alongside Black Tide, Dir En Grey, In Case of Fire and Mindless Self Indulgence. They also joined Thursday, Cancer Bats, Four Year Strong and Pierce the Veil on the North American leg of the 2009 Taste of Chaos tour from February to April after the tour's organizer Kevin Lyman offered them the slot. The band were initially hesitant to join this tour, but were convinced after Lyman offered them a bus and $500 of fuel for the tour.
During the Taste of Chaos tour in March of that year, guitarist Curtis Ward left the band. His relationship with the band had deteriorated as his stage performances were poor. He was abusive to audiences during the Taste of Chaos tour, and had contributed little to the writing of Suicide Season. Another reason for his departure was the worsening tinnitus in his one functioning ear. Ward was born deaf in one ear and admitted playing in the band worsened the ringing in his other ear to such a degree that he was unable to sleep at night. Ward offered to perform the rest of the tour dates, which the band rejected and instead asked their guitar technician, Dean Rowbotham, to substitute for him for the remaining performances. Lee Malia noted that Ward's departure helped improve everyone's mood as he had been very negative. Within a week of the tour finishing, Sykes began talking to Jona Weinhofen, at the time the guitarist of Bleeding Through. The band knew of him from his work with his former band I Killed the Prom Queen, and he was asked to join them. Ward has since worked on the TV show Top Gear, and has occasionally performed on stage with Bring Me The Horizon, playing "Pray For Plagues", most notably at Wembley Arena in 2015. In 2016, it was announced that Ward had joined the band Counting Days.
In November 2009, Bring Me the Horizon released a remixed version of Suicide Season, titled Suicide Season: Cut Up! Musicians and producers featured on the album include: Ben Weinman, Skrillex, L'Amour La Morgue, Utah Saints and Shawn Crahan. Musically, the album incorporates many genres including: electronica, drum and bass, hip-hop and dubstep. The dubstep style of the record has been acknowledged in tracks by Tek-One and Skrillex while the hip-hop elements are found in Travis McCoy's remix of "Chelsea Smile".
There Is a Hell... (2010–2011)
The band's third album, and first with their new rhythm guitarist Jona Weinhofen, titled There Is a Hell Believe Me I've Seen It. There Is a Heaven Let's Keep It a Secret., was released on 4 October 2010 and debuted at number 17 on the Billboard 200 in the United States, number 13 on the UK Album Chart, and number one on the Australian Albums Chart, the UK Rock Chart and the UK Indie Chart. Despite reaching number one in Australia, the album's sales were the lowest for a number one album in the history of the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) charts.
Matt Nicholls describes the lyrical themes of There Is a Hell... as being "repercussions of everything we were singing about on our last CD [Suicide Season]," calling the music and lyrics a lot moodier and darker. Five singles were released from the album including: "It Never Ends", "Anthem", "Blessed with a Curse", "Visions", and "Alligator Blood", with music videos produced for each of the songs. The band embarked on a headline tour in intimate venues across the United Kingdom with support from Cancer Bats and Tek-One. In December 2010, Bring Me the Horizon joined Bullet for My Valentine as the main support band, alongside Atreyu, on a short five-date arena tour around the United Kingdom. To cope with high demand, Live Nation released extra standing tickets for all dates.
In April 2011, Bring Me the Horizon embarked on a European tour, starting in the United Kingdom. They toured with Parkway Drive and Architects as main support bands, with The Devil Wears Prada as the opening support for the UK and dubstep group Tek-One. The tour, however, was not without its hindrances. On 28 April, Nicholls broke his arm whilst playing football with members of Bring Me the Horizon, Parkway Drive and Architects. Instead of cancelling the tour, Architects' drummer Dan Searle filled in as drummer, but this meant that Bring Me the Horizon's setlist was halved in length. The tour was extended with a North American leg from 13 August to 4 October, retaining Parkway Drive and Architects and adding Deez Nuts to the line up. On 23 August they released the fourth music video and single, "Visions", and on 31 October the music video for the song "Alligator Blood" was released.
In December 2011, Machine Head completed an arena tour across Europe with Bring Me the Horizon as the main support band along with DevilDriver and Darkest Hour. Oliver Sykes said these would be the last European dates before they began writing and the recording their fourth album. 2011 ended with an announcement by the band on 29 December of a new extended play titled The Chill Out Sessions, a collaborative effort with British DJ Draper. Draper first released an "officially sanctioned" remix of the song "Blessed with a Curse" in May 2011. The EP was originally supposed to be released in time for New Year's Day, and made available for download and purchase though Bring Me the Horizon's website, but the EP's release was cancelled due to the band's "current management and label situation".
Sempiternal and Weinhofen's departure (2012–2014)
After an intense touring schedule, Bring Me the Horizon finally completed their third album's promotion at the end of 2011. They returned to the UK for an extended break and eventually starting work on their next album. Much like their previous two albums, they wrote their fourth album in seclusion and isolation to stay focused. This time, they retreated to a house in the Lake District. In July, the band started to publish images of themselves recording at a 'Top Secret Studio Location,' and revealed they were working with producer Terry Date for the recording and production of the album. On 30 July, the band announced they had left their label and signed with RCA, who would release their fourth album in 2013. The band played only three shows in all of 2012: Warped Tour 2012 on 10 November at the Alexandra Palace in London, which they headlined, (and was initially believed to be their only show), the BBC Radio 1's Radio 1 Rocks show on 22 October, where they played a six-song set supporting Bullet for My Valentine, and at a warm-up show for Warped Tour in Sheffield on 9 November. In late October it was announced that the fourth album would be called Sempiternal with a tentative release in early 2013. On 22 November the band released the Draper collaborative album The Chill Out Sessions free of charge.
On 4 January 2013, Bring Me the Horizon released the first single from Sempiternal, "Shadow Moses". It was first played by radio presenter Daniel P. Carter on BBC's Radio 1. Due to popular demand, Epitaph released the music video for the song a week earlier than planned. In January, the band also saw a change in their line up. This began early in the month when Jordan Fish, Worship keyboardist and session musician for the band during the writing of Sempiternal, was announced as a full member. Then later in the month, Jona Weinhofen left the band. Despite the band denying speculation that Fish replaced Weinhofen, reviewers said that replacing a guitarist with a keyboardist better fit their style.
The band was confirmed for several festival appearances in February. They played the Australian Soundwave festival, performing at all five dates in: Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth, and then at RAMFest in South Africa with Rise Against in March, Rock Am Ring and Rock im Park festivals in Germany in June, and from June until August they played Warped Tour 2013 in the U.S. and Canada. To coincide with 29 April release of Sempiternal the band made their first headline tour of the United Kingdom in 18 months with Crossfaith and Empress AD.
In support of Sempiternal, the band toured Australia with Of Mice & Men and Crossfaith, and played a British tour with Pierce The Veil and Sights & Sounds. They then completed the American Dream Tour in North America, supported by Of Mice & Men, Issues, letlive. and Northlane. The band was announced as the main supporter for American band A Day to Remember on their "Parks & Devastation Tour" across America throughout September and October, along with support acts Motionless in White and Chiodos. The band performed at Wembley Arena in London on 5 December with support acts Young Guns, Issues and Sleepwave, which was recorded and released as a live album/DVD.
Later in 2014, the band released two new tracks titled "Drown" on 21 October, as a stand-alone single, and "Don't Look Down" on 29 October, as part of the re-score of Drive.
That's the Spirit (2015–2017)
In late June, the band began to promote pictures of an umbrella symbol being used as a tattoo, and on stickers, and posters across England, the United States, Australia, and Europe; it was later used for a promotional cover for the band's first single. The band released a short video in early July where the words "that's the spirit" could be heard in reverse. On 13 July 2015, the promotional single "Happy Song" was released on the band's Vevo page, and on 21 July 2015, Sykes revealed the album's name was That's the Spirit. The band released the single and music video for "Throne" on 23 July 2015, and another promotional track from the album, titled "True Friends", was released on 24 August 2015. The album was released on 11 September 2015 to critical acclaim. It has led to several music videos including "Drown", "Throne", "True Friends", "Follow You", "Avalanche", and "Oh No".
The band embarked on a U.S. tour in October 2015 with support from metalcore band Issues and rock band PVRIS. The band also toured Europe in November 2015, and embarked on a second U.S. tour in April and May 2016. This was followed by an Australian tour in September 2016, and a second European tour in November 2016.
On 22 April 2016, the band performed a live concert with an orchestra conducted by Simon Dobson at the Royal Albert Hall in London. The concert marked the first time the band had performed with a live orchestra. It was recorded, and the live album, Live at the Royal Albert Hall, was released on 2 December 2016 through the crowdfunding platform PledgeMusic on CD, DVD, and vinyl, with all proceeds donated to Teenage Cancer Trust. Following the show, Fish hinted at the possibility of doing a full tour with an orchestra, saying: "It seems almost a bit of a shame to go to all this effort for months and months for just one night."
Amo (2018–2019)
In August 2018, cryptic posters appeared in major cities throughout the world with the message "do you wanna start a cult with me?". The posters were attributed by major media outlets to the band only by their use of the hexagram logo previously used by the band. During this time the band themselves have not acknowledged their involvement with the campaign publicly. Each poster provided a unique phone number and a website address. The website provided a brief message titled "An Invitation To Salvation" and shows the date of 21 August 2018. The phone lines placed fans on hold with lengthy, varied audio messages that changed frequently. Some of these messages reportedly end with a distorted audio clip of what was assumed to be new music from the band.
On 21 August, the band released the lead single "Mantra". The following day the band announced their album Amo, released on 11 January 2019, along with a set of tour dates called the First Love World Tour.
On 21 October, the band released their second single "Wonderful Life" featuring Dani Filth, along with the tracklist for Amo. That same day, the band announced that the album has been delayed and is now set for 25 January 2019.
On 1 December, it was reported that during a show at Ally Pally a fan died in the mosh pit and was escorted by paramedics and security. A day later, it was confirmed by the band with a statement: "Words cannot express how horrified we are feeling this evening after hearing about the death of a young man at our show last night. Our hearts and deepest condolences go out to his family and loved ones at this terrible time. We will comment further in due course."
On 3 January 2019, the band released their third single "Medicine" and its corresponding music video. On 22 January, three days before the album release, the band released the fourth single "Mother Tongue". On 24 January, the band released the fifth single "Nihilist Blues" featuring Grimes.
On 26 July, the band released the sixth single "Sugar Honey Ice & Tea" alongside an accompanying music video. On 21 October, the band released the seventh single "In the Dark" alongside an accompanying music video featuring Forest Whitaker. On 6 November, the band released the song "Ludens", which is part of Death Stranding: Timefall, along with the news that the band are planning on never releasing an album again and instead want to release EPs. On 27 December, the band released Music to Listen to~Dance to~Blaze to~Pray to~Feed to~Sleep to~Talk to~Grind to~Trip to~Breathe to~Help to~Hurt to~Scroll to~Roll to~Love to~Hate to~Learn Too~Plot to~Play to~Be to~Feel to~Breed to~Sweat to~Dream to~Hide to~Live to~Die to~Go To without any prior announcement.
Post Human: Survival Horror (2020–present)
On 20 March 2020, the band shared that they were in a home studio, writing and recording material for their eighth record, which is expected to be an EP, with part of it being co-produced by Mick Gordon. On 25 June, the band released the single "Parasite Eve" alongside an accompanying music video. On the same day, the band also announced a project that they have been working on titled Post Human, which they said to be four EPs released throughout the next year which when combined would make an album. On 2 September, the band released with English singer Yungblud a collaborative single titled "Obey" and its corresponding music video. On 14 October, the band officially announced through social media that Post Human: Survival Horror would be released on 30 October 2020. On 22 October, a week before the release date, the fourth single "Teardrops" was released alongside an accompanying music video.
In December 2020, Fish said that the band had been writing "on and off" and would be focusing on their next release in early 2021. He also updated the group's release plan, saying that they "planned to do four EPs in a year, but [Post Human: Survival Horror] was almost an album, so I think the spacing will be a bit longer than intended, just because they're probably going to turn out bigger than intended." Upon being released on physical formats on 22 January 2021, Post Human: Survival Horror would chart again and reach a new peak to gift Bring Me the Horizon their second UK number one on the UK Albums Chart. Two years after Amo would be the first to reach this feat. The band collaborated with singer Olivia O'Brien on a track titled "No More Friends". The song is from O'Brien's Episodes: Season 1' EP which was released on 11 June 2021.
On 2 September 2021, the band announced the release of an upcoming single, "Die4U", which was released on 16 September. On 8 December, the band was announced as the Saturday co-headliner alongside Arctic Monkeys at the 2022 iteration of the Reading and Leeds Festival, headlining the bill for the first time ever. Speaking to NME about the announcement, Sykes expressed his thoughts about headlining Reading and Leeds, as well as what to expect from their headline set:
In February 2022, it was reported that the band were set to contribute to the soundtrack and provide the main theme for Gran Turismo 7. A few days later, the band released their rendition of "Moon Over the Castle" as a single ahead of schedule due to the song being leaked early. At the 42nd Brit Awards, the band were brought out as a surprise act to perform "Bad Habits" alongside Ed Sheeran. On 17 February, the studio version of "Bad Habits" by Ed Sheeran featuring the band was released.
Artistry
Style and influences
Among Bring Me the Horizon's earliest influences were bands like At the Gates, Carcass, Pantera, Metallica, The Dillinger Escape Plan, Every Time I Die, Norma Jean, Skycamefalling and Poison the Well; and genres death metal, grindcore, and emo have been cited by AllMusic writer Steward Mason. However, as their sound developed, the band started to take influences from progressive rock, post-rock, dubstep and electronica. The band's musical style has been described mainly as metalcore and – though they have since moved on from the genre – their early material was considered deathcore. Across their career the band has also been said to play within the genres alternative metal, alternative rock, pop rock, electronic rock, hard rock, heavy metal, post-hardcore, pop, nu metal, electropop, hip hop, EDM, arena rock, melodic metalcore, electronicore, electronica, screamo, hardcore punk, technical metal, and emo.
Bring Me the Horizon have attempted to grow and change with each album, believing they should be different. Raziq Rauf, writing for Drowned in Sound, described Count Your Blessings as possessing "Norma Jean-style thunderous riffs mixed with some dastardly sludgy doom moments and more breakdowns than your dad's old Nissan Sunny." Metal Hammer described Suicide Season as a "creative, critical and commercial success" for the band as they started to adopt a more eclectic style, with its "crushingly heavy party deathcore". Leading up to its release, Oliver Sykes described it as "100% different to Count Your Blessings" and noted the album sounds "more rock than metal". As time went by, Bring Me the Horizon began rejecting their debut album Count Your Blessings and considered Suicide Season as their "Year Zero[...] [their] wipe-the-slate-clean time".
Bring Me the Horizon then moved even further away from deathcore with their third album There Is a Hell..., which incorporated electronica, classical music and pop music into their metalcore style. This required more ambitious production feats, such as using a full choir, a synthesised orchestra and glitched out vocals and breakdowns that were also toned down, favouring quiet atmospheric passages in song breaks. For the writing of Sempiternal, the band pooled far broader influences such as post-rock acts like This Will Destroy You and Explosions in the Sky and from pop music.
Bring Me the Horizon has experimented with its music in recent years, mixing pop with metal music, leading the band to be labelled a "pop metal" act. With the release of That's the Spirit, their sound shifted towards electronic rock, alternative metal and alternative rock, also incorporated other genres such as pop rock and nu metal, while completely abandoning the metalcore sound of their earlier albums.
Songwriting and recording process
In all the band's album notes, all of Bring Me the Horizon's lyrics are said to be written by lead vocalist Oliver Sykes while all five members—as a band—were credited with writing the music. With the exception of Count Your Blessings, the band has always written in a secluded location to avoid being distracted. Oliver Sykes' lyrics have a strong feeling of catharsis for him. He mainly draws from personal experience and has described the band's live performances as therapeutic. In 2006, when asked about the lyrics of Count Your Blessings, as they had been criticised for their content solely fixated on heartbreak and other themes that were called "shallow and meaningless", he responded "My life's never been that bad so I've not got that much to talk about."
Band members have described how the debut album was written in inner-city areas of Birmingham while being pressured to write and record songs to the deadlines given. This resulted in the band being unimpressed with the final product. However, for the writing process of Suicide Season, the band realised that they much preferred picking areas with less human contact in order to focus on the music; they wrote their second album in the Swedish countryside. During the writing of Suicide Season, former and founding rhythm guitarist Curtis Ward wrote only two riffs of his rhythm parts of the album, mostly relying on Lee Malia to write all of the guitar sections of the album.
Lee Malia has stated that the typical writing process involves Oliver Sykes writing the main structure of the songs, followed by Malia writing the main riff. From this they would collaborate with each other to structure their work better and then later include the rest of the band in writing the rest of the song. The writing dynamic of Sempiternal, typically featured Sykes, Malia and newly introduced member Jordan Fish. Malia felt that with Fish's influence on the record he was pushed to create more inspired guitar riffs. As they all took a break before writing their fourth album, they felt less of a need for an isolated writing environment.
Image and legacy
During the band's early years, they were praised for their business acumen for selling mail-order merchandise and not relying on sales at live shows. Bring Me the Horizon's image has been characterised by the dominating personality of singer and front-man Oliver Sykes, and he has often been seen as the band's "Poster boy", bearing the brunt of the band's controversial reputation. In their early years, Bring Me the Horizon's image was infamously characterised by its members fashion sense and use of skinny-fit jeans, T-shirts with death metal band logos on the front and coloured hair/straightened hair. The band's image fit into what was called scene fashion. The effect of their fashion aesthetics showed people, in show promoter Iain Scott's perspective, that "you don't have to look like a diabolical metalhead to be into metal or play in a metal band". However, their fashion conscious appearance earned them a "style over substance" label.
Many controversies that occurred in their early years greatly affected public perceptions of the band, particularly an incident in 2007 at Nottingham's Rock City venue, when a female fan claimed that Oliver Sykes had urinated on her. The charges were dropped due to a lack of evidence from CCTV footage in the area. There were several documented examples of violence against the band during their live shows, including Sykes being pepper sprayed on stage; and people getting onstage to assault the band.
Despite the controversy over their image, various journalists have credited the band as being one of the most forward-thinking heavy bands in the UK. In 2012, just four years after the release of Suicide Season, the album was inducted into Rock Sound's Hall of Fame, credited as a significant influence on the works of Asking Alexandria, The Ghost Inside and While She Sleeps. It was credited as an influence on metalcore contemporaries Architects on Hollow Crown with their incorporation of keyboards and programming, and The Devil Wears Prada's Dead Throne for its more experimental and opinion-dividing sound.
The band caused further controversy in February 2016 when Oliver Sykes trashed Coldplay's table at the 2016 NME Awards during a live performance of Bring Me the Horizon's track "Happy Song". Although some people thought the table trashing was because of a prior feud between the two bands relating to similar album artwork, Sykes later stated that the act was not an act of "dirty protest", and suggested that it was "pure coincidence" that Coldplay were sitting at the table he trampled. Coldplay frontman Chris Martin admitted that he had never even heard of Bring Me the Horizon before the incident and he laughed it off, stating that "it was great, very 'rock and roll'".
Band members
Current
Oliver Sykes – lead vocals ; keyboards, programming
Matt Kean – bass
Lee Malia – lead guitar ; rhythm guitar
Matt Nicholls – drums
Jordan Fish – keyboards, programming, percussion, backing vocals
Current touring musicians
John Jones – rhythm guitar, backing vocals
Former
Curtis Ward – rhythm guitar
Jona Weinhofen – rhythm guitar, keyboards, programming, backing vocals
Former touring musicians
Dean Rowbotham – rhythm guitar
Robin Urbino – rhythm guitar
Tim Hillier-Brook – rhythm guitar
Brendan MacDonald – rhythm guitar, backing vocals
Timeline
Discography
Count Your Blessings (2006)
Suicide Season (2008)
There Is a Hell Believe Me I've Seen It. There Is a Heaven Let's Keep It a Secret. (2010)
Sempiternal (2013)
That's the Spirit (2015)
Amo (2019)
Awards and nominations
Grammy Awards
|-
| 2019 || "Mantra" || Best Rock Song ||
|-
| 2020 || Amo || Best Rock Album ||
BRIT Awards
|-
| 2020 || Bring Me the Horizon || Best Group ||
|-
NME Awards|-
|rowspan="2"| 2017
|Bring Me the Horizon || Best Live Band ||
|-
| Bring Me the Horizon || Music Moment of the Year ||
|-
| 2020 || Bring Me the Horizon || Best Band in the World ||
|-
|rowspan="2"| 2022 || Bring Me the Horizon || Best Band in the World ||
|-
| Bring Me the Horizon || Best Live Act ||Kerrang! Awards|-
| 2006 || Bring Me the Horizon || Best British Newcomer ||
|-
| 2008 || Bring Me the Horizon || Best British Band ||
|-
| 2009 || Bring Me the Horizon || Best British Band ||
|-
|rowspan="3"| 2011 || "Blessed with a Curse" || Best Single ||
|-
| Bring Me the Horizon || Best British Band ||
|-
| There Is a Hell Believe Me I've Seen It. There Is a Heaven Let's Keep It a Secret. || Best Album ||
|-
| 2012 || "Alligator Blood" || Best Video ||
|-
| rowspan="4"| 2013 || "Shadow Moses" || Best Single ||
|-
| "Shadow Moses" || Best Video ||
|-
| Sempiternal || Best Album ||
|-
| Bring Me the Horizon || Best British Band ||
|-
| 2014 || Bring Me the Horizon || Best Live Band ||
|-
| 2014 || Bring Me the Horizon || Best British Band ||
|-
|rowspan="2"| 2015|| Bring Me the Horizon || Best British Band ||
|-
| "Drown" || Best Single ||
|-
| 2016 || Bring Me the Horizon || Best British Band ||
|-
|rowspan="2"|2019 || Amo || Best Album ||
|-
| Bring Me the Horizon || Best British Band || AIM Independent Music Awards|-
| 2011 || Bring Me the Horizon || Best Live Act ||
|-
| 2011 || Bring Me the Horizon || Hardest Working Band or Artist ||
|-
| 2011 || Bring Me the Horizon || Independent Breakthrough of Year || Alternative Press
|-
| 2014 || Sempiternal || Best Album ||
|-
| 2014 || Bring Me the Horizon || Best International Band ||
|-
| 2015 || "Drown" || Best Music Video ||
|-
UK Music Video Awards
|-
| 2016
| "True Friends"
| Best Rock/Indie Video – UK
|
Readers polls
In a 2009 Rock Sound readers' poll, Bring Me the Horizon achieved both Best British Band and Worst British Band.
In 2011 The Guardian ran a poll for "Who should win the Mercury prize?" and used 50 albums, Bring Me the Horizon's third album There Is a Hell... won with 37%.
In a 2013 Sirius XM published poll, Bring Me the Horizon won Best Song Discovery for "Go to Hell, for Heaven's Sake" with the Octane radio station.
In a 2013 Alternative Press readers poll, Bring Me the Horizon was nominated for four categories: Best Vocalist (Oliver Sykes; position 3), Best Keyboardist (Jordan Fish; position 1), Single Of The Year ("Shadow Moses"; position 2) and "Best Album Art" (Sempiternal; position 2).
In 2021, Kerrang! readers voted "Die4U" as the best song and music video of the year. Bring Me the Horizon was also voted as the best band and best live band of the year. They were also voted as the second-best cover story of the year by Kerrang Magazine.
Notes
References
Bibliography
External links
2004 establishments in England
British alternative metal musical groups
Columbia Records artists
English alternative rock groups
English deathcore musical groups
English metalcore musical groups
English pop rock music groups
Kerrang! Awards winners
Musical groups from Sheffield
Musical groups established in 2004
Musical quintets
RCA Records artists
| true |
[
"SUSE Studio was an online Linux software creation tool by SUSE. Users could develop their own Linux distro, software appliance, or virtual appliance, mainly choosing which applications and packages they want on their \"custom\" Linux and how it looks.\n\nUsers could choose between openSUSE or SUSE Linux Enterprise as a base and pick from a variety of pre-configured images including jeOS, minimal server, GNOME, and KDE desktops.\n\nThe SUSE Studio service was shut down on February 15, 2018.\n\nImage formats and booting options\nSUSE Studio supports the following image formats and booting options:\n Live CD/DVD / ISO image\n VMDK (VMware disk image)\n VirtualBox\n VHD (Virtual Hard Disk)\n [Hard] disk image\n USB image\n Xen\n KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine)\n OVF (Open Virtualization Format)\n AMI (Amazon Machine Image) for Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud\n Preboot Execution Environment (onsite version only)\n\nSUSE Studio in use\n\nOn SUSE Gallery one can find a catalog of the images created in SUSE Studio. These are available for download as well as immediate deployment on the supported cloud platforms. Upon logging in, cloning and test-driving images is possible.\n\nA number of projects, both related to the openSUSE Project and independent, use SUSE Gallery as the preferred way to get virtual- and disk images to their users.\n\nSUSE Studio is what powered the fan-made Chrome OS, which was a semi-stripped-down system loaded with the developers' version of Google Chrome, Google web application links, and OpenOffice.org (not to be confused with Google's \"Chrome OS\").\n\nThe many desktop environments supported (not limited to):\n \n JeOS\n Server\n Qt only\n LXQt\n GTK+ only\n GNOME\n Cinnamon\n MATE\n XFCE\n Enlightenment\n Qt and GTK+ integrated\n KDE\n\nShutdown\nOn November 9, 2017, Novell announced that they would be shutting down SUSE Studio Online on February 15, 2018. SUSE Studio Express will replace the service, because of previous merging with Open Build Service and SUSE Studio Online.\n\nSee also\n Open Build Service (formerly openSUSE Build Service)\n openSUSE Project\n SUSE Linux\n SUSE Studio ImageWriter\n YaST\n ZYpp\n\nReferences\n\nLinux emulation software\nSoftware companies disestablished in 2018\nSUSE Linux",
"In Our Image: America's Empire in the Philippines is a 1989 book by American journalist Stanley Karnow, published by Random House. The book details the Philippine–American War (1899–1902) and the subsequent American occupation of the islands. Karnow described the book as \"the story of America's only major colonial experience. How did we perform? What did we do there? What have we left there?\" Karnow made six trips to the Philippines for research while writing the book, and also drew heavily on archives.\n\nThe book was awarded the 1990 Pulitzer Prize for History.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nBooknotes interview with Karnow on In Our Image, May 28, 1989.\n\n1989 non-fiction books\n20th-century history books\nEnglish-language books\nPulitzer Prize for History-winning works\nHistory books about the United States\nHistory of the Philippines (1898–1946)\nRandom House books"
] |
[
"Bring Me the Horizon",
"Image and legacy",
"What image did they project?",
"Bring Me the Horizon's image was infamously characterised by its members fashion sense"
] |
C_50898b4862fb42f5b989ea579db6fb46_0
|
How did some of their members dress?
| 2 |
How did some of the Bring Me the Horizon members dress?
|
Bring Me the Horizon
|
During the band's early years, they were praised for their business acumen for selling mail-order merchandise and not relying on sales at live shows. Bring Me the Horizon's image has been characterised by the dominating personality of singer and front-man Oliver Sykes, and he has often been seen as the band's "Poster boy", bearing the brunt of the band's controversial reputation. In their early years, Bring Me the Horizon's image was infamously characterised by its members fashion sense and use of skinny-fit jeans, T-shirts with death metal band logos on the front and colored hair/straightened hair. The band's image fit into what was called scene fashion. The effect of their fashion aesthetics showed people, in show promoter Iain Scott's perspective, that "you don't have to look like a diabolical metalhead to be into metal or play in a metal band". However, their fashion conscious appearance earned them a "style over substance" label. Many controversies that occurred in their early years greatly affected public perceptions of the band, particularly an incident in 2007 at Nottingham's Rock City venue, when a female fan claimed that Oliver Sykes had urinated on her. The charges were dropped due to a lack of evidence from CCTV footage in the area. There were several documented examples of violence against the band during their live shows, including Sykes being pepper sprayed on stage; and people getting on stage to assault the band. Their third album (2010's There Is a Hell...) was seen as a significant turning point in altering public perception of the band. Despite the controversy over their image, various journalists have credited the band as being one of the most forward thinking heavy bands in the UK. In 2012, just four years after the release of Suicide Season, the album was inducted into Rocksound's Hall Of Fame, credited as a significant influence on the works of Asking Alexandria, The Ghost Inside and While She Sleeps. It was credited as an influence on metalcore contemporaries Architects on Hollow Crown with their incorporation of keyboards and programming, and The Devil Wears Prada's Dead Throne for its more experimental and opinion-dividing sound. The band caused further controversy in February 2016 when Oliver Sykes trashed Coldplay's table at the 2016 NME Awards during a live performance of Bring Me the Horizon's track "Happy Song". Although some people thought the table trashing was because of a prior feud between the two bands relating to similar album artwork, Sykes later stated that the act was not an act of "dirty protest", and suggested that it was "pure coincidence" that Coldplay were sitting at the table he trampled. Coldplay frontman Chris Martin allegedly laughed off the incident, stating that "it was great, very rock and roll". CANNOTANSWER
|
skinny-fit jeans, T-shirts with death metal band logos on the front and colored hair/straightened hair.
|
Bring Me the Horizon (often abbreviated as BMTH) are a British rock band formed in Sheffield in 2004. The group consists of lead vocalist Oliver Sykes, guitarist Lee Malia, bassist Matt Kean, drummer Matt Nicholls and keyboardist Jordan Fish. They are signed to RCA Records globally and Columbia Records exclusively in the United States.
The band released their debut album Count Your Blessings in 2006. Upon release, the album's sound polarised listeners, and was met with critical disdain. The band began to break away from their controversial sound with Suicide Season (2008), which was a creative, critical and commercial turning point for the band. Bring Me the Horizon released their third album, There Is a Hell Believe Me I've Seen It. There Is a Heaven Let's Keep It a Secret., in 2010, propelling them to greater international fame, whilst incorporating influences from classical music, electronica and pop. Their major label debut, Sempiternal (2013) achieved Gold certification in Australia (35,000) and Silver in the United Kingdom (60,000). That's the Spirit (2015) debuted at number two in the UK Albums Chart and the US Billboard 200. Their sixth studio album Amo (2019) became their first UK chart topper. As well as these six studio albums, they have also released two extended plays and two live albums. They have received four Kerrang! Awards, including two for Best British Band and one for Best Live Band, and have been nominated for two Grammy Awards.
The style of their early work, including their debut album Count Your Blessings, has been described primarily as deathcore, but they started to adopt a more eclectic style of metalcore on later albums. Furthermore, That's the Spirit marked a shift in their sound to less aggressive rock music styles. Amo saw a shift into different genres, such as electronica, pop and hip hop.
History
Formation and early releases (2002–2006)
Bring Me the Horizon's founding members came from diverse musical backgrounds within metal and rock. Matt Nicholls and Oliver Sykes had a common interest in American metalcore such as Norma Jean and Skycamefalling, and used to attend local hardcore punk shows. They later met Lee Malia, who spoke with them about thrash metal and melodic death metal bands like Metallica and At the Gates; Malia had also been part of a Metallica tribute band before meeting the pair. Bring Me the Horizon officially formed in March 2004, when the members were aged 15 to 17. Curtis Ward, who also lived in the Rotherham area, joined Sykes, Malia and Nicholls on drums. Bassist Matt Kean, who was in other local bands, completed the line-up. Their name is paraphrased from a line of dialogue spoken by Captain Jack Sparrow in the 2003 film Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, where Captain Jack Sparrow says: "Now, bring me that horizon."
In the months following their formation, Bring Me the Horizon created a demo album titled Bedroom Sessions. They followed this by releasing their first EP, This Is What the Edge of Your Seat Was Made For, in September 2004 through local UK label Thirty Days of Night Records. Bring Me the Horizon were the label's first signing. It was recorded at Pristine Studios in Nottingham over the course of two weekends, with drums and bass guitar laid down over the first weekend, and guitars and vocals completed a week later.
UK label Visible Noise noticed the band after the release of their EP, and signed them for a four-album deal, in addition to re-releasing the EP in January 2005. The re-release gained the band significant attention, eventually peaking at No. 41 on the UK album charts. The band was later awarded Best British Newcomer at the 2006 Kerrang! Awards ceremony.
The band's first tour was supporting The Red Chord across the United Kingdom. As with other early tours, they were able to get this slot by tricking venue promoters. Kean and Oliver's mother Carol Sykes were the de facto managers of the band at this time, a role they continued to occupy until 2008. For The Red Chord support, Kean emailed promoters and pretended they were opening on all the dates, when they were supposed to play only at their local show. This led them to being booked for the whole tour. In another case, Sykes created an e-mail account in the name of Johnny Truant vocalist Oliver Mitchell, which he used to contact a promoter requesting Bring Me the Horizon on their tour. Alcohol consumption fuelled their live performances in their early history when the band would get so drunk they vomited on stage and damaged their equipment.
Count Your Blessings (2006–2007)
The band released their debut album Count Your Blessings in October 2006 in the United Kingdom and in August 2007 in the United States. They rented a house in the country to write songs, but easily became distracted. They then recorded the album in inner-city Birmingham, a process which was infamous for their excessive and dangerous drinking. During this period drummer Nicholls summarised it saying "we were out every night, just being regular 18-year-olds". Critics panned the album adding to the strongly polarised responses the band were already seeing from the public.
They supported Count Your Blessings by going on a lengthy headline tour of the UK in November, and immediately followed this joining Lostprophets and The Blackout on a UK tour through late November and December 2006.
In January 2007, Bring Me the Horizon were able to set their sights beyond the UK, when they replaced Bury Your Dead on Killswitch Engage's European headline tour. The slot became available after Bury Your Dead were forced to withdraw by the departure from the band of their vocalist, Mat Bruso. Bring Me the Horizon's presence on the tour was poorly received by fans of Killswitch Engage, with concert attendees regularly throwing bottles at the band before they even started playing their set.
Suicide Season and Ward's departure (2008–2009)
Bring Me the Horizon recorded their second studio album, Suicide Season, in Sweden with producer Fredrik Nordström. He was unimpressed with their first album and was initially absent from the recording sessions unless he needed to be there. Nordström later heard the new sound they were experimenting with during a recording session and became very involved in the record. It was promoted virally in the weeks before its release with the promotional tag line "September is Suicide Season." To promote Suicide Season the band embarked on their first headline tour of the United States, as well as appearing at the 2008 Warped Tour. In May 2008, Bring Me the Horizon was the main supporting band on I Killed the Prom Queen's farewell Australian tour with The Ghost Inside and The Red Shore.
Suicide Season was released on 18 September 2008 in the United States on Epitaph and on 29 September in Europe through Visible Noise. In 2009, Bring Me the Horizon attended the 2009 Kerrang! Tour alongside Black Tide, Dir En Grey, In Case of Fire and Mindless Self Indulgence. They also joined Thursday, Cancer Bats, Four Year Strong and Pierce the Veil on the North American leg of the 2009 Taste of Chaos tour from February to April after the tour's organizer Kevin Lyman offered them the slot. The band were initially hesitant to join this tour, but were convinced after Lyman offered them a bus and $500 of fuel for the tour.
During the Taste of Chaos tour in March of that year, guitarist Curtis Ward left the band. His relationship with the band had deteriorated as his stage performances were poor. He was abusive to audiences during the Taste of Chaos tour, and had contributed little to the writing of Suicide Season. Another reason for his departure was the worsening tinnitus in his one functioning ear. Ward was born deaf in one ear and admitted playing in the band worsened the ringing in his other ear to such a degree that he was unable to sleep at night. Ward offered to perform the rest of the tour dates, which the band rejected and instead asked their guitar technician, Dean Rowbotham, to substitute for him for the remaining performances. Lee Malia noted that Ward's departure helped improve everyone's mood as he had been very negative. Within a week of the tour finishing, Sykes began talking to Jona Weinhofen, at the time the guitarist of Bleeding Through. The band knew of him from his work with his former band I Killed the Prom Queen, and he was asked to join them. Ward has since worked on the TV show Top Gear, and has occasionally performed on stage with Bring Me The Horizon, playing "Pray For Plagues", most notably at Wembley Arena in 2015. In 2016, it was announced that Ward had joined the band Counting Days.
In November 2009, Bring Me the Horizon released a remixed version of Suicide Season, titled Suicide Season: Cut Up! Musicians and producers featured on the album include: Ben Weinman, Skrillex, L'Amour La Morgue, Utah Saints and Shawn Crahan. Musically, the album incorporates many genres including: electronica, drum and bass, hip-hop and dubstep. The dubstep style of the record has been acknowledged in tracks by Tek-One and Skrillex while the hip-hop elements are found in Travis McCoy's remix of "Chelsea Smile".
There Is a Hell... (2010–2011)
The band's third album, and first with their new rhythm guitarist Jona Weinhofen, titled There Is a Hell Believe Me I've Seen It. There Is a Heaven Let's Keep It a Secret., was released on 4 October 2010 and debuted at number 17 on the Billboard 200 in the United States, number 13 on the UK Album Chart, and number one on the Australian Albums Chart, the UK Rock Chart and the UK Indie Chart. Despite reaching number one in Australia, the album's sales were the lowest for a number one album in the history of the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) charts.
Matt Nicholls describes the lyrical themes of There Is a Hell... as being "repercussions of everything we were singing about on our last CD [Suicide Season]," calling the music and lyrics a lot moodier and darker. Five singles were released from the album including: "It Never Ends", "Anthem", "Blessed with a Curse", "Visions", and "Alligator Blood", with music videos produced for each of the songs. The band embarked on a headline tour in intimate venues across the United Kingdom with support from Cancer Bats and Tek-One. In December 2010, Bring Me the Horizon joined Bullet for My Valentine as the main support band, alongside Atreyu, on a short five-date arena tour around the United Kingdom. To cope with high demand, Live Nation released extra standing tickets for all dates.
In April 2011, Bring Me the Horizon embarked on a European tour, starting in the United Kingdom. They toured with Parkway Drive and Architects as main support bands, with The Devil Wears Prada as the opening support for the UK and dubstep group Tek-One. The tour, however, was not without its hindrances. On 28 April, Nicholls broke his arm whilst playing football with members of Bring Me the Horizon, Parkway Drive and Architects. Instead of cancelling the tour, Architects' drummer Dan Searle filled in as drummer, but this meant that Bring Me the Horizon's setlist was halved in length. The tour was extended with a North American leg from 13 August to 4 October, retaining Parkway Drive and Architects and adding Deez Nuts to the line up. On 23 August they released the fourth music video and single, "Visions", and on 31 October the music video for the song "Alligator Blood" was released.
In December 2011, Machine Head completed an arena tour across Europe with Bring Me the Horizon as the main support band along with DevilDriver and Darkest Hour. Oliver Sykes said these would be the last European dates before they began writing and the recording their fourth album. 2011 ended with an announcement by the band on 29 December of a new extended play titled The Chill Out Sessions, a collaborative effort with British DJ Draper. Draper first released an "officially sanctioned" remix of the song "Blessed with a Curse" in May 2011. The EP was originally supposed to be released in time for New Year's Day, and made available for download and purchase though Bring Me the Horizon's website, but the EP's release was cancelled due to the band's "current management and label situation".
Sempiternal and Weinhofen's departure (2012–2014)
After an intense touring schedule, Bring Me the Horizon finally completed their third album's promotion at the end of 2011. They returned to the UK for an extended break and eventually starting work on their next album. Much like their previous two albums, they wrote their fourth album in seclusion and isolation to stay focused. This time, they retreated to a house in the Lake District. In July, the band started to publish images of themselves recording at a 'Top Secret Studio Location,' and revealed they were working with producer Terry Date for the recording and production of the album. On 30 July, the band announced they had left their label and signed with RCA, who would release their fourth album in 2013. The band played only three shows in all of 2012: Warped Tour 2012 on 10 November at the Alexandra Palace in London, which they headlined, (and was initially believed to be their only show), the BBC Radio 1's Radio 1 Rocks show on 22 October, where they played a six-song set supporting Bullet for My Valentine, and at a warm-up show for Warped Tour in Sheffield on 9 November. In late October it was announced that the fourth album would be called Sempiternal with a tentative release in early 2013. On 22 November the band released the Draper collaborative album The Chill Out Sessions free of charge.
On 4 January 2013, Bring Me the Horizon released the first single from Sempiternal, "Shadow Moses". It was first played by radio presenter Daniel P. Carter on BBC's Radio 1. Due to popular demand, Epitaph released the music video for the song a week earlier than planned. In January, the band also saw a change in their line up. This began early in the month when Jordan Fish, Worship keyboardist and session musician for the band during the writing of Sempiternal, was announced as a full member. Then later in the month, Jona Weinhofen left the band. Despite the band denying speculation that Fish replaced Weinhofen, reviewers said that replacing a guitarist with a keyboardist better fit their style.
The band was confirmed for several festival appearances in February. They played the Australian Soundwave festival, performing at all five dates in: Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth, and then at RAMFest in South Africa with Rise Against in March, Rock Am Ring and Rock im Park festivals in Germany in June, and from June until August they played Warped Tour 2013 in the U.S. and Canada. To coincide with 29 April release of Sempiternal the band made their first headline tour of the United Kingdom in 18 months with Crossfaith and Empress AD.
In support of Sempiternal, the band toured Australia with Of Mice & Men and Crossfaith, and played a British tour with Pierce The Veil and Sights & Sounds. They then completed the American Dream Tour in North America, supported by Of Mice & Men, Issues, letlive. and Northlane. The band was announced as the main supporter for American band A Day to Remember on their "Parks & Devastation Tour" across America throughout September and October, along with support acts Motionless in White and Chiodos. The band performed at Wembley Arena in London on 5 December with support acts Young Guns, Issues and Sleepwave, which was recorded and released as a live album/DVD.
Later in 2014, the band released two new tracks titled "Drown" on 21 October, as a stand-alone single, and "Don't Look Down" on 29 October, as part of the re-score of Drive.
That's the Spirit (2015–2017)
In late June, the band began to promote pictures of an umbrella symbol being used as a tattoo, and on stickers, and posters across England, the United States, Australia, and Europe; it was later used for a promotional cover for the band's first single. The band released a short video in early July where the words "that's the spirit" could be heard in reverse. On 13 July 2015, the promotional single "Happy Song" was released on the band's Vevo page, and on 21 July 2015, Sykes revealed the album's name was That's the Spirit. The band released the single and music video for "Throne" on 23 July 2015, and another promotional track from the album, titled "True Friends", was released on 24 August 2015. The album was released on 11 September 2015 to critical acclaim. It has led to several music videos including "Drown", "Throne", "True Friends", "Follow You", "Avalanche", and "Oh No".
The band embarked on a U.S. tour in October 2015 with support from metalcore band Issues and rock band PVRIS. The band also toured Europe in November 2015, and embarked on a second U.S. tour in April and May 2016. This was followed by an Australian tour in September 2016, and a second European tour in November 2016.
On 22 April 2016, the band performed a live concert with an orchestra conducted by Simon Dobson at the Royal Albert Hall in London. The concert marked the first time the band had performed with a live orchestra. It was recorded, and the live album, Live at the Royal Albert Hall, was released on 2 December 2016 through the crowdfunding platform PledgeMusic on CD, DVD, and vinyl, with all proceeds donated to Teenage Cancer Trust. Following the show, Fish hinted at the possibility of doing a full tour with an orchestra, saying: "It seems almost a bit of a shame to go to all this effort for months and months for just one night."
Amo (2018–2019)
In August 2018, cryptic posters appeared in major cities throughout the world with the message "do you wanna start a cult with me?". The posters were attributed by major media outlets to the band only by their use of the hexagram logo previously used by the band. During this time the band themselves have not acknowledged their involvement with the campaign publicly. Each poster provided a unique phone number and a website address. The website provided a brief message titled "An Invitation To Salvation" and shows the date of 21 August 2018. The phone lines placed fans on hold with lengthy, varied audio messages that changed frequently. Some of these messages reportedly end with a distorted audio clip of what was assumed to be new music from the band.
On 21 August, the band released the lead single "Mantra". The following day the band announced their album Amo, released on 11 January 2019, along with a set of tour dates called the First Love World Tour.
On 21 October, the band released their second single "Wonderful Life" featuring Dani Filth, along with the tracklist for Amo. That same day, the band announced that the album has been delayed and is now set for 25 January 2019.
On 1 December, it was reported that during a show at Ally Pally a fan died in the mosh pit and was escorted by paramedics and security. A day later, it was confirmed by the band with a statement: "Words cannot express how horrified we are feeling this evening after hearing about the death of a young man at our show last night. Our hearts and deepest condolences go out to his family and loved ones at this terrible time. We will comment further in due course."
On 3 January 2019, the band released their third single "Medicine" and its corresponding music video. On 22 January, three days before the album release, the band released the fourth single "Mother Tongue". On 24 January, the band released the fifth single "Nihilist Blues" featuring Grimes.
On 26 July, the band released the sixth single "Sugar Honey Ice & Tea" alongside an accompanying music video. On 21 October, the band released the seventh single "In the Dark" alongside an accompanying music video featuring Forest Whitaker. On 6 November, the band released the song "Ludens", which is part of Death Stranding: Timefall, along with the news that the band are planning on never releasing an album again and instead want to release EPs. On 27 December, the band released Music to Listen to~Dance to~Blaze to~Pray to~Feed to~Sleep to~Talk to~Grind to~Trip to~Breathe to~Help to~Hurt to~Scroll to~Roll to~Love to~Hate to~Learn Too~Plot to~Play to~Be to~Feel to~Breed to~Sweat to~Dream to~Hide to~Live to~Die to~Go To without any prior announcement.
Post Human: Survival Horror (2020–present)
On 20 March 2020, the band shared that they were in a home studio, writing and recording material for their eighth record, which is expected to be an EP, with part of it being co-produced by Mick Gordon. On 25 June, the band released the single "Parasite Eve" alongside an accompanying music video. On the same day, the band also announced a project that they have been working on titled Post Human, which they said to be four EPs released throughout the next year which when combined would make an album. On 2 September, the band released with English singer Yungblud a collaborative single titled "Obey" and its corresponding music video. On 14 October, the band officially announced through social media that Post Human: Survival Horror would be released on 30 October 2020. On 22 October, a week before the release date, the fourth single "Teardrops" was released alongside an accompanying music video.
In December 2020, Fish said that the band had been writing "on and off" and would be focusing on their next release in early 2021. He also updated the group's release plan, saying that they "planned to do four EPs in a year, but [Post Human: Survival Horror] was almost an album, so I think the spacing will be a bit longer than intended, just because they're probably going to turn out bigger than intended." Upon being released on physical formats on 22 January 2021, Post Human: Survival Horror would chart again and reach a new peak to gift Bring Me the Horizon their second UK number one on the UK Albums Chart. Two years after Amo would be the first to reach this feat. The band collaborated with singer Olivia O'Brien on a track titled "No More Friends". The song is from O'Brien's Episodes: Season 1' EP which was released on 11 June 2021.
On 2 September 2021, the band announced the release of an upcoming single, "Die4U", which was released on 16 September. On 8 December, the band was announced as the Saturday co-headliner alongside Arctic Monkeys at the 2022 iteration of the Reading and Leeds Festival, headlining the bill for the first time ever. Speaking to NME about the announcement, Sykes expressed his thoughts about headlining Reading and Leeds, as well as what to expect from their headline set:
In February 2022, it was reported that the band were set to contribute to the soundtrack and provide the main theme for Gran Turismo 7. A few days later, the band released their rendition of "Moon Over the Castle" as a single ahead of schedule due to the song being leaked early. At the 42nd Brit Awards, the band were brought out as a surprise act to perform "Bad Habits" alongside Ed Sheeran. On 17 February, the studio version of "Bad Habits" by Ed Sheeran featuring the band was released.
Artistry
Style and influences
Among Bring Me the Horizon's earliest influences were bands like At the Gates, Carcass, Pantera, Metallica, The Dillinger Escape Plan, Every Time I Die, Norma Jean, Skycamefalling and Poison the Well; and genres death metal, grindcore, and emo have been cited by AllMusic writer Steward Mason. However, as their sound developed, the band started to take influences from progressive rock, post-rock, dubstep and electronica. The band's musical style has been described mainly as metalcore and – though they have since moved on from the genre – their early material was considered deathcore. Across their career the band has also been said to play within the genres alternative metal, alternative rock, pop rock, electronic rock, hard rock, heavy metal, post-hardcore, pop, nu metal, electropop, hip hop, EDM, arena rock, melodic metalcore, electronicore, electronica, screamo, hardcore punk, technical metal, and emo.
Bring Me the Horizon have attempted to grow and change with each album, believing they should be different. Raziq Rauf, writing for Drowned in Sound, described Count Your Blessings as possessing "Norma Jean-style thunderous riffs mixed with some dastardly sludgy doom moments and more breakdowns than your dad's old Nissan Sunny." Metal Hammer described Suicide Season as a "creative, critical and commercial success" for the band as they started to adopt a more eclectic style, with its "crushingly heavy party deathcore". Leading up to its release, Oliver Sykes described it as "100% different to Count Your Blessings" and noted the album sounds "more rock than metal". As time went by, Bring Me the Horizon began rejecting their debut album Count Your Blessings and considered Suicide Season as their "Year Zero[...] [their] wipe-the-slate-clean time".
Bring Me the Horizon then moved even further away from deathcore with their third album There Is a Hell..., which incorporated electronica, classical music and pop music into their metalcore style. This required more ambitious production feats, such as using a full choir, a synthesised orchestra and glitched out vocals and breakdowns that were also toned down, favouring quiet atmospheric passages in song breaks. For the writing of Sempiternal, the band pooled far broader influences such as post-rock acts like This Will Destroy You and Explosions in the Sky and from pop music.
Bring Me the Horizon has experimented with its music in recent years, mixing pop with metal music, leading the band to be labelled a "pop metal" act. With the release of That's the Spirit, their sound shifted towards electronic rock, alternative metal and alternative rock, also incorporated other genres such as pop rock and nu metal, while completely abandoning the metalcore sound of their earlier albums.
Songwriting and recording process
In all the band's album notes, all of Bring Me the Horizon's lyrics are said to be written by lead vocalist Oliver Sykes while all five members—as a band—were credited with writing the music. With the exception of Count Your Blessings, the band has always written in a secluded location to avoid being distracted. Oliver Sykes' lyrics have a strong feeling of catharsis for him. He mainly draws from personal experience and has described the band's live performances as therapeutic. In 2006, when asked about the lyrics of Count Your Blessings, as they had been criticised for their content solely fixated on heartbreak and other themes that were called "shallow and meaningless", he responded "My life's never been that bad so I've not got that much to talk about."
Band members have described how the debut album was written in inner-city areas of Birmingham while being pressured to write and record songs to the deadlines given. This resulted in the band being unimpressed with the final product. However, for the writing process of Suicide Season, the band realised that they much preferred picking areas with less human contact in order to focus on the music; they wrote their second album in the Swedish countryside. During the writing of Suicide Season, former and founding rhythm guitarist Curtis Ward wrote only two riffs of his rhythm parts of the album, mostly relying on Lee Malia to write all of the guitar sections of the album.
Lee Malia has stated that the typical writing process involves Oliver Sykes writing the main structure of the songs, followed by Malia writing the main riff. From this they would collaborate with each other to structure their work better and then later include the rest of the band in writing the rest of the song. The writing dynamic of Sempiternal, typically featured Sykes, Malia and newly introduced member Jordan Fish. Malia felt that with Fish's influence on the record he was pushed to create more inspired guitar riffs. As they all took a break before writing their fourth album, they felt less of a need for an isolated writing environment.
Image and legacy
During the band's early years, they were praised for their business acumen for selling mail-order merchandise and not relying on sales at live shows. Bring Me the Horizon's image has been characterised by the dominating personality of singer and front-man Oliver Sykes, and he has often been seen as the band's "Poster boy", bearing the brunt of the band's controversial reputation. In their early years, Bring Me the Horizon's image was infamously characterised by its members fashion sense and use of skinny-fit jeans, T-shirts with death metal band logos on the front and coloured hair/straightened hair. The band's image fit into what was called scene fashion. The effect of their fashion aesthetics showed people, in show promoter Iain Scott's perspective, that "you don't have to look like a diabolical metalhead to be into metal or play in a metal band". However, their fashion conscious appearance earned them a "style over substance" label.
Many controversies that occurred in their early years greatly affected public perceptions of the band, particularly an incident in 2007 at Nottingham's Rock City venue, when a female fan claimed that Oliver Sykes had urinated on her. The charges were dropped due to a lack of evidence from CCTV footage in the area. There were several documented examples of violence against the band during their live shows, including Sykes being pepper sprayed on stage; and people getting onstage to assault the band.
Despite the controversy over their image, various journalists have credited the band as being one of the most forward-thinking heavy bands in the UK. In 2012, just four years after the release of Suicide Season, the album was inducted into Rock Sound's Hall of Fame, credited as a significant influence on the works of Asking Alexandria, The Ghost Inside and While She Sleeps. It was credited as an influence on metalcore contemporaries Architects on Hollow Crown with their incorporation of keyboards and programming, and The Devil Wears Prada's Dead Throne for its more experimental and opinion-dividing sound.
The band caused further controversy in February 2016 when Oliver Sykes trashed Coldplay's table at the 2016 NME Awards during a live performance of Bring Me the Horizon's track "Happy Song". Although some people thought the table trashing was because of a prior feud between the two bands relating to similar album artwork, Sykes later stated that the act was not an act of "dirty protest", and suggested that it was "pure coincidence" that Coldplay were sitting at the table he trampled. Coldplay frontman Chris Martin admitted that he had never even heard of Bring Me the Horizon before the incident and he laughed it off, stating that "it was great, very 'rock and roll'".
Band members
Current
Oliver Sykes – lead vocals ; keyboards, programming
Matt Kean – bass
Lee Malia – lead guitar ; rhythm guitar
Matt Nicholls – drums
Jordan Fish – keyboards, programming, percussion, backing vocals
Current touring musicians
John Jones – rhythm guitar, backing vocals
Former
Curtis Ward – rhythm guitar
Jona Weinhofen – rhythm guitar, keyboards, programming, backing vocals
Former touring musicians
Dean Rowbotham – rhythm guitar
Robin Urbino – rhythm guitar
Tim Hillier-Brook – rhythm guitar
Brendan MacDonald – rhythm guitar, backing vocals
Timeline
Discography
Count Your Blessings (2006)
Suicide Season (2008)
There Is a Hell Believe Me I've Seen It. There Is a Heaven Let's Keep It a Secret. (2010)
Sempiternal (2013)
That's the Spirit (2015)
Amo (2019)
Awards and nominations
Grammy Awards
|-
| 2019 || "Mantra" || Best Rock Song ||
|-
| 2020 || Amo || Best Rock Album ||
BRIT Awards
|-
| 2020 || Bring Me the Horizon || Best Group ||
|-
NME Awards|-
|rowspan="2"| 2017
|Bring Me the Horizon || Best Live Band ||
|-
| Bring Me the Horizon || Music Moment of the Year ||
|-
| 2020 || Bring Me the Horizon || Best Band in the World ||
|-
|rowspan="2"| 2022 || Bring Me the Horizon || Best Band in the World ||
|-
| Bring Me the Horizon || Best Live Act ||Kerrang! Awards|-
| 2006 || Bring Me the Horizon || Best British Newcomer ||
|-
| 2008 || Bring Me the Horizon || Best British Band ||
|-
| 2009 || Bring Me the Horizon || Best British Band ||
|-
|rowspan="3"| 2011 || "Blessed with a Curse" || Best Single ||
|-
| Bring Me the Horizon || Best British Band ||
|-
| There Is a Hell Believe Me I've Seen It. There Is a Heaven Let's Keep It a Secret. || Best Album ||
|-
| 2012 || "Alligator Blood" || Best Video ||
|-
| rowspan="4"| 2013 || "Shadow Moses" || Best Single ||
|-
| "Shadow Moses" || Best Video ||
|-
| Sempiternal || Best Album ||
|-
| Bring Me the Horizon || Best British Band ||
|-
| 2014 || Bring Me the Horizon || Best Live Band ||
|-
| 2014 || Bring Me the Horizon || Best British Band ||
|-
|rowspan="2"| 2015|| Bring Me the Horizon || Best British Band ||
|-
| "Drown" || Best Single ||
|-
| 2016 || Bring Me the Horizon || Best British Band ||
|-
|rowspan="2"|2019 || Amo || Best Album ||
|-
| Bring Me the Horizon || Best British Band || AIM Independent Music Awards|-
| 2011 || Bring Me the Horizon || Best Live Act ||
|-
| 2011 || Bring Me the Horizon || Hardest Working Band or Artist ||
|-
| 2011 || Bring Me the Horizon || Independent Breakthrough of Year || Alternative Press
|-
| 2014 || Sempiternal || Best Album ||
|-
| 2014 || Bring Me the Horizon || Best International Band ||
|-
| 2015 || "Drown" || Best Music Video ||
|-
UK Music Video Awards
|-
| 2016
| "True Friends"
| Best Rock/Indie Video – UK
|
Readers polls
In a 2009 Rock Sound readers' poll, Bring Me the Horizon achieved both Best British Band and Worst British Band.
In 2011 The Guardian ran a poll for "Who should win the Mercury prize?" and used 50 albums, Bring Me the Horizon's third album There Is a Hell... won with 37%.
In a 2013 Sirius XM published poll, Bring Me the Horizon won Best Song Discovery for "Go to Hell, for Heaven's Sake" with the Octane radio station.
In a 2013 Alternative Press readers poll, Bring Me the Horizon was nominated for four categories: Best Vocalist (Oliver Sykes; position 3), Best Keyboardist (Jordan Fish; position 1), Single Of The Year ("Shadow Moses"; position 2) and "Best Album Art" (Sempiternal; position 2).
In 2021, Kerrang! readers voted "Die4U" as the best song and music video of the year. Bring Me the Horizon was also voted as the best band and best live band of the year. They were also voted as the second-best cover story of the year by Kerrang Magazine.
Notes
References
Bibliography
External links
2004 establishments in England
British alternative metal musical groups
Columbia Records artists
English alternative rock groups
English deathcore musical groups
English metalcore musical groups
English pop rock music groups
Kerrang! Awards winners
Musical groups from Sheffield
Musical groups established in 2004
Musical quintets
RCA Records artists
| false |
[
"Plain dress is a practice among some religious groups, primarily some Christian churches in which people dress in clothes of traditional modest design, sturdy fabric, and conservative cut. It is intended to show acceptance of traditional gender roles, modesty, and readiness to work and serve, and to preserve communal identity and separation from the immodest, ever-changing fashions of the world.\n\nPracticing groups \n\nThe practice is generally found among the following Anabaptist branches: Amish (Old Order Amish, New Order Amish, Kauffman Amish Mennonites, Beachy Amish Mennonites), Para-Amish (Believers in Christ, Vernon Community, Caneyville Christian Community), Mennonites (Old Order Mennonites, Conservative Mennonites, traditional \"Russian\" Mennonites), Hutterites, the Bruderhof Communities, and Brethren (Old Order River Brethren, Old Brethren, Old German Baptist Brethren, New Conference, Dunkard Brethren). Plain dress is also practiced by Conservative Friends and Holiness Friends (Quakers), in which it is part of their testimony of simplicity, as well as Cooperites (Gloriavale Christian Community) and fundamentalist Mormon subgroups.\n\nAmong the Amish and other plain groups, plain dress is not considered to be a costume but instead is an expression of their religious philosophy. Plain, simple and serviceable gender-identifying dress is governed by an unwritten code of conduct, called \"ordnung\" among Anabaptists, which is strictly adhered to by Amish, Old Order Mennonites, and conservative Brethren.\n\nMany Apostolic Lutherans also wear plain dress. \n\nMembers of the Moravian Church traditionally wore plain dress.\n\nHistorically, Methodists were known for wearing plain dress, a tradition carried on by those in the conservative holiness movement, such as communicants of the Allegheny Wesleyan Methodist Connection and Evangelical Wesleyan Church, as well as some Holiness Pentecostal denominations in the Wesleyan-Arminian tradition.\n\nAdventists wear plain dress as taught by the founder of that faith Ellen White, who asked that they \"adopt a simple, unadorned dress of modest length\". The Church Manual of the Seventh-day Adventist Church teaches \"To dress plainly, and abstain from display of jewelry and ornaments of every kind is in keeping with our faith.\" Adherents of the Seventh-day Adventist Church have historically not worn wedding rings. \n\nOther groups adhering to a conservative dress code include Buddhist and Christian monks, Orthodox Jews, and Muslim women, but these forms of dress normally are not called \"plain dress\".\n\nPractices \n\nPlain dress is attributed to reasons of theology and sociology. In general, plain dress involves the covering of much of the body (often including the head, forearms and calves), with minimal ornamentation, rejecting jewelry and sometimes print fabrics, trims, and fasteners. Non-essential elements of garments such as neckties, collars, and lapels may be minimized or omitted. Practical garments such as aprons and shawls may be layered over the basic ensemble. Plain dress garments are often handmade and may be produced by groups of women in the community for efficiency and to ensure uniformity of style. Plain dress practices can extend to the grooming of hair and beards and may vary somewhat to allow children and older people more latitude. In plain communities, women wear Christian headcoverings in keeping with the teaching of Saint Paul in . \n\nWithin these general practices, distinctions abound. Among some groups, the headcovering worn by females is lacy or translucent; in others, it must be opaque.\n\nAnabaptist \nThe traditional plain dress worn by the Anabaptists and other religious groups has long sleeves with a set waist, long skirt, and no adornment. It denotes \"utility, modesty, long wear and inconspicuousness\", does not display any trademark, and is not dictated by fashion trends. Shawl, aprons, bonnets and cap are part of plain dress. \n\nClothing worn by Bruderhof women includes a headcovering, as well as long skirts or dresses; men wear contemporary clothes of a modest nature.\n\nQuaker \nAs a part of their testimony of simplicity, Quakers (Religious Society of Friends) traditionally wore plain dress; \"Ruffles and lace and other forms of ornamentation, as well as unnecessary cuffs and collars and lapels and buttons, were forbidden.\" George Fox implored fellow Quakers to wear plain dress: \n\nThis classical Quaker belief practice continues to be maintained by Conservative Friends, as well as the Holiness Friends.\n\nMethodist \n\nEarly Methodists wore plain dress, with Methodist clergy condemning \"high headdresses, ruffles, laces, gold, and 'costly apparel' in general\". John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement, recommended that Methodists read his thoughts On Dress, in which he detailed acceptable types and colors of fabrics, in addition to \"shapes and sizes of hats, coats, sleeves, and hairstyles\"; in that sermon, John Wesley expressed his desire for Methodists: \"Let me see, before I die, a Methodist congregation, full as plain dressed as a Quaker congregation.\" He also taught, with respect to Christian headcovering, that women, \"especially in a religious assembly\", should \"keep on her veil\". Those who tried to attend Methodist services in costly apparel were denied admittance. Wesley's teaching was based on his interpretation of and , which he stated led him to conclude that \"expensive clothes puff up their wearers, promote vanity, incite anger, inflame lust, retard the pursuit of holiness, and steal from God and the poor.\" The 1858 Discipline of the Wesleyan Methodist Connection stated that \"we would not only ejoin on all who fear God plain dress, but we would recommend to our preachers and people, according to Mr. Wesley's views expressed in his sermon on the inefficiency of Christianity, published but a few years before his death, and containing his matured judgment, distinguishing plainness—Plainness which will publicly comment them to the maintenance of their Christian profession wherever they may be.\" The 1859 novel Adam Bede portrayed the Methodist itinerant preacher, Dinah Morris, wearing plain dress, with the words \"I saw she was a Methodist, or Quaker, or something of that sort, by her dress\". Peter Cartwright, a Methodist revivalist, lamented the decline of wearing plain dress among Methodists, stating:\n\nWhile few wear plain dress in mainline Methodism today, some Methodist Churches of the conservative holiness movement, such as the Allegheny Wesleyan Methodist Connection and Evangelical Wesleyan Church, continue to dress plainly, also avoiding the wearing of jewelry (inclusive of wedding rings).\n\nMoravian \nHistorically, members of the Moravian Church wore plain dress:\n\nTheological bases \n\nPlain dressing Christians cite Paul's advice to the Romans, \"Be not conformed to this world,\" as one Biblical basis for their distinctive dress. Other scripture passages counsel women to wear head coverings while praying (), not to cut their hair (), and for men not to shave or cut their beards (). \n\nThe rejection of extravagant clothing is further established in :\n\nSome Mormon Fundamentalist groups such as the FLDS wear plain dress, referring both to Biblical and unique Latter Day Saint Scriptures, such as the Book of Alma and the Doctrine and Covenants, which states, \"Thou shalt not be proud in thy heart; let all thy garments be plain, and their beauty of the work of thine own hands\" (42:40).\n\nSocial effects \n\nPlain dress may establish a sense of belonging within the community while also marking the group's members as different in the wider society. Some practitioners describe their dress as a protection from unwanted attention. Quaker minister Elizabeth Fry considered her plain dress to serve as \"a hedge against the world\", and \"a sort of protector\". Marketing through the internet has these sites which propagate plain dress: \"Quaker Jane\", \"Plain and Simple Headcoverings\", \"Rachel's Seamstress Services\" and \"Mennonite Maidens\".\n\nSimple dress, considered \"sensible and useful\" and necessary, is sometimes hard to find as the clothing market is dictated by fashion conscious people who consider plain dress dull.\n\nIn literature \nDressing heroines in Victorian literature in plain dress is often assumed to be a way of making characters appear classless and sexless. Others argue that authors like Charlotte Brontë, George Eliot, and Anthony Trollope use plain dress to highlight the marriageability of the character, sexualizing her by emphasizing the female body within. Additionally, plain dress may signify a character's rejection of societal norms and willingness to leave the household to act on her desires.\n\nGallery\n\nSee also \n\n Plain people\n Cape dress\n Prairie dress\n Journeyman uniform in Germany\n Normcore\n Modest fashion\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \nUnderstanding Plain Dress (Mennonite)\nPlain Resources (Quaker)\nOn Dress by John Wesley (Methodist)\nfldsdress (Mormon Fundamentalist, archived)\n\nAnabaptism\nMethodism\nSimple living\nClothing by function",
"In American workplaces, \"skintern\" is an informal term for a summer intern, usually female, who dresses in clothing more revealing than that which is common for the field in question.\n\nThe term is a portmanteau of skin and intern. It was first widely used about such interns working in offices of members of the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington, D.C. around the mid-2000s; Advice columnist Julia Allison claims it was used in that sense as early as 2000. Since then it has spread to other industries outside government and politics that also employ summer interns.\n\nThe phenomenon is sometimes a deliberate sartorial strategy, but more often is believed to result from ignorance of accepted professional dress standards. Older women in the offices where those interns work have often responded by advising them on how to dress more appropriately. Some feminists, however, have seen the term as yet another symptom of inherent sexism in the workplace, since it is so widely applied.\n\nHistory\nIn the mid-2000s, Washington-area media began reporting that the congressional staffers who manage the intern programs in the United States House of Representatives complained that while most of the young women showed up for work in the same conservative professional attire that the staffers and members did, some chose more revealing clothing. Chad Pegram, a coordinator of Miami University's intern program, recalls that when he took a group to lunch with one member of the state's congressional delegation, one young woman stood out by wearing \"a skirt that was way too short\" and flip-flops. \"It reflected badly on her because everyone else looked great,\" he recalled. \"She embarrassed herself.\"\n\nOther staffers, many of whom themselves began their careers as interns, reported later that they had seen young women come in for internships wearing \"gold stiletto heels, thigh-high boots [and] belly shirts\" in addition to short skirts. Most male staffers did not mind, but female staffers, even those just a few years older, were often resentful and offended. The scandal in which White House intern Monica Lewinsky's sexual affair with President Bill Clinton had led to his impeachment was fresh in institutional memory, and some staffers and journalists wondered if the skimpily dressed young female interns were trying to emulate her. In 2004, Jessica Cutler, a staffer for Ohio Senator Mike DeWine, wrote for a while a blog in which she detailed an active sex life with a variety of men she met through her work, which did little to dispel that idea.\n\nIn June 2005, as another group of summer interns began their weeks on Capitol Hill, Betsy Rothstein wrote an article about the phenomenon for The Hill. \"We were talking about this at dinner the other night, about how some interns show up in some of the skimpiest clothing,\" she quoted an unnamed female press secretary as recalling. \"One of the boys called them skinterns, which I thought was hilarious.\"\n\nAnother term came from an unidentified \"female Republican aide,\" who claimed she kept and shared a list of \"daily offenses\" such as young women wearing metallic shoes and handbags as well as wifebeaters. \"If you are going to wear stilettos or heels, no complaining about how they hurt. Interns need to learn to walk in them.\" She continued \"My favorite term is the Saturday-night intern, one who always dresses like it is a Saturday night. They are all over.\"\n\nWhen the Washington Times covered the phenomenon a year later, it used the shorter term. \"They'’re known as 'skinterns,'\" the paper wrote. \"Those who think 'belly shirts' are career wear. If the devil wears Prada, the skinterns wear nada. As if Washington wasn't sweltering enough.\" It reported that the popular political blog Wonkette had started a \"Hill Intern Hotties Contest\" for both male and female interns. The article implied that the phenomenon was no longer restricted to just congressional offices but had migrated, like many former members of Congress, to lobbying firms on K Street, where the same standards of dress often obtain.\n\nFour years later, in 2010, The Baltimore Sun reported that private employers in its coverage area were dealing with skinterns. \"Booty shorts. Thigh-grazing dresses. Flip-flops. Ripped jeans. Cleavage-baring tops. See-through skirts. Forgotten bras. Employers have seen it all—and wish they hadn't.\" Missy Martin, vice president of human resources at Ripken Baseball, told the Sun that interns were \"showing up to work in bar clothes. Short skirts, tank tops and cleavage showing. It's like, 'Kids, do you realize you're not supposed to be dressed like you're going out to drink in Canton?'\"\n\nBy the middle of the next decade, the skintern phenomenon was no longer limited to Capitol Hill. Articles advising interns on how to dress appeared on popular websites in June, when most internships start. \" ... [B]efore long, the annual summer parade of skinterns will begin,\" wrote Katherine Goldstein, editor of Vanity Fairs website, dropping the scare quotes in a 2013 Slate piece advising young women on how to dress in offices. At her former employer, she recalled, \"[e]very June there would be a new batch, just as clueless about appropriate office attire as those from the year before. Think dresses so clingy they leave nothing to the imagination, tops worn without a bra and tied together with string, daisy dukes, sheer harem pants, and cleavage straight out of a men's magazine.\" The following year the Kansas City Star ran a similar piece.\n\nA 2012 blog post by GlobaLinks Abroad suggested the phenomenon had spread overseas as well. For the organization, Monika Lutz advised young women headed for internships abroad to eschew \"spaghetti straps, cleavage, short skirts, backless outfits or any combination of the above\" if they did not want to be remembered as skinterns. \"But men are not excluded from the fashion police's searchlight,\" she added. \"They can be seen sporting hoodies, flip flops, super baggy cargo pants, or some fresh-off-the-court sneakers, just to cite the most common occurrences.\" Similarly, in a 2013 piece giving dressing advice to interns in the Huffington Post, fashion journalist Lauren Rothman, while generally focused on issues specific to women, reminds those heading for Silicon Valley to \"leave the hoodies and sweats to those who have already made their millions.\"\n\nOn some issues, sartorial choices of skinterns became accepted for all Hill staffers. In 2014, the Washington Post reported that flip-flops had become so common in congressional office buildings during summers as to cause a noise problem for some present when the women wearing them reported for work in the morning. \"It sounds like the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,\" complained Abra Belke, a former staffer and lobbyist who by then was writing Capitol Hill Style, a fashion blog. \"Interns and junior staffers are just clomping down the hall in their $5 Old Navy flip-flops.\"\n\nCauses\n\nSome observers think at that least some of the young women whose choices of clothing get them labeled as skinterns are doing so deliberately, in order to stand out from more conservatively dressed colleagues. \"Maybe if you can get noticed, you might get a full-time position,\" Wonkette editor Alex Pareene told ABC News in 2006. Nicole Williams, who coaches women entering the workforce, agrees that in some cases the skintern look is exactly what the wearer intends. \"You've got the summer to prove 'I can work here' or 'I can't work here,' so to get noticed, why not?\" one intern told Good Morning America.\n\nIt has also been suggested that most misattired interns, male or female, are not familiar with professional dress standards, especially in an era of more relaxed standards such as those embodied by business casual. One intern who said she was from Washington state told the Washington Times in 2006 that her friends at home were stunned to hear that she was not allowed to wear jeans at her internship in the capital.\n\nThey may also misunderstand what is meant by vague instructions on how to dress. Carol Vellucci, director of the Career Center at the University of Baltimore, told The Baltimore Sun that many students seem to her to think that \"dressing up\" means wearing outfits they would typically wear to a nightclub or bar. \"It seems to be something that especially younger students aren't quite getting,\" she said.\n\nInterns may also not have the kind of established wardrobe one would expect from an older adult. \"These are young men and women, and they can’t be expected to be decked out in Brooks Brothers,\" Anthony Weiner, then a congressman from New York, told The Hill in its 2005 story. When he himself had interned for Charles Schumer in the House during the 1970s, he recalled that he owned one suit at the time, wearing it to the office every day but with a different shirt and tie.\n\nResponses\n\nWhen the word first started appearing in Congress, many staffers were cautious about counseling the skinterns in their midst on proper dress. \"You have to be respectful because chances are they are a donor's kid or a friend of the lawmaker,\" one male staffer told Rothstein about dealing with interns in general Instead, they often used indirect means, such as marginalization. \"We had a [recent] intern who we just called Belly. She walked around with a belly shirt on one time too many, and she did get into trouble. Nobody gave her work to do,\" recalled the press secretary who had shared the coinage of the term with Rothstein. In 2011, Washington Post reporter Jenna Johnson shared some anecdotes about the \"less-than-subtle\" tactics some offices had used, such as one office where the offending intern was asked not to be in the intern class's group photo for the member's website.\n\nSometimes more direct pressure has been used. In another incident, a young woman in overly transparent capris was made to stay seated at a desk until the congressman's wife had left the office for the day. Johnson wrote of an intern being given a tie and told to put it on. In another case the other interns staged an \"intervention\" during the local bar's happy hour after the workday.\n\nIn the wake of media attention to the phenomenon, many members of Congress began instituting stricter dress codes for staffers and interns. \"They should dress professional, and we demand that,\" a spokesman for Florida Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart told Rothstein. \"They shouldn't dress like they're working a corner. You shouldn't be dressing like Paris Hilton.\" A year later, Rothstein told the Washington Times the stricter attention to interns' dress was having the desired effect. \"I really think the interns are getting smarter because of these programs,\" she said. \"They're coming from college. They don't have the thought process. They're learning they can't dress like that.\"\n\nColleges have also been trying to prepare interns ahead of time. At the University of Baltimore, Vellucci teaches a course on \"Personal and Professional Skills for Business\" which is a requisite for business majors, The Baltimore Sun reported. Outside the city, Towson University's business school stages a \"Dress Smart\" program in which students themselves model attire of varying degrees of propriety.\n\nIn 2014, The Wall Street Journal reported that KPMG staged a fashion show for its interns at the beginning of every summer. At a hotel in Orlando, the accounting firm's recruiters modeled acceptable outfits from stores such as The Gap, complemented by slide presentations on acceptable and unacceptable attire in the office. The 1,200 interns in attendance also received $200 gift cards to Men's Wearhouse and (for women) Banana Republic, as well as a free silk tie and piece of jewelry respectively. The company's recruiting director admitted that the show and gifts were prompted by some past interns dressing \"not in a way that we would have preferred\".\n\nCriticism\n\"I wince every time I hear the term 'skintern'\", a pseudonymous female intern complained in a 2010 post on the Feministing blog. Why, she asked, were male interns who dressed inappropriately merely labeled \"sloppy\", while young women who did were sexualized? \"'Slutty' has a very different and much more harmful repercussion for an intern's career than 'sloppy,'\" she noted. \"As a result, I am sometimes paralyzed in the mornings, worried that that my sweater seat is too tight or my button down is too low cut. I know that just by being a young female intern, I could be considered a 'skintern' regardless of my dress; and, my male co-workers will never worry about being reduced to a 'skintern.'\"\n\nShe also felt that it needlessly divided women who should be working together:\n\nFashion website The Gloss defended the skintern style in response to Goldstein's 2013 Slate piece. \"Surely, I am not the only person who thinks that a 'skintern' sounds like a member of a really cool club,\" wrote Jennifer Wright. \"Skinterns fear nothing. They are truly alive. The air rushes upon their skin whenever someone walks by their cubicle, but they're not chilly, they're fine ... Who would not want to be a skintern!?\"\n\nAnother response to Goldstein's piece took the opposite view. Elissa Strauss asked if Goldstein's sartorial advice was sexist in a post for \"The Sisterhood\", The Jewish Daily Forward'''s blog on women's issues. At first, she granted, it might seem so: \"this is set of codes and rules that only apply to young women, or more specifically, their bodies. It told them that some parts of their bodies are considered vulgar and that wearing a pair of high platform heels might give others the wrong idea about their, well, purity. It is putting the responsibility on them to cover up, instead of on men to stop gawking.\"\n\n\"I see the logic here,\" Strauss admitted, recalling how self-conscious she had felt during puberty as her body started to change, a feeling she did not see shared by any of the young men she knew. \"But with all this said, I think there is still a conversation to be had with young women on how to dress, especially in a time when fashion seems almost uniformly inspired by Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. \"I choose-my-choice\" feminism sometimes leads women to empowerment, and other times leads them to choose \"choices\" from a patriarchal or, worse, misogynist culture.\"\n\nA young female intern wearing a miniskirt and very high heels \"might be able to convince herself that these fashion choices are truly her own,\" Strauss wrote. \"More likely, she has absorbed the many ways in which porn and strip-club culture have infiltrated mainstream culture—and what she takes for empowerment is really rooted in the commodification and degradation of female sexuality. Somebody needs to tell her this. They also need to tell her that it is way easier to walk in flats.\"\n\nSee also\n\n Dress for Success'', 1970s bestseller about ideal attire in a professional setting\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nAmerican political neologisms\nAmerican slang\nClothing controversies\nPejorative terms for women"
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"Bring Me the Horizon",
"Image and legacy",
"What image did they project?",
"Bring Me the Horizon's image was infamously characterised by its members fashion sense",
"How did some of their members dress?",
"skinny-fit jeans, T-shirts with death metal band logos on the front and colored hair/straightened hair."
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C_50898b4862fb42f5b989ea579db6fb46_0
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How else did they project their image?
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How else did Bring Me the Horizon project their image, besides skinny-fit jeans?
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Bring Me the Horizon
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During the band's early years, they were praised for their business acumen for selling mail-order merchandise and not relying on sales at live shows. Bring Me the Horizon's image has been characterised by the dominating personality of singer and front-man Oliver Sykes, and he has often been seen as the band's "Poster boy", bearing the brunt of the band's controversial reputation. In their early years, Bring Me the Horizon's image was infamously characterised by its members fashion sense and use of skinny-fit jeans, T-shirts with death metal band logos on the front and colored hair/straightened hair. The band's image fit into what was called scene fashion. The effect of their fashion aesthetics showed people, in show promoter Iain Scott's perspective, that "you don't have to look like a diabolical metalhead to be into metal or play in a metal band". However, their fashion conscious appearance earned them a "style over substance" label. Many controversies that occurred in their early years greatly affected public perceptions of the band, particularly an incident in 2007 at Nottingham's Rock City venue, when a female fan claimed that Oliver Sykes had urinated on her. The charges were dropped due to a lack of evidence from CCTV footage in the area. There were several documented examples of violence against the band during their live shows, including Sykes being pepper sprayed on stage; and people getting on stage to assault the band. Their third album (2010's There Is a Hell...) was seen as a significant turning point in altering public perception of the band. Despite the controversy over their image, various journalists have credited the band as being one of the most forward thinking heavy bands in the UK. In 2012, just four years after the release of Suicide Season, the album was inducted into Rocksound's Hall Of Fame, credited as a significant influence on the works of Asking Alexandria, The Ghost Inside and While She Sleeps. It was credited as an influence on metalcore contemporaries Architects on Hollow Crown with their incorporation of keyboards and programming, and The Devil Wears Prada's Dead Throne for its more experimental and opinion-dividing sound. The band caused further controversy in February 2016 when Oliver Sykes trashed Coldplay's table at the 2016 NME Awards during a live performance of Bring Me the Horizon's track "Happy Song". Although some people thought the table trashing was because of a prior feud between the two bands relating to similar album artwork, Sykes later stated that the act was not an act of "dirty protest", and suggested that it was "pure coincidence" that Coldplay were sitting at the table he trampled. Coldplay frontman Chris Martin allegedly laughed off the incident, stating that "it was great, very rock and roll". CANNOTANSWER
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"you don't have to look like a diabolical metalhead to be into metal or play in a metal band".
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Bring Me the Horizon (often abbreviated as BMTH) are a British rock band formed in Sheffield in 2004. The group consists of lead vocalist Oliver Sykes, guitarist Lee Malia, bassist Matt Kean, drummer Matt Nicholls and keyboardist Jordan Fish. They are signed to RCA Records globally and Columbia Records exclusively in the United States.
The band released their debut album Count Your Blessings in 2006. Upon release, the album's sound polarised listeners, and was met with critical disdain. The band began to break away from their controversial sound with Suicide Season (2008), which was a creative, critical and commercial turning point for the band. Bring Me the Horizon released their third album, There Is a Hell Believe Me I've Seen It. There Is a Heaven Let's Keep It a Secret., in 2010, propelling them to greater international fame, whilst incorporating influences from classical music, electronica and pop. Their major label debut, Sempiternal (2013) achieved Gold certification in Australia (35,000) and Silver in the United Kingdom (60,000). That's the Spirit (2015) debuted at number two in the UK Albums Chart and the US Billboard 200. Their sixth studio album Amo (2019) became their first UK chart topper. As well as these six studio albums, they have also released two extended plays and two live albums. They have received four Kerrang! Awards, including two for Best British Band and one for Best Live Band, and have been nominated for two Grammy Awards.
The style of their early work, including their debut album Count Your Blessings, has been described primarily as deathcore, but they started to adopt a more eclectic style of metalcore on later albums. Furthermore, That's the Spirit marked a shift in their sound to less aggressive rock music styles. Amo saw a shift into different genres, such as electronica, pop and hip hop.
History
Formation and early releases (2002–2006)
Bring Me the Horizon's founding members came from diverse musical backgrounds within metal and rock. Matt Nicholls and Oliver Sykes had a common interest in American metalcore such as Norma Jean and Skycamefalling, and used to attend local hardcore punk shows. They later met Lee Malia, who spoke with them about thrash metal and melodic death metal bands like Metallica and At the Gates; Malia had also been part of a Metallica tribute band before meeting the pair. Bring Me the Horizon officially formed in March 2004, when the members were aged 15 to 17. Curtis Ward, who also lived in the Rotherham area, joined Sykes, Malia and Nicholls on drums. Bassist Matt Kean, who was in other local bands, completed the line-up. Their name is paraphrased from a line of dialogue spoken by Captain Jack Sparrow in the 2003 film Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, where Captain Jack Sparrow says: "Now, bring me that horizon."
In the months following their formation, Bring Me the Horizon created a demo album titled Bedroom Sessions. They followed this by releasing their first EP, This Is What the Edge of Your Seat Was Made For, in September 2004 through local UK label Thirty Days of Night Records. Bring Me the Horizon were the label's first signing. It was recorded at Pristine Studios in Nottingham over the course of two weekends, with drums and bass guitar laid down over the first weekend, and guitars and vocals completed a week later.
UK label Visible Noise noticed the band after the release of their EP, and signed them for a four-album deal, in addition to re-releasing the EP in January 2005. The re-release gained the band significant attention, eventually peaking at No. 41 on the UK album charts. The band was later awarded Best British Newcomer at the 2006 Kerrang! Awards ceremony.
The band's first tour was supporting The Red Chord across the United Kingdom. As with other early tours, they were able to get this slot by tricking venue promoters. Kean and Oliver's mother Carol Sykes were the de facto managers of the band at this time, a role they continued to occupy until 2008. For The Red Chord support, Kean emailed promoters and pretended they were opening on all the dates, when they were supposed to play only at their local show. This led them to being booked for the whole tour. In another case, Sykes created an e-mail account in the name of Johnny Truant vocalist Oliver Mitchell, which he used to contact a promoter requesting Bring Me the Horizon on their tour. Alcohol consumption fuelled their live performances in their early history when the band would get so drunk they vomited on stage and damaged their equipment.
Count Your Blessings (2006–2007)
The band released their debut album Count Your Blessings in October 2006 in the United Kingdom and in August 2007 in the United States. They rented a house in the country to write songs, but easily became distracted. They then recorded the album in inner-city Birmingham, a process which was infamous for their excessive and dangerous drinking. During this period drummer Nicholls summarised it saying "we were out every night, just being regular 18-year-olds". Critics panned the album adding to the strongly polarised responses the band were already seeing from the public.
They supported Count Your Blessings by going on a lengthy headline tour of the UK in November, and immediately followed this joining Lostprophets and The Blackout on a UK tour through late November and December 2006.
In January 2007, Bring Me the Horizon were able to set their sights beyond the UK, when they replaced Bury Your Dead on Killswitch Engage's European headline tour. The slot became available after Bury Your Dead were forced to withdraw by the departure from the band of their vocalist, Mat Bruso. Bring Me the Horizon's presence on the tour was poorly received by fans of Killswitch Engage, with concert attendees regularly throwing bottles at the band before they even started playing their set.
Suicide Season and Ward's departure (2008–2009)
Bring Me the Horizon recorded their second studio album, Suicide Season, in Sweden with producer Fredrik Nordström. He was unimpressed with their first album and was initially absent from the recording sessions unless he needed to be there. Nordström later heard the new sound they were experimenting with during a recording session and became very involved in the record. It was promoted virally in the weeks before its release with the promotional tag line "September is Suicide Season." To promote Suicide Season the band embarked on their first headline tour of the United States, as well as appearing at the 2008 Warped Tour. In May 2008, Bring Me the Horizon was the main supporting band on I Killed the Prom Queen's farewell Australian tour with The Ghost Inside and The Red Shore.
Suicide Season was released on 18 September 2008 in the United States on Epitaph and on 29 September in Europe through Visible Noise. In 2009, Bring Me the Horizon attended the 2009 Kerrang! Tour alongside Black Tide, Dir En Grey, In Case of Fire and Mindless Self Indulgence. They also joined Thursday, Cancer Bats, Four Year Strong and Pierce the Veil on the North American leg of the 2009 Taste of Chaos tour from February to April after the tour's organizer Kevin Lyman offered them the slot. The band were initially hesitant to join this tour, but were convinced after Lyman offered them a bus and $500 of fuel for the tour.
During the Taste of Chaos tour in March of that year, guitarist Curtis Ward left the band. His relationship with the band had deteriorated as his stage performances were poor. He was abusive to audiences during the Taste of Chaos tour, and had contributed little to the writing of Suicide Season. Another reason for his departure was the worsening tinnitus in his one functioning ear. Ward was born deaf in one ear and admitted playing in the band worsened the ringing in his other ear to such a degree that he was unable to sleep at night. Ward offered to perform the rest of the tour dates, which the band rejected and instead asked their guitar technician, Dean Rowbotham, to substitute for him for the remaining performances. Lee Malia noted that Ward's departure helped improve everyone's mood as he had been very negative. Within a week of the tour finishing, Sykes began talking to Jona Weinhofen, at the time the guitarist of Bleeding Through. The band knew of him from his work with his former band I Killed the Prom Queen, and he was asked to join them. Ward has since worked on the TV show Top Gear, and has occasionally performed on stage with Bring Me The Horizon, playing "Pray For Plagues", most notably at Wembley Arena in 2015. In 2016, it was announced that Ward had joined the band Counting Days.
In November 2009, Bring Me the Horizon released a remixed version of Suicide Season, titled Suicide Season: Cut Up! Musicians and producers featured on the album include: Ben Weinman, Skrillex, L'Amour La Morgue, Utah Saints and Shawn Crahan. Musically, the album incorporates many genres including: electronica, drum and bass, hip-hop and dubstep. The dubstep style of the record has been acknowledged in tracks by Tek-One and Skrillex while the hip-hop elements are found in Travis McCoy's remix of "Chelsea Smile".
There Is a Hell... (2010–2011)
The band's third album, and first with their new rhythm guitarist Jona Weinhofen, titled There Is a Hell Believe Me I've Seen It. There Is a Heaven Let's Keep It a Secret., was released on 4 October 2010 and debuted at number 17 on the Billboard 200 in the United States, number 13 on the UK Album Chart, and number one on the Australian Albums Chart, the UK Rock Chart and the UK Indie Chart. Despite reaching number one in Australia, the album's sales were the lowest for a number one album in the history of the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) charts.
Matt Nicholls describes the lyrical themes of There Is a Hell... as being "repercussions of everything we were singing about on our last CD [Suicide Season]," calling the music and lyrics a lot moodier and darker. Five singles were released from the album including: "It Never Ends", "Anthem", "Blessed with a Curse", "Visions", and "Alligator Blood", with music videos produced for each of the songs. The band embarked on a headline tour in intimate venues across the United Kingdom with support from Cancer Bats and Tek-One. In December 2010, Bring Me the Horizon joined Bullet for My Valentine as the main support band, alongside Atreyu, on a short five-date arena tour around the United Kingdom. To cope with high demand, Live Nation released extra standing tickets for all dates.
In April 2011, Bring Me the Horizon embarked on a European tour, starting in the United Kingdom. They toured with Parkway Drive and Architects as main support bands, with The Devil Wears Prada as the opening support for the UK and dubstep group Tek-One. The tour, however, was not without its hindrances. On 28 April, Nicholls broke his arm whilst playing football with members of Bring Me the Horizon, Parkway Drive and Architects. Instead of cancelling the tour, Architects' drummer Dan Searle filled in as drummer, but this meant that Bring Me the Horizon's setlist was halved in length. The tour was extended with a North American leg from 13 August to 4 October, retaining Parkway Drive and Architects and adding Deez Nuts to the line up. On 23 August they released the fourth music video and single, "Visions", and on 31 October the music video for the song "Alligator Blood" was released.
In December 2011, Machine Head completed an arena tour across Europe with Bring Me the Horizon as the main support band along with DevilDriver and Darkest Hour. Oliver Sykes said these would be the last European dates before they began writing and the recording their fourth album. 2011 ended with an announcement by the band on 29 December of a new extended play titled The Chill Out Sessions, a collaborative effort with British DJ Draper. Draper first released an "officially sanctioned" remix of the song "Blessed with a Curse" in May 2011. The EP was originally supposed to be released in time for New Year's Day, and made available for download and purchase though Bring Me the Horizon's website, but the EP's release was cancelled due to the band's "current management and label situation".
Sempiternal and Weinhofen's departure (2012–2014)
After an intense touring schedule, Bring Me the Horizon finally completed their third album's promotion at the end of 2011. They returned to the UK for an extended break and eventually starting work on their next album. Much like their previous two albums, they wrote their fourth album in seclusion and isolation to stay focused. This time, they retreated to a house in the Lake District. In July, the band started to publish images of themselves recording at a 'Top Secret Studio Location,' and revealed they were working with producer Terry Date for the recording and production of the album. On 30 July, the band announced they had left their label and signed with RCA, who would release their fourth album in 2013. The band played only three shows in all of 2012: Warped Tour 2012 on 10 November at the Alexandra Palace in London, which they headlined, (and was initially believed to be their only show), the BBC Radio 1's Radio 1 Rocks show on 22 October, where they played a six-song set supporting Bullet for My Valentine, and at a warm-up show for Warped Tour in Sheffield on 9 November. In late October it was announced that the fourth album would be called Sempiternal with a tentative release in early 2013. On 22 November the band released the Draper collaborative album The Chill Out Sessions free of charge.
On 4 January 2013, Bring Me the Horizon released the first single from Sempiternal, "Shadow Moses". It was first played by radio presenter Daniel P. Carter on BBC's Radio 1. Due to popular demand, Epitaph released the music video for the song a week earlier than planned. In January, the band also saw a change in their line up. This began early in the month when Jordan Fish, Worship keyboardist and session musician for the band during the writing of Sempiternal, was announced as a full member. Then later in the month, Jona Weinhofen left the band. Despite the band denying speculation that Fish replaced Weinhofen, reviewers said that replacing a guitarist with a keyboardist better fit their style.
The band was confirmed for several festival appearances in February. They played the Australian Soundwave festival, performing at all five dates in: Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth, and then at RAMFest in South Africa with Rise Against in March, Rock Am Ring and Rock im Park festivals in Germany in June, and from June until August they played Warped Tour 2013 in the U.S. and Canada. To coincide with 29 April release of Sempiternal the band made their first headline tour of the United Kingdom in 18 months with Crossfaith and Empress AD.
In support of Sempiternal, the band toured Australia with Of Mice & Men and Crossfaith, and played a British tour with Pierce The Veil and Sights & Sounds. They then completed the American Dream Tour in North America, supported by Of Mice & Men, Issues, letlive. and Northlane. The band was announced as the main supporter for American band A Day to Remember on their "Parks & Devastation Tour" across America throughout September and October, along with support acts Motionless in White and Chiodos. The band performed at Wembley Arena in London on 5 December with support acts Young Guns, Issues and Sleepwave, which was recorded and released as a live album/DVD.
Later in 2014, the band released two new tracks titled "Drown" on 21 October, as a stand-alone single, and "Don't Look Down" on 29 October, as part of the re-score of Drive.
That's the Spirit (2015–2017)
In late June, the band began to promote pictures of an umbrella symbol being used as a tattoo, and on stickers, and posters across England, the United States, Australia, and Europe; it was later used for a promotional cover for the band's first single. The band released a short video in early July where the words "that's the spirit" could be heard in reverse. On 13 July 2015, the promotional single "Happy Song" was released on the band's Vevo page, and on 21 July 2015, Sykes revealed the album's name was That's the Spirit. The band released the single and music video for "Throne" on 23 July 2015, and another promotional track from the album, titled "True Friends", was released on 24 August 2015. The album was released on 11 September 2015 to critical acclaim. It has led to several music videos including "Drown", "Throne", "True Friends", "Follow You", "Avalanche", and "Oh No".
The band embarked on a U.S. tour in October 2015 with support from metalcore band Issues and rock band PVRIS. The band also toured Europe in November 2015, and embarked on a second U.S. tour in April and May 2016. This was followed by an Australian tour in September 2016, and a second European tour in November 2016.
On 22 April 2016, the band performed a live concert with an orchestra conducted by Simon Dobson at the Royal Albert Hall in London. The concert marked the first time the band had performed with a live orchestra. It was recorded, and the live album, Live at the Royal Albert Hall, was released on 2 December 2016 through the crowdfunding platform PledgeMusic on CD, DVD, and vinyl, with all proceeds donated to Teenage Cancer Trust. Following the show, Fish hinted at the possibility of doing a full tour with an orchestra, saying: "It seems almost a bit of a shame to go to all this effort for months and months for just one night."
Amo (2018–2019)
In August 2018, cryptic posters appeared in major cities throughout the world with the message "do you wanna start a cult with me?". The posters were attributed by major media outlets to the band only by their use of the hexagram logo previously used by the band. During this time the band themselves have not acknowledged their involvement with the campaign publicly. Each poster provided a unique phone number and a website address. The website provided a brief message titled "An Invitation To Salvation" and shows the date of 21 August 2018. The phone lines placed fans on hold with lengthy, varied audio messages that changed frequently. Some of these messages reportedly end with a distorted audio clip of what was assumed to be new music from the band.
On 21 August, the band released the lead single "Mantra". The following day the band announced their album Amo, released on 11 January 2019, along with a set of tour dates called the First Love World Tour.
On 21 October, the band released their second single "Wonderful Life" featuring Dani Filth, along with the tracklist for Amo. That same day, the band announced that the album has been delayed and is now set for 25 January 2019.
On 1 December, it was reported that during a show at Ally Pally a fan died in the mosh pit and was escorted by paramedics and security. A day later, it was confirmed by the band with a statement: "Words cannot express how horrified we are feeling this evening after hearing about the death of a young man at our show last night. Our hearts and deepest condolences go out to his family and loved ones at this terrible time. We will comment further in due course."
On 3 January 2019, the band released their third single "Medicine" and its corresponding music video. On 22 January, three days before the album release, the band released the fourth single "Mother Tongue". On 24 January, the band released the fifth single "Nihilist Blues" featuring Grimes.
On 26 July, the band released the sixth single "Sugar Honey Ice & Tea" alongside an accompanying music video. On 21 October, the band released the seventh single "In the Dark" alongside an accompanying music video featuring Forest Whitaker. On 6 November, the band released the song "Ludens", which is part of Death Stranding: Timefall, along with the news that the band are planning on never releasing an album again and instead want to release EPs. On 27 December, the band released Music to Listen to~Dance to~Blaze to~Pray to~Feed to~Sleep to~Talk to~Grind to~Trip to~Breathe to~Help to~Hurt to~Scroll to~Roll to~Love to~Hate to~Learn Too~Plot to~Play to~Be to~Feel to~Breed to~Sweat to~Dream to~Hide to~Live to~Die to~Go To without any prior announcement.
Post Human: Survival Horror (2020–present)
On 20 March 2020, the band shared that they were in a home studio, writing and recording material for their eighth record, which is expected to be an EP, with part of it being co-produced by Mick Gordon. On 25 June, the band released the single "Parasite Eve" alongside an accompanying music video. On the same day, the band also announced a project that they have been working on titled Post Human, which they said to be four EPs released throughout the next year which when combined would make an album. On 2 September, the band released with English singer Yungblud a collaborative single titled "Obey" and its corresponding music video. On 14 October, the band officially announced through social media that Post Human: Survival Horror would be released on 30 October 2020. On 22 October, a week before the release date, the fourth single "Teardrops" was released alongside an accompanying music video.
In December 2020, Fish said that the band had been writing "on and off" and would be focusing on their next release in early 2021. He also updated the group's release plan, saying that they "planned to do four EPs in a year, but [Post Human: Survival Horror] was almost an album, so I think the spacing will be a bit longer than intended, just because they're probably going to turn out bigger than intended." Upon being released on physical formats on 22 January 2021, Post Human: Survival Horror would chart again and reach a new peak to gift Bring Me the Horizon their second UK number one on the UK Albums Chart. Two years after Amo would be the first to reach this feat. The band collaborated with singer Olivia O'Brien on a track titled "No More Friends". The song is from O'Brien's Episodes: Season 1' EP which was released on 11 June 2021.
On 2 September 2021, the band announced the release of an upcoming single, "Die4U", which was released on 16 September. On 8 December, the band was announced as the Saturday co-headliner alongside Arctic Monkeys at the 2022 iteration of the Reading and Leeds Festival, headlining the bill for the first time ever. Speaking to NME about the announcement, Sykes expressed his thoughts about headlining Reading and Leeds, as well as what to expect from their headline set:
In February 2022, it was reported that the band were set to contribute to the soundtrack and provide the main theme for Gran Turismo 7. A few days later, the band released their rendition of "Moon Over the Castle" as a single ahead of schedule due to the song being leaked early. At the 42nd Brit Awards, the band were brought out as a surprise act to perform "Bad Habits" alongside Ed Sheeran. On 17 February, the studio version of "Bad Habits" by Ed Sheeran featuring the band was released.
Artistry
Style and influences
Among Bring Me the Horizon's earliest influences were bands like At the Gates, Carcass, Pantera, Metallica, The Dillinger Escape Plan, Every Time I Die, Norma Jean, Skycamefalling and Poison the Well; and genres death metal, grindcore, and emo have been cited by AllMusic writer Steward Mason. However, as their sound developed, the band started to take influences from progressive rock, post-rock, dubstep and electronica. The band's musical style has been described mainly as metalcore and – though they have since moved on from the genre – their early material was considered deathcore. Across their career the band has also been said to play within the genres alternative metal, alternative rock, pop rock, electronic rock, hard rock, heavy metal, post-hardcore, pop, nu metal, electropop, hip hop, EDM, arena rock, melodic metalcore, electronicore, electronica, screamo, hardcore punk, technical metal, and emo.
Bring Me the Horizon have attempted to grow and change with each album, believing they should be different. Raziq Rauf, writing for Drowned in Sound, described Count Your Blessings as possessing "Norma Jean-style thunderous riffs mixed with some dastardly sludgy doom moments and more breakdowns than your dad's old Nissan Sunny." Metal Hammer described Suicide Season as a "creative, critical and commercial success" for the band as they started to adopt a more eclectic style, with its "crushingly heavy party deathcore". Leading up to its release, Oliver Sykes described it as "100% different to Count Your Blessings" and noted the album sounds "more rock than metal". As time went by, Bring Me the Horizon began rejecting their debut album Count Your Blessings and considered Suicide Season as their "Year Zero[...] [their] wipe-the-slate-clean time".
Bring Me the Horizon then moved even further away from deathcore with their third album There Is a Hell..., which incorporated electronica, classical music and pop music into their metalcore style. This required more ambitious production feats, such as using a full choir, a synthesised orchestra and glitched out vocals and breakdowns that were also toned down, favouring quiet atmospheric passages in song breaks. For the writing of Sempiternal, the band pooled far broader influences such as post-rock acts like This Will Destroy You and Explosions in the Sky and from pop music.
Bring Me the Horizon has experimented with its music in recent years, mixing pop with metal music, leading the band to be labelled a "pop metal" act. With the release of That's the Spirit, their sound shifted towards electronic rock, alternative metal and alternative rock, also incorporated other genres such as pop rock and nu metal, while completely abandoning the metalcore sound of their earlier albums.
Songwriting and recording process
In all the band's album notes, all of Bring Me the Horizon's lyrics are said to be written by lead vocalist Oliver Sykes while all five members—as a band—were credited with writing the music. With the exception of Count Your Blessings, the band has always written in a secluded location to avoid being distracted. Oliver Sykes' lyrics have a strong feeling of catharsis for him. He mainly draws from personal experience and has described the band's live performances as therapeutic. In 2006, when asked about the lyrics of Count Your Blessings, as they had been criticised for their content solely fixated on heartbreak and other themes that were called "shallow and meaningless", he responded "My life's never been that bad so I've not got that much to talk about."
Band members have described how the debut album was written in inner-city areas of Birmingham while being pressured to write and record songs to the deadlines given. This resulted in the band being unimpressed with the final product. However, for the writing process of Suicide Season, the band realised that they much preferred picking areas with less human contact in order to focus on the music; they wrote their second album in the Swedish countryside. During the writing of Suicide Season, former and founding rhythm guitarist Curtis Ward wrote only two riffs of his rhythm parts of the album, mostly relying on Lee Malia to write all of the guitar sections of the album.
Lee Malia has stated that the typical writing process involves Oliver Sykes writing the main structure of the songs, followed by Malia writing the main riff. From this they would collaborate with each other to structure their work better and then later include the rest of the band in writing the rest of the song. The writing dynamic of Sempiternal, typically featured Sykes, Malia and newly introduced member Jordan Fish. Malia felt that with Fish's influence on the record he was pushed to create more inspired guitar riffs. As they all took a break before writing their fourth album, they felt less of a need for an isolated writing environment.
Image and legacy
During the band's early years, they were praised for their business acumen for selling mail-order merchandise and not relying on sales at live shows. Bring Me the Horizon's image has been characterised by the dominating personality of singer and front-man Oliver Sykes, and he has often been seen as the band's "Poster boy", bearing the brunt of the band's controversial reputation. In their early years, Bring Me the Horizon's image was infamously characterised by its members fashion sense and use of skinny-fit jeans, T-shirts with death metal band logos on the front and coloured hair/straightened hair. The band's image fit into what was called scene fashion. The effect of their fashion aesthetics showed people, in show promoter Iain Scott's perspective, that "you don't have to look like a diabolical metalhead to be into metal or play in a metal band". However, their fashion conscious appearance earned them a "style over substance" label.
Many controversies that occurred in their early years greatly affected public perceptions of the band, particularly an incident in 2007 at Nottingham's Rock City venue, when a female fan claimed that Oliver Sykes had urinated on her. The charges were dropped due to a lack of evidence from CCTV footage in the area. There were several documented examples of violence against the band during their live shows, including Sykes being pepper sprayed on stage; and people getting onstage to assault the band.
Despite the controversy over their image, various journalists have credited the band as being one of the most forward-thinking heavy bands in the UK. In 2012, just four years after the release of Suicide Season, the album was inducted into Rock Sound's Hall of Fame, credited as a significant influence on the works of Asking Alexandria, The Ghost Inside and While She Sleeps. It was credited as an influence on metalcore contemporaries Architects on Hollow Crown with their incorporation of keyboards and programming, and The Devil Wears Prada's Dead Throne for its more experimental and opinion-dividing sound.
The band caused further controversy in February 2016 when Oliver Sykes trashed Coldplay's table at the 2016 NME Awards during a live performance of Bring Me the Horizon's track "Happy Song". Although some people thought the table trashing was because of a prior feud between the two bands relating to similar album artwork, Sykes later stated that the act was not an act of "dirty protest", and suggested that it was "pure coincidence" that Coldplay were sitting at the table he trampled. Coldplay frontman Chris Martin admitted that he had never even heard of Bring Me the Horizon before the incident and he laughed it off, stating that "it was great, very 'rock and roll'".
Band members
Current
Oliver Sykes – lead vocals ; keyboards, programming
Matt Kean – bass
Lee Malia – lead guitar ; rhythm guitar
Matt Nicholls – drums
Jordan Fish – keyboards, programming, percussion, backing vocals
Current touring musicians
John Jones – rhythm guitar, backing vocals
Former
Curtis Ward – rhythm guitar
Jona Weinhofen – rhythm guitar, keyboards, programming, backing vocals
Former touring musicians
Dean Rowbotham – rhythm guitar
Robin Urbino – rhythm guitar
Tim Hillier-Brook – rhythm guitar
Brendan MacDonald – rhythm guitar, backing vocals
Timeline
Discography
Count Your Blessings (2006)
Suicide Season (2008)
There Is a Hell Believe Me I've Seen It. There Is a Heaven Let's Keep It a Secret. (2010)
Sempiternal (2013)
That's the Spirit (2015)
Amo (2019)
Awards and nominations
Grammy Awards
|-
| 2019 || "Mantra" || Best Rock Song ||
|-
| 2020 || Amo || Best Rock Album ||
BRIT Awards
|-
| 2020 || Bring Me the Horizon || Best Group ||
|-
NME Awards|-
|rowspan="2"| 2017
|Bring Me the Horizon || Best Live Band ||
|-
| Bring Me the Horizon || Music Moment of the Year ||
|-
| 2020 || Bring Me the Horizon || Best Band in the World ||
|-
|rowspan="2"| 2022 || Bring Me the Horizon || Best Band in the World ||
|-
| Bring Me the Horizon || Best Live Act ||Kerrang! Awards|-
| 2006 || Bring Me the Horizon || Best British Newcomer ||
|-
| 2008 || Bring Me the Horizon || Best British Band ||
|-
| 2009 || Bring Me the Horizon || Best British Band ||
|-
|rowspan="3"| 2011 || "Blessed with a Curse" || Best Single ||
|-
| Bring Me the Horizon || Best British Band ||
|-
| There Is a Hell Believe Me I've Seen It. There Is a Heaven Let's Keep It a Secret. || Best Album ||
|-
| 2012 || "Alligator Blood" || Best Video ||
|-
| rowspan="4"| 2013 || "Shadow Moses" || Best Single ||
|-
| "Shadow Moses" || Best Video ||
|-
| Sempiternal || Best Album ||
|-
| Bring Me the Horizon || Best British Band ||
|-
| 2014 || Bring Me the Horizon || Best Live Band ||
|-
| 2014 || Bring Me the Horizon || Best British Band ||
|-
|rowspan="2"| 2015|| Bring Me the Horizon || Best British Band ||
|-
| "Drown" || Best Single ||
|-
| 2016 || Bring Me the Horizon || Best British Band ||
|-
|rowspan="2"|2019 || Amo || Best Album ||
|-
| Bring Me the Horizon || Best British Band || AIM Independent Music Awards|-
| 2011 || Bring Me the Horizon || Best Live Act ||
|-
| 2011 || Bring Me the Horizon || Hardest Working Band or Artist ||
|-
| 2011 || Bring Me the Horizon || Independent Breakthrough of Year || Alternative Press
|-
| 2014 || Sempiternal || Best Album ||
|-
| 2014 || Bring Me the Horizon || Best International Band ||
|-
| 2015 || "Drown" || Best Music Video ||
|-
UK Music Video Awards
|-
| 2016
| "True Friends"
| Best Rock/Indie Video – UK
|
Readers polls
In a 2009 Rock Sound readers' poll, Bring Me the Horizon achieved both Best British Band and Worst British Band.
In 2011 The Guardian ran a poll for "Who should win the Mercury prize?" and used 50 albums, Bring Me the Horizon's third album There Is a Hell... won with 37%.
In a 2013 Sirius XM published poll, Bring Me the Horizon won Best Song Discovery for "Go to Hell, for Heaven's Sake" with the Octane radio station.
In a 2013 Alternative Press readers poll, Bring Me the Horizon was nominated for four categories: Best Vocalist (Oliver Sykes; position 3), Best Keyboardist (Jordan Fish; position 1), Single Of The Year ("Shadow Moses"; position 2) and "Best Album Art" (Sempiternal; position 2).
In 2021, Kerrang! readers voted "Die4U" as the best song and music video of the year. Bring Me the Horizon was also voted as the best band and best live band of the year. They were also voted as the second-best cover story of the year by Kerrang Magazine.
Notes
References
Bibliography
External links
2004 establishments in England
British alternative metal musical groups
Columbia Records artists
English alternative rock groups
English deathcore musical groups
English metalcore musical groups
English pop rock music groups
Kerrang! Awards winners
Musical groups from Sheffield
Musical groups established in 2004
Musical quintets
RCA Records artists
| true |
[
"Objective Vision (Object Oriented Visionary) is a project mainly aimed at real-time computer vision and simulation vision of living creatures. it has three sections contain of an open-source library of programming functions for using inside the projects, Virtual laboratory for scholars to check the application of functions directly and by command-line code for external and instant access, and the research section consists of paperwork and libraries to expand the scientific prove of works.\n\nBackground \nThe process has been used in the OVC libraries is as same as what's happening when living see a picture, and it's designed to give the researchers to experience the brain's visual cortex most close simulation for picture perception. The OVC was designed to work as a simulated visual cortex that has a critical job in processing and classify the objects to make it easier to work with pictures and graphical perception and processing. The human brain is much more aware of how it solves complex problems such as playing chess or solving algebra equations, which is why computer programmers have had so much success building machines that emulate this type of activity. but when the whole process is still a riddle that how the entities visionary system works. The project was simulated the visionary system by how it starts to convert the signals to image(actually the edges and colors) and then recognizing the shapes to find a relation between brain's information and image. The Objective Visionary system actually is concentrating on the separable sections, this separation gives the application visionary system the excellence processing result, because with this method the system do not waste much time on processing non significant sections and signals. this operation in the Objective Vision project called objective processing and because the O.V. mission is focused on human visionary simulation, so the developer refers with Objective Vision.\n\nHistory \nObjective-Vision is a Human (Natural) Visionary simulation Project developed by Michael Bidollahkhany. Following an explosion of interest during the 21st century were characterized by the maturing of the field and the significant growth of active applications; simulation of visionary systems, visionary based autonomous vehicle guidance, medical imaging (2D and 3D) and automatic surveillance are the most rapidly developing areas. This progress can be seen in an increasing number of software and hardware products on the market, as well as in a number of digital image processing software and APIs and also machine vision courses offered at universities worldwide. Therefore the OVC project has been released as a research software project in 2016. One of important parts of this project was O.V.C. (Objective Vision Class library), that was designed to able companies and scientists to use the brain's most likely functionalities as visionary libraries to simplify and accelerate the image processing algorithms developments. The project started under MIT copyright license, but since 2018 the project continued as classified based on sponsors opinion.\n\nThe Algorithm \nAs developers claimed the algorithm used in the class library and developer's kit of project has been developed based on natural visionary system, and the functionalities containing image processing, optimization and labeling etc. are mostly upgraded and near techniques. Suppose that we've a picture of a jungle, or somewhere else, with this library developer will be able to manipulate not only the pixel of images for data extraction, but automatically based on which algorithm is used and image quality, he can manipulate directly a list of objects, same pixels and every data project needs to have, said the developer in his lecture answering how the algorithm works.\n\nViewpoint \nFor long times digital image processing and storing, was actually by processing just pixels; this Project tries to present a new kind of image processing and even storing, \"objective vision\" or \"object-oriented visionary\" is called. This project officially launched in May 2016, with the aim of making more adaptation between Computer Vision (Include Visionary, Digital image processing, discernment and even Perception) and Human Visual System; about development of the project: \"...so we decided to research on Human Vision System, besides we worked on Artificial Retinal image processing and new visionary optimization unit(Presented at Istanbul Technical University Conference(Turkey 2015-2016)) and grew our research to Visionary CORTEX of Brain\", Michael Bidollahkhany said.\n\nApplications \nThe OVC application areas include:\n\n 2D and 3D feature toolkits\n Egomotion estimation\n Human–computer interaction (HCI)\n Mobile robotics\n Motion understanding\n Object identification\n Segmentation and recognition\n Stereopsis stereo vision: depth perception from two cameras\n Structure from motion (SFM)\n Motion tracking\n\nProgramming language \nIn first initial release of Objective Visionary Project the algorithm has been written in C++ and C#, and the virtual laboratory has been developed in C# and Delphi. Based on developers last lecture since the second release the complete algorithm has been re-written in C# based on .Net Core 1.0 to make it easier to work on different operating systems.\n\nSee also \n Human visual system model\n Visual system\n Machine Vision\n Image processing\n OpenCV\n\nReferences \n\nMachine vision\nImage processing",
"This article is a comparison of notable software applications that can access or manipulate disk image files. It compares their disk image handling features.\n\nComparison criteria\nThis article compares two features: Supported file formats and capabilities of the software as to how they treat the image format.\n\nCapabilities\nCreates? Specifies whether the application can create a new disc image file, either by capturing the image of an actual disc, by composing a disc image file from locally stored files or an empty disc image.\nModifies? Specifies whether the application is able to manipulate the contents of an existing disc image file, including adding, changing or deleting files within or modifying disc image metadata.\nMounts? Specifies whether the application can emulate an optical disc drive. Such an application treats a disc image file like a virtual disc and virtually inserts it into that emulated virtual drive.\nWrites/Burns? Specifies whether the application can write the contents of a disk image file onto a physical media (such as an optical disc, a floppy disk, a hard disk drive or a USB flash drive) and create a physical replica.\nExtracts? Specifies whether the application can copy some or all of the files within a disc image file to somewhere else.\n\nSupported file formats\nInput format Specifies the types of disc image formats that the application can open.\nOutput format Specifies the types of disc image formats that the application can save to.\n\nThe comparison\n\nSee also \n Disk image\n Disk partitioning\n Optical disc authoring\n List of optical disc authoring software\n Comparison of disc authoring software\n Comparison of disk cloning software\n\nNotes\n\nReferences \n\nDisk images\nDisc image software"
] |
[
"Bring Me the Horizon",
"Image and legacy",
"What image did they project?",
"Bring Me the Horizon's image was infamously characterised by its members fashion sense",
"How did some of their members dress?",
"skinny-fit jeans, T-shirts with death metal band logos on the front and colored hair/straightened hair.",
"How else did they project their image?",
"\"you don't have to look like a diabolical metalhead to be into metal or play in a metal band\"."
] |
C_50898b4862fb42f5b989ea579db6fb46_0
|
Who said that statement about not having to look like a diabolical metalhead?
| 4 |
Who in Bring Me the Horizon said that statement about not having to look like a diabolical metalhead?
|
Bring Me the Horizon
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During the band's early years, they were praised for their business acumen for selling mail-order merchandise and not relying on sales at live shows. Bring Me the Horizon's image has been characterised by the dominating personality of singer and front-man Oliver Sykes, and he has often been seen as the band's "Poster boy", bearing the brunt of the band's controversial reputation. In their early years, Bring Me the Horizon's image was infamously characterised by its members fashion sense and use of skinny-fit jeans, T-shirts with death metal band logos on the front and colored hair/straightened hair. The band's image fit into what was called scene fashion. The effect of their fashion aesthetics showed people, in show promoter Iain Scott's perspective, that "you don't have to look like a diabolical metalhead to be into metal or play in a metal band". However, their fashion conscious appearance earned them a "style over substance" label. Many controversies that occurred in their early years greatly affected public perceptions of the band, particularly an incident in 2007 at Nottingham's Rock City venue, when a female fan claimed that Oliver Sykes had urinated on her. The charges were dropped due to a lack of evidence from CCTV footage in the area. There were several documented examples of violence against the band during their live shows, including Sykes being pepper sprayed on stage; and people getting on stage to assault the band. Their third album (2010's There Is a Hell...) was seen as a significant turning point in altering public perception of the band. Despite the controversy over their image, various journalists have credited the band as being one of the most forward thinking heavy bands in the UK. In 2012, just four years after the release of Suicide Season, the album was inducted into Rocksound's Hall Of Fame, credited as a significant influence on the works of Asking Alexandria, The Ghost Inside and While She Sleeps. It was credited as an influence on metalcore contemporaries Architects on Hollow Crown with their incorporation of keyboards and programming, and The Devil Wears Prada's Dead Throne for its more experimental and opinion-dividing sound. The band caused further controversy in February 2016 when Oliver Sykes trashed Coldplay's table at the 2016 NME Awards during a live performance of Bring Me the Horizon's track "Happy Song". Although some people thought the table trashing was because of a prior feud between the two bands relating to similar album artwork, Sykes later stated that the act was not an act of "dirty protest", and suggested that it was "pure coincidence" that Coldplay were sitting at the table he trampled. Coldplay frontman Chris Martin allegedly laughed off the incident, stating that "it was great, very rock and roll". CANNOTANSWER
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show promoter Iain Scott's perspective,
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Bring Me the Horizon (often abbreviated as BMTH) are a British rock band formed in Sheffield in 2004. The group consists of lead vocalist Oliver Sykes, guitarist Lee Malia, bassist Matt Kean, drummer Matt Nicholls and keyboardist Jordan Fish. They are signed to RCA Records globally and Columbia Records exclusively in the United States.
The band released their debut album Count Your Blessings in 2006. Upon release, the album's sound polarised listeners, and was met with critical disdain. The band began to break away from their controversial sound with Suicide Season (2008), which was a creative, critical and commercial turning point for the band. Bring Me the Horizon released their third album, There Is a Hell Believe Me I've Seen It. There Is a Heaven Let's Keep It a Secret., in 2010, propelling them to greater international fame, whilst incorporating influences from classical music, electronica and pop. Their major label debut, Sempiternal (2013) achieved Gold certification in Australia (35,000) and Silver in the United Kingdom (60,000). That's the Spirit (2015) debuted at number two in the UK Albums Chart and the US Billboard 200. Their sixth studio album Amo (2019) became their first UK chart topper. As well as these six studio albums, they have also released two extended plays and two live albums. They have received four Kerrang! Awards, including two for Best British Band and one for Best Live Band, and have been nominated for two Grammy Awards.
The style of their early work, including their debut album Count Your Blessings, has been described primarily as deathcore, but they started to adopt a more eclectic style of metalcore on later albums. Furthermore, That's the Spirit marked a shift in their sound to less aggressive rock music styles. Amo saw a shift into different genres, such as electronica, pop and hip hop.
History
Formation and early releases (2002–2006)
Bring Me the Horizon's founding members came from diverse musical backgrounds within metal and rock. Matt Nicholls and Oliver Sykes had a common interest in American metalcore such as Norma Jean and Skycamefalling, and used to attend local hardcore punk shows. They later met Lee Malia, who spoke with them about thrash metal and melodic death metal bands like Metallica and At the Gates; Malia had also been part of a Metallica tribute band before meeting the pair. Bring Me the Horizon officially formed in March 2004, when the members were aged 15 to 17. Curtis Ward, who also lived in the Rotherham area, joined Sykes, Malia and Nicholls on drums. Bassist Matt Kean, who was in other local bands, completed the line-up. Their name is paraphrased from a line of dialogue spoken by Captain Jack Sparrow in the 2003 film Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, where Captain Jack Sparrow says: "Now, bring me that horizon."
In the months following their formation, Bring Me the Horizon created a demo album titled Bedroom Sessions. They followed this by releasing their first EP, This Is What the Edge of Your Seat Was Made For, in September 2004 through local UK label Thirty Days of Night Records. Bring Me the Horizon were the label's first signing. It was recorded at Pristine Studios in Nottingham over the course of two weekends, with drums and bass guitar laid down over the first weekend, and guitars and vocals completed a week later.
UK label Visible Noise noticed the band after the release of their EP, and signed them for a four-album deal, in addition to re-releasing the EP in January 2005. The re-release gained the band significant attention, eventually peaking at No. 41 on the UK album charts. The band was later awarded Best British Newcomer at the 2006 Kerrang! Awards ceremony.
The band's first tour was supporting The Red Chord across the United Kingdom. As with other early tours, they were able to get this slot by tricking venue promoters. Kean and Oliver's mother Carol Sykes were the de facto managers of the band at this time, a role they continued to occupy until 2008. For The Red Chord support, Kean emailed promoters and pretended they were opening on all the dates, when they were supposed to play only at their local show. This led them to being booked for the whole tour. In another case, Sykes created an e-mail account in the name of Johnny Truant vocalist Oliver Mitchell, which he used to contact a promoter requesting Bring Me the Horizon on their tour. Alcohol consumption fuelled their live performances in their early history when the band would get so drunk they vomited on stage and damaged their equipment.
Count Your Blessings (2006–2007)
The band released their debut album Count Your Blessings in October 2006 in the United Kingdom and in August 2007 in the United States. They rented a house in the country to write songs, but easily became distracted. They then recorded the album in inner-city Birmingham, a process which was infamous for their excessive and dangerous drinking. During this period drummer Nicholls summarised it saying "we were out every night, just being regular 18-year-olds". Critics panned the album adding to the strongly polarised responses the band were already seeing from the public.
They supported Count Your Blessings by going on a lengthy headline tour of the UK in November, and immediately followed this joining Lostprophets and The Blackout on a UK tour through late November and December 2006.
In January 2007, Bring Me the Horizon were able to set their sights beyond the UK, when they replaced Bury Your Dead on Killswitch Engage's European headline tour. The slot became available after Bury Your Dead were forced to withdraw by the departure from the band of their vocalist, Mat Bruso. Bring Me the Horizon's presence on the tour was poorly received by fans of Killswitch Engage, with concert attendees regularly throwing bottles at the band before they even started playing their set.
Suicide Season and Ward's departure (2008–2009)
Bring Me the Horizon recorded their second studio album, Suicide Season, in Sweden with producer Fredrik Nordström. He was unimpressed with their first album and was initially absent from the recording sessions unless he needed to be there. Nordström later heard the new sound they were experimenting with during a recording session and became very involved in the record. It was promoted virally in the weeks before its release with the promotional tag line "September is Suicide Season." To promote Suicide Season the band embarked on their first headline tour of the United States, as well as appearing at the 2008 Warped Tour. In May 2008, Bring Me the Horizon was the main supporting band on I Killed the Prom Queen's farewell Australian tour with The Ghost Inside and The Red Shore.
Suicide Season was released on 18 September 2008 in the United States on Epitaph and on 29 September in Europe through Visible Noise. In 2009, Bring Me the Horizon attended the 2009 Kerrang! Tour alongside Black Tide, Dir En Grey, In Case of Fire and Mindless Self Indulgence. They also joined Thursday, Cancer Bats, Four Year Strong and Pierce the Veil on the North American leg of the 2009 Taste of Chaos tour from February to April after the tour's organizer Kevin Lyman offered them the slot. The band were initially hesitant to join this tour, but were convinced after Lyman offered them a bus and $500 of fuel for the tour.
During the Taste of Chaos tour in March of that year, guitarist Curtis Ward left the band. His relationship with the band had deteriorated as his stage performances were poor. He was abusive to audiences during the Taste of Chaos tour, and had contributed little to the writing of Suicide Season. Another reason for his departure was the worsening tinnitus in his one functioning ear. Ward was born deaf in one ear and admitted playing in the band worsened the ringing in his other ear to such a degree that he was unable to sleep at night. Ward offered to perform the rest of the tour dates, which the band rejected and instead asked their guitar technician, Dean Rowbotham, to substitute for him for the remaining performances. Lee Malia noted that Ward's departure helped improve everyone's mood as he had been very negative. Within a week of the tour finishing, Sykes began talking to Jona Weinhofen, at the time the guitarist of Bleeding Through. The band knew of him from his work with his former band I Killed the Prom Queen, and he was asked to join them. Ward has since worked on the TV show Top Gear, and has occasionally performed on stage with Bring Me The Horizon, playing "Pray For Plagues", most notably at Wembley Arena in 2015. In 2016, it was announced that Ward had joined the band Counting Days.
In November 2009, Bring Me the Horizon released a remixed version of Suicide Season, titled Suicide Season: Cut Up! Musicians and producers featured on the album include: Ben Weinman, Skrillex, L'Amour La Morgue, Utah Saints and Shawn Crahan. Musically, the album incorporates many genres including: electronica, drum and bass, hip-hop and dubstep. The dubstep style of the record has been acknowledged in tracks by Tek-One and Skrillex while the hip-hop elements are found in Travis McCoy's remix of "Chelsea Smile".
There Is a Hell... (2010–2011)
The band's third album, and first with their new rhythm guitarist Jona Weinhofen, titled There Is a Hell Believe Me I've Seen It. There Is a Heaven Let's Keep It a Secret., was released on 4 October 2010 and debuted at number 17 on the Billboard 200 in the United States, number 13 on the UK Album Chart, and number one on the Australian Albums Chart, the UK Rock Chart and the UK Indie Chart. Despite reaching number one in Australia, the album's sales were the lowest for a number one album in the history of the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) charts.
Matt Nicholls describes the lyrical themes of There Is a Hell... as being "repercussions of everything we were singing about on our last CD [Suicide Season]," calling the music and lyrics a lot moodier and darker. Five singles were released from the album including: "It Never Ends", "Anthem", "Blessed with a Curse", "Visions", and "Alligator Blood", with music videos produced for each of the songs. The band embarked on a headline tour in intimate venues across the United Kingdom with support from Cancer Bats and Tek-One. In December 2010, Bring Me the Horizon joined Bullet for My Valentine as the main support band, alongside Atreyu, on a short five-date arena tour around the United Kingdom. To cope with high demand, Live Nation released extra standing tickets for all dates.
In April 2011, Bring Me the Horizon embarked on a European tour, starting in the United Kingdom. They toured with Parkway Drive and Architects as main support bands, with The Devil Wears Prada as the opening support for the UK and dubstep group Tek-One. The tour, however, was not without its hindrances. On 28 April, Nicholls broke his arm whilst playing football with members of Bring Me the Horizon, Parkway Drive and Architects. Instead of cancelling the tour, Architects' drummer Dan Searle filled in as drummer, but this meant that Bring Me the Horizon's setlist was halved in length. The tour was extended with a North American leg from 13 August to 4 October, retaining Parkway Drive and Architects and adding Deez Nuts to the line up. On 23 August they released the fourth music video and single, "Visions", and on 31 October the music video for the song "Alligator Blood" was released.
In December 2011, Machine Head completed an arena tour across Europe with Bring Me the Horizon as the main support band along with DevilDriver and Darkest Hour. Oliver Sykes said these would be the last European dates before they began writing and the recording their fourth album. 2011 ended with an announcement by the band on 29 December of a new extended play titled The Chill Out Sessions, a collaborative effort with British DJ Draper. Draper first released an "officially sanctioned" remix of the song "Blessed with a Curse" in May 2011. The EP was originally supposed to be released in time for New Year's Day, and made available for download and purchase though Bring Me the Horizon's website, but the EP's release was cancelled due to the band's "current management and label situation".
Sempiternal and Weinhofen's departure (2012–2014)
After an intense touring schedule, Bring Me the Horizon finally completed their third album's promotion at the end of 2011. They returned to the UK for an extended break and eventually starting work on their next album. Much like their previous two albums, they wrote their fourth album in seclusion and isolation to stay focused. This time, they retreated to a house in the Lake District. In July, the band started to publish images of themselves recording at a 'Top Secret Studio Location,' and revealed they were working with producer Terry Date for the recording and production of the album. On 30 July, the band announced they had left their label and signed with RCA, who would release their fourth album in 2013. The band played only three shows in all of 2012: Warped Tour 2012 on 10 November at the Alexandra Palace in London, which they headlined, (and was initially believed to be their only show), the BBC Radio 1's Radio 1 Rocks show on 22 October, where they played a six-song set supporting Bullet for My Valentine, and at a warm-up show for Warped Tour in Sheffield on 9 November. In late October it was announced that the fourth album would be called Sempiternal with a tentative release in early 2013. On 22 November the band released the Draper collaborative album The Chill Out Sessions free of charge.
On 4 January 2013, Bring Me the Horizon released the first single from Sempiternal, "Shadow Moses". It was first played by radio presenter Daniel P. Carter on BBC's Radio 1. Due to popular demand, Epitaph released the music video for the song a week earlier than planned. In January, the band also saw a change in their line up. This began early in the month when Jordan Fish, Worship keyboardist and session musician for the band during the writing of Sempiternal, was announced as a full member. Then later in the month, Jona Weinhofen left the band. Despite the band denying speculation that Fish replaced Weinhofen, reviewers said that replacing a guitarist with a keyboardist better fit their style.
The band was confirmed for several festival appearances in February. They played the Australian Soundwave festival, performing at all five dates in: Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth, and then at RAMFest in South Africa with Rise Against in March, Rock Am Ring and Rock im Park festivals in Germany in June, and from June until August they played Warped Tour 2013 in the U.S. and Canada. To coincide with 29 April release of Sempiternal the band made their first headline tour of the United Kingdom in 18 months with Crossfaith and Empress AD.
In support of Sempiternal, the band toured Australia with Of Mice & Men and Crossfaith, and played a British tour with Pierce The Veil and Sights & Sounds. They then completed the American Dream Tour in North America, supported by Of Mice & Men, Issues, letlive. and Northlane. The band was announced as the main supporter for American band A Day to Remember on their "Parks & Devastation Tour" across America throughout September and October, along with support acts Motionless in White and Chiodos. The band performed at Wembley Arena in London on 5 December with support acts Young Guns, Issues and Sleepwave, which was recorded and released as a live album/DVD.
Later in 2014, the band released two new tracks titled "Drown" on 21 October, as a stand-alone single, and "Don't Look Down" on 29 October, as part of the re-score of Drive.
That's the Spirit (2015–2017)
In late June, the band began to promote pictures of an umbrella symbol being used as a tattoo, and on stickers, and posters across England, the United States, Australia, and Europe; it was later used for a promotional cover for the band's first single. The band released a short video in early July where the words "that's the spirit" could be heard in reverse. On 13 July 2015, the promotional single "Happy Song" was released on the band's Vevo page, and on 21 July 2015, Sykes revealed the album's name was That's the Spirit. The band released the single and music video for "Throne" on 23 July 2015, and another promotional track from the album, titled "True Friends", was released on 24 August 2015. The album was released on 11 September 2015 to critical acclaim. It has led to several music videos including "Drown", "Throne", "True Friends", "Follow You", "Avalanche", and "Oh No".
The band embarked on a U.S. tour in October 2015 with support from metalcore band Issues and rock band PVRIS. The band also toured Europe in November 2015, and embarked on a second U.S. tour in April and May 2016. This was followed by an Australian tour in September 2016, and a second European tour in November 2016.
On 22 April 2016, the band performed a live concert with an orchestra conducted by Simon Dobson at the Royal Albert Hall in London. The concert marked the first time the band had performed with a live orchestra. It was recorded, and the live album, Live at the Royal Albert Hall, was released on 2 December 2016 through the crowdfunding platform PledgeMusic on CD, DVD, and vinyl, with all proceeds donated to Teenage Cancer Trust. Following the show, Fish hinted at the possibility of doing a full tour with an orchestra, saying: "It seems almost a bit of a shame to go to all this effort for months and months for just one night."
Amo (2018–2019)
In August 2018, cryptic posters appeared in major cities throughout the world with the message "do you wanna start a cult with me?". The posters were attributed by major media outlets to the band only by their use of the hexagram logo previously used by the band. During this time the band themselves have not acknowledged their involvement with the campaign publicly. Each poster provided a unique phone number and a website address. The website provided a brief message titled "An Invitation To Salvation" and shows the date of 21 August 2018. The phone lines placed fans on hold with lengthy, varied audio messages that changed frequently. Some of these messages reportedly end with a distorted audio clip of what was assumed to be new music from the band.
On 21 August, the band released the lead single "Mantra". The following day the band announced their album Amo, released on 11 January 2019, along with a set of tour dates called the First Love World Tour.
On 21 October, the band released their second single "Wonderful Life" featuring Dani Filth, along with the tracklist for Amo. That same day, the band announced that the album has been delayed and is now set for 25 January 2019.
On 1 December, it was reported that during a show at Ally Pally a fan died in the mosh pit and was escorted by paramedics and security. A day later, it was confirmed by the band with a statement: "Words cannot express how horrified we are feeling this evening after hearing about the death of a young man at our show last night. Our hearts and deepest condolences go out to his family and loved ones at this terrible time. We will comment further in due course."
On 3 January 2019, the band released their third single "Medicine" and its corresponding music video. On 22 January, three days before the album release, the band released the fourth single "Mother Tongue". On 24 January, the band released the fifth single "Nihilist Blues" featuring Grimes.
On 26 July, the band released the sixth single "Sugar Honey Ice & Tea" alongside an accompanying music video. On 21 October, the band released the seventh single "In the Dark" alongside an accompanying music video featuring Forest Whitaker. On 6 November, the band released the song "Ludens", which is part of Death Stranding: Timefall, along with the news that the band are planning on never releasing an album again and instead want to release EPs. On 27 December, the band released Music to Listen to~Dance to~Blaze to~Pray to~Feed to~Sleep to~Talk to~Grind to~Trip to~Breathe to~Help to~Hurt to~Scroll to~Roll to~Love to~Hate to~Learn Too~Plot to~Play to~Be to~Feel to~Breed to~Sweat to~Dream to~Hide to~Live to~Die to~Go To without any prior announcement.
Post Human: Survival Horror (2020–present)
On 20 March 2020, the band shared that they were in a home studio, writing and recording material for their eighth record, which is expected to be an EP, with part of it being co-produced by Mick Gordon. On 25 June, the band released the single "Parasite Eve" alongside an accompanying music video. On the same day, the band also announced a project that they have been working on titled Post Human, which they said to be four EPs released throughout the next year which when combined would make an album. On 2 September, the band released with English singer Yungblud a collaborative single titled "Obey" and its corresponding music video. On 14 October, the band officially announced through social media that Post Human: Survival Horror would be released on 30 October 2020. On 22 October, a week before the release date, the fourth single "Teardrops" was released alongside an accompanying music video.
In December 2020, Fish said that the band had been writing "on and off" and would be focusing on their next release in early 2021. He also updated the group's release plan, saying that they "planned to do four EPs in a year, but [Post Human: Survival Horror] was almost an album, so I think the spacing will be a bit longer than intended, just because they're probably going to turn out bigger than intended." Upon being released on physical formats on 22 January 2021, Post Human: Survival Horror would chart again and reach a new peak to gift Bring Me the Horizon their second UK number one on the UK Albums Chart. Two years after Amo would be the first to reach this feat. The band collaborated with singer Olivia O'Brien on a track titled "No More Friends". The song is from O'Brien's Episodes: Season 1' EP which was released on 11 June 2021.
On 2 September 2021, the band announced the release of an upcoming single, "Die4U", which was released on 16 September. On 8 December, the band was announced as the Saturday co-headliner alongside Arctic Monkeys at the 2022 iteration of the Reading and Leeds Festival, headlining the bill for the first time ever. Speaking to NME about the announcement, Sykes expressed his thoughts about headlining Reading and Leeds, as well as what to expect from their headline set:
In February 2022, it was reported that the band were set to contribute to the soundtrack and provide the main theme for Gran Turismo 7. A few days later, the band released their rendition of "Moon Over the Castle" as a single ahead of schedule due to the song being leaked early. At the 42nd Brit Awards, the band were brought out as a surprise act to perform "Bad Habits" alongside Ed Sheeran. On 17 February, the studio version of "Bad Habits" by Ed Sheeran featuring the band was released.
Artistry
Style and influences
Among Bring Me the Horizon's earliest influences were bands like At the Gates, Carcass, Pantera, Metallica, The Dillinger Escape Plan, Every Time I Die, Norma Jean, Skycamefalling and Poison the Well; and genres death metal, grindcore, and emo have been cited by AllMusic writer Steward Mason. However, as their sound developed, the band started to take influences from progressive rock, post-rock, dubstep and electronica. The band's musical style has been described mainly as metalcore and – though they have since moved on from the genre – their early material was considered deathcore. Across their career the band has also been said to play within the genres alternative metal, alternative rock, pop rock, electronic rock, hard rock, heavy metal, post-hardcore, pop, nu metal, electropop, hip hop, EDM, arena rock, melodic metalcore, electronicore, electronica, screamo, hardcore punk, technical metal, and emo.
Bring Me the Horizon have attempted to grow and change with each album, believing they should be different. Raziq Rauf, writing for Drowned in Sound, described Count Your Blessings as possessing "Norma Jean-style thunderous riffs mixed with some dastardly sludgy doom moments and more breakdowns than your dad's old Nissan Sunny." Metal Hammer described Suicide Season as a "creative, critical and commercial success" for the band as they started to adopt a more eclectic style, with its "crushingly heavy party deathcore". Leading up to its release, Oliver Sykes described it as "100% different to Count Your Blessings" and noted the album sounds "more rock than metal". As time went by, Bring Me the Horizon began rejecting their debut album Count Your Blessings and considered Suicide Season as their "Year Zero[...] [their] wipe-the-slate-clean time".
Bring Me the Horizon then moved even further away from deathcore with their third album There Is a Hell..., which incorporated electronica, classical music and pop music into their metalcore style. This required more ambitious production feats, such as using a full choir, a synthesised orchestra and glitched out vocals and breakdowns that were also toned down, favouring quiet atmospheric passages in song breaks. For the writing of Sempiternal, the band pooled far broader influences such as post-rock acts like This Will Destroy You and Explosions in the Sky and from pop music.
Bring Me the Horizon has experimented with its music in recent years, mixing pop with metal music, leading the band to be labelled a "pop metal" act. With the release of That's the Spirit, their sound shifted towards electronic rock, alternative metal and alternative rock, also incorporated other genres such as pop rock and nu metal, while completely abandoning the metalcore sound of their earlier albums.
Songwriting and recording process
In all the band's album notes, all of Bring Me the Horizon's lyrics are said to be written by lead vocalist Oliver Sykes while all five members—as a band—were credited with writing the music. With the exception of Count Your Blessings, the band has always written in a secluded location to avoid being distracted. Oliver Sykes' lyrics have a strong feeling of catharsis for him. He mainly draws from personal experience and has described the band's live performances as therapeutic. In 2006, when asked about the lyrics of Count Your Blessings, as they had been criticised for their content solely fixated on heartbreak and other themes that were called "shallow and meaningless", he responded "My life's never been that bad so I've not got that much to talk about."
Band members have described how the debut album was written in inner-city areas of Birmingham while being pressured to write and record songs to the deadlines given. This resulted in the band being unimpressed with the final product. However, for the writing process of Suicide Season, the band realised that they much preferred picking areas with less human contact in order to focus on the music; they wrote their second album in the Swedish countryside. During the writing of Suicide Season, former and founding rhythm guitarist Curtis Ward wrote only two riffs of his rhythm parts of the album, mostly relying on Lee Malia to write all of the guitar sections of the album.
Lee Malia has stated that the typical writing process involves Oliver Sykes writing the main structure of the songs, followed by Malia writing the main riff. From this they would collaborate with each other to structure their work better and then later include the rest of the band in writing the rest of the song. The writing dynamic of Sempiternal, typically featured Sykes, Malia and newly introduced member Jordan Fish. Malia felt that with Fish's influence on the record he was pushed to create more inspired guitar riffs. As they all took a break before writing their fourth album, they felt less of a need for an isolated writing environment.
Image and legacy
During the band's early years, they were praised for their business acumen for selling mail-order merchandise and not relying on sales at live shows. Bring Me the Horizon's image has been characterised by the dominating personality of singer and front-man Oliver Sykes, and he has often been seen as the band's "Poster boy", bearing the brunt of the band's controversial reputation. In their early years, Bring Me the Horizon's image was infamously characterised by its members fashion sense and use of skinny-fit jeans, T-shirts with death metal band logos on the front and coloured hair/straightened hair. The band's image fit into what was called scene fashion. The effect of their fashion aesthetics showed people, in show promoter Iain Scott's perspective, that "you don't have to look like a diabolical metalhead to be into metal or play in a metal band". However, their fashion conscious appearance earned them a "style over substance" label.
Many controversies that occurred in their early years greatly affected public perceptions of the band, particularly an incident in 2007 at Nottingham's Rock City venue, when a female fan claimed that Oliver Sykes had urinated on her. The charges were dropped due to a lack of evidence from CCTV footage in the area. There were several documented examples of violence against the band during their live shows, including Sykes being pepper sprayed on stage; and people getting onstage to assault the band.
Despite the controversy over their image, various journalists have credited the band as being one of the most forward-thinking heavy bands in the UK. In 2012, just four years after the release of Suicide Season, the album was inducted into Rock Sound's Hall of Fame, credited as a significant influence on the works of Asking Alexandria, The Ghost Inside and While She Sleeps. It was credited as an influence on metalcore contemporaries Architects on Hollow Crown with their incorporation of keyboards and programming, and The Devil Wears Prada's Dead Throne for its more experimental and opinion-dividing sound.
The band caused further controversy in February 2016 when Oliver Sykes trashed Coldplay's table at the 2016 NME Awards during a live performance of Bring Me the Horizon's track "Happy Song". Although some people thought the table trashing was because of a prior feud between the two bands relating to similar album artwork, Sykes later stated that the act was not an act of "dirty protest", and suggested that it was "pure coincidence" that Coldplay were sitting at the table he trampled. Coldplay frontman Chris Martin admitted that he had never even heard of Bring Me the Horizon before the incident and he laughed it off, stating that "it was great, very 'rock and roll'".
Band members
Current
Oliver Sykes – lead vocals ; keyboards, programming
Matt Kean – bass
Lee Malia – lead guitar ; rhythm guitar
Matt Nicholls – drums
Jordan Fish – keyboards, programming, percussion, backing vocals
Current touring musicians
John Jones – rhythm guitar, backing vocals
Former
Curtis Ward – rhythm guitar
Jona Weinhofen – rhythm guitar, keyboards, programming, backing vocals
Former touring musicians
Dean Rowbotham – rhythm guitar
Robin Urbino – rhythm guitar
Tim Hillier-Brook – rhythm guitar
Brendan MacDonald – rhythm guitar, backing vocals
Timeline
Discography
Count Your Blessings (2006)
Suicide Season (2008)
There Is a Hell Believe Me I've Seen It. There Is a Heaven Let's Keep It a Secret. (2010)
Sempiternal (2013)
That's the Spirit (2015)
Amo (2019)
Awards and nominations
Grammy Awards
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| 2019 || "Mantra" || Best Rock Song ||
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| 2020 || Amo || Best Rock Album ||
BRIT Awards
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| 2020 || Bring Me the Horizon || Best Group ||
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NME Awards|-
|rowspan="2"| 2017
|Bring Me the Horizon || Best Live Band ||
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| Bring Me the Horizon || Music Moment of the Year ||
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| 2020 || Bring Me the Horizon || Best Band in the World ||
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|rowspan="2"| 2022 || Bring Me the Horizon || Best Band in the World ||
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| Bring Me the Horizon || Best Live Act ||Kerrang! Awards|-
| 2006 || Bring Me the Horizon || Best British Newcomer ||
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| 2008 || Bring Me the Horizon || Best British Band ||
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| 2009 || Bring Me the Horizon || Best British Band ||
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|rowspan="3"| 2011 || "Blessed with a Curse" || Best Single ||
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| Bring Me the Horizon || Best British Band ||
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| There Is a Hell Believe Me I've Seen It. There Is a Heaven Let's Keep It a Secret. || Best Album ||
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| 2012 || "Alligator Blood" || Best Video ||
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| rowspan="4"| 2013 || "Shadow Moses" || Best Single ||
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| "Shadow Moses" || Best Video ||
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| Sempiternal || Best Album ||
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| Bring Me the Horizon || Best British Band ||
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| 2014 || Bring Me the Horizon || Best Live Band ||
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| 2014 || Bring Me the Horizon || Best British Band ||
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|rowspan="2"| 2015|| Bring Me the Horizon || Best British Band ||
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| "Drown" || Best Single ||
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| 2016 || Bring Me the Horizon || Best British Band ||
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|rowspan="2"|2019 || Amo || Best Album ||
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| Bring Me the Horizon || Best British Band || AIM Independent Music Awards|-
| 2011 || Bring Me the Horizon || Best Live Act ||
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| 2011 || Bring Me the Horizon || Hardest Working Band or Artist ||
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| 2011 || Bring Me the Horizon || Independent Breakthrough of Year || Alternative Press
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| 2014 || Sempiternal || Best Album ||
|-
| 2014 || Bring Me the Horizon || Best International Band ||
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| 2015 || "Drown" || Best Music Video ||
|-
UK Music Video Awards
|-
| 2016
| "True Friends"
| Best Rock/Indie Video – UK
|
Readers polls
In a 2009 Rock Sound readers' poll, Bring Me the Horizon achieved both Best British Band and Worst British Band.
In 2011 The Guardian ran a poll for "Who should win the Mercury prize?" and used 50 albums, Bring Me the Horizon's third album There Is a Hell... won with 37%.
In a 2013 Sirius XM published poll, Bring Me the Horizon won Best Song Discovery for "Go to Hell, for Heaven's Sake" with the Octane radio station.
In a 2013 Alternative Press readers poll, Bring Me the Horizon was nominated for four categories: Best Vocalist (Oliver Sykes; position 3), Best Keyboardist (Jordan Fish; position 1), Single Of The Year ("Shadow Moses"; position 2) and "Best Album Art" (Sempiternal; position 2).
In 2021, Kerrang! readers voted "Die4U" as the best song and music video of the year. Bring Me the Horizon was also voted as the best band and best live band of the year. They were also voted as the second-best cover story of the year by Kerrang Magazine.
Notes
References
Bibliography
External links
2004 establishments in England
British alternative metal musical groups
Columbia Records artists
English alternative rock groups
English deathcore musical groups
English metalcore musical groups
English pop rock music groups
Kerrang! Awards winners
Musical groups from Sheffield
Musical groups established in 2004
Musical quintets
RCA Records artists
| true |
[
"Diabolical Fun is the fourth solo studio album by American rapper Illogic. It was released in 2009. The album was entirely produced by Ill Poetic.\n\nCritical reception\nChet Betz of Cokemachineglow said: \"Stellar closing track and a few highlights aside, Diabolical Fun sounds like an artist working just a little too far outside his comfort zone, trying to force his pentagonal peg into a round hole.\"\n\nTrack listing\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n Diabolical Fun at Bandcamp\n\n2009 albums\nIllogic albums",
"A metalhead is a member of the heavy metal subculture.\n\nMetalhead may also refer to:\n\nMusic\n Metalhead (album), 1999 album by Saxon\n \"Metalhead\", a song by Blotto\n \"Metalhead\", a song from the 2008 Miss Kittin album BatBox\n Metalheadz, an English drum and bass record label\n\nFiction\n\nFilms\n Metalhead (film), a 2013 Icelandic film\n\nCharacters\n Metalhead (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), two characters from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise\n Metalhead (comics), a Marvel Comics character\n Metal-Head, a character from the G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero series\n\nOther\n \"Metalhead\" (Black Mirror), an episode of anthology series Black Mirror\n Metalheads (TV series), British animated series\n Metal Head, a 3D first-person shooter mecha simulation video game"
] |
[
"Bring Me the Horizon",
"Image and legacy",
"What image did they project?",
"Bring Me the Horizon's image was infamously characterised by its members fashion sense",
"How did some of their members dress?",
"skinny-fit jeans, T-shirts with death metal band logos on the front and colored hair/straightened hair.",
"How else did they project their image?",
"\"you don't have to look like a diabolical metalhead to be into metal or play in a metal band\".",
"Who said that statement about not having to look like a diabolical metalhead?",
"show promoter Iain Scott's perspective,"
] |
C_50898b4862fb42f5b989ea579db6fb46_0
|
Was the band involved in any controversies?
| 5 |
Was the band Bring Me the Horizon involved in any controversies?
|
Bring Me the Horizon
|
During the band's early years, they were praised for their business acumen for selling mail-order merchandise and not relying on sales at live shows. Bring Me the Horizon's image has been characterised by the dominating personality of singer and front-man Oliver Sykes, and he has often been seen as the band's "Poster boy", bearing the brunt of the band's controversial reputation. In their early years, Bring Me the Horizon's image was infamously characterised by its members fashion sense and use of skinny-fit jeans, T-shirts with death metal band logos on the front and colored hair/straightened hair. The band's image fit into what was called scene fashion. The effect of their fashion aesthetics showed people, in show promoter Iain Scott's perspective, that "you don't have to look like a diabolical metalhead to be into metal or play in a metal band". However, their fashion conscious appearance earned them a "style over substance" label. Many controversies that occurred in their early years greatly affected public perceptions of the band, particularly an incident in 2007 at Nottingham's Rock City venue, when a female fan claimed that Oliver Sykes had urinated on her. The charges were dropped due to a lack of evidence from CCTV footage in the area. There were several documented examples of violence against the band during their live shows, including Sykes being pepper sprayed on stage; and people getting on stage to assault the band. Their third album (2010's There Is a Hell...) was seen as a significant turning point in altering public perception of the band. Despite the controversy over their image, various journalists have credited the band as being one of the most forward thinking heavy bands in the UK. In 2012, just four years after the release of Suicide Season, the album was inducted into Rocksound's Hall Of Fame, credited as a significant influence on the works of Asking Alexandria, The Ghost Inside and While She Sleeps. It was credited as an influence on metalcore contemporaries Architects on Hollow Crown with their incorporation of keyboards and programming, and The Devil Wears Prada's Dead Throne for its more experimental and opinion-dividing sound. The band caused further controversy in February 2016 when Oliver Sykes trashed Coldplay's table at the 2016 NME Awards during a live performance of Bring Me the Horizon's track "Happy Song". Although some people thought the table trashing was because of a prior feud between the two bands relating to similar album artwork, Sykes later stated that the act was not an act of "dirty protest", and suggested that it was "pure coincidence" that Coldplay were sitting at the table he trampled. Coldplay frontman Chris Martin allegedly laughed off the incident, stating that "it was great, very rock and roll". CANNOTANSWER
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an incident in 2007 at Nottingham's Rock City venue, when a female fan claimed that Oliver Sykes had urinated on her.
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Bring Me the Horizon (often abbreviated as BMTH) are a British rock band formed in Sheffield in 2004. The group consists of lead vocalist Oliver Sykes, guitarist Lee Malia, bassist Matt Kean, drummer Matt Nicholls and keyboardist Jordan Fish. They are signed to RCA Records globally and Columbia Records exclusively in the United States.
The band released their debut album Count Your Blessings in 2006. Upon release, the album's sound polarised listeners, and was met with critical disdain. The band began to break away from their controversial sound with Suicide Season (2008), which was a creative, critical and commercial turning point for the band. Bring Me the Horizon released their third album, There Is a Hell Believe Me I've Seen It. There Is a Heaven Let's Keep It a Secret., in 2010, propelling them to greater international fame, whilst incorporating influences from classical music, electronica and pop. Their major label debut, Sempiternal (2013) achieved Gold certification in Australia (35,000) and Silver in the United Kingdom (60,000). That's the Spirit (2015) debuted at number two in the UK Albums Chart and the US Billboard 200. Their sixth studio album Amo (2019) became their first UK chart topper. As well as these six studio albums, they have also released two extended plays and two live albums. They have received four Kerrang! Awards, including two for Best British Band and one for Best Live Band, and have been nominated for two Grammy Awards.
The style of their early work, including their debut album Count Your Blessings, has been described primarily as deathcore, but they started to adopt a more eclectic style of metalcore on later albums. Furthermore, That's the Spirit marked a shift in their sound to less aggressive rock music styles. Amo saw a shift into different genres, such as electronica, pop and hip hop.
History
Formation and early releases (2002–2006)
Bring Me the Horizon's founding members came from diverse musical backgrounds within metal and rock. Matt Nicholls and Oliver Sykes had a common interest in American metalcore such as Norma Jean and Skycamefalling, and used to attend local hardcore punk shows. They later met Lee Malia, who spoke with them about thrash metal and melodic death metal bands like Metallica and At the Gates; Malia had also been part of a Metallica tribute band before meeting the pair. Bring Me the Horizon officially formed in March 2004, when the members were aged 15 to 17. Curtis Ward, who also lived in the Rotherham area, joined Sykes, Malia and Nicholls on drums. Bassist Matt Kean, who was in other local bands, completed the line-up. Their name is paraphrased from a line of dialogue spoken by Captain Jack Sparrow in the 2003 film Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, where Captain Jack Sparrow says: "Now, bring me that horizon."
In the months following their formation, Bring Me the Horizon created a demo album titled Bedroom Sessions. They followed this by releasing their first EP, This Is What the Edge of Your Seat Was Made For, in September 2004 through local UK label Thirty Days of Night Records. Bring Me the Horizon were the label's first signing. It was recorded at Pristine Studios in Nottingham over the course of two weekends, with drums and bass guitar laid down over the first weekend, and guitars and vocals completed a week later.
UK label Visible Noise noticed the band after the release of their EP, and signed them for a four-album deal, in addition to re-releasing the EP in January 2005. The re-release gained the band significant attention, eventually peaking at No. 41 on the UK album charts. The band was later awarded Best British Newcomer at the 2006 Kerrang! Awards ceremony.
The band's first tour was supporting The Red Chord across the United Kingdom. As with other early tours, they were able to get this slot by tricking venue promoters. Kean and Oliver's mother Carol Sykes were the de facto managers of the band at this time, a role they continued to occupy until 2008. For The Red Chord support, Kean emailed promoters and pretended they were opening on all the dates, when they were supposed to play only at their local show. This led them to being booked for the whole tour. In another case, Sykes created an e-mail account in the name of Johnny Truant vocalist Oliver Mitchell, which he used to contact a promoter requesting Bring Me the Horizon on their tour. Alcohol consumption fuelled their live performances in their early history when the band would get so drunk they vomited on stage and damaged their equipment.
Count Your Blessings (2006–2007)
The band released their debut album Count Your Blessings in October 2006 in the United Kingdom and in August 2007 in the United States. They rented a house in the country to write songs, but easily became distracted. They then recorded the album in inner-city Birmingham, a process which was infamous for their excessive and dangerous drinking. During this period drummer Nicholls summarised it saying "we were out every night, just being regular 18-year-olds". Critics panned the album adding to the strongly polarised responses the band were already seeing from the public.
They supported Count Your Blessings by going on a lengthy headline tour of the UK in November, and immediately followed this joining Lostprophets and The Blackout on a UK tour through late November and December 2006.
In January 2007, Bring Me the Horizon were able to set their sights beyond the UK, when they replaced Bury Your Dead on Killswitch Engage's European headline tour. The slot became available after Bury Your Dead were forced to withdraw by the departure from the band of their vocalist, Mat Bruso. Bring Me the Horizon's presence on the tour was poorly received by fans of Killswitch Engage, with concert attendees regularly throwing bottles at the band before they even started playing their set.
Suicide Season and Ward's departure (2008–2009)
Bring Me the Horizon recorded their second studio album, Suicide Season, in Sweden with producer Fredrik Nordström. He was unimpressed with their first album and was initially absent from the recording sessions unless he needed to be there. Nordström later heard the new sound they were experimenting with during a recording session and became very involved in the record. It was promoted virally in the weeks before its release with the promotional tag line "September is Suicide Season." To promote Suicide Season the band embarked on their first headline tour of the United States, as well as appearing at the 2008 Warped Tour. In May 2008, Bring Me the Horizon was the main supporting band on I Killed the Prom Queen's farewell Australian tour with The Ghost Inside and The Red Shore.
Suicide Season was released on 18 September 2008 in the United States on Epitaph and on 29 September in Europe through Visible Noise. In 2009, Bring Me the Horizon attended the 2009 Kerrang! Tour alongside Black Tide, Dir En Grey, In Case of Fire and Mindless Self Indulgence. They also joined Thursday, Cancer Bats, Four Year Strong and Pierce the Veil on the North American leg of the 2009 Taste of Chaos tour from February to April after the tour's organizer Kevin Lyman offered them the slot. The band were initially hesitant to join this tour, but were convinced after Lyman offered them a bus and $500 of fuel for the tour.
During the Taste of Chaos tour in March of that year, guitarist Curtis Ward left the band. His relationship with the band had deteriorated as his stage performances were poor. He was abusive to audiences during the Taste of Chaos tour, and had contributed little to the writing of Suicide Season. Another reason for his departure was the worsening tinnitus in his one functioning ear. Ward was born deaf in one ear and admitted playing in the band worsened the ringing in his other ear to such a degree that he was unable to sleep at night. Ward offered to perform the rest of the tour dates, which the band rejected and instead asked their guitar technician, Dean Rowbotham, to substitute for him for the remaining performances. Lee Malia noted that Ward's departure helped improve everyone's mood as he had been very negative. Within a week of the tour finishing, Sykes began talking to Jona Weinhofen, at the time the guitarist of Bleeding Through. The band knew of him from his work with his former band I Killed the Prom Queen, and he was asked to join them. Ward has since worked on the TV show Top Gear, and has occasionally performed on stage with Bring Me The Horizon, playing "Pray For Plagues", most notably at Wembley Arena in 2015. In 2016, it was announced that Ward had joined the band Counting Days.
In November 2009, Bring Me the Horizon released a remixed version of Suicide Season, titled Suicide Season: Cut Up! Musicians and producers featured on the album include: Ben Weinman, Skrillex, L'Amour La Morgue, Utah Saints and Shawn Crahan. Musically, the album incorporates many genres including: electronica, drum and bass, hip-hop and dubstep. The dubstep style of the record has been acknowledged in tracks by Tek-One and Skrillex while the hip-hop elements are found in Travis McCoy's remix of "Chelsea Smile".
There Is a Hell... (2010–2011)
The band's third album, and first with their new rhythm guitarist Jona Weinhofen, titled There Is a Hell Believe Me I've Seen It. There Is a Heaven Let's Keep It a Secret., was released on 4 October 2010 and debuted at number 17 on the Billboard 200 in the United States, number 13 on the UK Album Chart, and number one on the Australian Albums Chart, the UK Rock Chart and the UK Indie Chart. Despite reaching number one in Australia, the album's sales were the lowest for a number one album in the history of the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) charts.
Matt Nicholls describes the lyrical themes of There Is a Hell... as being "repercussions of everything we were singing about on our last CD [Suicide Season]," calling the music and lyrics a lot moodier and darker. Five singles were released from the album including: "It Never Ends", "Anthem", "Blessed with a Curse", "Visions", and "Alligator Blood", with music videos produced for each of the songs. The band embarked on a headline tour in intimate venues across the United Kingdom with support from Cancer Bats and Tek-One. In December 2010, Bring Me the Horizon joined Bullet for My Valentine as the main support band, alongside Atreyu, on a short five-date arena tour around the United Kingdom. To cope with high demand, Live Nation released extra standing tickets for all dates.
In April 2011, Bring Me the Horizon embarked on a European tour, starting in the United Kingdom. They toured with Parkway Drive and Architects as main support bands, with The Devil Wears Prada as the opening support for the UK and dubstep group Tek-One. The tour, however, was not without its hindrances. On 28 April, Nicholls broke his arm whilst playing football with members of Bring Me the Horizon, Parkway Drive and Architects. Instead of cancelling the tour, Architects' drummer Dan Searle filled in as drummer, but this meant that Bring Me the Horizon's setlist was halved in length. The tour was extended with a North American leg from 13 August to 4 October, retaining Parkway Drive and Architects and adding Deez Nuts to the line up. On 23 August they released the fourth music video and single, "Visions", and on 31 October the music video for the song "Alligator Blood" was released.
In December 2011, Machine Head completed an arena tour across Europe with Bring Me the Horizon as the main support band along with DevilDriver and Darkest Hour. Oliver Sykes said these would be the last European dates before they began writing and the recording their fourth album. 2011 ended with an announcement by the band on 29 December of a new extended play titled The Chill Out Sessions, a collaborative effort with British DJ Draper. Draper first released an "officially sanctioned" remix of the song "Blessed with a Curse" in May 2011. The EP was originally supposed to be released in time for New Year's Day, and made available for download and purchase though Bring Me the Horizon's website, but the EP's release was cancelled due to the band's "current management and label situation".
Sempiternal and Weinhofen's departure (2012–2014)
After an intense touring schedule, Bring Me the Horizon finally completed their third album's promotion at the end of 2011. They returned to the UK for an extended break and eventually starting work on their next album. Much like their previous two albums, they wrote their fourth album in seclusion and isolation to stay focused. This time, they retreated to a house in the Lake District. In July, the band started to publish images of themselves recording at a 'Top Secret Studio Location,' and revealed they were working with producer Terry Date for the recording and production of the album. On 30 July, the band announced they had left their label and signed with RCA, who would release their fourth album in 2013. The band played only three shows in all of 2012: Warped Tour 2012 on 10 November at the Alexandra Palace in London, which they headlined, (and was initially believed to be their only show), the BBC Radio 1's Radio 1 Rocks show on 22 October, where they played a six-song set supporting Bullet for My Valentine, and at a warm-up show for Warped Tour in Sheffield on 9 November. In late October it was announced that the fourth album would be called Sempiternal with a tentative release in early 2013. On 22 November the band released the Draper collaborative album The Chill Out Sessions free of charge.
On 4 January 2013, Bring Me the Horizon released the first single from Sempiternal, "Shadow Moses". It was first played by radio presenter Daniel P. Carter on BBC's Radio 1. Due to popular demand, Epitaph released the music video for the song a week earlier than planned. In January, the band also saw a change in their line up. This began early in the month when Jordan Fish, Worship keyboardist and session musician for the band during the writing of Sempiternal, was announced as a full member. Then later in the month, Jona Weinhofen left the band. Despite the band denying speculation that Fish replaced Weinhofen, reviewers said that replacing a guitarist with a keyboardist better fit their style.
The band was confirmed for several festival appearances in February. They played the Australian Soundwave festival, performing at all five dates in: Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth, and then at RAMFest in South Africa with Rise Against in March, Rock Am Ring and Rock im Park festivals in Germany in June, and from June until August they played Warped Tour 2013 in the U.S. and Canada. To coincide with 29 April release of Sempiternal the band made their first headline tour of the United Kingdom in 18 months with Crossfaith and Empress AD.
In support of Sempiternal, the band toured Australia with Of Mice & Men and Crossfaith, and played a British tour with Pierce The Veil and Sights & Sounds. They then completed the American Dream Tour in North America, supported by Of Mice & Men, Issues, letlive. and Northlane. The band was announced as the main supporter for American band A Day to Remember on their "Parks & Devastation Tour" across America throughout September and October, along with support acts Motionless in White and Chiodos. The band performed at Wembley Arena in London on 5 December with support acts Young Guns, Issues and Sleepwave, which was recorded and released as a live album/DVD.
Later in 2014, the band released two new tracks titled "Drown" on 21 October, as a stand-alone single, and "Don't Look Down" on 29 October, as part of the re-score of Drive.
That's the Spirit (2015–2017)
In late June, the band began to promote pictures of an umbrella symbol being used as a tattoo, and on stickers, and posters across England, the United States, Australia, and Europe; it was later used for a promotional cover for the band's first single. The band released a short video in early July where the words "that's the spirit" could be heard in reverse. On 13 July 2015, the promotional single "Happy Song" was released on the band's Vevo page, and on 21 July 2015, Sykes revealed the album's name was That's the Spirit. The band released the single and music video for "Throne" on 23 July 2015, and another promotional track from the album, titled "True Friends", was released on 24 August 2015. The album was released on 11 September 2015 to critical acclaim. It has led to several music videos including "Drown", "Throne", "True Friends", "Follow You", "Avalanche", and "Oh No".
The band embarked on a U.S. tour in October 2015 with support from metalcore band Issues and rock band PVRIS. The band also toured Europe in November 2015, and embarked on a second U.S. tour in April and May 2016. This was followed by an Australian tour in September 2016, and a second European tour in November 2016.
On 22 April 2016, the band performed a live concert with an orchestra conducted by Simon Dobson at the Royal Albert Hall in London. The concert marked the first time the band had performed with a live orchestra. It was recorded, and the live album, Live at the Royal Albert Hall, was released on 2 December 2016 through the crowdfunding platform PledgeMusic on CD, DVD, and vinyl, with all proceeds donated to Teenage Cancer Trust. Following the show, Fish hinted at the possibility of doing a full tour with an orchestra, saying: "It seems almost a bit of a shame to go to all this effort for months and months for just one night."
Amo (2018–2019)
In August 2018, cryptic posters appeared in major cities throughout the world with the message "do you wanna start a cult with me?". The posters were attributed by major media outlets to the band only by their use of the hexagram logo previously used by the band. During this time the band themselves have not acknowledged their involvement with the campaign publicly. Each poster provided a unique phone number and a website address. The website provided a brief message titled "An Invitation To Salvation" and shows the date of 21 August 2018. The phone lines placed fans on hold with lengthy, varied audio messages that changed frequently. Some of these messages reportedly end with a distorted audio clip of what was assumed to be new music from the band.
On 21 August, the band released the lead single "Mantra". The following day the band announced their album Amo, released on 11 January 2019, along with a set of tour dates called the First Love World Tour.
On 21 October, the band released their second single "Wonderful Life" featuring Dani Filth, along with the tracklist for Amo. That same day, the band announced that the album has been delayed and is now set for 25 January 2019.
On 1 December, it was reported that during a show at Ally Pally a fan died in the mosh pit and was escorted by paramedics and security. A day later, it was confirmed by the band with a statement: "Words cannot express how horrified we are feeling this evening after hearing about the death of a young man at our show last night. Our hearts and deepest condolences go out to his family and loved ones at this terrible time. We will comment further in due course."
On 3 January 2019, the band released their third single "Medicine" and its corresponding music video. On 22 January, three days before the album release, the band released the fourth single "Mother Tongue". On 24 January, the band released the fifth single "Nihilist Blues" featuring Grimes.
On 26 July, the band released the sixth single "Sugar Honey Ice & Tea" alongside an accompanying music video. On 21 October, the band released the seventh single "In the Dark" alongside an accompanying music video featuring Forest Whitaker. On 6 November, the band released the song "Ludens", which is part of Death Stranding: Timefall, along with the news that the band are planning on never releasing an album again and instead want to release EPs. On 27 December, the band released Music to Listen to~Dance to~Blaze to~Pray to~Feed to~Sleep to~Talk to~Grind to~Trip to~Breathe to~Help to~Hurt to~Scroll to~Roll to~Love to~Hate to~Learn Too~Plot to~Play to~Be to~Feel to~Breed to~Sweat to~Dream to~Hide to~Live to~Die to~Go To without any prior announcement.
Post Human: Survival Horror (2020–present)
On 20 March 2020, the band shared that they were in a home studio, writing and recording material for their eighth record, which is expected to be an EP, with part of it being co-produced by Mick Gordon. On 25 June, the band released the single "Parasite Eve" alongside an accompanying music video. On the same day, the band also announced a project that they have been working on titled Post Human, which they said to be four EPs released throughout the next year which when combined would make an album. On 2 September, the band released with English singer Yungblud a collaborative single titled "Obey" and its corresponding music video. On 14 October, the band officially announced through social media that Post Human: Survival Horror would be released on 30 October 2020. On 22 October, a week before the release date, the fourth single "Teardrops" was released alongside an accompanying music video.
In December 2020, Fish said that the band had been writing "on and off" and would be focusing on their next release in early 2021. He also updated the group's release plan, saying that they "planned to do four EPs in a year, but [Post Human: Survival Horror] was almost an album, so I think the spacing will be a bit longer than intended, just because they're probably going to turn out bigger than intended." Upon being released on physical formats on 22 January 2021, Post Human: Survival Horror would chart again and reach a new peak to gift Bring Me the Horizon their second UK number one on the UK Albums Chart. Two years after Amo would be the first to reach this feat. The band collaborated with singer Olivia O'Brien on a track titled "No More Friends". The song is from O'Brien's Episodes: Season 1' EP which was released on 11 June 2021.
On 2 September 2021, the band announced the release of an upcoming single, "Die4U", which was released on 16 September. On 8 December, the band was announced as the Saturday co-headliner alongside Arctic Monkeys at the 2022 iteration of the Reading and Leeds Festival, headlining the bill for the first time ever. Speaking to NME about the announcement, Sykes expressed his thoughts about headlining Reading and Leeds, as well as what to expect from their headline set:
In February 2022, it was reported that the band were set to contribute to the soundtrack and provide the main theme for Gran Turismo 7. A few days later, the band released their rendition of "Moon Over the Castle" as a single ahead of schedule due to the song being leaked early. At the 42nd Brit Awards, the band were brought out as a surprise act to perform "Bad Habits" alongside Ed Sheeran. On 17 February, the studio version of "Bad Habits" by Ed Sheeran featuring the band was released.
Artistry
Style and influences
Among Bring Me the Horizon's earliest influences were bands like At the Gates, Carcass, Pantera, Metallica, The Dillinger Escape Plan, Every Time I Die, Norma Jean, Skycamefalling and Poison the Well; and genres death metal, grindcore, and emo have been cited by AllMusic writer Steward Mason. However, as their sound developed, the band started to take influences from progressive rock, post-rock, dubstep and electronica. The band's musical style has been described mainly as metalcore and – though they have since moved on from the genre – their early material was considered deathcore. Across their career the band has also been said to play within the genres alternative metal, alternative rock, pop rock, electronic rock, hard rock, heavy metal, post-hardcore, pop, nu metal, electropop, hip hop, EDM, arena rock, melodic metalcore, electronicore, electronica, screamo, hardcore punk, technical metal, and emo.
Bring Me the Horizon have attempted to grow and change with each album, believing they should be different. Raziq Rauf, writing for Drowned in Sound, described Count Your Blessings as possessing "Norma Jean-style thunderous riffs mixed with some dastardly sludgy doom moments and more breakdowns than your dad's old Nissan Sunny." Metal Hammer described Suicide Season as a "creative, critical and commercial success" for the band as they started to adopt a more eclectic style, with its "crushingly heavy party deathcore". Leading up to its release, Oliver Sykes described it as "100% different to Count Your Blessings" and noted the album sounds "more rock than metal". As time went by, Bring Me the Horizon began rejecting their debut album Count Your Blessings and considered Suicide Season as their "Year Zero[...] [their] wipe-the-slate-clean time".
Bring Me the Horizon then moved even further away from deathcore with their third album There Is a Hell..., which incorporated electronica, classical music and pop music into their metalcore style. This required more ambitious production feats, such as using a full choir, a synthesised orchestra and glitched out vocals and breakdowns that were also toned down, favouring quiet atmospheric passages in song breaks. For the writing of Sempiternal, the band pooled far broader influences such as post-rock acts like This Will Destroy You and Explosions in the Sky and from pop music.
Bring Me the Horizon has experimented with its music in recent years, mixing pop with metal music, leading the band to be labelled a "pop metal" act. With the release of That's the Spirit, their sound shifted towards electronic rock, alternative metal and alternative rock, also incorporated other genres such as pop rock and nu metal, while completely abandoning the metalcore sound of their earlier albums.
Songwriting and recording process
In all the band's album notes, all of Bring Me the Horizon's lyrics are said to be written by lead vocalist Oliver Sykes while all five members—as a band—were credited with writing the music. With the exception of Count Your Blessings, the band has always written in a secluded location to avoid being distracted. Oliver Sykes' lyrics have a strong feeling of catharsis for him. He mainly draws from personal experience and has described the band's live performances as therapeutic. In 2006, when asked about the lyrics of Count Your Blessings, as they had been criticised for their content solely fixated on heartbreak and other themes that were called "shallow and meaningless", he responded "My life's never been that bad so I've not got that much to talk about."
Band members have described how the debut album was written in inner-city areas of Birmingham while being pressured to write and record songs to the deadlines given. This resulted in the band being unimpressed with the final product. However, for the writing process of Suicide Season, the band realised that they much preferred picking areas with less human contact in order to focus on the music; they wrote their second album in the Swedish countryside. During the writing of Suicide Season, former and founding rhythm guitarist Curtis Ward wrote only two riffs of his rhythm parts of the album, mostly relying on Lee Malia to write all of the guitar sections of the album.
Lee Malia has stated that the typical writing process involves Oliver Sykes writing the main structure of the songs, followed by Malia writing the main riff. From this they would collaborate with each other to structure their work better and then later include the rest of the band in writing the rest of the song. The writing dynamic of Sempiternal, typically featured Sykes, Malia and newly introduced member Jordan Fish. Malia felt that with Fish's influence on the record he was pushed to create more inspired guitar riffs. As they all took a break before writing their fourth album, they felt less of a need for an isolated writing environment.
Image and legacy
During the band's early years, they were praised for their business acumen for selling mail-order merchandise and not relying on sales at live shows. Bring Me the Horizon's image has been characterised by the dominating personality of singer and front-man Oliver Sykes, and he has often been seen as the band's "Poster boy", bearing the brunt of the band's controversial reputation. In their early years, Bring Me the Horizon's image was infamously characterised by its members fashion sense and use of skinny-fit jeans, T-shirts with death metal band logos on the front and coloured hair/straightened hair. The band's image fit into what was called scene fashion. The effect of their fashion aesthetics showed people, in show promoter Iain Scott's perspective, that "you don't have to look like a diabolical metalhead to be into metal or play in a metal band". However, their fashion conscious appearance earned them a "style over substance" label.
Many controversies that occurred in their early years greatly affected public perceptions of the band, particularly an incident in 2007 at Nottingham's Rock City venue, when a female fan claimed that Oliver Sykes had urinated on her. The charges were dropped due to a lack of evidence from CCTV footage in the area. There were several documented examples of violence against the band during their live shows, including Sykes being pepper sprayed on stage; and people getting onstage to assault the band.
Despite the controversy over their image, various journalists have credited the band as being one of the most forward-thinking heavy bands in the UK. In 2012, just four years after the release of Suicide Season, the album was inducted into Rock Sound's Hall of Fame, credited as a significant influence on the works of Asking Alexandria, The Ghost Inside and While She Sleeps. It was credited as an influence on metalcore contemporaries Architects on Hollow Crown with their incorporation of keyboards and programming, and The Devil Wears Prada's Dead Throne for its more experimental and opinion-dividing sound.
The band caused further controversy in February 2016 when Oliver Sykes trashed Coldplay's table at the 2016 NME Awards during a live performance of Bring Me the Horizon's track "Happy Song". Although some people thought the table trashing was because of a prior feud between the two bands relating to similar album artwork, Sykes later stated that the act was not an act of "dirty protest", and suggested that it was "pure coincidence" that Coldplay were sitting at the table he trampled. Coldplay frontman Chris Martin admitted that he had never even heard of Bring Me the Horizon before the incident and he laughed it off, stating that "it was great, very 'rock and roll'".
Band members
Current
Oliver Sykes – lead vocals ; keyboards, programming
Matt Kean – bass
Lee Malia – lead guitar ; rhythm guitar
Matt Nicholls – drums
Jordan Fish – keyboards, programming, percussion, backing vocals
Current touring musicians
John Jones – rhythm guitar, backing vocals
Former
Curtis Ward – rhythm guitar
Jona Weinhofen – rhythm guitar, keyboards, programming, backing vocals
Former touring musicians
Dean Rowbotham – rhythm guitar
Robin Urbino – rhythm guitar
Tim Hillier-Brook – rhythm guitar
Brendan MacDonald – rhythm guitar, backing vocals
Timeline
Discography
Count Your Blessings (2006)
Suicide Season (2008)
There Is a Hell Believe Me I've Seen It. There Is a Heaven Let's Keep It a Secret. (2010)
Sempiternal (2013)
That's the Spirit (2015)
Amo (2019)
Awards and nominations
Grammy Awards
|-
| 2019 || "Mantra" || Best Rock Song ||
|-
| 2020 || Amo || Best Rock Album ||
BRIT Awards
|-
| 2020 || Bring Me the Horizon || Best Group ||
|-
NME Awards|-
|rowspan="2"| 2017
|Bring Me the Horizon || Best Live Band ||
|-
| Bring Me the Horizon || Music Moment of the Year ||
|-
| 2020 || Bring Me the Horizon || Best Band in the World ||
|-
|rowspan="2"| 2022 || Bring Me the Horizon || Best Band in the World ||
|-
| Bring Me the Horizon || Best Live Act ||Kerrang! Awards|-
| 2006 || Bring Me the Horizon || Best British Newcomer ||
|-
| 2008 || Bring Me the Horizon || Best British Band ||
|-
| 2009 || Bring Me the Horizon || Best British Band ||
|-
|rowspan="3"| 2011 || "Blessed with a Curse" || Best Single ||
|-
| Bring Me the Horizon || Best British Band ||
|-
| There Is a Hell Believe Me I've Seen It. There Is a Heaven Let's Keep It a Secret. || Best Album ||
|-
| 2012 || "Alligator Blood" || Best Video ||
|-
| rowspan="4"| 2013 || "Shadow Moses" || Best Single ||
|-
| "Shadow Moses" || Best Video ||
|-
| Sempiternal || Best Album ||
|-
| Bring Me the Horizon || Best British Band ||
|-
| 2014 || Bring Me the Horizon || Best Live Band ||
|-
| 2014 || Bring Me the Horizon || Best British Band ||
|-
|rowspan="2"| 2015|| Bring Me the Horizon || Best British Band ||
|-
| "Drown" || Best Single ||
|-
| 2016 || Bring Me the Horizon || Best British Band ||
|-
|rowspan="2"|2019 || Amo || Best Album ||
|-
| Bring Me the Horizon || Best British Band || AIM Independent Music Awards|-
| 2011 || Bring Me the Horizon || Best Live Act ||
|-
| 2011 || Bring Me the Horizon || Hardest Working Band or Artist ||
|-
| 2011 || Bring Me the Horizon || Independent Breakthrough of Year || Alternative Press
|-
| 2014 || Sempiternal || Best Album ||
|-
| 2014 || Bring Me the Horizon || Best International Band ||
|-
| 2015 || "Drown" || Best Music Video ||
|-
UK Music Video Awards
|-
| 2016
| "True Friends"
| Best Rock/Indie Video – UK
|
Readers polls
In a 2009 Rock Sound readers' poll, Bring Me the Horizon achieved both Best British Band and Worst British Band.
In 2011 The Guardian ran a poll for "Who should win the Mercury prize?" and used 50 albums, Bring Me the Horizon's third album There Is a Hell... won with 37%.
In a 2013 Sirius XM published poll, Bring Me the Horizon won Best Song Discovery for "Go to Hell, for Heaven's Sake" with the Octane radio station.
In a 2013 Alternative Press readers poll, Bring Me the Horizon was nominated for four categories: Best Vocalist (Oliver Sykes; position 3), Best Keyboardist (Jordan Fish; position 1), Single Of The Year ("Shadow Moses"; position 2) and "Best Album Art" (Sempiternal; position 2).
In 2021, Kerrang! readers voted "Die4U" as the best song and music video of the year. Bring Me the Horizon was also voted as the best band and best live band of the year. They were also voted as the second-best cover story of the year by Kerrang Magazine.
Notes
References
Bibliography
External links
2004 establishments in England
British alternative metal musical groups
Columbia Records artists
English alternative rock groups
English deathcore musical groups
English metalcore musical groups
English pop rock music groups
Kerrang! Awards winners
Musical groups from Sheffield
Musical groups established in 2004
Musical quintets
RCA Records artists
| true |
[
"\"Israel's Son\" is a song by Australian rock band Silverchair, released in 1995. It was the third single released from their debut full-length album, Frogstomp, which was released earlier the same year. It was also released on their The Best of Volume 1.\n\nOrigin\nDaniel Johns said about the song in an interview with Request Magazine in November 1995:\nThat [song] was about an execution I saw on tele, that was an ad I saw on tele. I got this video of an execution, and I just saw it, and I was watching it one night, and I had a dream about it, and I woke up and thought, 'Oh yeah, that's pretty cool', and I wrote a song about it.\n\nMurder trial\n\nIn a January 1996 murder case, the defendant counsel for Brian Bassett, 16, and Nicholaus McDonald, 18, of McCleary, Washington, claimed that the pair listened to \"Israel's Son\", from Frogstomp, which contributed to the murders of Bassett's parents and a younger brother on August 10, 1995. McDonald's lawyer cited the lyrics \"'Hate is what I feel for you/I want you to know that I want you dead'\" which were \"almost a script. They're relevant to everything that happened\".\n\nThe band's manager, John Watson, was quoted as stating on behalf of Silverchair:\n\"Silverchair do not, have not, and never would condone violence of any sort. The band is appalled by this horrific crime and they hope that justice will prevail in prosecuting whoever is responsible for it. The band extends its sincere sympathies to the families and friends of the victims in this case. Silverchair absolutely rejects any allegation that their song is in any way responsible for the actions of the alleged murders. It is a matter of public record that the song in question, Israel's Son, was inspired by a television documentary about wartime atrocities. Israel's Son was never intended to provoke violence and cannot be interpreted by any reasonable person as doing so. In fact, the song seeks to criticise violence and war by portraying them in all their horror.\"\n\nProsecutors rejected the defence case and convinced the jury that the murder was committed to \"steal money and belongings and run off to California.\"\n\nCharts\n\nCertifications\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nSilverchair FAQs on silverchair.nu\n\n1995 singles\nSilverchair songs\nSongs written by Daniel Johns\nSong recordings produced by Kevin Shirley\nBlack-and-white music videos\n1995 controversies\nMusic controversies\n20th-century controversies in the United States\n1995 songs\nMurmur (record label) singles",
"Sergius I of Cyrrhus was a bishop of Cyrrhus, a Roman city in what is today Syria. He lived at a time when Cyrrhus was the center of a number of theological controversies, that birthed the Nestorian and Jacobite churches. \n\nHe was a late 5th century Nestorian bishop and was deposed by Byzantine Emperor Justin I in the theological controversies following the first four ecumenical councils. Sergius I of Cyrrhus was replaced by another bishop called Sergius II, who was of the directly opposite theological opinion, being a Jacobite. This bishop was subsequently expelled in 522 and replaced by an Orthodox bishop.\n\nReferences \n\n5th-century Syrian bishops\nAncient Christians involved in controversies\n\nYear of birth unknown\nPeople from Cyrrhus"
] |
[
"Bring Me the Horizon",
"Image and legacy",
"What image did they project?",
"Bring Me the Horizon's image was infamously characterised by its members fashion sense",
"How did some of their members dress?",
"skinny-fit jeans, T-shirts with death metal band logos on the front and colored hair/straightened hair.",
"How else did they project their image?",
"\"you don't have to look like a diabolical metalhead to be into metal or play in a metal band\".",
"Who said that statement about not having to look like a diabolical metalhead?",
"show promoter Iain Scott's perspective,",
"Was the band involved in any controversies?",
"an incident in 2007 at Nottingham's Rock City venue, when a female fan claimed that Oliver Sykes had urinated on her."
] |
C_50898b4862fb42f5b989ea579db6fb46_0
|
What were the results from this incident?
| 6 |
What were the results from the incident when a female fan claimed that Oliver Sykes of Bring Me the Horizon had urinated on her?
|
Bring Me the Horizon
|
During the band's early years, they were praised for their business acumen for selling mail-order merchandise and not relying on sales at live shows. Bring Me the Horizon's image has been characterised by the dominating personality of singer and front-man Oliver Sykes, and he has often been seen as the band's "Poster boy", bearing the brunt of the band's controversial reputation. In their early years, Bring Me the Horizon's image was infamously characterised by its members fashion sense and use of skinny-fit jeans, T-shirts with death metal band logos on the front and colored hair/straightened hair. The band's image fit into what was called scene fashion. The effect of their fashion aesthetics showed people, in show promoter Iain Scott's perspective, that "you don't have to look like a diabolical metalhead to be into metal or play in a metal band". However, their fashion conscious appearance earned them a "style over substance" label. Many controversies that occurred in their early years greatly affected public perceptions of the band, particularly an incident in 2007 at Nottingham's Rock City venue, when a female fan claimed that Oliver Sykes had urinated on her. The charges were dropped due to a lack of evidence from CCTV footage in the area. There were several documented examples of violence against the band during their live shows, including Sykes being pepper sprayed on stage; and people getting on stage to assault the band. Their third album (2010's There Is a Hell...) was seen as a significant turning point in altering public perception of the band. Despite the controversy over their image, various journalists have credited the band as being one of the most forward thinking heavy bands in the UK. In 2012, just four years after the release of Suicide Season, the album was inducted into Rocksound's Hall Of Fame, credited as a significant influence on the works of Asking Alexandria, The Ghost Inside and While She Sleeps. It was credited as an influence on metalcore contemporaries Architects on Hollow Crown with their incorporation of keyboards and programming, and The Devil Wears Prada's Dead Throne for its more experimental and opinion-dividing sound. The band caused further controversy in February 2016 when Oliver Sykes trashed Coldplay's table at the 2016 NME Awards during a live performance of Bring Me the Horizon's track "Happy Song". Although some people thought the table trashing was because of a prior feud between the two bands relating to similar album artwork, Sykes later stated that the act was not an act of "dirty protest", and suggested that it was "pure coincidence" that Coldplay were sitting at the table he trampled. Coldplay frontman Chris Martin allegedly laughed off the incident, stating that "it was great, very rock and roll". CANNOTANSWER
|
The charges were dropped due to a lack of evidence from CCTV footage in the area.
|
Bring Me the Horizon (often abbreviated as BMTH) are a British rock band formed in Sheffield in 2004. The group consists of lead vocalist Oliver Sykes, guitarist Lee Malia, bassist Matt Kean, drummer Matt Nicholls and keyboardist Jordan Fish. They are signed to RCA Records globally and Columbia Records exclusively in the United States.
The band released their debut album Count Your Blessings in 2006. Upon release, the album's sound polarised listeners, and was met with critical disdain. The band began to break away from their controversial sound with Suicide Season (2008), which was a creative, critical and commercial turning point for the band. Bring Me the Horizon released their third album, There Is a Hell Believe Me I've Seen It. There Is a Heaven Let's Keep It a Secret., in 2010, propelling them to greater international fame, whilst incorporating influences from classical music, electronica and pop. Their major label debut, Sempiternal (2013) achieved Gold certification in Australia (35,000) and Silver in the United Kingdom (60,000). That's the Spirit (2015) debuted at number two in the UK Albums Chart and the US Billboard 200. Their sixth studio album Amo (2019) became their first UK chart topper. As well as these six studio albums, they have also released two extended plays and two live albums. They have received four Kerrang! Awards, including two for Best British Band and one for Best Live Band, and have been nominated for two Grammy Awards.
The style of their early work, including their debut album Count Your Blessings, has been described primarily as deathcore, but they started to adopt a more eclectic style of metalcore on later albums. Furthermore, That's the Spirit marked a shift in their sound to less aggressive rock music styles. Amo saw a shift into different genres, such as electronica, pop and hip hop.
History
Formation and early releases (2002–2006)
Bring Me the Horizon's founding members came from diverse musical backgrounds within metal and rock. Matt Nicholls and Oliver Sykes had a common interest in American metalcore such as Norma Jean and Skycamefalling, and used to attend local hardcore punk shows. They later met Lee Malia, who spoke with them about thrash metal and melodic death metal bands like Metallica and At the Gates; Malia had also been part of a Metallica tribute band before meeting the pair. Bring Me the Horizon officially formed in March 2004, when the members were aged 15 to 17. Curtis Ward, who also lived in the Rotherham area, joined Sykes, Malia and Nicholls on drums. Bassist Matt Kean, who was in other local bands, completed the line-up. Their name is paraphrased from a line of dialogue spoken by Captain Jack Sparrow in the 2003 film Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, where Captain Jack Sparrow says: "Now, bring me that horizon."
In the months following their formation, Bring Me the Horizon created a demo album titled Bedroom Sessions. They followed this by releasing their first EP, This Is What the Edge of Your Seat Was Made For, in September 2004 through local UK label Thirty Days of Night Records. Bring Me the Horizon were the label's first signing. It was recorded at Pristine Studios in Nottingham over the course of two weekends, with drums and bass guitar laid down over the first weekend, and guitars and vocals completed a week later.
UK label Visible Noise noticed the band after the release of their EP, and signed them for a four-album deal, in addition to re-releasing the EP in January 2005. The re-release gained the band significant attention, eventually peaking at No. 41 on the UK album charts. The band was later awarded Best British Newcomer at the 2006 Kerrang! Awards ceremony.
The band's first tour was supporting The Red Chord across the United Kingdom. As with other early tours, they were able to get this slot by tricking venue promoters. Kean and Oliver's mother Carol Sykes were the de facto managers of the band at this time, a role they continued to occupy until 2008. For The Red Chord support, Kean emailed promoters and pretended they were opening on all the dates, when they were supposed to play only at their local show. This led them to being booked for the whole tour. In another case, Sykes created an e-mail account in the name of Johnny Truant vocalist Oliver Mitchell, which he used to contact a promoter requesting Bring Me the Horizon on their tour. Alcohol consumption fuelled their live performances in their early history when the band would get so drunk they vomited on stage and damaged their equipment.
Count Your Blessings (2006–2007)
The band released their debut album Count Your Blessings in October 2006 in the United Kingdom and in August 2007 in the United States. They rented a house in the country to write songs, but easily became distracted. They then recorded the album in inner-city Birmingham, a process which was infamous for their excessive and dangerous drinking. During this period drummer Nicholls summarised it saying "we were out every night, just being regular 18-year-olds". Critics panned the album adding to the strongly polarised responses the band were already seeing from the public.
They supported Count Your Blessings by going on a lengthy headline tour of the UK in November, and immediately followed this joining Lostprophets and The Blackout on a UK tour through late November and December 2006.
In January 2007, Bring Me the Horizon were able to set their sights beyond the UK, when they replaced Bury Your Dead on Killswitch Engage's European headline tour. The slot became available after Bury Your Dead were forced to withdraw by the departure from the band of their vocalist, Mat Bruso. Bring Me the Horizon's presence on the tour was poorly received by fans of Killswitch Engage, with concert attendees regularly throwing bottles at the band before they even started playing their set.
Suicide Season and Ward's departure (2008–2009)
Bring Me the Horizon recorded their second studio album, Suicide Season, in Sweden with producer Fredrik Nordström. He was unimpressed with their first album and was initially absent from the recording sessions unless he needed to be there. Nordström later heard the new sound they were experimenting with during a recording session and became very involved in the record. It was promoted virally in the weeks before its release with the promotional tag line "September is Suicide Season." To promote Suicide Season the band embarked on their first headline tour of the United States, as well as appearing at the 2008 Warped Tour. In May 2008, Bring Me the Horizon was the main supporting band on I Killed the Prom Queen's farewell Australian tour with The Ghost Inside and The Red Shore.
Suicide Season was released on 18 September 2008 in the United States on Epitaph and on 29 September in Europe through Visible Noise. In 2009, Bring Me the Horizon attended the 2009 Kerrang! Tour alongside Black Tide, Dir En Grey, In Case of Fire and Mindless Self Indulgence. They also joined Thursday, Cancer Bats, Four Year Strong and Pierce the Veil on the North American leg of the 2009 Taste of Chaos tour from February to April after the tour's organizer Kevin Lyman offered them the slot. The band were initially hesitant to join this tour, but were convinced after Lyman offered them a bus and $500 of fuel for the tour.
During the Taste of Chaos tour in March of that year, guitarist Curtis Ward left the band. His relationship with the band had deteriorated as his stage performances were poor. He was abusive to audiences during the Taste of Chaos tour, and had contributed little to the writing of Suicide Season. Another reason for his departure was the worsening tinnitus in his one functioning ear. Ward was born deaf in one ear and admitted playing in the band worsened the ringing in his other ear to such a degree that he was unable to sleep at night. Ward offered to perform the rest of the tour dates, which the band rejected and instead asked their guitar technician, Dean Rowbotham, to substitute for him for the remaining performances. Lee Malia noted that Ward's departure helped improve everyone's mood as he had been very negative. Within a week of the tour finishing, Sykes began talking to Jona Weinhofen, at the time the guitarist of Bleeding Through. The band knew of him from his work with his former band I Killed the Prom Queen, and he was asked to join them. Ward has since worked on the TV show Top Gear, and has occasionally performed on stage with Bring Me The Horizon, playing "Pray For Plagues", most notably at Wembley Arena in 2015. In 2016, it was announced that Ward had joined the band Counting Days.
In November 2009, Bring Me the Horizon released a remixed version of Suicide Season, titled Suicide Season: Cut Up! Musicians and producers featured on the album include: Ben Weinman, Skrillex, L'Amour La Morgue, Utah Saints and Shawn Crahan. Musically, the album incorporates many genres including: electronica, drum and bass, hip-hop and dubstep. The dubstep style of the record has been acknowledged in tracks by Tek-One and Skrillex while the hip-hop elements are found in Travis McCoy's remix of "Chelsea Smile".
There Is a Hell... (2010–2011)
The band's third album, and first with their new rhythm guitarist Jona Weinhofen, titled There Is a Hell Believe Me I've Seen It. There Is a Heaven Let's Keep It a Secret., was released on 4 October 2010 and debuted at number 17 on the Billboard 200 in the United States, number 13 on the UK Album Chart, and number one on the Australian Albums Chart, the UK Rock Chart and the UK Indie Chart. Despite reaching number one in Australia, the album's sales were the lowest for a number one album in the history of the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) charts.
Matt Nicholls describes the lyrical themes of There Is a Hell... as being "repercussions of everything we were singing about on our last CD [Suicide Season]," calling the music and lyrics a lot moodier and darker. Five singles were released from the album including: "It Never Ends", "Anthem", "Blessed with a Curse", "Visions", and "Alligator Blood", with music videos produced for each of the songs. The band embarked on a headline tour in intimate venues across the United Kingdom with support from Cancer Bats and Tek-One. In December 2010, Bring Me the Horizon joined Bullet for My Valentine as the main support band, alongside Atreyu, on a short five-date arena tour around the United Kingdom. To cope with high demand, Live Nation released extra standing tickets for all dates.
In April 2011, Bring Me the Horizon embarked on a European tour, starting in the United Kingdom. They toured with Parkway Drive and Architects as main support bands, with The Devil Wears Prada as the opening support for the UK and dubstep group Tek-One. The tour, however, was not without its hindrances. On 28 April, Nicholls broke his arm whilst playing football with members of Bring Me the Horizon, Parkway Drive and Architects. Instead of cancelling the tour, Architects' drummer Dan Searle filled in as drummer, but this meant that Bring Me the Horizon's setlist was halved in length. The tour was extended with a North American leg from 13 August to 4 October, retaining Parkway Drive and Architects and adding Deez Nuts to the line up. On 23 August they released the fourth music video and single, "Visions", and on 31 October the music video for the song "Alligator Blood" was released.
In December 2011, Machine Head completed an arena tour across Europe with Bring Me the Horizon as the main support band along with DevilDriver and Darkest Hour. Oliver Sykes said these would be the last European dates before they began writing and the recording their fourth album. 2011 ended with an announcement by the band on 29 December of a new extended play titled The Chill Out Sessions, a collaborative effort with British DJ Draper. Draper first released an "officially sanctioned" remix of the song "Blessed with a Curse" in May 2011. The EP was originally supposed to be released in time for New Year's Day, and made available for download and purchase though Bring Me the Horizon's website, but the EP's release was cancelled due to the band's "current management and label situation".
Sempiternal and Weinhofen's departure (2012–2014)
After an intense touring schedule, Bring Me the Horizon finally completed their third album's promotion at the end of 2011. They returned to the UK for an extended break and eventually starting work on their next album. Much like their previous two albums, they wrote their fourth album in seclusion and isolation to stay focused. This time, they retreated to a house in the Lake District. In July, the band started to publish images of themselves recording at a 'Top Secret Studio Location,' and revealed they were working with producer Terry Date for the recording and production of the album. On 30 July, the band announced they had left their label and signed with RCA, who would release their fourth album in 2013. The band played only three shows in all of 2012: Warped Tour 2012 on 10 November at the Alexandra Palace in London, which they headlined, (and was initially believed to be their only show), the BBC Radio 1's Radio 1 Rocks show on 22 October, where they played a six-song set supporting Bullet for My Valentine, and at a warm-up show for Warped Tour in Sheffield on 9 November. In late October it was announced that the fourth album would be called Sempiternal with a tentative release in early 2013. On 22 November the band released the Draper collaborative album The Chill Out Sessions free of charge.
On 4 January 2013, Bring Me the Horizon released the first single from Sempiternal, "Shadow Moses". It was first played by radio presenter Daniel P. Carter on BBC's Radio 1. Due to popular demand, Epitaph released the music video for the song a week earlier than planned. In January, the band also saw a change in their line up. This began early in the month when Jordan Fish, Worship keyboardist and session musician for the band during the writing of Sempiternal, was announced as a full member. Then later in the month, Jona Weinhofen left the band. Despite the band denying speculation that Fish replaced Weinhofen, reviewers said that replacing a guitarist with a keyboardist better fit their style.
The band was confirmed for several festival appearances in February. They played the Australian Soundwave festival, performing at all five dates in: Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth, and then at RAMFest in South Africa with Rise Against in March, Rock Am Ring and Rock im Park festivals in Germany in June, and from June until August they played Warped Tour 2013 in the U.S. and Canada. To coincide with 29 April release of Sempiternal the band made their first headline tour of the United Kingdom in 18 months with Crossfaith and Empress AD.
In support of Sempiternal, the band toured Australia with Of Mice & Men and Crossfaith, and played a British tour with Pierce The Veil and Sights & Sounds. They then completed the American Dream Tour in North America, supported by Of Mice & Men, Issues, letlive. and Northlane. The band was announced as the main supporter for American band A Day to Remember on their "Parks & Devastation Tour" across America throughout September and October, along with support acts Motionless in White and Chiodos. The band performed at Wembley Arena in London on 5 December with support acts Young Guns, Issues and Sleepwave, which was recorded and released as a live album/DVD.
Later in 2014, the band released two new tracks titled "Drown" on 21 October, as a stand-alone single, and "Don't Look Down" on 29 October, as part of the re-score of Drive.
That's the Spirit (2015–2017)
In late June, the band began to promote pictures of an umbrella symbol being used as a tattoo, and on stickers, and posters across England, the United States, Australia, and Europe; it was later used for a promotional cover for the band's first single. The band released a short video in early July where the words "that's the spirit" could be heard in reverse. On 13 July 2015, the promotional single "Happy Song" was released on the band's Vevo page, and on 21 July 2015, Sykes revealed the album's name was That's the Spirit. The band released the single and music video for "Throne" on 23 July 2015, and another promotional track from the album, titled "True Friends", was released on 24 August 2015. The album was released on 11 September 2015 to critical acclaim. It has led to several music videos including "Drown", "Throne", "True Friends", "Follow You", "Avalanche", and "Oh No".
The band embarked on a U.S. tour in October 2015 with support from metalcore band Issues and rock band PVRIS. The band also toured Europe in November 2015, and embarked on a second U.S. tour in April and May 2016. This was followed by an Australian tour in September 2016, and a second European tour in November 2016.
On 22 April 2016, the band performed a live concert with an orchestra conducted by Simon Dobson at the Royal Albert Hall in London. The concert marked the first time the band had performed with a live orchestra. It was recorded, and the live album, Live at the Royal Albert Hall, was released on 2 December 2016 through the crowdfunding platform PledgeMusic on CD, DVD, and vinyl, with all proceeds donated to Teenage Cancer Trust. Following the show, Fish hinted at the possibility of doing a full tour with an orchestra, saying: "It seems almost a bit of a shame to go to all this effort for months and months for just one night."
Amo (2018–2019)
In August 2018, cryptic posters appeared in major cities throughout the world with the message "do you wanna start a cult with me?". The posters were attributed by major media outlets to the band only by their use of the hexagram logo previously used by the band. During this time the band themselves have not acknowledged their involvement with the campaign publicly. Each poster provided a unique phone number and a website address. The website provided a brief message titled "An Invitation To Salvation" and shows the date of 21 August 2018. The phone lines placed fans on hold with lengthy, varied audio messages that changed frequently. Some of these messages reportedly end with a distorted audio clip of what was assumed to be new music from the band.
On 21 August, the band released the lead single "Mantra". The following day the band announced their album Amo, released on 11 January 2019, along with a set of tour dates called the First Love World Tour.
On 21 October, the band released their second single "Wonderful Life" featuring Dani Filth, along with the tracklist for Amo. That same day, the band announced that the album has been delayed and is now set for 25 January 2019.
On 1 December, it was reported that during a show at Ally Pally a fan died in the mosh pit and was escorted by paramedics and security. A day later, it was confirmed by the band with a statement: "Words cannot express how horrified we are feeling this evening after hearing about the death of a young man at our show last night. Our hearts and deepest condolences go out to his family and loved ones at this terrible time. We will comment further in due course."
On 3 January 2019, the band released their third single "Medicine" and its corresponding music video. On 22 January, three days before the album release, the band released the fourth single "Mother Tongue". On 24 January, the band released the fifth single "Nihilist Blues" featuring Grimes.
On 26 July, the band released the sixth single "Sugar Honey Ice & Tea" alongside an accompanying music video. On 21 October, the band released the seventh single "In the Dark" alongside an accompanying music video featuring Forest Whitaker. On 6 November, the band released the song "Ludens", which is part of Death Stranding: Timefall, along with the news that the band are planning on never releasing an album again and instead want to release EPs. On 27 December, the band released Music to Listen to~Dance to~Blaze to~Pray to~Feed to~Sleep to~Talk to~Grind to~Trip to~Breathe to~Help to~Hurt to~Scroll to~Roll to~Love to~Hate to~Learn Too~Plot to~Play to~Be to~Feel to~Breed to~Sweat to~Dream to~Hide to~Live to~Die to~Go To without any prior announcement.
Post Human: Survival Horror (2020–present)
On 20 March 2020, the band shared that they were in a home studio, writing and recording material for their eighth record, which is expected to be an EP, with part of it being co-produced by Mick Gordon. On 25 June, the band released the single "Parasite Eve" alongside an accompanying music video. On the same day, the band also announced a project that they have been working on titled Post Human, which they said to be four EPs released throughout the next year which when combined would make an album. On 2 September, the band released with English singer Yungblud a collaborative single titled "Obey" and its corresponding music video. On 14 October, the band officially announced through social media that Post Human: Survival Horror would be released on 30 October 2020. On 22 October, a week before the release date, the fourth single "Teardrops" was released alongside an accompanying music video.
In December 2020, Fish said that the band had been writing "on and off" and would be focusing on their next release in early 2021. He also updated the group's release plan, saying that they "planned to do four EPs in a year, but [Post Human: Survival Horror] was almost an album, so I think the spacing will be a bit longer than intended, just because they're probably going to turn out bigger than intended." Upon being released on physical formats on 22 January 2021, Post Human: Survival Horror would chart again and reach a new peak to gift Bring Me the Horizon their second UK number one on the UK Albums Chart. Two years after Amo would be the first to reach this feat. The band collaborated with singer Olivia O'Brien on a track titled "No More Friends". The song is from O'Brien's Episodes: Season 1' EP which was released on 11 June 2021.
On 2 September 2021, the band announced the release of an upcoming single, "Die4U", which was released on 16 September. On 8 December, the band was announced as the Saturday co-headliner alongside Arctic Monkeys at the 2022 iteration of the Reading and Leeds Festival, headlining the bill for the first time ever. Speaking to NME about the announcement, Sykes expressed his thoughts about headlining Reading and Leeds, as well as what to expect from their headline set:
In February 2022, it was reported that the band were set to contribute to the soundtrack and provide the main theme for Gran Turismo 7. A few days later, the band released their rendition of "Moon Over the Castle" as a single ahead of schedule due to the song being leaked early. At the 42nd Brit Awards, the band were brought out as a surprise act to perform "Bad Habits" alongside Ed Sheeran. On 17 February, the studio version of "Bad Habits" by Ed Sheeran featuring the band was released.
Artistry
Style and influences
Among Bring Me the Horizon's earliest influences were bands like At the Gates, Carcass, Pantera, Metallica, The Dillinger Escape Plan, Every Time I Die, Norma Jean, Skycamefalling and Poison the Well; and genres death metal, grindcore, and emo have been cited by AllMusic writer Steward Mason. However, as their sound developed, the band started to take influences from progressive rock, post-rock, dubstep and electronica. The band's musical style has been described mainly as metalcore and – though they have since moved on from the genre – their early material was considered deathcore. Across their career the band has also been said to play within the genres alternative metal, alternative rock, pop rock, electronic rock, hard rock, heavy metal, post-hardcore, pop, nu metal, electropop, hip hop, EDM, arena rock, melodic metalcore, electronicore, electronica, screamo, hardcore punk, technical metal, and emo.
Bring Me the Horizon have attempted to grow and change with each album, believing they should be different. Raziq Rauf, writing for Drowned in Sound, described Count Your Blessings as possessing "Norma Jean-style thunderous riffs mixed with some dastardly sludgy doom moments and more breakdowns than your dad's old Nissan Sunny." Metal Hammer described Suicide Season as a "creative, critical and commercial success" for the band as they started to adopt a more eclectic style, with its "crushingly heavy party deathcore". Leading up to its release, Oliver Sykes described it as "100% different to Count Your Blessings" and noted the album sounds "more rock than metal". As time went by, Bring Me the Horizon began rejecting their debut album Count Your Blessings and considered Suicide Season as their "Year Zero[...] [their] wipe-the-slate-clean time".
Bring Me the Horizon then moved even further away from deathcore with their third album There Is a Hell..., which incorporated electronica, classical music and pop music into their metalcore style. This required more ambitious production feats, such as using a full choir, a synthesised orchestra and glitched out vocals and breakdowns that were also toned down, favouring quiet atmospheric passages in song breaks. For the writing of Sempiternal, the band pooled far broader influences such as post-rock acts like This Will Destroy You and Explosions in the Sky and from pop music.
Bring Me the Horizon has experimented with its music in recent years, mixing pop with metal music, leading the band to be labelled a "pop metal" act. With the release of That's the Spirit, their sound shifted towards electronic rock, alternative metal and alternative rock, also incorporated other genres such as pop rock and nu metal, while completely abandoning the metalcore sound of their earlier albums.
Songwriting and recording process
In all the band's album notes, all of Bring Me the Horizon's lyrics are said to be written by lead vocalist Oliver Sykes while all five members—as a band—were credited with writing the music. With the exception of Count Your Blessings, the band has always written in a secluded location to avoid being distracted. Oliver Sykes' lyrics have a strong feeling of catharsis for him. He mainly draws from personal experience and has described the band's live performances as therapeutic. In 2006, when asked about the lyrics of Count Your Blessings, as they had been criticised for their content solely fixated on heartbreak and other themes that were called "shallow and meaningless", he responded "My life's never been that bad so I've not got that much to talk about."
Band members have described how the debut album was written in inner-city areas of Birmingham while being pressured to write and record songs to the deadlines given. This resulted in the band being unimpressed with the final product. However, for the writing process of Suicide Season, the band realised that they much preferred picking areas with less human contact in order to focus on the music; they wrote their second album in the Swedish countryside. During the writing of Suicide Season, former and founding rhythm guitarist Curtis Ward wrote only two riffs of his rhythm parts of the album, mostly relying on Lee Malia to write all of the guitar sections of the album.
Lee Malia has stated that the typical writing process involves Oliver Sykes writing the main structure of the songs, followed by Malia writing the main riff. From this they would collaborate with each other to structure their work better and then later include the rest of the band in writing the rest of the song. The writing dynamic of Sempiternal, typically featured Sykes, Malia and newly introduced member Jordan Fish. Malia felt that with Fish's influence on the record he was pushed to create more inspired guitar riffs. As they all took a break before writing their fourth album, they felt less of a need for an isolated writing environment.
Image and legacy
During the band's early years, they were praised for their business acumen for selling mail-order merchandise and not relying on sales at live shows. Bring Me the Horizon's image has been characterised by the dominating personality of singer and front-man Oliver Sykes, and he has often been seen as the band's "Poster boy", bearing the brunt of the band's controversial reputation. In their early years, Bring Me the Horizon's image was infamously characterised by its members fashion sense and use of skinny-fit jeans, T-shirts with death metal band logos on the front and coloured hair/straightened hair. The band's image fit into what was called scene fashion. The effect of their fashion aesthetics showed people, in show promoter Iain Scott's perspective, that "you don't have to look like a diabolical metalhead to be into metal or play in a metal band". However, their fashion conscious appearance earned them a "style over substance" label.
Many controversies that occurred in their early years greatly affected public perceptions of the band, particularly an incident in 2007 at Nottingham's Rock City venue, when a female fan claimed that Oliver Sykes had urinated on her. The charges were dropped due to a lack of evidence from CCTV footage in the area. There were several documented examples of violence against the band during their live shows, including Sykes being pepper sprayed on stage; and people getting onstage to assault the band.
Despite the controversy over their image, various journalists have credited the band as being one of the most forward-thinking heavy bands in the UK. In 2012, just four years after the release of Suicide Season, the album was inducted into Rock Sound's Hall of Fame, credited as a significant influence on the works of Asking Alexandria, The Ghost Inside and While She Sleeps. It was credited as an influence on metalcore contemporaries Architects on Hollow Crown with their incorporation of keyboards and programming, and The Devil Wears Prada's Dead Throne for its more experimental and opinion-dividing sound.
The band caused further controversy in February 2016 when Oliver Sykes trashed Coldplay's table at the 2016 NME Awards during a live performance of Bring Me the Horizon's track "Happy Song". Although some people thought the table trashing was because of a prior feud between the two bands relating to similar album artwork, Sykes later stated that the act was not an act of "dirty protest", and suggested that it was "pure coincidence" that Coldplay were sitting at the table he trampled. Coldplay frontman Chris Martin admitted that he had never even heard of Bring Me the Horizon before the incident and he laughed it off, stating that "it was great, very 'rock and roll'".
Band members
Current
Oliver Sykes – lead vocals ; keyboards, programming
Matt Kean – bass
Lee Malia – lead guitar ; rhythm guitar
Matt Nicholls – drums
Jordan Fish – keyboards, programming, percussion, backing vocals
Current touring musicians
John Jones – rhythm guitar, backing vocals
Former
Curtis Ward – rhythm guitar
Jona Weinhofen – rhythm guitar, keyboards, programming, backing vocals
Former touring musicians
Dean Rowbotham – rhythm guitar
Robin Urbino – rhythm guitar
Tim Hillier-Brook – rhythm guitar
Brendan MacDonald – rhythm guitar, backing vocals
Timeline
Discography
Count Your Blessings (2006)
Suicide Season (2008)
There Is a Hell Believe Me I've Seen It. There Is a Heaven Let's Keep It a Secret. (2010)
Sempiternal (2013)
That's the Spirit (2015)
Amo (2019)
Awards and nominations
Grammy Awards
|-
| 2019 || "Mantra" || Best Rock Song ||
|-
| 2020 || Amo || Best Rock Album ||
BRIT Awards
|-
| 2020 || Bring Me the Horizon || Best Group ||
|-
NME Awards|-
|rowspan="2"| 2017
|Bring Me the Horizon || Best Live Band ||
|-
| Bring Me the Horizon || Music Moment of the Year ||
|-
| 2020 || Bring Me the Horizon || Best Band in the World ||
|-
|rowspan="2"| 2022 || Bring Me the Horizon || Best Band in the World ||
|-
| Bring Me the Horizon || Best Live Act ||Kerrang! Awards|-
| 2006 || Bring Me the Horizon || Best British Newcomer ||
|-
| 2008 || Bring Me the Horizon || Best British Band ||
|-
| 2009 || Bring Me the Horizon || Best British Band ||
|-
|rowspan="3"| 2011 || "Blessed with a Curse" || Best Single ||
|-
| Bring Me the Horizon || Best British Band ||
|-
| There Is a Hell Believe Me I've Seen It. There Is a Heaven Let's Keep It a Secret. || Best Album ||
|-
| 2012 || "Alligator Blood" || Best Video ||
|-
| rowspan="4"| 2013 || "Shadow Moses" || Best Single ||
|-
| "Shadow Moses" || Best Video ||
|-
| Sempiternal || Best Album ||
|-
| Bring Me the Horizon || Best British Band ||
|-
| 2014 || Bring Me the Horizon || Best Live Band ||
|-
| 2014 || Bring Me the Horizon || Best British Band ||
|-
|rowspan="2"| 2015|| Bring Me the Horizon || Best British Band ||
|-
| "Drown" || Best Single ||
|-
| 2016 || Bring Me the Horizon || Best British Band ||
|-
|rowspan="2"|2019 || Amo || Best Album ||
|-
| Bring Me the Horizon || Best British Band || AIM Independent Music Awards|-
| 2011 || Bring Me the Horizon || Best Live Act ||
|-
| 2011 || Bring Me the Horizon || Hardest Working Band or Artist ||
|-
| 2011 || Bring Me the Horizon || Independent Breakthrough of Year || Alternative Press
|-
| 2014 || Sempiternal || Best Album ||
|-
| 2014 || Bring Me the Horizon || Best International Band ||
|-
| 2015 || "Drown" || Best Music Video ||
|-
UK Music Video Awards
|-
| 2016
| "True Friends"
| Best Rock/Indie Video – UK
|
Readers polls
In a 2009 Rock Sound readers' poll, Bring Me the Horizon achieved both Best British Band and Worst British Band.
In 2011 The Guardian ran a poll for "Who should win the Mercury prize?" and used 50 albums, Bring Me the Horizon's third album There Is a Hell... won with 37%.
In a 2013 Sirius XM published poll, Bring Me the Horizon won Best Song Discovery for "Go to Hell, for Heaven's Sake" with the Octane radio station.
In a 2013 Alternative Press readers poll, Bring Me the Horizon was nominated for four categories: Best Vocalist (Oliver Sykes; position 3), Best Keyboardist (Jordan Fish; position 1), Single Of The Year ("Shadow Moses"; position 2) and "Best Album Art" (Sempiternal; position 2).
In 2021, Kerrang! readers voted "Die4U" as the best song and music video of the year. Bring Me the Horizon was also voted as the best band and best live band of the year. They were also voted as the second-best cover story of the year by Kerrang Magazine.
Notes
References
Bibliography
External links
2004 establishments in England
British alternative metal musical groups
Columbia Records artists
English alternative rock groups
English deathcore musical groups
English metalcore musical groups
English pop rock music groups
Kerrang! Awards winners
Musical groups from Sheffield
Musical groups established in 2004
Musical quintets
RCA Records artists
| true |
[
"The 2010 World Mixed Doubles Curling Championship was held in Chelyabinsk, Russia from April 18–24, 2010. The event was held in conjunction with the 2010 World Senior Curling Championships. Many of the teams faced delays or withdrew from the championship due to the air travel disruption after the 2010 Eyjafjallajökull eruption.\n\nTeams\n\nNot Competing\nThe following teams were initially listed as participating in this event but are not included on the most recently updated schedule.\n\nCompetition Status following the Icelandic volcano incident\n\nThe following teams officially withdrew from the Championship due to the Icelandic volcano incident.\n\nThe following teams were delayed by the Icelandic volcano incident but still were able to make it to the Championship. Because these teams were delayed, the draws they were scheduled to play in were postponed until they arrived in Chelyabinsk.\n\nRound robin\n\nResults\n\nAll draw times are listed in Yekaterinburg Time (UTC+05).\n\nBlue group\n\nApril 18\nDraw 2\n13:00\n\nApril 19\nDraw 4\n09:00\n\nDraw 6\n17:00\n\nApril 20\nDraw 8\n13:00\n\nApril 21\nDraw 11\n13:00\n\nDraw 12\n17:00\n\nApril 22\nDraw 14\n13:00\n\nDraw 15\n17:00\n\nRed group\n\nApril 18\nDraw 2\n13:00\n\nApril 19\nDraw 4\n09:00\n\nDraw 5\n13:00\n\nApril 20\nDraw 7\n09:00\n\nDraw 9\n17:00\n\nApril 21\nDraw 11\n13:00\n\nApril 22\nDraw 13\n09:00\n\nDraw 14\n13:00\n\nDraw 15\n17:00\n\nGreen group\n\nApril 18\nDraw 1\n09:00\n\nDraw 3\n17:00\n\nApril 19\nDraw 5\n13:00\n\nDraw 6\n17:00\n\nApril 20\nDraw 7\n09:00\n\nDraw 8\n13:00\n\nDraw 9\n17:00\n\nApril 21\nDraw 10\n09:00\n\nDraw 12\n17:00\n\nApril 22\nDraw 13\n09:00\n\nDraw 15\n17:00\n\nTie-breaker\nFriday, April 23, 08:30\n\nFriday, April 23, 11:30\n\nPlayoffs\n\nQualification Game\nFriday, April 23, 15:30\n\nQuarterfinals\nFriday, April 23, 19:30\n\nSemifinals\nSaturday, April 24, 9:00\n\nBronze Medal Game\nSaturday, April 24, 14:00\n\nGold Medal Game\nSaturday, April 24, 14:00\n\nReferences\nGeneral\n\nSpecific\n\nWorld Mixed Doubles Curling Championship, 2010\nWorld Mixed Doubles Curling Championship\n2010 in Russian sport\nInternational curling competitions hosted by Russia",
"SOARA (Situation, Objective, Action, Results, Aftermath) is a job interview technique developed by Hagymas Laszlo, Professor of Language at the University of Munich, and Alexander Botos, Chief Curator at the National Institute of Economic and Social Research. It is similar to the Situation, Task, Action, Result technique. In many interviews, SOARA is used as a structure for clarifying information relating to a recent challenge.\n\nDetails\n\n Situation: The interviewer wants you to present a recent challenge and situation you found yourself in.\n Objective: What did you have to achieve? The interviewer will be looking to see what you were trying to achieve from the situation.\n Action: What did you do? The interviewer will be looking for information on what you did, why you did it and what were the alternatives.\n Results: What was the outcome of your actions? What did you achieve through your actions and did you meet your objectives.\n Aftermath: What did you learn from this experience and have you used this learning since?\n\nJob interview"
] |
[
"Bring Me the Horizon",
"Image and legacy",
"What image did they project?",
"Bring Me the Horizon's image was infamously characterised by its members fashion sense",
"How did some of their members dress?",
"skinny-fit jeans, T-shirts with death metal band logos on the front and colored hair/straightened hair.",
"How else did they project their image?",
"\"you don't have to look like a diabolical metalhead to be into metal or play in a metal band\".",
"Who said that statement about not having to look like a diabolical metalhead?",
"show promoter Iain Scott's perspective,",
"Was the band involved in any controversies?",
"an incident in 2007 at Nottingham's Rock City venue, when a female fan claimed that Oliver Sykes had urinated on her.",
"What were the results from this incident?",
"The charges were dropped due to a lack of evidence from CCTV footage in the area."
] |
C_50898b4862fb42f5b989ea579db6fb46_0
|
Were there any other incidents involving the band?
| 7 |
Were there any other incidents involving the band Bring Me the Horizon, besides the 2007 incident at Nottingham's Rock City venue??
|
Bring Me the Horizon
|
During the band's early years, they were praised for their business acumen for selling mail-order merchandise and not relying on sales at live shows. Bring Me the Horizon's image has been characterised by the dominating personality of singer and front-man Oliver Sykes, and he has often been seen as the band's "Poster boy", bearing the brunt of the band's controversial reputation. In their early years, Bring Me the Horizon's image was infamously characterised by its members fashion sense and use of skinny-fit jeans, T-shirts with death metal band logos on the front and colored hair/straightened hair. The band's image fit into what was called scene fashion. The effect of their fashion aesthetics showed people, in show promoter Iain Scott's perspective, that "you don't have to look like a diabolical metalhead to be into metal or play in a metal band". However, their fashion conscious appearance earned them a "style over substance" label. Many controversies that occurred in their early years greatly affected public perceptions of the band, particularly an incident in 2007 at Nottingham's Rock City venue, when a female fan claimed that Oliver Sykes had urinated on her. The charges were dropped due to a lack of evidence from CCTV footage in the area. There were several documented examples of violence against the band during their live shows, including Sykes being pepper sprayed on stage; and people getting on stage to assault the band. Their third album (2010's There Is a Hell...) was seen as a significant turning point in altering public perception of the band. Despite the controversy over their image, various journalists have credited the band as being one of the most forward thinking heavy bands in the UK. In 2012, just four years after the release of Suicide Season, the album was inducted into Rocksound's Hall Of Fame, credited as a significant influence on the works of Asking Alexandria, The Ghost Inside and While She Sleeps. It was credited as an influence on metalcore contemporaries Architects on Hollow Crown with their incorporation of keyboards and programming, and The Devil Wears Prada's Dead Throne for its more experimental and opinion-dividing sound. The band caused further controversy in February 2016 when Oliver Sykes trashed Coldplay's table at the 2016 NME Awards during a live performance of Bring Me the Horizon's track "Happy Song". Although some people thought the table trashing was because of a prior feud between the two bands relating to similar album artwork, Sykes later stated that the act was not an act of "dirty protest", and suggested that it was "pure coincidence" that Coldplay were sitting at the table he trampled. Coldplay frontman Chris Martin allegedly laughed off the incident, stating that "it was great, very rock and roll". CANNOTANSWER
|
There were several documented examples of violence against the band during their live shows,
|
Bring Me the Horizon (often abbreviated as BMTH) are a British rock band formed in Sheffield in 2004. The group consists of lead vocalist Oliver Sykes, guitarist Lee Malia, bassist Matt Kean, drummer Matt Nicholls and keyboardist Jordan Fish. They are signed to RCA Records globally and Columbia Records exclusively in the United States.
The band released their debut album Count Your Blessings in 2006. Upon release, the album's sound polarised listeners, and was met with critical disdain. The band began to break away from their controversial sound with Suicide Season (2008), which was a creative, critical and commercial turning point for the band. Bring Me the Horizon released their third album, There Is a Hell Believe Me I've Seen It. There Is a Heaven Let's Keep It a Secret., in 2010, propelling them to greater international fame, whilst incorporating influences from classical music, electronica and pop. Their major label debut, Sempiternal (2013) achieved Gold certification in Australia (35,000) and Silver in the United Kingdom (60,000). That's the Spirit (2015) debuted at number two in the UK Albums Chart and the US Billboard 200. Their sixth studio album Amo (2019) became their first UK chart topper. As well as these six studio albums, they have also released two extended plays and two live albums. They have received four Kerrang! Awards, including two for Best British Band and one for Best Live Band, and have been nominated for two Grammy Awards.
The style of their early work, including their debut album Count Your Blessings, has been described primarily as deathcore, but they started to adopt a more eclectic style of metalcore on later albums. Furthermore, That's the Spirit marked a shift in their sound to less aggressive rock music styles. Amo saw a shift into different genres, such as electronica, pop and hip hop.
History
Formation and early releases (2002–2006)
Bring Me the Horizon's founding members came from diverse musical backgrounds within metal and rock. Matt Nicholls and Oliver Sykes had a common interest in American metalcore such as Norma Jean and Skycamefalling, and used to attend local hardcore punk shows. They later met Lee Malia, who spoke with them about thrash metal and melodic death metal bands like Metallica and At the Gates; Malia had also been part of a Metallica tribute band before meeting the pair. Bring Me the Horizon officially formed in March 2004, when the members were aged 15 to 17. Curtis Ward, who also lived in the Rotherham area, joined Sykes, Malia and Nicholls on drums. Bassist Matt Kean, who was in other local bands, completed the line-up. Their name is paraphrased from a line of dialogue spoken by Captain Jack Sparrow in the 2003 film Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, where Captain Jack Sparrow says: "Now, bring me that horizon."
In the months following their formation, Bring Me the Horizon created a demo album titled Bedroom Sessions. They followed this by releasing their first EP, This Is What the Edge of Your Seat Was Made For, in September 2004 through local UK label Thirty Days of Night Records. Bring Me the Horizon were the label's first signing. It was recorded at Pristine Studios in Nottingham over the course of two weekends, with drums and bass guitar laid down over the first weekend, and guitars and vocals completed a week later.
UK label Visible Noise noticed the band after the release of their EP, and signed them for a four-album deal, in addition to re-releasing the EP in January 2005. The re-release gained the band significant attention, eventually peaking at No. 41 on the UK album charts. The band was later awarded Best British Newcomer at the 2006 Kerrang! Awards ceremony.
The band's first tour was supporting The Red Chord across the United Kingdom. As with other early tours, they were able to get this slot by tricking venue promoters. Kean and Oliver's mother Carol Sykes were the de facto managers of the band at this time, a role they continued to occupy until 2008. For The Red Chord support, Kean emailed promoters and pretended they were opening on all the dates, when they were supposed to play only at their local show. This led them to being booked for the whole tour. In another case, Sykes created an e-mail account in the name of Johnny Truant vocalist Oliver Mitchell, which he used to contact a promoter requesting Bring Me the Horizon on their tour. Alcohol consumption fuelled their live performances in their early history when the band would get so drunk they vomited on stage and damaged their equipment.
Count Your Blessings (2006–2007)
The band released their debut album Count Your Blessings in October 2006 in the United Kingdom and in August 2007 in the United States. They rented a house in the country to write songs, but easily became distracted. They then recorded the album in inner-city Birmingham, a process which was infamous for their excessive and dangerous drinking. During this period drummer Nicholls summarised it saying "we were out every night, just being regular 18-year-olds". Critics panned the album adding to the strongly polarised responses the band were already seeing from the public.
They supported Count Your Blessings by going on a lengthy headline tour of the UK in November, and immediately followed this joining Lostprophets and The Blackout on a UK tour through late November and December 2006.
In January 2007, Bring Me the Horizon were able to set their sights beyond the UK, when they replaced Bury Your Dead on Killswitch Engage's European headline tour. The slot became available after Bury Your Dead were forced to withdraw by the departure from the band of their vocalist, Mat Bruso. Bring Me the Horizon's presence on the tour was poorly received by fans of Killswitch Engage, with concert attendees regularly throwing bottles at the band before they even started playing their set.
Suicide Season and Ward's departure (2008–2009)
Bring Me the Horizon recorded their second studio album, Suicide Season, in Sweden with producer Fredrik Nordström. He was unimpressed with their first album and was initially absent from the recording sessions unless he needed to be there. Nordström later heard the new sound they were experimenting with during a recording session and became very involved in the record. It was promoted virally in the weeks before its release with the promotional tag line "September is Suicide Season." To promote Suicide Season the band embarked on their first headline tour of the United States, as well as appearing at the 2008 Warped Tour. In May 2008, Bring Me the Horizon was the main supporting band on I Killed the Prom Queen's farewell Australian tour with The Ghost Inside and The Red Shore.
Suicide Season was released on 18 September 2008 in the United States on Epitaph and on 29 September in Europe through Visible Noise. In 2009, Bring Me the Horizon attended the 2009 Kerrang! Tour alongside Black Tide, Dir En Grey, In Case of Fire and Mindless Self Indulgence. They also joined Thursday, Cancer Bats, Four Year Strong and Pierce the Veil on the North American leg of the 2009 Taste of Chaos tour from February to April after the tour's organizer Kevin Lyman offered them the slot. The band were initially hesitant to join this tour, but were convinced after Lyman offered them a bus and $500 of fuel for the tour.
During the Taste of Chaos tour in March of that year, guitarist Curtis Ward left the band. His relationship with the band had deteriorated as his stage performances were poor. He was abusive to audiences during the Taste of Chaos tour, and had contributed little to the writing of Suicide Season. Another reason for his departure was the worsening tinnitus in his one functioning ear. Ward was born deaf in one ear and admitted playing in the band worsened the ringing in his other ear to such a degree that he was unable to sleep at night. Ward offered to perform the rest of the tour dates, which the band rejected and instead asked their guitar technician, Dean Rowbotham, to substitute for him for the remaining performances. Lee Malia noted that Ward's departure helped improve everyone's mood as he had been very negative. Within a week of the tour finishing, Sykes began talking to Jona Weinhofen, at the time the guitarist of Bleeding Through. The band knew of him from his work with his former band I Killed the Prom Queen, and he was asked to join them. Ward has since worked on the TV show Top Gear, and has occasionally performed on stage with Bring Me The Horizon, playing "Pray For Plagues", most notably at Wembley Arena in 2015. In 2016, it was announced that Ward had joined the band Counting Days.
In November 2009, Bring Me the Horizon released a remixed version of Suicide Season, titled Suicide Season: Cut Up! Musicians and producers featured on the album include: Ben Weinman, Skrillex, L'Amour La Morgue, Utah Saints and Shawn Crahan. Musically, the album incorporates many genres including: electronica, drum and bass, hip-hop and dubstep. The dubstep style of the record has been acknowledged in tracks by Tek-One and Skrillex while the hip-hop elements are found in Travis McCoy's remix of "Chelsea Smile".
There Is a Hell... (2010–2011)
The band's third album, and first with their new rhythm guitarist Jona Weinhofen, titled There Is a Hell Believe Me I've Seen It. There Is a Heaven Let's Keep It a Secret., was released on 4 October 2010 and debuted at number 17 on the Billboard 200 in the United States, number 13 on the UK Album Chart, and number one on the Australian Albums Chart, the UK Rock Chart and the UK Indie Chart. Despite reaching number one in Australia, the album's sales were the lowest for a number one album in the history of the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) charts.
Matt Nicholls describes the lyrical themes of There Is a Hell... as being "repercussions of everything we were singing about on our last CD [Suicide Season]," calling the music and lyrics a lot moodier and darker. Five singles were released from the album including: "It Never Ends", "Anthem", "Blessed with a Curse", "Visions", and "Alligator Blood", with music videos produced for each of the songs. The band embarked on a headline tour in intimate venues across the United Kingdom with support from Cancer Bats and Tek-One. In December 2010, Bring Me the Horizon joined Bullet for My Valentine as the main support band, alongside Atreyu, on a short five-date arena tour around the United Kingdom. To cope with high demand, Live Nation released extra standing tickets for all dates.
In April 2011, Bring Me the Horizon embarked on a European tour, starting in the United Kingdom. They toured with Parkway Drive and Architects as main support bands, with The Devil Wears Prada as the opening support for the UK and dubstep group Tek-One. The tour, however, was not without its hindrances. On 28 April, Nicholls broke his arm whilst playing football with members of Bring Me the Horizon, Parkway Drive and Architects. Instead of cancelling the tour, Architects' drummer Dan Searle filled in as drummer, but this meant that Bring Me the Horizon's setlist was halved in length. The tour was extended with a North American leg from 13 August to 4 October, retaining Parkway Drive and Architects and adding Deez Nuts to the line up. On 23 August they released the fourth music video and single, "Visions", and on 31 October the music video for the song "Alligator Blood" was released.
In December 2011, Machine Head completed an arena tour across Europe with Bring Me the Horizon as the main support band along with DevilDriver and Darkest Hour. Oliver Sykes said these would be the last European dates before they began writing and the recording their fourth album. 2011 ended with an announcement by the band on 29 December of a new extended play titled The Chill Out Sessions, a collaborative effort with British DJ Draper. Draper first released an "officially sanctioned" remix of the song "Blessed with a Curse" in May 2011. The EP was originally supposed to be released in time for New Year's Day, and made available for download and purchase though Bring Me the Horizon's website, but the EP's release was cancelled due to the band's "current management and label situation".
Sempiternal and Weinhofen's departure (2012–2014)
After an intense touring schedule, Bring Me the Horizon finally completed their third album's promotion at the end of 2011. They returned to the UK for an extended break and eventually starting work on their next album. Much like their previous two albums, they wrote their fourth album in seclusion and isolation to stay focused. This time, they retreated to a house in the Lake District. In July, the band started to publish images of themselves recording at a 'Top Secret Studio Location,' and revealed they were working with producer Terry Date for the recording and production of the album. On 30 July, the band announced they had left their label and signed with RCA, who would release their fourth album in 2013. The band played only three shows in all of 2012: Warped Tour 2012 on 10 November at the Alexandra Palace in London, which they headlined, (and was initially believed to be their only show), the BBC Radio 1's Radio 1 Rocks show on 22 October, where they played a six-song set supporting Bullet for My Valentine, and at a warm-up show for Warped Tour in Sheffield on 9 November. In late October it was announced that the fourth album would be called Sempiternal with a tentative release in early 2013. On 22 November the band released the Draper collaborative album The Chill Out Sessions free of charge.
On 4 January 2013, Bring Me the Horizon released the first single from Sempiternal, "Shadow Moses". It was first played by radio presenter Daniel P. Carter on BBC's Radio 1. Due to popular demand, Epitaph released the music video for the song a week earlier than planned. In January, the band also saw a change in their line up. This began early in the month when Jordan Fish, Worship keyboardist and session musician for the band during the writing of Sempiternal, was announced as a full member. Then later in the month, Jona Weinhofen left the band. Despite the band denying speculation that Fish replaced Weinhofen, reviewers said that replacing a guitarist with a keyboardist better fit their style.
The band was confirmed for several festival appearances in February. They played the Australian Soundwave festival, performing at all five dates in: Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth, and then at RAMFest in South Africa with Rise Against in March, Rock Am Ring and Rock im Park festivals in Germany in June, and from June until August they played Warped Tour 2013 in the U.S. and Canada. To coincide with 29 April release of Sempiternal the band made their first headline tour of the United Kingdom in 18 months with Crossfaith and Empress AD.
In support of Sempiternal, the band toured Australia with Of Mice & Men and Crossfaith, and played a British tour with Pierce The Veil and Sights & Sounds. They then completed the American Dream Tour in North America, supported by Of Mice & Men, Issues, letlive. and Northlane. The band was announced as the main supporter for American band A Day to Remember on their "Parks & Devastation Tour" across America throughout September and October, along with support acts Motionless in White and Chiodos. The band performed at Wembley Arena in London on 5 December with support acts Young Guns, Issues and Sleepwave, which was recorded and released as a live album/DVD.
Later in 2014, the band released two new tracks titled "Drown" on 21 October, as a stand-alone single, and "Don't Look Down" on 29 October, as part of the re-score of Drive.
That's the Spirit (2015–2017)
In late June, the band began to promote pictures of an umbrella symbol being used as a tattoo, and on stickers, and posters across England, the United States, Australia, and Europe; it was later used for a promotional cover for the band's first single. The band released a short video in early July where the words "that's the spirit" could be heard in reverse. On 13 July 2015, the promotional single "Happy Song" was released on the band's Vevo page, and on 21 July 2015, Sykes revealed the album's name was That's the Spirit. The band released the single and music video for "Throne" on 23 July 2015, and another promotional track from the album, titled "True Friends", was released on 24 August 2015. The album was released on 11 September 2015 to critical acclaim. It has led to several music videos including "Drown", "Throne", "True Friends", "Follow You", "Avalanche", and "Oh No".
The band embarked on a U.S. tour in October 2015 with support from metalcore band Issues and rock band PVRIS. The band also toured Europe in November 2015, and embarked on a second U.S. tour in April and May 2016. This was followed by an Australian tour in September 2016, and a second European tour in November 2016.
On 22 April 2016, the band performed a live concert with an orchestra conducted by Simon Dobson at the Royal Albert Hall in London. The concert marked the first time the band had performed with a live orchestra. It was recorded, and the live album, Live at the Royal Albert Hall, was released on 2 December 2016 through the crowdfunding platform PledgeMusic on CD, DVD, and vinyl, with all proceeds donated to Teenage Cancer Trust. Following the show, Fish hinted at the possibility of doing a full tour with an orchestra, saying: "It seems almost a bit of a shame to go to all this effort for months and months for just one night."
Amo (2018–2019)
In August 2018, cryptic posters appeared in major cities throughout the world with the message "do you wanna start a cult with me?". The posters were attributed by major media outlets to the band only by their use of the hexagram logo previously used by the band. During this time the band themselves have not acknowledged their involvement with the campaign publicly. Each poster provided a unique phone number and a website address. The website provided a brief message titled "An Invitation To Salvation" and shows the date of 21 August 2018. The phone lines placed fans on hold with lengthy, varied audio messages that changed frequently. Some of these messages reportedly end with a distorted audio clip of what was assumed to be new music from the band.
On 21 August, the band released the lead single "Mantra". The following day the band announced their album Amo, released on 11 January 2019, along with a set of tour dates called the First Love World Tour.
On 21 October, the band released their second single "Wonderful Life" featuring Dani Filth, along with the tracklist for Amo. That same day, the band announced that the album has been delayed and is now set for 25 January 2019.
On 1 December, it was reported that during a show at Ally Pally a fan died in the mosh pit and was escorted by paramedics and security. A day later, it was confirmed by the band with a statement: "Words cannot express how horrified we are feeling this evening after hearing about the death of a young man at our show last night. Our hearts and deepest condolences go out to his family and loved ones at this terrible time. We will comment further in due course."
On 3 January 2019, the band released their third single "Medicine" and its corresponding music video. On 22 January, three days before the album release, the band released the fourth single "Mother Tongue". On 24 January, the band released the fifth single "Nihilist Blues" featuring Grimes.
On 26 July, the band released the sixth single "Sugar Honey Ice & Tea" alongside an accompanying music video. On 21 October, the band released the seventh single "In the Dark" alongside an accompanying music video featuring Forest Whitaker. On 6 November, the band released the song "Ludens", which is part of Death Stranding: Timefall, along with the news that the band are planning on never releasing an album again and instead want to release EPs. On 27 December, the band released Music to Listen to~Dance to~Blaze to~Pray to~Feed to~Sleep to~Talk to~Grind to~Trip to~Breathe to~Help to~Hurt to~Scroll to~Roll to~Love to~Hate to~Learn Too~Plot to~Play to~Be to~Feel to~Breed to~Sweat to~Dream to~Hide to~Live to~Die to~Go To without any prior announcement.
Post Human: Survival Horror (2020–present)
On 20 March 2020, the band shared that they were in a home studio, writing and recording material for their eighth record, which is expected to be an EP, with part of it being co-produced by Mick Gordon. On 25 June, the band released the single "Parasite Eve" alongside an accompanying music video. On the same day, the band also announced a project that they have been working on titled Post Human, which they said to be four EPs released throughout the next year which when combined would make an album. On 2 September, the band released with English singer Yungblud a collaborative single titled "Obey" and its corresponding music video. On 14 October, the band officially announced through social media that Post Human: Survival Horror would be released on 30 October 2020. On 22 October, a week before the release date, the fourth single "Teardrops" was released alongside an accompanying music video.
In December 2020, Fish said that the band had been writing "on and off" and would be focusing on their next release in early 2021. He also updated the group's release plan, saying that they "planned to do four EPs in a year, but [Post Human: Survival Horror] was almost an album, so I think the spacing will be a bit longer than intended, just because they're probably going to turn out bigger than intended." Upon being released on physical formats on 22 January 2021, Post Human: Survival Horror would chart again and reach a new peak to gift Bring Me the Horizon their second UK number one on the UK Albums Chart. Two years after Amo would be the first to reach this feat. The band collaborated with singer Olivia O'Brien on a track titled "No More Friends". The song is from O'Brien's Episodes: Season 1' EP which was released on 11 June 2021.
On 2 September 2021, the band announced the release of an upcoming single, "Die4U", which was released on 16 September. On 8 December, the band was announced as the Saturday co-headliner alongside Arctic Monkeys at the 2022 iteration of the Reading and Leeds Festival, headlining the bill for the first time ever. Speaking to NME about the announcement, Sykes expressed his thoughts about headlining Reading and Leeds, as well as what to expect from their headline set:
In February 2022, it was reported that the band were set to contribute to the soundtrack and provide the main theme for Gran Turismo 7. A few days later, the band released their rendition of "Moon Over the Castle" as a single ahead of schedule due to the song being leaked early. At the 42nd Brit Awards, the band were brought out as a surprise act to perform "Bad Habits" alongside Ed Sheeran. On 17 February, the studio version of "Bad Habits" by Ed Sheeran featuring the band was released.
Artistry
Style and influences
Among Bring Me the Horizon's earliest influences were bands like At the Gates, Carcass, Pantera, Metallica, The Dillinger Escape Plan, Every Time I Die, Norma Jean, Skycamefalling and Poison the Well; and genres death metal, grindcore, and emo have been cited by AllMusic writer Steward Mason. However, as their sound developed, the band started to take influences from progressive rock, post-rock, dubstep and electronica. The band's musical style has been described mainly as metalcore and – though they have since moved on from the genre – their early material was considered deathcore. Across their career the band has also been said to play within the genres alternative metal, alternative rock, pop rock, electronic rock, hard rock, heavy metal, post-hardcore, pop, nu metal, electropop, hip hop, EDM, arena rock, melodic metalcore, electronicore, electronica, screamo, hardcore punk, technical metal, and emo.
Bring Me the Horizon have attempted to grow and change with each album, believing they should be different. Raziq Rauf, writing for Drowned in Sound, described Count Your Blessings as possessing "Norma Jean-style thunderous riffs mixed with some dastardly sludgy doom moments and more breakdowns than your dad's old Nissan Sunny." Metal Hammer described Suicide Season as a "creative, critical and commercial success" for the band as they started to adopt a more eclectic style, with its "crushingly heavy party deathcore". Leading up to its release, Oliver Sykes described it as "100% different to Count Your Blessings" and noted the album sounds "more rock than metal". As time went by, Bring Me the Horizon began rejecting their debut album Count Your Blessings and considered Suicide Season as their "Year Zero[...] [their] wipe-the-slate-clean time".
Bring Me the Horizon then moved even further away from deathcore with their third album There Is a Hell..., which incorporated electronica, classical music and pop music into their metalcore style. This required more ambitious production feats, such as using a full choir, a synthesised orchestra and glitched out vocals and breakdowns that were also toned down, favouring quiet atmospheric passages in song breaks. For the writing of Sempiternal, the band pooled far broader influences such as post-rock acts like This Will Destroy You and Explosions in the Sky and from pop music.
Bring Me the Horizon has experimented with its music in recent years, mixing pop with metal music, leading the band to be labelled a "pop metal" act. With the release of That's the Spirit, their sound shifted towards electronic rock, alternative metal and alternative rock, also incorporated other genres such as pop rock and nu metal, while completely abandoning the metalcore sound of their earlier albums.
Songwriting and recording process
In all the band's album notes, all of Bring Me the Horizon's lyrics are said to be written by lead vocalist Oliver Sykes while all five members—as a band—were credited with writing the music. With the exception of Count Your Blessings, the band has always written in a secluded location to avoid being distracted. Oliver Sykes' lyrics have a strong feeling of catharsis for him. He mainly draws from personal experience and has described the band's live performances as therapeutic. In 2006, when asked about the lyrics of Count Your Blessings, as they had been criticised for their content solely fixated on heartbreak and other themes that were called "shallow and meaningless", he responded "My life's never been that bad so I've not got that much to talk about."
Band members have described how the debut album was written in inner-city areas of Birmingham while being pressured to write and record songs to the deadlines given. This resulted in the band being unimpressed with the final product. However, for the writing process of Suicide Season, the band realised that they much preferred picking areas with less human contact in order to focus on the music; they wrote their second album in the Swedish countryside. During the writing of Suicide Season, former and founding rhythm guitarist Curtis Ward wrote only two riffs of his rhythm parts of the album, mostly relying on Lee Malia to write all of the guitar sections of the album.
Lee Malia has stated that the typical writing process involves Oliver Sykes writing the main structure of the songs, followed by Malia writing the main riff. From this they would collaborate with each other to structure their work better and then later include the rest of the band in writing the rest of the song. The writing dynamic of Sempiternal, typically featured Sykes, Malia and newly introduced member Jordan Fish. Malia felt that with Fish's influence on the record he was pushed to create more inspired guitar riffs. As they all took a break before writing their fourth album, they felt less of a need for an isolated writing environment.
Image and legacy
During the band's early years, they were praised for their business acumen for selling mail-order merchandise and not relying on sales at live shows. Bring Me the Horizon's image has been characterised by the dominating personality of singer and front-man Oliver Sykes, and he has often been seen as the band's "Poster boy", bearing the brunt of the band's controversial reputation. In their early years, Bring Me the Horizon's image was infamously characterised by its members fashion sense and use of skinny-fit jeans, T-shirts with death metal band logos on the front and coloured hair/straightened hair. The band's image fit into what was called scene fashion. The effect of their fashion aesthetics showed people, in show promoter Iain Scott's perspective, that "you don't have to look like a diabolical metalhead to be into metal or play in a metal band". However, their fashion conscious appearance earned them a "style over substance" label.
Many controversies that occurred in their early years greatly affected public perceptions of the band, particularly an incident in 2007 at Nottingham's Rock City venue, when a female fan claimed that Oliver Sykes had urinated on her. The charges were dropped due to a lack of evidence from CCTV footage in the area. There were several documented examples of violence against the band during their live shows, including Sykes being pepper sprayed on stage; and people getting onstage to assault the band.
Despite the controversy over their image, various journalists have credited the band as being one of the most forward-thinking heavy bands in the UK. In 2012, just four years after the release of Suicide Season, the album was inducted into Rock Sound's Hall of Fame, credited as a significant influence on the works of Asking Alexandria, The Ghost Inside and While She Sleeps. It was credited as an influence on metalcore contemporaries Architects on Hollow Crown with their incorporation of keyboards and programming, and The Devil Wears Prada's Dead Throne for its more experimental and opinion-dividing sound.
The band caused further controversy in February 2016 when Oliver Sykes trashed Coldplay's table at the 2016 NME Awards during a live performance of Bring Me the Horizon's track "Happy Song". Although some people thought the table trashing was because of a prior feud between the two bands relating to similar album artwork, Sykes later stated that the act was not an act of "dirty protest", and suggested that it was "pure coincidence" that Coldplay were sitting at the table he trampled. Coldplay frontman Chris Martin admitted that he had never even heard of Bring Me the Horizon before the incident and he laughed it off, stating that "it was great, very 'rock and roll'".
Band members
Current
Oliver Sykes – lead vocals ; keyboards, programming
Matt Kean – bass
Lee Malia – lead guitar ; rhythm guitar
Matt Nicholls – drums
Jordan Fish – keyboards, programming, percussion, backing vocals
Current touring musicians
John Jones – rhythm guitar, backing vocals
Former
Curtis Ward – rhythm guitar
Jona Weinhofen – rhythm guitar, keyboards, programming, backing vocals
Former touring musicians
Dean Rowbotham – rhythm guitar
Robin Urbino – rhythm guitar
Tim Hillier-Brook – rhythm guitar
Brendan MacDonald – rhythm guitar, backing vocals
Timeline
Discography
Count Your Blessings (2006)
Suicide Season (2008)
There Is a Hell Believe Me I've Seen It. There Is a Heaven Let's Keep It a Secret. (2010)
Sempiternal (2013)
That's the Spirit (2015)
Amo (2019)
Awards and nominations
Grammy Awards
|-
| 2019 || "Mantra" || Best Rock Song ||
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| 2020 || Amo || Best Rock Album ||
BRIT Awards
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| 2020 || Bring Me the Horizon || Best Group ||
|-
NME Awards|-
|rowspan="2"| 2017
|Bring Me the Horizon || Best Live Band ||
|-
| Bring Me the Horizon || Music Moment of the Year ||
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| 2020 || Bring Me the Horizon || Best Band in the World ||
|-
|rowspan="2"| 2022 || Bring Me the Horizon || Best Band in the World ||
|-
| Bring Me the Horizon || Best Live Act ||Kerrang! Awards|-
| 2006 || Bring Me the Horizon || Best British Newcomer ||
|-
| 2008 || Bring Me the Horizon || Best British Band ||
|-
| 2009 || Bring Me the Horizon || Best British Band ||
|-
|rowspan="3"| 2011 || "Blessed with a Curse" || Best Single ||
|-
| Bring Me the Horizon || Best British Band ||
|-
| There Is a Hell Believe Me I've Seen It. There Is a Heaven Let's Keep It a Secret. || Best Album ||
|-
| 2012 || "Alligator Blood" || Best Video ||
|-
| rowspan="4"| 2013 || "Shadow Moses" || Best Single ||
|-
| "Shadow Moses" || Best Video ||
|-
| Sempiternal || Best Album ||
|-
| Bring Me the Horizon || Best British Band ||
|-
| 2014 || Bring Me the Horizon || Best Live Band ||
|-
| 2014 || Bring Me the Horizon || Best British Band ||
|-
|rowspan="2"| 2015|| Bring Me the Horizon || Best British Band ||
|-
| "Drown" || Best Single ||
|-
| 2016 || Bring Me the Horizon || Best British Band ||
|-
|rowspan="2"|2019 || Amo || Best Album ||
|-
| Bring Me the Horizon || Best British Band || AIM Independent Music Awards|-
| 2011 || Bring Me the Horizon || Best Live Act ||
|-
| 2011 || Bring Me the Horizon || Hardest Working Band or Artist ||
|-
| 2011 || Bring Me the Horizon || Independent Breakthrough of Year || Alternative Press
|-
| 2014 || Sempiternal || Best Album ||
|-
| 2014 || Bring Me the Horizon || Best International Band ||
|-
| 2015 || "Drown" || Best Music Video ||
|-
UK Music Video Awards
|-
| 2016
| "True Friends"
| Best Rock/Indie Video – UK
|
Readers polls
In a 2009 Rock Sound readers' poll, Bring Me the Horizon achieved both Best British Band and Worst British Band.
In 2011 The Guardian ran a poll for "Who should win the Mercury prize?" and used 50 albums, Bring Me the Horizon's third album There Is a Hell... won with 37%.
In a 2013 Sirius XM published poll, Bring Me the Horizon won Best Song Discovery for "Go to Hell, for Heaven's Sake" with the Octane radio station.
In a 2013 Alternative Press readers poll, Bring Me the Horizon was nominated for four categories: Best Vocalist (Oliver Sykes; position 3), Best Keyboardist (Jordan Fish; position 1), Single Of The Year ("Shadow Moses"; position 2) and "Best Album Art" (Sempiternal; position 2).
In 2021, Kerrang! readers voted "Die4U" as the best song and music video of the year. Bring Me the Horizon was also voted as the best band and best live band of the year. They were also voted as the second-best cover story of the year by Kerrang Magazine.
Notes
References
Bibliography
External links
2004 establishments in England
British alternative metal musical groups
Columbia Records artists
English alternative rock groups
English deathcore musical groups
English metalcore musical groups
English pop rock music groups
Kerrang! Awards winners
Musical groups from Sheffield
Musical groups established in 2004
Musical quintets
RCA Records artists
| true |
[
"This is a list of pages listing accidents and incidents involving the Douglas DC-3, including aircraft based on the DC-3 airframe such as the Douglas C-47 Skytrain and Lisunov Li-2. Military accidents are included; and hijackings and incidents of terrorism are covered, although acts of war are outside the scope of this list.\n\n1930s\nList of accidents and incidents involving the DC-3 in the 1930s\n\n1940s\n1940List of accidents and incidents involving the DC-3 in 1940\n1941List of accidents and incidents involving the DC-3 in 1941\n1942List of accidents and incidents involving the DC-3 in 1942\n1943List of accidents and incidents involving the DC-3 in 1943\n1944List of accidents and incidents involving the DC-3 in 1944\n1945List of accidents and incidents involving the DC-3 in 1945\n1946List of accidents and incidents involving the DC-3 in 1946\n1947List of accidents and incidents involving the DC-3 in 1947\n1948List of accidents and incidents involving the DC-3 in 1948\n1949List of accidents and incidents involving the DC-3 in 1949\n\n1950s\n1950List of accidents and incidents involving the DC-3 in 1950\n1951List of accidents and incidents involving the DC-3 in 1951\n1952List of accidents and incidents involving the DC-3 in 1952\n1953List of accidents and incidents involving the DC-3 in 1953\n1954List of accidents and incidents involving the DC-3 in 1954\n1955List of accidents and incidents involving the DC-3 in 1955\n1956List of accidents and incidents involving the DC-3 in 1956\n1957List of accidents and incidents involving the DC-3 in 1957 1957 Cebu Douglas C-47 crash which caused the death of the 7th President of the Philippines, Ramon Magsaysay\n1958List of accidents and incidents involving the DC-3 in 1958\n1959List of accidents and incidents involving the DC-3 in 1959\n\n1960s\n1960List of accidents and incidents involving the DC-3 in 1960\n1961List of accidents and incidents involving the DC-3 in 1961\n1962List of accidents and incidents involving the DC-3 in 1962\n1963List of accidents and incidents involving the DC-3 in 1963\n1964List of accidents and incidents involving the DC-3 in 1964\n1965List of accidents and incidents involving the DC-3 in 1965\n1966List of accidents and incidents involving the DC-3 in 1966\n1967List of accidents and incidents involving the DC-3 in 1967\n1968List of accidents and incidents involving the DC-3 in 1968\n1969List of accidents and incidents involving the DC-3 in 1969\n\n1970s\nList of accidents and incidents involving the DC-3 (1970–1974)\nList of accidents and incidents involving the DC-3 (1975–1979)\n\n1980s\nList of accidents and incidents involving the DC-3 in the 1980s\n\n1990s\t\nList of accidents and incidents involving the DC-3 in the 1990s\n\nSince 2000\t\nList of accidents and incidents involving the DC-3 since 2000\n\nNotes\n Military versions of the DC-3 were known as C-47 Skytrain, C-48, C-49, C-50, C-51, C-52, C-53 Skytrooper, C-68, C-84, C-117 Super Dakota and YC-129 by the United States Army Air Forces and its successor the United States Air Force; and as the R4D by the United States Navy. In Royal Air Force (and other British Commonwealth air forces') service, these aircraft were known as Dakotas.\n\nLists of aviation accidents and incidents\nAccidents and incidents involving airliners",
"On 26 September 1992 a Nigerian Air Force Lockheed C-130H Hercules crashed three minutes after take-off from Lagos, Nigeria. All 159 people on board were killed, including 8 foreign nationals. The aircraft was taking off at high weight and three engines failed. The aircraft was serial number 911.\n\nSome reports claim there were 163 on board, others 174 or even 200 including some unidentified civilians, and possible military personnel who hitched a ride. In any case, a total 151 Nigerians, 5 Ghanaians, 1 Tanzanian, 1 Zimbabwean, and 1 Ugandan military officers were confirmed to have died.\n\nReferences\n\nAccidents and incidents involving the Lockheed C-130 Hercules\nAccidents and incidents involving military aircraft\n1992 in Nigeria\nAviation accidents and incidents in 1992\nAviation accidents and incidents in Nigeria\n20th century in Lagos\nSeptember 1992 events in Africa"
] |
[
"Lee Ann Womack",
"Pop crossover success: 2000-2004"
] |
C_16b1c11efc9144a0b7d487e3b8ea4159_0
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what happened in 2000?
| 1 |
what happened in 2000 to Lee Ann Womack?
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Lee Ann Womack
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She released her third studio album in 2000 entitled, I Hope You Dance, which was met with major success. The title track (which was released as the lead single), reached No. 1 on the Billboard Country chart for five weeks and crossed over to the Billboard Hot 100, becoming a major crossover Pop hit, reaching No. 14. It also peaked at the top spot on the adult contemporary chart and even reached the UK Singles Charts, peaking at No. 40. Both of Womack's daughters appeared in the song's video that year. Towards the end of 2000, "I Hope You Dance" won the Country Music Association's "Song of the Year" and "Single of the Year" awards. With the Pop success of "I Hope You Dance," Womack drew the attention of the magazines People and Time, both of which praised the single, calling it "one of her best." The song later won awards in 2001 from the Grammy and Academy of Country music awards. The album of the same name has sold 3 million copies in the United States to date. The album's follow-up single, a cover of Rodney Crowell's "Ashes by Now" peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard Country Chart. The third single, "Why They Call it Falling" was also successful, reaching the country Top 15. On December 11, 2000, Womack performed "I Hope You Dance" at the annual Nobel Peace Prize concert. This song was also featured in the 2008 Tyler Perry film entitled "The Family that Preys." In 2002, Womack's fourth studio album, Something Worth Leaving Behind was released. The album made a stronger attempt at a pop-flavored style, however it did not react well, leading to poor record sales and only one major hit. Following its release, Womack's career stalled. Later that year, she released a Christmas album, The Season for Romance and also collaborated with Willie Nelson on his single, "Mendocino County Line," which won a Grammy and Country Music award in 2002. In early 2003, she got a small recurring role on the popular CBS drama, The District. In 2004, Womack performed "I Hope You Dance" at the Republican National Convention, in which George W. Bush was nominated for his second term as President of the United States. The other performers that night included Sara Evans and Larry Gatlin. She also collaborated with Red Dirt Music band Cross Canadian Ragweed on their hit "Sick and Tired" in 2004. Also that year, she also released her first Greatest Hits album, which included two new songs; "The Wrong Girl" (the only song from the album released as a single) and "Time for Me to Go." CANNOTANSWER
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She released her third studio album in 2000 entitled, I Hope You Dance, which was met with major success.
|
Lee Ann Womack (; born August 19, 1966) is an American country music singer, songwriter, and musician. Her 2000 single, "I Hope You Dance" was a major crossover music hit, reaching No. 1 on the Billboard Country Chart and the Top 15 of the Billboard Hot 100, becoming her signature song.
When Womack emerged as a contemporary country artist in 1997, her material resembled that of Dolly Parton and Tammy Wynette, except for the way Womack's music mixed an old-fashioned style with contemporary elements. Her 2000 album I Hope You Dance had an entirely different sound, using pop music elements instead of traditional country. It was not until the release of There's More Where That Came From in 2005 that Womack returned to recording traditional country music. After a hiatus in 2008, Womack returned in 2014 with a new album (The Way I'm Livin') and a new sound which blended country and Americana.
Womack has released a total of nine studio albums and two compilations. Four of her studio albums have received a Gold certification or higher by the Recording Industry Association of America. Additionally, she has received five Academy of Country Music Awards, six Country Music Association Awards, and a Grammy Award. She has sold over 6 million albums worldwide. Womack is married to record producer Frank Liddell, and was previously married to songwriter and musician Jason Sellers; her daughter with the latter, Aubrie Sellers, is also a country music artist.
Early life
Womack was born and raised in Jacksonville, Texas. At an early age she was interested in country music. Her father, a disc jockey, often took his daughter to work with him to help choose records to play on the air. Womack was the second of two daughters. Her mother was a schoolteacher and her father was also a high school principal. As a child, Womack studied the piano and later graduated from Jacksonville High School in 1984. After graduating, Womack attended South Plains Junior College in Levelland, Texas. The college was one of the first in the nation to offer country music degrees, and soon she became a member of the college band, Country Caravan. A year later, she left the college and after an agreement with her parents, Womack enrolled at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, where she studied the commercial aspect of the music business. In Nashville, she interned at the A&R department of MCA Records. She studied at the college until 1990, leaving the school a year before graduation.
Womack spent a few years raising her children before reentering the music business in the mid 1990s. In 1995 she began performing her music in songwriting demos and at showcase concerts. At one of these showcase concerts, she was spotted by Tree Publishing, who signed her after listening to one of her original demo recordings. Womack wrote songs with some popular Nashville songwriters, including Bill Anderson and Ricky Skaggs, who recorded her composition, "I Don't Remember Forgetting" for one of his albums. After divorcing her first husband around that time, Womack decided to pursue a career as a country music artist. She auditioned for MCA chairman, Bruce Hinton, who praised her talents. Shortly afterward, she accepted a contract from MCA's sister record company, Decca Nashville in 1996.
Music career
Country music stardom: 1997–1999
Womack released her self-titled debut album in May 1997, produced by Mark Wright. The album consisted of self-penned material as well as songs written by other artists, including Mark Chesnutt, Ricky Skaggs, and Sharon White. The first single, "Never Again, Again" made the country charts and playlists by March 1997, which led to the release of the album's second single, "The Fool" shortly afterward. More successful than her first single, "The Fool" reached the Top 5 on the Billboard Country chart that year. That year she won major awards from the country music community; Top New Female Vocalist from the Academy of Country Music Awards, Top Artist of the Year from Billboard Magazine, and was nominated for the Horizon award by the Country Music Association. Decca Nashville decided to close its doors in 1998, moving Womack to MCA Nashville Records that year.
In 1998, Womack released her second studio album, Some Things I Know, which was also produced by Wright.
The album's first two singles, "A Little Past Little Rock" and "I'll Think of a Reason Later" both went to No. 2 on the Billboard Country Chart. Two additional singles, "(Now You See Me) Now You Don't" and "Don't Tell Me" were released in 1999, and the album was certified Gold by the RIAA soon after.
That year, she also won Favorite Country New Artist from the American Music Awards. Womack also contributed her vocals to the songs "If You're Ever Down in Dallas" and "The Man Who Made Mama Cry" in collaboration with her ex-husband and musician, Jason Sellers. The material was promoted through shows through October to November before the birth of Womack's second child in January 1999.
Pop crossover success: 2000–2004
Womack released her third studio album in 2000 entitled I Hope You Dance which met with major success. The title track (which was released as the lead single), reached No. 1 on the Billboard Country chart for five weeks and crossed over to the Billboard Hot 100, becoming a major crossover Pop hit, reaching No. 14. It also peaked at the top spot on the adult contemporary chart and even reached the UK Singles Charts, peaking at No. 40. Both of Womack's daughters appeared in the song's accompanying video. Towards the end of 2000, "I Hope You Dance" won the Country Music Association's "Song of the Year" and "Single of the Year" awards. With the Pop success of "I Hope You Dance," Womack drew the attention of the magazines People and Time, both of which praised the single, calling it "one of her best." The song later won awards in 2001 from the Grammy and Academy of Country music awards. The album of the same name has sold 3 million copies in the United States to date. The album's follow-up single, a cover of Rodney Crowell's "Ashes by Now" peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard Country Chart. The third single, "Why They Call it Falling" was also successful, reaching the country Top 15.
On December 11, 2000, Womack performed "I Hope You Dance" at the annual Nobel Peace Prize concert.
In 2002, Womack's fourth studio album, Something Worth Leaving Behind was released. The album made a stronger attempt at a pop-flavored style, however it did not react well, leading to poor record sales and only one major hit. Following its release, Womack's career stalled. Later that year, she released a Christmas album, The Season for Romance and also collaborated with Willie Nelson on his single, "Mendocino County Line," which won a Grammy and Country Music award in 2002. In early 2003, she got a small recurring role on the popular CBS drama The District.
Womack sang the theme song for the 2003 series The Berenstain Bears.
In 2004, Womack performed "I Hope You Dance" at the Republican National Convention, in which George W. Bush was nominated for his second term as President of the United States. The other performers that night included Sara Evans and Larry Gatlin. She also collaborated with Red Dirt Music band Cross Canadian Ragweed on their hit "Sick and Tired" in 2004. Also that year, she also released her first Greatest Hits album, which included two new songs; "The Wrong Girl" (the only song from the album released as a single) and "Time for Me to Go."
There's More Where That Came From and hiatus: 2005–2008
In 2005, she released her fifth studio album aimed at traditional country music entitled There's More Where That Came From.
Many people in the music industry called the album, "a return to tradition," featuring songs about drinking and cheating with a distinctive older country twang, mixing strings and steel guitar. The album won the Country Music Association's "Album of the Year" award in 2005.<ref name="book">{{cite book|title=Will the Circle Be Unbroken: Country Music in America|editor=Alanna Nash and Paul Kingsbury|publisher=DK Publishing, Inc|location=New York, NY|year=2006|page=349|chapter=Ch. 12: Pocketful of Gold}}</ref> Womack took inspiration from the records of the 1960s and 1970s, and according to Allmusic, the album sounded like albums by Loretta Lynn, Barbara Mandrell, and Dolly Parton from the 1970s. They also called it one of her best records. The lead single, "I May Hate Myself in the Morning" was a Top 10 hit in 2005, and also won "Single of the Year" by the CMA awards later that year. Two additional singles were released from the album in 2005 that became minor hits, "He Oughta Know That by Now" and "Twenty Years and Two Husbands Ago." The album was released on vinyl LP as well as CD.
Womack can be heard on the track "If I Could Only Fly" from Joe Nichols' album Real Things. Womack has also appeared on specials on the CMT network, including their "100 Greatest Duets", which featured Womack singing a duet with Kenny Rogers, "Every Time Two Fools Collide". The song had been originally recorded by Rogers and Dottie West in 1978 and was a No. 1 Country hit that year. Womack took the place of West during that show since West had died in a serious car accident in September 1991. Womack's other honors includes being listed at No. 17 on CMT's 2002 special of their countdown of the 40 Greatest Women of Country Music.
In 2006, Womack announced plans of a sixth studio album off of Mercury Nashville Records. The lead single, "Finding My Way Back Home" was released in the late summer of that year and debuted at No. 46 on the Billboard Country Chart. The single later peaked at No. 37 and was rescheduled into 2007, because Womack found more songs that she wanted to record, however it was never released and Womack left Mercury.
In 2008, Womack announced plans for a new single for the first time in three years, once again on MCA Nashville. "Last Call" was released on June 30, 2008. It served as the lead-off single to Womack's seventh studio album, Call Me Crazy, which was released on October 21, 2008. The album, released on vinyl and CD, was produced by Tony Brown, has been described as a dark album with plenty of songs about drinking and losing love. It featured a duet with George Strait titled "Everything But Quits," a re-recording of the Strait song "The King of Broken Hearts," which first appeared on the Pure Country soundtrack. One track, "The Bees," features vocals from Keith Urban.
In October 2009, Womack released "There Is a God", as the lead-off single to her upcoming seventh studio album which never surfaced. The song debuted at No. 60 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart for the week of November 14, 2009, eventually peaking at No. 32 in early 2010. Womack has revealed a few of the tracks that she has recorded for the album, including: "Talking Behind Your Back", as well as "You Do Until You Don't".
In October 2010, Womack contributed the new track "Liars Lie" to the soundtrack for the film Country Strong. Womack also contributed guest vocals to Alan Jackson's cover of the song "Ring of Fire", which was released in December 2010 as a single from his compilation album, 34 Number Ones. His version of the song was a minor hit, charting to number 45 on the Hot Country Songs charts. Though Womack is featured on the song, she was not given credit on the charts.
In August 2012, Womack parted ways with MCA Nashville.
Americana transition, return to music, and subsequent material loss: 2014–present
In April 2014, Womack signed with Sugar Hill Records. Her first album for the label, The Way I'm Livin', was released September 23, 2014. Critics cheered the progressive traditionalist's return. In addition to a four out of four star review in USA Today, Rolling Stone proclaimed Livin' "feels like something Merle Haggard or Waylon Jennings would have crafted back in the Seventies," Spin deemed it "the best of her career" and Garden & Gun offered, "Nashville is filled with artists making 'the record they were born to make.' With Livin', Womack is one of the few who actually deliver."
"Livin'" was the only country album to make Esquire magazine's Top Albums of 2014 list. It was nominated for two 2015 Grammy Awards for Best Country Album and for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical. Womack also received two Americana Music Awards nominations for Album of the Year and Artist of the Year and her first CMA Female Vocalist of the Year nomination in ten years.
On September 26, 2014, Womack collaborated with American R&B singer John Legend for an episode of CMT Crossroads. Ahead of her 2015 tour in support of The Way I'm Livin', Womack appeared at the C2C: Country to Country festival in the UK.
On August 15, 2017, Womack announced her new album The Lonely, the Lonesome & the Gone due on October 27 on ATO Records.
Lee Ann Womack was among hundreds of artists whose material was destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.
Personal life
At Belmont University, Womack met and married singer-songwriter Jason Sellers in 1990; they divorced in 1996. Together they had a daughter named Aubrie Sellers (b. February 1991). Womack gave birth to her second daughter, Anna Lise Liddell, in January 1999 after marrying record producer Frank Liddell.
Discography
Studio albums
Lee Ann Womack (1997)
Some Things I Know (1998)
I Hope You Dance (2000)
Something Worth Leaving Behind (2002)
The Season for Romance (2002)
There's More Where That Came From (2005)
Call Me Crazy (2008)
The Way I'm Livin' (2014)
The Lonely, the Lonesome & the Gone'' (2017)
Awards and nominations
To date, Lee Ann Womack has won 6 CMA Awards (from 17 nominations), 5 ACM Awards (from 16 nominations) and 1 Grammy (from 14 nominations).
Television appearances
Filmography
References
External links
1966 births
20th-century American guitarists
20th-century American singers
20th-century American women guitarists
20th-century American women singers
21st-century American singers
21st-century American women singers
American country singer-songwriters
American country guitarists
American women country singers
American women guitarists
ATO Records artists
Belmont University alumni
Country musicians from Tennessee
Country musicians from Texas
Decca Records artists
Grammy Award winners
Living people
MCA Records artists
Mercury Records artists
People from Jacksonville, Texas
Sugar Hill Records artists
Singers from Nashville, Tennessee
Singer-songwriters from Texas
South Plains College alumni
Tennessee Republicans
Texas Republicans
Singer-songwriters from Tennessee
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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"
] |
[
"Lee Ann Womack",
"Pop crossover success: 2000-2004",
"what happened in 2000?",
"She released her third studio album in 2000 entitled, I Hope You Dance, which was met with major success."
] |
C_16b1c11efc9144a0b7d487e3b8ea4159_0
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did it make the charts?
| 2 |
did Lee Ann Womack's album I Hope You Dance make the charts?
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Lee Ann Womack
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She released her third studio album in 2000 entitled, I Hope You Dance, which was met with major success. The title track (which was released as the lead single), reached No. 1 on the Billboard Country chart for five weeks and crossed over to the Billboard Hot 100, becoming a major crossover Pop hit, reaching No. 14. It also peaked at the top spot on the adult contemporary chart and even reached the UK Singles Charts, peaking at No. 40. Both of Womack's daughters appeared in the song's video that year. Towards the end of 2000, "I Hope You Dance" won the Country Music Association's "Song of the Year" and "Single of the Year" awards. With the Pop success of "I Hope You Dance," Womack drew the attention of the magazines People and Time, both of which praised the single, calling it "one of her best." The song later won awards in 2001 from the Grammy and Academy of Country music awards. The album of the same name has sold 3 million copies in the United States to date. The album's follow-up single, a cover of Rodney Crowell's "Ashes by Now" peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard Country Chart. The third single, "Why They Call it Falling" was also successful, reaching the country Top 15. On December 11, 2000, Womack performed "I Hope You Dance" at the annual Nobel Peace Prize concert. This song was also featured in the 2008 Tyler Perry film entitled "The Family that Preys." In 2002, Womack's fourth studio album, Something Worth Leaving Behind was released. The album made a stronger attempt at a pop-flavored style, however it did not react well, leading to poor record sales and only one major hit. Following its release, Womack's career stalled. Later that year, she released a Christmas album, The Season for Romance and also collaborated with Willie Nelson on his single, "Mendocino County Line," which won a Grammy and Country Music award in 2002. In early 2003, she got a small recurring role on the popular CBS drama, The District. In 2004, Womack performed "I Hope You Dance" at the Republican National Convention, in which George W. Bush was nominated for his second term as President of the United States. The other performers that night included Sara Evans and Larry Gatlin. She also collaborated with Red Dirt Music band Cross Canadian Ragweed on their hit "Sick and Tired" in 2004. Also that year, she also released her first Greatest Hits album, which included two new songs; "The Wrong Girl" (the only song from the album released as a single) and "Time for Me to Go." CANNOTANSWER
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The title track (which was released as the lead single), reached No. 1 on the Billboard Country chart for five weeks
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Lee Ann Womack (; born August 19, 1966) is an American country music singer, songwriter, and musician. Her 2000 single, "I Hope You Dance" was a major crossover music hit, reaching No. 1 on the Billboard Country Chart and the Top 15 of the Billboard Hot 100, becoming her signature song.
When Womack emerged as a contemporary country artist in 1997, her material resembled that of Dolly Parton and Tammy Wynette, except for the way Womack's music mixed an old-fashioned style with contemporary elements. Her 2000 album I Hope You Dance had an entirely different sound, using pop music elements instead of traditional country. It was not until the release of There's More Where That Came From in 2005 that Womack returned to recording traditional country music. After a hiatus in 2008, Womack returned in 2014 with a new album (The Way I'm Livin') and a new sound which blended country and Americana.
Womack has released a total of nine studio albums and two compilations. Four of her studio albums have received a Gold certification or higher by the Recording Industry Association of America. Additionally, she has received five Academy of Country Music Awards, six Country Music Association Awards, and a Grammy Award. She has sold over 6 million albums worldwide. Womack is married to record producer Frank Liddell, and was previously married to songwriter and musician Jason Sellers; her daughter with the latter, Aubrie Sellers, is also a country music artist.
Early life
Womack was born and raised in Jacksonville, Texas. At an early age she was interested in country music. Her father, a disc jockey, often took his daughter to work with him to help choose records to play on the air. Womack was the second of two daughters. Her mother was a schoolteacher and her father was also a high school principal. As a child, Womack studied the piano and later graduated from Jacksonville High School in 1984. After graduating, Womack attended South Plains Junior College in Levelland, Texas. The college was one of the first in the nation to offer country music degrees, and soon she became a member of the college band, Country Caravan. A year later, she left the college and after an agreement with her parents, Womack enrolled at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, where she studied the commercial aspect of the music business. In Nashville, she interned at the A&R department of MCA Records. She studied at the college until 1990, leaving the school a year before graduation.
Womack spent a few years raising her children before reentering the music business in the mid 1990s. In 1995 she began performing her music in songwriting demos and at showcase concerts. At one of these showcase concerts, she was spotted by Tree Publishing, who signed her after listening to one of her original demo recordings. Womack wrote songs with some popular Nashville songwriters, including Bill Anderson and Ricky Skaggs, who recorded her composition, "I Don't Remember Forgetting" for one of his albums. After divorcing her first husband around that time, Womack decided to pursue a career as a country music artist. She auditioned for MCA chairman, Bruce Hinton, who praised her talents. Shortly afterward, she accepted a contract from MCA's sister record company, Decca Nashville in 1996.
Music career
Country music stardom: 1997–1999
Womack released her self-titled debut album in May 1997, produced by Mark Wright. The album consisted of self-penned material as well as songs written by other artists, including Mark Chesnutt, Ricky Skaggs, and Sharon White. The first single, "Never Again, Again" made the country charts and playlists by March 1997, which led to the release of the album's second single, "The Fool" shortly afterward. More successful than her first single, "The Fool" reached the Top 5 on the Billboard Country chart that year. That year she won major awards from the country music community; Top New Female Vocalist from the Academy of Country Music Awards, Top Artist of the Year from Billboard Magazine, and was nominated for the Horizon award by the Country Music Association. Decca Nashville decided to close its doors in 1998, moving Womack to MCA Nashville Records that year.
In 1998, Womack released her second studio album, Some Things I Know, which was also produced by Wright.
The album's first two singles, "A Little Past Little Rock" and "I'll Think of a Reason Later" both went to No. 2 on the Billboard Country Chart. Two additional singles, "(Now You See Me) Now You Don't" and "Don't Tell Me" were released in 1999, and the album was certified Gold by the RIAA soon after.
That year, she also won Favorite Country New Artist from the American Music Awards. Womack also contributed her vocals to the songs "If You're Ever Down in Dallas" and "The Man Who Made Mama Cry" in collaboration with her ex-husband and musician, Jason Sellers. The material was promoted through shows through October to November before the birth of Womack's second child in January 1999.
Pop crossover success: 2000–2004
Womack released her third studio album in 2000 entitled I Hope You Dance which met with major success. The title track (which was released as the lead single), reached No. 1 on the Billboard Country chart for five weeks and crossed over to the Billboard Hot 100, becoming a major crossover Pop hit, reaching No. 14. It also peaked at the top spot on the adult contemporary chart and even reached the UK Singles Charts, peaking at No. 40. Both of Womack's daughters appeared in the song's accompanying video. Towards the end of 2000, "I Hope You Dance" won the Country Music Association's "Song of the Year" and "Single of the Year" awards. With the Pop success of "I Hope You Dance," Womack drew the attention of the magazines People and Time, both of which praised the single, calling it "one of her best." The song later won awards in 2001 from the Grammy and Academy of Country music awards. The album of the same name has sold 3 million copies in the United States to date. The album's follow-up single, a cover of Rodney Crowell's "Ashes by Now" peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard Country Chart. The third single, "Why They Call it Falling" was also successful, reaching the country Top 15.
On December 11, 2000, Womack performed "I Hope You Dance" at the annual Nobel Peace Prize concert.
In 2002, Womack's fourth studio album, Something Worth Leaving Behind was released. The album made a stronger attempt at a pop-flavored style, however it did not react well, leading to poor record sales and only one major hit. Following its release, Womack's career stalled. Later that year, she released a Christmas album, The Season for Romance and also collaborated with Willie Nelson on his single, "Mendocino County Line," which won a Grammy and Country Music award in 2002. In early 2003, she got a small recurring role on the popular CBS drama The District.
Womack sang the theme song for the 2003 series The Berenstain Bears.
In 2004, Womack performed "I Hope You Dance" at the Republican National Convention, in which George W. Bush was nominated for his second term as President of the United States. The other performers that night included Sara Evans and Larry Gatlin. She also collaborated with Red Dirt Music band Cross Canadian Ragweed on their hit "Sick and Tired" in 2004. Also that year, she also released her first Greatest Hits album, which included two new songs; "The Wrong Girl" (the only song from the album released as a single) and "Time for Me to Go."
There's More Where That Came From and hiatus: 2005–2008
In 2005, she released her fifth studio album aimed at traditional country music entitled There's More Where That Came From.
Many people in the music industry called the album, "a return to tradition," featuring songs about drinking and cheating with a distinctive older country twang, mixing strings and steel guitar. The album won the Country Music Association's "Album of the Year" award in 2005.<ref name="book">{{cite book|title=Will the Circle Be Unbroken: Country Music in America|editor=Alanna Nash and Paul Kingsbury|publisher=DK Publishing, Inc|location=New York, NY|year=2006|page=349|chapter=Ch. 12: Pocketful of Gold}}</ref> Womack took inspiration from the records of the 1960s and 1970s, and according to Allmusic, the album sounded like albums by Loretta Lynn, Barbara Mandrell, and Dolly Parton from the 1970s. They also called it one of her best records. The lead single, "I May Hate Myself in the Morning" was a Top 10 hit in 2005, and also won "Single of the Year" by the CMA awards later that year. Two additional singles were released from the album in 2005 that became minor hits, "He Oughta Know That by Now" and "Twenty Years and Two Husbands Ago." The album was released on vinyl LP as well as CD.
Womack can be heard on the track "If I Could Only Fly" from Joe Nichols' album Real Things. Womack has also appeared on specials on the CMT network, including their "100 Greatest Duets", which featured Womack singing a duet with Kenny Rogers, "Every Time Two Fools Collide". The song had been originally recorded by Rogers and Dottie West in 1978 and was a No. 1 Country hit that year. Womack took the place of West during that show since West had died in a serious car accident in September 1991. Womack's other honors includes being listed at No. 17 on CMT's 2002 special of their countdown of the 40 Greatest Women of Country Music.
In 2006, Womack announced plans of a sixth studio album off of Mercury Nashville Records. The lead single, "Finding My Way Back Home" was released in the late summer of that year and debuted at No. 46 on the Billboard Country Chart. The single later peaked at No. 37 and was rescheduled into 2007, because Womack found more songs that she wanted to record, however it was never released and Womack left Mercury.
In 2008, Womack announced plans for a new single for the first time in three years, once again on MCA Nashville. "Last Call" was released on June 30, 2008. It served as the lead-off single to Womack's seventh studio album, Call Me Crazy, which was released on October 21, 2008. The album, released on vinyl and CD, was produced by Tony Brown, has been described as a dark album with plenty of songs about drinking and losing love. It featured a duet with George Strait titled "Everything But Quits," a re-recording of the Strait song "The King of Broken Hearts," which first appeared on the Pure Country soundtrack. One track, "The Bees," features vocals from Keith Urban.
In October 2009, Womack released "There Is a God", as the lead-off single to her upcoming seventh studio album which never surfaced. The song debuted at No. 60 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart for the week of November 14, 2009, eventually peaking at No. 32 in early 2010. Womack has revealed a few of the tracks that she has recorded for the album, including: "Talking Behind Your Back", as well as "You Do Until You Don't".
In October 2010, Womack contributed the new track "Liars Lie" to the soundtrack for the film Country Strong. Womack also contributed guest vocals to Alan Jackson's cover of the song "Ring of Fire", which was released in December 2010 as a single from his compilation album, 34 Number Ones. His version of the song was a minor hit, charting to number 45 on the Hot Country Songs charts. Though Womack is featured on the song, she was not given credit on the charts.
In August 2012, Womack parted ways with MCA Nashville.
Americana transition, return to music, and subsequent material loss: 2014–present
In April 2014, Womack signed with Sugar Hill Records. Her first album for the label, The Way I'm Livin', was released September 23, 2014. Critics cheered the progressive traditionalist's return. In addition to a four out of four star review in USA Today, Rolling Stone proclaimed Livin' "feels like something Merle Haggard or Waylon Jennings would have crafted back in the Seventies," Spin deemed it "the best of her career" and Garden & Gun offered, "Nashville is filled with artists making 'the record they were born to make.' With Livin', Womack is one of the few who actually deliver."
"Livin'" was the only country album to make Esquire magazine's Top Albums of 2014 list. It was nominated for two 2015 Grammy Awards for Best Country Album and for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical. Womack also received two Americana Music Awards nominations for Album of the Year and Artist of the Year and her first CMA Female Vocalist of the Year nomination in ten years.
On September 26, 2014, Womack collaborated with American R&B singer John Legend for an episode of CMT Crossroads. Ahead of her 2015 tour in support of The Way I'm Livin', Womack appeared at the C2C: Country to Country festival in the UK.
On August 15, 2017, Womack announced her new album The Lonely, the Lonesome & the Gone due on October 27 on ATO Records.
Lee Ann Womack was among hundreds of artists whose material was destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.
Personal life
At Belmont University, Womack met and married singer-songwriter Jason Sellers in 1990; they divorced in 1996. Together they had a daughter named Aubrie Sellers (b. February 1991). Womack gave birth to her second daughter, Anna Lise Liddell, in January 1999 after marrying record producer Frank Liddell.
Discography
Studio albums
Lee Ann Womack (1997)
Some Things I Know (1998)
I Hope You Dance (2000)
Something Worth Leaving Behind (2002)
The Season for Romance (2002)
There's More Where That Came From (2005)
Call Me Crazy (2008)
The Way I'm Livin' (2014)
The Lonely, the Lonesome & the Gone'' (2017)
Awards and nominations
To date, Lee Ann Womack has won 6 CMA Awards (from 17 nominations), 5 ACM Awards (from 16 nominations) and 1 Grammy (from 14 nominations).
Television appearances
Filmography
References
External links
1966 births
20th-century American guitarists
20th-century American singers
20th-century American women guitarists
20th-century American women singers
21st-century American singers
21st-century American women singers
American country singer-songwriters
American country guitarists
American women country singers
American women guitarists
ATO Records artists
Belmont University alumni
Country musicians from Tennessee
Country musicians from Texas
Decca Records artists
Grammy Award winners
Living people
MCA Records artists
Mercury Records artists
People from Jacksonville, Texas
Sugar Hill Records artists
Singers from Nashville, Tennessee
Singer-songwriters from Texas
South Plains College alumni
Tennessee Republicans
Texas Republicans
Singer-songwriters from Tennessee
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[
"The Proud One is the seventh studio album released by The Osmonds in 1975. Two singles, \"The Proud One\" and \"I'm Still Gonna Need You\" were released from the album. The album peaked at No. 160 on the Billboard Top LPs chart, a precipitous drop from their previous albums.\n\nThe title track gave the quintet its last top 40 hit in the US to date as well as its first and only number-one on the easy listening charts. \"I'm Still Gonna Need You\" did not make the Billboard Hot 100 but did make the top 40 in the UK and appeared on the easy listening charts.\n\nThe UK version of the album, released with the same tracks but under the title I'm Still Gonna Need You, reached No. 19 on the UK Albums Chart, their last studio album to make an appearance on the chart.\n\nTrack listing\n\nCharts\n\nCertifications\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nhttp://osmondmania.com/Discography2/Album_Pages/ProudOne.html\n\nThe Osmonds albums\n1975 albums\nAlbums produced by Mike Curb\nMGM Records albums",
"\"Make Me Crazy\" is the second and final single by Scandal'us from their debut album Startin' Somethin'. It did not live up to the success of their debut single, \"Me, Myself & I\", only managing to debut and peak at No. 30 on the Australian ARIA Charts. This was the last release from the band before they broke up in 2002.\n\nTrack listing\n Maxi Single\n \"Make Me Crazy\" (3:15)\n \"Make Me Crazy\" (Crazy Nights Mix) (3:30)\n \"Make Me Crazy\" (Wired Meshmix)\t(3:26)\n \"Make Me Crazy\" (KCB Klubbmix) (3:34)\n \"Make Me Crazy\" (Karaoke Mix) (3:17)\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\n2001 singles\nWarner Music Group singles\n2001 songs"
] |
[
"Lee Ann Womack",
"Pop crossover success: 2000-2004",
"what happened in 2000?",
"She released her third studio album in 2000 entitled, I Hope You Dance, which was met with major success.",
"did it make the charts?",
"The title track (which was released as the lead single), reached No. 1 on the Billboard Country chart for five weeks"
] |
C_16b1c11efc9144a0b7d487e3b8ea4159_0
|
did she win any awards?
| 3 |
did Lee Ann Womack win any awards for I Hope You Dance?
|
Lee Ann Womack
|
She released her third studio album in 2000 entitled, I Hope You Dance, which was met with major success. The title track (which was released as the lead single), reached No. 1 on the Billboard Country chart for five weeks and crossed over to the Billboard Hot 100, becoming a major crossover Pop hit, reaching No. 14. It also peaked at the top spot on the adult contemporary chart and even reached the UK Singles Charts, peaking at No. 40. Both of Womack's daughters appeared in the song's video that year. Towards the end of 2000, "I Hope You Dance" won the Country Music Association's "Song of the Year" and "Single of the Year" awards. With the Pop success of "I Hope You Dance," Womack drew the attention of the magazines People and Time, both of which praised the single, calling it "one of her best." The song later won awards in 2001 from the Grammy and Academy of Country music awards. The album of the same name has sold 3 million copies in the United States to date. The album's follow-up single, a cover of Rodney Crowell's "Ashes by Now" peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard Country Chart. The third single, "Why They Call it Falling" was also successful, reaching the country Top 15. On December 11, 2000, Womack performed "I Hope You Dance" at the annual Nobel Peace Prize concert. This song was also featured in the 2008 Tyler Perry film entitled "The Family that Preys." In 2002, Womack's fourth studio album, Something Worth Leaving Behind was released. The album made a stronger attempt at a pop-flavored style, however it did not react well, leading to poor record sales and only one major hit. Following its release, Womack's career stalled. Later that year, she released a Christmas album, The Season for Romance and also collaborated with Willie Nelson on his single, "Mendocino County Line," which won a Grammy and Country Music award in 2002. In early 2003, she got a small recurring role on the popular CBS drama, The District. In 2004, Womack performed "I Hope You Dance" at the Republican National Convention, in which George W. Bush was nominated for his second term as President of the United States. The other performers that night included Sara Evans and Larry Gatlin. She also collaborated with Red Dirt Music band Cross Canadian Ragweed on their hit "Sick and Tired" in 2004. Also that year, she also released her first Greatest Hits album, which included two new songs; "The Wrong Girl" (the only song from the album released as a single) and "Time for Me to Go." CANNOTANSWER
|
"I Hope You Dance" won the Country Music Association's "Song of the Year" and "Single of the Year" awards.
|
Lee Ann Womack (; born August 19, 1966) is an American country music singer, songwriter, and musician. Her 2000 single, "I Hope You Dance" was a major crossover music hit, reaching No. 1 on the Billboard Country Chart and the Top 15 of the Billboard Hot 100, becoming her signature song.
When Womack emerged as a contemporary country artist in 1997, her material resembled that of Dolly Parton and Tammy Wynette, except for the way Womack's music mixed an old-fashioned style with contemporary elements. Her 2000 album I Hope You Dance had an entirely different sound, using pop music elements instead of traditional country. It was not until the release of There's More Where That Came From in 2005 that Womack returned to recording traditional country music. After a hiatus in 2008, Womack returned in 2014 with a new album (The Way I'm Livin') and a new sound which blended country and Americana.
Womack has released a total of nine studio albums and two compilations. Four of her studio albums have received a Gold certification or higher by the Recording Industry Association of America. Additionally, she has received five Academy of Country Music Awards, six Country Music Association Awards, and a Grammy Award. She has sold over 6 million albums worldwide. Womack is married to record producer Frank Liddell, and was previously married to songwriter and musician Jason Sellers; her daughter with the latter, Aubrie Sellers, is also a country music artist.
Early life
Womack was born and raised in Jacksonville, Texas. At an early age she was interested in country music. Her father, a disc jockey, often took his daughter to work with him to help choose records to play on the air. Womack was the second of two daughters. Her mother was a schoolteacher and her father was also a high school principal. As a child, Womack studied the piano and later graduated from Jacksonville High School in 1984. After graduating, Womack attended South Plains Junior College in Levelland, Texas. The college was one of the first in the nation to offer country music degrees, and soon she became a member of the college band, Country Caravan. A year later, she left the college and after an agreement with her parents, Womack enrolled at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, where she studied the commercial aspect of the music business. In Nashville, she interned at the A&R department of MCA Records. She studied at the college until 1990, leaving the school a year before graduation.
Womack spent a few years raising her children before reentering the music business in the mid 1990s. In 1995 she began performing her music in songwriting demos and at showcase concerts. At one of these showcase concerts, she was spotted by Tree Publishing, who signed her after listening to one of her original demo recordings. Womack wrote songs with some popular Nashville songwriters, including Bill Anderson and Ricky Skaggs, who recorded her composition, "I Don't Remember Forgetting" for one of his albums. After divorcing her first husband around that time, Womack decided to pursue a career as a country music artist. She auditioned for MCA chairman, Bruce Hinton, who praised her talents. Shortly afterward, she accepted a contract from MCA's sister record company, Decca Nashville in 1996.
Music career
Country music stardom: 1997–1999
Womack released her self-titled debut album in May 1997, produced by Mark Wright. The album consisted of self-penned material as well as songs written by other artists, including Mark Chesnutt, Ricky Skaggs, and Sharon White. The first single, "Never Again, Again" made the country charts and playlists by March 1997, which led to the release of the album's second single, "The Fool" shortly afterward. More successful than her first single, "The Fool" reached the Top 5 on the Billboard Country chart that year. That year she won major awards from the country music community; Top New Female Vocalist from the Academy of Country Music Awards, Top Artist of the Year from Billboard Magazine, and was nominated for the Horizon award by the Country Music Association. Decca Nashville decided to close its doors in 1998, moving Womack to MCA Nashville Records that year.
In 1998, Womack released her second studio album, Some Things I Know, which was also produced by Wright.
The album's first two singles, "A Little Past Little Rock" and "I'll Think of a Reason Later" both went to No. 2 on the Billboard Country Chart. Two additional singles, "(Now You See Me) Now You Don't" and "Don't Tell Me" were released in 1999, and the album was certified Gold by the RIAA soon after.
That year, she also won Favorite Country New Artist from the American Music Awards. Womack also contributed her vocals to the songs "If You're Ever Down in Dallas" and "The Man Who Made Mama Cry" in collaboration with her ex-husband and musician, Jason Sellers. The material was promoted through shows through October to November before the birth of Womack's second child in January 1999.
Pop crossover success: 2000–2004
Womack released her third studio album in 2000 entitled I Hope You Dance which met with major success. The title track (which was released as the lead single), reached No. 1 on the Billboard Country chart for five weeks and crossed over to the Billboard Hot 100, becoming a major crossover Pop hit, reaching No. 14. It also peaked at the top spot on the adult contemporary chart and even reached the UK Singles Charts, peaking at No. 40. Both of Womack's daughters appeared in the song's accompanying video. Towards the end of 2000, "I Hope You Dance" won the Country Music Association's "Song of the Year" and "Single of the Year" awards. With the Pop success of "I Hope You Dance," Womack drew the attention of the magazines People and Time, both of which praised the single, calling it "one of her best." The song later won awards in 2001 from the Grammy and Academy of Country music awards. The album of the same name has sold 3 million copies in the United States to date. The album's follow-up single, a cover of Rodney Crowell's "Ashes by Now" peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard Country Chart. The third single, "Why They Call it Falling" was also successful, reaching the country Top 15.
On December 11, 2000, Womack performed "I Hope You Dance" at the annual Nobel Peace Prize concert.
In 2002, Womack's fourth studio album, Something Worth Leaving Behind was released. The album made a stronger attempt at a pop-flavored style, however it did not react well, leading to poor record sales and only one major hit. Following its release, Womack's career stalled. Later that year, she released a Christmas album, The Season for Romance and also collaborated with Willie Nelson on his single, "Mendocino County Line," which won a Grammy and Country Music award in 2002. In early 2003, she got a small recurring role on the popular CBS drama The District.
Womack sang the theme song for the 2003 series The Berenstain Bears.
In 2004, Womack performed "I Hope You Dance" at the Republican National Convention, in which George W. Bush was nominated for his second term as President of the United States. The other performers that night included Sara Evans and Larry Gatlin. She also collaborated with Red Dirt Music band Cross Canadian Ragweed on their hit "Sick and Tired" in 2004. Also that year, she also released her first Greatest Hits album, which included two new songs; "The Wrong Girl" (the only song from the album released as a single) and "Time for Me to Go."
There's More Where That Came From and hiatus: 2005–2008
In 2005, she released her fifth studio album aimed at traditional country music entitled There's More Where That Came From.
Many people in the music industry called the album, "a return to tradition," featuring songs about drinking and cheating with a distinctive older country twang, mixing strings and steel guitar. The album won the Country Music Association's "Album of the Year" award in 2005.<ref name="book">{{cite book|title=Will the Circle Be Unbroken: Country Music in America|editor=Alanna Nash and Paul Kingsbury|publisher=DK Publishing, Inc|location=New York, NY|year=2006|page=349|chapter=Ch. 12: Pocketful of Gold}}</ref> Womack took inspiration from the records of the 1960s and 1970s, and according to Allmusic, the album sounded like albums by Loretta Lynn, Barbara Mandrell, and Dolly Parton from the 1970s. They also called it one of her best records. The lead single, "I May Hate Myself in the Morning" was a Top 10 hit in 2005, and also won "Single of the Year" by the CMA awards later that year. Two additional singles were released from the album in 2005 that became minor hits, "He Oughta Know That by Now" and "Twenty Years and Two Husbands Ago." The album was released on vinyl LP as well as CD.
Womack can be heard on the track "If I Could Only Fly" from Joe Nichols' album Real Things. Womack has also appeared on specials on the CMT network, including their "100 Greatest Duets", which featured Womack singing a duet with Kenny Rogers, "Every Time Two Fools Collide". The song had been originally recorded by Rogers and Dottie West in 1978 and was a No. 1 Country hit that year. Womack took the place of West during that show since West had died in a serious car accident in September 1991. Womack's other honors includes being listed at No. 17 on CMT's 2002 special of their countdown of the 40 Greatest Women of Country Music.
In 2006, Womack announced plans of a sixth studio album off of Mercury Nashville Records. The lead single, "Finding My Way Back Home" was released in the late summer of that year and debuted at No. 46 on the Billboard Country Chart. The single later peaked at No. 37 and was rescheduled into 2007, because Womack found more songs that she wanted to record, however it was never released and Womack left Mercury.
In 2008, Womack announced plans for a new single for the first time in three years, once again on MCA Nashville. "Last Call" was released on June 30, 2008. It served as the lead-off single to Womack's seventh studio album, Call Me Crazy, which was released on October 21, 2008. The album, released on vinyl and CD, was produced by Tony Brown, has been described as a dark album with plenty of songs about drinking and losing love. It featured a duet with George Strait titled "Everything But Quits," a re-recording of the Strait song "The King of Broken Hearts," which first appeared on the Pure Country soundtrack. One track, "The Bees," features vocals from Keith Urban.
In October 2009, Womack released "There Is a God", as the lead-off single to her upcoming seventh studio album which never surfaced. The song debuted at No. 60 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart for the week of November 14, 2009, eventually peaking at No. 32 in early 2010. Womack has revealed a few of the tracks that she has recorded for the album, including: "Talking Behind Your Back", as well as "You Do Until You Don't".
In October 2010, Womack contributed the new track "Liars Lie" to the soundtrack for the film Country Strong. Womack also contributed guest vocals to Alan Jackson's cover of the song "Ring of Fire", which was released in December 2010 as a single from his compilation album, 34 Number Ones. His version of the song was a minor hit, charting to number 45 on the Hot Country Songs charts. Though Womack is featured on the song, she was not given credit on the charts.
In August 2012, Womack parted ways with MCA Nashville.
Americana transition, return to music, and subsequent material loss: 2014–present
In April 2014, Womack signed with Sugar Hill Records. Her first album for the label, The Way I'm Livin', was released September 23, 2014. Critics cheered the progressive traditionalist's return. In addition to a four out of four star review in USA Today, Rolling Stone proclaimed Livin' "feels like something Merle Haggard or Waylon Jennings would have crafted back in the Seventies," Spin deemed it "the best of her career" and Garden & Gun offered, "Nashville is filled with artists making 'the record they were born to make.' With Livin', Womack is one of the few who actually deliver."
"Livin'" was the only country album to make Esquire magazine's Top Albums of 2014 list. It was nominated for two 2015 Grammy Awards for Best Country Album and for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical. Womack also received two Americana Music Awards nominations for Album of the Year and Artist of the Year and her first CMA Female Vocalist of the Year nomination in ten years.
On September 26, 2014, Womack collaborated with American R&B singer John Legend for an episode of CMT Crossroads. Ahead of her 2015 tour in support of The Way I'm Livin', Womack appeared at the C2C: Country to Country festival in the UK.
On August 15, 2017, Womack announced her new album The Lonely, the Lonesome & the Gone due on October 27 on ATO Records.
Lee Ann Womack was among hundreds of artists whose material was destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.
Personal life
At Belmont University, Womack met and married singer-songwriter Jason Sellers in 1990; they divorced in 1996. Together they had a daughter named Aubrie Sellers (b. February 1991). Womack gave birth to her second daughter, Anna Lise Liddell, in January 1999 after marrying record producer Frank Liddell.
Discography
Studio albums
Lee Ann Womack (1997)
Some Things I Know (1998)
I Hope You Dance (2000)
Something Worth Leaving Behind (2002)
The Season for Romance (2002)
There's More Where That Came From (2005)
Call Me Crazy (2008)
The Way I'm Livin' (2014)
The Lonely, the Lonesome & the Gone'' (2017)
Awards and nominations
To date, Lee Ann Womack has won 6 CMA Awards (from 17 nominations), 5 ACM Awards (from 16 nominations) and 1 Grammy (from 14 nominations).
Television appearances
Filmography
References
External links
1966 births
20th-century American guitarists
20th-century American singers
20th-century American women guitarists
20th-century American women singers
21st-century American singers
21st-century American women singers
American country singer-songwriters
American country guitarists
American women country singers
American women guitarists
ATO Records artists
Belmont University alumni
Country musicians from Tennessee
Country musicians from Texas
Decca Records artists
Grammy Award winners
Living people
MCA Records artists
Mercury Records artists
People from Jacksonville, Texas
Sugar Hill Records artists
Singers from Nashville, Tennessee
Singer-songwriters from Texas
South Plains College alumni
Tennessee Republicans
Texas Republicans
Singer-songwriters from Tennessee
| true |
[
"Nena Danevic is a film editor who was nominated at the 57th Academy Awards for Best Film Editing. She was nominated for Amadeus. She shared her nomination with Michael Chandler.\n\nShe did win at the 39th British Academy Film Awards for Best Editing. Also for Amadeus with Michael Chandler.\n\nShe also won at the American Cinema Editors awards.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\nBest Editing BAFTA Award winners\nFilm editors\nPossibly living people\nYear of birth missing (living people)",
"Sheena Napier is a British costume designer who was nominated at the 65th Academy Awards for her work on the film Enchanted April, for which she was nominated for Best Costumes.\n\nIn addition she did win at the BAFTA Television Awards for the TV film Parade's End, which she was also nominated for an Emmy for.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nBritish costume designers\nLiving people\nBAFTA winners (people)\nWomen costume designers\nYear of birth missing (living people)"
] |
[
"Lee Ann Womack",
"Pop crossover success: 2000-2004",
"what happened in 2000?",
"She released her third studio album in 2000 entitled, I Hope You Dance, which was met with major success.",
"did it make the charts?",
"The title track (which was released as the lead single), reached No. 1 on the Billboard Country chart for five weeks",
"did she win any awards?",
"\"I Hope You Dance\" won the Country Music Association's \"Song of the Year\" and \"Single of the Year\" awards."
] |
C_16b1c11efc9144a0b7d487e3b8ea4159_0
|
what was her greatest accomplishement?
| 4 |
what was Lee Ann Womack's greatest accomplishment?
|
Lee Ann Womack
|
She released her third studio album in 2000 entitled, I Hope You Dance, which was met with major success. The title track (which was released as the lead single), reached No. 1 on the Billboard Country chart for five weeks and crossed over to the Billboard Hot 100, becoming a major crossover Pop hit, reaching No. 14. It also peaked at the top spot on the adult contemporary chart and even reached the UK Singles Charts, peaking at No. 40. Both of Womack's daughters appeared in the song's video that year. Towards the end of 2000, "I Hope You Dance" won the Country Music Association's "Song of the Year" and "Single of the Year" awards. With the Pop success of "I Hope You Dance," Womack drew the attention of the magazines People and Time, both of which praised the single, calling it "one of her best." The song later won awards in 2001 from the Grammy and Academy of Country music awards. The album of the same name has sold 3 million copies in the United States to date. The album's follow-up single, a cover of Rodney Crowell's "Ashes by Now" peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard Country Chart. The third single, "Why They Call it Falling" was also successful, reaching the country Top 15. On December 11, 2000, Womack performed "I Hope You Dance" at the annual Nobel Peace Prize concert. This song was also featured in the 2008 Tyler Perry film entitled "The Family that Preys." In 2002, Womack's fourth studio album, Something Worth Leaving Behind was released. The album made a stronger attempt at a pop-flavored style, however it did not react well, leading to poor record sales and only one major hit. Following its release, Womack's career stalled. Later that year, she released a Christmas album, The Season for Romance and also collaborated with Willie Nelson on his single, "Mendocino County Line," which won a Grammy and Country Music award in 2002. In early 2003, she got a small recurring role on the popular CBS drama, The District. In 2004, Womack performed "I Hope You Dance" at the Republican National Convention, in which George W. Bush was nominated for his second term as President of the United States. The other performers that night included Sara Evans and Larry Gatlin. She also collaborated with Red Dirt Music band Cross Canadian Ragweed on their hit "Sick and Tired" in 2004. Also that year, she also released her first Greatest Hits album, which included two new songs; "The Wrong Girl" (the only song from the album released as a single) and "Time for Me to Go." CANNOTANSWER
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People and Time, both of which praised the single, calling it "one of her best." The song later won awards in 2001 from the Grammy and Academy of Country
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Lee Ann Womack (; born August 19, 1966) is an American country music singer, songwriter, and musician. Her 2000 single, "I Hope You Dance" was a major crossover music hit, reaching No. 1 on the Billboard Country Chart and the Top 15 of the Billboard Hot 100, becoming her signature song.
When Womack emerged as a contemporary country artist in 1997, her material resembled that of Dolly Parton and Tammy Wynette, except for the way Womack's music mixed an old-fashioned style with contemporary elements. Her 2000 album I Hope You Dance had an entirely different sound, using pop music elements instead of traditional country. It was not until the release of There's More Where That Came From in 2005 that Womack returned to recording traditional country music. After a hiatus in 2008, Womack returned in 2014 with a new album (The Way I'm Livin') and a new sound which blended country and Americana.
Womack has released a total of nine studio albums and two compilations. Four of her studio albums have received a Gold certification or higher by the Recording Industry Association of America. Additionally, she has received five Academy of Country Music Awards, six Country Music Association Awards, and a Grammy Award. She has sold over 6 million albums worldwide. Womack is married to record producer Frank Liddell, and was previously married to songwriter and musician Jason Sellers; her daughter with the latter, Aubrie Sellers, is also a country music artist.
Early life
Womack was born and raised in Jacksonville, Texas. At an early age she was interested in country music. Her father, a disc jockey, often took his daughter to work with him to help choose records to play on the air. Womack was the second of two daughters. Her mother was a schoolteacher and her father was also a high school principal. As a child, Womack studied the piano and later graduated from Jacksonville High School in 1984. After graduating, Womack attended South Plains Junior College in Levelland, Texas. The college was one of the first in the nation to offer country music degrees, and soon she became a member of the college band, Country Caravan. A year later, she left the college and after an agreement with her parents, Womack enrolled at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, where she studied the commercial aspect of the music business. In Nashville, she interned at the A&R department of MCA Records. She studied at the college until 1990, leaving the school a year before graduation.
Womack spent a few years raising her children before reentering the music business in the mid 1990s. In 1995 she began performing her music in songwriting demos and at showcase concerts. At one of these showcase concerts, she was spotted by Tree Publishing, who signed her after listening to one of her original demo recordings. Womack wrote songs with some popular Nashville songwriters, including Bill Anderson and Ricky Skaggs, who recorded her composition, "I Don't Remember Forgetting" for one of his albums. After divorcing her first husband around that time, Womack decided to pursue a career as a country music artist. She auditioned for MCA chairman, Bruce Hinton, who praised her talents. Shortly afterward, she accepted a contract from MCA's sister record company, Decca Nashville in 1996.
Music career
Country music stardom: 1997–1999
Womack released her self-titled debut album in May 1997, produced by Mark Wright. The album consisted of self-penned material as well as songs written by other artists, including Mark Chesnutt, Ricky Skaggs, and Sharon White. The first single, "Never Again, Again" made the country charts and playlists by March 1997, which led to the release of the album's second single, "The Fool" shortly afterward. More successful than her first single, "The Fool" reached the Top 5 on the Billboard Country chart that year. That year she won major awards from the country music community; Top New Female Vocalist from the Academy of Country Music Awards, Top Artist of the Year from Billboard Magazine, and was nominated for the Horizon award by the Country Music Association. Decca Nashville decided to close its doors in 1998, moving Womack to MCA Nashville Records that year.
In 1998, Womack released her second studio album, Some Things I Know, which was also produced by Wright.
The album's first two singles, "A Little Past Little Rock" and "I'll Think of a Reason Later" both went to No. 2 on the Billboard Country Chart. Two additional singles, "(Now You See Me) Now You Don't" and "Don't Tell Me" were released in 1999, and the album was certified Gold by the RIAA soon after.
That year, she also won Favorite Country New Artist from the American Music Awards. Womack also contributed her vocals to the songs "If You're Ever Down in Dallas" and "The Man Who Made Mama Cry" in collaboration with her ex-husband and musician, Jason Sellers. The material was promoted through shows through October to November before the birth of Womack's second child in January 1999.
Pop crossover success: 2000–2004
Womack released her third studio album in 2000 entitled I Hope You Dance which met with major success. The title track (which was released as the lead single), reached No. 1 on the Billboard Country chart for five weeks and crossed over to the Billboard Hot 100, becoming a major crossover Pop hit, reaching No. 14. It also peaked at the top spot on the adult contemporary chart and even reached the UK Singles Charts, peaking at No. 40. Both of Womack's daughters appeared in the song's accompanying video. Towards the end of 2000, "I Hope You Dance" won the Country Music Association's "Song of the Year" and "Single of the Year" awards. With the Pop success of "I Hope You Dance," Womack drew the attention of the magazines People and Time, both of which praised the single, calling it "one of her best." The song later won awards in 2001 from the Grammy and Academy of Country music awards. The album of the same name has sold 3 million copies in the United States to date. The album's follow-up single, a cover of Rodney Crowell's "Ashes by Now" peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard Country Chart. The third single, "Why They Call it Falling" was also successful, reaching the country Top 15.
On December 11, 2000, Womack performed "I Hope You Dance" at the annual Nobel Peace Prize concert.
In 2002, Womack's fourth studio album, Something Worth Leaving Behind was released. The album made a stronger attempt at a pop-flavored style, however it did not react well, leading to poor record sales and only one major hit. Following its release, Womack's career stalled. Later that year, she released a Christmas album, The Season for Romance and also collaborated with Willie Nelson on his single, "Mendocino County Line," which won a Grammy and Country Music award in 2002. In early 2003, she got a small recurring role on the popular CBS drama The District.
Womack sang the theme song for the 2003 series The Berenstain Bears.
In 2004, Womack performed "I Hope You Dance" at the Republican National Convention, in which George W. Bush was nominated for his second term as President of the United States. The other performers that night included Sara Evans and Larry Gatlin. She also collaborated with Red Dirt Music band Cross Canadian Ragweed on their hit "Sick and Tired" in 2004. Also that year, she also released her first Greatest Hits album, which included two new songs; "The Wrong Girl" (the only song from the album released as a single) and "Time for Me to Go."
There's More Where That Came From and hiatus: 2005–2008
In 2005, she released her fifth studio album aimed at traditional country music entitled There's More Where That Came From.
Many people in the music industry called the album, "a return to tradition," featuring songs about drinking and cheating with a distinctive older country twang, mixing strings and steel guitar. The album won the Country Music Association's "Album of the Year" award in 2005.<ref name="book">{{cite book|title=Will the Circle Be Unbroken: Country Music in America|editor=Alanna Nash and Paul Kingsbury|publisher=DK Publishing, Inc|location=New York, NY|year=2006|page=349|chapter=Ch. 12: Pocketful of Gold}}</ref> Womack took inspiration from the records of the 1960s and 1970s, and according to Allmusic, the album sounded like albums by Loretta Lynn, Barbara Mandrell, and Dolly Parton from the 1970s. They also called it one of her best records. The lead single, "I May Hate Myself in the Morning" was a Top 10 hit in 2005, and also won "Single of the Year" by the CMA awards later that year. Two additional singles were released from the album in 2005 that became minor hits, "He Oughta Know That by Now" and "Twenty Years and Two Husbands Ago." The album was released on vinyl LP as well as CD.
Womack can be heard on the track "If I Could Only Fly" from Joe Nichols' album Real Things. Womack has also appeared on specials on the CMT network, including their "100 Greatest Duets", which featured Womack singing a duet with Kenny Rogers, "Every Time Two Fools Collide". The song had been originally recorded by Rogers and Dottie West in 1978 and was a No. 1 Country hit that year. Womack took the place of West during that show since West had died in a serious car accident in September 1991. Womack's other honors includes being listed at No. 17 on CMT's 2002 special of their countdown of the 40 Greatest Women of Country Music.
In 2006, Womack announced plans of a sixth studio album off of Mercury Nashville Records. The lead single, "Finding My Way Back Home" was released in the late summer of that year and debuted at No. 46 on the Billboard Country Chart. The single later peaked at No. 37 and was rescheduled into 2007, because Womack found more songs that she wanted to record, however it was never released and Womack left Mercury.
In 2008, Womack announced plans for a new single for the first time in three years, once again on MCA Nashville. "Last Call" was released on June 30, 2008. It served as the lead-off single to Womack's seventh studio album, Call Me Crazy, which was released on October 21, 2008. The album, released on vinyl and CD, was produced by Tony Brown, has been described as a dark album with plenty of songs about drinking and losing love. It featured a duet with George Strait titled "Everything But Quits," a re-recording of the Strait song "The King of Broken Hearts," which first appeared on the Pure Country soundtrack. One track, "The Bees," features vocals from Keith Urban.
In October 2009, Womack released "There Is a God", as the lead-off single to her upcoming seventh studio album which never surfaced. The song debuted at No. 60 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart for the week of November 14, 2009, eventually peaking at No. 32 in early 2010. Womack has revealed a few of the tracks that she has recorded for the album, including: "Talking Behind Your Back", as well as "You Do Until You Don't".
In October 2010, Womack contributed the new track "Liars Lie" to the soundtrack for the film Country Strong. Womack also contributed guest vocals to Alan Jackson's cover of the song "Ring of Fire", which was released in December 2010 as a single from his compilation album, 34 Number Ones. His version of the song was a minor hit, charting to number 45 on the Hot Country Songs charts. Though Womack is featured on the song, she was not given credit on the charts.
In August 2012, Womack parted ways with MCA Nashville.
Americana transition, return to music, and subsequent material loss: 2014–present
In April 2014, Womack signed with Sugar Hill Records. Her first album for the label, The Way I'm Livin', was released September 23, 2014. Critics cheered the progressive traditionalist's return. In addition to a four out of four star review in USA Today, Rolling Stone proclaimed Livin' "feels like something Merle Haggard or Waylon Jennings would have crafted back in the Seventies," Spin deemed it "the best of her career" and Garden & Gun offered, "Nashville is filled with artists making 'the record they were born to make.' With Livin', Womack is one of the few who actually deliver."
"Livin'" was the only country album to make Esquire magazine's Top Albums of 2014 list. It was nominated for two 2015 Grammy Awards for Best Country Album and for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical. Womack also received two Americana Music Awards nominations for Album of the Year and Artist of the Year and her first CMA Female Vocalist of the Year nomination in ten years.
On September 26, 2014, Womack collaborated with American R&B singer John Legend for an episode of CMT Crossroads. Ahead of her 2015 tour in support of The Way I'm Livin', Womack appeared at the C2C: Country to Country festival in the UK.
On August 15, 2017, Womack announced her new album The Lonely, the Lonesome & the Gone due on October 27 on ATO Records.
Lee Ann Womack was among hundreds of artists whose material was destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.
Personal life
At Belmont University, Womack met and married singer-songwriter Jason Sellers in 1990; they divorced in 1996. Together they had a daughter named Aubrie Sellers (b. February 1991). Womack gave birth to her second daughter, Anna Lise Liddell, in January 1999 after marrying record producer Frank Liddell.
Discography
Studio albums
Lee Ann Womack (1997)
Some Things I Know (1998)
I Hope You Dance (2000)
Something Worth Leaving Behind (2002)
The Season for Romance (2002)
There's More Where That Came From (2005)
Call Me Crazy (2008)
The Way I'm Livin' (2014)
The Lonely, the Lonesome & the Gone'' (2017)
Awards and nominations
To date, Lee Ann Womack has won 6 CMA Awards (from 17 nominations), 5 ACM Awards (from 16 nominations) and 1 Grammy (from 14 nominations).
Television appearances
Filmography
References
External links
1966 births
20th-century American guitarists
20th-century American singers
20th-century American women guitarists
20th-century American women singers
21st-century American singers
21st-century American women singers
American country singer-songwriters
American country guitarists
American women country singers
American women guitarists
ATO Records artists
Belmont University alumni
Country musicians from Tennessee
Country musicians from Texas
Decca Records artists
Grammy Award winners
Living people
MCA Records artists
Mercury Records artists
People from Jacksonville, Texas
Sugar Hill Records artists
Singers from Nashville, Tennessee
Singer-songwriters from Texas
South Plains College alumni
Tennessee Republicans
Texas Republicans
Singer-songwriters from Tennessee
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[
"All Time Greatest Hits is the first compilation by Brenda K. Starr. It spans releases by Star from 1987–2000. It was released on May 4, 2002 by Platano Records and manufactured by Americ Disc USA. It features her Billboard Hot 100 hits, (excluding \"No Matter What\" feat. George Lamond), \"Breakfast In Bed\", \"I Still Believe\" and her award-winning song, \"What You See Is What You Get.\" All Time Greatest Hits also includes her Spanish language hits such as \"Herida\", \"Hombre Mio, Hombre Ajeno\", \"Petalos de Fuego\" among others.\n\nTrack listings\n\nBrenda K. Starr albums\n2002 greatest hits albums",
"Lynn Anderson's Greatest Hits, Volume II is a compilation album by American country artist Lynn Anderson. It was released in September 1976 via Columbia Records and was produced by Glenn Sutton. It was Anderson's third compilation release for the Columbia label and second \"greatest hits\" package for the company. The album contained some of her biggest hits for the label in the 1970s.\n\nBackground, content and release\nLynn Anderson's Greatest Hits, Volume II contained some of Anderson's biggest hits from her years at Columbia Records. The album was derived from the success of her first greatest hits package in 1972. These songs on the package were first recorded between 1972 and 1976. They were all previously released on studio albums during that period. All of the album's tracks were first produced by Glenn Sutton, whom was also Anderson's husband at the time. The album contained ten tracks. All of the tracks were previously singles for Anderson. This included the number one country hits \"What a Man My Man Is\" and \"Keep Me in Mind.\" The album also featured the top five country hits \"Top of the World\" and \"Sing About Love\". Additional featured tracks were top 20 hits, such as \"He Turns It into Love Again\" and \"I've Never Loved Anyone More.\"\n\nLynn Anderson's Greatest Hits, Volume Two was released in September 1976 on Columbia Records. It was Anderson's third compilation to be released on the Columbia label. It was issued as a vinyl LP, containing five songs on each side of the record. The album spent a total of five weeks on the Billboard Top Country Albums list. In November 1976, it peaked at number 41 on the country albums chart. Because it contained all previously-released material, no new singles were spawned from the compilation.\n\nTrack listing\n\nPersonnel\nAll credits are adapted from the liner notes of Lynn Anderson's Greatest Hits.\n\nMusical and technical personnel\n Lynn Anderson – lead vocals\n Bill Barnes – album design\n Alan Clayton – photography\n Slick Lawson – photography\n Glenn Sutton – producer\n\nChart performance\n\nRelease history\n\nReferences\n\n1976 greatest hits albums\nAlbums produced by Glenn Sutton\nColumbia Records albums\nLynn Anderson compilation albums"
] |
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"Lee Ann Womack",
"Pop crossover success: 2000-2004",
"what happened in 2000?",
"She released her third studio album in 2000 entitled, I Hope You Dance, which was met with major success.",
"did it make the charts?",
"The title track (which was released as the lead single), reached No. 1 on the Billboard Country chart for five weeks",
"did she win any awards?",
"\"I Hope You Dance\" won the Country Music Association's \"Song of the Year\" and \"Single of the Year\" awards.",
"what was her greatest accomplishement?",
"People and Time, both of which praised the single, calling it \"one of her best.\" The song later won awards in 2001 from the Grammy and Academy of Country"
] |
C_16b1c11efc9144a0b7d487e3b8ea4159_0
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what is the most important fact stated in this article?
| 5 |
what is the most important fact stated in this article about Lee Ann Womack?
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Lee Ann Womack
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She released her third studio album in 2000 entitled, I Hope You Dance, which was met with major success. The title track (which was released as the lead single), reached No. 1 on the Billboard Country chart for five weeks and crossed over to the Billboard Hot 100, becoming a major crossover Pop hit, reaching No. 14. It also peaked at the top spot on the adult contemporary chart and even reached the UK Singles Charts, peaking at No. 40. Both of Womack's daughters appeared in the song's video that year. Towards the end of 2000, "I Hope You Dance" won the Country Music Association's "Song of the Year" and "Single of the Year" awards. With the Pop success of "I Hope You Dance," Womack drew the attention of the magazines People and Time, both of which praised the single, calling it "one of her best." The song later won awards in 2001 from the Grammy and Academy of Country music awards. The album of the same name has sold 3 million copies in the United States to date. The album's follow-up single, a cover of Rodney Crowell's "Ashes by Now" peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard Country Chart. The third single, "Why They Call it Falling" was also successful, reaching the country Top 15. On December 11, 2000, Womack performed "I Hope You Dance" at the annual Nobel Peace Prize concert. This song was also featured in the 2008 Tyler Perry film entitled "The Family that Preys." In 2002, Womack's fourth studio album, Something Worth Leaving Behind was released. The album made a stronger attempt at a pop-flavored style, however it did not react well, leading to poor record sales and only one major hit. Following its release, Womack's career stalled. Later that year, she released a Christmas album, The Season for Romance and also collaborated with Willie Nelson on his single, "Mendocino County Line," which won a Grammy and Country Music award in 2002. In early 2003, she got a small recurring role on the popular CBS drama, The District. In 2004, Womack performed "I Hope You Dance" at the Republican National Convention, in which George W. Bush was nominated for his second term as President of the United States. The other performers that night included Sara Evans and Larry Gatlin. She also collaborated with Red Dirt Music band Cross Canadian Ragweed on their hit "Sick and Tired" in 2004. Also that year, she also released her first Greatest Hits album, which included two new songs; "The Wrong Girl" (the only song from the album released as a single) and "Time for Me to Go." CANNOTANSWER
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In 2004, Womack performed "I Hope You Dance" at the Republican National Convention, in which George W. Bush was nominated for his second term
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Lee Ann Womack (; born August 19, 1966) is an American country music singer, songwriter, and musician. Her 2000 single, "I Hope You Dance" was a major crossover music hit, reaching No. 1 on the Billboard Country Chart and the Top 15 of the Billboard Hot 100, becoming her signature song.
When Womack emerged as a contemporary country artist in 1997, her material resembled that of Dolly Parton and Tammy Wynette, except for the way Womack's music mixed an old-fashioned style with contemporary elements. Her 2000 album I Hope You Dance had an entirely different sound, using pop music elements instead of traditional country. It was not until the release of There's More Where That Came From in 2005 that Womack returned to recording traditional country music. After a hiatus in 2008, Womack returned in 2014 with a new album (The Way I'm Livin') and a new sound which blended country and Americana.
Womack has released a total of nine studio albums and two compilations. Four of her studio albums have received a Gold certification or higher by the Recording Industry Association of America. Additionally, she has received five Academy of Country Music Awards, six Country Music Association Awards, and a Grammy Award. She has sold over 6 million albums worldwide. Womack is married to record producer Frank Liddell, and was previously married to songwriter and musician Jason Sellers; her daughter with the latter, Aubrie Sellers, is also a country music artist.
Early life
Womack was born and raised in Jacksonville, Texas. At an early age she was interested in country music. Her father, a disc jockey, often took his daughter to work with him to help choose records to play on the air. Womack was the second of two daughters. Her mother was a schoolteacher and her father was also a high school principal. As a child, Womack studied the piano and later graduated from Jacksonville High School in 1984. After graduating, Womack attended South Plains Junior College in Levelland, Texas. The college was one of the first in the nation to offer country music degrees, and soon she became a member of the college band, Country Caravan. A year later, she left the college and after an agreement with her parents, Womack enrolled at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, where she studied the commercial aspect of the music business. In Nashville, she interned at the A&R department of MCA Records. She studied at the college until 1990, leaving the school a year before graduation.
Womack spent a few years raising her children before reentering the music business in the mid 1990s. In 1995 she began performing her music in songwriting demos and at showcase concerts. At one of these showcase concerts, she was spotted by Tree Publishing, who signed her after listening to one of her original demo recordings. Womack wrote songs with some popular Nashville songwriters, including Bill Anderson and Ricky Skaggs, who recorded her composition, "I Don't Remember Forgetting" for one of his albums. After divorcing her first husband around that time, Womack decided to pursue a career as a country music artist. She auditioned for MCA chairman, Bruce Hinton, who praised her talents. Shortly afterward, she accepted a contract from MCA's sister record company, Decca Nashville in 1996.
Music career
Country music stardom: 1997–1999
Womack released her self-titled debut album in May 1997, produced by Mark Wright. The album consisted of self-penned material as well as songs written by other artists, including Mark Chesnutt, Ricky Skaggs, and Sharon White. The first single, "Never Again, Again" made the country charts and playlists by March 1997, which led to the release of the album's second single, "The Fool" shortly afterward. More successful than her first single, "The Fool" reached the Top 5 on the Billboard Country chart that year. That year she won major awards from the country music community; Top New Female Vocalist from the Academy of Country Music Awards, Top Artist of the Year from Billboard Magazine, and was nominated for the Horizon award by the Country Music Association. Decca Nashville decided to close its doors in 1998, moving Womack to MCA Nashville Records that year.
In 1998, Womack released her second studio album, Some Things I Know, which was also produced by Wright.
The album's first two singles, "A Little Past Little Rock" and "I'll Think of a Reason Later" both went to No. 2 on the Billboard Country Chart. Two additional singles, "(Now You See Me) Now You Don't" and "Don't Tell Me" were released in 1999, and the album was certified Gold by the RIAA soon after.
That year, she also won Favorite Country New Artist from the American Music Awards. Womack also contributed her vocals to the songs "If You're Ever Down in Dallas" and "The Man Who Made Mama Cry" in collaboration with her ex-husband and musician, Jason Sellers. The material was promoted through shows through October to November before the birth of Womack's second child in January 1999.
Pop crossover success: 2000–2004
Womack released her third studio album in 2000 entitled I Hope You Dance which met with major success. The title track (which was released as the lead single), reached No. 1 on the Billboard Country chart for five weeks and crossed over to the Billboard Hot 100, becoming a major crossover Pop hit, reaching No. 14. It also peaked at the top spot on the adult contemporary chart and even reached the UK Singles Charts, peaking at No. 40. Both of Womack's daughters appeared in the song's accompanying video. Towards the end of 2000, "I Hope You Dance" won the Country Music Association's "Song of the Year" and "Single of the Year" awards. With the Pop success of "I Hope You Dance," Womack drew the attention of the magazines People and Time, both of which praised the single, calling it "one of her best." The song later won awards in 2001 from the Grammy and Academy of Country music awards. The album of the same name has sold 3 million copies in the United States to date. The album's follow-up single, a cover of Rodney Crowell's "Ashes by Now" peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard Country Chart. The third single, "Why They Call it Falling" was also successful, reaching the country Top 15.
On December 11, 2000, Womack performed "I Hope You Dance" at the annual Nobel Peace Prize concert.
In 2002, Womack's fourth studio album, Something Worth Leaving Behind was released. The album made a stronger attempt at a pop-flavored style, however it did not react well, leading to poor record sales and only one major hit. Following its release, Womack's career stalled. Later that year, she released a Christmas album, The Season for Romance and also collaborated with Willie Nelson on his single, "Mendocino County Line," which won a Grammy and Country Music award in 2002. In early 2003, she got a small recurring role on the popular CBS drama The District.
Womack sang the theme song for the 2003 series The Berenstain Bears.
In 2004, Womack performed "I Hope You Dance" at the Republican National Convention, in which George W. Bush was nominated for his second term as President of the United States. The other performers that night included Sara Evans and Larry Gatlin. She also collaborated with Red Dirt Music band Cross Canadian Ragweed on their hit "Sick and Tired" in 2004. Also that year, she also released her first Greatest Hits album, which included two new songs; "The Wrong Girl" (the only song from the album released as a single) and "Time for Me to Go."
There's More Where That Came From and hiatus: 2005–2008
In 2005, she released her fifth studio album aimed at traditional country music entitled There's More Where That Came From.
Many people in the music industry called the album, "a return to tradition," featuring songs about drinking and cheating with a distinctive older country twang, mixing strings and steel guitar. The album won the Country Music Association's "Album of the Year" award in 2005.<ref name="book">{{cite book|title=Will the Circle Be Unbroken: Country Music in America|editor=Alanna Nash and Paul Kingsbury|publisher=DK Publishing, Inc|location=New York, NY|year=2006|page=349|chapter=Ch. 12: Pocketful of Gold}}</ref> Womack took inspiration from the records of the 1960s and 1970s, and according to Allmusic, the album sounded like albums by Loretta Lynn, Barbara Mandrell, and Dolly Parton from the 1970s. They also called it one of her best records. The lead single, "I May Hate Myself in the Morning" was a Top 10 hit in 2005, and also won "Single of the Year" by the CMA awards later that year. Two additional singles were released from the album in 2005 that became minor hits, "He Oughta Know That by Now" and "Twenty Years and Two Husbands Ago." The album was released on vinyl LP as well as CD.
Womack can be heard on the track "If I Could Only Fly" from Joe Nichols' album Real Things. Womack has also appeared on specials on the CMT network, including their "100 Greatest Duets", which featured Womack singing a duet with Kenny Rogers, "Every Time Two Fools Collide". The song had been originally recorded by Rogers and Dottie West in 1978 and was a No. 1 Country hit that year. Womack took the place of West during that show since West had died in a serious car accident in September 1991. Womack's other honors includes being listed at No. 17 on CMT's 2002 special of their countdown of the 40 Greatest Women of Country Music.
In 2006, Womack announced plans of a sixth studio album off of Mercury Nashville Records. The lead single, "Finding My Way Back Home" was released in the late summer of that year and debuted at No. 46 on the Billboard Country Chart. The single later peaked at No. 37 and was rescheduled into 2007, because Womack found more songs that she wanted to record, however it was never released and Womack left Mercury.
In 2008, Womack announced plans for a new single for the first time in three years, once again on MCA Nashville. "Last Call" was released on June 30, 2008. It served as the lead-off single to Womack's seventh studio album, Call Me Crazy, which was released on October 21, 2008. The album, released on vinyl and CD, was produced by Tony Brown, has been described as a dark album with plenty of songs about drinking and losing love. It featured a duet with George Strait titled "Everything But Quits," a re-recording of the Strait song "The King of Broken Hearts," which first appeared on the Pure Country soundtrack. One track, "The Bees," features vocals from Keith Urban.
In October 2009, Womack released "There Is a God", as the lead-off single to her upcoming seventh studio album which never surfaced. The song debuted at No. 60 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart for the week of November 14, 2009, eventually peaking at No. 32 in early 2010. Womack has revealed a few of the tracks that she has recorded for the album, including: "Talking Behind Your Back", as well as "You Do Until You Don't".
In October 2010, Womack contributed the new track "Liars Lie" to the soundtrack for the film Country Strong. Womack also contributed guest vocals to Alan Jackson's cover of the song "Ring of Fire", which was released in December 2010 as a single from his compilation album, 34 Number Ones. His version of the song was a minor hit, charting to number 45 on the Hot Country Songs charts. Though Womack is featured on the song, she was not given credit on the charts.
In August 2012, Womack parted ways with MCA Nashville.
Americana transition, return to music, and subsequent material loss: 2014–present
In April 2014, Womack signed with Sugar Hill Records. Her first album for the label, The Way I'm Livin', was released September 23, 2014. Critics cheered the progressive traditionalist's return. In addition to a four out of four star review in USA Today, Rolling Stone proclaimed Livin' "feels like something Merle Haggard or Waylon Jennings would have crafted back in the Seventies," Spin deemed it "the best of her career" and Garden & Gun offered, "Nashville is filled with artists making 'the record they were born to make.' With Livin', Womack is one of the few who actually deliver."
"Livin'" was the only country album to make Esquire magazine's Top Albums of 2014 list. It was nominated for two 2015 Grammy Awards for Best Country Album and for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical. Womack also received two Americana Music Awards nominations for Album of the Year and Artist of the Year and her first CMA Female Vocalist of the Year nomination in ten years.
On September 26, 2014, Womack collaborated with American R&B singer John Legend for an episode of CMT Crossroads. Ahead of her 2015 tour in support of The Way I'm Livin', Womack appeared at the C2C: Country to Country festival in the UK.
On August 15, 2017, Womack announced her new album The Lonely, the Lonesome & the Gone due on October 27 on ATO Records.
Lee Ann Womack was among hundreds of artists whose material was destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.
Personal life
At Belmont University, Womack met and married singer-songwriter Jason Sellers in 1990; they divorced in 1996. Together they had a daughter named Aubrie Sellers (b. February 1991). Womack gave birth to her second daughter, Anna Lise Liddell, in January 1999 after marrying record producer Frank Liddell.
Discography
Studio albums
Lee Ann Womack (1997)
Some Things I Know (1998)
I Hope You Dance (2000)
Something Worth Leaving Behind (2002)
The Season for Romance (2002)
There's More Where That Came From (2005)
Call Me Crazy (2008)
The Way I'm Livin' (2014)
The Lonely, the Lonesome & the Gone'' (2017)
Awards and nominations
To date, Lee Ann Womack has won 6 CMA Awards (from 17 nominations), 5 ACM Awards (from 16 nominations) and 1 Grammy (from 14 nominations).
Television appearances
Filmography
References
External links
1966 births
20th-century American guitarists
20th-century American singers
20th-century American women guitarists
20th-century American women singers
21st-century American singers
21st-century American women singers
American country singer-songwriters
American country guitarists
American women country singers
American women guitarists
ATO Records artists
Belmont University alumni
Country musicians from Tennessee
Country musicians from Texas
Decca Records artists
Grammy Award winners
Living people
MCA Records artists
Mercury Records artists
People from Jacksonville, Texas
Sugar Hill Records artists
Singers from Nashville, Tennessee
Singer-songwriters from Texas
South Plains College alumni
Tennessee Republicans
Texas Republicans
Singer-songwriters from Tennessee
| true |
[
"\"Toward a Fair Use Standard\", 103 Harv. L. Rev. 1105 (1990), is a law review article on the fair use doctrine in US copyright law, written by then-District Court Judge Pierre N. Leval. The article argued that the most critical element of the fair use analysis is the transformativeness of a work, the first of the statutory factors listed in the Copyright Act of 1976, . \n\nLeval's article is cited in the Supreme Court's 1994 decision in Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc., which marked a shift in judicial treatment of fair use toward a transformativeness analysis and away from emphasizing the \"commerciality\" analysis of the fourth factor. Prior to Leval's article, the fourth factor had often been described as the most important of the factors. \n\nIn his article, Leval noted: \nI believe the answer to the question of justification turns primarily on whether, and to what extent, the challenged use is transformative. The use must be productive and must employ the quoted matter in a different manner or for a different purpose from the original. ...[If] the secondary use adds value to the original—if the quoted matter is used as raw material, transformed in the creation of new information, new aesthetics, new insights and understandings—this is the very type of activity that the fair use doctrine intends to protect for the enrichment of society.\n\nTransformative uses may include criticizing the quoted work, exposing the character of the original author, proving a fact, or summarizing an idea argued in the original in order to defend or rebut it. They also may include parody, symbolism, aesthetic declarations, and innumerable other uses.\n\nLeval's article was published with an accompanying article by Lloyd Weinreb \"Fair's Fair: A Comment on the Fair Use Doctrine\", 103 Harvard Law Review 1137 (1990), which generally critiqued Leval's thesis.\n\nFurther reading \n \n \n\n1990 essays\n1990 in law\nFair use\nCopyright law literature\nLegal literature\nWorks originally published in the Harvard Law Review\nUnited States copyright law",
"Dress for Success is a 1975 book by John T. Molloy about the effect of clothing on a person's success in business and personal life. It was a bestseller and was followed in 1977 by The Women's Dress for Success Book. Together, the books popularized the concept of \"power dressing\".\n\nMolloy's advice was unusual because they ran actual tests by showing drawings to people and compiling their perceptions of the impact of the clothes. In The Women's Dress for Success Book, he stated, \"This is the most important book ever written about women's clothes, because it is based on scientific research, not on [the author's] opinion.\" \n\nWhat was discovered is still included in \"advice\" articles today: Dress like you already have the job. Respondents subconsciously judged the clothes to see that the wearer fit in with other employees. Molloy frankly stated that the attempt to \"look like\" current employees posed a special challenge for women and minority applicants in the contemporary (1977) reality of a white, male-dominated workplace.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Article discussing dressing for success Dress For Success in the Workplace\n\n1975 non-fiction books\n1970s fashion\nSelf-help books"
] |
[
"Lee Ann Womack",
"Pop crossover success: 2000-2004",
"what happened in 2000?",
"She released her third studio album in 2000 entitled, I Hope You Dance, which was met with major success.",
"did it make the charts?",
"The title track (which was released as the lead single), reached No. 1 on the Billboard Country chart for five weeks",
"did she win any awards?",
"\"I Hope You Dance\" won the Country Music Association's \"Song of the Year\" and \"Single of the Year\" awards.",
"what was her greatest accomplishement?",
"People and Time, both of which praised the single, calling it \"one of her best.\" The song later won awards in 2001 from the Grammy and Academy of Country",
"what is the most important fact stated in this article?",
"In 2004, Womack performed \"I Hope You Dance\" at the Republican National Convention, in which George W. Bush was nominated for his second term"
] |
C_16b1c11efc9144a0b7d487e3b8ea4159_0
|
Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?
| 6 |
Other than the 2004 Republican National Convention, are there any other interesting aspects about this article?
|
Lee Ann Womack
|
She released her third studio album in 2000 entitled, I Hope You Dance, which was met with major success. The title track (which was released as the lead single), reached No. 1 on the Billboard Country chart for five weeks and crossed over to the Billboard Hot 100, becoming a major crossover Pop hit, reaching No. 14. It also peaked at the top spot on the adult contemporary chart and even reached the UK Singles Charts, peaking at No. 40. Both of Womack's daughters appeared in the song's video that year. Towards the end of 2000, "I Hope You Dance" won the Country Music Association's "Song of the Year" and "Single of the Year" awards. With the Pop success of "I Hope You Dance," Womack drew the attention of the magazines People and Time, both of which praised the single, calling it "one of her best." The song later won awards in 2001 from the Grammy and Academy of Country music awards. The album of the same name has sold 3 million copies in the United States to date. The album's follow-up single, a cover of Rodney Crowell's "Ashes by Now" peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard Country Chart. The third single, "Why They Call it Falling" was also successful, reaching the country Top 15. On December 11, 2000, Womack performed "I Hope You Dance" at the annual Nobel Peace Prize concert. This song was also featured in the 2008 Tyler Perry film entitled "The Family that Preys." In 2002, Womack's fourth studio album, Something Worth Leaving Behind was released. The album made a stronger attempt at a pop-flavored style, however it did not react well, leading to poor record sales and only one major hit. Following its release, Womack's career stalled. Later that year, she released a Christmas album, The Season for Romance and also collaborated with Willie Nelson on his single, "Mendocino County Line," which won a Grammy and Country Music award in 2002. In early 2003, she got a small recurring role on the popular CBS drama, The District. In 2004, Womack performed "I Hope You Dance" at the Republican National Convention, in which George W. Bush was nominated for his second term as President of the United States. The other performers that night included Sara Evans and Larry Gatlin. She also collaborated with Red Dirt Music band Cross Canadian Ragweed on their hit "Sick and Tired" in 2004. Also that year, she also released her first Greatest Hits album, which included two new songs; "The Wrong Girl" (the only song from the album released as a single) and "Time for Me to Go." CANNOTANSWER
|
In 2002, Womack's fourth studio album, Something Worth Leaving Behind was released.
|
Lee Ann Womack (; born August 19, 1966) is an American country music singer, songwriter, and musician. Her 2000 single, "I Hope You Dance" was a major crossover music hit, reaching No. 1 on the Billboard Country Chart and the Top 15 of the Billboard Hot 100, becoming her signature song.
When Womack emerged as a contemporary country artist in 1997, her material resembled that of Dolly Parton and Tammy Wynette, except for the way Womack's music mixed an old-fashioned style with contemporary elements. Her 2000 album I Hope You Dance had an entirely different sound, using pop music elements instead of traditional country. It was not until the release of There's More Where That Came From in 2005 that Womack returned to recording traditional country music. After a hiatus in 2008, Womack returned in 2014 with a new album (The Way I'm Livin') and a new sound which blended country and Americana.
Womack has released a total of nine studio albums and two compilations. Four of her studio albums have received a Gold certification or higher by the Recording Industry Association of America. Additionally, she has received five Academy of Country Music Awards, six Country Music Association Awards, and a Grammy Award. She has sold over 6 million albums worldwide. Womack is married to record producer Frank Liddell, and was previously married to songwriter and musician Jason Sellers; her daughter with the latter, Aubrie Sellers, is also a country music artist.
Early life
Womack was born and raised in Jacksonville, Texas. At an early age she was interested in country music. Her father, a disc jockey, often took his daughter to work with him to help choose records to play on the air. Womack was the second of two daughters. Her mother was a schoolteacher and her father was also a high school principal. As a child, Womack studied the piano and later graduated from Jacksonville High School in 1984. After graduating, Womack attended South Plains Junior College in Levelland, Texas. The college was one of the first in the nation to offer country music degrees, and soon she became a member of the college band, Country Caravan. A year later, she left the college and after an agreement with her parents, Womack enrolled at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, where she studied the commercial aspect of the music business. In Nashville, she interned at the A&R department of MCA Records. She studied at the college until 1990, leaving the school a year before graduation.
Womack spent a few years raising her children before reentering the music business in the mid 1990s. In 1995 she began performing her music in songwriting demos and at showcase concerts. At one of these showcase concerts, she was spotted by Tree Publishing, who signed her after listening to one of her original demo recordings. Womack wrote songs with some popular Nashville songwriters, including Bill Anderson and Ricky Skaggs, who recorded her composition, "I Don't Remember Forgetting" for one of his albums. After divorcing her first husband around that time, Womack decided to pursue a career as a country music artist. She auditioned for MCA chairman, Bruce Hinton, who praised her talents. Shortly afterward, she accepted a contract from MCA's sister record company, Decca Nashville in 1996.
Music career
Country music stardom: 1997–1999
Womack released her self-titled debut album in May 1997, produced by Mark Wright. The album consisted of self-penned material as well as songs written by other artists, including Mark Chesnutt, Ricky Skaggs, and Sharon White. The first single, "Never Again, Again" made the country charts and playlists by March 1997, which led to the release of the album's second single, "The Fool" shortly afterward. More successful than her first single, "The Fool" reached the Top 5 on the Billboard Country chart that year. That year she won major awards from the country music community; Top New Female Vocalist from the Academy of Country Music Awards, Top Artist of the Year from Billboard Magazine, and was nominated for the Horizon award by the Country Music Association. Decca Nashville decided to close its doors in 1998, moving Womack to MCA Nashville Records that year.
In 1998, Womack released her second studio album, Some Things I Know, which was also produced by Wright.
The album's first two singles, "A Little Past Little Rock" and "I'll Think of a Reason Later" both went to No. 2 on the Billboard Country Chart. Two additional singles, "(Now You See Me) Now You Don't" and "Don't Tell Me" were released in 1999, and the album was certified Gold by the RIAA soon after.
That year, she also won Favorite Country New Artist from the American Music Awards. Womack also contributed her vocals to the songs "If You're Ever Down in Dallas" and "The Man Who Made Mama Cry" in collaboration with her ex-husband and musician, Jason Sellers. The material was promoted through shows through October to November before the birth of Womack's second child in January 1999.
Pop crossover success: 2000–2004
Womack released her third studio album in 2000 entitled I Hope You Dance which met with major success. The title track (which was released as the lead single), reached No. 1 on the Billboard Country chart for five weeks and crossed over to the Billboard Hot 100, becoming a major crossover Pop hit, reaching No. 14. It also peaked at the top spot on the adult contemporary chart and even reached the UK Singles Charts, peaking at No. 40. Both of Womack's daughters appeared in the song's accompanying video. Towards the end of 2000, "I Hope You Dance" won the Country Music Association's "Song of the Year" and "Single of the Year" awards. With the Pop success of "I Hope You Dance," Womack drew the attention of the magazines People and Time, both of which praised the single, calling it "one of her best." The song later won awards in 2001 from the Grammy and Academy of Country music awards. The album of the same name has sold 3 million copies in the United States to date. The album's follow-up single, a cover of Rodney Crowell's "Ashes by Now" peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard Country Chart. The third single, "Why They Call it Falling" was also successful, reaching the country Top 15.
On December 11, 2000, Womack performed "I Hope You Dance" at the annual Nobel Peace Prize concert.
In 2002, Womack's fourth studio album, Something Worth Leaving Behind was released. The album made a stronger attempt at a pop-flavored style, however it did not react well, leading to poor record sales and only one major hit. Following its release, Womack's career stalled. Later that year, she released a Christmas album, The Season for Romance and also collaborated with Willie Nelson on his single, "Mendocino County Line," which won a Grammy and Country Music award in 2002. In early 2003, she got a small recurring role on the popular CBS drama The District.
Womack sang the theme song for the 2003 series The Berenstain Bears.
In 2004, Womack performed "I Hope You Dance" at the Republican National Convention, in which George W. Bush was nominated for his second term as President of the United States. The other performers that night included Sara Evans and Larry Gatlin. She also collaborated with Red Dirt Music band Cross Canadian Ragweed on their hit "Sick and Tired" in 2004. Also that year, she also released her first Greatest Hits album, which included two new songs; "The Wrong Girl" (the only song from the album released as a single) and "Time for Me to Go."
There's More Where That Came From and hiatus: 2005–2008
In 2005, she released her fifth studio album aimed at traditional country music entitled There's More Where That Came From.
Many people in the music industry called the album, "a return to tradition," featuring songs about drinking and cheating with a distinctive older country twang, mixing strings and steel guitar. The album won the Country Music Association's "Album of the Year" award in 2005.<ref name="book">{{cite book|title=Will the Circle Be Unbroken: Country Music in America|editor=Alanna Nash and Paul Kingsbury|publisher=DK Publishing, Inc|location=New York, NY|year=2006|page=349|chapter=Ch. 12: Pocketful of Gold}}</ref> Womack took inspiration from the records of the 1960s and 1970s, and according to Allmusic, the album sounded like albums by Loretta Lynn, Barbara Mandrell, and Dolly Parton from the 1970s. They also called it one of her best records. The lead single, "I May Hate Myself in the Morning" was a Top 10 hit in 2005, and also won "Single of the Year" by the CMA awards later that year. Two additional singles were released from the album in 2005 that became minor hits, "He Oughta Know That by Now" and "Twenty Years and Two Husbands Ago." The album was released on vinyl LP as well as CD.
Womack can be heard on the track "If I Could Only Fly" from Joe Nichols' album Real Things. Womack has also appeared on specials on the CMT network, including their "100 Greatest Duets", which featured Womack singing a duet with Kenny Rogers, "Every Time Two Fools Collide". The song had been originally recorded by Rogers and Dottie West in 1978 and was a No. 1 Country hit that year. Womack took the place of West during that show since West had died in a serious car accident in September 1991. Womack's other honors includes being listed at No. 17 on CMT's 2002 special of their countdown of the 40 Greatest Women of Country Music.
In 2006, Womack announced plans of a sixth studio album off of Mercury Nashville Records. The lead single, "Finding My Way Back Home" was released in the late summer of that year and debuted at No. 46 on the Billboard Country Chart. The single later peaked at No. 37 and was rescheduled into 2007, because Womack found more songs that she wanted to record, however it was never released and Womack left Mercury.
In 2008, Womack announced plans for a new single for the first time in three years, once again on MCA Nashville. "Last Call" was released on June 30, 2008. It served as the lead-off single to Womack's seventh studio album, Call Me Crazy, which was released on October 21, 2008. The album, released on vinyl and CD, was produced by Tony Brown, has been described as a dark album with plenty of songs about drinking and losing love. It featured a duet with George Strait titled "Everything But Quits," a re-recording of the Strait song "The King of Broken Hearts," which first appeared on the Pure Country soundtrack. One track, "The Bees," features vocals from Keith Urban.
In October 2009, Womack released "There Is a God", as the lead-off single to her upcoming seventh studio album which never surfaced. The song debuted at No. 60 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart for the week of November 14, 2009, eventually peaking at No. 32 in early 2010. Womack has revealed a few of the tracks that she has recorded for the album, including: "Talking Behind Your Back", as well as "You Do Until You Don't".
In October 2010, Womack contributed the new track "Liars Lie" to the soundtrack for the film Country Strong. Womack also contributed guest vocals to Alan Jackson's cover of the song "Ring of Fire", which was released in December 2010 as a single from his compilation album, 34 Number Ones. His version of the song was a minor hit, charting to number 45 on the Hot Country Songs charts. Though Womack is featured on the song, she was not given credit on the charts.
In August 2012, Womack parted ways with MCA Nashville.
Americana transition, return to music, and subsequent material loss: 2014–present
In April 2014, Womack signed with Sugar Hill Records. Her first album for the label, The Way I'm Livin', was released September 23, 2014. Critics cheered the progressive traditionalist's return. In addition to a four out of four star review in USA Today, Rolling Stone proclaimed Livin' "feels like something Merle Haggard or Waylon Jennings would have crafted back in the Seventies," Spin deemed it "the best of her career" and Garden & Gun offered, "Nashville is filled with artists making 'the record they were born to make.' With Livin', Womack is one of the few who actually deliver."
"Livin'" was the only country album to make Esquire magazine's Top Albums of 2014 list. It was nominated for two 2015 Grammy Awards for Best Country Album and for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical. Womack also received two Americana Music Awards nominations for Album of the Year and Artist of the Year and her first CMA Female Vocalist of the Year nomination in ten years.
On September 26, 2014, Womack collaborated with American R&B singer John Legend for an episode of CMT Crossroads. Ahead of her 2015 tour in support of The Way I'm Livin', Womack appeared at the C2C: Country to Country festival in the UK.
On August 15, 2017, Womack announced her new album The Lonely, the Lonesome & the Gone due on October 27 on ATO Records.
Lee Ann Womack was among hundreds of artists whose material was destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.
Personal life
At Belmont University, Womack met and married singer-songwriter Jason Sellers in 1990; they divorced in 1996. Together they had a daughter named Aubrie Sellers (b. February 1991). Womack gave birth to her second daughter, Anna Lise Liddell, in January 1999 after marrying record producer Frank Liddell.
Discography
Studio albums
Lee Ann Womack (1997)
Some Things I Know (1998)
I Hope You Dance (2000)
Something Worth Leaving Behind (2002)
The Season for Romance (2002)
There's More Where That Came From (2005)
Call Me Crazy (2008)
The Way I'm Livin' (2014)
The Lonely, the Lonesome & the Gone'' (2017)
Awards and nominations
To date, Lee Ann Womack has won 6 CMA Awards (from 17 nominations), 5 ACM Awards (from 16 nominations) and 1 Grammy (from 14 nominations).
Television appearances
Filmography
References
External links
1966 births
20th-century American guitarists
20th-century American singers
20th-century American women guitarists
20th-century American women singers
21st-century American singers
21st-century American women singers
American country singer-songwriters
American country guitarists
American women country singers
American women guitarists
ATO Records artists
Belmont University alumni
Country musicians from Tennessee
Country musicians from Texas
Decca Records artists
Grammy Award winners
Living people
MCA Records artists
Mercury Records artists
People from Jacksonville, Texas
Sugar Hill Records artists
Singers from Nashville, Tennessee
Singer-songwriters from Texas
South Plains College alumni
Tennessee Republicans
Texas Republicans
Singer-songwriters from Tennessee
| 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"
] |
[
"Lee Ann Womack",
"Pop crossover success: 2000-2004",
"what happened in 2000?",
"She released her third studio album in 2000 entitled, I Hope You Dance, which was met with major success.",
"did it make the charts?",
"The title track (which was released as the lead single), reached No. 1 on the Billboard Country chart for five weeks",
"did she win any awards?",
"\"I Hope You Dance\" won the Country Music Association's \"Song of the Year\" and \"Single of the Year\" awards.",
"what was her greatest accomplishement?",
"People and Time, both of which praised the single, calling it \"one of her best.\" The song later won awards in 2001 from the Grammy and Academy of Country",
"what is the most important fact stated in this article?",
"In 2004, Womack performed \"I Hope You Dance\" at the Republican National Convention, in which George W. Bush was nominated for his second term",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"In 2002, Womack's fourth studio album, Something Worth Leaving Behind was released."
] |
C_16b1c11efc9144a0b7d487e3b8ea4159_0
|
how did the fourth studio album do?
| 7 |
how did Lee Ann Womack's 2002 fourth studio album do?
|
Lee Ann Womack
|
She released her third studio album in 2000 entitled, I Hope You Dance, which was met with major success. The title track (which was released as the lead single), reached No. 1 on the Billboard Country chart for five weeks and crossed over to the Billboard Hot 100, becoming a major crossover Pop hit, reaching No. 14. It also peaked at the top spot on the adult contemporary chart and even reached the UK Singles Charts, peaking at No. 40. Both of Womack's daughters appeared in the song's video that year. Towards the end of 2000, "I Hope You Dance" won the Country Music Association's "Song of the Year" and "Single of the Year" awards. With the Pop success of "I Hope You Dance," Womack drew the attention of the magazines People and Time, both of which praised the single, calling it "one of her best." The song later won awards in 2001 from the Grammy and Academy of Country music awards. The album of the same name has sold 3 million copies in the United States to date. The album's follow-up single, a cover of Rodney Crowell's "Ashes by Now" peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard Country Chart. The third single, "Why They Call it Falling" was also successful, reaching the country Top 15. On December 11, 2000, Womack performed "I Hope You Dance" at the annual Nobel Peace Prize concert. This song was also featured in the 2008 Tyler Perry film entitled "The Family that Preys." In 2002, Womack's fourth studio album, Something Worth Leaving Behind was released. The album made a stronger attempt at a pop-flavored style, however it did not react well, leading to poor record sales and only one major hit. Following its release, Womack's career stalled. Later that year, she released a Christmas album, The Season for Romance and also collaborated with Willie Nelson on his single, "Mendocino County Line," which won a Grammy and Country Music award in 2002. In early 2003, she got a small recurring role on the popular CBS drama, The District. In 2004, Womack performed "I Hope You Dance" at the Republican National Convention, in which George W. Bush was nominated for his second term as President of the United States. The other performers that night included Sara Evans and Larry Gatlin. She also collaborated with Red Dirt Music band Cross Canadian Ragweed on their hit "Sick and Tired" in 2004. Also that year, she also released her first Greatest Hits album, which included two new songs; "The Wrong Girl" (the only song from the album released as a single) and "Time for Me to Go." CANNOTANSWER
|
however it did not react well, leading to poor record sales and only one major hit.
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Lee Ann Womack (; born August 19, 1966) is an American country music singer, songwriter, and musician. Her 2000 single, "I Hope You Dance" was a major crossover music hit, reaching No. 1 on the Billboard Country Chart and the Top 15 of the Billboard Hot 100, becoming her signature song.
When Womack emerged as a contemporary country artist in 1997, her material resembled that of Dolly Parton and Tammy Wynette, except for the way Womack's music mixed an old-fashioned style with contemporary elements. Her 2000 album I Hope You Dance had an entirely different sound, using pop music elements instead of traditional country. It was not until the release of There's More Where That Came From in 2005 that Womack returned to recording traditional country music. After a hiatus in 2008, Womack returned in 2014 with a new album (The Way I'm Livin') and a new sound which blended country and Americana.
Womack has released a total of nine studio albums and two compilations. Four of her studio albums have received a Gold certification or higher by the Recording Industry Association of America. Additionally, she has received five Academy of Country Music Awards, six Country Music Association Awards, and a Grammy Award. She has sold over 6 million albums worldwide. Womack is married to record producer Frank Liddell, and was previously married to songwriter and musician Jason Sellers; her daughter with the latter, Aubrie Sellers, is also a country music artist.
Early life
Womack was born and raised in Jacksonville, Texas. At an early age she was interested in country music. Her father, a disc jockey, often took his daughter to work with him to help choose records to play on the air. Womack was the second of two daughters. Her mother was a schoolteacher and her father was also a high school principal. As a child, Womack studied the piano and later graduated from Jacksonville High School in 1984. After graduating, Womack attended South Plains Junior College in Levelland, Texas. The college was one of the first in the nation to offer country music degrees, and soon she became a member of the college band, Country Caravan. A year later, she left the college and after an agreement with her parents, Womack enrolled at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, where she studied the commercial aspect of the music business. In Nashville, she interned at the A&R department of MCA Records. She studied at the college until 1990, leaving the school a year before graduation.
Womack spent a few years raising her children before reentering the music business in the mid 1990s. In 1995 she began performing her music in songwriting demos and at showcase concerts. At one of these showcase concerts, she was spotted by Tree Publishing, who signed her after listening to one of her original demo recordings. Womack wrote songs with some popular Nashville songwriters, including Bill Anderson and Ricky Skaggs, who recorded her composition, "I Don't Remember Forgetting" for one of his albums. After divorcing her first husband around that time, Womack decided to pursue a career as a country music artist. She auditioned for MCA chairman, Bruce Hinton, who praised her talents. Shortly afterward, she accepted a contract from MCA's sister record company, Decca Nashville in 1996.
Music career
Country music stardom: 1997–1999
Womack released her self-titled debut album in May 1997, produced by Mark Wright. The album consisted of self-penned material as well as songs written by other artists, including Mark Chesnutt, Ricky Skaggs, and Sharon White. The first single, "Never Again, Again" made the country charts and playlists by March 1997, which led to the release of the album's second single, "The Fool" shortly afterward. More successful than her first single, "The Fool" reached the Top 5 on the Billboard Country chart that year. That year she won major awards from the country music community; Top New Female Vocalist from the Academy of Country Music Awards, Top Artist of the Year from Billboard Magazine, and was nominated for the Horizon award by the Country Music Association. Decca Nashville decided to close its doors in 1998, moving Womack to MCA Nashville Records that year.
In 1998, Womack released her second studio album, Some Things I Know, which was also produced by Wright.
The album's first two singles, "A Little Past Little Rock" and "I'll Think of a Reason Later" both went to No. 2 on the Billboard Country Chart. Two additional singles, "(Now You See Me) Now You Don't" and "Don't Tell Me" were released in 1999, and the album was certified Gold by the RIAA soon after.
That year, she also won Favorite Country New Artist from the American Music Awards. Womack also contributed her vocals to the songs "If You're Ever Down in Dallas" and "The Man Who Made Mama Cry" in collaboration with her ex-husband and musician, Jason Sellers. The material was promoted through shows through October to November before the birth of Womack's second child in January 1999.
Pop crossover success: 2000–2004
Womack released her third studio album in 2000 entitled I Hope You Dance which met with major success. The title track (which was released as the lead single), reached No. 1 on the Billboard Country chart for five weeks and crossed over to the Billboard Hot 100, becoming a major crossover Pop hit, reaching No. 14. It also peaked at the top spot on the adult contemporary chart and even reached the UK Singles Charts, peaking at No. 40. Both of Womack's daughters appeared in the song's accompanying video. Towards the end of 2000, "I Hope You Dance" won the Country Music Association's "Song of the Year" and "Single of the Year" awards. With the Pop success of "I Hope You Dance," Womack drew the attention of the magazines People and Time, both of which praised the single, calling it "one of her best." The song later won awards in 2001 from the Grammy and Academy of Country music awards. The album of the same name has sold 3 million copies in the United States to date. The album's follow-up single, a cover of Rodney Crowell's "Ashes by Now" peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard Country Chart. The third single, "Why They Call it Falling" was also successful, reaching the country Top 15.
On December 11, 2000, Womack performed "I Hope You Dance" at the annual Nobel Peace Prize concert.
In 2002, Womack's fourth studio album, Something Worth Leaving Behind was released. The album made a stronger attempt at a pop-flavored style, however it did not react well, leading to poor record sales and only one major hit. Following its release, Womack's career stalled. Later that year, she released a Christmas album, The Season for Romance and also collaborated with Willie Nelson on his single, "Mendocino County Line," which won a Grammy and Country Music award in 2002. In early 2003, she got a small recurring role on the popular CBS drama The District.
Womack sang the theme song for the 2003 series The Berenstain Bears.
In 2004, Womack performed "I Hope You Dance" at the Republican National Convention, in which George W. Bush was nominated for his second term as President of the United States. The other performers that night included Sara Evans and Larry Gatlin. She also collaborated with Red Dirt Music band Cross Canadian Ragweed on their hit "Sick and Tired" in 2004. Also that year, she also released her first Greatest Hits album, which included two new songs; "The Wrong Girl" (the only song from the album released as a single) and "Time for Me to Go."
There's More Where That Came From and hiatus: 2005–2008
In 2005, she released her fifth studio album aimed at traditional country music entitled There's More Where That Came From.
Many people in the music industry called the album, "a return to tradition," featuring songs about drinking and cheating with a distinctive older country twang, mixing strings and steel guitar. The album won the Country Music Association's "Album of the Year" award in 2005.<ref name="book">{{cite book|title=Will the Circle Be Unbroken: Country Music in America|editor=Alanna Nash and Paul Kingsbury|publisher=DK Publishing, Inc|location=New York, NY|year=2006|page=349|chapter=Ch. 12: Pocketful of Gold}}</ref> Womack took inspiration from the records of the 1960s and 1970s, and according to Allmusic, the album sounded like albums by Loretta Lynn, Barbara Mandrell, and Dolly Parton from the 1970s. They also called it one of her best records. The lead single, "I May Hate Myself in the Morning" was a Top 10 hit in 2005, and also won "Single of the Year" by the CMA awards later that year. Two additional singles were released from the album in 2005 that became minor hits, "He Oughta Know That by Now" and "Twenty Years and Two Husbands Ago." The album was released on vinyl LP as well as CD.
Womack can be heard on the track "If I Could Only Fly" from Joe Nichols' album Real Things. Womack has also appeared on specials on the CMT network, including their "100 Greatest Duets", which featured Womack singing a duet with Kenny Rogers, "Every Time Two Fools Collide". The song had been originally recorded by Rogers and Dottie West in 1978 and was a No. 1 Country hit that year. Womack took the place of West during that show since West had died in a serious car accident in September 1991. Womack's other honors includes being listed at No. 17 on CMT's 2002 special of their countdown of the 40 Greatest Women of Country Music.
In 2006, Womack announced plans of a sixth studio album off of Mercury Nashville Records. The lead single, "Finding My Way Back Home" was released in the late summer of that year and debuted at No. 46 on the Billboard Country Chart. The single later peaked at No. 37 and was rescheduled into 2007, because Womack found more songs that she wanted to record, however it was never released and Womack left Mercury.
In 2008, Womack announced plans for a new single for the first time in three years, once again on MCA Nashville. "Last Call" was released on June 30, 2008. It served as the lead-off single to Womack's seventh studio album, Call Me Crazy, which was released on October 21, 2008. The album, released on vinyl and CD, was produced by Tony Brown, has been described as a dark album with plenty of songs about drinking and losing love. It featured a duet with George Strait titled "Everything But Quits," a re-recording of the Strait song "The King of Broken Hearts," which first appeared on the Pure Country soundtrack. One track, "The Bees," features vocals from Keith Urban.
In October 2009, Womack released "There Is a God", as the lead-off single to her upcoming seventh studio album which never surfaced. The song debuted at No. 60 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart for the week of November 14, 2009, eventually peaking at No. 32 in early 2010. Womack has revealed a few of the tracks that she has recorded for the album, including: "Talking Behind Your Back", as well as "You Do Until You Don't".
In October 2010, Womack contributed the new track "Liars Lie" to the soundtrack for the film Country Strong. Womack also contributed guest vocals to Alan Jackson's cover of the song "Ring of Fire", which was released in December 2010 as a single from his compilation album, 34 Number Ones. His version of the song was a minor hit, charting to number 45 on the Hot Country Songs charts. Though Womack is featured on the song, she was not given credit on the charts.
In August 2012, Womack parted ways with MCA Nashville.
Americana transition, return to music, and subsequent material loss: 2014–present
In April 2014, Womack signed with Sugar Hill Records. Her first album for the label, The Way I'm Livin', was released September 23, 2014. Critics cheered the progressive traditionalist's return. In addition to a four out of four star review in USA Today, Rolling Stone proclaimed Livin' "feels like something Merle Haggard or Waylon Jennings would have crafted back in the Seventies," Spin deemed it "the best of her career" and Garden & Gun offered, "Nashville is filled with artists making 'the record they were born to make.' With Livin', Womack is one of the few who actually deliver."
"Livin'" was the only country album to make Esquire magazine's Top Albums of 2014 list. It was nominated for two 2015 Grammy Awards for Best Country Album and for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical. Womack also received two Americana Music Awards nominations for Album of the Year and Artist of the Year and her first CMA Female Vocalist of the Year nomination in ten years.
On September 26, 2014, Womack collaborated with American R&B singer John Legend for an episode of CMT Crossroads. Ahead of her 2015 tour in support of The Way I'm Livin', Womack appeared at the C2C: Country to Country festival in the UK.
On August 15, 2017, Womack announced her new album The Lonely, the Lonesome & the Gone due on October 27 on ATO Records.
Lee Ann Womack was among hundreds of artists whose material was destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.
Personal life
At Belmont University, Womack met and married singer-songwriter Jason Sellers in 1990; they divorced in 1996. Together they had a daughter named Aubrie Sellers (b. February 1991). Womack gave birth to her second daughter, Anna Lise Liddell, in January 1999 after marrying record producer Frank Liddell.
Discography
Studio albums
Lee Ann Womack (1997)
Some Things I Know (1998)
I Hope You Dance (2000)
Something Worth Leaving Behind (2002)
The Season for Romance (2002)
There's More Where That Came From (2005)
Call Me Crazy (2008)
The Way I'm Livin' (2014)
The Lonely, the Lonesome & the Gone'' (2017)
Awards and nominations
To date, Lee Ann Womack has won 6 CMA Awards (from 17 nominations), 5 ACM Awards (from 16 nominations) and 1 Grammy (from 14 nominations).
Television appearances
Filmography
References
External links
1966 births
20th-century American guitarists
20th-century American singers
20th-century American women guitarists
20th-century American women singers
21st-century American singers
21st-century American women singers
American country singer-songwriters
American country guitarists
American women country singers
American women guitarists
ATO Records artists
Belmont University alumni
Country musicians from Tennessee
Country musicians from Texas
Decca Records artists
Grammy Award winners
Living people
MCA Records artists
Mercury Records artists
People from Jacksonville, Texas
Sugar Hill Records artists
Singers from Nashville, Tennessee
Singer-songwriters from Texas
South Plains College alumni
Tennessee Republicans
Texas Republicans
Singer-songwriters from Tennessee
| true |
[
"H-Logic is the fourth studio album by South Korean singer Lee Hyori. It was released on April 12, 2010. The album has 14 tracks, including collaborations with Daesung from Big Bang, Jiyoon from 4Minute, Bekah from After School, Gary from Leessang, and Sangchu from Mighty Mouth. The singer worked also with E-Tribe, the team behind \"U-Go-Girl\", the lead single from her previous album.\n\nFollowing the album’s release, seven tracks from the album was revealed to be plagiarized by Bahnus Vacuum. After the controversy, Lee took a temporary hiatus until 2013.\n\nThe album sold 31,756 copies in 2010, making it the 46th best-selling Korean album in 2010.\nThe promotions ended after the outputs of the two singles \"Bring It Back\" and \"How Did We Get\".\n\nRelease \nLee’s comeback made their return with their fourth studio album, the titled album was called H-Logic which would be shortly released on April 12, 2010, the album’s showcase would be in it.\n\nSingles\n\nSwing\nLee performed Swing in the music video as their first single with Gary of Leessang.\n\nBring It Back\nLee performed Bring it Back at the MBC Countdown as their second single with Bekah (formerly After School) & Jiyoon of former member of 4Minute.\n\nChitty Chitty Bang Bang\nThe music video was released on April 7, 2011, Lee performed her third single at the M Countdown and MBC.\n\nHow Did We Get\nLee performed the fourth single of How Did We Get live on You Hee-yeol's Sketchbook featuring Daesung of Big Bang.\n\nPlagiarism \n\nSeven of the songs in the album, which were produced by Bahnus, were plagiarized.\n\nTrack listing\n\nRelease history\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n H-Logic : buy it on iTunes\n\n2010 albums\nLee Hyori albums\nAlbums involved in plagiarism controversies",
"\"Now\" is a song by American indie rock band Joywave. It was released as the fourth single from their debut studio album How Do You Feel Now? on July 24, 2015. It also appears on their second extended play How Do You Feel?. \"Now\" peaked at number 27 on the Billboard Alternative Songs chart.\n\nTrack listing\n\nCharts\n\nRelease history\n\nReferences\n\n2015 singles\n2013 songs\nHollywood Records singles"
] |
[
"Lee Ann Womack",
"Pop crossover success: 2000-2004",
"what happened in 2000?",
"She released her third studio album in 2000 entitled, I Hope You Dance, which was met with major success.",
"did it make the charts?",
"The title track (which was released as the lead single), reached No. 1 on the Billboard Country chart for five weeks",
"did she win any awards?",
"\"I Hope You Dance\" won the Country Music Association's \"Song of the Year\" and \"Single of the Year\" awards.",
"what was her greatest accomplishement?",
"People and Time, both of which praised the single, calling it \"one of her best.\" The song later won awards in 2001 from the Grammy and Academy of Country",
"what is the most important fact stated in this article?",
"In 2004, Womack performed \"I Hope You Dance\" at the Republican National Convention, in which George W. Bush was nominated for his second term",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"In 2002, Womack's fourth studio album, Something Worth Leaving Behind was released.",
"how did the fourth studio album do?",
"however it did not react well, leading to poor record sales and only one major hit."
] |
C_16b1c11efc9144a0b7d487e3b8ea4159_0
|
what was the one major hit?
| 8 |
what was the one major hit on Lee Ann Womack's album Something Worth Leaving Behind?
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Lee Ann Womack
|
She released her third studio album in 2000 entitled, I Hope You Dance, which was met with major success. The title track (which was released as the lead single), reached No. 1 on the Billboard Country chart for five weeks and crossed over to the Billboard Hot 100, becoming a major crossover Pop hit, reaching No. 14. It also peaked at the top spot on the adult contemporary chart and even reached the UK Singles Charts, peaking at No. 40. Both of Womack's daughters appeared in the song's video that year. Towards the end of 2000, "I Hope You Dance" won the Country Music Association's "Song of the Year" and "Single of the Year" awards. With the Pop success of "I Hope You Dance," Womack drew the attention of the magazines People and Time, both of which praised the single, calling it "one of her best." The song later won awards in 2001 from the Grammy and Academy of Country music awards. The album of the same name has sold 3 million copies in the United States to date. The album's follow-up single, a cover of Rodney Crowell's "Ashes by Now" peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard Country Chart. The third single, "Why They Call it Falling" was also successful, reaching the country Top 15. On December 11, 2000, Womack performed "I Hope You Dance" at the annual Nobel Peace Prize concert. This song was also featured in the 2008 Tyler Perry film entitled "The Family that Preys." In 2002, Womack's fourth studio album, Something Worth Leaving Behind was released. The album made a stronger attempt at a pop-flavored style, however it did not react well, leading to poor record sales and only one major hit. Following its release, Womack's career stalled. Later that year, she released a Christmas album, The Season for Romance and also collaborated with Willie Nelson on his single, "Mendocino County Line," which won a Grammy and Country Music award in 2002. In early 2003, she got a small recurring role on the popular CBS drama, The District. In 2004, Womack performed "I Hope You Dance" at the Republican National Convention, in which George W. Bush was nominated for his second term as President of the United States. The other performers that night included Sara Evans and Larry Gatlin. She also collaborated with Red Dirt Music band Cross Canadian Ragweed on their hit "Sick and Tired" in 2004. Also that year, she also released her first Greatest Hits album, which included two new songs; "The Wrong Girl" (the only song from the album released as a single) and "Time for Me to Go." CANNOTANSWER
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collaborated with Willie Nelson on his single, "Mendocino County Line," which won a Grammy and Country Music award in 2002.
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Lee Ann Womack (; born August 19, 1966) is an American country music singer, songwriter, and musician. Her 2000 single, "I Hope You Dance" was a major crossover music hit, reaching No. 1 on the Billboard Country Chart and the Top 15 of the Billboard Hot 100, becoming her signature song.
When Womack emerged as a contemporary country artist in 1997, her material resembled that of Dolly Parton and Tammy Wynette, except for the way Womack's music mixed an old-fashioned style with contemporary elements. Her 2000 album I Hope You Dance had an entirely different sound, using pop music elements instead of traditional country. It was not until the release of There's More Where That Came From in 2005 that Womack returned to recording traditional country music. After a hiatus in 2008, Womack returned in 2014 with a new album (The Way I'm Livin') and a new sound which blended country and Americana.
Womack has released a total of nine studio albums and two compilations. Four of her studio albums have received a Gold certification or higher by the Recording Industry Association of America. Additionally, she has received five Academy of Country Music Awards, six Country Music Association Awards, and a Grammy Award. She has sold over 6 million albums worldwide. Womack is married to record producer Frank Liddell, and was previously married to songwriter and musician Jason Sellers; her daughter with the latter, Aubrie Sellers, is also a country music artist.
Early life
Womack was born and raised in Jacksonville, Texas. At an early age she was interested in country music. Her father, a disc jockey, often took his daughter to work with him to help choose records to play on the air. Womack was the second of two daughters. Her mother was a schoolteacher and her father was also a high school principal. As a child, Womack studied the piano and later graduated from Jacksonville High School in 1984. After graduating, Womack attended South Plains Junior College in Levelland, Texas. The college was one of the first in the nation to offer country music degrees, and soon she became a member of the college band, Country Caravan. A year later, she left the college and after an agreement with her parents, Womack enrolled at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, where she studied the commercial aspect of the music business. In Nashville, she interned at the A&R department of MCA Records. She studied at the college until 1990, leaving the school a year before graduation.
Womack spent a few years raising her children before reentering the music business in the mid 1990s. In 1995 she began performing her music in songwriting demos and at showcase concerts. At one of these showcase concerts, she was spotted by Tree Publishing, who signed her after listening to one of her original demo recordings. Womack wrote songs with some popular Nashville songwriters, including Bill Anderson and Ricky Skaggs, who recorded her composition, "I Don't Remember Forgetting" for one of his albums. After divorcing her first husband around that time, Womack decided to pursue a career as a country music artist. She auditioned for MCA chairman, Bruce Hinton, who praised her talents. Shortly afterward, she accepted a contract from MCA's sister record company, Decca Nashville in 1996.
Music career
Country music stardom: 1997–1999
Womack released her self-titled debut album in May 1997, produced by Mark Wright. The album consisted of self-penned material as well as songs written by other artists, including Mark Chesnutt, Ricky Skaggs, and Sharon White. The first single, "Never Again, Again" made the country charts and playlists by March 1997, which led to the release of the album's second single, "The Fool" shortly afterward. More successful than her first single, "The Fool" reached the Top 5 on the Billboard Country chart that year. That year she won major awards from the country music community; Top New Female Vocalist from the Academy of Country Music Awards, Top Artist of the Year from Billboard Magazine, and was nominated for the Horizon award by the Country Music Association. Decca Nashville decided to close its doors in 1998, moving Womack to MCA Nashville Records that year.
In 1998, Womack released her second studio album, Some Things I Know, which was also produced by Wright.
The album's first two singles, "A Little Past Little Rock" and "I'll Think of a Reason Later" both went to No. 2 on the Billboard Country Chart. Two additional singles, "(Now You See Me) Now You Don't" and "Don't Tell Me" were released in 1999, and the album was certified Gold by the RIAA soon after.
That year, she also won Favorite Country New Artist from the American Music Awards. Womack also contributed her vocals to the songs "If You're Ever Down in Dallas" and "The Man Who Made Mama Cry" in collaboration with her ex-husband and musician, Jason Sellers. The material was promoted through shows through October to November before the birth of Womack's second child in January 1999.
Pop crossover success: 2000–2004
Womack released her third studio album in 2000 entitled I Hope You Dance which met with major success. The title track (which was released as the lead single), reached No. 1 on the Billboard Country chart for five weeks and crossed over to the Billboard Hot 100, becoming a major crossover Pop hit, reaching No. 14. It also peaked at the top spot on the adult contemporary chart and even reached the UK Singles Charts, peaking at No. 40. Both of Womack's daughters appeared in the song's accompanying video. Towards the end of 2000, "I Hope You Dance" won the Country Music Association's "Song of the Year" and "Single of the Year" awards. With the Pop success of "I Hope You Dance," Womack drew the attention of the magazines People and Time, both of which praised the single, calling it "one of her best." The song later won awards in 2001 from the Grammy and Academy of Country music awards. The album of the same name has sold 3 million copies in the United States to date. The album's follow-up single, a cover of Rodney Crowell's "Ashes by Now" peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard Country Chart. The third single, "Why They Call it Falling" was also successful, reaching the country Top 15.
On December 11, 2000, Womack performed "I Hope You Dance" at the annual Nobel Peace Prize concert.
In 2002, Womack's fourth studio album, Something Worth Leaving Behind was released. The album made a stronger attempt at a pop-flavored style, however it did not react well, leading to poor record sales and only one major hit. Following its release, Womack's career stalled. Later that year, she released a Christmas album, The Season for Romance and also collaborated with Willie Nelson on his single, "Mendocino County Line," which won a Grammy and Country Music award in 2002. In early 2003, she got a small recurring role on the popular CBS drama The District.
Womack sang the theme song for the 2003 series The Berenstain Bears.
In 2004, Womack performed "I Hope You Dance" at the Republican National Convention, in which George W. Bush was nominated for his second term as President of the United States. The other performers that night included Sara Evans and Larry Gatlin. She also collaborated with Red Dirt Music band Cross Canadian Ragweed on their hit "Sick and Tired" in 2004. Also that year, she also released her first Greatest Hits album, which included two new songs; "The Wrong Girl" (the only song from the album released as a single) and "Time for Me to Go."
There's More Where That Came From and hiatus: 2005–2008
In 2005, she released her fifth studio album aimed at traditional country music entitled There's More Where That Came From.
Many people in the music industry called the album, "a return to tradition," featuring songs about drinking and cheating with a distinctive older country twang, mixing strings and steel guitar. The album won the Country Music Association's "Album of the Year" award in 2005.<ref name="book">{{cite book|title=Will the Circle Be Unbroken: Country Music in America|editor=Alanna Nash and Paul Kingsbury|publisher=DK Publishing, Inc|location=New York, NY|year=2006|page=349|chapter=Ch. 12: Pocketful of Gold}}</ref> Womack took inspiration from the records of the 1960s and 1970s, and according to Allmusic, the album sounded like albums by Loretta Lynn, Barbara Mandrell, and Dolly Parton from the 1970s. They also called it one of her best records. The lead single, "I May Hate Myself in the Morning" was a Top 10 hit in 2005, and also won "Single of the Year" by the CMA awards later that year. Two additional singles were released from the album in 2005 that became minor hits, "He Oughta Know That by Now" and "Twenty Years and Two Husbands Ago." The album was released on vinyl LP as well as CD.
Womack can be heard on the track "If I Could Only Fly" from Joe Nichols' album Real Things. Womack has also appeared on specials on the CMT network, including their "100 Greatest Duets", which featured Womack singing a duet with Kenny Rogers, "Every Time Two Fools Collide". The song had been originally recorded by Rogers and Dottie West in 1978 and was a No. 1 Country hit that year. Womack took the place of West during that show since West had died in a serious car accident in September 1991. Womack's other honors includes being listed at No. 17 on CMT's 2002 special of their countdown of the 40 Greatest Women of Country Music.
In 2006, Womack announced plans of a sixth studio album off of Mercury Nashville Records. The lead single, "Finding My Way Back Home" was released in the late summer of that year and debuted at No. 46 on the Billboard Country Chart. The single later peaked at No. 37 and was rescheduled into 2007, because Womack found more songs that she wanted to record, however it was never released and Womack left Mercury.
In 2008, Womack announced plans for a new single for the first time in three years, once again on MCA Nashville. "Last Call" was released on June 30, 2008. It served as the lead-off single to Womack's seventh studio album, Call Me Crazy, which was released on October 21, 2008. The album, released on vinyl and CD, was produced by Tony Brown, has been described as a dark album with plenty of songs about drinking and losing love. It featured a duet with George Strait titled "Everything But Quits," a re-recording of the Strait song "The King of Broken Hearts," which first appeared on the Pure Country soundtrack. One track, "The Bees," features vocals from Keith Urban.
In October 2009, Womack released "There Is a God", as the lead-off single to her upcoming seventh studio album which never surfaced. The song debuted at No. 60 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart for the week of November 14, 2009, eventually peaking at No. 32 in early 2010. Womack has revealed a few of the tracks that she has recorded for the album, including: "Talking Behind Your Back", as well as "You Do Until You Don't".
In October 2010, Womack contributed the new track "Liars Lie" to the soundtrack for the film Country Strong. Womack also contributed guest vocals to Alan Jackson's cover of the song "Ring of Fire", which was released in December 2010 as a single from his compilation album, 34 Number Ones. His version of the song was a minor hit, charting to number 45 on the Hot Country Songs charts. Though Womack is featured on the song, she was not given credit on the charts.
In August 2012, Womack parted ways with MCA Nashville.
Americana transition, return to music, and subsequent material loss: 2014–present
In April 2014, Womack signed with Sugar Hill Records. Her first album for the label, The Way I'm Livin', was released September 23, 2014. Critics cheered the progressive traditionalist's return. In addition to a four out of four star review in USA Today, Rolling Stone proclaimed Livin' "feels like something Merle Haggard or Waylon Jennings would have crafted back in the Seventies," Spin deemed it "the best of her career" and Garden & Gun offered, "Nashville is filled with artists making 'the record they were born to make.' With Livin', Womack is one of the few who actually deliver."
"Livin'" was the only country album to make Esquire magazine's Top Albums of 2014 list. It was nominated for two 2015 Grammy Awards for Best Country Album and for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical. Womack also received two Americana Music Awards nominations for Album of the Year and Artist of the Year and her first CMA Female Vocalist of the Year nomination in ten years.
On September 26, 2014, Womack collaborated with American R&B singer John Legend for an episode of CMT Crossroads. Ahead of her 2015 tour in support of The Way I'm Livin', Womack appeared at the C2C: Country to Country festival in the UK.
On August 15, 2017, Womack announced her new album The Lonely, the Lonesome & the Gone due on October 27 on ATO Records.
Lee Ann Womack was among hundreds of artists whose material was destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.
Personal life
At Belmont University, Womack met and married singer-songwriter Jason Sellers in 1990; they divorced in 1996. Together they had a daughter named Aubrie Sellers (b. February 1991). Womack gave birth to her second daughter, Anna Lise Liddell, in January 1999 after marrying record producer Frank Liddell.
Discography
Studio albums
Lee Ann Womack (1997)
Some Things I Know (1998)
I Hope You Dance (2000)
Something Worth Leaving Behind (2002)
The Season for Romance (2002)
There's More Where That Came From (2005)
Call Me Crazy (2008)
The Way I'm Livin' (2014)
The Lonely, the Lonesome & the Gone'' (2017)
Awards and nominations
To date, Lee Ann Womack has won 6 CMA Awards (from 17 nominations), 5 ACM Awards (from 16 nominations) and 1 Grammy (from 14 nominations).
Television appearances
Filmography
References
External links
1966 births
20th-century American guitarists
20th-century American singers
20th-century American women guitarists
20th-century American women singers
21st-century American singers
21st-century American women singers
American country singer-songwriters
American country guitarists
American women country singers
American women guitarists
ATO Records artists
Belmont University alumni
Country musicians from Tennessee
Country musicians from Texas
Decca Records artists
Grammy Award winners
Living people
MCA Records artists
Mercury Records artists
People from Jacksonville, Texas
Sugar Hill Records artists
Singers from Nashville, Tennessee
Singer-songwriters from Texas
South Plains College alumni
Tennessee Republicans
Texas Republicans
Singer-songwriters from Tennessee
| true |
[
"\"My Tears Are Overdue\" is a song by American country music artists George Jones. Composed by Freddy Hart, it was released as the B-side to \"You're Heart Turned Left (And I Was on the Right)\" and rose to #15 on the Billboard country singles chart. Although not a major hit, the song displays the virtuoso vocal talents that made the Texan one of the most respected singers in the business. Jones was so hot on the charts in the early 1960s that several of his B-sides charted, including \"Sometimes You Just Can't Win,\" \"Big Fool of the Year,\" and \"What's in Our Heart\" (a duet with Melba Montgomery), and even hit the bottom of the pop charts with \"Ain't It Funny What a Fool Will Do.\"\n\nChart performance\n\nReferences\n\n1964 songs\nGeorge Jones songs\nUnited Artists Records singles\nSong recordings produced by Pappy Daily",
"\"That's What Made Me Love You\" is a song written by Lawrence Shoberg. It was first recorded as a duet by American country artists Bill Anderson and Mary Lou Turner. It was released as a single in 1976 via MCA Records and became a major hit the same year.\n\nBackground and release\n\"That's What Made Me Love\" was recorded in September 1975 at Bradley's Barn, located in Mount Juliet, Tennessee. The session was produced by Owen Bradley. It would be one of Bradley's final sessions producing Anderson, whom he had been collaborating with since the 1950s.\n\n\"That's What Made Me Love You\" was released as a single by MCA Records in February 1979. The song spent 12 weeks on the Billboard Hot Country Singles before reaching number seven in May 1976. It was the pair's second top ten hit together and second to be spawned off the same studio album. In Canada, the single reached number two on the RPM Country Songs chart in 1976. It was first released on their 1976 studio album, Sometimes.\n\nTrack listings\n7\" vinyl single\n \"That's What Made Me Love You\" – 2:48\n \"Can We Still Be Friends\" – 2:49\n\nChart performance\n\nReferences\n\n1976 singles\n1976 songs\nBill Anderson (singer) songs\nMCA Records singles\nMary Lou Turner songs\nSong recordings produced by Owen Bradley\nVocal duets"
] |
[
"Lee Ann Womack",
"Pop crossover success: 2000-2004",
"what happened in 2000?",
"She released her third studio album in 2000 entitled, I Hope You Dance, which was met with major success.",
"did it make the charts?",
"The title track (which was released as the lead single), reached No. 1 on the Billboard Country chart for five weeks",
"did she win any awards?",
"\"I Hope You Dance\" won the Country Music Association's \"Song of the Year\" and \"Single of the Year\" awards.",
"what was her greatest accomplishement?",
"People and Time, both of which praised the single, calling it \"one of her best.\" The song later won awards in 2001 from the Grammy and Academy of Country",
"what is the most important fact stated in this article?",
"In 2004, Womack performed \"I Hope You Dance\" at the Republican National Convention, in which George W. Bush was nominated for his second term",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"In 2002, Womack's fourth studio album, Something Worth Leaving Behind was released.",
"how did the fourth studio album do?",
"however it did not react well, leading to poor record sales and only one major hit.",
"what was the one major hit?",
"collaborated with Willie Nelson on his single, \"Mendocino County Line,\" which won a Grammy and Country Music award in 2002."
] |
C_16b1c11efc9144a0b7d487e3b8ea4159_0
|
did she work with anyone else?
| 9 |
did Lee Ann Womack work with anyone else besides Willie Nelson?
|
Lee Ann Womack
|
She released her third studio album in 2000 entitled, I Hope You Dance, which was met with major success. The title track (which was released as the lead single), reached No. 1 on the Billboard Country chart for five weeks and crossed over to the Billboard Hot 100, becoming a major crossover Pop hit, reaching No. 14. It also peaked at the top spot on the adult contemporary chart and even reached the UK Singles Charts, peaking at No. 40. Both of Womack's daughters appeared in the song's video that year. Towards the end of 2000, "I Hope You Dance" won the Country Music Association's "Song of the Year" and "Single of the Year" awards. With the Pop success of "I Hope You Dance," Womack drew the attention of the magazines People and Time, both of which praised the single, calling it "one of her best." The song later won awards in 2001 from the Grammy and Academy of Country music awards. The album of the same name has sold 3 million copies in the United States to date. The album's follow-up single, a cover of Rodney Crowell's "Ashes by Now" peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard Country Chart. The third single, "Why They Call it Falling" was also successful, reaching the country Top 15. On December 11, 2000, Womack performed "I Hope You Dance" at the annual Nobel Peace Prize concert. This song was also featured in the 2008 Tyler Perry film entitled "The Family that Preys." In 2002, Womack's fourth studio album, Something Worth Leaving Behind was released. The album made a stronger attempt at a pop-flavored style, however it did not react well, leading to poor record sales and only one major hit. Following its release, Womack's career stalled. Later that year, she released a Christmas album, The Season for Romance and also collaborated with Willie Nelson on his single, "Mendocino County Line," which won a Grammy and Country Music award in 2002. In early 2003, she got a small recurring role on the popular CBS drama, The District. In 2004, Womack performed "I Hope You Dance" at the Republican National Convention, in which George W. Bush was nominated for his second term as President of the United States. The other performers that night included Sara Evans and Larry Gatlin. She also collaborated with Red Dirt Music band Cross Canadian Ragweed on their hit "Sick and Tired" in 2004. Also that year, she also released her first Greatest Hits album, which included two new songs; "The Wrong Girl" (the only song from the album released as a single) and "Time for Me to Go." CANNOTANSWER
|
She also collaborated with Red Dirt Music band Cross Canadian Ragweed on their hit "Sick and Tired" in 2004.
|
Lee Ann Womack (; born August 19, 1966) is an American country music singer, songwriter, and musician. Her 2000 single, "I Hope You Dance" was a major crossover music hit, reaching No. 1 on the Billboard Country Chart and the Top 15 of the Billboard Hot 100, becoming her signature song.
When Womack emerged as a contemporary country artist in 1997, her material resembled that of Dolly Parton and Tammy Wynette, except for the way Womack's music mixed an old-fashioned style with contemporary elements. Her 2000 album I Hope You Dance had an entirely different sound, using pop music elements instead of traditional country. It was not until the release of There's More Where That Came From in 2005 that Womack returned to recording traditional country music. After a hiatus in 2008, Womack returned in 2014 with a new album (The Way I'm Livin') and a new sound which blended country and Americana.
Womack has released a total of nine studio albums and two compilations. Four of her studio albums have received a Gold certification or higher by the Recording Industry Association of America. Additionally, she has received five Academy of Country Music Awards, six Country Music Association Awards, and a Grammy Award. She has sold over 6 million albums worldwide. Womack is married to record producer Frank Liddell, and was previously married to songwriter and musician Jason Sellers; her daughter with the latter, Aubrie Sellers, is also a country music artist.
Early life
Womack was born and raised in Jacksonville, Texas. At an early age she was interested in country music. Her father, a disc jockey, often took his daughter to work with him to help choose records to play on the air. Womack was the second of two daughters. Her mother was a schoolteacher and her father was also a high school principal. As a child, Womack studied the piano and later graduated from Jacksonville High School in 1984. After graduating, Womack attended South Plains Junior College in Levelland, Texas. The college was one of the first in the nation to offer country music degrees, and soon she became a member of the college band, Country Caravan. A year later, she left the college and after an agreement with her parents, Womack enrolled at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, where she studied the commercial aspect of the music business. In Nashville, she interned at the A&R department of MCA Records. She studied at the college until 1990, leaving the school a year before graduation.
Womack spent a few years raising her children before reentering the music business in the mid 1990s. In 1995 she began performing her music in songwriting demos and at showcase concerts. At one of these showcase concerts, she was spotted by Tree Publishing, who signed her after listening to one of her original demo recordings. Womack wrote songs with some popular Nashville songwriters, including Bill Anderson and Ricky Skaggs, who recorded her composition, "I Don't Remember Forgetting" for one of his albums. After divorcing her first husband around that time, Womack decided to pursue a career as a country music artist. She auditioned for MCA chairman, Bruce Hinton, who praised her talents. Shortly afterward, she accepted a contract from MCA's sister record company, Decca Nashville in 1996.
Music career
Country music stardom: 1997–1999
Womack released her self-titled debut album in May 1997, produced by Mark Wright. The album consisted of self-penned material as well as songs written by other artists, including Mark Chesnutt, Ricky Skaggs, and Sharon White. The first single, "Never Again, Again" made the country charts and playlists by March 1997, which led to the release of the album's second single, "The Fool" shortly afterward. More successful than her first single, "The Fool" reached the Top 5 on the Billboard Country chart that year. That year she won major awards from the country music community; Top New Female Vocalist from the Academy of Country Music Awards, Top Artist of the Year from Billboard Magazine, and was nominated for the Horizon award by the Country Music Association. Decca Nashville decided to close its doors in 1998, moving Womack to MCA Nashville Records that year.
In 1998, Womack released her second studio album, Some Things I Know, which was also produced by Wright.
The album's first two singles, "A Little Past Little Rock" and "I'll Think of a Reason Later" both went to No. 2 on the Billboard Country Chart. Two additional singles, "(Now You See Me) Now You Don't" and "Don't Tell Me" were released in 1999, and the album was certified Gold by the RIAA soon after.
That year, she also won Favorite Country New Artist from the American Music Awards. Womack also contributed her vocals to the songs "If You're Ever Down in Dallas" and "The Man Who Made Mama Cry" in collaboration with her ex-husband and musician, Jason Sellers. The material was promoted through shows through October to November before the birth of Womack's second child in January 1999.
Pop crossover success: 2000–2004
Womack released her third studio album in 2000 entitled I Hope You Dance which met with major success. The title track (which was released as the lead single), reached No. 1 on the Billboard Country chart for five weeks and crossed over to the Billboard Hot 100, becoming a major crossover Pop hit, reaching No. 14. It also peaked at the top spot on the adult contemporary chart and even reached the UK Singles Charts, peaking at No. 40. Both of Womack's daughters appeared in the song's accompanying video. Towards the end of 2000, "I Hope You Dance" won the Country Music Association's "Song of the Year" and "Single of the Year" awards. With the Pop success of "I Hope You Dance," Womack drew the attention of the magazines People and Time, both of which praised the single, calling it "one of her best." The song later won awards in 2001 from the Grammy and Academy of Country music awards. The album of the same name has sold 3 million copies in the United States to date. The album's follow-up single, a cover of Rodney Crowell's "Ashes by Now" peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard Country Chart. The third single, "Why They Call it Falling" was also successful, reaching the country Top 15.
On December 11, 2000, Womack performed "I Hope You Dance" at the annual Nobel Peace Prize concert.
In 2002, Womack's fourth studio album, Something Worth Leaving Behind was released. The album made a stronger attempt at a pop-flavored style, however it did not react well, leading to poor record sales and only one major hit. Following its release, Womack's career stalled. Later that year, she released a Christmas album, The Season for Romance and also collaborated with Willie Nelson on his single, "Mendocino County Line," which won a Grammy and Country Music award in 2002. In early 2003, she got a small recurring role on the popular CBS drama The District.
Womack sang the theme song for the 2003 series The Berenstain Bears.
In 2004, Womack performed "I Hope You Dance" at the Republican National Convention, in which George W. Bush was nominated for his second term as President of the United States. The other performers that night included Sara Evans and Larry Gatlin. She also collaborated with Red Dirt Music band Cross Canadian Ragweed on their hit "Sick and Tired" in 2004. Also that year, she also released her first Greatest Hits album, which included two new songs; "The Wrong Girl" (the only song from the album released as a single) and "Time for Me to Go."
There's More Where That Came From and hiatus: 2005–2008
In 2005, she released her fifth studio album aimed at traditional country music entitled There's More Where That Came From.
Many people in the music industry called the album, "a return to tradition," featuring songs about drinking and cheating with a distinctive older country twang, mixing strings and steel guitar. The album won the Country Music Association's "Album of the Year" award in 2005.<ref name="book">{{cite book|title=Will the Circle Be Unbroken: Country Music in America|editor=Alanna Nash and Paul Kingsbury|publisher=DK Publishing, Inc|location=New York, NY|year=2006|page=349|chapter=Ch. 12: Pocketful of Gold}}</ref> Womack took inspiration from the records of the 1960s and 1970s, and according to Allmusic, the album sounded like albums by Loretta Lynn, Barbara Mandrell, and Dolly Parton from the 1970s. They also called it one of her best records. The lead single, "I May Hate Myself in the Morning" was a Top 10 hit in 2005, and also won "Single of the Year" by the CMA awards later that year. Two additional singles were released from the album in 2005 that became minor hits, "He Oughta Know That by Now" and "Twenty Years and Two Husbands Ago." The album was released on vinyl LP as well as CD.
Womack can be heard on the track "If I Could Only Fly" from Joe Nichols' album Real Things. Womack has also appeared on specials on the CMT network, including their "100 Greatest Duets", which featured Womack singing a duet with Kenny Rogers, "Every Time Two Fools Collide". The song had been originally recorded by Rogers and Dottie West in 1978 and was a No. 1 Country hit that year. Womack took the place of West during that show since West had died in a serious car accident in September 1991. Womack's other honors includes being listed at No. 17 on CMT's 2002 special of their countdown of the 40 Greatest Women of Country Music.
In 2006, Womack announced plans of a sixth studio album off of Mercury Nashville Records. The lead single, "Finding My Way Back Home" was released in the late summer of that year and debuted at No. 46 on the Billboard Country Chart. The single later peaked at No. 37 and was rescheduled into 2007, because Womack found more songs that she wanted to record, however it was never released and Womack left Mercury.
In 2008, Womack announced plans for a new single for the first time in three years, once again on MCA Nashville. "Last Call" was released on June 30, 2008. It served as the lead-off single to Womack's seventh studio album, Call Me Crazy, which was released on October 21, 2008. The album, released on vinyl and CD, was produced by Tony Brown, has been described as a dark album with plenty of songs about drinking and losing love. It featured a duet with George Strait titled "Everything But Quits," a re-recording of the Strait song "The King of Broken Hearts," which first appeared on the Pure Country soundtrack. One track, "The Bees," features vocals from Keith Urban.
In October 2009, Womack released "There Is a God", as the lead-off single to her upcoming seventh studio album which never surfaced. The song debuted at No. 60 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart for the week of November 14, 2009, eventually peaking at No. 32 in early 2010. Womack has revealed a few of the tracks that she has recorded for the album, including: "Talking Behind Your Back", as well as "You Do Until You Don't".
In October 2010, Womack contributed the new track "Liars Lie" to the soundtrack for the film Country Strong. Womack also contributed guest vocals to Alan Jackson's cover of the song "Ring of Fire", which was released in December 2010 as a single from his compilation album, 34 Number Ones. His version of the song was a minor hit, charting to number 45 on the Hot Country Songs charts. Though Womack is featured on the song, she was not given credit on the charts.
In August 2012, Womack parted ways with MCA Nashville.
Americana transition, return to music, and subsequent material loss: 2014–present
In April 2014, Womack signed with Sugar Hill Records. Her first album for the label, The Way I'm Livin', was released September 23, 2014. Critics cheered the progressive traditionalist's return. In addition to a four out of four star review in USA Today, Rolling Stone proclaimed Livin' "feels like something Merle Haggard or Waylon Jennings would have crafted back in the Seventies," Spin deemed it "the best of her career" and Garden & Gun offered, "Nashville is filled with artists making 'the record they were born to make.' With Livin', Womack is one of the few who actually deliver."
"Livin'" was the only country album to make Esquire magazine's Top Albums of 2014 list. It was nominated for two 2015 Grammy Awards for Best Country Album and for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical. Womack also received two Americana Music Awards nominations for Album of the Year and Artist of the Year and her first CMA Female Vocalist of the Year nomination in ten years.
On September 26, 2014, Womack collaborated with American R&B singer John Legend for an episode of CMT Crossroads. Ahead of her 2015 tour in support of The Way I'm Livin', Womack appeared at the C2C: Country to Country festival in the UK.
On August 15, 2017, Womack announced her new album The Lonely, the Lonesome & the Gone due on October 27 on ATO Records.
Lee Ann Womack was among hundreds of artists whose material was destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.
Personal life
At Belmont University, Womack met and married singer-songwriter Jason Sellers in 1990; they divorced in 1996. Together they had a daughter named Aubrie Sellers (b. February 1991). Womack gave birth to her second daughter, Anna Lise Liddell, in January 1999 after marrying record producer Frank Liddell.
Discography
Studio albums
Lee Ann Womack (1997)
Some Things I Know (1998)
I Hope You Dance (2000)
Something Worth Leaving Behind (2002)
The Season for Romance (2002)
There's More Where That Came From (2005)
Call Me Crazy (2008)
The Way I'm Livin' (2014)
The Lonely, the Lonesome & the Gone'' (2017)
Awards and nominations
To date, Lee Ann Womack has won 6 CMA Awards (from 17 nominations), 5 ACM Awards (from 16 nominations) and 1 Grammy (from 14 nominations).
Television appearances
Filmography
References
External links
1966 births
20th-century American guitarists
20th-century American singers
20th-century American women guitarists
20th-century American women singers
21st-century American singers
21st-century American women singers
American country singer-songwriters
American country guitarists
American women country singers
American women guitarists
ATO Records artists
Belmont University alumni
Country musicians from Tennessee
Country musicians from Texas
Decca Records artists
Grammy Award winners
Living people
MCA Records artists
Mercury Records artists
People from Jacksonville, Texas
Sugar Hill Records artists
Singers from Nashville, Tennessee
Singer-songwriters from Texas
South Plains College alumni
Tennessee Republicans
Texas Republicans
Singer-songwriters from Tennessee
| true |
[
"Ruwida El-Hubti (born 16 April 1989) is an Olympic athlete from Libya. At the 2004 Summer Olympics, she competed in the Women's 400 metres. She finished last in her heat with a time of 1:03.57, almost 11 seconds slower than anyone else in the heat, and the slowest of anyone in the competition. However, she did set a national record.\n\nReferences\n\n1989 births\nLiving people\nOlympic athletes of Libya\nAthletes (track and field) at the 2004 Summer Olympics",
"Helen Corke (1882–1978) was an English writer and schoolteacher. She wrote economic and political histories, poetry and several biographies of writer D. H. Lawrence, whom she was an intimate friend of while they both taught in Croydon.\n\nLife and career\nCorke was born in Hastings to Congregationalist parents. Her father was a grocer. She became acquainted with D. H. Lawrence in 1908 while they were both teaching in Croydon. When they met, Corke was grieving the suicide of Herbert Macartney, a married music teacher and violinist. Corke had spent a five-day holiday with Macartney on the Isle of Wight the previous summer. Two days after their return to London, Macartney killed himself. In order to deal with her grief, Corke wrote an extensive diary of the experience. The name of the diary she wrote was The Freshwater Diary. Corke didn't feel comfortable sharing her story with anyone, but Lawrence was different. She believed he could understand her grief and writing better than anyone else could. The diary served as the inspiration for Lawrence's second novel The Trespasser. Lawrence believed that Corke should publish her work, so she did in 1933. She called this book Neutral Ground. She also helped Lawrence correct the proofs of The White Peacock. She became a close friend of Lawrence's lover Jessie Chambers, the inspiration for the character of Miriam in Sons and Lovers, and later published a memoir about her entitled D.H. Lawrence's Princess. Well into her 90s, she wrote an autobiographical work In Our Infancy which won the 1975 Whitbread Award.\n\nBibliography\n\nMemoir\n Lawrence & Apocalypse (1933)\n D.H. Lawrence's 'Princess.' A Memory of Jessie Chambers (1951)\n D.H. Lawrence: the Croydon years (1965)\nNeutral Ground (1966)\n In Our Infancy : an Autobiography (1975)\n\nNon-fiction\n The World's Family (1930)\n A Book of Ancient Peoples (1931)\n A Book of Modern Peoples (1933)\n Towards Economic Freedom : an Outline of World Economic History (1937)\n\nPoetry\nSongs of Autumn, and Other Poems (1960)\n\nReferences\n\n1882 births\n1978 deaths\nEnglish women non-fiction writers\nWomen diarists\nWomen autobiographers\nEnglish autobiographers"
] |
[
"Lee Ann Womack",
"Pop crossover success: 2000-2004",
"what happened in 2000?",
"She released her third studio album in 2000 entitled, I Hope You Dance, which was met with major success.",
"did it make the charts?",
"The title track (which was released as the lead single), reached No. 1 on the Billboard Country chart for five weeks",
"did she win any awards?",
"\"I Hope You Dance\" won the Country Music Association's \"Song of the Year\" and \"Single of the Year\" awards.",
"what was her greatest accomplishement?",
"People and Time, both of which praised the single, calling it \"one of her best.\" The song later won awards in 2001 from the Grammy and Academy of Country",
"what is the most important fact stated in this article?",
"In 2004, Womack performed \"I Hope You Dance\" at the Republican National Convention, in which George W. Bush was nominated for his second term",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"In 2002, Womack's fourth studio album, Something Worth Leaving Behind was released.",
"how did the fourth studio album do?",
"however it did not react well, leading to poor record sales and only one major hit.",
"what was the one major hit?",
"collaborated with Willie Nelson on his single, \"Mendocino County Line,\" which won a Grammy and Country Music award in 2002.",
"did she work with anyone else?",
"She also collaborated with Red Dirt Music band Cross Canadian Ragweed on their hit \"Sick and Tired\" in 2004."
] |
C_16b1c11efc9144a0b7d487e3b8ea4159_0
|
was she married?
| 10 |
was Lee Ann Womack married?
|
Lee Ann Womack
|
She released her third studio album in 2000 entitled, I Hope You Dance, which was met with major success. The title track (which was released as the lead single), reached No. 1 on the Billboard Country chart for five weeks and crossed over to the Billboard Hot 100, becoming a major crossover Pop hit, reaching No. 14. It also peaked at the top spot on the adult contemporary chart and even reached the UK Singles Charts, peaking at No. 40. Both of Womack's daughters appeared in the song's video that year. Towards the end of 2000, "I Hope You Dance" won the Country Music Association's "Song of the Year" and "Single of the Year" awards. With the Pop success of "I Hope You Dance," Womack drew the attention of the magazines People and Time, both of which praised the single, calling it "one of her best." The song later won awards in 2001 from the Grammy and Academy of Country music awards. The album of the same name has sold 3 million copies in the United States to date. The album's follow-up single, a cover of Rodney Crowell's "Ashes by Now" peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard Country Chart. The third single, "Why They Call it Falling" was also successful, reaching the country Top 15. On December 11, 2000, Womack performed "I Hope You Dance" at the annual Nobel Peace Prize concert. This song was also featured in the 2008 Tyler Perry film entitled "The Family that Preys." In 2002, Womack's fourth studio album, Something Worth Leaving Behind was released. The album made a stronger attempt at a pop-flavored style, however it did not react well, leading to poor record sales and only one major hit. Following its release, Womack's career stalled. Later that year, she released a Christmas album, The Season for Romance and also collaborated with Willie Nelson on his single, "Mendocino County Line," which won a Grammy and Country Music award in 2002. In early 2003, she got a small recurring role on the popular CBS drama, The District. In 2004, Womack performed "I Hope You Dance" at the Republican National Convention, in which George W. Bush was nominated for his second term as President of the United States. The other performers that night included Sara Evans and Larry Gatlin. She also collaborated with Red Dirt Music band Cross Canadian Ragweed on their hit "Sick and Tired" in 2004. Also that year, she also released her first Greatest Hits album, which included two new songs; "The Wrong Girl" (the only song from the album released as a single) and "Time for Me to Go." CANNOTANSWER
|
CANNOTANSWER
|
Lee Ann Womack (; born August 19, 1966) is an American country music singer, songwriter, and musician. Her 2000 single, "I Hope You Dance" was a major crossover music hit, reaching No. 1 on the Billboard Country Chart and the Top 15 of the Billboard Hot 100, becoming her signature song.
When Womack emerged as a contemporary country artist in 1997, her material resembled that of Dolly Parton and Tammy Wynette, except for the way Womack's music mixed an old-fashioned style with contemporary elements. Her 2000 album I Hope You Dance had an entirely different sound, using pop music elements instead of traditional country. It was not until the release of There's More Where That Came From in 2005 that Womack returned to recording traditional country music. After a hiatus in 2008, Womack returned in 2014 with a new album (The Way I'm Livin') and a new sound which blended country and Americana.
Womack has released a total of nine studio albums and two compilations. Four of her studio albums have received a Gold certification or higher by the Recording Industry Association of America. Additionally, she has received five Academy of Country Music Awards, six Country Music Association Awards, and a Grammy Award. She has sold over 6 million albums worldwide. Womack is married to record producer Frank Liddell, and was previously married to songwriter and musician Jason Sellers; her daughter with the latter, Aubrie Sellers, is also a country music artist.
Early life
Womack was born and raised in Jacksonville, Texas. At an early age she was interested in country music. Her father, a disc jockey, often took his daughter to work with him to help choose records to play on the air. Womack was the second of two daughters. Her mother was a schoolteacher and her father was also a high school principal. As a child, Womack studied the piano and later graduated from Jacksonville High School in 1984. After graduating, Womack attended South Plains Junior College in Levelland, Texas. The college was one of the first in the nation to offer country music degrees, and soon she became a member of the college band, Country Caravan. A year later, she left the college and after an agreement with her parents, Womack enrolled at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, where she studied the commercial aspect of the music business. In Nashville, she interned at the A&R department of MCA Records. She studied at the college until 1990, leaving the school a year before graduation.
Womack spent a few years raising her children before reentering the music business in the mid 1990s. In 1995 she began performing her music in songwriting demos and at showcase concerts. At one of these showcase concerts, she was spotted by Tree Publishing, who signed her after listening to one of her original demo recordings. Womack wrote songs with some popular Nashville songwriters, including Bill Anderson and Ricky Skaggs, who recorded her composition, "I Don't Remember Forgetting" for one of his albums. After divorcing her first husband around that time, Womack decided to pursue a career as a country music artist. She auditioned for MCA chairman, Bruce Hinton, who praised her talents. Shortly afterward, she accepted a contract from MCA's sister record company, Decca Nashville in 1996.
Music career
Country music stardom: 1997–1999
Womack released her self-titled debut album in May 1997, produced by Mark Wright. The album consisted of self-penned material as well as songs written by other artists, including Mark Chesnutt, Ricky Skaggs, and Sharon White. The first single, "Never Again, Again" made the country charts and playlists by March 1997, which led to the release of the album's second single, "The Fool" shortly afterward. More successful than her first single, "The Fool" reached the Top 5 on the Billboard Country chart that year. That year she won major awards from the country music community; Top New Female Vocalist from the Academy of Country Music Awards, Top Artist of the Year from Billboard Magazine, and was nominated for the Horizon award by the Country Music Association. Decca Nashville decided to close its doors in 1998, moving Womack to MCA Nashville Records that year.
In 1998, Womack released her second studio album, Some Things I Know, which was also produced by Wright.
The album's first two singles, "A Little Past Little Rock" and "I'll Think of a Reason Later" both went to No. 2 on the Billboard Country Chart. Two additional singles, "(Now You See Me) Now You Don't" and "Don't Tell Me" were released in 1999, and the album was certified Gold by the RIAA soon after.
That year, she also won Favorite Country New Artist from the American Music Awards. Womack also contributed her vocals to the songs "If You're Ever Down in Dallas" and "The Man Who Made Mama Cry" in collaboration with her ex-husband and musician, Jason Sellers. The material was promoted through shows through October to November before the birth of Womack's second child in January 1999.
Pop crossover success: 2000–2004
Womack released her third studio album in 2000 entitled I Hope You Dance which met with major success. The title track (which was released as the lead single), reached No. 1 on the Billboard Country chart for five weeks and crossed over to the Billboard Hot 100, becoming a major crossover Pop hit, reaching No. 14. It also peaked at the top spot on the adult contemporary chart and even reached the UK Singles Charts, peaking at No. 40. Both of Womack's daughters appeared in the song's accompanying video. Towards the end of 2000, "I Hope You Dance" won the Country Music Association's "Song of the Year" and "Single of the Year" awards. With the Pop success of "I Hope You Dance," Womack drew the attention of the magazines People and Time, both of which praised the single, calling it "one of her best." The song later won awards in 2001 from the Grammy and Academy of Country music awards. The album of the same name has sold 3 million copies in the United States to date. The album's follow-up single, a cover of Rodney Crowell's "Ashes by Now" peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard Country Chart. The third single, "Why They Call it Falling" was also successful, reaching the country Top 15.
On December 11, 2000, Womack performed "I Hope You Dance" at the annual Nobel Peace Prize concert.
In 2002, Womack's fourth studio album, Something Worth Leaving Behind was released. The album made a stronger attempt at a pop-flavored style, however it did not react well, leading to poor record sales and only one major hit. Following its release, Womack's career stalled. Later that year, she released a Christmas album, The Season for Romance and also collaborated with Willie Nelson on his single, "Mendocino County Line," which won a Grammy and Country Music award in 2002. In early 2003, she got a small recurring role on the popular CBS drama The District.
Womack sang the theme song for the 2003 series The Berenstain Bears.
In 2004, Womack performed "I Hope You Dance" at the Republican National Convention, in which George W. Bush was nominated for his second term as President of the United States. The other performers that night included Sara Evans and Larry Gatlin. She also collaborated with Red Dirt Music band Cross Canadian Ragweed on their hit "Sick and Tired" in 2004. Also that year, she also released her first Greatest Hits album, which included two new songs; "The Wrong Girl" (the only song from the album released as a single) and "Time for Me to Go."
There's More Where That Came From and hiatus: 2005–2008
In 2005, she released her fifth studio album aimed at traditional country music entitled There's More Where That Came From.
Many people in the music industry called the album, "a return to tradition," featuring songs about drinking and cheating with a distinctive older country twang, mixing strings and steel guitar. The album won the Country Music Association's "Album of the Year" award in 2005.<ref name="book">{{cite book|title=Will the Circle Be Unbroken: Country Music in America|editor=Alanna Nash and Paul Kingsbury|publisher=DK Publishing, Inc|location=New York, NY|year=2006|page=349|chapter=Ch. 12: Pocketful of Gold}}</ref> Womack took inspiration from the records of the 1960s and 1970s, and according to Allmusic, the album sounded like albums by Loretta Lynn, Barbara Mandrell, and Dolly Parton from the 1970s. They also called it one of her best records. The lead single, "I May Hate Myself in the Morning" was a Top 10 hit in 2005, and also won "Single of the Year" by the CMA awards later that year. Two additional singles were released from the album in 2005 that became minor hits, "He Oughta Know That by Now" and "Twenty Years and Two Husbands Ago." The album was released on vinyl LP as well as CD.
Womack can be heard on the track "If I Could Only Fly" from Joe Nichols' album Real Things. Womack has also appeared on specials on the CMT network, including their "100 Greatest Duets", which featured Womack singing a duet with Kenny Rogers, "Every Time Two Fools Collide". The song had been originally recorded by Rogers and Dottie West in 1978 and was a No. 1 Country hit that year. Womack took the place of West during that show since West had died in a serious car accident in September 1991. Womack's other honors includes being listed at No. 17 on CMT's 2002 special of their countdown of the 40 Greatest Women of Country Music.
In 2006, Womack announced plans of a sixth studio album off of Mercury Nashville Records. The lead single, "Finding My Way Back Home" was released in the late summer of that year and debuted at No. 46 on the Billboard Country Chart. The single later peaked at No. 37 and was rescheduled into 2007, because Womack found more songs that she wanted to record, however it was never released and Womack left Mercury.
In 2008, Womack announced plans for a new single for the first time in three years, once again on MCA Nashville. "Last Call" was released on June 30, 2008. It served as the lead-off single to Womack's seventh studio album, Call Me Crazy, which was released on October 21, 2008. The album, released on vinyl and CD, was produced by Tony Brown, has been described as a dark album with plenty of songs about drinking and losing love. It featured a duet with George Strait titled "Everything But Quits," a re-recording of the Strait song "The King of Broken Hearts," which first appeared on the Pure Country soundtrack. One track, "The Bees," features vocals from Keith Urban.
In October 2009, Womack released "There Is a God", as the lead-off single to her upcoming seventh studio album which never surfaced. The song debuted at No. 60 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart for the week of November 14, 2009, eventually peaking at No. 32 in early 2010. Womack has revealed a few of the tracks that she has recorded for the album, including: "Talking Behind Your Back", as well as "You Do Until You Don't".
In October 2010, Womack contributed the new track "Liars Lie" to the soundtrack for the film Country Strong. Womack also contributed guest vocals to Alan Jackson's cover of the song "Ring of Fire", which was released in December 2010 as a single from his compilation album, 34 Number Ones. His version of the song was a minor hit, charting to number 45 on the Hot Country Songs charts. Though Womack is featured on the song, she was not given credit on the charts.
In August 2012, Womack parted ways with MCA Nashville.
Americana transition, return to music, and subsequent material loss: 2014–present
In April 2014, Womack signed with Sugar Hill Records. Her first album for the label, The Way I'm Livin', was released September 23, 2014. Critics cheered the progressive traditionalist's return. In addition to a four out of four star review in USA Today, Rolling Stone proclaimed Livin' "feels like something Merle Haggard or Waylon Jennings would have crafted back in the Seventies," Spin deemed it "the best of her career" and Garden & Gun offered, "Nashville is filled with artists making 'the record they were born to make.' With Livin', Womack is one of the few who actually deliver."
"Livin'" was the only country album to make Esquire magazine's Top Albums of 2014 list. It was nominated for two 2015 Grammy Awards for Best Country Album and for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical. Womack also received two Americana Music Awards nominations for Album of the Year and Artist of the Year and her first CMA Female Vocalist of the Year nomination in ten years.
On September 26, 2014, Womack collaborated with American R&B singer John Legend for an episode of CMT Crossroads. Ahead of her 2015 tour in support of The Way I'm Livin', Womack appeared at the C2C: Country to Country festival in the UK.
On August 15, 2017, Womack announced her new album The Lonely, the Lonesome & the Gone due on October 27 on ATO Records.
Lee Ann Womack was among hundreds of artists whose material was destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.
Personal life
At Belmont University, Womack met and married singer-songwriter Jason Sellers in 1990; they divorced in 1996. Together they had a daughter named Aubrie Sellers (b. February 1991). Womack gave birth to her second daughter, Anna Lise Liddell, in January 1999 after marrying record producer Frank Liddell.
Discography
Studio albums
Lee Ann Womack (1997)
Some Things I Know (1998)
I Hope You Dance (2000)
Something Worth Leaving Behind (2002)
The Season for Romance (2002)
There's More Where That Came From (2005)
Call Me Crazy (2008)
The Way I'm Livin' (2014)
The Lonely, the Lonesome & the Gone'' (2017)
Awards and nominations
To date, Lee Ann Womack has won 6 CMA Awards (from 17 nominations), 5 ACM Awards (from 16 nominations) and 1 Grammy (from 14 nominations).
Television appearances
Filmography
References
External links
1966 births
20th-century American guitarists
20th-century American singers
20th-century American women guitarists
20th-century American women singers
21st-century American singers
21st-century American women singers
American country singer-songwriters
American country guitarists
American women country singers
American women guitarists
ATO Records artists
Belmont University alumni
Country musicians from Tennessee
Country musicians from Texas
Decca Records artists
Grammy Award winners
Living people
MCA Records artists
Mercury Records artists
People from Jacksonville, Texas
Sugar Hill Records artists
Singers from Nashville, Tennessee
Singer-songwriters from Texas
South Plains College alumni
Tennessee Republicans
Texas Republicans
Singer-songwriters from Tennessee
| false |
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"Hafize Sultan was daughter of Selim I and Ayşe Hafsa Sultan.\n\nBiography\nIn some sources she was called Hafsa. According to some sources, she was married to bostancıbaşı Fülân Ağa, who was executed by orders of Selim I in 1520.\nIt is often claimed in most sources that Hafize was married to Dukakinzade Mehmed Pasha, however he was married to Gevherşah Sultan, granddaughter of Bayezid II.\nShe was married again in 1522 to Çoban Mustafa Pasha, until he died in April 1629. With him she had son Kara Osman Şah(D. 1567/68).\n\nDeath\nHafize Sultan died on 10 July 1538, of unknown causes. She was buried in Mausoleum of her father.\n\nReferences\n\nOttoman Empire",
"Al-Mu'ayyad Shaykh (; 1369 – 13 January 1421) was a Mamluk sultan of Egypt from 6 November 1412 to 13 January 1421.\n\nFamily\nShaykh's first wife was Khawand Khadija, whom he married before his accession to the throne. Another wife was Khawand Zaynab, the daughter of Sultan Barquq. She died in February–March 1423, and was buried in the mausoleum of her father. Another wife was Khawand Sa'adat. She was the daughter of Sirgitmish, and was the mother of his son Sultan Al-Muzaffar Ahmad. After Shaykh's death, she married Sultan Sayf ad-Din Tatar. She died in 1430. One of his concubines was Qutlubay, a Circassian. She was the mother of his son Sidi Ibrahim. After Shaykh's death she married Amir Inal al-Jakami. Ibrahim married Satita, daughter of Sultan An-Nasir Faraj. His only daughter was Khawand Asiya. She died in 1486.\n\nArchitecture\n\nHe has built the Mosque of Sultan al-Muayyad and Maristan of al-Mu'ayyad.\n\nSee also\nMosque of Sultan al-Muayyad\n\nReferences\n\nBurji sultans\n15th-century Mamluk sultans\n1369 births\n1421 deaths"
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"Lee Ann Womack",
"Pop crossover success: 2000-2004",
"what happened in 2000?",
"She released her third studio album in 2000 entitled, I Hope You Dance, which was met with major success.",
"did it make the charts?",
"The title track (which was released as the lead single), reached No. 1 on the Billboard Country chart for five weeks",
"did she win any awards?",
"\"I Hope You Dance\" won the Country Music Association's \"Song of the Year\" and \"Single of the Year\" awards.",
"what was her greatest accomplishement?",
"People and Time, both of which praised the single, calling it \"one of her best.\" The song later won awards in 2001 from the Grammy and Academy of Country",
"what is the most important fact stated in this article?",
"In 2004, Womack performed \"I Hope You Dance\" at the Republican National Convention, in which George W. Bush was nominated for his second term",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"In 2002, Womack's fourth studio album, Something Worth Leaving Behind was released.",
"how did the fourth studio album do?",
"however it did not react well, leading to poor record sales and only one major hit.",
"what was the one major hit?",
"collaborated with Willie Nelson on his single, \"Mendocino County Line,\" which won a Grammy and Country Music award in 2002.",
"did she work with anyone else?",
"She also collaborated with Red Dirt Music band Cross Canadian Ragweed on their hit \"Sick and Tired\" in 2004.",
"was she married?",
"I don't know."
] |
C_16b1c11efc9144a0b7d487e3b8ea4159_0
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did she have children?
| 11 |
did Lee Ann Womack have children?
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Lee Ann Womack
|
She released her third studio album in 2000 entitled, I Hope You Dance, which was met with major success. The title track (which was released as the lead single), reached No. 1 on the Billboard Country chart for five weeks and crossed over to the Billboard Hot 100, becoming a major crossover Pop hit, reaching No. 14. It also peaked at the top spot on the adult contemporary chart and even reached the UK Singles Charts, peaking at No. 40. Both of Womack's daughters appeared in the song's video that year. Towards the end of 2000, "I Hope You Dance" won the Country Music Association's "Song of the Year" and "Single of the Year" awards. With the Pop success of "I Hope You Dance," Womack drew the attention of the magazines People and Time, both of which praised the single, calling it "one of her best." The song later won awards in 2001 from the Grammy and Academy of Country music awards. The album of the same name has sold 3 million copies in the United States to date. The album's follow-up single, a cover of Rodney Crowell's "Ashes by Now" peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard Country Chart. The third single, "Why They Call it Falling" was also successful, reaching the country Top 15. On December 11, 2000, Womack performed "I Hope You Dance" at the annual Nobel Peace Prize concert. This song was also featured in the 2008 Tyler Perry film entitled "The Family that Preys." In 2002, Womack's fourth studio album, Something Worth Leaving Behind was released. The album made a stronger attempt at a pop-flavored style, however it did not react well, leading to poor record sales and only one major hit. Following its release, Womack's career stalled. Later that year, she released a Christmas album, The Season for Romance and also collaborated with Willie Nelson on his single, "Mendocino County Line," which won a Grammy and Country Music award in 2002. In early 2003, she got a small recurring role on the popular CBS drama, The District. In 2004, Womack performed "I Hope You Dance" at the Republican National Convention, in which George W. Bush was nominated for his second term as President of the United States. The other performers that night included Sara Evans and Larry Gatlin. She also collaborated with Red Dirt Music band Cross Canadian Ragweed on their hit "Sick and Tired" in 2004. Also that year, she also released her first Greatest Hits album, which included two new songs; "The Wrong Girl" (the only song from the album released as a single) and "Time for Me to Go." CANNOTANSWER
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CANNOTANSWER
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Lee Ann Womack (; born August 19, 1966) is an American country music singer, songwriter, and musician. Her 2000 single, "I Hope You Dance" was a major crossover music hit, reaching No. 1 on the Billboard Country Chart and the Top 15 of the Billboard Hot 100, becoming her signature song.
When Womack emerged as a contemporary country artist in 1997, her material resembled that of Dolly Parton and Tammy Wynette, except for the way Womack's music mixed an old-fashioned style with contemporary elements. Her 2000 album I Hope You Dance had an entirely different sound, using pop music elements instead of traditional country. It was not until the release of There's More Where That Came From in 2005 that Womack returned to recording traditional country music. After a hiatus in 2008, Womack returned in 2014 with a new album (The Way I'm Livin') and a new sound which blended country and Americana.
Womack has released a total of nine studio albums and two compilations. Four of her studio albums have received a Gold certification or higher by the Recording Industry Association of America. Additionally, she has received five Academy of Country Music Awards, six Country Music Association Awards, and a Grammy Award. She has sold over 6 million albums worldwide. Womack is married to record producer Frank Liddell, and was previously married to songwriter and musician Jason Sellers; her daughter with the latter, Aubrie Sellers, is also a country music artist.
Early life
Womack was born and raised in Jacksonville, Texas. At an early age she was interested in country music. Her father, a disc jockey, often took his daughter to work with him to help choose records to play on the air. Womack was the second of two daughters. Her mother was a schoolteacher and her father was also a high school principal. As a child, Womack studied the piano and later graduated from Jacksonville High School in 1984. After graduating, Womack attended South Plains Junior College in Levelland, Texas. The college was one of the first in the nation to offer country music degrees, and soon she became a member of the college band, Country Caravan. A year later, she left the college and after an agreement with her parents, Womack enrolled at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, where she studied the commercial aspect of the music business. In Nashville, she interned at the A&R department of MCA Records. She studied at the college until 1990, leaving the school a year before graduation.
Womack spent a few years raising her children before reentering the music business in the mid 1990s. In 1995 she began performing her music in songwriting demos and at showcase concerts. At one of these showcase concerts, she was spotted by Tree Publishing, who signed her after listening to one of her original demo recordings. Womack wrote songs with some popular Nashville songwriters, including Bill Anderson and Ricky Skaggs, who recorded her composition, "I Don't Remember Forgetting" for one of his albums. After divorcing her first husband around that time, Womack decided to pursue a career as a country music artist. She auditioned for MCA chairman, Bruce Hinton, who praised her talents. Shortly afterward, she accepted a contract from MCA's sister record company, Decca Nashville in 1996.
Music career
Country music stardom: 1997–1999
Womack released her self-titled debut album in May 1997, produced by Mark Wright. The album consisted of self-penned material as well as songs written by other artists, including Mark Chesnutt, Ricky Skaggs, and Sharon White. The first single, "Never Again, Again" made the country charts and playlists by March 1997, which led to the release of the album's second single, "The Fool" shortly afterward. More successful than her first single, "The Fool" reached the Top 5 on the Billboard Country chart that year. That year she won major awards from the country music community; Top New Female Vocalist from the Academy of Country Music Awards, Top Artist of the Year from Billboard Magazine, and was nominated for the Horizon award by the Country Music Association. Decca Nashville decided to close its doors in 1998, moving Womack to MCA Nashville Records that year.
In 1998, Womack released her second studio album, Some Things I Know, which was also produced by Wright.
The album's first two singles, "A Little Past Little Rock" and "I'll Think of a Reason Later" both went to No. 2 on the Billboard Country Chart. Two additional singles, "(Now You See Me) Now You Don't" and "Don't Tell Me" were released in 1999, and the album was certified Gold by the RIAA soon after.
That year, she also won Favorite Country New Artist from the American Music Awards. Womack also contributed her vocals to the songs "If You're Ever Down in Dallas" and "The Man Who Made Mama Cry" in collaboration with her ex-husband and musician, Jason Sellers. The material was promoted through shows through October to November before the birth of Womack's second child in January 1999.
Pop crossover success: 2000–2004
Womack released her third studio album in 2000 entitled I Hope You Dance which met with major success. The title track (which was released as the lead single), reached No. 1 on the Billboard Country chart for five weeks and crossed over to the Billboard Hot 100, becoming a major crossover Pop hit, reaching No. 14. It also peaked at the top spot on the adult contemporary chart and even reached the UK Singles Charts, peaking at No. 40. Both of Womack's daughters appeared in the song's accompanying video. Towards the end of 2000, "I Hope You Dance" won the Country Music Association's "Song of the Year" and "Single of the Year" awards. With the Pop success of "I Hope You Dance," Womack drew the attention of the magazines People and Time, both of which praised the single, calling it "one of her best." The song later won awards in 2001 from the Grammy and Academy of Country music awards. The album of the same name has sold 3 million copies in the United States to date. The album's follow-up single, a cover of Rodney Crowell's "Ashes by Now" peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard Country Chart. The third single, "Why They Call it Falling" was also successful, reaching the country Top 15.
On December 11, 2000, Womack performed "I Hope You Dance" at the annual Nobel Peace Prize concert.
In 2002, Womack's fourth studio album, Something Worth Leaving Behind was released. The album made a stronger attempt at a pop-flavored style, however it did not react well, leading to poor record sales and only one major hit. Following its release, Womack's career stalled. Later that year, she released a Christmas album, The Season for Romance and also collaborated with Willie Nelson on his single, "Mendocino County Line," which won a Grammy and Country Music award in 2002. In early 2003, she got a small recurring role on the popular CBS drama The District.
Womack sang the theme song for the 2003 series The Berenstain Bears.
In 2004, Womack performed "I Hope You Dance" at the Republican National Convention, in which George W. Bush was nominated for his second term as President of the United States. The other performers that night included Sara Evans and Larry Gatlin. She also collaborated with Red Dirt Music band Cross Canadian Ragweed on their hit "Sick and Tired" in 2004. Also that year, she also released her first Greatest Hits album, which included two new songs; "The Wrong Girl" (the only song from the album released as a single) and "Time for Me to Go."
There's More Where That Came From and hiatus: 2005–2008
In 2005, she released her fifth studio album aimed at traditional country music entitled There's More Where That Came From.
Many people in the music industry called the album, "a return to tradition," featuring songs about drinking and cheating with a distinctive older country twang, mixing strings and steel guitar. The album won the Country Music Association's "Album of the Year" award in 2005.<ref name="book">{{cite book|title=Will the Circle Be Unbroken: Country Music in America|editor=Alanna Nash and Paul Kingsbury|publisher=DK Publishing, Inc|location=New York, NY|year=2006|page=349|chapter=Ch. 12: Pocketful of Gold}}</ref> Womack took inspiration from the records of the 1960s and 1970s, and according to Allmusic, the album sounded like albums by Loretta Lynn, Barbara Mandrell, and Dolly Parton from the 1970s. They also called it one of her best records. The lead single, "I May Hate Myself in the Morning" was a Top 10 hit in 2005, and also won "Single of the Year" by the CMA awards later that year. Two additional singles were released from the album in 2005 that became minor hits, "He Oughta Know That by Now" and "Twenty Years and Two Husbands Ago." The album was released on vinyl LP as well as CD.
Womack can be heard on the track "If I Could Only Fly" from Joe Nichols' album Real Things. Womack has also appeared on specials on the CMT network, including their "100 Greatest Duets", which featured Womack singing a duet with Kenny Rogers, "Every Time Two Fools Collide". The song had been originally recorded by Rogers and Dottie West in 1978 and was a No. 1 Country hit that year. Womack took the place of West during that show since West had died in a serious car accident in September 1991. Womack's other honors includes being listed at No. 17 on CMT's 2002 special of their countdown of the 40 Greatest Women of Country Music.
In 2006, Womack announced plans of a sixth studio album off of Mercury Nashville Records. The lead single, "Finding My Way Back Home" was released in the late summer of that year and debuted at No. 46 on the Billboard Country Chart. The single later peaked at No. 37 and was rescheduled into 2007, because Womack found more songs that she wanted to record, however it was never released and Womack left Mercury.
In 2008, Womack announced plans for a new single for the first time in three years, once again on MCA Nashville. "Last Call" was released on June 30, 2008. It served as the lead-off single to Womack's seventh studio album, Call Me Crazy, which was released on October 21, 2008. The album, released on vinyl and CD, was produced by Tony Brown, has been described as a dark album with plenty of songs about drinking and losing love. It featured a duet with George Strait titled "Everything But Quits," a re-recording of the Strait song "The King of Broken Hearts," which first appeared on the Pure Country soundtrack. One track, "The Bees," features vocals from Keith Urban.
In October 2009, Womack released "There Is a God", as the lead-off single to her upcoming seventh studio album which never surfaced. The song debuted at No. 60 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart for the week of November 14, 2009, eventually peaking at No. 32 in early 2010. Womack has revealed a few of the tracks that she has recorded for the album, including: "Talking Behind Your Back", as well as "You Do Until You Don't".
In October 2010, Womack contributed the new track "Liars Lie" to the soundtrack for the film Country Strong. Womack also contributed guest vocals to Alan Jackson's cover of the song "Ring of Fire", which was released in December 2010 as a single from his compilation album, 34 Number Ones. His version of the song was a minor hit, charting to number 45 on the Hot Country Songs charts. Though Womack is featured on the song, she was not given credit on the charts.
In August 2012, Womack parted ways with MCA Nashville.
Americana transition, return to music, and subsequent material loss: 2014–present
In April 2014, Womack signed with Sugar Hill Records. Her first album for the label, The Way I'm Livin', was released September 23, 2014. Critics cheered the progressive traditionalist's return. In addition to a four out of four star review in USA Today, Rolling Stone proclaimed Livin' "feels like something Merle Haggard or Waylon Jennings would have crafted back in the Seventies," Spin deemed it "the best of her career" and Garden & Gun offered, "Nashville is filled with artists making 'the record they were born to make.' With Livin', Womack is one of the few who actually deliver."
"Livin'" was the only country album to make Esquire magazine's Top Albums of 2014 list. It was nominated for two 2015 Grammy Awards for Best Country Album and for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical. Womack also received two Americana Music Awards nominations for Album of the Year and Artist of the Year and her first CMA Female Vocalist of the Year nomination in ten years.
On September 26, 2014, Womack collaborated with American R&B singer John Legend for an episode of CMT Crossroads. Ahead of her 2015 tour in support of The Way I'm Livin', Womack appeared at the C2C: Country to Country festival in the UK.
On August 15, 2017, Womack announced her new album The Lonely, the Lonesome & the Gone due on October 27 on ATO Records.
Lee Ann Womack was among hundreds of artists whose material was destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.
Personal life
At Belmont University, Womack met and married singer-songwriter Jason Sellers in 1990; they divorced in 1996. Together they had a daughter named Aubrie Sellers (b. February 1991). Womack gave birth to her second daughter, Anna Lise Liddell, in January 1999 after marrying record producer Frank Liddell.
Discography
Studio albums
Lee Ann Womack (1997)
Some Things I Know (1998)
I Hope You Dance (2000)
Something Worth Leaving Behind (2002)
The Season for Romance (2002)
There's More Where That Came From (2005)
Call Me Crazy (2008)
The Way I'm Livin' (2014)
The Lonely, the Lonesome & the Gone'' (2017)
Awards and nominations
To date, Lee Ann Womack has won 6 CMA Awards (from 17 nominations), 5 ACM Awards (from 16 nominations) and 1 Grammy (from 14 nominations).
Television appearances
Filmography
References
External links
1966 births
20th-century American guitarists
20th-century American singers
20th-century American women guitarists
20th-century American women singers
21st-century American singers
21st-century American women singers
American country singer-songwriters
American country guitarists
American women country singers
American women guitarists
ATO Records artists
Belmont University alumni
Country musicians from Tennessee
Country musicians from Texas
Decca Records artists
Grammy Award winners
Living people
MCA Records artists
Mercury Records artists
People from Jacksonville, Texas
Sugar Hill Records artists
Singers from Nashville, Tennessee
Singer-songwriters from Texas
South Plains College alumni
Tennessee Republicans
Texas Republicans
Singer-songwriters from Tennessee
| false |
[
"Jane Webb, also known as Jane Williams was an indentured servant in Northampton County of the Colony of Virginia. She entered a seven-year contract with Thomas Savage so that she could marry an enslave man named Left. It allowed for children born during those seven years to be bound over to Savage, but after she was free, Webb expected her children to be free. Savage used the courts to his advantage and also used stall tactics to prevent the case from being settled. In the end, Left and their children were enslaved to Savage and his heirs.\n\nEarly life\nJane Webb, born free, was a mixed-race daughter of a white woman. She worked as an indentured servant.\n\nMarriage and children\nWebb wanted to marry a black enslaved man named Left in 1703 or 1704. To do so, she entered into a signed contract with Left's enslaver, Thomas Savage, who was a slaveholder and planter. In order to marry Left, she agreed to work for Savage for seven years. During that time, if she had any children, they would serve Savage. The period of the children's servitude was not clear. At the end of the seven years, her contract would be complete, Left would be freed, and Savage would not have a claim to children born after the seven year period. While indentured to Savage, she and Left had three children, Diana or Dinah, Daniel, and Francis Webb. Under Partus sequitur ventrem, the children took their status from their mother, so they should be free. Although it was quite unusual for an enslaved person to marry, their marriage was legally valid.\n\nBackground\nFree blacks made up 10% of the population of Northampton County, Virginia. To ensure their rights, it was common for blacks to file cases in court. Unusual for the time, Webb was the head of the family household, since Left was enslaved.\n\nLegal battle\nIn 1711, Webb expected to leave Savage with Left and their children. They disagreed about the arrangement for the children and Savage would not allow Left or the children to be freed. He submitted a letter to the county court of Northampton to have the children bound to him and his heirs. The court agreed with him.\n\nWebb went to court in 1722 to have her children freed. She contented that since she was married when she had the children, they should not be enslaved. Savage did not show up in court. He said he was sick and the case was continued a term. That happened several more times. Then the case was dismissed, claiming that Webb filed a frivolous case.\n\nSavage then wanted two more children—Lisha and Abimelech—born after Webb completed of her contract. Savage contended that since she was unable to financially support the children, Savage was best suited to take care of them and to prevent them from being \"induced to take ill courses\", but their arrangement did not allow for the two children to be bound over to Savage. He could not produce the contract, but he brought witnesses who stated that the agreement with Webb was to be able to have all children born to Webb.\n\nWebb tried to free her children and Left at the chancery court in March 1725. She argued that since Webb would not produce the contract, she did not have a way to prove their arrangement. She asked that he be brought into court. On July 12, 1726, the court ruled that Lisha and Abimilech were both to Savage and Webb was arrested for allegedly stating that \"if all Virginia Negroes had as a good as heart as she had they would all be free.\" She was ordered to receive 10 lashes of the whip. In November 1726, the court told Webb that she needed to provide proof to get her children and husband; Savage claimed he never agreed to free Left. She brought African American witnesses to court in December 1726, but they were not considered admissible and were not heard. After a couple more attempts in 1727, she realized she would not win. Left, her children, and now her children remained bound to Savage and his heirs.\n\nReferences\n\nYear of birth unknown\nYear of death unknown\nPeople from Northampton County, Virginia",
"Usiququmadevu or Isiququmadevu is a creature from Zulu mythology. She is a bearded, bloated monster who eats every living thing she comes across. \n\nUsiququmadevu is said to have a husband of the same name.\n\nLegend\nAccording to legend, one day she came upon the children of a chief. As they were unguarded, she quickly swallowed them. The chief discovered what had happened and instantly set out to find her. Soon he did and killed her by stabbing her in the hump; his children emerged unscathed from her mouth.\n\nReferences\n\nZulu legendary creatures"
] |
[
"The Future Sound of London",
"New millennium, new sound"
] |
C_0edda3262d6c477f8363f5365a26b550_0
|
What is an example of the "new sound" that was created?
| 1 |
What is an example of the new sound that was created from new millennium?
|
The Future Sound of London
|
After a four-year hiatus, rumours of mental illness began to spread which turned out to be nothing more than exaggeration of Cobain's mercury poisoning from fillings in his teeth. Cobain gained much from the experience, realizing that music was a tool for psychic exploration and entertainment but also one for healing . The pair returned in 2002 with "The Isness", a record heavily influenced by 1960s and 1970s psychedelia and released under their alias Amorphous Androgynous. It was preceded by Papua New Guinea Translations, a mini album which contained a mixture of remixes of FSOL's track as well as new material from The Isness sessions. The album received mixed press due to the drastic change in sound which was inspired by Cobain's and Dougan's (separate) travels to India and immersion in spiritualism, nevertheless the majority was positive with Muzik magazine offering the album a 6/5 mark and dubbing it "...a white beam of light from heaven..." and other British publications such as The Times, The Guardian and MOJO praising the album and the band's ability to do something so completely different from what they had done before. Three years on, they followed the album with a continuation of the Amorphous Androgynous project, Alice in Ultraland. Rumoured to be accompanied by a film of the same title, the album took The Isness' psychedelic experimentation and toned it down, giving the album a singular theme and sound, and replacing the more bizarre moments with funk and ambient interludes. The album was ignored by the press, but was received more favourably among fans than its predecessor. Unlike The Isness, which featured almost 100 musicians over the course of it and the various alternative versions and remix albums, Alice in Ultraland featured a fairly solid band lineup throughout, which extended to live shows which the band had undertaken away from the ISDN cables from 2005 onwards. ...song form has just become too limited. And when I say 'psychedelic', it's not a reference to 60s music but to the basic outlook of a child, which we all have. I think this is the only salvation now. Dance music taught us how to use the studio in a new way, but we have to now take that knowledge and move on with it. This stuff, electronic music, is not dead. It's a process that is ongoing. We have to take hold of the past and go forward with it... CANNOTANSWER
|
The album received mixed press due to the drastic change in sound which was inspired by Cobain's and Dougan's (separate) travels to India and immersion in spiritualism,
|
The Future Sound of London (often abbreviated FSOL) is a British electronic music duo composed of Garry Cobain and Brian Dougans. Described as a "boundary-pushing" electronic act by AllMusic, their work covers many areas of electronic music, such as techno, ambient, house music, trip hop, psychedelia, and dub.
During the 1990s, they released the albums Lifeforms (1994) and Dead Cities (1996) to some commercial success. The artists were fairly enigmatic in the past but have become more candid with their fanbase in recent years with social websites like Myspace, YouTube, their forum and many interviews in which Cobain almost always speaks for the pair.
History
Formation
Garry Cobain and Brian Dougans met in the mid-1980s while studying electronics at university in Manchester, England. Dougans had already been making electronic music for some time, working between Glasgow and Manchester, when the pair first began working together in various local clubs. In 1988, Dougans embarked on a project for the Stakker graphics company. The result was Stakker Humanoid, a single that went on to reach number 17 in the UK charts, becoming the first credible UK acid house tune to cross over into the mainstream. Cobain contributed to the accompanying album. A video was also produced.
In the following three years the pair produced music under a variety of aliases, releasing a plethora of singles and EPs, including the successful bleep techno singles "Q" and "Metropolis", some of which would end up on the duo's first compilation album Earthbeat in 1992. "Metropolis" was also very influential in the house scene.
FSOL
In 1991 they released their first album, Accelerator, which was followed by their single "Papua New Guinea", featuring a looping Lisa Gerrard vocal sample from Dead Can Dance's "Dawn of the Iconoclast" and a bassline from Meat Beat Manifesto's "Radio Babylon". The track has made several British "Best songs ever" polls and track specific accolades. In 1992, Virgin Records were looking for electronic bands and, after the chart success of "Papua New Guinea", quickly signed them, giving them free rein to experiment, with a reported advance payment of £75,000. With this the duo invested in a collection of Akai S1000 samplers and other equipment.
They began to play with more ambient music, resulting in the Tales of Ephidrina album of 1993, the first album to be released under the Amorphous Androgynous alias; this was well received by press and marked a distinct shift from the more techno-driven Accelerator, retaining some dance beats, but focusing more on texture, mood and sound. The album was adventurously released on Quigley, the band's own short-lived offshoot of Virgin. At this time, the band had begun experimenting with radio performance, broadcasting now legendary three-hour radio shows to Manchester's Kiss FM from their studio.
Lifeforms, ambience and the ISDN tour
"Cascade", released as a single in 1993, introduced the commercial music world to the new FSOL sound. Despite its length, clocking in at nearly forty minutes and stretched over six parts, the track made the UK top 30, and previewed what was to come. In 1994, they released Lifeforms to critical acclaim. The album featured unconventional use of percussion interspersed with ambient segments. The eponymous single from the album featured Elizabeth Fraser of the Cocteau Twins on vocals. Throughout the record, familiar motifs and samples repeated themselves, sitting alongside tropical birdsong, rainfall, wind and an array of other exotic sounds, lending the album a natural, organic feel, backed up by the environmental landscapes that filled the artwork booklet. Brian Dougan's father was involved with the BBC Radiophonic Workshop which was a heavy influence in the almost musique concrète feel to Lifeforms. The album was also a top 10 hit on the UK album chart. Cobain has said that around this time that journalists would come to talk to them and one of the first things they would ask would be if they liked Brian Eno (whom they cite as an influence), to which they would laugh and say that they were about looking forward, not to the past. It was, to them, very much a new work rather than just another Eno-type ambient album.
That year, they released the limited edition album ISDN, which featured live broadcasts they had made over ISDN lines to various radio stations worldwide to promote Lifeforms, including The Kitchen, an avant-garde performance space in New York and several appearances on the late John Peel's celebrated BBC radio Sessions shows. These shows marked the evolution of the Kiss FM shows of 1992 and 1993, moving away from DJ sets and into ambient soundscapes, with previously released material performed alongside unheard tracks. One live performance to BBC Radio 1 featured Robert Fripp performing alongside the band. The released album's tone was darker and more rhythmic than Lifeforms. Cobain stated that with ISDN they had wanted to achieve something epic and grand but no matter how much technological or personal support they had (and they had everything they could have possibly wanted) they never got to truly do what they envisioned; he admits to wanting too much at this time, even though the album was successful; the 90s, for Cobain in particular, were a time of frustration and feelings of not being able to do what they wanted to, because the technology at the time didn't fit the band's ideas. The following year, the album was re-released with expanded artwork and a slightly altered track list as an unlimited pressing.
In addition to music composition, their interests have covered a number of areas including film and video, 2D and 3D computer graphics, animation in making almost all their own videos for their singles, radio broadcasting and creating their own electronic devices for sound making. They have released works under numerous aliases.
Dead Cities
The 1995 edition of John Peel Sessions featured three entirely new tracks, which took the breakbeats and chaotic sampling of ISDN away from their previous lush synthscapes and toward a new, more contemporary sound. In 1996, they released Dead Cities, which expanded upon these early demos. The new material was a mix of ambient textures and dance music. The lead single, "My Kingdom", introduced the sound, with a video featuring shots of London, and a sound suggesting a dystopian city. The album also featured the band's first collaboration with composer Max Richter, which included the big beat track "We Have Explosive" that featured manipulated samples sourced from Run DMC. Released in 1997; it was used on the Mortal Kombat: Annihilation soundtrack, and (before the single release) in 1996 on the video game WipE'out" 2097, along with the track "Landmass", which they wrote specifically for the game. Also, a remix of "Papua New Guinea" by Hybrid was later featured in the soundtrack to WipEout Fusion in 2002. "We Have Explosive" was the second single from the album, and the band's highest charting single (beating "My Kingdom" by one spot to number 12), and over the course of its five-part extended version included hints of funk, something which would be heard again when the band returned many years later.
The album was promoted by what the band described as "the fuck rock'n'roll tour" via ISDN, lasting several months and gaining much media attention by being the first band to do a world tour without leaving their studio. While 1994's tour had focused on creating soundscapes and unreleased material, the 1996 and 1997 shows were more conventional, each offering a different take on the Dead Cities experience, blending then-current tracks with occasional exclusive pieces of the time. However, the final few performances jettisoned this material for tracks from a series of unreleased sessions, containing more live sounding material, including considerable use of guitar and percussion. These "1997 sessions" were highly sought after by fans, with some tracks forming the basis of the band's psychedelic projects of the following decade, while others appeared on the From The Archives series.
New millennium
After a four-year hiatus, rumours of mental illness began to spread which turned out to be nothing more than exaggeration of Cobain's mercury poisoning from fillings in his teeth. Cobain gained much from the experience, realising that music was a tool for psychic exploration and entertainment but also one for healing. The pair returned in 2002 with "The Isness", a record heavily influenced by 1960s and 1970s psychedelia and released under their alias Amorphous Androgynous. It was preceded by Papua New Guinea Translations, a mini album which contained a mixture of remixes of FSOL's track as well as new material from The Isness sessions. The album received mixed press due to the drastic change in sound which was inspired by Cobain's and Dougan's (separate) travels to India and immersion in spiritualism, nevertheless the majority was positive with Muzik magazine offering the album a 6/5 mark and dubbing it "...a white beam of light from heaven..." and other British publications such as The Times, The Guardian and MOJO praising the album and the band's ability to do something so completely different from what they had done before.
Three years on, they followed the album with a continuation of the Amorphous Androgynous project, Alice in Ultraland. Rumoured to be accompanied by a film of the same title, the album took The Isness psychedelic experimentation and toned it down, giving the album a singular theme and sound, and replacing the more bizarre moments with funk and ambient interludes. The album was ignored by the press, but was received more favourably among fans than its predecessor. Unlike The Isness, which featured almost 100 musicians over the course of it and the various alternative versions and remix albums, Alice in Ultraland featured a fairly solid band lineup throughout, which extended to live shows which the band had undertaken away from the ISDN cables from 2005 onwards.
5.1 & digital experimentation
The FSOL moniker re-appeared in 2006 with a piece entitled "A Gigantic Globular Burst Of Anti-Static", intended as an experiment in 5.1 Surround Sound and created for an exhibition at the Kinetica art museum entitled, appropriately, "Life Forms". The piece contained reworked material from their archives and newer, more abstract ambient music. The piece was coupled with a video called "Stereo Sucks", marking the band's theories on the limitations of stereo music, which was released on a DVD packaged with issue 182 of Future Music Magazine in December 2006 and on FSOL's own download site in March 2007.
They also moved into creating their own sounds when they began constructing electronic instruments, the result of which can be heard on the 2007 release Hand-Made Devices. At their website Glitch TV (where the motto is "[A] sudden interruption in sanity, continuity or programme function") they sell and explain their devices such as the "Electronic Devices Digital Interface" glitch equipment.
FSOLdigital and the Archives
In 2007, the band uploaded several archive tracks online, for the first time revealing much of their unreleased work and unveiling some of the mystery behind the band. The old FSOL material, including the previously unreleased album Environments, along with a selection of newer experiments, the 5.1 experiments and a promise of unreleased Amorphous Androgynous psychedelic material, was uploaded for sale on their online shop, FSOLdigital.com.
In early March 2008, the band released a new online album as Amorphous Androgynous entitled The Peppermint Tree and Seeds of Superconsciousness, which they describe as "A collection of psychedelic relics from The Amorphous Androgynous, 1967-2007". The release retains the sound of their last two psychedelic albums, while expanding on the element of funk first introduced on 2005's Alice in Ultraland. They recorded their following album, The Woodlands of Old, under the alias of their imaginary engineer Yage. Unlike the techno work recorded as Yage in 1992, this new record was darker, more trip hop and world music-oriented and featured ex-Propellerheads member Will White.
From 2008, the band showcased a series of radio broadcasts and podcasts called The Electric Brain Storms, originally on stations such as Proton Radio, PBS radio in Australia, and Frisky Radio. The remaining shows appeared on the band's official site. and SoundCloud. The shows featured electronic, krautrock, experimental and psychedelic favourites of the band mixed in with known and unknown FSOL material, including newly recorded tracks, archived pieces, and new alias recordings. Many of the new tracks appeared on the band's Environments series. Cobain has described the new music as having "the introspective, kind of euphoric sadness that was always there in the FSOL melodies".
From this point, the band have been alternating their focus between different projects. In 2008, Environments II and From the Archives Vol. 5 were released on the band's site, followed by Environments 3 and From the Archives Vol. 6 in 2010; and Environments 4 and From the Archives Vol. 7 in 2012. Whilst the Archives feature old, unreleased material, the Environments albums feature a mixture of old demos, recently completed, and new tracks.
The band have continued to use the FSOLDigital platform to release side-projects and solo work, under names such as Blackhill Transmitter, EMS : Piano, Suburban Domestic and 6 Oscillators in Remittance, as well as distributing digital releases from other artists, including Daniel Pemberton, Herd, Kettel & Secede, Neotropic, Ross Baker and Seafar; they also continue to update The Pod Room with ISDN transmissions from the 1990s.
A Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble Exploding in Your Mind
Following on from the band's 1997 DJ set of the same name, a series of Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble Exploding in Your Mind mix CDs were begun in 2006. The first two were released under the Amorphous Androgynous alias, subtitled "Cosmic Space Music" and "Pagan Love Vibrations", with the first taking over two years to compile, mix and gain sample clearance, both featuring the band's psychedelic influences. A third is set for release sometime in 2010, and will be more electronic, mixed by the Future Sound of London. Further mixes in the series are expected in the future, to be curated by related artists, and the band took the concept live with an eleven-hour spot at 2009's Green Man festival, to contain live bands and DJ spots.
Noel Gallagher of British rock band Oasis, after hearing the first release, became a fan and asked the band to remix the following Oasis single "Falling Down". The Amorphous Androgynous responded with a 5 part, 22-minute Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble remix, which Noel liked enough to release on its own 12". Noel also invited Cobain to DJ at the afterparty for one of Oasis' gigs at Wembley Arena.
The band continue the psychedelic theme to the mixes on their podcast site The Pod Room and on February 2010s Mojo Magazine cover CD. The Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble remixes grow in popularity with commissions from Paul Weller and Pop Levi, and Cobain has suggested a full album of remixes and covers will appear on their recently formed Monstrous Bubble label
On 6 July 2011 it was announced that Noel Gallagher's second solo album will be in collaboration with The Amorphous Androgynous, and is set for release in 2012. In August 2012, Gallagher mentioned in various interviews that he is considering scrapping the collaborative album with Amorphous Androgynous due to not being completely satisfied with the mixes. Two songs from the project have surfaced as B-sides to Gallagher's singles in 2012: "Shoot a Hole into the Sun" (based on Gallagher's track "If I Had a Gun...") was a B-side to the single "Dream On", and a mix of "AKA... What a Life!" featured on the B-side of "Everybody's on the Run". However, as the project is currently shelved, the group have returned to original material, releasing the first in a series of Monstrous Bubble Soundtracks, entitled The Cartel. On Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds' album Chasing Yesterday, The Amorphous Androgynous are credited as Co-producers of the tracks "The Right Stuff" and "The Mexican".
Future of the band
The group continue to give updates for the Galaxial Pharmaceutical news site and forum, while largely releasing material through their FSOLDigital imprint. They remain prolific, working on multiple projects at once. As "The Future Sound of London", they currently plan to continue releasing new material as part of the Environments series; the latest releases as of June 2019 are Environment Six and 6.5 from 2016.
On 26 April 2019, the band released Yage 2019, consisting of eleven songs. The album was also released on vinyl and CD on Record Store Day that year; the latter release featured an additional two tracks. The next year another album, Cascade 2020, was released. In 2021 they released We Have Explosive 2021.
Independence
Since the millennium, FSOL took a more independent turn with their career, releasing their more psychedelic Amorphous Androgynous on an independent label, The Isness on Artful Records and Alice in Ultraland on the progressive Harvest Records (an arm of EMI). They also have their own label called Electronic Brain Violence on which off-beat electronic artists such as Oil and Simon Wells (Headstone Lane) have released EPs and singles. Simon Wells also contributed to Dead Cities on the track "Dead Cities Reprise"
Nevertheless, Virgin records still controls FSOL's back catalog and was going to release the Teachings from the Electronic Brain compilation without them, but the duo insisted on taking control of the production of the project. Cobain says that, even with Virgin, the reason they were able to do their own thing and create the music they wanted in the 1990s was because they already had some major hits under their belts such as "Papua New Guinea", "Metropolis" and "Stakker Humanoid" before joining the label.
Cobain has said that FSOL's mentality has always been about making a journey of an album rather than focusing on trying to have hit singles. He said that they had several top 40 singles (and albums) in the 90s because they had enough fans and had built up enough of a reputation to achieve these hits while still concentrating on the album rather than any potential singles during their time at Virgin.
They have been signed to Passion Records sub-label Jumpin' & Pumpin' since they started out.
Aliases
Discography
Accelerator (1991)
Lifeforms (1994)
ISDN (1994)
Dead Cities (1996)
The Isness (2002) (as Amorphous Androgynous, except in the USA)
Environments (2007)
Environments II (2008)
Environments 3 (2010)
Environments 4 (2012)
Environment Five (2014)
Environment Six (2016)
Environment 6.5 (2016)
Yage 2019 (2019)
Cascade 2020 (2020)
Chart history
Singles charts
Album charts
See also
List of ambient music artists
Max Richter
References
External links
Future Sound of London.com - official website.
an overview of their studio equipment et cetera from 1994
Acid house musicians
Braindance musicians
Breakbeat music groups
British ambient music groups
English dance music groups
English house music duos
English techno music groups
Male musical duos
Astralwerks artists
Virgin Records artists
English experimental musical groups
Harvest Records artists
Hypnotic Records artists
Rephlex Records artists
Intelligent dance musicians
Musical groups established in 1988
Musical groups from Manchester
New-age music groups
Remixers
| true |
[
"Hoover sound refers to a particular synthesizer sound in electronic music, commonly used in hardcore techno, gabber, breakbeat hardcore, trance, hard house and hard NRG. Originally called the \"Mentasm\", the name that stuck was the one likening the sound to that of a vacuum cleaner (often referred to via the genericized trademark \"hoover\" in the UK and Ireland).\n\nThe sound\n\nThe Hoover is a complex waveform that can be created with three oscillators, each spaced an octave apart, a heavy use of pulse-width modulation and a thick chorus effect. The sound is characterised by its thick swirliness that stems from a fast LFO controlling the PWM and the chorus. It was originally created by Eric Persing for the Roland Alpha Juno, although the term 'hoover' was not introduced by him.\n\nIt is traditionally created with the Roland Alpha Juno-2, Alpha Juno 1, or rack mount version MKS-50 synthesizer using the built-in What the patch. The hoover sound generated on these synthesizers is unique for the use of a \"PWM\" sawtooth wave, which inserts flat segments of variable width into a sawtooth waveform.\n\nHistory and popularization\n\nThe hoover sound is believed to first have appeared in a commercial production in \"Mentasm\" by Second Phase (1991), produced in a collaboration between Joey Beltram and Mundo Muzique, and sometimes is referred to as a \"mentasm\". However, mentasm normally refers to the sound sampled from this tune and re-used.\n\nAnother notable example of a record using a hoover sound is \"Dominator\" by Dutch techno pioneers Human Resource. This track gained fame in 1991 and became a top 10 hit worldwide. Characteristic for this track was not only the hoover, but also the over-the-top rap: \"I'm bigger and bolder and rougher and tougher, in other words, sucker, there is no other... I'm the one and only dominator... Wanna kiss myself!\"\n\nThe sound has also been used in video games such as Streets of Rage 3, which was composed by Yuzo Koshiro and Motohiro Kawashima and Robotron X by Aubrey Hodges.\n\nWorks featuring the hoover sound\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n A Hoover patch for Native Instrument's Massive\n An original Hoover sound bank for Native Instrument's Kontakt and EXS-24\n Dubspot Video Tutorial: Reverse Engineering the Hoover sound - Using The Bloody Beetroots and Steve Aoki's \"Warp 1.9\" as example\n Reverse-engineering the rave hoover - includes some technical analysis of the sound\n A hoover by the Modor NF-1\n ALPHA JUNO / MKS-50 / HS HOMEPAGE - A Website Dedicated To The Alpha Juno-1 / Alpha Juno-2 / MKS-50 / HS-10 / HS-80 Synths ▻▻▻ Tones, Utilities, Info, DIY's and Reference Materials ◅◅◅\n\nElectronic music",
"Subtractive synthesis is a method of sound synthesis in which partials of an audio signal (often one rich in harmonics) are attenuated by a filter to alter the timbre of the sound. While subtractive synthesis can be applied to any source audio signal, the sound most commonly associated with the technique is that of analog synthesizers of the 1960s and 1970s, in which the harmonics of simple waveforms such as sawtooth, pulse or square waves are attenuated with a voltage-controlled resonant low-pass filter. Many digital, virtual analog and software synthesizers use subtractive synthesis, sometimes in conjunction with other methods of sound synthesis.\n\nExamples Of Subtractive Synthesis\n\nA human example \nThe basis of subtractive synthesis can be understood by considering the human voice; when a human speaks, sings or makes other vocal noises, the vocal folds act as an oscillator and the mouth and throat as a filter. Consider the difference between singing \"oooh\" and \"aaah\" , at the same pitch. The sound generated by the vocal folds is much the same in either case — a sound that is rich in harmonics. The difference between the two comes from the filtering applied with the mouth and throat. By changing the shape of the mouth, the frequency response of the filter is changed, removing (subtracting) some of the harmonics. The \"aaah\" sound has most of the original harmonics still present; the \"oooh\" sound has most of them removed (or, to be more precise, reduced in amplitude). By gradually changing from \"oooh\" to \"aaah\" and back again, a spectral glide is created, emulating the \"sweeping filter\" effect that is the basis of the \"wah-wah\" guitar effect.\n\nHumans are also capable of generating something approximating white noise by making a \"sshh\" sound. If a person \"synthesizes\" a \"jet plane landing\" sound, this is achieved mostly by altering the shape of the mouth to filter the white noise into pink noise by removing the higher frequencies. The same technique (filtered white noise) can be used to electronically synthesize the sound of ocean waves and wind, and was used in early drum machines to create snare drum and other percussion sounds.\n\nFor example, say the word \"shoe\" slowly, but keep making the \"sh\" throughout the entire word instead of just the beginning. Also try making the \"sh\" sound, but with a smile expression, and then continue \"sh\" while changing to a puckered or kissing expression.\n\nAn electronic example \n\nThe following is an example of subtractive synthesis as it might occur in an electronic instrument. It was created with a personal computer program designed to emulate an analogue subtractive synthesizer. This example will attempt to imitate the sound of a plucked string.\n\nWhilst the following example illustrates how a desired sound might be achieved in practice, only the final three stages are really subtractive synthesis, and the early stages could be considered to be a form of additive synthesis.\n\n First, two oscillators produce relatively complex and harmonic-rich waveforms:\n \n \n This example will use pulse-width modulation for a dynamically changing tone:\n \n \n The two sounds are mixed. In this case they are combined at equal volume, but any ratio could be used.\n \n The combined wave is passed through a voltage-controlled amplifier connected to an ADSR envelope. In other words, its volume is changed according to a pre-set pattern. This is an attempt to emulate the envelope of a plucked string:\n \n Then pass the sound through a shallow low-pass filter:\n \n In this case, to better emulate the sound of a plucked string, the filter cutoff frequency should start in the mid-range and to low. The effect is similar to an electric guitar's wah pedal.\n \n \n\nIn real music production, there is often an additional step. An oscillator with a very low frequency modulates one or more sounds over time, creating a dynamically changing sound.\n\nSee also \n Additive synthesis\n Minimoog\n MicroKorg\n Modular synthesizer\n Korg MS-20\n Novachord\n Steiner-Parker Synthacon\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nAMS – A free software synthesis program for ALSA.\n\nSound synthesis types\n\nru:Субтрактивный синтез"
] |
[
"The Future Sound of London",
"New millennium, new sound",
"What is an example of the \"new sound\" that was created?",
"The album received mixed press due to the drastic change in sound which was inspired by Cobain's and Dougan's (separate) travels to India and immersion in spiritualism,"
] |
C_0edda3262d6c477f8363f5365a26b550_0
|
What is an album they released during this period?
| 2 |
What is an album that the pair returned with "The Isness"?
|
The Future Sound of London
|
After a four-year hiatus, rumours of mental illness began to spread which turned out to be nothing more than exaggeration of Cobain's mercury poisoning from fillings in his teeth. Cobain gained much from the experience, realizing that music was a tool for psychic exploration and entertainment but also one for healing . The pair returned in 2002 with "The Isness", a record heavily influenced by 1960s and 1970s psychedelia and released under their alias Amorphous Androgynous. It was preceded by Papua New Guinea Translations, a mini album which contained a mixture of remixes of FSOL's track as well as new material from The Isness sessions. The album received mixed press due to the drastic change in sound which was inspired by Cobain's and Dougan's (separate) travels to India and immersion in spiritualism, nevertheless the majority was positive with Muzik magazine offering the album a 6/5 mark and dubbing it "...a white beam of light from heaven..." and other British publications such as The Times, The Guardian and MOJO praising the album and the band's ability to do something so completely different from what they had done before. Three years on, they followed the album with a continuation of the Amorphous Androgynous project, Alice in Ultraland. Rumoured to be accompanied by a film of the same title, the album took The Isness' psychedelic experimentation and toned it down, giving the album a singular theme and sound, and replacing the more bizarre moments with funk and ambient interludes. The album was ignored by the press, but was received more favourably among fans than its predecessor. Unlike The Isness, which featured almost 100 musicians over the course of it and the various alternative versions and remix albums, Alice in Ultraland featured a fairly solid band lineup throughout, which extended to live shows which the band had undertaken away from the ISDN cables from 2005 onwards. ...song form has just become too limited. And when I say 'psychedelic', it's not a reference to 60s music but to the basic outlook of a child, which we all have. I think this is the only salvation now. Dance music taught us how to use the studio in a new way, but we have to now take that knowledge and move on with it. This stuff, electronic music, is not dead. It's a process that is ongoing. We have to take hold of the past and go forward with it... CANNOTANSWER
|
. The pair returned in 2002 with "The Isness", a record heavily influenced by 1960s and 1970s psychedelia and released under their alias Amorphous Androgynous.
|
The Future Sound of London (often abbreviated FSOL) is a British electronic music duo composed of Garry Cobain and Brian Dougans. Described as a "boundary-pushing" electronic act by AllMusic, their work covers many areas of electronic music, such as techno, ambient, house music, trip hop, psychedelia, and dub.
During the 1990s, they released the albums Lifeforms (1994) and Dead Cities (1996) to some commercial success. The artists were fairly enigmatic in the past but have become more candid with their fanbase in recent years with social websites like Myspace, YouTube, their forum and many interviews in which Cobain almost always speaks for the pair.
History
Formation
Garry Cobain and Brian Dougans met in the mid-1980s while studying electronics at university in Manchester, England. Dougans had already been making electronic music for some time, working between Glasgow and Manchester, when the pair first began working together in various local clubs. In 1988, Dougans embarked on a project for the Stakker graphics company. The result was Stakker Humanoid, a single that went on to reach number 17 in the UK charts, becoming the first credible UK acid house tune to cross over into the mainstream. Cobain contributed to the accompanying album. A video was also produced.
In the following three years the pair produced music under a variety of aliases, releasing a plethora of singles and EPs, including the successful bleep techno singles "Q" and "Metropolis", some of which would end up on the duo's first compilation album Earthbeat in 1992. "Metropolis" was also very influential in the house scene.
FSOL
In 1991 they released their first album, Accelerator, which was followed by their single "Papua New Guinea", featuring a looping Lisa Gerrard vocal sample from Dead Can Dance's "Dawn of the Iconoclast" and a bassline from Meat Beat Manifesto's "Radio Babylon". The track has made several British "Best songs ever" polls and track specific accolades. In 1992, Virgin Records were looking for electronic bands and, after the chart success of "Papua New Guinea", quickly signed them, giving them free rein to experiment, with a reported advance payment of £75,000. With this the duo invested in a collection of Akai S1000 samplers and other equipment.
They began to play with more ambient music, resulting in the Tales of Ephidrina album of 1993, the first album to be released under the Amorphous Androgynous alias; this was well received by press and marked a distinct shift from the more techno-driven Accelerator, retaining some dance beats, but focusing more on texture, mood and sound. The album was adventurously released on Quigley, the band's own short-lived offshoot of Virgin. At this time, the band had begun experimenting with radio performance, broadcasting now legendary three-hour radio shows to Manchester's Kiss FM from their studio.
Lifeforms, ambience and the ISDN tour
"Cascade", released as a single in 1993, introduced the commercial music world to the new FSOL sound. Despite its length, clocking in at nearly forty minutes and stretched over six parts, the track made the UK top 30, and previewed what was to come. In 1994, they released Lifeforms to critical acclaim. The album featured unconventional use of percussion interspersed with ambient segments. The eponymous single from the album featured Elizabeth Fraser of the Cocteau Twins on vocals. Throughout the record, familiar motifs and samples repeated themselves, sitting alongside tropical birdsong, rainfall, wind and an array of other exotic sounds, lending the album a natural, organic feel, backed up by the environmental landscapes that filled the artwork booklet. Brian Dougan's father was involved with the BBC Radiophonic Workshop which was a heavy influence in the almost musique concrète feel to Lifeforms. The album was also a top 10 hit on the UK album chart. Cobain has said that around this time that journalists would come to talk to them and one of the first things they would ask would be if they liked Brian Eno (whom they cite as an influence), to which they would laugh and say that they were about looking forward, not to the past. It was, to them, very much a new work rather than just another Eno-type ambient album.
That year, they released the limited edition album ISDN, which featured live broadcasts they had made over ISDN lines to various radio stations worldwide to promote Lifeforms, including The Kitchen, an avant-garde performance space in New York and several appearances on the late John Peel's celebrated BBC radio Sessions shows. These shows marked the evolution of the Kiss FM shows of 1992 and 1993, moving away from DJ sets and into ambient soundscapes, with previously released material performed alongside unheard tracks. One live performance to BBC Radio 1 featured Robert Fripp performing alongside the band. The released album's tone was darker and more rhythmic than Lifeforms. Cobain stated that with ISDN they had wanted to achieve something epic and grand but no matter how much technological or personal support they had (and they had everything they could have possibly wanted) they never got to truly do what they envisioned; he admits to wanting too much at this time, even though the album was successful; the 90s, for Cobain in particular, were a time of frustration and feelings of not being able to do what they wanted to, because the technology at the time didn't fit the band's ideas. The following year, the album was re-released with expanded artwork and a slightly altered track list as an unlimited pressing.
In addition to music composition, their interests have covered a number of areas including film and video, 2D and 3D computer graphics, animation in making almost all their own videos for their singles, radio broadcasting and creating their own electronic devices for sound making. They have released works under numerous aliases.
Dead Cities
The 1995 edition of John Peel Sessions featured three entirely new tracks, which took the breakbeats and chaotic sampling of ISDN away from their previous lush synthscapes and toward a new, more contemporary sound. In 1996, they released Dead Cities, which expanded upon these early demos. The new material was a mix of ambient textures and dance music. The lead single, "My Kingdom", introduced the sound, with a video featuring shots of London, and a sound suggesting a dystopian city. The album also featured the band's first collaboration with composer Max Richter, which included the big beat track "We Have Explosive" that featured manipulated samples sourced from Run DMC. Released in 1997; it was used on the Mortal Kombat: Annihilation soundtrack, and (before the single release) in 1996 on the video game WipE'out" 2097, along with the track "Landmass", which they wrote specifically for the game. Also, a remix of "Papua New Guinea" by Hybrid was later featured in the soundtrack to WipEout Fusion in 2002. "We Have Explosive" was the second single from the album, and the band's highest charting single (beating "My Kingdom" by one spot to number 12), and over the course of its five-part extended version included hints of funk, something which would be heard again when the band returned many years later.
The album was promoted by what the band described as "the fuck rock'n'roll tour" via ISDN, lasting several months and gaining much media attention by being the first band to do a world tour without leaving their studio. While 1994's tour had focused on creating soundscapes and unreleased material, the 1996 and 1997 shows were more conventional, each offering a different take on the Dead Cities experience, blending then-current tracks with occasional exclusive pieces of the time. However, the final few performances jettisoned this material for tracks from a series of unreleased sessions, containing more live sounding material, including considerable use of guitar and percussion. These "1997 sessions" were highly sought after by fans, with some tracks forming the basis of the band's psychedelic projects of the following decade, while others appeared on the From The Archives series.
New millennium
After a four-year hiatus, rumours of mental illness began to spread which turned out to be nothing more than exaggeration of Cobain's mercury poisoning from fillings in his teeth. Cobain gained much from the experience, realising that music was a tool for psychic exploration and entertainment but also one for healing. The pair returned in 2002 with "The Isness", a record heavily influenced by 1960s and 1970s psychedelia and released under their alias Amorphous Androgynous. It was preceded by Papua New Guinea Translations, a mini album which contained a mixture of remixes of FSOL's track as well as new material from The Isness sessions. The album received mixed press due to the drastic change in sound which was inspired by Cobain's and Dougan's (separate) travels to India and immersion in spiritualism, nevertheless the majority was positive with Muzik magazine offering the album a 6/5 mark and dubbing it "...a white beam of light from heaven..." and other British publications such as The Times, The Guardian and MOJO praising the album and the band's ability to do something so completely different from what they had done before.
Three years on, they followed the album with a continuation of the Amorphous Androgynous project, Alice in Ultraland. Rumoured to be accompanied by a film of the same title, the album took The Isness psychedelic experimentation and toned it down, giving the album a singular theme and sound, and replacing the more bizarre moments with funk and ambient interludes. The album was ignored by the press, but was received more favourably among fans than its predecessor. Unlike The Isness, which featured almost 100 musicians over the course of it and the various alternative versions and remix albums, Alice in Ultraland featured a fairly solid band lineup throughout, which extended to live shows which the band had undertaken away from the ISDN cables from 2005 onwards.
5.1 & digital experimentation
The FSOL moniker re-appeared in 2006 with a piece entitled "A Gigantic Globular Burst Of Anti-Static", intended as an experiment in 5.1 Surround Sound and created for an exhibition at the Kinetica art museum entitled, appropriately, "Life Forms". The piece contained reworked material from their archives and newer, more abstract ambient music. The piece was coupled with a video called "Stereo Sucks", marking the band's theories on the limitations of stereo music, which was released on a DVD packaged with issue 182 of Future Music Magazine in December 2006 and on FSOL's own download site in March 2007.
They also moved into creating their own sounds when they began constructing electronic instruments, the result of which can be heard on the 2007 release Hand-Made Devices. At their website Glitch TV (where the motto is "[A] sudden interruption in sanity, continuity or programme function") they sell and explain their devices such as the "Electronic Devices Digital Interface" glitch equipment.
FSOLdigital and the Archives
In 2007, the band uploaded several archive tracks online, for the first time revealing much of their unreleased work and unveiling some of the mystery behind the band. The old FSOL material, including the previously unreleased album Environments, along with a selection of newer experiments, the 5.1 experiments and a promise of unreleased Amorphous Androgynous psychedelic material, was uploaded for sale on their online shop, FSOLdigital.com.
In early March 2008, the band released a new online album as Amorphous Androgynous entitled The Peppermint Tree and Seeds of Superconsciousness, which they describe as "A collection of psychedelic relics from The Amorphous Androgynous, 1967-2007". The release retains the sound of their last two psychedelic albums, while expanding on the element of funk first introduced on 2005's Alice in Ultraland. They recorded their following album, The Woodlands of Old, under the alias of their imaginary engineer Yage. Unlike the techno work recorded as Yage in 1992, this new record was darker, more trip hop and world music-oriented and featured ex-Propellerheads member Will White.
From 2008, the band showcased a series of radio broadcasts and podcasts called The Electric Brain Storms, originally on stations such as Proton Radio, PBS radio in Australia, and Frisky Radio. The remaining shows appeared on the band's official site. and SoundCloud. The shows featured electronic, krautrock, experimental and psychedelic favourites of the band mixed in with known and unknown FSOL material, including newly recorded tracks, archived pieces, and new alias recordings. Many of the new tracks appeared on the band's Environments series. Cobain has described the new music as having "the introspective, kind of euphoric sadness that was always there in the FSOL melodies".
From this point, the band have been alternating their focus between different projects. In 2008, Environments II and From the Archives Vol. 5 were released on the band's site, followed by Environments 3 and From the Archives Vol. 6 in 2010; and Environments 4 and From the Archives Vol. 7 in 2012. Whilst the Archives feature old, unreleased material, the Environments albums feature a mixture of old demos, recently completed, and new tracks.
The band have continued to use the FSOLDigital platform to release side-projects and solo work, under names such as Blackhill Transmitter, EMS : Piano, Suburban Domestic and 6 Oscillators in Remittance, as well as distributing digital releases from other artists, including Daniel Pemberton, Herd, Kettel & Secede, Neotropic, Ross Baker and Seafar; they also continue to update The Pod Room with ISDN transmissions from the 1990s.
A Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble Exploding in Your Mind
Following on from the band's 1997 DJ set of the same name, a series of Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble Exploding in Your Mind mix CDs were begun in 2006. The first two were released under the Amorphous Androgynous alias, subtitled "Cosmic Space Music" and "Pagan Love Vibrations", with the first taking over two years to compile, mix and gain sample clearance, both featuring the band's psychedelic influences. A third is set for release sometime in 2010, and will be more electronic, mixed by the Future Sound of London. Further mixes in the series are expected in the future, to be curated by related artists, and the band took the concept live with an eleven-hour spot at 2009's Green Man festival, to contain live bands and DJ spots.
Noel Gallagher of British rock band Oasis, after hearing the first release, became a fan and asked the band to remix the following Oasis single "Falling Down". The Amorphous Androgynous responded with a 5 part, 22-minute Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble remix, which Noel liked enough to release on its own 12". Noel also invited Cobain to DJ at the afterparty for one of Oasis' gigs at Wembley Arena.
The band continue the psychedelic theme to the mixes on their podcast site The Pod Room and on February 2010s Mojo Magazine cover CD. The Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble remixes grow in popularity with commissions from Paul Weller and Pop Levi, and Cobain has suggested a full album of remixes and covers will appear on their recently formed Monstrous Bubble label
On 6 July 2011 it was announced that Noel Gallagher's second solo album will be in collaboration with The Amorphous Androgynous, and is set for release in 2012. In August 2012, Gallagher mentioned in various interviews that he is considering scrapping the collaborative album with Amorphous Androgynous due to not being completely satisfied with the mixes. Two songs from the project have surfaced as B-sides to Gallagher's singles in 2012: "Shoot a Hole into the Sun" (based on Gallagher's track "If I Had a Gun...") was a B-side to the single "Dream On", and a mix of "AKA... What a Life!" featured on the B-side of "Everybody's on the Run". However, as the project is currently shelved, the group have returned to original material, releasing the first in a series of Monstrous Bubble Soundtracks, entitled The Cartel. On Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds' album Chasing Yesterday, The Amorphous Androgynous are credited as Co-producers of the tracks "The Right Stuff" and "The Mexican".
Future of the band
The group continue to give updates for the Galaxial Pharmaceutical news site and forum, while largely releasing material through their FSOLDigital imprint. They remain prolific, working on multiple projects at once. As "The Future Sound of London", they currently plan to continue releasing new material as part of the Environments series; the latest releases as of June 2019 are Environment Six and 6.5 from 2016.
On 26 April 2019, the band released Yage 2019, consisting of eleven songs. The album was also released on vinyl and CD on Record Store Day that year; the latter release featured an additional two tracks. The next year another album, Cascade 2020, was released. In 2021 they released We Have Explosive 2021.
Independence
Since the millennium, FSOL took a more independent turn with their career, releasing their more psychedelic Amorphous Androgynous on an independent label, The Isness on Artful Records and Alice in Ultraland on the progressive Harvest Records (an arm of EMI). They also have their own label called Electronic Brain Violence on which off-beat electronic artists such as Oil and Simon Wells (Headstone Lane) have released EPs and singles. Simon Wells also contributed to Dead Cities on the track "Dead Cities Reprise"
Nevertheless, Virgin records still controls FSOL's back catalog and was going to release the Teachings from the Electronic Brain compilation without them, but the duo insisted on taking control of the production of the project. Cobain says that, even with Virgin, the reason they were able to do their own thing and create the music they wanted in the 1990s was because they already had some major hits under their belts such as "Papua New Guinea", "Metropolis" and "Stakker Humanoid" before joining the label.
Cobain has said that FSOL's mentality has always been about making a journey of an album rather than focusing on trying to have hit singles. He said that they had several top 40 singles (and albums) in the 90s because they had enough fans and had built up enough of a reputation to achieve these hits while still concentrating on the album rather than any potential singles during their time at Virgin.
They have been signed to Passion Records sub-label Jumpin' & Pumpin' since they started out.
Aliases
Discography
Accelerator (1991)
Lifeforms (1994)
ISDN (1994)
Dead Cities (1996)
The Isness (2002) (as Amorphous Androgynous, except in the USA)
Environments (2007)
Environments II (2008)
Environments 3 (2010)
Environments 4 (2012)
Environment Five (2014)
Environment Six (2016)
Environment 6.5 (2016)
Yage 2019 (2019)
Cascade 2020 (2020)
Chart history
Singles charts
Album charts
See also
List of ambient music artists
Max Richter
References
External links
Future Sound of London.com - official website.
an overview of their studio equipment et cetera from 1994
Acid house musicians
Braindance musicians
Breakbeat music groups
British ambient music groups
English dance music groups
English house music duos
English techno music groups
Male musical duos
Astralwerks artists
Virgin Records artists
English experimental musical groups
Harvest Records artists
Hypnotic Records artists
Rephlex Records artists
Intelligent dance musicians
Musical groups established in 1988
Musical groups from Manchester
New-age music groups
Remixers
| true |
[
"This Is What Happens is an album by the New York band The Reign of Kindo. This album is also the last with piano/trumpet player Kelly Sciandra. The band also released an 8-bit digital version of This Is What Happens entitled This Is Also What Happens\n\nTrack listing\n\nReferences \n\nThe Reign of Kindo albums\n2010 albums",
"I.V. is the fourth studio album by the American hardcore punk band Loma Prieta. It was released on January 17, 2012, by Deathwish Inc. I.V. was written during an \"intense and emotional\" period in the lives of the band members.\n\nCritical reception\nExclaim! called the album \"a constantly shifting project, seamlessly weaving together melody, pummelling riffs, melancholic contemplation and an unmistakable Bay-area attitude,\" writing that the album \"should be essential listening for anyone wondering what the future of hardcore is going to look like.\"\n\nTrack listing\n \"Fly By Night\" – 2:40\n \"Torn Portrait\" – 1:31\n \"Reproductive\" – 1:17\n \"Trilogy 4 'Momentary'\" – 0:56\n \"Trilogy 5 'Half Cross'\" – 1:21\n \"Trilogy 6 'Forgetting'\" – 3:02\n \"Untitled\" – 0:43\n \"Uniform\" – 2:12\n \"Uselessness\" – 2:20\n \"Aside From This Distant Shadow, There Is Nothing Left\" – 2:10\n \"Biography\" – 2:33\n \"Diamond Tooth\" – 3:18\n\nReferences\n\n2012 albums\nDeathwish Inc. albums\nLoma Prieta (band) albums\nAlbums produced by Jack Shirley"
] |
[
"The Future Sound of London",
"New millennium, new sound",
"What is an example of the \"new sound\" that was created?",
"The album received mixed press due to the drastic change in sound which was inspired by Cobain's and Dougan's (separate) travels to India and immersion in spiritualism,",
"What is an album they released during this period?",
". The pair returned in 2002 with \"The Isness\", a record heavily influenced by 1960s and 1970s psychedelia and released under their alias Amorphous Androgynous."
] |
C_0edda3262d6c477f8363f5365a26b550_0
|
How did "The Isness" do on the charts?
| 3 |
How did "The Isness" do on the charts in London?
|
The Future Sound of London
|
After a four-year hiatus, rumours of mental illness began to spread which turned out to be nothing more than exaggeration of Cobain's mercury poisoning from fillings in his teeth. Cobain gained much from the experience, realizing that music was a tool for psychic exploration and entertainment but also one for healing . The pair returned in 2002 with "The Isness", a record heavily influenced by 1960s and 1970s psychedelia and released under their alias Amorphous Androgynous. It was preceded by Papua New Guinea Translations, a mini album which contained a mixture of remixes of FSOL's track as well as new material from The Isness sessions. The album received mixed press due to the drastic change in sound which was inspired by Cobain's and Dougan's (separate) travels to India and immersion in spiritualism, nevertheless the majority was positive with Muzik magazine offering the album a 6/5 mark and dubbing it "...a white beam of light from heaven..." and other British publications such as The Times, The Guardian and MOJO praising the album and the band's ability to do something so completely different from what they had done before. Three years on, they followed the album with a continuation of the Amorphous Androgynous project, Alice in Ultraland. Rumoured to be accompanied by a film of the same title, the album took The Isness' psychedelic experimentation and toned it down, giving the album a singular theme and sound, and replacing the more bizarre moments with funk and ambient interludes. The album was ignored by the press, but was received more favourably among fans than its predecessor. Unlike The Isness, which featured almost 100 musicians over the course of it and the various alternative versions and remix albums, Alice in Ultraland featured a fairly solid band lineup throughout, which extended to live shows which the band had undertaken away from the ISDN cables from 2005 onwards. ...song form has just become too limited. And when I say 'psychedelic', it's not a reference to 60s music but to the basic outlook of a child, which we all have. I think this is the only salvation now. Dance music taught us how to use the studio in a new way, but we have to now take that knowledge and move on with it. This stuff, electronic music, is not dead. It's a process that is ongoing. We have to take hold of the past and go forward with it... CANNOTANSWER
|
CANNOTANSWER
|
The Future Sound of London (often abbreviated FSOL) is a British electronic music duo composed of Garry Cobain and Brian Dougans. Described as a "boundary-pushing" electronic act by AllMusic, their work covers many areas of electronic music, such as techno, ambient, house music, trip hop, psychedelia, and dub.
During the 1990s, they released the albums Lifeforms (1994) and Dead Cities (1996) to some commercial success. The artists were fairly enigmatic in the past but have become more candid with their fanbase in recent years with social websites like Myspace, YouTube, their forum and many interviews in which Cobain almost always speaks for the pair.
History
Formation
Garry Cobain and Brian Dougans met in the mid-1980s while studying electronics at university in Manchester, England. Dougans had already been making electronic music for some time, working between Glasgow and Manchester, when the pair first began working together in various local clubs. In 1988, Dougans embarked on a project for the Stakker graphics company. The result was Stakker Humanoid, a single that went on to reach number 17 in the UK charts, becoming the first credible UK acid house tune to cross over into the mainstream. Cobain contributed to the accompanying album. A video was also produced.
In the following three years the pair produced music under a variety of aliases, releasing a plethora of singles and EPs, including the successful bleep techno singles "Q" and "Metropolis", some of which would end up on the duo's first compilation album Earthbeat in 1992. "Metropolis" was also very influential in the house scene.
FSOL
In 1991 they released their first album, Accelerator, which was followed by their single "Papua New Guinea", featuring a looping Lisa Gerrard vocal sample from Dead Can Dance's "Dawn of the Iconoclast" and a bassline from Meat Beat Manifesto's "Radio Babylon". The track has made several British "Best songs ever" polls and track specific accolades. In 1992, Virgin Records were looking for electronic bands and, after the chart success of "Papua New Guinea", quickly signed them, giving them free rein to experiment, with a reported advance payment of £75,000. With this the duo invested in a collection of Akai S1000 samplers and other equipment.
They began to play with more ambient music, resulting in the Tales of Ephidrina album of 1993, the first album to be released under the Amorphous Androgynous alias; this was well received by press and marked a distinct shift from the more techno-driven Accelerator, retaining some dance beats, but focusing more on texture, mood and sound. The album was adventurously released on Quigley, the band's own short-lived offshoot of Virgin. At this time, the band had begun experimenting with radio performance, broadcasting now legendary three-hour radio shows to Manchester's Kiss FM from their studio.
Lifeforms, ambience and the ISDN tour
"Cascade", released as a single in 1993, introduced the commercial music world to the new FSOL sound. Despite its length, clocking in at nearly forty minutes and stretched over six parts, the track made the UK top 30, and previewed what was to come. In 1994, they released Lifeforms to critical acclaim. The album featured unconventional use of percussion interspersed with ambient segments. The eponymous single from the album featured Elizabeth Fraser of the Cocteau Twins on vocals. Throughout the record, familiar motifs and samples repeated themselves, sitting alongside tropical birdsong, rainfall, wind and an array of other exotic sounds, lending the album a natural, organic feel, backed up by the environmental landscapes that filled the artwork booklet. Brian Dougan's father was involved with the BBC Radiophonic Workshop which was a heavy influence in the almost musique concrète feel to Lifeforms. The album was also a top 10 hit on the UK album chart. Cobain has said that around this time that journalists would come to talk to them and one of the first things they would ask would be if they liked Brian Eno (whom they cite as an influence), to which they would laugh and say that they were about looking forward, not to the past. It was, to them, very much a new work rather than just another Eno-type ambient album.
That year, they released the limited edition album ISDN, which featured live broadcasts they had made over ISDN lines to various radio stations worldwide to promote Lifeforms, including The Kitchen, an avant-garde performance space in New York and several appearances on the late John Peel's celebrated BBC radio Sessions shows. These shows marked the evolution of the Kiss FM shows of 1992 and 1993, moving away from DJ sets and into ambient soundscapes, with previously released material performed alongside unheard tracks. One live performance to BBC Radio 1 featured Robert Fripp performing alongside the band. The released album's tone was darker and more rhythmic than Lifeforms. Cobain stated that with ISDN they had wanted to achieve something epic and grand but no matter how much technological or personal support they had (and they had everything they could have possibly wanted) they never got to truly do what they envisioned; he admits to wanting too much at this time, even though the album was successful; the 90s, for Cobain in particular, were a time of frustration and feelings of not being able to do what they wanted to, because the technology at the time didn't fit the band's ideas. The following year, the album was re-released with expanded artwork and a slightly altered track list as an unlimited pressing.
In addition to music composition, their interests have covered a number of areas including film and video, 2D and 3D computer graphics, animation in making almost all their own videos for their singles, radio broadcasting and creating their own electronic devices for sound making. They have released works under numerous aliases.
Dead Cities
The 1995 edition of John Peel Sessions featured three entirely new tracks, which took the breakbeats and chaotic sampling of ISDN away from their previous lush synthscapes and toward a new, more contemporary sound. In 1996, they released Dead Cities, which expanded upon these early demos. The new material was a mix of ambient textures and dance music. The lead single, "My Kingdom", introduced the sound, with a video featuring shots of London, and a sound suggesting a dystopian city. The album also featured the band's first collaboration with composer Max Richter, which included the big beat track "We Have Explosive" that featured manipulated samples sourced from Run DMC. Released in 1997; it was used on the Mortal Kombat: Annihilation soundtrack, and (before the single release) in 1996 on the video game WipE'out" 2097, along with the track "Landmass", which they wrote specifically for the game. Also, a remix of "Papua New Guinea" by Hybrid was later featured in the soundtrack to WipEout Fusion in 2002. "We Have Explosive" was the second single from the album, and the band's highest charting single (beating "My Kingdom" by one spot to number 12), and over the course of its five-part extended version included hints of funk, something which would be heard again when the band returned many years later.
The album was promoted by what the band described as "the fuck rock'n'roll tour" via ISDN, lasting several months and gaining much media attention by being the first band to do a world tour without leaving their studio. While 1994's tour had focused on creating soundscapes and unreleased material, the 1996 and 1997 shows were more conventional, each offering a different take on the Dead Cities experience, blending then-current tracks with occasional exclusive pieces of the time. However, the final few performances jettisoned this material for tracks from a series of unreleased sessions, containing more live sounding material, including considerable use of guitar and percussion. These "1997 sessions" were highly sought after by fans, with some tracks forming the basis of the band's psychedelic projects of the following decade, while others appeared on the From The Archives series.
New millennium
After a four-year hiatus, rumours of mental illness began to spread which turned out to be nothing more than exaggeration of Cobain's mercury poisoning from fillings in his teeth. Cobain gained much from the experience, realising that music was a tool for psychic exploration and entertainment but also one for healing. The pair returned in 2002 with "The Isness", a record heavily influenced by 1960s and 1970s psychedelia and released under their alias Amorphous Androgynous. It was preceded by Papua New Guinea Translations, a mini album which contained a mixture of remixes of FSOL's track as well as new material from The Isness sessions. The album received mixed press due to the drastic change in sound which was inspired by Cobain's and Dougan's (separate) travels to India and immersion in spiritualism, nevertheless the majority was positive with Muzik magazine offering the album a 6/5 mark and dubbing it "...a white beam of light from heaven..." and other British publications such as The Times, The Guardian and MOJO praising the album and the band's ability to do something so completely different from what they had done before.
Three years on, they followed the album with a continuation of the Amorphous Androgynous project, Alice in Ultraland. Rumoured to be accompanied by a film of the same title, the album took The Isness psychedelic experimentation and toned it down, giving the album a singular theme and sound, and replacing the more bizarre moments with funk and ambient interludes. The album was ignored by the press, but was received more favourably among fans than its predecessor. Unlike The Isness, which featured almost 100 musicians over the course of it and the various alternative versions and remix albums, Alice in Ultraland featured a fairly solid band lineup throughout, which extended to live shows which the band had undertaken away from the ISDN cables from 2005 onwards.
5.1 & digital experimentation
The FSOL moniker re-appeared in 2006 with a piece entitled "A Gigantic Globular Burst Of Anti-Static", intended as an experiment in 5.1 Surround Sound and created for an exhibition at the Kinetica art museum entitled, appropriately, "Life Forms". The piece contained reworked material from their archives and newer, more abstract ambient music. The piece was coupled with a video called "Stereo Sucks", marking the band's theories on the limitations of stereo music, which was released on a DVD packaged with issue 182 of Future Music Magazine in December 2006 and on FSOL's own download site in March 2007.
They also moved into creating their own sounds when they began constructing electronic instruments, the result of which can be heard on the 2007 release Hand-Made Devices. At their website Glitch TV (where the motto is "[A] sudden interruption in sanity, continuity or programme function") they sell and explain their devices such as the "Electronic Devices Digital Interface" glitch equipment.
FSOLdigital and the Archives
In 2007, the band uploaded several archive tracks online, for the first time revealing much of their unreleased work and unveiling some of the mystery behind the band. The old FSOL material, including the previously unreleased album Environments, along with a selection of newer experiments, the 5.1 experiments and a promise of unreleased Amorphous Androgynous psychedelic material, was uploaded for sale on their online shop, FSOLdigital.com.
In early March 2008, the band released a new online album as Amorphous Androgynous entitled The Peppermint Tree and Seeds of Superconsciousness, which they describe as "A collection of psychedelic relics from The Amorphous Androgynous, 1967-2007". The release retains the sound of their last two psychedelic albums, while expanding on the element of funk first introduced on 2005's Alice in Ultraland. They recorded their following album, The Woodlands of Old, under the alias of their imaginary engineer Yage. Unlike the techno work recorded as Yage in 1992, this new record was darker, more trip hop and world music-oriented and featured ex-Propellerheads member Will White.
From 2008, the band showcased a series of radio broadcasts and podcasts called The Electric Brain Storms, originally on stations such as Proton Radio, PBS radio in Australia, and Frisky Radio. The remaining shows appeared on the band's official site. and SoundCloud. The shows featured electronic, krautrock, experimental and psychedelic favourites of the band mixed in with known and unknown FSOL material, including newly recorded tracks, archived pieces, and new alias recordings. Many of the new tracks appeared on the band's Environments series. Cobain has described the new music as having "the introspective, kind of euphoric sadness that was always there in the FSOL melodies".
From this point, the band have been alternating their focus between different projects. In 2008, Environments II and From the Archives Vol. 5 were released on the band's site, followed by Environments 3 and From the Archives Vol. 6 in 2010; and Environments 4 and From the Archives Vol. 7 in 2012. Whilst the Archives feature old, unreleased material, the Environments albums feature a mixture of old demos, recently completed, and new tracks.
The band have continued to use the FSOLDigital platform to release side-projects and solo work, under names such as Blackhill Transmitter, EMS : Piano, Suburban Domestic and 6 Oscillators in Remittance, as well as distributing digital releases from other artists, including Daniel Pemberton, Herd, Kettel & Secede, Neotropic, Ross Baker and Seafar; they also continue to update The Pod Room with ISDN transmissions from the 1990s.
A Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble Exploding in Your Mind
Following on from the band's 1997 DJ set of the same name, a series of Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble Exploding in Your Mind mix CDs were begun in 2006. The first two were released under the Amorphous Androgynous alias, subtitled "Cosmic Space Music" and "Pagan Love Vibrations", with the first taking over two years to compile, mix and gain sample clearance, both featuring the band's psychedelic influences. A third is set for release sometime in 2010, and will be more electronic, mixed by the Future Sound of London. Further mixes in the series are expected in the future, to be curated by related artists, and the band took the concept live with an eleven-hour spot at 2009's Green Man festival, to contain live bands and DJ spots.
Noel Gallagher of British rock band Oasis, after hearing the first release, became a fan and asked the band to remix the following Oasis single "Falling Down". The Amorphous Androgynous responded with a 5 part, 22-minute Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble remix, which Noel liked enough to release on its own 12". Noel also invited Cobain to DJ at the afterparty for one of Oasis' gigs at Wembley Arena.
The band continue the psychedelic theme to the mixes on their podcast site The Pod Room and on February 2010s Mojo Magazine cover CD. The Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble remixes grow in popularity with commissions from Paul Weller and Pop Levi, and Cobain has suggested a full album of remixes and covers will appear on their recently formed Monstrous Bubble label
On 6 July 2011 it was announced that Noel Gallagher's second solo album will be in collaboration with The Amorphous Androgynous, and is set for release in 2012. In August 2012, Gallagher mentioned in various interviews that he is considering scrapping the collaborative album with Amorphous Androgynous due to not being completely satisfied with the mixes. Two songs from the project have surfaced as B-sides to Gallagher's singles in 2012: "Shoot a Hole into the Sun" (based on Gallagher's track "If I Had a Gun...") was a B-side to the single "Dream On", and a mix of "AKA... What a Life!" featured on the B-side of "Everybody's on the Run". However, as the project is currently shelved, the group have returned to original material, releasing the first in a series of Monstrous Bubble Soundtracks, entitled The Cartel. On Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds' album Chasing Yesterday, The Amorphous Androgynous are credited as Co-producers of the tracks "The Right Stuff" and "The Mexican".
Future of the band
The group continue to give updates for the Galaxial Pharmaceutical news site and forum, while largely releasing material through their FSOLDigital imprint. They remain prolific, working on multiple projects at once. As "The Future Sound of London", they currently plan to continue releasing new material as part of the Environments series; the latest releases as of June 2019 are Environment Six and 6.5 from 2016.
On 26 April 2019, the band released Yage 2019, consisting of eleven songs. The album was also released on vinyl and CD on Record Store Day that year; the latter release featured an additional two tracks. The next year another album, Cascade 2020, was released. In 2021 they released We Have Explosive 2021.
Independence
Since the millennium, FSOL took a more independent turn with their career, releasing their more psychedelic Amorphous Androgynous on an independent label, The Isness on Artful Records and Alice in Ultraland on the progressive Harvest Records (an arm of EMI). They also have their own label called Electronic Brain Violence on which off-beat electronic artists such as Oil and Simon Wells (Headstone Lane) have released EPs and singles. Simon Wells also contributed to Dead Cities on the track "Dead Cities Reprise"
Nevertheless, Virgin records still controls FSOL's back catalog and was going to release the Teachings from the Electronic Brain compilation without them, but the duo insisted on taking control of the production of the project. Cobain says that, even with Virgin, the reason they were able to do their own thing and create the music they wanted in the 1990s was because they already had some major hits under their belts such as "Papua New Guinea", "Metropolis" and "Stakker Humanoid" before joining the label.
Cobain has said that FSOL's mentality has always been about making a journey of an album rather than focusing on trying to have hit singles. He said that they had several top 40 singles (and albums) in the 90s because they had enough fans and had built up enough of a reputation to achieve these hits while still concentrating on the album rather than any potential singles during their time at Virgin.
They have been signed to Passion Records sub-label Jumpin' & Pumpin' since they started out.
Aliases
Discography
Accelerator (1991)
Lifeforms (1994)
ISDN (1994)
Dead Cities (1996)
The Isness (2002) (as Amorphous Androgynous, except in the USA)
Environments (2007)
Environments II (2008)
Environments 3 (2010)
Environments 4 (2012)
Environment Five (2014)
Environment Six (2016)
Environment 6.5 (2016)
Yage 2019 (2019)
Cascade 2020 (2020)
Chart history
Singles charts
Album charts
See also
List of ambient music artists
Max Richter
References
External links
Future Sound of London.com - official website.
an overview of their studio equipment et cetera from 1994
Acid house musicians
Braindance musicians
Breakbeat music groups
British ambient music groups
English dance music groups
English house music duos
English techno music groups
Male musical duos
Astralwerks artists
Virgin Records artists
English experimental musical groups
Harvest Records artists
Hypnotic Records artists
Rephlex Records artists
Intelligent dance musicians
Musical groups established in 1988
Musical groups from Manchester
New-age music groups
Remixers
| false |
[
"The Isness is a 2002 album by experimental electronica group The Future Sound of London, released under the alias Amorphous Androgynous (except in the US, where it was released as FSOL for commercial reasons). An expanded version was released called The Isness and the Otherness, a two disc special edition containing The Isness on disc one and The Otherness, featuring additional tracks and recordings, on disc two.\n\nThe album is the first by FSOL (as Amorphous Androgynous) to delve into psychedelic rock territory, although there are a few solid electronica tracks the majority is more progressive rock than electronica. This has come to mixed reviews with the majority being positive. Some say they had over extended their reach and others seemed to understand what they were doing.\n\nRelease mixup\nSeveral versions of the album exist, partially due to several last-minute changes to the track listing. Original promotional versions, mastered at Abbey Road studios, were set for release in May 2002. However, the album was put on hold, according to Gaz Cobain, due to an excess of \"masculine energy\". A second promotional version was released, with a track list similar to the final version, but in the same sleeve as the initial version, leading to a number of misleading reviews with incorrect track titles. The final released version of the album matched this second promo, with the addition to the album's short instrumental title track (and a slightly edited version of \"The Mello Hippo Disco Show\").\n\nUpon the album's release in August 2002, more confusion occurred when the band's American label, Hypnotic, distributed 2,500 copies of the original mix of the album. The album was recalled, but many copies had been bought and still exist as rarities. The mix is significantly different from the final mix: \"The Mello Hippo Disco Show\" is an entirely different version, \"The Galaxial Pharmaceutical\" exists as a full track rather than being cut in two, \"Guru Song\" features lyrics sung by a female vocalist, \"Elysian Feels\" contains a significantly different breakbeat and is in a higher key, and both \"Divinity\" and \"Go Tell It To The Trees Egghead\" feature in slightly longer forms. \"Yes My Brother\" and \"Goodbye Sky\" are not present, replaced by \"The Lovers\" and \"The Isness\". To confuse matters more, the vinyl version of the album contained an exclusive track entitled \"Chawawah\", only previously heard on the band's website in 2001.\n\n2004's double-disc UK compilation \"The Isness & The Otherness\" (with \"The Otherness\" released as its own disc in the US) compiled most of the tracks, plus selected remixes and some exclusive pieces, only missing the Abbey Road mix of \"The Galaxial Pharmaceutical\", plus \"Yes My Brother\", which featured in an extended version as \"The Prophet\" on 2005 album Alice in Ultraland.\n\nTrack listing\n\nDisc one: The Isness\n\"The Lovers\" – 6:04\n\"The Isness\" – 3:00\n\"The Mello Hippo Disco Show\" – 5:25\n\"Goodbye Sky (Reprise)\" – 1:14\n\"Elysian Feels\" – 4:47\n\"Go Tell It To the Trees Egghead\" – 4:28\n\"Divinity\" – 7:27\n\"Guru Song\" – 2:49\n\"Osho\" – 2:14\n\"Her Tongue Is Like a Jellyfish\" – 2:34\n\"Meadows\" – 3:29\n\"High Tide on the Sea of Flesh\" – 5:27\n\"The Galaxial Pharmaceutical\" – 14:32\n\nDisc two: The Otherness\n\"Elysian Feels\" (Abbey Road version) – 6:03\n\"Yo-Yo\" (Abbey Road version) – 4:31\n\"Goodbye Sky\" – 4:34\n\"The Lovers (Love Is the Lover)\" – 7:02\n\"Maharishi Raga\" – 4:12\n\"The Band (Divinity)\" – 6:02\n\"Rural Green\" – 3:43\n\"Chawawah\" – 4:03\n\"She Sells Electric Ego\" – 6:41\n\"Chinese Whispers\" – 1:00\n\"Slomo\" – 3:16\n\"The Conga Run\" – 5:38\n\"The Ram\" – 1:55\n\"Toy Piano\" – 1:03\n\nAbbey Road promotional version\n\"Elysian Feels\" – 6:03\n\"The Mello Hippo Disco Show\" – 4:32\n\"Goodbye Sky\" (reprise) – 1:10\n\"Osho\" – 2:14\n\"The Galaxial Pharmaceutical\" – 15:03\n\"Yes My Brother\" – 0:52\n\"Go Tell It To the Trees Egghead\" – 5:31\n\"Divinity\" – 7:57\n\"Guru Song\" – 3:45\n\"Her Tongue Is Like a Jellyfish\" – 2:33\n\"Meadows\" – 3:28\n\"High Tide On the Sea of Flesh\" – 5:25\n\"Goodbye Sky\" – 4:43\n\nVinyl version\n\"The Lovers\" – 5:52\n\"High Tide On the Sea of Flesh\" – 5:24\n\"The Mello Hippo Disco Show\" – 5:49\n\"Divinity\" – 7:25\n\"Guru Song\" – 2:45\n\"Osho\" – 2:12\n\"Her Tongue Is Like a Jellyfish\" – 2:35\n\"Meadows\" – 3:27\n\"Elysian Feels\" – 4:45\n\"Goodbye Sky\" – 1:11\n\"Go Tell It To the Trees Egghead\" – 4:25\n\"Chawawah\" – 4:02\n\"The Isness\" – 2:59\n\"The Galaxial Pharmaceutical\" – 14:30\n\nCrew\nDougans and Cobain enlisted a large group of friends, famous and not, to help them with the music arrangement and performances; the list reads thus:\nRichard Ashcroft, Alex Balanescu, Donovan, Clio Gould, Levine Andrade, Sue Monks, Philip Bainbridge, Christene Charly, Gary Lucas, Stinky Rowe, Baluji Shrivastav, Mikey Rowe, Randy Hope, Taylor Gospel Choir, Chris Margary, Fayaz Virgi, Kevin Robinson, The Cabbage Orchestra, The Major, Sam Pickins, Albert Ross Junior, Sir Daniel Pemberton, Bertie, Sara Gepp, The Vaudeville Stage and Big Screen FX Singers, Catrin Jones, Ben Pitt, Jeniffer Underhill, Vulu Krakovic, Charles Cross, Herb Moon, Merlin Sturt, Wayne Urqhart, Future Sonic Orchestra Limited, Linda Lewis, Joss, Dominic Glover, Anjali Sage, Mike McEvoy (AKA Michael J McEvoy), Phil Eastop, Kate St. John, Morven Bryce, Helen Binney, Jane Fenton, Christene Jackson, Joanna Archard, Herbie Flowers, Sarah Tilley, Mark Eades, GloriaGee, Rechenda Elmhurst, John-Llewelyn Evans, Christine Settle, Jacqueline Goddard, Adrian Osmond, Jon English, Thelma Owen, Alexa Hamilton, Tim Weller, Tom Swift, Dan Swift, and Big Freddy Teddy as well as long-time collaborators Max Richter, Philip Pin, Riz Maslen and Richie Thomas. Brian and Gaz are again credited as Stone Freshwaters and The One Man Band of Cosmos respectively.\n\nDivinity\n\"Divinity\" was released as a promo-single in 2003. \"The Band Mix\" version is an edit of the version on The Otherness. The \"Spector Mix\" is a new version, with drums throughout, giving it a very radio-friendly feel.\n\nTrack listing\n Divinity (Spector mix) (3:59)\n Divinity (The Band mix) (4:34)\n Divinity (album edit) (3:38)\n\nCrew\nEngineer – Stone Freshwaters, Yage\nProducer – FSOL\nWritten By – B. Dougans, G. Cobain\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\n2002 albums\nAstralwerks albums\nThe Future Sound of London albums\nVirgin Records albums",
"This Is How We Do It is the debut studio album by Montell Jordan. The album peaked at #12 on the Billboard 200 and #4 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums and was certified platinum. The album also featured the single \"This Is How We Do It\", which made it to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100, #1 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks and #1 on the Rhythmic Top 40. Another single, \"Somethin' 4 da Honeyz\", peaked at #21 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #18 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks chart.\n\nTrack listing\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nReferences\n\nMontell Jordan albums\n1995 debut albums\nDef Jam Recordings albums"
] |
[
"The Future Sound of London",
"New millennium, new sound",
"What is an example of the \"new sound\" that was created?",
"The album received mixed press due to the drastic change in sound which was inspired by Cobain's and Dougan's (separate) travels to India and immersion in spiritualism,",
"What is an album they released during this period?",
". The pair returned in 2002 with \"The Isness\", a record heavily influenced by 1960s and 1970s psychedelia and released under their alias Amorphous Androgynous.",
"How did \"The Isness\" do on the charts?",
"I don't know."
] |
C_0edda3262d6c477f8363f5365a26b550_0
|
What singles were released from "The Isness" album?
| 4 |
What singles were released from "The Isness" album from the future sound of London?
|
The Future Sound of London
|
After a four-year hiatus, rumours of mental illness began to spread which turned out to be nothing more than exaggeration of Cobain's mercury poisoning from fillings in his teeth. Cobain gained much from the experience, realizing that music was a tool for psychic exploration and entertainment but also one for healing . The pair returned in 2002 with "The Isness", a record heavily influenced by 1960s and 1970s psychedelia and released under their alias Amorphous Androgynous. It was preceded by Papua New Guinea Translations, a mini album which contained a mixture of remixes of FSOL's track as well as new material from The Isness sessions. The album received mixed press due to the drastic change in sound which was inspired by Cobain's and Dougan's (separate) travels to India and immersion in spiritualism, nevertheless the majority was positive with Muzik magazine offering the album a 6/5 mark and dubbing it "...a white beam of light from heaven..." and other British publications such as The Times, The Guardian and MOJO praising the album and the band's ability to do something so completely different from what they had done before. Three years on, they followed the album with a continuation of the Amorphous Androgynous project, Alice in Ultraland. Rumoured to be accompanied by a film of the same title, the album took The Isness' psychedelic experimentation and toned it down, giving the album a singular theme and sound, and replacing the more bizarre moments with funk and ambient interludes. The album was ignored by the press, but was received more favourably among fans than its predecessor. Unlike The Isness, which featured almost 100 musicians over the course of it and the various alternative versions and remix albums, Alice in Ultraland featured a fairly solid band lineup throughout, which extended to live shows which the band had undertaken away from the ISDN cables from 2005 onwards. ...song form has just become too limited. And when I say 'psychedelic', it's not a reference to 60s music but to the basic outlook of a child, which we all have. I think this is the only salvation now. Dance music taught us how to use the studio in a new way, but we have to now take that knowledge and move on with it. This stuff, electronic music, is not dead. It's a process that is ongoing. We have to take hold of the past and go forward with it... CANNOTANSWER
|
CANNOTANSWER
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The Future Sound of London (often abbreviated FSOL) is a British electronic music duo composed of Garry Cobain and Brian Dougans. Described as a "boundary-pushing" electronic act by AllMusic, their work covers many areas of electronic music, such as techno, ambient, house music, trip hop, psychedelia, and dub.
During the 1990s, they released the albums Lifeforms (1994) and Dead Cities (1996) to some commercial success. The artists were fairly enigmatic in the past but have become more candid with their fanbase in recent years with social websites like Myspace, YouTube, their forum and many interviews in which Cobain almost always speaks for the pair.
History
Formation
Garry Cobain and Brian Dougans met in the mid-1980s while studying electronics at university in Manchester, England. Dougans had already been making electronic music for some time, working between Glasgow and Manchester, when the pair first began working together in various local clubs. In 1988, Dougans embarked on a project for the Stakker graphics company. The result was Stakker Humanoid, a single that went on to reach number 17 in the UK charts, becoming the first credible UK acid house tune to cross over into the mainstream. Cobain contributed to the accompanying album. A video was also produced.
In the following three years the pair produced music under a variety of aliases, releasing a plethora of singles and EPs, including the successful bleep techno singles "Q" and "Metropolis", some of which would end up on the duo's first compilation album Earthbeat in 1992. "Metropolis" was also very influential in the house scene.
FSOL
In 1991 they released their first album, Accelerator, which was followed by their single "Papua New Guinea", featuring a looping Lisa Gerrard vocal sample from Dead Can Dance's "Dawn of the Iconoclast" and a bassline from Meat Beat Manifesto's "Radio Babylon". The track has made several British "Best songs ever" polls and track specific accolades. In 1992, Virgin Records were looking for electronic bands and, after the chart success of "Papua New Guinea", quickly signed them, giving them free rein to experiment, with a reported advance payment of £75,000. With this the duo invested in a collection of Akai S1000 samplers and other equipment.
They began to play with more ambient music, resulting in the Tales of Ephidrina album of 1993, the first album to be released under the Amorphous Androgynous alias; this was well received by press and marked a distinct shift from the more techno-driven Accelerator, retaining some dance beats, but focusing more on texture, mood and sound. The album was adventurously released on Quigley, the band's own short-lived offshoot of Virgin. At this time, the band had begun experimenting with radio performance, broadcasting now legendary three-hour radio shows to Manchester's Kiss FM from their studio.
Lifeforms, ambience and the ISDN tour
"Cascade", released as a single in 1993, introduced the commercial music world to the new FSOL sound. Despite its length, clocking in at nearly forty minutes and stretched over six parts, the track made the UK top 30, and previewed what was to come. In 1994, they released Lifeforms to critical acclaim. The album featured unconventional use of percussion interspersed with ambient segments. The eponymous single from the album featured Elizabeth Fraser of the Cocteau Twins on vocals. Throughout the record, familiar motifs and samples repeated themselves, sitting alongside tropical birdsong, rainfall, wind and an array of other exotic sounds, lending the album a natural, organic feel, backed up by the environmental landscapes that filled the artwork booklet. Brian Dougan's father was involved with the BBC Radiophonic Workshop which was a heavy influence in the almost musique concrète feel to Lifeforms. The album was also a top 10 hit on the UK album chart. Cobain has said that around this time that journalists would come to talk to them and one of the first things they would ask would be if they liked Brian Eno (whom they cite as an influence), to which they would laugh and say that they were about looking forward, not to the past. It was, to them, very much a new work rather than just another Eno-type ambient album.
That year, they released the limited edition album ISDN, which featured live broadcasts they had made over ISDN lines to various radio stations worldwide to promote Lifeforms, including The Kitchen, an avant-garde performance space in New York and several appearances on the late John Peel's celebrated BBC radio Sessions shows. These shows marked the evolution of the Kiss FM shows of 1992 and 1993, moving away from DJ sets and into ambient soundscapes, with previously released material performed alongside unheard tracks. One live performance to BBC Radio 1 featured Robert Fripp performing alongside the band. The released album's tone was darker and more rhythmic than Lifeforms. Cobain stated that with ISDN they had wanted to achieve something epic and grand but no matter how much technological or personal support they had (and they had everything they could have possibly wanted) they never got to truly do what they envisioned; he admits to wanting too much at this time, even though the album was successful; the 90s, for Cobain in particular, were a time of frustration and feelings of not being able to do what they wanted to, because the technology at the time didn't fit the band's ideas. The following year, the album was re-released with expanded artwork and a slightly altered track list as an unlimited pressing.
In addition to music composition, their interests have covered a number of areas including film and video, 2D and 3D computer graphics, animation in making almost all their own videos for their singles, radio broadcasting and creating their own electronic devices for sound making. They have released works under numerous aliases.
Dead Cities
The 1995 edition of John Peel Sessions featured three entirely new tracks, which took the breakbeats and chaotic sampling of ISDN away from their previous lush synthscapes and toward a new, more contemporary sound. In 1996, they released Dead Cities, which expanded upon these early demos. The new material was a mix of ambient textures and dance music. The lead single, "My Kingdom", introduced the sound, with a video featuring shots of London, and a sound suggesting a dystopian city. The album also featured the band's first collaboration with composer Max Richter, which included the big beat track "We Have Explosive" that featured manipulated samples sourced from Run DMC. Released in 1997; it was used on the Mortal Kombat: Annihilation soundtrack, and (before the single release) in 1996 on the video game WipE'out" 2097, along with the track "Landmass", which they wrote specifically for the game. Also, a remix of "Papua New Guinea" by Hybrid was later featured in the soundtrack to WipEout Fusion in 2002. "We Have Explosive" was the second single from the album, and the band's highest charting single (beating "My Kingdom" by one spot to number 12), and over the course of its five-part extended version included hints of funk, something which would be heard again when the band returned many years later.
The album was promoted by what the band described as "the fuck rock'n'roll tour" via ISDN, lasting several months and gaining much media attention by being the first band to do a world tour without leaving their studio. While 1994's tour had focused on creating soundscapes and unreleased material, the 1996 and 1997 shows were more conventional, each offering a different take on the Dead Cities experience, blending then-current tracks with occasional exclusive pieces of the time. However, the final few performances jettisoned this material for tracks from a series of unreleased sessions, containing more live sounding material, including considerable use of guitar and percussion. These "1997 sessions" were highly sought after by fans, with some tracks forming the basis of the band's psychedelic projects of the following decade, while others appeared on the From The Archives series.
New millennium
After a four-year hiatus, rumours of mental illness began to spread which turned out to be nothing more than exaggeration of Cobain's mercury poisoning from fillings in his teeth. Cobain gained much from the experience, realising that music was a tool for psychic exploration and entertainment but also one for healing. The pair returned in 2002 with "The Isness", a record heavily influenced by 1960s and 1970s psychedelia and released under their alias Amorphous Androgynous. It was preceded by Papua New Guinea Translations, a mini album which contained a mixture of remixes of FSOL's track as well as new material from The Isness sessions. The album received mixed press due to the drastic change in sound which was inspired by Cobain's and Dougan's (separate) travels to India and immersion in spiritualism, nevertheless the majority was positive with Muzik magazine offering the album a 6/5 mark and dubbing it "...a white beam of light from heaven..." and other British publications such as The Times, The Guardian and MOJO praising the album and the band's ability to do something so completely different from what they had done before.
Three years on, they followed the album with a continuation of the Amorphous Androgynous project, Alice in Ultraland. Rumoured to be accompanied by a film of the same title, the album took The Isness psychedelic experimentation and toned it down, giving the album a singular theme and sound, and replacing the more bizarre moments with funk and ambient interludes. The album was ignored by the press, but was received more favourably among fans than its predecessor. Unlike The Isness, which featured almost 100 musicians over the course of it and the various alternative versions and remix albums, Alice in Ultraland featured a fairly solid band lineup throughout, which extended to live shows which the band had undertaken away from the ISDN cables from 2005 onwards.
5.1 & digital experimentation
The FSOL moniker re-appeared in 2006 with a piece entitled "A Gigantic Globular Burst Of Anti-Static", intended as an experiment in 5.1 Surround Sound and created for an exhibition at the Kinetica art museum entitled, appropriately, "Life Forms". The piece contained reworked material from their archives and newer, more abstract ambient music. The piece was coupled with a video called "Stereo Sucks", marking the band's theories on the limitations of stereo music, which was released on a DVD packaged with issue 182 of Future Music Magazine in December 2006 and on FSOL's own download site in March 2007.
They also moved into creating their own sounds when they began constructing electronic instruments, the result of which can be heard on the 2007 release Hand-Made Devices. At their website Glitch TV (where the motto is "[A] sudden interruption in sanity, continuity or programme function") they sell and explain their devices such as the "Electronic Devices Digital Interface" glitch equipment.
FSOLdigital and the Archives
In 2007, the band uploaded several archive tracks online, for the first time revealing much of their unreleased work and unveiling some of the mystery behind the band. The old FSOL material, including the previously unreleased album Environments, along with a selection of newer experiments, the 5.1 experiments and a promise of unreleased Amorphous Androgynous psychedelic material, was uploaded for sale on their online shop, FSOLdigital.com.
In early March 2008, the band released a new online album as Amorphous Androgynous entitled The Peppermint Tree and Seeds of Superconsciousness, which they describe as "A collection of psychedelic relics from The Amorphous Androgynous, 1967-2007". The release retains the sound of their last two psychedelic albums, while expanding on the element of funk first introduced on 2005's Alice in Ultraland. They recorded their following album, The Woodlands of Old, under the alias of their imaginary engineer Yage. Unlike the techno work recorded as Yage in 1992, this new record was darker, more trip hop and world music-oriented and featured ex-Propellerheads member Will White.
From 2008, the band showcased a series of radio broadcasts and podcasts called The Electric Brain Storms, originally on stations such as Proton Radio, PBS radio in Australia, and Frisky Radio. The remaining shows appeared on the band's official site. and SoundCloud. The shows featured electronic, krautrock, experimental and psychedelic favourites of the band mixed in with known and unknown FSOL material, including newly recorded tracks, archived pieces, and new alias recordings. Many of the new tracks appeared on the band's Environments series. Cobain has described the new music as having "the introspective, kind of euphoric sadness that was always there in the FSOL melodies".
From this point, the band have been alternating their focus between different projects. In 2008, Environments II and From the Archives Vol. 5 were released on the band's site, followed by Environments 3 and From the Archives Vol. 6 in 2010; and Environments 4 and From the Archives Vol. 7 in 2012. Whilst the Archives feature old, unreleased material, the Environments albums feature a mixture of old demos, recently completed, and new tracks.
The band have continued to use the FSOLDigital platform to release side-projects and solo work, under names such as Blackhill Transmitter, EMS : Piano, Suburban Domestic and 6 Oscillators in Remittance, as well as distributing digital releases from other artists, including Daniel Pemberton, Herd, Kettel & Secede, Neotropic, Ross Baker and Seafar; they also continue to update The Pod Room with ISDN transmissions from the 1990s.
A Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble Exploding in Your Mind
Following on from the band's 1997 DJ set of the same name, a series of Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble Exploding in Your Mind mix CDs were begun in 2006. The first two were released under the Amorphous Androgynous alias, subtitled "Cosmic Space Music" and "Pagan Love Vibrations", with the first taking over two years to compile, mix and gain sample clearance, both featuring the band's psychedelic influences. A third is set for release sometime in 2010, and will be more electronic, mixed by the Future Sound of London. Further mixes in the series are expected in the future, to be curated by related artists, and the band took the concept live with an eleven-hour spot at 2009's Green Man festival, to contain live bands and DJ spots.
Noel Gallagher of British rock band Oasis, after hearing the first release, became a fan and asked the band to remix the following Oasis single "Falling Down". The Amorphous Androgynous responded with a 5 part, 22-minute Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble remix, which Noel liked enough to release on its own 12". Noel also invited Cobain to DJ at the afterparty for one of Oasis' gigs at Wembley Arena.
The band continue the psychedelic theme to the mixes on their podcast site The Pod Room and on February 2010s Mojo Magazine cover CD. The Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble remixes grow in popularity with commissions from Paul Weller and Pop Levi, and Cobain has suggested a full album of remixes and covers will appear on their recently formed Monstrous Bubble label
On 6 July 2011 it was announced that Noel Gallagher's second solo album will be in collaboration with The Amorphous Androgynous, and is set for release in 2012. In August 2012, Gallagher mentioned in various interviews that he is considering scrapping the collaborative album with Amorphous Androgynous due to not being completely satisfied with the mixes. Two songs from the project have surfaced as B-sides to Gallagher's singles in 2012: "Shoot a Hole into the Sun" (based on Gallagher's track "If I Had a Gun...") was a B-side to the single "Dream On", and a mix of "AKA... What a Life!" featured on the B-side of "Everybody's on the Run". However, as the project is currently shelved, the group have returned to original material, releasing the first in a series of Monstrous Bubble Soundtracks, entitled The Cartel. On Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds' album Chasing Yesterday, The Amorphous Androgynous are credited as Co-producers of the tracks "The Right Stuff" and "The Mexican".
Future of the band
The group continue to give updates for the Galaxial Pharmaceutical news site and forum, while largely releasing material through their FSOLDigital imprint. They remain prolific, working on multiple projects at once. As "The Future Sound of London", they currently plan to continue releasing new material as part of the Environments series; the latest releases as of June 2019 are Environment Six and 6.5 from 2016.
On 26 April 2019, the band released Yage 2019, consisting of eleven songs. The album was also released on vinyl and CD on Record Store Day that year; the latter release featured an additional two tracks. The next year another album, Cascade 2020, was released. In 2021 they released We Have Explosive 2021.
Independence
Since the millennium, FSOL took a more independent turn with their career, releasing their more psychedelic Amorphous Androgynous on an independent label, The Isness on Artful Records and Alice in Ultraland on the progressive Harvest Records (an arm of EMI). They also have their own label called Electronic Brain Violence on which off-beat electronic artists such as Oil and Simon Wells (Headstone Lane) have released EPs and singles. Simon Wells also contributed to Dead Cities on the track "Dead Cities Reprise"
Nevertheless, Virgin records still controls FSOL's back catalog and was going to release the Teachings from the Electronic Brain compilation without them, but the duo insisted on taking control of the production of the project. Cobain says that, even with Virgin, the reason they were able to do their own thing and create the music they wanted in the 1990s was because they already had some major hits under their belts such as "Papua New Guinea", "Metropolis" and "Stakker Humanoid" before joining the label.
Cobain has said that FSOL's mentality has always been about making a journey of an album rather than focusing on trying to have hit singles. He said that they had several top 40 singles (and albums) in the 90s because they had enough fans and had built up enough of a reputation to achieve these hits while still concentrating on the album rather than any potential singles during their time at Virgin.
They have been signed to Passion Records sub-label Jumpin' & Pumpin' since they started out.
Aliases
Discography
Accelerator (1991)
Lifeforms (1994)
ISDN (1994)
Dead Cities (1996)
The Isness (2002) (as Amorphous Androgynous, except in the USA)
Environments (2007)
Environments II (2008)
Environments 3 (2010)
Environments 4 (2012)
Environment Five (2014)
Environment Six (2016)
Environment 6.5 (2016)
Yage 2019 (2019)
Cascade 2020 (2020)
Chart history
Singles charts
Album charts
See also
List of ambient music artists
Max Richter
References
External links
Future Sound of London.com - official website.
an overview of their studio equipment et cetera from 1994
Acid house musicians
Braindance musicians
Breakbeat music groups
British ambient music groups
English dance music groups
English house music duos
English techno music groups
Male musical duos
Astralwerks artists
Virgin Records artists
English experimental musical groups
Harvest Records artists
Hypnotic Records artists
Rephlex Records artists
Intelligent dance musicians
Musical groups established in 1988
Musical groups from Manchester
New-age music groups
Remixers
| false |
[
"\"Bring Me Your Love\" is a 1994 song recorded and produced by American-based group Deee-Lite, which was released by Elektra Records as the second single of their third and final studio album, Dewdrops in the Garden. The single was issued as a 12-inch white vinyl amd sampled 'The Children's Song' by Eddie Harris.\n\nThis would be the act's fifth single to top the number one position on the Billboard dance chart. during the week ending August 13, 1994. The B side included a remix of \"Party Happening People,\" which peaked at number 30 in 1994.\n\nCritical reception \nLarry Flick from Billboard wrote, \"Brace yourself for a spankin' new Deee-Lite vibe, as the quirky and cool trio reinvents itself with a flower-power rave attitude. The changes, however, are primarily cosmetic, since a familiar lyrical message of love and unity remains in place–as does a reverence for retro-funk and soul. Lady Kier has grown into quite the seductress, injecting a naughty sass into the song.\" Music & Media commented, \"The one-time masters of weirdelica produce a lite version of their speciality. Do not be put off by the less unconventional first impression.\" Brad Beatnik from Music Weeks RM Dance Update complimented it as \"a fine comeback and an original and interesting package for DJs.\"\n\n Formats and track listings US 12\" Maxi single'\nA1 Bring Me Your Love (Sampladelic Prod. Isness Not Business Mix) \nA2 Bring Me Your Love (DJ Digit Remix)\nA3 Bring Me Your Love (DJ EFX Remix)\nB1 Party Happenin' People (Sampladelic Prod. Mushroom Mix) \nB2 Bring Me Your Love (Johnny Vicious Cosmic Isness Remix 1)\nB3 Bring Me Your Love (Johnny Vicious Cosmic Isness Remix 2)\n\nSee also\nList of number-one dance singles of 1994 (U.S.)\n\nReferences\n\n1994 singles\n1994 songs\nDeee-Lite songs\nElektra Records singles",
"The Isness is a 2002 album by experimental electronica group The Future Sound of London, released under the alias Amorphous Androgynous (except in the US, where it was released as FSOL for commercial reasons). An expanded version was released called The Isness and the Otherness, a two disc special edition containing The Isness on disc one and The Otherness, featuring additional tracks and recordings, on disc two.\n\nThe album is the first by FSOL (as Amorphous Androgynous) to delve into psychedelic rock territory, although there are a few solid electronica tracks the majority is more progressive rock than electronica. This has come to mixed reviews with the majority being positive. Some say they had over extended their reach and others seemed to understand what they were doing.\n\nRelease mixup\nSeveral versions of the album exist, partially due to several last-minute changes to the track listing. Original promotional versions, mastered at Abbey Road studios, were set for release in May 2002. However, the album was put on hold, according to Gaz Cobain, due to an excess of \"masculine energy\". A second promotional version was released, with a track list similar to the final version, but in the same sleeve as the initial version, leading to a number of misleading reviews with incorrect track titles. The final released version of the album matched this second promo, with the addition to the album's short instrumental title track (and a slightly edited version of \"The Mello Hippo Disco Show\").\n\nUpon the album's release in August 2002, more confusion occurred when the band's American label, Hypnotic, distributed 2,500 copies of the original mix of the album. The album was recalled, but many copies had been bought and still exist as rarities. The mix is significantly different from the final mix: \"The Mello Hippo Disco Show\" is an entirely different version, \"The Galaxial Pharmaceutical\" exists as a full track rather than being cut in two, \"Guru Song\" features lyrics sung by a female vocalist, \"Elysian Feels\" contains a significantly different breakbeat and is in a higher key, and both \"Divinity\" and \"Go Tell It To The Trees Egghead\" feature in slightly longer forms. \"Yes My Brother\" and \"Goodbye Sky\" are not present, replaced by \"The Lovers\" and \"The Isness\". To confuse matters more, the vinyl version of the album contained an exclusive track entitled \"Chawawah\", only previously heard on the band's website in 2001.\n\n2004's double-disc UK compilation \"The Isness & The Otherness\" (with \"The Otherness\" released as its own disc in the US) compiled most of the tracks, plus selected remixes and some exclusive pieces, only missing the Abbey Road mix of \"The Galaxial Pharmaceutical\", plus \"Yes My Brother\", which featured in an extended version as \"The Prophet\" on 2005 album Alice in Ultraland.\n\nTrack listing\n\nDisc one: The Isness\n\"The Lovers\" – 6:04\n\"The Isness\" – 3:00\n\"The Mello Hippo Disco Show\" – 5:25\n\"Goodbye Sky (Reprise)\" – 1:14\n\"Elysian Feels\" – 4:47\n\"Go Tell It To the Trees Egghead\" – 4:28\n\"Divinity\" – 7:27\n\"Guru Song\" – 2:49\n\"Osho\" – 2:14\n\"Her Tongue Is Like a Jellyfish\" – 2:34\n\"Meadows\" – 3:29\n\"High Tide on the Sea of Flesh\" – 5:27\n\"The Galaxial Pharmaceutical\" – 14:32\n\nDisc two: The Otherness\n\"Elysian Feels\" (Abbey Road version) – 6:03\n\"Yo-Yo\" (Abbey Road version) – 4:31\n\"Goodbye Sky\" – 4:34\n\"The Lovers (Love Is the Lover)\" – 7:02\n\"Maharishi Raga\" – 4:12\n\"The Band (Divinity)\" – 6:02\n\"Rural Green\" – 3:43\n\"Chawawah\" – 4:03\n\"She Sells Electric Ego\" – 6:41\n\"Chinese Whispers\" – 1:00\n\"Slomo\" – 3:16\n\"The Conga Run\" – 5:38\n\"The Ram\" – 1:55\n\"Toy Piano\" – 1:03\n\nAbbey Road promotional version\n\"Elysian Feels\" – 6:03\n\"The Mello Hippo Disco Show\" – 4:32\n\"Goodbye Sky\" (reprise) – 1:10\n\"Osho\" – 2:14\n\"The Galaxial Pharmaceutical\" – 15:03\n\"Yes My Brother\" – 0:52\n\"Go Tell It To the Trees Egghead\" – 5:31\n\"Divinity\" – 7:57\n\"Guru Song\" – 3:45\n\"Her Tongue Is Like a Jellyfish\" – 2:33\n\"Meadows\" – 3:28\n\"High Tide On the Sea of Flesh\" – 5:25\n\"Goodbye Sky\" – 4:43\n\nVinyl version\n\"The Lovers\" – 5:52\n\"High Tide On the Sea of Flesh\" – 5:24\n\"The Mello Hippo Disco Show\" – 5:49\n\"Divinity\" – 7:25\n\"Guru Song\" – 2:45\n\"Osho\" – 2:12\n\"Her Tongue Is Like a Jellyfish\" – 2:35\n\"Meadows\" – 3:27\n\"Elysian Feels\" – 4:45\n\"Goodbye Sky\" – 1:11\n\"Go Tell It To the Trees Egghead\" – 4:25\n\"Chawawah\" – 4:02\n\"The Isness\" – 2:59\n\"The Galaxial Pharmaceutical\" – 14:30\n\nCrew\nDougans and Cobain enlisted a large group of friends, famous and not, to help them with the music arrangement and performances; the list reads thus:\nRichard Ashcroft, Alex Balanescu, Donovan, Clio Gould, Levine Andrade, Sue Monks, Philip Bainbridge, Christene Charly, Gary Lucas, Stinky Rowe, Baluji Shrivastav, Mikey Rowe, Randy Hope, Taylor Gospel Choir, Chris Margary, Fayaz Virgi, Kevin Robinson, The Cabbage Orchestra, The Major, Sam Pickins, Albert Ross Junior, Sir Daniel Pemberton, Bertie, Sara Gepp, The Vaudeville Stage and Big Screen FX Singers, Catrin Jones, Ben Pitt, Jeniffer Underhill, Vulu Krakovic, Charles Cross, Herb Moon, Merlin Sturt, Wayne Urqhart, Future Sonic Orchestra Limited, Linda Lewis, Joss, Dominic Glover, Anjali Sage, Mike McEvoy (AKA Michael J McEvoy), Phil Eastop, Kate St. John, Morven Bryce, Helen Binney, Jane Fenton, Christene Jackson, Joanna Archard, Herbie Flowers, Sarah Tilley, Mark Eades, GloriaGee, Rechenda Elmhurst, John-Llewelyn Evans, Christine Settle, Jacqueline Goddard, Adrian Osmond, Jon English, Thelma Owen, Alexa Hamilton, Tim Weller, Tom Swift, Dan Swift, and Big Freddy Teddy as well as long-time collaborators Max Richter, Philip Pin, Riz Maslen and Richie Thomas. Brian and Gaz are again credited as Stone Freshwaters and The One Man Band of Cosmos respectively.\n\nDivinity\n\"Divinity\" was released as a promo-single in 2003. \"The Band Mix\" version is an edit of the version on The Otherness. The \"Spector Mix\" is a new version, with drums throughout, giving it a very radio-friendly feel.\n\nTrack listing\n Divinity (Spector mix) (3:59)\n Divinity (The Band mix) (4:34)\n Divinity (album edit) (3:38)\n\nCrew\nEngineer – Stone Freshwaters, Yage\nProducer – FSOL\nWritten By – B. Dougans, G. Cobain\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\n2002 albums\nAstralwerks albums\nThe Future Sound of London albums\nVirgin Records albums"
] |
[
"The Future Sound of London",
"New millennium, new sound",
"What is an example of the \"new sound\" that was created?",
"The album received mixed press due to the drastic change in sound which was inspired by Cobain's and Dougan's (separate) travels to India and immersion in spiritualism,",
"What is an album they released during this period?",
". The pair returned in 2002 with \"The Isness\", a record heavily influenced by 1960s and 1970s psychedelia and released under their alias Amorphous Androgynous.",
"How did \"The Isness\" do on the charts?",
"I don't know.",
"What singles were released from \"The Isness\" album?",
"I don't know."
] |
C_0edda3262d6c477f8363f5365a26b550_0
|
What other album did they release besides "The Isness"?
| 5 |
What other album did new millennium release besides "The Isness"?
|
The Future Sound of London
|
After a four-year hiatus, rumours of mental illness began to spread which turned out to be nothing more than exaggeration of Cobain's mercury poisoning from fillings in his teeth. Cobain gained much from the experience, realizing that music was a tool for psychic exploration and entertainment but also one for healing . The pair returned in 2002 with "The Isness", a record heavily influenced by 1960s and 1970s psychedelia and released under their alias Amorphous Androgynous. It was preceded by Papua New Guinea Translations, a mini album which contained a mixture of remixes of FSOL's track as well as new material from The Isness sessions. The album received mixed press due to the drastic change in sound which was inspired by Cobain's and Dougan's (separate) travels to India and immersion in spiritualism, nevertheless the majority was positive with Muzik magazine offering the album a 6/5 mark and dubbing it "...a white beam of light from heaven..." and other British publications such as The Times, The Guardian and MOJO praising the album and the band's ability to do something so completely different from what they had done before. Three years on, they followed the album with a continuation of the Amorphous Androgynous project, Alice in Ultraland. Rumoured to be accompanied by a film of the same title, the album took The Isness' psychedelic experimentation and toned it down, giving the album a singular theme and sound, and replacing the more bizarre moments with funk and ambient interludes. The album was ignored by the press, but was received more favourably among fans than its predecessor. Unlike The Isness, which featured almost 100 musicians over the course of it and the various alternative versions and remix albums, Alice in Ultraland featured a fairly solid band lineup throughout, which extended to live shows which the band had undertaken away from the ISDN cables from 2005 onwards. ...song form has just become too limited. And when I say 'psychedelic', it's not a reference to 60s music but to the basic outlook of a child, which we all have. I think this is the only salvation now. Dance music taught us how to use the studio in a new way, but we have to now take that knowledge and move on with it. This stuff, electronic music, is not dead. It's a process that is ongoing. We have to take hold of the past and go forward with it... CANNOTANSWER
|
Three years on, they followed the album with a continuation of the Amorphous Androgynous project, Alice in Ultraland.
|
The Future Sound of London (often abbreviated FSOL) is a British electronic music duo composed of Garry Cobain and Brian Dougans. Described as a "boundary-pushing" electronic act by AllMusic, their work covers many areas of electronic music, such as techno, ambient, house music, trip hop, psychedelia, and dub.
During the 1990s, they released the albums Lifeforms (1994) and Dead Cities (1996) to some commercial success. The artists were fairly enigmatic in the past but have become more candid with their fanbase in recent years with social websites like Myspace, YouTube, their forum and many interviews in which Cobain almost always speaks for the pair.
History
Formation
Garry Cobain and Brian Dougans met in the mid-1980s while studying electronics at university in Manchester, England. Dougans had already been making electronic music for some time, working between Glasgow and Manchester, when the pair first began working together in various local clubs. In 1988, Dougans embarked on a project for the Stakker graphics company. The result was Stakker Humanoid, a single that went on to reach number 17 in the UK charts, becoming the first credible UK acid house tune to cross over into the mainstream. Cobain contributed to the accompanying album. A video was also produced.
In the following three years the pair produced music under a variety of aliases, releasing a plethora of singles and EPs, including the successful bleep techno singles "Q" and "Metropolis", some of which would end up on the duo's first compilation album Earthbeat in 1992. "Metropolis" was also very influential in the house scene.
FSOL
In 1991 they released their first album, Accelerator, which was followed by their single "Papua New Guinea", featuring a looping Lisa Gerrard vocal sample from Dead Can Dance's "Dawn of the Iconoclast" and a bassline from Meat Beat Manifesto's "Radio Babylon". The track has made several British "Best songs ever" polls and track specific accolades. In 1992, Virgin Records were looking for electronic bands and, after the chart success of "Papua New Guinea", quickly signed them, giving them free rein to experiment, with a reported advance payment of £75,000. With this the duo invested in a collection of Akai S1000 samplers and other equipment.
They began to play with more ambient music, resulting in the Tales of Ephidrina album of 1993, the first album to be released under the Amorphous Androgynous alias; this was well received by press and marked a distinct shift from the more techno-driven Accelerator, retaining some dance beats, but focusing more on texture, mood and sound. The album was adventurously released on Quigley, the band's own short-lived offshoot of Virgin. At this time, the band had begun experimenting with radio performance, broadcasting now legendary three-hour radio shows to Manchester's Kiss FM from their studio.
Lifeforms, ambience and the ISDN tour
"Cascade", released as a single in 1993, introduced the commercial music world to the new FSOL sound. Despite its length, clocking in at nearly forty minutes and stretched over six parts, the track made the UK top 30, and previewed what was to come. In 1994, they released Lifeforms to critical acclaim. The album featured unconventional use of percussion interspersed with ambient segments. The eponymous single from the album featured Elizabeth Fraser of the Cocteau Twins on vocals. Throughout the record, familiar motifs and samples repeated themselves, sitting alongside tropical birdsong, rainfall, wind and an array of other exotic sounds, lending the album a natural, organic feel, backed up by the environmental landscapes that filled the artwork booklet. Brian Dougan's father was involved with the BBC Radiophonic Workshop which was a heavy influence in the almost musique concrète feel to Lifeforms. The album was also a top 10 hit on the UK album chart. Cobain has said that around this time that journalists would come to talk to them and one of the first things they would ask would be if they liked Brian Eno (whom they cite as an influence), to which they would laugh and say that they were about looking forward, not to the past. It was, to them, very much a new work rather than just another Eno-type ambient album.
That year, they released the limited edition album ISDN, which featured live broadcasts they had made over ISDN lines to various radio stations worldwide to promote Lifeforms, including The Kitchen, an avant-garde performance space in New York and several appearances on the late John Peel's celebrated BBC radio Sessions shows. These shows marked the evolution of the Kiss FM shows of 1992 and 1993, moving away from DJ sets and into ambient soundscapes, with previously released material performed alongside unheard tracks. One live performance to BBC Radio 1 featured Robert Fripp performing alongside the band. The released album's tone was darker and more rhythmic than Lifeforms. Cobain stated that with ISDN they had wanted to achieve something epic and grand but no matter how much technological or personal support they had (and they had everything they could have possibly wanted) they never got to truly do what they envisioned; he admits to wanting too much at this time, even though the album was successful; the 90s, for Cobain in particular, were a time of frustration and feelings of not being able to do what they wanted to, because the technology at the time didn't fit the band's ideas. The following year, the album was re-released with expanded artwork and a slightly altered track list as an unlimited pressing.
In addition to music composition, their interests have covered a number of areas including film and video, 2D and 3D computer graphics, animation in making almost all their own videos for their singles, radio broadcasting and creating their own electronic devices for sound making. They have released works under numerous aliases.
Dead Cities
The 1995 edition of John Peel Sessions featured three entirely new tracks, which took the breakbeats and chaotic sampling of ISDN away from their previous lush synthscapes and toward a new, more contemporary sound. In 1996, they released Dead Cities, which expanded upon these early demos. The new material was a mix of ambient textures and dance music. The lead single, "My Kingdom", introduced the sound, with a video featuring shots of London, and a sound suggesting a dystopian city. The album also featured the band's first collaboration with composer Max Richter, which included the big beat track "We Have Explosive" that featured manipulated samples sourced from Run DMC. Released in 1997; it was used on the Mortal Kombat: Annihilation soundtrack, and (before the single release) in 1996 on the video game WipE'out" 2097, along with the track "Landmass", which they wrote specifically for the game. Also, a remix of "Papua New Guinea" by Hybrid was later featured in the soundtrack to WipEout Fusion in 2002. "We Have Explosive" was the second single from the album, and the band's highest charting single (beating "My Kingdom" by one spot to number 12), and over the course of its five-part extended version included hints of funk, something which would be heard again when the band returned many years later.
The album was promoted by what the band described as "the fuck rock'n'roll tour" via ISDN, lasting several months and gaining much media attention by being the first band to do a world tour without leaving their studio. While 1994's tour had focused on creating soundscapes and unreleased material, the 1996 and 1997 shows were more conventional, each offering a different take on the Dead Cities experience, blending then-current tracks with occasional exclusive pieces of the time. However, the final few performances jettisoned this material for tracks from a series of unreleased sessions, containing more live sounding material, including considerable use of guitar and percussion. These "1997 sessions" were highly sought after by fans, with some tracks forming the basis of the band's psychedelic projects of the following decade, while others appeared on the From The Archives series.
New millennium
After a four-year hiatus, rumours of mental illness began to spread which turned out to be nothing more than exaggeration of Cobain's mercury poisoning from fillings in his teeth. Cobain gained much from the experience, realising that music was a tool for psychic exploration and entertainment but also one for healing. The pair returned in 2002 with "The Isness", a record heavily influenced by 1960s and 1970s psychedelia and released under their alias Amorphous Androgynous. It was preceded by Papua New Guinea Translations, a mini album which contained a mixture of remixes of FSOL's track as well as new material from The Isness sessions. The album received mixed press due to the drastic change in sound which was inspired by Cobain's and Dougan's (separate) travels to India and immersion in spiritualism, nevertheless the majority was positive with Muzik magazine offering the album a 6/5 mark and dubbing it "...a white beam of light from heaven..." and other British publications such as The Times, The Guardian and MOJO praising the album and the band's ability to do something so completely different from what they had done before.
Three years on, they followed the album with a continuation of the Amorphous Androgynous project, Alice in Ultraland. Rumoured to be accompanied by a film of the same title, the album took The Isness psychedelic experimentation and toned it down, giving the album a singular theme and sound, and replacing the more bizarre moments with funk and ambient interludes. The album was ignored by the press, but was received more favourably among fans than its predecessor. Unlike The Isness, which featured almost 100 musicians over the course of it and the various alternative versions and remix albums, Alice in Ultraland featured a fairly solid band lineup throughout, which extended to live shows which the band had undertaken away from the ISDN cables from 2005 onwards.
5.1 & digital experimentation
The FSOL moniker re-appeared in 2006 with a piece entitled "A Gigantic Globular Burst Of Anti-Static", intended as an experiment in 5.1 Surround Sound and created for an exhibition at the Kinetica art museum entitled, appropriately, "Life Forms". The piece contained reworked material from their archives and newer, more abstract ambient music. The piece was coupled with a video called "Stereo Sucks", marking the band's theories on the limitations of stereo music, which was released on a DVD packaged with issue 182 of Future Music Magazine in December 2006 and on FSOL's own download site in March 2007.
They also moved into creating their own sounds when they began constructing electronic instruments, the result of which can be heard on the 2007 release Hand-Made Devices. At their website Glitch TV (where the motto is "[A] sudden interruption in sanity, continuity or programme function") they sell and explain their devices such as the "Electronic Devices Digital Interface" glitch equipment.
FSOLdigital and the Archives
In 2007, the band uploaded several archive tracks online, for the first time revealing much of their unreleased work and unveiling some of the mystery behind the band. The old FSOL material, including the previously unreleased album Environments, along with a selection of newer experiments, the 5.1 experiments and a promise of unreleased Amorphous Androgynous psychedelic material, was uploaded for sale on their online shop, FSOLdigital.com.
In early March 2008, the band released a new online album as Amorphous Androgynous entitled The Peppermint Tree and Seeds of Superconsciousness, which they describe as "A collection of psychedelic relics from The Amorphous Androgynous, 1967-2007". The release retains the sound of their last two psychedelic albums, while expanding on the element of funk first introduced on 2005's Alice in Ultraland. They recorded their following album, The Woodlands of Old, under the alias of their imaginary engineer Yage. Unlike the techno work recorded as Yage in 1992, this new record was darker, more trip hop and world music-oriented and featured ex-Propellerheads member Will White.
From 2008, the band showcased a series of radio broadcasts and podcasts called The Electric Brain Storms, originally on stations such as Proton Radio, PBS radio in Australia, and Frisky Radio. The remaining shows appeared on the band's official site. and SoundCloud. The shows featured electronic, krautrock, experimental and psychedelic favourites of the band mixed in with known and unknown FSOL material, including newly recorded tracks, archived pieces, and new alias recordings. Many of the new tracks appeared on the band's Environments series. Cobain has described the new music as having "the introspective, kind of euphoric sadness that was always there in the FSOL melodies".
From this point, the band have been alternating their focus between different projects. In 2008, Environments II and From the Archives Vol. 5 were released on the band's site, followed by Environments 3 and From the Archives Vol. 6 in 2010; and Environments 4 and From the Archives Vol. 7 in 2012. Whilst the Archives feature old, unreleased material, the Environments albums feature a mixture of old demos, recently completed, and new tracks.
The band have continued to use the FSOLDigital platform to release side-projects and solo work, under names such as Blackhill Transmitter, EMS : Piano, Suburban Domestic and 6 Oscillators in Remittance, as well as distributing digital releases from other artists, including Daniel Pemberton, Herd, Kettel & Secede, Neotropic, Ross Baker and Seafar; they also continue to update The Pod Room with ISDN transmissions from the 1990s.
A Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble Exploding in Your Mind
Following on from the band's 1997 DJ set of the same name, a series of Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble Exploding in Your Mind mix CDs were begun in 2006. The first two were released under the Amorphous Androgynous alias, subtitled "Cosmic Space Music" and "Pagan Love Vibrations", with the first taking over two years to compile, mix and gain sample clearance, both featuring the band's psychedelic influences. A third is set for release sometime in 2010, and will be more electronic, mixed by the Future Sound of London. Further mixes in the series are expected in the future, to be curated by related artists, and the band took the concept live with an eleven-hour spot at 2009's Green Man festival, to contain live bands and DJ spots.
Noel Gallagher of British rock band Oasis, after hearing the first release, became a fan and asked the band to remix the following Oasis single "Falling Down". The Amorphous Androgynous responded with a 5 part, 22-minute Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble remix, which Noel liked enough to release on its own 12". Noel also invited Cobain to DJ at the afterparty for one of Oasis' gigs at Wembley Arena.
The band continue the psychedelic theme to the mixes on their podcast site The Pod Room and on February 2010s Mojo Magazine cover CD. The Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble remixes grow in popularity with commissions from Paul Weller and Pop Levi, and Cobain has suggested a full album of remixes and covers will appear on their recently formed Monstrous Bubble label
On 6 July 2011 it was announced that Noel Gallagher's second solo album will be in collaboration with The Amorphous Androgynous, and is set for release in 2012. In August 2012, Gallagher mentioned in various interviews that he is considering scrapping the collaborative album with Amorphous Androgynous due to not being completely satisfied with the mixes. Two songs from the project have surfaced as B-sides to Gallagher's singles in 2012: "Shoot a Hole into the Sun" (based on Gallagher's track "If I Had a Gun...") was a B-side to the single "Dream On", and a mix of "AKA... What a Life!" featured on the B-side of "Everybody's on the Run". However, as the project is currently shelved, the group have returned to original material, releasing the first in a series of Monstrous Bubble Soundtracks, entitled The Cartel. On Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds' album Chasing Yesterday, The Amorphous Androgynous are credited as Co-producers of the tracks "The Right Stuff" and "The Mexican".
Future of the band
The group continue to give updates for the Galaxial Pharmaceutical news site and forum, while largely releasing material through their FSOLDigital imprint. They remain prolific, working on multiple projects at once. As "The Future Sound of London", they currently plan to continue releasing new material as part of the Environments series; the latest releases as of June 2019 are Environment Six and 6.5 from 2016.
On 26 April 2019, the band released Yage 2019, consisting of eleven songs. The album was also released on vinyl and CD on Record Store Day that year; the latter release featured an additional two tracks. The next year another album, Cascade 2020, was released. In 2021 they released We Have Explosive 2021.
Independence
Since the millennium, FSOL took a more independent turn with their career, releasing their more psychedelic Amorphous Androgynous on an independent label, The Isness on Artful Records and Alice in Ultraland on the progressive Harvest Records (an arm of EMI). They also have their own label called Electronic Brain Violence on which off-beat electronic artists such as Oil and Simon Wells (Headstone Lane) have released EPs and singles. Simon Wells also contributed to Dead Cities on the track "Dead Cities Reprise"
Nevertheless, Virgin records still controls FSOL's back catalog and was going to release the Teachings from the Electronic Brain compilation without them, but the duo insisted on taking control of the production of the project. Cobain says that, even with Virgin, the reason they were able to do their own thing and create the music they wanted in the 1990s was because they already had some major hits under their belts such as "Papua New Guinea", "Metropolis" and "Stakker Humanoid" before joining the label.
Cobain has said that FSOL's mentality has always been about making a journey of an album rather than focusing on trying to have hit singles. He said that they had several top 40 singles (and albums) in the 90s because they had enough fans and had built up enough of a reputation to achieve these hits while still concentrating on the album rather than any potential singles during their time at Virgin.
They have been signed to Passion Records sub-label Jumpin' & Pumpin' since they started out.
Aliases
Discography
Accelerator (1991)
Lifeforms (1994)
ISDN (1994)
Dead Cities (1996)
The Isness (2002) (as Amorphous Androgynous, except in the USA)
Environments (2007)
Environments II (2008)
Environments 3 (2010)
Environments 4 (2012)
Environment Five (2014)
Environment Six (2016)
Environment 6.5 (2016)
Yage 2019 (2019)
Cascade 2020 (2020)
Chart history
Singles charts
Album charts
See also
List of ambient music artists
Max Richter
References
External links
Future Sound of London.com - official website.
an overview of their studio equipment et cetera from 1994
Acid house musicians
Braindance musicians
Breakbeat music groups
British ambient music groups
English dance music groups
English house music duos
English techno music groups
Male musical duos
Astralwerks artists
Virgin Records artists
English experimental musical groups
Harvest Records artists
Hypnotic Records artists
Rephlex Records artists
Intelligent dance musicians
Musical groups established in 1988
Musical groups from Manchester
New-age music groups
Remixers
| true |
[
"The Isness is a 2002 album by experimental electronica group The Future Sound of London, released under the alias Amorphous Androgynous (except in the US, where it was released as FSOL for commercial reasons). An expanded version was released called The Isness and the Otherness, a two disc special edition containing The Isness on disc one and The Otherness, featuring additional tracks and recordings, on disc two.\n\nThe album is the first by FSOL (as Amorphous Androgynous) to delve into psychedelic rock territory, although there are a few solid electronica tracks the majority is more progressive rock than electronica. This has come to mixed reviews with the majority being positive. Some say they had over extended their reach and others seemed to understand what they were doing.\n\nRelease mixup\nSeveral versions of the album exist, partially due to several last-minute changes to the track listing. Original promotional versions, mastered at Abbey Road studios, were set for release in May 2002. However, the album was put on hold, according to Gaz Cobain, due to an excess of \"masculine energy\". A second promotional version was released, with a track list similar to the final version, but in the same sleeve as the initial version, leading to a number of misleading reviews with incorrect track titles. The final released version of the album matched this second promo, with the addition to the album's short instrumental title track (and a slightly edited version of \"The Mello Hippo Disco Show\").\n\nUpon the album's release in August 2002, more confusion occurred when the band's American label, Hypnotic, distributed 2,500 copies of the original mix of the album. The album was recalled, but many copies had been bought and still exist as rarities. The mix is significantly different from the final mix: \"The Mello Hippo Disco Show\" is an entirely different version, \"The Galaxial Pharmaceutical\" exists as a full track rather than being cut in two, \"Guru Song\" features lyrics sung by a female vocalist, \"Elysian Feels\" contains a significantly different breakbeat and is in a higher key, and both \"Divinity\" and \"Go Tell It To The Trees Egghead\" feature in slightly longer forms. \"Yes My Brother\" and \"Goodbye Sky\" are not present, replaced by \"The Lovers\" and \"The Isness\". To confuse matters more, the vinyl version of the album contained an exclusive track entitled \"Chawawah\", only previously heard on the band's website in 2001.\n\n2004's double-disc UK compilation \"The Isness & The Otherness\" (with \"The Otherness\" released as its own disc in the US) compiled most of the tracks, plus selected remixes and some exclusive pieces, only missing the Abbey Road mix of \"The Galaxial Pharmaceutical\", plus \"Yes My Brother\", which featured in an extended version as \"The Prophet\" on 2005 album Alice in Ultraland.\n\nTrack listing\n\nDisc one: The Isness\n\"The Lovers\" – 6:04\n\"The Isness\" – 3:00\n\"The Mello Hippo Disco Show\" – 5:25\n\"Goodbye Sky (Reprise)\" – 1:14\n\"Elysian Feels\" – 4:47\n\"Go Tell It To the Trees Egghead\" – 4:28\n\"Divinity\" – 7:27\n\"Guru Song\" – 2:49\n\"Osho\" – 2:14\n\"Her Tongue Is Like a Jellyfish\" – 2:34\n\"Meadows\" – 3:29\n\"High Tide on the Sea of Flesh\" – 5:27\n\"The Galaxial Pharmaceutical\" – 14:32\n\nDisc two: The Otherness\n\"Elysian Feels\" (Abbey Road version) – 6:03\n\"Yo-Yo\" (Abbey Road version) – 4:31\n\"Goodbye Sky\" – 4:34\n\"The Lovers (Love Is the Lover)\" – 7:02\n\"Maharishi Raga\" – 4:12\n\"The Band (Divinity)\" – 6:02\n\"Rural Green\" – 3:43\n\"Chawawah\" – 4:03\n\"She Sells Electric Ego\" – 6:41\n\"Chinese Whispers\" – 1:00\n\"Slomo\" – 3:16\n\"The Conga Run\" – 5:38\n\"The Ram\" – 1:55\n\"Toy Piano\" – 1:03\n\nAbbey Road promotional version\n\"Elysian Feels\" – 6:03\n\"The Mello Hippo Disco Show\" – 4:32\n\"Goodbye Sky\" (reprise) – 1:10\n\"Osho\" – 2:14\n\"The Galaxial Pharmaceutical\" – 15:03\n\"Yes My Brother\" – 0:52\n\"Go Tell It To the Trees Egghead\" – 5:31\n\"Divinity\" – 7:57\n\"Guru Song\" – 3:45\n\"Her Tongue Is Like a Jellyfish\" – 2:33\n\"Meadows\" – 3:28\n\"High Tide On the Sea of Flesh\" – 5:25\n\"Goodbye Sky\" – 4:43\n\nVinyl version\n\"The Lovers\" – 5:52\n\"High Tide On the Sea of Flesh\" – 5:24\n\"The Mello Hippo Disco Show\" – 5:49\n\"Divinity\" – 7:25\n\"Guru Song\" – 2:45\n\"Osho\" – 2:12\n\"Her Tongue Is Like a Jellyfish\" – 2:35\n\"Meadows\" – 3:27\n\"Elysian Feels\" – 4:45\n\"Goodbye Sky\" – 1:11\n\"Go Tell It To the Trees Egghead\" – 4:25\n\"Chawawah\" – 4:02\n\"The Isness\" – 2:59\n\"The Galaxial Pharmaceutical\" – 14:30\n\nCrew\nDougans and Cobain enlisted a large group of friends, famous and not, to help them with the music arrangement and performances; the list reads thus:\nRichard Ashcroft, Alex Balanescu, Donovan, Clio Gould, Levine Andrade, Sue Monks, Philip Bainbridge, Christene Charly, Gary Lucas, Stinky Rowe, Baluji Shrivastav, Mikey Rowe, Randy Hope, Taylor Gospel Choir, Chris Margary, Fayaz Virgi, Kevin Robinson, The Cabbage Orchestra, The Major, Sam Pickins, Albert Ross Junior, Sir Daniel Pemberton, Bertie, Sara Gepp, The Vaudeville Stage and Big Screen FX Singers, Catrin Jones, Ben Pitt, Jeniffer Underhill, Vulu Krakovic, Charles Cross, Herb Moon, Merlin Sturt, Wayne Urqhart, Future Sonic Orchestra Limited, Linda Lewis, Joss, Dominic Glover, Anjali Sage, Mike McEvoy (AKA Michael J McEvoy), Phil Eastop, Kate St. John, Morven Bryce, Helen Binney, Jane Fenton, Christene Jackson, Joanna Archard, Herbie Flowers, Sarah Tilley, Mark Eades, GloriaGee, Rechenda Elmhurst, John-Llewelyn Evans, Christine Settle, Jacqueline Goddard, Adrian Osmond, Jon English, Thelma Owen, Alexa Hamilton, Tim Weller, Tom Swift, Dan Swift, and Big Freddy Teddy as well as long-time collaborators Max Richter, Philip Pin, Riz Maslen and Richie Thomas. Brian and Gaz are again credited as Stone Freshwaters and The One Man Band of Cosmos respectively.\n\nDivinity\n\"Divinity\" was released as a promo-single in 2003. \"The Band Mix\" version is an edit of the version on The Otherness. The \"Spector Mix\" is a new version, with drums throughout, giving it a very radio-friendly feel.\n\nTrack listing\n Divinity (Spector mix) (3:59)\n Divinity (The Band mix) (4:34)\n Divinity (album edit) (3:38)\n\nCrew\nEngineer – Stone Freshwaters, Yage\nProducer – FSOL\nWritten By – B. Dougans, G. Cobain\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\n2002 albums\nAstralwerks albums\nThe Future Sound of London albums\nVirgin Records albums",
"Alice in Ultraland is a 2005 album by experimental electronica group Amorphous Androgynous, which is a side project of The Future Sound of London.\n\nThe album\nLike the duo's previous album, The Isness, Alice in Ultraland has a psychedelic feel, but has more electronica tracks. It features more of a funk and blues influence than The Isness.\nIt also includes an extended version of the discarded Isness track \"Yes My Brother\" (titled \"The Prophet\" here).\n\nTrack listing\nAll tracks by Garry Cobain and Brian Dougans\n\n \"The Emptiness of Nothingness\" – 6:18\n \"The Witchfinder\" – 7:28\n \"The Witch Hunt\" – 2:54\n \"All is Harvest\" – 6:39\n \"Prophet\" – 4:49\n \"Indian Swing\" – 5:10\n \"The Seasons Turn\" – 1:01\n \"High and Dry\" – 4:53\n \"Yes My Brother (You've Gotta Turn Yourself Around)\" – 4:59\n \"In the Summertime of Consciousness\" – 5:44\n \"Billy the Onion\" – 5:28\n \"Another Fairy Tale Ending\" – 4:03\n \"The World is Full of Plankton\" – 8:02\n \"The Wicker Doll\" – 3:00\n\nCrew\n Mikey Rowe – piano, hammond\n Stu Rowe – electric guitar\n Tim Weller – drums\n Ben Owen – flute\n The Electric Gospel Choir – female vocals\n Gary Lucas – electric guitar and acoustic bottleneck\n Dave Sanderson – vocals\n Baluji Shrivastav – sitar, tablas, dilruba\n Billy 'The Onion' Jones – harmonica\n Doree Jackson – female vocal\n Lysa – The 'witches' violin bow at the Nursery engineered by Lysa\n Mutant Funkoid – growler bass\n Stakrak – additional FX processing using the soundprok K46\n The Daughters of The Goddess 'The New Love Poetry' – narration\n Herb Moons – percussion from 'electromagnetic machines and psychedelic dreams\n Daniel Pemberton – piano, keyboards\n B. Dougans and G. Cobain – composition, production, arrangements, engineering.\n\nThe Witchfinder\n\n\"The Witchfinder\" was released as a promo-single in 2005. The one-track promo is a radio-only version, which also featured on the song's animated video.\n\nTrack listing\n The Witch Finder (Radio Edit) (3:58)\n\nCrew\n Engineer – Yage\n Producer – FSOL\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n \n\n2005 albums\nThe Future Sound of London albums\nHarvest Records albums"
] |
[
"The Future Sound of London",
"New millennium, new sound",
"What is an example of the \"new sound\" that was created?",
"The album received mixed press due to the drastic change in sound which was inspired by Cobain's and Dougan's (separate) travels to India and immersion in spiritualism,",
"What is an album they released during this period?",
". The pair returned in 2002 with \"The Isness\", a record heavily influenced by 1960s and 1970s psychedelia and released under their alias Amorphous Androgynous.",
"How did \"The Isness\" do on the charts?",
"I don't know.",
"What singles were released from \"The Isness\" album?",
"I don't know.",
"What other album did they release besides \"The Isness\"?",
"Three years on, they followed the album with a continuation of the Amorphous Androgynous project, Alice in Ultraland."
] |
C_0edda3262d6c477f8363f5365a26b550_0
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What musical style was this album in?
| 6 |
What musical style was new millennium album in?
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The Future Sound of London
|
After a four-year hiatus, rumours of mental illness began to spread which turned out to be nothing more than exaggeration of Cobain's mercury poisoning from fillings in his teeth. Cobain gained much from the experience, realizing that music was a tool for psychic exploration and entertainment but also one for healing . The pair returned in 2002 with "The Isness", a record heavily influenced by 1960s and 1970s psychedelia and released under their alias Amorphous Androgynous. It was preceded by Papua New Guinea Translations, a mini album which contained a mixture of remixes of FSOL's track as well as new material from The Isness sessions. The album received mixed press due to the drastic change in sound which was inspired by Cobain's and Dougan's (separate) travels to India and immersion in spiritualism, nevertheless the majority was positive with Muzik magazine offering the album a 6/5 mark and dubbing it "...a white beam of light from heaven..." and other British publications such as The Times, The Guardian and MOJO praising the album and the band's ability to do something so completely different from what they had done before. Three years on, they followed the album with a continuation of the Amorphous Androgynous project, Alice in Ultraland. Rumoured to be accompanied by a film of the same title, the album took The Isness' psychedelic experimentation and toned it down, giving the album a singular theme and sound, and replacing the more bizarre moments with funk and ambient interludes. The album was ignored by the press, but was received more favourably among fans than its predecessor. Unlike The Isness, which featured almost 100 musicians over the course of it and the various alternative versions and remix albums, Alice in Ultraland featured a fairly solid band lineup throughout, which extended to live shows which the band had undertaken away from the ISDN cables from 2005 onwards. ...song form has just become too limited. And when I say 'psychedelic', it's not a reference to 60s music but to the basic outlook of a child, which we all have. I think this is the only salvation now. Dance music taught us how to use the studio in a new way, but we have to now take that knowledge and move on with it. This stuff, electronic music, is not dead. It's a process that is ongoing. We have to take hold of the past and go forward with it... CANNOTANSWER
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took The Isness' psychedelic experimentation and toned it down, giving the album a singular theme and sound, and replacing the more bizarre moments with funk and ambient interludes.
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The Future Sound of London (often abbreviated FSOL) is a British electronic music duo composed of Garry Cobain and Brian Dougans. Described as a "boundary-pushing" electronic act by AllMusic, their work covers many areas of electronic music, such as techno, ambient, house music, trip hop, psychedelia, and dub.
During the 1990s, they released the albums Lifeforms (1994) and Dead Cities (1996) to some commercial success. The artists were fairly enigmatic in the past but have become more candid with their fanbase in recent years with social websites like Myspace, YouTube, their forum and many interviews in which Cobain almost always speaks for the pair.
History
Formation
Garry Cobain and Brian Dougans met in the mid-1980s while studying electronics at university in Manchester, England. Dougans had already been making electronic music for some time, working between Glasgow and Manchester, when the pair first began working together in various local clubs. In 1988, Dougans embarked on a project for the Stakker graphics company. The result was Stakker Humanoid, a single that went on to reach number 17 in the UK charts, becoming the first credible UK acid house tune to cross over into the mainstream. Cobain contributed to the accompanying album. A video was also produced.
In the following three years the pair produced music under a variety of aliases, releasing a plethora of singles and EPs, including the successful bleep techno singles "Q" and "Metropolis", some of which would end up on the duo's first compilation album Earthbeat in 1992. "Metropolis" was also very influential in the house scene.
FSOL
In 1991 they released their first album, Accelerator, which was followed by their single "Papua New Guinea", featuring a looping Lisa Gerrard vocal sample from Dead Can Dance's "Dawn of the Iconoclast" and a bassline from Meat Beat Manifesto's "Radio Babylon". The track has made several British "Best songs ever" polls and track specific accolades. In 1992, Virgin Records were looking for electronic bands and, after the chart success of "Papua New Guinea", quickly signed them, giving them free rein to experiment, with a reported advance payment of £75,000. With this the duo invested in a collection of Akai S1000 samplers and other equipment.
They began to play with more ambient music, resulting in the Tales of Ephidrina album of 1993, the first album to be released under the Amorphous Androgynous alias; this was well received by press and marked a distinct shift from the more techno-driven Accelerator, retaining some dance beats, but focusing more on texture, mood and sound. The album was adventurously released on Quigley, the band's own short-lived offshoot of Virgin. At this time, the band had begun experimenting with radio performance, broadcasting now legendary three-hour radio shows to Manchester's Kiss FM from their studio.
Lifeforms, ambience and the ISDN tour
"Cascade", released as a single in 1993, introduced the commercial music world to the new FSOL sound. Despite its length, clocking in at nearly forty minutes and stretched over six parts, the track made the UK top 30, and previewed what was to come. In 1994, they released Lifeforms to critical acclaim. The album featured unconventional use of percussion interspersed with ambient segments. The eponymous single from the album featured Elizabeth Fraser of the Cocteau Twins on vocals. Throughout the record, familiar motifs and samples repeated themselves, sitting alongside tropical birdsong, rainfall, wind and an array of other exotic sounds, lending the album a natural, organic feel, backed up by the environmental landscapes that filled the artwork booklet. Brian Dougan's father was involved with the BBC Radiophonic Workshop which was a heavy influence in the almost musique concrète feel to Lifeforms. The album was also a top 10 hit on the UK album chart. Cobain has said that around this time that journalists would come to talk to them and one of the first things they would ask would be if they liked Brian Eno (whom they cite as an influence), to which they would laugh and say that they were about looking forward, not to the past. It was, to them, very much a new work rather than just another Eno-type ambient album.
That year, they released the limited edition album ISDN, which featured live broadcasts they had made over ISDN lines to various radio stations worldwide to promote Lifeforms, including The Kitchen, an avant-garde performance space in New York and several appearances on the late John Peel's celebrated BBC radio Sessions shows. These shows marked the evolution of the Kiss FM shows of 1992 and 1993, moving away from DJ sets and into ambient soundscapes, with previously released material performed alongside unheard tracks. One live performance to BBC Radio 1 featured Robert Fripp performing alongside the band. The released album's tone was darker and more rhythmic than Lifeforms. Cobain stated that with ISDN they had wanted to achieve something epic and grand but no matter how much technological or personal support they had (and they had everything they could have possibly wanted) they never got to truly do what they envisioned; he admits to wanting too much at this time, even though the album was successful; the 90s, for Cobain in particular, were a time of frustration and feelings of not being able to do what they wanted to, because the technology at the time didn't fit the band's ideas. The following year, the album was re-released with expanded artwork and a slightly altered track list as an unlimited pressing.
In addition to music composition, their interests have covered a number of areas including film and video, 2D and 3D computer graphics, animation in making almost all their own videos for their singles, radio broadcasting and creating their own electronic devices for sound making. They have released works under numerous aliases.
Dead Cities
The 1995 edition of John Peel Sessions featured three entirely new tracks, which took the breakbeats and chaotic sampling of ISDN away from their previous lush synthscapes and toward a new, more contemporary sound. In 1996, they released Dead Cities, which expanded upon these early demos. The new material was a mix of ambient textures and dance music. The lead single, "My Kingdom", introduced the sound, with a video featuring shots of London, and a sound suggesting a dystopian city. The album also featured the band's first collaboration with composer Max Richter, which included the big beat track "We Have Explosive" that featured manipulated samples sourced from Run DMC. Released in 1997; it was used on the Mortal Kombat: Annihilation soundtrack, and (before the single release) in 1996 on the video game WipE'out" 2097, along with the track "Landmass", which they wrote specifically for the game. Also, a remix of "Papua New Guinea" by Hybrid was later featured in the soundtrack to WipEout Fusion in 2002. "We Have Explosive" was the second single from the album, and the band's highest charting single (beating "My Kingdom" by one spot to number 12), and over the course of its five-part extended version included hints of funk, something which would be heard again when the band returned many years later.
The album was promoted by what the band described as "the fuck rock'n'roll tour" via ISDN, lasting several months and gaining much media attention by being the first band to do a world tour without leaving their studio. While 1994's tour had focused on creating soundscapes and unreleased material, the 1996 and 1997 shows were more conventional, each offering a different take on the Dead Cities experience, blending then-current tracks with occasional exclusive pieces of the time. However, the final few performances jettisoned this material for tracks from a series of unreleased sessions, containing more live sounding material, including considerable use of guitar and percussion. These "1997 sessions" were highly sought after by fans, with some tracks forming the basis of the band's psychedelic projects of the following decade, while others appeared on the From The Archives series.
New millennium
After a four-year hiatus, rumours of mental illness began to spread which turned out to be nothing more than exaggeration of Cobain's mercury poisoning from fillings in his teeth. Cobain gained much from the experience, realising that music was a tool for psychic exploration and entertainment but also one for healing. The pair returned in 2002 with "The Isness", a record heavily influenced by 1960s and 1970s psychedelia and released under their alias Amorphous Androgynous. It was preceded by Papua New Guinea Translations, a mini album which contained a mixture of remixes of FSOL's track as well as new material from The Isness sessions. The album received mixed press due to the drastic change in sound which was inspired by Cobain's and Dougan's (separate) travels to India and immersion in spiritualism, nevertheless the majority was positive with Muzik magazine offering the album a 6/5 mark and dubbing it "...a white beam of light from heaven..." and other British publications such as The Times, The Guardian and MOJO praising the album and the band's ability to do something so completely different from what they had done before.
Three years on, they followed the album with a continuation of the Amorphous Androgynous project, Alice in Ultraland. Rumoured to be accompanied by a film of the same title, the album took The Isness psychedelic experimentation and toned it down, giving the album a singular theme and sound, and replacing the more bizarre moments with funk and ambient interludes. The album was ignored by the press, but was received more favourably among fans than its predecessor. Unlike The Isness, which featured almost 100 musicians over the course of it and the various alternative versions and remix albums, Alice in Ultraland featured a fairly solid band lineup throughout, which extended to live shows which the band had undertaken away from the ISDN cables from 2005 onwards.
5.1 & digital experimentation
The FSOL moniker re-appeared in 2006 with a piece entitled "A Gigantic Globular Burst Of Anti-Static", intended as an experiment in 5.1 Surround Sound and created for an exhibition at the Kinetica art museum entitled, appropriately, "Life Forms". The piece contained reworked material from their archives and newer, more abstract ambient music. The piece was coupled with a video called "Stereo Sucks", marking the band's theories on the limitations of stereo music, which was released on a DVD packaged with issue 182 of Future Music Magazine in December 2006 and on FSOL's own download site in March 2007.
They also moved into creating their own sounds when they began constructing electronic instruments, the result of which can be heard on the 2007 release Hand-Made Devices. At their website Glitch TV (where the motto is "[A] sudden interruption in sanity, continuity or programme function") they sell and explain their devices such as the "Electronic Devices Digital Interface" glitch equipment.
FSOLdigital and the Archives
In 2007, the band uploaded several archive tracks online, for the first time revealing much of their unreleased work and unveiling some of the mystery behind the band. The old FSOL material, including the previously unreleased album Environments, along with a selection of newer experiments, the 5.1 experiments and a promise of unreleased Amorphous Androgynous psychedelic material, was uploaded for sale on their online shop, FSOLdigital.com.
In early March 2008, the band released a new online album as Amorphous Androgynous entitled The Peppermint Tree and Seeds of Superconsciousness, which they describe as "A collection of psychedelic relics from The Amorphous Androgynous, 1967-2007". The release retains the sound of their last two psychedelic albums, while expanding on the element of funk first introduced on 2005's Alice in Ultraland. They recorded their following album, The Woodlands of Old, under the alias of their imaginary engineer Yage. Unlike the techno work recorded as Yage in 1992, this new record was darker, more trip hop and world music-oriented and featured ex-Propellerheads member Will White.
From 2008, the band showcased a series of radio broadcasts and podcasts called The Electric Brain Storms, originally on stations such as Proton Radio, PBS radio in Australia, and Frisky Radio. The remaining shows appeared on the band's official site. and SoundCloud. The shows featured electronic, krautrock, experimental and psychedelic favourites of the band mixed in with known and unknown FSOL material, including newly recorded tracks, archived pieces, and new alias recordings. Many of the new tracks appeared on the band's Environments series. Cobain has described the new music as having "the introspective, kind of euphoric sadness that was always there in the FSOL melodies".
From this point, the band have been alternating their focus between different projects. In 2008, Environments II and From the Archives Vol. 5 were released on the band's site, followed by Environments 3 and From the Archives Vol. 6 in 2010; and Environments 4 and From the Archives Vol. 7 in 2012. Whilst the Archives feature old, unreleased material, the Environments albums feature a mixture of old demos, recently completed, and new tracks.
The band have continued to use the FSOLDigital platform to release side-projects and solo work, under names such as Blackhill Transmitter, EMS : Piano, Suburban Domestic and 6 Oscillators in Remittance, as well as distributing digital releases from other artists, including Daniel Pemberton, Herd, Kettel & Secede, Neotropic, Ross Baker and Seafar; they also continue to update The Pod Room with ISDN transmissions from the 1990s.
A Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble Exploding in Your Mind
Following on from the band's 1997 DJ set of the same name, a series of Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble Exploding in Your Mind mix CDs were begun in 2006. The first two were released under the Amorphous Androgynous alias, subtitled "Cosmic Space Music" and "Pagan Love Vibrations", with the first taking over two years to compile, mix and gain sample clearance, both featuring the band's psychedelic influences. A third is set for release sometime in 2010, and will be more electronic, mixed by the Future Sound of London. Further mixes in the series are expected in the future, to be curated by related artists, and the band took the concept live with an eleven-hour spot at 2009's Green Man festival, to contain live bands and DJ spots.
Noel Gallagher of British rock band Oasis, after hearing the first release, became a fan and asked the band to remix the following Oasis single "Falling Down". The Amorphous Androgynous responded with a 5 part, 22-minute Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble remix, which Noel liked enough to release on its own 12". Noel also invited Cobain to DJ at the afterparty for one of Oasis' gigs at Wembley Arena.
The band continue the psychedelic theme to the mixes on their podcast site The Pod Room and on February 2010s Mojo Magazine cover CD. The Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble remixes grow in popularity with commissions from Paul Weller and Pop Levi, and Cobain has suggested a full album of remixes and covers will appear on their recently formed Monstrous Bubble label
On 6 July 2011 it was announced that Noel Gallagher's second solo album will be in collaboration with The Amorphous Androgynous, and is set for release in 2012. In August 2012, Gallagher mentioned in various interviews that he is considering scrapping the collaborative album with Amorphous Androgynous due to not being completely satisfied with the mixes. Two songs from the project have surfaced as B-sides to Gallagher's singles in 2012: "Shoot a Hole into the Sun" (based on Gallagher's track "If I Had a Gun...") was a B-side to the single "Dream On", and a mix of "AKA... What a Life!" featured on the B-side of "Everybody's on the Run". However, as the project is currently shelved, the group have returned to original material, releasing the first in a series of Monstrous Bubble Soundtracks, entitled The Cartel. On Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds' album Chasing Yesterday, The Amorphous Androgynous are credited as Co-producers of the tracks "The Right Stuff" and "The Mexican".
Future of the band
The group continue to give updates for the Galaxial Pharmaceutical news site and forum, while largely releasing material through their FSOLDigital imprint. They remain prolific, working on multiple projects at once. As "The Future Sound of London", they currently plan to continue releasing new material as part of the Environments series; the latest releases as of June 2019 are Environment Six and 6.5 from 2016.
On 26 April 2019, the band released Yage 2019, consisting of eleven songs. The album was also released on vinyl and CD on Record Store Day that year; the latter release featured an additional two tracks. The next year another album, Cascade 2020, was released. In 2021 they released We Have Explosive 2021.
Independence
Since the millennium, FSOL took a more independent turn with their career, releasing their more psychedelic Amorphous Androgynous on an independent label, The Isness on Artful Records and Alice in Ultraland on the progressive Harvest Records (an arm of EMI). They also have their own label called Electronic Brain Violence on which off-beat electronic artists such as Oil and Simon Wells (Headstone Lane) have released EPs and singles. Simon Wells also contributed to Dead Cities on the track "Dead Cities Reprise"
Nevertheless, Virgin records still controls FSOL's back catalog and was going to release the Teachings from the Electronic Brain compilation without them, but the duo insisted on taking control of the production of the project. Cobain says that, even with Virgin, the reason they were able to do their own thing and create the music they wanted in the 1990s was because they already had some major hits under their belts such as "Papua New Guinea", "Metropolis" and "Stakker Humanoid" before joining the label.
Cobain has said that FSOL's mentality has always been about making a journey of an album rather than focusing on trying to have hit singles. He said that they had several top 40 singles (and albums) in the 90s because they had enough fans and had built up enough of a reputation to achieve these hits while still concentrating on the album rather than any potential singles during their time at Virgin.
They have been signed to Passion Records sub-label Jumpin' & Pumpin' since they started out.
Aliases
Discography
Accelerator (1991)
Lifeforms (1994)
ISDN (1994)
Dead Cities (1996)
The Isness (2002) (as Amorphous Androgynous, except in the USA)
Environments (2007)
Environments II (2008)
Environments 3 (2010)
Environments 4 (2012)
Environment Five (2014)
Environment Six (2016)
Environment 6.5 (2016)
Yage 2019 (2019)
Cascade 2020 (2020)
Chart history
Singles charts
Album charts
See also
List of ambient music artists
Max Richter
References
External links
Future Sound of London.com - official website.
an overview of their studio equipment et cetera from 1994
Acid house musicians
Braindance musicians
Breakbeat music groups
British ambient music groups
English dance music groups
English house music duos
English techno music groups
Male musical duos
Astralwerks artists
Virgin Records artists
English experimental musical groups
Harvest Records artists
Hypnotic Records artists
Rephlex Records artists
Intelligent dance musicians
Musical groups established in 1988
Musical groups from Manchester
New-age music groups
Remixers
| false |
[
"Edie Brickell & New Bohemians is an alternative rock jam band that originated in Dallas, Texas, in the mid-1980s. The band is widely known for their 1988 hit \"What I Am\" from the album Shooting Rubberbands at the Stars. Their music contains elements of rock, folk, blues, and jazz. Following the 1990 release of their second album Ghost of a Dog, lead singer Edie Brickell left the band and married singer-songwriter Paul Simon. In 2006, she and the band launched a new web site and released a new album, Stranger Things.\n\nEarly history\nNew Bohemians started as a three-piece band in the early 1980s, gaining experience in the Deep Ellum neighborhood of downtown Dallas, Texas. The original line-up featured Brad Houser on vibraslap, Eric Presswood on guitar, and Brandon Aly on drums.\n\nDrummer Aly, guitarist Kenny Withrow, and percussionist John Bush went to the same arts magnet high school in Dallas, Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts. Singer Edie Brickell also went to this school. However, the others didn't know her until later. According to Houser, Edie was there for art. Houser attended Hillcrest High School and lived in the same neighborhood as the others. He played in various neighborhood bands like The Knobs which included Kenny, and was also in the Munch Puppies.\n\nThe additional core members joined in 1985. Edie became the singer after being encouraged to join the band onstage during a show. It was soon after that first show that a local agent who was booking bands at Rick's Casablanca was brought to hear the band. The band signed a six-month management contract which brought with it better paying gigs at Rick's. When the six months ended, they started regular gigging in Deep Ellum. Presswood left and Kenny Withrow joined as guitarist, playing his first show in July 1985 at the Starck Club in Dallas. John Bush joined on percussion in September of that year. His first show with the band was September 12, 1985, at Poor David's Pub in Dallas, when the band was backing Bo Diddley.\n\n\"New Bos\" were a local favorite, packing in the fans at now-famous Deep Ellum venues such as Theater Gallery, 500 Cafe, and Club Dada. They were also regular performers at the annual Fry Street Fair on the University of North Texas campus in Denton, Texas. During this period of the band's history, Edie's name was not used in the band's name.\n\nTheir debut album, Shooting Rubberbands at the Stars, was a commercial success, and produced the US top 10 hit \"What I Am\". The follow-up album, Ghost of a Dog, was less successful. Soon after the album's release, New Bohemians disbanded.\n\nRecent activity\nIn recent years, New Bohemians have released compilations and a live album and have recorded new material. In the mid-1990s Brickell, Bush and Withrow reunited as The Slip. In 2006 the current members reunited to record and tour with the release of Stranger Things.\n\nCarter Albrecht was killed in Dallas, on September 3, 2007.\n\nThe band's song \"Circle\" appeared on an episode of Cold Case, Ugly Betty, and Wet Hot American Summer: 10 Years Later and in 2013, it was covered by the pop punk band Bowling for Soup on the album Lunch. Drunk. Love..\n\nThe band played live at the North Oak Cliff Music Festival in October 2014 with the current lineup as well as keyboardist and multi-instrumentalist Matt Hubbard.\n\nThe band reunited again in April 2017 with three concerts at the Kessler Theater in Oak Cliff.\n\nOn February 19, 2021, the band released its second album since reuniting, entitled Hunter and the Dog Star.\n\nMembers\n\nCurrent members\n Brandon Aly – drums\n Edie Brickell – vocals, guitar\n John Walter Bush – percussion\n John Bradley Houser – bass guitar, woodwinds\n Kenneth Neil Withrow – guitar\n\nPrevious members\n Carter Albrecht – keyboards, electric guitar, harmonica, vocals (died 2007)\n Wes Burt-Martin – guitar\n Matt Chamberlain – drums\n Eric Presswood – guitar\n Chris Wheatley – keyboards\n Chris Whitten – drums\n Paul \"Wix\" Wickens – keyboards\n\nDiscography\n\nAlbums\n{| class=\"wikitable\"\n|-\n! Year\n! Album\n!US\n!AUS\n!AUT\n!GER\n!NED\n!NZ\n!UK\n! scope=\"col\" style=\"width:12em;\" | Certifications\n|-\n| 1988\n| Shooting Rubberbands at the Stars\n| style=\"text-align:center;\"| 4\n| style=\"text-align:center;\"| 31\n| style=\"text-align:center;\"| 12\n| style=\"text-align:center;\"| 29\n| style=\"text-align:center;\"| 33\n| style=\"text-align:center;\"| 10\n| style=\"text-align:center;\"| 25\n|\nUS: 2×Platinum\nUK: Gold\n|-\n| 1990\n| Ghost of a Dog\n| style=\"text-align:center;\"| 32\n| style=\"text-align:center;\"| 148\n| style=\"text-align:center;\"| —\n| style=\"text-align:center;\"| —\n| style=\"text-align:center;\"| —\n| style=\"text-align:center;\"| —\n| style=\"text-align:center;\"| 63\n|\n|-\n| 1999\n| The Live Montauk Sessions\n| style=\"text-align:center;\"| —\n| style=\"text-align:center;\"| —\n| style=\"text-align:center;\"| —\n| style=\"text-align:center;\"| —\n| style=\"text-align:center;\"| —\n| style=\"text-align:center;\"| —\n| style=\"text-align:center;\"| —\n|\n|-\n| 2006\n| Stranger Things\n| style=\"text-align:center;\"| —\n| style=\"text-align:center;\"| —\n| style=\"text-align:center;\"| —\n| style=\"text-align:center;\"| —\n| style=\"text-align:center;\"| —\n| style=\"text-align:center;\"| —\n| style=\"text-align:center;\"| —\n|\n|-\n|2018\n|Rocket\n| style=\"text-align:center;\"| 194\n| style=\"text-align:center;\"| —\n| style=\"text-align:center;\"| —\n| style=\"text-align:center;\"| —\n| style=\"text-align:center;\"| —\n| style=\"text-align:center;\"| —\n| style=\"text-align:center;\"| —\n|\n|-\n|2021\n|Hunter and the Dog Star\n| style=\"text-align:center;\"| —\n| style=\"text-align:center;\"| —\n| style=\"text-align:center;\"| —\n| style=\"text-align:center;\"| —\n| style=\"text-align:center;\"| —\n| style=\"text-align:center;\"| —\n| style=\"text-align:center;\"| —\n|\n|-\n| colspan=\"14\" style=\"text-align:center; font-size:8pt;\"| \"—\" denotes releases that did not chart or were not released in that country.\n|}\n\nSingles\n\nAwards and nominations\n{| class=wikitable\n|-\n! Year !! Awards !! Work !! Category !! Result\n|-\n| 1988\n| Billboard Music Awards\n| \"What I Am\"\n| Top Modern Rock Track \n| \n|-\n| rowspan=4|1989\n| International Rock Awards\n| Themselves \n| Newcomer of the Year \n| \n|-\n| rowspan=2|Pollstar Concert Industry Awards\n| rowspan=2|Tour''\n| Small Hall Tour of the Year\n| \n|-\n| Best Debut Tour\n| \n|-\n| rowspan=1|MTV Video Music Awards\n| rowspan=2|\"What I Am\"\n| Best New Artist\n| \n|-\n| rowspan=2|1990\n| ASCAP Pop Music Awards\n| Most Performed Song\n| \n|-\n| MTV Video Music Awards\n| \"A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall\"\n| Best Video from a Film\n| \n|-\n| 1991\n| MTV Video Music Awards\n| \"Mama Help Me\" \n| Best Art Direction\n|\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nBrandon Aly's official website\nJohn Bush's official website\nNew Bohemians Live Music Archive at archive.org\nWhat They Were – Article from Dallas Observer, 1998\nHistory of Deep Ellum – Dallas Observer, 1999\n\n \nJam bands\nMusical groups from Dallas\nMusical groups established in 1985\nMusical groups disestablished in 1991\nMusical groups reestablished in 1997\n1985 establishments in Texas\nEdie Brickell\nFemale-fronted musical groups",
"Poison was a German extreme metal band from Ulm, Baden-Württemberg, Germany that formed in 1982. The band was prolific within the Teutonic thrash underground until their disestablishment in 1987. Throughout their career, the band released eight demos, one album, and one compilation called Further Down into the Abyss that was released in 2006.\n\nHistory\n\nEarly years \nThe band was formed in 1982 by close friends Uli Hildenbrand, Armin Weber, Alex Gilliar, and Andy Krampulz. They were huge fans of the bands Venom (the name Poison comes from the Venom song of the same name), Hellhammer, and Sodom, which the band tried to emulate on many of their early demos. In 1984, the Sons of Evil demo was released by the band. The demo was mocked by fanzines, deriding its raw production and Venom/Hellhammer worship. A year later, the demo called Live Terror was released. This demo consisted of rough recordings of songs played at their first live gig in Kupferdächle in Pforzheim, Germany. Later that same year, they released their Bestial Death demo. That demo had songs that were more tightly knit together and at times more technical than their first output that was Hellhammer style punk-metal. That style is what the band would continue with for the rest of their career.\n\nFallout with Roadrunner and final years \nIn 1987, Poison partook on the Roadrunner Records sampler LP called Teutonic Invasion Part I and also a chance to be signed. By partaking in that, Poison was not allowed to talk or make deals with any other labels, which greatly hindered them. The only bands that got signed were Violent Force and Paradox that were on the Teutonic Invasion LP. Poison released one last demo called Into the Abyss before calling it quits. Into the Abyss was later re-released as a proper studio album by Midian Creations and then later by Iron Pegasus Records.\n\nStyle \n\nPoison is often cited as one of the first black metal bands to use extreme fast tempos and blasting beats, along with Sarcófago and Mayhem, and was very important for what would end up as the second wave of black metal.\n\nReferences\n\nGerman black metal musical groups\nGerman death metal musical groups\nGerman thrash metal musical groups\nGerman musical groups\nMusical groups established in 1982\nMusical groups disestablished in 1987\n1982 establishments in Germany"
] |
[
"The Future Sound of London",
"New millennium, new sound",
"What is an example of the \"new sound\" that was created?",
"The album received mixed press due to the drastic change in sound which was inspired by Cobain's and Dougan's (separate) travels to India and immersion in spiritualism,",
"What is an album they released during this period?",
". The pair returned in 2002 with \"The Isness\", a record heavily influenced by 1960s and 1970s psychedelia and released under their alias Amorphous Androgynous.",
"How did \"The Isness\" do on the charts?",
"I don't know.",
"What singles were released from \"The Isness\" album?",
"I don't know.",
"What other album did they release besides \"The Isness\"?",
"Three years on, they followed the album with a continuation of the Amorphous Androgynous project, Alice in Ultraland.",
"What musical style was this album in?",
"took The Isness' psychedelic experimentation and toned it down, giving the album a singular theme and sound, and replacing the more bizarre moments with funk and ambient interludes."
] |
C_0edda3262d6c477f8363f5365a26b550_0
|
Did they collaborate with any other artists on this album?
| 7 |
Did new millennium collaborate with any other artists other than new sound album?
|
The Future Sound of London
|
After a four-year hiatus, rumours of mental illness began to spread which turned out to be nothing more than exaggeration of Cobain's mercury poisoning from fillings in his teeth. Cobain gained much from the experience, realizing that music was a tool for psychic exploration and entertainment but also one for healing . The pair returned in 2002 with "The Isness", a record heavily influenced by 1960s and 1970s psychedelia and released under their alias Amorphous Androgynous. It was preceded by Papua New Guinea Translations, a mini album which contained a mixture of remixes of FSOL's track as well as new material from The Isness sessions. The album received mixed press due to the drastic change in sound which was inspired by Cobain's and Dougan's (separate) travels to India and immersion in spiritualism, nevertheless the majority was positive with Muzik magazine offering the album a 6/5 mark and dubbing it "...a white beam of light from heaven..." and other British publications such as The Times, The Guardian and MOJO praising the album and the band's ability to do something so completely different from what they had done before. Three years on, they followed the album with a continuation of the Amorphous Androgynous project, Alice in Ultraland. Rumoured to be accompanied by a film of the same title, the album took The Isness' psychedelic experimentation and toned it down, giving the album a singular theme and sound, and replacing the more bizarre moments with funk and ambient interludes. The album was ignored by the press, but was received more favourably among fans than its predecessor. Unlike The Isness, which featured almost 100 musicians over the course of it and the various alternative versions and remix albums, Alice in Ultraland featured a fairly solid band lineup throughout, which extended to live shows which the band had undertaken away from the ISDN cables from 2005 onwards. ...song form has just become too limited. And when I say 'psychedelic', it's not a reference to 60s music but to the basic outlook of a child, which we all have. I think this is the only salvation now. Dance music taught us how to use the studio in a new way, but we have to now take that knowledge and move on with it. This stuff, electronic music, is not dead. It's a process that is ongoing. We have to take hold of the past and go forward with it... CANNOTANSWER
|
CANNOTANSWER
|
The Future Sound of London (often abbreviated FSOL) is a British electronic music duo composed of Garry Cobain and Brian Dougans. Described as a "boundary-pushing" electronic act by AllMusic, their work covers many areas of electronic music, such as techno, ambient, house music, trip hop, psychedelia, and dub.
During the 1990s, they released the albums Lifeforms (1994) and Dead Cities (1996) to some commercial success. The artists were fairly enigmatic in the past but have become more candid with their fanbase in recent years with social websites like Myspace, YouTube, their forum and many interviews in which Cobain almost always speaks for the pair.
History
Formation
Garry Cobain and Brian Dougans met in the mid-1980s while studying electronics at university in Manchester, England. Dougans had already been making electronic music for some time, working between Glasgow and Manchester, when the pair first began working together in various local clubs. In 1988, Dougans embarked on a project for the Stakker graphics company. The result was Stakker Humanoid, a single that went on to reach number 17 in the UK charts, becoming the first credible UK acid house tune to cross over into the mainstream. Cobain contributed to the accompanying album. A video was also produced.
In the following three years the pair produced music under a variety of aliases, releasing a plethora of singles and EPs, including the successful bleep techno singles "Q" and "Metropolis", some of which would end up on the duo's first compilation album Earthbeat in 1992. "Metropolis" was also very influential in the house scene.
FSOL
In 1991 they released their first album, Accelerator, which was followed by their single "Papua New Guinea", featuring a looping Lisa Gerrard vocal sample from Dead Can Dance's "Dawn of the Iconoclast" and a bassline from Meat Beat Manifesto's "Radio Babylon". The track has made several British "Best songs ever" polls and track specific accolades. In 1992, Virgin Records were looking for electronic bands and, after the chart success of "Papua New Guinea", quickly signed them, giving them free rein to experiment, with a reported advance payment of £75,000. With this the duo invested in a collection of Akai S1000 samplers and other equipment.
They began to play with more ambient music, resulting in the Tales of Ephidrina album of 1993, the first album to be released under the Amorphous Androgynous alias; this was well received by press and marked a distinct shift from the more techno-driven Accelerator, retaining some dance beats, but focusing more on texture, mood and sound. The album was adventurously released on Quigley, the band's own short-lived offshoot of Virgin. At this time, the band had begun experimenting with radio performance, broadcasting now legendary three-hour radio shows to Manchester's Kiss FM from their studio.
Lifeforms, ambience and the ISDN tour
"Cascade", released as a single in 1993, introduced the commercial music world to the new FSOL sound. Despite its length, clocking in at nearly forty minutes and stretched over six parts, the track made the UK top 30, and previewed what was to come. In 1994, they released Lifeforms to critical acclaim. The album featured unconventional use of percussion interspersed with ambient segments. The eponymous single from the album featured Elizabeth Fraser of the Cocteau Twins on vocals. Throughout the record, familiar motifs and samples repeated themselves, sitting alongside tropical birdsong, rainfall, wind and an array of other exotic sounds, lending the album a natural, organic feel, backed up by the environmental landscapes that filled the artwork booklet. Brian Dougan's father was involved with the BBC Radiophonic Workshop which was a heavy influence in the almost musique concrète feel to Lifeforms. The album was also a top 10 hit on the UK album chart. Cobain has said that around this time that journalists would come to talk to them and one of the first things they would ask would be if they liked Brian Eno (whom they cite as an influence), to which they would laugh and say that they were about looking forward, not to the past. It was, to them, very much a new work rather than just another Eno-type ambient album.
That year, they released the limited edition album ISDN, which featured live broadcasts they had made over ISDN lines to various radio stations worldwide to promote Lifeforms, including The Kitchen, an avant-garde performance space in New York and several appearances on the late John Peel's celebrated BBC radio Sessions shows. These shows marked the evolution of the Kiss FM shows of 1992 and 1993, moving away from DJ sets and into ambient soundscapes, with previously released material performed alongside unheard tracks. One live performance to BBC Radio 1 featured Robert Fripp performing alongside the band. The released album's tone was darker and more rhythmic than Lifeforms. Cobain stated that with ISDN they had wanted to achieve something epic and grand but no matter how much technological or personal support they had (and they had everything they could have possibly wanted) they never got to truly do what they envisioned; he admits to wanting too much at this time, even though the album was successful; the 90s, for Cobain in particular, were a time of frustration and feelings of not being able to do what they wanted to, because the technology at the time didn't fit the band's ideas. The following year, the album was re-released with expanded artwork and a slightly altered track list as an unlimited pressing.
In addition to music composition, their interests have covered a number of areas including film and video, 2D and 3D computer graphics, animation in making almost all their own videos for their singles, radio broadcasting and creating their own electronic devices for sound making. They have released works under numerous aliases.
Dead Cities
The 1995 edition of John Peel Sessions featured three entirely new tracks, which took the breakbeats and chaotic sampling of ISDN away from their previous lush synthscapes and toward a new, more contemporary sound. In 1996, they released Dead Cities, which expanded upon these early demos. The new material was a mix of ambient textures and dance music. The lead single, "My Kingdom", introduced the sound, with a video featuring shots of London, and a sound suggesting a dystopian city. The album also featured the band's first collaboration with composer Max Richter, which included the big beat track "We Have Explosive" that featured manipulated samples sourced from Run DMC. Released in 1997; it was used on the Mortal Kombat: Annihilation soundtrack, and (before the single release) in 1996 on the video game WipE'out" 2097, along with the track "Landmass", which they wrote specifically for the game. Also, a remix of "Papua New Guinea" by Hybrid was later featured in the soundtrack to WipEout Fusion in 2002. "We Have Explosive" was the second single from the album, and the band's highest charting single (beating "My Kingdom" by one spot to number 12), and over the course of its five-part extended version included hints of funk, something which would be heard again when the band returned many years later.
The album was promoted by what the band described as "the fuck rock'n'roll tour" via ISDN, lasting several months and gaining much media attention by being the first band to do a world tour without leaving their studio. While 1994's tour had focused on creating soundscapes and unreleased material, the 1996 and 1997 shows were more conventional, each offering a different take on the Dead Cities experience, blending then-current tracks with occasional exclusive pieces of the time. However, the final few performances jettisoned this material for tracks from a series of unreleased sessions, containing more live sounding material, including considerable use of guitar and percussion. These "1997 sessions" were highly sought after by fans, with some tracks forming the basis of the band's psychedelic projects of the following decade, while others appeared on the From The Archives series.
New millennium
After a four-year hiatus, rumours of mental illness began to spread which turned out to be nothing more than exaggeration of Cobain's mercury poisoning from fillings in his teeth. Cobain gained much from the experience, realising that music was a tool for psychic exploration and entertainment but also one for healing. The pair returned in 2002 with "The Isness", a record heavily influenced by 1960s and 1970s psychedelia and released under their alias Amorphous Androgynous. It was preceded by Papua New Guinea Translations, a mini album which contained a mixture of remixes of FSOL's track as well as new material from The Isness sessions. The album received mixed press due to the drastic change in sound which was inspired by Cobain's and Dougan's (separate) travels to India and immersion in spiritualism, nevertheless the majority was positive with Muzik magazine offering the album a 6/5 mark and dubbing it "...a white beam of light from heaven..." and other British publications such as The Times, The Guardian and MOJO praising the album and the band's ability to do something so completely different from what they had done before.
Three years on, they followed the album with a continuation of the Amorphous Androgynous project, Alice in Ultraland. Rumoured to be accompanied by a film of the same title, the album took The Isness psychedelic experimentation and toned it down, giving the album a singular theme and sound, and replacing the more bizarre moments with funk and ambient interludes. The album was ignored by the press, but was received more favourably among fans than its predecessor. Unlike The Isness, which featured almost 100 musicians over the course of it and the various alternative versions and remix albums, Alice in Ultraland featured a fairly solid band lineup throughout, which extended to live shows which the band had undertaken away from the ISDN cables from 2005 onwards.
5.1 & digital experimentation
The FSOL moniker re-appeared in 2006 with a piece entitled "A Gigantic Globular Burst Of Anti-Static", intended as an experiment in 5.1 Surround Sound and created for an exhibition at the Kinetica art museum entitled, appropriately, "Life Forms". The piece contained reworked material from their archives and newer, more abstract ambient music. The piece was coupled with a video called "Stereo Sucks", marking the band's theories on the limitations of stereo music, which was released on a DVD packaged with issue 182 of Future Music Magazine in December 2006 and on FSOL's own download site in March 2007.
They also moved into creating their own sounds when they began constructing electronic instruments, the result of which can be heard on the 2007 release Hand-Made Devices. At their website Glitch TV (where the motto is "[A] sudden interruption in sanity, continuity or programme function") they sell and explain their devices such as the "Electronic Devices Digital Interface" glitch equipment.
FSOLdigital and the Archives
In 2007, the band uploaded several archive tracks online, for the first time revealing much of their unreleased work and unveiling some of the mystery behind the band. The old FSOL material, including the previously unreleased album Environments, along with a selection of newer experiments, the 5.1 experiments and a promise of unreleased Amorphous Androgynous psychedelic material, was uploaded for sale on their online shop, FSOLdigital.com.
In early March 2008, the band released a new online album as Amorphous Androgynous entitled The Peppermint Tree and Seeds of Superconsciousness, which they describe as "A collection of psychedelic relics from The Amorphous Androgynous, 1967-2007". The release retains the sound of their last two psychedelic albums, while expanding on the element of funk first introduced on 2005's Alice in Ultraland. They recorded their following album, The Woodlands of Old, under the alias of their imaginary engineer Yage. Unlike the techno work recorded as Yage in 1992, this new record was darker, more trip hop and world music-oriented and featured ex-Propellerheads member Will White.
From 2008, the band showcased a series of radio broadcasts and podcasts called The Electric Brain Storms, originally on stations such as Proton Radio, PBS radio in Australia, and Frisky Radio. The remaining shows appeared on the band's official site. and SoundCloud. The shows featured electronic, krautrock, experimental and psychedelic favourites of the band mixed in with known and unknown FSOL material, including newly recorded tracks, archived pieces, and new alias recordings. Many of the new tracks appeared on the band's Environments series. Cobain has described the new music as having "the introspective, kind of euphoric sadness that was always there in the FSOL melodies".
From this point, the band have been alternating their focus between different projects. In 2008, Environments II and From the Archives Vol. 5 were released on the band's site, followed by Environments 3 and From the Archives Vol. 6 in 2010; and Environments 4 and From the Archives Vol. 7 in 2012. Whilst the Archives feature old, unreleased material, the Environments albums feature a mixture of old demos, recently completed, and new tracks.
The band have continued to use the FSOLDigital platform to release side-projects and solo work, under names such as Blackhill Transmitter, EMS : Piano, Suburban Domestic and 6 Oscillators in Remittance, as well as distributing digital releases from other artists, including Daniel Pemberton, Herd, Kettel & Secede, Neotropic, Ross Baker and Seafar; they also continue to update The Pod Room with ISDN transmissions from the 1990s.
A Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble Exploding in Your Mind
Following on from the band's 1997 DJ set of the same name, a series of Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble Exploding in Your Mind mix CDs were begun in 2006. The first two were released under the Amorphous Androgynous alias, subtitled "Cosmic Space Music" and "Pagan Love Vibrations", with the first taking over two years to compile, mix and gain sample clearance, both featuring the band's psychedelic influences. A third is set for release sometime in 2010, and will be more electronic, mixed by the Future Sound of London. Further mixes in the series are expected in the future, to be curated by related artists, and the band took the concept live with an eleven-hour spot at 2009's Green Man festival, to contain live bands and DJ spots.
Noel Gallagher of British rock band Oasis, after hearing the first release, became a fan and asked the band to remix the following Oasis single "Falling Down". The Amorphous Androgynous responded with a 5 part, 22-minute Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble remix, which Noel liked enough to release on its own 12". Noel also invited Cobain to DJ at the afterparty for one of Oasis' gigs at Wembley Arena.
The band continue the psychedelic theme to the mixes on their podcast site The Pod Room and on February 2010s Mojo Magazine cover CD. The Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble remixes grow in popularity with commissions from Paul Weller and Pop Levi, and Cobain has suggested a full album of remixes and covers will appear on their recently formed Monstrous Bubble label
On 6 July 2011 it was announced that Noel Gallagher's second solo album will be in collaboration with The Amorphous Androgynous, and is set for release in 2012. In August 2012, Gallagher mentioned in various interviews that he is considering scrapping the collaborative album with Amorphous Androgynous due to not being completely satisfied with the mixes. Two songs from the project have surfaced as B-sides to Gallagher's singles in 2012: "Shoot a Hole into the Sun" (based on Gallagher's track "If I Had a Gun...") was a B-side to the single "Dream On", and a mix of "AKA... What a Life!" featured on the B-side of "Everybody's on the Run". However, as the project is currently shelved, the group have returned to original material, releasing the first in a series of Monstrous Bubble Soundtracks, entitled The Cartel. On Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds' album Chasing Yesterday, The Amorphous Androgynous are credited as Co-producers of the tracks "The Right Stuff" and "The Mexican".
Future of the band
The group continue to give updates for the Galaxial Pharmaceutical news site and forum, while largely releasing material through their FSOLDigital imprint. They remain prolific, working on multiple projects at once. As "The Future Sound of London", they currently plan to continue releasing new material as part of the Environments series; the latest releases as of June 2019 are Environment Six and 6.5 from 2016.
On 26 April 2019, the band released Yage 2019, consisting of eleven songs. The album was also released on vinyl and CD on Record Store Day that year; the latter release featured an additional two tracks. The next year another album, Cascade 2020, was released. In 2021 they released We Have Explosive 2021.
Independence
Since the millennium, FSOL took a more independent turn with their career, releasing their more psychedelic Amorphous Androgynous on an independent label, The Isness on Artful Records and Alice in Ultraland on the progressive Harvest Records (an arm of EMI). They also have their own label called Electronic Brain Violence on which off-beat electronic artists such as Oil and Simon Wells (Headstone Lane) have released EPs and singles. Simon Wells also contributed to Dead Cities on the track "Dead Cities Reprise"
Nevertheless, Virgin records still controls FSOL's back catalog and was going to release the Teachings from the Electronic Brain compilation without them, but the duo insisted on taking control of the production of the project. Cobain says that, even with Virgin, the reason they were able to do their own thing and create the music they wanted in the 1990s was because they already had some major hits under their belts such as "Papua New Guinea", "Metropolis" and "Stakker Humanoid" before joining the label.
Cobain has said that FSOL's mentality has always been about making a journey of an album rather than focusing on trying to have hit singles. He said that they had several top 40 singles (and albums) in the 90s because they had enough fans and had built up enough of a reputation to achieve these hits while still concentrating on the album rather than any potential singles during their time at Virgin.
They have been signed to Passion Records sub-label Jumpin' & Pumpin' since they started out.
Aliases
Discography
Accelerator (1991)
Lifeforms (1994)
ISDN (1994)
Dead Cities (1996)
The Isness (2002) (as Amorphous Androgynous, except in the USA)
Environments (2007)
Environments II (2008)
Environments 3 (2010)
Environments 4 (2012)
Environment Five (2014)
Environment Six (2016)
Environment 6.5 (2016)
Yage 2019 (2019)
Cascade 2020 (2020)
Chart history
Singles charts
Album charts
See also
List of ambient music artists
Max Richter
References
External links
Future Sound of London.com - official website.
an overview of their studio equipment et cetera from 1994
Acid house musicians
Braindance musicians
Breakbeat music groups
British ambient music groups
English dance music groups
English house music duos
English techno music groups
Male musical duos
Astralwerks artists
Virgin Records artists
English experimental musical groups
Harvest Records artists
Hypnotic Records artists
Rephlex Records artists
Intelligent dance musicians
Musical groups established in 1988
Musical groups from Manchester
New-age music groups
Remixers
| false |
[
"Westside Connection was an American hip-hop supergroup formed by Mack 10, WC and Ice Cube. The group's debut album, Bow Down, reached the number 2 position on the Billboard 200 in 1996, going platinum that year.\n\nBiography\nWestside Connection began performing together in 1994, appearing on Mack 10's self-titled debut album, Mack 10, on the song \"Westside Slaughterhouse\". A few months later, the group again joined forces, this time appearing on WC's album, Curb Servin', on the song \"West Up!\". It was around this time the group began work on their debut album, Bow Down, which was released October 22, 1996.\n\nIndividually, Mack 10, WC and Ice Cube continued working on solo projects in between group albums. Together, as Westside Connection, they produced several songs released on film soundtracks and compilations including \"Bangin'\" (from West Coast Bad Boyz II), \"Let It Reign\" (from Thicker than Water) and \"It's the Holidaze\" (from Friday After Next).\n\nOn December 9, 2003, the group released their second album Terrorist Threats, hallmarked by the lead single \"Gangsta Nation\" produced by Fredwreck and featuring Nate Dogg.\n\nMack 10 quit the group in 2005 due to a conflict with Ice Cube, and Westside Connection subsequently disbanded. However, Ice Cube and WC continued to collaborate, having since appeared on each other's albums.\n\nIn 2008, HipHopDX reported that Ice Cube and WC were planning to relaunch the Westside Connection project, with The Game being proposed as Mack 10's replacement (having appeared with WC on Ice Cube's album Raw Footage that same year), however the rumored relaunch never came to fruition. In an interview with VladTV in 2020, Mack 10 commented in retrospect that any reunion without his involvement would still require his being paid, as he owns the trademark on the group's name, due to their second album being released through his record label.\n\nDiscography\n\nStudio albums\n\nCompilation albums\n\nSingles\n\nAs lead artist\n\nAs featured artist\n\nPromotional singles\n\nGuest Appearances\n\nReferences\n\nAmerican musical trios\nGangsta rap groups\nHip hop groups from California\nHip hop supergroups\nIce Cube\nMusical groups from Los Angeles\nPriority Records artists\nRappers from Los Angeles",
"Tropical Family is a banner for a musical collective of artists who came together in 2013 to collaborate on an album of tropical music and summer-y dance songs. The 12-track album was released on 1 July 2013, with 12 cover versions of well-known songs by diverse artists. A Deluxe edition was released in November with four additional tracks included.\n\nInitially, Serge Gainsbourg's \"Couleur café\" as performed by Louisy Joseph had been recorded, but eventually it was set aside in favor of Teri Moïse song \"Les Poèmes de Michelle\" as interpreted by Slaï on the album.\n\nTrack listing\n\nDeluxe edition\nOn 18 November 2013, a Deluxe edition was released, that included the same track list in addition to four bonus tracks not found on the original release, being \"Turn Me On\" by Matt Houston and Kevin Lyttle, \"Enamórame\" by DJ Assad feat. Papi Sanchez & Luyannah, \"Couleur Café\" by Louisy Joseph and \"Petites Iles\" by Lynnsha & Kymaï1.\n\nTrack list\n\nCharts\n\nAlbum\n\nSingles\n\nReferences\n\nCovers albums\n2013 compilation albums"
] |
[
"That Was the Week That Was",
"International versions"
] |
C_1272aa01753c4a629ad52ddb8bf8dd5a_0
|
Where was it released?
| 1 |
Where was "That Was the Week That Was" released?
|
That Was the Week That Was
|
A Canadian show, This Hour Has Seven Days, aired from 1964 to 1966 on CBC. Although partially inspired by That Was The Week That Was, the Canadian show mixed satirical aspects with more serious journalism. It proved controversial and was cancelled after two series amid allegations of political interference. This Hour Has 22 Minutes, created by Newfoundland comic Mary Walsh, has been running since 1992 although the two are not related. An Australian show, The Mavis Bramston Show, aired from 1964 to 1968 on the Seven Network. It grew out of the recent local theatrical tradition of topical satirical revue--most notably the popular revues staged at Sydney's Phillip Street Theatre in the 1950s and 1960s--but it was also strongly influenced by the British satire boom and especially TW3 and Not Only... But Also. The New Zealand show A Week Of It ran from 1977 to 1979, hosted by Ken Ellis, and featuring comedians David McPhail, Peter Rowley and Chris McVeigh and comedian/musicians Jon Gadsby and Annie Whittle. The series lampooned news and politics and featured songs, usually by McPhail and Gadsby, who continued with their own show, McPhail and Gadsby in similar vein. A Dutch version, Zo is het toevallig ook nog 's een keer, aired from November 1963 to 1966. It became controversial after the fourth edition, which included a parody of the Lord's Prayer ("Give us this day our daily television"). Angry viewers directed their protests especially against the most popular cast member: Mies Bouwman. After receiving several threats to her life she decided to quit the show. The show was praised as well: in 1966 it received the Gouden Televizier-ring, a prestigious audience award--though it turned out afterward that the election was rigged. An Indian version titled The Week That Wasn't was launched and hosted by Cyrus Broacha. CANNOTANSWER
|
A Canadian show, This Hour Has Seven Days, aired from 1964 to 1966 on CBC.
|
That Was the Week That Was, informally TWTWTW or TW3, was a satirical television comedy programme on BBC Television in 1962 and 1963. It was devised, produced, and directed by Ned Sherrin and presented by David Frost.
The programme is considered a significant element of the satire boom in the UK in the early 1960s, as it broke ground in comedy by lampooning political figures. Its broadcast coincided with coverage of the politically charged Profumo affair, and John Profumo became a figure of derision. TW3 was broadcast from Saturday, 24 November 1962 through late December 1963. An American version under the same title aired on NBC from 1964 to 1965, also featuring Frost.
Cast and writers
Cast members included cartoonist Timothy Birdsall, political commentator Bernard Levin, and actors Lance Percival, who sang topical calypsos, many improvised to suggestions from the audience, Kenneth Cope, Roy Kinnear, Willie Rushton, Al Mancini, Robert Lang, David Kernan and Millicent Martin. The last two were also singers and the programme opened with a song – "That Was The Week That Was" – sung by Martin to Ron Grainer's theme tune and enumerating topics in the news. Frankie Howerd also guested with stand-up comedy.
Script-writers included John Albery, John Antrobus, John Betjeman, John Bird, Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Peter Cook, Roald Dahl, Robin Grove-White, Richard Ingrams, Lyndon Irving, Gerald Kaufman, Frank Muir, David Nobbs, Denis Norden, Bill Oddie, Dennis Potter, Eric Sykes, Kenneth Tynan, and Keith Waterhouse.
Programme
The programme opened with a song ("That was the week that was, It's over, let it go ...") sung by Millicent Martin, referring to news of the week just gone. Lance Percival sang a topical calypso each week. Satirical targets, such as Prime Minister Harold Macmillan and Home Secretary Henry Brooke were lampooned in sketches, debates and monologues. Some other targets included the monarchy, the British Empire, nuclear deterrence, advertising, public relations and propaganda, capital punishment, sexual and social hypocrisy, the class system, and the BBC itself. Well-remembered sketches include the 12 January 1963 "consumers' guide to religion", which discussed relative merits of faiths in the manner of a Which? magazine report led to the Church of England being described a 'best buy'.
The programme was not party political but did not treat all issues with what the producers considered to be a false level of impartiality and balance; one example of this is the issue of racism and "the evils of apartheid", following the view of BBC Director-General Sir Hugh Greene that the BBC should not be bound by its charter to be impartial on issues of racism, which Greene and the producers of TW3 viewed as "quite simply wrong". Following the 1963 murder of 35-year-old white postal worker William Lewis Moore in Alabama, who was on a protest march against segregation in the American South, TW3 Millicent Martin dressed as Uncle Sam sang a parody of "I Wanna Go Back to Mississippi" ("... where the Mississippi mud/kinda mingles with the blood/of the niggers who are hanging from the branches of the tree ...") accompanied by minstrel singers in blackface ("... we hate all the darkies and the Catholics and the Jews / Where we welcome any man / Who is white and strong and belongs to the Ku Klux Klan"), thus parodying The Black and White Minstrel Show, which was then being shown on the BBC despite accusations of racism over its use of blackface.
On Saturday, 20 October 1962 the award of Nobel prizes to John Kendrew and Max Perutz, and to Francis Crick, James D. Watson, and Maurice Wilkins was satirised in a short sketch with the prizes referred to as the Alfred Nobel Peace Pools; in this sketch Watson was called "Little J. D. Watson" and "Who'd have thought he'd ever get the Nobel Prize? Makes you think, doesn't it". The germ of the joke was that Watson was only 25 when he helped discover the structure of DNA; much younger than the others.
TW3 was broadcast on Saturday night and attracted an audience of 12 million. It often under- or overran as cast and crew worked through material as they saw fit. At the beginning of the second season in the autumn of 1963, in an attempt to assert control over the programme, the BBC scheduled repeats of The Third Man television series after the end of TW3. Frost suggested a means of sabotaging this tactic to Sherrin, and he agreed. For three weeks, Frost read out the plot of The Third Man, until the repeats were abandoned following the direct intervention of Greene.
Frost often ended a satirical attack with the remark "But seriously, he's doing a grand job". At the end of each episode, Frost usually signed off with: "That was the week, that was." At the end of the final programme he announced: "That was ‘That Was The Week That Was’ …that was."
Kennedy tribute
TW3 produced a shortened 20-minute programme with no satire for the edition on Saturday, 23 November 1963, the day after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. It featured a contribution from Dame Sybil Thorndike and the tribute song "In the Summer of His Years" by Herbert Kretzmer. This was screened on NBC the following day, and the soundtrack was released by Decca Records. A clip featuring Roy Kinnear was shown in the David L. Wolper documentary film Four Days in November and on the History Channel 2009 documentary JFK: 3 Shots that Changed America. BBC presenter Richard Dimbleby broadcast the president's funeral from Washington, and he said that the programme was a good expression of the sorrow felt in Britain.
Reception
Prime Minister Harold Macmillan was initially supportive of the programme, chastising Postmaster General Reginald Bevins for threatening to "do something about it". However, the BBC received many complaints from organisations and establishment figures. Lord Aldington, vice-chairman of the Conservative Party, wrote to BBC director-general Hugh Greene that Frost had a hatred of the prime minister which "he finds impossible to control". The programme also attracted complaints from the Boy Scout Association about an item questioning the sexuality of its founder Lord Baden-Powell, and from the government of Cyprus which claimed that a joke about their ruler Archbishop Makarios was a "gross violation of internationally accepted ethics".
Historians have identified TW3 as breaking ground in comedy and broadcasting. Graham McCann said that it challenged the "convention that television should not acknowledge that it is television; the show made no attempt to hide its cameras, allowed the microphone boom to intrude, and often revealed other nuts and bolts of studio technology." This was unusual in the 1960s and gave the programme a modern feel. TW3 also flouted conventions by adopting "a relaxed attitude to its running time", and "it seemed to last just as long as it wanted".
The programme was taken off the air at short notice in December 1963 with the explanation that '1964 is a General Election year'.
Legacy
TW3 was broadcast live, but it was normally recorded for legal reasons; only the pilot episode was not recorded. A compilation of material was shown on BBC Four to celebrate the 40th anniversary. The series placed 29th in the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes in 2000.
Alternative versions
US versions
An American version was on NBC from 10 November 1963 to May 1965. The pilot featured Henry Fonda and Henry Morgan, with Mike Nichols and Elaine May as guests, and supporting performers including Gene Hackman. The recurring cast included Frost, Morgan, Buck Henry, and Alan Alda, with Nancy Ames singing the opening song and Stanley Grover and Ames performing solos and duets; regular contributors included Gloria Steinem, William F. Brown, Tom Lehrer, and Calvin Trillin. The announcer was Jerry Damon. A running gag was a mock feud with Jack Paar, whose own program followed TW3 on the NBC Friday schedule; Paar repeatedly referred to TW3 as "Henry Morgan's Amateur Hour".
The American version is largely a lost program, although the pilot survives and was donated to the Library of Congress by a collector. Amateur audio recordings of most episodes also survive. After the series' cancellation, Lehrer recorded a collection of his songs used on the show on That Was The Year That Was, released by Reprise Records in September 1965.
One episode showed a smiling President Lyndon B. Johnson contemplating an easy 1964 campaign against Republican nominee Senator Barry M. Goldwater of Arizona. The satirists sang that Goldwater could not win because he "does not know the dance of the liberal Republicans", then a substantial component of the GOP, many of whose members had supported New York Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller for the Republican nomination. ABC aired That Was The Week That Was as a special on 21 April 1985, hosted by David Frost and Anne Bancroft and featuring future Saturday Night Live cast members Jan Hooks and A. Whitney Brown and puppetry from Spitting Image.
Other international versions
A Canadian show, This Hour Has Seven Days, aired from 1964 to 1966 on CBC. Although partially inspired by That Was The Week That Was, the Canadian show mixed satirical aspects with more serious journalism. It proved controversial and was cancelled after two seasons amid allegations of political interference. This Hour Has 22 Minutes, created by Newfoundland comic Mary Walsh, has been running since 1992 although the two are not related.
An Australian show, The Mavis Bramston Show, aired from 1964 to 1968 on the Seven Network. It grew out of the recent local theatrical tradition of topical satirical revue—most notably the popular revues staged at Sydney's Phillip Street Theatre in the 1950s and 1960s—but it was also strongly influenced by the British satire boom and especially TW3 and Not Only... But Also.
The New Zealand show A Week Of It ran from 1977 to 1979, hosted by Ken Ellis, and featuring comedians David McPhail, Peter Rowley and Chris McVeigh and comedian/musicians Jon Gadsby and Annie Whittle. The series lampooned news and politics and featured songs, usually by McPhail and Gadsby, who continued with their own show, McPhail and Gadsby in similar vein.
A Dutch version, Zo is het toevallig ook nog 's een keer (It Just So Happens Once Again), aired from November 1963 to 1966. It became controversial after the fourth edition, which included a parody of the Lord's Prayer ("Give us this day our daily television"). Angry viewers directed their protests especially against the most popular cast member: Mies Bouwman. After receiving several threats to her life she decided to quit the show. The show was praised as well: in 1966 it received the Gouden Televizier-ring, a prestigious audience award—though it turned out afterward that the election was rigged.
An Indian version titled The Week That Wasn't was launched and hosted by Cyrus Broacha.
Parodies
Cleveland, Ohio, local personality Ghoulardi (played by Ernie Anderson), host of WJW-TV's Shock Theater in the 1960s, ran clips of local celebrities and politicians and satirised them in a Shock Theater segment entitled That Was Weak Wasn't It?
Beginning in 2006, 1812 Productions, an all comedy theatre company in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, has annually performed a stage show called This Is the Week That Is. The variety show style play is written by its small cast with a script that changes nightly over several weeks of performances, and includes improvised comedy, musical parodies, and a versatile cast of performers. The show focuses on politics and news from the preceding year, often taking on local Philadelphia stories as well. In 2019, a documentary, In the Field; Conceiving Satire: The Making of This Is The Week That Is, about the creation of the long-running show was commissioned by the American Theatre Wing and nominated for a Mid-Atlantic Emmy Award for Arts Program/Special.
References
External links
That Was the Week That Was at the British Film Institute
That Was the Week That Was at the Museum of Broadcast Communications
(UK version)
(US version)
BBC television sketch shows
1960s British television sketch shows
British satirical television series
News parodies
Television series about television
American television series based on British television series
Peabody Award-winning television programs
Grammy Award winners
1962 British television series debuts
1963 British television series endings
Black-and-white British television shows
English-language television shows
| true |
[
"Night Sports is the fifth studio album by American duo 3OH!3. The album is their first album released under Fueled By Ramen, where the band signed in February 2016. The album was released on May 13, 2016.\n\nSingles\nThe first single released from the album was \"My Dick\", which was surprise released on December 4, 2015. The music video for the single was premiered on the same day, and it was directed by Tony Yacenda. \"Mad at You\" was released on March 4, 2016 to iTunes, alongside the pre-order for the album. The music video, directed by Isaac Ravishankara, was released the same day. On March 17, 3OH!3 announced a remix contest for the song where the winner would have their remix reposted on Fueled by Ramen's SoundCloud account, shared on the band's Facebook and Twitter accounts, as well as it being uploaded to the band's YouTube channel. The contest ended on April 20, with Wagner Koop being announced as the winner.\n\n\"BASMF\" was released as single on March 18, 2016. The music video was released the same day. \"Hear Me Now\", which was released on April 15, 2016. The music video for the song was released on May 12, 2016. The fifth and final single for the album was \"Freak Your Mind\", which was released on May 6, 2016.\n\nTrack listing\nAll songs produced by 3OH!3.\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\n3OH!3 albums\n2016 albums\nPhoto Finish Records albums\nAtlantic Records albums",
"The following is a list of episodes from the series Voltron: Legendary Defender. The first season was released on June 10, 2016. The first episode in Netflix is triple-length, creating a cumulative runtime for the season equal to the industry standard of 13 episodes, while other streaming services such as iTunes and Amazon have three separated episodes with the normal length of 23 minutes. The second season was released on January 20, 2017, the third season was released on August 4, 2017 and the fourth season was released on October 13, 2017. A fifth season was released on March 2, 2018, while the sixth season was released on June 15, 2018. A seventh season was released on August 10, 2018. The eighth and final season was released on December 14, 2018. In South Korea (where the show was animated), the series was divided into three seasons of twenty-six episodes each.\n\nSeries overview\n\nEpisodes\n\nSeason 1 (2016)\n\nSeason 2 (2017)\n\nSeason 3 (2017)\n\nSeason 4 (2017)\n\nSeason 5 (2018)\n\nSeason 6 (2018)\n\nSeason 7 (2018)\n\nSeason 8 (2018)\n\nShorts\nA series of shorts were released on the DreamWorksTV YouTube channel in the style of in-character vlogs.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nVoltron"
] |
[
"That Was the Week That Was",
"International versions",
"Where was it released?",
"A Canadian show, This Hour Has Seven Days, aired from 1964 to 1966 on CBC."
] |
C_1272aa01753c4a629ad52ddb8bf8dd5a_0
|
How many episodes were there?
| 2 |
How many episodes were there in "This Hour Has Seven Days"?
|
That Was the Week That Was
|
A Canadian show, This Hour Has Seven Days, aired from 1964 to 1966 on CBC. Although partially inspired by That Was The Week That Was, the Canadian show mixed satirical aspects with more serious journalism. It proved controversial and was cancelled after two series amid allegations of political interference. This Hour Has 22 Minutes, created by Newfoundland comic Mary Walsh, has been running since 1992 although the two are not related. An Australian show, The Mavis Bramston Show, aired from 1964 to 1968 on the Seven Network. It grew out of the recent local theatrical tradition of topical satirical revue--most notably the popular revues staged at Sydney's Phillip Street Theatre in the 1950s and 1960s--but it was also strongly influenced by the British satire boom and especially TW3 and Not Only... But Also. The New Zealand show A Week Of It ran from 1977 to 1979, hosted by Ken Ellis, and featuring comedians David McPhail, Peter Rowley and Chris McVeigh and comedian/musicians Jon Gadsby and Annie Whittle. The series lampooned news and politics and featured songs, usually by McPhail and Gadsby, who continued with their own show, McPhail and Gadsby in similar vein. A Dutch version, Zo is het toevallig ook nog 's een keer, aired from November 1963 to 1966. It became controversial after the fourth edition, which included a parody of the Lord's Prayer ("Give us this day our daily television"). Angry viewers directed their protests especially against the most popular cast member: Mies Bouwman. After receiving several threats to her life she decided to quit the show. The show was praised as well: in 1966 it received the Gouden Televizier-ring, a prestigious audience award--though it turned out afterward that the election was rigged. An Indian version titled The Week That Wasn't was launched and hosted by Cyrus Broacha. CANNOTANSWER
|
CANNOTANSWER
|
That Was the Week That Was, informally TWTWTW or TW3, was a satirical television comedy programme on BBC Television in 1962 and 1963. It was devised, produced, and directed by Ned Sherrin and presented by David Frost.
The programme is considered a significant element of the satire boom in the UK in the early 1960s, as it broke ground in comedy by lampooning political figures. Its broadcast coincided with coverage of the politically charged Profumo affair, and John Profumo became a figure of derision. TW3 was broadcast from Saturday, 24 November 1962 through late December 1963. An American version under the same title aired on NBC from 1964 to 1965, also featuring Frost.
Cast and writers
Cast members included cartoonist Timothy Birdsall, political commentator Bernard Levin, and actors Lance Percival, who sang topical calypsos, many improvised to suggestions from the audience, Kenneth Cope, Roy Kinnear, Willie Rushton, Al Mancini, Robert Lang, David Kernan and Millicent Martin. The last two were also singers and the programme opened with a song – "That Was The Week That Was" – sung by Martin to Ron Grainer's theme tune and enumerating topics in the news. Frankie Howerd also guested with stand-up comedy.
Script-writers included John Albery, John Antrobus, John Betjeman, John Bird, Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Peter Cook, Roald Dahl, Robin Grove-White, Richard Ingrams, Lyndon Irving, Gerald Kaufman, Frank Muir, David Nobbs, Denis Norden, Bill Oddie, Dennis Potter, Eric Sykes, Kenneth Tynan, and Keith Waterhouse.
Programme
The programme opened with a song ("That was the week that was, It's over, let it go ...") sung by Millicent Martin, referring to news of the week just gone. Lance Percival sang a topical calypso each week. Satirical targets, such as Prime Minister Harold Macmillan and Home Secretary Henry Brooke were lampooned in sketches, debates and monologues. Some other targets included the monarchy, the British Empire, nuclear deterrence, advertising, public relations and propaganda, capital punishment, sexual and social hypocrisy, the class system, and the BBC itself. Well-remembered sketches include the 12 January 1963 "consumers' guide to religion", which discussed relative merits of faiths in the manner of a Which? magazine report led to the Church of England being described a 'best buy'.
The programme was not party political but did not treat all issues with what the producers considered to be a false level of impartiality and balance; one example of this is the issue of racism and "the evils of apartheid", following the view of BBC Director-General Sir Hugh Greene that the BBC should not be bound by its charter to be impartial on issues of racism, which Greene and the producers of TW3 viewed as "quite simply wrong". Following the 1963 murder of 35-year-old white postal worker William Lewis Moore in Alabama, who was on a protest march against segregation in the American South, TW3 Millicent Martin dressed as Uncle Sam sang a parody of "I Wanna Go Back to Mississippi" ("... where the Mississippi mud/kinda mingles with the blood/of the niggers who are hanging from the branches of the tree ...") accompanied by minstrel singers in blackface ("... we hate all the darkies and the Catholics and the Jews / Where we welcome any man / Who is white and strong and belongs to the Ku Klux Klan"), thus parodying The Black and White Minstrel Show, which was then being shown on the BBC despite accusations of racism over its use of blackface.
On Saturday, 20 October 1962 the award of Nobel prizes to John Kendrew and Max Perutz, and to Francis Crick, James D. Watson, and Maurice Wilkins was satirised in a short sketch with the prizes referred to as the Alfred Nobel Peace Pools; in this sketch Watson was called "Little J. D. Watson" and "Who'd have thought he'd ever get the Nobel Prize? Makes you think, doesn't it". The germ of the joke was that Watson was only 25 when he helped discover the structure of DNA; much younger than the others.
TW3 was broadcast on Saturday night and attracted an audience of 12 million. It often under- or overran as cast and crew worked through material as they saw fit. At the beginning of the second season in the autumn of 1963, in an attempt to assert control over the programme, the BBC scheduled repeats of The Third Man television series after the end of TW3. Frost suggested a means of sabotaging this tactic to Sherrin, and he agreed. For three weeks, Frost read out the plot of The Third Man, until the repeats were abandoned following the direct intervention of Greene.
Frost often ended a satirical attack with the remark "But seriously, he's doing a grand job". At the end of each episode, Frost usually signed off with: "That was the week, that was." At the end of the final programme he announced: "That was ‘That Was The Week That Was’ …that was."
Kennedy tribute
TW3 produced a shortened 20-minute programme with no satire for the edition on Saturday, 23 November 1963, the day after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. It featured a contribution from Dame Sybil Thorndike and the tribute song "In the Summer of His Years" by Herbert Kretzmer. This was screened on NBC the following day, and the soundtrack was released by Decca Records. A clip featuring Roy Kinnear was shown in the David L. Wolper documentary film Four Days in November and on the History Channel 2009 documentary JFK: 3 Shots that Changed America. BBC presenter Richard Dimbleby broadcast the president's funeral from Washington, and he said that the programme was a good expression of the sorrow felt in Britain.
Reception
Prime Minister Harold Macmillan was initially supportive of the programme, chastising Postmaster General Reginald Bevins for threatening to "do something about it". However, the BBC received many complaints from organisations and establishment figures. Lord Aldington, vice-chairman of the Conservative Party, wrote to BBC director-general Hugh Greene that Frost had a hatred of the prime minister which "he finds impossible to control". The programme also attracted complaints from the Boy Scout Association about an item questioning the sexuality of its founder Lord Baden-Powell, and from the government of Cyprus which claimed that a joke about their ruler Archbishop Makarios was a "gross violation of internationally accepted ethics".
Historians have identified TW3 as breaking ground in comedy and broadcasting. Graham McCann said that it challenged the "convention that television should not acknowledge that it is television; the show made no attempt to hide its cameras, allowed the microphone boom to intrude, and often revealed other nuts and bolts of studio technology." This was unusual in the 1960s and gave the programme a modern feel. TW3 also flouted conventions by adopting "a relaxed attitude to its running time", and "it seemed to last just as long as it wanted".
The programme was taken off the air at short notice in December 1963 with the explanation that '1964 is a General Election year'.
Legacy
TW3 was broadcast live, but it was normally recorded for legal reasons; only the pilot episode was not recorded. A compilation of material was shown on BBC Four to celebrate the 40th anniversary. The series placed 29th in the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes in 2000.
Alternative versions
US versions
An American version was on NBC from 10 November 1963 to May 1965. The pilot featured Henry Fonda and Henry Morgan, with Mike Nichols and Elaine May as guests, and supporting performers including Gene Hackman. The recurring cast included Frost, Morgan, Buck Henry, and Alan Alda, with Nancy Ames singing the opening song and Stanley Grover and Ames performing solos and duets; regular contributors included Gloria Steinem, William F. Brown, Tom Lehrer, and Calvin Trillin. The announcer was Jerry Damon. A running gag was a mock feud with Jack Paar, whose own program followed TW3 on the NBC Friday schedule; Paar repeatedly referred to TW3 as "Henry Morgan's Amateur Hour".
The American version is largely a lost program, although the pilot survives and was donated to the Library of Congress by a collector. Amateur audio recordings of most episodes also survive. After the series' cancellation, Lehrer recorded a collection of his songs used on the show on That Was The Year That Was, released by Reprise Records in September 1965.
One episode showed a smiling President Lyndon B. Johnson contemplating an easy 1964 campaign against Republican nominee Senator Barry M. Goldwater of Arizona. The satirists sang that Goldwater could not win because he "does not know the dance of the liberal Republicans", then a substantial component of the GOP, many of whose members had supported New York Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller for the Republican nomination. ABC aired That Was The Week That Was as a special on 21 April 1985, hosted by David Frost and Anne Bancroft and featuring future Saturday Night Live cast members Jan Hooks and A. Whitney Brown and puppetry from Spitting Image.
Other international versions
A Canadian show, This Hour Has Seven Days, aired from 1964 to 1966 on CBC. Although partially inspired by That Was The Week That Was, the Canadian show mixed satirical aspects with more serious journalism. It proved controversial and was cancelled after two seasons amid allegations of political interference. This Hour Has 22 Minutes, created by Newfoundland comic Mary Walsh, has been running since 1992 although the two are not related.
An Australian show, The Mavis Bramston Show, aired from 1964 to 1968 on the Seven Network. It grew out of the recent local theatrical tradition of topical satirical revue—most notably the popular revues staged at Sydney's Phillip Street Theatre in the 1950s and 1960s—but it was also strongly influenced by the British satire boom and especially TW3 and Not Only... But Also.
The New Zealand show A Week Of It ran from 1977 to 1979, hosted by Ken Ellis, and featuring comedians David McPhail, Peter Rowley and Chris McVeigh and comedian/musicians Jon Gadsby and Annie Whittle. The series lampooned news and politics and featured songs, usually by McPhail and Gadsby, who continued with their own show, McPhail and Gadsby in similar vein.
A Dutch version, Zo is het toevallig ook nog 's een keer (It Just So Happens Once Again), aired from November 1963 to 1966. It became controversial after the fourth edition, which included a parody of the Lord's Prayer ("Give us this day our daily television"). Angry viewers directed their protests especially against the most popular cast member: Mies Bouwman. After receiving several threats to her life she decided to quit the show. The show was praised as well: in 1966 it received the Gouden Televizier-ring, a prestigious audience award—though it turned out afterward that the election was rigged.
An Indian version titled The Week That Wasn't was launched and hosted by Cyrus Broacha.
Parodies
Cleveland, Ohio, local personality Ghoulardi (played by Ernie Anderson), host of WJW-TV's Shock Theater in the 1960s, ran clips of local celebrities and politicians and satirised them in a Shock Theater segment entitled That Was Weak Wasn't It?
Beginning in 2006, 1812 Productions, an all comedy theatre company in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, has annually performed a stage show called This Is the Week That Is. The variety show style play is written by its small cast with a script that changes nightly over several weeks of performances, and includes improvised comedy, musical parodies, and a versatile cast of performers. The show focuses on politics and news from the preceding year, often taking on local Philadelphia stories as well. In 2019, a documentary, In the Field; Conceiving Satire: The Making of This Is The Week That Is, about the creation of the long-running show was commissioned by the American Theatre Wing and nominated for a Mid-Atlantic Emmy Award for Arts Program/Special.
References
External links
That Was the Week That Was at the British Film Institute
That Was the Week That Was at the Museum of Broadcast Communications
(UK version)
(US version)
BBC television sketch shows
1960s British television sketch shows
British satirical television series
News parodies
Television series about television
American television series based on British television series
Peabody Award-winning television programs
Grammy Award winners
1962 British television series debuts
1963 British television series endings
Black-and-white British television shows
English-language television shows
| false |
[
"This is a list of episodes from the CBS television comedy The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. The first episode aired on September 29, 1959, and the final episode aired on June 5, 1963. There were 147 episodes in total.\n\nSeries overview\n\nEpisodes\n\nSeason 1 (1959–60)\n\nSeason 2 (1960–61)\n\nSeason 3 (1961–62)\n\nSeason 4 (1962–63)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nLists of American sitcom episodes\nEpisodes",
"The Buster Keaton Show was a television series broadcast in 1950 starring Buster Keaton. It was broadcast over KTTV, which at the time was the Los Angeles affiliate of CBS (the network would start KNXT in 1951).\n\nIn 1949, comedian Ed Wynn invited Keaton to appear on his CBS Television comedy-variety show, The Ed Wynn Show, which was televised live on the West Coast. Kinescopes were made for distribution of the programs to other parts of the country, since there was no transcontinental coaxial cable until September 1951. Reaction was strong enough for a local Los Angeles station to offer Keaton his own show, also broadcast live, in 1950.\n\nThe Buster Keaton Comedy Show was Keaton's second foray into the new medium of television. It followed the 1949 one-off. Broadcast live, no record of that first program remains and it was not seen by viewers outside California, as it was not filmed in kinescope nor was there a coaxial cable linking the coasts at that time.\n\nLife with Buster Keaton (Date unknown, probably 1950 or 1951) was an attempt to recreate the first series on film, allowing the program to be broadcast nationwide. The series benefited from a company of veteran actors, including Marcia Mae Jones as the ingenue, Iris Adrian, Dick Wessel, Fuzzy Knight, Dub Taylor, Philip Van Zandt, and his silent-era contemporaries Harold Goodwin, Hank Mann, and stuntman Harvey Parry. Buster Keaton's wife Eleanor also was seen in the series (notably as Juliet to Buster's Romeo in a little-theater vignette). Keaton said that he canceled the filmed series himself, because he was unable to create enough fresh material to produce a new show each week. Several episodes from the show were assembled into a feature-length film that was released theatrically in the United Kingdom as The Misadventures of Buster Keaton.\n\nLack of information\nUnfortunately, there is a lack of information on this show or shows. It is unknown how many TV shows Buster Keaton starred in, how many episodes were released, what those episodes were called, what episode number they were, what year episodes were released in, etc. The most information we have is that there is a handful of available episodes from probably more than one show and a movie made which compiles footage from at least three episodes. These episodes have had several different titles attributed to them. It is entirely possible that information on The Buster Keaton Show, The Buster Keaton Comedy Show, and Life with Buster Keaton is falsely attributed to one show when it correctly is about another. The Buster Keaton Comedy Show especially lacks knowledge. Some sources have listed Life with Buster Keaton as having started airing in 1951, however, The Misadventures of Buster Keaton is known to have been released in 1950. It is possible that the footage was derived from then unaired episodes, but this is unconfirmed.\n\nAn episode of The Buster Keaton Show, and three episodes of Life with Buster Keaton can be viewed on the Internet Archive. The former is a kinescope of a live telecast, and includes the original commercials for Studebaker cars. (This was an era where television shows typically had a single sponsor, with The Buster Keaton Show having three commercial breaks, each for Studebaker.)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nBuster Keaton\n1950s American sketch comedy television series"
] |
[
"That Was the Week That Was",
"International versions",
"Where was it released?",
"A Canadian show, This Hour Has Seven Days, aired from 1964 to 1966 on CBC.",
"How many episodes were there?",
"I don't know."
] |
C_1272aa01753c4a629ad52ddb8bf8dd5a_0
|
What kind of show was it?
| 3 |
What kind of show was "This Hour Has Seven Days"?
|
That Was the Week That Was
|
A Canadian show, This Hour Has Seven Days, aired from 1964 to 1966 on CBC. Although partially inspired by That Was The Week That Was, the Canadian show mixed satirical aspects with more serious journalism. It proved controversial and was cancelled after two series amid allegations of political interference. This Hour Has 22 Minutes, created by Newfoundland comic Mary Walsh, has been running since 1992 although the two are not related. An Australian show, The Mavis Bramston Show, aired from 1964 to 1968 on the Seven Network. It grew out of the recent local theatrical tradition of topical satirical revue--most notably the popular revues staged at Sydney's Phillip Street Theatre in the 1950s and 1960s--but it was also strongly influenced by the British satire boom and especially TW3 and Not Only... But Also. The New Zealand show A Week Of It ran from 1977 to 1979, hosted by Ken Ellis, and featuring comedians David McPhail, Peter Rowley and Chris McVeigh and comedian/musicians Jon Gadsby and Annie Whittle. The series lampooned news and politics and featured songs, usually by McPhail and Gadsby, who continued with their own show, McPhail and Gadsby in similar vein. A Dutch version, Zo is het toevallig ook nog 's een keer, aired from November 1963 to 1966. It became controversial after the fourth edition, which included a parody of the Lord's Prayer ("Give us this day our daily television"). Angry viewers directed their protests especially against the most popular cast member: Mies Bouwman. After receiving several threats to her life she decided to quit the show. The show was praised as well: in 1966 it received the Gouden Televizier-ring, a prestigious audience award--though it turned out afterward that the election was rigged. An Indian version titled The Week That Wasn't was launched and hosted by Cyrus Broacha. CANNOTANSWER
|
the Canadian show mixed satirical aspects with more serious journalism.
|
That Was the Week That Was, informally TWTWTW or TW3, was a satirical television comedy programme on BBC Television in 1962 and 1963. It was devised, produced, and directed by Ned Sherrin and presented by David Frost.
The programme is considered a significant element of the satire boom in the UK in the early 1960s, as it broke ground in comedy by lampooning political figures. Its broadcast coincided with coverage of the politically charged Profumo affair, and John Profumo became a figure of derision. TW3 was broadcast from Saturday, 24 November 1962 through late December 1963. An American version under the same title aired on NBC from 1964 to 1965, also featuring Frost.
Cast and writers
Cast members included cartoonist Timothy Birdsall, political commentator Bernard Levin, and actors Lance Percival, who sang topical calypsos, many improvised to suggestions from the audience, Kenneth Cope, Roy Kinnear, Willie Rushton, Al Mancini, Robert Lang, David Kernan and Millicent Martin. The last two were also singers and the programme opened with a song – "That Was The Week That Was" – sung by Martin to Ron Grainer's theme tune and enumerating topics in the news. Frankie Howerd also guested with stand-up comedy.
Script-writers included John Albery, John Antrobus, John Betjeman, John Bird, Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Peter Cook, Roald Dahl, Robin Grove-White, Richard Ingrams, Lyndon Irving, Gerald Kaufman, Frank Muir, David Nobbs, Denis Norden, Bill Oddie, Dennis Potter, Eric Sykes, Kenneth Tynan, and Keith Waterhouse.
Programme
The programme opened with a song ("That was the week that was, It's over, let it go ...") sung by Millicent Martin, referring to news of the week just gone. Lance Percival sang a topical calypso each week. Satirical targets, such as Prime Minister Harold Macmillan and Home Secretary Henry Brooke were lampooned in sketches, debates and monologues. Some other targets included the monarchy, the British Empire, nuclear deterrence, advertising, public relations and propaganda, capital punishment, sexual and social hypocrisy, the class system, and the BBC itself. Well-remembered sketches include the 12 January 1963 "consumers' guide to religion", which discussed relative merits of faiths in the manner of a Which? magazine report led to the Church of England being described a 'best buy'.
The programme was not party political but did not treat all issues with what the producers considered to be a false level of impartiality and balance; one example of this is the issue of racism and "the evils of apartheid", following the view of BBC Director-General Sir Hugh Greene that the BBC should not be bound by its charter to be impartial on issues of racism, which Greene and the producers of TW3 viewed as "quite simply wrong". Following the 1963 murder of 35-year-old white postal worker William Lewis Moore in Alabama, who was on a protest march against segregation in the American South, TW3 Millicent Martin dressed as Uncle Sam sang a parody of "I Wanna Go Back to Mississippi" ("... where the Mississippi mud/kinda mingles with the blood/of the niggers who are hanging from the branches of the tree ...") accompanied by minstrel singers in blackface ("... we hate all the darkies and the Catholics and the Jews / Where we welcome any man / Who is white and strong and belongs to the Ku Klux Klan"), thus parodying The Black and White Minstrel Show, which was then being shown on the BBC despite accusations of racism over its use of blackface.
On Saturday, 20 October 1962 the award of Nobel prizes to John Kendrew and Max Perutz, and to Francis Crick, James D. Watson, and Maurice Wilkins was satirised in a short sketch with the prizes referred to as the Alfred Nobel Peace Pools; in this sketch Watson was called "Little J. D. Watson" and "Who'd have thought he'd ever get the Nobel Prize? Makes you think, doesn't it". The germ of the joke was that Watson was only 25 when he helped discover the structure of DNA; much younger than the others.
TW3 was broadcast on Saturday night and attracted an audience of 12 million. It often under- or overran as cast and crew worked through material as they saw fit. At the beginning of the second season in the autumn of 1963, in an attempt to assert control over the programme, the BBC scheduled repeats of The Third Man television series after the end of TW3. Frost suggested a means of sabotaging this tactic to Sherrin, and he agreed. For three weeks, Frost read out the plot of The Third Man, until the repeats were abandoned following the direct intervention of Greene.
Frost often ended a satirical attack with the remark "But seriously, he's doing a grand job". At the end of each episode, Frost usually signed off with: "That was the week, that was." At the end of the final programme he announced: "That was ‘That Was The Week That Was’ …that was."
Kennedy tribute
TW3 produced a shortened 20-minute programme with no satire for the edition on Saturday, 23 November 1963, the day after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. It featured a contribution from Dame Sybil Thorndike and the tribute song "In the Summer of His Years" by Herbert Kretzmer. This was screened on NBC the following day, and the soundtrack was released by Decca Records. A clip featuring Roy Kinnear was shown in the David L. Wolper documentary film Four Days in November and on the History Channel 2009 documentary JFK: 3 Shots that Changed America. BBC presenter Richard Dimbleby broadcast the president's funeral from Washington, and he said that the programme was a good expression of the sorrow felt in Britain.
Reception
Prime Minister Harold Macmillan was initially supportive of the programme, chastising Postmaster General Reginald Bevins for threatening to "do something about it". However, the BBC received many complaints from organisations and establishment figures. Lord Aldington, vice-chairman of the Conservative Party, wrote to BBC director-general Hugh Greene that Frost had a hatred of the prime minister which "he finds impossible to control". The programme also attracted complaints from the Boy Scout Association about an item questioning the sexuality of its founder Lord Baden-Powell, and from the government of Cyprus which claimed that a joke about their ruler Archbishop Makarios was a "gross violation of internationally accepted ethics".
Historians have identified TW3 as breaking ground in comedy and broadcasting. Graham McCann said that it challenged the "convention that television should not acknowledge that it is television; the show made no attempt to hide its cameras, allowed the microphone boom to intrude, and often revealed other nuts and bolts of studio technology." This was unusual in the 1960s and gave the programme a modern feel. TW3 also flouted conventions by adopting "a relaxed attitude to its running time", and "it seemed to last just as long as it wanted".
The programme was taken off the air at short notice in December 1963 with the explanation that '1964 is a General Election year'.
Legacy
TW3 was broadcast live, but it was normally recorded for legal reasons; only the pilot episode was not recorded. A compilation of material was shown on BBC Four to celebrate the 40th anniversary. The series placed 29th in the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes in 2000.
Alternative versions
US versions
An American version was on NBC from 10 November 1963 to May 1965. The pilot featured Henry Fonda and Henry Morgan, with Mike Nichols and Elaine May as guests, and supporting performers including Gene Hackman. The recurring cast included Frost, Morgan, Buck Henry, and Alan Alda, with Nancy Ames singing the opening song and Stanley Grover and Ames performing solos and duets; regular contributors included Gloria Steinem, William F. Brown, Tom Lehrer, and Calvin Trillin. The announcer was Jerry Damon. A running gag was a mock feud with Jack Paar, whose own program followed TW3 on the NBC Friday schedule; Paar repeatedly referred to TW3 as "Henry Morgan's Amateur Hour".
The American version is largely a lost program, although the pilot survives and was donated to the Library of Congress by a collector. Amateur audio recordings of most episodes also survive. After the series' cancellation, Lehrer recorded a collection of his songs used on the show on That Was The Year That Was, released by Reprise Records in September 1965.
One episode showed a smiling President Lyndon B. Johnson contemplating an easy 1964 campaign against Republican nominee Senator Barry M. Goldwater of Arizona. The satirists sang that Goldwater could not win because he "does not know the dance of the liberal Republicans", then a substantial component of the GOP, many of whose members had supported New York Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller for the Republican nomination. ABC aired That Was The Week That Was as a special on 21 April 1985, hosted by David Frost and Anne Bancroft and featuring future Saturday Night Live cast members Jan Hooks and A. Whitney Brown and puppetry from Spitting Image.
Other international versions
A Canadian show, This Hour Has Seven Days, aired from 1964 to 1966 on CBC. Although partially inspired by That Was The Week That Was, the Canadian show mixed satirical aspects with more serious journalism. It proved controversial and was cancelled after two seasons amid allegations of political interference. This Hour Has 22 Minutes, created by Newfoundland comic Mary Walsh, has been running since 1992 although the two are not related.
An Australian show, The Mavis Bramston Show, aired from 1964 to 1968 on the Seven Network. It grew out of the recent local theatrical tradition of topical satirical revue—most notably the popular revues staged at Sydney's Phillip Street Theatre in the 1950s and 1960s—but it was also strongly influenced by the British satire boom and especially TW3 and Not Only... But Also.
The New Zealand show A Week Of It ran from 1977 to 1979, hosted by Ken Ellis, and featuring comedians David McPhail, Peter Rowley and Chris McVeigh and comedian/musicians Jon Gadsby and Annie Whittle. The series lampooned news and politics and featured songs, usually by McPhail and Gadsby, who continued with their own show, McPhail and Gadsby in similar vein.
A Dutch version, Zo is het toevallig ook nog 's een keer (It Just So Happens Once Again), aired from November 1963 to 1966. It became controversial after the fourth edition, which included a parody of the Lord's Prayer ("Give us this day our daily television"). Angry viewers directed their protests especially against the most popular cast member: Mies Bouwman. After receiving several threats to her life she decided to quit the show. The show was praised as well: in 1966 it received the Gouden Televizier-ring, a prestigious audience award—though it turned out afterward that the election was rigged.
An Indian version titled The Week That Wasn't was launched and hosted by Cyrus Broacha.
Parodies
Cleveland, Ohio, local personality Ghoulardi (played by Ernie Anderson), host of WJW-TV's Shock Theater in the 1960s, ran clips of local celebrities and politicians and satirised them in a Shock Theater segment entitled That Was Weak Wasn't It?
Beginning in 2006, 1812 Productions, an all comedy theatre company in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, has annually performed a stage show called This Is the Week That Is. The variety show style play is written by its small cast with a script that changes nightly over several weeks of performances, and includes improvised comedy, musical parodies, and a versatile cast of performers. The show focuses on politics and news from the preceding year, often taking on local Philadelphia stories as well. In 2019, a documentary, In the Field; Conceiving Satire: The Making of This Is The Week That Is, about the creation of the long-running show was commissioned by the American Theatre Wing and nominated for a Mid-Atlantic Emmy Award for Arts Program/Special.
References
External links
That Was the Week That Was at the British Film Institute
That Was the Week That Was at the Museum of Broadcast Communications
(UK version)
(US version)
BBC television sketch shows
1960s British television sketch shows
British satirical television series
News parodies
Television series about television
American television series based on British television series
Peabody Award-winning television programs
Grammy Award winners
1962 British television series debuts
1963 British television series endings
Black-and-white British television shows
English-language television shows
| true |
[
"What Kind of an American are you?, also known as What Kind of American are you?, is a World War I era song released in 1917. Albert Von Tilzer composed the music. Lew Brown and Charles R. McCarron wrote the lyrics. The song was published by Broadway Music Co. of New York, New York. On the cover is a gray drawing of Uncle Sam pointing. A map of the United States is featured on the lower half of the cover. The song was written for voice and piano.\n\nThe sheet music can be found at Pritzker Military Museum & Library.\n\nAnalysis\nThe song urges Americans (specifically immigrants) to use this war to prove their loyalty to the United States; whether that may be by fighting or by simply standing behind the US's actions. For those who show no support, this question is posed: \"What are you doing over here?\" It upholds the \"us-against-them\" mentality; the \"them\" in this case is Germany. The chorus is as follows:\nWhat kind of an American are you?\nIt's time to show what you intend to do\nIf they trample on Old Glory will you think that they are right,\nOr will you stand behind your land and fight with all your might?\nWhat kind of an American are you?\nThat's a question you'll have to answer to\nIf the Star Spangled Banner don't make you stand and cheer,\nThen what are you doing over here?\n\nExternal links\nWhat Kind of an American are You? at Wolfsonian FIU\nWhat Kind of an American are You? at Acumen\n\nReferences\n\nSongs about the United States\nAmerican patriotic songs\n1917 songs\nSongs of World War I\nSongs written by Albert Von Tilzer\nSongs with lyrics by Lew Brown\nSongs with music by Charles McCarron",
"We Know What You're Up To is the debut studio album by Rogue Traders. It was released by Vicious Grooves, Virgin in Australia on 5 May 2003 (see 2003 in music). After disappointing sales and poor publicity, Rogue Traders was dropped from the label. \"One of My Kind\" became a Top 10 hit in Australia, the band's first hit anywhere in the world.\n\nTrack listing\n\"To Be Someone\"\n\"One of My Kind\" (Rogue Traders vs. INXS)\n\"Overload\"\n\"Make It Better\"\n\"Stay?\"\n\"Broken\"\n\"Revolution\"\n\"Golden\"\n\"Give in to Me\"\n\"Take It Deeper\"\n\"Lift this Planet\"\n\n\"Need You to Show Me\" was to be included on all editions of the album, but was later deleted from the album because the band didn't feel it matched the 'vibe' of the rest of the album. The song was replaced with \"One of My Kind\".\n\n2003 debut albums\nRogue Traders albums"
] |
[
"That Was the Week That Was",
"International versions",
"Where was it released?",
"A Canadian show, This Hour Has Seven Days, aired from 1964 to 1966 on CBC.",
"How many episodes were there?",
"I don't know.",
"What kind of show was it?",
"the Canadian show mixed satirical aspects with more serious journalism."
] |
C_1272aa01753c4a629ad52ddb8bf8dd5a_0
|
Did it air anywhere else?
| 4 |
Did "This Hour Has Seven Days" air anywhere else besides CBC?
|
That Was the Week That Was
|
A Canadian show, This Hour Has Seven Days, aired from 1964 to 1966 on CBC. Although partially inspired by That Was The Week That Was, the Canadian show mixed satirical aspects with more serious journalism. It proved controversial and was cancelled after two series amid allegations of political interference. This Hour Has 22 Minutes, created by Newfoundland comic Mary Walsh, has been running since 1992 although the two are not related. An Australian show, The Mavis Bramston Show, aired from 1964 to 1968 on the Seven Network. It grew out of the recent local theatrical tradition of topical satirical revue--most notably the popular revues staged at Sydney's Phillip Street Theatre in the 1950s and 1960s--but it was also strongly influenced by the British satire boom and especially TW3 and Not Only... But Also. The New Zealand show A Week Of It ran from 1977 to 1979, hosted by Ken Ellis, and featuring comedians David McPhail, Peter Rowley and Chris McVeigh and comedian/musicians Jon Gadsby and Annie Whittle. The series lampooned news and politics and featured songs, usually by McPhail and Gadsby, who continued with their own show, McPhail and Gadsby in similar vein. A Dutch version, Zo is het toevallig ook nog 's een keer, aired from November 1963 to 1966. It became controversial after the fourth edition, which included a parody of the Lord's Prayer ("Give us this day our daily television"). Angry viewers directed their protests especially against the most popular cast member: Mies Bouwman. After receiving several threats to her life she decided to quit the show. The show was praised as well: in 1966 it received the Gouden Televizier-ring, a prestigious audience award--though it turned out afterward that the election was rigged. An Indian version titled The Week That Wasn't was launched and hosted by Cyrus Broacha. CANNOTANSWER
|
An Australian show, The Mavis Bramston Show, aired from 1964 to 1968 on the Seven Network.
|
That Was the Week That Was, informally TWTWTW or TW3, was a satirical television comedy programme on BBC Television in 1962 and 1963. It was devised, produced, and directed by Ned Sherrin and presented by David Frost.
The programme is considered a significant element of the satire boom in the UK in the early 1960s, as it broke ground in comedy by lampooning political figures. Its broadcast coincided with coverage of the politically charged Profumo affair, and John Profumo became a figure of derision. TW3 was broadcast from Saturday, 24 November 1962 through late December 1963. An American version under the same title aired on NBC from 1964 to 1965, also featuring Frost.
Cast and writers
Cast members included cartoonist Timothy Birdsall, political commentator Bernard Levin, and actors Lance Percival, who sang topical calypsos, many improvised to suggestions from the audience, Kenneth Cope, Roy Kinnear, Willie Rushton, Al Mancini, Robert Lang, David Kernan and Millicent Martin. The last two were also singers and the programme opened with a song – "That Was The Week That Was" – sung by Martin to Ron Grainer's theme tune and enumerating topics in the news. Frankie Howerd also guested with stand-up comedy.
Script-writers included John Albery, John Antrobus, John Betjeman, John Bird, Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Peter Cook, Roald Dahl, Robin Grove-White, Richard Ingrams, Lyndon Irving, Gerald Kaufman, Frank Muir, David Nobbs, Denis Norden, Bill Oddie, Dennis Potter, Eric Sykes, Kenneth Tynan, and Keith Waterhouse.
Programme
The programme opened with a song ("That was the week that was, It's over, let it go ...") sung by Millicent Martin, referring to news of the week just gone. Lance Percival sang a topical calypso each week. Satirical targets, such as Prime Minister Harold Macmillan and Home Secretary Henry Brooke were lampooned in sketches, debates and monologues. Some other targets included the monarchy, the British Empire, nuclear deterrence, advertising, public relations and propaganda, capital punishment, sexual and social hypocrisy, the class system, and the BBC itself. Well-remembered sketches include the 12 January 1963 "consumers' guide to religion", which discussed relative merits of faiths in the manner of a Which? magazine report led to the Church of England being described a 'best buy'.
The programme was not party political but did not treat all issues with what the producers considered to be a false level of impartiality and balance; one example of this is the issue of racism and "the evils of apartheid", following the view of BBC Director-General Sir Hugh Greene that the BBC should not be bound by its charter to be impartial on issues of racism, which Greene and the producers of TW3 viewed as "quite simply wrong". Following the 1963 murder of 35-year-old white postal worker William Lewis Moore in Alabama, who was on a protest march against segregation in the American South, TW3 Millicent Martin dressed as Uncle Sam sang a parody of "I Wanna Go Back to Mississippi" ("... where the Mississippi mud/kinda mingles with the blood/of the niggers who are hanging from the branches of the tree ...") accompanied by minstrel singers in blackface ("... we hate all the darkies and the Catholics and the Jews / Where we welcome any man / Who is white and strong and belongs to the Ku Klux Klan"), thus parodying The Black and White Minstrel Show, which was then being shown on the BBC despite accusations of racism over its use of blackface.
On Saturday, 20 October 1962 the award of Nobel prizes to John Kendrew and Max Perutz, and to Francis Crick, James D. Watson, and Maurice Wilkins was satirised in a short sketch with the prizes referred to as the Alfred Nobel Peace Pools; in this sketch Watson was called "Little J. D. Watson" and "Who'd have thought he'd ever get the Nobel Prize? Makes you think, doesn't it". The germ of the joke was that Watson was only 25 when he helped discover the structure of DNA; much younger than the others.
TW3 was broadcast on Saturday night and attracted an audience of 12 million. It often under- or overran as cast and crew worked through material as they saw fit. At the beginning of the second season in the autumn of 1963, in an attempt to assert control over the programme, the BBC scheduled repeats of The Third Man television series after the end of TW3. Frost suggested a means of sabotaging this tactic to Sherrin, and he agreed. For three weeks, Frost read out the plot of The Third Man, until the repeats were abandoned following the direct intervention of Greene.
Frost often ended a satirical attack with the remark "But seriously, he's doing a grand job". At the end of each episode, Frost usually signed off with: "That was the week, that was." At the end of the final programme he announced: "That was ‘That Was The Week That Was’ …that was."
Kennedy tribute
TW3 produced a shortened 20-minute programme with no satire for the edition on Saturday, 23 November 1963, the day after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. It featured a contribution from Dame Sybil Thorndike and the tribute song "In the Summer of His Years" by Herbert Kretzmer. This was screened on NBC the following day, and the soundtrack was released by Decca Records. A clip featuring Roy Kinnear was shown in the David L. Wolper documentary film Four Days in November and on the History Channel 2009 documentary JFK: 3 Shots that Changed America. BBC presenter Richard Dimbleby broadcast the president's funeral from Washington, and he said that the programme was a good expression of the sorrow felt in Britain.
Reception
Prime Minister Harold Macmillan was initially supportive of the programme, chastising Postmaster General Reginald Bevins for threatening to "do something about it". However, the BBC received many complaints from organisations and establishment figures. Lord Aldington, vice-chairman of the Conservative Party, wrote to BBC director-general Hugh Greene that Frost had a hatred of the prime minister which "he finds impossible to control". The programme also attracted complaints from the Boy Scout Association about an item questioning the sexuality of its founder Lord Baden-Powell, and from the government of Cyprus which claimed that a joke about their ruler Archbishop Makarios was a "gross violation of internationally accepted ethics".
Historians have identified TW3 as breaking ground in comedy and broadcasting. Graham McCann said that it challenged the "convention that television should not acknowledge that it is television; the show made no attempt to hide its cameras, allowed the microphone boom to intrude, and often revealed other nuts and bolts of studio technology." This was unusual in the 1960s and gave the programme a modern feel. TW3 also flouted conventions by adopting "a relaxed attitude to its running time", and "it seemed to last just as long as it wanted".
The programme was taken off the air at short notice in December 1963 with the explanation that '1964 is a General Election year'.
Legacy
TW3 was broadcast live, but it was normally recorded for legal reasons; only the pilot episode was not recorded. A compilation of material was shown on BBC Four to celebrate the 40th anniversary. The series placed 29th in the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes in 2000.
Alternative versions
US versions
An American version was on NBC from 10 November 1963 to May 1965. The pilot featured Henry Fonda and Henry Morgan, with Mike Nichols and Elaine May as guests, and supporting performers including Gene Hackman. The recurring cast included Frost, Morgan, Buck Henry, and Alan Alda, with Nancy Ames singing the opening song and Stanley Grover and Ames performing solos and duets; regular contributors included Gloria Steinem, William F. Brown, Tom Lehrer, and Calvin Trillin. The announcer was Jerry Damon. A running gag was a mock feud with Jack Paar, whose own program followed TW3 on the NBC Friday schedule; Paar repeatedly referred to TW3 as "Henry Morgan's Amateur Hour".
The American version is largely a lost program, although the pilot survives and was donated to the Library of Congress by a collector. Amateur audio recordings of most episodes also survive. After the series' cancellation, Lehrer recorded a collection of his songs used on the show on That Was The Year That Was, released by Reprise Records in September 1965.
One episode showed a smiling President Lyndon B. Johnson contemplating an easy 1964 campaign against Republican nominee Senator Barry M. Goldwater of Arizona. The satirists sang that Goldwater could not win because he "does not know the dance of the liberal Republicans", then a substantial component of the GOP, many of whose members had supported New York Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller for the Republican nomination. ABC aired That Was The Week That Was as a special on 21 April 1985, hosted by David Frost and Anne Bancroft and featuring future Saturday Night Live cast members Jan Hooks and A. Whitney Brown and puppetry from Spitting Image.
Other international versions
A Canadian show, This Hour Has Seven Days, aired from 1964 to 1966 on CBC. Although partially inspired by That Was The Week That Was, the Canadian show mixed satirical aspects with more serious journalism. It proved controversial and was cancelled after two seasons amid allegations of political interference. This Hour Has 22 Minutes, created by Newfoundland comic Mary Walsh, has been running since 1992 although the two are not related.
An Australian show, The Mavis Bramston Show, aired from 1964 to 1968 on the Seven Network. It grew out of the recent local theatrical tradition of topical satirical revue—most notably the popular revues staged at Sydney's Phillip Street Theatre in the 1950s and 1960s—but it was also strongly influenced by the British satire boom and especially TW3 and Not Only... But Also.
The New Zealand show A Week Of It ran from 1977 to 1979, hosted by Ken Ellis, and featuring comedians David McPhail, Peter Rowley and Chris McVeigh and comedian/musicians Jon Gadsby and Annie Whittle. The series lampooned news and politics and featured songs, usually by McPhail and Gadsby, who continued with their own show, McPhail and Gadsby in similar vein.
A Dutch version, Zo is het toevallig ook nog 's een keer (It Just So Happens Once Again), aired from November 1963 to 1966. It became controversial after the fourth edition, which included a parody of the Lord's Prayer ("Give us this day our daily television"). Angry viewers directed their protests especially against the most popular cast member: Mies Bouwman. After receiving several threats to her life she decided to quit the show. The show was praised as well: in 1966 it received the Gouden Televizier-ring, a prestigious audience award—though it turned out afterward that the election was rigged.
An Indian version titled The Week That Wasn't was launched and hosted by Cyrus Broacha.
Parodies
Cleveland, Ohio, local personality Ghoulardi (played by Ernie Anderson), host of WJW-TV's Shock Theater in the 1960s, ran clips of local celebrities and politicians and satirised them in a Shock Theater segment entitled That Was Weak Wasn't It?
Beginning in 2006, 1812 Productions, an all comedy theatre company in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, has annually performed a stage show called This Is the Week That Is. The variety show style play is written by its small cast with a script that changes nightly over several weeks of performances, and includes improvised comedy, musical parodies, and a versatile cast of performers. The show focuses on politics and news from the preceding year, often taking on local Philadelphia stories as well. In 2019, a documentary, In the Field; Conceiving Satire: The Making of This Is The Week That Is, about the creation of the long-running show was commissioned by the American Theatre Wing and nominated for a Mid-Atlantic Emmy Award for Arts Program/Special.
References
External links
That Was the Week That Was at the British Film Institute
That Was the Week That Was at the Museum of Broadcast Communications
(UK version)
(US version)
BBC television sketch shows
1960s British television sketch shows
British satirical television series
News parodies
Television series about television
American television series based on British television series
Peabody Award-winning television programs
Grammy Award winners
1962 British television series debuts
1963 British television series endings
Black-and-white British television shows
English-language television shows
| true |
[
"Air America is a 1978 non-fiction book by journalist Christopher Robbins. The book is a history of Air America, an airline covertly owned by the United States Central Intelligence Agency from 1950 to 1976.\n\nBackground\nFrom the 1950s to the early 1970s, Indochina had been the landscape of major drug and military operations, conducted by many actors including European and communist countries. When US military involvement started, costs rose and new resources, especially for covert operations, were needed.\n\nAnything, Anywhere, Anytime\nAir America's pilots flew dangerous missions, those no one else would fly, frequently under enemy fire. Many missions were in fact aid-oriented missions to provide logistical support and food to allies who were fighting the war along with the South Vietnamese and the US. Most of the time, pilots did not know what they were delivering, just when and where, no matter what the weather was like, or whether it was day or night.\n\nReferences \n\n1978 non-fiction books\nNon-fiction books adapted into films\nG. P. Putnam's Sons books",
"\"Be Someone Else\" is a song by Slimmy, released in 2010 as the lead single from his second studio album Be Someone Else. The single wasn't particularly successful, charting anywhere.\nA music video was also made for \"Be Someone Else\", produced by Riot Films. It premiered on 27 June 2010 on YouTube.\n\nBackground\n\"Be Someone Else\" was unveiled as the album's lead single. The song was written by Fernandes and produced by Quico Serrano and Mark J Turner. It was released to MySpace on 1 January 2010.\n\nMusic video\nA music video was also made for \"Be Someone Else\", produced by Riot Films. It premiered on 27 June 2010 on YouTube. The music video features two different scenes which alternate with each other many times during the video. The first scene features Slimmy performing the song with an electric guitar and the second scene features Slimmy performing with the band in the background.\n\nChart performance\nThe single wasn't particularly successful, charting anywhere.\n\nLive performances\n A Very Slimmy Tour\n Be Someone Else Tour\n\nTrack listing\n\nDigital single\n\"Be Someone Else\" (album version) - 3:22\n\nPersonnel\nTaken from the album's booklet.\n\nPaulo Fernandes – main vocals, guitar\nPaulo Garim – bass\nTó-Zé – drums\n\nRelease history\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nOfficial music video at YouTube.\n\n2010 singles\nEnglish-language Portuguese songs\n2009 songs"
] |
[
"That Was the Week That Was",
"International versions",
"Where was it released?",
"A Canadian show, This Hour Has Seven Days, aired from 1964 to 1966 on CBC.",
"How many episodes were there?",
"I don't know.",
"What kind of show was it?",
"the Canadian show mixed satirical aspects with more serious journalism.",
"Did it air anywhere else?",
"An Australian show, The Mavis Bramston Show, aired from 1964 to 1968 on the Seven Network."
] |
C_1272aa01753c4a629ad52ddb8bf8dd5a_0
|
Was it popular internationally?
| 5 |
Was "The Mavis Bramston Show" popular internationally?
|
That Was the Week That Was
|
A Canadian show, This Hour Has Seven Days, aired from 1964 to 1966 on CBC. Although partially inspired by That Was The Week That Was, the Canadian show mixed satirical aspects with more serious journalism. It proved controversial and was cancelled after two series amid allegations of political interference. This Hour Has 22 Minutes, created by Newfoundland comic Mary Walsh, has been running since 1992 although the two are not related. An Australian show, The Mavis Bramston Show, aired from 1964 to 1968 on the Seven Network. It grew out of the recent local theatrical tradition of topical satirical revue--most notably the popular revues staged at Sydney's Phillip Street Theatre in the 1950s and 1960s--but it was also strongly influenced by the British satire boom and especially TW3 and Not Only... But Also. The New Zealand show A Week Of It ran from 1977 to 1979, hosted by Ken Ellis, and featuring comedians David McPhail, Peter Rowley and Chris McVeigh and comedian/musicians Jon Gadsby and Annie Whittle. The series lampooned news and politics and featured songs, usually by McPhail and Gadsby, who continued with their own show, McPhail and Gadsby in similar vein. A Dutch version, Zo is het toevallig ook nog 's een keer, aired from November 1963 to 1966. It became controversial after the fourth edition, which included a parody of the Lord's Prayer ("Give us this day our daily television"). Angry viewers directed their protests especially against the most popular cast member: Mies Bouwman. After receiving several threats to her life she decided to quit the show. The show was praised as well: in 1966 it received the Gouden Televizier-ring, a prestigious audience award--though it turned out afterward that the election was rigged. An Indian version titled The Week That Wasn't was launched and hosted by Cyrus Broacha. CANNOTANSWER
|
The New Zealand show A Week Of It ran from 1977 to 1979, hosted by Ken Ellis, and featuring comedians
|
That Was the Week That Was, informally TWTWTW or TW3, was a satirical television comedy programme on BBC Television in 1962 and 1963. It was devised, produced, and directed by Ned Sherrin and presented by David Frost.
The programme is considered a significant element of the satire boom in the UK in the early 1960s, as it broke ground in comedy by lampooning political figures. Its broadcast coincided with coverage of the politically charged Profumo affair, and John Profumo became a figure of derision. TW3 was broadcast from Saturday, 24 November 1962 through late December 1963. An American version under the same title aired on NBC from 1964 to 1965, also featuring Frost.
Cast and writers
Cast members included cartoonist Timothy Birdsall, political commentator Bernard Levin, and actors Lance Percival, who sang topical calypsos, many improvised to suggestions from the audience, Kenneth Cope, Roy Kinnear, Willie Rushton, Al Mancini, Robert Lang, David Kernan and Millicent Martin. The last two were also singers and the programme opened with a song – "That Was The Week That Was" – sung by Martin to Ron Grainer's theme tune and enumerating topics in the news. Frankie Howerd also guested with stand-up comedy.
Script-writers included John Albery, John Antrobus, John Betjeman, John Bird, Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Peter Cook, Roald Dahl, Robin Grove-White, Richard Ingrams, Lyndon Irving, Gerald Kaufman, Frank Muir, David Nobbs, Denis Norden, Bill Oddie, Dennis Potter, Eric Sykes, Kenneth Tynan, and Keith Waterhouse.
Programme
The programme opened with a song ("That was the week that was, It's over, let it go ...") sung by Millicent Martin, referring to news of the week just gone. Lance Percival sang a topical calypso each week. Satirical targets, such as Prime Minister Harold Macmillan and Home Secretary Henry Brooke were lampooned in sketches, debates and monologues. Some other targets included the monarchy, the British Empire, nuclear deterrence, advertising, public relations and propaganda, capital punishment, sexual and social hypocrisy, the class system, and the BBC itself. Well-remembered sketches include the 12 January 1963 "consumers' guide to religion", which discussed relative merits of faiths in the manner of a Which? magazine report led to the Church of England being described a 'best buy'.
The programme was not party political but did not treat all issues with what the producers considered to be a false level of impartiality and balance; one example of this is the issue of racism and "the evils of apartheid", following the view of BBC Director-General Sir Hugh Greene that the BBC should not be bound by its charter to be impartial on issues of racism, which Greene and the producers of TW3 viewed as "quite simply wrong". Following the 1963 murder of 35-year-old white postal worker William Lewis Moore in Alabama, who was on a protest march against segregation in the American South, TW3 Millicent Martin dressed as Uncle Sam sang a parody of "I Wanna Go Back to Mississippi" ("... where the Mississippi mud/kinda mingles with the blood/of the niggers who are hanging from the branches of the tree ...") accompanied by minstrel singers in blackface ("... we hate all the darkies and the Catholics and the Jews / Where we welcome any man / Who is white and strong and belongs to the Ku Klux Klan"), thus parodying The Black and White Minstrel Show, which was then being shown on the BBC despite accusations of racism over its use of blackface.
On Saturday, 20 October 1962 the award of Nobel prizes to John Kendrew and Max Perutz, and to Francis Crick, James D. Watson, and Maurice Wilkins was satirised in a short sketch with the prizes referred to as the Alfred Nobel Peace Pools; in this sketch Watson was called "Little J. D. Watson" and "Who'd have thought he'd ever get the Nobel Prize? Makes you think, doesn't it". The germ of the joke was that Watson was only 25 when he helped discover the structure of DNA; much younger than the others.
TW3 was broadcast on Saturday night and attracted an audience of 12 million. It often under- or overran as cast and crew worked through material as they saw fit. At the beginning of the second season in the autumn of 1963, in an attempt to assert control over the programme, the BBC scheduled repeats of The Third Man television series after the end of TW3. Frost suggested a means of sabotaging this tactic to Sherrin, and he agreed. For three weeks, Frost read out the plot of The Third Man, until the repeats were abandoned following the direct intervention of Greene.
Frost often ended a satirical attack with the remark "But seriously, he's doing a grand job". At the end of each episode, Frost usually signed off with: "That was the week, that was." At the end of the final programme he announced: "That was ‘That Was The Week That Was’ …that was."
Kennedy tribute
TW3 produced a shortened 20-minute programme with no satire for the edition on Saturday, 23 November 1963, the day after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. It featured a contribution from Dame Sybil Thorndike and the tribute song "In the Summer of His Years" by Herbert Kretzmer. This was screened on NBC the following day, and the soundtrack was released by Decca Records. A clip featuring Roy Kinnear was shown in the David L. Wolper documentary film Four Days in November and on the History Channel 2009 documentary JFK: 3 Shots that Changed America. BBC presenter Richard Dimbleby broadcast the president's funeral from Washington, and he said that the programme was a good expression of the sorrow felt in Britain.
Reception
Prime Minister Harold Macmillan was initially supportive of the programme, chastising Postmaster General Reginald Bevins for threatening to "do something about it". However, the BBC received many complaints from organisations and establishment figures. Lord Aldington, vice-chairman of the Conservative Party, wrote to BBC director-general Hugh Greene that Frost had a hatred of the prime minister which "he finds impossible to control". The programme also attracted complaints from the Boy Scout Association about an item questioning the sexuality of its founder Lord Baden-Powell, and from the government of Cyprus which claimed that a joke about their ruler Archbishop Makarios was a "gross violation of internationally accepted ethics".
Historians have identified TW3 as breaking ground in comedy and broadcasting. Graham McCann said that it challenged the "convention that television should not acknowledge that it is television; the show made no attempt to hide its cameras, allowed the microphone boom to intrude, and often revealed other nuts and bolts of studio technology." This was unusual in the 1960s and gave the programme a modern feel. TW3 also flouted conventions by adopting "a relaxed attitude to its running time", and "it seemed to last just as long as it wanted".
The programme was taken off the air at short notice in December 1963 with the explanation that '1964 is a General Election year'.
Legacy
TW3 was broadcast live, but it was normally recorded for legal reasons; only the pilot episode was not recorded. A compilation of material was shown on BBC Four to celebrate the 40th anniversary. The series placed 29th in the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes in 2000.
Alternative versions
US versions
An American version was on NBC from 10 November 1963 to May 1965. The pilot featured Henry Fonda and Henry Morgan, with Mike Nichols and Elaine May as guests, and supporting performers including Gene Hackman. The recurring cast included Frost, Morgan, Buck Henry, and Alan Alda, with Nancy Ames singing the opening song and Stanley Grover and Ames performing solos and duets; regular contributors included Gloria Steinem, William F. Brown, Tom Lehrer, and Calvin Trillin. The announcer was Jerry Damon. A running gag was a mock feud with Jack Paar, whose own program followed TW3 on the NBC Friday schedule; Paar repeatedly referred to TW3 as "Henry Morgan's Amateur Hour".
The American version is largely a lost program, although the pilot survives and was donated to the Library of Congress by a collector. Amateur audio recordings of most episodes also survive. After the series' cancellation, Lehrer recorded a collection of his songs used on the show on That Was The Year That Was, released by Reprise Records in September 1965.
One episode showed a smiling President Lyndon B. Johnson contemplating an easy 1964 campaign against Republican nominee Senator Barry M. Goldwater of Arizona. The satirists sang that Goldwater could not win because he "does not know the dance of the liberal Republicans", then a substantial component of the GOP, many of whose members had supported New York Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller for the Republican nomination. ABC aired That Was The Week That Was as a special on 21 April 1985, hosted by David Frost and Anne Bancroft and featuring future Saturday Night Live cast members Jan Hooks and A. Whitney Brown and puppetry from Spitting Image.
Other international versions
A Canadian show, This Hour Has Seven Days, aired from 1964 to 1966 on CBC. Although partially inspired by That Was The Week That Was, the Canadian show mixed satirical aspects with more serious journalism. It proved controversial and was cancelled after two seasons amid allegations of political interference. This Hour Has 22 Minutes, created by Newfoundland comic Mary Walsh, has been running since 1992 although the two are not related.
An Australian show, The Mavis Bramston Show, aired from 1964 to 1968 on the Seven Network. It grew out of the recent local theatrical tradition of topical satirical revue—most notably the popular revues staged at Sydney's Phillip Street Theatre in the 1950s and 1960s—but it was also strongly influenced by the British satire boom and especially TW3 and Not Only... But Also.
The New Zealand show A Week Of It ran from 1977 to 1979, hosted by Ken Ellis, and featuring comedians David McPhail, Peter Rowley and Chris McVeigh and comedian/musicians Jon Gadsby and Annie Whittle. The series lampooned news and politics and featured songs, usually by McPhail and Gadsby, who continued with their own show, McPhail and Gadsby in similar vein.
A Dutch version, Zo is het toevallig ook nog 's een keer (It Just So Happens Once Again), aired from November 1963 to 1966. It became controversial after the fourth edition, which included a parody of the Lord's Prayer ("Give us this day our daily television"). Angry viewers directed their protests especially against the most popular cast member: Mies Bouwman. After receiving several threats to her life she decided to quit the show. The show was praised as well: in 1966 it received the Gouden Televizier-ring, a prestigious audience award—though it turned out afterward that the election was rigged.
An Indian version titled The Week That Wasn't was launched and hosted by Cyrus Broacha.
Parodies
Cleveland, Ohio, local personality Ghoulardi (played by Ernie Anderson), host of WJW-TV's Shock Theater in the 1960s, ran clips of local celebrities and politicians and satirised them in a Shock Theater segment entitled That Was Weak Wasn't It?
Beginning in 2006, 1812 Productions, an all comedy theatre company in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, has annually performed a stage show called This Is the Week That Is. The variety show style play is written by its small cast with a script that changes nightly over several weeks of performances, and includes improvised comedy, musical parodies, and a versatile cast of performers. The show focuses on politics and news from the preceding year, often taking on local Philadelphia stories as well. In 2019, a documentary, In the Field; Conceiving Satire: The Making of This Is The Week That Is, about the creation of the long-running show was commissioned by the American Theatre Wing and nominated for a Mid-Atlantic Emmy Award for Arts Program/Special.
References
External links
That Was the Week That Was at the British Film Institute
That Was the Week That Was at the Museum of Broadcast Communications
(UK version)
(US version)
BBC television sketch shows
1960s British television sketch shows
British satirical television series
News parodies
Television series about television
American television series based on British television series
Peabody Award-winning television programs
Grammy Award winners
1962 British television series debuts
1963 British television series endings
Black-and-white British television shows
English-language television shows
| true |
[
"Le Follet was a Parisian fashion magazine, published weekly from November 1829 to 1892. It was at one point merged with Le Courrier de la Mode. It was richly illustrated with fashion plates. \n\nLe Follet belonged to the numerous fashion magazines which from the 1820s onward replaced the previous dominance of Journal des dames et des modes. It was a part of the great industry of French fashion magazines which competed which each other during the 19th-century, many of which became popular not only in France but also internationally. Le Follet belonged to the most successful of these magazines, and alongside its rival La Mode illustrée (1860-1937), Le Follet was particularly internationally successful, with many foreign subscribers in Great Britain and the United States.\n \n\nLe Follet was one of the oldest, most longlasting and most internationally famous Parisian fashion plate magazines, which makes it a valuable source of information for researching the history of fashion.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n WorldCat record\n Le Follet - Google Books\n\n1829 establishments in France\n1892 disestablishments in France\nDefunct magazines published in France\nWomen's fashion magazines\nWeekly magazines published in France\nFrench-language magazines\nMagazines established in 1829\nMagazines disestablished in 1892\nMagazines published in Paris\nWomen's magazines published in France",
"Mad Michelle (real name Ann Marie McKoy) is a Jamaican dancer who was crowned Dancehall Queen in 2003. She is among several dancers claiming to have originated the popular Dutty Wine dance.\n\nMcKoy was born in Jamaica. She was a model and choreographer before winning the Dancehall Queen competition in 2003.\n\nAfter winning Dancehall Queen in 2003 Mad Michelle went on to appear in many popular dancehall videos both local and internationally, such as Lady Saw's Man Is The Least video.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nAn angry, mad Michelle\nYoung, gifted and hype! - Youth View Awards: the red carpet to glory\nMad Michelle Myspace\n\nLiving people\nJamaican female dancers\nDancehall dancers\nYear of birth missing (living people)"
] |
[
"That Was the Week That Was",
"International versions",
"Where was it released?",
"A Canadian show, This Hour Has Seven Days, aired from 1964 to 1966 on CBC.",
"How many episodes were there?",
"I don't know.",
"What kind of show was it?",
"the Canadian show mixed satirical aspects with more serious journalism.",
"Did it air anywhere else?",
"An Australian show, The Mavis Bramston Show, aired from 1964 to 1968 on the Seven Network.",
"Was it popular internationally?",
"The New Zealand show A Week Of It ran from 1977 to 1979, hosted by Ken Ellis, and featuring comedians"
] |
C_1272aa01753c4a629ad52ddb8bf8dd5a_0
|
Did it air anywhere else?
| 6 |
Did "A Week Of It" air anywhere else besides New Zealand?
|
That Was the Week That Was
|
A Canadian show, This Hour Has Seven Days, aired from 1964 to 1966 on CBC. Although partially inspired by That Was The Week That Was, the Canadian show mixed satirical aspects with more serious journalism. It proved controversial and was cancelled after two series amid allegations of political interference. This Hour Has 22 Minutes, created by Newfoundland comic Mary Walsh, has been running since 1992 although the two are not related. An Australian show, The Mavis Bramston Show, aired from 1964 to 1968 on the Seven Network. It grew out of the recent local theatrical tradition of topical satirical revue--most notably the popular revues staged at Sydney's Phillip Street Theatre in the 1950s and 1960s--but it was also strongly influenced by the British satire boom and especially TW3 and Not Only... But Also. The New Zealand show A Week Of It ran from 1977 to 1979, hosted by Ken Ellis, and featuring comedians David McPhail, Peter Rowley and Chris McVeigh and comedian/musicians Jon Gadsby and Annie Whittle. The series lampooned news and politics and featured songs, usually by McPhail and Gadsby, who continued with their own show, McPhail and Gadsby in similar vein. A Dutch version, Zo is het toevallig ook nog 's een keer, aired from November 1963 to 1966. It became controversial after the fourth edition, which included a parody of the Lord's Prayer ("Give us this day our daily television"). Angry viewers directed their protests especially against the most popular cast member: Mies Bouwman. After receiving several threats to her life she decided to quit the show. The show was praised as well: in 1966 it received the Gouden Televizier-ring, a prestigious audience award--though it turned out afterward that the election was rigged. An Indian version titled The Week That Wasn't was launched and hosted by Cyrus Broacha. CANNOTANSWER
|
An Australian show, The Mavis Bramston Show, aired from 1964 to 1968 on the Seven Network.
|
That Was the Week That Was, informally TWTWTW or TW3, was a satirical television comedy programme on BBC Television in 1962 and 1963. It was devised, produced, and directed by Ned Sherrin and presented by David Frost.
The programme is considered a significant element of the satire boom in the UK in the early 1960s, as it broke ground in comedy by lampooning political figures. Its broadcast coincided with coverage of the politically charged Profumo affair, and John Profumo became a figure of derision. TW3 was broadcast from Saturday, 24 November 1962 through late December 1963. An American version under the same title aired on NBC from 1964 to 1965, also featuring Frost.
Cast and writers
Cast members included cartoonist Timothy Birdsall, political commentator Bernard Levin, and actors Lance Percival, who sang topical calypsos, many improvised to suggestions from the audience, Kenneth Cope, Roy Kinnear, Willie Rushton, Al Mancini, Robert Lang, David Kernan and Millicent Martin. The last two were also singers and the programme opened with a song – "That Was The Week That Was" – sung by Martin to Ron Grainer's theme tune and enumerating topics in the news. Frankie Howerd also guested with stand-up comedy.
Script-writers included John Albery, John Antrobus, John Betjeman, John Bird, Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Peter Cook, Roald Dahl, Robin Grove-White, Richard Ingrams, Lyndon Irving, Gerald Kaufman, Frank Muir, David Nobbs, Denis Norden, Bill Oddie, Dennis Potter, Eric Sykes, Kenneth Tynan, and Keith Waterhouse.
Programme
The programme opened with a song ("That was the week that was, It's over, let it go ...") sung by Millicent Martin, referring to news of the week just gone. Lance Percival sang a topical calypso each week. Satirical targets, such as Prime Minister Harold Macmillan and Home Secretary Henry Brooke were lampooned in sketches, debates and monologues. Some other targets included the monarchy, the British Empire, nuclear deterrence, advertising, public relations and propaganda, capital punishment, sexual and social hypocrisy, the class system, and the BBC itself. Well-remembered sketches include the 12 January 1963 "consumers' guide to religion", which discussed relative merits of faiths in the manner of a Which? magazine report led to the Church of England being described a 'best buy'.
The programme was not party political but did not treat all issues with what the producers considered to be a false level of impartiality and balance; one example of this is the issue of racism and "the evils of apartheid", following the view of BBC Director-General Sir Hugh Greene that the BBC should not be bound by its charter to be impartial on issues of racism, which Greene and the producers of TW3 viewed as "quite simply wrong". Following the 1963 murder of 35-year-old white postal worker William Lewis Moore in Alabama, who was on a protest march against segregation in the American South, TW3 Millicent Martin dressed as Uncle Sam sang a parody of "I Wanna Go Back to Mississippi" ("... where the Mississippi mud/kinda mingles with the blood/of the niggers who are hanging from the branches of the tree ...") accompanied by minstrel singers in blackface ("... we hate all the darkies and the Catholics and the Jews / Where we welcome any man / Who is white and strong and belongs to the Ku Klux Klan"), thus parodying The Black and White Minstrel Show, which was then being shown on the BBC despite accusations of racism over its use of blackface.
On Saturday, 20 October 1962 the award of Nobel prizes to John Kendrew and Max Perutz, and to Francis Crick, James D. Watson, and Maurice Wilkins was satirised in a short sketch with the prizes referred to as the Alfred Nobel Peace Pools; in this sketch Watson was called "Little J. D. Watson" and "Who'd have thought he'd ever get the Nobel Prize? Makes you think, doesn't it". The germ of the joke was that Watson was only 25 when he helped discover the structure of DNA; much younger than the others.
TW3 was broadcast on Saturday night and attracted an audience of 12 million. It often under- or overran as cast and crew worked through material as they saw fit. At the beginning of the second season in the autumn of 1963, in an attempt to assert control over the programme, the BBC scheduled repeats of The Third Man television series after the end of TW3. Frost suggested a means of sabotaging this tactic to Sherrin, and he agreed. For three weeks, Frost read out the plot of The Third Man, until the repeats were abandoned following the direct intervention of Greene.
Frost often ended a satirical attack with the remark "But seriously, he's doing a grand job". At the end of each episode, Frost usually signed off with: "That was the week, that was." At the end of the final programme he announced: "That was ‘That Was The Week That Was’ …that was."
Kennedy tribute
TW3 produced a shortened 20-minute programme with no satire for the edition on Saturday, 23 November 1963, the day after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. It featured a contribution from Dame Sybil Thorndike and the tribute song "In the Summer of His Years" by Herbert Kretzmer. This was screened on NBC the following day, and the soundtrack was released by Decca Records. A clip featuring Roy Kinnear was shown in the David L. Wolper documentary film Four Days in November and on the History Channel 2009 documentary JFK: 3 Shots that Changed America. BBC presenter Richard Dimbleby broadcast the president's funeral from Washington, and he said that the programme was a good expression of the sorrow felt in Britain.
Reception
Prime Minister Harold Macmillan was initially supportive of the programme, chastising Postmaster General Reginald Bevins for threatening to "do something about it". However, the BBC received many complaints from organisations and establishment figures. Lord Aldington, vice-chairman of the Conservative Party, wrote to BBC director-general Hugh Greene that Frost had a hatred of the prime minister which "he finds impossible to control". The programme also attracted complaints from the Boy Scout Association about an item questioning the sexuality of its founder Lord Baden-Powell, and from the government of Cyprus which claimed that a joke about their ruler Archbishop Makarios was a "gross violation of internationally accepted ethics".
Historians have identified TW3 as breaking ground in comedy and broadcasting. Graham McCann said that it challenged the "convention that television should not acknowledge that it is television; the show made no attempt to hide its cameras, allowed the microphone boom to intrude, and often revealed other nuts and bolts of studio technology." This was unusual in the 1960s and gave the programme a modern feel. TW3 also flouted conventions by adopting "a relaxed attitude to its running time", and "it seemed to last just as long as it wanted".
The programme was taken off the air at short notice in December 1963 with the explanation that '1964 is a General Election year'.
Legacy
TW3 was broadcast live, but it was normally recorded for legal reasons; only the pilot episode was not recorded. A compilation of material was shown on BBC Four to celebrate the 40th anniversary. The series placed 29th in the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes in 2000.
Alternative versions
US versions
An American version was on NBC from 10 November 1963 to May 1965. The pilot featured Henry Fonda and Henry Morgan, with Mike Nichols and Elaine May as guests, and supporting performers including Gene Hackman. The recurring cast included Frost, Morgan, Buck Henry, and Alan Alda, with Nancy Ames singing the opening song and Stanley Grover and Ames performing solos and duets; regular contributors included Gloria Steinem, William F. Brown, Tom Lehrer, and Calvin Trillin. The announcer was Jerry Damon. A running gag was a mock feud with Jack Paar, whose own program followed TW3 on the NBC Friday schedule; Paar repeatedly referred to TW3 as "Henry Morgan's Amateur Hour".
The American version is largely a lost program, although the pilot survives and was donated to the Library of Congress by a collector. Amateur audio recordings of most episodes also survive. After the series' cancellation, Lehrer recorded a collection of his songs used on the show on That Was The Year That Was, released by Reprise Records in September 1965.
One episode showed a smiling President Lyndon B. Johnson contemplating an easy 1964 campaign against Republican nominee Senator Barry M. Goldwater of Arizona. The satirists sang that Goldwater could not win because he "does not know the dance of the liberal Republicans", then a substantial component of the GOP, many of whose members had supported New York Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller for the Republican nomination. ABC aired That Was The Week That Was as a special on 21 April 1985, hosted by David Frost and Anne Bancroft and featuring future Saturday Night Live cast members Jan Hooks and A. Whitney Brown and puppetry from Spitting Image.
Other international versions
A Canadian show, This Hour Has Seven Days, aired from 1964 to 1966 on CBC. Although partially inspired by That Was The Week That Was, the Canadian show mixed satirical aspects with more serious journalism. It proved controversial and was cancelled after two seasons amid allegations of political interference. This Hour Has 22 Minutes, created by Newfoundland comic Mary Walsh, has been running since 1992 although the two are not related.
An Australian show, The Mavis Bramston Show, aired from 1964 to 1968 on the Seven Network. It grew out of the recent local theatrical tradition of topical satirical revue—most notably the popular revues staged at Sydney's Phillip Street Theatre in the 1950s and 1960s—but it was also strongly influenced by the British satire boom and especially TW3 and Not Only... But Also.
The New Zealand show A Week Of It ran from 1977 to 1979, hosted by Ken Ellis, and featuring comedians David McPhail, Peter Rowley and Chris McVeigh and comedian/musicians Jon Gadsby and Annie Whittle. The series lampooned news and politics and featured songs, usually by McPhail and Gadsby, who continued with their own show, McPhail and Gadsby in similar vein.
A Dutch version, Zo is het toevallig ook nog 's een keer (It Just So Happens Once Again), aired from November 1963 to 1966. It became controversial after the fourth edition, which included a parody of the Lord's Prayer ("Give us this day our daily television"). Angry viewers directed their protests especially against the most popular cast member: Mies Bouwman. After receiving several threats to her life she decided to quit the show. The show was praised as well: in 1966 it received the Gouden Televizier-ring, a prestigious audience award—though it turned out afterward that the election was rigged.
An Indian version titled The Week That Wasn't was launched and hosted by Cyrus Broacha.
Parodies
Cleveland, Ohio, local personality Ghoulardi (played by Ernie Anderson), host of WJW-TV's Shock Theater in the 1960s, ran clips of local celebrities and politicians and satirised them in a Shock Theater segment entitled That Was Weak Wasn't It?
Beginning in 2006, 1812 Productions, an all comedy theatre company in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, has annually performed a stage show called This Is the Week That Is. The variety show style play is written by its small cast with a script that changes nightly over several weeks of performances, and includes improvised comedy, musical parodies, and a versatile cast of performers. The show focuses on politics and news from the preceding year, often taking on local Philadelphia stories as well. In 2019, a documentary, In the Field; Conceiving Satire: The Making of This Is The Week That Is, about the creation of the long-running show was commissioned by the American Theatre Wing and nominated for a Mid-Atlantic Emmy Award for Arts Program/Special.
References
External links
That Was the Week That Was at the British Film Institute
That Was the Week That Was at the Museum of Broadcast Communications
(UK version)
(US version)
BBC television sketch shows
1960s British television sketch shows
British satirical television series
News parodies
Television series about television
American television series based on British television series
Peabody Award-winning television programs
Grammy Award winners
1962 British television series debuts
1963 British television series endings
Black-and-white British television shows
English-language television shows
| true |
[
"Air America is a 1978 non-fiction book by journalist Christopher Robbins. The book is a history of Air America, an airline covertly owned by the United States Central Intelligence Agency from 1950 to 1976.\n\nBackground\nFrom the 1950s to the early 1970s, Indochina had been the landscape of major drug and military operations, conducted by many actors including European and communist countries. When US military involvement started, costs rose and new resources, especially for covert operations, were needed.\n\nAnything, Anywhere, Anytime\nAir America's pilots flew dangerous missions, those no one else would fly, frequently under enemy fire. Many missions were in fact aid-oriented missions to provide logistical support and food to allies who were fighting the war along with the South Vietnamese and the US. Most of the time, pilots did not know what they were delivering, just when and where, no matter what the weather was like, or whether it was day or night.\n\nReferences \n\n1978 non-fiction books\nNon-fiction books adapted into films\nG. P. Putnam's Sons books",
"\"Be Someone Else\" is a song by Slimmy, released in 2010 as the lead single from his second studio album Be Someone Else. The single wasn't particularly successful, charting anywhere.\nA music video was also made for \"Be Someone Else\", produced by Riot Films. It premiered on 27 June 2010 on YouTube.\n\nBackground\n\"Be Someone Else\" was unveiled as the album's lead single. The song was written by Fernandes and produced by Quico Serrano and Mark J Turner. It was released to MySpace on 1 January 2010.\n\nMusic video\nA music video was also made for \"Be Someone Else\", produced by Riot Films. It premiered on 27 June 2010 on YouTube. The music video features two different scenes which alternate with each other many times during the video. The first scene features Slimmy performing the song with an electric guitar and the second scene features Slimmy performing with the band in the background.\n\nChart performance\nThe single wasn't particularly successful, charting anywhere.\n\nLive performances\n A Very Slimmy Tour\n Be Someone Else Tour\n\nTrack listing\n\nDigital single\n\"Be Someone Else\" (album version) - 3:22\n\nPersonnel\nTaken from the album's booklet.\n\nPaulo Fernandes – main vocals, guitar\nPaulo Garim – bass\nTó-Zé – drums\n\nRelease history\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nOfficial music video at YouTube.\n\n2010 singles\nEnglish-language Portuguese songs\n2009 songs"
] |
[
"That Was the Week That Was",
"International versions",
"Where was it released?",
"A Canadian show, This Hour Has Seven Days, aired from 1964 to 1966 on CBC.",
"How many episodes were there?",
"I don't know.",
"What kind of show was it?",
"the Canadian show mixed satirical aspects with more serious journalism.",
"Did it air anywhere else?",
"An Australian show, The Mavis Bramston Show, aired from 1964 to 1968 on the Seven Network.",
"Was it popular internationally?",
"The New Zealand show A Week Of It ran from 1977 to 1979, hosted by Ken Ellis, and featuring comedians",
"Did it air anywhere else?",
"A Dutch version, Zo is het toevallig ook nog 's een keer, aired from November 1963 to 1966."
] |
C_1272aa01753c4a629ad52ddb8bf8dd5a_0
|
What is particularly interesting in the article?
| 7 |
What is particularly interesting in the article besides "That Was the Week That Was" getting released internationally?
|
That Was the Week That Was
|
A Canadian show, This Hour Has Seven Days, aired from 1964 to 1966 on CBC. Although partially inspired by That Was The Week That Was, the Canadian show mixed satirical aspects with more serious journalism. It proved controversial and was cancelled after two series amid allegations of political interference. This Hour Has 22 Minutes, created by Newfoundland comic Mary Walsh, has been running since 1992 although the two are not related. An Australian show, The Mavis Bramston Show, aired from 1964 to 1968 on the Seven Network. It grew out of the recent local theatrical tradition of topical satirical revue--most notably the popular revues staged at Sydney's Phillip Street Theatre in the 1950s and 1960s--but it was also strongly influenced by the British satire boom and especially TW3 and Not Only... But Also. The New Zealand show A Week Of It ran from 1977 to 1979, hosted by Ken Ellis, and featuring comedians David McPhail, Peter Rowley and Chris McVeigh and comedian/musicians Jon Gadsby and Annie Whittle. The series lampooned news and politics and featured songs, usually by McPhail and Gadsby, who continued with their own show, McPhail and Gadsby in similar vein. A Dutch version, Zo is het toevallig ook nog 's een keer, aired from November 1963 to 1966. It became controversial after the fourth edition, which included a parody of the Lord's Prayer ("Give us this day our daily television"). Angry viewers directed their protests especially against the most popular cast member: Mies Bouwman. After receiving several threats to her life she decided to quit the show. The show was praised as well: in 1966 it received the Gouden Televizier-ring, a prestigious audience award--though it turned out afterward that the election was rigged. An Indian version titled The Week That Wasn't was launched and hosted by Cyrus Broacha. CANNOTANSWER
|
The series lampooned news and politics and featured songs, usually by McPhail and Gadsby, who continued with their own show, McPhail and Gadsby in similar vein.
|
That Was the Week That Was, informally TWTWTW or TW3, was a satirical television comedy programme on BBC Television in 1962 and 1963. It was devised, produced, and directed by Ned Sherrin and presented by David Frost.
The programme is considered a significant element of the satire boom in the UK in the early 1960s, as it broke ground in comedy by lampooning political figures. Its broadcast coincided with coverage of the politically charged Profumo affair, and John Profumo became a figure of derision. TW3 was broadcast from Saturday, 24 November 1962 through late December 1963. An American version under the same title aired on NBC from 1964 to 1965, also featuring Frost.
Cast and writers
Cast members included cartoonist Timothy Birdsall, political commentator Bernard Levin, and actors Lance Percival, who sang topical calypsos, many improvised to suggestions from the audience, Kenneth Cope, Roy Kinnear, Willie Rushton, Al Mancini, Robert Lang, David Kernan and Millicent Martin. The last two were also singers and the programme opened with a song – "That Was The Week That Was" – sung by Martin to Ron Grainer's theme tune and enumerating topics in the news. Frankie Howerd also guested with stand-up comedy.
Script-writers included John Albery, John Antrobus, John Betjeman, John Bird, Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Peter Cook, Roald Dahl, Robin Grove-White, Richard Ingrams, Lyndon Irving, Gerald Kaufman, Frank Muir, David Nobbs, Denis Norden, Bill Oddie, Dennis Potter, Eric Sykes, Kenneth Tynan, and Keith Waterhouse.
Programme
The programme opened with a song ("That was the week that was, It's over, let it go ...") sung by Millicent Martin, referring to news of the week just gone. Lance Percival sang a topical calypso each week. Satirical targets, such as Prime Minister Harold Macmillan and Home Secretary Henry Brooke were lampooned in sketches, debates and monologues. Some other targets included the monarchy, the British Empire, nuclear deterrence, advertising, public relations and propaganda, capital punishment, sexual and social hypocrisy, the class system, and the BBC itself. Well-remembered sketches include the 12 January 1963 "consumers' guide to religion", which discussed relative merits of faiths in the manner of a Which? magazine report led to the Church of England being described a 'best buy'.
The programme was not party political but did not treat all issues with what the producers considered to be a false level of impartiality and balance; one example of this is the issue of racism and "the evils of apartheid", following the view of BBC Director-General Sir Hugh Greene that the BBC should not be bound by its charter to be impartial on issues of racism, which Greene and the producers of TW3 viewed as "quite simply wrong". Following the 1963 murder of 35-year-old white postal worker William Lewis Moore in Alabama, who was on a protest march against segregation in the American South, TW3 Millicent Martin dressed as Uncle Sam sang a parody of "I Wanna Go Back to Mississippi" ("... where the Mississippi mud/kinda mingles with the blood/of the niggers who are hanging from the branches of the tree ...") accompanied by minstrel singers in blackface ("... we hate all the darkies and the Catholics and the Jews / Where we welcome any man / Who is white and strong and belongs to the Ku Klux Klan"), thus parodying The Black and White Minstrel Show, which was then being shown on the BBC despite accusations of racism over its use of blackface.
On Saturday, 20 October 1962 the award of Nobel prizes to John Kendrew and Max Perutz, and to Francis Crick, James D. Watson, and Maurice Wilkins was satirised in a short sketch with the prizes referred to as the Alfred Nobel Peace Pools; in this sketch Watson was called "Little J. D. Watson" and "Who'd have thought he'd ever get the Nobel Prize? Makes you think, doesn't it". The germ of the joke was that Watson was only 25 when he helped discover the structure of DNA; much younger than the others.
TW3 was broadcast on Saturday night and attracted an audience of 12 million. It often under- or overran as cast and crew worked through material as they saw fit. At the beginning of the second season in the autumn of 1963, in an attempt to assert control over the programme, the BBC scheduled repeats of The Third Man television series after the end of TW3. Frost suggested a means of sabotaging this tactic to Sherrin, and he agreed. For three weeks, Frost read out the plot of The Third Man, until the repeats were abandoned following the direct intervention of Greene.
Frost often ended a satirical attack with the remark "But seriously, he's doing a grand job". At the end of each episode, Frost usually signed off with: "That was the week, that was." At the end of the final programme he announced: "That was ‘That Was The Week That Was’ …that was."
Kennedy tribute
TW3 produced a shortened 20-minute programme with no satire for the edition on Saturday, 23 November 1963, the day after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. It featured a contribution from Dame Sybil Thorndike and the tribute song "In the Summer of His Years" by Herbert Kretzmer. This was screened on NBC the following day, and the soundtrack was released by Decca Records. A clip featuring Roy Kinnear was shown in the David L. Wolper documentary film Four Days in November and on the History Channel 2009 documentary JFK: 3 Shots that Changed America. BBC presenter Richard Dimbleby broadcast the president's funeral from Washington, and he said that the programme was a good expression of the sorrow felt in Britain.
Reception
Prime Minister Harold Macmillan was initially supportive of the programme, chastising Postmaster General Reginald Bevins for threatening to "do something about it". However, the BBC received many complaints from organisations and establishment figures. Lord Aldington, vice-chairman of the Conservative Party, wrote to BBC director-general Hugh Greene that Frost had a hatred of the prime minister which "he finds impossible to control". The programme also attracted complaints from the Boy Scout Association about an item questioning the sexuality of its founder Lord Baden-Powell, and from the government of Cyprus which claimed that a joke about their ruler Archbishop Makarios was a "gross violation of internationally accepted ethics".
Historians have identified TW3 as breaking ground in comedy and broadcasting. Graham McCann said that it challenged the "convention that television should not acknowledge that it is television; the show made no attempt to hide its cameras, allowed the microphone boom to intrude, and often revealed other nuts and bolts of studio technology." This was unusual in the 1960s and gave the programme a modern feel. TW3 also flouted conventions by adopting "a relaxed attitude to its running time", and "it seemed to last just as long as it wanted".
The programme was taken off the air at short notice in December 1963 with the explanation that '1964 is a General Election year'.
Legacy
TW3 was broadcast live, but it was normally recorded for legal reasons; only the pilot episode was not recorded. A compilation of material was shown on BBC Four to celebrate the 40th anniversary. The series placed 29th in the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes in 2000.
Alternative versions
US versions
An American version was on NBC from 10 November 1963 to May 1965. The pilot featured Henry Fonda and Henry Morgan, with Mike Nichols and Elaine May as guests, and supporting performers including Gene Hackman. The recurring cast included Frost, Morgan, Buck Henry, and Alan Alda, with Nancy Ames singing the opening song and Stanley Grover and Ames performing solos and duets; regular contributors included Gloria Steinem, William F. Brown, Tom Lehrer, and Calvin Trillin. The announcer was Jerry Damon. A running gag was a mock feud with Jack Paar, whose own program followed TW3 on the NBC Friday schedule; Paar repeatedly referred to TW3 as "Henry Morgan's Amateur Hour".
The American version is largely a lost program, although the pilot survives and was donated to the Library of Congress by a collector. Amateur audio recordings of most episodes also survive. After the series' cancellation, Lehrer recorded a collection of his songs used on the show on That Was The Year That Was, released by Reprise Records in September 1965.
One episode showed a smiling President Lyndon B. Johnson contemplating an easy 1964 campaign against Republican nominee Senator Barry M. Goldwater of Arizona. The satirists sang that Goldwater could not win because he "does not know the dance of the liberal Republicans", then a substantial component of the GOP, many of whose members had supported New York Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller for the Republican nomination. ABC aired That Was The Week That Was as a special on 21 April 1985, hosted by David Frost and Anne Bancroft and featuring future Saturday Night Live cast members Jan Hooks and A. Whitney Brown and puppetry from Spitting Image.
Other international versions
A Canadian show, This Hour Has Seven Days, aired from 1964 to 1966 on CBC. Although partially inspired by That Was The Week That Was, the Canadian show mixed satirical aspects with more serious journalism. It proved controversial and was cancelled after two seasons amid allegations of political interference. This Hour Has 22 Minutes, created by Newfoundland comic Mary Walsh, has been running since 1992 although the two are not related.
An Australian show, The Mavis Bramston Show, aired from 1964 to 1968 on the Seven Network. It grew out of the recent local theatrical tradition of topical satirical revue—most notably the popular revues staged at Sydney's Phillip Street Theatre in the 1950s and 1960s—but it was also strongly influenced by the British satire boom and especially TW3 and Not Only... But Also.
The New Zealand show A Week Of It ran from 1977 to 1979, hosted by Ken Ellis, and featuring comedians David McPhail, Peter Rowley and Chris McVeigh and comedian/musicians Jon Gadsby and Annie Whittle. The series lampooned news and politics and featured songs, usually by McPhail and Gadsby, who continued with their own show, McPhail and Gadsby in similar vein.
A Dutch version, Zo is het toevallig ook nog 's een keer (It Just So Happens Once Again), aired from November 1963 to 1966. It became controversial after the fourth edition, which included a parody of the Lord's Prayer ("Give us this day our daily television"). Angry viewers directed their protests especially against the most popular cast member: Mies Bouwman. After receiving several threats to her life she decided to quit the show. The show was praised as well: in 1966 it received the Gouden Televizier-ring, a prestigious audience award—though it turned out afterward that the election was rigged.
An Indian version titled The Week That Wasn't was launched and hosted by Cyrus Broacha.
Parodies
Cleveland, Ohio, local personality Ghoulardi (played by Ernie Anderson), host of WJW-TV's Shock Theater in the 1960s, ran clips of local celebrities and politicians and satirised them in a Shock Theater segment entitled That Was Weak Wasn't It?
Beginning in 2006, 1812 Productions, an all comedy theatre company in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, has annually performed a stage show called This Is the Week That Is. The variety show style play is written by its small cast with a script that changes nightly over several weeks of performances, and includes improvised comedy, musical parodies, and a versatile cast of performers. The show focuses on politics and news from the preceding year, often taking on local Philadelphia stories as well. In 2019, a documentary, In the Field; Conceiving Satire: The Making of This Is The Week That Is, about the creation of the long-running show was commissioned by the American Theatre Wing and nominated for a Mid-Atlantic Emmy Award for Arts Program/Special.
References
External links
That Was the Week That Was at the British Film Institute
That Was the Week That Was at the Museum of Broadcast Communications
(UK version)
(US version)
BBC television sketch shows
1960s British television sketch shows
British satirical television series
News parodies
Television series about television
American television series based on British television series
Peabody Award-winning television programs
Grammy Award winners
1962 British television series debuts
1963 British television series endings
Black-and-white British television shows
English-language television shows
| 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"
] |
[
"That Was the Week That Was",
"International versions",
"Where was it released?",
"A Canadian show, This Hour Has Seven Days, aired from 1964 to 1966 on CBC.",
"How many episodes were there?",
"I don't know.",
"What kind of show was it?",
"the Canadian show mixed satirical aspects with more serious journalism.",
"Did it air anywhere else?",
"An Australian show, The Mavis Bramston Show, aired from 1964 to 1968 on the Seven Network.",
"Was it popular internationally?",
"The New Zealand show A Week Of It ran from 1977 to 1979, hosted by Ken Ellis, and featuring comedians",
"Did it air anywhere else?",
"A Dutch version, Zo is het toevallig ook nog 's een keer, aired from November 1963 to 1966.",
"What is particularly interesting in the article?",
"The series lampooned news and politics and featured songs, usually by McPhail and Gadsby, who continued with their own show, McPhail and Gadsby in similar vein."
] |
C_1272aa01753c4a629ad52ddb8bf8dd5a_0
|
Was there ever any controversy?
| 8 |
Was there ever any controversy with "That Was the Week That Was"?
|
That Was the Week That Was
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A Canadian show, This Hour Has Seven Days, aired from 1964 to 1966 on CBC. Although partially inspired by That Was The Week That Was, the Canadian show mixed satirical aspects with more serious journalism. It proved controversial and was cancelled after two series amid allegations of political interference. This Hour Has 22 Minutes, created by Newfoundland comic Mary Walsh, has been running since 1992 although the two are not related. An Australian show, The Mavis Bramston Show, aired from 1964 to 1968 on the Seven Network. It grew out of the recent local theatrical tradition of topical satirical revue--most notably the popular revues staged at Sydney's Phillip Street Theatre in the 1950s and 1960s--but it was also strongly influenced by the British satire boom and especially TW3 and Not Only... But Also. The New Zealand show A Week Of It ran from 1977 to 1979, hosted by Ken Ellis, and featuring comedians David McPhail, Peter Rowley and Chris McVeigh and comedian/musicians Jon Gadsby and Annie Whittle. The series lampooned news and politics and featured songs, usually by McPhail and Gadsby, who continued with their own show, McPhail and Gadsby in similar vein. A Dutch version, Zo is het toevallig ook nog 's een keer, aired from November 1963 to 1966. It became controversial after the fourth edition, which included a parody of the Lord's Prayer ("Give us this day our daily television"). Angry viewers directed their protests especially against the most popular cast member: Mies Bouwman. After receiving several threats to her life she decided to quit the show. The show was praised as well: in 1966 it received the Gouden Televizier-ring, a prestigious audience award--though it turned out afterward that the election was rigged. An Indian version titled The Week That Wasn't was launched and hosted by Cyrus Broacha. CANNOTANSWER
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CANNOTANSWER
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That Was the Week That Was, informally TWTWTW or TW3, was a satirical television comedy programme on BBC Television in 1962 and 1963. It was devised, produced, and directed by Ned Sherrin and presented by David Frost.
The programme is considered a significant element of the satire boom in the UK in the early 1960s, as it broke ground in comedy by lampooning political figures. Its broadcast coincided with coverage of the politically charged Profumo affair, and John Profumo became a figure of derision. TW3 was broadcast from Saturday, 24 November 1962 through late December 1963. An American version under the same title aired on NBC from 1964 to 1965, also featuring Frost.
Cast and writers
Cast members included cartoonist Timothy Birdsall, political commentator Bernard Levin, and actors Lance Percival, who sang topical calypsos, many improvised to suggestions from the audience, Kenneth Cope, Roy Kinnear, Willie Rushton, Al Mancini, Robert Lang, David Kernan and Millicent Martin. The last two were also singers and the programme opened with a song – "That Was The Week That Was" – sung by Martin to Ron Grainer's theme tune and enumerating topics in the news. Frankie Howerd also guested with stand-up comedy.
Script-writers included John Albery, John Antrobus, John Betjeman, John Bird, Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Peter Cook, Roald Dahl, Robin Grove-White, Richard Ingrams, Lyndon Irving, Gerald Kaufman, Frank Muir, David Nobbs, Denis Norden, Bill Oddie, Dennis Potter, Eric Sykes, Kenneth Tynan, and Keith Waterhouse.
Programme
The programme opened with a song ("That was the week that was, It's over, let it go ...") sung by Millicent Martin, referring to news of the week just gone. Lance Percival sang a topical calypso each week. Satirical targets, such as Prime Minister Harold Macmillan and Home Secretary Henry Brooke were lampooned in sketches, debates and monologues. Some other targets included the monarchy, the British Empire, nuclear deterrence, advertising, public relations and propaganda, capital punishment, sexual and social hypocrisy, the class system, and the BBC itself. Well-remembered sketches include the 12 January 1963 "consumers' guide to religion", which discussed relative merits of faiths in the manner of a Which? magazine report led to the Church of England being described a 'best buy'.
The programme was not party political but did not treat all issues with what the producers considered to be a false level of impartiality and balance; one example of this is the issue of racism and "the evils of apartheid", following the view of BBC Director-General Sir Hugh Greene that the BBC should not be bound by its charter to be impartial on issues of racism, which Greene and the producers of TW3 viewed as "quite simply wrong". Following the 1963 murder of 35-year-old white postal worker William Lewis Moore in Alabama, who was on a protest march against segregation in the American South, TW3 Millicent Martin dressed as Uncle Sam sang a parody of "I Wanna Go Back to Mississippi" ("... where the Mississippi mud/kinda mingles with the blood/of the niggers who are hanging from the branches of the tree ...") accompanied by minstrel singers in blackface ("... we hate all the darkies and the Catholics and the Jews / Where we welcome any man / Who is white and strong and belongs to the Ku Klux Klan"), thus parodying The Black and White Minstrel Show, which was then being shown on the BBC despite accusations of racism over its use of blackface.
On Saturday, 20 October 1962 the award of Nobel prizes to John Kendrew and Max Perutz, and to Francis Crick, James D. Watson, and Maurice Wilkins was satirised in a short sketch with the prizes referred to as the Alfred Nobel Peace Pools; in this sketch Watson was called "Little J. D. Watson" and "Who'd have thought he'd ever get the Nobel Prize? Makes you think, doesn't it". The germ of the joke was that Watson was only 25 when he helped discover the structure of DNA; much younger than the others.
TW3 was broadcast on Saturday night and attracted an audience of 12 million. It often under- or overran as cast and crew worked through material as they saw fit. At the beginning of the second season in the autumn of 1963, in an attempt to assert control over the programme, the BBC scheduled repeats of The Third Man television series after the end of TW3. Frost suggested a means of sabotaging this tactic to Sherrin, and he agreed. For three weeks, Frost read out the plot of The Third Man, until the repeats were abandoned following the direct intervention of Greene.
Frost often ended a satirical attack with the remark "But seriously, he's doing a grand job". At the end of each episode, Frost usually signed off with: "That was the week, that was." At the end of the final programme he announced: "That was ‘That Was The Week That Was’ …that was."
Kennedy tribute
TW3 produced a shortened 20-minute programme with no satire for the edition on Saturday, 23 November 1963, the day after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. It featured a contribution from Dame Sybil Thorndike and the tribute song "In the Summer of His Years" by Herbert Kretzmer. This was screened on NBC the following day, and the soundtrack was released by Decca Records. A clip featuring Roy Kinnear was shown in the David L. Wolper documentary film Four Days in November and on the History Channel 2009 documentary JFK: 3 Shots that Changed America. BBC presenter Richard Dimbleby broadcast the president's funeral from Washington, and he said that the programme was a good expression of the sorrow felt in Britain.
Reception
Prime Minister Harold Macmillan was initially supportive of the programme, chastising Postmaster General Reginald Bevins for threatening to "do something about it". However, the BBC received many complaints from organisations and establishment figures. Lord Aldington, vice-chairman of the Conservative Party, wrote to BBC director-general Hugh Greene that Frost had a hatred of the prime minister which "he finds impossible to control". The programme also attracted complaints from the Boy Scout Association about an item questioning the sexuality of its founder Lord Baden-Powell, and from the government of Cyprus which claimed that a joke about their ruler Archbishop Makarios was a "gross violation of internationally accepted ethics".
Historians have identified TW3 as breaking ground in comedy and broadcasting. Graham McCann said that it challenged the "convention that television should not acknowledge that it is television; the show made no attempt to hide its cameras, allowed the microphone boom to intrude, and often revealed other nuts and bolts of studio technology." This was unusual in the 1960s and gave the programme a modern feel. TW3 also flouted conventions by adopting "a relaxed attitude to its running time", and "it seemed to last just as long as it wanted".
The programme was taken off the air at short notice in December 1963 with the explanation that '1964 is a General Election year'.
Legacy
TW3 was broadcast live, but it was normally recorded for legal reasons; only the pilot episode was not recorded. A compilation of material was shown on BBC Four to celebrate the 40th anniversary. The series placed 29th in the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes in 2000.
Alternative versions
US versions
An American version was on NBC from 10 November 1963 to May 1965. The pilot featured Henry Fonda and Henry Morgan, with Mike Nichols and Elaine May as guests, and supporting performers including Gene Hackman. The recurring cast included Frost, Morgan, Buck Henry, and Alan Alda, with Nancy Ames singing the opening song and Stanley Grover and Ames performing solos and duets; regular contributors included Gloria Steinem, William F. Brown, Tom Lehrer, and Calvin Trillin. The announcer was Jerry Damon. A running gag was a mock feud with Jack Paar, whose own program followed TW3 on the NBC Friday schedule; Paar repeatedly referred to TW3 as "Henry Morgan's Amateur Hour".
The American version is largely a lost program, although the pilot survives and was donated to the Library of Congress by a collector. Amateur audio recordings of most episodes also survive. After the series' cancellation, Lehrer recorded a collection of his songs used on the show on That Was The Year That Was, released by Reprise Records in September 1965.
One episode showed a smiling President Lyndon B. Johnson contemplating an easy 1964 campaign against Republican nominee Senator Barry M. Goldwater of Arizona. The satirists sang that Goldwater could not win because he "does not know the dance of the liberal Republicans", then a substantial component of the GOP, many of whose members had supported New York Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller for the Republican nomination. ABC aired That Was The Week That Was as a special on 21 April 1985, hosted by David Frost and Anne Bancroft and featuring future Saturday Night Live cast members Jan Hooks and A. Whitney Brown and puppetry from Spitting Image.
Other international versions
A Canadian show, This Hour Has Seven Days, aired from 1964 to 1966 on CBC. Although partially inspired by That Was The Week That Was, the Canadian show mixed satirical aspects with more serious journalism. It proved controversial and was cancelled after two seasons amid allegations of political interference. This Hour Has 22 Minutes, created by Newfoundland comic Mary Walsh, has been running since 1992 although the two are not related.
An Australian show, The Mavis Bramston Show, aired from 1964 to 1968 on the Seven Network. It grew out of the recent local theatrical tradition of topical satirical revue—most notably the popular revues staged at Sydney's Phillip Street Theatre in the 1950s and 1960s—but it was also strongly influenced by the British satire boom and especially TW3 and Not Only... But Also.
The New Zealand show A Week Of It ran from 1977 to 1979, hosted by Ken Ellis, and featuring comedians David McPhail, Peter Rowley and Chris McVeigh and comedian/musicians Jon Gadsby and Annie Whittle. The series lampooned news and politics and featured songs, usually by McPhail and Gadsby, who continued with their own show, McPhail and Gadsby in similar vein.
A Dutch version, Zo is het toevallig ook nog 's een keer (It Just So Happens Once Again), aired from November 1963 to 1966. It became controversial after the fourth edition, which included a parody of the Lord's Prayer ("Give us this day our daily television"). Angry viewers directed their protests especially against the most popular cast member: Mies Bouwman. After receiving several threats to her life she decided to quit the show. The show was praised as well: in 1966 it received the Gouden Televizier-ring, a prestigious audience award—though it turned out afterward that the election was rigged.
An Indian version titled The Week That Wasn't was launched and hosted by Cyrus Broacha.
Parodies
Cleveland, Ohio, local personality Ghoulardi (played by Ernie Anderson), host of WJW-TV's Shock Theater in the 1960s, ran clips of local celebrities and politicians and satirised them in a Shock Theater segment entitled That Was Weak Wasn't It?
Beginning in 2006, 1812 Productions, an all comedy theatre company in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, has annually performed a stage show called This Is the Week That Is. The variety show style play is written by its small cast with a script that changes nightly over several weeks of performances, and includes improvised comedy, musical parodies, and a versatile cast of performers. The show focuses on politics and news from the preceding year, often taking on local Philadelphia stories as well. In 2019, a documentary, In the Field; Conceiving Satire: The Making of This Is The Week That Is, about the creation of the long-running show was commissioned by the American Theatre Wing and nominated for a Mid-Atlantic Emmy Award for Arts Program/Special.
References
External links
That Was the Week That Was at the British Film Institute
That Was the Week That Was at the Museum of Broadcast Communications
(UK version)
(US version)
BBC television sketch shows
1960s British television sketch shows
British satirical television series
News parodies
Television series about television
American television series based on British television series
Peabody Award-winning television programs
Grammy Award winners
1962 British television series debuts
1963 British television series endings
Black-and-white British television shows
English-language television shows
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[
"Charles Kirkby Robinson (1826 – 1909) was a British clergyman and academic, whose election to the Mastership of St Catharine's College, Cambridge in 1861 caused great controversy.\n\nCharles Robinson was born in 1826 in Acomb, West Riding of Yorkshire, and he matriculated at St Catharine's College, Cambridge in 1845. He was elected scholar in 1846, and graduated as 22nd Wrangler in 1849. He was appointed Fellow and Tutor in 1850, and was Junior Proctor in the University of Cambridge from 1858-1859. The circumstances of his election to Master in 1861 have been outlined by WHS Jones. At the time, there were just 5 Fellows of the college who were the electorate. Of these, two were candidates - Robinson, and Francis Jameson. In the election, Jameson received two votes, but Robinson received three: his own, Jameson's, and just one other. Since Jameson may have cast his vote under the impression that the candidates were to vote for each other while Robinson did not, this caused something of a stir at the time. Jameson left the Fellowship of St Catharine's shortly after, in 1862.\nWHS Jones records that 'this was probably the greatest disaster that ever happened to any college'; whether this was the case or not, the circumstances of the election were not forgotten during Robinson's long tenure as Master, from 1861-1909. Robinson was eventually succeeded as Master by Claude Johns.\n\nReferences\n\n1826 births\n1909 deaths\nMasters of St Catharine's College, Cambridge",
"Little Ease was a prison cell located beneath the White Tower in the Tower of London. The lightless cell was designed on a side, meaning that while an adult human could be placed inside, any occupant was prevented from being able to either stand, sit, or lie down, meaning it was impossible for him to find any physical position of rest (i.e., \"little ease\" could be found).\n\nEvidence suggests that Edmund Campion, a Catholic priest in Elizabethan England, was imprisoned for four days in the cell in July 1581. According to Bell (1921), by tradition, Guy Fawkes was housed there in 1605. Another possible inmate was Miles Prance in 1678. But Bell also stated that there is some doubt that the cell ever actually housed prisoners.\n\nReferences\n\nTower of London"
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[
"The Sweet",
"First album"
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C_e0dc93e73be04cf2b157df3e12cc2286_0
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What was the name of their first album?
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What was the name of the band The Sweet's first album?
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The Sweet
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The Sweet made their UK television debut in December 1970 on a pop show called Lift Off, performing the song "Funny Funny". A management deal was signed with the aforementioned songwriting team of Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman. Phil Wainman resumed his collaboration with Sweet, as executive producer. This management deal also included a worldwide (the U.S. excepted) record contract with RCA Records (in the United States and Canada Bell Records issued the group's music until late 1973; followed by Capitol Records). In March 1971 RCA issued "Funny Funny", written by Chinn and Chapman, which became the group's first international hit, climbing to the Top 20 on many of the world's charts. EMI reissued their 1970 single "All You'll Ever Get from Me" (May 1971) and it again failed to chart. Their next RCA release "Co-Co" (June 1971) went to number two in the U.K. and their follow up single, "Alexander Graham Bell" (October 1971), only went to #33. These tracks still featured session musicians on the instruments with the quartet providing only the vocals. The Sweet's first full LP album, Funny How Sweet Co-Co Can Be, was released in November 1971. A collection of the band's recent singles supplemented by some new Chinn/Chapman tunes (including "Chop Chop" and "Tom Tom Turnaround") and pop covers (such as the Lovin' Spoonful's "Daydream" and the Supremes' "Reflections"), the album, recorded at Nova Studios in London, was produced by Phil Wainman and engineered by Richard Dodd and Eric Holland. It was not a serious contender on the charts. Their albums' failure to match the success of their singles was a problem that would plague the band throughout their career. CANNOTANSWER
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Funny How Sweet Co-Co Can Be,
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The Sweet, sometimes also shortened to just Sweet, are a British glam rock band that rose to worldwide fame in the 1970s. Their best known line-up consisted of lead vocalist Brian Connolly, bass player Steve Priest, guitarist Andy Scott, and drummer Mick Tucker. The group was originally called The Sweetshop.
The band was formed in London in 1968 and achieved their first hit, "Funny Funny", in 1971 after teaming up with songwriters Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman and record producer Phil Wainman. During 1971 and 1972, their musical style followed a marked progression from the Archies-like bubblegum style of "Funny Funny" to a Who-influenced hard rock style supplemented by a striking use of high-pitched backing vocals.
The band first achieved success in the UK charts, with thirteen Top 20 hits during the 1970s alone, with "Block Buster!" (1973) topping the chart, followed by three consecutive number two hits in "Hell Raiser" (1973), "The Ballroom Blitz" (1973) and "Teenage Rampage" (1974). The band turned to a more hard rock style with their mid-career singles, like 1974's "Turn It Down". "Fox on the Run" (1975) also reached number two on the UK charts. These results were topped in West Germany and other countries on the European mainland. They also achieved success and popularity in the US with the top ten hits "Little Willy", "The Ballroom Blitz", "Fox on the Run", and "Love is Like Oxygen".
The Sweet had their last international success in 1978 with "Love Is Like Oxygen". Connolly left the group in 1979 to start a solo career and the remaining members continued as a trio until disbanding in 1981. From the mid-1980s, Scott, Connolly and Priest each played with their own versions of Sweet at different times. Connolly died in 1997, Tucker in 2002 and Priest in 2020. Andy Scott is still active with his version of the band. Sweet have since sold over 35 million albums worldwide.
History
Origins
Sweet's origins can be traced back to British soul band Wainwright's Gentlemen. Mark Lay's history of that band states they formed around 1962 and were initially known as Unit 4. Founding members included Chris Wright (vocals), Jan Frewer (bass), with Jim Searle and Alfred Fripp on guitars. Phil Kenton joined on drums as the band changed its name to Wainwright's Gentlemen (due to there being another band known as Unit 4). Managed by Frewer's father, the band performed in the Hayes, Harrow and Wembley area. By 1964 the group was also playing in London, including at the Saint Germain Club on Poland Street.
In January 1964 the band came fifth in a national beat group contest, with finals held at the Lyceum Strand on 4 May 1964. Highlights of the show were presented on BBC1 by Alan Freeman. Chris Wright left the line-up in late 1964 and was replaced by Ian Gillan. A female vocalist named Ann Cully soon joined the band. Mick Tucker, from Ruislip, joined on drums replacing Phil Kenton. The band recorded a number of tracks including a cover of the Coasters-Hollies hit "Ain't That Just Like Me", which was probably recorded at Jackson Sound Studios in Rickmansworth. The track includes Gillan on vocals, Tucker on drums and, according to band bassist Jan Frewer, is thought to have been recorded in 1965. Gillan quit in May 1965 to join Episode Six, and later, Deep Purple. Cully remained as vocalist before departing some time later. Gillan's and Cully's eventual replacement, in late 1966, was Scots-born vocalist Brian Connolly, who hailed more recently from Harefield. Tony Hall had joined on saxophone and vocals and when Fripp left he was replaced by Gordon Fairminer. Fairminer's position was eventually assumed by Frank Torpey (born Frank Edward Torpey, 30 April 1945, Kilburn, North West London) - a schoolfriend of Tucker's who had just left West London group The Tribe (aka The Dream). Torpey only lasted a few months, and in late 1967 Robin Box (born 19 June 1944) took his place. Searle, regarded by many as the most talented musically, disappeared from the scene. Tucker and Connolly remained with Wainwright's Gentlemen until January 1968. Tucker was replaced by Roger Hills. When the Gentlemen eventually broke up, Hills and Box joined White Plains who eventually scored a big hit with "My Baby Loves Lovin'".
Early years
In January 1968 Connolly and Tucker formed a new band calling themselves The Sweetshop. They recruited bass guitarist and vocalist Steve Priest from a local band called The Army. Priest had previously played with mid-'60s band the Countdowns who had been produced and recorded by Joe Meek. Frank Torpey was again recruited to play guitar. The quartet made its public debut at the Pavilion in Hemel Hempstead on 9 March 1968 and soon developed a following on the pub circuit, which led to a contract with Fontana Records. At the time, another UK band released a single under the same name Sweetshop, so the band abbreviated their moniker to Sweet. The band was managed by Paul Nicholas, who later went on to star in Hair. Nicholas worked with record producer Phil Wainman at Mellin Music Publishing and recommended the band to him. Their debut single "Slow Motion" (July 1968), produced by Wainman, and released on Fontana, failed to chart and owing to its rarity now sells for several hundred pounds when auctioned. Sweet were released from the recording contract and Frank Torpey left. In his autobiography Are You Ready Steve, Priest said that Gordon Fairminer was approached to play for them when Torpey decided to leave Sweet after a gig at Playhouse Theatre Walton-on-Thames on 5 July 1969 but turned the job down as he wanted to concentrate on other interests.
New line-up and new record deal
Guitarist Mick Stewart joined in 1969. Stewart had some rock pedigree, having previously worked with The (Ealing) Redcaps and Simon Scott & The All-Nite Workers in the mid-1960s. In late 1965, that band became The Phil Wainman Set when the future Sweet producer joined on drums and the group cut some singles with Errol Dixon. In early 1966, Stewart left and later worked with Johnny Kidd & The Pirates.
Sweet signed a new record contract with EMI's Parlophone label. Three bubblegum pop singles were released: "Lollipop Man" (September 1969), "All You'll Ever Get from Me" (January 1970), and a cover version of the Archies' "Get on the Line" (June 1970), all of which failed to chart. Stewart then quit, and was not replaced for some time. Connolly and Tucker had a chance meeting with Wainman, who was now producing, and knew of two aspiring songwriters, Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman, who were looking for a group to sing some demos they had written. Connolly, Priest, and Tucker provided the vocals on a track called "Funny Funny" which featured Pip Williams on guitar, John Roberts on bass, and Wainman on drums. The latter began offering the track to various recording companies. The band held auditions for a replacement guitarist and settled on Welsh-born Andy Scott. He had most recently been playing with Mike McCartney (brother of Paul) in the Scaffold. As a member of the Elastic Band, he had played guitar on two singles for Decca, "Think of You Baby" and "Do Unto Others". He also appeared on the band's lone album release, Expansions on Life, and on some recordings by the Scaffold. The band rehearsed for a number of weeks before Scott made his live debut with Sweet on 26 September 1970 at the Windsor Ballroom in Redcar.
Sweet initially attempted to combine diverse musical influences, including the Monkees and 1960s bubblegum pop groups such as the Archies, with more heavy rock-oriented groups such as the Who. Sweet adopted the rich vocal harmony style of the Hollies, with distorted guitars and a heavy rhythm section. This fusion of pop and hard rock would remain a central trademark of Sweet's music and prefigured the glam metal of a few years later.
Sweet's initial album appearance was on the budget label Music for Pleasure as part of a compilation called Gimme Dat Ding, released in December 1970. Sweet had one side of the record; the Pipkins (whose sole hit, "Gimme Dat Ding", gave the LP its name) had the other. Sweet's contribution consisted of the A- and B-sides of the band's three Parlophone singles. Andy Scott appears in the album cover shot, even though he did not play on any of the recordings.
First album
Sweet made their UK television debut in December 1970 on a pop show called Lift Off, performing the song "Funny Funny". A management deal was signed with the aforementioned songwriting team of Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman. Phil Wainman resumed his collaboration with Sweet, as executive producer. This management deal also included a worldwide record contract with RCA Records, the U.S. excepted: in the United States and Canada Bell Records issued the group's music until late 1973, followed by Capitol Records.
In March 1971 RCA issued "Funny Funny", written by Chinn and Chapman, which became the group's first international hit, climbing to the Top 20 on many of the world's charts. EMI reissued their 1970 single "All You'll Ever Get from Me" (May 1971) and it again failed to chart. Their next RCA release "Co-Co" (June 1971) went to number two in the U.K. and their follow up single, "Alexander Graham Bell" (October 1971), only went to No. 33. These tracks still featured session musicians on the instruments with the quartet providing only the vocals.
Sweet's first full LP album, Funny How Sweet Co-Co Can Be, was released in November 1971. A collection of the band's recent singles supplemented by some new Chinn/Chapman tunes (including "Chop Chop" and "Tom Tom Turnaround") and pop covers (such as the Lovin' Spoonful's "Daydream" and the Supremes' "Reflections"), the album, recorded at Nova Studios in London, was produced by Phil Wainman and engineered by Richard Dodd and Eric Holland. It was not a serious contender on the charts.
Initial success and rise to fame
February 1972 saw the release of "Poppa Joe", which reached number 1 in Finland and peaked at number 11 on the UK Singles Chart. The next two singles of that year, "Little Willy" and "Wig-Wam Bam", both reached No. 4 in the UK. "Little Willy" peaked at No. 3 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 after a re-issue in 1973, thus becoming the group's biggest American hit. Although "Wig-Wam Bam" remained largely true to the style of Sweet's previous recordings, the vocals and guitars had a harder, more rock-oriented sound, largely because it was the first Chinn-Chapman single on which only members of Sweet played the instruments. In January 1973 "Block Buster!" became Sweet's first single to reach number 1 on the UK chart, remaining there for five consecutive weeks. After their next single "Hell Raiser" was released in May and reached number 2 in the U.K., Sweet's U.S. label, Bell, released the group's first American album The Sweet in July 1973.
To promote their singles, Sweet made numerous appearances on U.K. and European TV shows such as Top of the Pops and Supersonic. In one performance of "Block Buster!" on Top of the Pops Christmas edition, Priest aroused complaints after he appeared replete in a German military uniform, Hitler moustache and displaying a swastika armband. The band also capitalised on the glam rock explosion, rivalling Gary Glitter, T. Rex, Queen, Slade, and Wizzard for outrageous stage clothing.
Despite Sweet's success, the relationship with their management was becoming increasingly tense. While they had developed a large fan-base among teenagers, Sweet were not happy with their 'bubblegum' image. Sweet had always composed their own heavy-rock songs on the B-sides of their singles to contrast with the bubblegum A-sides which were composed by Chinn and Chapman. During this time, Sweet's live performances consisted of B-sides, album tracks, and various medleys of rock and roll classics; they avoided older novelty hits like "Funny Funny" and "Poppa Joe". A 1973 performance at the Palace Theatre and Grand Hall in Kilmarnock ended in Sweet being bottled off stage; the disorder was attributed by some (including Steve Priest) to Sweet's lipstick and eye-shadow look, and by others to the audience being unfamiliar with the concert set (the 1999 CD release Live at the Rainbow 1973 documents a live show from this period). The incident would be immortalised in the hit "The Ballroom Blitz" (September 1973). In the meantime, Sweet's chart success continued, showing particular strength in the UK, Denmark, Germany, Sweden, and Australia. By the end of 1973, the band's name evolved from "The Sweet" to "Sweet". The change would be reflected in all of their releases from 1974 onward.
Forming a new image
By 1974, Sweet had grown tired of the management team of Chinn and Chapman, who wrote the group's major hits and cultivated the band's glam rock image. The group and producer Phil Wainman, assisted by engineer Peter Coleman, recorded the album Sweet Fanny Adams, which was released in April 1974. Sweet's technical proficiency was demonstrated for the first time on self-penned hard rock tracks such as "Sweet F.A." and "Set Me Free". Sweet also adopted a more conventional hard rock sound and appearance. Sweet Fanny Adams also featured compressed high-pitched backing vocal harmonies, which was a trend that continued on all of Sweet's albums.
During sessions for the album, Brian Connolly was injured in a fight in Staines High Street. His throat was badly injured and his ability to sing severely limited. Priest and Scott filled in on lead vocals on some tracks ("No You Don't", "Into The Night" and "Restless") and Connolly, under treatment from a Harley Street specialist, managed to complete the album. The band did not publicise the incident and told the press that subsequent cancelled shows were due to Connolly having a throat infection. This incident reportedly permanently compromised Connolly's singing ability, with his range diminished.
No previous singles appeared on the album, and none were released, except in Japan, New Zealand and Australia, where "Peppermint Twist/Rebel Rouser", apparently released by their record company without their knowledge, gained a No. 1 chart position in the latter. Sweet Fanny Adams would be Sweet's only non-compilation release to break the UK Albums Chart Top 40.
Sweet were invited by Pete Townshend to support the Who, who were playing at Charlton Athletic's football ground, The Valley in June 1974. However, Connolly's badly bruised throat kept them from fulfilling the role. Sweet had frequently cited the Who as being one of their main influences and played a medley of their tracks in their live set for many years.
Desolation Boulevard
Their third album, Desolation Boulevard, was released later in 1974, six months after Sweet Fanny Adams. By that stage, producer Phil Wainman had moved on and the album was produced by Mike Chapman. It was recorded in a mere six days and featured a rawer "live" sound. One track, "The Man with the Golden Arm", written by Elmer Bernstein and Sylvia Fine for the 1955 Frank Sinatra movie of the same name, featured drummer Mick Tucker performing an 8 and half minute solo (although this was not included in the U.S. release). This had been a staple of the band's live performance for years. The first single from the LP, the heavy-melodic "The Six Teens" (July 1974), was a Top 10 hit in the U.K. and still part of the amazing unbroken string of No. 1's in Denmark. However, the subsequent single release, "Turn It Down" (November 1974), reached only No. 41 on the U.K. chart and No. 2 in Denmark. "Turn It Down" received minimal airplay on UK radio and was banned by some radio stations because of certain lyrical content - "God-awful sound" and "For God sakes, turn it down" - which were deemed "unsuitable for family listening." The band resumed playing live shows nearly a full six months after Connolly's throat injury, with band and critics noting a rougher edge to his voice and a reduced range. The album also featured a group composition, "Fox On The Run", which was to be re-recorded months later.
The U.S. version of Desolation Boulevard was different from the U.K. version and included several songs from Sweet Fanny Adams in addition to the "Ballroom Blitz" and "Fox on the Run" singles (both of which peaked at No. 5 in the US). Side One of the album contained all Chapman-Chinn penned songs, while Side Two featured songs written and produced by Sweet.
Writing and producing their own material
In 1975 Sweet went back into the studio to re-arrange and record a more pop-oriented version of the track "Fox on the Run". Sweet's first self-written and produced single, "Fox on the Run" was released worldwide in March 1975 and became their biggest selling hit, reaching number one in Germany, Denmark, and South Africa, number two in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Norway and the Netherlands and number three in Austria and Switzerland. In Australia it not only made it to the top of the charts, it also became the biggest selling single of that year. The song reached number two in Canada and number five in the U.S. The release of this track marked the end of the formal Chinn-Chapman working relationship and the band stressed it was now fully self-sufficient as writers and producers.
The following single release, "Action" (July 1975), peaked at number 15 in the UK. Now confident in their own songwriting and production abilities, Sweet spent the latter half of 1975 in Musicland Studios in Munich, Germany, where they recorded the Give Us A Wink album with German sound engineer Reinhold Mack, who later recorded with Electric Light Orchestra and co-produced Queen. The new album release was deferred until 1976 so as not to stifle the chart success Desolation Boulevard was enjoying, peaking at number 25 in the US and number 5 in Canada.
With Give Us a Wink being held over, RCA issued a double album in Europe, Strung Up, in November. It contained one live disc, recorded in London in December 1973, and one disc compiling previously released singles (plus an unused track by Chinn and Chapman – "I Wanna Be Committed"). At the end of the year, Andy Scott released his first solo single, "Lady Starlight" b/w "Where D'Ya Go". Tucker played drums on both tracks.
Decline in popularity
January 1976 saw the release of the single "The Lies In Your Eyes", which made the Top 10 in Germany, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Australia, but only reached No. 35 on the U.K. charts. Sweet's first album to be fully produced and written by themselves, Give Us A Wink, was released in March 1976. A third single from the album, "4th Of July", was issued in Australia.
By this time, Sweet strove to build on their growing popularity in America with a schedule of more than fifty headline concert dates. Even though Give Us A Winks release was imminent, the band's set essentially promoted the US version of Desolation Boulevard plus the new US hit single "Action". During an appearance at Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in California on 24 March, Sweet played "All Right Now" with Ritchie Blackmore as a tribute to mark the death of Free guitarist Paul Kossoff, who was to have supported Sweet with his band Back Street Crawler. The US tour was not financially successful, with small audiences at many venues leading to the final half-dozen or so dates to be cancelled. Following the end of the tour, the band went on to Scandinavia and Germany. The band also spent a week at the Who's Ramport Studios in Battersea demoing material for a new album before abandoning that project and playing eight dates in Japan. By the end of the Japanese shows Connolly's extremely hoarse singing voice was manifest evidence of the demands of constant touring and the enduring after-effects of his 1974 assault.
Between October 1976 and January 1977, Sweet wrote and recorded new material at Kingsway Recorders and Audio International London studios for their next album. An advance single from the album, "Lost Angels", was only a hit in Germany, Austria and Sweden. A new album, Off the Record, was released in April. The next single from the album, "Fever of Love", represented the band heading in a somewhat more Europop hard rock direction, once again charting in Germany, Austria and Sweden, while reaching number 10 in South Africa. On this album, Sweet again worked with Give Us A Wink engineer Louis Austin, who would later engineer Def Leppard's On Through The Night 1980 début album. The band cancelled a US tour with emerging US rockers Aerosmith, did not play any live dates in support of the album and, in fact, did not play a single concert for the whole of 1977.
Level Headed and a change in style
Sweet left RCA in 1977 and signed a new deal with Polydor though it would not come into force until later in the year. Sweet's manager David Walker, from Handle Artists, negotiated the move which was reputed to be worth around £750,000. In the United States, Canada, and Japan, Capitol had issued Sweet's albums since 1974 and would continue to do so through to 1980.
The first Polydor album, Level Headed (January 1978), found Sweet experimenting by combining rock and classical sounds "a-la clavesin", an approach similar to Electric Light Orchestra's, and featured the single "Love Is Like Oxygen". Largely recorded during 1977 at Château d'Hérouville near Paris, France after a 30-day writing session at Clearwell Castle in the Forest Of Dean UK, the album represented a new musical direction, largely abandoning hard-rock for a more melodic pop style, interspersed with ballads accompanied by a 30-piece orchestra. The ballad, "Lettres D'Amour", featured a duet between Connolly and Stevie Lange (who would emerge as lead singer with the group Night in 1979).
With the addition of session and touring musicians keyboardist Gary Moberley and guitarist Nico Ramsden, Sweet undertook a short European and Scandinavian tour followed by a single British concert at London's Hammersmith Odeon on 24 February 1978. However, "Love Is Like Oxygen" (January 1978) was their last U.K., U.S., and German Top 10 hit. Scott was nominated for an Ivor Novello Award for co-composing the song. One more single from the album, "California Nights" (May 1978), featuring Steve Priest as the lead vocalist, peaked at number 23 on the German chart.
Departure of Brian Connolly
Between March and May 1978 Sweet extensively toured the US, as a support act for Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band. The tour included a disastrous date in Birmingham, Alabama on 3 May, during which visiting Capitol Records executives in the audience saw Brian Connolly give a drunken and incoherent performance that terminated early in the set with his collapse on stage, leaving the rest of the group to play on without him. The band returned briefly to Britain before resuming the second leg of their US tour in late May supporting other acts, including Foghat and Alice Cooper. Concluding the US tour in early July 1978, Brian's alcoholism and estrangement from the group was steadily becoming a greater issue.
In late October, having spent further time at Clearwell Castle to write for their next album, Sweet arrived at The Town House studio in Shepherd's Bush, London to complete and record, Cut Above the Rest (April 1979). Due to tensions between various members attributed to Connolly's health and diminishing status with the group, his long-time friend and fellow founding member, Mick Tucker, was tasked to produce Connolly's vocals. It was felt Tucker would extract a better performance than Scott from Connolly. A number of tracks were recorded featuring Connolly. However, these efforts were deemed unsatisfactory and Brian left the band on 2 November 1978.
On 23 February 1979, Brian Connolly's departure from Sweet was formally announced by manager David Walker. Publicly, Connolly was said to be pursuing a solo career with an interest in recording country rock.
Three piece Sweet
Sweet continued as a trio with Priest assuming the lion's share of lead vocals, though Scott and Tucker were also active in that role. The first single release for the trio was "Call Me". Guest keyboard player Gary Moberley continued to augment the group on stage. Guitarist Ray McRiner joined their touring line-up in 1979, with a small tour with Journey in the eastern United States and Cheap Trick in Texas in the spring and summer of '79 to support Cut Above The Rest (which was released in April 1979). McRiner would also contribute the songs "Too Much Talking" and the single "Give The Lady Some Respect" to the next Sweet album, Waters Edge (August 1980), which was recorded in Canada. In the US, Waters Edge was titled Sweet VI. It featured the singles "Sixties Man" and "Give The Lady Some Respect". Tragedy befell Mick Tucker when his wife Pauline drowned in the bath at their home on 26 December 1979. The band withdrew from live work for all of 1980.
One more studio album, Identity Crisis, was recorded during 1980–81 but was only released in West Germany and Mexico. Sweet undertook a short tour of the UK and performed their last live show at Glasgow University on 20 March 1981. Steve Priest then returned to the United States, where he had been living since late 1979. When Polydor released Identity Crisis in October 1982, the original Sweet had been disbanded for almost a year.
Re-formed versions (1984–present)
Andy Scott's Sweet (1985–present)
Andy Scott and Mick Tucker organised their own version of Sweet with Paul Mario Day (ex-Iron Maiden, More, Wildfire) on lead vocals, Phil Lanzon (ex-Grand Prix) on keyboards and Mal McNulty on bass. The band performed at the Marquee Club in London in February 1986, with the shows recorded and gaining release a few years later, bolstered by four new studio tracks including a cover of the Motown standard "Reach Out I'll Be There". This line-up also toured Australian and New Zealand pubs and clubs for more than three months in 1985 and for a similar period again in 1986. Singer Paul Day ended up marrying the band's Australian tour guide and relocating downunder. He continued with Sweet commuting back and forth to Europe for the group's tours until this proved to be too cumbersome. He departed in late 1988. As McNulty moved into the front man spot, Jeff Brown came in to take over bass early in 1989. Lanzon too went back and forth between Sweet and Uriah Heep during 1986-1988 before Heep's schedule grew too busy. Malcolm Pearson and then Ian Gibbons (who had played with The Kinks and The Records) both filled in for Lanzon until Steve Mann (Liar, Lionheart, McAuley Schenker Group) arrived in December 1989.
Tucker departed after a show in Lochau, Austria, on 5 May 1991. He later was diagnosed with a rare form of leukaemia. Three drummers, Andy Hoyler, Bobby Andersen and Bruce Bisland (Weapon, Wildfire, Praying Mantis), provided short-term relief before Bodo Schopf (McAuley Schenker Group) took over. They recorded an album during this period, simply titled A. Before the band embarked on the supporting tour for A in 1992, Bodo left and Bisland returned as permanent percussionist. Scott changed the band's name to 'Andy Scott's Sweet' after Tucker's departure but truncated it to simply 'The Sweet' once again after Tucker's death in 2002.
Mal McNulty, now lead vocalist, departed in 1994, though he would return briefly that year to fill in for Jeff Brown on bass (as he would again in 1995 as lead singer for a few dates while Rocky Newton subbed on bass). Sweet's former keyboard men Gary Moberley and Ian Gibbons also did fill-in jaunts with the group that year, as did Chris Goulstone. Chad Brown (ex-Lionheart; no relation to Jeff) was the new front man. Glitz Blitz and Hitz, a new studio album of re-recorded Sweet hits, was released during this period.
In 1996 Mann left to take a job in television and Gibbons came back for a short time before Steve Grant (ex-The Animals) became the permanent keyboardist. When Chad Brown quit in 1998 after developing a throat infection, Jeff Brown assumed lead vocals and bass duties. After this, the band was stable again for the next five years.
The mid-2000s would bring further confusing shake-ups and rotations. Tony O'Hora (ex-Onslaught, Praying Mantis) replaced Brown as lead vocalist in 2003. Ian Gibbons came back for a third stint as fill-in keyboardist in June 2005 for a gig in the Faroe Islands. O'Hora decided to split to take a teaching job in late 2005. Grant then jumped from keyboards to lead vocals and bass as Phil Lanzon returned on keyboards for a tour of Russia and Germany in October/November. New singer Mark Thompson Smith (ex-Praying Mantis) joined in November 2005 for some Swedish gigs, while Jo Burt (ex-Black Sabbath) was temporary bass player. Tony Mills (ex-Shy) was slated to be Sweet's new singer in early 2006 but failed to work out and left after six shows in Denmark. At this point, O'Hora came back as fill in front man and then Grant did another turn himself as the singer/bassist (Steve Mann depped on keyboards) until the group finally landed a new permanent front man when Peter Lincoln (ex-Sailor) arrived in July 2006. The line-up then consisted of Scott, Bisland, Grant and Lincoln.
Scott produced the Suzi Quatro album Back to the Drive, released in February 2006. March 2006 saw the U.S. release of his band's album Sweetlife.
In 2007 the group played in Germany, Belgium, Austria and Italy. In May of that year, the band played in Porto Alegre and Curitiba, Brazil, their first and only South American shows. The tour was called the 'Sweet Fanny Adams Tour'.
The band toured again in March 2008 under the name 'Sweet Fanny Adams Revisited Tour'. In May and June, Scott's Sweet were part of the "Glitz Blitz & 70s Hitz" tour of the UK alongside The Rubettes and Showaddywaddy.
In March and April 2010, Scott was absent from a couple of gigs due to ill health and Martin Mickels stood in. Scott revealed later that he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer and was treated at the Bristol Royal Infirmary. After a course of treatment and rest, he was back to full touring fitness. In 2010 the band played at venues in Europe and back at Bilston in October.
In March 2011 there was a short tour of Australia, Regal Theatre - Perth, and Clipsal 500, Adelaide with the Doobie Brothers. Also in 2011, Tony O'Hora came back to the group, this time as keyboardist, after Grant departed.
In March 2012 the band released a new album New York Connection. Recorded in England, it comprised 11 cover versions, including the 2011 single "Join Together" and one revamped original recording; the 1972 B-side "New York Connection". All the covers either featured 'bits and pieces' of Sweet hits or other artist songs, such as a "new version of the Ramones Blitzkrieg Bop [which] shared space with samples from ‘Ballroom Blitz,’ and a take on Hello’s New York Groove (made famous in the US by Ace Frehley) featured a sample from Jay-Z’s Empire State Of Mind along with other Sweet references."
On the eve of their March 2012 "Join Together" tour of Australia, the band undertook an acoustic performance of three tracks, "New York Groove-Empire State of Mind", "Blockbuster" and "Peppermint Twist", in front of a live audience at ABC Radio Studios in East Perth. Shows in Perth, Adelaide, Hobart, Geelong, Melbourne and Sydney featured tracks from the new album for the first time.
Paul Manzi joined Sweet on their 2014 Australian tour, replacing Tony O'Hora who was absent for personal reasons. Manzi played guitar, keyboard and undertook lead vocals on "Set Me Free" and "AC-DC" as the band performed shows in regional centres, including outback Western Australia, Darwin and far-north Queensland, NSW and Victoria during February and March. The band, with O'Hora back in the ranks, returned to Australia in September 2014 as the headlining act for "Rock The Boat 4". This was a cruise aboard the ship Rhapsody of the Seas which departed Sydney and took in New Caledonia and Vanuatu. The band played two gigs and various members guested with Australian veteran performers including Brian Cadd and Russell Morris and members of AC/DC, The Angels, Rose Tattoo and Skyhooks.
In June 2015 it was revealed that the band were going on an extensive tour of the UK in late 2015 and that this tour would probably be their last.
For the 2015 summer tour dates, Paul Manzi returned to sub for Peter Lincoln who left this online message to the fans: "There have been a few rumours going around this weekend, so . . . just to say that I am alive and well! The short explanation for my absence is that I need to rest my voice for a few weeks. We are lucky that our good friend Paul Manzi is able to step in, and Tony knows the role of bass player/singer, so the shows can go ahead, and they will be great! I look forward to being back on stage very soon."
Pete Lincoln duly resumed his role in the band and they continued with extensive live dates, known as the "Finale" tour in Germany.
In 2017 after Andy undertook a successful Australian visit with Suzi Quatro and Don Powell in the side outfit known as QSP, Sweet was again booked for an extensive European tour. In the years following both Tony O'Hora and Pete Lincoln departed the band. Paul Manzi returned as permanent lead vocalist, quitting the popular outfit Cats in Space to do so. Lee Small joined as bassist and backing vocalist. Former guitarist and keyboard player Steve Mann joined for a handful of shows as a special guest. During the COVID-19 pandemic the band recorded a new album of old tracks entitled Isolation Boulevard.
New Sweet, Brian Connolly's Sweet (1984–1997)
In 1984 Brian Connolly formed a new version of the Sweet without any of the other original members. Despite recurring ill health, Connolly toured the UK and Europe with his band, "Brian Connolly's Sweet", which was then renamed to "New Sweet". His most successful concerts were in West Germany, before and after reunification.
During 1987, Connolly met up again with Frank Torpey. Torpey later explained in interviews Connolly was trying to get a German recording deal. The two got on very well and Torpey subsequently invited Connolly to go into the recording studio with him, as an informal project. After much trepidation, Connolly turned up and the track "Sharontina" was recorded. This recording would not be released until 1998, appearing on Frank Torpey's album Sweeter.
By July 1990, plans were made for Connolly and his band to tour Australia in November. During the long flight to Australia, Connolly's health had suffered and he was hospitalised in Adelaide Hospital, allegedly for dehydration and related problems. The rest of the band played a show in Adelaide without him. After being released from the hospital, Connolly joined the other band members in Melbourne for a gig at the Pier Hotel, in Frankston. After several other shows, including one at the Dingley Powerhouse, Connolly and his band played a final date at Melbourne's Greek Theatre. It was felt Connolly's health was sufficient reason for the tour not to be extended, and some of the planned dates were abandoned. Connolly went back to England and his band appeared on The Bob Downe Christmas show on 18 December 1990.
During the early 1990s, Connolly played the European "oldies" circuit and occasional outdoor festivals in Europe with his band. On 22 March 1992, a heavy duty tape recorder was stolen from the band's van whilst at a gig in the Bristol Hippodrome with Mud. It contained demos of four new songs, totalling about 20 mixes.
Legal problems were going on in the background over the use of the Sweet name between Connolly and Andy Scott. Both parties agreed to distinguish their group's names to help promoters and fans. The New Sweet went back to being called Brian Connolly's Sweet and Andy Scott's version became Andy Scott's Sweet.
In 1994, Connolly and his band played in Dubai. He appeared at the Galleria Theatre, Hyatt Regency. He also performed in Bahrain.
By this time Connolly had healed the differences with Steve Priest and Mick Tucker, and was invited to the wedding of Priest's eldest daughter, Lisa. At the private function, for which Priest specially flew back to England, Priest and Connolly performed together.
In 1995, Connolly released a new album entitled Let's Go. His partner Jean, whom he had met a few years earlier, gave birth to a son. Connolly also performed in Switzerland that year.
On 2 November 1996 British TV Network Channel 4 aired a programme Don't Leave Me This Way, which examined Connolly's time as a pop star with the Sweet, the subsequent decline in the band's popularity, and its impact on Connolly and the other band members. The show revealed Connolly's ill health but also that he was continuing with his concert dates at Butlins. Connolly and his band had appeared at Butlins a number of times on tour during the early 1990s.
Connolly's final concert was at the Bristol Hippodrome on 5 December 1996, with Slade II and John Rossall's Glitter Band Experience.
Steve Priest's Sweet (2008–Present)
In January 2008, Steve Priest assembled his own version of the Sweet in Los Angeles. He enlisted a guitarist Stuart Smith and L.A. native Richie Onori, Smith's bandmate in Heaven & Earth, was brought in on drums. The keyboard spot was manned by ex-Crow and World Classic Rockers alumni Stevie Stewart. Front-man and vocalist Joe Retta was brought in to round out the line-up.
After an initial appearance on L.A. rock station 95.5 KLOS's popular Mark & Brian radio programme, the "Are You Ready Steve?" tour kicked off at the Whisky a Go Go in Hollywood on 12 June 2008. The band spent the next several months playing festivals and gigs throughout the U.S. and Canada, including Moondance Jam in Walker, Minnesota; headlining at the Rock N Resort Music Festival in North Lawrence, Ohio (near Canal Fulton); London, Ontario's Rock the Park; another headlining gig at Peterborough's Festival of Lights; the Common Ground Festival in Lansing, Michigan; and a benefit concert for victims of California's wildfires at Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego, California.
In January 2009, the Sweet presented at the concert industry's Pollstar Awards, and also played a short set at the Nokia Theatre where the event was held, marking the first time in the ceremony's history that a band performed at the show. In addition to local gigs at the House of Blues on L.A.'s Sunset Strip and Universal CityWalk, 2009 saw the band return to Canada for sold-out shows at the Mae Wilson Theater and Casino Regina, as well as the Nakusp Music Fest and Rockin' the Fields of Minnedosa in Minnedosa, Manitoba. U.S. festivals have included Minnesota's Halfway Jam, Rockin' the Rivers in Montana (with Pat Travers and Peter Frampton), and two late-summer shows at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk.
The new band recorded a cover version of the Beatles' "Ticket to Ride", which was included on Cleopatra Records' Abbey Road, a Fab Four tribute CD that was released on 24 March 2009.
A preview of the band's new CD Live in America, which was recorded live at the Morongo Casino, Resort & Spa in Cabazon, California on 30 August 2008, was featured on KLOS's "Front Row" programme on 12 April 2009. The CD, which was first sold at shows and via the band's on-line store, was released worldwide in an exclusive deal with Amazon.com on 21 July 2009. The release has garnered favourable reviews from The Rock n Roll Report, Classic Rock Revisited and Hard Rock Haven, among others.
In April 2010, the band released its first single on iTunes: an updated, hard rock version of the Beatles' "I Saw Her Standing There." Performances on the 2010 summer tour included the Wildflower! Arts and Music Festival in Richardson, Texas; Las Vegas, Nevada's Fremont Street Experience; Rock N' America in Oklahoma City, OK; Summer Jam in Des Moines, Iowa; Jack FM's Fifth Show at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater in Los Angeles; an appearance at the Hard Rock Hotel in Biloxi, Mississippi; and the inaugural edition of the Thunder Mountain Rock Festival in Sawyer, North Dakota.
On 11 November 2010, it was announced that in May 2011 "Steve Priest's Sweet" had been booked to perform at a handful of European dates, but the gigs ultimately had to be cancelled in late January 2011 after it was learned that one of the promoters was a suspected swindler wanted by British law enforcement officials. As of February 2011, fans who purchased pre-sale tickets were still in the process of working through the administrative channels with PayPal and various banks and credit card issuers in order to try to reclaim their funds.
The band toured South America along with Journey during March 2011.
The band and their European fans then also got re-united quicker than thought, when the band got booked by a befriended female Belgian promoter. Two east German gigs, 27 and 28 May 2011, so in Borna and in Schwarzenberg Steve Priest's Sweet hit the European grounds. After more than 30 years, Steve Priest got a warm welcome back in Europe.
As of 12 August 2012, Stuart Smith resigned from the guitar post in order to dedicate more time to his "Heaven & Earth" project.
Beginning with the band's October 2012 appearance at the Festival Internacional Chihuahua in Mexico, Los Angeles-based guitarist Ricky Z. teamed up with Steve Priest and company for their live performances. In February 2013, this lineup returned to Casino Regina in Saskatchewan, Canada. Tour dates played in summer 2013 included Riverfest in Watertown, Wisconsin, the St. Clair, MI Riverfest, several additional dates in Canada, and a reprise of their appearances at both Moondance Jam in Walker, MN and Rockin' the Rivers in Three Forks, Montana. The band made some rare appearances on the U.S. east coast in July 2013, including a performance with David Johansen of the New York Dolls at the Bergen Performing Arts Center in Englewood, New Jersey. Singer Joe Retta was unavailable for these dates due to a scheduling conflict, so Tribe of Gypsies frontman Chas West, who has played with Jason Bonham's band and has experience subbing in such well-known bands as Foreigner, Lynch Mob and Diamond Head, stepped in to man the microphone for a series of shows in New York, New Jersey and Maryland.
On 27 August 2014, Steve Priest announced on the band's Facebook page that guitarist Mitch Perry had been tapped for the guitar slot. Most recently on tour with Lita Ford, Mitch's other credentials included his work with Michael Schenker Group, Asia Featuring John Payne, Edgar Winter, Billy Sheehan and David Lee Roth His first live appearance with Sweet was at the Rock the River festival in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan on 23 August 2014.
22 December 2017 saw the launch of the 50th anniversary tour at the Whisky a Go Go on L.A.'s Sunset Strip and the introduction of new singer Paul Zablidowski AKA "Paulie Z" former lead singer and guitarist of ZO2, children's band "The Z Brothers" and star of IFC show Z-Rock. Recently known as the host for local show "Ultimate Jam Night." Z replaced Joe Retta, who had served as the frontman for the Los Angeles incarnation of Sweet since its formation in 2008. Priest died on 4 June 2020.
Brief reunions and the deaths of Brian Connolly, Mick Tucker and Steve Priest
Steve Priest was asked to join Tucker and Scott for the 1985 Australian tour, but declined at the last moment.
Mike Chapman contacted Connolly, Priest, Scott, and Tucker in 1988, offering to finance a recording session in Los Angeles. As he remembers: "I met them at the airport and Andy and Mick came off the plane. I said, 'Where's Brian?' They said, 'Oh, he's coming.' All the people had come off the plane by now. Then this little old man hobbled towards us. He was shaking, and had a ghostly white face. I thought, 'Oh, Jesus Christ.' It was horrifying." Reworked studio versions of "Action" and "The Ballroom Blitz" were recorded, but it became clear that Connolly's voice and physical health had made Sweet's original member comeback too difficult to promote commercially. Consequently, the reunion attempt was aborted.
In 1990 this line-up was again reunited for the promotion of a music documentary entitled Sweet's Ballroom Blitz. This UK video release, which contained UK television performances from the 1970s and current-day interviews, was released at Tower Records, London. Sweet was interviewed by Power Hour, Super Channel, and spoke of a possible reunion.
Brian Connolly died at the age of 51 on 9 February 1997, from liver failure and repeated heart attacks, attributed to his abuse of alcohol in the 1970s and early 1980s. Mick Tucker died on 14 February 2002 from leukemia, at the age of 54. On 4 June 2020 it was announced that Steve Priest had died. It left Andy Scott as the sole living member of Sweet's 'classic lineup'.
Later years
Two versions of The Sweet were active with original members: "Andy Scott's Sweet", who frequently tour across Europe as Sweet and makes occasional sojourns to other markets including regular visits to Australia, and "Steve Priest's Sweet" who toured the US and Canada.
On 28 April 2009, Shout! Factory released a two-disc, career-spanning greatest hits album called Action: The Sweet Anthology. It received a four-star (out of five) rating in Rolling Stone.
In September 2009 Ace Frehley released his version of "Fox on the Run" on his album Anomaly.
In an October 2012 appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live, Axl Rose, lead singer of Guns N' Roses, referenced Sweet as one of his favourite bands growing up along with fellow British band Queen.
In April 2016, the chart topping song (1973), "The Ballroom Blitz" was featured in a trailer for Suicide Squad.
In December 2016, their single "Fox on the Run" (1975) was featured in a trailer for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.
In 2019, the songs "Fox on the Run" and "Set Me Free" were featured in an episode of Jamie Johnson.
Personnel
Original band
Classic lineup
Brian Connolly – lead vocals, percussion, synthesizer, acoustic guitar (1968–1978; died 1997)
Steve Priest – bass, backing and lead vocals (1968–1981; died 2020)
Mick Tucker – drums, percussion, backing and lead vocals (1968–1981; died 2002)
Andy Scott – guitars, keyboards, synthesizers, piano, backing and lead vocals (1970–1981)
Early members
Frank Torpey – guitars (1968–1969)
Mick Stewart – guitars (1969–1970)
Touring musicians
Gary Moberley – keyboards, synthesizers, piano (1978–1981)
Nico Ramsden – guitar (1978)
Ray McRiner – guitar (1979)
Andy Scott’s Sweet
Current members
Andy Scott – guitars, keyboards, synthesizers, piano, backing and lead vocals (1985–present)
Bruce Bisland – drums, backing vocals (1992–present)
Paul Manzi – lead vocals (2019–present; substitute appearances in 2014 and 2015)
Lee Small – bass, backing vocals (2019–present)
Former members
Mick Tucker – drums, backing vocals (1985–1991; died 2002)
Paul Mario Day – lead vocals (1985–1989)
Phil Lanzon – keyboards, piano, backing vocals (1985–1989; 2005—2006)
Mal McNulty – bass, lead and backing vocals (1985–1995)
Jeff Brown – bass, lead and backing vocals (1989–2003)
Steve Mann – keyboards, guitars, backing vocals (1989-1996)
Bodo Schopf – drums, backing vocals (1991–1992)
Chad Brown — lead vocals (1995–1998)
Steve Grant — keyboards, piano, backing vocals (1996–2005, 2006–2011); lead vocals, bass (2005–2006)
Tony O’Hora – lead and backing vocals, bass (2003–2005, 2006, 2011–2019), guitars, keyboards (2011–2019)
Peter Lincoln – bass, lead and backing vocals (2006–2019)
Timeline
Discography
Funny How Sweet Co-Co Can Be (1971)
Sweet Fanny Adams (1974)
Desolation Boulevard (1974)
Give Us a Wink (1976)
Off the Record (1977)
Level Headed (1978)
Cut Above the Rest (1979)
Waters Edge (titled Sweet VI with a different cover in the U.S.) (1980)
Identity Crisis (1982)
Sweetlife (2002) by Andy Scott's Sweet
Isolation Boulevard (2020) by Andy Scott's Sweet
References
Bibliography
(2008 eBook available at )
External links
Channel 4 documentary on The Sweet from 1996
English hard rock musical groups
English glam rock groups
Musical groups established in 1968
Capitol Records artists
Polydor Records artists
RCA Records artists
1968 establishments in the United Kingdom
Musical groups disestablished in 1982
1982 disestablishments in the United Kingdom
Musical groups reestablished in 1985
1985 establishments in the United Kingdom
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[
"White Witch is the title of the second studio album by the group Andrea True Connection. It was released in 1977. The album had two singles: and \"N.Y., You Got Me Dancing\" and \"What's Your Name, What's Your Number\". This was the last album released by the group and the vocalist Andrea True would release a new album as a solo release only in 1980.\n\nBackground and production\nAfter the success of her first album and the gold-certified single More, More, More, the band begun to prepeare for their second release. The album production included studio musicians with a new band assembled for the tour, the second line-up, which included future Kiss guitarist Bruce Kulick, it was also produce by the disco pioneers Michael Zager and Jerry Love.\n\nSingles\nThe first single of the album was \"N.Y., You Got Me Dancing\", it was released in 1977 and became True's second biggest hit, reaching No. 27 on Billboard's pop chart, and #4 on the U.S. club chart, it also peaked #89 in the Canadian RPM's chart. \"What's Your Name, What's Your Number\" was released as the second and last single of the album (and also of the group) in 1978 and reached #9 on the U.S. club chart, #34 in the UK and #56 on the Billboard Hot 100\n\nCritical reception\n\nThe album received mixed reviews from music critics. Alex Henderson from the Allmusic website gave the album two and a half stars out of five in a mixed review which he wrote that \"while White Witch isn't a bad album, it falls short of the excellence her first album, More, More, More.\" He also stated that there are a few gems in the album \"including the Michael Zager-produced \"What's Your Name, What's Your Number\" and the exuberant, Gregg Diamond-produced \"N.Y., You Got Me Dancing\"\" according to him they're both \"exercises in unapologetically campy fun.\" He concluded that the album \"LP is strictly for diehard disco collectors.\"\n\nTrack listing\nsource:\n\nReferences\n\n1977 albums\nAndrea True albums\nBuddah Records albums",
"House of Lords is the fourth album by Lords of the Underground, their first album in eight years. The album was released on August 21, 2007 for Affluent Records and was produced by Marley Marl, K-Def and DJ Lord Jazz. Like the group's previous album Resurrection the album received very little promotion and was a commercial failure, and it did not make it to the Billboard charts nor did it produce any hit singles.\n\nTrack listing\n\"Intro\"- 0:44\n\"I Love Hip Hop\"- 3:14\n\"Fab 3\"- 3:22\n\"English Mami\"- 3:38\n\"Yes Were Fresh\"- 3:20\n\"Belly of the Beast\"- 3:53\n\"Hum It Out\"- 3:22\n\"Slick Talk\"- 3:25\n\"Say My Name\"- 3:54\n\"No Pass\"- 2:37\n\"To Love Me\"- 4:02\n\"The Clinic\"- 3:32\n\"Certified\"- 2:47\n\"What Yall Wanna Know\"- 3:26\n\"What Is an MC\"- 3:21\n\"Remember Me\"- 3:39\n\nLords of the Underground albums\n2007 albums"
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"The Sweet",
"First album",
"What was the name of their first album?",
"Funny How Sweet Co-Co Can Be,"
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C_e0dc93e73be04cf2b157df3e12cc2286_0
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Who produced their first album?
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Who produced The Sweet's first album, Funny How Sweet Co-Co Can Be?
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The Sweet
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The Sweet made their UK television debut in December 1970 on a pop show called Lift Off, performing the song "Funny Funny". A management deal was signed with the aforementioned songwriting team of Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman. Phil Wainman resumed his collaboration with Sweet, as executive producer. This management deal also included a worldwide (the U.S. excepted) record contract with RCA Records (in the United States and Canada Bell Records issued the group's music until late 1973; followed by Capitol Records). In March 1971 RCA issued "Funny Funny", written by Chinn and Chapman, which became the group's first international hit, climbing to the Top 20 on many of the world's charts. EMI reissued their 1970 single "All You'll Ever Get from Me" (May 1971) and it again failed to chart. Their next RCA release "Co-Co" (June 1971) went to number two in the U.K. and their follow up single, "Alexander Graham Bell" (October 1971), only went to #33. These tracks still featured session musicians on the instruments with the quartet providing only the vocals. The Sweet's first full LP album, Funny How Sweet Co-Co Can Be, was released in November 1971. A collection of the band's recent singles supplemented by some new Chinn/Chapman tunes (including "Chop Chop" and "Tom Tom Turnaround") and pop covers (such as the Lovin' Spoonful's "Daydream" and the Supremes' "Reflections"), the album, recorded at Nova Studios in London, was produced by Phil Wainman and engineered by Richard Dodd and Eric Holland. It was not a serious contender on the charts. Their albums' failure to match the success of their singles was a problem that would plague the band throughout their career. CANNOTANSWER
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Phil Wainman
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The Sweet, sometimes also shortened to just Sweet, are a British glam rock band that rose to worldwide fame in the 1970s. Their best known line-up consisted of lead vocalist Brian Connolly, bass player Steve Priest, guitarist Andy Scott, and drummer Mick Tucker. The group was originally called The Sweetshop.
The band was formed in London in 1968 and achieved their first hit, "Funny Funny", in 1971 after teaming up with songwriters Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman and record producer Phil Wainman. During 1971 and 1972, their musical style followed a marked progression from the Archies-like bubblegum style of "Funny Funny" to a Who-influenced hard rock style supplemented by a striking use of high-pitched backing vocals.
The band first achieved success in the UK charts, with thirteen Top 20 hits during the 1970s alone, with "Block Buster!" (1973) topping the chart, followed by three consecutive number two hits in "Hell Raiser" (1973), "The Ballroom Blitz" (1973) and "Teenage Rampage" (1974). The band turned to a more hard rock style with their mid-career singles, like 1974's "Turn It Down". "Fox on the Run" (1975) also reached number two on the UK charts. These results were topped in West Germany and other countries on the European mainland. They also achieved success and popularity in the US with the top ten hits "Little Willy", "The Ballroom Blitz", "Fox on the Run", and "Love is Like Oxygen".
The Sweet had their last international success in 1978 with "Love Is Like Oxygen". Connolly left the group in 1979 to start a solo career and the remaining members continued as a trio until disbanding in 1981. From the mid-1980s, Scott, Connolly and Priest each played with their own versions of Sweet at different times. Connolly died in 1997, Tucker in 2002 and Priest in 2020. Andy Scott is still active with his version of the band. Sweet have since sold over 35 million albums worldwide.
History
Origins
Sweet's origins can be traced back to British soul band Wainwright's Gentlemen. Mark Lay's history of that band states they formed around 1962 and were initially known as Unit 4. Founding members included Chris Wright (vocals), Jan Frewer (bass), with Jim Searle and Alfred Fripp on guitars. Phil Kenton joined on drums as the band changed its name to Wainwright's Gentlemen (due to there being another band known as Unit 4). Managed by Frewer's father, the band performed in the Hayes, Harrow and Wembley area. By 1964 the group was also playing in London, including at the Saint Germain Club on Poland Street.
In January 1964 the band came fifth in a national beat group contest, with finals held at the Lyceum Strand on 4 May 1964. Highlights of the show were presented on BBC1 by Alan Freeman. Chris Wright left the line-up in late 1964 and was replaced by Ian Gillan. A female vocalist named Ann Cully soon joined the band. Mick Tucker, from Ruislip, joined on drums replacing Phil Kenton. The band recorded a number of tracks including a cover of the Coasters-Hollies hit "Ain't That Just Like Me", which was probably recorded at Jackson Sound Studios in Rickmansworth. The track includes Gillan on vocals, Tucker on drums and, according to band bassist Jan Frewer, is thought to have been recorded in 1965. Gillan quit in May 1965 to join Episode Six, and later, Deep Purple. Cully remained as vocalist before departing some time later. Gillan's and Cully's eventual replacement, in late 1966, was Scots-born vocalist Brian Connolly, who hailed more recently from Harefield. Tony Hall had joined on saxophone and vocals and when Fripp left he was replaced by Gordon Fairminer. Fairminer's position was eventually assumed by Frank Torpey (born Frank Edward Torpey, 30 April 1945, Kilburn, North West London) - a schoolfriend of Tucker's who had just left West London group The Tribe (aka The Dream). Torpey only lasted a few months, and in late 1967 Robin Box (born 19 June 1944) took his place. Searle, regarded by many as the most talented musically, disappeared from the scene. Tucker and Connolly remained with Wainwright's Gentlemen until January 1968. Tucker was replaced by Roger Hills. When the Gentlemen eventually broke up, Hills and Box joined White Plains who eventually scored a big hit with "My Baby Loves Lovin'".
Early years
In January 1968 Connolly and Tucker formed a new band calling themselves The Sweetshop. They recruited bass guitarist and vocalist Steve Priest from a local band called The Army. Priest had previously played with mid-'60s band the Countdowns who had been produced and recorded by Joe Meek. Frank Torpey was again recruited to play guitar. The quartet made its public debut at the Pavilion in Hemel Hempstead on 9 March 1968 and soon developed a following on the pub circuit, which led to a contract with Fontana Records. At the time, another UK band released a single under the same name Sweetshop, so the band abbreviated their moniker to Sweet. The band was managed by Paul Nicholas, who later went on to star in Hair. Nicholas worked with record producer Phil Wainman at Mellin Music Publishing and recommended the band to him. Their debut single "Slow Motion" (July 1968), produced by Wainman, and released on Fontana, failed to chart and owing to its rarity now sells for several hundred pounds when auctioned. Sweet were released from the recording contract and Frank Torpey left. In his autobiography Are You Ready Steve, Priest said that Gordon Fairminer was approached to play for them when Torpey decided to leave Sweet after a gig at Playhouse Theatre Walton-on-Thames on 5 July 1969 but turned the job down as he wanted to concentrate on other interests.
New line-up and new record deal
Guitarist Mick Stewart joined in 1969. Stewart had some rock pedigree, having previously worked with The (Ealing) Redcaps and Simon Scott & The All-Nite Workers in the mid-1960s. In late 1965, that band became The Phil Wainman Set when the future Sweet producer joined on drums and the group cut some singles with Errol Dixon. In early 1966, Stewart left and later worked with Johnny Kidd & The Pirates.
Sweet signed a new record contract with EMI's Parlophone label. Three bubblegum pop singles were released: "Lollipop Man" (September 1969), "All You'll Ever Get from Me" (January 1970), and a cover version of the Archies' "Get on the Line" (June 1970), all of which failed to chart. Stewart then quit, and was not replaced for some time. Connolly and Tucker had a chance meeting with Wainman, who was now producing, and knew of two aspiring songwriters, Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman, who were looking for a group to sing some demos they had written. Connolly, Priest, and Tucker provided the vocals on a track called "Funny Funny" which featured Pip Williams on guitar, John Roberts on bass, and Wainman on drums. The latter began offering the track to various recording companies. The band held auditions for a replacement guitarist and settled on Welsh-born Andy Scott. He had most recently been playing with Mike McCartney (brother of Paul) in the Scaffold. As a member of the Elastic Band, he had played guitar on two singles for Decca, "Think of You Baby" and "Do Unto Others". He also appeared on the band's lone album release, Expansions on Life, and on some recordings by the Scaffold. The band rehearsed for a number of weeks before Scott made his live debut with Sweet on 26 September 1970 at the Windsor Ballroom in Redcar.
Sweet initially attempted to combine diverse musical influences, including the Monkees and 1960s bubblegum pop groups such as the Archies, with more heavy rock-oriented groups such as the Who. Sweet adopted the rich vocal harmony style of the Hollies, with distorted guitars and a heavy rhythm section. This fusion of pop and hard rock would remain a central trademark of Sweet's music and prefigured the glam metal of a few years later.
Sweet's initial album appearance was on the budget label Music for Pleasure as part of a compilation called Gimme Dat Ding, released in December 1970. Sweet had one side of the record; the Pipkins (whose sole hit, "Gimme Dat Ding", gave the LP its name) had the other. Sweet's contribution consisted of the A- and B-sides of the band's three Parlophone singles. Andy Scott appears in the album cover shot, even though he did not play on any of the recordings.
First album
Sweet made their UK television debut in December 1970 on a pop show called Lift Off, performing the song "Funny Funny". A management deal was signed with the aforementioned songwriting team of Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman. Phil Wainman resumed his collaboration with Sweet, as executive producer. This management deal also included a worldwide record contract with RCA Records, the U.S. excepted: in the United States and Canada Bell Records issued the group's music until late 1973, followed by Capitol Records.
In March 1971 RCA issued "Funny Funny", written by Chinn and Chapman, which became the group's first international hit, climbing to the Top 20 on many of the world's charts. EMI reissued their 1970 single "All You'll Ever Get from Me" (May 1971) and it again failed to chart. Their next RCA release "Co-Co" (June 1971) went to number two in the U.K. and their follow up single, "Alexander Graham Bell" (October 1971), only went to No. 33. These tracks still featured session musicians on the instruments with the quartet providing only the vocals.
Sweet's first full LP album, Funny How Sweet Co-Co Can Be, was released in November 1971. A collection of the band's recent singles supplemented by some new Chinn/Chapman tunes (including "Chop Chop" and "Tom Tom Turnaround") and pop covers (such as the Lovin' Spoonful's "Daydream" and the Supremes' "Reflections"), the album, recorded at Nova Studios in London, was produced by Phil Wainman and engineered by Richard Dodd and Eric Holland. It was not a serious contender on the charts.
Initial success and rise to fame
February 1972 saw the release of "Poppa Joe", which reached number 1 in Finland and peaked at number 11 on the UK Singles Chart. The next two singles of that year, "Little Willy" and "Wig-Wam Bam", both reached No. 4 in the UK. "Little Willy" peaked at No. 3 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 after a re-issue in 1973, thus becoming the group's biggest American hit. Although "Wig-Wam Bam" remained largely true to the style of Sweet's previous recordings, the vocals and guitars had a harder, more rock-oriented sound, largely because it was the first Chinn-Chapman single on which only members of Sweet played the instruments. In January 1973 "Block Buster!" became Sweet's first single to reach number 1 on the UK chart, remaining there for five consecutive weeks. After their next single "Hell Raiser" was released in May and reached number 2 in the U.K., Sweet's U.S. label, Bell, released the group's first American album The Sweet in July 1973.
To promote their singles, Sweet made numerous appearances on U.K. and European TV shows such as Top of the Pops and Supersonic. In one performance of "Block Buster!" on Top of the Pops Christmas edition, Priest aroused complaints after he appeared replete in a German military uniform, Hitler moustache and displaying a swastika armband. The band also capitalised on the glam rock explosion, rivalling Gary Glitter, T. Rex, Queen, Slade, and Wizzard for outrageous stage clothing.
Despite Sweet's success, the relationship with their management was becoming increasingly tense. While they had developed a large fan-base among teenagers, Sweet were not happy with their 'bubblegum' image. Sweet had always composed their own heavy-rock songs on the B-sides of their singles to contrast with the bubblegum A-sides which were composed by Chinn and Chapman. During this time, Sweet's live performances consisted of B-sides, album tracks, and various medleys of rock and roll classics; they avoided older novelty hits like "Funny Funny" and "Poppa Joe". A 1973 performance at the Palace Theatre and Grand Hall in Kilmarnock ended in Sweet being bottled off stage; the disorder was attributed by some (including Steve Priest) to Sweet's lipstick and eye-shadow look, and by others to the audience being unfamiliar with the concert set (the 1999 CD release Live at the Rainbow 1973 documents a live show from this period). The incident would be immortalised in the hit "The Ballroom Blitz" (September 1973). In the meantime, Sweet's chart success continued, showing particular strength in the UK, Denmark, Germany, Sweden, and Australia. By the end of 1973, the band's name evolved from "The Sweet" to "Sweet". The change would be reflected in all of their releases from 1974 onward.
Forming a new image
By 1974, Sweet had grown tired of the management team of Chinn and Chapman, who wrote the group's major hits and cultivated the band's glam rock image. The group and producer Phil Wainman, assisted by engineer Peter Coleman, recorded the album Sweet Fanny Adams, which was released in April 1974. Sweet's technical proficiency was demonstrated for the first time on self-penned hard rock tracks such as "Sweet F.A." and "Set Me Free". Sweet also adopted a more conventional hard rock sound and appearance. Sweet Fanny Adams also featured compressed high-pitched backing vocal harmonies, which was a trend that continued on all of Sweet's albums.
During sessions for the album, Brian Connolly was injured in a fight in Staines High Street. His throat was badly injured and his ability to sing severely limited. Priest and Scott filled in on lead vocals on some tracks ("No You Don't", "Into The Night" and "Restless") and Connolly, under treatment from a Harley Street specialist, managed to complete the album. The band did not publicise the incident and told the press that subsequent cancelled shows were due to Connolly having a throat infection. This incident reportedly permanently compromised Connolly's singing ability, with his range diminished.
No previous singles appeared on the album, and none were released, except in Japan, New Zealand and Australia, where "Peppermint Twist/Rebel Rouser", apparently released by their record company without their knowledge, gained a No. 1 chart position in the latter. Sweet Fanny Adams would be Sweet's only non-compilation release to break the UK Albums Chart Top 40.
Sweet were invited by Pete Townshend to support the Who, who were playing at Charlton Athletic's football ground, The Valley in June 1974. However, Connolly's badly bruised throat kept them from fulfilling the role. Sweet had frequently cited the Who as being one of their main influences and played a medley of their tracks in their live set for many years.
Desolation Boulevard
Their third album, Desolation Boulevard, was released later in 1974, six months after Sweet Fanny Adams. By that stage, producer Phil Wainman had moved on and the album was produced by Mike Chapman. It was recorded in a mere six days and featured a rawer "live" sound. One track, "The Man with the Golden Arm", written by Elmer Bernstein and Sylvia Fine for the 1955 Frank Sinatra movie of the same name, featured drummer Mick Tucker performing an 8 and half minute solo (although this was not included in the U.S. release). This had been a staple of the band's live performance for years. The first single from the LP, the heavy-melodic "The Six Teens" (July 1974), was a Top 10 hit in the U.K. and still part of the amazing unbroken string of No. 1's in Denmark. However, the subsequent single release, "Turn It Down" (November 1974), reached only No. 41 on the U.K. chart and No. 2 in Denmark. "Turn It Down" received minimal airplay on UK radio and was banned by some radio stations because of certain lyrical content - "God-awful sound" and "For God sakes, turn it down" - which were deemed "unsuitable for family listening." The band resumed playing live shows nearly a full six months after Connolly's throat injury, with band and critics noting a rougher edge to his voice and a reduced range. The album also featured a group composition, "Fox On The Run", which was to be re-recorded months later.
The U.S. version of Desolation Boulevard was different from the U.K. version and included several songs from Sweet Fanny Adams in addition to the "Ballroom Blitz" and "Fox on the Run" singles (both of which peaked at No. 5 in the US). Side One of the album contained all Chapman-Chinn penned songs, while Side Two featured songs written and produced by Sweet.
Writing and producing their own material
In 1975 Sweet went back into the studio to re-arrange and record a more pop-oriented version of the track "Fox on the Run". Sweet's first self-written and produced single, "Fox on the Run" was released worldwide in March 1975 and became their biggest selling hit, reaching number one in Germany, Denmark, and South Africa, number two in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Norway and the Netherlands and number three in Austria and Switzerland. In Australia it not only made it to the top of the charts, it also became the biggest selling single of that year. The song reached number two in Canada and number five in the U.S. The release of this track marked the end of the formal Chinn-Chapman working relationship and the band stressed it was now fully self-sufficient as writers and producers.
The following single release, "Action" (July 1975), peaked at number 15 in the UK. Now confident in their own songwriting and production abilities, Sweet spent the latter half of 1975 in Musicland Studios in Munich, Germany, where they recorded the Give Us A Wink album with German sound engineer Reinhold Mack, who later recorded with Electric Light Orchestra and co-produced Queen. The new album release was deferred until 1976 so as not to stifle the chart success Desolation Boulevard was enjoying, peaking at number 25 in the US and number 5 in Canada.
With Give Us a Wink being held over, RCA issued a double album in Europe, Strung Up, in November. It contained one live disc, recorded in London in December 1973, and one disc compiling previously released singles (plus an unused track by Chinn and Chapman – "I Wanna Be Committed"). At the end of the year, Andy Scott released his first solo single, "Lady Starlight" b/w "Where D'Ya Go". Tucker played drums on both tracks.
Decline in popularity
January 1976 saw the release of the single "The Lies In Your Eyes", which made the Top 10 in Germany, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Australia, but only reached No. 35 on the U.K. charts. Sweet's first album to be fully produced and written by themselves, Give Us A Wink, was released in March 1976. A third single from the album, "4th Of July", was issued in Australia.
By this time, Sweet strove to build on their growing popularity in America with a schedule of more than fifty headline concert dates. Even though Give Us A Winks release was imminent, the band's set essentially promoted the US version of Desolation Boulevard plus the new US hit single "Action". During an appearance at Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in California on 24 March, Sweet played "All Right Now" with Ritchie Blackmore as a tribute to mark the death of Free guitarist Paul Kossoff, who was to have supported Sweet with his band Back Street Crawler. The US tour was not financially successful, with small audiences at many venues leading to the final half-dozen or so dates to be cancelled. Following the end of the tour, the band went on to Scandinavia and Germany. The band also spent a week at the Who's Ramport Studios in Battersea demoing material for a new album before abandoning that project and playing eight dates in Japan. By the end of the Japanese shows Connolly's extremely hoarse singing voice was manifest evidence of the demands of constant touring and the enduring after-effects of his 1974 assault.
Between October 1976 and January 1977, Sweet wrote and recorded new material at Kingsway Recorders and Audio International London studios for their next album. An advance single from the album, "Lost Angels", was only a hit in Germany, Austria and Sweden. A new album, Off the Record, was released in April. The next single from the album, "Fever of Love", represented the band heading in a somewhat more Europop hard rock direction, once again charting in Germany, Austria and Sweden, while reaching number 10 in South Africa. On this album, Sweet again worked with Give Us A Wink engineer Louis Austin, who would later engineer Def Leppard's On Through The Night 1980 début album. The band cancelled a US tour with emerging US rockers Aerosmith, did not play any live dates in support of the album and, in fact, did not play a single concert for the whole of 1977.
Level Headed and a change in style
Sweet left RCA in 1977 and signed a new deal with Polydor though it would not come into force until later in the year. Sweet's manager David Walker, from Handle Artists, negotiated the move which was reputed to be worth around £750,000. In the United States, Canada, and Japan, Capitol had issued Sweet's albums since 1974 and would continue to do so through to 1980.
The first Polydor album, Level Headed (January 1978), found Sweet experimenting by combining rock and classical sounds "a-la clavesin", an approach similar to Electric Light Orchestra's, and featured the single "Love Is Like Oxygen". Largely recorded during 1977 at Château d'Hérouville near Paris, France after a 30-day writing session at Clearwell Castle in the Forest Of Dean UK, the album represented a new musical direction, largely abandoning hard-rock for a more melodic pop style, interspersed with ballads accompanied by a 30-piece orchestra. The ballad, "Lettres D'Amour", featured a duet between Connolly and Stevie Lange (who would emerge as lead singer with the group Night in 1979).
With the addition of session and touring musicians keyboardist Gary Moberley and guitarist Nico Ramsden, Sweet undertook a short European and Scandinavian tour followed by a single British concert at London's Hammersmith Odeon on 24 February 1978. However, "Love Is Like Oxygen" (January 1978) was their last U.K., U.S., and German Top 10 hit. Scott was nominated for an Ivor Novello Award for co-composing the song. One more single from the album, "California Nights" (May 1978), featuring Steve Priest as the lead vocalist, peaked at number 23 on the German chart.
Departure of Brian Connolly
Between March and May 1978 Sweet extensively toured the US, as a support act for Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band. The tour included a disastrous date in Birmingham, Alabama on 3 May, during which visiting Capitol Records executives in the audience saw Brian Connolly give a drunken and incoherent performance that terminated early in the set with his collapse on stage, leaving the rest of the group to play on without him. The band returned briefly to Britain before resuming the second leg of their US tour in late May supporting other acts, including Foghat and Alice Cooper. Concluding the US tour in early July 1978, Brian's alcoholism and estrangement from the group was steadily becoming a greater issue.
In late October, having spent further time at Clearwell Castle to write for their next album, Sweet arrived at The Town House studio in Shepherd's Bush, London to complete and record, Cut Above the Rest (April 1979). Due to tensions between various members attributed to Connolly's health and diminishing status with the group, his long-time friend and fellow founding member, Mick Tucker, was tasked to produce Connolly's vocals. It was felt Tucker would extract a better performance than Scott from Connolly. A number of tracks were recorded featuring Connolly. However, these efforts were deemed unsatisfactory and Brian left the band on 2 November 1978.
On 23 February 1979, Brian Connolly's departure from Sweet was formally announced by manager David Walker. Publicly, Connolly was said to be pursuing a solo career with an interest in recording country rock.
Three piece Sweet
Sweet continued as a trio with Priest assuming the lion's share of lead vocals, though Scott and Tucker were also active in that role. The first single release for the trio was "Call Me". Guest keyboard player Gary Moberley continued to augment the group on stage. Guitarist Ray McRiner joined their touring line-up in 1979, with a small tour with Journey in the eastern United States and Cheap Trick in Texas in the spring and summer of '79 to support Cut Above The Rest (which was released in April 1979). McRiner would also contribute the songs "Too Much Talking" and the single "Give The Lady Some Respect" to the next Sweet album, Waters Edge (August 1980), which was recorded in Canada. In the US, Waters Edge was titled Sweet VI. It featured the singles "Sixties Man" and "Give The Lady Some Respect". Tragedy befell Mick Tucker when his wife Pauline drowned in the bath at their home on 26 December 1979. The band withdrew from live work for all of 1980.
One more studio album, Identity Crisis, was recorded during 1980–81 but was only released in West Germany and Mexico. Sweet undertook a short tour of the UK and performed their last live show at Glasgow University on 20 March 1981. Steve Priest then returned to the United States, where he had been living since late 1979. When Polydor released Identity Crisis in October 1982, the original Sweet had been disbanded for almost a year.
Re-formed versions (1984–present)
Andy Scott's Sweet (1985–present)
Andy Scott and Mick Tucker organised their own version of Sweet with Paul Mario Day (ex-Iron Maiden, More, Wildfire) on lead vocals, Phil Lanzon (ex-Grand Prix) on keyboards and Mal McNulty on bass. The band performed at the Marquee Club in London in February 1986, with the shows recorded and gaining release a few years later, bolstered by four new studio tracks including a cover of the Motown standard "Reach Out I'll Be There". This line-up also toured Australian and New Zealand pubs and clubs for more than three months in 1985 and for a similar period again in 1986. Singer Paul Day ended up marrying the band's Australian tour guide and relocating downunder. He continued with Sweet commuting back and forth to Europe for the group's tours until this proved to be too cumbersome. He departed in late 1988. As McNulty moved into the front man spot, Jeff Brown came in to take over bass early in 1989. Lanzon too went back and forth between Sweet and Uriah Heep during 1986-1988 before Heep's schedule grew too busy. Malcolm Pearson and then Ian Gibbons (who had played with The Kinks and The Records) both filled in for Lanzon until Steve Mann (Liar, Lionheart, McAuley Schenker Group) arrived in December 1989.
Tucker departed after a show in Lochau, Austria, on 5 May 1991. He later was diagnosed with a rare form of leukaemia. Three drummers, Andy Hoyler, Bobby Andersen and Bruce Bisland (Weapon, Wildfire, Praying Mantis), provided short-term relief before Bodo Schopf (McAuley Schenker Group) took over. They recorded an album during this period, simply titled A. Before the band embarked on the supporting tour for A in 1992, Bodo left and Bisland returned as permanent percussionist. Scott changed the band's name to 'Andy Scott's Sweet' after Tucker's departure but truncated it to simply 'The Sweet' once again after Tucker's death in 2002.
Mal McNulty, now lead vocalist, departed in 1994, though he would return briefly that year to fill in for Jeff Brown on bass (as he would again in 1995 as lead singer for a few dates while Rocky Newton subbed on bass). Sweet's former keyboard men Gary Moberley and Ian Gibbons also did fill-in jaunts with the group that year, as did Chris Goulstone. Chad Brown (ex-Lionheart; no relation to Jeff) was the new front man. Glitz Blitz and Hitz, a new studio album of re-recorded Sweet hits, was released during this period.
In 1996 Mann left to take a job in television and Gibbons came back for a short time before Steve Grant (ex-The Animals) became the permanent keyboardist. When Chad Brown quit in 1998 after developing a throat infection, Jeff Brown assumed lead vocals and bass duties. After this, the band was stable again for the next five years.
The mid-2000s would bring further confusing shake-ups and rotations. Tony O'Hora (ex-Onslaught, Praying Mantis) replaced Brown as lead vocalist in 2003. Ian Gibbons came back for a third stint as fill-in keyboardist in June 2005 for a gig in the Faroe Islands. O'Hora decided to split to take a teaching job in late 2005. Grant then jumped from keyboards to lead vocals and bass as Phil Lanzon returned on keyboards for a tour of Russia and Germany in October/November. New singer Mark Thompson Smith (ex-Praying Mantis) joined in November 2005 for some Swedish gigs, while Jo Burt (ex-Black Sabbath) was temporary bass player. Tony Mills (ex-Shy) was slated to be Sweet's new singer in early 2006 but failed to work out and left after six shows in Denmark. At this point, O'Hora came back as fill in front man and then Grant did another turn himself as the singer/bassist (Steve Mann depped on keyboards) until the group finally landed a new permanent front man when Peter Lincoln (ex-Sailor) arrived in July 2006. The line-up then consisted of Scott, Bisland, Grant and Lincoln.
Scott produced the Suzi Quatro album Back to the Drive, released in February 2006. March 2006 saw the U.S. release of his band's album Sweetlife.
In 2007 the group played in Germany, Belgium, Austria and Italy. In May of that year, the band played in Porto Alegre and Curitiba, Brazil, their first and only South American shows. The tour was called the 'Sweet Fanny Adams Tour'.
The band toured again in March 2008 under the name 'Sweet Fanny Adams Revisited Tour'. In May and June, Scott's Sweet were part of the "Glitz Blitz & 70s Hitz" tour of the UK alongside The Rubettes and Showaddywaddy.
In March and April 2010, Scott was absent from a couple of gigs due to ill health and Martin Mickels stood in. Scott revealed later that he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer and was treated at the Bristol Royal Infirmary. After a course of treatment and rest, he was back to full touring fitness. In 2010 the band played at venues in Europe and back at Bilston in October.
In March 2011 there was a short tour of Australia, Regal Theatre - Perth, and Clipsal 500, Adelaide with the Doobie Brothers. Also in 2011, Tony O'Hora came back to the group, this time as keyboardist, after Grant departed.
In March 2012 the band released a new album New York Connection. Recorded in England, it comprised 11 cover versions, including the 2011 single "Join Together" and one revamped original recording; the 1972 B-side "New York Connection". All the covers either featured 'bits and pieces' of Sweet hits or other artist songs, such as a "new version of the Ramones Blitzkrieg Bop [which] shared space with samples from ‘Ballroom Blitz,’ and a take on Hello’s New York Groove (made famous in the US by Ace Frehley) featured a sample from Jay-Z’s Empire State Of Mind along with other Sweet references."
On the eve of their March 2012 "Join Together" tour of Australia, the band undertook an acoustic performance of three tracks, "New York Groove-Empire State of Mind", "Blockbuster" and "Peppermint Twist", in front of a live audience at ABC Radio Studios in East Perth. Shows in Perth, Adelaide, Hobart, Geelong, Melbourne and Sydney featured tracks from the new album for the first time.
Paul Manzi joined Sweet on their 2014 Australian tour, replacing Tony O'Hora who was absent for personal reasons. Manzi played guitar, keyboard and undertook lead vocals on "Set Me Free" and "AC-DC" as the band performed shows in regional centres, including outback Western Australia, Darwin and far-north Queensland, NSW and Victoria during February and March. The band, with O'Hora back in the ranks, returned to Australia in September 2014 as the headlining act for "Rock The Boat 4". This was a cruise aboard the ship Rhapsody of the Seas which departed Sydney and took in New Caledonia and Vanuatu. The band played two gigs and various members guested with Australian veteran performers including Brian Cadd and Russell Morris and members of AC/DC, The Angels, Rose Tattoo and Skyhooks.
In June 2015 it was revealed that the band were going on an extensive tour of the UK in late 2015 and that this tour would probably be their last.
For the 2015 summer tour dates, Paul Manzi returned to sub for Peter Lincoln who left this online message to the fans: "There have been a few rumours going around this weekend, so . . . just to say that I am alive and well! The short explanation for my absence is that I need to rest my voice for a few weeks. We are lucky that our good friend Paul Manzi is able to step in, and Tony knows the role of bass player/singer, so the shows can go ahead, and they will be great! I look forward to being back on stage very soon."
Pete Lincoln duly resumed his role in the band and they continued with extensive live dates, known as the "Finale" tour in Germany.
In 2017 after Andy undertook a successful Australian visit with Suzi Quatro and Don Powell in the side outfit known as QSP, Sweet was again booked for an extensive European tour. In the years following both Tony O'Hora and Pete Lincoln departed the band. Paul Manzi returned as permanent lead vocalist, quitting the popular outfit Cats in Space to do so. Lee Small joined as bassist and backing vocalist. Former guitarist and keyboard player Steve Mann joined for a handful of shows as a special guest. During the COVID-19 pandemic the band recorded a new album of old tracks entitled Isolation Boulevard.
New Sweet, Brian Connolly's Sweet (1984–1997)
In 1984 Brian Connolly formed a new version of the Sweet without any of the other original members. Despite recurring ill health, Connolly toured the UK and Europe with his band, "Brian Connolly's Sweet", which was then renamed to "New Sweet". His most successful concerts were in West Germany, before and after reunification.
During 1987, Connolly met up again with Frank Torpey. Torpey later explained in interviews Connolly was trying to get a German recording deal. The two got on very well and Torpey subsequently invited Connolly to go into the recording studio with him, as an informal project. After much trepidation, Connolly turned up and the track "Sharontina" was recorded. This recording would not be released until 1998, appearing on Frank Torpey's album Sweeter.
By July 1990, plans were made for Connolly and his band to tour Australia in November. During the long flight to Australia, Connolly's health had suffered and he was hospitalised in Adelaide Hospital, allegedly for dehydration and related problems. The rest of the band played a show in Adelaide without him. After being released from the hospital, Connolly joined the other band members in Melbourne for a gig at the Pier Hotel, in Frankston. After several other shows, including one at the Dingley Powerhouse, Connolly and his band played a final date at Melbourne's Greek Theatre. It was felt Connolly's health was sufficient reason for the tour not to be extended, and some of the planned dates were abandoned. Connolly went back to England and his band appeared on The Bob Downe Christmas show on 18 December 1990.
During the early 1990s, Connolly played the European "oldies" circuit and occasional outdoor festivals in Europe with his band. On 22 March 1992, a heavy duty tape recorder was stolen from the band's van whilst at a gig in the Bristol Hippodrome with Mud. It contained demos of four new songs, totalling about 20 mixes.
Legal problems were going on in the background over the use of the Sweet name between Connolly and Andy Scott. Both parties agreed to distinguish their group's names to help promoters and fans. The New Sweet went back to being called Brian Connolly's Sweet and Andy Scott's version became Andy Scott's Sweet.
In 1994, Connolly and his band played in Dubai. He appeared at the Galleria Theatre, Hyatt Regency. He also performed in Bahrain.
By this time Connolly had healed the differences with Steve Priest and Mick Tucker, and was invited to the wedding of Priest's eldest daughter, Lisa. At the private function, for which Priest specially flew back to England, Priest and Connolly performed together.
In 1995, Connolly released a new album entitled Let's Go. His partner Jean, whom he had met a few years earlier, gave birth to a son. Connolly also performed in Switzerland that year.
On 2 November 1996 British TV Network Channel 4 aired a programme Don't Leave Me This Way, which examined Connolly's time as a pop star with the Sweet, the subsequent decline in the band's popularity, and its impact on Connolly and the other band members. The show revealed Connolly's ill health but also that he was continuing with his concert dates at Butlins. Connolly and his band had appeared at Butlins a number of times on tour during the early 1990s.
Connolly's final concert was at the Bristol Hippodrome on 5 December 1996, with Slade II and John Rossall's Glitter Band Experience.
Steve Priest's Sweet (2008–Present)
In January 2008, Steve Priest assembled his own version of the Sweet in Los Angeles. He enlisted a guitarist Stuart Smith and L.A. native Richie Onori, Smith's bandmate in Heaven & Earth, was brought in on drums. The keyboard spot was manned by ex-Crow and World Classic Rockers alumni Stevie Stewart. Front-man and vocalist Joe Retta was brought in to round out the line-up.
After an initial appearance on L.A. rock station 95.5 KLOS's popular Mark & Brian radio programme, the "Are You Ready Steve?" tour kicked off at the Whisky a Go Go in Hollywood on 12 June 2008. The band spent the next several months playing festivals and gigs throughout the U.S. and Canada, including Moondance Jam in Walker, Minnesota; headlining at the Rock N Resort Music Festival in North Lawrence, Ohio (near Canal Fulton); London, Ontario's Rock the Park; another headlining gig at Peterborough's Festival of Lights; the Common Ground Festival in Lansing, Michigan; and a benefit concert for victims of California's wildfires at Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego, California.
In January 2009, the Sweet presented at the concert industry's Pollstar Awards, and also played a short set at the Nokia Theatre where the event was held, marking the first time in the ceremony's history that a band performed at the show. In addition to local gigs at the House of Blues on L.A.'s Sunset Strip and Universal CityWalk, 2009 saw the band return to Canada for sold-out shows at the Mae Wilson Theater and Casino Regina, as well as the Nakusp Music Fest and Rockin' the Fields of Minnedosa in Minnedosa, Manitoba. U.S. festivals have included Minnesota's Halfway Jam, Rockin' the Rivers in Montana (with Pat Travers and Peter Frampton), and two late-summer shows at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk.
The new band recorded a cover version of the Beatles' "Ticket to Ride", which was included on Cleopatra Records' Abbey Road, a Fab Four tribute CD that was released on 24 March 2009.
A preview of the band's new CD Live in America, which was recorded live at the Morongo Casino, Resort & Spa in Cabazon, California on 30 August 2008, was featured on KLOS's "Front Row" programme on 12 April 2009. The CD, which was first sold at shows and via the band's on-line store, was released worldwide in an exclusive deal with Amazon.com on 21 July 2009. The release has garnered favourable reviews from The Rock n Roll Report, Classic Rock Revisited and Hard Rock Haven, among others.
In April 2010, the band released its first single on iTunes: an updated, hard rock version of the Beatles' "I Saw Her Standing There." Performances on the 2010 summer tour included the Wildflower! Arts and Music Festival in Richardson, Texas; Las Vegas, Nevada's Fremont Street Experience; Rock N' America in Oklahoma City, OK; Summer Jam in Des Moines, Iowa; Jack FM's Fifth Show at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater in Los Angeles; an appearance at the Hard Rock Hotel in Biloxi, Mississippi; and the inaugural edition of the Thunder Mountain Rock Festival in Sawyer, North Dakota.
On 11 November 2010, it was announced that in May 2011 "Steve Priest's Sweet" had been booked to perform at a handful of European dates, but the gigs ultimately had to be cancelled in late January 2011 after it was learned that one of the promoters was a suspected swindler wanted by British law enforcement officials. As of February 2011, fans who purchased pre-sale tickets were still in the process of working through the administrative channels with PayPal and various banks and credit card issuers in order to try to reclaim their funds.
The band toured South America along with Journey during March 2011.
The band and their European fans then also got re-united quicker than thought, when the band got booked by a befriended female Belgian promoter. Two east German gigs, 27 and 28 May 2011, so in Borna and in Schwarzenberg Steve Priest's Sweet hit the European grounds. After more than 30 years, Steve Priest got a warm welcome back in Europe.
As of 12 August 2012, Stuart Smith resigned from the guitar post in order to dedicate more time to his "Heaven & Earth" project.
Beginning with the band's October 2012 appearance at the Festival Internacional Chihuahua in Mexico, Los Angeles-based guitarist Ricky Z. teamed up with Steve Priest and company for their live performances. In February 2013, this lineup returned to Casino Regina in Saskatchewan, Canada. Tour dates played in summer 2013 included Riverfest in Watertown, Wisconsin, the St. Clair, MI Riverfest, several additional dates in Canada, and a reprise of their appearances at both Moondance Jam in Walker, MN and Rockin' the Rivers in Three Forks, Montana. The band made some rare appearances on the U.S. east coast in July 2013, including a performance with David Johansen of the New York Dolls at the Bergen Performing Arts Center in Englewood, New Jersey. Singer Joe Retta was unavailable for these dates due to a scheduling conflict, so Tribe of Gypsies frontman Chas West, who has played with Jason Bonham's band and has experience subbing in such well-known bands as Foreigner, Lynch Mob and Diamond Head, stepped in to man the microphone for a series of shows in New York, New Jersey and Maryland.
On 27 August 2014, Steve Priest announced on the band's Facebook page that guitarist Mitch Perry had been tapped for the guitar slot. Most recently on tour with Lita Ford, Mitch's other credentials included his work with Michael Schenker Group, Asia Featuring John Payne, Edgar Winter, Billy Sheehan and David Lee Roth His first live appearance with Sweet was at the Rock the River festival in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan on 23 August 2014.
22 December 2017 saw the launch of the 50th anniversary tour at the Whisky a Go Go on L.A.'s Sunset Strip and the introduction of new singer Paul Zablidowski AKA "Paulie Z" former lead singer and guitarist of ZO2, children's band "The Z Brothers" and star of IFC show Z-Rock. Recently known as the host for local show "Ultimate Jam Night." Z replaced Joe Retta, who had served as the frontman for the Los Angeles incarnation of Sweet since its formation in 2008. Priest died on 4 June 2020.
Brief reunions and the deaths of Brian Connolly, Mick Tucker and Steve Priest
Steve Priest was asked to join Tucker and Scott for the 1985 Australian tour, but declined at the last moment.
Mike Chapman contacted Connolly, Priest, Scott, and Tucker in 1988, offering to finance a recording session in Los Angeles. As he remembers: "I met them at the airport and Andy and Mick came off the plane. I said, 'Where's Brian?' They said, 'Oh, he's coming.' All the people had come off the plane by now. Then this little old man hobbled towards us. He was shaking, and had a ghostly white face. I thought, 'Oh, Jesus Christ.' It was horrifying." Reworked studio versions of "Action" and "The Ballroom Blitz" were recorded, but it became clear that Connolly's voice and physical health had made Sweet's original member comeback too difficult to promote commercially. Consequently, the reunion attempt was aborted.
In 1990 this line-up was again reunited for the promotion of a music documentary entitled Sweet's Ballroom Blitz. This UK video release, which contained UK television performances from the 1970s and current-day interviews, was released at Tower Records, London. Sweet was interviewed by Power Hour, Super Channel, and spoke of a possible reunion.
Brian Connolly died at the age of 51 on 9 February 1997, from liver failure and repeated heart attacks, attributed to his abuse of alcohol in the 1970s and early 1980s. Mick Tucker died on 14 February 2002 from leukemia, at the age of 54. On 4 June 2020 it was announced that Steve Priest had died. It left Andy Scott as the sole living member of Sweet's 'classic lineup'.
Later years
Two versions of The Sweet were active with original members: "Andy Scott's Sweet", who frequently tour across Europe as Sweet and makes occasional sojourns to other markets including regular visits to Australia, and "Steve Priest's Sweet" who toured the US and Canada.
On 28 April 2009, Shout! Factory released a two-disc, career-spanning greatest hits album called Action: The Sweet Anthology. It received a four-star (out of five) rating in Rolling Stone.
In September 2009 Ace Frehley released his version of "Fox on the Run" on his album Anomaly.
In an October 2012 appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live, Axl Rose, lead singer of Guns N' Roses, referenced Sweet as one of his favourite bands growing up along with fellow British band Queen.
In April 2016, the chart topping song (1973), "The Ballroom Blitz" was featured in a trailer for Suicide Squad.
In December 2016, their single "Fox on the Run" (1975) was featured in a trailer for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.
In 2019, the songs "Fox on the Run" and "Set Me Free" were featured in an episode of Jamie Johnson.
Personnel
Original band
Classic lineup
Brian Connolly – lead vocals, percussion, synthesizer, acoustic guitar (1968–1978; died 1997)
Steve Priest – bass, backing and lead vocals (1968–1981; died 2020)
Mick Tucker – drums, percussion, backing and lead vocals (1968–1981; died 2002)
Andy Scott – guitars, keyboards, synthesizers, piano, backing and lead vocals (1970–1981)
Early members
Frank Torpey – guitars (1968–1969)
Mick Stewart – guitars (1969–1970)
Touring musicians
Gary Moberley – keyboards, synthesizers, piano (1978–1981)
Nico Ramsden – guitar (1978)
Ray McRiner – guitar (1979)
Andy Scott’s Sweet
Current members
Andy Scott – guitars, keyboards, synthesizers, piano, backing and lead vocals (1985–present)
Bruce Bisland – drums, backing vocals (1992–present)
Paul Manzi – lead vocals (2019–present; substitute appearances in 2014 and 2015)
Lee Small – bass, backing vocals (2019–present)
Former members
Mick Tucker – drums, backing vocals (1985–1991; died 2002)
Paul Mario Day – lead vocals (1985–1989)
Phil Lanzon – keyboards, piano, backing vocals (1985–1989; 2005—2006)
Mal McNulty – bass, lead and backing vocals (1985–1995)
Jeff Brown – bass, lead and backing vocals (1989–2003)
Steve Mann – keyboards, guitars, backing vocals (1989-1996)
Bodo Schopf – drums, backing vocals (1991–1992)
Chad Brown — lead vocals (1995–1998)
Steve Grant — keyboards, piano, backing vocals (1996–2005, 2006–2011); lead vocals, bass (2005–2006)
Tony O’Hora – lead and backing vocals, bass (2003–2005, 2006, 2011–2019), guitars, keyboards (2011–2019)
Peter Lincoln – bass, lead and backing vocals (2006–2019)
Timeline
Discography
Funny How Sweet Co-Co Can Be (1971)
Sweet Fanny Adams (1974)
Desolation Boulevard (1974)
Give Us a Wink (1976)
Off the Record (1977)
Level Headed (1978)
Cut Above the Rest (1979)
Waters Edge (titled Sweet VI with a different cover in the U.S.) (1980)
Identity Crisis (1982)
Sweetlife (2002) by Andy Scott's Sweet
Isolation Boulevard (2020) by Andy Scott's Sweet
References
Bibliography
(2008 eBook available at )
External links
Channel 4 documentary on The Sweet from 1996
English hard rock musical groups
English glam rock groups
Musical groups established in 1968
Capitol Records artists
Polydor Records artists
RCA Records artists
1968 establishments in the United Kingdom
Musical groups disestablished in 1982
1982 disestablishments in the United Kingdom
Musical groups reestablished in 1985
1985 establishments in the United Kingdom
| true |
[
"Youth Is Wasted on the Young is the first studio album by the Danish band Scarlet Pleasure. It was released on May 13, 2016, around two years after their debut EP Mirage. It consist of 13 tracks recorded over two years, among other their debut single \"Windy\".The songs \"Sometimes\", \"Moments\" and \"Midnight Soldier\" on the album is produced by Om'Mas Keith who has produced for Jay Z and John Legend, and among other Frank Oceans album Channel Orange. The song \"Blow\" is produced by Ronni Vindahl. The rest of the album is produced by David Mørup.\n\nTrack listing\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\n2016 albums\nScarlet Pleasure albums",
"Hell of a Collection (stylized Hellofacollection, as one word) is the first compilation album by the Finnish band The Rasmus, released in 2001 by Warner Music Finland.\n\nThe band recorded it when they still were \"Rasmus\" (later they changed their name from \"Rasmus\" to \"The Rasmus\"). It is the first album that they made since Janne Heiskanen, the previous drummer who left the band, was replaced by Aki Hakala in 1998. It is composed of eighteen songs, nearly all of which are revamped versions of songs from their previous three albums. The exceptions are the final track, \"Liquid\" (Demo), which is a demo tape of their hit song \"Liquid\", and the songs \"F-F-F-Falling\" and \"Chill\" which were the first new songs released after Aki replaced Janne.\n\n\"Rakkauslaulu\" (Lovesong) is a B-Side of the single 1st (1995), and a non-album song.\n\n\"Life 705\" was originally released on the band's debut album Peep in 1996. A new version was made in 1999 and is available on the single \"Swimming with the Kids\".\n\nExcept for all the revamped and remixed versions of songs, the album did not contain any new tracks.\n\nIn 2004 the album was re-released with a different track list excluding the two songs from Into.\n\nNew logo\nThe band changed their logo (which earlier just said \"Rasmus\") to a new one with flames. This is the first release where their new logo appears on. It also appears on the album Into and all its singles. The logo was not used a long time though; in 2003 they changed it again to a \"leaf\" logo, which was used until their album, Black Roses.Later, in 2012, they changed it again to a \"bars\" logo, which was used in their most recent album The Rasmus and all its singles.\n\nTrack listing\n\n2001 version\n\nTracks 1-2 written by Lauri Ylönen, Eero Heinonen, Pauli Rantasalmi and Aki Hakala. Tracks 3-18 written by Lauri Ylönen, Eero Heinonen, Pauli Rantasalmi and Janne Heiskanen (except for number 12).\n\n \"F-F-F-Falling\" (Swedish remix) – 3:52 (later released on Into)\n \"Chill\" – 4:13 (later released on Into)\n \"Liquid\" – 4:17 (from the album Hell of a Tester)\n \"Every Day\" – 3:18 (from the album Hell of a Tester)\n \"City of the Dead\" – 3:22 (from the album Hell of a Tester)\n \"Help Me Sing\" – 3:24 (from the album Hell of a Tester)\n \"Playboys\" – 2:57 (from the album Playboys)\n \"Blue\" – 3:14 (from the album Playboys)\n \"Ice\" – 2:45 (from the album Playboys)\n \"Sophia\" – 2:42 (from the album Playboys)\n \"Wicked Moments\" – 2:56 (from the album Playboys)\n \"Ghostbusters\" (Ray Parker Jr.) – 3:35 (from the album Peep)\n \"Funky Jam\" – 2:11 (from the album Peep)\n \"Myself\" – 3:53 (from the album Peep)\n \"P.S.\" – 2:56 (from the album Peep)\n \"Rakkauslaulu\" – 3:35 (from the single 1st)\n \"Life 705\" (version '99) – 5:42 (from the single Swimming with the Kids)\n \"Liquid\" (demo) – 3:11\n\nProducers\nTrack 1–2 produced by Mikael Nord and Martin Hansen\nTrack 3 produced by The Rasmus and The Nose\nTrack 4–6 produced by The Rasmus and Teja Kotilainen\nTrack 7–11 produced by The Rasmus and Illka Herkman\nTrack 12–16 produced by The Rasmus and Teja Kotilainen\nTrack 17 produced by The Rasmus\n\n2004 version\n\n \"City of the Dead\" – 3:22 (from the album Hell of a Tester)\n \"Liquid\" – 4:17 (from the album Hell of a Tester)\n \"Every Day\" – 3:18 (from the album Hell of a Tester)\n \"Swimming with the Kids\" – 3:30 (from the album Hell of a Tester)\n \"Wellwell\" – 3:21 (from the album Playboys)\n \"Help Me Sing\" – 3:24 (from the album Hell of a Tester)\n \"Playboys\" – 2:57 (from the album Playboys)\n \"Blue\" – 3:14 (from the album Playboys)\n \"Ice\" – 2:45 (from the album Playboys)\n \"Sophia\" – 2:42 (from the album Playboys)\n \"Wicked Moments\" – 2:56 (from the album Playboys)\n \"Ghostbusters\" (Ray Parker Jr.) – 3:35 (from the album Peep)\n \"Funky Jam\" – 2:11 (from the album Peep)\n \"Myself\" – 3:53 (from the album Peep)\n \"P.S.\" – 2:56 (from the album Peep)\n \"Rakkauslaulu\" – 3:35 (from the single 1st)\n \"Life 705\" (version '99) – 5:42 (from the single Swimming with the Kids)\n \"Liquid\" (demo) – 3:11\n\nProducers\nTrack 1 produced by The Rasmus and Teja Kotilainen\nTrack 2 produced by The Rasmus and The Nose\nTrack 3–6 produced by The Rasmus and Teja Kotilainen\nTrack 7–11 produced by The Rasmus and Illka Herkman\nTrack 12–16 produced by The Rasmus and Teja Kotilainen\nTrack 17 produced by The Rasmus\n\nCharts and certifications\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\n|-\n\n|-\n\n|-\n\nCertifications\n\nReferences\n\n2001 albums\nThe Rasmus albums\n2001 greatest hits albums"
] |
[
"The Sweet",
"First album",
"What was the name of their first album?",
"Funny How Sweet Co-Co Can Be,",
"Who produced their first album?",
"Phil Wainman"
] |
C_e0dc93e73be04cf2b157df3e12cc2286_0
|
What year was their first album released?
| 3 |
What year was The Sweet's first album, Funny How Sweet Co-Co Can Be, released?
|
The Sweet
|
The Sweet made their UK television debut in December 1970 on a pop show called Lift Off, performing the song "Funny Funny". A management deal was signed with the aforementioned songwriting team of Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman. Phil Wainman resumed his collaboration with Sweet, as executive producer. This management deal also included a worldwide (the U.S. excepted) record contract with RCA Records (in the United States and Canada Bell Records issued the group's music until late 1973; followed by Capitol Records). In March 1971 RCA issued "Funny Funny", written by Chinn and Chapman, which became the group's first international hit, climbing to the Top 20 on many of the world's charts. EMI reissued their 1970 single "All You'll Ever Get from Me" (May 1971) and it again failed to chart. Their next RCA release "Co-Co" (June 1971) went to number two in the U.K. and their follow up single, "Alexander Graham Bell" (October 1971), only went to #33. These tracks still featured session musicians on the instruments with the quartet providing only the vocals. The Sweet's first full LP album, Funny How Sweet Co-Co Can Be, was released in November 1971. A collection of the band's recent singles supplemented by some new Chinn/Chapman tunes (including "Chop Chop" and "Tom Tom Turnaround") and pop covers (such as the Lovin' Spoonful's "Daydream" and the Supremes' "Reflections"), the album, recorded at Nova Studios in London, was produced by Phil Wainman and engineered by Richard Dodd and Eric Holland. It was not a serious contender on the charts. Their albums' failure to match the success of their singles was a problem that would plague the band throughout their career. CANNOTANSWER
|
November 1971.
|
The Sweet, sometimes also shortened to just Sweet, are a British glam rock band that rose to worldwide fame in the 1970s. Their best known line-up consisted of lead vocalist Brian Connolly, bass player Steve Priest, guitarist Andy Scott, and drummer Mick Tucker. The group was originally called The Sweetshop.
The band was formed in London in 1968 and achieved their first hit, "Funny Funny", in 1971 after teaming up with songwriters Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman and record producer Phil Wainman. During 1971 and 1972, their musical style followed a marked progression from the Archies-like bubblegum style of "Funny Funny" to a Who-influenced hard rock style supplemented by a striking use of high-pitched backing vocals.
The band first achieved success in the UK charts, with thirteen Top 20 hits during the 1970s alone, with "Block Buster!" (1973) topping the chart, followed by three consecutive number two hits in "Hell Raiser" (1973), "The Ballroom Blitz" (1973) and "Teenage Rampage" (1974). The band turned to a more hard rock style with their mid-career singles, like 1974's "Turn It Down". "Fox on the Run" (1975) also reached number two on the UK charts. These results were topped in West Germany and other countries on the European mainland. They also achieved success and popularity in the US with the top ten hits "Little Willy", "The Ballroom Blitz", "Fox on the Run", and "Love is Like Oxygen".
The Sweet had their last international success in 1978 with "Love Is Like Oxygen". Connolly left the group in 1979 to start a solo career and the remaining members continued as a trio until disbanding in 1981. From the mid-1980s, Scott, Connolly and Priest each played with their own versions of Sweet at different times. Connolly died in 1997, Tucker in 2002 and Priest in 2020. Andy Scott is still active with his version of the band. Sweet have since sold over 35 million albums worldwide.
History
Origins
Sweet's origins can be traced back to British soul band Wainwright's Gentlemen. Mark Lay's history of that band states they formed around 1962 and were initially known as Unit 4. Founding members included Chris Wright (vocals), Jan Frewer (bass), with Jim Searle and Alfred Fripp on guitars. Phil Kenton joined on drums as the band changed its name to Wainwright's Gentlemen (due to there being another band known as Unit 4). Managed by Frewer's father, the band performed in the Hayes, Harrow and Wembley area. By 1964 the group was also playing in London, including at the Saint Germain Club on Poland Street.
In January 1964 the band came fifth in a national beat group contest, with finals held at the Lyceum Strand on 4 May 1964. Highlights of the show were presented on BBC1 by Alan Freeman. Chris Wright left the line-up in late 1964 and was replaced by Ian Gillan. A female vocalist named Ann Cully soon joined the band. Mick Tucker, from Ruislip, joined on drums replacing Phil Kenton. The band recorded a number of tracks including a cover of the Coasters-Hollies hit "Ain't That Just Like Me", which was probably recorded at Jackson Sound Studios in Rickmansworth. The track includes Gillan on vocals, Tucker on drums and, according to band bassist Jan Frewer, is thought to have been recorded in 1965. Gillan quit in May 1965 to join Episode Six, and later, Deep Purple. Cully remained as vocalist before departing some time later. Gillan's and Cully's eventual replacement, in late 1966, was Scots-born vocalist Brian Connolly, who hailed more recently from Harefield. Tony Hall had joined on saxophone and vocals and when Fripp left he was replaced by Gordon Fairminer. Fairminer's position was eventually assumed by Frank Torpey (born Frank Edward Torpey, 30 April 1945, Kilburn, North West London) - a schoolfriend of Tucker's who had just left West London group The Tribe (aka The Dream). Torpey only lasted a few months, and in late 1967 Robin Box (born 19 June 1944) took his place. Searle, regarded by many as the most talented musically, disappeared from the scene. Tucker and Connolly remained with Wainwright's Gentlemen until January 1968. Tucker was replaced by Roger Hills. When the Gentlemen eventually broke up, Hills and Box joined White Plains who eventually scored a big hit with "My Baby Loves Lovin'".
Early years
In January 1968 Connolly and Tucker formed a new band calling themselves The Sweetshop. They recruited bass guitarist and vocalist Steve Priest from a local band called The Army. Priest had previously played with mid-'60s band the Countdowns who had been produced and recorded by Joe Meek. Frank Torpey was again recruited to play guitar. The quartet made its public debut at the Pavilion in Hemel Hempstead on 9 March 1968 and soon developed a following on the pub circuit, which led to a contract with Fontana Records. At the time, another UK band released a single under the same name Sweetshop, so the band abbreviated their moniker to Sweet. The band was managed by Paul Nicholas, who later went on to star in Hair. Nicholas worked with record producer Phil Wainman at Mellin Music Publishing and recommended the band to him. Their debut single "Slow Motion" (July 1968), produced by Wainman, and released on Fontana, failed to chart and owing to its rarity now sells for several hundred pounds when auctioned. Sweet were released from the recording contract and Frank Torpey left. In his autobiography Are You Ready Steve, Priest said that Gordon Fairminer was approached to play for them when Torpey decided to leave Sweet after a gig at Playhouse Theatre Walton-on-Thames on 5 July 1969 but turned the job down as he wanted to concentrate on other interests.
New line-up and new record deal
Guitarist Mick Stewart joined in 1969. Stewart had some rock pedigree, having previously worked with The (Ealing) Redcaps and Simon Scott & The All-Nite Workers in the mid-1960s. In late 1965, that band became The Phil Wainman Set when the future Sweet producer joined on drums and the group cut some singles with Errol Dixon. In early 1966, Stewart left and later worked with Johnny Kidd & The Pirates.
Sweet signed a new record contract with EMI's Parlophone label. Three bubblegum pop singles were released: "Lollipop Man" (September 1969), "All You'll Ever Get from Me" (January 1970), and a cover version of the Archies' "Get on the Line" (June 1970), all of which failed to chart. Stewart then quit, and was not replaced for some time. Connolly and Tucker had a chance meeting with Wainman, who was now producing, and knew of two aspiring songwriters, Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman, who were looking for a group to sing some demos they had written. Connolly, Priest, and Tucker provided the vocals on a track called "Funny Funny" which featured Pip Williams on guitar, John Roberts on bass, and Wainman on drums. The latter began offering the track to various recording companies. The band held auditions for a replacement guitarist and settled on Welsh-born Andy Scott. He had most recently been playing with Mike McCartney (brother of Paul) in the Scaffold. As a member of the Elastic Band, he had played guitar on two singles for Decca, "Think of You Baby" and "Do Unto Others". He also appeared on the band's lone album release, Expansions on Life, and on some recordings by the Scaffold. The band rehearsed for a number of weeks before Scott made his live debut with Sweet on 26 September 1970 at the Windsor Ballroom in Redcar.
Sweet initially attempted to combine diverse musical influences, including the Monkees and 1960s bubblegum pop groups such as the Archies, with more heavy rock-oriented groups such as the Who. Sweet adopted the rich vocal harmony style of the Hollies, with distorted guitars and a heavy rhythm section. This fusion of pop and hard rock would remain a central trademark of Sweet's music and prefigured the glam metal of a few years later.
Sweet's initial album appearance was on the budget label Music for Pleasure as part of a compilation called Gimme Dat Ding, released in December 1970. Sweet had one side of the record; the Pipkins (whose sole hit, "Gimme Dat Ding", gave the LP its name) had the other. Sweet's contribution consisted of the A- and B-sides of the band's three Parlophone singles. Andy Scott appears in the album cover shot, even though he did not play on any of the recordings.
First album
Sweet made their UK television debut in December 1970 on a pop show called Lift Off, performing the song "Funny Funny". A management deal was signed with the aforementioned songwriting team of Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman. Phil Wainman resumed his collaboration with Sweet, as executive producer. This management deal also included a worldwide record contract with RCA Records, the U.S. excepted: in the United States and Canada Bell Records issued the group's music until late 1973, followed by Capitol Records.
In March 1971 RCA issued "Funny Funny", written by Chinn and Chapman, which became the group's first international hit, climbing to the Top 20 on many of the world's charts. EMI reissued their 1970 single "All You'll Ever Get from Me" (May 1971) and it again failed to chart. Their next RCA release "Co-Co" (June 1971) went to number two in the U.K. and their follow up single, "Alexander Graham Bell" (October 1971), only went to No. 33. These tracks still featured session musicians on the instruments with the quartet providing only the vocals.
Sweet's first full LP album, Funny How Sweet Co-Co Can Be, was released in November 1971. A collection of the band's recent singles supplemented by some new Chinn/Chapman tunes (including "Chop Chop" and "Tom Tom Turnaround") and pop covers (such as the Lovin' Spoonful's "Daydream" and the Supremes' "Reflections"), the album, recorded at Nova Studios in London, was produced by Phil Wainman and engineered by Richard Dodd and Eric Holland. It was not a serious contender on the charts.
Initial success and rise to fame
February 1972 saw the release of "Poppa Joe", which reached number 1 in Finland and peaked at number 11 on the UK Singles Chart. The next two singles of that year, "Little Willy" and "Wig-Wam Bam", both reached No. 4 in the UK. "Little Willy" peaked at No. 3 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 after a re-issue in 1973, thus becoming the group's biggest American hit. Although "Wig-Wam Bam" remained largely true to the style of Sweet's previous recordings, the vocals and guitars had a harder, more rock-oriented sound, largely because it was the first Chinn-Chapman single on which only members of Sweet played the instruments. In January 1973 "Block Buster!" became Sweet's first single to reach number 1 on the UK chart, remaining there for five consecutive weeks. After their next single "Hell Raiser" was released in May and reached number 2 in the U.K., Sweet's U.S. label, Bell, released the group's first American album The Sweet in July 1973.
To promote their singles, Sweet made numerous appearances on U.K. and European TV shows such as Top of the Pops and Supersonic. In one performance of "Block Buster!" on Top of the Pops Christmas edition, Priest aroused complaints after he appeared replete in a German military uniform, Hitler moustache and displaying a swastika armband. The band also capitalised on the glam rock explosion, rivalling Gary Glitter, T. Rex, Queen, Slade, and Wizzard for outrageous stage clothing.
Despite Sweet's success, the relationship with their management was becoming increasingly tense. While they had developed a large fan-base among teenagers, Sweet were not happy with their 'bubblegum' image. Sweet had always composed their own heavy-rock songs on the B-sides of their singles to contrast with the bubblegum A-sides which were composed by Chinn and Chapman. During this time, Sweet's live performances consisted of B-sides, album tracks, and various medleys of rock and roll classics; they avoided older novelty hits like "Funny Funny" and "Poppa Joe". A 1973 performance at the Palace Theatre and Grand Hall in Kilmarnock ended in Sweet being bottled off stage; the disorder was attributed by some (including Steve Priest) to Sweet's lipstick and eye-shadow look, and by others to the audience being unfamiliar with the concert set (the 1999 CD release Live at the Rainbow 1973 documents a live show from this period). The incident would be immortalised in the hit "The Ballroom Blitz" (September 1973). In the meantime, Sweet's chart success continued, showing particular strength in the UK, Denmark, Germany, Sweden, and Australia. By the end of 1973, the band's name evolved from "The Sweet" to "Sweet". The change would be reflected in all of their releases from 1974 onward.
Forming a new image
By 1974, Sweet had grown tired of the management team of Chinn and Chapman, who wrote the group's major hits and cultivated the band's glam rock image. The group and producer Phil Wainman, assisted by engineer Peter Coleman, recorded the album Sweet Fanny Adams, which was released in April 1974. Sweet's technical proficiency was demonstrated for the first time on self-penned hard rock tracks such as "Sweet F.A." and "Set Me Free". Sweet also adopted a more conventional hard rock sound and appearance. Sweet Fanny Adams also featured compressed high-pitched backing vocal harmonies, which was a trend that continued on all of Sweet's albums.
During sessions for the album, Brian Connolly was injured in a fight in Staines High Street. His throat was badly injured and his ability to sing severely limited. Priest and Scott filled in on lead vocals on some tracks ("No You Don't", "Into The Night" and "Restless") and Connolly, under treatment from a Harley Street specialist, managed to complete the album. The band did not publicise the incident and told the press that subsequent cancelled shows were due to Connolly having a throat infection. This incident reportedly permanently compromised Connolly's singing ability, with his range diminished.
No previous singles appeared on the album, and none were released, except in Japan, New Zealand and Australia, where "Peppermint Twist/Rebel Rouser", apparently released by their record company without their knowledge, gained a No. 1 chart position in the latter. Sweet Fanny Adams would be Sweet's only non-compilation release to break the UK Albums Chart Top 40.
Sweet were invited by Pete Townshend to support the Who, who were playing at Charlton Athletic's football ground, The Valley in June 1974. However, Connolly's badly bruised throat kept them from fulfilling the role. Sweet had frequently cited the Who as being one of their main influences and played a medley of their tracks in their live set for many years.
Desolation Boulevard
Their third album, Desolation Boulevard, was released later in 1974, six months after Sweet Fanny Adams. By that stage, producer Phil Wainman had moved on and the album was produced by Mike Chapman. It was recorded in a mere six days and featured a rawer "live" sound. One track, "The Man with the Golden Arm", written by Elmer Bernstein and Sylvia Fine for the 1955 Frank Sinatra movie of the same name, featured drummer Mick Tucker performing an 8 and half minute solo (although this was not included in the U.S. release). This had been a staple of the band's live performance for years. The first single from the LP, the heavy-melodic "The Six Teens" (July 1974), was a Top 10 hit in the U.K. and still part of the amazing unbroken string of No. 1's in Denmark. However, the subsequent single release, "Turn It Down" (November 1974), reached only No. 41 on the U.K. chart and No. 2 in Denmark. "Turn It Down" received minimal airplay on UK radio and was banned by some radio stations because of certain lyrical content - "God-awful sound" and "For God sakes, turn it down" - which were deemed "unsuitable for family listening." The band resumed playing live shows nearly a full six months after Connolly's throat injury, with band and critics noting a rougher edge to his voice and a reduced range. The album also featured a group composition, "Fox On The Run", which was to be re-recorded months later.
The U.S. version of Desolation Boulevard was different from the U.K. version and included several songs from Sweet Fanny Adams in addition to the "Ballroom Blitz" and "Fox on the Run" singles (both of which peaked at No. 5 in the US). Side One of the album contained all Chapman-Chinn penned songs, while Side Two featured songs written and produced by Sweet.
Writing and producing their own material
In 1975 Sweet went back into the studio to re-arrange and record a more pop-oriented version of the track "Fox on the Run". Sweet's first self-written and produced single, "Fox on the Run" was released worldwide in March 1975 and became their biggest selling hit, reaching number one in Germany, Denmark, and South Africa, number two in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Norway and the Netherlands and number three in Austria and Switzerland. In Australia it not only made it to the top of the charts, it also became the biggest selling single of that year. The song reached number two in Canada and number five in the U.S. The release of this track marked the end of the formal Chinn-Chapman working relationship and the band stressed it was now fully self-sufficient as writers and producers.
The following single release, "Action" (July 1975), peaked at number 15 in the UK. Now confident in their own songwriting and production abilities, Sweet spent the latter half of 1975 in Musicland Studios in Munich, Germany, where they recorded the Give Us A Wink album with German sound engineer Reinhold Mack, who later recorded with Electric Light Orchestra and co-produced Queen. The new album release was deferred until 1976 so as not to stifle the chart success Desolation Boulevard was enjoying, peaking at number 25 in the US and number 5 in Canada.
With Give Us a Wink being held over, RCA issued a double album in Europe, Strung Up, in November. It contained one live disc, recorded in London in December 1973, and one disc compiling previously released singles (plus an unused track by Chinn and Chapman – "I Wanna Be Committed"). At the end of the year, Andy Scott released his first solo single, "Lady Starlight" b/w "Where D'Ya Go". Tucker played drums on both tracks.
Decline in popularity
January 1976 saw the release of the single "The Lies In Your Eyes", which made the Top 10 in Germany, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Australia, but only reached No. 35 on the U.K. charts. Sweet's first album to be fully produced and written by themselves, Give Us A Wink, was released in March 1976. A third single from the album, "4th Of July", was issued in Australia.
By this time, Sweet strove to build on their growing popularity in America with a schedule of more than fifty headline concert dates. Even though Give Us A Winks release was imminent, the band's set essentially promoted the US version of Desolation Boulevard plus the new US hit single "Action". During an appearance at Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in California on 24 March, Sweet played "All Right Now" with Ritchie Blackmore as a tribute to mark the death of Free guitarist Paul Kossoff, who was to have supported Sweet with his band Back Street Crawler. The US tour was not financially successful, with small audiences at many venues leading to the final half-dozen or so dates to be cancelled. Following the end of the tour, the band went on to Scandinavia and Germany. The band also spent a week at the Who's Ramport Studios in Battersea demoing material for a new album before abandoning that project and playing eight dates in Japan. By the end of the Japanese shows Connolly's extremely hoarse singing voice was manifest evidence of the demands of constant touring and the enduring after-effects of his 1974 assault.
Between October 1976 and January 1977, Sweet wrote and recorded new material at Kingsway Recorders and Audio International London studios for their next album. An advance single from the album, "Lost Angels", was only a hit in Germany, Austria and Sweden. A new album, Off the Record, was released in April. The next single from the album, "Fever of Love", represented the band heading in a somewhat more Europop hard rock direction, once again charting in Germany, Austria and Sweden, while reaching number 10 in South Africa. On this album, Sweet again worked with Give Us A Wink engineer Louis Austin, who would later engineer Def Leppard's On Through The Night 1980 début album. The band cancelled a US tour with emerging US rockers Aerosmith, did not play any live dates in support of the album and, in fact, did not play a single concert for the whole of 1977.
Level Headed and a change in style
Sweet left RCA in 1977 and signed a new deal with Polydor though it would not come into force until later in the year. Sweet's manager David Walker, from Handle Artists, negotiated the move which was reputed to be worth around £750,000. In the United States, Canada, and Japan, Capitol had issued Sweet's albums since 1974 and would continue to do so through to 1980.
The first Polydor album, Level Headed (January 1978), found Sweet experimenting by combining rock and classical sounds "a-la clavesin", an approach similar to Electric Light Orchestra's, and featured the single "Love Is Like Oxygen". Largely recorded during 1977 at Château d'Hérouville near Paris, France after a 30-day writing session at Clearwell Castle in the Forest Of Dean UK, the album represented a new musical direction, largely abandoning hard-rock for a more melodic pop style, interspersed with ballads accompanied by a 30-piece orchestra. The ballad, "Lettres D'Amour", featured a duet between Connolly and Stevie Lange (who would emerge as lead singer with the group Night in 1979).
With the addition of session and touring musicians keyboardist Gary Moberley and guitarist Nico Ramsden, Sweet undertook a short European and Scandinavian tour followed by a single British concert at London's Hammersmith Odeon on 24 February 1978. However, "Love Is Like Oxygen" (January 1978) was their last U.K., U.S., and German Top 10 hit. Scott was nominated for an Ivor Novello Award for co-composing the song. One more single from the album, "California Nights" (May 1978), featuring Steve Priest as the lead vocalist, peaked at number 23 on the German chart.
Departure of Brian Connolly
Between March and May 1978 Sweet extensively toured the US, as a support act for Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band. The tour included a disastrous date in Birmingham, Alabama on 3 May, during which visiting Capitol Records executives in the audience saw Brian Connolly give a drunken and incoherent performance that terminated early in the set with his collapse on stage, leaving the rest of the group to play on without him. The band returned briefly to Britain before resuming the second leg of their US tour in late May supporting other acts, including Foghat and Alice Cooper. Concluding the US tour in early July 1978, Brian's alcoholism and estrangement from the group was steadily becoming a greater issue.
In late October, having spent further time at Clearwell Castle to write for their next album, Sweet arrived at The Town House studio in Shepherd's Bush, London to complete and record, Cut Above the Rest (April 1979). Due to tensions between various members attributed to Connolly's health and diminishing status with the group, his long-time friend and fellow founding member, Mick Tucker, was tasked to produce Connolly's vocals. It was felt Tucker would extract a better performance than Scott from Connolly. A number of tracks were recorded featuring Connolly. However, these efforts were deemed unsatisfactory and Brian left the band on 2 November 1978.
On 23 February 1979, Brian Connolly's departure from Sweet was formally announced by manager David Walker. Publicly, Connolly was said to be pursuing a solo career with an interest in recording country rock.
Three piece Sweet
Sweet continued as a trio with Priest assuming the lion's share of lead vocals, though Scott and Tucker were also active in that role. The first single release for the trio was "Call Me". Guest keyboard player Gary Moberley continued to augment the group on stage. Guitarist Ray McRiner joined their touring line-up in 1979, with a small tour with Journey in the eastern United States and Cheap Trick in Texas in the spring and summer of '79 to support Cut Above The Rest (which was released in April 1979). McRiner would also contribute the songs "Too Much Talking" and the single "Give The Lady Some Respect" to the next Sweet album, Waters Edge (August 1980), which was recorded in Canada. In the US, Waters Edge was titled Sweet VI. It featured the singles "Sixties Man" and "Give The Lady Some Respect". Tragedy befell Mick Tucker when his wife Pauline drowned in the bath at their home on 26 December 1979. The band withdrew from live work for all of 1980.
One more studio album, Identity Crisis, was recorded during 1980–81 but was only released in West Germany and Mexico. Sweet undertook a short tour of the UK and performed their last live show at Glasgow University on 20 March 1981. Steve Priest then returned to the United States, where he had been living since late 1979. When Polydor released Identity Crisis in October 1982, the original Sweet had been disbanded for almost a year.
Re-formed versions (1984–present)
Andy Scott's Sweet (1985–present)
Andy Scott and Mick Tucker organised their own version of Sweet with Paul Mario Day (ex-Iron Maiden, More, Wildfire) on lead vocals, Phil Lanzon (ex-Grand Prix) on keyboards and Mal McNulty on bass. The band performed at the Marquee Club in London in February 1986, with the shows recorded and gaining release a few years later, bolstered by four new studio tracks including a cover of the Motown standard "Reach Out I'll Be There". This line-up also toured Australian and New Zealand pubs and clubs for more than three months in 1985 and for a similar period again in 1986. Singer Paul Day ended up marrying the band's Australian tour guide and relocating downunder. He continued with Sweet commuting back and forth to Europe for the group's tours until this proved to be too cumbersome. He departed in late 1988. As McNulty moved into the front man spot, Jeff Brown came in to take over bass early in 1989. Lanzon too went back and forth between Sweet and Uriah Heep during 1986-1988 before Heep's schedule grew too busy. Malcolm Pearson and then Ian Gibbons (who had played with The Kinks and The Records) both filled in for Lanzon until Steve Mann (Liar, Lionheart, McAuley Schenker Group) arrived in December 1989.
Tucker departed after a show in Lochau, Austria, on 5 May 1991. He later was diagnosed with a rare form of leukaemia. Three drummers, Andy Hoyler, Bobby Andersen and Bruce Bisland (Weapon, Wildfire, Praying Mantis), provided short-term relief before Bodo Schopf (McAuley Schenker Group) took over. They recorded an album during this period, simply titled A. Before the band embarked on the supporting tour for A in 1992, Bodo left and Bisland returned as permanent percussionist. Scott changed the band's name to 'Andy Scott's Sweet' after Tucker's departure but truncated it to simply 'The Sweet' once again after Tucker's death in 2002.
Mal McNulty, now lead vocalist, departed in 1994, though he would return briefly that year to fill in for Jeff Brown on bass (as he would again in 1995 as lead singer for a few dates while Rocky Newton subbed on bass). Sweet's former keyboard men Gary Moberley and Ian Gibbons also did fill-in jaunts with the group that year, as did Chris Goulstone. Chad Brown (ex-Lionheart; no relation to Jeff) was the new front man. Glitz Blitz and Hitz, a new studio album of re-recorded Sweet hits, was released during this period.
In 1996 Mann left to take a job in television and Gibbons came back for a short time before Steve Grant (ex-The Animals) became the permanent keyboardist. When Chad Brown quit in 1998 after developing a throat infection, Jeff Brown assumed lead vocals and bass duties. After this, the band was stable again for the next five years.
The mid-2000s would bring further confusing shake-ups and rotations. Tony O'Hora (ex-Onslaught, Praying Mantis) replaced Brown as lead vocalist in 2003. Ian Gibbons came back for a third stint as fill-in keyboardist in June 2005 for a gig in the Faroe Islands. O'Hora decided to split to take a teaching job in late 2005. Grant then jumped from keyboards to lead vocals and bass as Phil Lanzon returned on keyboards for a tour of Russia and Germany in October/November. New singer Mark Thompson Smith (ex-Praying Mantis) joined in November 2005 for some Swedish gigs, while Jo Burt (ex-Black Sabbath) was temporary bass player. Tony Mills (ex-Shy) was slated to be Sweet's new singer in early 2006 but failed to work out and left after six shows in Denmark. At this point, O'Hora came back as fill in front man and then Grant did another turn himself as the singer/bassist (Steve Mann depped on keyboards) until the group finally landed a new permanent front man when Peter Lincoln (ex-Sailor) arrived in July 2006. The line-up then consisted of Scott, Bisland, Grant and Lincoln.
Scott produced the Suzi Quatro album Back to the Drive, released in February 2006. March 2006 saw the U.S. release of his band's album Sweetlife.
In 2007 the group played in Germany, Belgium, Austria and Italy. In May of that year, the band played in Porto Alegre and Curitiba, Brazil, their first and only South American shows. The tour was called the 'Sweet Fanny Adams Tour'.
The band toured again in March 2008 under the name 'Sweet Fanny Adams Revisited Tour'. In May and June, Scott's Sweet were part of the "Glitz Blitz & 70s Hitz" tour of the UK alongside The Rubettes and Showaddywaddy.
In March and April 2010, Scott was absent from a couple of gigs due to ill health and Martin Mickels stood in. Scott revealed later that he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer and was treated at the Bristol Royal Infirmary. After a course of treatment and rest, he was back to full touring fitness. In 2010 the band played at venues in Europe and back at Bilston in October.
In March 2011 there was a short tour of Australia, Regal Theatre - Perth, and Clipsal 500, Adelaide with the Doobie Brothers. Also in 2011, Tony O'Hora came back to the group, this time as keyboardist, after Grant departed.
In March 2012 the band released a new album New York Connection. Recorded in England, it comprised 11 cover versions, including the 2011 single "Join Together" and one revamped original recording; the 1972 B-side "New York Connection". All the covers either featured 'bits and pieces' of Sweet hits or other artist songs, such as a "new version of the Ramones Blitzkrieg Bop [which] shared space with samples from ‘Ballroom Blitz,’ and a take on Hello’s New York Groove (made famous in the US by Ace Frehley) featured a sample from Jay-Z’s Empire State Of Mind along with other Sweet references."
On the eve of their March 2012 "Join Together" tour of Australia, the band undertook an acoustic performance of three tracks, "New York Groove-Empire State of Mind", "Blockbuster" and "Peppermint Twist", in front of a live audience at ABC Radio Studios in East Perth. Shows in Perth, Adelaide, Hobart, Geelong, Melbourne and Sydney featured tracks from the new album for the first time.
Paul Manzi joined Sweet on their 2014 Australian tour, replacing Tony O'Hora who was absent for personal reasons. Manzi played guitar, keyboard and undertook lead vocals on "Set Me Free" and "AC-DC" as the band performed shows in regional centres, including outback Western Australia, Darwin and far-north Queensland, NSW and Victoria during February and March. The band, with O'Hora back in the ranks, returned to Australia in September 2014 as the headlining act for "Rock The Boat 4". This was a cruise aboard the ship Rhapsody of the Seas which departed Sydney and took in New Caledonia and Vanuatu. The band played two gigs and various members guested with Australian veteran performers including Brian Cadd and Russell Morris and members of AC/DC, The Angels, Rose Tattoo and Skyhooks.
In June 2015 it was revealed that the band were going on an extensive tour of the UK in late 2015 and that this tour would probably be their last.
For the 2015 summer tour dates, Paul Manzi returned to sub for Peter Lincoln who left this online message to the fans: "There have been a few rumours going around this weekend, so . . . just to say that I am alive and well! The short explanation for my absence is that I need to rest my voice for a few weeks. We are lucky that our good friend Paul Manzi is able to step in, and Tony knows the role of bass player/singer, so the shows can go ahead, and they will be great! I look forward to being back on stage very soon."
Pete Lincoln duly resumed his role in the band and they continued with extensive live dates, known as the "Finale" tour in Germany.
In 2017 after Andy undertook a successful Australian visit with Suzi Quatro and Don Powell in the side outfit known as QSP, Sweet was again booked for an extensive European tour. In the years following both Tony O'Hora and Pete Lincoln departed the band. Paul Manzi returned as permanent lead vocalist, quitting the popular outfit Cats in Space to do so. Lee Small joined as bassist and backing vocalist. Former guitarist and keyboard player Steve Mann joined for a handful of shows as a special guest. During the COVID-19 pandemic the band recorded a new album of old tracks entitled Isolation Boulevard.
New Sweet, Brian Connolly's Sweet (1984–1997)
In 1984 Brian Connolly formed a new version of the Sweet without any of the other original members. Despite recurring ill health, Connolly toured the UK and Europe with his band, "Brian Connolly's Sweet", which was then renamed to "New Sweet". His most successful concerts were in West Germany, before and after reunification.
During 1987, Connolly met up again with Frank Torpey. Torpey later explained in interviews Connolly was trying to get a German recording deal. The two got on very well and Torpey subsequently invited Connolly to go into the recording studio with him, as an informal project. After much trepidation, Connolly turned up and the track "Sharontina" was recorded. This recording would not be released until 1998, appearing on Frank Torpey's album Sweeter.
By July 1990, plans were made for Connolly and his band to tour Australia in November. During the long flight to Australia, Connolly's health had suffered and he was hospitalised in Adelaide Hospital, allegedly for dehydration and related problems. The rest of the band played a show in Adelaide without him. After being released from the hospital, Connolly joined the other band members in Melbourne for a gig at the Pier Hotel, in Frankston. After several other shows, including one at the Dingley Powerhouse, Connolly and his band played a final date at Melbourne's Greek Theatre. It was felt Connolly's health was sufficient reason for the tour not to be extended, and some of the planned dates were abandoned. Connolly went back to England and his band appeared on The Bob Downe Christmas show on 18 December 1990.
During the early 1990s, Connolly played the European "oldies" circuit and occasional outdoor festivals in Europe with his band. On 22 March 1992, a heavy duty tape recorder was stolen from the band's van whilst at a gig in the Bristol Hippodrome with Mud. It contained demos of four new songs, totalling about 20 mixes.
Legal problems were going on in the background over the use of the Sweet name between Connolly and Andy Scott. Both parties agreed to distinguish their group's names to help promoters and fans. The New Sweet went back to being called Brian Connolly's Sweet and Andy Scott's version became Andy Scott's Sweet.
In 1994, Connolly and his band played in Dubai. He appeared at the Galleria Theatre, Hyatt Regency. He also performed in Bahrain.
By this time Connolly had healed the differences with Steve Priest and Mick Tucker, and was invited to the wedding of Priest's eldest daughter, Lisa. At the private function, for which Priest specially flew back to England, Priest and Connolly performed together.
In 1995, Connolly released a new album entitled Let's Go. His partner Jean, whom he had met a few years earlier, gave birth to a son. Connolly also performed in Switzerland that year.
On 2 November 1996 British TV Network Channel 4 aired a programme Don't Leave Me This Way, which examined Connolly's time as a pop star with the Sweet, the subsequent decline in the band's popularity, and its impact on Connolly and the other band members. The show revealed Connolly's ill health but also that he was continuing with his concert dates at Butlins. Connolly and his band had appeared at Butlins a number of times on tour during the early 1990s.
Connolly's final concert was at the Bristol Hippodrome on 5 December 1996, with Slade II and John Rossall's Glitter Band Experience.
Steve Priest's Sweet (2008–Present)
In January 2008, Steve Priest assembled his own version of the Sweet in Los Angeles. He enlisted a guitarist Stuart Smith and L.A. native Richie Onori, Smith's bandmate in Heaven & Earth, was brought in on drums. The keyboard spot was manned by ex-Crow and World Classic Rockers alumni Stevie Stewart. Front-man and vocalist Joe Retta was brought in to round out the line-up.
After an initial appearance on L.A. rock station 95.5 KLOS's popular Mark & Brian radio programme, the "Are You Ready Steve?" tour kicked off at the Whisky a Go Go in Hollywood on 12 June 2008. The band spent the next several months playing festivals and gigs throughout the U.S. and Canada, including Moondance Jam in Walker, Minnesota; headlining at the Rock N Resort Music Festival in North Lawrence, Ohio (near Canal Fulton); London, Ontario's Rock the Park; another headlining gig at Peterborough's Festival of Lights; the Common Ground Festival in Lansing, Michigan; and a benefit concert for victims of California's wildfires at Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego, California.
In January 2009, the Sweet presented at the concert industry's Pollstar Awards, and also played a short set at the Nokia Theatre where the event was held, marking the first time in the ceremony's history that a band performed at the show. In addition to local gigs at the House of Blues on L.A.'s Sunset Strip and Universal CityWalk, 2009 saw the band return to Canada for sold-out shows at the Mae Wilson Theater and Casino Regina, as well as the Nakusp Music Fest and Rockin' the Fields of Minnedosa in Minnedosa, Manitoba. U.S. festivals have included Minnesota's Halfway Jam, Rockin' the Rivers in Montana (with Pat Travers and Peter Frampton), and two late-summer shows at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk.
The new band recorded a cover version of the Beatles' "Ticket to Ride", which was included on Cleopatra Records' Abbey Road, a Fab Four tribute CD that was released on 24 March 2009.
A preview of the band's new CD Live in America, which was recorded live at the Morongo Casino, Resort & Spa in Cabazon, California on 30 August 2008, was featured on KLOS's "Front Row" programme on 12 April 2009. The CD, which was first sold at shows and via the band's on-line store, was released worldwide in an exclusive deal with Amazon.com on 21 July 2009. The release has garnered favourable reviews from The Rock n Roll Report, Classic Rock Revisited and Hard Rock Haven, among others.
In April 2010, the band released its first single on iTunes: an updated, hard rock version of the Beatles' "I Saw Her Standing There." Performances on the 2010 summer tour included the Wildflower! Arts and Music Festival in Richardson, Texas; Las Vegas, Nevada's Fremont Street Experience; Rock N' America in Oklahoma City, OK; Summer Jam in Des Moines, Iowa; Jack FM's Fifth Show at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater in Los Angeles; an appearance at the Hard Rock Hotel in Biloxi, Mississippi; and the inaugural edition of the Thunder Mountain Rock Festival in Sawyer, North Dakota.
On 11 November 2010, it was announced that in May 2011 "Steve Priest's Sweet" had been booked to perform at a handful of European dates, but the gigs ultimately had to be cancelled in late January 2011 after it was learned that one of the promoters was a suspected swindler wanted by British law enforcement officials. As of February 2011, fans who purchased pre-sale tickets were still in the process of working through the administrative channels with PayPal and various banks and credit card issuers in order to try to reclaim their funds.
The band toured South America along with Journey during March 2011.
The band and their European fans then also got re-united quicker than thought, when the band got booked by a befriended female Belgian promoter. Two east German gigs, 27 and 28 May 2011, so in Borna and in Schwarzenberg Steve Priest's Sweet hit the European grounds. After more than 30 years, Steve Priest got a warm welcome back in Europe.
As of 12 August 2012, Stuart Smith resigned from the guitar post in order to dedicate more time to his "Heaven & Earth" project.
Beginning with the band's October 2012 appearance at the Festival Internacional Chihuahua in Mexico, Los Angeles-based guitarist Ricky Z. teamed up with Steve Priest and company for their live performances. In February 2013, this lineup returned to Casino Regina in Saskatchewan, Canada. Tour dates played in summer 2013 included Riverfest in Watertown, Wisconsin, the St. Clair, MI Riverfest, several additional dates in Canada, and a reprise of their appearances at both Moondance Jam in Walker, MN and Rockin' the Rivers in Three Forks, Montana. The band made some rare appearances on the U.S. east coast in July 2013, including a performance with David Johansen of the New York Dolls at the Bergen Performing Arts Center in Englewood, New Jersey. Singer Joe Retta was unavailable for these dates due to a scheduling conflict, so Tribe of Gypsies frontman Chas West, who has played with Jason Bonham's band and has experience subbing in such well-known bands as Foreigner, Lynch Mob and Diamond Head, stepped in to man the microphone for a series of shows in New York, New Jersey and Maryland.
On 27 August 2014, Steve Priest announced on the band's Facebook page that guitarist Mitch Perry had been tapped for the guitar slot. Most recently on tour with Lita Ford, Mitch's other credentials included his work with Michael Schenker Group, Asia Featuring John Payne, Edgar Winter, Billy Sheehan and David Lee Roth His first live appearance with Sweet was at the Rock the River festival in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan on 23 August 2014.
22 December 2017 saw the launch of the 50th anniversary tour at the Whisky a Go Go on L.A.'s Sunset Strip and the introduction of new singer Paul Zablidowski AKA "Paulie Z" former lead singer and guitarist of ZO2, children's band "The Z Brothers" and star of IFC show Z-Rock. Recently known as the host for local show "Ultimate Jam Night." Z replaced Joe Retta, who had served as the frontman for the Los Angeles incarnation of Sweet since its formation in 2008. Priest died on 4 June 2020.
Brief reunions and the deaths of Brian Connolly, Mick Tucker and Steve Priest
Steve Priest was asked to join Tucker and Scott for the 1985 Australian tour, but declined at the last moment.
Mike Chapman contacted Connolly, Priest, Scott, and Tucker in 1988, offering to finance a recording session in Los Angeles. As he remembers: "I met them at the airport and Andy and Mick came off the plane. I said, 'Where's Brian?' They said, 'Oh, he's coming.' All the people had come off the plane by now. Then this little old man hobbled towards us. He was shaking, and had a ghostly white face. I thought, 'Oh, Jesus Christ.' It was horrifying." Reworked studio versions of "Action" and "The Ballroom Blitz" were recorded, but it became clear that Connolly's voice and physical health had made Sweet's original member comeback too difficult to promote commercially. Consequently, the reunion attempt was aborted.
In 1990 this line-up was again reunited for the promotion of a music documentary entitled Sweet's Ballroom Blitz. This UK video release, which contained UK television performances from the 1970s and current-day interviews, was released at Tower Records, London. Sweet was interviewed by Power Hour, Super Channel, and spoke of a possible reunion.
Brian Connolly died at the age of 51 on 9 February 1997, from liver failure and repeated heart attacks, attributed to his abuse of alcohol in the 1970s and early 1980s. Mick Tucker died on 14 February 2002 from leukemia, at the age of 54. On 4 June 2020 it was announced that Steve Priest had died. It left Andy Scott as the sole living member of Sweet's 'classic lineup'.
Later years
Two versions of The Sweet were active with original members: "Andy Scott's Sweet", who frequently tour across Europe as Sweet and makes occasional sojourns to other markets including regular visits to Australia, and "Steve Priest's Sweet" who toured the US and Canada.
On 28 April 2009, Shout! Factory released a two-disc, career-spanning greatest hits album called Action: The Sweet Anthology. It received a four-star (out of five) rating in Rolling Stone.
In September 2009 Ace Frehley released his version of "Fox on the Run" on his album Anomaly.
In an October 2012 appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live, Axl Rose, lead singer of Guns N' Roses, referenced Sweet as one of his favourite bands growing up along with fellow British band Queen.
In April 2016, the chart topping song (1973), "The Ballroom Blitz" was featured in a trailer for Suicide Squad.
In December 2016, their single "Fox on the Run" (1975) was featured in a trailer for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.
In 2019, the songs "Fox on the Run" and "Set Me Free" were featured in an episode of Jamie Johnson.
Personnel
Original band
Classic lineup
Brian Connolly – lead vocals, percussion, synthesizer, acoustic guitar (1968–1978; died 1997)
Steve Priest – bass, backing and lead vocals (1968–1981; died 2020)
Mick Tucker – drums, percussion, backing and lead vocals (1968–1981; died 2002)
Andy Scott – guitars, keyboards, synthesizers, piano, backing and lead vocals (1970–1981)
Early members
Frank Torpey – guitars (1968–1969)
Mick Stewart – guitars (1969–1970)
Touring musicians
Gary Moberley – keyboards, synthesizers, piano (1978–1981)
Nico Ramsden – guitar (1978)
Ray McRiner – guitar (1979)
Andy Scott’s Sweet
Current members
Andy Scott – guitars, keyboards, synthesizers, piano, backing and lead vocals (1985–present)
Bruce Bisland – drums, backing vocals (1992–present)
Paul Manzi – lead vocals (2019–present; substitute appearances in 2014 and 2015)
Lee Small – bass, backing vocals (2019–present)
Former members
Mick Tucker – drums, backing vocals (1985–1991; died 2002)
Paul Mario Day – lead vocals (1985–1989)
Phil Lanzon – keyboards, piano, backing vocals (1985–1989; 2005—2006)
Mal McNulty – bass, lead and backing vocals (1985–1995)
Jeff Brown – bass, lead and backing vocals (1989–2003)
Steve Mann – keyboards, guitars, backing vocals (1989-1996)
Bodo Schopf – drums, backing vocals (1991–1992)
Chad Brown — lead vocals (1995–1998)
Steve Grant — keyboards, piano, backing vocals (1996–2005, 2006–2011); lead vocals, bass (2005–2006)
Tony O’Hora – lead and backing vocals, bass (2003–2005, 2006, 2011–2019), guitars, keyboards (2011–2019)
Peter Lincoln – bass, lead and backing vocals (2006–2019)
Timeline
Discography
Funny How Sweet Co-Co Can Be (1971)
Sweet Fanny Adams (1974)
Desolation Boulevard (1974)
Give Us a Wink (1976)
Off the Record (1977)
Level Headed (1978)
Cut Above the Rest (1979)
Waters Edge (titled Sweet VI with a different cover in the U.S.) (1980)
Identity Crisis (1982)
Sweetlife (2002) by Andy Scott's Sweet
Isolation Boulevard (2020) by Andy Scott's Sweet
References
Bibliography
(2008 eBook available at )
External links
Channel 4 documentary on The Sweet from 1996
English hard rock musical groups
English glam rock groups
Musical groups established in 1968
Capitol Records artists
Polydor Records artists
RCA Records artists
1968 establishments in the United Kingdom
Musical groups disestablished in 1982
1982 disestablishments in the United Kingdom
Musical groups reestablished in 1985
1985 establishments in the United Kingdom
| true |
[
"Feel What U Feel is a children's album by American musician Lisa Loeb. The album was released on October 7, 2016, and the album's first single was \"Feel What U Feel.\" The album won Best Children's Album at the 60th Annual Grammy Awards.\n\nRelease \nThe album was announced on September 8, 2016 with the release of the lead single \"Feel What U Feel,\" featuring Craig Robinson. The album was then released by Furious Rose Productions on October 7, 2016 as an Amazon Music exclusive.\n\nPromotion \nLisa Loeb Embarked a small tour to promote the Children's album in the Fall of 2016 & Winter of 2017. Despite going on a children's tour, Lisa performed many of her \"Adult\" and \"Older\" songs. Lisa also constantly played her songs on \"Kids Place Live Radio\" for nearly 1 year after release.\n\nSingles \n\"Feel What U Feel\" was released as the album's lead single of September 8, 2016. The second single, \"Moon Star Pie (It's Gunna Be Alright)\" was released on October 7, 2016. The third single, \"Wanna Do Day\" ft. Ed Helms was released on January 12, 2017. The fourth and final single of the album, \"The Sky Is Always Blue\" was released on March 13, 2017.\n\nTrack listing\n\nReferences \n\n2016 albums\nChildren's music albums\nLisa Loeb albums",
"Re:T-ara (stylized as Re:T-ARA) is the second single album by South Korean girl group T-ara. The album was released on November 15, 2021 by Dingo Music, and distributed by Dreamus. The album marks the group's first release after a 4 year hiatus following the EP What's My Name? (2017). The album consists of two tracks: \"All Kill\" and the lead single \"Tiki Taka\".\n\nBackground\nOn July 29, it was announced through the group's 12th anniversary V-Live that they would be making their first comeback in four years before the winter of 2021. It was later revealed that the group will collaborate with Dingo Music to make their comeback with the single album Re:T-ara on November 15, 2021. The album consists of two tracks: \"All Kill\" and \"Tiki Taka\".\n\nRelease\nThe album was released on November 15 through many Korean online music services, including Melon. For the global market, the album was made available on iTunes. It was also released in physical format.\n\nMusic video \nOn November 12, a first teaser for the music video of \"Tiki Taka\" was released. On November 14, the second teaser for the music video was released. On November 15, The official music video of \"Tiki Taka\" was released.\n\nTrack listing \nCredits adapted from Naver.\n\nCharts\n\nRelease history\n\nReferences\n\nSingle albums\n2021 EPs\nT-ara albums"
] |
[
"The Sweet",
"First album",
"What was the name of their first album?",
"Funny How Sweet Co-Co Can Be,",
"Who produced their first album?",
"Phil Wainman",
"What year was their first album released?",
"November 1971."
] |
C_e0dc93e73be04cf2b157df3e12cc2286_0
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Was there a popular single on the album?
| 4 |
Was there a popular single on The Sweet's album, Funny How Sweet Co-Co Can Be?
|
The Sweet
|
The Sweet made their UK television debut in December 1970 on a pop show called Lift Off, performing the song "Funny Funny". A management deal was signed with the aforementioned songwriting team of Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman. Phil Wainman resumed his collaboration with Sweet, as executive producer. This management deal also included a worldwide (the U.S. excepted) record contract with RCA Records (in the United States and Canada Bell Records issued the group's music until late 1973; followed by Capitol Records). In March 1971 RCA issued "Funny Funny", written by Chinn and Chapman, which became the group's first international hit, climbing to the Top 20 on many of the world's charts. EMI reissued their 1970 single "All You'll Ever Get from Me" (May 1971) and it again failed to chart. Their next RCA release "Co-Co" (June 1971) went to number two in the U.K. and their follow up single, "Alexander Graham Bell" (October 1971), only went to #33. These tracks still featured session musicians on the instruments with the quartet providing only the vocals. The Sweet's first full LP album, Funny How Sweet Co-Co Can Be, was released in November 1971. A collection of the band's recent singles supplemented by some new Chinn/Chapman tunes (including "Chop Chop" and "Tom Tom Turnaround") and pop covers (such as the Lovin' Spoonful's "Daydream" and the Supremes' "Reflections"), the album, recorded at Nova Studios in London, was produced by Phil Wainman and engineered by Richard Dodd and Eric Holland. It was not a serious contender on the charts. Their albums' failure to match the success of their singles was a problem that would plague the band throughout their career. CANNOTANSWER
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Funny Funny
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The Sweet, sometimes also shortened to just Sweet, are a British glam rock band that rose to worldwide fame in the 1970s. Their best known line-up consisted of lead vocalist Brian Connolly, bass player Steve Priest, guitarist Andy Scott, and drummer Mick Tucker. The group was originally called The Sweetshop.
The band was formed in London in 1968 and achieved their first hit, "Funny Funny", in 1971 after teaming up with songwriters Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman and record producer Phil Wainman. During 1971 and 1972, their musical style followed a marked progression from the Archies-like bubblegum style of "Funny Funny" to a Who-influenced hard rock style supplemented by a striking use of high-pitched backing vocals.
The band first achieved success in the UK charts, with thirteen Top 20 hits during the 1970s alone, with "Block Buster!" (1973) topping the chart, followed by three consecutive number two hits in "Hell Raiser" (1973), "The Ballroom Blitz" (1973) and "Teenage Rampage" (1974). The band turned to a more hard rock style with their mid-career singles, like 1974's "Turn It Down". "Fox on the Run" (1975) also reached number two on the UK charts. These results were topped in West Germany and other countries on the European mainland. They also achieved success and popularity in the US with the top ten hits "Little Willy", "The Ballroom Blitz", "Fox on the Run", and "Love is Like Oxygen".
The Sweet had their last international success in 1978 with "Love Is Like Oxygen". Connolly left the group in 1979 to start a solo career and the remaining members continued as a trio until disbanding in 1981. From the mid-1980s, Scott, Connolly and Priest each played with their own versions of Sweet at different times. Connolly died in 1997, Tucker in 2002 and Priest in 2020. Andy Scott is still active with his version of the band. Sweet have since sold over 35 million albums worldwide.
History
Origins
Sweet's origins can be traced back to British soul band Wainwright's Gentlemen. Mark Lay's history of that band states they formed around 1962 and were initially known as Unit 4. Founding members included Chris Wright (vocals), Jan Frewer (bass), with Jim Searle and Alfred Fripp on guitars. Phil Kenton joined on drums as the band changed its name to Wainwright's Gentlemen (due to there being another band known as Unit 4). Managed by Frewer's father, the band performed in the Hayes, Harrow and Wembley area. By 1964 the group was also playing in London, including at the Saint Germain Club on Poland Street.
In January 1964 the band came fifth in a national beat group contest, with finals held at the Lyceum Strand on 4 May 1964. Highlights of the show were presented on BBC1 by Alan Freeman. Chris Wright left the line-up in late 1964 and was replaced by Ian Gillan. A female vocalist named Ann Cully soon joined the band. Mick Tucker, from Ruislip, joined on drums replacing Phil Kenton. The band recorded a number of tracks including a cover of the Coasters-Hollies hit "Ain't That Just Like Me", which was probably recorded at Jackson Sound Studios in Rickmansworth. The track includes Gillan on vocals, Tucker on drums and, according to band bassist Jan Frewer, is thought to have been recorded in 1965. Gillan quit in May 1965 to join Episode Six, and later, Deep Purple. Cully remained as vocalist before departing some time later. Gillan's and Cully's eventual replacement, in late 1966, was Scots-born vocalist Brian Connolly, who hailed more recently from Harefield. Tony Hall had joined on saxophone and vocals and when Fripp left he was replaced by Gordon Fairminer. Fairminer's position was eventually assumed by Frank Torpey (born Frank Edward Torpey, 30 April 1945, Kilburn, North West London) - a schoolfriend of Tucker's who had just left West London group The Tribe (aka The Dream). Torpey only lasted a few months, and in late 1967 Robin Box (born 19 June 1944) took his place. Searle, regarded by many as the most talented musically, disappeared from the scene. Tucker and Connolly remained with Wainwright's Gentlemen until January 1968. Tucker was replaced by Roger Hills. When the Gentlemen eventually broke up, Hills and Box joined White Plains who eventually scored a big hit with "My Baby Loves Lovin'".
Early years
In January 1968 Connolly and Tucker formed a new band calling themselves The Sweetshop. They recruited bass guitarist and vocalist Steve Priest from a local band called The Army. Priest had previously played with mid-'60s band the Countdowns who had been produced and recorded by Joe Meek. Frank Torpey was again recruited to play guitar. The quartet made its public debut at the Pavilion in Hemel Hempstead on 9 March 1968 and soon developed a following on the pub circuit, which led to a contract with Fontana Records. At the time, another UK band released a single under the same name Sweetshop, so the band abbreviated their moniker to Sweet. The band was managed by Paul Nicholas, who later went on to star in Hair. Nicholas worked with record producer Phil Wainman at Mellin Music Publishing and recommended the band to him. Their debut single "Slow Motion" (July 1968), produced by Wainman, and released on Fontana, failed to chart and owing to its rarity now sells for several hundred pounds when auctioned. Sweet were released from the recording contract and Frank Torpey left. In his autobiography Are You Ready Steve, Priest said that Gordon Fairminer was approached to play for them when Torpey decided to leave Sweet after a gig at Playhouse Theatre Walton-on-Thames on 5 July 1969 but turned the job down as he wanted to concentrate on other interests.
New line-up and new record deal
Guitarist Mick Stewart joined in 1969. Stewart had some rock pedigree, having previously worked with The (Ealing) Redcaps and Simon Scott & The All-Nite Workers in the mid-1960s. In late 1965, that band became The Phil Wainman Set when the future Sweet producer joined on drums and the group cut some singles with Errol Dixon. In early 1966, Stewart left and later worked with Johnny Kidd & The Pirates.
Sweet signed a new record contract with EMI's Parlophone label. Three bubblegum pop singles were released: "Lollipop Man" (September 1969), "All You'll Ever Get from Me" (January 1970), and a cover version of the Archies' "Get on the Line" (June 1970), all of which failed to chart. Stewart then quit, and was not replaced for some time. Connolly and Tucker had a chance meeting with Wainman, who was now producing, and knew of two aspiring songwriters, Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman, who were looking for a group to sing some demos they had written. Connolly, Priest, and Tucker provided the vocals on a track called "Funny Funny" which featured Pip Williams on guitar, John Roberts on bass, and Wainman on drums. The latter began offering the track to various recording companies. The band held auditions for a replacement guitarist and settled on Welsh-born Andy Scott. He had most recently been playing with Mike McCartney (brother of Paul) in the Scaffold. As a member of the Elastic Band, he had played guitar on two singles for Decca, "Think of You Baby" and "Do Unto Others". He also appeared on the band's lone album release, Expansions on Life, and on some recordings by the Scaffold. The band rehearsed for a number of weeks before Scott made his live debut with Sweet on 26 September 1970 at the Windsor Ballroom in Redcar.
Sweet initially attempted to combine diverse musical influences, including the Monkees and 1960s bubblegum pop groups such as the Archies, with more heavy rock-oriented groups such as the Who. Sweet adopted the rich vocal harmony style of the Hollies, with distorted guitars and a heavy rhythm section. This fusion of pop and hard rock would remain a central trademark of Sweet's music and prefigured the glam metal of a few years later.
Sweet's initial album appearance was on the budget label Music for Pleasure as part of a compilation called Gimme Dat Ding, released in December 1970. Sweet had one side of the record; the Pipkins (whose sole hit, "Gimme Dat Ding", gave the LP its name) had the other. Sweet's contribution consisted of the A- and B-sides of the band's three Parlophone singles. Andy Scott appears in the album cover shot, even though he did not play on any of the recordings.
First album
Sweet made their UK television debut in December 1970 on a pop show called Lift Off, performing the song "Funny Funny". A management deal was signed with the aforementioned songwriting team of Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman. Phil Wainman resumed his collaboration with Sweet, as executive producer. This management deal also included a worldwide record contract with RCA Records, the U.S. excepted: in the United States and Canada Bell Records issued the group's music until late 1973, followed by Capitol Records.
In March 1971 RCA issued "Funny Funny", written by Chinn and Chapman, which became the group's first international hit, climbing to the Top 20 on many of the world's charts. EMI reissued their 1970 single "All You'll Ever Get from Me" (May 1971) and it again failed to chart. Their next RCA release "Co-Co" (June 1971) went to number two in the U.K. and their follow up single, "Alexander Graham Bell" (October 1971), only went to No. 33. These tracks still featured session musicians on the instruments with the quartet providing only the vocals.
Sweet's first full LP album, Funny How Sweet Co-Co Can Be, was released in November 1971. A collection of the band's recent singles supplemented by some new Chinn/Chapman tunes (including "Chop Chop" and "Tom Tom Turnaround") and pop covers (such as the Lovin' Spoonful's "Daydream" and the Supremes' "Reflections"), the album, recorded at Nova Studios in London, was produced by Phil Wainman and engineered by Richard Dodd and Eric Holland. It was not a serious contender on the charts.
Initial success and rise to fame
February 1972 saw the release of "Poppa Joe", which reached number 1 in Finland and peaked at number 11 on the UK Singles Chart. The next two singles of that year, "Little Willy" and "Wig-Wam Bam", both reached No. 4 in the UK. "Little Willy" peaked at No. 3 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 after a re-issue in 1973, thus becoming the group's biggest American hit. Although "Wig-Wam Bam" remained largely true to the style of Sweet's previous recordings, the vocals and guitars had a harder, more rock-oriented sound, largely because it was the first Chinn-Chapman single on which only members of Sweet played the instruments. In January 1973 "Block Buster!" became Sweet's first single to reach number 1 on the UK chart, remaining there for five consecutive weeks. After their next single "Hell Raiser" was released in May and reached number 2 in the U.K., Sweet's U.S. label, Bell, released the group's first American album The Sweet in July 1973.
To promote their singles, Sweet made numerous appearances on U.K. and European TV shows such as Top of the Pops and Supersonic. In one performance of "Block Buster!" on Top of the Pops Christmas edition, Priest aroused complaints after he appeared replete in a German military uniform, Hitler moustache and displaying a swastika armband. The band also capitalised on the glam rock explosion, rivalling Gary Glitter, T. Rex, Queen, Slade, and Wizzard for outrageous stage clothing.
Despite Sweet's success, the relationship with their management was becoming increasingly tense. While they had developed a large fan-base among teenagers, Sweet were not happy with their 'bubblegum' image. Sweet had always composed their own heavy-rock songs on the B-sides of their singles to contrast with the bubblegum A-sides which were composed by Chinn and Chapman. During this time, Sweet's live performances consisted of B-sides, album tracks, and various medleys of rock and roll classics; they avoided older novelty hits like "Funny Funny" and "Poppa Joe". A 1973 performance at the Palace Theatre and Grand Hall in Kilmarnock ended in Sweet being bottled off stage; the disorder was attributed by some (including Steve Priest) to Sweet's lipstick and eye-shadow look, and by others to the audience being unfamiliar with the concert set (the 1999 CD release Live at the Rainbow 1973 documents a live show from this period). The incident would be immortalised in the hit "The Ballroom Blitz" (September 1973). In the meantime, Sweet's chart success continued, showing particular strength in the UK, Denmark, Germany, Sweden, and Australia. By the end of 1973, the band's name evolved from "The Sweet" to "Sweet". The change would be reflected in all of their releases from 1974 onward.
Forming a new image
By 1974, Sweet had grown tired of the management team of Chinn and Chapman, who wrote the group's major hits and cultivated the band's glam rock image. The group and producer Phil Wainman, assisted by engineer Peter Coleman, recorded the album Sweet Fanny Adams, which was released in April 1974. Sweet's technical proficiency was demonstrated for the first time on self-penned hard rock tracks such as "Sweet F.A." and "Set Me Free". Sweet also adopted a more conventional hard rock sound and appearance. Sweet Fanny Adams also featured compressed high-pitched backing vocal harmonies, which was a trend that continued on all of Sweet's albums.
During sessions for the album, Brian Connolly was injured in a fight in Staines High Street. His throat was badly injured and his ability to sing severely limited. Priest and Scott filled in on lead vocals on some tracks ("No You Don't", "Into The Night" and "Restless") and Connolly, under treatment from a Harley Street specialist, managed to complete the album. The band did not publicise the incident and told the press that subsequent cancelled shows were due to Connolly having a throat infection. This incident reportedly permanently compromised Connolly's singing ability, with his range diminished.
No previous singles appeared on the album, and none were released, except in Japan, New Zealand and Australia, where "Peppermint Twist/Rebel Rouser", apparently released by their record company without their knowledge, gained a No. 1 chart position in the latter. Sweet Fanny Adams would be Sweet's only non-compilation release to break the UK Albums Chart Top 40.
Sweet were invited by Pete Townshend to support the Who, who were playing at Charlton Athletic's football ground, The Valley in June 1974. However, Connolly's badly bruised throat kept them from fulfilling the role. Sweet had frequently cited the Who as being one of their main influences and played a medley of their tracks in their live set for many years.
Desolation Boulevard
Their third album, Desolation Boulevard, was released later in 1974, six months after Sweet Fanny Adams. By that stage, producer Phil Wainman had moved on and the album was produced by Mike Chapman. It was recorded in a mere six days and featured a rawer "live" sound. One track, "The Man with the Golden Arm", written by Elmer Bernstein and Sylvia Fine for the 1955 Frank Sinatra movie of the same name, featured drummer Mick Tucker performing an 8 and half minute solo (although this was not included in the U.S. release). This had been a staple of the band's live performance for years. The first single from the LP, the heavy-melodic "The Six Teens" (July 1974), was a Top 10 hit in the U.K. and still part of the amazing unbroken string of No. 1's in Denmark. However, the subsequent single release, "Turn It Down" (November 1974), reached only No. 41 on the U.K. chart and No. 2 in Denmark. "Turn It Down" received minimal airplay on UK radio and was banned by some radio stations because of certain lyrical content - "God-awful sound" and "For God sakes, turn it down" - which were deemed "unsuitable for family listening." The band resumed playing live shows nearly a full six months after Connolly's throat injury, with band and critics noting a rougher edge to his voice and a reduced range. The album also featured a group composition, "Fox On The Run", which was to be re-recorded months later.
The U.S. version of Desolation Boulevard was different from the U.K. version and included several songs from Sweet Fanny Adams in addition to the "Ballroom Blitz" and "Fox on the Run" singles (both of which peaked at No. 5 in the US). Side One of the album contained all Chapman-Chinn penned songs, while Side Two featured songs written and produced by Sweet.
Writing and producing their own material
In 1975 Sweet went back into the studio to re-arrange and record a more pop-oriented version of the track "Fox on the Run". Sweet's first self-written and produced single, "Fox on the Run" was released worldwide in March 1975 and became their biggest selling hit, reaching number one in Germany, Denmark, and South Africa, number two in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Norway and the Netherlands and number three in Austria and Switzerland. In Australia it not only made it to the top of the charts, it also became the biggest selling single of that year. The song reached number two in Canada and number five in the U.S. The release of this track marked the end of the formal Chinn-Chapman working relationship and the band stressed it was now fully self-sufficient as writers and producers.
The following single release, "Action" (July 1975), peaked at number 15 in the UK. Now confident in their own songwriting and production abilities, Sweet spent the latter half of 1975 in Musicland Studios in Munich, Germany, where they recorded the Give Us A Wink album with German sound engineer Reinhold Mack, who later recorded with Electric Light Orchestra and co-produced Queen. The new album release was deferred until 1976 so as not to stifle the chart success Desolation Boulevard was enjoying, peaking at number 25 in the US and number 5 in Canada.
With Give Us a Wink being held over, RCA issued a double album in Europe, Strung Up, in November. It contained one live disc, recorded in London in December 1973, and one disc compiling previously released singles (plus an unused track by Chinn and Chapman – "I Wanna Be Committed"). At the end of the year, Andy Scott released his first solo single, "Lady Starlight" b/w "Where D'Ya Go". Tucker played drums on both tracks.
Decline in popularity
January 1976 saw the release of the single "The Lies In Your Eyes", which made the Top 10 in Germany, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Australia, but only reached No. 35 on the U.K. charts. Sweet's first album to be fully produced and written by themselves, Give Us A Wink, was released in March 1976. A third single from the album, "4th Of July", was issued in Australia.
By this time, Sweet strove to build on their growing popularity in America with a schedule of more than fifty headline concert dates. Even though Give Us A Winks release was imminent, the band's set essentially promoted the US version of Desolation Boulevard plus the new US hit single "Action". During an appearance at Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in California on 24 March, Sweet played "All Right Now" with Ritchie Blackmore as a tribute to mark the death of Free guitarist Paul Kossoff, who was to have supported Sweet with his band Back Street Crawler. The US tour was not financially successful, with small audiences at many venues leading to the final half-dozen or so dates to be cancelled. Following the end of the tour, the band went on to Scandinavia and Germany. The band also spent a week at the Who's Ramport Studios in Battersea demoing material for a new album before abandoning that project and playing eight dates in Japan. By the end of the Japanese shows Connolly's extremely hoarse singing voice was manifest evidence of the demands of constant touring and the enduring after-effects of his 1974 assault.
Between October 1976 and January 1977, Sweet wrote and recorded new material at Kingsway Recorders and Audio International London studios for their next album. An advance single from the album, "Lost Angels", was only a hit in Germany, Austria and Sweden. A new album, Off the Record, was released in April. The next single from the album, "Fever of Love", represented the band heading in a somewhat more Europop hard rock direction, once again charting in Germany, Austria and Sweden, while reaching number 10 in South Africa. On this album, Sweet again worked with Give Us A Wink engineer Louis Austin, who would later engineer Def Leppard's On Through The Night 1980 début album. The band cancelled a US tour with emerging US rockers Aerosmith, did not play any live dates in support of the album and, in fact, did not play a single concert for the whole of 1977.
Level Headed and a change in style
Sweet left RCA in 1977 and signed a new deal with Polydor though it would not come into force until later in the year. Sweet's manager David Walker, from Handle Artists, negotiated the move which was reputed to be worth around £750,000. In the United States, Canada, and Japan, Capitol had issued Sweet's albums since 1974 and would continue to do so through to 1980.
The first Polydor album, Level Headed (January 1978), found Sweet experimenting by combining rock and classical sounds "a-la clavesin", an approach similar to Electric Light Orchestra's, and featured the single "Love Is Like Oxygen". Largely recorded during 1977 at Château d'Hérouville near Paris, France after a 30-day writing session at Clearwell Castle in the Forest Of Dean UK, the album represented a new musical direction, largely abandoning hard-rock for a more melodic pop style, interspersed with ballads accompanied by a 30-piece orchestra. The ballad, "Lettres D'Amour", featured a duet between Connolly and Stevie Lange (who would emerge as lead singer with the group Night in 1979).
With the addition of session and touring musicians keyboardist Gary Moberley and guitarist Nico Ramsden, Sweet undertook a short European and Scandinavian tour followed by a single British concert at London's Hammersmith Odeon on 24 February 1978. However, "Love Is Like Oxygen" (January 1978) was their last U.K., U.S., and German Top 10 hit. Scott was nominated for an Ivor Novello Award for co-composing the song. One more single from the album, "California Nights" (May 1978), featuring Steve Priest as the lead vocalist, peaked at number 23 on the German chart.
Departure of Brian Connolly
Between March and May 1978 Sweet extensively toured the US, as a support act for Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band. The tour included a disastrous date in Birmingham, Alabama on 3 May, during which visiting Capitol Records executives in the audience saw Brian Connolly give a drunken and incoherent performance that terminated early in the set with his collapse on stage, leaving the rest of the group to play on without him. The band returned briefly to Britain before resuming the second leg of their US tour in late May supporting other acts, including Foghat and Alice Cooper. Concluding the US tour in early July 1978, Brian's alcoholism and estrangement from the group was steadily becoming a greater issue.
In late October, having spent further time at Clearwell Castle to write for their next album, Sweet arrived at The Town House studio in Shepherd's Bush, London to complete and record, Cut Above the Rest (April 1979). Due to tensions between various members attributed to Connolly's health and diminishing status with the group, his long-time friend and fellow founding member, Mick Tucker, was tasked to produce Connolly's vocals. It was felt Tucker would extract a better performance than Scott from Connolly. A number of tracks were recorded featuring Connolly. However, these efforts were deemed unsatisfactory and Brian left the band on 2 November 1978.
On 23 February 1979, Brian Connolly's departure from Sweet was formally announced by manager David Walker. Publicly, Connolly was said to be pursuing a solo career with an interest in recording country rock.
Three piece Sweet
Sweet continued as a trio with Priest assuming the lion's share of lead vocals, though Scott and Tucker were also active in that role. The first single release for the trio was "Call Me". Guest keyboard player Gary Moberley continued to augment the group on stage. Guitarist Ray McRiner joined their touring line-up in 1979, with a small tour with Journey in the eastern United States and Cheap Trick in Texas in the spring and summer of '79 to support Cut Above The Rest (which was released in April 1979). McRiner would also contribute the songs "Too Much Talking" and the single "Give The Lady Some Respect" to the next Sweet album, Waters Edge (August 1980), which was recorded in Canada. In the US, Waters Edge was titled Sweet VI. It featured the singles "Sixties Man" and "Give The Lady Some Respect". Tragedy befell Mick Tucker when his wife Pauline drowned in the bath at their home on 26 December 1979. The band withdrew from live work for all of 1980.
One more studio album, Identity Crisis, was recorded during 1980–81 but was only released in West Germany and Mexico. Sweet undertook a short tour of the UK and performed their last live show at Glasgow University on 20 March 1981. Steve Priest then returned to the United States, where he had been living since late 1979. When Polydor released Identity Crisis in October 1982, the original Sweet had been disbanded for almost a year.
Re-formed versions (1984–present)
Andy Scott's Sweet (1985–present)
Andy Scott and Mick Tucker organised their own version of Sweet with Paul Mario Day (ex-Iron Maiden, More, Wildfire) on lead vocals, Phil Lanzon (ex-Grand Prix) on keyboards and Mal McNulty on bass. The band performed at the Marquee Club in London in February 1986, with the shows recorded and gaining release a few years later, bolstered by four new studio tracks including a cover of the Motown standard "Reach Out I'll Be There". This line-up also toured Australian and New Zealand pubs and clubs for more than three months in 1985 and for a similar period again in 1986. Singer Paul Day ended up marrying the band's Australian tour guide and relocating downunder. He continued with Sweet commuting back and forth to Europe for the group's tours until this proved to be too cumbersome. He departed in late 1988. As McNulty moved into the front man spot, Jeff Brown came in to take over bass early in 1989. Lanzon too went back and forth between Sweet and Uriah Heep during 1986-1988 before Heep's schedule grew too busy. Malcolm Pearson and then Ian Gibbons (who had played with The Kinks and The Records) both filled in for Lanzon until Steve Mann (Liar, Lionheart, McAuley Schenker Group) arrived in December 1989.
Tucker departed after a show in Lochau, Austria, on 5 May 1991. He later was diagnosed with a rare form of leukaemia. Three drummers, Andy Hoyler, Bobby Andersen and Bruce Bisland (Weapon, Wildfire, Praying Mantis), provided short-term relief before Bodo Schopf (McAuley Schenker Group) took over. They recorded an album during this period, simply titled A. Before the band embarked on the supporting tour for A in 1992, Bodo left and Bisland returned as permanent percussionist. Scott changed the band's name to 'Andy Scott's Sweet' after Tucker's departure but truncated it to simply 'The Sweet' once again after Tucker's death in 2002.
Mal McNulty, now lead vocalist, departed in 1994, though he would return briefly that year to fill in for Jeff Brown on bass (as he would again in 1995 as lead singer for a few dates while Rocky Newton subbed on bass). Sweet's former keyboard men Gary Moberley and Ian Gibbons also did fill-in jaunts with the group that year, as did Chris Goulstone. Chad Brown (ex-Lionheart; no relation to Jeff) was the new front man. Glitz Blitz and Hitz, a new studio album of re-recorded Sweet hits, was released during this period.
In 1996 Mann left to take a job in television and Gibbons came back for a short time before Steve Grant (ex-The Animals) became the permanent keyboardist. When Chad Brown quit in 1998 after developing a throat infection, Jeff Brown assumed lead vocals and bass duties. After this, the band was stable again for the next five years.
The mid-2000s would bring further confusing shake-ups and rotations. Tony O'Hora (ex-Onslaught, Praying Mantis) replaced Brown as lead vocalist in 2003. Ian Gibbons came back for a third stint as fill-in keyboardist in June 2005 for a gig in the Faroe Islands. O'Hora decided to split to take a teaching job in late 2005. Grant then jumped from keyboards to lead vocals and bass as Phil Lanzon returned on keyboards for a tour of Russia and Germany in October/November. New singer Mark Thompson Smith (ex-Praying Mantis) joined in November 2005 for some Swedish gigs, while Jo Burt (ex-Black Sabbath) was temporary bass player. Tony Mills (ex-Shy) was slated to be Sweet's new singer in early 2006 but failed to work out and left after six shows in Denmark. At this point, O'Hora came back as fill in front man and then Grant did another turn himself as the singer/bassist (Steve Mann depped on keyboards) until the group finally landed a new permanent front man when Peter Lincoln (ex-Sailor) arrived in July 2006. The line-up then consisted of Scott, Bisland, Grant and Lincoln.
Scott produced the Suzi Quatro album Back to the Drive, released in February 2006. March 2006 saw the U.S. release of his band's album Sweetlife.
In 2007 the group played in Germany, Belgium, Austria and Italy. In May of that year, the band played in Porto Alegre and Curitiba, Brazil, their first and only South American shows. The tour was called the 'Sweet Fanny Adams Tour'.
The band toured again in March 2008 under the name 'Sweet Fanny Adams Revisited Tour'. In May and June, Scott's Sweet were part of the "Glitz Blitz & 70s Hitz" tour of the UK alongside The Rubettes and Showaddywaddy.
In March and April 2010, Scott was absent from a couple of gigs due to ill health and Martin Mickels stood in. Scott revealed later that he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer and was treated at the Bristol Royal Infirmary. After a course of treatment and rest, he was back to full touring fitness. In 2010 the band played at venues in Europe and back at Bilston in October.
In March 2011 there was a short tour of Australia, Regal Theatre - Perth, and Clipsal 500, Adelaide with the Doobie Brothers. Also in 2011, Tony O'Hora came back to the group, this time as keyboardist, after Grant departed.
In March 2012 the band released a new album New York Connection. Recorded in England, it comprised 11 cover versions, including the 2011 single "Join Together" and one revamped original recording; the 1972 B-side "New York Connection". All the covers either featured 'bits and pieces' of Sweet hits or other artist songs, such as a "new version of the Ramones Blitzkrieg Bop [which] shared space with samples from ‘Ballroom Blitz,’ and a take on Hello’s New York Groove (made famous in the US by Ace Frehley) featured a sample from Jay-Z’s Empire State Of Mind along with other Sweet references."
On the eve of their March 2012 "Join Together" tour of Australia, the band undertook an acoustic performance of three tracks, "New York Groove-Empire State of Mind", "Blockbuster" and "Peppermint Twist", in front of a live audience at ABC Radio Studios in East Perth. Shows in Perth, Adelaide, Hobart, Geelong, Melbourne and Sydney featured tracks from the new album for the first time.
Paul Manzi joined Sweet on their 2014 Australian tour, replacing Tony O'Hora who was absent for personal reasons. Manzi played guitar, keyboard and undertook lead vocals on "Set Me Free" and "AC-DC" as the band performed shows in regional centres, including outback Western Australia, Darwin and far-north Queensland, NSW and Victoria during February and March. The band, with O'Hora back in the ranks, returned to Australia in September 2014 as the headlining act for "Rock The Boat 4". This was a cruise aboard the ship Rhapsody of the Seas which departed Sydney and took in New Caledonia and Vanuatu. The band played two gigs and various members guested with Australian veteran performers including Brian Cadd and Russell Morris and members of AC/DC, The Angels, Rose Tattoo and Skyhooks.
In June 2015 it was revealed that the band were going on an extensive tour of the UK in late 2015 and that this tour would probably be their last.
For the 2015 summer tour dates, Paul Manzi returned to sub for Peter Lincoln who left this online message to the fans: "There have been a few rumours going around this weekend, so . . . just to say that I am alive and well! The short explanation for my absence is that I need to rest my voice for a few weeks. We are lucky that our good friend Paul Manzi is able to step in, and Tony knows the role of bass player/singer, so the shows can go ahead, and they will be great! I look forward to being back on stage very soon."
Pete Lincoln duly resumed his role in the band and they continued with extensive live dates, known as the "Finale" tour in Germany.
In 2017 after Andy undertook a successful Australian visit with Suzi Quatro and Don Powell in the side outfit known as QSP, Sweet was again booked for an extensive European tour. In the years following both Tony O'Hora and Pete Lincoln departed the band. Paul Manzi returned as permanent lead vocalist, quitting the popular outfit Cats in Space to do so. Lee Small joined as bassist and backing vocalist. Former guitarist and keyboard player Steve Mann joined for a handful of shows as a special guest. During the COVID-19 pandemic the band recorded a new album of old tracks entitled Isolation Boulevard.
New Sweet, Brian Connolly's Sweet (1984–1997)
In 1984 Brian Connolly formed a new version of the Sweet without any of the other original members. Despite recurring ill health, Connolly toured the UK and Europe with his band, "Brian Connolly's Sweet", which was then renamed to "New Sweet". His most successful concerts were in West Germany, before and after reunification.
During 1987, Connolly met up again with Frank Torpey. Torpey later explained in interviews Connolly was trying to get a German recording deal. The two got on very well and Torpey subsequently invited Connolly to go into the recording studio with him, as an informal project. After much trepidation, Connolly turned up and the track "Sharontina" was recorded. This recording would not be released until 1998, appearing on Frank Torpey's album Sweeter.
By July 1990, plans were made for Connolly and his band to tour Australia in November. During the long flight to Australia, Connolly's health had suffered and he was hospitalised in Adelaide Hospital, allegedly for dehydration and related problems. The rest of the band played a show in Adelaide without him. After being released from the hospital, Connolly joined the other band members in Melbourne for a gig at the Pier Hotel, in Frankston. After several other shows, including one at the Dingley Powerhouse, Connolly and his band played a final date at Melbourne's Greek Theatre. It was felt Connolly's health was sufficient reason for the tour not to be extended, and some of the planned dates were abandoned. Connolly went back to England and his band appeared on The Bob Downe Christmas show on 18 December 1990.
During the early 1990s, Connolly played the European "oldies" circuit and occasional outdoor festivals in Europe with his band. On 22 March 1992, a heavy duty tape recorder was stolen from the band's van whilst at a gig in the Bristol Hippodrome with Mud. It contained demos of four new songs, totalling about 20 mixes.
Legal problems were going on in the background over the use of the Sweet name between Connolly and Andy Scott. Both parties agreed to distinguish their group's names to help promoters and fans. The New Sweet went back to being called Brian Connolly's Sweet and Andy Scott's version became Andy Scott's Sweet.
In 1994, Connolly and his band played in Dubai. He appeared at the Galleria Theatre, Hyatt Regency. He also performed in Bahrain.
By this time Connolly had healed the differences with Steve Priest and Mick Tucker, and was invited to the wedding of Priest's eldest daughter, Lisa. At the private function, for which Priest specially flew back to England, Priest and Connolly performed together.
In 1995, Connolly released a new album entitled Let's Go. His partner Jean, whom he had met a few years earlier, gave birth to a son. Connolly also performed in Switzerland that year.
On 2 November 1996 British TV Network Channel 4 aired a programme Don't Leave Me This Way, which examined Connolly's time as a pop star with the Sweet, the subsequent decline in the band's popularity, and its impact on Connolly and the other band members. The show revealed Connolly's ill health but also that he was continuing with his concert dates at Butlins. Connolly and his band had appeared at Butlins a number of times on tour during the early 1990s.
Connolly's final concert was at the Bristol Hippodrome on 5 December 1996, with Slade II and John Rossall's Glitter Band Experience.
Steve Priest's Sweet (2008–Present)
In January 2008, Steve Priest assembled his own version of the Sweet in Los Angeles. He enlisted a guitarist Stuart Smith and L.A. native Richie Onori, Smith's bandmate in Heaven & Earth, was brought in on drums. The keyboard spot was manned by ex-Crow and World Classic Rockers alumni Stevie Stewart. Front-man and vocalist Joe Retta was brought in to round out the line-up.
After an initial appearance on L.A. rock station 95.5 KLOS's popular Mark & Brian radio programme, the "Are You Ready Steve?" tour kicked off at the Whisky a Go Go in Hollywood on 12 June 2008. The band spent the next several months playing festivals and gigs throughout the U.S. and Canada, including Moondance Jam in Walker, Minnesota; headlining at the Rock N Resort Music Festival in North Lawrence, Ohio (near Canal Fulton); London, Ontario's Rock the Park; another headlining gig at Peterborough's Festival of Lights; the Common Ground Festival in Lansing, Michigan; and a benefit concert for victims of California's wildfires at Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego, California.
In January 2009, the Sweet presented at the concert industry's Pollstar Awards, and also played a short set at the Nokia Theatre where the event was held, marking the first time in the ceremony's history that a band performed at the show. In addition to local gigs at the House of Blues on L.A.'s Sunset Strip and Universal CityWalk, 2009 saw the band return to Canada for sold-out shows at the Mae Wilson Theater and Casino Regina, as well as the Nakusp Music Fest and Rockin' the Fields of Minnedosa in Minnedosa, Manitoba. U.S. festivals have included Minnesota's Halfway Jam, Rockin' the Rivers in Montana (with Pat Travers and Peter Frampton), and two late-summer shows at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk.
The new band recorded a cover version of the Beatles' "Ticket to Ride", which was included on Cleopatra Records' Abbey Road, a Fab Four tribute CD that was released on 24 March 2009.
A preview of the band's new CD Live in America, which was recorded live at the Morongo Casino, Resort & Spa in Cabazon, California on 30 August 2008, was featured on KLOS's "Front Row" programme on 12 April 2009. The CD, which was first sold at shows and via the band's on-line store, was released worldwide in an exclusive deal with Amazon.com on 21 July 2009. The release has garnered favourable reviews from The Rock n Roll Report, Classic Rock Revisited and Hard Rock Haven, among others.
In April 2010, the band released its first single on iTunes: an updated, hard rock version of the Beatles' "I Saw Her Standing There." Performances on the 2010 summer tour included the Wildflower! Arts and Music Festival in Richardson, Texas; Las Vegas, Nevada's Fremont Street Experience; Rock N' America in Oklahoma City, OK; Summer Jam in Des Moines, Iowa; Jack FM's Fifth Show at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater in Los Angeles; an appearance at the Hard Rock Hotel in Biloxi, Mississippi; and the inaugural edition of the Thunder Mountain Rock Festival in Sawyer, North Dakota.
On 11 November 2010, it was announced that in May 2011 "Steve Priest's Sweet" had been booked to perform at a handful of European dates, but the gigs ultimately had to be cancelled in late January 2011 after it was learned that one of the promoters was a suspected swindler wanted by British law enforcement officials. As of February 2011, fans who purchased pre-sale tickets were still in the process of working through the administrative channels with PayPal and various banks and credit card issuers in order to try to reclaim their funds.
The band toured South America along with Journey during March 2011.
The band and their European fans then also got re-united quicker than thought, when the band got booked by a befriended female Belgian promoter. Two east German gigs, 27 and 28 May 2011, so in Borna and in Schwarzenberg Steve Priest's Sweet hit the European grounds. After more than 30 years, Steve Priest got a warm welcome back in Europe.
As of 12 August 2012, Stuart Smith resigned from the guitar post in order to dedicate more time to his "Heaven & Earth" project.
Beginning with the band's October 2012 appearance at the Festival Internacional Chihuahua in Mexico, Los Angeles-based guitarist Ricky Z. teamed up with Steve Priest and company for their live performances. In February 2013, this lineup returned to Casino Regina in Saskatchewan, Canada. Tour dates played in summer 2013 included Riverfest in Watertown, Wisconsin, the St. Clair, MI Riverfest, several additional dates in Canada, and a reprise of their appearances at both Moondance Jam in Walker, MN and Rockin' the Rivers in Three Forks, Montana. The band made some rare appearances on the U.S. east coast in July 2013, including a performance with David Johansen of the New York Dolls at the Bergen Performing Arts Center in Englewood, New Jersey. Singer Joe Retta was unavailable for these dates due to a scheduling conflict, so Tribe of Gypsies frontman Chas West, who has played with Jason Bonham's band and has experience subbing in such well-known bands as Foreigner, Lynch Mob and Diamond Head, stepped in to man the microphone for a series of shows in New York, New Jersey and Maryland.
On 27 August 2014, Steve Priest announced on the band's Facebook page that guitarist Mitch Perry had been tapped for the guitar slot. Most recently on tour with Lita Ford, Mitch's other credentials included his work with Michael Schenker Group, Asia Featuring John Payne, Edgar Winter, Billy Sheehan and David Lee Roth His first live appearance with Sweet was at the Rock the River festival in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan on 23 August 2014.
22 December 2017 saw the launch of the 50th anniversary tour at the Whisky a Go Go on L.A.'s Sunset Strip and the introduction of new singer Paul Zablidowski AKA "Paulie Z" former lead singer and guitarist of ZO2, children's band "The Z Brothers" and star of IFC show Z-Rock. Recently known as the host for local show "Ultimate Jam Night." Z replaced Joe Retta, who had served as the frontman for the Los Angeles incarnation of Sweet since its formation in 2008. Priest died on 4 June 2020.
Brief reunions and the deaths of Brian Connolly, Mick Tucker and Steve Priest
Steve Priest was asked to join Tucker and Scott for the 1985 Australian tour, but declined at the last moment.
Mike Chapman contacted Connolly, Priest, Scott, and Tucker in 1988, offering to finance a recording session in Los Angeles. As he remembers: "I met them at the airport and Andy and Mick came off the plane. I said, 'Where's Brian?' They said, 'Oh, he's coming.' All the people had come off the plane by now. Then this little old man hobbled towards us. He was shaking, and had a ghostly white face. I thought, 'Oh, Jesus Christ.' It was horrifying." Reworked studio versions of "Action" and "The Ballroom Blitz" were recorded, but it became clear that Connolly's voice and physical health had made Sweet's original member comeback too difficult to promote commercially. Consequently, the reunion attempt was aborted.
In 1990 this line-up was again reunited for the promotion of a music documentary entitled Sweet's Ballroom Blitz. This UK video release, which contained UK television performances from the 1970s and current-day interviews, was released at Tower Records, London. Sweet was interviewed by Power Hour, Super Channel, and spoke of a possible reunion.
Brian Connolly died at the age of 51 on 9 February 1997, from liver failure and repeated heart attacks, attributed to his abuse of alcohol in the 1970s and early 1980s. Mick Tucker died on 14 February 2002 from leukemia, at the age of 54. On 4 June 2020 it was announced that Steve Priest had died. It left Andy Scott as the sole living member of Sweet's 'classic lineup'.
Later years
Two versions of The Sweet were active with original members: "Andy Scott's Sweet", who frequently tour across Europe as Sweet and makes occasional sojourns to other markets including regular visits to Australia, and "Steve Priest's Sweet" who toured the US and Canada.
On 28 April 2009, Shout! Factory released a two-disc, career-spanning greatest hits album called Action: The Sweet Anthology. It received a four-star (out of five) rating in Rolling Stone.
In September 2009 Ace Frehley released his version of "Fox on the Run" on his album Anomaly.
In an October 2012 appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live, Axl Rose, lead singer of Guns N' Roses, referenced Sweet as one of his favourite bands growing up along with fellow British band Queen.
In April 2016, the chart topping song (1973), "The Ballroom Blitz" was featured in a trailer for Suicide Squad.
In December 2016, their single "Fox on the Run" (1975) was featured in a trailer for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.
In 2019, the songs "Fox on the Run" and "Set Me Free" were featured in an episode of Jamie Johnson.
Personnel
Original band
Classic lineup
Brian Connolly – lead vocals, percussion, synthesizer, acoustic guitar (1968–1978; died 1997)
Steve Priest – bass, backing and lead vocals (1968–1981; died 2020)
Mick Tucker – drums, percussion, backing and lead vocals (1968–1981; died 2002)
Andy Scott – guitars, keyboards, synthesizers, piano, backing and lead vocals (1970–1981)
Early members
Frank Torpey – guitars (1968–1969)
Mick Stewart – guitars (1969–1970)
Touring musicians
Gary Moberley – keyboards, synthesizers, piano (1978–1981)
Nico Ramsden – guitar (1978)
Ray McRiner – guitar (1979)
Andy Scott’s Sweet
Current members
Andy Scott – guitars, keyboards, synthesizers, piano, backing and lead vocals (1985–present)
Bruce Bisland – drums, backing vocals (1992–present)
Paul Manzi – lead vocals (2019–present; substitute appearances in 2014 and 2015)
Lee Small – bass, backing vocals (2019–present)
Former members
Mick Tucker – drums, backing vocals (1985–1991; died 2002)
Paul Mario Day – lead vocals (1985–1989)
Phil Lanzon – keyboards, piano, backing vocals (1985–1989; 2005—2006)
Mal McNulty – bass, lead and backing vocals (1985–1995)
Jeff Brown – bass, lead and backing vocals (1989–2003)
Steve Mann – keyboards, guitars, backing vocals (1989-1996)
Bodo Schopf – drums, backing vocals (1991–1992)
Chad Brown — lead vocals (1995–1998)
Steve Grant — keyboards, piano, backing vocals (1996–2005, 2006–2011); lead vocals, bass (2005–2006)
Tony O’Hora – lead and backing vocals, bass (2003–2005, 2006, 2011–2019), guitars, keyboards (2011–2019)
Peter Lincoln – bass, lead and backing vocals (2006–2019)
Timeline
Discography
Funny How Sweet Co-Co Can Be (1971)
Sweet Fanny Adams (1974)
Desolation Boulevard (1974)
Give Us a Wink (1976)
Off the Record (1977)
Level Headed (1978)
Cut Above the Rest (1979)
Waters Edge (titled Sweet VI with a different cover in the U.S.) (1980)
Identity Crisis (1982)
Sweetlife (2002) by Andy Scott's Sweet
Isolation Boulevard (2020) by Andy Scott's Sweet
References
Bibliography
(2008 eBook available at )
External links
Channel 4 documentary on The Sweet from 1996
English hard rock musical groups
English glam rock groups
Musical groups established in 1968
Capitol Records artists
Polydor Records artists
RCA Records artists
1968 establishments in the United Kingdom
Musical groups disestablished in 1982
1982 disestablishments in the United Kingdom
Musical groups reestablished in 1985
1985 establishments in the United Kingdom
| true |
[
"Rave Digger is the second studio album of drum and bass DJ, producer and musician Danny Byrd. It was released through Hospital Records on 10 October 2010 digitally and on 11 October 2010 physically.\n\nSingles\n \"Sweet Harmony\" was the first single released from the album, it was released on 1 February 2010. It peaked to No. 64 on the UK Singles Chart.\n \"Ill Behaviour\" was the second single released from the album, it was released on 26 September 2010. It peaked to No. 36 on the UK Singles Chart, making it his first top 40 single in the UK.\n \"We Can Have It All\" was the third single from the album. It was released on 24 October 2010.\n \"Tonight\" was the fourth single from the album. It was released on 6 February 2011.\n\nTrack listing\n\nIn popular media\n\"Judgement Day\" and \"We Can Have It All\" appear on the Codemasters game Dirt 3. Both tracks also appear in the Turn 10 Studios game Forza Motorsport 4.\n\nThe song \"Ill Behavior\" appears in Codemasters' famous F1 2011 game.\n\nChart performance\n\nRelease history\n\nReferences\n\n2010 albums\nDanny Byrd albums\nHospital Records albums",
"Kleista Ta Stomata (Greek: Κλειστά Τα Στόματα; English: Zipped Mouths) is the title of the 8th studio album by Greek Modern Laika singer Antonis Remos. The 11-track album was released in March 2011 by Heaven Music Grevr and is his first studio album of entirely new material since 2008.\n\nPromotion\nFor the promotion of the album, a CD-maxi was released on Christmas 2010 (3 months before the official release of the album), featuring the first two singles of the album \"Kommena Pia Ta Danika\" and \"Ine Stigmes\". The CD-maxi was titled \"2 Songs\". \nRemos also appeared on MAD Video Music Awards performing \"Kleista Ta Stomata\".\nAlthough seven radio singles were released on radios, only three official videos were made for the album, for the singles \"Kommena Pia Ta Danika\", \"Ine Stigmes\" and \"Kleista Ta Stomata\". For the third video clip footage from Remos appearance of MAD Video Music Awards 2011 was used.\n\nTrack listing\n Two pieces of the Night—I Nyhta Dyo Kommatia (Η νύχτα δυο κομμάτια)\n Loans are over now—Kommena pia ta daneika\n Paper moons—Feggaria hartina (Φεγγάρια χάρτινα)\n I didn't manage—Den katafera (Δεν κατάφερα)\n Now I survive—Tora epizo (Τώρα επιζώ)\n There Are Moments—Einai Stigmes (Είναι Στιγμές)\n Dare to leave—Kane na fugeis\n To leave—Να Φύγεις\n Zipped mouths—Kleista Ta Stomata (Κλειστά τα στόματα)\n Past—Parelthon (Παρελθόν)\n When you're here—Otan eisai edw (Όταν Είσαι Εδώ)\n Happy birthday—Xronia Polla (Χρόνια Πολλά)\n\nSingles\n Kommena Pia Ta Danika\nThis was the first single and video off the album. \n Ine Stigmes\nThe second single and video off the album.\n Kleista Ta Stomata\nThe third single off the album. For a video, Remos' appearance of MAD Video Music Awards 2011 was used.\n I Nichta Dio Kommatia\nThe fourth radio single. No video was made.\n Feggaria Hartina\nFifth single from the album. Again no video was made for the song.\n Tora Epizo\nThe dance track was promoted as the sixth single off the album. No video was filmed to promote the song.\n Parelthon\nBy popular demand, 'Parelthon' was made the seventh radio-single off the album on the beginning of 2012.\n\nCommercial Success\nInitially the album was released with the TV magazine Tiletheatis and sold 60,000 copies, a great success for the magazine. The following week the album was released on music stores, and there the album sold more than 36,000 copies with in a year, making it one of the best sellers of 2011 on the record shops. Based on those sales, the album was certified 3x Platinum in Greece.\n\nReferences\n\n2011 albums\nAntonis Remos albums"
] |
[
"The Sweet",
"First album",
"What was the name of their first album?",
"Funny How Sweet Co-Co Can Be,",
"Who produced their first album?",
"Phil Wainman",
"What year was their first album released?",
"November 1971.",
"Was there a popular single on the album?",
"Funny Funny"
] |
C_e0dc93e73be04cf2b157df3e12cc2286_0
|
Where was the album recorded?
| 5 |
Where was The Sweet's album, Funny How Sweet Co-Co Can Be, recorded?
|
The Sweet
|
The Sweet made their UK television debut in December 1970 on a pop show called Lift Off, performing the song "Funny Funny". A management deal was signed with the aforementioned songwriting team of Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman. Phil Wainman resumed his collaboration with Sweet, as executive producer. This management deal also included a worldwide (the U.S. excepted) record contract with RCA Records (in the United States and Canada Bell Records issued the group's music until late 1973; followed by Capitol Records). In March 1971 RCA issued "Funny Funny", written by Chinn and Chapman, which became the group's first international hit, climbing to the Top 20 on many of the world's charts. EMI reissued their 1970 single "All You'll Ever Get from Me" (May 1971) and it again failed to chart. Their next RCA release "Co-Co" (June 1971) went to number two in the U.K. and their follow up single, "Alexander Graham Bell" (October 1971), only went to #33. These tracks still featured session musicians on the instruments with the quartet providing only the vocals. The Sweet's first full LP album, Funny How Sweet Co-Co Can Be, was released in November 1971. A collection of the band's recent singles supplemented by some new Chinn/Chapman tunes (including "Chop Chop" and "Tom Tom Turnaround") and pop covers (such as the Lovin' Spoonful's "Daydream" and the Supremes' "Reflections"), the album, recorded at Nova Studios in London, was produced by Phil Wainman and engineered by Richard Dodd and Eric Holland. It was not a serious contender on the charts. Their albums' failure to match the success of their singles was a problem that would plague the band throughout their career. CANNOTANSWER
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Nova Studios in London,
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The Sweet, sometimes also shortened to just Sweet, are a British glam rock band that rose to worldwide fame in the 1970s. Their best known line-up consisted of lead vocalist Brian Connolly, bass player Steve Priest, guitarist Andy Scott, and drummer Mick Tucker. The group was originally called The Sweetshop.
The band was formed in London in 1968 and achieved their first hit, "Funny Funny", in 1971 after teaming up with songwriters Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman and record producer Phil Wainman. During 1971 and 1972, their musical style followed a marked progression from the Archies-like bubblegum style of "Funny Funny" to a Who-influenced hard rock style supplemented by a striking use of high-pitched backing vocals.
The band first achieved success in the UK charts, with thirteen Top 20 hits during the 1970s alone, with "Block Buster!" (1973) topping the chart, followed by three consecutive number two hits in "Hell Raiser" (1973), "The Ballroom Blitz" (1973) and "Teenage Rampage" (1974). The band turned to a more hard rock style with their mid-career singles, like 1974's "Turn It Down". "Fox on the Run" (1975) also reached number two on the UK charts. These results were topped in West Germany and other countries on the European mainland. They also achieved success and popularity in the US with the top ten hits "Little Willy", "The Ballroom Blitz", "Fox on the Run", and "Love is Like Oxygen".
The Sweet had their last international success in 1978 with "Love Is Like Oxygen". Connolly left the group in 1979 to start a solo career and the remaining members continued as a trio until disbanding in 1981. From the mid-1980s, Scott, Connolly and Priest each played with their own versions of Sweet at different times. Connolly died in 1997, Tucker in 2002 and Priest in 2020. Andy Scott is still active with his version of the band. Sweet have since sold over 35 million albums worldwide.
History
Origins
Sweet's origins can be traced back to British soul band Wainwright's Gentlemen. Mark Lay's history of that band states they formed around 1962 and were initially known as Unit 4. Founding members included Chris Wright (vocals), Jan Frewer (bass), with Jim Searle and Alfred Fripp on guitars. Phil Kenton joined on drums as the band changed its name to Wainwright's Gentlemen (due to there being another band known as Unit 4). Managed by Frewer's father, the band performed in the Hayes, Harrow and Wembley area. By 1964 the group was also playing in London, including at the Saint Germain Club on Poland Street.
In January 1964 the band came fifth in a national beat group contest, with finals held at the Lyceum Strand on 4 May 1964. Highlights of the show were presented on BBC1 by Alan Freeman. Chris Wright left the line-up in late 1964 and was replaced by Ian Gillan. A female vocalist named Ann Cully soon joined the band. Mick Tucker, from Ruislip, joined on drums replacing Phil Kenton. The band recorded a number of tracks including a cover of the Coasters-Hollies hit "Ain't That Just Like Me", which was probably recorded at Jackson Sound Studios in Rickmansworth. The track includes Gillan on vocals, Tucker on drums and, according to band bassist Jan Frewer, is thought to have been recorded in 1965. Gillan quit in May 1965 to join Episode Six, and later, Deep Purple. Cully remained as vocalist before departing some time later. Gillan's and Cully's eventual replacement, in late 1966, was Scots-born vocalist Brian Connolly, who hailed more recently from Harefield. Tony Hall had joined on saxophone and vocals and when Fripp left he was replaced by Gordon Fairminer. Fairminer's position was eventually assumed by Frank Torpey (born Frank Edward Torpey, 30 April 1945, Kilburn, North West London) - a schoolfriend of Tucker's who had just left West London group The Tribe (aka The Dream). Torpey only lasted a few months, and in late 1967 Robin Box (born 19 June 1944) took his place. Searle, regarded by many as the most talented musically, disappeared from the scene. Tucker and Connolly remained with Wainwright's Gentlemen until January 1968. Tucker was replaced by Roger Hills. When the Gentlemen eventually broke up, Hills and Box joined White Plains who eventually scored a big hit with "My Baby Loves Lovin'".
Early years
In January 1968 Connolly and Tucker formed a new band calling themselves The Sweetshop. They recruited bass guitarist and vocalist Steve Priest from a local band called The Army. Priest had previously played with mid-'60s band the Countdowns who had been produced and recorded by Joe Meek. Frank Torpey was again recruited to play guitar. The quartet made its public debut at the Pavilion in Hemel Hempstead on 9 March 1968 and soon developed a following on the pub circuit, which led to a contract with Fontana Records. At the time, another UK band released a single under the same name Sweetshop, so the band abbreviated their moniker to Sweet. The band was managed by Paul Nicholas, who later went on to star in Hair. Nicholas worked with record producer Phil Wainman at Mellin Music Publishing and recommended the band to him. Their debut single "Slow Motion" (July 1968), produced by Wainman, and released on Fontana, failed to chart and owing to its rarity now sells for several hundred pounds when auctioned. Sweet were released from the recording contract and Frank Torpey left. In his autobiography Are You Ready Steve, Priest said that Gordon Fairminer was approached to play for them when Torpey decided to leave Sweet after a gig at Playhouse Theatre Walton-on-Thames on 5 July 1969 but turned the job down as he wanted to concentrate on other interests.
New line-up and new record deal
Guitarist Mick Stewart joined in 1969. Stewart had some rock pedigree, having previously worked with The (Ealing) Redcaps and Simon Scott & The All-Nite Workers in the mid-1960s. In late 1965, that band became The Phil Wainman Set when the future Sweet producer joined on drums and the group cut some singles with Errol Dixon. In early 1966, Stewart left and later worked with Johnny Kidd & The Pirates.
Sweet signed a new record contract with EMI's Parlophone label. Three bubblegum pop singles were released: "Lollipop Man" (September 1969), "All You'll Ever Get from Me" (January 1970), and a cover version of the Archies' "Get on the Line" (June 1970), all of which failed to chart. Stewart then quit, and was not replaced for some time. Connolly and Tucker had a chance meeting with Wainman, who was now producing, and knew of two aspiring songwriters, Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman, who were looking for a group to sing some demos they had written. Connolly, Priest, and Tucker provided the vocals on a track called "Funny Funny" which featured Pip Williams on guitar, John Roberts on bass, and Wainman on drums. The latter began offering the track to various recording companies. The band held auditions for a replacement guitarist and settled on Welsh-born Andy Scott. He had most recently been playing with Mike McCartney (brother of Paul) in the Scaffold. As a member of the Elastic Band, he had played guitar on two singles for Decca, "Think of You Baby" and "Do Unto Others". He also appeared on the band's lone album release, Expansions on Life, and on some recordings by the Scaffold. The band rehearsed for a number of weeks before Scott made his live debut with Sweet on 26 September 1970 at the Windsor Ballroom in Redcar.
Sweet initially attempted to combine diverse musical influences, including the Monkees and 1960s bubblegum pop groups such as the Archies, with more heavy rock-oriented groups such as the Who. Sweet adopted the rich vocal harmony style of the Hollies, with distorted guitars and a heavy rhythm section. This fusion of pop and hard rock would remain a central trademark of Sweet's music and prefigured the glam metal of a few years later.
Sweet's initial album appearance was on the budget label Music for Pleasure as part of a compilation called Gimme Dat Ding, released in December 1970. Sweet had one side of the record; the Pipkins (whose sole hit, "Gimme Dat Ding", gave the LP its name) had the other. Sweet's contribution consisted of the A- and B-sides of the band's three Parlophone singles. Andy Scott appears in the album cover shot, even though he did not play on any of the recordings.
First album
Sweet made their UK television debut in December 1970 on a pop show called Lift Off, performing the song "Funny Funny". A management deal was signed with the aforementioned songwriting team of Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman. Phil Wainman resumed his collaboration with Sweet, as executive producer. This management deal also included a worldwide record contract with RCA Records, the U.S. excepted: in the United States and Canada Bell Records issued the group's music until late 1973, followed by Capitol Records.
In March 1971 RCA issued "Funny Funny", written by Chinn and Chapman, which became the group's first international hit, climbing to the Top 20 on many of the world's charts. EMI reissued their 1970 single "All You'll Ever Get from Me" (May 1971) and it again failed to chart. Their next RCA release "Co-Co" (June 1971) went to number two in the U.K. and their follow up single, "Alexander Graham Bell" (October 1971), only went to No. 33. These tracks still featured session musicians on the instruments with the quartet providing only the vocals.
Sweet's first full LP album, Funny How Sweet Co-Co Can Be, was released in November 1971. A collection of the band's recent singles supplemented by some new Chinn/Chapman tunes (including "Chop Chop" and "Tom Tom Turnaround") and pop covers (such as the Lovin' Spoonful's "Daydream" and the Supremes' "Reflections"), the album, recorded at Nova Studios in London, was produced by Phil Wainman and engineered by Richard Dodd and Eric Holland. It was not a serious contender on the charts.
Initial success and rise to fame
February 1972 saw the release of "Poppa Joe", which reached number 1 in Finland and peaked at number 11 on the UK Singles Chart. The next two singles of that year, "Little Willy" and "Wig-Wam Bam", both reached No. 4 in the UK. "Little Willy" peaked at No. 3 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 after a re-issue in 1973, thus becoming the group's biggest American hit. Although "Wig-Wam Bam" remained largely true to the style of Sweet's previous recordings, the vocals and guitars had a harder, more rock-oriented sound, largely because it was the first Chinn-Chapman single on which only members of Sweet played the instruments. In January 1973 "Block Buster!" became Sweet's first single to reach number 1 on the UK chart, remaining there for five consecutive weeks. After their next single "Hell Raiser" was released in May and reached number 2 in the U.K., Sweet's U.S. label, Bell, released the group's first American album The Sweet in July 1973.
To promote their singles, Sweet made numerous appearances on U.K. and European TV shows such as Top of the Pops and Supersonic. In one performance of "Block Buster!" on Top of the Pops Christmas edition, Priest aroused complaints after he appeared replete in a German military uniform, Hitler moustache and displaying a swastika armband. The band also capitalised on the glam rock explosion, rivalling Gary Glitter, T. Rex, Queen, Slade, and Wizzard for outrageous stage clothing.
Despite Sweet's success, the relationship with their management was becoming increasingly tense. While they had developed a large fan-base among teenagers, Sweet were not happy with their 'bubblegum' image. Sweet had always composed their own heavy-rock songs on the B-sides of their singles to contrast with the bubblegum A-sides which were composed by Chinn and Chapman. During this time, Sweet's live performances consisted of B-sides, album tracks, and various medleys of rock and roll classics; they avoided older novelty hits like "Funny Funny" and "Poppa Joe". A 1973 performance at the Palace Theatre and Grand Hall in Kilmarnock ended in Sweet being bottled off stage; the disorder was attributed by some (including Steve Priest) to Sweet's lipstick and eye-shadow look, and by others to the audience being unfamiliar with the concert set (the 1999 CD release Live at the Rainbow 1973 documents a live show from this period). The incident would be immortalised in the hit "The Ballroom Blitz" (September 1973). In the meantime, Sweet's chart success continued, showing particular strength in the UK, Denmark, Germany, Sweden, and Australia. By the end of 1973, the band's name evolved from "The Sweet" to "Sweet". The change would be reflected in all of their releases from 1974 onward.
Forming a new image
By 1974, Sweet had grown tired of the management team of Chinn and Chapman, who wrote the group's major hits and cultivated the band's glam rock image. The group and producer Phil Wainman, assisted by engineer Peter Coleman, recorded the album Sweet Fanny Adams, which was released in April 1974. Sweet's technical proficiency was demonstrated for the first time on self-penned hard rock tracks such as "Sweet F.A." and "Set Me Free". Sweet also adopted a more conventional hard rock sound and appearance. Sweet Fanny Adams also featured compressed high-pitched backing vocal harmonies, which was a trend that continued on all of Sweet's albums.
During sessions for the album, Brian Connolly was injured in a fight in Staines High Street. His throat was badly injured and his ability to sing severely limited. Priest and Scott filled in on lead vocals on some tracks ("No You Don't", "Into The Night" and "Restless") and Connolly, under treatment from a Harley Street specialist, managed to complete the album. The band did not publicise the incident and told the press that subsequent cancelled shows were due to Connolly having a throat infection. This incident reportedly permanently compromised Connolly's singing ability, with his range diminished.
No previous singles appeared on the album, and none were released, except in Japan, New Zealand and Australia, where "Peppermint Twist/Rebel Rouser", apparently released by their record company without their knowledge, gained a No. 1 chart position in the latter. Sweet Fanny Adams would be Sweet's only non-compilation release to break the UK Albums Chart Top 40.
Sweet were invited by Pete Townshend to support the Who, who were playing at Charlton Athletic's football ground, The Valley in June 1974. However, Connolly's badly bruised throat kept them from fulfilling the role. Sweet had frequently cited the Who as being one of their main influences and played a medley of their tracks in their live set for many years.
Desolation Boulevard
Their third album, Desolation Boulevard, was released later in 1974, six months after Sweet Fanny Adams. By that stage, producer Phil Wainman had moved on and the album was produced by Mike Chapman. It was recorded in a mere six days and featured a rawer "live" sound. One track, "The Man with the Golden Arm", written by Elmer Bernstein and Sylvia Fine for the 1955 Frank Sinatra movie of the same name, featured drummer Mick Tucker performing an 8 and half minute solo (although this was not included in the U.S. release). This had been a staple of the band's live performance for years. The first single from the LP, the heavy-melodic "The Six Teens" (July 1974), was a Top 10 hit in the U.K. and still part of the amazing unbroken string of No. 1's in Denmark. However, the subsequent single release, "Turn It Down" (November 1974), reached only No. 41 on the U.K. chart and No. 2 in Denmark. "Turn It Down" received minimal airplay on UK radio and was banned by some radio stations because of certain lyrical content - "God-awful sound" and "For God sakes, turn it down" - which were deemed "unsuitable for family listening." The band resumed playing live shows nearly a full six months after Connolly's throat injury, with band and critics noting a rougher edge to his voice and a reduced range. The album also featured a group composition, "Fox On The Run", which was to be re-recorded months later.
The U.S. version of Desolation Boulevard was different from the U.K. version and included several songs from Sweet Fanny Adams in addition to the "Ballroom Blitz" and "Fox on the Run" singles (both of which peaked at No. 5 in the US). Side One of the album contained all Chapman-Chinn penned songs, while Side Two featured songs written and produced by Sweet.
Writing and producing their own material
In 1975 Sweet went back into the studio to re-arrange and record a more pop-oriented version of the track "Fox on the Run". Sweet's first self-written and produced single, "Fox on the Run" was released worldwide in March 1975 and became their biggest selling hit, reaching number one in Germany, Denmark, and South Africa, number two in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Norway and the Netherlands and number three in Austria and Switzerland. In Australia it not only made it to the top of the charts, it also became the biggest selling single of that year. The song reached number two in Canada and number five in the U.S. The release of this track marked the end of the formal Chinn-Chapman working relationship and the band stressed it was now fully self-sufficient as writers and producers.
The following single release, "Action" (July 1975), peaked at number 15 in the UK. Now confident in their own songwriting and production abilities, Sweet spent the latter half of 1975 in Musicland Studios in Munich, Germany, where they recorded the Give Us A Wink album with German sound engineer Reinhold Mack, who later recorded with Electric Light Orchestra and co-produced Queen. The new album release was deferred until 1976 so as not to stifle the chart success Desolation Boulevard was enjoying, peaking at number 25 in the US and number 5 in Canada.
With Give Us a Wink being held over, RCA issued a double album in Europe, Strung Up, in November. It contained one live disc, recorded in London in December 1973, and one disc compiling previously released singles (plus an unused track by Chinn and Chapman – "I Wanna Be Committed"). At the end of the year, Andy Scott released his first solo single, "Lady Starlight" b/w "Where D'Ya Go". Tucker played drums on both tracks.
Decline in popularity
January 1976 saw the release of the single "The Lies In Your Eyes", which made the Top 10 in Germany, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Australia, but only reached No. 35 on the U.K. charts. Sweet's first album to be fully produced and written by themselves, Give Us A Wink, was released in March 1976. A third single from the album, "4th Of July", was issued in Australia.
By this time, Sweet strove to build on their growing popularity in America with a schedule of more than fifty headline concert dates. Even though Give Us A Winks release was imminent, the band's set essentially promoted the US version of Desolation Boulevard plus the new US hit single "Action". During an appearance at Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in California on 24 March, Sweet played "All Right Now" with Ritchie Blackmore as a tribute to mark the death of Free guitarist Paul Kossoff, who was to have supported Sweet with his band Back Street Crawler. The US tour was not financially successful, with small audiences at many venues leading to the final half-dozen or so dates to be cancelled. Following the end of the tour, the band went on to Scandinavia and Germany. The band also spent a week at the Who's Ramport Studios in Battersea demoing material for a new album before abandoning that project and playing eight dates in Japan. By the end of the Japanese shows Connolly's extremely hoarse singing voice was manifest evidence of the demands of constant touring and the enduring after-effects of his 1974 assault.
Between October 1976 and January 1977, Sweet wrote and recorded new material at Kingsway Recorders and Audio International London studios for their next album. An advance single from the album, "Lost Angels", was only a hit in Germany, Austria and Sweden. A new album, Off the Record, was released in April. The next single from the album, "Fever of Love", represented the band heading in a somewhat more Europop hard rock direction, once again charting in Germany, Austria and Sweden, while reaching number 10 in South Africa. On this album, Sweet again worked with Give Us A Wink engineer Louis Austin, who would later engineer Def Leppard's On Through The Night 1980 début album. The band cancelled a US tour with emerging US rockers Aerosmith, did not play any live dates in support of the album and, in fact, did not play a single concert for the whole of 1977.
Level Headed and a change in style
Sweet left RCA in 1977 and signed a new deal with Polydor though it would not come into force until later in the year. Sweet's manager David Walker, from Handle Artists, negotiated the move which was reputed to be worth around £750,000. In the United States, Canada, and Japan, Capitol had issued Sweet's albums since 1974 and would continue to do so through to 1980.
The first Polydor album, Level Headed (January 1978), found Sweet experimenting by combining rock and classical sounds "a-la clavesin", an approach similar to Electric Light Orchestra's, and featured the single "Love Is Like Oxygen". Largely recorded during 1977 at Château d'Hérouville near Paris, France after a 30-day writing session at Clearwell Castle in the Forest Of Dean UK, the album represented a new musical direction, largely abandoning hard-rock for a more melodic pop style, interspersed with ballads accompanied by a 30-piece orchestra. The ballad, "Lettres D'Amour", featured a duet between Connolly and Stevie Lange (who would emerge as lead singer with the group Night in 1979).
With the addition of session and touring musicians keyboardist Gary Moberley and guitarist Nico Ramsden, Sweet undertook a short European and Scandinavian tour followed by a single British concert at London's Hammersmith Odeon on 24 February 1978. However, "Love Is Like Oxygen" (January 1978) was their last U.K., U.S., and German Top 10 hit. Scott was nominated for an Ivor Novello Award for co-composing the song. One more single from the album, "California Nights" (May 1978), featuring Steve Priest as the lead vocalist, peaked at number 23 on the German chart.
Departure of Brian Connolly
Between March and May 1978 Sweet extensively toured the US, as a support act for Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band. The tour included a disastrous date in Birmingham, Alabama on 3 May, during which visiting Capitol Records executives in the audience saw Brian Connolly give a drunken and incoherent performance that terminated early in the set with his collapse on stage, leaving the rest of the group to play on without him. The band returned briefly to Britain before resuming the second leg of their US tour in late May supporting other acts, including Foghat and Alice Cooper. Concluding the US tour in early July 1978, Brian's alcoholism and estrangement from the group was steadily becoming a greater issue.
In late October, having spent further time at Clearwell Castle to write for their next album, Sweet arrived at The Town House studio in Shepherd's Bush, London to complete and record, Cut Above the Rest (April 1979). Due to tensions between various members attributed to Connolly's health and diminishing status with the group, his long-time friend and fellow founding member, Mick Tucker, was tasked to produce Connolly's vocals. It was felt Tucker would extract a better performance than Scott from Connolly. A number of tracks were recorded featuring Connolly. However, these efforts were deemed unsatisfactory and Brian left the band on 2 November 1978.
On 23 February 1979, Brian Connolly's departure from Sweet was formally announced by manager David Walker. Publicly, Connolly was said to be pursuing a solo career with an interest in recording country rock.
Three piece Sweet
Sweet continued as a trio with Priest assuming the lion's share of lead vocals, though Scott and Tucker were also active in that role. The first single release for the trio was "Call Me". Guest keyboard player Gary Moberley continued to augment the group on stage. Guitarist Ray McRiner joined their touring line-up in 1979, with a small tour with Journey in the eastern United States and Cheap Trick in Texas in the spring and summer of '79 to support Cut Above The Rest (which was released in April 1979). McRiner would also contribute the songs "Too Much Talking" and the single "Give The Lady Some Respect" to the next Sweet album, Waters Edge (August 1980), which was recorded in Canada. In the US, Waters Edge was titled Sweet VI. It featured the singles "Sixties Man" and "Give The Lady Some Respect". Tragedy befell Mick Tucker when his wife Pauline drowned in the bath at their home on 26 December 1979. The band withdrew from live work for all of 1980.
One more studio album, Identity Crisis, was recorded during 1980–81 but was only released in West Germany and Mexico. Sweet undertook a short tour of the UK and performed their last live show at Glasgow University on 20 March 1981. Steve Priest then returned to the United States, where he had been living since late 1979. When Polydor released Identity Crisis in October 1982, the original Sweet had been disbanded for almost a year.
Re-formed versions (1984–present)
Andy Scott's Sweet (1985–present)
Andy Scott and Mick Tucker organised their own version of Sweet with Paul Mario Day (ex-Iron Maiden, More, Wildfire) on lead vocals, Phil Lanzon (ex-Grand Prix) on keyboards and Mal McNulty on bass. The band performed at the Marquee Club in London in February 1986, with the shows recorded and gaining release a few years later, bolstered by four new studio tracks including a cover of the Motown standard "Reach Out I'll Be There". This line-up also toured Australian and New Zealand pubs and clubs for more than three months in 1985 and for a similar period again in 1986. Singer Paul Day ended up marrying the band's Australian tour guide and relocating downunder. He continued with Sweet commuting back and forth to Europe for the group's tours until this proved to be too cumbersome. He departed in late 1988. As McNulty moved into the front man spot, Jeff Brown came in to take over bass early in 1989. Lanzon too went back and forth between Sweet and Uriah Heep during 1986-1988 before Heep's schedule grew too busy. Malcolm Pearson and then Ian Gibbons (who had played with The Kinks and The Records) both filled in for Lanzon until Steve Mann (Liar, Lionheart, McAuley Schenker Group) arrived in December 1989.
Tucker departed after a show in Lochau, Austria, on 5 May 1991. He later was diagnosed with a rare form of leukaemia. Three drummers, Andy Hoyler, Bobby Andersen and Bruce Bisland (Weapon, Wildfire, Praying Mantis), provided short-term relief before Bodo Schopf (McAuley Schenker Group) took over. They recorded an album during this period, simply titled A. Before the band embarked on the supporting tour for A in 1992, Bodo left and Bisland returned as permanent percussionist. Scott changed the band's name to 'Andy Scott's Sweet' after Tucker's departure but truncated it to simply 'The Sweet' once again after Tucker's death in 2002.
Mal McNulty, now lead vocalist, departed in 1994, though he would return briefly that year to fill in for Jeff Brown on bass (as he would again in 1995 as lead singer for a few dates while Rocky Newton subbed on bass). Sweet's former keyboard men Gary Moberley and Ian Gibbons also did fill-in jaunts with the group that year, as did Chris Goulstone. Chad Brown (ex-Lionheart; no relation to Jeff) was the new front man. Glitz Blitz and Hitz, a new studio album of re-recorded Sweet hits, was released during this period.
In 1996 Mann left to take a job in television and Gibbons came back for a short time before Steve Grant (ex-The Animals) became the permanent keyboardist. When Chad Brown quit in 1998 after developing a throat infection, Jeff Brown assumed lead vocals and bass duties. After this, the band was stable again for the next five years.
The mid-2000s would bring further confusing shake-ups and rotations. Tony O'Hora (ex-Onslaught, Praying Mantis) replaced Brown as lead vocalist in 2003. Ian Gibbons came back for a third stint as fill-in keyboardist in June 2005 for a gig in the Faroe Islands. O'Hora decided to split to take a teaching job in late 2005. Grant then jumped from keyboards to lead vocals and bass as Phil Lanzon returned on keyboards for a tour of Russia and Germany in October/November. New singer Mark Thompson Smith (ex-Praying Mantis) joined in November 2005 for some Swedish gigs, while Jo Burt (ex-Black Sabbath) was temporary bass player. Tony Mills (ex-Shy) was slated to be Sweet's new singer in early 2006 but failed to work out and left after six shows in Denmark. At this point, O'Hora came back as fill in front man and then Grant did another turn himself as the singer/bassist (Steve Mann depped on keyboards) until the group finally landed a new permanent front man when Peter Lincoln (ex-Sailor) arrived in July 2006. The line-up then consisted of Scott, Bisland, Grant and Lincoln.
Scott produced the Suzi Quatro album Back to the Drive, released in February 2006. March 2006 saw the U.S. release of his band's album Sweetlife.
In 2007 the group played in Germany, Belgium, Austria and Italy. In May of that year, the band played in Porto Alegre and Curitiba, Brazil, their first and only South American shows. The tour was called the 'Sweet Fanny Adams Tour'.
The band toured again in March 2008 under the name 'Sweet Fanny Adams Revisited Tour'. In May and June, Scott's Sweet were part of the "Glitz Blitz & 70s Hitz" tour of the UK alongside The Rubettes and Showaddywaddy.
In March and April 2010, Scott was absent from a couple of gigs due to ill health and Martin Mickels stood in. Scott revealed later that he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer and was treated at the Bristol Royal Infirmary. After a course of treatment and rest, he was back to full touring fitness. In 2010 the band played at venues in Europe and back at Bilston in October.
In March 2011 there was a short tour of Australia, Regal Theatre - Perth, and Clipsal 500, Adelaide with the Doobie Brothers. Also in 2011, Tony O'Hora came back to the group, this time as keyboardist, after Grant departed.
In March 2012 the band released a new album New York Connection. Recorded in England, it comprised 11 cover versions, including the 2011 single "Join Together" and one revamped original recording; the 1972 B-side "New York Connection". All the covers either featured 'bits and pieces' of Sweet hits or other artist songs, such as a "new version of the Ramones Blitzkrieg Bop [which] shared space with samples from ‘Ballroom Blitz,’ and a take on Hello’s New York Groove (made famous in the US by Ace Frehley) featured a sample from Jay-Z’s Empire State Of Mind along with other Sweet references."
On the eve of their March 2012 "Join Together" tour of Australia, the band undertook an acoustic performance of three tracks, "New York Groove-Empire State of Mind", "Blockbuster" and "Peppermint Twist", in front of a live audience at ABC Radio Studios in East Perth. Shows in Perth, Adelaide, Hobart, Geelong, Melbourne and Sydney featured tracks from the new album for the first time.
Paul Manzi joined Sweet on their 2014 Australian tour, replacing Tony O'Hora who was absent for personal reasons. Manzi played guitar, keyboard and undertook lead vocals on "Set Me Free" and "AC-DC" as the band performed shows in regional centres, including outback Western Australia, Darwin and far-north Queensland, NSW and Victoria during February and March. The band, with O'Hora back in the ranks, returned to Australia in September 2014 as the headlining act for "Rock The Boat 4". This was a cruise aboard the ship Rhapsody of the Seas which departed Sydney and took in New Caledonia and Vanuatu. The band played two gigs and various members guested with Australian veteran performers including Brian Cadd and Russell Morris and members of AC/DC, The Angels, Rose Tattoo and Skyhooks.
In June 2015 it was revealed that the band were going on an extensive tour of the UK in late 2015 and that this tour would probably be their last.
For the 2015 summer tour dates, Paul Manzi returned to sub for Peter Lincoln who left this online message to the fans: "There have been a few rumours going around this weekend, so . . . just to say that I am alive and well! The short explanation for my absence is that I need to rest my voice for a few weeks. We are lucky that our good friend Paul Manzi is able to step in, and Tony knows the role of bass player/singer, so the shows can go ahead, and they will be great! I look forward to being back on stage very soon."
Pete Lincoln duly resumed his role in the band and they continued with extensive live dates, known as the "Finale" tour in Germany.
In 2017 after Andy undertook a successful Australian visit with Suzi Quatro and Don Powell in the side outfit known as QSP, Sweet was again booked for an extensive European tour. In the years following both Tony O'Hora and Pete Lincoln departed the band. Paul Manzi returned as permanent lead vocalist, quitting the popular outfit Cats in Space to do so. Lee Small joined as bassist and backing vocalist. Former guitarist and keyboard player Steve Mann joined for a handful of shows as a special guest. During the COVID-19 pandemic the band recorded a new album of old tracks entitled Isolation Boulevard.
New Sweet, Brian Connolly's Sweet (1984–1997)
In 1984 Brian Connolly formed a new version of the Sweet without any of the other original members. Despite recurring ill health, Connolly toured the UK and Europe with his band, "Brian Connolly's Sweet", which was then renamed to "New Sweet". His most successful concerts were in West Germany, before and after reunification.
During 1987, Connolly met up again with Frank Torpey. Torpey later explained in interviews Connolly was trying to get a German recording deal. The two got on very well and Torpey subsequently invited Connolly to go into the recording studio with him, as an informal project. After much trepidation, Connolly turned up and the track "Sharontina" was recorded. This recording would not be released until 1998, appearing on Frank Torpey's album Sweeter.
By July 1990, plans were made for Connolly and his band to tour Australia in November. During the long flight to Australia, Connolly's health had suffered and he was hospitalised in Adelaide Hospital, allegedly for dehydration and related problems. The rest of the band played a show in Adelaide without him. After being released from the hospital, Connolly joined the other band members in Melbourne for a gig at the Pier Hotel, in Frankston. After several other shows, including one at the Dingley Powerhouse, Connolly and his band played a final date at Melbourne's Greek Theatre. It was felt Connolly's health was sufficient reason for the tour not to be extended, and some of the planned dates were abandoned. Connolly went back to England and his band appeared on The Bob Downe Christmas show on 18 December 1990.
During the early 1990s, Connolly played the European "oldies" circuit and occasional outdoor festivals in Europe with his band. On 22 March 1992, a heavy duty tape recorder was stolen from the band's van whilst at a gig in the Bristol Hippodrome with Mud. It contained demos of four new songs, totalling about 20 mixes.
Legal problems were going on in the background over the use of the Sweet name between Connolly and Andy Scott. Both parties agreed to distinguish their group's names to help promoters and fans. The New Sweet went back to being called Brian Connolly's Sweet and Andy Scott's version became Andy Scott's Sweet.
In 1994, Connolly and his band played in Dubai. He appeared at the Galleria Theatre, Hyatt Regency. He also performed in Bahrain.
By this time Connolly had healed the differences with Steve Priest and Mick Tucker, and was invited to the wedding of Priest's eldest daughter, Lisa. At the private function, for which Priest specially flew back to England, Priest and Connolly performed together.
In 1995, Connolly released a new album entitled Let's Go. His partner Jean, whom he had met a few years earlier, gave birth to a son. Connolly also performed in Switzerland that year.
On 2 November 1996 British TV Network Channel 4 aired a programme Don't Leave Me This Way, which examined Connolly's time as a pop star with the Sweet, the subsequent decline in the band's popularity, and its impact on Connolly and the other band members. The show revealed Connolly's ill health but also that he was continuing with his concert dates at Butlins. Connolly and his band had appeared at Butlins a number of times on tour during the early 1990s.
Connolly's final concert was at the Bristol Hippodrome on 5 December 1996, with Slade II and John Rossall's Glitter Band Experience.
Steve Priest's Sweet (2008–Present)
In January 2008, Steve Priest assembled his own version of the Sweet in Los Angeles. He enlisted a guitarist Stuart Smith and L.A. native Richie Onori, Smith's bandmate in Heaven & Earth, was brought in on drums. The keyboard spot was manned by ex-Crow and World Classic Rockers alumni Stevie Stewart. Front-man and vocalist Joe Retta was brought in to round out the line-up.
After an initial appearance on L.A. rock station 95.5 KLOS's popular Mark & Brian radio programme, the "Are You Ready Steve?" tour kicked off at the Whisky a Go Go in Hollywood on 12 June 2008. The band spent the next several months playing festivals and gigs throughout the U.S. and Canada, including Moondance Jam in Walker, Minnesota; headlining at the Rock N Resort Music Festival in North Lawrence, Ohio (near Canal Fulton); London, Ontario's Rock the Park; another headlining gig at Peterborough's Festival of Lights; the Common Ground Festival in Lansing, Michigan; and a benefit concert for victims of California's wildfires at Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego, California.
In January 2009, the Sweet presented at the concert industry's Pollstar Awards, and also played a short set at the Nokia Theatre where the event was held, marking the first time in the ceremony's history that a band performed at the show. In addition to local gigs at the House of Blues on L.A.'s Sunset Strip and Universal CityWalk, 2009 saw the band return to Canada for sold-out shows at the Mae Wilson Theater and Casino Regina, as well as the Nakusp Music Fest and Rockin' the Fields of Minnedosa in Minnedosa, Manitoba. U.S. festivals have included Minnesota's Halfway Jam, Rockin' the Rivers in Montana (with Pat Travers and Peter Frampton), and two late-summer shows at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk.
The new band recorded a cover version of the Beatles' "Ticket to Ride", which was included on Cleopatra Records' Abbey Road, a Fab Four tribute CD that was released on 24 March 2009.
A preview of the band's new CD Live in America, which was recorded live at the Morongo Casino, Resort & Spa in Cabazon, California on 30 August 2008, was featured on KLOS's "Front Row" programme on 12 April 2009. The CD, which was first sold at shows and via the band's on-line store, was released worldwide in an exclusive deal with Amazon.com on 21 July 2009. The release has garnered favourable reviews from The Rock n Roll Report, Classic Rock Revisited and Hard Rock Haven, among others.
In April 2010, the band released its first single on iTunes: an updated, hard rock version of the Beatles' "I Saw Her Standing There." Performances on the 2010 summer tour included the Wildflower! Arts and Music Festival in Richardson, Texas; Las Vegas, Nevada's Fremont Street Experience; Rock N' America in Oklahoma City, OK; Summer Jam in Des Moines, Iowa; Jack FM's Fifth Show at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater in Los Angeles; an appearance at the Hard Rock Hotel in Biloxi, Mississippi; and the inaugural edition of the Thunder Mountain Rock Festival in Sawyer, North Dakota.
On 11 November 2010, it was announced that in May 2011 "Steve Priest's Sweet" had been booked to perform at a handful of European dates, but the gigs ultimately had to be cancelled in late January 2011 after it was learned that one of the promoters was a suspected swindler wanted by British law enforcement officials. As of February 2011, fans who purchased pre-sale tickets were still in the process of working through the administrative channels with PayPal and various banks and credit card issuers in order to try to reclaim their funds.
The band toured South America along with Journey during March 2011.
The band and their European fans then also got re-united quicker than thought, when the band got booked by a befriended female Belgian promoter. Two east German gigs, 27 and 28 May 2011, so in Borna and in Schwarzenberg Steve Priest's Sweet hit the European grounds. After more than 30 years, Steve Priest got a warm welcome back in Europe.
As of 12 August 2012, Stuart Smith resigned from the guitar post in order to dedicate more time to his "Heaven & Earth" project.
Beginning with the band's October 2012 appearance at the Festival Internacional Chihuahua in Mexico, Los Angeles-based guitarist Ricky Z. teamed up with Steve Priest and company for their live performances. In February 2013, this lineup returned to Casino Regina in Saskatchewan, Canada. Tour dates played in summer 2013 included Riverfest in Watertown, Wisconsin, the St. Clair, MI Riverfest, several additional dates in Canada, and a reprise of their appearances at both Moondance Jam in Walker, MN and Rockin' the Rivers in Three Forks, Montana. The band made some rare appearances on the U.S. east coast in July 2013, including a performance with David Johansen of the New York Dolls at the Bergen Performing Arts Center in Englewood, New Jersey. Singer Joe Retta was unavailable for these dates due to a scheduling conflict, so Tribe of Gypsies frontman Chas West, who has played with Jason Bonham's band and has experience subbing in such well-known bands as Foreigner, Lynch Mob and Diamond Head, stepped in to man the microphone for a series of shows in New York, New Jersey and Maryland.
On 27 August 2014, Steve Priest announced on the band's Facebook page that guitarist Mitch Perry had been tapped for the guitar slot. Most recently on tour with Lita Ford, Mitch's other credentials included his work with Michael Schenker Group, Asia Featuring John Payne, Edgar Winter, Billy Sheehan and David Lee Roth His first live appearance with Sweet was at the Rock the River festival in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan on 23 August 2014.
22 December 2017 saw the launch of the 50th anniversary tour at the Whisky a Go Go on L.A.'s Sunset Strip and the introduction of new singer Paul Zablidowski AKA "Paulie Z" former lead singer and guitarist of ZO2, children's band "The Z Brothers" and star of IFC show Z-Rock. Recently known as the host for local show "Ultimate Jam Night." Z replaced Joe Retta, who had served as the frontman for the Los Angeles incarnation of Sweet since its formation in 2008. Priest died on 4 June 2020.
Brief reunions and the deaths of Brian Connolly, Mick Tucker and Steve Priest
Steve Priest was asked to join Tucker and Scott for the 1985 Australian tour, but declined at the last moment.
Mike Chapman contacted Connolly, Priest, Scott, and Tucker in 1988, offering to finance a recording session in Los Angeles. As he remembers: "I met them at the airport and Andy and Mick came off the plane. I said, 'Where's Brian?' They said, 'Oh, he's coming.' All the people had come off the plane by now. Then this little old man hobbled towards us. He was shaking, and had a ghostly white face. I thought, 'Oh, Jesus Christ.' It was horrifying." Reworked studio versions of "Action" and "The Ballroom Blitz" were recorded, but it became clear that Connolly's voice and physical health had made Sweet's original member comeback too difficult to promote commercially. Consequently, the reunion attempt was aborted.
In 1990 this line-up was again reunited for the promotion of a music documentary entitled Sweet's Ballroom Blitz. This UK video release, which contained UK television performances from the 1970s and current-day interviews, was released at Tower Records, London. Sweet was interviewed by Power Hour, Super Channel, and spoke of a possible reunion.
Brian Connolly died at the age of 51 on 9 February 1997, from liver failure and repeated heart attacks, attributed to his abuse of alcohol in the 1970s and early 1980s. Mick Tucker died on 14 February 2002 from leukemia, at the age of 54. On 4 June 2020 it was announced that Steve Priest had died. It left Andy Scott as the sole living member of Sweet's 'classic lineup'.
Later years
Two versions of The Sweet were active with original members: "Andy Scott's Sweet", who frequently tour across Europe as Sweet and makes occasional sojourns to other markets including regular visits to Australia, and "Steve Priest's Sweet" who toured the US and Canada.
On 28 April 2009, Shout! Factory released a two-disc, career-spanning greatest hits album called Action: The Sweet Anthology. It received a four-star (out of five) rating in Rolling Stone.
In September 2009 Ace Frehley released his version of "Fox on the Run" on his album Anomaly.
In an October 2012 appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live, Axl Rose, lead singer of Guns N' Roses, referenced Sweet as one of his favourite bands growing up along with fellow British band Queen.
In April 2016, the chart topping song (1973), "The Ballroom Blitz" was featured in a trailer for Suicide Squad.
In December 2016, their single "Fox on the Run" (1975) was featured in a trailer for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.
In 2019, the songs "Fox on the Run" and "Set Me Free" were featured in an episode of Jamie Johnson.
Personnel
Original band
Classic lineup
Brian Connolly – lead vocals, percussion, synthesizer, acoustic guitar (1968–1978; died 1997)
Steve Priest – bass, backing and lead vocals (1968–1981; died 2020)
Mick Tucker – drums, percussion, backing and lead vocals (1968–1981; died 2002)
Andy Scott – guitars, keyboards, synthesizers, piano, backing and lead vocals (1970–1981)
Early members
Frank Torpey – guitars (1968–1969)
Mick Stewart – guitars (1969–1970)
Touring musicians
Gary Moberley – keyboards, synthesizers, piano (1978–1981)
Nico Ramsden – guitar (1978)
Ray McRiner – guitar (1979)
Andy Scott’s Sweet
Current members
Andy Scott – guitars, keyboards, synthesizers, piano, backing and lead vocals (1985–present)
Bruce Bisland – drums, backing vocals (1992–present)
Paul Manzi – lead vocals (2019–present; substitute appearances in 2014 and 2015)
Lee Small – bass, backing vocals (2019–present)
Former members
Mick Tucker – drums, backing vocals (1985–1991; died 2002)
Paul Mario Day – lead vocals (1985–1989)
Phil Lanzon – keyboards, piano, backing vocals (1985–1989; 2005—2006)
Mal McNulty – bass, lead and backing vocals (1985–1995)
Jeff Brown – bass, lead and backing vocals (1989–2003)
Steve Mann – keyboards, guitars, backing vocals (1989-1996)
Bodo Schopf – drums, backing vocals (1991–1992)
Chad Brown — lead vocals (1995–1998)
Steve Grant — keyboards, piano, backing vocals (1996–2005, 2006–2011); lead vocals, bass (2005–2006)
Tony O’Hora – lead and backing vocals, bass (2003–2005, 2006, 2011–2019), guitars, keyboards (2011–2019)
Peter Lincoln – bass, lead and backing vocals (2006–2019)
Timeline
Discography
Funny How Sweet Co-Co Can Be (1971)
Sweet Fanny Adams (1974)
Desolation Boulevard (1974)
Give Us a Wink (1976)
Off the Record (1977)
Level Headed (1978)
Cut Above the Rest (1979)
Waters Edge (titled Sweet VI with a different cover in the U.S.) (1980)
Identity Crisis (1982)
Sweetlife (2002) by Andy Scott's Sweet
Isolation Boulevard (2020) by Andy Scott's Sweet
References
Bibliography
(2008 eBook available at )
External links
Channel 4 documentary on The Sweet from 1996
English hard rock musical groups
English glam rock groups
Musical groups established in 1968
Capitol Records artists
Polydor Records artists
RCA Records artists
1968 establishments in the United Kingdom
Musical groups disestablished in 1982
1982 disestablishments in the United Kingdom
Musical groups reestablished in 1985
1985 establishments in the United Kingdom
| true |
[
"10.000 luchtballonnen is the fourteenth studio album by Belgian-Dutch girl group K3. It is the first album that was recorded by the new formation of K3, which was formed in the 2015 television show K3 zoekt K3. The album was released on 18 December 2015 by Studio 100. The album features twelve completely new songs, as well as twelve consisting K3-songs re-recorded by the new members. The album became a big success, especially in Belgium where it debuted at number one on the Belgian Album Top 200 and was certified 8x Platinum by the Belgian Entertainment Association, but also in The Netherlands where it reached the second position on the Dutch Album Top 100 and was certified Platinum by the NVPI. The first single, also called \"10.000 luchtballonnen\", was released after the finale of the television show, and debuted at number one at the Ultratop 50.\n\nTrack listing\n\nCharts and certifications\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nCertifications\n\nReferences\n\n2015 albums\nK3 (band) albums",
"\"Inget stoppar oss nu\", also known as \"Inget kan stoppa oss nu\" or \"I natt, i natt\", is a song written by Lasse Holm and Ingela \"Pling\" Forsman, and originally intended to be performed by Haakon Pedersen at Melodifestivalen 1987. The song never entered the contest, but instead he recorded it for the album Nattens drottning from 1989.\n\nDansband standard\nIn the springtime of 1989, the song was recorded by Canyons orkester for Mariann Grammofon, (number: tmcs045). The song also topped Skånetoppen in 1990. In 1990, it was also recorded by Trastinis (B-side). A live recording by Stefan Borsch orkester on the 1990 video album Te' dans me' Stefan Borsch orkester was also done.\n\nIn 1991, Black Jack scored a major hit with the song, releasing it as a single in 1990, with \"I ett lusthus\" as B-side. It was also recorded for the 1990 movie soundtrack album Black Jack in 1990 from the film Blackjack ant for the film with the same name.\n\nIn 1991, Kikki Danielsson also recorded the song on the album \"Vägen hem till dej\", and the same year Drifters with Marie Arturén recorded the song as a B-side for the single \"Säg varför\". Även Leif Norbergs (single) and Mats Bergmans recorded the song the same year. In the same year, the song was also recorded by Contrazt, Tottes and Cheeries, while Christie. recorded the song the upcoming year\n\nIn 2001, Halländers recorded the song.\n\nAt Dansbandskampen 2008 the song was used during the finals, and performed by Larz-Kristerz and Scotts, where Larz Kristerz won. Scotts performed the song using an acoustic arrangement, which in 2009 was at the album Längtan. It was also recorded by CC & Lee for the album Gåva till dig in 2009.\n\nAt Dansbandskampen 2010, the song was performed Jeppez & the Cowboys. Before the penultimate program the song was performed, outside any competition, by Elisas, Patrik's Combo and Willez.\n\nOther recordings\nBlack Ingvars recorded a 1995 recording at \"Inget stoppar oss nu\" on the album \"Earcandy Six\", and the same year Flintstens med Stanley also recorded the song.\nAt Körslaget 2009 the song was performed by Stefan Nykvist's choir from Älvdalen.\nAnne-Lie Rydé recorded the song on the 2010 album Dans på rosor.\n\nReferences\n\n1987 songs\nKikki Danielsson songs\nSwedish songs\nSwedish-language songs\nSongs written by Lasse Holm\nSongs with lyrics by Ingela Forsman\nScotts (band) songs\nDrifters (Swedish band) songs\nAnne-Lie Rydé songs"
] |
[
"The Sweet",
"First album",
"What was the name of their first album?",
"Funny How Sweet Co-Co Can Be,",
"Who produced their first album?",
"Phil Wainman",
"What year was their first album released?",
"November 1971.",
"Was there a popular single on the album?",
"Funny Funny",
"Where was the album recorded?",
"Nova Studios in London,"
] |
C_e0dc93e73be04cf2b157df3e12cc2286_0
|
Did the album reach the top of the music charts?
| 6 |
Did The Sweet's album, Funny How Sweet Co-Co Can Be, reach the top of the music charts?
|
The Sweet
|
The Sweet made their UK television debut in December 1970 on a pop show called Lift Off, performing the song "Funny Funny". A management deal was signed with the aforementioned songwriting team of Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman. Phil Wainman resumed his collaboration with Sweet, as executive producer. This management deal also included a worldwide (the U.S. excepted) record contract with RCA Records (in the United States and Canada Bell Records issued the group's music until late 1973; followed by Capitol Records). In March 1971 RCA issued "Funny Funny", written by Chinn and Chapman, which became the group's first international hit, climbing to the Top 20 on many of the world's charts. EMI reissued their 1970 single "All You'll Ever Get from Me" (May 1971) and it again failed to chart. Their next RCA release "Co-Co" (June 1971) went to number two in the U.K. and their follow up single, "Alexander Graham Bell" (October 1971), only went to #33. These tracks still featured session musicians on the instruments with the quartet providing only the vocals. The Sweet's first full LP album, Funny How Sweet Co-Co Can Be, was released in November 1971. A collection of the band's recent singles supplemented by some new Chinn/Chapman tunes (including "Chop Chop" and "Tom Tom Turnaround") and pop covers (such as the Lovin' Spoonful's "Daydream" and the Supremes' "Reflections"), the album, recorded at Nova Studios in London, was produced by Phil Wainman and engineered by Richard Dodd and Eric Holland. It was not a serious contender on the charts. Their albums' failure to match the success of their singles was a problem that would plague the band throughout their career. CANNOTANSWER
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It was not a serious contender on the charts.
|
The Sweet, sometimes also shortened to just Sweet, are a British glam rock band that rose to worldwide fame in the 1970s. Their best known line-up consisted of lead vocalist Brian Connolly, bass player Steve Priest, guitarist Andy Scott, and drummer Mick Tucker. The group was originally called The Sweetshop.
The band was formed in London in 1968 and achieved their first hit, "Funny Funny", in 1971 after teaming up with songwriters Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman and record producer Phil Wainman. During 1971 and 1972, their musical style followed a marked progression from the Archies-like bubblegum style of "Funny Funny" to a Who-influenced hard rock style supplemented by a striking use of high-pitched backing vocals.
The band first achieved success in the UK charts, with thirteen Top 20 hits during the 1970s alone, with "Block Buster!" (1973) topping the chart, followed by three consecutive number two hits in "Hell Raiser" (1973), "The Ballroom Blitz" (1973) and "Teenage Rampage" (1974). The band turned to a more hard rock style with their mid-career singles, like 1974's "Turn It Down". "Fox on the Run" (1975) also reached number two on the UK charts. These results were topped in West Germany and other countries on the European mainland. They also achieved success and popularity in the US with the top ten hits "Little Willy", "The Ballroom Blitz", "Fox on the Run", and "Love is Like Oxygen".
The Sweet had their last international success in 1978 with "Love Is Like Oxygen". Connolly left the group in 1979 to start a solo career and the remaining members continued as a trio until disbanding in 1981. From the mid-1980s, Scott, Connolly and Priest each played with their own versions of Sweet at different times. Connolly died in 1997, Tucker in 2002 and Priest in 2020. Andy Scott is still active with his version of the band. Sweet have since sold over 35 million albums worldwide.
History
Origins
Sweet's origins can be traced back to British soul band Wainwright's Gentlemen. Mark Lay's history of that band states they formed around 1962 and were initially known as Unit 4. Founding members included Chris Wright (vocals), Jan Frewer (bass), with Jim Searle and Alfred Fripp on guitars. Phil Kenton joined on drums as the band changed its name to Wainwright's Gentlemen (due to there being another band known as Unit 4). Managed by Frewer's father, the band performed in the Hayes, Harrow and Wembley area. By 1964 the group was also playing in London, including at the Saint Germain Club on Poland Street.
In January 1964 the band came fifth in a national beat group contest, with finals held at the Lyceum Strand on 4 May 1964. Highlights of the show were presented on BBC1 by Alan Freeman. Chris Wright left the line-up in late 1964 and was replaced by Ian Gillan. A female vocalist named Ann Cully soon joined the band. Mick Tucker, from Ruislip, joined on drums replacing Phil Kenton. The band recorded a number of tracks including a cover of the Coasters-Hollies hit "Ain't That Just Like Me", which was probably recorded at Jackson Sound Studios in Rickmansworth. The track includes Gillan on vocals, Tucker on drums and, according to band bassist Jan Frewer, is thought to have been recorded in 1965. Gillan quit in May 1965 to join Episode Six, and later, Deep Purple. Cully remained as vocalist before departing some time later. Gillan's and Cully's eventual replacement, in late 1966, was Scots-born vocalist Brian Connolly, who hailed more recently from Harefield. Tony Hall had joined on saxophone and vocals and when Fripp left he was replaced by Gordon Fairminer. Fairminer's position was eventually assumed by Frank Torpey (born Frank Edward Torpey, 30 April 1945, Kilburn, North West London) - a schoolfriend of Tucker's who had just left West London group The Tribe (aka The Dream). Torpey only lasted a few months, and in late 1967 Robin Box (born 19 June 1944) took his place. Searle, regarded by many as the most talented musically, disappeared from the scene. Tucker and Connolly remained with Wainwright's Gentlemen until January 1968. Tucker was replaced by Roger Hills. When the Gentlemen eventually broke up, Hills and Box joined White Plains who eventually scored a big hit with "My Baby Loves Lovin'".
Early years
In January 1968 Connolly and Tucker formed a new band calling themselves The Sweetshop. They recruited bass guitarist and vocalist Steve Priest from a local band called The Army. Priest had previously played with mid-'60s band the Countdowns who had been produced and recorded by Joe Meek. Frank Torpey was again recruited to play guitar. The quartet made its public debut at the Pavilion in Hemel Hempstead on 9 March 1968 and soon developed a following on the pub circuit, which led to a contract with Fontana Records. At the time, another UK band released a single under the same name Sweetshop, so the band abbreviated their moniker to Sweet. The band was managed by Paul Nicholas, who later went on to star in Hair. Nicholas worked with record producer Phil Wainman at Mellin Music Publishing and recommended the band to him. Their debut single "Slow Motion" (July 1968), produced by Wainman, and released on Fontana, failed to chart and owing to its rarity now sells for several hundred pounds when auctioned. Sweet were released from the recording contract and Frank Torpey left. In his autobiography Are You Ready Steve, Priest said that Gordon Fairminer was approached to play for them when Torpey decided to leave Sweet after a gig at Playhouse Theatre Walton-on-Thames on 5 July 1969 but turned the job down as he wanted to concentrate on other interests.
New line-up and new record deal
Guitarist Mick Stewart joined in 1969. Stewart had some rock pedigree, having previously worked with The (Ealing) Redcaps and Simon Scott & The All-Nite Workers in the mid-1960s. In late 1965, that band became The Phil Wainman Set when the future Sweet producer joined on drums and the group cut some singles with Errol Dixon. In early 1966, Stewart left and later worked with Johnny Kidd & The Pirates.
Sweet signed a new record contract with EMI's Parlophone label. Three bubblegum pop singles were released: "Lollipop Man" (September 1969), "All You'll Ever Get from Me" (January 1970), and a cover version of the Archies' "Get on the Line" (June 1970), all of which failed to chart. Stewart then quit, and was not replaced for some time. Connolly and Tucker had a chance meeting with Wainman, who was now producing, and knew of two aspiring songwriters, Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman, who were looking for a group to sing some demos they had written. Connolly, Priest, and Tucker provided the vocals on a track called "Funny Funny" which featured Pip Williams on guitar, John Roberts on bass, and Wainman on drums. The latter began offering the track to various recording companies. The band held auditions for a replacement guitarist and settled on Welsh-born Andy Scott. He had most recently been playing with Mike McCartney (brother of Paul) in the Scaffold. As a member of the Elastic Band, he had played guitar on two singles for Decca, "Think of You Baby" and "Do Unto Others". He also appeared on the band's lone album release, Expansions on Life, and on some recordings by the Scaffold. The band rehearsed for a number of weeks before Scott made his live debut with Sweet on 26 September 1970 at the Windsor Ballroom in Redcar.
Sweet initially attempted to combine diverse musical influences, including the Monkees and 1960s bubblegum pop groups such as the Archies, with more heavy rock-oriented groups such as the Who. Sweet adopted the rich vocal harmony style of the Hollies, with distorted guitars and a heavy rhythm section. This fusion of pop and hard rock would remain a central trademark of Sweet's music and prefigured the glam metal of a few years later.
Sweet's initial album appearance was on the budget label Music for Pleasure as part of a compilation called Gimme Dat Ding, released in December 1970. Sweet had one side of the record; the Pipkins (whose sole hit, "Gimme Dat Ding", gave the LP its name) had the other. Sweet's contribution consisted of the A- and B-sides of the band's three Parlophone singles. Andy Scott appears in the album cover shot, even though he did not play on any of the recordings.
First album
Sweet made their UK television debut in December 1970 on a pop show called Lift Off, performing the song "Funny Funny". A management deal was signed with the aforementioned songwriting team of Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman. Phil Wainman resumed his collaboration with Sweet, as executive producer. This management deal also included a worldwide record contract with RCA Records, the U.S. excepted: in the United States and Canada Bell Records issued the group's music until late 1973, followed by Capitol Records.
In March 1971 RCA issued "Funny Funny", written by Chinn and Chapman, which became the group's first international hit, climbing to the Top 20 on many of the world's charts. EMI reissued their 1970 single "All You'll Ever Get from Me" (May 1971) and it again failed to chart. Their next RCA release "Co-Co" (June 1971) went to number two in the U.K. and their follow up single, "Alexander Graham Bell" (October 1971), only went to No. 33. These tracks still featured session musicians on the instruments with the quartet providing only the vocals.
Sweet's first full LP album, Funny How Sweet Co-Co Can Be, was released in November 1971. A collection of the band's recent singles supplemented by some new Chinn/Chapman tunes (including "Chop Chop" and "Tom Tom Turnaround") and pop covers (such as the Lovin' Spoonful's "Daydream" and the Supremes' "Reflections"), the album, recorded at Nova Studios in London, was produced by Phil Wainman and engineered by Richard Dodd and Eric Holland. It was not a serious contender on the charts.
Initial success and rise to fame
February 1972 saw the release of "Poppa Joe", which reached number 1 in Finland and peaked at number 11 on the UK Singles Chart. The next two singles of that year, "Little Willy" and "Wig-Wam Bam", both reached No. 4 in the UK. "Little Willy" peaked at No. 3 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 after a re-issue in 1973, thus becoming the group's biggest American hit. Although "Wig-Wam Bam" remained largely true to the style of Sweet's previous recordings, the vocals and guitars had a harder, more rock-oriented sound, largely because it was the first Chinn-Chapman single on which only members of Sweet played the instruments. In January 1973 "Block Buster!" became Sweet's first single to reach number 1 on the UK chart, remaining there for five consecutive weeks. After their next single "Hell Raiser" was released in May and reached number 2 in the U.K., Sweet's U.S. label, Bell, released the group's first American album The Sweet in July 1973.
To promote their singles, Sweet made numerous appearances on U.K. and European TV shows such as Top of the Pops and Supersonic. In one performance of "Block Buster!" on Top of the Pops Christmas edition, Priest aroused complaints after he appeared replete in a German military uniform, Hitler moustache and displaying a swastika armband. The band also capitalised on the glam rock explosion, rivalling Gary Glitter, T. Rex, Queen, Slade, and Wizzard for outrageous stage clothing.
Despite Sweet's success, the relationship with their management was becoming increasingly tense. While they had developed a large fan-base among teenagers, Sweet were not happy with their 'bubblegum' image. Sweet had always composed their own heavy-rock songs on the B-sides of their singles to contrast with the bubblegum A-sides which were composed by Chinn and Chapman. During this time, Sweet's live performances consisted of B-sides, album tracks, and various medleys of rock and roll classics; they avoided older novelty hits like "Funny Funny" and "Poppa Joe". A 1973 performance at the Palace Theatre and Grand Hall in Kilmarnock ended in Sweet being bottled off stage; the disorder was attributed by some (including Steve Priest) to Sweet's lipstick and eye-shadow look, and by others to the audience being unfamiliar with the concert set (the 1999 CD release Live at the Rainbow 1973 documents a live show from this period). The incident would be immortalised in the hit "The Ballroom Blitz" (September 1973). In the meantime, Sweet's chart success continued, showing particular strength in the UK, Denmark, Germany, Sweden, and Australia. By the end of 1973, the band's name evolved from "The Sweet" to "Sweet". The change would be reflected in all of their releases from 1974 onward.
Forming a new image
By 1974, Sweet had grown tired of the management team of Chinn and Chapman, who wrote the group's major hits and cultivated the band's glam rock image. The group and producer Phil Wainman, assisted by engineer Peter Coleman, recorded the album Sweet Fanny Adams, which was released in April 1974. Sweet's technical proficiency was demonstrated for the first time on self-penned hard rock tracks such as "Sweet F.A." and "Set Me Free". Sweet also adopted a more conventional hard rock sound and appearance. Sweet Fanny Adams also featured compressed high-pitched backing vocal harmonies, which was a trend that continued on all of Sweet's albums.
During sessions for the album, Brian Connolly was injured in a fight in Staines High Street. His throat was badly injured and his ability to sing severely limited. Priest and Scott filled in on lead vocals on some tracks ("No You Don't", "Into The Night" and "Restless") and Connolly, under treatment from a Harley Street specialist, managed to complete the album. The band did not publicise the incident and told the press that subsequent cancelled shows were due to Connolly having a throat infection. This incident reportedly permanently compromised Connolly's singing ability, with his range diminished.
No previous singles appeared on the album, and none were released, except in Japan, New Zealand and Australia, where "Peppermint Twist/Rebel Rouser", apparently released by their record company without their knowledge, gained a No. 1 chart position in the latter. Sweet Fanny Adams would be Sweet's only non-compilation release to break the UK Albums Chart Top 40.
Sweet were invited by Pete Townshend to support the Who, who were playing at Charlton Athletic's football ground, The Valley in June 1974. However, Connolly's badly bruised throat kept them from fulfilling the role. Sweet had frequently cited the Who as being one of their main influences and played a medley of their tracks in their live set for many years.
Desolation Boulevard
Their third album, Desolation Boulevard, was released later in 1974, six months after Sweet Fanny Adams. By that stage, producer Phil Wainman had moved on and the album was produced by Mike Chapman. It was recorded in a mere six days and featured a rawer "live" sound. One track, "The Man with the Golden Arm", written by Elmer Bernstein and Sylvia Fine for the 1955 Frank Sinatra movie of the same name, featured drummer Mick Tucker performing an 8 and half minute solo (although this was not included in the U.S. release). This had been a staple of the band's live performance for years. The first single from the LP, the heavy-melodic "The Six Teens" (July 1974), was a Top 10 hit in the U.K. and still part of the amazing unbroken string of No. 1's in Denmark. However, the subsequent single release, "Turn It Down" (November 1974), reached only No. 41 on the U.K. chart and No. 2 in Denmark. "Turn It Down" received minimal airplay on UK radio and was banned by some radio stations because of certain lyrical content - "God-awful sound" and "For God sakes, turn it down" - which were deemed "unsuitable for family listening." The band resumed playing live shows nearly a full six months after Connolly's throat injury, with band and critics noting a rougher edge to his voice and a reduced range. The album also featured a group composition, "Fox On The Run", which was to be re-recorded months later.
The U.S. version of Desolation Boulevard was different from the U.K. version and included several songs from Sweet Fanny Adams in addition to the "Ballroom Blitz" and "Fox on the Run" singles (both of which peaked at No. 5 in the US). Side One of the album contained all Chapman-Chinn penned songs, while Side Two featured songs written and produced by Sweet.
Writing and producing their own material
In 1975 Sweet went back into the studio to re-arrange and record a more pop-oriented version of the track "Fox on the Run". Sweet's first self-written and produced single, "Fox on the Run" was released worldwide in March 1975 and became their biggest selling hit, reaching number one in Germany, Denmark, and South Africa, number two in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Norway and the Netherlands and number three in Austria and Switzerland. In Australia it not only made it to the top of the charts, it also became the biggest selling single of that year. The song reached number two in Canada and number five in the U.S. The release of this track marked the end of the formal Chinn-Chapman working relationship and the band stressed it was now fully self-sufficient as writers and producers.
The following single release, "Action" (July 1975), peaked at number 15 in the UK. Now confident in their own songwriting and production abilities, Sweet spent the latter half of 1975 in Musicland Studios in Munich, Germany, where they recorded the Give Us A Wink album with German sound engineer Reinhold Mack, who later recorded with Electric Light Orchestra and co-produced Queen. The new album release was deferred until 1976 so as not to stifle the chart success Desolation Boulevard was enjoying, peaking at number 25 in the US and number 5 in Canada.
With Give Us a Wink being held over, RCA issued a double album in Europe, Strung Up, in November. It contained one live disc, recorded in London in December 1973, and one disc compiling previously released singles (plus an unused track by Chinn and Chapman – "I Wanna Be Committed"). At the end of the year, Andy Scott released his first solo single, "Lady Starlight" b/w "Where D'Ya Go". Tucker played drums on both tracks.
Decline in popularity
January 1976 saw the release of the single "The Lies In Your Eyes", which made the Top 10 in Germany, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Australia, but only reached No. 35 on the U.K. charts. Sweet's first album to be fully produced and written by themselves, Give Us A Wink, was released in March 1976. A third single from the album, "4th Of July", was issued in Australia.
By this time, Sweet strove to build on their growing popularity in America with a schedule of more than fifty headline concert dates. Even though Give Us A Winks release was imminent, the band's set essentially promoted the US version of Desolation Boulevard plus the new US hit single "Action". During an appearance at Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in California on 24 March, Sweet played "All Right Now" with Ritchie Blackmore as a tribute to mark the death of Free guitarist Paul Kossoff, who was to have supported Sweet with his band Back Street Crawler. The US tour was not financially successful, with small audiences at many venues leading to the final half-dozen or so dates to be cancelled. Following the end of the tour, the band went on to Scandinavia and Germany. The band also spent a week at the Who's Ramport Studios in Battersea demoing material for a new album before abandoning that project and playing eight dates in Japan. By the end of the Japanese shows Connolly's extremely hoarse singing voice was manifest evidence of the demands of constant touring and the enduring after-effects of his 1974 assault.
Between October 1976 and January 1977, Sweet wrote and recorded new material at Kingsway Recorders and Audio International London studios for their next album. An advance single from the album, "Lost Angels", was only a hit in Germany, Austria and Sweden. A new album, Off the Record, was released in April. The next single from the album, "Fever of Love", represented the band heading in a somewhat more Europop hard rock direction, once again charting in Germany, Austria and Sweden, while reaching number 10 in South Africa. On this album, Sweet again worked with Give Us A Wink engineer Louis Austin, who would later engineer Def Leppard's On Through The Night 1980 début album. The band cancelled a US tour with emerging US rockers Aerosmith, did not play any live dates in support of the album and, in fact, did not play a single concert for the whole of 1977.
Level Headed and a change in style
Sweet left RCA in 1977 and signed a new deal with Polydor though it would not come into force until later in the year. Sweet's manager David Walker, from Handle Artists, negotiated the move which was reputed to be worth around £750,000. In the United States, Canada, and Japan, Capitol had issued Sweet's albums since 1974 and would continue to do so through to 1980.
The first Polydor album, Level Headed (January 1978), found Sweet experimenting by combining rock and classical sounds "a-la clavesin", an approach similar to Electric Light Orchestra's, and featured the single "Love Is Like Oxygen". Largely recorded during 1977 at Château d'Hérouville near Paris, France after a 30-day writing session at Clearwell Castle in the Forest Of Dean UK, the album represented a new musical direction, largely abandoning hard-rock for a more melodic pop style, interspersed with ballads accompanied by a 30-piece orchestra. The ballad, "Lettres D'Amour", featured a duet between Connolly and Stevie Lange (who would emerge as lead singer with the group Night in 1979).
With the addition of session and touring musicians keyboardist Gary Moberley and guitarist Nico Ramsden, Sweet undertook a short European and Scandinavian tour followed by a single British concert at London's Hammersmith Odeon on 24 February 1978. However, "Love Is Like Oxygen" (January 1978) was their last U.K., U.S., and German Top 10 hit. Scott was nominated for an Ivor Novello Award for co-composing the song. One more single from the album, "California Nights" (May 1978), featuring Steve Priest as the lead vocalist, peaked at number 23 on the German chart.
Departure of Brian Connolly
Between March and May 1978 Sweet extensively toured the US, as a support act for Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band. The tour included a disastrous date in Birmingham, Alabama on 3 May, during which visiting Capitol Records executives in the audience saw Brian Connolly give a drunken and incoherent performance that terminated early in the set with his collapse on stage, leaving the rest of the group to play on without him. The band returned briefly to Britain before resuming the second leg of their US tour in late May supporting other acts, including Foghat and Alice Cooper. Concluding the US tour in early July 1978, Brian's alcoholism and estrangement from the group was steadily becoming a greater issue.
In late October, having spent further time at Clearwell Castle to write for their next album, Sweet arrived at The Town House studio in Shepherd's Bush, London to complete and record, Cut Above the Rest (April 1979). Due to tensions between various members attributed to Connolly's health and diminishing status with the group, his long-time friend and fellow founding member, Mick Tucker, was tasked to produce Connolly's vocals. It was felt Tucker would extract a better performance than Scott from Connolly. A number of tracks were recorded featuring Connolly. However, these efforts were deemed unsatisfactory and Brian left the band on 2 November 1978.
On 23 February 1979, Brian Connolly's departure from Sweet was formally announced by manager David Walker. Publicly, Connolly was said to be pursuing a solo career with an interest in recording country rock.
Three piece Sweet
Sweet continued as a trio with Priest assuming the lion's share of lead vocals, though Scott and Tucker were also active in that role. The first single release for the trio was "Call Me". Guest keyboard player Gary Moberley continued to augment the group on stage. Guitarist Ray McRiner joined their touring line-up in 1979, with a small tour with Journey in the eastern United States and Cheap Trick in Texas in the spring and summer of '79 to support Cut Above The Rest (which was released in April 1979). McRiner would also contribute the songs "Too Much Talking" and the single "Give The Lady Some Respect" to the next Sweet album, Waters Edge (August 1980), which was recorded in Canada. In the US, Waters Edge was titled Sweet VI. It featured the singles "Sixties Man" and "Give The Lady Some Respect". Tragedy befell Mick Tucker when his wife Pauline drowned in the bath at their home on 26 December 1979. The band withdrew from live work for all of 1980.
One more studio album, Identity Crisis, was recorded during 1980–81 but was only released in West Germany and Mexico. Sweet undertook a short tour of the UK and performed their last live show at Glasgow University on 20 March 1981. Steve Priest then returned to the United States, where he had been living since late 1979. When Polydor released Identity Crisis in October 1982, the original Sweet had been disbanded for almost a year.
Re-formed versions (1984–present)
Andy Scott's Sweet (1985–present)
Andy Scott and Mick Tucker organised their own version of Sweet with Paul Mario Day (ex-Iron Maiden, More, Wildfire) on lead vocals, Phil Lanzon (ex-Grand Prix) on keyboards and Mal McNulty on bass. The band performed at the Marquee Club in London in February 1986, with the shows recorded and gaining release a few years later, bolstered by four new studio tracks including a cover of the Motown standard "Reach Out I'll Be There". This line-up also toured Australian and New Zealand pubs and clubs for more than three months in 1985 and for a similar period again in 1986. Singer Paul Day ended up marrying the band's Australian tour guide and relocating downunder. He continued with Sweet commuting back and forth to Europe for the group's tours until this proved to be too cumbersome. He departed in late 1988. As McNulty moved into the front man spot, Jeff Brown came in to take over bass early in 1989. Lanzon too went back and forth between Sweet and Uriah Heep during 1986-1988 before Heep's schedule grew too busy. Malcolm Pearson and then Ian Gibbons (who had played with The Kinks and The Records) both filled in for Lanzon until Steve Mann (Liar, Lionheart, McAuley Schenker Group) arrived in December 1989.
Tucker departed after a show in Lochau, Austria, on 5 May 1991. He later was diagnosed with a rare form of leukaemia. Three drummers, Andy Hoyler, Bobby Andersen and Bruce Bisland (Weapon, Wildfire, Praying Mantis), provided short-term relief before Bodo Schopf (McAuley Schenker Group) took over. They recorded an album during this period, simply titled A. Before the band embarked on the supporting tour for A in 1992, Bodo left and Bisland returned as permanent percussionist. Scott changed the band's name to 'Andy Scott's Sweet' after Tucker's departure but truncated it to simply 'The Sweet' once again after Tucker's death in 2002.
Mal McNulty, now lead vocalist, departed in 1994, though he would return briefly that year to fill in for Jeff Brown on bass (as he would again in 1995 as lead singer for a few dates while Rocky Newton subbed on bass). Sweet's former keyboard men Gary Moberley and Ian Gibbons also did fill-in jaunts with the group that year, as did Chris Goulstone. Chad Brown (ex-Lionheart; no relation to Jeff) was the new front man. Glitz Blitz and Hitz, a new studio album of re-recorded Sweet hits, was released during this period.
In 1996 Mann left to take a job in television and Gibbons came back for a short time before Steve Grant (ex-The Animals) became the permanent keyboardist. When Chad Brown quit in 1998 after developing a throat infection, Jeff Brown assumed lead vocals and bass duties. After this, the band was stable again for the next five years.
The mid-2000s would bring further confusing shake-ups and rotations. Tony O'Hora (ex-Onslaught, Praying Mantis) replaced Brown as lead vocalist in 2003. Ian Gibbons came back for a third stint as fill-in keyboardist in June 2005 for a gig in the Faroe Islands. O'Hora decided to split to take a teaching job in late 2005. Grant then jumped from keyboards to lead vocals and bass as Phil Lanzon returned on keyboards for a tour of Russia and Germany in October/November. New singer Mark Thompson Smith (ex-Praying Mantis) joined in November 2005 for some Swedish gigs, while Jo Burt (ex-Black Sabbath) was temporary bass player. Tony Mills (ex-Shy) was slated to be Sweet's new singer in early 2006 but failed to work out and left after six shows in Denmark. At this point, O'Hora came back as fill in front man and then Grant did another turn himself as the singer/bassist (Steve Mann depped on keyboards) until the group finally landed a new permanent front man when Peter Lincoln (ex-Sailor) arrived in July 2006. The line-up then consisted of Scott, Bisland, Grant and Lincoln.
Scott produced the Suzi Quatro album Back to the Drive, released in February 2006. March 2006 saw the U.S. release of his band's album Sweetlife.
In 2007 the group played in Germany, Belgium, Austria and Italy. In May of that year, the band played in Porto Alegre and Curitiba, Brazil, their first and only South American shows. The tour was called the 'Sweet Fanny Adams Tour'.
The band toured again in March 2008 under the name 'Sweet Fanny Adams Revisited Tour'. In May and June, Scott's Sweet were part of the "Glitz Blitz & 70s Hitz" tour of the UK alongside The Rubettes and Showaddywaddy.
In March and April 2010, Scott was absent from a couple of gigs due to ill health and Martin Mickels stood in. Scott revealed later that he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer and was treated at the Bristol Royal Infirmary. After a course of treatment and rest, he was back to full touring fitness. In 2010 the band played at venues in Europe and back at Bilston in October.
In March 2011 there was a short tour of Australia, Regal Theatre - Perth, and Clipsal 500, Adelaide with the Doobie Brothers. Also in 2011, Tony O'Hora came back to the group, this time as keyboardist, after Grant departed.
In March 2012 the band released a new album New York Connection. Recorded in England, it comprised 11 cover versions, including the 2011 single "Join Together" and one revamped original recording; the 1972 B-side "New York Connection". All the covers either featured 'bits and pieces' of Sweet hits or other artist songs, such as a "new version of the Ramones Blitzkrieg Bop [which] shared space with samples from ‘Ballroom Blitz,’ and a take on Hello’s New York Groove (made famous in the US by Ace Frehley) featured a sample from Jay-Z’s Empire State Of Mind along with other Sweet references."
On the eve of their March 2012 "Join Together" tour of Australia, the band undertook an acoustic performance of three tracks, "New York Groove-Empire State of Mind", "Blockbuster" and "Peppermint Twist", in front of a live audience at ABC Radio Studios in East Perth. Shows in Perth, Adelaide, Hobart, Geelong, Melbourne and Sydney featured tracks from the new album for the first time.
Paul Manzi joined Sweet on their 2014 Australian tour, replacing Tony O'Hora who was absent for personal reasons. Manzi played guitar, keyboard and undertook lead vocals on "Set Me Free" and "AC-DC" as the band performed shows in regional centres, including outback Western Australia, Darwin and far-north Queensland, NSW and Victoria during February and March. The band, with O'Hora back in the ranks, returned to Australia in September 2014 as the headlining act for "Rock The Boat 4". This was a cruise aboard the ship Rhapsody of the Seas which departed Sydney and took in New Caledonia and Vanuatu. The band played two gigs and various members guested with Australian veteran performers including Brian Cadd and Russell Morris and members of AC/DC, The Angels, Rose Tattoo and Skyhooks.
In June 2015 it was revealed that the band were going on an extensive tour of the UK in late 2015 and that this tour would probably be their last.
For the 2015 summer tour dates, Paul Manzi returned to sub for Peter Lincoln who left this online message to the fans: "There have been a few rumours going around this weekend, so . . . just to say that I am alive and well! The short explanation for my absence is that I need to rest my voice for a few weeks. We are lucky that our good friend Paul Manzi is able to step in, and Tony knows the role of bass player/singer, so the shows can go ahead, and they will be great! I look forward to being back on stage very soon."
Pete Lincoln duly resumed his role in the band and they continued with extensive live dates, known as the "Finale" tour in Germany.
In 2017 after Andy undertook a successful Australian visit with Suzi Quatro and Don Powell in the side outfit known as QSP, Sweet was again booked for an extensive European tour. In the years following both Tony O'Hora and Pete Lincoln departed the band. Paul Manzi returned as permanent lead vocalist, quitting the popular outfit Cats in Space to do so. Lee Small joined as bassist and backing vocalist. Former guitarist and keyboard player Steve Mann joined for a handful of shows as a special guest. During the COVID-19 pandemic the band recorded a new album of old tracks entitled Isolation Boulevard.
New Sweet, Brian Connolly's Sweet (1984–1997)
In 1984 Brian Connolly formed a new version of the Sweet without any of the other original members. Despite recurring ill health, Connolly toured the UK and Europe with his band, "Brian Connolly's Sweet", which was then renamed to "New Sweet". His most successful concerts were in West Germany, before and after reunification.
During 1987, Connolly met up again with Frank Torpey. Torpey later explained in interviews Connolly was trying to get a German recording deal. The two got on very well and Torpey subsequently invited Connolly to go into the recording studio with him, as an informal project. After much trepidation, Connolly turned up and the track "Sharontina" was recorded. This recording would not be released until 1998, appearing on Frank Torpey's album Sweeter.
By July 1990, plans were made for Connolly and his band to tour Australia in November. During the long flight to Australia, Connolly's health had suffered and he was hospitalised in Adelaide Hospital, allegedly for dehydration and related problems. The rest of the band played a show in Adelaide without him. After being released from the hospital, Connolly joined the other band members in Melbourne for a gig at the Pier Hotel, in Frankston. After several other shows, including one at the Dingley Powerhouse, Connolly and his band played a final date at Melbourne's Greek Theatre. It was felt Connolly's health was sufficient reason for the tour not to be extended, and some of the planned dates were abandoned. Connolly went back to England and his band appeared on The Bob Downe Christmas show on 18 December 1990.
During the early 1990s, Connolly played the European "oldies" circuit and occasional outdoor festivals in Europe with his band. On 22 March 1992, a heavy duty tape recorder was stolen from the band's van whilst at a gig in the Bristol Hippodrome with Mud. It contained demos of four new songs, totalling about 20 mixes.
Legal problems were going on in the background over the use of the Sweet name between Connolly and Andy Scott. Both parties agreed to distinguish their group's names to help promoters and fans. The New Sweet went back to being called Brian Connolly's Sweet and Andy Scott's version became Andy Scott's Sweet.
In 1994, Connolly and his band played in Dubai. He appeared at the Galleria Theatre, Hyatt Regency. He also performed in Bahrain.
By this time Connolly had healed the differences with Steve Priest and Mick Tucker, and was invited to the wedding of Priest's eldest daughter, Lisa. At the private function, for which Priest specially flew back to England, Priest and Connolly performed together.
In 1995, Connolly released a new album entitled Let's Go. His partner Jean, whom he had met a few years earlier, gave birth to a son. Connolly also performed in Switzerland that year.
On 2 November 1996 British TV Network Channel 4 aired a programme Don't Leave Me This Way, which examined Connolly's time as a pop star with the Sweet, the subsequent decline in the band's popularity, and its impact on Connolly and the other band members. The show revealed Connolly's ill health but also that he was continuing with his concert dates at Butlins. Connolly and his band had appeared at Butlins a number of times on tour during the early 1990s.
Connolly's final concert was at the Bristol Hippodrome on 5 December 1996, with Slade II and John Rossall's Glitter Band Experience.
Steve Priest's Sweet (2008–Present)
In January 2008, Steve Priest assembled his own version of the Sweet in Los Angeles. He enlisted a guitarist Stuart Smith and L.A. native Richie Onori, Smith's bandmate in Heaven & Earth, was brought in on drums. The keyboard spot was manned by ex-Crow and World Classic Rockers alumni Stevie Stewart. Front-man and vocalist Joe Retta was brought in to round out the line-up.
After an initial appearance on L.A. rock station 95.5 KLOS's popular Mark & Brian radio programme, the "Are You Ready Steve?" tour kicked off at the Whisky a Go Go in Hollywood on 12 June 2008. The band spent the next several months playing festivals and gigs throughout the U.S. and Canada, including Moondance Jam in Walker, Minnesota; headlining at the Rock N Resort Music Festival in North Lawrence, Ohio (near Canal Fulton); London, Ontario's Rock the Park; another headlining gig at Peterborough's Festival of Lights; the Common Ground Festival in Lansing, Michigan; and a benefit concert for victims of California's wildfires at Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego, California.
In January 2009, the Sweet presented at the concert industry's Pollstar Awards, and also played a short set at the Nokia Theatre where the event was held, marking the first time in the ceremony's history that a band performed at the show. In addition to local gigs at the House of Blues on L.A.'s Sunset Strip and Universal CityWalk, 2009 saw the band return to Canada for sold-out shows at the Mae Wilson Theater and Casino Regina, as well as the Nakusp Music Fest and Rockin' the Fields of Minnedosa in Minnedosa, Manitoba. U.S. festivals have included Minnesota's Halfway Jam, Rockin' the Rivers in Montana (with Pat Travers and Peter Frampton), and two late-summer shows at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk.
The new band recorded a cover version of the Beatles' "Ticket to Ride", which was included on Cleopatra Records' Abbey Road, a Fab Four tribute CD that was released on 24 March 2009.
A preview of the band's new CD Live in America, which was recorded live at the Morongo Casino, Resort & Spa in Cabazon, California on 30 August 2008, was featured on KLOS's "Front Row" programme on 12 April 2009. The CD, which was first sold at shows and via the band's on-line store, was released worldwide in an exclusive deal with Amazon.com on 21 July 2009. The release has garnered favourable reviews from The Rock n Roll Report, Classic Rock Revisited and Hard Rock Haven, among others.
In April 2010, the band released its first single on iTunes: an updated, hard rock version of the Beatles' "I Saw Her Standing There." Performances on the 2010 summer tour included the Wildflower! Arts and Music Festival in Richardson, Texas; Las Vegas, Nevada's Fremont Street Experience; Rock N' America in Oklahoma City, OK; Summer Jam in Des Moines, Iowa; Jack FM's Fifth Show at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater in Los Angeles; an appearance at the Hard Rock Hotel in Biloxi, Mississippi; and the inaugural edition of the Thunder Mountain Rock Festival in Sawyer, North Dakota.
On 11 November 2010, it was announced that in May 2011 "Steve Priest's Sweet" had been booked to perform at a handful of European dates, but the gigs ultimately had to be cancelled in late January 2011 after it was learned that one of the promoters was a suspected swindler wanted by British law enforcement officials. As of February 2011, fans who purchased pre-sale tickets were still in the process of working through the administrative channels with PayPal and various banks and credit card issuers in order to try to reclaim their funds.
The band toured South America along with Journey during March 2011.
The band and their European fans then also got re-united quicker than thought, when the band got booked by a befriended female Belgian promoter. Two east German gigs, 27 and 28 May 2011, so in Borna and in Schwarzenberg Steve Priest's Sweet hit the European grounds. After more than 30 years, Steve Priest got a warm welcome back in Europe.
As of 12 August 2012, Stuart Smith resigned from the guitar post in order to dedicate more time to his "Heaven & Earth" project.
Beginning with the band's October 2012 appearance at the Festival Internacional Chihuahua in Mexico, Los Angeles-based guitarist Ricky Z. teamed up with Steve Priest and company for their live performances. In February 2013, this lineup returned to Casino Regina in Saskatchewan, Canada. Tour dates played in summer 2013 included Riverfest in Watertown, Wisconsin, the St. Clair, MI Riverfest, several additional dates in Canada, and a reprise of their appearances at both Moondance Jam in Walker, MN and Rockin' the Rivers in Three Forks, Montana. The band made some rare appearances on the U.S. east coast in July 2013, including a performance with David Johansen of the New York Dolls at the Bergen Performing Arts Center in Englewood, New Jersey. Singer Joe Retta was unavailable for these dates due to a scheduling conflict, so Tribe of Gypsies frontman Chas West, who has played with Jason Bonham's band and has experience subbing in such well-known bands as Foreigner, Lynch Mob and Diamond Head, stepped in to man the microphone for a series of shows in New York, New Jersey and Maryland.
On 27 August 2014, Steve Priest announced on the band's Facebook page that guitarist Mitch Perry had been tapped for the guitar slot. Most recently on tour with Lita Ford, Mitch's other credentials included his work with Michael Schenker Group, Asia Featuring John Payne, Edgar Winter, Billy Sheehan and David Lee Roth His first live appearance with Sweet was at the Rock the River festival in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan on 23 August 2014.
22 December 2017 saw the launch of the 50th anniversary tour at the Whisky a Go Go on L.A.'s Sunset Strip and the introduction of new singer Paul Zablidowski AKA "Paulie Z" former lead singer and guitarist of ZO2, children's band "The Z Brothers" and star of IFC show Z-Rock. Recently known as the host for local show "Ultimate Jam Night." Z replaced Joe Retta, who had served as the frontman for the Los Angeles incarnation of Sweet since its formation in 2008. Priest died on 4 June 2020.
Brief reunions and the deaths of Brian Connolly, Mick Tucker and Steve Priest
Steve Priest was asked to join Tucker and Scott for the 1985 Australian tour, but declined at the last moment.
Mike Chapman contacted Connolly, Priest, Scott, and Tucker in 1988, offering to finance a recording session in Los Angeles. As he remembers: "I met them at the airport and Andy and Mick came off the plane. I said, 'Where's Brian?' They said, 'Oh, he's coming.' All the people had come off the plane by now. Then this little old man hobbled towards us. He was shaking, and had a ghostly white face. I thought, 'Oh, Jesus Christ.' It was horrifying." Reworked studio versions of "Action" and "The Ballroom Blitz" were recorded, but it became clear that Connolly's voice and physical health had made Sweet's original member comeback too difficult to promote commercially. Consequently, the reunion attempt was aborted.
In 1990 this line-up was again reunited for the promotion of a music documentary entitled Sweet's Ballroom Blitz. This UK video release, which contained UK television performances from the 1970s and current-day interviews, was released at Tower Records, London. Sweet was interviewed by Power Hour, Super Channel, and spoke of a possible reunion.
Brian Connolly died at the age of 51 on 9 February 1997, from liver failure and repeated heart attacks, attributed to his abuse of alcohol in the 1970s and early 1980s. Mick Tucker died on 14 February 2002 from leukemia, at the age of 54. On 4 June 2020 it was announced that Steve Priest had died. It left Andy Scott as the sole living member of Sweet's 'classic lineup'.
Later years
Two versions of The Sweet were active with original members: "Andy Scott's Sweet", who frequently tour across Europe as Sweet and makes occasional sojourns to other markets including regular visits to Australia, and "Steve Priest's Sweet" who toured the US and Canada.
On 28 April 2009, Shout! Factory released a two-disc, career-spanning greatest hits album called Action: The Sweet Anthology. It received a four-star (out of five) rating in Rolling Stone.
In September 2009 Ace Frehley released his version of "Fox on the Run" on his album Anomaly.
In an October 2012 appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live, Axl Rose, lead singer of Guns N' Roses, referenced Sweet as one of his favourite bands growing up along with fellow British band Queen.
In April 2016, the chart topping song (1973), "The Ballroom Blitz" was featured in a trailer for Suicide Squad.
In December 2016, their single "Fox on the Run" (1975) was featured in a trailer for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.
In 2019, the songs "Fox on the Run" and "Set Me Free" were featured in an episode of Jamie Johnson.
Personnel
Original band
Classic lineup
Brian Connolly – lead vocals, percussion, synthesizer, acoustic guitar (1968–1978; died 1997)
Steve Priest – bass, backing and lead vocals (1968–1981; died 2020)
Mick Tucker – drums, percussion, backing and lead vocals (1968–1981; died 2002)
Andy Scott – guitars, keyboards, synthesizers, piano, backing and lead vocals (1970–1981)
Early members
Frank Torpey – guitars (1968–1969)
Mick Stewart – guitars (1969–1970)
Touring musicians
Gary Moberley – keyboards, synthesizers, piano (1978–1981)
Nico Ramsden – guitar (1978)
Ray McRiner – guitar (1979)
Andy Scott’s Sweet
Current members
Andy Scott – guitars, keyboards, synthesizers, piano, backing and lead vocals (1985–present)
Bruce Bisland – drums, backing vocals (1992–present)
Paul Manzi – lead vocals (2019–present; substitute appearances in 2014 and 2015)
Lee Small – bass, backing vocals (2019–present)
Former members
Mick Tucker – drums, backing vocals (1985–1991; died 2002)
Paul Mario Day – lead vocals (1985–1989)
Phil Lanzon – keyboards, piano, backing vocals (1985–1989; 2005—2006)
Mal McNulty – bass, lead and backing vocals (1985–1995)
Jeff Brown – bass, lead and backing vocals (1989–2003)
Steve Mann – keyboards, guitars, backing vocals (1989-1996)
Bodo Schopf – drums, backing vocals (1991–1992)
Chad Brown — lead vocals (1995–1998)
Steve Grant — keyboards, piano, backing vocals (1996–2005, 2006–2011); lead vocals, bass (2005–2006)
Tony O’Hora – lead and backing vocals, bass (2003–2005, 2006, 2011–2019), guitars, keyboards (2011–2019)
Peter Lincoln – bass, lead and backing vocals (2006–2019)
Timeline
Discography
Funny How Sweet Co-Co Can Be (1971)
Sweet Fanny Adams (1974)
Desolation Boulevard (1974)
Give Us a Wink (1976)
Off the Record (1977)
Level Headed (1978)
Cut Above the Rest (1979)
Waters Edge (titled Sweet VI with a different cover in the U.S.) (1980)
Identity Crisis (1982)
Sweetlife (2002) by Andy Scott's Sweet
Isolation Boulevard (2020) by Andy Scott's Sweet
References
Bibliography
(2008 eBook available at )
External links
Channel 4 documentary on The Sweet from 1996
English hard rock musical groups
English glam rock groups
Musical groups established in 1968
Capitol Records artists
Polydor Records artists
RCA Records artists
1968 establishments in the United Kingdom
Musical groups disestablished in 1982
1982 disestablishments in the United Kingdom
Musical groups reestablished in 1985
1985 establishments in the United Kingdom
| true |
[
"Barricades & Brickwalls is the second studio album by Australian country music singer Kasey Chambers released in Australia on 3 September 2001 by Essence Records and on 12 February 2002 on Warner Bros. Records in the U.S. The album was mainly written by Chambers with help from Worm Werchon and her father Bill Chambers. Barricades & Brickwalls debuted in the top ten on the Australian ARIA Albums Chart, and sales were considerably high of those of Chambers first album, The Captain (1999). Its singles were successful in most music markets, \"Not Pretty Enough\", the most successful song from the album gave Chambers her first number-one single in Australia and reached #4 in New Zealand. Other singles includes \"Runaway Train\", \"On a Bad Day\", \"Million Tears\" and \"If I Were You\". The commercial success of the album led the album to eight nominations at the ARIA Awards.\n\nThe song \"Not Pretty Enough\" reached number-one on the Australian ARIA charts, going double platinum, and Chambers became the first musical act in Australian history to have an album and single sit at the top of the charts at the same time. The singles \"Million Tears\" and \"If I Were You\" would later reach the top forty charts. The album did not reach quite the same audience in the United States, not quite hitting the Billboard Hot 100. It did, however, reach the top of the Heatseekers chart as well as hitting the top 20 country albums. The track \"Crossfire\" features The Living End.\n\nThe album would end up going platinum in 2002, becoming the highest selling album by an Australian artist in that year, along with the highest selling single. Chambers, because of the success of this album, won \"Best Country Album,\" \"Best Female Artist,\" and \"Album of the Year\" at the 2002 ARIA awards. In October 2010, the album was listed in the top 40 in the book, 100 Best Australian Albums.\n\nTrack listing\n\nCharts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nDecade-end chart\n\nCertifications\n\nReferences\n\n2001 albums\nARIA Award-winning albums\nKasey Chambers albums",
"The following lists the top 25 (end of year) charting albums on the Australian Album Charts, for the year of 1966. These were the best charting albums in Australia for 1966. The source for this year is the \"Kent Music Report\", known from 1987 onwards as the \"Australian Music Report\".\n\nThese charts are calculated by David Kent of the Kent Music Report and they are based on the number of weeks and position the records reach within the top 100 albums for each week.\n\nReferences \n \n\nAustralian record charts\nTop\n1966 record charts"
] |
[
"The Sweet",
"First album",
"What was the name of their first album?",
"Funny How Sweet Co-Co Can Be,",
"Who produced their first album?",
"Phil Wainman",
"What year was their first album released?",
"November 1971.",
"Was there a popular single on the album?",
"Funny Funny",
"Where was the album recorded?",
"Nova Studios in London,",
"Did the album reach the top of the music charts?",
"It was not a serious contender on the charts."
] |
C_e0dc93e73be04cf2b157df3e12cc2286_0
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Was their album only released in the UK?
| 7 |
Was The Sweet's album, Funny How Sweet Co-Co Can Be, only released in the UK?
|
The Sweet
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The Sweet made their UK television debut in December 1970 on a pop show called Lift Off, performing the song "Funny Funny". A management deal was signed with the aforementioned songwriting team of Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman. Phil Wainman resumed his collaboration with Sweet, as executive producer. This management deal also included a worldwide (the U.S. excepted) record contract with RCA Records (in the United States and Canada Bell Records issued the group's music until late 1973; followed by Capitol Records). In March 1971 RCA issued "Funny Funny", written by Chinn and Chapman, which became the group's first international hit, climbing to the Top 20 on many of the world's charts. EMI reissued their 1970 single "All You'll Ever Get from Me" (May 1971) and it again failed to chart. Their next RCA release "Co-Co" (June 1971) went to number two in the U.K. and their follow up single, "Alexander Graham Bell" (October 1971), only went to #33. These tracks still featured session musicians on the instruments with the quartet providing only the vocals. The Sweet's first full LP album, Funny How Sweet Co-Co Can Be, was released in November 1971. A collection of the band's recent singles supplemented by some new Chinn/Chapman tunes (including "Chop Chop" and "Tom Tom Turnaround") and pop covers (such as the Lovin' Spoonful's "Daydream" and the Supremes' "Reflections"), the album, recorded at Nova Studios in London, was produced by Phil Wainman and engineered by Richard Dodd and Eric Holland. It was not a serious contender on the charts. Their albums' failure to match the success of their singles was a problem that would plague the band throughout their career. CANNOTANSWER
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This management deal also included a worldwide (the U.S. excepted) record contract with RCA Records
|
The Sweet, sometimes also shortened to just Sweet, are a British glam rock band that rose to worldwide fame in the 1970s. Their best known line-up consisted of lead vocalist Brian Connolly, bass player Steve Priest, guitarist Andy Scott, and drummer Mick Tucker. The group was originally called The Sweetshop.
The band was formed in London in 1968 and achieved their first hit, "Funny Funny", in 1971 after teaming up with songwriters Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman and record producer Phil Wainman. During 1971 and 1972, their musical style followed a marked progression from the Archies-like bubblegum style of "Funny Funny" to a Who-influenced hard rock style supplemented by a striking use of high-pitched backing vocals.
The band first achieved success in the UK charts, with thirteen Top 20 hits during the 1970s alone, with "Block Buster!" (1973) topping the chart, followed by three consecutive number two hits in "Hell Raiser" (1973), "The Ballroom Blitz" (1973) and "Teenage Rampage" (1974). The band turned to a more hard rock style with their mid-career singles, like 1974's "Turn It Down". "Fox on the Run" (1975) also reached number two on the UK charts. These results were topped in West Germany and other countries on the European mainland. They also achieved success and popularity in the US with the top ten hits "Little Willy", "The Ballroom Blitz", "Fox on the Run", and "Love is Like Oxygen".
The Sweet had their last international success in 1978 with "Love Is Like Oxygen". Connolly left the group in 1979 to start a solo career and the remaining members continued as a trio until disbanding in 1981. From the mid-1980s, Scott, Connolly and Priest each played with their own versions of Sweet at different times. Connolly died in 1997, Tucker in 2002 and Priest in 2020. Andy Scott is still active with his version of the band. Sweet have since sold over 35 million albums worldwide.
History
Origins
Sweet's origins can be traced back to British soul band Wainwright's Gentlemen. Mark Lay's history of that band states they formed around 1962 and were initially known as Unit 4. Founding members included Chris Wright (vocals), Jan Frewer (bass), with Jim Searle and Alfred Fripp on guitars. Phil Kenton joined on drums as the band changed its name to Wainwright's Gentlemen (due to there being another band known as Unit 4). Managed by Frewer's father, the band performed in the Hayes, Harrow and Wembley area. By 1964 the group was also playing in London, including at the Saint Germain Club on Poland Street.
In January 1964 the band came fifth in a national beat group contest, with finals held at the Lyceum Strand on 4 May 1964. Highlights of the show were presented on BBC1 by Alan Freeman. Chris Wright left the line-up in late 1964 and was replaced by Ian Gillan. A female vocalist named Ann Cully soon joined the band. Mick Tucker, from Ruislip, joined on drums replacing Phil Kenton. The band recorded a number of tracks including a cover of the Coasters-Hollies hit "Ain't That Just Like Me", which was probably recorded at Jackson Sound Studios in Rickmansworth. The track includes Gillan on vocals, Tucker on drums and, according to band bassist Jan Frewer, is thought to have been recorded in 1965. Gillan quit in May 1965 to join Episode Six, and later, Deep Purple. Cully remained as vocalist before departing some time later. Gillan's and Cully's eventual replacement, in late 1966, was Scots-born vocalist Brian Connolly, who hailed more recently from Harefield. Tony Hall had joined on saxophone and vocals and when Fripp left he was replaced by Gordon Fairminer. Fairminer's position was eventually assumed by Frank Torpey (born Frank Edward Torpey, 30 April 1945, Kilburn, North West London) - a schoolfriend of Tucker's who had just left West London group The Tribe (aka The Dream). Torpey only lasted a few months, and in late 1967 Robin Box (born 19 June 1944) took his place. Searle, regarded by many as the most talented musically, disappeared from the scene. Tucker and Connolly remained with Wainwright's Gentlemen until January 1968. Tucker was replaced by Roger Hills. When the Gentlemen eventually broke up, Hills and Box joined White Plains who eventually scored a big hit with "My Baby Loves Lovin'".
Early years
In January 1968 Connolly and Tucker formed a new band calling themselves The Sweetshop. They recruited bass guitarist and vocalist Steve Priest from a local band called The Army. Priest had previously played with mid-'60s band the Countdowns who had been produced and recorded by Joe Meek. Frank Torpey was again recruited to play guitar. The quartet made its public debut at the Pavilion in Hemel Hempstead on 9 March 1968 and soon developed a following on the pub circuit, which led to a contract with Fontana Records. At the time, another UK band released a single under the same name Sweetshop, so the band abbreviated their moniker to Sweet. The band was managed by Paul Nicholas, who later went on to star in Hair. Nicholas worked with record producer Phil Wainman at Mellin Music Publishing and recommended the band to him. Their debut single "Slow Motion" (July 1968), produced by Wainman, and released on Fontana, failed to chart and owing to its rarity now sells for several hundred pounds when auctioned. Sweet were released from the recording contract and Frank Torpey left. In his autobiography Are You Ready Steve, Priest said that Gordon Fairminer was approached to play for them when Torpey decided to leave Sweet after a gig at Playhouse Theatre Walton-on-Thames on 5 July 1969 but turned the job down as he wanted to concentrate on other interests.
New line-up and new record deal
Guitarist Mick Stewart joined in 1969. Stewart had some rock pedigree, having previously worked with The (Ealing) Redcaps and Simon Scott & The All-Nite Workers in the mid-1960s. In late 1965, that band became The Phil Wainman Set when the future Sweet producer joined on drums and the group cut some singles with Errol Dixon. In early 1966, Stewart left and later worked with Johnny Kidd & The Pirates.
Sweet signed a new record contract with EMI's Parlophone label. Three bubblegum pop singles were released: "Lollipop Man" (September 1969), "All You'll Ever Get from Me" (January 1970), and a cover version of the Archies' "Get on the Line" (June 1970), all of which failed to chart. Stewart then quit, and was not replaced for some time. Connolly and Tucker had a chance meeting with Wainman, who was now producing, and knew of two aspiring songwriters, Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman, who were looking for a group to sing some demos they had written. Connolly, Priest, and Tucker provided the vocals on a track called "Funny Funny" which featured Pip Williams on guitar, John Roberts on bass, and Wainman on drums. The latter began offering the track to various recording companies. The band held auditions for a replacement guitarist and settled on Welsh-born Andy Scott. He had most recently been playing with Mike McCartney (brother of Paul) in the Scaffold. As a member of the Elastic Band, he had played guitar on two singles for Decca, "Think of You Baby" and "Do Unto Others". He also appeared on the band's lone album release, Expansions on Life, and on some recordings by the Scaffold. The band rehearsed for a number of weeks before Scott made his live debut with Sweet on 26 September 1970 at the Windsor Ballroom in Redcar.
Sweet initially attempted to combine diverse musical influences, including the Monkees and 1960s bubblegum pop groups such as the Archies, with more heavy rock-oriented groups such as the Who. Sweet adopted the rich vocal harmony style of the Hollies, with distorted guitars and a heavy rhythm section. This fusion of pop and hard rock would remain a central trademark of Sweet's music and prefigured the glam metal of a few years later.
Sweet's initial album appearance was on the budget label Music for Pleasure as part of a compilation called Gimme Dat Ding, released in December 1970. Sweet had one side of the record; the Pipkins (whose sole hit, "Gimme Dat Ding", gave the LP its name) had the other. Sweet's contribution consisted of the A- and B-sides of the band's three Parlophone singles. Andy Scott appears in the album cover shot, even though he did not play on any of the recordings.
First album
Sweet made their UK television debut in December 1970 on a pop show called Lift Off, performing the song "Funny Funny". A management deal was signed with the aforementioned songwriting team of Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman. Phil Wainman resumed his collaboration with Sweet, as executive producer. This management deal also included a worldwide record contract with RCA Records, the U.S. excepted: in the United States and Canada Bell Records issued the group's music until late 1973, followed by Capitol Records.
In March 1971 RCA issued "Funny Funny", written by Chinn and Chapman, which became the group's first international hit, climbing to the Top 20 on many of the world's charts. EMI reissued their 1970 single "All You'll Ever Get from Me" (May 1971) and it again failed to chart. Their next RCA release "Co-Co" (June 1971) went to number two in the U.K. and their follow up single, "Alexander Graham Bell" (October 1971), only went to No. 33. These tracks still featured session musicians on the instruments with the quartet providing only the vocals.
Sweet's first full LP album, Funny How Sweet Co-Co Can Be, was released in November 1971. A collection of the band's recent singles supplemented by some new Chinn/Chapman tunes (including "Chop Chop" and "Tom Tom Turnaround") and pop covers (such as the Lovin' Spoonful's "Daydream" and the Supremes' "Reflections"), the album, recorded at Nova Studios in London, was produced by Phil Wainman and engineered by Richard Dodd and Eric Holland. It was not a serious contender on the charts.
Initial success and rise to fame
February 1972 saw the release of "Poppa Joe", which reached number 1 in Finland and peaked at number 11 on the UK Singles Chart. The next two singles of that year, "Little Willy" and "Wig-Wam Bam", both reached No. 4 in the UK. "Little Willy" peaked at No. 3 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 after a re-issue in 1973, thus becoming the group's biggest American hit. Although "Wig-Wam Bam" remained largely true to the style of Sweet's previous recordings, the vocals and guitars had a harder, more rock-oriented sound, largely because it was the first Chinn-Chapman single on which only members of Sweet played the instruments. In January 1973 "Block Buster!" became Sweet's first single to reach number 1 on the UK chart, remaining there for five consecutive weeks. After their next single "Hell Raiser" was released in May and reached number 2 in the U.K., Sweet's U.S. label, Bell, released the group's first American album The Sweet in July 1973.
To promote their singles, Sweet made numerous appearances on U.K. and European TV shows such as Top of the Pops and Supersonic. In one performance of "Block Buster!" on Top of the Pops Christmas edition, Priest aroused complaints after he appeared replete in a German military uniform, Hitler moustache and displaying a swastika armband. The band also capitalised on the glam rock explosion, rivalling Gary Glitter, T. Rex, Queen, Slade, and Wizzard for outrageous stage clothing.
Despite Sweet's success, the relationship with their management was becoming increasingly tense. While they had developed a large fan-base among teenagers, Sweet were not happy with their 'bubblegum' image. Sweet had always composed their own heavy-rock songs on the B-sides of their singles to contrast with the bubblegum A-sides which were composed by Chinn and Chapman. During this time, Sweet's live performances consisted of B-sides, album tracks, and various medleys of rock and roll classics; they avoided older novelty hits like "Funny Funny" and "Poppa Joe". A 1973 performance at the Palace Theatre and Grand Hall in Kilmarnock ended in Sweet being bottled off stage; the disorder was attributed by some (including Steve Priest) to Sweet's lipstick and eye-shadow look, and by others to the audience being unfamiliar with the concert set (the 1999 CD release Live at the Rainbow 1973 documents a live show from this period). The incident would be immortalised in the hit "The Ballroom Blitz" (September 1973). In the meantime, Sweet's chart success continued, showing particular strength in the UK, Denmark, Germany, Sweden, and Australia. By the end of 1973, the band's name evolved from "The Sweet" to "Sweet". The change would be reflected in all of their releases from 1974 onward.
Forming a new image
By 1974, Sweet had grown tired of the management team of Chinn and Chapman, who wrote the group's major hits and cultivated the band's glam rock image. The group and producer Phil Wainman, assisted by engineer Peter Coleman, recorded the album Sweet Fanny Adams, which was released in April 1974. Sweet's technical proficiency was demonstrated for the first time on self-penned hard rock tracks such as "Sweet F.A." and "Set Me Free". Sweet also adopted a more conventional hard rock sound and appearance. Sweet Fanny Adams also featured compressed high-pitched backing vocal harmonies, which was a trend that continued on all of Sweet's albums.
During sessions for the album, Brian Connolly was injured in a fight in Staines High Street. His throat was badly injured and his ability to sing severely limited. Priest and Scott filled in on lead vocals on some tracks ("No You Don't", "Into The Night" and "Restless") and Connolly, under treatment from a Harley Street specialist, managed to complete the album. The band did not publicise the incident and told the press that subsequent cancelled shows were due to Connolly having a throat infection. This incident reportedly permanently compromised Connolly's singing ability, with his range diminished.
No previous singles appeared on the album, and none were released, except in Japan, New Zealand and Australia, where "Peppermint Twist/Rebel Rouser", apparently released by their record company without their knowledge, gained a No. 1 chart position in the latter. Sweet Fanny Adams would be Sweet's only non-compilation release to break the UK Albums Chart Top 40.
Sweet were invited by Pete Townshend to support the Who, who were playing at Charlton Athletic's football ground, The Valley in June 1974. However, Connolly's badly bruised throat kept them from fulfilling the role. Sweet had frequently cited the Who as being one of their main influences and played a medley of their tracks in their live set for many years.
Desolation Boulevard
Their third album, Desolation Boulevard, was released later in 1974, six months after Sweet Fanny Adams. By that stage, producer Phil Wainman had moved on and the album was produced by Mike Chapman. It was recorded in a mere six days and featured a rawer "live" sound. One track, "The Man with the Golden Arm", written by Elmer Bernstein and Sylvia Fine for the 1955 Frank Sinatra movie of the same name, featured drummer Mick Tucker performing an 8 and half minute solo (although this was not included in the U.S. release). This had been a staple of the band's live performance for years. The first single from the LP, the heavy-melodic "The Six Teens" (July 1974), was a Top 10 hit in the U.K. and still part of the amazing unbroken string of No. 1's in Denmark. However, the subsequent single release, "Turn It Down" (November 1974), reached only No. 41 on the U.K. chart and No. 2 in Denmark. "Turn It Down" received minimal airplay on UK radio and was banned by some radio stations because of certain lyrical content - "God-awful sound" and "For God sakes, turn it down" - which were deemed "unsuitable for family listening." The band resumed playing live shows nearly a full six months after Connolly's throat injury, with band and critics noting a rougher edge to his voice and a reduced range. The album also featured a group composition, "Fox On The Run", which was to be re-recorded months later.
The U.S. version of Desolation Boulevard was different from the U.K. version and included several songs from Sweet Fanny Adams in addition to the "Ballroom Blitz" and "Fox on the Run" singles (both of which peaked at No. 5 in the US). Side One of the album contained all Chapman-Chinn penned songs, while Side Two featured songs written and produced by Sweet.
Writing and producing their own material
In 1975 Sweet went back into the studio to re-arrange and record a more pop-oriented version of the track "Fox on the Run". Sweet's first self-written and produced single, "Fox on the Run" was released worldwide in March 1975 and became their biggest selling hit, reaching number one in Germany, Denmark, and South Africa, number two in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Norway and the Netherlands and number three in Austria and Switzerland. In Australia it not only made it to the top of the charts, it also became the biggest selling single of that year. The song reached number two in Canada and number five in the U.S. The release of this track marked the end of the formal Chinn-Chapman working relationship and the band stressed it was now fully self-sufficient as writers and producers.
The following single release, "Action" (July 1975), peaked at number 15 in the UK. Now confident in their own songwriting and production abilities, Sweet spent the latter half of 1975 in Musicland Studios in Munich, Germany, where they recorded the Give Us A Wink album with German sound engineer Reinhold Mack, who later recorded with Electric Light Orchestra and co-produced Queen. The new album release was deferred until 1976 so as not to stifle the chart success Desolation Boulevard was enjoying, peaking at number 25 in the US and number 5 in Canada.
With Give Us a Wink being held over, RCA issued a double album in Europe, Strung Up, in November. It contained one live disc, recorded in London in December 1973, and one disc compiling previously released singles (plus an unused track by Chinn and Chapman – "I Wanna Be Committed"). At the end of the year, Andy Scott released his first solo single, "Lady Starlight" b/w "Where D'Ya Go". Tucker played drums on both tracks.
Decline in popularity
January 1976 saw the release of the single "The Lies In Your Eyes", which made the Top 10 in Germany, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Australia, but only reached No. 35 on the U.K. charts. Sweet's first album to be fully produced and written by themselves, Give Us A Wink, was released in March 1976. A third single from the album, "4th Of July", was issued in Australia.
By this time, Sweet strove to build on their growing popularity in America with a schedule of more than fifty headline concert dates. Even though Give Us A Winks release was imminent, the band's set essentially promoted the US version of Desolation Boulevard plus the new US hit single "Action". During an appearance at Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in California on 24 March, Sweet played "All Right Now" with Ritchie Blackmore as a tribute to mark the death of Free guitarist Paul Kossoff, who was to have supported Sweet with his band Back Street Crawler. The US tour was not financially successful, with small audiences at many venues leading to the final half-dozen or so dates to be cancelled. Following the end of the tour, the band went on to Scandinavia and Germany. The band also spent a week at the Who's Ramport Studios in Battersea demoing material for a new album before abandoning that project and playing eight dates in Japan. By the end of the Japanese shows Connolly's extremely hoarse singing voice was manifest evidence of the demands of constant touring and the enduring after-effects of his 1974 assault.
Between October 1976 and January 1977, Sweet wrote and recorded new material at Kingsway Recorders and Audio International London studios for their next album. An advance single from the album, "Lost Angels", was only a hit in Germany, Austria and Sweden. A new album, Off the Record, was released in April. The next single from the album, "Fever of Love", represented the band heading in a somewhat more Europop hard rock direction, once again charting in Germany, Austria and Sweden, while reaching number 10 in South Africa. On this album, Sweet again worked with Give Us A Wink engineer Louis Austin, who would later engineer Def Leppard's On Through The Night 1980 début album. The band cancelled a US tour with emerging US rockers Aerosmith, did not play any live dates in support of the album and, in fact, did not play a single concert for the whole of 1977.
Level Headed and a change in style
Sweet left RCA in 1977 and signed a new deal with Polydor though it would not come into force until later in the year. Sweet's manager David Walker, from Handle Artists, negotiated the move which was reputed to be worth around £750,000. In the United States, Canada, and Japan, Capitol had issued Sweet's albums since 1974 and would continue to do so through to 1980.
The first Polydor album, Level Headed (January 1978), found Sweet experimenting by combining rock and classical sounds "a-la clavesin", an approach similar to Electric Light Orchestra's, and featured the single "Love Is Like Oxygen". Largely recorded during 1977 at Château d'Hérouville near Paris, France after a 30-day writing session at Clearwell Castle in the Forest Of Dean UK, the album represented a new musical direction, largely abandoning hard-rock for a more melodic pop style, interspersed with ballads accompanied by a 30-piece orchestra. The ballad, "Lettres D'Amour", featured a duet between Connolly and Stevie Lange (who would emerge as lead singer with the group Night in 1979).
With the addition of session and touring musicians keyboardist Gary Moberley and guitarist Nico Ramsden, Sweet undertook a short European and Scandinavian tour followed by a single British concert at London's Hammersmith Odeon on 24 February 1978. However, "Love Is Like Oxygen" (January 1978) was their last U.K., U.S., and German Top 10 hit. Scott was nominated for an Ivor Novello Award for co-composing the song. One more single from the album, "California Nights" (May 1978), featuring Steve Priest as the lead vocalist, peaked at number 23 on the German chart.
Departure of Brian Connolly
Between March and May 1978 Sweet extensively toured the US, as a support act for Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band. The tour included a disastrous date in Birmingham, Alabama on 3 May, during which visiting Capitol Records executives in the audience saw Brian Connolly give a drunken and incoherent performance that terminated early in the set with his collapse on stage, leaving the rest of the group to play on without him. The band returned briefly to Britain before resuming the second leg of their US tour in late May supporting other acts, including Foghat and Alice Cooper. Concluding the US tour in early July 1978, Brian's alcoholism and estrangement from the group was steadily becoming a greater issue.
In late October, having spent further time at Clearwell Castle to write for their next album, Sweet arrived at The Town House studio in Shepherd's Bush, London to complete and record, Cut Above the Rest (April 1979). Due to tensions between various members attributed to Connolly's health and diminishing status with the group, his long-time friend and fellow founding member, Mick Tucker, was tasked to produce Connolly's vocals. It was felt Tucker would extract a better performance than Scott from Connolly. A number of tracks were recorded featuring Connolly. However, these efforts were deemed unsatisfactory and Brian left the band on 2 November 1978.
On 23 February 1979, Brian Connolly's departure from Sweet was formally announced by manager David Walker. Publicly, Connolly was said to be pursuing a solo career with an interest in recording country rock.
Three piece Sweet
Sweet continued as a trio with Priest assuming the lion's share of lead vocals, though Scott and Tucker were also active in that role. The first single release for the trio was "Call Me". Guest keyboard player Gary Moberley continued to augment the group on stage. Guitarist Ray McRiner joined their touring line-up in 1979, with a small tour with Journey in the eastern United States and Cheap Trick in Texas in the spring and summer of '79 to support Cut Above The Rest (which was released in April 1979). McRiner would also contribute the songs "Too Much Talking" and the single "Give The Lady Some Respect" to the next Sweet album, Waters Edge (August 1980), which was recorded in Canada. In the US, Waters Edge was titled Sweet VI. It featured the singles "Sixties Man" and "Give The Lady Some Respect". Tragedy befell Mick Tucker when his wife Pauline drowned in the bath at their home on 26 December 1979. The band withdrew from live work for all of 1980.
One more studio album, Identity Crisis, was recorded during 1980–81 but was only released in West Germany and Mexico. Sweet undertook a short tour of the UK and performed their last live show at Glasgow University on 20 March 1981. Steve Priest then returned to the United States, where he had been living since late 1979. When Polydor released Identity Crisis in October 1982, the original Sweet had been disbanded for almost a year.
Re-formed versions (1984–present)
Andy Scott's Sweet (1985–present)
Andy Scott and Mick Tucker organised their own version of Sweet with Paul Mario Day (ex-Iron Maiden, More, Wildfire) on lead vocals, Phil Lanzon (ex-Grand Prix) on keyboards and Mal McNulty on bass. The band performed at the Marquee Club in London in February 1986, with the shows recorded and gaining release a few years later, bolstered by four new studio tracks including a cover of the Motown standard "Reach Out I'll Be There". This line-up also toured Australian and New Zealand pubs and clubs for more than three months in 1985 and for a similar period again in 1986. Singer Paul Day ended up marrying the band's Australian tour guide and relocating downunder. He continued with Sweet commuting back and forth to Europe for the group's tours until this proved to be too cumbersome. He departed in late 1988. As McNulty moved into the front man spot, Jeff Brown came in to take over bass early in 1989. Lanzon too went back and forth between Sweet and Uriah Heep during 1986-1988 before Heep's schedule grew too busy. Malcolm Pearson and then Ian Gibbons (who had played with The Kinks and The Records) both filled in for Lanzon until Steve Mann (Liar, Lionheart, McAuley Schenker Group) arrived in December 1989.
Tucker departed after a show in Lochau, Austria, on 5 May 1991. He later was diagnosed with a rare form of leukaemia. Three drummers, Andy Hoyler, Bobby Andersen and Bruce Bisland (Weapon, Wildfire, Praying Mantis), provided short-term relief before Bodo Schopf (McAuley Schenker Group) took over. They recorded an album during this period, simply titled A. Before the band embarked on the supporting tour for A in 1992, Bodo left and Bisland returned as permanent percussionist. Scott changed the band's name to 'Andy Scott's Sweet' after Tucker's departure but truncated it to simply 'The Sweet' once again after Tucker's death in 2002.
Mal McNulty, now lead vocalist, departed in 1994, though he would return briefly that year to fill in for Jeff Brown on bass (as he would again in 1995 as lead singer for a few dates while Rocky Newton subbed on bass). Sweet's former keyboard men Gary Moberley and Ian Gibbons also did fill-in jaunts with the group that year, as did Chris Goulstone. Chad Brown (ex-Lionheart; no relation to Jeff) was the new front man. Glitz Blitz and Hitz, a new studio album of re-recorded Sweet hits, was released during this period.
In 1996 Mann left to take a job in television and Gibbons came back for a short time before Steve Grant (ex-The Animals) became the permanent keyboardist. When Chad Brown quit in 1998 after developing a throat infection, Jeff Brown assumed lead vocals and bass duties. After this, the band was stable again for the next five years.
The mid-2000s would bring further confusing shake-ups and rotations. Tony O'Hora (ex-Onslaught, Praying Mantis) replaced Brown as lead vocalist in 2003. Ian Gibbons came back for a third stint as fill-in keyboardist in June 2005 for a gig in the Faroe Islands. O'Hora decided to split to take a teaching job in late 2005. Grant then jumped from keyboards to lead vocals and bass as Phil Lanzon returned on keyboards for a tour of Russia and Germany in October/November. New singer Mark Thompson Smith (ex-Praying Mantis) joined in November 2005 for some Swedish gigs, while Jo Burt (ex-Black Sabbath) was temporary bass player. Tony Mills (ex-Shy) was slated to be Sweet's new singer in early 2006 but failed to work out and left after six shows in Denmark. At this point, O'Hora came back as fill in front man and then Grant did another turn himself as the singer/bassist (Steve Mann depped on keyboards) until the group finally landed a new permanent front man when Peter Lincoln (ex-Sailor) arrived in July 2006. The line-up then consisted of Scott, Bisland, Grant and Lincoln.
Scott produced the Suzi Quatro album Back to the Drive, released in February 2006. March 2006 saw the U.S. release of his band's album Sweetlife.
In 2007 the group played in Germany, Belgium, Austria and Italy. In May of that year, the band played in Porto Alegre and Curitiba, Brazil, their first and only South American shows. The tour was called the 'Sweet Fanny Adams Tour'.
The band toured again in March 2008 under the name 'Sweet Fanny Adams Revisited Tour'. In May and June, Scott's Sweet were part of the "Glitz Blitz & 70s Hitz" tour of the UK alongside The Rubettes and Showaddywaddy.
In March and April 2010, Scott was absent from a couple of gigs due to ill health and Martin Mickels stood in. Scott revealed later that he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer and was treated at the Bristol Royal Infirmary. After a course of treatment and rest, he was back to full touring fitness. In 2010 the band played at venues in Europe and back at Bilston in October.
In March 2011 there was a short tour of Australia, Regal Theatre - Perth, and Clipsal 500, Adelaide with the Doobie Brothers. Also in 2011, Tony O'Hora came back to the group, this time as keyboardist, after Grant departed.
In March 2012 the band released a new album New York Connection. Recorded in England, it comprised 11 cover versions, including the 2011 single "Join Together" and one revamped original recording; the 1972 B-side "New York Connection". All the covers either featured 'bits and pieces' of Sweet hits or other artist songs, such as a "new version of the Ramones Blitzkrieg Bop [which] shared space with samples from ‘Ballroom Blitz,’ and a take on Hello’s New York Groove (made famous in the US by Ace Frehley) featured a sample from Jay-Z’s Empire State Of Mind along with other Sweet references."
On the eve of their March 2012 "Join Together" tour of Australia, the band undertook an acoustic performance of three tracks, "New York Groove-Empire State of Mind", "Blockbuster" and "Peppermint Twist", in front of a live audience at ABC Radio Studios in East Perth. Shows in Perth, Adelaide, Hobart, Geelong, Melbourne and Sydney featured tracks from the new album for the first time.
Paul Manzi joined Sweet on their 2014 Australian tour, replacing Tony O'Hora who was absent for personal reasons. Manzi played guitar, keyboard and undertook lead vocals on "Set Me Free" and "AC-DC" as the band performed shows in regional centres, including outback Western Australia, Darwin and far-north Queensland, NSW and Victoria during February and March. The band, with O'Hora back in the ranks, returned to Australia in September 2014 as the headlining act for "Rock The Boat 4". This was a cruise aboard the ship Rhapsody of the Seas which departed Sydney and took in New Caledonia and Vanuatu. The band played two gigs and various members guested with Australian veteran performers including Brian Cadd and Russell Morris and members of AC/DC, The Angels, Rose Tattoo and Skyhooks.
In June 2015 it was revealed that the band were going on an extensive tour of the UK in late 2015 and that this tour would probably be their last.
For the 2015 summer tour dates, Paul Manzi returned to sub for Peter Lincoln who left this online message to the fans: "There have been a few rumours going around this weekend, so . . . just to say that I am alive and well! The short explanation for my absence is that I need to rest my voice for a few weeks. We are lucky that our good friend Paul Manzi is able to step in, and Tony knows the role of bass player/singer, so the shows can go ahead, and they will be great! I look forward to being back on stage very soon."
Pete Lincoln duly resumed his role in the band and they continued with extensive live dates, known as the "Finale" tour in Germany.
In 2017 after Andy undertook a successful Australian visit with Suzi Quatro and Don Powell in the side outfit known as QSP, Sweet was again booked for an extensive European tour. In the years following both Tony O'Hora and Pete Lincoln departed the band. Paul Manzi returned as permanent lead vocalist, quitting the popular outfit Cats in Space to do so. Lee Small joined as bassist and backing vocalist. Former guitarist and keyboard player Steve Mann joined for a handful of shows as a special guest. During the COVID-19 pandemic the band recorded a new album of old tracks entitled Isolation Boulevard.
New Sweet, Brian Connolly's Sweet (1984–1997)
In 1984 Brian Connolly formed a new version of the Sweet without any of the other original members. Despite recurring ill health, Connolly toured the UK and Europe with his band, "Brian Connolly's Sweet", which was then renamed to "New Sweet". His most successful concerts were in West Germany, before and after reunification.
During 1987, Connolly met up again with Frank Torpey. Torpey later explained in interviews Connolly was trying to get a German recording deal. The two got on very well and Torpey subsequently invited Connolly to go into the recording studio with him, as an informal project. After much trepidation, Connolly turned up and the track "Sharontina" was recorded. This recording would not be released until 1998, appearing on Frank Torpey's album Sweeter.
By July 1990, plans were made for Connolly and his band to tour Australia in November. During the long flight to Australia, Connolly's health had suffered and he was hospitalised in Adelaide Hospital, allegedly for dehydration and related problems. The rest of the band played a show in Adelaide without him. After being released from the hospital, Connolly joined the other band members in Melbourne for a gig at the Pier Hotel, in Frankston. After several other shows, including one at the Dingley Powerhouse, Connolly and his band played a final date at Melbourne's Greek Theatre. It was felt Connolly's health was sufficient reason for the tour not to be extended, and some of the planned dates were abandoned. Connolly went back to England and his band appeared on The Bob Downe Christmas show on 18 December 1990.
During the early 1990s, Connolly played the European "oldies" circuit and occasional outdoor festivals in Europe with his band. On 22 March 1992, a heavy duty tape recorder was stolen from the band's van whilst at a gig in the Bristol Hippodrome with Mud. It contained demos of four new songs, totalling about 20 mixes.
Legal problems were going on in the background over the use of the Sweet name between Connolly and Andy Scott. Both parties agreed to distinguish their group's names to help promoters and fans. The New Sweet went back to being called Brian Connolly's Sweet and Andy Scott's version became Andy Scott's Sweet.
In 1994, Connolly and his band played in Dubai. He appeared at the Galleria Theatre, Hyatt Regency. He also performed in Bahrain.
By this time Connolly had healed the differences with Steve Priest and Mick Tucker, and was invited to the wedding of Priest's eldest daughter, Lisa. At the private function, for which Priest specially flew back to England, Priest and Connolly performed together.
In 1995, Connolly released a new album entitled Let's Go. His partner Jean, whom he had met a few years earlier, gave birth to a son. Connolly also performed in Switzerland that year.
On 2 November 1996 British TV Network Channel 4 aired a programme Don't Leave Me This Way, which examined Connolly's time as a pop star with the Sweet, the subsequent decline in the band's popularity, and its impact on Connolly and the other band members. The show revealed Connolly's ill health but also that he was continuing with his concert dates at Butlins. Connolly and his band had appeared at Butlins a number of times on tour during the early 1990s.
Connolly's final concert was at the Bristol Hippodrome on 5 December 1996, with Slade II and John Rossall's Glitter Band Experience.
Steve Priest's Sweet (2008–Present)
In January 2008, Steve Priest assembled his own version of the Sweet in Los Angeles. He enlisted a guitarist Stuart Smith and L.A. native Richie Onori, Smith's bandmate in Heaven & Earth, was brought in on drums. The keyboard spot was manned by ex-Crow and World Classic Rockers alumni Stevie Stewart. Front-man and vocalist Joe Retta was brought in to round out the line-up.
After an initial appearance on L.A. rock station 95.5 KLOS's popular Mark & Brian radio programme, the "Are You Ready Steve?" tour kicked off at the Whisky a Go Go in Hollywood on 12 June 2008. The band spent the next several months playing festivals and gigs throughout the U.S. and Canada, including Moondance Jam in Walker, Minnesota; headlining at the Rock N Resort Music Festival in North Lawrence, Ohio (near Canal Fulton); London, Ontario's Rock the Park; another headlining gig at Peterborough's Festival of Lights; the Common Ground Festival in Lansing, Michigan; and a benefit concert for victims of California's wildfires at Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego, California.
In January 2009, the Sweet presented at the concert industry's Pollstar Awards, and also played a short set at the Nokia Theatre where the event was held, marking the first time in the ceremony's history that a band performed at the show. In addition to local gigs at the House of Blues on L.A.'s Sunset Strip and Universal CityWalk, 2009 saw the band return to Canada for sold-out shows at the Mae Wilson Theater and Casino Regina, as well as the Nakusp Music Fest and Rockin' the Fields of Minnedosa in Minnedosa, Manitoba. U.S. festivals have included Minnesota's Halfway Jam, Rockin' the Rivers in Montana (with Pat Travers and Peter Frampton), and two late-summer shows at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk.
The new band recorded a cover version of the Beatles' "Ticket to Ride", which was included on Cleopatra Records' Abbey Road, a Fab Four tribute CD that was released on 24 March 2009.
A preview of the band's new CD Live in America, which was recorded live at the Morongo Casino, Resort & Spa in Cabazon, California on 30 August 2008, was featured on KLOS's "Front Row" programme on 12 April 2009. The CD, which was first sold at shows and via the band's on-line store, was released worldwide in an exclusive deal with Amazon.com on 21 July 2009. The release has garnered favourable reviews from The Rock n Roll Report, Classic Rock Revisited and Hard Rock Haven, among others.
In April 2010, the band released its first single on iTunes: an updated, hard rock version of the Beatles' "I Saw Her Standing There." Performances on the 2010 summer tour included the Wildflower! Arts and Music Festival in Richardson, Texas; Las Vegas, Nevada's Fremont Street Experience; Rock N' America in Oklahoma City, OK; Summer Jam in Des Moines, Iowa; Jack FM's Fifth Show at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater in Los Angeles; an appearance at the Hard Rock Hotel in Biloxi, Mississippi; and the inaugural edition of the Thunder Mountain Rock Festival in Sawyer, North Dakota.
On 11 November 2010, it was announced that in May 2011 "Steve Priest's Sweet" had been booked to perform at a handful of European dates, but the gigs ultimately had to be cancelled in late January 2011 after it was learned that one of the promoters was a suspected swindler wanted by British law enforcement officials. As of February 2011, fans who purchased pre-sale tickets were still in the process of working through the administrative channels with PayPal and various banks and credit card issuers in order to try to reclaim their funds.
The band toured South America along with Journey during March 2011.
The band and their European fans then also got re-united quicker than thought, when the band got booked by a befriended female Belgian promoter. Two east German gigs, 27 and 28 May 2011, so in Borna and in Schwarzenberg Steve Priest's Sweet hit the European grounds. After more than 30 years, Steve Priest got a warm welcome back in Europe.
As of 12 August 2012, Stuart Smith resigned from the guitar post in order to dedicate more time to his "Heaven & Earth" project.
Beginning with the band's October 2012 appearance at the Festival Internacional Chihuahua in Mexico, Los Angeles-based guitarist Ricky Z. teamed up with Steve Priest and company for their live performances. In February 2013, this lineup returned to Casino Regina in Saskatchewan, Canada. Tour dates played in summer 2013 included Riverfest in Watertown, Wisconsin, the St. Clair, MI Riverfest, several additional dates in Canada, and a reprise of their appearances at both Moondance Jam in Walker, MN and Rockin' the Rivers in Three Forks, Montana. The band made some rare appearances on the U.S. east coast in July 2013, including a performance with David Johansen of the New York Dolls at the Bergen Performing Arts Center in Englewood, New Jersey. Singer Joe Retta was unavailable for these dates due to a scheduling conflict, so Tribe of Gypsies frontman Chas West, who has played with Jason Bonham's band and has experience subbing in such well-known bands as Foreigner, Lynch Mob and Diamond Head, stepped in to man the microphone for a series of shows in New York, New Jersey and Maryland.
On 27 August 2014, Steve Priest announced on the band's Facebook page that guitarist Mitch Perry had been tapped for the guitar slot. Most recently on tour with Lita Ford, Mitch's other credentials included his work with Michael Schenker Group, Asia Featuring John Payne, Edgar Winter, Billy Sheehan and David Lee Roth His first live appearance with Sweet was at the Rock the River festival in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan on 23 August 2014.
22 December 2017 saw the launch of the 50th anniversary tour at the Whisky a Go Go on L.A.'s Sunset Strip and the introduction of new singer Paul Zablidowski AKA "Paulie Z" former lead singer and guitarist of ZO2, children's band "The Z Brothers" and star of IFC show Z-Rock. Recently known as the host for local show "Ultimate Jam Night." Z replaced Joe Retta, who had served as the frontman for the Los Angeles incarnation of Sweet since its formation in 2008. Priest died on 4 June 2020.
Brief reunions and the deaths of Brian Connolly, Mick Tucker and Steve Priest
Steve Priest was asked to join Tucker and Scott for the 1985 Australian tour, but declined at the last moment.
Mike Chapman contacted Connolly, Priest, Scott, and Tucker in 1988, offering to finance a recording session in Los Angeles. As he remembers: "I met them at the airport and Andy and Mick came off the plane. I said, 'Where's Brian?' They said, 'Oh, he's coming.' All the people had come off the plane by now. Then this little old man hobbled towards us. He was shaking, and had a ghostly white face. I thought, 'Oh, Jesus Christ.' It was horrifying." Reworked studio versions of "Action" and "The Ballroom Blitz" were recorded, but it became clear that Connolly's voice and physical health had made Sweet's original member comeback too difficult to promote commercially. Consequently, the reunion attempt was aborted.
In 1990 this line-up was again reunited for the promotion of a music documentary entitled Sweet's Ballroom Blitz. This UK video release, which contained UK television performances from the 1970s and current-day interviews, was released at Tower Records, London. Sweet was interviewed by Power Hour, Super Channel, and spoke of a possible reunion.
Brian Connolly died at the age of 51 on 9 February 1997, from liver failure and repeated heart attacks, attributed to his abuse of alcohol in the 1970s and early 1980s. Mick Tucker died on 14 February 2002 from leukemia, at the age of 54. On 4 June 2020 it was announced that Steve Priest had died. It left Andy Scott as the sole living member of Sweet's 'classic lineup'.
Later years
Two versions of The Sweet were active with original members: "Andy Scott's Sweet", who frequently tour across Europe as Sweet and makes occasional sojourns to other markets including regular visits to Australia, and "Steve Priest's Sweet" who toured the US and Canada.
On 28 April 2009, Shout! Factory released a two-disc, career-spanning greatest hits album called Action: The Sweet Anthology. It received a four-star (out of five) rating in Rolling Stone.
In September 2009 Ace Frehley released his version of "Fox on the Run" on his album Anomaly.
In an October 2012 appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live, Axl Rose, lead singer of Guns N' Roses, referenced Sweet as one of his favourite bands growing up along with fellow British band Queen.
In April 2016, the chart topping song (1973), "The Ballroom Blitz" was featured in a trailer for Suicide Squad.
In December 2016, their single "Fox on the Run" (1975) was featured in a trailer for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.
In 2019, the songs "Fox on the Run" and "Set Me Free" were featured in an episode of Jamie Johnson.
Personnel
Original band
Classic lineup
Brian Connolly – lead vocals, percussion, synthesizer, acoustic guitar (1968–1978; died 1997)
Steve Priest – bass, backing and lead vocals (1968–1981; died 2020)
Mick Tucker – drums, percussion, backing and lead vocals (1968–1981; died 2002)
Andy Scott – guitars, keyboards, synthesizers, piano, backing and lead vocals (1970–1981)
Early members
Frank Torpey – guitars (1968–1969)
Mick Stewart – guitars (1969–1970)
Touring musicians
Gary Moberley – keyboards, synthesizers, piano (1978–1981)
Nico Ramsden – guitar (1978)
Ray McRiner – guitar (1979)
Andy Scott’s Sweet
Current members
Andy Scott – guitars, keyboards, synthesizers, piano, backing and lead vocals (1985–present)
Bruce Bisland – drums, backing vocals (1992–present)
Paul Manzi – lead vocals (2019–present; substitute appearances in 2014 and 2015)
Lee Small – bass, backing vocals (2019–present)
Former members
Mick Tucker – drums, backing vocals (1985–1991; died 2002)
Paul Mario Day – lead vocals (1985–1989)
Phil Lanzon – keyboards, piano, backing vocals (1985–1989; 2005—2006)
Mal McNulty – bass, lead and backing vocals (1985–1995)
Jeff Brown – bass, lead and backing vocals (1989–2003)
Steve Mann – keyboards, guitars, backing vocals (1989-1996)
Bodo Schopf – drums, backing vocals (1991–1992)
Chad Brown — lead vocals (1995–1998)
Steve Grant — keyboards, piano, backing vocals (1996–2005, 2006–2011); lead vocals, bass (2005–2006)
Tony O’Hora – lead and backing vocals, bass (2003–2005, 2006, 2011–2019), guitars, keyboards (2011–2019)
Peter Lincoln – bass, lead and backing vocals (2006–2019)
Timeline
Discography
Funny How Sweet Co-Co Can Be (1971)
Sweet Fanny Adams (1974)
Desolation Boulevard (1974)
Give Us a Wink (1976)
Off the Record (1977)
Level Headed (1978)
Cut Above the Rest (1979)
Waters Edge (titled Sweet VI with a different cover in the U.S.) (1980)
Identity Crisis (1982)
Sweetlife (2002) by Andy Scott's Sweet
Isolation Boulevard (2020) by Andy Scott's Sweet
References
Bibliography
(2008 eBook available at )
External links
Channel 4 documentary on The Sweet from 1996
English hard rock musical groups
English glam rock groups
Musical groups established in 1968
Capitol Records artists
Polydor Records artists
RCA Records artists
1968 establishments in the United Kingdom
Musical groups disestablished in 1982
1982 disestablishments in the United Kingdom
Musical groups reestablished in 1985
1985 establishments in the United Kingdom
| false |
[
"The discography of Killing Joke, a British rock band, consists of 15 studio albums, seven live albums, 14 compilation albums, five extended plays (EPs), 31 singles and four video albums. The band formed in late 1978–early 1979 in Notting Hill, London, England.\n\nIn October 1979, shortly after they began the Malicious Damage record label, Killing Joke released their debut EP, Turn to Red. It was shortly followed by their second EP, Almost Red, released in November, and by their first single, \"Nervous System\", released in December 1979. Their first studio album, Killing Joke, was released in 1980. The album, which peaked at number 39 on the UK Albums Chart, produced three singles: \"Wardance\", \"Change\" and \"Requiem\". Their second studio album, What's THIS For...!, was released in 1981 and reached number 42 in the UK. \"Follow the Leaders\", the only single to be released from the album, charted in the UK and in the U.S. Their third album, Revelations, was released in 1982 and peaked at number 12 in the UK, and number 33 in New Zealand. Two singles, \"Empire Song\" and \"Chop-Chop\", were released from the album, but only \"Empire Song\" charted in the UK. After the release of their third EP, Birds of a Feather and the \"single of the same name\", which charted in the UK, Killing Joke released their fourth studio album, Fire Dances, in July 1983. The only single from Fire Dances, \"Let's All Go (to the Fire Dances)\", and the album both charted in the UK. In October, they released \"Me or You?\", a non-album single that charted in the UK.\n\nTheir fifth album, Night Time, was released in 1985. It achieved mainstream success, reaching number 11 in the UK, 8 in the Netherlands, and 50 in Sweden, receiving the silver certification in the UK. It was preceded by the single \"Eighties\", non-album single \"A New Day\" and \"Love Like Blood\", and followed by \"Kings and Queens\". All four singles charted in the UK, but \"Love Like Blood\" was an international hit and charted in Germany, Ireland, Netherlands and New Zealand. The album itself peaked at number 11 in the UK, 8 in Netherlands, and 50 in Sweden. In 1986, Killing Joke released their sixth studio album, Brighter than a Thousand Suns, and two singles, \"Adorations\" and \"Sanity\". The album charted in the UK and in the U.S., and both singles only in the UK. Outside the Gate, their seventh studio album, was released in 1988. While it was not promoted, the album and two singles from it, \"America\" and \"My Love of This Land\", charted in the UK. Coleman and Walker temporarily decided to disband the band. The Courtauld Talks, released in 1989, was essentially a spoken word album. Killing Joke's eighth album, Extremities, Dirt & Various Repressed Emotions, was released in 1990. It included two singles, \"The Beautiful Dead\" and \"Money Is Not Our God\". A Killing Joke anthology, Laugh? I Nearly Bought One!, and two singles featuring \"Change\" and \"Wardance\" in several new versions remixed by Youth, were released in 1992. Pandemonium, released 1994, and Democracy, in 1996, resulted in five singles: \"Exorcism\", \"Millenium\" (a UK Top 40 hit), \"Pandemonium\" (a UK Top 30 hit), \"Jana\" and \"Democracy\" (a UK Top 40 hit).\n\nAfter the Democracy tour, the band went on an extended hiatus until 2002, when Coleman, Geordie and Youth reformed Killing Joke. Their second self-titled album was released in 2003. The album reached the UK Top 40, and produced two singles, \"Loose Cannon\" (a UK Top 25 hit) and \"Seeing Red\". In February 2005, Killing Joke played two consecutive shows to commemorate their 25th anniversary. DVD and CD recordings from these concerts were released in the fall of 2005 as XXV Gathering: The Band that Preys Together Stays Together. In June, remastered and expanded editions of their two 1990s Butterfly Recordings albums, Pandemonium and Democracy, were released by Cooking Vinyl. These were followed in July by their first four albums (from Killing Joke to Ha!) on EMI. Hosannas from the Basements of Hell was released in April 2006 on Cooking Vinyl. The album made the UK Top 75. Early in 2007, Killing Joke released three archival collections via Candlelight Records: Inside Extremities, Bootleg Vinyl Archive Volumes 1 & 2 and, in October, Extremities, Dirt & Various Repressed Emotions. On 28 January 2008, the albums Fire Dances, Night Time, Brighter than a Thousand Suns and Outside the Gate were reissued in remastered form with bonus tracks by EMI. Each of these carried the message: Dedicated to our brother Paul Vincent Raven 1961–2007.\n\nIn 2008, Killing Joke released Duende - The Spanish Sessions and an album of radio session recordings, The Peel Sessions 1979-1981. The EP In Excelsis was released in 2010, and the following studio album, Absolute Dissent, was released in September 2010. On 2 April 2012, Killing Joke released their 15th studio album, MMXII on Spinefarm Records/Universal. It reached number 44 on the UK albums chart upon its first week of release, and number 9 on the Finnish albums chart.\n\nOn 23 October 2015, the band released their 16th studio album, Pylon.\n\nAlbums\n\nStudio albums\n\nLive albums\n\nCompilation albums\n\nExtended plays\n\nSingles \n\n2015 \"I Am the Virus\" Pylon\n\n2015 \"Euphoria\" Pylon\n\n2015 \"Dawn of the Hive\" Pylon\n\n2020 \"Turn to Red 2020\" Non-album song\n\n2020 \"War Dance (Liminal Twins Disorientation Mix)\" Part of the book \"Killing Joke: A Prophecy Fulfilled by Chris Bryans\"|\n\nVideography\n\nMusic videos\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\ndiscog\n\n [ Killing Joke] at AllMusic\n Killing Joke at Discogs\n Killing Joke at Rate Your Music\n\nKilling Joke\nDiscography\nKilling Joke",
"English synth-pop duo Pet Shop Boys have released 14 studio albums, five live albums, seven compilation albums, four remix albums, five soundtrack albums, three extended plays and over seventy singles. The duo's debut single, \"West End Girls\", was first released in 1984 but failed to chart in most regions. However, the song was entirely re-recorded in late 1985, and this newly recorded version became their first number-one single, topping the UK Singles Chart, Billboard Hot 100 and Canadian Singles Chart. Parlophone released the duo's debut album, Please, in the United Kingdom in March 1986. The album peaked at number three on the UK Albums Chart and was certified platinum by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI). It also peaked at number seven on the Billboard 200 in the United States and was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). The following summer they released \"It's a Sin\", the lead single from their second album, Actually. The single became another UK number one and also reached number nine in the US. This was followed by \"What Have I Done to Deserve This?\", with Dusty Springfield, which peaked at number two in both the UK and US. In the summer of 1987, the Pet Shop Boys recorded a cover of Brenda Lee's song \"Always on My Mind\", which became their third UK number-one single over Christmas 1987. This was followed by another UK number one, \"Heart\", in spring 1988. The album Actually was released in September 1987, peaked at number two in the UK and was certified three-times platinum by the BPI.\n\nThe duo's third album, Introspective, was released in October 1988 and peaked at number two in the UK and Germany and was certified two-times platinum by the BPI. Next album Behaviour, came in 1990 and became their third album in a row to debut and peak at number two in the UK. The duo then released their first hits compilation, Discography, which included all of their single releases as well as two new tracks. In 1993 they released a cover of the Village People single \"Go West\", which reached number two in the UK. The duo's fifth album, Very, followed and is the only Pet Shop Boys album, so far, to reach number one in the UK. In 1994 they recorded the Comic Relief charity single, \"Absolutely Fabulous\", under the pseudonym of Absolutely Fabulous. The duo do not consider it as a Pet Shop Boys single release and it was not included on any of their \"best-of\" albums. The duo then released a B-side collection album, Alternative in 1995. \"Se a vida é (That's the Way Life Is)\", was released in the summer of 1996, a Latin American music-inspired track, featuring a drum sample, which preceded the sixth Pet Shop Boys album, Bilingual.\n\nNightlife, the duo's seventh album came in 1999, followed by the modestly successful album Release in 2002. In November 2003, Pet Shop Boys released a second greatest hits album, PopArt: The Hits. The ninth Pet Shop Boys studio album, Fundamental, came in May 2006, reaching number five in the UK. Also in 2006, Concrete was released, a live album recorded at the Mermaid Theatre, London. Released in UK in March 2009, Yes, was a critical success and hit number four, their highest album chart peak in more than a decade. The Pet Shop Boys also received the BPI's award for \"Outstanding Contribution to British Music\", at the 2009 Brit Awards ceremony. In December 2009, they released an EP of covers, remixes, and new material, titled Christmas.\n\nUltimate, the one-disc compilation, was released on 1 November 2010 to celebrate 25 years since the band's first single release. The special version included a DVD with over three hours of BBC TV performances of 27 singles by Pet Shop Boys, released by arrangement with BBC Music. As well as the complete Glastonbury Festival performance from June 2010. Ultimate peaked at 27 on the UK charts. The second B-side compilation album, Format, was released on 6 February 2012, reaching number 26 in the UK. The duo released their eleventh studio album, Elysium, in late 2012, reaching number 9 in the UK. Elysium spawned the singles \"Winner\", \"Leaving\" and \"Memory of the Future\".\n\nIn March 2013, the Pet Shop Boys started a new chapter in their career when they left their long-term label, Parlophone, and signed with Kobalt Label Services. A new album, Electric, was released in July 2013, reaching number 3 in the UK and number 26 in the United States, their highest-peaking album for nearly 20 years in both countries. The singles from this album were \"Axis\", \"Vocal\", \"Love is a Bourgeois Construct\", \"Thursday\" (featuring Example) and \"Fluorescent\". The duo undertook a worldwide tour to support the album. In November 2014, they returned to the studio to begin working on their next album. With Stuart Price returning as producer, Super was announced on 21 January 2016 for release on 1 April. \"Inner Sanctum\" was released as a teaser track. The first single proper was \"The Pop Kids\", released on 26 February 2016.\n\nAlbums\n\nStudio albums\n\nLive albums\n\nCompilation albums\n\nRemix albums\n\nSoundtrack albums\n\nExtended plays\n\nSingles\n\n1980s\n\n1990s\n\n2000s\n\n2010s and 2020s\n\nAs featured artist\n\nVideography\n\nVideo albums\n\nMusic videos\n\nOther appearances\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n \n \n \n\nDiscography\nDiscographies of British artists\nElectronic music discographies\nPop music group discographies"
] |
[
"The Sweet",
"First album",
"What was the name of their first album?",
"Funny How Sweet Co-Co Can Be,",
"Who produced their first album?",
"Phil Wainman",
"What year was their first album released?",
"November 1971.",
"Was there a popular single on the album?",
"Funny Funny",
"Where was the album recorded?",
"Nova Studios in London,",
"Did the album reach the top of the music charts?",
"It was not a serious contender on the charts.",
"Was their album only released in the UK?",
"This management deal also included a worldwide (the U.S. excepted) record contract with RCA Records"
] |
C_e0dc93e73be04cf2b157df3e12cc2286_0
|
What was the most popular song?
| 8 |
What was the most popular song on The Sweet's album, Funny How Sweet Co-Co Can Be?
|
The Sweet
|
The Sweet made their UK television debut in December 1970 on a pop show called Lift Off, performing the song "Funny Funny". A management deal was signed with the aforementioned songwriting team of Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman. Phil Wainman resumed his collaboration with Sweet, as executive producer. This management deal also included a worldwide (the U.S. excepted) record contract with RCA Records (in the United States and Canada Bell Records issued the group's music until late 1973; followed by Capitol Records). In March 1971 RCA issued "Funny Funny", written by Chinn and Chapman, which became the group's first international hit, climbing to the Top 20 on many of the world's charts. EMI reissued their 1970 single "All You'll Ever Get from Me" (May 1971) and it again failed to chart. Their next RCA release "Co-Co" (June 1971) went to number two in the U.K. and their follow up single, "Alexander Graham Bell" (October 1971), only went to #33. These tracks still featured session musicians on the instruments with the quartet providing only the vocals. The Sweet's first full LP album, Funny How Sweet Co-Co Can Be, was released in November 1971. A collection of the band's recent singles supplemented by some new Chinn/Chapman tunes (including "Chop Chop" and "Tom Tom Turnaround") and pop covers (such as the Lovin' Spoonful's "Daydream" and the Supremes' "Reflections"), the album, recorded at Nova Studios in London, was produced by Phil Wainman and engineered by Richard Dodd and Eric Holland. It was not a serious contender on the charts. Their albums' failure to match the success of their singles was a problem that would plague the band throughout their career. CANNOTANSWER
|
Funny Funny
|
The Sweet, sometimes also shortened to just Sweet, are a British glam rock band that rose to worldwide fame in the 1970s. Their best known line-up consisted of lead vocalist Brian Connolly, bass player Steve Priest, guitarist Andy Scott, and drummer Mick Tucker. The group was originally called The Sweetshop.
The band was formed in London in 1968 and achieved their first hit, "Funny Funny", in 1971 after teaming up with songwriters Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman and record producer Phil Wainman. During 1971 and 1972, their musical style followed a marked progression from the Archies-like bubblegum style of "Funny Funny" to a Who-influenced hard rock style supplemented by a striking use of high-pitched backing vocals.
The band first achieved success in the UK charts, with thirteen Top 20 hits during the 1970s alone, with "Block Buster!" (1973) topping the chart, followed by three consecutive number two hits in "Hell Raiser" (1973), "The Ballroom Blitz" (1973) and "Teenage Rampage" (1974). The band turned to a more hard rock style with their mid-career singles, like 1974's "Turn It Down". "Fox on the Run" (1975) also reached number two on the UK charts. These results were topped in West Germany and other countries on the European mainland. They also achieved success and popularity in the US with the top ten hits "Little Willy", "The Ballroom Blitz", "Fox on the Run", and "Love is Like Oxygen".
The Sweet had their last international success in 1978 with "Love Is Like Oxygen". Connolly left the group in 1979 to start a solo career and the remaining members continued as a trio until disbanding in 1981. From the mid-1980s, Scott, Connolly and Priest each played with their own versions of Sweet at different times. Connolly died in 1997, Tucker in 2002 and Priest in 2020. Andy Scott is still active with his version of the band. Sweet have since sold over 35 million albums worldwide.
History
Origins
Sweet's origins can be traced back to British soul band Wainwright's Gentlemen. Mark Lay's history of that band states they formed around 1962 and were initially known as Unit 4. Founding members included Chris Wright (vocals), Jan Frewer (bass), with Jim Searle and Alfred Fripp on guitars. Phil Kenton joined on drums as the band changed its name to Wainwright's Gentlemen (due to there being another band known as Unit 4). Managed by Frewer's father, the band performed in the Hayes, Harrow and Wembley area. By 1964 the group was also playing in London, including at the Saint Germain Club on Poland Street.
In January 1964 the band came fifth in a national beat group contest, with finals held at the Lyceum Strand on 4 May 1964. Highlights of the show were presented on BBC1 by Alan Freeman. Chris Wright left the line-up in late 1964 and was replaced by Ian Gillan. A female vocalist named Ann Cully soon joined the band. Mick Tucker, from Ruislip, joined on drums replacing Phil Kenton. The band recorded a number of tracks including a cover of the Coasters-Hollies hit "Ain't That Just Like Me", which was probably recorded at Jackson Sound Studios in Rickmansworth. The track includes Gillan on vocals, Tucker on drums and, according to band bassist Jan Frewer, is thought to have been recorded in 1965. Gillan quit in May 1965 to join Episode Six, and later, Deep Purple. Cully remained as vocalist before departing some time later. Gillan's and Cully's eventual replacement, in late 1966, was Scots-born vocalist Brian Connolly, who hailed more recently from Harefield. Tony Hall had joined on saxophone and vocals and when Fripp left he was replaced by Gordon Fairminer. Fairminer's position was eventually assumed by Frank Torpey (born Frank Edward Torpey, 30 April 1945, Kilburn, North West London) - a schoolfriend of Tucker's who had just left West London group The Tribe (aka The Dream). Torpey only lasted a few months, and in late 1967 Robin Box (born 19 June 1944) took his place. Searle, regarded by many as the most talented musically, disappeared from the scene. Tucker and Connolly remained with Wainwright's Gentlemen until January 1968. Tucker was replaced by Roger Hills. When the Gentlemen eventually broke up, Hills and Box joined White Plains who eventually scored a big hit with "My Baby Loves Lovin'".
Early years
In January 1968 Connolly and Tucker formed a new band calling themselves The Sweetshop. They recruited bass guitarist and vocalist Steve Priest from a local band called The Army. Priest had previously played with mid-'60s band the Countdowns who had been produced and recorded by Joe Meek. Frank Torpey was again recruited to play guitar. The quartet made its public debut at the Pavilion in Hemel Hempstead on 9 March 1968 and soon developed a following on the pub circuit, which led to a contract with Fontana Records. At the time, another UK band released a single under the same name Sweetshop, so the band abbreviated their moniker to Sweet. The band was managed by Paul Nicholas, who later went on to star in Hair. Nicholas worked with record producer Phil Wainman at Mellin Music Publishing and recommended the band to him. Their debut single "Slow Motion" (July 1968), produced by Wainman, and released on Fontana, failed to chart and owing to its rarity now sells for several hundred pounds when auctioned. Sweet were released from the recording contract and Frank Torpey left. In his autobiography Are You Ready Steve, Priest said that Gordon Fairminer was approached to play for them when Torpey decided to leave Sweet after a gig at Playhouse Theatre Walton-on-Thames on 5 July 1969 but turned the job down as he wanted to concentrate on other interests.
New line-up and new record deal
Guitarist Mick Stewart joined in 1969. Stewart had some rock pedigree, having previously worked with The (Ealing) Redcaps and Simon Scott & The All-Nite Workers in the mid-1960s. In late 1965, that band became The Phil Wainman Set when the future Sweet producer joined on drums and the group cut some singles with Errol Dixon. In early 1966, Stewart left and later worked with Johnny Kidd & The Pirates.
Sweet signed a new record contract with EMI's Parlophone label. Three bubblegum pop singles were released: "Lollipop Man" (September 1969), "All You'll Ever Get from Me" (January 1970), and a cover version of the Archies' "Get on the Line" (June 1970), all of which failed to chart. Stewart then quit, and was not replaced for some time. Connolly and Tucker had a chance meeting with Wainman, who was now producing, and knew of two aspiring songwriters, Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman, who were looking for a group to sing some demos they had written. Connolly, Priest, and Tucker provided the vocals on a track called "Funny Funny" which featured Pip Williams on guitar, John Roberts on bass, and Wainman on drums. The latter began offering the track to various recording companies. The band held auditions for a replacement guitarist and settled on Welsh-born Andy Scott. He had most recently been playing with Mike McCartney (brother of Paul) in the Scaffold. As a member of the Elastic Band, he had played guitar on two singles for Decca, "Think of You Baby" and "Do Unto Others". He also appeared on the band's lone album release, Expansions on Life, and on some recordings by the Scaffold. The band rehearsed for a number of weeks before Scott made his live debut with Sweet on 26 September 1970 at the Windsor Ballroom in Redcar.
Sweet initially attempted to combine diverse musical influences, including the Monkees and 1960s bubblegum pop groups such as the Archies, with more heavy rock-oriented groups such as the Who. Sweet adopted the rich vocal harmony style of the Hollies, with distorted guitars and a heavy rhythm section. This fusion of pop and hard rock would remain a central trademark of Sweet's music and prefigured the glam metal of a few years later.
Sweet's initial album appearance was on the budget label Music for Pleasure as part of a compilation called Gimme Dat Ding, released in December 1970. Sweet had one side of the record; the Pipkins (whose sole hit, "Gimme Dat Ding", gave the LP its name) had the other. Sweet's contribution consisted of the A- and B-sides of the band's three Parlophone singles. Andy Scott appears in the album cover shot, even though he did not play on any of the recordings.
First album
Sweet made their UK television debut in December 1970 on a pop show called Lift Off, performing the song "Funny Funny". A management deal was signed with the aforementioned songwriting team of Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman. Phil Wainman resumed his collaboration with Sweet, as executive producer. This management deal also included a worldwide record contract with RCA Records, the U.S. excepted: in the United States and Canada Bell Records issued the group's music until late 1973, followed by Capitol Records.
In March 1971 RCA issued "Funny Funny", written by Chinn and Chapman, which became the group's first international hit, climbing to the Top 20 on many of the world's charts. EMI reissued their 1970 single "All You'll Ever Get from Me" (May 1971) and it again failed to chart. Their next RCA release "Co-Co" (June 1971) went to number two in the U.K. and their follow up single, "Alexander Graham Bell" (October 1971), only went to No. 33. These tracks still featured session musicians on the instruments with the quartet providing only the vocals.
Sweet's first full LP album, Funny How Sweet Co-Co Can Be, was released in November 1971. A collection of the band's recent singles supplemented by some new Chinn/Chapman tunes (including "Chop Chop" and "Tom Tom Turnaround") and pop covers (such as the Lovin' Spoonful's "Daydream" and the Supremes' "Reflections"), the album, recorded at Nova Studios in London, was produced by Phil Wainman and engineered by Richard Dodd and Eric Holland. It was not a serious contender on the charts.
Initial success and rise to fame
February 1972 saw the release of "Poppa Joe", which reached number 1 in Finland and peaked at number 11 on the UK Singles Chart. The next two singles of that year, "Little Willy" and "Wig-Wam Bam", both reached No. 4 in the UK. "Little Willy" peaked at No. 3 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 after a re-issue in 1973, thus becoming the group's biggest American hit. Although "Wig-Wam Bam" remained largely true to the style of Sweet's previous recordings, the vocals and guitars had a harder, more rock-oriented sound, largely because it was the first Chinn-Chapman single on which only members of Sweet played the instruments. In January 1973 "Block Buster!" became Sweet's first single to reach number 1 on the UK chart, remaining there for five consecutive weeks. After their next single "Hell Raiser" was released in May and reached number 2 in the U.K., Sweet's U.S. label, Bell, released the group's first American album The Sweet in July 1973.
To promote their singles, Sweet made numerous appearances on U.K. and European TV shows such as Top of the Pops and Supersonic. In one performance of "Block Buster!" on Top of the Pops Christmas edition, Priest aroused complaints after he appeared replete in a German military uniform, Hitler moustache and displaying a swastika armband. The band also capitalised on the glam rock explosion, rivalling Gary Glitter, T. Rex, Queen, Slade, and Wizzard for outrageous stage clothing.
Despite Sweet's success, the relationship with their management was becoming increasingly tense. While they had developed a large fan-base among teenagers, Sweet were not happy with their 'bubblegum' image. Sweet had always composed their own heavy-rock songs on the B-sides of their singles to contrast with the bubblegum A-sides which were composed by Chinn and Chapman. During this time, Sweet's live performances consisted of B-sides, album tracks, and various medleys of rock and roll classics; they avoided older novelty hits like "Funny Funny" and "Poppa Joe". A 1973 performance at the Palace Theatre and Grand Hall in Kilmarnock ended in Sweet being bottled off stage; the disorder was attributed by some (including Steve Priest) to Sweet's lipstick and eye-shadow look, and by others to the audience being unfamiliar with the concert set (the 1999 CD release Live at the Rainbow 1973 documents a live show from this period). The incident would be immortalised in the hit "The Ballroom Blitz" (September 1973). In the meantime, Sweet's chart success continued, showing particular strength in the UK, Denmark, Germany, Sweden, and Australia. By the end of 1973, the band's name evolved from "The Sweet" to "Sweet". The change would be reflected in all of their releases from 1974 onward.
Forming a new image
By 1974, Sweet had grown tired of the management team of Chinn and Chapman, who wrote the group's major hits and cultivated the band's glam rock image. The group and producer Phil Wainman, assisted by engineer Peter Coleman, recorded the album Sweet Fanny Adams, which was released in April 1974. Sweet's technical proficiency was demonstrated for the first time on self-penned hard rock tracks such as "Sweet F.A." and "Set Me Free". Sweet also adopted a more conventional hard rock sound and appearance. Sweet Fanny Adams also featured compressed high-pitched backing vocal harmonies, which was a trend that continued on all of Sweet's albums.
During sessions for the album, Brian Connolly was injured in a fight in Staines High Street. His throat was badly injured and his ability to sing severely limited. Priest and Scott filled in on lead vocals on some tracks ("No You Don't", "Into The Night" and "Restless") and Connolly, under treatment from a Harley Street specialist, managed to complete the album. The band did not publicise the incident and told the press that subsequent cancelled shows were due to Connolly having a throat infection. This incident reportedly permanently compromised Connolly's singing ability, with his range diminished.
No previous singles appeared on the album, and none were released, except in Japan, New Zealand and Australia, where "Peppermint Twist/Rebel Rouser", apparently released by their record company without their knowledge, gained a No. 1 chart position in the latter. Sweet Fanny Adams would be Sweet's only non-compilation release to break the UK Albums Chart Top 40.
Sweet were invited by Pete Townshend to support the Who, who were playing at Charlton Athletic's football ground, The Valley in June 1974. However, Connolly's badly bruised throat kept them from fulfilling the role. Sweet had frequently cited the Who as being one of their main influences and played a medley of their tracks in their live set for many years.
Desolation Boulevard
Their third album, Desolation Boulevard, was released later in 1974, six months after Sweet Fanny Adams. By that stage, producer Phil Wainman had moved on and the album was produced by Mike Chapman. It was recorded in a mere six days and featured a rawer "live" sound. One track, "The Man with the Golden Arm", written by Elmer Bernstein and Sylvia Fine for the 1955 Frank Sinatra movie of the same name, featured drummer Mick Tucker performing an 8 and half minute solo (although this was not included in the U.S. release). This had been a staple of the band's live performance for years. The first single from the LP, the heavy-melodic "The Six Teens" (July 1974), was a Top 10 hit in the U.K. and still part of the amazing unbroken string of No. 1's in Denmark. However, the subsequent single release, "Turn It Down" (November 1974), reached only No. 41 on the U.K. chart and No. 2 in Denmark. "Turn It Down" received minimal airplay on UK radio and was banned by some radio stations because of certain lyrical content - "God-awful sound" and "For God sakes, turn it down" - which were deemed "unsuitable for family listening." The band resumed playing live shows nearly a full six months after Connolly's throat injury, with band and critics noting a rougher edge to his voice and a reduced range. The album also featured a group composition, "Fox On The Run", which was to be re-recorded months later.
The U.S. version of Desolation Boulevard was different from the U.K. version and included several songs from Sweet Fanny Adams in addition to the "Ballroom Blitz" and "Fox on the Run" singles (both of which peaked at No. 5 in the US). Side One of the album contained all Chapman-Chinn penned songs, while Side Two featured songs written and produced by Sweet.
Writing and producing their own material
In 1975 Sweet went back into the studio to re-arrange and record a more pop-oriented version of the track "Fox on the Run". Sweet's first self-written and produced single, "Fox on the Run" was released worldwide in March 1975 and became their biggest selling hit, reaching number one in Germany, Denmark, and South Africa, number two in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Norway and the Netherlands and number three in Austria and Switzerland. In Australia it not only made it to the top of the charts, it also became the biggest selling single of that year. The song reached number two in Canada and number five in the U.S. The release of this track marked the end of the formal Chinn-Chapman working relationship and the band stressed it was now fully self-sufficient as writers and producers.
The following single release, "Action" (July 1975), peaked at number 15 in the UK. Now confident in their own songwriting and production abilities, Sweet spent the latter half of 1975 in Musicland Studios in Munich, Germany, where they recorded the Give Us A Wink album with German sound engineer Reinhold Mack, who later recorded with Electric Light Orchestra and co-produced Queen. The new album release was deferred until 1976 so as not to stifle the chart success Desolation Boulevard was enjoying, peaking at number 25 in the US and number 5 in Canada.
With Give Us a Wink being held over, RCA issued a double album in Europe, Strung Up, in November. It contained one live disc, recorded in London in December 1973, and one disc compiling previously released singles (plus an unused track by Chinn and Chapman – "I Wanna Be Committed"). At the end of the year, Andy Scott released his first solo single, "Lady Starlight" b/w "Where D'Ya Go". Tucker played drums on both tracks.
Decline in popularity
January 1976 saw the release of the single "The Lies In Your Eyes", which made the Top 10 in Germany, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Australia, but only reached No. 35 on the U.K. charts. Sweet's first album to be fully produced and written by themselves, Give Us A Wink, was released in March 1976. A third single from the album, "4th Of July", was issued in Australia.
By this time, Sweet strove to build on their growing popularity in America with a schedule of more than fifty headline concert dates. Even though Give Us A Winks release was imminent, the band's set essentially promoted the US version of Desolation Boulevard plus the new US hit single "Action". During an appearance at Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in California on 24 March, Sweet played "All Right Now" with Ritchie Blackmore as a tribute to mark the death of Free guitarist Paul Kossoff, who was to have supported Sweet with his band Back Street Crawler. The US tour was not financially successful, with small audiences at many venues leading to the final half-dozen or so dates to be cancelled. Following the end of the tour, the band went on to Scandinavia and Germany. The band also spent a week at the Who's Ramport Studios in Battersea demoing material for a new album before abandoning that project and playing eight dates in Japan. By the end of the Japanese shows Connolly's extremely hoarse singing voice was manifest evidence of the demands of constant touring and the enduring after-effects of his 1974 assault.
Between October 1976 and January 1977, Sweet wrote and recorded new material at Kingsway Recorders and Audio International London studios for their next album. An advance single from the album, "Lost Angels", was only a hit in Germany, Austria and Sweden. A new album, Off the Record, was released in April. The next single from the album, "Fever of Love", represented the band heading in a somewhat more Europop hard rock direction, once again charting in Germany, Austria and Sweden, while reaching number 10 in South Africa. On this album, Sweet again worked with Give Us A Wink engineer Louis Austin, who would later engineer Def Leppard's On Through The Night 1980 début album. The band cancelled a US tour with emerging US rockers Aerosmith, did not play any live dates in support of the album and, in fact, did not play a single concert for the whole of 1977.
Level Headed and a change in style
Sweet left RCA in 1977 and signed a new deal with Polydor though it would not come into force until later in the year. Sweet's manager David Walker, from Handle Artists, negotiated the move which was reputed to be worth around £750,000. In the United States, Canada, and Japan, Capitol had issued Sweet's albums since 1974 and would continue to do so through to 1980.
The first Polydor album, Level Headed (January 1978), found Sweet experimenting by combining rock and classical sounds "a-la clavesin", an approach similar to Electric Light Orchestra's, and featured the single "Love Is Like Oxygen". Largely recorded during 1977 at Château d'Hérouville near Paris, France after a 30-day writing session at Clearwell Castle in the Forest Of Dean UK, the album represented a new musical direction, largely abandoning hard-rock for a more melodic pop style, interspersed with ballads accompanied by a 30-piece orchestra. The ballad, "Lettres D'Amour", featured a duet between Connolly and Stevie Lange (who would emerge as lead singer with the group Night in 1979).
With the addition of session and touring musicians keyboardist Gary Moberley and guitarist Nico Ramsden, Sweet undertook a short European and Scandinavian tour followed by a single British concert at London's Hammersmith Odeon on 24 February 1978. However, "Love Is Like Oxygen" (January 1978) was their last U.K., U.S., and German Top 10 hit. Scott was nominated for an Ivor Novello Award for co-composing the song. One more single from the album, "California Nights" (May 1978), featuring Steve Priest as the lead vocalist, peaked at number 23 on the German chart.
Departure of Brian Connolly
Between March and May 1978 Sweet extensively toured the US, as a support act for Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band. The tour included a disastrous date in Birmingham, Alabama on 3 May, during which visiting Capitol Records executives in the audience saw Brian Connolly give a drunken and incoherent performance that terminated early in the set with his collapse on stage, leaving the rest of the group to play on without him. The band returned briefly to Britain before resuming the second leg of their US tour in late May supporting other acts, including Foghat and Alice Cooper. Concluding the US tour in early July 1978, Brian's alcoholism and estrangement from the group was steadily becoming a greater issue.
In late October, having spent further time at Clearwell Castle to write for their next album, Sweet arrived at The Town House studio in Shepherd's Bush, London to complete and record, Cut Above the Rest (April 1979). Due to tensions between various members attributed to Connolly's health and diminishing status with the group, his long-time friend and fellow founding member, Mick Tucker, was tasked to produce Connolly's vocals. It was felt Tucker would extract a better performance than Scott from Connolly. A number of tracks were recorded featuring Connolly. However, these efforts were deemed unsatisfactory and Brian left the band on 2 November 1978.
On 23 February 1979, Brian Connolly's departure from Sweet was formally announced by manager David Walker. Publicly, Connolly was said to be pursuing a solo career with an interest in recording country rock.
Three piece Sweet
Sweet continued as a trio with Priest assuming the lion's share of lead vocals, though Scott and Tucker were also active in that role. The first single release for the trio was "Call Me". Guest keyboard player Gary Moberley continued to augment the group on stage. Guitarist Ray McRiner joined their touring line-up in 1979, with a small tour with Journey in the eastern United States and Cheap Trick in Texas in the spring and summer of '79 to support Cut Above The Rest (which was released in April 1979). McRiner would also contribute the songs "Too Much Talking" and the single "Give The Lady Some Respect" to the next Sweet album, Waters Edge (August 1980), which was recorded in Canada. In the US, Waters Edge was titled Sweet VI. It featured the singles "Sixties Man" and "Give The Lady Some Respect". Tragedy befell Mick Tucker when his wife Pauline drowned in the bath at their home on 26 December 1979. The band withdrew from live work for all of 1980.
One more studio album, Identity Crisis, was recorded during 1980–81 but was only released in West Germany and Mexico. Sweet undertook a short tour of the UK and performed their last live show at Glasgow University on 20 March 1981. Steve Priest then returned to the United States, where he had been living since late 1979. When Polydor released Identity Crisis in October 1982, the original Sweet had been disbanded for almost a year.
Re-formed versions (1984–present)
Andy Scott's Sweet (1985–present)
Andy Scott and Mick Tucker organised their own version of Sweet with Paul Mario Day (ex-Iron Maiden, More, Wildfire) on lead vocals, Phil Lanzon (ex-Grand Prix) on keyboards and Mal McNulty on bass. The band performed at the Marquee Club in London in February 1986, with the shows recorded and gaining release a few years later, bolstered by four new studio tracks including a cover of the Motown standard "Reach Out I'll Be There". This line-up also toured Australian and New Zealand pubs and clubs for more than three months in 1985 and for a similar period again in 1986. Singer Paul Day ended up marrying the band's Australian tour guide and relocating downunder. He continued with Sweet commuting back and forth to Europe for the group's tours until this proved to be too cumbersome. He departed in late 1988. As McNulty moved into the front man spot, Jeff Brown came in to take over bass early in 1989. Lanzon too went back and forth between Sweet and Uriah Heep during 1986-1988 before Heep's schedule grew too busy. Malcolm Pearson and then Ian Gibbons (who had played with The Kinks and The Records) both filled in for Lanzon until Steve Mann (Liar, Lionheart, McAuley Schenker Group) arrived in December 1989.
Tucker departed after a show in Lochau, Austria, on 5 May 1991. He later was diagnosed with a rare form of leukaemia. Three drummers, Andy Hoyler, Bobby Andersen and Bruce Bisland (Weapon, Wildfire, Praying Mantis), provided short-term relief before Bodo Schopf (McAuley Schenker Group) took over. They recorded an album during this period, simply titled A. Before the band embarked on the supporting tour for A in 1992, Bodo left and Bisland returned as permanent percussionist. Scott changed the band's name to 'Andy Scott's Sweet' after Tucker's departure but truncated it to simply 'The Sweet' once again after Tucker's death in 2002.
Mal McNulty, now lead vocalist, departed in 1994, though he would return briefly that year to fill in for Jeff Brown on bass (as he would again in 1995 as lead singer for a few dates while Rocky Newton subbed on bass). Sweet's former keyboard men Gary Moberley and Ian Gibbons also did fill-in jaunts with the group that year, as did Chris Goulstone. Chad Brown (ex-Lionheart; no relation to Jeff) was the new front man. Glitz Blitz and Hitz, a new studio album of re-recorded Sweet hits, was released during this period.
In 1996 Mann left to take a job in television and Gibbons came back for a short time before Steve Grant (ex-The Animals) became the permanent keyboardist. When Chad Brown quit in 1998 after developing a throat infection, Jeff Brown assumed lead vocals and bass duties. After this, the band was stable again for the next five years.
The mid-2000s would bring further confusing shake-ups and rotations. Tony O'Hora (ex-Onslaught, Praying Mantis) replaced Brown as lead vocalist in 2003. Ian Gibbons came back for a third stint as fill-in keyboardist in June 2005 for a gig in the Faroe Islands. O'Hora decided to split to take a teaching job in late 2005. Grant then jumped from keyboards to lead vocals and bass as Phil Lanzon returned on keyboards for a tour of Russia and Germany in October/November. New singer Mark Thompson Smith (ex-Praying Mantis) joined in November 2005 for some Swedish gigs, while Jo Burt (ex-Black Sabbath) was temporary bass player. Tony Mills (ex-Shy) was slated to be Sweet's new singer in early 2006 but failed to work out and left after six shows in Denmark. At this point, O'Hora came back as fill in front man and then Grant did another turn himself as the singer/bassist (Steve Mann depped on keyboards) until the group finally landed a new permanent front man when Peter Lincoln (ex-Sailor) arrived in July 2006. The line-up then consisted of Scott, Bisland, Grant and Lincoln.
Scott produced the Suzi Quatro album Back to the Drive, released in February 2006. March 2006 saw the U.S. release of his band's album Sweetlife.
In 2007 the group played in Germany, Belgium, Austria and Italy. In May of that year, the band played in Porto Alegre and Curitiba, Brazil, their first and only South American shows. The tour was called the 'Sweet Fanny Adams Tour'.
The band toured again in March 2008 under the name 'Sweet Fanny Adams Revisited Tour'. In May and June, Scott's Sweet were part of the "Glitz Blitz & 70s Hitz" tour of the UK alongside The Rubettes and Showaddywaddy.
In March and April 2010, Scott was absent from a couple of gigs due to ill health and Martin Mickels stood in. Scott revealed later that he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer and was treated at the Bristol Royal Infirmary. After a course of treatment and rest, he was back to full touring fitness. In 2010 the band played at venues in Europe and back at Bilston in October.
In March 2011 there was a short tour of Australia, Regal Theatre - Perth, and Clipsal 500, Adelaide with the Doobie Brothers. Also in 2011, Tony O'Hora came back to the group, this time as keyboardist, after Grant departed.
In March 2012 the band released a new album New York Connection. Recorded in England, it comprised 11 cover versions, including the 2011 single "Join Together" and one revamped original recording; the 1972 B-side "New York Connection". All the covers either featured 'bits and pieces' of Sweet hits or other artist songs, such as a "new version of the Ramones Blitzkrieg Bop [which] shared space with samples from ‘Ballroom Blitz,’ and a take on Hello’s New York Groove (made famous in the US by Ace Frehley) featured a sample from Jay-Z’s Empire State Of Mind along with other Sweet references."
On the eve of their March 2012 "Join Together" tour of Australia, the band undertook an acoustic performance of three tracks, "New York Groove-Empire State of Mind", "Blockbuster" and "Peppermint Twist", in front of a live audience at ABC Radio Studios in East Perth. Shows in Perth, Adelaide, Hobart, Geelong, Melbourne and Sydney featured tracks from the new album for the first time.
Paul Manzi joined Sweet on their 2014 Australian tour, replacing Tony O'Hora who was absent for personal reasons. Manzi played guitar, keyboard and undertook lead vocals on "Set Me Free" and "AC-DC" as the band performed shows in regional centres, including outback Western Australia, Darwin and far-north Queensland, NSW and Victoria during February and March. The band, with O'Hora back in the ranks, returned to Australia in September 2014 as the headlining act for "Rock The Boat 4". This was a cruise aboard the ship Rhapsody of the Seas which departed Sydney and took in New Caledonia and Vanuatu. The band played two gigs and various members guested with Australian veteran performers including Brian Cadd and Russell Morris and members of AC/DC, The Angels, Rose Tattoo and Skyhooks.
In June 2015 it was revealed that the band were going on an extensive tour of the UK in late 2015 and that this tour would probably be their last.
For the 2015 summer tour dates, Paul Manzi returned to sub for Peter Lincoln who left this online message to the fans: "There have been a few rumours going around this weekend, so . . . just to say that I am alive and well! The short explanation for my absence is that I need to rest my voice for a few weeks. We are lucky that our good friend Paul Manzi is able to step in, and Tony knows the role of bass player/singer, so the shows can go ahead, and they will be great! I look forward to being back on stage very soon."
Pete Lincoln duly resumed his role in the band and they continued with extensive live dates, known as the "Finale" tour in Germany.
In 2017 after Andy undertook a successful Australian visit with Suzi Quatro and Don Powell in the side outfit known as QSP, Sweet was again booked for an extensive European tour. In the years following both Tony O'Hora and Pete Lincoln departed the band. Paul Manzi returned as permanent lead vocalist, quitting the popular outfit Cats in Space to do so. Lee Small joined as bassist and backing vocalist. Former guitarist and keyboard player Steve Mann joined for a handful of shows as a special guest. During the COVID-19 pandemic the band recorded a new album of old tracks entitled Isolation Boulevard.
New Sweet, Brian Connolly's Sweet (1984–1997)
In 1984 Brian Connolly formed a new version of the Sweet without any of the other original members. Despite recurring ill health, Connolly toured the UK and Europe with his band, "Brian Connolly's Sweet", which was then renamed to "New Sweet". His most successful concerts were in West Germany, before and after reunification.
During 1987, Connolly met up again with Frank Torpey. Torpey later explained in interviews Connolly was trying to get a German recording deal. The two got on very well and Torpey subsequently invited Connolly to go into the recording studio with him, as an informal project. After much trepidation, Connolly turned up and the track "Sharontina" was recorded. This recording would not be released until 1998, appearing on Frank Torpey's album Sweeter.
By July 1990, plans were made for Connolly and his band to tour Australia in November. During the long flight to Australia, Connolly's health had suffered and he was hospitalised in Adelaide Hospital, allegedly for dehydration and related problems. The rest of the band played a show in Adelaide without him. After being released from the hospital, Connolly joined the other band members in Melbourne for a gig at the Pier Hotel, in Frankston. After several other shows, including one at the Dingley Powerhouse, Connolly and his band played a final date at Melbourne's Greek Theatre. It was felt Connolly's health was sufficient reason for the tour not to be extended, and some of the planned dates were abandoned. Connolly went back to England and his band appeared on The Bob Downe Christmas show on 18 December 1990.
During the early 1990s, Connolly played the European "oldies" circuit and occasional outdoor festivals in Europe with his band. On 22 March 1992, a heavy duty tape recorder was stolen from the band's van whilst at a gig in the Bristol Hippodrome with Mud. It contained demos of four new songs, totalling about 20 mixes.
Legal problems were going on in the background over the use of the Sweet name between Connolly and Andy Scott. Both parties agreed to distinguish their group's names to help promoters and fans. The New Sweet went back to being called Brian Connolly's Sweet and Andy Scott's version became Andy Scott's Sweet.
In 1994, Connolly and his band played in Dubai. He appeared at the Galleria Theatre, Hyatt Regency. He also performed in Bahrain.
By this time Connolly had healed the differences with Steve Priest and Mick Tucker, and was invited to the wedding of Priest's eldest daughter, Lisa. At the private function, for which Priest specially flew back to England, Priest and Connolly performed together.
In 1995, Connolly released a new album entitled Let's Go. His partner Jean, whom he had met a few years earlier, gave birth to a son. Connolly also performed in Switzerland that year.
On 2 November 1996 British TV Network Channel 4 aired a programme Don't Leave Me This Way, which examined Connolly's time as a pop star with the Sweet, the subsequent decline in the band's popularity, and its impact on Connolly and the other band members. The show revealed Connolly's ill health but also that he was continuing with his concert dates at Butlins. Connolly and his band had appeared at Butlins a number of times on tour during the early 1990s.
Connolly's final concert was at the Bristol Hippodrome on 5 December 1996, with Slade II and John Rossall's Glitter Band Experience.
Steve Priest's Sweet (2008–Present)
In January 2008, Steve Priest assembled his own version of the Sweet in Los Angeles. He enlisted a guitarist Stuart Smith and L.A. native Richie Onori, Smith's bandmate in Heaven & Earth, was brought in on drums. The keyboard spot was manned by ex-Crow and World Classic Rockers alumni Stevie Stewart. Front-man and vocalist Joe Retta was brought in to round out the line-up.
After an initial appearance on L.A. rock station 95.5 KLOS's popular Mark & Brian radio programme, the "Are You Ready Steve?" tour kicked off at the Whisky a Go Go in Hollywood on 12 June 2008. The band spent the next several months playing festivals and gigs throughout the U.S. and Canada, including Moondance Jam in Walker, Minnesota; headlining at the Rock N Resort Music Festival in North Lawrence, Ohio (near Canal Fulton); London, Ontario's Rock the Park; another headlining gig at Peterborough's Festival of Lights; the Common Ground Festival in Lansing, Michigan; and a benefit concert for victims of California's wildfires at Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego, California.
In January 2009, the Sweet presented at the concert industry's Pollstar Awards, and also played a short set at the Nokia Theatre where the event was held, marking the first time in the ceremony's history that a band performed at the show. In addition to local gigs at the House of Blues on L.A.'s Sunset Strip and Universal CityWalk, 2009 saw the band return to Canada for sold-out shows at the Mae Wilson Theater and Casino Regina, as well as the Nakusp Music Fest and Rockin' the Fields of Minnedosa in Minnedosa, Manitoba. U.S. festivals have included Minnesota's Halfway Jam, Rockin' the Rivers in Montana (with Pat Travers and Peter Frampton), and two late-summer shows at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk.
The new band recorded a cover version of the Beatles' "Ticket to Ride", which was included on Cleopatra Records' Abbey Road, a Fab Four tribute CD that was released on 24 March 2009.
A preview of the band's new CD Live in America, which was recorded live at the Morongo Casino, Resort & Spa in Cabazon, California on 30 August 2008, was featured on KLOS's "Front Row" programme on 12 April 2009. The CD, which was first sold at shows and via the band's on-line store, was released worldwide in an exclusive deal with Amazon.com on 21 July 2009. The release has garnered favourable reviews from The Rock n Roll Report, Classic Rock Revisited and Hard Rock Haven, among others.
In April 2010, the band released its first single on iTunes: an updated, hard rock version of the Beatles' "I Saw Her Standing There." Performances on the 2010 summer tour included the Wildflower! Arts and Music Festival in Richardson, Texas; Las Vegas, Nevada's Fremont Street Experience; Rock N' America in Oklahoma City, OK; Summer Jam in Des Moines, Iowa; Jack FM's Fifth Show at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater in Los Angeles; an appearance at the Hard Rock Hotel in Biloxi, Mississippi; and the inaugural edition of the Thunder Mountain Rock Festival in Sawyer, North Dakota.
On 11 November 2010, it was announced that in May 2011 "Steve Priest's Sweet" had been booked to perform at a handful of European dates, but the gigs ultimately had to be cancelled in late January 2011 after it was learned that one of the promoters was a suspected swindler wanted by British law enforcement officials. As of February 2011, fans who purchased pre-sale tickets were still in the process of working through the administrative channels with PayPal and various banks and credit card issuers in order to try to reclaim their funds.
The band toured South America along with Journey during March 2011.
The band and their European fans then also got re-united quicker than thought, when the band got booked by a befriended female Belgian promoter. Two east German gigs, 27 and 28 May 2011, so in Borna and in Schwarzenberg Steve Priest's Sweet hit the European grounds. After more than 30 years, Steve Priest got a warm welcome back in Europe.
As of 12 August 2012, Stuart Smith resigned from the guitar post in order to dedicate more time to his "Heaven & Earth" project.
Beginning with the band's October 2012 appearance at the Festival Internacional Chihuahua in Mexico, Los Angeles-based guitarist Ricky Z. teamed up with Steve Priest and company for their live performances. In February 2013, this lineup returned to Casino Regina in Saskatchewan, Canada. Tour dates played in summer 2013 included Riverfest in Watertown, Wisconsin, the St. Clair, MI Riverfest, several additional dates in Canada, and a reprise of their appearances at both Moondance Jam in Walker, MN and Rockin' the Rivers in Three Forks, Montana. The band made some rare appearances on the U.S. east coast in July 2013, including a performance with David Johansen of the New York Dolls at the Bergen Performing Arts Center in Englewood, New Jersey. Singer Joe Retta was unavailable for these dates due to a scheduling conflict, so Tribe of Gypsies frontman Chas West, who has played with Jason Bonham's band and has experience subbing in such well-known bands as Foreigner, Lynch Mob and Diamond Head, stepped in to man the microphone for a series of shows in New York, New Jersey and Maryland.
On 27 August 2014, Steve Priest announced on the band's Facebook page that guitarist Mitch Perry had been tapped for the guitar slot. Most recently on tour with Lita Ford, Mitch's other credentials included his work with Michael Schenker Group, Asia Featuring John Payne, Edgar Winter, Billy Sheehan and David Lee Roth His first live appearance with Sweet was at the Rock the River festival in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan on 23 August 2014.
22 December 2017 saw the launch of the 50th anniversary tour at the Whisky a Go Go on L.A.'s Sunset Strip and the introduction of new singer Paul Zablidowski AKA "Paulie Z" former lead singer and guitarist of ZO2, children's band "The Z Brothers" and star of IFC show Z-Rock. Recently known as the host for local show "Ultimate Jam Night." Z replaced Joe Retta, who had served as the frontman for the Los Angeles incarnation of Sweet since its formation in 2008. Priest died on 4 June 2020.
Brief reunions and the deaths of Brian Connolly, Mick Tucker and Steve Priest
Steve Priest was asked to join Tucker and Scott for the 1985 Australian tour, but declined at the last moment.
Mike Chapman contacted Connolly, Priest, Scott, and Tucker in 1988, offering to finance a recording session in Los Angeles. As he remembers: "I met them at the airport and Andy and Mick came off the plane. I said, 'Where's Brian?' They said, 'Oh, he's coming.' All the people had come off the plane by now. Then this little old man hobbled towards us. He was shaking, and had a ghostly white face. I thought, 'Oh, Jesus Christ.' It was horrifying." Reworked studio versions of "Action" and "The Ballroom Blitz" were recorded, but it became clear that Connolly's voice and physical health had made Sweet's original member comeback too difficult to promote commercially. Consequently, the reunion attempt was aborted.
In 1990 this line-up was again reunited for the promotion of a music documentary entitled Sweet's Ballroom Blitz. This UK video release, which contained UK television performances from the 1970s and current-day interviews, was released at Tower Records, London. Sweet was interviewed by Power Hour, Super Channel, and spoke of a possible reunion.
Brian Connolly died at the age of 51 on 9 February 1997, from liver failure and repeated heart attacks, attributed to his abuse of alcohol in the 1970s and early 1980s. Mick Tucker died on 14 February 2002 from leukemia, at the age of 54. On 4 June 2020 it was announced that Steve Priest had died. It left Andy Scott as the sole living member of Sweet's 'classic lineup'.
Later years
Two versions of The Sweet were active with original members: "Andy Scott's Sweet", who frequently tour across Europe as Sweet and makes occasional sojourns to other markets including regular visits to Australia, and "Steve Priest's Sweet" who toured the US and Canada.
On 28 April 2009, Shout! Factory released a two-disc, career-spanning greatest hits album called Action: The Sweet Anthology. It received a four-star (out of five) rating in Rolling Stone.
In September 2009 Ace Frehley released his version of "Fox on the Run" on his album Anomaly.
In an October 2012 appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live, Axl Rose, lead singer of Guns N' Roses, referenced Sweet as one of his favourite bands growing up along with fellow British band Queen.
In April 2016, the chart topping song (1973), "The Ballroom Blitz" was featured in a trailer for Suicide Squad.
In December 2016, their single "Fox on the Run" (1975) was featured in a trailer for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.
In 2019, the songs "Fox on the Run" and "Set Me Free" were featured in an episode of Jamie Johnson.
Personnel
Original band
Classic lineup
Brian Connolly – lead vocals, percussion, synthesizer, acoustic guitar (1968–1978; died 1997)
Steve Priest – bass, backing and lead vocals (1968–1981; died 2020)
Mick Tucker – drums, percussion, backing and lead vocals (1968–1981; died 2002)
Andy Scott – guitars, keyboards, synthesizers, piano, backing and lead vocals (1970–1981)
Early members
Frank Torpey – guitars (1968–1969)
Mick Stewart – guitars (1969–1970)
Touring musicians
Gary Moberley – keyboards, synthesizers, piano (1978–1981)
Nico Ramsden – guitar (1978)
Ray McRiner – guitar (1979)
Andy Scott’s Sweet
Current members
Andy Scott – guitars, keyboards, synthesizers, piano, backing and lead vocals (1985–present)
Bruce Bisland – drums, backing vocals (1992–present)
Paul Manzi – lead vocals (2019–present; substitute appearances in 2014 and 2015)
Lee Small – bass, backing vocals (2019–present)
Former members
Mick Tucker – drums, backing vocals (1985–1991; died 2002)
Paul Mario Day – lead vocals (1985–1989)
Phil Lanzon – keyboards, piano, backing vocals (1985–1989; 2005—2006)
Mal McNulty – bass, lead and backing vocals (1985–1995)
Jeff Brown – bass, lead and backing vocals (1989–2003)
Steve Mann – keyboards, guitars, backing vocals (1989-1996)
Bodo Schopf – drums, backing vocals (1991–1992)
Chad Brown — lead vocals (1995–1998)
Steve Grant — keyboards, piano, backing vocals (1996–2005, 2006–2011); lead vocals, bass (2005–2006)
Tony O’Hora – lead and backing vocals, bass (2003–2005, 2006, 2011–2019), guitars, keyboards (2011–2019)
Peter Lincoln – bass, lead and backing vocals (2006–2019)
Timeline
Discography
Funny How Sweet Co-Co Can Be (1971)
Sweet Fanny Adams (1974)
Desolation Boulevard (1974)
Give Us a Wink (1976)
Off the Record (1977)
Level Headed (1978)
Cut Above the Rest (1979)
Waters Edge (titled Sweet VI with a different cover in the U.S.) (1980)
Identity Crisis (1982)
Sweetlife (2002) by Andy Scott's Sweet
Isolation Boulevard (2020) by Andy Scott's Sweet
References
Bibliography
(2008 eBook available at )
External links
Channel 4 documentary on The Sweet from 1996
English hard rock musical groups
English glam rock groups
Musical groups established in 1968
Capitol Records artists
Polydor Records artists
RCA Records artists
1968 establishments in the United Kingdom
Musical groups disestablished in 1982
1982 disestablishments in the United Kingdom
Musical groups reestablished in 1985
1985 establishments in the United Kingdom
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[
"\"Oh! What it Seemed to Be\" is a song composed by Bennie Benjamin, George Weiss and Frankie Carle. The song was most popular in 1946, and was taken to number 1 that year by both Frank Sinatra and the Frankie Carle orchestra, the latter with Marjorie Hughes on vocals.\n\nComposition\nThe song was first published in 1945\nby Abilene Music, Inc. and Anne-Rachel Music Corp. The song helped make Benjamin and Weiss the top songwriters of 1946. Carle said he adapted a tune he had for Benjamin and Weiss's lyrics. Largely on the strength of this composition, other Carle compositions received attention as well. Between Carle and Sinatra, the song spent 35% of the year 1946 at the top of Billboard's charts. It also spent nineteen weeks on Your Hit Parade, eight of them in the top position. As sheet music, the song was the fourth most popular of 1946. The song's subject matter deals with routine occurrences that become momentous when a significant other is involved.\n\nFrankie Carle version\nCarle's version was the most popular, staying on the chart for twenty weeks, and topping the chart for eleven of those. It was the 22nd most popular recording of the pre-rock era. It introduced Marjorie Hughes as vocalist. Carle was reluctant to acknowledge that his vocalist was his daughter, fearing that charges of nepotism would hurt her career if she were not proven to be an effective vocalist in her own right. However, the outstanding success of this song soon caused an announcement that Carle and Hughes were indeed closely related.\n\nFrank Sinatra versions\nSinatra's first version of the song was with Axel Stordahl orchestration. Sinatra had told the arranger to not modify it from the version presented by the composers. Although initially more popular than Carle's own version, Sinatra's recording was ultimately only slightly less popular than Carle's, with a chart run of seventeen weeks, eight of those at the number one position.\n\nSinatra re-recorded the song with Nelson Riddle orchestration for the 1963 album Sinatra's Sinatra. The version was less well received, as by this time Sinatra had long moved beyond any babe-in-the-woods persona.\n\nEarlier, Sinatra had performed a version for the Old Gold radio show. A rehearsal take for that show in which Sinatra clowns around by voicing it in the manner of Mickey Katz has found popularity with collectors.\n\nOther recorded versions\nOther popular 1946 versions were a duet by Helen Forrest and Dick Haymes (charting at number 4), and Charlie Spivak (number 5). The George Paxton band also released a version in 1946. For MGM, The DeMarco Sisters recorded it in 1954. The Castells had a minor hit (number 92) with the song in August 1962. Willie Nelson covered the song in 1994's album Healing Hands of Time.\n\nReferences\n\nFrank Sinatra songs\n1945 songs",
"\"What You Know\" is a song by Southern hip hop recording artist T.I., released as the lead single from his fourth studio album King (2006). The song peaked at number three on the Billboard Hot 100 and was certified double platinum by the RIAA following shipment in excess of two million copies.\n\nBackground\nThe song is produced by T.I.'s frequent collaborator DJ Toomp, from Zone Boy Productions, with additional keys by Wonder Arillo. It utilizes an interpolation of Roberta Flack's version of The Impressions's \"Gone Away\" and of the song \"Hey Joe\", written by Billy Roberts but popularized by Jimi Hendrix.\n\nComposition \nThe song is in E minor.\n\nChart performance\n\"What You Know\" peaked at number three on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart. It also peaked at number one on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs and Hot Rap Songs charts. It spent a total of 20 weeks on the Hot 100 chart. On December 14, 2006, the song was certified double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for sales of over two million copies in the United States.\n\nRemixes\nAmerican rappers Juelz Santana and J.R Writer, of Dipset, recorded a remix of this song entitled \"What You Know (About That Crack)\". American rapper Papoose recorded a freestyle over the song entitled \"What You Know (About Pap)\". American rapper Lil Wayne also recorded a remix of \"What You Know\", which can be found on his mixtape Dedication 2.\n\nAccolades\n\"What You Know\" won for \"Best Rap Solo Performance\" and was nominated for \"Best Rap Song\" at the 49th Annual Grammy Awards.\n\"What You Know\" was performed at the 2006 MTV Video Music Awards, where its music video was nominated for two awards.\nVIBE named T.I.'s \"What You Know\" as the Top Song of 2006. It was also ranked fourth on a similar list by Rolling Stone , and was number 1 in Muchmusic's Top HipHop 2006 List.\nPitchfork Media ranked \"What You Know\" number 3 on their \"Top Tracks of 2006\" list, while T.I.'s collaboration on Justin Timberlake's song \"My Love\" was ranked number 1.\nThe song is one of the most critically acclaimed of 2006 (arguably T.I.'s most critically acclaimed song), and is one of T.I.'s most successful. It has garnered a 5-star rating from Pitchfork Media. The song peaked at number three on the Billboard Hot 100, and it also topped the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. It is ranked the 338th best song of all time, 8th of 2006, and 42nd of the 2000s decade by Acclaimedmusic.net.\nIn 2008, it was ranked number 68 on VH1's 100 Greatest Songs of Hip Hop.\nIn 2007, \"What You Know\" was named the second-best single of 2006 on The Village Voices Pazz & Jop annual critics' poll, after Gnarls Barkleys \"Crazy\".\n\nIn popular culture\nThe song was used in promotion of the film ATL, in which T.I. stars.\nJapanese professional wrestler KENTA used an instrumental of the song as his entrance theme.\nThe song was the at-bat music for MLB player Joe Mauer.\nThe song was used as the entrance song for Kendall Grove at UFC 101.\nThe song was used at Turner Field whenever Édgar Rentería came up to bat during the 2006 season.\nThe song is used at the beginning of Rich Turpin's \"Whatcha Know?\" segment on BT Sports Radio.\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nCertifications\n\nReferences\n\n2006 singles\nT.I. songs\nGrammy Award for Best Rap Solo Performance\nGrand Hustle Records singles\nAtlantic Records singles\nMusic videos directed by Chris Robinson (director)\nSongs written for films\nSong recordings produced by DJ Toomp\nSongs written by T.I.\nSongs written by Curtis Mayfield\nSongs written by DJ Toomp\nSongs written by Leroy Hutson\nSouthern hip hop songs\nTrap music songs\n2006 songs"
] |
[
"Josef Mengele",
"In South America"
] |
C_b4a58b5a57fe49a498759ec3ef1ea45b_1
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Wht was he doing in south america?
| 1 |
What was Josef Mengele doing in south america?
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Josef Mengele
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Mengele was born the eldest of three children on 16 March 1911 to Karl and Walburga (Hupfauer) Mengele in Gunzburg, Bavaria, Germany. His younger brothers were Karl Jr and Alois. Mengele's father was founder of the Karl Mengele & Sons company, producers of farm machinery. Mengele did well in school and developed an interest in music, art, and skiing. He completed high school in April 1930 and went on to study medicine at Goethe University Frankfurt and philosophy at the University of Munich. Munich was the headquarters of the Nazi Party. In 1931 Mengele joined the Stahlhelm, Bund der Frontsoldaten, a paramilitary organization that was absorbed into the Nazi Sturmabteilung (Storm Detachment; SA) in 1934. In 1935, Mengele earned a PhD in anthropology from the University of Munich. In January 1937, at the Institute for Hereditary Biology and Racial Hygiene in Frankfurt, he became the assistant to Dr. Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer, a scientist conducting genetics research, with a particular interest in twins. As an assistant to von Verschuer, Mengele focused on the genetic factors resulting in a cleft lip and palate or cleft chin. His thesis on the subject earned him a cum laude doctorate in medicine in 1938. Both of his degrees were later rescinded by the issuing universities. In a letter of recommendation, von Verschuer praised Mengele's reliability and his ability to verbally present complex material in a clear manner. The American author Robert Jay Lifton notes that Mengele's published work did not deviate much from the scientific mainstream of the time, and would probably have been viewed as valid scientific efforts even outside Nazi Germany. On 28 July 1939, Mengele married Irene Schonbein, whom he had met while working as a medical resident in Leipzig. Their only son, Rolf, was born in 1944. The ideology of Nazism brought together elements of antisemitism, racial hygiene, and eugenics, and combined them with pan-Germanism and territorial expansionism with the goal of obtaining more Lebensraum (living space) for the Germanic people. Nazi Germany attempted to obtain this new territory by attacking Poland and the Soviet Union, intending to deport or kill the Jews and Slavs living there, who were considered inferior to the Aryan master race. Mengele joined the Nazi Party in 1937 and the Schutzstaffel (SS; protection squadron) in 1938. He received basic training in 1938 with the Gebirgsjager (mountain infantry) and was called up for service in the Wehrmacht (German armed forces) in June 1940, some months after the outbreak of World War II. He soon volunteered for medical service in the Waffen-SS, the combat arm of the SS, where he served with the rank of SS-Untersturmfuhrer (second lieutenant) in a medical reserve battalion until November 1940. He was next assigned to the SS-Rasse- und Siedlungshauptamt (SS Race and Resettlement Main Office) in Posen, evaluating candidates for Germanisation. In June 1941, Mengele was posted to Ukraine, where he was awarded the Iron Cross Second Class. In January 1942, he joined the 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking as a battalion medical officer. He rescued two German soldiers from a burning tank and was awarded the Iron Cross First Class, as well as the Wound Badge in Black and the Medal for the Care of the German People. He was seriously wounded in action near Rostov-on-Don in mid-1942, and was declared unfit for further active service. After recovery, he was transferred to the Race and Resettlement Office in Berlin. He also resumed his association with von Verschuer, who was at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics. Mengele was promoted to the rank of SS-Hauptsturmfuhrer (captain) in April 1943. In Buenos Aires, Argentina, Mengele worked as a carpenter while residing in a boarding house in the suburb of Vicente Lopez. After a few weeks he moved to the house of a Nazi sympathiser in the more affluent neighborhood of Florida, Buenos Aires. He next worked as a salesman for his family's farm equipment company, and beginning in 1951 he made frequent trips to Paraguay as sales representative for that region. An apartment in the center of Buenos Aires became his residence in 1953, the same year he used family funds to buy a part interest in a carpentry concern. In 1954 he rented a house in the suburb of Olivos. Files released by the Argentine government in 1992 indicate that Mengele may have practiced medicine without a license, including performing abortions, while living in Buenos Aires. After obtaining a copy of his birth certificate through the West German embassy in 1956, Mengele was issued an Argentine foreign residence permit under his real name. He used this document to obtain a West German passport, also under his real name, and embarked for a visit to Europe. He met up in Switzerland for a ski holiday with his son Rolf (who was told Mengele was his "Uncle Fritz") and his widowed sister-in-law Martha, and spent a week in his home town of Gunzburg. Upon his return to Argentina in September, Mengele began living under his real name. Martha and her son Karl Heinz followed about a month later, and the three took up residence together. The couple married while on holiday in Uruguay in 1958 and bought a house in Buenos Aires. Business interests now included part ownership of Fadro Farm, a pharmaceutical company. Along with several other doctors, Mengele was questioned and released in 1958 under suspicion of practicing medicine without a license after a teenage girl died following an abortion. Worried that the publicity would lead to his Nazi background and wartime activities being discovered, he took an extended business trip to Paraguay and was granted citizenship under the name Jose Mengele in 1959. He returned to Buenos Aires several times to wrap up his business affairs and visit his family. Martha and Karl Heinz lived in a boarding house in the city until December 1960, when they returned to Germany. Mengele's name was mentioned several times during the Nuremberg trials, but Allied forces were convinced that he was dead. Irene and the family in Gunzburg also said that he was dead. Working in West Germany, Nazi hunters Simon Wiesenthal and Hermann Langbein collected information from witnesses as to Mengele's wartime activities. In a search of the public records, Langbein found Mengele's divorce papers listing an address in Buenos Aires. He and Wiesenthal pressured West German authorities into drawing up an arrest warrant on 5 June 1959, and starting extradition proceedings. Initially Argentina turned down the request, because the fugitive was no longer living at the address given on the documents. By the time extradition was approved on 30 June 1960, Mengele had already fled to Paraguay, where he was living on a farm near the Argentine border. CANNOTANSWER
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Mengele worked as a carpenter while residing in a boarding house in the suburb of Vicente Lopez.
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Josef Mengele (; 16 March 19117 February 1979), also known as the Angel of Death (), was a German (SS) officer and physician during World War II. He is mainly remembered for his actions at the Auschwitz concentration camp, where he performed deadly experiments on prisoners, as a member of the team of doctors who selected victims to be killed in the gas chambers and as one of the doctors who administered the gas. With Red Army troops sweeping through German-occupied Poland, Mengele was transferred from Auschwitz to the Gross-Rosen concentration camp on 17 January 1945, ten days before the arrival of the Soviet forces at Auschwitz.
Before the war, Mengele had received doctorates in anthropology and medicine, and began a career as a researcher. He joined the Nazi Party in 1937 and the SS in 1938. He was assigned as a battalion medical officer at the start of World War II, then transferred to the Nazi concentration camps service in early 1943 and assigned to Auschwitz, where he saw the opportunity to conduct genetic research on human subjects. His experiments focused primarily on twins, with no regard for the health or safety of the victims.
After the war, Mengele fled to South America. He sailed to Argentina in July 1949, assisted by a network of former SS members. He initially lived in and around Buenos Aires, then fled to Paraguay in 1959 and Brazil in 1960, all the while being sought by West Germany, Israel, and Nazi hunters such as Simon Wiesenthal, who wanted to bring him to trial. Mengele eluded capture in spite of extradition requests by the West German government and clandestine operations by the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad. He drowned in 1979 after suffering a stroke while swimming off the coast of Bertioga, and was buried under the false name of Wolfgang Gerhard. His remains were disinterred and positively identified by forensic examination in 1985.
Early life
Mengele was born in Günzburg on 16 March 1911, the eldest of three sons of Walburga ( Hupfauer) and Karl Mengele. His two younger brothers were Karl Jr. and Alois. Their father was founder of the Karl Mengele & Sons company (later renamed as ), which produced farming machinery. Mengele was successful at school and developed an interest in music, art, and skiing. He completed high school in April 1930 and went on to study philosophy in Munich, where the headquarters of the Nazi Party were located. In 1931 he joined , a paramilitary organization that was absorbed into the Nazi ('Storm Detachment'; SA) in 1934. In 1935, Mengele earned a PhD in anthropology from the University of Munich. In January 1937, he joined the Institute for Hereditary Biology and Racial Hygiene in Frankfurt, where he worked for Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer, a German geneticist with a particular interest in researching twins.
As Von Verschuer's assistant, Mengele focused on the genetic factors that result in a cleft lip and palate, or a cleft chin. His thesis on the subject earned him a doctorate in medicine (MD) from the University of Frankfurt in 1938. (Both of his degrees were revoked by the issuing universities in the 1960s.) In a letter of recommendation, Von Verschuer praised Mengele's reliability and his ability to verbally present complex material in a clear manner. The American author Robert Jay Lifton notes that Mengele's published works were in keeping with the scientific mainstream of the time, and would probably have been viewed as valid scientific efforts even outside Nazi Germany.
On 28 July 1939, Mengele married Irene Schönbein, whom he had met while working as a medical resident in Leipzig. Their only son, Rolf, was born in 1944.
Military service
The ideology of Nazism brought together elements of antisemitism, racial hygiene, and eugenics, and combined them with pan-Germanism and territorial expansionism with the goal of obtaining more (living space) for the Germanic people. Nazi Germany attempted to obtain this new territory by attacking Poland and the Soviet Union, intending to deport or kill the Jews and Slavs living there, who were considered by the Nazis to be inferior to the Aryan master race.
Mengele joined the Nazi Party in 1937 and the (SS; 'Protection Squadron') in 1938. He received basic training in 1938 with the ('light infantry mountain troop') and was called up for service in the (Nazi armed forces) in June 1940, some months after the outbreak of World War II. He soon volunteered for medical service in the , the combat arm of the SS, where he served with the rank of SS- ('second lieutenant') in a medical reserve battalion until November 1940. He was next assigned to the ('SS Race and Settlement Main Office') in Poznań, evaluating candidates for Germanization.
In June 1941 Mengele was posted to Ukraine, where he was awarded the Iron Cross 2nd Class. In January 1942, he joined the 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking as a battalion medical officer. After rescuing two German soldiers from a burning tank, he was decorated with the Iron Cross 1st Class, the Wound Badge in Black, and the Medal for the Care of the German People. He was declared unfit for further active service in mid-1942, when he was seriously wounded in action near Rostov-on-Don. Following his recovery, he was transferred to the headquarters of the SS Race and Settlement Main Office in Berlin, at which point he resumed his association with Von Verschuer, who was now director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics. Mengele was promoted to the rank of SS- ('captain') in April 1943.
Auschwitz
In 1942 Auschwitz II (Birkenau), originally intended to house slave laborers, began to be used instead as a combined labour camp and extermination camp. Prisoners were transported there by rail from all over Nazi-controlled Europe, arriving in daily convoys. By July 1942, SS doctors were conducting "selections" where incoming Jews were segregated, and those considered able to work were admitted into the camp while those deemed unfit for labor were immediately killed in the gas chambers. The arrivals that were selected to die, about three-quarters of the total, included almost all children, women with small children, pregnant women, all the elderly, and all of those who appeared (in a brief and superficial inspection by an SS doctor) to be not completely fit and healthy.
In early 1943, Von Verschuer encouraged Mengele to apply for a transfer to the concentration camp service. Mengele's application was accepted and he was posted to Auschwitz, where he was appointed by SS- Eduard Wirths, chief medical officer at Auschwitz, to the position of chief physician of the (Romani family camp) at Birkenau, a subcamp located on the main Auschwitz complex. The SS doctors did not administer treatment to the Auschwitz inmates but supervised the activities of inmate doctors who had been forced to work in the camp medical service. As part of his duties, Mengele made weekly visits to the hospital barracks and ordered any prisoners who had not recovered after two weeks in bed to be sent to the gas chambers.
Mengele's work also involved carrying out selections, a task that he chose to perform even when he was not assigned to do so, in the hope of finding subjects for his experiments, with a particular interest in locating sets of twins. In contrast to most of the other SS doctors, who viewed selections as one of their most stressful and unpleasant duties, he undertook the task with a flamboyant air, often smiling or whistling. He was one of the SS doctors responsible for supervising the administration of Zyklon B, the cyanide-based pesticide that was used for the mass killings in the Birkenau gas chambers. He served in this capacity at the gas chambers located in crematoria IV and V.
When an outbreak of noma—a gangrenous bacterial disease of the mouth and face—struck the Romani camp in 1943, Mengele initiated a study to determine the cause of the disease and develop a treatment. He enlisted the assistance of prisoner Berthold Epstein, a Jewish pediatrician and professor at Prague University. The patients were isolated in separate barracks and several afflicted children were killed so that their preserved heads and organs could be sent to the SS Medical Academy in Graz and other facilities for study. This research was still ongoing when the Romani camp was liquidated and its remaining occupants killed in 1944.
When a typhus epidemic began in the women's camp, Mengele cleared one block of six hundred Jewish women and sent them to their deaths in the gas chambers. The building was then cleaned and disinfected and the occupants of a neighboring block were bathed, de–loused, and given new clothing before being moved into the clean block. This process was repeated until all of the barracks were disinfected. Similar procedures were used for later epidemics of scarlet fever and other diseases, with infected prisoners being killed in the gas chambers. For these actions, Mengele was awarded the War Merit Cross (Second Class with swords) and was promoted in 1944 to First Physician of the Birkenau subcamp.
Human experimentation
Mengele used Auschwitz as an opportunity to continue his anthropological studies and research into heredity, using inmates for human experimentation. His medical procedures showed no consideration for the victims' health, safety, or physical and emotional suffering. He was particularly interested in identical twins, people with heterochromia iridum (eyes of two different colors), dwarfs, and people with physical abnormalities. A grant was provided by the ('German Research Foundation'), at the request of Von Verschuer, who received regular reports and shipments of specimens from Mengele. The grant was used to build a pathology laboratory attached to Crematorium II at Auschwitz II-Birkenau. Miklós Nyiszli, a Hungarian Jewish pathologist who arrived in Auschwitz on 29 May 1944, performed dissections and prepared specimens for shipment in this laboratory. The twin research was in part intended to prove the supremacy of heredity over the environment and thus strengthen the Nazi premise of the genetic superiority of the Aryan race. Nyiszli and others reported that the twin studies may also have been motivated by an intention to increase the reproduction rate of the German race by improving the chances of racially desirable people having twins.
Mengele's research subjects were better fed and housed than the other prisoners, and temporarily spared from execution in the gas chambers. His research subjects lived in their own barracks, where they were provided with a marginally better quality of food and somewhat improved living conditions than the other areas of the camp. When visiting his young subjects, he introduced himself as "Uncle Mengele" and offered them sweets, while at the same time being personally responsible for the deaths of an unknown number of victims whom he killed via lethal injection, shootings, beatings, and his deadly experiments. In his 1986 book, Lifton describes Mengele as sadistic, lacking empathy, and extremely antisemitic, believing the Jews should be eliminated as an inferior and dangerous race. Rolf Mengele later claimed that his father had shown no remorse for his wartime activities.
A former Auschwitz inmate doctor said of Mengele:
Twins were subjected to weekly examinations and measurements of their physical attributes by Mengele or one of his assistants. The experiments he performed on twins included unnecessary amputation of limbs, intentionally infecting one twin with typhus or some other disease, and transfusing the blood of one twin into the other. Many of the victims died while undergoing these procedures, and those who survived the experiments were sometimes killed and their bodies dissected once Mengele had no further use for them. Nyiszli recalled one occasion on which Mengele personally killed fourteen twins in one night by injecting their hearts with chloroform. If one twin died from disease, he would kill the other twin to allow comparative post-mortem reports to be produced for research purposes.
Mengele's eye experiments included attempts to change the eye color by injecting chemicals into the eyes of living subjects, and he killed people with heterochromatic eyes so that the eyes could be removed and sent to Berlin for study. His experiments on dwarfs and people with physical abnormalities included taking physical measurements, drawing blood, extracting healthy teeth, and treatment with unnecessary drugs and X-rays. Many of his victims were dispatched to the gas chambers after about two weeks, and their skeletons were sent to Berlin for further analysis. Mengele sought out pregnant women, on whom he would perform experiments before sending them to the gas chambers. Alex Dekel, a survivor, reports witnessing Mengele performing vivisection without anesthesia, removing hearts and stomachs of victims. Yitzhak Ganon, another survivor, reported in 2009 how Mengele removed his kidney without anesthesia. He was forced to return to work without painkillers. Witness Vera Alexander described how Mengele sewed two Romani twins together, back to back, in a crude attempt to create conjoined twins; both children died of gangrene after several days of suffering.
After Auschwitz
Along with several other Auschwitz doctors, Mengele transferred to Gross-Rosen concentration camp in Lower Silesia on 17 January 1945, taking with him two boxes of specimens and the records of his experiments at Auschwitz. Most of the camp medical records had already been destroyed by the SS by the time the Red Army liberated Auschwitz on 27 January. Mengele fled Gross-Rosen on 18 February, a week before the Soviets arrived there, and traveled westward to Žatec in Czechoslovakia, disguised as a officer. There he temporarily entrusted his incriminating documents to a nurse with whom he had struck up a relationship. He and his unit then hurried west to avoid being captured by the Soviets, but were taken prisoners of war by the Americans in June 1945. Although Mengele was initially registered under his own name, he was not identified as being on the major war criminal list due to the disorganization of the Allies regarding the distribution of wanted lists, and the fact that he did not have the usual SS blood group tattoo. He was released at the end of July and obtained false papers under the name "Fritz Ullman", documents he later altered to read "Fritz Hollmann".
After several months on the run, including a trip back to the Soviet-occupied area to recover his Auschwitz records, Mengele found work near Rosenheim as a farmhand. He eventually escaped from Germany on 17 April 1949, convinced that his capture would mean a trial and death sentence. Assisted by a network of former SS members, he used the ratline to travel to Genoa, where he obtained a passport from the International Committee of the Red Cross under the alias "Helmut Gregor", and sailed to Argentina in July 1949. His wife refused to accompany him, and they divorced in 1954.
In South America
Mengele worked as a carpenter in Buenos Aires, Argentina, while lodging in a boarding house in the suburb of Vicente López. After a few weeks, he moved to the house of a Nazi sympathizer in the more affluent neighborhood of Florida Este. He next worked as a salesman for his family's farm equipment company, Karl Mengele & Sons, and in 1951 he began making frequent trips to Paraguay as a regional sales representative. He moved into an apartment in central Buenos Aires in 1953, used family funds to buy a part interest in a carpentry concern, and then rented a house in the suburb of Olivos in 1954. Files released by the Argentine government in 1992 indicate that Mengele may have practiced medicine without a license while living in Buenos Aires, including performing abortions.
After obtaining a copy of his birth certificate through the West German embassy in 1956, Mengele was issued with an Argentine foreign residence permit under his real name. He used this document to obtain a West German passport, using his real name and embarked on a trip to Europe. He met with his son Rolf (who was told Mengele was his "Uncle Fritz") and his widowed sister-in-law Martha, for a ski holiday in Switzerland; he also spent a week in his home town of Günzburg. When he returned to Argentina in September 1956, Mengele began living under his real name. Martha and her son Karl Heinz followed about a month later, and the three began living together. Josef and Martha were married in 1958 while on holiday in Uruguay, and they bought a house in Buenos Aires. Mengele's business interests now included part ownership of Fadro Farm, a pharmaceutical company. Along with several other doctors, he was questioned in 1958 on suspicion of practicing medicine without a license when a teenage girl died after an abortion, but he was released without charge. Aware that the publicity could lead to his Nazi background and wartime activities being discovered, he took an extended business trip to Paraguay and was granted citizenship there in 1959 under the name "José Mengele". He returned to Buenos Aires several times to settle his business affairs and visit his family. Martha and Karl lived in a boarding house in the city until December 1960, when they returned to West Germany.
Mengele's name was mentioned several times during the Nuremberg trials in the mid-1940s, but the Allied forces believed that he was probably already dead. Irene Mengele and the family in Günzburg also alleged that he had died. Working in West Germany, Nazi hunters Simon Wiesenthal and Hermann Langbein collected information from witnesses about Mengele's wartime activities. In a search of the public records, Langbein discovered Mengele's divorce papers, which listed an address in Buenos Aires. He and Wiesenthal pressured the West German authorities into starting extradition proceedings, and an arrest warrant was drawn up on 5 June 1959. Argentina initially refused the extradition request because the fugitive was no longer living at the address given on the documents; by the time extradition was approved on 30 June, Mengele had already fled to Paraguay and was living on a farm near the Argentine border.
Efforts by Mossad
In May 1960, Isser Harel, director of the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, personally led the successful effort to capture Adolf Eichmann in Buenos Aires. He was hoping to track down Mengele so that he too could be brought to trial in Israel. Under interrogation, Eichmann provided the address of a boarding house that had been used as a safe house for Nazi fugitives. Surveillance of the house did not reveal Mengele or any members of his family and the neighborhood postman claimed that although Mengele had recently been receiving letters there under his real name, he had since relocated without leaving a forwarding address. Harel's inquiries at a machine shop where Mengele had been part owner also failed to generate any leads, so he was forced to abandon the search.
Despite having provided Mengele with legal documents using his real name in 1956 (which had enabled him to formalize his permanent residency in Argentina), West Germany was now offering a reward for his capture. Continuing newspaper coverage of his wartime activities, with accompanying photographs, led the fugitive to relocate once again in 1960. Former pilot Hans-Ulrich Rudel put him in touch with the Nazi supporter Wolfgang Gerhard, who helped Mengele to cross the border into Brazil. He stayed with Gerhard on his farm near São Paulo until more permanent accommodation could be found, which came about with Hungarian expatriates Géza and Gitta Stammer. The couple bought a farm in Nova Europa with the help of an investment from Mengele, who was given the job of managing for them. The three bought a coffee and cattle farm in Serra Negra in 1962, with Mengele owning a half interest. Gerhard had initially told the Stammers that the fugitive's name was "Peter Hochbichler", but they discovered his true identity in 1963. Gerhard persuaded the couple not to report Mengele's location to the authorities by convincing them that they themselves could be implicated for harboring a fugitive. In February 1961, West Germany widened its extradition request to include Brazil, having been tipped off to the possibility that Mengele had relocated there.
Meanwhile, Zvi Aharoni, one of the Mossad agents who had been involved in the Eichmann capture, was placed in charge of a team of agents tasked with tracking down Mengele and bringing him to trial in Israel. Their inquiries in Paraguay revealed no clues to his whereabouts, and they were unable to intercept any correspondence between Mengele and his wife Martha, who by this time was living in Italy. Agents who were following Rudel's movements also failed to produce any leads. Aharoni and his team followed Gerhard to a rural area near São Paulo, where they identified a European man whom they believed to be Mengele. This potential breakthrough was reported to Harel, but the logistics of staging a capture, the budgetary constraints of the search operation, and the priority of focusing on Israel's deteriorating relationship with Egypt led the Mossad chief to call off the manhunt in 1962.
Later life and death
In 1969, Mengele and the Stammers jointly purchased a farmhouse in Caieiras, with Mengele as half owner. When Wolfgang Gerhard returned to Germany in 1971 to seek medical treatment for his ailing wife and son, he gave his identity card to Mengele. The Stammers' friendship with Mengele deteriorated in late 1974, and when they bought a house in São Paulo, he was not invited to join them. The Stammers later bought a bungalow in the Eldorado neighborhood of Diadema, São Paulo, which they rented out to Mengele. Rolf, who had not seen his father since the ski holiday in 1956, visited him at the bungalow in 1977; he found an "unrepentant Nazi" who claimed he had never personally harmed anyone and only carried out his duties as an officer.
Mengele's health had been steadily deteriorating since 1972. He suffered a stroke in 1976, experienced high blood pressure, and developed an ear infection which affected his balance. On 7 February 1979, while visiting his friends Wolfram and Liselotte Bossert in the coastal resort of Bertioga, Mengele suffered another stroke while swimming and drowned. His body was buried in Embu das Artes under the name "Wolfgang Gerhard", whose identification Mengele had been using since 1971. Other aliases used by Mengele in his later life included "Dr. Fausto Rindón" and "S. Josi Alvers Aspiazu".
Exhumation
Meanwhile, sightings of Mengele were being reported all over the world. Wiesenthal claimed to have information that placed Mengele on the Greek island of Kythnos in 1960, in Cairo in 1961, in Spain in 1971, and in Paraguay in 1978, eighteen years after he had left the country. He insisted as late as 1985 that Mengele was still alive—six years after he had died—having previously offered a reward of US$100,000 () in 1982 for the fugitive's capture. Worldwide interest in the case was heightened by a mock trial held in Jerusalem in February 1985, featuring the testimonies of over one hundred victims of Mengele's experiments. Shortly afterwards, the West German, Israeli, and U.S. governments launched a coordinated effort to determine Mengele's whereabouts. The West German and Israeli governments offered rewards for his capture, as did The Washington Times and the Simon Wiesenthal Center.
On 31 May 1985, acting on intelligence received by the West German prosecutor's office, police raided the house of Hans Sedlmeier, a lifelong friend of Mengele and sales manager of the family firm in Günzburg. They found a coded address book and copies of letters sent to and received from Mengele. Among the papers was a letter from Wolfram Bossert notifying Sedlmeier of Mengele's death. German authorities alerted the police in São Paulo, who then contacted the Bosserts. Under interrogation, they revealed the location of Mengele's grave and the remains were exhumed on 6 June 1985. Extensive forensic examination indicated with a high degree of probability that the body was indeed that of Josef Mengele. Rolf Mengele issued a statement on 10 June confirming that the body was his father's and he admitted that the news of his father's death had been concealed in order to protect the people who had sheltered him for many years.
In 1992, DNA testing confirmed Mengele's identity beyond doubt, but family members refused repeated requests by Brazilian officials to repatriate the remains to Germany. The skeleton is stored at the São Paulo Institute for Forensic Medicine, where it is used as an educational aid during forensic medicine courses at the University of São Paulo's medical school.
Later developments
In 2007, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum received as a donation the Höcker Album, an album of photographs of Auschwitz staff taken by Karl-Friedrich Höcker. Eight of the photographs include Mengele.
In February 2010, a 180-page volume of Mengele's diary was sold by Alexander Autographs at auction for an undisclosed sum to the grandson of a Holocaust survivor. The unidentified previous owner, who acquired the journals in Brazil, was reported to be close to the Mengele family. A Holocaust survivors' organization described the sale as "a cynical act of exploitation aimed at profiting from the writings of one of the most heinous Nazi criminals". Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center was glad to see the diary fall into Jewish hands. "At a time when Ahmadinejad's Iran regularly denies the Holocaust and anti-Semitism and hatred of Jews is back in vogue, this acquisition is especially significant", he said. In 2011, a further 31 volumes of Mengele's diaries were sold—again amidst protests—by the same auction house to an undisclosed collector of World War II memorabilia for US$245,000.
Publications
Racial-Morphological Examinations of the Anterior Portion of the Lower Jaw in Four Racial Groups. This dissertation, completed in 1935 and first published in 1937, earned him a PhD in anthropology from Munich University. In this work Mengele sought to demonstrate that there were structural differences in the lower jaws of individuals from different ethnic groups, and that racial distinctions could be made based on these differences.
Genealogical Studies in the Cases of Cleft Lip-Jaw-Palate (1938), his medical dissertation, earned him a doctorate in medicine from Frankfurt University. Studying the influence of genetics as a factor in the occurrence of this deformity, Mengele conducted research on families who exhibited these traits in multiple generations. The work also included notes on other abnormalities found in these family lines.
Hereditary Transmission of Fistulae Auris. This journal article, published in ('The Genetic Physician'), focuses on fistula auris (an abnormal fissure on the external ear) as a hereditary trait. Mengele noted that individuals who have this trait also tend to have a dimple on their chin.
See also
Angel of Death (Slayer song)
Aribert Heim
Carl Clauberg
Eva Mozes Kor
Grigory Mairanovsky
Hans Münch
Kurt Blome
Nazi eugenics
Shirō Ishii
The Boys from Brazil (novel)
References
Informational notes
Citations
Bibliography
Further reading
External links
1911 births
1979 deaths
20th-century anthropologists
20th-century German non-fiction writers
Accidental deaths in Brazil
Auschwitz concentration camp personnel
Burials in São Paulo (state)
Combat medics
Deaths by drowning
Fugitives
Fugitives wanted by Germany
German anthropologists
German eugenicists
German expatriates in Argentina
German expatriates in Brazil
German expatriates in Italy
German male non-fiction writers
German medical writers
German military doctors
Holocaust perpetrators in Poland
Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich alumni
Nazi human subject research
Nazis in South America
Nazi war criminals
People associated with the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics
People from Günzburg
People from the Kingdom of Bavaria
People who died at sea
Physicians in the Nazi Party
Recipients of the Iron Cross (1939), 1st class
Romani genocide perpetrators
SS-Hauptsturmführer
Waffen-SS personnel
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"The Wometco Home Theater (WHT) was an early pay television service in the New York City area, that was owned by Miami-based Wometco Enterprises, which owned several major network affiliates in mid-sized media markets and its flagship WTVJ in Miami (then a CBS affiliate on channel 4, now an NBC owned-and-operated station on channel 6). The signals were broadcast beginning in August 1977 on WWHT-TV (channel 68) and later on WSNL-TV (channel 67) out of Smithtown, New York.\n\nOverview\n\nInitially subscribers paid $15 for a set-top descrambling box that allowed subscribers to view channel 68's scrambled television signals (a later addressable, 2-channel version of this descrambler was developed under vice president of engineering, Alex MacDonald). The service was similar to Home Box Office (HBO), but a Wometco executive told The New York Times that WHT was more likely to select films with a particular interest to the New York City area. Wometco also targeted areas that were not yet served by cable television (although parts of Manhattan had cable television service as early as 1971, the vast majority of the five boroughs of New York City would not begin receiving cable television service until 1988).\n\nProgramming consisted of 12 features a month, including movies and entertainment specials. In addition, select home games of the NHL's New York Islanders were broadcast live from the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum. Each program was repeated five times during the month. During the daytime, WWHT was a small commercial television station. The station was originally going to be a general entertainment station with shows that independents WNEW-TV (channel 5), WOR-TV (channel 9) and WPIX (channel 11) passed on. However, the costs were too high to acquire such programs so the station broadcast only a couple hours of low budget syndicated shows, The Uncle Floyd Show, public affairs programs, religious programs, stock market reports, and minority-interest and foreign language programs. In 1980, WHT began programming a movie from 10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. as well, later adding the adult-themed late night service, \"Nightcap\" with its black cat logo.\n\nIn the fall of 1980, Wometco Enterprises brought in a new management team. The team consisted of Harold Brownstein as the new president, and Robert Borders as vice president of marketing, both of whom had previously worked together at a major BTB direct marketing company. Having operated at $1 million plus loss for over four years, this team turned the operation profitable within 18 months. This was accomplished by consolidating numerous satellite offices/functions into the company's headquarters in Fairfield, New Jersey; producing a bi-monthly program guide (instead of monthly), significantly reducing printing and postage costs; and implementing direct response marketing concepts into the company's multimillion-dollar local television ads, so that the company could determine which markets and promotions generated sales, instead of just awareness.\n\nWHT also employed an MATV division in an effort to expand their viewership by partnering with the real estate community to provide the service to buildings and apartment complexes, using a facility's pre-existing master antenna system. \n \nIn the spring of 1983, WHT also began operating 20 hours a day (increasing its subscription rate to $21/month), with only two hours a day of religious and public affairs shows seen on WWHT. Uncle Floyd moved off Channel 68 and onto NJN. However, the station marketed WHT as 24 hours a day, and the two hours of religious and public affairs shows were positioned as part of WHT's lineup. This block of programming was also unscrambled. Also, another two hours of children's shows were marketed as part of WHT, but also unscrambled. It was at this time that Wometco Home Theater and Wometco Enterprises were sold to the private investment firm of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co.\n\nBy 1984, Wometco Home Theater had ceased its own programming and began carrying programs from California-based pay television service SelecTV. Finally, after losing more and more subscribers over the next two years, WHT ceased operations in March 1986. WSNL and WWHT then switched to an all-music format named \"U68\", similar to MTV, which lasted for about 8 months before both stations were purchased by an affiliate company of the Home Shopping Network. The stations are now owned-and-operated station of the Spanish-language network UniMás.\n\nList of Wometco Home Theater affiliates \nThis list is incomplete, please help by adding stations which carried WHT.\n\nReferences\n\nSee also \nON TV, an over-the-air subscription service that served Chicago, Cincinnati, Dallas/Fort Worth, Detroit, Fort Lauderdale, Los Angeles, Phoenix and Salem/Portland.\nPRISM, an over-the-air and cable television subscription service that served Southeastern Pennsylvania, Southern New Jersey, Delaware and the Delmarva Peninsula.\nSelecTV, an over-the-air subscription service that served Los Angeles, Milwaukee and Philadelphia and later the Wometco Home Theater territories after WHT ceased its own programming.\nSpectrum, an over-the-air subscription service that served Chicago and was a direct competitor to ON TV.\nSuper TV, an over-the-air subscription service that served Washington, D.C., the Capital and Central regions of Maryland and Northern Virginia.\n\nDefunct television networks in the United States\nTelevision channels and stations established in 1977\nPrivate equity portfolio companies\nAmerican subscription television services\nKohlberg Kravis Roberts companies\nTelevision channels and stations disestablished in 1986\nWometco Enterprises",
"Family Broadcasting Corporation, formerly known as LeSEA Broadcasting, is an American Christian television network. Founded by Lester Sumrall in 1972, Family Broadcasting Corporation is headquartered in South Bend, Indiana, and broadcasts Christian and family programming. Peter Sumrall, son of Lester Sumrall, served as its president and chief executive officer from 2002 to 2015. His son, Drew Sumrall, now serves in the same position.\n\nNational channels\n\nWorld Harvest Television (WHT) \nWorld Harvest Television (WHT), channel 367 on DirecTV, focuses mostly on direct televangelism, carrying hosts such as Sid Roth, Joseph Prince, Joyce Meyer, and James Robison. Program time not filled by televangelists is filled with infomercials; WHT does air some limited entertainment programming, consisting mainly of a block with The Real McCoys and the public-domain episodes of The Beverly Hillbillies in the afternoons, along with non-religious E/I programs and a few syndicated programs such as Sports Stars of Tomorrow and Today's Homeowner with Danny Lipford on Saturdays, along with Israeli Basketball Premier League games. WHT is available in over 21.2 million homes across the country on DirecTV, as well as on the Sky Angel Faith Package; a video stream of the channel is available on the Internet.\n\nFamily Entertainment Television (FETV) \n\nFamily Entertainment Television (FETV), channel 323 on DirecTV, channel 82 on Dish Network, channel 245 on Verizon Fios, channel 578 on AT&T U-Verse, and Sling TV offers viewers a mix of religious and family-friendly programming. FETV provides such programming as Perry Mason, Matlock, the Lone Ranger, Hazel, Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie, The Flying Nun and The Roy Rogers Show, as well as a selection of televangelists in the morning time slots.\n\nFBC-owned TV stations\n\nWHMB-TV \n\nOriginally acquired by Family Broadcasting Corporation in 1972, WHMB-TV 40 is the longest, continually operated Christian television station in the United States. WHMB reaches the entire Indianapolis, Indiana television market covering over one million households.\n\nWHME-TV \n\nOn September 10, 1977, WHME-TV 46 South Bend came onto the airwaves with mostly religious programming, as well as some family programming. Today, WHME is Family Broadcasting Corporation's headquarters, housing a number of separate divisions. Its programming is a blend of religion, local sports, and family entertainment.\n\nKWHE \n\nKWHE TV 14 covers the major population centers of Hilo, Maui, Kona, and Honolulu, with Christian and family programming. The station is carried on Oceanic Cable channel 11 and on Hawaiian Telcom channel 14.\n\nFormer television stations\n\nKWHB \n\nPurchased by Family Broadcasting Corporation in 1985, KWHB 47 is the oldest Christian television station in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Today, KWHB can be viewed on over 84 cable stations in Oklahoma, serving a potential audience of over 1.5 million people. The station was sold to the Christian Television Network on February 20, 2020.\n\nWHFT \n\nWHFT TV 45 Miami, Florida signed on in 1975, was acquired by LeSea in the summer of 1976, and was sold to Trinity Broadcasting Network in July 1980.\n\nWHKE \n\nWHKE signed on June 1988 and was owned by LeSea. The station was sold to Paxson Communications in 1995, being a temporary affiliate of the paid programming network inTV before the August 1998 launch of PAX TV, today's Ion Television.\n\nWHNO \n\nWHNO TV 20 New Orleans signed on October 1994. The station was sold to the Christian Television Network in April 2018.\n\nWCVI-TV \n\nWCVI-TV 23 was acquired in 2014, and it is the Family Broadcasting Corporation station in the U.S. Virgin Islands. The station was sold to Lilly Broadcasting in 2020.\n\nMETV \n\nMiddle East Television was acquired from CBN in July 2001. It is located in Limassol, Cyprus, and broadcasts to all of Western Asia. The station was sold to Sid Roth's Messianic Vision, Inc, in September 2016.\n\nRadio\n\nShortwave \nSince 1985 Family Broadcasting Corporation has operated World Harvest Radio International (WHRI), designed to reach the over 200 million shortwave radio receivers in the world. Family Broadcasting Corporation is the only Christian broadcaster currently operating a global network of shortwave radio transmitters. Transmitter facilities are located in South Carolina and in Palau, Oceania (T8WH). Six transmitters are in operation full-time, named the Six Angels.\n\n Angel 1—Covers Africa, North America, Central America, South America, and Australia\n Angel 2—Covers parts of North America, Europe, and parts of Asia\n Angel 3—Covers Asia (T8WH)\n Angel 4—Covers Australia (T8WH)\n Angel 5—Covers Africa\n Angel 6—Covers North and Central America\n\nIn August 2020, it was announced that WHRI was selling its facilities to Allen Weiner, owner of Monticello, Maine-based shortwave station WBCQ, pending FCC approval.\n\nFBC-owned FM radio stations\n\nHarvest FM \nHarvest 103.1 FM, or WHME (FM), began broadcasting in 1968. The radio station, which serves the South Bend, Indiana, area, features a mix of interactive talk, Bible teaching programs, and inspirational music 24 hours a day.\n\nPulse FM \nFounded in 1996, Pulse FM WHPZ 96.9 broadcasts contemporary Christian music to the Michiana market. In December 2004, Family Broadcasting Corporation purchased WDOW 92.1 FM to increase Pulse FM's listening base, and the call letters are now WHPD 92.1. For many years, the radio station hosted World Pulse Festival, a one-day Christian music festival. In 2017, Pulse FM transitioned to a new concert format named Pulse Summer Series, a series of three summer concerts in downtown South Bend, Indiana, at the Morris Performing Arts Center.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nFamily Entertainment Television\n\nTelevision networks in the United States\nChristian mass media in the United States\nChristian television stations\nReligious television stations in the United States"
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[
"Josef Mengele",
"In South America",
"Wht was he doing in south america?",
"Mengele worked as a carpenter while residing in a boarding house in the suburb of Vicente Lopez."
] |
C_b4a58b5a57fe49a498759ec3ef1ea45b_1
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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 aside from Josef Mengele residing in a boarding house?
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Josef Mengele
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Mengele was born the eldest of three children on 16 March 1911 to Karl and Walburga (Hupfauer) Mengele in Gunzburg, Bavaria, Germany. His younger brothers were Karl Jr and Alois. Mengele's father was founder of the Karl Mengele & Sons company, producers of farm machinery. Mengele did well in school and developed an interest in music, art, and skiing. He completed high school in April 1930 and went on to study medicine at Goethe University Frankfurt and philosophy at the University of Munich. Munich was the headquarters of the Nazi Party. In 1931 Mengele joined the Stahlhelm, Bund der Frontsoldaten, a paramilitary organization that was absorbed into the Nazi Sturmabteilung (Storm Detachment; SA) in 1934. In 1935, Mengele earned a PhD in anthropology from the University of Munich. In January 1937, at the Institute for Hereditary Biology and Racial Hygiene in Frankfurt, he became the assistant to Dr. Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer, a scientist conducting genetics research, with a particular interest in twins. As an assistant to von Verschuer, Mengele focused on the genetic factors resulting in a cleft lip and palate or cleft chin. His thesis on the subject earned him a cum laude doctorate in medicine in 1938. Both of his degrees were later rescinded by the issuing universities. In a letter of recommendation, von Verschuer praised Mengele's reliability and his ability to verbally present complex material in a clear manner. The American author Robert Jay Lifton notes that Mengele's published work did not deviate much from the scientific mainstream of the time, and would probably have been viewed as valid scientific efforts even outside Nazi Germany. On 28 July 1939, Mengele married Irene Schonbein, whom he had met while working as a medical resident in Leipzig. Their only son, Rolf, was born in 1944. The ideology of Nazism brought together elements of antisemitism, racial hygiene, and eugenics, and combined them with pan-Germanism and territorial expansionism with the goal of obtaining more Lebensraum (living space) for the Germanic people. Nazi Germany attempted to obtain this new territory by attacking Poland and the Soviet Union, intending to deport or kill the Jews and Slavs living there, who were considered inferior to the Aryan master race. Mengele joined the Nazi Party in 1937 and the Schutzstaffel (SS; protection squadron) in 1938. He received basic training in 1938 with the Gebirgsjager (mountain infantry) and was called up for service in the Wehrmacht (German armed forces) in June 1940, some months after the outbreak of World War II. He soon volunteered for medical service in the Waffen-SS, the combat arm of the SS, where he served with the rank of SS-Untersturmfuhrer (second lieutenant) in a medical reserve battalion until November 1940. He was next assigned to the SS-Rasse- und Siedlungshauptamt (SS Race and Resettlement Main Office) in Posen, evaluating candidates for Germanisation. In June 1941, Mengele was posted to Ukraine, where he was awarded the Iron Cross Second Class. In January 1942, he joined the 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking as a battalion medical officer. He rescued two German soldiers from a burning tank and was awarded the Iron Cross First Class, as well as the Wound Badge in Black and the Medal for the Care of the German People. He was seriously wounded in action near Rostov-on-Don in mid-1942, and was declared unfit for further active service. After recovery, he was transferred to the Race and Resettlement Office in Berlin. He also resumed his association with von Verschuer, who was at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics. Mengele was promoted to the rank of SS-Hauptsturmfuhrer (captain) in April 1943. In Buenos Aires, Argentina, Mengele worked as a carpenter while residing in a boarding house in the suburb of Vicente Lopez. After a few weeks he moved to the house of a Nazi sympathiser in the more affluent neighborhood of Florida, Buenos Aires. He next worked as a salesman for his family's farm equipment company, and beginning in 1951 he made frequent trips to Paraguay as sales representative for that region. An apartment in the center of Buenos Aires became his residence in 1953, the same year he used family funds to buy a part interest in a carpentry concern. In 1954 he rented a house in the suburb of Olivos. Files released by the Argentine government in 1992 indicate that Mengele may have practiced medicine without a license, including performing abortions, while living in Buenos Aires. After obtaining a copy of his birth certificate through the West German embassy in 1956, Mengele was issued an Argentine foreign residence permit under his real name. He used this document to obtain a West German passport, also under his real name, and embarked for a visit to Europe. He met up in Switzerland for a ski holiday with his son Rolf (who was told Mengele was his "Uncle Fritz") and his widowed sister-in-law Martha, and spent a week in his home town of Gunzburg. Upon his return to Argentina in September, Mengele began living under his real name. Martha and her son Karl Heinz followed about a month later, and the three took up residence together. The couple married while on holiday in Uruguay in 1958 and bought a house in Buenos Aires. Business interests now included part ownership of Fadro Farm, a pharmaceutical company. Along with several other doctors, Mengele was questioned and released in 1958 under suspicion of practicing medicine without a license after a teenage girl died following an abortion. Worried that the publicity would lead to his Nazi background and wartime activities being discovered, he took an extended business trip to Paraguay and was granted citizenship under the name Jose Mengele in 1959. He returned to Buenos Aires several times to wrap up his business affairs and visit his family. Martha and Karl Heinz lived in a boarding house in the city until December 1960, when they returned to Germany. Mengele's name was mentioned several times during the Nuremberg trials, but Allied forces were convinced that he was dead. Irene and the family in Gunzburg also said that he was dead. Working in West Germany, Nazi hunters Simon Wiesenthal and Hermann Langbein collected information from witnesses as to Mengele's wartime activities. In a search of the public records, Langbein found Mengele's divorce papers listing an address in Buenos Aires. He and Wiesenthal pressured West German authorities into drawing up an arrest warrant on 5 June 1959, and starting extradition proceedings. Initially Argentina turned down the request, because the fugitive was no longer living at the address given on the documents. By the time extradition was approved on 30 June 1960, Mengele had already fled to Paraguay, where he was living on a farm near the Argentine border. CANNOTANSWER
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In 1935, Mengele earned a PhD in anthropology from the University of Munich.
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Josef Mengele (; 16 March 19117 February 1979), also known as the Angel of Death (), was a German (SS) officer and physician during World War II. He is mainly remembered for his actions at the Auschwitz concentration camp, where he performed deadly experiments on prisoners, as a member of the team of doctors who selected victims to be killed in the gas chambers and as one of the doctors who administered the gas. With Red Army troops sweeping through German-occupied Poland, Mengele was transferred from Auschwitz to the Gross-Rosen concentration camp on 17 January 1945, ten days before the arrival of the Soviet forces at Auschwitz.
Before the war, Mengele had received doctorates in anthropology and medicine, and began a career as a researcher. He joined the Nazi Party in 1937 and the SS in 1938. He was assigned as a battalion medical officer at the start of World War II, then transferred to the Nazi concentration camps service in early 1943 and assigned to Auschwitz, where he saw the opportunity to conduct genetic research on human subjects. His experiments focused primarily on twins, with no regard for the health or safety of the victims.
After the war, Mengele fled to South America. He sailed to Argentina in July 1949, assisted by a network of former SS members. He initially lived in and around Buenos Aires, then fled to Paraguay in 1959 and Brazil in 1960, all the while being sought by West Germany, Israel, and Nazi hunters such as Simon Wiesenthal, who wanted to bring him to trial. Mengele eluded capture in spite of extradition requests by the West German government and clandestine operations by the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad. He drowned in 1979 after suffering a stroke while swimming off the coast of Bertioga, and was buried under the false name of Wolfgang Gerhard. His remains were disinterred and positively identified by forensic examination in 1985.
Early life
Mengele was born in Günzburg on 16 March 1911, the eldest of three sons of Walburga ( Hupfauer) and Karl Mengele. His two younger brothers were Karl Jr. and Alois. Their father was founder of the Karl Mengele & Sons company (later renamed as ), which produced farming machinery. Mengele was successful at school and developed an interest in music, art, and skiing. He completed high school in April 1930 and went on to study philosophy in Munich, where the headquarters of the Nazi Party were located. In 1931 he joined , a paramilitary organization that was absorbed into the Nazi ('Storm Detachment'; SA) in 1934. In 1935, Mengele earned a PhD in anthropology from the University of Munich. In January 1937, he joined the Institute for Hereditary Biology and Racial Hygiene in Frankfurt, where he worked for Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer, a German geneticist with a particular interest in researching twins.
As Von Verschuer's assistant, Mengele focused on the genetic factors that result in a cleft lip and palate, or a cleft chin. His thesis on the subject earned him a doctorate in medicine (MD) from the University of Frankfurt in 1938. (Both of his degrees were revoked by the issuing universities in the 1960s.) In a letter of recommendation, Von Verschuer praised Mengele's reliability and his ability to verbally present complex material in a clear manner. The American author Robert Jay Lifton notes that Mengele's published works were in keeping with the scientific mainstream of the time, and would probably have been viewed as valid scientific efforts even outside Nazi Germany.
On 28 July 1939, Mengele married Irene Schönbein, whom he had met while working as a medical resident in Leipzig. Their only son, Rolf, was born in 1944.
Military service
The ideology of Nazism brought together elements of antisemitism, racial hygiene, and eugenics, and combined them with pan-Germanism and territorial expansionism with the goal of obtaining more (living space) for the Germanic people. Nazi Germany attempted to obtain this new territory by attacking Poland and the Soviet Union, intending to deport or kill the Jews and Slavs living there, who were considered by the Nazis to be inferior to the Aryan master race.
Mengele joined the Nazi Party in 1937 and the (SS; 'Protection Squadron') in 1938. He received basic training in 1938 with the ('light infantry mountain troop') and was called up for service in the (Nazi armed forces) in June 1940, some months after the outbreak of World War II. He soon volunteered for medical service in the , the combat arm of the SS, where he served with the rank of SS- ('second lieutenant') in a medical reserve battalion until November 1940. He was next assigned to the ('SS Race and Settlement Main Office') in Poznań, evaluating candidates for Germanization.
In June 1941 Mengele was posted to Ukraine, where he was awarded the Iron Cross 2nd Class. In January 1942, he joined the 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking as a battalion medical officer. After rescuing two German soldiers from a burning tank, he was decorated with the Iron Cross 1st Class, the Wound Badge in Black, and the Medal for the Care of the German People. He was declared unfit for further active service in mid-1942, when he was seriously wounded in action near Rostov-on-Don. Following his recovery, he was transferred to the headquarters of the SS Race and Settlement Main Office in Berlin, at which point he resumed his association with Von Verschuer, who was now director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics. Mengele was promoted to the rank of SS- ('captain') in April 1943.
Auschwitz
In 1942 Auschwitz II (Birkenau), originally intended to house slave laborers, began to be used instead as a combined labour camp and extermination camp. Prisoners were transported there by rail from all over Nazi-controlled Europe, arriving in daily convoys. By July 1942, SS doctors were conducting "selections" where incoming Jews were segregated, and those considered able to work were admitted into the camp while those deemed unfit for labor were immediately killed in the gas chambers. The arrivals that were selected to die, about three-quarters of the total, included almost all children, women with small children, pregnant women, all the elderly, and all of those who appeared (in a brief and superficial inspection by an SS doctor) to be not completely fit and healthy.
In early 1943, Von Verschuer encouraged Mengele to apply for a transfer to the concentration camp service. Mengele's application was accepted and he was posted to Auschwitz, where he was appointed by SS- Eduard Wirths, chief medical officer at Auschwitz, to the position of chief physician of the (Romani family camp) at Birkenau, a subcamp located on the main Auschwitz complex. The SS doctors did not administer treatment to the Auschwitz inmates but supervised the activities of inmate doctors who had been forced to work in the camp medical service. As part of his duties, Mengele made weekly visits to the hospital barracks and ordered any prisoners who had not recovered after two weeks in bed to be sent to the gas chambers.
Mengele's work also involved carrying out selections, a task that he chose to perform even when he was not assigned to do so, in the hope of finding subjects for his experiments, with a particular interest in locating sets of twins. In contrast to most of the other SS doctors, who viewed selections as one of their most stressful and unpleasant duties, he undertook the task with a flamboyant air, often smiling or whistling. He was one of the SS doctors responsible for supervising the administration of Zyklon B, the cyanide-based pesticide that was used for the mass killings in the Birkenau gas chambers. He served in this capacity at the gas chambers located in crematoria IV and V.
When an outbreak of noma—a gangrenous bacterial disease of the mouth and face—struck the Romani camp in 1943, Mengele initiated a study to determine the cause of the disease and develop a treatment. He enlisted the assistance of prisoner Berthold Epstein, a Jewish pediatrician and professor at Prague University. The patients were isolated in separate barracks and several afflicted children were killed so that their preserved heads and organs could be sent to the SS Medical Academy in Graz and other facilities for study. This research was still ongoing when the Romani camp was liquidated and its remaining occupants killed in 1944.
When a typhus epidemic began in the women's camp, Mengele cleared one block of six hundred Jewish women and sent them to their deaths in the gas chambers. The building was then cleaned and disinfected and the occupants of a neighboring block were bathed, de–loused, and given new clothing before being moved into the clean block. This process was repeated until all of the barracks were disinfected. Similar procedures were used for later epidemics of scarlet fever and other diseases, with infected prisoners being killed in the gas chambers. For these actions, Mengele was awarded the War Merit Cross (Second Class with swords) and was promoted in 1944 to First Physician of the Birkenau subcamp.
Human experimentation
Mengele used Auschwitz as an opportunity to continue his anthropological studies and research into heredity, using inmates for human experimentation. His medical procedures showed no consideration for the victims' health, safety, or physical and emotional suffering. He was particularly interested in identical twins, people with heterochromia iridum (eyes of two different colors), dwarfs, and people with physical abnormalities. A grant was provided by the ('German Research Foundation'), at the request of Von Verschuer, who received regular reports and shipments of specimens from Mengele. The grant was used to build a pathology laboratory attached to Crematorium II at Auschwitz II-Birkenau. Miklós Nyiszli, a Hungarian Jewish pathologist who arrived in Auschwitz on 29 May 1944, performed dissections and prepared specimens for shipment in this laboratory. The twin research was in part intended to prove the supremacy of heredity over the environment and thus strengthen the Nazi premise of the genetic superiority of the Aryan race. Nyiszli and others reported that the twin studies may also have been motivated by an intention to increase the reproduction rate of the German race by improving the chances of racially desirable people having twins.
Mengele's research subjects were better fed and housed than the other prisoners, and temporarily spared from execution in the gas chambers. His research subjects lived in their own barracks, where they were provided with a marginally better quality of food and somewhat improved living conditions than the other areas of the camp. When visiting his young subjects, he introduced himself as "Uncle Mengele" and offered them sweets, while at the same time being personally responsible for the deaths of an unknown number of victims whom he killed via lethal injection, shootings, beatings, and his deadly experiments. In his 1986 book, Lifton describes Mengele as sadistic, lacking empathy, and extremely antisemitic, believing the Jews should be eliminated as an inferior and dangerous race. Rolf Mengele later claimed that his father had shown no remorse for his wartime activities.
A former Auschwitz inmate doctor said of Mengele:
Twins were subjected to weekly examinations and measurements of their physical attributes by Mengele or one of his assistants. The experiments he performed on twins included unnecessary amputation of limbs, intentionally infecting one twin with typhus or some other disease, and transfusing the blood of one twin into the other. Many of the victims died while undergoing these procedures, and those who survived the experiments were sometimes killed and their bodies dissected once Mengele had no further use for them. Nyiszli recalled one occasion on which Mengele personally killed fourteen twins in one night by injecting their hearts with chloroform. If one twin died from disease, he would kill the other twin to allow comparative post-mortem reports to be produced for research purposes.
Mengele's eye experiments included attempts to change the eye color by injecting chemicals into the eyes of living subjects, and he killed people with heterochromatic eyes so that the eyes could be removed and sent to Berlin for study. His experiments on dwarfs and people with physical abnormalities included taking physical measurements, drawing blood, extracting healthy teeth, and treatment with unnecessary drugs and X-rays. Many of his victims were dispatched to the gas chambers after about two weeks, and their skeletons were sent to Berlin for further analysis. Mengele sought out pregnant women, on whom he would perform experiments before sending them to the gas chambers. Alex Dekel, a survivor, reports witnessing Mengele performing vivisection without anesthesia, removing hearts and stomachs of victims. Yitzhak Ganon, another survivor, reported in 2009 how Mengele removed his kidney without anesthesia. He was forced to return to work without painkillers. Witness Vera Alexander described how Mengele sewed two Romani twins together, back to back, in a crude attempt to create conjoined twins; both children died of gangrene after several days of suffering.
After Auschwitz
Along with several other Auschwitz doctors, Mengele transferred to Gross-Rosen concentration camp in Lower Silesia on 17 January 1945, taking with him two boxes of specimens and the records of his experiments at Auschwitz. Most of the camp medical records had already been destroyed by the SS by the time the Red Army liberated Auschwitz on 27 January. Mengele fled Gross-Rosen on 18 February, a week before the Soviets arrived there, and traveled westward to Žatec in Czechoslovakia, disguised as a officer. There he temporarily entrusted his incriminating documents to a nurse with whom he had struck up a relationship. He and his unit then hurried west to avoid being captured by the Soviets, but were taken prisoners of war by the Americans in June 1945. Although Mengele was initially registered under his own name, he was not identified as being on the major war criminal list due to the disorganization of the Allies regarding the distribution of wanted lists, and the fact that he did not have the usual SS blood group tattoo. He was released at the end of July and obtained false papers under the name "Fritz Ullman", documents he later altered to read "Fritz Hollmann".
After several months on the run, including a trip back to the Soviet-occupied area to recover his Auschwitz records, Mengele found work near Rosenheim as a farmhand. He eventually escaped from Germany on 17 April 1949, convinced that his capture would mean a trial and death sentence. Assisted by a network of former SS members, he used the ratline to travel to Genoa, where he obtained a passport from the International Committee of the Red Cross under the alias "Helmut Gregor", and sailed to Argentina in July 1949. His wife refused to accompany him, and they divorced in 1954.
In South America
Mengele worked as a carpenter in Buenos Aires, Argentina, while lodging in a boarding house in the suburb of Vicente López. After a few weeks, he moved to the house of a Nazi sympathizer in the more affluent neighborhood of Florida Este. He next worked as a salesman for his family's farm equipment company, Karl Mengele & Sons, and in 1951 he began making frequent trips to Paraguay as a regional sales representative. He moved into an apartment in central Buenos Aires in 1953, used family funds to buy a part interest in a carpentry concern, and then rented a house in the suburb of Olivos in 1954. Files released by the Argentine government in 1992 indicate that Mengele may have practiced medicine without a license while living in Buenos Aires, including performing abortions.
After obtaining a copy of his birth certificate through the West German embassy in 1956, Mengele was issued with an Argentine foreign residence permit under his real name. He used this document to obtain a West German passport, using his real name and embarked on a trip to Europe. He met with his son Rolf (who was told Mengele was his "Uncle Fritz") and his widowed sister-in-law Martha, for a ski holiday in Switzerland; he also spent a week in his home town of Günzburg. When he returned to Argentina in September 1956, Mengele began living under his real name. Martha and her son Karl Heinz followed about a month later, and the three began living together. Josef and Martha were married in 1958 while on holiday in Uruguay, and they bought a house in Buenos Aires. Mengele's business interests now included part ownership of Fadro Farm, a pharmaceutical company. Along with several other doctors, he was questioned in 1958 on suspicion of practicing medicine without a license when a teenage girl died after an abortion, but he was released without charge. Aware that the publicity could lead to his Nazi background and wartime activities being discovered, he took an extended business trip to Paraguay and was granted citizenship there in 1959 under the name "José Mengele". He returned to Buenos Aires several times to settle his business affairs and visit his family. Martha and Karl lived in a boarding house in the city until December 1960, when they returned to West Germany.
Mengele's name was mentioned several times during the Nuremberg trials in the mid-1940s, but the Allied forces believed that he was probably already dead. Irene Mengele and the family in Günzburg also alleged that he had died. Working in West Germany, Nazi hunters Simon Wiesenthal and Hermann Langbein collected information from witnesses about Mengele's wartime activities. In a search of the public records, Langbein discovered Mengele's divorce papers, which listed an address in Buenos Aires. He and Wiesenthal pressured the West German authorities into starting extradition proceedings, and an arrest warrant was drawn up on 5 June 1959. Argentina initially refused the extradition request because the fugitive was no longer living at the address given on the documents; by the time extradition was approved on 30 June, Mengele had already fled to Paraguay and was living on a farm near the Argentine border.
Efforts by Mossad
In May 1960, Isser Harel, director of the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, personally led the successful effort to capture Adolf Eichmann in Buenos Aires. He was hoping to track down Mengele so that he too could be brought to trial in Israel. Under interrogation, Eichmann provided the address of a boarding house that had been used as a safe house for Nazi fugitives. Surveillance of the house did not reveal Mengele or any members of his family and the neighborhood postman claimed that although Mengele had recently been receiving letters there under his real name, he had since relocated without leaving a forwarding address. Harel's inquiries at a machine shop where Mengele had been part owner also failed to generate any leads, so he was forced to abandon the search.
Despite having provided Mengele with legal documents using his real name in 1956 (which had enabled him to formalize his permanent residency in Argentina), West Germany was now offering a reward for his capture. Continuing newspaper coverage of his wartime activities, with accompanying photographs, led the fugitive to relocate once again in 1960. Former pilot Hans-Ulrich Rudel put him in touch with the Nazi supporter Wolfgang Gerhard, who helped Mengele to cross the border into Brazil. He stayed with Gerhard on his farm near São Paulo until more permanent accommodation could be found, which came about with Hungarian expatriates Géza and Gitta Stammer. The couple bought a farm in Nova Europa with the help of an investment from Mengele, who was given the job of managing for them. The three bought a coffee and cattle farm in Serra Negra in 1962, with Mengele owning a half interest. Gerhard had initially told the Stammers that the fugitive's name was "Peter Hochbichler", but they discovered his true identity in 1963. Gerhard persuaded the couple not to report Mengele's location to the authorities by convincing them that they themselves could be implicated for harboring a fugitive. In February 1961, West Germany widened its extradition request to include Brazil, having been tipped off to the possibility that Mengele had relocated there.
Meanwhile, Zvi Aharoni, one of the Mossad agents who had been involved in the Eichmann capture, was placed in charge of a team of agents tasked with tracking down Mengele and bringing him to trial in Israel. Their inquiries in Paraguay revealed no clues to his whereabouts, and they were unable to intercept any correspondence between Mengele and his wife Martha, who by this time was living in Italy. Agents who were following Rudel's movements also failed to produce any leads. Aharoni and his team followed Gerhard to a rural area near São Paulo, where they identified a European man whom they believed to be Mengele. This potential breakthrough was reported to Harel, but the logistics of staging a capture, the budgetary constraints of the search operation, and the priority of focusing on Israel's deteriorating relationship with Egypt led the Mossad chief to call off the manhunt in 1962.
Later life and death
In 1969, Mengele and the Stammers jointly purchased a farmhouse in Caieiras, with Mengele as half owner. When Wolfgang Gerhard returned to Germany in 1971 to seek medical treatment for his ailing wife and son, he gave his identity card to Mengele. The Stammers' friendship with Mengele deteriorated in late 1974, and when they bought a house in São Paulo, he was not invited to join them. The Stammers later bought a bungalow in the Eldorado neighborhood of Diadema, São Paulo, which they rented out to Mengele. Rolf, who had not seen his father since the ski holiday in 1956, visited him at the bungalow in 1977; he found an "unrepentant Nazi" who claimed he had never personally harmed anyone and only carried out his duties as an officer.
Mengele's health had been steadily deteriorating since 1972. He suffered a stroke in 1976, experienced high blood pressure, and developed an ear infection which affected his balance. On 7 February 1979, while visiting his friends Wolfram and Liselotte Bossert in the coastal resort of Bertioga, Mengele suffered another stroke while swimming and drowned. His body was buried in Embu das Artes under the name "Wolfgang Gerhard", whose identification Mengele had been using since 1971. Other aliases used by Mengele in his later life included "Dr. Fausto Rindón" and "S. Josi Alvers Aspiazu".
Exhumation
Meanwhile, sightings of Mengele were being reported all over the world. Wiesenthal claimed to have information that placed Mengele on the Greek island of Kythnos in 1960, in Cairo in 1961, in Spain in 1971, and in Paraguay in 1978, eighteen years after he had left the country. He insisted as late as 1985 that Mengele was still alive—six years after he had died—having previously offered a reward of US$100,000 () in 1982 for the fugitive's capture. Worldwide interest in the case was heightened by a mock trial held in Jerusalem in February 1985, featuring the testimonies of over one hundred victims of Mengele's experiments. Shortly afterwards, the West German, Israeli, and U.S. governments launched a coordinated effort to determine Mengele's whereabouts. The West German and Israeli governments offered rewards for his capture, as did The Washington Times and the Simon Wiesenthal Center.
On 31 May 1985, acting on intelligence received by the West German prosecutor's office, police raided the house of Hans Sedlmeier, a lifelong friend of Mengele and sales manager of the family firm in Günzburg. They found a coded address book and copies of letters sent to and received from Mengele. Among the papers was a letter from Wolfram Bossert notifying Sedlmeier of Mengele's death. German authorities alerted the police in São Paulo, who then contacted the Bosserts. Under interrogation, they revealed the location of Mengele's grave and the remains were exhumed on 6 June 1985. Extensive forensic examination indicated with a high degree of probability that the body was indeed that of Josef Mengele. Rolf Mengele issued a statement on 10 June confirming that the body was his father's and he admitted that the news of his father's death had been concealed in order to protect the people who had sheltered him for many years.
In 1992, DNA testing confirmed Mengele's identity beyond doubt, but family members refused repeated requests by Brazilian officials to repatriate the remains to Germany. The skeleton is stored at the São Paulo Institute for Forensic Medicine, where it is used as an educational aid during forensic medicine courses at the University of São Paulo's medical school.
Later developments
In 2007, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum received as a donation the Höcker Album, an album of photographs of Auschwitz staff taken by Karl-Friedrich Höcker. Eight of the photographs include Mengele.
In February 2010, a 180-page volume of Mengele's diary was sold by Alexander Autographs at auction for an undisclosed sum to the grandson of a Holocaust survivor. The unidentified previous owner, who acquired the journals in Brazil, was reported to be close to the Mengele family. A Holocaust survivors' organization described the sale as "a cynical act of exploitation aimed at profiting from the writings of one of the most heinous Nazi criminals". Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center was glad to see the diary fall into Jewish hands. "At a time when Ahmadinejad's Iran regularly denies the Holocaust and anti-Semitism and hatred of Jews is back in vogue, this acquisition is especially significant", he said. In 2011, a further 31 volumes of Mengele's diaries were sold—again amidst protests—by the same auction house to an undisclosed collector of World War II memorabilia for US$245,000.
Publications
Racial-Morphological Examinations of the Anterior Portion of the Lower Jaw in Four Racial Groups. This dissertation, completed in 1935 and first published in 1937, earned him a PhD in anthropology from Munich University. In this work Mengele sought to demonstrate that there were structural differences in the lower jaws of individuals from different ethnic groups, and that racial distinctions could be made based on these differences.
Genealogical Studies in the Cases of Cleft Lip-Jaw-Palate (1938), his medical dissertation, earned him a doctorate in medicine from Frankfurt University. Studying the influence of genetics as a factor in the occurrence of this deformity, Mengele conducted research on families who exhibited these traits in multiple generations. The work also included notes on other abnormalities found in these family lines.
Hereditary Transmission of Fistulae Auris. This journal article, published in ('The Genetic Physician'), focuses on fistula auris (an abnormal fissure on the external ear) as a hereditary trait. Mengele noted that individuals who have this trait also tend to have a dimple on their chin.
See also
Angel of Death (Slayer song)
Aribert Heim
Carl Clauberg
Eva Mozes Kor
Grigory Mairanovsky
Hans Münch
Kurt Blome
Nazi eugenics
Shirō Ishii
The Boys from Brazil (novel)
References
Informational notes
Citations
Bibliography
Further reading
External links
1911 births
1979 deaths
20th-century anthropologists
20th-century German non-fiction writers
Accidental deaths in Brazil
Auschwitz concentration camp personnel
Burials in São Paulo (state)
Combat medics
Deaths by drowning
Fugitives
Fugitives wanted by Germany
German anthropologists
German eugenicists
German expatriates in Argentina
German expatriates in Brazil
German expatriates in Italy
German male non-fiction writers
German medical writers
German military doctors
Holocaust perpetrators in Poland
Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich alumni
Nazi human subject research
Nazis in South America
Nazi war criminals
People associated with the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics
People from Günzburg
People from the Kingdom of Bavaria
People who died at sea
Physicians in the Nazi Party
Recipients of the Iron Cross (1939), 1st class
Romani genocide perpetrators
SS-Hauptsturmführer
Waffen-SS personnel
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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"
] |
[
"Josef Mengele",
"In South America",
"Wht was he doing in south america?",
"Mengele worked as a carpenter while residing in a boarding house in the suburb of Vicente Lopez.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"In 1935, Mengele earned a PhD in anthropology from the University of Munich."
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C_b4a58b5a57fe49a498759ec3ef1ea45b_1
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Did he attend anywhere else?
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Besides the University of Munich, did Josef Mengele attend anywhere else?
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Josef Mengele
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Mengele was born the eldest of three children on 16 March 1911 to Karl and Walburga (Hupfauer) Mengele in Gunzburg, Bavaria, Germany. His younger brothers were Karl Jr and Alois. Mengele's father was founder of the Karl Mengele & Sons company, producers of farm machinery. Mengele did well in school and developed an interest in music, art, and skiing. He completed high school in April 1930 and went on to study medicine at Goethe University Frankfurt and philosophy at the University of Munich. Munich was the headquarters of the Nazi Party. In 1931 Mengele joined the Stahlhelm, Bund der Frontsoldaten, a paramilitary organization that was absorbed into the Nazi Sturmabteilung (Storm Detachment; SA) in 1934. In 1935, Mengele earned a PhD in anthropology from the University of Munich. In January 1937, at the Institute for Hereditary Biology and Racial Hygiene in Frankfurt, he became the assistant to Dr. Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer, a scientist conducting genetics research, with a particular interest in twins. As an assistant to von Verschuer, Mengele focused on the genetic factors resulting in a cleft lip and palate or cleft chin. His thesis on the subject earned him a cum laude doctorate in medicine in 1938. Both of his degrees were later rescinded by the issuing universities. In a letter of recommendation, von Verschuer praised Mengele's reliability and his ability to verbally present complex material in a clear manner. The American author Robert Jay Lifton notes that Mengele's published work did not deviate much from the scientific mainstream of the time, and would probably have been viewed as valid scientific efforts even outside Nazi Germany. On 28 July 1939, Mengele married Irene Schonbein, whom he had met while working as a medical resident in Leipzig. Their only son, Rolf, was born in 1944. The ideology of Nazism brought together elements of antisemitism, racial hygiene, and eugenics, and combined them with pan-Germanism and territorial expansionism with the goal of obtaining more Lebensraum (living space) for the Germanic people. Nazi Germany attempted to obtain this new territory by attacking Poland and the Soviet Union, intending to deport or kill the Jews and Slavs living there, who were considered inferior to the Aryan master race. Mengele joined the Nazi Party in 1937 and the Schutzstaffel (SS; protection squadron) in 1938. He received basic training in 1938 with the Gebirgsjager (mountain infantry) and was called up for service in the Wehrmacht (German armed forces) in June 1940, some months after the outbreak of World War II. He soon volunteered for medical service in the Waffen-SS, the combat arm of the SS, where he served with the rank of SS-Untersturmfuhrer (second lieutenant) in a medical reserve battalion until November 1940. He was next assigned to the SS-Rasse- und Siedlungshauptamt (SS Race and Resettlement Main Office) in Posen, evaluating candidates for Germanisation. In June 1941, Mengele was posted to Ukraine, where he was awarded the Iron Cross Second Class. In January 1942, he joined the 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking as a battalion medical officer. He rescued two German soldiers from a burning tank and was awarded the Iron Cross First Class, as well as the Wound Badge in Black and the Medal for the Care of the German People. He was seriously wounded in action near Rostov-on-Don in mid-1942, and was declared unfit for further active service. After recovery, he was transferred to the Race and Resettlement Office in Berlin. He also resumed his association with von Verschuer, who was at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics. Mengele was promoted to the rank of SS-Hauptsturmfuhrer (captain) in April 1943. In Buenos Aires, Argentina, Mengele worked as a carpenter while residing in a boarding house in the suburb of Vicente Lopez. After a few weeks he moved to the house of a Nazi sympathiser in the more affluent neighborhood of Florida, Buenos Aires. He next worked as a salesman for his family's farm equipment company, and beginning in 1951 he made frequent trips to Paraguay as sales representative for that region. An apartment in the center of Buenos Aires became his residence in 1953, the same year he used family funds to buy a part interest in a carpentry concern. In 1954 he rented a house in the suburb of Olivos. Files released by the Argentine government in 1992 indicate that Mengele may have practiced medicine without a license, including performing abortions, while living in Buenos Aires. After obtaining a copy of his birth certificate through the West German embassy in 1956, Mengele was issued an Argentine foreign residence permit under his real name. He used this document to obtain a West German passport, also under his real name, and embarked for a visit to Europe. He met up in Switzerland for a ski holiday with his son Rolf (who was told Mengele was his "Uncle Fritz") and his widowed sister-in-law Martha, and spent a week in his home town of Gunzburg. Upon his return to Argentina in September, Mengele began living under his real name. Martha and her son Karl Heinz followed about a month later, and the three took up residence together. The couple married while on holiday in Uruguay in 1958 and bought a house in Buenos Aires. Business interests now included part ownership of Fadro Farm, a pharmaceutical company. Along with several other doctors, Mengele was questioned and released in 1958 under suspicion of practicing medicine without a license after a teenage girl died following an abortion. Worried that the publicity would lead to his Nazi background and wartime activities being discovered, he took an extended business trip to Paraguay and was granted citizenship under the name Jose Mengele in 1959. He returned to Buenos Aires several times to wrap up his business affairs and visit his family. Martha and Karl Heinz lived in a boarding house in the city until December 1960, when they returned to Germany. Mengele's name was mentioned several times during the Nuremberg trials, but Allied forces were convinced that he was dead. Irene and the family in Gunzburg also said that he was dead. Working in West Germany, Nazi hunters Simon Wiesenthal and Hermann Langbein collected information from witnesses as to Mengele's wartime activities. In a search of the public records, Langbein found Mengele's divorce papers listing an address in Buenos Aires. He and Wiesenthal pressured West German authorities into drawing up an arrest warrant on 5 June 1959, and starting extradition proceedings. Initially Argentina turned down the request, because the fugitive was no longer living at the address given on the documents. By the time extradition was approved on 30 June 1960, Mengele had already fled to Paraguay, where he was living on a farm near the Argentine border. CANNOTANSWER
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1937, at the Institute for Hereditary Biology and Racial Hygiene in Frankfurt, he became the assistant to Dr. Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer,
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Josef Mengele (; 16 March 19117 February 1979), also known as the Angel of Death (), was a German (SS) officer and physician during World War II. He is mainly remembered for his actions at the Auschwitz concentration camp, where he performed deadly experiments on prisoners, as a member of the team of doctors who selected victims to be killed in the gas chambers and as one of the doctors who administered the gas. With Red Army troops sweeping through German-occupied Poland, Mengele was transferred from Auschwitz to the Gross-Rosen concentration camp on 17 January 1945, ten days before the arrival of the Soviet forces at Auschwitz.
Before the war, Mengele had received doctorates in anthropology and medicine, and began a career as a researcher. He joined the Nazi Party in 1937 and the SS in 1938. He was assigned as a battalion medical officer at the start of World War II, then transferred to the Nazi concentration camps service in early 1943 and assigned to Auschwitz, where he saw the opportunity to conduct genetic research on human subjects. His experiments focused primarily on twins, with no regard for the health or safety of the victims.
After the war, Mengele fled to South America. He sailed to Argentina in July 1949, assisted by a network of former SS members. He initially lived in and around Buenos Aires, then fled to Paraguay in 1959 and Brazil in 1960, all the while being sought by West Germany, Israel, and Nazi hunters such as Simon Wiesenthal, who wanted to bring him to trial. Mengele eluded capture in spite of extradition requests by the West German government and clandestine operations by the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad. He drowned in 1979 after suffering a stroke while swimming off the coast of Bertioga, and was buried under the false name of Wolfgang Gerhard. His remains were disinterred and positively identified by forensic examination in 1985.
Early life
Mengele was born in Günzburg on 16 March 1911, the eldest of three sons of Walburga ( Hupfauer) and Karl Mengele. His two younger brothers were Karl Jr. and Alois. Their father was founder of the Karl Mengele & Sons company (later renamed as ), which produced farming machinery. Mengele was successful at school and developed an interest in music, art, and skiing. He completed high school in April 1930 and went on to study philosophy in Munich, where the headquarters of the Nazi Party were located. In 1931 he joined , a paramilitary organization that was absorbed into the Nazi ('Storm Detachment'; SA) in 1934. In 1935, Mengele earned a PhD in anthropology from the University of Munich. In January 1937, he joined the Institute for Hereditary Biology and Racial Hygiene in Frankfurt, where he worked for Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer, a German geneticist with a particular interest in researching twins.
As Von Verschuer's assistant, Mengele focused on the genetic factors that result in a cleft lip and palate, or a cleft chin. His thesis on the subject earned him a doctorate in medicine (MD) from the University of Frankfurt in 1938. (Both of his degrees were revoked by the issuing universities in the 1960s.) In a letter of recommendation, Von Verschuer praised Mengele's reliability and his ability to verbally present complex material in a clear manner. The American author Robert Jay Lifton notes that Mengele's published works were in keeping with the scientific mainstream of the time, and would probably have been viewed as valid scientific efforts even outside Nazi Germany.
On 28 July 1939, Mengele married Irene Schönbein, whom he had met while working as a medical resident in Leipzig. Their only son, Rolf, was born in 1944.
Military service
The ideology of Nazism brought together elements of antisemitism, racial hygiene, and eugenics, and combined them with pan-Germanism and territorial expansionism with the goal of obtaining more (living space) for the Germanic people. Nazi Germany attempted to obtain this new territory by attacking Poland and the Soviet Union, intending to deport or kill the Jews and Slavs living there, who were considered by the Nazis to be inferior to the Aryan master race.
Mengele joined the Nazi Party in 1937 and the (SS; 'Protection Squadron') in 1938. He received basic training in 1938 with the ('light infantry mountain troop') and was called up for service in the (Nazi armed forces) in June 1940, some months after the outbreak of World War II. He soon volunteered for medical service in the , the combat arm of the SS, where he served with the rank of SS- ('second lieutenant') in a medical reserve battalion until November 1940. He was next assigned to the ('SS Race and Settlement Main Office') in Poznań, evaluating candidates for Germanization.
In June 1941 Mengele was posted to Ukraine, where he was awarded the Iron Cross 2nd Class. In January 1942, he joined the 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking as a battalion medical officer. After rescuing two German soldiers from a burning tank, he was decorated with the Iron Cross 1st Class, the Wound Badge in Black, and the Medal for the Care of the German People. He was declared unfit for further active service in mid-1942, when he was seriously wounded in action near Rostov-on-Don. Following his recovery, he was transferred to the headquarters of the SS Race and Settlement Main Office in Berlin, at which point he resumed his association with Von Verschuer, who was now director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics. Mengele was promoted to the rank of SS- ('captain') in April 1943.
Auschwitz
In 1942 Auschwitz II (Birkenau), originally intended to house slave laborers, began to be used instead as a combined labour camp and extermination camp. Prisoners were transported there by rail from all over Nazi-controlled Europe, arriving in daily convoys. By July 1942, SS doctors were conducting "selections" where incoming Jews were segregated, and those considered able to work were admitted into the camp while those deemed unfit for labor were immediately killed in the gas chambers. The arrivals that were selected to die, about three-quarters of the total, included almost all children, women with small children, pregnant women, all the elderly, and all of those who appeared (in a brief and superficial inspection by an SS doctor) to be not completely fit and healthy.
In early 1943, Von Verschuer encouraged Mengele to apply for a transfer to the concentration camp service. Mengele's application was accepted and he was posted to Auschwitz, where he was appointed by SS- Eduard Wirths, chief medical officer at Auschwitz, to the position of chief physician of the (Romani family camp) at Birkenau, a subcamp located on the main Auschwitz complex. The SS doctors did not administer treatment to the Auschwitz inmates but supervised the activities of inmate doctors who had been forced to work in the camp medical service. As part of his duties, Mengele made weekly visits to the hospital barracks and ordered any prisoners who had not recovered after two weeks in bed to be sent to the gas chambers.
Mengele's work also involved carrying out selections, a task that he chose to perform even when he was not assigned to do so, in the hope of finding subjects for his experiments, with a particular interest in locating sets of twins. In contrast to most of the other SS doctors, who viewed selections as one of their most stressful and unpleasant duties, he undertook the task with a flamboyant air, often smiling or whistling. He was one of the SS doctors responsible for supervising the administration of Zyklon B, the cyanide-based pesticide that was used for the mass killings in the Birkenau gas chambers. He served in this capacity at the gas chambers located in crematoria IV and V.
When an outbreak of noma—a gangrenous bacterial disease of the mouth and face—struck the Romani camp in 1943, Mengele initiated a study to determine the cause of the disease and develop a treatment. He enlisted the assistance of prisoner Berthold Epstein, a Jewish pediatrician and professor at Prague University. The patients were isolated in separate barracks and several afflicted children were killed so that their preserved heads and organs could be sent to the SS Medical Academy in Graz and other facilities for study. This research was still ongoing when the Romani camp was liquidated and its remaining occupants killed in 1944.
When a typhus epidemic began in the women's camp, Mengele cleared one block of six hundred Jewish women and sent them to their deaths in the gas chambers. The building was then cleaned and disinfected and the occupants of a neighboring block were bathed, de–loused, and given new clothing before being moved into the clean block. This process was repeated until all of the barracks were disinfected. Similar procedures were used for later epidemics of scarlet fever and other diseases, with infected prisoners being killed in the gas chambers. For these actions, Mengele was awarded the War Merit Cross (Second Class with swords) and was promoted in 1944 to First Physician of the Birkenau subcamp.
Human experimentation
Mengele used Auschwitz as an opportunity to continue his anthropological studies and research into heredity, using inmates for human experimentation. His medical procedures showed no consideration for the victims' health, safety, or physical and emotional suffering. He was particularly interested in identical twins, people with heterochromia iridum (eyes of two different colors), dwarfs, and people with physical abnormalities. A grant was provided by the ('German Research Foundation'), at the request of Von Verschuer, who received regular reports and shipments of specimens from Mengele. The grant was used to build a pathology laboratory attached to Crematorium II at Auschwitz II-Birkenau. Miklós Nyiszli, a Hungarian Jewish pathologist who arrived in Auschwitz on 29 May 1944, performed dissections and prepared specimens for shipment in this laboratory. The twin research was in part intended to prove the supremacy of heredity over the environment and thus strengthen the Nazi premise of the genetic superiority of the Aryan race. Nyiszli and others reported that the twin studies may also have been motivated by an intention to increase the reproduction rate of the German race by improving the chances of racially desirable people having twins.
Mengele's research subjects were better fed and housed than the other prisoners, and temporarily spared from execution in the gas chambers. His research subjects lived in their own barracks, where they were provided with a marginally better quality of food and somewhat improved living conditions than the other areas of the camp. When visiting his young subjects, he introduced himself as "Uncle Mengele" and offered them sweets, while at the same time being personally responsible for the deaths of an unknown number of victims whom he killed via lethal injection, shootings, beatings, and his deadly experiments. In his 1986 book, Lifton describes Mengele as sadistic, lacking empathy, and extremely antisemitic, believing the Jews should be eliminated as an inferior and dangerous race. Rolf Mengele later claimed that his father had shown no remorse for his wartime activities.
A former Auschwitz inmate doctor said of Mengele:
Twins were subjected to weekly examinations and measurements of their physical attributes by Mengele or one of his assistants. The experiments he performed on twins included unnecessary amputation of limbs, intentionally infecting one twin with typhus or some other disease, and transfusing the blood of one twin into the other. Many of the victims died while undergoing these procedures, and those who survived the experiments were sometimes killed and their bodies dissected once Mengele had no further use for them. Nyiszli recalled one occasion on which Mengele personally killed fourteen twins in one night by injecting their hearts with chloroform. If one twin died from disease, he would kill the other twin to allow comparative post-mortem reports to be produced for research purposes.
Mengele's eye experiments included attempts to change the eye color by injecting chemicals into the eyes of living subjects, and he killed people with heterochromatic eyes so that the eyes could be removed and sent to Berlin for study. His experiments on dwarfs and people with physical abnormalities included taking physical measurements, drawing blood, extracting healthy teeth, and treatment with unnecessary drugs and X-rays. Many of his victims were dispatched to the gas chambers after about two weeks, and their skeletons were sent to Berlin for further analysis. Mengele sought out pregnant women, on whom he would perform experiments before sending them to the gas chambers. Alex Dekel, a survivor, reports witnessing Mengele performing vivisection without anesthesia, removing hearts and stomachs of victims. Yitzhak Ganon, another survivor, reported in 2009 how Mengele removed his kidney without anesthesia. He was forced to return to work without painkillers. Witness Vera Alexander described how Mengele sewed two Romani twins together, back to back, in a crude attempt to create conjoined twins; both children died of gangrene after several days of suffering.
After Auschwitz
Along with several other Auschwitz doctors, Mengele transferred to Gross-Rosen concentration camp in Lower Silesia on 17 January 1945, taking with him two boxes of specimens and the records of his experiments at Auschwitz. Most of the camp medical records had already been destroyed by the SS by the time the Red Army liberated Auschwitz on 27 January. Mengele fled Gross-Rosen on 18 February, a week before the Soviets arrived there, and traveled westward to Žatec in Czechoslovakia, disguised as a officer. There he temporarily entrusted his incriminating documents to a nurse with whom he had struck up a relationship. He and his unit then hurried west to avoid being captured by the Soviets, but were taken prisoners of war by the Americans in June 1945. Although Mengele was initially registered under his own name, he was not identified as being on the major war criminal list due to the disorganization of the Allies regarding the distribution of wanted lists, and the fact that he did not have the usual SS blood group tattoo. He was released at the end of July and obtained false papers under the name "Fritz Ullman", documents he later altered to read "Fritz Hollmann".
After several months on the run, including a trip back to the Soviet-occupied area to recover his Auschwitz records, Mengele found work near Rosenheim as a farmhand. He eventually escaped from Germany on 17 April 1949, convinced that his capture would mean a trial and death sentence. Assisted by a network of former SS members, he used the ratline to travel to Genoa, where he obtained a passport from the International Committee of the Red Cross under the alias "Helmut Gregor", and sailed to Argentina in July 1949. His wife refused to accompany him, and they divorced in 1954.
In South America
Mengele worked as a carpenter in Buenos Aires, Argentina, while lodging in a boarding house in the suburb of Vicente López. After a few weeks, he moved to the house of a Nazi sympathizer in the more affluent neighborhood of Florida Este. He next worked as a salesman for his family's farm equipment company, Karl Mengele & Sons, and in 1951 he began making frequent trips to Paraguay as a regional sales representative. He moved into an apartment in central Buenos Aires in 1953, used family funds to buy a part interest in a carpentry concern, and then rented a house in the suburb of Olivos in 1954. Files released by the Argentine government in 1992 indicate that Mengele may have practiced medicine without a license while living in Buenos Aires, including performing abortions.
After obtaining a copy of his birth certificate through the West German embassy in 1956, Mengele was issued with an Argentine foreign residence permit under his real name. He used this document to obtain a West German passport, using his real name and embarked on a trip to Europe. He met with his son Rolf (who was told Mengele was his "Uncle Fritz") and his widowed sister-in-law Martha, for a ski holiday in Switzerland; he also spent a week in his home town of Günzburg. When he returned to Argentina in September 1956, Mengele began living under his real name. Martha and her son Karl Heinz followed about a month later, and the three began living together. Josef and Martha were married in 1958 while on holiday in Uruguay, and they bought a house in Buenos Aires. Mengele's business interests now included part ownership of Fadro Farm, a pharmaceutical company. Along with several other doctors, he was questioned in 1958 on suspicion of practicing medicine without a license when a teenage girl died after an abortion, but he was released without charge. Aware that the publicity could lead to his Nazi background and wartime activities being discovered, he took an extended business trip to Paraguay and was granted citizenship there in 1959 under the name "José Mengele". He returned to Buenos Aires several times to settle his business affairs and visit his family. Martha and Karl lived in a boarding house in the city until December 1960, when they returned to West Germany.
Mengele's name was mentioned several times during the Nuremberg trials in the mid-1940s, but the Allied forces believed that he was probably already dead. Irene Mengele and the family in Günzburg also alleged that he had died. Working in West Germany, Nazi hunters Simon Wiesenthal and Hermann Langbein collected information from witnesses about Mengele's wartime activities. In a search of the public records, Langbein discovered Mengele's divorce papers, which listed an address in Buenos Aires. He and Wiesenthal pressured the West German authorities into starting extradition proceedings, and an arrest warrant was drawn up on 5 June 1959. Argentina initially refused the extradition request because the fugitive was no longer living at the address given on the documents; by the time extradition was approved on 30 June, Mengele had already fled to Paraguay and was living on a farm near the Argentine border.
Efforts by Mossad
In May 1960, Isser Harel, director of the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, personally led the successful effort to capture Adolf Eichmann in Buenos Aires. He was hoping to track down Mengele so that he too could be brought to trial in Israel. Under interrogation, Eichmann provided the address of a boarding house that had been used as a safe house for Nazi fugitives. Surveillance of the house did not reveal Mengele or any members of his family and the neighborhood postman claimed that although Mengele had recently been receiving letters there under his real name, he had since relocated without leaving a forwarding address. Harel's inquiries at a machine shop where Mengele had been part owner also failed to generate any leads, so he was forced to abandon the search.
Despite having provided Mengele with legal documents using his real name in 1956 (which had enabled him to formalize his permanent residency in Argentina), West Germany was now offering a reward for his capture. Continuing newspaper coverage of his wartime activities, with accompanying photographs, led the fugitive to relocate once again in 1960. Former pilot Hans-Ulrich Rudel put him in touch with the Nazi supporter Wolfgang Gerhard, who helped Mengele to cross the border into Brazil. He stayed with Gerhard on his farm near São Paulo until more permanent accommodation could be found, which came about with Hungarian expatriates Géza and Gitta Stammer. The couple bought a farm in Nova Europa with the help of an investment from Mengele, who was given the job of managing for them. The three bought a coffee and cattle farm in Serra Negra in 1962, with Mengele owning a half interest. Gerhard had initially told the Stammers that the fugitive's name was "Peter Hochbichler", but they discovered his true identity in 1963. Gerhard persuaded the couple not to report Mengele's location to the authorities by convincing them that they themselves could be implicated for harboring a fugitive. In February 1961, West Germany widened its extradition request to include Brazil, having been tipped off to the possibility that Mengele had relocated there.
Meanwhile, Zvi Aharoni, one of the Mossad agents who had been involved in the Eichmann capture, was placed in charge of a team of agents tasked with tracking down Mengele and bringing him to trial in Israel. Their inquiries in Paraguay revealed no clues to his whereabouts, and they were unable to intercept any correspondence between Mengele and his wife Martha, who by this time was living in Italy. Agents who were following Rudel's movements also failed to produce any leads. Aharoni and his team followed Gerhard to a rural area near São Paulo, where they identified a European man whom they believed to be Mengele. This potential breakthrough was reported to Harel, but the logistics of staging a capture, the budgetary constraints of the search operation, and the priority of focusing on Israel's deteriorating relationship with Egypt led the Mossad chief to call off the manhunt in 1962.
Later life and death
In 1969, Mengele and the Stammers jointly purchased a farmhouse in Caieiras, with Mengele as half owner. When Wolfgang Gerhard returned to Germany in 1971 to seek medical treatment for his ailing wife and son, he gave his identity card to Mengele. The Stammers' friendship with Mengele deteriorated in late 1974, and when they bought a house in São Paulo, he was not invited to join them. The Stammers later bought a bungalow in the Eldorado neighborhood of Diadema, São Paulo, which they rented out to Mengele. Rolf, who had not seen his father since the ski holiday in 1956, visited him at the bungalow in 1977; he found an "unrepentant Nazi" who claimed he had never personally harmed anyone and only carried out his duties as an officer.
Mengele's health had been steadily deteriorating since 1972. He suffered a stroke in 1976, experienced high blood pressure, and developed an ear infection which affected his balance. On 7 February 1979, while visiting his friends Wolfram and Liselotte Bossert in the coastal resort of Bertioga, Mengele suffered another stroke while swimming and drowned. His body was buried in Embu das Artes under the name "Wolfgang Gerhard", whose identification Mengele had been using since 1971. Other aliases used by Mengele in his later life included "Dr. Fausto Rindón" and "S. Josi Alvers Aspiazu".
Exhumation
Meanwhile, sightings of Mengele were being reported all over the world. Wiesenthal claimed to have information that placed Mengele on the Greek island of Kythnos in 1960, in Cairo in 1961, in Spain in 1971, and in Paraguay in 1978, eighteen years after he had left the country. He insisted as late as 1985 that Mengele was still alive—six years after he had died—having previously offered a reward of US$100,000 () in 1982 for the fugitive's capture. Worldwide interest in the case was heightened by a mock trial held in Jerusalem in February 1985, featuring the testimonies of over one hundred victims of Mengele's experiments. Shortly afterwards, the West German, Israeli, and U.S. governments launched a coordinated effort to determine Mengele's whereabouts. The West German and Israeli governments offered rewards for his capture, as did The Washington Times and the Simon Wiesenthal Center.
On 31 May 1985, acting on intelligence received by the West German prosecutor's office, police raided the house of Hans Sedlmeier, a lifelong friend of Mengele and sales manager of the family firm in Günzburg. They found a coded address book and copies of letters sent to and received from Mengele. Among the papers was a letter from Wolfram Bossert notifying Sedlmeier of Mengele's death. German authorities alerted the police in São Paulo, who then contacted the Bosserts. Under interrogation, they revealed the location of Mengele's grave and the remains were exhumed on 6 June 1985. Extensive forensic examination indicated with a high degree of probability that the body was indeed that of Josef Mengele. Rolf Mengele issued a statement on 10 June confirming that the body was his father's and he admitted that the news of his father's death had been concealed in order to protect the people who had sheltered him for many years.
In 1992, DNA testing confirmed Mengele's identity beyond doubt, but family members refused repeated requests by Brazilian officials to repatriate the remains to Germany. The skeleton is stored at the São Paulo Institute for Forensic Medicine, where it is used as an educational aid during forensic medicine courses at the University of São Paulo's medical school.
Later developments
In 2007, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum received as a donation the Höcker Album, an album of photographs of Auschwitz staff taken by Karl-Friedrich Höcker. Eight of the photographs include Mengele.
In February 2010, a 180-page volume of Mengele's diary was sold by Alexander Autographs at auction for an undisclosed sum to the grandson of a Holocaust survivor. The unidentified previous owner, who acquired the journals in Brazil, was reported to be close to the Mengele family. A Holocaust survivors' organization described the sale as "a cynical act of exploitation aimed at profiting from the writings of one of the most heinous Nazi criminals". Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center was glad to see the diary fall into Jewish hands. "At a time when Ahmadinejad's Iran regularly denies the Holocaust and anti-Semitism and hatred of Jews is back in vogue, this acquisition is especially significant", he said. In 2011, a further 31 volumes of Mengele's diaries were sold—again amidst protests—by the same auction house to an undisclosed collector of World War II memorabilia for US$245,000.
Publications
Racial-Morphological Examinations of the Anterior Portion of the Lower Jaw in Four Racial Groups. This dissertation, completed in 1935 and first published in 1937, earned him a PhD in anthropology from Munich University. In this work Mengele sought to demonstrate that there were structural differences in the lower jaws of individuals from different ethnic groups, and that racial distinctions could be made based on these differences.
Genealogical Studies in the Cases of Cleft Lip-Jaw-Palate (1938), his medical dissertation, earned him a doctorate in medicine from Frankfurt University. Studying the influence of genetics as a factor in the occurrence of this deformity, Mengele conducted research on families who exhibited these traits in multiple generations. The work also included notes on other abnormalities found in these family lines.
Hereditary Transmission of Fistulae Auris. This journal article, published in ('The Genetic Physician'), focuses on fistula auris (an abnormal fissure on the external ear) as a hereditary trait. Mengele noted that individuals who have this trait also tend to have a dimple on their chin.
See also
Angel of Death (Slayer song)
Aribert Heim
Carl Clauberg
Eva Mozes Kor
Grigory Mairanovsky
Hans Münch
Kurt Blome
Nazi eugenics
Shirō Ishii
The Boys from Brazil (novel)
References
Informational notes
Citations
Bibliography
Further reading
External links
1911 births
1979 deaths
20th-century anthropologists
20th-century German non-fiction writers
Accidental deaths in Brazil
Auschwitz concentration camp personnel
Burials in São Paulo (state)
Combat medics
Deaths by drowning
Fugitives
Fugitives wanted by Germany
German anthropologists
German eugenicists
German expatriates in Argentina
German expatriates in Brazil
German expatriates in Italy
German male non-fiction writers
German medical writers
German military doctors
Holocaust perpetrators in Poland
Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich alumni
Nazi human subject research
Nazis in South America
Nazi war criminals
People associated with the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics
People from Günzburg
People from the Kingdom of Bavaria
People who died at sea
Physicians in the Nazi Party
Recipients of the Iron Cross (1939), 1st class
Romani genocide perpetrators
SS-Hauptsturmführer
Waffen-SS personnel
| false |
[
"\"Be Someone Else\" is a song by Slimmy, released in 2010 as the lead single from his second studio album Be Someone Else. The single wasn't particularly successful, charting anywhere.\nA music video was also made for \"Be Someone Else\", produced by Riot Films. It premiered on 27 June 2010 on YouTube.\n\nBackground\n\"Be Someone Else\" was unveiled as the album's lead single. The song was written by Fernandes and produced by Quico Serrano and Mark J Turner. It was released to MySpace on 1 January 2010.\n\nMusic video\nA music video was also made for \"Be Someone Else\", produced by Riot Films. It premiered on 27 June 2010 on YouTube. The music video features two different scenes which alternate with each other many times during the video. The first scene features Slimmy performing the song with an electric guitar and the second scene features Slimmy performing with the band in the background.\n\nChart performance\nThe single wasn't particularly successful, charting anywhere.\n\nLive performances\n A Very Slimmy Tour\n Be Someone Else Tour\n\nTrack listing\n\nDigital single\n\"Be Someone Else\" (album version) - 3:22\n\nPersonnel\nTaken from the album's booklet.\n\nPaulo Fernandes – main vocals, guitar\nPaulo Garim – bass\nTó-Zé – drums\n\nRelease history\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nOfficial music video at YouTube.\n\n2010 singles\nEnglish-language Portuguese songs\n2009 songs",
"Grouvellina radama is a species of ground beetle in the subfamily Rhysodinae. It was described by R.T. & J.R. Bell in 1979.\nIt is native to Madagascar and it is unknown whether it lives anywhere else.\n\nReferences\n\nGrouvellina\nBeetles described in 1979"
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"Josef Mengele",
"In South America",
"Wht was he doing in south america?",
"Mengele worked as a carpenter while residing in a boarding house in the suburb of Vicente Lopez.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"In 1935, Mengele earned a PhD in anthropology from the University of Munich.",
"Did he attend anywhere else?",
"1937, at the Institute for Hereditary Biology and Racial Hygiene in Frankfurt, he became the assistant to Dr. Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer,"
] |
C_b4a58b5a57fe49a498759ec3ef1ea45b_1
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Did he teach?
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Did Josef Mengele teach?
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Josef Mengele
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Mengele was born the eldest of three children on 16 March 1911 to Karl and Walburga (Hupfauer) Mengele in Gunzburg, Bavaria, Germany. His younger brothers were Karl Jr and Alois. Mengele's father was founder of the Karl Mengele & Sons company, producers of farm machinery. Mengele did well in school and developed an interest in music, art, and skiing. He completed high school in April 1930 and went on to study medicine at Goethe University Frankfurt and philosophy at the University of Munich. Munich was the headquarters of the Nazi Party. In 1931 Mengele joined the Stahlhelm, Bund der Frontsoldaten, a paramilitary organization that was absorbed into the Nazi Sturmabteilung (Storm Detachment; SA) in 1934. In 1935, Mengele earned a PhD in anthropology from the University of Munich. In January 1937, at the Institute for Hereditary Biology and Racial Hygiene in Frankfurt, he became the assistant to Dr. Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer, a scientist conducting genetics research, with a particular interest in twins. As an assistant to von Verschuer, Mengele focused on the genetic factors resulting in a cleft lip and palate or cleft chin. His thesis on the subject earned him a cum laude doctorate in medicine in 1938. Both of his degrees were later rescinded by the issuing universities. In a letter of recommendation, von Verschuer praised Mengele's reliability and his ability to verbally present complex material in a clear manner. The American author Robert Jay Lifton notes that Mengele's published work did not deviate much from the scientific mainstream of the time, and would probably have been viewed as valid scientific efforts even outside Nazi Germany. On 28 July 1939, Mengele married Irene Schonbein, whom he had met while working as a medical resident in Leipzig. Their only son, Rolf, was born in 1944. The ideology of Nazism brought together elements of antisemitism, racial hygiene, and eugenics, and combined them with pan-Germanism and territorial expansionism with the goal of obtaining more Lebensraum (living space) for the Germanic people. Nazi Germany attempted to obtain this new territory by attacking Poland and the Soviet Union, intending to deport or kill the Jews and Slavs living there, who were considered inferior to the Aryan master race. Mengele joined the Nazi Party in 1937 and the Schutzstaffel (SS; protection squadron) in 1938. He received basic training in 1938 with the Gebirgsjager (mountain infantry) and was called up for service in the Wehrmacht (German armed forces) in June 1940, some months after the outbreak of World War II. He soon volunteered for medical service in the Waffen-SS, the combat arm of the SS, where he served with the rank of SS-Untersturmfuhrer (second lieutenant) in a medical reserve battalion until November 1940. He was next assigned to the SS-Rasse- und Siedlungshauptamt (SS Race and Resettlement Main Office) in Posen, evaluating candidates for Germanisation. In June 1941, Mengele was posted to Ukraine, where he was awarded the Iron Cross Second Class. In January 1942, he joined the 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking as a battalion medical officer. He rescued two German soldiers from a burning tank and was awarded the Iron Cross First Class, as well as the Wound Badge in Black and the Medal for the Care of the German People. He was seriously wounded in action near Rostov-on-Don in mid-1942, and was declared unfit for further active service. After recovery, he was transferred to the Race and Resettlement Office in Berlin. He also resumed his association with von Verschuer, who was at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics. Mengele was promoted to the rank of SS-Hauptsturmfuhrer (captain) in April 1943. In Buenos Aires, Argentina, Mengele worked as a carpenter while residing in a boarding house in the suburb of Vicente Lopez. After a few weeks he moved to the house of a Nazi sympathiser in the more affluent neighborhood of Florida, Buenos Aires. He next worked as a salesman for his family's farm equipment company, and beginning in 1951 he made frequent trips to Paraguay as sales representative for that region. An apartment in the center of Buenos Aires became his residence in 1953, the same year he used family funds to buy a part interest in a carpentry concern. In 1954 he rented a house in the suburb of Olivos. Files released by the Argentine government in 1992 indicate that Mengele may have practiced medicine without a license, including performing abortions, while living in Buenos Aires. After obtaining a copy of his birth certificate through the West German embassy in 1956, Mengele was issued an Argentine foreign residence permit under his real name. He used this document to obtain a West German passport, also under his real name, and embarked for a visit to Europe. He met up in Switzerland for a ski holiday with his son Rolf (who was told Mengele was his "Uncle Fritz") and his widowed sister-in-law Martha, and spent a week in his home town of Gunzburg. Upon his return to Argentina in September, Mengele began living under his real name. Martha and her son Karl Heinz followed about a month later, and the three took up residence together. The couple married while on holiday in Uruguay in 1958 and bought a house in Buenos Aires. Business interests now included part ownership of Fadro Farm, a pharmaceutical company. Along with several other doctors, Mengele was questioned and released in 1958 under suspicion of practicing medicine without a license after a teenage girl died following an abortion. Worried that the publicity would lead to his Nazi background and wartime activities being discovered, he took an extended business trip to Paraguay and was granted citizenship under the name Jose Mengele in 1959. He returned to Buenos Aires several times to wrap up his business affairs and visit his family. Martha and Karl Heinz lived in a boarding house in the city until December 1960, when they returned to Germany. Mengele's name was mentioned several times during the Nuremberg trials, but Allied forces were convinced that he was dead. Irene and the family in Gunzburg also said that he was dead. Working in West Germany, Nazi hunters Simon Wiesenthal and Hermann Langbein collected information from witnesses as to Mengele's wartime activities. In a search of the public records, Langbein found Mengele's divorce papers listing an address in Buenos Aires. He and Wiesenthal pressured West German authorities into drawing up an arrest warrant on 5 June 1959, and starting extradition proceedings. Initially Argentina turned down the request, because the fugitive was no longer living at the address given on the documents. By the time extradition was approved on 30 June 1960, Mengele had already fled to Paraguay, where he was living on a farm near the Argentine border. CANNOTANSWER
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As an assistant to von Verschuer, Mengele focused on the genetic factors resulting in a cleft lip and palate or cleft chin. His thesis on the subject earned him a
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Josef Mengele (; 16 March 19117 February 1979), also known as the Angel of Death (), was a German (SS) officer and physician during World War II. He is mainly remembered for his actions at the Auschwitz concentration camp, where he performed deadly experiments on prisoners, as a member of the team of doctors who selected victims to be killed in the gas chambers and as one of the doctors who administered the gas. With Red Army troops sweeping through German-occupied Poland, Mengele was transferred from Auschwitz to the Gross-Rosen concentration camp on 17 January 1945, ten days before the arrival of the Soviet forces at Auschwitz.
Before the war, Mengele had received doctorates in anthropology and medicine, and began a career as a researcher. He joined the Nazi Party in 1937 and the SS in 1938. He was assigned as a battalion medical officer at the start of World War II, then transferred to the Nazi concentration camps service in early 1943 and assigned to Auschwitz, where he saw the opportunity to conduct genetic research on human subjects. His experiments focused primarily on twins, with no regard for the health or safety of the victims.
After the war, Mengele fled to South America. He sailed to Argentina in July 1949, assisted by a network of former SS members. He initially lived in and around Buenos Aires, then fled to Paraguay in 1959 and Brazil in 1960, all the while being sought by West Germany, Israel, and Nazi hunters such as Simon Wiesenthal, who wanted to bring him to trial. Mengele eluded capture in spite of extradition requests by the West German government and clandestine operations by the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad. He drowned in 1979 after suffering a stroke while swimming off the coast of Bertioga, and was buried under the false name of Wolfgang Gerhard. His remains were disinterred and positively identified by forensic examination in 1985.
Early life
Mengele was born in Günzburg on 16 March 1911, the eldest of three sons of Walburga ( Hupfauer) and Karl Mengele. His two younger brothers were Karl Jr. and Alois. Their father was founder of the Karl Mengele & Sons company (later renamed as ), which produced farming machinery. Mengele was successful at school and developed an interest in music, art, and skiing. He completed high school in April 1930 and went on to study philosophy in Munich, where the headquarters of the Nazi Party were located. In 1931 he joined , a paramilitary organization that was absorbed into the Nazi ('Storm Detachment'; SA) in 1934. In 1935, Mengele earned a PhD in anthropology from the University of Munich. In January 1937, he joined the Institute for Hereditary Biology and Racial Hygiene in Frankfurt, where he worked for Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer, a German geneticist with a particular interest in researching twins.
As Von Verschuer's assistant, Mengele focused on the genetic factors that result in a cleft lip and palate, or a cleft chin. His thesis on the subject earned him a doctorate in medicine (MD) from the University of Frankfurt in 1938. (Both of his degrees were revoked by the issuing universities in the 1960s.) In a letter of recommendation, Von Verschuer praised Mengele's reliability and his ability to verbally present complex material in a clear manner. The American author Robert Jay Lifton notes that Mengele's published works were in keeping with the scientific mainstream of the time, and would probably have been viewed as valid scientific efforts even outside Nazi Germany.
On 28 July 1939, Mengele married Irene Schönbein, whom he had met while working as a medical resident in Leipzig. Their only son, Rolf, was born in 1944.
Military service
The ideology of Nazism brought together elements of antisemitism, racial hygiene, and eugenics, and combined them with pan-Germanism and territorial expansionism with the goal of obtaining more (living space) for the Germanic people. Nazi Germany attempted to obtain this new territory by attacking Poland and the Soviet Union, intending to deport or kill the Jews and Slavs living there, who were considered by the Nazis to be inferior to the Aryan master race.
Mengele joined the Nazi Party in 1937 and the (SS; 'Protection Squadron') in 1938. He received basic training in 1938 with the ('light infantry mountain troop') and was called up for service in the (Nazi armed forces) in June 1940, some months after the outbreak of World War II. He soon volunteered for medical service in the , the combat arm of the SS, where he served with the rank of SS- ('second lieutenant') in a medical reserve battalion until November 1940. He was next assigned to the ('SS Race and Settlement Main Office') in Poznań, evaluating candidates for Germanization.
In June 1941 Mengele was posted to Ukraine, where he was awarded the Iron Cross 2nd Class. In January 1942, he joined the 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking as a battalion medical officer. After rescuing two German soldiers from a burning tank, he was decorated with the Iron Cross 1st Class, the Wound Badge in Black, and the Medal for the Care of the German People. He was declared unfit for further active service in mid-1942, when he was seriously wounded in action near Rostov-on-Don. Following his recovery, he was transferred to the headquarters of the SS Race and Settlement Main Office in Berlin, at which point he resumed his association with Von Verschuer, who was now director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics. Mengele was promoted to the rank of SS- ('captain') in April 1943.
Auschwitz
In 1942 Auschwitz II (Birkenau), originally intended to house slave laborers, began to be used instead as a combined labour camp and extermination camp. Prisoners were transported there by rail from all over Nazi-controlled Europe, arriving in daily convoys. By July 1942, SS doctors were conducting "selections" where incoming Jews were segregated, and those considered able to work were admitted into the camp while those deemed unfit for labor were immediately killed in the gas chambers. The arrivals that were selected to die, about three-quarters of the total, included almost all children, women with small children, pregnant women, all the elderly, and all of those who appeared (in a brief and superficial inspection by an SS doctor) to be not completely fit and healthy.
In early 1943, Von Verschuer encouraged Mengele to apply for a transfer to the concentration camp service. Mengele's application was accepted and he was posted to Auschwitz, where he was appointed by SS- Eduard Wirths, chief medical officer at Auschwitz, to the position of chief physician of the (Romani family camp) at Birkenau, a subcamp located on the main Auschwitz complex. The SS doctors did not administer treatment to the Auschwitz inmates but supervised the activities of inmate doctors who had been forced to work in the camp medical service. As part of his duties, Mengele made weekly visits to the hospital barracks and ordered any prisoners who had not recovered after two weeks in bed to be sent to the gas chambers.
Mengele's work also involved carrying out selections, a task that he chose to perform even when he was not assigned to do so, in the hope of finding subjects for his experiments, with a particular interest in locating sets of twins. In contrast to most of the other SS doctors, who viewed selections as one of their most stressful and unpleasant duties, he undertook the task with a flamboyant air, often smiling or whistling. He was one of the SS doctors responsible for supervising the administration of Zyklon B, the cyanide-based pesticide that was used for the mass killings in the Birkenau gas chambers. He served in this capacity at the gas chambers located in crematoria IV and V.
When an outbreak of noma—a gangrenous bacterial disease of the mouth and face—struck the Romani camp in 1943, Mengele initiated a study to determine the cause of the disease and develop a treatment. He enlisted the assistance of prisoner Berthold Epstein, a Jewish pediatrician and professor at Prague University. The patients were isolated in separate barracks and several afflicted children were killed so that their preserved heads and organs could be sent to the SS Medical Academy in Graz and other facilities for study. This research was still ongoing when the Romani camp was liquidated and its remaining occupants killed in 1944.
When a typhus epidemic began in the women's camp, Mengele cleared one block of six hundred Jewish women and sent them to their deaths in the gas chambers. The building was then cleaned and disinfected and the occupants of a neighboring block were bathed, de–loused, and given new clothing before being moved into the clean block. This process was repeated until all of the barracks were disinfected. Similar procedures were used for later epidemics of scarlet fever and other diseases, with infected prisoners being killed in the gas chambers. For these actions, Mengele was awarded the War Merit Cross (Second Class with swords) and was promoted in 1944 to First Physician of the Birkenau subcamp.
Human experimentation
Mengele used Auschwitz as an opportunity to continue his anthropological studies and research into heredity, using inmates for human experimentation. His medical procedures showed no consideration for the victims' health, safety, or physical and emotional suffering. He was particularly interested in identical twins, people with heterochromia iridum (eyes of two different colors), dwarfs, and people with physical abnormalities. A grant was provided by the ('German Research Foundation'), at the request of Von Verschuer, who received regular reports and shipments of specimens from Mengele. The grant was used to build a pathology laboratory attached to Crematorium II at Auschwitz II-Birkenau. Miklós Nyiszli, a Hungarian Jewish pathologist who arrived in Auschwitz on 29 May 1944, performed dissections and prepared specimens for shipment in this laboratory. The twin research was in part intended to prove the supremacy of heredity over the environment and thus strengthen the Nazi premise of the genetic superiority of the Aryan race. Nyiszli and others reported that the twin studies may also have been motivated by an intention to increase the reproduction rate of the German race by improving the chances of racially desirable people having twins.
Mengele's research subjects were better fed and housed than the other prisoners, and temporarily spared from execution in the gas chambers. His research subjects lived in their own barracks, where they were provided with a marginally better quality of food and somewhat improved living conditions than the other areas of the camp. When visiting his young subjects, he introduced himself as "Uncle Mengele" and offered them sweets, while at the same time being personally responsible for the deaths of an unknown number of victims whom he killed via lethal injection, shootings, beatings, and his deadly experiments. In his 1986 book, Lifton describes Mengele as sadistic, lacking empathy, and extremely antisemitic, believing the Jews should be eliminated as an inferior and dangerous race. Rolf Mengele later claimed that his father had shown no remorse for his wartime activities.
A former Auschwitz inmate doctor said of Mengele:
Twins were subjected to weekly examinations and measurements of their physical attributes by Mengele or one of his assistants. The experiments he performed on twins included unnecessary amputation of limbs, intentionally infecting one twin with typhus or some other disease, and transfusing the blood of one twin into the other. Many of the victims died while undergoing these procedures, and those who survived the experiments were sometimes killed and their bodies dissected once Mengele had no further use for them. Nyiszli recalled one occasion on which Mengele personally killed fourteen twins in one night by injecting their hearts with chloroform. If one twin died from disease, he would kill the other twin to allow comparative post-mortem reports to be produced for research purposes.
Mengele's eye experiments included attempts to change the eye color by injecting chemicals into the eyes of living subjects, and he killed people with heterochromatic eyes so that the eyes could be removed and sent to Berlin for study. His experiments on dwarfs and people with physical abnormalities included taking physical measurements, drawing blood, extracting healthy teeth, and treatment with unnecessary drugs and X-rays. Many of his victims were dispatched to the gas chambers after about two weeks, and their skeletons were sent to Berlin for further analysis. Mengele sought out pregnant women, on whom he would perform experiments before sending them to the gas chambers. Alex Dekel, a survivor, reports witnessing Mengele performing vivisection without anesthesia, removing hearts and stomachs of victims. Yitzhak Ganon, another survivor, reported in 2009 how Mengele removed his kidney without anesthesia. He was forced to return to work without painkillers. Witness Vera Alexander described how Mengele sewed two Romani twins together, back to back, in a crude attempt to create conjoined twins; both children died of gangrene after several days of suffering.
After Auschwitz
Along with several other Auschwitz doctors, Mengele transferred to Gross-Rosen concentration camp in Lower Silesia on 17 January 1945, taking with him two boxes of specimens and the records of his experiments at Auschwitz. Most of the camp medical records had already been destroyed by the SS by the time the Red Army liberated Auschwitz on 27 January. Mengele fled Gross-Rosen on 18 February, a week before the Soviets arrived there, and traveled westward to Žatec in Czechoslovakia, disguised as a officer. There he temporarily entrusted his incriminating documents to a nurse with whom he had struck up a relationship. He and his unit then hurried west to avoid being captured by the Soviets, but were taken prisoners of war by the Americans in June 1945. Although Mengele was initially registered under his own name, he was not identified as being on the major war criminal list due to the disorganization of the Allies regarding the distribution of wanted lists, and the fact that he did not have the usual SS blood group tattoo. He was released at the end of July and obtained false papers under the name "Fritz Ullman", documents he later altered to read "Fritz Hollmann".
After several months on the run, including a trip back to the Soviet-occupied area to recover his Auschwitz records, Mengele found work near Rosenheim as a farmhand. He eventually escaped from Germany on 17 April 1949, convinced that his capture would mean a trial and death sentence. Assisted by a network of former SS members, he used the ratline to travel to Genoa, where he obtained a passport from the International Committee of the Red Cross under the alias "Helmut Gregor", and sailed to Argentina in July 1949. His wife refused to accompany him, and they divorced in 1954.
In South America
Mengele worked as a carpenter in Buenos Aires, Argentina, while lodging in a boarding house in the suburb of Vicente López. After a few weeks, he moved to the house of a Nazi sympathizer in the more affluent neighborhood of Florida Este. He next worked as a salesman for his family's farm equipment company, Karl Mengele & Sons, and in 1951 he began making frequent trips to Paraguay as a regional sales representative. He moved into an apartment in central Buenos Aires in 1953, used family funds to buy a part interest in a carpentry concern, and then rented a house in the suburb of Olivos in 1954. Files released by the Argentine government in 1992 indicate that Mengele may have practiced medicine without a license while living in Buenos Aires, including performing abortions.
After obtaining a copy of his birth certificate through the West German embassy in 1956, Mengele was issued with an Argentine foreign residence permit under his real name. He used this document to obtain a West German passport, using his real name and embarked on a trip to Europe. He met with his son Rolf (who was told Mengele was his "Uncle Fritz") and his widowed sister-in-law Martha, for a ski holiday in Switzerland; he also spent a week in his home town of Günzburg. When he returned to Argentina in September 1956, Mengele began living under his real name. Martha and her son Karl Heinz followed about a month later, and the three began living together. Josef and Martha were married in 1958 while on holiday in Uruguay, and they bought a house in Buenos Aires. Mengele's business interests now included part ownership of Fadro Farm, a pharmaceutical company. Along with several other doctors, he was questioned in 1958 on suspicion of practicing medicine without a license when a teenage girl died after an abortion, but he was released without charge. Aware that the publicity could lead to his Nazi background and wartime activities being discovered, he took an extended business trip to Paraguay and was granted citizenship there in 1959 under the name "José Mengele". He returned to Buenos Aires several times to settle his business affairs and visit his family. Martha and Karl lived in a boarding house in the city until December 1960, when they returned to West Germany.
Mengele's name was mentioned several times during the Nuremberg trials in the mid-1940s, but the Allied forces believed that he was probably already dead. Irene Mengele and the family in Günzburg also alleged that he had died. Working in West Germany, Nazi hunters Simon Wiesenthal and Hermann Langbein collected information from witnesses about Mengele's wartime activities. In a search of the public records, Langbein discovered Mengele's divorce papers, which listed an address in Buenos Aires. He and Wiesenthal pressured the West German authorities into starting extradition proceedings, and an arrest warrant was drawn up on 5 June 1959. Argentina initially refused the extradition request because the fugitive was no longer living at the address given on the documents; by the time extradition was approved on 30 June, Mengele had already fled to Paraguay and was living on a farm near the Argentine border.
Efforts by Mossad
In May 1960, Isser Harel, director of the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, personally led the successful effort to capture Adolf Eichmann in Buenos Aires. He was hoping to track down Mengele so that he too could be brought to trial in Israel. Under interrogation, Eichmann provided the address of a boarding house that had been used as a safe house for Nazi fugitives. Surveillance of the house did not reveal Mengele or any members of his family and the neighborhood postman claimed that although Mengele had recently been receiving letters there under his real name, he had since relocated without leaving a forwarding address. Harel's inquiries at a machine shop where Mengele had been part owner also failed to generate any leads, so he was forced to abandon the search.
Despite having provided Mengele with legal documents using his real name in 1956 (which had enabled him to formalize his permanent residency in Argentina), West Germany was now offering a reward for his capture. Continuing newspaper coverage of his wartime activities, with accompanying photographs, led the fugitive to relocate once again in 1960. Former pilot Hans-Ulrich Rudel put him in touch with the Nazi supporter Wolfgang Gerhard, who helped Mengele to cross the border into Brazil. He stayed with Gerhard on his farm near São Paulo until more permanent accommodation could be found, which came about with Hungarian expatriates Géza and Gitta Stammer. The couple bought a farm in Nova Europa with the help of an investment from Mengele, who was given the job of managing for them. The three bought a coffee and cattle farm in Serra Negra in 1962, with Mengele owning a half interest. Gerhard had initially told the Stammers that the fugitive's name was "Peter Hochbichler", but they discovered his true identity in 1963. Gerhard persuaded the couple not to report Mengele's location to the authorities by convincing them that they themselves could be implicated for harboring a fugitive. In February 1961, West Germany widened its extradition request to include Brazil, having been tipped off to the possibility that Mengele had relocated there.
Meanwhile, Zvi Aharoni, one of the Mossad agents who had been involved in the Eichmann capture, was placed in charge of a team of agents tasked with tracking down Mengele and bringing him to trial in Israel. Their inquiries in Paraguay revealed no clues to his whereabouts, and they were unable to intercept any correspondence between Mengele and his wife Martha, who by this time was living in Italy. Agents who were following Rudel's movements also failed to produce any leads. Aharoni and his team followed Gerhard to a rural area near São Paulo, where they identified a European man whom they believed to be Mengele. This potential breakthrough was reported to Harel, but the logistics of staging a capture, the budgetary constraints of the search operation, and the priority of focusing on Israel's deteriorating relationship with Egypt led the Mossad chief to call off the manhunt in 1962.
Later life and death
In 1969, Mengele and the Stammers jointly purchased a farmhouse in Caieiras, with Mengele as half owner. When Wolfgang Gerhard returned to Germany in 1971 to seek medical treatment for his ailing wife and son, he gave his identity card to Mengele. The Stammers' friendship with Mengele deteriorated in late 1974, and when they bought a house in São Paulo, he was not invited to join them. The Stammers later bought a bungalow in the Eldorado neighborhood of Diadema, São Paulo, which they rented out to Mengele. Rolf, who had not seen his father since the ski holiday in 1956, visited him at the bungalow in 1977; he found an "unrepentant Nazi" who claimed he had never personally harmed anyone and only carried out his duties as an officer.
Mengele's health had been steadily deteriorating since 1972. He suffered a stroke in 1976, experienced high blood pressure, and developed an ear infection which affected his balance. On 7 February 1979, while visiting his friends Wolfram and Liselotte Bossert in the coastal resort of Bertioga, Mengele suffered another stroke while swimming and drowned. His body was buried in Embu das Artes under the name "Wolfgang Gerhard", whose identification Mengele had been using since 1971. Other aliases used by Mengele in his later life included "Dr. Fausto Rindón" and "S. Josi Alvers Aspiazu".
Exhumation
Meanwhile, sightings of Mengele were being reported all over the world. Wiesenthal claimed to have information that placed Mengele on the Greek island of Kythnos in 1960, in Cairo in 1961, in Spain in 1971, and in Paraguay in 1978, eighteen years after he had left the country. He insisted as late as 1985 that Mengele was still alive—six years after he had died—having previously offered a reward of US$100,000 () in 1982 for the fugitive's capture. Worldwide interest in the case was heightened by a mock trial held in Jerusalem in February 1985, featuring the testimonies of over one hundred victims of Mengele's experiments. Shortly afterwards, the West German, Israeli, and U.S. governments launched a coordinated effort to determine Mengele's whereabouts. The West German and Israeli governments offered rewards for his capture, as did The Washington Times and the Simon Wiesenthal Center.
On 31 May 1985, acting on intelligence received by the West German prosecutor's office, police raided the house of Hans Sedlmeier, a lifelong friend of Mengele and sales manager of the family firm in Günzburg. They found a coded address book and copies of letters sent to and received from Mengele. Among the papers was a letter from Wolfram Bossert notifying Sedlmeier of Mengele's death. German authorities alerted the police in São Paulo, who then contacted the Bosserts. Under interrogation, they revealed the location of Mengele's grave and the remains were exhumed on 6 June 1985. Extensive forensic examination indicated with a high degree of probability that the body was indeed that of Josef Mengele. Rolf Mengele issued a statement on 10 June confirming that the body was his father's and he admitted that the news of his father's death had been concealed in order to protect the people who had sheltered him for many years.
In 1992, DNA testing confirmed Mengele's identity beyond doubt, but family members refused repeated requests by Brazilian officials to repatriate the remains to Germany. The skeleton is stored at the São Paulo Institute for Forensic Medicine, where it is used as an educational aid during forensic medicine courses at the University of São Paulo's medical school.
Later developments
In 2007, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum received as a donation the Höcker Album, an album of photographs of Auschwitz staff taken by Karl-Friedrich Höcker. Eight of the photographs include Mengele.
In February 2010, a 180-page volume of Mengele's diary was sold by Alexander Autographs at auction for an undisclosed sum to the grandson of a Holocaust survivor. The unidentified previous owner, who acquired the journals in Brazil, was reported to be close to the Mengele family. A Holocaust survivors' organization described the sale as "a cynical act of exploitation aimed at profiting from the writings of one of the most heinous Nazi criminals". Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center was glad to see the diary fall into Jewish hands. "At a time when Ahmadinejad's Iran regularly denies the Holocaust and anti-Semitism and hatred of Jews is back in vogue, this acquisition is especially significant", he said. In 2011, a further 31 volumes of Mengele's diaries were sold—again amidst protests—by the same auction house to an undisclosed collector of World War II memorabilia for US$245,000.
Publications
Racial-Morphological Examinations of the Anterior Portion of the Lower Jaw in Four Racial Groups. This dissertation, completed in 1935 and first published in 1937, earned him a PhD in anthropology from Munich University. In this work Mengele sought to demonstrate that there were structural differences in the lower jaws of individuals from different ethnic groups, and that racial distinctions could be made based on these differences.
Genealogical Studies in the Cases of Cleft Lip-Jaw-Palate (1938), his medical dissertation, earned him a doctorate in medicine from Frankfurt University. Studying the influence of genetics as a factor in the occurrence of this deformity, Mengele conducted research on families who exhibited these traits in multiple generations. The work also included notes on other abnormalities found in these family lines.
Hereditary Transmission of Fistulae Auris. This journal article, published in ('The Genetic Physician'), focuses on fistula auris (an abnormal fissure on the external ear) as a hereditary trait. Mengele noted that individuals who have this trait also tend to have a dimple on their chin.
See also
Angel of Death (Slayer song)
Aribert Heim
Carl Clauberg
Eva Mozes Kor
Grigory Mairanovsky
Hans Münch
Kurt Blome
Nazi eugenics
Shirō Ishii
The Boys from Brazil (novel)
References
Informational notes
Citations
Bibliography
Further reading
External links
1911 births
1979 deaths
20th-century anthropologists
20th-century German non-fiction writers
Accidental deaths in Brazil
Auschwitz concentration camp personnel
Burials in São Paulo (state)
Combat medics
Deaths by drowning
Fugitives
Fugitives wanted by Germany
German anthropologists
German eugenicists
German expatriates in Argentina
German expatriates in Brazil
German expatriates in Italy
German male non-fiction writers
German medical writers
German military doctors
Holocaust perpetrators in Poland
Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich alumni
Nazi human subject research
Nazis in South America
Nazi war criminals
People associated with the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics
People from Günzburg
People from the Kingdom of Bavaria
People who died at sea
Physicians in the Nazi Party
Recipients of the Iron Cross (1939), 1st class
Romani genocide perpetrators
SS-Hauptsturmführer
Waffen-SS personnel
| false |
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"\"I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance with You\" is a song by American indie rock band Black Kids from their debut album, Partie Traumatic (2008). It was released as the band's debut single by Almost Gold Recordings on April 7, 2008, in the United Kingdom, and on May 27, 2008, in North America. The song peaked at number 11 on the UK Singles Chart but did not chart in the United States. The demo version from the band's 2007 EP Wizard of Ahhhs placed at number 68 on Pitchfork Media's Top 100 Tracks of 2007.\n\nBackground\nAccording to lead singer Reggie Youngblood, the track was inspired by Jacksonville's dance party scene: he realized that usually, he would end up with girls who couldn't dance. The line \"You are the girl, that I've been dreaming of, ever since I was a little girl\" is based on an inside joke between Reggie and his sister Ali Youngblood where they would refer to wanting something as \"Ever since I was a little girl\".\n\nReception\nIn a review of Partie Traumatic on AllMusic, Tim Sendra called \"I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance with You\" one of the best songs on the album, writing that it \"kick[s] you in the gut with [its] energy and verve.\" Commercially, the single performed well in the United Kingdom, debuting at number 84 on April 6, 2008, and rising to its peak of number 11 the following week. It became a minor hit in the Flanders region of Belgium, reaching number 10 on the Ultratip listing.\n\nTrack listings\nAll songs were written by Black Kids except where noted.\n\n7-inch single (pink vinyl)\nA. \"I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance with You\" – 3:39\nB. \"Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover\" – 2:26\n\nUK 12-inch single (white vinyl)\nA1. \"I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance with You\" – 3:39\nB1. \"I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance with You\" (The Twelves Remix) – 3:46\nB2. \"I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance with You\" (The Twelves Remix – Dub Version) – 3:46\n\nCD single and EP\n \"I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance with You\" – 3:39\n \"You Turn Me On\" – 2:50\n \"Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover\" – 2:26\n\nUS and Canadian digital download\n \"I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance with You\" – 3:40\n \"I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance with You\" (The Twelves Remix) – 3:44\n\nUK digital download EP\n \"I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance with You\" – 3:39\n \"You Turn Me On\" – 2:50\n \"Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover\" – 2:26\n \"I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance with You\" (The Twelves Remix) – 3:46\n\nPersonnel\n Owen Holmes – bass guitar\n Kevin Snow – drums\n Dawn Watley – keyboards and vocals\n Ali Youngblood – keyboards and vocals\n Reggie Youngblood – guitar and vocals\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nRelease history\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Official Black Kids website\n\n2008 debut singles\n2008 songs\nBlack Kids songs\nSongs about dancing",
"Charles L. Perkins is the Founder and Chief Scientist of Virtual Rendezvous. He co-wrote a popular book on Java in October, 1995 , and created some (now historical) Java class hierarchy diagrams .\n\nAn edited except of \"The Big Picture\" section (thru \"The Bytecodes Themselves\" ) of the book was published in the Premiere issue of Java Report, March 1996. He has written several other books, including a number of volumes in the \"Teach Yourself Java\" series.\n\nBooks written by Perkins\n\n1996:\nTeach Yourself Java in 21 Days ()\nTeach Yourself Java for Macintosh in 21 Days ()\nTeach Yourself Java in Cafe in 21 Days ()\nTeach Yourself Sunsoft Java Workshop in 21 Days ()\nTeach Yourself Java in 21 Days: Professional Reference Edition ()\n1997:\nTeach Yourself Java 1.1 In 21 Days () () (ASIN B000IQZY5M)\nTeach Yourself Java 1.1 for Macintosh in 21 Days ()\n2000:\nAd Hoc Networking. Boston, MA: Addison-Wesley, 2000.\n\nReferences\n\nTechnology writers\nLiving people\nYear of birth missing (living people)"
] |
[
"Josef Mengele",
"In South America",
"Wht was he doing in south america?",
"Mengele worked as a carpenter while residing in a boarding house in the suburb of Vicente Lopez.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"In 1935, Mengele earned a PhD in anthropology from the University of Munich.",
"Did he attend anywhere else?",
"1937, at the Institute for Hereditary Biology and Racial Hygiene in Frankfurt, he became the assistant to Dr. Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer,",
"Did he teach?",
"As an assistant to von Verschuer, Mengele focused on the genetic factors resulting in a cleft lip and palate or cleft chin. His thesis on the subject earned him a"
] |
C_b4a58b5a57fe49a498759ec3ef1ea45b_1
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What did this research earn him?
| 5 |
What did the research involving cleft lip and palate or cleft chin earn Josef Mengele?
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Josef Mengele
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Mengele was born the eldest of three children on 16 March 1911 to Karl and Walburga (Hupfauer) Mengele in Gunzburg, Bavaria, Germany. His younger brothers were Karl Jr and Alois. Mengele's father was founder of the Karl Mengele & Sons company, producers of farm machinery. Mengele did well in school and developed an interest in music, art, and skiing. He completed high school in April 1930 and went on to study medicine at Goethe University Frankfurt and philosophy at the University of Munich. Munich was the headquarters of the Nazi Party. In 1931 Mengele joined the Stahlhelm, Bund der Frontsoldaten, a paramilitary organization that was absorbed into the Nazi Sturmabteilung (Storm Detachment; SA) in 1934. In 1935, Mengele earned a PhD in anthropology from the University of Munich. In January 1937, at the Institute for Hereditary Biology and Racial Hygiene in Frankfurt, he became the assistant to Dr. Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer, a scientist conducting genetics research, with a particular interest in twins. As an assistant to von Verschuer, Mengele focused on the genetic factors resulting in a cleft lip and palate or cleft chin. His thesis on the subject earned him a cum laude doctorate in medicine in 1938. Both of his degrees were later rescinded by the issuing universities. In a letter of recommendation, von Verschuer praised Mengele's reliability and his ability to verbally present complex material in a clear manner. The American author Robert Jay Lifton notes that Mengele's published work did not deviate much from the scientific mainstream of the time, and would probably have been viewed as valid scientific efforts even outside Nazi Germany. On 28 July 1939, Mengele married Irene Schonbein, whom he had met while working as a medical resident in Leipzig. Their only son, Rolf, was born in 1944. The ideology of Nazism brought together elements of antisemitism, racial hygiene, and eugenics, and combined them with pan-Germanism and territorial expansionism with the goal of obtaining more Lebensraum (living space) for the Germanic people. Nazi Germany attempted to obtain this new territory by attacking Poland and the Soviet Union, intending to deport or kill the Jews and Slavs living there, who were considered inferior to the Aryan master race. Mengele joined the Nazi Party in 1937 and the Schutzstaffel (SS; protection squadron) in 1938. He received basic training in 1938 with the Gebirgsjager (mountain infantry) and was called up for service in the Wehrmacht (German armed forces) in June 1940, some months after the outbreak of World War II. He soon volunteered for medical service in the Waffen-SS, the combat arm of the SS, where he served with the rank of SS-Untersturmfuhrer (second lieutenant) in a medical reserve battalion until November 1940. He was next assigned to the SS-Rasse- und Siedlungshauptamt (SS Race and Resettlement Main Office) in Posen, evaluating candidates for Germanisation. In June 1941, Mengele was posted to Ukraine, where he was awarded the Iron Cross Second Class. In January 1942, he joined the 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking as a battalion medical officer. He rescued two German soldiers from a burning tank and was awarded the Iron Cross First Class, as well as the Wound Badge in Black and the Medal for the Care of the German People. He was seriously wounded in action near Rostov-on-Don in mid-1942, and was declared unfit for further active service. After recovery, he was transferred to the Race and Resettlement Office in Berlin. He also resumed his association with von Verschuer, who was at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics. Mengele was promoted to the rank of SS-Hauptsturmfuhrer (captain) in April 1943. In Buenos Aires, Argentina, Mengele worked as a carpenter while residing in a boarding house in the suburb of Vicente Lopez. After a few weeks he moved to the house of a Nazi sympathiser in the more affluent neighborhood of Florida, Buenos Aires. He next worked as a salesman for his family's farm equipment company, and beginning in 1951 he made frequent trips to Paraguay as sales representative for that region. An apartment in the center of Buenos Aires became his residence in 1953, the same year he used family funds to buy a part interest in a carpentry concern. In 1954 he rented a house in the suburb of Olivos. Files released by the Argentine government in 1992 indicate that Mengele may have practiced medicine without a license, including performing abortions, while living in Buenos Aires. After obtaining a copy of his birth certificate through the West German embassy in 1956, Mengele was issued an Argentine foreign residence permit under his real name. He used this document to obtain a West German passport, also under his real name, and embarked for a visit to Europe. He met up in Switzerland for a ski holiday with his son Rolf (who was told Mengele was his "Uncle Fritz") and his widowed sister-in-law Martha, and spent a week in his home town of Gunzburg. Upon his return to Argentina in September, Mengele began living under his real name. Martha and her son Karl Heinz followed about a month later, and the three took up residence together. The couple married while on holiday in Uruguay in 1958 and bought a house in Buenos Aires. Business interests now included part ownership of Fadro Farm, a pharmaceutical company. Along with several other doctors, Mengele was questioned and released in 1958 under suspicion of practicing medicine without a license after a teenage girl died following an abortion. Worried that the publicity would lead to his Nazi background and wartime activities being discovered, he took an extended business trip to Paraguay and was granted citizenship under the name Jose Mengele in 1959. He returned to Buenos Aires several times to wrap up his business affairs and visit his family. Martha and Karl Heinz lived in a boarding house in the city until December 1960, when they returned to Germany. Mengele's name was mentioned several times during the Nuremberg trials, but Allied forces were convinced that he was dead. Irene and the family in Gunzburg also said that he was dead. Working in West Germany, Nazi hunters Simon Wiesenthal and Hermann Langbein collected information from witnesses as to Mengele's wartime activities. In a search of the public records, Langbein found Mengele's divorce papers listing an address in Buenos Aires. He and Wiesenthal pressured West German authorities into drawing up an arrest warrant on 5 June 1959, and starting extradition proceedings. Initially Argentina turned down the request, because the fugitive was no longer living at the address given on the documents. By the time extradition was approved on 30 June 1960, Mengele had already fled to Paraguay, where he was living on a farm near the Argentine border. CANNOTANSWER
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a cum laude doctorate in medicine in 1938.
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Josef Mengele (; 16 March 19117 February 1979), also known as the Angel of Death (), was a German (SS) officer and physician during World War II. He is mainly remembered for his actions at the Auschwitz concentration camp, where he performed deadly experiments on prisoners, as a member of the team of doctors who selected victims to be killed in the gas chambers and as one of the doctors who administered the gas. With Red Army troops sweeping through German-occupied Poland, Mengele was transferred from Auschwitz to the Gross-Rosen concentration camp on 17 January 1945, ten days before the arrival of the Soviet forces at Auschwitz.
Before the war, Mengele had received doctorates in anthropology and medicine, and began a career as a researcher. He joined the Nazi Party in 1937 and the SS in 1938. He was assigned as a battalion medical officer at the start of World War II, then transferred to the Nazi concentration camps service in early 1943 and assigned to Auschwitz, where he saw the opportunity to conduct genetic research on human subjects. His experiments focused primarily on twins, with no regard for the health or safety of the victims.
After the war, Mengele fled to South America. He sailed to Argentina in July 1949, assisted by a network of former SS members. He initially lived in and around Buenos Aires, then fled to Paraguay in 1959 and Brazil in 1960, all the while being sought by West Germany, Israel, and Nazi hunters such as Simon Wiesenthal, who wanted to bring him to trial. Mengele eluded capture in spite of extradition requests by the West German government and clandestine operations by the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad. He drowned in 1979 after suffering a stroke while swimming off the coast of Bertioga, and was buried under the false name of Wolfgang Gerhard. His remains were disinterred and positively identified by forensic examination in 1985.
Early life
Mengele was born in Günzburg on 16 March 1911, the eldest of three sons of Walburga ( Hupfauer) and Karl Mengele. His two younger brothers were Karl Jr. and Alois. Their father was founder of the Karl Mengele & Sons company (later renamed as ), which produced farming machinery. Mengele was successful at school and developed an interest in music, art, and skiing. He completed high school in April 1930 and went on to study philosophy in Munich, where the headquarters of the Nazi Party were located. In 1931 he joined , a paramilitary organization that was absorbed into the Nazi ('Storm Detachment'; SA) in 1934. In 1935, Mengele earned a PhD in anthropology from the University of Munich. In January 1937, he joined the Institute for Hereditary Biology and Racial Hygiene in Frankfurt, where he worked for Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer, a German geneticist with a particular interest in researching twins.
As Von Verschuer's assistant, Mengele focused on the genetic factors that result in a cleft lip and palate, or a cleft chin. His thesis on the subject earned him a doctorate in medicine (MD) from the University of Frankfurt in 1938. (Both of his degrees were revoked by the issuing universities in the 1960s.) In a letter of recommendation, Von Verschuer praised Mengele's reliability and his ability to verbally present complex material in a clear manner. The American author Robert Jay Lifton notes that Mengele's published works were in keeping with the scientific mainstream of the time, and would probably have been viewed as valid scientific efforts even outside Nazi Germany.
On 28 July 1939, Mengele married Irene Schönbein, whom he had met while working as a medical resident in Leipzig. Their only son, Rolf, was born in 1944.
Military service
The ideology of Nazism brought together elements of antisemitism, racial hygiene, and eugenics, and combined them with pan-Germanism and territorial expansionism with the goal of obtaining more (living space) for the Germanic people. Nazi Germany attempted to obtain this new territory by attacking Poland and the Soviet Union, intending to deport or kill the Jews and Slavs living there, who were considered by the Nazis to be inferior to the Aryan master race.
Mengele joined the Nazi Party in 1937 and the (SS; 'Protection Squadron') in 1938. He received basic training in 1938 with the ('light infantry mountain troop') and was called up for service in the (Nazi armed forces) in June 1940, some months after the outbreak of World War II. He soon volunteered for medical service in the , the combat arm of the SS, where he served with the rank of SS- ('second lieutenant') in a medical reserve battalion until November 1940. He was next assigned to the ('SS Race and Settlement Main Office') in Poznań, evaluating candidates for Germanization.
In June 1941 Mengele was posted to Ukraine, where he was awarded the Iron Cross 2nd Class. In January 1942, he joined the 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking as a battalion medical officer. After rescuing two German soldiers from a burning tank, he was decorated with the Iron Cross 1st Class, the Wound Badge in Black, and the Medal for the Care of the German People. He was declared unfit for further active service in mid-1942, when he was seriously wounded in action near Rostov-on-Don. Following his recovery, he was transferred to the headquarters of the SS Race and Settlement Main Office in Berlin, at which point he resumed his association with Von Verschuer, who was now director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics. Mengele was promoted to the rank of SS- ('captain') in April 1943.
Auschwitz
In 1942 Auschwitz II (Birkenau), originally intended to house slave laborers, began to be used instead as a combined labour camp and extermination camp. Prisoners were transported there by rail from all over Nazi-controlled Europe, arriving in daily convoys. By July 1942, SS doctors were conducting "selections" where incoming Jews were segregated, and those considered able to work were admitted into the camp while those deemed unfit for labor were immediately killed in the gas chambers. The arrivals that were selected to die, about three-quarters of the total, included almost all children, women with small children, pregnant women, all the elderly, and all of those who appeared (in a brief and superficial inspection by an SS doctor) to be not completely fit and healthy.
In early 1943, Von Verschuer encouraged Mengele to apply for a transfer to the concentration camp service. Mengele's application was accepted and he was posted to Auschwitz, where he was appointed by SS- Eduard Wirths, chief medical officer at Auschwitz, to the position of chief physician of the (Romani family camp) at Birkenau, a subcamp located on the main Auschwitz complex. The SS doctors did not administer treatment to the Auschwitz inmates but supervised the activities of inmate doctors who had been forced to work in the camp medical service. As part of his duties, Mengele made weekly visits to the hospital barracks and ordered any prisoners who had not recovered after two weeks in bed to be sent to the gas chambers.
Mengele's work also involved carrying out selections, a task that he chose to perform even when he was not assigned to do so, in the hope of finding subjects for his experiments, with a particular interest in locating sets of twins. In contrast to most of the other SS doctors, who viewed selections as one of their most stressful and unpleasant duties, he undertook the task with a flamboyant air, often smiling or whistling. He was one of the SS doctors responsible for supervising the administration of Zyklon B, the cyanide-based pesticide that was used for the mass killings in the Birkenau gas chambers. He served in this capacity at the gas chambers located in crematoria IV and V.
When an outbreak of noma—a gangrenous bacterial disease of the mouth and face—struck the Romani camp in 1943, Mengele initiated a study to determine the cause of the disease and develop a treatment. He enlisted the assistance of prisoner Berthold Epstein, a Jewish pediatrician and professor at Prague University. The patients were isolated in separate barracks and several afflicted children were killed so that their preserved heads and organs could be sent to the SS Medical Academy in Graz and other facilities for study. This research was still ongoing when the Romani camp was liquidated and its remaining occupants killed in 1944.
When a typhus epidemic began in the women's camp, Mengele cleared one block of six hundred Jewish women and sent them to their deaths in the gas chambers. The building was then cleaned and disinfected and the occupants of a neighboring block were bathed, de–loused, and given new clothing before being moved into the clean block. This process was repeated until all of the barracks were disinfected. Similar procedures were used for later epidemics of scarlet fever and other diseases, with infected prisoners being killed in the gas chambers. For these actions, Mengele was awarded the War Merit Cross (Second Class with swords) and was promoted in 1944 to First Physician of the Birkenau subcamp.
Human experimentation
Mengele used Auschwitz as an opportunity to continue his anthropological studies and research into heredity, using inmates for human experimentation. His medical procedures showed no consideration for the victims' health, safety, or physical and emotional suffering. He was particularly interested in identical twins, people with heterochromia iridum (eyes of two different colors), dwarfs, and people with physical abnormalities. A grant was provided by the ('German Research Foundation'), at the request of Von Verschuer, who received regular reports and shipments of specimens from Mengele. The grant was used to build a pathology laboratory attached to Crematorium II at Auschwitz II-Birkenau. Miklós Nyiszli, a Hungarian Jewish pathologist who arrived in Auschwitz on 29 May 1944, performed dissections and prepared specimens for shipment in this laboratory. The twin research was in part intended to prove the supremacy of heredity over the environment and thus strengthen the Nazi premise of the genetic superiority of the Aryan race. Nyiszli and others reported that the twin studies may also have been motivated by an intention to increase the reproduction rate of the German race by improving the chances of racially desirable people having twins.
Mengele's research subjects were better fed and housed than the other prisoners, and temporarily spared from execution in the gas chambers. His research subjects lived in their own barracks, where they were provided with a marginally better quality of food and somewhat improved living conditions than the other areas of the camp. When visiting his young subjects, he introduced himself as "Uncle Mengele" and offered them sweets, while at the same time being personally responsible for the deaths of an unknown number of victims whom he killed via lethal injection, shootings, beatings, and his deadly experiments. In his 1986 book, Lifton describes Mengele as sadistic, lacking empathy, and extremely antisemitic, believing the Jews should be eliminated as an inferior and dangerous race. Rolf Mengele later claimed that his father had shown no remorse for his wartime activities.
A former Auschwitz inmate doctor said of Mengele:
Twins were subjected to weekly examinations and measurements of their physical attributes by Mengele or one of his assistants. The experiments he performed on twins included unnecessary amputation of limbs, intentionally infecting one twin with typhus or some other disease, and transfusing the blood of one twin into the other. Many of the victims died while undergoing these procedures, and those who survived the experiments were sometimes killed and their bodies dissected once Mengele had no further use for them. Nyiszli recalled one occasion on which Mengele personally killed fourteen twins in one night by injecting their hearts with chloroform. If one twin died from disease, he would kill the other twin to allow comparative post-mortem reports to be produced for research purposes.
Mengele's eye experiments included attempts to change the eye color by injecting chemicals into the eyes of living subjects, and he killed people with heterochromatic eyes so that the eyes could be removed and sent to Berlin for study. His experiments on dwarfs and people with physical abnormalities included taking physical measurements, drawing blood, extracting healthy teeth, and treatment with unnecessary drugs and X-rays. Many of his victims were dispatched to the gas chambers after about two weeks, and their skeletons were sent to Berlin for further analysis. Mengele sought out pregnant women, on whom he would perform experiments before sending them to the gas chambers. Alex Dekel, a survivor, reports witnessing Mengele performing vivisection without anesthesia, removing hearts and stomachs of victims. Yitzhak Ganon, another survivor, reported in 2009 how Mengele removed his kidney without anesthesia. He was forced to return to work without painkillers. Witness Vera Alexander described how Mengele sewed two Romani twins together, back to back, in a crude attempt to create conjoined twins; both children died of gangrene after several days of suffering.
After Auschwitz
Along with several other Auschwitz doctors, Mengele transferred to Gross-Rosen concentration camp in Lower Silesia on 17 January 1945, taking with him two boxes of specimens and the records of his experiments at Auschwitz. Most of the camp medical records had already been destroyed by the SS by the time the Red Army liberated Auschwitz on 27 January. Mengele fled Gross-Rosen on 18 February, a week before the Soviets arrived there, and traveled westward to Žatec in Czechoslovakia, disguised as a officer. There he temporarily entrusted his incriminating documents to a nurse with whom he had struck up a relationship. He and his unit then hurried west to avoid being captured by the Soviets, but were taken prisoners of war by the Americans in June 1945. Although Mengele was initially registered under his own name, he was not identified as being on the major war criminal list due to the disorganization of the Allies regarding the distribution of wanted lists, and the fact that he did not have the usual SS blood group tattoo. He was released at the end of July and obtained false papers under the name "Fritz Ullman", documents he later altered to read "Fritz Hollmann".
After several months on the run, including a trip back to the Soviet-occupied area to recover his Auschwitz records, Mengele found work near Rosenheim as a farmhand. He eventually escaped from Germany on 17 April 1949, convinced that his capture would mean a trial and death sentence. Assisted by a network of former SS members, he used the ratline to travel to Genoa, where he obtained a passport from the International Committee of the Red Cross under the alias "Helmut Gregor", and sailed to Argentina in July 1949. His wife refused to accompany him, and they divorced in 1954.
In South America
Mengele worked as a carpenter in Buenos Aires, Argentina, while lodging in a boarding house in the suburb of Vicente López. After a few weeks, he moved to the house of a Nazi sympathizer in the more affluent neighborhood of Florida Este. He next worked as a salesman for his family's farm equipment company, Karl Mengele & Sons, and in 1951 he began making frequent trips to Paraguay as a regional sales representative. He moved into an apartment in central Buenos Aires in 1953, used family funds to buy a part interest in a carpentry concern, and then rented a house in the suburb of Olivos in 1954. Files released by the Argentine government in 1992 indicate that Mengele may have practiced medicine without a license while living in Buenos Aires, including performing abortions.
After obtaining a copy of his birth certificate through the West German embassy in 1956, Mengele was issued with an Argentine foreign residence permit under his real name. He used this document to obtain a West German passport, using his real name and embarked on a trip to Europe. He met with his son Rolf (who was told Mengele was his "Uncle Fritz") and his widowed sister-in-law Martha, for a ski holiday in Switzerland; he also spent a week in his home town of Günzburg. When he returned to Argentina in September 1956, Mengele began living under his real name. Martha and her son Karl Heinz followed about a month later, and the three began living together. Josef and Martha were married in 1958 while on holiday in Uruguay, and they bought a house in Buenos Aires. Mengele's business interests now included part ownership of Fadro Farm, a pharmaceutical company. Along with several other doctors, he was questioned in 1958 on suspicion of practicing medicine without a license when a teenage girl died after an abortion, but he was released without charge. Aware that the publicity could lead to his Nazi background and wartime activities being discovered, he took an extended business trip to Paraguay and was granted citizenship there in 1959 under the name "José Mengele". He returned to Buenos Aires several times to settle his business affairs and visit his family. Martha and Karl lived in a boarding house in the city until December 1960, when they returned to West Germany.
Mengele's name was mentioned several times during the Nuremberg trials in the mid-1940s, but the Allied forces believed that he was probably already dead. Irene Mengele and the family in Günzburg also alleged that he had died. Working in West Germany, Nazi hunters Simon Wiesenthal and Hermann Langbein collected information from witnesses about Mengele's wartime activities. In a search of the public records, Langbein discovered Mengele's divorce papers, which listed an address in Buenos Aires. He and Wiesenthal pressured the West German authorities into starting extradition proceedings, and an arrest warrant was drawn up on 5 June 1959. Argentina initially refused the extradition request because the fugitive was no longer living at the address given on the documents; by the time extradition was approved on 30 June, Mengele had already fled to Paraguay and was living on a farm near the Argentine border.
Efforts by Mossad
In May 1960, Isser Harel, director of the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, personally led the successful effort to capture Adolf Eichmann in Buenos Aires. He was hoping to track down Mengele so that he too could be brought to trial in Israel. Under interrogation, Eichmann provided the address of a boarding house that had been used as a safe house for Nazi fugitives. Surveillance of the house did not reveal Mengele or any members of his family and the neighborhood postman claimed that although Mengele had recently been receiving letters there under his real name, he had since relocated without leaving a forwarding address. Harel's inquiries at a machine shop where Mengele had been part owner also failed to generate any leads, so he was forced to abandon the search.
Despite having provided Mengele with legal documents using his real name in 1956 (which had enabled him to formalize his permanent residency in Argentina), West Germany was now offering a reward for his capture. Continuing newspaper coverage of his wartime activities, with accompanying photographs, led the fugitive to relocate once again in 1960. Former pilot Hans-Ulrich Rudel put him in touch with the Nazi supporter Wolfgang Gerhard, who helped Mengele to cross the border into Brazil. He stayed with Gerhard on his farm near São Paulo until more permanent accommodation could be found, which came about with Hungarian expatriates Géza and Gitta Stammer. The couple bought a farm in Nova Europa with the help of an investment from Mengele, who was given the job of managing for them. The three bought a coffee and cattle farm in Serra Negra in 1962, with Mengele owning a half interest. Gerhard had initially told the Stammers that the fugitive's name was "Peter Hochbichler", but they discovered his true identity in 1963. Gerhard persuaded the couple not to report Mengele's location to the authorities by convincing them that they themselves could be implicated for harboring a fugitive. In February 1961, West Germany widened its extradition request to include Brazil, having been tipped off to the possibility that Mengele had relocated there.
Meanwhile, Zvi Aharoni, one of the Mossad agents who had been involved in the Eichmann capture, was placed in charge of a team of agents tasked with tracking down Mengele and bringing him to trial in Israel. Their inquiries in Paraguay revealed no clues to his whereabouts, and they were unable to intercept any correspondence between Mengele and his wife Martha, who by this time was living in Italy. Agents who were following Rudel's movements also failed to produce any leads. Aharoni and his team followed Gerhard to a rural area near São Paulo, where they identified a European man whom they believed to be Mengele. This potential breakthrough was reported to Harel, but the logistics of staging a capture, the budgetary constraints of the search operation, and the priority of focusing on Israel's deteriorating relationship with Egypt led the Mossad chief to call off the manhunt in 1962.
Later life and death
In 1969, Mengele and the Stammers jointly purchased a farmhouse in Caieiras, with Mengele as half owner. When Wolfgang Gerhard returned to Germany in 1971 to seek medical treatment for his ailing wife and son, he gave his identity card to Mengele. The Stammers' friendship with Mengele deteriorated in late 1974, and when they bought a house in São Paulo, he was not invited to join them. The Stammers later bought a bungalow in the Eldorado neighborhood of Diadema, São Paulo, which they rented out to Mengele. Rolf, who had not seen his father since the ski holiday in 1956, visited him at the bungalow in 1977; he found an "unrepentant Nazi" who claimed he had never personally harmed anyone and only carried out his duties as an officer.
Mengele's health had been steadily deteriorating since 1972. He suffered a stroke in 1976, experienced high blood pressure, and developed an ear infection which affected his balance. On 7 February 1979, while visiting his friends Wolfram and Liselotte Bossert in the coastal resort of Bertioga, Mengele suffered another stroke while swimming and drowned. His body was buried in Embu das Artes under the name "Wolfgang Gerhard", whose identification Mengele had been using since 1971. Other aliases used by Mengele in his later life included "Dr. Fausto Rindón" and "S. Josi Alvers Aspiazu".
Exhumation
Meanwhile, sightings of Mengele were being reported all over the world. Wiesenthal claimed to have information that placed Mengele on the Greek island of Kythnos in 1960, in Cairo in 1961, in Spain in 1971, and in Paraguay in 1978, eighteen years after he had left the country. He insisted as late as 1985 that Mengele was still alive—six years after he had died—having previously offered a reward of US$100,000 () in 1982 for the fugitive's capture. Worldwide interest in the case was heightened by a mock trial held in Jerusalem in February 1985, featuring the testimonies of over one hundred victims of Mengele's experiments. Shortly afterwards, the West German, Israeli, and U.S. governments launched a coordinated effort to determine Mengele's whereabouts. The West German and Israeli governments offered rewards for his capture, as did The Washington Times and the Simon Wiesenthal Center.
On 31 May 1985, acting on intelligence received by the West German prosecutor's office, police raided the house of Hans Sedlmeier, a lifelong friend of Mengele and sales manager of the family firm in Günzburg. They found a coded address book and copies of letters sent to and received from Mengele. Among the papers was a letter from Wolfram Bossert notifying Sedlmeier of Mengele's death. German authorities alerted the police in São Paulo, who then contacted the Bosserts. Under interrogation, they revealed the location of Mengele's grave and the remains were exhumed on 6 June 1985. Extensive forensic examination indicated with a high degree of probability that the body was indeed that of Josef Mengele. Rolf Mengele issued a statement on 10 June confirming that the body was his father's and he admitted that the news of his father's death had been concealed in order to protect the people who had sheltered him for many years.
In 1992, DNA testing confirmed Mengele's identity beyond doubt, but family members refused repeated requests by Brazilian officials to repatriate the remains to Germany. The skeleton is stored at the São Paulo Institute for Forensic Medicine, where it is used as an educational aid during forensic medicine courses at the University of São Paulo's medical school.
Later developments
In 2007, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum received as a donation the Höcker Album, an album of photographs of Auschwitz staff taken by Karl-Friedrich Höcker. Eight of the photographs include Mengele.
In February 2010, a 180-page volume of Mengele's diary was sold by Alexander Autographs at auction for an undisclosed sum to the grandson of a Holocaust survivor. The unidentified previous owner, who acquired the journals in Brazil, was reported to be close to the Mengele family. A Holocaust survivors' organization described the sale as "a cynical act of exploitation aimed at profiting from the writings of one of the most heinous Nazi criminals". Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center was glad to see the diary fall into Jewish hands. "At a time when Ahmadinejad's Iran regularly denies the Holocaust and anti-Semitism and hatred of Jews is back in vogue, this acquisition is especially significant", he said. In 2011, a further 31 volumes of Mengele's diaries were sold—again amidst protests—by the same auction house to an undisclosed collector of World War II memorabilia for US$245,000.
Publications
Racial-Morphological Examinations of the Anterior Portion of the Lower Jaw in Four Racial Groups. This dissertation, completed in 1935 and first published in 1937, earned him a PhD in anthropology from Munich University. In this work Mengele sought to demonstrate that there were structural differences in the lower jaws of individuals from different ethnic groups, and that racial distinctions could be made based on these differences.
Genealogical Studies in the Cases of Cleft Lip-Jaw-Palate (1938), his medical dissertation, earned him a doctorate in medicine from Frankfurt University. Studying the influence of genetics as a factor in the occurrence of this deformity, Mengele conducted research on families who exhibited these traits in multiple generations. The work also included notes on other abnormalities found in these family lines.
Hereditary Transmission of Fistulae Auris. This journal article, published in ('The Genetic Physician'), focuses on fistula auris (an abnormal fissure on the external ear) as a hereditary trait. Mengele noted that individuals who have this trait also tend to have a dimple on their chin.
See also
Angel of Death (Slayer song)
Aribert Heim
Carl Clauberg
Eva Mozes Kor
Grigory Mairanovsky
Hans Münch
Kurt Blome
Nazi eugenics
Shirō Ishii
The Boys from Brazil (novel)
References
Informational notes
Citations
Bibliography
Further reading
External links
1911 births
1979 deaths
20th-century anthropologists
20th-century German non-fiction writers
Accidental deaths in Brazil
Auschwitz concentration camp personnel
Burials in São Paulo (state)
Combat medics
Deaths by drowning
Fugitives
Fugitives wanted by Germany
German anthropologists
German eugenicists
German expatriates in Argentina
German expatriates in Brazil
German expatriates in Italy
German male non-fiction writers
German medical writers
German military doctors
Holocaust perpetrators in Poland
Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich alumni
Nazi human subject research
Nazis in South America
Nazi war criminals
People associated with the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics
People from Günzburg
People from the Kingdom of Bavaria
People who died at sea
Physicians in the Nazi Party
Recipients of the Iron Cross (1939), 1st class
Romani genocide perpetrators
SS-Hauptsturmführer
Waffen-SS personnel
| false |
[
"EARN or Earn may refer to:\n\nEARN\n European Academic and Research Network, a defunct computer networking organisation succeeded by TERENA (Trans-European Research and Education Networking Association)\n Economic Analysis and Research Network, a nationwide (U.S.) network of state and local organizations affiliated with the Economic Policy Institute\n European Asteroid Research Node, an association of asteroid research groups (see Minor planet)\n\nEarn\n Loch Earn\n River Earn\n Bridge of Earn\n Earn out\nCarl Earn (1921–2007), American tennis player\n\nSee also\n Earning (disambiguation)",
"\"The Streisand Effect\" is the fourth episode of the first season of the American comedy-drama television series Atlanta. The episode was written by series creator and main actor Donald Glover, and directed by producer Hiro Murai. It was first broadcast on FX in the United States on September 20, 2016.\n\nThe series is set in Atlanta and follows Earnest \"Earn\" Marks, as he tries to redeem himself in the eyes of his ex-girlfriend Van, who is also the mother of his daughter Lottie; as well as his parents and his cousin Alfred, who raps under the stage name \"Paper Boi\"; and Darius, Alfred's eccentric right-hand man. In the episode, Earn tries to trade his phone for money but Darius convinces him to trade it for a katana and then a dog, so he can get more money. Meanwhile, Alfred is annoyed by the presence of a social media influencer named Zan, who starts mocking and trash-talking him on social media.\n\nAccording to Nielsen Media Research, the episode was seen by an estimated 0.920 million household viewers and gained a 0.5 ratings share among adults aged 18–49. The episode received positive reviews from critics, who praised the performances (particularly Lakeith Stanfield) and humor.\n\nPlot\nEarn (Donald Glover) and Alfred (Brian Tyree Henry) talk outside a club, when they are approached by a social media personality named Zan (Freddie Kuguru). Zan annoys them with his personality and tries to make them buy some of his merch, which they refuse. He furthers infuriates Alfred by trying to brush off Darius (Lakeith Stanfield) until Alfred tells him he is with them. After taking photos of them and giving his phone number to Earn, Zan leaves.\n\nThe next day, Alfred finds that Zan is trash-talking him on social media and starts replying back, ignoring Earn and Darius. Alfred is further infuriated when Zan starts trolling him with many videos and memes. Earn and Darius then go to a pawn shop, where Earn wants to trade his phone for money. However, Darius convinces Earn to trade his phone for a katana, indicating he could get him even more money in the long term. Despite hesitating and needing the money, Earn trades his phone for the katana. They then go to a warehouse, where Darius trades the katana for a Cane Corso, intending to make money of it.\n\nHaving discovered Zan's job thanks to a bartender, Alfred confronts him but accepts to join him in the car as he delivers a pizza with a kid in the backseat. Zan explains that he views Alfred as exploiting his culture for profit and he is exploiting him back on it for business. He also reveals that the kid is not his son, he is actually his partner on Vine, with Alfred expressing surprise at his foul-mouthed nature. They arrive at the destination, where Alfred sees that Zan sends the kid to deliver the pizza. The man attending the kid takes the pizza, robs him and then shuts the door. Alfred is taken aback and is even more disgusted to see Zan recording the kid while he knocks at the door. Alfred then exits the car and leaves the scene.\n\nIn the outskirts, Earn and Darius deliver the dog to a man, intending to make puppies with another dog, with Earn getting $2,000 for it. However, Earn is shocked to find that he won't get the money for a few months. Earn is frustrated, as he, Van and Lottie needed the money immediately. To compensate, Darius hands over his phone to Earn, telling him to trade it. Earn accepts it and Darius remarks \"we are friends now\" as he enters the car.\n\nProduction\n\nDevelopment\n\nIn August 2016, FX announced that the fourth episode of the season would be titled \"The Streisand Effect\" and that it would be written by series creator and main actor Donald Glover and directed by producer Hiro Murai. This was Donald Glover's second writing credit, and Murai's fourth directing credit.\n\nReception\n\nViewers\nThe episode was watched by 0.920 million viewers, earning a 0.5 in the 18-49 rating demographics on the Nielson ratings scale. This means that 0.5 percent of all households with televisions watched the episode. This was a 15% decrease from the previous episode, which was watched by 1.074 million viewers with a 0.6 in the 18-49 demographics.\n\nCritical reviews\n\"The Streisand Effect\" received positive reviews from critics. Joshua Alston of The A.V. Club gave the episode a \"B+\" and wrote, \"Atlanta has become a show that works best in hindsight, and one that almost requires that each episode be viewed multiple times. Once you have a better idea of what the episode is doing, it's easier to relax and let it wash over you.\" \n\nAlan Sepinwall of HitFix wrote, \"Atlanta has very smartly told smaller stories, like last week's pairing of Earn struggling to play for a mid-priced dinner with Van while Alfred and Darius work through a drug deal, or tonight's duo of short stories, as Darius' offer to make Earn some extra cash proves more complicated than Earn expected, while Alfred foolishly tries to engage with one of his trolls.\" Michael Arceneaux of Vulture gave the episode a 3 star rating out of 5 and wrote, \"One of the things I like most about Atlanta is how the story develops like short ribs cooking in a slow cooker. Even so, I don't really think that deliberate pace works especially well for 'The Streisand Effect.' The Zan story line could've been executed differently; he seemed like an inspired character at first, but he quickly went flat. I'm still very interested in seeing how Alfred deals with fame, so perhaps he'll return with more depth in a future episode.\" \n\nMichael Snydel of Paste wrote, \"'The Streisand Effect' is all about facing Earn and Miles with concrete representations of these conflicts, whether it's Miles grappling with his own place in hip-hop, or Earn realizing that it takes more than ambition to succeed.\" Grant Ridner of PopMatters gave the episode an 8 out of 10 rating and wrote, \"Ultimately, this episode is a rich character study that further familiarizes us with Atlantas three stars, so that when the stakes begin to rise we'll be fully locked in and invested. The show's doing the unglamorous narrative and character work here, but it's clear that the journey we're on with Earn, Alfred, and Darius wouldn't work without these quieter moments. 'The Streisand Effect' should be a hit with Paper Boi fans and #zansexuals alike.\"\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\nAtlanta (TV series) episodes\n2016 American television episodes\nTelevision episodes directed by Hiro Murai\nTelevision episodes written by Donald Glover"
] |
[
"Josef Mengele",
"In South America",
"Wht was he doing in south america?",
"Mengele worked as a carpenter while residing in a boarding house in the suburb of Vicente Lopez.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"In 1935, Mengele earned a PhD in anthropology from the University of Munich.",
"Did he attend anywhere else?",
"1937, at the Institute for Hereditary Biology and Racial Hygiene in Frankfurt, he became the assistant to Dr. Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer,",
"Did he teach?",
"As an assistant to von Verschuer, Mengele focused on the genetic factors resulting in a cleft lip and palate or cleft chin. His thesis on the subject earned him a",
"What did this research earn him?",
"a cum laude doctorate in medicine in 1938."
] |
C_b4a58b5a57fe49a498759ec3ef1ea45b_1
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Did he study anything else while in school?
| 6 |
Did Josef Mengele study anything else while in school aside from genetic factors resulting in cleft lip and palate or cleft chin?
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Josef Mengele
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Mengele was born the eldest of three children on 16 March 1911 to Karl and Walburga (Hupfauer) Mengele in Gunzburg, Bavaria, Germany. His younger brothers were Karl Jr and Alois. Mengele's father was founder of the Karl Mengele & Sons company, producers of farm machinery. Mengele did well in school and developed an interest in music, art, and skiing. He completed high school in April 1930 and went on to study medicine at Goethe University Frankfurt and philosophy at the University of Munich. Munich was the headquarters of the Nazi Party. In 1931 Mengele joined the Stahlhelm, Bund der Frontsoldaten, a paramilitary organization that was absorbed into the Nazi Sturmabteilung (Storm Detachment; SA) in 1934. In 1935, Mengele earned a PhD in anthropology from the University of Munich. In January 1937, at the Institute for Hereditary Biology and Racial Hygiene in Frankfurt, he became the assistant to Dr. Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer, a scientist conducting genetics research, with a particular interest in twins. As an assistant to von Verschuer, Mengele focused on the genetic factors resulting in a cleft lip and palate or cleft chin. His thesis on the subject earned him a cum laude doctorate in medicine in 1938. Both of his degrees were later rescinded by the issuing universities. In a letter of recommendation, von Verschuer praised Mengele's reliability and his ability to verbally present complex material in a clear manner. The American author Robert Jay Lifton notes that Mengele's published work did not deviate much from the scientific mainstream of the time, and would probably have been viewed as valid scientific efforts even outside Nazi Germany. On 28 July 1939, Mengele married Irene Schonbein, whom he had met while working as a medical resident in Leipzig. Their only son, Rolf, was born in 1944. The ideology of Nazism brought together elements of antisemitism, racial hygiene, and eugenics, and combined them with pan-Germanism and territorial expansionism with the goal of obtaining more Lebensraum (living space) for the Germanic people. Nazi Germany attempted to obtain this new territory by attacking Poland and the Soviet Union, intending to deport or kill the Jews and Slavs living there, who were considered inferior to the Aryan master race. Mengele joined the Nazi Party in 1937 and the Schutzstaffel (SS; protection squadron) in 1938. He received basic training in 1938 with the Gebirgsjager (mountain infantry) and was called up for service in the Wehrmacht (German armed forces) in June 1940, some months after the outbreak of World War II. He soon volunteered for medical service in the Waffen-SS, the combat arm of the SS, where he served with the rank of SS-Untersturmfuhrer (second lieutenant) in a medical reserve battalion until November 1940. He was next assigned to the SS-Rasse- und Siedlungshauptamt (SS Race and Resettlement Main Office) in Posen, evaluating candidates for Germanisation. In June 1941, Mengele was posted to Ukraine, where he was awarded the Iron Cross Second Class. In January 1942, he joined the 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking as a battalion medical officer. He rescued two German soldiers from a burning tank and was awarded the Iron Cross First Class, as well as the Wound Badge in Black and the Medal for the Care of the German People. He was seriously wounded in action near Rostov-on-Don in mid-1942, and was declared unfit for further active service. After recovery, he was transferred to the Race and Resettlement Office in Berlin. He also resumed his association with von Verschuer, who was at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics. Mengele was promoted to the rank of SS-Hauptsturmfuhrer (captain) in April 1943. In Buenos Aires, Argentina, Mengele worked as a carpenter while residing in a boarding house in the suburb of Vicente Lopez. After a few weeks he moved to the house of a Nazi sympathiser in the more affluent neighborhood of Florida, Buenos Aires. He next worked as a salesman for his family's farm equipment company, and beginning in 1951 he made frequent trips to Paraguay as sales representative for that region. An apartment in the center of Buenos Aires became his residence in 1953, the same year he used family funds to buy a part interest in a carpentry concern. In 1954 he rented a house in the suburb of Olivos. Files released by the Argentine government in 1992 indicate that Mengele may have practiced medicine without a license, including performing abortions, while living in Buenos Aires. After obtaining a copy of his birth certificate through the West German embassy in 1956, Mengele was issued an Argentine foreign residence permit under his real name. He used this document to obtain a West German passport, also under his real name, and embarked for a visit to Europe. He met up in Switzerland for a ski holiday with his son Rolf (who was told Mengele was his "Uncle Fritz") and his widowed sister-in-law Martha, and spent a week in his home town of Gunzburg. Upon his return to Argentina in September, Mengele began living under his real name. Martha and her son Karl Heinz followed about a month later, and the three took up residence together. The couple married while on holiday in Uruguay in 1958 and bought a house in Buenos Aires. Business interests now included part ownership of Fadro Farm, a pharmaceutical company. Along with several other doctors, Mengele was questioned and released in 1958 under suspicion of practicing medicine without a license after a teenage girl died following an abortion. Worried that the publicity would lead to his Nazi background and wartime activities being discovered, he took an extended business trip to Paraguay and was granted citizenship under the name Jose Mengele in 1959. He returned to Buenos Aires several times to wrap up his business affairs and visit his family. Martha and Karl Heinz lived in a boarding house in the city until December 1960, when they returned to Germany. Mengele's name was mentioned several times during the Nuremberg trials, but Allied forces were convinced that he was dead. Irene and the family in Gunzburg also said that he was dead. Working in West Germany, Nazi hunters Simon Wiesenthal and Hermann Langbein collected information from witnesses as to Mengele's wartime activities. In a search of the public records, Langbein found Mengele's divorce papers listing an address in Buenos Aires. He and Wiesenthal pressured West German authorities into drawing up an arrest warrant on 5 June 1959, and starting extradition proceedings. Initially Argentina turned down the request, because the fugitive was no longer living at the address given on the documents. By the time extradition was approved on 30 June 1960, Mengele had already fled to Paraguay, where he was living on a farm near the Argentine border. CANNOTANSWER
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Josef Mengele (; 16 March 19117 February 1979), also known as the Angel of Death (), was a German (SS) officer and physician during World War II. He is mainly remembered for his actions at the Auschwitz concentration camp, where he performed deadly experiments on prisoners, as a member of the team of doctors who selected victims to be killed in the gas chambers and as one of the doctors who administered the gas. With Red Army troops sweeping through German-occupied Poland, Mengele was transferred from Auschwitz to the Gross-Rosen concentration camp on 17 January 1945, ten days before the arrival of the Soviet forces at Auschwitz.
Before the war, Mengele had received doctorates in anthropology and medicine, and began a career as a researcher. He joined the Nazi Party in 1937 and the SS in 1938. He was assigned as a battalion medical officer at the start of World War II, then transferred to the Nazi concentration camps service in early 1943 and assigned to Auschwitz, where he saw the opportunity to conduct genetic research on human subjects. His experiments focused primarily on twins, with no regard for the health or safety of the victims.
After the war, Mengele fled to South America. He sailed to Argentina in July 1949, assisted by a network of former SS members. He initially lived in and around Buenos Aires, then fled to Paraguay in 1959 and Brazil in 1960, all the while being sought by West Germany, Israel, and Nazi hunters such as Simon Wiesenthal, who wanted to bring him to trial. Mengele eluded capture in spite of extradition requests by the West German government and clandestine operations by the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad. He drowned in 1979 after suffering a stroke while swimming off the coast of Bertioga, and was buried under the false name of Wolfgang Gerhard. His remains were disinterred and positively identified by forensic examination in 1985.
Early life
Mengele was born in Günzburg on 16 March 1911, the eldest of three sons of Walburga ( Hupfauer) and Karl Mengele. His two younger brothers were Karl Jr. and Alois. Their father was founder of the Karl Mengele & Sons company (later renamed as ), which produced farming machinery. Mengele was successful at school and developed an interest in music, art, and skiing. He completed high school in April 1930 and went on to study philosophy in Munich, where the headquarters of the Nazi Party were located. In 1931 he joined , a paramilitary organization that was absorbed into the Nazi ('Storm Detachment'; SA) in 1934. In 1935, Mengele earned a PhD in anthropology from the University of Munich. In January 1937, he joined the Institute for Hereditary Biology and Racial Hygiene in Frankfurt, where he worked for Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer, a German geneticist with a particular interest in researching twins.
As Von Verschuer's assistant, Mengele focused on the genetic factors that result in a cleft lip and palate, or a cleft chin. His thesis on the subject earned him a doctorate in medicine (MD) from the University of Frankfurt in 1938. (Both of his degrees were revoked by the issuing universities in the 1960s.) In a letter of recommendation, Von Verschuer praised Mengele's reliability and his ability to verbally present complex material in a clear manner. The American author Robert Jay Lifton notes that Mengele's published works were in keeping with the scientific mainstream of the time, and would probably have been viewed as valid scientific efforts even outside Nazi Germany.
On 28 July 1939, Mengele married Irene Schönbein, whom he had met while working as a medical resident in Leipzig. Their only son, Rolf, was born in 1944.
Military service
The ideology of Nazism brought together elements of antisemitism, racial hygiene, and eugenics, and combined them with pan-Germanism and territorial expansionism with the goal of obtaining more (living space) for the Germanic people. Nazi Germany attempted to obtain this new territory by attacking Poland and the Soviet Union, intending to deport or kill the Jews and Slavs living there, who were considered by the Nazis to be inferior to the Aryan master race.
Mengele joined the Nazi Party in 1937 and the (SS; 'Protection Squadron') in 1938. He received basic training in 1938 with the ('light infantry mountain troop') and was called up for service in the (Nazi armed forces) in June 1940, some months after the outbreak of World War II. He soon volunteered for medical service in the , the combat arm of the SS, where he served with the rank of SS- ('second lieutenant') in a medical reserve battalion until November 1940. He was next assigned to the ('SS Race and Settlement Main Office') in Poznań, evaluating candidates for Germanization.
In June 1941 Mengele was posted to Ukraine, where he was awarded the Iron Cross 2nd Class. In January 1942, he joined the 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking as a battalion medical officer. After rescuing two German soldiers from a burning tank, he was decorated with the Iron Cross 1st Class, the Wound Badge in Black, and the Medal for the Care of the German People. He was declared unfit for further active service in mid-1942, when he was seriously wounded in action near Rostov-on-Don. Following his recovery, he was transferred to the headquarters of the SS Race and Settlement Main Office in Berlin, at which point he resumed his association with Von Verschuer, who was now director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics. Mengele was promoted to the rank of SS- ('captain') in April 1943.
Auschwitz
In 1942 Auschwitz II (Birkenau), originally intended to house slave laborers, began to be used instead as a combined labour camp and extermination camp. Prisoners were transported there by rail from all over Nazi-controlled Europe, arriving in daily convoys. By July 1942, SS doctors were conducting "selections" where incoming Jews were segregated, and those considered able to work were admitted into the camp while those deemed unfit for labor were immediately killed in the gas chambers. The arrivals that were selected to die, about three-quarters of the total, included almost all children, women with small children, pregnant women, all the elderly, and all of those who appeared (in a brief and superficial inspection by an SS doctor) to be not completely fit and healthy.
In early 1943, Von Verschuer encouraged Mengele to apply for a transfer to the concentration camp service. Mengele's application was accepted and he was posted to Auschwitz, where he was appointed by SS- Eduard Wirths, chief medical officer at Auschwitz, to the position of chief physician of the (Romani family camp) at Birkenau, a subcamp located on the main Auschwitz complex. The SS doctors did not administer treatment to the Auschwitz inmates but supervised the activities of inmate doctors who had been forced to work in the camp medical service. As part of his duties, Mengele made weekly visits to the hospital barracks and ordered any prisoners who had not recovered after two weeks in bed to be sent to the gas chambers.
Mengele's work also involved carrying out selections, a task that he chose to perform even when he was not assigned to do so, in the hope of finding subjects for his experiments, with a particular interest in locating sets of twins. In contrast to most of the other SS doctors, who viewed selections as one of their most stressful and unpleasant duties, he undertook the task with a flamboyant air, often smiling or whistling. He was one of the SS doctors responsible for supervising the administration of Zyklon B, the cyanide-based pesticide that was used for the mass killings in the Birkenau gas chambers. He served in this capacity at the gas chambers located in crematoria IV and V.
When an outbreak of noma—a gangrenous bacterial disease of the mouth and face—struck the Romani camp in 1943, Mengele initiated a study to determine the cause of the disease and develop a treatment. He enlisted the assistance of prisoner Berthold Epstein, a Jewish pediatrician and professor at Prague University. The patients were isolated in separate barracks and several afflicted children were killed so that their preserved heads and organs could be sent to the SS Medical Academy in Graz and other facilities for study. This research was still ongoing when the Romani camp was liquidated and its remaining occupants killed in 1944.
When a typhus epidemic began in the women's camp, Mengele cleared one block of six hundred Jewish women and sent them to their deaths in the gas chambers. The building was then cleaned and disinfected and the occupants of a neighboring block were bathed, de–loused, and given new clothing before being moved into the clean block. This process was repeated until all of the barracks were disinfected. Similar procedures were used for later epidemics of scarlet fever and other diseases, with infected prisoners being killed in the gas chambers. For these actions, Mengele was awarded the War Merit Cross (Second Class with swords) and was promoted in 1944 to First Physician of the Birkenau subcamp.
Human experimentation
Mengele used Auschwitz as an opportunity to continue his anthropological studies and research into heredity, using inmates for human experimentation. His medical procedures showed no consideration for the victims' health, safety, or physical and emotional suffering. He was particularly interested in identical twins, people with heterochromia iridum (eyes of two different colors), dwarfs, and people with physical abnormalities. A grant was provided by the ('German Research Foundation'), at the request of Von Verschuer, who received regular reports and shipments of specimens from Mengele. The grant was used to build a pathology laboratory attached to Crematorium II at Auschwitz II-Birkenau. Miklós Nyiszli, a Hungarian Jewish pathologist who arrived in Auschwitz on 29 May 1944, performed dissections and prepared specimens for shipment in this laboratory. The twin research was in part intended to prove the supremacy of heredity over the environment and thus strengthen the Nazi premise of the genetic superiority of the Aryan race. Nyiszli and others reported that the twin studies may also have been motivated by an intention to increase the reproduction rate of the German race by improving the chances of racially desirable people having twins.
Mengele's research subjects were better fed and housed than the other prisoners, and temporarily spared from execution in the gas chambers. His research subjects lived in their own barracks, where they were provided with a marginally better quality of food and somewhat improved living conditions than the other areas of the camp. When visiting his young subjects, he introduced himself as "Uncle Mengele" and offered them sweets, while at the same time being personally responsible for the deaths of an unknown number of victims whom he killed via lethal injection, shootings, beatings, and his deadly experiments. In his 1986 book, Lifton describes Mengele as sadistic, lacking empathy, and extremely antisemitic, believing the Jews should be eliminated as an inferior and dangerous race. Rolf Mengele later claimed that his father had shown no remorse for his wartime activities.
A former Auschwitz inmate doctor said of Mengele:
Twins were subjected to weekly examinations and measurements of their physical attributes by Mengele or one of his assistants. The experiments he performed on twins included unnecessary amputation of limbs, intentionally infecting one twin with typhus or some other disease, and transfusing the blood of one twin into the other. Many of the victims died while undergoing these procedures, and those who survived the experiments were sometimes killed and their bodies dissected once Mengele had no further use for them. Nyiszli recalled one occasion on which Mengele personally killed fourteen twins in one night by injecting their hearts with chloroform. If one twin died from disease, he would kill the other twin to allow comparative post-mortem reports to be produced for research purposes.
Mengele's eye experiments included attempts to change the eye color by injecting chemicals into the eyes of living subjects, and he killed people with heterochromatic eyes so that the eyes could be removed and sent to Berlin for study. His experiments on dwarfs and people with physical abnormalities included taking physical measurements, drawing blood, extracting healthy teeth, and treatment with unnecessary drugs and X-rays. Many of his victims were dispatched to the gas chambers after about two weeks, and their skeletons were sent to Berlin for further analysis. Mengele sought out pregnant women, on whom he would perform experiments before sending them to the gas chambers. Alex Dekel, a survivor, reports witnessing Mengele performing vivisection without anesthesia, removing hearts and stomachs of victims. Yitzhak Ganon, another survivor, reported in 2009 how Mengele removed his kidney without anesthesia. He was forced to return to work without painkillers. Witness Vera Alexander described how Mengele sewed two Romani twins together, back to back, in a crude attempt to create conjoined twins; both children died of gangrene after several days of suffering.
After Auschwitz
Along with several other Auschwitz doctors, Mengele transferred to Gross-Rosen concentration camp in Lower Silesia on 17 January 1945, taking with him two boxes of specimens and the records of his experiments at Auschwitz. Most of the camp medical records had already been destroyed by the SS by the time the Red Army liberated Auschwitz on 27 January. Mengele fled Gross-Rosen on 18 February, a week before the Soviets arrived there, and traveled westward to Žatec in Czechoslovakia, disguised as a officer. There he temporarily entrusted his incriminating documents to a nurse with whom he had struck up a relationship. He and his unit then hurried west to avoid being captured by the Soviets, but were taken prisoners of war by the Americans in June 1945. Although Mengele was initially registered under his own name, he was not identified as being on the major war criminal list due to the disorganization of the Allies regarding the distribution of wanted lists, and the fact that he did not have the usual SS blood group tattoo. He was released at the end of July and obtained false papers under the name "Fritz Ullman", documents he later altered to read "Fritz Hollmann".
After several months on the run, including a trip back to the Soviet-occupied area to recover his Auschwitz records, Mengele found work near Rosenheim as a farmhand. He eventually escaped from Germany on 17 April 1949, convinced that his capture would mean a trial and death sentence. Assisted by a network of former SS members, he used the ratline to travel to Genoa, where he obtained a passport from the International Committee of the Red Cross under the alias "Helmut Gregor", and sailed to Argentina in July 1949. His wife refused to accompany him, and they divorced in 1954.
In South America
Mengele worked as a carpenter in Buenos Aires, Argentina, while lodging in a boarding house in the suburb of Vicente López. After a few weeks, he moved to the house of a Nazi sympathizer in the more affluent neighborhood of Florida Este. He next worked as a salesman for his family's farm equipment company, Karl Mengele & Sons, and in 1951 he began making frequent trips to Paraguay as a regional sales representative. He moved into an apartment in central Buenos Aires in 1953, used family funds to buy a part interest in a carpentry concern, and then rented a house in the suburb of Olivos in 1954. Files released by the Argentine government in 1992 indicate that Mengele may have practiced medicine without a license while living in Buenos Aires, including performing abortions.
After obtaining a copy of his birth certificate through the West German embassy in 1956, Mengele was issued with an Argentine foreign residence permit under his real name. He used this document to obtain a West German passport, using his real name and embarked on a trip to Europe. He met with his son Rolf (who was told Mengele was his "Uncle Fritz") and his widowed sister-in-law Martha, for a ski holiday in Switzerland; he also spent a week in his home town of Günzburg. When he returned to Argentina in September 1956, Mengele began living under his real name. Martha and her son Karl Heinz followed about a month later, and the three began living together. Josef and Martha were married in 1958 while on holiday in Uruguay, and they bought a house in Buenos Aires. Mengele's business interests now included part ownership of Fadro Farm, a pharmaceutical company. Along with several other doctors, he was questioned in 1958 on suspicion of practicing medicine without a license when a teenage girl died after an abortion, but he was released without charge. Aware that the publicity could lead to his Nazi background and wartime activities being discovered, he took an extended business trip to Paraguay and was granted citizenship there in 1959 under the name "José Mengele". He returned to Buenos Aires several times to settle his business affairs and visit his family. Martha and Karl lived in a boarding house in the city until December 1960, when they returned to West Germany.
Mengele's name was mentioned several times during the Nuremberg trials in the mid-1940s, but the Allied forces believed that he was probably already dead. Irene Mengele and the family in Günzburg also alleged that he had died. Working in West Germany, Nazi hunters Simon Wiesenthal and Hermann Langbein collected information from witnesses about Mengele's wartime activities. In a search of the public records, Langbein discovered Mengele's divorce papers, which listed an address in Buenos Aires. He and Wiesenthal pressured the West German authorities into starting extradition proceedings, and an arrest warrant was drawn up on 5 June 1959. Argentina initially refused the extradition request because the fugitive was no longer living at the address given on the documents; by the time extradition was approved on 30 June, Mengele had already fled to Paraguay and was living on a farm near the Argentine border.
Efforts by Mossad
In May 1960, Isser Harel, director of the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, personally led the successful effort to capture Adolf Eichmann in Buenos Aires. He was hoping to track down Mengele so that he too could be brought to trial in Israel. Under interrogation, Eichmann provided the address of a boarding house that had been used as a safe house for Nazi fugitives. Surveillance of the house did not reveal Mengele or any members of his family and the neighborhood postman claimed that although Mengele had recently been receiving letters there under his real name, he had since relocated without leaving a forwarding address. Harel's inquiries at a machine shop where Mengele had been part owner also failed to generate any leads, so he was forced to abandon the search.
Despite having provided Mengele with legal documents using his real name in 1956 (which had enabled him to formalize his permanent residency in Argentina), West Germany was now offering a reward for his capture. Continuing newspaper coverage of his wartime activities, with accompanying photographs, led the fugitive to relocate once again in 1960. Former pilot Hans-Ulrich Rudel put him in touch with the Nazi supporter Wolfgang Gerhard, who helped Mengele to cross the border into Brazil. He stayed with Gerhard on his farm near São Paulo until more permanent accommodation could be found, which came about with Hungarian expatriates Géza and Gitta Stammer. The couple bought a farm in Nova Europa with the help of an investment from Mengele, who was given the job of managing for them. The three bought a coffee and cattle farm in Serra Negra in 1962, with Mengele owning a half interest. Gerhard had initially told the Stammers that the fugitive's name was "Peter Hochbichler", but they discovered his true identity in 1963. Gerhard persuaded the couple not to report Mengele's location to the authorities by convincing them that they themselves could be implicated for harboring a fugitive. In February 1961, West Germany widened its extradition request to include Brazil, having been tipped off to the possibility that Mengele had relocated there.
Meanwhile, Zvi Aharoni, one of the Mossad agents who had been involved in the Eichmann capture, was placed in charge of a team of agents tasked with tracking down Mengele and bringing him to trial in Israel. Their inquiries in Paraguay revealed no clues to his whereabouts, and they were unable to intercept any correspondence between Mengele and his wife Martha, who by this time was living in Italy. Agents who were following Rudel's movements also failed to produce any leads. Aharoni and his team followed Gerhard to a rural area near São Paulo, where they identified a European man whom they believed to be Mengele. This potential breakthrough was reported to Harel, but the logistics of staging a capture, the budgetary constraints of the search operation, and the priority of focusing on Israel's deteriorating relationship with Egypt led the Mossad chief to call off the manhunt in 1962.
Later life and death
In 1969, Mengele and the Stammers jointly purchased a farmhouse in Caieiras, with Mengele as half owner. When Wolfgang Gerhard returned to Germany in 1971 to seek medical treatment for his ailing wife and son, he gave his identity card to Mengele. The Stammers' friendship with Mengele deteriorated in late 1974, and when they bought a house in São Paulo, he was not invited to join them. The Stammers later bought a bungalow in the Eldorado neighborhood of Diadema, São Paulo, which they rented out to Mengele. Rolf, who had not seen his father since the ski holiday in 1956, visited him at the bungalow in 1977; he found an "unrepentant Nazi" who claimed he had never personally harmed anyone and only carried out his duties as an officer.
Mengele's health had been steadily deteriorating since 1972. He suffered a stroke in 1976, experienced high blood pressure, and developed an ear infection which affected his balance. On 7 February 1979, while visiting his friends Wolfram and Liselotte Bossert in the coastal resort of Bertioga, Mengele suffered another stroke while swimming and drowned. His body was buried in Embu das Artes under the name "Wolfgang Gerhard", whose identification Mengele had been using since 1971. Other aliases used by Mengele in his later life included "Dr. Fausto Rindón" and "S. Josi Alvers Aspiazu".
Exhumation
Meanwhile, sightings of Mengele were being reported all over the world. Wiesenthal claimed to have information that placed Mengele on the Greek island of Kythnos in 1960, in Cairo in 1961, in Spain in 1971, and in Paraguay in 1978, eighteen years after he had left the country. He insisted as late as 1985 that Mengele was still alive—six years after he had died—having previously offered a reward of US$100,000 () in 1982 for the fugitive's capture. Worldwide interest in the case was heightened by a mock trial held in Jerusalem in February 1985, featuring the testimonies of over one hundred victims of Mengele's experiments. Shortly afterwards, the West German, Israeli, and U.S. governments launched a coordinated effort to determine Mengele's whereabouts. The West German and Israeli governments offered rewards for his capture, as did The Washington Times and the Simon Wiesenthal Center.
On 31 May 1985, acting on intelligence received by the West German prosecutor's office, police raided the house of Hans Sedlmeier, a lifelong friend of Mengele and sales manager of the family firm in Günzburg. They found a coded address book and copies of letters sent to and received from Mengele. Among the papers was a letter from Wolfram Bossert notifying Sedlmeier of Mengele's death. German authorities alerted the police in São Paulo, who then contacted the Bosserts. Under interrogation, they revealed the location of Mengele's grave and the remains were exhumed on 6 June 1985. Extensive forensic examination indicated with a high degree of probability that the body was indeed that of Josef Mengele. Rolf Mengele issued a statement on 10 June confirming that the body was his father's and he admitted that the news of his father's death had been concealed in order to protect the people who had sheltered him for many years.
In 1992, DNA testing confirmed Mengele's identity beyond doubt, but family members refused repeated requests by Brazilian officials to repatriate the remains to Germany. The skeleton is stored at the São Paulo Institute for Forensic Medicine, where it is used as an educational aid during forensic medicine courses at the University of São Paulo's medical school.
Later developments
In 2007, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum received as a donation the Höcker Album, an album of photographs of Auschwitz staff taken by Karl-Friedrich Höcker. Eight of the photographs include Mengele.
In February 2010, a 180-page volume of Mengele's diary was sold by Alexander Autographs at auction for an undisclosed sum to the grandson of a Holocaust survivor. The unidentified previous owner, who acquired the journals in Brazil, was reported to be close to the Mengele family. A Holocaust survivors' organization described the sale as "a cynical act of exploitation aimed at profiting from the writings of one of the most heinous Nazi criminals". Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center was glad to see the diary fall into Jewish hands. "At a time when Ahmadinejad's Iran regularly denies the Holocaust and anti-Semitism and hatred of Jews is back in vogue, this acquisition is especially significant", he said. In 2011, a further 31 volumes of Mengele's diaries were sold—again amidst protests—by the same auction house to an undisclosed collector of World War II memorabilia for US$245,000.
Publications
Racial-Morphological Examinations of the Anterior Portion of the Lower Jaw in Four Racial Groups. This dissertation, completed in 1935 and first published in 1937, earned him a PhD in anthropology from Munich University. In this work Mengele sought to demonstrate that there were structural differences in the lower jaws of individuals from different ethnic groups, and that racial distinctions could be made based on these differences.
Genealogical Studies in the Cases of Cleft Lip-Jaw-Palate (1938), his medical dissertation, earned him a doctorate in medicine from Frankfurt University. Studying the influence of genetics as a factor in the occurrence of this deformity, Mengele conducted research on families who exhibited these traits in multiple generations. The work also included notes on other abnormalities found in these family lines.
Hereditary Transmission of Fistulae Auris. This journal article, published in ('The Genetic Physician'), focuses on fistula auris (an abnormal fissure on the external ear) as a hereditary trait. Mengele noted that individuals who have this trait also tend to have a dimple on their chin.
See also
Angel of Death (Slayer song)
Aribert Heim
Carl Clauberg
Eva Mozes Kor
Grigory Mairanovsky
Hans Münch
Kurt Blome
Nazi eugenics
Shirō Ishii
The Boys from Brazil (novel)
References
Informational notes
Citations
Bibliography
Further reading
External links
1911 births
1979 deaths
20th-century anthropologists
20th-century German non-fiction writers
Accidental deaths in Brazil
Auschwitz concentration camp personnel
Burials in São Paulo (state)
Combat medics
Deaths by drowning
Fugitives
Fugitives wanted by Germany
German anthropologists
German eugenicists
German expatriates in Argentina
German expatriates in Brazil
German expatriates in Italy
German male non-fiction writers
German medical writers
German military doctors
Holocaust perpetrators in Poland
Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich alumni
Nazi human subject research
Nazis in South America
Nazi war criminals
People associated with the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics
People from Günzburg
People from the Kingdom of Bavaria
People who died at sea
Physicians in the Nazi Party
Recipients of the Iron Cross (1939), 1st class
Romani genocide perpetrators
SS-Hauptsturmführer
Waffen-SS personnel
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"A study is a room in a house that is used for paperwork, computer work, or reading. Historically, the study of a house was reserved for use as the private office and reading room of a family father as the formal head of a household, but today studies are generally either used to operate a home business or else open to the whole family.\n\nLayout and equipment\nA typical study might contain a desk, chair, computer, desk lamps, bookshelves, books, and file cabinets. A spare bedroom is often utilized as a study, but many modern homes have a room specifically designated as a study. Other terms used for rooms of this nature include den, home office, parlour, or home library. A \"study room\" is more commonly a communal working area in a school, office, etc.\n\nHistory\nThe study developed from the closet or cabinet of the Renaissance era. From the beginning of the 18th century onwards increased literacy at the middle-class family level led to the setting aside of closed study and library areas within larger houses. Here commercial work, reading, correspondence, fact-recording and other activities could be undertaken in privacy and silence. Until well into the 20th century gender restrictions on social roles made the domestic study an essentially male facility. The 19th century clergyman would prepare sermons and interview parishioners in his study while his equally literate wife would undertake her social obligations in a nearby parlour. \n\nThe Internet has led to a transformation of the historic study with its localized functions into the present day home-office. The technological revolution has enabled individuals to engage in remote work while still being productive using the Internet, email, e-commerce, and videotelephony.\n\nGovernment statistics record that in Britain 4.2 million people worked exclusively from home in 2014; an increase of 31% from the 1998 figure.\n\nImpact of Covid-19 pandemic\nThe COVID-19 pandemic increased demand for rooms suitable for remote work.\n\nAccording to a Gallup poll in September 2021, 45% of full-time U.S. employees engaged in remote work, including 25% who did it all of the time and 20% did it part of the time.\n\nReferences\n\nRooms\nTelecommuting",
"Else Regensteiner (April 21, 1906 – January 18, 2003) was a German weaver, textile designer, author, and teacher who was primarily based in Chicago, Illinois. She is known for founding and heading the Weaving Department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and for the creation of the reg/wick Hand Woven Originals weaving studio with Julia McVickers.\n\nPersonal life and education \nElse Regensteiner was born in Munich, Germany on April 21, 1906 to Ludwig and Hilda Friedsam. She studied at the Duetsche Frauenschule in Munich and received a teaching degree in 1925. In 1926 she married Bertold Regensteiner and her only child, Helga Regensteiner was born later that year. In 1936, \nElse and her husband immigrated to the United States. In Chicago, Else was introduced to Marli Ehrman, the head of the weaving department at the School of Design in Chicago. Ehrman offered Else a job as her assistant, and Else accepted the offer but chose to take classes instead of a salary. From 1940 to 1941, Marli Ehrman, a graduate of the Bauhaus, taught Else drafting and weaving on a fly-shuttle loom and introduced her to the ideals of the Bauhaus movement. Following Ehrman's advice, Else went to Black Mountain College in 1942 to take weaving classes under Anni Albers and design classes taught by Joseph Albers.\n\nCareer\n\nTeaching \nIn 1942, upon her return to Chicago from Black Mountain College, Else Regensteiner began her career as an instructor, teaching weaving at the Jane Addams Hull House until 1945. That year, she taught evening classes at the Chicago Institute of Design at the request of Marli Ehrman, and was hired as an assistant professor in the art department of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In 1947 she was made a full professor at the school, and in 1957 she founded its Weaving Department. She was the head of this department until her retirement in 1971 when she was granted the title of professor emeritus. After her retirement, Else became a weaving and design consultant at the American Farm School in Thessaloniki, Greece until 1978. During her career as a teacher, Else travelled throughout the United States and Canada giving workshops and lectures on weaving.\n\nreg/wick Hand Woven Originals \nIn 1945, Else Regensteiner partnered with Julia Woodruff Von Bergen McVicker to form reg/wick Hand Woven Originals weaving studio. The studio provided custom ordered handwoven fabrics to architects and interior designers, and designed sample weavings as prototypes for industrial production lines. The studio's fabrics were featured in many exhibitions and won national design awards.\n\nBooks \nElse wrote several successful books on the subject of weaving including, The Art of Weaving (1970), Program for a Weaving Study Group (1974), Weaver's Study Course: Sourcebook for Ideas and Techniques (1982), and Geometric Design in Weaving (1986).\n\nDeath \nElse Regensteiner died on January 18, 2003 of heart failure in her Chicago home.\n\nReferences \n\n1906 births\n2003 deaths\nAmerican weavers\n20th-century women textile artists\n20th-century textile artists\n20th-century German women writers"
] |
[
"Phish",
"Rift, Hoist and Billy Breathes: 1993-1996"
] |
C_cc0a0b8114b74122bf3192e464f47340_1
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What was Rift?
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What was Rift?
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Phish
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Phish was formed at the University of Vermont (UVM) in 1983 by guitarists Trey Anastasio and Jeff Holdsworth, bassist Mike Gordon, and drummer Jon Fishman. For their first gig, at Harris Millis Cafeteria at the University of Vermont on December 2, 1983, the band was billed as "Blackwood Convention". ("Blackwood convention" is a term from the card game contract bridge.) The band was joined by percussionist Marc Daubert in the fall of 1984, a time during which they promoted themselves as playing Grateful Dead songs. Daubert left the band early in 1985, and Page McConnell then joined the group on keyboards and made his debut on May 3, 1985, at a show at Wilks/Davis/Wing Dormitory on Redstone Campus at UVM. Holdsworth left the group after graduating in 1986, solidifying the band's lineup of "Trey, Page, Mike, and Fish"--the lineup to this day. Following a prank at UVM with his friend and former bandmate Steve Pollak--also known as "The Dude of Life"--Anastasio decided to leave the college. With the encouragement of McConnell (who received $50 for each transferee), Anastasio and Fishman relocated in mid-1986 to Goddard College, a small school in the hills of Plainfield, Vermont. Phish distributed at least six different experimental self-titled cassettes during this era, including The White Tape. This first studio recording was circulated in two variations: the first, mixed in a dorm room as late as 1985, received a higher distribution than the second studio remix of the original four tracks, c. 1987. The older version was officially released under the title Phish in August 1998. Jesse Jarnow's book Heads: A Biography of Psychedelic America details much of the band's early years at Goddard College, including their early relationship with fellow Goddard students Richard "Nancy" Wright and Jim Pollock. Pollock and Wright were musical collaborators, experimenting with multi-track cassette records to be broadcast on local radio. Phish adopted a number of Nancy's songs into their own set, including "Halley's Comet", "I Didn't Know", and "Dear Mrs. Reagan", the latter song being written by Nancy and Pollock. Jarnow argues that despite an eventual falling out between the members of Phish and Nancy, Nancy and his music were highly influential to Phish's early style and experimental sound. Pollock continued to collaborate with Phish over the years, designing some of their most iconic concert posters. The band's actions demonstrate an identity with their "hometown" of Burlington, Vermont. By 1985, the group had encountered Burlington luthier Paul Languedoc, who would eventually design four guitars for Anastasio and two basses for Gordon. In October 1986, he began working as their sound engineer. Since then, Languedoc has built exclusively for the two, and his designs and traditional wood choices have given Phish a unique instrumental identity. Also during the late 1980s, Phish played regularly at Nectar's restaurant and bar in Burlington. In 1992 the album A Picture of Nectar, named as a tribute to the owner, featured a large orange with Nectar's photo superimposed subtly within the orange. By late 1990, Phish's concerts were becoming more and more intricate, often making a consistent effort to involve the audience in the performance. In a special "secret language", the audience would react in a certain manner based on a particular musical cue from the band. For instance, if Anastasio "teased" a motif from The Simpsons theme song, the audience would yell, "D'oh!" in imitation of Homer Simpson . In 1992, Phish introduced a collaboration between audience and band called the "Big Ball Jam" in which each band member would throw a large beach ball into the audience and play a note each time his ball was hit. In so doing, the audience was helping to create an original composition. In an experiment known as "The Rotation Jam", each member would switch instruments with the musician on his left. On occasion, a performance of "You Enjoy Myself" involved Gordon and Anastasio performing synchronized maneuvers, jumping on mini-trampolines while simultaneously playing their instruments. Phish, along with Bob Dylan, the Grateful Dead, and the Beatles, was one of the first bands to have a Usenet newsgroup, rec.music.phish, which launched in 1991. Aware of the band's growing popularity, Elektra Records signed them that year. The following year A Picture of Nectar was complete: their first major studio release, enjoying far more extensive production than either 1988's Junta or 1990's Lawn Boy. These albums were eventually re-released on Elektra, as well. The first annual H.O.R.D.E. festival in 1992 provided Phish with their first national tour of major amphitheaters. The lineup, among others, included Phish, Blues Traveler, the Spin Doctors, and Widespread Panic. That summer, the band toured Europe with the Violent Femmes and later toured Europe and the U.S. with Carlos Santana. Phish began headlining major amphitheaters in the summer of 1993. That year, the group released Rift packaged as a concept album and with heavy promotion from Elektra including artwork by David Welker. In 1994, the band released Hoist. To promote the album, the band made their only video for MTV, "Down with Disease", airing in June of that year. Foreshadowing their future tradition of festivals, Phish coupled camping with their summer tour finale at Sugarbush North in Warren, Vermont, in July 1994, that show eventually being released as Live Phish Volume 2. On Halloween of that year, the group promised to don a fan-selected "musical costume" by playing an entire album from another band. After an extensive mail-based poll, Phish performed the Beatles' White Album as the second of their three sets at the Glens Falls Civic Center in upstate New York. For their 1994 New Years Run, Phish played the Civic Centers in Philadelphia and Providence as well as sold-out shows at Madison Square Garden and Boston Garden, which were their debuts at each venue. Following the death of Grateful Dead frontman Jerry Garcia in the summer of 1995 and the appearance of "Down with Disease" on Beavis and Butt-Head, the band experienced a surge in the growth of their fan base and an increased awareness in popular culture. In their tradition of playing a well-known album by another band for Halloween, Phish contracted a full horn section for their performance of The Who's Quadrophenia in 1995. Their first live album--A Live One--which was released during the summer of 1995, became Phish's first RIAA-certified gold album in November 1995. Phish retreated to their Vermont recording studio and recorded hours and hours of improvisations, sometimes overlaying them on one another, and included some of the result on the second half of Billy Breathes, which they released in the fall of 1996. Alongside traditional rock-based crescendos, the album has more acoustic guitar than their previous records, and was regarded by the band and some fans as their crowning studio achievement. The album's first single, "Free", peaked at No. 24 on the Billboard Hot Modern Rock Tracks chart and No. 11 on the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart, becoming the band's most successful chart single of their career. CANNOTANSWER
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That year, the group released Rift packaged as a concept album and with heavy promotion from Elektra including artwork by David Welker.
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Phish is an American rock band that formed in Burlington, Vermont, in 1983. The band is known for musical improvisation, extended jams, blending of genres, and a dedicated fan base. The band consists of guitarist Trey Anastasio, bassist Mike Gordon, drummer Jon Fishman, and keyboardist Page McConnell, all of whom perform vocals, with Anastasio being the primary lead vocalist.
The band was formed by Anastasio, Gordon, Fishman and guitarist Jeff Holdsworth, who were joined by McConnell in 1985. Holdsworth departed the band in 1986, and the lineup has remained stable since. Phish began to perform outside of New England in the late 1980s and experienced a rise in popularity in the mid 1990s. In October 2000, the band began a two-year hiatus that ended in December 2002, but they disbanded again in August 2004. Phish reunited officially in October 2008 for subsequent reunion shows in March 2009 and since then have resumed performing regularly. All four members pursued solo careers or performed with side-projects and these projects have continued even after the band has reunited.
Phish's music blends elements of a wide variety of genres, including funk, progressive rock, psychedelic rock, folk, country, jazz, blues, bluegrass, and pop. The band is part of a movement of improvisational rock groups, inspired by the Grateful Dead and colloquially known as "jam bands", that gained considerable popularity as touring concert acts in the 1990s. Phish has developed a large and dedicated following by word of mouth, the exchange of live recordings, and selling over 8 million albums and DVDs in the United States.
Phish were signed to major label Elektra Records from 1991 to 2005, when the band formed their own independent label, JEMP Records, to release archival CD and DVD sets.
History
Formation, The White Tape and The Man Who Stepped into Yesterday: 1983–1988
Phish was formed at the University of Vermont (UVM) in 1983 by guitarists Trey Anastasio and Jeff Holdsworth, bassist Mike Gordon, and drummer Jon Fishman. Anastasio and Fishman had met that October, after Anastasio overheard Fishman playing drums in his dormitory room, and asked if he and Holdsworth could jam with him. Gordon met the trio shortly thereafter, having answered a want-ad for a bass guitarist that Anastasio had posted around the university.
The new group performed their first concert at Harris Millis Cafeteria at the University of Vermont on December 2, 1983, where they played a set of classic rock covers, including two songs by the Grateful Dead. The band performed one more concert in 1983, and then did not perform again for nearly a year, stemming from Anastasio's suspension from the university following a prank he had pulled with a friend.
Anastasio returned to his hometown of Princeton, New Jersey following the prank, and reconnected with his childhood friend Tom Marshall; The duo began a songwriting collaboration and recorded material that would appear on the Bivouac Jaun demo tape. Marshall and Anastasio have subsequently composed the majority of Phish's original songs throughout their career. Anastasio returned to Burlington in late 1984, and resumed performing with Gordon, Holdsworth and Fishman; The quartet eventually named themselves Phish, and they played their first concert under that name on October 23 of that year. Anastasio designed the band's logo, which featured the group's name inside a stylized fish. The band's members have given several different origins for the name Phish. In Parke Puterbaugh's 2009 book Phish: The Biography, the origin is given as a variation on phshhhh, an onomatopoeia of the sound of a brush on a snare drum. In the 2004 official documentary Specimens of Beauty, Anastasio said the band was also named after Fishman, whose nickname is "Fish." In a 1996 interview, Fishman denied that the band was named after him, and said the onomatopoeic inspiration behind the name was the sound of an airplane taking off.
The band would collaborate with percussionist Marc Daubert, a friend of Anastasio's, in the fall of 1984. Daubert ceased performing with the band in early 1985. Keyboardist Page McConnell met Phish in early 1985, when he arranged for them to play a spring concert at Goddard College, the small university he attended in Plainfield, Vermont. He began performing with the band as a guest shortly thereafter, and made his live debut during the third set of their May 3, 1985 concert at UVM's Redstone Campus. In the summer of 1985, Phish went on a short hiatus while Anastasio and Fishman vacationed in Europe; during this time, McConnell offered to join the band permanently, and moved to Burlington to learn their repertoire from Gordon. McConnell officially joined Phish as a full-time band member in September 1985.
Phish performed with a five-piece lineup for about six months after McConnell joined, a period which ended when Holdsworth quit the group in March 1986 following a religious conversion. Anastasio and Fishman relocated in mid-1986 to Goddard College after a recommendation from McConnell. Phish distributed at least six experimental self-titled cassettes during this era, including The White Tape.
While based at Goddard College, Phish began to collaborate with fellow students Richard "Nancy" Wright and Jim Pollock. Pollock and Wright were musical collaborators who made experimental recordings on multi-track cassettes, and had been introduced to Phish through McConnell, who co-hosted a radio program on WGDR with Pollock. Phish adopted a number of Nancy's songs into their own set, including "Halley's Comet", "I Didn't Know", and "Dear Mrs. Reagan", the latter song being written by Nancy and Pollock. In his book Heads: A Biography of Psychedelic America, music journalist Jesse Jarnow observed that Wright and his music were highly influential to Phish's early style and experimental sound. Wright amicably ended his association with Phish in 1989, but Pollock has continued to collaborate with Phish over the years, designing some of their album covers and concert posters.
By 1985, the group had encountered Burlington luthier Paul Languedoc, who would eventually design custom instruments for Anastasio and Gordon. In October 1986, he began working as their sound engineer. Since then, Languedoc has built exclusively for the two, and his designs and traditional wood choices have given Phish a unique instrumental identity. During the late 1980s, Phish began to play regularly at Nectar's bar and restaurant in downtown Burlington, and performed dozens of concerts across multiple residencies through March 1989. The band's 1992 album A Picture of Nectar was named in honor of the bar's owner, Nectar Rorris, and its cover features his face superimposed onto an orange.
As his senior project for Goddard College, Anastasio penned The Man Who Stepped into Yesterday, a nine-song progressive rock concept album that would become Phish's second studio experiment. Recorded between 1987 and 1988, it was submitted in July of that year, accompanied by a written thesis. The song cycle that developed from the project – known as Gamehendge – grew to include an additional eight songs. The band performed the suite in concert on five occasions: in 1988, 1991, 1993, and twice in 1994 without replicating the song list. The Man Who Stepped Into Yesterday has never received an official release, but a bootleg tape has circulated for decades, and songs such as "Wilson" and "The Lizards" remain concert staples for the band.
Beginning in the spring of 1988, members of the band began practicing in earnest, sometimes locking themselves in a room and jamming for hours on end. One such jam took place at Anastasio's apartment, with a second at Paul Languedoc's house in August 1989. They called these jam sessions "Oh Kee Pa Ceremonies", a reference to the film A Man Called Horse. In July 1988, the band performed their first concerts outside of the northeastern United States, when they embarked on a seven-date tour in Colorado. These shows are excerpted on their 2006 live compilation Colorado '88.
Junta, Lawn Boy, and A Picture of Nectar: 1989–1992
On January 26, 1989, Phish played the Paradise Rock Club in Boston; The owners of the club had never heard of Phish and refused to book them, so the band rented the club for the night. The show sold out due to the caravan of fans that had traveled to see the band. The concert was Phish's breakthrough on the northeastern regional music circuit, and the band began to book concerts at other large rock clubs, theaters, and small auditoriums throughout the area, such as the Somerville Theatre, Worcester Memorial Auditorium and Wetlands Preserve. That spring, the band self-released their debut full-length studio album, Junta, and sold copies on cassette tape at their concerts. The album includes a studio recording of the epic "You Enjoy Myself", which is considered to be the band's signature song. Later in 1989, the band hired Chris Kuroda as their lighting director. Kuroda subsequently became well known for his artistic light shows at the group's concerts. A profile on Phish appeared in the October 1989 issue of the Deadhead magazine Relix, which marked the first time the band had been covered in a major national music periodical.
By late 1990, Phish's concerts were becoming more and more intricate, often making a consistent effort to involve the audience in the performance. In a special "secret language", the audience would react in a certain manner based on a particular musical cue from the band. For instance, if Anastasio "teased" a motif from The Simpsons theme song, the audience would yell, "D'oh!" in imitation of . In 1992, Phish introduced a collaboration between audience and band called the "Big Ball Jam" in which each band member would throw a large beach ball into the audience and play a note each time his ball was hit. In so doing, the audience was helping to create an original composition. On occasion, performances of "You Enjoy Myself" and "Mike's Song" involved Gordon and Anastasio performing synchronized maneuvers and jumping on mini-trampolines while simultaneously playing their instruments. Fishman would also regularly step out from behind his drum kit during concerts to sing cover songs, which were often punctuated by him playing an Electrolux vacuum cleaner like an instrument. The band released their second album, Lawn Boy, in September 1990 on Absolute A Go Go, a small independent label that had a distribution deal with the larger Rough Trade Records. The album had been recorded the previous year, after the band had won studio time at engineer Dan Archer's Archer Studios when they came in first place at an April 1989 battle of the bands competition in Burlington.
Phish, along with Bob Dylan, the Grateful Dead, and the Beatles, was one of the first bands to have a Usenet newsgroup, rec.music.phish, which launched in 1991. Aware of the band's growing popularity, Elektra Records signed them that year after they were recommended to the record label by A&R representative Sue Drew. In the summer of 1991, the band embarked on a 14-date tour of the eastern United States accompanied by a three-piece horn section dubbed the Giant Country Horns. In August of that year, Phish played an outdoor concert at their friend Amy Skelton's horse farm in Auburn, Maine that acted as a prototype for their later all-day festival events.
In 1992, the band released their third studio album, A Picture of Nectar, their first release for the major label Elektra. Subsequently, the label also reissued the band's first two albums. Later in 1992, Phish participated in the first annual H.O.R.D.E. festival, which provided them with their first national tour of major amphitheaters. The lineup, among others, included Phish, Blues Traveler, the Spin Doctors, and Widespread Panic. That summer, the band toured Europe with the Violent Femmes and later toured Europe and the U.S. with Santana. Throughout the latter tour, Carlos Santana regularly invited some or all of the members of Phish to jam with his band during their headlining performances. The band ended 1992 with a New Year's Eve performance at the Matthews Arena in Boston, Massachusetts, a performance that was simulcast throughout the Boston area by radio station WBCN. The concert was filled with several new "secret language" cues they had taught their audience in order to deliberately confuse radio listeners.
Rift, Hoist, and A Live One: 1993–1995
Phish began headlining major amphitheaters in the summer of 1993. That year, the group released their fourth album, Rift, a concept album which featured a cover painted by David Welker that referenced almost all of the songs on the record. The album was the band's first to appear on the Billboard 200 album chart, debuting at #51 in February 1993.
In March 1994, the band released their fifth studio album Hoist. The album featured an array of guest performers, including country singer Alison Krauss, banjoist Béla Fleck, former Sly & The Family Stone member Rose Stone, actor and trombonist Jonathan Frakes, and the horn section of R&B group Tower of Power. To promote the album, Gordon directed the band's only official music video, for its first single "Down with Disease". The clip gained some MTV airplay starting in June of that year. "Down with Disease" became a minor hit on rock radio in the United States, and was the band's first song to appear on a Billboard music chart when it peaked at #33 on the magazine's Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks chart that summer. To further promote Hoist, the band released an experimental short-subject documentary called Tracking, also directed by Gordon, which depicted the recording sessions for the album.
Foreshadowing their future tradition of festivals, Phish coupled camping with their 1994 summer tour finale at Sugarbush North in Warren, Vermont, that show eventually being released as Live Phish Volume 2. On Halloween of that year, the group promised to don a fan-selected "musical costume" by playing an entire album from another band. After an extensive mail-based poll, Phish performed the Beatles' White Album as the second of their three sets at the Glens Falls Civic Center in upstate New York. The "musical costume" concept subsequently became a recurring part of Phish's fall tours, with the band playing a different album whenever they had a concert scheduled for Halloween night.
In October 1994, Crimes of the Mind, the debut album by Anastasio's friend and collaborator Steve "The Dude of Life" Pollak, was released by Elektra Records; The album, which had been recorded in 1991, was billed to "The Dude of Life and Phish" and features all four members of Phish acting as Pollak's backing band.
On December 30, 1994, the band made their first appearance on national network television when they performed "Chalk Dust Torture" on Late Night with David Letterman. The band would go on to appear on the program seven more times before David Letterman's retirement as host in 2015. For their 1994 New Years Run, Phish played the Civic Centers in Philadelphia and Providence as well as sold-out shows at Madison Square Garden and Boston Garden, which marked their debut performances at both venues. For the December 31 show at the Boston Garden, the band rode around the arena in a float shaped like a hot dog. The stunt was reprised at their 1999 New Year's Eve concert before the hot dog was donated to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. At the end of 1994, Phish appeared on Pollstars list of the highest grossing concert tours in the United States for the first time, as the 32nd highest grossing act, with $10.3 million in ticket sales.
Following the death of Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia in the summer of 1995 and the appearance of "Down with Disease" on Beavis and Butt-Head, the band experienced a surge in the growth of their fan base and an increased awareness in popular culture. In their tradition of playing a well-known album by another band for Halloween, Phish contracted a full horn section for their performance of The Who's Quadrophenia in 1995.
Phish's first live album, A Live One, was released during the summer of 1995 and featured selections from various concerts from their 1994 winter tour. The album charted at number 18 on the Billboard 200 album chart, and was reported to have sold around 50,000 copies in its first week on sale. A Live One became Phish's first RIAA-certified gold album in November 1995. In 1997, A Live One became the band's first Platinum album, certified for sales of 1 million copies in the United States, and remains their best selling album to date.
Billy Breathes, The Story of the Ghost, and The Siket Disc: 1996–1999
Following an appearance at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival in April 1996, The band spent the summer of that year opening for Santana on their European tour. In August 1996, the band held their first festival, The Clifford Ball, at the decommissioned Plattsburgh Air Force Base on the New York side of Lake Champlain. The festival attracted 70,000 attendees, making it both Phish's biggest concert crowd to that point and the largest single concert by attendance in the United States in 1996. Phish recorded their sixth album Billy Breathes in the winter and spring of 1996, and the album was issued in October of that year. Alongside traditional rock-based crescendos, the album has more acoustic guitar than their previous records, and was regarded by the band and some fans as their crowning studio achievement. The album's first single, "Free", peaked at No. 24 on the Billboard Hot Modern Rock Tracks chart and No. 11 on the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart, and was their most successful song on both charts.
By 1997, Phish's concert improvisational ventures were developing into a new funk-inspired long form jamming style. Vermont-based ice cream conglomerate Ben & Jerry's launched "Phish Food" that year. The band officially licensed their name for use with the product, the only time they have ever allowed a third-party company to do so, and were directly involved with the creation of the flavor. Proceeds from the flavor are donated to the band's non-profit charity The WaterWheel Foundation, which raises funds for the preservation of Vermont's Lake Champlain. On August 8, 1997, Phish webcast one of their concerts live over the internet for the first time.
On August 16 and 17, 1997, Phish held their second festival, The Great Went, over two days at the Loring Air Force Base in Limestone, Maine, near the Canada–United States border. In October 1997, the band released their second live album Slip Stitch and Pass, which featured selections from their March 1997 concert at the Markthalle Hamburg in Hamburg, Germany.
Following the Great Went, the band embarked on a fall tour that was dubbed by fans as the "Phish Destroys America" tour after a 1970s kung fu-inspired poster for the opening date in Las Vegas. The 21-date tour is considered one of the group's most popular and acclaimed tours, and several concerts were later officially released on live album sets such as Live Phish Volume 11 in 2002. Phish ended 1997 as one of the ten highest grossing concert acts in the United States that year.
In April 1998, the band embarked on the Island Tour - a four night tour with two shows at the Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, New York on Long Island and another two at the Providence Civic Center in Providence, Rhode Island. The four concerts are highly regarded by fans due to the band's exploration of a jazz-funk musical style they had been playing for the previous year, which Anastasio dubbed "cowfunk". The band performed the tour in the middle of studio sessions for their seventh album, and were inspired by the quality of their performances to further incorporate the cowfunk style into subsequent sessions. The resulting album, The Story of the Ghost, was released in October 1998. The album's first single "Birds of a Feather", which had been premiered on the Island Tour, became a #14 hit on Billboard's Adult Alternative Songs chart. To promote The Story of the Ghost, Phish performed several songs from the album on the public television music show Sessions at West 54th in October 1998, and were interviewed for the program by its host David Byrne of Talking Heads.
In the summer of 1998, The band held Lemonwheel, their second festival at Loring Air Force Base in Maine. The two-day event attracted 60,000 attendees.
The band played another summer festival in 1999, called Camp Oswego and held at the Oswego County Airport in Volney, New York. Unlike other Phish festivals, Camp Oswego featured a prominent second stage of additional performers aside from Phish, including Del McCoury, The Slip and Ozomatli.
In July 1999, the band released an album of improvisational instrumentals titled The Siket Disc. The band followed that release with Hampton Comes Alive, a six-disc box set released in November 1999, which contained the entirety of their performances on November 20 and 21, 1998 at the Hampton Coliseum in Hampton, Virginia. The set marked the first time that complete recordings of Phish concerts were officially released by Elektra Records.
To celebrate the new millennium, Phish hosted a two-day outdoor festival at the Big Cypress Seminole Indian Reservation in Florida in December 1999. The festival's climactic New Year's Eve concert, referred to by fans as simply "The Show," started at 11:35 p.m. on December 31, 1999, and continued through to sunrise on January 1, 2000, approximately eight hours later. The band's performance of the song "Heavy Things" at the festival was broadcast live as part of ABC's 2000 Today millennium coverage, giving the band their biggest television audience up to that point. 75,000 people attended the sold-out two-day festival. In 2017, Rolling Stone named the Big Cypress festival one of the "50 Greatest Concerts of the Last 50 Years."
Farmhouse and hiatus: 2000–2002
Following the Big Cypress festival, the band issued their ninth studio album Farmhouse in May 2000. "Heavy Things", which was released as the album's first single, became the band's only song to appear on a mainstream pop radio format, reaching #29 on Billboard'''s Adult Top 40 chart that July. The song also became the band's biggest hit to date on the Adult Alternative Songs chart, reaching #2 there. In June 2000, the band embarked on a seven-date headlining tour of Japan. In July, they taped an appearance on the PBS music show Austin City Limits, which was aired in October.
In the summer of 2000, the band announced that they would take their first "extended time-out" following their upcoming fall tour. Anastasio officially announced the impending hiatus to the band's fans during their September 30 concert at the Thomas & Mack Center in Paradise, Nevada. During the tour's last concert on October 7, at the Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, California, the band made no reference to the hiatus, and left the stage without saying a word following their encore performance of "You Enjoy Myself", as The Beatles' "Let It Be" played over the venue's sound system.Bittersweet Motel, a documentary film about the band directed by Todd Phillips, was released in August 2000, shortly before the hiatus began. The documentary captures the band's 1997 and 1998 tours, the Great Went festival and the recording of The Story of the Ghost. Phish were nominated in two categories at the 43rd Annual Grammy Awards in 2001: Best Boxed Recording Package for Hampton Comes Alive and Best Instrumental Rock Performance for "First Tube" from Farmhouse.
During Phish's hiatus, Elektra Records continued to issue archival releases of the band's concerts on compact disc. Between September 2001 and May 2003, the label released 20 entries in the Live Phish Series. These multi-disc sets featured complete soundboard recordings of concerts that were particularly popular with the band and their fanbase, similar to the Grateful Dead's Dick's Picks archival series. In November 2002, the label released the band's first concert DVD, Phish: Live in Vegas, which featured the entirety of the September 2000 concert at which Anastasio announced the hiatus.
In April 2002, Phish guest starred on the episode "Weekend at Burnsie's" of the animated series The Simpsons. The episode marked the band's first appearance together, albeit as animated characters, since the hiatus began. Phish provided their own voices for the episode and performed a snippet of "Run Like an Antelope".
Return, Round Room, Undermind, and disbandment: 2002–2004
In August 2002, Phish's manager John Paluska announced the band planned to end their hiatus that December with a New Year's Eve concert at Madison Square Garden. They also recorded Round Room in only four days and released it on December 10. The band had initially planned to record the new album live at the Madison Square Garden concert, but instead felt that demos they had recorded of the material were strong enough to merit release as a studio album. Four days after the release of Round Room, the band made their only appearance as a musical guest on Saturday Night Live, where they debuted the song "46 Days" and appeared in two comedy sketches. During their return concert on December 31, McConnell's brother was introduced as actor Tom Hanks. The impostor sang a line of the song "Wilson", prompting some media outlets to report that the actor had appeared at the concert.
Phish’s 2003 winter tour commenced in February in Inglewood, California, and included the song The Cover of "Rolling Stone" — foreshadowing their actual appearance on the cover of Rolling Stone’s March 3, 2003 issue.
At the end of the 2003 summer tour, Phish returned to Limestone, Maine for It, their first festival since Big Cypress. The event drew crowds of over 60,000 fans, and was the band's final festival to be held at Loring Air Force Base. Highlights from the festival were released on a DVD set, also called It, in October 2004. In November and December 2003, the band celebrated its 20th anniversary with a four-show mini-tour of shows in New York, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts. The December 1 show at Pepsi Arena featured a guest appearance by former member Jeff Holdsworth, who sat in with the band on five songs, including his compositions "Possum" and "Camel Walk".
On May 25, 2004, Anastasio announced on the Phish website that the band would disband at the end of their 2004 summer tour. He wrote that he had met with the other members earlier that month to discuss the "Strong feelings I’ve been having that Phish has run its course, and that we should end it now while it’s still on a high note." By the end of the meeting, he said, "We realized that after almost twenty-one years together, we were faced with the opportunity to graciously step away in unison, as a group, united in our friendship and our feelings of gratitude." The band's eleventh – and at the time final – studio album Undermind was released in June 2004. The band's summer 2004 began with two concerts at Keyspan Park in Brooklyn, New York. The first concert was recorded for the live album and concert documentary Phish: Live in Brooklyn, while the second featured a guest appearance by rapper Jay-Z, who performed two songs with the band. Later that summer, the band appeared on the Late Show with David Letterman and performed a seven-song set from atop the marquee of the Ed Sullivan Theater for fans who had gathered on the street.
The 2004 tour finished ended with the band's seventh summer festival on August 14 and 15, which were billed as their final performances. The Coventry festival was named for the town in Vermont that hosted the event, which was held at the nearby Newport State Airport. After Coventry, the members of the band admitted they were disappointed with their performance at the festival; In the official book Phish: The Biography, Anastasio expressed that "Coventry itself was a nightmare. It was emotional, but it was not like we were at our finest. I certainly wasn't".
Post-disbandment and interim: 2004–2008
Following the break-up, the band's members remained in amicable communication with one another. The members also occasionally appeared on each other's solo albums and collaborated on side-projects.
In December 2006, Anastasio was arrested in Whitehall, New York for drug possession and driving while intoxicated, and was sentenced to 14 months in a drug court program. In 2007, while Anastasio was undergoing rehabilitation, the other members of Phish surprised him on his birthday with an instrumental recording they had made for him to play along with on guitar. During his rehabilitation, Anastasio said he "spent 24 hours a day thinking about nothing but Phish" and began discussing a reunion with the other members of the band.
In 2005, Phish formed their own record label, JEMP Records, to release archival CD and DVD sets. The label's first release was Phish: New Year's Eve 1995 – Live at Madison Square Garden, which was released in conjunction with Rhino Records in December 2005. The album was named the 42nd greatest live album of all time by Rolling Stone in April 2015. The label subsequently released several other archival live box sets, including Colorado '88 (2006), Vegas 96 (2007), At the Roxy (2008) and The Clifford Ball (2009).
Phish received the Jammys Lifetime Achievement Award on May 7, 2008, at The Theater at Madison Square Garden. All four members attended the ceremony and gave a speech, and both McConnell and Anastasio performed, although not together.
In response to a June 2008 rumor that Phish had reunited to record a new album, McConnell wrote a letter on the band's website updating fans on the current relations between the band's members. McConnell wrote that while the members remained friends, they were currently busy with other projects and the reunion rumors were premature. He added, "Later this year we hope to spend some time together and take a look at what possible futures we might enjoy." That September, the band played three songs at the wedding of their former tour manager Brad Sands. Later in 2008, the band reconvened at The Barn, Anastasio's farmhouse studio in Burlington, Vermont, for jamming sessions and rehearsals.
Reunion and Joy: 2008–2011
On October 1, 2008, the band announced on their website that they had officially reunited, and would play their first shows in five years in March 2009 at the Hampton Coliseum in Hampton, Virginia. The three reunion concerts were held on March 6, 7, and 8, 2009, with "Fluffhead" being the first song the band played onstage at the first show. Approximately 14,000 people attended the concerts over the course of three days, and the band made the shows available for free download on their LivePhish website for a limited time, in order to accommodate fans who were unable to attend.
When the band decided to reunite, the members agreed to limit their touring schedule, and they have typically performed about 50 concerts a year since. Following the reunion weekend, Phish embarked on a summer tour which began in May with a concert at Fenway Park in Boston. The Fenway show was followed by a 25-date tour which included performances at the 2009 edition of the Bonnaroo Music Festival in Tennessee and a four date stand at Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Colorado. At Bonnaroo, Phish was joined by Bruce Springsteen on guitar for three songs.
Phish's fourteenth studio album, Joy, produced by Steve Lillywhite, was released September 8, 2009. In October, the band held Festival 8, their first multi-day festival event since Coventry in 2004, at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, California.
In March 2010, Anastasio inducted Genesis, one of his favorite bands, into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at the museum's annual ceremony in New York City. In addition to Anastasio's speech, Phish performed the Genesis songs "Watcher of the Skies" and "No Reply at All" at the event. Phish toured in the summer and fall of 2010, and their August 10 concert at the Utica Memorial Auditorium was released on the DVD/CD box-set Live in Utica the following May.
Fuego and Big Boat: 2011–2016
Phish's ninth festival, Super Ball IX, took place at the Watkins Glen International race track in Watkins Glen, New York on July 1–3, 2011. It was the first concert to take place at Watkins Glen International since Summer Jam at Watkins Glen in 1973. In September, the band played a benefit concert in Essex Junction, Vermont which raised $1.2 million for Vermont flood victim relief in the aftermath of Hurricane Irene.
In June 2012, Phish headlined Bonnaroo 2012 with the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Radiohead. During their 2013 Halloween concert at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey, the band played twelve new songs from their upcoming album, which at the time had the working title Wingsuit and would later be renamed Fuego. Phish ended 2013 with a New Year's Eve concert that also celebrated their 30th anniversary, as they had played their first concert in December 1983. The concert featured a nine-minute montage film celebrating the band's career, and the band performed an entire set in the middle of the arena from atop an equipment truck.
Phish released Fuego, their first studio album in five years, on June 24, 2014. The album peaked at number 7 on the Billboard 200 album chart, and became their highest charting album since Billy Breathes reached the same position in 1996. During their Halloween 2014 concert at MGM Grand Las Vegas, the band performed a set consisting of ten original songs inspired by the 1964 Walt Disney Records sound effects album Chilling, Thrilling Sounds of the Haunted House.In 2015, Phish performed both a summer tour and their tenth multi-day festival event, Magnaball, was held at the Watkins International Speedway in New York in August. Phish's fourteenth studio album, Big Boat, was released on October 7, 2016.
The Baker's Dozen and Kasvot Växt: 2015–2019
Phish played a 13-night concert residency at New York City's Madison Square Garden from July 21 to August 6, 2017, dubbed "The Baker's Dozen". Each concert featured a loose theme with performances of unique cover songs and a special doughnut served each night to the audience by Federal Donuts of Philadelphia. No songs were repeated during the Baker's Dozen run, with a total of 237 individual songs performed across the 13 concerts. The complete Baker's Dozen residency was released as a limited edition 36-disc box set in November 2018. A scaled-down triple CD set featuring 13 song performances, titled The Baker’s Dozen: Live at Madison Square Garden, was issued simultaneously with the box set.
Phish planned to hold an eleventh summer festival, Curveball, in Watkins Glen, New York in 2018, but the festival was canceled by New York Department of Health officials, one day before it was scheduled to begin, due to water quality issues from flooding in the Watkins Glen, New York area. At their Halloween concert that October at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, the band performed a set of all-new original material that they promoted as a "cover" of í rokk by Kasvot Växt, a fictional 1980s Scandinavian progressive rock band they had created. The Kasvot Växt set was released as a standalone live album on Spotify on November 10, 2018. All four concerts in the 2018 Halloween run were livestreamed in 4K resolution, which marked the first time that a major musical act had ever offered a 4K livestreaming option.Between Me and My Mind, a documentary film directed by Steven Cantor about Anastasio's life, his Ghosts of the Forest side-project and Phish's 2017 New Year's Eve concert, was screened at the Tribeca Film Festival in April 2019. In June 2019, SiriusXM launched Phish Radio, a satellite radio station dedicated to the band's music.
Sigma Oasis and recent activity: 2019–present
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Phish postponed their 2020 summer tour until 2021. Before 2020, Phish had embarked on a summer tour every year since their 2009 reunion. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Phish hosted free weekly "Dinner and a Movie" webcasts of archival performances on Tuesday evenings until Labor Day weekend, after which they were hosted monthly.
Phish released their fifteenth studio album Sigma Oasis on April 2, 2020. The album was premiered through a listening party on their LivePhish app, SiriusXM radio station and Facebook page. The album consists entirely of material the band had been performing in concert over the course of the previous decade, but had yet to appear on a studio release.
In January 2021, Anastasio told Pollstar that the band was unable to perform or rehearse together due to COVID-19 restrictions and quarantine rules currently in place in the New England states, but said "As soon as it's feasible, we'll be back."
Phish performed their first concert since the start of the pandemic on July 28, 2021, having not performed since February 23, 2020. Beginning with their concerts at The Gorge Amphitheatre in late August, the band began requiring attendees to show proof of vaccination or a negative test for COVID-19. During their 2021 Halloween concert, Phish debuted a set of new original science fiction-themed material under the guise of the fictional band Sci-Fi Soldier. According to Pollstar, Phish were the ninth highest grossing concert act in the world in 2021, with a $44.4 million gross from 35 concerts. Phish also had the fifth highest concert ticket sales in the world in 2021, with 572,626 tickets sold. Due to an increase of cases of the Omicron variant of COVID-19 in New York City, Phish postponed their 2021 New Year's Eve concerts at Madison Square Garden from December 2021 to April 2022. On Dec 31, 2021, Phish performed a three-set New Year's Eve concert without an audience from "The Ninth Cube."
Reception and legacy
Phish's popularity grew in the 1990s due to fans sharing concert recordings that had been taped by audience members and distributed online for free. Phish were among the first musical acts to utilize the internet to grow their fanbase, with fans using file-sharing websites such as etree and BitTorrent to share concerts.
In 1998, Rolling Stone described Phish as "the most important band of the '90s." Phish have been named as an influence by other acts in the jam band scene, including Umphrey's McGee and the Disco Biscuits Other musicians have also counted Phish as an influence, including Adam Levine and James Valentine of Maroon 5, Ed O'Brien of Radiohead, Brandon Boyd of Incubus, and reggae musician Matisyahu.
Phish's festival events in the 1990s inspired the foundation of the Bonnaroo Music Festival in Tennessee, which was first held in 2002. Co-founder Rick Farman, a Phish fan, consulted Phish managers Richard Glasgow and John Paluska about festival infrastructure during the early stages of planning. The festivals also inspired other jam band-oriented concert events, such as the Disco Biscuits' Camp Bisco, Electric Forest Festival, and the Big Ears Festival.
While Phish has had eight of their singles appear on Billboards Adult Alternative Songs chart since its inception in 1996, even the band's most successful songs would not be recognizable to the average music listener. Phish are well known to their loyal fans, called Phishheads, but the group's music and fan culture are otherwise polarizing to general audiences. The tribal nature of Phish supporters has encouraged comparisons of Phishheads to the Juggalos, followers of the hip-hop duo Insane Clown Posse. Phish heavily contributes to music based tourism with their "traveling communities" of fans, and they have been simultaneously hailed and criticized for their near-constant tour dates, which bring with them the capital value of tourism and necessitates the increased security and community planning that come with any music festival. Jordan Hoffman of Thrillist explains "the solace many find in attending religious services is somewhat mirrored for me in seeing Phish," and even though Phish fans are generally considered welcoming and friendly, the reception of the group from the outside is often one of unease and confusion. The BBC listed Phish as one of "Eight smash US acts that Britain never understood" along with fellow jam bands Dave Matthews Band and Blues Traveler. In describing the band to a British audience, BBC journalist Stephen Dowling wrote "Attending a Phish gig has become a rite of summer passage for American teens in the same way that attending Glastonbury has for British teenagers."
Phish has performed 64 concerts at Madison Square Garden since their debut performance there in 1994. The band have performed the third-most concerts at the venue of any musical act, behind only Billy Joel and Elton John. In 2019, Billboard ranked Phish as the 33rd highest-grossing concert touring act of the 2010s.
Musical style and influences
According to The New Rolling Stone Album Guide, the music of Phish is "oriented around group improvisation and super-extended grooves". Their songs draw on a range of rock-oriented influences, including funk, jazz fusion, progressive rock, bluegrass, and psychedelic rock. Some Phish songs use different vocal approaches, such as a cappella (unaccompanied) sections of barbershop quartet-style vocal harmonies. The band began to include barbershop segments in their concerts in 1993, when the four members began taking lessons from McConnell's landlord, who was a judge at barbershop competitions. In the 1997 official biography, The Phish Book, Anastasio coined the term "cow-funk" to describe the band's late 1990s funk and jazz-funk-influenced playing style, observing that "What we’re doing now is really more about groove than funk. Good funk, real funk, is not played by four white guys from Vermont."
Phish were often compared to the Grateful Dead during the 1990s, a comparison that the band members often resisted or distanced themselves from. The two bands were compared due to their emphasis on live performances, improvisational jamming style, musical similarities, and traveling fanbase. In November 1995, Anastasio told the Baltimore Sun "When we first came into the awareness of the media, it would always be the Dead or Zappa they'd compare us to. All of these bands I love, you know? But I got very sensitive about it." Early in their career, Phish would occasionally cover Grateful Dead songs in concert, but the band stopped doing so by the late 1980s. In Phish: The Biography, Parke Puterbaugh observed "The bottom line is while it's impossible to imagine Phish without the Grateful Dead as forebears, many other musicians figured as influences upon them. Some of them - such as Carlos Santana and Frank Zappa - were arguably at least as significant as the Grateful Dead. In reality, the media certainly overplayed the Grateful Dead connection and Phish probably underplayed it, at least in their first decade." Anastasio has also cited progressive rock artists such as King Crimson and Genesis as significant influences on Phish's early material. In a 2019 New York Times interview, he observed, "If you listen to the first couple of Phish albums, they don’t sound anything like the Grateful Dead. I was more interested in Yes."
In his 2018 book Twilight of the Gods, music critic Steven Hyden wrote that he found the Grateful Dead and Phish to have "significantly different reference points" in terms of influence and style. The Grateful Dead, Hyden explained, were "informed by the totality of American music from the first sixty years of the twentieth century: Blues, country, folk, jazz, and early rock 'n' roll," while Phish's music contains elements of "hopped-up bluegrass, jazzy disco, porno-movie funk, Broadway theatricality, and shockingly sincere barbershop harmonies. But it all stems from classic rock." Hyden observed that "If the Dead encompasses American music from roughly 1900 to 1967, Phish picks up the story right through the AOR era, from '68 to around the time Stop Making Sense debuted in theaters in the mid-eighties."
Live performances
The driving force behind Phish is the popularity of their concerts and the fan culture surrounding the event. Each a production unto itself, the band is known to consistently change set lists and details, as well as the addition of their own antics to ensure that no two shows are ever the same. With fans flocking to venues hours before they open, the concert is the centerpiece of an event that includes a temporary community in the parking lot similar to the "Shakedown Street" bazaar held outside Grateful Dead concerts.
Phish concerts typically feature two sets, with an intermission in between. During concerts, songs often segue into one another, or produce improvisational jams that can last 10 minutes or more depending on the song. Several regularly performed songs in Phish's repertoire have never appeared on one of their studio albums; these include "Possum", "Mike's Song", "I Am Hydrogen", "Weekapaug Groove", "Harry Hood", "Runaway Jim", "Suzy Greenberg", "AC/DC Bag" and "The Lizards", all of which date to 1990 or earlier and have been played by Phish over 300 times in concert.
Because Phish's reputation is so grounded in their live performances, concert recordings are commonly traded commodities. In December 2002, the band launched the LivePhish website, from which official soundboard recordings can be purchased. Legal field recordings produced by tapers with boom microphones from the audience in compliance with Phish's tape trading policy are frequently traded on any number of music message boards. Although technically not allowed, live videos of Phish shows are also traded by fans and are tolerated as long as they are for non-profit, personal use. Phish fans have been noted for their extensive collections of fan-taped concert recordings; owning recordings of entire tours and years is widespread.
Fans' recordings are generally sourced from the officially designated tapers' section at each show, by fans with devoted sound recording rigs. Tickets for the tapers' section are acquired separately from regular audience tickets, and directly from the band's website, instead of the venue or a service like Ticketmaster. However, tapers are also required to purchase a general admission ticket for concerts. The band disallowed tapers from patching directly into Paul Languedoc's soundboard in 1990, after a fan unplugged some of his equipment during a concert that June.
In 2014, the band launched their own on-demand streaming service, LivePhish+. The platform features hundreds of soundboard recordings of the band's concerts for streaming, including all of their shows from 2002 onwards, as well as all of their studio albums. Phish continue to allow fans to tape and distribute audience recordings of their concerts after the launch of the LivePhish storefront and streaming services.
Books and podcasts
Several books on Phish have been published, including two official publications: The Phish Book, a 1998 coffee table book credited to the band members and journalist Richard Gehr which focused on the band's activities during 1996 and 1997, and Phish: The Biography, a semi-official biographical book written by music journalist and Phish fan Parke Puterbaugh, was published in 2009 and was based on interviews with the four band members, their friends and crew. An installment of the 33⅓ book series on A Live One, written by Walter Holland, was published in 2015. The 2013 book You Don't Know Me but You Don't Like Me: Phish, Insane Clown Posse, and My Misadventures with Two of Music's Most Maligned Tribes, written by music critic Nathan Rabin, compares and contrasts the fanbases of Phish and Insane Clown Posse.
In addition to books, there have been multiple podcasts which have focused on Phish, its music and fanbase as their central topics of discussion. Among the first was Analyze Phish, which was hosted by comedians Harris Wittels and Scott Aukerman for the Earwolf podcast network, and ran for ten episodes posted between 2011 and 2014. The podcast followed Wittels, a devoted fan of the band, in his humorous attempts to get Aukerman to enjoy their music. Despite its truncated run, Analyze Phish inspired Phish lyricist Tom Marshall to start his own Phish podcast, Under the Scales, in 2016. In 2018, Marshall co-founded the Osiris Podcasting Network, which hosts Under the Scales and other music podcasts, many of which are devoted to Phish or other jam bands. In September 2019, C13Originals debuted Long May They Run, a music documentary podcast series; The first season, consisting of 10 episodes, focused on Phish's history and influence on the live music scene. In November 2019, the Osiris Podcasting Network premiered After Midnight, a five-episode documentary series exploring the creation, execution, and aftermath of Phish's 1999 Big Cypress festival.
Other appearances
Seattle Seahawks fans began mimicking Phish's song "Wilson" by chanting the song's opening line when quarterback Russell Wilson took the field during games. The new tradition started after Anastasio made the suggestion at shows in Seattle. The story behind the "Wilson" chant was featured in a 2014 documentary short by NFL Films.
Band members
Current members
Trey Anastasio – guitar, lead vocals (1983–2004; 2008–present)
Jon Fishman – drums, percussion, vocals, vacuum (1983–2004; 2008–present)
Mike Gordon – bass, vocals (1983–2004; 2008–present)
Page McConnell – keyboards, vocals (1985–2004; 2008–present)
Auxiliary personnel
Tom Marshall – songwriting, occasional backing vocals (1984–2004; 2008–present)
Chris Kuroda – concert lighting director (1989–2004; 2008–present)
Paul Languedoc – sound engineer (1986–2004), luthier (1986-2004; 2008-present)
Former members
Jeff Holdsworth – guitar, vocals (1983–1986; guest in 2003)
Former touring musicians
Marc Daubert – percussion (1984–1985)
Giant Country Horns or Cosmic Country Horns – horn section (1991, 1994)
Timeline
Studio discography
Junta (1989)
Lawn Boy (1990)
A Picture of Nectar (1992)
Rift (1993)
Hoist (1994)
Billy Breathes (1996)
The Story of the Ghost (1998)
The Siket Disc (1999)
Farmhouse (2000)
Round Room (2002)
Undermind (2004)
Joy (2009)
Fuego (2014)
Big Boat (2016)
Sigma Oasis'' (2020)
References
External links
Musical groups established in 1983
Jam bands
Jammy Award winners
Culture of Burlington, Vermont
Rock music groups from Vermont
Musical quartets
Musical groups reestablished in 2009
American experimental rock groups
American progressive rock groups
Funk rock musical groups
Neo-psychedelia groups
Jazz fusion ensembles
Jazz-rock groups
American folk rock groups
1983 establishments in Vermont
MapleMusic Recordings artists
Elektra Records artists
Rhino Records artists
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[
"Rift Rivals (RR) was a series of cross-regional League of Legends tournaments organized by Riot Games from 2017–2019. Rift Rivals was five concurrent tournaments where related regions would be pitted against each other. Teams who placed the best in the Spring Split (or other opening season) of the year were invited to a tournament against another region's top teams. In 2019 Rift Rivals, the event was narrowed to only the two largest tournaments: the LCS (NALCS) vs. the LEC (EULCS) for North America vs. Europe, and the LPL vs. LCK vs. LMS-VCS for South Korea / China / Taiwan / Vietnam.\n\nDue to the COVID-19 pandemic, 2020 Rift Rivals was canceled by Riot, as the originally scheduled timeslot in July 2020 was replaced by a delayed Mid-Season Invitational (MSI). Riot additionally announced it would \"sunset\" the tournaments.\n\nBlue Rift \n\n Europe - EU LCS (2017–2018) / LEC (2019) \n North America - NA LCS (2017–2018) / LCS (2019)\n\nRed Rift \n\nChina (LPL)\n South Korea (LCK)\n Taiwan/Hong Kong/Macao (LMS) (2017–2018) / Taiwan/Hong Kong/Macao-Vietnam (LMS-VCS) (2019)\n\nYellow Rift \n\n Brazil (BR)\n Latin America North (LAN)\n Latin America South (LAS)\n\nPurple Rift \n\n Japan (JP)\n Oceania (OCE)\n Southeast Asia (SEA)\n\nGreen Rift \n\n Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS)\n Turkey (TR)\n Vietnam (VN, since 2018)\n\nReferences \n\nLeague of Legends competitions",
"Fantastic Locations: The Frostfell Rift is an adventure module for the 3.5 edition of the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game.\n\nPlot summary\nFantastic Locations: The Frostfell Rift presents several encounters involving the Frostfell. Locations include Hailstorm Tower, the Caves of Chaos, and the Frostfell Rift.\n\nPublication history\nFantastic Locations: The Frostfell Rift was written by Ari Marmell, and was published in December 2006. Cover art was by Izzy, with interior art by David Griffith.\n\nReception\n\nReferences\n\nDungeons & Dragons modules"
] |
[
"Phish",
"Rift, Hoist and Billy Breathes: 1993-1996",
"What was Rift?",
"That year, the group released Rift packaged as a concept album and with heavy promotion from Elektra including artwork by David Welker."
] |
C_cc0a0b8114b74122bf3192e464f47340_1
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Did it have any hits??
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Did Rift have any hits??
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Phish
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Phish was formed at the University of Vermont (UVM) in 1983 by guitarists Trey Anastasio and Jeff Holdsworth, bassist Mike Gordon, and drummer Jon Fishman. For their first gig, at Harris Millis Cafeteria at the University of Vermont on December 2, 1983, the band was billed as "Blackwood Convention". ("Blackwood convention" is a term from the card game contract bridge.) The band was joined by percussionist Marc Daubert in the fall of 1984, a time during which they promoted themselves as playing Grateful Dead songs. Daubert left the band early in 1985, and Page McConnell then joined the group on keyboards and made his debut on May 3, 1985, at a show at Wilks/Davis/Wing Dormitory on Redstone Campus at UVM. Holdsworth left the group after graduating in 1986, solidifying the band's lineup of "Trey, Page, Mike, and Fish"--the lineup to this day. Following a prank at UVM with his friend and former bandmate Steve Pollak--also known as "The Dude of Life"--Anastasio decided to leave the college. With the encouragement of McConnell (who received $50 for each transferee), Anastasio and Fishman relocated in mid-1986 to Goddard College, a small school in the hills of Plainfield, Vermont. Phish distributed at least six different experimental self-titled cassettes during this era, including The White Tape. This first studio recording was circulated in two variations: the first, mixed in a dorm room as late as 1985, received a higher distribution than the second studio remix of the original four tracks, c. 1987. The older version was officially released under the title Phish in August 1998. Jesse Jarnow's book Heads: A Biography of Psychedelic America details much of the band's early years at Goddard College, including their early relationship with fellow Goddard students Richard "Nancy" Wright and Jim Pollock. Pollock and Wright were musical collaborators, experimenting with multi-track cassette records to be broadcast on local radio. Phish adopted a number of Nancy's songs into their own set, including "Halley's Comet", "I Didn't Know", and "Dear Mrs. Reagan", the latter song being written by Nancy and Pollock. Jarnow argues that despite an eventual falling out between the members of Phish and Nancy, Nancy and his music were highly influential to Phish's early style and experimental sound. Pollock continued to collaborate with Phish over the years, designing some of their most iconic concert posters. The band's actions demonstrate an identity with their "hometown" of Burlington, Vermont. By 1985, the group had encountered Burlington luthier Paul Languedoc, who would eventually design four guitars for Anastasio and two basses for Gordon. In October 1986, he began working as their sound engineer. Since then, Languedoc has built exclusively for the two, and his designs and traditional wood choices have given Phish a unique instrumental identity. Also during the late 1980s, Phish played regularly at Nectar's restaurant and bar in Burlington. In 1992 the album A Picture of Nectar, named as a tribute to the owner, featured a large orange with Nectar's photo superimposed subtly within the orange. By late 1990, Phish's concerts were becoming more and more intricate, often making a consistent effort to involve the audience in the performance. In a special "secret language", the audience would react in a certain manner based on a particular musical cue from the band. For instance, if Anastasio "teased" a motif from The Simpsons theme song, the audience would yell, "D'oh!" in imitation of Homer Simpson . In 1992, Phish introduced a collaboration between audience and band called the "Big Ball Jam" in which each band member would throw a large beach ball into the audience and play a note each time his ball was hit. In so doing, the audience was helping to create an original composition. In an experiment known as "The Rotation Jam", each member would switch instruments with the musician on his left. On occasion, a performance of "You Enjoy Myself" involved Gordon and Anastasio performing synchronized maneuvers, jumping on mini-trampolines while simultaneously playing their instruments. Phish, along with Bob Dylan, the Grateful Dead, and the Beatles, was one of the first bands to have a Usenet newsgroup, rec.music.phish, which launched in 1991. Aware of the band's growing popularity, Elektra Records signed them that year. The following year A Picture of Nectar was complete: their first major studio release, enjoying far more extensive production than either 1988's Junta or 1990's Lawn Boy. These albums were eventually re-released on Elektra, as well. The first annual H.O.R.D.E. festival in 1992 provided Phish with their first national tour of major amphitheaters. The lineup, among others, included Phish, Blues Traveler, the Spin Doctors, and Widespread Panic. That summer, the band toured Europe with the Violent Femmes and later toured Europe and the U.S. with Carlos Santana. Phish began headlining major amphitheaters in the summer of 1993. That year, the group released Rift packaged as a concept album and with heavy promotion from Elektra including artwork by David Welker. In 1994, the band released Hoist. To promote the album, the band made their only video for MTV, "Down with Disease", airing in June of that year. Foreshadowing their future tradition of festivals, Phish coupled camping with their summer tour finale at Sugarbush North in Warren, Vermont, in July 1994, that show eventually being released as Live Phish Volume 2. On Halloween of that year, the group promised to don a fan-selected "musical costume" by playing an entire album from another band. After an extensive mail-based poll, Phish performed the Beatles' White Album as the second of their three sets at the Glens Falls Civic Center in upstate New York. For their 1994 New Years Run, Phish played the Civic Centers in Philadelphia and Providence as well as sold-out shows at Madison Square Garden and Boston Garden, which were their debuts at each venue. Following the death of Grateful Dead frontman Jerry Garcia in the summer of 1995 and the appearance of "Down with Disease" on Beavis and Butt-Head, the band experienced a surge in the growth of their fan base and an increased awareness in popular culture. In their tradition of playing a well-known album by another band for Halloween, Phish contracted a full horn section for their performance of The Who's Quadrophenia in 1995. Their first live album--A Live One--which was released during the summer of 1995, became Phish's first RIAA-certified gold album in November 1995. Phish retreated to their Vermont recording studio and recorded hours and hours of improvisations, sometimes overlaying them on one another, and included some of the result on the second half of Billy Breathes, which they released in the fall of 1996. Alongside traditional rock-based crescendos, the album has more acoustic guitar than their previous records, and was regarded by the band and some fans as their crowning studio achievement. The album's first single, "Free", peaked at No. 24 on the Billboard Hot Modern Rock Tracks chart and No. 11 on the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart, becoming the band's most successful chart single of their career. CANNOTANSWER
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CANNOTANSWER
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Phish is an American rock band that formed in Burlington, Vermont, in 1983. The band is known for musical improvisation, extended jams, blending of genres, and a dedicated fan base. The band consists of guitarist Trey Anastasio, bassist Mike Gordon, drummer Jon Fishman, and keyboardist Page McConnell, all of whom perform vocals, with Anastasio being the primary lead vocalist.
The band was formed by Anastasio, Gordon, Fishman and guitarist Jeff Holdsworth, who were joined by McConnell in 1985. Holdsworth departed the band in 1986, and the lineup has remained stable since. Phish began to perform outside of New England in the late 1980s and experienced a rise in popularity in the mid 1990s. In October 2000, the band began a two-year hiatus that ended in December 2002, but they disbanded again in August 2004. Phish reunited officially in October 2008 for subsequent reunion shows in March 2009 and since then have resumed performing regularly. All four members pursued solo careers or performed with side-projects and these projects have continued even after the band has reunited.
Phish's music blends elements of a wide variety of genres, including funk, progressive rock, psychedelic rock, folk, country, jazz, blues, bluegrass, and pop. The band is part of a movement of improvisational rock groups, inspired by the Grateful Dead and colloquially known as "jam bands", that gained considerable popularity as touring concert acts in the 1990s. Phish has developed a large and dedicated following by word of mouth, the exchange of live recordings, and selling over 8 million albums and DVDs in the United States.
Phish were signed to major label Elektra Records from 1991 to 2005, when the band formed their own independent label, JEMP Records, to release archival CD and DVD sets.
History
Formation, The White Tape and The Man Who Stepped into Yesterday: 1983–1988
Phish was formed at the University of Vermont (UVM) in 1983 by guitarists Trey Anastasio and Jeff Holdsworth, bassist Mike Gordon, and drummer Jon Fishman. Anastasio and Fishman had met that October, after Anastasio overheard Fishman playing drums in his dormitory room, and asked if he and Holdsworth could jam with him. Gordon met the trio shortly thereafter, having answered a want-ad for a bass guitarist that Anastasio had posted around the university.
The new group performed their first concert at Harris Millis Cafeteria at the University of Vermont on December 2, 1983, where they played a set of classic rock covers, including two songs by the Grateful Dead. The band performed one more concert in 1983, and then did not perform again for nearly a year, stemming from Anastasio's suspension from the university following a prank he had pulled with a friend.
Anastasio returned to his hometown of Princeton, New Jersey following the prank, and reconnected with his childhood friend Tom Marshall; The duo began a songwriting collaboration and recorded material that would appear on the Bivouac Jaun demo tape. Marshall and Anastasio have subsequently composed the majority of Phish's original songs throughout their career. Anastasio returned to Burlington in late 1984, and resumed performing with Gordon, Holdsworth and Fishman; The quartet eventually named themselves Phish, and they played their first concert under that name on October 23 of that year. Anastasio designed the band's logo, which featured the group's name inside a stylized fish. The band's members have given several different origins for the name Phish. In Parke Puterbaugh's 2009 book Phish: The Biography, the origin is given as a variation on phshhhh, an onomatopoeia of the sound of a brush on a snare drum. In the 2004 official documentary Specimens of Beauty, Anastasio said the band was also named after Fishman, whose nickname is "Fish." In a 1996 interview, Fishman denied that the band was named after him, and said the onomatopoeic inspiration behind the name was the sound of an airplane taking off.
The band would collaborate with percussionist Marc Daubert, a friend of Anastasio's, in the fall of 1984. Daubert ceased performing with the band in early 1985. Keyboardist Page McConnell met Phish in early 1985, when he arranged for them to play a spring concert at Goddard College, the small university he attended in Plainfield, Vermont. He began performing with the band as a guest shortly thereafter, and made his live debut during the third set of their May 3, 1985 concert at UVM's Redstone Campus. In the summer of 1985, Phish went on a short hiatus while Anastasio and Fishman vacationed in Europe; during this time, McConnell offered to join the band permanently, and moved to Burlington to learn their repertoire from Gordon. McConnell officially joined Phish as a full-time band member in September 1985.
Phish performed with a five-piece lineup for about six months after McConnell joined, a period which ended when Holdsworth quit the group in March 1986 following a religious conversion. Anastasio and Fishman relocated in mid-1986 to Goddard College after a recommendation from McConnell. Phish distributed at least six experimental self-titled cassettes during this era, including The White Tape.
While based at Goddard College, Phish began to collaborate with fellow students Richard "Nancy" Wright and Jim Pollock. Pollock and Wright were musical collaborators who made experimental recordings on multi-track cassettes, and had been introduced to Phish through McConnell, who co-hosted a radio program on WGDR with Pollock. Phish adopted a number of Nancy's songs into their own set, including "Halley's Comet", "I Didn't Know", and "Dear Mrs. Reagan", the latter song being written by Nancy and Pollock. In his book Heads: A Biography of Psychedelic America, music journalist Jesse Jarnow observed that Wright and his music were highly influential to Phish's early style and experimental sound. Wright amicably ended his association with Phish in 1989, but Pollock has continued to collaborate with Phish over the years, designing some of their album covers and concert posters.
By 1985, the group had encountered Burlington luthier Paul Languedoc, who would eventually design custom instruments for Anastasio and Gordon. In October 1986, he began working as their sound engineer. Since then, Languedoc has built exclusively for the two, and his designs and traditional wood choices have given Phish a unique instrumental identity. During the late 1980s, Phish began to play regularly at Nectar's bar and restaurant in downtown Burlington, and performed dozens of concerts across multiple residencies through March 1989. The band's 1992 album A Picture of Nectar was named in honor of the bar's owner, Nectar Rorris, and its cover features his face superimposed onto an orange.
As his senior project for Goddard College, Anastasio penned The Man Who Stepped into Yesterday, a nine-song progressive rock concept album that would become Phish's second studio experiment. Recorded between 1987 and 1988, it was submitted in July of that year, accompanied by a written thesis. The song cycle that developed from the project – known as Gamehendge – grew to include an additional eight songs. The band performed the suite in concert on five occasions: in 1988, 1991, 1993, and twice in 1994 without replicating the song list. The Man Who Stepped Into Yesterday has never received an official release, but a bootleg tape has circulated for decades, and songs such as "Wilson" and "The Lizards" remain concert staples for the band.
Beginning in the spring of 1988, members of the band began practicing in earnest, sometimes locking themselves in a room and jamming for hours on end. One such jam took place at Anastasio's apartment, with a second at Paul Languedoc's house in August 1989. They called these jam sessions "Oh Kee Pa Ceremonies", a reference to the film A Man Called Horse. In July 1988, the band performed their first concerts outside of the northeastern United States, when they embarked on a seven-date tour in Colorado. These shows are excerpted on their 2006 live compilation Colorado '88.
Junta, Lawn Boy, and A Picture of Nectar: 1989–1992
On January 26, 1989, Phish played the Paradise Rock Club in Boston; The owners of the club had never heard of Phish and refused to book them, so the band rented the club for the night. The show sold out due to the caravan of fans that had traveled to see the band. The concert was Phish's breakthrough on the northeastern regional music circuit, and the band began to book concerts at other large rock clubs, theaters, and small auditoriums throughout the area, such as the Somerville Theatre, Worcester Memorial Auditorium and Wetlands Preserve. That spring, the band self-released their debut full-length studio album, Junta, and sold copies on cassette tape at their concerts. The album includes a studio recording of the epic "You Enjoy Myself", which is considered to be the band's signature song. Later in 1989, the band hired Chris Kuroda as their lighting director. Kuroda subsequently became well known for his artistic light shows at the group's concerts. A profile on Phish appeared in the October 1989 issue of the Deadhead magazine Relix, which marked the first time the band had been covered in a major national music periodical.
By late 1990, Phish's concerts were becoming more and more intricate, often making a consistent effort to involve the audience in the performance. In a special "secret language", the audience would react in a certain manner based on a particular musical cue from the band. For instance, if Anastasio "teased" a motif from The Simpsons theme song, the audience would yell, "D'oh!" in imitation of . In 1992, Phish introduced a collaboration between audience and band called the "Big Ball Jam" in which each band member would throw a large beach ball into the audience and play a note each time his ball was hit. In so doing, the audience was helping to create an original composition. On occasion, performances of "You Enjoy Myself" and "Mike's Song" involved Gordon and Anastasio performing synchronized maneuvers and jumping on mini-trampolines while simultaneously playing their instruments. Fishman would also regularly step out from behind his drum kit during concerts to sing cover songs, which were often punctuated by him playing an Electrolux vacuum cleaner like an instrument. The band released their second album, Lawn Boy, in September 1990 on Absolute A Go Go, a small independent label that had a distribution deal with the larger Rough Trade Records. The album had been recorded the previous year, after the band had won studio time at engineer Dan Archer's Archer Studios when they came in first place at an April 1989 battle of the bands competition in Burlington.
Phish, along with Bob Dylan, the Grateful Dead, and the Beatles, was one of the first bands to have a Usenet newsgroup, rec.music.phish, which launched in 1991. Aware of the band's growing popularity, Elektra Records signed them that year after they were recommended to the record label by A&R representative Sue Drew. In the summer of 1991, the band embarked on a 14-date tour of the eastern United States accompanied by a three-piece horn section dubbed the Giant Country Horns. In August of that year, Phish played an outdoor concert at their friend Amy Skelton's horse farm in Auburn, Maine that acted as a prototype for their later all-day festival events.
In 1992, the band released their third studio album, A Picture of Nectar, their first release for the major label Elektra. Subsequently, the label also reissued the band's first two albums. Later in 1992, Phish participated in the first annual H.O.R.D.E. festival, which provided them with their first national tour of major amphitheaters. The lineup, among others, included Phish, Blues Traveler, the Spin Doctors, and Widespread Panic. That summer, the band toured Europe with the Violent Femmes and later toured Europe and the U.S. with Santana. Throughout the latter tour, Carlos Santana regularly invited some or all of the members of Phish to jam with his band during their headlining performances. The band ended 1992 with a New Year's Eve performance at the Matthews Arena in Boston, Massachusetts, a performance that was simulcast throughout the Boston area by radio station WBCN. The concert was filled with several new "secret language" cues they had taught their audience in order to deliberately confuse radio listeners.
Rift, Hoist, and A Live One: 1993–1995
Phish began headlining major amphitheaters in the summer of 1993. That year, the group released their fourth album, Rift, a concept album which featured a cover painted by David Welker that referenced almost all of the songs on the record. The album was the band's first to appear on the Billboard 200 album chart, debuting at #51 in February 1993.
In March 1994, the band released their fifth studio album Hoist. The album featured an array of guest performers, including country singer Alison Krauss, banjoist Béla Fleck, former Sly & The Family Stone member Rose Stone, actor and trombonist Jonathan Frakes, and the horn section of R&B group Tower of Power. To promote the album, Gordon directed the band's only official music video, for its first single "Down with Disease". The clip gained some MTV airplay starting in June of that year. "Down with Disease" became a minor hit on rock radio in the United States, and was the band's first song to appear on a Billboard music chart when it peaked at #33 on the magazine's Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks chart that summer. To further promote Hoist, the band released an experimental short-subject documentary called Tracking, also directed by Gordon, which depicted the recording sessions for the album.
Foreshadowing their future tradition of festivals, Phish coupled camping with their 1994 summer tour finale at Sugarbush North in Warren, Vermont, that show eventually being released as Live Phish Volume 2. On Halloween of that year, the group promised to don a fan-selected "musical costume" by playing an entire album from another band. After an extensive mail-based poll, Phish performed the Beatles' White Album as the second of their three sets at the Glens Falls Civic Center in upstate New York. The "musical costume" concept subsequently became a recurring part of Phish's fall tours, with the band playing a different album whenever they had a concert scheduled for Halloween night.
In October 1994, Crimes of the Mind, the debut album by Anastasio's friend and collaborator Steve "The Dude of Life" Pollak, was released by Elektra Records; The album, which had been recorded in 1991, was billed to "The Dude of Life and Phish" and features all four members of Phish acting as Pollak's backing band.
On December 30, 1994, the band made their first appearance on national network television when they performed "Chalk Dust Torture" on Late Night with David Letterman. The band would go on to appear on the program seven more times before David Letterman's retirement as host in 2015. For their 1994 New Years Run, Phish played the Civic Centers in Philadelphia and Providence as well as sold-out shows at Madison Square Garden and Boston Garden, which marked their debut performances at both venues. For the December 31 show at the Boston Garden, the band rode around the arena in a float shaped like a hot dog. The stunt was reprised at their 1999 New Year's Eve concert before the hot dog was donated to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. At the end of 1994, Phish appeared on Pollstars list of the highest grossing concert tours in the United States for the first time, as the 32nd highest grossing act, with $10.3 million in ticket sales.
Following the death of Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia in the summer of 1995 and the appearance of "Down with Disease" on Beavis and Butt-Head, the band experienced a surge in the growth of their fan base and an increased awareness in popular culture. In their tradition of playing a well-known album by another band for Halloween, Phish contracted a full horn section for their performance of The Who's Quadrophenia in 1995.
Phish's first live album, A Live One, was released during the summer of 1995 and featured selections from various concerts from their 1994 winter tour. The album charted at number 18 on the Billboard 200 album chart, and was reported to have sold around 50,000 copies in its first week on sale. A Live One became Phish's first RIAA-certified gold album in November 1995. In 1997, A Live One became the band's first Platinum album, certified for sales of 1 million copies in the United States, and remains their best selling album to date.
Billy Breathes, The Story of the Ghost, and The Siket Disc: 1996–1999
Following an appearance at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival in April 1996, The band spent the summer of that year opening for Santana on their European tour. In August 1996, the band held their first festival, The Clifford Ball, at the decommissioned Plattsburgh Air Force Base on the New York side of Lake Champlain. The festival attracted 70,000 attendees, making it both Phish's biggest concert crowd to that point and the largest single concert by attendance in the United States in 1996. Phish recorded their sixth album Billy Breathes in the winter and spring of 1996, and the album was issued in October of that year. Alongside traditional rock-based crescendos, the album has more acoustic guitar than their previous records, and was regarded by the band and some fans as their crowning studio achievement. The album's first single, "Free", peaked at No. 24 on the Billboard Hot Modern Rock Tracks chart and No. 11 on the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart, and was their most successful song on both charts.
By 1997, Phish's concert improvisational ventures were developing into a new funk-inspired long form jamming style. Vermont-based ice cream conglomerate Ben & Jerry's launched "Phish Food" that year. The band officially licensed their name for use with the product, the only time they have ever allowed a third-party company to do so, and were directly involved with the creation of the flavor. Proceeds from the flavor are donated to the band's non-profit charity The WaterWheel Foundation, which raises funds for the preservation of Vermont's Lake Champlain. On August 8, 1997, Phish webcast one of their concerts live over the internet for the first time.
On August 16 and 17, 1997, Phish held their second festival, The Great Went, over two days at the Loring Air Force Base in Limestone, Maine, near the Canada–United States border. In October 1997, the band released their second live album Slip Stitch and Pass, which featured selections from their March 1997 concert at the Markthalle Hamburg in Hamburg, Germany.
Following the Great Went, the band embarked on a fall tour that was dubbed by fans as the "Phish Destroys America" tour after a 1970s kung fu-inspired poster for the opening date in Las Vegas. The 21-date tour is considered one of the group's most popular and acclaimed tours, and several concerts were later officially released on live album sets such as Live Phish Volume 11 in 2002. Phish ended 1997 as one of the ten highest grossing concert acts in the United States that year.
In April 1998, the band embarked on the Island Tour - a four night tour with two shows at the Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, New York on Long Island and another two at the Providence Civic Center in Providence, Rhode Island. The four concerts are highly regarded by fans due to the band's exploration of a jazz-funk musical style they had been playing for the previous year, which Anastasio dubbed "cowfunk". The band performed the tour in the middle of studio sessions for their seventh album, and were inspired by the quality of their performances to further incorporate the cowfunk style into subsequent sessions. The resulting album, The Story of the Ghost, was released in October 1998. The album's first single "Birds of a Feather", which had been premiered on the Island Tour, became a #14 hit on Billboard's Adult Alternative Songs chart. To promote The Story of the Ghost, Phish performed several songs from the album on the public television music show Sessions at West 54th in October 1998, and were interviewed for the program by its host David Byrne of Talking Heads.
In the summer of 1998, The band held Lemonwheel, their second festival at Loring Air Force Base in Maine. The two-day event attracted 60,000 attendees.
The band played another summer festival in 1999, called Camp Oswego and held at the Oswego County Airport in Volney, New York. Unlike other Phish festivals, Camp Oswego featured a prominent second stage of additional performers aside from Phish, including Del McCoury, The Slip and Ozomatli.
In July 1999, the band released an album of improvisational instrumentals titled The Siket Disc. The band followed that release with Hampton Comes Alive, a six-disc box set released in November 1999, which contained the entirety of their performances on November 20 and 21, 1998 at the Hampton Coliseum in Hampton, Virginia. The set marked the first time that complete recordings of Phish concerts were officially released by Elektra Records.
To celebrate the new millennium, Phish hosted a two-day outdoor festival at the Big Cypress Seminole Indian Reservation in Florida in December 1999. The festival's climactic New Year's Eve concert, referred to by fans as simply "The Show," started at 11:35 p.m. on December 31, 1999, and continued through to sunrise on January 1, 2000, approximately eight hours later. The band's performance of the song "Heavy Things" at the festival was broadcast live as part of ABC's 2000 Today millennium coverage, giving the band their biggest television audience up to that point. 75,000 people attended the sold-out two-day festival. In 2017, Rolling Stone named the Big Cypress festival one of the "50 Greatest Concerts of the Last 50 Years."
Farmhouse and hiatus: 2000–2002
Following the Big Cypress festival, the band issued their ninth studio album Farmhouse in May 2000. "Heavy Things", which was released as the album's first single, became the band's only song to appear on a mainstream pop radio format, reaching #29 on Billboard'''s Adult Top 40 chart that July. The song also became the band's biggest hit to date on the Adult Alternative Songs chart, reaching #2 there. In June 2000, the band embarked on a seven-date headlining tour of Japan. In July, they taped an appearance on the PBS music show Austin City Limits, which was aired in October.
In the summer of 2000, the band announced that they would take their first "extended time-out" following their upcoming fall tour. Anastasio officially announced the impending hiatus to the band's fans during their September 30 concert at the Thomas & Mack Center in Paradise, Nevada. During the tour's last concert on October 7, at the Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, California, the band made no reference to the hiatus, and left the stage without saying a word following their encore performance of "You Enjoy Myself", as The Beatles' "Let It Be" played over the venue's sound system.Bittersweet Motel, a documentary film about the band directed by Todd Phillips, was released in August 2000, shortly before the hiatus began. The documentary captures the band's 1997 and 1998 tours, the Great Went festival and the recording of The Story of the Ghost. Phish were nominated in two categories at the 43rd Annual Grammy Awards in 2001: Best Boxed Recording Package for Hampton Comes Alive and Best Instrumental Rock Performance for "First Tube" from Farmhouse.
During Phish's hiatus, Elektra Records continued to issue archival releases of the band's concerts on compact disc. Between September 2001 and May 2003, the label released 20 entries in the Live Phish Series. These multi-disc sets featured complete soundboard recordings of concerts that were particularly popular with the band and their fanbase, similar to the Grateful Dead's Dick's Picks archival series. In November 2002, the label released the band's first concert DVD, Phish: Live in Vegas, which featured the entirety of the September 2000 concert at which Anastasio announced the hiatus.
In April 2002, Phish guest starred on the episode "Weekend at Burnsie's" of the animated series The Simpsons. The episode marked the band's first appearance together, albeit as animated characters, since the hiatus began. Phish provided their own voices for the episode and performed a snippet of "Run Like an Antelope".
Return, Round Room, Undermind, and disbandment: 2002–2004
In August 2002, Phish's manager John Paluska announced the band planned to end their hiatus that December with a New Year's Eve concert at Madison Square Garden. They also recorded Round Room in only four days and released it on December 10. The band had initially planned to record the new album live at the Madison Square Garden concert, but instead felt that demos they had recorded of the material were strong enough to merit release as a studio album. Four days after the release of Round Room, the band made their only appearance as a musical guest on Saturday Night Live, where they debuted the song "46 Days" and appeared in two comedy sketches. During their return concert on December 31, McConnell's brother was introduced as actor Tom Hanks. The impostor sang a line of the song "Wilson", prompting some media outlets to report that the actor had appeared at the concert.
Phish’s 2003 winter tour commenced in February in Inglewood, California, and included the song The Cover of "Rolling Stone" — foreshadowing their actual appearance on the cover of Rolling Stone’s March 3, 2003 issue.
At the end of the 2003 summer tour, Phish returned to Limestone, Maine for It, their first festival since Big Cypress. The event drew crowds of over 60,000 fans, and was the band's final festival to be held at Loring Air Force Base. Highlights from the festival were released on a DVD set, also called It, in October 2004. In November and December 2003, the band celebrated its 20th anniversary with a four-show mini-tour of shows in New York, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts. The December 1 show at Pepsi Arena featured a guest appearance by former member Jeff Holdsworth, who sat in with the band on five songs, including his compositions "Possum" and "Camel Walk".
On May 25, 2004, Anastasio announced on the Phish website that the band would disband at the end of their 2004 summer tour. He wrote that he had met with the other members earlier that month to discuss the "Strong feelings I’ve been having that Phish has run its course, and that we should end it now while it’s still on a high note." By the end of the meeting, he said, "We realized that after almost twenty-one years together, we were faced with the opportunity to graciously step away in unison, as a group, united in our friendship and our feelings of gratitude." The band's eleventh – and at the time final – studio album Undermind was released in June 2004. The band's summer 2004 began with two concerts at Keyspan Park in Brooklyn, New York. The first concert was recorded for the live album and concert documentary Phish: Live in Brooklyn, while the second featured a guest appearance by rapper Jay-Z, who performed two songs with the band. Later that summer, the band appeared on the Late Show with David Letterman and performed a seven-song set from atop the marquee of the Ed Sullivan Theater for fans who had gathered on the street.
The 2004 tour finished ended with the band's seventh summer festival on August 14 and 15, which were billed as their final performances. The Coventry festival was named for the town in Vermont that hosted the event, which was held at the nearby Newport State Airport. After Coventry, the members of the band admitted they were disappointed with their performance at the festival; In the official book Phish: The Biography, Anastasio expressed that "Coventry itself was a nightmare. It was emotional, but it was not like we were at our finest. I certainly wasn't".
Post-disbandment and interim: 2004–2008
Following the break-up, the band's members remained in amicable communication with one another. The members also occasionally appeared on each other's solo albums and collaborated on side-projects.
In December 2006, Anastasio was arrested in Whitehall, New York for drug possession and driving while intoxicated, and was sentenced to 14 months in a drug court program. In 2007, while Anastasio was undergoing rehabilitation, the other members of Phish surprised him on his birthday with an instrumental recording they had made for him to play along with on guitar. During his rehabilitation, Anastasio said he "spent 24 hours a day thinking about nothing but Phish" and began discussing a reunion with the other members of the band.
In 2005, Phish formed their own record label, JEMP Records, to release archival CD and DVD sets. The label's first release was Phish: New Year's Eve 1995 – Live at Madison Square Garden, which was released in conjunction with Rhino Records in December 2005. The album was named the 42nd greatest live album of all time by Rolling Stone in April 2015. The label subsequently released several other archival live box sets, including Colorado '88 (2006), Vegas 96 (2007), At the Roxy (2008) and The Clifford Ball (2009).
Phish received the Jammys Lifetime Achievement Award on May 7, 2008, at The Theater at Madison Square Garden. All four members attended the ceremony and gave a speech, and both McConnell and Anastasio performed, although not together.
In response to a June 2008 rumor that Phish had reunited to record a new album, McConnell wrote a letter on the band's website updating fans on the current relations between the band's members. McConnell wrote that while the members remained friends, they were currently busy with other projects and the reunion rumors were premature. He added, "Later this year we hope to spend some time together and take a look at what possible futures we might enjoy." That September, the band played three songs at the wedding of their former tour manager Brad Sands. Later in 2008, the band reconvened at The Barn, Anastasio's farmhouse studio in Burlington, Vermont, for jamming sessions and rehearsals.
Reunion and Joy: 2008–2011
On October 1, 2008, the band announced on their website that they had officially reunited, and would play their first shows in five years in March 2009 at the Hampton Coliseum in Hampton, Virginia. The three reunion concerts were held on March 6, 7, and 8, 2009, with "Fluffhead" being the first song the band played onstage at the first show. Approximately 14,000 people attended the concerts over the course of three days, and the band made the shows available for free download on their LivePhish website for a limited time, in order to accommodate fans who were unable to attend.
When the band decided to reunite, the members agreed to limit their touring schedule, and they have typically performed about 50 concerts a year since. Following the reunion weekend, Phish embarked on a summer tour which began in May with a concert at Fenway Park in Boston. The Fenway show was followed by a 25-date tour which included performances at the 2009 edition of the Bonnaroo Music Festival in Tennessee and a four date stand at Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Colorado. At Bonnaroo, Phish was joined by Bruce Springsteen on guitar for three songs.
Phish's fourteenth studio album, Joy, produced by Steve Lillywhite, was released September 8, 2009. In October, the band held Festival 8, their first multi-day festival event since Coventry in 2004, at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, California.
In March 2010, Anastasio inducted Genesis, one of his favorite bands, into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at the museum's annual ceremony in New York City. In addition to Anastasio's speech, Phish performed the Genesis songs "Watcher of the Skies" and "No Reply at All" at the event. Phish toured in the summer and fall of 2010, and their August 10 concert at the Utica Memorial Auditorium was released on the DVD/CD box-set Live in Utica the following May.
Fuego and Big Boat: 2011–2016
Phish's ninth festival, Super Ball IX, took place at the Watkins Glen International race track in Watkins Glen, New York on July 1–3, 2011. It was the first concert to take place at Watkins Glen International since Summer Jam at Watkins Glen in 1973. In September, the band played a benefit concert in Essex Junction, Vermont which raised $1.2 million for Vermont flood victim relief in the aftermath of Hurricane Irene.
In June 2012, Phish headlined Bonnaroo 2012 with the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Radiohead. During their 2013 Halloween concert at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey, the band played twelve new songs from their upcoming album, which at the time had the working title Wingsuit and would later be renamed Fuego. Phish ended 2013 with a New Year's Eve concert that also celebrated their 30th anniversary, as they had played their first concert in December 1983. The concert featured a nine-minute montage film celebrating the band's career, and the band performed an entire set in the middle of the arena from atop an equipment truck.
Phish released Fuego, their first studio album in five years, on June 24, 2014. The album peaked at number 7 on the Billboard 200 album chart, and became their highest charting album since Billy Breathes reached the same position in 1996. During their Halloween 2014 concert at MGM Grand Las Vegas, the band performed a set consisting of ten original songs inspired by the 1964 Walt Disney Records sound effects album Chilling, Thrilling Sounds of the Haunted House.In 2015, Phish performed both a summer tour and their tenth multi-day festival event, Magnaball, was held at the Watkins International Speedway in New York in August. Phish's fourteenth studio album, Big Boat, was released on October 7, 2016.
The Baker's Dozen and Kasvot Växt: 2015–2019
Phish played a 13-night concert residency at New York City's Madison Square Garden from July 21 to August 6, 2017, dubbed "The Baker's Dozen". Each concert featured a loose theme with performances of unique cover songs and a special doughnut served each night to the audience by Federal Donuts of Philadelphia. No songs were repeated during the Baker's Dozen run, with a total of 237 individual songs performed across the 13 concerts. The complete Baker's Dozen residency was released as a limited edition 36-disc box set in November 2018. A scaled-down triple CD set featuring 13 song performances, titled The Baker’s Dozen: Live at Madison Square Garden, was issued simultaneously with the box set.
Phish planned to hold an eleventh summer festival, Curveball, in Watkins Glen, New York in 2018, but the festival was canceled by New York Department of Health officials, one day before it was scheduled to begin, due to water quality issues from flooding in the Watkins Glen, New York area. At their Halloween concert that October at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, the band performed a set of all-new original material that they promoted as a "cover" of í rokk by Kasvot Växt, a fictional 1980s Scandinavian progressive rock band they had created. The Kasvot Växt set was released as a standalone live album on Spotify on November 10, 2018. All four concerts in the 2018 Halloween run were livestreamed in 4K resolution, which marked the first time that a major musical act had ever offered a 4K livestreaming option.Between Me and My Mind, a documentary film directed by Steven Cantor about Anastasio's life, his Ghosts of the Forest side-project and Phish's 2017 New Year's Eve concert, was screened at the Tribeca Film Festival in April 2019. In June 2019, SiriusXM launched Phish Radio, a satellite radio station dedicated to the band's music.
Sigma Oasis and recent activity: 2019–present
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Phish postponed their 2020 summer tour until 2021. Before 2020, Phish had embarked on a summer tour every year since their 2009 reunion. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Phish hosted free weekly "Dinner and a Movie" webcasts of archival performances on Tuesday evenings until Labor Day weekend, after which they were hosted monthly.
Phish released their fifteenth studio album Sigma Oasis on April 2, 2020. The album was premiered through a listening party on their LivePhish app, SiriusXM radio station and Facebook page. The album consists entirely of material the band had been performing in concert over the course of the previous decade, but had yet to appear on a studio release.
In January 2021, Anastasio told Pollstar that the band was unable to perform or rehearse together due to COVID-19 restrictions and quarantine rules currently in place in the New England states, but said "As soon as it's feasible, we'll be back."
Phish performed their first concert since the start of the pandemic on July 28, 2021, having not performed since February 23, 2020. Beginning with their concerts at The Gorge Amphitheatre in late August, the band began requiring attendees to show proof of vaccination or a negative test for COVID-19. During their 2021 Halloween concert, Phish debuted a set of new original science fiction-themed material under the guise of the fictional band Sci-Fi Soldier. According to Pollstar, Phish were the ninth highest grossing concert act in the world in 2021, with a $44.4 million gross from 35 concerts. Phish also had the fifth highest concert ticket sales in the world in 2021, with 572,626 tickets sold. Due to an increase of cases of the Omicron variant of COVID-19 in New York City, Phish postponed their 2021 New Year's Eve concerts at Madison Square Garden from December 2021 to April 2022. On Dec 31, 2021, Phish performed a three-set New Year's Eve concert without an audience from "The Ninth Cube."
Reception and legacy
Phish's popularity grew in the 1990s due to fans sharing concert recordings that had been taped by audience members and distributed online for free. Phish were among the first musical acts to utilize the internet to grow their fanbase, with fans using file-sharing websites such as etree and BitTorrent to share concerts.
In 1998, Rolling Stone described Phish as "the most important band of the '90s." Phish have been named as an influence by other acts in the jam band scene, including Umphrey's McGee and the Disco Biscuits Other musicians have also counted Phish as an influence, including Adam Levine and James Valentine of Maroon 5, Ed O'Brien of Radiohead, Brandon Boyd of Incubus, and reggae musician Matisyahu.
Phish's festival events in the 1990s inspired the foundation of the Bonnaroo Music Festival in Tennessee, which was first held in 2002. Co-founder Rick Farman, a Phish fan, consulted Phish managers Richard Glasgow and John Paluska about festival infrastructure during the early stages of planning. The festivals also inspired other jam band-oriented concert events, such as the Disco Biscuits' Camp Bisco, Electric Forest Festival, and the Big Ears Festival.
While Phish has had eight of their singles appear on Billboards Adult Alternative Songs chart since its inception in 1996, even the band's most successful songs would not be recognizable to the average music listener. Phish are well known to their loyal fans, called Phishheads, but the group's music and fan culture are otherwise polarizing to general audiences. The tribal nature of Phish supporters has encouraged comparisons of Phishheads to the Juggalos, followers of the hip-hop duo Insane Clown Posse. Phish heavily contributes to music based tourism with their "traveling communities" of fans, and they have been simultaneously hailed and criticized for their near-constant tour dates, which bring with them the capital value of tourism and necessitates the increased security and community planning that come with any music festival. Jordan Hoffman of Thrillist explains "the solace many find in attending religious services is somewhat mirrored for me in seeing Phish," and even though Phish fans are generally considered welcoming and friendly, the reception of the group from the outside is often one of unease and confusion. The BBC listed Phish as one of "Eight smash US acts that Britain never understood" along with fellow jam bands Dave Matthews Band and Blues Traveler. In describing the band to a British audience, BBC journalist Stephen Dowling wrote "Attending a Phish gig has become a rite of summer passage for American teens in the same way that attending Glastonbury has for British teenagers."
Phish has performed 64 concerts at Madison Square Garden since their debut performance there in 1994. The band have performed the third-most concerts at the venue of any musical act, behind only Billy Joel and Elton John. In 2019, Billboard ranked Phish as the 33rd highest-grossing concert touring act of the 2010s.
Musical style and influences
According to The New Rolling Stone Album Guide, the music of Phish is "oriented around group improvisation and super-extended grooves". Their songs draw on a range of rock-oriented influences, including funk, jazz fusion, progressive rock, bluegrass, and psychedelic rock. Some Phish songs use different vocal approaches, such as a cappella (unaccompanied) sections of barbershop quartet-style vocal harmonies. The band began to include barbershop segments in their concerts in 1993, when the four members began taking lessons from McConnell's landlord, who was a judge at barbershop competitions. In the 1997 official biography, The Phish Book, Anastasio coined the term "cow-funk" to describe the band's late 1990s funk and jazz-funk-influenced playing style, observing that "What we’re doing now is really more about groove than funk. Good funk, real funk, is not played by four white guys from Vermont."
Phish were often compared to the Grateful Dead during the 1990s, a comparison that the band members often resisted or distanced themselves from. The two bands were compared due to their emphasis on live performances, improvisational jamming style, musical similarities, and traveling fanbase. In November 1995, Anastasio told the Baltimore Sun "When we first came into the awareness of the media, it would always be the Dead or Zappa they'd compare us to. All of these bands I love, you know? But I got very sensitive about it." Early in their career, Phish would occasionally cover Grateful Dead songs in concert, but the band stopped doing so by the late 1980s. In Phish: The Biography, Parke Puterbaugh observed "The bottom line is while it's impossible to imagine Phish without the Grateful Dead as forebears, many other musicians figured as influences upon them. Some of them - such as Carlos Santana and Frank Zappa - were arguably at least as significant as the Grateful Dead. In reality, the media certainly overplayed the Grateful Dead connection and Phish probably underplayed it, at least in their first decade." Anastasio has also cited progressive rock artists such as King Crimson and Genesis as significant influences on Phish's early material. In a 2019 New York Times interview, he observed, "If you listen to the first couple of Phish albums, they don’t sound anything like the Grateful Dead. I was more interested in Yes."
In his 2018 book Twilight of the Gods, music critic Steven Hyden wrote that he found the Grateful Dead and Phish to have "significantly different reference points" in terms of influence and style. The Grateful Dead, Hyden explained, were "informed by the totality of American music from the first sixty years of the twentieth century: Blues, country, folk, jazz, and early rock 'n' roll," while Phish's music contains elements of "hopped-up bluegrass, jazzy disco, porno-movie funk, Broadway theatricality, and shockingly sincere barbershop harmonies. But it all stems from classic rock." Hyden observed that "If the Dead encompasses American music from roughly 1900 to 1967, Phish picks up the story right through the AOR era, from '68 to around the time Stop Making Sense debuted in theaters in the mid-eighties."
Live performances
The driving force behind Phish is the popularity of their concerts and the fan culture surrounding the event. Each a production unto itself, the band is known to consistently change set lists and details, as well as the addition of their own antics to ensure that no two shows are ever the same. With fans flocking to venues hours before they open, the concert is the centerpiece of an event that includes a temporary community in the parking lot similar to the "Shakedown Street" bazaar held outside Grateful Dead concerts.
Phish concerts typically feature two sets, with an intermission in between. During concerts, songs often segue into one another, or produce improvisational jams that can last 10 minutes or more depending on the song. Several regularly performed songs in Phish's repertoire have never appeared on one of their studio albums; these include "Possum", "Mike's Song", "I Am Hydrogen", "Weekapaug Groove", "Harry Hood", "Runaway Jim", "Suzy Greenberg", "AC/DC Bag" and "The Lizards", all of which date to 1990 or earlier and have been played by Phish over 300 times in concert.
Because Phish's reputation is so grounded in their live performances, concert recordings are commonly traded commodities. In December 2002, the band launched the LivePhish website, from which official soundboard recordings can be purchased. Legal field recordings produced by tapers with boom microphones from the audience in compliance with Phish's tape trading policy are frequently traded on any number of music message boards. Although technically not allowed, live videos of Phish shows are also traded by fans and are tolerated as long as they are for non-profit, personal use. Phish fans have been noted for their extensive collections of fan-taped concert recordings; owning recordings of entire tours and years is widespread.
Fans' recordings are generally sourced from the officially designated tapers' section at each show, by fans with devoted sound recording rigs. Tickets for the tapers' section are acquired separately from regular audience tickets, and directly from the band's website, instead of the venue or a service like Ticketmaster. However, tapers are also required to purchase a general admission ticket for concerts. The band disallowed tapers from patching directly into Paul Languedoc's soundboard in 1990, after a fan unplugged some of his equipment during a concert that June.
In 2014, the band launched their own on-demand streaming service, LivePhish+. The platform features hundreds of soundboard recordings of the band's concerts for streaming, including all of their shows from 2002 onwards, as well as all of their studio albums. Phish continue to allow fans to tape and distribute audience recordings of their concerts after the launch of the LivePhish storefront and streaming services.
Books and podcasts
Several books on Phish have been published, including two official publications: The Phish Book, a 1998 coffee table book credited to the band members and journalist Richard Gehr which focused on the band's activities during 1996 and 1997, and Phish: The Biography, a semi-official biographical book written by music journalist and Phish fan Parke Puterbaugh, was published in 2009 and was based on interviews with the four band members, their friends and crew. An installment of the 33⅓ book series on A Live One, written by Walter Holland, was published in 2015. The 2013 book You Don't Know Me but You Don't Like Me: Phish, Insane Clown Posse, and My Misadventures with Two of Music's Most Maligned Tribes, written by music critic Nathan Rabin, compares and contrasts the fanbases of Phish and Insane Clown Posse.
In addition to books, there have been multiple podcasts which have focused on Phish, its music and fanbase as their central topics of discussion. Among the first was Analyze Phish, which was hosted by comedians Harris Wittels and Scott Aukerman for the Earwolf podcast network, and ran for ten episodes posted between 2011 and 2014. The podcast followed Wittels, a devoted fan of the band, in his humorous attempts to get Aukerman to enjoy their music. Despite its truncated run, Analyze Phish inspired Phish lyricist Tom Marshall to start his own Phish podcast, Under the Scales, in 2016. In 2018, Marshall co-founded the Osiris Podcasting Network, which hosts Under the Scales and other music podcasts, many of which are devoted to Phish or other jam bands. In September 2019, C13Originals debuted Long May They Run, a music documentary podcast series; The first season, consisting of 10 episodes, focused on Phish's history and influence on the live music scene. In November 2019, the Osiris Podcasting Network premiered After Midnight, a five-episode documentary series exploring the creation, execution, and aftermath of Phish's 1999 Big Cypress festival.
Other appearances
Seattle Seahawks fans began mimicking Phish's song "Wilson" by chanting the song's opening line when quarterback Russell Wilson took the field during games. The new tradition started after Anastasio made the suggestion at shows in Seattle. The story behind the "Wilson" chant was featured in a 2014 documentary short by NFL Films.
Band members
Current members
Trey Anastasio – guitar, lead vocals (1983–2004; 2008–present)
Jon Fishman – drums, percussion, vocals, vacuum (1983–2004; 2008–present)
Mike Gordon – bass, vocals (1983–2004; 2008–present)
Page McConnell – keyboards, vocals (1985–2004; 2008–present)
Auxiliary personnel
Tom Marshall – songwriting, occasional backing vocals (1984–2004; 2008–present)
Chris Kuroda – concert lighting director (1989–2004; 2008–present)
Paul Languedoc – sound engineer (1986–2004), luthier (1986-2004; 2008-present)
Former members
Jeff Holdsworth – guitar, vocals (1983–1986; guest in 2003)
Former touring musicians
Marc Daubert – percussion (1984–1985)
Giant Country Horns or Cosmic Country Horns – horn section (1991, 1994)
Timeline
Studio discography
Junta (1989)
Lawn Boy (1990)
A Picture of Nectar (1992)
Rift (1993)
Hoist (1994)
Billy Breathes (1996)
The Story of the Ghost (1998)
The Siket Disc (1999)
Farmhouse (2000)
Round Room (2002)
Undermind (2004)
Joy (2009)
Fuego (2014)
Big Boat (2016)
Sigma Oasis'' (2020)
References
External links
Musical groups established in 1983
Jam bands
Jammy Award winners
Culture of Burlington, Vermont
Rock music groups from Vermont
Musical quartets
Musical groups reestablished in 2009
American experimental rock groups
American progressive rock groups
Funk rock musical groups
Neo-psychedelia groups
Jazz fusion ensembles
Jazz-rock groups
American folk rock groups
1983 establishments in Vermont
MapleMusic Recordings artists
Elektra Records artists
Rhino Records artists
| false |
[
"Donna Cruz Sings Her Greatest Hits is the second compilation album by the Filipino singer Donna Cruz, released in the Philippines in 2001 by Viva Records. The album was Cruz's first album not to receive a PARI certification; all of her studio albums and a previous compilation album, The Best of Donna, were certified either gold or platinum. Though it was labeled as a greatest hits compilation, several songs on the track listing had not been released as singles, and some of Cruz's singles did not appear on the album.\n\nBackground\nReleased during Cruz's break from the entertainment industry, Donna Cruz Sings Her Greatest Hits did not include any newly recorded material. Cruz's version of \"Jubilee Song\", which was not found on any of Cruz's albums (as she never recorded studio albums after Hulog Ng Langit in 1999) was included. It was seen as an updated version of Cruz's greatest hits as it included her latest singles \"Hulog ng Langit\" and \"Ikaw Pala 'Yon\".\n\nTrack listing\n\nReferences\n\n2001 compilation albums\nViva Records (Philippines) compilation albums\nDonna Cruz albums",
"In baseball statistics, home run per hit (HR/H) is the percentage of hits that are home runs. It is loosely related to isolated power, which is the ability to hit for extra-base hits, including home runs. Power hitters, players who readily hit many home runs tend to have higher HR/H than contact hitters. A player hitting 30 home runs and have 150 hits in a season would have HR/H of .200, while a player who hit 8 home runs and have 200 hits in a season would have H/HR of .040.\n\nHR/H ratio has gotten higher over time. From 1959 to 2007, HR/H for leading power hitters in MLB was .3312, with the ratio being the highest from 1995 to 2001. The highest HR/H ratio of any player was Mark McGwire at .3585 or 2.8 hits per home run.\n\nReferences \n\nBaseball statistics"
] |
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