Stephen Glenn "Steve" Martin (born August 14, 1945) is an American actor, comedian, writer, playwright, producer, musician and composer.
Martin was born in Waco, Texas, and raised in Southern California, where his early influences were working at Disneyland and Knott's Berry Farm and working magic and comedy acts at these and other smaller venues in the area. His ascent to fame picked up when he became a writer for the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, and later became a frequent guest on The Tonight Show. In the 1970s, Martin performed his offbeat, absurdist comedy routines before packed houses on national tours. Since the 1980s, having branched away from stand-up comedy, he has become a successful actor, playwright, pianist, banjo player, and juggler, eventually earning Emmy, Grammy, and American Comedy awards.
Early life
Martin was born in Waco, Texas, the son of Mary Lee Martin and Glenn Vernon Martin, a real estate salesman and an aspiring actor.Martin was raised in Inglewood, California, and then later in Garden Grove, California, in a Baptist family. One of his earliest memories is of seeing his father, as an extra, serving drinks onstage at the Call Board Theatre on Melrose Place. During World War II, in England, Martin's father had appeared in a production of Our Town with Raymond Massey. Years later, he would write to Massey for help in Steve's fledgling career, but would receive no reply. Expressing his affection through gifts of cars, bikes, etc., Martin's father was stern, not emotionally open to his son.He was proud but critical, with Martin later recalling that in his teens his feelings for his father were mostly ones of hatred.Martin's first job was at Disneyland, selling guidebooks on weekends and full-time during the summer school break. That lasted for three years (1955–1958). During his free time he frequented the Main Street Magic shop, where tricks were demonstrated to potential customers.By 1960, he had mastered several of the tricks and illusions, and took a paying job there in August. There he perfected his talents for magic, juggling, and creating balloon animals, frequently performing for tips.In his authorized biography, close friend Morris Walker suggests that Martin could "be described most accurately as an agnostic he rarely went to church and was never involved in organized religion of his own volition".
Comedy
After high school graduation, Martin attended Santa Ana Junior College, taking classes in drama and English poetry. In his free time, he teamed up with friend and Garden Grove High School classmate Kathy Westmoreland to participate in comedies and other productions at the Bird Cage Theatre. He joined a comedy troupe at Knott's Berry Farm.Later, he met budding actress Stormie Sherk, and they developed comedy routines while becoming romantically involved. Stormie's influence caused Steve to apply to the California State University, Long Beach, for enrollment with a major in Philosophy. Stormie enrolled at UCLA, about an hour's drive north, and the distance eventually caused them to lead separate lives.
Being inspired by his philosophy classes, for a short while he considered becoming a professor instead of an actor-comedian. His time at college changed his life. "It changed what I believe and what I think about everything. I majored in philosophy. Something about non-sequiturs appealed to me. In philosophy, I started studying logic, and they were talking about cause and effect, and you start to realize, 'Hey, there is no cause and effect! There is no logic! There is no anything!' Then it gets real easy to write this stuff, because all you have to do is twist everything hard—you twist the punch line, you twist the non sequitur so hard away from the things that set it up".In an article in Smithsonian magazine he recalled, "In a college psychology class, I had read a treatise on comedy explaining that a laugh was formed when the storyteller created tension, then, with the punch line, released it. I didn't quite get this concept, nor do I still . What if there were no punch lines? What if there were no indicators? What if I created tension and never released it? What if I headed for a climax, but all I delivered was an anticlimax? What would the audience do with all that tension? Theoretically, it would have to come out sometime. But if I kept denying them the formality of a punch line, the audience would eventually pick their own place to laugh, essentially out of desperation. My first reviews came in. One said, 'This so-called "comedian" should be told that jokes are supposed to have punch lines.' Another said I represented 'the most serious booking error in the history of Los Angeles music.' "Martin periodically spoofed his philosophy studies in his 1970s stand-up act, comparing philosophy with studying geology. "If you're studying geology, which is all facts, as soon as you get out of school you forget it all, but philosophy you remember just enough to screw you up for the rest of your life."
In 1967, Martin transferred to UCLA and switched his major to theater. While attending college, he appeared in an episode of The Dating Game. Martin began working local clubs at night, to mixed notices, and at twenty-one he dropped out of college.
Career
Early career – stand-up
In 1967, his former girlfriend Nina Goldblatt, a dancer on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, helped Martin land a writing job with the show by submitting his work to head writer Mason Williams. Williams initially paid Martin out of his own pocket. Along with the other writers for the show, Martin won an Emmy Award in 1969, aged 23.He also wrote for John Denver (a neighbor of his in Aspen, Colorado, at one point), The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour, and The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour. Martin's first TV appearance was on The Steve Allen Show in 1969. He says: "[I] appeared on The Virginia Graham Show, circa 1970. I looked grotesque. I had a hairdo like a helmet, which I blow-dried to a puffy bouffant, for reasons I no longer understand. I wore a frock coat and a silk shirt, and my delivery was mannered, slow and self-aware. I had absolutely no authority. After reviewing the show, I was depressed for a week."During these years his roommates included comedian Gary Mule Deer and singer/guitarist Michael Johnson. Martin opened for groups such as The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, The Carpenters, and Toto. He appeared at San Francisco's The Boarding House, among other venues. He continued to write, earning an Emmy nomination for his work on Van Dyke and Company in 1976.
In the mid-1970s, Martin made frequent appearances as a stand-up comedian on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.,and on The Gong Show, HBO's On Location and NBC's Saturday Night Live (SNL). SNL's audience jumped by a million viewers when he made guest appearances, though despite a common misconception, he was never a cast member.Martin has guest-hosted Saturday Night Live 15 times, as of January 2009, tied in numbers of presentations with host Alec Baldwin. On the show, Martin popularized the air quotes gesture, which uses four fingers to make double quote marks in the air. While on the show Martin became close with several of the cast members, including Gilda Radner. On the day Radner died of ovarian cancer in 1989, Martin was hosting SNL and featured footage of himself and Radner together in a 1978 sketch.
His TV appearances in the 1970s led to the release of comedy albums that went platinum. The track "Excuse Me" on his first album, Let's Get Small, helped establish a national catch phrase.[4] His next album, A Wild and Crazy Guy (1978), was an even bigger success, reaching the No.2 spot on the US sales chart, selling over a million copies. "Just a wild and crazy guy" became another of Martin's known catch phrases.The album featured a character based on a series of Saturday Night Live sketches where Martin and Dan Aykroyd played "Georgi" and "Yortuk" the Festrunk Brothers, a couple of bumbling Czechoslovak would-be playboys. The album ends with the song "King Tut", sung and written by Martin and backed by the "Toot Uncommons", members of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. It was later released as a single, reaching No.17 on the US charts in 1978 and selling over a million copies.The song came out during the King Tut craze that accompanied the popular traveling exhibit of the Egyptian king's tomb artifacts. Both albums won Grammys for Best Comedy Recording in 1977 and 1978, respectively. Martin performed "King Tut" on the April 22, 1978 edition of SNL.
On his comedy albums, Martin's stand-up is self-referential and sometimes self-mocking. It mixes philosophical riffs with sudden spurts of "happy feet", banjo playing with balloon depictions of concepts like venereal disease, and the controversial kitten juggling (he is a master juggler). His style is off-kilter and ironic, and sometimes pokes fun at stand-up comedy traditions, such as Martin opening his act (from A Wild and Crazy Guy) by saying, "I think there's nothing better for a person to come up and do the same thing over and over for two weeks. This is what I enjoy, so I'm going to do the same thing over and over and over I'm going to do the same joke over and over in the same show, it'll be like a new thing." Or: "Hello, I'm Steve Martin, and I'll be out here in a minute." In one comedy routine, used on the Comedy Is Not Pretty! album, Martin claimed that his real name was "Gern Blanston". The riff took on a life of its own. There is a Gern Blanston website, and for a time a rock band took the moniker as their name.He stopped stand-up in 1981 to concentrate on movies and never went back.
Acting career – film
By the end of the 1970s, Martin had acquired the kind of following normally reserved for rock stars, with his tour appearances typically occurring at sold-out arenas filled with tens of thousands of screaming fans. But unknown to his audience, stand-up comedy was "just an accident" for him; his real goal was to get into film.
Martin's first film was a short, The Absent-Minded Waiter (1977). The seven-minute-long film, also featuring Buck Henry and Teri Garr, was written by and starred Martin. The film was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Short Film, Live Action. He made his first feature film appearance in the musical Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, where he sang The Beatles' "Maxwell's Silver Hammer". In 1979, Martin co-wrote and starred in his first full-length movie, The Jerk, directed by Carl Reiner. The movie was a huge success, grossing over $100 million on a budget of approximately $4 million.
Stanley Kubrick met with him to discuss the possibility of Martin starring in a screwball comedy version of Traumnovelle (Kubrick later changed his approach to the material, the result of which was 1999's Eyes Wide Shut). Martin was executive producer for Domestic Life, a prime-time television series starring friend Martin Mull, and a late-night series called Twilight Theater. It emboldened Martin to try his hand at his first serious film, Pennies from Heaven, a movie he was anxious to perform in because of his desire to avoid being typecast. To prepare for that film, Martin took acting lessons from director Herbert Ross, and spent months learning how to tap dance. The film was a financial failure; Martin's comment at the time was "I don't know what to blame, other than it's me and not a comedy."
Martin was in three more Reiner-directed comedies after The Jerk: Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid in 1982, The Man with Two Brains in 1983 and All of Me in 1984, possibly his most critically acclaimed comic performance to date.In 1986, Martin joined fellow Saturday Night Live veterans Martin Short and Chevy Chase in ¡Three Amigos!, directed by John Landis, and written by Martin, Lorne Michaels, and singer-songwriter Randy Newman. It was originally entitled The Three Caballeros and Martin was to be teamed with Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi. In 1986, Martin was in the movie musical film version of the hit Off-Broadway play Little Shop of Horrors (based on a famous B-movie), playing the sadistic dentist, Orin Scrivello. The film was the first of three films teaming Martin with Rick Moranis. In 1987, Martin joined comedian John Candy in the John Hughes movie Planes, Trains & Automobiles. That same year, Roxanne, the film adaptation of Cyrano de Bergerac which Martin co-wrote, won him a Writers Guild of America, East award. It also garnered recognition from Hollywood and the public that he was more than a comedian. In 1988, he performed in the Frank Oz remake of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels alongside Michael Caine.
Martin starred in the Ron Howard film Parenthood, with Moranis in 1989. He later met with Moranis to make the Mafia comedy My Blue Heaven in 1990. In 1991, Martin starred in and wrote L.A. Story, a romantic comedy, in which the female lead was played by his then-wife Victoria Tennant. Martin also appeared in Lawrence Kasdan's Grand Canyon, in which he played the tightly-wound Hollywood film producer, Davis, who was recovering from a traumatic robbery that left him injured, which was a more serious role for him. Martin also appeared in a remake of the comedy Father of the Bride in 1991 (followed by a sequel in 1995). He starred in the 1992 comedy HouseSitter, with Goldie Hawn and Dana Delany.
In David Mamet's 1997 thriller, The Spanish Prisoner, Martin played a darker role as a wealthy stranger who takes a suspicious interest in the work of a young businessman (Campbell Scott). He went on to star with Eddie Murphy in the 1999 comedy Bowfinger, which Martin also wrote. He appeared in a version of Waiting for Godot as Vladimir, with Robin Williams as Estragon and Bill Irwin as Lucky. In 1998, Martin guest starred with U2 in the 200th episode of The Simpsons titled "Trash of the Titans", providing the voice for sanitation commissioner Ray Patterson. In 1999, Martin and Hawn starred in a remake of the 1970 Neil Simon comedy, The Out-of-Towners. By 2003, Martin ranked 4th on the box office stars list, after starring in Bringing Down The House and Cheaper By The Dozen, each of which earned over $130 million at U.S. theaters. That same year, he also played the villainous Mr. Chairman in the animation/live action blend, "Looney Tunes: Back in Action".
Martin wrote and starred in Shopgirl (2005), based on his own novella (2000), and starred in Cheaper by the Dozen 2. He also starred in the box office hit The Pink Panther in 2006, standing in Peter Sellers's shoes as the bumbling Inspector Clouseau, a role which he reprised in 2009's The Pink Panther 2. In Baby Mama (2008), he played the founder of a health food company, and in It's Complicated (2009), he played opposite Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin. In 2009, an article in The Guardian listed Martin as one of the best actors never to receive an Oscar nomination.
He is set to appear with Jack Black, Owen Wilson, and JoBeth Williams in the birdwatching comedy The Big Year in 2011.
Hosting
Martin hosted Academy Awards solo in 2001 and 2003 and with Alec Baldwin in 2010.[31] In 2005, Martin co-hosted Disneyland: The First 50 Magical Years, marking the park's anniversary. Disney continued to run the show until March 2009, which now plays in the lobby of Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln.
Personal life
Martin was romantically involved with actress and singer Bernadette Peters, his costar in the films The Jerk and Pennies from Heaven, during the 1970s and early 1980s. He married actress Victoria Tennant on November 20, 1986, and the union lasted until 1994. On July 28, 2007, after three years together, Martin married Anne Stringfield, a writer and former staffer for The New Yorker magazine. Former Nebraska Senator Bob Kerrey presided over the ceremony at Martin's Los Angeles home. Lorne Michaels, creator of Saturday Night Live, was best man. Several of the guests, including close friends Tom Hanks, Eugene Levy, comedian Carl Reiner, and magician/actor Ricky Jay were not informed that a wedding ceremony would take place. Instead, they were told they were invited to a party, and were surprised by the nuptials.[
Investigators at Berlin's state criminal police office (LKA) think that Martin was one victim of a German art forgery scandal. In July 2004 Martin purchased what he believed to be a 1915 work by the German-Dutch painter Heinrich Campendonk, "Landschaft mit Pferden," or "Landscape With Horses," from a Paris gallery for what should have been a bargain price in the neighborhood of €700,000 (around $850,000 at the time). Before the purchase an expert authenticated the work and identified the painter's signature on a label attached to the back. Fifteen months later Martin put the painting up for sale, and auction house Christie's dispose of it in February 2006 to a Swiss businesswoman for €500,000 – a loss of €200,000. Police believe the fake Campendonk originated from an invented art collection devised by a group of German swindlers caught in 2010. Skillfully forged paintings from this group were sold to French galleries like the one where Martin bought the forgery.
Monday, July 4, 2011
Martina Mcbride
Martina McBride (born Martina Mariea Schiff on July 29, 1966, in Sharon, Kansas) is an American country music singer and songwriter. McBride has been called the "Céline Dion of Country Music" for her big-voiced ballads and soprano range.
McBride was signed to RCA Records in 1991 and made her debut the following year as a neo-traditionalist country singer with the single, "The Time Has Come."It was not until 1997, when she released her fourth album, Evolution, that she broke through into the country music industry with a new pop-styled crossover sound, similar to that of Faith Hill and Shania Twain. From that point on, McBride has had a string of major hit singles on the Billboard country chart and occasionally on the adult contemporary chart. Five of these singles went to No. 1 on the country chart between 1995 and 2001, and one peaked at No. 1 on the adult contemporary chart in 2003.
McBride has recorded a total of nine studio albums, one "greatest hits" compilation, one "live" album, a "Christmas" compilation, as well as two additional compilation albums. Seven of her studio albums and two of her compilations have received an RIAA certification of "Gold", or higher. Worldwide, she has sold over 18 million albums. In addition, Martina has won the Country Music Association's "Female Vocalist of the Year" award four times (tied with Reba McEntire for the most wins) and the Academy of Country Music's "Top Female Vocalist" award three times.
Early life
McBride was born Martina Mariea Schiff in Sharon, Kansas, to Daryl and Jeanne (née Clark) Schiff on July 29, 1966. She has two brothers, Martin and Steve, who currently play in her concert band, and a sister, Gina.
She was raised in Sharon, Kansas, a small town with population of about 200. Her father, who was a farmer and cabinetry shop owner, exposed McBride to country music at a young age. Listening to country music helped her acquire a love for singing. After school, she would spend hours singing along to the records of such popular artists as Reba McEntire, Linda Ronstadt, Juice Newton, Jeanne Pruett, Connie Smith and Patsy Cline.Around the age of 8 or 9, McBride began singing with a band her father fronted, "The Schiffters." As Schiff grew older her role in the band progressively increased, from simply singing, to also playing keyboard with them. She enjoyed performing in her early years.
She began performing with a local rock band, The Penetrators, in Wichita instead.[4] Then, in 1987, Schiff gathered a group of musicians called Lotus and started looking for rehearsal space; she began renting space from a studio engineer named John McBride. In 1988, the two married.
After marrying, the couple moved to Nashville, Tennessee in 1989 with the hope of beginning a career in country music. John McBride joined Garth Brooks's sound crew and later became his concert production manager. Martina occasionally joined her husband on the road and helped sell Garth Brooks souvenirs.In 1990, impressed by Martina's enthusiastic spirit, Brooks offered her the position of his opening act provided she could obtain a recording contract.During this time, while her husband was working with country artists Charlie Daniels and Ricky Van Shelton, he also helped produce her demo tape, which helped her gain a recording contract with RCA Nashville Records in 1991.
Music career
1992 – 1995: The Time Has Come and The Way That I Am
McBride released her debut studio album through the RCA Records label in 1992, titled The Time Has Come. This album's title track made number 23 on the country music charts, but the next two singles both failed to make top 40.Unlike her later country pop-influenced albums, The Time Has Come featured honky tonk and country folk influences.
The Way That I Am was the title of McBride's second album. Its first two singles both brought her into the country top ten: "My Baby Loves Me" peaked at number two, and "Life #9" at number six. The third single, "Independence Day", This song did not reach top 10 because many radio programmers objected to the song's subject of a mother fighting back against abuse by burning the family home to the ground."Independence Day" won Video of the Year and Song of the Year at the Country Music Association Awards.After it, the fourth and fifth singles from The Way That I Am were less successful: "Heart Trouble" peaked at number 21, and "Where I Used to Have a Heart" fell short of top 40.
1995 – 1997: Wild Angels
Released in 1995, Wild Angels accounted for another top five hit in "Safe in the Arms of Love", and her first number-one hit in the album's title track."Phones Are Ringin' All Over Town", "Swingin' Doors" and "Cry on the Shoulder of the Road" were less successful, reaching the lower regions of the top 40.
1997 – 1999: Evolution
In early 1997, after "Cry on the Shoulder of the Road" peaked, McBride released two duets. "Still Holding On", a duet with Clint Black which was the lead-off single to his album Nothin' but the Taillights, and "Valentine" with Jim Brickman which appeared on his album Picture This. After these two songs were released, she had her second number one on the country charts with "A Broken Wing", the lead-off to her album Evolution. This album went on to produce four more top ten hits at country radio: a re-release of "Valentine", "Happy Girl", "Wrong Again" (which also went to number one) and "Whatever You Say". Towards the end of 1998, the album was certified double platinum in sales by the Recording Industry Association of America for selling two million units. In addition, she also won the Country Music Association Awards' "Female Vocalist of the Year" award in 1999 and also performed for President Bill Clinton during the same time.
Also in 1998, McBride released a Christmas album titled White Christmas. Included on it was a rendition of "O Holy Night", which first charted in 1997 and continued to re-enter the charts until 2001.She also sang a guest vocal on Jason Sellers' mid-1998 single "This Small Divide".
1999 – 2003: Emotion and Greatest Hits
Her fifth studio album, Emotion, was released in 1999. Its lead single, "I Love You," reached number one on the Billboard country charts in 1999, and also crossed over to the Adult Contemporary chart. The song's follow-ups, "Love's the Only House" and "There You Are", both made top ten at country radio, and "It's My Time" peaked at number eleven.
In 2001, she released her first compilation, Greatest Hits. This album has been certified 3× Platinum in sales by the Recording Industry Association of America, and is her highest-selling album.It included most of her major hits to that point, and the album track "Strangers" from the album The Way That I Am, which she put on the album because she felt that it should have been a single.[11] The album also included four new songs, all of which made top ten on the country music charts between 2001 and 2003: "When God-Fearin' Women Get the Blues", "Blessed (Martina McBride song)" (her fifth number one), "Where Would You Be" and "Concrete Angel". In between the latter two, she also sang a guest vocal on Andy Griggs' 2002 single "Practice Life".
2003 – 2005: Martina
In 2003, McBride released her sixth studio album, Martina, which celebrated womanhood.The first single, "This One's for the Girls," went to number three on the country charts and became her only number-one hit on the Adult Contemporary charts. It also included backing vocals from Faith Hill, Carolyn Dawn Johnson and McBride's daughters, Delaney and Emma.Follow-up single "In My Daughter's Eyes" was also a top five hit at both country and adult contemporary. "How Far" and "God's Will" from the same album both made top 20 at country radio, as did her guest appearance on Jimmy Buffett's single "Trip Around the Sun".
In 2004 McBride won the CMA's Female Vocalist award for the fourth time, following the wins in 2003, 2002 & 1999, which tied her for the most wins in that category with Reba McEntire.
McBride was signed to RCA Records in 1991 and made her debut the following year as a neo-traditionalist country singer with the single, "The Time Has Come."It was not until 1997, when she released her fourth album, Evolution, that she broke through into the country music industry with a new pop-styled crossover sound, similar to that of Faith Hill and Shania Twain. From that point on, McBride has had a string of major hit singles on the Billboard country chart and occasionally on the adult contemporary chart. Five of these singles went to No. 1 on the country chart between 1995 and 2001, and one peaked at No. 1 on the adult contemporary chart in 2003.
McBride has recorded a total of nine studio albums, one "greatest hits" compilation, one "live" album, a "Christmas" compilation, as well as two additional compilation albums. Seven of her studio albums and two of her compilations have received an RIAA certification of "Gold", or higher. Worldwide, she has sold over 18 million albums. In addition, Martina has won the Country Music Association's "Female Vocalist of the Year" award four times (tied with Reba McEntire for the most wins) and the Academy of Country Music's "Top Female Vocalist" award three times.
Early life
McBride was born Martina Mariea Schiff in Sharon, Kansas, to Daryl and Jeanne (née Clark) Schiff on July 29, 1966. She has two brothers, Martin and Steve, who currently play in her concert band, and a sister, Gina.
She was raised in Sharon, Kansas, a small town with population of about 200. Her father, who was a farmer and cabinetry shop owner, exposed McBride to country music at a young age. Listening to country music helped her acquire a love for singing. After school, she would spend hours singing along to the records of such popular artists as Reba McEntire, Linda Ronstadt, Juice Newton, Jeanne Pruett, Connie Smith and Patsy Cline.Around the age of 8 or 9, McBride began singing with a band her father fronted, "The Schiffters." As Schiff grew older her role in the band progressively increased, from simply singing, to also playing keyboard with them. She enjoyed performing in her early years.
She began performing with a local rock band, The Penetrators, in Wichita instead.[4] Then, in 1987, Schiff gathered a group of musicians called Lotus and started looking for rehearsal space; she began renting space from a studio engineer named John McBride. In 1988, the two married.
After marrying, the couple moved to Nashville, Tennessee in 1989 with the hope of beginning a career in country music. John McBride joined Garth Brooks's sound crew and later became his concert production manager. Martina occasionally joined her husband on the road and helped sell Garth Brooks souvenirs.In 1990, impressed by Martina's enthusiastic spirit, Brooks offered her the position of his opening act provided she could obtain a recording contract.During this time, while her husband was working with country artists Charlie Daniels and Ricky Van Shelton, he also helped produce her demo tape, which helped her gain a recording contract with RCA Nashville Records in 1991.
Music career
1992 – 1995: The Time Has Come and The Way That I Am
McBride released her debut studio album through the RCA Records label in 1992, titled The Time Has Come. This album's title track made number 23 on the country music charts, but the next two singles both failed to make top 40.Unlike her later country pop-influenced albums, The Time Has Come featured honky tonk and country folk influences.
The Way That I Am was the title of McBride's second album. Its first two singles both brought her into the country top ten: "My Baby Loves Me" peaked at number two, and "Life #9" at number six. The third single, "Independence Day", This song did not reach top 10 because many radio programmers objected to the song's subject of a mother fighting back against abuse by burning the family home to the ground."Independence Day" won Video of the Year and Song of the Year at the Country Music Association Awards.After it, the fourth and fifth singles from The Way That I Am were less successful: "Heart Trouble" peaked at number 21, and "Where I Used to Have a Heart" fell short of top 40.
1995 – 1997: Wild Angels
Released in 1995, Wild Angels accounted for another top five hit in "Safe in the Arms of Love", and her first number-one hit in the album's title track."Phones Are Ringin' All Over Town", "Swingin' Doors" and "Cry on the Shoulder of the Road" were less successful, reaching the lower regions of the top 40.
1997 – 1999: Evolution
In early 1997, after "Cry on the Shoulder of the Road" peaked, McBride released two duets. "Still Holding On", a duet with Clint Black which was the lead-off single to his album Nothin' but the Taillights, and "Valentine" with Jim Brickman which appeared on his album Picture This. After these two songs were released, she had her second number one on the country charts with "A Broken Wing", the lead-off to her album Evolution. This album went on to produce four more top ten hits at country radio: a re-release of "Valentine", "Happy Girl", "Wrong Again" (which also went to number one) and "Whatever You Say". Towards the end of 1998, the album was certified double platinum in sales by the Recording Industry Association of America for selling two million units. In addition, she also won the Country Music Association Awards' "Female Vocalist of the Year" award in 1999 and also performed for President Bill Clinton during the same time.
Also in 1998, McBride released a Christmas album titled White Christmas. Included on it was a rendition of "O Holy Night", which first charted in 1997 and continued to re-enter the charts until 2001.She also sang a guest vocal on Jason Sellers' mid-1998 single "This Small Divide".
1999 – 2003: Emotion and Greatest Hits
Her fifth studio album, Emotion, was released in 1999. Its lead single, "I Love You," reached number one on the Billboard country charts in 1999, and also crossed over to the Adult Contemporary chart. The song's follow-ups, "Love's the Only House" and "There You Are", both made top ten at country radio, and "It's My Time" peaked at number eleven.
In 2001, she released her first compilation, Greatest Hits. This album has been certified 3× Platinum in sales by the Recording Industry Association of America, and is her highest-selling album.It included most of her major hits to that point, and the album track "Strangers" from the album The Way That I Am, which she put on the album because she felt that it should have been a single.[11] The album also included four new songs, all of which made top ten on the country music charts between 2001 and 2003: "When God-Fearin' Women Get the Blues", "Blessed (Martina McBride song)" (her fifth number one), "Where Would You Be" and "Concrete Angel". In between the latter two, she also sang a guest vocal on Andy Griggs' 2002 single "Practice Life".
2003 – 2005: Martina
In 2003, McBride released her sixth studio album, Martina, which celebrated womanhood.The first single, "This One's for the Girls," went to number three on the country charts and became her only number-one hit on the Adult Contemporary charts. It also included backing vocals from Faith Hill, Carolyn Dawn Johnson and McBride's daughters, Delaney and Emma.Follow-up single "In My Daughter's Eyes" was also a top five hit at both country and adult contemporary. "How Far" and "God's Will" from the same album both made top 20 at country radio, as did her guest appearance on Jimmy Buffett's single "Trip Around the Sun".
In 2004 McBride won the CMA's Female Vocalist award for the fourth time, following the wins in 2003, 2002 & 1999, which tied her for the most wins in that category with Reba McEntire.
Million Dollar Quartet
"Million Dollar Quartet" is the name given to recordings made on Tuesday December 4, 1956 in the Sun Record Studios in Memphis, Tennessee. The recordings were of an impromptu jam session among Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Johnny Cash. It was arguably the first supergroup.
Recording session
The jam session seems to have happened by pure chance. Perkins, who by this time had already met success with "Blue Suede Shoes", had come into the studios that day, accompanied by his brothers Clayton and Jay and by drummer W.S. Holland, their aim being to cut some new material, including a revamped version of an old blues song, "Matchbox". Sam Phillips, the owner of Sun Records, who wished to try to fatten this sparse rockabilly instrumentation, had brought in his latest acquisition, singer and piano man extraordinaire Jerry Lee Lewis, still unknown outside Memphis, to play piano on the Perkins session.
Sometime in the early afternoon, Elvis Presley, a former Sun artist himself but now at RCA, dropped in to pay a casual visit accompanied by a girlfriend, Marilyn Evans.[1] He was, at the time, the biggest name in show business, having hit the top of the singles charts five times, and topping the album charts twice in the preceding 12-month period. Less than four months earlier, he had appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show, pulling an unheard-of 83% of the television audience, which was estimated at 55 million, the largest in history up to that time.
After chatting with Philips in the control room, Presley listened to the playback of Perkins’ session, which he pronounced to be good. Then he went out into the studio and some time later the jam session began. At some point during the session, Sun artist Johnny Cash, who had recently enjoyed a few hits on the country charts, popped in. (Cash wrote in his autobiography Cash that it was he who was first to arrive at Sun Studio that day.) Cowboy Jack Clement was engineering that day and remembers saying to himself "I think I'd be remiss not to record this" and so he did and the rest is history. As Jerry Lee pounded away on the piano, Elvis and girlfriend Evans slipped out at some point. Cash claims in Cash that "no one wanted to follow Jerry Lee, not even Elvis."
As the session continued, Phillips spotted an opportunity for some publicity and called a local newspaper, the Memphis Press-Scimitar. Bob Johnson, the newspaper’s entertainment editor, came over to the studios accompanied by a UPI representative named Leo Soroca and a photographer.
The following day, an article, written by Johnson about the session, was published in the Memphis Press-Scimitar under the title "Million Dollar Quartet". The article contained the now-famous photograph of Presley seated at the piano surrounded by Lewis, Perkins and Cash. (The original, uncropped version of the photo also includes Evans, shown seated atop the piano.
Releases
In 1969, Shelby Singleton bought Sun Records. He began a long search of the Sun catalogue, browsing through more than 10,000 hours of tape.
At the same time, Singleton licensed much, if not all, of the Sun catalogue to the English Charly label for reissue in Europe. As a result of Singleton’s and Charly's search of the Sun catalogue, a portion of the session came to light. This was issued in Europe 1981] as "Charly/Sun" LP #1006 The Million Dollar Quartet, and it contained seventeen tracks, almost all of which were gospel/spiritual music.
Several years later, additional material was discovered. This resulted in the release of the 1987 "Charly/Sun" 2 LP set #CDX 20 The Complete Million Dollar Session, together with their simultaneous issue in CD format in Europe. In 1990, they were replicated by RCA for US distribution as a CD and LP, titled, Elvis Presley - The Million Dollar Quartet (RCA CD # 2023-2-R), the sleeve notes of which were written by Colin Escott of Showtime Music, Toronto.
A 2006 50th anniversary issue of the session was released on RCA, containing approximately twelve minutes of previously unavailable material and placing the titles in the original recorded sequence. The source of the recording was a copy of the session owned by Elvis Presley.
According to Ernst Jorgensen, an authority on Elvis who consults for BMG, the published material contains about 95 percent of the master recordings. "We found three reels", he says, "You could always argue that there were more. But in the first you can hear Elvis arriving and in the last you can hear him leaving. I doubt that there are more."[citation needed]
The released albums contain 46 musical tracks, most of which are incomplete and are interspersed with chatter between the participants. They are not pristine, well rehearsed studio recordings, which were meant for commercial release, but rather the sound of a group of friends, who are gathered together to play old favorites and share the pleasure of making music together. Bob Johnson described it as "an old fashioned barrel-house session with barber shop harmonies resulting."
Songs
Country music and country gospel loom large in the choice of songs. The songs of such country and Western legends as Bill Monroe, Ernest Tubb, Hank Snow and Gene Autry are among those featured. Lewis played most of the piano and Presley took nearly all of the lead vocals. The other participants easily follow Presley’s lead with what seems a close familiarity with his choice of songs. Critics have remarked on the irony of his choices as rock & roll was branded as satanic music at the time.
Carl Perkins took the lead on only "Keeper Of The Key" and seemed content to play guitar and supply harmony vocals. He had, however, been singing all afternoon. Clayton Perkins and Jay Perkins and drummer W. S. Holland can be heard on the earliest titles. The rhythm guitar on the earlier songs was played by Charles Underwood, who was a writer for Phillips’s publishing companies. Presley also brought with him another aspiring singer, Cliff Gleaves, who might be participating on some of the ensemble parts.
Jerry Lee Lewis can be heard more frequently, often singing in duet with Presley and at the end of the session, when Presley got up to leave, he swiftly took over the piano and whipped off five piano ravers in rapid succession, including a rousing "Crazy Arms" (his debut Sun single) and a soulful make-over of Gene Autry's You're the Only Star in My Blue Heaven.
Colin Escott has reported that according to Charles Underwood, Presley and Phillips went into the control room while Lewis was playing and Presley commented to Bob Johnson that "[Lewis] could go. I think he has a great future ahead of him. He had a different style and the way he plays piano and gets inside me."[citation needed]
More importantly, however, Johnny Cash’s voice does not seem to appear on any of the released tracks. Colin Escott reports that according to Bob Johnson, Cash joined Presley, Perkins and Lewis on Blueberry Hill and Isle Of Golden Dreams. This was confirmed by Carl Perkins in a 1972 interview, when he stated that "we did things like Blueberry Hill, Island Of Golden Dreams, I Won't Have To Cross The Jordan Alone, The Old Rugged Cross, Peace in the Valley, Tutti Frutti, and Big Boss Man."Peace in the Valley" is the only released track and none of the others ever seems to have been found. Johnny Cash's autobiography, Cash, states that he sings on the tracks but he sings in a higher pitch than usually to blend better with Elvis's vocal. Furthermore he writes that he stood far from the microphone.
The point at which Johnny Cash arrived at the studio is a matter of discussion. Some sources,report that Cash was already at the studios, when Presley arrived. Perkins said that Cash had stopped into the studios to "get some money".
Cash, in the book Cash: The Autobiography commented, "I was there - I was the first to arrive and the last to leave, contrary to what has been written - but I was just there to watch Carl record, which he did until mid-afternoon, when Elvis came in with his girlfriend. At that point the session stopped and we all started laughing and cutting up together. Then Elvis sat down at the piano, and we started singing gospel songs we all knew, then some Bill Monroe songs. Elvis wanted to hear songs Bill had written besides Blue Moon of Kentucky, and I knew the whole repertoire. So, again contrary to what some people have written, my voice is on the tape. It's not obvious, because I was farthest away from the mic and I was singing a lot higher than I usually did in order to stay in key with Elvis, but I guarantee you, I'm there."[5]
Some reports, however, including one in a very detailed account in Peter Guralnick's book, Last Train To Memphis - The Rise of Elvis Presley, suggest that Cash stayed for only a short time and then left, possibly to do some Christmas shopping. Colin Escott also reports that Cash was brought in only late in the session, after Sam Phillips had decided to call the Memphis Press Scimitar.
The fact that Cash may not have been present throughout the whole session seems to be confirmed by two pieces of “chatter” caught on the tapes. In the first, another Sun artist, Smokey Joe Baugh, came by and his gravelly voice can be heard after "I Shall Not Be Moved", saying "You oughta get up a quartet." In the second, a female voice, not Marilyn Evans, can be heard asking if "This Rover Boys Trio can sing 'Farther Along'?" Evans, however, can later be heard requesting the song "End of the Road."[6] On the other hand, Elvis is plainly heard mentioning Cash by name on the track "As We Travel Along The Jericho Road", at the 0:07 mark, although the form of the reference leaves it ambiguous as to whether Cash was on premises at that point. Elvis can also be heard saying goodbye to someone named Johnny during the "Elvis Says Goodbye" track that closes the 50th anniversary release.
Country music was not the only choice of the participants; they performed Home!_Sweet_Home!, a sentimental ballad as an energetic rockabilly clip. They can also be heard turning their attention to the hit parade of the day. Presley led the session with "Out Of Sight, Out Of Mind," an R & B song popularized by the Five Keys. Meanwhile, Lewis sings one line of Chuck Berry's "Too Much Monkey Business" which leads into Lewis and Presley experimenting with snippets of Berry's "Brown Eyed Handsome Man." Elvis can also be heard singing a snippet of Little Richard's "Rip It Up" (with a ribald change in the lyric) and Pat Boone's hit of the day, "Don’t Forbid Me" which Elvis on the tape claims was first offered to him but the demo "sat around my house" without being played.
In addition, Presley previewed material that he was considering for up-coming RCA sessions in January and February 1957. He sang "Is It So Strange," "Peace In The Valley," and "That’s When Your Heartaches Begin," which he acknowledges on the tape as having been one of the songs he recorded for Sun during his demo session a couple of years earlier, and which he would record again for RCA a month later. In the case of "Is It So Strange", he comments, "Ol' Faron Young wrote this song sent to me to record."
The title which most critics seem to highlight is Presley’s rendition of "Don't Be Cruel," one of his major hits of 1956 (see 1956 in music). This is not Presley singing Presley, but his imitation of Jackie Wilson, then the lead singer with Billy Ward’s Dominoes, imitating him. It appears as though the Presley entourage spent a few days in Las Vegas (most likely during Presley's short-lived tenure earlier in the year at the Frontier Hotel) and went to watch Jackie Wilson, who had obviously built an impersonation of Presley into his act.
Presley describes Jackie Wilson tearing up Las Vegas audiences with a house-on-fire rendition of "Don't Be Cruel". He goes on to say that, "He tried so hard until he got much better, boy, much better than that record of mine.... I went back four nights straight and heard that guy do that," he says, imitating Wilson's bluesy smolder and big finish.
"He sung the hell out of the song," Elvis can be heard saying with admiration, adding with a laugh, "I was on the table lookin' at him, 'Get 'im off, get 'im off!'" Obviously on a roll, Presley, then ripped into a slower, sassier version of "Paralyzed," a song recorded for his second album and also released on an extended play 45. He was backed up by Perkins and his trio.
According to the Rolling Stone review of the album, "'The Complete Million Dollar Session' provides a rare post-Sun glimpse of Elvis Presley momentarily free of the golden shackles of stardom and the manipulative grasp of his manager, Colonel Tom Parker. His singing, especially on the gospel numbers, is natural and relaxed, minus some of the trademark mannerisms of his official RCA releases."
Colin Escott has said, "They mixed and matched their disparate styles – and their innate musicality ensured that what emerged had the rarest of all musical qualities: originality.
Some 30 years later, Perkins, Lewis, Cash and Roy Orbison, a Sun recording artist in 1956, went back into the Sun Studios to record a session of their own Class of '55.
Recording session
The jam session seems to have happened by pure chance. Perkins, who by this time had already met success with "Blue Suede Shoes", had come into the studios that day, accompanied by his brothers Clayton and Jay and by drummer W.S. Holland, their aim being to cut some new material, including a revamped version of an old blues song, "Matchbox". Sam Phillips, the owner of Sun Records, who wished to try to fatten this sparse rockabilly instrumentation, had brought in his latest acquisition, singer and piano man extraordinaire Jerry Lee Lewis, still unknown outside Memphis, to play piano on the Perkins session.
Sometime in the early afternoon, Elvis Presley, a former Sun artist himself but now at RCA, dropped in to pay a casual visit accompanied by a girlfriend, Marilyn Evans.[1] He was, at the time, the biggest name in show business, having hit the top of the singles charts five times, and topping the album charts twice in the preceding 12-month period. Less than four months earlier, he had appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show, pulling an unheard-of 83% of the television audience, which was estimated at 55 million, the largest in history up to that time.
After chatting with Philips in the control room, Presley listened to the playback of Perkins’ session, which he pronounced to be good. Then he went out into the studio and some time later the jam session began. At some point during the session, Sun artist Johnny Cash, who had recently enjoyed a few hits on the country charts, popped in. (Cash wrote in his autobiography Cash that it was he who was first to arrive at Sun Studio that day.) Cowboy Jack Clement was engineering that day and remembers saying to himself "I think I'd be remiss not to record this" and so he did and the rest is history. As Jerry Lee pounded away on the piano, Elvis and girlfriend Evans slipped out at some point. Cash claims in Cash that "no one wanted to follow Jerry Lee, not even Elvis."
As the session continued, Phillips spotted an opportunity for some publicity and called a local newspaper, the Memphis Press-Scimitar. Bob Johnson, the newspaper’s entertainment editor, came over to the studios accompanied by a UPI representative named Leo Soroca and a photographer.
The following day, an article, written by Johnson about the session, was published in the Memphis Press-Scimitar under the title "Million Dollar Quartet". The article contained the now-famous photograph of Presley seated at the piano surrounded by Lewis, Perkins and Cash. (The original, uncropped version of the photo also includes Evans, shown seated atop the piano.
Releases
In 1969, Shelby Singleton bought Sun Records. He began a long search of the Sun catalogue, browsing through more than 10,000 hours of tape.
At the same time, Singleton licensed much, if not all, of the Sun catalogue to the English Charly label for reissue in Europe. As a result of Singleton’s and Charly's search of the Sun catalogue, a portion of the session came to light. This was issued in Europe 1981] as "Charly/Sun" LP #1006 The Million Dollar Quartet, and it contained seventeen tracks, almost all of which were gospel/spiritual music.
Several years later, additional material was discovered. This resulted in the release of the 1987 "Charly/Sun" 2 LP set #CDX 20 The Complete Million Dollar Session, together with their simultaneous issue in CD format in Europe. In 1990, they were replicated by RCA for US distribution as a CD and LP, titled, Elvis Presley - The Million Dollar Quartet (RCA CD # 2023-2-R), the sleeve notes of which were written by Colin Escott of Showtime Music, Toronto.
A 2006 50th anniversary issue of the session was released on RCA, containing approximately twelve minutes of previously unavailable material and placing the titles in the original recorded sequence. The source of the recording was a copy of the session owned by Elvis Presley.
According to Ernst Jorgensen, an authority on Elvis who consults for BMG, the published material contains about 95 percent of the master recordings. "We found three reels", he says, "You could always argue that there were more. But in the first you can hear Elvis arriving and in the last you can hear him leaving. I doubt that there are more."[citation needed]
The released albums contain 46 musical tracks, most of which are incomplete and are interspersed with chatter between the participants. They are not pristine, well rehearsed studio recordings, which were meant for commercial release, but rather the sound of a group of friends, who are gathered together to play old favorites and share the pleasure of making music together. Bob Johnson described it as "an old fashioned barrel-house session with barber shop harmonies resulting."
Songs
Country music and country gospel loom large in the choice of songs. The songs of such country and Western legends as Bill Monroe, Ernest Tubb, Hank Snow and Gene Autry are among those featured. Lewis played most of the piano and Presley took nearly all of the lead vocals. The other participants easily follow Presley’s lead with what seems a close familiarity with his choice of songs. Critics have remarked on the irony of his choices as rock & roll was branded as satanic music at the time.
Carl Perkins took the lead on only "Keeper Of The Key" and seemed content to play guitar and supply harmony vocals. He had, however, been singing all afternoon. Clayton Perkins and Jay Perkins and drummer W. S. Holland can be heard on the earliest titles. The rhythm guitar on the earlier songs was played by Charles Underwood, who was a writer for Phillips’s publishing companies. Presley also brought with him another aspiring singer, Cliff Gleaves, who might be participating on some of the ensemble parts.
Jerry Lee Lewis can be heard more frequently, often singing in duet with Presley and at the end of the session, when Presley got up to leave, he swiftly took over the piano and whipped off five piano ravers in rapid succession, including a rousing "Crazy Arms" (his debut Sun single) and a soulful make-over of Gene Autry's You're the Only Star in My Blue Heaven.
Colin Escott has reported that according to Charles Underwood, Presley and Phillips went into the control room while Lewis was playing and Presley commented to Bob Johnson that "[Lewis] could go. I think he has a great future ahead of him. He had a different style and the way he plays piano and gets inside me."[citation needed]
More importantly, however, Johnny Cash’s voice does not seem to appear on any of the released tracks. Colin Escott reports that according to Bob Johnson, Cash joined Presley, Perkins and Lewis on Blueberry Hill and Isle Of Golden Dreams. This was confirmed by Carl Perkins in a 1972 interview, when he stated that "we did things like Blueberry Hill, Island Of Golden Dreams, I Won't Have To Cross The Jordan Alone, The Old Rugged Cross, Peace in the Valley, Tutti Frutti, and Big Boss Man."Peace in the Valley" is the only released track and none of the others ever seems to have been found. Johnny Cash's autobiography, Cash, states that he sings on the tracks but he sings in a higher pitch than usually to blend better with Elvis's vocal. Furthermore he writes that he stood far from the microphone.
The point at which Johnny Cash arrived at the studio is a matter of discussion. Some sources,report that Cash was already at the studios, when Presley arrived. Perkins said that Cash had stopped into the studios to "get some money".
Cash, in the book Cash: The Autobiography commented, "I was there - I was the first to arrive and the last to leave, contrary to what has been written - but I was just there to watch Carl record, which he did until mid-afternoon, when Elvis came in with his girlfriend. At that point the session stopped and we all started laughing and cutting up together. Then Elvis sat down at the piano, and we started singing gospel songs we all knew, then some Bill Monroe songs. Elvis wanted to hear songs Bill had written besides Blue Moon of Kentucky, and I knew the whole repertoire. So, again contrary to what some people have written, my voice is on the tape. It's not obvious, because I was farthest away from the mic and I was singing a lot higher than I usually did in order to stay in key with Elvis, but I guarantee you, I'm there."[5]
Some reports, however, including one in a very detailed account in Peter Guralnick's book, Last Train To Memphis - The Rise of Elvis Presley, suggest that Cash stayed for only a short time and then left, possibly to do some Christmas shopping. Colin Escott also reports that Cash was brought in only late in the session, after Sam Phillips had decided to call the Memphis Press Scimitar.
The fact that Cash may not have been present throughout the whole session seems to be confirmed by two pieces of “chatter” caught on the tapes. In the first, another Sun artist, Smokey Joe Baugh, came by and his gravelly voice can be heard after "I Shall Not Be Moved", saying "You oughta get up a quartet." In the second, a female voice, not Marilyn Evans, can be heard asking if "This Rover Boys Trio can sing 'Farther Along'?" Evans, however, can later be heard requesting the song "End of the Road."[6] On the other hand, Elvis is plainly heard mentioning Cash by name on the track "As We Travel Along The Jericho Road", at the 0:07 mark, although the form of the reference leaves it ambiguous as to whether Cash was on premises at that point. Elvis can also be heard saying goodbye to someone named Johnny during the "Elvis Says Goodbye" track that closes the 50th anniversary release.
Country music was not the only choice of the participants; they performed Home!_Sweet_Home!, a sentimental ballad as an energetic rockabilly clip. They can also be heard turning their attention to the hit parade of the day. Presley led the session with "Out Of Sight, Out Of Mind," an R & B song popularized by the Five Keys. Meanwhile, Lewis sings one line of Chuck Berry's "Too Much Monkey Business" which leads into Lewis and Presley experimenting with snippets of Berry's "Brown Eyed Handsome Man." Elvis can also be heard singing a snippet of Little Richard's "Rip It Up" (with a ribald change in the lyric) and Pat Boone's hit of the day, "Don’t Forbid Me" which Elvis on the tape claims was first offered to him but the demo "sat around my house" without being played.
In addition, Presley previewed material that he was considering for up-coming RCA sessions in January and February 1957. He sang "Is It So Strange," "Peace In The Valley," and "That’s When Your Heartaches Begin," which he acknowledges on the tape as having been one of the songs he recorded for Sun during his demo session a couple of years earlier, and which he would record again for RCA a month later. In the case of "Is It So Strange", he comments, "Ol' Faron Young wrote this song sent to me to record."
The title which most critics seem to highlight is Presley’s rendition of "Don't Be Cruel," one of his major hits of 1956 (see 1956 in music). This is not Presley singing Presley, but his imitation of Jackie Wilson, then the lead singer with Billy Ward’s Dominoes, imitating him. It appears as though the Presley entourage spent a few days in Las Vegas (most likely during Presley's short-lived tenure earlier in the year at the Frontier Hotel) and went to watch Jackie Wilson, who had obviously built an impersonation of Presley into his act.
Presley describes Jackie Wilson tearing up Las Vegas audiences with a house-on-fire rendition of "Don't Be Cruel". He goes on to say that, "He tried so hard until he got much better, boy, much better than that record of mine.... I went back four nights straight and heard that guy do that," he says, imitating Wilson's bluesy smolder and big finish.
"He sung the hell out of the song," Elvis can be heard saying with admiration, adding with a laugh, "I was on the table lookin' at him, 'Get 'im off, get 'im off!'" Obviously on a roll, Presley, then ripped into a slower, sassier version of "Paralyzed," a song recorded for his second album and also released on an extended play 45. He was backed up by Perkins and his trio.
According to the Rolling Stone review of the album, "'The Complete Million Dollar Session' provides a rare post-Sun glimpse of Elvis Presley momentarily free of the golden shackles of stardom and the manipulative grasp of his manager, Colonel Tom Parker. His singing, especially on the gospel numbers, is natural and relaxed, minus some of the trademark mannerisms of his official RCA releases."
Colin Escott has said, "They mixed and matched their disparate styles – and their innate musicality ensured that what emerged had the rarest of all musical qualities: originality.
Some 30 years later, Perkins, Lewis, Cash and Roy Orbison, a Sun recording artist in 1956, went back into the Sun Studios to record a session of their own Class of '55.
Little Richard
Richard Wayne Penniman (born December 5, 1932), known by the stage name Little Richard, is an American singer, songwriter, musician, recording artist, and actor, considered key in the transition from rhythm and blues to rock and roll in the 1950s. He was also the first artist to put the funk in the rock and roll beatand contributed significantly to the development of soul music.The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame web site entry on Penniman states that:
He claims to be "the architect of rock and roll", and history would seem to bear out Little Richard’s boast. More than any other performer – save, perhaps, Elvis Presley, Little Richard blew the lid off the Fifties, laying the foundation for rock and roll with his explosive music and charismatic persona. On record, he made spine-tingling rock and roll. His frantically charged piano playing and raspy, shouted vocals on such classics as "Tutti Frutti", "Long Tall Sally" and "Good Golly, Miss Molly" defined the dynamic sound of rock and roll.
Penniman began performing on stage and on the road in 1945, when he was in his early teens.He began his recording career on October 16, 1951 by imitating the gospel-influenced style of late-1940s jump blues artist Billy Wright, who was a friend of his that set him up with the opportunity to record. His early fifties recordings, however, did not achieve remarkable commercial success. However, in 1955, under the guidance of Robert "Bumps" Blackwell, Penniman began recording in a style he had been performing onstage for years,featuring varied rhythm (derived from everything from drum beats he would hear in his voice to the sounds of trains he would hear thundering by him as a child), a heavy backbeat, funky saxophone grooves, over-the-top gospel-style singing, moans, screams, and other emotive inflections, accompanied by a combination of boogie-woogie and rhythm and blues music.This new music, which included an original injection of funk into the rock and roll beat,inspired many of the greatest recording artists of the twentieth century, including James Brown, Elvis Presley, Otis Redding,Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix,Michael Jackson, and generations of other rhythm & blues, rock, and soul music artists.
On October 12, 1957, while at the height of stardom, Penniman abruptly quit rock and roll music and became a born-again Christian.He had charted seventeen original hits in less than three years.In January 1958, he enrolled in and attended Bible college to become a preacher and evangelist and began recording and performing only gospel music for a number of years. He then moved back and forth from rock and roll to the ministry, until he was able to reconcile the two roles in later life.
Penniman was among the first group of inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986 and one of only four of those artists (along with Ray Charles, James Brown, and Fats Domino) to also receive the Rhythm and Blues Foundation's Pioneer Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2003, Penniman was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.In 2007, his 1955 original hit "Tutti Frutti" was voted Number 1 by an eclectic panel of renowned recording artists on Mojo's The Top 100 Records That Changed The World, hailing the recording as "the sound of the birth of rock and roll."In 2010, The United States of America's Library of Congress National Recording Registry added the groundbreaking recording to its registry, claiming that the hit, with its original “A-wop-bop-a-loo-bop-a-lop-bam-boom!” a cappella introduction, announced a new era in music.
Biography
Early life and early career: 1932-1951
Richard Wayne Penniman was born in Macon, Georgia, the third of 12 children born to Charlie "Bud" Penniman, Sr. (10 April 1910 – 12 January 1952), a bootlegger and his wife Leva Mae (née Stewart). He grew up in a religious family in which singing was an integral part of their lives; they performed in local churches as The Penniman Singers, and entered contests with other singing families. His family called him "War Hawk" because of his loud, screaming singing voice. His grandfather, Walter Penniman, was a preacher, and his father's family were members of the Foundation Templar African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in Macon. His maternal grandmother was a member of Macon's Holiness Temple Baptist Church. Penniman attended the New Hope Baptist Church in Macon, where his mother was a member. Penniman's favorites were the Pentecostal churches because of the music and the fun he would have doing the holy dance and speaking in tongues with members of the congregation. When he was 10, he became a faith healer, singing gospel songs and touching people, who would testify that they felt better afterwards. Inspired by Brother Joe May, a singing evangelist known as "The Thunderbolt of the West", Penniman wanted to become a preacher.
Almost all of Penniman's dramatic phrasing and swift vocal turns are derived from black gospel artists of the 1930s and '40s. He said Sister Rosetta Tharpe was his favorite singer when he was a child. She had invited him to sing a song with her onstage at the Macon City Auditorium in 1945, after hearing him sing before the concert. The crowd cheered, and she paid him more money than he had ever seen after the show.He was also influenced by Marion Williams, from whom he got the trademark "whoooo" in his vocal, Mahalia Jackson and Brother Joe May.[28] He was influenced in appearance (hair, clothing, shoes, makeup, etc.) and sound by late 1940s gospel-style, jump blues shouter Billy Wright, a friend of his who was known as the "Prince of the Blues".Wright set Penniman up with DJ Zenas Sears, who scored the newcomer his first recording contract in 1951.One of Penniman's main influences in piano-playing was Esquerita (Eskew Reeder, Jr.), who showed him how to play high notes without compromising bass. Penniman met Esquerita when he traveled through Macon with a preacher named Sister Rosa.
Penniman lived in a black neighborhood; he had some contact with whites but, due to racial segregation, he could not cross the line where the whites lived.While in high school, Penniman played alto saxophone in the marching band. He began losing interest in school and began performing in a variety of travelling shows in his mid-teens.
Early recordings: 1951-1955
In October 1951, Penniman began recording jump blues records for RCA Camden. His father was shot to death while he was performing at a club on January 12, 1952.In October 1953, he began recording with Peacock Records.Records were released each year during 1951–54, but none were significant hits.
Following two recording sessions with Peacock in 1953,Penniman, dissatisfied with his solo career, began to form a new R&B road band that he called "The Upsetters." The band began with New Orleans drummer Charles "Chuck" Connors and two saxophonists, including Wilbert "Lee Diamond" Smith.By 1955, the band was joined by saxophonists Clifford "Gene" Burks and Grady Gaines, who became its leader, along with Olsie "Baysee" Robinson on bass, and Nathaniel "Buster" Douglas on guitar.
At Lloyd Price's suggestion, Penniman recorded a demo for gospel/R&B label Specialty Records on February 9, 1955.Specialty's owner, Art Rupe, loaned him money to buy out his contract from Peacock Records and placed his career in the hands of Specialty's A&R man Robert "Bumps" Blackwell.
Rupe and Blackwell originally pictured Penniman as a commercial rival to Ray Charles, who was experiencing success with Atlantic Records by taking gospel songs and developing them in a bluesy setting with a beat.Penniman told Rupe he liked Fats Domino's sound, so Rupe and Blackwell booked Cosimo Matassa's J & M Recording Studio in New Orleans,and hired studio musicians who had worked with Domino (including Earl Palmer on drums and Lee Allen on sax) rather than members of Penniman's road band on many of the mid-1950s Specialty tracks.
Following some recordings that did not satisfy Blackwell, they took a break. Penniman began pounding out a boogie woogie rhythm on piano and hollering out impromptu recital of "Tutti Frutti", a song he had written and had been performing on stage for years. Blackwell was so impressed with the sound that he had Penniman record the song. However, in order to make it commercially acceptable, Penniman's lyrics were rewritten. Blackwell recognized that the lyrics, with their “minstrel modes and homosexuality humor” needed to be cleaned up.For example “Tutti Frutti, good booty",[44] were replaced with “Tutti Frutti, aw-rooty”. The song featured the a cappella intro "A-wop-bop-a-loo-lop-a-lop-bam-boom!", which Penniman first belted out years before onstage based on a drum beat he heard in his voice, that had also been altered slightly to make it commercially acceptable.The recording was released on Specialty in October 1955.
Influence
Penniman's influence on the development of a variety of major musical genres in the twentieth century and many of those genres most significant artists was immense.[139] James Brown, who called Penniman his idol,stated that he was the first to put the funk in the rock and roll beat via his mid-1950s road band.Otis Redding, who entered the music business because of Penniman, indicated that Penniman contributed significantly to the development of soul music.ichie Unterberger of allmusic.com stated that "Little Richard merged the fire of gospel with New Orleans R&B, pounding the piano and wailing with gleeful abandon. While numerous other R&B greats of the early '50s had been moving in a similar direction, none of them matched the sheer electricity of Richard's vocals. With his bullet-speed deliveries, ecstatic trills, and the overjoyed force of personality in his singing, he was crucial in upping the voltage from high-powered R&B into the similar, yet different, guise of rock & roll. Although he was only a hitmaker for a couple of years or so, his influence upon both the soul and British Invasion stars of the 1960s was vast, and his early hits remain core classics of the rock repertoire.
Penniman has been recognized for his outstanding musical contributions by many other high-profile artists. In November 1988, Ray Charles introduced him at the Legends of Rock n Roll concert in Rome, as "a man that started a kind of music that set the pace for a lot of what's happening today."Bo Diddley stated that "Little Richard was a one-of-a-kind show business genius. He influenced so many people in the business."Paul McCartney said that he idolized Penniman when he was in school and always wanted to sing like him,and Mick Jagger called Penniman "the originator" and "my first idol."Bob Dylan performed Little Richard songs on piano as a schoolboy in his first band and declared in his high school yearbook in 1959 that his ambition was "to join Little Richard",and in 1966, Jimi Hendrix, who recorded and performed with Penniman from 1964 to 1965." and began to emulate him in appearance (mustache, clothing, etc.) during that time,was quoted as saying, "I want to do with my guitar what Little Richard does with his voice." Cliff Richard, George Harrison,Keith Richards,Bob Seger,[ John Fogerty,David Bowie,Elton John,Freddie Mercury, Rod Stewart,and AC/DC band members Bon Scott, angus Young, and Brian Johnson are among the many other top-selling recording artists of the twentieth century who indicated that Penniman was a primary rock 'n' roll influence. In 1979, as he began to develop his solo career, Michael Jackson was quoted as saying that Penniman was a huge influence on him.
Awards and honors
In 1956, Cashbox awarded Penniman the Cashbox Triple Crown Award for his second hit single "Long Tall Sally".
In 1984, "Little Richard" Penniman was inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame.
In 1986, Penniman was one of the first group of recording artists inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
In 1990, he was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
In 1993, he then received an Honorary Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.
In 1994, he was the fourth recording artist (the others being Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin and James Brown) to be recognized with the Lifetime Achievement Pioneer Award by the Rhythm and Blues Foundation.
In 1995, he received two Keys to the City of Providence, Rhode Island; one was awarded spontaneously, on stage, by Mayor Vincent "Buddy" Cianci
In 1997, he received the American Music Award of Merit.
On May 14, 2002, Little Richard was honored as one of the first three BMI Icons at the 50th annual BMI Pop Awards. He was presented the award along with BMI affiliates Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry.
In 2002, he received the NAACP Image Award - Hall of Fame Award for having "distinguished himself as not only an unparalleled musical genius, but also as a unique and innovative performing artist—fusing pure vocal talent with exhilarating showmanship."
In 2003, he was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked him #8 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.
In 2006, he was inducted into the Apollo Theater Legends Hall of Fame, at the same time as Ella Fitzgerald (who was one of the first winners of 'Amateur Night at the Apollo' in 1934) and Gladys Knight & the Pips.
In 2007, his 1955 original hit "Tutti Frutti" topped Mojo's The Top 100 Records That Changed The World.
In 2008, Penniman was inducted into the Music City Walk of Fame.
In 2009, he was formally inducted into the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame.
In 2009, he was inducted into the Hit Parade Hall of Fame.
In 2010, The Library Of Congress National Recording Registry added Penniman's original 1955 hit “Tutti Frutti” to its registry, claiming that the hit announced a new era in music: “A-wop-bop-a-loo-bop-a-lop-bam-boom!”[23]
In September 2010, Little Richard was named GQ's Man of the Year (Legend).
He claims to be "the architect of rock and roll", and history would seem to bear out Little Richard’s boast. More than any other performer – save, perhaps, Elvis Presley, Little Richard blew the lid off the Fifties, laying the foundation for rock and roll with his explosive music and charismatic persona. On record, he made spine-tingling rock and roll. His frantically charged piano playing and raspy, shouted vocals on such classics as "Tutti Frutti", "Long Tall Sally" and "Good Golly, Miss Molly" defined the dynamic sound of rock and roll.
Penniman began performing on stage and on the road in 1945, when he was in his early teens.He began his recording career on October 16, 1951 by imitating the gospel-influenced style of late-1940s jump blues artist Billy Wright, who was a friend of his that set him up with the opportunity to record. His early fifties recordings, however, did not achieve remarkable commercial success. However, in 1955, under the guidance of Robert "Bumps" Blackwell, Penniman began recording in a style he had been performing onstage for years,featuring varied rhythm (derived from everything from drum beats he would hear in his voice to the sounds of trains he would hear thundering by him as a child), a heavy backbeat, funky saxophone grooves, over-the-top gospel-style singing, moans, screams, and other emotive inflections, accompanied by a combination of boogie-woogie and rhythm and blues music.This new music, which included an original injection of funk into the rock and roll beat,inspired many of the greatest recording artists of the twentieth century, including James Brown, Elvis Presley, Otis Redding,Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix,Michael Jackson, and generations of other rhythm & blues, rock, and soul music artists.
On October 12, 1957, while at the height of stardom, Penniman abruptly quit rock and roll music and became a born-again Christian.He had charted seventeen original hits in less than three years.In January 1958, he enrolled in and attended Bible college to become a preacher and evangelist and began recording and performing only gospel music for a number of years. He then moved back and forth from rock and roll to the ministry, until he was able to reconcile the two roles in later life.
Penniman was among the first group of inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986 and one of only four of those artists (along with Ray Charles, James Brown, and Fats Domino) to also receive the Rhythm and Blues Foundation's Pioneer Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2003, Penniman was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.In 2007, his 1955 original hit "Tutti Frutti" was voted Number 1 by an eclectic panel of renowned recording artists on Mojo's The Top 100 Records That Changed The World, hailing the recording as "the sound of the birth of rock and roll."In 2010, The United States of America's Library of Congress National Recording Registry added the groundbreaking recording to its registry, claiming that the hit, with its original “A-wop-bop-a-loo-bop-a-lop-bam-boom!” a cappella introduction, announced a new era in music.
Biography
Early life and early career: 1932-1951
Richard Wayne Penniman was born in Macon, Georgia, the third of 12 children born to Charlie "Bud" Penniman, Sr. (10 April 1910 – 12 January 1952), a bootlegger and his wife Leva Mae (née Stewart). He grew up in a religious family in which singing was an integral part of their lives; they performed in local churches as The Penniman Singers, and entered contests with other singing families. His family called him "War Hawk" because of his loud, screaming singing voice. His grandfather, Walter Penniman, was a preacher, and his father's family were members of the Foundation Templar African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in Macon. His maternal grandmother was a member of Macon's Holiness Temple Baptist Church. Penniman attended the New Hope Baptist Church in Macon, where his mother was a member. Penniman's favorites were the Pentecostal churches because of the music and the fun he would have doing the holy dance and speaking in tongues with members of the congregation. When he was 10, he became a faith healer, singing gospel songs and touching people, who would testify that they felt better afterwards. Inspired by Brother Joe May, a singing evangelist known as "The Thunderbolt of the West", Penniman wanted to become a preacher.
Almost all of Penniman's dramatic phrasing and swift vocal turns are derived from black gospel artists of the 1930s and '40s. He said Sister Rosetta Tharpe was his favorite singer when he was a child. She had invited him to sing a song with her onstage at the Macon City Auditorium in 1945, after hearing him sing before the concert. The crowd cheered, and she paid him more money than he had ever seen after the show.He was also influenced by Marion Williams, from whom he got the trademark "whoooo" in his vocal, Mahalia Jackson and Brother Joe May.[28] He was influenced in appearance (hair, clothing, shoes, makeup, etc.) and sound by late 1940s gospel-style, jump blues shouter Billy Wright, a friend of his who was known as the "Prince of the Blues".Wright set Penniman up with DJ Zenas Sears, who scored the newcomer his first recording contract in 1951.One of Penniman's main influences in piano-playing was Esquerita (Eskew Reeder, Jr.), who showed him how to play high notes without compromising bass. Penniman met Esquerita when he traveled through Macon with a preacher named Sister Rosa.
Penniman lived in a black neighborhood; he had some contact with whites but, due to racial segregation, he could not cross the line where the whites lived.While in high school, Penniman played alto saxophone in the marching band. He began losing interest in school and began performing in a variety of travelling shows in his mid-teens.
Early recordings: 1951-1955
In October 1951, Penniman began recording jump blues records for RCA Camden. His father was shot to death while he was performing at a club on January 12, 1952.In October 1953, he began recording with Peacock Records.Records were released each year during 1951–54, but none were significant hits.
Following two recording sessions with Peacock in 1953,Penniman, dissatisfied with his solo career, began to form a new R&B road band that he called "The Upsetters." The band began with New Orleans drummer Charles "Chuck" Connors and two saxophonists, including Wilbert "Lee Diamond" Smith.By 1955, the band was joined by saxophonists Clifford "Gene" Burks and Grady Gaines, who became its leader, along with Olsie "Baysee" Robinson on bass, and Nathaniel "Buster" Douglas on guitar.
At Lloyd Price's suggestion, Penniman recorded a demo for gospel/R&B label Specialty Records on February 9, 1955.Specialty's owner, Art Rupe, loaned him money to buy out his contract from Peacock Records and placed his career in the hands of Specialty's A&R man Robert "Bumps" Blackwell.
Rupe and Blackwell originally pictured Penniman as a commercial rival to Ray Charles, who was experiencing success with Atlantic Records by taking gospel songs and developing them in a bluesy setting with a beat.Penniman told Rupe he liked Fats Domino's sound, so Rupe and Blackwell booked Cosimo Matassa's J & M Recording Studio in New Orleans,and hired studio musicians who had worked with Domino (including Earl Palmer on drums and Lee Allen on sax) rather than members of Penniman's road band on many of the mid-1950s Specialty tracks.
Following some recordings that did not satisfy Blackwell, they took a break. Penniman began pounding out a boogie woogie rhythm on piano and hollering out impromptu recital of "Tutti Frutti", a song he had written and had been performing on stage for years. Blackwell was so impressed with the sound that he had Penniman record the song. However, in order to make it commercially acceptable, Penniman's lyrics were rewritten. Blackwell recognized that the lyrics, with their “minstrel modes and homosexuality humor” needed to be cleaned up.For example “Tutti Frutti, good booty",[44] were replaced with “Tutti Frutti, aw-rooty”. The song featured the a cappella intro "A-wop-bop-a-loo-lop-a-lop-bam-boom!", which Penniman first belted out years before onstage based on a drum beat he heard in his voice, that had also been altered slightly to make it commercially acceptable.The recording was released on Specialty in October 1955.
Influence
Penniman's influence on the development of a variety of major musical genres in the twentieth century and many of those genres most significant artists was immense.[139] James Brown, who called Penniman his idol,stated that he was the first to put the funk in the rock and roll beat via his mid-1950s road band.Otis Redding, who entered the music business because of Penniman, indicated that Penniman contributed significantly to the development of soul music.ichie Unterberger of allmusic.com stated that "Little Richard merged the fire of gospel with New Orleans R&B, pounding the piano and wailing with gleeful abandon. While numerous other R&B greats of the early '50s had been moving in a similar direction, none of them matched the sheer electricity of Richard's vocals. With his bullet-speed deliveries, ecstatic trills, and the overjoyed force of personality in his singing, he was crucial in upping the voltage from high-powered R&B into the similar, yet different, guise of rock & roll. Although he was only a hitmaker for a couple of years or so, his influence upon both the soul and British Invasion stars of the 1960s was vast, and his early hits remain core classics of the rock repertoire.
Penniman has been recognized for his outstanding musical contributions by many other high-profile artists. In November 1988, Ray Charles introduced him at the Legends of Rock n Roll concert in Rome, as "a man that started a kind of music that set the pace for a lot of what's happening today."Bo Diddley stated that "Little Richard was a one-of-a-kind show business genius. He influenced so many people in the business."Paul McCartney said that he idolized Penniman when he was in school and always wanted to sing like him,and Mick Jagger called Penniman "the originator" and "my first idol."Bob Dylan performed Little Richard songs on piano as a schoolboy in his first band and declared in his high school yearbook in 1959 that his ambition was "to join Little Richard",and in 1966, Jimi Hendrix, who recorded and performed with Penniman from 1964 to 1965." and began to emulate him in appearance (mustache, clothing, etc.) during that time,was quoted as saying, "I want to do with my guitar what Little Richard does with his voice." Cliff Richard, George Harrison,Keith Richards,Bob Seger,[ John Fogerty,David Bowie,Elton John,Freddie Mercury, Rod Stewart,and AC/DC band members Bon Scott, angus Young, and Brian Johnson are among the many other top-selling recording artists of the twentieth century who indicated that Penniman was a primary rock 'n' roll influence. In 1979, as he began to develop his solo career, Michael Jackson was quoted as saying that Penniman was a huge influence on him.
Awards and honors
In 1956, Cashbox awarded Penniman the Cashbox Triple Crown Award for his second hit single "Long Tall Sally".
In 1984, "Little Richard" Penniman was inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame.
In 1986, Penniman was one of the first group of recording artists inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
In 1990, he was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
In 1993, he then received an Honorary Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.
In 1994, he was the fourth recording artist (the others being Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin and James Brown) to be recognized with the Lifetime Achievement Pioneer Award by the Rhythm and Blues Foundation.
In 1995, he received two Keys to the City of Providence, Rhode Island; one was awarded spontaneously, on stage, by Mayor Vincent "Buddy" Cianci
In 1997, he received the American Music Award of Merit.
On May 14, 2002, Little Richard was honored as one of the first three BMI Icons at the 50th annual BMI Pop Awards. He was presented the award along with BMI affiliates Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry.
In 2002, he received the NAACP Image Award - Hall of Fame Award for having "distinguished himself as not only an unparalleled musical genius, but also as a unique and innovative performing artist—fusing pure vocal talent with exhilarating showmanship."
In 2003, he was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked him #8 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.
In 2006, he was inducted into the Apollo Theater Legends Hall of Fame, at the same time as Ella Fitzgerald (who was one of the first winners of 'Amateur Night at the Apollo' in 1934) and Gladys Knight & the Pips.
In 2007, his 1955 original hit "Tutti Frutti" topped Mojo's The Top 100 Records That Changed The World.
In 2008, Penniman was inducted into the Music City Walk of Fame.
In 2009, he was formally inducted into the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame.
In 2009, he was inducted into the Hit Parade Hall of Fame.
In 2010, The Library Of Congress National Recording Registry added Penniman's original 1955 hit “Tutti Frutti” to its registry, claiming that the hit announced a new era in music: “A-wop-bop-a-loo-bop-a-lop-bam-boom!”[23]
In September 2010, Little Richard was named GQ's Man of the Year (Legend).
Thursday, February 17, 2011
teachers facing problems across several states of US due to budget as well as the new bill which wants to take away their collective bargaining power
Several US states are pushing for bill which may affect teachers & take away their collective bargaining powers.
wisconsin is seeing huge scale protests yet the lawmakers are trying to push the bill somehow.
jay carney white house press secretary is saying president is showing support for teachers but i feel why things are not being worked out to resolve in support of the teachers & still solve the budget issues.
Budget gaps need to be solved but not at the compromise of teachers & their future
wisconsin is seeing huge scale protests yet the lawmakers are trying to push the bill somehow.
jay carney white house press secretary is saying president is showing support for teachers but i feel why things are not being worked out to resolve in support of the teachers & still solve the budget issues.
Budget gaps need to be solved but not at the compromise of teachers & their future
Saturday, December 25, 2010
Winn Dixie
Winn-Dixie Stores, Inc. (NASDAQ: WINN) is an American supermarket chain based in Jacksonville, Florida. Winn-Dixie has ranked number 24 in the 2010 "Top 75 North American Food Retailers" based on 2009 fiscal year estimated sales of $7.3 billion by Supermarket News.and was ranked the 43rd largest retailer in the United States based on 2006 revenues by Stores Magazine. Winn-Dixie currently operates 514 stores in Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Georgia, and Mississippi. The company has existed under its present name since 1955 and can date its roots back to 1925.
Prior to filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2005, Winn-Dixie was listed in the S&P 500 and had been traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol "WIN" since February 18, 1952. The company is currently traded under the symbol "WINN" on the NASDAQ. The bankruptcy also left the chain with fewer stores than it had in the late 1960s.
They are known for their private label Chek brand soft drinks, which are produced in over 20 different flavors plus diet and caffeine-free varieties—one of the widest assortments. They have also been known as "The Beef People". In its advertising and print media Winn-Dixie now uses the brand promises of "Fresh Checked Every Day" in its Jacksonville DMA, "Getting Better All The Time" in its locations in Central Florida, "El Sabor De Tu Pais", or "The Flavor Of Your Country", in its Miami area stores, and "Local Flavor Since 1956" in its Louisiana area stores.
History
Beginnings
Winn-Dixie was founded and built up by William Milton Davis and his sons Artemus Darius Davis, James Elsworth Davis, Milton Austin Davis and Tine Wayne Davis. William Davis started in business in Burley, Idaho, where he bought a general store in 1914 that he later renamed Davis Mercantile. As was common then, he sold most goods on credit. The advent of cash-only grocery stores in the 1920s hurt Davis's business, as the new stores offered lower prices and larger selections.
In 1925, William Davis borrowed $10,000 from his father and moved to Miami, Florida, where he purchased the Rockmoor Grocery. In 1927, the company was renamed Table Supply, and four more stores were opened. In 1931, the Davis family bought the Lively Stores chain for $10,000, to create a chain of thirty-three Table Supply stores across Florida from Miami to Tampa. William Milton Davis died in 1934, leaving his four sons in charge of the company.
In 1939, the Davis brothers bought fifty-one percent of Winn-Lovett, a chain of seventy-three stores. In 1944, the brothers adopted Winn-Lovett as the company name and moved the company headquarters to Jacksonville. Winn-Lovett purchased the Steiden Stores chain of thirty-one stores in Kentucky in 1945, and Margaret Ann Stores, with forty-six stores in Florida, in 1949. In 1952, Winn-Lovett became the first industrial corporation based in Florida to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange.
Acquisitions
Winn-Lovett continued to grow by acquiring other chains, including Penney Stores in Mississippi, and Ballentine Stores and Eden Stores, both in South Carolina, all in 1955. Also in 1955, Winn-Lovett bought the 117-store Dixie Home chain, and changed its name to Winn-Dixie. In 1956, Winn-Dixie bought Ketner-Milner Stores in North Carolina, Hill Stores in Louisiana and Mississippi, and King Stores in Georgia. In 1967, Winn-Dixie bought the City Markets chain in The Bahamas.[4] The last purchase of a chain was in 1995, with the purchase of the Cincinnati-based Thriftway Food Drug.
Involvements
Although Winn-Dixie Stores has been a publicly owned corporation since 1952, the Davis family has always maintained control of the corporation. As of February 2005, when the company entered bankruptcy, the heirs of William Milton Davis still held about thirty-five percent of Winn-Dixie stock.
The Davis brothers also became involved in Florida state politics, supporting conservative causes. It is reported that their financial support helped George Smathers beat incumbent U.S. Senator Claude Pepper in 1950. Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Donald Regan is reported to have said of his financial guru, James E. Davis: "When J.E. calls, I listen." It is reported that after reading Booker T. Washington's Up From Slavery, James E. Davis began a program of Winn-Dixie supporting historically Black colleges and universities.
In the 90's Winn Dixie gave a generous contribution to the Boy Scouts of America of the Central Florida Council, resulting in the renaming of Camp La-No Che as the "Winn-Dixie Scout Reservation".
Winn-Dixie is involved in their hometown of Jacksonville, Fla., including being considered the official supermarket of the NFL Jacksonville Jaguars. Some Jacksonville-area stores give away Jaguars tickets during the NFL season.
Financial difficulties
In 2003, when the chain had over 1000 stores, the company's stock was the worst-performing of the S&P 500. In April 2004, Winn-Dixie announced the closure of 156 stores, including all 111 stores located in the Midwest. Included were over twenty stores that had operated under the Thriftway name in and around Cincinnati, Ohio; they had been purchased by Winn-Dixie in 1995. The company had been hit hard by competition, especially from Publix and Wal-Mart. Another 40 stores in the Atlanta area were converted to their Save Rite Grocery Warehouse brand, as an alternative to store closure. Also, the stores in North Carolina and South Carolina closed.
Bankruptcy
On February 22, 2005, Winn-Dixie filed for bankruptcy. On June 21, it announced the sale or closure of 326 stores, resulting in the loss of over 22,000 jobs. Winn-Dixie closed all its stores in North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia. Once the restructuring had completed, Winn-Dixie was to operate in the Bahamas, and in four of the Deep South states, operating throughout Florida, the southeastern half of Louisiana, the southeast corner of Mississippi, most of Alabama, and the southwest and coastal corners of Georgia.
On February 28, 2006, it was announced that thirty-five more stores were to be sold or closed within the coming months, with the Central and South Florida areas being the most affected. On March 31, 2006, it was announced that the chain would sell its twelve Bahamian locations, which had been operated by a wholly owned subsidiary, W-D, Limited, under the names City Market and Winn-Dixie.
Emergence From Bankruptcy and The Present
On June 29, 2006, Winn-Dixie announced that it had filed a plan of reorganization with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Middle District of Florida. The company emerged from Chapter 11 protection on November 21, 2006 in a much stronger financial position. Their bankruptcy case is being handled in the Jacksonville area by Steve Busey and Cyndi Jackson of the law firm, Smith, Hulsey, & Busey, and by the New York firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom.
Upon emerging from bankruptcy in 2006 Winn-Dixie made great strides toward success, which included a steadfast effort to modernize its existing store base while focusing on new locations for the future. A timeline listed below describes key events.
2006:
November 21-Winn-Dixie officially emerges from Chapter 11 protection with $725 million in exit financing as a new company and with a new Board of Directors.
November 22-New shares of Winn-Dixie stock begin to trade on the NASDAQ stock exchange on a “when-issued” basis under the ticker symbol WINNV.
December 21-Winn-Dixie completes its initial distribution of common stock and the new shares begin to trade on the NASDAQ exchange under the ticker symbol WINN.
2007:
June 22-Winn-Dixie announces the appointment of Dan Portnoy as Senior Vice President and Chief Merchandising and Marketing Officer.
September 26-Store #1439 reopens in New Orleans almost 25 months to the day it was severely damaged in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. It is the first grocery store to reopen east of the Industrial Canal in a section of New Orleans known as East Orleans.
September 27-Peter Lynch rings the opening bell of the NASDAQ Stock Exchange from inside the rebuilt Store 1439 in New Orleans, La. With him is Mayor Ray Nagin and a host of local and state officials.
November 7-Winn-Dixie Stores, Inc. holds its first annual shareholders meeting since the company reorganized and emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
2008:
July 9-Peter Lynch and Mayor John Peyton celebrate the grand opening of remodeled store #37 in downtown Jacksonville.
August 15-Winn-Dixie and Kellogg dedicated its 10th house for Habitat for Humanity in Atlantic Beach in Jacksonville.
September 19-Less than 18 months after announcing a major remodel initiative for all of its stores, Winn-Dixie Stores completed its 100th store remodel in the Miami suburb of Hialeah.
October 24-Mary Kellmanson, formerly of Wegmans, joins Winn-Dixie as Vice President of Marketing.
October 31-The eighth annual Winn-Dixie Foundation Charity Classic Golf Tournament, an annual fundraising event for the not-for-profit Winn-Dixie Foundation, raised $1.5 million for local charities in five states.
2009:
January 7-New prototype SaveRite store #2601 re-opens in Jacksonville.
May 13-Winn-Dixie breaks ground on first new store since emerging from bankruptcy located in Covington, Louisiana.
July 15-Winn-Dixie celebrates the completion of the Jacksonville DMA remodels with 51 locations becoming "Fresh Checked Every Day".
2010:
February 3-Winn-Dixie opened its first brand new store since reorganization in Covington, LA.
This location also earned the EPA's GreenChill certification.
June 9-Winn-Dixie opens its new "prototype" store in Margate, FL.
July 27-Winn-Dixie announced a reorganization that will result in 30 non-renovated, underperforming stores being closed, roughly 120 corporate and support positions being eliminated, and operating regions being consolidated from four to three. Of the 30 stores to be closed, 24 are located in Florida, 2 each in Georgia and Mississippi, and 1 each in Alabama and Louisiana. The store closures and layoffs are slated for completion by September 22, 2010.
September 22-All 30 non-remodeled, underperforming locations are closed.
September 30-Winn-Dixie celebrates the completion of a multimillion-dollar expansion and remodel in Mobile, Alabama as the third "transformational" store is debuted.
November 01-Winn-Dixie leverages its heritage as "The Beef People" and improves upon this by introducing their "Neighborhood Butcher" program in all stores.
December 01 -Winn-Dixie works to reach customers through digital marketing programs by starting a YouTube channel showcasing its "Neighborhood Butcher" program.
December 07 - MyWebGrocer chosen by Winn-Dixie to connect with its customers through online and mobile media channel. An initial way to create a more interactive and digital shopping experience is through the new Winn-Dixie App!
Brands
Winn-Dixie has run over 60 private label brands over the years. In 2003 the company cut the number down to a three tier system of brands: the "Prestige" brand for upscale private label products, "Winn-Dixie" for its mainstream items, and "Thrifty Maid" for its value items. In 2007, all three brands received redesigned packaging with plans to replace the "Prestige" brand with "Winn & Lovett".. In 2010, Winn-Dixie replaced it's value-centered brand Thrifty Maid with "ValuTime". [23]. The brands of "ValuTime", for the budget-minded shopper, "Winn-Dixie, which is designed to be as good as or better than national brands, and "Winn and Lovett", the premium, top-tier label, are the current private labels the organization uses store-wide. Winn-Dixie carries a store brand line of organic and natural foods. [24]. These brands are on numerous products in almost all departments. Other category-specific brands include "Chek" for the store-brand sodas and "Kuddles" for the store-brand baby-related items.
The manufacturer code portion of the UPC remains 21140 for the "Winn-Dixie" and "Winn and Lovett" labels.
Stores Open on Christmas 2010.....!!
If you are wondering for what stores are open on Christmas 2010, hardly any? Many active shoppers now are looking for lists of stores open during Christmas Day 2009. And yet, some stores already confirmed that they are closed on the said Holiday Seasons.
Apparently, some reports are saying that Walmart is open on Christmas 2010, but sad to say, Walmart already confirmed in their sites that their stores will be closed during Christmas Day 2010 and will be opened again as early in the morning of December 26, 2010.
Here are the list of establishments and stores that might be opened during Christmas Day 2010. Please read your guide below:
Grocery Stores – These also vary by location. Here you will find batteries, foods, candy, perhaps a small selection of electronics, flowers, baked goods, etc.. (you’ve been there before, you know the selection.)
Gas Stations – I sincerely hope you do not plan on buying a gift at a gas station, BUT, with the pain at the pump Americans are experiencing, some gas stations will sell gift cards. Easy way out but it will certainly make a gift that will be used.
Convenience Stores – Some CVS/Walgreens are open on Christmas for limited hours, check your local store’s website for details. Here you can buy batteries, cards, candy, and small electronics.
Meanwhile, some favourite stores for lifestyle are open during Christmas Day, these includes branches of Starbucks, so this might be a good news for all the coffee lovers out there. And yet, Dunkin Donuts and McDonalds confirmed that they are closed on Christmas. And since this is holiday, people might think that these closed stores will be opened again on the following day.
And lastly, most movie houses and theatres are open and most of the families now have their tradition to go to the theatre and catch a movie on Christmas Day.
Friday, December 24, 2010
Norad Santa Tracker
NORAD Tracks Santa is an annual Christmas-themed entertainment program produced under the auspices of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD). Every year on Christmas Eve, "NORAD Tracks Santa" purports to follow Santa Claus as he leaves the North Pole and delivers presents to children around the world. The program starts on December 1 with a "Countdown Village" website.
The program is in the tradition of the September 1897 editorial "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus" in the New York Sun.
History and overview
According to NORAD's official web page on the NORAD Tracks Santa program, the service began on December 24, 1955. A Sears department store placed an advertisement in a Colorado Springs newspaper. The advertisement told children that they could telephone Santa Claus and included a number for them to call. However, the telephone number printed was incorrect and calls instead came through to Colorado Spring's Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD) Center. Colonel Shoup, who was on duty that night, told his staff to give all children that called in a "current location" for Santa Claus. A tradition began which continued when the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) replaced CONAD in 1958.
NORAD relies on volunteers to make the program possible. Many volunteers are employees at Cheyenne Mountain and Peterson Air Force Base. Each volunteer handles about forty telephone calls per hour, and the team typically handles more than 12,000 e-mails and more than 70,000 telephone calls from more than two hundred countries and territories. Most of these contacts happen during the twenty-five hours from 2 a.m. on December 24 until 3 a.m. MST on December 25. Google Analytics has been in use since December 2007 to analyze traffic at the NORAD Tracks Santa website. As a result of this analysis information, the program can project and scale volunteer staffing, telephone equipment, and computer equipment needs for Christmas Eve.
By December 25, 2009, the NORAD Tracks Santa program had 27,440 twitter followers and the Facebook page had more than 410,700 fans.
Website and other media
he NORAD Tracks Santa program has always made use of a variety of media. From the 1950s to 1996, these were the telephone hotline, newspapers, radio, phonograph records and television. Many television newscasts in North America feature NORAD Tracks Santa as part of their weather updates on Christmas Eve.
From 1997 to the present, the program has had a highly publicized internet presence. As mobile media and social media have become popular and widespread as methods of direct communication, these newer media have also been embraced by the program. The layout of the NORAD Tracks Santa website and its webpages have changed from 1997 to the present due to changes in internet technologies, and changes in partners and sponsors for a particular year.
From mid-January until November 30, when one arrives at the NORAD Tracks Santa website, one is greeted with a message to come back on 1 December to "track Santa with NORAD". During December one finds a NORAD Tracks Santa website with all the features available.
On Christmas Eve, the NORAD Tracks Santa website videos page is generally updated each hour, when it is midnight in a different time zone. The "Santa Cam" videos show CGI images of Santa Claus flying over famous landmarks. Each video is accompanied by a voice-over, typically done by NORAD personnel, giving a few facts about the city or country depicted. Celebrity voice-overs have also been used over the years. For the London "Santa Cam" video, English television personality and celebrity Jonathan Ross did the voice-over for 2005 to 2007 and the former Beatles drummer Ringo Starr narrated the same video in 2003 and 2004. In 2002, Aaron Carter provided the voice-over for three videos.
The locations and landmarks depicted in some of the "Santa Cam" videos have changed over the years. In 2009, twenty-nine "Santa Cam" videos were posted on the website. In previous years, twenty-four to twenty-six videos had been posted.
Sponsorship and publicity
NORAD Tracks Santa relies on corporate sponsorship, and is not financed by American and Canadian taxpayers.
U.S. military units that have provided publicity for the program include the Northeast Air Defense Sector of the New York Air National Guard and the U.S. Naval Reserve Navy Information Bureau (NIB) 1118 at Fort Carson, Colorado. Other U.S. federal agencies, such as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), have also publicized the service, as have the Canadian Forces.
The program is in the tradition of the September 1897 editorial "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus" in the New York Sun.
History and overview
According to NORAD's official web page on the NORAD Tracks Santa program, the service began on December 24, 1955. A Sears department store placed an advertisement in a Colorado Springs newspaper. The advertisement told children that they could telephone Santa Claus and included a number for them to call. However, the telephone number printed was incorrect and calls instead came through to Colorado Spring's Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD) Center. Colonel Shoup, who was on duty that night, told his staff to give all children that called in a "current location" for Santa Claus. A tradition began which continued when the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) replaced CONAD in 1958.
NORAD relies on volunteers to make the program possible. Many volunteers are employees at Cheyenne Mountain and Peterson Air Force Base. Each volunteer handles about forty telephone calls per hour, and the team typically handles more than 12,000 e-mails and more than 70,000 telephone calls from more than two hundred countries and territories. Most of these contacts happen during the twenty-five hours from 2 a.m. on December 24 until 3 a.m. MST on December 25. Google Analytics has been in use since December 2007 to analyze traffic at the NORAD Tracks Santa website. As a result of this analysis information, the program can project and scale volunteer staffing, telephone equipment, and computer equipment needs for Christmas Eve.
By December 25, 2009, the NORAD Tracks Santa program had 27,440 twitter followers and the Facebook page had more than 410,700 fans.
Website and other media
he NORAD Tracks Santa program has always made use of a variety of media. From the 1950s to 1996, these were the telephone hotline, newspapers, radio, phonograph records and television. Many television newscasts in North America feature NORAD Tracks Santa as part of their weather updates on Christmas Eve.
From 1997 to the present, the program has had a highly publicized internet presence. As mobile media and social media have become popular and widespread as methods of direct communication, these newer media have also been embraced by the program. The layout of the NORAD Tracks Santa website and its webpages have changed from 1997 to the present due to changes in internet technologies, and changes in partners and sponsors for a particular year.
From mid-January until November 30, when one arrives at the NORAD Tracks Santa website, one is greeted with a message to come back on 1 December to "track Santa with NORAD". During December one finds a NORAD Tracks Santa website with all the features available.
On Christmas Eve, the NORAD Tracks Santa website videos page is generally updated each hour, when it is midnight in a different time zone. The "Santa Cam" videos show CGI images of Santa Claus flying over famous landmarks. Each video is accompanied by a voice-over, typically done by NORAD personnel, giving a few facts about the city or country depicted. Celebrity voice-overs have also been used over the years. For the London "Santa Cam" video, English television personality and celebrity Jonathan Ross did the voice-over for 2005 to 2007 and the former Beatles drummer Ringo Starr narrated the same video in 2003 and 2004. In 2002, Aaron Carter provided the voice-over for three videos.
The locations and landmarks depicted in some of the "Santa Cam" videos have changed over the years. In 2009, twenty-nine "Santa Cam" videos were posted on the website. In previous years, twenty-four to twenty-six videos had been posted.
Sponsorship and publicity
NORAD Tracks Santa relies on corporate sponsorship, and is not financed by American and Canadian taxpayers.
U.S. military units that have provided publicity for the program include the Northeast Air Defense Sector of the New York Air National Guard and the U.S. Naval Reserve Navy Information Bureau (NIB) 1118 at Fort Carson, Colorado. Other U.S. federal agencies, such as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), have also publicized the service, as have the Canadian Forces.
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Trix Rabbit
Trix is a brand of breakfast cereal made by General Mills for the North American and by Nestlé for the European, South American and Asian markets. The cereal consists of fruit-flavored, sweetened, ground-corn pieces. These were originally round cereal pieces, but were later changed to puffed fruit-shaped pieces. In January 2007, Trix Cereal company General Mills returned Trix cereal to their original shape.
Overview-
Trix cereal, when first introduced in 1954 by General Mills, was more than 46% sugar. In 1992 Trix replaced the original round balls shape with fruit-shaped pieces. Five new fruit shapes and colors were added over the years: Grapity purple (1984-1995), Lime green (1991), Orange Apple Crunch (1997), Wildberry blue (1998-2006), and Watermelon (1999). In 1995, the cereal pieces were given a brighter and more colorful look. General Mills' Yoplait division produces a Trix-branded yogurt also marketed to children with sweetened fruit flavors such as "Watermelon Burst". Later on in the 2000's the cereal returned as the round ball shape.
Marketing and advertising
This section may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Please improve this section if you can. The talk page may contain suggestions. (February 2010)
Joe Harris created the Trix Rabbit - voiced by Delo States, Mort Marshall, and later by Russell Horton - an anthropomorphic cartoon rabbit who debuted in a 1959 Trix television commercial, and who continually attempted to trick children into giving him a bowl of Trix cereal. He would be discovered every time; the children would tell him that he was a silly rabbit and that "Trix [were] for kids," and take back their cereal. These ads would often end with the Trix Rabbit following up the kids' "Silly rabbit, Trix are for kids!" slogan with "...and sometimes, for tricky rabbits!". The Rabbit originated as a puppet before he later became animated. He did however succeed in obtaining and eating the Trix on some occasions, including twice as the result of a box top mail-in contest (1976 and 1990) entitled "Let The Rabbit Eat Trix". The results of the vote were an overwhelming "yes", and the rabbit was depicted in a subsequent commercial finally enjoying a taste of Trix. Children who voted received a button based upon their vote in the election.
In commercials from the 1960s, 70s and 80s the rabbit was known to disguise himself in order to get his beloved cereal, employing costumes as diverse as a balloon vendor, a painter and a Native American. One alternate slogan for the cereal was, "Oranges, Lemons, and Grapes I see; the fruit taste of Trix is all for me".
The rabbit's popularity has led him to appear in commercials for other products, such as a Got Milk? advertisement. However, not all reception for the Trix rabbit has been positive.
This slogan is referenced in Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill Vol 1. In chapter 5: Showdown at House of Green Leaves, having dispatched O-Ren Ishii's (Lucy Liu) entourage, O-Ren taunts The Bride (Uma Thurman), asking if she really thought it would be that easy. When the Bride defiantly replies that for a moment, she did, O-Ren replies "Silly rabbit..." and they finish the sentence together, "Trix are for kids". A footnote in the script implies this is what they used to say to each other when they both worked as assassins for Bill, though this is never shown on film. This may also be a reference to The Bride's real name, Beatrix Kiddo.
Trix has raspberry red, lemon yellow, orangey oranges in January 1, 1954 - current. (Orangey oranges from January 1, 1954 through September 22, 1996 and March 31, 1998 - current. Raspberry red from January 1, 1954 through June 1, 1985 and November 19, 1989 - current.) Trix has new grapity grapes in August 6, 1983 - current. Trix has new lime from January 31, 1991 through November 24, 1998 and December 30, 2009 - current. Trix has new orange apple crunch from September 23, 1996 through March 30, 1998 and March 3, 2010 - current. Trix has new wildberry blues in November 14, 1997 - current. Trix has new watermelon in November 25, 1998 - current. Trix has new berry banana splits from July 9, 2003 through November 27, 2003 and December 30, 2009 - current. Trix has new pears (in Trix double cereal) in December 30, 2009 - current. Trix has new double cherry (in Trix double cereal smilair to cherry in Froot Loops) in December 30, 2009 - current. Trix has new blueberry blue (in Trix triple cereal smiliar to Kellogg's Froot Loops) in March 3, 2010 - current.
Smokey The Bear
Smokey Bear (often unofficially referred to as Smokey the Bear) is a mascot of the United States Forest Service created to educate the public about the dangers of forest fires. An advertising campaign featuring Smokey was created in 1944 with the slogan, "Smokey Says – Care Will Prevent 9 out of 10 Forest Fires". Smokey Bear's later slogan, "Remember... Only YOU Can Prevent Forest Fires", was created in 1947 by the Ad Council. In April 2001, the message was updated to "Only You Can Prevent Wildfires". According to the Ad Council, Smokey Bear and his message are recognized by 95% of adults and 77% of children in the U.S.
Smokey's correct name is Smokey Bear. In 1952, the songwriters Steve Nelson and Jack Rollins had a successful song named "Smokey the Bear". The pair said that "the" was added to Smokey's name to keep the song's rhythm. This small change has caused some confusion among the public ever since. Note that, from the beginning, Smokey's name was intentionally spelled differently from the adjective smoky. The Forest Service emphatically denies that the name was ever "Smokey the Bear"; however, during the 1950s, that variant of the name became widespread both in popular speech and in print, including at least one standard encyclopedia. A 1955 book in the Little Golden Books series was called Smokey the Bear and Smokey calls himself by this name in the book. The campaign to remind the public of the correct version of the name is almost as old as the Smokey Bear campaign itself.
The fictional character Smokey Bear is administered by three entities: the United States Forest Service, the National Association of State Foresters, and the Ad Council. Smokey Bear's name and image are protected by U.S. federal law, the Smokey Bear Act of 1952 (16 U.S.C. 580 ; 18 U.S.C. 711).
Beginning the campaign:-
Though the US Forest Service fought wildfires long before World War II, the war brought a new importance and urgency to the effort. The forest service began using colorful posters to educate Americans about the dangers of forest fires. Since most able-bodied men were already serving in the armed forces, none could be spared to fight forest fires on the West Coast. The hope was that local communities, educated about the danger of forest fires, could prevent them from starting in the first place. The Japanese, on the other hand, saw wildfires as a possible weapon.
During the Lookout Air Raids of 1942, the Japanese attempted to set southwest Oregon's coastal forests ablaze. In separate attempts on 9 and 29 September, the Japanese submarine I-25 surfaced and launched a Yokosuka E14Y floatplane loaded with incendiary bombs. Neither attempt was successful. U.S. planners also hoped that if Americans knew how wildfires would harm the war effort, they would better cooperate with the Forest Service to eliminate fires, whether caused by Japan or otherwise.
The Japanese renewed their wildfire strategy late in the war: from November 1944 to April 1945, some 9,000 fire balloons were launched into the jet stream, with an estimated 10% making it to the US. Five children and their teacher, Mrs. Elsie Mitchell, who was five months pregnant, were killed by one of the bombs near Bly, Oregon, on May 5, 1945. The group found the balloon and while examining it, one of its bombs detonated. A memorial was erected at what today is called the Mitchell Recreation Area.
On August 13, 1942, Disney's 5th full-length animated motion picture Bambi premiered in New York City. Soon after, Walt Disney allowed his characters to appear in fire prevention public service campaigns. However, Bambi was only loaned to the government for a year, so a new symbol was needed.
Continuing the popular animal theme, a bear was chosen. His name was inspired by "Smokey" Joe Martin, a New York City Fire Department hero who suffered burns and blindness during a bold 1922 rescue.
Smokey's debut poster was released on August 9, 1944, which is considered his anniversary date. Overseen by the Cooperative Forest Fire Prevention Campaign, the first poster was illustrated by Albert Staehle. In it Smokey was depicted wearing jeans and a "forest ranger's hat" (a campaign hat), pouring a bucket of water on a campfire. The message underneath reads, "Smokey says – Care will prevent 9 out of 10 forest fires!" Knickerbocker Bears gained the license to produce Smokey bear dolls in 1944. Also in 1944, Forest Service worker Rudy Wendelin became the full time campaign artist; he was considered Smokey Bear's "caretaker" until he retired in 1973.
In 1947, the slogan associated with Smokey Bear for more than five decades was finally coined: "Remember...only YOU can prevent forest fires." In 2001, it was officially amended to replace "forest fires" with "wildfires," as a reminder that other areas (such as grasslands) are also in danger of burning.
The living symbol of Smokey:-
The living symbol of Smokey Bear was an American black bear cub who in the spring of 1950 was caught in the Capitan Gap fire, a wildfire that burned 17,000 acres (69 km2) in the Lincoln National Forest,[14]in the Capitan Mountains of New Mexico. Smokey had climbed a tree to escape the blaze, but his paws and hind legs had been burned. According to some stories, he was rescued by a game warden after the fire, but according to the New Mexico State Forestry Division, it was actually a group of soldiers from Fort Bliss, Texas, who had come to help fight the fire, that discovered the bear cub and brought him back to the camp.
At first he was called "Hotfoot Teddy," but he was later renamed Smokey, after the mascot. There are conflicting stories regarding the individual or individuals who first helped nurse the cub after the fire. According to the New York Times obituary for Homer C. Pickens, then Assistant Director of the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish, he kept the cub at his home for awhile, trying to nurse him back to health. According to other records, including a story in Life Magazine, New Mexico Department of Game and Fish Ranger Ray Bell took him to Santa Fe, where he, his wife Ruth, and their children, Don and Judy, cared for the cub.[15] The story was picked up by the national news services and Smokey became a celebrity. Soon after, Smokey was flown in a Piper Cub airplane to the National Zoo in Washington, D.C.. A special room was prepared for him at the St. Louis zoo for an overnight fuel stop during the trip, and when he arrived at the National Zoo, several hundred spectators, including members of the Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, photographers, and media were there to welcome him to his new home.
Smokey Bear lived at the National Zoo for 26 years. During that time he received millions of visitors as well as so many letters addressed to him -- up to 13,000 a week -- that the United States Postal Service finally gave him his own unique zip code. He developed a love for peanut butter sandwiches, in addition to his daily diet of bluefish and trout.
Upon his death on November 9, 1976, Smokey's remains were returned by the government to Capitan, New Mexico, and buried at what is now the Smokey Bear Historical Park. The plaque at his grave reads, "This is the resting place of the first living Smokey Bear...the living symbol of wildfire prevention and wildlife conservation." The Washington Post ran a semi-humorous obituary for Smokey, labeled "Bear," calling him a transplanted New Mexico native who had resided for many years in Washington, D.C., with many years of government service. It also mentioned his family, including his wife, Goldie Bear, and "adopted son" Little Smokey. The obituary noted that Smokey and Goldie were not blood-relatives, despite the fact that they shared the same "last name" of "Bear." [21] The Wall Street Journal included an obituary for Smokey Bear on the front page of the paper, on Nov 11, 1976,[17] and so many newspapers included articles and obituaries that the National Zoo archives include four complete scrapbooks devoted to them (Series 12, boxes 66-67).
Plans for future Smokey Bears:_
In 1962, Smokey was paired with female bear, "Goldie Bear," with the hope that perhaps Smokey's descendants would take over the Smokey Bear title. In 1971, when the pair still had not produced any children, the zoo added "Little Smokey," another orphaned bear cub from the Lincoln Forest, to their cage--announcing that the pair had "adopted" this cub.
On May 2, 1975, Smokey Bear officially "retired" from his role as living mascot, and the title, "Smokey Bear II," was bestowed upon Little Smokey in an official ceremony. Little Smokey died Aug 11, 1990.
Smokey as popular character
The character became a notable part of American popular culture in the 1950s. He appeared on radio programs, in comic strips and in cartoons.
In 1952, after Smokey Bear attracted considerable commercial interest, the Smokey Bear Act, an act of Congress, was passed to remove the character from the public domain and place it under the control of the Secretary of Agriculture. The act provided for the use of Smokey's royalties for continued education on the subject of forest fire prevention. More than three million dollars have been collected.
A Smokey Bear doll was vended by Ideal Toys beginning in 1952; the doll included a mail-in card for children to become Junior forest rangers. Within three years half a million children had applied. In April 1964, the character was given his own ZIP code (postal code): 20252.
In 1955, the first children’s book was published, followed by many sequels and coloring books. Soon thousands of dolls, toys, and other collectibles were on the market.
During the 1950s and 1960s, the Ad Council sponsored radio advertisements, featuring Smokey Bear "in conversation" with prominent American celebrity stars such as Bing Crosby, Art Linkletter, Dinah Shore, Roy Rogers, and many others.
Smokey's name and image has been loaned to the Smokey Bear Awards, which are awarded by the United States Forest Service:
"To recognize outstanding service in the prevention of wildland fires and to increase public recognition and awareness of the need for continuing fire prevention efforts.
Though Smokey was originally drawn wearing the campaign hat of the U.S. National Park Service (which was in turn derived from the cavalry who protected the early U.S. national parks), the hat itself later became famous by association with the Smokey cartoon character. As such, it is sometimes today called a "Smokey Bear" hat by both the military service branches and state police who still employ it. Truck drivers by that same token often nickname state police officers "Smokey" or "bears"
Voices of Smokey Bear-
Washington D.C. radio station WMAL personality Jackson Weaver served as the primary voice representing Smokey until Weaver's death in October 1992. Others who provided a voice to Smokey prior to 1992 included Jim Cummings, Roger C. Carmel, and Los Angeles Radio station KNX's George Walsh. The "voice" of Smokey was retired after Weaver's death until 2008. In June 2008, the Forest Service launched a new series of public service announcements voiced by actor Sam Elliott, simultaneously giving Smokey a new visual design intended to appeal to young adults.
Adaptations-
In 1939, students from Hill City, South Dakota, helped stop a devastating wildfire that threatened their community. Afterwards the school district was allowed by the government to use Smokey Bear as its mascot. It is believed to be the only school in the country to be able to do so.
Smokey Bear — and parodies of the character — have been appearing in animation for more than fifty years. In 1956, he made a cameo appearance in the Walt Disney short film In the Bag with a voice provided by Jackson Weaver.
In 1966, Rankin/Bass produced an animated television special for ABC, named The Ballad of Smokey the Bear, narrated by James Cagney. During the 1969-1970 television season, Rankin/Bass also produced a weekly Saturday Morning series, The Smokey the Bear Show, also for ABC.
Steve Nelson and Jack Rollins's song "Smokey the Bear" has been covered by the group Canned Heat, among others. The track is on their CD The Boogie House Tapes 1969-1999.
"Smokey the Bear Sutra" is a 1969 poem by Gary Snyder, which presents environmental concerns in the form of a Buddhist sutra, and depicts Smokey as the reincarnation of the Great Sun Buddha.
Fire ecology-
]The Smokey Bear campaign has been criticized in cases where the indigenous fire ecology was not taken into consideration. Periodic low-intensity wildfires are an integral component of certain ecosystems that evolved to depend on 'natural fires' for vitality, rejuvenation, and regeneration. Examples are chaparral and closed-cone pine forest habitats, which need fire for seeds and cones to sprout. Wildfires also play a role in the preservation of pine barrens, which are well adapted to small ground fires and rely on periodic fires to remove competing species.
When a brushland, woodland, or forested area is not impacted by fire for a long period of time, large quantities of flammable leaves, branches and other organic matter tend to accumulate on the forest floor and above in brush thickets. When a forest fire eventually does occur in such an area where a natural cycle period has been suppressed, the increased amount of fuel present creates a crown fire, which destroys all vegetation and affects surface soil chemistry. Frequent small 'natural' ground fires prevent the accumulation of fuel and allow large, slow-growing vegetation (e.g. trees) to survive. There is increasing use of controlled burns directed by skilled firefighters, and allowing wildland fires not causing human harm or threat to burn out.
The goal of the Smokey Bear campaign has always been one of increasing fire safety and preventing needless, human-caused wildfires, not the suppression of natural wildfires.
Smokey's correct name is Smokey Bear. In 1952, the songwriters Steve Nelson and Jack Rollins had a successful song named "Smokey the Bear". The pair said that "the" was added to Smokey's name to keep the song's rhythm. This small change has caused some confusion among the public ever since. Note that, from the beginning, Smokey's name was intentionally spelled differently from the adjective smoky. The Forest Service emphatically denies that the name was ever "Smokey the Bear"; however, during the 1950s, that variant of the name became widespread both in popular speech and in print, including at least one standard encyclopedia. A 1955 book in the Little Golden Books series was called Smokey the Bear and Smokey calls himself by this name in the book. The campaign to remind the public of the correct version of the name is almost as old as the Smokey Bear campaign itself.
The fictional character Smokey Bear is administered by three entities: the United States Forest Service, the National Association of State Foresters, and the Ad Council. Smokey Bear's name and image are protected by U.S. federal law, the Smokey Bear Act of 1952 (16 U.S.C. 580 ; 18 U.S.C. 711).
Beginning the campaign:-
Though the US Forest Service fought wildfires long before World War II, the war brought a new importance and urgency to the effort. The forest service began using colorful posters to educate Americans about the dangers of forest fires. Since most able-bodied men were already serving in the armed forces, none could be spared to fight forest fires on the West Coast. The hope was that local communities, educated about the danger of forest fires, could prevent them from starting in the first place. The Japanese, on the other hand, saw wildfires as a possible weapon.
During the Lookout Air Raids of 1942, the Japanese attempted to set southwest Oregon's coastal forests ablaze. In separate attempts on 9 and 29 September, the Japanese submarine I-25 surfaced and launched a Yokosuka E14Y floatplane loaded with incendiary bombs. Neither attempt was successful. U.S. planners also hoped that if Americans knew how wildfires would harm the war effort, they would better cooperate with the Forest Service to eliminate fires, whether caused by Japan or otherwise.
The Japanese renewed their wildfire strategy late in the war: from November 1944 to April 1945, some 9,000 fire balloons were launched into the jet stream, with an estimated 10% making it to the US. Five children and their teacher, Mrs. Elsie Mitchell, who was five months pregnant, were killed by one of the bombs near Bly, Oregon, on May 5, 1945. The group found the balloon and while examining it, one of its bombs detonated. A memorial was erected at what today is called the Mitchell Recreation Area.
On August 13, 1942, Disney's 5th full-length animated motion picture Bambi premiered in New York City. Soon after, Walt Disney allowed his characters to appear in fire prevention public service campaigns. However, Bambi was only loaned to the government for a year, so a new symbol was needed.
Continuing the popular animal theme, a bear was chosen. His name was inspired by "Smokey" Joe Martin, a New York City Fire Department hero who suffered burns and blindness during a bold 1922 rescue.
Smokey's debut poster was released on August 9, 1944, which is considered his anniversary date. Overseen by the Cooperative Forest Fire Prevention Campaign, the first poster was illustrated by Albert Staehle. In it Smokey was depicted wearing jeans and a "forest ranger's hat" (a campaign hat), pouring a bucket of water on a campfire. The message underneath reads, "Smokey says – Care will prevent 9 out of 10 forest fires!" Knickerbocker Bears gained the license to produce Smokey bear dolls in 1944. Also in 1944, Forest Service worker Rudy Wendelin became the full time campaign artist; he was considered Smokey Bear's "caretaker" until he retired in 1973.
In 1947, the slogan associated with Smokey Bear for more than five decades was finally coined: "Remember...only YOU can prevent forest fires." In 2001, it was officially amended to replace "forest fires" with "wildfires," as a reminder that other areas (such as grasslands) are also in danger of burning.
The living symbol of Smokey:-
The living symbol of Smokey Bear was an American black bear cub who in the spring of 1950 was caught in the Capitan Gap fire, a wildfire that burned 17,000 acres (69 km2) in the Lincoln National Forest,[14]in the Capitan Mountains of New Mexico. Smokey had climbed a tree to escape the blaze, but his paws and hind legs had been burned. According to some stories, he was rescued by a game warden after the fire, but according to the New Mexico State Forestry Division, it was actually a group of soldiers from Fort Bliss, Texas, who had come to help fight the fire, that discovered the bear cub and brought him back to the camp.
At first he was called "Hotfoot Teddy," but he was later renamed Smokey, after the mascot. There are conflicting stories regarding the individual or individuals who first helped nurse the cub after the fire. According to the New York Times obituary for Homer C. Pickens, then Assistant Director of the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish, he kept the cub at his home for awhile, trying to nurse him back to health. According to other records, including a story in Life Magazine, New Mexico Department of Game and Fish Ranger Ray Bell took him to Santa Fe, where he, his wife Ruth, and their children, Don and Judy, cared for the cub.[15] The story was picked up by the national news services and Smokey became a celebrity. Soon after, Smokey was flown in a Piper Cub airplane to the National Zoo in Washington, D.C.. A special room was prepared for him at the St. Louis zoo for an overnight fuel stop during the trip, and when he arrived at the National Zoo, several hundred spectators, including members of the Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, photographers, and media were there to welcome him to his new home.
Smokey Bear lived at the National Zoo for 26 years. During that time he received millions of visitors as well as so many letters addressed to him -- up to 13,000 a week -- that the United States Postal Service finally gave him his own unique zip code. He developed a love for peanut butter sandwiches, in addition to his daily diet of bluefish and trout.
Upon his death on November 9, 1976, Smokey's remains were returned by the government to Capitan, New Mexico, and buried at what is now the Smokey Bear Historical Park. The plaque at his grave reads, "This is the resting place of the first living Smokey Bear...the living symbol of wildfire prevention and wildlife conservation." The Washington Post ran a semi-humorous obituary for Smokey, labeled "Bear," calling him a transplanted New Mexico native who had resided for many years in Washington, D.C., with many years of government service. It also mentioned his family, including his wife, Goldie Bear, and "adopted son" Little Smokey. The obituary noted that Smokey and Goldie were not blood-relatives, despite the fact that they shared the same "last name" of "Bear." [21] The Wall Street Journal included an obituary for Smokey Bear on the front page of the paper, on Nov 11, 1976,[17] and so many newspapers included articles and obituaries that the National Zoo archives include four complete scrapbooks devoted to them (Series 12, boxes 66-67).
Plans for future Smokey Bears:_
In 1962, Smokey was paired with female bear, "Goldie Bear," with the hope that perhaps Smokey's descendants would take over the Smokey Bear title. In 1971, when the pair still had not produced any children, the zoo added "Little Smokey," another orphaned bear cub from the Lincoln Forest, to their cage--announcing that the pair had "adopted" this cub.
On May 2, 1975, Smokey Bear officially "retired" from his role as living mascot, and the title, "Smokey Bear II," was bestowed upon Little Smokey in an official ceremony. Little Smokey died Aug 11, 1990.
Smokey as popular character
The character became a notable part of American popular culture in the 1950s. He appeared on radio programs, in comic strips and in cartoons.
In 1952, after Smokey Bear attracted considerable commercial interest, the Smokey Bear Act, an act of Congress, was passed to remove the character from the public domain and place it under the control of the Secretary of Agriculture. The act provided for the use of Smokey's royalties for continued education on the subject of forest fire prevention. More than three million dollars have been collected.
A Smokey Bear doll was vended by Ideal Toys beginning in 1952; the doll included a mail-in card for children to become Junior forest rangers. Within three years half a million children had applied. In April 1964, the character was given his own ZIP code (postal code): 20252.
In 1955, the first children’s book was published, followed by many sequels and coloring books. Soon thousands of dolls, toys, and other collectibles were on the market.
During the 1950s and 1960s, the Ad Council sponsored radio advertisements, featuring Smokey Bear "in conversation" with prominent American celebrity stars such as Bing Crosby, Art Linkletter, Dinah Shore, Roy Rogers, and many others.
Smokey's name and image has been loaned to the Smokey Bear Awards, which are awarded by the United States Forest Service:
"To recognize outstanding service in the prevention of wildland fires and to increase public recognition and awareness of the need for continuing fire prevention efforts.
Though Smokey was originally drawn wearing the campaign hat of the U.S. National Park Service (which was in turn derived from the cavalry who protected the early U.S. national parks), the hat itself later became famous by association with the Smokey cartoon character. As such, it is sometimes today called a "Smokey Bear" hat by both the military service branches and state police who still employ it. Truck drivers by that same token often nickname state police officers "Smokey" or "bears"
Voices of Smokey Bear-
Washington D.C. radio station WMAL personality Jackson Weaver served as the primary voice representing Smokey until Weaver's death in October 1992. Others who provided a voice to Smokey prior to 1992 included Jim Cummings, Roger C. Carmel, and Los Angeles Radio station KNX's George Walsh. The "voice" of Smokey was retired after Weaver's death until 2008. In June 2008, the Forest Service launched a new series of public service announcements voiced by actor Sam Elliott, simultaneously giving Smokey a new visual design intended to appeal to young adults.
Adaptations-
In 1939, students from Hill City, South Dakota, helped stop a devastating wildfire that threatened their community. Afterwards the school district was allowed by the government to use Smokey Bear as its mascot. It is believed to be the only school in the country to be able to do so.
Smokey Bear — and parodies of the character — have been appearing in animation for more than fifty years. In 1956, he made a cameo appearance in the Walt Disney short film In the Bag with a voice provided by Jackson Weaver.
In 1966, Rankin/Bass produced an animated television special for ABC, named The Ballad of Smokey the Bear, narrated by James Cagney. During the 1969-1970 television season, Rankin/Bass also produced a weekly Saturday Morning series, The Smokey the Bear Show, also for ABC.
Steve Nelson and Jack Rollins's song "Smokey the Bear" has been covered by the group Canned Heat, among others. The track is on their CD The Boogie House Tapes 1969-1999.
"Smokey the Bear Sutra" is a 1969 poem by Gary Snyder, which presents environmental concerns in the form of a Buddhist sutra, and depicts Smokey as the reincarnation of the Great Sun Buddha.
Fire ecology-
]The Smokey Bear campaign has been criticized in cases where the indigenous fire ecology was not taken into consideration. Periodic low-intensity wildfires are an integral component of certain ecosystems that evolved to depend on 'natural fires' for vitality, rejuvenation, and regeneration. Examples are chaparral and closed-cone pine forest habitats, which need fire for seeds and cones to sprout. Wildfires also play a role in the preservation of pine barrens, which are well adapted to small ground fires and rely on periodic fires to remove competing species.
When a brushland, woodland, or forested area is not impacted by fire for a long period of time, large quantities of flammable leaves, branches and other organic matter tend to accumulate on the forest floor and above in brush thickets. When a forest fire eventually does occur in such an area where a natural cycle period has been suppressed, the increased amount of fuel present creates a crown fire, which destroys all vegetation and affects surface soil chemistry. Frequent small 'natural' ground fires prevent the accumulation of fuel and allow large, slow-growing vegetation (e.g. trees) to survive. There is increasing use of controlled burns directed by skilled firefighters, and allowing wildland fires not causing human harm or threat to burn out.
The goal of the Smokey Bear campaign has always been one of increasing fire safety and preventing needless, human-caused wildfires, not the suppression of natural wildfires.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
