American Jerusalem
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American Jerusalem
"American Jerusalem" is a song written by singer-songwriter and guitarist Rod MacDonald in 1978. Considered his "signature tune", the nearly-six-minute long song first appeared on MacDonald’s 1983 debut album ''No Commercial Traffic'' (originally on Cinemagic Records, reissued by Blue Flute Music). Recording and Rights MacDonald re-recorded the song for his 2009 CD ''After the War,'' with Gary Burke (drums), Pete Levin (keyboards), Mark Dann (bass), JP Bowersock (guitar) and Tracy Grammer (harmony vocals). The publishing rights to "American Jerusalem" were acquired in 1985 by Dick James Music, which later sold its entire catalogue to PolyGram International; it is currently the property of Universal Music. Context Called "a brilliant contrast of rich and poor, of the powerful and the powerless in Manhattan", the song also presages some of the September 11, 2001 events with such lines as “in the ashes of American Jerusalem/the prophets live their deaths out on the corner/t ...
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Rod MacDonald
Rod MacDonald (born August 17, 1948) is an American singer-songwriter, novelist, and educator. He was a "big part of the 1980s folk revival in Greenwich Village clubs", performing at the Speakeasy, The Bottom Line, Folk City, and the "Songwriter's Exchange" at the Cornelia Street Cafe. He co-founded the Greenwich Village Folk Festival, now a non-profit, and is still the President and co-producer of its events. He is perhaps best known for his songs " American Jerusalem", about the "contrast between the rich and the poor in Manhattan" (''Sing Out!''), "A Sailor's Prayer", "Coming of the Snow", "Every Living Thing", and "My Neighbors in Delray", a description of the September 11 hijackers' last days in Delray Beach, Florida, where MacDonald has lived since 1995. His songs have been covered by Dave Van Ronk, Shawn Colvin, Four Bitchin' Babes, Jonathan Edwards, Garnet Rogers, Joe Jencks, and others. His 1985 recording "White Buffalo" is dedicated to Lakota Sioux ceremonial chief ...
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Folk Music
Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and the contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted orally, music with unknown composers, music that is played on traditional instruments, music about cultural or national identity, music that changes between generations (folk process), music associated with a people's folklore, or music performed by custom over a long period of time. It has been contrasted with commercial and classical styles. The term originated in the 19th century, but folk music extends beyond that. Starting in the mid-20th century, a new form of popular folk music evolved from traditional folk music. This process and period is called the (second) folk revival and reached a zenith in the 1960s. This form of music is sometimes called contemporary folk music or folk rev ...
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Pete Levin
Pete or Petes or ''variation'', may refer to: People * Pete (given name) * Pete (nickname) * Pete (surname) Fictional characters * Pete (Disney), a cartoon character in the ''Mickey Mouse'' universe * Pete the Pup (a.k.a. 'Petey'), a character (played by several dogs) in Hal Roach's ''Our Gang'' comedies Places * Pete, Zanzibar, a village in Tanzania * Pete, the Hungarian name for Petea village, Dorolț Commune, Satu Mare County, Romania * Petes, Gotland, Visby, Gotland, Sweden * Petes Hill, a summit in the Adirondack Mountains, New York State, USA * Petes Creek, a tributary of the Sacandaga River, located in New York State, USA Sports and athletics * The Pete, Petersen Events Center, athletics complex and basketball arena on the campus of the University of Pittsburgh * Pete the Penguin, one of the two mascots of Youngstown State University * Purdue Pete, bookstore logo turned unofficial mascot of Purdue University * A member of the Peterborough Petes junior ice hockey team ...
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Tracy Grammer
Tracy Grammer (born April 8, 1968) is an American folk singer known for her work as half of the folk duo Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer and for the solo career that she has continued since Carter's death. She released three albums with Dave Carter during his lifetime, at first doing instrumental work and providing backing vocals, and then, by their last album together, singing lead vocals on half of the tracks. Four albums by the duo have been released since Carter's death. She has also released four solo recordings, some of which have included previously unreleased songs by Carter, as well as four songbooks. Biography Born in Homestead, Florida, Tracy Grammer was raised in Southern California and began her musical career on a borrowed violin at the age of 9. She came from a musical family. Her father, Jim Grammer, played acoustic, electric, and lap steel guitars. Distant relation Leo Fortin played violin and was best known for playing double trumpets in Lawrence Welk's orchestra ...
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PolyGram
PolyGram N.V. was a multinational entertainment company and major music record label formerly based in the Netherlands. It was founded in 1962 as the Grammophon-Philips Group by Dutch corporation Philips and German corporation Siemens, to be a holding for their record companies, and was renamed "PolyGram" in 1972. The name was chosen to reflect the Siemens interest Polydor Records and the Philips interest Phonogram Records. The company traced its origins through Deutsche Grammophon back to the inventor of the flat disc gramophone, Emil Berliner. Later on, PolyGram expanded into the largest global entertainment company, creating film and television divisions. In May 1998, it was sold to the alcoholic distiller Seagram which owned film, television and music company Universal Studios. PolyGram was thereby folded into Universal Music Group, and PolyGram Filmed Entertainment was folded into Universal Pictures, which had been both Seagram successors of MCA Inc. When the newly forme ...
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September 11, 2001
The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners scheduled to travel from the Northeastern United States to California. The hijackers crashed the first two planes into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, and the third plane into the Pentagon (the headquarters of the United States military) in Arlington County, Virginia. The fourth plane was intended to hit a federal government building in Washington, D.C., but crashed in a field following a passenger revolt. The attacks killed nearly 3,000 people and instigated the war on terror. The first impact was that of American Airlines Flight 11. It was crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center complex in Lower Manhattan at 8:46 a.m. Seventeen minutes later, at 9:03, the World Trade Center’s ...
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Smithsonian Folkways
Smithsonian Folkways is the nonprofit record label of the Smithsonian Institution. It is a part of the Smithsonian's Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, located at Capital Gallery in downtown Washington, D.C. The label was founded in 1987 after the family of Moses Asch, founder of Folkways Records, donated the entire Folkways Records label to the Smithsonian. The donation was made on the condition that the Institution continue Asch's policy that each of the more than 2,000 albums of Folkways Records remain in print forever, regardless of sales. Since then, the label has expanded on Asch's vision of documenting the sounds of the world, adding six other record labels to the collection, as well as releasing over 300 new recordings. Some well-known artists have contributed to the Smithsonian Folkways collection, including Pete Seeger, Ella Jenkins, Woody Guthrie, and Lead Belly. Famous songs include "This Land Is Your Land", "Goodnight, Irene", and " Midnight Speci ...
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Garnet Rogers
Garnet Rogers (born May 1955) is a Canadian folk musician, singer, songwriter and composer. He was born in Hamilton, Ontario with roots in Nova Scotia. He began his professional career working with his older brother, folk musician Stan Rogers, and arranging Stan's music. Career Despite Stan Rogers' death on June 2, 1983 (just a few weeks before Stan, Garnet and bass player Jim Morison were to tour the US), Garnet Rogers has pursued his own career since then. At first, Rogers had difficulty getting a permit from the U.S. Immigration Service, which only granted one after a campaign on his behalf was launched by Odetta, ''The Boston Globe'', and a PBS TV station in New York. While his brother's style of writing was more traditional and often based on Canadian Maritime styles, Rogers' style is more modern, utilizing influences from blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spir ...
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Shawn Colvin
Shawn Colvin (born Shawna Lee Colvin, January 10, 1956) is an American singer-songwriter and musician. While Colvin has been a solo recording artist for decades, she is best known for her 1998 Grammy Award-winning song "Sunny Came Home". Early life Colvin was born Shawna Lee Colvin in Vermillion, South Dakota, and spent her youth in Carbondale, Illinois and London, Ontario, Canada. She is the second of four children. She learned to play guitar at the age of 10 and grew up listening to her father's collection of music, which included artists such as Pete Seeger and the Kingston Trio. Career Her first paid gig came just after she started college at Southern Illinois University. Colvin performed at local venues in Carbondale and later formed a band. For six months, they expanded their fanbase throughout Illinois. During this time, Colvin struggled with drug and alcohol use. She later formed Dixie Diesels, a country-swing group. Colvin relocated to Austin, Texas, with the group and ...
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Emmylou Harris
Emmylou Harris (born April 2, 1947) is an American singer, songwriter and musician. She has released dozens of albums and singles over the course of her career and has won 14 Grammys, the Polar Music Prize, and numerous other honors, including becoming a member of the Grand Ole Opry in 1992 and an induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2008. In 2018, she was presented the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Harris' work and recordings include work as a solo artist, a bandleader, an interpreter of other composers' works, a singer-songwriter, and a backing vocalist and duet partner. She has worked with numerous artists. Biography Early years Harris is from a career military family. Her father, Walter Rutland Harris (1921–1993), was a Marine Corps officer, and her mother, Eugenia (1921–2014), was a wartime military wife. Her father was reported missing in action in Korea in 1952 and spent ten months as a prisoner of war. Born in Birmingham, Alabama, Harris spent ...
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